Chapter 117: Professor X's Goodwill Has Increased
The grey rain continued.
Charles had observed long enough to have the shape of a plan.
The source of the ability loss of control was guilt. So the solution was to eliminate the guilt. Not by force, not by cutting out the emotional root and leaving an absence, but by a more precise method. If the guilt came from the mother, then the mother would be the one to release it.
He couldn't summon the dead. He couldn't bring the real woman back. But he could, within the mindscape, give that woman's voice back to Nikki.
He let the consciousness shift work through him and began changing his appearance.
It didn't take long. Working from the image Nikki's memory held, Charles assembled the woman's face: ordinary features, the kind that belonged to someone who had passed through the world without drawing notice. The face of a mother.
He looked down at his reflection in a puddle. The match was exact.
He placed his hand gently on Nikki's head.
"Nikki."
A voice entirely unlike the shrieking horror that had been speaking: warm and unhurried, and familiar in the way only one voice ever was.
Nikki snapped upright.
She turned.
When she saw the face, her expression became something that had no name for it. Her eyes went wide.
"Ma... Mama?"
Everything that had been held back broke loose at once. The crying swallowed the whole street. She buried herself in the arms in front of her and apologized in a small, shaking voice, over and over.
This was what had been holding her together and apart at the same time: Matthew and Ada's warmth in the present pulling one direction, and her mother's memory pulling the other. Like two horses tied to opposite ends of the same rope, and Nikki in the middle, pulled back and forth between now and before without ever finding stillness. The feeling of someone caught between an adoptive family and a birth family, with no resolution and no way to stop choosing.
Every moment of warmth from Matthew brought behind it a wave of guilt, a feeling of betrayal, a thought of the mother who had spent everything she had to keep Nikki alive and hadn't made it.
That cycle was what kept pushing the ability to the edge.
Charles looked down at the small figure pressed against his chest, crying without sound. He held the pause for a moment. Then he put his arms around her.
"Mama, I'm sorry." Nikki lifted her tear-streaked face.
"Mother" raised a hand before she could finish, stopping the words.
"Silly girl. You don't need to apologize to anyone."
The voice was full of something that had nothing in common with accusation.
"Mama knows what you're thinking."
"If you can have a better life, mama should be happy for you."
"All a mother wants is to watch her child live happily and in good health. Not drowning in sorrow like this, day after day."
"But—" Nikki tried.
"No but."
"Mother" raised a hand and stroked her forehead, gentle and steady.
"Mr. Lawrence is a very good person. I'm grateful that he appeared when he did and took you away from that place. If he hadn't, I think I would have spent the rest of my time feeling guilty."
"If you can, mama hopes you'll face what's ahead with your whole self. Live well." A pause. "If you can manage it, live for my share too."
As the familiar voice spoke on, the guilt that had been accumulating for months began to dissolve.
They stayed on that empty street for a long time. Charles remained her mother throughout: attentive and unhurried, asking nothing of her and giving what she needed.
At some point the grey world began to change. Color returned to the buildings and the air. Hell's Kitchen, which had been raining in Nikki's memory for as long as she could remember, reached a day without rain.
The sunlight fell, and the horrifying figure that had been crawling toward Nikki in the dark faded with it and was gone. The street itself looked different after that.
Nikki stayed in her mother's arms until the crying stopped entirely.
"Mother" stood slowly. She looked down at Nikki with warmth.
"Nikki. I have to go now."
Nikki looked up, not ready.
"Mama. Will we see each other again?"
"We will. I promise."
"But before that: live well."
"Yes! Mama! I will!" The smallness had gone out of her voice and been replaced by something definite.
Charles looked at Nikki's face, which had settled into something firm, and ruffled her hair.
"Pinky promise."
"Pinky promise."
Back in the waking world, Charles opened his eyes slowly. His wheelchair. The streetlamp. The night. His face carried the kind of tiredness that a person tries not to show and can't entirely hide.
"Charles, what happened?" Logan got there ahead of Matthew.
"It's resolved." Charles let out a long breath. Something calm and relieved settled across his face despite the exhaustion. "I saw the anxiety and fear that had been living inside her, and the memories that kept holding her in place. I took the liberty of addressing it directly, so that the rest of her life wouldn't be as difficult."
He looked at Matthew. "The ability will lose control considerably less from now on. With the right guidance, she should be able to adapt to it properly before long."
Matthew let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Thank you, Professor Charles. I mean that."
He understood that Charles's primary motivation was almost certainly to prevent mutant-related incidents from generating the kind of public alarm that put mutants at risk. But whatever the reason behind it, this had been a significant act of genuine help.
As he thought about that, his gaze moved without deliberate intent to Charles's motionless lower body.
"Professor Charles. Our company, working with Stark Industries, developed a piece of equipment some time ago that can return mobility to patients with paralysis. If you'd find that useful, I can provide you with one at no charge, along with lifetime maintenance."
What he was describing was Stanavistin. Not the combat version used by Hunk and others, but a medical adaptation that Tony had arrived at during the deeper stages of development. The original design purpose had been combat augmentation. Then Tony noticed that in external exoskeleton mode, the same system worked with remarkable precision as a medical component. For patients with serious damage to the spine and nervous system, it could restore meaningful control of the body. The cost was currently prohibitive for mass production. That was a manufacturing problem, not an effectiveness problem.
The moment the words landed, something changed in Charles's eyes.
Other things he could take or leave. But this, the possibility of standing, was something he had needed for longer than he wanted to acknowledge. Whatever composure he kept over his voice, the brightness in his eyes gave it away.
"That would be." He paused, maintaining control. "I'm truly grateful."
"No, it should be me doing the thanking." Matthew allowed himself a small smile. "Professor Charles, if you're available, come back to the company with me now. I have a standard medical unit already on hand. Once we finish fitting and calibrating it, it shouldn't take long at all before you're standing on your own."
Charles recognized what he felt from the other man as genuine. He nodded immediately.
His estimation of Matthew Lawrence went up another considerable amount.
[System: +1,000 points. Professor X (Charles Francis Xavier)'s goodwill has increased.]
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