Disclaimer: Neocolai does not own X-Men or anything related to the franchise.

Outside of Charles' reach (though not entirely; Erik knew he would be compelled to return if called), he took advantage of the residual mayhem and vanished into the population. There was no hiding this time. Erik had learned his lesson. The humans would never allow him to thrive.

Still, while fear ruled their hearts, no one stopped him when he took residence in a city already fraught with crime. He intended to gather his allies and muster some resistance, but the months passed and he felt strangely complacent. Part of it was Charles' fault, doubtlessly. The infuriating telepath was still meddling with his conscience.

Part of it may have been thoughts of Nina, and the look in her eyes if she saw her papa lift his hand against mankind.

Strange, Erik thought he had glimpsed the same imagined horror when the silver mutant accompanied Mystique.

"I'm here for my family, too," the boy had said. For an instant Erik saw Nina in his place, and he raised a hand to his brow. So much he would have given to see her alive again. He had forsaken everything, and still En Sabah Nur could not give him the one thing he yearned for.

A god the mutant was not.

The telephone ringing lurched him out of his reverie. Sighing, Erik retrieved the earpiece and leaned back in his chair. "Who is this?"

"Erik…." Charles paused, and Erik scoffed in bemusement.

"I can't be that far out of your range. Age catching up?"

"Erik, this isn't the time." The quiet urgency in Charles' tone commanded his attention. "I need your help."

"I'm not minding your brats." He was already calculating the promptest route to Westchester.

"I'm not asking you to teach."

His intensity brought to mind Erik's own words. "Does it ever wake you in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they will pass that foolish law or one just like it, and come for you… and your children?"

Erik clenched his fist, remembering a silver locket. "What happened?"

In twenty seconds he was striding for the door, leaving the phone hanging while Charles shouted after him.

Five mutants had been taken by force in the last month. Agencies, world powers, traffickers, opportunists; everyone wanted a piece of Xavier's academy.

Jean's attacker had been a dealer in a dark alley. Three minutes later he was a line of soot on the wall. The police declared him a wanted criminal and no further questions were asked.

Nightcrawler had spent two days in an electric cage, before Raven ponderously slugged his captors and dragged him home. (Erik suspected she was seeing a pattern there, or else there was a deeper insinuation behind the report that she yanked Kurt's ear as soon as he was indoors.)

Storm's kidnappers were supporters of a foreign government. Her restraint was remarkable, as diplomacy was required for her safe return and any killings would have shown ill against Xaviar's school.

Cyclops had been found drugged and blindfolded amidst twenty Pomeranians in the lounge of Bulgaria's richest widow. (Apparently her trophy mutant was too uncooperative to show off to her acquaintances just yet.)

The fifth missing X-man was still denying a limp in his right leg. Quicksilver had vanished the night he attended his youngest sister's graduation. No lead had been found.

"Besides the X-Men, there are delegates in five nations assisting the search," Charles told Erik. He sounded as though the thought should cheer him. As though a few humans plastering 'Missing' posters for a mutant insinuated any change. "I have hopes that he will be found soon, but…."

His optimism faded as he ran his fingers over his brow. "I fear that every passing day increases possible harm. That's why I asked you to come."

"With all your powers, you haven't sensed him?" Erik asked skeptically.

"My reach is limited without Cerebro," Charles admitted. "And there are other ways to conceal a mutant."

Erik glowered at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, pressuring until the weights flattened and the chimes let off a final, mournful ring.

"You will replace the parts when you return, I trust," Charles said patiently.

In the end, it wasn't a laboratory or a crimelord or a government spy network or a bereaved victim of the four horsemen seeking revenge. Instead there were baying dogs and drunken hollers and the deprived, animalistic wails of intellectuals caged as beasts.

A fighting ring.

The kid had just lost the cast, and they were pinning him against other mutants.

Stronger, cleverer, wilder, crueler; some could have torn Hank apart in seconds. None could pin down the wind itself, however, and the crowds loved Peter for it. Erik heard them crowing when he entered. "Silver Bullet! Silver Bullet!" (He could imagine the kid's vanity was taking a beating. In fact, he was probably more infuriated about the title fluctuation than his imprisonment.)

Once again EriK caught himself correlating Peter and his daughter. Only Nina had been profoundly insulted whenever Erik fumbled the names of her woodland flock. When he confused 'dumbells' with 'ho-hos', Peter went spastic.

The kid was a little less energetic and a little more hissy when Erik tore off the door to his cage. Peter bared his teeth, raising himself like a finch imitating a hawk, yearning eyes flickering towards the open hallway.

When Magneto stepped away from the door and into the light, Peter sat back like a kid watching Santa unpack the most valued treasure on his Christmas list.

"Boy, am I glad to see you," Peter said wondrously. He swallowed and scrabbled a hand through his hair. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"Yup." Sweeping inside, Erik dragged the kid to his feet and hauled him to the entrance.

Eeking a protest, Peter fumbled out of his grasp. "Wait – I can't – they put something on me. I can't leave until they…" His fingers ghosted just above an electric collar.

Wrath gorged Erik's throat; a reaction wholly unnecessary for a boy he'd never known existed before the brat shattered the windows above his cell. The collar ripped in half and clanked at Quicksilver's feet, wadding into a tinny, spitzing glob on the cage floor.

"Wow…." Twisting his mouth to the side, Peter perused the bars that had somehow warped during the process and stepped over to Magneto's side. "Can you check out my old school sometime? I really hated those lockers."

"Home, Kid," Erik intoned, curtly waving him to the exit. Time to call it a night. Mastermind was having too much fun intimidating the gamblers.

"Wait – can I ask you a question?"

He had no opportunity to say no – the boy was hovering in front of him with anticipation and dread and all he could think about was Nina asking him if he was angry about the pictures in the locket.

"Can this wait until I drop you off at the professors'?" Erik stated with more irritation than he intended. (After all, this wasn't Nina, and the rascal had no reason to look like his wings had just been clipped.)

"No, it can't," Peter said quietly. He stepped back, hands in his back pockets, averting his eyes. "Did you… Did the professor send you? Or did you come here on your own?"

Why of all times did the kid's emotional turbulence have to balance on one question? Erik sighed. "I came on my own. Satisfied?"

Searching brown eyes softened and Peter's frown quirked into a trusting smile.

"Yeah." He gulped a breath and said in a rush, "You know when we were talking earlier and I was talking to you about my mom, and how she –"

"Magneto, I have neutralized the underlords but have not seen –" Mastermind paused in the entrance, glancing between Erik's closed eyes and Peter's gritted scowl. "Oh. Did I disrupt something?"

"Yes!" Peter exclaimed. "What I mean to say is – "

"No, you haven't," Erik interrupted, grabbing the kid's arm and leading him to the exit. Whatever dizzying prattle about his family had to be said, it would be more endurable inside Charles' mansion over a cup of strong chamomile. (Vaguely Erik wondered if chamomile would do anything for the kid's reflexes, or if his dreams moved as fast as his tongue, or if he only needed a few hours of sleep to keep up with his fiasco of a metabolism. Belatedly he realized Peter was still blathering behind him.)

"There – I've said it," Peter gushed, breathing raggedly. He dug in his heels as though waiting for a magnanimous reply.

Erik nodded benignly and kept walking. "Interesting. You have a wonderful family. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to see you alive."

"What – but you – that doesn't mean anything?"

"I'm impressed," Erik stated. He was – any mother courageous enough to handle a whirlwind equivalent to the Road Runner deserved highest praise. Peter spluttered behind him.

"I can't believe it. I can't believe it!"

Casting Erik a dour look, Mastermind tapped a finger to his temple and shook his head. "Magneto, you are a blind man."

"Thank you for not overcomplicating the situation," Charles said abstrusely a few days later, while Mystique was overseeing Quicksilver's therapy and Hank was scrutinizing government documents assuring protection for mutants statewide.

Erik shrugged, tweaking the grandfather clock's heavy chimes. "He isn't one I'd kill over."

He was lying, and Charles knew it.

If En Sabah Nur ever returned, Erik would insist on the pleasure of mauling him personally.