Chapter Text
The bloody tendrils of a red sunrise were creeping across the sky as Erik made his way towards the factory. Erik, with cold steely rage in his eyes; the dried blood of his dead wife and daughter streaked across his wrists and hands; the mud of freshly dug graves caked beneath his nails; his heart shattered into a thousand razor shards of grief and hatred.
The man who had sworn off violence and revenge could think of nothing else now. He was imagining the screams of the men who had until yesterday been his colleagues as metal ripped through flesh and bone, because he wanted them to feel the pain of their life rushing out of their bodies. He wanted them to feel the same pain his loved ones had felt.
Their pain won't help your own, a small voice whispers to him, and he grimaces to himself. Ignores the voice.
—or at least, tries to. It persists. So small, yet so stubborn and frustratingly impossible to chase away. It whispers to him and reminds him of all the promises he's made in the last decade, both to himself and to Magda.
I'm not the man I was.
Violence is a thing of my past.
I don't want to hurt anyone anymore.
Louder voices wash over those promises like a rising tide.
This is who I am.
I'm a killer.
The universe won't let me change.
His head is full of voices, all shouting over each other like a fucking courtroom. Arguing, split between a hunger for revenge and a crawling uncertainty as to what that will actually achieve.
But he wants revenge.
What it will actually achieve doesn't feel important.
But what would he do afterwards? Kill everyone in this whole fucking village? Kill himself, as a final fuck you to a universe determined to screw him over?
No. He won’t— can’t do that. His brain would never let him. Like it or not, Logan was right all those years ago. He's a survivor.
Which seems to mean that he’s destined to always survive whilst those he loves die around and because of him. First his mother, then so many of his mutant brothers and sisters, and now Magda and Nina.
Erik lets out a bitter laugh of self-hatred: a hard, humourless sound that scrapes past his throat like knives, and stops in his tracks. He looks around.
It's too early for anyone to be around.
That's good.
He's not safe to be around.
He leans against the nearest building to catch his breath. To try and regain a shred of self-control. He digs his fingers into the brick wall behind him, and exhales, aware, as always, of the metal all around him: steel pipes within the walls of every house, running beneath his feet; the machinery whirring away in the nearby factory; jewellery, cutlery and guns stashed in civilian drawers and cupboards. All his to command.
One hand forms a fist by his side, tight enough that he can see his knuckles whiten. He hears the groan of a pipe beneath the ground bending to his will. Erik exhales, sharply, and lets go.
All this power, and yet he’d give it up in a heartbeat just to bring Magda and Nina back.
He glowers up at the pale, dour Polish sky.
I tried living like you wanted me to, Charles. I tried being good. It didn’t work. The universe clearly doesn’t want me to be good.
Dammit, he doesn’t want to think about Charles right now. Not when he hasn't thought about that world in years. Not Charles with his naive faith in humanity and his bold promises of peace between mutants and humans. Not Charles… who always saw the good buried deep within him when he thought there was none left.
Like now.
Erik’s gaze flickers across the empty town centre, and falls upon a rusted, uncared-for phone booth propped up against the side wall of the town hall. A notion takes hold in his mind. A wild, stupid idea. He swears to himself aloud in Polish, the rebukes and self-loathing pouring out like a burst pipe.
He doesn’t need anyone.
He deserves to be alone.
He deserves revenge against those who have taken everything from him.
But, despite what he tried to tell himself that he wants, his feet are now taking him to the phone booth.
Huh.
Despite the chill in the uncaring morning air, the warmth of something strange and unfamiliar… something he hasn’t felt in a long, long time… longing ? glows somewhere deep inside him. Longing for the only man who ever understood his feelings and tried to help with them. Longing for the only man who ever had even a concept of the depths of the anger and conflict raging like a hurricane inside his mind.
You don’t deserve to be alone.
That’s Magda’s voice. Erik can practically hear his wife’s voice, murmured like the first words of consolation after a sleepless and uneasy night.
You deserve to have someone who understands you.
Magda.
Nina.
A fresh wave of grief crashes over Erik as he heads into the phone booth, and he sinks to his knees as it threatens to overwhelm him. He can hear the metal box around him, creaking and groaning as his emotions threaten to explode in a storm of metal and destruction. He wants to tear everything apart. He wants to lose control.
