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Second Chances
Disclaimer: Scott Summers is the
property of marvel comics. No money is being made off of this so don't
sue.
Notes: This is my first attempt at a fan fic so please give me the
gruesome truth, a lie won't tell me if it is any good or not. Although
try to keep your bad comments to a minimum if you are going to write
back. If I get good feedback I might write a sequel to this. Keep in
mind though that it probably won't come out for a long time. So you
might have to nag me if you really want to read the next one.
Cannon: This is my own personal take on what will happen when Scott and
Jean break up. However, everyone knows that this will not be what will
happen. I think it would be kind of cool if it did though.
Rating: PG-13 for language, and violence.
Archive: If you think it is good enough sure go ahead. Tell me where it
is though.
Scott Summers was perched, as he always was whenever he
was here. This was his favorite spot. Sitting atop the skyscraper, his
legs were bent and only his toes and right hand prevented him from
falling off of the great building. Seventy-five stories was a long way
to the ground. He enjoyed the challenge of it. It was not a difficult
thing to do. After all, he had been doing it for the past six months. It
was almost second nature to him now. Whenever the wind was exceptionally
strong he had to pay attention to what he was doing. However, he was
getting better and better every night.
Ever since he came to this city, this god-forsaken place of bigotry and
violence. He had given himself simple tasks before the beginning of the
great task he saw before him. This was one of them. Here as in most
places but especially here mutants had absolutely nothing. The police
were bigots, the medical society ignored them, and lawyers didn't even
give them the time of day. He came here because it was the perfect place
to begin.
His black leather trench coat blew softly in the breeze that was out
tonight. It gave him a more menacing look. He was not visible by anyone
on the street below, which was how he wanted it. He always kept to the
shadows masking himself in darkness whenever he could. He had somewhat
of an obsession with the color black now. It suited him. He liked it. It
was one of the things he was thankful to old blue lips for. Not that he
was thankful to the bastard for much. He took the life he could have had
away from him. Since he had been freed from Apocalypse he had changed.
Jean had left him because of it. He didn't mind now, that was ancient
history. But if so why did he have to fight tears away every time he
thought of her. He didn't think much of it. Why bother? It would just be
a waste of time. He was who he was, and he liked who he was.
Looking down on the small people that walked the streets of this city
every night he smiled inwardly toward himself. No one here knew who he
was. No one here knew of the pain and sorrow he had gone through in his
life. However, they had already begun to know what he was doing here.
That was all they needed to know.
Scanning the nearby skyscrapers he found what he was waiting for. Just
across the street, in one of the rooms near the top of the building a
light just went on. He sat and waited. Eight men entered the room. Four
of them were built heavily, obviously they were bodyguards. They would
be dangerous if they were armed otherwise they would require little
effort to take down. Another two were of average build, probably the
ones that would be closing the deal. They would be less of a problem
then the bodyguards. The last two were short. One was fat and balding
around the top of his head looked to be in his late forties early
fifties. The other was skinny and walked with a slight limp. He was
younger than the other one but not by much. They looked like lawyers. He
hated lawyers.
Scott took a breath and, no not Scott. Cyclops took a breath. Right now
he was Cyclops not Scott Summers. Summers was a wimp that couldn't
handle what Cyclops was about to do. Scott Summers couldn't handle what
Apocalypse did to him. Scott Summers wasn't strong enough to fight for
his wife and win her back. No, he was not Scott Summers. He was Cyclops.
Cyclops took a breath and fastened the polymer line around his gloved
fist. He felt the serge of pleasure that he always felt at this moment.
A small smile came to his lips which was quickly pushed away. With a
quick triangulation of the angle he would have to fall from, he gave the
line a quick tug and leapt.
The free fall was exhilarating as it always was; it never lasted as long
as he wished though. Sometimes he could almost let go of the line and
fall to the streets below. He didn't know why he felt this way, and he
never bothered to examine it. He felt that if he did, he might not like
the answer he got.
Within seconds the line tightened and he began swinging towards the
window. A quick shatter of glass and he quickly took out the lights in
the room with an optic blast. The eight startled men rose from their
seats and began looking for what just happened. In the confusion Cyclops
ran towards one of the bodyguards and jumped. In mid air he extended his
left leg and connected it with the other mans face. The force of the
kick launched the man back seven feet, before he fell to the ground
unconscious. The next man pulled out a Desert Eagle, the other two both
.12 gauge shotguns. They began firing almost as soon as they grabbed
their weapons. One of the men at the other end of the table shouted at
them, "Don't shoot you might hit Herald."
