nextgenerationmarvel | Training Day

Current Location: Danger Room, Xavier Mansion

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Training Day

Dolemeck was a bit excited about today. He would finally start training in the Danger room with his telekinetic powers. Not just that, but he would also be training with Ilya. Since his arrival, the two formed a unique bond which enabled them both to open about their lives and problems. This made Dolemeck less anxious around the mansion and in class. He was coming off as more relaxed and mature.

The two only worried that Headmistress Ramsey would say something about their closeness. It hung over their heads as they entered the Danger Room. Dolemeck allowed Ilya to wheel him in, and both young men were dressed in their training uniforms (which Dolemeck hated his with a passion). Giving Rachel a salute, Dolemeck smiled as they arrived.

"Dolemeck Night, reporting for training, Headmistress Ramsey!" He sounded more cheerful and care-free than ever. All of this, despite the worry he felt inside.

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He wanted to say something. But it wasn't about his powers. But it was important. But - Ilya's mind races, and he ultimately defaults to his basis for how the world works: he's not important enough. He falls silent.

"No, I'm good," he says softly. He can't think of anything else to say.

She nodded in acknowledgement. She was not about to force him to talk about something that was on his mind. She was aware there was something on the surface, but she was not going to probe any deeper to find out what it was. "If there's anything else, you know where my office is. Have a good day, Ilya. You did just fine in here."

The redhead headed toward the door.

A pang of panic goes through him. And then his mouth opens before his brain can stop it. Sadly, for Ilya blurting things out is the best way to get he truth of a situation out. "Ma'am? There's a... a group that Dolemeck told me about. That meets around the same time his does, and I... I mean, I know I'm new to this century and everything but it'd just be there and back and..."

He locks up. Ilya has never requested anything of someone higher up in the food chain than himself. He ducks his head, watching her reaction closely for any hint of annoyance or displeasure. He seems stunned by his own bravery.

"...and I'd really like to go," he finishes lamely, biting his lip.

Rachel turned neatly on the heels she was wearing. She would never admit if that was skill or a little telekinetic assistance. She tried hard not to blink at the request. She looked a little past Ilya as she considered it.

This student is here at SHIELD's behest. Her eyes focused back on him. "I will have to check it out personally. To see if it's an appropriate support group for you to attend. SHIELD wants me to vet everything you go off-campus for. Also, we need to be sure there will be no problem that a mutant is going to attend. We're a publicly outed school for mutants, and there are those who don't like us just for existing. Just because it's near where Mr. Night attends his support groups does not automatically make it safe for you to attend. I'll check into it for you."

And with someone who bit his lip to bleeding and had it heal up quickly afterwards, Ilya had a tell even if though he could pass otherwise.

"N-no, you can't - I mean - SHIELD can't know. I never told them when they had all their psychologists question me, m-mostly because it never came up, but I-" He looked at her with big eyes, suddenly feeling very cornered and very alone. After a deep breath, he said quietly, "Please. Please don't tell SHIELD. It's humiliating enough to be this messed up in the first place."

Rachel kept her facial expression placid. The boy obviously had no idea about what SHIELD put in his file to her. Also, he had the idea that not telling a psychologist meant they couldn't figure it out. Professional solidarity would have made her point that out if it weren't a scared fifteen year old boy.

"I'm not telling SHIELD anything if they don't ask about it. I will still have to vet where you want to go myself. And there is no humiliation to needing help considering what you've been through."

"I guess - there's a lot going on in my head. Sometimes the whole day is fine until suddenly it's just not. And this place isn't like the gulag, it's nicer than any place I've ever even seen in Russia, but I keep having... I keep having flashbacks. To something that, that happened but didn't get recorded. Because it was no big deal. It is no big deal. And if anything's going to screw me up it should be the train crash or losing my family, right? So I shouldn't care about little things." Ilya rarely rambles, but he's both trying to talk himself into and out of something. He's nervous, he's scared, he wishes his mother were alive and here so he could curl up with her and cry, and so he just sort of blurts out, "A lot of guys in the gulag turned on each other. No women around so - things, uh, happened. Kind of happened, to me. Once."

Just uttering those words makes him feel like the lowest form of life on planet Earth. A powerful enough mutant to lift mining carts had to be rescued by a guard. And how shallow does it make him to even care about that when his hometown is deserted, everyone he knew is dead, the world as he understands it is gone? And he's flashing back to something as completely insubstantial as this? Worse, he's having flashbacks of it? The only way he can make sense of it is that maybe he's too much of a coward to face the rest of what he went through. Maybe he's just not strong enough.

