Chapter Text
“To my knowledge,” Erik said softly, as he examined his hostage, “The only time people aren't scared of me is if they've come across worse. “And honestly, I didn't think there was much worse than me in this city. Curious, don't you think?”
Xavier's eyes flickered, jaw clenched. “Are you going to kill me?”
“The look on your face suggests you're asking me to.” He was missing something here—it was maddening. Ignorance tended to lead to losing. Then he saw the way the boy flinched every time it seemed someone else was approaching the room and it clicked. For a second, Erik could barely think through the sudden chill.
“What do you think your parents will say when they find out you've been kidnapped by the enemy?” He kept his voice light. “I'd be pretty irritated to have to haul some liability of a brat out of trouble.”
The boy flinched. Bingo. It didn't feel like a victory, though. More like an oh, shit.
“They'll find a way to blame you for this, I suppose,” Erik continued casually, making note of the way Xavier shifted uncomfortably in the chair, its metal arms wrapped around his wrists to prevent a wider range of movement. “But I'm sure you're used to that.”
He should have enjoyed watching the kid squirm, but instead he felt a knot forming in the pit of his stomach. Charles Xavier, Westchester's golden boy, more afraid of his parents than the mutant terrorist holding him hostage. If he let Xavier go, what exactly would he be going home to?
“They don't want me.”
Erik raised an eyebrow. Xavier's gaze was fixed on his own, firm and unwavering. “If you thought you could use me as leverage, you're wasting your time. My stepfather would much rather wait for you to kill me and claim my family's fortune for himself. Oh, they'll play their part,” Xavier added with a wry, bitter smile. “Pretend they've searched high and low, tried to negotiate, but they were just too late to save me. Such a terrible tragedy.”
Slowly, deliberately, the metal arms of the chair unwound from around Charles' wrists and settled back into their natural position. He rubbed his wrists, pushing his sleeves up as he did, and flinched again as Erik took a step towards him. “What are you doing?”
Honestly? Erik wasn't sure anymore. He wasn't even certain that the kid wasn't just playing him, giving him some sob story to make him drop his guard. But his body language didn't lie, and neither did the bruises circling Charles' exposed forearms.
“If you're going to stay here, you may as well make yourself comfortable,” Erik told him. “There's an adjoining bathroom there--” he waved a gloved hand towards the door to his right-- “and I'll find you something to wear to bed.”
Charles's brow furrowed, confusion clouding his ocean blue eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“You said yourself,” Erik shrugged. “There's no point in killing you. And there's no way I'm sending you back to the people who did that.” He gestured to the bruises on Charles' arm.
“So I'm your prisoner now.”
“For lack of a better word.” Erik turned, cape swirling around his ankles, and left the room before his expression could betray his emotions. A flick of the wrist locked the door behind him, leaving Charles confined to his room for the night. And when had he started referring to the kid by his first name? Erik shook his head. He should be more concerned with the fact that his plans were entirely shot to hell. He had a hostage that was worth nothing but an easy alibi for the parents he'd planned to blackmail, and worse, said hostage was a victim of abuse. He couldn't use him, couldn't let him go, not back to that, and he had no idea where to go from here.
Erik sighed heavily and removed his helmet as he entered his own bedroom, just next door to Charles' own. He needed a hot shower and a stiff drink, and then he'd check on Charles and drop off some clean pyjamas. One night, he told himself. He just had to get through one night, and everything would be clearer tomorrow.
~
It would have been easier if Magneto had just killed him. Charles had banked on his cruelty and lack of empathy to put them both out of their misery, but as it turned out, the man had a soft spot for victims of abuse. He'd managed to sleep through the night at least, oddly more at ease knowing there was a mutant terrorist down the hall that didn't want to kill him instead of a drunk, belligerent stepfather that could come bursting through his door at any moment.
There was no clock in the room, but the sunlight filtering through a gap in the wine coloured curtains told him it had to be at least mid-morning. Realizing that this meant there was, in fact, a window, Charles slipped out of bed and padded across the room to open the curtains and check the locks. The window slid open easily enough, but the fine metallic mesh blocking his escape was considerably stronger than any ordinary insect screen. The street below was entirely empty of people or vehicles, and the line of nearly identical low rise apartment buildings across the street told Charles he was probably housed in one of the same. Pulling the curtains shut again, he turned back to the sparsely furnished room.
There was the bed he'd spent the night in, sheets and duvet in charcoal and burgundy. Across from it, the door to the bathroom, and a compact, four-drawer dresser that currently contained yesterday's clothing and nothing else. Charles dressed slowly, studiously ignoring the chair that he'd been confined to for much of the previous night as he buttoned his shirt and shrugged on his favourite navy wool cardigan. This, at least, was a small comfort.
