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ERIK
There was a lot happening at once, although Erik tried not to react to everything just yet, keeping the mix of emotions going through him inside. He was being freed from that damned prison after years, he'd be able to see the sun again, the outside world — he would be able to feel metal again, to not feel like the whole world was gone. The first feel of metal against his senses felt like a weight being lifted from his chest, allowing him to breathe again.
There was also Charles, who he thought he'd never see again. Charles Xavier, whose hair was longer now, unkept, and whose eyes were bruised with dark shadows, blue eyes not shining like they used to when they first met eleven years prior. Charles Xavier, who punched Erik immediately upon seeing his face, who almost snarled at him that he'd never go inside Erik's head again. Once, Erik remembered telling Charles to stay out of his head, warned him; now, he wanted to almost beg for Charles to do it, to feel that familiar presence of the telepath's mind against his, comfortable and swift like Charles had always been. He knew he could never ask for it.
And then there was also the guards, and Erik trying to do it Charles' way, letting Charles do it without violence for once because he'd be damned if he upset Charles by trying to be violent — they had just met again, he still had hope Charles' eyes wouldn't be so hard on him soon. There was Charles saying he couldn't control the guards, Erik's eyes falling over him with confusion as part of his mind gave him the meaning of those words: Charles had no telepathy anymore.
There were guns pointed at them, there was the need to attack and, above all, keep Charles from getting hit by the bullets. God forbid he allowed that to happen twice around him. There was a hand on his chest, Charles telling him to stop, and then there was sudden silence.
The metal around Erik stopped rattling as he noticed the guards putting their guns down and sitting on the ground, a glassy look on their eyes that Erik knew meant there was telepathy involved. Maybe Charles had lied, it was the only explanation he could find.
And then, running through the wet ground and almost slipping many times, dodging the sitting guards, a child came running. That, of all things, made Erik stop completely.
"Oh, nice," the white-haired boy who had taken Erik from his cell said, pulling up the goggles he had put over his eyes. Erik hadn't seen him put those on. "You never said the little guy was that powerful. That's awesome- and very scary. Does he control you when he doesn't want to eat and is throwing a fuss? Lorna would kill me if she had that power."
Erik stared at the child again as he stumbled and fell with a quiet oof, getting back up as if that was nothing and running towards them again. At the door, Erik saw someone arriving, completely breathless — Hank, it was Hank, his eyes going immediately to the kid.
"David!" It was Charles' voice by his side, clearly distressed, as he slowly moved towards the kid with caution.
"Dad!" The kid said back, and once again Erik stopped.
Dad.
"I tried holding him," Hank said between breaths, leaning against the door as Charles reached the child and picked him up. The child, David, hugged Charles immediately. Erik only stared. "He felt you were in danger and let go of my hand- He's quicker than he looks, and he goes through people more easily…"
"Did I save you?" David asked, holding Charles' face in both hands. Charles seemed both proud and incredibly close to scolding the kid. "Did I help? I wanted to help you."
"Munchkin, I told you to stay with Hank," Charles' voice was a mumble, as if he wasn't exactly sure of what to say in that situation.
Munchkin, Erik thought to himself, a frown on his face as he watched the scene unfold in front of him.
"But you were very worried," the boy frowned, still holding Charles' face in his hands as Charles let out what sounded like a desperate breath. "And scared. I helped?"
"Y-Yeah, I guess…"
The boy's smile was wide, proud of himself. Erik wasn't sure if he wasn't imagining things anymore.
"We should go," the gruff man who was there with Charles when the elevator doors opened said. "Let's not test our luck. The kid helped us, let's go."
"I helped!" David said, giggling happily as Charles carried him away, not looking back at Erik once.
It took a moment for Erik to move again.
"Here, you get the little tower," the child said in front of Erik, handing him a chess piece, clearly happy about it. Erik could feel the ever present projection of the boy's mind, as if he couldn't really control it yet. He seemed happy, a colorful array of thoughts looming over Erik's head. "I'll get…"
David stopped, frowning as he looked at the piece in his hand, looking for a name in his own mind and finding none. Erik only watched, the rook feeling heavy in his hand as David moved away from him to go towards Charles, who seemed nervous as he watched the interaction happen. His eyes went to his son — Charles' son; the idea still sounded weird in Erik's head — and David raised the piece towards his father's face.
