A/N: This is my first ever X-Men fanfic. I have never read the comic books so my X Men knowledge is going off the movie and Wikipedia (as awful as that sounds). So, please, if I have any thing factual wrong please let me know! Otherwise, this is pretty much an AU story. Jean and Scott aren't together, no one's died as per X3, and I plan on this story being a happy story and not a depressing story, haha. Other than that, please enjoy!
Pairing: Scott Summers-Cyclops/OC
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I owned Cyclops (or even Wolverine), I wouldn't be sitting here writing this fic.
Miss Hargreaves Goes to Mutant High
By: Dean's Leather Jacket
Chapter One: A New Life
The yellow taxi slid through the rain drenched country road easily, the sound of the windshield wipers almost lulling one, Claudia Hargreaves, to sleep.
"Not much long now, Miss." The taxi driver, a Russian immigrant, said through the silence of the car.
"Thank you." Claudia replied, placing her forehead back against the cool glass of the window.
It was a dismal day in Westchester, New York—Just the way she liked it. Rain fell in sheets down around the vehicle, and the overcast skies added to the ambiance.
The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. That's where she was headed. It had only taken one phone interview and one video interview with Professor Charles Xavier to be offered a job as a History teacher. There were no pretenses. Claudia knew that the "Gifted" part of the name meant mutant. Claudia had no prejudices against mutants (she was not one herself); probably one of the few in the world.
The taxi took a right down a road through a copse of trees. When they emerged, Claudia couldn't help but gasp. A wide, wrought iron gate gave way to a large, sprawling mansion. It was probably the most beautiful house (if you could really call it a house), Claudia had ever seen. Just through the rain Claudia could make out tons of windows, spacious grounds, and activities fields.
The cab pulled under an over hanging that shielded a front door. There were two people waiting. An older, bald man in a suit, sat in a wheelchair, and the other was a tall, beautiful, mocha skinned woman with shockingly white hair that was styled in a pixie cut.
Claudia stepped out of the cab with a smile to match those gracing the faces of these two people.
"Welcome, Miss Hargreaves, to my home." Said the man whom I remembered instantly as Professor Xavier himself.
"Thank you, Professor, for this opportunity to work at your school." Claudia spoke.
"We are very excited to have you here! This is my right hand woman, Ororo Monroe."
"It is a pleasure to meet you." Said Claudia as she shook the woman's hand. Ororo smiled, and repeated the sentiment.
Claudia turned to pay the taxi driver who had kindly taken her two large suitcases from the trunk. The rest of her belongings she had following her later in the week.
"I do wish you had allowed me to send a car for you at the airport." Professor Xavier said when the cab had driven away.
"Please, Professor. You have done way more than enough for me." Claudia chuckled. Xavier just smiled slightly with a twinkle in his eye. He maneuvered his wheelchair around and beckoned.
"Come, Miss Hargreaves, and we will show you to your living quarters."
"Let me help you." Ororo bade, as she reached for one of the suitcases. Claudia thanked her and the two women took off after the professor. He led them to an elevator of which the outer door matched the wall paneling preceding and following it and hit the button for the second floor.
"Your room will be on the second floor of the main part of the building with the other faculty members. The students are housed in the East Wing, and classrooms are in the West Wing. We have a cafeteria and kitchens on the ground floor of this part of the mansion, as well as a recreational room and TV lounge." Claudia nodded; taking in all the information the Professor was giving her.
"Don't worry, you will get lost the first couple weeks, then you'll figure out your way around." Ororo supplied to which the three chuckled.
The door *binged* open and the women followed Xavier out, and left down the hall to room 213.
"Your room." Xavier motioned for Claudia to open the door.
It was a great room. Queen sized bed sat in the far corner of the room with a nightstand. There was a desk, a good-sized closet, plenty of lamps for ample lighting, and another door leading to a bathroom. IT was all anyone would ever really need. Claudia was easy to please.
"Now, Miss Hargreaves, I will leave you to your settling in. Ororo will stay with you for a time to make sure everything is all right. Forgive me, I have some business I keep putting off." The professor said, breaking Claudia from her thoughts.
"Of course, Professor. Please don't let me keep you! Thank you again for taking me on. I am so thrilled to be here."
"Again, we are happy to have you, Miss Hargreaves. I will see you at dinner." And with that, Xavier was gone, back down the hall to the elevator.
"Now it's just us girls." Ororo beamed. Claudia's fears instantly disappeared. They were all right with her being a non-mutant in a mutant school. It was one of her biggest fears that they would be wary of her, but that didn't seem the case, at least with Ororo.
"Can I help you unpack? You have me for the whole day." Ororo smiled.
"Actually, I was wondering if you could show me more of this place. It's so beautiful!"
"Of course! Come on!"
