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The condolence card arrived a week after Alkalai Lake. At first Scott thought, with a kind of dizzy hysteria, that it must be magic. How could they know? he thought, turning the little piece of heavy paper back and forth in his hands, staring at the embossed gold cover expressing sympathy for his loss and then the delicate script inside saying the same thing over again. Has one of them turned up with telepathy now? Does that kind of mutation work on a delay?
After a minute his mind caught up with him, and he could reason it out. The Professor must have given them a mental tap on the shoulder. Or maybe he just called. Or maybe Ororo had called-- someone had been doing things like that, in the week since the accident, making calls and signing for deliveries and making sure the kids did their chores, and it sure as hell wasn't Scott. Apparently that person's to-do list included "notify other quote-unquote superheroes of the death in the family."
He turned the card again, studying the neat and even handwriting, and thought it must be Susan's. The hand that had addressed the envelope, though, that was Reed; block print, slanting back, showing the strain of actual effort to produce legible words instead of the kind of shorthand that lived in a lab. Scott put the card aside and picked up the envelope again, studying the precisely identical three S's in his name, the perfectly perpendicular cross of each T. And the return address, written out without the slightest hint of irony: "Fantastic 4."
He folded the envelope carefully and tucked it into his pocket, glancing up at the clock. At this time of day Logan ought to be in the Danger Room with the oldest students, putting them through their paces. Well, technically, at this time of day Scott ought to be in the Danger Room, but he'd stopped going and nobody seemed to mind. That wasn't bothering him yet, and he didn't plan to worry about it until it did.
For now, it just meant that his bike should be where he left it, for once.
***
The first time Scott met Reed Richards, it was to check if the guy was a mutant.
That was before Cerebro, when the Professor and Erik tracked mutant children by following rumors and whispers and possibilities. There was a kid in New York who was "smarter than he ought to be," as Erik put it, smirking over the file Xavier had pieced together. "Probably has some help-- reading the other side of the page, do you think, Charles?"
Scott couldn't remember why he got to come along on that trip, though he did remember watching the city skyline grow to consume the whole windshield of Erik's boxy old car, and that nobody on the street gave a second glance to his glasses or the baseball cap he tugged down over them. That kind of thing meant the world to him, back then.
Even he could tell, the minute they stepped into the high-school chemistry lab, that Reed Richards was not a mutant. He was just a very weird kid who had a gift for science. Being a very weird kid himself, Scott wasn't inclined to judge.
The Professor and Erik shifted effortlessly over to making the pretext for their visit-- improving the science curriculum at the school-- reality, and Scott ended up wandering around the lab, gradually drifting closer and closer to the dark-haired kid in the oversized lab coat until finally he was actually standing at the counter across from Reed and watching him run his experiment. Reed glanced up and offered a small, preoccupied smile.
"You don't actually need safety glasses for this," he said. "Well, I guess technically you're supposed to wear 'em anyway, but trust me, you don't need to."
"Oh," Scott said blankly, staring at him. "Um. These aren't safety glasses, they're...well, they're mine."
"Oh." That was the point where the normal question was to ask why he was wearing them indoors, but apparently Reed either didn't know that or didn't care. "All right then. Could you hand me that pipette?"
Scott did, and they fell into the comfortable silence of teenage boys watching things hiss and bubble and potentially explode. By the time the little delgation from Xavier's School left, the two of them had actually swapped math puns, and Scott allowed himself a few wistful moments, as they crossed the bridge back out of the city, to wish that Reed was a mutant, so they could take him home.
***
And now, enough years later that it made Scott stop and blink sometimes, Reed had picked up a mutation secondhand. Along with a fiancee, a soon-to-be brother-in-law, a best friend made of rocks, and his very own personal superpowered nemesis. Could've had all that a lot sooner if you'd just come upstate with us, Reed, he thought wryly as he parked the bike outside the Baxter Building. Maybe we could've declared you an honorary mutant, or something. You and Hank would've hit it off like soulmates, and Jean would've liked you even more as a teenager than she did as an adult.
On second thought, maybe it was better the way it all had really worked out. If Scott had had competition for Jean's attention back then, he probably would've just folded his hand and walked away.
"Mr. Summers," the doorman greeted him. "Is there a crisis at hand, sir?"
He didn't seem particularly concerned, but Scott figured that living with a bunch of superheroes, one of whom was Johnny Storm, probably altered one's definition of "crisis" pretty radically.