"I don't give a fuck who I hit. As long as I get what came through
that window."
Cyclops saw the two lawyers running towards the exit. One optic blast
changed that in a hurry. "He be one o' d'em mutie freaks,"
Cyclops heard someone say. He immediately turned in his direction and
gave him a blow to the solar plexus and then an uppercut. The man
wouldn't be getting up for the next couple of hours.
The next man was several feet in front of Cyclops. The man lowered his
head and charged him. Cyclops braced his body down on one hand and
brought his leg out in a sweeping motion. The man fell backwards onto
his back, hitting his head on the table as he went down knocking him
out. The last of the bodyguards was firing his shotgun at whatever he
could see. Too bad he didn't see the right hook that would give him a
mind-blowing headache when he woke up.
Cyclops looked towards the two businessmen that were left in the room.
One of them was slowly making his way to the door hoping that he
wouldn't be noticed. His hope didn't come through. In a flash of red he
was on the floor with the rest. The last man in the room spoke. His
voice was trembling obviously afraid of what this newcomer might do to
him. "Wha... Wha... What do you want?"
Cyclops spoke in a low terrifying rasp "Information."
"I won't tell you nothin." His voice was still shaky.
"I think you will," was his only reply.
In a second Cyclops had covered the distance between the two
individuals. Another second everything went black for the businessman.
When he awoke he was hanging upside down twenty stories from the ground.
He shrieked. "Where is the munitions shipment for the FoH?"
was the first thing he heard.
It took a few moments for the man's brain to register that he was being
spoken to. It took another few for it to interpret what he was just
asked. "I... I can't tell you. They'd kill me."
"What do you think is going to happen to you if you don't tell
me?" to emphasize his point he let the rope that was holding the
other man slip just a little. The man shrieked again. "Well?"
"New... New York," the man quickly answered.
Cyclops sighed. Of course it would be New York. It was the story of his
life, if anything ever happened to him it was in close relation to the
X-Men. He tied the rope to the railing nearby and began walking away.
"Wait WAIT! What about me?"
Cyclops stopped but didn't turn around. "Hang around for the cops
they'll cut you down." With that he left. He had a trip to plan.
Scott Summers had spent the next day preparing for his trip to New York.
His plans were to stay as far away from Westchester as possible. On his
plane ride out he had sat next to an elderly man and they had a
discussion about the horrible way that mutants were treated. For Scott
it was a welcome change. Since he moved to his new home all he had heard
about was how bad mutants were and that they had no place in today's
society. It made him sick to his stomach.
Once he got off his plane though he remembered how bad New York was. He
hadn't been here in just over three years. He was already regretting
coming back. As soon has he landed he was hit by the classic New York
hospitality. Five times someone attempted to steal his wallet. It had
resulted in five failures. In half an hour he was asking himself,
"How could I have ever liked this place?"
He rented a hotel room near the New York dock, which was not an easy
feat. He spent five hours just looking for a place close by. Then he had
to spend two and a half hours getting a cab driver that could speak
English, and then another hour trying to find a cab driver that could
take him to where he wanted to go. Finally when he got there it was
worse of a dump than he'd expected. There were holes in the roof. The
place had no heating, everywhere he stepped he heard squishy noises. The
toilet didn't flush, the shower had no faucet and the water was brown.
To top it all off the bed was nothing more than a rotten old mattress
with food stains on it. Not to mention the fact that the entire place
smelled like one of Logan's cigars.
"Oh well," Scott said to himself, "typical old New York.
I haven't missed you one bit, although you do make my new home look like
a stay at the New York Plaza."
Scott threw his bag onto the bed and then began his workout. Five
hundred pushups, five hundred sit ups, five hundred pull ups, and then
he would do a twenty five mile run with thirty pounds on weights in his
backpack. When he was finished it was seven thirty and he had four hours
until the shipment came in. He had one of two choices. He could either
watch the five channels on TV or he could rest. He opted for resting.
