If I say this was the easiest chapter to write, I am probably admitting that I've watched xmfc too many times. This is my personal fix-it, which led to a whole other range of twisting the canon to fix my fix-it. Hence, I don't own.
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Twist in the Line of Fire
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Part 2.
With the end of '62 on the horizon, there is nothing you can't face, but this is just the Past. It's about time you learn to let go.
It starts the same way he always imagines it to. And it starts with a blue sky and a beach at his feet. This doesn't change; no matter how many version of the same dream he has in the dead of night. The picture perfect blue and yellow always fall away into the background to give ways to their uniforms on foreign land, black boots sinking into the sand.
And Charles wants to tell Erik not to blame himself but the alternate only seems crude and cruel because they are both at fault when they finally stop to think without missiles and bullets aiming for their heads.
The submarine has fallen, the coin has found its way through Sebastian Shaw's head, and while Charles imagines it to hurt so much more, it has barely even grazed his threshold (he really should be worried, but somehow it didn't seem like the right time to mention that no one should be that powerful.)
Erik doesn't look back at Shaw's body, lying limp against the sand. Even though he has anticipated this moment all his life, the relief is short lived, a tiny black spark that finally burns out in his chest. All that is left is to leave it all behind but Erik has always known he doesn't deserve anything less than misery for the rest of his life.
Because by then. The humans fire upon them.
A multitude of deafening booms later, he has the missiles spinning in the sky above their heads. There are no clouds against the blue and the world holds still, sucks in a breath and forgets to exhale.
This is about control, and they think he has lost his.
"Charles."
Erik starts but the other has already walked up to the edge of the water, fingers positioned at his temple as the soft rolling waves laps at the soles of his boots. Erik doesn't realize the damage but in reflection, this is the moment he loses Charles.
Because when Charles connects his mind with all those men on the ships, their hate becomes his own, an intricate pattern of thoughts that wounds its way into his head. Their stream of diediediediedie becomes his. And so when he turns to Erik, he asks, decision in the making but with real confusion behind his question.
"If they can afford to fire at us, why don't we give them back?"
"…Charles?"
"Feel free to fire it back at them."
The conviction is real. If they want us dead, we'll wipe them out first is what he means. Because Charles makes a choice and he refuses to allow this beach to become a mutant mass grave.
Not for Erik or himself. Not when this is child's play with the powers they are born with.
This is about control and he still has his.
000
He draws lines and builds walls to keep it all from stacking up high in his mind. He doesn't really want to know because he knows, one look is all it takes, all it ever took.
And this is the one.
Everything falls from their precarious place.
He shutters his eyes close as their hate hits him, it doesn't knock the breath from his chest or makes his blood run cold with realization. Their hate only brings an overwhelming need to give up because this isn't ever going to change, why can't he see this before?
Breathing out, Charles turns his back to the ships.
"Erik, go ahead."
He can convince them until they believe it as their only truth but that isn't really them, not the version Charles has come face to face with and he can't stand for that, not anymore. He isn't going to conceal their mistakes and hide their hate from the world. No, not when he knows it to be the truth, deep down, underneath all his pointless cover up.
Charles smiles and that is Erik's second indication.
"You want me to—"
"Yes, Erik. I want them to see exactly what we are capable of."
"…And what," he swallows, "are we capable of, Charles?"
"Mass annihilation."
Charles has thought Erik will be glad to hear those words fall from his lips but he only looks forlorn, like this is something out of his worst nightmares. (Charles realizes, much later, that this is the first crack he makes in Erik but by then he has already been hacking away at him for years.) And something dies in his eyes, Charles thinks that might be hope. But he can't do this anymore, not when he finally understands him. It isn't fair, it isn't right, Charles thinks hard at Erik.
But it doesn't get through.
"…I'm not going to be another Shaw." And still, he refuses to turn to look at his tormentor's cold dead eyes even when the helmet remains unmoving on his head.
So when Erik's back hits the sand, Charles' fist bury at his collar, his eyes hold only one question. And it isn't fair but this is just it.
Why did it have to be you?
000
His hands grapple at the helmet.
"Charles! What are you—?!"
Stay back, Raven, I don't want to hurt you or the boys.
Perhaps it is not the eerie calm in their heads that is keeping them at bay because Charles is already out of their minds, sole focus on the man beneath him, perhaps it is the realization that this is only between Erik and Charles. So they hang in the back with a desperate want to help but a need to see this play through the right way.
