“If you are wondering about your date, Mr. Lehnsherr, she’s fine.”
Professor X accepted the death laser controller from Henchman #4 casually as he approached his ex-boyfriend nemesis. The man restrained on the slab looked at Professor X coolly. He was still wearing most of the tuxedo he’d been wearing when Professor X had kidnapped him from the state dinner earlier that evening. The professor was not in a position where Agent Magneto could see his face, although he knew that the other man had already recognized him by his voice.
“Good,” the spy replied. “She’s not a part of this.”
“Who is she?” Professor X found himself asking before he thought better of it.
“Why? Does it matter to you?” There was a slightly teasing quality in Magneto’s voice, and he had spoken quietly enough that the professor had to move closer.
“Of course not,” Professor X scoffed. Magneto turned his face to look at him full on. The professor tried to move out of his line of sight, but the other man had already seen what the Professor was trying to hide.
“What happened to your nose?”
Professor X self-consciously touched his gold prosthetic nose, feeling his cheeks flush. “You don’t remember?” He said tightly. “That’s funny. It was your bullet, Eri—Mr. Lehnsherr.”
A slight frown crossed the spy’s face. “You mean in Cuba…? How could that—” he said, with an expression of such regret on his face that it made Professor X’s chest hurt. He lowered his voice. “Charles, I’m sorry, for what happened, I--”
Hearing his first name was unbearably intimate; it was as welcomed as it was inappropriate. Professor X gritted his teeth and interrupted the MI6 agent. “It’s too late for that now, Eri—Mister—Magneto. I’ve promised myself that I would end your life and I intend to fulfill that promise.”
Erik looked completely betrayed. Professor X hardened his heart and looked at the death laser in his hand, prepared to push the red button labelled ‘KILL’ and doing his best to ignore the large green button labeled ‘RELEASE’. He was about to push the button when an alarm sounded. Professor X looked up, annoyed, and then rolled his eyes when he realized what it was.
“We have to stop for the day,” he said to Magneto with a resigned sigh. “OSHA rules. We can’t run the generators after 5pm. Also, the overtime is a bitch.” The professor glanced at the spy and saw the prone man’s handsome face was absolutely baffled.
Erik’s mouth worked like he was trying to speak but couldn’t form the words.
Charles looked at his watch and sighed again. “I’ve got to get home to my family, but you can be sure that tomorrow—”
“Family?” Lehnsherr whispered.
Charles lowered his wrist and caught Lehnsherr’s gaze. “Yes, family. The agent who saved my life when you left me bleeding on the beach is now my wife, and we have two beautiful children together.”
Erik blinked a couple times, then looked away. “Congratulations,” he said in a flat voice.
Charles cleared his throat. “Henchman #2 and #6 are on duty tonight,” he said in as professional a voice he could muster. “Let them know if you need to use the facilities. Food will be brought to you as well. I will see you in the morning.”
Professor X walked away from the man a little more slowly than usual, waiting for the MI6 agent’s customary smart-ass remark, but it never came.
**
“You’re distracted,” Moira said.
Charles’ eyes snapped to his wife, sitting across the dinner table from him. “What?”
She smiled at him tiredly, waiting for his scrambled brain to catch up. “Oh,” he said dully. “Yes. It was—a hard day at the office.”
Her smile faded as she stared at him. The twins, Wanda and Pietro, were oblivious to the tension between their parents as they chattered about comic books. “That’s not funny, Charles.”
“I’m not laughing,” Charles responded dully. His head was starting to pound.
Moira glared at him, tight-lipped. “You promised me,” she said. “You promised me you would give it up. Do you know how embarrassing it is, to be a CIA agent married to a super-villain? Do you have any idea how much crap I have to put up with at the office because of this?”
Charles rubbed his face tiredly. “You knew I couldn’t give it up,” he said. “Not until I—” Charles stopped speaking, because it occurred to him that it was about to happen: he was about to vanquish his greatest nemesis. He had been promising Moira for years that once he got Agent Magneto, he would retire from his life of crime, and here it was nearly upon him.
So why he did he feel so depressed?
**
Later that night, in bed, Moira turned away from him. He knew the next part of the script: he was supposed to wrap himself around her and whisper apologies in her ear, beg for her forgiveness, and make promises that neither of them believed he would ever keep.
