Walk like a gentleman
Who: coolexec & arethebettermen
What: 2am is a perfectly reasonable time to show up drunk to pimp the prof's ride
Where: Xavier Mansion
When: After Tony has met up with Zinc, before Pepper arrives; any random night between those two happenings
Warnings: Likely language
( and curse like a wave )
What: 2am is a perfectly reasonable time to show up drunk to pimp the prof's ride
Where: Xavier Mansion
When: After Tony has met up with Zinc, before Pepper arrives; any random night between those two happenings
Warnings: Likely language
( and curse like a wave )
Actually, do you even listen to yourself? You know everything about me. You know about my relationship with my father - not even Pepper and Rhodey know that whole story - and about my feelings about basically everything and what do I know about you? That your sister left with your best friend, that you mindwiped the woman you loved - and do that to Noah and there is nowhere you can hide from me, got it? - and that you blindside everyone whenever anything gets too close to your feelings. So fuck you. Because I don't know anything about you, I don't know how you ended up in that chair and you know about how I almost died in Afghanistan and again from palladium poisoning. Did you even have friends Charles? Because this is what friends do. They share the good and the bad and the plain fucked up and even I know that and I have two friends in my own world.
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In all honesty, the entire onslaught was so similar to what Noah had said, that he was actually surprised. Though, he wasn't sure why he was, because Noah and Tony thought the same way. It would figure the two people he considered friends in the city were so similar that one could say they were practically siblings. Charles twisted the pen in his hands again, eyes focused on the papers in front of him.
'... you're my oldest friend.'
'I'm you're only friend.'
'Thank you for that.'
Charles raised a hand to his face, resting his chin in his palm. Congratulations, Tony Stark, you successfully brought down one of the most powerful mutants.
No. He finally said. I don't have any friends. Not anymore. Raven was gone, Erik was gone, and now this. What would you prefer I tell you, Anthony? How my father died when I still a little boy, how my mother remarried to his lab partner? How he was an abusive stepfather and my mother couldn't take the fact my father was still dead and disappeared into socializing and drinking her way into a life where she didn't have to remember I was there half the time?
Charles looked up at him. Yes, Charles was screwed up. Maybe not as much as Tony, maybe more. But, unlike Tony, he didn't broadcast it for the world to know. Being a telepath is not as amazing as you all think it to be. I can hear things that I've never ever wanted to hear. What if I were to tell you that one of the first things I heard my mother think, when my mutation manifested, was that she couldn't stand to be around me because I was far too much like my father, and that me simply being there was hurting her more than actually helping her?
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He both wanted to hear what Charles said and didn't because this was the same sort of stuff Charles had picked up from him but Tony wasn't expecting that and that was half the problem here; Charles projected this image of being some affable young genius guy when there was so much more going on underneath all of it apparently. Christ parents fuck you up. He hadn't meant for that part to be heard but it needed to be said after all. Parents left marks, fingerprint impression bruises the lightest touch or deep cracks that kept opening up, edges crumbling away unless someone was brave enough to attempt to bridge the gap or until there was some effort made to try to stitch the edges shut again.
You know what happens if you don't let this out to someone? It's going to fester. Your childhood fucking sucked, probably worse than mine because I couldn't hear just how few fucks my father gave about me, I couldn't hear whatever my mom thought about me but you know, when I got packed off to boarding school I figured that out. But whatever, you know all of that. It was easy to guess that Tony and Charles' mother probably had a few things in common with the society drinking to forget their problems, to pretend that things were alright. You don't lock that up in your head and overanalyse it forever. You'll end up some bitter old man filled with regret.
None of what he said came out how he wanted it to but he hoped Charles would actually see what Tony was aiming for.
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Thanks to Noah, I do know I'll end up a bald old man with quite a few mutant students running around. Charles said, though his voice sounded softer. Raven knew... then Raven left, which you know. I told her to go with Erik because it was what she wanted. She wasn't happy living with me any longer, because I misunderstood how she felt. I promised her, when we were still children, I wouldn't read her mind. Unfortunately that meant I had no idea how she truly felt about herself and was completely blind to the fact she wasn't happy with who and what she was. There's no way anyone can fix that, I'm afraid.
He absently started spinning the pen on the desk. The next thought tumbled our without him meaning it to, Erik is a hypocrite. I suppose that makes Raven one as well now.
