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You were never one to think about death.
You were a mutant, certainly, and you had signed yourself up for this- definitely, anything to better your community and make it safer for those out there similar to you. Working as a lab assistant had been stuffy, and leaving it with Hank to pursue bigger, better things had been one of your proudest moments. It was hard to leave the safety of a white labcoat and a sterile environment, but you had to move on to bigger, greener pastures.
Bigger emotions.
Bigger thoughts.
You’d met Erik and Charles at the same time as Hank did, though you were sneakier about your powers, and were blessed enough to have a hideable mutation. Telepathy and empathy were a rather vicious combo to have been dealt so young in life, especially when you factor in emotions you didn’t want to believe mommy felt and the sharp, pointed thoughts of teachers whenever you fumbled a question. So you learned to tuck your head down, keep to yourself. Read books about psychics, about ESP, the trendy little words that everyone tiptoed to keep from mentioning the fact that there were people out there who weren’t genuinely part of humanity.
And then there was Charles and his handy little catch-all phrase: mutants.
If you could say that you’d been waiting your whole life for someone, you could definitely say it was for Charles, Raven, and Erik’s little group. Phrases like ‘you’re among friends’ and ‘show off’ stuck in your head for days and Hank finally separated from your normal lab experiments and went over to another lab to begin some ‘super secret project’. So, sue you for finally feeling in an open forum.
As far as Erik had been concerned, Moira wasn’t even there- but you, you were always there, hovering at the edges, mouth half-open and finger slightly curled in the air like you wanted to ask a question. And, after day three of watching a human play mutant-watch, he finally found himself fed up. His tap on your shoulder was more of a thumb jabbed into the back of your collarbone, and you whirled around, for once caught off-guard, and spouted loudly in French. “By God! Do you just sneak up on people like that? Is that your thing? Sneaky mutant powers?”
Thrown off his feet, then, Erik stared for half a second and, without a thought, responded in Polish. “I wasn’t the one sneaking around, what with you literally peeking around a door! What, is watching the non-humans play House so interesting that your beakers could wait a few seconds?”
You blinked once, twice, and then burst out laughing. While, on one hand, you were a voracious polyglott and dabbled in multiple languages, the fact that you’d immediately jumped to French in reaction to his Polish thoughts amused you. It did not, however, amuse Erik, who stared at you with a grim expression. “Ah, no, I wasn’t peeking, I promise!” Nifty little trick you’d picked up, using someone’s native language, pulled directly from their heads. “I was just thinking about how nice it is- it’s very...”
You struggled with finding the word to describe the feeling of a soft fire being tended to in a fireplace, the slump of your body when your head finally hit your own pillow, your mother picking knots out of your hair in a way that didn’t hurt you. You’re not, er, emotions-blind, you could feel the acute anger in the surface of the man before you, and the crouching trauma and despair underneath it. It would be good if you just shared that, some, maybe it would help-
“You speak Polish?” Erik didn’t seem to be over this fact, and his gaze is less scalding and more questioning and, dare you even mention it, hopeful.
You didn’t like to read other people’s minds explicitly. Skimming over them for a native language to utilize is nothing- it involves no sharing, no history, no picking through someone else’s privacy.
Feelings weren’t something you could help, because everyone has a natural inclination towards helping others, towards sensing someone else’s needs. If you went to pull back on that, to shut it down like you do with the more observant part of your senses, you might pull to hard and something might... Well, might not snap back. So, as much you wanted to both leave this poor guy alone to his emotions, you can’t.
And, as much as you wanted to read every juicy detail of his every brief synapse, you won’t.
“Ah, yes. I, um, speak a lot of languages fluently. The CIA plucked Hank and I from Harvard, and I took a lot language classes. I’m, well, American, technically, what with my citizenship...” As you pondered this, you noticed Erik moves just slightly closer to you. You didn’t know why, but this makes you a little nervous. “Polish is a good language, really, um, independent and, uh... I’m reaching for something to say, I know, I’m sorry.”
