This is the third in my series of stories featuring the children of the X-Men -- told, hopefully, from a very different angle.

While you do not have to read the other stories, this one does contain references to them. Not so much that it can't be a stand-alone, though. A glossary is provided at the end of the story, should you want to look up any unfamiliar terms. Enjoy. :)

Disclaimer: Everything recognizable is probably copyrighted to Marvel Comics. Barbie belongs to Mattel. Original characters are mine.

Rated PG.

Rain was starting to pound slowly in fat drops by the time Sheema successfully negotiated an unexpected traffic jam, her normally generous patience stretched to the limit by the other drivers' blatant disregard of traffic rules. If there was one thing in Malaysia that changed while we were away, she thought, I wish it was this.

Listening to a particularly inept radio deejay did little to restore her good humour. No love-struck adolescent would be listening to the radio at four in the afternoon, so why was the idiot playing sappy hits as if there was no tomorrow?

Fuming, she waited impatiently for the security system to recognize her bio-signature and unlock the gates. Locking the car, she automatically checked the mail box. Sure enough, her husband had forgotten to take in the day's mail. Again.

Balancing a pile of magazines and a paper bag in one hand while the other gripped a briefcase took a little doing, and it helped that said husband greeted her at the door. Shoving the warm bag into his waiting hands, she glared at him and said, "The next time you have a craving for 'goreng pisang', you can bloody well get them yourself."

Hadi McCoy merely asked, "How was the lecture?" and relieved her of the magazines. Amusement danced in his bright blue eyes as he watched his wife kick off her shoes and drag herself into the living room, swiping his half-finished mug of tea. "Hey, get your own drink!"

"Stealing for medicinal reasons is allowed." Sheema flopped onto a sofa, closing her eyes. "If Mohan sweet-talks me into doing this again, kill me," she groaned. "Noise I can handle. Coddled brats are nothing to me. But the overwhelming silence..."

The Malay woman shuddered. "There's nothing worse than staring at a roomful of vacant, bored students."

He chuckled, depositing the magazines next to a small pile of unread letters. "So I guess my good news can wait, then?" he teased.

She opened her eyes, staring at him with barely- contained hope. "You don't mean..."

"I just had a call from the Cambodian Embassy." Reclaiming his tea, he took a seat beside her and gave her a gentle kiss. "It's a go. We'll be in Angkor next month!"

"Yes!" Excitement overrode fatigue as she threw her arms around him, returning his kiss passionately. "I can't believe it! I'm going to call my family," she babbled energetically, running for the telephone.

Bemused, he could only grin as a happy, voluble exchange between Sheema and her father soon made itself heard. Sometimes he envied the close ties between his wife and her family -- his own relationship to his parents can be summed up in two words: barely talking.

Azure hair and eyes coupled with dark skin endeavoured to give Hadi exotic good looks, but the valiant effort was derailed by a big-boned, gangling body and a general air of not fitting in with the rest of Earth's population. On their first meeting, his future wife commented that he had better rapport with the Khmer artifacts he studied.

The tall man sat back, casting a long look at the house he shared with Sheema. Here, though, he fitted in perfectly. It was furnished with barely more than the essentials, but it was undeniably their home. From his wife's beloved science fiction novels to his collection of Mah Meri carvings, they had made a small house in Subang Jaya theirs.

It wasn't like the mansion he grew up in as Hadrian McCoy, with its hidden laboratories and a permanent smell of new paint. He never felt truly at ease in his parents' world of superheroes. My father, he thought bitterly, doesn't give jackshit about archeology unless he wants to find out if that corpse in a sarcophagus is a thousand year-old demon.

Hadi set his mug down on the coffee table, carefully sweeping aside the photographs of Angkor temples covering nearly every inch of the wooden surface. The carved faces of Bayon smiled up enigmatically him, keeping company with images of moss-covered bas- reliefs and sandstone asparas. The complete restoration of the city of Angkor was his and Sheema's cherished dream, and after years of delay they would finally have a shot at making it a reality.

He had just managed to immerse himself in a study on the Barays when a blue envelope winged its way across the room, hitting him square on the forehead. It bounced off and spun to the floor, evading his attempts at capture.

"What's this?" he wondered, picking up the envelope.

Sheema bounced in, chocolate eyes gleaming with curiousity. "It's addressed to you," she explained. "Looks like an invitation -- open it and see."

