Chapter Text
Erik
Erik is looking over the mess of the foyer when Wanda finds him. Most of the group has retreated to other areas of the house, aside from Hank, who is poking around at the other side of the room near the stairs.
She hovers at the edge of the destroyed wall that leads towards the east wing, watching him, and waiting to be noticed.
Erik finishes his inspection of the beam that runs across the left side of the foyer—stable, for now—before he turns to her. “Hello.”
“Hi,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. She looks out at the mess. “What happened?”
“Apocalypse.”
Wanda just nods.
“He did this when he kidnapped Charles,” Erik adds, feeling the need to fill the silence.
She hums in response. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more help,” she says, after a moment.
“You did fine,” he says.
“They took your kids after I said I’d take care of them.”
He notices the clear distinction between herself and ‘his kids.’ Hard not to, when she’s making it with all the subtlety of a brick wall to the face. “I’m sure you didn’t just let them go,” he says.
She shakes her head, but doesn’t meet his eyes.
“It’s alright,” he says. Because it is, mostly. Lorna and David are okay.
Mostly.
He’s still not sure what Charles had meant when he said Apocalypse was inside David’s head, but David had seemed fine last night and this morning. He certainly hadn’t been acting like he was sharing headspace with an insane megalomaniac, at any rate. Maybe Charles is wrong about it. Charles isn’t exactly operating at hundred percent after everything.
“I tried to tell you,” she says. “My powers aren’t useful. Things usually wind up worse when I try to do something. You should have just taken Peter.”
Erik’s not sure what to tell her. If she were a student, talking about herself like that, he’d send her to Charles. He’s good at talking to the children when they’re down on themselves and what they can do. But Wanda’s not a child.
“Anyway,” Wanda goes on, before Erik can think of something to say. “Peter and I need to get home. Is there someone who can drive us to the train station?”
Erik’s first instinct is to turn and look over at Hank. But Hank ignores Erik entirely and hefts another few boards in his arms, unearthing what used to be the table in the center of the room. Then he turns, spots Erik and Wanda both looking at him, and asks, “What?”
“When is the next train to DC?” Erik asks.
Hank frowns. “I don’t have the timetable memorized,” he says. “Why? Are you taking Wanda and Peter home?”
Instead of saying what he wants to, which is that he was hoping Hank would offer to take them, Erik says, “Yes.”
“The phone in my office is still working,” Hank says. “We can call and find out when the next train is.”
---
Erik finds Charles and the kids in the den when he goes looking for them. Lorna looks like she’s sleeping, laid out on the couch with her head pillowed on Charles’ thigh. David’s curled up on his other side, face hidden behind a comic book.
The television is tuned to the news and turned down low. It takes Erik a minute to realize it’s news about Cairo—a reporter is standing in front of a military barrier, the pyramid visible in the distance—and that Charles is staring at it rather fixedly.
He uses his powers to flick the television off.
“I was watching that,” Charles says.
“You don’t need to worry about it,” Erik tells him. Charles merely raises an eyebrow. “No one knows we were there."
“Are you sure about that?"
“Yes,” Erik says, firmly.
“Hmm,” is all Charles says. He's running the fingers of one hand through Lorna’s hair. Somehow half of it is still dyed black, even though Erik’s certain that the dye he got her was supposed to wash out.
“Is she asleep?” Erik asks.
“No,” Lorna says. She shifts, then sits up slowly. When she turns back to Charles she says, “My headache is mostly gone now."
“What about you?” Charles asks, reaching over to brush his hand over David’s hair.
“I’m fine,” David says, not looking up from his comic book.
Erik shares a look with Charles, not sure he believes that after whatever David did yesterday. But he says, “Are you all hungry? Hank is helping Raven with lunch.”
“Starving,” Lorna says, hopping off the couch. “What are they fixing?”
“No idea,” Erik says.
She heads towards the door, but Erik stops her. “Take David with you.”