"What's this one?"
"That's a knight," Charles said, his voice quiet as if he wished that no one was seeing this interaction. Erik knew well that Charles didn't want him to see it, as if Erik was interrupting something personal.
David frowned, looking at the piece for a moment before looking up at Charles again. Their eyes were very alike. "This is not a night, this is a horse!"
Despite the tension in his body, Erik watched as an amused smile appeared on Charles' face. He hadn't smiled at Erik once ever since they met again, and there was a painful twist in Erik's heart at the thought that Charles wouldn't, that he'd lost that smile years ago on that beach.
Even so, even with that painful sensation, Erik didn't show it, eyes falling to Charles' legs for a moment — working legs, although Erik knew Charles had been paralyzed in Cuba after the bullet. As David's mind filled the place, his telepathy not a hundred percent under control yet, Erik felt his jaw clenching at the idea of what Charles had traded for his legs to work again.
Giving up part of himself, the one thing that made him different, powerful… Erik could never fathom doing that, giving up his mutation like that, his power. It felt wrong in his mind and it left a bitter taste in his mouth to know Charles had chosen to do it, to pretend he was a baseline human for the sake of walking again.
But then again, Charles always had wanted to fit in when in reality he should stand out, always wanting to please, to be liked and be normal. Erik just didn't know he'd go to those lengths for it.
"A knight. Not a night, munchkin," Charles' voice was soft, his hand moving to touch the boy's head and run through the dark locks. Some of Erik's bitterness left for a moment as he watched it, seeing the way Charles' eyes shone as he looked at the boy — it almost resembled the Charles he met over a decade ago. "Like from the stories you like."
"The ones with the dragons?"
"Yes, those ones…"
David looked at the piece he had again, his small hand holding the wooden horse tightly as his mind projected curiosity and some excitement as he remembered the stories Charles talked about. Without saying a word, the boy only smiled up at Charles before he ran towards the pilot's cabin, calling loudly for Hank to explain knights to him as he sat on the co-pilot chair, legs going back and forth like he couldn't stop moving them.
"You have a son," Erik finally said after what felt like an eternity without talking, Charles' eyes moving to him, some of the shine of his eyes going away. Erik would never admit how much it hurt to see Charles look at him that way. "I didn't think you- How… Who's the- the mother?"
Charles clearly hesitated, staying silent for a while before taking a deep breath. "I don't really know."
"But-"
"It's complicated," he cut Erik off, making Erik close his mouth shut. "But, yes. I have a son."
"And he's a telepath."
Charles pursed his lips, his throat moving as he swallowed and looked away. Erik's brow furrowed, noticing the way Charles' eyes turned hard. If felt, for a moment, as if Charles didn't like that fact. Erik's jaw clenched again, wondering how long until Charles would make his own son hide because he couldn't accept himself.
In the cockpit of the jet, Erik felt David's mind project a silent and constant happiness as Hank explained something to him. It felt just as beautiful as Charles' had felt once upon a time, just as impressive.
"Indeed," was all Charles said.
"And meanwhile you don't have your telepathy anymore." He saw as Charles' lips pressed into a tight line, eyes looking out of the window, at the clouds outside. "How did you lose them?"
Charles hesitated again, as if talking to Erik was somewhat of a burden.
"The treatment for my spine," he muttered. "It affects my DNA."
"You sacrificed your powers so you could walk?"
"I sacrificed my powers so I could sleep-" Charles' eyes went to him, his voice breaking at the last word. There was pain in his eyes now, and Erik felt a nagging voice telling him to shut up, to stop talking before he hurt Charles more. He was never good at listening to those voices. "What would you know about it?"
"I've lost my fair share."
"Dry your eyes, Erik," Charles' voice was mocking now, an anger in his tone that Erik had never seen there before. The anger burned brighter in Erik with that.
