Fiery, Flaming
By: Tangle
Disclaimer: Rights belong to Marvel and Fox
Summary: Cyclops makes a final decision, only to find that it's not always a final one.
Rating: PG-13
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Chapter 1
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Scott Summers was done with redheads. They had been a major factor in his life for as long as he could remember but they had never made it any easier. In fact, he had discovered, they were more trouble than they were worth. They had taught him his life lessons but he was sick of it. They had tormented him, taunted him, and teased him but now he was through. They had haunted him his whole life but no more. He was, quite simply, done.
In elementary school it had been his best friend Rhane. She had defined the word "tomboy" for him, all short strawberry hair and face full of freckles. She was a real rough and tumble type of girl, the kind whose eyes would sparkle as she socked him in the shoulder or elbowed him in the stomach or knocked him over for the hundredth time. To Rhane it was all in good fun but after long enough Scott stopped seeing it that way. She was his best friend and he loved her dearly but when it was only October and he was coming home with his fourth black eye of the year and he was running out of excuses for his parents, he started to recognize that something was wrong. But he was too young to realize that hitting her back wasn't the solution and her parents moved her away before he got the chance to apologize.
Then in junior high, Scott learned what hormones were when he fell in love with his teacher. Miss Ferguson tried to teach him math but--like every other boy in class--he was too busy mooning over her. She was beautiful, she was classy, she was perfect; with a long fall of hair an unbelievable shade of pink that she always kept swept gracefully away from her face and neck. Scott knew that he loved her more than any other boy in the class ever could and if she would only wait for him he would grow up and she would finally be his.
But he grew up and she didn't wait and he discovered, much to his surprise, that he didn't care. He had moved on and found someone else. Her name was Mary Jane and when he was a junior she was only a freshman, and he loved her anyway. She was a beautiful tease and she knew it, her waves of dark red hair as eye-catching as the rest of her. She and Scott dated on and off for over a year as he would pursue her and she would merrily lead chase. But as much as he wouldn't let himself admit it he knew she wasn't happy. "If you love something, you have to let it go," he had reminded himself on the eve of his graduation when he finally broke it off with her for good.
And then he came to Xavier's, where he had finally found the woman he had considered the love of his life. Jean Grey, a brilliant genetic mind with a brilliant body and brilliant red hair to match. He had loved her, he had chased her, and he had caught her--down to the diamond ring on her finger. But she had done something he never would have expected, not in a thousand years. One morning he woke up to find a note on the pillow beside his own. Jean had run away with Ororo, and become the third redhead to break his heart. That was when Scott had decided that he was through with them. That he would stay away from the redheads that had caused him so much pain and grief through the years. Once and for all, he was done.
Until he opened the door on Theresa Cassidy.
TBC