FIC: Build a Bridge and Get Over It (E/C, 2/3)
Build a Bridge and Get Over It, continued
*****
That was then:
'Your mother wasn't a mutant, and neither was mine,' Charles announced in his head, body barely starting to cool after their immensely invigorating calisthenics of moments before, the sheets beneath them dampened with sweat.
It annoyed Erik that Charles could not only talk, but form a complete sentence after all the work he'd just put into leaving Charles breathless, but then he'd figured that there was probably no force on Earth, no mutant powerful enough, to truly shut Charles Xavier up.
Strangely it was one of Charles' more endearing qualities, as annoying as it could get.
"Charles, mein gott, can you let me catch my breath?" he huffed, belying the sternness of his tone with an indulgent grin. "I must say your version of post-sex repartee leaves a lot to be desired."
Charles smiled back sheepishly, ducking his head slightly to cover the blush of his embarrassment, blue eyes shining with his own amusement.
It was yet another thing he loved about Charles-his unfailing sense of humor. He wondered if his mutation played a role in making Charles so able to laugh at himself. It created a good contrast to Erik's admitted tendency to brood.
"Sorry, my friend," Charles replied aloud, his accent muffled by the section of Erik's shoulder he was resting on, and the sight of him laying on his belly, naked ass shivering slightly as Erik ran a hand gently over it, stirred Erik's blood anew. "But a thought just occurred to me."
"Is there any time of day where you can turn those thoughts off?" Erik asked, sounding sharper than he intended. But he'd never felt less like having a debate with Charles than he did now, particularly one involving any mention of their respective mothers.
Erik's mother, in particular, was a bittersweet memory on the best of days. And the serene memory Charles had helped him access, of a single moment of peace before they had been captured, had no place with what Erik wanted to do next, which was roll back on top of Charles, place a knee between Charles' legs, lift his hips, and slide back in, Charles' hole still stretched and loose from before.
"Not really, no," Charles answered, and Erik had to smile at the uncharacteristic bluntness. It was nice to see at least one sign that Charles was just as affected as he was in their afterglow.
Putting his happy thoughts of immediately starting another round to the wayside, he rolled onto his side and placed a kiss on Charles' bare shoulder, memorizing the heat and feel of it beneath his lips.
"Perhaps I can do a little more to persuade you," he breathed, lips remaining just inches above Charles' skin in order to breath in his scent, all musk from their previous activities, the faint taint of soap, and the fainter smell of cotton from Charles' seemingly endless supply of button-up shirts.
"I was being serious, Erik," Charles insisted, his own tone getting firm, and Erik lamented that for someone who preached of a place between anger and serenity, Charles certainly had a knack of disturbing said serenity.
"Alright, alright, so our mothers weren't mutants, this isn't exactly news, Charles," Erik gave up, shifting onto his back, his hands beneath his head as he looked at the ceiling in utter exasperation.
"I know it's not," Charles conceded, "but the point I'm trying to make is this: our mothers, together, with our fathers, they created us. Mutants born to normal, human parents. I mean, have you ever wondered what mutations have yet to be born…"
Erik knew where Charles was going with this, of course, knew exactly what point Charles was trying to make of all of this and felt a crawl of unease over his skin. When these arguments of theirs entered the bedroom, their sanctuary, it had to stop.
"You don't know when to stop, do you, Charles?" he interrupted Charles, mid-rant. Rude? Undoubtedly, but he couldn't allow Charles to go on. "We're in our bed, after having just made love, now is not the time!"
"If not now, then when? Erik, our time here is almost up. Soon we're going to have to go face Shaw, and choices will have to be made. I'm not going to lie, I'm fearful, Erik, fearful that your choice, when you make it, is not going to be me."
Erik drew in a sharp breath as the implications of that sunk home. Charles could not make the distinction between his ideals or his needs as a lover, his need in a partner, it was either both or nothing. And everyone thought he was the uncompromising one?
It made Erik's stomach turn over thinking of it.
