Oh, are you guys waiting for a story update? My bad! Here I thought I'd have a ton more time to do fun writing once I turned in my qualifying paper. I didn't even think about the fact that I'd have to start my flipping dissertation. You know what takes a lot of time? Thinking up what you're going to do for your dissertation. So, updates might take longer than the previous goal of once a month. I will do my best not to let it get longer than two months. I'm not quite sure how much longer this story will be. I could shorten it pretty substantially or go a different direction that would make it substantially longer. Maybe I'll pick a middle ground…

Anyway, thanks for anyone who is still patient enough to still be reading! Here's a long chapter to make up for the long wait. And, as always, my amazing reviewers have all my love!

MirrorFlower and DarkWind: Thanks! I'm always excited when I can throw a Firefly reference in. I use that line all the time in my day to day life (modified somewhat since I don't usually have people trying to kill me, but whatever).

the ticking clock: I'm back…again! I wanted to have Raven still save the day. I felt like that was an important part of the movie, that she was responsible for some of what was going on. What initially started out as story about how Erik deals with Charles as Onslaught has turned into a story about how Raven and Charles deal with their family dynamic with Erik kind of roaring in the background like a t-rex. "Shut up, Dinosaur Erik, we're having a moment!" Erik will definitely play in more as the chapters progress, but for now I want to do some more exploration of Charles and Raven. Plus Raven could be so much more in the movies so I'm fixing her like I did Emma in my other series. That's what fanfiction is for, right? :)

Goddess Alexandria: Thanks! I hope this update didn't take too long. Life happened.

icanhearthedrums: Sooooo, by "soon" you obviously meant within 2.5 months, right? XD Erik deserves every bit of the torture he gets. He just needs to settle down. Maybe not try to kill everyone who gets in his way. Ugh. I think we've talked about this before, but I full endorse the subtitle for all X-Men movies being "Erik, NO!" All the X-Men should just start carrying around rolled up newspapers and whenever they see Erik, smack him on the nose and "No! Bad Erik!"

Sophie-SSS: Yay! BAMF Charles is one of my favorite things. Thus the fact that I've written multiple stories with him. XD

weemcg33: Mal is an awesome character! I'm glad we share a love of him :D Erik really needs to calm down. Like, they're mutants. If you're all "mutant power" and stuff, maybe don't horrifically impale them with metal then send them off to their "death." Not cool, man. Not cool.


Chapter 7: All alone he turns to stone (The Used, "The Bird and the Worm")

Hank would be dead if Magneto had gotten his way. In the midst of the all out battle between Onslaught and Magneto, then the off-the-cuff escape plan Mystique cooked up, Hank hadn't really had time to dwell on that fact. Now that he had nothing to do but sit at the controls of the plane, though, the events of the past few hours could settle in.

That Magneto had set a Sentinel on him. That, if he hadn't had the serum in his pocket, he'd have had no way to escape.

No matter how much he tried to focus on the controls in front of him, the episode on the White House lawn kept replaying itself.

If he hadn't had the serum…

If Charles had been not unconscious but dead under the pile of rubble…

If Mystique hadn't had a plan…

It wasn't until halfway through the flight back, when Mystique slunk into the cockpit to see if they were hitting turbulence, that he noticed his hands had started shaking. He'd been so focused on whether Charles was back and watching him for signs of shock that he hadn't even thought to watch himself. Then again, part of his response could be accounted for by the tremendously high likelihood that he had overdosed on the serum. Funny, he'd always been so careful with dosages that he didn't actually know what would happen if one overdosed. He'd have to make notes when he got back, though all his observations would be confounded by the stress he'd endured the past few days.

What he was feeling now, he decided, was far worse than after Cuba. Yes, they'd lost friends when Erik and Raven abandoned them and he'd been dealing with his recent transformation into the Beast. At least then, though, he'd had a support group. What had followed, Vietnam, the dissolution of the school, Charles' slow descent into depression, it had been just that…slow. Nothing like the bandaid-ripped-off feeling that occurred after a true battle.

And, really, this was only his second battle unless you counted his fight with Magneto in Paris. Was it all that surprising that his mind would go into some form of shock to deal with it? After Cuba, he'd had Alex. He'd had Sean. He'd even had Charles, depressed and unstable as he was.

Now, he had no one. He was surrounded by, at best, flight risks and, at worst, enemies.

