A/N: I have named the C.I.A. facility director in First Class Mr. Black since he is only credited as The Man in the Black Suit.
Waking, Erik stared at the ceiling. It was five in the morning, he usually woke around then. Just nine months ago he would have been figuring out his next step in finding Shaw, now he did not have that to focus his mind on. Erik had been adrift since Cuba. He had not realized when the reason he woke, slept, traveled and lived for the sole purpose of hunting down Shaw, was gone; it would leave him with nothing. What did he do now? It was a question that bothered him, a distinct feeling of being lost on a vast sea had been creeping over him ever since then. This morning it was very bad, a kind of melancholy that settled behind his eyes. Laying in bed for a good fifteen minutes, Erik finally found the motivation to rise. Making himself a cup of tea he sat down to have a morning cigarette. He watched as the tea leaves sank to the bottom of the cup. The silence he spent by himself every morning remained undisturbed. Erik had enjoyed the brief disruption of this routine when Charles had been in his life. Charles loved to talk, and was a morning person when he had someone to spend it with. Erik remembered those two weeks before Cuba when Charles would rise with him, complain it was too early, and they would talk the rest of the morning. Erik missed Charles, wished instead of Raven it was Charles there with him. He cut off this self indulgent line of thought, it did not do him any good. Charles and he were over, and would never see each other again.
Erik forced his thoughts over to the problem at hand, the other Mutants. It was a weekday, Erik worked the weekends and got days in the middle of the week off from the auto smelting factory. He needed to go check in on the other Mutants and find out why Emma couldn't get in contact with them. More than once Erik had had to remind them that defense was alright, but starting a war with the humans, six Mutants against billions, was insane. Dressing, Erik left Raven still sleeping, and using his abilities he locked the door behind him.
Everything was as usual on Angel's street as Erik walked up the steps of her building. A man wearing a blue felt hat pushed past him as Erik came to the hall with peeling paint. He knocked on Angel's door. After there was no answer after several more knocks Erik used his abilities to open the lock and went in. The place was quiet, everything looked like the occupant had left and there was a sign in the window advertising that the place was for lease again. Erik went over to the window and looked out on the street. Cars fresh off the assembly line in Detroit's auto factories lined the street, a white van with a green logo for a telephone company rattled down the road. Everything was as it should be, and yet Erik was uneasy. Exiting the apartment he went back down the uneven steps to the ground floor. Crossing the street to the flat Riptide was currently renting Erik once again had to open the flat with his abilities after no response and found things more or less tidy and as if Riptide had not been there for sometime.
Erik made his way to Azazel's on the other end of town, he was sure now that the other Mutants had gone off on their own. He walked along the street, passing cars, and a garbage truck, a few stray cats and dogs. Erik kept a slight eye on the larger dogs that were nosing through the trash piled in the mouth of the alleyways. He was approaching the building when a large white telephone van with a green logo caught his eye. Erik had never heard of the company before, but it was the same one as he had seen on the street outside both Angel's and Riptide's apartments. Was it following him, or keeping an eye on the homes of the other Mutants? Changing direction, Erik casually approached the van from behind. There was no one on the street at the moment, it was afternoon on a weekday. Quickly reaching out with his abilities, Erik threw the back doors to the van open, prepared to stop a barrage of bullets.
"Oh my god, Erik?" Moira MacTaggert turned in her seat in the back of the van, her grip on a camera tightening in surprise. "I don't know what you're doing here or how you found out about this." Moira put down the camera and reached out of the van, caught Erik's arm and pulled him into the back of it. "But get in before someone sees you."
Bewildered, Erik climbed into the van and Moira shut the doors. "What is going on?" Erik had thought for a second they might have been following him, and seeing Moira made him think the C.I.A. had not lost interest in Mutants. But Moira was not acting like she should. The last time they'd seen each other, she had been trying to shoot him and Erik had almost strangled her.
"That's classified," Moira said, picking up her camera again.
