I.
To absolutely no-one's surprise, Magneto bails immediately after they locate the baby.
"Pietro pulled me from a delicate situation," he explains. "I'll come back tomorrow if I can."
Literally no-one invited you anyway, Hank thinks, but that's not exactly true. Pietro had brought him here, and Charles at least was acknowledging Erik's presence. And it was good that Magneto was starting to care, even if that meant even more of his face around these parts.
"You expect me to run you all the way back to your not-so-secret lair?" Pietro asks snarkily. "Can't you fly, or like, get a bus or something? I'm not running a taxi service here."
They bicker like this constantly, and Hank doesn't pay much attention, even though he does notice Erik slyly bribing Pietro. Hank doesn't like to think where Magneto gets money from. It's not like the Brotherhood is a profitable organisation.
The baby-naming discussion that follows in the Lehnsherrs' absence is animated but brief. Everyone offers variants of their own names, from Charlie and Alexander to, well, Hank. "What?" Hank says defensively when everyone stares at him. "There's no variants on Hank. He could be Hank Jr."
No one bothers to volunteer Erik's name - or any variants on it - in his absence, but Peter is brought up as an option, though Hank seriously doubts Mystique is going to name her son after a kid she's just met.
"Seriously good options, all of them," Mystique says, "but I've already decided on Kurt."
"Vonnegut?" Charles had asked with a knowing smile.
"No, because of the teleporting. He's here and gone again. You could say he's curt."
Hank feels his own jaw drop.
Mystique smiles, and looks around at the blank faces that stare at her. "Get it? Curt?" she says.
"No way are you naming your baby after a pun," Alex says, finding his voice first.
Mystique folds her arms and Hank remembers that she was the one who christened Erik 'Magneto', and came up with Darwin, Professor X and Banshee…
In hindsight, the kid's name could have been a whole lot worse.
II.
Pietro comes back an hour or so later from dropping Magneto off, with a backpack that's stuffed to the gunnels, probably with stolen goods if Hank knows Pietro.
Hank has made Kurt a makeshift cot at this stage, and the little guy is already asleep inside. Charles has pulled up his wheelchair beside the cot, and he's nodding off too.
Pietro sneaks into the room, holding a finger to his lips. He hands Mystique the backpack quietly. She opens the backpack and there's nappies and wipes and even little baby clothes inside, and she smiles up at him, and he shrugs.
"Thanks," she says and Pietro shushes her. He's obviously trying not to catch Charles' attention, because last time Charles caught him stealing he made Pietro run 50 laps of the track at normal speed, which nearly killed the kid.
Pietro's mind may be too quick to read, and Charles is forbidden from reading Mystique's, so Hank knows he's the weak link here. Don't think about the backpack, he thinks, which is an oxymoron in itself. Don't think about the backpack.
You really ought to work on some mental blocks Hank, Charles' voice says in his head. You're awful at this.
Hank frowns, a bit stung by that, and Charles wheels around to face them. Mystique, to her credit, tries to hide the backpack behind her, but it's too late for that.
"Did you pay for any of it?" Charles asks Pietro sternly.
"If I say that I nicked one of dad's cards, does that count as stealing?" Pietro asks, smiling.
"I like this guy already," Mystique says, taking out various stuffed animals from the bag and inspecting them, and Pietro beams at her.
I built a whole cot you know, Hank wants to say, but he's too mature for those kind of jabs. If this were a competition though, he thinks he'd be out of the running just because of his general hairiness and blueness, but the sad thing is that Pietro isn't even competing. He's doing this because he's a good kid.
III.
They find a strange rhythm in the days that follow. Hank finds himself teaching every single one of Charles' classes, since Charles flat-out refuses to lose a second with Kurt and Mystique.
It's manageable for the first day or two, but Hank ends up in Charles' office on day three, exhaustion getting to him.
"I'm sorry Charles, but the kids are getting sick of me. I don't blame them, I'm a rubbish teacher."
"Nonsense Hank, they actually quite like you," Charles says, rocking Kurt in his arms. He had asked Hank to make him a rocking-chair wheel-chair hybrid, but Hank hadn't gotten around to it yet, not with all the goddamn teaching he was doing. "Still, I understand that it's difficult for you to take this on all at once. I'll talk to some people, try and get someone else to help."
