Fic: Iridescent | part three: love (magneto)
part two
part three: love (magneto)
january 2002
0.
New York was nearly as cold as Poland, sometimes. The winters set in harsh and sudden, with icy teeth and snowy claws, snapping trees, bending roofs, driving everyone to the safety and warmth of their homes.
Winter in upstate New York was a time of peace, because it was too cold for war. It was a time of frost, and regrets clinging in ice crystals, and old, tired men sitting deep in their chairs, contemplating their aches and pains.
William Stryker was not one of those old men.
He stared through the swirling white, eyes narrowed, trying to pick out shapes he knew from memory. Off to his left, a satellite dish loomed through the snowstorm, gray and immovable. In front of him lay thick woods, and through the gaps in the trees he can see the blur of a large, ornate building. It was a school, and everyone was inside today, bundled up in frontof fires or curled together in their dorms.
The teachers, ever vigilant, would be patrolling the hallways, chatting quietly with each other and keeping the peace; a school full of mutant children was volatile, at times. The headmaster would be in his study, playing chess with his friend Nahum Admoni via telephone or reading, or grading papers or filling out paperwork, anything but staring out into the snow.
William Stryker knew this-he knew Erik Lehnsherr, the mutant called Magneto, better than he knew his own son, or his granddaughter.
He waited in the snow, watching, and all around him there were men dressed in seamless white suits, blending and blurring with the blizzard. They had weapons made of plastic, tranquilizers, flash grenades, a whole arsenal to take down the school.
And, best of all, they had Presidential approval, so long as no one died.
Stryker let a smile curve on his numb, shaking lips, and he raised a single gloved fist. Behind him guns clicked and the men shifted in the heavy snow, and Stryker tasted eagerness on his tongue.
“Go,” he said.
1.
When Erik awoke, it was in flashes, in stop-gaps of blinding light and bubbling, churning rage. His hands hurt. His mouth tasted like saltwater and cotton balls-drugs-and he couldn’t feel his legs, but that wasn’t strange because he never could, really, right?
Anger swelled and rose, snarling in his chest, greater and more terrible than it had been for years, and he was dimly aware of buildings and cars writhing away from him, flattened, reduced to nothing.
Someone was screaming-howling, wailing-and then they were gone.
He fought for consciousness, rising against the light, and he wasn’t a man, not anymore-he was a column of fire, a pillar of ash, all teeth and claws and sharp, jagged metal. He dug his hands into the sheets of steel around him and tore it up, mountains springing from his fingertips, lashing, squirming, and there were more screams, sharp and aborted, and the warm, coppery stink of blood.
And then, there was silence.
Erik came back to himself in stages, chest heaving, the metal around him bristling like a living thing, growling, purring.
He was alone, and when he opened his eyes to the light he saw that he was in the back of a truck of some kind, and the truck was no longer moving.
It was destroyed. Metal formed jagged, oozing spikes and dead men lay still, shredded by his fury.
He shook. He hadn’t been this angry since, since Three Mile Island, and he didn’t know why-
Memory flickered through his brain, swirls of color and emotion but he didn’t know where they were from, only that he was alone in the back of a truck and horribly, terribly angry.
The children, he thought, and he threw himself into every scrap of metal he could feel, and in his ten mile radius he didn’t recognize anything-he wasn’t near the mansion, and he wasn’t near his students, and red-black fury bubbled in his chest.
He’d been taken from them, then. Someone had taken him from his children, and what was left of the truck groaned under the weight of his fury.
Who would dare-he was a respected, important figure in the mutant-human struggles, a voice for peace and tolerance. He had Israel backing him, the former Director of Mossad’s friendship, and Senator Kennedy’s support in Congress. What use were these allies if he was kidnapped, damn it?
“Politicians,” he spat, seeking out his chair. He found it easily enough-it was one of the few metallic objects undamaged-and levitated himself into it. He had work to do, then, and he cursed whoever had taken him. January was busy, for fuck’s sake, and with Senator Robert Kelly spouting his ridiculous, hate-breeding drivel in Congress, Erik didn’t really have the time to wander the American countryside aimlessly looking for his home.
Outside, it was marginally warmer than it was in upstate New York. A fine layer of frost coated the ground, interrupted by the skid marks of the truck and various unfortunate vehicles-a convoy, most likely-that had been caught in Erik’s waking rage.
If Erik had to guess, he’d say he was in northern Virginia. The forests were about right, anyway, and he vaguely remembered hearing the weather before-
(guns, flashing muzzles, no metal on the men invading his home-)
Erik’s lips twisted into a growl and he began to push the chair down the road, moving quickly. He needed to find a town, so he could call the mansion, call Israel, call Logan, if the damn man answered his phone-
Focus, he told himself, and narrowed his eyes. It was cold, brutally so, and he shook himself vigorously to ward of the chill. It was nowhere near as cold as Poland, and he’d lived through that. No American winter was going to kill him, even if he was seventy-something and not nearly as adaptable as he used to be.
It wasn’t snowing here, like it had been in New York. There had been a blizzard, Erik remembered, and that’s why he hadn’t seen the men coming-
He growled, frustrated. Memory flickered in and out of reach, dancing just beyond his fingertips, and he hated it. He wanted-needed-to know what had happened so he knew if the children were alright, if he had to mourn them or avenge them or breathe a sigh of relief.
He felt too old for this. He hadn’t gone into the field in fifteen years-he was out of practice. Instincts that had once come naturally felt rusted, old, and useless.
He swore, dragging a hand through his hair.
With his powers he touched the metal all around him, tracking it. Power lines ran in all directions, cars moved far away-he’d have to avoid those, for now-and overhead an airplane, commercial, by the weight of it, shot by.
At the very edges of his range he felt buildings, more cars, the steady, thrumming pulse of a city.
He just had to get there, then.
With a heavy sigh Erik began to move, levitating the wheelchair and nudging it along, hiding in the trees. He felt a few cars shoot past but he didn’t dare trust that they were benign; he heard the sirens whistling behind him, and knew that his escape hadn’t gone unnoticed.
This is ridiculous, he thought sourly, rubbing his fingers together for warmth. Really. I thought we’d evolved past blatant kidnapping.
The ‘60s and ‘80s were long gone-in the past two decades there hadn’t been a major mutant crisis, and relations between humans and mutants cooled, somewhat.
Of course there had always been the radicals, on both sides. Senator Robert Kelly, for one, had been howling for a “Mutant Registration Act” since he wormed his way into office, and the Brotherhood hadn’t let up, really.
Erik’s chest was tight, and it had almost nothing to do with the cold.
He didn’t want to think about the Brotherhood.
He focused instead on moving forward, towards the pulse of a city. His hands were cold, nearly frozen-fucking January-and his turtleneck, more for home wear than a trek through a frozen forest, was thin.
Erik shivered violently, cursing again.
He wanted to remember. He wasn’t home, damn it, and he had been, and now he wasn’t, and he needed to know who and why, so he could show them their errors and return to his children.
He was cold.
Ice seemed to slip inside his bloodstream, flowing along with the iron he could feel there, always.
I’m too old for this, he realized. He was too old and too poorly prepared. He didn’t know how fast he could make it to the city, or if that city was even safe, if someone was hunting him.
Behind him, a few miles back now, he heard the wail of sirens pierce the frozen air. The police were at the wreckage, no doubt, and surrounded by the evidence of a mutant attack. Erik didn’t know if he’d left anyone alive, when he’d awoken, (he doubted it, really) and that would be seen as a sign of violence.
He swore again, struggling to keep his chair aloft. Damn thing. Made it harder to get places, which was why he rarely left the mansion, these days. The cold made it worse. The cold made his muscles ache, made all his old wounds throb. The chair dropped a few inches and he grunted. Why was this so hard? He’d lifted much heavier-submarines, planes, the Golden Gate Bridge. Why was a little chair so difficult to move?
The chair dipped and he grabbed the edges, trying to steady it, but there was something wrong, he felt off, felt fuzzy, like he’d been drugged-
The chair tilted, out of his control, and dropped-
Erik Lehnsherr hit the icy ground and slept.
2.
This better be good, Charles thought, cradling the phone to his ear and blinking gritty sleep out of his eyes.
The clock shone faintly-2:48 a.m. He bit back a groan. This was not good news, then.
“Hello?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, heavy, and he heard someone breathing. Charles frowned.
“Who is this?”
“You’re X, right?” The voice was deep and growling, and strangely familiar. Charles’s frown deepened.
“Who is this?”
There was another pause, muted muttering, and a muffled curse.
“Look,” said the voice. “I dunno if you’re X or not, and I don’t care, but if you are, there was an attack.”
“An attack?” Charles sat up, fingers curling tightly into his sheets. “Where?”
“The mansion.”
The telepath was suddenly, terribly cold. His hands shook, and he stared at them until they stopped shaking.
“The mansion,” he said slowly. “The school.”
“Yeah.”
Charles paused, listening intently.
The man on the other end hissed a sigh, and it sounded more like a growl than anything. Someone else was talking rapidly not too far away, a continuous stream of pitched, angry words.
“Look, bud,” said the voice. “I know you and Mags have your issues with each other. Fuck, I wouldn’t be calling if I didn’t have a choice, but Summers has been gone since October and his kid’s been captured too.”
Charles stayed silent.
The other man swore. “Fuck you,” he snapped. “Someone attacked the school, okay? All the kids and the Professor are gone. Your number was in the Professor’s desk, he wanted us to fucking call you if anything went wrong.”
Charles curled and uncurled his fingers, fighting back the onslaught of emotion-rage grief betrayal, satisfaction, disgust-that swarmed suddenly to life.
“What do you want from me,” he said.
The man on the other end of the line snarled, and Charles heard the sounds of a brief, intense scuffle.
“Hi,” said a new voice. In the background the first one was swearing, banging around. “I’m Wade.”
Charles blinked, nonplussed.
“What my friend is trying to say,” Wade continued, almost cheerfully, “is get the fuck over here, your buddy needs your help.”
“Magneto is not my ‘buddy,’” Charles said. “And you sound like… capable young men. Why don’t you just take care of this yourselves?”
There was another scuffle, and the first speaker returned. “We can’t do this by ourselves, you jackass,” he snapped. “Otherwise we wouldn’tve called you. We can’t find him, alright?”
Charles paused, listening to the first speaker’s heavy, angry breathing and Wade’s nonstop chatter.
“Fuck you,” the man spat. “Just fuck you, okay? Mags needs your help. Whatever happened to you watching out for mutants, huh? He’s a mutant too, or have you forgotten?”
How could I forget? Charles sighed. “I’ll be at the mansion in ten hours,” he said, before he could change his mind, and hung up the phone with a click.
He sat in the dark, forcing air in and out, in and out, and his chest throbbed.
Grow up, he told himself viciously. It’s been nearly twenty years. You should be over this by now.
It was nearly three in the morning in Geneva, which made it almost nine in Westchester-he could be there by morning if he took the jet.
Charles buried his face in his hands and breathed.
I have to do this, he thought, and tore himself free of the covers. The wood was cold underneath his bare feet, and he shuffled to the bathroom. He didn’t turn on the light.
I have to do this.
He would call the Brotherhood, then; they were still in America, still carrying on their work. Charles himself was only in Geneva until Senator Kelly passed the Mutant Registration Act, which Charles would then bring to the attention of humanitarians in the city.
See, Erik, he thought bitterly, I’ve learned.
In the darkness, the mutant called X brushed his teeth, dressed, and shook himself awake. He hadn’t been sleeping well, recently-it was the headaches-and it showed under his eyes.
Dark sleepless bruises made him look ten years older than he was, and he wasn’t a young man. Wrinkles marred his face, deep lines cut into his skin, and his fingers were knotted with veins. All of his hair was gone (though that wasn’t age, not really) and he’d grown, if possible, even shorter, which was to be expected of a seventy-something year old man.
Charles smiled at his shadowy reflection, and left for his plane.
3.
Logan wasn’t the kind of guy who worried, usually. He didn’t see much of a point to it. Either you could fix something or you couldn’t; there was no in-between, and he was just fine with life that way.
Since coming to the Academy for Gifted Students, however, Logan had noticed a definite increase in his worrying and stress levels.
First of all, there were the kids running around everywhere, getting into everything, and doing it all the time. Seriously. Logan wasn’t sure if it was just kids being kids, or if mutant kids in particular were idiots, but over the last seventeen years, Logan had spent more time at a hospital than he’d spent in his own damn bed.
And then there were the other teachers. Now Logan could’ve handled them on their own-only Storm was really, truly scary-but nearly all of them moonlighted as superheroes in their off-hours, which meant he spent half his time running around making sure they didn’t get themselves killed.
And finally, there was Magneto. Now Logan had the greatest respect for the man (and not just because Magneto could toss him out a window anytime he wanted), but there was just something wrong with him, and Logan felt like he had to watch him and keep him from doing something ridiculous, like breaking out of Three Mile Island with all of Stryker’s test subjects.
And Logan, unfortunately, was kind of attached to the whole, dysfunctional lot of them, which meant so much worry he was mildly amazed he wasn’t as white-haired as Mags.
It’s going to happen, though, he thought, as he paced around and around the hallway, scattering broken glass and splintered wood as he prowled.
“So this X guy,” Wilson said, tracking Logan with his eyes. He was polishing his swords with slow, careful movements, and each blade gleamed in the dim light. Wolverine felt his claws itch under his skin, slipping and sliding against his adamantuim-coated bones. Both old soldiers felt tension, fury, stroking knife-sharp down their skin.
“What about him,” Logan grunted. Glass shards punched up through his shoes, and he relished the stabs of pain before his skin rippled closed.
“He’s the one we got out of Three Mile, right? The injured one.”
Logan paused, kept pacing. Wood splintered under his feet and he kicked it aside. “Yeah,” he said.
Wilson nodded. His swords shone. “The Professor gets letters from him, sometimes. Or used to, anyway. I haven’t noticed any for awhile. Ororo doesn’t like it.”
“I know,” said Wolverine. He scrubbed his face with his hand and kept pacing, around and around the shattered room.
“I remember him,” Wade continued. “You know? Mags kept him down in the labs for months, trying to reverse whatever Stryker did to him.”
“I know, Wilson,” Logan growled. He couldn’t forget, actually, the feeling of rough, broken fingers-way different from Jean’s careful, familiar strokes-grasping through his mind. Charles Xavier had lived in the mansion for nearly six months, and those six months had been full of whispers, too soft to be screams, and constant, rattling presence.
It reminded Logan of war and death-gasps, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.
Wade Wilson was, for once, quiet. It was weird, and Logan’s skin itched, his claws shivering and inching towards the surface. He gritted his teeth, rolled his shoulders. Stepped through the destruction and missed the sound of kids laughing in their dorms.
Fuck, he thought. I’m getting soft.
He paced.
“So you think X can help us?” Wilson said.
Logan shrugged, muscles contracting, expanding. He felt like a predator. “Maybe. He’s strong, I guess. I hear his telepathy’s gotten a little better.”
“Mags wanted us to call him.”
“Yeah.”
“Mags thinks X’ll help us.”
“Yeah.”
Wilson shook his head, still polishing the swords. “X saved me, you know. From Stryker. He was gonna start experiments on me next, after he was done with you. X showed up and Stryker decided to test him instead of me.”
Logan grunted. “That was luck. X didn’t go out of his way to save you. Fuck, if he’d known what was going to happen, he would’ve run the other way.”
“True,” Wilson admitted. “But he and Mags go way back, right? Way, way back. Mags trusts him, or did. He trusted X enough to keep him here at the school, with all of the kids.”
Logan shrugged again, a loose, frustrated movement.
“So we should trust him too,” Wilson pressed. “For now, anyway. And not, you know, kill him the second he steps through the door.”
Logan glared, rolling his shoulders. "I'll think about it," he said, and settled in to wait.
4.
He woke, and it was cold and damp. Leftover panic twisted his limbs and he jerked, instinctively reaching out to protect himself-
Erik drew back, wounded, and reeled in the darkness. There was nothing. He was alone-the walls didn’t whisper, the wiring stayed silent, even the familiar hum of his chair was gone.
Where there had always been the noise, the rattling, groaning metal-song, there was silence.
He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t feel, there was a gaping, ragged void where his power had once been-
The only metal he could feel were stirrings of iron, too small to even touch, and he dimly heard someone take a breath.
“Ah,” said William Stryker. “I see you’re awake.”
Erik jerked back, a snarl building in his throat, fury twisting hot and alive in his bones and drowning out the howling, gaping pain. “You,” he started, and subsided, inarticulate with raw, writhing rage.
“Me,” said Stryker. Some of Erik’s sight filtered back, and the room was all dark, deep shadows. There was no metal anywhere, only the little bits of iron in Stryker’s blood, because the walls were made of dully-gleaming plastic. His power recoiled, wounded, and he felt the loss keenly.
He glared. “You,” he started again, forcing words through his teeth. “You attacked my children.”
“Nothing personal,” Stryker shrugged. “They’re alright, before you ask. Most of ‘em have shaken off the drugs by now, and they’re scared, but they’re alive.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Erik said, forcing calm control into his voice.
Stryker grinned. “Not this time, I don’t think. Look around you, Professor. You’re in a plastic box. The nearest metals are half a mile away through several feet of concrete. You’re drugged, and this time you don’t have Summers or your tame Wolverine hanging around.”
Erik smiled, showing the scientist his teeth. “You have the upper hand,” he conceded. “For now.”
Stryker’s grin turned sharp.
“So,” Erik said, leaning back. He was in some sort of plastic chair, and it wasn’t half as comfortable as his own had become, though he supposed that was sort of the point. He breathed, and let his fury cool, and words and coherent thoughts filter back into his mind. His fingers twitched, and he ached for metal, but he kept his face still and flat.
Stryker glared.
“So,” Erik continued, “what do you have to gain by attacking a facility full of children? The public will kill you for it, you know. They might be mutant children, but they’re still children. People don’t like it when kids get hurt.”
Stryker shrugged. “This is war,” he said blandly. “There are casualties.”
“War?” Erik bit out, and saw red again. “You did this to start a war?
“Oh no,” said Stryker, and he adjusted his glasses. Shadows deepened his face, and Erik’s fingers curled, itching to wrap around that flabby throat and squeeze-
“Then why?”
Stryker smiled again, straightened his shoulders. “My son, Jason,” he said, “is a mutant.”
Erik stilled, wary. “I know.”
“Quite an interesting ability, Jason has. It works like telepathy, almost, but it isn’t, not in the conventional sense. He gets into your mind, you see, and he sees what you are, down to your bones, and then he… shows you things.”
The professor watched Stryker, and thought, for a moment, that something like pain glimmered in his face before it was gone.
“He’s never been good at controlling it,” Stryker continued. “He’s improved over the years, of course, but as a child, well.
“My wife loved our son. She didn’t care that he was a mutant, really. It was happening all over the place, and we were just grateful that we could hide his. But Jason showed her things. He knew what she was afraid of, to her very core, and he played on that.”
Rage-grief shuttered across the scientist’s face. “She eventually put a power drill to her head, trying to drive the images out. I found her on the floor, and Jason was sitting in her blood like nothing was wrong.
“I loved my son. But what he did to my wife, his mother, well.” Stryker paused, and his face closed off again. Ice crept back into his voice, hidden underneath the Southern twang. “Let’s just say Jason doesn’t do that sort of thing any more.”
Erik’s stomach twisted. You experiment on him, he thought, remembering the hushed, frightened rumors he’d heard over the years. You tortured and destroyed your own son.
“I didn’t capture you and your students to start a war,” Stryker said quietly. “I captured you to end one.”
“There is no war,” Erik objected. “That’s what I’ve been doing for forty years, keeping us from a war.”
“There’s a war. There’s always been a war. It’s a quiet one, of course. We don’t fight it in Congress, or the streets. It’s fought in homes, Mr. Lehnsherr, homes with parents and their mutated, dangerous children. I fought it; I lost my wife to it. And I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen ever again, Professor, and that’s where you come in.”
“Me?” Erik was wary now, alarmed. Stryker wasn’t just the garden-variety mad scientist. He was stark raving insane, and he had reason to be, and reason to fight his fight. He was justified, in his mind, anyway, and Magneto knew from personal experience that the ones who felt justified and righteous were the most dangerous.
“You,” said the scientist, smiling again, “are going to build me Cerebro.”
“Cerebro?”
“Oh yes,” Stryker nodded. “Cerebro. You remember it, yes? Such a powerful little device, capable of connecting to every single mutant on the planet, with a telepath controlling it.”
“You have no telepath,” Erik said. “Not one strong enough to control it, anyway.” Frost won’t let them near her. Jean couldn’t control it. And Charles is in Geneva; Stryker can’t touch him, if he could even use Cerebro in the first place.
“Irrelevant,” Stryker said, waving a hand. “I don’t want the device to work, I want it as insurance.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not to you.”
Erik gritted his teeth. “I won’t build it for you,” he said. “I don’t have the plans, I don’t know how-”
“Also irrelevant.” Stryker tapped his pocket, and paper crinkled. “They were hard to find, but I found Dr. McCoy’s prototype plans, and I’ve made a few adjustments since then.”
Shit.
“No,” Erik said.
“Now now. I have your students, Mr. Lehnsherr, in case you’ve forgotten. It’d be a pity, wouldn’t it, if some of them went into the labs and just… never came out. They’re so young. I doubt they even know people would do that to them, and willingly.”
“Touch my children,” Erik said, and it was very, very even, “and die.”
“Oh, that hit a nerve. Come on, Lehnsherr. It’s not hard. Just build me this little device and I’ll gladly let you and your children loose. I have no use for them, really. I’m tired of pulling mutants apart.”
Liar.
“No.”
“No?” Stryker raised an eyebrow. “Your students, Lehnsherr. You’d sacrifice them, over this?”
“Cerebro is too dangerous for someone like you to have,” Erik said, and his heart hurt. “You’re a killer. You’ll hunt my people down, one by one, and destroy them. My students and I are but thirty. Millions of mutants’ lives far outweigh ours.” And he knew the costs of war. The lives of thirty, no matter how important they were to him, were less important than the lives of millions. His people as a whole were more important than his students.
Stryker sighed. “I expected this from you,” he said. “You’re one of those stubborn types, you know? Always doing what they think is right, not swayed by anyone else. I can respect that.”
Erik smiled, sharp and humorless.
“But,” the scientist continued, “I don’t have time for it today. So,” he gestured at the door, whistling sharply, and it slid open. Light spilled into the plastic room, and Erik winced.
A man stood there, tall, pale, and scarred. His eyes were blank, unfocused, and mismatched.
“This is my son,” Stryker said cheerfully. “Jason.”
continued