He was tired of it. Tired of making excuses for not wanting to have sex, tired of pretending that he felt something for her that he was gradually realizing he just didn’t. Moira had taken care of him during the first few rough years, when he was seeing specialists for the headaches and memory problems that had been caused by his injury. The resulting concussion had given him such painful headaches that he often felt confused; it sometimes still happened, although less often than it used to. Moira had held his hand through a dizzying array of hospitals; she had whispered the words that he’d needed to hear in order to keep going when he’d wanted to give up. She had kept him focused on his goal.
However, now...while he was grateful for the care she’d shown him in the beginning of their relationship, it wasn’t Moira that captivated his thoughts. No, it was a tall, lean man with auburn hair and ginger scruff and a smile that should be terrifying but wasn’t. A man who was under Charles’ control, at that moment; a man Charles had vowed to kill the next morning.
If I only had a few hours left of my life, I would want to spend them with him. The thought bubbled to the top of Charles’ consciousness, unbidden, and he immediately hated himself so much he wanted to scream. The man had left him disfigured, bleeding, and unconscious on the beach in Cuba ten years before. Charles should hate him.
And Charles did hate him. The fury burned in him as he thought about Magneto’s smug face and Moira’s voice saying the words. “I can’t believe he did this to you,” over and over again. He wasn’t unused to extreme mood swings; that was another side effect of the brain injury which he’d experienced when his nose had been shot off, ten years before.
Charles had vague memories of being a different kind of person before, someone who was not a supervillain, someone who wanted to do good things for the world and who wasn’t obsessed with revenge. He had recovered a lot since then and had learned to focus his angry impulses thanks to Moira’s patience and help, but he still sometimes had flashbacks he didn’t understand...flashes of laughing with Erik, chess games, and...dancing? They were only fleeting moments, imagery that came with emotional weight, but which he had no way to connect to his current life.
The images were distracting. His mind would chase them and give him a headache, and then he wasn’t sure what was real, and he saw Erik everywhere, even in the smiles and laughter of his children.
Charles lay in bed, not sleeping, as his mind circled in the same patterns it always did. He needed to break the cycle.
He needed to kill Erik Lehnsherr.
**
His lair felt completely deserted, but of course there were two of his henchman still there for the night shift—they were probably off playing cards or watching porn somewhere, Charles thought dispassionately. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.
The lighting was dim but not nonexistent. As he approached the table on which Erik was restrained, his inner turmoil rose to a fever pitch. Erik’s neck was turned, and the position exposed his jugular and showed off his strong jaw. Charles tried to imagine his blood gushing out, tried to imagine Erik screaming in pain and begging for mercy, but instead he saw himself kissing that jawline, he felt the stubble on his lips and warm sunlight on his hair. He felt the throb of Erik’s pulse under his lips and heard Erik’s pleased hum.
The recollection was so vivid that Charles’ steps faltered. Erik’s head snapped to the side and saw him. “Charles,” he said.
Charles stared at him.
“Here we are, alone, and me tied up,” Erik said, attempting a smile that looked a little forced. “Kinky.”
The word made confusing arousal swell in Charles. “No,” he said loudly, too loudly for the room. The sound echoed and it felt like a slap in the face—or perhaps that was his synaesthesia acting up again. Charles’ head pulsed with an abrupt stab of pain. He grabbed his temples and cried out; that focused him. The pain, the headaches, the confusion...they were all caused by Erik. And they would go away if he killed Erik. A part of Charles knew that his logic wasn’t sound, but it was hard to think straight when his brain hurt like that. “I need to kill you,” he told Erik, whose forced smile was replaced by a look of confusion and alarm. “I’ve needed this for a long time.”
“Why?” Erik asked. He looked confused and yes, hurt.
Charles blinked. He forced himself to shuffle to the cabinet where the laser control was. “Stay focused,” he muttered to himself.
“Did you really marry a CIA agent?” Erik asked.
“Why?” Charles countered, not looking at Erik, but instead the giant laser over his head as it charged. “Jealous?”
Erik didn’t respond right away. He was frowning, deep in thought. “How does that work? You are a gay supervillain. And you’re married to a female CIA agent?”
