Feedback: Will be worshipped and set on a pedestal. Flamers will be put into Boob Woman stories and humiliated.
Many thanks to Sas, who beta'ed. :)
Note: The title was inspired from KJ's story, "Shades of Red" which was much more serious than this story. Much. But it got me liking Scott. And every time I heard it I kept thinking of what it would be like to see like that. So, this is her fault!
Growing Up A Superhero
"Oh, that's nice," Scott said, gazing at the picture Bobby's daughter handed him proudly. He looked down at the young girl, her eyes, hair and the marks on her face all pale blue as she beamed up at him with a hopeful expectation of praise.
"Did you do one?" she asked.
"Ah, no," Scott answered, giving the picture back and shoving his hands in his pockets uncertainly. He didn't normally color. His last coloring experience had ended with Jimmy Torres stealing his crayons and running away with them, shouting that Scott was a wussy-brain.
"Will you do one? Look, I even have an extra page for you. Oooh, and this coloring book has animals! I like this one. It's a cow. Will you color it?" Jessie beamed hopefully at him, her four-year-old face lighting up.
Scott started to refuse, but at some point his Father Sense had kicked in, and he found that he couldn't bring himself to say no.
"Sure," he responded at last, and settled down between the couch and coffee table on the floor next to the girl. "You want me to do the cow?"
She nodded and handed him some crayons, dropping them all over and not minding in the least as they rolled off the edge of the table. Scott bent to scoop them up, putting them carefully back where they belonged. "Do you like living here, Jessica?" he asked her as he picked up a crayon and eyed it. Through the red of his glasses, he could see the color was dark. A deep brown, perhaps. Something with a bit of red in it, to muddle his color-vision. He missed that most, more even than being able to shower without goggles. And somehow it was worse, because without his glasses he saw color perfectly; Scott's own eyesight wasn't damaged, it was simply the visor that changed it.
Scott set aside those depressing thoughts, and carefully bent to the task of coloring his cow.
"I do like living here," Jessica was telling him animatedly as she scribbled haphazardly on a rabbit. "It's fun."
Scott nodding, adding big black spots--or what he was pretty sure was black--to his cow, then coloring the grass green. That crayon he was sure of; he didn't often mistake other colors for green. Green and light blue he found easily, leaving portions of the sky white for clouds.
"Oooh, that's pretty," Jess said, her pudgy four-year-old fingers poking at Scott's picture.
He was rather pleased, himself. His black and brown cow stood grazing in the middle of a green field.
"You should put in flowers," Jessie said solemnly.
Scott nodded and picked up a red crayon--those ones were easy to find--and drew little dots for flowers all over the field. "Better?"
"Much," Jessie said, nodding. "You even stayed in the lines," she pointed out. Her blue gaze--a light purple to Scott's eyes--fastened on his face. "That's hard to do."
"I had to practice a lot," Scott answered just as seriously.
"I'm gonna show my daddy," Jess announced, and snatched at the picture before Scott could protest. Scott managed to maneuver himself out of his squished postition, bashing his knees against the edge of the coffee table. Grunting, he stumbled out from between the table and the couch, following the sound of Jessie's young voice.
"Oh, this is very nice," Scott could hear Bobby saying. He followed the noise to the headmaster's office, where Bobby had been spending much of his time since moving to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Emma was still on as Headmistress, but was training Bobby to take over.
"Thanks," Scott said dryly, leaning against the doorframe. "I try."
Bobby grinned up at him, noting the tone. "I think we should put this on the fridge, don't you Jessie?"
"Yeah!" Jessica answered before Scott could say otherwise.
"I really don't think that's a very good idea," Scott responded swiftly, even though Jess had already taken his picture and had bolted past him with it.
"Oh, but she really wants to," Bobby answered, his grin distinctly mischievous.
"How do you spell Scott's name, Daddy?" Jessie shouted from the kitchen.
"S," Bobby shouted back, following her down the hall while laughing.
"Bobby," Scott growled, striding quickly to catch up with the younger man. By the time Scott had reached the kitchen, Jess had written his name across the top of the picture and fastened it with a magnet to the front of the refrigerator.
"Very nice cow," Emma said dryly, putting her coffee mug in the dishwasher. "Purple. That's a new color."
". . . Purple?" Scott managed after a moment.
"And blue," Bobby interjected. "I think the dark blue spots really make the cow."
"That's navy blue, daddy," Jessie corrected, seemingly unaware that anything was amiss.
Scott stepped up to the picture and squinted. "That's purple and blue?"
"An' red flowers," Jessie started announcing, "an' green grass, an' blue sky. It's soooo pretty."
Scott smiled painfully. "I'm glad you think so." Purple? Blue? He squinted at the picture, trying to see it. The colors were too dark and too similar, though.
"I'll leave it up there forever," Jessie announced, then turned and ran out of the room.
Scott was still staring at his picture fifteen minutes later when his wife entered.
Scott? Is there a reason you're in here alone?
Are those really purple and blue? he asked, and even his mental tone was forlorn.
Yes. I think it's lovely.
Scott turned a dirty gaze on his wife. "I don't need you to make fun of me, too."
Jean smiled slightly and wrapped her arms around him, leaning her head against his chest. She turned and looked at the picture that Scott was glaring so intently at. No one's making fun of you.
Ha. They're all laughing.
Jean's hand ran up and down her husband's spine, fingernails teasing the cloth. She was one of the few people to see inside her husband, one of the very privileged to know about his insecurities. No one's laughing. And if they are, it's because they think it's cute. Not because you messed something up.
Scott was quiet, mentally as well as vocally, and after a moment Jean continued.
I know plenty of people who would pay good money for a picture of a purple and blue cow, Jean sent, and grinned when Scott mentally smiled. Warren, for one.
Scott mentally snorted. Warren wouldn't pay for this.
He would if someone said it was art.
No one said that.
Jessie did.
A grin spread reluctantly across Scott's face.
I saw a painting once of a blue daisy with a red stem. That's not much different than this.
One of Scott's heavily muscled arms tightened around Jean, pulling her snugly to his side. The thought he sent wasn't quite a thought, and most certainly wasn't a word, but Jean understood it nonetheless. She smiled in return and twisted in his grip, leaning up and kissing him before going back to her contemplation of the picture.
"I bet Brigette would love for you to color with her," Jean said aloud.
Scott smiled and rested his cheek on his wife's hair, gazing absently at his picture. "She wouldn't want her 'lame-o dad' to draw with her. She's six and much too old for me," he said on something that was half an exasperated sigh, and half a laugh for the little girl who was trying so hard to be grown up.
"I think you'd be surprised," Jean chuckled. "She just doesn't want you thinking you're too cool."
Scott kissed the top of Jean's head almost absently, then rested his cheek on her silky hair. "I meant for the cow to be brown and black," he murmured quietly.
"I like it better this way," Jean answered.
Scott hugged her harder, the released her.
"Where are you going?" Jean asked as he walked from the room.
"To visit Jess. Maybe she has some pictures I could take home to Brigette."
Jean smiled and nodded, leaning back against the kitchen table and gazing at the picture. She grinned once, shaking her head, and left the room.
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Back to the living room -
Shades of . . . Pink. 1/1
JBMcDragon
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