Chapter Text
"Surely there weren't so many stairs last time," Charles demurred, looking up at what may as well have been a stairway to Heaven. If there were such a thing, surely America would claim it to be in their capitol.
At his side, Erik lifted a hand to his brow to ward off the glare of the noon sun, gazing up at the stairs between them and the monument proper as Charles did. He sighed, grandly. "Looks like I shall have to carry you after all."
As Erik turned and made to pick him up, in jest, Charles held him at arm's length, laughing at him as he avoided his impressive reach. "Don't, don't! I can do it."
Erik stopped teasing and straightened with half a smile. "That's the spirit."
Charles conceded with a matching smile and a shake of his head before squaring his shoulders and facing the steps again--no, just the first step. One at a time. No need to think of them all at once.
He hadn't exactly limited himself to level surfaces and ramps over the past two months. He'd had a lot of practice and a lot of training, and in all honesty this wouldn't be nearly as difficult as his stubborn trip up the stairs of the mansion that first day, so determined to reach Raven that he'd risked making an utter fool of himself passing out from exertion along the way. And if he really wanted something to hold onto, at least for the first flight, there were the two tall pedestals jutting out at each side.
But he'd chosen to march, more or less, directly up the center as he'd taken for granted that summer with Erik. He'd chosen this path because he knew his mind had settled so comfortably into this way of moving that he was only a little worse off than someone of normal functioning. He knew he could do it. Erik was the only crutch he needed, and Erik was right here.
Still, he couldn't help thinking there were an awful lot of steps. He couldn't have small goals, could he?
Of course not. He checked his balance, trying not to hold his arms out like an airplane as he shifted his weight and maneuvered one leg up enough to reach the step. Leaning forward, he straightened that knee to bring the rest of him up to its level. Luckily, there were only three or four others around, and none seemed particularly interested in watching him.
"I'll be right behind you," Erik assured him, and Charles smiled at how much the idea helped to relieve his involuntary fears. He knew Erik would never let him tip so far as to need catching, but the safety net was a necessary concept.
Shifting to the other side, he lifted the other leg, then ratcheted himself up again. He kept himself from falling idle, repeating the same series of movements one side to the other, over and again, to trigger the regulating signals the disconnected segment of spinal chord was still able to dispatch. Hank had recently measured some minor increase in muscle mass due to those signals, which was encouraging--insomuch as it excited Hank.
Eyes set steadily on the steps before him, Charles was surprised to find himself approaching the first landing. He suddenly remembered being winded the first time they'd done this, of Erik laughing at him, because Erik had been far hardier than Charles at the time.
"Do you need to rest?" Erik asked, stepping up after him. Charles shook his head, turning to look behind him once he was safely away from the edge. It was a clear, still day, and the reflecting pool was doing its job admirably, if a little harshly in the early June glare.
"I'm all right, thank you," he answered. Erik, as usual, was taking the exertion well, while for Charles the fatigue was entirely mental, and even that he was hardly feeling. He was far too distracted.
Turning from the familiar scene, he strode to the next flight. "Where were we before?" he asked, mounting the next stair, and the next, concentrating on the fluid movement from one to another. "Do you remember?"
"There," said Erik, again just behind him, pointing toward the top.
Charles smiled to himself. There was no hesitance in his voice, no uncertainty in his gesture. "Are you sure?" he pressed. "It wasn't further down?"
"No, I remember it," Erik insisted as Charles reached the fourth stair from the top, just where Erik had indicated. "It was right here, next to that crack in the--What?"
Perhaps now his fatigue was showing, because Charles couldn't hold it in. Laughing airily, he bent to catch himself on the stair, less gracefully than he'd have liked. He turned to sit down on it. "Erik, I had no idea."
Erik stood for a moment before him, lean and tall as the obelisk further on, before he finally turned and sat to Charles' right, smirking, but with good nature. "You were testing me."
Charles smiled at him, admiring the fine lines of his profile before Erik finally looked at him. "I wasn't," Charles confessed. "I didn't remember. But you did."