Charles glanced around the little room, his gaze falling on the closet adjacent to the locked, and still undisturbed, door. Three steps took him to the closet doors, which he unceremoniously flung open before peering inside. It was, as with the dresser, completely empty. Charles turned away with a sigh, closing the doors behind him. Mutant terrorist or not, he could have at least left Charles something to read. Charles pushed a stray lock of chestnut hair from his eyes and stalked back over the bed to straighten the comforter and smooth the creases in the charcoal grey pillowcase.
He was lying on his back on the bed, counting hairline cracks in the ceiling when the door unlocked with a sharp click, and his captor stepped into the room.
“It's about time,” Charles said, not bothering to sit up as he spoke. “Have you come to kill me?”
“I came to see if you wanted breakfast.”
Charles pushed himself up to a sitting position and crossed one leg over the other. “A last meal, then.” He willed his expression into a mask of indifference, despite the flicker of surprise at seeing Magneto in civilian clothing. Gone were the flowing cape and imposing helmet, and in their place he wore a simple black turtleneck and dark jeans. He was younger than Charles had originally assumed, and now, observing the angular, lightly stubbled line of his jaw and the unfurrowed youthfulness of his skin, Charles placed his age around nineteen or twenty.
“Tell me, do you have a death wish, or just a very low sense of self-worth?” Magneto asked dryly. “If you must know, I have no intention of killing you. Before or after breakfast.” He gestured to the open door. “Will you join me?”
Charles raised an eyebrow. “Seriously.”
“I'm always serious.”
Charles snorted. “That, I can believe. What I don't understand is why the great and powerful Magneto wants to dine with his lowly, useless prisoner.”
“First of all, stop acting like you're irrelevant. It's annoying. Second,” his captor continued, “If you're going to be staying here, you can call me Erik. Magneto is for the public. And third, you need to eat. I need to eat. I was hoping to streamline this entire process, but you seem to have a knack for making things difficult.”
Charles glared at him. Erik glared right back. After a long moment, Charles uncrossed his legs and stood up. “Fine,” he conceded. “But only because I'm bloody starving.”
~
They ate in silence, and the only sound assaulting Charles' ears was his own chewing and swallowing as he devoured the waffles and fresh strawberries placed in front of him. He knew Magneto—no, Erik, Charles reminded himself, was watching him the entire time, a small, amused smile playing at his lips, but Charles was too hungry to care. He didn't need to impress his kidnapper with his impeccable upper class manners, for God's sake. It wasn't until Charles had set his fork down, sated and scratching absently at the nape of his neck, that Erik finally spoke.
“I have to go out for a while.”
Charles merely shrugged, making a point of looking anywhere but at Erik. When it was clear he wasn't going to respond, Erik added, “You have the run of the apartment while I'm gone.”
“Such a gracious host.”
Erik's fist clenched on top of the table, and Charles smirked inwardly at the the ease with which he'd provoked him.
“Excuse me if these accommodations aren't up to your trust fund standards, kid.” He pushed his chair back and moved to collect the dishes.
“I'm not a child,” Charles stood as well, snatching his own plate before Erik could take it. “So don't call me 'kid' when you've probably barely got three years on me.”
Erik frowned. “How the hell old are you, fifteen?”
“Seventeen.” Charles pushed past him and put his plate in the sink, fork and knife clattering noisily against the ceramic dishware. “You should have kept your helmet on. It made you look like you might actually be over twenty.”
“I'll be twenty-one next month,” Erik muttered, and the look on his face told Charles that he knew exactly how juvenile that sounded. “Just...stay put. Don't do anything stupid. I'll be back in a few hours.” He dumped his own dishes into the sink and strode from the room, snatching a black overcoat from the coat rack in the hallway as he left the apartment. The door closed and locked with an audible click, and another slightly muted metallic sound that Charles assumed was the hinges and locking mechanism moulding into something completely inoperable.
“I'll just wait here, then,” Charles told the empty apartment.
~
It was late in the evening when Erik returned, pausing only for a moment in the doorway at the sight of Charles curled up on the couch under a purple throw blanket, a book in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. Charles barely spared Erik a glance as he leaned over to put the mug down on the coffee table and turned a page in his book.
“I see you've made yourself at home.”
Charles ignored him, his focus entirely on the book he was reading. Erik squinted at the cover, partially obscured by Charles' knees but easily recognizable as The Once and Future King. Recognizable, Erik realized, because he'd last seen it on the bookshelf in his bedroom. “Where did you get that?”
“Your room,” Charles replied without looking up.
Erik's hands balled into fists at his sides, but he resisted the desire to snarl at the boy. “You were in my bedroom.”
“Mmhmm.”
Fantastic. Communication had entirely devolved and his prisoner had ransacked his room. Why had he not thought to lock the door before he left? He forced himself to take a slow, steadying breath. He couldn't let Charles see that he was unsettled. “And did you find anything interesting when you invaded my personal space?” Erik gritted out, stalking over to where Charles sat.
