Chapter 5

"No matter how badly your heart is broken, the world does not stop for your grief."
~ Unknown

"She shouldn't be here with us. Her power is completely unstable," Callisto spat.

Erik shook his head calmly. "Only in the wrong hands."

He didn't want her anywhere near him. Frankly, he wanted to kill her, but knew that was a battle he would not survive and that she could serve a purpose for his cause.

His damned cause, the only thing he had left in the world right now.

"And you trust her?" Pyro asked. "She's one of them."

"So were you once," he admonished.

The boy wasn't deterred. "I stuck with you all the way," he replied arrogantly. "I woulda killed the Professor if you'd given me the chance," he sneered.

Erik halted in his steps and grabbed the boy's shoulder to force Pyro face him before grabbing him by his throat, making him gasp for air.

"Charlotte Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know," he told the boy, voice harsh and cold. "My single greatest regret is that she had to die. Be careful how you speak."

He released the boy and stalked away furiously.

"I know the smell of your adamantium a mile away," he sneered.

"I didn't come here to fight you," the Wolverine spat, immobilized by Erik, who held him in the air.

"Smart boy," he replied.

He, surprisingly, didn't rise to the jab. "I came here for Jean."

If that was true, the boy was stupider than he'd thought. "You think I'm keeping her here against her will?" he asked smugly and pulled him nearer. "She's here because she wants to be."

"You don't know what you're dealing with!"

He straightened. "I know very well." Her demonstration earlier had made it very clear. "I saw what she did to Charlotte," he said, forcing his face to impassivity.

"You stood there and let her die," Logan spat venomously. Erik tensed, hands clenching and grey eyes narrowing.

The Wolverine, however, did not miss it. "She called you her friend, you know," he added spitefully. "Her old friend Erik. 'Love', too, but I thought that was just a British thing. I know better now. Because she never spoke badly about you, not after you nearly killed Rogue, not after you nearly made her kill every human, not after any of it. She always forgave you and considered you a friend and I'm starting to wonder why. Why she bothered. Why she cared. Why she thought you were worth the pain you caused her continuously."

Erik bit out, "Do not speak of things you don't understand, Wolverine. You forget I could crumple you like a tin can."

Logan glanced back at Jean, who watched the entire exchange silently. "I'm not leaving here without her."

"Yes. You are," Erik replied and flung him far off.

He knew he should stop. He knew he should give up his plan after seeing what it cost him. But he had already unwittingly paid the price, so why not reap what rewards he could get?

Though, it this plan fell through…Erik didn't think he had it in him to try again.

He had already lost Charlotte. The twins...well, they were in a bad state, but he could not imagine them forgiving him anytime soon. What was left for him if not to protect all the other mutants' futures?

It was this he pondered upon as he moved the Golden Gate Bridge.

Charlotte had once told him the secret to true power was somewhere "between rage and serenity". The rage and guilt and grief was certainly enough once he had calmed his aching heart.

"Charlotte always wanted to build bridges," he murmured to himself as he moved the bridge to Alcatraz Island.

It was chess.

He sent the pawns first before eventually the knights and bishops. He held the queen and one of his rooks close until the end, sending the latter out against his old friend the Iceman.

It was chess and they didn't even realize they had lost their king and queen already—Charlotte, who has always been so much more than a single chess piece. They scrambled pitifully.

The chess metaphor, however, brought to mind memories of late night chess matches against Charlotte. He brushed the memories away before they could distract him.

He watched the battle below.

He was surprised to see Hank amidst the fighting and, more so, to see the shine of Emma Frost's diamond form there as well. Her sister wouldn't be far behind then.

Wolverine never realized that he was made of metal and therefore putty in Erik's hands. "You never learn do you?" he muttered.

"Actually," the metallic mutant grinned, "I do."

It was Hank, of all people, who leapt down and stabbed him in the chest. Hank, who he had found with Charlotte, who he had helped train, who he had guided, who he had abandoned.

Hank, who stabbed him in the chest and growled, "This is for Charlotte, Erik."

When the dizziness hit him, so did the horror as Hank moved his paw and Erik saw that it was not a blade he'd been stabbed with.

"No!" he gasped, collapsing. "I'm—"

"One of them?" the Wolverine growled. But there was still a chance—

He rolled to look up at the black queen of this game, at the Phoenix. "This is what they want," he gasped. "For all of us."

Shuddering with a miniature seizure, he pulled the needles out of his chest with a trembling, weak hand. But it was too late to stop the cure.

Finally, he managed to stand and stared at his creation, at Jean-turned-Phoenix and her destructive fury. "What have I done?" he murmured in horror before forcing himself to stand and run.

He could feel his powers ebb away as he ran. His sixth sense vanished in a minute if not less than that.

It was too much at this point.

First Charlotte. Then the entire plan. Now his powers.

As he forced himself to run, it was as if the beat of his heart pounding in his ears was a metronome to his thoughts.

Charlotte. Liebling. Charlotte…

Logan stood before the four graves with Storm, but she went to the Professor's and knelt curiously.

"What is it?" he asked.

Instead of answering, she traced some of the wording on the gravestone that doesn't quite match the rest.

Mein Liebling.

"That's new," he said. "Why's that familiar?" Storm smiled slightly but gave no answer, waiting for him to remember.

"Wait…Outside Jean's house," he remembered.

Storm chuckled. "It means 'my darling' or 'my beloved' in German, more or less," she explained. "And there is only one of the Professor's friends who speak German."

He stared at her. "I hope you don't mean who I think you mean."

"Erik Lehnsherr," she reminded him. "Before he was Magneto, he was a German boy named Erik Lehnsherr. Before he was Magneto, they were the closest of friends. And…more. Besides that they had Wanda and Pietro. And more than just that. Obvious when I look back…"

Logan stared at her. "When he explained, I always just thought they…hooked up once or something. But, you mean the Professor and Magneto were…?"

"Not the most traditional, I assure you," Storm replied. "That much I knew. They never got to spend much time together before it all went to hell. It was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when they were on the same side. Mag—Erik accidentally deflected a bullet into her spine, rendering her paraplegic. He left very soon afterward to start the Brotherhood, from what I've gathered. I don't think he knew of the extent of her injury. And they didn't know it, but she was pregnant at the time," Storm motioned to the first, smaller grave. "Their daughter was stillborn. A couple years later, they had the twins, though he wasn't there for it. The Professor raised them alone—it was safer, she always said. Their last name is Maximoff because it was better, safer, than advertising that Professor X and Magneto'd had children together."

"So, this whole time, they were a couple?" he said in confusion. "How does that even work?"

Storm rolled her eyes. "Like I said. I don't think they ever really got to be a couple. But I was one of her first students, soon after they parted ways. For the longest time, I had hear stories slip out about a man named Erik as I heard on the news about a new mutant terrorist group led by someone named Magneto. It took me years to discover the Erik from the Professor's past was Magneto. She didn't exactly tell many people."

Logan stared at the little German words, so painstakingly carved into the metal. "And he…uh, reciprocated?"

She chuckled. "I think he did, yes. Look at the proof before you if you do not think so."

After a long moment of trying to take this all in, Logan asked, "So, where's the lunatic now?"

She shrugged. "Because you and Hank gave him the cure, people don't seem to care so much about tracking him down. What's the point, really, to them? He is just an old, bitter, lonely man now but not dangerous any longer. And before you argue about that, just think about all he lost in the past week alone."

If Storm was right and they'd been…involved since the Missile Crisis…well, fuck, that was nearly fifty years. It hurt him enough losing Jean after only one. But fifty…fuck.

And his powers, just to top it off too.

Dammit. Now I'm starting to sympathize for him.