Erik looked away again, out over the view of the mall and its hazy treeline. His eyes finally dropped to his loosely folded hands. "Because I wasn't sure."
Wasn't sure he'd be staying, wasn't sure how long Charles and he would have. Wasn't sure he'd make other memories to take its place. Erik's foresight on that day had been remarkable indeed. Heartbreaking, but remarkable.
Shifting, Charles tried to arrange himself a little more naturally, more like Erik's careless lounge. He didn't quite have the same flexibility of repose, but it was close enough, and it gave Charles better opportunity to touch Erik's leg with the back of his hand. Erik unthreaded his hands to rest one on his leg, close enough to touch Charles' fingers.
"We are ridiculously sentimental," Charles observed, after a moment.
"This was your idea," Erik pointed out.
"You almost brought the chess set."
This earned him Erik's guilty smile, though it was again set toward the expanse before them. Charles watched his face with a smile of his own before letting his gaze drift ahead as well.
It had been a day just like this, nearly two years ago. It felt more like ten, but he could still reach the memory if he tried. He'd been embarking on the first great adventure of his life, with his first great love: a man who fascinated him, equaled him, at times bested him.
He'd never been so idealistic about the future as he had been that day. When he'd sat down on this very stair with Erik he'd done so at the pinnacle of his growing hope, the zenith of his aspirations and excitement. And then afterward had come the war with Shaw, then the war with Erik, now the war with that half of humanity still inclined to oppress them. But on that day, on this step, he hadn't foreseen any of that. He hadn't known the nightmare waiting at the edge of the dream. His expectations had been so very, very different. And so foolish. And so worthwhile.
And it nearly cost him everything.
Could he ever get back to that?
Lifting a hand against the bright sun, he shielded his eyes, then let his fingers drift over his closing lids. He laughed, because he had to be laughed at. "I fear I'm about to embarrass myself in front of this nation's great emancipator."
"Don't think about those things," said Erik, as though he knew exactly what Charles was thinking. He often did. "We're starting over."
Erik, the survivor. Always finding the way forward. Charles lowered his hand to smile blearily at him. "What would I do without you?"
Erik stood up, extending his hand to him. "Let's not find out." As he drew Charles to his feet, he nodded to the side. "There's a few more to go."
Charles turned with him to face the last three steps to the top. "I suppose we should, shouldn't we?"
Leaning forward, to be sure that was the way he'd fall if he suddenly forgot how to ambulate, he took the last few steps, feeling some small but measurable amount of triumph as he mounted the final platform. The rest of the monument and its pillars rose gargantuan above him, but he didn't feel so small in their stead as perhaps he should have. Instead he was looking out again toward the other end of the mall, where the crown of the Capitol Building was faintly visible behind the scepter of the Washington Monument.
As sentimental as he was, this wasn't the only reason they were here. He wished it was. The Senate was voting tomorrow on a number of bills that had, alarmingly, already passed the House. It was imperative that they went no further.
And he had good reason, he reminded himself. If the school was to reopen in the fall--
Charles' thoughts were scattered by what felt like the earth moving under him. Rather, he was being moved over it, one stride after another, by Erik's doing. Charles tried not to lurch unnaturally in view of a young couple in the shadow of a pillar and the security guards they were talking to, tourist maps in hand.
"Erik--slowly--" he contested, but as Erik turned from the guards to face him, Charles suddenly forgot all about his hard-won grace.
Erik had stopped him about two paces away, but now stepped smoothly into him, closing the space indecently. His eyes were full of mischief, as dangerous as any of his other qualities, as their gaze dropped to Charles' mouth.
Still planted where he stood, Charles wet his lips self-consciously and swallowed when Erik managed to fit even closer against him. The tourists near the pillar had stopped talking, and Charles hoped they'd simply run out of questions. "Erik?"
Erik inclined his head as though merely to tell him something in confidence, but suddenly his mouth was far closer to Charles' than it needed to be.
"Which do you think we'd get in more trouble for?" Erik asked, low and curious, and Charles didn't have long to wonder what the options were. Erik tipped his head closer, hesitating only in the half-second of Charles' gasp before he took his mouth without reservation.
