there are no more guns in the valley (director's cut)

When they get to the mansion, the whole team is waiting for them in the foyer, all in different stages of adjusting to being awake. Kurt stumbles off to find somewhere to puke, mumbling something about his salary and vacation days. Piotr and Jubilee have sequestered some stragglers to the rec room. Bobby tells them they’re watching a movie. 

Jean flings her arms around Scott the second his feet are on the ground. He stumbles back, but catches her around the waist.  

She makes a strangled, upset sound against him. He hugs her tighter. 

Over her shoulder, Scott watches Marie bring a careful, gloved hand up to Laura’s face. She looks at Logan, and he nods. She brushes her knuckles along Laura’s cheekbone. She smiles like she can’t believe it. Her eyes are big and watery. 

Laura stirs and blinks a few times, startled at first. She looks to Logan, then to Marie. 

“Mornin’, kiddo. Had to take a bit of an impromptu vacation. That alright?” Logan says, voice gentle. She nods. 

She jumps down out of his arms but stays by his side. She considers Rogue for a moment. 

“Hello,” she says, purposeful, confident. 

Marie blinks. She lets out a surprised laugh. “Hi. Hi, Laura, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m Rogue.”

Laura looks around the foyer. Her eyes widen with realization. Logan jostles her shoulder, and she glares up at him, but he just smiles. 

“You can get your autographs later. Right now, it’s bedtime.”

Laura opens her mouth like she wants to argue, but she cuts herself off with a yawn. Logan laughs, quirks his eyebrow up like he’s saying I told you so. 

“So, Iceman,” Logan says, and Bobby rolls his eyes. “Think you can set us up with some nice digs?”

Bobby nods. “Your room is still pretty much how you left it. Same with you, Scott.”

Scott looks at Logan, then away, and he nods. Jean is still standing next to him, her hand resting lightly on his bicep. They haven’t shared a room in years but he almost asks her if she will, tonight, because he’s not sure he can sleep alone. 

Bobby takes the green backpack from Scott and leads Logan to his old room. He keeps flitting his eyes over to Laura, like he isn’t sure if she’s really there. 

Marie watches them walk down the hallway, her expression full of something nostalgic. She turns to Scott, and her face is startlingly open and raw. He thinks she looks just like she did the day they met. 

“How’s it been?” she asks quietly, breaking the heavy silence of the front hall. 

“Good,” he says, barely more than a whisper. “It’s been good.”

Kitty has one of Rogue’s hands in both of hers, rubbing small circles onto the soft green velvet of her gloves.

“He’s in his bedroom,” Jean says after a quiet couple of minutes. 

“Walk with me?” Scott asks. He turns out of her embrace, but offers his hand. 

Jean is wearing a soft red sweater, and it is slipping down her shoulder. Her sweatpants might have belonged to Scott at one point, or maybe to Storm. Her hair is gathered up into a clip, with long red pieces hanging in front of her face. It’s frizzing at the temples. 

She is the most beautiful woman Scott has ever seen. 

She smiles. It is radiant. “Of course.” 

She quietly slips her hand into his, and they head towards the Professor’s room. 

Ororo is waiting outside, sitting in a chair pulled from one of the offices. She smiles up at Scott, sad and regretful. 

“How is he?” Scott asks. 

“Pretty bad. He might not recognize you,” she says quietly. “Hank keeps saying he’s confused. He woke up about an hour ago and thought it was 1973.”

Scott inhales. He’s blurry on the details, but he knows that wasn’t a great year for anyone. 

“Just introduce yourself,” Jean explains. She interlocks their fingers. “If he asks. Don’t try and correct him. Just sit with him. Listen.”

Scott nods. His throat feels tight. He swallows. 

Jean leads him into the room. It is lit only by the bedside lamp, which has been moved to the dresser. The nightstand has been replaced with a small, clinical looking table, and on it sits a few small monitors, a glass of water. 

Hank is in a chair next to the bed. He has one blue hand tucked over Charles’ thin one. His glasses are hanging on a chain around his neck. He looks miserable and exhausted. 

He nods at Scott, and quietly moves out of the chair. Scott sits down. 

Charles blinks at him, and his eyebrows knit together, his mind working to recognize the man in front of him. Scott tries not to cry. 

“Another mutant,” Charles murmurs. 

Scott nods. “Yes, I am.”

“How wonderful,” Charles says, and it comes out hoarse, pained. 

Scott takes Charles’ hand in his. He doesn’t look at his face but instead at the blanket underneath their fingers. He feels like a coward.

“I know you,” Charles says. He sounds frustrated. “How do I know you? Were you at the school?”

Scott hesitates. He looks to Hank, who nods. 

“Yes, I was. A long time ago.”

Charles closes his eyes, and he pulls his face into a mournful scowl. “The war took so many of you.”

Scott isn’t sure what to say. He had never thought about that, really; he’s never taken time to consider just how much Charles has seen. Vietnam has always seemed like a thousand years ago to Scott, but he wonders how close it feels for Charles, who lost a school full of students to an unforgiving war. 

Charles, whose family won’t stop leaving him, who thinks it’s fifty years in the past because he’s been through too much and his brain doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. 

Scott thinks of two men hiding from their own failures for the better part of a decade. He thinks, suddenly, of Alex, his unspoken wounds, the things he saw but never talks about. 

None of them are clean. Over the years, they’ve all ended up coming away stained. 

He takes a deep breath. “We’re back now,” he says softly. “We came back to help.”

Charles smiles. His eyes are still closed, but he tightens his grip on Scott’s hand, brings it close. 

“Tell me, young man, what’s your name?”

Scott is drowning; the air rushes out from his lungs, and his throat is clogged. He can’t see between the dim light and the blurriness in his eyes. He bites his lip. 

On a shaky exhale, he says, “My name is Scott Summers, sir.”

For a moment time seems to dissolve for him, too; he is seventeen years old and Charles is taking his hand. He is scared and furious and lonely, and he is being told that there is a place for him here, if he should want it. A home and a family. 

For a moment, Scott is seventeen and being saved. 

Time dissolves; he is holding Charles’ hand. He feels like crying. 

“Scott,” Charles repeats. He is still smiling, but it’s gone rough around the edges, like he knows he is missing something but he doesn’t know what. “Welcome back, Scott,”

Scott leaves shortly after that. He can’t stand to be in the room any longer. He’s gotten too old to mourn the memories of the people he loves. He, again, feels like a coward. 

He makes his way to the kitchen. He finds Kitty sitting on the counter, which is familiar, and something he would scold her for if it was fifteen years ago. Rogue is standing next to her, slumping her weight against Kitty’s side. Bobby is sitting at the table, swirling his cold coffee around in a mug. 

Scott leans against the doorway. He crosses his arms. 

“What happened, exactly?”

Kitty sighs. “He woke up and started shouting for Hank, something about missing a dosage and needing to get up. He was freaking out. It was terrifying, he woke a bunch of the kids up, and he didn’t — ”

She stops. She screws her eyes shut for a second, and a few tears slip down her face. She wipes them away. “He didn’t recognize me. Or Jean. He didn’t know who we were. He wanted to know where Erik had gone.”

There is a beat of silence. That is one thing that hasn’t changed over the years. 

“What did Hank tell him?”

Bobby says, “That he wasn’t the only one who’d been asking that lately.” 

Scott laughs, short and shocked, and shakes his head. 

“Hank and Jean managed to settle him down, but he keeps working himself up trying to remember where he is,” Kitty continues. “They took his vitals and did some scans, I guess, and… his heart is weak. His brain is — Hank didn’t say collapsing in on itself but it was like, implied, and — ”

“I think I get it, Kitty,” Scott says. She shuts her mouth abruptly and looks away, embarrassed. 

She recovers, then shrugs and says, “We’ve all been saying goodbye. As much as we can, anyways.”

“He thought I’d been drafted,” Scott blurts out. 

Bobby grimaces. “He called me Sean.”

Scott feels sick. 

“He kept asking about Raven,” Rogue says quietly. “Where she was. If she was alright.”

“How long,” Scott manages to say. “How long does he have?”

Rogue looks up at Kitty, and they share a complicated couple of glances. Scott doesn’t know when that started happening, either; when all of these little familiarities started developing between them. 

The pendant on Kitty’s necklace has settled on the hollow of her throat. It catches the light of the overhead, glinting as she straightens her shoulders and looks at Scott head on. 

“He could recover. There’s a good enough chance that he will. But if he doesn’t start improving within the next few hours, it’s not likely.”

“How long?” Scott asks again. 

“Hank said he could go anytime during the day. So, twelve hours, if we’re lucky. Maybe even into tomorrow morning.”

Scott feels like all of his bones have turned to lead. 

“God,” he says under his breath. “I should have been here. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Rogue says automatically. “You were taking care of Logan. You couldn’t have known.”

Scott shrugs. He looks away from her gentle, prodding gaze, at the familiar blue and white tile of the kitchen floor. He drags a socked foot across it, following the pattern. 

Jean comes in sometime later. She wordlessly settles herself against Scott’s side. Piotr follows soon after, and then Jubilee. 

The seven of them talk quietly in the kitchen, but Scott finds himself in unfamiliar territory, watching the younger adults weave and work their way through the conversation. 

Jean seems to simply be looking on as well so he reaches out and asks her about it. She smiles, and in his head he hears, It seems like they’ve gone and grown up without us. 

It is a scary and unfair thought. It is their reality. 

He continues to watch their listless back and forth, how they bounce off of each other and never seem to falter. Smooth and automatic: the way a team should run. 

Outside, the sun starts to come up. It washes them all in a sweet, golden light. It feels wholly inappropriate. 

Scott breaks off around five to try and get an hour or two of sleep in. He passes Charles’ room on the way. Storm is gone from her chair, and Hank is nowhere to be seen. 

Inside, he watches Logan bring Charles’ hand up to his mouth. He kisses the back of it, quick, and holds it to his chest. He is staring at Charles, an entirely unreadable expression on his face. Next to him, the Professor sleeps. 

Scott leaves them alone and heads to his room. 

He collapses onto his bed. He is more tired than he originally thought. He finds himself slipping into sleep fairly quick, but he does notice that he is colder than he has grown used to. His sheets don’t smell right. 

He falls into a fitful, dreamless sleep. 

—

Scott finds Logan in his room after he wakes. He can’t tell if he has slept or not. 

He says nothing, but he does move to sit next to Logan on the bed. 

He hesitates, but figures the door is closed and either way, who would care. He reaches over and takes Logan’s hand. He drags his thumb back and forth across the skin there. 

Logan sits there and looks at their hands.

Scott wants to say something; he isn't sure what he could possibly say to somehow try and mend this for the both of them. They are experiencing different versions of a similar hurt. There is no rallying speech he feels like he can give. 

Logan lets them sit in silence for a long while. He stares at their hands. 

They hear people in the hallway. Classes have been cancelled for an undetermined amount of time, and apparently a lot of the students were picked up by their parents while Scott was asleep. 

It only feels a little bit like the world is ending. 

Eventually, someone knocks on the door, and Scott somehow finds it in him to let go of Logan. He gets up to answer it. 

Laura steps past him, but halts in front of Logan. He looks up at her. He sighs. 

“What did Hank say?”

“He said ‘might as well,’ and told me to come get you.” She moves her fingers in air quotes accordingly, and it makes Logan smile, small and sad. 

“Well, then. Doctor’s orders, eh?” 

She shrugs. She turns to Scott. “Would you like to see him? He’s awake.”

Scott glances at Logan, who splays his hands out and raises his eyebrows, I don’t know. He looks to Laura, and nods. 

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They follow her to Charles’ room. Scott does not reach out and take Logan’s hand again even though he wants to. He squeezes his own into a fist at his side, digging his nails into his palm and focusing on the sharp bite instead. 

Charles looks at them as they enter, though his gaze keeps coming back to Laura. He looks confused, intrigued; his eyes are cloudy with frustration but he smiles anyways, attempts to nod. 

“Mr. Summers,” he calls weakly. 

“Hello, Professor,” Scott says. He tries to return his smile. 

He glances at Logan briefly, but he ends up looking at Laura again. She narrows her eyes, cocks her head. She nods. Charles’ smile grows, and he extends a hand like he wants her to shake it. Beside him, Hank moves forward, but Charles raises his other hand to stop him. 

“It’s fine,” Charles says, calmly, still not looking away from Laura. “She’s just introducing herself.” 

“It’s not safe for you to — ”

“I’ve been doing this for ninety bloody years, Hank, I think I can manage,” Charles snaps. Hank stops, shocked into silence. Logan laughs. Scott feels his throat tighten again, so he looks down, away. 

“No, no, Laura, it’s alright,” Charles says, turning back to her, and he holds out his arms, a beckon. “Welcome. We’re so glad to have you.” 

Laura walks over to him, slow and hesitant. She takes his outstretched hand, looks at him with a strange expression on her face. He chuckles, and nods. 

“Yes, I suppose so,” he says lightly. 

Scott watches Laura and Charles have a strange half-telepathic conversation. Charles even translates some of his sentences into Spanish, and it makes Laura smile. She climbs onto the bed next to him and sits cross legged, back turned to the rest of them. Hank looks from the bed to the doorway, seemingly at a loss for words. 

“Don’t look at me,” Logan says, shrugging. 

“She’s your — ” Hank takes a second, pinches the bridge of his nose before saying, “I’m going to go get Charles a different medication, and check on something in the lab. Watch them, will you?”

He leaves briskly. Scott thinks he should follow him, only because he feels slightly out of place now, with Laura and Charles speaking amongst themselves and Logan standing there, looking exasperated and terrified and stupidly fond. 

Logan glances at him, his eyes staying bright but his mouth twisting into a confused smile. 

“What?” he says under his breath. “Something wrong?”

