Chapter Text
A linnet in a gilded cage, -
A linnet on a bough, -
In frosty winter one might doubt
Which bird is luckier now.
But let the trees burst out in leaf,
And nests be on the bough,
Which linnet is the luckier bird,
Oh who could doubt it now?
-- Christina Georgina Rossetti
i
December, 1962
“Charles, you’re safe here. And others are safe from you.”
Great glass windows admitting heat; ultra-modern open-plan decor; the sharp lines and angles of the helmet. It fits right in, Charles thinks.
Erik is back in the helmet. Azazel wore it to bring Charles here, Erik somewhere far beyond the range of Charles’s powers, but now, Erik has it back. Azazel brought him here, but not here; he brought Erik to somewhere outside of Charles’s telepathic range and Erik walked. Charles hasn’t felt another mind in the—twenty-six?—hours he’s been here.
“I’m no danger to anyone and you know it.”
Charles is in his chair, hands idle on the wheels, and Erik’s standing, and they’re both facing the windows but the seven or eight feet between them make clear, from both sides, that they’re not facing that way together.
“Don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are. You took Azazel’s mind, just as you tried to take mine in Cuba. That’s a danger.”
The sun isn’t past its peak yet, so it’s not too blinding, though it’s bright on the water. In the early afternoon, with a clear sky, it’s practically hazardous to look out this window, white light untempered by the haze of cities that don’t exist here, in the midst of a desert. The southern end of Peru, the northern end of the driest desert in the world, the west coast of an unfamiliar continent and the east end of twelve-thousand miles of ocean. A very lovely little house atop a very scenic stretch of cliffs in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There’s a warren of corridors and rooms underneath, underground, as there is beneath almost every property that once belonged to Shaw, but it’s empty.
“You left me no choice, Erik.” But there's no point in rehashing that. Erik would have killed sixty men, not innocent men, but human nonetheless. Charles used Azazel to save them. They're never going to agree on who was right. “I left nothing in Azazel’s mind. There’s no damage. I don’t hurt people. But when you insist on trying to do so…”
“Do you think I’ve forgotten how I first learned you could—impose your will? You don't need me to provoke you. The woman raving about your commanding a man the first day you got involved with the CIA?”
“She wasn’t raving,” Charles contradicts mildly, or perhaps tiredly, then shakes his head in dismissal. “It was a command with no long term consequences and which aligned with his existing desires. He wanted to do it anyway, I allowed him to overlook his impulse to obey poorly conceived orders instead. You cannot tell me you see that as a significant lapse in—”
“To me, no. To the great Charles Xavier, though, infinitely compassionate proponent of unending peace…”
The flat derision in his voice sharpens to almost a sneer as he trails off—not quite, Erik is not that artless, but his opinion is always clear. His opinion is clearer than ever this morning—or rather, Charles thinks, his opinions have hardened, at least regarding Charles.
It is…not as dire as it might have been, but worse than Charles had really believed it would be, for all he’d imagined worst case scenarios. Erik isn’t angry, really, or he is, but it's…muted. Erik isn’t not-forgiving him, as such, so much as…well, taking not-forgetting to an extreme. Charles thwarted Erik’s plan to kill the US and Soviet security officials he’d taken, wiping their memories and having Azazel take them home, as well as sending Erik's newest eight-year-old recruit to Hank and the boys in Westchester. He'd imagined that Erik might be furious beyond reason, might strike out at him, and he’d decided that Erik might hurt him, and that he could cope with that. He’d imagined that Erik might just leave him here to starve, and he’d have to find a way down into the base underneath to radio for help. What he’d really expected, though, was that Erik would appear after a few days and send Charles back to Westchester with furious sentiments about never wanting to lay eyes on him again, but that in time, they’d work things out.
Erik had appeared sooner than that. He hadn’t been furious, or violent, or even all that cold, really, for Erik. But he had been—decided—in a way that Charles hadn’t anticipated.
“Raven is furious,” he’d reported, bizarrely, out of nowhere, “About you taking the boy.” Charles was by the window, awake but not alert—he’d slept in his chair, but the sun had woken him hours before Erik appeared. He was surprised, but not startled. Erik had stood there five seconds, ten, before starting inanely on Raven. “She’s grown rather fond of him,” he continued. “I’ve told her we aren’t taking him back. I don’t want to fight with the boys at Westchester.”
Charles was still too tired for inane conversation. He only really had one thing to say, and he said it. “Send me home, Erik.”
But Erik had actually looked shocked, as much as he ever did, and he’d frowned, and he’d enunciated very clearly, “I can’t, Charles.”
“You can’t?”
“What you did…I can’t have you fighting me.”
And there was a shiver of panic at that, but Charles squashed it, ignored it, remained calm. “What, then? You’ll keep me here forever?”
And Erik had looked out the window, and been entirely decided when he answered—“For as long as it takes.”
And Charles had made himself swallow the new shock of panic and the mental claustrophobia like rising bile.
And now that steady, uncompromising overruling of his right to direct his own life had segued into derision, and it is this that he has never been able to bear from Erik, ‘infinitely compassionate proponent of unending peace’ as though compassion and peace are necessarily childish, foolish, vain things, and that edge of almost a sneer.
Charles purses his lips lightly, watches the junction of ceiling and wall until he is sure there is nothing in him not calm. Only then does he let himself remark quietly, measured, always, eyes open to Erik’s face; “Did you know, my friend, it is hearing you speak that way that hurts me more than anything else?”
Erik’s face shifts minutely; consideration, Charles thinks. “It’s true.”
Charles breathes half of a quiet laugh. “I don’t know that I can claim infinite compassion, but…”
Erik raises an eyebrow, meaning sufficient without any need to repeat the words.
Charles nods simply. Proponent of endless peace. Hyperbolic, but…well. “It is not something of which I am ashamed.”
The colours here are all strong. The edge of the cliff is intensely yellow-brown, almost a dull gold; the thin strip of sand Charles can just see at the base is like cocoa, bowing out into a beach further up the coast. The water is a blue you’d dye silk, out toward the horizon, but closer in, in the shadow of the cliffs and of the house, it’s almost black. The sun is bright, almost overhead, and it stripes the blue in white like burns. It’s December, and this is the southern hemisphere, and it’s hot.
“I’ll go mad here, Erik. I will. I can’t live in isolation.”
“I’ll find a solution.”
“Oh?”
“I’m sure we’re capable of compromise, Charles. I’ll…pay a local to bring tourists to the beach. Spectacular landscape, peace and quiet, bird-watching, maybe. Ordinary humans. Telepathic noise for you. And if you try to use them, if you—have one bring human police out here, say—I’ll kill them.”
Charles has to stare several seconds, Erik’s eyes still out across the water, before he is sure. “You’re serious.”
Erik’s face is not blank, but—smooth. Not confident, but—unworried. “This isn’t a game, Charles.”
“You can’t just keep me here.”
Looking out across the ocean, eyes barely visible past the sharp line of the helmet.
“Yes, I can.”
***
“We know more than we did before.”
“Which is still crap all.”
Hank and Alex are glaring at each other again, and Sean doodles another palm tree on a scrap of paper.
“So what, we just hop an airplane down to Argentina and hope Lensherr hasn’t gone completely psycho? We going to fly you in cargo? Don’t think they let big blue dogs buy seats.”
One of Hank’s fists slowly crushes the corner of the table.
He’s getting better at not doing that. They’re all getting better at this, whatever this is, though Hank has by far the biggest adjustment to get used to. For the others, for Alex and Sean, it’s just…well, hiding, really.
Hiding’s been surprisingly easy. It occurred to Hank a few days after everything blew in Cuba that if the CIA wanted to find them, they could probably just see what property Charles owns and come looking, but when Alex went enquiring after records, none seemed to exist. Maybe the house has always been off the map. Or maybe Charles did something from wherever he is.
Either way, it means hiding has just been sort of weird more than hard. Sean was worried about his family, but when they chased it up it was the same deal as the house. And he didn’t really miss them. He hadn’t seen them in ages anyway, since Charles and Erik had found him, and he’d never really wanted to go back, so. Alex didn’t have anything to go back to. Neither did Hank. Especially not now.
Still, it was—nervous, for a while. They have heaps of money, Charles’s money, so they're cool for food and things. The first time Sean and Alex left the estate to buy groceries, Alex tensed at every other sound and lost it at Sean when they got back, for being loud and conspicuous, though he hadn’t been loud, really.
Now it's been six weeks, and 'til three days ago nothing had happened, and they were sort of just bored.
Until Azazel showed up in the living room with a little kid in tow.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Hank tries again, releasing the table. “The professor wouldn’t have told us where he was if he didn’t want us to help.”
“You haven’t finished rebuilding the jet, we can’t get there.”
“We could just buy tickets,” Sean offers. “With his money. Hank could stay here.”
Hank fumes silently. Alex rolls his eyes. “We’re in hiding. We can’t do passports and stuff. Border security.”
Sean tips his head in resignation, but Hank makes a low sound, a sound he still isn’t used to coming from his throat, too deep, too rough, then “I can fake your passports. You guys could go. I’ll…stay here and look after the kid. Work on the plane.”
This thing is, the teleporter didn’t just bring the kid. He talked, mechanically and slow enough to be a little creepy, and he only stayed a minute, less than a minute, so there wasn’t time for questions or—much sense. It started out obvious enough. He popped into the room while they were playing poker with toffee, everyone freaked out, the kid looked around like he had no idea what was going on, and then Azazel said: “His name is Milton. He is eight years old and has abilities like yours. Charles had me bring him and I should return momentarily with Charles. If not, however, please look after Milton. Teach him to use his gifts. Charles is in Argentina, outside of Villa Gesell, but he will make his way back to you.” And then he disappeared.