Magneto was laid out unconscious in the back. He was the most obvious threat. Yet, the most obvious threat so often ended up being the smallest threat. At least he knew where he stood with Magneto, even if that standing was attempted murder should he be an obstacle.

It was the ones you don't expect to hurt you that cause the most damage.

Charles, it seemed, had returned in place of Onslaught. Yet, he still seemed as unreachable as he was before. He'd remained conscious, though he radiated exhaustion. He alternated between staring at Erik and watching the clouds out the window, his eyes occasionally flitting over to Mystique when she was sat next to him. His gaze wasn't menacing or even angry, more thoughtful than anything else. When Mystique tried to engage him in conversation, he returned pithy, half-hearted answers.

Onslaught had said Charles would return once their task was through in Washington. He had, but after an experience like he'd just gone through, could the Charles who returned really be the same as the one who had left? This Charles was far more pensive. He was sharp and aware in a way Charles hadn't been since before Cuba. Even when they had first met, Charles' intelligence and wit had been tempered by an air of playfulness that had been long-since replaced with cynicism. The man who had come to awareness after Mystique had injected him with the serum was most certainly Charles, but his distant gaze that bordered on calculating when he thought he wasn't being watched betrayed a shift. Still sharp and aware like he was before Cuba, but also distrustful and jaded like he was after. A dangerous combination.

Mystique, for her part, hadn't given up on trying to get Charles to open up until the plane had started shaking. Despite their somewhat checkered past, Hank had to give her credit. Without her, they never would have made it out of Washington.

But how long would she stick around to help? Even as cast him surreptitious glances and made stilted conversation that was surprisingly good at downgrading his shaking to mild trembling, he couldn't forget how long she'd been gone. She had been an ally of Magneto, his right-hand woman from what he understood, so trust wasn't exactly something he was ready to hand out to her yet.

Logan, the one person who had been an ally since this mess had started, had run off as soon as he'd awoken from being dead (and wouldn't that have been a fascinating mutation to study). It wasn't surprising. The man's future personality was gone, replaced with one who had nearly stabbed Raven in the stomach when she'd tried to explain what was happening. Better leave him on his own and let him come back when he was ready. They already had to deal with enough on their own.

Despite her questionable loyalties, Mystique's presence was settling and the rest of the flight, while rocky, remained uneventful. They landed with minimal damage, and he'd finally been able to bury his own issues once more to busy himself with Erik and Charles. Charles offered him a melancholy smile that somewhat assured him Onslaught wasn't still around. The telepath had walked to the infirmary on his own power and hoisted himself onto a bed while Mystique carried her former leader slung over her shoulder. She made a beeline to another cot and threw Magneto onto it with a hard thunk.

"Raven," Hank admonished.

"What? He tried to kill both of us. If he wakes up with a headache, we can call it karma."

A noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort came from Charles.

"If he wakes up at all," Hank said with a bit more bite than he intended. It wasn't that he had strong feelings for Magneto's well-being. Far from it, actually. Hank still felt the overwhelming urge to strangle him, despite the fact that he'd been able to talk to him civilly when Onslaught was attacking. More than anything, he didn't want Charles to have Erik Lehnsherr's death on his conscience, even though his mentor seemed less than bothered by the thought of it for the time being.

So, it was with great effort that he was forcing himself not to murder the man sprawled out on the bed. This person wasn't Magneto. He was a patient. Patients, Hank could deal with.

Mystique seemed reasonably admonished, though if the look she shared with Charles was anything to go by, it seemed that, like Hank, it was more at the implication that Charles might be the reason behind Magneto's hypothetical coma than the coma itself. She helped him get the man's armor off and arrange him on the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, Hank could see Charles watching his legs swing back and forth.

"I need some clothes for him and maybe some other sheets. Can you get them? The sheets should be in the linen closet on the first floor. There are sweatpants and t-shirts in one of the bedroom closets."

"Sure. I'll be back in a few minutes." She walked to Charles waited until he acknowledged her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Raven. Just tired."

Hank was positive she bought it just about as easily as he did, which was to say not at all. They knew Charles Xavier better than most people knew their families. There was nothing to be done about it, though, and she was forced to leave the room to complete her task without a real answer.

