Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything. I'm wishing though, like everyone else.

Warnings: I think this story is rated M just in case for the future chapters.


CHAPTER ONE

Marianne often wonders how she ends up doing half the things she does and getting herself into these awful sticky situations. It has to be her second mutation. It has to be. That is, if bad luck combined with some idiocy is even considered a mutation.

She guesses that Birkhoff would have it too. She and him both. After all, that's how they have ended up on board a U.S. Coast Guard ship, in Miami Florida, in 1962.

She isn't sure how they have managed to travel back fifty-four years into the past. Heck, she isn't even sure how they have come to work alongside Professor Charles Xavier – mind you, the young Professor Charles Xavier, who is barely a few years older than them. Unfortunately, they have somehow gotten themselves involved and now have to stop a fellow mutant named Sebastian Shaw from wrecking havoc and starting World War III.

"I've lost Shaw," said Charles. "I've lo – I've lost Shaw. Th–There's something blocking me. This has never happened to me before. I think there's someone like me on that ship."

"Like you?" asked Moira.

"He means a telepath," Birkhoff interjects, not at all surprised.

"Yes, that is right. And this is incredible. I could actually feel her inside my head." For a brief moment Charles seems almost excited. "I'm very sorry, but I don't think I'm gonna be much help to you tonight. You're on your own."

At this, Marianne almost wants to lament in despair. Really.

How is this Charles Xavier going to be of any help to them? This one has barely begun to grasp the full extent of his powers. Her thoughts, however, are interrupted as turmoil unfolds and she hears Charles and Moira swear.

"Oh my God."

"Jesus."

An entire platoon of coast guards, who was heading for Shaw's yacht in speedboats, has been wiped out by tornadoes generated by one of Shaw's lackeys. Having seen more impressive displays of powers back in their time, Marianne and Birkhoff remain unfazed at the sight.

However, the CIA agent in black – whose name Marianne has forgotten – gets worried. "Get inside," he ushers them.

Everyone follows quickly and she and Birkhoff do not protest otherwise. After all, the both of them do not have any offensive powers that can currently be used against Shaw.

"Stop, stop, stop," Charles abruptly halts and cries out just as they descend the stairs to go below deck.

"Charles? Are you okay?" Moira asks worried.

"There's someone else out there," Charles replies. Marianne meets Birhoff's eyes and frowns. Meanwhile, Charles rushes to the nearest exit, leaving the others to trail behind him. "There," Charles points to something in the water just as Marianne reaches the edge of the deck with Birkhoff at her heel.

A large metal chain rises from the water as it plunges straight into Shaw's boat. The chain takes the boat apart almost like how the kraken took apart the ships in Pirates of the Caribbean. There isn't much illumination to guide her but Marianne scans the dark waters anyway to see who is responsible.

"Let go! You have to let it go!" Charles shouts to the waters. It is then when she finally notices him. "You got to help him," Charles turns to, well, all of them – Marianne, Birkhoff, Moira, and the other agent. "You got to put someone in the water to help him–let it go! You have to let it go!"

"Annie!" Birkhoff turns to Marianne as he gestures to the waters.

"What?" she protests as he nudges her towards the edge of the platform.

"Hurry! He's gonna drown!" Birkhoff then motions to Charles. "I'll get him to open a connection for you. But you have to be there just in case it doesn't work or if he doesn't listen!"

Marianne throws her friend an incredulous look, as though demanding silently if he is being serious. Birkhoff returns it with an expression that says what-are-you-waiting-for. Muttering a string of curses under her breath, Marianne removes her coat and lets herself drop into the sea.

It isn't long before she feels the familiar sensation of her mind being connected to another. Looks like the young Charles has managed then. This trick is pretty handy for their missions; it has been done often enough back in her time, though by a more experienced telepath. Either way, it's too late to back out now.

It's almost like having a walky-talky in the head. All you need to do is to match the correct frequency and the other person can hear you. But of course, you do need some training in order for you to be able to build up your own shields. After all, you wouldn't want the other person to hear all the thoughts in your head.

Unfortunately, Erik knows nothing about shielding and when she enters his mind, she is exposed to well – everything. She is in his head and it is so chaotic that she instinctively slams her shields down. It's almost like reaching automatically for that mute button when your device suddenly makes a sound in a quiet library. In any case, she can't hear him anymore. Though she does learn enough to gather his name. And his intention. Oh goodness. He is trying to stop a submarine!

With quite a bit of effort and a lot of haste on her part, she manages to swim to his approximate location. She can no longer see him because he has now gone underwater. Taking a deep breath, she goes after him, reaching for his arms. "Let go! You have to let go!" she starts thinking as loud possible. With her shields down she won't be able to hear him, but he should still be able to hear her. "Please, or you'll drown!" She tugs on his arms in an almost futile attempt to get him back above the water. She isn't certain how long more she can hold her breath. Running out of options, she tries to be sympathetic. "I know what this means to you, but you're going to die. Please, Erik, let go."

