"Are you serious?" Charles whispered, staring with growing feeling of breathless hysteria at the ultrasound Hank cobbled together last night. Young McCoy was staring just as hard at the grainy image, looking decidedly less stunned than Charles felt. Then again, it was Hank that had pointed out the possibility, given his blood and urine test results.
He was sick. Not pregnant. No way. That bastard hadn't gotten him pregnant as well. Hank winced next to the Professor, shooting a wary look at him sideways. "Sorry, Professor, I am nearly 100% sure he has." Oh, so he projected that one. Oops.
The panic began to harden into something more bitter, and it cloyed on his tongue like a bad taste.
"That fucking wanker," he spat, pushing himself into a sitting position, fully prepared to attempt to drop into his wheelchair himself. Alas, Hank scrambled to help, catching him before he fell and lowering him carefully into it. The telepath was half glad he had; the pain that would have surely come from that move would have made him regret it the next day.
Cursing wildly under his breath, he pushed himself out of the lab and down the corridor. No matter how hard he had searched for him, Charles couldn't find Erik because of that stupid helmet, no matter how much cerebro amplified his power. He had briefly entertained the idea of trying to find them through Raven's mind, but had considered it a vastly inappropriate breach of privacy, all things considered.
Now however, he had no such qualms. He waited impatiently for Hank to open the door for him, ignoring the fact that his angry journey through the mansion had attracted both Alex and Sean, who were trailing behind them like confused puppies.
"Boot her up, Hank," he commanded, satisfied that the furry mutant jumped to it almost immediately. He snatched cerebro's helmet - a sleeker design than anything the CIA could create - and thrust it onto his head.
"Professor, please think about what you're doing. You won't find Erik with his helmet on."
"Just do it, Hank," he growled, ignoring the other boys' worried questions.
Hank sighed and flipped the final switch, opening the whole world to Charles' brain. The rush was familiar and heady. He used cerebro frequently, both to search for his missing friend and to find new students and faculty for his embryonic school.
He searched furiously for the familiar mind of his sister, and within minutes, he felt the bright spark of it brush against his conciousness. He was about to dive in when a wall of diamond immediately slammed up, blocking him from Raven.
"Miss Frost," he greeted coldly, pushing a pulse of frustration at her interference. "
How rude of you, Professor Xavier, I thought you were better than that," she crooned, her mental voice amused at his annoyance.
"I need to speak to Erik immediately, and this is the only way he will listen," she could hear her smirk.
"True enough, but why the urgency to speak to our fearless leader? Last I heard, you weren't exactly on speaking terms." Charles thrust the information at her with a huff, feeling mildly embarrassed at her startled laugh.
Soon she was in hysterics, not just in her mind, and she let him view the looks of bewilderment on the faces of those around her. When Erik's face popped up in his mind, his anger returned, visceral and intense.
"Okay, Sugar, I think you deserve this one. Congratulations," she snickered and withdrew the mental shields she had placed around Raven, and he didn't hesitate before taking over.
He felt his sister's outrage, which flared up upon his entrance, recognising the feel of him slipping into her mind after many years of it.
Sorry, Raven, he whispered, I need to talk to Erik.
"Erik Lehnsherr," he growled, utilising Raven's ability to shift into a simulation of his own body.
He included the wheelchair; fully aware that though Erik knew of his paralysis, he had never seen him with it - and so he hoped the image would make him suffer. Judging by the way he flinched, it did. Good.
"I don't care about your silly little pet project, or your misguided and frankly stupid attempt to destroy the human race but if you don't come back here right now, I will fucking kill you myself." Erik's jaw dropped, at his abrasiveness or the swearing Charles couldn't tell. Damn that helmet.
"You took my sister, you took my legs and now I have to find out you fucking knocked me up. Not only is it literally just my fucking luck that YOU had bloody super-sperm or that I have a womb without a bloody vagina," Raven's mind hiccuped in surpise, the protests to his invasion silencing almost immediately.
"After everything you have done, I have never demanded you here to help me deal with your mistakes. I didn't demand your help with dealing with the fact you abandoned me. I didn't demand you help me relearn how to live when you paralysed me. And I certainly didn't demand that you persuade my sister to visit.
"Now I am bloody demanding that you come home right now, because I definitely am not dealing with fucking childbirth on my own after everything else you've put me through."
Emma began to laugh again, giving him a telepathic pat on the back. You are not helping, he groused at her. She only laughed harder.
Erik looked as shell-shocked as Raven felt; her mind was an ocean of confusion and a little bit of guilt. She regretted leaving him to deal with everything on his own, even if Erik didn't.
"C-Charles..." He stammered, his eyes wide, and his mouth hanging open. A familiar feeling of nausea began to spread in Charles' stomach.
"You had better come, Erik, or I will kill you," he reiterated, he felt his face (well, Raven's) blanch as the sickness grew. "Now, excuse me. I'm going to vomit."
oOo
He was still leant heavily over the toilet bowl, and precariously out of his wheelchair when he felt a cautious hand in his hair. He hadn't noticed before, what with dealing with his rebellious stomach, but he could hear shouting downstairs. His heart stuttered when he realised he could hear Raven's voice among the din. Which only meant the hand combing gently through his hair, and, now that he thought on it, the none existant mind that should accompany it, had to be Erik. He'd obviously had Azazel transport them to the mansion almost immediately.
"Take it off," he snapped, only to regret opening his mouth when his stomach clenched and caused another wave of vomiting to hit.
Erik said nothing, and continued to stroke his hair as Charles puked, but the telepath noted a chink of metal against tile and a quietly worried mind brushing against his.
To Charles' surprise, Erik pushed his thoughts at him clumsily. But the mind - which he had missed so much goddammit - was pulsing sorrysorrymissedyousorryit'sokaysorry with a poorly concealed feeling of disbelief, and a cautious joy which grew with each minute of comforting Charles.
"Are you sure?" Erik murmured after a few quiet moment, still combing his fingers through his hair, despite the fact that Charles finished vomiting minutes before.
"100%" he echoed Hank's previous words dimly, finally looking at Erik with resignation.
Erik looked wrecked, his steel grey eyes soft, like he couldn't quite believe his luck, yet was terrified it would be taken away from him.
"What does this mean?" He whispered, his eyes sliding reverently down to Charles' still flat tummy.
The telepath sighed, "it means we're having a baby."
Steel grey eyes snapped back to his, "for us," he clarified, "you seemed to have a definite plan ten minutes ago."
Charles sighed again, suddenly exhausted. "I was angry. You don't have to stay."
Erik's mind flinched, hurt by his response for some reason. Charles head hurt. "What if I want to?"
Charles snapped his gaze up to Erik's. "Then you do not leave. No matter how much you disagree with me, or how much you hate me - if you stay. You stay. I won't survive you leaving again. I won't have you as an inconsistent presence in our child's life. You are either there or you're not."
Erik's mind ground to a halt, the words ourchildourchildourchild spinning like a dizzying mantra in the man's head. Instead of pursuing that thought, he murmured, "I could never hate you."
Charles said nothing, just stared at Erik knelt next to him, a hand still absently caressing his hair.
"I will stay," he murmured with a nod, lifting the hand not in the telepath's hair and placing it on Charles' stomach, as if he could reach out and touch their unborn child.
"I will stay."