SPOILER ALERT: for First Class and Days of Future Past
AN: Fic title and the section headings are lyrics from Emily Barker's song "Nostalgia"
Nostalgia
Five times Raven missed Charles' voice, and one time she finally heard it (and one bonus scene in which HAPPINESS finally happens).
1. Away from Your Smile
On her first night with Erik's group, Raven realized that it had been years since she slept without saying goodnight to Charles. Ever since she banned Charles from using telepathy on her, he more or less tethered himself to her side. They probably hadn't spent more than a few days apart in one go since they settled down at Oxford. Even when Charles went away sometimes for his work, he would always call to check in on her.
In Raven's most idyllic memory, Charles would be reading in their Oxford flat, at the desk, on the couch, or somewhere a few steps away from where she would be. She would say goodnight and he would look up briefly and smile at her, and tell her goodnight too.
But Raven knew Charles shouldn't be reading tonight. He would probably be in a hospital somewhere, getting that gunshot wound looked after. Moira would be with him, Raven thought, with a strange bitterness.
What would I be doing if I didn't leave? She wondered. Probably by Charles' side, in the hospital. Not because she would be of any use there, but because normally, she just wouldn't want to be anywhere else if Charles was hurt.
She could almost picture him, sitting up on a hospital bed reading late into the light, ignoring nurses and others who would tell him to rest. She should be there, asking him to sleep, but he'd insist on reading, because the events of the day probably generated a ton of paperwork. Raven would resort to pouting and telling him that she wouldn't leave and sleep if he didn't first, because he was injured and he needed his rest.
She could be bratty and whiny, and Charles would eventually give her that resigned and indulgent smile while she kisses his forehead for goodnight. That was how it always had been.
Not anymore.
2. Whisper Me Words
It had been one of those days when she just couldn't sleep. The government was still hot on their trail for breaking Emma out of jail, and the gang decided to make do at a dilapidated and abandoned house for the night. It was a drafty, old place and a thunderstorm raged outside. Raven had never been so cold, so exhausted, so hungry, and so scared in her entire life. She couldn't sleep – how could she, when it already felt so much like a nightmare?
As a child, and even as an adult, she made Charles read to her when she couldn't sleep. It had been years since Charles happily cradled her and told her stories about Madame Curie and Albert Einstein, but he still read to her when she asked: newspaper, academic articles, textbooks, even his own essays. Secretly, Raven liked hearing Charles's essays the most, because they were his own words and they sounded so natural coming from him. She heard his thesis so many times that she was able to recite it verbatim for Erik and Emma.
Raven closed her eyes and willed herself to remember one of those days, maybe the early days when she would sneak into Charles's room in the Westchester Estate. She actually was scared of thunderstorms back then. Charles always put his arms around her when she was scared and held the book out in front of her, but she never bothered reading it herself. She'd close her eyes, and let herself drown in Charles's voice.
"Marie Curie was born in Poland in…."
Barely above a whisper, yet somehow, louder than thunder.
3. Write Me a Beacon
The first time she fought with Erik (like really fought with Erik) was when she (they) found out about Charles' paralysis. She knew Erik felt horribly guilty about it. It was written all over his face, but she didn't care.
Everyone else in the gang left them alone to sort it out, but it mostly just Raven screaming and yelling and trying to hit Erik with everything she could get her hands on. (Not that trying to stab Erik with a metal knife would do much of anything.)
Then she broke down to a heap on the ground when she realized that Charles won't ever stand up to pull her back from rushing into a fight. He would never stand in front of a lecture hall in Oxford to teach students about mutation. He wouldn't be able to stand on a bar table and drink a yard of beer while a crowd cheered around him. Would he even be able to walk into a bar now? How will he climb the stairs in the mansion?
"He is alive. He is fine now. It's been months. He's fine." Erik kept on saying, to himself as much as to Raven.
But Raven found it so hard to believe. Why didn't Charles let her know? She wanted desperately to hear it herself, during a surprise visit in a bar, in a call on the phone, or even let Charles project his voice into her head. She wanted to hear him, his confident voice telling her that he really was alright, his sincere voice telling her that he needed her, or even his angry voice yelling at her for leaving when he needed her.
Because anything was better than the idea that Charles thought she didn't care anymore, or worse, that Charles wasn't well enough to remember that she did.
4. Beneath Metal Stars
"Any young man would be lucky to have you." Charles had said, time and again.
Was Erik the kind of young man Charles had in mind? Probably not. Too much anger. Too high a body count.
Until she met Erik, Raven never really thought of herself falling in love with someone like him. She thought she would be with someone like Hank – bookishly smart, friendly, nice, and maybe a bit awkward with people in some ways, because Raven learned at Oxford that very few people could pull off both smart and charming the way Charles did.