Blunt nails skimp across the edge of the metal in their struggle. He can feel his heat beneath the press of his body and the sand, and they are a tangle of limbs as Erik comes to the full realization of what he is trying to do.
Charles can't feel Erik's fear but he can see it in his eyes.
His lost control. His broken hope. His need to make him do things his way.
It all cascades to a place neither can reach.
And all that is left is an endless horror because the betrayal is a knife that twists as it goes in. Digging deeper, taking root, but never making it out the other side.
The missiles explode in the sky. The debris falls into the sea. But neither takes notice, not when Charles' wrists are pinned to the ground. Legs weigh down by Erik's frame resting above his body. And when he speaks, Charles is speaking over the hand that lay pressure over his throat in warning.
"They wanted us dead, my friend."
It is raspy and hoarse like he has been screaming that in his head for all his life. It is also the last thing Erik hears before a gunshot rings out across the beach.
000
Metal ignites into a projectile with a simple pull of the trigger, and it takes all of two seconds before Moira screams.
Her gun dropping to the sand in a silent clatter no one hears.
The bullet she fires is imbedded in the tree just behind the two of them. Erik can feel the metal surrounded by the wood but he can only see the CIA agent with her hands clutching at her head, tears already streaming down her face as she gives a soft whimper of pain, a feeling Erik has been accustomed with for most of his youth.
She falls to her knees.
"What did you do, Charles?"
He tightens his hold on his friend's throat and it is only then that Moira can breathe a little easier. When the sudden onslaught of pain finally subsides to something more manageable, she is gulping at the air, eyes glazing over in fear, brain turning at the seconds of immense horror that seems to last forever.
Erik lets go, almost as though he has only just realized what they have both done. He gets up and off of Charles just as the other sits up in the sand.
The beach is silent through it all.
"She is just like them." Charles gestures at the ships, still sitting out at the calm sea. And it is with a solemn pause that he stands to look Erik in the eyes. "Can't you see, Erik? She is just like the men that pulled you from your family, the soldiers who held your mother down when Shaw fired that gun!"
Erik's blood drains at that.
But he supposes he should have realized this the moment his back hits the sand and Charles' scramble for his helmet only tells him the one thing that can replace the nightmares from the camps.
He is willing to mind control him.
"…That is low, Charles, even for you."
And he is accustomed to him to saying all the wrong things at just every precise moment.
"I thought you'd be glad." Charles smiles bitterly. "I understand now, isn't that what you wanted me to see all this time?"
"I'm sorry, Charles." He doesn't take off the helmet as ridiculous as it looks. It is his last defence against a world of unknown because that man standing along side of him is not the Charles who has pulled him up and out from the water. He isn't even the man who has tried to talk logic and peace into a broken weapon during those games of chess. "This is far from it."
Far from the life he has shown him. Far from the horrors he now needs to relearn because Charles' next words reminds Erik just how far apart they have always been.
"What shame then."
000
"I'm sorry, Moira."
He kneels down to the CIA agent and presses his forehead to hers. She flinches, because she recognizes who he is and exactly what he has done, and he isn't gentle in return but it is passable with Erik standing behind him. His fingers push into his temple and with a hard press will, her eyes shudder close and she slumps against him in defeat.
"This is goodbye." He murmurs in her ear.
When Charles stands up, he allows her to fall to the ground with a grace he can no longer bear to look at. Not with the loop of diediediefreaksdie still playing in his head. He looks up at Erik and asks, "happy now?"
The curt nod is more than he expects and the small flutter of a smile comes over his lips despite the deeds they can no longer undo.
"Someone will come for her, I'm sure, but she no longer knows anymore about us than the men out there. We won't have any trouble, at least not from Moira."
He still says her name like she is a friend but everything has changed. He has seen their hate and knows that nothing will change, not at the rate he once foolishly think it could.
"Isn't this the lesson you wanted little naïve Charles to learn?" Charles wants to scream at Erik until his voice goes out. But he has lost the energy to be angry, not at Erik anyhow. Not when he is looking at him like that, voice soft and sad like he would have given up anything to change the situation.
"I never wanted you to learn anything, Charles, not from me at least."
"You wouldn't understand," Charles smiles as he turns his gaze to the side, "what I saw in their heads meant something."