Instead, he stared at you, shaking his head.
It took a couple more shakes of his head for him to finally seem to shake clear of some thought. He clears his throat and, rather awkwardly, and with a heavier Polish accent, continues talking, this time in English. “No, I suppose I’m in the wrong. I’m sorry for my strange behavior, it’s just been... A long time since I’ve heard someone speak in Polish to me.” He ran his knuckles down his throat, playing the column of cartilage like a xylophone. Not the slightest bit charismatic or apologetic, he continues. “What you’re doing here... It’s because you’re a mutant as well, isn’t it?” He says the word like he’s unfamiliar with it, like it’s something strange and utterly foreign and, you suppose, that’s exactly how you say it, too.
With a wide, wide smile, you laugh. A laugh that starts at the base of your stomach and ends somewhere in the space between the two of you. Clear as a bell, your voice rang in his head, in his beautiful, native Polish: Look, and you didn’t even have to cheat like Charles!
...
You could say that you had fun while you were in the CIA building. The newer mutants, the recruits, they were very kind to you, even though you technically barged in on their friendship party and only had what seemed to be very basic powers. You’d stood on the outside of the shattered window, gawking at the sliced statue and practically feeding off of the high energy vibrating from the screaming and the drinking. The bench you chose to sit on was very small and made you seem like someone out of a horror movie, a monster waiting for the children to leave the bright lights and face their doom.
You can hear Charles, Erik, and Moira coming up on your left, so you turn preemptively so as not to startle them. Before they make it all the way to where you sat, you stand, showing yourself. “Hello, Miss Moira, Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr.” You gave a slight tilt of your head, but you couldn’t help the slight smile that arose when you see Charles practically jumped out of his shoes.
“You-” He seemed to be attempting to collect his breath. He hadn’t heard your mind, and, despite your best efforts, you’d startled him. “You, you’re the other scientist, the one that had been working with Hank. Er, I can’t seem to recall your name, my deepest apologies.”
You repeated your name and, with a wider smile, continue to talk. “Ah, well, I don’t blame you. Being unable to read my mind and find out my name that way must be hard on you, huh?” His eyebrows hiked up to his forehead, and his hands came halfway up his torso, with his fingers folding together.
“Another mutant, then? My, it seems the CIA is full of them.” He looked towards you for confirmation, then, and, instead of simply telling him, you flooded him with the simple feeling of acceptance. And then swiftly took it away- the only surefire way to show him that that was one of your abilities. Slightly startled, Charles pursed his lips and nodded. “We’re to be going on a top-secret CIA mission into Russia to capture a man named Shaw. Agent Moira, would it be fine if Miss _ tagged along?”
“I would usually need to at least run this through the higher-ups but, _, you’ve been with us for so long that I doubt anyone would notice if you-” Moira gave you a rather specific look. “Snuck onto the airplane.”
“Then, it’s decided. I guess I should air all of my dirty laundry, now.” You shrugged, shuffling your feet. “My name is _ _, your resident empath, telepath, and power-dampener rolled into one neat little package. I’m good with illusions and doping people up until they hit the ground.” Did that sound good enough for Russia?
“I must at least take a guess- you’re currently reading my mind, where I am unable to read yours?” His smile is easy, unlike Erik’s, and you find yourself relaxing. You could appreciate how hard he was trying to adapt to this- you knew, yourself, that a lifetime of noise followed by a sudden silence is an awful, awful situation.
“Oh, no, Charles Xavier. I like to keep my relationships professional.” You tilted your head to the side and, for the briefest of seconds, you let him in, only as far as the front door of your mind. Little recently recollected memories like Hank spilling mysteriously acidic fluids onto the table and had you mentioned the party yet? Oh, Charles, you shouldn’t be so harsh on them- they’re kids having fun.
