Adrienne Frost

Details

Character Journal: xp_adrienne

Real Name: Adrienne Lucille Frost

First Appearance: April 11, 2008

Date of Birth: March 31, 1975

Place of Birth: Boston, MA

Citizenship: US

Relatives: Winston Frost (father), Hazel Frost (mother), Emma Frost sister, Cordelia Frost (sister), Christian Frost (brother, deceased), Tandy Bowen ward

Education: MBA from Harvard Business School, Education Certification from Oxford University

Relationship Status: dating Garrison Kane

Occupation: X-Factor Investigations, co-owner of eVolution, CEO of Meridian Enterprises

Team Affiliation: X-Factor Investigations auxiliary X-Men member

Biography

Early Years

Adrienne grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and was born into a family of great wealth and power. Her position as the third child of four meant she was mostly ignored by her parents, which had a tremendous bearing on her emotional development as she grew up believing that she would always be ignored and perceived as being flawed unless she could win her father's attentions and show him that she was everything he wanted in a child.

This desire to gain recognition and love from her father, the most powerful person she knew, led Adrienne to shun her sister Emma's love and ally herself wherever possible with her father, though he continued throughout her childhood to ignore her. After Emma was taken to the asylum when Adri was ten, her father's torment of his son Christian increased and Adrienne, desperate to please her father, contributed to Christian's emotional abuse while following her father's example of ignoring Cordelia.

Her psionic power of psychometry emerged when she was eleven and Adrienne discovered that her father wasn't planning on dividing the family fortune and business up evenly between his children, instead choosing one sole heir. Driven by her hatred of being invisible to her father, Adrienne vowed to be his successor. With the help of her power, on which she had a tentative self-won control, Adrienne excelled in school and continued to ally herself with Winston in the hopes of being chosen to take over the Frost Enterprises company and fortune from him. Her brother's suicide when she was fourteen had little effect on her besides a feeling of relief that her father would have one less distraction in his life and might finally notice her now that both Emma and Christian were out of the picture.

Adrienne worked hard in school and as a model and spent her early teen years enduring her father's sexual abuse, mistakenly perceiving his perverse practices as affection and relishing in his attentions until being once again cast aside in favour of her younger sibling Cordelia.

After graduating at the top of her high school class, Adrienne was accepted to Harvard and planned on achieving her MBA to prove without a shadow of a doubt that she was the perfect person to take over Frost Enterprises for her father.

The summer before she went to college, Adrienne was convinced by someone (she doesn't even remember who) to go to the Sierra Tuscon Treatment Center as she had developed a certain affection for cocaine. At that point she had lost all control over her powers. Her accidental readings of the place showed every grisly detail of relapses and overdoses and sheer misery of addiction which turned out to be a wake-up call and led to her success at kicking the habit. Because the images she sees never fade over time, they are always with her to keep her from falling off the wagon. After a twenty-eight day treatment she started at college.

Shortly after arriving at Harvard, Adrienne received news that Emma had been awarded Frost Enterprises. This infuriated Adrienne, and though most of her anger was directed at Winston, whom she had worked her entire life to please, she vowed never to speak to Emma again out of jealousy and resentment. She accepted the money Emma sent to her with plans to start her own company and become more successful than her sister.

Phase 1

Post-degree

Adrienne worked as a model throughout college and received her MBA at twenty-three, marrying law student Steven du Clos in her final year of school after a courtship of six months. Du Clos was drawn to Adrienne by her looks and popularity as a model, and Adrienne, hungry for all the attention and adoration she could get, subjected herself to DuClos completely. Du Clos loved that he was able to possess Adrienne like a pet and Adrienne loved the attention, giving their union a precarious balance for more than a year.

Immediately after graduating, Adrienne used her stipend from Frost Enterprises to launch a small modeling company which she called 64 Square to honour her lifelong love of chess. Her models began attracting attention very quickly and Adrienne basked in it and grew to finally begin appreciating herself, but her work took her away from her husband, and du Clos, who was used to having everything he desired at his beck and call, was angered. Steven began physically and sexually abusing Adrienne, trying to keep her subject to him. For several months Adrienne put up with the abuse as she'd done with her father, but she found herself preferring the more widespread public attentions of the business world to Steven's form of attention and thought about ending the marriage.

Using her powers, Adrienne came to understand that if she didn't get rid of Steven he would one day kill her. Her desire for self-preservation led Adrienne, just shy of her twenty-fifth birthday, to realize for the first time that she would rather be safe and be invisible than have Steven's kind of attention. Steven du Clos was killed in a mugging under suspicious circumstances while on a business trip to New York but his grieving widow was never charged with any crime.