Scott laughs because he can’t help himself, marveling at the ridiculousness of the situation in front of him. He shakes his head and Logan leans into his space, teasing. 

“Huh? Care to share with the class, Cyke?”

“Shut up,” Scott snipes, but he’s still grinning. “Don’t you ever shut up? God, I’m just trying to enjoy this — this moment — ”

“Oh, this moment,” Logan taunts. He jostles Scott with his elbow. “Yeah, I’m sure you are, you big sap.”

Scott pushes him back, an instinct as old as any other, but Logan doesn’t give under his hands. He just smirks at him, smugness simmering in the lines of his face, and an old affection-riddled-irritation passes easily between them. 

Logan reaches out and pushes Scott back, and Scott lets him, because he is worried that if he goes to stop him he’ll do something dumb like hold his hand.  

“Logan, Scott,” Charles calls from the bed, successfully shaking them both from their odd bubble of tension. They look at him. “I think all of our constitutions would benefit greatly from some breakfast. Isn’t that right?”

He looks to Laura, and she nods seriously, turning to Logan and Scott as well. Logan makes a face like he is not happy about the turn of events. 

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” he mumbles. Laura furrows her eyebrows at his reluctance. 

“I think we can manage breakfast,” Scott says, and he finally reaches out, tapping Logan on the shoulder, which isn’t enough, but it at least gets him to look at Scott. “Right? Two grown adults like us?”

He grins, self-satisfied and goofy, and dodges Logan’s swatting hands. 

“Are you two done?” Charles says, bored. Logan has enough shame to look a little bit embarrassed, and Scott begs the earth to open up and swallow them both. It doesn’t. 

“Once Hank comes back, we’ll head down to the kitchen and see what we can do,” Logan concedes, matching Laura’s grumpy expression. 

“Actually, Logan,” Charles says, “I think you should see if Hank needs any help.”

“What? Furball can handle himself, I — ”

“Logan,” Charles interrupts, pointed and annoyed, “I think you should go and see if Hank requires your assistance.”

Scott watches Logan flit his eyes from Charles to Laura, then back again, before landing, surprisingly, on him. 

“Alright,” he says. “Fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Behave!” he says, though he doesn’t specify who he’s talking to. He keeps his eyes on Scott. 

“Hey!” Scott calls after him, turning to watch him go. He nearly says something stupid, like don’t leave. Not for sentimental reasons; he just doesn’t want to talk about whatever is brewing under the moody expression on Charles’ face. 

“You know,” the Professor says, and Scott keeps himself turned towards the doorway, “I’ve never seen him quite so… together.”

Laura is staring at Scott, he knows she is, because he can feel her angry gaze on his back like a laser. He finally looks over at her, and she keeps glaring at him, but she’s still holding Charles’ hand, which manages to offset a large amount of the fury in her eyes.  

“God knows I’m not all there these days,” he continues. “I owe you an apology for that, by the way. For how I behaved last night.”

Scott blinks, then shakes his head. “Charles, you shouldn’t be sorry.”

The Professor sighs. He smiles at Laura. She keeps looking at Scott. 

“Well, I often find myself feeling guilty for things I have little control over. I imagine that’s just a part of the human condition.”

Laura looks back at him then, and cocks her head. His smile grows. “Not human as in human, per se, but rather one’s humanity. Your morals and ideals and such.”

She nods thoughtfully. 

“Regardless, I am sorry,” he says, ignoring Scott’s attempts to interrupt him. “There isn’t much that can change that, unfortunately. I suppose you’ll have to deal with it.”

Scott closes his mouth, taken aback, but he finds himself smiling. He says, “I guess so,” and Charles laughs. 

“You do know what I mean, don’t you?” 

Scott pauses, confused. 

“Logan. He seems to be very much with it, as of late.”

“Oh,” Scott says slowly. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

Charles fixes him with a strange look. “Yes, I would hope so. I think much of Logan’s newfound… contentment, let’s say, can be attributed to Laura here.”

At that, Laura perks up, and smiles smugly at Scott. 

“But surely you can see how his attitude has improved because of your presence. It usually does.”

Scott sputters for a mortifying second. He clears his throat. “I think that’s rather generous.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves, Scott. We’re both too old for that.” 

Laura giggles. Scott frowns at her. 

“Logan makes you happy, yes?”

“Professor,” Scott says, because Laura is right there. 

“No shame in finding what makes you happy and running with it,” Charles says, sly and secret. “It’s not cowardly to go after what you want. I wish I had learned that sooner. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel like I’ve wasted so much time.”

Scott is moved to silence. Laura stares down at her and Charles’ hands. When Scott finally finds it in him to speak, his voice is quiet and strained. 

“That’s awfully introspective, Professor.”

Charles chuckles. “I’ve had nothing but time to think lately.” 

He pauses. “You know, Scott, I spent so many years feeling like I was alone, only because I was too caught up in my own sorrow to notice that I had people there to help me. To love me.”

He says the last part especially pointedly, raising his eyebrow at Scott. 

“Logan and I are quite similar in that regard. We’d rather imagine ourselves alone than recognize that we need people beside us. All this to say: make sure Logan knows that you’re beside him. He needs more help than he lets on, though I suppose I don’t need to tell you that.”

Scott finds himself, again, at a loss for words. Charles looks at Laura, something affectionate passing over his face. 

“Listen to an old man, Scott. Don’t waste these opportunities. Slip away if you must. We’ll be okay,” says Charles, his tone earnest, almost desperate.

Scott instantly thinks of a hundred different ways to shoot him down, arguments he’d used in the past when Jean would urge him to make things “serious” with Logan. They didn’t get along, Logan was always leaving, Scott had more important things to worry about. 

But as he stands there, counterpoints on the tip of his tongue, he finds that none of them are true anymore. He had already promised Logan he’d stay, hadn’t he?

Charles isn’t trying to convince him of anything, he realizes. He’s trying to give him permission. 

Scott could say, I don’t think I’m ready to be a dad. 

He almost does, but then in his head, Charles says, When do you think you’ll be ready? Ten years? Twenty? Was Logan ready? I wasn’t. No one ever is, really. 

Scott says, What if Logan decides he doesn’t want me around?

You’ll only waste time entertaining petty insecurities. Have faith in your bond. It’s gotten the both of you through a hell of a lot. 

Scott feels his stomach swoop with embarrassment. 

He is saved by Logan and Hank coming back in. Hank moves forward, a bottle of pills in one hand, and he gives Laura a tight and awkward smile. 

“Laura, I think it’s best if you — ”

There is an instant commotion as Laura pops her claws out, draws her hand back defensively and glares at Hank. 

Logan rushes towards her. He reaches forward and grabs her wrist, and Hank steps back, bringing a startled hand to his chest. Charles puts his hand on Laura’s shoulder, though it is too little too late. 

“Laura!” Logan says firmly. “You know better!”

Laura doesn’t stop glaring at Hank, but she does lower her hand, her claws sliding back into her knuckles. 

“Let her stay,” Charles says. “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Hank looks mildly offended, but he puts two pills in Charles’ palm and hands him a glass of water anyways. 

“I could use a break,” he says finally, shaking his head in resignation. 

“Yes, yes, why don’t the three of you find out what’s going on in the kitchen? It would be greatly appreciated.”

Logan grumbles, and he ruffles Laura’s hair, pushing her head down. They file out. Hank throws the two on the bed a weary glance. 

“He shouldn’t be using his power this much,” he says quietly, ducking his head for privacy. 

Logan shrugs. “She’s resilient.”

Scott laughs, because it is a habit to team up against Hank’s doting. It works. He glares at the two of them, rounding the corner into the kitchen. 

“Not everyone is so lucky.”

Logan hooks an arm around Scott’s neck, and pulls him into his chest, rough and buddy-like, something reminiscent of his short lived career in high school football. 

“We can manage, can’t we?” he taunts, repeating Scott’s words. The few others in the kitchen give them an alarmed, surprised look, and Hank opens a cabinet just to get away from them. 

Scott shoves him off, still laughing. “Oh, fuck off.”

“Language,” Bobby and Marie say from the table. Scott rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah. If you knew how many times I pretended not to notice you two sneaking out after curfew,” he mumbles, finishing his point with a disappointed shake of his head. 

“You have to get over that,” Marie groans.

“Whatever. Do we have pancake mix?”

—

Scott is on the back patio when Jean comes out. It’s cold, so he’s alone, sitting with his back pressed up against the brick, burrowed into his coat. She looks down at him, furrowing her eyebrows, and he looks up at her, squinting against the grey November sun. 

“We missed you at lunch,” she sighs, before settling herself down next to him. 

He takes her hand in his. “Sorry. Had some stuff to do.”

It’s a lie. He’d been avoiding Logan. 

Jean lays her head on his shoulder. She isn’t typically this physical, and so he tries to cherish it. She has always held others at arm’s length, though Scott is more often than not the rare exception. 

But even when they were together, she was never big on grand public displays of affection. Scott would kiss her before leaving on a mission, or hold her hand while they supervised game night, but it was all quiet, clean and simple. Every movement she made was calculated and thought through, every touch purposeful, necessary. 

She had told him once, rather upset and frustrated, that she was scared of her own powers, and scared of getting too close to anybody in case she lost control. Scott had said something stupid and self-gratifying, like I would never let that happen. It hadn’t helped. It never helped. 

“You’re thinking too loud,” Jean says warmly, shifting her head and looking up at him through her eyelashes. 

“My bad,” he mumbles, and she laughs lightly. 

“That’s not what I meant. What’s bothering you, hm? Trouble in paradise?”

Her tone is mild but her eyes are lit up, daring and coy. They are bright green even under the cloudy sky. She has a cool, pleased smile on her face. 

Scott leans his head against the wall behind him. “That’s not fair. No peeking.”

“I don’t have to peek, Scott. You’re out here sulking. Who else have you ever sulked over?”

A familiar anger rushes through Scott’s veins, a soft annoyance that causes him to roll his eyes. “I do not sulk. I am a grown-up, and — ”

“You don’t act like it, around him. You never did,” Jean laughs. It annoys Scott even more, but he finds himself smiling despite. 

“I do recall him flirting with my girlfriend in front of me a few times,” he says, voice light. 

Jean stops laughing, and Scott can’t see her so he isn’t prepared for her to say, “I recall him sleeping with my boyfriend. A few times.”

He pauses, unable to decipher her tone. She is still leaning against him, her fingers interlocked with his. He doesn’t realize she’s started laughing again until he feels her press her smile into his shoulder, body shaking with it. He goes to detangle himself from her, attempting to push himself away. 

“That isn’t funny, come on. I apologized a million times — ”

“I know!” she says, reaching out to grab his hands and pull him back. “I know! And I eventually forgave you! It was a joke — ”

“ — I made an ass out of myself apologizing. Your words, not mine.”

Jean smiles, and he can’t help it when he leans forward, letting her take him by the shoulders. “Yes, you did. And I loved it. I love you, Scott. I love you so much. God.” 

She pulls him into a hug, arms tight around him. He feels like he’s being broken up with, again, cold concrete seeping in through his jeans and that terrible lump in his throat. 

He hugs her back, unsettled. 

“You know,” he tries to say, startled when his voice comes out wet and muddy, “I sulked over you a fair amount.”

Jean laughs against him once again, holding him even tighter. It warms him inside and out. 

“Yeah, I remember. You kind of deserved it.”

Scott sighs. “I did. Maybe that’s why it was never easy with him. I didn’t deserve it after everything that happened.”

Jean pulls back, and she looks torn, regretful and upset and exasperated. “I’ve had enough of that from the both of you. You can rest, Scott. You have nothing else to answer for.”

She puts a hand on the side of his face. 

“You deserve easy. We aren’t thirty anymore, you know. I don’t care if you sleep with him.”

Scott looks away, mortified; angry. “We haven’t been — ” he starts, but then stops, because that is not the point. 

Jean looks surprised, her mouth stretching back into a smile despite her eyes remaining teary. 

“Then I don’t care if you don’t sleep with him, either. Whatever it is that you guys — whatever arrangement, or agreement, or — ”

“Oh, my God,” Scott says through his teeth. “Stop talking. Please.”

Her smile widens. “When did you become such a prude, anyways? I also seem to recall — ”

“I don’t want to know!” Scott interrupts, moving away again. “I am not a prude, for fuck’s sake. Just — it’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” 

“Are you embarrassed of Logan?” Jean asks skeptically, giving him the meanest of mean looks. 

“No!” he says quickly. “It’s not him. It’s just — ” he shrugs, tingling with nerves “ — I don’t know what people have assumed, and I — ”

“Scott, do you seriously think any of the people who work here are going to care that you and Logan happen to both be men?”

Scott has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, mostly because he’s never said much about it to the others and they’ve never said much to him and he just thought —

What did he think?

“You guys weren’t exactly hiding it,” Jean says after he spends a few seconds mulling things over. 

“No one ever said anything! This is exactlywhat I was talking about.”

“Maybe no one tells you things because they’re meant to be obvious.”

She pats his cheek. He glares at her. 

“In my defense, Logan is the least subtle person I have ever met. I’m not used to needing to ask,” Scott says, clipped, even though it is odd to finally say his name out loud. He hasn’t been avoiding it, really, but plausible deniability has gotten him this far. 

Jean either doesn’t notice or has enough grace to move past it. Presumably the latter. She brushes his hair back from his forehead. 

“Personally, I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think you think that’s true.”

Scott shrugs again, nervous for no reason. 

“Be honest with me, alright? Just for a second.”

“Always,” Scott says instantly, and it’s only a little bit of a mean joke. She frowns at him like she caught it. 

She hesitates for a moment, picking at the lint on his coat, her hands fidgeting over his shoulders nervously. Her eyes are wide, and wet, and Scott reaches up to wipe at a stray tear on her face. 

“Damn,” she says, breathing in harshly. “I didn’t want to cry. I’m sorry.”

