Erik didn't realize he was dozing until his phone woke him up, vibrating terrifyingly against the wooden nightstand. He stretched and looked around before answering. Charles must still be in the shower, the shower he himself was supposed to stay awake waiting up for. It was just after midnight, so it must be one of the kids calling-maybe a problem closing up, some guy who wouldn't leave, or maybe the deposit safe was jammed again...

He yawned and yanked the phone up so it would be quiet, burying his face into the pillows but answering.

"What is it?"

"Erik?" a man's voice questioned and he rolled onto his back (wincing at his sore arse-he'd have to make sure Charles didn't notice, the guy would prep him for hours next time if he found out about this) and glanced at the caller ID.

"Oh, hey Chris," he cheered. He had a good excuse for cheering: he'd just been fucked into a particularly good mood and Chris' call was too surprising for him to build up a bitter defense to.

For all that Chris Odinson was the bastard that had introduced Charles to his evil brother Tom, the guy was pretty alright. It probably helped that Chris was, as far as Erik knew, the sole person in the world to have ever beaten Charles at a drinking game.

"Hey, can you talk?" the burly man asked and Erik blinked away his cheerfulness. If the guy was making sure Charles wasn't in the room then it had to be something to do with Tom.

"Yeah, but I don't know for how long. Charles is in the shower."

"I'll be quick," Chris said in a rush. "You remember how we set up that intervention in Gotham for Tom?"

Erik wracked his brain quickly: Chris and his parents having him and Charles and Raven to dinner up in North Salem at the beginning of the summer, talk turning to Tom, Erik changing the subject when Charles tensed up slightly beside him.

"Yeah I guess I remember."

"Well we just called to make sure everything was still ready for this weekend, and apparently Tom's on vacation."

Erik was silent, waiting for Chris to tell him what this meant. Who the fuck cared if the bastard took vacations or worked all the time or what?

"So?" he finally had to ask.

"Erik, he booked a ticket out to Metropolis."

His blood rather chilled. Metropolis was only an hour away, the closest airport to them...

"Now, I don't want to worry you," Chris added hastily, but Erik thought it was rather late for that. "There was another ticket for the same day going to Rio so there's a chance he's just hiding his hand, going to Brazil..."

"But..."

"But Tom's practically allergic to sunlight. The more likely of the two is Metropolis and Metropolis is just so close to you guys...I don't know, I just wanted to warn you."

"So I guess the intervention's cancelled," he groused.

"Well we're definitely scrambling, but we've already got everyone together, and we don't want to waste the momentum so Dad and I are still trying to track him down to get things underway. I just wanted to warn you, and tell you that if you hear anything from him to tell me."

"Yeah, sure..." he mumbled, thinking. Charles walked through the door, whistling softly, obviously surprised to see him on the phone this late at night. "Hey, I've got to go."

"Don't tell Charles. I don't want to worry him over nothing, I just wanted you to be on guard in case he decides to pull anything."

"Sure, sure. Bye."

"Bye."

"Who was that?" Charles questioned automatically, quirking his eyebrow.

"It was my doctor. I think you broke my ass."

"You jerk," Charles laughed, jumping into bed and smacking his hip.

"I'm serious," he teased, grappling with Charles' wrists to keep himself from getting beaten. "Your gigantic manhood has absolutely wrecked me. I may not be able to have sex for weeks! Maybe even months!"

"Go take a shower before I wreck it again," Charles threatened, but kissed him fondly on the jaw.

In the morning Charles made chocolate chip pancakes (Kevin wasn't their kid so who cared if he had a sugar fit all day?) and Erik stayed out of the kitchen, pulling kid-duty instead: getting Kevin ready for the morning in so much as an adult was necessary to get a 9 year old ready, and made sure he had all his junk together. Erik didn't want to be stepping on toy dinosaurs for the next month like the last time Kevin had spent the night.

"What's wrong with you?" Kevin questioned when Erik's hand slipped and the contents of Kevin's math folder went everywhere.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Erik growled back. Moira had told him to stop cursing in front of her son; he had told her to stop leaving her son around him. This was their stalemate.

"You're acting weird," Kevin said, grabbing his folder back and inserting the papers himself.

"Yeah well you're looking weird."

"Am not."

"Are to."

That conversation lasted until they got to the dining room table and Charles forced them to stop.

"If you argue around chocolate chip pancakes they turn into broccoli pancakes, so you guys better cool it," Charles threatened. Erik and Kevin exchanged glances and zipped-lip movements and focused on setting the table.

Charles decorated Kevin's pancakes into a smiley face and Erik's into something a little more...grown up.

"What's that?" Kevin asked automatically.

"Rocket ship," Charles said at the same time Erik said "Torpedo."