“Excuse me,” Charles said, shocked and offended.
“Well, maybe you’re bi,” Erik conceded, running a tongue over his lips. “But you are definitely not straight.”
“Shouldn’t you be a little more concerned about your imminent death than my sexual proclivities?” Charles asked testily. His finger was hovering over the red button, but every time he looked away, he would find that it had slipped to the green button.
“No,” said Erik honestly. “What happened to you, Charles? What you told me earlier doesn’t make sense.”
Charles frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Erik caught Charles’ gaze and Charles’ breath caught in his throat at how intense his eyes were. “I couldn’t have shot you, Charles. I didn’t have a gun with me that day.”
At first Charles didn’t understand, and then he didn’t believe. Of course the man would lie to him; the whole reason Charles had for killing him was for revenge for that injury. Of course he would try to convince Charles it hadn’t been him. “Nice try,” Charles said, with less confidence than he wanted to have.
“Charles we—we were together, that whole day. We made love that morning. I didn’t have a gun. There was only person who had a gun that day.”
Charles pressed his fingers against his head and tried to remember, wincing at the pain that always accompanied this kind of exercise. He remembered...they had some common goal, before. They had a small crew of people, none of which stood out in Charles’ mind except of course Moira, the most important person in his life. “I don’t remember, Charles admitted.
Erik got a very strange look on his face. “Did Moira tell you that I shot you, Charles?”
Charles opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. Of course Moira had told him that; otherwise, how we he have know? He had been too confused by the concussion from the gunshot, and there were precious minutes right after that gunshot occurred that he would never get back because that’s the way memory worked.
Erik put his head back with a weary sigh. “Moira shot you, Charles. I don’t think it was deliberate. But if definitely wasn’t me.”
“You’re lying,” Charles whispered. He was hearing loud sirens, but he wasn’t quite sure when that had started—how long had the sirens been going off? They were so loud. Charles crouched and put his hands over his head, after he tucked his head between his knees.
And without warning he was there again, on the beach, in Cuba, arguing with Erik. He had started to walk away...and then...PAIN, so much pain, and the copper taste of blood dripping behind his sinuses, clogging his throat, and the sun in his eyes, the hot sand at his back, and then Moira was there, silhouetted against the sky.
”Charles, Erik said. Charles lifted his head. He realized vaguely that Erik had been yelling for the henchmen for what seemed like several minutes at that point. He was struggling against the straps holding him, and saying Charles’ name over and over with an increasingly desperate edge.
Charles struggled to his feet with an effort. His head was still pounding. A part of his mind was screaming KILL MAGNETO but another part of mind was whispering, remember Erik.
“Oh thank god,” Erik breathed, seeing Charles stand up. “Are you alright? What happened?”
Charles blinked at the infamous Agent Magneto, the man he’d hated for so long that he barely seemed real to Charles anymore. In fact, Charles wasn’t sure what was real at all.
And should he be killing someone unless he was absolutely sure they should die?
Charles found himself pressing the green button in a detached way. Erik sucked in his breath at the movement, but looked at his wrists in surprise as the shackles opened and slithered away.
Charles walked to the other side of his lair and stood looking out the window with his hands behind his back, waiting for Magneto to escape. He heard the two missing henchmen come running in and he sent them away with a flick of his hand. He wondered how long he would have to wait until Erik was safely gone. He wondered what he was going to say to Moira.
“Memory can be kinesthetic.”
Charles nearly jumped at the sound of the voice. He refused to turn around, though. “You’re a fool to still be here,” he said, and was mortified to hear his voice crack on the last work.
He heard Erik’s footsteps approaching behind him and felt the warmth of the other man’s lean frame a moment later, not quite pressed into Charles’ back, but close. “Some memories are in your body, not your mind,” Erik said in a voice that was unbearably gentle. Charles felt Erik grasp his hand firmly and then use that grip to turn Charles around, facing him. “You may have heard this referred to as ‘muscle memory’.”
Charles couldn’t be sure if he’d ever heard the phrase or not, but words failed him. He gaped at Erik’s face, confused and conflicted because the hatred he was supposed to be feeling was vastly outweighed by the fondness Charles felt at seeing Erik’s face properly, as it should be seen; not bound on a slab, but free and slightly higher than Charles’ own face. Erik smiled, just a little, which somehow made him look sadder.
