The Prodigal Son

Posted on Fri Jul 12th, 2024 @ 9:15pm by Charles Xavier & Scott Summers

Mission: Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: Baxter Building | Manhattan
Timeline: October 6th, 1990

After the eventful if tense conference regarding the Mutant Registration Act, most people made a hasty exit. Professor Xavier had discreetly asked Scott for a private word. Not being one for words, Scott's first inclination was to decline. But the fact of the matter was that he owed everything to Charles Xavier. There was precious little he would ever deny the man. A word in private was the least he could give.

While Jean was speaking with Pietro about the rapidly changing development he had presented, Scott faced the music with the man he most respected in the world. Due to his failure, though, there was no other person he wanted to be alone with less than Charles Xavier.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

Scott had tried to wait out Xavier, but the Professor had sat in silence, either stewing or thinking or simply waiting Scott out in turn. Now that the ice was broken, Xavier smiled on his first and oldest student.

"Yes. I've wanted to see you for some time, in fact." He made an obvious gesture of looking about not only the conference room but the entire suite of offices he and Jean had made of their floor of the Baxter Building. "But I see you've been quite busy of late. It is an incredible work you've begun here."

"Thank you..." Scott said tersely, then added with a little more warmth, "We learned from the best."

Xavier paused his examination and gave Scott a side-long glance. "Is that what this is? You are following in my footsteps?"

It didn't sound like a challenge. Truth be told, Scott couldn't guess as to the old man's meaning. "I suppose. We were doing the right thing, what needed to be done. If not us, then who?"

"Precisely." Xavier openly beamed at that answer. "The only thing you learned from me, Scott, is to follow your conscience. It will never steer you awry, even if nothing else makes sense in this world."

Scott looked at his feet. Matters of conscience were the very thing that had put space between them. He was doing his best to atone for what he had done, but it was had only been a month since his rescue of Jean. Despite everything, Scott was still unsure of whether or not he was welcome at the Mansion.

"I'm trying," Scott finally said, suppressing a tremor in his voice. "Heaven knows I'm trying, Professor."

"So do I..." There was a sadness to Xavier's voice despite his praise. "You've done amazing things. What you and Jean and even Bobby now... your accomplishments should make you proud. I know I am."

While it was wonderful to hear the Professor's approval here and now, nothing could undo the past. Scott nodded in thankfulness, even murmured as much. But the gulf between them remained. He had let down the one man who had plucked him out of chaos and given him order, given him purpose, honed him into the man he was today. And in one fell swoop, Scott had finalized the downward spiral into total devastation. He had betrayed everyone he had ever loved. Forgiving himself was an abstract concept. Staring at Charles Xavier and hoping for forgiveness was just a bridge too far.

"Thank you." Scott had managed to choke back his emotions enough to reassert his stoic disposition. His murmured thanks could finally be verbalized. "I'm doing my best. One day... maybe..."

Xavier held up a hand. "Allow me to stop you there, Scott. I'm afraid that you're laboring under a misunderstanding, one from which I will now disabuse you."

The pregnant pause in the air led Scott to raise his head. For the first time, they held each other's gaze. What Scott found in the Professor's eyes were tears. The disappointment that had banished him from the Mansion was gone, replaced by... Scott shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I know. I want to fix that," the Professor said, "if you will allow me."

Scott nodded. He wanted to understand what was happening. Even the air in the room had taken on a different feel, as if the atmosphere had become emotionally charged.

"First of all, I want to assure you that Aurora will be taken care of." There was an almost cryptic tone to his wording, as if he knew more than he would reveal. Such was usually the case, so Scott didn't say anything, allowing Xavier to continue. "It takes a village, so it is said. As you continue to do your part, so shall the rest of us. But I need you to understand something..."

How to explain weakness to someone whose very identity revolved around strength of character? Any way he put it would sound like condemnation. "Scott, you came back to the Mansion in body alone. Your heart remained with Jean. It was not for nothing that I placed you on sabbatical and had Cameron step up from training to leading the new team. I wanted you to heal because I saw that you were dying inside and the one person you relied upon to tend to you was gone." He took a deep breath and prepared himself to say something potentially heartless, though it was perhaps the most difficult test of love he had ever exercised. "If it wasn't Aurora, then it would have been something else. You were a runaway train and there was no stopping the collision. I was waiting for the crash, that I might help pick up the pieces."

Scott furrowed his brow at the explanation. "You... you let me make the worst mistake of my life?!"

"No, Scott." The Professor's tone turned dour for a moment. "I don't 'let' anybody do anything. We are all moral agents who are free to act as we will. But, no, I did not foresee the precise turn of events as they unfolded. I gave warning to Aurora. I did not interfere with you because, as I said, I knew it would do no good. You were bound for a crash and I was preparing for the aftermath of the inevitable."

"You... you..." Scott sat down at the table and dropped his head into his hands. "You gave up on me?!"

The Professor's chair was immediately at Scott's side. "No. Just the opposite, in fact. I believed in you, Scott. I believed in you so deeply that I trusted, no matter what mistake you would make when you finally fell, you would find yourself." His own voice began to choke up from the emotion. "I didn't send you away in order to punish you, Scott. I sent you away in order to save you."

"Save me?" Scott repeated, barely holding back the tears. "How... what?"