"I want a rocket ship!" Kevin whined. Erik gave his boyfriend a 'See what you've done now?' look and the man blushed, focusing on his own meal ("it's a canon").

When they were done Erik and Kevin did the dishes together and he realized Charles had disappeared. He told Kevin to get his shoes and sweater on and went to find the man, looked out the window to spot him talking to Rosie from next door over the fence and went out to join him.

But before he got to them Rosie bolted.

"What's that about?"

"Rosamund's boyfriend jumped our fence to get to her place last night and trampled the flowers," Charles explained, motioning to the mottled lilies by the fence, but he looked distracted.

"Rosie's got a boyfriend? Never told me."

"Isn't it strange how she never shares things with the guy who made her pay a dollar an item to get her toys back from over his fence?"

"I was teaching her responsibility or something," he argued with a shrug.

"You're going to make one interesting father one day, Erik Lensherr," Charles sighed, and put an arm around him and walked him back to the house.

The man seemed on the quiet side today as they dropped Kevin off at Moira's place, and then Erik stopped by the cafe before the movie. Charles had doled out staggering sexual favors in order to get Erik to go see a movie with him. Erik himself didn't believe in public viewing spectacles for anything that would be available to watch in the comfort of your own home with your boyfriend in your lap within the decade. Even though Charles had tactically shown him how much fun an empty, dark movie theatre could be, his affection hadn't quite encompassed full, dark movie theatres, which was what this movie was bound to be.

Truthfully, he was hoping one of the kids would just absolutely need him to stay and help out at the cafe so that he would not have to sit through two hours of whatever it was Charles was looking forward to watching. Probably something with mind games. Erik had never seen anyone go so absolutely ape-shit over psychological thrillers before. It was slightly terrifying. He always felt like Charles was taking notes in case these tricks came in handy, whether in thwarting terrorists or slipping detectives or conquering boyfriends, he wasn't sure.

As soon as they walked in the front door he could tell that he might just get his wish. Hank glanced at a tall man standing beside the counter with his back to them and Angel glanced around his shoulder, throwing a glare at the mystery man purely for Erik's benefit.

This guy's an asshole, her demonstrative glare told him. Do your worst.

So he grinned, new spring in his step, and got ready to do his worst.

When the man turned Erik recognized him as the annoying Americano boy from yesterday and was confused. He looked a lot different now: he seemed taller, older, no boy at all in his matte black suit and tie, some cheesy scarf hanging around his neck under his jacket. More than that, he didn't look like a drugged-up college freak. He looked like someone in Charles' circle: some society darling or bank manager or something.

Erik didn't have time to label anything more in-depth about him though as Charles ground to a shocked halt beside him.

Erik glanced, to see what had stopped his clock, and did a double-take. The Brit was staring at the tall man, eyes showing white all around, like he was looking at a ghost. Protectiveness took over him before understanding could, and he moved his glance to a glare, from Charles to the other man, his arm from around Charles' waist to in front of it, stepping partway before his boyfriend.

"Hullo, Charles dear," the man grinned, completely as if Erik, for all his aggressive posturing, were invisible.

In a small voice from Erik's shoulder, the smaller man took a thin breath and answered, "Hullo, Tom."

Erik twisted to stare at his boyfriend for a moment, at those wide surprised eyes and pale affected face, and then twisted back to catalogue as quickly as possible.

But his mind wasn't up to the task: it couldn't catalogue anything beyond the man's name.

"You're Tom?" he balked.

"How d'you do," Tom grinned at him, and his smile was wane and snobbish and Erik wanted immediately to punch it off his face. More so, he wanted to force the man to look at him, to stop staring at his boyfriend like a snake watching a bird.

He stepped fully in front of the brunet, blocking him off from view and only then did Tom seem to snap out of it, his thin grin slipping for just one moment. Erik felt Charles' hands soft and warning on his hips, but ignored them.

"Pleased to fucking meet you. Now get out of my cafe before I call the fucking police."

Tom looked him over from top to bottom, smug, but his eyes were cold-ice blue-as if he wanted a go at Erik just as much as Erik wanted a go at him, which was not as it should be of course. Tom had always seemed like a schemer, and schemes didn't have room for emotions. If Tom was forgetting that then it was a boon for Erik.

"Erik," Charles murmured warningly.

"Hullo there," the man said to him snidely, smiling wide, almost laughing, like this was all a great joke. "You must be my replacement. I say, I do hope you've had fun cleaning up my messes. I didn't return him in the best of states, did I? But then I've always been careless with my toys."

Erik stepped forward, growling, but Charles dragged him back by his belt-loops.

"You promised, Erik! Erik, you promised me: no fighting!"

