#scott summers

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“The importance of clearing out large-scale buildings before engaging in rescue is high, without doing so it poses a significant amount of risks to yourself and whoever you may be attempting to rescue.”

Your eyes traced Scott’s rigid posture as he droned on about battle strategy. It was easy to forget your frustrations with him if you stared long enough. His voice was monotone but just as intense as anything else he spoke about.

His seriousness was something you were fond of, you seemed to be alone in that. Maybe that because you got to see the more relaxed version of him, you learned to appreciate both sides of the coin. 

Scott didn’t find battle strategy laughable or something to shortcut. To him, it was about the safety of every person in the room, even the half-asleep ones. The seriousness was something that took time to appreciate and anyone rarely did until it either saved a life or protected the grounds of the mansion. You appreciated it the moment you met him. 

You joined this team long after Scott took the leading role and he quickly grabbed your attention, whether he meant it or not. Even the tour he took you on was given the same seriousness of a mission and you had been caught in Scott’s orbit since. 

Of course, you could read past all that seriousness easily. It took you a while to see his own acts of rebellion, they were quiet and laced in every word. It was a puzzle to everyone and yet you seemed to connect every piece the easiest. 

Maybe that’s what drew Scott to you, too. How easy you were given his jumble of pieces and rough edges and connected them like it was second nature. To you, all of the intensity and seriousness was just love in a different jacket.

You and Scott did everything in pairs after a while. Missions, meetings, tours, and even breakfast were done together. Logan once told you that if Scott walked by, he’d bet everything he had that you were not too far behind him. 

The admission had simultaneously embarrassed you and made you realize that you were falling for the man. Falling was a careful term, it felt more like being thrown down a large cliff. 

You weren’t obvious about your steep falling. If anything you wanted to keep it packed down deep in your heart. It was something that would stir whenever he got too close, or kept his eyes on you for just a heartbeat longer. It was a dangerous thing and you wanted to keep it to yourself. 

Scott made that task nearly impossible for a plethora of reasons. Too many to even name if you were given the chance. There were two glaringly obvious ones that never failed to stir that dangerous feeling awake, making it shake in your gut and claw at your heart. 

The easier reason was his fascination with you. How you held yourself, how you talked, solved team issues, how you handled your mutation. It was all an intricate dance to him and he was willing to learn every move. 

You caught him too many times with his attention lingering on you far longer than anyone else's. The intensity of his stare behind those ruby quartz lenses when you spoke up during long meetings. When it was your turn to present at a particularly important meeting, Scott barely broke his attention on you to hand Jean a pen. 

He would linger after everyone walked out just so you two could sit in that room for hours afterwards, having your own meetings about whatever was discussed. He’d compliment each idea you brought up and manage to connect yours to his seamlessly. 

The other reason was significantly more painful. 

There was a jarring distance between you two since last month and you have not the faintest idea where it came from. 

He pulled back slightly at first, so slight that you hadn’t even noticed enough to comment on the abruptness of it. Scott’s focus was reined in now. 

You noticed at the start that he would leave with everyone else after meetings, following everyone else out before you had a chance to catch him. You wrote it off as normal. He was a leader, after all. He couldn’t lend every second of his time to you. 

After a few days, he never stuck around after meetings again. You tried to catch up to him multiple times and you only succeeded once. He told you he was simply caught up in things and needed to put his full focus on an upcoming mission the professor had included him in.

The whole thing seemed farfetched but you didn’t want to accuse Scott of flat-out lying to your face. You let him walk off and, for once, you weren’t right behind him.

The slight bit of distance turned into a vast canyon between you and him. You did your absolute best to act uncaring about it all. If anyone dared to comment on the sudden lack of Scott by your side, you brushed them off with a quick, ‘He’s busy.’

You knew for a fact it dug deeper beyond Scott’s sudden busyness, and it showed itself during the very meeting you were in and actively trying to tune out. Usually, you’d be an active listener, commenting on every point Scott brought up. Yet, you were dead silent, choosing the most interesting point on the wall and glaring at it. 

