Xaviers!

Sometime after being discharged, a still depressed Leo knocked on the doorway to Doctor McCoy's lab.

"You free to talk Doc?"

"Gladly," Doctor McCoy nods.

"Make yourself comfortable."

Leo found a place to sit and looked around the lab.

Facing Doctor McCoy, he asked, "You really get what I'm goin' through?"

"I didn't always look like this," he gestures to himself.

"And even before I looked like this, I was a bit... self-conscious about my body."

He nodded in understanding.

"How did you learn to cope with... becomin' somethin' else?"

"Well, it certainly helped that I have the soul of a poet and the sardonic wit of a young Jack Nicholson," he chuckles.

"But honestly? It was frustrating. Even before I mutated further, people were inclined to think I was less than human, and worst of all, less than intelligent. I was built like a linebacker even when I was at my most human. My body didn't match what I considered to be my true self."

"I just pretended my true self wasn't there, never admittin' it even to myself. I even picked on a few gay kids out of some misplaced self-loathin'."

"As for people seein' me as dumb... I'm not entirely sure they're wrong, but now they'll just see me as an animal so I guess I'm in the same boat."

"I don't think of you as less intelligent, Leo. I just think you haven't had the opportunities some people have. You might surprise yourself, here."

"Yeah, people here keep tellin' me I can have a future," he said, unconvinced.

"X-Corp people too. That's why I even came here. But, even if I'm smarter than I think, I still can't quite see it. Because honestly I didn't think I had much of one even before I ended up homeless, let alone turned into this."

"Sometimes it's hard to see a path ahead. Your current situation can feel overwhelming, and I think you'll find that even precognitives can blind themselves to possibilities."

He thought for a moment.

"Ainsley thinks I should try and see if history is my thing. My mom tried to instill an interest in it and I guess it worked a little. So... I dunno, maybe?"

"It's your first year here. Nobody is going to judge you for not having everything planned out yet."

"I know. I just... can't shake the old feelin' that I'm not enough. I need somethin' to make me feel I'm actually headed towards somethin'."

"Just don't let it overwhelm you, eh? You've got good things going for you. Enjoy them, and the rest will fall into place."

"It's really that simple?"

"When you've been denied this much? Yes, it often is. After awhile, you question the good in your life less, because it hasn't been taken away."

"Speakin' from experience, Doc?"

"My parents were as understanding as anyone could have hoped for, but at the end of the day, I was all but run out of my hometown on a rail."

"Maybe... maybe we really aren't that different then. My mom never got to know I was a mutant, but I know she would have been like that. But my aunt and uncle weren't, and I definitely felt run out of Enfield."

"I honestly think my father felt guilty about it. He worked at a nuclear power plant before I was born. Took it upon himself once to avert a meltdown. Barely managed that, and the fact that he survived that much radiation was considered a miracle."

"And then I came along, with hands and feet like a gunboat."

"We lost him young, or at least younger than anyone would have wanted. I tried my damnedest to convince him I didn't blame him for how I came out."

Leo hadn't even thought that McCoy might have been born different. That knowledge made him reevaluate the time he was allowed to be normal. But the similarities between them were growing, as that difference only served to bind them as outcasts.

"I... don't even remember what my dad looked like. I always thought he left because of me, but I'm trying to rethink that. That maybe he really just never had a chance to come back."

"Do you want to try to find out?"

"I won't judge you if you say 'no' to that, by the way."

"I'm workin' up to it. Ainsley's been helpin' me with trackin' down some of his things that my uncle sold off behind my back," he said, chuckling, "In fact he won't shut up about gettin' the last stray item."

"Bit of a positive influence on you, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah. He's definitely shapin' up to be my better half. And we haven't even been on a proper date yet."

"There are some people who you shouldn't take their opinion of you too seriously, but conversely there's some that you absolutely should."

"Have you ever had someone who made you want to be a better person? Someone it hurts to disappoint?"

"I've known a few over the years. Some of them have abused that trust, but I don't regret having known them."

"I have before. But none that I've felt it so strong for. Strong enough to break me out of denying the truth about myself. For that alone I'll never regret knowing him."

"So... yeah," he said with a smile, "I do have good things goin'."