Erik sighed, fists balling as he paused to consider what to say. A part of him knew that Charles was right, that while he loved Charles more than he'd loved anyone since the day his mother had been shot in front of him, that just being in love wasn't enough. It wouldn't be enough. Because he and Charles lived in a world where they were hated and sneered at by those who knew what they were. And once it was out on a global scale that mutants existed… Erik knew all too well what would happen next. It wasn't a world he wanted for them, wasn't a world he wanted for Charles.
Charles had no idea, no idea what it was like to be hunted and persecuted and imprisoned simply for being different. And if Erik had his way, Charles would never see that fate. If he had to oppose Charles to protect him, he would.
"I'm never going to agree, Charles. You've been in my mind, you've seen what I've been through. You know more than most what we're facing. I'm not going to sit back and take it, not this time. I'm asking you now, when the time comes, stay out of my way."
"And if I can't?" Charles asked, his voice but a whisper.
"I don't know," Erik replied, because he didn't have an answer and it simply wasn't in him to provide false hope.
Charles continued to lay silent beside him, the air in the room thick, repressive.
Finally Erik couldn't take it any more, he turned to Charles, and grasped his chin gently and looked into his eyes. Charles expression mirrored his quiet distress.
"I don't have an answer for you," he reiterated, "but know this, while we're here, in this bed, together, either holding each other or making love, I don't want to discuss this issue again. We can do it over chess in the library, or over brandy in the study, but not here, Charles, I mean it. This is our quiet space, our place between rage and serenity."
He paused for a moment, smiling sardonically at the opportunity of turning Charles' own sage wisdom back on him. "When we're here it's just about us, the rest of the world can fuck themselves, to coin a phrase."
Charles looked at him closely, studying his features.
To an outside observer, the intensity of his scrutiny would seem as if Charles were engaging his telepathy to know Erik's mind.
Erik knew otherwise; there was no gentle presence against his thoughts, no welcome intrusion of a kindred soul who reminded Erik that he wasn't alone.
Charles was considering his words, his remarkable brain fully engaged in weighing Erik's plea for sanctuary over his own need to push the point until one of them, Erik preferably, broke.
When Charles' blue eyes softened, Erik knew he had won.
"Alright, Erik," Charles agreed, "we'll leave the ideological debates at the bedroom door."
"Thank you, Charles," Erik breathed, leaning down to press another kiss on Charles' shoulder before rolling on top of him again, his body taut and demanding of this reaffirmation of their bond.
Maybe his first thrust in was more intense, had a little more power behind it and was a little more driven and insistent, but Charles certainly didn't complain.
*****
This is now:
The day Emma Frost stormed back from a reconnaissance mission to check in on the CIA - make sure they weren't still looking almost a year after the beach incident, or ascertaining how close their search was bringing them to the truth - the obvious concern on her face made Raven's throat clench.
Erik looked up from his place behind his mahogany desk, and tensed.
"The government, they've discovered us?" he asked, and Raven had to give him credit, he seemed perfectly calm and ready for whatever answer would come.
"It's not our location they've discovered," the White Queen announced.
"Charles," Raven said, her heart raced, too fast, a panicky rhythm she was certain the others had to be able to hear.
"The school, Charles' school." Erik said flatly.
A confirmation, not a question.
Emma's nod had a more devastating impact on Raven than if she'd given lengthy commentary.
The school not only housed Charles, but children. Innocent, lost, and lonely children. Raven remembered what it was like to be a lost, mutant child, finally brought in under the protection of Charles Xavier, and the thought that it had been compromised, those frightened children under his care placed at risk, made her want to wreak devastation until the threats were eliminated, with no hope of resurrection, until they were all, finally, safe.
How could they?
A silver letter opener flew across the room and embedded itself in the wall. Erik was shaking with barely concealed rage, and perhaps some fear of his own. They fought for their cause, they made their plans, and somewhere in the back of all of that, both she and Erik took comfort in the knowledge that Charles was out there doing what he did best, molding young minds, offering sanctuary to mutants who didn't have a home and weren't old enough to fight for one.
She didn't know what to say, what ideas to voice, when she couldn't think beyond 'Oh Charles, you see, you see how they are towards us?'
