Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If he weren't already exhausted, maybe Charles could have found another way.

Maybe he would have felt the humans before Hank set the Blackbird down on the school lawn, dead center in the waiting trap. Maybe he could have found another way to protect his own. Maybe it wouldn't have come down to an impossible ultimatum.

Maybe there's no point considering implausible alternatives as Charles finds himself staring down more guns than he can count at a glance. Hundreds more visible in the moonlight, ready and taking aim, not just at Charles, but at every one of his people.

Not just his people, Charles thinks with a frantic twist of fear. His friends, his charges, his responsibility.

His family.

He can't let them down this way, and his blood ices in his veins at the sneering voice that breaks the silence an instant later.

"Welcome home, Professor." Dark satisfaction glints in Agent Stryker's eyes.

Charles has never wanted to be a man capable of hate, but in this moment he knows the feeling with painful clarity. His legs tremble uneasily beneath him, taut with the urge to launch himself forward at the man smirking from behind the first row of guns. Charles wants to take him to pieces with bare hands and then start in with all the violence his mind can wreak.

But Charles holds his ground. He brushes the fury aside and stands exactly where he is, clenching his hands into fists against his thighs.

"How did you find us?" he asks. Stalling for time, futile though the effort may be. He could rip the information from the agent's mind easily enough, if he thought it would make any difference.

He can feel them all. A hundred, two hundred, maybe more. Human minds shrieking with fear and contempt, itchy trigger fingers and soldiers just waiting for the kill order. Ready to open fire the second Stryker gives the go-ahead.

It's a battalion surrounding Charles's mutants on all sides. And despite all the talents and abilities of his people, he knows they're trapped.

They'll put up a good fight. They'll go down protecting each other. A dozen or so might even survive.

But the fact that the humans have managed to corral them in the first place—bare moments after Charles stepped off the Blackbird with Hank and Logan in his wake—tells him the humans have them physically outmatched.

The night is stark around them as the mutants brace themselves. Charles can feel them in his mind, and in the very air around him. The wind picks up. Clouds build quickly above, lit inwardly by bright flashes of lightning. Charles's hair whips in his eyes, chaotic in the mounting wind, and his skin shivers with a hum of energy.

There's a low rumble of sound to his left; Hank growls as he steps closer, trying to put himself between Charles and the primary line of fire.

Don't, Charles wants to say, but doesn't bother. They're all in the line of fire. They're all equally dead once those guns open up, except those handful able to survive the raw force of bullets.

There are other noises now. The thrum of Alex on the verge of letting loose. The subtle shimmer of sounds as more than a dozen mutants shift into different shapes, different bodies, different forms. Stronger, faster, impenetrable.

It won't be enough.

There's a metallic snick of sound, closer to Charles's right than he expects, and his mind and then his eyes find Logan—watching Charles like he's waiting for orders.

Logan, whose heavy skepticism didn't stop him from signing on with Charles's improbable cause after the war started—who has protected this school more fiercely than Charles could have asked, even as the world crumbled around them—and who might just be the only one to walk out of this alive.

You know we can't beat them, Logan's voice rings clear in Charles's thoughts.

He's right. Nausea rolls through Charles's gut, makes his legs feel unsteady beneath him, and he knows Logan is right. He knows his people are going to die fighting, because there's nothing else they can do.

Frustration screams alongside the terror beneath Charles's skin, and his fingernails dig into his palms. Stryker hasn't answered his question, and Charles doesn't expect him to. He can feel all too clearly the vicious, grimy loathing in the human's mind, and his chest clenches tightly.

God, if there were only fewer of them. If Charles had just a little more strength left after a grueling mission—a successful mission, a rescue that's about to be moot—but he can't even summon the finesse to block out the swell of thoughts, let alone exercise the control he would need to put the humans to sleep without hurting them. Their minds are still screaming at him, gray and gruesome with hate, distinct from the bright warmth and familiarity of his mutants.

The chaos is overwhelming, and yet somehow Charles can feel his own people reaching for him through the cacophony. Hope. Trust. Young minds that don't know how to despair, because he taught them better than that. Because they believe in him, and something in Charles's chest snaps loose.

It hurts. Christ, it hurts, but it's a relief, too. An unexpected certainty that this isn't happening. Charles isn't letting it happen.

Professor? Hank's worry brushes his mind. He must sense that something has changed, attuned as he's become to Charles over the past five years.

But Charles doesn't respond. He's barely listening. His eyes close, and he draws into himself in a messy rush. He summons every fading ounce of his strength and control, and he blocks out Hank's thoughts, Logan's flash of concern, all of his people.

He focuses on the ragged edges of hate assailing him, human thoughts so transparent and grim. Charles finds those minds, reaches for them—reaches out and out until there are hundreds of human voices clamoring in his head.

He doesn't know what he's doing now. He can't think through the chaos, the surge of other people's emotions swirling through him. He's a grasping, shuddering creature of pure instinct, lost in the riot. Drowning.

And just before it becomes too much, before those hundreds of minds can crush him beneath the weight of their rage and fear and hatred, Charles pushes.

There's no finesse in what he does. No measure, no control, no caution. He simply takes those minds, all of them, and twists them in on themselves.

He's lost in a disconnected tumult, but he's also aware. He knows that's the spark of human life he feels extinguishing beneath the force of his mind. One by one. Thoughts and fears screaming and collapsing into nothingness.

"What the hell?" he hears someone yell—one of his, he thinks. Alex, maybe. And now he can hear more sounds—the rapid thump of hundreds of bodies, falling to the ground in unison.

Charles's pulse surges in his ears, and a tingle rushes from his fingertips, washes his body with numbness. He clings to consciousness, ragged and disjointed, but his legs give out beneath him. He's falling, and he doesn't remember how to catch himself.

Then there's another snick of metal, a quiet curse, and quick hands intercepting his fall. The ground is wet. It may be dew, but it may also be the rain that Charles hadn't realized was starting to fall. Someone is holding him cautiously, but Charles can't open his eyes. He can't pierce the exhaustion clouding his thoughts long enough to figure out who caught him.

There are more voices now. Shouting and chaos.

"Is everyone—"

"Banshee, check the grounds for—"

"What just—"

"Are they—"

Then Hank's voice a short distance away, soft but powerful and overriding the chaotic flurry of questions.

"They're… They're all dead."

"They can't all be—"

"Yes," Hank interrupts the denial. "They can."

Low murmurs—Hank and Alex, Charles thinks, though he can't quite make out the exchange, and then Alex's voice is barking orders. Coordinating a necessary retreat, checking to make sure everyone is accounted for.

"My god, Charles." Logan's voice rumbles low and close, which answers the question of who caught him. "What did you do?"

Charles wouldn't know how to answer even if he could move to react.

"Beast!" Logan calls sharply, jarringly loud after the quiet murmur of a moment before. "Get over here."

There's a rush of air, then enormous hands and soft fur, Beast's clinical touch checking Charles's vitals, then pressing to his forehead, looking for nonexistent injuries.

Charles doesn't need access to Logan's thoughts to sense the unspoken questions pouring off him—the uncertainty in the way his fingers tighten on Charles's arms, or the uneven rise and fall of his chest.

"Why won't he open his eyes?" Logan growls when Hank offers no immediate explanations.

"Let's move," Hank says instead of answering. "I think he's stable. We have to get out of here before reinforcements arrive." Because of course there are reinforcements on the way. Humans never send just one army.

"Hank," Logan says, graveled warning in his tone.

Hank sighs and says, "I don't know. All I know is we have to evacuate now or it's not going to matter. Get him to the jet, I won't be long."

"Where the hell are you going?" Logan demands, already gathering Charles effortlessly in his arms, standing like Charles weighs nothing. Charles wants to say something—or at least brush Logan's mind, offer the kind of wordless reassurance that usually comes so easily. But he's tired, and it's all he can do to fend off his exhaustion for a few seconds more.

"I can't leave my labs for them to ransack. Just wait for me. I only need five minutes."

"Hurry," Logan snarls. Then the shadows of exhaustion finally swell and engulf Charles, and he overhears nothing else.

Chapter Text

"No one will give us a straight answer," Alex muttered. He held his hands jammed deep in his pockets, his shoulders tense and sharp. He couldn't seem to look Charles in the eye as he paced the narrow length of the hospital room.

"It's not their fault," Charles said, though the words felt fuzzy on his tongue. Whatever drugs the doctors were pumping into his system, they were potent.

Charles felt the first swell of anger building in Alex's thoughts, and he blocked it out deliberately. He had his hands full enough dealing with his own feelings—a wild oscillation between rage, fear and despair—he didn't need Alex's chaotic emotions adding to the mix.

"You've been in here for weeks," Alex growled, jerking his fingers through his short hair. "And now they say they can operate, but they can't even tell us if surgery will do any good!"

Charles didn't need to poke around Alex's head to know the boy was considering the possibility that Charles might never walk again. It certainly loomed heavily enough in Charles's own thoughts.

"Alex, please," Charles said. The words came out softer than he intended, but maybe the quiet was what caught Alex's attention. He looked at Charles for the first time in more than an hour, and his eyes carried the weight of fear.

He took a cautious step towards Charles. Then a second. Then he set his hand on Charles's shoulder—carefully at first, like he wasn't sure even that was okay—and gave a cautious squeeze. Charles met Alex's eyes and tried to remind himself that he was the teacher. He needed to be strong.

But Charles didn't feel strong so much as terrified as he said, "I need you to be calm."

He paused, drew a shaky breath.

He held Alex's gaze as steadily as he could and said, "One of us has to keep it together."

There are safe houses and contingency plans. Charles has made sure of that over the years. He's always prided himself on being an optimist but not a fool.

But with the school gone, a sense of futility crawls beneath his skin and makes it difficult to determine a next move.

Or perhaps it's not the futility that's to blame, but the disjointed way the pieces of Charles's world refuse to reassemble into something he can understand. It's hard to think clearly about the future when he can't shut down the chaotic tailspin of thoughts that invariably bring him back to the school's windy lawn.

He tells himself he had no choice. He's not enough of a hypocrite to believe it. There are always choices.

Hypocrite or not, Charles knows there's nowhere to go but forward.

The strongest contingency plans, laid carefully over the past five years, involve splitting up. There are enough teachers and adult team members to manage the staggering numbers of the children. Half a dozen units would mean smaller, more manageable groups. They would also be more difficult to track, a fact that will be a vital factor when it comes to the survival of the people Charles has long since come to consider his own.

He knows they have to act quickly—that the school is behind them and they need to split up and move—

But somehow that hasn't happened. They're hidden well enough. A corner of wilderness that used to be a children's summer camp—back when the world was safe enough, peaceful enough that parents sent their kids away for the summer—with cabins and clean well water and grill pits for cooking—but they're still together, stubbornly united. They're not following the plan, and if Charles doesn't get it together and give the order, it's only a matter of time before they're discovered.

This location was never meant for long-term cover. The top members of his team all know it. But for some reason they're not doing anything about it, and through the numb fog clouding his thoughts, Charles realizes it's because of him.

He doesn't mean to eavesdrop. He's supposed to be resting—meditating, if he's going to follow Beast's full orders, worried as Hank is about the lingering effects of what Charles did back at the mansion. But sleep doesn't come. Rest is starting to feel like an unfamiliar concept, and Charles can't help that his mind wanders, perceptions opening up and slipping beyond the rough wooden walls of his cabin.

He touches the nearest minds without thought or focus, just light brushes of awareness that tell him more than he wants to know. The children are confused. The adults are scared. And then, at a distance that can't be an accident—physical distance is one of the few things that dampens Charles's telepathic ability—heated emotions. Charles turns to the easiest point of access. He slips into Alex's mind, knowing the boy—the man, he amends—won't notice his presence.

He has a clear view this way, of half a dozen of his most trusted friends as they sit, stand, pace the edges of a clearing far removed from the central camp buildings.

"This isn't what he would want," Alex is saying when the conversation drops fully into focus. "It's dangerous. We can't stay here—we'll be sitting ducks if anyone notices the vehicles." The jets and cars and off-road vehicles parked along the periphery of the camp—too obvious, but impossible to abandon.

"He hasn't given the order," Hank says, and Charles can feel the way fear and frustration ripple beneath carefully cultivated calm. "I have no intention of subverting—"

"Fuck you, Hank," Alex retorts, and Charles wouldn't need to be inside his head to sense his temper fraying. "He's not himself right now and you know it."

"He's still the Professor." Sean, quieter than usual. He slumps against a tree, a careless pose, and on the ground near him sit John and Petra, unhappy but silent.

"He trained us for this," Alex snaps. "We have people to protect. He may be fucked up right now, but I guarantee the last thing he wants is for us to sit here making ourselves easy targets."

Mounting tension stretches taut between Alex and Hank. Charles can see Hank bristling, can feel the rigidity in Alex's shoulders. The two look like they might come to blows, and Charles considers trying to intervene. He can't do it without owning up to the fact that he's been eavesdropping on a conversation he clearly wasn't intended to hear, but if the alternative is violence—

"Enough," Logan's voice cuts in. For all that the word is a low, smooth rumble—barely discernible across the clearing—every eye snaps straight to him. Wide stance, arms crossed, brow furrowed in quiet disapproval.

No one speaks—no one dares, Charles thinks—as Logan holds silent, collecting his thoughts into words.

"Alex is right," Logan says. "Staying here is dangerous. But what we really can't afford to do is start fighting each other. We do that and we're not a team, we're just a bunch of assholes hiding in the woods."

"Then what do we do?" Alex asks, stubborn and grim. Impatience and worry simmer beneath the words.

"We stay."

In Alex's peripheral vision, Charles sees Sean's eyes go wide just as Sean protests, "But you just said—"

"That it's dangerous?" Logan sneers. "Damn right it is. But you know what? Fuck tactics. The Professor needs us, so we stay. Either he'll come around, or we'll figure out a new plan."

Charles feels a pulse of relief roll through the small group. Even—perhaps strongest—in Alex. They're all still looking to Logan, who seems surly about the fact that he actually had to make the call. But he also looks determined, and fierce in a way Charles isn't accustomed to seeing him off the battlefield.

"We'll stay on high alert," Logan says darkly. "But for now? No one's going anywhere."

At sunset, two days later, Hank corners Charles in the woods.

In five years, Charles has gotten good at reading Hank's expressions through blue fur and sharp teeth. He can see the worried consternation darkening his friend's brow, even without reaching out to touch Hank's guarded mind.

"Professor," Hank greets him, coming to sit beside Charles on the enormous boulder that fills most of the small clearing. "You shouldn't be this far from camp." Disapproval darkens his tone, and Charles shakes his head ruefully. Hank must have followed him by scent to find him this far out. Charles should probably feel guilty for worrying him.

But Charles doesn't feel much of anything these days. He's busy waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for the world to magically reorder itself into one where Charles is capable of murder.

Because Charles is capable of murder. Hundreds of times over. Shouldn't the world change to accommodate a revelation of that magnitude?

Maybe it already has. Maybe Charles is simply refusing to see it.

"What can I do for you, Hank?" Charles asks. His gaze darts only briefly to his visitor before returning to the high line of the trees, the splashes of orange and pink sky straining through the branches.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," Hank says. He's trying to keep his voice light—to make it sound like he simply means out here, in the woods, alone. Like he just wants to be sure Charles isn't in any immediate trouble. But the familiar dark concern slithers along the surface of his thoughts, sticky beneath Charles's skin, and he knows Beast's worries run deeper.

"I'm fine," Charles lies.

"No, you're not."

Charles blinks in surprise, attention shifting abruptly. To Hank, who's watching him with intense eyes; who's staring at Charles with an expression that says he doesn't plan on backing down. Hank, who just called him out, and Charles didn't see that coming.

He should have seen it coming.

Christ, if he doesn't get his act together, he's going to get someone hurt. He'll end up with far more precious blood on his hands, and even the sharp disconnect in his chest isn't enough to keep a violent surge of denial from hitting him at the thought.

Genuine fear laces through him for the first time in weeks, and Charles welcomes the adrenaline rush.

"You're right," he says. The fear must be painfully obvious in his eyes, considering he's doing nothing to hide it.

Silence settles between them for an awkward moment. The quiet is uneasy, full of broken promises and failure. Charles feels uncertainty clinging like a shadow to his companion, and once upon a time he would even now be searching for words to repair the damage.

But words are useless. Especially now. And Charles holds his tongue.

"Charles," Hank says, startling him. Hank rarely uses Charles's name. He defaults to 'Professor' with the force of stubborn habit, and the change in address fills the air with an unexpected urgency. Hank hesitates, then. He falls silent for another moment, as though unsure what to say. Charles considers touching his mind and discovering for himself, but he waits, and eventually Hank says, "I don't know how to help you."

His voice is soft, and the words rumble with undertones a human set of vocal cords could never reproduce.

Charles feels the faintest twinge of guilt at Hank's admission, and he draws his knees up, hugging them to his chest.

"I'm sorry," he says. Hank gives him a surprised look.

"Sorry for what?" Hank asks.

"For being wrong," Charles says, suddenly exhausted. "For letting you all down."

"You haven't let us down," Hank says, adamant not just in his voice, but in the powerful surge of emotion that accompanies the words. He genuinely believes what he's saying, and it's all Charles can do not to fall into disbelieving laughter—laughter that might, as likely as not, drag him into useless hysterics.

"Oh, Hank," he murmurs instead, voice threatening to lodge in his throat.

"You haven't," Hank growls, baring a quick flash of teeth. "We're together. We're safe." For now, Charles hears unspoken in the air. "You just… need to deal with what happened. We all do. And then we can figure out what comes next."

He's right about one thing. Charles does need to deal with what happened. He can't afford to stay locked in this useless tailspin when his people need him. He needs to catch his bearings. He needs to figure out how to be a man who killed over two hundred humans with a thought, because as brilliant as his people are—as smart and strong and well-trained a group as he's put together—he can't ask any of them to shoulder his burdens. He can't foist leadership on someone else simply because he's having a rubbish time.

But as to what comes next… Charles isn't sure he has an answer to that question. Survival, naturally. Protecting each other, protecting the children. But beyond that, what? Where can they go? What does he have to offer any of them now besides a life on the run? Loneliness, violence, a world that can't be saved.

"I've spent my life teaching peace," Charles whispers, not even aware he meant to speak. "If I was wrong about that, what can I possibly have to offer?"

Hank doesn't speak, but the way he looks at Charles now—misery and terror in his eyes and thoughts—is answer enough.

Charles is on a cabin roof. It's not even his own cabin. There are half a dozen children asleep inside. Ororo dozes lightly in the bunk nearest the door, ready for trouble.

She's so young. Charles wishes she could sleep as soundly as the children—a teenage girl shouldn't need to know this kind of vigilance.

The children's dreams are bright spots of color and emotion, shimmering and tangential at the corners of Charles's awareness, but Charles lets them flow over him without paying them conscious mind. His attention is focused straight ahead, on the bright fire glowing in the pit at the center of camp.

The nearest cabins are placed in a circle at predictable intervals, lit unevenly by the enormous fire crackling in its ring. A dozen or more mutants sit silently around the blaze.

Charles watches them unnoticed from this vantage point. His people. His X-Men, he thinks with a guilty flush of bitterness. They don't realize he's here, and he sits cross-legged and silent. Watching them from the shadows and wondering why he feels incapable of dropping the short distance to the ground and joining them.

Barely four years ago, Charles wouldn't have been able to climb up here at all, never mind achieving the feat unnoticed. Now he sits cross-legged, feeling like a voyeur instead of a member of the team he recruited, taught and trained.

No one around the fire is speaking. No one has said a word in well over twenty minutes. Charles can feel in all of them a struggle against despair, and helplessness twists his breath in his lungs. He doesn't know what to do.

He senses something wrong even before Hank and Logan surge to their feet.

It's a nebulous sensation. A twitch of awareness Charles can't pinpoint, an imbalance carried on the wind, insubstantial and off somehow, and then Charles's eyes catch movement in the shadows beyond the reach of the fire.

Hank and Logan are already moving, putting themselves between those shadows and the others. Even from his position on the roof Charles can hear the low hiss of Logan's claws unsheathing. Then Logan's voice carries through the clearing in a furious growl.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

And Charles is already shifting towards the front of the roof, the lowest point, where the edge drops down above the narrow cabin porch, but he freezes with one foot on the edge when he sees the figure that finally steps from the shadows.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

Firelight reflects sharp and vicious off a deep maroon helmet, and Charles feels a dangerous cascade of too many emotions rip through his chest. They twist in on themselves, violent and terrifying, and for an instant Charles can't focus through the chaotic rush of adrenaline. When the familiar numbness of the past couple weeks tries to return, it's not quite enough, and air rasps into Charles's lungs in an unsteady gasp.

"Erik," he whispers. Far too softly for the man standing bathed in firelight to have heard him.

But Erik's eyes snap straight to him, and suddenly Charles can't breathe.

Chapter Text

Charles was exhausted, but it was a fatigue that left him smiling. The kind that came from a long day, from excited children and celebration, and from time spent on his feet.

Charles's cane sat propped against the edge of the couch, and the carpet of the first floor common room was littered with colorful paper and ribbon. Silvery decorations hung high along the walls, though despite being placed deliberately out of reach of the youngest children, several glittering strands still hung askew. Charles would probably try to clean up later, only to be shot down and shooed off by Petra or Sean—or possibly both—when they came to handle the mess themselves.

For the moment he was content in the quiet following the storm. The children stampeded out with their gifts, older kids corralling the younger, and behind them drifted an evening's unhurried silence. A glass of eggnog on the end table. A Christmas tree in the corner, heavily decorated, though singed bare on one side—an unfortunate incident involving the Summers boys—and Charles with a moment to himself, just long enough to catch his breath before someone got the chance to summon him for dinner.

Hank's mind reaching for him was a surprise. It wasn't the first time Hank had gotten his attention that way—Charles had not only taught Hank how, he'd taught Alex and Sean as well—but it was the first time Hank had used the trick within the safety of the Xavier Estate.

Professor. You should turn on the news.

Charles reached for his cane and stood. His legs carried him, mostly steadily, across the room to the television—he might not need the cane much longer at this rate—and he clicked the knob to turn on the screen.

"—have not yet released an official count, but casualties are estimated in the hundreds." The newscaster's voice rang deep and smooth, collected in a way that did nothing to calm the tight rush of adrenaline that hit Charles like a wave. "No one has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack, but government sources say they have received several threats in recent weeks."

Charles couldn't know for sure that the Brotherhood was responsible, but the sinking dread in his gut told him all he needed to know.

Once Erik's attention is on him, it only takes seconds for every other set of eyes around that campfire to fly to the roof and find him. Surprise registers on several faces, including Hank's. Logan's expression remains inscrutable, and he doesn't retract his blades.

Charles finally forces himself to move, slipping awkwardly over the low edge of the roof and dropping to the porch beneath. The ambient heat of the fire soaks into him as he approaches the circle of mutants—as he moves through them, past them, towards Hank and Logan and, god, Erik—

He can't take his eyes off Erik's fire-lit form, and he stops mere feet away. Hank and Logan stand flanking him, poised to attack and defend, and furious tension bleeds from them like a tangible force. Hank looks mostly wary—uncertain and confused but ready to bare his claws in an instant. Logan is a taut line of barely-contained violence, protective and intense.

Charles feels the brush of Logan's thoughts, too pointed to be an accident, and though he still can't convince his eyes to look anywhere but Erik, Charles reaches out and listens.

Just give the order and I'll knock him full of holes.

No, Charles says. Then aloud, "That won't be necessary, Logan. Thank you."

"Charles," Erik says in a soft, private voice.

Charles shivers at the sound of his name on Erik's lips. It's been too long—years since their paths crossed even on the field of battle, and longer still since Charles has heard Erik say his name at such an intimate volume.

Something reckless knocks loose in Charles's chest, and he hears his own voice before he even realizes he intends to speak.

"Walk with me." He barely holds back the soft my friend that wants to attach instinctively to the request. He thinks the two words so strongly that if it weren't for that damned helmet, Erik probably would have heard them anyway.

They're dangerous words. Charles no longer knows if they're even true.

He feels disapproval and surprise in equal measure from the minds of his team behind him. He chooses to ignore those responses, trusting in his authority to keep anyone from following as he gestures towards the shadows and leads Erik away from the fire.

Around them, the night is as close to silent as the forest ever gets. Charles has a small electric hand torch in his pocket, but he doesn't bother using it. Even in the dark, he knows his way well enough along the overgrown trails that circle the main camp.

Erik keeps pace with him in cautious silence, falling behind sometimes to navigate less steady terrain, but always catching up quickly. Determined to stay at Charles's side.