He took a step back from Charles and started shaking his hand oddly. Charles stared at his hand, frowning. Something about that was familiar.
“Oh!” said Erik suddenly. He stopped moving and reached into his pocket. “This.” He pulled a mobile phone and started poking at it intensely.
Charles frowned deeper because what was he paying his henchmen for, if they weren’t even removing communication devices from his prisoners?
Erik found what he was looking for and looked up at Charles’ face with a huge grin. His phone was playing music now, music that Charles recognized in his bones, even though he couldn’t say the name of the song.
“You remember, don’t you?” Erik said with a smile.
Profound, sweet nostalgia swept Charles and almost brought tears to his eyes. “Yes,” he gasped. “I mean...I don’t know. I recognize this. This...I’ve heard this a lot.”
“We heard this a lot,” Erik said, smiling so hard he looked like his face might split. “This is the song for the dance we learned together at Studio X. Where we met. Oh, here it comes. Are you ready? 5, 6, 7, 8…”
Charles watched with a feeling of giddy surreality as Erik started moving his hand again, and then started dancing, moving towards Charles, his torso moving rhythmically. His eyes were locked with Charles’.
And then it was Charles’ part, and he knew it, although he didn’t know it. He stepped towards Erik on the beat and they touched hands briefly before they both spun around.
“Triple or quadruple?” Charles gasped, half a laugh in his throat, half a sob. He couldn’t remember having ever felt so exhilarated as he did in that moment.
“Quadruple!” Erik said. His grin flashed by Charles like the cheshire cat as they both spun around multiple times and then went into the next step, a faux-fighting move that almost dimmed Charles’ spirits except for the expression of joy tinged with relief on Erik’s face, across from him.
When Charles tried to concentrate on what was coming next in the choreography, he would lose the beat and get confused. Instead, he tried to let his mind loose and trust that the next move was there. He didn’t falter until after the softshoe step, when he stepped the wrong direction and tripped over Erik’s leg.
They both tumbled down. Erik rolled so that he was under Charles, taking the brunt of the force of the fall. He grunted softly as they landed. Charles raised his face to look at Erik in confusion and they both burst into laughter.
Their laughter rapidly faded as Charles saw Erik looking at his lips. Erik leaned up with obvious intent and pressed a soft, unhurried kiss to Charles’ lips, the music still playing, muffled, in Erik’s pocket.
The kiss felt like coming home. Charles pulled away reluctantly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m not sure what’s happening right now.” Charles rolled off of Erik and stood up. Confusion was like an old friend to Charles, but this confusion felt different. Less dark; less brutal.
Erik stood up too, slowly, watching Charles carefully. “The CIA has been using you,” Erik said bluntly. “They wanted me dead, and they couldn’t do it directly. They needed a third party. They needed someone—disposable.” After a moment, he added, quietly, “They needed someone I would let get close to me.”
It was too much for Charles to process. He frowned at Erik for several minutes before speaking again. “What is Studio X?”
Erik gave Charles an incredulous. “That’s your first question?” He choked out a small laugh.
“How do we both know this dance?” Charles asked desperately. He wasn’t ready to deal with the other thing Erik had mentioned, although it loomed in his mind.
“Studio X is your dance studio,” Erik said gently. “Part of my MI6 required training was ballroom dancing, because it’s a necessary diplomatic skill. I signed up to take classes at your studio...and then I met you, and...let’s just say I ended up taking more classes than I had planned on.”
The look he gave Charles was painfully fond, but Charles tried to focus on his words. “I owned a dance studio?”
“You did,” Erik said softly. “You and your sister, Raven, together. I hired you for private jazz dance lessons, and she choreographed—what we just did—for us.”
Charles sucked in his breath as he had a rush of recollection. He remembered her; Raven. White teeth flashing against blue as she danced, yellow eyes that sparkled with mischief, an image of her doing a breathtaking grand jeté. She had been more than his sister; she’d been his best friend, his business partner…
“How could I have forgotten her?” He cried out, putting a hand on his head.
Erik took an uncertain step towards Charles. “I’m sorry,” he whispered desperately. “They did things to you. They messed with you mind. Do you remember…” Erik trailed off, but kept looking at Charles, as if he was imploring Charles to know what he was saying without speaking it.
“Do I remember what?” Charles asked. “You? A little bit...”
Erik swallowed and shook his head. “Nothing.” He took a step closer to Charles and caught his hand. He spoke imploringly. “Come with me, Charles. Come to England with me. MI6 has resources; they may be able to help you recover your abilities.”
Charles looked down at the clasped hands. He swallowed and replied slowly. “I need to talk to Moira.”
“No you don’t,” Erik said urgently. “She did this to you, Charles. She’s been lying to you and for all I know, drugging you.”
Charles pulled away from Erik in shock. “She’s my wife, Erik. We adopted two children together. I can’t leave them even if what you are saying is correct, and I don’t even…” Charles winced at a sharp pain in his head, putting his hand to his temple.
“What is it?” Erik asked, alarmed.
“It’s just—a headache. I have them all the time. Ever since you shot me.”
“I DIDN’T SHOOT YOU!” Erik shouted.
Charles raised his eyes to look at Erik, despite the pain in his head. He realized how sparse his memories of Erik actually were. He remembered that they had been lovers, but he couldn’t remember any details, or any specific things they’d done together. Even after dancing, he still didn’t remember learning the movement that his body still remembered. And overlaying all his thoughts about Erik was an ugly layer of anger and resentment and Moira’s bitter voice reminding him of what Erik had done every time he was overcome with pain or confusion.
But that layer was wearing thin. Erik’s words were intoxicatingly attractive. He wanted it to be true, even as he resented the implication that Moira had manipulated him.
Except...had she?
“I need to talk to Moira,” Charles said firmly, and then added, in a softer voice, “Will you come?”
Erik looked grim but nodded.
**
It was very late, nearly dawn, by the time Charles unlocked his front door. He froze immediately because he saw the silhouette of a person sitting at the kitchen table.
“Charles?” the silhouette asked, in Moira’s voice, a voice tinged with worry.
“Yes, it’s me,” Charles said neutrally.
“Oh, thank god! I thought you probably decided not to wait til tomorrow to finish off Magneto, but you should have told—”
At that moment, Erik stepped inside the door next to Charles. Moira moved faster than Charles would have thought possible into an aggressive stance, holding something aimed at the two of them. Abruptly the room was flooded with light and it was clear that Moira was aiming a gun at them—or it had been clear, because she made a startled noise as the gun seemed to yank itself out of her hands and slowly rotate so it was facing her.
Charles was gaping at the gun floating in mid-air. He thought he might actually be hallucinating; his eyes still smarted from the sudden change in ambient light level.
Moira yelled and charged Erik, only to find herself being restrained by pieces of metal that had flown out of the kitchen drawers. She hissed at Erik in anger when the metal tugged her back by the neck over to the chair she had been sitting in at the kitchen table.
“What is happening?” Charles yelled. Both Erik and Moira snapped their heads to look at him in unison.
“He’s a mutant, Charles,” Moira said desperately. “He shot you. You need to kill him!”
Erik lifted a hand like he was going to strike Moira, but put it down slowly. He was vibrating with anger and tension, but clearly trying to control himself. He turned to face Charles.
“She’s partly right,” Erik said in a tight voice. “I am a mutant. And so are you. I can manipulate metal, among other things, and you…” he smiled slightly, like he was proud. “You can manipulate minds. Among other things.”
Charles snorted, and the sound echoed in his gold prosthetic nose. “I can’t even control my own mind, let alone anyone else’s.”
“Because of her!” Erik shouted suddenly, flinging his arm in Moira’s direction. His volume rose in exasperation. “This is what I have been trying to tell you! She’s been brainwashing you. The CIA has wanted to bring me down ever since I arrested Sebastian Shaw; he was providing them with information, and they can’t find a replacement for him. They think they could, if I was out of the way, but they are wrong,” he said emphatically, turning his head to Moira. Erik controlled himself with a visible effort and turned back to Charles, changing the character of his voice so that he was speaking softly. “They needed plausible deniability; someone whom the CIA theoretically couldn’t control. A villain—someone they could throw under the bus after. Preferably a supervillain.”
