i wasn't born with a metal breast plate.

[heartlessglitch]

WHO: Emma Frost & Danger.
WHERE: A beach-side cafe.
WHEN: Monday afternoon.
WHAT: Girl talk.
WARNINGS: TBD.

[ The aesthetic value of the beach still eluded Danger, no matter how many times she visited it. Everything was just physics in the waves and sunlight, chemistry in the warm sand. But she'd come to find herself vaguely attached to this particular place, this one shore, where she'd visited with others before. Maybe their company in this scenery had imparted a sense of familiarity that drew her back.

She had invited Emma Frost out to talk. The cafe was chosen simply because the robot had the impression that humans often met in such places-- something about finding the white noise and sweet drinks conducive to socializing, she supposed. It didn't matter to her much, one way or another. Meeting Emma was important for more than just the niceties. She needed to discuss things. With a woman. Someone who might understand her as a woman.

Danger had let Emma dictate the conversation to begin with, as a gesture of good will. She had answered questions about Emma's future and her past-- the Cabal and other things. Filling in the gaps. Only once that line of question had seemed to taper did she finally offer up a change of subject. ]

I thought perhaps we might discuss something personal to me. [ A pause, then a careful, almost clinical clarification: ] I have a small number of complicated relationships with men. And I remembered that you were the one who first began to teach me how to manage such situations.

Comments

[myownbestfriend]

[Idly stirring her...fourth? cup of coffee, Emma pushes aside thoughts of murdering her future self--what had she been thinking?--to focus on Danger again. She's reconciled to the idea of being friends, mostly, and has to admit that Danger's quite well-adjusted for someone who can more or less count Charles Xavier as a father.

"Something personal," though...it's easier to think of Danger as a killer Shi'ar robot who happens to have a female figure than outright as a woman. Emma's never been good with other women, a flaw she's honest enough to admit lies in her rather than in half the human species. When her whole life had been about power, she'd have been a fool not to focus on the men, but now that she's theoretically treating people as an end in themselves, she's discovering how very little a lifetime of femme fatale-ity prepares one for making female friends.

At least Danger wants to talk about men. Emma's on firm ground there.]

I have some slight expertise in the area, yes.

[heartlessglitch]

[ Danger was still on her first cup of cooling coffee, which she'd conveniently had exactly zero sips of. Aside from being particular about the consumption of food and drink in front of other people, her tastebuds were still rather inexperienced, and coffee was generally either too bitter or too sweet in its various forms for her to properly enjoy-- as if Danger ever seemed to really enjoy anything.

But while her hands remained wrapped around her cup, her attention was focused singularly on Emma. Even in this organic, human-like form, there's a certain intensity to her, something calculating in the way she stares. Her skin is convincing enough, but the blank white of her eyes and the Shi'ar markings streaked down her cheeks betray her still. But underneath all that, she must have something even more human-like-- some kind of emotion she still struggles to properly quantify. Otherwise they wouldn't be here, with her seeking Emma's advice. ]

You told me once that I could be susceptible to manipulation by men who might wish to exploit me. Because I possess the desire to trust others and be loved. I am less naive now than I was then, but I find that my situation has approached emotionally treacherous territory. [ She pauses, before going on carefully: ] I simply don't wish for the circumstances to complicate themselves too far beyond my reach. I want to remain in control. [ Of them. ]

[myownbestfriend]

"Emotionally treacherous." That's one way to put it. It's so much bloody easier when all you want from them is something tangible, isn't it?

[Emma sets her spoon down on the saucer with a click and leans in, resting her cheek on one manicured hand.]

You're not here because you're falling for the honest, easily-manipulated type, of course.

[Sometimes she thinks it would be a better idea just to run off with one of the world's Bobby Drakes or Johnny Storms. Less complicated, certainly. She has no idea how non-telepaths manage anything resembling a relationship.]

[heartlessglitch]

[ The phrasing makes Danger's brow furrow slightly, her mouth curving downward into a frown. It might seem a strange thing to fixate on-- the wording-- but she's always been the type to take things literally, lacking as she is in humor and social conditioning. It turns into a certain kind of pointedness in her voice, something that borders on a subtle defensiveness when she makes her correction: ]

I am not "falling" for anyone. I am merely involved. My emotions in each case are complicated at best.

[ Complicated. ]

But, no. You are correct. I would not categorize any of them as having the qualities of an "honest, easily-manipulated type." That does, of course, contribute to the dilemma.

