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There were a lot of things Charles was expecting as fallout from the Washington DC incident. One of them was not finding Pietro Maximoff lounging on his desk, looking through his books.
“How did you get here?” he demanded.
“Snuck on a plane,” Pietro said. “Ran from the airport.”
“That's illegal, you know,” Charles muttered. “What do you want?”
“I want,” said Pietro, drawn out so that Charles could understand, “to know where Erik is.”
“Erik,” Charles repeated. “Why do you want to know where Erik is?”
“Why wouldn't I?” Pietro asked. “I mean, it's not like he moved an entire stadium and plopped it down in the middle of DC and tried to assassinate the president or anything like that. After I rescued him from jail.”
“You saw,” Charles said.
“The whole world saw,” Pietro said. “It was excellent TV. I barely even moved.”
Charles looked Pietro up and down. He still looked the same as he had when he'd been breaking into the Pentagon, all weirdly silver hair topped with goggles and a garish silver jacket, even by the standards of current fashion trends.
“What are you really here for?” Charles asked. “Is it about the school?”
“I don't need school,” Pietro said. “I know how to use my abilities. I thought you would've noticed that? But here's the thing—my mom once knew a guy who could control metal. She met him a long time ago, and then he was gone. Never turned up again. I thought, maybe that's why I can do what I do, why my sister can do what she does. But where am I gonna meet a guy like that? And then you come along and ask me to break this random guy out of prison, and turns out he can use metal. And how many guys in the world can do that?”
He hadn't even paused for breath. Charles wondered how he did that. “What makes you think I can find him?” he asked. “He disappeared.”
“Please,” Pietro said, rolling his eyes. “I know what your power is. You can get into peoples' heads. You can find him.”
Charles sighed. “What if he doesn't want to be a father?”
“I don't want a father,” Pietro said, quickly.
“What I mean is, what if he isn't fit to be a father?”
“I don't need a father,” Pietro said. “I'm fine. My family is fine. Why would I want a father who tried to kill the President, anyway?”
“Because you think it's cool,” Charles suggested. “That he could.”
“It is pretty cool,” Pietro admitted. “But I just want to know, you know?”
Charles studied Pietro for a moment. Thought about getting inside his head. If he just pushed a little--
“Why haven't you done it?” Pietro asked.
“Done what?”
“What you want,” Pietro said. “Get inside my head, if you think it'll help.”
Charles sighed and went for it. Pietro's thoughts were a mile a minute, and it was hard to grab onto one and follow it to its conclusion. After a few seconds Charles stopped trying.
“I can find him for you,” he said. “Just, if he disappoints you, don't blame me.”
“I won't,” Pietro said.
“He will,” Charles added. “Disappoint you. He always does.”
“And you always give him another chance,” Pietro said. Before Charles responded he flitted out of the room. A few seconds later he heard him calling from down the hallway, “So I heard you have a brain machine!”
Charles sighed and followed him out.