Charles tried to process Erik’s words and looked over at Moira to see her reaction. Her mouth was slightly open as she frowned heavily at Erik. “How do you—” she caught herself and swallowed, shaking her head.
“How do I know that?” Erik demanded, stalking closer to her. She looked up at him belligerently as the cutlery holding her wrists to the table tightened visibly. “That’s what you were going to ask, wasn’t it?” He smiled down at Moira, an unpleasant expression. “Let’s just say a little birdie told me.”
Confusion flickered across Moira’s face briefly, until she looked away and closed her eyes in defeat. “The new secretary,” she said dully.
“The new secretary,” Erik agreed, with a cold smile on his face. “Otherwise known as Raven Xavier.”
“Sorry?” Charles said.
“I told them we should test every applicant’s DNA,” Moira grumbled.
“Tell Charles how he was injured,” Erik commanded Moira, with his arms crossed. Charles had been about to speak when Erik’s words made him swallow back the words.
“He knows how—” Moira started to say in a small voice.
“TELL HIM,” Erik yelled.
Charles heard a whimper in the direction of the hallway and gasped. “Pietro and Wanda,” he said, leaving the kitchen entirely.
“What did you say?” Erik asked, baffled and incredulous as Charles walked past him.
“Our children,” Charles explained. He had barely gotten out of the kitchen when he almost fell over them both, perched just out of sight, both of them sniffling and terrified.
“Your…” Erik seemed to forget about his impromptu interrogation of Moira as he followed Charles and stopped short like he’d hit a brick wall when he saw the twins.
“Pietro and Wanda?” he said, looking to Charles with the same look of incredulous horror. “How...how did select those names?”
“They were already given,” Charles said, kneeling next to his kids so he could hug both of them. “They had just turned three when we adopted; we couldn’t change their names at that point. Moira said their parents were killed when—”
”MacTaggert!” Erik snarled. He held his hand out and the gun obediently slipped into his grip without him even looking at it and it was pointed at Moira. “You’ve had my children? You and Charles were raising my children—”
“Erik,” Charles said in a trembling voice. Erik turned to look at him, kneeling between the dark-haired girl and the silver-haired boy, who were both crying. Something in his face softened, but he didn’t put the gun down, or move it away from Moira.
“Moira,” Erik said in a level voice. “Tell Charles how he was injured, and I may...reconsider my position on your continued existence.”
Charles suspected Erik was speaking in words he thought the children wouldn’t understand, but it was negated by the fact that he was still holding a gun pointed at Moira.
Moira swallowed. She looked pale and waxy, and Charles supposed that he should feel protective of her, but he felt oddly distant.
“I was ordered to shoot you both,” Moira said to the tabletop. “I was supposed to gain your trust and then neutralize you. People with abilities like yours…” she shook her head. “You are too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
“And yet here we are, very much alive,” Erik said. He cocked the gun. “Unlike some—”
Charles watching the interaction with growing horror. Was Erik going to shoot Moira, in front of their children? In front of what Charles now realized were Erik’s children? Charles remembered what Erik had told him about his own abilities and he desperately tried to make something happen with his mind. He touched both temples and wished ERIK PLEASE STOP with all his mental might.
Erik hissed and touched his head. “Ow, okay, okay, let up, please,” he pleaded.
Charles tried to remove pressure, still not sure how this worked or if it worked, but Erik heaved a relieved breath.
It was like the floodgates had opened in Charles’ mind. The pain was excruciating, but he could suddenly perceive the thoughts of all four other people in the room. It was exhilarating and more than a little overwhelming.
But he could finally find out the truth. “Moira,” Charles asked in a quiet voice. “Did you shoot me? Is it your fault that my nose is gone?”
Her mind gave him the answer before her mouth did. She gave him a pained look. “I’m sorry, Charles,” she said. “I was just following orders.”
Erik’s mind screamed and it was Charles’s turn to wince. Charles saw that Erik looked more murderous than ever. “My grandparents were in Auschwitz, you bitch,” Erik snapped.
“Erik,” Charles said desperately, “Call for backup.”