"It is as we thought. They know of Charles, they know his power. They fear it. They would not stop looking for him, not after being confronted with his abilities, and now they've found him."
Raven really wished Emma would shut up, her every word serving only to heighten her fears.
The walls of a safe home they were staying in, framed with reinforced steel, began to creak under Erik's duress.
"Azazel, take us to the school, immediately," he snapped, and Raven, as well as the others, jumped to immediate action. In her focus, Raven didn't even notice the sudden pull in her gut she normally felt whenever she teleported with Azazel.
And when they materialized in front of her childhood home, she no longer had the ability to contemplate the lack of transporting sensation. Nor did she possess the means to concentrate on anything at all.
She knew pain. Agonizing, horrendous, soul-tearing pain. And with the pain there was so much sorrow, and grief. A barrage of it, bombarding her mind like waves crashing against the shore.
Bile rose to her throat and she collapsed, dimly aware of the rest of the Brotherhood falling around her.
She noticed, from a distance, as if a fog has settled in her mind making everything hazy, that Erik was still standing, looking at them with dawning horror in his eyes. Erik with his helmet, blocking psionic attack...
Charles.
'Charles, stop!' she called with her mind, 'stop, stop, stop. Please!' she begged urgently. For agonizing seconds there was no response and then gradually, as if awakening from a nightmare, she could feel the pain start to recede.
For a second she could only sit there crouched, thoroughly dazed.
"That was some scary shit," Angel announced, after a beat. Out of the corner of Raven's eyes she could see the others, save Emma, nod in fervent agreement.
Emma, Raven thought, perhaps uncharitably, was probably wondering how Charles did it.
Erik though, he looked possessed. As if his determination to get to Charles superseded all other thought. She barely had time to stand before he took off towards the house and she had to run after him on wobbly, uncoordinated legs.
In her haste she felt rather than saw the others move to follow her.
In her mind she heard a familiar voice tell her 'I'm alive, I'm in the study,' but the tone of that voice was frightening. It was Charles, alright, but then not, not really. He sounded like he did whenever he used to read to her from his thesis. Clinical. Abrupt. None of the usual enthusiasm and emotion Charles infused into a conversation. No 'Raven, thank god you're here, you wouldn't believe the day I've had, sorry about the whole mental backlash I just put you and your friends through' or even a 'nice of you lot to stop by for a visit' because Charles always considered anything less than being perfectly polite an affront to his sensibilities, even in instances following him emoting his anguish with all of the force of a speeding train.
Come to think of it, the only time she'd ever felt him emote anguish like he had today was when his mother had died, and that had been only a fraction of this, whatever this was...
"Charles, are you alright?" she couldn't help but ask, not aware, until she watched Erik pick up speed, that she had voiced this question out loud.
He didn't answer her, not even with a 'yes, yes, fine'. That wasn't like Charles at all.
She stopped for a moment and quickly turned to the others, because it was obvious Erik wasn't pausing for anything, not even to direct his team, "Go find Hank, Alex and Sean, and if they are able, have them help you evacuate any of the others living here."
She didn't give them time to respond before she was morphing her legs to be longer so she could catch up to Erik.
'We're coming Charles, we're going to get you out of here,' she thought, and she hoped that he'd find it at least somewhat reassuring.
The Xavier mansion had never felt this big before, not when she was growing up here, nor possessing quite so many hallways, every wall an obstacle preventing she and Erik from reaching Charles that much more quickly.
If anything had happened to Charles she would not stop until any official minutely involved had paid for their treachery in full. She'd lost any mercy she had on the beach where Charles' blood had once been shed. She didn't have any left to spare.
She could complain about her brother's flaws all she wanted, but anyone else trying to hurt him did so at their own peril. She wouldn't stand for it.
She picked up her pace and ran a little faster, Erik hot on her heels.
And then finally, after what seemed like years, they reached the study.
The scene that greeted them even more surreal than anything they had encountered thus far.
Soldiers dressed in black, carrying guns, stood, frozen in mid-action. Charles was sitting on the floor, his wheelchair off to the side, amidst the bodies of the fallen, cradling a dark skinned girl with white hair in his arms.
