Magneto carried himself aloft in the sky, using his powers to control the magnetic fields around him and fly as fast as he could to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. He'd returned home from a long trip to the Gulf of Mexico not long ago to find several frantic messages on his answering machine from Mystique, begging him to come to the mansion. All he could glean from them was that there had been some kind of accident involving Kurt and Storm.
He didn't have the slightest idea why Charles hadn't contacted him telepathically about it. A terrible thought came to him... perhaps Charles was involved as well? He tried not to think of the chaos he might find awaiting him at the school, instead keeping himself calm and focused on the mission at hand, whatever it may be.
He landed quietly on the drive of the mansion, scaring a few children playing outside. He found the house quite intact, thank goodness. No one seemed in a panic, no alarms, no screaming. Confused, he used his power to swing open the doors. He marched inside and looked around at all of the startled teenagers.
Peter was among them, about halfway through eating a popsicle. He stared at Erik, dumbfounded, the popsicle hanging out of his mouth as he bent down, frozen in the act of tying his shoelaces.
Peter's presence barely registered to him. "Mystique?" he called out. She didn't answer.
He rounded the corner to see Charles's office door closed. It meant that it was occupied, and Charles was presumably inside.
He held out his hand and whipped the double doors wide open with a dramatic flourish. Kurt and the Professor both looked up in shock.
"I am very tired of people barging in here as if they own the place," Charles grumbled.
"Well," said Erik as he walked into the room, "I did help you rebuild it."
Erik saw that Kurt was certainly not in immediate danger, apart from a bruise on his face and a cut on his lip. "What are you doing here?" he asked in their native German. "Are you hurt?"
Kurt looked down at his feet, mute. Erik noticed his navy blue skin looked paler than normal. His eyes looked hollow and worried... more worried than usual, at least.
"He's fine," said Charles. He held his finger to his temple, briefly scanning Erik's mind. "The crisis was averted quite a while ago, you can leave now."
"And Storm?" he asked, confused.
"As I said," replied the Professor, the patience in his voice wearing thin, "Everything is fine."
Erik nodded and slowly retreated. As he was about to exit the office, he turned back, facing Charles halfway.
"As long as I'm already here, Charles," he began hastily, "there was actually something I wanted to speak with you about."
"Erik..."
"It's all right, Professor," Kurt interjected. "I was about to leave, anyway." He stood and gave him a long look before speaking again. "Thank you for telling me... about everything..." he accidentally glanced at Erik, then back at the floor. He disappeared in a burst of smoke.
With a flick of his wrist, Magneto closed the doors and walked back to Charles's desk.
Charles leaned back in his wheelchair and sighed deeply. "Today has been exasperating. I would really rather have a bit of time to myself, if you don't mind."
"This won't take long at all," said Erik, sitting at a chair next to the desk. Feeling his chance to reveal his plan slipping through his fingers, he tried to keep his voice as cool as possible.
"I already know what you're going to say," said Charles. "And it's ridiculous."
Erik blinked. Of course he would have seen it while reading his mind. He knew he should have brought his helmet with him.
"It's not ridiculous, Charles," he said, a bit defensively. "It could work. I've been scouting the island for months, and-"
"You have to be kidding me," said the Professor, shaking his head. "You're planning on taking over an island in the Gulf of Mexico so that you can make your own country for mutants?"
Erik shifted a bit in his seat. Things were already not going well. "It's not exactly conventional, I'll have to admit," he explained, "but similar things have happened in history. And those instances went through years of bloodshed and war. There'd be no conquering involved. No killing. It's uninhabited, and in international waters. Really, how much different is it than what you do here, at your school?"
Charles laughed. "Quite a bit, because I haven't crowned myself king."
Erik felt anger rise in his throat, but he tamped it back down again. "That's not how it's going to work," he said, "there will be a democratically elected council, once it's inhabited, of course. We'll establish trade with other countries." He unconsciously held up his chin with a bit of smug pride. "I've already worked out a trade deal with the Mexican president."
Charles stared at him blankly, unimpressed. "You've gone completely barking mad, haven't you? How much did you have to threaten him? Who did you kill?"
He smirked. "My reputation precedes me. I barely had to lift a paperclip for him to take me seriously."
