Family Reunion
Tagging: Alex & Scott Summers Location: The Xavier Institute Time Frame: June 19, 2018 General Notes: Not long after Alex’s arrival, he and Scott meet face to face for the first time in years.
Ever since Alex had first stepped foot into the Xavier Institute he’d been waiting to wake up. That somehow all of this was just his mind tricking him and that at any moment he’d wake up in his old apartment, hiding from the world, wondering why his mind decided to act like his brother had managed to find him. But at the same time, no dream would ever have made all of it as awkward as it was. Sure, he had decided to try and find Scott, but Alex hadn’t anticipated that he would. Especially not after he lost his job, and dropped out of school, and just tried in general to avoid people at all costs since he didn’t even know what he was capable of. And now, Alex had no idea how to talk to him. Had no idea what he was even supposed to say that it was easier to avoid him. That was until in his search to try and find somewhere in the mansion that didn’t seem to be full of people that he accidentally walked into the one room with the one man that he was trying to avoid over everyone else. “Um….hey,” Alex started as soon as he realized that there was probably no getting out of it at this point. Unless Scott didn’t want to talk to him either.
Scott was finishing grading summer school quizzes when it came in. All of the professors had been emailed of an incoming student as well as information on a potential student the Professor had been keeping his eye on through Cerebro. Usually Scott didn't pay them any mind until he knew they were going to recruit or they were certainly being enrolled. In this case, he was through the portion of the email that focused on the new student and that was when his heart stopped. The last name ‘Summers’ immediately jumped out at him and his eyes immediately fixed on the first name. Alex is alive!? he thought to himself, his heart now racing. He read on with the given information but it wasn't a great deal to go off of, which didn't surprise Scott when he couldn't find his brothers over the years. Several thoughts were sprinting through his mind but all of them came to a halt when he looked from the monitor screen to the blond young man who hesitantly greeted him. It was more than just recognizing Alex from behind his ruby-tinted vision; he felt it and knew that that was his brother. Finding his voice, Scott spoke back, “....Alex… Hi.” Struggling to figure out what to say, he looked about as though the answer was somewhere in his classroom before saying, “C-come in. I… how are you?”
“You mean other than having super destructive powers, being cyber-stalked by some crazy mutant tracking supercomputer, and flying across the country? I'm great,” Alex sarcastically replied with a shrug, not really sure what else there was to say as he looked his brother over. It was strange, seeing how much had changed and how little. He was taller than Scott now, though not by much, and his brother looked older than Alex had remembered. But all in all he looked pretty much the same, which didn’t bring the kind of relief the younger man thought that it would. Instead it just made things stranger, especially since he didn’t even know how much Scott knew about him. “How are you?” he finally asked back after a long pause, not really sure what else he could say.
Initially, Scott stayed behind his desk but he eventually registered out of teacher mode and stood, coming around to lean against the front of his desk. Everything still felt surreal but hearing Alex’s sarcastic comment brought him back to just before the accident, if only for a fleeting moment. It almost made Scott smirk but his mind was still trying to accept that after all the years of searching and thinking the worst, Alex was alive and he was here. Instead, he nodded and replied, “Yeah from what I'm told, Cerebro is...something else. But you're in a good place for learning about your powers and how to harness them.” He folded his arms across his chest to give himself something to do. “I'm… good, considering the circumstances. This is all so...shocking. And I just found out a few minutes ago that you were here.”
”Yeah, I know. I got that whole speech when they tracked me down,” Alex shrugged, crossing his arms in front of himself as he leaned against the door, “Though I think I'd rather just figure out how to just turn them off so that my life can go back to normal, instead of controlling and doing the whole superhero thing that you've got going on,” he continued, before scrunching his face in confusion. “Really? I would have thought that they'd have told you I was here.”
Scott raised a brow at his brother. “You really think you’re life’s gonna be normal now, Alex? You don’t have to become an X-Men, but you’ll be setting yourself up for a disappointing future if you think you’re going to go back to whatever semblance of normalcy you once had after you learn about your abilities. Control or not, it isn’t easy for people like us to go unnoticed, especially for people who are actively intolerant of us.” He hadn’t necessarily meant to start on a preachy rant but even with the years apart and thinking both his brothers gone, Scott couldn’t help responding protectively, thinking about some of the adversaries he had faced, as well as the ones he hadn’t but knew were out there. His head lowered just slightly; although his eyes were shielded, the skin between his brows creased. “No, I... I just found out. Maybe the Professor was planning to talk to me before you and I would see each other--I don’t know…” His voice trailed off while he debated internally and then looked back up to Alex and decided he needed to ask, “What happened?” Scott was still trying to figure out why they ended up separated for so long. Why couldn’t he have found his brother when he was looking himself? Why hadn’t this reunion happened sooner?
Alex’s jaw tensed up at Scott’s words because the last thing that he wanted to hear was that his main reason for going to this school was “setting him up for disappointment.” It felt too much like too many of his foster parents, who decided what was best for him without even trying to get to know him. And the fact that his brother was doing the same thing rubbed him the wrong way. He tensed up, but his temper had already bubbled up to the point that he wasn’t even sure there was any point in trying to control it. “Fuck. That.” Alex exclaimed through gritted teeth, “I know that you can’t tell because you’re stuck wearing that stupid visor all the time, but I actually look normal. So as soon as I figure out what I do and how to stop doing it, it’s not like anyone’s going to even come looking for me when everyone here’s made themselves a target. Complete with a giant X to mark the spot!” He was yelling, but Alex didn’t really care about that, considering that most of the time he was already angry about almost everything. And he didn’t want to hear any of this from the brother he’d spent years hoping to find. He tried to calm down as he listened to Scott try to explain himself, but he had a hard time believing that Scott didn’t know. It had never seemed to him that schools were lacking that much in communication. “What after the crash? I was in the ocean for about a day, picked up by the coast guard, brought to California, and then bounced around 13 different foster houses. Thought for a year you’d actually try to find me, only to realize that you were never coming. Finished high school a semester early because one of my foster moms didn’t believe in summer vacation, and now I’m a college dropout who can’t keep a job because I’m a mutant freak. And that’s all you missed in my life.”