"Is this where you live?" the man who had only ever identified himself as Mr. Black said from the front seat of the van.
"You remember Black, he's my boss now." Moira gestured to him.
"Kind of, I mean yes, but I'm mostly her colleague, there are only the two of us in the new department after the downsizing." The man smiled at Erik.
"I thought you were dead?" Erik frowned a little confused.
"No, I'm alive." Mr. Black winced a little. "Broke several things but it wasn't that far of a fall."
"How did you know we were in here?" Moira demanded as she turned her camera, with its special attachment, back out through the spy hole that had been cut into the side of the van and disguised by the large green logo.
"Why are you here?" Erik was suspicious, "are you following Mutants?"
"Mutants, no, we're not following you," Moira said. "Frankly after whatever happened at Cuba, the agency hasn't been that interested in recruiting Mutants. Stryker is the only one still going on about that."
"What do you mean 'whatever happened in Cuba?'" Erik frowned.
"I can't remember anything that happened after Shaw's attack on the C.I.A. facility." Moira shrugged.
"Oh, can we please not talk about that, I still feel the ache when we do. I was lucky to have survived," Mr. Black pointed out.
"If you're not following Mutants why are you watching that building?" Erik asked, crouching in the back of the van with Moira.
"Erik please, you're not working for us anymore I can't tell you. Wait, are you saying a Mutant lives in that building?" Moira turned to the front of the van "This might be what he's after, I told you it was within our jurisdiction."
"I don't know, as far as I'm seeing he's just walking a fine line between communist dealings and not. I still think it's something outside of our jurisdiction."
"Well no one else will look into it, so we're just going to have to." Moira turned back to her camera again.
"Look into what?" Erik asked.
"Damn he's on the move again," Moira said. A man, in a blue hat, left the building and got into a car and left.
"You're following that man?" Erik remembered him from the hall in Angel's place.
"Yes, he works for a man I'm investigating. The past few weeks he's been knocking on doors in several different apartment buildings, but this week he's returned to just these three, so far," Mr. Black said.
"Sir, Erik doesn't work for us anymore," Moira reminded.
"Oh, damn, sorry, forget I told you that, not that it will do any harm if you don't. No one believes us, where the laughing stalk of the agency since whatever happened at Cuba." Mr. Black sighed.
"Drive before we lose him, Erik, sorry but you need to get out now. I just didn't want him seeing you or us and blowing our cover." Moira secured the equipment back in a box and gestured for Erik to exit the van.
"I think I can tell you where he's going next." Erik had a hot feeling stealing somewhere in his stomach, something like rage. If he was right, and he was sure he was, then that man was after Mutants.
"Where?" Moira asked.
Erik gave them the address to Emma's place. So far their van had been at all the Mutant apartments buildings. Moira and Mr. Black were following the man in the blue hat which meant that man was going to all the buildings where Mutants lived. It was suspicious and set off alarms for Erik.
Twenty minutes later they were outside Emma's apartment and the car for the man with the blue hat was idling on the street.
"He's here," Moira said.
"Looks like it," Mr. Black said, Erik moved to exit the van.
"Where are you going?" Moira asked.
"To take a look around, he is after Mutants, I would like to know why."
"No, you're not an agent, you almost started World War III in Russia, just stay put, we want to know what he's up to," Moira said.
"Like I said in Russia, I'm not C.I.A." Erik opened the back of the van and got out.
"Jackass," Moira muttered as she climbed out after him. She caught up to Erik on the sidewalk in front of the building. "Who lives here, why do you think the blue hat guy would come here?" Moira asked.
"What do you know about the man?" Erik countered as they reached the step, he did not want to mention Emma just yet.
"I can't-" Moira started but cut herself off as someone came out of the building. She grabbed Erik's arm and smiled and said "I think this might be the building honey, I can't wait to see the apartment." The woman and her child passed them without taking notice of them at all.
They went up the stairs to the floor Emma's apartment was on. Coming to the door quietly they listened, someone was moving around in there.
