Chapter Text
It wasn't until they neared the mansion that Charles remembered just what had happened to it. He stared out the window of the jet, waiting to see the crumbled remains of everything he had spent so long building.
Erik sat next to him on the small jet he'd pulled from Cairo's airport. He had been there for the entire journey home, helmet and armour discarded at his feet. A quick check with Jean showed that when Charles had been unconscious, for most of the journey home, Erik has barely let anyone else approach him. He had carried Charles onto the plane himself, and his cloak was still folded up and placed behind Charles' head.
"We'll rebuild it, professor," Jean said quietly. She felt tired, when Charles brushed her mind, but there was a calm confidence she now carried that hadn't been there before. Charles was pleased for her.
Erik stirred, leaning forwards to look out the window. The moment the ruins of the mansion came into view the plane shuddered, the metal audibly creaking, and Charles winced at the sudden flares of fear and panic from the minds nearby. After everything, his control was not nearly as refined as it normally would.
The plane shuddered again, and Charles saw Hank shift uneasily in the pilot's seat. Erik, let go of the plane he said into Erik's mind.
Erik shifted, and the plane righted itself. How can you be so calm? he asked back to Charles. Charles could barely block out the storm of anger and rage and grief that was hurtling through Erik, tired as he was.
Anger will get me nowhere after all that's happened, Charles replied. I've got others to think about. Besides, I'm too tired to be angry at the moment.
Worry pulsed from the maelstrom that was Erik's mind, but he didn't say anything more.
They landed on the lawn and the students staggered from the jet in various states of exhaustion. Raven paused next to Charles, but Erik glared at her and moved to help Charles himself.
You could just build me a wheelchair, Charles thought at Erik as he picked him up. Yours powers are far more impressive than I've ever known. I'm sure you wouldn't have much trouble with it.
"Stay out of my head, Charles," Erik grumbled, stepping carefully out of the jet and wincing in the sunlight. "You don't want to be in there."
Charles just shook his head, and watched the students as Erik set him down gently on the ground, resting against a tree. He could sense the turmoil in Erik's mind, could tell that Erik was in a daze, and barely holding himself together even if he didn't realise it, so he didn't push.
The students who had remained behind flooded around him, all clamouring to make sure he was okay, to find out what had happened. He could sense more than a few of them, those too young to know much about the events of years ago, looking curiously at Erik and Ororo, wondering who they were and what they were doing here. He spent a long time reassuring them and answering their questions before Raven came over and dragged them all away. He didn't admit it, but he was grateful for the quiet that followed.
Erik was standing at the edge of the camp, hands outstretched, and in front of him tents were unfolding and erecting themselves in neat, ordered lines. Jean was standing across from him on the other side of the lawn, and though her tents were nowhere near as organised as Erik's, between them they had a sizeable encampment erected in no time. Almost as soon as it was done Raven bullied Charles into the largest tent, declaring that he had to sleep before he made himself collapse. He could hear the worry in her voice, let alone flashing from her mind, along with cracked memories of the past few days, so he didn’t put up any resistance.
Someone had found blankets and cushions, and Charles rather suspected that he had more than his fair share. It was yet another thing that he would have to worry over tomorrow: with the combined powers of Erik and Jean, rebuilding a house should not be so difficult, but they could not make beds materialise out of thin air.
Erik, in a change from the plane, kept his distance from Charles. Perhaps it was the amount of people around them, or perhaps he had just been acting on instinct after Cairo, and was now more aware of what he was doing. Charles didn’t quite know, and though he could guess at the anger and shame coursing through Erik, he wouldn’t know unless he looked. Which he was not going to do without permission.
But in the morning, when Charles woke up, there was a metal wheelchair sitting outside his tent. There was even cushioning on the seat, and it looked suspiciously like Magneto’s cloak.
“Charles, I think you’re missing the point here.”
To someone who didn’t know her, Raven sounded angry. To Erik, lurking on the fringes of this conversation, she just sounded tired.
