Manhattan, New York, where a young Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops not of this time wears a baseball cap low over his face, and a jacket over his costume as he gazes around at the skyscrapers. Most people who walk past him are busy, caught up in their own worlds, but one woman looks at him strangely. He sees her and lowers his cap further, before entering a bank. He sees some magazines on a table. “People” magazine’s cover suggests “The Avengers Mutant Cover Up”, while “Time” magazine is focusing on new mutants, and once again the “Rolling Stone” magazine depicts the present Cyclops. Scott tilts his head when he sees a woman behind a desk with a small “X” pin on her cardigan. He notices some people standing nearby looking at him, and he turns to the security camera which is pointed to him.
Scott makes his way over to the woman behind the desk, who casually calls out ‘Can I help you?’, while gazing at her computer. ‘I need help with one of the safety deposit boxes’ Scott replies. ‘Sure. Did you brings your keys?’ the woman asks. Scott replies that he didn’t, so the young woman asks if he has two forms of identification. ‘Well, sort of’ Scott replies, and the woman smiles at him as she looks up, ‘I’m sure we can -’ she begins, before going wide-eyed as she realizes who is standing before her. Scott removes his baseball cap and asks the young woman if she will help him. ‘Oh. My. God. You - you look a lot older on TV’ the woman remarks, covering her mouth. Scott replies that he is older on TV. ‘Is it really you?’ the woman asks. ‘Will you help me?’ Scott inquires. Shocked, the young woman asks him to follow her.
Making their way to the safety deposit box area, the young woman asks Scott if he has a deposit box here, to which he replies that he used to, but not sure if he still does. ‘Not sure?’ the woman asks, confused. ‘It’s a long story’ Scott tells her, cap back on. ‘O- okay’ the woman replies. Scott asks her if she is a mutant. She replies ‘Oh my God, I wish’. ‘You wish?’ Scott asks. Unlocking the door, the woman asks Scott if he knows what she did yesterday. ‘No’ he tells her. ‘Same thing I did the day before. And the day before that’ the young woman tells him. ‘And the day before that. I would kill to be…not that person. Ugh. To be a mutant -’ she explains as she unlocks the safety deposit box.
‘Everyone has something that makes them special’ Scott tells her. The young woman hands him the box and tells him that she thought he was like forty years old. She adds that the book tells him this is his box and that it has been here for years. Scott smiles and thanks her, so the young woman leaves him in a room, where he starts to open the box. He closes his eyes and removes his visor, putting on some ruby quartz shades that were in the box. ‘That’s better’ he tells himself. Rifling through the box ‘Thank you, Scott Summers’ he remarks as he sees wads of cash in the box. He frowns when he sees an invitation, however.
Outside in the main area of the bank, one of the young woman’s colleagues asks her: ‘What’s going on with you all of a sudden’. ‘You have no idea who is in there right now…’ the young woman replies. ‘Who is in where?’ her colleague asks her. ‘The safe deposit box room’ she explains. ‘Who?’ the other woman asks.
Back in the other room, the young Scott pulls the invitation from the box and looks at is anxiously.
‘Cyclops is in the bank?’ the other woman asks. ‘Yes!’ the young woman tells her. ‘Cyclops from the crazy X-Men?’ the other woman inquires, while the first woman exclaims ‘I am going to explode. Literally explode’. The older woman points out that he is wanted by the police. ‘No. Come on. That’s just the - the - the conspiracy against mutant -’ the young woman begins, but the older woman calls out to a guard, and gets his attention.
Inside the safety deposit box room, Scott has laid some things out on the table - polaroids, a lock of red hair, a necklace, some rings, money and the invitation. He shoves some of it into his jacket pocket, and leaves the room, where he finds Wolverine out in the main area of the bank. ‘Are you done wasting my day?’ Wolverine snarls, hands on hips and looking annoyed. He starts to drag Scott out of the bank, telling him not to start a fight in here, as these are innocent people. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Scott shouts. ‘Outside’ Wolverine tells him, before approaching some bank guards, and telling them to put the guns down. ‘On the ground!’ one of the guards shouts.
