The tunnels no longer felt like a home.
Eli could feel it.
The silence.
The way the echo of his footsteps came back just a little too fast, like something was listening for the rhythm of his pace.
He moved slower than usual, hoodie up, hands in his pockets. His senses weren't superhuman—at least, he didn't think so—but he'd learned the subtle cues of a hunted life. The temperature of the air, the scent of fresh dirt, the weight of another presence nearby, even when it said nothing.
He passed one of the camera blind spots near the old maintenance panel and stopped just short of his mattress.
It was exactly how he left it.
Blanket in place. Notebook tucked under the crate. Coffee mug clean and dry.
And yet… off.
Like someone had been there, then carefully undone the evidence.
He didn't check the hiding spots. Didn't lift the blankets. He just stood there for a full minute, unmoving, letting the space speak for itself.
Nothing spoke.
That was worse.
__________________________________________________
Above ground, Chicago churned on.
Eli blended in with the city like a shadow between walls. He moved with purpose, but his eyes kept drifting — checking mirrors, windows, reflections in passing cars. Watching.
By the time he reached the small backlot behind a boarded-up restaurant near the Orange Line, he'd passed the same brown sedan three times. Too clean to belong here. Too slow to be lost.
He didn't confront it. Not yet. That wasn't his style.
Instead, he cut into an alley behind a hardware store and doubled back, climbing onto a fire escape three stories up before perching on a rusted steel beam. From there, he had a wide view of the street, the corner, and the car.
Nothing happened.
For more than twenty minutes, he watched.
Then the sedan pulled away, slow and smooth.
That night, he didn't sleep in the tunnels.
__________________________________________________
In Westchester, inside the mansion's quiet strategy wing, Jean Grey stared at the wall monitor, arms crossed, brows furrowed. The screen showed a low-res street view image—grainy and tilted. A figure in a hoodie blurred across the bottom third of the frame.
"He's good," she said softly.
Across from her, Kurt Wagner—Nightcrawler—shrugged as he leaned on a counter. "That, or lucky."
Jean didn't look away. "He knows he's being followed. Look at the angle here—he ducked out of sight the moment the observer turned the corner."
"He is not trained," Kurt offered gently. "But… cautious. Adaptive."
Beast entered carrying a mug of something thick and purple. "Surveillance teams lost visual on him for three hours last night. Then he reappeared on a rooftop half a mile away, eating a hotdog."
Jean cracked a smile. "A mutant with taste."
Scott Summers stepped into the room with his usual practiced stride. "Still wasting time on the alley rat?"
Beast glanced up. "You mean 'Knuckle Rat'? That name's sticking, you know."
"Not funny."
"No," Beast said, "but accurate."
Scott folded his arms. "We have an incident brewing in Atlanta. A teenage telepath accidentally blanked her whole high school's short-term memory. You think this random brawler should be our priority?"
Jean's eyes narrowed, but Xavier's voice came from behind them before she could answer.
"Because this 'random brawler' survived two confirmed gang assaults, incapacitated four armed men, and walked away without hospitalization. His DNA profile shows reactive adaptation well outside standard regeneration markers. He deserves our attention."
Scott didn't argue, but he didn't nod either.
Xavier rolled forward to the monitor. "Cerebro confirms it—he's mutant. No gene corruption. No celestial tampering. No trauma-induced overlays."
Jean frowned. "That's… odd."
Kurt tilted his head. "How so?"
"Usually, when someone grows like this—fast, erratic—it's layered with trauma signatures or gene instability. This one's… clean. Natural."
Xavier nodded. "He's surviving as if it's what he was designed to do."
__________________________________________________
Back in the city, Eli moved from safehouse to safehouse—empty storefronts, abandoned subway kiosks, loading docks with broken fences. He stayed ahead of whatever was following him.
But he felt it. At his back. In his bones.
Like the city itself had turned and fixed eyes on him.
He climbed up into a small rooftop service area overlooking a park. Down below, behind a tall wire fence, a few kids played in the dead grass — laughter echoing faintly against the brick. They passed a soccer ball between them with makeshift goals built from sticks and shopping carts.
Eli crouched low behind a ledge and watched from a distance, eyes narrowed.
He didn't envy them.
He didn't pity them either.
He just watched.
His hand clenched and unclenched slowly at his side, thumb grazing over the still-tender knuckles.
The memory of the fight came back in fragments. The warmth in his chest when the hits landed. The clarity of motion. The singularity of purpose.
There was no noise in his head when he fought. No questions. No shadows. Just the moment.
A girl down below shrieked as she kicked the ball too hard, sending it into a patch of dead leaves. The others shouted after her, laughing, chasing.
Eli closed his eyes.
No one's laughing when you win.
__________________________________________________
That same evening, Xavier held a private briefing in the lower strategy room with Jean, Hank, and Logan—called in from the field for his perspective.
On the screen was a split display: Eli's profile on one side, and a visual playback of the fight pieced together from multiple security feeds on the other.
"He took seven confirmed hits," Hank said. "Two to the ribs, one to the head with a pipe, one stab wound, two punches to the jaw, and a thrown object to the shoulder."
Logan sniffed. "Kid stayed on his feet after that?"
"Not just on his feet," Jean said. "He fought back. Hard."
Logan's arms crossed. "Not healing-factor fast though."
Xavier gestured. "That's what concerns me. He's not regenerating at Wolverine speed. He's simply recovering faster than he should. Muscles adapting. Bone density increasing."
Logan glanced at the footage, then at the boy's file. "So what, we got another Darwin-type mutation?"
Beast shook his head. "No. Darwin's power adapts in real time to survive threats. This is delayed. Like his body learns, then locks in the lesson. It's closer to combat conditioning at a cellular level."
Jean raised an eyebrow. "You mean he's improving… fight by fight?"
"Yes," Beast said simply.
__________________________________________________
Eli's eyes snapped open.
He stood abruptly, listening. The rooftops were quiet, but something below shifted. A faint crunch of gravel.
He dropped silently behind a vent and peered over the edge.
A man in a hoodie stood across the street, staring up at the building Eli had been watching from. He wasn't moving. Just… watching.
Eli didn't recognize him.
Didn't matter.
He moved fast, slipped down a side drainpipe, and vanished into the next block before the man could even blink.
Later, back in a new hideout under a train bridge near Midway, Eli sorted his gear.
He didn't have much—just what he could carry: three shirts, two knives, a notebook, and a handful of stolen cash tucked into a cigarette box. His stash was shrinking.
He'd burned three hideouts in two weeks.
He needed a plan.
Needed a fix on who or what was following him.
His hand hovered over the notebook for a moment, then opened it.
On the inside of the front cover, scribbled in pencil, were six names. The first five were crossed out—old enemies, people who had tried to use or break him.
The sixth was fresh.
Marcus.
Under it, he wrote a single word.
Watched.
__________________________________________________
At the Xavier Institute, Jean stared at the updated report, frowning.
"There hasn't been a signal since the fight."
"He's laying low," Beast said.
"Or waiting," Logan added, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Smart move."
Xavier sat quietly, watching the data flicker. The signal had dimmed, but not vanished. It pulsed like a heartbeat—erratic, but alive.
"We'll approach soon," he said softly. "But only when he's ready."
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