X-Men: First Class Fic: If Wishes Were Fishes
Title: If Wishes Were Fishes
Author: Robin Gills
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing here.
Archive: Also on AO3
Word Count: 1,737
Beta: no one, XP
Summary: Logan breaks Magneto out first and Magneto discovers what's happened to the Professor. A small fix-it for DoFP.
“So, in the future the worlds gone to shit because of Mystique and I,” Magneto said stonily. Logan just grunts a confirmation. Magneto leaned back tilting his face to the sun, taking in the warmth against the trunk of Logan’s car. They’d driven a far distance before Logan had finally disclosed all of his “mission.” The kid with speed had left them a few towns away, apparently he felt like running home and now it was just the two of them.
The Professor of Logan’s time had said he’d have to get him to hope again, when they’d been at odds. Well Logan was a bit more blunt. I mean screw subtly when you could just tell a guy. So he’d just dropped the bomb. The future was fucked. And the mission was sounding more like he just had to lock these two idiots in the same room. so they could get on with it. Mystique was the bystander in all of this drama.
“Where's Charles now, what has he been doing all this time?” Magneto finally asked.
Logan just shrugged, “At the school, I guess. That's where we‘re going. We're going to need him. But from what the Professor of my time told me it sounds like he wasn't doing anything constructional.” The professor has sent him some mental pictures right before he’d left.
“What do you mean?” the young Magneto turned to stare at him harshly.
“It‘s the 70‘s,” Logan said shrugging again. He had some memories of the 70’s.
“I‘m aware of what decade I‘m in,” Magneto said testily.
“I suppose you don’t really label a decade until after, “Logan grunted, this was going to be harder than he thought.
“Drugs, alcohol, physcodelics. If I where him, I'd probably be doing the same thing, actually I did try to do the same thing and I didn’t lose my legs.” He could see Magneto tense, the car he rested against vibrated. Still a raw wound then.
“What’s your name?” Magneto asked as he stood and walked a few paces away into the grass field and the car stilled.
“Logan,” he grunted, he’d already told him.
“No, your mutant name,” Magneto said.
Logan very nearly resisted rolling his eyes, of course age hadn’t ever dampened Magneto’s agenda.
“Wolverine,” Logan finally answered.
“Why did you get me out first, why not go right to the mansion?" Magneto asked.
“I woke up in Florida, you were closer bub.”
“Well Wolverine, we need to leave, if we want to get there by nightfall,” Magneto said and strolled around to the passenger side.
---
Erik spent the whole drive to Westchester in thought, joy -for finally being free - and guilt. Erik blink at the bright sunlight that filtered through the trees and hit his face. After a decade in artificial light and air, he’d never take it for granted again. For the second time in his life he’s been incarcerate and held against his will. The only redeeming quality, he hadn’t been studied and tested the second time. They’d been too scared for that, the plastic needles they’d developed hadn’t held up.
However, like the first time he left confinement he was stronger than when he went in.
He’d had ten years to be angry but that dulled to an ache after the first year, but it still simmered just below the surface ready for when he got out. He spent the remaining nine years listening, studying, and meditating. The day he’d found the magnetic field had been a relief after so long without anything metal. He slowly gained the skill to feel it all around him, touch it, and finally manipulate it. He’d almost escaped twice with the momentum he could gain in his cell. But they’d shot him down with tranquilizers and filled in the bottom of the cell to make it smaller. A cell that didn’t allow the necessary momentum he needed to brake the glass.
In all those years he’d also spent a lot of time thinking about Charles. The last things they’d said to each other. The last time he’d seen Charles. All those years he’d sat in that white prison, it’d been in the back of his mind, what Charles had thought about him being convicted of killing Kennedy. He’d been to focused on all the guns in the cowed that he’d been caught, when he’d tried to save the President. Did Charles believe that he’d done it? The answer was probably yes, and that grated on Erik’s nerves.
This man next to him. This Wolverine, could he trust what he said. It didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that there would be a mutation that could control time or muddle with it. The future must be very dire indeed if Charles had thought it necessary to send someone back to fix things, to change history. The one thing he couldn’t wrap mind around was what Wolverine had said about Charles. He couldn’t see the strong man he knew Charles to be succumbing to drugs. Alcohol maybe, but drugs?