Charles leads the way as far as he dares in the dark—to a spot where the trees stretch thick and imposing, and a fallen log of enormous diameter lies like a bench across the tangled forest floor. Here even Charles has to navigate carefully, by feel despite the wash of moonlight filtering through the trees, and he hears more than one soft curse from Erik before they're both seated on the mossy surface.

A foot of space separates them, as well as years of silence. And that awful helmet that Erik still wears like a totem, making it impossible for Charles to convince himself Erik is really here.

Erik is a glint of reflected moonlight in his peripheral vision, and Charles keeps his gaze firmly on the impenetrable shadows ahead as he searches for words to break the silence.

"Why are you here?" he finally asks.

"You know why I'm here, Charles." So Erik doesn't intend to dissemble. He knows, somehow, what Charles has done. But the soft answer does nothing to reveal his purpose. Erik's tone is cryptic, and uncertain emotions lodge in Charles's chest.

"How did you find us?" Charles asks, words forming on numb lips. How did you know to come? is what he really wants to know. The fact that Erik is here at all means he knew, somehow, that Charles… what? That Charles needed him? Charles isn't willing to admit so much even in the privacy of his own thoughts. He doesn't need Erik.

Liar, says a quiet, nagging corner of Charles's mind.

"A remarkably perceptive acquaintance of mine told me where to look," Erik says. "Perhaps I'll introduce you to her one day."

Charles processes that, and briefly considers demanding more information. He suspects Erik would humor him, might give him something more to work with. But the truth is, Charles doesn't need to know. Erik is here. Questions of how are irrelevant.

There is one other thing Charles needs to know, though, and he squares his shoulders and turns to look Erik in the face. He can just make out the glint of Erik's eyes beneath the helmet, the tip of his nose, but the rest of his countenance is bathed in shadow.

"Did you come alone?" Charles asks.

"Yes," Erik says, and Charles hates that he can't tell if it's the truth.

"And you'll be leaving again soon, I suppose," Charles says, lips pressing thin and eyes narrowing. Fatigue settles through him, sudden and sharp, and Charles's soul aches in ways he'd thought long forgotten. He's watched Erik walk away enough times to know he can't bear to do it again.

"Charles—"

"No," Charles cuts him off, steamrolling over whatever empty assurances Erik may have been about to voice. He stands abruptly, undergrowth squishing noisily beneath his boots. "I'm sorry, Erik. But whatever you came for… I fear it's far too late."

And then, because he can't bear to stay a moment longer, Charles retreats. He feels Erik's eyes follow him into the trees, and even after the shadows separate them, he doesn't slow his pace.

The next morning dawns like any other, gradual and cool. Quiet until the inevitable clatterings of breakfast rise in the open center of the camp.

Charles emerges to the sound of children laughing between the cabins, and he could almost convince himself that last night was simply a surreal dream.

The wary expressions that greet him around the breakfast fire belie the illusion, and Charles pauses only to claim a cup of bitter coffee before excusing himself from the group.

He's been spending an inordinate amount of time in his own company lately. Why should today be any different just because Erik Lehnsherr has thrown everything askew.

Charles doesn't wander far. He wants privacy, sure enough—a chance to look at his tangled thoughts in the light of day and try to make some sense of them—but he also wants to be close enough to hear the rumble of voices, the playful shrieks of the younger children—chaotic games that will quiet when the teachers call their charges to order. Charles needs to be close enough to protect them if a situation arises—a policy he hasn't been following well of late. He's been too absorbed in himself, and it's time for that to stop.

The ground is damp and crisp, but Charles pays the moisture little mind as he slides down and sits on the roots of a sturdy oak.

He senses Logan's approach a moment before the man emerges from the trees beside him, and Charles glances up. He takes in the thick cigar in Logan's mouth, the gray t-shirt with more stains than anyone can ever hope to identify, and the dented tin coffee cup that looks ridiculous and tiny in Logan's enormous hand.

"He's still here," Logan says in a deceptively conversational tone. He moves to stand at Charles's side and leans his shoulder against the tree.

Charles doesn't ask who Logan means.

"You're sure?" he says.

Charles hates Erik's helmet—he hates the way it blinds him to Erik's thoughts, his very presence—and he darts a glance at Logan now, seeking reassurance.

"He ain't showing his face, but I can smell him," Logan confirms. "He's close."

"I suppose that's not surprising," Charles concedes. Erik must have traveled a great distance to reach them, especially if he somehow made the trip solo. Whatever he's after, he's too stubborn to give up after a single, cryptic conversation.

"Why is he even here?" Logan asks in a thick, rumbling voice. Why haven't you told him to fuck off? is what Charles hears projected clear in Logan's thoughts.

Charles doesn't mention that he essentially did just that last night. He shakes his head, rueful and tired.

"I'm not sure even he knows why he's here," Charles says. "A sense of obligation, perhaps. We were… quite close once. For a short while."

"Close," Logan grunts in a disbelieving tone, though he must have heard at least some of that history from the others. Charles himself rarely discusses Erik, even among those closest to him. Five years after Shaw, there are times the wounds still feel too fresh.

But Erik is here—for all Charles knows, he could be listening right this minute—and Charles can feel curiosity whispering beneath Logan's disbelief.

"There could have been a place for him at the school if he'd wanted it," Charles says softly. "If things had gone differently."

He glances up at Logan again, and the expression he finds is… not what he expects. No high-sailing eyebrows, no shock, no angry surprise. Logan's face is closed-off and considering, his lips tight around his cigar. He looks like he's trying to work out a particularly difficult puzzle.

"Were you two…?" Logan starts, and then stops with an abruptness that leaves Charles blinking in surprise.

Charles gives him a moment, and when Logan doesn't resume the thread of the question Charles asks, "Were we what?"

But even in Logan's mind the thought is so guarded Charles can't decipher it without prying, and he glances away, resisting the urge.

"Nothing," Logan says finally. "Never mind. He just… It doesn't matter. It's none of my business."

"Logan—"

"Be careful, Professor," Logan interrupts, pushing off from the tree and moving back towards the main circle of cabins.

Charles watches him go, fresh uncertainty twisting beneath his skin. When he finally raises his cup to his lips, he finds his coffee has gone cold.

Charles waits two days before finally calling Erik out.

He knows Erik is still here. Not just from the pointed glances Logan keeps throwing at him when no one is looking, or from Hank's concerned vigilance, but also from the way he feels like he's constantly being watched. There are no thoughts to pick up on, not with the helmet interfering, but Charles imagines he can still feel Erik's attention on him. He still feels his breath catch in his throat for no reason, lungs drawing air in unevenly until Charles forces his breathing to steady, his focus to calm. He feels like he's existing on an untested precipice, with no idea what a fall to either side might mean.

"Enough," he says in a moment alone. The path is narrow, heavy trees and underbrush encroaching on the worn channel of trampled dirt, and Charles stands with his arms crossed as he addresses a forest he knows isn't empty. "If you're going to stalk me regardless, we might as well talk." Even if Charles can't imagine what such an endeavor might accomplish.

Erik appears without hesitation, a sudden sweep of dark cape and gloved hands, and Charles squints at morning sunlight reflecting on the metal of his helmet.

"Why are you still here?" Charles asks softly. The question makes Erik flinch, but Charles doesn't back down.

"We have unfinished business between us," Erik says. His tone is guarded.

"We always have unfinished business between us," Charles counters. "Why are you really here?"

Erik holds him with a heavy look, and Charles catches his lower lip in his teeth to keep himself from speaking. Erik's entire posture is poised with some unspoken purpose, the dark sweep of his cape tucked elegantly over one arm, and Charles feels lost.

There are so many questions he doesn't dare ask.

"I went to the school," Erik finally says. He means after the attack—after he heard what Charles had done—the shadows in his eyes permit no other conclusion.

Charles's chest twists tight, but he keeps his voice steady as he asks, "Was there anything left?"

"No," Erik says. His voice is soft, his eyes sad—Charles could almost believe him to be mourning the loss. "The grounds were unrecognizable. The damage went far below the surface—they clearly knew there were subterranean structures to contend with."

"They didn't want to take any chances that mutants might be holding out in the lower levels," Charles whispers, all steadiness gone from his voice. Thank god there weren't—thank god all his people are here and accounted for

The thought of cratered destruction where his school should be makes something low and repellant curl in Charles's gut. It makes everything real in a way he doesn't know how to process. He knew they had nowhere to go, but hearing it like this from Erik makes the realization that much worse.

"Come with me," Erik blurts, and Charles freezes.

He stares.

"I'm sorry?" he says when Erik simply stares back. He can't have heard right. He doesn't understand.

Erik draws inward, somehow makes himself look taller, and says, "I want you to come with me."

Charles feels disbelief bubble up in his chest, a threatening edge of hysteria that he barely manages to tamp down. His jaw hangs slack, mouth open as he gapes at Erik in unguarded shock.

"You can't be serious."

"I'm completely serious." Erik steps towards Charles in a quick rush of movement, but stops a foot and a half away. "You can't stay here. It's not safe."

Charles knows that. He knows. It's not safe for any of them. But what Erik is suggesting…

"You know I can't leave them," Charles says.

But Erik shakes his head, looking exasperated in a way that doesn't compute. When he speaks, it takes Charles almost a full minute to catch up to the implication of what he's saying.

"I'm not asking you to leave your people, Charles."

"What are you saying?" Charles whispers.

"I'm saying they can come. They can all come." Erik's eyes burn with renewed intensity, and Charles feels tiny under that terrifying focus. Erik's voice is deceptively calm when he continues, "I made all the necessary arrangements before I came to find you."

Another thought hits Charles, then. A tired, bitter thought that he wishes he could simply brush aside. But he shakes his head and knows even this is something he can't put past Erik.

"It's my army you're after, then," he murmurs sadly.

"No," Erik growls, denial propelling him forward. Charles startles back at the fierceness of the movement, but Erik follows as though drawn by instinct, and when his hands close around Charles's arms, Charles doesn't try to shake free.

"No," Erik repeats, more softly now but without releasing Charles. "It's not your army I came for." There's a different intensity in his eyes now. A heated, wrecked expression that makes Charles's skin feel suddenly too warm. Erik's fingers tighten, unforgiving pressure on Charles's biceps.

Charles believes him. Whatever brought them to this moment, a strategic alliance is clearly the farthest thing from Erik's mind.

The revelation leaves all kinds of questions in its wake. If this isn't a tactical play, then what is it? What can Erik possibly hope to accomplish? Why offer sanctuary to people who have essentially played the role of enemy for the better part of the war?

"What, then?" Charles asks, heart thudding messily in his chest.

"Come with me," Erik repeats instead of answering, fingers tightening on Charles's arms. "Please."

In that moment, Charles wants more than anything to say yes. He wants to accept what Erik is offering, consequences be damned. He wants to step back and let Erik make this decision for both of them.

But the void where Erik's thoughts should be sits cold in Charles's mind. That awful helmet glints hatefully with afternoon sunlight, vicious red, and Charles presses his lips into a thin line as he realizes they're standing at an all too familiar impasse.

"I can't," Charles whispers, shaking his head miserably. He reaches up shakily with one hand, touches the helmet with trembling fingers. He traces the contours where the metal frames Erik's face, and in the quiet he says, "This stands between us."

And this is where it will end—this is always where it ends—and for an instant Charles is lying on a beach, shattered and terrified and completely heartbroken as he watches Erik walk away. The memory is visceral and sharp, and it's all Charles can do to crush it back down and meet this Erik's eyes.

Waiting for the unavoidable rejection.

But there's something different this time, Charles realizes with a start. Erik doesn't flinch from Charles's words, or from the accusation Charles knows must be flashing in his eyes. Instead he looks determined, and a second later he releases Charles, grip vanishing from Charles's arms.

Erik barely pauses before reaching up—reaching for his helmet, Charles realizes—and Erik's head dips forward as his fingers curl around the smooth metal edges.

Erik holds the helmet out into the narrow space between them, and Charles—

Chapter Text

The most difficult thing about protecting Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters, was keeping the paperwork legit while still flying under the radar.

Charles doubted any other school in the country had comparable repair and maintenance costs. Considering some of the students' talents, some days it was a miracle they managed to stay out of the news.

But then, the news was pretty busy with other things these days. Anti-mutant legislation accumulating on one side of the equation—restrictions, regulations, identify-and-report laws that matched Erik's predictions a little too closely for Charles's comfort—and on the other, escalating attacks and violence. Not just from Erik's Brotherhood, either. Charles was aware of at least seven extremist groups bent on correcting various governments' handling of the so-called "mutant problem". There were probably even more waiting in the wings.

Charles wasn't standing idly by. He had his team, his X-Men, comprised of the older students and the adults who had come aboard as teachers. Charles couldn't accompany them into their confrontations. He may finally have left the cane behind, but he simply wasn't physically strong enough. Yet, he assured himself, though he was starting to wonder if he ever would be.

He could train them. Direct them. Try to navigate a twisting path through mounting global hostilities.

But there was only so much one man could do.

Erik's helmet weighs deceptively little in Charles's hands.

For how much he despises the thing, Charles can't help thinking it should be heavier. It must be made out of some special alloy, a careful mix to keep it strong but incredibly light. It barely weighs a thing.

Charles sits alone now, on the wide flat rock at the far edge of the camp. He knows it's only a matter of time until he's found—someone will come looking, someone will think to look here, or maybe just follow his scent. His team has become wary of giving Charles too much time to himself, and Charles finds he can't fault them for that.

Erik has retreated far enough that he's a bare whisper at the edges of Charles's awareness. He clearly intends to give Charles time to think about his offer. But even at this distance, it's all Charles can do not to reach out. Erik's mind has been closed to him for so long. An empty wall where Charles's closest friend ought to be, never mind that he only knew Erik a bare scattering of weeks before the disastrous confrontation with Shaw. The temptation now, to reach, to touch, to bury himself in Erik's thoughts and see everything he's missed… it's almost overpowering.

But the helmet in Charles's hands, hated as it is, is a gesture of trust. And so Charles keeps himself in check. He turns and turns and turns the helmet, fingers ghosting over every tiny blemish in the metal, and tries to focus his thoughts on the task at hand.

A decision must be made. But perhaps the decision shouldn't belong to him alone.

Charles is surprised when the mind he feels approaching turns out to be Sean's. Sean has given him the most space of any of his former students, cautious and hesitant and obviously scared of saying the wrong thing. But it's Sean approaching now, and Sean's footsteps that rise in volume as he draws near and finally steps out from the path between the trees.

"You didn't eat breakfast or lunch," Sean says, voice firm with affected authority. "You don't get to skip supper, too." His footsteps carry closer, behind Charles and then beside him, and Charles knows from the sharp gasp and the mental flutter of surprise exactly when Sean catches sight of the helmet.

"Is that—?"

"Yes," Charles says without letting him finish. "It is."

"How did you get it?" Sean asks, dropping to one knee on the edge of the rock. Sean's shock and curiosity play like wind over Charles's thoughts, and Charles shakes his head.

"He gave it to me."

"What, he just… handed it over?"

"Yes," Charles says. His pulse is too rapid beneath his skin—it has been since Erik handed him the helmet. His every instinct is treating this moment like a crisis, and maybe that's exactly what it is.

"What does it mean?" Sean asks in a low, nervous voice. Uncertainty clouds his thoughts, fear and distrust, flashes of the last time Charles's people met Erik's Brotherhood in battle.

"It means we have a difficult decision to make," Charles says. Then, after a moment's pause, "Go back to camp. Find the others. We'll meet in my cabin." Charles doesn't actually need to send Sean to find anyone—he could summon the people he needs with a thought—but this will take longer. It will give him a few extra moments to gather himself.

"What should I tell them?" Sean asks.

"Tell them it may be a long night," Charles says. "We have important matters to discuss."

Charles is the last to arrive, despite the fact that he chose his own cabin as the place to congregate.

He carries Erik's helmet in the crook of his elbow, but Sean must have warned the others. There are furtive glances and unmistakable surges of curiosity, but no one voices surprise. Charles pulls the door closed with more care than necessary and considers setting the helmet on the floor in the corner. He rejects the idea quickly enough. This is one burden he's not ready to set down yet.

The cabin is awkwardly furnished, a cramped space full of too few chairs and too many bunk beds. Sean is seated in one of the chairs, Petra in the other. John has somehow managed to fold his impressive frame onto one of the lower bunks without looking uncomfortable. Hank and Alex have each claimed a top bunk at opposite ends of the room, and Charles is unsurprised to find Logan leaning against a bare patch of wall not far from the door—arms crossed, expression grim as he stands vigilant guard over the small room.

All eyes settle quickly on Charles, and he realizes that for all the hours he spent preparing himself for this, he has no idea where to start.

"Well," he says, feeling like he's stumbling. "Assuming there are no preliminaries to get out of the way… I'm sure you all have some idea why I've called you here."

No one actually speaks, but Charles can feel frenzied impatience churning in the air. Impatience, and a wall of disbelief that makes Charles realize he's dead wrong. They don't have any idea why he's called them here, and how can they? Erik's offer caught Charles completely off guard, and Charles certainly knows him better than anyone in this room.

So he braces himself, surrendering to the fact that there's no elegant way to do this, and draws a steadying breath.

"Erik has invited us—all of us—to accompany him back to his Brotherhood's base of operations." The statement is met with understandable skepticism. All around him Charles sees wide eyes, gaping jaws, disbelieving stares. "He is offering protection," Charles continues. "And sanctuary."

Silence in the cabin. Overpowering, a sharp counterpoint to the tumult of confused reactions Charles can feel at the edges of his perception.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Petra asks, voice shrill and sharp.

"It's no joke," Charles says. "And given our rather limited options at present, I thought you all had a right to know that the offer is… on the table, so to speak."

"This is bullshit," Alex says. "I mean, it has to be a trick, right? He's setting us up to fuck us over."

"No," Charles says softly, eyes falling to the helmet in his hands. "His offer is sincere."

"This is Magneto we're talking about," John points out, heavy brow knitting unhappily.

"Nonetheless," Charles says. "Without this helmet he has no defense against my telepathy. Whatever his reasons, he has no subversive intentions."

Charles doesn't mention the overwhelming moment, seconds after the helmet came off, when the long-absent force of Erik's mind first hit him. He doesn't mention his knees giving out, or Erik catching him, or the humiliating stretch of seconds after when all Charles could do was cling to Erik and bury his face against Erik's chest. He doesn't mention the sound almost like a sob that escaped him, or the way Erik held onto him harder than necessary, or the terrifying swell of emotion that even now Charles's mind shies away from—

"What are we going to do?" Alex asks. Charles startles back to the moment, and realizes only belatedly that he's still staring at the helmet in his hands.

"That," Charles says in a tight voice. "Is the difficult question, isn't it."

"You mean you don't know," Alex realizes.

Charles takes a slow breath in, releases it just as slowly, and finally speaks.

"Yes," he says. "That is precisely what I mean."

He fully expects someone to linger after the meeting concludes. He just dropped a considerable bombshell, and Charles doesn't need to graze surface thoughts to gauge the general reaction in the room. It's plain enough, from the wary expressions and furrowed brows, that every last person exiting the cabin wonders if Charles has lost his mind.

The question of his sanity is a valid one. Charles isn't sure he has an answer.

So certainly, Charles expects someone to linger. He might even have guessed it would be Hank. When the cabin door swings shut, he finds both Hank and Alex watching him with wary eyes.

They've come down from their respective perches, at least. They stand now, shoulder to shoulder, and have positioned themselves between Charles and the door. The two are perfectly matched in posture, in the stiff way they've crossed their arms over their chests, and Charles suspects he's in trouble. Hank and Alex uniting forces off the battlefield is uncommon at best. But they're both watching him now with the same leery disbelief, and the sight fills Charles with unwelcome anxiety.

"Is there something else?" Charles asks, expression deliberately blank.

"Oh no you don't," Alex says, expression morphing into an unmistakable scowl. "You are not off the hook that easy."

"What Alex is trying to say is—"

"You realize this is a terrible idea, right?" Alex steamrolls straight over Hank's attempt at tact. "Like… 'Worst idea you've ever had' terrible."

"Strictly speaking, it's not my idea," Charles points out reasonably. "An offer was made. I simply conveyed it."

"But you are considering it," Hank says. There's no question in the words, or in the piercing gold of his eyes. Disapproval, certainly, and a hint of surprise. But perhaps Hank knows him too well.

Charles has been trying not to give the offer any independent thought—better to gauge reactions from the others first. Better still to simply say 'no' and be done with it, if he's going to be completely honest with himself.

But Charles hasn't been completely honest with himself for a long time, and there's nothing simple about 'no'.

"I think all options bear consideration. Even… unexpected ones."

"You can't be serious." The surge of Alex's exasperation ruffles along the periphery of Charles's mind. It twists in the musty air of the cabin and worms beneath his skin, and Charles presses his lips into a thin line.

"Can't I?" he asks.

"Jesus, Professor, are you even listening to yourself?" Alex demands. "This is Magneto we're talking about! The mutant responsible for more human deaths than Gene Nation and the Mutant Liberation Front combined. His game plan is genocide, remember?"

Alex isn't wrong, and the knowledge twists unpleasantly in Charles's stomach. Erik has made vicious choices. He's done terrible things in the name of his crusade. Charles can't simply will away a personal history of cold, deliberate bloodshed.

But hypocrisy has never sat well with Charles. Even now he can feel guilt and sin clinging like soot to his bones. How can he sit in judgment when there's so much blood on his own hands?

"Alex is right," Hank interrupts in an uncharacteristically cautious voice. "The Charles Xavier I know would never condone this."

Charles feels something icy and unyielding lodge in his chest—it's terrifying, even as it sends a chilly, unfamiliar calm washing through him. The sensation is unpleasant, but persistent, and Charles's voice sounds soft and alien to his own ears when he speaks.

"Perhaps the Charles Xavier you know is dead."

"I refuse to believe that," Hank says. Instant and adamant, his voice thick with a rumbling fury that would make Charles flinch if his reactions weren't being dulled by cool, disconnected calm.

"Regardless of what you believe," Charles says softly, "you can't deny that our options are severely limited at present."

Hank emits a low growl, and Alex stares grimly.

"Boys, if you don't mind," Charles finally says. "I'd like some privacy. There's a lot to consider. We hardly need come to a decision now."

Hank gives him one last, beseeching look before turning and storming towards the door. Alex lingers, but Charles turns away—finally moving to set the helmet down on one of the spare beds, as though just now realizing he still holds it in his hands. He's less than surprised when Alex speaks instead of retreating.

"You can't do this, you know," Alex says. The words are tired in a way Alex rarely sounds. "I don't care how limited our options are. You can't decide to go with him."

"And why can't I?" Charles asks, fatigue weighing his own words just as heavily.

"Because," Alex says. "If you go? We all go with you."

Charles feels a surge of surprise rush in to disrupt his chilly illusion of calm. Surely they wouldn't all follow him. If Charles makes this decision—and it's an impossible decision, he knows that, keeps reminding himself that of course they can't accept Erik's offer—surely only those in agreement would choose to join him.

Charles isn't the infallible judge residing over their fates. He's certainly proven that well enough by now. His people can make their own choices.

But then he reaches out and looks deeper, and beneath the emotions at the surface of Hank and Alex's thoughts—the obvious disapproval, the fear, the spreading uncertainty—twists a devotion that punches the air right out of Charles's lungs. Both of them, god, how can they harbor that kind of unfaltering loyalty after all of the mistakes Charles has made?

"No," Charles says, more fiercely than he intends, though he can't bring himself to turn and face the eyes drilling into the back of his head. "No. Even if it comes to that… This isn't an ultimatum. It's not all-or-nothing. Everyone needs to understand they have a choice. No matter what happens, anyone who wants to go their own way will do so with my blessing."

Maybe they'd be better off.

For a long moment, there's nothing but dusty silence in the cabin. Charles's breath shivers unsteadily in his lungs, and he still can't make himself turn around. Even without looking at them, he's all too aware of the cabin's other two occupants. He walls himself off from their thoughts, but he can't chase away the knowledge that they're there. That they're watching him, worrying for him, vested so deeply in him that Charles feels the world constricting around him.

Suddenly his lack of decisive action—his lack of a plan—seems even more unforgivable. He's a failure not just as a leader, but as a teacher and a friend—in some ways, even as a father to the strange family he's gathered close in the past five years.

He can't protect them. He can't give them the world he spent so long teaching them to strive for. He can't even look them in the eye and say 'Here's what we do next,' because he hasn't the faintest clue how to move forward from here.

"Come on, Alex," Hank finally murmurs, interrupting the destructive current of Charles's thoughts. "Let's get out of here. Professor wants his alone time."

"Yeah," Alex agrees. Then footsteps, the click and creak of the door opening on rusty hinges.

