Prompt 214: "To be great is to be misunderstood".
OOC: Rogue isn't dead, but as a way to break Magneto, they are going to tell him that she is. Also, they are not telling him the truth regarding Toad and Avalanche. As always, I mean no disrespect to anyone when mentioning Magneto's backstory as a Holocaust survivor, but it's an important canonical part of his history. I am trying to handle the subject tactfully, please email me with any concerns if I am failing to do that. I am somewhat basing Erik's prison on the one in X2 and his prison in Ultimate X-Men. I don't know if it's theoretically possible to make this no-metal-cell, but if they can do it in the movie and the comics, then I claim artistic license.
The prison is cold. They are very pleased with themselves for having captured him. Erik stands, having been stripped naked, in front of the warden of his solitary prison, Officer Anthony Sanders. The guards have plastic guns. There is nothing metal in a ten-mile radius. Erik cannot feel metal, cannot feel anything but the cold air and the harsh glare of the lights pressing against his eyes.
"Well. You're the big bad mutant. Think we humans are scum, do you?"
This is not Sanders. This is a young kid, no older than Pyro, feeling immortal because he has a gun made of plastic. There are not bullets inside, but some sort of tranquilizer. Metal bullets will do no good against Magneto. The tranquilizer is how they caught him, and likely Avalanche and Toad. He had been expecting bullets. "Not all of you, no," Erik says. Sanders is writing something on a clipboard. He looks up and smirks.
"Humans caught you. Oh, wait, no. A mutant did. You know that, right? That it was one of your boys, your little freedom fighters. We got the rest of you, too." Sanders smiled, but it wasn't amused and it wasn't necessarily cruel. Just tired, perhaps. "And you're just an old man. I can't even believe this birthdate, actually--shouldn't you be all hunched over by now? You don't look a day over sixty."
"My mutation lends me certain advantages," Erik says. His voice sounds pleasant, calm. There is door behind Sanders. Erik knows where the door leads. There will be a uniform, something colorless and shapeless, and a cell. Made of plastic, no doubt. Even Sanders' clipboard and pen are plastic. One small shard of metal, and Erik would be out of here in seconds, these cocky young guards dead at his feet.
"Yeah. Well, too bad you're not Plastico," crows the young man behind him, and the corner of Erik's mouth turns up slightly. His hands are tied behind his back with plastic handcuffs.
I wouldn't even use metal. My hands. I would kill you with my hands.
"Indeed," Erik says, and he knows it is bothering them, these young men. They want to see him broken, or they want to see him fight. They are going to get neither. He will bide his time. They have imprisoned him before. He has always escaped. Someone always forgets. A metal brace in their knee, a filling.
"We can put the other two in a regular jail. Bet they'll have fun, there," the young guard says again. He chuckles. "The frog guy, I bet someone makes him his bitch in ten minutes. Too bad no one's here to do that to you, eh, Lehnsherr?" The guard laughs, and his voice turns sly. "Then again, we could put your girlfriend in here."
Erik is too well schooled to flinch, or give anything away. So they had Rogue, did they?
"Of course," the guard continued, and there was something he wanted to say, something he was dragging out slow and painful, like a kid pulling wings off a butterfly. "She'd probably not be very good company. Being dead, and all."
"Officer Brandon, that's enough," Sanders says, and he puts the clipboard away.
Erik hears the words. They are telling him Anna is dead. He does not move, does not express a single emotion. Somewhere, Erik draws deep inside himself, until he feels nothing, nothing at all. They do not let him dress himself. The guard, Officer Brandon, has fallen silent, obviously displeased he cannot get a rise out of Erik. Erik is lead through the door, to the cell beyond. It is plastic, of course, all cold sterile white and harsh lights. There will be no privacy. There is darkness around the cell, and he is taken across a walkway. They always do this, when they capture him, build his prison high above some gaping dark chasm.
I can fly. They always forget I can fly.
Sanders is talking, about mealtimes and exercise and rules. Erik is seven years old again, and while Sanders has the smooth, urbane accent of any American, Erik hears something clipped in his words, as if he is speaking some other language from Erik's past. Erik will not shudder. He will not think about Anna. He will not look away from Sanders brown eyes, like some cowed and humbled homo sapiens.
"It's...Mr. Lehnsherr, if you can prove you're not a danger, they might...relent. Make this a lot nicer for you." Something is bothering Sanders, it's obvious. His eyes flicker down towards Erik's arm. He must have seen the tattoo, earlier. "It's not...Officer Brandon is young. This is the best thing that's happened to him since he got out of basic."
Army men, then. I'm somewhere on a military base.
Erik does not look away. He is taller than Sanders, but only just. "Would you like me to tell you that you are nicer than the Nazis, Officer Sanders?"
Sanders flinches, but he smiles that same tight, tired smile that isn't much of a smile at all. "No. I just...you're supposed to be seven feet tall, you know. A monster in a cape and a metal helmet. You look like my father." Sanders turns away. "And I'm not the bad guy here, Mr. Lehnsherr. You are. Don't forget that."
Erik watches the man leave, without saying what he is thinking. They thought I was the "bad guy", too, Officer. Several minutes later, the lights shut down; without the hum of the fluorescent lights, the cell is quiet as the grave.Erik feels the darkness pressing around him like a weight, broken only by the slightest of lights from the monitoring station. He lays on the bed, on his back, and stares up at the ceiling as his eyes adjust to the change in the light.
Anna. If you can hear me, I am sorry. I would have willingly died in your place. I have always been willing.
The walls and the darkness threaten to drown him. He thinks about Anna, his lover, dead now because of him. He thinks about his children. About Toad and Avalanche. Pyro, whom he had cared for like a son. Pyro, his betrayer. There is a myriad of equipment around him, though not a single one is made of metal. They have been building this prison for a very long time, it would seem, just for him. Each slight hum, each mechanical whirl, makes Erik think something will come pouring from the ceiling.
