The rain had stopped, but the stone pathways still glistened under the pale evening light. Shadows stretched long between the hedges of the Xavier Institute's garden, wind brushing through the trees like something hushed and waiting.
Inside the old reading room near the west wing — quieter than the common areas, smaller than the war rooms — Eli sat cross-legged in a firm chair, arms resting on his knees, head slightly lowered.
Across from him, Charles Xavier waited.
Just two persons and the long, measured silence of people who had things to say but were unwilling to say them first.
Eli broke the silence.
"I don't like this."
"I expected as much," Xavier replied.
"It feels like you're waiting for me to break."
"I'm not."
Eli looked up. "You sure? You've got that look."
Xavier smiled faintly. "I have many looks. Most of them misread."
Eli leaned back, arms folding. "Then you better explain which one this is. Because I don't like people watching me like I'm a test subject."
"You're not."
"Could've fooled me."
The tension that followed wasn't explosive, but it was still tense.
Xavier didn't push.
Instead, he said, "You asked to talk."
Eli exhaled through his nose.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Eli was quiet for a moment. Then shrugged.
"I figured… if I'm going to stay here for a bit, I should know the rules."
"There aren't many."
"Bullshit."
Xavier's expression didn't change. "Then what do you believe the rules are?"
"Don't scare the rich kids. Don't bleed in the halls. Don't break things unless you're told."
"That's survival. Not structure."
Eli's jaw tensed. He looked away.
Xavier waited.
Finally, Eli said, quieter, "I've never been in a place this clean."
Xavier nodded once. "And that bothers you?"
"I don't trust clean. Clean hides things."
"Like blood under a white shirt?"
Eli looked back at him sharply.
And for a moment, the room was something else.
A cage with two predators.
Xavier's voice softened. "You're not wrong."
Eli didn't speak.
The silence grew deeper. Finally, Xavier spoke again.
"You grew up in Chicago?"
Eli nodded once.
"Hope Orphanage," Xavier continued. "East side."
"You read my file?"
"I read the system's record. Not yours."
Eli's lip curled slightly. "What's the difference?"
"The system records your absence. Not your presence. It listed when you were removed, but not why. It listed the time you vanished, but not how you survived."
Eli's voice was colder now. "What do you want, Professor?"
Xavier didn't blink.
"I want to understand."
"Why?"
"Because you're standing at a threshold," he said. "You don't trust either side. But you haven't walked away. That means you're still deciding."
Eli snorted. "You think I'm special?"
"I think you're aware ."
"Same thing, in your world."
Xavier leaned forward, just slightly.
"In my world, self-awareness is rarer than power. Most people drown in strength long before they learn to swim with it."
Eli's jaw clenched.
But this time, he didn't look away.
"You don't get it."
"Try me."
Eli stared at him.
And, against what felt like every hardened instinct in his body, he let a piece of it out.
"You know what happened when I was thirteen?" he asked.
Xavier said nothing.
"I got stabbed behind a gas station for a deal that went cock up, almost died." Eli's voice was flat. "I didn't fight back because I'd already lost too many times to believe I could win."
His fingers dug into his palms.
"And you know what happened after? I lived. I walked home. Laid on a floor in a place that didn't want me, and I got better."
His throat worked against something deep.
"Because my body decided I didn't get to die that day."
Xavier's expression didn't shift.
Eli leaned forward now.
"I didn't get strong because I wanted to be. I got strong because every day the world tried to break me, and I didn't have the luxury of staying broken."
Silence again.
Then Xavier said, quietly, "You didn't bend."
"I don't bend," Eli corrected.
And something in his voice cut — like a warning.
Xavier nodded.
"I believe you."
A long breath passed between them.
Then Eli asked, "So what is this? You gonna offer me therapy? A training room? Classes?"
"I'm going to offer you a place."
Eli scoffed.
"Neither a role nor a label," Xavier added. "A place."
Eli's brows drew together.
Xavier continued. "You've never had that. You've survived, masterfully I might add, but survival is a blade that cuts both ways. It teaches you to expect betrayal. To see every kindness as a trick."
"Because it usually is."
"Until it's not."
Eli fell silent again.
Xavier didn't press.
He simply said, "You're not here because someone found you. You're here because you let yourself be seen."
"That wasn't a choice."
"It was. You didn't run. You let us fight beside you. And you let yourself wake up in a bed without clawing your way out of it."
Eli looked down at his hands again.
They weren't shaking.
But they remembered .
Xavier rolled his chair back an inch. Just enough to shift the dynamic.
"I won't demand you become something you're not. I won't mold you into a soldier. Or a symbol. But I will offer you what no one else has."
Xavier's voice lowered.
"A chance to choose who you want to be."
The silence stretched.
Then Eli stood.
He didn't look at Xavier.
Didn't offer a handshake.
He simply said, "I'll stay. For now."
Xavier nodded once.
"That's enough."
—---------------------------------—----
Later, after the room had emptied and the doors had closed, Eli stood outside on the upper terrace overlooking the lawn.
The wind cut through his shirt.
He didn't know what this place was and he didn't trust it.
But something in him — something old, buried deep — felt a pull.
And for the first time in a long time… he didn't resist it.
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