Professor X Was a Good Man After All

At the Xavier Institute, in the Laboratory.

Hank McCoy stood before a workbench, his blue fur faintly gleaming under the fluorescent lights.

His fingers flew over a scanner, dense streams of data flickering across its screen.

Matt Murdock sat in a chair nearby. He had taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

His eyes were open, but they focused on nothing, like two dry wells.

"The scans show no changes to your genes." Hank frowned at the data on the screen.

"No known gene sequences have been edited or switched off, and there's nothing abnormal. Maybe your powers weren't taken away. Maybe they've just been 'blocked,' as if a wall stood between you and your abilities."

Matt's lips moved. "Can you tear it down?"

"I don't know." Hank adjusted his glasses. "This isn't a physical barrier. It's molecular.

"Russell left a microscopic 'barrier' inside you. It might not be permanent, but its structure is too complex. I can't find a way to dismantle it.

"If I try to force my way through, I could cause irreversible damage to your cells and nervous system."

Charles sat in his wheelchair with his hands pressed to his temples. His consciousness had already entered Matt's brain and cells, probing the darkness for that wall.

What he found was not a wall but a web, a spiderweb-like structure spread across Matt's gene sequences and nervous system.

It destroyed nothing. It simply blocked his abilities, like a person standing in front of a window and shutting out the sunlight.

The sunlight was still there. It just couldn't get in.

Sensing the anomaly inside Matt reminded Charles of the psychic barrier he had placed inside Jean. The two worked in much the same way, though