Charles wouldn’t want him too. Charles would want him to seek help.
You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone. He argues against the urges currently bouncing around in his skull.
Liar, it replies, softly.
Erik groans. Loudly.
Fine, you win.
He stands up, enters a number he hates that he still knows without hesitation, and calls.
It would be late at night in America, he calculates, half-hoping that no one will pick up – half-hoping for a reason to forget this stupid idea, for a justification to commit the violent acts that the carnal, primitive part of his soul wants so badly.
A voice answers.
“This is Hank McCoy, Professor at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, how can I help?”
Erik inhales.
“I want to talk to Charles,” he says, in a flat voice that mercifully doesn’t crack, doesn’t stutter, doesn’t give away his broken state of mind and spirit right now.
A stunned pause.
“Erik?” Hank asks, a mixture of disbelief and anger roiling in the other man’s voice. Unsurprising – Hank has never been particularly fond of him. “It’s been ten fucking years, why do you need to talk to him now ?”
“Because my wife and daughter have just been murdered, and if he can’t talk me out of it, I’m going to kill every single person responsible,” Erik admits. He’s fully aware that every word he’s just uttered has bled with emotion: grief, anger, desperation and despair all mixed together into a smouldering, scorching soup of feeling that drenches every single syllable. Oh well. After all, what's the point in lying anymore?
Erik’s never seen the point of lying.
“Jesus,” Hank breathes down the phone. Erik isn’t a mind reader, but the other mutant’s thoughts are as clear as the memory of the arrow piercing his family’s bodies is in his mind. Shock at Erik’s honesty, understanding about the urgency of the situation, understanding that Erik very much isn’t exaggerating, and as much as he dislikes the metal manipulator, sympathy. Pity.
Erik can’t tell if he hates that pity or is glad for it.
Maybe both at once.
“Please,” he says. One word. Cold. Hard.
He’s not going to beg.
“I’ll get him. Stay on the phone.” Hank says.
Erik exhales. Something that feels like relief ripples through his body.
He suddenly realizes that he’s shivering. The Polish spring is biting and only slightly less cruel than the winter in terms of cold that burrows deep inside your bones, and the adrenaline that warmed him as he killed the officers and cradled Magda and Nina and buried their bodies beneath hard, frostbitten earth has been all used up. He takes a shaky breath as he hugs his free arm close to his body and registers that he’s actually doing this.
Erik Lehnsherr is actually asking for help.
He hears Hank’s footsteps over the phone. The creak of a door being opened. He visualizes Charles’ mansion in his mind: the ornate, spotless wooden doors, the elegant staircases leading up to the offices, the soft carpets beneath his feet. That wild bird of longing soars freely in his chest once more, and Erik doesn’t even try to fight it any more. After all, the phone call was admission enough that he wants this no matter how hard he tries to pretend otherwise.
Like a drowning man’s last gasp of air.
Shut up, you’re not drowning , he tells himself.
Really? Then why does your throat close up every time you think of Magda or Nina. Why does it hurt to breathe?
Why are you crying?
Erik rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, angrily. Burning tears sting his eyes and refuse to fall. He swears quietly to himself, hoping that Hank isn’t listening too hard.
He hears faint voices on the other end of the phone. Hank’s and another–
Charles.
God, Erik has missed hearing that voice. The voice of the first person to show him true and continuous kindness after the death of his mother all those years ago. The voice of a man who, all those years ago, made him feel like he was something more than a revenge machine, Frankenstein’s monster, a tapestry of experiments and sadism and Shaw . Fuck . Erik grimaces.
He hates how much he misses him. Charles fucking Xavier, naive righteousness and all.
“Erik."
Erik's heart skips a beat at the achingly familiar, British pronunciation of his name, spoken in a tone that says more than words ever could. A tiny part of him had been afraid that Charles would tell him to fuck off after everything he's done, but now he knows for sure that that won't happen. Charles’ voice is soft – not patronising, but full of understanding. How he could possibly understand, Eric doesn't know, but somehow, it's clear he does .
“Hank told me what happened. Erik… I'm so, so sorry,” Charles goes on.
“I tried living like you wanted me to,” Erik replies, letting the bitterness seep through. “I fucking tried, Charles. And this is how the world repays me? Tell me, what's the point in being good and peaceful when everyone close to me gets killed anyway? Killed because of me? ” The last word is half a shout and half a sob of raw, agonizing anguish.