"Wait!" Moira said, but Erik flung open the door and entered the apartment. The man in the blue hat was stuffing hand full of white clothes into a trash bag. Broken glass and drywall were swept into the corner awaiting disposal, as if Emma left without the fight that had so obviously happened there.
"Where is Emma?" Erik demanded.
"Hold it," Moira pulled her gun out and leveled it at the man.
The man whipped out a gun of his own and fired several times at them. Moira took cover behind the door frame and Erik raised a hand. Charles had shown him how to access his powers without the anger but it was something he still struggled with. Right now he had enough anger to stop a bus. The bullets hung in the air a moment then dropped and scattered across the floor.
"Freeze!" Moira was holding her gun on the man again from around the corner of the door jam.
"Where is Emma, what have you done with her?" Erik moved forward. The guy was still staring dumbfounded at where his bullets should have hit Erik and Moira, apparently still stunned by the display of Mutant abilities.
"You're under arrest." Moira bullied past Erik, handcuffs at the ready, to take the man into custody.
"This is Emma's apartment, who has she been taken by?" Erik demanded from the man.
"I don't know anything, I was just hired to clean up the place, that's all," The man insisted, still in a state of shock over his bullets.
"You're coming with us." Moira glanced at Erik and added, "We need to get out of here before the police get here, they must have been called after that gun fire."
"It's Detroit," Erik pointed out as he helped Moira drag the man from the apartment, his hands cuffed in front with his coat over them. They walked the man in the blue hat back to the van and tossed him in the back before climbing in themselves.
"Wow, wow." Mr. Black squeaked, turning half around in his seat and looking into the back of the van.
"What are you doing going to these apartment buildings?" Moira questioned the man.
"I said, I was hired to clean them up, that's all, I have rights you can't just arrest me."
"You attacked a federal agent," Moira reminded the man who was trying to play innocent, but was sweating already.
"Attacked?" Mr. Black asked, confused from the front of the van.
"Where is the woman who lived at the apartment, the others from the other buildings, where are they?" Erik demanded his voice holding the edge of the intense rage burning inside him.
"I don't know," the man said, his blue hat askew now. Whether he was lying or not they couldn't tell, none of them were telepaths. It was yet another moment he missed having Charles by his side.
"Maybe we should take him back to the facility?" Mr. Black suggested as if wasn't sure.
"Facility?" the man with the blue hat asked, alarm in his voice.
"Yes, it's a terrible place, a government black site, off books, where no one can hear you scream." Erik put venom into his voice to frighten the man.
"What?" Mr. Black asked, startled then catching on added "Oh, yes, yeah, we do that."
"We know you're working for someone, who is it?" Moira demanded. "Why were you cleaning those apartments? This is your only chance before you get lost in a C.I.A. black site for the rest of your life."
"All I know is I was hired to take a device door to door, record who the device reacted to and later go back and clean up the apartment so it looked like no one lived there." The man babbled, believing Moira.
"Who do you work for?" Moira pressured.
"Trask," the man squealed.
"I knew it." Moira turned to her boss. "See I told you, Trask is involved in some kind of communist plot."
"But where do Mutants fit in?" Mr. Black asked. "Anyway, it's too high up, Trask is one of Stryker's friends, we'll never get anywhere with this allegation."
The man in the blue hat, scared, took his opportunity while his interrogators were all looking at each other. Clenching his fists together, fingers interlaced, the man with the blue hat swung them into the side of Erik's head and knocked him into Moira. Jumping out of the door, the man dashed into the open and was promptly hit by the garbage truck barreling down the street.
Moira and Erik jumped out of the van just in time to see it. "Damn it." Moira hurried over to the man lying prone on the street. Bending down she riffled through his pockets "I'll see if he has a wife's number to call." she explained as the garbage truck driver frantically dashing for a phone booth to call for an ambulance.
"Let's get out of here, Erik take his car and meet us at fifth and main." Moira handed Erik the blue hat she'd grabbed off the street, the keys to the man's car and his wallet.
