Set a few weeks after X-Men: First Class.

Betaed by Starfire201.

To expect the unexpected, Charles Xavier mused, was far easier said than done.

But then again, if the man -god?- in front of him truly was who he claimed to be, the newly dubbed Professor X had never stood a chance.

Still, it was disquieting to not be the trickster, the man in charge for once, the power who could just stop everyone around him and arrange things how he saw fit. His whole life, he had solved every problem thrown at him with a cheeky smile and a quick mental command – but now, after the most horrible and exhilarating few weeks of his life, he slowly came to understand that this solution to every bad thing happening to him would no longer be an option.

And, if he was honest to himself, he didn't even want it to be any longer.

As terrible as those weeks had been, the experience had also humbled him, forcing him to grow up from an idealistic but thoughtless young man jumping at the chance to do something fun and meaningful for the world (Saving the world, one pretty mutant girl at the time… How foolish he had been, how young.) to a rather helpless and overwhelmed feeling, but hopeful leader of a steadily growing group of mutants out to make peace with the world.

His enthusiasm was still strong, he still believed that one day humans and mutants could live peacefully together, but he had been to reckless and arrogant in thinking that he and his fellow mutants would just reveal themselves to the world and be welcomed - worshipped, a nasty little voice inside his head whispered. He had expected to be worshipped, young, big-headed fool that he was. He had thought that he deserved it, just for what he was, feeling all superior when he was just as human as anybody else in the end. – had been tempered by a heavy dose of painful reality.

His injury certainly helped in putting things into perspective as well.

It was hard to think of yourself – even if only unconsciously – as a god among men if you couldn't even stand up on your own…

Which brought him back to the present and the strange young man that had melted unexpectedly out of the shadows of his office just a few seconds ago, introducing himself as Loki, God of Mischief, and revealing to the startled Charles that he had just pulled his own trick on him: Charles Francis Xavier, master of the mind, "frozen in time" for as long as this conversation would last.

To expect the unexpected, indeed…

Loki, as he called himself, was a slender and tall young man with pale skin and swept-back, pitch-black hair. He was dressed in an impeccable grey suit and sat in the heavy armchair in front of Charles' desk as if he belonged there.

He looked strangely normal for all that he claimed to be an actual god. Like the well-groomed son of a rich house, handsome and sophisticated, yes, but normal – if it weren't for his eyes, a bright, brilliant green that seemed to shine with an inner light in the twilight the approaching night brought into the office.

Charles was pretty sure that the genes that enabled a being to have those kind of eyes couldn't be found anywhere in the human gene pool.

Also, something that seemed to happen increasingly often lately, Charles couldn't read his mind.
At all.

A dark eyebrow arched up elegantly and Loki(?) tilted his head slightly to the left, in a remarkably human gesture of impatience. "Well? Are you going to stare all night or can we get down to business? I always thought you mortals valued your short life-span too much to waste it but if you wish to spend the rest of your days marveling at my existence, I could always submit my offer to your successor."

Apparently gods not only looked normal, they were snarky, too.

If Loki was a god, something Charles still wasn't sure of.

Anyway, the being in front of him was right, he was staring and that just wouldn't do.

"Please excuse my rudeness, I must seem like a very bad host to you, not even offering you a drink… It's just that I have never had a god sitting in my office before." Charles wheeled himself to the cabinet that held his liquors, his eyes never once leaving the stranger even while he fumbled first with the glass-doors, then with the bottles and glasses, still unused to his new position far closer to the floor and his loss of maneuverability.

Loki folded his long, pale fingers in his lap and watched him intently. "In your own interest you should pray that it stays this way, Charles Francis Xavier. Your life will be easier that way, believe me."

He didn't offer to help, something Charles was grateful for. He had to learn to do this on his own rather sooner than later and while the concern of his team was touching, it had also become quite exhausting by now.

"Pray to whom?" he quipped, finally returning to the desk, bottles and glasses balanced on his knees.

Loki smirked, looking at him appraisingly and accepting a glass of scotch. "Good question. I see you are an intelligent man, Charles Francis Xavier."

"Only Charles will do." The Professor poured himself a glass of his own and took a sip of his drink.

"So… You said that you are Loki, the Norse God of Mischief? Please forgive me my doubts, but I just met a mutant who had named himself after the angel of death a few weeks ago and he looked a tad bit more convincing than you do."

That smirk again, the barely there upturning of the corners of "Loki's" thin lips that seemed to change his whole face from something innocent and open into something strangely sinister.

"If you want me to look the part I will gladly indulge you. Armor, helmet, cape – nothing I cannot easily transform out of these clothes. In fact, I transformed even those things into the suit you actually see me in right this very moment. But if you know of me you should be aware that I prefer subtlety over posturing any day. So what can I do to convince you of my truthfulness, Charles, tell me."

"Speaking about truthfulness already disproves your claim, does it not?"

He just couldn't resist.
Charles knew that the being in front of him had to be powerful, even if he wasn't a god – and yet he couldn't stop himself. Something about those sparkling green eyes and the small, almost unnoticeable smirk dared him to speak his mind openly and brought out the cheek that had been buried since Erik's fateful decision all those weeks ago.

For one moment Loki simply stared and even without his telepathy Charles could see gears turning behind the suddenly so icy eyes that bore into him like winter's first frost, chilling him to the bone. Calculating, assessing, searching for hidden malice and meaning in words lightly spoken in jest.

Then suddenly it was over and the young man in front of him threw back his head and laughed, taking the joke as it was intended, acting as if he had never needed to weight words and intentions carefully against each other – and it was magical…

The twilight of the office seemed to light up at the musical sound, the last traces of the setting sun on the other side of the window shining brighter than ever, painting the sky in warm gold, vibrant red, glowing purple and velvety blue in turn. The scotch in bottle and glasses seemed to sparkle, tiny pinpricks of light floating upwards through the amber liquid and spreading through the room, leaving a scent like the mixture of bright summer days and hot chocolate in its wake.

Charles found laughter bubbling up his own chest and before he knew it he joined the man sitting in front of him, reveling in the joy he suddenly felt, in the cold feel of the handlebars of his wheelchair, the softness of his clothes, the warmth of the air around him and the rich sound of Loki's laughter.

Never before he had felt so alive.

"You give far too much credit to the stories", the supposed god said when he finally stopped chuckling and the world had faded back to its normal, now strangely lacking appearance. "Words written by half-mad mortals who only knew part of certain events and spun their own tales from them, each generation adding their own individual touch. I assure you that most of what you find written is not true and I admit freely that I did not even read half of it. I was afraid I would hurt myself laughing."

Loki smiled openly, the expression glowing on his pale face and his eyes the color of sun-kissed leaves in spring. "Also I was not certain if I would ever be able to look at my fellow Aesir again without, as you mortals put it, 'cracking up'."

He smiled even wider and Charles felt himself smiling in return.

"But now back to our problem at hand. How can I convince you that I am who I claim to be?"

Charles hesitated for a moment, feeling as if he was about to suggest something strangely taboo now that he had finally found somebody who could actually keep the young telepath out of his mind without any assistance. For someone who was so used to wander through the consciousnesses around him and read their most secrets thoughts if he just strayed one step from his mental/moral "path", the existence of something closed to him, something private seemed almost sacred.

And yet, he had no choice if he ever wanted to trust the being in front of him. Perhaps, if Charles had been another man, another mutant, he would have found another way…

But he was far too used to being a telepath, to knowing everything about the people surrounding him, that he had forgotten how to simply grant his trust a long time ago. Perhaps he could relearn it in time, but not now, not when his wounds were still raw and aching.

"Let me in."

The young man in front of him blinked, dark lashes concealing eyes as deep and green as the sea, than he gave a tiny nod – and Charles gasped as he was pulled into a mind so unlike any other he had ever encountered before.

It was like falling into space, lost and without direction in an endless ocean of stars, of little lights passing by, being born and burning out of existence in the blink of an eye, countless colors fading in and out of existence, merging, separating, clashing, changing, dancing, singing, screaming, crying, laughing, being…

"Too much… Please!" Charles didn't know if he sobbed these words out aloud or only in his head, didn't know if he was still sitting calmly in his office or drowning in fire and ice and too much space filled with too many things – but suddenly he could breathe again and found himself in complete darkness, surrounded by nothing but his own thoughts.

"What do you wish to see?"

There were no doors that opened in front of him, no directions at all, but somehow Charles suddenly knew where to go, what to do, how to access only the memories he wished to look at and to keep himself from either burning alive by the intensity of the emotions his host felt or being ripped apart by the constant turmoil of thoughts that swept through that foreign mind like an endless storm.

And over all, there was an awareness that watched him, watched his every step like a hawk, like a predator, daring him to do anything Loki had not agreed to and to face the consequences…

Charles took a deep breath – or whatever amounted to a breath in the mindscape – and plunged headfirst into the memories that opened up before him.

And there were a lot of those.
Loki – and he really was Loki, perhaps not a god, but something close, at least to those humans who had once come in contact with the Aesir and heard the stories of Odin's little sons told by laughing warriors around the fireplace – was old, and he remembered every single moment of his life with a clarity that left Charles slightly envious. He remembered the first smile on his mother's face, the different smells of countless Asgardian summers, how his brother's voice changed over the years from the cute squeak of a child to the deep bellow of a warrior, how his father's wrinkles seemed to deepen and yet his one eye stayed young and as clear as the blue sky above, how magic danced and sang under his skin, how it breathed with him and painted the universe in colors no other could see…

But he also remembered every insult thrown his way, all the subtle signs on people's faces when their gaze shifted from his brother Thor to him, the shadows shielding him from sight while he listened to the hurtful words spoken where they thought he couldn't hear them, the way his father never seemed to see him, the thousands nuances in a voice that separated an encouraging word from a veiled threat, gold turning to black and the screaming that followed, pain and desperation and hope and all those attempts to do better, to be one of them…

And there, hidden away behind the memory of two little boys, one bright as the day and one dark as the night, laughing on the back of an eight-legged stallion while their father lead the horse around, smiling at them both as if they were the most precious thing on the world for him – there lurked the faint remembrance of cold and darkness, of isolation and loneliness, and red, red eyes that caused Loki to throw the young professor out of his mind as if his life depended on it.

And from one moment to the other, Charles found himself sitting in his office again, looking at the young man in front of him that seemed as calm as a glacier while his mind worked as furious as a storm, creating and discarding possible scenarios of this conversation at the speed of light, planning and plotting and feeling thousand things at once, just because he could, gifted and cursed at once.

And now Charles Francis Xavier understood.

He understood why Loki was here, why he had searched for an insult in a simple joke, why he had laughed so loud and freely when for once he had found none (And, oh, how long it had been since the last time Loki had the opportunity to really laugh, to hear words not tainted by mockery, distrust, patronizing or the poor attempt of cheering him up. How long – and was there anything sadder than a trickster god bereaved of laughter?), why he felt such a kinship to the mutants of this world, why he wanted so badly to share the burden he had borne for so long on his own, why he wanted to give them an edge, to give them hope for all the hardships to come…

"You want to offer us protection."

Loki nodded, a faint non-smile on his lips, a polite mask for business situations and court gathering that seemed far too comfortable on the pale features, as if there were days on end they knew no other facial expression. Long, slender fingers found the glass of scotch again and twirled the amber liquid around with a languid motion.

"Yes. And no. A spell… a powerful spell engraved on the keystone of this building, bound with blood and magic to the ideals you and your charges represent. That is what I offer, not more, not less." Deep green eyes followed the movement of the scotch for a moment longer, and then Loki gazed directly in the eyes of the young human before him, shedding his mask for pure honesty.

"I cannot and will not promise to keep you and your team from harm; in fact I am certain that you will have to deal with a fair lot of death and suffering over the years. The way you have chosen is not the easiest one, nor will you face a lot of encouragement or understanding for your choices... But as long as you keep trying to find acceptance, to find a place among the normal humans, by their side and not beneath or above them, but as equals… As long as you fight for these things, I will promise you that your ideals will never die. You will lose some battles and win some, you will cry tears of sadness and joy over the fates of your friends and all those souls you never got to know. You will despair and find new hope, but as long as you stay on this path you have chosen, there will always be a future for you and those who will follow in your steps."

Eyes like rain over green hills held Charles' own and a sad smile played over the thin lips. "I know it does not seem like a lot. I know you would give anything for me to offer you more… But that is all I can give you. The assurance of 'if not today, then another time'. As long as you never give up your ideals."

The corners of Loki's mouth twitched upwards for a second, "Or I could give you back the use of your legs, if you would like a more tangible result than a promise as fragile as a snowflake."

Charles glanced down, at the useless appendages preventing him of ever believing himself a god among men again. Then he looked up and smiled.

"I'll take a Trickster's luck, thank you. I trust my team, now and in the future. We will never lose our path and stand steadfast to our ideals. Knowing that there will be always one of us remaining to try another day is far more worth to me than running around on my own two legs again, regardless how much I miss jogging."

"Are you certain? They are still children, after all."

'So are you.' Charles couldn't help but think, but he only nodded, knowing he had made the right decision.

Loki held his eyes a little while longer, searching for doubts or uncertainty but not finding any. Then he smiled his glowing smile again, filling the room with life and laughter and the memories of better days, when Raven and Erik had still been with Charles and everything had seemed so easy…

And then he was gone.

Charles Francis Xavier gazed out of the window and watched as the twilight faded into the night, thinking about his beloved ones close and far away and knowing that somewhere out there, there was at least one being just like him and his team.

And he wished him the best of luck.