Two and a half years ago in his travels when he had first left the
X-men, he learned a way to induce sleep upon one's self from a Japanese
martial arts grand master. It was one of the first things he had
learned. Not only did he have to spend his waiting hours restlessly
trying to get to sleep he could just retreat inside of his mind and shut
it down. It had become very useful in the days that he would spend
pacing a room back and forth waiting for time to go by. Within seconds
he was out like a light.
When he awoke he only had a half an hour to get ready and be at the
dock. He didn't rush thou, to do so would be foolish. Another thing he
had learned in his travels and in his days as an X-man is that when you
choose the time and place for the battle to begin, it has a higher
chance of going your way. He had both seen the positives and the
negatives of this.
Within twenty minutes he was at the docks. He had managed to find a
perfect place for him to wait out the off loading of the weapons. It was
secluded behind crates, and the old cargo ship that was docked heavily
shadowed it. "Classic," he thought to himself, "isn't
this the type of position one always sees in the movies?" His train
of thought was interrupted by the sounds of a crane lifting the shipment
off of the vessel.
The next thing Cyclops heard was footsteps coming closer to him. He
soundlessly ducked further down into the shadows. It was not yet time
for him to make his strike. "Well," one of the voices began,
"this gets easier and easier every time we do this." Cyclops
laughed in his head. This man was in for a big surprise.
"Yea, ain't it amazing what the cops will do in this city for the
right amount of money?" came the second mans reply.
Cyclops felt a cringe of anger at the man's remarks. He should have
suspected as much. Police always looked the other way when they would
make money, or if the situation involved mutants. "Makes me almost
pity the muties in 'at one building down in Brooklyn."
"Better watch your mouth man. Ya could get disciplined fer
sympathiz'n with the freaks."
"Hey, I said I almost felt sorry for them."
Cyclops shook his head in wonder. Why was it that all the thugs in the
world could never speak proper English? They always spoke with slang.
Sometimes it really pissed him off. "However," he thought,
"they did give me some very useful information. I think they have
served their purpose." With that last thought he was on the move.
Up over the crates and down upon the unsuspecting victims.
One kick on his way down took out the first man. Cyclops landed on his
left leg and then twisted around and brought the leg that had just taken
out his friend into the other mans temple. Both were out cold.
Inside of a minute, the two men were where Cyclops had once been hidden,
and Cyclops himself was making his way toward the crane that was lifting
the crates. One punch took care of the crane operator. Another five
seconds to drop the three-ton payload of weapons onto the deck of the
ship.
Cyclops spotted five men pop their heads out of the ships bridge. Ten
more came running toward the crane. He ducked down low and waited. When
the first man arrived and opened the door, Cyclops kicked him directly
in the face. The kick was immediately followed by a lunge punch, which
knocked the man to the ground. Cyclops went with the man to the ground.
When he landed he started rolling along dodging the bullets that had
started coming when he hit the fist man.
After three rolls he got to his feet and began running in a zigzag
motion in the direction of the pier. Once he reached it he blew a hole
in the ground with an optic blast, which he jumped into. Cyclops reached
up with both hands and grabbed the remaining part of the dock. Using the
momentum of the fall he swung himself so that he was parallel with the
water. All the while blasting holes into the pier for his hands and
feet. There he waited.
Cyclops began moving his way toward the ship as the men began exploring
the area in which he had fallen through. He placed his blasts perfectly
so that it would look like the pier just gave away. He also made sure
that his body covered the angle of the light that would be given away by
the beams. They would send search boats to make sure that he would be
picked up and "taken care of." It didn't matter though. They
wouldn't find anything, and he was hidden by the pier's shadow. He was
safe.
He had to work fast when he reached the boat. The search ships would be
there soon and he didn't want them seeing him blasting holes in the
cargo ship. Setting his visor to focus the blasts into a short focused
beam. He doubted that they could see such a small beam but he didn't
want to take that chance. His mission would be a hell of a lot easier if
they thought he was dead.
It took him about ten minutes to use his optic blasts as a scalpel, and
cut a hole big enough in the ships hull for him to crawl through. Once
he was inside he silently made his way up to the bridge. On the upper
deck of the ship, he spotted where the munitions had been unloaded and
committed it to memory. Cyclops heard footsteps getting closer. He
quickly lay flat on the deck and waited for him to get closer. When the
man walked right past Cyclops, Cyclops jumped up, and put his hand
around the guy's mouth. He then forced the other man's head down and
brought his elbow onto it with all the force he could muster. The man
would wake up with a mild to severe concussion.
