I WANT THIS THING OFF MY LAWN.

#RIGHTCLOPS

𝙲𝙰𝙽𝙾𝙽-𝙳𝙸𝚅𝙴𝚁𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃𝚁𝙰𝚈𝙰𝙻 𝙾𝙵 SCOTT " CYCLOPS " SUMMERS 𝙵𝚁𝙾𝙼 MARVEL X-MEN. heavily inspired by jed mackay's, bendis, mike carey, whedon, fraction, gillen, lodell, nicieza, and morrison. █ black adult mun. practicing muslim. low-activity. story as told by gully.

updated graphic credits: @vendettacoms

exploring the following: POLITICS, CIVIL RIGHTS, GENOCIDE, WORLD HISTORY, CHILD SOLDIERS, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, ALBEISM, RACISM, EXISTENTIALISM, GENDER IDENTITY, SLAVERY, SEX WORK, BODY HORROR, HUMAN EXPLOITATION, ANTIMISCEGENATION, PSYCHOLOGY, HOMOPHOBIA, RELIGION, OCCULT, DRUG & ALCOHOL USE, TRAUMA, SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, AND IMPERIALISM. TRIGGERS WILL BE TAGGED ACCORDINGLY.

my x-men: magik @belayadyavol

updated rules as of 3/10/2025 below

@snkts

“ i didn’t think it was, old friend. put your claws at ease. ”

cyclops let a reassuring hand settle on logan’s shoulder, firm enough to be felt, not firm enough to give the impression he'd make a move to restrain. he had no interest in meeting the man's panic with baseless accusation. not his own, and certainly not logan’s. the man had enough ghosts trained to answer his name without scott adding his voice to the chorus.

he did not like to think with a hard heart and a thoughtless head. whatever brutality wolverine was capable of, friend or foe, there were conditions to it. his signature and namesake was that of an animal of a wild, yes, but even logan had patterns. a brand to the damage, even when the damage was obscene. logan’s violence was not the prettiest sight, but it was rarely careless. what cyclops and his team witnessed was different from what he was accustomed to.

that was what brought cyclops from alaska to new orleans. not suspicion. he came because what he saw did not feel like logan losing control. it felt like someone wanted them to believe he had. his shoulders gave the man's shoulder one brief press before falling back to his side.

@psyknife

cyclops understood love as a brutal blade. it did not matter how clean the hand looked when it held the hilt. charles had taught him that much, if nothing else. the professor guide you to perfectly understand self-control is the perfect patience that a human of value can express. despite how contradictory it was when his acts of violations is veiled in the supposed ethical expression of concern. scott spent too many years mistaking the professor's polished imprint for virtue. rot did not always arrive with just an odor. sometimes it had a gentle voice, possessed the hands capable enough to build a shelter, and have you believe the wounds it inflict a proper education.

kwannon’s question reached him without issue. what exactly are you going to do? she was as direct and surgical as she was with that question as she was with her blade. she no wasted sympathy. he respected that about her. he hated it, in the moment, because direct questions deserved direct answers, and scott did not have one he trusted yet.

he nursed his wounds the way any soldier did before the next fight: privately, efficiently, and then fed himself just enough wrath to keep moving. the wrath inside him had been fed too long to be mistaken for a passing mood. it had the same weight it had when he was a kid. actually, no. that wasn't entirely correct. this time it had appetite, one that he didn't know how to satisfy. it also had a pulse. some days it rested in his ribs like an obedient animal. other days it scratched, whined, reached for the nearest throat, and insisted on being called upon.

but it was his.

his alone.

he did not want to answer her because the honest answer was ugly. he was hollow inside. drop a pin into him and it would have echoed forever. still, his face gave none of that away beyond the faint tightening at his jaw and the slight shift of his gloved fingers against the edge of the table.

“ the first thing? ” scott asked, voice low. “ nothing stupid. ” it was not enough. he knew that. kwannon would undoubtedly know it too. so he forced himself past the first answer and into the harder one.

“ i believe you and i can agree that charles lost his privileges to our spaces long ago. ” the anger that boiled him had him clenching his jaws tight enough to crack teeth. honestly, he had desired space to sort out his own emotions before speaking them aloud. but his grief isn't with kwannon. the least he could do was check his tone before he continued on.

@snkts

earth-70213 cyclops.

scott gave him a look from over the rim of his glasses. logan seem to have a habit of asking simple questions that weren't simple at all. it sounded harmless if a man had spent his life believing shelter was just shelter. a room. a couch. a roof that did a decent job of holding back the rain. scott was used to places belonging to men who said they were helping while deciding where his body was permitted rest. even now, in a world where he's an ally, guest, soldier, mutant, whatever else it needed from him depending on the hour, the question found an old bruise and applied pressure there.

