Author's Note: Thanks so much to Sionnain for her permission to use part of her idea in her story Reflective for how Xavier is crippled!
Summary: An eventual Rogue/Magneto AU of the movieverse.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with X-Men.
There were many times in his long stay at the mansion when Erik had felt that if Charles lectured him one more time on the goodness of mankind he would tear the building down around his old friend's head and damn the consequences. He had gotten very good at reminding himself that Charles was nearly as old as he was, and that, as the saying went, it was hard to teach old dogs new tricks. Then, when that stopped working, he told himself that open-mindedness was a virtue, and that Charles was free to believe whatever he wanted, however misguided he might be.
Of course, that rationale had lost all effectiveness when it occurred to him that it was fine for Charles to believe whatever he wanted, but it was something else entirely for him to lecture for what seemed like hours on end about those beliefs to someone who wanted no part of them.
When those times struck—and they were happening more and more often, as Cerebro neared completion—rather than tear down the mansion and ruin many months of hard work, Erik went driving. Sometimes he drove just far enough to feel that he had exceeded the range of Charles' telepathy, and then he would rage and sometimes fling the car and then he would have to call Charles and make him come get him rather than try to explain to a cab driver just how his car had become wrapped around a tree, upside down. Sometimes he passed the southern border of New York state and just kept driving.
The worst of these times occurred after another argument about Charles' suppression of young Jean Grey's powers. Erik firmly believed that she should be taught to use her God-given abilities, but Charles was firm in his insistence that the best thing to do was to suppress them to the point that she didn't know they existed. Then Charles had gone off another of his spiels about how Erik was wrong to feel the way he did, and Erik hadn't been able to take it any more and had sped off in one of the brand new sports cars Charles had gotten to replace the last three he had destroyed.
That was nearly twelve hours ago. Erik—or Magneto, as he had taken to sometimes calling himself in his head—had driven nonstop, through cities and towns, through rolling farmland and bare forests, and he didn't even know what state he was in when the car's phone began to ring. He slammed on the brake, using his powers to keep the car from careening into anything as it went abruptly from eighty to zero miles per hour.
The phone's ring was shrill and grating to his ears as he stared at it as if it were a viper waiting to strike at him should he reach for it. He seriously considered ignoring the call. His hand inched forward, closed around the plastic handle. If Charles was calling to preach at him again, then he'd drive to Mexico and fight for mutant rights there, God help him if he didn't.
"What?" Only the slightest hint of his guttural German accent came through, despite his anger. Had anyone answered a call from him in that manner, he would have berated them severely; as it was, he was feeling petulant and not a little righteously childish. No, not childish—righteously angry.
"Erik." Charles' voice had no right to be so soothing, not when Erik was so angry with him. "Where are you?"
Erik hesitated as he thought. He thought about an hour ago he had seen a sign mentioning some middle-of-nowhere town, but he that was about all that he knew about his location. Somewhere in the South. Too embarrassed to admit that, he instead replied, "That's none of your business, Charles. The last time I checked, I was still an adult, and free to act as I see fit."
A hint of frustration crept into Charles' voice when he spoke next, and Erik felt his lips curl into an unkind smile at the sound. He took a certain sadistic pleasure in riling up the other man. "This has nothing to do with our previous conversation, Erik." Erik didn't think "conversation" was the right word for it. "I was only asking to be polite. I'm calling because you are in Tennessee right now, and I need you to continue to a small town in Alabama."
Erik's brow furrowed in confusion for a moment, then cleared. "You've used Cerebro," he said, losing his previous anger in a moment of sudden pleasure. "It works?"
"It is still very difficult to use, and imprecise," Charles said, "but, yes, it works. And as I was testing it, I stumbled upon the mind of a young mutant in Alabama who is in need of assistance."
Magneto's mind snapped into focus at those words. There was nothing that attracted his attention like a mutant in need. "Where?" he snapped out, his voice all business. He listened carefully as Charles told him the directions, calculating in his head. With his powers, he could drive at speeds that would be almost impossible for anyone else.
As if sensing his thoughts—something that the other mutant had assured him many times was impossible via phone line—Charles admonished him, "Don't use your powers, Erik. Driving at human speeds will get you there plenty fast enough."
If he were one of Charles' students, undoubtedly that tone would have worked on him. As it was…He hung up without saying goodbye and gunned the engine, using his powers to push the motor and wheels as the car tore from where it had been parked with a loud squeal.