Don't do anything stupid, Charles picks up from Alex, almost as an afterthought. He can't tell if he was meant to hear it.

When the door closes, Charles sinks slowly to his knees.

Erik doesn't show his face over the next three days, and Charles is stuck with the surreal sense that the world is standing still.

It's as though the entire camp is holding its breath, waiting for Charles to make a decision. Even the youngest children are quiet.

Charles seeks solitude as often as he can. He tries to think—to really think, because his intellect should damn well be a match for the impossible quandary of Erik's offer—but at every turn, he runs up soundly against empty walls of indecision.

Charles approaches Hank early on the third day. He carries Erik's helmet in his hand as he steps into the cabin at the farthest edge of camp. Even out here in the wilderness, Hank has managed to turn his space into a marginally functional lab. There are no Bunsen burners or centrifuges—not enough portable power for that kind of equipment—but there are clipboards and notes and microscopes. Even limited by his supplies, Hank is probably finding fascinating results in half a dozen separate experiments.

Hank sets aside a bulky magnifying lens when Charles steps into the single-room cabin, and the door swings shut with an audible squeak.

"What can I do for you, Professor?" Hank asks.

Charles crosses creaking floorboards to stand beside Hank's workstation, and holds the helmet out like an offering.

Hank blinks down at the helmet, clearly confused, and then cautiously stands from the wooden stool. Charles follows the movement with his eyes. He tilts his head back to meet Hank's questioning stare, and swallows past the lump in his throat.

"I want you to destroy it," he says

Hank tilts his head.

"He probably has others," Hank points out.

"Nonetheless," Charles says. "I want it gone. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course I can."

"Thank you."

Charles leaves without touching Hank's mind.

That night, Logan says the words Charles hasn't been able to voice himself.

"There's no other choice, is there?"

Relief shudders through Charles at the words, at the fact that someone else said them. Leave it to Logan to reach the only practical conclusion, and to do it without apology. He usurps a surprising amount of space in the claustrophobic confines of Charles's cabin. Outside, the sky is dark.

"I wish there were," Charles says, though he's not sure how honest the assertion actually is. He wishes a great many things, fervently, but he's not entirely confident he has the strength to wish Erik out of his life.

"We've already stayed here too long," Logan points out. His arms are crossed, his expression surprisingly reasonable.

"Agreed," Charles says, tired and guilty. He drops onto one of the unused lower bunks, slouching forward and propping his elbows on his knees to keep from knocking his head against the upper bunk. "And that's my fault. We have no protection out here. It's only a matter of time before what's left of the human governments track us down."

Logan grunts and nods in unhappy agreement.

"We can still follow the original plan," Charles says. "We can still split into groups, go into hiding. We'd be harder to track that way."

But Logan shakes his head, and his eyes actually look sad.

"That's just biding time," Logan says. "Time we might not have. As plans go, it's better than nothing. But what Magneto is offering? It's a hell of a lot more than nothing."

"We can't join his war. We can't participate in his tactics. There are lines we can't cross."

"Has he asked you to cross them?"

The question draws Charles up short, and he realizes he doesn't know. Those are negotiations he hadn't considered.

Erik did say he wasn't after Charles's army.

"Even if we split up, it's only a matter of time, isn't it?" Charles asks softly, thoughts still shying from that track. "We can only hide so long, and the humans won't stop looking for us. Even with all our talents, they have ways of pinning us down."

"I wish I could tell you different," Logan says, and for an instant despair flashes in his eyes, in the shadow of his thoughts—somber sadness that he walls away quickly, hiding behind a stern poker face and fresh determination.

But Charles knows he didn't imagine the momentary flash of sentiment, and he asks, "Why do you look so sad?"

He half expects Logan to deflect instead of answering, but Logan locks him with a piercing stare.

"Because you're the one with the vision, Charles. You weren't ever supposed to see the world the way other people do. You sure as hell weren't supposed to see it my way."

"I'm sorry," Charles says, the sense of failure knocking him flat all over again.

"No," Logan says, dropping his crossed arms to his sides and turning for the door. "I'm sorry. But I know you'll make the right call."

Once he's gone, Charles stares at the door for several shattered minutes.

He already knows what his choice will have to be.

"I won't make my people fight your war," Charles says.

It's not even the next day. It's two a.m., because Charles finally got sick of waiting for morning or sleep. Without the helmet, Erik was easy to summon with a mental nudge, and he arrived at Charles's cabin fast enough to confirm he hadn't gone far.

He's watching Charles now with fresh intensity, apparently not bothered by the late hour. The cabin is empty but for the two of them, standing perhaps closer than they should in the center of the floor. Charles's hands are in fists at his sides. Erik's hang loose and calm.

"No one needs to fight," Erik says. "Not unless they choose to, of their own volition. I have more than enough warriors supporting my cause."

"And what is your cause these days, Erik?" Charles asks softly. "Are you still set on wiping out all of humanity for the sins of a hateful few?"

"Their hate is far more widespread than you give them credit for," Erik says, but Charles feels unexpected uncertainty ripple along Erik's surface thoughts. Charles arches his eyebrows high, and Erik says, "I don't expect you to join my crusade, Charles. If your principles could be swayed, you'd have taken your place by my side years ago."

Something in his tone makes Charles's skin tingle warmly, and he cuts his gaze to the side. Silence eats at the room between them, taut and uncomfortable, and Charles suddenly doesn't know what to say.

"I had Hank destroy your helmet," he blurts, and is surprised at the muted rumble of amusement his admission draws from Erik.

"I suspected you might." Erik's internal amusement does nothing to ease the somber severity of his voice.

"I suppose I can't make you promise you'll never wear it again," Charles says, finally returning his attention to Erik's face. The grimness of his expression has lightened some around the edges, making way for the first miniscule inkling of hope.

"Of course you can," Erik says. He steps closer to Charles and murmurs, "You won't like the price tag that comes attached to that particular promise, however."

Charles blinks, stunned into silence. He hadn't suspected there was any concession that would make Erik seriously consider the request. He opens his mouth, intent on asking the price, but his voice refuses to cooperate and no words come out.

Erik clearly needs no additional prompting, however. His final step forward places him squarely in Charles's personal space, and it's all Charles can do not to retreat.

"You're not the only telepath I have to consider, Charles. Emma is still out there. Half a dozen others that we know about, and who knows how many others?"

Of course, Charles thinks, surprised he never realized it before. He's always considered that helmet a personal affront, a monstrosity aimed directly at keeping him out, but of course Erik would have to protect himself against others with similar abilities.

"You're probably the most powerful telepath in the world," Erik says softly. "But you are not the only telepath in the world. And I can't afford to be vulnerable to that kind of interference. When I'm outside the security of my base, that helmet is my only protection from telepathic manipulation."

"Then it's dangerous for you to be here like this," Charles realizes, feeling stupid for not seeing it before.

"A calculated risk," Erik concedes.

"And what would you have in exchange for your promise?" Charles asks, bringing Erik back to the point. "You said I won't like it."

A greedy surge of emotion bursts from Erik then, and Charles starts at the intensity of it. His footsteps are unsteady, two and then three as he stumbles backwards, until his back meets with the tall post of one of the bunk beds. Erik tamps his emotions back under control, a quick flash of apology crossing his face, his mind, and Charles swallows tightly.

"A practicality," Erik says, though it doesn't square with the surge of emotion from a moment before. "I would need you beside me. Literally beside me," he clarifies at the first hint of disbelief on Charles's face. "Without the helmet, I would need a strong telepath protecting me at almost all times."

"Oh," Charles says numbly.

"Exactly," Erik says.

Charles doesn't know if he has it in him to do what Erik is asking. Erik clearly doesn't just mean he needs a psychic bodyguard for running to the corner store and buying milk. He would need Charles with him for uglier tasks. For violence, for recruiting, for steps along the path to Erik's master plan. Charles would sully his hands in every corner of Erik's crusade, no matter how firmly he tried to remain uninvolved. This isn't just a slippery slope—it's a plane of ice lying at an angle so steep Charles can't see the bottom.

"It's not a decision you need to make right now," Erik says in a low voice. He projects deliberate reassurance, and Charles hates how grateful he feels for it—how ready he is to accept the reassurance at face value.

"There are other decisions, though," Charles says, shaking himself free of such thoughts. "Ones I've wasted too much time in making."

Erik's expression sharpens to something focused and terrifying, and the way he steps towards Charles then feels unintentional—instinctive. Charles swallows, tries to steady his frantic heart.

"You've reached a decision, then," Erik breathes. There's desperate impatience humming in the air now, making it difficult to breathe.

"Yes," Charles says through a suddenly constricted throat. Erik crowds forward, looming in Charles's space, all unconscious movement and frantic energy. Charles opens his mouth to speak—

And the words don't come out. They're caught somewhere bright and terrified in his chest, and Charles furrows his brow but still can't find his voice. Erik is staring at him now, anxious and inexplicably terrified, and Charles closes his mouth since no words are coming out of it anyway.

I'm coming with you, he sends finally, straight to Erik's mind. And as many of my people as choose to follow. But I won't force anyone to accompany us.

He doesn't know if Erik even listens the whole way through. The violent relief that floods through Erik is instant and intense, and Charles has barely finished before Erik surges forward and wraps himself around Charles. His hands grasp tightly, his face buries in the crook of Charles's neck, and Charles grunts a startled sound as he's yanked off balance and pressed against Erik's chest.

He doesn't know what to do with his hands. Returning Erik's embrace seems a bad idea—though Charles would be hard-pressed to express exactly why—but with Erik tucked so stubbornly against him, Charles's options are limited.

Erik releases him before he manages to resolve the conundrum, looking sheepish and apologetic for a moment before a more practiced, neutral expression settles across his features.

"Have you told them yet?" Erik asks.

"Logan knows," Charles says. Not that Charles told him in so many words. "But no, I haven't told them. I think, perhaps, you shouldn't be here when I do."

"Probably wise," Erik concedes. "Will you do it soon?"

"Tomorrow. And we'll mobilize as soon after as we can. I want to give people time to make their own decisions, but we shouldn't delay too long."

"You know how to reach me when it's time to move," Erik says.

When he leaves Charles's cabin, there's a hint of a smile playing over his lips.

The next morning, Charles's announcement meets with stunned silence—along with a flurry of internal reactions that thrum chaotically across his awareness. Shocked disbelief is the strongest response. Anger and fear are close seconds. There's uncertainty, betrayal, ragged defeat.

There's also, beneath the initial tumult, a glint of cautious hope.

"I know this is sudden," Charles says, addressing the assembly. Everyone is accounted for, sitting cross-legged in the grass, on logs and tree stumps, on the edges of cabin porches and even on roofs as their numbers sprawl to the very edges of the camp's central circle.

"Yeah," comes a young voice from somewhere in the crowd. Scott, Charles thinks. "If by sudden, you mean out of fucking nowhere!"

"I want to make it perfectly clear that no one else is beholden to this decision," Charles says, voice carrying loud across the grass and crowd. "Anyone who wishes to accompany Erik is welcome. Those who prefer to follow an alternate path, I will make sure you have the means and supplies to do so."

"How soon do we have to decide?" comes a deeper voice from the other direction—John, with his arms crossed and a considering look on his broad face.

"By tomorrow morning," Charles says. Regret and guilt curl beneath his ribs, and he continues, "I'm sorry I can't give you more time to consider, but I've kept you here too long already. We need to move, and we need to move fast. Tomorrow morning we mobilize, both those interested in accompanying Erik and those who intend to go a different direction."

The wordless panic in the air has died down to a steady murmur of racing thoughts, and Charles doesn't try to dive in and decipher the maelstrom.

"Erik has given me his word that accepting his offer does not mean joining the Brotherhood's fight. Beyond that, I know as little as you do. I know it's not much to base your decisions on, but please consider wisely."

Charles feels grim reality settle in his chest as he adds, "You may not have a chance to change your mind."

Every single one of Charles's people elects to follow him, and Charles doesn't know whether to feel elated or terrified.

Terror wins out, by none too slim a margin. Hank and Alex were right.

Charles is pretty sure he'd be better off without that kind of power.

Erik doesn't turn up to help them take down camp, which is almost certainly for the best. Charles's team and students are confused enough right now. The last thing they need is the sight of Magneto darting between the cabins—the enemy of so many years maneuvering among them, helping to gather up supplies, take down tents, pack up Hank's portable lab. It's for the best Erik keeps his distance through the rattled morning's efforts.

Roll is called three times between breakfast and the short trek westward, towards the massive clearing where dozens upon dozens of vehicles sit waiting for the X-Men and their younger charges to return. There's a veritable army of vehicles: trucks, cars, several jets and even a helicopter.

There's one vehicle Charles doesn't recognize—a smaller jet, sleek in design and painted a hue so dark Charles can't tell if it's purple or black. As he gets closer, moving at the fore of the foot-traffic, he sees Erik standing beneath a low hatch, one foot on the base of a narrow ramp.

Charles signals Hank to stop the line, then sprints forward. Erik is leaning against the polished metal of the jet's belly when Charles reaches him. He wears a tentative smile on his face.

"Glad you could make it," Erik says. His voice sounds deceptively light, though his thoughts are heavy and focused on Charles. "I see you lot know how to be efficient." It's barely nine a.m. His tone is sincere.

"Yes," Charles says, uncertain how to respond to the praise.

"How many of them have accepted my offer?"

"All of them," Charles says. Even putting it so simply, the assertion leaves him a little breathless.

Erik nods like he expected nothing less. He almost looks smug about it, and Charles quashes the unhelpful irritation that flutters in his chest.

"You'll have to abandon the ground vehicles," Erik informs him. "And any air vehicles that won't be able to fly about eight thousand kilometers, give or take." He throws a pointed look at the helicopter that clearly won't be making the cut.

"So this base of yours is a bit distant, then, yes?" Charles observes dryly, surprised at how easily wry humor creeps into his voice. "Will there be fuel stops along the way? That will determine which of the jets can make the journey." I hope you're not taking us to Antarctica, he thinks, only half meaning to send the thought to Erik. Erik snorts, mouth quirking up at one corner.

"Antarctica is a bit farther than that, Charles," he points out reasonably. "And yes, there will be fuel stops. It will be a trick to manage discreetly with so many vehicles, but it's necessary. We'll need to stick pretty close together so I can avoid revealing our ultimate destination's coordinates sooner than necessary."

"My people can be trusted," Charles says, instantly offended on their behalf.

"I know," Erik placates him quickly. "But you know as well as I do that sometimes things go wrong. The less anyone knows at the outset, the better. Don't worry. If we lose anyone along the way, I'll have a team retrace our path."

"All right," Charles concedes, and his posture loosens.

"Do you have enough jets to accommodate everyone?" Erik asks.

"I think so." Charles is already trying to do the calculations in his head, and he's going to need Hank to weigh in. He reaches out with his mind, pitching a quick summons so that only Hank will hear it.

"Good," Erik says. "You'll be riding with me."

Behind Charles, Hank breaks off from the group and jogs forward to join them.

It's a tight fit, but the usable vehicles will be able to accommodate everyone safely. Alex does one last, full roll call—a tedious task, but necessary. They can't risk leaving anyone behind, and their numbers are too great to take chances.

Charles waits until everyone is aboard a jet, and then until he gets confirmation straight from the minds of every pilot that all are ready for takeoff. Then he follows Erik inside, into the sleek cockpit with its two seats and array of controls.

"I assume this thing has hovering capabilities," Charles says as he harnesses himself into the empty seat. Erik is already buckled in with his hands on the controls.

"Yes," Erik confirms as he begins pressing buttons and twisting knobs. Charles watches his hands, not just out of curiosity but with practical purpose. He does his best to track the movements and map out the correlating control systems. Hopefully he won't need to step in and fly this thing—or, god forbid, land it—but it never hurts to be prepared.

Erik throws a quick glance at him, smiling slightly. He clearly knows what Charles is doing and approves.

"Do all your pilots have the first set of coordinates?" Erik asks above the sound of the engine rumbling to life.

Yes, Charles answers instead of trying to pitch his voice over the mounting roar of liftoff.

Erik turns his attention to the data screens and viewports directly ahead, but the smile on his face spreads wider. Charles wonders if he's imagining the manic, almost giddy edge to Erik's expression.

"If I promise not to tell the others, will you tell me where we're going?" Charles asks as the jet rises high above the tree line.

"Chile," Erik says, then presses the throttle forward.

The mountains are high and gorgeous, wide ocean glittering in the distance beyond, and Charles takes a moment to mentally check in with the pilots following closest behind. He can only reach Hank and Petra without straining, but both reassure him that everyone is still accounted for—that everything is under control.

"You zoned out on me," Erik says, darting his eyes towards Charles without turning his head. "Is everyone all right?"

"Fine," Charles reassures him. "Are we close?"

"Quite," Erik says, mouth quirking with mischief.

Before Charles can press for more information, the jet crests a steep peak, and a sprawling, staggered valley opens directly below them. Charles's breath catches in his throat, not at the stunning glimpse of natural beauty—though that alone merits an audible gasp—but at the way somehow, between one blink and the next, a sleek metropolis appears along the steep mountain walls straight ahead.

My god, Charles thinks as his eyes take in elegant archways and careful stonework, glinting metal curling like an interwoven support structure within every wall, every tower, every gate and crevice.

He expected… something smaller. Something elegant but contained—a discreet bunker within the mountain, or perhaps a single tower with carefully reinforced structures tunneling into the ground beneath.

But what Charles is looking at now goes so far beyond the scope of his imaginings that he can't wrap his head around it. What he's looking at now is enormous—it's an entire city—and as the jet slows with their final approach, Charles feels helpless to take it all in.

"You've been busy," he says in a low, breathless voice.

Erik spares him a quick glance before returning his eyes to the controls, but the fond pulse of warmth that accompanies the glance is slower to fade. When Erik speaks, his voice is rough with some emotion Charles can't immediately identify.

"Welcome home, Charles."

Chapter Text

Charles wasn't even supposed to be here.

Hank had tried to convince him to stay at the school. Sean had told him coming along was a bad idea. Petra had stared him down and called him an idiot.

Charles had come anyway, because this wasn't just another mission. It wasn't just another confrontation with the Brotherhood—another locking of horns over human life. This was a desert convoy of such strategic significance that there was no way Magneto would leave it to his minions, which meant he would be here himself.

This was Erik, and Charles was done sitting on the sidelines.

When the first truck's fuel tank blew, Charles had a split second to consider his own mortality before a wall of heat closed in around him—

And then sharp vertigo, the punch of his own breath knocking out of his chest, wind in his ears, skidding sand beneath his back. Something heavy crushed him against the ground—the comparatively cool weight of a human body shielding him from the heat of the explosion—but Charles's eyes were closed, and he sensed no mind to accompany the hands holding him down.

His eyes flew open even as he realized what that meant, and he found Erik staring down at him from jarringly close. Their legs were tangled awkwardly, and Charles could feel Erik's heartbeat as if it were echoing inside his own chest.

"What are you doing here, Charles?" Erik demanded in a low, furious voice.

"I came to stop you," Charles said. Direct. Honest. He'd never lied to Erik, and now seemed a poor time to start.

"You fool!" Erik growled. "You could have been killed!"

Charles didn't answer. He drew a steadying breath and reached for Erik's helmet with shaking hands.

For a single, thrilling instant he thought Erik would let him. His fingers brushed the helmet's metal edges, warm from the fire still burning behind them.

Then Erik moved with startling speed. He grabbed Charles's wrists, jerking his hands away and pinning them roughly to the ground. Sand sifted between Charles's fingers, rough on his skin, and he gasped at the force of Erik's touch. A moment later, his breath froze in his chest at the unreadable intensity in Erik's eyes.

Silence hung between them, fractured and surreal, and Charles wondered at his inability to read Erik. Seconds slipped past into minutes, and Charles tested Erik's hold. He found no give. If anything, Erik's grip tightened—almost painfully—and Charles couldn't remember how to breathe.

Then came a scream from a distance away, another explosion, and Erik was off him.

"Azazel!" Erik called, and just as Charles regained his footing he felt an unfamiliar hand close tightly on his shoulder.

He tried to glance down, but already the world was careening out of place around him, a sudden surge of darkness, and then the return of blinding desert sunlight. Fires burned in the distance—recent explosions—but Charles was too far away to hear the sounds of the fight.

"No!" Charles shouted, spinning. But the hand was already gone from his shoulder, and all he found behind him was a dissipating cloud of red.

The city is named Villa Paz, and Charles understands enough Spanish to have given Erik a disbelieving look when he first filled Charles in.

"Your flare for irony certainly hasn't faded with time," he had said.

Erik insisted he hadn't chosen the name. "It was already here, Charles. Just a small village, cut off from the rest of the world. It was exactly what we needed."

Charles wonders, now, about the town's original inhabitants. He wonders if they were humans or mutants, if they left or died or are still here somewhere, safe in a corner of the town.

Paz, Charles thinks quietly. "Peace," he snorts. Fresh irony twists through him even though he and his people have been here a solid week. Leave it to Erik to build a sanctuary in a hidden mountain pass and call it the one thing he's professed never to believe in.

Charles lets his eyes drift over the city now. This edge of balcony faces north, placed high enough in a sturdy, sculpted tower that he can see all the way to the city's farthest wall. Charles marvels at the magnitude of it—not just the physical size, but the number of mutants the city accommodates. Thousands upon thousands of them, more mutant minds than Charles has ever experienced at once.

It's overwhelming. It's staggering.

It's beautiful.

Amid the carefully monitored chaos of powerful minds, Charles still feels Erik the strongest. It could simply be because Erik's mind is closest. He's just inside—his office is the room behind Charles—and with the door propped open, Charles can feel Erik's mind as vividly as though Erik were standing beside him.

The balcony opens out from that door, and circles the entire circumference of the tower. It's perfectly situated for surveying the contours of the city. From here, one could know in an instant if something goes wrong.

Even more than the physical proximity, Charles suspects the weight of Erik's mind in his thoughts stems from the simple fact that this is Erik. From the vantage point of this balcony, Charles imagines he could peg Erik's location anywhere in the city if he had to.

Not that he's had any call to test this theory. In the week since arriving in Villa Paz, Erik has barely let Charles out of his sight. Charles has yet to be more than thirty feet from Erik's side.

Only within the carefully designed confines of this central base—the sturdy, windowless structure below and the wide tower stretching skyward—is Erik entirely protected from telepathic interference.

But the result of their constant proximity is that Erik has yet to reach for one of the spare helmets he keeps in his office, his chambers, even in a compartment of the sleek vehicle he drives when he has to navigate greater distances in a hurry. Charles chooses not to complain.

He's so focused on Erik that it takes him a moment to realize another familiar mind is approaching, and by the time he spins towards the door to Erik's office, Raven is standing in the doorframe with crossed arms and a cautious smile on her face.

"Raven," Charles breathes, and his fingers tighten on the chest-high wall of the balcony, smooth metal beneath his hand.

The cautious smile fades for an instant, and when Raven approaches him she says, "That's not my name, Charles."

"I'm sorry," he says. He remembers another name, but his brain shies away from using it, and it takes him conscious effort to say, "It's… Mystique now, yes?"

The smile returns stronger, and Raven stops beside him, not touching him. She's unclothed. Blue skin, red hair, gold eyes peering at him with a curious light. She looks exactly the way Charles remembers her except… More sure. More solid and confident and, in some way, harder. Charles realizes with a jolt that, for all that this is Raven—his Raven, his sister in all but blood—he doesn't know the woman standing before him.

"It's good to see you," he says. Her smile widens.

"Welcome to Villa Paz," she says, voice teasing. Then, in lower tones, "I'm glad to see you, too. I'm… sorry it had to happen like this."

She knows, then. She knows what Charles has done. There's no judgment in her eyes. There's only a hurt, quiet sadness that's almost worse. Charles takes a steadying breath and chases those thoughts away.

"Erik said you were out on a mission. I don't know whether to hope you succeeded or not, but… welcome home, at any rate." He tries to keep his tone light, and he must succeed, because Raven chuckles at the cautious teasing in his words.

"This is going to take some getting used to," she admits softly.

"Yes," Charles agrees. He doesn't know how he's supposed to fit in here. He still hasn't come to a decision about Erik—about the offer standing open, the price he could pay in return for knowing Erik will never shut him out with that helmet again.

But Charles knows himself well. He knows that sitting numbly, quietly on the sidelines isn't something he'll be able to do for long. What happens when the need to build, to react, to do something finally overtakes him?

What happens to Charles Xavier in the city Magneto has created?

"So," Raven—Mystique, Charles reminds himself, though he suspects it will be a while before that particular lesson settles in—murmurs, moving to drape her arms over the high wall. "I hear you brought a few people with you."