This wasn't supposed to be how their meeting went after so long apart from each other, Charles wasn't supposed to look at him like that, like he was the cause of everything bad that's ever happened to him. That look, it hurt more than he could explain — it seemed to confirm fears that Erik prefered to keep buried.
"It doesn't justify what you've done," Charles continued.
"You have no idea what I've done."
Deep down, Erik didn't want to fight, not this time, but he couldn't stop. Charles' eyes, his rage, his words- Erik felt cornered, that nagging voice in his head telling him to lower his head and stop talking, while his anger screamed to talk louder, to bite back.
Charles was grabbing his shirt, telling him he'd abandoned Charles. Erik was answering back, listing the names of everyone they'd lost, everyone who died because the baselines got to them, because Erik couldn't protect them, and because Charles didn't even try. Part of him hated the pain he saw in Charles' eyes as he said it — part of him was pleased to see him hurt.
The jet took a dangerous dive, metal singing around Erik as his control went haywire. He felt like could break that plane in half at any second. Around him, Erik felt a strange sense of fear that wasn't his, too focused on his anger to realize it was David's.
"Where were you, Charles?" He practically screamed, the jet making noises that it shouldn't as Erik tried not to break it completely. "We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you? Hiding! You and Hank- Pretending to be something you're not. Playing house with that boy as if nothing was happening to our kind outside- You abandoned us all!"
Charles fell back, looking at Erik with fear that was never there before — fear and hurt, a monster in Charles' eyes. His fists clenched by his sides.
Hank called for him from the cockpit, the plane still going down out of control as Erik kept hold of it. There was a children's yell, Erik's eyes finally leaving Charles' to see that David had fallen to the ground, his big blue eyes wet as he looked up at Erik from the ground with fear, so much like Charles' that it felt even worse.
His fists unclenched, the plane slowly going back to normal as he took a few deep breaths, looking away from the boy to see Charles there, his breathing uneven. Erik noticed with the corner of his eyes as David got up, in time with his father as Charles gave Erik a last look and walked to the cockpit without a second word.
Charles wouldn't usually run like this, Erik's mind offered him. He had hit Charles where it hurt.
"So you were always an asshole," he heard behind himself, Logan's voice sounding annoyed.
Erik barely noticed when David approached him, his small hand clenched on a fist as he punched Erik's leg with as much force as he could, making Erik look down at him, surprised. The boy was looking up, a few tears in his eyes as he watched Erik with a scowl — his constant projection of his feelings showed Erik he was angry.
"You're mean," David muttered. Erik's jaw clenched for a moment.
The kid moved forward, opening Erik's hand to take the rook back from his grasp — he hadn't even noticed he was still holding it. David looked back at the cockpit, his mind flaring with worry for Charles, before he walked past Erik towards Logan.
Erik only watched as David offered Logan the rook he had given Erik before, seeing Logan smile at the kid as David gave him a quick smile before running back to his father, climbing on Charles' lap and disappearing from Erik's view, his mind now projecting a quiet warm feeling as Charles was clearly holding him.
This certainly wasn't how he expected meeting Charles again would go.
CHARLES
The noise of the plane around him was somewhat calming, even if Charles felt like he desperately needed a drink to fully calm his mind after the fight with Erik — after turning his back to the other man without defending himself, because, deep down, he believed Erik.
He felt his body shaking for a minute as Erik's words came back to him, and normally he'd go for the bottle of whiskey that sat at the table in front of him, but he didn't. Instead, his hands held David a little tighter, closing his eyes and burying his face against the boy's dark hair. It was soft against Charles' face, and there was a pinch of sadness there that David didn't smell like he did when he was a baby anymore — it had become a comfortable smell to Charles after a while, even if the smell slowly faded as David grew.
Now, at the age of six, David smelled of lemons, the kid's shampoo Hank bought for the boy, and slightly of Charles' cologne from the amount of times Charles held the boy close.