“ if you're offering, i hope it ain't a pigsty, logan. ” his mouth etched into a curve but barely what anyone would want to say resembles a smile. though there was a sliver of humor present in his tone.

“ i can sleep rough if i gotta. done it enough. ” his gaze held on logan for a second longer, measuring the offer without insulting it by calling it charity. “ but if you got a door that locks, water that runs, and there isn't a rat problem for me to worry about, i'll take it for the night. ”

a pause followed. scott glanced away first, unsure of what to make of his world yet. he knew before he start posing the bigger questions, he needed a rooftop to stay under. as it stands now, logan isn't posing him much of a threat. whether it remains that way is yet to be seen.

@snkts

earth-70213 cyclops.

petit goave, haiti.

corporal summers allowed a loud bloom of smoke to billow from his mouth before he entertained the question. he left the cigar in the ashtray between them, its ember burning low, and sank back into the beach chair as comfortably as his body would allow. the sweltering light of late morning gave kokoye beach a radiant glow that made the conversation feel almost profane. powdery white sand curved along the island’s edge, and turquoise water kissed the shore clear enough to make a man believe the world had never learned how to be cruel.

he shamelessly wanted to enjoy it. wanted to walk among the tourists and locals without feeling like his life will never be off the line, without feeling america sitting in the meat of his back. he wanted to forget the raised scars there. forget the whip that put them there. forget how out of place he remained as both mutant and black man in any world that still measured a soul by chains or conquest.

it would take him a long while to think peace was something he could touch without owing blood for it. all his life, he had been a survivor first, and survival did not loosen its hands simply because the sand was warm or the water looked clean enough to baptize the dead out of him. his feet rested exposed across the beach like they belonged to someone who had never been made to run from a fight or toward one. even here, with the sun laying itself across haiti like merciful radiant embrace, some part of him remained guarded against the danger.

then again, even he knew that was some bullshit. they were not exactly here for a vacation.

“ nah, ” he said at last, voice roughened by years of smoke, whether it were cigarettes or gunfire. “ wouldn't do me no good. if that were the case, i might as well wish i wasn't black either. ”

his eyes stayed on the water, where shards of the sun kept dancing as bright pieces. there was no bitterness in the way he said it. bitterness was too young a word for old things. “ then i just wouldn't be me. ” scott reached for the cigar again, but did not bring it to his lips.

“ can't trade out one oppression and call it freedom when the other still got its hooks in your bones. powers. skin. none of it leaves us whole just because we wish different. ” scott mouth tightened over the straw of his haitian kremas, though not toward regret. regret resided somewhere behind his eyes, but regret was too simple to describe what moved him.

“ i done wished plenty of things, logan. wished my mama lived. wished i broke neck of the man with his own whip before it ever tore into my back. wished men were smarter enough to kill me before they had given me plenty of reasons to burn through their world. but the powers? ” he shook his head once, slow and certain. “ no. i regret what it took to make me use ’em. that ain’t the same thing. ” only then did he look toward logan, the cigar smoke curling between them, thin and gray against all that blue.

@dxrkeyes

it never went over his head that people did not find him much of a “joy” to be around. the reputation followed him with more loyalty than most teammates did. the stiff one. the boy scout. the man too difficult to read unless he was issuing orders, standing between someone else and a crisis, or if your name happened to be emma frost or jean grey.

that did not mean he never felt the sting of it.

scott looked up from the half-disassembled coffee machine on the counter, one gloved hand still braced against the appliance as he mentally threaded through the deep-seated personal problems he had with conversations like this. gambit’s question sat there between them without protest from him, at first. from the casualness of the delivery, he understood gambit was not trying to maliciously attack him. he could dismiss it outright. it would have been the smart thing to do.

but curiosity had a way of webbing itself into old accusations. around scott, it rarely remained harmless for long. the inquiry would quickly become prickling. then it would turn into an assessment, before it turned into an autopsy performed while he was still breathing. this time, it made him bite.

if this was gambit’s bait, then fine. he would entertain it until gambit gave him a reason to stop.

“ okay, gambit. what about me suggests that i don’t? ” his tone spilled out dry. defensive, maybe. he could admit that much to himself, even if he had no intention of handing the admission over. his thumb dragged once along the edge of the screwdriver before he set it down.