I only ever wanted to save them all, my brethren. Save them from this.
He does not sleep, that first night, though part of him wants to. It would be nice to see Anna's face, again, even if he's only dreaming.
The prison is cold. They are very pleased with themselves for having captured him. Erik stands, having been stripped naked, in front of the warden of his solitary prison, Officer Anthony Sanders. The guards have plastic guns. There is nothing metal in a ten-mile radius. Erik cannot feel metal, cannot feel anything but the cold air and the harsh glare of the lights pressing against his eyes.
"Well. You're the big bad mutant. Think we humans are scum, do you?"
This is not Sanders. This is a young kid, no older than Pyro, feeling immortal because he has a gun made of plastic. There are not bullets inside, but some sort of tranquilizer. Metal bullets will do no good against Magneto. The tranquilizer is how they caught him, and likely Avalanche and Toad. He had been expecting bullets. "Not all of you, no," Erik says. Sanders is writing something on a clipboard. He looks up and smirks.
"Humans caught you. Oh, wait, no. A mutant did. You know that, right? That it was one of your boys, your little freedom fighters. We got the rest of you, too." Sanders smiled, but it wasn't amused and it wasn't necessarily cruel. Just tired, perhaps. "And you're just an old man. I can't even believe this birthdate, actually--shouldn't you be all hunched over by now? You don't look a day over sixty."
"My mutation lends me certain advantages," Erik says. His voice sounds pleasant, calm. There is door behind Sanders. Erik knows where the door leads. There will be a uniform, something colorless and shapeless, and a cell. Made of plastic, no doubt. Even Sanders' clipboard and pen are plastic. One small shard of metal, and Erik would be out of here in seconds, these cocky young guards dead at his feet.
"Yeah. Well, too bad you're not Plastico," crows the young man behind him, and the corner of Erik's mouth turns up slightly. His hands are tied behind his back with plastic handcuffs.
I wouldn't even use metal. My hands. I would kill you with my hands.
"Indeed," Erik says, and he knows it is bothering them, these young men. They want to see him broken, or they want to see him fight. They are going to get neither. He will bide his time. They have imprisoned him before. He has always escaped. Someone always forgets. A metal brace in their knee, a filling.
"We can put the other two in a regular jail. Bet they'll have fun, there," the young guard says again. He chuckles. "The frog guy, I bet someone makes him his bitch in ten minutes. Too bad no one's here to do that to you, eh, Lehnsherr?" The guard laughs, and his voice turns sly. "Then again, we could put your girlfriend in here."
Erik is too well schooled to flinch, or give anything away. So they had Rogue, did they?
"Of course," the guard continued, and there was something he wanted to say, something he was dragging out slow and painful, like a kid pulling wings off a butterfly. "She'd probably not be very good company. Being dead, and all."
"Officer Brandon, that's enough," Sanders says, and he puts the clipboard away.
Erik hears the words. They are telling him Anna is dead. He does not move, does not express a single emotion. Somewhere, Erik draws deep inside himself, until he feels nothing, nothing at all. They do not let him dress himself. The guard, Officer Brandon, has fallen silent, obviously displeased he cannot get a rise out of Erik. Erik is lead through the door, to the cell beyond. It is plastic, of course, all cold sterile white and harsh lights. There will be no privacy. There is darkness around the cell, and he is taken across a walkway. They always do this, when they capture him, build his prison high above some gaping dark chasm.
I can fly. They always forget I can fly.
Sanders is talking, about mealtimes and exercise and rules. Erik is seven years old again, and while Sanders has the smooth, urbane accent of any American, Erik hears something clipped in his words, as if he is speaking some other language from Erik's past. Erik will not shudder. He will not think about Anna. He will not look away from Sanders brown eyes, like some cowed and humbled homo sapiens.
"It's...Mr. Lehnsherr, if you can prove you're not a danger, they might...relent. Make this a lot nicer for you." Something is bothering Sanders, it's obvious. His eyes flicker down towards Erik's arm. He must have seen the tattoo, earlier. "It's not...Officer Brandon is young. This is the best thing that's happened to him since he got out of basic."
Army men, then. I'm somewhere on a military base.
Erik does not look away. He is taller than Sanders, but only just. "Would you like me to tell you that you are nicer than the Nazis, Officer Sanders?"
Sanders flinches, but he smiles that same tight, tired smile that isn't much of a smile at all. "No. I just...you're supposed to be seven feet tall, you know. A monster in a cape and a metal helmet. You look like my father." Sanders turns away. "And I'm not the bad guy here, Mr. Lehnsherr. You are. Don't forget that."
Erik watches the man leave, without saying what he is thinking. They thought I was the "bad guy", too, Officer. Several minutes later, the lights shut down; without the hum of the fluorescent lights, the cell is quiet as the grave.Erik feels the darkness pressing around him like a weight, broken only by the slightest of lights from the monitoring station. He lays on the bed, on his back, and stares up at the ceiling as his eyes adjust to the change in the light.
Anna. If you can hear me, I am sorry. I would have willingly died in your place. I have always been willing.
The walls and the darkness threaten to drown him. He thinks about Anna, his lover, dead now because of him. He thinks about his children. About Toad and Avalanche. Pyro, whom he had cared for like a son. Pyro, his betrayer. There is a myriad of equipment around him, though not a single one is made of metal. They have been building this prison for a very long time, it would seem, just for him. Each slight hum, each mechanical whirl, makes Erik think something will come pouring from the ceiling.
I only ever wanted to save them all, my brethren. Save them from this.
He does not sleep, that first night, though part of him wants to. It would be nice to see Anna's face, again, even if he's only dreaming.