Even so, it was still David. Sweet and kind David, who had run to Charles when he felt Charles' distress, who had held Charles' face in his hands and softly told Charles that he'd be like Charles' knight and protect him from the "mean man". Those were the little times where Charles felt like his heart wasn't big enough to hold the love he felt for that boy, who loved him back with the same intensity.
True to his word, David didn't leave Charles' side the rest of the day, playing with the knight he had found in the jet's chess set until he inevitably fell asleep. Now, Charles held him close to avoid letting the boy slip from his lap, feeling his son's dreams as he projected them — always so colorful and alive that it sometimes made Charles lose hours and hours of his day just experiencing them. It was David who made him look at telepathy with other eyes; he still didn't like his, he was still afraid of the pain and the constant noise in his head, but with David it felt beautiful.
There was a soft noise in front of him, making Charles open his eyes again to see the full chess set — with the exception of one white knight — being placed on the table by Erik.
"Fancy a game?" He asked, eyes on Charles as they stared at each other. He seemed hesitant, even if outwards he only showed confidence. It was almost a shame how well Charles could read Erik still, with or without his telepathy.
He guessed he had enough time to learn how to read the other man years ago in the dingy motel rooms they stayed at during their trip through the country to recruit mutants. Enough time in the nights they spent together, where Charles had looked at Erik's face for hours as Erik did the same, as if none of them believed the other was real. Charles remembered thinking Erik was the one back then, that he had never loved no one with the same intensity as he loved Erik. The thought of that now left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"It's been a while," Erik continued, making Charles sigh.
"I'm not in the mood for games, thank you." Charles' eyes moved away, staring at the blackness outside the jet's window as his chin lightly rested over David's head. "Besides, I don't want to wake David up."
"I don't think we'll be loud while playing chess," Erik tried, clearly trying to lighten the mood. Charles' jaw clenched. "He's tough, you know? Punched me earlier- I'm starting to believe it's a family thing. Two punches by a Xavier in one day-"
"What do you want, Erik?" Charles turned to him again, glaring, seeing as the small smile that had formed on Erik's lips faded slowly.
There were a few moments of silence before Erik spoke again.
"I didn't kill the president." His voice was almost a whisper, as if he was confessing something. Charles scoffed at that.
"The bullet curved, Erik-"
"Because I was trying to save him." Erik's voice was calm and, above all, sincere. Charles felt himself frown at it. "They took me out before I could."
"Why would you try and save him?"
"Because he was one of us."
Charles stopped, the scowl on his face dying down as he realized Erik was being honest, as he saw the pain inside Erik's blue-green eyes — they seemed to beg Charles to listen, to believe him. Despite his anger and hurt, Charles did — a character flaw, maybe.
David moved slightly in his sleep, probably feeling Charles' busy thoughts, making Charles raise the barriers to his mind again to spare his son the discomfort of experiencing the storm that happened in Charles' mind.
It didn't change the fact that he blamed Erik for many things, it didn't change that fatidic day in Cuba when he had left Charles behind and took Raven with him, but there was a quiet relief in his chest to know Erik hadn't done that — at least not that.
Charles blinked a few times, fixing David in his arms as he noticed the boy's mind projecting a quiet discomfort at the way his head hung heavy while he slept, his neck starting to hurt. Erik seemed to watch carefully as Charles moved David enough on his lap to make him comfortable again, as the telepath huffed to himself in quiet nostalgia as he remembered when David was just a tiny baby that Charles could cradle in his arms easily.
There was a heavy feeling of dread in his chest as he looked at his son's face and then at Logan, sitting away from where Charles and Erik were, the cold memory of the future Logan described coming back to him.
"And David?" Charles had asked Logan when he told Charles what his future looked like, the boy playing in a room away from them, oblivious to what was happening. "Is David… okay there?"
Logan's eyes had turned dark, jaw clenching, and Charles felt his heart sink even before Logan opened his mouth.
"I'm sorry Chuck," he said as Charles' body stiffened. "David died saving us- saving you. He forced everyone to go, didn't give us a choice, and stayed to keep the sentinels away. I know the Charles I know in the future wants to save the world, but I think he wants to save David more than anything, and I think you could understand that."