There was so much that needed doing. Erik could manipulate metal, and Jean everything else, but neither of them had any idea how to actually build a house, and they didn’t have any materials yet anyway. As usual, Charles’ bottomless bank accounts could take care of it, but it was still a logistical nightmare.
Erik didn’t know whether to laugh or choke back a sob at that. A day ago, he’d been trying to tear the world apart. Now he was listening to conversations about furniture.
He’d once been in a plane that had been hit by fire and lost one of the engines, and started to free-fall in the seconds before he could wrap his powers around it. He felt like that now, only this time there was nothing to could reach out to, no plane that he could control.
He didn’t know what to do anymore.
Always so dramatic, Erik, Charles said in his mind, sending a cool soothing wave his way. Erik snarled back, turning and stalking away.
That doesn’t work very well with me, you know, Charles thought, sounding mildly amused. We do need you to help rebuild, Erik. There are blueprints to the house that Moira is getting, and Jean is going to use mine and Raven’s memories as well. She’ll direct most of it, but she’ll need you to actually lift all the metal. Oh, and if you could do the plumbing and electrics, that’d be much appreciated. You probably have more experience with that sort of thing. Hank will help, where he can.
“I’m sure he will,” Erik muttered as he stalked through the lawns of the house. He didn’t need to be a telepath to know that Hank did not trust him at all, along with many of the students who were old enough to know who Magneto was. He didn’t blame them. He hardly trusted himself at the moment.
He’d done a lot of bad things over the years, and he didn’t know what he regretted anymore. If he thought about it too much, he thought he might lose his mind to it all.
You’re not going to lose your mind, Erik, Charles thought. In Erik’s head, he sounded slightly irritated. You’re being dramatic again.
“You don’t know anything,” Erik snarled back. “And stay out of my head.”
I will if you come back to the rest of us, Charles replied coolly. There’s a lot of work that needs doing, and I can’t spend all my time doing this with you whenever you decide you don’t want to interact with anyone else.
Erik’s feet stuttered to a stop. He was in amongst the trees now, and turning back he couldn’t see the tents set up on the lawn. He could feel the metal support struts, though, along with the metal of Charles’ wheelchair and various things in peoples’ pockets. Charles was with what felt like Hank, judging by the stethoscope he could feel, and a few more people.
Erik, come back over here, Charles thought. He paused, and then added: they’ll always be scared of you if you don’t give them a reason not to be.
“Stay out of my head.”
It’s a little hard when you’re broadcasting as loudly as you are right now, Charles replied. Besides, my control is iffy for the moment. I think you’re giving Jean a bit of a headache, by the way.
“I don’t care,” Erik muttered, though even he knew that it was a lie.
There was a surprising wave of something close to annoyance from Charles, and Erik blinked. “You’re angry.”
You tried to destroy the world, Erik, Charles said in reply. I don’t quite understand why you did it, and even though you helped us in the end, it’s going to take some time for me to come to terms with that. His presence suddenly faded from Erik’s mind and Erik automatically reached out, feeling for the metal of Charles’ chair that he knew so well. It was in the same place as before, and Erik forced himself to relax.
Sorry, I need to take care of some things, Charles said into his mind abruptly. Do try and come back to civilization before lunchtime. His presence faded once more, but this time it stayed gone. Erik sank down to the grass, and leant back against one of the trees. He levitated the change in his pocket until it rose out in front of him, spinning around his fingers, and he made them into the shape of a rose.
He felt the metal of her bangles and rings long before he heard her footsteps on the grass. For a moment he considered warning her away, tightening the bangles around her wrist, but she was one of the few people who knew what he could do, and didn’t act like they were scared of him.
Charles didn’t count. Charles, with his endless optimism and hope, and the long history between the two of them, would never count.
“I like it here,” was the first thing she said as she sat down next to him. “It’s quiet.”
Erik didn’t reply. Ororo didn’t look over at him, but instead her gaze settled on the ground as she plucked at the blades of grass.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve done,” she said softly. “What I was a part of. What I can do to atone.”
Erik snorted. He could tell her that she didn’t need to atone, but that would be a lie. He could tell her that humanity didn’t matter, that as mutants they were above them, but he wasn’t quite sure if that would be the truth as well.
