May prompt, fandom_muses: The one that got away
"Hold on to your brother," said Katherine Summers. She handed ten-year-old Scott the cord for the only functioning parachute; the others had caught fire when the engine exploded. "Hold on very tight. And don't let go."
"I won't, Mama." Scott choked back his tears. He tightened his grip around six-year-old Alex, whose body was squirming and shaking with his sobs. Scott couldn't cry. He was the big boy. She kissed him one last time, before he stepped out of the hatch, and one last time he told her, "I won't ever let him go."
But he did.
*
Scott didn't remember this scene until much much later and, when he finally recovered the memories, he never entirely sorted out which parts were real, and which were blanks filled in by trying to remember.
He must have known, though, somehow, because when he woke up surrounded by tubes and machines, in a strange bed in the medical ward of a charity home, Scott Summers was crying out for his brother. Not "Mama" or "Dad" but "Alex! I need to find Alex!" The nurses first asked whether Alex was a pet, or, later, an imaginary friend. He insisted he had a brother. The denials came back again and again.
Dr. Essex reassurred him, in their one-on-one sessions, that such delusions were common.
*
He had been at Xavier's school for over a month when the Professor said, casually, "I suppose you'll want to write to your brother."
Scott began to protest that he didn't have one; even when Xavier pushed the file toward him, with its pictures of a smiling, athletic blonde boy, it took Scott a moment to process. His teacher didn't speak but let Scott read: the boy was found near the site of a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness. Parents Christopher and Katherine, and brother Scott presumed dead. The boy was adopted. . .National Honor Society. . .all-state football team. . .college scholarships.
"But I . . .but that. . ." Scott protested. "Why weren't we together? Why didn't they at least tell me --"
The Professor murmured something about irregularities at the children's home. (Scott would wonder, later, how much the Professor knew from the beginning; maybe all of it). He went on to explain that Alex was a potentially powerful mutant, like Scott, but that his powers were latent. "I'll be happy to help you make contact with him, but Alex can't know about your mutation, much less his own."
Thinking about it all now makes Scott a little sick -- how easily he went along with the deception, how he became complicit in lies nearly as bad as the ones that had been told to him. But Xavier knew best, or it was simpler to think that he did. The brothers wrote to each other, and even met a few times, but nothing they said to each other hit very close on the truth. Scott didn't even mention Alex's existence to the other X-men -- his closest friends, or the closest he had to friends -- until casually inviting them to Alex's graduation. Events unfolded, then, that made all the lies moot. The brothers saw and knew each other for what they were, and it wasn't long before they were together again: Cyclops and Havok, X-men.
*
But it wasn't the way it should have been. Scott had let him go. The memory of the crash came back to him, finally, when he was in Florida -- hiding from everything, living on a fishing boat, awkwardly flirting with its pretty captain, as though this blonde girl's smiles could somehow eradicate the ghost of the lover who had died in spite of everything he could do.
It worked, in a way. Lee Forrester found out he was Cyclops, and she cared for him anyway. It didn't compute with anything in Scott's experience, but somehow what happened during that short retreat from the world helped him to heal. He had his memories back, all in on piece. At the same time, the memories made his return to the X-men inevitable.
This was part of who he was: the need to hold on, to protect. The sense of overwhelming responsibility that would shadow him for his whole life could be traced back to that unfulfilled promise.
Alex is fine, now -- in spite of Scott, not because of him. He's smart, strong, self-assured to the point of arrogance, infuriating, with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He's a Summers, in other words. He's a brother.
It isn't Alex's fault that, whenever Scott looks in his brother's eyes, he can't help seeing the one that got away.
"I won't, Mama." Scott choked back his tears. He tightened his grip around six-year-old Alex, whose body was squirming and shaking with his sobs. Scott couldn't cry. He was the big boy. She kissed him one last time, before he stepped out of the hatch, and one last time he told her, "I won't ever let him go."
But he did.
*
Scott didn't remember this scene until much much later and, when he finally recovered the memories, he never entirely sorted out which parts were real, and which were blanks filled in by trying to remember.
He must have known, though, somehow, because when he woke up surrounded by tubes and machines, in a strange bed in the medical ward of a charity home, Scott Summers was crying out for his brother. Not "Mama" or "Dad" but "Alex! I need to find Alex!" The nurses first asked whether Alex was a pet, or, later, an imaginary friend. He insisted he had a brother. The denials came back again and again.
Dr. Essex reassurred him, in their one-on-one sessions, that such delusions were common.
*
He had been at Xavier's school for over a month when the Professor said, casually, "I suppose you'll want to write to your brother."
Scott began to protest that he didn't have one; even when Xavier pushed the file toward him, with its pictures of a smiling, athletic blonde boy, it took Scott a moment to process. His teacher didn't speak but let Scott read: the boy was found near the site of a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness. Parents Christopher and Katherine, and brother Scott presumed dead. The boy was adopted. . .National Honor Society. . .all-state football team. . .college scholarships.
"But I . . .but that. . ." Scott protested. "Why weren't we together? Why didn't they at least tell me --"
The Professor murmured something about irregularities at the children's home. (Scott would wonder, later, how much the Professor knew from the beginning; maybe all of it). He went on to explain that Alex was a potentially powerful mutant, like Scott, but that his powers were latent. "I'll be happy to help you make contact with him, but Alex can't know about your mutation, much less his own."
Thinking about it all now makes Scott a little sick -- how easily he went along with the deception, how he became complicit in lies nearly as bad as the ones that had been told to him. But Xavier knew best, or it was simpler to think that he did. The brothers wrote to each other, and even met a few times, but nothing they said to each other hit very close on the truth. Scott didn't even mention Alex's existence to the other X-men -- his closest friends, or the closest he had to friends -- until casually inviting them to Alex's graduation. Events unfolded, then, that made all the lies moot. The brothers saw and knew each other for what they were, and it wasn't long before they were together again: Cyclops and Havok, X-men.
*
But it wasn't the way it should have been. Scott had let him go. The memory of the crash came back to him, finally, when he was in Florida -- hiding from everything, living on a fishing boat, awkwardly flirting with its pretty captain, as though this blonde girl's smiles could somehow eradicate the ghost of the lover who had died in spite of everything he could do.
It worked, in a way. Lee Forrester found out he was Cyclops, and she cared for him anyway. It didn't compute with anything in Scott's experience, but somehow what happened during that short retreat from the world helped him to heal. He had his memories back, all in on piece. At the same time, the memories made his return to the X-men inevitable.
This was part of who he was: the need to hold on, to protect. The sense of overwhelming responsibility that would shadow him for his whole life could be traced back to that unfulfilled promise.
Alex is fine, now -- in spite of Scott, not because of him. He's smart, strong, self-assured to the point of arrogance, infuriating, with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He's a Summers, in other words. He's a brother.
It isn't Alex's fault that, whenever Scott looks in his brother's eyes, he can't help seeing the one that got away.