Maybe Charles hadn't changed much over the years then, he thought as he held the boy a little closer, as if David could disappear at any moment. He wanted to save his kind, to save Raven even more, but he'd be lying if he didn't say it was for David's life he was doing this in the first place.
"You must think me so foolish," Charles said after a moment of silence, eyes finally going back to Erik as the man frowned at him. "You've always said they would come after us."
Erik's voice was quiet when he said, "I never imagined they'd use Raven's DNA to do it."
"When did you last see her?"
"The day I left Dallas," Erik answered, sitting down on a chair opposite to Charles with a quiet huff, eyes still on him.
"And how was she?"
As soon as he asks, he's hit with that pain again, that quiet sting of loss, of not knowing how Raven was. God, he missed her, he worried about her more than ever with the future Logan told him about, at what she'd done.
"She almost killed you once," Logan had said after much prodding, annoying Logan enough for him to talk more. "She- poisoned you, in a way, when you used Cerebro. The Mystique I know is not the girl you grew up with, Chuck."
He barely heard when Erik replied with, "Strong, driven. Loyal."
That was not the answer he wanted, and it only terrified him more.
"How...how was she?" Charles asked again, giving Erik a meaningful look as the other man hesitated for a moment.
"I could see why she meant so much to you," Erik said. "You should be proud of her, Charles. She's out there fighting for our cause-"
"Your cause," Charles interrupted, his jaw clenching for a moment. "The girl I raised, she was not capable of killing."
"You didn't raise her, you grew up with her. She couldn't stay a little girl forever, that's why she left." Erik sighed, his head shaking for a moment before his eyes looked at David, still soundly asleep. "She was not your daughter, Charles."
"I've never said she was."
"You treated her like it," Erik's eyes rose to meet Charles again. "Or are you telling me you don't know you felt like an overbearing parent to her?"
"All I've done," Charles rasped out, his eyes filling with tears as he felt himself getting angry again. "Was to keep her safe. I know I could've been better, but I just- She- I didn't want her to think-"
Charles stopped as he heard David mumble in his sleep, his dreams agitated as Charles' emotions reached him. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down — David's telepathy was a test to Charles' emotions sometimes. The whole time, Erik watched curiously, until Charles felt like he wasn't about to start screaming.
"Whatever she did, it was her own choice," Erik said after a while. Charles felt tired.
"But now we know where that choice leads, don't we?" He answered, his tone sounding just as tired as he felt. "She's going to murder Trask, they're going to capture her, and then they're going to wipe us out."
"Not if we get to her first. Not if we change history tomorrow." There was a pause in which they just stared at each other, before Erik spoke again. His voice was quieter as he talked. "I'm sorry, Charles. For what happened, I truly am."
Charles felt the air being knocked out of his lungs, those words hitting harder than he thought they ever would. He could see in Erik's face how honest those words had been, but Charles didn't know an apology could hurt — it should mend things, and in some ways it did, but it felt like opening old wounds. Part of him, the part that had caused him to break so many things in Erik's old room in the mansion, wanted to tell Erik that there was too much to forgive, that it wasn't that simple. Part of him had already forgiven Erik long ago, since the moment he felt Erik's hands cradling his body at the beach after the bullet severed his spine, since the moment Erik left.
Charles let out a shuddering breath, eyes avoiding Erik's now as he looked at the chess board in front of him. He stared at the pieces, looking at the square that was missing the knight that David held tightly in his small hand. With a sigh, Charles took David's hand and carefully opened it, smiling a bit as the boy complained in his sleep. He ignored Erik's gaze on him as he placed a kiss on David's forehead before putting the knight on the board and looking up at the other man.
"It's been a while since I've played," Charles said quietly, seeing Erik's eyes soften a bit. "Lately all I've been able to play is children's board games."
"Riveting," Erik said with a quiet smile on his lips, making Charles chuckle a bit. He looked more relaxed now that Charles wasn't biting back. "I'll go easy on you. Might finally be a fair fight. Although you also have the disadvantage of having a kid sleeping on your lap- should I pick up our friend Logan so I can match up with you?"