“The world has been horribly cruel to you, Erik, and I don’t know why. But you’ve not lost everyone… I’ll always be here for you. Where are you right now?” Charles says, calmly, and his voice is like a drug. Somehow, its mere sound alleviates the swirling maelstrom of rage and despair inside Erk. Just a little bit.
“Poland,” Erik says, and tells him the name of the village that has been his home for the last decade.
There's a pause as Charles makes the calculations.
“We can get the jet over to you in twelve hours. Can you hold off on… whatever you want to do until then?” Charles asks.
Erik's teeth have been tearing at his lower lip this whole conversation, and he can taste blood now as he considers the request.
The offer.
On the one hand, he can refuse the help, commit the murders his heart desires, and then… then what?
On the other hand, he can accept, and be with his own kind; mutants with their own losses. People like him. People he's spent his life trying to protect, whose survival is a testament that he isn't completely powerless.
Put like that, it isn't really a choice.
“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Thank you. We'll be there in twelve hours, then. You should be able to hear… or sense I guess, knowing you, the jet’s arrival. Just… promise me you won't do anything stupid before we arrive, Erik,” Charles says, lightly. Erik can practically see the half-smile in his words, the attempt to try and ease his mind. He almost admires the effort.
It doesn't help, but still.
“Got it,” he gives a hollow, humourless laugh as he ends the call.
Alone, in the phone booth, in the cold and the quiet, Eric feels empty . There's no other way to describe the void in his chest. The last thing he wants to do is go home – no, it's not home anymore. Not without Magda or Nina. God, their plates will still be out from dinner, Nina's bed will still have the imprint of her tiny body in it, and his bedroom will still smell of Magda. He doesn't know if he can face all of those cruel memories. Memories of snatched happiness and peace. Not now, not ever.
But he also can't stay out here in the open for twelve hours, so he doesn't have a choice.
No choice.
Erik rubs his face with both hands. Caked mud and blood scrapes against tear-blotched skin, but he doesn’t care. Physical pain is an old friend.
Mental pain, however… that’s something he’ll never get used to.
No choice.
God , he hates that feeling.
***
As Hank circles around the bleak-looking cluster of buildings, he can’t help but feel a creeping sense of fear. Call him unreasonable, but picking up a man who can bend metal, who's never been the most emotionally stable person at the very best of times, in a metal jet, doesn’t exactly feel safe .
He aims for a field on the outskirts of the village, descending slowly, making sure that Erik, wherever he is, will register their arrival.
As soon as he’s parked the jet he makes his way to the exit. Raven and Alex are the passengers – Raven because Charles called her straight after Erik hung up and practically begged for her to join the mission as the non-telepath with the best understanding of Erik’s mind, and Alex because his experience in Vietnam has made him a competent pilot, and Hank doesn’t know if his medical skills will be more important on the journey back than his skills in the cockpit. After all, they don’t know what state Erik is in.
They don’t know what’s happened to him at all in the last ten years, off the grid. Only that he mentioned a wife and daughter. Killed.
Erik wasn’t forthcoming about the circumstances or guilty parties of those killings, but Hank isn’t willing to believe that Erik is a hundred percent the victim here. Violence seems to always happen around him in a way that would be frankly impressive if it wasn’t so damn disturbing, and Hank just can't believe that it’s all just bad luck. Erik must be doing something to attract it.
Maybe it's his own violent nature that attracts more violence. After all, when Hank had first met him back in the sixties, he’d already spent his whole adult life hunting Shaw with an inhuman, animalistic type of dedication.
But then again… he didn’t go off on a murdering spree today. Not this time. He didn't go down the violent path. He asked for help, which is a feat that Hank wouldn’t have thought him capable of. Not the Erik in his mind.
So maybe he’s changed. Maybe having a family has softened him?
Hank shakes his head, tiredly. At some point, he'll have to ask Charles what's going on in Erik's head, because he can't begin to imagine it.
“There he is!” Raven suddenly exclaims, and Hank’s head snaps towards the window. A man has appeared out of the cover of the trees separating the field from the village. Erik.
Hank gives a sharp intake of breath.