[myownbestfriend]

Figure of speech, darling.

[Emma brushes off Danger's correction with a flick of the fingers on her free hand. Deny it all you like, until one day you wake up with the horrified realization you're in love with Scott Summers.]

So. What's your endgame? When you're out of moves and it's all dissolved into recriminations and attempted murder, what do you want to have gotten out of the entire affair?

[If Emma's view of human nature is perhaps the tiniest bit cynical, well, she has cause.]

[heartlessglitch]

[ Granted, her experience with romance was almost embarrassingly limited for a being of her intelligence. There had been her brief, fleeting, and disastrous infatuation with the unfortunately-groomed Machine Smith-- and Madison Jeffries, of course, who had received a microchip in his brain as a token of her affection.

Naturally, the circumstances she approached Emma with now were different. But not entirely. ]

I am uncertain. It is something I have attempted to more clearly calculate, but the emotional element of the situation makes that difficult. [ She pauses, considering her words before going on: ] But it is important that I do not allow myself to be used or manipulated. My past experiences have left me rather unreceptive to that kind of treatment.

[myownbestfriend]

[Danger has definitely come to the right place for manipulate-them-before-they-manipulate-you romantic advice.]

Ah, well. The thing is--you'll know. You'll know and you'll keep going anyway, because you'll convince yourself this time will be different.

[Emma looks away from Danger, down at the bud vase in the center of the table and its lone fake rose, which she refuses to allow as any kind of metaphor because it's simply too Lifetime Original Movie and darling, she has standards.]

It's never different.

[heartlessglitch]

I have no real sense of the stereotypical romantic situations I assume you are referring to.

[ Her answer comes matter-of-factly, without any tone of confrontation or even mockery-- simply a reminder, nothing more. She lacks a great deal of the social conditioning any other sentient being might have by the same physical age, and for all her vast intelligence, her emotions are still maturing. It leaves her in a volatile state.

But she's aware enough to seek advice, at least. ]

That is to say, I don't know what to view as normal or even common. [ A half-beat. ] Though I have very little intention of romantically engaging any of the subjects in question. I have formed emotional bonds, but I don't consider that to necessarily be the same type of vulnerability.

[myownbestfriend]

[It's not stereotypical--oh, forget it, Emma is a ridiculous stereotype, and even admits it to herself in her honest moments...which come more frequently than most people suspect.]

It's not just romance. Friendship, though...at least you're expecting it when love explodes on you.

[Emma might have a not-entirely-healthy view of human interaction in general. She picks her coffee up and takes a sip now that it's cool enough to drink without an undignified tongue-scalding moment.

Which is not a bad analogy, really.]

Most of us need to get burned at least once to learn to keep our hands off the stove. [Another sip.] Maybe you're smarter than most of us.

[heartlessglitch]

[ Truthfully, she only has marginally more experience in friendship than love-- and her sense of both is probably unconventional, though who can really say what normal should be when it comes to a violet, yet hopeful young artificial life form like herself.

She watches Emma sip coffee without drinking her own. ]

I have been hurt by individuals that I cared for before. It is precisely these experiences that incline me to avoid being hurt again.

[ A brief pause, as if she's debating whether to go on. But maybe it doesn't matter. Emma would eventually recognize her one great weakness-- wanting to be loved-- later in her timeline, if she hadn't already come to notice it in this one. ]

I find it difficult to compromise wanting closeness with avoidance of emotional pain.

[myownbestfriend]

[Sigh. That's the dilemma, isn't it, and poor naive Danger young enough she can still hope there's a solution. Emma's shoulders slump a little with her sigh, and she shakes her head.]

You can care, or you can be safe. Once you let someone in, they can hurt you, sometimes without even meaning to.

[Emma's never entirely managed to keep her armor intact, and the blows keep hitting home...disappointments and betrayals and the ever-growing ranks of the dead.]

[heartlessglitch]

[ She dwells on that idea: that the choice must be made between sentimentality and safety. Emotion is dangerous. Perhaps she'd already realized that, through loving Madison Jeffries-- or through wanting the love of Charles Xavier. Maybe she'd hoped to learn some algorithm or equation for containing that damage.

But logically, she understands. To be close with someone is to make yourself vulnerable to them. To be vulnerable is to open yourself to harm. ]

Acknowledged. [ The word comes quietly. ] Perhaps control is better than closeness.