@rohgue

he was unsure whether he wanted to stand anywhere near the natural disaster waiting behind the question: do i want to know?

there was no temptation in it, exactly. temptation required curiosity, and scott had survived too many years around the x-men to understand curiosity as anything other than the first step toward paperwork, property damage, or an argument that explode from any part of the mansion. he did not need to be tempted. he needed to be obligated.

unfortunately, he was.

that obligation was going to kill him one day.

cyclops took the shot from the three-point line and did not bother running after it. the ball left his hand clean, arced beneath the harsh rays of the sun, and struck the rim with a sharp metallic complaint before dropping through the net. with no life to run after it. he barely looked at it. something told him the game of HORSE had ended before the ball ever touched the floor.

“ rogue. ” he said her name, even, but a perceptive eye could catch the small twitch in his lips and creases across his forehead, which meant he had already begun preparing himself.

@invulnerablextouch

he lost count of the minutes. it could have been forty. maybe close to two hours. quentin would have called it being “locked in,” and scott would have hated how accurate that sounded.

he had been standing at the stove, the sleeves of his gray sweater pushed to his forearms, and ruby quartz glasses catching the low kitchen light while batter hissed against the pan. there were four mixing bowls on the counter, two cartons of eggs already emptied, a towel hooked over one shoulder, and a stack of pancakes growing beside him with the severe organization of a mess hall line. plain. or blueberry for fun, because something bright and tart can liven up anyone's day, if they're not wolverine. chocolate chip for the energy and the illusion of desert before breakfast. banana for the lost potassium, and because one of the rescued girls had asked illyana in a low whisper the night before like she was asking for contraband.

cult survivors. children, most of them. frightened, underfed, too polite in a way that didn't sit right in scott's chest. they were temporary guests. until placements were adequately arranged or until relatives were found or until a trusted ally, with no government ties, was able to present a convincing suggestion on what safety would look like for a group of survivors that barely endured fanatics that had taught them obedience in the cruelest ways. until then, they could deal with pancakes.

scott worked his hands like a focused madman because the alternative was standing around and thinking too long about how small and bruised their wrists had looked when rogue's team brought them in. he kept his attention mainly between the pan and the thought of creative choices he could bring out of the fridge to elevate the nutritional value for their honored guests this morning. after he flipped another pancake, adjusted the heat, and added another finished stack to the seventh stacked and warm plate, only then he gave rogue the smallest turn of his head.

“ you’re smiling. ” his mouth flattened at one corner, closer to embarrassment than irritation, though he would have preferred being accused of the latter. the last thing he needed was rogue finding a way to distract him from his morning duties. without breaking eye contact, he reached for the ladle again and poured another circle of batter.

“ did any of our guests begin waking up and showering yet? ” he already knew the answer. he had heard the murmurs of those who had stirred awake. he had caught the low, sleepless conversations while navigating the mansion’s labyrinthine halls. he had heard the showers running before he ever reached the kitchen.

the question was a redirect. obvious, maybe, but serviceable.

his apron was ridiculous. his laptop was open on the counter, playing the latest playlist he had put together (with some help), music some people would not expect from him filling the kitchen between the hiss of the pan and the constant scrape of the spatula. the entire scene sat at a far remove from the leader with the militant posture in old x-men photos plastered around their home.

@invulnerablextouch

he breathed a sigh without content, as he peered at her from across the table without an immediate response. there was a mouthful he could have given her on that, and some part of him already assembled it: lectures fashioned after xavier's and his penchant for correction, the clean line between his battlefield instincts and the experience of suffering repeated consequences. by the way she held herself, though, he knew she would not sit with any of it for long. whatever truth he put in her hands would become another thing to sling back. so he pressed his tongue once against the back of his teeth, swallowed the first response, and kept the plate simple.

“ i noticed. ” the admission came without condescension or a sarcastic bite. he needn't dress it up either, because it'd be obvious if he did and the obvious usually insulted the both of them.

“ i also noticed you're thoughtful other times. ” under the visor, he was thin-lipped, straighter than an arrow, and tone that was as firm as any discipline they came to know. but there was empathy in the gaze. however irresponsible her behavior could become, he had seen the other side of it too: rogue pausing where someone else would have pushed, listening when anger made that difficult, carrying more guilt than she allowed into her voice. impulsive, yes. reckless, sometimes. but not careless, however she may purposely or indirectly honor her namesake. there was distinction there, and scott had always been particular about distinctions.

“ that’s the part i care about right this moment, ” he said. “ impulse can be managed. thoughtlessness is harder thing to sell me. ” his jaw shifted faintly, the nearest thing to hesitation he allowed himself before continuing.