“You want to stay?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“I’d like to teach, eventually,” Ororo replied. “If the Professor will have me.”
“He will,” Erik assured her. “Charles wouldn’t turn you away.”
“Even after all I’ve done?”
He could hear the hesitation in her voice, the unspoken worry that she would be turned away after all she had taken part in. He shook his head. “What you have done is so very little compared to my past,” he said to her. “If Charles has not gone into my head and made me walk straight out of here, then he will undoubtedly give you a place here. You’ll be safe here.”
“And you?” Erik arched a brow, but Ororo met his gaze. “Will you stay?”
“I don’t believe anyone wants me to,” Erik pointed out. “I’m a terrorist and a fugitive. It’s not someone you really want around a school.”
“Somehow, I don’t think any of their opinions matter to you,” Ororo said steadily. “And of the one opinion that does matter- well, you said it yourself. If he hasn’t made you walk out of here already, I doubt he will now.”
Erik levelled her with a glare. She may be one of the only people to have been beside him through most of the recent events, and the only other one of the four recruited by En Sabah Nur to be on these grounds right now, but that didn’t mean he owed her anything.
“I haven’t told anyone what happened to your wife and daughter.”
Erik startled, instinctively reaching for the metal around him. Despite her bangles shaking on one wrist, Ororo fixed him with a steady look. “I won’t tell them,” she said. “I thought you might like to know that.”
Erik didn’t know what he would like to know. Magda and Nina were an open wound, one that he could feel festering but wasn’t brave enough to try and drain for fear of the pain. The damage he had done, that was another wound, one that had been dug open again and again.
“I’m not the one you should be talking to about atonement,” Erik said eventually. “Find someone else.”
“Fine,” Ororo said. “But only if you come and get some lunch. There’s a buffet on the front lawn.”
Erik sighed, but he was feeling hungry, and he didn’t have to talk to anyone to get lunch. He supposed that not many people would want to talk to him, and Charles was easy to avoid when people needing things from him were constantly distracting him. He got to his feet, and followed Ororo across the grass.
Later, when he had retreated to the shade of a tree and was studying the blueprints for the mansion that someone had found- he was drifting, and studying blueprints was just enough to distract him from the pulse of Magda Nina all those deaths what have you done- he saw Ororo talking to Peter. The kid intrigued him, he admitted, but only because he’d caught him staring after him a few times now, and not looking afraid.
“I’m ashamed of it,” he heard Ororo say. “I thought I was- I thought there was something inside of me that was… I don’t know, something good. Yes, I pickpocketed and I stole from people, but I didn’t think I was evil.”
“I think I’m the wrong person to be having this crisis with,” Peter replied. “I mean, you can talk to me if you want, but I’m not a professor- hey, why don’t you talk to the Professor about this? He’s way more qualified than I could ever be. I bet he’s talked people through hundreds of crisises- is it crisises? Or crises? Language can be so confusing sometimes. That’s why I never tried to learn another one. This one is bad enough, thanks.”
“It’s crises,” Ororo replied.
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Peter said. Erik could feel the aluminium of his crutch as he stabbed it into the ground, as if to emphasise his point. “Anyway, people way more powerful and wiser than you have sided with the wrong people because they were scared or manipulated or just plain got it wrong. It’s, like, the basis of half the comic books out there. Well, maybe not that many. But it happens more than you’d think in them. Anyway, my point is that you screwed up. Maybe on a more epic scale than most of us, though you’d be surprised how disappointed my mum can get with the amount of shoplifting I’ve done. Oh, and I did break Magneto out of the Pentagon a while back.”
“Do you always talk this fast?” Ororo asked, sounding amused. Erik could feel the metal of Peter’s goggles bob up and down with his nod.
“I can’t run right now, so it’s all I’ve got,” he replied. “Believe me, I’m slowing it down for you. But my point is that we’ve all screwed up. The question is, what will you do about it now?”
They wandered off out of Erik’s hearing, though he tracked their progress for a few more minutes. He supposed that was indeed the question. But he had no idea what the answer could be.