000
Days and months and years later, Erik and Charles will probably feel the same way. Even when they have just tried to kill the other across a battlefield, they can probably still speak to each other like there has always been a truce between them.
And this, sitting across each other with tea being offered in between, is perfectly normal.
"How aren't you still angry?" Charles stares openly at him, fingertips caressing at the decades old china teacup he has in his hand. "You've experienced what they are capable of, first hand, Erik."
I know, I've seen what they did to you.
But Erik doesn't let the ink haunt him in ways he once allowed it. He faces Charles, hard eyes softening until his lips resemble a grimace of a smile. "You've taught me otherwise."
The irony hits and twists but Charles can only force a small smile in return.
"Then I suppose we've done a good job on each other then."
They are only missing the tears now.
"Too good of a job, Charles." The laugh is dry and sad. Peace is an option, you taught me that yourself.
And it is as close to a confession as they allow it. Because when Charles doesn't pry, Erik doesn't wear the helmet. And when Erik's mind decides to unlock the gates to his head and drags the thought to the forefront of his mind Charles doesn't have the heart to convince Erik to his side, fingers pushing against his temple.
No one gets to face honesty with nothing less than trust.
"I won't." And it means many things. He won't stop. He won't give up. He will fight for what he thinks is right, even when it can be wrong but that is a risk he is willing to take because he is sure, and kill the men that wants them dead.
"I know."
"Thank you, my friend."
000
Charles looks like he wants to say something more but with a wistful shake of his head, they both know it to be over. They step apart and it all comes naturally now.
Erik doesn't offer his hand at his fellow mutants and no one makes a speech. Hank and Alex and Sean go to him. They drag their feet and smile weakly when they look back, and by then it is decided and Charles no longer wants to fight this.
"Azazel, please."
He is looking at the boys with Erik leaning into the red-skinned mutant before they are all turning back to stare at them, sadness burning in the rim of their eyes.
They don't say goodbye. That only ever makes things worst.
He feels Raven's hand tighten around his and then they are gone.
When the teleporter returns, Charles doesn't read his mind.
Doesn't pick out the location where he has left Erik to fend for himself. It is the least he can do, he respects the other man too much to do otherwise. (No matter how much he wanted to know, but that was a given, wasn't that? Erik should know. Had to know how deep those feelings ran for him, otherwise he wouldn't have left. Right?)
"Westchester will do."
Azazel clasps a hand on his shoulder and Raven takes his hand once more, the others gather and with an easy disappearance trick, they are gone. Black and red smoke curling in their absence, trailing a scent of sulfur in the air.
The beach is empty, save for one.
000
Too soon, she senses them coming.
"Hello there, what a crowd this is."
When the walls crumble beneath one man's control, Emma Frost sits up and greets the mutants at her door.
"Things have been interesting while I was here… I take it Sebastian is dead?" She smiles a smile that reaches her eyes but there is no warmth, not the same kind he is used to at the very least. "So, what is this supposed to be?" She raises a perfect eyebrow and glances at the helmet in his hands. "An act of faith?"
"An act of courtesy." He corrects.
And her smile is nothing beautiful. But her eyes widen at the hint of apology the man is offering because Russia rushes to the forefront of his mind even when she knows he isn't sorry for breaking her diamond shell. "Erik, right?"
"It doesn't matter." He is sorry for giving her over to the human government.
She wants to laugh at the absurd ways they have come to but the path only splits so far before you must make the one decision that will change your life. And the man before her eyes has made his.
"Erik, sugar, no wonder that boy likes you so much."
Her smile widens into something wild at his frown, like she can't wait to see where this will go. Emma shrugs and explains the question he hasn't learned to voice.
"Us, telepaths don't work well together."
She glances to the boys standing at the door like guards, picks up on their frantic nerves just as the blond one quirks his head back to speak. "Better go, Magneto. I know this is a rescue mission and all but the CIA won't take it to be an act of kindness."
She takes a step closer to the man with the helmet tuck beneath his arms because his offer is just as subtle as her acceptance.
"Well, it's only fair if you get a telelpath's help then."
000
They land in the foyer and everything is just as they have left it.
He looks at Raven and there isn't even a telepathic nudge, she tightens her grip on his hand before letting go completely. And it is the sacrifices you make that are all coming back when you least expect it.