Taken aback by Alex’s outburst, Scott flinched but recovered, narrowing his eyes behind his visor. “It doesn’t blind me, Alex. I can see what you look like,” he interjected at his brother’s smarmy remark and considered adding one of his own about Alex getting a haircut, but he ultimately decided against it. Rather, his own tone hardened, “And you don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if you pass for an ordinary human, people are out there tracking us down, finding ways without having to rely on your appearance and use you or kill you. But if you’d rather figure that out the hard way someday, I can’t stop you.” That, of course, wouldn’t stop Scott from trying; he just got his brother back and wasn’t going to willingly put himself in harm’s way. Closing his fingers into fists, Scott went on to say, “Think what you want about the school, but you’re better off here than most places.” He listened on though as Alex shared what he had been through in their time apart but at the not-so-subtle accusation, Scott narrowed his eyes with his body going rigid. “Alex, I’m sorry about what you’ve gone through but I looked for you. For a long time, I looked for you and I couldn’t find you--I thought you were dead!” The last were was punctuated and raised, bouncing off of the walls a moment. “Believe me or don’t believe me, but that’s the truth.”
“”Well how was I supposed to know that, I don’t have lasers coming out of my eyes,” Alex shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he stared at the floor, “But you know, I’m really good at figuring things out the hard way. I kind of prefer it that way because at least then I know what to expect. And you know, it’s only a matter of time before I get kicked out of here anyway, that’s always how things go for me,” Alex scoffed, before looking up at his brother’s words. He wasn’t entirely sure that he believed him, especially when it his experience it went against absolutely everything that he had been led to believe over the years. “Yeah, well I wasn’t! So how did you not find me, it couldn’t have been that hard to look through foster records! Or hospital records! Or the time that I almost got arrested because I’m sure that’s documented somewhere. Or did you just look back in Hawaii and the crash site and call it good? Because I don’t fucking believe that you couldn’t find me because you could have if you really wanted to.”
“Because I’ve had this mutation since before the accident,” Scott pointed out, masking his disbelief that Alex hadn’t recalled. He knew their age gap was wide but just having learned that at least one of his brothers was still alive, Scott figured he would be learning about him, more than the other way around. The reverse hadn’t crossed Scott’s mind until Alex talked about how things always went for himself. He almost started to grimace but the outburst from his brother and the blatant doubt hit him like a slap to the face. “Alex, I looked! You have no idea how much or how hard--what it was like thinking you were dead this whole time!” he snarled. “I looked through all kinds of records in Hawai’i after I got out of the hospital. If the places I checked with couldn’t find anything on you, then they weren’t telling me anything because I wasn’t your legal parent or guardian. They didn’t care that our parents were gone or that I was your brother! I asked for the Professor’s help and he did what he could too. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough for you but I tried!” From behind his ruby visor, Scott was glaring; his fingers were curled into tight fists to hide the shaking his hands would have otherwise been doing. For all the passing years, he truly had no idea what more he could have done for them to have been reunited sooner. He had a few papers, somewhere, that would back up his words, but right now it didn’t seem to matter. And following a lengthy period of denial, there had been a time when Scott had concluded that Alex was gone, like the rest of their family. Rather than relishing in relief and some level of joy that that wasn’t the case, he was standing in growing hurt and anger over his brother’s words--his own anger. Clenching his teeth together, Scott dropped his chin just slightly and turned his head, using all of his energy and focus to keep himself composed despite wanting to yell more, to kick some classroom chairs around or release some optic beams on a few innocent trees on the grounds.
“You’re right, I have no idea how hard it was for you,” Alex snapped, feeling any resemblance of being able to control his temper completely slip away, “ Because while you were apparently looking for me and staying in this cushy mansion, I was living with a whole bunch of families who didn’t give a shit about me because they were getting a government check. I was getting passed around from house to house with only a trash bag to carry the few things that I could actually say were mine. And I forgot what Mom and Dad and Gabe even looked like because I had absolutely nothing to remember them by. So I just can’t pretend like all of that didn’t happen, and that I only got to have a normal life for three months before all of this superpower shit started. So why don’t you just go back to pretending that I’m dead, I’ll get myself kicked out once I figure out how to get my powers under control and you can just forget all about me. It’ll be easier for both of us,” he mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and quickly walking out of the room, not really caring of Scott had anything else to say.
Scott listened to his brother but hadn’t looked his way until he suggested Scott go back to thinking Alex was dead. That made his head snap up. Never, since his mutation manifested, had he wished so badly that he was able to suspend his mutation so Alex could see him looking him in his eyes. He watched Alex go. There was more he could have said and more he wanted to say, but the room had become a powder keg with the two of them in it and while Scott was having a hard time biting his tongue, he knew nothing good would come out of him insisting they keep talking now. Some time Alex was out of the room, the elder Summers brother turned sharply and gave his desk a hard kick, letting an angry grunt go almost simultaneously. He had no idea how things would go between them being under the same roof again, with everything being so different over the years, but the one thing Scott knew was that he didn’t want to see Alex go, or get himself kicked out of the school. Somehow, they would figure this out. He just didn’t know when or by what means.