He pulled into the town at a more sedate speed about an hour later, his sleek car contrasting sharply with the middle-class uniformity that surrounded him everywhere he looked. The house was easy to find, though it blended into its row of houses seamlessly. He left the car parked out front, then made his way to the front door. His bones creaked a little in protest at being forced to move after spending so long in a seated position, and he was reminded that he was not as young as he used to be. He was pushing fifty now, although he had high hopes of finding a mutant with the ability to retard the aging process.
He rang the doorbell, listening as the sound of a piano being played—poorly, he noted—stopped at the call. Light footsteps announced a woman's approach, and Magneto plastered a smile on his face when she opened the door. She was the kind of woman who would never be labeled "attractive" by anyone but her mother, but who also didn't deserve to be called homely. Plain, he supposed, was one way of putting it. Her eyes were cautious but her smile was welcoming as she took in the well-dressed stranger.
"Yes?" she asked. Her voice held a southern twang that was mildly grating.
His instinctive response to the mere sight and sound of her was to slam her against a wall and gut her with the gilt mirror that was sure to be standing on display somewhere in the house, but he forced down the urge. What would Charles do?
"Good evening, ma'am," he said, not quite able to keep a hint of vitriol from his voice. Her eyes narrowed at his tone, and he reined himself in again. "I work for the Mutant Reform Agency; may I come in?" If she said yes, he would kill her. Not right now, perhaps, but someday, when he wouldn't be drawing unwelcome attention…
Her expression lit instantly and her suspicion melted away like summer dew. "Oh! Of course! Please, do come in." She pulled the door wider and he bowed his head as he passed into the house, hiding the flash of absolute fury in his slate grey eyes. "I'm so glad you've come," she blathered, following him into a tastefully decorated living room. Something was off about it, however; there were numerous shadows on the wall where it was clear that pictures had recently been removed. The only ones that remained were of the woman and a man he could only assume was her husband. "We were getting desperate."
He forced his tone to stay bland, bored. "Oh?"
"Well, yes," she said, wringing her hands as if greatly upset. "It's been two days since…the incident…and we were starting to worry that no one official would be coming to help us with…our problem."
He wondered whether the pauses as she spoke were because she felt guilty for saying the things she did, or because she just wasn't used to admitting her shame out loud. "I see. Well, I'm here now. May I see her?"
"Of course, of course," she said hurriedly, ushering him up a flight of stairs. "Normally my husband would be here at this time of day, but ever since…the incident…he's spent less and less time at home."
"I don't really—" care, was the word that was on the tip of Magneto's tongue, but then he saw the expectant expression on her face and reminded himself that this was all for the greater good. "—know what to tell you, ma'am. These kinds of incidents tend to cause problems everywhere."
She sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders, then pointed to a door at the end of the second-floor hallway. It was a plain, simple, every day door—except for the fact that it was locked from the outside. "I'm sorry, but I can't even stand looking at her. I'll be downstairs after you've talked with her."
He nodded curtly at that, then waited till she had walked back downstairs to stride to the door and open the lock with a contemptuous wave of his hand. For a parent to keep a child locked in a cell like this—for a human to imprison a mutant—the very idea made him sick. Mindful of the undoubtedly distressed state of the child inside, he opened the door more gently, and walked inside slowly.
The room was very bare, with a bed and open, empty closet. The windows were boarded up from the outside, and the walls were startlingly devoid of decoration. At first he thought that the room was truly empty, but then he spotted the small frame huddling in one of the far corners of the room. He couldn't see much, due to dim lighting and the distance, except for long brown hair spilling down over her arms and knees. She was leaning against the wall, her legs pulled tightly to her body and her arms wrapped around them, her face buried in her knees.
Erik paused. Despite his conviction of moments before he found himself faced with certain difficulties now that the reality of the situation was pressing itself upon him. He was a charismatic man, he knew, and well able to inspire other mutants to believe the same things he did. He was far less experienced at dealing with children, and usually found the young mutants at Charles' mansion to be both annoying and poorly trained.
"My dear," he said quietly, his voice loud in the enclosed room. He didn't know her name.
Her head jerked up with a startled gasp at the sound of his voice, and this time he couldn't help how utterly menacing his expression became when he caught sight of her bruised and battered face. The girl had clearly been beaten, thoroughly—by the father, no doubt—and hadn't even begun to recover. Her face was so swollen that most of her features were distorted; the way her face twisted in fear at the sight of his expression didn't help, and he carefully schooled his face back into the dispassionate mask he had taught himself so many years ago, in the camps, when he had been the same age this girl was now.
Her eyes were brown, the same color as her mother's, and yet they were infinitely more attractive, perhaps because they were full of pain and fear and defiance—an enticing combination, and one that spoke a great deal about her spirit.
