Summary: Magneto isn't going to let Charles Xavier do something foolish like die without him. Gap-filler for the original animated series' season one finale (1x13). Title is from Aqua's "Cartoon Heroes." Rated PG-13.
We Are The Ones Who're Gonna Last Forever
When his X-Men traipse back into the mansion's underground compartment, Scott's arms laden with a bloodied Magneto, Charles' heart clenches. 'Did they bring back a corpse?' he wonders idly, and he must look fairly harried, because Jean quickly assures him that the Master of Magnetism is, in fact, alive. "He's just gotten pretty roughed up," she explains, and now Charles can see the very faint rise and fall of the other man's chest. He sighs openly with relief, and then follows Scott as he sets Magneto down on one of the makeshift beds/tables in the vicinity.
He half-listens to the early stages of planning taking place in the next room, but the bulk of his concentration is, in fact, on Magneto. The smell of antiseptic as he cleans and dresses the other man's wounds - fortunately, nothing serious, aside from some cracked ribs and a sprained wrist - never fails to remind him of Haifa; both the good times (sitting outside with Erik in the sticky sweet air, watching the sun set), and also the bad (the fact that he couldn't, in fact, save Erik from himself). 'Oh, Magnus, what have you gotten yourself into this time?' he wonders absently, working with the utmost care to make sure that the other man's wounds will heal quickly and properly.
After several long minutes, Magneto moans softly, wincing as he immediately tries to overexert himself. Quickly, Charles reaches out and places a bracing hand on his chest. "No, my friend," he murmurs softly, sending a minor mental suggestion along with the words that he speaks out loud. "You must regain your strength first. Don't worry. You're safe, now."
"Charles," Magneto intones, and his long eyelashes flutter, open lids eventually revealing what Charles has always privately felt to be gorgeous, piercing eyes. Instinctively, his aim is to comfort; he cradles the other man's head, waiting for Magneto to get his bearings. It doesn't take long: "How am I here?" the other man says suspiciously. "Have I died?"
"No, you're quite alive still, actually," Charles says cheerfully, wondering momentarily what sort of afterlife Magneto has concocted for himself. Magneto's helmet already having been removed, he brushes a lock of hair from the prone man's forehead, bypassing a large, purpling bruise forming nearby. "My students found you, after you had apparently battled the Sentinels," he explains briefly.
Magneto's brow furrows. "They were coming to apprehend me and rescue Senator Kelly," he infers, his voice low. That Kelly has managed to escape his grasp also does not escape his attention.
Charles sighs. "Yes, of course. You did abduct the man, after all." He glances towards the collection of mutants in the next room, separated by a large window, briefly; Scott happens to look up, and Charles imagines that his eyes are focusing on Magneto, wondering what it is about him that seems to be worth such continued danger. What, indeed, Charles thinks ruefully.
Magneto continues to frown up at him. "Charles, Charles," he taunts gently, but there's no malice in it, his hand even tightening momentarily over the fingers that Charles has splayed across his bandaged chest. "When are you going to realize that we are meant to remain on different sides of this fight for mutant supremacy?"
"When are you going to realize that I don't want to fight you? Better yet," Charles bites out, a bit heatedly, "when are you going to give up on these minor terrorist acts? There is no way that abducting a government official could have ended well, Magnus. At best, you would have simply stirred up even more anti-mutant animosity. In a lot of ways, even though he's been rescued, you already did."
"It was necessary," Magneto rasps, and then Charles has to wait out a coughing fit until he can speak again. In the interim, he hovers briefly near the sink, collecting a glass of semi-lukewarm faucet water, which Magneto nonetheless reaches for gratefully. "Thank you." He hands it back. "You are too soft, Charles, to do what must be done."
"Yes, well," Charles starts, and then makes a point of grabbing and twisting the other man's injured arm the slightest bit. Magneto squirms and lays back grumpily, squinting up at him in disapproval. "You've made your point," he glowers, and Charles smirks.
"Yes, I believe I have. Now, rest," he says, gently yet firmly, and Magneto reluctantly obeys.
It shouldn't surprise him when Magneto mocks the legitimacy of their plan to take out the Sentinels, but Charles nonetheless finds himself having to bite back an acerbic comment as Magneto stares witheringly at him from the doorway, calling them all fools. As he takes off in his hovering chair to make some last-minute preparations in the Blackbird, the other man traipses after him, feet dangling a foot or so in the air. "It's an idiotic, foolhardy plan, Charles. Only a fool would even attempt it. So that must make you a ..." He trails off, and Charles looks up from the computer inside of the ship that he's currently booting up and frowns over his shoulder.