He worked in silence for a few blessed minutes, though he could feel Charles' gaze on his back a few times. Machines needed to be turned on and monitors hooked up. After all that, he expected more than the readings he got. Magneto was alive, but showed no signs of consciousness. The steady beep of the heart monitor indicated he wasn't over-stressed, his breathing was normal, as was his blood pressure. Then again, it hadn't been physical trauma that had incapacitated him, had it? He needed a proper brain scan, preferably along with a scan from before the trauma to compare it to. Without a baseline, he could tell when there were changes from his present, but not much else.

"What did you do to him?" Hank asked without looking up from his patient.

The creaking the bed had been making in time with Charles' swinging legs stopped. "It's rather…complicated."

"You've remarked on my intelligence twice over the past 24 hours. Explain it to me."

It looked like Charles was trying to read him without his telepathy. For a moment, a wave a panic struck Hank; perhaps the serum wasn't working. Maybe Onslaught was coming back-

Then Charles let out a frustrated huff and the clinch in his chest released. It returned again when he saw Charles slump in what would best be described as despair. That Charles wanted his telepathy back should be a blessing, yet after the events of the past few days, it seemed more a curse. What if he refused to take the serum? Could they really let him go off it knowing Onslaught was lurking in the background? More importantly, could they let him go off it knowing he might allow Onslaught to run free? Charles was the only one who knew how much truth was behind Onslaught's insistence that Charles allowed him control. They didn't know enough about the situation at hand to know whether Charles could be trusted with his telepathy yet.

Hank shook himself from the thought. Could he force a man, his friend, to repress his mutation? Could he force Charles to take a drug he didn't want to take just to keep Onslaught at bay? Or would rejecting Charles' mutation alienate him like it had Raven, or worse send him down the path Magneto had taken?

"I don't need my telepathy to know that you're angry with me. Understandably angry. You deserve better than this. All of this," he finished with a glance around the understocked infirmary."

He'd never been one to hold grudges, but he found that he couldn't not after the events that had transpired. Betrayal was a strong emotion, after all. Erik, the man who had helped train him, a man who supposedly valued mutant lives, had tried to murder him. Charles, his mentor and friend, had threatened to mind-wipe him and had, without a doubt, used telepathy as a weapon against him at some point during his Onslaught-controlled episode. Raven hadn't done anything yet, but heaven knows what would happen once Charles was settled.

"Just tell me what you did to him and whether he'll recover."

"He will be fine," Charles said, then paused. "Probably. He'll probably be fine. I should say he will most certainly wake up and we should know whether there's any lasting damage then. For the time being, there's nothing to do but wait. I'm exhausted. If you don't mind, I'd like to rest."

The fact that the dismissal was so blatant only confirmed that Charles wasn't lying about his exhaustion, as if the purple rings under his eyes weren't enough. They needed answers, but those answers would have to wait. If Charles passed out halfway through giving them, it wouldn't do much good.

"Fine. I'll wake you when the next batch of serum is done."

If he thought it would get a reaction from Charles, he was sorely mistaken. Anything, a "great I can't wait," a hesitation, even a flicker of disappointment, would've at least given him an idea of where Charles' mind was. Yet he maintained a neutral mask that, in itself, was far more disconcerting than any other reaction could have been. Charles exuded emotion, even if it was cynical dismissal.

As Charles lay down, Hank turned back to the work bench to gather the necessary supplies to make the serum.

"Hank?"

Hank turned back to find Charles looking at him, eyes glassy with fatigue.

"I am truly sorry for what is happening."

"I know, Charles. We'll…we'll figure it out, okay? Just get some rest."

Charles nodded and drifted off. Hank put a hand over his face. He needed to sleep too. But the serum was a priority he couldn't put off.

Except that Raven hadn't come back yet and it had been far too long for her to have been searching. Magneto and Charles were stable for the time being. He'd have to go out and make sure she hadn't bolted.

He found her ten minutes later sitting on her knees on the floor of Charles' soiled bedroom. She was surrounded by empty syringes she'd apparently ransacked the room to confiscate, though the room had looked ransacked to begin with so there was no way to tell how much of it was her doing. She held one in her hand, twisting it slowly as if her study of it could tell her exactly what its presence meant.

"So, you didn't find the sweatpants, I take it?"

Raven jerked out of her revere. Before she could get up, Hank approached and sat down on a pile of blankets next to her. Angry tears were in her eyes, though she looked more confused than anything else.

"What the hell happened here?"

"We hit a rough patch."

"A rough patch? Is that what you're calling this?" She picked up the rubber tube Charles used to tie off his arm for his injections and shook it. "My brother is a drug addict!"