He spent the whole drive at odds with himself. He felt he should be going after Mystique who was also deeply involved in this massive future fuck up but he’d spent years encouraging her. Building her confidence, her skills, motivating, not that she needed much, but fostering her ideals with his. He should be going after her but this Logan character might have a point. Perhaps Charles needed him more in this moment and together, maybe finally together, they could go after Mystique. Maybe it was her brothers turn to be saved.
---
When they finally pulled up to the house it was the morning of the following day. The house looked like it always had but the lawn and drive were overgrown and in disrepair. His heart hurt to see the broken sign at the base of the gate.
“After a few moments go through the front door,” Erik said as they pulled to a stop. “The only person probably left is Hank. If he's still here. I'll go through the garages.” Wolverine just grunted. Erik slipped out of the car and jogged around to the side. The garage door lock was easy, and Erik cherished the metal as it rose up to meet him like an old friend. He walked through the garage of unused, dusty cars and finally though the door to the house, unlocked.
He paused a moment, nostalgia taking him back for a moment. He made his way through the quite apparently empty house. It was almost the same, a little darker, shades drawn, a little dustier, a little more cluttered. He reached the side of the main staircase and could hear Wolverine knock. Erik hung back as he heard footsteps.
Hank appeared from one of the wings across from him, in all his pink human glory and didn’t that just grate on Erik’s nerves a little. How had the boy managed it? Erik held his simmering indignation back as Hank answered the door and Erik took the moment to float up onto the second floor landing while Wolverine exchanged pleasantries. He headed towards the wing most likely to host his old friend.
He opened Charles door slowly. It was dark in here too. Light from one uncovered window fell across the sleeping form on the couch. The room smelled musty and could use a good airing out. Clothes, books, and other paraphernalia littered the room, bed unmade. Erik turned to focus on the couch and coffee table in front of him.
Erik grimaced at the used syringes and numerous empty bottles that littered the table. Erik put it out of his mind as he cleared a section off the table to sit on. Lifting the syringes carefully with his power to the trash. He watched his friend sleep for a moment. He’d grown his hair long, or just never bothered to cut it. He hadn’t shaved in days and probably hadn’t bathed either. Charles face was pushed into the couch pillow, but Erik could tell it was pale. Erik’s heart hurt for allowing their contact to lapse. He’d known Charles had gone through a difficult time. Charles had been in his own prison.
Erik didn’t regret his decisions, couldn’t even now. It had been important what they’d been doing and if circumstances where different, if there was another universe, another timeline where there was no mutant paranoia he would have never left Charles side. Would have been there for him, but if wished were fishes his mother had said, and things weren’t different.
He gently grasped Charles shoulder and shook it, but Charles just shrugged him off, mumbling. Erik shook a little harder, which finally roused Charles enough for the man to yell “I said get off Hank!” and rise up on his elbow annoyed. But he froze, eyes widening, when he saw through his bloodshot eyes that it wasn’t Hank waking him. Charles just laid there staring at him, his mouth slowly turning into a grimace.
“Hello, Charles,” Erik finally says evenly, which earns him a punch in the face, granted a weak punch due to Charles angle but Erik gets the idea.
“Get out!” Charles yells, furious. Erik stays sitting, rubbing at his abused jaw.
“I said get out!” Charles yells again, struggling to stand and when he does he pushes at Erik’s shoulders. Erik grabs at Charles forearms as they attempt to manhandle him off the coffee table. They struggle for a moment but it’s clear Erik had the upper hand in size, even though Charles has the high ground, literally and figuratively. Erik stands, and the coffee table gets pushed away as Erik avoids Charles last attempt at a punch.
“Anything you have to say to me is ten years too late,” Charles yells his energy finally draining from him and Erik can more easily tame the struggling arms and trap them at Charles side.
Charles is seething, shaking in anger and sorrow, against him. “I know,” Erik says and leans in hugging Charles tight. “I know,” Erik repeats because he feels its needs to be said. He knows. Charles smells like old sweat, stale alcohol and it’s disgusting but in this moment, he doesn’t want to be anywhere else. For the first time Erik realized he hasn’t felt the brush of Charles mind against his own yet and he misses it.