Archive of Our Own ^beta

Seeing the mansion is a totally new, utterly foreign kind of grief for Erik, who's become an undeniable expert in the subject. Even from the jet he can tell it's been gutted; the remainder of the outside building an empty shell inside which Sentinels writhe. A base of operations for the enemy, in a way Erik had never seen it when the X-Men called it home. It's so dark here, now, even for the night. There's a black curiosity on Charles' face that hurts, too, as one of the great Sentinel ships floods its light over the ruined mansion. The light glints over shattered glass, passes.

He used to sneak in through Charles' study window.

This is almost like that, really.

"The old gas and water pipes lead straight into the mansion," Charles is explaining. He doesn't mind that Erik isn't listening, Erik already knows the mansion by heart. "The walls are made of reinforced steel."

"In other words," Erik says, "a door."

In another lifetime, there would've been more humor in his voice, but this all hurts too much. He can feel Charles' sad smile, a slightly defeated nod. It's another tacit admission that Erik had always been more welcome in this home than either of them pretended. Once, long ago, Erik had sworn to Charles that he'd protect this place. That his methods would ensure no one ever dared attack mutants in their homes.

This is a built-in emergency access tunnel for Magneto. Charles always knew the house might be compromised, and he always knew Magneto would be there to help get the children to safety.

Just one of the children, tonight. So few of us left, Magneto heard Charles whisper to himself, broken, pulling Cerebro away with shaking hands.

He's watching Charles turn into him.

Charles' thoughts are guiding him, even though he knows every god damned inch of this place. He wonders what his counterpart in the contiguous timeline is doing. The Erik Lehnsherr of the past. Betraying Charles, probably.

Now he's trying not to project any images of the inside of the mansion's subterraneous headquarters to Charles. Ruined hallways, livewires sparking, a desecrated sanctuary. Erik's seen holy places burn before. Charles shouldn't have to.

Doesn't matter, though. Charles is in the boy's head too. Bobby Drake is looking around with wide-eyed horror, and Erik's almost surprised when his expression settles instead into a resigned, steady grimace. The boy's grown up.

The overwhelming sense that the past has gone wrong is there again. His brain is half-soaked in history when he opens the door to Cerebro with a bit of brute force. He wants to see Charles there, surprised. Even pleased, if he looks back far enough.

Instead scientists huddle around a girl he hurt very badly once, poking and prodding like cavemen examining the corpse of a new kill.

"I've been on that slab," Erik hears himself say. "Let me show you how it feels."

The violence was always a salve, Charles was right about that. It wouldn't solve anything, maiming the scientists. He barely stays his hand, for Charles' sake, lets them scurry off alive. He won't commit murder in Charles' home tonight.

He wonders if the telepath can feel how much Erik is still capable of enjoying violence. He wonders if Charles has anything left inside him to be disappointed.

It doesn't matter. This is a war.

She's asleep on the slab. Bobby Drake wakes her up by letting her sap some of his strength away. Magneto lets him, on the assumption that it'll be a more comforting awakening than Erik's dwindling power. What little of it there is left to him.

His point about war is quickly proven. There are losses on both sides tonight. They're trading one mutant for another, he knows it even before the Sentinels break through the walls, the floor. Drake needn't say a single thing as Erik grips Rogue by the shoulders, pulls her along with him. He is faintly aware that Rogue is screaming, that Iceman is being destroyed. He has to turn back to keep his hold on her, she's trying to buck out of his grip. There's a hole being burned into Iceman's chest, three Sentinels tower over him in a fatal, still triptych.

Charles can't stand to see another of his children cut down, but Erik can feel the telepath in his head, forcing Erik to show him every detail.

Everything else is a blur. He's fairly certain he's blown up the remains of the X-Mansion. It wouldn't be the first time, but it's going to be the last.

On the jet back, the girl is quiet. She loved Drake, once, as a young girl. He'd almost forgotten. Now the memory comes to him: children glancing furtively to each other on the blackbird. The girl with the long gloves, who couldn't be touched, and the boy with the frost around him. He'd been cruel to the poor girl.

He wants to say he's sorry now, say she was just a pawn in a bigger war to him then, say he understands now that they should have been his family, that he should've stayed with Charles, maybe should've radicalized him quietly, the same way Charles once did to him.

It'd be the wrong thing to say. The silence is more fitting. Charles is gripping his own hands for fear of any attempt to comfort her. She's not a child. There's nothing to say that's comforting.

Erik rises quietly. His boots are louder against the metal floor of the blackbird. He comes to Charles' side.

"You need to tell her," Erik says. In his mind, he adds: I'm sorry, old friend.

For all of it. For Drake, dead. For the decades Erik wasted warring with the inhabitants of that decimated mansion. For leaving the pragmatic conversations to Charles, now, thick with his grief.