"A few," Charles says with a dry half-smile. The hundred-plus mutants that accompanied him here may be nothing compared to the growing population of the city, but they're still a force to be reckoned with. "Erik has designated an entire block in the center of the city for their use." Charles hadn't even needed to tell him it was important for his people to be together. Erik had simply stepped forward and done it.

"Prime real estate," Raven says with a smirk.

"So I'm told."

A pause, one that makes Charles wonder if he's said something wrong, but finally Raven cocks her head to the side.

"You should get in the habit of calling him Magneto." She says it with unexpected weight, grave in a way that narrows Charles's eyes and draws his brows tightly together.

"I don't know if I can," he admits.

"Please try."

Charles blinks, confused, and asks, "Does it offend him that I still call him Erik?" Closely attuned as he is to the mental nuances of Erik's moods, Charles is surprised at the thought that he might have missed such a detail.

Raven snorts and shakes her head, and for a moment the mood between them is lighter.

"I doubt it," she says. "Considering…" She pauses and shakes her head, finally continues, "But no one else calls him that. At best you'll confuse people. At worst…"

She trails off again, and something about the tone of her silence makes Charles's skin tingle unpleasantly.

"At worst?" he prods.

She shrugs, a noncommittal gesture that matches neither the serious look on her face nor the heavy hum of the thoughts Charles is deliberately not reading. When she finally speaks, her eyes are on horizon.

"Too many people already know you're his greatest weakness. If you go around calling him Erik instead of Magneto… Let's just say the last thing he needs is for people to see where he's vulnerable."

Charles struggles to process the whole of Raven's words, because he trips hard on the first thing out of her mouth. How can Charles be Erik's greatest weakness? And even if it's true, how can Raven say it so casually, like it's a simple, obvious fact?

But Raven is still talking, either not noticing or willfully ignoring the stunned look on Charles's face. "Anyway, just try, okay? At least in public?"

"I will," Charles promises.

And then, once silence has dulled the edges of his panic, after long moments where they both simply breathe in the sounds of the city far below, Charles turns. He angles his whole body towards Raven—Mystique—and waits until she returns the favor. He waits until she's looking at him directly, a bright glint of questions in her eyes.

"Tell me about you," he says. "It's been too long."

And if the way her face lights up brings the threatening sting of tears to Charles's eyes, he doesn't let it stop him from smiling.

Charles wishes he could spend his nights out in the city, closer to his team and his students. He can't shut down the protective instincts humming beneath his skin, and ignoring them takes constant effort.

He trusts Erik. He has to, at least as far as his people's safety is concerned. Otherwise they wouldn't be here.

Besides, the others are hardly unprotected without him. Logan alone is a force to be reckoned with, and he's just the most obvious line of defense. Charles has taught and trained a capable team—talented men and women, strong and smart and loyal. Charles can trust them to look out for each other.

It's still difficult, settling quietly into his own room. His quarters are deep in Erik's main base, which is casually called Central by the mutants who come and go through its corridors. Erik's rooms are immediately next door. He seems intent on keeping Charles close, despite the undeniable security of the base, and each night Charles feels the nearby flutter of Erik's thoughts, still hectic as Charles falls asleep.

He ventures into the city for longer and longer intervals as the first week topples over into the second. Though Erik clearly covets his presence and his company—Charles would have to be blind to miss the way Erik's attention instantly fixes on him whenever Charles enters the room—Erik has no actual need of him within the protective confines of Central. Charles wonders, mostly idly, about the construction of the compound. Hank would probably have a theory about how the outer walls of a building can protect Erik from telepathic attack. Something in the architecture, the alloys chosen.

Maybe Charles will simply ask Erik one day.

Charles does accompany Erik when duties require a departure from Central's innate security. He tries to keep in mind what Mystique said, about calling his friend 'Magneto'. In public, he mostly succeeds. In private, and within the confines of Charles's own mind, he knows he'll never truly make that leap.

But when Erik is busy at his own tasks, in his office with his maps and generals, Charles prefers to be elsewhere.

And so Charles makes his way through Villa Paz alone this evening. The main roads are wide, but narrower streets wind between them. Smooth stone curves beneath Charles's feet, and clean walls rises endlessly to either side. Tall structures, built to be sturdy and reliable, and Charles knows from Raven—from Mystique, he chides himself, though he slips up less often now—that the structures extend twice again as far beneath the mountain.

There are people in the streets, moving with purpose, and Charles feels the brush of their thoughts as he makes his way past, through, around the crowds.

He finds the neighborhood he's looking for, and instantly recognizes the pulse of familiar minds. He stops at a simple, if enormous building with unornamented doors. The edifice stretches a dozen stories up and still doesn't sit quite as tall as the buildings surrounding it.

Charles has a key of his own to this place, and the double doors open for him, falling aside as he steps into a narrow hallway. He closes the doors behind him again, hears a click as the lock latches.

The doors he passes along the hallway all echo with voices and thoughts. Younger mutants in the rooms beyond, participating in a chaotic semblance of classroom activity—still students, even though the school itself has been destroyed.

Charles feels a twinge of violent regret at the thought, but it's quick to fade when he considers that every single mutant made it out alive and safe, adults and children both. They're all right here, still teaching and learning and living.

Charles has enough to regret without mourning the loss of a home that only mattered because of these very people.

"Hey," Logan says when Charles steps into the enormous kitchen at the end of the hall. He slouches against a high counter, gray t-shirt stained with what looks like engine grease, a cup full of something that's probably alcoholic in one hand. "Long time no see."

There's no reprimand in the words. Just quiet worry. His gaze follows Charles across the kitchen, all the way to Logan's side. He's not even trying to mask the concern in his expression as he regards Charles over a sip of his drink.

Charles should stop being surprised at how protective Logan can be.

"He's not keeping me locked in a tower," Charles says, tugging a tall stool closer and slipping onto it. Logan quirks a wordless eyebrow at him, and Charles shakes his head. "I was here yesterday."

"You should've stayed," Logan mutters. And then raw thoughts, so fierce Charles hears them without consciously tuning in. How the fuck am I supposed to protect you when that asshole keeps you buried in some vault beneath the city.

"Erik's not keeping me anywhere, my friend," Charles murmurs.

"Then what the hell are you doing there instead of here?"

"It's… complicated," Charles admits.

He expects further protest, but Logan falls silent. Even his thoughts are more guarded, tucked down like he's actively trying to keep Charles from overhearing anything. Logan's eyes are darkly intense, like he's weighing something unpleasant.

"What is it?" Charles asks, more disconcerted than he wants to admit at the fact that he can't easily decipher Logan's usually unguarded thoughts.

"It ain't my business," Logan says, "but has he done anything…?"

"Anything what?" Charles asks when Logan tapers off without completing the question.

"Never mind." Logan shakes his head, tossing back the last swallow of his drink. "Just a stupid thought. Somethin' I smelled on him before, but if it's not an issue…"

"If what's not an issue?" Charles presses, suddenly exasperated.

"Nothing," Logan insists. "You're the telepath, and you obviously trust him. Not like it's my business who you decide to shack up with."

"Logan," Charles says, setting a hand on Logan's arm. He's surprised, as always, at the heat of Logan's skin. Hank explained it as something to do with his metabolism, his superhuman healing abilities. He simply burns hotter than most people.

Logan looks at him now, giving Charles his full attention.

"Of course it's your business," Charles says. "You have every right to worry about me. I could hardly expect otherwise after the number of times you've saved my life." That earns him a smile, at least. Grudging and small, but a smile just the same, and Charles continues, "But things are under control. I'm all right."

"Are you?" Logan asks, too heavily. The question makes Charles's hand slip and drop to the counter.

"I'm sorry?"

"Are you really all right?" Logan is staring at him hard. "Because that's not what I'm seeing."

A twisting chill winds its way between Charles's ribs, and he feels caught out.

"I don't know what you're—"

"Yes you do."

Logan's voice rumbles impossibly low, and Charles looks away. He drops his gaze to the floor, staring resolutely at the muted red tiles. His voice is lodged somewhere in his throat, and he can still feel the guarded weight of Logan's focus bearing down on him.

"You think I don't see it?" Logan asks, voice softer than Charles has ever heard it. "I get it, okay? What you had to do back at the school… That was a first for you. It's gonna mess with your head no matter how you slice it."

Charles can barely process what Logan is saying over the pounding of his pulse in his ears, the sudden sharpness of the floor tiles in his vision. Breathing requires focused effort, in and then out again, and Charles can't think about this. He needs it tucked away, the way it has been since Erik stepped from the shadows into the firelight and offered Charles the distraction he needed to bury these feelings away.

"Hey, easy," Logan admonishes, and a strong hand closes on Charles's shoulder. Charles shakes his head, but Logan just grabs the other shoulder in a grip just as firm. He gives Charles a shake. "Come on, Professor, look at me."

Charles can't. He doesn't try.

"You know I'm the last person to judge," Logan says, not letting him go. "Way I see it, you've got nothing to be ashamed of."

Charles chokes on a laugh, bitter and grating. "Thank you, Logan, but—"

"Would you listen," Logan growls. His fingers tighten painfully, digging bruises into Charles's skin for an instant before his grip loosens again. "Do you condemn me for the shit I've done to keep us all safe?"

Charles gapes, raises his eyes to look at Logan even though he's pretty sure he was trying not to get trapped in Logan's stare.

"That's different," Charles says.

"No." Logan's voice brooks no debate. "It's not different. You know what I've done. You know everything I've done. And you still treat me like I'm something good."

"You are good," Charles whispers.

"And you're no worse than I am. You don't get to hold yourself to different standards." He pauses, like he's gathering himself in. "You don't get to see good in someone like me and then turn around and call yourself a murderer."

Charles cringes, then. Because he's thought that word more than once, thought it and shied away from it, and now here Logan is dragging it into the light and calling bullshit.

"Charles, look at me," Logan says, squeezing his shoulders more gently. Charles hadn't even realized he was back to staring at the floor, and he raises his eyes now, hesitant and apprehensive as Logan continues, "They brought the fight to us. They made that call. You only did what you had to."

"There could've been another way," Charles whispers.

"There wasn't," Logan says. "Trust me."

Logan lets go of him, then. His words hang like absolution over Charles's head, just within reach, and Charles wishes he knew how to reach out and accept them.

"You don't have to admit I'm right," Logan says, sounding suddenly tired. "Just think about it, okay?"

Charles nods. He doesn't know what to say.

"Anyway," Logan says, voice suddenly back to its normal grumbling volume. "Beast's had Alex and Petra checking out the city. Hell of a place, Professor. Did you know there are three schools here?"

"I didn't," Charles says, grateful for the abrupt change in topic as he puts himself back together.

"Not that we'll be sending our kids off for Brotherhood brainwashing, but it's probably good to know what's out there."

"Agreed," Charles says, calmer now. He loosens his shoulders, draws in a deep breath that smoothes the remaining tension out of his back. "Tell me about the others. How is everyone settling in?"

He's obviously not meant to overhear the conversation between Erik and one of his generals.

The general is a brusque, imposing woman named Calamity, with little patience and even less tact—which is why Charles stays in the hall instead of stepping into Erik's office and making his presence known.

They're speaking in low voices, difficult to decipher even though the door sits ajar. Charles tends to avoid deliberately observing Erik's thoughts, but he harbors no such compunctions where Erik's lackeys are concerned. It's as much telepathy as it is blatant eavesdropping that allows him to observe the exchange.

"I'm not the only one with concerns," Calamity is saying, tone gritty and thoughts sharp. "I'm just the only one with the stones to say it to your face."

Something in the air, in the tightly wound frustration curling through both parties, tells Charles this conversation has been in progress for a while.

"I've always appreciated your candor," Erik says. His tone is conciliatory, and goes a long way towards placating his irate visitor. But even without entering Erik's mind, Charles recognizes the thin veneer concealing mounting impatience.

"Then I'm sure you can also appreciate my recommendations. It's dangerous to give him free rein. What if he chose to interfere? We have no protections against telepathic attack from within the walls of this base!"

"Charles Xavier is not a threat," Erik says, tone shifting suddenly dark. Charles can feel the shiver of fear this elicits in the general, but he can also feel the strength of her resolve, the force of her unabated concern.

"Magneto—"

"Enough," Erik snaps. "This subject is closed." The words carry the force of a direct order, and Charles senses just how difficult it is for Calamity to bite her tongue.

"Now," Erik continues in a fractionally lighter tone. "If there is anything else you feel a burning need to discuss…"

"There is, actually," she says. And when Erik simply arches an eyebrow at her from behind his desk, she continues without preamble, "When are you returning to the front lines?"

Erik's expression smoothes into an implacable mask.

"From your reports, it sounds like things are under control."

"They would be better than under control if you were there."

"I cannot be everywhere at once, Calamity. I have responsibilities here as well."

"Yes," Calamity agrees. "But those responsibilities have never kept you away from your main objectives for weeks at a stretch. Be honest, Magneto. It's not your local responsibilities keeping you in Villa Paz."

"Supposing you're right," Erik says, in a voice that denies nothing. "That decision is still mine to make. Unless you've usurped command while I wasn't looking?"

"Of course not. If I ever decide to mutiny, you'll be the first to know." There's more exasperation than threat in her tone, though Charles can still feel the frustration humming beneath her skin.

"Are we done here, then?" Erik asks.

"For now."

Charles is already inside her head, so it's simple enough to mute her perceptions of him when she steps out of Erik's office and into the corridor. She doesn't see him as she turns down the hall, disappearing around the corner with purposeful strides.

"You might as well come in, Charles," Erik calls through the wide open door.

Charles steps into the office without shame, tugging the door closed behind him.

"What was that all about?" Charles asks, feigning the barest hint of confusion.

"You, of course," Erik says, and his expression makes it clear he's not fooled for an instant by Charles's cautious dissembling. He stands abruptly from his desk, and the movement scrapes the tall, plush chair several inches back. His cape, draped unhurriedly over the back of the chair, swirls when Erik takes it in hand and settles it in place over his shoulders.

"Going somewhere important?" Charles asks. Generally within the confines of the central complex, Erik opts not to wear the heavy-looking garment.

"Just a walk," Erik says. "I could use some air. Join me?"

The question is clearly rhetorical, and Charles follows Erik into the hall.

Days pass more quickly than Charles expects here in Erik's city. Not so quickly that it feels like losing time, but enough that Charles sometimes finds himself wondering why all the minutes and hours are in such a hurry.

Charles tends towards unobtrusive clothing since arriving in Villa Paz. Dark colors, simple button-up shirts, no suit jackets. It feels important somehow to avoid drawing attention, perhaps as a counterbalance to the bright, striking colors Erik seems to favor even in his home territory.

Easier to blend into the background this way, the quiet figure at Erik's side.

Sometimes it works a little too well.

Charles doesn't try to mask his approach as he steps into Erik's office. When the precise, competent minion standing beside the desk doesn't taper to silence at his approach, Charles assumes the business portion of this particular meeting has already concluded.

He's surprised when he steps closer and sees the broad map spanning nearly the full length of Erik's desk. His eyes travel over bright markings, the broad strokes of careful strategy, troops and targets and terrain.

Erik has yet to demonstrate any limitations on his trust, but Charles still feels like this is something he shouldn't be seeing.

He feels the instant weight of Erik's attention on him, though Erik's eyes don't leave the map.

The officer is gesturing at a region with fewer markings than the rest. Untested territory. His voice is brusque and tinted with frustration.

"Yes, the chain of supply must originate somewhere in this region. But sir, there's too much ground to cover. We simply don't have the manpower to safely isolate where their munitions are coming from. Our more subtle incursions continue to be unsuccessful."

Charles looks down at the map, and after a moment's study realizes the contours are familiar. The valley the officer is gesturing at… Charles has never been there, he's sure of it, but he recognizes the lines of this map, the rough borders and vacant grid. His memory provides other lines, other markings. Without meaning to, he reaches forward and points to a strip of land between two small lakes.

"There's something here," he says. "Something important."

Two sets of startled eyes lock onto the spot his finger indicates, and Charles feels the jolt of their unguarded shock. Neither expected him to speak. They certainly didn't expect him to contribute, and even Charles isn't sure how he knows this information, never mind what made him share it.

Alongside Erik's shock, Charles discerns a wordless rush of questions. He shakes his head before Erik can ask them.

"I'm sorry. I don't know anything else. It might not even be reliable information."

In his peripheral vision he catches a quick exchange of looks across the desk, and then the officer nods.

"I'll assign a team to investigate immediately."

The man retreats, and then Erik's gaze shifts to Charles.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me?" Erik asks. His voice is soft, but there's no suspicion in either his tone or his eyes.

"No," Charles says numbly, and Erik lets it go.

The information turns out to be good.

Charles is back on Erik's balcony. He finds he spends most of his time here when he's not with his own people or exploring the rest of the city. It's not until the door opens and Erik steps through that Charles picks up the first hint of confirmation.

"Gill sent a covert team to the spot you indicated on his map," Erik says. "They discovered a subterranean munitions factory, powered by water from the lakes."

"You mean it was exactly what you were looking ," Charles says. He doesn't ask if they destroyed the factory. He already knows what the answer will be, and he'd rather not hear Erik say it out loud.

"Yes," Erik says. He crosses the smooth distance between them, joining Charles beside the high wall. He's not wearing his cape, though his high-collared shirt is still shockingly maroon. Their arms brush together when he leans against the wall, and the casual warmth of the contact sends a shiver down Charles's spine.

Charles doesn't try to break the silence that settles into the sunset-cool air between them, but eventually Erik speaks.

"Are you going to tell me how you knew?"

Charles has been thinking about that. Even without the confirmation of discovery, he's wondered where the images came from, why they were so clear in his mind. He has a theory, but it's not a pleasant one.

"You remember Agent Stryker," Charles says. It's not a question.

"Of course I remember that asshole. He was one of the biggest thorns in my side even before the humans declared open war. He's been quiet lately, but it's only a matter of time before he makes his next move."

"No," Charles says softly.

"No?" Erik stares at him, confusion evident on his face.

"No," Charles says, more firmly this time. "Stryker is dead."

"How?" Erik gapes. "I've been trying to get at him for years. Every time I get close he evades me. Are you sure he's dead and not just hiding?"

"He's dead," Charles repeats. "I killed him."

"Charles…" Erik starts, but tapers off when it becomes obvious there's nothing he can say.

"He lead the attack on the school," Charles says. "I didn't want to. I never thought… But I had no choice." He had no choice. Saying it now, the idea hits him like a revelation. Logan has said it. And others. But instead of relief, Charles feels the statement twine around him like hopelessness.

If this is absolution, why does Charles feel like the world is closing in to strangle him?

"The information came from him," Charles says, forcing himself back to the point he was trying to make. "At least, I think it did. I was in his head when he died, just like the rest of them."

"I'm sorry, Charles," Erik murmurs, and Charles hopes he's imagining the pity in his friend's voice.

A brittle snort of laughter escapes him, drawing Erik's attention, and Charles shakes his head. He stares out at the city instead of acknowledging Erik's stare. The temptation to rifle through his friend's thoughts is enormous—Charles wants to see what he's thinking, what his most guarded reactions are to this new revelation. But at the same time, Charles doesn't want to know. If it really is pity, the sentiment will crush him. If it's something else, something smug, it will destroy him just as thoroughly.

"If you're going to gloat, you might as well do it," Charles says. His voice is thick with the unfairness of the statement, but it sneaks past his lips anyway, defensive and sharp. "You were right after all. I was a fool to think peace could be forged with the likes of him in power."

"Don't be cruel, Charles," Erik says. "You know I have no interest in gloating."

"You called me naïve once. And arrogant."

Erik pushes away from the wall with stilted abruptness, and for a long moment Charles hears him pacing a short length of balcony, back and forth behind Charles, bleeding frustration with every step. Charles can feel the angry tumble of Erik's thoughts, indecipherable without closer examination, and he's not for a moment tempted to press deeper.

Erik finally falls still. The very last of the sunset is fading beyond the mountains, leaving the balcony dim with nightfall. Charles watches the final glow fade, silence in his ears. In his mind there's still the constant chaotic noise of the city, distant and unfamiliar thoughts. His own people are down there somewhere, close enough that Charles knows he could find them if he needed to.

When Erik moves, he doesn't resume his place at Charles's side. He steps close behind him instead, near enough that Charles can feel a murmur of body heat along his back. When Erik speaks, his voice rumbles intimately in Charles's ear.

"I never wanted to be right, Charles," Erik says. "I always hoped one day you'd prove me wrong."

"You didn't make an easy job of it," Charles murmurs. He curls further forward over the wall, chest pressing to cool metal, though his instincts tell him to lean back into Erik's inviting heat.

"I never wanted this for you," Erik whispers. The apology in his voice is stifling, and Charles draws an unsteady breath as Erik falls quiet.

For a long moment neither of them speaks. Charles shivers with the tension settling into his blood, the sense that he's missing a crucial point. Something is happening here, but the pattern eludes him.

A quiet anger rises to the surface of Erik's thoughts now, bright and obvious despite Charles's efforts not to intrude, and the protective ferocity of the feeling makes Charles gasp.

"I'd have killed them all myself, you know," Erik says, shattering the silence at last. "I'd have done anything to keep their blood off your hands."

And Charles can't help it. He laughs. Long and shattered, he laughs with all the hopeless, broken force of his inescapable guilt.

He doesn't quiet until Erik's hands grab at his shoulders and yank him around. There's something calming in the cool press of the metal wall against his back, the harsh grasp of Erik's fingers digging into his biceps. Even the momentary rush of fear in Erik's thoughts before he tamps those feelings down.

"Oh, my friend," Charles murmurs. There are tears stinging his eyes, and he imagines even in the settling darkness Erik must be able to see them. "You truly don't see it, do you. If you had killed them, the blood would still be on my hands. We're bound together, you and I."

Erik's flinch is almost imperceptible, but Charles sees it. Perhaps he admitted too much. He can see now that Erik truly never realized.

Charles takes personal responsibility for every death Erik has caused. They're bound too closely for him to do otherwise. Perhaps it's this, more than anything, that has kept him struggling for a peace that was never going to happen.

"This is different," Erik insists. "I would have spared you this."

"It's far too late for that."

Perhaps it's surrender he sees in Erik's eyes now. Perhaps it's nothing but tired resignation and guilty fatigue.

"I know," Erik admits.

But it takes him another full minute to drop his hands to his sides and step out of Charles's space.

Charles tries to spend time with Mystique whenever she turns up at Central, though such opportunities present themselves rarely.

She's clearly Erik's most trusted ally. Of course he has her out on his most important missions. Charles tries not to think about it too hard, because the thought of her in constant danger sets unhappy butterflies loose in his stomach.

She has yet to turn up injured, but Charles has been in Villa Paz for less than three weeks. He suspects it's only a matter of time, no matter how competent and strong a fighter she is.

"Stop worrying," she orders bluntly, nudging him with an elbow as they navigate the mostly empty corridors of the complex. "You're going to give yourself worry lines in the middle of your forehead. I'll only be gone a couple days this time."

"I already have worry lines," Charles says. "And that hardly makes me feel better."

Mystique rolls her eyes beside him, but fond exasperation softens her expression.

"What if I told you my girlfriend is psychic?" Mystique tries. "Would that make you feel better?"

Charles comes to an abrupt stop and blinks at her in surprise. It takes an extra step before she stops and turns, quirking a meaningful eyebrow at him. As though she doesn't understand why Charles has stopped moving. Charles knows better than to buy the practiced look of innocent confusion in her eyes. He can read the mischief on her familiar face, even if he's being very careful not to intrude directly in her thoughts.

"First of all, you never mentioned you had a girlfriend," Charles says. He knows he shouldn't feel irate about being left out of the loop—after all, the two of them have been adversaries for the better part of five years—but he's still family, isn't he? That should count for something.

"And second," he continues. "Psychic?

"Precognitive," Mystique clarifies. "How did you think Magneto found you hiding in the middle of nowhere?"

"He mentioned an acquaintance of his…"

"Her name is Destiny," Mystique says. Which is fitting, Charles supposes. He wonders if it's a given name or a deliberate choice like 'Mystique'. To a precognitive, perhaps there's little difference.

"When can I meet her?" Charles asks, cautiously reclaiming his place at her side, following her lead when she resumes their previous pace down the corridor.

"Probably not any time soon," Mystique says. She shrugs apologetically, throwing him a quick sideways glance. "She's holed up in a private hideout right now. I don't usually spend much time down here."

"Someday, though?" Charles presses. Because he is family. And even with so little to go on, the soft smile on Mystique's face is enough to tell him this woman makes her happy.

"Someday," Mystique concedes, and her smile quirks higher. "But only if you promise to make a good impression." She's teasing. Her tone lightens some of the tight, tense weight in Charles's chest.

"I always make a good impression," he says.

"Of course you do, Charles."

Charles smiles at her humoring tone as they continue down the hall.

It's late in the afternoon, Erik's quarters and a patient game of chess. Charles has been in this space several times already, but it still feels unfamiliar and disconnected. A tap on the door draws Charles's attention to the minds waiting behind it.

He startles, and blinks in surprise.

Erik arches an eyebrow at him, then stands and crosses the modest space. Surprise registers on his face when he opens the door and finds Mystique and Hank standing side by side in the corridor.

Charles doesn't ask what Hank is doing here, but he desperately wants to know. So far none of his former X-Men have set foot in the Brotherhood's central complex, despite Erik's offer to allow Charles an escort for the initial tour.

"Welcome to Central, Hank," Erik says, stepping aside just far enough to let his unexpected guests into the room. "What can I do for you two?"

"I was just giving Hank a tour of the facilities," Mystique says, careless and at ease in Erik's private space. "Is it all right if I show him the labs?"

Charles understands, then. Not what Hank is doing here in the first place, but why Mystique sought Erik out. She's looking for permission from her commanding officer, casual as the request might appear on the surface.

Everything all right, Hank? Charles asks, nudging with his thoughts and drawing Hank's attention.

Everyone's fine, Hank reassures, instantly recognizing and deciphering Charles's concern. I meant to check up on you, actually. But Mystique found me at the main security desk before I could even ask about you.

"Of course it's all right," Erik answers brusquely. If he notices the momentary detachment in Charles's eyes, or Hank's distant expression, he gives no indication. "Hell, put him to work. If he wants to get involved in any of the experiments, just find him a lab coat."

After they're gone, Charles gives Erik a confused look.

"Awfully trusting, aren't you?" he says. He's still in his seat beside the chessboard, and he watches Erik return in unhurried strides. Instead of reclaiming his seat, Erik remains standing for a moment. He's near enough to set a hand on the back of Charles's chair, and the leather creaks beneath his fingers as he looks consideringly down at Charles.

"You're not here to betray me," Erik says. "If you were, you'd have come to Villa Paz alone." Charles has to strain his neck to look up at Erik from this angle. "Besides, Mystique can handle him."

For a moment there's a glint of indecipherable intent in his eyes. Something bright and sharp, fierce in a way that knocks conflicting impulses loose in Charles's chest. Part of him wants to push, to find out what that look means. Another, smarter part of him shies instinctively away from his own curiosity.

The look disappears before Charles manages to declare either reaction victorious, and Erik moves back to his own side of the chessboard. He drops into his chair and leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. He steeples his fingers, taps them against his mouth, and regards Charles intently over his hands.

There's something too cautious in the gesture, or maybe in the look itself. Something not quite genuine in the calculated ease of Erik's posture.

"I think it's your move, Charles."

Charles glances down at the board, and tries to put his focus back into the game.

Hank must enjoy his tour of the labs, because he returns every day thereafter. Charles becomes accustomed to seeing his face first thing in the morning, and again in the evenings, just before Hank returns out into the city that is finally becoming home.

Charles accompanies him some of those evenings. He still has responsibilities to his people, his team, his charges. He owes it to them to stay close, even if his own stubborn sense of failure makes it easier to hide himself away at Central.

Charles has never been one to bury his head in the sand, much as some might accuse him of willful naïveté.

By the fourth day, Hank has settled in so thoroughly there's a broad-shouldered lab coat with his name on it. Charles sees him wearing it one afternoon when he accompanies Erik on an inspection. There's a hint of something almost like apology in Hank's eyes, in the rustle of his mind, and Charles takes him aside for a moment while Erik reviews figures on a metal clipboard.

"It's all right, you know," Charles says softly. "You're a scientist. I imagine you've been going a bit stir crazy with no lab equipment to work with."

"A little," Hank admits, looking sheepish.

"As long as you're not developing explosives or biological weapons for them, you'll get no complaints from me." No judgment, either. Charles isn't that much of a hypocrite.

"Thanks, Professor," Hank says, relief softening the tension in his enormous shoulders.

"And who knows," Charles says. "It won't be long before you've got some influence around here. Maybe you'll be able to sway them towards more constructive endeavors."

"Maybe," Hank says with a small smile.

Charles spends more time exploring the city, though Logan starts insisting he take someone with him. He stops short of saying Charles needs an escort, but he insists nonetheless.

Charles finds he doesn't mind the company. Alex, Petra, sometimes Logan himself. They all know how to move quietly and observe. There's conversation, but mostly they simply watch and take in the city around them.

The more closely Charles observes the city, the more problems he sees.

It's a safe place. Perhaps even a happy one. But even Erik's protected sanctuary shows the strain of war. Gaunt faces show the food supply is not quite sufficient, and buildings stand neglected where the regular upkeep has been rerouted to more important tasks. Eerie quiet lingers in the streets long before dark, though the population is active enough through the daylight hours.

There are too many hospitals.

But for all his wanderings, Charles never stays long away from Erik's side.

"Did you see anything new today?" Erik always asks when Charles returns—to his office, his chambers, the main floor conference room where an imposing line of officers is just meandering out the door.

"Oh yes," Charles always says, because the answer has yet to be no.

Charles skirts Erik's thoughts like a constant temptation. More than three weeks since Erik took off the helmet, and Charles still feels a rush of relieved satisfaction at knowing Erik's mind is within reach. He walks a thin line, indulging in Erik's presence without wrapping himself deeply enough to invade Erik's privacy.

"I can feel you rummaging around up there, Charles," Erik says over another game of chess. They're in Erik's quarters again, sitting in the same positions. Charles feels caught-out and guilty, but not so startled that he misses the note of light teasing in Erik's voice. The tone of the words perplexes him, and he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry," he says, capturing Erik's knight with his remaining rook.

But Erik smiles, open and incautious, and says, "I don't mind. As long as you don't intend to interfere with my plans, you can go as deep as you like."

But Charles draws back instead of accepting Erik's invitation. He doesn't want to go deeper.

That's not entirely true, he has to concede. He does want to go deeper. It terrifies him, sometimes, how badly he wants. Erik's mind is a siren song of raw temptation, fierce and bright and almost irresistible.

But Charles is already complicit in everything Erik does, simply for not stopping him. He doesn't want to look more closely and know all the things he isn't stopping.

"Check," Charles says, staring stubbornly at the pieces instead of meeting Erik's eyes.

Erik watches him for long, strained minutes, before reaching down to take his turn.

Charles wakes the next morning to a smothering sense of foreboding, exactly one month after his first glimpse of Villa Paz.

His small room in the deep recesses of Central feels claustrophobic in a way it never has before, and when he reaches out with his mind he realizes Erik isn't in the room next door. Charles rises quickly, dresses just as fast, already reaching out with his telepathic senses. He pinpoints Erik's location in his office, high in the tower above.

There's no immediate sense of danger. Erik's surface emotions register no alarm, no surprise, no fear. Charles doesn't know why there's a twist in his gut telling him something is wrong, but he hurries just the same, willing the lift faster as it carries him up, floor by floor.

"Good morning, Charles," Erik says when Charles steps through the door. His tone is mild, but a darker undercurrent disturbs the practiced calm of his thoughts. Charles doesn't even close the door before rushing to Erik's side.

Rather than sitting at his desk, Erik is standing in front of it, poring over a small stack of papers that he holds in tense hands. His cape is still draped over one corner of the tall-backed chair behind the desk, but despite its absence from his shoulders, Erik looks like he's poised for action—as though Charles caught him at the starting line for a race, just waiting for the starting pistol.

"You didn't wake me," Charles observes. It's the first morning Charles has woken truly alone in his room, rather than to the soft rapping at his door and the push of Erik's mind beyond it. He wants to reach out now and set a hand on Erik's wrist—to ground himself, to draw Erik's attention away from whatever those papers say.

He keeps his hands at his sides.

"You seemed tired last night," Erik hedges. "And I had business to see to."

That's not right. Erik hasn't felt the need to shield his business from Charles since he took the helmet off. Why would he start now?

"What is it?" Charles asks. The question twists tight in his throat, comes out sounding stiff and scared. "Erik, what's wrong?"

"I'm needed on the front lines," Erik says, setting the papers on his desk. "I've been away for more than a month. Any longer would be inexcusable."

"Has something happened?" Charles asks, anxiety winding tight in his chest.

"No," Erik says, and Charles can't tell if it's an honest answer without looking deeper. "It's simply time. I'm needed, and I've been away too long."

Charles understands well enough. Erik isn't the kind of leader to stand by and watch other people fight his battles. It's amazing he's held himself back from the action even this long, and Charles understands now why the dull weight of foreboding has him so twisted up inside. The thought of Erik out there, doing God knows what, facing God knows what, terrifies him on too many levels to count.

Unexpected silence stretches between them, a sudden trap snapping shut, and Charles isn't so wrapped up in his own concern that he misses the strain spreading through Erik's posture. There's a noiseless hum of some ragged, ephemeral tension in the air—a pulse of anticipation that Charles can neither identify nor explain.

Something is happening here. Happening or about to happen. And Charles has no idea what.

The silence, when Erik breaks it, spins and shatters with the force of an attack.

"Are you coming with me?"

"What?" Charles gasps.

He looks at Erik harder now, touches the unhappy tangle of his thoughts, and finds anxiety there. Fear. Erik is afraid his question will push Charles away, and suddenly Charles can't breathe.

"It's time for you to choose," Erik says. He's staring at the desk, his neck taut and his face sharply in profile. "I don't want to force your hand. I never meant for it to be an ultimatum. But if you're not coming with me, I need to put the helmet back on."

The floor nearly drops out from beneath Charles at the words, and he wonders that he could've forgotten. He's gotten complacent, almost comfortable in this sanctuary of Erik's making. He'd forgotten there was still business unconcluded between them.

There are words Charles should be saying here. Confirm, deny, beg for more time… He needs to say something, but he can't seem to remember how. His voice is lodged like ice in his throat, and maybe that's why he's suddenly shivering. Or it could be the way Erik's focus is smothering him, despite the downward cast of his eyes, as he waits for Charles to reply.

Charles doesn't know what answer Erik wants. There's ambivalence twisted up in his emotions, the conflicting urges to keep Charles by his side or to keep Charles locked safely away in this tower.

If Erik were set firmly enough in his own wants, perhaps Charles could decide. He's got so few defenses where Erik is concerned. He might well be swayed by a more determined stance.

But Erik clearly doesn't know what answer he's hoping for, and Charles…

Charles has never felt so uncertain in his life.

His voice is still impossible to find, but instinct moves him closer to Erik. Tension pulls Erik's body even more taut at his approach, but Charles is still in motion, and a moment later his hand settles high on Erik's arm.

The contact ignites between them, the room's mounting tension snapping free in an instant. Erik moves, an unexpected rush of speed, and Charles gasps as Erik's body curls close and presses against him—as Erik's fingers thread through his hair and cup the back of Charles's skull.

Emotion rushes along Erik's thoughts, possessive and nameless, and Charles breathes a surprised sound at the bruising press of Erik's desk against the backs of his thighs.

"Erik!" Charles's voice unlocks just in time for the crush of Erik's mouth to silence him.

Erik's hands on him are restless, and the grasping touches set loose something frantic and fevered in Charles's chest. He's terrified. How long has he been running from this? How long has he been looking the other way instead of owning up to whatever this is between them? Long enough to acknowledge the exercise for a farce, certainly. Charles knows better than to pretend surprise, even in the privacy of his own mind.

He parts his lips at the first eager touch of Erik's tongue.

There's nothing gentle about this kiss. Erik's mouth is greedy, his every touch a command exposing the rough desperation driving him. Erik needs this, Charles realizes, and fear and arousal spike through him in equal measure. He doesn't know how to face the intensity of Erik's desire.

Charles parts his legs when Erik's body nudges closer. He makes space for Erik to press against him, an unrelenting line of heat, and Erik's hands lift Charles higher, setting him on the edge of the desk before dragging him closer still. Charles has to tilt his head sharply back to accommodate this new angle, and his neck strains, but his body offers no resistance to Erik's wordless demands.

One of Charles's hands curls tightly over the edge of the desk, fingers trembling and knuckles white. His other clutches in the fabric of Erik's shirt, grasping with desperation that could belong to either one of them.

When Erik ends the kiss, he doesn't pull away. He doesn't let go, and neither does Charles. There's no physical distance between them, save for the sliver of air they're breathing, and Charles reels at the overwhelming flood of Erik filling his senses.

He doesn't open his eyes, but he feels Erik watching him. He feels the ragged rise and fall of Erik's chest against his own, the tangle of fingers in his hair. His lips tingle with the echoes of Erik's kiss.

Even wrapped up in Erik like this, body and mind, Charles should know better than to let his guard down. He shouldn't be surprised when a ferocious growl splits the stillness, or a second later when the heat of Erik's body vanishes abruptly. Charles hears a sharp thud, then silence, and his eyes are already open, searching for—

There's Erik on the floor with Hank's hand around his throat. Blue claws prick at the skin beneath Erik's jaw, and Charles is relieved at least that Erik doesn't seem inclined to put up a fight. There's a violent snarl splitting Beast's face, his fur shivering with barely contained rage. Charles has no doubt that if Erik begins to struggle, Beast will tear him apart.

"Hank," Charles says, sending the name simultaneously into his mind, soothing thoughts, entreating calm.

It doesn't work. Hank's hand tightens around Erik's throat, and blood beads where one of his claws breaks the skin.

Erik's expression is an implacable poker face, but Charles can sense beneath the surface. He knows in a moment Erik will move to defend himself.

Charles also knows, if that happens, someone is going to die.

Chapter Text

Anti-mutant legislation was at a new peak when the anonymous man in the suit turned up asking questions.

Charles was already familiar with the type. Government agent. Nosy and full of unpleasant intentions. The man was spindly and tall, with silver-dusted hair and a strikingly pleasant face. His mind was an oily wash of murky intentions, and Charles knew even before the man rang the doorbell exactly what would have to be done.

It took time and finesse, and a large number of very precise sedatives.

Hank assisted with the latter, but the rest was all on Charles.

He worked slowly, deliberate and cautious. He delved deep into the unconscious mind, and meticulously sculpted the memories he needed this man to have.

When the agent left, it would be to report that there was nothing amiss in Westchester. That Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was precisely and only what it purported to be. A private school full of talented children, with no larger secrets than their list of yearly donors.

Charles slept for three days after he finished, confident his efforts were worth the cost.

"Hank, stand down!" Charles shouts, raising his voice this time. He hopes the command will get through where a more gentle admonition has failed.

It works, at least a little. Hank still perches threateningly over Erik's chest, still holds his throat in the grip of claws that could too easily slice through to the jugular, but he eases up enough that Charles knows he's been heard.

Charles slides off the desk and stands on unsteady legs. He keeps his distance, cautious as he circles to the side. He's careful not to make any sudden moves.

"Hank, let him go," Charles says, firm but low. White teeth still flash in a blunt snarl, and the sight does nothing to calm Charles's nerves.

Are you all right, Professor? Hank asks without complying. The words echo clear and concise in Charles's head, and the question is shadowed with confusion. Charles arches his eyebrows high.

Of course I'm all right, he answers. Why wouldn't—?

But he sees it, then. The whole scene, illuminated in a glaring flash. He sees Erik's office through Hank's eyes. The broad desk, the bulk of Erik's body penning Charles in against the solid piece of furniture, hands restraining him as Erik—

"Hank, no," Charles blurts, louder than he intends. Hank's head swivels to look at him then, snarl fading in a wash of confusion. "Hank," Charles continues, forcing his voice softer. "He wasn't hurting me. I need you to let him go."

Hank's eyes are skeptical. But after a moment's hesitation, he complies. He stands quickly, a restless blur of blue. Charles drops to his knees beside Erik as Erik slowly sits up.

Erik's eyes stay locked warily on Hank even after his retreat.

"Are you all right?" Charles asks, setting a gentle hand on Erik's shoulder.

"Fine," Erik answers tersely. He regards Hank coolly for a moment and then, without acknowledging the hand Charles still has resting on his arm, says, "If I stand up, are you going to try and rip my throat out?"

Hank spares a glance for Charles before reluctantly answering, "No."

Erik still moves with calculated caution, shaking off Charles's hand as he rises to his feet. Charles follows, stomach knotting unhappily. His eyes dart between Erik and Hank, fearful—quite legitimately, he thinks—that violence may erupt anew.

Hitting Hank with one last glare, Erik finally turns to Charles.

"You don't have to answer now," Erik says. He pitches his voice low, as if that will make his words more private despite Hank's presence. "I leave with my team at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow. That's when I need your decision."

Thankfully, he doesn't bother waiting for Charles to think of something to say. He moves efficiently, collecting his cape from behind the desk. He settles it artfully across his shoulders as he crosses the room, and a moment later he's gone. The door swings shut behind him, clicking sullenly into place.

"What decision?" Hank asks, eyeing Charles suspiciously.

Charles stifles a tired sigh and crosses his arms over his chest.

"If it's all the same, Hank, I would rather keep that to myself for now." Because he knows what Hank will say about Erik's offer, and at the moment he doesn't want to hear it.

Hank is still eyeing him like he's got some idea what's up, but if he has any specific suspicions he at least has the sense not to voice them.

"I'm… sorry," Hank finally says. The word sounds grudging and unsure, and more than a shade uncomfortable. "If I overreacted before, I mean. I didn't know—"

"It's all right," Charles lies, turning his back to hide the flush creeping over his cheeks. He's already confused enough by what just happened between himself and Erik—he doesn't need the added embarrassment of knowing Hank saw them, or the awkward revelation that Hank thought he needed rescuing.

"The door was open," Hank adds, a defensive volley.

"I know," Charles says, trying to will the blush from his cheeks and not succeeding.

There's a pause, stilted and uncomfortable, and then Hank asks, "Do you… want to talk? About… anything?" About Erik, he means. About whatever the hell it was that he just walked in on. His reluctance bleeds out between the words, along the edges of his thoughts, and Charles swallows the unkind bark of laughter that wants to escape in response.

"Do you?" he asks, trying to lighten his tone enough that Hank will drop the offer.

"Not particularly," Hank concedes after a brief delay. Discomfort rumbles unhappily in his voice as he continues, "I'm sorry I interfered. Hell, Professor, I didn't know you two were…"

"We're not," Charles replies too quickly. Then, because he knows he won't get away with leaving it at that, he adds, "It's complicated."

"I see," Hank says. From his voice and his thoughts, he obviously doesn't.

"Was there something you needed, Hank?" Charles asks, suddenly tired. Resigning himself to the fact that the blush won't be retreating any time soon, he finally turns and meets Hank's worried stare.

"Oh," Hank blinks. "There's… Yes, but that's… I wanted to run something past you, but it can wait."

It probably should wait, Charles concedes. All he wants to do right now is escape into the heart of the complex and hide. Hardly a productive frame of mind for whatever it is Hank wants to discuss.

"Another time, then, perhaps?" Charles asks.

"Sure. I'll just… I'll talk to you about it later. There are some things I should finish in the lab anyway."

Charles watches him retreat, then waits another five minutes before exiting the office himself.

Charles passes the day in a haze. He doesn't sleep that night—not more than a couple of scant hours—but next door he can feel the flickering, ephemeral edges of Erik's dreams.

He could slip inside so easily. All it would take is a gentle nudge, a mental touch soft enough that Erik wouldn't wake. He would never even realize Charles was there.

It's tempting. Charles has wondered more than once what form Erik's subconscious finds for him in dreams.

He resists the urge easily enough, though. It's hardly a new temptation, after all. Charles has been resisting the desire to delve too deeply into Erik's mind since he first set foot in Villa Paz. Since even before that, if he's going to be honest. Besides, Erik may well be dreaming about tomorrow's duties. His mission, his battle, the warzone he'll be stepping into.

And maybe his weakness is unforgivable, but Charles still doesn't want to know.

Erik rises well before oh-six-hundred, and Charles meets him at the door before Erik's even considered knocking.

Erik's eyes on him are steady. Piercing. He's already dressed in his usual tunic and cape. He's not carrying the helmet Charles half expects to see in his hands.

Charles spent the entire night avoiding Erik's question, mind running in exhausted circles and refusing to go anywhere near the looming decision. The weight of it is stifling, even now, and Charles finds he can't approach the issue with anything resembling rational thought.

But perhaps rational thought doesn't enter into the equation. Standing here, meeting the force of Erik's focus—part fear, part hope, part something Charles can't afford to process right now—Charles realizes he already knows what his answer needs to be.

"I'm sorry," Charles says. His voice is still graveled from sleep. "I can't."

Erik's reaction is impossible to read on his face, and his thoughts are too messy a jumble.

"Try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone," Erik says. His tone is deliberately teasing, an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.

"I will." Then, as Erik turns to leave, Charles reaches, grabs at Erik's arm without conscious intent. His voice catches, suddenly useless, and his throat feels tight and anxious. He shivers when Erik's eyes return to his face, unexpected heat flashing in their depths.

"What is it, Charles?"

Charles swallows, hunts down his voice, and finally says, "Be safe, my friend." The admonishment feels inadequate on his tongue, but what else can he say? Erik has to return to him in one piece. The alternative is too painful to consider.

Erik's expression tightens at the words, eyes flashing warmer as he takes a step closer to Charles. Charles feels a twist of something dangerous in his chest, an urge to sway nearer and fall into Erik's orbit.

He holds his ground by crumbling willpower alone, and a moment later Erik steps back. Charles's hand falls to his side.

"I will," Erik says, and it sounds like a promise.

Charles is tempted to avoid Hank, even after Erik departs, but doing so would only postpone the inevitable.

He finds Hank in a quiet corner of Lab 16. The lab is well lit and not the slightest bit claustrophobic, despite the fact that it's buried twenty floors beneath the mountain. Blue fur sits squashed at an odd angle by the collar of Hank's white lab coat, and the thin frames of his glasses sit high on his nose.

Charles approaches with his hands in his pockets, noting that the room is empty but for the two of them. Probably a result of the early hour. It's barely past seven a.m.

"Good morning, Hank," Charles says. Hank doesn't start at either his approach or his greeting—he probably heard the footsteps even before Charles came through the door. Hank's senses are second only to Logan's, and Charles has long since learned not to underestimate them.

"Good morning," Hank says without looking up from the wires he's soldering together. It takes him a moment to set aside his work. Finally he raises his eyes and swivels towards Charles on his stool.

"You wanted to discuss something with me," Charles says. He steps closer to the counter, mindful of the experiments and supplies lining the surface. He keeps his demeanor casual, his shoulders relaxed.

Hank is too astute not to notice his discomfort, despite the façade. Charles still feels unsteady when he thinks about what Hank saw, what Hank thought he saw. But if they both pretend hard enough, maybe Charles can convince himself otherwise.

Hank hesitates, and the pause lasts long enough that Charles skims the surface of his thoughts, careful but deliberate. It's not yesterday giving him pause, Charles realizes. It's whatever subject he's about to broach. There's something almost like guilt coloring the caution in Hank's eyes, and Charles cocks his head to the side, trying not to let concern tint his expression.

"I was thinking about rebuilding Cerebro," Hank finally says, and Charles blinks in surprise.

"How?" he asks, realizing only after the word is out of his mouth that this might not be the most important question.

"There's a new wing under construction a couple floors down, on the west side of the complex. I haven't mentioned my idea to any of the others. But I think, considering the potential benefits, they would provide me with the necessary space and materials."

"You've given this a lot of thought," Charles notes, trying to catch up. Trying to decide how he feels about this new information.

"If you don't like the idea, I'll drop it here and now," Hank says, folding his arms over his chest. "But I hope you'll hear me out first."

"Of course," Charles says. He's relieved, at least, that any lingering awkwardness has vanished in the face of this vital exchange. There's a precipice hovering nearby, a decision at least as momentous as the one Erik upended on him last night. Charles can't help thinking he should dismiss Hank's suggestion out of hand. Perhaps once upon a time he would have, but now he's going to hear out the arguments.

"I've been thinking about it since we got here," Hank admits. His posture loosens slightly as he peers at Charles over the rims of his glasses. Charles pulls a stool over and sits beside the bench, and Hank continues, "I know Cerebro is a dangerous tool, and the last thing we want to do is put that kind of weapon in the Brotherhood's hands."

"But?" Charles prompts, bracing himself for the opening volley.

"But you're the only telepath in Villa Paz. And you're definitely the only telepath Magneto trusts. Which means the chances of anyone but you trying to plug into the interface are slim."

"Slim but not nonexistent," Charles points out carefully.

"Yes," Hank concedes. "But I'm also pretty sure I could modify the design so that Cerebro would respond only to your specific biochemistry."

"Is that possible?" Charles asks. His eyes widen, and he knows his surprise is obvious on his face.

"I've built Cerebro from scratch twice now, Professor," Hank says, a hint of a smile curling his lip at the corner. "It's definitely possible."

"I need to give this some thought."

"Take your time," Hank says. "You know where to find me."

Charles gives Hank the go-ahead less than four hours later.

Hank has his space, his materials and a green light from the head of the engineering lab by the end of the day.

There's not much Charles can do to help with the initial stages of Hank's work. Instead, the first evening after Erik's departure sees Charles returning to a familiar corner of the city.

He's only been absent for three days, but in that time someone has hung a broad, understated sign over the tall front entrance. "Xavier Academy", the sign reads. Charles stumbles at the threshold, and wastes an awkward moment staring up at the inconspicuous lettering, the arch of the words. There's no one here to see him pause, thankfully. The minds inside are all focused and occupied. He isn't expected tonight.

Charles realizes, grudgingly, that he has come to think of this building—central in the neighborhood occupied by the mutants he will always consider his—as a school. He's seen the structure pulling slowly together in the weeks since their arrival, teachers instructing despite the lack of their previous resources, the continued nurture of young minds even in Charles's conspicuous absence.

He's been gone too much. He should have been more involved.

The sign hanging over the door should never have come as a surprise.

Charles braces himself, finally, and steps through and into the cool corridor beyond. The doors swing shut behind him, clicking back into place.

"Professor!" comes Sean's startled voice when Charles rounds the first corner.

"Hello, Sean. Sorry to invade unannounced."

Sean only grins. The expression sits surprisingly easily on his face, and he shakes his head, fond exasperation blunting the surprise in his thoughts.

"Have you eaten yet?" Sean asks. "Dinner's still on in the cafeteria, if you're hungry."

Charles isn't particularly hungry, but as he's barely eaten all day, he nods.

"That sounds wonderful," he says, and follows Sean to the stairs at the end of the hall.

The cafeteria is in a wide, tall-ceilinged space several floors beneath ground level. In every corner of Villa Paz, habitation extends several stories further beneath the mountain than above. Added security, Charles supposes. Plenty of space for the populace to stay out of harm's way if the city's clever hiding place is ever discovered.

This particular room was clearly intended for other purposes. Some kind of conference center, perhaps. The carpet is brightly colored, but already shows signs of wear, fading from the constant footfalls of teachers and students and whoever lived here before.

Charles eats without particularly noticing his meal. He talks to the people who make themselves comfortable at the table he shares with Sean. Alex, especially, and John. Faculty reporting in as though Charles is still in charge, and again he feels the guilty twist of his own negligence. He shouldn't need these updates, certainly not all in a single rush of information, quick and efficient as though he could disappear again at any moment.

But for all his discomfort, Charles accepts the updates with composure and encouragement. He's greedy to know what he's missed.

The students are progressing, settling into the unfamiliar routine of this new space. The adults are regaining their footing, learning to teach their subjects without the tools and equipment at their previous disposal. Literature still receives as much focus as math and science—all subjects equally important, despite the war Charles knows is still tearing the globe apart. Maybe more important thanks to the war. So much has already been lost.

There are other subjects, too. Subjects revolving around the wide range of mutant abilities, as hours are spent teaching the children to accept and control a staggering variety of talents. Some abilities can be practiced within the confines of the school. There's a sturdy bunker at the very bottom of the sub-basements that comprise the subterranean portion of the building. The two floors immediately above it are kept empty at pertinent hours of the day.

But some talents are too volatile for even such sturdy confines. Alex's ability comes to mind. And his younger brother Scott, still so hesitant, so careful of the damage he might inadvertently cause. Ororo, with her ability to twist the very wind to suit her moods, poses a similar challenge.

Those talents require excursions down the mountain, away from the city. The field trips are conducted with ceremony and caution. Charles knew about them—he hasn't been completely unavailable—but he's surprised at how far they've progressed. They've become as regular a fixture of the school week as the physics exams administered to the older students.

"This is extraordinary," Charles murmurs, when he and Sean are alone in an otherwise empty cafeteria, more than two hours later. "You've all done amazing things with this place."

"You think that's impressive," Sean beams, sitting smugly back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "Then get this: some of the locals have started enrolling their kids with us."

"You're kidding," Charles says.

"No joke." Sean grins wider. "Word's out, Professor. Everyone wants in on the Xavier Academy curriculum." He leans forward, propping his elbows on the table. A more serious expression settles on his face as he says, "We haven't changed anything, you know. About the standards or the messages we teach. But it hasn't slowed people down. If anything, it seems like we're getting more attention from the locals."

"Maybe even the Brotherhood is getting tired of fighting."

"They're not all Brotherhood, is the thing," Sean says. His brow furrows, concentration evident on his face. "The Brotherhood protects them, sure. Everyone seems ready to do their part, and most of the families here have at least one member out there, either working at Central or on the front lines. But it's just a city, like any other."

"An invisible city in the mountains," Charles adds helpfully.

"Well sure." Sean shrugs. "But still. Just a city. A bunch of people who want to know their loved ones are safe. I think we could do a lot of good here."

Charles has always been proud of his people, but he's overwhelmed by the even stronger rush of pride he feels now. There's genuine hope there, in Sean's words, in the thoughts behind them. Hope and determination, and the idea that the future is something worth salvaging. It's an idea Charles realizes guiltily that he's begun to despair of recently.

His voice feels tight, his chest raw with emotion as Charles finally says, "I think you may be right."

Charles doesn't return to Central that night.

Instead he settles into a spare room at the Academy. The room is a tiny suite on the third floor, above ground level, with a window facing a narrow courtyard.

Alex shows him the way, then hovers in the door as Charles takes it all in, an unvoiced Is there anything else you need? balancing in the air between them. Charles hasn't brought a change of clothes, but when curiosity drives him to tug open a drawer in the squat bureau by the bed, he discovers it doesn't matter. There are shirts, slacks, not many but certainly enough to suffice. He has no doubt the materials are near enough to his size.

"This is perfect, Alex, thank you," Charles says, closing the drawer again.

"No problem," Alex says. His shoulders are slouched, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. His face is cautious in a way that would tell Charles he has something on his mind, even if it weren't evident enough to Charles's other senses.

"What is it, Alex?" Charles asks. He sits on the edge of the narrow bed and gestures at the room's only chair, tucked against the wall barely a foot and a half away.

Alex hesitates only briefly before tugging the door closed and moving to accept the offered seat. He hunches forward, dropping his elbows onto his knees and interlacing his fingers. Charles watches him fidget, doing his best not to interrupt. Eventually Alex raises his eyes from the floor.

"Are you really staying?" he asks.

And there it is again, the wriggle of guilt beneath Charles's ribs. The answer should be 'yes'. Instant and unflinching. Charles's place is here, and he should know it surely enough to offer Alex the reassurance he's clearly seeking.

"For now," Charles says instead. It's the best he can do at the moment. It's also obviously not the answer Alex wants. "Alex," Charles continues, preempting the inevitable protest. "It's only a matter of time before Erik returns. I'll try to be better at staying involved, but I can't ignore my other obligations."

"Obligations?" Alex gapes. "He's Magneto. What can you possibly owe him?"

"It's complicated," Charles says, trying to ignore the inadequacy of the words. "And let's not forget that the entire reason we're here and safe is thanks to Erik's invitation."

"The invitation wasn't supposed to come with strings attached," Alex points out unhappily. "But somehow since we got here it's like you and him are joined at the hip. A month ago he was the enemy, remember?"

Charles drops his gaze. He stares at a ragged spot of carpet and tries to collect his thoughts into a more useful response.

"Are you fucking him?" Alex asks, and Charles's head snaps up so fast his neck twinges.

"What?"

"Are you fucking him?" Alex repeats, expression unrepentant. He doesn't flinch beneath the weight of Charles's shocked stare. He just squares his shoulders and juts his chin forward, patient and determined and completely unapologetic.

Charles's first instinct is to retort, in no uncertain terms, that his relationship with Erik is none of Alex's business. His second instinct is to ask if Hank said something.

Charles ignores both of those urges and finally manages to answer, "No."

"But it's complicated," Alex parrots, unimpressed.

"Yes."

The moment stretches tense and unpleasant between them, guilt and frustration setting them both on edge. Charles swallows back a hundred apologies, all useless in the face of the knowledge that he'll be back at Central the second Erik beckons. Finally Alex sighs, shoulders slumping as his expression loses its sharp edges and transforms into something that's simply tired.

"I'm not saying we aren't doing okay here," Alex says. "Even without you most of the time… You built a good team. We've got it covered. But Professor. Charles. You belong here. Not out there in some secret bunker." Not with him, Alex's mind adds vehemently, and worry bleeds unmuted through the words.

"He needs me," Charles says helplessly.

"I'm not arguing that," Alex says. "Of course he needs you. You're Charles-fucking-Xavier." There's fondness in the words, despite the bitter fatigue, but then Alex shakes his head and adds, "But lately it seems like you need him just as bad, and I gotta wonder when that happened."

Charles doesn't know how to explain that he never stopped needing Erik. He doesn't know how to make Alex understand something that, even now, Charles can't seem to decipher for himself.

His need for Erik runs so deep he's not sure he'll ever untangle it. Even if he knew how to put it into words, Charles doesn't think he could bear to put that knowledge on Alex's shoulders.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here," Charles says. The words come out soft, almost hesitant.

"You never teach anymore," Alex says. It sounds like a non-sequitur, but Charles knows it isn't. There's no accusation in the words, but the challenge is unmistakable. Alex isn't asking for an explanation. He's hoping Charles will step up and accept the challenge.

But Charles feels tired. Tired of fighting, tired of carrying the wrong torch, tired of preaching the wrong message.

"Oh, Alex," he says. "What can I possibly still have to teach?"

He wishes he couldn't see the heartbreak in Alex's eyes quite so clearly.

Cerebro comes together with shocking speed, and before long Hank starts dragging Charles back to Central for the final stages of the process.

Mystique shows up on the final day, just as Hank is shooing Charles out the door, telling him that's the last he needs for his calibrations, that Charles should come back tomorrow to test the system.

Charles is surprised for a moment, then remembers what little Mystique has told him about Destiny. Mystique's presence is probably less eerie timing, and more a warning that now would be a good time to check in.

"Erik is going to be furious if you plug yourself into that thing while he's gone," she informs him, leaning casually against the wall with her arms crossed. She's been waiting patiently in the corridor outside the chamber for at least fifteen minutes—possibly longer. Charles was a little wrapped up in the process of letting Hank poke and prod at the telepathic centers of his brain before that.

"Would he consider it mutiny?" Charles asks, smiling despite himself. Mystique snorts and rolls her eyes.

"No," she says, falling into step beside him as he starts down the corridor, towards the lift at the end of the hall. "He'll just be pissed you didn't wait. You might have noticed he's a little protective."

Charles doesn't confirm, but of course he's noticed.

"You're going to do it anyway, aren't you," Mystique says. Disapproval darkens her voice, but there's excitement at the edges of her thoughts, obvious and bright. She clearly wants Hank's design to work—she must be able to see the advantages Cerebro would offer the Brotherhood, even in whatever limited capacity Charles will agree to.

"Hank will have the system ready to go live tomorrow," Charles says. The words themselves are neither confirmation nor denial, but Charles knows Mystique will read the underlying affirmative in his voice.

"I want to be there," she says. The statement bears the weight of command, and Charles knows her reasons for asking are far from personal. In Erik's absence, Mystique is in charge. If she wants to be present for what is essentially a controlled experiment, Charles is in no position to deny her. "I mean it, Charles," she says when he's too long in responding. "If you hook yourself into that thing without my go-ahead, there'll be hell to pay."

"All right," Charles concedes. "We'll wait for you."

Maybe it's the fact that it's been nearly two months since Charles reached out with that powerful, extra push, but connecting with Cerebro is as intense and overwhelming as the very first time.

It takes Charles several moments to orient, and longer still to adjust to the surge of so many thousands of mutant minds in close proximity.

But it's glorious, a burst of energy, of raw purpose, and Charles feels like he's soaring as he reaches further, searching out the bright spots of color at the edges of his awareness, the touch of countless mutant minds just out of reach.

He sees them with shocking clarity. Perhaps that's thanks to the precision of Hank's new system, the way it's tuned so closely into Charles's own mind and body chemistry. He sees both children and adults. Hiding, fighting, pretending to be normal. He sees the world around them through borrowed eyes. Fires, broken buildings, darkened skies. He sees sunsets that burn more brightly than normal, thanks to the pollution war has thrown into the air.

Mystique takes the list from Hank when Charles finally ends the session and removes himself from the machine. Charles senses her intentions immediately, and offers her a wry smile.

"Don't you think Erik would prefer you wait for him?"

"The mutants on this list," Mystique says instead of answering, indicating the printout of coordinates. "Do they have that kind of time?"

The smile falls instantly from Charles's face, and he shakes his head. No, the mutants on that list are the ones that drew his attention stronger than most. They're the young, the terrified, the cornered.

"You could come with me," she says, oddly hesitant. "We'd probably find them faster."

Charles is tempted. The thought of stepping outside the walls of this city, of putting himself somewhere he could actually do some good… He feels dizzy with the possibility, and for a moment he actually considers Mystique's offer.

But eventually he shakes his head.

"I can't," he says. He doesn't explain why. The school—his efforts to stay more involved, more accessible—are reason enough.

But he knows the real reason is that he doesn't want to risk being gone when Erik returns. The thought of Erik returning to Villa Paz, to the corridors of Central, and finding Charles gone… It's enough to set Charles's teeth on edge. He doesn't know why exactly. He just knows, almost instinctively, that it would be a bad idea.

He admits none of this to Mystique, but the look she gives him says she understands all too well.

Charles may have opted not to accompany Mystique himself, but he doesn't hesitate to insist that she take Logan along on her venture. The team she's assembling is competent enough, but Charles wants to know they're the best. He'd insist she take an entire team of former X-Men if he thought she could be swayed.

She agrees to include Logan easily enough, at least. There's a glinting respect in her eyes when Logan turns up in the hangar, dressed in denim and flannel rather than the leather of a combat suit—nothing unusual there—and nods to her in terse greeting.

"Try not to burn the place down while we're gone, Charles," Mystique says as she boards a sleek jet. Logan simply touches Charles's shoulder on his way past, and Charles nods, grateful to know he'll be there.

Mystique and company return two days later with three of the mutants from Charles's list. Two of them are children, one a surly teenager, and Charles takes the time to speak at length with each of them after they've had a meal and a good night's sleep.

Charles has never considered himself to be particularly good with children—ironic, considering his calling—but he knows this is important. He touched their minds. He found them. They're here because of him.

All three are terrified. Even the oldest, a girl named Suzanne, seventeen and unaccustomed to the nebulous concept of 'trust'. She spends the entire conversation tense, as though she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"No one will hurt you here," Charles assures her. That much, at least, he knows he can promise.

"What do you want?" she asks. Skeptical and scared.

"To help you," he says. "If you want to leave, that's fine. Just tell us where you want to go. But I think you should stay long enough to see what it's like. You have choices here." From the surge of surprise in her mind, Charles supposes 'choice' isn't something she's seen a lot of in the last few years.

Logan takes the younger children to Xavier Academy, and Mystique doesn't protest the decision. Suzanne opts to stay at Central and train in combat and defense. She wants to fight, or at least learn how, and Charles can't fault her for that.

Mystique's team—consisting more and more of members from the ranks of Xavier's former X-Men—returns a second time, and then a third, each time with a handful more mutants in tow.

Most of the mutants on Charles's list are children. And maybe it marks him a cynic, but he expects to catch flack for that among the ranks at Central.

Not openly, of course. None of them will publicly decry the rescue of children. But Charles is accustomed to the stray thoughts of others, the secret resentments that bubble to the surface even when people know there's a telepath in their midst. He predicts an undercurrent of resistance to his choices.

After all, what use are children in a war?

But even Erik's staunchest generals seem to have no qualm with Charles's priorities. Open arms await every rescue, regardless of age or talent. Central steps forward to treat the wounded, to offer what remedy they can. The city itself stands ready with food, with homes, with clothing and support and understanding of the chaos that exists beyond the protective mountains guarding this sanctuary. Despite the limited supplies constraining the population, the new arrivals are offered every care.

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Charles has the sense that he's actually doing something good. He barely recognizes the feeling.

Most of the children end up in the care of the Xavier Academy. The school is already equipped to house and counsel, to help and teach, and the addition of extra students offers no strain to a system that already runs smoothly. Charles expects opposition to this, as well, but even here Erik's generals take no umbrage.

They look at him differently now, certainly, but it's with an unexpected respect.

When Charles presses deeper, he feels acceptance in the minds of the mutants populating Central. Conversations no longer screech to awkward stops when Charles draws near. Some of the scientists begin to approach him in the labs when he works with Hank, suddenly eager for his genetics expertise.

"Bet you didn't see this coming," Logan says to him one evening. It's late, quiet in the corridor just outside the medical bay. Today's mission was a limited success. The sole rescue, a little boy named Shiro, is asleep in Logan's arms, drooling on his shoulder. Charles observes the scene with a surreal sense of pride.

"See what coming?" Charles asks. His footsteps on the metal floor are the second loudest sound in the hallway. Logan's footsteps are louder.

"This. Us. Making nice with the guys we've been fighting since even before the war started." His voice is free of censure. If anything, idle amusement glints behind the words.

"It's not the path I would have predicted," Charles admits.

Silence, then. Nothing but the thudding echo of their footsteps falling nearly in time, until Logan speaks in a surprisingly soft voice.

"You okay, Professor?"

"What do you think?" Charles asks. He's not being glib. He genuinely wants to know. Logan is perceptive, moreso than Charles gives him credit for sometimes. He saw straight through Charles the last time they spoke in these tones. Charles can't help wondering what Logan sees now.

Logan does look at him, quiet for a long, considering moment. The boy in his arms makes a soft, snuffling sound in his sleep, and Logan shifts his grip, careful not to wake him.

"I don't know," Logan admits. "On the one hand, you look like you've got your shit together a hell of a lot better than before."

"And on the other hand?" Charles prompts when Logan doesn't immediately offer the rest of his point.

"On the other hand," Logan admits grudgingly, "I still ain't seen you smile except for at the little ones." He pauses, collecting his thoughts maybe, and finally continues, "The Charles Xavier I know may've had his hands full with the world's problems, but he still knew how to smile."

Charles wants to protest that he does smile, but the examples he could cite are too few to constitute an actual argument.

"You thought about what I said before?" Logan asks, watching Charles instead of the corridor ahead of them. His eyes flash with piercing intensity, and Charles knows exactly what 'before' Logan is talking about. He means in the kitchen, at the Academy. He means the night he looked Charles in the eye and refused to call him a murderer.

"Yes," Charles says, though he's certainly tried not to. He wonders what he'll say if Logan presses him for more.

But Logan doesn't press the subject.

"Good," is all he says, and then lets the conversation drop.

The second the girl steps off the jet, Charles knows she's something special.

He knew before, really. The moment he touched her mind, even from a distance, he knew this girl for a maelstrom of untapped power. She's five, maybe six years old, with a mess of red hair and a tight scowl. She's also got a light glimmer of telepathic ability, like a gloss over the wellspring of whatever power it is that simmers beneath.

She seems to recognize him the second she sees him, and latches on with impressive determination.

It takes him nearly ten minutes to detach her from his leg, and by then they're the only two left in the hangar bay. The jet is powered down and silent, and rather than try to coax her through the double doors and into the corridor beyond, Charles simply sits at the base of the jet's narrow ramp. The girl watches him suspiciously, as though worried that he might try to escape.

But finally she settles beside him, close enough that Charles suspects even if he wanted to make a clever escape he wouldn't succeed.

"What's your name?" he asks. When she stares at him without responding, he says, "I'm sorry, that was terribly rude of me. My name is Charles Xavier."

It was you, wasn't it? she asks, words echoing directly in his mind and making Charles's eyes widen. In my head? Before the fire?

Charles doesn't know what fire she's talking about—it must have happened after he found her with Cerebro—but he nods.

I apologize if I overstepped, he says, treading cautiously. The girl's mind, so young, displays a staggering intelligence, and Charles still doesn't know what her primary talent is. It was important that we find you. I promise we intend you no harm.

"I know," she says, switching abruptly from telepathy to verbal discourse.

"You're in Chile," Charles says. "Do you know where that is?"

The girl shakes her head and folds her legs up, tucking her knees to her chin. She's wearing poorly patched jeans. A dozen holes have worn through the knees and pockets and cuffs, but the fabric is clean.

"We're in the mountains," Charles says, switching tracks. "It's a lovely city. You'll get to see it soon, if you didn't on the way in."

She's watching him with disconcerting focus, eyes bright, taking in everything. Charles feels her nudging deliberately at his mind, searching out his surface thoughts. He does nothing to stop her explorations.

"My name's Jean," she says finally. She withdraws from his mind, and Charles breathes easier.

"Hello, Jean. You can call me Charles. Welcome to Villa Paz."

Jean is calmer after she's been in Charles's mind. Less suspicious. She seems to have gotten whatever reassurance she needed, whether from Charles's words or from her stumbling exploration of his thoughts, he'll never know.

She goes willingly when Charles summons Petra and asks her to take Jean back to the school.

"I'll see you there later," he promises. "You're safe now."

Jean hugs him before departing—an awkward, fumbling child's hug that catches him around the waist before he can crouch and set himself at her level. She clings a little too hard, and Charles wonders about the fire she mentioned. He wonders just what it is they rescued her from, and promises himself he'll take the time to find out.

He watches the two depart hand in hand, and it's only after they're gone that Charles realizes he's not alone in the hangar. There's no rumble of thoughts to tip him off. There's nothing but the inexplicable sense that he's being watched, and Charles spins in place, eyes searching the far wall for—

There. Erik. Charles should have known.

Erik is wearing the helmet. Charles tries to scrounge up resentment at the sight, but he's too busy being distracted by the rush of raw need that fills his own chest at the sight of Erik. He hadn't even realized how tightly Erik's absence had twisted beneath his skin.

Erik starts when he belatedly realizes Charles has seen him, and he reaches up and jerks the helmet off in an uncoordinated rush. The sudden surge of Erik in Charles's awareness is fresh and intense, and Charles hopes he's not too obvious about leaning on the wall of the jet for support.

God, it's like a missing piece slotting back into place in his chest. His face flushes with warmth, and he hopes Erik doesn't notice.

Erik approaches, footsteps silent in the echoing space of the hangar. He doesn't stop until he's standing almost too close, and Charles suddenly finds it remarkably difficult to think.

A memory of Alex's voice pops unbidden into Charles's head. Are you fucking him? Thank god Charles is the telepath here. He may flush brighter at the memory, but Erik won't be able to discern the reason.

The silence is unbearable, taut and electric. In his peripheral vision, Charles can see that Erik is holding the helmet in one hand. His fingers are curled around the rim, and his knuckles have gone white.

"Walk with me," Erik finally says, and turns toward the double doors.

Somewhere between the hangar and the street-level exit, Erik passes the helmet off to a passing aide, offering only a quick nod that must somehow communicate what the man is supposed to do with it.

"You've been busy," Erik notes as they step out into a nearly empty street. The evening has progressed late enough that the majority of the populace have returned to their homes, and the result is an eerie quiet as the sky falls to dusk.

"I'm sorry," Charles says. He anticipated Erik's irritation. "I know I should've waited for you." He has arguments at the ready, sound logic and unassailable explanations. But he stops short of offering them because, for some reason, irritation doesn't seem to be among Erik's immediate responses. There's a turmoil of something else—something seething and tangled, a mess Charles doesn't have a hope in hell of deciphering—but the anger he expected is nowhere to be found.

"It's all right, Charles," Erik says. Then falls quiet in a way that sends a shiver along Charles's nerves.

Charles tries to wait out Erik's silence. Perhaps Erik is simply gathering his thoughts. Perhaps he has some point to make that's too delicate to rush. But as the silence persists, Charles realizes there's nothing tactical about this hesitation.

"What is it?" he asks when he can no longer stand wondering.

Erik starts visibly, as though he honestly wasn't expecting Charles to ask, and answers only after another sizeable delay.

"This is the closest I've seen you to happy since your arrival, Charles." Since the woods, he means. Since so many years before, straining against one another, fighting on opposite sides of the same futile war. Since a beach in Cuba where everything first fell apart, because since then it's been nothing but conflict between them. Constant and exhausting.

"Really?" Charles asks. He certainly wouldn't describe himself as happy. Relieved perhaps. But happy? The word seems inapt.

"You're… lighter somehow. Was it really that much better without me around?" His tone is teasing, but there's an undercurrent of worry to the words. For all that he's obviously joking, Charles senses the unmistakable weight of concern in his thoughts. Erik wants to be reassured that Charles's unhappiness doesn't stem somehow from his presence.

Charles slows his pace as he considers the possibility. The pure relief at having Erik back proves to Charles soundly enough that whatever Erik is seeing, it comes from some other source.

With an abruptness that surprises him, Charles realizes what's changed.

Before Hank rebuilt Cerebro, Charles felt like he was locked in a seamless box, helpless and useless and unable to break free. Charles has never known how to live a life where he can't help people. He could still teach, in theory, but even that felt firmly beyond his reach. The lines he crossed proved wrong everything he thought he was teaching, and what did that leave him?

Almost nothing.

But with Cerebro, there's something like purpose rekindling in Charles's chest. He's himself again, in some small measure, because there are people out there who need him. People Charles can help, even now, without facing up to the bloody mess his own principles have become.

He doesn't try to put all this into words as it hits him. Instead he stops. He locks Erik with steady eyes and says, "I'm glad you're back, my friend."

Erik watches him another moment, but relief settles soon enough across his shoulders. He sets a hand at the small of Charles's back and urges him forward, resuming their pace along the street.

The city's western wall is a wide barricade of stone and metal overlooking a steep drop into the valley below. Walking the sturdy path atop the structure, Erik stops Charles—not to take in the view, it seems, but to set him even more off balance.

"I've been trying to give you time," Erik says, a shift in topic so sudden Charles doesn't immediately follow. "You obviously don't want to talk about what happened at the school, and I've tried to respect that. But, Charles… Enough is enough."

"I don't understand," Charles says, though comprehension creeps in quickly enough to make the words a lie almost before he finishes saying them. Erik clearly knows it, too. There's unyielding determination in his eyes.

"Silence isn't helping," Erik says. "All it's doing is letting you bury the problem deeper."

"Then what do you suggest?" Charles asks, as a cold slice of panic lodges between his ribs. His ears are ringing suddenly. The skin along his arms tingles, and he shakes his head.

"Talk to me, Charles," Erik blurts, sudden and sharp. He surges forward with the words, but draws back again instantly, as though self-conscious at his outburst. He turns to face the high wall, leans his elbows on the stone. He's looking out at the distance instead of at Charles when he says, "Or if I'm too much of a hypocrite to help you work through this, then talk to someone else. Anyone. If you can't come to terms with it yourself, then you need to find someone who can help."

There is no help, Charles wants to scream. There's nothing anyone can say that will undo the harm Charles has done. There's no mutant with the power to turn back time or bring all those men back to life.

Erik must sense from his silence the direction of Charles's thoughts, because he turns his head and locks Charles in a look so fierce it knocks the wind from his chest.

"I refuse to stand by and watch guilt turn you into a martyr," Erik says. There's fire in his voice, indignation in his thoughts. The intensity sends Charles back an awkward step, and it's with obvious effort that Erik pulls his emotions back under control.

"You're stronger than that, Charles," Erik says more softly.

"I'll think about it," Charles says. It's almost a lie, but not quite.

They stop at the school that evening, and Erik quirks an amused eyebrow at the sign hanging over the main entrance.

Of course Charles opts to accompany Erik back to Central for the night.

Charles catches the surly wave of Alex's disapproval as he and Erik step back into the street, but Charles knows he can't stay at the school. He still can't bear the thought of Erik donning that helmet, not when Charles is right here. Which means, in the end, the choice is a simple one.

Central is quiet when they return. Most of the occupants have either retired to their quarters for the night or returned to their homes in the city.

Charles is painfully aware of Erik's proximity as they ride the lift down to their closely juxtaposed rooms. His skin prickles with every inadvertent touch of Erik's arm, every brush of Erik's heavy cape against his sleeve.

Erik pauses outside Charles's door, and the silence is stifling. Charles can feel it in his throat, beneath his skin. There's energy crawling through him, twining tightly around his bones, and any moment the tension will snap and tear them to pieces.

As tightly wound as Charles is, Erik still moves with a speed that catches him off guard. One second Charles is standing tense and uncertain, his pulse too loud in his ears. The next he's crushed against Erik's chest, gasping as Erik kisses him with the ragged force of a whirlwind. Erik's mind is a furnace of heat and want, his body a hard line of the same, and Charles winds his arms around Erik's shoulders and simply holds on.

He's not expecting Erik to let go as abruptly as he grabbed for Charles in the first place. Erik's thoughts, chaotic though they are, offer no warning. There's nothing but a shattered breath, and then Erik steps back, taking his hands off Charles and avoiding eye contact.

The corridor feels suddenly chilly in the absence of Erik's body heat, and Charles stares at him in disbelief.

"Goodnight, Charles," Erik says, voice thick with emotion. Then he retreats into his room, leaving Charles floored and feverish and desperately confused.

Chapter Text

The Sentinels were unveiled with terrifying flourish, though publicly the government claimed their only purpose was to apprehend criminals and terrorists.

In reality, no mutant was safe.

The X-Men took apart as many of the machines as they could get their hands on. It would never be enough, which meant it was only a matter of time before something new went to hell.

When the Brotherhood blew up the Pentagon, Charles was almost relieved. At least he could stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The human governments convened within hours, a unified summit the likes of which the world had never seen.

Three days later they declared war.

For all of ten seconds, Charles considers returning to his own empty room after Erik's abrupt retreat. The lack of explanation, of even the faintest acknowledgment, tells him Erik has no intention of openly discussing what just happened—or what happened in Erik's office the day before his departure.

Perhaps a week ago Charles would have yielded so easily. He spent so long passively surviving, what's one more tactical surrender?

But something stubborn has rekindled in Charles's chest, and he doesn't fall back.

Erik hasn't locked his door. He clearly didn't think Charles would follow him. The knob twists easily in his hand, and Charles opens the door and bursts through. He turns the lock before Erik has even finished turning around.

"No," Charles says once he has Erik's undivided attention.

"Excuse me?" Erik looks stunned, not to mention as lost as Charles himself feels, and he backs away as though he expects Charles to attack.

"No," Charles repeats. Steel hardens his voice, and it feels good, forgotten but familiar. Strength surges from some buried corner inside him and levels his stare. "You don't get to hide in here and pretend nothing just happened." He steps farther into the room, closer to Erik. Erik's quarters are some of the largest in Central, but with space at a premium that isn't saying much. Halfway across the room, Charles is only a handful of steps from cornering Erik against the bureau.

Erik is leaning against the low piece of furniture now, spine taut and eyes bright with chaotic emotion. Charles doesn't want to try and unravel the meaning behind the chaos. He wants Erik to lay it out for him.

But Erik is staring, terrified and caught-out, and determination draws Charles closer until he's nearly in Erik's personal space.

"That's twice now you've kissed me," Charles says, surprising himself almost as much as Erik with the blunt directness of the statement. "And twice you've failed to offer any explanation."

"I'm sorry, Charles," Erik says. He sounds wrecked. The maelstrom of his thoughts is so loud that Charles can feel the beginnings of a headache forming at his temples.

He shakes his head and raises a thin wall, just enough to mute the intensity of the mental storm front.

"I don't want an apology," Charles says. "I want to know what's going on in your head." He sounds far calmer than he feels.

Perhaps it's his own veneer of calm that sets Erik on the defensive, because Erik's tone is clipped and unhappy when he responds a moment later. "I should think you're well enough equipped to figure that out for yourself."

"Don't be difficult," Charles says, shifting closer, and now he is definitely invading Erik's personal space. "Talk to me."

That's rich, coming from you, Erik thinks sharply, viciously. But he doesn't say the words out loud, and Charles ignores them. He focuses instead on the anxious tension in Erik's shoulders, the wide-eyed panic threatening his expression.

Charles lets his own eyes fall closed as he leans up and in—as he touches his mouth tentatively to Erik's. He tries to keep his arms at his sides, but can't help himself when Erik breathes a soft, startled sound into the kiss. His hands reach of their own volition to frame Erik's jaw, and Charles presses closer, his whole body seeking Erik's heat.

"No," Erik growls, abruptly shattering the moment. He moves fast—faster than Charles expects—and wraps his hands around Charles's wrists, grasping with bruising force as he pushes Charles away.

He doesn't push Charles far. He can't seem to let go of Charles's wrists in order to manage the trick.

Which leaves them still close, breathing each other's air, and Charles wants to scream his frustration into the silence.

"Why?" he demands instead, wondering if those are Erik's hands shaking or his own. "You want this, Erik. I don't have to be a telepath to see that." It's in Erik's eyes, his constant proximity, the greedy way he keeps putting his hands on Charles before yanking back as if he's been burned. It took Charles too long to see it, perhaps, but now that he's here he knows he's not wrong.

Erik shakes his head, but it's not a denial. Not even close. He shakes his head and draws a shocky breath.

"You don't owe me anything, Charles."

Laughter startles out of Charles's chest, loud and ragged, and now it's Charles shaking his head. He stares up into Erik's eyes as everything finally comes clear. When the brief burst of laughter fades, he feels the corners of his mouth turning down.

"Oh, Erik," he says, feeling suddenly out of his depth. "Do you honestly think that's what this is? Surely you know me better than that."

Uncertainty clouds Erik's eyes and loosens his hold. Confusion floats to the fore in his mind, and the cacophony of Erik's thoughts falls quieter. Considering. He sees now, the gaping flaw Charles has poked in his logic. He sees that even at his most lost and passive, Charles Xavier would never simply offer Erik his body from some lingering sense of obligation.

Charles twists free of Erik's hands then, but he doesn't back out of Erik's space. A sense of want is mounting in the air between them, dangerous and possessive, and Charles honestly doesn't know to which of them it belongs.

It doesn't matter, he realizes.

Without breaking his gaze from Erik's, Charles sinks slowly to his knees.

Curse words echo in Erik's head, jagged with arousal and loud enough that Charles doesn't even try to block them out. He catches flashes of imagery, too, though that might be his own fault. Erik is so close, so intensely present. Charles can't help that his mind gravitates towards Erik like the enticing edge of a very steep cliff. Erik's mind summons images of Charles, tinted by fantasy: Charles gasping, arching, crying out. Charles dropping to his knees exactly like this.

Charles's head spins with the intensity of those images before Erik tamps them back under control, and in the silence that follows he almost forgets to breathe.

Erik's gaze is heavy on Charles's face, stunned and dark with desire. They're on the verge of something here. Something heady and dangerous, and so desperate Charles can taste it like lightning on his tongue. He meets Erik's gaze without guarding his own reactions, and then slowly, so slowly, reaches for the clasp of Erik's pants.

He lets his hands hover there like a question. His fingers curl over the edge of the finely tailored fabric, skirting just beneath the hem of Erik's shirt. He kneels, frozen to stillness, his purpose unmistakable, and holds his breath as though waiting for permission.

Erik's touch is soft on his face—a hesitant ghosting of contact as his fingers drift across Charles's cheek, then more solid as Erik cups his chin and tilts his head back as if to ask 'Are you sure?'

Erik's thumb sweeps over Charles's lower lip, tentatively at first. When Erik stills and presses more firmly, Charles parts his lips and lets Erik slide the digit into his mouth.

Charles can see the warm blush pinking Erik's face and throat, and his own skin flushes with heat as he hollows his cheeks and licks suggestively at the pad of Erik's thumb.

Christ, it's been so long since Charles looked at someone like this—since he let someone touch him like this. He half expects to blink and realize he's forgotten the steps to this particular dance.

Charles stirs to motion, and a moment later the quiet is broken by the slick sound of Erik's zipper. Fabric parts beneath Charles's hands, and Erik's thumb slips from his mouth. Charles focuses his considerable intelligence on getting Erik's pants open without breaking eye contact. He fumbles a little, recovers smoothly. He slips his fingers inside, agile and confident—

Erik's eyes flutter closed as Charles pulls him out into the open air, and the groan he emits is stuttered and helpless.

Charles hears his own name as a groan in Erik's throat, an echo in Erik's thoughts. The bureau creaks with shifting weight, and Erik's hands frame Charles's face, palms gentle on his jaw, fingers slipping back to twist into the mess of his hair. Erik's eyes are warm and awed when they flutter open, bright with unspoken questions.

Is this okay?

Charles opens his mouth and takes Erik in, and hopes that's answer enough.

Charles doesn't go back to his own room that night.

He lets Erik undress him, ignoring the self-conscious shivers that wind along his spine at the reverence in Erik's touch. Erik's bed is conservative in size, but it's spacious enough once they're both naked and curled together, chest to chest.

Erik's hands wander, warm and restless, and Charles curls closer against Erik's chest. He blocks out every doubt, every question, every quiet uncertainty about Erik's Brotherhood, his war, Charles's place in it. He squashes all of that down for now. He wraps it away in tight bundle, in favor of focusing on the reassuring heat of Erik's body.

Charles's breath stutters in his throat when Erik's fingers meander to the small of his back and find the scar tissue at the base of his spine.

I did this, Erik's thoughts murmur along the unguarded edges of Charles's mind. Guilt twists below the statement as Erik's index finger traces the puckered contours of the scar.

Charles's voice lodges useless in his throat. He wants to tell Erik they're past that. That it doesn't matter. It hurt, worse than anything Charles has experienced in his life, before or since. It was painful and terrifying, those weeks when the doctors didn't have any answers. When his legs wouldn't respond to the simplest commands, and no one would tell him what it meant.

But his body healed. He doesn't want to have this conversation.

"Does it still hurt?" Erik asks, still touching, impossibly gently.

Charles gasps and buries his face against Erik's throat. He still can't find his voice, but thankfully he doesn't need his voice to answer.

No, he says, sending the response directly into Erik's mind. It doesn't hurt.

"You should hate me," Erik whispers. "What if the damage had been permanent? What if you'd—"

"It doesn't matter," Charles interrupts, and the words are gravel for being ripped unwillingly from his chest.

They're a blatant lie. Of course it matters. But Charles can't face that right now. He can't think about what it means that Erik put him in the line of fire, and Charles still can't hold enough of a grudge to stay out of Erik's life—or his bed.

"I'm not a good man, Charles," Erik says. His voice is soft with the weight of confession, as though he's saying something they aren't both painfully aware of.

Charles wants to deny it. He would have, once upon a time. He wants to pull back and look Erik in the eye and tell him in no uncertain terms that Erik is a good man, that he could be the best of them if he just tried to see in himself all the things that Charles does.

But Charles has lied enough, and Erik's not that man anymore. There's too much blood between them, blood Erik has painted across the world, and Charles isn't naïve enough to pretend he doesn't see it.

His silence damns them both, and Charles finally whispers, "You can be better, Erik. You can always be better."

Erik's arms tighten around him, desperation tugging him closer, and Charles's fingers curl over Erik's bicep.

"I wish I believed that," Erik murmurs, and Charles does the only thing he can.

He holds on.

Charles knows he should return to the school. Erik has been back at Central for three days, and chances are the others are worrying by now.

But Charles can't bring himself to part from Erik. Not now.

His few material possessions migrate quickly from his own quarters into Erik's space. He doesn't consider the smaller room his own after that. This is where he belongs.

He stays by Erik's side through city business and strategy councils. He hovers by Erik's elbow, sits in the chair beside him. He keeps his mouth shut, though he knows his presence here is damning enough.

It's a fact that bothers him less than it once would have.

On day four, just after sunup, Calamity approaches and silently hands Erik a report.

Charles doesn't ask the report's contents. He can glean enough from the way Erik's brow furrows, mood souring as he reads. Word from Calamity always relates to the Brotherhood's primary battle fronts, and whatever information that report contains, it isn't news of a sweeping victory.

Charles waits until they're back in Erik's quarters before observing, "You have to leave again."

Erik crumples the paper report in his hands and throws it aside, an unrepentant gesture of frustration.

"I thought we'd have more time," Erik says, not meeting his eyes. "I thought… Things were going well or I wouldn't have left in the first place. The humans have changed tactics, and I don't know why."

Silence, then. Indecipherable and tense. Charles could prod at Erik's thoughts, but he already suspects the request he'll find there.

"You want me to go with you," Charles says in a low voice, calmer than he feels.

He startles back when Erik turns on him, all abrupt movements and sharp speed. Erik's stare is fierce with denial, and Charles doesn't understand.

"No," Erik says, in a voice gone terrifyingly soft. "I want you here. I want you safe."

Charles's voice rises as he gasps, "But you said—"

"I know," Erik cuts him off. Edgy frustration makes his movements harsh as he drags fingers back through his hair, mussing the strands in his agitation. "I know what I said. I know it makes me a liar and a hypocrite to rescind my offer now. But I'm not taking you with me."

There's an edge of repentance underlying the words—a hesitation that tells Charles he could push. He could change Erik's mind and convince him to honor the promise he made. He could force Erik's hand and demand that he make good on the offer that's supposed to stand open, for Charles to take his place at Erik's side and prevent him from donning that awful helmet.

But Charles already knows he's not going to push. He's not sure he could have stepped up, even if Erik had looked him in the eye and pleaded with him to come.

Before Charles can concede—before he can offer any verbal reassurance whatsoever—Erik is on him. The door is too sturdy to creak in protest when Erik shoves him against it, but Charles gasps surprise at the force of Erik's hands, the harsh strength in his touch as he crushes their bodies together and takes Charles's mouth in a fiercely possessive kiss. Charles can feel the desperation churning violently in Erik's thoughts, the need for this, for Charles, for whatever solace Erik finds in what they are to each other.

Charles parts his lips for Erik's tongue, conceding the field willingly. When Erik lifts him from the floor, Charles wraps his legs around Erik's waist. He twists his fingers in the collar of Erik's shirt and holds on, riding out the force of the kiss, eager in a way he refuses to be ashamed of.

Erik needs him. Why shouldn't Charles need him back just as desperately?

When Erik at last releases his mouth, he makes no move to put Charles down. Charles's whole body hums with Erik's proximity, with the heat and promise of the way Erik so effortlessly holds him against the door. The hard press of Erik's arousal against his own is unmistakable, despite the layers of fabric separating them.

Erik breathes hard, rough and uneven, and the words come out with a breathless ferocity when he says, "I don't want you anywhere near my war, Charles."

"It's too late for that."

They're the wrong words to say. They ignite something violent and terrified in Erik, a surge of emotion that hits Charles like a telepathic freight train and makes his head spin. He's still reeling from the brunt of it when Erik reclaims his mouth, and it's a shattered moment before he's able to participate in the kiss.

He doesn't try to take the words back. It's not as though they aren't true.

Erik takes him against the door, just like this, frantic in a way Charles can barely keep up with. He takes his time with his fingers, thorough as he slicks and loosens Charles's body, but the last of his patience seems to dissolve when finally he positions himself and thrusts in.

Charles gasps into Erik's mouth, breath shocking out of him as Erik slots home—all the way in at once, leaving Charles shaky and breathless as Erik stills, pinning him to the door with the heat of his body and the line of his cock. Charles clings to Erik's shoulders, locks his ankles more tightly at Erik's back. He knows Erik won't let him fall, but it's too much at once, and Charles buries his face against Erik's throat.

Then Erik moves, rough and sudden, and all Charles can do is hold on.

Hours after Erik leaves, Charles aches. But the physical discomfort—deep and intimate though it is—is nothing compared to the overwhelming wrongness of the blank mental space Erik's mind should occupy.

Charles doesn't go down to Lab 16, but Hank finds him anyway. He knows, somehow, to come looking for Charles on Erik's office balcony—even though Erik is absent, and Mystique with him, and there's no one else whose presence might give Charles a rational reason to be up here.

"It's quite a view," Hank observes, moving to stand beside Charles without coming too close. Hank follows his gaze across the city, squinting into the bright mountain sun. There's a rumble of concern shadowing his thoughts, but whatever is worrying him—and Charles supposes there's plenty to choose from—Hank clearly has no intention of voicing his disquiet.

"Yes," Charles agrees after an awkward delay. "It's beautiful."

The silence that squirms between them is almost enough to make Charles wish he weren't a telepath. His relationship with Erik obviously makes Hank uncomfortable—how could it not, considering their history—but what point is there in recognizing that discomfort if Charles doesn't know how to reassure him?

He doesn't know how to make Hank understand something that feels like pure, inexplicable instinct to Charles himself.

Hank clears his throat abruptly, and Charles starts from his guilty thoughts.

"I was thinking of visiting the school this afternoon," Hank says cautiously. "It's been a few days since I checked in. You should come with me."

There's no reprimand in his voice, but the words hit Charles like censure just the same. Hank knows Charles has been absent nearly that long himself.

"All right," Charles says.

He pushes away from the balcony's high wall, and moves for the door. With every step he pretends not to notice the quiet worry in Hank's thoughts.

The school is lively, all noise and energy and afternoon classes.

Hank and Charles barely make it through the door before they're pulled in opposite directions: Hank down to the third level basement where Petra is trying to set up an actual chemistry lab for the practical sciences curriculum; Charles on a tour that seems to involve interrupting as many teachers as possible in the middle of their classes.

"Where's Logan?" Charles asks when Sean finally gives him a reprieve. He hasn't caught sight of Logan since walking in the front door. Charles wouldn't go so far as to call the sensation in his chest worry, but he's used to seeing Logan's protective figure lurking, watching, sometimes even teaching.

"About a mile down the mountain, with Alex and Scott and Ororo," Sean says. "I think John's with 'em, too. Target practice. Scott's getting really good with the visor Hank made him."

Charles hasn't seen the visor design, but from Hank's descriptions it sounds ingenious.

"And you, Sean?" Charles asks, keeping his tone conversational. "How are you doing these days?"

"About the usual," Sean says. "Almost blew up Petra's new lab yesterday, so now the others won't let me anywhere near the construction. Mission accomplished."

Charles smiles as widely as he can manage, and claps Sean soundly on the shoulder.

Charles's room at the academy never quite feels like it belongs to him, but he still retires to it when he excuses himself some three hours later.

The sun is still high over the horizon, and from his window Charles can see it hovering just above the slanting roof at the other end of the courtyard. There are heavy clouds moving overhead, high and fast, but they're scattered, and few of them manage to block the sun.

Charles leans his elbows on the window frame and drops his eyes to the courtyard. A dozen or more children are playing a complicated game of tag—one that seems to involve teamwork and a calculated use of powers—and Charles is just starting to make sense of the rules when he notices a gruff, familiar mind approaching along the hall. A knock sounds at his door a moment later, and then Logan's voice.

"You decent for company, Professor?"

"Come on in," Charles says, turning away from the window and stepping towards the door. A shriek of laughter carries up from outside.

Logan steps into the room in apparent good humor and closes the door behind him.

An instant later his eyes widen, shoulders drawing tense in a way that sets off every alarm bell in Charles's head. He knows that look, that posture. They signal something Logan perceives as a threat, and adrenaline rockets through Charles as Logan's nostrils flare and Logan's eyes fasten hard and fast on him.

"What the fuck?" Logan growls, and darts forward with uncanny speed. Charles backs away, straight into the wall, and closes his eyes. He's instinctively bracing for an attack, but the attack never comes.

There's a dull thump against the wall beside his head, and Charles opens his eyes and glances in that direction. He finds Logan's arm penning him in. Logan's bulk is a looming presence, trapping him in place but not touching him.

Not attacking.

Questions hover on Charles's tongue, and his heartbeat is a ragged mess of confusion as Logan leans close and inhales sharply through his nose. Confusion is slow to dissipate, muddled by the mounting rage Charles can feel careening like a shout through Logan's thoughts.

It takes him a jarring moment to figure out that Logan is scenting him. Logan is using his powerful sense of smell to put two and two together, and he clearly disapproves of wherever the arithmetic leads.

Logan backs off in an abrupt instant, his movements sharp and his face twisted into a mask of quiet, terrifying fury.

"I'll kill him," Logan snarls. "That son of a bitch, I'll tear him to fucking pieces."

There's only one person he can be talking about, and Charles shouts a ragged, "No!" even before he's gotten his wits together. The word freezes Logan's rage, freezes his hands in fists at his sides, and Charles takes a moment to calm his voice.

"You'll do no such thing," Charles says, struggling to imbue the words with confidence and command. Confusion softens Logan's expression by the barest degree, but he looks unpersuaded, and Charles forces himself to ignore the embarrassed blush rising in his cheeks and continue, "It wasn't like that, Logan. It isn't like that."

He thinks about Erik's hands on him this morning—about the lingering ache he knows will stay with him for days, reminding him just how badly Erik needs him—and he feels helpless to explain.

"You don't have to protect him, Charles. I'm not stupid. I can smell him all over you."