"Locked doors mean don't try to get in, opened doors mean someone is," Raven says before correcting herself with a small shake of her head, eyes impossibly sad, "was living in it, and closed doors mean go ahead, let's just hope that it's actually a bedroom."
The three other mutants follow her as she takes them down the hall. And it isn't because they don't care, Raven looks back, sometimes being alone is the only way to keep you from ruining the things you can never have, now that you care.
It isn't until Charles walks into his own bedroom, in a stumble he can't remember how, that he realizes he is still wearing that blue and yellow uniform. And suddenly he can't get out of it any faster.
Because by the time he has come to his senses, the uniform is in a heap on the ground across the room and he himself is standing in front of his mirror in only his underwear.
If he is in any other situation, he will laugh at how ridiculous he is but the laughter would be in good humor, not hysterical ones that leaves him drained and heaving, eyes rimmed with red of tears he wants but cannot shed.
Sometimes things get out of hand. And no matter how desperate you are to change it, things just don't go where you want it to.
(You don't get to stay with the one you want.)
He crawls into bed.
But this is only the start of a years long free fall, there is still much to go.
000
They are pulling at scraps and it isn't living but it is surviving. And Erik has always been about that.
They are in one of his safe houses, near the borders of Mexico. There is one bedroom, a ratty couch and a bathroom. The seclusion is what Hank needs and the isolation gives them anonymity. But there are still bitter emotions running high in the house.
Mostly, it is Erik and Emma Frost but the boys have learned how to sidestep the both of them. It is almost like an art.
Because sometimes Erik will look at Emma Frost like he wants her to read his mind and give him what he wants. But then she will finally look back at him and he knows she won't ever be what he really wants.
"Don't condemn me." She tells him, fourth day after she joins the Brotherhood.
"I'm not." He doesn't look at her when he replies because he still expects Sebastian Shaw to be standing right next to her, arm wrapping around her waist as he tugs her close.
He doesn't see her narrowing her eyes at him but he does hear the click of her heels before she walks out of the room and the I'm never going to be him she leaves lingering in his head in spite.
Erik really needs to remember to wear the helmet (bucket, she thinks at him) more often.
The next day, she gives him all of Shaw's accounts, properties and contacts she has ever known of. It isn't an apology or a peace offering for digging up days-old scars that are not even trying to heal but she is a part of the Brotherhood, she calls this contributing.
"This is dirty money."
"Dirty money is still money, you can't afford to do anything otherwise." Pointedly, she doesn't look around at the house, or the gather of dust and dirt on the windows.
"This is all Shaw's."
"Yes, and a dead man has no use for it." She still doesn't look at the chipped counters, or Magneto's dead eyes looking up from the papers she gives him.
Erik doesn't have a plan, he only knows he has to get away from that beach. He doesn't understand why the boys follow him but they are still here and they are probably not leaving any time soon. He sees them glancing up at him and the smiles, as thin as they may be, makes the decision for him.
In the end, he gives in. He withdraws all the money and sells all the properties like he can't have it any longer than he has to.
The money goes through a strict system, gets passed through foreign accounts and exchanges of too many hands both underneath the tables and on top until they are as clean as they will ever be. (At least now Erik can hold it in his hands and not have it reek of Shaw's dirty blood-drenched ways.)
Almost two months later, Erik comes up to her.
It isn't a thank you but it is the closest he has ever gotten to one with anyone else other than Charles.
"The numbers aren't in the red anymore, Emma."
"You're welcome, Erik." Somehow she manages to appear to be looking down at him even when she is shorter, perhaps it is the tone of her voice. "But really, it was either Sebastian or Xavier, and I do prefer Sebastian over any other telepath."
"You can't even read my mind, why does it matter to you?"
"Sebastian makes you efficient in your chase, Xavier slows you down with his doe-eyes."
Erik purses his lips in protest and dignifies himself by not throwing the metal window frames at her head like he wants to. Emma stays, smirking at the gaping opened door of the one bedroom she has claimed in the house.
Years later, Erik will care enough to ask what Shaw has meant to Emma. And days later, she will tell him, he loved her once, in a time when the world hasn't secured a place in his heart.
"Did you mourn?"
"That's what a wife would do, I wasn't one."
Erik doesn't ask whether she ever hated him for what he has done, he doesn't even ask whether she loved Shaw back in the first place.