‘Yes, put the guns on the ground’ Wolverine tells them. ‘No, I - I mean you get on the ground’ the guard calls out. ‘I can’t believe you’re making me do this. Do you see this? Do you know what it means?’ Wolverine asks as he holds up his Avengers ID card. ‘This means that whatever security guard school you graduated from doesn’t mean a damn because Captain America told me that this means you do what I say. So what’s it gonna be?’ Wolverine asks, continuing to drag young Cyclops to the door, while one of the guards announces that they called the police. ‘You don’t pull a gun on someone just because they’re different than you’ Wolverine calls out, adding that they can’t pull a gun on someone for walking into a bank. ‘He didn’t rob the bank’ Wolverine adds, before turning to young Cyclops and asking him if he robbed the bank. Horrified, Scott replies ‘No’.
Wolverine tells the guards that he didn’t rob the bank, and informs them that the deal is they are leaving, and that if they shoot him, it won’t hurt him and he will cut off their hands. ‘I’ll go back to wherever I came from and you won’t have hands’ he points out. The guards look worried, and lower their weapons, watching alongside the bank customers and staff as Wolverine drags young Cyclops from the bank. Scott turns back to the young woman who was kind to him earlier. She stares back, eyes-wide, hands over her mouth. Out on the street now, Scott pulls away from Wolverine ‘I’m not going with you!’ he exclaims. ‘You’re welcome’ Wolverine mutters. ‘Let me do what I want!’ Scott declares. Wolverine asks him if he is hungry, and Scott tells him to leave him alone.
Wolverine then drags Scott into an alleyway, ‘Scott, darling, not everything is what it seems to be’ he tells him. ‘What does that mean? Scott asks, confused, and once again tells Wolverine to let go of him. Wolverine holds his hands up and tells Scott that he needed someone he would believe, and someone the guards would be afraid of. ‘He was my only choice, really…’ Wolverine begins, and suddenly, Scott’s jaw drops, as Wolverine is no longer standing in front of him, but a blue-skinned woman with red hair wearing a white dress. She introduces herself as Raven, and explains she is a mutant shape-shifter and a friend of Charles Xavier. She is Mystique, and tells the young Cyclops that she saw him online and had to see what this was for herself.
Backed up against the alleyway wall, Scott is scared and asks ‘What - what is this?’, so Mystique tells him to focus. ‘How did you -?’ Scott begins, to which Mystique reminds him that she just said she was a shape-shifter. Scott asks her what she has shape-shifted into now, and Mystique tells him that this is who she is, her mutant self. ‘Sorry if it offends you’ she adds. Rubbing the back of his head, confused, Scott replies that “offending” isn’t the word he would use. Mystique peers around the alleyway corner, and tells young Scott that a lot has happened since he first joined the X-Men, but that sadly the days of her walking around as her beautiful blue self without causing a riot are still a little far away. ‘I think we should talk’ Mystique adds, and seeing police cars pull up in front of the bank, Mystique takes Scott by his hand and he runs along after her. ‘Come on…’ she tells him, while Scott asks her what was her name again?
Soon, Mystique has shifted into a regular looking girl around the same age as Scott, and they sit together in a park. ‘Hank McCoy brought you to the here and now? That man is a conundrum’ Mystique remarks. ‘This is punishment’ Scott mutters, adding that Hank says he brought them here to stop the coming mutant civil war - the genocide, as he put it. ‘He’s a liar. He brought us here to punish me’ Scott declares, explaining that Hank is mad about Xavier. Mystique points out that it might be both things, but Scott tells her that Hank is a son of a bitch for bringing him here. ‘Maybe. But he is right’ Mystique replies, adding that things have never been more chaotic for mutantkind. ‘And you, the other you, is a big reason why’ she explains. Scott rubs his head and tells Mystique that he has to be doing all of this for a reason, that he has to truly believe that this is for the best interest of mutantkind.
‘It’s nice talking to the young you. Uncompromising. Idealistic. The other you? Not so much. Not anymore’ Mystique remarks, putting a hand on Scott’s shoulder. ‘You’re not mad at me for killing Charles Xavier?’ Scott asks. Mystique points out that it wasn’t he who killed Charles, but the older him did - maybe. ‘Maybe?’ Scott asks, confused. Mystique informs him that word is the present Scott was under the influence of a power he couldn’t control. ‘Scott Summers would never kill Charles Xavier, right?’ she asks. Young Scott stands up and turns away from Mystique, ‘I need to talk to him’ he tells her, deciding that is a weird thing to say. ‘It’s a weird thing to hear’ Mystique agrees, before agreeing that Scott should talk to him, before announcing that, in her opinion, Hank is right, and that Scott should probably shut him down before he hurts himself or others.
‘ME?’ Scott shouts. ‘There is - there are dozens of mutants in that school now?’ he asks. ‘Why don’t you - why doesn’t anybody else do it themselves?’ he adds. Mystique tells Scott that no one can do it but him, that no one can walk up to him and shut him down. ‘You’re Scott Summers. Even though older you is off the rails, everyone has such respect for what you’ve done, the sacrifices you’ve made, that nobody wants to - to - no one has the guts to just end you. But maybe you do’. Mystique explains. Young Scott hangs his head, and Mystique supposes Hank is thinking that maybe young Scott hates older Scott enough to stop this before it gets more out of control. Scott looks away, before turning back to Mystique and asking her who she is in all of this.
‘I won’t lie to you, Scott. I have a sordid history. I haven’t always been the best woman I can be’ Mystique admits. She adds that the world hasn’t been very nice to her, and she hasn’t been very nice to the world. Mystique states that she respects the hell out of Charles Xavier - the only man who really gave a damn about her as a person and a mutant. ‘I respect him enough to drop what I was doing and come find you and help you figure this out for yourself’ she claims. Mystique adds that it is the least she could do. ‘I didn’t get to say goodbye to him, you know?’ she explains. Scott looks at Mystique and asks her what she would do if she was him. ‘If I were you…’ Mystique begins as she switches from her teenage disguise into the older Cyclops, wearing an even older costume.
‘I would go back to the school and lead my team. I would look at what that school has become, what a pale, warped reflection of its original intention it is. And I would shut that down and then I’d find older you and shut that down as well’ Mystique announces. She adds that then she would go back to where she came from and start over, knowing what she knows now. ‘That would be amazing’ she tells Scott, who asks her ‘Why don’t you do it?’ Mystique switches back to her default form and replies ‘Because I am not you. I’m not ruthless like you or -’ to which Scott interrupts, ‘I’m not ruthless!’ he shouts. ‘Scott. All you are is ruthless’ Mystique declares. She points at him and tells him that when he sees something he knows is wrong in the world, nothing will stop him from making it right - nothing. ‘That is the definition of ruthless’ Raven remarks, before asking Scott if he has been to the school. He replies that he has, and she asks him if he liked what he saw. ‘I don’t know’ Scott tells her. ‘You don’t know?’ Mystique asks.
Cyclops walks away from the park, but Mystique follows him and overtakes him, reminding him that his school has been taken over by that mongrel Wolverine so that he can teach all those little mutants to become feral killing machines. ‘That was not Charles Xavier’s dream. That was not what you fought for. And lost for’ Mystique declares. She shifts into the form of another teenage girl, with pink stripes in her hair, and Scott calls out to her, asking her where she is going. Mystique tells Scott that Wolverine has tracked him, that he is on his way here. ‘Tracked me?’ Cyclops asks. ‘He’s a tracker’ Mystique reminds Scott, before telling him that he might want to start carrying around a notebook of what everybody does. ‘Keep track of mutants and what they do. For strategy, yeah?’ Mystique suggests, before telling Scott that it was very good to meet him like this. ‘I was always a big fan of the old you’ she claims. Scott watches her walk away and asks her how he can find her, but she tells him that he doesn’t need to find her - he needs to find himself - on numerous levels.
Scott hangs his head, and Wolverine a.k.a. Logan pulls up in a jeep. ‘Did you try to rob a bank?’ Logan asks. ‘Why haven’t you killed me yet?’ Scott asks, ignoring Wolverine’s question. ‘I just met you’ Logan points out. ‘No. I mean me - the adult me. Clearly you could. You’ve made it very clear you want to’ he adds. Wolverine confirms that he could, and that he could kill young Scott right now . ‘And if I do my math right that mean’s you’d cease to exist. Both of you’. Young Scott agrees, and tells Wolverine that he problem is solved. Wolverine replies that maybe he has lived long enough to know that killing is the easiest thing, that saving someone is a lot harder. ‘Maybe it was Charles Xavier who taught me that’ Wolverine reveals, before telling young Scott to get in the car, as he is wasting his day. ‘What if I can’t be saved?’ young Scott asks as he gets into the jeep. ‘Steal my #$@& ever again, I cut something off’ Wolverine warns him. ‘Nice’ young Scott mutters, before they drive off.