"Who're you?" she demanded. Something about the timber of her voice made her accent, too, nicer than her mother's; even in the few words she spoke, her voice lilted. It would undoubtedly be one of her nicer features when—if—she grew up. As she spoke, she pulled herself even further into her corner, as if expecting a blow from him.
He moved towards her slowly, cautiously, as one might move towards a wounded animal. "My name is Erik Lensherr," he said gently. "I am a mutant, like yourself. I'm here to rescue you."
The words seemed ludicrous to him, but her eyes became impossibly wide in response. He watched the emotions flit across them—hope, disbelief, joy, fear, and, ultimately, caution—and he watched as a shutter came down across her eyes and face, a defense mechanism that she was very close to perfecting despite her youth.
"I don't believe you," she said in reply. He noticed that her hands, which were clenched on her knees, were gloved. "You're one of those shrinks they've got trying to 'cure' people of mutancy. Well, I ain't buying it. You can go and tell my mother she's gotta try something better than false empathy if she's gonna try to make me normal again."
He raised an eyebrow, impressed by her spunk. "My dear girl, I assure you that I am not lying," he said. He gestured carelessly at her bed, using the metal frame to levitate it several feet above the floor. He shot a glance at the young girl, who was staring at the bed with her mouth forming a small "o", then set it back down. Her eyes lit up again for a brief second before again losing hope.
"But…I can't do that," she protested, unconsciously pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked very forlorn. "I can't do anything like that."
He smiled a little, hoping that his expression was reassuring. "At this stage, you can't possibly know what you can and cannot do," he told her. "And even if you can't do what I just did, you are a mutant, which means that you have the ability to do things that humans can only dream of. You are a very special person, my girl."
"Marie," she said quietly. Her hands loosened a little from their death grip on her knees. "My name is Marie."
His smile grew. "Marie, I'm here to take you away from this place. Would you like that?"
She didn't hesitate. "Yes, please." Even in her state, her manners were impeccable.
He walked close enough to her to offer her a hand up, noting the way she flinched back from his approach. Oh, yes, the mother was definitely going to die soon—as was the father.
"You—you have to be careful around me," Marie croaked, staring at his extended hand in fear. "Touching my skin—it hurts people."
He nodded, unfazed by her warning. "I will be careful."
She hesitated a moment longer, then reached out her gloved hand. It was very small compared to his much larger one. She was very light as he pulled her to her feet. "Is there anything you would like to take with you?" he asked.
She shook her head quickly, as if the idea of asking for something from the house was repulsive to her. He had no doubt that it was. "Let us go, then."
"What—what are you going to say to my mother?" Marie asked as they walked slowly from the room, her legs unsteady beneath her. He was poised the whole time, ready to catch her should she fall, but her back was rigid and her step firm, and he suspected that it was determination alone that kept her upright. Her head only came mid-way up his chest.
"I have very little to say to that woman," he said.
Marie's mother was waiting downstairs as she had told him she would, but instead of speaking to her he flung a metal cooking pot at her, forcing her to duck out of the way. He had had no true intention of harming her at the moment; he would save his vengeance for when her young daughter was not present. By the time she had recovered they were out the door and making their way to his car. Ever the gentleman, he opened the door for the girl, waiting until she had climbed inside to close it behind her, then went to his own side and got in. He placed the key in the ignition and turned it, listening as the engine roared to life.
"Where are we going?" the girl asked, and when he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye her hands were clenched tightly in her lap, and her eyes were staring straight ahead of her. Her unmarred skin was quite pale against the mottled color of her numerous bruises.
"I have a friend in New York who has a school for mutants like you," he said as he smoothly accelerated out of the drab neighborhood. "You'll like it there; it has a basketball court, and you can dorm with another mutant."
"But what if I hurt someone?" she whispered. "Like I hurt Mark."
"Mark?" he asked carefully. He drove the car at a normal speed, not wanting to frighten her further.
"A boy at school. He wanted to hold my hand, and when I let him…something happened, and now he's in a coma, and everyone hates me."
He heard a sniffle, and knew, just knew, that she was crying.
"Only ignorant humans would hate you for your power," he said, voice firm. "Your powers make you special, Marie, not a monster. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool. And we will make sure that you do not injure anyone you don't want to injure. Charles—Professor Xavier—is very good at teaching people to use their powers constructively." Even as he spoke, however, he doubted his own words. After all, Charles wasn't making much of an attempt to help young Jean learn to control her powers, was he?
"Okay." She didn't sound entirely convinced, but he would have doubted her intelligence if she had.