The child was bleeding, appearing to have been shot, but breathing still, her chest moving in shallow gasps. When Raven and Erik entered, Charles looked up at them both with eyes that were suspiciously bright. Behind him was another child - a boy with sunglasses covering his eyes - cowering, clinging to Charles' back.
On the floor next to them, a girl with red hair was laying in a pool of blood, no longer breathing at all.
Raven felt nauseous.
The bastards were going to pay for every drop of blood shed this day.
"This is Ororo Munroe," Charles murmured softly, nodding towards the girl in his arms and then to them, addressing them as if they'd never left, as if his world weren't crashing down around him.
She could tell her brother was strained, and although he didn't appear to be physically harmed, as he'd indicated in her mind, Raven knew better than anybody that appearances were deceiving. Holding the team of soldiers in stasis would tax his gift even had his mind not just lived through the mental backlash of those under his care being hurt and, she glanced towards the fallen child, seeming too small for the pool of blood, killed. And based on the pain she'd experienced through his psionic bleeding - and again during his cryptic message of faux reassurance - she was amazed that he was forming coherent sentences.
"And behind me, Scott Summers, Alex's brother," he continued, the fact that he was whispering was not lost on her.
He didn't mention who the dead girl was, and Raven didn't ask him, paralyzed in her sympathy.
Erik reached up and removed the helmet that had kept Charles out of his mind these past lonely months, and allowed it drop to the floor, seemingly without a second thought, as he slowly, tentatively, approached his ex-lover, as if hesitant to startle Charles with any sudden movements or loud noises - he recognized Charles' discomfort too, then - crouching before him so that they were eye level, smiling at Charles, seeming to attempt reassurance.
Raven had never been more proud to serve with him than she was in that moment.
"It's a beautiful name. What's her mutation?" Erik asked, content, for then, to ignore the elephant in the room if it would ease Charles' way. They could all guess the mutation of the boy had something to do with his eyes. The dead girl was anyone's guess. Erik, too, seemed unwilling to ask at that moment.
"She can control the weather," Charles murmured, and Erik smiled again, genuinely interested.
"That's an incredible mutation."
"Yes, it is," Charles agreed, "seeing it in action is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen… well," he amended, after a pause, "actually the second most beautiful thing I've ever seen," and he looked up at Raven as he said it.
She didn't think her heart could possibly shatter more. She was wrong. So wrong.
"Oh Charles, I'm so sorry..." she began, overcome, but Erik didn't let her finish that thought.
"Charles, listen to me, the rest of the Brotherhood are finding anyone left in this house, when they do, they are going to take them to safety." Both of Erik's hands were on Charles' shoulders, as if daring him to try and escape him, but by the looks of it Charles wasn't planning on it. Smart man. "I want you, and Ororo and Scott, to come with me. No arguments on this, Charles. I'm not in the mood."
Charles nodded his affirmation before words managed to escape his lips.
"I'm not going to argue with you, Erik, just, can you wait till I'm gone?" he tilted his head agitatedly towards the frozen figures of the soldiers. "They originally meant to subdue us, then take us, but the children fought back, as did Sean, who was with them. I was in another room with Hank at the time, distracted, or I would have felt them coming. It was then that shots were fired. Sean and the others have gone for help, we need a doctor."
Charles then looked at Erik directly, his blue eyes suddenly clear. Raven had never seen that particular look on her brother's face before. It was hard, and strained, and lacking the congenial nature that Charles Xavier usually carried around him like a cloak, even during times of duress.
She shivered.
"Could you wait until I'm gone to kill them? I don't want to feel them die."
Erik winced visibly at that. Raven was too distracted by what Charles was implying to spare Erik any sympathy.
She was glad that Charles wouldn't deny Erik his pound of flesh, not this time.
She only hoped he wouldn't regret the decision come tomorrow.
Erik leaned forward then, into Charles' personal space. He brushed his lips lightly across Charles chin, and up his cheek, pausing briefly every now and then to place a gentle kiss on the skin his lips were trailing, and to his ear, where Raven had to strain to hear him say, "It's a promise."