Cyclops was then moving again. The bow of the ship only had five or six
crates left on it. With one wide burst optic blast they were nothing
more than little splinters of wood and metal. "Have to move
fast," he thought, "that surly got their attention. With two
quick steps he was at the edge of the ship. He quickly spotted the rest
of the crates on the dock and one final blast took care of them.
"Now to get away," he thought. Once again he was on the move.
The few people he ran into he took out without so much as a lost breath.
He was two miles away from the Harbor in seven minutes. He made sure to
stick to the shadows and to mask his trail. No one had a hope in hell of
finding him. He was slightly disappointed though, he had to stay in New
York for the next couple of days. He had to make sure that the mutants
in some building in Brooklyn would be all right.
Scott Summers woke up after a restful sleep. The events of the previous
night had made him somewhat tired. Not enough that it actually made him
need to sleep, far from it. It was just that he barely got any chance to
have a peaceful rest. It was about ten o'clock when he finally got out
of bed. He did his regular morning training regiment, and then took a
shower to get cleaned up. Although, it wasn't like the liquid that came
out of the faucet could actually be called water.
Scott then decided that he would get started on finding out where this
mutant building was located. He first bought a morning paper to find out
what building this would be. As luck would have it the society section
had a report about a new mutant shelter in Brooklyn. His next step took
him to the library to look at a few maps of the area to find out where
this building had been located. It had after all been three years since
he had been anywhere near Brooklyn. The place might have changed.
Surprisingly it hadn't that much. The map was only a few months old and
Scott thought that maybe his luck was changing.
He was still unsure as to when the FoH were going to strike at the
center. However, he felt that even with the little intelligence their
leaders had they would at least know not to strike in broad daylight.
Even if they did, it would make his job a hell of a lot easier. The
local authorities would probably be able to handle it. That was if they
cared enough to respond.
Scott was hoping that he would only be in town over night and therefore
had not brought anything entertaining to do. He quickly found a few
books to sign out and went back to his hotel room. Upon walking into the
lobby, he gave the receptionist a second glance, something that he
hadn't done in he didn't know how long. She was not an unattractive
woman. She had shoulder length blonde hair that Emma Frost would be
jealous of. With big blue eyes, full pouting lips, perfect cheekbones,
and a smile that could melt Bobby's ice armor. No, she wasn't an
unattractive woman at all.
She was currently talking on the phone. With one of her friends he
presumed. The conversation quickly turned into a heated argument, which
ended abruptly with her slamming the phone down on the receiver. "I
take it someone wasn't exactly behaving appropriately," he stated.
The woman jumped up startled by the new voice. She hadn't seen this new
man come in. She quickly recovered from her shock and replied,
"Just a jackass of an EX-boyfriend, that's all." She said in a
rather harsh tone. Scott knew it wasn't directed at him, but he couldn't
help but feel somehow responsible. "Is there something I can help
you with?" she asked now remembering her job.
"Uh, no thank you," he stammered out, "I don't think
anyone knows I'm here."
"Hiding out from the wife are you?" she stated with an amused
smile. There was a faint hint of a flinch in his face, but it was
quickly covered up, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to pry."
"It's not that. I'm not married. Well, not anymore." He
answered and lowered his head slightly.
"I'm sorry, it's not my place to ask questions." She
apologized.
"Don't worry about it, it's ancient history." He said lifting
his head back up. "Say, do you know a place that serves a good
lunch?"
"Actually there is this place that makes great steak down the
street." She said with a smile.
"Steak for lunch huh? Well, there's a first time for everything
right?" he replied.
"If you'd wait about half an hour I can get off work and take you
there myself."
"It's not necessary, I don't want to trouble you."
"It's no trouble at all. Besides I didn't have breakfast this
morning so I'm famished."
"Thank you, I think I'd enjoy the company. By the way I'm
Scott." He greeted by extending his right hand.
"Don't mention it, it's my pleasure. And I'm Helen." She said
as she took the offered hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Helen." Scott then flashed her
the smile that had first made Jean fall in love with him, and then
watched as Helen's heart melted.
Part
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