It didn't take long to figure out the first thing, that the Professor had made the teleporter do it, not asked him. That explained the weirdness. They’d never seen him do it, mind-control someone, but they knew he could. So maybe they were still fighting, then, the Professor and Shaw's gang? On the beach, it had seemed like the guys from Shaw’s side had switched, but maybe not.
And then they talked to Milton.
Or—they didn’t talk to him straight away, or they did, but not about—everything. He was freaked out and the message had said to look after him, so. They introduced themselves, and asked what his mutant powers were, and told him theirs, and then he asked where he was and they said Charles’s place, and the kid said
“Professor X, right? Is this his school? He said I could learn to do stuff and use my skin and it’d be real good.”
And they all sort of stared, but then Hank nodded, and again, and said “Yeah. Yeah, this is his school. It’s, uh, it’s a boarding school. So, uh—it’s pretty late…why don’t we find a bedroom for you?”
And then Hank took Milton off to find a bedroom, and Alex and Sean freaked out.
Now, three days later, they’ve discovered a few things:
1. The three of them together are nowhere near as good as the Professor at teaching people to do their thing. Enthusiasm has to count for something, though.
2. The webbing in Milton’s hands grows if you push it right. He doesn’t have a clue what pushes it right and neither do they, but they’ve done it twice, and they’re working on it.
3. Erik is calling himself Magneto and recruiting people to gather an army in Argentina. Milton isn’t sure what the army’s for, but he says it’s because humans hurt mutants and mutants have to protect each other.
The latter is the most recent discovery and the reason that, with Milton safely tucked up in bed and the hour ticking toward midnight, Hank and Alex and Sean are bent over a table with a few sheets of paper and something that might be a plan.
Alex drops his index finger onto one of the sheets of paper across the table. “Somewhere outside Vill-a Gez-ell. Vi-ya Ge-sell. Whatever it is. How are we even meant to find him?”
“Look?” Hank suggests.
“Yeah, very funny dude, we don’t speak the language, we don’t know how far outside this place…”
“But we should try, shouldn’t we?” Sean quirks a grimace, shrugs. “I mean, it can’t hurt. If we can’t find him, we can just come back…”
Alex huffs a sigh. “Is the concealed thing for my control bit anything like done?”
Hank raises a shaggy, blue eyebrow. “The—” a long suffering sigh. Concealed thing for my control bit. Right. “Give me a couple of days. Two days. Or three. To be sure. And we should test Sean’s again. And passports will take a couple of days.”
“So…we could go on Monday. Fly to Argentina on Monday.” Alex looks around the table like they're all mad, and maybe they are. “Are we sure about this?”
“Beats sitting here,” Sean shrugs.
“I think we owe it to Charles,” Hank murmurs.
***
The next morning, four boys wake on the Xavier estate in Westchester; two of them are blue, one hairy and the other the same pale colour as his bedsheets.
Hank is up before any of the others, working on the details of his most recent project: the control-system he designed for Alex’s suit, but concealable beneath everyday clothes, and with finer control. It’s meant as a defensive weapon—for if the CIA finds them here. Hank’s put a lot of work into finer control, because if Alex has to use it out shopping for groceries, it needs to be able not to hit civilians.
Alex leaves the house early, with a list of materials from Hank. Forging passports needs a few things they don’t have on hand. He walks a good part of the way from the estate, catches a bus part way. He pays for bread with the Professor’s cash at a corner store with a teenage girl behind the register and a mother and little boy choosing sweets and reminds himself that these are normal people and it’s all perfectly safe.
Sean knocks his alarm off its table but rolls out of bed anyway. They're out of bread and Alex is nowhere to be found, but he scrambles some eggs and takes some in to Hank in the lab, then goes upstairs and wakes Milton. The kid is pale blue; he was pale blue on the second day too, but yesterday he was something like the colour of bricks, and the first morning he was as bright red as Azazel. He says sometimes he changes colour when he dreams. It’s pretty cool, but not as cool as flying.
Milton eats eggs for breakfast. It’s super. He’s going to practise changing colour on purpose today, with Sean, who can fly by yelling. He’s got his own bedroom, with curtains and stuff, and eggs for breakfast, and everyone’s really nice, even better than the last place, where everyone was cool but only Mystique was really nice to him. He didn’t get to say bye to her, but Hank says that’s okay, ‘cause he’s at boarding school. Next time he sees her, he’ll be awesome at loads of stuff. ‘Cause now, he’s a proper—student—at Professor X’s school for mutants.