"You said I'm not allowed to punch your friends!" Erik snarled backwards. "He's not a fucking friend!"

"On the contrary!" Tom laughed. "It's the best of friends that mark you for a lifetime, and I've certainly left my mark-haven't you noticed it?"

Erik lunged again, too strongly for Charles to hold him back, and loved, absolutely adored the feeling of the other man's chintzy suit crumpling under his grip. Tom's face, pasty and thin and sickeningly close to his was a less advantageous maneuver and as soon as he got the chance he threw the man back into the counter, scattering surprised customers and earning quite a few shrieks from all around. Tom just gazed at him, eyes blazing from under his brow, smile a silent snarl.

"I'm calling Moira!" Angel yelped from behind the counter. But Moira had the day off-was all the way in Silver Terrace.

"Call Logan," Erik suggested instead.

"Erik-no!" Charles balked. He knew as well as Erik what kind of murder Logan would bring with him.

"Can't handle me man to man, Lensherr?" the pale man snarled at him, making his blood rise all over again. He jumped forward, fist cocked, but Charles slipped in front of him, digging a shoulder into Erik's diaphragm and shoving him backwards and pushing the air out of him. Charles was lighter than him, and if he had wanted to resort to fighting the smaller man he could have taken him. But he wasn't seeing red quite enough to endanger Charles, and so he relied on trying to slip the man's firm grasp rather than throw him off.

"Let go of me, Charles!" he growled when he got his breath back. Tom sidled to his feet again, stroking his long black hair back over his skull and clearly checking Charles' ass.

Erik snarled, loud enough to rival Logan and thrashed in Charles' grip, forgetting that he meant to not harm the soft-hearted man and shouldering him aside roughly, knocking him into a table and lunging at that scrawny pipsqueak he could definitely take on if only everyone would keep out of his fucking way.

"Hank! Stop him!" Charles shouted and it seemed that the boy was immediately in Erik's path.

"Move the fuck-" but that was as far as Erik got as the meek boy suddenly became so completely unmeek as to grip one hand into Erik's collar and the other into his waistline and lift him bodily from the floor.

Erik was too shocked to react at first-this was the same boy he had once cowed into snitching out Charles' life story with nothing more than a milk thermometer and bravado. This kid flinched from his mildest remonstrance on a weekly basis. But now suddenly he was frowning reprovingly into Erik's quickly reddening face and carrying him back away from that flagrant bastard of an upstart.

Everything happened too fast: Hank's sudden turnabout, then the bell of the door ringing and it was Logan and Raven, thank God, here and ready to rescue him and put this punching mission back on track, but Charles was shouting and obviously blocking their way because they weren't dragging him out of Hank's grasp or going after Tom and then they were dragging him down and he was coughing and sputtering and Tom was nowhere to be found.

"You're fired!" Erik screamed at Hank automatically, realizing for the first time that boy was taller than him.

"He's not fired!" Charles shouted back, taking a momentary time-out from shouting at Raven and Logan: "What did you think you were doing? Coming here like vigilantes to what: beat up a boyfriend from ten years ago? How old are you two? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten into?"

Erik was surprised he wasn't getting a similar verbal-beat down and took his freedom to give Hank his own verbal-beat down. "What the hell were you thinking?" he shouted, shoving the boy in the chest, amazed to see that it barely set him back a pace. "You work for me-not him! You don't stop me from beating people up in my own cafe, no matter what your idol shouts at you!"

"If I hadn't stopped you you'd've gotten in trouble," Hank mumbled, tossing his shoulder defensively and moving back behind the counter. Erik followed him.

"That's my problem, not yours!"

"If you go to jail the cafe will close and then I'll be out of a job, so yeah, it is my problem!" Hank argued back, and Hank had never argued with him in his life and Erik was so shocked that he didn't know what to do with the boy anymore so he turned to Angel as she returned from the back room. Tom must have escaped through there...

"And you! Why'd you ever let that creep in here to begin with?" he growled.

"Yeah because you didn't serve him a fucking drink just yesterday!" she balked back.

"The both of you! I'm fucking pissed at the both of you! You're both getting opening shift for the next forever!"

"Yeah well before you get too rough with me you might want to see what I have here," Angel suggested smugly, holding a business card up between her fingers.

He glared at her, but was curious despite himself. "What is it?"

"No morning shift?"

"Fine," he growled. It had been an empty threat anyway. He didn't need Hank and Angel to open every morning. "Now give me that."

She did and Erik saw it was the card for some fancy business uptown. It was Tom's. On the back was scrawled, in long spidery handwriting: Let's finish this. 9:00. Fisherman's Wharf P. 19.

He tucked it in his pocket quickly before Charles could see him as the man came over to chastise Angel as well.