And then the gates close again and, mildly disoriented at the flash flood of memories he was given, Charles pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked in the direction of the party, shaking his head. “I suppose this is nothing more than dogs off of their leashes, with the masters away from home, that whole thing. I probably should’ve seen that coming, if I’m being honest.” He sighed and let his hand drop from his face, turning his body to face towards the party. “Thank you for the warning, though, and quite the lovely show-and-tell we did. Maybe we should catch up later, after the Shaw circumstances settle.”
When Erik and Moira passed by you to follow Charles, you made eye-contact with Erik and made a wringing hand gesture with your hands. He simply rolled his eyes, though he couldn't hide the small peak of amusement that spiked through him.
...
In retrospect, you never did get to have that talk.
And, for you, the ‘Shaw circumstances’ never ended.
...
The nightmare began when you saw Erik in that godawful helmet, floating over the island. The nightmare worsened, became more of a night terror, when you noticed the dead body floating next to him, the face you’d see flashed in Erik’s mind every time you spoke to him in Polish. Charles hadn’t anticipated the Russians and the United States to not only band together, but to also plan on cutting the mutant vine after it had bore fruit. In your state of adrenaline, you had thrown your barriers down and, like a drowning man grasping for straws, listened in on the Russians. Then the Americans.
And then your teammates.
And then the other mutants.
And Charles.
Charles, your fellow mutants, they’d been so naive. You... As pessimistic as it felt to admit so, had always known that humans would side against mutants in a heartbeat. Neanderthal meets homo sapien. Lions band together to hunt other large felines when threatened. Survival of the fittest. Evolution. Hell, even 'mutation' itself suggested that there would be a ‘us versus them’ situation.
You couldn't believe Hank didn’t see it, with his past GPA breaking world records, a full .2 points above yours, unweighted.
You couldn't believe Charles, for all of his knowledge and foresight, didn’t come to this conclusion.
Even the CIA agent didn’t see this coming.
But you had. And so had Erik.
In vain, you can see Moira run off to what remains of the communications system, attempting some sort of plead with the looming boats.
“_, please, is there anything you can- you can do? Can you sedate them, can you, you, calm them down somehow?” Hank’s words were fast, marred by his new jaw, his tongue light in his mouth.
You didn't want to deliver the grave news. “No, I could knock out up to seven at them at a time, but there’s... There’s at least two full fleets here. Whichever one I knocked out, the other would just-” You were wasting precious breaths. “It was great being with all of you. Honestly, there’s never been a time when I felt more human than when I was around you all.”
The missiles arced over the ocean, in a similar manner to the paper airplanes you’d throw at Hank when the lab was dead silent and your eyes were filled with data and ink smudges. The anxiety, the pure, animalistic fear that came over everyone simultaneously brings you immediately to your knees. Whatever peace you’d felt before is gone now, with the rush of emotions and, vaguely, you can hear Charles’ voice echoing in your mind that it’ll all be okay, it’ll work out, though his emotions tell a very different story.
You dry-heaved into the sand.
Anxiety was replaced by heart-stopping suspension. You wrapped your arms around yourself, teeth chattered together, a vague wonder as to whether or not you may actually experience a heart attack from the overload you were taking in. Positive side: you were taking the edge off of everyone on the beach. Negative side: you were taking on the edge from everyone on the beach. You force your eyes open, squinting up at the Cuban sunlight and about fifty missiles burning in midair, halted on their journey. Slowly, with a rotation of Erik’s wrist, they turn on their boats, just waiting for a flick of his wrist to send them deep under the surface.
“Erik, you said yourself, ‘we’re the better men’.” Charles voice sounded like it was forced out of him- you could understand, especially considering how near to death you all were. “This is the time to prove it! There are thousands of men on those ships! Good, honest, innocent men!” His voice broke with an inflection of genuine pain, but you supposed he isn’t experiencing the fear of every person within a twenty-mile radius.
Just thoughts.
You push yourself up on your hands and, curling your fingers, hold onto Charles’ feelings of determination and somehow manage to get yourself up. “Erik, this isn’t going to satisfy you.” Your Polish felt heavy on your tongue, each word a fight against just giving in and maybe burying your head in the sand. Your isolated life in online courses and small Harvard classes and sterile labs never prepared you for any of this.