"...I know it's my fault. For being out of sight of the guards and being stupid. But ever since SHIELD pushed me for details of every little thing I could remember it's all sort of resurfaced. I don't know why. I used to be fine."

If 'fine' meant 'never thinking about it and focusing on anything else he could'. If 'fine' meant being too shocked to do anything but keep going. Honestly, if Dolemeck hadn't pried it out of him, Ilya might've just gone his whole life resigned to flashbacks, nightmares, being afraid of other men in the hall and ignoring his own quiet panic.

Rachel really wished she could pinch the bridge of her nose at the moment. It would definitely send the wrong signals. But she was having so much information thrown at her she was having a hard time sorting through it.

She walked back to stand in front of Ilya. She took a breath. "I understand about flashbacks. More than anyone else on campus. I'm not from here originally. I lived in the South Bronx Mutant Internment Center for awhile. So, another one of things you and I will do is have regular counseling sessions."

She carefully reached out to try to place her hand on his shoulder. "What he did to you is never your fault. Ever. The blame is entirely on him. And I will slowly help you realize that. Anyone else who says otherwise will have to deal with me and my ability to scramble things mentally and physically."

He looks at her with an almost total lack of comprehension. These modern values, these new views on things, they're always an adjustment process, like learning how manners were different or what was considered bad language in English. But this is a leap from where he's used to things being on this topic. It was always, always the fault of both people if they were men. That's why he never said anything to SHIELD. They asked if anything bad had happened off the records and this wasn't bad, this was his fault. His mistake. So he'd answered no and kept his shame to himself because that was how the world worked.

This is not how the world works. Dolemeck told him before 'it's not your fault' and it's just as surreal to hear it from someone in power who should know better. Those words are madness to him. But he knows the words 'internment center' all too well and their implications, so he know she's been through her own dark times, her own moments of terror. Whatever they are, they're hers in that horrible way his are his; trauma was an intricate and well-woven web never quite the same between two people.

He bites his lip again. "I don't want SHIELD to know. I don't want it on my files, please - it's too humiliating. If we do 'counseling'," and it's clear from his tone of voice he's not sure what that will entail, "will it go on my record? I can't have people know I - the whole thing is just - please, don't tell anyone."

His voice wavers, and cracks as he begs.

"SHIELD will not be privy to what we discuss in our counseling sessions. There is something known as physician–patient privilege, which will protect our conversations during those meetings," she assured gently. She gave his shoulder a light squeeze.

"I know this feels huge and unbearable, but we'll work through it. Okay?"

He takes a deep, stabilizing breath, and manages to nod. "Okay. Okay, I just... I don't know where we go from here. Dolemeck said there's a group for, um, people who've been through what I have that meets in the same building his does. But that's a lot of people and I don't know if I can admit something like that in front of a group. Just explaining a bad flashback I had to him was really hard. People don't talk about this. Not from when and where I'm from."

Everything is unfamiliar territory. It feels good to have said something because that opened up the door to him that there are options and he's not alone. But he would be pushing himself not to bolt from a support group the second he got in the door. (Remarkably, two teenage boys did not form a great psychological treatment plan in one conversation.) He's still unclear on what his options really are and part of him feels like maybe he shouldn't have said anything, maybe it would've been better if he'd kept his mouth shut. Dolemeck and the Headmistress are already looking at him differently - what if they start thinking of him as just weak, broken little Ilya? Can they really still respect him knowing what happened?

"Another one of the reasons I'd have to vet it. I don't think you're in the right frame of mind to open up to a group of strangers. We'll work on it together on a regular schedule. Just you and me. After awhile, we'll look at the option of attending a support group, but it's not something you have to worry about now. No one here is going to force you to do anything you really don't want to." She was not looking at him any different than when he had first arrived. She had read through SHIELD's file on him a couple time to make sure she had a gist of some of psychological problems Ilya had. That he was revealing his secrets to her on his own was encouraging. Even if was a stuttered and almost immediately mentally recriminated fashion.

"I don't know if I'm in the right frame of mind or not. All of this is really confusing, and really hard to explain. So if you know what to do, I'll do that. I guess talking to one person makes more sense... it's a lot less, well, intimidating." But in all fairness, Dolemeck had good intentions. It's just that between the two of them they have not one iota or psychological knowledge, and Ilya operates under the assumption he's an idiot and everyone, even other kids his own age, will know better than he does what to do.