Charles tried to keep his eyes open, but the way Erik's tongue was slipping itself lewdly between Charles' lips made that an impossibility. As Charles' hands finally consented to grip Erik's shoulders rather than hover over them, he felt the sudden movement in Erik's arm and the sound of belt buckles and scuffing shoes from the vicinity of the pillar.
The guards had righted themselves enough to shout something more coherent before Charles finally gave in and did something about it. He reached out with his mind to freeze them in their tracks, and the tourists as well, lest the two mutants also be blamed for the woman fainting. He wished he could say he withdrew from Erik's incriminating trespass at the same time, but what was done was done, and it could go on being done for a minute longer.
The afternoon was suddenly unseasonably warm.
"So which is it?" prodded Erik, parting from him only enough to make the words clear.
"Surprisingly," murmured Charles, "they are outraged in equal portions."
Finally opening his eyes, Charles shook his head, about to lament without an ounce of conviction what a troublemaker Erik was when Erik locked eyes with him and smiled like a schoolboy with a notion.
"Do you think we can outrun them?"
"Wh--I don't--"
Charles was still stammering for an answer, not believing Erik could be serious when he found his hand clasped in Erik's quite seriously indeed.
And then as soon as he noticed it, Erik broke into a run, with Charles in tow, headed directly for the steps. "I can't," he gasped, "I can't run, Erik, Erik!"
But he was running. Whether it was through Erik's aid or his own rewired coordination he was still upright and keeping pace with a madman, plunging down a double flight of marble and concrete steps with nothing to hold onto but him. He could feel the force of each footfall as the impact traveled up to his middle, pounding and rhythmic and thrilling, in the way that near death was thrilling.
His concentration in disarray, he lost his hold on the guards and the tourists at the pillar, and the guards shouted again as they gave chase, spurring Charles into a more delirious haste.
Miraculously, they reached level ground, and Erik tossed him only a cursory glance before he took off sharply to the north, toward Constitution Avenue. Charles was less panicked now as their strides lengthened, as fatalities were not so imminent, as he was finally out of breath because he was wheezing with laughter.
He couldn't walk, but he was running. He couldn't feel the whole of himself, but he'd gained another half. He was tearing through the lightly wooded lawn of the Lincoln Memorial because Erik had broken some laws just to be contrary and all Charles could think about was how he wouldn't change any of this even if it were the gift of his mutation to do so.
They were nearly to the street when Erik suddenly whirled around to catch him, backpedaling with their combined momentum. He drew Charles around the side of a line of telephone booths so papered as to be opaque and pulled him close. He was panting, shoulders heaving against the curling, faded flyers, his impossibly wide grin broken in the middle by the finger he held up to urge them both to keep quiet.
It wasn't really working. Charles was still laughing, even as he covered Erik's mouth--and his finger--with the palm of his hand. In fact, predictably, that made it worse, so Charles used other, more reliable means to be sure they were overlooked no matter how much schoolyard noise they were making.
When the guards were long past, Erik took Charles' hand from over his mouth and held it, his smile softer now but no less emotive. Bending, he lowered himself to sit at the base of the telephone booth, drawing Charles to join him on the shaded grass.
"I know what you're thinking, Charles."
Turning to sit against the papered glass at Erik's side, Charles smiled, curling Erik's fingers around his. "That I can finally have that track rematch with Hank?"
Erik laughed, but his expectant gaze didn't leave him.
Charles studied his face knowingly, though his smile didn't leave him, either.
"That you'll always bring the battle to us?" he offered, instead. "That you wage the wars and I keep the peace?"
The corner of Erik's mouth curled up lightly as Charles spoke.
"I won't always have to."
What might have been the first breeze of the day shifted the trees' shadows around them as Erik leaned into him, pressing a much gentler kiss to his lips. Charles met it completely, knowing the words that waited on Erik's tongue, but letting himself want to hear them anyway.
"But we'll win, Charles."
We will always win.