Home Is Where the Heart Is

Summary: Kinkmeme prompt: Erik really wishes his family would stop fostering abused mutant kids. One nearly burst his eardrums, and another blew the roof off. Literally. Then, of course, his mother has to go and bring home little Charles Xavier, who promptly goes and steals Erik's heart.

Rating: K+ (mentions of child abuse)

Genre: family ; hurt/comfort ; friendship ; romance ; angst

Canon Character(s): Charles Xavier/Professor X ; Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto ; Kurt Marko ; Cain Marko/Juggernaut ; Jakob & Edie Lehnsherr

OC Character(s): maybe some random social workers, IDK

Set During: total modern AU, but Erik is about 16 and Charles is 7-8, so . . .

Notes:Inspired by this X-Men First Kink Round 8 prompt: Powered or non powered, modern or 60's (although modern would probably be easier). Erik is a teen and has his loving family who are repeat foster parents to abused/neglected kids. Their newest addition? Little Charles Xavier who was neglected by his alcoholic mother and abused by his stepfather/father. As he never met Raven he's never interacted other Children apart from his Step brother who is almost as bad as his father. This means that Charles has poor social skills and is terrified of adults. But he does seem to take a bit of a shine to Erik who would really rather his parents stopped taking in these needy children. However even teenage bad boy Erik can't help but adore this too small child with big blue eyes and curly chocolate locks. I would also like them to reconnect/still know each other as adults with maybe them starting to realize they are more than just friends. But this part isn't essential.

Bonuses:

- The others appear as the other foster children.
- Charles being traumatised and not knowing how to react to affection. (Maybe not speaking for many weeks).
- Little Charles climbing into Erik's bed when he has a nightmare with Erik pretending to be bothered when really he's thrilled Charles can come to him.

Modern AU, because as OP said it would be easier. It will be powered, but of course since they're kids they don't have full control, and Charles's telepathy is very weak.

I will come right out and say it: I have absolutely zero experience with kids as young as I'm making Charles. So. If he seems abnormally mature, my apologies – I'm blaming it on his telepathy and growing up 'cause of abuse. Also have no experience with abused kids, so I'm going with the prompt's calling for Charles being scared, not knowing how to react to affection, and not really speaking. If you see something that seems off, don't hesitate to let me know.

Prologue

~ Erik Lehnsherr ~
Erik knows that he should be very grateful. He has a nice house, a loving family, and a country that accepts and protects mutants like him. His father is a respected engineer, and his mother a very good teacher. And he's an only child, so all of their love and money and times goes to him. He's not spoiled; he just doesn't quite understand why his classmates always wish to have younger siblings. He's quite happy, he insists, with being an only child, no matter how many times his parents ask him otherwise.

After all, it's not like he can have another sibling, really. Erik's not certain of the details, but he does know that his birth was painful and long and dangerous, and so his parents are not eager to try it again.

Yes, he is indeed very happy as a single child.

Erik manifests around age eight. He does so quite spectacularly too.

He's at the playground, and it's getting dark, and his mother does want to get home because it's time for dinner, but he wants to stay, just for another couple of minutes, please, he'll be done then, he promises, if they can only stay for a little while longer – but his mother is firm, and marches over and seizes his hands and pulls him away.

Erik reaches out as the gate to the playground swings shut behind him, and he wants to go back to the playground –

And from deep within him, something answers.

His heart speeds up, and his vision goes tinged with grey, and the whole world seems to sing, faintly, of a sense he can't quite describe, and then the gate shrieks and starts to warp, and Erik can feel it calling to him, begging to be used, and he reaches out and pulls and holds.

Erik's mother is dragged back a few steps in her shock.

Then, of course, when the gate is pulled half to the ground, Erik's mother shakes him.

Exhausted, Erik sinks to the ground, suddenly tired, feeling extremely dizzy and confused. All around, people are gathering and muttering and pointing, but mainly he's terrified. He doesn't understand – why did the gate bend, who did that, why is the world still murmuring to him, why, why, why –

(Within time, he'll realize that the world will never stop murmuring to him, courtesy of the Earth's magnetic fields, but at age six he doesn't even understand what a magnetic field is, so. . .)

"Liebchen," his mother says, kneeling on the ground, eyes wide with something he can't quite discern. "Liebchen, was that you?"

And Erik . . . cannot answer. He can't lie, he knows deep down that it was him, but he can't understand why or how and what is going on, he doesn't know, and it's confusing and he doesn't understand how to tell her that.

Thankfully, his mother understands.

She gathers him carefully in her arms, murmuring soft, comforting words in German, and tells him, "Alles is gut, liebchen, alles is gut." Over and over, until he starts to calm down, starts to believe, starts to relax.

And promptly falls asleep.

Mutants are not exactly unknown in the United States. After the rather amazing demonstration, courtesy of the mutants that manifested during World War II to fight during the war, countries have begun to acknowledge, reluctantly, that mutants do exist. A few calculated threats and the clamor from the families of mutant children ensures that a bill of rights is passed to include mutants, and now systems are starting to spring up to accommodate mutants. The problem is, of course, that not every mutant is the same.

Erik, for example, looks completely normal. Human. And his mutation is erratic, but not as life-threatening as, say, those who grow wings or hear thoughts. Erik doesn't really need the guidance of his mutation counselor, Mister Sebastian Shaw, but the Department of Children and Families assigns him to Shaw anyways.

The man gives Erik a sickly smile at their first meeting. "Well, hello, little Erik. Nice to meet you."

They don't do much except exchange names and volunteer information on Erik's mutation, but Erik knows that when he enters middle school or high school, and stops going to the special mutant school, they'll have to meet. It's the law that every mutant child is assigned to and is under the guidance of a mutant counselor to help them practice and learn to control their gifts so that they can attend regular mutant-human schools. But that's far, far away for six-year-old Erik, so he doesn't really pay attention.

However, his mother has always liked to help kids.

As they leave the office, they come across social workers leading a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl dressed head to toe in white away. Mister Shaw starts talking about how humans have abused mutants – carefully, so as not to offend Erik's mother – but Erik's mother doesn't seem to mind.

Actually, she gets the glint of a new project in her eyes.

Erik's mother volunteers a lot. Erik's father says it's because she has a lot of love that she lavishes on Erik, but also wants to spread around and do good with.

This is how Erik meets his first in the line of many, many fostered siblings.

Her name is Emma Frost, and she shows the start of a psionic gift – telepathy or empathy, they're not certain yet – but at the moment, she does have one gift perfectly under control, and it is turning into pure diamond. Erik doesn't like her at all, because she sniffs and thinks that she's above Erik even though she's been disinherited in all but name, so one day he finally cracks and punches her after she insults his mother.

And ends up nearly breaking his hand.

Emma doesn't come out of her diamond form for two days after that, sulking, and Erik uses the opportunity to flick bits of metal at her – anything from forks and spoons to nails and pencils – to take out his annoyance, and his mother cannot stop him because he can't actually hurt her, and if he isn't flinging metal at her, she's trying to scratch him and diamond hands are so sharp.

Six months of this, and then Emma's father shows up to take her away, all fake smiles.

Erik finds Emma sitting quietly in the spare room that day, in human form for the first time in days, and her face is utterly expressionless. He sits next to her, and they sit in silence for a very long time. It's the most cooperative they've ever been in each other's presence.

"You're stronger than he is," Erik says finally.

Silence.

"Thanks," Emma says.

(Later, Erik will realize that they fought so much because they were so alike, but of course, when they're adults and cross each other's paths again in college, they have much more elegant and damaging ways of fighting than scratching with diamond hands and flinging metal nails.)

After that, it's a stream of fostering mutant kids. And it's always the abused ones too, ones mistreated because of their mutation or, sometimes, just because.

Like Alex Summers. His parents died in a plane crash. His brother got lost in the system somewhere, because people don't usually take the time to really put much effort into normal kids, much less mutant kids who can blow things up. Usually, they are made to "disappear" and foisted off on whoever asks for them.

Erik is ten by then, and growing stronger all the time, and Alex is very, very young. He's tested as a mutant, but he hasn't manifested.

He's okay. He doesn't say much. Erik learns the valuable skill of realizing when Alex is bored and when Alex is merely pretending to be bored and is actually paying a great deal of attention, and during this time he learns to go slowly so that Alex can learn the basic skills that he never learned before, or even just to teach him little games to keep himself amused with cards and the like.

Then ten months later, Alex gets upset at some girl and blows the roof off.

Literally.

The Department of Mutant Children and Families immediately takes him in and shuffles him off to a special special mutant school, afraid of dealing with someone quite so powerful.

It only makes Erik's mother more determined.

Another kid that comes through is Sean Cassidy, a baby who can wail at painfully loud frequencies. He's not really abandoned or abused, but they're trying to find his grandparents because his parents have vanished, so Erik's family gets him for a while. At first, Erik thinks he's just not used to babies who cry and cry and cry almost every single minute they're awake.

Then Sean lets out an earsplitting wail that shatters all the windows on the first floor.

He isn't taken away immediately, because Erik's mother stalls and drags her feet and kicks up a fuss. Sean isn't dangerous, not like Alex was; he's just mildly annoying. Luckily, thanks to the erratic nature of Erik's mutation, most of their silverware and glassware isn't really glass, and so can't be shattered by Sean's screams, and many of the windows have also been reinforced. He's not a difficult baby at all, really.

From him, Erik learns that sometimes little kids just don't answer questions.

Nine months later, the department finally tracks down Sean's grandparents, and the next week, Sean is gone.

By the time Erik is sixteen, he's had four foster siblings. Some had physical mutations, but most could have passed for human, really. And now he really is growing tired of the whole charade. He understands that many of the children are abused and are in need of the loving home he is so lucky to have, but – really.

He'll be in college soon, since he skipped a year, and he really just does want to have his parents to himself.

When they see off their latest kid, a girl named Angel with the rather nasty ability to spit acid, it's because her wings are starting to come out and she needs medical care, so Erik's mother reluctantly signs her back over to the department and then goes to file more paperwork to try and get another child.

"There is always more than can be done," she insists. "We can still help."

"Why can't you just help me?"

Erik's mother scoffs and pats him on the head.

He understands her message. At sixteen, he's passed the major bump of puberty, and his powers grow more slowly now. He's still growing, but it's gradual, not the sudden leap that had him unable to sleep for several days when puberty hit and suddenly he could sense the Earth's magnetic poles and shifting fields no matter what, and he was hyper enough that any additional caffeine made him ready to bounce off walls. Literally, even though more often than not he lost control over the magnetic fields and tumbled down the stairs instead of floating grandly down as he'd thought might happen.

For a long time, though, the paperwork is not turned in.

Erik beings to hope that perhaps he might not get another foster sibling. Maybe this is it. Maybe they are done.

He likes the idea of being special, of course. Of having brothers and sisters with unique talents. Of not being alone in his superhuman abilities. Of being a mutant, and being proud to be one when some countries still frown on it.

But sometimes, he likes the idea of being the sole focus for his parents too.

Just when he thinks that he's off the hook, though, his mother comes home, beaming, with Charles Xavier, a tiny seven-year-old telepath with big blue eyes, porcelain pale skin, and soft chocolate locks.

Who promptly proceeds to go and steal Erik's heart.

(Later, Erik will realize that, really, he should have known that he'd be doomed the second he took one look at the child hiding behind his mother's dress and staring at him in part-awe, part-fear and thought, Poor little kid, must be so scared, what happened to him, instead of, Gott, another one?)

(Later, Erik will look at Charles the adult and realize that Charles still wears that same look on his face when he looks at Erik.)

(And much, much later, Erik will realize that he's been doomed since he was sixteen and Charles was seven.)

A/N: So, what do you think?