Scott shakes his head, and she looks away, sniffing. She wipes her own hand across her cheek. 

“Just promise me you’ll be alright. And that you’ll stay there.”

Scott’s face drops. “Jean.”

“Not like that, no, I don’t mean — ” she takes a second to compose herself, taking a steady breath in “ — I don’t think you’re disposed to that sort of behavior. But you can’t come back if it gets hard, or you think we need you here or something. You have to stay.”

“I will,” Scott agrees, even though he isn’t sure how to promise to stay away if things get rocky up here again. He will, at the very least, try. 

“He needs that. Laura needs that,” Jean says.

He nods, and she brings his hand up to her lips and presses a kiss to the back of it, then holds it in between both of hers. 

“I need it,” Scott says quietly. “I don’t want to need it so much but it feels — it feels right, being with him. Living with the both of them.”

“You were always good at taking care of people,” she says. 

“We’ve all had to look out for each other,” Scott says simply. 

They tend not to talk about it, but it did feel terribly lonely those first few years, just him and Jean and Ororo in the mansion, Charles trying his best. Hank’s visits to D.C. grew more and more frequent until one week he just didn’t come home. 

Erik was in and out for a few years, in the beginning, but things out in the world just got worse. He and Charles started to spend each visit shouting at each other up in his office, vicious and cutting, mean in a way the Professor never was with the rest of them. 

That was, of course, up until Erik stopped coming by. The chess set in Charles’ study had already been sitting unused for months, but Storm put it away one day without saying anything, and that was that. 

They didn’t talk about it. There was no point. 

“I enjoy it, certainly,” Jean agrees, but she sets her eyes in the way that means she’s making a point. “I… appreciate the act of compassion, and what it can do for others. But you take pride in it, don’t you? You thrive on it. It’s wonderful.”

Scott shrugs again, because he doesn’t know what to say. He likes being able to put himself to good use. It makes him feel like he’s earned his keep, in a way. His stomach churns. 

“Wonderful might not be the right word,” he says. “I think it’s gotten me into a lot of trouble.”

“Well,” Jean mirrors his shrug, then leaves it at that. 

That’s part of the reason she and Logan get along so well. They can say a lot without actually saying much. Jean has a natural advantage, and Logan has simply had to find a ways to communicate since he insists on making conversation with him such an ordeal. 

Or, maybe, Scott has just gotten good at reading him. Maybe Scott is the only one he makes conversation particularly difficult for, because it’s funny to him. 

Annoying, Scott thinks, and Jean smiles like she heard him. He is so fucking annoying. 

“What if we had stayed together? How do you think that would have turned out?” Scott asks out loud, because if he’s leaving, then he figures it can’t hurt anything. 

Jean hums, thinking. She rests her hands on Scott’s chest. “Not well. I do love you, you know that, but — ”

“If it wasn’t Logan, it would have been something else,” he finishes for her. 

“Probably.” She gives him a soft smile. “Not for nothing, though. We kept each other company.”

Scott smiles, and he feels so unbelievably happy, to be sitting here with Jean and having this conversation.

“I love you terribly,” she says. 

Terribly. That’s exactly it. 

He pulls her hands away from his shoulders, and kisses them like she had his, then once more. A third time for good luck. She laughs high and sweet and he thinks that she makes him feel young. 

She holds his face and tips their foreheads together for a second. He says, “I love you too. Terribly. I love you so much.”

He would have married her if she had let him, would have made himself sick trying to love her the way she needed. It’s a nasty thing to admit but he would have done it. He won’t anymore. She won’t let him, and he doesn’t want to. 

“You’ll be so happy. I know you will. And we’ll be fine. You have to remember that, alright? We’ll all be fine.”

“Jean,” he laughs, and his chest aches like it’s a new pain. “You know you made me happy, right? Even when you hated me.”

“I never hated you,” she says, incredulous, but Scott tilts his head and she rolls her eyes. “It didn’t last long. And besides, you know what I mean. You’ve learned how to love him so well over the years.”

“You have to come visit,” he says, because he’d rather embarrass himself than acknowledge that particular elephant in that specific room. “Whenever you want. The couch pulls out.” 

Jean grins and shakes her head disbelievingly. “I’ll come visit. We can do Christmas.”

It will be Laura’s first Christmas with them. It will be the first Christmas Scott hasn’t spent at the mansion in over thirty years. 

He nods. “Okay, perfect.”

Jean smiles. Scott falls in love with her again and again. “Perfect.”

—

Storm finds him while he is still somewhat avoiding Logan. He’s in the library, tucked into a corner, trying to read a book he never got around to reading before. 

“Please don’t tell me you came in here to talk about Logan.”

Ororo wrinkles her nose. “No, never. You two seem to have it worked out, to an extent, and that’s good enough for me.”

Scott smiles, and Ororo sits down on the floor in front of him, against a bookshelf. 

“What’s up?” He snaps his book shut. 

Ororo steels herself like she does before a bad fight. “As you know, the last of the students were picked up after lunch. They’re all older, and would be leaving soon anyways. A lot of the parents have been antsy because of the attacks, and — Scott, what do you think about possibly… not coming back next semester?”

“I figured I would take a sabbatical of sorts, anyways.”

Ororo smiles, tight. “No, I mean, how would you feel about the school closing down? Indefinitely.”

“What,” Scott says. 

“The kids would have been leaving for winter break in a little less than a month. Most of them weren’t going to come back in the spring. There’s online courses now, for the credits, and Charles has offered to cover certain tuition fees, and, well.” 

She takes a deep breath, and looks at him, face plain and open. “We haven’t had a student enroll in years. There aren’t enough of us left.”

Scott lets her words hang in the air for a quiet moment. She’s right, of course. She usually is. 

“Charles wants to relocate,” she continues. “He was thinking London, maybe. There are some historical societies interested in buying the mansion.”

“Are they safe?”

Ororo nods. “All mutant-run, as far as we can tell. All trying to preserve what little legacy is left.”

Because people die, Scott thinks. But buildings can stand forever if you tend to them. They’re better symbols. 

A handful of kids he prays the world never gets its hands on is what they have left, really. There may be hope, somewhere, but in front of them the future stands bleak and difficult. 

He nods. “That’s great.”

She nods too, and studies him for a second. 

“Are you going to London?” he asks, uncomfortable under her gaze. 

“Maybe. Hank can’t move in full time and Charles will need someone there. So, for a bit, at least.”

His stomach tightens as the weight of her words sinks in. 

“The others?”

Ororo softens then, and she slumps down a bit, rolling her eyes. “Kurt is running off to Europe, though he wouldn’t say where, but he’ll be around.”

She smiles, fond and reminiscent. “Rogue and Kitty have been fighting about it for weeks now, Bobby and Piotr are too worn down to care anymore, and Jubilee wants to go home for a bit. So, I think it’s between California and Vermont, currently. ”

“They’re all moving — together?” 

Ororo frowns, confused. “Well, yeah. Just because the school is closed doesn’t mean the world won’t need the X-Men.”

It is a simple sentiment, and one that is over sixty years old at this point. The world will always need the X-Men. 

“I’m proud of them,” he says suddenly, and chuckles. “My chest hurts, I’m so proud of them.”

“I know, right? How did they turn out so good?”

“I don’t know,” he laughs. “They’re so smart. They know too much. It scares me.”

“Don’t remind me,” Ororo groans. “Please, God. Bobby and Rogue have outsmarted nearly all of the Danger Room scenarios. Those five could stave off the apocalypse.”

Scott is pretty sure they did, in another universe. He hadn’t asked too many questions because he hadn’t wanted to know. 

“So, you think they’ll do alright?” he says. 

“Yeah. We did, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Scott says quietly, smiling. “I think so.”

“Then they’ll be fine. They have each other.”

“Jean?” 

Ororo gets an odd, anxious expression on her face. She shrugs. “Up to London with us, probably. Afterwards, we were talking about coming back to live in the city.”

Her tone is careful. Scott remembers Jean saying, do you seriously think any of the people who work here would care?

“Are you — ?”

Ororo nods, and her face is suddenly serene, lovely. “But we’re not — nothing has happened. Shut up,” she says when Scott starts laughing. “Be quiet. Do you really want to get into that argument right now?”

“No, of course not,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. 

They sit there looking at each other for a long while, until Storm reaches out and puts her hand on Scott’s knee. 

“Oh, come on,” he groans. “You too?”

“I’m allowed to be sad that you’re leaving!” she argues, jostling his leg. “I am going to miss you. Both of you.”

They have been apart, over the years, sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. But they haven’t lived without each other in a very, very long time, and Scott isn’t sure how he’ll get used to it. 

She’ll have to visit too, he decides. 

He envisions it for a second, this new golden reality stretching before him; Jean and Ororo up on the weekends, email chains with Hank the extent he has to use his higher brain functions. Finding a job somewhere in town fixing engines, coming home at the end of the day and not worrying if someone is out there dead, or dying. It is closer than it has ever been before. 

“I’ll miss you, too. I don’t know how either of us will manage without you, ‘Ro.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she says simply, confident and sure. She shakes his knee again. “And we have phones now, don’t forget. Any major crisis or catastrophic fuck-up and you can just give me a ring.”

He laughs again, and she leans forward, laughing with him. He rejoices in that, the sound of her laughter; he made a habit out of trying to pull laughs out of her during training, when they were younger. They were always trying to catch each other off guard and knock the other on their ass. 

“I’ll be sure to remember that,” he says. 

She smiles like she is trying not to cry and brings her hand up, pinching his cheek for a second before pulling back. 

“Yeah,” she says quietly, like she’s really talking to herself. “You’ll be fine.”

He links their pinkies together, their hands resting on the floor between them. 

The library is quiet. Ororo’s knees are tucked up against her chest, her chin resting on one. She’s looking at the floor, a moody expression on her face that means she’s lost in her own head, thinking. 

He smiles. His heart is bursting in his chest. She will be fine, too, and he is sure of this. 

For the first time in a long time, he is sure that they will all be fine. 

—

He manages to avoid Logan all the way through dinner. He eats in his bedroom. He just wants time to think. 

It has been a long, awful day, wandering the now-empty halls of the mansion, Marie and Kitty and Bobby hovering around corners, waiting to ask useless, nagging questions. Hank said Charles is showing signs of improvement, but it will still be touch and go for another several hours.

He is glad the day is over. 

His room is depressingly cold and dark. The moon casts a milky ray of light onto his bed. He tosses and turns. He punches at his pillow to try and get comfortable. He is tired but he cannot fall asleep. He thinks he knows the reason. 

As if on cue, there is a knock at the door. He stands. 

Logan is waiting for him on the other side, looking scary in the low half-light. 

“Hey,” he breathes out. 

“Did I do something?” Logan says quietly, furiously. “Cause I’ve been rackin’ my brain, and I can’t figure out why you’re avoiding me like the damn plague.”

“You didn’t do anything, Logan. I’m just being stupid. I’m sorry.” He bites the inside of his cheek, then gestures inside. “Come in, won’t you? I don’t want to fight.”

Logan seems reluctant at first, but he looks over Scott’s shoulder at the bed, big and empty and waiting for the two of them. He throws a skeptical glance at Scott. 

“You done ignorin’ me?”

“I said I was sorry,” he snaps, hushed, and his throat feels raw. He takes Logan’s hand, and it is like breaking the surface after being under for too long; the water clears from his lungs. 

Logan seems to soften, and he looks at his hand in Scott’s, lets himself be tugged into the room. Behind him, the door shuts, and he leans back against it. 

“Yeah, well,” he says on an exhale, “I don’t wanna fight either. Can’t sleep?”

The sheets are rumpled and thrown about. The pillows are skewed. Scott nods. 

“You?”

Logan looks down then, and pulls his hand away. “Laura kicked me out. Said something about getting it together.”

Scott laughs, quiet and nervous, and Logan looks at him with wide eyes as if he’s never heard a sound like it before. Scott closes his own and leans his head on Logan’s chest, slumping his weight against him. 

“I slept like shit last night,” he admits, and it’s easier with his eyes shut. “Without you.” 

Logan wraps his arms around Scott’s waist, holding him up. Scott feels the thrum of his chest as he makes a small, contemplative noise. He slips a hand under Scott’s t-shirt, splays it across the small of his back.

“Me too,” he says into Scott’s hair. He presses a kiss to the top of his head, quick and messy. 

Scott feels secure in his embrace, as cheesy as it is. He’s been aching for it since the moment they arrived, because it is comforting and quiet and safe. It feels like home.

Logan moves them over to the bed, somehow not letting go of Scott as he does. They end up on their sides and facing each other, knees bumping. 

Logan stares at him, because he still refuses to use his words. A dumb smile tugs at his lips. 

“You really can’t take a hint, huh?” he whispers. 

Scott opens his mouth, a retort at the ready, but Logan cuts him off by closing the small gap of space between them and kissing him. Scott lets him, lets himself get lost in it, the wet heat of Logan’s mouth, the soft scrape of his teeth. It makes his stomach swirl and jump with excitement, still, after all these years. 

He leans back just enough to breathe. He feels Logan grin against him. “You’re not sick of me yet?” he asks, letting all of the insecurity he’s been feeling the last several hours seep into his voice. 

“Not quite yet,” Logan teases, but his tone is warm, his eyes shining. 

Scott can’t help himself. He tips his head forward and kisses him again, though he manages to pull himself away after a few seconds. 

“Did Ororo tell you about London?”

Logan nods, his expression still delighted and full. “It’s a damn shame to see it come to an end, but it couldn’t last forever, huh?”

“I guess not,” Scott sighs. He drags a finger across Logan’s hip, up his side. “We did good, right?”

“We did great, Scotty,” Logan assures him. He’s still smiling, and Scott thinks that he’s just happy like this. 

“It wasn’t a total waste of time?”