Your voice got his attention.
“Then, tell me, what will satisfy me, słoneczko?” In one hand, he held an armada’s worth of weapons, yet he talked to you as if he was speaking about something as simple as the newspaper.
“You won’t be satisfied until everyone who even remotely resembles Shaw or any of the other scientists is in the ground. Perhaps even their entire species, extinct. Erik, you can't come back from this.” You sent him waves of calm, of that happy, homely feeling when everything was smooth-sailing back at the CIA headquarters. You could feel it hitting him, but calm and love can only cloak so much, and the trauma and vengeance continued bubbling towards the surface.
“You may be right.” In that instant, you knew he wasn't going to drop the missiles into the deepest part of the ocean. You could feel a malevolence deep underneath those strange, bubbly, sticky emotions he holds for you, mimicked in Charles and Raven and even Hank, on the occasion. He wouldn’t give up a chance to make the human race squirm for the entire world.
“Erik, please, they’re just following orders!” Charles cried out, desperation creeping into his voice. Every half-step of progress you’d just made is erased, like footprints on the sand.
His shoulders straighten, his fingers spread farther apart, as if getting a better grip on the projectiles.
You’re helpless as you watched Erik’s memories replay every slight experiment, every stolen piece of bread, the ghettos, the beatings, his mother’s death... “I’ve been at the mercy of men ‘just following orders’.” He turned his head and made eye contact. “Never again.”
With that, the missiles soared.
“Erik, release them!” There’s a hum, an instant where everything went dull to you, most likely from sensory overload. And, in that instant, Charles tackles Erik like he’s a professional football player.
Harmlessly, with Erik’s focus broken, some missiles explode midair, no longer a threat to either party. Charles, with his hands braced around Erik’s helmet, attempts to push it off forcefully, most likely trying to make a joint effort between the two of you. He’s being a gentleman, wrestling the helmet so you don’t have to get your nails dirty or whatever. Strung out on the collective nerves of everyone present, you find yourself coming in between the two men, having had the premonition to take the metal off of your suit.
You watch as he elbows Charles in the face, then sends the rest of the team flying, finding himself in the superior position. He then repositions the remaining missiles, sending them back on their original course. “Erik, stop!” He yells, just as Erik punches him across the jaw.
You take that as your cue to rip his helmet off, when he swings his fist forward.
Between the three of you, there was a moment of silence, where more disrupted missiles burst in the air. “Hand that back, _.” Erik stood, off of Charles, as if attempting to be civil to you would make up for the fact that he was roughhousing him just seconds ago. His English was heavy, as if pronouncing the words was a difficult task for him. “I don’t... I don’t want either of you in my head.”
“Then we’ll stay out.” These are your words, not Charles’, and the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. “Erik, I trust you. And, if that trust gets me executed in Washington because I cooperated with the mutant terrorist that launched the reason for a genocidal cleansing of all mutants, then so be it.”
Charles, weak and on the ground, didn’t budge. He was hit rather hard the last time Erik had swung his fist and, so far, he was willing to agree to your terms. That was all he could do, now that his brawn and his brains hadn’t won him any prize.
Best to pass the baton to you, then.
“There will be no genocide- mutants are the superior race, there’s no way we would go down without fighting.” He adopted a wry smile. “And I can tell you’re stalling me, _. Please, I don’t want to hurt you.” The unspoken ‘but I will if I have to’ hung in the air, and you felt sick to your stomach. He shoved you, so quickly, out of the way, and grabbed the helmet once more, leaving your progress unmade in the sand.
Moira, the only one Erik hadn’t sent flying back into the forest finally made her appearance once more, firing off seven bullets in his direction. Charles began to stumble upwards and, in a second of rapid understanding and emotional connection, you slammed your foot into Charles’ back, knocking him to the ground again. You pitched forward, with the momentum of the strike, and let out a soft grunt. Erik, solely focused on dodging the bullets, only turned around when he hears the soft, quick sound of metal breaking flesh.