A cautious glint sparks in Logan's eyes, and Charles flushes this time with frustration instead of embarrassment. He's not angry at Logan. The man's territorial, protective instincts have been a vital asset over the past few years, and Charles can hardly start faulting him now. But anger swirls threateningly in his chest just the same, and Charles shakes his head.

"I'm not protecting him." The cool steel in his voice obviously takes Logan aback, and Charles lets his expression soften into something rueful and a little bit hurt. "When did your faith in me become so limited, my friend?"

The rage melts instantly from Logan's face, replaced by a surprised flash of guilt.

"It ain't my faith in you that's limited," Logan says.

Charles realizes he's still leaning against the wall, posture awkward and a little unsteady. He moves as unobtrusively as he can, straightening and moving past Logan to drop tiredly onto the foot of the bed. His body gives a twinge of discomfort, but he ignores it, clasping his hands together and leaning forward. When he raises his eyes, he finds Logan watching him from the center of the room. Logan's fingers are still curled into tight fists at his sides, and his expression looks almost hurt. There's worry in his eyes, fierce and bright, and Charles's mind shies away from the concern he can feel bleeding from Logan's thoughts.

"I need to know you're okay," Logan says. His voice is so tactful, so painfully cautious, that Charles almost doesn't recognize it. "First whiff I ever got of Magneto, I could tell how bad he wanted to get his hands on you. Hell, just the way he looks at you. I don't trust him."

Charles is suddenly too tired to feel embarrassed, and he meets Logan's eyes without flinching.

"Then I guess you'll just have to trust me, won't you."

Silence stretches uncomfortably for a moment, broken at odd moments by laughter from the courtyard below, and Charles feels like an insect under the weight of Logan's scrutiny.

"So that's just how it is now?" Logan finally asks. There's something calculated and deliberate in the way his posture loosens, but when he crosses his arms over his chest, his hands are no longer clenched into fists. "You and him… you're together? Simple as that?"

"I wouldn't call it simple," Charles says with a rueful shake of his head. "But yes, I suppose that's about the sum of it."

"And you're really okay?" Logan presses stubbornly. "You ain't…" He hesitates abruptly, but Charles understands clearly enough.

"I'm really okay," Charles says. "And no, I haven't been pressured into anything against my will." He's getting a little sick of everyone assuming—Hank and Logan and Alex—but he supposes he can't really blame them. Erik was the enemy far longer than they've been able to call him ally.

"And you want this. You want him."

And for all that there's a selfish corner of Charles's soul that wants to tell Logan to fuck off, that Charles's feelings are none of his business, he knows Logan deserves an honest answer. So he squares his shoulders and draws a steadying breath, bracing himself to put into words even a fraction of what he feels for Erik.

"Yes," he finally says. "More than I can ever hope to express."

It's been a long time since Charles deliberately used his abilities to eavesdrop, but that night, from the quiet of his bed, he listens in on Logan and Hank.

The two are alone in a room that passes for an armory, and Charles hovers at the edge of both their thoughts—not looking deep. Just enough to pick up the words they exchange in the otherwise empty room.

"How the fuck did this happen?" Logan asks. His arms are crossed and he's leaning one hip on a sturdy table, watching Hank fiddle with a complicated collection of wristbands. The question is obviously about Charles.

"How did what happen?" Hank asks, though Charles can tell his lack of comprehension is affected.

"Don't be clever, McCoy," Logan grumbles. "You really want me to spell it out?"

Hank doesn't answer, clearly hoping the conversation will drop entirely, but of course that's not Logan's style.

"After everything that's gone down in the past five years, how does he end up fucking Magneto?" Logan asks. "Hell, the Professor don't even like men."

Charles would wonder how Logan knows that—it's not like Charles makes a point of discussing his sexual preferences with his teammates—but he's long since stopped questioning Logan's perceptive abilities. And it's not like Logan is wrong. Charles is attracted to women. Erik is one of very few exceptions to that rule.

"It's Erik," Hank says, shrugging helplessly. It's as coherent an argument as Charles could have managed.

"It's fucked up is what it is," Logan grumbles. But there's resignation in his thoughts, echoed plainly in his posture, and Charles knows that from here on out Logan won't be a problem.

Familiar as Mystique's mind is, she isn't Erik, and so she's practically on the Xavier Academy doorstep before Charles recognizes her approach. Her thoughts are a ragged turmoil, and despite his surprise, Charles meets her at the door.

Erik has been away from Villa Paz for six days. Mystique is supposed to be with him.

"What happened?" Charles asks, but he's already skimming the information from her mind. He's breaking no promises in doing so. Her thoughts are screaming too loudly for discretion.

Erik is gone. Erik has been taken, and Mystique still doesn't understand how. The change in tactics, the sudden upsurge of human forces just when the Brotherhood thought the enemy's position was weakening—an elaborate trap set to draw Magneto to the center of the assault.

"Tranquilizers instead of bullets," Mystique says in clipped tones. "They had weapons with no metal components, hidden among the normal ranks. Every element of the attack was aimed at isolating and capturing him."

Charles's head spins violently, vertigo tilting his stomach in unpleasant directions. He has to lean on the back of a chair for support, and realizes he has no memory of coming inside—of finding an empty room, closing the door, locking it behind them. When did all the oxygen evaporate, for that matter? Charles was breathing actual air a second ago, he's sure of it.

Mystique's hand is warm on his arm, though the contact does nothing to ground him. There's a dangerous ache in his chest, a roar of panic and adrenaline and his pulse rushing through his ears, and Charles needs to ask what happens next. He needs to know how they get Erik back.

Erik can't be dead. That possibility is one Charles is physically incapable of considering.

"With Erik gone, I'm in charge," Mystique says. Her voice is control and steel and fearless authority, even as her thoughts spin with a panic almost as terrified as his own. "And the first thing we're going to do is get him back."

"How?" Charles asks. The syllable feels numb on his tongue.

"First we need to find him," Mystique says, fingers tightening on his arm. "Do you think you can get your shit together well enough to use Cerebro?"

"Yes," Charles says instantly.

Erik needs him. No amount of panic is going to stop Charles from doing his part.

Charles has let Erik down enough for one lifetime. He's got no intention of doing it again.

Charles stays plugged in to Cerebro for seven hours without a trace of Erik's mind, at which point Hank kicks him out of the system and shuts down the equipment.

"You're no good to him if you fry your own synapses, Professor," Hank says when Charles tries to protest. The unsteady edge to his voice tells Charles he's more worried for Erik than he wants to admit.

Hank orders him to sleep for at least three hours, and when Charles can't manage the trick, Hank hits him with a heavy sedative.

Charles plugs back in as soon as he's conscious, and this time he goes about his search from a different direction entirely.

Deliberately navigating unfamiliar minds is a slower process, especially when Charles doesn't know exactly what he's searching for. There's no single person he can seek out who will offer him the vital piece to this puzzle. All he can do is rummage for thoughts among the humans commanders, the higher ranking strategists. He barely pauses to consider how casually he's invading privacies that might have made him balk in other circumstances. Even with war on his doorstep, there are lines he's never crossed.

But the place in his chest usually reserved for guilt is full instead with a stark determination.

"Don't," Charles says when he senses Hank is about to pull him out again. "I almost have it." He's found the thread within the whispering of human minds—teasing hints of the information he needs.

He traces neurons and synapses, follows the zig-zagging course of remembered conversations, recognition, from one mind to the next. His movements begin to follow a more geographic pattern. He's close.

"There," he breathes when at last he finds the complex.

It's somewhere cold. Charles can tell that much. But beyond that he'll need to rely on Hank's equipment to provide more solid information. He's too exhausted to delve that deeply into even the defenseless human minds before him now. He doubts his ability to do so without causing damage, and that might draw suspicion. The humans might do something stupid, like relocate or change tactics. A change in tactics might mean Erik dies, and Charles refuses to take that chance.

Charles still can't sense Erik's mind, even though he knows his friend is close. He's being shielded somehow.

But Erik is here. The knowledge is unmistakable in the minds of the highest ranking officials controlling the base. They know what they've got locked up in their bunker. Words like 'monster' roll around within their narrow-minded skulls, and rage settles like hot coals in Charles's gut.

But Erik is here. He's alive. Charles just has to get him back.

Hank analyzes the printouts from Charles's session and quickly isolates Erik's location.

Greenland.

"They have him in a cage below ground. Glass and plastic." Charles says as he follows Mystique to the western hangar bay. He's already suited up. Rage clouds his vision for a moment before he manages to shut the useless emotion down and set it aside. There's the heavy, hurried rumble of footsteps behind them, beside. Flashes of yellow and blue.

Charles pauses just inside the hangar, watching as the assembled team makes for the three jets that will carry them the enormous distance to their target. Half of these mutants—minus Logan, who as usual hasn't opted for anything more protective than flannel—are sporting the protective gear Hank has honed over the past five years at Westchester. The other half wear darker hues, marked with spots of seemingly random color—armor or protective gear or, in one case, nothing but a sleek, black suit.

The man in the black suit has skin tinted a bright, startling red, and an arrow-headed tail twists in his wake. His name is Azazel. Until now, Charles has only ever faced him across a battlefield.

When only Charles and Mystique are still standing on the hangar floor, he turns to her and says, "The humans won't be expecting a retaliatory response."

"Are you sure it's not a trap?" Mystique asks, gold eyes piercing and quick.

"It didn't feel like a trap. More like they simply don't expect us to come for him. Something is wrong, Raven." The gravity in his voice must be contagious, because she doesn't call him out for using her old name—a mistake he hasn't fallen into in weeks.

Try as he might, Charles can't pin down a clearer explanation to offer her. The minds in that base knew nothing tangible. They gave him nothing to go on except an inexplicable sense of security—a generalized knowledge that no one would be coming for their prisoner.

They can't possibly know that, though. Not unless the humans are planning something more.

"Does anyone outside the Brotherhood know this city's location?" Charles asks.

"It's possible," Mystique says. "We've got wards and illusions protecting us… Hank's not the only brilliant scientific mind in the mutant gene pool. But at the end of the day, it's pretty tough to hide an entire city."

"I've got an awful feeling," Charles admits in a hushed tone. "It's not just Erik. Something is coming."

"Yes," comes a voice Charles has never heard before. Feminine. Soft and powerful. Charles spins on his heel, towards the sound. He's already reaching out with all his senses.

"Irene, what are you doing here?" Mystique asks, darting away from Charles's side.

The woman approaching them is tall and graceful. Her hair glints white, falling straight and smooth to frame a young face. She looks pale and somehow tired, and the dark contours of her clothing strike a gaunt figure.

"Charles is right," she says in that same soft, strong voice. "Something is coming."

Her eyes are closed. They don't open, even as Charles approaches with cautious footsteps.

"Charles, this is Destiny," Mystique says. Her fingers curl protectively over the woman's shoulder, and she doesn't take her worried gaze off Irene's face.

"I know," Charles says softly. It's obvious from the barest touch of her mind. Irene's thoughts are splintered and chaotic—endless paths of simultaneous perception that Charles doesn't dare try to navigate uninvited. It's extraordinary, and any other day Charles might have taken the time to marvel that anyone can perceive their world this way and remain sane.

But today is different, and Charles simply asks, "What do you see?"

"The humans are coming. Not just here, but to as many mutant strongholds as they've been able to identify."

"Coming to do what?" Charles presses.

"With Magneto out of the way, the remaining human governments are coordinating to launch a decisive nuclear attack. Suicide pilots have been sent to drop warheads on the largest known mutant communities, all around the globe. More than a dozen planes per target."

"My god," Mystique gasps. Then, rallying, drawing an intangible mantle of leadership more tightly around her, she asks, "When is this happening?"

Destiny inclines towards her without opening her eyes and says, "Now."

"How long do we have?" Charles asks. His pulse speeds, and the need to take action hangs like a raw weight in his chest.

"The bombs are already in the air," Destiny says. "I came as quickly as I could, but time is short."

"There must be a way to evacuate the city," Charles says, turning to Mystique. "And to warn the other targets—"

"It's too late." Mystique shakes her head. "There are too many people. We'd never get everyone out in time, even if the pilots had only been in the air for five minutes." They both glance at Destiny, and from the look on her face Charles guesses those planes have been in the air a hell of a lot longer than five minutes.

"How deep do the subterranean structures go?" Charles asks instead.

"Not deep enough to survive the brunt of a coordinated nuclear assault. The number of planes they're sending? The fallout would level the mountain with us inside it." Mystique is trembling. The look on her face is a perfect match to the panicked pit of despair Charles feels twisting in his own stomach. "Fuck," she breathes, and then asks Destiny, "What can we do?"

But Destiny doesn't acknowledge Mystique. Her face is turned towards Charles, and somehow, despite the way she never opens her eyes, he has the sense that she's looking at him.

"It needs to be you," Destiny says.

And in that instant Charles understands.

Hank, he calls, Tell everyone to stand down for now. There's something I need to take care of before we can leave.

Hank's confusion is heavy in Charles's mind, but all Charles gives him is a summoning nudge. Hank emerges from one of the jets, his expression uncertain, and he approaches Charles with questions in his eyes.

Charles locks him with a determined stare and says, "We need Cerebro."

He tells Hank just enough to quiet his doubts, to make him see that time is their most important commodity right now.

Hank is reluctant to let him plug back in to Cerebro so soon, but he offers no outward protest as Charles settles into position. Hank throws all the necessary switches, and Charles's mind rides the boost and reaches out.

He finds the planes easily, isolating the pilots on their suicide missions. There's something more piercing about a mind that knows it's about to die, and these men and women light up like warning beacons to Charles's senses. Dozens upon dozens of them, all crystal clear in the focus of his mind.

Perhaps finding them would be more difficult if Destiny weren't standing so close beside him. But the keys to this puzzle are bright in her mind, and Charles uses her knowledge to find what he's looking for.

The jets are even closer than he expects, and the realization twists unpleasantly in his gut.

He could simply reroute the planes away from their targets. The pilots would still die, certainly, but they'll die anyway if they reach their destinations. Charles could send the bombs to land in the ocean, disarm them in the quickest, simplest way and avert the immediate crisis.

But what then? The humans rally. The mutants shore up their defenses and relocate. Someone retaliates. The humans try again. The fighting continues, on and on, an infinite cycle that doesn't end until no one is left.

And like a cold spike lodging in his chest, Charles realizes he won't let that happen. The cost may be unfathomable, but there is another choice.

Charles might not recognize the man capable of making that choice, but suddenly he knows he'll make it anyway. The blood already on his hands is nothing compared to what he's about to do. Charles is the only one who can end this war.

He makes the unforgivable choice.

It's absurdly easy to delve into the pilots' minds and reprogram them. New instructions, new destinations.

Charles reroutes the planes not towards empty ocean, but back towards the human bases that sent them.

As quickly as he moves, Charles is still careful to avoid any purely civilian targets. He's paid enough attention to Erik's strategy in the past month to make the distinction. But he needs to take out the dozens of hubs that dispatched these pilots in the first place, and not all of those targets are purely military. Even among the ones that are, those bases are some of the humans' most heavily populated outposts. Major installations, military cities housing enormous numbers of humans.

Hundreds of thousands of people when it's all said and done. This attack is a coordinated strike from nearly every remaining vestige of human government. When the warheads reach the new destinations Charles has established, they'll leave nothing behind.

"I'm sorry," he whispers aloud. His eyes are dry, but his hands shake. He wonders if anyone besides Destiny suspects what he's just done.

He doesn't take the time to explain, after he's done. The others will find out soon enough, and Erik still needs him. Charles has patience for little else while that knowledge burns in his chest.

None of the reprogrammed pilots are en route to Greenland, simply because none of the planes were dispatched from that location. There's clearly a strong human presence on the island, but perhaps the presidents—and generals and ministers and other faltering leaders—realized it would be folly to launch any portion of their attack from such a compromised location.

Even caged—even cut off from the metal that comprises his strongest weapon—Erik is a force to be reckoned with. Why take unnecessary chances?

"Let's move," Charles says, buckling into his seat at the front of the jet. Hank settles in at the controls. Behind them, half a dozen mutants sit suited up and ready in the hold.

The second jet will follow as soon as Hank completes his initial takeoff, picking up speed in the runway corridor that spills open into a wide gap in the mountains.

Strong g-forces push Charles back against his seat, and he closes his eyes, willing the jet to go faster still.

Once they reach Greenland, Charles doesn't make it far into the complex.

Even after disembarking the jet, he can't feel Erik. Whatever prevented Charles from finding Erik's mind with Cerebro, the shielding seems to remain in full force. Even at this proximity Charles feels nothing, and he focuses his attention elsewhere.

"We can teleport through here," he says at a nondescript segment of gray wall. "There's no one on the other side."

Azazel's ability proves vital. Everyone holds hands, and one cloudy jolt later, every single member of their team is on the other side of the wall.

They split into three groups, but Charles is already reaching out with his mind—searching for the information they need, the quickest path to Erik, hidden somewhere below.

The corridor is broad and dim, empty except for their own footsteps. Charles, Mystique, Azazel. Logan takes point ahead of them, hands clenched into tight fists and wicked blades already unsheathed. He moves like a soldier, efficient and precise, and Charles keeps two fingers at his own temple as he follows, watching for trouble the best way he knows how.

It's not the first time his best efforts have let him down, but Charles still feels startled disbelief when Logan shouts his name a split second too late.

Gunfire erupts behind them, a deafening staccato in the silence. Azazel vanishes, Mystique with him. Charles is too far away for Azazel's lightning-quick reflexes to pull him to safety, and he stumbles as the bullets take him low in the back. He still can't feel the minds of the soldiers that have opened fire, and he realizes in a disjointed corner of his brain that these humans have been deliberately shielded from him. A moment later such thoughts are irrelevant, because he can't feel anything beyond the fire in his back and the pain dropping him to his knees.

Hasn't he been here before? The thought comes to him fractured as vertigo drags him forward.

There's chaos around him now. Logan's howl is a sound of pure rage, echoing violently alongside the pain in Charles's mind. More gunfire, but it doesn't hit him, and then screaming—unfamiliar voices, screaming as though they're being torn apart—and a moment later there are hands on Charles. Gentle, careful. Blue hands, he sees through the hazy sting of tears, and then Raven is holding him, cradling him, shouting at someone—

The world goes gray around the edges, and Charles doesn't even realize he's closed his eyes until he opens them again. Raven's hands and wrists are covered in blood, and her face is close, blurry with tears—her own tears or his, Charles can't tell, doesn't care, he can't think.

He fades out again to the sound of shouting, familiar voices this time. Terror gleams in their words, bleeds from their thoughts, and Charles strains to focus through the numbing blackness creeping in across his senses.

"Go," Mystique is shouting, staring at someone who's close—red hands, there are red hands on him now, but this time it's not blood. "Azazel, take him and go. Find help. Now."

Azazel doesn't question—or if he does, Charles doesn't hear it, because everything spins to darkness around him and Charles doesn't know how to hold on.

Chapter Text

Charles wakes in a room he doesn't recognize. He blinks up at a ceiling he would swear he's never seen before, but it still seems almost familiar.

His mental process is groggy in a way that speaks of outside interference rather than fatigue, but he reaches out anyway. He expands dulled senses, grasping for a telepathic sense of his surroundings, and finds this place feels like Central. He's home, then. Though when that word came to mean Villa Paz he doesn't know.

He also finds Erik, and relief floods through him, instant and fierce. It takes him a slow, extra moment to turn his head.

A high-backed armchair has been set up beside the bed. It, and a tiny table strewn with files and papers, are the only furniture Charles can see. Erik sits in the chair, curled almost sideways. His eyes are closed, his face slack with sleep, and his cheek is squashed roughly into the fabric of the chair.

Even unconscious, the deep-set shadows beneath his eyes look severe, and Charles would be reluctant to wake him if he weren't so relieved simply to see him—if he weren't so desperate for answers.

Erik, he sends. He only has to say it once before Erik's eyes blink open, searching for Charles and then locking onto his face with an intensity that stops the air in Charles's lungs.

"Charles," Erik breathes, and the name echoes with fierce relief.

"Are you all right?" Charles asks.

Erik blinks at him in surprise, then laughs—a hurt, almost manic sound—before his face falls somber. He stands from the chair and circles to the far side of the bed. Charles turns his head and follows with his eyes, but finds the rest of his body refuses to cooperate. He's restrained somehow, immobilized from the chest down, and a quick glance gives him a blurry sense of strong straps attached to the bed itself.

"Don't try to move," Erik says, sitting beside him in the wider space offered by this side of the bed. He hesitates, looking uncertain for a moment before finally stretching out beside Charles. There's no second pillow as far as Charles can tell, but Erik curls onto his side and props his head on his hand.

He looks down at Charles—eye contact is easier at this angle—and says, "Hank has you secured well enough, but I'd just as soon you didn't put his work to the test."

There's terrifying gravity in his eyes, his thoughts, and Charles stares up at him.

"What happened?" he asks.

Erik hesitates, and Charles holds his breath.

"You've been unconscious for over two weeks."

"The others got you out," Charles says. Of course they did, Erik is right here. He's real, and close enough that Charles can see the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He can feel the warmth of Erik's proximity along his bare arm.

"You were shot," Erik says. His voice is a calculated wall of control. His thoughts are hurt, furious chaos. Charles steps back from Erik's mind and listens to his voice instead, as Erik continues, "One of the bullets severed your spinal column. Beast hasn't tried to operate yet, but he says this time the damage is irreparable."

This time, Charles thinks, and a threatening edge of hysteria tightens his throat. What is his life that he's been shot in the back not once, but twice? He tries not to think about the first time—about those ugly weeks and then months of recovery, when he couldn't be sure he'd ever walk again.

But of course, now that the memories have been called to the forefront, Charles can think of nothing else. There will be no miraculous recovery this time, and the unforgiving reality of it crushes in around him.

Erik's hand on his faces startles Charles, and he realizes he's closed his eyes. He opens them now, unclenching his jaw. He swallows and meets the unwelcome worry in Erik's stare. The repetitive sweep of Erik's thumb across his cheek is more calming than Charles ever intends to admit.

"I'm sorry, Charles." Erik's veneer of calm cracks, and even without reading his thoughts Charles can see the guilty turmoil showing through.

"Don't," Charles chokes. "Don't say that. I can't—"

Erik surges forward and presses their foreheads together, eyes drifting closed. Charles inhales shakily and tries to steady himself. Calming breaths, in and out, as smooth as he can manage, until the blunt edge of panic recedes far enough to let him think.

Even the partial calm he finds is only temporary. Charles can feel a deep-set hysteria twisting in his chest, waiting for its moment to snap free.

"Is the city safe?" he asks.

Erik pulls back again and opens his eyes.

"Yes," he answers. "And not just Villa Paz. You didn't just save us, Charles. Humanity's forces have been decimated. The war is over." He doesn't sound proud, or victorious, or even particularly relieved. He sounds heartbroken.

"Erik…" Charles doesn't know what to say.

"There wasn't even a formal surrender," Erik whispers, and his eyes are bright. "There was no government or military left to negotiate."

"You wish I hadn't done it."

Erik watches him for a long moment. The silence feels heavy with thoughts Charles doesn't try to read—ragged with all the things Erik isn't saying and Charles doesn't want to know.

"I wish it hadn't been necessary," Erik finally says. "You deserve better, Charles. You've always deserved better."

Charles doesn't have the heart to point out all the ways Erik is wrong about that.

"Thank you," Erik adds quietly. His knuckles brush Charles's jaw.

Charles swallows and doesn't respond.

"Are you all right?" Erik asks after several silent, stifling minutes. The question is impossibly soft, and Charles forces himself not to flinch away.

Erik obviously doesn't mean physically. That would be a stupid question, and one they both already know the answer to.

Charles takes a moment to consider his answer—to genuinely, carefully think it through.

"I don't know," he finally says.

There's still the jagged edge of hysteria threatening in his chest, but that's got almost nothing to do with the actions he took before Greenland. Charles searches in his mind, his own heart, and discovers that where he should be feeling guilt for what he's done, he simply feels…

Numb.

He doesn't know what that means, and he's reasonably sure he doesn't want to.

"I'm sorry," Erik says, and this time Charles allows it.

"I know," he says.

Then Erik curls even closer beside him and drapes an arm over Charles's chest, protective warmth, so disconcertingly careful. He curls against Charles, and holds him close, and Charles does his best to simply breathe.

(Rough translation)
You were the hurricane, and I the tall tower which challenged its power: You had to either smash me or knock me down! It could not be!

You were the ocean, and I the firm stone which awaited your waves: You had to break upon me or tear me down! It could not be!

You beautiful, and I proud: accustomed one to crush, the other not to yield; The path narrows, the inevitable impact… It could not be!