I haven't written any fic in a while but this one has been living in my mind rent free for a long time. I would have probably never decided to publish it if it weren't for wandavision. This series is a huge inspiration that makes me want to create and create. This is a story about Erik and his children but also about Erik and Charles. I have to warn you that some things might not make sense - the chronology of the x men is messed up and to add more confusion, somehow, Wanda is in the same universe as the other characters are but she's not Peter's twin. I de-aged the characters for the purpose of this fic but I'm not planning on stating their age. Many things will be explained with time but yeah, you just have to go with it. The prologue gives a little glimpse at what is going to happen later in the story and the next few chapters will slowly lead us to this moment. Anyway, prepare for some funny moments and a lot of angst delivered to you by the best and the most powerful family!

Also, English isn't my native language but this isn't my first story written in English so I hope it won't be that bad. Feel free to tell me what you think and perhaps share some predictions. I'll try to publish new chapters once a week so you don't have to wait too long. Enjoy :)

Prologue

"Peace was never an option"

The day of the tragedy

The glade was a scene of utter chaos.

When Magneto raised his hands to strike the final bow, the whole world held its breath. For a short moment, there was no sound whatsoever. Cold wind shook the silence, making them all shiver and remember that somehow, despite everything that had happened, time was still passing. All eyes were focused on the man who could single-handedly decide about the future of their existence.

Among the people looking at him was Wanda. She was half lying on the grass; her face smudged with dirt and blood, her hair tousled. Tears shined in her eyes and her lower lip trembled a little. Her gaze was full of the pain that had accompanied her for months and now seemed so strong as if her heart was about to tear itself apart. She wanted to stop him, but somewhere along the way she had given up. The will to fight was no longer in her.

Not far away from Wanda was Peter. His mother's old warning resounded again and again in his head. I'm not afraid of him, he had said back then. In response, his mother had told him that he should and not until this very moment did he understand the true meaning of those words. He stood between his two sisters, slightly bent over. He put his left hand on his right arm, just above the elbow where it ached. His eyes were wide open and for the first time in a while Peter had nothing to say.

The last of the siblings, Lorna, knelt by her unconscious fiancé, holding Marcos' head in her lap and not taking her eyes off her father even for a moment. Strands of black-green hair stuck to her tear-stained face. Black mascara had left imprints on her cheeks. She hated the idea of just sitting there and watching but there was not much she could do. Or maybe, though it would be hard to admit it out loud, part of her was rooting for him. Someone had to end it eventually, and maybe that was the only way. Maybe he was the only one to finish it once and for all.

"Dad", she said, loud enough for Erik to hear.

That one word caught him off guard for a second. Not only did Lorna refer to him as such for the first time since he had found her, it was the way she said that shook him to the core. There was something unspoken in her voice, some powerful feeling hard to recognize and name.

Their eyes met. The world was balancing on the brink of destruction around them, but for a short moment everything ceased to matter. The thread of understanding that connected these two people, a father and a daughter, seemed to be the only thing to be of any importance.

And then Charles joined in.

If there was anyone who could stop Magneto, anyone who could talk some sense to him, it was no one else but Charles Xavier – his old friend, nemesis, soulmate. These two had spent decades on opposite sides of the conflict, and whenever they managed to ignore the divergence of interests and restore their relationship, one of them always had to suffer. For the past two years they had lived in peace, putting past mistakes behind them, but the life they had created together, the happiness they had felt was in truth stolen and marked with an expiration date.

They might have been fooling each other and themselves for a long time, but now there was no place for denial. No matter what decision was about to be made that day, there was no going back for neither of them.

"Don't do it, Erik." Charles tightened his fingers on hand rims of his wheelchair. "I know you think there's no other way but there always is."

"Not this time. You and I, we've tried to leave in peace, we've tried to behave and look where it has brought us! Why can't you understand that I'm doing it for us, Charles?" He looked around at his children. "For all of us."

Wanda, Peter and Lorna endured his gaze but kept quiet. Charles took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment as what he was about to say was too hard to bear. When he looked at his husband again, the muscles in his face twitched and tears ran down his cheeks.

"If you do this," he whispered, "you will erase everything we've built together. Nothing will be the same anymore."

Charles was not the only one who wanted to see at least a shadow of hesitation on his face and was met with disappointment. Silence fell again and for a moment the two people battled each other with their eyes – the two men whose love once brought solace to their hearts but mostly caused countless amounts of suffering. This was supposed to be the final nail in the coffin, the fatal blow to their relationship.