"No," he replied, glancing back at the old-fashioned elevators. "Just here for a visit. But I didn't call ahead, so can you buzz up and see if I'm...welcome?"
"Of course you're welcome, Mr. Summers. Any time. Mr. Grimm and Mr. Storm are out, but Dr. Richards and Dr. Storm are probably up in the lab." He paused and grinned at Scott like he'd just found the best joke in the world. "Won't it be confusing after the wedding, when they're both Dr. Richards?"
The wedding, Scott thought with a start, remembering when the notice to save the date arrived at the school, and how Ororo had teased him and Jean all afternoon about when it was going to be their turn, if Reed and Sue were going to go ahead and set the precedent, and Jean's mysterious, gorgeous smile of reply.
"Very confusing," he said, thankful for the lenses that hid his eyes. "Can I let myself up, then?"
"Of course, sir," the doorman said, stepping away, and Scott all but lunged for the elevator, where heavy doors and slow machinery would give him a few long moments to regain his composure in peace.
***
A normal guy would've dragged him out to a sporting event, or a strip club, or at the very least, a bar. Logan had been hinting around that kind of thing, in their awkward conversations in passing. (All of Scott's conversations were in passing, lately, and awkward was an absolute guarantee.) That was probably why Scott had come down here, looking for the least normal guy he knew, who also happened to be the closest thing he had to a friend outside of work, which was also home, which was...
Not where he wanted to be right now.
Anyway, Reed didn't take him to a game, or a club, or a bar. Reed took him to a planetarium. Most likely, it was as an excuse not to talk; the silence couldn't be uncomfortable when it was enforced by signs on the walls. Scott was so grateful for that, he would've cried behind his glasses if he hadn't cried himself out already. Instead he braced his feet against the empty seat in front of him and tilted his head back, watching the flashes of light go by all in shades of red, mirroring the posture of the man in the seat next to his.
Reed watched the show wide-eyed and intently, even though none of this could possibly be new information for him. Scott wondered if Reed was seeing something else entirely, patterns above and beyond what the recorded voice described, but he didn't ask. Even if conversation hadn't been forbidden, he knew Reed well enough to know he couldn't put that kind of thing into words.
Afterward, they walked back to the Bax in silence and paused on the sidewalk outside. Reed squinted against the sun, tucking his hands in his pockets and shooting Scott an anxious glance. Scott could read the tension in his shoulders like he was the one with telepathy: Reed wanted nothing more than to escape back to his lab and avoid any potential awkward conversation. Forty-five minutes of sitting silently in the dark after a strained and horrible half-hour drinking coffee in the Richards-Storm kitchen at the Bax while Sue did her best to fill the pauses was apparently the upper limit of Reed's tolerance for this kind of thing. Scott didn't blame him in the least.
"I didn't know her well," Reed said finally. "But she was obviously a very wonderful woman and I'm very sorry for your loss."
Simple, clumsy words, but they shot through Scott's head and fit into some place he didn't realize was empty, the snap of connection so strong he missed a breath. It took a minute to come clear, but once it did it was so simple, he wondered how he'd managed to miss it, altered vision or no.
I didn't know her well. That's what he had come down here for. Someone who didn't have the slightest claim on his grief and wouldn't try to make one. Someone who was sorry for the fact that he'd lost a girlfriend, lover, partner, not half of the ScottandJean organism that functioned as a pillar in the tiny world of the school. Someone who reacted like...well. Like a normal guy, after all.
"Thanks," he said, wiping away the one or two tears that hadn't been cried out after all. "Thanks. I guess I should be getting back. And let you get back to work."
"If you need anything," Reed offered, glancing from Scott to the door and back. "You know where to find us."
"Yes. Absolutely." He nodded firmly and walked over to the bike. "Tell Johnny and Ben I said hi."
Reed vanished inside and Scott sat on the bike for a moment, staring down at the handlebars and trying to sort through the mess in his head. He felt...better. It wouldn't last, he knew; there was another swell of grief on the horizon, sure to come in like the tide as soon as he lay down in that empty bed tonight. But for the moment, the worst edge was gone and he had...a kind of balance, all the more precious for the certainty that it was brief.
He started the engine and eased into traffic. If the feeling lasted all the way back to Westchester County, maybe he'd take Logan up on that offer to buy him a beer.