Erik blinked at him with glazed eyes. Charles could see bloody fantasies of killing Moira playing out in his head and tried not to look too closely at them. He spoke more firmly. “You’re MI6. Call them. Call your superiors. Let them decide what to do with her.”
Erik looked at Charles with twisted lips. “But she—”
“I know,” Charles said, cutting Erik off. “Thanks to you, I know what she did. I found it again—my telepathy. Someone had worked very hard to try make make me lose it, but I just found it, and in her mind, I can see…” Charles shook his head. “Moira, I thought you were taking care of me, with all those specialists...they were just hurting me worse, weren’t they?”
Moira sat with her mouth shut, eyes forward. “Moira MacTaggert, Lieutenant, 19620277.” Name, rank, and serial number. Charles could feel that she had built up some kinds of shields in her mind; she’d probably been trained for this eventuality, he thought.
Erik took his phone out of his pocket and dialled, glaring at Moira while he spoke in short, sharp phrases.
It occurred to Charles that the children should be traumatized by this, but their minds reflected less distress than he had expected. “Wanda, Pietro. Are you alright?”
“Daddy’s not going to shoot her, is he?” Pietro whispered.
“I hope not,” Charles whispered back. “You—you remember him?”
“He’s our first daddy,” Wanda said. “But we love both of you. And mommy.”
Charles’s heart felt like it was being squeezed. How could he take his children away from their mother? He looked at Moira, who was staring stonily forward. “I don’t think mommy will be around much anymore.”
“Not that mommy,” Wanda said. “She doesn’t love us. Our first mommy. She and daddy broke up, but she loved us.”
Charles knew what Wanda was saying was true; he could see it in Moira’s mind. He and the children had been an assignment to her. She had felt fond of them, at times, but ultimately she had been prepared to walk out the minute her superiors told her the assignment was done.
But how had the children known that? She had certainly acted like a caring wife and mother. “Why do you say she didn’t love you, Wanda?”
“Because she didn’t,” Wanda said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “But you do. And daddy does. So I made him come here.”
Charles frowned slightly. “You made him…?”
Erik finished his phone call and squatted down. “So you remember me?” he asked the children. In response, they both ran to him and hugged him, pushing him over in their enthusiasm. Erik laughed and let himself be bowled over.
“Daddy why are you mad at—Moira?” Pietro asked Erik after a moment.
“Because she hurt your other daddy very much,” Erik answered gravely. “She shot him in the face with a gun.”
Pietro’s eyes went wide. “She did?”
“Yes, and then she lied to him about it, and said that I did it.”
“But you didn’t,” Wanda reminded Erik.
“No, I didn’t,” Erik agreed softly. “I love your daddy too much to ever hurt him that way.” Erik caught Charles’ eye. “Do you guys love him?”
“Yes,” they chorused.
“Me too. Let’s all go hug him.”
And that was how Charles found himself lying on the floor, being kissed by Erik while the children shrieked in glee.
The next couple hours were a blur of activity and emotions as Raven arrived with the MI6 agents and she and Charles had a joyously tearful reunion. After all the agents had gone, Charles and Erik decided to have breakfast together with their children.
With his telepathy back, Charles had gained a dimension to his life that he’d forgotten he had ever lost. His ability made other people seem more vibrant, more alive, and more present even when he wasn’t reading their minds; he’d forgotten how that felt. Many of his memories from before his injury were coming back, too; he wondered behind the physiology of that for a moment before he forced his attention back to the present; Erik was looking at him fondly as they ate their eggs and the children ate their cereal.
It felt like sunshine, and for once he didn’t associate the feel of sunshine with the tragedy and anger and bitterness of being shot on the beach. He associated it with walks and dancing outside and falling in love. He still had a dull headache in the back of his head, but for the first time in a long time he felt something other than a bitter anticipation of revenge: hope.
They still had problems to sort out, as Charles was far from completely recovered. Also, the CIA would almost certainly be coming after them again, and the whereabouts of the twins’ mother was still a mystery to Charles. But his heart swelled when he looked at Raven. His abuser was gone, and he had his lover, his sister, and his telepathy back. He had a family. They would deal with everything else together.
“It’s gonna be fine, daddy,” Wanda said to him brightly. He smiled at her and wondered at the red sparks that appeared to twinkle around her face.