Two minutes later Erik was following the telephone van in the car stolen from the man in the blue hat. Arriving at the meeting place Moira and Mr. Black got out of the van and climbed into the passenger and back seats of the car Erik was driving.
"Is he dead?" Mr. Black asked now that they had a moment.
"Alive, broken neck it looks like, if he lives he won't be able to talk. But he did have this." Moira showed Mr. Black a Trask Industries card with a time and place written on it.
"What does this Trask want with Mutants?" Erik asked, turned to Moira from the driver's seat.
"I don't know." Moira tapped the card against her fingers. "Sir, this meeting is tonight, we have to be there."
"What, no, oh no, I would love to but we barely had the budget for this van we can't possibly be at a meeting like this. It's too big for just two people, Unless…" He glanced at Erik and Moira eyed him too.
"Want to work for the C.I.A. again, as a freelance position?" Moira asked.
"Without pay," Mr. Black added. "Sorry, we don't even have a coffee budget for our department."
Erik didn't know who Trask was, but if he was interested in Mutants, "All right, what is the plan?"
"I'll get back to you on that," Moira said. "We'll meet at this bar, 8:00 tonight. Bring anyone else you know who might be useful, Raven, Hank, Charles, Alex, any of them. I'll tell you guys everything then." Moira quickly wrote the address of a bar on a page torn from her pocket notebook and handed it to Erik.
Once the green logo on the side of the van disappeared into the constant traffic Erik took a moment to think over what he'd just agreed to. There really hadn't been a plan, he had never thought to go back to helping humans again. It was as good as anything to find out who was hunting them now.
1962 - C.I.A. FACILITY - UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
"So, what can all of you do?" Mr. Black asked the group of Mutants, "Aside from lie." He threw at Hank who was standing awkwardly off to one side after having been revealed as a Mutant.
"Well," Charles said, "I'm a telepath, and my sister Raven, she can change her appearance." Charles didn't mention that the blonde form she was wearing wasn't her real form, he'd let Raven choose to say that or not, "And Erik I believe, can control metal."
"Really?" Hank asked, he was almost breathless with the excitement, just as Charles had been the night before when he'd met Erik.
"Yes." Charles smiled back.
"Okay, Hank, can you please show everyone to their rooms, and the cafeteria?" Moira asked. "I'll come by and get you for the conference call after we've debriefed the director on the Miami Bay situation. They'll want to hear some of it from you, I'm sure." Moira and Mr. Black left the three Mutants to Hank.
Bashful, excited, and chatting very fast about all the things he did in his job, mostly to Raven who seemed to have caught his interest, Hank took them each to different rooms in the onsite housing.
After getting himself settled, Charles came to Erik's room and leaned against the door frame. He'd been about to say something about how exciting it was to be there as part of a Mutant division. Charles paused when he saw that Erik had not unpacked at all, in fact he had his things sitting on the bed like they were ready to go. "Haven't unpacked yet, need a hand?" Charles asked.
"No," Erik said, he was sitting at the small table in the room and scratching something in a notebook.
"Well, I'm very excited about all this." Charles waved a hand around the room, meaning the other Mutants, and the C.I.A..
"How long do you think it will be until they call us?" Erik asked, putting the notebook aside.
"I've no idea." Charles shrugged. He sneaked a look at the book but it was being kept in a language Charles didn't easily recognize. German or maybe Polish? "You know, until I met you and Hank just in the last two days, the only other Mutant I'd ever met was Raven." Charles smiled a little. There was silence for a long moment and both of them seemed to feel it.
Charles spotted a chess set in the lounge across the hall. Wanting to connect with the other man Charles said, "Do you play?" Erik's eyes followed Charles's and he nodded.
"Yes, it has been a while. But I like playing."
"Splendid, no better way to pass the time than chess." Charles rose.