She smiled at them through her tears.
Next Part
Previous Part
*****
That was then:
'Your mother wasn't a mutant, and neither was mine,' Charles announced in his head, body barely starting to cool after their immensely invigorating calisthenics of moments before, the sheets beneath them dampened with sweat.
It annoyed Erik that Charles could not only talk, but form a complete sentence after all the work he'd just put into leaving Charles breathless, but then he'd figured that there was probably no force on Earth, no mutant powerful enough, to truly shut Charles Xavier up.
Strangely it was one of Charles' more endearing qualities, as annoying as it could get.
"Charles, mein gott, can you let me catch my breath?" he huffed, belying the sternness of his tone with an indulgent grin. "I must say your version of post-sex repartee leaves a lot to be desired."
Charles smiled back sheepishly, ducking his head slightly to cover the blush of his embarrassment, blue eyes shining with his own amusement.
It was yet another thing he loved about Charles-his unfailing sense of humor. He wondered if his mutation played a role in making Charles so able to laugh at himself. It created a good contrast to Erik's admitted tendency to brood.
"Sorry, my friend," Charles replied aloud, his accent muffled by the section of Erik's shoulder he was resting on, and the sight of him laying on his belly, naked ass shivering slightly as Erik ran a hand gently over it, stirred Erik's blood anew. "But a thought just occurred to me."
"Is there any time of day where you can turn those thoughts off?" Erik asked, sounding sharper than he intended. But he'd never felt less like having a debate with Charles than he did now, particularly one involving any mention of their respective mothers.
Erik's mother, in particular, was a bittersweet memory on the best of days. And the serene memory Charles had helped him access, of a single moment of peace before they had been captured, had no place with what Erik wanted to do next, which was roll back on top of Charles, place a knee between Charles' legs, lift his hips, and slide back in, Charles' hole still stretched and loose from before.
"Not really, no," Charles answered, and Erik had to smile at the uncharacteristic bluntness. It was nice to see at least one sign that Charles was just as affected as he was in their afterglow.
Putting his happy thoughts of immediately starting another round to the wayside, he rolled onto his side and placed a kiss on Charles' bare shoulder, memorizing the heat and feel of it beneath his lips.
"Perhaps I can do a little more to persuade you," he breathed, lips remaining just inches above Charles' skin in order to breath in his scent, all musk from their previous activities, the faint taint of soap, and the fainter smell of cotton from Charles' seemingly endless supply of button-up shirts.
"I was being serious, Erik," Charles insisted, his own tone getting firm, and Erik lamented that for someone who preached of a place between anger and serenity, Charles certainly had a knack of disturbing said serenity.
"Alright, alright, so our mothers weren't mutants, this isn't exactly news, Charles," Erik gave up, shifting onto his back, his hands beneath his head as he looked at the ceiling in utter exasperation.
"I know it's not," Charles conceded, "but the point I'm trying to make is this: our mothers, together, with our fathers, they created us. Mutants born to normal, human parents. I mean, have you ever wondered what mutations have yet to be born…"
Erik knew where Charles was going with this, of course, knew exactly what point Charles was trying to make of all of this and felt a crawl of unease over his skin. When these arguments of theirs entered the bedroom, their sanctuary, it had to stop.
"You don't know when to stop, do you, Charles?" he interrupted Charles, mid-rant. Rude? Undoubtedly, but he couldn't allow Charles to go on. "We're in our bed, after having just made love, now is not the time!"
"If not now, then when? Erik, our time here is almost up. Soon we're going to have to go face Shaw, and choices will have to be made. I'm not going to lie, I'm fearful, Erik, fearful that your choice, when you make it, is not going to be me."
Erik drew in a sharp breath as the implications of that sunk home. Charles could not make the distinction between his ideals or his needs as a lover, his need in a partner, it was either both or nothing. And everyone thought he was the uncompromising one?
It made Erik's stomach turn over thinking of it.
Erik sighed, fists balling as he paused to consider what to say. A part of him knew that Charles was right, that while he loved Charles more than he'd loved anyone since the day his mother had been shot in front of him, that just being in love wasn't enough. It wouldn't be enough. Because he and Charles lived in a world where they were hated and sneered at by those who knew what they were. And once it was out on a global scale that mutants existed… Erik knew all too well what would happen next. It wasn't a world he wanted for them, wasn't a world he wanted for Charles.
Charles had no idea, no idea what it was like to be hunted and persecuted and imprisoned simply for being different. And if Erik had his way, Charles would never see that fate. If he had to oppose Charles to protect him, he would.
"I'm never going to agree, Charles. You've been in my mind, you've seen what I've been through. You know more than most what we're facing. I'm not going to sit back and take it, not this time. I'm asking you now, when the time comes, stay out of my way."
"And if I can't?" Charles asked, his voice but a whisper.
"I don't know," Erik replied, because he didn't have an answer and it simply wasn't in him to provide false hope.
Charles continued to lay silent beside him, the air in the room thick, repressive.
Finally Erik couldn't take it any more, he turned to Charles, and grasped his chin gently and looked into his eyes. Charles expression mirrored his quiet distress.
"I don't have an answer for you," he reiterated, "but know this, while we're here, in this bed, together, either holding each other or making love, I don't want to discuss this issue again. We can do it over chess in the library, or over brandy in the study, but not here, Charles, I mean it. This is our quiet space, our place between rage and serenity."
He paused for a moment, smiling sardonically at the opportunity of turning Charles' own sage wisdom back on him. "When we're here it's just about us, the rest of the world can fuck themselves, to coin a phrase."
Charles looked at him closely, studying his features.
To an outside observer, the intensity of his scrutiny would seem as if Charles were engaging his telepathy to know Erik's mind.
Erik knew otherwise; there was no gentle presence against his thoughts, no welcome intrusion of a kindred soul who reminded Erik that he wasn't alone.
Charles was considering his words, his remarkable brain fully engaged in weighing Erik's plea for sanctuary over his own need to push the point until one of them, Erik preferably, broke.
When Charles' blue eyes softened, Erik knew he had won.
"Alright, Erik," Charles agreed, "we'll leave the ideological debates at the bedroom door."
"Thank you, Charles," Erik breathed, leaning down to press another kiss on Charles' shoulder before rolling on top of him again, his body taut and demanding of this reaffirmation of their bond.
Maybe his first thrust in was more intense, had a little more power behind it and was a little more driven and insistent, but Charles certainly didn't complain.
*****
This is now:
The day Emma Frost stormed back from a reconnaissance mission to check in on the CIA - make sure they weren't still looking almost a year after the beach incident, or ascertaining how close their search was bringing them to the truth - the obvious concern on her face made Raven's throat clench.
Erik looked up from his place behind his mahogany desk, and tensed.
"The government, they've discovered us?" he asked, and Raven had to give him credit, he seemed perfectly calm and ready for whatever answer would come.
"It's not our location they've discovered," the White Queen announced.
"Charles," Raven said, her heart raced, too fast, a panicky rhythm she was certain the others had to be able to hear.
"The school, Charles' school." Erik said flatly.
A confirmation, not a question.
Emma's nod had a more devastating impact on Raven than if she'd given lengthy commentary.
The school not only housed Charles, but children. Innocent, lost, and lonely children. Raven remembered what it was like to be a lost, mutant child, finally brought in under the protection of Charles Xavier, and the thought that it had been compromised, those frightened children under his care placed at risk, made her want to wreak devastation until the threats were eliminated, with no hope of resurrection, until they were all, finally, safe.
How could they?
A silver letter opener flew across the room and embedded itself in the wall. Erik was shaking with barely concealed rage, and perhaps some fear of his own. They fought for their cause, they made their plans, and somewhere in the back of all of that, both she and Erik took comfort in the knowledge that Charles was out there doing what he did best, molding young minds, offering sanctuary to mutants who didn't have a home and weren't old enough to fight for one.
She didn't know what to say, what ideas to voice, when she couldn't think beyond 'Oh Charles, you see, you see how they are towards us?'
