Hours later, Erik returns to the room with a tray of food. Charles is dozing fitfully, trying to get into a comfortable position in his chair on the other side of the room. Like this, he looks small, much unlike the forceful presence he puts forth to the world. The existence of the powerful mind inside the slight body curled in on itself is difficult to believe.
Deflecting the bullet away from himself … a scream from Raven, and a choked cry from Charles … turning .. falling … hitting the sand …
He himself doesn't understand why he's doing what he is.
After putting the tray down, Erik closes his hand into a fist. Metal from the wheelchair's arms snake around Charles' wrists and close around them. He does not bother with the ankles. "What-!" Charles wakes up and releases a startled gasp.
In a few long strides Erik is across the room and leaning over him, grasping his chin and looking carefully at his face. Charles' features are too boyishly soft to be considered handsome, but there is something indescribably charming and charismatic about him when he chooses to exercise his considerable talents.
Charles tries to twist away but bound as he is, fails. His hands clench on the wheelchair and he shuts his eyes to avoid Erik's examining gaze.
"How long are you planning to keep me here?" he snaps through gritted teeth.
Erik releases him. "Well, that depends on your cooperation."
"Raven-"
"She's on a mission for me and won't be back for some weeks. The others, if not entirely approving, won't interfere."
"Are you putting her in danger?" Charles demands furiously.
"We all knew the potential consequences when forming the Brotherhood." Erik goes over to the tray and wheels it over.
"Is that what the Brotherhood does? Send children to fight? For God's sake, Erik-"
"She's not a child," Erik retorts coldly. "That assumption was your mistake and why she chose to come with me instead of stay with you."
Charles bites back a response, miserably recognizing the truth of Erik's statement.
Despite his attempts to plan his next move, Erik has spent the last few hours thinking and has come to the conclusion that, in some way, he is in almost as deplorable a condition as Charles must be.
It is as though Charles can read his mind, as he laughs softly in a bitter tone. "Am I causing a hitch in the Almighty Magneto's agenda? Is that why he's come to punish the erring mortal with remembrances of failure?"
"You're doing this to yourself," Erik returns evenly.
"Allow me to differ from that biased opinion. You're absconding from responsibility again," Charles reprimands, in a nearly normal voice. "Do you think, even if you succeed in what you want, there won't be a human weapon who rises up against your tyranny, your persecution of his kind, much as yourself?"
"Don't presume to lecture me," Erik warns, the metal tray beneath his fingers twisting frightfully. An apple rolls precariously to the edge, and the milk in a bowl of cereal sloshes over the side.
Charles grins, a ghostly and chilling remnant of his usual warming smile. "Come on, then. I'm obviously unarmed, while you've seen to having the entire room at your disposal. I can't fight back. Isn't that the kind of victim you want, you bastard?"
There are thousands of men on those ships. Good, honest, innocent men.
Erik flushes with anger. His righteous crusade is being turned into mere bloodlust. The metal of the wheelchair writhe around Charles' wasted body, a handle even wrapping around his throat, before Erik regains control of himself and recognizes the edge of desperation underlying Charles' words.
Erik laughs, the sound echoing dully in the room. "Good try, Charles. You can't goad me into doing what you want."
Found out, Charles goes white. "God, Erik," he says in a ragged whisper. "You don't know … you don't know what you're doing to me. There is nothing, nothing ..."
"I'm sure only you can appreciate the full experience, but do let me know how it goes," Erik replies in a clinical tone, in an unaware mimicry of Shaw's professionalism. He bends down to ensure that the wheelchair is put back in proper order.
Freed, Charles leans forward and spits in his face. "You didn't kill Shaw, you meglomaniac. You're his living embodiment, his greatest success."
Before he can stop himself, the child who watched his mother die rebels against this assertion and wins over the adult who overtly agrees with it, and Erik's arm lashes Charles across the face. Charles reels, the wheelchair almost tipping over before it and his head slams into the wall behind him.