"How could you call Logan, Angel? You're supposed to be the smart one!"

She put her hands up defensively, much more anxious being chewed out by Charles than by him, her own dear boss.

"I didn't, Mr. Xavier, I swear! I called your sister!"

That got Charles ready to go all over again, turning and glaring at his sister, but Erik held him back by the back of his collar.

"My cafe has seen enough drama for one day. Think of someplace else to bitch at your sister."

"What about a place to bitch at my boyfriend?" the man questioned roughly, turning enough to glare at him.

"Why do you want to bitch at me? I didn't do anything!"

"Only because Hank didn't let you do anything!"

"Same thing."

"Definitely, for sure not at all the same thing," Charles growled at him and seeing those blue eyes blazing like that was really just too eerie. He could see why Angel would prefer he yell at her than Charles. At least with Erik you knew what you were getting was part and parcel of the system. Seeing Charles angry was like witnessing something otherworldly and wrong.

Charles ushered Logan and Raven out of the cafe while they pleaded their case for why he should not be angry with them, and Erik gave his kids one more stern talking to, realizing that Hank was back to normal now that Charles wasn't there to protect him and thus laying into him accordingly.

"I'm sorry," the boy squeaked finally, "that I picked you up and carried you."

Erik blushed up to his ears as Angel barely hid her sniggering, glancing around to cafe to see if anyone else had heard him. If they hadn't heard they had at least seen and he didn't like the sheer number of people suddenly typing or texting furiously.

"We never talk about that again. Ever," he growled, turned on his heel and left.

Charles was waiting for him on the sidewalk, arms crossed over his chest and tapping his foot like an impatient mother. Logan and Raven stood behind him looking wrathful and unruly. God this man would make a terrifying father figure.

Before Erik could say a word, the man flashed a hand out, digging the business card from his pants like a pro pick-pocket.

"You are not doing this," Charles growled, glancing the note over quickly, face flushed with anger.

Erik grinned at him.

"No, I'm not."

His grin and agreement didn't get him out of a Talk, though.

"The three of you have to understand," Charles sighed to them at the dining room table back at his house. "Violence doesn't solve anything. It only causes more problems."

"The only problem it'll cause is trying to figure out where to bury the body," Raven argued vehemently.

"This is out of your hands, Prof," Logan growled. "He's on our turf now."

"All we can do is refuse to get upset by this and he'll lose interest. He works all the way in Gotham; he can't stay here forever. He has to leave sometime."

"And until then he's just allowed to come around and antagonize us, hurt you, and we're just supposed to let him?" Raven balked. "You're not the boss of me, Charles. You can't tell me what to do. When Erik goes to meet him I'm coming along."

"Me too," Logan agreed.

All three of them looked at him expectantly, and so with utmost disinterest he shrugged, tossing them Tom's business card now that he didn't need it.

"Sorry," he yawned. "I can't make it." Then he got up, ambling to Charles' bedroom. They followed him.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Raven screeched. He looked at them as if their surprise bewildered him.

"Nothing, just that I'm busy tonight. Any other night of course I'd be there. It's just I have a date tonight."

Charles beamed at him, lunging forward into his arms.

"You'd better be fucking kidding me!" Raven screamed.

"You tried to kill him at the cafe, now suddenly you're taking the high road?" Logan balked.

"I didn't try to kill him. If I'd tried to kill him he'd be dead. I just tried to punch him, that's all."

"And if you'd succeeded you'd've ended up in jail and then where would that leave me, a poor little prison widow?" Charles chastised half-heartedly from his wrap around Erik's torso.

Erik shrugged again. "My best friend belongs to the best legal team in the tri-city area, and my boyfriend has the firm on retainer and is dear friends with the chief of police. I figured I had a little bit of leeway as far as physical retaliation went. This is different. This is a trap."

Charles beamed up at him, as if pleasantly surprised that he had managed to work that out on his own, so that he actually felt a bit underestimated by his boyfriend.

"Who consistently beats you at chess, Liebchen? I know a trap when I see one."

Charles blushed, tried to look less amazed. "Of course you do. It's just you didn't this morning, playing right into his goading."

Erik shook his head wearily. How to explain this to Charles?

"So long as he's on my property I can probably argue my way out of any hard-handed approach I take to kicking him off of it. The police aren't going to balk too hard at that. This is different: premeditated, pre-negotiated, and pre-set."

"What the hell makes you think it's a trap? What the hell kind of trap can he set-one person?"

"The kind that keeps me in jail just long enough to go after Charles, probably. It's what I'd do."

"Remind me to never break up with you," Charles sighed. Erik grinned and held his shoulder.

"Don't you dare ever break up with me," he growled through his smile.