"And what is it you want from me, exactly?"
"Well... the island needs infrastructure, obviously. And as skilled as I am with architecture, I don't think I could plan out everything it needs by myself. I need engineers, agriculture specialists, all kinds of things, if I'm to do this correctly. That kind of help isn't cheap. Not to mention it will need currency anyway..."
"And you think I'm going to write you a check, don't you?" Charles rubbed his forehead. "I suppose I should be glad you're asking me, and not doing anything illegal, but the fact that you'd even think of such an absurd idea worries me."
Erik leaned forward earnestly in his chair, his politeness gone. "I have a once in a lifetime opportunity to do the same thing you're doing; making the world a better place for mutants to live. Think of it. A country built for mutant citizens, established peacefully through civil and diplomatic means, could set a shining example to the world that mutation is truly the next step in human evolution! And you could be part of it, Charles!"
"I'm trying to make the world a better place for mutants and humans to live together," he corrected him. "Financing a country built only for mutants would undermine that mission. Not to mention I don't think I have that kind of money to throw around. I'm not made of it, you know."
"Of course not. That's why you own an underground training facility, and a machine that can find any living person in the world, and a jet-"
"I get the point, Erik," huffed Charles. "I'm still not going to have anything to do with this project."
He leaned back and glared at him with cold, blue eyes. "You don't trust me, do you?"
Charles turned his wheelchair around to pick a stray paper off the floor. He said nothing.
"You don't think I can keep myself from using violence to get what I want. That's it, isn't it?" He stood up slowly. "You don't want your name associated with something of mine, something you think is bound to ruin your precious school's image."
Charles sat with the paper in his lap. "As you said," he turned around to face him again, "your reputation precedes you."
"After everything I've done for you..." he seethed.
"Shall I make a list?" Charles retorted. "Because I can make a longer one of the things you've ruined. Including my sister's life."
Erik paused. "I came here prepared to save her son."
"Did you know she was pregnant with him when you threw her out on the street?"
He unconsciously clenched his fist and all the metal in the room rumbled just slightly. "You must look at this through my perspective, friend," he whispered with venomous sarcasm. "Imagine the love of your life cheating on you, sleeping with another man right under your nose. What, precisely, would you have done?"
"I don't give a rat's arse about your perspective," he replied. "Answer my question."
After a long moment, Erik sat back down, relaxing his grip. "No. I didn't know she was pregnant."
Charles put a finger to his head again, telepathically checking to make sure he was telling the truth. Without removing his finger, he asked, "If you had known, would you have done it anyway?"
Erik gave him a sudden, disgusted glare. "That's none of your business," he muttered, then marched out of the Professor's office, magnetically flinging the doors open and slamming them shut.
Erik fumed inwardly, cursing himself for blowing his chance, and Charles for being an ungrateful, stingy prig. As he neared the front door, he heard a small whoosh from behind him. He turned to look. There was nothing there but the same teenagers as before, going about their business as usual.
"Hey, Mags," said Peter, suddenly standing between Erik and the door, an empty popsicle stick in his mouth. Erik jumped back and rolled his eyes. "Can I call you that?" he continued.
"No," he replied flatly, reaching for the door handle. Before he could open it, Peter zipped behind him, holding his head for support, and rushed them both faster than the speed of sound out of the doorway and into a field several miles away.
As Peter slowed down, a horse grazing nearby started and whinnied at their sudden appearance, then galloped away. Erik bent over and dry heaved a bit.
"Oops. Sorry about that," said Peter. "You didn't just eat, did you?"
"What's the meaning of this?" he asked through his tremendous headache and nausea. Being carried by Peter going full speed was like being crushed by a thousand pound rock for a second.
"Well," he said, chewing on the end of the popsicle stick, "I was kind of eavesdropping on your conversation with the Professor just now, and I was wondering... why couldn't you just, you know, rob Fort Knox or something?"
Erik stared at him for a moment, not comprehending his sentence, then stood up straight. "Because, Peter," he replied with a bit more dignity, "I'm trying to establish my dream without resorting to crime. I've done enough dragging my own name through the mud. Not to mention, Fort Knox, along with every other place worth guarding, has invested in those infernal new plexiglass guns presumably because of me."