"Yes?" he queries, raising an eyebrow. He spins around, crossing his arms over his chest. "You were saying?"
The look on the other man's face as he looks around is haunted. "This is ... a suicide mission," he says dazedly, and Charles realizes just how pointed the gesture of a cargo area filled with gasoline and explosives must look. When Magneto speaks again, his voice is ragged, and not just because his injuries seem to be making long-winded conversation difficult. "Charles," he groans, his eyes wide, hurt. "Charles, please. I don't want you to do this."
Something inside of Charles twists. Still, he puts on a brave front. "It's merely a precaution," he says, trying to sound nonchalant. When Magneto fails to look remotely convinced - as a matter of fact, he appears to be outright pouting - he glides smoothly past him, stopping briefly to clap the other man on his noninjured shoulder. "Stay here, Magnus," he smiles. "We'll be back soon enough. In the meantime, you can perfect your insults."
Magneto leans against the doorway, his mouth dry, his heart thudding dully in his chest.
He tries to ignore the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that, in fact, this is his fight, too; that perhaps, he might even be partially responsible for the impetus behind human protection initiatives like the Sentinel program due to his frequent plotting against the entire race. For roughly a half hour after Charles and the X-Men take off, Magneto stomps around the mansion, snooping through Charles' possessions because he can, glimpsing bits of news reports, stealing a beer that he assumes to be earmarked for Wolverine where it's being poorly hidden behind some Tupperware dishes in the refrigerator. As he crushes the aluminum into a flat disk with nary a thought, he blinks blearily, and stalks towards the door with sudden clarity. "Don't save the day yet, Charles," he murmurs as he launches himself, a bit roughly, into the night sky. "Leave some for the rest of us."
When Magneto arrives on the scene, he bypasses the rest of the mutants already well engaged in combat, his eyes sweeping the area for Charles. He senses the metal of the plane quickly, and surveys the trajectory, they way Charles seems to be maneuvering the small aircraft to do maximum damage. He swears to himself. "He's serious," he mutters in disbelief, and then shoots into the air, cape flapping furiously in his wake. 'Such a damn, brave, beautiful fool,' he thinks unhappily as he reaches out to grasp the plane in his magnetized grip. If it's possible, he thinks he can literally hear Charles sigh.
'Magnus, you're supposed to be resting ...'
'What, and let you take all the glory for yourself?'
He thinks Charles is frowning, now. 'The others need more help than I do. It doesn't take two to fly a plane into a gigantic robot, after all.'
Magneto growls. 'It does if you're going to survive it.'
When the plane does explode, turning a batch of Sentinel robots into so much shrapnel, Magneto blinks furiously, watching, waiting faithfully for some assurance that Charles has, in fact, made it. 'I'm going to kill you myself if you don't live through this,' he warns, still scanning the skies. 'I'm serious, Charles, if you even try to die first, so help me ...'
The response is faint at first, but there's no other voice that Magneto would rather hear reverberating in his head. 'Yes, yes. I suppose you should know that I find your uncreative insults equally abhorrent.'
Magneto bites back a grin. 'Fool,' he thinks affectionately, and then he sees the parachute, a speck of color against billowing gray bursts of smoke. He sidles up to the other man, fantasizing briefly about tugging him into his embrace and carrying him off like some long-haired maiden. This is not to be, however, and not only because Charles hasn't had any hair for decades, now.
He does, however, wear a small, surprised smile as he takes in Magneto, still wrapped in bandages, still responsible for cocooning Charles enough to have kept him safe when the aircraft flew into the Sentinels. "You saved me," he murmurs, and Magneto looks at him sternly.
"Now we are even," he frowns. When Charles tilts his head disapprovingly, he tuts. "I don't care if you weren't keeping score. I was. But I would have saved you even if I hadn't been down for the count. Just in case you were wondering."
Charles chuckles. "Of course." He nods his head. "Thank you. For saving me. I suppose your inability to let anything go has served you well, at last."
Magneto's eyes narrow in mock seriousness. "Say that to the man who knows where you hide your alcohol."
This time, Charles outright laughs. "You're right, what have I done," he says, miming horror, and Magneto grins. He watches Charles descend further, slowly, and then sees Storm catch him before his legs crumple against the ground. He's in good hands now, Magneto thinks, and he begins his own re-ascent, careful to bypass the more explosion-polluted parts of the sky.
"Until we meet again, my friend," he says to himself, and disappears gracefully into the night.