Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men or Ocean's 11.
Warning: Spoilers for all X-Men movies, including First Class.
1
Freedom was not the sun on his face. It was not the first breath of fresh air he'd had in three years, nor was it the feel of his own clothes gracing his skin, the comfort of his own possessions bundled under his arm.
No, freedom came a good ten minutes before any of that, in the form of a metal lighter one of the guards had brought to work that day, breaking regulations for the first time in three years because as of that day they were no longer necessary.
As of that day, Erik Lensherr was a free man.
2
He found Pyro in one of the seedier casinos on the Las Vegas strip. The younger man, his hair slicked back under a lime green hat more suited to a used car dealer, juggled flames for tips in between dealing hands of blackjack. He didn't bat an eye when Erik sat at his table, just wove a flame between his fingers, earning an ooh from the tourist crowd, and grinned a broad showman's grin.
He was calling himself the Amazing Flamamatic these days. It suited him.
Later, much later, when the crowds had dispersed and they were finally left alone, Pyro leaned across the table and said, "Damn, it's good to see you, boss. I didn't think they'd actually let you out."
Erik sipped his gin and tonic. Privately, he'd worried the same thing, though he'd never admit it to Pyro. "I served my sentence," he said. "They convicted me for tax evasion, not murder. They had to release me."
"So what's the plan?" Pyro said. "Three years in the can, you must have figured out your next move."
"My dear Pyro—excuse me, Flamamatic," Erik said, raising an eyebrow, "I've barely been out of prison for twenty four hours. Any rational man in my position would toe the line for at least a few days, don't you think?"
Pyro snorted. "If you were gonna walk the straight and narrow, Magneto, you wouldn't have come to me."
Clever John, all grown up and making it on his own. It pleased Erik to know that his confidence in the young mutant had not been misplaced.
"Where is she?" he asked, knowing that that would be all the confirmation Pyro needed.
Pyro smirked. "Where else? Capitol Hill."
3
It was fortunate that he knew Raven as well as he did, since otherwise picking her out of the crowd of people working on Capitol Hill would have been impossible. He'd been following the news as best he could in his plastic prison, however, and he knew precisely who her target would be.
In an era where mutants had been widely accepted by society, politicians willing to spout anti-mutant rhetoric were few and far between. Oh, they had their supporters, of course—there were still states in the South that fought for segregation of mutant and human schooling and transportation—but for the most part their opinions were wildly unpopular.
The loudest anti-mutant voice in the Senate was Edward Kelly, junior senator from Texas, who had won his seat by proclaiming that he would fight for the Mutant Registration Act—which had been proposed and shot down nearly a decade earlier—to his dying breath. If Erik knew Raven—and he did—he was certain he would find her among Senator Kelly's staff, no doubt doing her best to make his life a living hell.
He couldn't risk entering the Capitol Building itself—the magnetic field his body automatically generated played merry havoc with metal detectors—but it was a simple matter to put in a call to the senator's office and, with some charm and a few carefully worded questions, ascertain where the senator and his people were having lunch.
He arrived at the restaurant a good hour before the senator was due, claiming a corner booth and ordering a cup of tea and sandwich. The senator arrived precisely at noon, three of his toadies in tow. One was a woman, young, attractive, her skirt revealing quite a lot of thigh. The other two were men, one heavyset and balding, the other about Erik's age with thick glasses.
Raven, of course, was the one with no metal on her body.
He waved his waitress over and politely asked if he could switch tables, passing her a twenty in the process. She graciously agreed to let him sit wherever he'd like. He chose a table along the wall, well within Raven's line of sight. She was intent enough on the senator that she didn't notice him for another five minutes or so. Finally, though, she looked up, saw him, and went very still.
He winked.
Her lips twitched. She leaned over and said something to the senator, then pushed back her chair, heading for the restroom. Erik waited a discreet moment before following. When he entered the men's room she was standing at the sink, washing her hands. A quick sweep of the room with his power identified no metal other than what one would expect in an empty bathroom, so he used his ability to hold the door shut, then leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, and said, "Hello, Raven."
"Hello, Erik," she said. She reached for a paper towel to dry her hands. She tossed the damp towel in the trash and shifted, shedding about eighty pounds and her cheap suit until she stood before him in her true form, blue, lithe, and beautiful. She smiled, her teeth shining white against her skin. "I heard you were out."