I don't want to hurt you … don't make me!
The wheelchair is still tottering and finally falls over, taking with it Charles, who is too dazed to even instinctively protect himself when he hits the floor.
The wheels on the chair spin idly.
The memory of grappling for the fate of the men on the ships on the beach, gaining the upper hand, striking the weaker body struggling under his—Erik, stop!-until Charles' head snapped to the side, becomes more real than the metallic room where he is standing lost and afraid. Erik steps back shakily and surveys the damage, his hand reaching out involuntarily.
I'm so sorry ... I-I said back off!
/
Several more weeks pass dully, and the phantasmal pain gripping Erik is almost ever-present, like the weight of the helmet on his head, even when he's not in the same room with Charles. He doesn't need the helmet now, actually, and it would be a material relief to have it off, but he finds himself placing it on his head every day, as though he's going to battle.
Magneto schemes of mutant supremacy; his latest project has Mystique gone with Frost to quietly sound out what the higher-up humans were thinking and contriving after the missile debacle. Azazeal is with them to be able to spirit them away should anything go amiss. Riptide and Angel have gone scouting for other mutants Shaw earlier had come across, to persuade them to join the better side of the coming war.
Erik thinks of Charles. As time wore on, the man had tried a few more tactics. Screaming is not an option; the outer walls behind the metal are soundproof, and before leaving Frost had ensured that the few doctors and nurses in the building do not come near his room; they do not even question Charles' sudden disappearance from his bed. The long-term mental implant had been a taxing and time-consuming effort for Frost, but she had known enough not to question his reasons. Now they don't even see him coming and going.
She doesn't particularly care for the idea of two operating telepaths—one is superfluous. She's taken care to be useful to Magneto—her side mission is to block, frustrate, and otherwise thwart 'Moira and friends' efforts to find Charles when, inevitably, they look to the government for resources.
Magneto is the only one remaining at this little island hideaway. He tells the others it's because his powers were so prominently on display, with the lifting of the submarine and the turning of the missiles, that he ought to recuperate as well as allow the humans some deceptive breathing room.
Charles had tried to starve himself, but Erik quickly put a stop to that when he noticed the increasing pallor of the other man's skin and the protrusion of his bones where the thin pajamas fell against his originally slim, now almost emaciated, body. He had force-fed him, brutally when necessary. It had seemed to work; a few days later, he recognized the smell of vomit in the sink.
Mutely defiant at first, Charles had broken down after Erik had taken the opportunity to remind him that Moira and the little school of mutants were increasingly becoming a nuisance with their blatant inqueries on Charles' and thus Erik's location. They could, he tonelessly reminded Charles, become casualties in war
In truth, he doesn't know if he could bring himself to harm the little group, faltering already without their kindly leader. But Charles doesn't know what Magneto won't do anymore.
Today he finds a fully clothed Charles slumped in the shower, open-eyed, the water running, running like a sheet of clear, flexible metal over him. Erik reaches over and switches off the shower head. The blank expression on Charles' face doesn't suit him—he is always alert and searching.
Many times in the last few weeks Erik has questioned himself, his quest. And so often he has wanted to go back a time when he and Charles were not at odds, when he had been part of a family, laughing as Banshee attempted to fly. Havok's attempts to direct his destructive energy were less amusing in nature, but still evoked smiles. So few memories he had of those moments, so very few, yet each one worth remembering, like those he had of his mother.
But invariably he lets the fear and isolation he felt under Shaw's clinical treatment take over, sharpening and hardening into an irresistible pride in his own kind's superiority and the need to secure the continuance of the species.
Charles had only said aloud what Erik already knew and thought he had accepted. Erik has for all intents and purposes become Magneto, and Magneto is Shaw's creation.
But there is an inexorable part of Erik that has come to need Charles, even when he knows that what he wants is falling through his fingers the harder he tries to hold it.