Despite himself, Charles laughed.
Everything fell apart around him right as he thought everything would mend, right as he had Raven in front of him, looking at him like she was glad to see him while her body still convulsed slightly from the shocks, right as he told her he was there with Erik, together, for her.
Erik pointed the gun, and a chill ran up Charles' spine as he saw it. He felt his heart break into a million pieces again. In the corner of his vision, Charles saw David want to launch himself at Erik, being held by Hank at the last second. His mind felt noisy and overwhelmingly anxious, as if he knew something bad was coming, so much distress in his mind that Charles feared it'd snap at any second.
"Erik, what are you doing?" Charles asked, hand raised as he blocked Raven from the gun as best as he could.
"Securing our future," Erik's voice was cold, all the warmth he had seen before, that Charles hoped would stay, was gone. Charles felt like he could scream. "Forgive me, Mystique. As long as you're out there we'll never be safe."
"Use your powers, Charles," Raven begged behind him, and Charles could feel her getting ready to run. "Stop him."
"He can't," Erik confessed for him, and Charles could hear the slight disgust in those two simple words.
Charles heard the sounds of Raven moving behind him, getting up to escape, but Charles' eyes were on Erik. He didn't move, and Erik's eyes left his, his finger ready to press the trigger. It felt like a greek tragedy, like Charles had been given some kind of happiness and peace, only for it to be taken from him. Erik's apology on the plane hurt more than before now as Charles watched his finger press the trigger.
Before he could, there was a scream, Charles' eyes finally moving from Erik as he saw David's eyes focused on Erik, round and wet with tears. His mental presence was different now, and Charles knew why when Erik winced and lowered his head as if his head was aching — he was stopping Erik, using his telepathy to cause Erik some kind of pain.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough: the gun fired, Raven jumped from the window, the bullet followed her. Before Charles could even do something, Erik was out of the window. Charles wanted to go after him, after Trask, who had just left, but then something happened with Logan. Hank left, he and David stayed, and Charles watched with some kind of numb guilt as David touched Logan's temple, calming the man's mind and making Charles wish the boy wasn't doing all of this.
He pulled David into a hug after, pressing a kiss to his hair as he watched Logan come back to himself.
"Did I help?" David asked, his voice trembling, scared. Charles nodded immediately, still holding the boy close. He knew he was shaking as well.
"You did, munchkin… You did." Charles pressed his lips to David's head again, watching as Logan got up.
The words "I wish you didn't need to," were left unsaid as Charles picked the boy up to leave that place.
"We need to take you to a hospital," Hank said as he helped Charles out of the rubble, taking them out of there before the politicians who were there decided that they should interrogate the two of them.
"No," Charles quickly said, shaking his head. He could feel the blood drying against his skin, but it didn't matter. "We need to get David."
"Charles-"
"I'm not going anywhere before we get David, Hank."
The other man huffed, clearly annoyed at Charles' stubbornness, but Charles wouldn't change his mind, not when he had promised David to be back as soon as possible. Hank seemed to understand, at least, not complaining anymore.
Charles remembered David's face as he left the boy with Peter and his mother, considering that it would be too dangerous for the boy to go with them to Washington, remembered the way David's lips formed a pout as he tried not to cry when Charles told him he'd need to stay with Peter. It was the downside of never having left David alone for more than a few hours since the boy arrived at the mansion — both him and David felt the pain of separation.
"It's going to be okay, munchkin," Charles said, smiling at the boy as David tried his hardest not to cry. "You'll be with Peter- You liked Peter, didn't you?"
David nodded, although he didn't seem very convinced. "But I wanna go with you!"
"It's dangerous," Charles sighed, wrapping David in his arms as he climbed on Charles' lap again — he hadn't asked about the chair yet, only giving it a strange look before shrugging it off; Charles didn't know how he'd explain it to David. "You'll be safe here with Peter. His sister called you to play, didn't she?"
"But if it's dangerous then you shouldn't go."
Charles had smiled at the boy, nodding. "But I'm an adult, and I need to help someone- My sister."