Following her husband's death Adrienne reverted back to the Frost family name she had fought her whole life to live up to and for the next several years she buried herself in her work, determined to build up her company to international fame and gain the respect and adoration she so desperately sought. The modeling agency expanded into fashion design under the label 64Square (which is actually a logo and not the name of the modeling agency with no space.) Understanding the value of loyal employees, Adrienne was a fair boss but remained solitary and untrusting, keeping her distance from any friendships, not wanting to ally herself with anyone or create any bonds. A ruthless businesswoman who put her powers to use to take over multiple companies in a short space of years, Adrienne began gaining a reputation not unlike her father's, though she stayed in her own circles and away from Frost Enterprises. Her marriage to the abusive du Clos and her father's long history of abuse had made her untrusting of men and the fact that she never dated garnered her a reputation in society for being frigid. While in public she seemed sociable enough with men, the self-preserving streak in her wasn't going away, and she had developed a fear of men who were physically attracted to her, quashing any romantic relationships before they could start.

At the age of 30 it was suggested to Adrienne that she share her business sense with students, and as this seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to attract attention and adoration of future generations she began work on her Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Oxford University with aspirations to teach math and business. By the completion of her program, her powers were beginning to become more than she could handle and she grew tired of wearing gloves, but unable to ask for help she fought on her own for better control of her powers.

After teaching in London for a year, Adrienne was called into an investigation by New York police and was accused of orchestrating her husband's murder on the basis of new information provided by an enemy in her business circles. Ordered not to leave New York while the authorities investigated her and searched for evidence, Adrienne was forced to comply out of fear for her public image, not willing to damage her company's reputation. Estranged sister Emma intervened on her behalf and Adrienne was encouraged by authorities to work at Xavier's School where she could be monitored while they pursue their investigation and also receive help controlling her unstable powers. Adrienne arrived at Xavier's as a supply teacher for the math department, replacing a string of substitutes who had been running the classes since Bobby Drake's departure.

Becoming Involved

Shortly after arriving at the school, Adrienne began building connections with people such as Garrison Kane for their shared love of baseball and rivalry over the teams they support, Vanessa Carlysle a fellow cynic and snarker with the same crude sense of humour, and Amanda Sefton also cynic and snarker. Adrienne even found herself, much to her surprise, quite upset by Amanda's disappearance shortly after her arrival at the school and volunteered to help her boyfriend try to locate Amanda with the use of her powers. She also took on a student, Inez Temple, as her personal assistant after expanding her fashion design company into an actual retail boutique of its own which led to the departure of her longtime personal assistant for greener pastures within the company. Despite her avoidance of friendships and alliances, Adrienne found herself becoming involved at Xavier's instead of maintaining a safe distance from situations and people.

At the same time as India was being nuked, Adrienne was finding heat being put onto her by the NYPD, who had located the killer of her husband. Adrienne begged Morgan to speak to the hitman and be sure that he wasn't going to give Adrienne's name to the authorities, but the visit was rather pointless as in the end it became clear that it was only a matter of time before the police knew everything they had to know to put Adrienne away for orchestrating Steven's death. After much cajoling and the revealing of information about being abused which Adrienne swore never to tell anyone, she was encouraged by Garrison Kane to confess her crime. The Mountie's digging into the event of the killing revealed that Steven had been involved with the mafia and had been planning on killing his wife to inherit her business. After realizing this, the FBI and NYPD offered her a deal that she would be let off on the charges in return for her compliance in helping the authorities build a case against the crime syndicate her husband had been working for at the time of his death.

Having her legal troubles resolved led to a feeling a sense of inner peace she hadn't experienced for years, and Adrienne began to work more diligently on controlling her powers. After having a psionic circuit breaker installed in her head by Professor Xavier to curtail any blackouts, she began working on meditation and mental shielding with Nathan Dayspring and Emma.

When New York was attacked by Apocolypse, Adrienne volunteered to help locate a bomb, and after some complications found that her powers were needed to help defuse said bomb. Her involvement with the X-Men led the team leader to suggest some more intensive training if she was to keep getting herself involved with the odd happenings that surrounded the mansion, and Adrienne began additional training with Jennie Stavros.

