Work Text:
Everyone thought Scott Summers was flawless. That fact put Emma’s teeth on edge – always had, even when they’d been enemies. Everyone looked at the pure little boy scout that Xavier had taken in, and assumed he was perfect. That he was a natural leader, because he led. That he was a hero, because he saved lives. That he wasn’t afraid, because he was brave.
It was bullshit like that that meant that when Scott took off, they told her to leave him be. That he would be back when he calmed down. It was bullshit like that which proved they knew nothing at all about the man they all trusted. Because Scott hurt. Scott bled, like any man. And he cared. He had such a big heart, and he cared for everyone. And with Jean gone, everyone acted like Scott needing some space was fine. As though Scott going off on his own, bereaved and frightened, was somehow acceptable. As though the leader of the X-Men, who she’d beaten in a fight more than once, would be undefeatable when he was hurting.
No one else was going to try and save Scott, from himself and from whatever shit he’d got himself into. So that made it Emma’s problem.
She didn't like the fact that Scott needing help meant she came running. It wasn't who she pictured herself as - she'd taken pride in being the unflappable ice queen, heart of diamond, all of that - the image that she'd paid a lot of money to create. But Scott was so damned earnest in all that he did. Well. Someone in their relationship had to act with common sense, and it definitely wasn't going to be him.
So she'd gone to pull him out from whatever mess he'd got himself into this time. She'd expected to find him passed out in a beer, or maybe a back alleyway somewhere, picking fights so that he didn't have to feel. And for the first day or two, she'd expected he'd just turn up. Maybe a bit hungover, a bit worse for wear, but mostly alright.
The next few days, she'd feared the worst. She knew what the X-Men thought of her, and of him. If Scott turned up on a mortuary slab or at the bottom of a river, it would somehow be her fault. Didn't matter that she'd not seen him. That she'd tried to keep him out of trouble. What mattered was that in their eyes Scott was perfect - and not in a way that did him any good.
Then, a week in, she'd realised something worse had happened. If Scott had died, he'd have shown up by now. If he'd just gone on a bender he'd have appeared. She might not have liked some of the people back at the mansion, but she knew they would have informed her if he had shown up. Which meant he wasn't missing. Scott had been taken.
She considered. It might have been someone who they knew well, someone who realised just how vulnerable Scott was at that moment and thought they could make use of it. It might have been a stranger with lucky timing, but she wasn't willing to bet Scott's safety on that idea - and that meant she couldn't contact the others for help. Someone might have betrayed them. It wouldn't be the first time.
It was moments like this that she missed Hellfire. They might have been a clique of backstabbing traitors, but at least they were honest about being untrustworthy. But there was no time for sentiment right now - she had to find Scott, and to do that she had to find who had taken him.
That might have posed a challenge, if she hadn't been a powerful telepath. As it was, it was simply a matter of returning to the mansion under the guide of needing a change of clothes, and charming her way into Cerebra. Then she just had to search for Scott's mind.
Logan had joked once about Scott's mind being telepath cat-nip. She didn't like the phrase, but there was some truth in it - the mixture of his sheer power, the damage that had been done, and his regimented thoughts - it was a beacon to telepaths. A strange one - during their therapy sessions she'd seen hints of how it was. Old jagged wounds, hastily boarded over, or repaired with a tenderness that twisted inside her. Essex. Winters. Xavier. Grey. Frost. All drawn to that same mind, and she hated not being the first. She'd listened to enough jokes from Shaw about being the first to tread a path. It wasn't an impulse she'd understood, until she'd found Scott's mind and found that others had already left sticky fingerprints across it.
But Scott's mind was irresistible. And it called out like a siren. She reached for him, and the first thing she felt was pain.
Emma? His voice was shaky, almost delirious, and she was furious with the others for not looking, with herself for assuming he'd be fine. Are you real?
I'm real. I'm coming to get you.
It's not safe. Scott told her calmly, as though pain wasn't bleeding through their connection, as though she wasn't having to grit her teeth to hold on. They scan for telepaths. Keep the rest safe. And with that, she found herself being forcibly ejected from his mind. Which honestly was rather rude, and she felt a flush of anger towards Jean for teaching him that trick.
She reached out again, and came into contact with his attempt at shields. They were laughably weak. She could puncture through them in a moment if she wanted to. But they sent a clear enough message that she backed off. If Scott didn't want to talk to her at a distance, then he could just deal with her turning up on his doorstep. Or rather, the doorstep of wherever he was being held.