"I chose you from the beginning because I knew that you required the burden of leadership in order to flourish," Xavier explained. "Warren, Hank, Jean, even Bobby could have acquired command skills, but I saw in you the need for the added weight of responsibility in order to bring out your fullest potential." He placed his hand on Scott's shoulder. "You needed to lead the team as much as the team needed a leader. I knew that holding you back at the mansion would only further your downfall, maybe even cement it into finality. Only by doing the hardest thing I've ever done, as a bird tosses a chicklet out of the nest in order to fly, I sent you on the hero's quest." Xavier shook his head and allowed his overwhelming emotion to flow. "Scott, did you ever deliver. Just as your volunteer effort to be abducted by the mutant traffickers led to Bobby being rescued from Department H... you set out and did the impossible. You found Jean where I could not. That was nothing short of a miracle."

The dam of Scott's emotions finally broke. All the good he had done had barely felt like enough. Now with the Professor recounting it all like accolades at an award ceremony, Scott felt himself wrecked from the inside out. "I... I didn't do it alone. Jean..."

"Yes, I know," the Professor said. "Jean filled me in on every detail. She contacted you. But you found assistance. Telford Porter, the Vanisher himself, recruited to your cause. And Sunfire in Japan, another former adversary turned ally. You ventured into the heart of darkness and rescued..." The Professor paused for a moment, nearly losing his composure himself as all that Jean meant to him came welling up from within him. "... rescued our dearest Jean. And when you found her, you tended to her, restored her, and then came back here to finish the work you started."

"I didn't do it alone..." Scott repeated, still avoiding the Professor's face.

"But you did it, Scott. Don't you see?" The Professor chuckled at how blind and stubborn this man could be. "You were the agent of change. You were the driving force. Life and death pivoted on your actions alone. Everything and everyone else was leveraged on the initiative you took. That is why Jean was returned to us. That is why we had this very conference today." For what Xavier was about to say, he couldn't hold back anything. He openly wept. "You have proven to be a man after my own heart, Scott. No truer son could I ever hoped to have."

Scott's resistance collapsed, as did he into the Professor's arms. The two men held each other and openly cried into each other's shoulders. The walls of failure and shame and regret were torn down by love and forgiveness. Xavier released the hold he had on his own emotions and allowed Scott to know his mind once again, just as he had in the early days.

~I love my X-Men, my Children of the Atom, paragons of a better age where all people can live together in peace. But you and Jean are my heirs, Scott. You have my call to action, Jean has my mercy, and together both of you can inherit my torch of hope. My wish for you both is for a life of happiness, to raise a family and know the simple joys of domestic tranquility. But I know that is not the life either of you would ultimately choose for yourselves. You are called to what you're doing which is why you cannot do anything other than the work of the here and now. And it is for all of these reasons that I wanted to give you this~

Reaching into the arm console of his chair, Xavier produced a wooden box small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He offered it to Scott without a word.

"What is it?" Scott asked, wiping his eyes dry.

"It's a precious family heirloom," Xavier replied, "one that has been passed down from generation to generation from the Greymalkins of the Netherlands. I want you to have it."

Scott shook his head. "No! No, Professor, I couldn't possibly—"

But Xavier wouldn't take no for an answer. He placed it in Scott's palm with one hand and covered it with the other. "I insist. You'll know what to do with it when the time is right. And, on that day, I want you to know that you are more than welcome to return to the Mansion." He nodded for full emphasis. "Not as a student or an X-Man, but as a son."

"I don't know what to say..." Scott bit his bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

"Say you will do it." Xavier smiled with fullness of joy.

Scott nodded. "I will. I mean I was going to. So, yes, I will."

"Fabulous," said Xavier, his smile warm and excited, though it turned solemn for a moment. He had further admonition to give. "Although I must caution you... do not do anything hastily. That was what led to your mistakes. I fully approve of all you've done since your return and everything which you intend to do. But the next season of your life is not one to be entered lightly. You must have no reservations going forward. You must hold nothing back or else you're going to find yourself running in circles again." He fixed Scott with a hard stare. "Clear your ledger, Scott. Free yourself from all this torment in which you've languished. It's not necessary. In truth, it's harmful. I urge you not to carry it any longer."

"I'll try," Scott said. "You've... you've given me so much to think about." He looked at the small wooden box in his hand. "You've given me everything."

Xavier shook his head. "No. You have earned everything, Scott. I am just rewarding you with that which I have to give."

This was not how Scott had expected this conversation to go. Not in his wildest dreams of optimistic fantasy did he expect anything like this.

Scott and Xavier held each other for a moment longer, allowing their emotions to settle. Scott finally pulled back, looking at the small wooden box in his hand, feeling its weight and the significance it held. He met Xavier’s gaze, finding in those eyes not just a mentor but the closest thing he had to a father.

"Thank you, Professor," Scott said, his voice steady now. "I don't know what else to say, other than I won’t let you down again."

Xavier smiled, a mixture of pride and warmth radiating from him. "I know you won’t, Scott. You’ve already proven yourself. As you continue your vital work here, remember you always have a home at the Mansion."

With a final nod, Scott watched Xavier leave the room and head back toward the elevator. The box sat securely in his grasp and a renewed sense of purpose in his heart. With every second that passed, he began to feel lighter, the burdens of past mistakes easing with each new moment. Letting go of the past and forgiving himself for his grave mistakes was going to be a journey all in itself. But he was finally ready to face the future, not as a fallen leader seeking redemption, but as a man who had found his path and the courage to walk it.