He sighed. "Pyro," he said fondly.
"Don't blame the boy. He was excited to see you."
"And you?" he said. "Are you excited to see me?"
She sauntered across the room, her every movement predatory, sensual. He had not thought she could have become more dangerous since he'd last seen her.
"Ecstatic," she said, reaching out to straighten the collar of his shirt. "You look terrible."
"Prison will do that to you," he said. "You, on the other hand, are lovelier than ever."
She rolled her eyes and stepped back. "So what's the plan?"
He appreciated her forthrightness. He told her.
She was silent for a long time once he'd finished speaking, her head tilted to one side as she turned the problem over in her mind.
"It's risky," she said at last.
"I know."
"If things go badly, we'll be sharing a cell—or worse."
"I know. But if things go right—"
"—If things go right, this could be everything we ever wanted."
She fell silent again, but now there was an excited gleam in her eye. "We'll need a large crew for this. A good mix of abilities."
"Of course," he said. He had some people in mind but all of his contacts were three years out of date. Raven's information was more reliable.
"Specifically—and this is non-negotiable—we need a class five mutant."
He'd thought she might say that. "Don't you think we can do without—"
She interrupted him, her voice fierce. "We can't cut corners on this one, Erik, or he'll rip us apart. We need her."
He sighed. "She won't be happy to see either of us."
"No," Raven agreed. "You might have to grovel."
"And Senator Kelly?" Erik said. He knew Raven would never leave loose ends behind her, but he wanted to hear her say it.
She waved a hand. "I was tired of putting laxatives in his coffee anyway. I'll take care of things. We can fly out tomorrow."
Senator Kelly was determined to promote the MRA until his dying breath? Erik had a feeling the senator's dying breath would come much earlier than the man expected.
4
Jean Grey had moved up in the world. That was Erik's first thought upon seeing her. His second thought was that he'd been right all along about her potential.
She lay on a lounge chair in a bikini, a large pair of stylish sunglasses covering almost half of her face, her hair burnished red by the sun.
A young man whose sole purpose seemed to be making blended drinks hovered nearby, sweating under the hot Nevada sun. Erik and Raven perched on the edge of their chairs, Raven sipping a pina colada through a straw while Erik shifted his margarita from hand to hand without tasting it, enjoying the feel of the cool condensation against his skin.
"You have a lot of nerve coming to me like this," Jean said. She spoke softly, but her voice resonated eerily, as if her physical form alone was no longer capable of containing her power.
"I need your help," he said.
She laughed. He could feel her laughter inside his head, all sharp edges and ice. "You need my help?" she echoed. "You, the great Magneto, who's never needed anyone or anything in his life? You need my help?"
He rubbed his forehead. Suddenly he had a headache. "Jean—"
"No," she interrupted, doing something with her telepathy so that he could not have continued speaking if he'd tried. "No, Erik, you don't get to ask me for help. You walked out on us five years ago. I don't owe you a thing."
Raven finished her drink and stood. "Come on, Erik," she said, "we don't need her."
Yes, Erik thought, standing as well. Jean is probably too afraid to test her powers against Shaw's anyway.
"Shaw?" Jean said, snatching off her sunglasses and sitting up. "Your target is Sebastian Shaw?"
She made no gesture, but suddenly Erik found himself able to speak again. "Of course it would make our lives much easier if we had a class five mutant on our side to shield us during our preparations, but I'm sure we can manage on our own," he said smoothly, as if he'd never been cut off.
"You're going after Shaw?" Jean repeated. "And your plan is to—yes, yes, that could work, although—oh, I see, that's why you need—but have you considered—of course, Mystique has." She threw back her head and laughed, and this laugh rang in his head like a gong.
He hadn't felt her rifling through his thoughts. The speed and ease with which she'd done it spoke of a control he wouldn't have expected her to develop for many more years. It almost made him uneasy, made him think back to when he'd first met her, when she was a frightened teenager, and he had sensed that there was much more to her abilities than mere telepathy or telekinesis.
"All right, Erik," she said. "I'll help. And then you'll owe me one."
5 and 6
Even nine miles away, Erik could sense adamantium, a familiar calling card. He glanced at Raven, who sat in the passenger seat in her natural form, one hand hanging out over the convertible's door.
