Chapter 8
Erik, Charles and Raven entered the mansion, after Tony insisted to drop them off when the private plane landed in Manhattan two hours ago.
It was nice to be home. Charles really missed his students, it was always hard to be away from them for too long.
“It is strangely quiet around here.” Erik commented with a frown, as he looked around the empty main hall.
“Technically, they are still on their off week, so it’s normal for no one to be around here at this time.” Raven shrugged as she made her way inside.
Charles started to follow her, but then stopped and frowned. Something wasn’t right. He can feel that everyone was awake, but they were held up in their rooms. He could feel something in the air.
Fear. His home stinks of fear.
He paused at that. Fear? Since when his home had a place for fear? That wasn’t right.
They heard little footsteps rushing from somewhere, then Jean appeared from the top of the stairs and stared at them with wide, hopeful and terrified eyes.
“Professor, you’re back!” she exclaimed in pure relief, as she rushed down the stairs until she reaches him, only to climb on his lap and wrap her little arms around his neck to cling to him like her life depends on it.
“Woah, woah, Jean, what’s going on, darling?” he wrapped his arms around her, despite his shocked confusion, as the little girl started to sob into his neck, effectively shattering his heart to pieces. Erik and Raven stared at her in confusion and worry.
“Please, don’t leave again. That thing will appear again when you are not here. It hurts us. Please, don’t leave me again.” She cried loudly, clinging hard to him, like he can make anything evil go away.
“Thing? What thing?” Erik tensed as he looked at her in worry, sharing a nervous look with Raven.
“Jean, calm down, I am not going anywhere.” Charles murmured comfortingly, as he carded his fingers through her hair gently. He looked up at Erik and shared a worried look with him. “You are safe. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Erik crouched down next to them and placed a gentle hand on top of Jean’s head. “Jean, will you tell me what Thing are you talking about? And who got hurt?”
Jean just shook her head and curled even more in Charles’ arms, trying hard to hide from everything.
At that moment, Hank and Logan appeared with matching pale faces and approached them carefully.
Erik straightened up and looked over at them with a hard face.
“What happened?” he barked sharply, making Hank flinch a little.
They shared a look, then stared back at them. Apparently not sure how to answer.
Charles raised his eyes towards them, a very uncharacteristic enraged look on his face.
“What happened to my children while we were gone, and then hide it from me for almost a week?” the telepath snapped, eyes shining with pure rage. “Don’t make me breach your minds and find answers on my own, it will not be pretty for you, I swear.”
“We will tell you everything.” Hank sighed tiredly, looking like both he and Logan didn’t get any sleep for days. “You are going to hate it.”
***
“Where’s Tony anyway?”
Dean asked curiously as he walked around the kitchen, preparing dinner with Steve.
They got back a few hours ago and everyone was starving, so they decided to make an early dinner while the others rested a little and settle in again.
“He insisted on making sure that the X family went home safely.” Steve answered, while cutting the vegetables. “I am not sure why he didn’t just send Happy, but I am sure he has good reason for his worrying.”
Angel was glued to Steve’s leg since the moment they came back, after the puppy spent the past week with Pepper. He must have really missed them, he kept barking happily at anyone he sees, and they kept giving him treats while cooing at him. He specifically adored Steve, whenever the soldier sits down, he just climbs into his lap to curl in it happily, and if he gets up he follows him everywhere, much to the soldier’s joy.
The poor puppy, however, was terrified of Thor’s new hairstyle, which proves that the puppy had good taste and high awareness.
“I don’t get why would he be worried, we just got back from a vacation not Mars. It was only a week.” Dean frowned, as he leaned down to offer Angel a treat and give him a scratch between his ears. He smiled at his obvious happiness. He couldn’t help but adore the adorable puppy that has eyes almost the same shade as his own angel.
“A lot of things could happen in a week.” Steve shrugged, as he moved to drop the vegetables inside a pot. “In case you forgot, the whole thing with the robotic invaders happened in one week.”
“Thank you for reminding me of that.” Dean rolled his eyes and busied himself with the cooking. “I am trying hard to forget that part of our lives. It still gives me a nice amount of nightmares. Not to mention what it was doing to Cas.”
“I know. I am sorry for bringing it up.” Steve sighed with a grimace. “I am not sure anyone could forget that week though.”
“It is hard to forget the week we almost died and lost everything, then having to burn the bodies of our own dead doppelgangers, who failed to save their world.” Dean murmured as his mind started to fly back to a few months ago. What happened left its mark on every single one of them. Castiel most of all. Seeing a version of yourself die right in front of you was never easy. Especially if they died after living through their worst nightmare and biggest fear.
“How Castiel do it?” Steve whispered, not really looking at Dean.
“Do what?”
“Keeps standing after all that? Anyone would fall apart after what he had been through and no one would blame them.”
“He is Cas.” Dean just shrugged with a soft, fond smile. “He is strong. Nothing can break him. He is a strong son of bitch.”