You gave up the act of trying to conceal how you felt towards the new distance two weeks in. It was growing between you and everyone now, you couldn’t help it. You grew such a comfortable routine with Scott, and it was shattered in days, laying in pieces at your feet. 

Scott’s voice was a steady lull against your thoughts about the past month, a painful reminder of what you missed so much. You try to think back on the last time you and him had a steady discussion about something other than excuses. You cornered him last night about the possibility of just going on a simple walk to get fresh air and he shut you down then too.

You whittled the hundreds of reasons he gave down to him just having a general disdain towards you. Nothing else made sense, you knew there was no mission that the professor gave him and you knew that his mental list wasn’t chalked full of things to do. You ran into a dead-end with Scott and you needed something to choke out that last bit of hope biting at your gut, telling yourself he hated you did just fine. 

You didn’t realize the meeting had ended until Jean’s careful foot knocked against yours, drawing you out of your thoughts. She gave you a worried glance as she stood, but you knew that she wasn’t going to push you for an answer, no one did anymore.

Scott was well out of the room by the time you even spared a glance towards his direction. You stood and mumbled your thanks at Jean, slipping off into the hall before she could catch up to you.

You could hear Scott’s voice from further down the hall, laced with a nervousness he’s been carrying all month. Ororo’s voice cut him off with a stricter tone. You couldn’t pick up on any words as they'd quieted before you had the chance to eavesdrop properly. He walked out of the room faster than you anticipated and you nearly crashed into him. 

Scott looked like a deer in headlights as soon as his eyes met yours, the red of his glasses did nothing to mask the storm of emotions he carried. He looked like a fragment of the man you spent every waking moment with and it almost made you ignore the steadily growing distance between you. 

Your words mumble together as you try to say something before he slips away again, whether mentally or physically this time, “Are you going to talk to me?” 

There were so many things you wanted to say but this took priority. You weren’t going to waste your breath if he believes that even talking to you wasn’t worth it anymore. 

He scoffed and cast his glance down, shaking his head like you asked if the sky was green. For a man that once held so much of your heart, you sure wanted to smack him.

“What’s there to talk about? I have to go find Logan, if there’s something you need just tell me now, I’m… busy.” Scott trailed off and he looked ready to bolt away at the next opportunity.

It was your turn to shake your head at him, “No, no I’m not buying the busy act, Scott. You can find Logan later and you can talk to me now.” He looked stunned and for the first time in a while he looked rooted to the ground.

“You’ve ignored me all month. Not a word, no explanation or reasoning, you were just gone. You made me look like an idiot, like a lost puppy following you around.” You gestured wildly, anger was bubbling up now, searing your throat and chest. Those dangerous emotions were stirring again and you felt sick. 

“Did I do something to you? Tell me now, Scott, and I swear to you that I will just leave you alone.” He looks pained at your words, like he’s teetering dangerously along the canyon that split between you two long ago. 

Students walk by in the hallway and they eye the two of you wordlessly. You know they’re going to gossip about it to every other student, how you and Scott were standing there between a wall of tension so thick it could be cut with a knife. Once they’re further down the hall, Scott lets out a long sigh, his fists clench uselessly at his sides like he’s fighting himself. 

“You didn’t do anything, okay? Just drop it, there’s no point. Logan’s probably already gone by now, too.” He mumbles the last part to himself, and that seems to upset him more than anything. The once-hot anger has cooled into a thick sadness that ran into your veins. 

He was pulling away actively and all you wanted was to reach out and grab him. Shake an answer out of him, at least. Scott pushes past you after a few beats of silence and leaves you standing dumbly in the hall. You let out a shaky laugh that sounds closer to tears and Jean seems to materialize in the hallway. You were sure she listened to the whole ordeal, as she didn’t question you, just walked you into a classroom.

