Erik wakes suddenly and takes a deep breath, and it is 1962.
He's not sure how he knows, but something deep in his gut tells him that he's back where he belongs, and he opens his eyes and looks around for confirmation. He's lying on the grass, out in the grounds of the mansion – exactly where he fell when Stryker shot him in the back.
But there's no pain, he realises suddenly, and reaches around to touch his shoulder. There's no wound either; it's like it never happened. He can still feel the impact, the detached awareness that he'd been shot, the blood running down his back, Charles' voice furious and powerful above his head – but it feels like phantom pain in a missing limb, like a dream.
"No. It did happen. Luckily for you, I'm – shall we say – organised."
Erik scrambles to his feet so quickly that he nearly unbalances himself, and standing behind him are two men – one with golden skin that shines in the moonlight, and the other with white hair – the man that Charles had brought into his dreams. They're both watching him, like they knew that he would be here.
"Go back to the others," the second man says to the one with the golden skin, and his voice is low and calm and strangely familiar. "I'll be with you shortly."
"Where is Charles?" Erik demands, raising one hand as a threat, and the man has the gall to smile at him in the faint light as his companion disappears into the night, his work apparently done.
"He'll be along shortly. I took you to the future first, so you were pulled back before him. It won't be long."
"What are you? Some sort of time-traveller?"
"Some sort, yes," he concedes. "Let's just say that I had a run-in with the Terrigen Mists and an old friend of yours, Fabian Cortez. His and my powers combined are what enabled me to do what I did to yourself and Xavier – push you thirty-eight years into the future."
Erik opens his mouth to argue, to say that it's impossible, but he closes it again quickly. He's seen enough in the past few months to know that not only is nearly anything possible, it is also likely. And it would make sense, in theory (though he doesn't want to think too much about the logistics), and he knows that this man is at least, in part, telling some truths – it is 1962, and Charles is not yet here.
"So if you took Charles and I from 1962 and put us into 2003, what's happened to the real us from that time? Where did you put them?" he says after a moment to gather his thoughts. He might as well try to work this out whilst he's waiting for Charles to reappear – because as much as he wants so desperately to threaten and hurt this man until Charles is beside him, this is a person who has the power to travel through time, and Erik has just recovered from a gunshot wound. They are not by any means evenly matched right now.
"They were temporarily displaced," the man says, and he sounds as though he almost regrets it. "They're back where they belong now – not that it should matter."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"That means that provided you've learnt something from this experience, that future will cease to exist. I took you there to see how you will fail – both of you – and so that you can do things different this time around. Tomorrow, you and Xavier will be faced with a decision that will change everything. Make the wrong choice, and the future that you saw will be the one that you live through it properly, this time. Make the right decision, and the future will be infinitely better."
"But we can't change the future," Erik argues, and shivers slightly; there's a cool breeze drifting up from the satellite dish, and he's still shirtless in the middle of October. "We made what you're calling the wrong choice once, surely we'll make it again? We can't change our ideals that drastically."
"You think so? The real Xavier of that time would never use his powers to harm another person. But the Xavier that you know is willing to do things that you'd never think him capable of."
"You're wrong," he persists, absolutely adamant, and the man just continues to smile as though he knows everything.
"I put you both thirty-eight years into your own futures. What had changed?" he asks, spreading his hands. "You had turned yourself into the exact opposite of Xavier; the dark mirror to his soul. Mutants and humans alike feared and hated you, and you were no further in your goal of mutant superiority. And Xavier? Paralysed and hiding away with his children in his school, where most of them are still too afraid to go out in public."
"You've made your point; our lives were miserable and unfulfilled and lonely and nothing like we'd ever dream they could be," Erik snaps, his patience wearing thin and a pressing need for Charles aching in the back of his mind. "I don't see how any of this is relevant to Charles and what he might or might not have done."
"Have you not been watching him these past few weeks? All he's been seeing if his failures; he's been slowly becoming more and more unsure about his methods of dealing with this problem, and he's sick and tired of all the hate and fear. He's seen what humans will do to mutant children and tonight, Stryker went too far."
And Erik thinks of Charles, standing commanding and unyielding on the grass and watching Stryker squirm in front of him; he thinks of Charles, and the pure outrage in his voice, and is struck cold at the thought of what he might do. Charles is the most powerful telepath in the world and his powers are near-limitless, and one idiotic human was stupid enough to test them.
"What did he do?" he asks, though he's not even sure that he wants to know. Yes, his Charles has been growing despondent, but he hates the idea that he would lower himself to destroy a man's psyche – for Erik. He doesn't want to have been the man that brings Charles down to his level; for as much as Erik talks of being the better men, ultimately, Charles is the best of all of them.
"Eingeschlossensein, Magnus. That is what the failed future has brought him to; that is what he would do, for you."
It takes a moment for Erik to pull the word out of the depths of his mind, to remember exactly what the word means, and once he does his stomach clenches painfully and a sense of awful dread creeps into his mind. He feels almost like he's going to be sick, and his head spins momentarily. The thought that Charles would do something so horrible, in vengeance, is so completely heartbreaking and humbling at the same time that he wants to cry.