He looked at her again, examining her critically. "You look very tired," he observed.
"I haven't slept much the past few days," she said, meeting his eyes for a moment before looking out the window. "Too scared."
His face softened, and almost against his own will he reached out to gently pat her on the shoulder. "Well, you're safe now," he said. "I won't let anyone hurt you. Why don't you go to sleep, and I'll wake you when we reach New York."
Her eyes were full of innocent trust when she looked at him. He wondered whether anyone had ever looked at him in quite that way before, and felt a strange surge of protectiveness swell in his breast. "Okay," she said again, and closed her eyes. Her breathing evened out quickly, and within minutes she was asleep.
She didn't wake up until he touched her shoulder again many hours later, as he pulled the car into Xavier's garage.
Erik was relaxed as he wrote out the last few letters of an equation, examining it critically and then holding it up for the other mutant to examine.
"What do you think?" he asked.
Marie cocked her head to one side as she peered closely at the neatly written numbers and symbols.
"What does the 'a' stand for?" she asked curiously.
"That is the symbol which represents the unique life force exerted by mutants," he explained, swiveling in his chair to look at the young girl perched on a stool next to him. It had been a week since he had rescued her from her home, and since then she had followed him everywhere he went, a not entirely unwelcome addition to his daily routine. She had yet to really come out of her shell, even to Charles, but Erik had found that if he included her in his activities she seemed happier.
Everywhere she went she was careful to clothe herself head-to-toe, fearful of having even the tiniest bit of flesh exposed. Erik had had to convince her that it was unnecessary to wear a ski mask at all times. Her bruises had begun to fade and some of the swelling to come down, and he could already tell that she was going to be a very attractive young lady. Not that that would matter much, if they couldn't teach her to use her powers and regain her confidence.
Her powers…as yet, they still knew nothing more about her powers than they had when she had arrived. She reacted violently when they suggested performing tests on her, and steadfastly refused to try touching someone to see what would happen. Charles had theorized that her power was some sort of ability to pull someone's energy from them, but until they could experiment further there was little they could do to help.
"Life force?" Her impatient eyes reminded him that she was waiting for more of an explanation.
"Mmm," he hummed affirmatively. He always had appreciated a good audience, and in the past week he had found that she had a keen mind and an insatiable curiosity. He wondered whether she had had her interest in mathematics before she met him, or whether she was changing her preferences to suit him. "You see, Marie, I wasn't lying when I told you that mutants are special, better than humans. That was not just an ideological statement, but a statement with a scientific basis. All creatures give off an energy signature, usually in the form of heat. Humans give off the same signature, but mutants exert another one entirely."
"So this equation, it's supposed to help you refine Cerebro to measure mutant signatures better?"
Erik's lips curled in a smile. "Very good," he praised, pleased by the way she blushed and looked down. He glanced at the clock on the wall, surprised that it was already so late. "I think that's enough work for tonight, don't you?" he asked. She nodded shyly. "Would you like to watch a movie, perhaps?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "I'd like that."
Her favorite movie, she'd informed him, was The Silence of the Lambs. Apparently, she'd watched it with a few friends about a year ago; her parents hadn't known. He'd pointed out that it was a horror movie, and a disturbing one, at that, but her reply had been enlightening. "It's only disturbing to those who empathize more with the people he kills than Clarice, silly," she'd said in a rare moment of levity. "Dr. Lecter, he only gets people who deserve it. He knows Clarice is a good person, so he helps her."
It was perhaps an immature take on the movie, but a surprisingly adult one from such a young girl. He didn't need to ask what movie she wanted to watch tonight, popping in the DVD and settling down on the couch with her. The Silence of the Lambs had not been one of the movies the mansion had owned, but Erik had gone out and bought it for this purpose. Marie settled herself on the couch next to him, shot a sidelong glance at him, then scooted a little closer. Without looking at her, pretending as if he didn't even know what he was doing, Erik pulled her to rest her head on his chest, gently caressing her as her head rose and fell with the rhythm of his breathing.
It was during the climax of the movie—Clarice wandering through the pitch-black basement—when Erik heard the sound of quiet footsteps and looked up to meet Charles' eyes. The other mutant looked momentarily pleased at the sight of Erik and his young charge together, but there was a tenseness in his gaze that instantly alerted him that there was something wrong. Marie was asleep, he could tell, so he gently lifted her head and placed a pillow under it, then slid out from beneath her.
He padded from the room on near-silent feet, following his old friend out. "What is it?" he asked, noting the lines on the younger man's face.