Peter assured him he'd keep David safe and distracted enough to keep him from missing Charles too much, while Mrs. Maximoff gave Charles a quiet confirmation that she'd make sure David wouldn't get hurt. Before they left, Charles pressed his forehead against David's, seeing the curiosity in the boy's mind. Feeling him with his telepathy felt even better than when it was just David projecting.
«I'll be back for you, munchkin, as fast as I can.» Charles sent to him with a quiet warm feeling of comfort, David's eyes widening in wonder as he undoubtedly felt Charles' telepathy. «I promise.»
In response, David had projected a love so strong that Charles almost cried, right before he left. He reached for David for as long as he could as he rode with Hank in the car, noticing the anxious feeling David had to be alone there, no Charles to cling onto.
He needed to go back to David, his injuries be damned. Besides, he didn't seem like he had broken anything, the pain bearable as Hank moved Charles into the car and said they'd need to make a stop to get Charles a new wheelchair, the one he had used buried under the rubble, unsalvageable. He just needed to get to David, to hold him and be sure he was safe. He had changed the future, had stopped the genocide of his kind, and had stopped David from dying in the future Logan showed him. Charles' hands shook for a moment as the memory he'd seen in his future self's mind crossed his mind again.
He had seen David, much older then, a charming smile on his face, and oh, David would grow into such a lovely man, taller than Charles himself and an even more powerful telepath than Charles. But then the image shifted into David with a wild look in his eyes as he stayed behind in the middle of ruins, his hand on his temple in a familiar gesture as he commanded everyone into the jet — the Blackbird, his future self's mind offered.
Charles had seen himself scream, reaching for David as the jet took off, being dragged inside the Blackbird against his will just then — David's telepathy was stronger than his, his hold on the one piloting the jet impossible to break, no matter how much Charles had tried.
"Don't do this, David!" He had heard himself scream, a desperate feeling in his chest as he saw his son staying behind. David didn't budge.
In the last moment, however, David looked terrified, and it had broken Charles' heart to see and feel it. Then the Sentinels came, and David started to run. The memory of hearing his son's scream and pain in his mind still made him nauseous.
Charles had stopped that, David wouldn't die like this, he wouldn't have to see his son die like this, and he desperately needed to see the boy again and hold him, part of him desperate to make sure he was still there, that somehow that vision of the future hadn't realized itself.
It felt like hell to wait to get to Peter's house, to clean himself in the meantime so David wouldn't see he was hurt. It felt like an eternity to wait for someone to open the door, seeing Mrs. Maximoff there, looking down at him immediately.
It felt like a knife had been pushed into his heart and left there for Charles to feel the pain as he noticed there was something incredibly wrong.
Peter gently pushed his mother away from the door as the woman looked at Charles with what looked like a sorry look, like she pitied him for something, making Charles' breathing pick up and a frown appear on his face as he gave Peter a questioning look. The boy swallowed visibly, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he finally said something.
"Something happened with David."
Charles' hand ran through David's hair as the boy slept on Peter's sister bed, his eyes never leaving his son as he reached for David's mind again, wishing he was wrong, that he had felt it wrong the first time around. There was the familiar colorful feeling of his son's mind, the one he was already used with and that brought Charles untold comfort — but there was more than that now, so much more...
David's mind seemed fractured, still there but divided in a way that a mind normally wouldn't be. There was the colorful and loving part that Charles knew by heart, but next to it there was a barrier, a compartment where the colors turned cold, where Charles felt only agitation and fear and an incredible amount of rage. It was clouded, as if it was on its way to forming itself fully, but it was there, together with many others.
"We were watching the whole thing that happened in Washington," Peter had explained earlier. "There was a moment where you showed up under a lot of rubble and he saw it. It was so quick, but he saw it... He- I don't know what happened there, man…"
Charles had asked him to show the memory and had watched what happened through Peter's eyes, seeing the moment David noticed the quick seconds when Charles showed up on the tv. David had panicked, getting up from the ground as Peter tried to calm him down, tell him everything was okay. David had screamed, had pressed his hands against his head and screamed as loud as his lungs allowed him. As he did so, things around him moved, picture frames and vases falling from where they stood, a few things flying around, as if David had controlled them.