"I wouldn't have thought we'd find these two together," Erik said, reclining in his seat and using his power to steer. It was foolish for him to speed—he was already in violation of his parole, though his parole officer, a pleasant mutant with the ability to grow his hair at will, was so far unaware of that fact—but they were in the middle of nowhere Montana and hadn't seen another car in over an hour. The open road called to him.
He changed gears and pressed the pedal harder, pushing one hundred miles per hour.
Raven tilted her head back, letting the breeze slide across her face. "After the Statue of Liberty incident they must have decided they had something in common—or maybe they realized they complemented each other nicely—because they've been inseparable ever since. Rumor has it they still bicker like children, though."
The adamantium was near, now, very near, coming toward them and moving fast. Faster than Erik was driving.
"Here they come," he said, releasing the pressure on the gas and pulling his Ferrari onto the side of the road. He climbed out and leaned back against the door, Raven coming around the car to stand beside him.
Two figures appeared on the horizon, too small to be cars. They grew in his vision rapidly, taking the form of two men crouched low on streamlined motorcycles. Erik let his senses play along the metal in the bikes. When they came a bit closer he lifted them above the road, their tires spinning less than an inch above the pavement—so close they wouldn't even realize they were hovering—and slowed them gradually so the bikers wouldn't go flying over the handlebars.
"What the hell did you do to my bike, Logan?" one of the riders shouted.
"Me?" the other snarled back. "I'm losing speed! You sabotage my engine again, bub?"
Erik brought both motorcycles to a complete halt beside his car. The two men were too busy bickering to have noticed him. He cleared his throat. "Your motorcycles are fine."
They whirled as one, Wolverine's claws sliding out of his fists, Cyclops' hand rising to a button set into the visor of his helmet. They tensed further when they caught sight of Erik standing there casually, wearing a tailored black suit and fedora.
"Magneto," Wolverine growled.
Erik smiled. "Hello, boys," he said, just to irritate them. "I have a job for you."
"You must be joking," Cyclops said. "We should call the cops and have them haul you back to prison."
"Such hostility, Scott," Erik said, tsking. "I can offer you quite a lot of money."
"Don't need money," Wolverine grunted.
"Of course you don't. What you do need is excitement. A chance to use your gifts for something other than pointless drag racing."
"Look, Magneto," Cyclops said impatiently, "what we need or don't need has nothing to do with you. We're not interested. Get out of here."
Raven pushed herself off of the car. "You're not interested?" she said, her voice silky. "That's a real pity. I know that Jean—" she shifted into the other woman's form, wearing the same bikini they'd seen her wear, leaving little to the imagination "—was looking forward to seeing you both."
As always, she did her work almost too well. The two men gaped at her with naked longing painted on their faces, as if Jean's face was a sight neither had expected to see ever again. It was a moment before either of them found their tongue.
"The Phoenix is helping you? Why?" Cyclops demanded.
He called her Phoenix, Erik knew, because he could not bear to call her Jean—could not think of the cold woman who lived in a mansion, used people as puppets, and leaked power from her pores as the same girl he'd known since childhood.
"We share a common enemy," Erik said.
They still could not look away from Raven-as-Jean. He knew they were hooked.
"Who?" Wolverine snarled.
He told them.
7
Recruiting Beast necessitated a return to Washington, D.C. The mutant scientist/philosopher/genius was frequently summoned to speak to Congress on matters of mutant affairs, though he held no official position in the government. Raven had seen him around during her own stay on Capitol Hill, she told Erik, but since Senator Kelly loathed Beast and all he stood for their interactions were thankfully kept to a bare minimum. She'd worried that if anyone was going to expose her it would be him.
Erik used his power to let Raven and himself into Beast's apartment. They barely had time to make themselves comfortable before there was a crashing sound as the door was kicked in from the outside. They sprang to their feet as Beast bounded in, snarling, immense nostrils flaring, clearly expecting an attack. He came to a halt when he saw them, blinking rapidly.
"You two," he said, the anger in his voice tempered by surprise. "I knew someone had broken in, but I didn't think it would be you. What are you doing here?"
Erik let Raven take the lead on this one. There was history between Raven and Beast, though the two had not been on friendly terms for a long, long time.
"How would you like the chance to work with the old team again?" she said.
Beast crossed his arms over his chest. "That depends. What happened to Senator Kelly?"