Steve turned to him and gave him a long look, before smiling a little.
“Yeah, that’s true.” He agreed with a small chuckle, Dean smiled back, before going to the fridge to pull it open and get a few things they need.
At that moment, Tony came back and immediately made his way towards the kitchen.
“Okay, I am officially wiped out but ready for our ‘we are home’ sex, so pants off, Rogers.” He announced his presence loudly, as he eyed Steve with a grin.
Steve blinked at him, while Dean closed the fridge so he could give Tony an impressive bitchface, who obviously didn’t notice him before.
“Didn’t see you there, Winchester.” Tony winced, then chuckled a little uncomfortably.
“Really glad you are back, Stark.” Dean rolled his eyes, while his bitchface was firmly in place. “I am pretty sure I know about your sex life more than what I know about mine. I hate that.”
Steve just trailed his eyes between them with an awkward smile. Angel barking happily as he ran up to Tony, who was grinning half apologetically at Dean.
***
Charles was staring down at the floor blankly, while holding a sleeping Jean gently in his arms, who was curled up in his lap. His face completely frozen, not showing an ounce of emotion, which was way scarier than Erik’s harsh glare that was currently directed at Logan and Hank.
“So, basically what you are saying is that for almost a week now, a fucking dark figure was roaming the mansion at night and doing something to the children, which there are three of them in a coma because of it, and you didn’t think about telling us?!” Erik pretty much screamed in pure rage, the metal in the room was vibrating hard along with his rage.
“I thought we could handle it on our own.” Logan stated with a deep pained frown. “Every night, I roamed all the halls, waiting for whatever it is to show up, but every single time it takes one step ahead of me and disappears before I could catch it, then it’d be too late.”
“What does it look like?” Raven asked, while pacing around the room nervously.
“We didn’t see it.” Hank answered with a tired sigh. “The only two who had seen it are Jean and Ororo, but both of them are too shocked and terrified to say anything.”
“Unbelievable.” Erik shook his head in frustration, looking too enraged to handle.
“Look, Charles, we just wanted you to take a little time off.” Hank tried to make the silent telepath understand. “We thought we can handle it, but whatever it is turned out to be smarter than it should and things escalated too fast for us to comprehend. Please, understand.”
“Understand?” Charles repeated emotionlessly, raising his blank eyes towards Hank. Erik was looking at him in concern. “How can I understand any of that? I was away for one week, only to come back and find that the safe haven I tried to create for my children was brutally destroyed. Now I have two children traumatized and another three in a mysterious coma! How can I possibly understand any of this?!” Charles voice got angrier and louder by each sentence, while clutching the sleeping Jean in his arms protectively. “You should have called me the second something happened! I deserved to know from the very beginning instead of being in the dark for an entire week!”
“Charles, please, calm down.” Erik hissed as he and the others clutched their heads in pain, knees buckling from its intensity.
Charles stopped and realized that his powers acted up from his anger, and tried to calm the deep rage and panic rising inside him.
The other four dropped to the floor after the pain suddenly lifted, and were panting hard.
“I am sorry.” Charles clutched the armrests of his chair in panic, as he stared at what he did. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Charles, it’s okay.” Erik reassured him gently as he reached for his hand to take it between his, despite his pain. “We will deal with this, alright? Whatever is doing this, we will make them pay dearly.”
Charles trailed his eyes towards his husband, he saw the determination and rage in them. He believed him.
But he had the feeling that things won’t be as easy as Erik had put it.
***
Dean entered his and Castiel’s room later that night, only to find the angel sleeping on an armchair, an open book on his lap.
He frowned as he stared. That didn’t happen for a while now. Sure, at first, Castiel didn’t know when he pushed his limits and Dean would usually find him asleep in strange places, like he slept suddenly mid action out of exhaustion.
But that didn’t happen for a couple of years now. Dean made sure of that by always dragging Castiel to bed before he pushes his limits, so that scene in front of him was worrying.
He swallowed his worry and made his way towards the sleeping angel.
“Cas?” he whispered, while trailing his fingers gently through the angel’s hair. “Babe? Come on, wake up for me, will you?”
Castiel stirred, before opening his eyes to look blearily up at him, looking like he was trying to figure out where he was.
“Dean?” Castiel mumbled tiredly, while blinking himself awake.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed now, yeah?” Dean murmured as he helped the angel up. He undressed him carefully, before laying him on the bed. He did the same for himself, then joined him under the covers.
Even with how tired he looked, Castiel scooted over immediately to rest his head on the hunter’s chest and wrap his arm around his waist. Dean looked down at him and felt a tugging in his heart, as he wrapped an arm around Castiel to pull him closer protectively.
“Cas?” Dean whispered, eyes trained on the ceiling. Worry and fear clawing at his heart.
“Yes, Dean?” Castiel murmured sleepily, burrowing closer to Dean’s warmth.