...
You were a scientist. A biology scientist, with a major in microbiology.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that the bullet clipped your aorta, and you’ll bleed out in about three to four minutes and you don’t know whether you’ll see pearly gates or burning fire pits or nothing at all. And that’s something that freaks you out a little.
Moira sees you before Erik sees you, her gun dropped, her hands finding themselves empty in the air, eyes blank and terrified.
Raven sees you before Charles sees you, her hands pressing so hard against her face that the spaces underneath her fingers turn a darker blue.
...
Oh, God, you don’t want to die.
Charles rolled over, spits out a wad of sand, and looked at the small, thumb-sized shape wound in your upper torso before he looked at your face. All of your barriers are down, but it still takes him very long to actually understand what’s going on. He’s the first to respond, curling up and around you, smoothing the little hairs of your face and crying. “You, you, you, you know- You aren’t going to- I can’t lose you- We just met and-”
Don’t cry, Xavier, we have to keep this professional.
Sadness weighs heavy in the air and you watch as the last missiles in the air explode and, for one awful, blood-loss hallucination moment, you think they resemble fireworks. Charles is dripping in that sticky emotion again, but it doesn’t feel so bad this time. It’s comfortable, and you can feel it radiate among all of your teammates as well. He keeps trying to give you an illusion to die out to, but you keep turning your mind away- you don’t need cushions such as that. Everything sounds so far away, like you busted your eardrums, but blood loss is making everything feel like you’re processing everything through frosted glass.
When you turn to your right, you can suddenly see Erik’s rapid movements, his heel turning quick, and his knees dropping to your level. You try to move your fingers in a wave, or maybe a salute. You don’t really know the proper etiquette for dying, and you didn’t think that you’d need to learn so soon. Your mouth moves without you telling it to, some garbled Polish that you bet he didn’t even under-
He takes the helmet off and sets it beside him. Słoneczko, you can’t do this to me. Where Charles' thoughts are a blank white board with screaming emotions, Erik's thoughts are clear, replaying stolen moments with you sending him smile-y emotions and having to roll up on your toes to ruffle his hair. He thinks about your intellect, about how you tried to talk him down from this. He thinks about how he’s losing another important woman in his life and he doesn’t know if he can take that again- he doesn’t know- he doesn’t know- he doesn’t know if he could go on after meeting someone who understood how he worked.
This isn’t Moira’s fault. Don’t you dare blame her, Lensherr. Your eyes are half-closed. I’m not going to make it, you know that. I can’t even talk right now. Just... Even then, your mind drew a blank. Just don’t blame yourself. You don’t always have to seek vengeance. Just do what’s-
The rapidly spreading red stain on the white sand grows at a suddenly faster pace, and, with one last, final thought, your body relaxed into the sand. As if you were just taking a nap.
...
Charles’ hands shake as he closes her eyes, presses a careful kiss to her forehead. He scrambles upwards, away from your blood (now on his knees, his hands, his mind), and falls flat on his face. He lets out a slow, miserable wail, then begins to pound at the sand, not articulating a single word.
Erik sits by her body, her blood thoroughly staining his clothes, and he watches as the color leaves her face. He closes his eyes, places his head in his hands, but doesn’t cry. He intends to mourn, but he has lost his tears to a savage self-hatred. It was his fault that she was dead, despite her own words, but he couldn’t tear himself away.
Raven pulled at Charles’ shoulders, whispering about a proper burial, her blue cheeks stained with tears.
Banshee mentioned that she’d want to die with dignity and that they should, um, take the bullet out. Erik complied without moving a muscle.
Moira threw her gun out to sea and then stared at her lifeless body, as if her gaze could reanimate it. She asked how she was supposed to report this. No one said a word.
Alex folded his fingers and stared at the dead body that used to belong to his teammate, unsure as to how to act or where to move, just that he did not want to be here or have this happen.
Everyone looked at each other.
And then there was silence.