Couches were scattered around the room, along with a mixture of standard chairs. She pulled you to an old couch that groaned when the both of you sat and tugged your hands into hers. They trembled with the effort of holding everything in. 

“I used to think that the only way to get under Scott’s skin was to go against mission orders. Then you came along and he started falling apart if you looked his way.” Her thumbs brushed softly against your hands and she gave you a slow smile, “I don’t think he’s used to that yet.”

Tears prick at your eyes and you rub them away prematurely, “So what? I’m supposed to just hate him until he decides when I can be close?” Hate and sadness sear deep under your skin, and you can’t tell which of the two is winning. Jean shakes her head with a small laugh, “I think you’ll find him in his room.” 

She pats your hands gently and stands, giving you one last smile before walking out, leaving you in silence. You think over everything she told you, picking at it carefully for a while. You think about her mentions of Scott falling apart at your glances, of all the times Scott would stare at you openly, or when he found any reason to bring you along during his busy schedule. You think of every moment spent together, and then the ones spent apart. 

It takes you a minute longer to piece the giant puzzle Jean left for you before the answer clicks. 

Scott’s door is shut when you finally get to his room. You knock on it and shift your weight. It hadn’t been too long since Jean left and you held out hope that Scott didn’t find something to do in the time it took for you to get here. 

The door clicks open and Scott’s glasses flash in the hallway light. He seemed surprised to see you outside of his door after the argument in the hallway and, deep down, you were surprised you were here, too. 

“We need to talk.” You don’t ask if he can, you know he’ll end up just rejecting your attempts like before. The door opens wider and he lets you in, and you make a mental reminder to take Jean out for coffee to thank her for the pep talk. 

Scott looks disheveled in every sense of the word. His hair is unbrushed and some strands are actively fighting him. His clothes look thrown on, different from his usual business casual outfits. He stands in the middle of his room with tense shoulders. If someone walked in, they’d think he was awaiting you to punch him. 

Your eyes glance over his belongings for only a few moments. Sometimes, when there was nothing to do, you’d spend time in each other's rooms. Gossiping, going over battles, or just sharing time together. His room was messier, books and papers scattered along his bed and desk, but relatively the same. 

You sat on the edge of his bed and focused your stare on his carpet. He sank down next to you, bed dipping against his weight. 

Scott spoke before you could, “You make it impossible to feel sane.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed together, eyes darting to him in an instant. He shakes his head quickly, “When I’m around you, I’m somehow off center and caught in your space simultaneously. And I thought that if I denied what I felt, it’d go away soon enough.” He shifts on the bed, facing you directly this time, “When it didn’t, when everything I felt about you just grew stronger, I thought that maybe distance would fix it.”

He runs a shaky hand through his hair, “And clearly, I was wrong about that, too.”

You take a careful breath and think of Jean's words for a final moment. Silence stretches between you two. It’s not tense with anger, but with a whole new feeling. He closes the gap between you two physically, grabbing at your jaw and pulling you closer. You nearly knock off his glasses with how hard you're pulled forward. The tension melts from his frame as soon as your lips are on his, you’re too drunk on him to notice your own shoulders relaxing.

“Next time, just kiss me instead of avoiding me, Scott.” There’s no heat behind your words this time, and you melt into his touch once he grabs at you again. He kisses you like he might die if he doesn’t and you can’t complain, not when you kiss back just as eager. 

Between each kiss, he details every way you made him feel insane. Each look, each touch, everything that drove him crazy, and you think that you might be going insane now, too. 

Your face is warm after he pulls away longer this time, forehead bumping against yours slightly as he catches his breath. “I thought you hated me, you know.” Your voice is small and breathless and he laughs, a sweet sound. 

“Does it seem like I hate you now?”

The last time you were in his room on his bed, he was showing you maps of surrounding forests, detailing weak points and battle strategy. Now, he was kissing the air from your lungs and the thoughts from your head. The thought of him disliking you was far away now, so far gone that you couldn’t even give a reasoning behind your thoughts.