"Addict is perhaps a strong term-"

The tube hit him across the face and fell to the floor like a limp noodle. The tears and confusion had morphed into fury. "Don't you dare try to talk to me like I don't have eyes." She picked up a handful of syringes. They clinked against each other as she dropped them back one by one, nine in all. "How could you let this happen?"

"No." Fury of his own was starting to bubble up. That's what he got for trying to be compassionate, right? Attacks and misdirected anger. He'd get the damn sheets and clothes himself.

He stormed out of the room. He made it to the linen closet before Raven caught up.

"What do you mean no? You let my brother become a drug addict."

Hank rounded on her. "I saved your brother's life! Do you know how difficult those first few months were? How long it took to recover from the mess you left us in? No, you don't. Because you made the selfish choice and disappeared off to who knows where with people who were trying to kill us."

"I needed to be away from him. There were things I wanted to do-"

"There were things all of us wanted to do. Do you think this is where I pictured myself, Raven? I was going to be a doctor. I was going to be at the cutting edge of biochemistry. I was going to help people. Don't get me wrong, I love Charles like a brother. I would've helped him regardless of my own circumstances. But you weren't the only one who wanted to go places. I watched everyone else walk away. I watched while the man who had so much hope for the future slipped away until all that was left was a cynical husk. The serum wasn't the perfect solution, but it kept him from completely shutting down."

"He was trying to control me," she said, smaller now, as if all of this information was new to her. Perhaps it was. Perhaps she had separated herself from them so completely that she didn't see the damage that had been left in her wake. Did it make it better or worse that she obviously hadn't checked in on them once since she left?

"So you didn't talk to him for a decade? There were no other options? You couldn't have stayed with your brother to make sure the bullet wound he had in his back wasn't going to kill him? You couldn't have done whatever the hell it is you've been doing since Magneto was arrested while also giving us a call every month or two? Or dropping by on occasion? Perhaps try to figure out why he was doing what he was doing rather than running away?

"You don't get to be the victim. You don't get to have an opinion on the decisions I had to make. You had a choice. You made the selfish one. Now you get to deal with the consequences. I did what I had to, but he wasn't the only one who could've used a support network. Once Alex left...we only had each other. And a broken man being supporting a slightly less broken man wasn't what either of us needed or deserved."

Raven stood, mouth opening and closing without sound. Good. He might regret his words her later, but he needed it now and, quite frankly, he was ready to be the selfish one for once.

Raven stopped gaping, looking more vulnerable than she had when she was lying on the conference table after the attack in Paris. "I'm his sister."

Hank shook his head. "When it suits you to be. But not when he needed you."

With that, he grabbed a few sheets and headed to the bedroom where he knew the extra clothes were. Before he got there, he stopped, turned back to Raven who had made no move to follow him.

"Eight months. It took us eight months to fix what you broke. And our reward was to watch it all fall apart again."

With that, he left the shapeshifter standing in the hallway. He had more serum to make and he didn't have time or the emotional stability to deal with Charles' sister right now.


No sooner had Charles closed his eyes than he was charging down the halls of his created mindscape. Why his mind even had halls he didn't know. Maybe his consciousness needed something resembling the real world in order to interact with his deeper mental processes and memories. His past flew by him in flashes and whispers. A few days ago, he would've gotten caught up in them, trapped like a fly in a spider's web until they consumed him.

Now, he had a mission.

Or at least the beginnings of one spinning itself together.

The whispers stopped as he approached the familiar cage deep in the confines of his mind. The door swung open to let him pass with the flick of his head, and he did so without breaking his pace.

Onslaught lay curled on the floor, unconscious or at least deeply asleep. So this was what the serum did to him. Charles hovered before squatting down beside the entity. He'd like to say he'd wondered what had happened to Onslaught while he was taking the serum. He hadn't. He'd just been glad to rid himself of the proverbial devil on his shoulder. Onslaught had never truly been gone though. The serum silenced him, rendered him unconscious, but his presence never diminished. No matter what Charles did, who he tried to be, what drugs he put in his body, Onslaught would always there. It was time he started accepting that fact.

From his squatted position, he leaned over and tapped Onslaught's face.

"Come on, wake up."

Nothing. What did he expect, though, really? Onslaught's lack of consciousness was just another manifestation of what he was feeling in his head. Now that he'd been off the serum for the first time in years and experienced his powers at their full potential, he could feel its effects more keenly. His telepathy was a part of him inseparable from the rest. The serum didn't just block his telepathy; it dulled his ability to think. In trying to rid himself of his pain, he had been poisoning his mind and body. His future self had been right. Only by accepting his pain could he become the person he was meant to be. His pain made him stronger.

After seven more tries, Onslaught was blinking up at him. It took several more attempts to rouse to the point where he would respond without his eyes glazing over.

"How did we fare?" Onslaught slurred.

"Raven injected me with the serum. We're back at Westchester."

"We being?"

"Hank, Raven, and Magneto."

Onslaught blinked hard. "Erik-"

"-is neutralized for the time being."

"We didn't kill him. I thought-"

"So did I. Give it time."

"McCoy is making more serum?"

"He is."

Even in his weakened state, the room got colder with Onslaught's thinning frown. "You would allow him to suppress me again? After all we've done together, you would let them lock me away? What will you do then? Can you go back to being the washed up genetics PhD? Play house with McCoy and Raven while Erik goes gallivanting about doing who knows what? Because he will not be held back, not without a leash to keep him. McCoy will leave. Even if he doesn't, his trust in us is broken. And Raven will not stay either. With our powers at their lowest, you can still sense it in her…the desire for revenge. To leave her family to go on a quest to avenge her mutant brothers and sisters while her own brother rots alone in a house that holds nothing but bad memories."

A fist

A fire

A cemetery

Two stoic men from the armed forces standing at the front door

Charles shook his head at the unbidden barrage of images.

"Family was never our strong suit," Onslaught continued. "Even when we make one ourselves…"

Raven as a child in the kitchen

Celebrating his graduation with her

Finding Erik

Dinner with Sean, Alex, Hank, Erik, Raven, and Moira

"…it never turns out the way we planned."

Erik and Raven disappearing with the Brotherhood

Moira walking away blank-faced

Headlines about Magneto assassinating President Kennedy

Sean disappearing

Raven never returning

The school closing

Hank withdrawing into himself

Alex leaving for the war

Charles tore himself from the memories with a choked off gasp. Onslaught didn't seem to notice aroused any sort of response and continued on unaffected. Fascinating. If Onslaught was able to pull memories of their past forward, then it meant his strength, and with it their telepathy, was returning far faster than anticipated. Perhaps they had more time than he'd thought…

"You'll become a child's campfire story," Onslaught was saying, "the old recluse in the dilapidated mansion. Fear and abandonment. That is the future that awaits you."

"Are you finished?"

"Am I-" Onslaught gave him a hard stare. "You aren't here to make sure I stay in my cage like a good alter ego?"

Charles raised an eyebrow. "Why would I be trying to wake you if I were here to imprison you again?"

Onslaught gaped. "Then I take it you have a plan?"

"I do. Do you not?"

"Don't judge me too harshly. I'm convalescing. Give me a few moments at least."

"Do you need them? We're recovering more quickly this time."

Onslaught paused, eyes squinting into the distance before he pulled back into himself with a jolt. "We are," he said, astonished. "Why? The use of our powers?"

Charles shrugged. "Mostly likely. We used our telepathy extensively and manifested a secondary mutation. My best guess is that our body is metabolizing the serum faster as a result."

"Does McCoy know?"

"He doesn't from what I can tell."

"So we-"

"Can stop them from giving us more serum? Yes."

Onslaught was staring at him not unlike Raven had when they were children and Onslaught had first appeared…like Charles was someone he knew but didn't recognize. "When you said you weren't going to let others dictate our life, you meant it. What's your plan?"

"I want my family back."

Onslaught pushed himself up, wincing, and set himself so he was slumped against the wall. "Tell me how."


Back in the experimental stages of the serum's creation, Hank had found it was ideal to let the serum rest for an hour so the bonds between the compounds could settle. With Charles still passed out and Magneto showing no signs of change, perhaps now was the time to get some answers about what exactly they were dealing with from the house's other occupant, assuming she wasn't still angry about their last conversation.

The rustling of curtains and a cold draft drew him back to Charles' mess of a room. Or what used to be his mess of a room. The room was back in order now. Books were stacked neatly on a desk he had forgotten existed. The floor was visible for the first time in ages and the bed was made with crisp white linens and a comforter that he'd seen hidden away on a shelf in Raven's closet. There was no sign of the syringes that had littered the floor. It was almost as if a depressed addict hadn't inhabited the room for years.

Raven stood brilliant blue at the open window staring out at the late afternoon sun.

"I thought I'd let the room air out. It was too stale. Even if Charles decides to use a different room, which I wouldn't blame him for…at least this one is clear of any reminders of his…"

"Thank you, Raven. I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

"He's still asleep?"

"He output a lot of energy. It's not surprising that he exhausted himself. I'm more surprised he didn't pass out on the plane, to be honest."

A gust of frigid air blew through the window. Raven shivered but made no move to change positions. The air reminded her of where she was, kept her in the present instead of focusing on the past. Or the future.

"Why don't we grab something to eat? It's been a long day and…you look cold."

"What, am I turning blue?" she said with a half-hearted smile. Hank returned it with the same melancholy undertones.

The walk to the kitchen was silent. They found peanut butter and jelly and some bread that miraculously wasn't moldy. Six minutes and a wiped-clean kitchen island later, they were sat across from one another.

Hank was avoiding her gaze. After all these years, he still couldn't handle a frank face-to-face conversation with her. At least some things never changed. It wasn't as if she was clueless as to what he'd sought her out for. If something was up with Charles, he would've opened with it. If Erik had woken, well, half the house would probably be caved in. After a glance from her sent his eyes skittering to the window yet again, she dropped her half-eaten sandwich, jelly oozing out onto the plate.

"You want to ask about Onslaught."

Hank placed his own sandwich down and leaned forward. "What is he? I've pieced together bits. He's a suppressed part of Charles manifesting through his telepathy. A sort of opposite version of him. Where Charles is calm and compassionate, Onslaught is reactionary and doesn't hesitate to threaten."

"He doesn't hesitate to do more than threaten," Raven said, more to herself than Hank. Hank leaned back as if sensing she needed space for what she was about to tell. She was glad for it. It wasn't an experience she enjoyed recalling. It had been years since she'd allowed herself to consciously acknowledge Onslaught existed at all.

"Onslaught is all the things Charles won't let himself be. It's like…Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde except with the ability to mind control anyone within five states of him."

"And the telekinesis?"

Oh, yes, the telekinesis. How could she have forgotten the image of her brother taking apart a Sentinel one piece at a time?

"That was new. He only ever used telepathy before, but he was young."

"How young?"

"Young enough that he didn't understand the responsibility of telepathy yet. Or proportionate response."


Raven had been with Charles three years when things went amiss. She'd seen boys become teenagers before while she was living on the street. Their voices got deeper, and they got taller and started acting weird. All those things happened to Charles, but there was something else too. He started fighting back. And then he started fighting first. It was so unlike the boy she knew and had grown to love like the family she'd never had. It scared her.

"Charles, that's the fourth time this week you've made a teacher think you turned in your homework when you didn't," Raven said as they waited for the driver to come pick them up after school.

Charles' barely-broadening shoulders shifted his uniform jacket as he shrugged. "I know it all. Why do I need to write it down? It's child's play. I should be doing the work the boys in high school are doing."

"But then you'd leave me," Raven pouted.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, Raven, I'd never leave you."

If she'd learned anything from her time before Charles had found her, it was that anyone who said they wouldn't leave you was lying.

Still, she returned his grin with a small smile of her own. The conversation would've ended there if he hadn't run his hand down her arm to her elbow. She couldn't stop the flinch and hiss as he hit the wound she'd managed to keep hidden under her sweater.

Charles' eyes darkened. "What? What is it? Are you hurt?"

"It's nothing," she said, trying to draw back. He wouldn't let go of her wrist.

"It's not nothing," he replied, pulling at her sweater.

She could feel him in her head, rustling around, trying to find out what had happened. He tugged the sleeve of the sweater up, careful to avoid touching where he had when she'd flinched, and got a good look at her arm. She couldn't help but replay the memory, knowing full well Charles would see it as well. Sure enough, his gaze snapped to her face.

"Someone pushed you."

"It wasn't a big deal."

"They pushed you down and laughed. They threatened you with violence if you told anyone." He frowned. "It's not the first time either. They've kicked you and- and abused you. And you've kept it hidden."

"It's not a big deal! It happens all the time!"

It did happen all the time. School bullies were at least better than having to fight grown adults for food. Really, this was a far better problem to have than any other she'd dealt with so far. But Charles wouldn't see it that way. Charles didn't understand.

"You're damn right I don't understand. Is that why you didn't tell me? You thought I would overreact to my sister being attacked by her classmates?"