"Probably someone's anniversary or something," he sighed, tearing it open. "'You are cordially invited to the wedding of Rebecca Summers and Thomas Channing'..." He trailed off. "Oh, great. There's no way Mom is letting me off the hook if I don't go."

"Rebecca Summers?" The black-haired woman frowned. "I think I remember reading about her somewhere. She's one of the most powerful telepaths on Earth, right?"

"Yeah, that's the one. She gives me the creeps," he said sourly. "Being around Rebbie is like living in a Barbie world. How the hell am I going to get out of this?"

She looked askance at him. Hadi, in their five years of marriage, rarely mentioned the people she privately dubbed "clan X-Men". He'd told her in the early days of their friendship that the rift between him and his family was irreparable.

She did not truly believe him, until she met the McCoys a few weeks before the wedding and sensed her husband-to-be's brittle resentment.

"I'm surprised Dad didn't include a little note with the card," he added, tossing the invitation aside. "Something like: 'Dear Son, while it hardly behooves me to dictate your decisions, your mother and I would be ecstatic if you should accept the invitation. Signed, Your Loving Father.'"

"Aren't you a little too old to be doing the rebel without a cause thing?" Sheema asked pointedly. "It's just a wedding, Hadi. It can't be that bad."

His face twisted in disgust. "You don't understand. From the moment my powers manifested, there was this tacit expectation that I would follow the family tradition. Everyone donned the monkey suit at least once, even those who didn't stay on as superheroes. Even Mom."

"But you don't want to."

"Hell, no. I hated it," Hadi spat. "All I wanted to do was study history and archeology. What do I care if some bug-eyed alien from outer space wants to take over Earth? Welcome, I say. Maybe it can straighten out the problems we should have solved long ago but didn't. If the X-Men wanted to help mankind, more of them should go out into the streets and really look."

"Nice rant. I give it a seven out of ten." Sheema narrowed her eyes. "It's still just a wedding and you're still over-reacting."

"I don't want to see my family," he protested, sounding dangerously close to a whine. "My brother's the only person I can tolerate, and that's only when he stops talking."

"That's not very fair of you," she chided. "For god's sakes, it's not as if precognition is part of your repertoire."

"Trust me on this, okay?" Gritting his teeth, Hadi continued, "Here's what's going to happen at the wedding: Dad will make some crack about falling foul of curses in ancient tombs and start yammering about his latest research, half of which I'll never understand. As for Mom, she's the sort who prides herself on being practical and makes sure everyone knows it. I just know she's going to grill me about my vaccinations and annoy the hell out of me at the same time."

Sheema thought back to her meeting with the redoubtable Cecelia McCoy and was forced to agree. "Maybe you can tell them you're busy," she offered sympathetically. "The wedding's two weeks from now, and we'll be arse-deep in paperwork for the project by then."

He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. "You're right. I'm over-reacting," he conceded. "I'll just e-mail Mom and tell her we can't come. Mustn't forget to send Rebbie an expensive, useless gift, too."

The tension diffused, Sheema smiled. "I have a few ideas for that, if you need any. Oh, and Hadi?"

"Yes?" He paused and looked over his shoulders, half- way to the computer.

"Mak invited us for a celebration dinner tomorrow night." Her eyes sparkled merrily. "She said I'm to tell you that if you're a good boy, there'll be yam duck waiting for you on the table."

"Say no more. See this halo on my head?"

The petite woman snorted, swatting his backside as she passed him on the way out. "Which angel did you steal that from?"

Hadi's smile faded a little. "Not the Angel I know, that's for sure."

THE END

Glossary:

Mak -- Informal, usually affectionate contraction for "emak", one of the Malay words for "mother".

Goreng pisang -- Bananas dipped in batter and deep- fried.

Subang Jaya -- Suburbs in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

Mah Meri -- Aboriginal tribe living in Carey Island, Malaysia, famous for their wood carvings.

Angkor -- Ancient city in Cambodia, formerly the seat of the Khmer Empire (ninth to fifteenth century AD).

Bayon -- A temple in Angkor renowned for carvings of faces said to resemble Jayavarman VII, the king who ordered its construction.

Asparas -- Heavenly nymphs in Hindu legends.

Baray -- Angkor's two massive artificial lakes.

Note: Under Islamic laws in Malaysia, a non-Muslim who wishes to marry a Muslim must convert. Technically s/he should also change her/his last name to "Abdullah", but this rule is somewhat relaxed.