I warned (whoever that even reads this) that this will come slow. But nearly a month and a bit afterward: here's the last installment of this fic! :D Beware, you should not start reading with great expectations, endings are always the hardest for me so this might not be everyone's cup of tea (not that there would be major character death or anything like that. :P)
XXX
Twist in the Line of Fire
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Part 3.
With '62 in the past, you are now older and wiser, but this is finally the Future. And everything is still the same but not quite.
He is old but not really, his hair isn't completely white, just streaking with a few strands of grey here and there, starting from the roots.
And seeing him again is not as different as he thought it would be. But he hasn't been thinking about him for years, he says just as easily as the world calls him on his bullshit. Erik deliberately looks away.
"Miss Frost."
He says and she knows he is asking for a favor by the way he won't look at her, a long due one she supposes and this has nothing to do with her telepathy, it has become a habit to read Erik this way. And he is Erik, only Magneto when she is royally pissed off at his antics that reminds her of Russia.
"The little girl?"
"Yes."
In return, he no longer looks surprised when she knows exactly what he needs. He also doesn't wear the helmet much anymore, not since she has confronted him of how much it reminds her of Shaw in the last few moments she sees him alive, especially not since she has taught him how to shield, after all brain waves are only magnetic waves too.
"Hardly difficult, boss." She smirks. I would be surprised if he doesn't jump at the chance.
Erik keeps his mind carefully blank and pretends he can't hear her speaking at him. But the world bears its weight down on him, and really, it isn't as easy as he once imagine it to be.
"I am surprised, Erik."
His bright eyes have been filed away by the storms that have passed between them, they finally resemble something more grounded even when it is the same shade of blue since forever.
"Are you?" Erik raises a brow and without the helmet Charles can finally see the minute shifts he is no longer used to reading.
"Just a little." He smiles and adjusts the cuff of his cardigan, ones he has bought since he has met Erik. And there have been many cardigans to count their time apart. Raven tells him he is pathetic, Charles retorts he is just sentimental that way.
(No one is fooled.)
"Good." Erik returns the smile and instead of the casual pleasantries they are trying so hard to forge, it is feeling too fond but that may also be Charles' (hopes and dreams and) imagination that Erik's eyes are warmer when he looks at him.
Erik parks the car in the picture perfect suburban neighbourhood neither of them has had the chance to live in. He turns off the engine and it is silent. Charles stills in his seat and speaks, soft and almost careful.
"Upstairs. She knows we are here."
"Even better." Erik flashes him a predatory smile as he gets out of the car, leaving Charles stunned for a second before he follows Erik's lead with barely a hint of hesitation, like this is a battle and he is his pawn.
The lawn is a jade green and the flowers are perfectly arranged in splashes of red and marigold. There are stone steps leading up to the front door and when they ring the bell, the wind chimes dangling on the front porch clinks like glass. They stand straight, shoulders nearly brushing in the afternoon breeze, and then the door pulls open.
"Mr. And Mrs. Grey?"
Erik smiles and Charles can tell the world might just end because this is either Erik's attempt at getting back his own little girl or Erik is actually trying his best to bring a dream (that didn't even belong to him at the start) into a reality of some sort.
Charles blinks back tears and braves on.
(Ignoring all the plans he has for little Jean Grey for now.)
000
Emma Frost, the beautiful woman the world has come to know as the White Queen, has gone her own way almost a decade back. She doesn't owe anyone anymore and departs to take back all the favours she has collected over the years. She has been wearing white still, the day she tells Magneto, that it is time she goes. Smirk dwindling into a worn smile, faint crinkles at the corner of her eyes.
"Do try to keep the school intact." She says to him as she turns to go, and for all the years she has stayed by his side, Erik realizes she has never been a malicious woman. She has only ever fallen in love with all the wrong men.
"And oh," she tosses her head back at the door, smile full of sorrow and worn through hope, "don't let that telepath wear you down."
He lets her go without a protest, he is sure he'll see her around again.
000
It happens somewhere in between, in a time and place neither of them has tried to remember.
Because as far as secrets go, everybody knows but nobody says a thing.
"Frost." He stands at her door waiting before she turns to look up at him from her work, and there is always more and more paperwork, endless convincing for the world to stay at bay. This is not the first time but it will be the last. "I want to speak with Charles."