It hadn't made sense at first — David was a telepath, he couldn't move things with his mind, Charles would've known if he could. It was only when Charles had reached for the sleeping boy's mind that Charles understood: those weren't exactly David's powers. He could feel now that cloudy compartment in David's mind holding that power and holding the memory of Charles under the rubble and hurt, while the other part seemed oblivious to it.
He knew what that was, he had read about it before, studied it when he wondered how a mind could fracture so badly that it created a defense mechanism to protect a person from experiencing the trauma that caused that fracture in the first place. It didn't make it any easier in the end, to see his son be a testament to that.
Charles closed his eyes, seeing the logic in the division David's mind had created, and why that power in particular: the part of David's mind that held telekinesis was the one who held the memory of Charles hurt, without being able to raise the rubble to save himself. It was magnificent in a way, it was such a new concept — a fractured mind who held many powers, all of them specific to each part of David's mind. It was also incredibly terrifying.
"Oh, munchkin…" Charles sighed, rubbing his thumb against David's scalp. "I'm so sorry…"
At first, not much changed, although Charles kept track of David's mind all the time now. He knew deep down he couldn't fix what happened, not when David's mind had broken like that to protect the boy from the trauma.
God knows what would happen if I tried to do something about it, he thought, seeing David playing in his room.
Then, a few years later, Charles met Jack Wayne, and Cindy, and all the others who took over from time to time, all with powers that took Charles' breath away, some harder to deal with than others. David's mind was loud most of the time, and Charles would sometimes see David back after dissociating for a few minutes, staring at Charles with such a helpless expression that it broke Charles' heart.
One day, when David was eight and had told him with tears that Jack scared him and had told the others he'd harm them, Charles had finally entered his son's mind, feeling like he could get lost there as he saw the labyrinth that formed it. David had clung to Charles' projection inside his mind as all the other alters stared at Charles, some knowing he was a threat, some curious. Although he couldn't fix David's mind or push all those consciousnesses away, not when they were, in a certain way, part of David, Charles could still help him control it, take back hold of his mind, and to use them to his advantage.
When Charles reopened the school again, and especially when Jean came to the mansion, David had more control, although Charles could still feel the deafening loudness of his mind — David didn't seem to care much at this point anymore, too used to it.
"I was used to the voices already," David said once as Charles watched him. "It used to be just yours and Hank's… There's more now, but it isn't always so bad."
Charles would just have to take his son's words for it.
"Do you blame me?" Charles asked one night when David was ten.
The boy had looked up from his homework, wide blue eyes on Charles and his telepathy reaching out until he understood what Charles meant.
"No," David said sincerely, putting his pencil down to go over to Charles, holding Charles' face in his hands the same way he used to do when he was a small child. It was deeply comforting, and Charles could feel his eyes water with it.
Charles' hand raised to take his son's, squeezing it gently and giving him a smile.
"I love you, munchkin," he mumbled, seeing David chuckle.
"I'm too old to be called munchkin!" He complained. Charles pulled him quickly with those words, placing the boy on his lap and poking at his side, seeing the boy laugh out loud at the ticklish sensation.
"You'll never be too old for me to call you munchkin."
"I'm a big boy! I'm a man!"
"You're a little boy," Charles said between a chuckle, seeing David go limp on his lap, holding him carefully so David wouldn't hurt his back on the armrest of Charles' chair by accident. "And you're my munchkin."
"Not for long!" David exclaimed, his mind suddenly excited with the idea of growing up.
"Unfortunately you're right," Charles mumbled, pulling the boy up and seeing him giggle before jumping from Charles' lap to go back to his homework.
Charles couldn't help but miss the simpler times of David as a baby, or to regret not keeping him safer as he noticed David dissociating for a moment, trying to keep control of the body.
He hoped, at least, that his efforts meant David would live a long life, the memory of his death still fresh in Charles' mind in the years that passed.