"I wasn't attacked. And I didn't tell you because you've been weird lately."

Charles stared her in the eye for what was easily the longest three seconds of her life. Then, he pulled her sweater sleeve back down and stood upright again. He didn't say another word, though his jaw was clinched hard enough that it would probably be sore later.

"Charles, are you okay? I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't think it was a big deal."

"It's fine, Raven. You did nothing wrong. Don't worry."

When they got home, they put disinfectant on her wounds (she had a couple of other scrapes from her fall) and bandaged them. She didn't think much of it for the next day or so.

That is, until she'd gotten a mysterious telepathic message from Charles to come meet him at the playground instead of their usual corner to wait for their driver. When she got there, there was already a ruckus going on. She ran over to Charles, who was reclined on a picnic table off to the side. Once she was there, she could see what the ruckus was.

It was the group of kids who had been picking on her. The one who had pushed her down was being pummeled by a bigger kid, one she vaguely recognized from Charles' grade. The rest of the group cowered to the side. One tried to pull off the bigger boy and got an elbow to the eye for his trouble. The boy who had pushed her down had a bloody face. He was crying, begging the other boy to stop. The pleas fell on deaf ears for, when she got a good look at him, Raven could see the bigger boy was blank-faced and unblinking.

Her eyes shot back to Charles. What she hadn't noticed before was that his head was leaning on one hand so that his fingers were surreptitiously pressed into his temple. His full focus was on the brawl going on in front of him. He was…he was smirking.

The boy who had pushed Raven down stopped moving.

The bigger boy kept attacking.

"Charles!" Raven shouted. "Charles, stop it!"

She grabbed his wrist and pulled the hand supporting his head. He jolted and caught himself before he could tip to the side. For a moment, his wrathful gaze turned on her. She stumbled back, would've fallen if Charles hadn't jumped towards her. She screamed as he grabbed her.

"No, no, Raven, it's just me."

When she looked, the fury from before was gone, replaced with concern. She ripped herself from his grasp.

"What were you doing?! You were- you were making them do that!"

"He needed to be punished."

"Not like that! He should've gotten detention or suspension. You were-"

She broke off to make sure distracting Charles had stopped the fight. The bigger boy was staring at bloody hands in confused horror. The rest of the group had gathered around their fallen comrade, who still wasn't moving. One of them ran off, probably to go get help.

She turned back to Charles. "Why?"

"They never get punished. Peter been bullying for years. He broke one of my classmate's arms last year. He's responsible for more than a few mental and physical scars on others. His father is a donor to the school though, so nothing ever comes of it. As for the one who's been bullying you-"

"Wes."

"What?"

"His name is Wes."

"As for Wes, then," he said with added disdain, "he's just like Peter. He needed to see what it was like to be on the other side. Walk a mile in your shoes."

"Just because they aren't good people doesn't mean you get to punish them."

"Why not? I've been given this power. Why shouldn't I use it?"

"Because you're a good guy. You save people. If you hurt others to get your way, you're no better than them," she said, tears she hadn't felt building streaming down her face. "I don't want you to be like them. Please, Charles, this isn't you."

"You're a child-"

"I'm your sister! And I'm not that much younger than you. I haven't spent one day apart from you since you found me. I know you. I'm not stupid. Something is wrong with you. I'm afraid of you."

Charles frowned, as if he hadn't even considered the possibility that what he was doing was wrong. "I…there's a voice. I thought it was me, but…"

He looked up at her, fearful for the first time. "Let's go home."


Raven poked at her soggy sandwich. Better to look at it than see Hank's reaction.

"He decided to go into his head and try to find the voice he'd been listening to. He was scared, so he asked me to come with him. We'd tried stuff like that before, but only for little things like him showing me something he'd seen on a field trip or me showing him what I'd learned about in school. I'd thought it would be an adventure trying to find whatever it was bothering Charles. Funny thing was, it wasn't even that hard to find Him. A perfect replication of Charles except burning like a freaking sun. I wasn't that impressed as a kid, but looking back and knowing what it was, it's pretty impressive that a thirteen year old could entrap his own evil mental twin. Once he'd recognized something was off, it apparently wasn't too difficult for him to pin down what it was and box it off. It…Onslaught…hadn't been expecting it. He was furious. I could feel it. And Charles was scared. It was a part of him he hadn't even known he existed. Neither of us did. He'd basically adopted me. To me, he was a saint. Onslaught tried to convince Charles to let him out. He was manipulative. I don't know what Charles would've done if I wasn't there, but I guess he couldn't let himself give in in front of me. The look Onslaught gave me…"

Raven shook her head of the image of thirteen-year-old Charles looking like he wanted to tear her limb from limb. She'd forgotten most of the arguments he'd given for why Charles should accept him, but, all these years later, she still remembered his last words.