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Through a great deal of concerted he managed not to think anything about Raven even if he still couldn't get around how she had left Charles when she must have known this, must have known what his life was like.
Every girl goes through that or I guess they do - when I was younger I was at MIT, way younger than anyone else there and I'd graduated before I could legally drink. I missed out on that part of figuring out how girls work. But they're better at anyone else at hiding what the hell is going on with them. Pepper was a master of it. Tony only knew she was hiding things because how could she not when she had to deal with him day in and day out, picking up all his messes and then dealing with his lies and theatrics when he was dying and before she knew he was Iron Man even if the latter was a fairly brief period.
Wait, what? I feel like I just missed something having some internal reflection there.
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Charles shrugged. I suppose so. Her 'going through that' was different because she's a mutant. No, not different, just far more insecure. Charles raised his gaze back up to Tony, eyes narrowing in confusion for a moment before nodding. Oh.
My apologies... that was a thought that wasn't meant to be broadcasted. Charles said softly. It is... he trailed off. He wasn't even sure how to say or explain it and not sound like a child through a fit. Erik accepts every mutation, except my own. In fact, he outright shut mine out. Most do, human or mutant, but when your best friend is said to stand for your kind? It's a tad difficult to accept.
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If you guys are going to go for the whole bonding with humans thing, you can't have everything always about being a mutant because people can't relate to that. It's a divide. I have met some messed up girls. He gave a wry half-smile as he said that because most of them were the girls who showed up at parties to latch on to the first guy that gave them even a hint of interest. There are probably human girls just as insecure. Maybe worse.
God Erik sounded like such a class act.
He sounds like a dick. No Tony wasn't going to sugarcoat it because it was the truth here, from what he'd heard about Erik so far. Am I ever just going to get the whole story about this because it's going to eat away at me and you know about Stane and I'm all about us having an equal bromance.
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If they ever arrive in the city, I suspect I will see less of you. That might be good for you. Charles commented with a small smirk. He knew Tony wouldn't just leave him alone even if these Avengers showed up. It's more of what Raven's mutation is that leads me to say that, not necessarily that she is a mutant and not a human.
He trusted Tony, but he wasn't sure he should give his sister's insecurities away so freely.
At the comment about Erik, Charles merely sighed. The story about how we met and then parted ways, or the story about the wheelchair?
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Charles would still get a shove when he eventually got to meet Raven, expecting some shy girl but instead finding a naked blue chick.
Both. He had no regrets about asking and it was clear on his face because he wasn't going to let Charles pull any bullshit at all but he needed to know more about all of this and the chair had had him curious. Call it payment for me making you something motorised so you have skin on your hands and don't have freaky biceps from wheeling your ass around everywhere.
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Then he frowned and took a moment to figure out where to begin. He knew that no matter what he said, people wouldn't understand Erik's choice. Charles understood and did not hold it against him. The only thing he held against Erik was not trusting him, even after everything they'd been through. He had hoped Erik would stay after they stopped Shaw... but, apparently he was far too optimistic.
Thank you for that, by the way. Charles gestured to the wheelchair then he sighed. Erik and I met when we were both attempting to stop a man by the name of Sebastian Shaw. He was a mutant who had the ability to absorb any sort of energy and redirect it wherever he pleased. He wanted to light the match between Soviet Russia and the United States, causing World War III, and then force mutant dominance over the world. Erik was hunting Shaw for his own reasons, but we both joined forces and were on a team known as the G-Men for a short time. With the small band of mutants we had, we moved to stop Shaw from detonating a nuclear explosion between the blockade off the coast of Russia.
Charles paused again, dragging his hand down his face with a sigh. We managed to stop Shaw... by Erik killing him. I'll simply say that I felt how the man died. Thinking about it sent pains up through his skull every time, feeling the Nazi coin slowly, painfully, tortuously rip through his skull and enter his brain. It was Shaw that it happened to, but given Charles had suppressed Shaw's mind to control him...
Erik believes that there is no peace to be had between humans and mutants. He believes that humans will turn and try to destroy all of us because we are the next stage of evolution and they will try to battle their extinction. Some will, yes, I'm certain of it... but there are still plenty of humans who are willing to accept that. Charles looked up at him with a small smile. You and Noah being just the handful.
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Hearing about the mutations that were possible already had Tony understanding that some peole were afraid - the cold war as people understood it, as Tony had understood it - had been terrifying enough with it being a sort of genocide too. People were always frightened of something and if an extremist organisation had their hands on a mutant or if a mutant with enough power wanted to do something it changed the game the same way it would if they had access to an Iron Man suit or any of Tony's tech. It wasn't something he was proud of but that was human nature, to be worried. It was why weapons markets existed so that you could be the guy with the bigger stick, so you could feel safe and secure because it didn't take much for the press to get hold of something, to whip it up into a frenzy.
Charles what the actual fuck. The frown on his face was more horrified than anything else. Dying? Dying is bad enough when it's just you or when you're around someone you care about who's slipping away. Feeling someone else? He shook his head because he didn't want to think about that because it cut a little bit too close to the bone for his liking when he considered the situation at home and how he'd been slowly dying there.
People here...they're good people. We've got people with magic and no one's said anything about witch hunts yet. People who can do other things but don't seem to call it magic and everyone gets on - if they don't it's over the usual stuff 'he's an asshole, she's a bitch'. That sort of thing. He paused and rubbed his temples. There are people who'll want you dead, the same sort of people who want anyone different to be gone; sexuality, gender, race, religion - you know all that. But there are just as many people who'd want to keep you safe. If you see the world in one way, if you focus only on the bad then that's all you're ever going to see.
He stopped again, considered his options and then pressed on. Feeling how he died, is that why you're paralysed? It wasn't as if Tony understood how it worked - maybe it was a shot to the back or something, affecting the nerves.
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You and I both know that, Anthony, but Erik has his reasons for believing what he does. They are profound and I believe that not even you could be angry at him for them. Charles said softly. He wasn't about to tell Erik's past to people, it wasn't his place, but if Tony were to ever learn about it? He was certain Tony could at least understand why Erik was the way he was. Why he made the choices he did. There is always going to be mistrust and hate, it's the nature of human begins - mutant or not. That is why we need to take it upon ourselves to be the better men. To be the example. And, you do a marvelous job of that, Anthony, and I thank you for that.
Then he shook his head slightly. If it were only that simple. No, I'm afraid my being paralyzed had nothing to do with that. He leaned back slightly. Shaw had absorbed nuclear energy in hopes of detonating himself as a bomb between the Russians and the Americans. I had to freeze him in place. If I hadn't, then he would have not only killed Erik, but the rest of us. There was no way other option. I had to hold him in place and feel what he would of felt. Then a small smile showed up on his face. I know very well how you felt with your palladium poisoning. I felt that as well when I was reading your memories. Charles shifted slightly, recalling what it felt to have something creep through his chest through the rest of his body, slowly killing him.
That wasn't the point of the conversation though, was it?
I was paralyzed by something far more simple. A ricochet bullet to my spine. Russians and Americans, in their fear, had turned on us and launched missiles. Erik was going to turn the missiles on them and destroy all of them in retaliation. There was a fight, shots were given, and one bounced and hit me. Charles frowned again. It was what happened, but he wouldn't say it was Erik that had bent the bullet in his direction. It was an accident, that's all. I'd rather my legs be the causality of that day then all those lives lost.
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I'll take your word for it. And he would. It said a lot that he trusted the judgement of the other man so much but he felt like they had a real understanding. I'm not a good example. He always wanted to point it out because there was something that made him uncomfortable about it, about the fact that little kids would look up to him and as a symbol, yes, it was good for them but there were still things he did that reflected badly on Iron Man and there was still that mild fear that he was going to fuck something up. Hell, to some people he had. People who'd known a different him as a fully-fledged member of the Avengers who'd more or less hated him when he'd first spoken to them with no idea of what was going on.
Jesus Christ Charles, we are implementing a rule here - do not feel all the painful horrible crap. Look at it, ask about it, don't feel it. Seriously. Palladium poisoning isn't a fun way to go. Oh god he'd just quoted Ivan 'crazy Russian' Vanko. What a fantastic evening this was.
Erik manipulates metal. The thought was more an echo, recalling a statement of fact and the last little bit of colour was gone, leaving Tony wan and grey as he took a hurried swig from the bottle. Fuck...fuck please tell me I just want any excuse to hate someone right now and that's why my mind is sort of jumping to this conclusion that kind of feels logical even if I don't want it to be logical because of you and how you have gone through too much shit for the guy who wants to do the right fucking thing.
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