Her eyes widened slightly. "How did you know that was me?"
He wrinkled his nose. "Your appearance changes. Your scent doesn't. I'd know you anywhere, Raven. I want to know why you killed him."
"If Senator Kelly had had his way, we would all be shipped off to camps or killed," Raven said sharply, irritated as always by his self-righteous attitude. "I did what was necessary."
Beast's lips tightened. "Still the same Mystique."
She made a cutting gesture with her hand. "I won't apologize for who I am. What I want to know is whether you're the same Hank McCoy I remember. The old Hank cared about justice."
"What do you think I'm doing here?" he said pointedly, gesturing at his suit, which sat awkwardly on his massive frame. "We all have our ways of fighting for what we believe in."
"I promise that what we are doing is right, Hank," Raven said softly. "We can do it without you, but I want you with us."
Beast gazed at her for a long time, assessing her sincerity. Finally he nodded. "I'll listen. I make no promises, but I'll hear you out."
8
The flashing lights of police sirens lent color to the night. Erik stood in the shadows and watched as three men were hauled from a bank, two in normal handcuffs—humans—and the third wearing, in addition to handcuffs, a mutation inhibiting collar.
Even from this distance, he could see that Banshee looked disgruntled. It was the boy's own mistake for working with humans.
Raven shifted form, becoming a tall man wearing a black suit, tie, and sunglasses. She stalked onto the scene as if the whole block belonged to her, and when a police officer tried to delay her she flashed an FBI badge at him. Erik couldn't hear them from here, but he knew the gist of what they were saying. Raven was claiming the mutant as an FBI person of interest and the policeman, responding instinctively to the authority in her voice, let her pass.
She grabbed Banshee by the arm, shouted something at him for appearances, then spun him around to slam him chest first against a police car. She leaned in to whisper something in his ear, which Erik took as his cue. A simple mental twitch and the latch of Banshee's collar sprung open. After giving the boy one more shove for good measure, Raven strode away from the crime scene as confidently as she'd strolled in—"Not our man after all," he imagined her telling the cop—and joined Erik at his hidden vantage point.
Banshee's cuffed hands lifted to his neck and pried away the collar. He took a breath and directed a sharp burst of air into each handcuff lock, shattering it and freeing his wrists. Then he took a deep breath and blew at the gathered police officers, the force of the air sending them flying. Before they could recover, he turned and ran.
"He's in," Raven said, unnecessarily.
9
Erik and Raven sat about halfway up the stands in the circus tent.
"Really, Raven," Erik drawled, wrinkling his nose as the woman on the other side of him spilled a handful popcorn onto the sticky bleachers. "I know that the rest of the world considers mutants to be freakish, but must we do our recruiting from the circus?"
"Have a little faith," Raven said, annoyed. "I've never let you down before."
He might have said something more biting, but then the lights went out and the audience gasped as there was a strange sound—BAMF—and a blue man with a tail appeared mid-air in the center of the tent. Another BAMF and he was in the stands, balancing on one hand on a narrow stair. Yet another BAMF and he was overhead again, dangling by his tail from the rafters, his arms spread wide to invite applause.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the ring master boomed, "the Incredible Nightcrawler!"
"He'll do," Erik said, ignoring Raven's smug smirk.
10
Erik had never liked Emma Frost. She got into his head too easily, but unlike other telepaths he'd known she always seemed almost amused by what she found there. It didn't help that she was one of Shaw's projects, just as he had been, that a part of her could not help but love her creator, just as a part of him would always look at Shaw and think, Father.
He didn't like her because her scars were his scars.
For all that it was difficult to track her down to her quiet home in Seattle, though—she'd retired a year into his incarceration—she was the easiest to recruit by far. One look at him, one peek into his mind was all it took. She shook her head and went to pack.
His scars were her scars.
***
Having seen Emma safely on her way to Nevada, Erik and Raven visited the Space Needle late that evening. He'd always had a soft spot for tall metal structures. He took Raven's hand and used the metal sewn into the lining of his suit to float them both to the top. Together they sat on the sloping roof, watching the moon shine down on Puget Sound.
"We have ten," Erik said. "Do we need one more?" He preferred to keep his operation as small as possible, but as Raven had told him before they couldn't afford to cut corners on this one. He interpreted her silence. "You think we need one more." He pressed his palm to the roof, feeling the metal particles against his palm. His time in the plastic prison had left him even more attuned to the sensation of metal than he had been before. "We'll get one more." He glanced sidelong at her. "You have someone specific in mind?"