Erik is both completely different and utterly unchanged since the last time Hank saw him ten years ago. His hair is the same rich shade of copper, albeit more wild than Hank remembers, and his face is still one that Hank could pick out in a crowd instantly, even if there's a few more lines and wrinkles to pass the passage of time there now, but as he walks towards the jet there’s an unsteadiness that Hank doesn’t recognise. An uncertainty that doesn't suit Erik, so convicted in his beliefs and actions in Hank's memory. Hell, at one point he visibly stumbles, which makes Hank, who has always thought of Erik as as sure and unfaltering as solid steel, uneasy. His flannel shirt and jeans are unsuited for the cold weather, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. They also hang on him just a little too loosely for comfort. That’s the next thing Hank notices: Eric has a lean, hungry look to him that makes him shudder.
Everything about the metal-bender walking towards them just feels wild. Untamed. Unpredictable.
Hank can't read him at all right now. And he doesn't like that.
“Open the door,” he tells Alex, quietly.
Alex does so, and a cold wind races in. Hank grits his teeth as he stands in the doorway, watching the metal bender approach with a muddle of apprehension and concern. He hugs his arms around his waist, but he can still feel the cold seeping in as he waits.
After a few seconds, Erik looks up at him. Blue eyes flash with recognition, but he doesn't say anything. He just raises his hands, showing them that he's not armed and greeting them both at once. The attempt to show that he's not a threat doesn't work, though, because Hank can see the bloodstains on his hands and arms, the dark marks shining on his pale skin like tattoos.
His blood or someone else's?
“It's good to see you, Erik.” Hank calls out, impressing himself with how steady his voice holds.
“...you look well, Hank,” Erik replies, flatly. His voice is more accented than Hank remembers.
He's been living in Poland for the last decade, you dolt. Of course his accent is stronger.
“We’re here to take you home, Erik. You’re safe now.” Hank replies – hoping that the words of reassurance will alleviate some of the wariness visible in every movement Erik makes.
An empty smile ghosts across Erik's expression. “If you say so,” he says.
“I’ve got Raven and Alex with me, if that’s alright.”
“Of course it’s alright, Hank. I don’t think I have a say in the matter, anyway.” Erik grimaces. Now that he’s closer, Hank can see the dark, dark shadows beneath his eyes, and the slightly dazed quality to them. Fuck, something’s definitely wrong with him. The fact that there haven’t been any underhanded remarks loaded with meaning, no sarcasm, nothing resembling the sharp wit that practically underpins the entire personality Hank remembers is indication enough.
The Erik he remembers would never be so damn passive.
It screams of wrongness.
“Can you two get to the cockpit and get us out of here?” Hank whispers to Alex and Raven behind him. “I don’t think Erik wants to be around people at the moment.”
“Got it,” Alex says.
Raven opens her mouth as if to argue, but mercifully changes her mind and follows Alex.
Erik steps into the Jet. Hank is so close to him that he can see the clouds of cold breath coming out of Erik’s mouth, and the shivers rippling through Erik’s body as he takes the nearest seat, and leans back, staring up at the ceiling. He remains impossible to read. Every muscle in his body is as tense as a taut wire, the sharp lines visible even through the fabric of his clothes.
The jet engine roars as Alex initiates the take-off. It's a nice distraction, until, after a few minutes, it fades into the constant, uninteresting thrum of flight as they begin their journey back to New York.
Which means Hank can't ignore the situation in front of him anymore.
“Whose blood is that on your hands?” Hank asks, bluntly.
“My family’s.” Eric replies, in a cold, flat voice. “I held them when they died.”
Oh.
Eric’s wife. His daughter.
Hank turns his head, guilty. “I’m sorry.”
Erik exhales, but gives no other reaction to Hank’s words.
Erik called them twelve hours ago… it would have been morning then. So did this all happen last night? Wait, does that mean…? Hank’s eyes widen as a notion comes to him
“Erik… when was the last time you slept?” He asks, almost scared of the answer.
“...The night before last.” Erik says.
Okay, that explains why he’s so zoned out. Hank tells himself. Another idea comes to him. “What about eating? Drinking?”
“I had a couple of beers while I was waiting for you, to try and numb things. It didn’t help.” Erik says, still not looking Hank in the eye. His gaze is still fixed on the ceiling, seeing things in the white metal that Hank can’t hope to imagine.
He doesn’t mention food.