"It is as we thought. They know of Charles, they know his power. They fear it. They would not stop looking for him, not after being confronted with his abilities, and now they've found him."
Raven really wished Emma would shut up, her every word serving only to heighten her fears.
The walls of a safe home they were staying in, framed with reinforced steel, began to creak under Erik's duress.
"Azazel, take us to the school, immediately," he snapped, and Raven, as well as the others, jumped to immediate action. In her focus, Raven didn't even notice the sudden pull in her gut she normally felt whenever she teleported with Azazel.
And when they materialized in front of her childhood home, she no longer had the ability to contemplate the lack of transporting sensation. Nor did she possess the means to concentrate on anything at all.
She knew pain. Agonizing, horrendous, soul-tearing pain. And with the pain there was so much sorrow, and grief. A barrage of it, bombarding her mind like waves crashing against the shore.
Bile rose to her throat and she collapsed, dimly aware of the rest of the Brotherhood falling around her.
She noticed, from a distance, as if a fog has settled in her mind making everything hazy, that Erik was still standing, looking at them with dawning horror in his eyes. Erik with his helmet, blocking psionic attack...
Charles.
'Charles, stop!' she called with her mind, 'stop, stop, stop. Please!' she begged urgently. For agonizing seconds there was no response and then gradually, as if awakening from a nightmare, she could feel the pain start to recede.
For a second she could only sit there crouched, thoroughly dazed.
"That was some scary shit," Angel announced, after a beat. Out of the corner of Raven's eyes she could see the others, save Emma, nod in fervent agreement.
Emma, Raven thought, perhaps uncharitably, was probably wondering how Charles did it.
Erik though, he looked possessed. As if his determination to get to Charles superseded all other thought. She barely had time to stand before he took off towards the house and she had to run after him on wobbly, uncoordinated legs.
In her haste she felt rather than saw the others move to follow her.
In her mind she heard a familiar voice tell her 'I'm alive, I'm in the study,' but the tone of that voice was frightening. It was Charles, alright, but then not, not really. He sounded like he did whenever he used to read to her from his thesis. Clinical. Abrupt. None of the usual enthusiasm and emotion Charles infused into a conversation. No 'Raven, thank god you're here, you wouldn't believe the day I've had, sorry about the whole mental backlash I just put you and your friends through' or even a 'nice of you lot to stop by for a visit' because Charles always considered anything less than being perfectly polite an affront to his sensibilities, even in instances following him emoting his anguish with all of the force of a speeding train.
Come to think of it, the only time she'd ever felt him emote anguish like he had today was when his mother had died, and that had been only a fraction of this, whatever this was...
"Charles, are you alright?" she couldn't help but ask, not aware, until she watched Erik pick up speed, that she had voiced this question out loud.
He didn't answer her, not even with a 'yes, yes, fine'. That wasn't like Charles at all.
She stopped for a moment and quickly turned to the others, because it was obvious Erik wasn't pausing for anything, not even to direct his team, "Go find Hank, Alex and Sean, and if they are able, have them help you evacuate any of the others living here."
She didn't give them time to respond before she was morphing her legs to be longer so she could catch up to Erik.
'We're coming Charles, we're going to get you out of here,' she thought, and she hoped that he'd find it at least somewhat reassuring.
The Xavier mansion had never felt this big before, not when she was growing up here, nor possessing quite so many hallways, every wall an obstacle preventing she and Erik from reaching Charles that much more quickly.
If anything had happened to Charles she would not stop until any official minutely involved had paid for their treachery in full. She'd lost any mercy she had on the beach where Charles' blood had once been shed. She didn't have any left to spare.
She could complain about her brother's flaws all she wanted, but anyone else trying to hurt him did so at their own peril. She wouldn't stand for it.
She picked up her pace and ran a little faster, Erik hot on her heels.
And then finally, after what seemed like years, they reached the study.
The scene that greeted them even more surreal than anything they had encountered thus far.
Soldiers dressed in black, carrying guns, stood, frozen in mid-action. Charles was sitting on the floor, his wheelchair off to the side, amidst the bodies of the fallen, cradling a dark skinned girl with white hair in his arms.