"You're not going to like it," she said.
11
"I don't like this," he muttered, tilting his fedora to cover his eyes as he watched the girl—no, she was Pyro's age, she was a young woman now—push her way through the subway car.
Her hands were quick and nimble. If he didn't know what to look for—and if he hadn't spent years working with Raven—he would have missed the way her bare hands dipped in and out of pockets, brushing against her victims' exposed wrists or arms just long enough to absorb whatever information she was looking for—ATM pin numbers, probably.
He hadn't seen her since the Statue of Liberty incident. She had changed more than he'd expected. There was a white streak in her brown hair—a souvenir from her time with him—and a hardness in her eyes that had not been there before. He did not regret much that he had done in his life, but he found that he regretted what he had done to her.
Still, she moved more confidently than he remembered, and didn't cringe away from people as if terrified of even the slightest contact. She'd learned not to let her gift control her. He wondered whether that, too, was a result of her encounter with him.
The train came to a stop at Christopher Street and he waited only long enough to make sure that she was disembarking before he pushed his way out through the other door. He tailed her as she took the stairs from the subway station onto the street, walking a few blocks before making a left into a dark alley.
He waited several seconds before following her in. It was only good instincts and years of training that alerted him to danger, and he just had time to bring his gloved hands up to protect his face when she leapt at him, her bare hands outstretched. One of her hands latched onto the sleeve of his jacket; he caught her other wrist in his own hand. Her grip on his forearm was painfully tight, but when he searched for metal on her body that he could use to fling her off, he found none.
Clever girl.
"I'm not here to hurt you, Rogue," he said, grunting as she clawed at his face. He held her off with difficulty. He could have used the alley's metal dumpster to restrain her, but as Raven had reminded him before he left for New York, he was trying to recruit the girl, not terrify or browbeat her into submission.
"I won't let you use me again!" she screamed, struggling against him, half-hysterical, half-determined.
She kicked him hard in the shin, making him curse, then tried to knee him in the groin. He managed to twist away at the last instant, taking the painful blow on his thigh.
They grappled for another few seconds before he realized how pointless this confrontation was. It was evident from what he'd seen on the train that she was learning to use her skin effectively. Why not let her see what she needed to see?
He loosened his grip on her wrist enough to let the tips of three of her fingers touch his face. The pull began instantly, the same breath-stealing pain, the feeling of a slow, creeping death he'd experienced the last time they'd touched.
She could kill him this way. If he'd miscalculated—if her fear or her rage were stronger than her rational mind—she could really kill him.
It was terrifying, the feeling of his strength leaving him in a rush. He fell to his knees, his lungs seizing, his veins trying to pull through his skin, his head swimming.
I can't die like this, he thought, his vision darkening. Not now, not without seeing—
And then she let go. He heaved a desperate gulp of air as he slumped against the alley wall, his heart slamming against his ribs.
"Shaw?" he heard her say, the sound of her voice seeming to come to him from very far away. "You're going after Shaw?"
He was surprised by how eager she sounded. She'd never met Sebastian Shaw—not that he knew of, at least. "How do you know Shaw?" he croaked, using the wall to push himself agonizingly to his feet, watching her cautiously.
She shuddered and the dumpster rattled along with her. "I see him in my nightmares," she whispered, tapping the side of her head with two fingers in a familiar gesture. She cleared her throat. "But why do you need me?"
His strength was returning, but so slowly. He felt like an old man. "If everything goes exactly to plan, we won't need you," he said, his voice strained. "However, if something should go wrong…" He looked from the still-trembling dumpster to her. "Sebastian Shaw has the ability to absorb and manipulate energy. Your gift functions differently, but there are distinct similarities." He cocked his head. "I would be very interested to see what happens should you two touch. You might just be his match."
She stared at him, hard, for a long time. Finally, she nodded. "I'll work with you," she said slowly. "If you touch me, I'll kill you."
He smiled faintly. "I would expect no less."
She used the power she'd stolen from him to fling the dumpster from one side of the alley to the other, just for the simple pleasure of it if her fierce grin was to be believed. Then she caught him before he could fall down again, and let him lean on her as they left the alley together.