"You two don't want to talk. You want to—"
"Emma."
She drops her pen to the surface of her desk as he takes another step inside, door swinging close behind him.
"…You know that it's a bad idea."
She won't ever be his mother, she doesn't care for him enough, but she is enough of a friend to know when he needs that one thing he has been wanting all his life.
And it is on a silent truce that Cerebro has never been rebuilt again (since Shaw and his then army torn it apart) because Charles doesn't get an upper hand in this and Erik isn't allowed to take advantage of it.
"Yeah," he runs a hand through his hair, "I do."
000
Beast goes back to the government, takes human-mutant relations even further than Erik has ever imagine it to go. But maybe he still has his prejudice and pain to hold him back, Hank doesn't. He is becoming an icon, standing out before a blur of human faces, proud and blue. He may not have seen his own pale flesh for a very long time but there has been something very human, maybe it is his heart.
On his off days, when the meetings don't go over into his dinner, Hank always come back to the mansion. The children recognizes him from the television and they all fall asleep on the sofa in the living room, hands still curled around his blue fur.
Some things never change, children are still not his forte, but he is happy and he hasn't looked for a solution to reverse his situation for a very long time.
000
There are no meeting places arranged for their rendezvous.
There is only compromise and a dash of mutant powers along the way.
Erik leaves the helmet behind, and Charles keeps a distinct amount of change in his pocket. He guides him through the streets with a gentle tugging of the coins in his pants and he'll guide him through each left or right turn at every intersection with a sixth sense that he's created just for him.
It's a trust they are willing to forfeit for a chance, several chances throughout the years.
When he pulls the door open for him, they won't look at each other in awe even when he's been inside the darkest corner of his head and made it out with no burns and bruises to show. And while that goes both ways, it has passed a long time ago, they try to forget or at least not to mourn over it ever again.
Their hands are busy, pushing and pulling until their backs are up against the wall or the backboard of the bed if they are docile and calm that day.
But it will always be frantic, like one moment too slow and he is walking out the door without another glance back behind him.
They try to talk, through the feverish biting kisses that hurt more than they soothe those ragged souls within them. And it works, enough times to keep them from bringing the world down around them. Enough times to make them do it all over again.
"D—don't go, Erik, I love you. I love you so much."
Charles pants a mantra, a broken record they both still listen into as he dips his head lower to suck a bruise over where Erik's heart should be.
His reply comes, a quiet gasp as Charles pulls his mouth from Erik's skin, red and dark, and slick with spit.
"I love you too."
They don't play games and he doesn't tease him like the good old days when chess actually meant chess and a kiss on the lips doesn't mean goodbye.
"Lie back."
The back of his knees hit the end of the bed at Charles' command, his eyes follows the curve of Charles' fingers as he drops his shirt over Erik's on the floor. His compliance comes easy and he is pliant in his hands.
"Alright."
His back hits the sheets and they smell nothing like them, but it'll change.
Oh, it always does.
His eyes are dark and his hands are hot. There is nothing in the world they won't do for the other, so it has no meaning when one swallows the other's words.
"Make me yours."
000
Havok is dead, has been for many years now. No one talks about what happens, no one makes up stories, and most attends the funeral with no real knowledge. Erik calls it sabotage, Hank calls it an accident, neither argues with the other, and they all leave it at that. The service happens at the school and his coffin goes into the grounds of the Westchester without his signature boom.
That is also the last time anyone has seen Scott Summers cry. Or maybe, that is just the rain. It has been raining the day they lower his coffin into the soil.
Charles has been there too. (He brought flowers.)
000
There is a knock on the door, the door of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, like the place is actually locked. The children don't know, and the ones that do don't want to know.
Emma gives him a strange smile and he knows what to expect when he opens that door, after all he does already have his helmet on.
"What's it going to be today, Charles?"
He is in a dark grey suit, not those old frumpy grandpa cardigans he can still get cocky over, and his smile is easy when he looks up to greet him. "Hello Erik, I'm here as a friend."
Erik hears the today that should always follow Charles' words. And he isn't up for his games today, hasn't been ready to charge with his pawns thrown to the side for a very long time. Erik is weary and tired, he doesn't want to give out anymore second chances.