And so Claudia left her bags in the middle of the floor, dropped the back pack she'd been carrying and followed after the beautiful mutant.
"This is my room." Ororo gestured to the door that was neighboring Claudia's. "We're close if you ever need me. This is Scott's room. You'll meet him later tonight. He's on an… errand. This is Jean's room… Logan's room… Hank's room…" and the list of people Claudia had yet to meet went on.
For the rest of the day, Ororo showed Claudia around the mansion, and in turn got to know each other.
Ororo had come to the school for refuge, as most mutants here had. She could control the weather (to which she apologized for not making it sunny, but they were badly in need of rain) and preferred to be called Storm.
The classrooms were converted studies and various other rooms, as was most of the place. There were chalkboards and white boards and desks and anything else you could think of that would be in a classroom.
It was still summer vacation, hence why the majority of the students weren't around. Some had no homes to go back to, and some were still accepted by their parents. For the rest that had no homes to return to, Storm told Claudia that two of the instructors, Jean and Logan, had taken the remaining students on a field trip to the beach (of which they were to return the next day).
The rain outside had finally ceased, but Storm promised to take Claudia outside when the grounds had dried up a bit. They eventually made it back to Claudia's room where they spent the rest of the time till dinner unpacking Claudia's suitcases. Claudia found Storm extremely easy to talk to and soon found herself laughing hysterically at Storm's stories and jokes.
"But, that story will be for another time." Storm laughed when they noticed it was time for dinner.
Claudia was actually able to remember where the dining room was, but she was pretty sure the rest of her knowledge of the mansion stopped there. This was really going to take some getting used to.
There were only a handful of people in the dining room including the professor and a couple other adults that Claudia had yet to meet. One, and Claudia had to check her reaction so she didn't appear to be a bitch, was a big, blue, hairy… beast, was how she would describe it. But he wore dress slacks with suspenders and a button up shirt that were made just for him. He was sitting by the Professor and they seemed in deep conversation.
"Ah, Miss Hargreaves, this is Dr. Hank McCoy. He is our doctor on duty." Professor Xavier introduced. "Hank, this is Miss Claudia Hargreaves, our new History teacher."
"It is very nice to meet you, Miss Hargreaves." Dr. McCoy said as he held out his hand… or paw rather… however you wanted to look at it.
"Nice to meet you doctor." Claudia said with a warm smile and a firm handshake. "So, you're the school nurse? Can I call you Bones?" It was Claudia's nervous habit of making lame jokes (especially when they involved Star Trek of all things), but Hank laughed heartily.
"That's brilliant. Not even Logan has cracked those." Hank said with a wide smile that revealed wicked looking teeth.
The professor then introduced me to a couple of the younger students that had elected to stay behind rather than go to the beach. The youngest couldn't be more than nine or ten, a little boy named Quinn who could control machinery. He was the cutest thing, and he wanted Claudia to sit next to him, so she did, with Ororo on her other side.
Claudia got the impression that this sit down dinner was more formal than everyone was used to during the regular school year. There were a wide variety of choices: chicken, vegetables, salads, bread etcetera.
A few minutes after everyone had served themselves and was tucking in to eat, the door to the dining room opened and in walked probably one of the most attractive men Claudia had ever seen in her life.
"Sorry I'm late, Professor." The man said, and Claudia immediately found it odd that he was wearing sunglasses, inside, when it was still overcast out. But Claudia soon mentally scolded herself, and came to the conclusion she may see a lot of odd things.
"Ah, Scott, glad to see you are back! We've only just started. Sit, sit!" Professor Xavier greeted him, and Claudia could tell that there was a father/son dynamic going on between the two that was rather endearing.
The man, Scott rather, rounded the table and sat in the chair across the table from Claudia. He had dark brown hair carefully styled. Red tinted glasses were perched on the bridge of his cute nose. He had rather high cheekbones and full lips, and gracing his strong jaw was a little bit of stubble. He wore a worn, black leather jacket that he then took off and draped across the back of his chair. A black t-shirt was underneath and it stretched taut across his pectoral muscles. A pair of dark wash, boot cut jeans graced his strong looking legs, and a pair of black boots completed his person. Translation: Claudia could legitimately not help but stare at him for probably a good minute. Thankfully he didn't seem to notice, but he did notice an unfamiliar face.
"You must be Miss Hargreaves." He spoke to her, offering a slight smile that if she hadn't been sitting down, probably would've made her a little weak in the knees. Claudia couldn't help but also think that even his voice was hot.
"Y-yes, I am." Was all Claudia could say, and she wanted to crawl under her chair and die.
"I'm Scott Summers. I teach Geometry, well Math in general, and Mechanics."
"Nice to meet you." Claudia managed to squeak out. She was not at all eloquent around men; never had been. It came from a youth of not being exactly a "popular" girl. But at 28, she had had a couple of boyfriends, one serious one that ended absolutely horribly, leaving her with a crushed heart, but she hadn't had a boyfriend in over a year. Claudia had never been a real beauty either. She was average height for a female, 5'4". She had short, brown, loosely curled hair (that was her only pride and joy), and hazel eyes with her ever-present glasses. She wasn't rail thin, or overweight (as she had been when she was younger), but was now a healthy medium (which was still pretty Rubenesque, if you knew your Art History).
"She goes by Claudia." Ororo interjected for her, and Claudia was pretty thankful for that.
"Claudia it is then." Scott agreed, and then helped himself to food, and that was that. Claudia glanced over at Ororo who had a funny look on her face. Claudia wasn't sure she liked the look.
"Miss H.?" Came Quinn's little voice to her left.
"Yes, Hun?" Claudia asked him.
"Are we going to talk about the Egyptians this year?" He asked with wide green eyes.
"Yes, I believe we will be. Do you like the Egyptians?" She asked the boy.
"Totally. They have mummies!" He exclaimed. Claudia laughed.
"Mummies, huh? Well, I suppose we could even make our own mummies."
"Make our own? That would be awesome!" Claudia laughed again. She was going to have to review her elementary and middle school History. She had mostly been teaching high school, at her old high school in Virginia, in fact. Then, Mr. Hot Red Glasses spoke up.
"Wouldn't that involve a long process? You'd have to find something to mummify first." Scott said, looking at her with a smirk. She rolled her eyes.
"Mummify something?" Quinn asked with the cutest curious face.
"Yeah, like… a cat, or a squirrel or something." Scott continued.
"Mr. Summers. Please don't frighten him." Claudia warned.
"I want to mummify a squirrel!" Quinn exclaimed again. By this time, everyone's attention had turned to that end of the table. Claudia leaned an elbow against the table and put her forehead in her hands, sighing. "How do we do that?" Quinn asked.
"Well, as Mr. Summer's said, it is kind of a long process. We would have to remove all of its insides and then dry it out with salt outside in the sun, and then wrap it in cloth bandages." Claudia answered.
"Whoa! That sounds awesome! Can we do it? Please, please, please!"
"I don't think so, Quinn. The professor would have to take it into serious consideration, and even then he might not like abuse of the wildlife on his property."
"Oh man!" Quinn pouted a little, but then continued to chow down on his chicken. Claudia looked up at Scott, no longer really affected by his looks, but just angry that he had to bring up the subject of mummification to a nine year old kid. She just glared at him, but Scott smirked (and unfortunately she couldn't see his eye behind the ruby tinted shades, which she found disappointing because part of her wanted to know what color his eyes were).
Claudia glanced at Ororo again, and that strange look she had seen on the white haired mutants face had worsened, this time with a smile.
She made it through dinner without wanting to bodily injure Scott Summers, and returned to her room (with the guidance of Storm, as she probably would've gotten lost) to finish settling into her new room. Her laptop was set up in no time and connected to the mansion's Internet. She shot an email to her best friend back home in Virginia, and decided she should put in a call to her mother. Those phone conversations never were short, so an hour later Claudia threw her phone onto her bed and rubbed her face. She had a lot to prepare for school, which began in a week's time.
There was a short knock at her door which she had left open, and she turned around to face her new favorite person: Scott Summers.
"Can I help you?" She asked.
"I thought I was a stick in the mud, but you take the cake." Was his reply. Claudia was taken aback. Okay… "I was just trying to have some fun with the kid. You were getting WAY too serious." Claudia huffed.
"Well, you shouldn't promise him things that we can't do. That was an ancient practice that still isn't fully understood today." Scott snorted.
"Sorry I got the kid's hopes up." He said, and Claudia figured that that was the only apology she was going to get from him. "Look, we kinda got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over again? Properly?"
"Of course." Claudia said. She was pretty easily forgiving… most of the time. Scott stepped into the room, and all of a sudden it felt like the walls were closing in on Claudia the closer he came to her. He held out a hand, and she reached hers as well to shake. Their hands moved up and down in the timeless gesture for probably longer than they should have. And even after the shake was done, Scott wasn't letting go of her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Claudia Hargreaves." He said, cheekily.
"Likewise, Mr. Scott Summers." Claudia replied.
Claudia knew she was going to be in for an interesting time at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. She just didn't know how interesting…
A/N 2: So, I know it's a little boring for a first chapter. I wanted to set it up a bit before I really got into the meat of things. I apologize for grammar or spelling errors I missed. I don't have a BETA but am looking for one if anyone would be interested. Please review! I definitely welcome constructive criticism… flames are a pain in the ass.