Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Marvel does.

A/N: First let me think all of you for your wonderful reviews. :3 I honestly wasn't expecting so many, and you guys just blew me away. I'm thrilled you liked the story.

Anyway, this is just a few angsty drabbles that go with this universe that popped into my head. Hope you enjoy. Special note at the bottom.

Charles watches as Erik walks through the small field. They don't really have time for this, as far behind schedule as they are, and with their new charge in the back seat, ready to settled into Base. But the telepath can sense the underlying sorrow and need emanating from the thoughts he promised not to read. So when Erik suddenly pulled off the road, Charles had said nothing.

"What's he doing?" Their new recruit - Alex - asks, but it's more to himself and as such isn't answered.

Instead, Charles just watches as his friend, so dark and menacing and hating, kneels down and plucks a fragile red poppy from the ground, and cradles it in his hands. The fragment of a thought floats freely by Charles' mind, not aimed at him but not guarded, and he grabs at it gently.

Mother.

'Ah, Erik,' Charles' eyes slip closed as he takes a deep breath. 'Will there ever be peace for you, I wonder?'

But he does not ask, and Alex does not comment, when Erik returns to the car, flower safely in check, and continues their drive.

-X-

Out of everyone, Alex is the first one to ask (Alex, the same can't-get-over-Hank's-feet Alex), and he does so with such obliviousness and nonchalance that Raven is, for the first time she can remember, caught off guard.

"I-I'm blue," she stutters, pretty brown normal eyes wide as she stares at him. "It...it's not pretty."

"Yeah. So? It's normal though, right? For you?" He stares at her hard, his own blue eyes narrowed and daunting and somewhat encouraging. She can't stand it.

"No, Alex," she answers. "It's not normal." And she casts a look at Hank, who sits across from her, who looks away with a slight flush to his face that is either embarrassed or flustered. She doesn't know which, just that he looks away.

But Alex only cocks an eyebrow and huffs, before intoning, "Whatever," and returning to Darwin and their pinball game.

-X-

Their first night together, and it's with Darwin that Sean slips up with among their small group. Alex looks mean but Sean can tell something about him hurts, too. Hank is big (he towers over Sean like a skyscraper), but he's gentle and shy and makes Sean laugh with his lectures against hallucinogenic drugs. The girls are sweet and pose no problems at all.

But Darwin is loud. Darwin is tall (taller than Hank). Darwin has that world-weary look but it's not in a way that Sean can relate to. Darwin, Sean stays away from.

Except the pinball machine he and Alex have not left alone since they got there is right next to the refrigerator and the red-haired teenager is hungry. It's Alex's turn on the handles, but Darwin is pressed close and goading him and occupied so Sean thinks it's safe.

But Sean, in his determination to get to the refrigerator quickly, head down, misses when the other boy goes for it at the same time. All he sees is a big looming body and a hand coming at him, and his scream is loud and startled and shatters the game's covering and cracks the window.

"Sean?" He hears Darwin call, and he thinks that maybe it sounds a little confused, a little hurt, but he's already darting down the hall and gone.

-X-

Darwin looks at Angel's wings like they're the prettiest things he's ever seen. She smiles and preens at his attentions because he's different too, and she likes that. But then he looks into her eyes and her smile dims.

"What?" She demands.

"Nothing, sorry. It's nothing." And he laughs, trying to play it off, but she continues to scowl and after a few seconds of nervous shuffling he finally says, "You remind me of my sister."

He says it with a bright, shy smile, and it's all she can do to keep hers in place and flutter her wings as though complimented. She always reminds someone of someone else.

-X-

Hank pours over his notes while the others pour themselves glasses of alcohol. He doesn't ask where they got it, or whether they should have it, because as long as they don't acknowledge him he doesn't have to acknowledge that and then he can stay out of trouble.

But somehow Raven manages to drag him from the table and to a couch in the common sitting area, where she sits on one side of him, and Sean presses closer than necessary into the other (Hank says nothing. He's been in an orphanage and he knows that look). They're joking and laughing and Raven's trying to get him to drink and then Angel, smiling sweetly and totally unknowing, asks, "So, Hank. What does it feel like to not have to hide yourself?"

And he knows she means 'what does it feel like to be able to walk outside without shapeshifting or tattoos or the fear that you will hurt someone?', because even he knows that, compared to theirs, his mutation is relatively simple. But "hide" is still echoing and loud and he pushes Raven's hand of offered alcohol away with a little more force than necessary. It splashes.

"I wouldn't know."

-X-

Alex is sitting alone on the now-crumpled sofa, surrounded by now-crumbled walls and tapping his feet on now-shattered glass. He watches without moving as a group of uniformed men carefully extract items from the room - their room - piece by piece. His knee jitters as they slowly lift the pinball machine that groans in response.

There's a bit of dust clenched in his hand. Dust and dirt and soot, from where Darwin had stood and died.

Died, by Alex's powers.

"You need to move, son," a man says, tight-lipped and scowling. Alex stands and stares the man in the eye. It's dejavu and Darwin was his brother and this man is his dad and he wishes he was back in solitary.

"I'm not your son."

-X-

Erik stares out the window of their new establishment, uneasy and suspicious and eager to just be moving on already. Raven has just finished giving them her tour of the Xavier Mansion, and now they're in the library.

Charles disappeared somewhere in the beginning of it, begging off with one excuse or another, but now Erik can see him off in the distance, outside, kneeling on the ground in front of something he can't see.

"He's visiting his mother."

Raven's voice startles him, though he remains stoic as she leans in to look as well. "We haven't been home since Charles got accepted to Oxford. About six years ago, I think. If you ask, he'll tell you it's because he likes England more."

"How," he clears his throat, because this wasn't a commonality he had been expecting. The loss of a mother. "How did she pass?"

"That's a story you'll have to ask him for," she responds, and he can hear both the sadness and hardness in her voice. "And if you stick around after this is all over, and prove that you're not as big of a jerk as you come across, you can ask him about the room on the other side of the bunker, too."

She pulls away, and Erik keeps watching Charles.

A/N:

I overused Darwin and love Sean. Oh well.

Also, Paradox-Imagination mentioned in their review that they would love to read a multi-chapter Erik/Charles fic where they help the children deal with their pasts … I really love that idea (because it's Erik and Charles and the KIDS and I LOVE Erik and Charles and the KIDS), so I think I will be taking that on. (: It will posted as a new story, darker and more graphic and angst … and fluffy… maybe in a couple of days. Any opinions, thoughts, ideas, etc on that are also loved.

Otherwise, let me know what you thought? Please? (: