Summary: Magneto copes with Charles' death. Spoilers for the end of the original animated series.
The Five Stages of Grief
Denial.
He still can t believe Charles Xavier is dead. The knowledge is numbing, all-consuming; it s too much to accept, and so Magneto does not. They have been separated by time and ideologies before, he thinks stubbornly.
Gradually, however, logic chips away at his carefully constructed fa ade: Charles had been weakened, vulnerable when he was attacked. He d seen the other man s usually vibrant face looking creased and sickly, even in grainy television broadcasts. Charles had always been too good for this world, and now, he was gone.
Magneto stands in his mutant kingdom, and wishes he could say it was worth this.
Anger.
What pisses him off the most, he decides, is that Charles left so much unfinished. The Mutant Registration Act shows no signs of flagging; if anything, the public spectacle of a mutant being, essentially, murdered on national television seems to have opened the floodgates for war. Magneto has nothing else to live for but his cause, and nobody to tell him otherwise anymore, and so he throws all of his fury into fighting, even if he s not sure his heart is in it anymore. Sometimes, he wonders whether it ever really was, or if Charles fervent opposition kept him going.
Bargaining.
If they could just talk, he thinks sometimes; if the right words were parsed out, set on the table between them matter-of-factly, maybe things would be different. He stares up at the night sky sometimes, wondering whether, if he thinks hard enough, Charles might hear. I m sorry, his mind screams. I love you. You re still wrong about all of this, but maybe sometimes you were right, too.
Yet for all of his pleading, his latent concessions to a man whose gravesite contains no body, Charles does not answer him. It s just as well, he decides wearily. Talk is cheap anyways.
Depression.
Life continues with seemingly no end in sight. The push-pull of battle, the victories, defeats, all run together. Magneto is tired of fighting; however, people are counting on him. He knows, without him, the dream dies. He wonders if Charles ever felt the same world-weariness, knowing that every act, no matter how small, rippled with consequences. He wonders if Charles ever just felt like giving up.
His people his mutants have pledged their lives to his cause; in return, he gives them promises, pretty words that, someday, he will translate into action, as soon as he can muster the strength.
Acceptance.
Jean comes to him, full of promises and false hope; he can t bring himself to send her away. When she returns to Genosha a second time, he allows her to show him what he so sorely misses.
Charles looks achingly familiar, albeit healthier, the flush returned to his cheeks. Magneto drinks in his kind gaze, the way he cocks his head, the soft lilt of his voice. Charles hand on his wrist is overwhelming, and he wallows in the nostalgia, before reluctantly allowing himself to be pulled back to reality. Then, with bittersweet triumph, he sends Jean away for good.