/
One morning, as Erik enters and his eyes sweep the room through habit, he realizes that the wheelchair and room are empty. It's impossible, but he can't deny the evidence of absence directly before him. He is too shocked to even recognize the air whistling as Charles swings the heavy metal tray into his back. Erik stumbles forward, grunting in pain as he hits the ground; the metal helmet has no padding. Bright lights explode in his head. Stunned, he dimly realizes Charles has thrown the door open and then managed to pull off his helmet, hitting him again to ensure that he will stay down.
Through dangerously wavering vision he only then understands what he sees when claw-like hands drag him onto his back. Charles is precariously standing over him holding the helmet, chest heaving, sweat dampening his hair. "I should kill you-" Charles hisses, pale face flushed with exertion and righteous fury.
The helmet seems to fall down toward him, and Erik is too dazed to block it. Then abruptly everything coalesces into silent darkness.
Charles staggers out the door, bloodstained metal dragging at his fingers.
/
Author's note: I had a few questions about Charles "staggering" out the door. So, in this story, the doctors' verdict was that Charles MIGHT walk again. During his imprisonment, Charles has secretly been regaining the use of his legs as a hidden card up his sleeve while Erik thought he had the upper hand; then Charles stages his desperate escape attempt.
/
When Mystique and Frost return to the remote island hospital to rest and make their report to Magneto, they are greeted with absolute quiet. Having grown to depend on each other despite a continued mutual coolness of personal feelings, Mystique changes into her lovely blond persona and nods to the icily beautiful Frost to examine the situation. Azazeal walks at her elbow, blades at the ready as Mystique switches on the lights.
Bodies slumped in the hallways alert them them to obvious fact that something is very wrong. "They're just unconscious, for a day at least," Frost informs her wary companions. "Don't worry for now; there are no hostile persons here."
"Where are Magneto and Charles?" Mystique inquires in worry, glancing around. Relaxing, she turns back into her blue form as she and Azazeal look into the rooms.
Frost concentrates again, then frowns. "The telepath's trademark signal is all over this place but he himself isn't here."
"Charles did this?" Mystique demands in disbelief. "He must have been frightened—defending himself-"
Frost shrugs elegantly. "Whatever happened, it was powerful, and apparently Xavier didn't care about leaving strong traces of mental tampering,"
On her regular questioning on Charles' condition, Magneto had tersely given the same answer: since her departure Charles had slipped into a temporary coma, but the doctors were sure he would wake up soon. Soon had become weeks and then a few months, and Raven wanted to come back, even for a moment, with Azazeal, but Magneto had ordered her to remain so as not to alert any surveillance that might be following them.
Raven couldn't fathom what could have caused Charles to assail these people. Maybe he had woken up and been disoriented—and where was Magneto?
"There're something ... conflicted ... dark ... at the end of the hallway," Frost comments a little uncertainly as they venture further into the hospital. "I think … it's Magneto."
Raven breaks into a run, but skids to a stop at the partially open doorway, somewhat afraid of what she'll discover. She steels herself, however, and pushes the metal door open.
Inside there are, peculiarly enough, sheets of metal on the walls, and she vaguely notices that the door locks from the outside. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, and she sees the glint of Magneto's helmet thrown haphazardly. Then … Magneto is lying on the floor, so still that when Raven drops to her knees to hurriedly check his vitals, she almost misses the slow rise and fall of his chest. There is a small pool of blood underneath his head, trailing from a cut on his scalp.
"The telepath's handiwork again," Frost says, walking up behind Mystique.
Azazeal grunts. "Xavier's wreaked some impressive havoc here while we were away."
In panic Mystique gestures for Frost to come closer. "Can you do anything?"
Frost closes her eyes and concentrates. "It'll take a few days for him to wake up, if he's lucky; it feels like Xavier just blasted his mind—but not at full power, otherwise, he wouldn't be alive at all."
Mystique's lips tremble and tears trickle down her face as conflicting fury heats in her breast. "Charles—why would you do this!"