"But why?" he asks, his voice cracking, and the man shrugs.
"Because to him, you're worth everything. He sees the all of the good in you – you are not a bad man, Magnus. For you, everything is about family. Building a home – a world – where you can feel safe, where you need never be afraid again. But it always gets twisted because the child in you can't escape those nightmares or Shaw, and your mother, and wants revenge. Even so, the force that drives you is love. Xavier knows that, because he's seen the heart of you. And he knows that you can take it all and turn it into something incredible."
And Erik has no idea how to respond to that. The urge to hurt this man for ripping them from their home and throwing them both into an entirely alien world has gone; he seems genuinely interested in helping them change the future, though Erik doubts that it's entirely altruistic. Though considering the changes could possibly render this strange man non-existent, if the consequences of their choices extend that far, then the future that he comes from must be dire if the only option left is to rewrite it.
"The path that was set before you, before I displaced you both, was one of defeat. You've seen where it would have led, but it would only get worse," the man says, as though he knows that Erik is curious about what is going to go so horribly wrong. "Many years in the future, your daughter would lose her mind because of your failings, because you would devote your entire being to your crusade for mutant superiority and neglect to care for the people that mean the most to you. And as she lost her mind, she would warp reality and strip the X-gene from 99% of the mutant population, and everything that you would have been working towards would have been in vain. She would have destroyed the lives of millions of people, all because of you."
"Why are you telling me this?" Erik croaks, even as his mind says, I have a daughter?, and the man doesn't even blink.
"So that you can learn from your mistakes. You've seen the degeneration of yourself, the inadequacy of Xavier's pacifist movements. You can prevent the world that you've seen; you can make it anew, make it better. This is an opportunity. In that future, you and Xavier are operating at both extremes of the spectrum and neither of you is succeeding. Do it differently, this time."
Suddenly there's a strange humming noise, then a crack, and then Charles is stood beside him. His hand is outstretched and he's staring into the distance and there is a look of rage so potent on his face that Erik takes a step back. He's seen Charles disappointed, he's seen him angry; he's seen him frustrated and betrayed and irritable and annoyed. But he has never seen him so utterly savage that he seems ready to destroys the minds of hundreds of men, and the sight scares him.
Then there's another crack and when Erik looks, the man has disappeared without a trace; at the same time, Charles seems to realise that he's no longer facing down Stryker and Erik is stood, whole and well, in front of him.
"Oh, thank goodness you're safe," Charles says faintly, and stands there swaying for a moment, and then launches himself at Erik and pulls him into a fierce embrace, gripping him tightly and pushing their mind together. Erik opens up immediately, grateful for the presence in his mind, and projects the conversation that he just had.
"I don't deserve you, or the things that you would do for me," he says quietly, speaking directly to the space just behind Charles' ear, and the grip around his back just tightens more.
"I told you that I would never let anybody take you," Charles replies, and kisses the cold skin on his neck. "You are worth protecting, Erik, whether you think so or not."
They stand there in silence for several minutes, clutching at each other in the dark; Erik is content to stand there for hours, sinking into Charles until they become one mind, but he knows that they can't. Tomorrow, it would seem, everything changes.
Tomorrow, Charles says, and it feels like foreshadowing. That's when we make a decision that will change the world.
No pressure.
Charles snorts with amusement and relief and exhaustion against his neck, and Erik smiles; Charles is warm and alive in his arms, and they are home, and Erik can feel Charles' excitement at seeing Raven again after so long trembling at the edges of his mind. But his smile fades, quickly, and a terrible sense of foreboding replaces it, and he doesn't try to hide it from Charles. They both know.
For now, everything is fine. But tomorrow, they go to war.
"Everything you did made me stronger; made me the weapon I am today. It's the truth – I've known it all along," Erik says, and Shaw leans closer, an awful smile pulling up the corners on his lips as he tastes triumph at last. "You are my creator."
Then there's a flurry of activity as the helmet is removed by the metal, and Erik can feel its smooth surface through the wires that hold it as he drops the girder that was pressed against his ribs. It feels cold and unyielding and lonely and he looks between it and Shaw, frozen with his hand outstretched towards his refuge against Charles.
He looks at them both, and he waits.
"I thought that you wanted to kill him," Charles says quietly as he stands beside Erik, regarding the man in front of them dispassionately. It's taking a small amount of effort to hold him in place, but he can easily manage it – a few months ago he might not have been able to, but he's been honing his powers with Cerebro since then. This is not difficult, not any more.
"I can't but feel that you'd disapprove," Erik points out, and he pulls the coin that he's been holding onto for so many years out of his pocket. "That you'd think it detrimental to our plans for mutantkind."
"Not detrimental to mutantkind, but to yourself, which is far more important. But I thought you would go through with it anyway; I hoped to terribly that you wouldn't, but I suspected that you might regardless of what I thought you should do."
You told me, months and hours ago, that killing him wouldn't bring me peace, he reminds Charles, switching to a more private conversation, and Charles fixes him with an inscrutable look; he feels like he's waiting for something, but has no idea what.
And you told me that wasn't what you wanted.
