Panel 1 Two men are carrying the limp form of another into an alleyway - we see all in silhouette.
"Go back to where you came from, Mutant!"
P 2 They toss him into some loose trash and bags of it overflown out of a dumpster.
[Text Box: The indignity.]
P 3
Their departing forms are in the distance while we -as though kneeling down behind him- get a close up of the man in the trash: there's no mistaking who this is by the ruby quartz visor.
[Text Box(es): Though that's just par for the course when you're a mutant in an intolerant world. He couldn't remember how he wound up here, but there was no forgetting some things. What affected him when he came to wasn't how he was lying in the trash like
nobody in the world cared for him. It was that he had someone who cared for him. .
. .who didn't care to be with him, now.]
Match-Cut-To flashback Lying much like he is now, except instead of in garbage, he's just outside the boundary of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. His memory similarly hazy, he knows something happened. They'd had an argument. Then, he was expected to forget they'd been a family. A conversation recalled, one had as he stood in front of Xavier. "I need you to help me find Jean."
"I will not."
"What?"
"I will not override Jean's wishes if she does not desire to be found."
". . .She has Xack."
"I suppose that, too, is her prerogative. . .And I wouldn't trouble yourself further by inquiring to the others. I assure you they know nothing of these private matters."
It felt like a conspiracy.
end of flashback.
He moans - rolls onto his side to get up.
Somewhat staggers out of the alleyway, hand on his head.
Match-Cut-To hand on his head, a tiled wall the bg now instead of the alleyway.
Cyclops is in a shower washing up; washing his hair, his face.
He lathers his hands once again, keeping his eyes closed as he now
removes and washes his visor.
Replacing it, he stands under the flow a minute longer before shutting the water off.
Rubbing a towel vigorously over his hair, he pauses when he hears a voice.
"Scott? What's kept you?"
Towel now wrapped around himself, he uses his forearm to clear the condensation from
the mirror. ". . .I don't know." He says to his reflection as much as to the owner of the voice.
He exits the bathroom-
-into a bedroom that looks nothing like the ones we've seen him in before.
An ash blonde is perched on the bed.
Cyclops stares at her a moment, before going to grab a shirt.
She stands up, setting a hand on his shoulder. Sliding it down to his chest: "Don't be so quick to put that on."
He sets his hand on hers-
-and removes it from his skin.
"I didn't come to you for that."
She's only a little put off: "I didn't go to the store for dark chocolate, but I came back with some anyway." She's returned to the bed; crossing her legs. "I couldn't resist."
He merely stares at her again.
Her demeanor shifts; her voice empathetic: "It's uncomfortable to feel pleasure while you're in the midst of tumult. . .It's not as though it erases the cause. . .though in those moments, it takes away the matter. . .Only it does still matter. Ever as much. It's like the first time you laugh, truly laugh, after a loved one's passing. . .How can mirth exist within the grief?
Yet it can."
While listening to this, Cyclops has put his shirt on and -ahead of buttoning it- gone back into the bathroom with his lower clothes. He returns fully dressed as Emma Frost concludes: "..It's not a twisted sort of mind trick like Wyngarde's, yet one that feels somehow more illusionary. . .Doesn't it?"
Cyclops considers, then:
"You know, you're one of the most clear sighted people I've met.
It's almost uncanny in this environment."
"You think so?" She gets up again, closing the distance. "You're a mechanics guy.
Aren't the inner workings of a thing only more apparent the closer you get to its
intimate space? I work with a master of illusion. Of course I can see through it all."
Her hand is back on his chest.
For a minute, Cyclops looks into her eyes, though not from allure- from what she said. What "all" is she speaking of?
"Still 'no'."
He takes her hand away again.
Emma's voice becomes a sharp mix of disbelief and cynical amusement. "Seriously, Scott. The woman betrays your trust, covering up what she's now literally hiding from, denying you even knowing where your son is in the process, and still you're going to stay true until you find her and you and she can have that little 'talk' that's supposed to put everything to rest one way or the other?"
"I have to stay focused."
"Puh-lease. Aren't the X-Men one never ending task on which to focus? Yet somewhere along the way you relaxed enough to make the kid you're now so single-mindedly searching for."
". . .I'm not in the mood." He moves to grab a comb from the dresser, then to an ornate mirror on the wall just beside.
"Right. You're in many, just never that one. Makes me question why I'm even helping you? What's in it for me." She makes to saunters out-- only to almost get pushed back as Sebastian Shaw happens to just be coming in. He stares a moment in acknowledgement of Emma in Scott's room; more in silent question of whatever that is than in surprise, before looking past her to Cyclops -who isn't looking impressed that the man didn't knock: "Good, you're back. There's been a sighting. Be ready to go."