It is like playing a tug of war game with him – both of them pulling at different ends. She nearly loses hope when he suddenly lets his end of the rope go. By some divine force – because God knows she's not a very strong swimmer – they are propelled upwards. She welcomes the air back into her lungs almost greedily as soon as they break the surface.

But of course, her ordeal is far from over. "Get off me! Get off me!" Erik gasps as he shrugs away from her. The man's probably having a panic attack now.

"Just calm down!" she screams at him with her vocal chords, their mind connection somehow already broken – at this point, she doesn't really care. "Oh my gosh! We're here! Help us!" she shouts towards the U.S Coast Guard ship. "And hurry please I can't swim!"

"What?!" Erik suddenly interrupts her, sounding very incredulous. "You jumped in when you can't swim?"

"You were drowning and I wasn't thinking," she shoots back. "And I can swim – sort of. I just can't thread water very well–" She then decides to ignore him as she concentrates all her efforts in keeping herself afloat. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming the voice of Dory the fish chants in her head.

But perhaps he sees her struggling, because he then barks at her. "Come here!"

She does not know why, but she does as he orders, swimming almost clumsily towards him. He meets her halfway before he grabs her. Instinctively, she wounds her arms around his neck and he lets her cling onto him.

"Annie!" she hears her name being called and she looks up to see Birkhoff waving at her.

"We're here!" she shouts back.

At the thought of finally being rescued out of the water, she untangles herself from Erik. She swims towards the ship and barely makes it a metre away from Erik when she realises that nothing has been thrown down yet for her to grab onto. Feeling exasperated, she turns back to Erik and he once again lets her use him as a float.

"Who are you?" Erik finally asks her as they wait patiently to be fished out of the water.

"Marianne Stark," she answers from the crook of his neck, sounding very tired.

"You were in my head," Erik says quietly. "How did you do it?"

"You have your tricks and I–well," she frowns. "It's someone else's trick actually," she offers as she casts her gaze to some figure on board the ship. "But I have mine as well. In any case, we are all like you."

There is a long moment of silence before he speaks, "I thought I was alone."

She can't help but feel sad for him. She hasn't been in his mind for very long, but she's been there long enough to know that he was alone most of his life. He will not want her pity, that too she knows. So instead, she gives him a small smile – although he can't see it – and tells him, "You're not alone. Erik, you're not alone."


Miserable no longer seems fitting to describe how she's feeling now. She's cold and the men around are staring at her weirdly. Of course she knows why. Despite all the idiotic things she has done in her life, Marianne is no idiot. These men – or animals really – are obviously enjoying the view. Her white sundress has turned translucent from soaking up water, clinging obnoxiously onto her skin.

She tries to comfort herself by thinking she at least wore a nicer bra and panty. She would have been mortified had she been caught in granny underwear. She feels oddly pleased when she notices that Erik has positioned himself strategically in front of her. She could be wrong but he also seems to be glaring at any men looking at her too long.

Looks like there is hope for the male species after all. Speaking of which, her good old pal Birkhoff seems to have disappeared. It's pretty smart of him actually; all this has been his fault after all. He should have been the one to jump in after Erik and not her. Oh, she is going to relish in dismembering him later.

She is left to the privacy of the washroom, thankful that she has a spare change of clothes. As she towel-dries her mob of deep chestnut hair, she takes a moment to examine herself on the mirror. Her sea green eyes, her most striking feature or so she's been told, looks eerily luminous. It's probably just the lighting, she thinks. And her complexion – oh gosh. 'Pale' does not cut it now. She looks ghastly, as though taking that dip in the ocean has removed all the colour from her face.

This really isn't her day. She looks like a zombie and she can't go home. She and Birkhoff are pretty much stuck here. The Professor is certainly not going to be much help. Although he has read their minds and knows them to be from the future, there is really nothing much he can do unless he develops another mutation to travel through time. At least he has let them both come with him – even though it's more like Charles needing their help than any to take down Shaw. But still, they really don't know anyone else to approach.

Everyone is already assembled when Marianne makes her way to the lower cabins. She spots Birkhoff loitering at the back and shoots him a look of displeasure of which he returns with a shaky smile.

It seems that in the time – it wasn't long, she's pretty sure – that she has taken to dry and freshen herself, introductions have already been made to the newcomer, Erik Lehnsherr. It also seems that he has already received the full-blown biology lecture on the next stage of human evolution, courtesy of Charles. She clearly hasn't missed much.

She catches the eye of Erik, who acknowledges her with a nod of his head. Charles is still conversing with him on who knows what.

As she makes her way to Birkhoff's side, she takes a moment to study the man she has just saved. Okay fine, technically he saved her too – she would not have been able to last that long in the water. But let's not get technical here.

It would be a lie to say that she is completely not drawn to him. Erik Lehnsherr is a very attractive man. There is just something about his chiseled jaw and those…haunting grey eyes. Well, given his state of mind, he is probably a haunted man with skeletons hiding in his closet. But who is she to judge?

"He's Magneto," Birkhoff whispers low enough that only she can hear.

It takes a while for her to comprehend, but when she does, she wonders why she has never connected the dots before.

Erik Lehnsherr is Magneto, one of the world's most powerful mutants. They have never crossed paths but she has heard of him; he's infamous.

Strangely, she doesn't see him as Magneto, the villain. She can't. All she sees is a man carrying so much pain and anger. Of course, he hides it all very well. It takes a telepath or someone who has been inside his head to see it. So what happened in his life that made him this way?


They arrive at the covert CIA research base well past sunrise in the morning. They take two cars – the ladies taking it upon themselves to band together.

Birkhoff is perfectly fine with this arrangement. Anything would be better than to incur Marianne's wrath. She hasn't really forgiven him yet, though he insists that there isn't really anything to forgive since he hasn't done anything wrong in the first place. But who in the right mind would want to argue with her? It's best to just let her anger her simmer down first. She cools down pretty fast anyway.

They meet a new mutant in the facility when Charles accidentally reveals him. Hank McCoy, otherwise known as Beast, is a researcher for the CIA. Birkhoff briefly wonders how his future idol manages to turn into a blue fur ball in the future.

But of course, everything else is soon forgotten as Birkhoff engrosses himself with all the computers and machines in the room. To a technopath, who comes from a far more advanced time period, this place is the closest he has to home now.

Birkhoff only vaguely hears Marianne telling him that she is off to take a quick nap and promises to find him later. He waves her goodbye before promptly attaching himself to Hank, ignoring Raven's look of annoyance at his intrusion.

Birkhoff doesn't really care. All he wants is for Hank to show him the latest gadgets the CIA has to offer. It has been so long and he has been so deprived; the technology in the 60s feels like the stone age to him. But he will just have to make do with the latest tech here.

Much to Raven's dismay, Birkhoff spends the entire day and all the way into the early night with Hank, tinkering with the various gadgets and machines. Birkhoff can feel Raven's heated glares as he monopolies much of Hank's time and attention. It is only after Raven's threatening reminder that he should find Marianne that finally makes Birkhoff leave, albeit reluctantly. He almost throws Hank a look of betrayal after seeing his new buddy's relief at his departure.

Wait till he tells Marianne, there is definitely something going on with Beast and Mystique. He trudges to Marianne's new quarters and promptly knocks on her door.

"Annie?" He tries again when she does not answer. He looks around the hallway, thinking that perhaps he has gotten the wrong room. He decides to enter and as expected, he is greeted by an empty room. The only sign that shows that it has been previously occupied is the unmade bed.

There is something strange about the tangled sheets that make Birkhoff walk closer for an inspection. He crouches down and looks under the bed.

"Shit."

This is not a good sign, he thinks. And he prays to all the Gods out there that Marianne is fine. Because the last time she lost control... No, he better not thinks about that.

This is Marianne's room alright and that is definitely her work. The blanket gone through the bed and into the floor. Quickly, he heads for the quarters directly below.

Nopes, not there either. Birkhoff is sure that he is well on his way to a panic attack. He has searched everywhere and Marianne is nowhere in sight. As he turns towards the front entrance of the building, he catches a figure just outside the door. He hears voices as he approaches.

He catches Charles speak, "I'm sorry, Erik, but I've seen what Shaw did to you. I've felt your agony. I can help you."

"I don't need your help," Erik retorts.

"Has anyone seen Marianne?" Birkhoff cuts in, not at all caring that he might have interrupted something important between the two men.

"No, I haven't seen her," Charles replies. "Is something the matter?"

"Hell yes, I can't find her!" Birkhoff is really quite above panicking right now.

"She was heading to the kitchen when I last saw her. Have you checked there?" Erik looks rather ticked off, as though Birkhoff is being overdramatic and wasting his time.

"Yes!" Birkhoff practically snaps. "It's one of the first places that I checked! And she's not there!"

"Calm your mind Birkhoff. I'm sure Marianne is fine," Charles intervenes.

"No, you don't understand," Birkhoff interrupts. "I think she might be in trouble!"

"We are in a safe place. No one is going to harm her here." Charles tries to assure him, which of course doesn't work. If any, Birkhoff only gets more anxious.

"No, it's not that!" Birkhoff pauses for a moment to take a deep breath. "I think something's happened. I have to make sure that she's fine. She'll be in really big trouble otherwise. She can't lose control of powers like this. Okay? She can't lose control! She just can't!"


TBC.


A/N: Special thanks to my wonderful beta Goddessofwomen.