Garrison Kane's intervention in her criminal charges led Adrienne to clash with some rather uncomfortable feelings over whether she was simply grateful to the man for keeping her out of prison or whether there was something more there. Before sorting her feelings out, however, she was called on by the FBI to investigate a crime scene and discovered that Kane and three others were brutally attacked by Sabretooth. The injuries she saw through her powers left her seriously questioning whether they were still alive, and found it extremely hard to recover when they returned seemingly alive and well. Though not entirely sure she likes this new, caring person she's becoming, knowing it would be safer and more self-preserving to walk away from this involvement with the Mansion residents, Adrienne seems unable to do so because of what she's experienced and how her involvement at the Mansion has already changed her.

Hellfire Club and relationships

In March 2009, Adrienne became a member (based on hereditary claim) of the Hellfire Club, content with general membership rather than trying to join a Court since Court members seemed to attract far too many enemies, and since as a neutral member she can gather information on both Courts more easily than if she had an alliance with either side. Adrienne also tried her hand at dating again early in the year, after being asked out by Jake Gavin, although their fling lasted only a handful of weeks before an unfortunate incident involving a missing arm triggered Adrienne's memories of what had happened to Garrison Kane and she fled Jake's presence, causing him to break up with her. They have, however, remained on good terms. Adrienne's friendship with Garrison Kane, though, did not recover from her initially blaming Garrison for her breakup even though Lil made her see the fault in her logic which had her apologizing to him.

In July, Adrienne was invited to a Black Court function. Prior to the event, she ran into Garrison at Harry's and was shattered when he brushed her off and gave up on advising her about doing the right thing. Unnerved by the encounter, Adrienne went to the party, where she met Jason Wyngarde, Sebastian Shaw's right-hand man. Adrienne was instantly charmed by his sophistication and attracted to his designs for power. Intending to align herself with him so that he might help her take power in the Club, Adrienne attempted to seduce him. Wyngarde quickly turned the tables on her, however, and placed her in a situation where she was completely helpless. When she decided not to put up with his expression of power over her and fight, Wyngarde let her up and explained that he'd been teaching her a lesson about her place in the Hellfire Club- she was nothing except what Wyngarde and Shaw needed her to be, completely at their mercy and allowed only what power they gave her. If she played their games, she would be rewarded with the power she craved. Highly shaken and in serious doubt over what she was willing to do for power and whether power in the club was actually worth putting herself at Shaw and Wyngarde's mercies, Adrienne took her leave of the party, and then the mansion, unable to face the people there who had warned her about getting herself into a situation like the one she was in.

Adrienne moved into her penthouse in New York City despite the place holding unhappy memories for her of her dead husband. As the days passed, however, she found these memories resurfacing in more vivid detail. She began having trouble sleeping, and found herself feeling drained of energy. Her only relief came from a night spent sleeping on friend Jean-Paul Beaubier's couch. When Lil suggested replacing the unhappy husband memories with happy memories with friends, Adrienne decided to invite some people over. At Lil's suggestion, Adrienne decided to turn the party into a seance/exorcism since Lil thought Adrienne was being haunted by her husband.

After dinner and much alcohol, Lil, Wanda, Amanda, and Adrienne attempted to begin their banishment of the ghost none of them believed in. But a combination of their powers led to the manifestation of an actual ghost, that of Adrienne's murdered husband Steven du Clos. Steven planned on teaching Adrienne some lessons and then killing her, which she seemed to accept at first, immobilized by fear of him. Upon seeing Steven lock her friends away from her, however, Adrienne realized that she had changed in the time since Steven's death, especially since coming to the mansion. She no longer wanted to be the person she'd been as Steven's wife. She didn't want to be like him, taking power by hurting others. And she wasn't going to let him hurt her anymore. In standing up to him, Adrienne gained her strength back and the ghost was destroyed (destroying her penthouse in the process), having fed off her energy and fear since she'd moved into the penthouse.

After finally confronting her husband, Adrienne found herself wishing for another confrontation to tell another man how she felt, and patched things up with Garrison Kane. Finding herself back on an even footing with him, she returned to her home at the mansion. Several months later, after realizing Adrienne had feelings stronger than friendship for Garrison, the two decided to try dating.

In the autumn of 2009, Adrienne started to work more seriously on controlling her powers, hoping to be able to turn them on and off when touching an object rather than reading everything she touches automatically. She began using personal items from people at the mansion, thinking that the more determined she was not to read something due to her unwillingness to invade peoples' privacy, the stronger her resolve to control the ability would be.