"I know and I'm sorry."

That was the last thing Erik Lehnsherr dared to say before he let the biggest tragedy of all occur.

3 months before the tragedy

Erik hated being away from Genosha, though mostly because of Charles. The country was a wonderful place and he never thought about it as of anything but his home. He had a beautiful large house with breathtaking views out the windows and a few neighbors in the form of fellow mutants. He loved everything about Genosha but it was Charles that made the whole experience of living there unique.

It had been two years since Erik had found Charles in Paris and offered him a place to stay. He might as well have proposed to him right away and it would have worked out the same. At that time, Erik had not realized how serious of a step that was. Up to that point, they had had a sort of love-hate relationship going on and the decision of moving in together meant getting rid of the hate part.

They settled into a house too big for two people, but the vast space did not happen to be a stimulus to seclusion. Quite the contrary; Erik and Charles spent every spare moment with each other, as if trying to make up for years wasted on hurting each other. Having known about their close but complicated relationship, no one was really surprised when after only two months they started sleeping in the same bedroom, and after hardly a year their wedding took place on the coast of the island, with the participation of the closest mutants.

Erik had never been so happy before. The day he proposed to Charles was the day he finally lifted an invisible weight off his shoulders. Tired after long years of fighting with humans, Charles and even himself, he could finally rest. Relief fell upon him in the form of the life shared with the person he had subconsciously always loved, and whom he could now love openly.

Most of their time together consisted of staying in Genosha, where, locked in their big house, they could enjoy their own happiness. Sometimes, however, they had to go out into the world and Erik despised every minute spent away from his husband.

Today was one of those days and Erik found himself in Chicago. He was just returning from a meeting with a certain mutant. That's what he and Charles had been doing lately: when they were not focused on much more pleasant things typical for a fresh marriage, they looked for mutants all over the world and tried to get in touch with them. They wanted to help people with special abilities, so they offered them tuition at the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters, which was founded and not so long ago still led by Charles, or offered them a place in Genosha.

Charles was happy at Genosha, at least that was what he claimed, and Erik wanted very much to believe him, but he knew that his husband sometimes missed the school. The help they invested their time in was very important to him; by recruiting gifted children, he believed that he kept doing something good, that he could still, in a way, watch over the school and its students even if it was no longer his home.

Erik understood his need and did not mind it at all. He himself had always put the welfare of mutants above all else, and he knew there was still enough room in the country for people like him. He would rather have Charles with him, though, because his company sweetened meetings with rebellious kids.

The one he had just visited was interested in transferring to the school, but there was something annoying about him. He reminded him a little of that kid Peter, who kept insisting on visiting Erik and Charles at their house for some unexplained reason. He was their most frequent guest. To be more precise, he stayed so often in Genosha to the point that Charles had given him his own room and allowed him to decorate it as he wanted what Peter did in a heartbeat.

Sometimes you could get the impression that he would have gladly stayed with them forever if it were not for his obligations to the school where he now taught, or to his own family. Erik did not know much about his parents, but he would gladly pay them a visit and make them aware that their son's pushiness needed to be weeded out as soon as possible before Erik would be forced do this himself.

It was not that he did not like the kid. Peter brought joy to the house, filling empty rooms with his ubiquitous presence. He was funny and in overall quite likable, but he did not know the meaning of the words privacy, peace and rest. Charles never saw anything wrong with Peter visiting them so often, and was even the one to suggest it at times.

If there was something Erik did not understand about Charles, it was his sympathy towards Peter but he did not dare to complain out loud. He knew that he would eventually realize the truth behind his husband's reasoning.

There were three hours left to his flight and he could not wait to soak in his bath full of warm water and then have a fancy dinner with Charles. Nothing gave him pleasure like such ordinary things, and he could no longer recall a time when he could get through a day without kissing Charles. How could he ever get up and see anything other than his face? How could he fall asleep without his touch and the sound of his heartbeat next to him? Two years before, Erik had been a completely different man and he loved the person he had become since then.

As he was walking down a street in Chicago, his thoughts far away in Genosha, he did not notice a vehicle stopping right behind him and several masked men jumping out of the trunk. He only realized the danger when something pricked his neck and paralyzed his body. As he fell, Charles' face, always so vivid in his imagination, blurred before his eyes.