This chapter, y'all… This has been a long time coming. And I am so. Freaking. Excited. About it.

Chapter 10: "Fresh Eyes"

The morning after the attack from Sabretooth, Kurt was the first one awake, even before Logan slipped into the kitchen only to leave again with two mugs full of coffee. Scott wasn't up yet — which in and of itself was unusual, though he didn't put much thought to it, since Scott had been pretty severely injured the night before.

But when Annie appeared alone, he only frowned deeper. "Is Scott not well today?" Kurt asked.

"I'm not sure," Annie admitted. "He was sleepin' pretty soundly when I got up, and considering the day y'all had, I thought I'd better let him." She went to get herself her usual glass of sweet tea with a sigh. "And Chance woke up in the middle of the night, so I'm sure he's catching up on a little overdue sleep."

"He's probably just tired," Kurt said with a muted smile.

"And you know he so rarely relaxes; I didn't want to disturb him and mess with that," Annie said, laughing quietly. "Don't you worry, Kurt. You'll get your fearless leader back in time for the next adventure."

Kurt gave her a warm smile at that and went back to refill his mug.

As it turned out, though, Scott didn't actually emerge until Kate was awake and well into her third cup of coffee — which was a tipoff as to how tired he had been, since she was usually the last one up in the morning. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he drank his coffee like it was the only fluid he'd had in days and then made himself plenty to eat.

"You doing okay?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just a little tired," Scott admitted as he drained another cup of coffee. "Late night with Chance. And Tyler's healing takes it out of you."

"Well, that'd do it," Kate said, returning to her notes for the alien tech class she was subbing for Noh while he worked up the capsule for Creed. After all, she remembered how it was — she'd been fairly starving after all the excitement of meeting Tyler when she took the time to sit down after he healed her arm. "Maybe you should take a vacation with Mrs. Boss."

"With teachers checking out left and right? No way," Scott muttered into his coffee cup. "Someone's gotta get the work done around here."

Kate just smirked as she got up and patted Scott's shoulder on the way out. "Got another two months before the end of the semester. Don't burn yourself out between then and now, huh?"

Scott grunted to himself and went back to his breakfast. He had time still before he needed to be anywhere.

Scott, Beast, and Bobby had a Danger Room session scheduled that afternoon, and by the time that came around, Scott looked much more like his usual self as he walked into the room in his uniform to meet the other X-Men.

"Alright, guys, we're just going to run a basic sim today," he said as he met the other two. "We'll run through some stuff with the Mutant Response Division — rumors are they're still intact and gaining a little strength, though I'm not sure who they're rallying under with Bastion gone."

Bobby grinned and shook out his arms, bouncing from one foot to the other. "Sounds fun."

Henry just smiled their way as Scott called out the codes and the room dimmed for a moment. When the lights came back up, it was a basic military-style infiltration of a shopping center. Right off the bat, Hank swung into action and simply started disarming MRD officers left and right, while Bobby slipped off on a sheet of ice, blasting them and freezing them to the spot.

But the first one that Scott tried to shoot — nothing happened. Instead, the MRD soldier charged at him, and Scott had to dive aside, popping back up to take aim again, but still ... nothing happened.

"Oh, are we doing this one no powers?" Bobby asked with a confused look. "I guess I misunderstood." He hopped off his ice slide and went back to ice-free to take up a position nearer Scott to fight hand to hand.

"No, that's not…" Scott let out a breath of frustration as he tried to readjust his visor. "I think something's up with the visor — it was working fine yesterday, but I can't get a shot!" It was clear he was irritated as he fiddled with the settings until he just let out a shout of annoyance as he had to once again dodge out of the way of an MRD officer, and then simply clocked the guy with everything he had.

"You want me to pause the program and grab a new pair?" Bobby asked. "Maybe they're just worn out."

Scott let out a sigh. "Yeah, alright," he said, obviously annoyed, though he was the one to pause the program himself as he stalked over to grab himself a new visor and Bobby and Hank shared a look.

Moments later, after Scott finally let out a breath and checked that the others were ready, the program started up. Bobby and Hank were doing just fine, but Scott ... just… wasn't able to shoot. At all.

"Scott, are you alright?" Hank asked at last as he dropped down beside him.

Scott all but growled out in sheer frustration as he stopped the program again. "I don't know what the problem is," he said. "I've even tried full throttle, but I can't even get a low-power beam."

Henry frowned and looked up at his old friend. "Take aim at the doors and remove the lenses. Just to sate my curiosity."