The Santayana Effect and India

In March 2010, Jason Wyngarde made his move, asking Adrienne to read an ancient seal belonging to the Hellfire Club. With Emma providing psychic backup, Adrienne complied, only to be trapped in the reading by Astrid Bloom, a telepath in Wyngarde's employ, who forced her to go further and further back into the seal's history. Emma superimposed the faces of Adrienne's friends and colleagues onto the scenes as a way to give her a link to the present while at the same time battling Bloom's influence. Adrienne was able to break out of the reading thanks to images of Garrison as the founder of the Club, and Wyngarde was fed a series of false images, instead of the actual history.

The incident shook Adrienne up, but when members of the student body went to Pakistan to save refugees, she accompanied them. A reading showed her own death, yet she still intervened when her students were attacked by members of the Imperial Guard. She was injured when a barn collapsed on top of her and spent the next few weeks recovering.

Black Court Control

This enforced down time meant she had time to audit her business dealings, discovering a series of business deals which proved to be Black Court attacks against her holdings. Convinced it was Wyngarde making another attempt on her, Adrienne confronted Sebastian Shaw about the matter, and was informed by Jason Wyngarde that she was to follow the Black Court’s demands exactly and in full, or her work, friends, and students would pay the price. Wyngarde even went so far as to promise that the Hellfire Club’s connections would ensure that her boyfriend Kane would be put in a position to be killed in the line of duty if she didn’t comply. Suddenly terrified that she would be responsible for the pain and/or suffering of anyone she’d met through her life at the mansion, Adrienne decided to cut all ties with everyone she cared about and leave the mansion and her old life behind to try and keep them safe, moving to Boston. Of course, her self-preservation instinct led her to believe that even telling anyone about the threat would endanger them-and herself- so she left without suitable explanation other than a few vague letters. Believing she was protecting Kane as best she could, Adrienne issued a restraining order against him, knowing that he would respect and abide by the law as was his duty as a law-enforcement officer. The restraining order was lifted in August 2011.

Leaving the mansion to keep the people in her life out of danger, Adrienne kept an extremely low profile. The Black Court ‘requested’ that she continue to assume the role as head of 64 Square for appearances, although in reality they took control of the company. Their other demands consisted of using her psychometric powers for some small-time intrigues such as verifying the authenticity of certain items, or informing the Black Court of the details of phone conversations or restaurant meetings among other businessmen, though nothing associated with the Hellfire Club that the White Court could intervene on.

She considered trying to get another teaching job but didn’t want to risk putting anyone else in danger so Adrienne sold her house in Boston since her friends knew its location, instead hiding in an apartment in the city, using the facility's gym, and taking college courses online to learn more about history since her powers are tied so closely to the subject. To keep herself from going crazy while cooped up in the apartment, she started designing shoes, either to sell through her own company when regaining control of it, or to sell to another company if her monetary situation became desperate enough.

Returning Home

In July 2011 Adrienne was summoned to Boston's Hellfire Club and told by Wyngarde that her company was being investigated federally for illegal money transfers in the Pacific, but if Adrienne investigated a pharmaceutical company and vetted it for Shaw Industries (which was in competition with Frost Enterprises to buy it) he would arrange for the charges to be dropped. After using her powers to determine that the drugs produced by the company would never be marketed, Adrienne used an emergency contact plan developed by Emma to warn her sister to pull Frost's bid and let Shaw buy the failing company.

Meeting with Wyngarde to demand he drop the charges against her company, Adrienne was informed that because Frost Enterprises pulled their bid, it would be assumed that Adrienne betrayed the Black Court, and for that she would be punished. Wyngarde arranged for the same pharmaceutical plant she had just vetted to be investigated by the FBI and DEA for drug smuggling, and Garrison Kane would be a part of the team in the building. The building would be attacked by the Black Queen and a team of assassins and then set on fire by the company's former CEO. Adrienne sent a mental warning to Emma who was able to alert a team of X-Men to respond to the situation and save the trapped agents, including Garrison.

Fearing for her life and further attacks on her loved ones, Adrienne lamented her situation to Emma, who offered a solution. She would claim Adrienne for the White Court, which would provide her and the people in her life protection against being used by Wyngarde or the Black Court. Though Adrienne wanted nothing more than to be free of the Hellfire Club altogether, she recognized that Wyngarde was too powerful to stop on her own, and accepted the offer as it would allow her to return to the mansion.

Her return was bittersweet, however, as she found out immediately upon coming home that her closest friend Vanessa was missing. Wanting to use her powers to help people instead of being used as she was by the Black Court, Adrienne worked closely with Lucas Bishop, Warren Worthington, and Jean Grey to help with finding Vanessa, though she was not able to participate in the final mission to rescue her friend due to the legal constraints in her leaving the country. She developed lasting friendships with both Warren and Jean out of this situation.