000
The Westchester Mansion has never been welcoming.
It is cold and desolate, a castle in its right, but his childhood home nonetheless. And no amount of nightmare from his past can change that fact. But coming back now makes him feel like he is sinking into quicksand and the world will be better off destroyed.
Because it is now the first of December, and October has come and gone.
"Don't be so melodramatic."
Charles rolls to lie flat on his back before glancing up at the intruder with the yellow eyes squinting down at him. "Raven?"
"You were broadcasting."
She sits down at the edge of the bed before she really looks at him, takes in the solemn stare in his eyes. Looking like the child he has never got the chance to be because he hasn't broadcasted a thought, not since before Kurt came into their life.
She doesn't ask because it is inevitable that he will share, with or without the falling tears. She is only hoping it will be without, she has enough of her own, there are rarely enough tissues to go around.
"He took off the helmet for her."
Charles says before he is biting at his bottom lip in frustration. Raven draws him into her arms with a roll of her eyes.
"Her?"
"Frost."
He mutters with memories of Erik's metal coiling around her diamond neck, twisting and tightening until she shatters. It isn't until now that he can see his own naïve ways, his forgive and forget because they all change, Erik, some way or another.
"Still not good enough of a reason for you to sulk in bed for this long." She pulls back, holds him at arms distance and brushes off his offered images of the other telepath, perfect even when she breaks under Erik's ways.
"…Sorry."
Or perhaps, that is the most beautiful she has ever been, that moment in Russia.
"No, you're not." She gives him another look, one that warns him that he has to give it up before this becomes a real problem for them. Raven reaches out, brushes his bangs from his eyes and smiles. "It is not the end of the world."
"…close enough." He nearly sniffs as he buries his head back into the pillows once again.
It takes very little after that.
"Let's go home, Raven. Let's go back home to Oxford."
000
The Mansion in Westchester County remains empty for exactly three months and four days after Charles returns to his Oxford apartment in England. And on the fifth day of the fourth month, Erik Lehnsherr opens the gates to 1407 Graymalkin Lane and walks through, like he owns it.
Three days earlier.
Let me speak with Erik, a voice echoes in all of their heads. A firm warmth that has grown stifling, a familiarity that has gone cold.
Hank doesn't ask why, Alex doesn't say anything and Sean just looks uncomfortable. Only Emma smirks and shrugs her shoulders, easily because she knows just the kind of desperation that lies beneath that one simple request.
"I don't think that is a good idea, Professor."
Hanks says out loud and watches as Erik turns sharply at him, eyes narrowing, fingers clenching in the arms of the chair he is sitting in.
"Hank?" His voice is low and Beast strains to hear him, almost.
"The Professor." Hank taps his head with a clawed finger. "He wants to talk to you."
"…Charles." He reaches up and it isn't until his fingertips touch the edge of the helmet that he freezes, eyes hard and unyielding. Hank watches, sees the one thing he has always seen. He sees the hurt and pain and longing that makes his shoulders ache.
He smiles at Erik (there is pity because they all know Erik gave away the most on that beach and a silent go ahead, no one will blame you for anything. This is not a betrayal.) Hank turns and ushers the other two inside Emma Frost's room despite her protests, leaving Erik alone with his choice.
Needless to say, he takes it off.
Erik!
The first thought, the first sound, the first word he feels with his mind brings him back to a dark night beneath the sea where the waves crash above their heads and he has been ready to die. But his feet touch the ground and they are still steady and not weak at the knees. The sentiments shouldn't be the same. Erik doesn't choke, he easily breathes out.
"Yes?"
I want to speak with you.
"Don't we have nothing left to say?" Wasn't the beach enough?
I—
"Or are you here to apologize?" Even when neither knows whether he is really the right one, not just yet, not when neither has made a move against the human race. But this is still a vicious cycle they have made for themselves.
I'm not at fault, not that at least, I won't apologize for what I believe in.
"Then Hank is right, this is probably not a good idea."
Erik! Hear me out. Please.
Erik stays silent and doesn't put the helmet back on, even though his fingers does clench harder into the smooth metal. And he knows Charles feels all of the turmoil coiling in his mind, he is privy to all of it.
Erik is also the only other person to hear the sharp inhale of breath before Charles' first and only ever offer of peace.
I want you to have the Westchester Mansion.
XXX Kuro
The next one might take a little longer to get out.