If he can just figure out how the feeling of being cold all the time and how the dreams of ice tie into things, maybe he can be normal. Maybe they can fix what's wrong with him. It's small, but it's a spark of hope, and he needs that right now, needs something to help him believe in a better future.

"You're really okay with taking time out just for someone like me? I mean, I'm..." Ilya doesn't finish that sentence, unknowingly broadcasting the end of it in his voice, body language and mind: 'I'm not worth it; I'm no one'.

"It is confusing being from a different time and place. The benchmarks you used to have no longer apply for the most part. Times change and with them the attitudes and knowledge available." Rachel was a walking example of it, but that was not something to mention now. She wanted Ilya to try to adjust on his own. He had only been at Xavier's a handful of days.

"Your one of my students now. One of my priorities is making sure you get the education and help you deserve. Which is much more than you let yourself believe." She quirked an eyebrow to let him know she keeps catching what he broadcasts. "You are someone, Ilya. You're a student here, a survivor of unimaginable hardships, and a young man with a wide-open future ahead of him."

"A lot of things seem to have changed for the better. And I don't dislike the world. There are so many good things in it - but it's so much to take in. SHIELD tried to prep me for it." Then again, was there really a way to prep someone for that?

He winced, not realizing until then she'd caught what he thought. Normally he was terrible at projecting thoughts; she was just good enough at catching them to make up for it. It's an unfamiliar sensation. "Sorry. I know things have changed and people look at me differently here. It's just that to me, being second-class was part of life, and it doesn't feel like it was that long ago."

"Both things we can work on," she assured with a gentle smile. "I'll let you get your bearings around campus for a few days. Our new dorms are opening up real soon. After you get moved in there, we'll start our regular counseling sessions. Sound good to you?"

She looked at him, patiently waiting for an answer. Whatever answer he thought to give or actually gave.

"Okay. That - that sounds better than the group idea by a lot. I just have a question about roommates. I get nightmares. Not just about this subject, either, these weird ones where I'm stuck in the ice, too, or I can't move and blue light is everywhere. Sometimes I panic and thrash around when I wake up. So that means I'm going to wake up my roommate, even if I try not to. I just..." Well, he didn't want to be an asshole roommate who woke the guy stuck with him up at three AM every night like clockwork. Especially since everyone here had been so nice to him. "I guess I'd like to know if you have some idea on how to make the nightmares at least the normal, quiet kind that most people have."

"In all honesty, nothing that works immediately. I'll keep that in mind when I review the roommate pairings." Though she did have an idea about which student would not be bothered by late night disturbances.

"Everyone who comes to Xavier's has their own unique set of circumstances. When you meet your roommate, just explain the situation and that you're going to work on lessening the nighttime disruptions. You'll run into more sympathy than bother if you're up front about it."

"Thank you. For the advice, and for everything. It's really weird to talk about any of this, but it feels a little better. Not perfect, but like I'm not so alone anymore. I've, well, I've felt like I was alone for a long time."

Thank God he's Russian and doesn't do physical displays of affection, or he almost feels like he would hug her. Which would just be weird for everyone involved - aaaand she probably just heard that. Instinctively, he bit down on his lip. The habit had been there long before his mutation had; it was just a thing in his family.

"Xavier's is here to show young people they're not alone. Whatever I and my staff can do to help you, we will." Even if already evidenced, that help would not go like he thought it would. Rachel, despite looking in her late twenties, was so very far removed from being a teenager. She looked well past the immediacy for her students.

"We'll pretend the mental Russian hug didn't happen," she said with a slight smile. "You can go now, Ilya. Enjoy the rest of your day. You did well in here."

Dolemeck had waited for Ilya outside of the Danger room, just as he had promised. However, he had fallen asleep in his chair due to just exhausting himself with his own session (and the deep dread he felt about being placed on probation). He did not snore, he just looked peaceful.

Ilya was horrified she'd caught the hug thought - how hideously improper was that to think about the Headmistress?! - and fled immediately. At the sight of Dolemeck, though, his first thought was 'he looks like I feel after all that'.

But he honestly didn't want to wake him up. He just looked so peaceful. Like a baby reindeer - aaand that was another reason to learn how to shield his thoughts right there, because there were certain comparisons that just weren't manly in any century.

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Training Day

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