"You haven't been a friend for a very long time."
Charles' smile falls short of sad and no one is reminiscing, it's much too late. "I know, I'm sor—"
"Mr. Charles!"
They both snap to attention at the scream before Jean's sharp elbows connect with Erik's thigh, knocking him back a few steps as she throws her arms around Charles' waist. She nuzzles his stomach, leaving crinkles in his fine suit, as he has the wind knocked out of him.
Erik is rubbing at his sore leg, Charles can see that he isn't happy but he isn't exactly angry either. So he wraps his arms around little Jean Grey in return.
"Hey there, Jean."
She looks up at him the same time she loosens her grip on him. And there is a moment of serene silence before her mind is attacking his with sounds and feelings and images he hasn't expect to receive.
It doesn't hurt, it feels more everything is happening all at once, like being dropped inside a spinning kaleidoscope with no way out. He sees the painting she has done last week, he hears Emma's almost mechanical drawl whispering in his head, teaching with something that almost resembles patience, and then something warm touches his hand.
Charles chokes out a breath of laugher before he registers the lack of deadweight in his arms.
Looking down, there is no little girl with flaming red hair holding onto him just as tightly as he is to her. There is only Erik's hand gripping his own. He doesn't know which he wants more.
"Charles," he blinks at the sound of his name falling from his lips, "you alright?"
He sees Erik's quiet concern and the hand he has on Jean's shoulder, holding her back from letting loose.
"Sorry about that, Mr. Charles." She murmurs at Erik's side, almost sheepishly but they both know there isn't a hint of regret running through her head.
"That's quite alright, no harm done." He ignores Erik's pointed look and pats her head. But he knows he doesn't get off that easily because she is grabbing on to two fingers, dragging him along on a conquest no one else wants to follow. "I'm just glad you're that excited to see me."
Jean's laughter leads the way, and when he turns back, Erik is still standing there, looking back at him. There is a smile, not quite, but they're getting there.
Back to the start, back when everything has once been fine.
000
Banshee still comes around the school once in a while, popping in when Erik is at his busiest. He talks like he has forgotten it all and walks around like it has been sitting on his shoulders since the day it has happened. Erik wants to help but the boy, still always a boy, will grin, freckles brilliant beneath the sun, and tells him that it'll get better, Mags.
He doesn't chase him out, just humours the young man until he has had his fix. There is a new formed confidence in the way Sean is the one to reassure him.
And when he turns to go with a smile and a wave, Erik doesn't wonder what else he has going good for him.
000
"I'm proud, really really proud of you."
He smells like adrenaline and Erik likes that scent on him. It feels like he's been through a lot but none of it is shredded bloody paper and cold hard revenge. Instead, it feels more like well-intended growth and years that has passed by well.
"I don't know why you come at all."
Erik is nursing his second glass of scotch, still with the same old three ice cubes sitting down at the bottom, watering down the alcohol, bringing him back from tossing everything into the winds.
"I come here to see the good you're doing, Erik."
They don't play chess. Because then, it'll remind them too much of their past. And they can't have that, even when they both want to kiss the other like it's their first time.
"Does it make you want to come back… at all?"
"Sometimes, and sometimes it gives me more vigour to do what I do, just to know I can protect you."
"I don't need your protection. But, it should've been you, here." Erik gestures at the room, the office he has taken as his own. Thick velvet curtains, over spilling bookcases, none of it belongs to him.
Charles pours him a third one, liquid gold in the dimming lights. "I'm glad it isn't, Erik."
It goes without saying that he'll be in his place instead because there is not a world in which they can be together. They've accepted that, a long time ago. So when he kisses him, there is no reserve, just a wistful smile as he sucks at the alcohol lingering on his tongue.
They've learned, they serve balance better this way.
"I still miss you, you know."
"…Don't say that, Erik, not when you don't mean it that way."
"How'd you know? I have the helmet on."
"That's exactly why. You don't really miss me, not when you can't even take off that damned thing for me."
They both choke when it comes to coming clean but there is only so much they owe the other.
"…I'm sorry, Charles."
"Don't be, Erik. It's… really quite alright."