Charles just nods. He's so much stronger, in so many ways, than Erik.

"Marie," he says. "Rogue. I wish I could give you more than a moment's rest, I'm so very glad we found you, but you've been freed for a purpose."

She nods. "The second I saw him," she says, nodding her chin towards Erik, "A part of me knew it was you. I knew you had a plan. I'm just not sure what I can do to help, Professor, I... I was down there a long time."

Erik's heart contracts. Sometimes he feels like there's a hand over it, pressing, pulling him along by the inside of his chest.

"We need you," Erik says, and it's as much assurance as he can offer.

She used to look at Erik with fear, and then with hatred. That faded, over years, to a resigned distaste, seeing Erik occasionally after Charles' quote-unquote death. Still, when Drake had awakened her, that old terror came into her at the sight of Magneto, looming over her. Drake had comforted her. It's all right. He's with me. We're here to get you out.

Now all there is in her eyes is a worn familiarity. She's almost comforted in seeing him, because she knows he's real. She'd never dream him up, coming to rescue her.

Erik remembered his last imprisonment at the hands of the US government. He remembered Stryker's torture, broken up by Charles visiting him, like the sun.

Each time, he'd make the same joke. Have you come to rescue me?

When they captured Charles, during one of those visits, Erik longed for death with a passion he hadn't felt since before he'd met the telepath. She's lost the boy who came to rescue her, no matter what else complicates it. He's not a telepath, but he's sure her head is screaming: you should have let me die when you had the chance.

"We're going to fix all of this," Charles begins, and it's incredible.

The inside of the blackbird hums quietly, and Charles' conviction electrifies the air. Erik's felt like this before. Like a weapon in the telepath's grasp. Like a vessel for not his own hatred but for Charles, poured into him, his will.

Decades too late, this is the feeling he was born for.

Rogue's eyes meet his, because he's not looking at Charles. He can't stare into the sun. The girl, he realizes, looks so much older than he was expecting. Her whole face is sallow, tired. Sunken eyes burn with the same power Magneto feels in his veins.

They will fight and die for mutantdom. Each and every one of Charles' children, and Erik. That is Charles Xavier's gift to the world.

The light in the temple is awful, but the warmth bleeds through his determination to pretend he's fine. It makes him feel like he can rest. Rogue takes Kitty's place seamlessly. Erik is there to catch Kitty as she falls. Charles notes, in fact, that Wolverine calms immediately in the mental presence of Rogue. He knows, somehow, that her hand is inches from his temple. They were always close. Erik remembers, he'd been there to defend her from Erik, on the train. So long ago, and yet...

Erik is privately more than relieved that Kitty Pryde isn't straining herself any longer. He's always liked her. Fiery young Jewish girl, demanding to be taken seriously well before her time. A child among adults, fighting for her place in the world. Now, she rests fitfully as Erik lays her down.

He'd almost killed her, once. It had almost killed him.

He screamed down his connection with Charles, some few days later: How could you let her face me?

Charles could only respond: How can I keep her from danger?

He had no answer to that. Neither of them ever did. She was a mutant, after all.

She'd snuck out with the X-Men. Now she's found a new way to fight, and Erik is in awe of mutation in all its infinite variety. Bishop nudges Erik out of the way to tend to Kitty with a wet rag, dabbing gently over her forehead. This is a family. Erik is always intruding on them.

Everything has worked. Their mission is successful. He can admit to himself how tired he is, now. Only Charles is watching, and Charles knows how weak he is.

"You're the strongest man I've ever known," Charles chides quietly. His face, lit by orange candles and a kaleidoscope of stained glass, is the picture of affectionate consternation.

----Bobby, Rogue is saying, desperate, as Charles ignites the jets of the blackbird. She's begging, in one word, like Charles could save him, like he'll turn the jet around, like he would never leave one of his students behind.

I know, Charles is saying in turn, something too large for words lurking behind his face. They're sharing grief they don't have time for. A Sentinel rich and gluttonous with Bobby's stolen powers is attacking the windows. Charles throttles the accelerators.----

They're going to their corner, unofficial, of the atrium. There's a ledge by the fireplace big enough for both of them to sit, for one to rest under watch of the other. They're only partially separate from the quasi-religious image of Wolverine on the stone slab in the center of the temple; there are pillars every so often. Like this, Erik can see that at least these mutants aren't dead yet. Charles had gestured to it, when they'd begun this whole mad venture. Now he is trying to console Erik Lehnsherr, who never raised a single fucking one of these children.

"You loved them," Charles says in response. "You love us all. I know how much it's always hurt you."

"I used to be young," Erik says. Without even mental coordination he lifts Charles and rests him on the bench. Twenty years ago, Charles might've insisted on doing it himself. "I used to be able to do something about it."