To his credit, Charles didn't flinch. He merely closed the book and glared up at Erik, eyes sparkling with defiance. “First off, you kidnapped me. So if you want to talk about personal space, let's start there. And if you mean did I find my school bag in your closet, the answer is yes. I did, but my phone's dead and you don't have a Blackberry charger. I checked.”
Erik narrowed his eyes, but the kid didn't seem to be lying, and he was still here, drinking his tea and reading his book as if everything was completely fine. And, Erik supposed, it was. He started to turn away, but there was something else, something he hadn't noticed before that gave him pause. “You have something metallic on you. In you,” Erik corrected himself. “Tell me what it is.”
Charles bit his lower lip and rubbed the back of his neck, a move that to anyone other than Erik would have looked like a simple nervous tick. “Must be my metal filling.”
Erik reached down and took the book from him, tossing it onto the coffee table. “I won't ask again.”
Charles seemed to shrink into himself, his confidence deflated. “It's...it's nothing.”
“Then you won't mind if I remove it.” Erik raised a hand, fingers crooking as he felt the shape of the little metal chip in Charles' neck.
Charles' palm locked over the nape of his neck. “Don't—-please!”
Erik paused, but kept a tiny tendril of his power wrapped around the foreign object. Charles seemed to relax only slightly, as though he could feel Erik's grip loosen. When Charles remained silent, Erik gave the chip another tug, and Charles hissed through his teeth. “It's a neural inhibitor!” He blurted out, and Erik let go entirely this time.
“A what?”
Charles squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, pulling his knees to his chest. “A neural inhibitor. To stop me from using my powers.” At Erik's confused expression, he elaborated. “I'm a mutant. No one knows except my parents, and Trask Industries. They're the ones who created the implant.”
“You're a mutant.”
Charles nodded. This changed everything. Did it change everything? Erik wasn't certain of anything anymore.
“How long have you had that...thing in you?” His mind was racing. A mutant, and a telepath, no less, in his possession. Not some meek human bargaining chip, but a full fledged mutant, who had been suppressed and abused for--
“Seven years.”
That did it. He sidestepped between the couch and coffee table and sat down next to Charles, barely noticing when Charles pulled his feet in closer, and with them the blanket still covering his legs.
They sat there in silence for several minutes, Charles resting his chin on his knees and watching Erik work through this new information. He had to remove the inhibitor, obviously. It went against everything he stood for to allow a mutant to be subjugated like that. Add that to the other forms of abuse Charles had suffered...and yet. He was a telepath. If Erik removed that chip, Charles could and would leave him, and Erik wasn't yet ready to let him go.
Erik felt Charles shift beside him, but when he glanced over the kid froze and curled into himself again. “For fuck's sake, I'm not going to hurt you.”
Charles averted his eyes and didn't reply. Erik sighed inwardly. “I can remove that chip for you, if you want.”
“I'd rather you didn't,” Charles said quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because I'm a danger to myself and to others.”
“Is that what they told you?” Erik shook his head with a grim smile. “People fear what they don't understand Charles. You are a god among insects. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“Is that what you believe?” Charles uncurled ever so slightly, that familiar tone of defiance creeping into his voice. “You think you're some kind of god?”
“I think,” Erik answered, choosing his words with care, “that mutants are the the next stage in human evolution. And it's time that the world knew who we are, and what we can do.”
“Violence and bloodshed are not a solution, Erik,” Charles retorted. “I've seen how you present yourself to the world. You speak of mutant rights, when you really mean mutant superiority.”
“And what humans do is so much better?” Erik argued. “Identification, that's where it starts. Next they're convincing you that you're dangerous, and need to be subdued.” He gestured towards Charles' neck, and Charles flinched. “And it ends with being rounded up, experimented on, and eliminated.”
Charles' hand went to the back of his neck again, seemingly of its own accord. “That's not—I just wanted—”
“Wanted what, Charles?' Erik leaned forward, bracing a hand on Charles' knee. “To be normal? To blend in? We weren't made to be ordinary. You are not ordinary.”
Charles paled, his gaze dropping to Erik's grip on his knee. “Please,” he whispered. “Please just let me go.”
Erik narrowed his eyes, not sure if he was referring to Erik's hand, or his current situation. “Alright,” he said, releasing Charles' knee. “I'll let you go. If,” he added, cutting Charles off as he tried to speak, “you do something for me.”
Charles exhaled slowly. “What could you possibly want from me?”
“Permission to remove the inhibitor.”
“No. No, I can't.” Charles shook his head. “You can't ask that of me.”
“I can, and I have.” Erik stood and walked away towards his bedroom. “Let me know when you change your mind.” And you will, Erik added silently. You will understand what they've done to you.