Despite his frustration, Scott had to give Henry the slightest of smirks. "Forge isn't going to like having to put the doors back on again," he said.

"He knew the risks of taking up that position," Henry countered with an easy shrug. "At least we're not asking him to repair Sentinels."

Scott smirked a bit wider at that before he took a breath and did just that, screwing his eyes shut for a moment before he took off the visor and then opened them again — only for a moment — though again, nothing happened.

"A bit longer this time," Henry said quickly as Bobby joined them. Both of the old teammates were deeply concerned.

The only sign that Scott was starting to panic was the fact that his hands were clenching and unclenching in fists at his sides before he took a breath and tried again, this time leaving his eyes open for at least ten seconds, without the slightest sign of red.

"Oh my stars and garters," Hank said in a bewildered tone. "I believe a few tests are in order."

Scott took a steadying breath before he put the visor back on. He turned toward Henry with a deep frown. "It was working fine yesterday," he said in a low tone.

"It was working perfectly fine," Henry agreed. "Before Tyler healed the wound at the back of your head." He watched Scott carefully as he considered the conundrum. "I wonder," he said at last, gently, "if it was close to the damage you sustained as a child."

Scott looked at him with an open expression of surprise. "...What?" he finally managed.

"He's been healing old scars for years — albeit unintentionally," Henry told him. "He has been working on fixing them purposely.

"And you think that'd do it?" Bobby asked quietly, looking totally serious.

"If my guess is right, Scott, you should — with a bit of practice — be able to have full control without the visor."

Scott still looked simply stunned, staring at Henry, unable to find the words.

"But before we jump to any hasty conclusions, why don't we get you a thorough head scan to compare with your most recent one?" With that, Henry gently led Scott to the medical bay to run the required tests.

Once they arrived at the lab, Scott was stock still for the testing, silently doing exactly as Henry asked — and quite obviously in a state of shock. He even went so far as to just sit there after the tests were done, simply waiting for Henry's conclusions with his hands clasped in front of him and his shoulders leaned forward.

"Hank?" Annie poked her head inside the medical bay, wearing the double baby carrier that Forge had designed for her — with Peter's input on the comfort levels — as she finally spotted Scott. "What's going on? Bobby told me Scott was here, but he wouldn't say what was wrong." Her voice had a distinct air of concern, which only seemed to intensify when she saw that Scott was just… quietly sitting there.

"I'm not entirely sure that we can say there is anything wrong," Henry replied, gently directing her over with one hand on her shoulder. "Simply … not what we're accustomed to." He pointed her to the two scans on the screen. "This is the most recent head scan we have of Scott — I believe that was taken shortly after a run in with Mr. Sinister." Annie nodded, and Henry then pointed out the new scan. "This was taken today. You can see … here," he pointed to one particular spot. "There is no longer any sign of the scarring that Scott sustained in his childhood. It appears to be healed."

"But isn't that… Does that mean…." Annie looked between the scans and Scott a few times, her eyes widening with the comprehension even though Scott was still sitting stock still and staring straight ahead. "How?" she managed to ask at last. "I thought that was permanent."

"He received a head wound while dealing with our intruder. Tyler healed the wound, and I think — intentionally or not — he healed the old scars," Hank explained. "Which, I'm very happy to report, seems to have made the constant use of his visor a bit outdated." He paused as he allowed that to sink in for Annie. "Of course, I don't recommend throwing it out entirely until he's learned how to control it — which he never has had the luxury of doing."

"But he can do it?" Annie looked toward Scott, who was still in an obvious state of shock and something like bewilderment.

"At the moment, he's having more trouble turning it on," Hank said. "But he's likely to have a bit of a learning curve, I'm sure."

Annie thought about it for a moment before, gently, she started to pull Chance and Charlie out of their little slings to hand them both to Hank. "I'd like to see. For myself," she told Hank. "You just hold these two." With that, and with absolutely no room for Hank to argue, even if he'd wanted to, she made her way over to Scott, who was back to wearing the ruby glasses again, just to be safe.

It was the first sign of life from Scott when Annie reached for the glasses, and he caught her hand, shaking his head slowly. "I don't know how to turn it off again if it starts up," he told her in a low voice.

She paused and met his gaze for a long moment before she gently pried his fingers from her hand. "Look at the wall first," she suggested. "And then look at me."

For a long time, Annie got no response except for the fact that she could see his every muscle tensing. "Annie, I can't," he told her at last.

She let out a little breath and leaned over to kiss him softly for a moment before she snatched the glasses right off his face while he was distracted. She kept a hand on his cheek and gently turned his head toward the wall. "You're not facing me," she promised. "Start there."

It took him a long moment to screw up the courage to open his eyes at last, and he let out a small breath when there was no resulting eye beam. But he still seemed reluctant to turn to face her, so she stepped around to get in his line of sight, though he immediately tried to close his eyes on her until she smacked him in the side of the head. "You're fine," she told him. "I won't let you hurt me."

"Well, if you keep hitting me like that, I might not be," he said with the tiniest of smirks.

She laughed quietly and shook her head at him — and for as annoyed as she was by how reticent he was being, she was glad to see the sense of humor come back, even a little bit. "I wouldn't have to do that if you weren't so ridiculous, Mr. Summers," she told him. "Now let me see."

It was a waiting game for a long moment as Annie stayed right there, her hand covering his as she waited for him to relax — though he seemed to be determined not to do that. When he finally let out a small breath, though, she knew she had him.

"Just for a few seconds if you're still nervous," she prompted, squeezing his hand again.

He nodded quietly and took another small breath, held it, and finally opened his eyes for her.

The thing that struck her most about him was the fact that she could see the terror right there, plainly in his eyes. Though that quickly turned to wonder as instead of the few seconds she'd asked for, he couldn't help but try to take her in — for the first time without the red tinge — for far longer than he'd intended to.

He'd never seen her before — the brown hair, the deeper brown eyes, the slight red on her nose where one of the twins had hit her with a spoon yesterday. All of the details he'd never been able to see — not fully.

"They're brown," she said at last.

He just nodded quietly, still staring at her in awe as Henry sidled out of the room to give the two of them some privacy.

Kate was grinning widely over breakfast the next morning as she watched Scott and Annie playing with the twins — because Annie had talked Scott into not wearing the glasses for just a little while, and the look he was giving Charlie was nothing short of pure adoration and awe. Like he was seeing her for the first time — which, to be fair, he sort of was.

And it was even more fun watching Charlie and Chance as they warily looked up at their dad, trying to figure out who this person without the red glasses was.

Any of the other X-Men who came to breakfast couldn't help but get distracted by seeing Scott with his kids, either, because the look on his face was so… open. The funny thing was — it was the same muted smile, but his eyes were wide and practically shining with emotion, which totally gave everything away.

Of course, no one said anything about it, because that would ruin the moment, but the looks exchanged between the team members were perfectly clear.

It was a bit of a lazy morning that day anyway because it was Saturday, and so there were no classes to rush to, not even any field trips, so everyone was content to hang out, chat quietly, and grin at the looks on the faces of every single one of the Summers family members.

Even Rachel had been through that morning to get in on the fun, tickled to pieces by this turn of events — and surprised outright when Annie pulled her into a hug and spent the morning simply gushing to her stepdaughter about the steps they were already taking, pulling in Alex from Hawaii once he could get up to Westchester, that kind of thing.

And it surprised Rachel just as much when she caught Scott staring up at her with the same look of awe she'd seen when he was looking at Charlie.

She cleared her throat and smirked at Scott. "That's a good look on you."

"It's growing on me," he replied with a smirk to match before he grinned outright and then went back to holding Charlie and looking like he couldn't have been any happier than he was right there.

It was just about mid-morning when there was a knock on the front door, interrupting the slow morning, and Kurt teleported over to go answer it, opening the wide double doors to find little Kamala Khan standing there with a shy smile as she waved at him with the tips of her fingers.

"Hey there," she said. "I was just… is everyone okay? Last time I was here, there was some pretty heavy awful, and I thought I'd stop by to make sure nobody's, like, dying or something?" She flashed him a little nervous smile.

Kurt couldn't help but grin widely at her as he invited her inside. "No, no — we're all fine," he assured her, still grinning. "We have excellent medical care here. You should really meet our doctor-in-training."

"You mean the tall blonde kid that was helping Beast?" Kamala asked with both eyebrows up. "Yeah, I met him when I brought Scott down. He's…." She shrugged up to her ears. "That's an unfortunate, um, family resemblance?"

Kurt put a hand on her shoulder as he steered her toward the kitchen where the rest of the X-Men were still hanging out. "He's the opposite of his father in every way imaginable, I assure you."

"Well, good, because that guy is kind of a jerk," Kamala said as she followed Kurt into the kitchen, though she stopped short when she saw Scott and Charlie and just… stared.