"No offence Charles, but who? What other adult mutants do you know?"
Charles frowns. "There's always Erik," he says after a moment.
"No," Hank says firmly.
"Erik is fluent in six languages and played a huge part in mutant history," Charles argues.
"Erik played the villainous role in mutant history Charles," Hank shoots back. "I am not letting him have a position of power over young people."
"Fine," Charles says grumpily. "Who else do we know?"
Hank goes through the list. Emma Frost, dead. Darwin, dead. Sean, dead. Angel, dead. Azazel, dead. Logan, missing, presumed dead. This was turning out to be a more sombre line of thought than Hank had anticipated, and though he doesn't say any of it out loud, Charles is probably picking through his thoughts.
"Alex?" he suggests finally.
Charles grimaces. "Do you think he'll do it?"
Hank shrugs. "It's not like anyone can make Alex do anything, but I'll ask nicely." Charles nods. "I just need a few days with her - with them."
"You deserve a life outside the school too," Hank says quietly. "It's no problem Prof."
Charles nods, though Hank can tell he doesn't quite believe it himself.
"I've done everything I can to find Logan, but he just disappeared that day," Hank adds after a moment.
"God knows what Erik did to him," Charles says darkly. "But he must have survived it, or the timeline would have collapsed."
"Even though you know that Magneto probably did something awful to Logan, you still forgive him?" Hank asks.
Charles looks at him. "People do awful things Hank. Erik does more awful things than most, but then so have I. You learn to move past it."
Hank doesn't know if Charles' own brand of awful - being apathetic for a decade, not acting when he could have - is half as bad as Erik's, but it's not something he wants to argue over.
Kurt wails a little, and Hank rises. "I'll get Mystique."
"Let her rest," Charles says. "Little Kurt here only wants his nappy changed. I'm sure you can take care of that. I suddenly have some very urgent paperwork to do."
"Sure you do," Hank says sarcastically, but takes the baby anyway.
On the way to the newly-made nursery Pietro appears in front of Hank, his brown eyes wide. "I heard Kurt cry, is he okay?"
Hank doesn't know which is more adorable, the little baby in his arms that holds onto tiny fistfuls of his fur like Hank is a giant blue teddy bear, or Pietro's obvious big brother instinct.
"He's fine, he just needs a nappy change. You can do it if you want," he offers, holding the relatively smelly baby out to Pietro.
"I've done a hundred of them already. You guys have got to stop abusing my soft spot for the little guy. It's your turn," Pietro says firmly.
"Fine," Hank concedes, and places Kurt very carefully onto the bed.
"Don't go disappearing on me when I'm changing you," he warns the baby, waggling a finger at him. Kurt looks up at him, all innocence, but Hank knows better. He gets the scissors off the dresser and cuts a little hole in the back of the fresh nappy - space for the tail to go through- and then he takes off the old one, which flops back against the bed, heavy with urine. Hank is just leaning over for the wipes when he feels something warm and wet on his arm, and hears Pietro howling with laughter.
The baby is peeing on his arm.
"Jesus!" Hank says and pulls his hand away, but it's too late, and the fur is wet and that's going to be a pain in the ass to get out.
"You could have pulled him away from me before he did that!" he shouts at Pietro, who's still smirking.
"No way was I running around with a peeing baby with no nappy on!"
The little feud is broken up by a telling thunderclap sound, and Pietro sighs and darts forward to grab Kurt before he teleports, obviously regretting his last sentence.
Only Pietro is fast enough to catch Kurt before he teleports, and it's easy for Pietro to run them both back from wherever Kurt brings them. It's a great system for everyone but Pietro really, but he doesn't seem to mind.
Whenever Pietro was sleeping or whatever, then things got tricker. Kurt would bounce from one room to the next without anyone knowing where he'd gone, and everyone ended up baby-searching like headless chickens. Pietro was ditching all of his classes to mind Kurt at this stage- not that Charles could give out to him for that, because he was doing the same thing.
"There we go," Pietro says, appearing back in the room, rocking Kurt on his shoulder. "The little man just wanted to see the garden, that's all."
Hank takes the baby back and finally sticks a nappy on him. Even with all of their combined mutations, minding one baby between them is tough. Hank doesn't know how non-powered parents mind mutant kids, he really doesn't.