The child was bleeding, appearing to have been shot, but breathing still, her chest moving in shallow gasps. When Raven and Erik entered, Charles looked up at them both with eyes that were suspiciously bright. Behind him was another child - a boy with sunglasses covering his eyes - cowering, clinging to Charles' back.
On the floor next to them, a girl with red hair was laying in a pool of blood, no longer breathing at all.
Raven felt nauseous.
The bastards were going to pay for every drop of blood shed this day.
"This is Ororo Munroe," Charles murmured softly, nodding towards the girl in his arms and then to them, addressing them as if they'd never left, as if his world weren't crashing down around him.
She could tell her brother was strained, and although he didn't appear to be physically harmed, as he'd indicated in her mind, Raven knew better than anybody that appearances were deceiving. Holding the team of soldiers in stasis would tax his gift even had his mind not just lived through the mental backlash of those under his care being hurt and, she glanced towards the fallen child, seeming too small for the pool of blood, killed. And based on the pain she'd experienced through his psionic bleeding - and again during his cryptic message of faux reassurance - she was amazed that he was forming coherent sentences.
"And behind me, Scott Summers, Alex's brother," he continued, the fact that he was whispering was not lost on her.
He didn't mention who the dead girl was, and Raven didn't ask him, paralyzed in her sympathy.
Erik reached up and removed the helmet that had kept Charles out of his mind these past lonely months, and allowed it drop to the floor, seemingly without a second thought, as he slowly, tentatively, approached his ex-lover, as if hesitant to startle Charles with any sudden movements or loud noises - he recognized Charles' discomfort too, then - crouching before him so that they were eye level, smiling at Charles, seeming to attempt reassurance.
Raven had never been more proud to serve with him than she was in that moment.
"It's a beautiful name. What's her mutation?" Erik asked, content, for then, to ignore the elephant in the room if it would ease Charles' way. They could all guess the mutation of the boy had something to do with his eyes. The dead girl was anyone's guess. Erik, too, seemed unwilling to ask at that moment.
"She can control the weather," Charles murmured, and Erik smiled again, genuinely interested.
"That's an incredible mutation."
"Yes, it is," Charles agreed, "seeing it in action is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen… well," he amended, after a pause, "actually the second most beautiful thing I've ever seen," and he looked up at Raven as he said it.
She didn't think her heart could possibly shatter more. She was wrong. So wrong.
"Oh Charles, I'm so sorry..." she began, overcome, but Erik didn't let her finish that thought.
"Charles, listen to me, the rest of the Brotherhood are finding anyone left in this house, when they do, they are going to take them to safety." Both of Erik's hands were on Charles' shoulders, as if daring him to try and escape him, but by the looks of it Charles wasn't planning on it. Smart man. "I want you, and Ororo and Scott, to come with me. No arguments on this, Charles. I'm not in the mood."
Charles nodded his affirmation before words managed to escape his lips.
"I'm not going to argue with you, Erik, just, can you wait till I'm gone?" he tilted his head agitatedly towards the frozen figures of the soldiers. "They originally meant to subdue us, then take us, but the children fought back, as did Sean, who was with them. I was in another room with Hank at the time, distracted, or I would have felt them coming. It was then that shots were fired. Sean and the others have gone for help, we need a doctor."
Charles then looked at Erik directly, his blue eyes suddenly clear. Raven had never seen that particular look on her brother's face before. It was hard, and strained, and lacking the congenial nature that Charles Xavier usually carried around him like a cloak, even during times of duress.
She shivered.
"Could you wait until I'm gone to kill them? I don't want to feel them die."
Erik winced visibly at that. Raven was too distracted by what Charles was implying to spare Erik any sympathy.
She was glad that Charles wouldn't deny Erik his pound of flesh, not this time.
She only hoped he wouldn't regret the decision come tomorrow.
Erik leaned forward then, into Charles' personal space. He brushed his lips lightly across Charles chin, and up his cheek, pausing briefly every now and then to place a gentle kiss on the skin his lips were trailing, and to his ear, where Raven had to strain to hear him say, "It's a promise."
She smiled at them through her tears.
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