But Erik was unlike anyone she had met. Every time she tried to apply words to Erik, it sounded more like she was describing a force of nature rather than a person. In a way, Erik reminded her of Charles. He can be determined, passionate, wise, powerful with his mutation, and completely committed to making the world better for mutants (albeit Charles seems very misguided about how to achieve it). Then, there are times when Raven sees the man her brother refused to work with, when Erik killed, threatened, and tortured.
Sometimes it felt like Erik could reshape the world with his powers, but other times even Raven feared that he just might break it in the process.
What would you say about Erik and me, Raven wondered. Will you give us your blessings? Do you think we can be happy together?
Because Eric was amazing. Inspiring, but also terrifying.
I want to fight with Erik for the rest of my life. Charles, are you happy for me?
Charles, do you think I'll be happy?
5. Blind Desire for the Fleeting
Asians were always tricky, Mystique thought with a frown as she perfected her transformation into the Vietnamese General in that Paris hotel room. The illusion looked a bit off when she tried to move the facial muscles, but she had no reference from which she could improve since the general was no longer conscious.
That meant she'll need to keep talking to a minimum, which was fine by her. She wasn't like Erik or Charles. She wasn't planning on giving a speech when she pulls the trigger.
Trask deserved to die; he needed to die to keep her friends safe. Mystique had decided that the moment she saw what Trask did and planned to do to her friends.
It was the fault of people like him that she was alone.
She missed Emma's witty remarks, Angel's sarcastic comebacks, even Azazel and Riptide acting tough and manly. She missed Erik, who reassured her that she could change the world, and reminded her why it needed to be changed.
And for a moment, she missed Charles, his gentle chiding and calm fury, covering up a wise and caring heart. A bit of her resolve crumbled when she remembered Charles. What would he say now, looking at his sister planning to kill a man? She had wreaked all kinds of havoc these past 10 years. There might have been a few casualties, but this was the first pure "premeditated murder".
I'm doing the right thing, Mystique thought. I'm doing what needs to be done for the good of all of us.
She knew Charles would never support what she was doing, but she secretly imagined it anyways.
"Go on, Raven, I know you can do it!" She remembered Charles saying, with a sincerely encouraging smile when he taught her to ride a horse, years ago. Never mind what he would say to her now.
I can do it, Raven reminded herself, looking out the hotel room window at the shiny world below in which she didn't belong.
+1. When Held by a Hand
It was sort of Charles' fault for distracting her, or else Stryker's net wouldn't have caught her and Trask would already be dead. Getting caught in that net was painful, and for a moment, she wondered if she imagined Charles's voice calling out to her.
It wouldn't surprise her at all that she would imagine Charles's voice at a time like this.
Mystique was honestly surprised when Trask's device singled her out in the boardroom in Paris. Her hatred of his ruthlessness and bigotry had by far eclipsed any sensible wariness she should have had against his abilities as a scientist. However, it was the death of her friend that advanced this man's science, and that thought made her blood boil with rage.
She didn't' exactly plan for this, but Erik had taught her to control her emotions. As she took down the guards during the fight, she tried hard not to show any effort, fear, or apprehension. She knew she must have looked amazing to the humans, who fled in fear, like the cowardly insects that they were.
She had Trask at gun point. She had a murderer, a being of pure evil, a killer of her friends at gun point, and all it took was one voice to make her doubt herself all over again, which gave Stryker the opening he needed to catch her with the net.
She writhed around on the table, gasping, screaming, and waiting to die. Somehow the seconds felt like millennia and she wondered how long would it take until she ended up as one of the files in Trask's lab, a body on an autopsy table. She was scared, and bitter and in pain, but mostly scared.
Tears were pooling in her eyes and the ceiling of the room was becoming blurry.
And she heard it again. His voice. The voice that had the power to break her heart and rebuild her soul. The voice that said the first kind words she had heard in her entire life.
"Raven." She heard. Only this time, she realized that for a voice that she supposedly imagined to comfort herself, it sounded awfully like a voice that came from the entrance to the room.
Despite the pain and her own disbelief, she looked, and there Charles was, rushing toward her.
Well, sort of Charles, because it was Charles and yet it was nothing like Charles at all.
Charles shouldn't be able to walk - an idea that she had difficulty swallowing for 10 years, and an idea that her imagination obviously didn't agree with. And she had never seen Charles looking so… unkempt, with long hair and a beard. She wanted to tell Charles that he looked absolutely ridiculous, but she was in a lot of pain and it was hard to talk, so she just thought it very loudly. If Charles was really here, he'd be able to hear her thoughts. The Charles in her imagination definitely would have.
"Charles." She whispered with a smile. She still wasn't sure that she wasn't hallucinating, but she didn't care. If it was her fate to die alone slowly and painfully in one of Trask's labs, she'll happily take another second of interacting with a hallucination of her brother, which felt more real by the second.
She waited for this image to fade way, for the vision of Not-Charles to dissipate, or worse, turn into more guards.