“Promise me that you won’t use your grace any time soon.” The hunter said, tightening his hold on the angel. “Not even to save me. Think about yourself for a change. Please.”
Castiel moved a little to look up at him silently. A contemplating look on his face.
“I promise.” He whispered, looking away from Dean’s eyes.
At that moment, Dean knew he was lying.
***
“I still think we should call the guys to come and help us.” Raven stated, while chewing her bottom lip in worry. “This is definitely a supernatural being wreaking havoc in our home. That’s the Winchesters’ expertise, they will know what to do better than us.”
“It’s our home, Raven. We should be the ones to protect it.” Erik said firmly, as they both patrolled quietly around the halls after midnight, waiting for the creature to show up. “We can handle our problems. They have enough problems already.”
“Erik, we don’t even know what we are dealing with.” She sighed in frustration. “We have been patrolling for hours in the west wing, while Hank and Logan are in the east wing. Nothing happened so far and I could literally hear Charles’ rising panic in my head. We need all the help we can get, before another kid suffer because of it.”
“Speaking of Charles.” Erik stopped, then turned to glare at the end of the corridor. “Charles, I told you to stay in our room.”
The telepath emerged from around the corner with a displeased frown on his face. Obviously, annoyed that he had been found.
“I am not going to wait around in the room, Erik. I need to help.” Charles stated firmly, as he wheeled himself towards them.
“No, what you need is to go back to our room and lock the door.” Erik countered just as firmly. “We don’t know if that thing only attacks the children, it could target you and that is not happening. So, please, Charles, for the love of God, go back to our room and lock the fucking door.”
Charles was about to argue even more, but Raven shushed them both suddenly.
“Did you see that?” she whispered, pointing at the end of the corridor. “Something shadowy moved around the corner over there.”
“Go back to our room. Now.” Erik ordered Charles sternly, before moving carefully with Raven towards where she saw the shadow move.
“It went inside that room.” She whispered when she saw the door halfway opened. “God, that’s little Scott’s room. I swear if something happened to the kid, I will rip that thing apart.”
“Follow my lead.” Erik ordered and they both moved quietly towards the opened door.
They glanced inside carefully, before freezing at the scene. There was indeed a cloaked shadowy figure leaning over Scott’s bed and a white glow was leaving the eight-year old’s body and towards the cloaked shadow.
“Hey, step away from the kid. Now.” Erik shook himself from his shock and entered the room, while raising his palm towards the shadow, ready to throw at it every metallic thing in the room. Raven stepped in behind him, ready to fight. “Or else.”
The figure stopped and looked up slowly at them. They couldn’t see a face from the darkness, but the body itself seemed to have no actual physical presence, like it was half transparent.
They heard a mocking, quiet laugh, before Erik suddenly found himself being thrown towards a wall to hit it hard and fall to the floor with a groan.
“Erik!” Raven exclaimed, before she found herself being thrown too, like there was an invisible force moving her around to hit another wall hard.
Erik got up to his feet and used his powers to make every sharp, metallic object in the room fly towards the figure.
But it flew right through it like it wasn’t even there, it just watched them coldly, completely unaffected.
Erik’s eyes widened in panic, before he found himself being thrown again around the room like a puppet, hitting all the walls over and over again, before he was dropped to the floor suddenly in a heap.
The figure made its way towards him, but Raven jumped at it to stop it from approaching Erik, but the thing grabbed her arm and twisted it hard, until they heard the shuddering sound of a bone being broken, she screamed and dropped to the floor.
“Raven!” Erik shouted, and was about to rush to her, but the figure was suddenly in front of him, grapping him by the neck and raising him from the floor like he weighted nothing, then started to choke the life out of him.
Erik tried to fight back. He used his powers, his fists, everything but the fucking thing kept standing and kept adding pressure on his neck, until he saw spots appearing in his vision.
“No!” Charles’ scream sounded suddenly in the room and the figure turned sharply towards the panicked telepath at the doorway. “Let him go! Whatever you want just do it, but let him go!”
“Charles, no.” Erik let out painfully, feeling his strength draining out of his body.
The figure stared at Charles for a few seconds, before dropping Erik to the floor and made its way towards Charles.
“Charles, go.” Erik called in a strangled voice, panic rising in him as he tried to get up to his feet fast.
The figure stopped in front of Charles, who just stared back at it while gripping the armrests of his chair tightly, unable to look away.
He saw a face. A face that had no eyes.
Charles shivered when the creature gave him a wide smirk with sharp teeth, before disappearing suddenly.
The three of them panted as they looked at where the creature was two seconds ago. Raven made herself get up while clutching her broken arm, to make her way towards the unmoving Scott, while Erik rushed towards Charles.
She checked the kid before letting out a shuddering breath.
“Just like the others.” She announced in despair, looking up at the other two. “He is not waking up.”
Charles’ eyes met Erik’s and a decision was made silently between them.
“We need help.” Charles voiced their thoughts with a strangled voice. “We can’t deal with this on our own. We need to call them.”