"I can think of a few," Erik said. Charles paused for a moment as he went to the door. The comment almost sounded- but it was obviously just a suggestive kind of joke, the kind men told each other when women weren't around. Charles had heard them plenty of times before, there was nothing in it.
Erik didn't smile, but Charles felt like he might be a little pleased with himself at the obvious falter he'd caused in Charles.
Going across the hall, Charles gathered up the chess pieces and board before returning to Erik's room. "Here we are." Charles set down the chess set and they chose sides. They were halfway through their game and enjoying themselves more than either of them had both thought when Moira came to get them.
The conference call was mostly people talking over Moira and telling Mr. Black he'd acted recklessly. At the end of the call Moira sighed a little, it was clear she was frustrated with the entire situation.
"Well if Shaw resurfaces we'll know, we have all his usual spots covered and our network is looking for him." Moira closed her file notes on the table in front of her.
"Good," Mr. Black said.
"You've a file on Shaw? I want to see it." Erik said.
"I'm sorry, that's classified," Moira said.
"I thought we worked for the C.I.A. now?" Erik leaned back in his chair. Charles frowned a little watching the exchange.
"Not at that level, you need clearance and you don't have it, Mr. Lehnsherr? Or is it Mr. Böttcher, or Mr. Clément? You seem to have a lot of names," Moira pointed out. She seemed a little testy after the call with the C.I.A. director.
"It's Lehnsherr." Erik was unfazed that he would not be allowed to see the file. Charles didn't like it, he felt like Erik was giving up too easily, and he was starting to get the sense that maybe the other Mutant had only come here because of that file.
"Go back to your rooms and we'll let you know what's next," Moira said.
Charles pondered over the exchange between Moira and Erik and also the dream he'd had the night before. Erik's dream about Shaw. When he paired that information with the hate, the rage so powerful it had punched into Charles's brain from where Erik was in the water, he felt like he understood something of what was happening. Shaw had, under some circumstance Charles was still working out, hurt Erik on some deep level that was still hurting even today. Erik wanted Shaw, the agony of what Shaw had done to him was still reverberated around the inside of Charles's mind. Erik's agony at losing the chance to stop Shaw, to avenge himself on Shaw, that too still echoed there.
Charles was annoyed, he was now sure that the only reason Erik had even said yes to coming with him to the C.I.A. was so he could have access to the Shaw file and use that information to find the man again. It annoyed Charles because the first other adult Mutant he'd met would simply leave, and it was a waste, and a shame to split the very small group up. Erik, if he stayed, could do so much good for Mutants, for himself. Charles needed help, the help of other adult Mutants to get the program off the ground. Raven was his sister, and only really there because Charles was. Hank was just a kid and had no experience out in the world, Charles wanted someone his own age, his own gender, his own… someone like Erik to help him.
Charles made up his mind and went to the front of the building. It only took him waiting there ten minutes before Erik exited the building. Charles stopped Erik with a on the walk with a few words. Said his bit, then went back to his room. If Erik stayed they'd have a chance to build something great. To help Mutants, to help the government, to stop Shaw. To form a friendship that Charles was beginning to think had a real chance. If Erik didn't, well Charles would just have to figure it out on his own.
...
Erik paused a long minute after Charles had gone back into the building. He had the file and could leave, going on with his half formed plan. Hadn't he only agreed to come there so he could get the file and find out where Shaw might be next, since he was out of leads. He looked back at the door where Charles had vanished. It was supposed to be just Erik against Shaw, but on the boat Shaw had had help. Maybe Charles was not wrong when he said Erik could use some friends. Erik hadn't had friends in a long time, he had been a boy the last time he'd a friend. Erik knew that deep down finding Shaw had to be the driving force, the first reason he did anything. But no one had wanted him, asked him to stay for such a long time. Maybe, maybe if he stayed there would be some value in it. In a friendship, in knowing these other Mutants, his own kind. Erik had not been part of a group of any kind for a long time. It was not something he had even realized he wanted until it had been offered.
He hesitated a moment longer then walked back into the building.