But Not-Charles stayed, and crouched down at the side of the table and stroked her hair and shoulder in a way that reminded her of getting IV drips as a child, back when she never could stay still for a needle in her arm unless Charles was there to comfort her for every moment of it.
"We've come for you, Erik and I, together." Charles said.
For one magical moment, Raven believed everything could turn out okay.
(AN: Because given the way Boardroom Scene ended in the film, I couldn't just leave the story there)
BONUS: Aura of Nostalgia
Click.
Raven held her breath as the other end of the line picked up.
"Hello! This is Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. How can I help you today?" A boyish voice Raven didn't recognize chirped pleasantly.
"I want to talk to the Professor." Raven said. "Xavier. Dr. Charles Xavier."
"May I ask who's calling?"
"I'm an old friend of the Professor's."
"Ok. Please hold." Raven thought it must be a student answering the phone for the school. He didn't take nearly enough caution before transferring her, but then again, Charles was probably more equipped to deal with any real threats. Click. Dial. Click. While the call transferred, she amused herself with the idea of Charles getting a call from Erik - he'd probably call himself an old friend of Charles's as well.
"Hello, this is Charles Xavier." This time, it was Charles's voice. It was friendly and professional, more reminiscent of the intelligent young man who studied mutation at Oxford than the broken and haggard cripple Raven last saw in Washington a few months ago.
"Hi, Charles." Raven said simply, wondering if her brother still remembered her voice.
"Raven." It sounded more like a breath than a name. "Is everything alright?"
Raven wanted to roll her eyes, but she wanted to smile at the same time. After all his talk of trusting her and letting her grow up, Charles still treated her like a little girl. But even from halfway across the world, Raven felt warmer and safer knowing that he was still her big brother, and he still wanted her to be okay.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"
"I'm sorry… It's just that… you never called before."
"I just wanted to check on you."
"Check on me?" Charles sounded genuinely confused. Raven could imagine why. In Charles's universe, only he worried about anyone and everyone.
"Yeah, to make sure you didn't lose an arm or something this time… You didn't, right?"
"No, no." Charles laughed. "Just scratches and bruises. Healed up a long time ago. How about you? Is that leg still bothering you?"
"All fine now."
There was a moment of silence that Raven wasn't sure how to fill. She knew there must be things that Charles wanted to say, wanted to ask, but he was giving her the space she needed. There were a million questions she wanted to ask too, but she wasn't sure how.
Why didn't you tell me you got hurt last time?
Why didn't you tell me about how miserable you were these last ten years?
Why didn't you tell me about the school, opening and closing and opening again?
Instead, all she could say was, "Did you get a proper hair cut yet?"
"Pardon?"
"And a shave! That hippie look was awful on you. I can't believe Hank let you leave the house looking like that!"
"What? I thought I was handsome in a very rugged way." Charles said mirthfully to his sister, for the first time in more than a decade. Raven had no idea why Charles was so ready to go along with her tangent, but she appreciated it all the same.
"It doesn't work for you." Raven insisted. "You looked ridiculous."
"Ok. Next time you visit the mansion, I'll make sure I'm properly groomed by your standards."
Raven felt her breath catch in her throat.
"Do you mean it? That I can come back to the mansion, just to visit?"
"Of course you can. You know where it is, and your room is set aside for you if you ever want to stay overnight, but you need to call ahead if you want any dinner… or any food, for that matter. Because the boys really don't understand the idea of 'moderation' when it comes to food."
"You still kept same telephone number for the mansion."
"Of course I did."
"I thought you might have gotten a new one for the school."
Charles was quiet for a moment.
"I kept the same phone number because I always hoped that you might want to call someday."
"I'm glad." Raven said, forcing the quivering in her voice to a minimum. "I'd hate having to remember a new number."
"I've missed hearing your voice, even if it's just telling me my shirt looked stupid."
"Hair, Charles. The hair is the big issue right now."
"Really? I'll get it fixed. I promise. I'll shave it all off if it doesn't meet your approval."
"Oh, no. Please don't."
"Well, I'm glad you think so. I'm still rather fond of my hair."
For a moment, it felt like the last ten years hadn't happened and Raven had always had her brother by her side. For many moments throughout those years, Raven had wished that it could be true. She chose to become Mystique, a new identity in which she could walk freely as herself, even if she had to walk alone. She didn't understand back then, what it would be like to walk away from Charles, and it took much longer to realized how much Charles had to have loved her to let her go.
But in a corner of her heart, she would always be Charles's Raven. Until now, she hadn't realize that it was a truth that could bring them both a breath of comfort.
"Hey, Charles?"
"Yes?"
"I've missed hearing your voice too."
-fin-
AN: Hope you guys enjoyed this!
This was going to 5+1 style until I realized it was going to be a downer ending in the context of the movie. Hopefully the last segment lifted things a bit!
Please let me know what you guys think!