"Oh. My. Gosh." She was staring openly, jaw dropped, apparently unable to process more words than just that.

"Why don't you come sit down over here?" Kate said with a little smirk as she waved Kamala into a seat. The whole time, the younger woman continued to look like she just couldn't handle anything at the moment.

Scott was shaking his head and trying to ignore the attention he was getting until he looked up to realize that Kamala wasn't the only one openly staring. Logan and K both had been watching him on and off, though K was certainly paying more attention than Logan was, since he'd seen him like this on occasion anyhow. "No wonder you kept all that covered up," K said with a growing smile as she headed over for coffee. She stood next to Scott while Logan got his coffee and she just couldn't help but to give Scott a kiss on the cheek. "Freakin' adorable. Dangerously lovely brown eyes. Yes. I approve." With that, she turned and headed over to the table. "You're lucky Annie scooped you up with eyes like that, mister."

"Quit picking on him," Logan told her as he took the seat next to her. "He's turning all kinds of shades and all you did was kiss him on the cheek. You'd probably kill him otherwise."

"Yes, please don't kill him," Annie said, her smile widening through the entire exchange as she leaned in to kiss Scott's opposite cheek as his face turned the same shade as his old lenses.

"I'll try to refrain — but be warned," K said pointing her finger his way. "All that … expressiveness? You are getting so, so, so many cheek kisses. I even like the little crinkly wrinkles in the corners. Rugged." She fixed Scott with a smirk. "You know I like the rugged look right? Most ladies do."

He was giving her one of the muted little smirks at the corner of his mouth when he looked up at her, but his eyes were positively sparkling with laughter.

"That's exactly what I mean," K said. "Right there." She looked over to Kate. "The man candy around here just got a little sweeter."

"Just drink it in," Kate laughed. "So, so pretty."

"Lovely to see first thing in the morning," K nodded in agreement. "You are an open book, my dear. In a nice, tight little package."

Scott's expression hadn't changed, except that the smirk was tugging a little harder on the corner of his mouth as he shrugged her way. "If you say so," he said, looking back down at Charlie, likely to hide the rest of his expression.

K and Kate shared a look before they both snuggled into their sweethearts' sides. "Kurt, would you do me a little favor?" K asked sweetly.

Kurt was resting his chin on the top of Kate's head as she snuggled into him and gave her a bit of a smirk as he looked over Kate's head. "I'm not going to wear brown contacts for you," he said dryly.

"I actually prefer the pretty blues over here," she said tipping her head toward Logan with an expression that was pure trouble. "I was just going to ask if you would be so kind as to refill some coffee for Kate and me."

Kurt laughed quietly and nodded before he took both of their mugs to top them off, still grinning to himself as he did so. He slipped back into the chair beside Kate as he pushed the coffee mugs to their respective owners. "That's, what, your third cups apiece?" he teased as a couple of the bamfs nodded solemnly and pretended to look stern at the two girls, shaking their little heads and fingers.

"Two for me," K said. "Late start. And I only had one all day yesterday. Travesty."

"That's just horrible," Kate agreed, saluting K with her coffee mug, though the light mood in the kitchen seemed to evaporate when there was a sudden and unexpected hiss. The assembled X-Men and family members looked around in alarm, but they couldn't see or smell anything — even as it was clear they were being affected by something when their muscles seemed to go rather slack.

K and Logan both wrinkled their noses, but it was Logan that looked positively crestfallen suddenly as he realized what was going on. It took the two of them a short moment longer than the rest, but much quicker than he would have liked, the entire group was out.

Notes: Now, lest you cry foul about the changes to Scott, we've been planning this for some time now. This is part of why we even introduced Tyler in the first place in the way that we did with the changes to him and his personality that we did. (Everything has a purpose, we swear.) I mean, obviously, there are other reasons. We like Ty. He's especially darling in this universe. And he's a fun character. But in terms of plot? Yeah. There's a reason he showed up when he did.

I know that there are a lot of different canon explanations for why Scott can't turn off his powers. And you know what… we addressed 'em both, really. The two big theories are the damage from the plane crash and a mental/psychological block. Well, we brought in Ty for one of those things, and for the other… Well, c'mon. It's not like he hasn't significantly relaxed since marrying Annie, even if he is still the worrywart that we all know and love.

It took us five volumes from reintroducing him to now to set up this change, and it took a lot of work to get him there too. We kinda think he's earned a break.