Erik was asleep. Charles couldn’t feel his mind—was the man sleeping in that helmet now? But even Erik Lensherr needed sleep and a cursory sweep through the outermost thoughts of Erik’s Brotherhood answered the question of his location.
I’m sorry, Charles told the girl whose mind he was brushing up against. She was young, a recent recruit, bilingual, with the keening, perpetually frightened mind of someone not in control of their powers. Gentle, he assessed as he pushed further into her mind, reaching to speak with her. Not made for this violence. No true animosity against humans, but nowhere else to go, either. A missing twin brother? I’m so sorry, Wanda, I need to speak with him.
Who are you? she demanded, hurling all her power at him. She was strong—not a telepath by nature, but psychically gifted as an ancillary effect of her powers. Her mental shields were good.
Charles was better.
Will you carry a message to Erik?
“Who?” she asked aloud.
Erik. Ah—Magneto, he corrected. My name is Professor Charles Xavier. A jolt of startled recognition traveled through her.
“He says you’re a madman,” she remarked.
Well, it takes one to know one, Charles said, attempting and failing to restrain the bitter twist of sarcasm in his voice. I’m not mad. I run a school, Wanda, a safe haven for mutants. A place for people like you to learn control.
She twisted a long lock of dark hair around her fingers, chewing on her lip. “I’ll never be able to control my powers, he says.” Her voice was wistful, and Charles caught a thought that flickered through her mind before she could banish it. I’d like to be able to stop fighting. Maybe I could find my brother, if I could stop fighting.
I’m sorry for your loss, Wanda, Charles said. One day I’d like to help you find him, if I can. But right now, please, I have to talk to Erik, I need his help. I wouldn’t ask, but… He trailed off, running out of words, and pushed the cold knot of desperation in his chest at her. She had to understand, she had to know how afraid he was, how much the thought of losing another student made him tremble. She had to understand how much he needed a miracle.
You know, Wanda thought at Charles, when Magneto—Erik?—saved me from my town—an image passed through her mind, of a mob of frightened humans spitting words like witch and damned and unnatural at a scared girl in red—he told me something. He told me that this is the age of miracles, and that nothing is more horrifying than a miracle.
Yes, that sounds like Erik, Charles said, and she laughed. It was a quiet sound, a simple huff of air as if she was out of practice, but it was a laugh.
“All right, Professor. You can borrow my body to take your message.”
No, I just meant—
“You wanted to talk to him, right? Better to do it without the middleman.”
Charles let out a breath and it shook slightly, and he pushed his gratitude at her wordlessly as he slipped behind her eyes. Her body came under his control between heartbeats, and she tried to move a hand with the air of a scientist presented with a new puzzle. It didn’t twitch, and she hummed in interest.
A light knock on the appropriate door brought Erik out at once, unruffled and impeccably dressed. Maybe he hadn’t been asleep after all—maybe he still stayed up to avoid nightmares, like those he’d suffered from when they worked together. Charles had put him to sleep more than once, a gentle mental touch to ease him into a deep and dreamless slumber so that he could finally get some rest.
“Scarlet Witch,” Erik said, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“Erik,” Charles said with Wanda’s voice, and saw the split second of confusion before understanding settled over Erik’s face.
“Charles,” he said, as crisp and polite as ever. “I thought you’d given up on taking over bodies years ago.”
“Wanda generously offered to allow me to speak with you,” Charles said, and felt Wanda shift in the back of her own mind, curious. “I need your help.”
Erik scoffed. “Charles, whatever you’re trying to do--”
“Erik, please!” Wanda’s voice was a good one for shouting, usually so soft that the contrast when it rang off the walls was enough to bring all events to a halt. Erik went silent, watching him with narrowed blue eyes full of suspicion. “Please,” Charles repeated more quietly. “One of my students, he’s hurt. Badly. I need someone who can extract the metal in his body without doing more damage.”
Erik wavered visibly for a moment before his face went hard again. “Hazards of putting children on the front lines, Charles.”
“Oh, spare me your righteous rhetoric, Erik,” Charles snapped. He rapped a hand against Wanda’s chest, hard. “How old is this girl?” Wanda offered the answer silently—twenty-five and change. The same age as Pietro, Charles noted absently, practically an adult compared to some. “How old were we, when we went to war? I give my students the training and the education to survive in the world, and if I didn’t give them guidance to fight they would break out and do it anyway.” He offered a faint, wry smile. “Trust me, I’ve done that experiment.”
There was a pause, weighted down with a decade of hard words and loneliness. “What happened to the boy?” Erik asked with a sigh.
Charles brought up a hand—Wanda’s hand—and pinched the bridge of her nose, a habitual gesture that felt distinctly off. It must be one that Wanda didn’t normally do. “I expect you recall Angel. Archangel,” he clarified when Erik looked confused.
“You’ve taken to helping killers now, Charles?”
“Angel and Storm were both coerced, Erik,” Charles said, already exhausted by this conversation. “Apocalypse was capable of exercising control over the minds of his Horsemen, and Angel needed our help. He came to the Institute not long after everything, and he’s been there ever since. About three months now. His wings have started to grow back underneath the metal wings Apocalypse grafted onto him, but he’s too unbalanced to fly right now. He tried, and…” Charles shook his head, remembering how grief-stricken Warren had been by the revelation that he was earthbound, far more distressed about that than about his injuries. “The crash left metal pinfeathers in his torso and one leg. His regenerative capabilities are keeping him stable, but extracting them so that he can heal needs a more delicate touch than we have at our disposal.”
“What about the girl?”
“She has a name, Erik,” Charles ground out between his teeth. “And Jean’s telekinetic powers are still developing. She’s still mastering fine control, and this is very fine control indeed.” He held out Wanda’s hands, helpless. “Please,” he said, feeling the desperation rise up again. “I’m not afraid to beg, I have to do something to save him. We don’t even know what kind of metal Apocalypse used, we are nowhere, and he’s suffering. All we can do is keep him unconscious—Jean is with him right now while I’m here.”
Erik folded both hands behind his back, his cloak rippling. “And why do you imagine I care enough to help you, Charles?”
Charles wished, momentarily, that he could pace—pacing always helped him think, before, helped him put his thoughts and words in order.
Professor, my legs work fine, Wanda offered hesitantly, and Charles repressed a start.
Thank you, Wanda, he said, but didn’t move.
“Erik,” Charles sighed. “He’s a child, and a mutant child at that. In all our disagreements, you’ve never been one to let a mutant child die if you could help it.” He paused. “And besides,” he said with a shaky smile, feeling something tight wind in his chest. “You’re the only one I trust to do this without causing him more harm.”
The words lingered in the air like the echo of a gunshot. Erik looked pale under his helmet, as if he’d been punched hard, or had seen something terrible flash through his mind’s eye.
“You shouldn’t,” he said at last. “I…didn’t exactly prove my talents the last time I tried something like that.”
“And I expect you’ve taken pains to improve since then,” Charles said steadily, and Erik looked sick. Charles had known it would be a low blow, the epitome of fighting dirty, but the ache of guilt was somehow a shock. “Erik,” he said quietly. “My old friend. I’m asking for your help saving a child, nothing more.”
There was another long silence, tension humming through the air. Charles observed Erik through Wanda’s eyes, noting the circles under his eyes and the harsh lines of his face. Wanda’s face wasn’t given to apparent emotion, and Charles was grateful for it, letting him hide his thoughts behind her stern resting expression.
“All right, Charles,” Erik said at last. “To help the boy.”
“Thank you,” Charles breathed, feeling weak with relief. “Erik, thank you.”
Erik pressed his lips together into a thin line. “Release the Scarlet Witch.”
“Of course,” Charles said, pulling back from Wanda’s mind until he was just a shadow at the edge.
“I gave him permission,” Wanda said at once, frowning at Erik.
“I don’t particularly care,” Erik snapped. “I’ll be gone for two days. Tell no one where I’ve gone.”
“Yes, Magneto, sir,” Wanda said, looking down at her feet. “As you say.”
Wanda—Scarlet Witch, Charles murmured to her as Erik slammed the door shut and left her standing in the hall alone.
You can call me Wanda, Professor.
Wanda, then. Thank you for your help. And if you ever need anything…
I can’t, Professor. She looked up to the door again, a messy knot of emotions crashing around Charles where he touched the edge of her mind—rage-affection-gratitude-hate-family-lonely-grief-rage, hot and white. I owe him my life.
Maybe so, Charles sighed. But so do I, and he owes me his, and here we are anyway.
Here we are anyway, Wanda agreed quietly, and she was young, much younger than Charles, but her mental voice was as wearied as his own. I am…tired, of being here.
I know, Charles said. As am I. As is he, I think. He brushed a mental hand over her cheek, grateful. Thank you again, Wanda.
“I hope your student is well, Professor,” she said, and Charles withdrew, back to the mansion in Westchester with Warren unconscious beside him and Jean bent over the injured boy’s hand.
“Is he coming?” Jean asked, looking up. The circles under her eyes were beginning to look like scars, exhaustion weighing down every line of her body. Warren’s face was creased in pain—short of putting him directly into a coma, there was little they could do to shield him, even in unconsciousness—and those feathers they had been too uneasy to remove were beginning to seep blood again. “I don’t know how long Warren can keep this up.”
“He’s coming,” Charles said, barely more than a murmur. “For today, we’re under truce.”
A touch against his mind, the brilliant heat of Jean’s power, drew his attention, and she pulled back with an apologetic wince. “I’m sorry, Professor, I’m just…so tired. My shields are a mess.” Charles waved it away, dismissive, and Jean hesitated before opening her mouth again. “I can’t believe he’s helping us.”
“For all of Erik’s flaws, and for all his dangerous devotion to his ideological purity,” Charles said slowly, “he is still the man who was once my dearest friend. And that man would not allow a child to die, if he could prevent it. It—well. It’s why we were friends in the first place.”