Okay, so that means he hasn’t slept in at least thirty-six hours, and probably hasn’t eaten in twenty-four. That explains why he looks so physically shit, Hank thinks to himself, with a mixture of annoyance and concern.
Hank closes his eyes and breathes in, resignedly.
Erik is clearly not in a state to look after himself.
Which means it’s up to Hank.
Had you told him a couple of days ago that he’d be trying to keep Erik fucking Lehnsherr alive, the man who, for the last decade he’s thought of as a mass murderer and probable psychopath, he’d have probably said you were delusional.
Oh well. He learned long ago that life is unpredictable.
“You need to eat. And get some rest. Slowly killing yourself won’t help their memories.” Hank says, quietly.
Eric still doesn’t look at him. One foot is thumping a discordant rhythm against the floor. Hank is unsure of what to do.
He knows that if Erik gets too emotional or angry, then he could easily crash this entire jet. All Hank wants to know whether he should be genuinely worried about that possibility.
After a few seconds of the metal all around him remaining reassuringly stable, Hank accepts that he can’t do too much about that very real danger, and makes his way towards one of the overhead lockers. He opens it and pulls out a bottle of water and one of the chocolate bars that he’s stashed around for in-flight provisions, then heads back to Erik. He holds both out to the sleep-deprived mutant. “We can help you, but you need to help yourself too.” He says, firmly.
Finally, Erik stares at Hank with narrowed blue-green eyes. Although maybe at isn't the right word. It's almost like he sees straight through Hank and is glaring at some distant figure that only he can see. “Why do you even care?” He demands.
You asked us for help, you idiot. Hank wants to retort.
Erik's sleep deprived — he's not thinking straight. Getting annoyed won't help, he reminds himself.
He opens his mouth—
“Because you asked for our help, and that's what we want to do. Because mutants look after our own.” Raven says before he can do anything. The shapeshifter has just emerged from the cockpit, and her blue skin shimmers beneath the stark overhead lighting. Every single emotion in existence seems to dance across Erik's face as the sound of her voice, and Raven continues, “You helped me accept who I was, Erik. You showed me how to stand up and fight for myself. So do me a goddamn favour and start fighting for yourself right now.”
Hank doesn't know how he expect Erik to react to that.
He certainly doesn't expect laughter. Genuine laughter, escorting the first glimpse of a real smile that Hank has witnessed so far. “Can't argue with that,” Erik says, taking the bottle and chocolate. He drinks deeply first, and—
—and the humour rapidly drains from his expression, like tap water down the drain. The drink clearly revives his senses, but the revived sense of loss and anguish clearly comes too, filling his expression like black clouds heralding a storm. Erik squeezes his eyes shut, face twisted in pain as he bites down on the chocolate bar. He manages to finish it in a few bites, but it's clear that none of them are pleasurable.
Something groans. Metal. Hank's blood runs cold.
Again, who's idea was it to bring an emotionally unstable mutant who controls metal onto a metal plane?
A few seconds pass and nothing else happens.
Are they good?
Hank shakes his head to himself and heads to the cockpit, needing some way to distract himself… and judging that Raven is far better at dealing with Erik than he is.
Raven shoots him a dirty side-glance as he walks away, but he ignores it.
He only has so much patience, after all.
“How is he?” Alex asks as Hank settles into the co-pilot seat.
“Unstable. Fucked up in about a thousand different ways. But that's always been a given with Erik.” Hank says, pronouncing the name with no small amount of venom.
“I suppose that's what happens when you spend your childhood being tortured by Nazi's.” Alex says.
“Fair,” Hank concedes.
They sit together in silence for a few minutes, both men utterly wrapped up in their own thoughts. Hank appreciates the quietude.
After what he'd guess to be about half an hour, he returns to the cabin, and is pleasantly surprised to find a soundly sleeping Erik under the guard of a watchful Raven. Erik is sprawled in his seat, head against the window, eyes shut, eyelashes fluttering slightly. He looks weirdly peaceful, even though Hank knows that's the furthest thing from the truth.
“He'll be alright,” Raven tells him. “He called us to come, remember, which means that he wants help, even if he won't admit it just yet.”
Hank looks back down at Erik. At the streaks of blood on his arms. At the old tattoo on his forearm. At the callouses and scars on his palms—those of a man who knows cruelty far more than he knows kindness.
“Maybe,” he replies.