Title: Beguiled.

Author: Nemesi.

Beta-reader: gravitycomplex

Fandom: X-men first class c/o with Young Avengers

Genre: Slice-of-life. (Gen. Humor. Angst.)

Word Count: 9.000/10.000 circa.

Characters: Thomas Shepherd (Speed), Charles Xavier (Professor X), Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto), William Kaplan (Wiccan). XMFC whole ensemble and a few Marvel comics characters are mentioned.

Pairings: Erik/Charles (pretty much established), Tommy/Kate (mentioned), Tommy/Lisa (mentioned), Billy/Teddy (implied). Cap/Bucky mentioned in passing, courtesy of Tommy's hyperactive imagination.

Rating: mostly PG-13, R in parts.

Disclaimer: Marvel owns my soul - and coincidentally, all the character and themes herein portrayed, too.

Warnings: Blatant Tommy-love on the author's part. Disturbing imagery, such as torture and experiments on people is scattered through the text. Much Tommy-Billy interaction; though their bond IS meant to be brotherly and utterly platonic, readers can take it any way they please.

Spoilers: Only the most basic notion from YA have been used here. Same with X-men: First Class.

Summary: Charles is more than willing to convincs himself that Thomas Shepherd has no family relation to Erik Lehnsherr. (if only for the sanity of his own mind)

i.

It starts with a bang.

Which is perhaps a little inaccurate description, but the racket is the first thing they are aware of. A booming noise, like thunder striking and missiles exploding and air ripping along the seams, like torn fabric. Tongues of fire lap at the sky, spreading out from a pulsing red core, liquid light that swirls and twists, streaked through like marble. Then a silhouette is flung from the shifting radiance, tossed like a rag-doll against the Mansion's wall, at the foot of which it slumps, groaning softly like a wounded beast.

Charles approaches warily, gazing at the figure through plumes of dust. When he wheels close enough for the silhouette to resolve itself into the shape of a boy – silver air, a suit of green and silver stretched across his lean body, the colours swirling like molten metal – he calls for help (mentally, as if not trusting his voice), and nudges the boy onto his back.

It's hard to tell with the – glasses? goggles? Is that what the odd contraption is? – it's hard to tell with the goggles in the way, casting half of the boy's face in an orange glow, but the resemblance is enough to make Charles's heart skip a beat or several.

(...Erik?)

ii.

The boy calls himself Thomas.

Shepherd is his family name, and the German (Polish) ring of it is enough evidence for Charles to believe the resemblance with Erik is a mere fluke, a chancy combination of DNA strands, if not a figment of his own imagination.

The latter doesn't quite explain why the resemblance is apparent to others than himself. The former fails to lend an explanation to the brief rush of pride the boy can't immediately hide when Alex remarks upon the resemblance himself.

But Charles is more than willing to let the matter rest, and quietly convinces himself that Thomas Shepherd has no family relation to Erik Lehnsherr.

(if only for the sanity of his own mind)

iii.

Thomas is a mutant.

A speedster, aptly named "Speed" by someone in his past he won't allow himself to talk about, however briefly. Charles catches a glimpse of long raven hair and the edge of a painted mouth curled in a sardonic grin, but Thomas is quick to mask the projection with a smokescreen, a curtain of swirling, much-too-quick-to-make-sense thoughts.

Charles thinks he managed to pluck the words "time" and "family" and "Billy" and "Avengers" and "Young" and "past" and "grandpa" and "Magneto" and "Professor X" and several refrains of "shit" and "fuck" and "damn".

He refuses to inquire about the stray thoughts he's caught, but he does lecture the boy about the usage of swearing words. The glare he gets for his efforts is much too Erik not to sting.

(it also ensures that lecturing the boy becomes a daily occurrence from then on)

iv.

It is like an indoor hurricane.

Not six second after he's been assigned a room, Thomas Shepherd is zig-zagging across its (impressive) width, moving furniture, adding knick-knacks and removing them, pulling posters up the walls and blankets off the bed, moving the radio's handle so quickly, it never stays tuned on any station for more than half a second, and all that issues from it is a stream of white noise.

Charles is lounging in his study, reading the news. For every 'thud' that comes from the newcomer's room, he twitches, groans; not a heartbeat later his newspapers is tugged low, and he's met with a burst of excited:

"...abedroomabedroomI'vegotawholebedroom" or "woah,woah,youknowthoseclothesyougotme?theyactuallyfit" or "IthinkIaccidentallybrokeavase-butIwenttoChina,andgotyouanewone"

"I know," Charles answers every time, trying to smooth out his newspaper into something at least marginally readable.

(it startles him to realize he's reminded vividly of Raven's first foray into the Manor; small, blue-skinned Raven, naked and sleek like a thing of the wild, her eyes blown with childish wonder, her delighted bird-cries over every commodity she was shown, common wonders such as a bed of her own, a brush and a blanket, a pale camisole that had once belonged to Charles's mother, purple blooms sewn into the delicate fabric)

v.

Apparently, moving at the speed of light is only one of Thomas's many talents.

Resemblance with Erik and infuriating wit notwithstanding, his secondary mutation is that he can control the speed of all things in creation. Namely, he can vibrate atoms fast enough to make things (people too, though Thomas would never go down that lane, would he?) – he can vibrate atoms fast enough to cause things to explode.

Charles and the others get their first taste of this ability the second morning Havok takes Speed out for training.

The kitchen goes ka-boom! approximately three minutes into the session.

It takes half of the left wing down with it.

In the shocked silence that follows, Thomas's echoing admission of: "My fault!" does nothing to mend the state of Charles's coronaries as he surveys the damage.

The only consolation, is that it takes Thomas no longer than the blink of an eye to rebuild and repaint the wreck.

(and furnish it with a few, wheelchair-friendly optionals. The boy is not without charm, it seems)

vi.

Oddly enough, in the mantra Thomas uses to lull himself to sleep the first few weeks, the thought "Grandpa" rings loud and clear, bellowed out from Thomas's mind like the sound of a clarion bell, repeated over and over and over, a wheel turning, a 8-shaped serpent biting its own tail, wrapping like a garland around the picture of an elderly man wearing Erik's helmet.

(and perchance his face, too)

vii.

This is what is going to happen, Charles explains. You will make the atoms of this block of ice vibrate until it's melted back into water.

Thomas looks dubious.

"That's... not how it works."

Really.

"Really."

You just never tried it before. Don't tell me you are afraid of pushing your limits? Charles's voice sounds challenging and teasing at the same time. The glare it earns him is familiar and golden and lacking any particular heath.

"Listen, you Yoda," Thomas stresses the foreign name, and Charles captures from his brain the image of an odd creature, small and wrinkled and with leaf-shaped ears that twitch like a dog's as he administers his wisdom. Charles makes a note to ask about this one mutant's peculiar abilities, because even at a glimpse, they do seem great. "I run. I make things explode. I can move through walls if I really have to," thought it gives me cramps and nausea for hours afterwards. "But melting ice?" he sounds scornful. "What's the use?"

Charles sends over not a clear image, but rather an impression. Someone Thomas holds dear trapped under ice, layers upon layers of it, their lungs constricting, blue lips open around mouthfuls of dirty snow, blue-tipped fingers clawing at the walls of their prison.

Thomas fills the gaps, adds the details. A young angular face, dark skin and wide dark eyes full of disappointment, accusing, and Thomas's own heart squeezed by the sheer weight of guilt and loneliness.

The vision isn't even over, yet the massive ice statue is already a puddle of muddled water at their feet.

(the face in the ice, though. It looked like Thomas's own, but with darker colouring. Charles can't make head or tails of this detail, so he wisely lets it go)

viii.

It soon becomes apparent that Tommy has a love for heights.

It's something Charles can't either condemn or condone. He just sighs wistfully whenever the boy climbs up the satellite dish, and frets quietly when he curls on the roof of the highest tower in the Mansion, balanced precariously on a ledge that looks much too old to sustain his weight.

He sits there brooding, occasionally throwing pebbles across the distance, watching them sink in the churning fog below. His thoughts, during those times, are usually filled with youthful faces – a blond girl, a mutant with scaly wings, another with a metal face, a bald black boy with a blood-coloured mask, a raven-haired beauty carrying a bow, and always, always a boy who could be Tommy's twin, if not for the darker colouring, the clover-honey skin, the liquid brown eyes glinting with intelligence under a mop of wild dark hair, his image distant, but wrapped in a warm blanket of hope-brimming, tremulous emotion.

"Does it ever start making sense?" Thomas mutters through grinding teeth, throwing a pebble and letting it explode mid-air, booming red in the dusk like a miniature sun, the sound sharp like a gunshot. "Missing someone you know doesn't care about you?"

Charles swallows down a sudden bitter taste. He's been wondering the same himself, and has yet to find an answer.

(Erik haunts his dreams even now)

ix.

Every once in a while, there is reported activity from the Brotherhood.

Sometimes it comes from the radio, sometimes from the TV, sometimes from one of the X-men, or a stray Mutant they save from the streets.

Whatever the source, Tommy is always thirsty for whatever scraps of news he can get on Magneto. He listens to the retelling of Erik's latest stunt with his mouth slack and his eyes child-like wide, unparalleled even by Charles in his need to knowknowknow.

A public stand, a speech, the rescue of fellow mutants, infiltrating a military base, stealing confidential intel. Tommy absorbs the information like a sponge, drop after drop. Swallows it down, grasps tight onto it, like a dragon with gold, Gollum with the One Ring. And just like the characters from those tales, he gathers every speck of information he can and carries it to his brooding place. For hours on end he lingers there, his mind a-buzzing, like a beehive frenzied with activity.

When he comes down, sometimes he says: "I want to stop him before he starts a war, but," and trails off. Charles believes the missing portion of the phrase is "but I don't know how", or, when he feels particularly like projecting: "but I admire him, I love him, and I can't bring myself to harm him".

And yet, someplace deep, someplace in his mind that it's dark and echoing and humid like a grotto, the phrase echoes around, whole as it was meant to be whole, a length of rope that twists around his throat and chokes him slowly.

("I want to stop him before he starts a war, but this war has to happen.")

x.

Charles finds himself counting the days until Speed will leave the X-men for the Brotherhood.

The notion burns, like acid and like fire, it spreads from the frayed wound at the small of his back and claws its way up his spine, all the way across his nerves to his brain, for in a striking small spawn of time, Tommy has carved himself a place in Charles's life; his larger-than-life presence filling up the empty spots left behind by not one, but two dearest loves of his; ensconcing himself so deeply in the Manor's daily routine, it feels preposterous to think him gone, nightmarish to imagine these halls empty of his voice, his laugh, the sound of his running feet.

Yet, Charles knows he will let him go, like he let Raven go.

(everyone has their own prophet to follow, their crosses to bear. Mine own is solitude.)

xi.

That the first meeting between Speed and Magneto is unplanned and violent should come as no surprise to Charles, yet surprise him it does.

For all his interest, his hero-worship, Tommy has been careful to never cross paths with Magneto. He follows the X-men on every mission they undertake, rescuing a mutant or recruiting them or thwarting the Brotherhood's most violent demonstrations of power. Yet, he never lingers where Magneto may see him, but rather watches him from afar like a puppy that yearns for its master, but knows it's been too wicked to be allowed home.

He usually kneels by Charles's wheelchair in the jet, eyes raving hungrily over the ground, searching for a glint of red and purple as frantically as Charles himself does.

But they are not in the jet, this time.

They are inside a damaged building, trying to usher a flock of children to safety. Charles and Erik meet unexpectedly on the front hall, startled mid-way through a shouted order, and their eyes lock, like it used to happen a lifetime ago, something subtle and profound passing between them.

An heartbeat. Then the structure is collapsing around them, on them, and there's not enough metal in the debris freefalling towards them for Magneto to do anything about it.

They are enemies, Charles is only too aware of that. Nemesis leading two opposing armies in the most senseless of wars. He doesn't expect anything, doesn't let himself hope for anything.

But the building is collapsing around them, on them, and there's not enough metal in the debris for Magneto to do anything about it, but Erik is diving towards him all the same, suddenly and with no warning, grasping Charles tight around the biceps and pulling Charles into his chest and cocooning his body around Charles's own as if to shield him, shield him and be damned all the rest, and Charles is oddly at peace with the notion of going this way, of letting go and sinking against Erik and wait for the inevitable, but Speed's sharp cry of: "Professor X! Grandpa!" has him dislodging his face from the warm hollow between Erik's neck and shoulder and looking up, just in time to see Tommy phase in and out of view, body vibrating quickly, palm outstretched towards the falling debris that – oh. Oh. That turn into ash and snow down upon Charles and Erik both, blanketing their shoulders a dirty grey.

(Erik's mind flashes back to Auschwitz ash, its taste of death, its reek of sorrow)

xii.

Magneto might not know Speed, be he does know of Speed.

The boy has spent months hiding away from Erik's eyes, drifting like smoke across the battlefield whenever Brotherhood and X-men had a fight. But his presence, never more than a glint out at the corner of Erik's eye, vague like something imagined, has been noted, catalogued.

They way the newcomer would linger at Charles's side, straying towards him like a moth to flame has given Erik more than one headache.

As the dust falls upon them, silent like snow, Erik – Magneto – Erik rears up, splays his hand, and metals leaps up to his bidding. It surges from underground, twists around Speed's chest and lifts him up, ripping a surprised outcry from his lips. He's ushered forth towards Magneto – "What did you call me, brat?" - and in the scuffle that follows, Speed's goggles are knocked off, revealing eyes that are slanted just like Erik's and a nose that's pointed just like Erik's and a fury that's just like Erik's, and there's no denying it anymore, not with their faces pressed so close, echoing one another like mirror images.

(it is funny, when delusion cracks. It is like a veil falls from before your eyes and it is with something akin to relief you admit without fear that you were right all along)

xiii.

"A time traveller?"

Tommy spreads his hands, shrugs.

"Listen, I don't know either, okay? The only thing I know is that I was there – fifty something years from now, fighting this bunch of villains, as usual. I got stuck, and no matter how fast I ran I couldn't move away, so I kept going faster and faster till it felt like was splitting, and next thing I know, I'm here."

Beast pushes his glasses further up his nose.

"Fascinating. Your speed was enough to rip the fabric of the time-space continuum itself, and you were flung backwards as the energy was released?" he shakes his head, mumbles: "fascinating," over ad over, until Havok kindly elbows him out of his mutterings.

Tommy grins disarmingly.

"Pretty cool, uh? And they thought the nice tricks were all Billy's-" he falters on the name, shuts off, violently, and the ache spreading from him in waves literally knocks Charles backwards.

Magneto – no, Erik, catches him around the shoulders, steadies him like he would've done before Cuba, before the beach, the wheelchair. He looks over at Tommy with a glare, and feels oddly proud when Tommy meets his eyes, chin high and defiant, eyes sharp like fragment of gold-coloured glass over his madcap grin.

"So," Erik says carefully, "you are my... grandson?"

"Favourite one," Tommy rushes to add. "There's written records of that."

Glaring as if to dare Erik to say otherwise. Much to his own surprise, Erik finds he has no problem believing the boy on his word.

He has a grudging respect for his attitude, an odd insight on his character that comes from his own experiences, his own past. Clear as light, he can see the layers that comprise the child: the tougher shell and the tender core. The pride and the sorrow. Power and yearning. Determination and loneliness.

It's a familiar brew, almost painfully so. Easy to recognize and mirror himself into and latch on and like, on this powerful, visceral level that feels like destiny that feels like family.

(he has the feeling fate wasn't so kind on them, but he knows he would've spoiled the brat rotten, had the world allowed for it)

xiv.

Erik steals the boy away from the X-men, like Charles knew he would.

Charles lets him go for several reasons, not the least of which that Erik and Thomas are family, and he can't find it in himself to divide something that was meant to be united.

Besides, it's hard to feel abandoned when Tommy can spend the mornings with Erik in Quebec City (or Moscow, or LA, or just that side of the Mexican border, Tommy walking backwards on a trail midway along the side of precipitous cliffs, his feet kicking up clouds of dust; while at the edge of the precipice, Erik stands with statuesque stillness, his cape billowing, one hand holding a blazing pine-knot while the other sweeps out to encompass something over immeasurable distance) and still be able to woosh inside Charles's study in Westchester at noon, informing him that Grandpa's right horse goes to G-4 and that it's checkmate, thankyouverymuch.

Having him around, juggling between one team and the other, makes it hard for Charles to remember, to accept, that Erik and he are on separate fronts now, the once-familiar landscape of Erik's mind removed from him by means of a cursed helmet, legacy of more than just madness.

(or perhaps they don't have to accept being enemies, and Tommy's there to remind them of that, that there might still be respect and complicity between them, that these barricades they're building are fickle and need being torn down)

xv.

"He's my kin," Erik tells him, eyes hard under the shadow of his helmet.

He's the only thing I have left of you, Charles doesn't say. Instead, he pleads for reason.

"I am not recruiting him. Merely suggesting you allow him to-"

"To be turned against me?"

I don't think that would ever be possible, Charles thinks, but Erik's mind is as blinded to Charles's thoughts as he is blinded to Erik's.

"To have an education, Erik."

"I am more than capable of teaching him myself, Charles."

"I'm not going to argue that. But you can't be suggesting that being properly schooled would be a setback for him."

"I won't allow for a human school."

"Then let him attend classes here," Charles pleads, not without a hint of vexation. "The school is fully operational, now. Staying here will do him good."

"Staying here will turn him soft."

"It will give him a chance to complete his education. Broaden his horizon, if you will."

"...you two do realize I'm standing right here, right?"

(in fact, no, they hadn't. And Tommy's ability to appear from thin air is not even the cause for the slip. It's just that Erik and Charles tend not to notice anyone else when they are in a room together)

xvi.

Erik does spoil the brat rotten this time around.

However, in the Lehnsherr (Shepherd?) family, spoiling equals to something hard and sharp and with no room for weakness; it translates into scuffles that leave them sweaty and covered with mud, in whip-lashing arguments and long debates over history and human beings and torture and hand-to-hand combat and heroes and morality and worth, debates that have Tommy pulling at his hair and Erik trying to contain either his grin, or the erratic jump of his jaw muscle.

They fight, they train, they trade witty banter and scornful words and sardonic grins; they travel and talk and study and just sit side by side, Tommy vibrating on the spot and humming and drumming his fingers as Magneto plans and plots and pours over dog-eared maps, all the while holding glasses of brandy Tommy only pretends to steal for a taste. They gravitate around each other with the quiet dignity of massive planetary bodies, like magnetised chunks of rock, both of them never saying a thing too much, never exchanging a tender word or touch, but this is, apparently, the Lehnsherr way.

(neither would have it otherwise)

xvii.

Nowadays, Tommy has a room in Xavier Mansion – aptly renamed now Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters – and one in the Brotherhood's HQ. Or rather, one in each facility the Brotherhood claim as temporary base, be it a warehouse, an emptied summer house or cheap hotel.

He treks effortlessly between one group and the other, collects his pyjamas at Charles's place and goes to bed at Erik's; steals Raven's toothbrush in the mornings and goes to wash his teeth in the bathroom that overlooks the training grounds in Westchester, the one with the window ruptured by Banshee's screams. He grabs an apple from Beast's lab and goes watching Emma practice her powers on unsuspecting dummies in New York, forcing them to pay for lunch, a white-fox fur coat for her and a pair of sunglasses for him, but stylish ones.

He pushes them up his nose with a quick grin and a flourish, and she scoffs and has the men acquire a string of pearls and high-heeled boots to go with the fur coat.

He's adapting. Carving himself a place in their world.

More than that, he's linking them all through, gathering onto himself a family of choice, and not of blood.

(Tommy says once it's just like living with separated parents, but better, because his mother and father are nowhere near as interested in his well-being as Grandpa and his gay boyfriend seem to be. Charles isn't quite sure whether to feel flattered, mortified or worried.)

xviii.

Recruitment's been coming along, students trickling in towards both sides.

Speed joins either team in their forays, fights alongside them when the need arise, especially if there are lives to safe, people to protect.

When it comes to sharing information he might have on the Mutants they encounter though, he clamps down. It would take Emma to wrench even the smallest information from him, but Tommy's careful enough not to be in the same continent as her when he's got a huge one stored in his brain.

He refuses to reveal anything about the future, refuses to have an active hand in the recruits' choice – Brotherhood, or X-men? Attack or defend? - not wanting to compromise ("fuck up", he says) history.

Every once in a while, though, a face in the crowd will make him pale, a date will cause him to stutter, or go eerily still as he does frantic maths in his head. Nowadays, he often flees to a landlocked and mountainous country in Eastern Europe, and comes back with his mind filled with images of lakes and forests, of endless flower-fields, of the ring of blasted cottages of an old village's edge, and of a tiny child he watches from afar, her head a veritable bird's nest of curls and her eyes like shards of onyx, hypnotic even from a distance.

(he thinks "terrorist attacks" more than once. Thinks "riots" and thinks "mom" and thinks "Billybillybilly" like a clarion call. It's never answered)

xix.

Not all Mutants are easy to recruit, for either side.

Some are compliant, true. Most of them are, in the end, swayed by either Charles's serene wisdom, or Magneto's determined passion. But some Mutants are unpredictable, volatile, like inflammable fluids, and just as likely to explode.

Some more literally than others.

Tommy gets up slowly from the rubble, huffing as Azazel pulls him up too fast, too strong, and almost sends him reeling. The streak of wiped blood across his face is stark and wet, and his cheeks are pale underneath.

Tommy's ears are buzzing after the explosion, and his head reels. He waves off the hands helping him, only to stumble down when his knees fail him.

Raven yanks him up again, expression wavering between worry and pinched-up irritation.

"You..."

And then Magneto and Professor X are both on him, both at once, one physically and the other mentally, bearing down on him with broad hands and clipped words and soothing mental touches and frayed, worry-capped questions.

"What did I tell you about taking unnecessary risks?" they ask, both at once.

Tommy rubs his head, looks at Erik like he can't focus on him and slurs: "Which one of you? 'Cause, you," he points at Erik, "totally told me to do that if it means saving someone; and you – he –," he moves his hand around, flickers it towards his own head then Erik's, then slumps in defeat and points at the jet hovering across the valley, "and mom told me to refrain from it," he snaps.

(Erik's telling him in a cold-edged voice not to disrespect Professor X with name-calling, and Charles's an hairsbreadth away from thinking 'Do as you father says' at Tommy, but the boy's apparently reached his limit, and is slumping unconscious into a shocked Erik's arms)

xx.

As he lies unconscious, Tommy broadcasts all the memories he's kept hidden so far.

A tiny child begging for the love of a family that ignores him (memories like Charles's);

a little outcast afraid he'll never be loved for what he is, only for what he can pretend to be, which is a normal human, and that not even for long, or without slipping (memories like Raven's);

And then: abandonment and disappointment; violence and tears; steel tables, leather restraints, needles and experiments, the smell of antiseptic and pain, tiled walls a sickly shade of green; a voice crooning, low and malicious: "what a splendid little weapon you'll make", lights fluorescent and harsh, glinting off an assortment of sharp, perverse-looking metal tools; shower stalls caked with mildew, soapy water gathering over rusty grates, swirling with red foam; strangely patterned sheets that aren't patterned at all but stained with blood (memories like Erik's).

And then came Billy and a crooked family, a place to be, a reason to be, then disappointment all over again, loneliness, fear, (memories like Cuba's beach).

And lastly: the blast and finding Charles and then Erik and suddenly All Was Right In The World.

(Charles had known Tommy was like them, but he'd never expected him to be such a perfect amalgam of them, a sum of all their pains; he debates whether or not he should tell Erik, but then realizes Erik has seen the scars, Erik knows already, Erik is fighting to keep this from happening, but he understands that, in some ways, they can't do anything for Tommy, because it's all already happened)

xxi.

Magneto stalks into the room, each step that of a giant, the room shaking around them, metal beams vibrating behind, beyond, the walls, frames shivering around the windows. He comes to a stop before Charles and spreads out his hand, fingers splayed, gloves torn and caked with dirt.

Erik says: "show me," and there's nothing Charles can deny him, not at this point.

(perhaps not ever)

xxii.

Charles shows him.

Shows him everything.

A silver coin rotating through Charles's brain, splintering through the tender grey matter; latex gloves running across Tommy's forehead, wiping the sweat gathering at the temples, as needles are plunged into the crook of his elbows and a scream is ripped from his throat and into the plastic tube gagging his mouth. Candlelight glinting off a Menorah, Erik's mother's sunken cheeks as she cradles the match; Raven's terror-blown eyes as she runs out of a darkened alley, her tiny body pouring sweat as she's forced to flee from her own family; a smelly cell, a hard cot under protruding ribs, jets of icy water strong enough to bruise skin purple, chains rattling, bolting awake, lugs aching, slammed against the shower stall's wall as if by a giant hand, knees buckling when the pressure eases, gasping in the sudden silence, breath fogging in the stale air, heaving until pink-foamed spit is gurgling down the drain, electrodes on clammy skin, the shock of a thousand thunders, pencil scratching over clipped boards, pleased mutterings, the thoughtful hum of machineries, leather gloves, the sound of bangs, flashes and thunder, smoke raising against a red sky, bodies piled high around a skinny boy that could be Erik could be Tommy could be Billy, wandering dazed across the smoking ruins, cheeks dark with soot but for the clean tracks left behind by tears, and there's a litany spilling from his lips, something like a spell or a curse, and Tommy's trashing against the leather straps binding him to the steel table, and there's Shawn looming closer, breaking into Erik's space, grinning wide at the stench of the young boy's fear, and mama's corpse is still outside, beyond the glass wall, the bullet buried in her flesh, and there are man-shaped bruises on his arms, and painpainpain all over his body and he's – Erik is, Tommy is – pinned and prodded and studied, like a circus freak, on the bloodied operation table.

(no child of mine! Magneto swears as they part, his voice a cracked lion's roar. No child of mine will ever be treated as such!)

xxiii.

It hasn't happened in a while.

If he were honest with himself, Charles would say it hadn't happened since the beach, but Magneto looks like any common person now, touched and shaken by what's happening around them, a dab of worry detectable across his sunken cheeks.

He's wearing the helmet still; but in repose, as he lays with his head reclined against the back of the sofa, Adam's apple exposed, it has shifted. Not much. Just enough to let a steady trickle of thoughts stream out from under the barrier. It's thin, like an ink-drop diluted in gallons of water, spreading slow and cloud-like; and it's low, like a sound we have to strain to hear in the distance, like clear brooks and rustling leaves. It draws out of Charles an urge sharper than anything he's ever felt.

He doesn't have to consciously direct his chair towards the sofa, he's already there. His hands don't quite let go of the wheels as much as transition soundlessly from metal to soft cushions, and just like that he's pushing, straining on trembling arms to hoist himself out of the chair and onto the seat – out of the chair and next to Erik. But Erik's a different animal from Charles, he knows no peace even in rest, and his eyes snap wide as their bodies brush together, blue-grey like metal. He reaches up and grabs Charles's wrist in a grip that goes from bruising to caressing the moment recognition filters through his gaze.

Everything's still, tense and waiting and suspended, like the drop hanging before its inevitable fall. Erik's thumb is drawing circles across the pulse point on Charles's wrist, and their faces are drifting close and closer still, Erik's mouth puffing warm breath against Charles's own, hands gripping tight around his waist, nails raking against the naked skin between shirt and trousers, and Charles's heart is hammering and the rupture in Erik's shield is widening, the trickle of thoughts gaining speed and width, like snow gathering more snow as it slides down the mountain's side, and it's screaming Charles. CharlesCharlesCharles as their fingers twine together, CharlesCharlesCharles as their lips brush, as their bodies slide together like two halves of a whole.

And right then and there, Tommy vibrates into the room.

Tommy vibrates into the room and goes still.

Tommy vibrates into the room and goes still as marble and then suddenly jerks and shrieks out something like an apology, and immediately grasps his side when his untethered squirming rips the stitches in his side.

Erik is gathering him up in a heartbeat, even as Tommy tries to crawl his way out of the room, spewing apologies that are both mental and vocal and turning an interesting shade of red, all the while moaning out how he doesn't mean to cockblock his family, it just kinda happens, he's not out to protect anyone's virtue, honest, the time Billy and Teddy almostnotquite kissed because of him he was there to save them, not to intrude, though he did triple check the locks on Billy's door that night they spent in Genosha with the rest of the team, because, seriously? Billy's way too pretty and someone ought to look out for him, but it's perfectly acceptable for Tommy to look out for his own little twin, right?, at least as long as no one notices and he doesn't lose face, and it's not like Billy would ever believe if anyone told him that Tommy cared, anyway.

(later, when Erik's gone and Tommy's back in bed, slurping cocoa from a mug, Charles overhears him asking Beast if liking guys is, you know, genetic, because his Grandpa's like that and his twin's like that, and, well, he's pretty sure he likes girls, Kate and Lisa are both hot and rock his world from its foundation, but he did get to watch Bucky and Cap stand together during the siege of Asgard, shoulders bumping, breath itching, hands clasping, and when Bucky had smiled at Cap at the end of it, it was such a private smile, you know? all white teeth and strong jaw and pink lips and bedroom eyes and aching, aching emotion, and Tommy had thought he wouldn't have minded to be on the receiving end of that smile, and that it was no wonder those two were doing the nasty back in the war, not with that smile involved)

xxiv.

The end, it also starts with a bang.

Which is perhaps a little inaccurate description, but the racket is the first thing they are aware of. A booming noise, like water falling down incredible heights and wind ripping through rocky narrows.

Streaks of white bolt across the sky, spreading out from a pulsing blue core, liquid light that revolves onto itself like a planet. Then a silhouette is flung from the gleaming globe of light, tossed like a rag-doll towards the Mansion's wall.

Tommy gives a frantic shout of: "Billy!" and is climbing along the wall and catching the other boy in his arms before the rest of the mutants (Brotherhood and X-men alike) can get their bearings. The pair lands in a swirl of tattered red cape and tangled limbs. Tommy huffs loudly as he cushions the fall with his own body, but for all his muttered curses, it takes a while to disentangle him from his mirror image, they clutch each other so tightly.

(for some reason, the feelings Charles are picking are exactly the same as when he plunged into icy waters to save Erik from drowning. Worry. Pain. Rage. Bitterness. Companionship. Relief. Hope.)

xxv.

Charles is overwhelmed.

The boy – Billy? – feels incredibly powerful. That in itself would be enough to make his mind tingle as if crackling with electricity, but it's the way the twins interact that threatens to send the telepath's mind into overload. He's never before seen two people so apt as saying something and meaning the opposite.

One snaps, calls the other "idiot", "nuisance", "catalyst for trouble", all the while thinking I-was-so-worried-I-thought-you-were-gone-I'm-so-glad-you're-safe-I-missed-you-so.

The other feels stung, and through the widening loop of you-came-for-me-can't-believe-it-so-happy-to-see-you-missed-you-lots he's been projecting, he snaps back, defensive and a touch petulant.

"I never asked you to come", in his mouth, means I've been waiting, but I didn't think you'd care. "And speaking of idiots, who's the idiot who pulled a Billy and sneaked off to the past without telling anyone?" is the direct translation of you shouldn't take these risks for me!

And so on and so forth, saying words and meaning others, thinking things and saying the opposite, hands holding tight and tongues lashing, over and over, raising up a storm inside Charles's brain, thunderbolts and all.

It's overwhelming.

Even more so because the boys read like something nebulous, brothers and not-brothers at once, similar and diametrically opposite. Their thoughts, whirling and confusing already on their own, are all the more unbalancing for a telepath, because they seem to spring from the same well, the same soul, as if the boys were one, or used to be, entwined, somewhere deep, like two sides of a coin.

(and it's a sad thought, because even if the coin is one single entity, its two faces, they can ever meet, never touch; never find a common ground and be with each other or even just see one another's face)

xxvi.

They don't go.

Not straight away. Billy – Wiccan, his codename's Wiccan – needs time to rest, time to gather his strength. Hours, days at most. He's given a wide berth by the other mutants, something subtle that still manages to translate into a delicate frown across Wiccan's forehead.

Beast wants to have an interview with him about the future, but won't allow himself. Emma quite possibly wants to kidnap and brainwash him into a toy-soldier for the Brotherhood, if her vicious glances are anything to go by. Either that, or she wants to claw his eyes off and kidnap Tommy, instead. Her simmering intent is cool and burning like the core of a blue star, and it's hard to decipher its direction.

Raven scoffs at Emma's fierce silence, but she's teetering on an edge herself. Half the time, she wants nothing more than to push Tommy into Billy's arms and get rid of the trouble; the other half, she's ready to fight nails and claws to keep the two of them forever apart.

Alex resents him from wanting to steal the newest member of the family away, and his brain is lambent with memories of siblings loved and long lost. Sean, he's just happy he's got someone to fly with, even if Wiccan never indulges that particular whim when asked.

Wiccan doesn't seem particularly perturbed by the distance. He's apologetic for intruding, yes, and curious and excited about this time period, this time's mutants. He's polite and lovely, endearingly stubborn, and so very quiet. With his dark hair and complexion, he should be the twin who resembles Erik more, but this is hardly the case.

There's a softness about him, in the deep and soulful eyes and soft-spoken tones, that sets him apart from Erik and Thomas. He misses that steel edge born of pain and despair; the stray lines on his cheeks are all laughter and no betrayal and distrust. There is no wall of closeted fury and overbearing confidence to shield the bruised child held within.

There simply is no bruised child within. He is what he is, wears his heart and his hurts on his sleeve, colourful like pins.

It's hard to watch him and not to wonder – is this the sort of person Erik had the potential to be, before the camp, the torture, the pain? He seems kind and idealistic, a bit like Charles, but there's steel somewhere underneath the softness, something powerful and brimming, of that much Charles is sure. He can feel a taste of it, a tang like electricity on the back of his mouth, brewing out of the Pandora's box holding it all in.

(the measure of a soul is how it reacts to pain, Charles thinks. In that respect, the souls of the Lehnsherr boys – all three of them – are larger than life)

xxvii.

"We wouldn't object to keeping him here," Charles offers, lacing his fingers in his lap.

His face is open, pleasant. His posture is one of serene quietude. The aura he's projecting is soft and warm like a blanket, a secure refuge that smells comfortingly of days long past.

Despite that, Wiccan starts and swirls around, eyes much-too-wide in his face. Something frantic peaks inside him, crashes like a wave, and even with Charles's subtle help, it's a strain to slow down his erratic heartbeat.

"You did mention it might be risky to magick the both of you back home?" Charles prompts, earnest worry in his voice. Wiccan pushes his hair out of his eyes, revealing the worried furrow between his eyebrows.

"That – it's not – I'd never inflict Tommy on you, anyways."

It's meant as a jest, with no real spite behind the words. The same as when little kids push their siblings so that their knees scrap bloody on the hard concrete, calling them dumb and other hateful names.

It's meant as a jest, but it chafes against Charles all the same.

"I would appreciate if you didn't speak of Tommy as if he were a burden. To us, he's not."

Wiccan looks properly chastised. A shadow of pink settles across his cheekbones as he looks away.

"He's... difficult," he manages in his defence.

"A trifle," Charles admits. But we wouldn't love him as much, if he weren't.

It is a lance of thought, and when Wiccan's eyes flicker back up, they are narrowed. He looks like he's about to say something – something low and clipped and Lehnsherr-like, when a voice comes from deeper within the room, there where the shadows thicken into shrouds.

"Difficult." The desk lamp clicks on as if after its own volition. Light ricochets off Erik's helmet in tones of red and gold. Turns his eyes into disks of silver. "Torture does that to a boy his age." He pauses. "I would know."

Just like that, the surge of protectiveness boils over and vanishes. It leaves Wiccan's eyes wide, his jaw slack. He takes a look at his Grandfather and flinches. Perhaps at the words spoken, perhaps at those that haven't been.

A small gesture commands Charles's chair over to Erik's side, and the telepath wordlessly allows it. He tucks his hands in his lap and looks over at Wiccan. The touch of Erik's helmet in his mind is cool, not soothing but devastating, like a void. On contrast, Wiccan feels like a maelstrom, but the landscape of human emotions is a familiar to him as his own home's gardens, a mayhem he finds comforting.

"Grandfather..."

"But as Charles was saying, mein enkel," Erik interrupts smoothly. "We would be interested in keeping the boy with us."

"It - it might change the past," Wiccan stutters.

"You don't really believe that," Charles chides, with a sort of amused awe in his voice. "Actually, you have reason to trust time will reassert itself, even if Tommy were to stay here."

That is true, but: "He doesn't belong here," Wiccan answers, a mulish lilt to his voice.

Magneto laughs. And it is Magneto, not Erik. One can tell by the cold, gravelly quality of the sound.

"But he belongs with you?" Charles hadn't noticed, but Erik has been playing with a flat disk of molten metal. He's letting it dance around and across his splayed fingers, like he used to do with the coin that ultimately killed Shawn. But this is something else, some other sorrow or sin he's toying idly with. "You don't believe it any more than I do."

"He's-"

"Your brüder?" Magneto stares over the glinting speck of metal at his grandson. "Yes. But in nothing but name, I take it?"

The disk of metal turns and turns, round and round. Light glances off of it in sparks and flashes, a flash for each question, and for each flash, a shard of thought, a seed of memory, that flings itself from Charles's brain to Wiccan's, embedding there, like shards and seeds are wont to do, sinking deep into the tender matter and drawing up pain.

"Tell me, Wiccan. Have you ever called him brother and meant it in anything more than jest?"

Billy, c'mon, please, let me - if you would just listen to me for once-

What, to the team's sociopath? I'd rather not, Speed.

"Have you ever come to his aid when he needed?"

Does it ever start making sense? Missing someone you know doesn't care about you?

"Relived his memories with him?"

needles pushing in his legs and arms, electricity bursting from the pins in his flesh, muscles pushing and pushing with no control, and when he opens his eyes, he hates he can see blood on his torturers' gloves, see it smeared along his knees

"Offered to erase his nightmares, forgive his sins, or punish his torturers?"

light glinting off a slim bottle, the reek of alcohol in the air, a child drowning his sobs in a pillow, a door slamming, and then, as if in a blur, the same boy, older now, crawling across a dirty cell's floor, wrists raw with burn marks, anger and agony trickling liquid down his face

"Tell me, have you ever..." the disk of metal blurs between his fingers. It moves so fast it looks liquid, hot. Charles glances at it and his mind goes back so abruptly, he can almost smell the Cuban beach, see the white sand aflame with too-hot light, a sky like a dull mirror and sunshine glinting off a bloody bullet. "...made amends for hurting him?"

and it's not like Billy would ever believe if anyone told him that Tommy cared, anyway.

Wiccan draws a deep breath.

"You don't know anything about us," he says softly, a shaky mixture of anger and hurt. "He's... he's my twin," he says, hands splayed, as if that world alone could explain everything, conjure up a world's worth of meaning he can't quite express. "We... we were apart, but we found each other. We were meant to be. We..."

"Charles is my brüder," Erik interrupts in a low murmur, Magneto's voice and Magneto's eyes, sharp and clipped like arrowheads. "We found each other. We chose each other. For we were meant to be. If he were ever taken by my side, I would do anything in my power to get him back. Tommy is your brüder, you say. Then why," the coin-not-coin lashes through the air, comes to a standstill an hairsbreadth from Wiccan's forehead, carrying along shards of thoughts, of longing and anger and loneliness and pain, "why did you leave him here to pine for you for a whole year, William?"

Magneto might as well have pushed the coin through, for the stricken look that appears on Wiccan's face. He staggers back, eyes wide. Between a breath and the next, he's gone. But he's just rushing down the hall, like any distraught boy, no magic and no mutant powers at work as he dashes down the corridor, pounds on a door and flings himself inside as soon as it opens, and then it's all a discordant refrain of Ididn'tknowoneyearIdidn'tknowTommyIswearyou'vebeengonehalfadayIdidn'tknowIdidn'tknow and wha—Bil—DamnitdudeyouknowIdon'tdotearsohdamnhushnowc'monlil'broc'monBillyBillyplease...

Charles retreats after that.

(there is not a single mean bone inside Charles's body. You could ask Raven – it is the main reason they went separate ways – this endless capability he has to forgive even the unforgivable. He didn't enjoy needling thoughts and memories and pain inside Wiccan's brain, but that does meant he didn't want to.

He can sense a rift between those two young lads that simply shouldn't be there. It's wrong and unfair that people meant to be together fail to come to an understanding over something as human as pain – as trust and self-worth and family and rage. It's something that Charles can't help but want to correct, regretful as he might be to cause anyone pain)

xxviii.

The room is in the left wing.

Its windows are those that dawn touches first in the morning (to rise with the sun, it is a soldier's instinct). They are high and narrow, clear of wisteria (nothing to use to climb inside), and face the entrance gate (like a sentry post, easy to defend, easy to escape from).

It is – was – used to be – forever belong to – Erik's room.

Now, it is like a mausoleum of sorts.

There is an empty glass sitting on the mantelpiece, the rim sticky with the remains of long-dried brandy. On the table lays an open newspaper, its pages yellowing and coated with dust. A pencil lays at an angle beside it, its dark tip sharpened to a point. A black turtleneck rests at the bottom of the bed, folded neatly, along with matching trouser and a coiled leather belt, its intricate silver buckle glinting weakly in the dust-filled sunlight.

Charles navigates inside on his wheelchair, privately grateful that the thick carpet had been removed (it would have dampened the sound of an intruder's footsteeps).

Eleven months since the arrival of Tommy, and the trees around the mansion are shedding again.

From the window in Erik's abandoned bedroom, Charles can see the hills carpeted in red and gold. The foliage glints wetly in the morning sun, the pale light clinging onto the drops of dew. Mist curls up from the shrubbery, like the breath of a sleeping giant, and the air smells thickly of moss and of wet, dark things.

Tommy is skulking along the gardens, thoughts moving around him like a school of fish, glinting underwater. Charles would like to pin them, each single one, and put them on display like butterflies; but like butterflies, they shy away as he reaches out.

Tommy wants to go. Wants to stay. Wants to push Wiccan back home where he belongs, wants to keep Billy by his side. He wants to sit at Magneto's feet as his grandfather pours over a chessboard, and then finally makes a move Tommy will go relay with quicksilver speed back at Westchester. He wants to go back and hold Kate's hand, play tag with Molly as Chase scowls and Eli pretends he's not bothered. He wants to be there for his mother when she will go mad with grief in a few decades, her child still, but older than her. He wants to rush back to the cruel mistress that is the city he lives in, and fight for those who don't have the strength to.

He wants. He wants. He wants everything, which means, in the end, wanting nothing at all.

He's adrift in the currents, pulled at once towards both banks of the river.

As Charles watches, Tommy breaks into a jog, speeds uphill through the wet grass, silver hair glinting in the green shade. A beat, two, and Billy is emerging from the shade himself, hands pushed shyly in his pockets, his face a study of uncertainty.

He calls, and Tommy grinds to an halt, eyes like a deer's in the headlight. He looks away, shrinks back from the hands reaching towards him. They share a few words, perhaps; it's hard to tell. Then Tommy is faking a laugh and gesturing wide. He claps Billy's shoulder, then bumps against it as he moves higher up the sloping grounds. Billy wavers, then steels himself. Clenches his fists tight and gives chase, disappearing into a cluster of trees.

Up inside the mausoleum, Charles takes a long breath, and his exhale disturbs the dust motes swimming in the sunlight. His hand is splayed on the glass, leaving an imprint. His eyes are reflected clearly back at him, but as clean a picture as they make, they are hard to read.

"I wonder, sometimes," he tells to the air. "If things could have been done differently, on that beach. If we hadn't strained to do what we thought was right – where would we be, now?"

No answer comes, and he draws another breath.

"I wish you could have stayed," he elaborates.

"I wish you could have come with me." Erik's voice floats at him from the darkness, as cool and slithering as a wraith.

Charles's mouth curls at the edge, rueful.

"You would not have me renounce my dream any more than I would want you to deny yourself."

"Are we so selfless?" Erik muses, as his reflection blurs into view beside Charles's own on the glass.

"So stubborn, I'd say."

Erik's reflection nods once, very slowly.

"We each made our choice. We will see it through."

"With no regrets?"

"Only one," Erik admits. His hand hovers lightly an inch from Charles's neck, warm and big, then settles on the back of the chair. "But that will be my own burden to bear."

"Our burden, my friend."

Charles reaches up for Erik's hand, holds it up in the dusty stream of sunlight from the window, and interlaces their fingers. It's hard to imagine them as nemesis. And when their eyes meet through the intermediation of the glass, it's hard to imagine them as anything but lovers.

They kiss with their eyes open, linked through the glass. When they part, Erik curls his fingers tighter around Charles's, puts his cheek against Charles's own, breath fanning hot and wet against Charles's skin, and when he whispers: "Ich liebe dich," it feels like permission.

Charles takes it as such.

(they might never agree on anything; but this. This can never be taken from them)

xxix.

Tommy throws himself down on the slope, spreads and stretches himself as if he were trying to leave an angel-shaped imprint in the grass, the way children do with fresh snow. He isn't aware of his twin following until he hears him rustle up to the hill's crest.

Billy lowers himself down with considerable less floundering, sitting with his legs tucked at his side. He's chewing on his bottom lip, and if Tommy knows anything about his twin (brüder), he knows that is a sure sign he's thinking about something painful.

He turns on his side, facing away from his twin, and starts plucking at the wet grass.

"You should go," he flings, not bothering to look up.

Billy doesn't answer. He looks at the mutants peppering the school's grounds, clumping together with conversation and then parting with laughter or a quiet demonstration of power. He swallows with a visible effort before looking back at his double. His eyes are huge, liquid, earnest with emotion.

"I could stay."

Tommy makes a face of disgust.

"Yeah, and die of heartbreak on me? I don't think so," the jibe, if that is what it was, falls short and heavy between them.

Tommy heaves himself up to his elbows. His eyes flicker across the school's grounds, the woods, the low sky filled with jetstreams of colour, but never settle on the boy sitting beside him.

"Billy, it's okay. You said you're not sure you can bring the both of us back. So just leave me, okay? It's cool here. And it's not like I'll be missed back home, anyways."

No matter what he says though, what he thinks is: I'll never forget you, so please, don't forget about me.

Billy glances back at Tommy, smiles just a crack and no further.

"Oh, not missed at all, you rascal. I'd say this is a good riddance for the team, if anything," it's what he says, even as what he thinks is: please-pleasecomebackhomeTommyyou'remybrotherIdon'twanttoloseyousosoonpleaseI'msorrypleaseloveyouplease, but Charles is the only telepath in the area, so all that Tommy hears is what is spoken aloud. Something aching and tender breaks below his ribs, and emptiness gushes through his chest.

"Just go away," he mumbles stubbornly, settling back down onto the grass. And if his voice doesn't crack, it's only just because he trained it this way, with years of practice.

But Billy grasps onto his hand, surprising him. He lays behind his brother, chest to back, not quite touching, the warmth of their bodies seeping together. He props himself up on an elbow, cranes his neck. When his eyes meet Tommy's own over his shoulder, they're opened just a crack and no further.

"Not without you." He squeezes Tommy's hand. "In time, I can learn the right spell."

Tommy looks dubiously up at him, at the face so like and unlike his own, and then at their entwined hands, the only point of contact between them, one pale and one dark, one soft and one callous, one clean and the other dirtied with things unseen. Something settles in his chest, and in that moment, he knows. Not what he wants to do, but what he has to.

He takes a deep breath, and prepares himself to tell his decision.

And the world stops.

(he makes things explode, Thomas Shepherd. He travels at the speed of light and tears through the fabric of time and space. By his powers, Thomas Shepherd Lehnsherr can make ice melt and people grow insanely annoyed. He can get Emma to take him window-shopping and Beast to get out of the lab and walk among his fellow mutants. He can get Azazel to laugh at his jibes and Alex to forget his phobia of hurting his friends. He can get Angel to titter as if she were still an innocent thing and Sean to chat up girls in that bistro on the corner and Riptide to teach him about piano and music and Raven to chase him across the ground over something as stupid as a stolen toothbrush.

In a word, Thomas Shepherd Lehnsherr Xavier is theirs)

xxx.

Erik's hand is warm inside Charles own; the touch of his mind is familiar and exhilarating at once.

They breathe as one, think as one, as the world around them freezes to a stop. Needles of power stream from the point of contact, ease into Tommy's brain and Billy's brain and the brain of everyone on the school's grounds.

They rip the fabric of those minds, these needles. Cut it into little slips and then littler ones, grinding the unneeded ones into something as fine as sand. They sew the remaining pieces tightly back together, then; edges overlapping, forming a different pattern than before, something new and old and borrowed and blue and coin-shaped and bullet-fast, and it's like a pearl-sized Onslaught inside everyone's mind.

(their decision is taken)

(Erik and he, they have to make sure their child is safe)