Mystique, still disguised, carries on down a street, when a van suddenly pulls up beside her. A man opens the door and leans out, ‘What was that all about? I thought you didn’t care about them’ he remarks. Mystique stands in the doorway and replies ‘The X-Men? Oh, I don’t. It’s a fisk’. Her companion is in the shadows of the van and asks what a fisk is. Shifting back to her default form, Mystique tells him that these X-Men are going to be chasing each other’s tails so fast on this that they won’t be able to see anything else. She explains that they will be free to see their plans all the way to the finish line. ‘The esteemed Dr Henry McCoy dropped a bomb on the mutant race. I just lit the fuse. Screw them all’ Mystique declares.
Meanwhile, at the Jean Grey School, Kitty Pryde is giving her new charges, the original X-Men from the past, a work out. ‘Drop and give me fifty!’ she orders. ‘Fifty what?’ asks Bobby “Iceman” Drake. ‘Let’s get fifty push-ups in to warm up’ Kitty explains. ‘WARM UP?’ Bobby shouts as he stands next to his fellow time-displaced teammates, Hank McCoy a.k.a. the Beast, who is busy reading something on a tablet, and Jean “Marvel Girl Grey. Hank casually asks where Warren and Scott are. Kitty assures him that they will get theirs. ‘Bobby Drake…you want to live here in the present, you want to train here… I’m training you’ Kitty tells him. ‘I can make ice with body’ the young mutant replies. ‘Your flabby-baby boy body’ Kitty tells him. ‘Now you listen here, lady, I’ve been an X-Man for -’ young Bobby begins. Kitty interrupts: ‘What? About three weeks?’ Bobby points out that he fought Magneto, and Kitty tells him that she saw the footage. ‘You threw snowballs at him’. ‘Oh yeah? You know Unus the Untouchable? I totally touched him!’ Bobby exclaims, before muttering ‘That sounded wrong’.
Kitty turns to the young Marvel Girland asks ‘Is he always like this?’ Jean replies ‘Consistently. Isn’t yours?’ Kitty remarks that it is odd though, that she finds her Iceman charming. ‘That is odd’ Jean agrees. Kitty turns back to Bobby and tells him that if he takes a swing at her, right here, no powers, connect one, she will never bug him with training again. ‘I’m not hitting a girl’ Bobby replies. ‘I’m not a girl, I’m a fierce competitor, you sexist twit!’ Kitty snaps. ‘Don’t call me a -’ young Bobby begins. Kitty declares that she knew Hank here was the smart one, but didn’t realize Bobby was actually the dumb one. ‘Don’t call me -’ Bobby calls out, but Kitty just points to the ground and tells Bobby to drop and give her fifty or show her he can fight like a man, and calls him Ice Boy. ‘Don’t call me - Ice - WAAAGGH!’ Bobby screams as he reaches out to punch Kitty, but she dodges the punch, and forces young Iceman to the ground.
‘And that’s why you need training’ Kitty announces, adding that from now on, she expects complete cooperation, otherwise they are benched. ‘You’re shho mean’ Bobby mutters, while Hank tells everyone to look who’s back. Wolverine approaches the group, with young Scott trailing behind him. ‘And -?’ Kitty calls out to Wolverine, while Scott goes over to his teammates. Wolverine carries on past Kitty, Ororo “Storm” Munroe and the present day Beast. ‘Two hour drive. He said nothing. You’re in charge of this from now on. I’m done’ Wolverine announces. Storm thanks Logan for not killing Scott, and Logan tells her that whatever favor he owed her, they are now even.
Scott gives Jean and envelope. She opens t, and sees that it is the invitation from the safety deposit box. She reads it, and it says:
Because you have shared in all our Adventures, Friendship and Love.
Scott Summers
And
Jean Grey
Invite you to share the beginning of our life together as we exchange wedding vows.
Friday, June 15
At the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, Westchester, New York.
A tear starts to form in the corner of one of Jean’s eyes, and she looks up to Scott, who has already walked away from her.