She used her connection to get a set of coordinates, wiped the record from Cerebra, and had a shower. Then she changed into other clothes, borrowed a car, and left the mansion again. No one questioned her, and if she'd given a few nudges to make sure that happened - well, it was simply that she didn't have time to answer the inane questions of inane individuals. She had her coordinates. There was nothing else she needed to worry about.
The coordinates wouldn't get her as precise a location as her telepathy would, but she was willing to listen to Scott's concerns - to take them under consideration at least. She shifted to her diamond form as she drove along, because it might stop her from being found, might keep her telepathy from pinging any alarms. If Scott was smart, that would have been what he had meant by his warning. Only she knew that Scott was the kind of self-sacrificing idiot that wouldn't bother giving clues as to his whereabouts, because he assumed no one was coming to get him.
She'd teach him better. She was determined.
It was a long drive North, but she didn't feel tired in this form. It was almost relaxing, gazing out of the window at unending scenery, and knowing that she was going to prove she could help - prove that Scott's friends didn't understand him the way that she did.
The details might not have been as exacting as her gift, but they still led her to a big building out in the middle of nowhere, heavily guarded. She kept wearing her diamond form, parking the car a short distance away and then going to investigate.
In this form, she knew she wouldn't show up on any body-heat scanners. She could stay in the shadows, and hopefully not get caught. She stalked around the outside of the compound. Not having her telepathy felt like a huge handicap, but she knew she couldn't risk it, that there was too much chance of getting caught.
She wondered if perhaps she should have told the others where she had gone. Either way, it was too late for that now. She was here, and it was down to her to get Scott to safety. She found herself a location where she had a good view of the compound, and settled back to work out their routine - no matter how much she wanted to rush in, she knew she needed a plan.
There were plenty of people around. The facility looked military of some kind - no logo she recognised, but that was hardly uncommon when people were targeting mutants. They'd hide their genocidal urges behind smiles and lies. She knew that. Knowing that Scott was in there, that he was alone and hurting - she was furious. She wanted to use her telepathy to shred the minds of everyone there.
But that wasn't the right plan. She made herself hold back, for Scott's sake rather than her own. She tried to work out how he would approach this, how he would rescue her. And she knew he'd do it with the minimum amount of blood shed, sneak in and out as undetected as he could manage.
She could be sneaky. She might not like the idea, but she could. It was tempting to just force her way in there, make use of her gifts and settle things the way she always had. But Scott had asked her not to. She wasn't sure what to make of the fact that she genuinely cared about what Scott thought, but she did, and that was just something she would have to deal with.
If they were going to get through this, she had to be careful. She took a few deep breaths, trying not to remember the first time she had taken on this form, stuck in the rubble of what she'd thought could be paradise. Scott needed her to focus, and struggling with memories wasn't going to get him safe. She had to be in control. She could do that. She'd been doing that for a long time.
It didn't take long to work out the order of the patrols. They might have been scanning for telepaths, but their actual defences weren't that good - she was able to find the gaps and take advantage of them soon enough. She made her way over the fence, grateful for the strength this form gifted her, and followed a path into the building.
She kept to the shadows. Again, she thought that using her telepathy would have helped - it was normally how she navigated buildings that were new to her. But she'd manage. Shaw's assistant managed for years without her telepathy, Emma refused to struggle after just a few hours.
People passed by, and Emma held her breath, glad nothing could harm her in this form. She carried on, heading deeper and lower - she'd been in enough places like this to know that the most interesting stuff was often kept in the basement.
She heard a soft groan of pain, and a wave of nausea swept through her, but she tried to focus on the practical. It sounded like Scott. If it was, that meant Scott was still alive, and at least a little conscious. That was two positives. Alive and conscious were things that she could work with.
She turned a corner again, keeping out of sight, trying to keep herself calm - anger would only lead to mistakes. That was the kind of thing Scott always came out with, the kind of thing that meant the others assumed he was some kind of emotionless alien who didn't need any support. The really annoying thing was that he was right. He was unbearable when he was right.
Having calmed herself, she looked up, and felt anger rise within her all over again. Scott hung limp against a wall, his X-suit ripped at the shoulder, peeled back to expose one arm. There was a tube connected to his elbow, probably pumping him through with some kind of sedative or power suppressant. His eyes were screwed shut, bruising across much of what was visible of his skin. His visor rested on a nearby table.
Emma knew Scott wouldn't want her to kill the people that had done this to him, but it wasn't easy for her to understand why. Not when he looked so broken and small, hanging there.
The human nearby was barely even paying attention to him, far too busy messing around on his phone. She took a couple of deep breaths, and focused on the calming thought of pushing it through the human's skull, before she got to work.
Non-lethal force still left some room for nasty injury. It definitely didn't look like they had been careful, when they had been torturing a man who was unable to duck their blows, rendered blind and helpless. There had been a time when she would have made an example of these men. But right now her priority had to be getting Scott to safety. She knocked out the guard, and grabbed the visor, slotting it over Scott's face.
"Emma?" He asked, clearly disoriented, not struggling as she used her strength to snap the chain of the cuffs. "You're not real, are you?"
"I'm real," she promised him. "I'm real, and you're getting out of here."
There was a brief pause, and she could almost hear those strategic cogs whirring. "But I was learning about their operation-"
"Well I'm stopping you. You're no good to us dead."
Scott attempted a shrug, only for his face to screw up in pain at the movement. She sighed, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.
"I was... I was listening to what they were saying."
"I know. And I have decided that doing that any more is too dangerous, and you need to come home so that you can report on what you've learned." She brushed his hair away from his visor, trying not to notice how his skin was damp with sweat. She wished she could reason with him properly - point out that he deserved better than being in this danger, that she didn't like to see him suffer. But she knew it wouldn't work. A lifetime of abuse had taught Scott his life was worthless, and while she wanted to prove them wrong this was neither the time nor the place to have that argument. She would teach him. She would show him he was worth much more than he believed. But it wasn't going to happen right now. For now the goal was keeping him alive for long enough that they could have those arguments.
She frowned, not liking how she had to think. She wanted to reach into his mind, to untangle the pain that was there, but he'd been afraid of being caught, and so far her attempt at rescue had gone without a hitch. Grateful for the extra strength of her diamond form, she slung his arm over her shoulder, and moved to get him out.
"They'll catch us." Scott mumbled. "I don't... you should have got backup-"
"I am the backup, darling." Emma practically purred, projecting a confidence she didn't necessarily feel. "And anyway, we need what you've found out. We couldn't leave you."
She hated that it was that logic that got through to Scott, that made him agree to let her take him home. So many telepaths had rifled through his thoughts, left their own marks, reshaped him how they wanted - and not one of them had tried to give him a sense that he was worth something beyond his role. Beyond being a test-subject - criminal - hero - boyfriend. There were times when Emma hated all of them.
She let that hatred and anger buoy her as she carried Scott along the corridors, waiting to be caught, at any moment to hear bullets ricocheting. But no one seemed to be spotting them.
"They're preparing an assault at the school." Scott muttered. "I... I told them our ability to detect attackers was low, so they aren't worrying about stealth. Hank should see them from twenty miles away."
"Twenty four point seven," Emma corrected automatically, recalling the sheer joy Hank had shown as he'd talked her through all his latest work. "The school can handle themselves. Let's get you home." They had reached the exit.
It was secured by a key code, and Scott stumbled forwards, placing his hand on it and pushing a sequence of buttons. After a few seconds it slid open. "How did you...?" Emma asked.
"I saw it when they brought me in." Scott answered. "They thought I was unconscious." He sounded so calm, and Emma fought back the urge to scream at him. Screaming definitely wasn't going to be helpful. It was awfully tempting, but that wasn't the same as being useful, for either of them. Not to mention if he'd got himself concussed, it would be cruel to yell. She carried him to the fence.
Clambering back over it, supporting Scott's weight, was a lot harder than getting in. But she managed, and she dragged him into the cover of the treeline. She took a deep breath, about to relax, when she heard a siren blaring.
She was transparent, and they were clearly going to be looking for a team, or someone like Logan. Someone bulky and fast.
She clambered up into a tree, dragging Scott's limp form in her arms. It reminded her of leopards stashing their kills, as he dangled there, but he was at least breathing and aware. She pushed her finger to his lips as below people searched. She wondered if it would be safer to just allow herself hide them with her ability. But Scott had been concerned, and so far no one had noticed them. Better to keep that in reserve. It was never a good idea to show all of your hand.
Scott was bleeding, she realised, thin trails of blood seeping through the material of his suit. Cleaning someone while perched on a tree-branch was certainly not an activity that Emma would have recommended, but it turned out to be within the realm of what was possible. Whether it bothered Scott or not, she certainly felt a lot better when he was no longer bleeding onto his flightsuit.
Time passed, the sun getting lower in the sky. She kept Scott conscious, her hands holding his own, and eventually there was no more sign of the human guards. She clambered down. "We need to get you back."
"Where's the car?" Scott asked, and even as he said it, she realised they would have found it. It'd be easy to leave an agent supervising the car, hoping to outwit them. They couldn't go back that way.
"Out of bounds. We'll work out something." She promised, walking on, his weight against her side surprisingly soothing. His X-Friends would come looking eventually. She just needed to keep them safe until then.
She told herself she could do this. That her choosing to do this rather than kill the threat was a sign of progress, not weakness. Scott was hurting, and she had to stick close to him. She wasn't sure how far he would get if she wasn't there to help him stumble along.
"You're safe now." She told him. "You said you found out their plans?"
"They're an anti-mutant group," Scott shrugged, hiding his flinch. It wasn't very successful. "They think that they should use us for their own evolution, harvest us for parts so they can be what they want to be. They see us as animals, tools." Scott shuddered, and Emma nodded, looking away.
Images of Genosha flashed through her mind. So many deaths, simply because some humans wanted to play at being more... wanted to claim mutants were the threat. When it was humans that had tried to wipe out the species. She tried not to show any discomfort. Scott had clearly suffered. It couldn't be easy for him to talk about.
"Hank will detect them," she promised. It wasn't necessarily as simple as that. But right now, she couldn't afford to worry about the school - her focus had to be on keeping Scott alive. "And we'll see what we can do to tackle them. You did well."
Scott smiled at her. Even with his eyes hidden he was so painfully earnest in that smile, full of hope and love and excitement. She might have been without her telepathy, but Scott's face made those emotions clear.
"We're going to get somewhere a bit safer," she told him. "And then we'll stop for the night."
He nodded, and they lapsed into silence. She could tell that far too much of his effort was focused on trying to keep himself calm, to keep moving forwards without showing any sign of weakness. His injuries were worse than he had let on, and deprived of her telepathy she couldn't force him to confess. They limped onwards, until she ended up more carrying him than supporting him. The sky had clouded over, which worried her.
Finding what appeared to have once been a cabin was a relief. It was weather damaged, some of the felt from the roof was missing, and the door was hanging limply in the wind. It was also the best shelter she had seen, and it gave them a chance to create an actually defensible position. As they got closer, she wondered if it might even contain a radio, so she could get help, find a way to get them home.
Inside the cabin, the rain hadn't done too much harm, at least not by the back wall. She set up a fire in the grate, placing Scott in what remained of the bed so that he could get some rest and take weight off his injured feet. She was concerned. He needed to be warm, and to drink some water, and hopefully eat something. There was a well out the back which answered the need for water, and poking through the cupboards revealed some cereal bars. They were out of date, but they were better than starving to death and they didn't look like they had gone off. She handed one to Scott, helping him peel back the plastic wrapper.
He turned towards her. "Emma, do you find me attractive?"
"Scott, darling, I'm dating you." She pointed out the obvious, wondering what it was that had brought this on.
"I mean, right now--"
"No, you're covered in blood and you are clearly under-fed. I prefer my partners to be able to survive the fun we'll have." Emma answered, and Scott's forehead screwed up a little in indignant anger, the kind that made her smile. "What do you mean, then? You clearly have something on your mind. Just come out and ask it."
Scott hesitated just for a moment, then shrugged. "Logan always says that telepaths... they like how my mind feels. Like that's all... that's the only reason for any of this. And I like feeling you in my mind, but I have to... I have to know."
Emma took a calming breath. "I like how your mind feels. But there are other minds out there that feel just as intriguing. I want you, Scott. But not when you're in this kind of state. You're injured."
"You really do care?"
"Of course." Emma frowned. She knew she had a reputation as an ice-queen, but she expected Scott of all people to have known better. "I like your mind, Scott, because it is part of you."
"Oh." Scott sat there, looking mildly stunned, and then glanced down. "I'm just used to just... being valuable for what I'm useful for, and right now you can't feel my mind and I'm not much use to you."
"You're worth more than that." She told him with conviction. She could see her words slowly sinking into his mind, making him question what he had been told before. It wasn't necessarily enough, yet. But she would prove it.
He yawned, and curled up beside her. "You're quite pointy in this form, but... I like it. You're Emma. Being pointy suits you."
"Thank you." She chuckled fondly to herself.
It was easy to let him cuddle against her, to relax, that glow from behind his visor extinguished as he closed his eyes. She brushed diamond fingers through his soft hair, admiring the way the strands slipped so easily between them. She couldn't feel his softness in this form. But she knew it, could recognise the tenderness there.
Scott wasn't what she'd come to expect of men. But she loved him for it, loved the way he always found ways to surprise her, to be more than the world had taught her men could be. He nuzzled against her side, injury making him affectionate. She wrapped the blanket up around him, inspecting it distastefully. Not clean, but it would do to keep the worst of the chill off.
"Emma, shouldn't you be stopping me sleeping?"
"Scott, you've had so many concussions and you're permanently brain damaged. You've also been tortured. Right now I think you'd benefit more from a rest."
He nodded, and seemed to drift back to sleep, his hand resting against hers. She didn't need to sleep in this form. She watched him, memorising the curve of his lips, the shape of his body in what remained of his uniform. He was beautiful. She cared about him. And that was bad - she knew most of the others thought that she only wanted him because she couldn't have him. Maybe there had been a time she had felt that way. But it was a distant memory.
She looked at Scott, and she didn't see the flawless leader of the X-Men, or an intriguing subject for her telepathy. She saw Scott.
Scott was good, in a way that not many people were good. She could appreciate that, even if it made her feel uncertain. But coming to realise that she cared about him - that she trusted him - it was a challenge. She had learned to rely on herself, and Scott made her question that. Made her feel vulnerable. It was strange. Here, in the middle of nowhere, in her diamond form, she felt more vulnerable than she ever had in Sebastian's arms, or around any of that kind of man. It wasn't that Scott tried to take control from her. She could have fought against that.
She sighed to herself, and settled in to watch him, listening for any approaching danger. She would keep them safe.
It was dark before Scott stirred. His hands ran over her leg, careful furtive movements as he tried to ascertain where he was.
"You're safe." She told him, and he reached up, checked for his visor, and then finally opened his eyes. She smiled at him. "Feel better for that?"
"Much." Scott answered. "Thank you."
"I had nowhere else to be." She told him, as nonchalant as she could be. "You know, I'm beginning to think Ororo was right. You're not like other men."
Scott frowned again, an adorable sign of confusion. She shrugged her diamond shoulders easily. "You treat me with respect."
"Of course I do." Scott answered. "You are remarkable. And everyone... everyone deserves to be respected."
"The thing is, I know you actually believe that..." She shook her head. "Most men have only ever wanted me because I'm pretty or I'm useful. Like you said about your mind. You're different."
"I don't... I don't want to use people, Emma. Jack did that. I mean, I'm a strategist." Scott shrugged. "I work out what people can do, how we can win, but you're not... you're not just power sets to me, or tools. You're people. You're my team." He shrugged. "And it's easy with the kids. I think about what I wanted when I was their age, what I was desperate to hear, to believe, and I give them that. It doesn't steer me wrong."
"You wanted to have a mentor who was incredibly stuffy?" Emma teased, but Scott didn't rise to it.
"I wanted to have a mentor who was reliable. Who I could trust to do things because they were right for me, not just useful for him. I... I don't always give that to the students, but I want to try."
"You do." Emma admitted, wondering how Scott made it all sound so natural.
"I hoped...I don't know. All the things people criticise me for - sticking to the rules, being clear, making sense, being calm and reasonable... that's what I wanted."
"You've got it now." Emma smiled. "And you've got me. And maybe I'm not quite so dependable, but..."
"You have my back, Emma. I've got no doubts there." He squeezed her hand. "We should get moving."
"And go where?" She shrugged. "This place is defensible. And I am sure that help will be coming."
"I told you not to come, and knowing you, you didn't leave a note."
"I didn't have to." She tangled her fingers with his own. "Even ignoring any tracking tech Hank's probably snuck onto us when we weren't paying attention, it seems likely that they'll work it out when those fools try to attack the school."
Scott nodded slowly, and then smiled. "I guess we just have a temporary enforced vacation."
"In a shack in the middle of nowhere, with me stuck in my diamond form." Emma pointed out, and Scott shrugged.
"It's time with you, I can deal with it." Scott answered, and he was so honest about it. There was no hidden innuendo there, no smutty jokes or demands. He just wanted some time with her.
"When did you last take a break?" Emma asked, knowing even as she did so that she wouldn't like the answer.
"I mean. I've technically been off duty since I left the mansion." Scott answered, and she shook her head, leaning in and brushing her cold lips against his own. He yawned, and she curled up around him, protecting him in her arms. She would keep them safe until help arrived.
***
It was a few hours later that Hank found them, curled up together. She woke up from the doze she had fallen into when he tried to take Scott, ready to fight before she realised it was a friend there.
"Can I take a look?" Hank asked curiously. "It sounded like he was in a bad way."
"Thank you for coming." Emma released Scott, trying not to think about the fact she'd known that help was coming. More than that, she'd known it was coming for both of them.
The beds in the mansion were far more comfortable than the ones they had made use of in that shack, but what really mattered was being able to slip back into her natural form, wrap her arms around Scott, and feel him close against her. What mattered was holding on and knowing that he was safe, and that she was home. She knew that neither of them had ever expected to get that, but they had it now.