He doesn't take the helmet off and he, he doesn't reach for it.
000
Angel Salvadore stays with the X-Men for a long time before retiring. Maybe it is the guilt that keeps her there, or maybe, she genuinely believes in their cause. She thanks Charles for everything and no one tries to convince her to stay.
She is still the petite young woman with the same full blown figure as the little girl the two of them found in that club, she is still pretty with her black hair and dark eyes, still perfect with magnificence when she spreads her wings and takes off to the sky.
Charles watches her go, eyes sad, lips still pulled into a convincing smile regardless of all the good things that will come to end.
000
But those are the good days when they can stand to look at each other.
Other days, they are inches from throwing the other man out the nearest window. And even their exchange is cold with hate and howcouldyou.
"You know how I feel when I see the things you do?"
Erik doesn't splay the newspapers across the tables, even when he can. He doesn't make him look at the black and white photos of bloody riots that remind him of the war he has been forced to live through. Charles doesn't look away, he doesn't flinch in the face of his rage. He has seen it enough times, he remembers the starving children, the dying men and women, he has had it all directed at him.
And Charles knows exactly how much Erik wants to kill him just to end their years long struggle. He doesn't need to read his mind to know how many times that thought has crossed Erik's mind.
He doesn't give him the satisfaction even when he really doesn't know which is the worst. Charles makes his guesses and takes apart his assumptions.
"Disappointment. Sadness. Pity."
They both swallow hard.
"Anger. And pain, Charles." Erik clenches his fists at his sides, allows the metal in the room to thrum with his underlying frustration as he corrects the other man. "I hate that I couldn't change your mind."
"Then we really are just the same."
Charles tries not to grief.
000
Azazel hates calling Russia home but he is now buried there, beneath an unmarked grave.
He is fatally wounded in a mission that goes horribly terribly wrong with Mystique at his side, and bleeds out in the snow, right outside his hometown where the snow never really stops falling. Mystique doesn't cry, but their 6 months old child does, he cries every night.
She holds his hands tight to her chest until he finally closes his eyes, fingertips going cold in the brewing storm.
Raven never finds out what his last name has been, or if he has even known it in the first place. She never returns to Russia after that.
000
In the past, they go their separate ways on a beach with enough regret and longing to keep them going for years to come. In the present they meet somewhere in the middle where battle lines are drawn into beaten walls. And now that they are in the future, a better part of a new century they have come to survive, they really don't know.
"How long does this have to go on?"
He doesn't mean them, the two of them together like this, not when he asks. But still, it comes out that way.
"We are never too old for this."
"The arguing yes, we can be on our deathbeds and I probably still won't shut up." Charles hides his sheepish grin but Erik, he doesn't need to look to know.
"And the fighting?"
Leaning back, Charles lets his eyes shudder shut, lips curling easy into a soft smile that settles with quiet serenity. "I thought ten years tops, we would've had the war behind us."
"Who wins?"
"You? Me? It doesn't matter," he cracks open an eye, "just as long as it's not them, you know, Erik."
He doesn't let himself nod, doesn't play the game by his rules. Instead, Erik counters with nothing less than genuine curiosity, like he really wants to know. "And then where would we be?"
"Exactly like this."
Charles replies.
And it is daunting, their alternate universe.
000
Riptide leaves shortly after Azazel's death. And it isn't because he no longer believes in lying down his life for this cause, there is something chilling to seeing an old friend die this way. It strikes something too close, makes you think about everything you've got going for you.
Charles understands, because one day you make a choice, and that choice stays with you for the rest of your life.
Riptides goes and no one tries to make him stay.
000
While neither of them dies or ever falls in love again, the betrayal is still too much on days the sky matches the same shade as that day back in '62. Erik imagines he still has sentiments and Charles pretends this all means nothing.
He has his head in his hands, elbows on his knees.
"Charles, I can't do this anymore."
And it doesn't matter where they are, his eyes look old and sad, worn down through time, but death is not due for another decade to come. Charles smiles, and it reminds Erik of the ocean where no one dies and some one is saved.
"You mean, defending our cause like we've done all our lives?"
"I mean, tearing at each other's throat like this."
He looks up, pain breaking into his voice as the misery seeps from the defeated slump in his shoulders.