"Bummer. I guess you'll just have to ask another millionaire, huh?"
Erik gave him an indignant look. He could tell by Peter's cheeky smirk that he had something up his sleeve.
Peter shrugged and pretended to think. "What if nobody's name had to get dragged through the mud? What if... some random guy were to suddenly come across a whole bunch of money and then give it to you as a gift?" He flipped his popsicle stick into the grass. "Hypothetically, of course."
"Then, I suppose it would be hypothetical money laundering," Erik said. "And it would get both parties in a huge amount of hypothetical trouble if he was caught."
Peter's smirk turned into a smile. "This guy has never been caught."
Erik turned around, mulling over the idea. He watched a flock of birds soar past overhead. "Why would you want to help me again? You've already broken me out of prison, and out of Apocalypse's clutches."
He glanced behind him. Peter picked at a tall blade of grass. His mischievous smile was gone, his white eyebrows furrowed in a thoughtful frown.
After a long pause, Peter spoke. "Because... I believe in what you're trying to do for mutantkind. I mean, who would turn down the chance to help start a new country, right? Sounds awesome."
Erik smiled. "It will be 'awesome' Peter, in the truest sense of the word." He turned around and held out his hand. "I will gladly accept your generous donation."
Peter looked up at him, slightly stunned, then shook his hand vigorously. "Cool! Great!" he said, a little breathless. "Ok, so I'm thinking the Federal Reserve branches in New Orleans, Houston, and Miami are the ones closest to the Gulf of Mexico. Don't ask me how I know that. And if I knew exactly where the island was, I could figure out the closest one to rob and then-"
Erik put up his hand. "I can give you the coordinates, Peter, but honestly, the less I know about your plans, the better. Just in case."
"Right," Peter nodded, "Just in case." He made a zipping motion across his mouth and threw away an imaginary key.
"Fantastic. Now... where on Earth are we?" Erik looked around him at the vast expanse of field on every side.
"Pound Ridge," said Peter, scratching the back of his head and squinting at the sunlight. "I think."
"You think?"
"It's fine," Peter said reassuringly, putting his hand behind Erik's head again, "We'll just go back the way we came."
"No, Peter, I-" before he could finish his sentence, they were back outside the mansion once again. He felt something sour rise in his throat. He let out a ragged breath and forced himself to swallow it back down.
"I was about to say," Erik explained, leaning on a tree, "I could figure out my way home. But thank you... I suppose."
"No problem," said Peter, scooting closer to him. "So... what about those coordinates?"
Peter walked slowly through the lawn, feeling the dew spray against his ankles as he disturbed the grass, listening to the sound of children playing a game of soccer nearby. It was a feeling he wasn't used to. The world was like molasses, like it was stopping him from moving forward, but he knew it wasn't the world's fault. It was his.
Right now, looking at the numbers scribbled on a piece of paper in his hand, he should have been planning his grand heist, but all he could think about was what he hadn't said to Erik.
He willed himself to speed up and time slowed down around him. His world went silent and still. He bent down, scooped up a cricket jumping in midair, then played with its outstretched legs like a tiny action figure.
It would have been so easy to tell him. Just a few words would have done it. Erik, you're my dad. I'm your son. Or even, Hey, do you remember that woman named Isabelle from a few decades ago? Yeah, you knocked her up. Surprise!
Sadness quickly dissolved his sarcastic thoughts. He knew in his heart he couldn't have admitted it. He was a self-professed loser. An idiot. A mooching bum who had only just moved out of his mom's basement at the age of almost 30. Why would one of the most important, influential mutants in history want someone like him as a son?
He wouldn't, and Peter knew it.
He had to prove to Erik that he was worthy of the position. He'd help him found his new country, and then maybe he'd be proud enough to welcome him into his life with open arms.
His resolve strengthened, he dropped the cricket and almost ran somewhere out of the Professor's telepathic reach to complete his plans when a thought stopped him.
He couldn't do it tonight. He'd promised Nightcrawler a birthday party weeks ago.
He let his powers dissipate, the world returning to normal around him. The shouts of the soccer game resumed, the little cricket jumped away. He walked regular-speed up the steps of the mansion. If he had to put his grand scheme on hold, it would be to strategize the most amazing party any of the X-Men had ever seen.