“No, not a total waste,” Logan says. 

Scott feels it in his throat, the sticky admittance that’s been keeping him away all day. It claws its way into his mouth, wedges itself in between his teeth. He kisses Logan again in hopes of pushing it out, somehow. Of passing it onto him like a virus. 

He kisses Logan like he’s trying to bruise him; he digs his teeth into his bottom lip, and moves himself so he’s half on top of him. Logan makes a deep, hungry sound into his mouth, and Scott focuses on that, tries to drive it back into him. 

But Logan tears himself away, holding him carefully by the shoulders. “Hey, cool it. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Scott says, newly frustrated. He pushes forward and tries to get back into Logan’s space, but Logan keeps him in place. “I’m serious, I just — fuck, I’m — ”

“Scotty,” Logan interrupts, soft, worried. 

It hits Scott all at once, like a wave. He leans back on his elbows. He doesn’t notice he’s crying until it’s too late. Logan follows him, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t cry, come on,” Logan murmurs. He moves to brush away the tears on Scott’s cheek but Scott turns his head, overwhelmed. 

“I’m not trying to,” he complains, but it comes out funny and choked. “You make me so — I can’t stand you, you know. I really can’t.”

“I thought I didn’t do anything,” Logan says, slow and puzzled, attempting to tread lightly. 

“You’re just — fuck!” He sits up and buries his head in his hands. “I love you so much it’s killing me. I don’t know what the hell to do about it.”

There is a pause as his words sizzle in the night air. He can feel Logan’s eyes on him, his hand still clumsy and awkward on his arm. He wants to shrug him off but thinks it will only make things worse. 

“Did I hear you right?” Logan says. His fingers tighten around Scott’s bicep absentmindedly. 

“Please, don’t — ”

“You love me,” Logan taunts, mean and laughing, but it isn’t the tone Scott is expecting so he allows Logan to pull him back against his chest, settling his hands on Scott’s stomach. “Is that right?”

“I think I said something like that, yeah,” Scott admits, begrudgingly. “What about it?”

“It’s killing you,” Logan says, quieter, his mouth half-pressed into Scott’s neck. 

Scott swallows. He feels nervous and eighteen again. “Something like that.”

The room is heavy with anticipation, but other than that it is silent as Scott waits for Logan to say something. The air is lively and crackling, awaiting the shift. It isn’t monumental but there is a change; the tide coming in, the clouds parting. 

“That’s a shame,” he murmurs, and it hits Scott in the stomach, pointed and sharp. “Because, you know, I was countin’ on ya sticking around.”

“You’re terrible at this,” Scott says. 

“Quiet. I’m trying.”

Scott quiets. He lets Logan think. 

“I don’t want it if it hurts,” Logan says at last. 

Scott puts his hand over Logan’s. He feels raw and bloody like a baby bird. 

“Cause I do love you, Scotty,” and he closes his eyes again. He wants to hear Logan say those words every day for the rest of his life. “But I’m sick of hurting you.”

“You don’t,” Scott starts, and tries again when his throat tightens. “I hurt myself, thinking that you’re going to leave again. I’m sorry, Logan, I guess I just have to get used to it.”

Logan kisses his cheek, then just under his jaw, gentle, sweet. “That’s fine, I don’t mind. But I was serious about staying.”

“I know,” Scott says. He shifts so that he can look at Logan’s face, and finds him startlingly beautiful in the moonlight. “I trust you, I swear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You’re always worryin’ over nothing,” Logan sighs. He brushes Scott’s hair behind his ear, and Scott is thrown for a moment, still under his hand. 

He kisses Scott, careful and delicate like he’s really trying to say something. Scott listens. He thinks he gets it. He returns the sentiment, and braces himself against the mattress. 

“Do you really not know how crazy I am about you?” Logan rasps when they break away to breathe. 

Scott flushes. He feels uncouth, flayed open. “Tell me,” he says, and the words are river water over his tongue. 

“Remind me to, one day,” Logan promises, and Scott knows that he’ll be around to hold him to it. “Right now I just wanna look at you.”

Logan cradles Scott’s face in his hand, his thumb resting gently on the arm of his glasses. His expression is calm. Scott watches him, feeling vaguely exposed, even though they’re both still fully dressed. 

His eyes flit to Scott’s mouth for a brief second. Scott feels like his chest has been torn open. He is lying on the operating table, split. 

He thinks of the thousand and one miracles that have led them to this moment. Logan keeps looking at him with that earnest, serene joy in his eyes, and Scott is so stupidly in love with him that he’s going to choke on it. 

“So, you love me?” he repeats, because he wants to hear Logan say it over and over.

“I love you,” Logan nods, still smiling, even though his voice is stilted. 

“Well, that’s good,” Scott says. He lets a lazy grin spread across his face. “That’s fantastic, actually.”

Logan hums, cocky and pleased. “Glad to hear it.”

He kisses Scott. 

Scott thinks of the thousand and one miracles that led them to this moment; the second chance he was given, the new life he still managed to screw up somehow. He carries burdens he cannot bear to think about. He is stained; he is tired. 

Logan feels like home. Logan is home. Scott should have realized it earlier. 

Well, he thinks, hooking his leg around Logan’s in an attempt to get closer, I’ll have time. 

It is a thought that, at this point, sounds rather hysterical and desperate, even in his own head. He doesn’t know how much time Logan has left. It’s a waiting game. It is a cruel one. 

How can Scott ask him to stay when, one day, he might have to leave for good anyways. 

All Scott does is wait for Logan. He won’t wait for him to die. He’ll save him. He doesn’t know how, but Scott is pretty certain he’s going to save Logan. He thinks that is also something he should have done sooner. 

He hooks his fingers under the hem of Logan’s shirt, and his skin is cool, his eyes closed; he looks unbelievably happy. 

“Hey,” Scott whispers, hyper aware of the unlocked door, their friends down the hall. Laura is two hallways away. He feels dumb and giddy. 

It always sort of felt like that, with Logan, like each time was the first; it was always new and exciting. Having Logan in bed with him like this is just. Exciting. 

“Hm?”

“Hey,” he says again, tugging Logan’s t-shirt up a little more. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, always yeah,” Logan says. They detach from one another, only to pull the offending garment off and toss it on the floor. 

Scott puts his hand flat on the thin, baby pink line of skin on Logan’s stomach. The stitches fell out four days ago. Scott finds himself oddly attached to the spot, the evidence of his life-saving handiwork.  

“I’m not going to stop asking,” Scott says pointedly. 

He presses his palm further in. Logan inhales sharply, and Scott puts his lips to his neck, his jaw. He presses a kiss to the corner of Logan’s mouth and then pulls back, dipping his fingers into the waistband of Logan’s pajama pants. 

“Fine then. But — okay, I get it, pants off.”

“That’s the idea,” Scott mumbles, and he bites the meat of Logan’s shoulder, just because he can. 

He places a kiss over the spot, then repeats the process at the hollow of his throat. A weak point; Logan is baring his throat, and that is, of course, as familiar as anything else. Logan sticking his neck out. 

He hums, and Scott feels it in his teeth. 

Logan lets Scott drag his sweatpants down. He pulls his own shirt off and tosses it to the floor. He kicks his pants off, and they’re on equal ground again. He’s still hovering partially above Logan, only because he likes to look so much. He’s gotten made fun of for it in the past. He doesn’t care. 

He drinks it in, Logan under him, breathing heavy and looking mildly annoyed. Scott finds himself faltering, suddenly; he is temporarily thrown off kilter. 

He puts his hands on Logan’s shoulders. He pauses. He looks at Logan beneath him. 

“We don’t have to do this,” Logan says after another moment of Scott just staring at him. His voice is low like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. 

“I want to,” Scott says, relieved when his voice is void of tears. “I do. It’s just — God, Logan.”

He squeezes his fingers around Logan’s forearms, furrows his eyebrows. “You’re alive, and — and you shouldn’t be, and you’re here now — ”

“I’m here now,” Logan repeats. He sits up and is able to wrangle them both into an easier position, with Scott nearly sitting in his lap, Logan’s arms hooked snugly around his waist. Their faces are close; Scott shuts his eyes again. “I’m here and that’s all that matters, alright?”

“I never know when to stop worrying, you know?” Scott says, and he sounds mean and frustrated. He is well-versed in absolutely destroying the mood. “I’m always planning for the worst possible outcome. I’m always waiting for shit to hit the fan.”

“I know,” Logan says, confused. He cocks his head to the side. 

“I’m tired of it.”

“I know,” Logan repeats, because he always knows. Scott tips his forehead to Logan’s so he doesn’t have to see the smile he can hear in his voice. Logan tries to push him back, to get him to look. He takes his face roughly in between his hands.

“My bleedin’ heart,” he mumbles fondly, and Scott opens his eyes then, surprised, touched. Logan smirks as if that was the desired outcome, then brings him forward and kisses his forehead. 

He holds him there for a little while, dragging his hands up his back, kissing his chest and his collarbones, but otherwise just sitting. He lets Scott catch his breath and come to terms with his presence, real and whole and here. 

Scott feels himself sinking further into the embrace, settling his hands firmly on Logan’s shoulders, pressing forward. 

“I missed you so much,” Scott sighs, as if they haven’t spent the last five days together, as if Logan doesn’t know, because Logan has always known. “It made me stupid.”

Logan laughs, hushed. “I’m sure it did. Shit don’t change, huh?”

“Shut up,” Scott bites out, and he pokes at Logan’s chest, a hint. Logan leans back against the headboard and grins up at him. “What, you didn’t miss me?”

Logan keeps grinning. “Of course I did. Dummy. I just don’t gotta go around talkin’ about it all the time — ”

Scott makes a noise of hurt outrage, and shoves Logan down so he’s flat on his back. He braces his legs on either side of his thighs. He glares down at him but Logan doesn’t look like he’s lost; he’s still smiling, razorsharp, full of teeth and full of arrogance. Scott feels an age-old irritation bubble up in his stomach.

“I’m trying to be like, emotionally honest,” he starts, but stops when Logan rolls his eyes. “I am!”

“Yeah, that’s my guy,” Logan grumbles, but Scott is caught off guard by my guy, and he finds himself half-gawking at him. “Always so fuckin’ honest.”

“Well,” Scott says, and he stops to catch his breath when he sees that familiar hint of challenge in Logan’s expression; he’s been dared, he’s fallen into a trap. He pulls his mouth into a grin. “You do bring out the best in me.”

Logan snorts, and his face crumples into something atrociously affectionate, and then the tension dissipates but the feeling stays. 

Scott knows that it has never, actually, gone anywhere. 

“Tell me again,” he says, because he’ll pull it out of Logan until he stops having to pull. 

Logan rolls his eyes. “I love you,” he says, mocking; anxious. 

“You do, huh?” Scott asks, smiling, shaking his head. “Yeah, I thought so.” Logan rolls his eyes again. 

“I love you too. And you know that. You’ve known that, haven’t you?”

Logan’s face does something funny; he looks sad, for a moment, and Scott suddenly recalls another him in another world, still stubborn and rude but in mourning, able to reach out through the grief. He died too young, and what a shame that was. His grave was empty. 

Scott didn’t want to know, but he found out anyway. 

“Yeah. Was just waiting for you.”

Scott feels awful, hot and guilty, a fever-heat making him queasy. 

“I’m sick of that, too. Sick of waiting around, sittin’ on my hands,” Logan keeps going, because Scott has gone still above him. 

Sick of waiting. Sick of hurting. Logan is sick, plain and simple. And Scott is going to save him. 

“We’re not sitting around anymore,” Scott assures him. 

He settles himself down, his head pillowed on Logan’s bare chest, because it is early enough in the night and Scott is wide awake. They have time, like always. 

He says, “We carved out a little corner for ourselves. We built something.”

“We're still building,” Logan reminds him, and Scott knows that he’s right; they still have work to do. The walls need to be repainted, the carpet in Laura’s room is old and fraying. 

“We have to pack,” Scott groans, and Logan laughs at him. “Some of us have been living here since the nineties,” he scolds. 

He already knows that his closet is full of junk, boxes of old clothes, flyers and books and pictures. He would leave it if he could, because he is old, and still kind of a bitch. But he can’t. 

“I’ll help,” Logan says happily, running his fingers through Scott’s hair. He needs to cut it. Logan messes with it like it bothers him but Scott can’t tell if it’s an act or not. 

“No, you will not. I won’t get anything done.”

“Summers, you animal, you filthy — ”

“No!” Scott shrieks, and Logan covers his mouth with his hand, shaking underneath him with laughter. Scott yanks him away. “You’re insufferable. We argue. I can’t focus.”

“Awe,” Logan says, fake-touched, his voice sweet and syrupy with teasing. 

“I have to pack. You have to finish fixing my bike.”

“You haven’t put her back together yet?” he asks, horrified. 

Scott rolls his eyes, and Logan swats at his side. 

“Stop it. And no, I didn’t gut her and then leave her in the garage! That’s your responsibility!”

“She’s yours,” Logan says, and Scott locks away that phrasing for a later date, a slightly different argument. Logan pauses, regretting his words. 

“Fine. Then I’ll fix my bike, and I’ll pack. What are you gonna do?”

Logan shrugs. “I’ll be around.”

Scott smiles. He says, “Good,” then he turns and presses a kiss to the side of Logan’s ribs. The bruising has healed. His skeleton is in one piece again; he is whole for the time being. 

He shifts, moves himself further down. He leaves a kiss on the soft muscle of Logan’s stomach. Logan has his head tipped up towards the ceiling, eyes shut, soaking it in. Scott moves down again, presses his mouth to the scar, unable to leave it alone. 

Logan looks at him then, gaze heavy and hot like the summer; sticky, sweet. His hair looks silver and bright under the moon: it has been evened out on the sides, and his beard is fuller. He has grown out of his signature spiky silhouette. He is outrageously handsome to Scott no matter what.  

What a wonderful life, he rejoices, locking eyes with Logan. What a wonderful life that he doesn’t deserve. He should know by now, and he lets the truth settle over him as he slides down further, that things don’t happen because you deserve them. They just happen and you’re left to deal. 

Nothing’s ever fair — it just is. 

Scott has scars on his body that will never fade. He has wounds that healed funny; an odd lump of marred scar tissue on his calf, an old burn on his arm that is still shiny and smooth. He isn’t broken, but he is not quite whole. 

He has been lonely for a lot of his life, but he isn’t anymore, and he might be cocky but he doesn’t think he will be, ever again. His bed is full. Logan smells like soap and sandalwood — like the laundry detergent they use. 

So he has scars. Oh well. Life goes on. Life has gone on, and he’s better for it. 

“Quit teasin’,” Logan hisses, batting at Scott’s shoulder. Scott laughs, pressing his grin into Logan’s hip. 

Scott is old. Logan is older. It doesn’t matter. Scott really does think that they will have all the time in the world. 

—

Scott packs. He was right. It is awful. 

“How,” he huffs to himself, pulling another box out and setting it on his bed. “Where did this all come from?”

It’s full of books, the ones he had brought from home. Frankenstein sits at the top, as it always did, and he sees part of the cover of Catcher In the Rye, the spine of Clockwork Orange. Typical annoying teenage boy must-reads. Laura will like them. 

He moves the best ones to a different box, one that has things like his old jacket, old photos. He is trying to get rid of most of his old belongings but Laura has made him promise to let her pick through and take what she wants. Scott is fairly certain that she has permission to do that throughout the entire mansion. He has no idea how they are going to get home. 

After the books are clothes, some of them his, some of them Jean’s, some of them Logan’s, even: two white undershirts and a soft green flannel. 

He holds it, rubs it in between his fingers. It got lost somewhere in his room over the last fifteen years or so. Logan looks good in it. He’ll give it back. 

His get-rid-of pile gets put into a bigger box, and he leaves it at the foot of his bed, unsure of what to do with it. He kicks it. 

He doesn’t know what Laura will find, what she will decide to cherish. She picks up rocks and things to put on her desk; there had been an empty jar with holes punched into the lid in the kitchen, right next to the sink. 

Scott had made note of it, imagining her room filling with trinkets and posters and little pieces of herself. She has tacked up pages of her worn-out comics, and magazine clippings. 

She is blooming right before his eyes. 

There is a small velvet box behind a loose baseboard next to the leg of his bed frame. In it is a sensibly sized diamond on a delicate silver band with a small red ruby in the center. 

It did not belong to his mother. 

Jean would have loved it. 

He has regretted a lot over the years, and he regrets that a terrible amount, too; he wishes he could have given it to her, before they split. He’ll leave it so it can mean something else to someone else, one day, because he figures that is a nice enough thought. 

He and Jean shared this room a lifetime ago. It is bittersweet, in a way, to say goodbye to it, but he’s secretly and selfishly glad to be leaving it behind.

The house has started to feel stifling and suffocating; it is a graveyard of sorts. It’s seen too much; there is no way to fix what has been broken here. The only solution is to pass it on and move forward. 

That’s another thing too, on a long list of things — Ororo wants him to help in finding an organization that will buy the mansion. There have been a few offers made, but research has to be done, discussions must be had, endless decisions need to be made. Charles wants nothing to do with it, despite his signature being needed on several of the documents. 

It is an ordeal. 

Scott finishes packing in a little less than an hour. There isn’t as much as he would have thought, but he still fills up two boxes with stuff he wants to keep, and stuff he knows he should keep, even if he doesn’t want to. 

There are old papers to look over, and a stack of documents his parents had mailed to him a decade ago, things that should probably be sorted through and locked up somewhere. He is pretty sure his birth certificate can be considered a historical document. 

Mutant museums are rare and small, all self-funded and self-researched. He’s never been to one, but he looks at pictures online. Mostly it’s just his own dumb face looking back. 

There is a hole in the wall, a puncture wound (three of them, actually) just the height of Scott’s shoulder, next to his closet door. He runs a finger over it. It is ugly in the wood paneling. He wonders if it will be fixed, or preserved as some kind of abstract reminder of who lived here. 

He needs to get out of this room. 

He walks aimlessly for a few minutes, passing empty rooms and turning down the same hallways as if something new is going to appear. He passes Charles’ room and sees him sleeping, Logan also snoozing in the chair next to him. They had stayed up later than usual last night; Scott will forgive him. 

Laura is sitting at the foot of the bed, her cheek resting on her propped up knee. She flips through a magazine, bored and listless. She looks up at Scott through her hair when he moves into the doorway. 

“What’s up?” he asks, hushed. She shrugs. 

“Hey,” he says, getting an idea. “Wanna help me with something?”

He takes her to the garage where they sit on the floor while Scott puts the engine of his motorcycle back together. He has her hand him tools and tells her the name of each one when she does. She nods, studying them, committing each one to memory. 

“You know, I started doing this when I was a little bit older than you,” he says. “Needed something to keep my hands busy.”

He tightens a screw, then fits a cap into place. The satisfying click-snap settles over him like a security blanket. 

“Not much to do in Alaska,” he sighs, checking over his work. 

“Alaska,” she repeats, tone curious. Scott realizes she is asking a question. 

“I grew up there. Anchorage. It’s a big city, but — ”

He shrugs, and puts down the screwdriver. 

“ — never felt quite big enough.”

Laura nods. She picks up a socket wrench and fiddles with it, twisting it around in her fingers. 

“Not enough space,” she says quietly. “You can’t breathe, after awhile.”

Scott tries not to stare at her. He finds himself a little breathless; he swallows. “Yeah, exactly.”

She looks at him, shakes her head and says, “Not New Mexico. But Transigen was… small. Same rooms, every day. We didn’t go outside. There were no windows.”

Her voice is even and cool; she is calm, and unbothered. She shrugs one shoulder in a fluid, practiced motion. Scott thinks that this is a front. He knows when to look for walls going up. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, honest, open. 

She folds her hands into her lap. Her legs are crossed. She looks impossibly small and impossibly young. 

She fixes him with an odd, prying look. “I have a home now.”

Scott feels a wave of guilt crash over him as he realizes that this whole time, he’s been so caught up in whether or not Logan wants him there that he hasn’t even considered how Laura feels about the whole thing. He hasn’t asked her how she feels about him setting up shop in what is supposed to be her house. 

He is an idiot. He glances away. 

“I’m glad you have that now,” he says, attempting to keep his voice clear and level. “I should have asked you this earlier, but — Laura, would you be alright with me moving in?”

She is still looking at him, and her expression doesn’t shift, doesn’t turn into something angry or upset. She keeps her perfectly neutral eyes locked on him and she says, quietly and carefully, “He has nightmares when he is alone.”

Scott is silent. 

“He wants to deal with them alone, too. He is afraid of hurting me.”

Scott remembers waking up to the back of Laura’s head, how she had folded herself up to fit into the gap between him and Logan. 

“Are they bad?” he asks. 

Laura knits her eyebrows together, her mouth turning downwards for a moment. “He won’t talk. But yes. I think so.”

Logan has had nightmares in the past, of course, and Scott knows they aren’t good, but he thought they had gone away by now. Logan should have told him. He should have asked. 

Laura looks uncomfortable, almost, hunching down even more. Her face is pulled into a scowl, her eyes not looking at his anymore. She is defensive; she thinks Scott is angry. 

“I used to have bad dreams, too,” Scott says, because Laura offered something up, and he figures it’s only good manners to give her something in return. 

He rests his fingers in the ridges of the engine base. “When I first moved here. The mansion was so… empty back then, like it is now. I wish you could have seen the school when it really got going. It was incredible.”

He laughs and shakes his head, looking down. Laura’s eyes have gone soft. She has a small smile on her face. 

“It’s okay to be scared sometimes,” he says. “You just have to find something that makes you feel safe.”

Laura looks at her hands then, only for a second, considering. 

“He makes me feel safe,” says Laura, very delicately, like she’s cupping water in her palms. 

“Good,” Scott rasps out, eyes suddenly blurry, “That’s good.”

“You make him feel safe,” she says. 

Scott feels his face warm. He shakes his head again. “He doesn’t need — that’s sweet, but I doubt it.”

Laura frowns. “He doesn’t shout, when you’re there. He doesn’t wake up yelling.”

Scott swallows. He can’t argue with her. She has the advantage. He wipes his hands on his jeans. 

She keeps looking at him, and her eyes have widened, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead. She is, again, asking a question. 

“He does,” Scott says, his voice thin, strained. 

She nods. “Good.”

They sit there in silence for a long time. Scott thinks he should ask her something — what, though, he doesn’t know. Scott thinks that he should say something inspirational, meaningful, even just kind, but his mind is blank, still nervously scrambling for purchase. 

Laura finally turns her head towards the partially-disassembled engine and refolds her hands in her lap. 

“What do you have to do next?” she asks, focused and listening. 

Scott breathes out a disbelieving laugh. He picks up a piston. She beams at him, and he smiles back.

—

Scott spends most of the next day watching Logan nervously watch Bobby freeze the fountain over so Laura can slide around on it. She’s being semi-swallowed by the leather jacket Logan had shoved over her shoulders, telling her it was too cold to go outside without it even though she had argued that she can’t even get a cold. 

He had ignored her. 

It’s his jacket, an old one, with cracking yellow detailing on the arms. It makes her look tiny, but it also makes her look even more like Logan. 

“Logan,” Scott says, setting down a mug of tea in front of him. “It’s not like she can really get hurt. Relax.”

Logan glares down at the mug, then up at Scott. “Do you hear yourself, when you talk?”

Scott rolls his eyes. Logan presses his fingers against the mug, even though Scott knows it is piping hot to the touch. He doesn’t seem to mind. 

“When’s the last time you showered? Without my help?”

He drops his voice, cracks a grin, just so Logan will stop looking out the window, to make sure Bobby doesn’t somehow kill his unkillable daughter. 

It works. He looks up at Scott, smiling, annoyed. He reaches out and pulls at the hem of Scott’s t-shirt, then pulls his hand away just as fast. 

“Your stuff is in my room,” Scott presses on, and he leans forward to poke at Logan’s shoulder. He drops his hand after. “Go. She’ll be fine.”

Logan stands up from the kitchen table and throws one last worried glance out the window. Laura is pushing herself in a steady circle around the perimeter of the fountain, face hard and determined. Bobby is off to the side, laughing. 

Logan trudges off to Scott’s room to shower. Scott picks up his cup from the table, now warm enough to not burn. It’s Earl Grey, and the smell reminds him of life at the mansion in general. He had only made it because Logan had looked so nervous, sitting at the table; it had been something to do with his hands. 

Scott takes it to Charles. 

The Professor is reading a book, big and old with a cracked spine. He sets it down when Scott comes in, and takes the mug from him. 

“That’s quite nice of you, Scott,” he says pleasantly. Scott sits down in the chair next to his bed. 

“I hope you like it in London,” he says, cutting to the chase. He’s never offered Charles enough outward niceties, at least not to his face. It won’t hurt to start. 

Charles nods, and his face is calm, happy. “I think I will. The last time I was there I was a much younger man. I was very lonely.”

Scott thinks this over. Charles lets him. 

“Are you still?”

A slow smile spreads over Charles’ face then, and he leans back against his pillow, closing his eyes. The light coming in through the window is a silvery-white, offset by the warm glow of the lamp, still on the dresser. 

“No. I predict my time in London will be delightful.” 

Scott smiles. London is a long way from home. He knows it will treat them well. 

Charles doesn’t let a second pass before he blankly says, “His nightmares are getting worse.”

Scott stops smiling. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he says, and he sounds immature, even to himself. “Come on. What do you want me to say?”

“She has them too,” Charles says, ignoring him. “Did you know that? She says that people hurt her.”

He feels terrible: his stomach hurts, his palms sweat. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Charles says, voice suddenly light, though Scott would almost dare to say sarcastic. “She says she didn’t have one the entire time you were there.”

Scott keeps his eyes glued to his lap. 

“Isn’t that something?” Charles muses. 

“What are you doing?” Scott says. 

“You can never quite fill in the last blank, can you?” Charles says mildly, and Scott reels back, offended. “Your time in New Mexico isn’t going to be lonely. You’re wanted there. Needed, even.”

“I know that,” Scott says, stunned into honesty.

Charles squints at him, and Scott feels a familiar pull-tug at the back of his mind. He allows it, confused. 

“Yes,” Charles says, “I suppose you do.”

“Yeah, well,” Scott says suddenly, standing up, “I think Storm had something for me to look at.”

Charles nods knowingly. “Good luck with all of that.”

Scott opens his mouth to ask him something, but he is waved off. 

“I think I’ll try to sleep for a bit. Thank you again for the tea.”

Scott grumbles, but sees himself out. He makes his way to Storm’s office. 

—

“Oh, come on,” Scott says, eyes re-reading the names again and again. 

Ororo bites her lip. “It’s just an appointment.”

“Yeah,” Scott rolls his eyes, and Ororo frowns, “But do we have any other appointments?”

“No one else has enough money,” she says, exasperated. “Alright? I don’t know why they want to buy — I would love to think that it’s simply business, and nothing else — but their offer is the only one that we can afford to consider.” 

He looks at the paper again. He shuts his eyes. Scott takes a very deep breath.

“Have you told Logan?” 

Ororo says nothing. Scott waits for her to answer. She doesn’t. 

“Oh, come on.”

—

Logan looks at him. He looks at him for a long silent while. 

“Is it just those two?”

Scott nods. 

Logan keeps looking at him, but Scott can tell he’s not really looking at him. He’s thinking.

“Why not?” Logan huffs. He sounds borderline amused. “It’s been a long time. Why not?”

He smiles at Scott, then his face drops into a scowl, and he glances at the door. 

“Hold on,” he says. He pushes himself up from where he’s leaning against Scott’s dresser. He goes over to the door, opens it, finds Laura sitting crossed legged and looking up at him. 

“Who is coming?” she asks. 

“It’s a surprise,” Logan tries.

Laura frowns. “I don’t like surprises anymore.”

Logan looks back at Scott, like he’s supposed to know what to do. He shrugs, useless. 

“Sorry, kiddo. What happened with the fountain?”

“Got bored. Bobby and Jubilee went to the store.”

Logan nods. “You didn’t go with them?”

Laura shakes her head, and she stands up. She leans against the door frame, and it makes Scott smile, because she looks exactly like Logan now, the jacket still hanging on her skinny frame, her forced-casual posture. It is ridiculously, beautifully endearing.

“Charles and I are going to watch a movie,” she says, excitedly. 

Logan grins. “Shoulda guessed. What movie?”

—

By the time Charles and Laura get settled in the rec room with their movie, it is past dinnertime. Bobby and Jubilee have come back from the store, but everyone has sequestered themselves in a bedroom, the gloomy weather doing little to help in lightening the mood of the house. 

Scott sets a pot of water to boil on the stove. He had dug out some pasta from a cupboard, and Logan had grunted in nonchalant agreement when he held the box up. 

He comes up behind Scott now, circling his arms around his waist, pressing his chest to his back. 

“Hey there,” Scott says quietly. He smiles. 

Logan just hums. He kisses Scott’s cheek. 

“What do you want?” Scott pretends to nag, reaching for the salt. He sprinkles some in the water, and watches it sink to the bottom.

Logan laughs, breath warm against Scott’s neck. “I like watching you cook, what can I say?”

Scott can’t come up with much of a response past turning around and kissing Logan, so that’s what he does. It is a relief to be able to do something with the nerves that accompany his taunting sweet talk. 

It is dark outside. The kitchen is dim. Scott threads a hand through Logan’s hair, and Logan tightens his hold on his waist. Scott sighs, calming down, getting his bearings. 

“You with me?” Logan murmurs. 

Scott pulls back, barely an inch, and tilts his head to the side. “Yeah,” he grins, but his voice is soft. “I’m with you.”

Behind them, the stove hisses as water boils over the edge of the pot. Scott attempts to turn around, alarmed, but Logan tugs at his belt loop, distracting. 

Scott smacks his hand away. “Fuck off,” he says lightly, turning down the heat. He pours the pasta in, measuring by instinct. 

Logan laughs, and the sound tucks itself under Scott’s ribs, warming his insides. 

After they eat dinner, Scott makes Logan leave to get ready for bed while he cleans up. He bitches and moans but he goes and does it anyway, because Scott has learned over the years how to get him to listen even if he is a jerk about it. 

Their dinner dishes are washed and dried quickly. He wipes down the stove. He leans against the counter and thinks that this was probably the last time he will have dinner alone with Logan in this kitchen. He bites his cheek. He turns off the light and goes to his room. 

He makes a brief stop in the rec room, lingering in the doorway. The Professor appears to be dozing off, but Laura is wide awake, enraptured by the movie playing on the large television. Her face is lit up by its soft glow, her eyes wide. 

“A man has to be what he is, Joey,” Alan Ladd says on screen. Scott finds himself temporarily frozen in place. “You can’t break the mold. I tried it and it didn’t work for me.”

He feels his breath hitch. Laura’s face remains steady and open. 

“There’s no living with a killing. There’s no going back from it. It’s a brand, a brand that sticks.”

Scott turns and leaves the room. 

He climbs into his bed and listens to the quiet sounds of Logan moving around in the bathroom. He waits for him to settle in behind him. He stretches his hand over the one Logan has on his stomach, feeling the hard metal under his skin, his knuckles, the barely-there scars in between each one. 

He listens to Logan fall asleep. He stays awake for some time after he does, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest against his back. He watches the minutes pass on his clock. 

He thinks about Logan’s hands, bloody and ruined. He thinks about the little house with the red door in New Mexico. He thinks about the things they have both had to do in order to get to this point. 

Scott focuses again on Logan’s breathing, and closes his eyes. 

—

At two-thirty p.m. on the dot, Scott opens the front door of the mansion to find Captain America and Captain America standing on the stoop. 

Steve looks the same, because he always looks the same, though Scott could swear there is a glint of silver in his blond. Sam also looks relatively unchanged, save the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he grins. 

He is the first to extend his hand. Scott looks at it and swallows his pride only because he does not feel like being scolded for not playing nice. He takes it, gives it one firm shake. 

“Summers,” Sam greets, nodding his head. 

“Sam,” Scott nods back, “Steve.”

“Hi, Scott,” Steve says, a polite smile on his face, his handshake also polite and neat. Scott thinks, still a prick, then manages to pull his mouth into something like a smile. 

“Come on in.”

Scott leads them silently, awkwardly, to the Professor’s office. He is in his wheelchair today; Hank says he’s improving, but to be careful about getting their hopes up. 

“Mr. Wilson, Mr. Rogers,” Charles calls when they walk in, wheeling up to them from behind his desk. 

“Professor,” Steve says with the same polite smile he’d given Scott. He shakes his hand. 

“So, it seems as if you’re in the business of buying my house,” Charles says, but he has a smile on his face, and his tone is light. 

Steve chuckles, then hunches his shoulders in a what are you gonna do? sort of way. Next to him, Sam bites back a laugh. Scott tries to keep himself from frowning.

“We’re glad to have you. Now, gentlemen, if you’ll follow me, I do believe there are some extra additions to the house that were not on the listing.”

Sam makes a curious face. He shifts his eyes over to Steve, who shrugs, equally puzzled. 

The whole thing ends up being pleasantly civilized. The paperwork gets signed, a check is written. There are some scheduling issues, an odd technicality due to the nature of the work Hank has been doing in his lab — he has to to stay until he gets to a stopping point with the serum, and there are all these forms he has to get approved by his supervisors, and Scott is thankful he never really delved into the diplomacy side of things like Hank had always tried to get him to — but Steve says they probably won’t need to make use of the mansion for a while. 

“We’re trying to relocate out of the city,” he explains. “But there’s all this overhead that needs to be done. That’s his job, though,” he jokes, and jerks his thumb in Sam’s direction. 

“Yeah, you just write the checks and look pretty,” Sam replies easily. Steve laughs. 

They’ve been lingering in the front hallway for ten minutes now, making easy conversation with Scott but mostly with each other. Steve is trying so hard to be casual about the whole thing that Scott can’t even find it in him to try and stay annoyed. It has been a long time.  

Scott also figures that Steve is waiting around to say hi to Logan, because he is stubborn. 

And because Logan has historically had terribly perfect timing, they are interrupted by the rumble of arguing voices, quickly approaching them. Scott makes out a few words of fast, angry Spanish, and he freezes because he has no idea what he is supposed to do. 

“Is everything alright?” Sam asks, and Scott doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t actually know. 

Laura rounds the corner sprinting. Steve instantly shifts into a defensive stance, but Scott holds his arms out and tries to get both of them to stop. 

“Hey!” Logan shouts, coming around the turn shortly after, furious and cursing. 

Laura skids to a halt in front of them. She blows a piece of hair away from her face. 

“Laura,” Logan scolds, but he pauses when he sees Steve and Sam, looking between him and Laura with matching bewildered expressions. He drops his voice and, again, says, “Laura,” reaching forward to grab her shoulder. She shrugs him off. 

“Hello,” she says confidently, tipping her head forward in an almost-salute. 

Steve relaxes. He glances at Logan again. “Hello,” he says back, uneasy. 

“You are part of the Avengers,” she informs them. She sounds mildly amazed as she says it. 

Sam smiles, brilliant and charming, shrugs his shoulders and says, “Guilty.”

“It’s good to see you, fellas,” Logan says, quickly shaking both of their hands. He looks at Scott for a second, and Scott tries to radiate calm down in his general direction. 

Logan makes an abortive, awkward gesture towards Laura, who is still staring up at Steve and Sam. “This is my uh — this is Laura, my… my daughter.”

Sam makes an appreciative, mildly surprised face, nodding thoughtfully. Steve’s eyes turn into saucers and he gazes at Laura, slack jawed. 

“Well, hi, Laura,” he says, his face splitting into a grin. “I’m Steve Rogers. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

She squints at him for a short, quiet second, then straightens her shoulders and says, “Your comics aren’t very good.”

Sam throws his head back to laugh, loud and delighted, and Steve grins even wider. Logan pokes Laura’s shoulder and frowns at her when she looks up at him, but she just makes an angry face back. Scott tries to discreetly step closer to Logan. 

Their shoulders brush, and he sees Logan glance at him out of the corner of his eye. 

He slowly turns his hand so he can slide his palm against Logan’s and interlock their fingers. Logan doesn’t look at him but Scott sees his mouth tick up into a small smile. 

He squeezes Logan’s hand, once. Logan squeezes back. 

—

Once everything is settled and in order, and once Steve and Sam wave their final goodbyes and drive away in their obscenely nice car, Scott finds himself drawn to the empty office on the upper floor, the one that Erik had used on the rare occasion he stayed over for more than an hour. 

It’s been more than that, over the years; Scott and Ororo would lean out of the window and sneak cigarettes as rebellious, moody twenty year olds, and he’s been dragged in there to get yelled at and has also dragged people in there to yell at them. It is a very versatile room. It has been standing empty for a few years now. 

He opens the door and startles when he sees Storm and Jean, Storm with her legs propped up on the old desk, and Jean leaning against the windowsill. They both look over at him, and Jean smiles, triumphant. 

“You can just ask me things sometimes, you know,” Scott tells her, closing the door behind him. 

“That’s not as fun,” Jean explains, tone detached like she’s said it a hundred times before. She has. 

“What are you guys doing in here?” he asks, walking over to perch on the edge of the desk. 

Storm shrugs. “The three of us haven’t talked in awhile. I wanted to get the band back together.”

Scott rolls his eyes, but he smiles too because being in here with the two of them makes him feel stupid and young again. 

“Is this an ambush?”

Jean laughs, and Storm brings her legs down to lean forward and say, “Not everyone wants to talk about Logan all the time.” 

Scott sputters, outraged. 

“I wanted to see how my friends are doing,” she adds. 

“I call bullshit,” Scott argues. Ororo scowls at him. 

Jean crosses her arms over her chest, fed up. “Did Sam and Steve say why they were buying the house?” she asks. 

“They’re relocating, apparently. It might take a few years, though, and Hank has to finish his research first.” 

Jean nods, contemplating. 

“Seems like everybody is moving all of a sudden,” she says, and her eyes are half-shut in a way that Scott knows means she’s really thinking about something else. 

“Times are changing,” Ororo sighs, and Scott shakes his head. 

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” he says bitterly. 

“Oh, come on, Scott,” she says. She leans her elbow on the desk. “You don’t think anything has changed?”

“I’m not sure that anything has changed for the better,” he says, but then he remembers the grass stains on Laura’s jeans, and knows that he is wrong. “I’m not sure that the world is changing for the better.”

“Well,” Jean says, suddenly sure and alert. “We have people to help it along, don’t we?”

Scott and Ororo let her words sink into the air for a moment. The world isn’t as defenseless as it once was — a lot of people have spent a lot of time making sure of that — and it certainly won’t miss a couple of its oldest heroes. 

“When do you guys think you’ll be ready to leave?” Scott asks after another couple of seconds. 

“Within the month, I imagine. We’re leaving the library — there’s nowhere else in the world we could find that would fit all of his books,” she says, and Jean and Scott laugh. “And we have to get the Danger Room and Cerebro into sleep mode. It’ll be annoying but,” she shrugs, and something sad fills her features, “we’ll be out of here soon.”

In a month the mansion will be the emptiest it has been in fifty years. 

For a disorienting second, a different image overlays his vision: the same room but fifteen years ago, and something in him tells him that they all need to find a way to save the mansion, save the team, rescue the Professor. Because this is what they do in times of crisis: they shut themselves away in a room and come up with a game plan. 

That’s why they’re here, now. This is what they do when things feel scary. 

“Are you guys worried? About — about moving away?” Scott asks, because even if he is alone in his feelings he knows that they will try to comfort him. 

But Ororo nods, and Jean says, “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing if I’m not teaching.”

“It’s going to be so strange,” Ororo agrees. “Not living here with everybody. Not working here. I won’t know what to do with myself.”

“I’m afraid that I’m going to mess up,” Scott says quietly, and Jean gives him a sad look. “I don’t know. I can’t stop worrying about it.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ororo says softly. “Looking after students is one thing, but raising a kid is… daunting, isn’t it?”

Scott nods. 

The three of them manage to hide out in the office for another hour before Kitty finds them, rapping her knuckles on the door and telling them that everybody is having dinner together whether they like it or not. 

Ororo keeps Scott behind when Jean moves to open the door, her fingers resting lightly on his arm. 

“You’re going to be a good dad,” she says, genuine and warm. She smiles. 

“I’m going to try,” he promises, and returns her smile. 

“Hey,” Kitty says, poking her head into the room. “Let’s go. Family dinner.”

She makes her teacher face at them. They glance at each other, a reflex like any other, and Storm hooks her arm around Scott’s. 

“Yeah,” she says, and her face is glowing, lit up with her grin, and Scott wonders how he ever got lucky enough to have her as his best friend. “Let’s go.”

—

Scott wakes up the next morning and sees Logan next to him, his face half-mashed against the pillow, snoring like he doesn’t know it drives Scott crazy, one of his arms thrown across Scott’s waist. 

He smiles. He drags a finger along the line of Logan’s jaw, across the high point of his cheekbone. He shifts and presses a light kiss to his forehead. 

Next to him, Logan mumbles in his sleep, and tightens his hold on Scott. 

—

“Professor,” Scott says quietly, setting the glass of water down on the bedside table. “Professor, it’s time for your medication.”

Charles stirs, shifting uneasily in his bed. Scott starts on opening up the bottles, getting the pills out, trying to remember the dosage of each and how many he’s supposed to give. 

As Charles wakes up, he keeps shifting his eyes over to Scott, around the room, at the medicine and the heart monitor and Laura’s sketchbook resting at the foot of his bed. She’s eating breakfast right now, and it was the same ordeal it was the previous morning, trying to get her up and out of Charles’ room. 

Scott is pretty sure she thinks she’s healing him. He is also pretty sure that she is. 

Charles looks at him, eyes cloudy and scared, and Scott lets him poke and prod at his mind until he feels him leave. 

“Is everything alright?” he asks carefully, being sure to keep his voice calm and even. 

Charles frowns. He makes a noise like he’s trying to say who — but he stops himself, or can’t find the energy to. 

“I’m Scott Summers, sir. I have to give you your medication now.”

There is an uneasy moment where Charles continues to stare at Scott, unblinking, face blank, not saying anything. Scott swallows, nervous: sick to his stomach with it. 

Charles’ face clears slightly, and he laughs, but it sounds choked off and dry. Scott tries to hand him the water but he waves it away. 

“Of course I know who you are, Scott,” Charles says. He looks wearily at the pills. 

Scott presses the pills into his palm, then puts the glass in the other, and tries to give the Professor his best everything is totally fine smile. 

“Of course.” He resists the urge to run from the room. “Take those, or Hank and Logan will have my ass. Do you need anything else?”

—

“It’s almost been a week,” Scott says. Logan and Laura both ignore him. Charles sleeps next to them, because that’s all he seems to do these days. Scott reminds himself to talk to Hank about the serum not making him so drowsy. 

“The groceries will spoil,” he tries. 

He sees Laura shift her eyes over to Logan, who glances back at her. They exchange a complex series of looks and eyebrows quirks, and Scott finds himself lost, unfamiliar with their odd, silent conversation patterns. 

“Stop doing that. Charles is getting better, guys. We can go home.”

Laura furrows her brows and turns her mouth downwards to scowl at him, but Logan still looks over his shoulder at Scott leaning in the doorway. 

“You wanna drive?” he asks, and Scott rolls his eyes. 

“Have you talked to Hank lately? The guy is still crazy about planes.”

Logan gives him a puzzled look. Laura perks up. Scott smiles. 

“Fixes them up in his spare time and everything. You know, no one has ever actually been able to detect it.”

Laura practically leaps over Logan. She climbs off of the bed and runs over to Scott. She grabs the sleeve of his jacket, and tugs. Logan pinches the bridge of his nose for a second before getting up from his chair, attempting to detach her from Scott. 

Scott just crouches down, tips his head towards her and drops his voice to a murmur. “Do you want to see something really, really cool?” 

Laura nods, her face deadly serious. 

“You are a terrible influence,” Logan says, then pauses and frowns. “I can’t believe I’m saying that. Fuck.”

Scott makes an affronted, disapproving face, and Laura says, “Language.”

Scott holds his hand up, and she smacks it in a high-five, and Logan groans. 

—

The pilot’s seat buckle doesn’t quite fit over Laura’s shoulders, but she lets it slip down her arms as she pretends to steer. Logan sits in the co-pilot chair, Scott leaning his arm on the back of it. 

Ororo is somewhere behind them, and Scott is pretty certain she’s taking pictures with her phone, and he thinks that they should hang some up at home. The walls in the living room are still bare. 

—

They leave just as the sky is beginning to darken; dusk dusts the open airway in a pink haze. Laura has a stack of boxes in her arms, and two duffel bags over her shoulders, and Jubilee is helping her stow them before she tips over. 

Scott tries his best not to cry, which is hard because everybody else is also trying not to cry but doing a terrible job. Jean stands in between him and Logan, her hands tucked into Scott’s elbow and resting on his arm. She does not cry but her eyes stay wide and shiny throughout. 

Charles watches it all happen quietly from his chair. He seems to be trying his best to remember it as it’s happening. 

Rogue hugs Scott, and then Kitty hugs him, and then Rogue hugs him again because she is still crying and he lets her get the sleeve of his shirt wet.  

“Send me pictures,” she says, and Scott smiles. “I’m serious. A thousand a day, I don’t care, I want — ”

“Marie,” Logan says next to him, and she turns away from Scott. “C’mere, kid,” he says gently, and Marie throws her arms around him, and Scott looks away to give them a moment. 

He turns to Kurt, who has been huffing and puffing off to the side since they asked him to do the drop-off this morning. 

“Thanks again for doing this,” Scott says, and Kurt shrugs one shoulder, mumbles something in German. 

“Why did we never find another teleporter?” he muses, and Scott laughs, shrugs. 

“I guess you’re one of a kind,” he says. Kurt rolls his eyes. 

“Always the charmer, yeah? Always with the flirting.”

Scott laughs again, and gives Kurt his cheesiest grin, and says, “I mean, can you blame me?”

Kurt laughs and shakes his head fondly, slapping Scott on the shoulder. Scott laughs along with him and he ignores the put-out look Logan gives them.

He watches Bobby and Piotr have a secret-whisper conversation with Logan away from the rest of them. He knows that the covert-ness will be gone soon enough, because Logan has never had the head for strat that Scott does. 

Jubilee scoops Scott up into a hug, squeezing him tight and laughing wetly against his cheek. Scott knows that she has always felt a little out of place, being younger than the others and having joined the team later, but he also likes to think that she has found her own place among them over the years. 

“I hope you spoil her rotten,” she says, grinning, her nose red and runny. “She deserves it. I hope she grows up to be the biggest brat alive.”

“I can name about five other kids who have already got her beat,” he says easily, and fails to dodge her as she punches his shoulder. 

She pushes him back lightly. He suddenly becomes very nervous, and hesitates before saying, “If anything ever comes up, you know, or if you think — ”

“Scott,” Jubilee says. 

He realizes that she is an adult, and she has been for a while now, and none of them need him anymore. Neither does the world, really, but there are still people who do. 

“I think we can handle ourselves. You know, there are a lot more heroes out there these days. It doesn’t all fall on us anymore.”

Scott’s first instinct is to tell her that it still does, because they have to look out for themselves, because all those other guys think they’re nothing but muscle that can be thrown out after use. 

But that’s not what a good teacher would say, and it’s not true anymore. 

He tries to smile. He nods. Logan comes and slings an arm around Jubilee’s shoulders, pulling her into his side, and she yelps in delighted surprise. 

—

Bernalillo looks even smaller from above. Kurt poofs them in, then poofs out without saying goodbye, because he is still kind of bitter but mostly because he doesn’t want to leave Storm out in the air alone for too long. 

Logan and Laura put her boxes in her room, and Scott checks the fridge, relieved to find that none of the food has spoiled in their absence. 

The sheets on the bed are rumpled and thrown about. Scott knows he should at least try to fix it. But Logan walks in, and comes up next to where Scott is dejectedly staring at the blankets. 

He puts his arm around Scott’s shoulder. “You can keep playing house tomorrow,” he says gently, “I’m pretty beat, though.”

He drags his fingers along Scott’s bicep, and Scott doesn’t have to look at him to know that there’s a self-satisfied grin on his face as he says, “Let’s go to bed.”

—

Scott sends Marie pictures of Laura reading in the backyard and Laura making dinner with Logan and Laura drawing in the living room. He sends her pictures of the three of them grocery shopping and going to the park. 

He even sends her pictures of just Logan sometimes, pictures of him asleep on the couch with his mouth open like a real dad, pictures of him caught off-guard, coming in from the garage with grease on his face. 

She responds to each one with the same ecstatic enthusiasm, and in turns sends him snapshots of their packing efforts around the mansion. One day she sends a picture of Piotr with his hand through the wall. Scott is very glad that he is not there. 

Jean mails him a few copies of old photos on request, and he gets them framed, puts them up around the house. 

He hangs a photo of the four of them — him and Jean and Ororo and Logan, looking especially sharp right before a press conference — above the sink so that he can look at it while he’s doing the dishes. 

In it, he tries to fix Logan’s tie, and Jean says something to Ororo that makes her throw her head back and laugh. 

It is his favorite photo in the world. 

—

Scott does end up getting a job in town fixing engines. He gets hired to be the “on-call” mechanic, but between the lone secretary who had sounded equally suspicious and excited when he called and the completely full garage, he doesn’t suspect his hours are in danger of being cut down the line. 

The man who interviews him is named Joe. Scott assumes that he is the very same Joe the sign out front claims owns the shop, but he doesn’t ask. 

Joe doesn’t do much but glance at his résumé and give him a puzzled look. 

“So, what, you retired from teaching just to start workin’ again?”

“I taught a shop class for over twenty years,” Scott explains. “I’ve been working on cars since I was fourteen. I need something to do all day.”

Joe chuckles, then nods, and Scott exhales. 

Scott is fairly certain that the secretary — who has long, shiny pink nails and tells him that her name is Marla with a brilliantly white smile — knows who he is, but she only winks knowingly at him as she says, “We’re happy to have you on board, Mr. Summers.”

He tries to return her smile and makes a hasty exit. He briefly wonders how angry Logan would be if he told them they needed to move, but then he thinks that if a secretary in a one-man mechanic shop is their downfall then maybe they deserve it. 

On his drive home, he passes a florist. The only casualty of their spontaneous trip home was the lilies, which had been wilted and shriveled when they got back. 

He stops in and buys Logan a dozen red roses just to be an asshole, and because he doubts anyone has ever bought Logan a dozen red roses and he wants to be the first. 

He pulls into the garage, fully prepared to gloat about his sweeping romantic gesture. But when he goes inside he finds Logan standing in the living room sheepishly holding a bunch of dirty, crumpled wildflowers. 

“Laura found ‘em in the backyard,” he starts to explain, but stops when he sees the bouquet hanging from Scott’s fingers. 

His expression turns smug and thrilled instantly. Scott wants to roll his eyes, but he also wants to throw the roses on the ground and run out the door. 

He doesn’t get the chance to do either before Logan is saying, “Are those for me?” and walking over to him to hook an arm around his waist and pull him into a kiss. 

He drops the flowers in his hand, and Scott pulls back to smack his shoulder. 

“Don’t drop my flowers,” he gripes, and shakes the roses he’s still holding to demonstrate how easy it is to keep hold of a bouquet while kissing your stupid boyfriend. 

Logan tells him to shut up, and kisses him again. 

—

A little less than a month after they leave the mansion, Storm texts him to tell him that they’re settling into London well, and she hopes the three of them can come visit soon. Attached to the text is a picture. 

It’s Jean, her arms braced against the railing of a balcony. She's wearing a knit black sweater and jeans. Her hair is in a smooth ponytail. Her eyes are bright, her mouth open, mid-laugh. She’s looking not at the camera but at the person behind it. Scott smiles, his heart swelling in his chest. 

He leans across the couch and shows Logan, who grabs the phone out of his hand to squint at. His eyes get big and wide and lovestruck, and Scott laughs, because Jean just kind of has that effect on the both of them.

—

Charles gets better and Charles gets worse. Hank fixes up his memory to the best of his abilities; he invents some sort of neuron physical therapy regimen to help keep him running smoothly. 

But his heart gets weaker and weaker as time goes on. His lungs struggle to draw in air and he sounds so tired whenever Scott speaks to him on the phone, no matter what time it is in London. 

Laura sends him postcards and drawings and real, handwritten letters. Logan talks to him for hours on end, mostly about what Laura is up to, about how she’s getting taller by the second and about how Logan is terrified of her growing up. Charles gives him endless, timeless advice, and Logan listens as well as Logan can listen to anybody. 

Jean tells Scott that living with Hank makes her feel like a teenager again. Ororo tells him that he snores just as loud as he used to. Hank is as professional and polite as usual, but even he sounds lighter these days, and Scott takes the time to consider how different and stressful life as the Secretary of Mutant Affairs must have been. 

He knows that Charles is in pain but he selfishly hopes he hangs on as long as possible. Things are finally starting to settle; he isn’t sure he could handle another life-changing course of events. 

Charles lives, and Scott calls him twice a week, and life marches on.

—

Laura reads; Laura writes stories; Laura draws comics. 

She likes to watch movies even though Scott and Logan can never agree on what to put on. 

She begs and begs Scott to teach her how to fight in the backyard, and he knows soon enough that they will have to come to a compromise. 

Laura loves music, so Scott gives her all of his old CDs and spends a long while sitting on her bedroom floor and sorting through the memories. 

He picks up a plastic case, smiling at the scrawled handwriting on the homemade cover. He hands it to her. 

“Jean made me this,” he explains, and she nods seriously, eyes raking over the tracklist on the back. “It must be twenty years old.”

Laura hums in consideration before putting it in the keep pile. 

She likes his oldest CDs the best, the ones he bought in high school and hid under his mattress. She displays them proudly on the shelf Logan built for her. He almost bursts into tears every time he walks into her room. 

Laura falls in love with the world and Scott and Logan are the only ones around to see it. 

“She needs friends,” Scott argues for the hundredth time. “She needs to go to school.”

“She can’t,” Logan insists, also for the hundredth time. “She’s fine here. She’s safe here. She’ll be alright.” 

Scott sighs. He runs a hand through his hair, then through Logan’s, and he lets it go for the time being. 

—

“I should write a book,” Logan says to the ceiling one night while Scott is trying to read the fourth draft of the Mutant Rights Act Hank has been working on. 

“No, you shouldn’t,” Scott says easily. He closes his eyes for a second as pain pulses through his head. 

“No, I shouldn’t,” Logan agrees. 

A few minutes pass in silence. 

Then, he says, “Storm should write a book.”

Scott looks at him in surprised agreement, but another surge of pain shoots through his skull and he grits his teeth. 

“Told you to stop fuckin’ reading in bed,” Logan grumbles. 

He reaches over and pulls the giant booklet out of Scott’s hands, then places it on the floor. He turns off his bedside lamp. 

“Lay down, Scotty, come on. How bad is it?”

“Not bad,” Scott lies, readjusting so that he’s under the covers and pressed against Logan’s side. 

“That bad, huh?” Logan says, and Scott ignores him. 

“Has your cough gotten any better?” he deflects. Next to him, Logan tenses, then relaxes. 

“Don’t think so,” Logan admits. He bristles, and Scott looks over at him, even though his features are obscured from the dark and his glasses. “If anything, it’s getting worse.”

Scott sighs. He brushes his fingers through Logan’s hair, gentle as he can. “Well. I love you,” he says, because it sounds better than everything’s going to be alright or, worse, I’ll save you. 

Logan stares at him for a long, weighted second, and then smiles softly at Scott and says, “Yeah, yeah. Love you too, Slim.”

—

“You should write a book,” Scott tells Ororo over the phone the next day. 

She laughs longer than he thinks is warranted. 

“You could,” he insists. 

“I could,” she agrees. “But about what?”

“The X-Men,” he says simply, like it should be obvious. 

“You think I should write a book about us?” she asks, mildly disgusted. 

“The real, unabridged version. The tell-all.”

She laughs again, and Scott misses her so much his bones hurt. 

She says, “We’ll see. You know, it’s funny that you called me. I actually talked to Hank today, and — you know that serum he’s been working on?”

Scott sits up. “Yes,” he says carefully.

“Well, get this.”

—

Logan chucks a small envelope at Scott one morning, and he bats it out of the air on instinct before glaring at him. Laura smiles into her cereal, and Logan grins at her, and Scott rolls his eyes at the both of them. 

He picks it up off the floor and sees a post-it note taped to the back. 

You should probably tell Alex that you’ve moved. Hope all is well over there. I plan to have the serum ready to ship to you within the next two weeks. 

Hank has signed his name at the bottom in the blocky chicken scratch that litters his own papers and notes. 

“Hank says hi,” Scott says, smiling, flipping the envelope over. “I guess Alex sent this to the mansion.”

Logan nods, trying to play it cool, but Scott can tell that his curiosity has been piqued. He watches Scott out of the corner of his eye.  

Scott uses his thumbnail to slice open the seal, and he pulls out a small piece of cardstock. It reminds him of his graduation announcements, the ones his mom had gotten printed before it all went down. 

He pauses. 

We’ve got news! the front of the card says in swirling red font. 

“Oh, my God,” he mumbles. Logan stands up, and Laura looks at the both of them, alert. 

Scott flips the card over and reads the neat black type: ALEX AND SHAUNA SUMMERS ARE EXPECTING!

There are little balloons surrounding the words but otherwise the card is blank, save a small note in the bottom corner scrawled in blue pen. 

Finally beat you to something. A small smiley face accompanies the brag. 

Scott looks up at Laura and meets her worried gaze, thinks, oh have I got news for you. 

He flips the card over once again to show Logan, who slides his glasses out of his shirt pocket. His eyebrows shoot up. 

“Holy shit,” he mumbles. Scott nods. 

“What? What?” Laura asks, growing impatient. 

“Looks like you’re gonna have a little cousin soon,” Logan says casually. 

Laura cocks her head at him, eyes narrowing. 

“Hey,” Logan says, holding up his hands, “Don’t blame me. He's the one with the brother.”

Scott starts to argue, though against what he isn’t really sure, but he is quickly interrupted by Laura loudly saying, “You have a brother?”

Scott hands her the card to offset the murderous glare she fixes him with and shrugs. 

“Surprise,” he tries, and her scowl deepens.

—

In the end, Scott doesn’t end up saving Logan by himself. 

The serum gets rid of his cough in just shy of two weeks. He talks to Hank over the phone for nearly forty-five minutes before he takes it the first time, making him explain exactly what it’s doing to him even though Scott knows he doesn’t understand half of the terms Hank is using. 

The serum fades the scar on Logan’s stomach into a faint, white line, and Scott brushes the back of his knuckles across it, oddly sad to see it gone. 

“Weirdo,” Logan tells him. Scott nods. 

“You love me,” he accuses, leaning into Logan’s space, a lazy smile on his face. 

Logan kisses him, quick and clean, and this time Scott chases him when he pulls back. 

“Unfortunately,” he agrees, and Scott grins. 

—

Sometimes Scott wakes up earlier than the others, just as dawn is beginning to break, and sometimes he slips out of bed and creeps down the hall to the kitchen. 

Sometimes he stands in front of the window with the blinds open just enough to see the sky. He surveys their quiet, sleepy neighborhood where nothing ever happens, no lights on just yet, not even theirs. 

He doesn’t even make coffee. The machine is too loud. He just stands and watches, watches the birds and the grass and the beautifully ordinary world. 

New Mexico is nothing like New York. Nothing like Alaska. Small miracles; Scott never wants to leave. 

In the next room Logan sleeps like the dead. Sometimes Scott crawls back into the cocoon of blankets and warmth and falls asleep for another hour. 

But most of the time, he just stands there and watches. 

—

Bobby calls Logan on occasion to go over blueprints and strategies and Scott barely pretends not to eavesdrop from the living room. 

As far as he can tell, things are going alright. There’s a lot of planning to be done before the actual mission goes down, but the five of them seem to have it under control. 

Scott is pushing vegetables around in a pan while Logan heckles him when Logan’s phone starts ringing. Shockingly, he picks it up right then and there, with Scott still in ear shot. 

“Hey, kid,” Logan greets, which means it could be any of them. 

There’s some muffled noise on the other line, not a voice but more like several overlapping voices, until one crescendos above the others and the rest fall quiet. Logan listens for a few moments, nodding seriously, brow furrowed. Scott keeps one eye on the food and the other on him. 

“Someone — who?” Logan asks, finally glancing over at Scott, eyes wide. 

Scott turns toward him, a silent question forming on his face. 

“From — did he say anything else?” 

Scott mouths what? at him but Logan just puts a finger up, which is ridiculously rude, but Scott lets it slide. 

Logan nods and mhms some more before saying his goodbyes and hanging up. 

“Well?” Scott prompts after Logan stares into the middle for a couple silent seconds. 

He startles, then shakes himself out of it. “Someone from the old days came to the mansion looking for us.”

“The old days? Wait, you don’t mean — ?”

Logan nods. “The guy with the — ”

“Yes!” Scott exclaims. “Shit, I can’t remember his name. Why can’t I remember his name? We worked together for — ”

“Six years, Scotty, Christ. At least I have an excuse.”

Scott’s clever retort is interrupted by the smoke alarm, which blares loudly just as he opens his mouth. He turns back toward his pan of vegetables, now a mess of charred skin and black smoke. He hisses a curse under his breath and moves the pan off of the burner, uselessly waving a towel around to try and clear the air.  

Logan sighs and gets up to turn the alarm off. 

Laura appears in the doorway, eyebrows ticked up in casual curiosity. 

“What was it?” she asks. She jerks her chin toward the burnt remnants of their dinner. 

“Stir fry,” Scott grumbles, moving the pan to the sink. 

—

Scott takes the glass of water from Logan. “I called Joe. He said not to worry about coming in today.”

His voice is strained; the smallest sounds send pain rattling around in his skull. 

Logan nods. He adjusts the glasses on Scott’s face, straightening them. Scott leans into his hand. It doesn’t help much, but it’s still nice. Logan is always warm. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, eyes drooping. 

“For what?” Logan says quietly, though Scott can still hear the laugh in his voice. 

“For doing this,” he says, gesturing vaguely. “I really appreciate it.”

Logan smiles at him, and he can’t help but smile back. 

“Just part of the job,” he teases, leaning down to press a soft kiss between Scott’s eyebrows. It kind of hurts, all this talking and contact, but it’s worth it. 

“What job?” he asks. He does his best to sound incredulous and appalled. 

“Takin’ care of you,” Logan says simply, easily, like it doesn’t send heat radiating throughout Scott’s whole being. 

He shuts his eyes. 

“It’s just a headache,” he mumbles. Logan brushes his knuckles across his cheekbone. 

“I know,” he says gently. He’s always so gentle, these days. It’s a miracle and Scott is incredibly lucky to be able to witness it. 

There’s a bottle of aspirin on the nightstand and Scott is still in his sweatpants. He’s not bed ridden but it feels a lot better to lie down than to do anything else. Hank says all that stress is just finally catching up to him. 

Still, he could without the splitting headaches and constant, bone-deep fatigue. At least he has Logan here. 

“I gotta go make Laura breakfast. You want anything?” the stupidly perfect man in question asks. 

“Whatever you guys are having is fine. Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“I’ll be alright, Slim. Just get some rest.”

He cups Scott’s face in one hand and kisses him, careful and chaste, like he knows anything else would be too much. Scott still melts into him, because he’s delirious enough to never want to leave this bed or this embrace. 

Logan stands at last, shooting one more grin at Scott before heading to the kitchen. 

Scott closes his eyes, settling into the pillows. He won’t be able to sleep, despite how tired he is. But he does listen to Logan shuffling around in the kitchen, and that alone is enough to ease the tension lining his body. 

—

“No, no, I — I can’t,” Logan stammers, squirming. 

“Okay,” Scott says immediately, moving away to clean up. 

It happens; nights are hard for both of them. Today has been long and difficult. Scott isn’t upset. Scott is never upset about Logan setting boundaries. 

“Can I?” Scott says once everything is wiped up and put away. His hand is hovering above Logan’s. 

Logan just nods, mouth in a tight line. Scott links their fingers together. He rubs his thumb across the thin scar tissue spread between his knuckles. 

“It’s alright,” he murmurs after awhile. “Just go to sleep.”

Logan huffs. Scott sighs. The evening is thick and sweltering. The air is heavy. 

Scott’s head hurts. 

“Go to sleep, Logan,” he says, because they’ve known each other too long for this to be embarrassing. 

Finally, because it was bound to happen, Logan pulls Scott into his side, and Scott adjusts himself so his cheek is pressed against his heart. 

He hooks his arm around Logan’s waist. “It’s okay,” he affirms. “We’re okay. All of this will still be here tomorrow.” 

“Scott,” Logan says, painfully unsure. 

“Yeah,” Scott nods, pulling Logan closer. “It’s me. I’m here.”

He listens to Logan fall asleep, feels the rise and fall of his chest even out. Scott hopes that in the morning everything will be back where it’s supposed to be. 

—

There are bad days, where Laura holes herself in her room or Logan decides to go brood in the bar in town or Scott gets cagey and defensive for no reason. 

There are bad days, where Logan spends the day wheezing or crumpled in bed in pain, where Scott’s head hurts so bad he thinks about smacking it against the tile in the bathroom. There are days where Logan makes Scott sit with him and explain the last thirty years of his life in awkward, excruciating detail, and those are bad for both of them. 

There are bad days, and they aren’t necessarily few and far between. There are bad days, but they get through them, because there are good days, too. 

The good days are sunny and warm. On the good days, Scott cooks breakfast and Logan cooks dinner, and Laura helps them both. On the good days, Laura acts out her stories for them in the backyard or shows them the pictures she’s been drawing. 

On the good days, Logan lets Scott stare and poke and prod at him for however long he needs. On the good days, Scott lets Logan unravel him while they lie in bed together, fully trusting him to be gentle with whatever he finds. 

And it’s glorious; glorious like the dawn breaking. Glorious like how winning a fight used to be, but without the scraped up knuckles, the blood in his mouth.

They are both breaking down, in different ways, and they are both trying to keep the other together. 

To their credit, they seem to be succeeding.

—

A year passes in relative peace. 

It’s so peaceful that Scott doesn’t even realize it’s been a full year until Laura comes up to him one day in early November and tells him, “You’ve been in New Mexico for three hundred and sixty-five days.”

He blinks. He knows, distantly, that she has to be right. In his head, he cycles through birthdays, holidays — Christmas had been a giant, obscenely expensive affair, and Laura’s birthday had been even worse — and comes to the conclusion for himself. 

“Huh,” he says. “I guess I have.”

She beams, and he smiles back, and then she hands him a package he hadn’t even noticed she was holding. 

“Came in the mail today,” she tells him. “Do you know where my pencils are?” 

“Did you check the garage?” he asks, turning the package over in his hand. She quickly darts away to check the garage. Scott tears open the envelope, shocked when he pulls out a book. 

The cover is black, and the simple gold lettering on the front says, The Unabridged Story of Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Below it, in the same gold lettering: By Ororo Munroe.

He opens it. 

This is not a comic book, the beginning of the book reads. These stories are the truth. They are ugly; they are bloody. 

As mutants, sometimes doing the right thing meant hurting others. Sometimes doing the right thing made us the bad guy to some people. Sometimes we didn’t always do the “right” thing. Though these are unfortunate realities, we did save the world — a few times, actually — so maybe we can be forgiven. 

A great man once said that mutation is the key to our evolution. But what holds the secret to survival is not our DNA, but instead this history we have been carrying with us for decades.

This is not a comic book, but it is a book about superheroes. It is a book about fighting evil, and trying to believe in good, even after all this time. It is a book about love, and about hatred. It is a book about a school; about a home. This is a book about superheroes, yes; this is a love story, this is an action story, this is a road movie, yes, yes, yes. 

But most simply, this is a story about an idea. And every idea, of course, has to have a beginning. 

The year was 1962. Charles Xavier was living in London with his adopted sister, another mutant, Raven Darkholme. He had just received his doctorate from Oxford University — he was now a professor of genetics.