Cut-To, what now seems a life away; the X Mansion. Yet before we see it presently, we see it in flashback. Specifically, the Medical Bay,
where Storm has just finished recovering, following the events of Descension*.
*a.k.a. Cyclops & Jean Grey Chronicles # 3.
She speaks to the visiting Cyclops. "If it's guilt I would see behind your eyes, I know this wasn't you. You would never try to hurt any of us. Except, perhaps, Logan."
Looking down, Scott scarcely manages to smile at the playful remark.
"You were right, though." He looks up. "Regarding leadership of the X-Men. It's always been my place and considering even sharing it felt like I was losing that-- losing myself..."
Irony comes into his voice as he goes on: "A change to what's known, reacted to
as a threat." Scott sighs. "Yes it was under the influence of the Dark Phoenix but
I was in a place it could reach me. . .one I couldn't see a way out of. . ."
"We all have our blind spots. That is why we are a team."
"Right. . ." Whatever he's feeling about what he couldn't do, he shifts aside in favour of what he will; standing confidently: "and if we're as good of one as I know the X-Men to be, two leaders won't get in each other's way." It's a statement as much as a term of agreement. "Apart we fall."
. . .and so we come out of the flashback, to see Storm on one of the Mansion's balconies looking out across the grounds, towards the presently vacant Grey-Summers home.
"And yet, Cyclops, you have frayed the ties to both your families. . .What transpired between you and Jean? How hurt my sister must be to stay away from us, too. . ."
Another flashback, this one more recent.
An encounter with the Hellfire Club elucidates the X-Men to their latest member.
Storm: "Cyclops? How are you with the Hellfire Club?"
". . .Is Jean back?"
Storm is taken by surprise. "We thought you'd taken time away together?"
There was nothing to be gained from that encounter except harder feelings on one end, and confusion on the other. .
. .end of flashback
"I feel I understand those who usually oppose us more than this. . ."
A humph is heard. "I never could wrap my head around Scott. But this is a new one. . ."
Ororo turns to find Logan leaning against the doorframe with a look of ferocious disgust.
She speaks again: "Xavier shares some concern, but all privacies considered I cannot understand why he desires us to leave this be."
"For once I have no problem taking orders." He unsheathes just one set of his claws. "That asshole's nobody the X-Men need anymore. If he's in my face again, I'll shred 'em for screwin' up what he had."
"It surprises me then you do not want to at least find Jean?"
Retracting his claws, Logan looks out towards the house. "I don't get it but I get Jean loved him. . .The kid wasn't planned but he was no accident. . .She's going to need some time." His gaze lowers.
And so too do we; down through the levels of the X Mansion to its sub-basement training facility, where a lone figure looks towards the one who's just disengaged their simulation.
They meet in the Control Room.
Jubilee: "I thought you knew running a sim by yourself is dangerous. How'd you even get it turned on without the X-Men-only code?"
Holo: "I've seen Wolverine work the keys with his claws sometimes. Several are chipped more than any other- see?" She points. "So I just thought of different words using those letters and finally hit on the password."
Jubilee is mildly amused. "That'll be changed if the others find out -along with the keyboard."
Holo shrugs: "They haven't so far. "The older girl's brows knit together: "How long have you been doing extra training?"
"Only a little while..." She moves to completely cancel the disengaged sim.
"And why?"
"If something doesn't make sense it's either nonsensical, or we're missing something."
Jubilee understands: "This is about Jean and Cyclops. Holo. . ."
"Jean will come back, and so will Professor Summers. When they do, I want him to know I'm ready."
"Listen, you've always just been with your sister. The facts are sometimes people -or teams- just don't stay together, even the ones you can't see any chance of that happening. Okay- I don't actually get it either," she speaks more excitably. "I don't understand why Jean isn't here with all of us, though I'm sure she's coming back, eventually. But Cyclops? I mean he's never been an easy guy to figure out-"
Holo stares at her with furrowed brows.
"-but it looks like 'the X-Men' only mean Jean Grey to him, and if he wants to play with Hellfire, then yeah-" she brings her fist up to her chest, pops of pyrotechnics emenating from it, "-if he ever does come back, I want to show him I'm ready, too." Seeing the look on the younger girl's face, Jubilee's emotional fire subsides with her sparks. "I'm sorry, Holo. . .What exactly are you trying to be ready for, anyway?"
"Just. . .anything." Though Holo hesitates in her programming of another sim, seeming suddenly low on ideas on what that could be.