"We need to talk, Erik," Charles said, his voice soft but carrying with it a hint of doom. With a sudden flash of perception Erik knew that his time at the mansion was up. He easily recognized that they were heading towards Cerebro. Charles allowed the machine to scan his retinas, and the two entered the large spherical room. Neither noticed that the door failed to close behind them, young Scott and Jean keeping it propped open as they peered inside. "We agreed, Erik," he said, staring at the walls of Cerebro, "we agreed that Cerebro would be a tool for good. To be used to find mutants, to help them."
"We did," Magneto said. Now that his expulsion from the mansion was assured, he found a sort of grim humor in his old friend's agitation.
"And now I find that you've been planning uses for it that we never agreed to! Ways of changing it to locate humans—to control them."
Erik smirked, which only increased Charles' anger. "I haven't broken our agreement, if that's what you're trying to say, Charles," he said smoothly. "We just differ in our perspectives on what it means to help humans. Cerebro can still be used for the purpose we decided on together, but change the orientation of the tiles—" he gestured, and several of the large metal panels detached themselves from the wall and slid smoothly into new positions "—and it can be used for another purpose entirely."
"Put them back, Erik," Charles said. "Now."
"I am not one of your students to be ordered around, Charles," Magneto snarled in response. He had never been one to accept another's authority. Then his expression metamorphosed into something far more sinister as his lips curled in a smile. "Or are you willing to force me?"
Charles' teeth were gritted, the clenching of his facial muscles all the more visible because of his bald head. "I am asking you," he ground out. "But you know well that either way you need to leave. Today. I've put up with a great deal from you, Erik, because you are my friend, but this—this cannot be borne."
"Of course." Hearing the words was still painful, even if he was prepared for them. "Far be it from me to defy your all-knowing sense of morality." He was prepared to go, to depart and leave the tiles as they were just to force Charles to go through the laborious process of trying to move them without a Master of Magnetism, when an anguished young voice cried out behind him.
"Don't go!" He whirled to see Marie looking at him, tears forming in her large eyes. She had walked out onto the catwalk with them and now stared at Erik as if his departure would be the ultimate betrayal. "You can't go," she whispered, her voice heartbreakingly broken.
His face softened. "I'm sorry, Marie," he said gently. "I can't stay here."
"Then let me come with you," she insisted, wiping the tears from her face angrily. "You said you'd protect me."
Erik hesitated for a long moment. The thought was tempting. She cared about him, it was clear, and he—well, he wasn't entirely indifferent to her. Then reality intruded. "I'm sorry," he said again. "Charles will protect you; I cannot."
He walked past her, close enough that she could have lashed out and struck him if she chose, but she was stiff, unmoving, despite his proximity. Magneto glared at the other two young mutants still watching from the open doorway, and they backed away from him, their expressions defiant. He gestured, and the metal panels he had moved earlier were torn from their positions and flown across the room to be returned to their starting positions.
In the years to come, he would torment himself endlessly with the question of whether Marie and Charles had moved, or whether he had made a mistake when moving the tiles, because his exit was halted by the terrifying sound of a young girl's scream and, barely a second later, a sickening crunch.
He whirled around, refusing to believe what he already knew, and he stared at the empty catwalk in horror. He used his powers to levitate himself down to the floor of the sphere, trembling with fear and rising anxiety as he saw the two bodies lying there. Charles was closer, groaning faintly, so at least he was still alive, but the girl, who had fallen further away, was lying twisted and unmoving. He rushed over to her, falling to his knees at her side as his eyes desperately sought her pulse. She was barely breathing, and it was clear that there were things that were broken inside of her.
Erik slammed his fist on the ground, furious with himself and the world. "Call the hospital!" he shouted at the two teenagers watching from above. They hurried to do as he ordered. He looked back down at Marie, and knew that if he didn't do something right now she would die. His mind flitted to the conversations he had had with Charles about her powers, about her ability to suck out peoples' energy, and almost without realizing what he was doing he drew off his thick leather gloves, dropping them on the floor. Then he carefully placed his hands on either side of her face, holding it gently.
The pull started almost instantly, painful and causing his breath to stop in his throat. He held on for as long as he could, then tore his hands and eyes away, refusing in a moment of rare cowardice to look at her and see whether he had succeeded. Her fate was out of his hands now. Driven by his own guilt and grief, he levitated himself back onto the catwalk and ran through the halls of the mansion, desperate to escape. He leapt into the car and gunned the engine, then drove away, no destination in mind, only knowing that he needed to get as far from the mansion as possible.
Ignoring his great desire to turn the car around, to go back and help his old friend and the girl who depended on him, he never looked back.