With a sigh, Erik sits down too. Charles is watching him, so he stares out instead over the scene of the temple. Some of the others are having quiet conversations. No one is paying attention to either of them.

"You just saved everyone."

"It's not enough."

Charles' bare hand is a shock against his cheek, and then held at his chin, shifting his gaze. Charles is sat on a slightly higher part of the stone bench, so that Erik is looking up to him, frozen in place by Charles' fingers. The tip of the telepath's thumb is less than a centimeter from the corner of his mouth, it brushes a gentle stroke up and back down as Erik has that thought.

"I'll give you another chance at them," Charles says.

Erik's soul quakes as he nods. Charles, satisfied, kicks up a quiet, loving conversation about literature. Steeped in nostalgia, they can make fun of their past-selves, obstinate and stupid and ruining fucking everything. Erik kisses him twice in the course of their hushed conversation. Just a sudden press of lips to the corner of Charles' mouth, catching himself by surprise in both instances, but it's his only answer to that expression on his oldest friend's face; full of ancient, all-knowing affection. He catches a mirthful eye from Storm as she taps out of watch duties to pass them along to Bishop, taking up the man's place at Kitty's side.

"Is everyone okay?" Storm asks. The mountain is silent. He quietly gathers metal closer, reflexively untrusting of the break in violence. It can't be that simple, there were so many of them, out there in the dark. Erik knows a slaughter on the horizon when he sees one.

It's only once he's seen the look on Storm's face as her eyes pass to him that he notices one final piece, lodged in his abdomen. He pulls it out. You're not supposed to do that, he thinks idly. But he knows he'll need this metal, too. He's oozing slow waves of dark, warm blood out of the wound he can hardly feel.

And then a greater wound blooms in Storm's abdomen, just where his own has been pierced. A Sentinel stands behind her, and Erik can see Bobby Drake dying again. The same way. Half-turned, facing him, not really looking at him. Charles in his mind screaming silently, begging nothing.

Once Storm falls, there is only killing. They'll fight back, but Erik's doing the math in his head.

He knows he's got to retreat.

In that final instant, the great mutant radical Magneto proves himself a hypocrite. He isn't thinking about Wolverine's mission in the past, nor about the greater good of his people. In that moment, faceless Sentinels close in. He sees them pour over the walls, into the courtyard, and he can only think that Charles is behind that door.

He falls back, towards the atrium of the temple, and as he goes he barricades the door with every last scrap of metal he can find. Bishop's gun. The remains of the blackbird. Metal parts, uncovered within the temple. One final jagged piece of jet shrapnel wet with his blood. Everything he's got.

Charles is behind that door. Blink lets him through his own barricade, wordlessly, with a well-timed portal. She's not thinking useless, sentimental thoughts. She's got Charles in her head, tactics-heavy, focused, brilliant as always.

He stumbles to Charles' side. His barricade won't hold. He's going to die soon, and even if he does manage to keep the metal in place somehow, they're going to break through it.

He can feel heat pouring against the metal he's trying to keep solid. The world tilts on its axis as he falls to the ground before Charles.

Everything is ending too quickly.

There's just Charles, filling his sight, above him and around him, smiling like Erik hasn't wasted their lives.

"All those years spent fighting each other, Charles," Erik manages. The words are killing him.

Half of Charles' face is lit, at an odd angle. The light that haloes his eyes is warm yellow, the color of sheer nostalgia, the sepia of the past. A final mad quotation: The colours red, blue and green are real. The color yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody. It's beyond Erik's reckoning. He's more implacable than ever. That frown could mean a million things. Erik's not looking at the table where Wolverine lies, dreaming of decades ago, but he just barely manages to gesture over towards it.

"To have a precious few of them back."

Once again, he's betrayed himself for a hypocrite. This was supposed to have been about saving mutantdom. It seems so impossible, now that he's said it out loud, but Charles doesn't look like he's lost hope. Or maybe that's what Erik needs to see in those lines. He's sagging further towards the floor. With each pump of his heart, pain throbs through his head, blurs his vision. He's here on sheer willpower. He's dead already.

Damn it all. There's nothing else he can think to do. It's not what he wants to say, but Charles is meeting his outstretched hand.

Erik can't kiss him, not unless--Charles is pulling him up, meeting him halfway down. His lips feel cold against what must be feverish skin. Charles' other hand is at the back of his neck, and their lips remain pressed tightly together. It's almost more in kinship than in love, or rather it's a kind of love Erik hasn't experienced as an adult.

Even now, dying, he suddenly knows they've been successful. Something in him just knows. Charles is kissing him in a desperate bid, as if it might transfer over to the past.

As if it might stop Erik from squandering their chance all over again in this new timeline.