I explored my new room methodically, cataloging every detail.
Window overlooking wooded grounds. First window I'd ever had. Moonlight spilled across hardwood floors—no concrete, no steel. Desk with actual drawers. Closet empty except for wire hangers. Dresser. Mirror showing a stranger with white hair and tired eyes.
Bookshelf. Empty shelves waiting to be filled with books I'd choose myself.
I opened the closet again. Ran fingers along the wood grain. Closed it. After Laura finished in the bathroom I checked it—shower, toilet, sink. Amenities I'd been denied before.
Tested the mattress again. It was too soft. Nothing like the thin pad in my cell.
I lay down fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. Someone laughed down the hall—genuine, unrestrained. Footsteps passed my door. Music played faintly in the distance.
The silence in my room pressed down on me. No cameras humming. No guards patrolling. No machinery vibrating through walls. Just... the ambient noise of the other students in the mansion.
It felt wrong.
Fifteen years of constant surveillance had conditioned me to the sounds of captivity. Their absence created a void my mind kept trying to fill with threat assessments. I didn't have to guess if someone was approaching, if there were people flanking, or what sounds was I missing?
I sat up. Lay back down. Turned on my side.
The bed was too comfortable. The room too large.
I focused on my breathing.
A knock at my door.
I was standing beside it before immediately in seconds, strings ready.
"It's me," Laura said through the wood.
I opened the door.
She stood in the hallway wearing clothes Storm had provided—simple t-shirt and sleep pants. Her hair was damp from a shower. She let herself inside.
"Can't sleep either?" I asked.
"I hate being alone." She didn't wait for permission, stepping past me into the room. "The silence is..."
"Oppressive."
"Yes." She looked around—the same assessment I'd performed. Her gaze lingered on the window. "First time I've had a room where I controlled the locks."
"Same."
She sat on the edge of my bed, fingers gripping the comforter. "Do you think we'll ever feel normal?"
"Don't know what normal feels like."
"Me neither." She was quiet for a moment. "Emma Frost thinks we're monsters."
"Emma Frost doesn't know us."
"She knows what we've done."
I sat beside her, maintaining appropriate distance. "What we were forced to do. That's different."
"Is it?" Her voice dropped to barely audible. "I still remember every kill. Every target. Sometimes I dream about them and wake up smelling blood that isn't there."
I had no comfort to offer. Just truth. "Probably always will. Memories don't disappear because we want them to."
"That's not helpful."
"You asked if we'd feel normal. Answer's probably no. But maybe we can learn to feel something else. Something better than what we had."
She glanced at me, expression unreadable. "You really think that?"
"Don't know. But we're here. Might as well try."
Laura nodded slowly, then noticed the scarf draped over my desk chair—her mother's gift, my string woven into something that belonged only to me.
"You kept it close," she observed.
"Only thing that's mine."
"Not the only thing." Her hand moved fractionally toward mine, stopped. "You have me."
Something shifted in my chest. A foreign sensation. "Yeah. I do."
She stood abruptly, pacing to the window. Stared out at darkness and trees. "I keep thinking about the codename you suggested. Talon."
"Don't like it?"
"No, I do. It fits." She turned back. "But you still don't have one."
"It's not exactly a priority."
"It is to me." She crossed her arms. "You can't just be Adrian. If we're doing this—being X-Men or whatever—you need something."
I considered. "Suggestions?"
"String-based would be too obvious. Puppet Master sounds villainous. Thread... no." She tilted her head. "What about Weaver? You weave strings, weave people, and probability itself."
Weaver.
I tested the word internally. It fit better than expected—acknowledged both aspects of my abilities without revealing the full scope. The physical strings everyone could see, and the causal threads only I perceived.
"Weaver works."
"Yeah?" Small smile. Rare. "Talon and Weaver. We sound like actual heroes."
"We sound like people pretending to be heroes."
"Same thing, probably." Her smile faded. "Can I... stay? I don't want to go back to my room."
The request made sense. Fifteen years in cells. Isolation as punishment. Being alone triggered the same conditioning that made silence feel threatening.
"Sure," I said.
She climbed into the bed without hesitation, claiming the side against the wall.
I lay down on the other side.
"This isn't weird, right?" Laura asked the ceiling.
"Probably weird by normal standards. But we're not normal."
"True." She shifted slightly. "Tomorrow we'll probably meet the other students."
"Can't wait."
"Sarcasm?"
"Mild dread."
She laughed, so quiet it was almost silent. "Same."
The room felt different with her presence. Still unfamiliar, but less oppressive. Another person breathing nearby. Someone who understood me without explanation.
Laura's breathing gradually slowed, evening out. She'd turned toward me in sleep, one hand gripping my shirt like an anchor.
I didn't move away.
Her presence grounded something in me—reminded me why I'd fought Omega Red, why I'd severed the trigger scent, why I'd stood between her and S.H.I.E.L.D.
She was all I had. I was all she had.
Tomorrow we'd face questions from students. More judgment from Emma Frost. Probably training we didn't need and social interactions we didn't understand.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in fifteen years, I slept without a care of what morning would bring.
Our new life had officially begun.