Well I've found my peace, he says. I found it fifteen hundred miles north of here, in a walled garden with a chessboard and the evening sun, and my mind laid open and waiting for you. I don't want to lose that because of him. He's taken too much from me already; I won't let him take you as well.
Charles is quiet. He doesn't say anything, but then he doesn't need to, because he floods the link quite suddenly with a massive burst of love that makes Erik take a physical step back. He takes hold of Erik's wrist to hold him in close proximity, and looks back at Shaw, still vacant and staring.
"Even if you don't kill him, he still needs to be neutralised. He's far too dangerous as he is."
He keeps hold of Erik's wrist and takes a step forward, and touches his free hand to Shaw's temple.
"The man that you were following no longer exists," Erik declares as he lowers the three of them down towards the sand and they all look up, their children staring up at them as they glow in the sun above. "He has been stripped of his powers and memories – he doesn't even know who he is."
"So stop this ridiculous fighting," Charles says, and they land softly in the sand amongst the destruction, Shaw's unconscious body slumping to the ground between them. "Stop fighting amongst yourselves and come home with us, and we can start again. We can make a new home for ourselves, somewhere that we can live in safety and in numbers. Come with us, and help us found our own nation and show the humans that mutants are here to stay."
They'll find a hospital to take Shaw to later, once this is over and done with; they'll abandon him and allow him to create a new life for himself, but Charles will keep tabs on him. They can't risk his memories or powers somehow returning to him.
"This, what you were planning? This would not achieve anything," Erik persists, and Charles notes as he goes to envelop Raven in a massive hug that Azazel, Angel and Riptide seem to be listening to him. "This isn't the way to go about things. All it will end in is death and destruction and more hatred, more fear. We may be homo superior based on our genetics, but we have to earn that title before we can abuse it. Come with us."
Charles releases Raven, throws a smile at Moira, and Shaw's men follow Erik across the battlefield towards them. Then Erik stops suddenly, freezing on the sand, his head twitching backwards towards the fleets. Everybody on the beach turns to look at him, sensing the abrupt change in his demeanour.
What's wrong? Charles asks urgently, and Erik catches his gaze and holds it, then looks out across the bay. Charles follows his gaze and he can see the ships moving, aligning themselves.
"The humans – they're targeting us," Erik says, but he doesn't sound surprised. "They're going to fire on us."
Charles is vaguely, numbly aware of Moira running back to the jet, trying frantically to contact the fleet commanders, but he knows that it's no use. He can tell without even reading their minds that the humans are terrified and determined and operating under orders from higher powers to destroy the mutant threat once and for all. They just watched a man pull a submarine from the ocean; they're running scared.
Then there's a sudden rapid succession of booms and bangs that shake the ground beneath their feet. There's the trails of hundreds of rocket streaking upwards then changing course, pulling around and heading towards their target, and Charles thinks, this is what he has failed to change in the future. This is everything that he has to look forward to, if they don't change something.
He hears a series of sharp whoosh-bangs behind him, and turns just in time to see Raven suddenly disappear in the blast of red smoke – the rest of the beach is already empty. Charles blinks and then Azazel's there, hand on his arm, but he stops him with a quick mental push.
"No," he says, as Azazel takes a brief step back in confusion. "Thank you, but we'll be fine. Go to the others or stay, it's your choice, but Erik and I aren't finished here."
He doesn't wait to see what Azazel's choice will be – he turns back as the missiles bear down upon them, but he's not scared. He has complete faith in Erik's ability and he watches with a sense of inner calm as Erik catches them just metres away from their faces, and everything falls silent.
The metal glints in the sunlight, turning slowly; the burning fires extinguish and splutter, and Charles can hear the shock and resignation and fear coming from the ships in waves. He knows that they are watching through binoculars, knows that they can see how one man just stopped a hundred weapons by doing nothing more than raising his hand.
And they watch, in dumbstruck awe, as all of those rockets fall harmlessly out of the sky, hitting the ground with splashes and soft thumps.
"They don't know what to do," he says, almost amused, as he reads the commanders in their confusion and panic. "They're not sure if they should fire again or just not bother – they've seen how pointless it is, but they're wondering if they should just try again on principle."
"Then help them make that decision."
So Charles does.
He spreads and pushes, grasping onto every mind and planting a strong suggestion. Not forcing them though – he would make so many thousands of innocent men think something so contradictory to their own beliefs – but in the space of a heartbeat he has given them a hundred and one different reasons why they should not fire again, why they should realise that Charles and Erik and Raven and everyone else has just saved all of their lives and prevented World War III, why they need to start accepting mutants in modern society.
It takes a split second to plant the tiniest seed of acceptance, but it takes root and Charles knows by the time he's retreated out of their minds that the idea will grow. Now, for the first time in thirty-eight years, they're making progress. The tension bleeds out of the bay and the metal sighs in relief, and Azazel shifts behind them.
Charles turns to Erik and he reaches out for him, ready to be swept away in a haze of smoke and hot air; away from the humans and their rapidly-adjusting mindsets, and moving forwards together to a new world.
"Let's change the world," he says.
Erik stands by his side, and nods, and smiles.
end.