"The world can be exactly as we wish it to be."

She'd grabbed Charles' hand. Charles had looked at her, stood a little taller, then turned back to Onslaught.

"No."

"We left Onslaught screaming behind the bars of his cage. Charles spent the rest of the night shaking and crying on my bed. In the morning, he'd calmed down and we never talked about it again."

There was an air of hesitation, then Hank's tentative hand was on hers, bringing her back to the present. Apparently, he was willing to put aside his anger at her from earlier. He'd always been the better of them.

"Peter got expelled from school. Even his daddy's money couldn't defend him. Not when he put a kid two grades below him into a coma. Wes woke up eventually. He missed too much school recovering and got held back a grade. I didn't see him again after that. I don't think Charles ever forgave himself.

"I never said and he never asked, but when I told him to stay out of my head a few years later, I think we both knew it was because of what had happened that night. I'd thought that was the end of it. If I'd known Onslaught was still there, screaming at him or whispering in his ear or whatever the hell he was doing that was torturing my brother day in and day out, I would have-"

What would she have done? What could she have possibly offered?

"He never said. You couldn't have known," Hank said as he squeezed her hand again.

That. That was what she could have done. It would've been so simple. All Charles needed was one person willing to hold his hand when he was struggling. "I could have supported him. I could've been an anchor or whatever it is telepaths need. I could've not left him on a beach with a bullet in his back. God, Hank, you were right. I'm a terrible sister."

Hank was silent for a moment but never let her hand go. "You've made some bad choices. That's not a permanent state though. Make up for the time you missed. Be the sister he needs you to be."

"But what about Trask? He and his people still need to pay for what they've done."

"They'll still be there. He needs you right now. And we still have to figure out what to do with Magneto."

She hadn't been planning on staying for long. Just long enough to see that Charles was alright. Except Charles wasn't going to be alright for a long time. He hadn't been alright for ages, apparently, she just hadn't known about it.

She gave Hank a smile and a purposeful nod. Decision made. She'd take some time, help Hank deal with Onslaught and Erik (as if she would've left him alone to deal with them anyway), then, once Charles was settled again, she could continue her mission.

Getting Charles back on track could prove challenging, but it was doable. She'd brought him back from Onslaught before. She'd just have to do it again.


"I'm impressed," Onslaught said when Charles finished. "You didn't even need me."

"On the contrary," Charles said. "I've spent so much time and effort fighting a part of myself that I never fought for anything for myself. Working together, on the other hand…"

Charles had to fight the urge to stand up and pace. His mind felt different. There was a giddiness that had been building since he got off the plane, an itch to do something that hadn't been there before. It continued to grow, just as his telepathy and Onslaught's strength. He certainly wasn't going to waste it waiting around for Hank to make more serum and Raven to walk out the door and Erik to wake up and wreak havoc on the world. Onslaught's posture was tense in a way that told Charles he felt it as well, though perhaps not as keenly. He was still comparatively weak, after all.

For the first time, he offered Onslaught a genuine smile. "The world can be exactly as we wish it to be."

Realization, then a dangerous grin crept onto Onslaught's face.

"Yes."


Movie references: A few references to the events in First Class (finding Raven, the time at the mansion). Wolverine almost stabbing Mystique in the stomach is also a reference to him stabbing her in the 2000 movie.

Comic references: Hank saying he wanted to be a biochemist is a reference to his degree in biochemistry from the comics. The fist, fire, cemetery, and men from the armed forces are all references to Charles' relation to the Markos. Cain abused him (fist), Kurt dragged Charles and Cain from a lab fire (fire) that ended up killing him (cemetery), Cain was supposedly killed in the Korean War (men from armed forces coming to give the news). In the comics, Charles is with Cain when that happens, but I went with him not being there and being given the news that Cain had been killed in action for the purposes of this story. There's another thing from the last chapter that's vaguely referenced in this chapter that's also a comic reference, but since I haven't explicitly said it yet I'm going to wait to list it. Author note cliffhanger!

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