They don't lift the corner of their shirts to expose the scars because each and every one of them is capable of rendering them useless, especially the recent ones where they are ruthless and driven by a torn between hate and whycan'tyoujustsee.
The ones they each cut into the other, dull edged blades, rusty with blood, meant for the chest.
"Come here already." He pulls at Erik's arms, pulls him from his misery like he has done for years. And while Charles holds him to his chest Erik knows he is a sweetheart the same way he is a menace.
Charles has a method and it applies to everything from tearing apart the government to breaking apart a blueberry muffin for a snack. Charles folds him into his arms and it feels something like home, even if it is splitting at the seams from the years of push and pull.
"I miss you."
He breathes into the crown of his head, lips brushing at his temple, like this is all his.
"Me too."
But how many more years will it be before they can give up on their cause for a selfish need? They still don't know.
000
Mystique is a fighter through and through. They are near two decades away from their past and she doesn't look any different. Perhaps, her curves are more defined, her eyes gold and sharper still.
Charles smiles in the face of her transformation, watches as she crosses her legs from her throne at his side.
"You might think you need it, Charles," he glances up to see her with Nightcrawler in her lap, her fingers curling protectively around her child, the boy's tail wrapping around her wrist with reflex, "but you hardly even want it."
Fundamentally, she hasn't changed all that much.
And she isn't about to, thirty more years into the future when he is lying cold in a coffin somewhere far from the ruins of Oxford they still keep around them.
000
They aren't well-meaning men, not one bit.
Not since Charles slams his palms up against the windows of the blackbird, his screams of agonized pain silent as he dies for the first time in his life. "Don't do this, Erik, damnit!"
But Erik still kills Shaw, the humans still fire upon them. And Charles, he finally lowers his defenses to accept the world for what it is.
The sentiments are the same.
And he has only ever wanted to tell him that there is no other way, you see.
I'm sorry for all that I did and all that I will do.
Charles is standing at the window of the office, the office because Erik can't call it his (this house in itself is never his) but neither is it Charles', not after he has willingly given it away, not after the choices he has made since then.
"I'm glad," he runs a hand along the base of the window frame, remembers a fragmented childhood he no longer cares for, "the X-Men would've never made anything out of this place. We're good at—"
"Hurting and destroying the country."
Erik supplies from the chair by the fireplace, burning steady. Chessboard spread bare and defenceless for a game they never want to end. Charles turns around and looks at him with a soft shake of his head even when he can full well pull away, like he's been burnt.
"Making a point across to the public, I meant."
"So leave the Brotherhood with the damage control?" He pushes over a pawn with a grimace, Charles takes a seat across from him. "There are so many other people out there."
They both hear the silent: it doesn't have to be us, out there fighting each other like animals.
But once again, Charles shakes his head like he is correcting a child. "This is our mutant cause, not anyone else's."
He lays a hand over his, stops him from pushing over another pawn, another black piece like he is purposely trying to lose a game they haven't even start. Charles laces their fingers together, thumb rubbing over the old scars on the back of his hand.
"The right and the wrong is tying you back, Erik." Charles smiles lightly at him, replacing the fallen piece with another. "You should know better than all of us, good and bad means nothing in all this."
"And somehow, you still end up being the wrong and bad." Erik retorts, annoyed and amused like this is all a horribly crude joke they are all trying to recover from.
"That's a perspective, Erik." Charles replies, "besides I rather it be me than you."
Oh, how unfair of you to say something like that.
Erik runs his free hand down his face in exasperation; eyes already memorized the details of Charles' smirk. They don't pull their hands back, they don't let go, not even when Charles makes the first move.
"Pawn to C4."
"An English Opening, Charles?"
While Charles' eyes seem to sparkle, Erik finally gives him what he wants, he smiles back at him in return. Something slow and sure, something wholehearted and flitting, and he doesn't understand why they always end up this way, but he isn't sure he wants it any other way.
XXX Kuro
I feel like a proud mommy despite admitting that nothing groundbreaking happens, nothing ever does in my fics! XD But thank you for reading! And I'll see you all on the flip side of xmfc2 because I think I might have drained all my resources for any and all xmfc fics! D: