Fanfic - The Face of All the World Is Changed (part two)
Good lord, I hate LiveJournal's new updating system thing for Rich Text. So frustrating and glitchy.
Disclaimer: Some of the dialogue for this part is directly from the movie. If it sounds familiar, it probably is.
---
Erik did his best to conceal his confusion at the waves of relief spilling over into his consciousness from Charles as they descended the stairs leading down to the tarmac. In the short time they’d been on this mission, the other man had never shown any signs of distress over flying, and the foreign feelings leeching onto Erik’s own coupled with the way Charles gripped the railing as he carefully stepped down onto the asphalt only served to raise his suspicions. Something was wrong, made all the more worrisome by the fact that Charles was projecting unconsciously again, and whatever it was, Charles didn’t want Erik to know about it. He narrowed his eyes and strengthened his resolve to keep a closer watch on the telepath. They shouldn’t be keeping secrets from one another this late in the game.
Charles brushed off the bottom of his suit jacket and tugged at the knot of the tie, trying to loosen the fabric a bit. He wavered a little on his feet, like he was having trouble staying upright. Erik stepped up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Charles start a bit underneath his palm. “Easy, Charles.”
“Erik,” Charles panted, his face now drawn into a frown. “Please don’t do that. You startled me.”
Erik could see sweat beading along Charles’s hairline, and his frown deepened. It hadn’t been terribly warm in the plane, nor was it uncomfortable out here on the tarmac, and the man’s face wasn’t flushed, so it was unlikely to be a fever. He fought the urge to press his palm against Charles’s forehead to be sure. He couldn’t deal with the telepath getting taken down by a full blown illness right now. Another headache, perhaps, which quite possibly meant another long, sleepless night listening to Charles retching in the bathroom down the hall.
“Are you feeling all right, Charles?”
He shrugged out of Erik’s hold. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” he murmured, giving the shorter man another quick inspection. “Are you sure? Did the food not sit well with you? I thought the appetizers were a bit much, but-”
“I’m fine, Erik. The flight was fine, the food was good, and everything is well.”
“But you were rather ill last night. I’m only worried for your health.”
The tension running through Charles’s shoulders told Erik that his friend was going to be defensive about this, and it wasn’t worth fighting at this point, so he let the point drop. Perhaps he’d confront him later when they were back at base. He looked up to see Agent MacTaggart walking briskly toward them, the sound of her heels clicking lightly against the pavement reaching them over the exclamations of loved ones greeting the other passengers as they left the plane. “And there’s our babysitter. Right on time.”
“Oh come now, Erik. Moira is-”
“Being paid to watch over us to ensure we don’t slip up.”
“-our ally,” Charles stressed. She’s taken on a big risk in supporting our cause like this.
Erik snorted but didn’t bother arguing. There was little point to it. It wasn’t that he disliked the agent. No, she was attractive and certainly friendly enough, but Erik couldn’t bring himself to trust her, not in the way he did Charles. Where Charles was open, the agent seemed hidden; where Charles was warm, the agent cold. It was expected for a person in her position, especially for a woman in a world dominated by men, but that didn’t make it any easier to trust that her intentions were good.
“So you were unable to find him.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, we were able to figure out his location,” Charles responded, shooting Erik a look that he hoped might keep him in check, like he was some sort of dog that needed to be trained. “However, I think he managed to pick up on our presence somehow before we could get the chance to approach him, though I can’t for the life of me figure out how.”
Perhaps it was your projecting, Erik couldn’t help thinking, part of him wondering if Charles was even going to bother picking up on it. Charles hadn’t exactly been in complete control last night, what with him hunched up over the toilet all hours. It was entirely plausible that the mutant they’d been after had picked up on Charles through his projected thoughts and emotions and had simply fled, not wanting to risk detection by the United States government. It wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest to find mutants who didn’t want to join their cause. Not when they were likely to be used as lab rats, in any instance.
Charles shot him a quick glare, showing him that yes, he had heard that, and yes, they were going to talk about it later, before Moira stole away his attention. “We can’t get them all, I suppose.” She looked up at the both of them, and her voice smoothed as her tone took on a more business-like manner. “Do you have another target set up?”
“Not yet,” Erik replied, beating Charles to the punch. “We plan on going over the coordinates we already have and finding reasonable candidates to try out from there. Hank should still have the printouts from the last set of run-throughs with Cerebro. Little should have changed from then.”
“I have to disagree, Erik. I’m fairly sure that in the time that we’ve been away from base there has been some movement of the mutants we were able to identify. I think it would be best if I gave Cerebro another try before we get too far ahead of ourselves.”
I think you’re being ridiculous, Charles. You don’t need to feed into their experiments like a dog.
You have it all wrong, my friend.
Do I?
They’re not experimenting on me by letting me use Cerebro, and they’ve been kind enough to let us use their facilities. We should be grateful.
I find it difficult to be grateful to people I can’t trust. How can you not question the fact that somehow they magically had this machine set up for a man of your unique abilities before they could agree that we actually existed and not think they’re experimenting on us? Your naivety is astounding sometimes.
Charles ignored him, turning all of his attention to Moira. “We were hoping to stick a little closer to home this time around.”
She gave a quick nod before her face split into a grin, all thoughts of finding and recruiting mutants lost for the moment. There was no indication that she’d suspected them talking to each other telepathically. Erik was getting better at concealing his emotions at Charles’s voice in his head. “It’s good to see you two again. Things were getting quiet without you around.”
Charles grinned. “I highly doubt that. Things are rarely quiet when Raven is around.”
The agent’s smile widened. She turned around and gestured for the two of them to follow. “Come on. I have a car waiting.”
“Don’t think we’re done, Charles.” He didn’t bother lowering his voice or sending the words out in thought. The telepath couldn’t ignore him this way. “You still owe me some answers.”
“And I’ll give them to you. All in good time.” His hand lifted to his head to rub gently at his temple, his face drawn tight to hide his subtle wince of pain, and Erik’s face darkened. Charles had never been a very good liar.
---
It was odd being back at the facility after jumping about from place to place for so long. He was too used to moving around. Staying in any one place for too long gave people the opportunity to find your location. It was one of the stupidest, most amateur moves in the book, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Charles and his sway with the American government were the key to finding out Shaw’s location. He needed them, no matter how slowly they worked, and on top of that, as loath as he was to admit it, he’d grown rather fond of Charles in the short time they’d known each other. Things would be made a lot easier, however, if the man would stop keeping secrets.
Erik stared hard at the ceiling and tried to make sense of the patterns of the shadows dancing across the smooth white walls. This was pointless. What they were doing meant nothing unless they were helping in the mutant tagging process that the CIA was certainly after, now that they knew people like Charles, people like Raven, people like him, existed. His mouth twisted into a scowl. Identification was always where it started. Erik knew exactly where this would end if they let it go on too long.
Four mutants. That was all they’d been able to recover in all this time, bringing their official total up to seven if he counted himself, the professor, and Hank, as useless as his mutation seemed to be. Some of the others, though, they could be useful. If identification was the goal, the CIA could simply steal the printouts from Cerebro. But he had the feeling that they were just as invested in getting rid of Shaw as he was, what with the threat of nuclear war he was dangling over their heads. The mutants were going to help them save the United States from disaster, he supposed, but they were kidding themselves if they thought this misfit group was ready to handle anything. The kids had already proven themselves unfit earlier tonight. But with practice, training and discipline, perhaps something could be made out of them.
The Negro cabbie, Armando or Darwin or something, was able to survive most anything anyone threw at him. Like a cockroach, he thought. How fitting. But that could have its uses. Particularly against a man like Shaw. No matter how hard of a hit Shaw tried to land, Armando could take it. Perhaps using him as a distraction might give Erik enough time to run the coin right between Shaw’s eyes.
The stripper and the redhead were fairly useless. The girl’s wings would have come in handy if not for the fact that one of Shaw’s men controlled the wind. He seriously doubted that her flimsy wings could be any competition with even the smallest windstorm he decided to cook up. And the boy, Sean, he could scream at supersonic levels. Maybe he’d be useful as a foot soldier, but unless Charles had something spectacular hidden up his sleeve for the kid, he was fairly useless.
Raven, however, was by far the best-her ability to mimic anyone both in voice and body was exceptional, and would trick anyone under Shaw’s grasp outside of the telepath. If Charles could somehow incapacitate that damn woman in white then Raven and Armando could keep Shaw busy while Erik dealt the final blow. They could wrap this up quickly and with little bloodshed, just the way Charles liked things. They just needed training, discipline. The CIA would never take them seriously if these kids were allowed to run free.
He shot up on his bed, his mind made up. They needed to plan this whole thing out, figure out their next move. He needed to talk to Charles.
He pressed in the little metal buttons used to lock his door in the pattern of code he’d been taught from across the room as he shrugged on one of his jackets. It wasn’t cold inside the facility, but the extra clothing made him feel a little more secure. The locked clicked into place, and he was free. He stepped out into the hallway. Charles’s room was just a little ways down.
They left for the Soviet Union in little over a half hour. Not enough time to do anything. Why not discuss how they were going to tackle the Shaw dilemma with Charles before they had to head out? He stopped in front of the telepath’s door, his hand raised to knock, when a strange feeling overtook him, almost like panic. The emotion wasn’t his own. He rapped harshly on the door.
“Charles?”
There was no answer.
“Damn it, Charles. Answer me.”
Nothing.
He flicked the lock out of place, not even bothering with the passcodes and stepped inside, intent on getting an answer out of Charles. The door flung open, and Charles looked up, surprised, at the sound of it hitting the wall. He was seated on his bed, holding a thin stack of papers in his hand-what looked like the coordinate printouts from Cerebro. “Erik. What are you doing here?” He didn’t need to ask how Erik got in. Metal locks meant nothing to him.
“Did you not hear me outside?” he growled, irritated. The feeling of panic had dulled into a soft hum at the back of his mind. Charles was fine. He’d gotten worked up over nothing.
“No, I admit was somewhat absorbed in this.” He gestured at the papers in his hand. Erik strode forward and sat down beside him. They were indeed the printouts from Cerebro. There were tiny marks littered across the sheets in blue ink, indicating which ones were worth looking into and which one were failures: too young, too old, uncooperative, etc.
“And just what were you doing? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Not at all. I was thinking about how to approach the Shaw problem. Obviously Shaw has mutants on his side, and we need to strategize around the abilities of his cohorts and of Shaw himself.” He turned to Erik and shot him a tired grin. “An army means nothing if we don’t know our enemy.”
Erik snorted. “You know, I was just thinking about this myself: how we can use every power we currently have at our disposal to our advantage. The problem, Charles, lies in our recruits.”
“I see nothing wrong with them.”
“They’re untrained, unruly, undisciplined. You saw them earlier.”
Charles sighed. He knew this, but he had faith that the other mutants would be a valuable asset in taking down Shaw. He just wasn’t sure how to get them motivated enough to be of any help. They hadn’t exactly earned anyone’s trust after their destructive actions tonight.
“Charles.”
“Yes?” He’d drifted off again. He needed to fix that. They were too short on time for him to be getting distracted. Erik’s face was drawn up into a concerned frown. Odd, he hadn’t picked up on the other man’s distress. Erik’s feelings were usually so loud he had trouble not noticing them. His sharp emotions were like someone yelling in his ear, and this time there hadn’t been so much as a whisper. “What is it, Erik?”
“You’re bleeding.” Erik brought a hand up to his own nose, indicating where the blood must have been coming from.
“What?” He swiped a hand under his nose, and when it came away smeared in red, he gave a soft curse. He pushed himself from the bed and stumbled toward the door, intent on grabbing some tissue from the bathroom across the way. Erik was right on his heels.
Water helped. Tissue helped. Soon enough the bleeding was under control, and Charles was wiping his dripping face with one of the towels hanging by the sink. Erik was leaned up against the counter staring at him, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to fly, Charles? We need you on this mission, but you have to be at your best. Shaw isn’t playing games.”
He scowled at Erik and crushed the crumpled towel down onto the counter. “Don’t you think I know that, Erik? I’m fine,” he hissed, shoving himself away from the sink. The collar of his shirt was dark with water that he’d missed. Charles stormed for the door. “I’ll meet you outside your room in five minutes. We can discuss this later.” The door slammed shut, leaving Erik standing alone in the bathroom with nothing but his thoughts.
“Whatever you say, Charles.”
---
“We’ve got a problem.”
Of course. There was always a problem.
Erik tried to remain calm as Agent MacTaggert blustered at them about their upcoming predicament. He could see the vague outlines of soldiers and a gate in the distance, buried deep among the trees lining the road. Stupid. The CIA should have realized that there would be road blocks in the area, it being so near to such an important secret compound, and poor planning on their part was going to be their undoing. At least there was enough metal in the guns and equipment around him that he could use as makeshift weapons if the need arose. He wasn’t going to let one woman’s stupid mistake cost him his chance of getting at Shaw. The coin in his pocket burned.
Charles leaned forward toward the flap, his fingers weakly grasping the frame of the window between the cab and the back of the truck as they tumbled down the uneven road. Erik briefly thought back to Charles hunched over the sink in the bathroom back at base, wiping thin smears of blood from his face. He hadn’t shown any signs of weakness since then, but Erik wasn’t all that familiar with Charles’s acting abilities. The white of his skin peeking out from his gloves was all too telling.
“No matter what happens, act normally. I’ll take care of this, all right?” Erik could hear the anxiety in the slight tremor threading through Charles’s voice, but he kept quiet. It wouldn’t do to burst everyone’s confidence in the telepath when their lives were on the line, especially since Charles didn‘t appear to be all that confident in his own abilities at the moment.
Charles closed the flap shut and turned to face the soldiers crowded around them, his face set in determination. “Okay, listen to me. We don’t have much time. When we come to a stop, I need you all to be silent. Not a word. I can make whoever is outside this compartment think that they’re looking at an empty truck, but I need your full cooperation.” His eyes swept over them all, and his voice lowered with gravity. “One wrong move, and we’re all as good as dead. You follow me?”
The men nodded, but Erik could feel a few of them grip their guns a little tighter. They would do as Charles said, but that didn’t mean they trusted him. They simply had run out of options.
The truck screeched to a halt. There were dogs barking outside. There were always dogs. Erik curled his hands into fists and resisted the urge to choke the wretched animals giving away their position with the collars wrapped around their throats. The soldiers were just as uneasy, the ones closest to the door already lining their guns up with the opening, just in case. Charles was just as quick to his feet as they were to their arms, ready for whatever might happen. Perhaps Erik had been imagining things.
“Woah, easy, easy. Take it easy, chaps,” Charles murmured quietly, grabbing hold of the top of the truck to steady himself. Fine job of following your own rule of staying quiet there, Charles. But Charles was concentrating too hard on the door to pay him any heed. His fingers were at his temple, and his face was drawn tight with concentration.
Erik wondered briefly if the anxiety of the men was leaking into Charles’s brain, making it that much more difficult to concentrate. The footsteps were growing louder outside; the soldiers all had their guns pointed at the door, ready for action in case Charles’s plan fell through. Erik sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Charles needed all the help he could get at this point. Their lives were in his hands.
The squeal of the lock echoed loudly in their ears, and Erik gripped the edge of his seat. He’d been here before, in this position. With the dogs and soldiers searching for him, out for blood. The coin buzzed in his pocket, singing to him like a siren. He promised himself that he’d save it for Shaw, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The doors were suddenly flung open and-
Nothing. Nothing happened.
The soldier on the ground scanned over them, his eyes going straight through the whole group as though they weren’t really there. Moira’s contemporary was speaking again, in Russian, and Erik couldn’t be bothered to translate. He was too focused on the weaponry strapped to the soldier standing just outside the van and the veins sticking out on Charles’s neck. But the doors finally closed, and they were plunged into darkness, into safety once more. The group let out a collective breath in relief. Erik patted Charles roughly on the knee in congratulations. “Nicely done, Charles.”
And if the other man’s smile was weak, Erik was too flushed with adrenaline to notice.
---
It wasn’t hard finding the base, nor did they have to wait very long for Shaw’s helicopter to arrive. It was an ugly, bulbous thing, but it seemed to do its job. Erik forced his binoculars a little harder against his face, hoping that perhaps the painful press of them against his skin might make things that much easier to zoom in on Shaw. But Shaw wasn’t there. It was only that other telepath, Emma or something, flouncing in through the gates like she owned the place, and the guards rush out to meet her. She was alone. Erik’s blood began to boil.
He pulled the binoculars from his face and squinted at the compound. “Where’s Shaw?”
“I don’t know,” Charles murmured.
What do you mean, ’you don’t know.’ Just read her thoughts and figure it out. Charles fixed him with a look. He’d gotten the message.
“She’s a telepath,” he explained, “and if I read her, she’ll know we’re here.” He turned back to the knoll that kept them hidden, to the telepath and the Soviet official who had just come out to greet her. “Let me try something else.” And he went quiet, his fingers going up to press against his temple once more. Erik wasn’t exactly sure what Charles was doing, but judging from the lines on his face, the hold of his breath, and the sweat beading up along his brow despite the cold, it was difficult. He picked up his binoculars once more.
Erik watched as the telepath was lead inside the house as a welcome guest, and he guessed that whatever Charles had done had something to do with the guard leaning in toward the entrance. Helpful little trick, that.
“He’s not coming.” And with those words, Erik’s mind was made up. He needed to get inside that house. Charles was talking quietly with Moira at his elbow.
“So what now, boss?”
“Now nothing. We’re here for Shaw. Mission aborted.”
Mission aborted. The words echoed around in his head. Mission aborted. Erik couldn’t abide by that. “The hell it is,” he growled. He moved to push himself to his feet, but Moira’s hand on his jacket pulled him back down.
“Erik.” There was danger in her voice; he wasn’t getting out of here without an explanation. He pointed toward the building around the binoculars in his hand.
“She’s his right hand woman. That’s good enough for me.” With enough of the right kind of persuasion, she would help him find Shaw.
Moira simply stares at him like he’d grown a second head. “The CIA invading the home of a senior Soviet official. Are you crazy?”
And Erik could do nothing but smile at her naivety. “I’m not CIA.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear Charles softly calling out to him, but he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. It was too late to turn back. His gateway to Shaw was in that house, and he’d be damned if Charles was going to stop him again. He’d waited for this long enough already.
---
Part one
Part three
Disclaimer: Some of the dialogue for this part is directly from the movie. If it sounds familiar, it probably is.
---
Erik did his best to conceal his confusion at the waves of relief spilling over into his consciousness from Charles as they descended the stairs leading down to the tarmac. In the short time they’d been on this mission, the other man had never shown any signs of distress over flying, and the foreign feelings leeching onto Erik’s own coupled with the way Charles gripped the railing as he carefully stepped down onto the asphalt only served to raise his suspicions. Something was wrong, made all the more worrisome by the fact that Charles was projecting unconsciously again, and whatever it was, Charles didn’t want Erik to know about it. He narrowed his eyes and strengthened his resolve to keep a closer watch on the telepath. They shouldn’t be keeping secrets from one another this late in the game.
Charles brushed off the bottom of his suit jacket and tugged at the knot of the tie, trying to loosen the fabric a bit. He wavered a little on his feet, like he was having trouble staying upright. Erik stepped up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Charles start a bit underneath his palm. “Easy, Charles.”
“Erik,” Charles panted, his face now drawn into a frown. “Please don’t do that. You startled me.”
Erik could see sweat beading along Charles’s hairline, and his frown deepened. It hadn’t been terribly warm in the plane, nor was it uncomfortable out here on the tarmac, and the man’s face wasn’t flushed, so it was unlikely to be a fever. He fought the urge to press his palm against Charles’s forehead to be sure. He couldn’t deal with the telepath getting taken down by a full blown illness right now. Another headache, perhaps, which quite possibly meant another long, sleepless night listening to Charles retching in the bathroom down the hall.
“Are you feeling all right, Charles?”
He shrugged out of Erik’s hold. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” he murmured, giving the shorter man another quick inspection. “Are you sure? Did the food not sit well with you? I thought the appetizers were a bit much, but-”
“I’m fine, Erik. The flight was fine, the food was good, and everything is well.”
“But you were rather ill last night. I’m only worried for your health.”
The tension running through Charles’s shoulders told Erik that his friend was going to be defensive about this, and it wasn’t worth fighting at this point, so he let the point drop. Perhaps he’d confront him later when they were back at base. He looked up to see Agent MacTaggart walking briskly toward them, the sound of her heels clicking lightly against the pavement reaching them over the exclamations of loved ones greeting the other passengers as they left the plane. “And there’s our babysitter. Right on time.”
“Oh come now, Erik. Moira is-”
“Being paid to watch over us to ensure we don’t slip up.”
“-our ally,” Charles stressed. She’s taken on a big risk in supporting our cause like this.
Erik snorted but didn’t bother arguing. There was little point to it. It wasn’t that he disliked the agent. No, she was attractive and certainly friendly enough, but Erik couldn’t bring himself to trust her, not in the way he did Charles. Where Charles was open, the agent seemed hidden; where Charles was warm, the agent cold. It was expected for a person in her position, especially for a woman in a world dominated by men, but that didn’t make it any easier to trust that her intentions were good.
“So you were unable to find him.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, we were able to figure out his location,” Charles responded, shooting Erik a look that he hoped might keep him in check, like he was some sort of dog that needed to be trained. “However, I think he managed to pick up on our presence somehow before we could get the chance to approach him, though I can’t for the life of me figure out how.”
Perhaps it was your projecting, Erik couldn’t help thinking, part of him wondering if Charles was even going to bother picking up on it. Charles hadn’t exactly been in complete control last night, what with him hunched up over the toilet all hours. It was entirely plausible that the mutant they’d been after had picked up on Charles through his projected thoughts and emotions and had simply fled, not wanting to risk detection by the United States government. It wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest to find mutants who didn’t want to join their cause. Not when they were likely to be used as lab rats, in any instance.
Charles shot him a quick glare, showing him that yes, he had heard that, and yes, they were going to talk about it later, before Moira stole away his attention. “We can’t get them all, I suppose.” She looked up at the both of them, and her voice smoothed as her tone took on a more business-like manner. “Do you have another target set up?”
“Not yet,” Erik replied, beating Charles to the punch. “We plan on going over the coordinates we already have and finding reasonable candidates to try out from there. Hank should still have the printouts from the last set of run-throughs with Cerebro. Little should have changed from then.”
“I have to disagree, Erik. I’m fairly sure that in the time that we’ve been away from base there has been some movement of the mutants we were able to identify. I think it would be best if I gave Cerebro another try before we get too far ahead of ourselves.”
I think you’re being ridiculous, Charles. You don’t need to feed into their experiments like a dog.
You have it all wrong, my friend.
Do I?
They’re not experimenting on me by letting me use Cerebro, and they’ve been kind enough to let us use their facilities. We should be grateful.
I find it difficult to be grateful to people I can’t trust. How can you not question the fact that somehow they magically had this machine set up for a man of your unique abilities before they could agree that we actually existed and not think they’re experimenting on us? Your naivety is astounding sometimes.
Charles ignored him, turning all of his attention to Moira. “We were hoping to stick a little closer to home this time around.”
She gave a quick nod before her face split into a grin, all thoughts of finding and recruiting mutants lost for the moment. There was no indication that she’d suspected them talking to each other telepathically. Erik was getting better at concealing his emotions at Charles’s voice in his head. “It’s good to see you two again. Things were getting quiet without you around.”
Charles grinned. “I highly doubt that. Things are rarely quiet when Raven is around.”
The agent’s smile widened. She turned around and gestured for the two of them to follow. “Come on. I have a car waiting.”
“Don’t think we’re done, Charles.” He didn’t bother lowering his voice or sending the words out in thought. The telepath couldn’t ignore him this way. “You still owe me some answers.”
“And I’ll give them to you. All in good time.” His hand lifted to his head to rub gently at his temple, his face drawn tight to hide his subtle wince of pain, and Erik’s face darkened. Charles had never been a very good liar.
---
It was odd being back at the facility after jumping about from place to place for so long. He was too used to moving around. Staying in any one place for too long gave people the opportunity to find your location. It was one of the stupidest, most amateur moves in the book, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Charles and his sway with the American government were the key to finding out Shaw’s location. He needed them, no matter how slowly they worked, and on top of that, as loath as he was to admit it, he’d grown rather fond of Charles in the short time they’d known each other. Things would be made a lot easier, however, if the man would stop keeping secrets.
Erik stared hard at the ceiling and tried to make sense of the patterns of the shadows dancing across the smooth white walls. This was pointless. What they were doing meant nothing unless they were helping in the mutant tagging process that the CIA was certainly after, now that they knew people like Charles, people like Raven, people like him, existed. His mouth twisted into a scowl. Identification was always where it started. Erik knew exactly where this would end if they let it go on too long.
Four mutants. That was all they’d been able to recover in all this time, bringing their official total up to seven if he counted himself, the professor, and Hank, as useless as his mutation seemed to be. Some of the others, though, they could be useful. If identification was the goal, the CIA could simply steal the printouts from Cerebro. But he had the feeling that they were just as invested in getting rid of Shaw as he was, what with the threat of nuclear war he was dangling over their heads. The mutants were going to help them save the United States from disaster, he supposed, but they were kidding themselves if they thought this misfit group was ready to handle anything. The kids had already proven themselves unfit earlier tonight. But with practice, training and discipline, perhaps something could be made out of them.
The Negro cabbie, Armando or Darwin or something, was able to survive most anything anyone threw at him. Like a cockroach, he thought. How fitting. But that could have its uses. Particularly against a man like Shaw. No matter how hard of a hit Shaw tried to land, Armando could take it. Perhaps using him as a distraction might give Erik enough time to run the coin right between Shaw’s eyes.
The stripper and the redhead were fairly useless. The girl’s wings would have come in handy if not for the fact that one of Shaw’s men controlled the wind. He seriously doubted that her flimsy wings could be any competition with even the smallest windstorm he decided to cook up. And the boy, Sean, he could scream at supersonic levels. Maybe he’d be useful as a foot soldier, but unless Charles had something spectacular hidden up his sleeve for the kid, he was fairly useless.
Raven, however, was by far the best-her ability to mimic anyone both in voice and body was exceptional, and would trick anyone under Shaw’s grasp outside of the telepath. If Charles could somehow incapacitate that damn woman in white then Raven and Armando could keep Shaw busy while Erik dealt the final blow. They could wrap this up quickly and with little bloodshed, just the way Charles liked things. They just needed training, discipline. The CIA would never take them seriously if these kids were allowed to run free.
He shot up on his bed, his mind made up. They needed to plan this whole thing out, figure out their next move. He needed to talk to Charles.
He pressed in the little metal buttons used to lock his door in the pattern of code he’d been taught from across the room as he shrugged on one of his jackets. It wasn’t cold inside the facility, but the extra clothing made him feel a little more secure. The locked clicked into place, and he was free. He stepped out into the hallway. Charles’s room was just a little ways down.
They left for the Soviet Union in little over a half hour. Not enough time to do anything. Why not discuss how they were going to tackle the Shaw dilemma with Charles before they had to head out? He stopped in front of the telepath’s door, his hand raised to knock, when a strange feeling overtook him, almost like panic. The emotion wasn’t his own. He rapped harshly on the door.
“Charles?”
There was no answer.
“Damn it, Charles. Answer me.”
Nothing.
He flicked the lock out of place, not even bothering with the passcodes and stepped inside, intent on getting an answer out of Charles. The door flung open, and Charles looked up, surprised, at the sound of it hitting the wall. He was seated on his bed, holding a thin stack of papers in his hand-what looked like the coordinate printouts from Cerebro. “Erik. What are you doing here?” He didn’t need to ask how Erik got in. Metal locks meant nothing to him.
“Did you not hear me outside?” he growled, irritated. The feeling of panic had dulled into a soft hum at the back of his mind. Charles was fine. He’d gotten worked up over nothing.
“No, I admit was somewhat absorbed in this.” He gestured at the papers in his hand. Erik strode forward and sat down beside him. They were indeed the printouts from Cerebro. There were tiny marks littered across the sheets in blue ink, indicating which ones were worth looking into and which one were failures: too young, too old, uncooperative, etc.
“And just what were you doing? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Not at all. I was thinking about how to approach the Shaw problem. Obviously Shaw has mutants on his side, and we need to strategize around the abilities of his cohorts and of Shaw himself.” He turned to Erik and shot him a tired grin. “An army means nothing if we don’t know our enemy.”
Erik snorted. “You know, I was just thinking about this myself: how we can use every power we currently have at our disposal to our advantage. The problem, Charles, lies in our recruits.”
“I see nothing wrong with them.”
“They’re untrained, unruly, undisciplined. You saw them earlier.”
Charles sighed. He knew this, but he had faith that the other mutants would be a valuable asset in taking down Shaw. He just wasn’t sure how to get them motivated enough to be of any help. They hadn’t exactly earned anyone’s trust after their destructive actions tonight.
“Charles.”
“Yes?” He’d drifted off again. He needed to fix that. They were too short on time for him to be getting distracted. Erik’s face was drawn up into a concerned frown. Odd, he hadn’t picked up on the other man’s distress. Erik’s feelings were usually so loud he had trouble not noticing them. His sharp emotions were like someone yelling in his ear, and this time there hadn’t been so much as a whisper. “What is it, Erik?”
“You’re bleeding.” Erik brought a hand up to his own nose, indicating where the blood must have been coming from.
“What?” He swiped a hand under his nose, and when it came away smeared in red, he gave a soft curse. He pushed himself from the bed and stumbled toward the door, intent on grabbing some tissue from the bathroom across the way. Erik was right on his heels.
Water helped. Tissue helped. Soon enough the bleeding was under control, and Charles was wiping his dripping face with one of the towels hanging by the sink. Erik was leaned up against the counter staring at him, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to fly, Charles? We need you on this mission, but you have to be at your best. Shaw isn’t playing games.”
He scowled at Erik and crushed the crumpled towel down onto the counter. “Don’t you think I know that, Erik? I’m fine,” he hissed, shoving himself away from the sink. The collar of his shirt was dark with water that he’d missed. Charles stormed for the door. “I’ll meet you outside your room in five minutes. We can discuss this later.” The door slammed shut, leaving Erik standing alone in the bathroom with nothing but his thoughts.
“Whatever you say, Charles.”
---
“We’ve got a problem.”
Of course. There was always a problem.
Erik tried to remain calm as Agent MacTaggert blustered at them about their upcoming predicament. He could see the vague outlines of soldiers and a gate in the distance, buried deep among the trees lining the road. Stupid. The CIA should have realized that there would be road blocks in the area, it being so near to such an important secret compound, and poor planning on their part was going to be their undoing. At least there was enough metal in the guns and equipment around him that he could use as makeshift weapons if the need arose. He wasn’t going to let one woman’s stupid mistake cost him his chance of getting at Shaw. The coin in his pocket burned.
Charles leaned forward toward the flap, his fingers weakly grasping the frame of the window between the cab and the back of the truck as they tumbled down the uneven road. Erik briefly thought back to Charles hunched over the sink in the bathroom back at base, wiping thin smears of blood from his face. He hadn’t shown any signs of weakness since then, but Erik wasn’t all that familiar with Charles’s acting abilities. The white of his skin peeking out from his gloves was all too telling.
“No matter what happens, act normally. I’ll take care of this, all right?” Erik could hear the anxiety in the slight tremor threading through Charles’s voice, but he kept quiet. It wouldn’t do to burst everyone’s confidence in the telepath when their lives were on the line, especially since Charles didn‘t appear to be all that confident in his own abilities at the moment.
Charles closed the flap shut and turned to face the soldiers crowded around them, his face set in determination. “Okay, listen to me. We don’t have much time. When we come to a stop, I need you all to be silent. Not a word. I can make whoever is outside this compartment think that they’re looking at an empty truck, but I need your full cooperation.” His eyes swept over them all, and his voice lowered with gravity. “One wrong move, and we’re all as good as dead. You follow me?”
The men nodded, but Erik could feel a few of them grip their guns a little tighter. They would do as Charles said, but that didn’t mean they trusted him. They simply had run out of options.
The truck screeched to a halt. There were dogs barking outside. There were always dogs. Erik curled his hands into fists and resisted the urge to choke the wretched animals giving away their position with the collars wrapped around their throats. The soldiers were just as uneasy, the ones closest to the door already lining their guns up with the opening, just in case. Charles was just as quick to his feet as they were to their arms, ready for whatever might happen. Perhaps Erik had been imagining things.
“Woah, easy, easy. Take it easy, chaps,” Charles murmured quietly, grabbing hold of the top of the truck to steady himself. Fine job of following your own rule of staying quiet there, Charles. But Charles was concentrating too hard on the door to pay him any heed. His fingers were at his temple, and his face was drawn tight with concentration.
Erik wondered briefly if the anxiety of the men was leaking into Charles’s brain, making it that much more difficult to concentrate. The footsteps were growing louder outside; the soldiers all had their guns pointed at the door, ready for action in case Charles’s plan fell through. Erik sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Charles needed all the help he could get at this point. Their lives were in his hands.
The squeal of the lock echoed loudly in their ears, and Erik gripped the edge of his seat. He’d been here before, in this position. With the dogs and soldiers searching for him, out for blood. The coin buzzed in his pocket, singing to him like a siren. He promised himself that he’d save it for Shaw, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The doors were suddenly flung open and-
Nothing. Nothing happened.
The soldier on the ground scanned over them, his eyes going straight through the whole group as though they weren’t really there. Moira’s contemporary was speaking again, in Russian, and Erik couldn’t be bothered to translate. He was too focused on the weaponry strapped to the soldier standing just outside the van and the veins sticking out on Charles’s neck. But the doors finally closed, and they were plunged into darkness, into safety once more. The group let out a collective breath in relief. Erik patted Charles roughly on the knee in congratulations. “Nicely done, Charles.”
And if the other man’s smile was weak, Erik was too flushed with adrenaline to notice.
---
It wasn’t hard finding the base, nor did they have to wait very long for Shaw’s helicopter to arrive. It was an ugly, bulbous thing, but it seemed to do its job. Erik forced his binoculars a little harder against his face, hoping that perhaps the painful press of them against his skin might make things that much easier to zoom in on Shaw. But Shaw wasn’t there. It was only that other telepath, Emma or something, flouncing in through the gates like she owned the place, and the guards rush out to meet her. She was alone. Erik’s blood began to boil.
He pulled the binoculars from his face and squinted at the compound. “Where’s Shaw?”
“I don’t know,” Charles murmured.
What do you mean, ’you don’t know.’ Just read her thoughts and figure it out. Charles fixed him with a look. He’d gotten the message.
“She’s a telepath,” he explained, “and if I read her, she’ll know we’re here.” He turned back to the knoll that kept them hidden, to the telepath and the Soviet official who had just come out to greet her. “Let me try something else.” And he went quiet, his fingers going up to press against his temple once more. Erik wasn’t exactly sure what Charles was doing, but judging from the lines on his face, the hold of his breath, and the sweat beading up along his brow despite the cold, it was difficult. He picked up his binoculars once more.
Erik watched as the telepath was lead inside the house as a welcome guest, and he guessed that whatever Charles had done had something to do with the guard leaning in toward the entrance. Helpful little trick, that.
“He’s not coming.” And with those words, Erik’s mind was made up. He needed to get inside that house. Charles was talking quietly with Moira at his elbow.
“So what now, boss?”
“Now nothing. We’re here for Shaw. Mission aborted.”
Mission aborted. The words echoed around in his head. Mission aborted. Erik couldn’t abide by that. “The hell it is,” he growled. He moved to push himself to his feet, but Moira’s hand on his jacket pulled him back down.
“Erik.” There was danger in her voice; he wasn’t getting out of here without an explanation. He pointed toward the building around the binoculars in his hand.
“She’s his right hand woman. That’s good enough for me.” With enough of the right kind of persuasion, she would help him find Shaw.
Moira simply stares at him like he’d grown a second head. “The CIA invading the home of a senior Soviet official. Are you crazy?”
And Erik could do nothing but smile at her naivety. “I’m not CIA.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear Charles softly calling out to him, but he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. It was too late to turn back. His gateway to Shaw was in that house, and he’d be damned if Charles was going to stop him again. He’d waited for this long enough already.
---
Part one
Part three