Title: The Wily Odysseus
Author: Rachel_Martin64
Pairings: Jean Grey/Scott Summers; Jean Grey/Logan; Rogue/Scott Summers; Logan/Rogue; Ororo Munroe & Scott Summers; Emma Frost/Warren Worthington III; Emma Frost & Scott Summers; Bobby Drake & Scott Summers
Characters: Scott Summers, Logan, Jean Grey, Rogue, Ororo Munroe, Warren Worthington III, Bobby Drake, Charles Xavier, Emma Frost, Jean Grey as the Phoenix
Overall Rating: Mature. An adult version is at "Archive Of Our Own"
This story is not finished.
Summary: All outcomes are acceptable. After Liberty Island, a machiavellian and possibly insane Scott solves his Logan problem for once and for all.
This is X1, and immediately after X1, with many references to the later movies. There's a lot of worldbuilding in this story - how the school operates, how the team operates, how the residents of the mansion interact with each other.
Chapter 1
Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger - Thucydides
"Dammit, I knew it was a bad idea to leave the two of you in that house without adult supervision." Ororo huffed in exasperation. "The house is still standing, isn't it?"
Scott interrupted. "I broke up with Jean tonight." He injected a tremor into his voice. "I asked for the ring back."
"Oh, Scott." Ororo sighed, all annoyance instantly gone out of her voice. He heard the rustling of rearranged pillows and blankets. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised, but I wish you'd waited till I was home to pull the plug. I hate for you to be alone at a time like this."
"Sorry to wake you up."
"Don't be sorry. Will you be all right? You know Charles and I don't get back till tomorrow. This useless conference. Whose idea was this?"
Why, mine. "I'll be fine."
"I know this is where I'm supposed to say how sorry I am, but I'm not. You've been engaged for six years. That's five years too many. You should have ended this a long time ago, sweetie."
"I know. I've been such an idiot. I've wasted the best years of my life."
"No, no, no, guys don't get to say that. You're twenty-seven, you got plenty of tread on the tires. Lotsa gas in the tank. Ten years from now Heidi Klum will be birthing your tenth baby and you'll say 'Jean who?'"
Scott laughed despite himself.
"See, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. It's all for the best, Scott. Really. You'll see."
"Will you tell Charles for me? I'd rather not talk to him right now."
"Oh, I can understand that. Yeah, I'll tell him in the morning."
"Okay. Okay, well. Thank you."
"You're gonna get through this, babe. I promise. Now go get drunk."
Scott laughed again. "You should be a shrink. You'd be the richest shrink in the world."
"I missed my calling, didn't I. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. Oops, I mean today. It's already today. So that means I'll see you this afternoon. Love ya."
"Love you too."
Scott disconnected the call and dropped his team phone on the desk. He got up, yawned, stretched, and reheated his coffee in the small microwave tucked into a corner of his office. He swallowed several mouthfuls before returning to his desk, picking up the encrypted satellite cell again and punching in the code for Emma Frost. He needed to speak with Warren Worthington too but knew Warren would be within arm's reach of Emma. Emma and Warren were so obviously right for each other that of course they had resisted fate for years until suddenly capitulating mere months ago. Everyone associated with the Institute was glad for them. Of course, the tabloids were gladdest of all.
Emma answered on the fifth ring, hissing into her team phone over the clamor of a party. "Godzilla had better be stomping Tokyo."
"It's not business." Scott had heard enough childish whining to know how to childishly whine. "It's just been a really bad day and I need to talk to a friend right now."
"Scott? Is that you? What's wrong?"
He heard a muffled male voice querying Emma; that would be Warren. "Give me a moment, I'm going into the study."
He waited. The party noise receded.
"All right, Scott, talk to me. What's going on?"
"I broke up with Jean tonight. I called off the engagement."
"What? Can I put you on speakerphone? Warren's in here with me."
"Sure. He needs to know."
"Hey, Scott. What's going on?"
"I broke up with Jean tonight," Scott repeated. "I called off the engagement."
He could almost hear Warren cogitating, calculating outcomes at lightning speed. "This certainly changes the team dynamic."
"What he means to say is, he's very sorry to hear the sad news."
"No, Warren's right. It could potentially impact the school and the team." Scott stopped the whimpering and spoke crisply. "So I want to assure you and the Board that it won't. Jean and I are both professionals and we're not going to let our personal situation negatively affect the children, or the mission. We know there are much bigger issues at stake."
"All right." Warren sounded mollified. "We'll talk more later. Emma and I are moving back to the city after Labor Day and we'll come up to the school then." Muffled voices in the background. "I have to go now. We'll talk later."
"Scott, why don't you come out to the Hamptons?" Emma's voice was clearer, closer, now that she had taken him off speakerphone. "You shouldn't be alone right now. Plenty of room in the cottage." Warren's summer home, a beachfront "cottage" on Long Island, was about the size of Buckingham Palace but boasted better amenities.
"I really appreciate the invitation, but I think I'll just stay put. Ororo prescribed alcohol."
Emma laughed. "I can introduce you to a dozen young ladies who will be more than happy to take your mind off Jean. I'm glad you've come to your senses, to be honest. I'm not trying to make you feel worse, but the Board has been watching this situation develop since May and some of the trustees were beginning to question… your response."
"Thank you for telling me. You're a good friend, Emma. I want to hear the truth. Is there anything else I should know?"
"Well, I can tell you that you're not the only one wondering why Charles is, uh, sponsoring, Logan. The trustees are confused as well." Unfortunately, Emma did not choose to elaborate. "Listen, darling, I know you're heartbroken about Jean and I should be offering you sympathy, but that's not really my style. I'm glad you dumped her. The trustees will probably be glad too. As long as there's no drama."
"There hasn't been and there won't be. Jean and I are professionals."
"But Logan's not. Now there's a guy who thrives on drama. Don't let him bait you, Scott. He's got everything to gain and you've got everything to lose. God knows why, but Charles is obdurate about keeping his pet Wolverine in the house. I don't know how you're going to do it, but you have to find a way to live and work with him." Emma hesitated. "Be careful, babe. I think this situation is going to get dangerous before it gets better."
"Yes. I understand. Thank you."
Scott ended the call. He drained his coffee mug, got up again and restlessly prowled his office on the ground floor of the mansion. His office, where he had been sleeping for a week.
He understood that he had never gambled for such high stakes. Ten years spent painstakingly constructing a productive adult life after a disastrous childhood, and now he could lose it all. My home, my woman, my team, my reputation. My life. He could lose everything, not to a natural disaster or an accident or a military strike or a repressive policy originating in Washington, D.C. He could lose everything to an overgrown schoolyard bully.
Too lazy to build a life of his own, Logan intended to take a shortcut and steal Scott's life. Logan was the one contingency Scott had never anticipated, the one scenario missing from his playbook. I'm like the dinosaurs who never saw the asteroid coming.
Charles was undermining him, Jean was betraying him, Logan was humiliating him. The three of them were transforming him into an object of ridicule and pity. Worst of all, the Xavier Foundation's trustees were losing confidence in him. Sebastian Shaw, Donald Pierce, Harry Leland and the others were impassively observing the struggle, not caring who won, ready to negotiate with the victor.
Scott walked back to his desk and awakened his laptop. He tapped the "Send" button of the prepared email. Dear Dr. and Mrs. Grey, I regret the necessity of this note. I want to make you aware that I have ended my engagement to your daughter. Thank you for the kindness you have shown me over the years. Scott snorted. Jean's father, an Irish expatriate who taught Irish literature and history at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, had treated him with cold civility since the day of their engagement, and Jean's mother had not been any more welcoming. On the one hand, they acknowledged that their daughter's marital prospects were severely limited. Jean was a mutant, a telepath, and telepaths were feared not only by the mundanes but by their fellow mutants. Dr. Jean Grey, M.D., Ph.D., had secrets to keep, more secrets than her parents could imagine, and realistically it was impossible for her to get involved with the bachelors she met professionally and socially. But clearly her parents hoped she could still do better than a grade school teacher earning around $18,000 a year. Scott strongly suspected Dr. and Mrs. Grey had played a large role in his neverending engagement.
He also recognized that his youth and stupidly pretty face had been a persistent source of discomfort to the Greys. Over the years Scott had accompanied Jean to hearings, conferences, seminars, performances, exhibits, opening night galas and fundraisers, where men and women alike presumed that any man as handsome as Scott must be an idiot and treated him accordingly. Scott knew Jean had stoically endured thousands of snide comments from hundreds of people about their relationship. It was one of the many reasons why he had loved her and why initially he had been unable to fathom her kamikaze run on Logan. If her parents and peers hadn't accepted Scott, who was at least polite and presentable, how did she expect them to react to Logan? But I get it, now. Jean had no intention of ever introducing Logan to her relatives and friends and professional acquaintances.
Jean was too young to be having a midlife crisis, but if she suffered from some sort of post-traumatic stress from the Liberty Island mission, Scott had no sympathy. A veteran of the American foster care system, Scott considered the Liberty Island mission to be the least stressful occurrence of his life and he was completely out of patience with his fiancée. As for Logan, well, Logan's motivation had always been easy to understand. Stealing the leader's woman was a strategic maneuver dating back probably to the Stone Age.
It took me too long to figure him out. Logan had been and continued to be unimpressed with the amenities of the Institute – food and shelter; a haven from the mundanes; the security of being among his own kind. Sixteen-year-old Scott had been awestruck and abjectly grateful when Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier had scooped him off the streets of Hell's Kitchen. But Logan had arrived at the Institute as a grown man, experienced at protecting himself and providing for his own needs, a man who intensely disliked being beholden to others.
No, Logan hadn't stuck around because he needed sanctuary. Nor did he yearn for a family, or a sense of noble purpose. He'd stuck around for the ego boo. Boasting no qualification but possession of the X gene, he had been instantly admitted into the company of educated, informed people who behaved respectfully, spoke courteously, and listened gravely to whatever he spewed. Conan the Barbarian does Pemberley. While dismissing the residents of the mansion as schmucks, Logan clearly relished being treated by them with what he misinterpreted as deference. And naturally he was dazzled by Jean. Surely never in his peripatetic life had he had access to sophisticated, stylish women like Jean. Nor had Jean ever in her respectable life had access to cartoonish caricatures of masculinity like Logan.
But Logan did not love Jean. Jean did not love Logan. This Scott believed, and he was betting his future on it.
He'd persuaded Charles to attend the social workers' conference in Washington, D.C. He had used the lull in battle to fortify his telepathic defenses and to construct, review and refine his plan of action. In the process, Scott had unflinchingly considered every possible outcome, and decided all outcomes were acceptable. Whatever the endgame, he was determined to be satisfied; more than that, he was determined to be happy.
Scott glanced at the wall clock – three in the morning. Jean and Logan had returned at one. Even Logan had seemed wearied by the surveillance mission Scott had invented to keep them out of the house all day. Scott had used Jean's absence to gather and carry his personal belongings from the third-floor suite he shared with her to a vacant room on the fourth floor. It was that tragically easy to end their multiyear relationship. They weren't connected by a marriage certificate or biological children, or a mortgage, or even a jointly-owned car. They didn't have so much as a joint checking account. Looking back, Scott understood that Jean had been implementing advice from someone – her father, a financial advisor, a fellow physician, a sorority sister – to refrain from mingling assets with her younger, poorer lover.
Scott commenced moving to the fourth floor after Ororo had dismissed the high schoolers for the day. He had used the central staircase rather than the elevator or service stairs and made no attempt to hide his activity. The teenagers he passed in the halls and on the staircase had stared bug-eyed and rushed off to gossip. His surrogate brother Bobby had appeared and carried a few boxes for him. I'm done with her. Bobby had nodded. Whenever you wanna talk, Scott. Yes, he'd talk with Bobby later.
Right now he needed to wake Jean and break up with her.