IV.
"I can't Hank," Alex is saying.
Hank has seen Alex unfazed in battle, and knows he's survived an actual war, and can't understand why Alex is so torn up about teaching a class.
"Please Alex? I just need an hour's sleep," he says.
Alex looks at the floor and mutters something incoherent.
"Pardon?"
"I said that I didn't graduate high school," Alex says quietly, and Hank gets the feeling that Alex has been avoiding telling him that for a long time. Hank remembers that Alex was in solitary confinement when Charles found him. He wonders what age Alex had got himself locked up at, to protect everyone else. Hank jerks a thumb towards the classroom. "It's not like they've even been to high school," he says, "so don't worry. I swear half of them can't even read. Look, just tell them about Cuba, or Vietnam. You were literally there. Anecdotal evidence and all that."
Alex scowls at the timetable in his hands. "I think this is supposed to be a Mutant Literature class."
"History goes in books, therefore it's literature. You'll be fine."
Alex looks up at him, and he still seems to be on edge but slightly less so than a moment before.
"Thanks Hank," he says, and swallows in a deep breath.
"No problem," Hank says, and watches Alex shuffle into the classroom, and then immediately threaten to stun anyone with his lasers who talked out of turn.
It was a start.
V.
It was the end, and Charles knew it from the very expression on Mystique's face, but he fought against it like a drugged man trying not to succumb to the inevitable sleep.
"Did you really think I was just going to move in?" Mystique says in that cutting way of hers.
"Can you really blame me for hoping, after you turned up here-"
"This doesn't change anything Charles. I'm still the person I was. I'm not content to spend my life in this house."
"But things have changed! You have a child now Mystique, you can't just run off for another few years."
She steps closer to him, furious. "Is that what you think I was doing? Running around on a whim? When I saved Alex from being tortured and killed by Trask, was that not worthwhile, just because I wasn't doing it on your orders?"
"I didn't mean it like that."
She doesn't bother responding, and that's worse than any reply she could have given him.
"Well, Kurt will have the best of care here at least in your absence-"
"He's not staying here," Mystique says, like it's obvious.
Charles feels like he's been slapped. "But, when you brought him here, I presumed-"
"I needed a week to get back on my feet, but that's all this was. I'm not saying this to hurt you Charles, I really am grateful for the welcome you've given me and Kurt here, but this was never going to be long-term, you know that."
"He would have a family here," Charles says softly.
"He always will. But what do any of you know about raising a child?"
What do you? Charles thinks, but does not say. Instead he simply says, "We would learn."
"I know you would, but at the end of the day it's my choice."
Charles feels an over-whelming tiredness wash over him, like they are destined to have this fight over and over again. If there's one thing he's learnt over the years it's that Mystique deserves his respect, and deserves the right to make her own decisions. He knows that. He just wishes her choices weren't always so painful.
"As you wish Mystique," he says, letting the formality seep back into his tone. "Kurt will of course be welcome to attend the school when he's of age, and it doesn't need saying that you both are always welcome here before then."
"Thanks Charles," she replies.
There's a silence then, where there's so much he'd still like to say, but words don't quite cover it. He wants to tell her that he still loves her, that she will always be his sister, no matter what she chooses, and that Kurt is his nephew, genetics be damned, but there's no need to say it anyway. She knows it all, and it won't change anything.
"You know," he manages eventually. "A social call would be nice now and then. I know this place is a safe haven of sorts, but don't feel like you can only come in emergencies."
"Imagine what the parents would say if they knew Mystique was invited to Christmas dinner," she says, smiling sadly.
"Erik himself has been invited every year, but he has the convenient excuse of not celebrating Christmas."
"I can't imagine Magneto pulling a cracker with Pietro," she quips.
Charles chuckles. "Nor can I."
Mystique nods almost to herself, and touches Charles on the shoulder lightly.
"Thank you, for everything."
"Anytime," he says, and he means it. Mystique lifts her hand off his shoulder and slings a backpack over her back, and leaves the room, off to take Kurt from the boys. Charles wonders will she tell them what she's going to do, or will she lie to make it easier. At least she hadn't done that to him.
He thinks to himself well, we'll see them at Christmas, but somehow he doesn't think that that will happen. Some part of him fears he won't see Mystique and Kurt for a long, long time.