Lorna sighs, but goes back for her brother, snatching the comic book out of his hands. “Come on.”
“Give it back!” David yells, lunging at her.
Lorna holds the comic over his head. “Papa said it’s lunchtime.”
“No he didn’t.”
“Well, it is.”
“Please don’t,” Charles says. “It was so peaceful.”
“Papa said—” Lorna starts.
“Give him back his comic,” Charles tells her.
Lorna rolls her eyes, but hands the book back. David holds it carefully, smoothing the cover out.
Erik leans over the back of the couch. “Go help Hank with lunch,” he tells them both.
“See,” Lorna says, pointedly.
This time Charles rolls his eyes.
Once the kids are gone, Erik sits down on the couch next to Charles. “I have to take Wanda and Peter to the train station,” he says.
“They’re leaving already?” Charles asks.
Erik shrugs. “Wanda wants to,” he says.
“Have you talked to her at all?”
“I’ve been working on the foyer with Hank.”
“So no,” Charles says.
Erik frowns at him. Charles merely raises an eyebrow back at him. “She doesn’t want to talk,” he says.
“And Peter?”
Erik shrugs. Peter and Wanda are nothing alike, despite being twins. They don’t look alike, they don’t act alike. Erik wouldn’t know they were siblings if not for having been told about it. And while he can see the family resemblance in Wanda, he can’t in Peter. Yet it’s Peter who keeps calling him nicknames and acting like they’ve known each other for years. Like they have a relationship already.
Charles nudges him with an elbow. “You’re thinking very loudly.”
Tell me what to do about it then, Erik thinks.
“I’m not sure the decision is entirely yours to make,” Charles says. “I think you’ll have to let them decide what they want, at this point. They’re, what? How old are they anyway?"
“Twenty-nine,” Erik says.
“When did either of us get old enough for kids that age?” Charles asks.
That almost makes Erik smile. “To be fair, I was very young."
“Yes, and now you’re very old."
Erik looks over, and Charles is smirking at him. “You’re only two years younger."
Charles just shrugs, still smiling slightly.
“I don’t even know what to say to them,” Erik says. “Peter keeps calling me ‘Pops’ and Wanda just looks at me like I’m… I don’t even know.” He runs his hands through his hair. After a couple seconds, he feels Charles lay a hand on his back and rub gently between his hunched shoulders.
“I really do think you’re going to have let them lead on this, and just go along with it. If Peter wants a relationship with you and Wanda doesn’t, then that might be the way it is. And there’s no telling how much of a relationship he actually wants. They’re adults, they can make their own decision.”
Erik grits his teeth. “You know how much I hate letting other people make decisions.”
“Oh yes, I do.” Charles grins. He pats Erik on the back. “Sadly I think you don’t have a choice on this one.”
---
An hour later, Wanda is ready to go, but Peter is dragging his feet, grumbling about it.
Erik watches from the sidelines as everyone says their goodbyes.
“It was nice to meet you all,” Wanda tells Charles, Hank, Raven, and the kids. “Despite the circumstances.”
“Yes, it was,” Charles tells her, reaching out to shake her hand. It’s all horribly formal.
Peter gives Charles a salute. “I don’t think there’s an official name for your estranged father’s gay boyfriend, but it was cool to rescue you from insane kidnappers. Call me for the next family prison break.”
Charles has his lips pressed into a thin line, but they’re curling up at the edges. “Always a pleasure, Peter.”
Peter gives another salute to Lorna and David in turn. “Sis, Little Bro.”
David runs at him and hugs him around the waist. “Are you gonna come back?”
“Sure dude,” Peter says, patting David on the back. “And you can call me too, ‘kay?”
David nods. “Okay.”
Wanda pokes Peter in the shoulder. “We’re going to be late.”
“I’m never late,” Peter argues, but he disentangles himself from David and follows her out the door on his crutches, waving back at them one last time.
The car ride to the train station is mostly silent, once Peter finds a radio station he likes. Then out of the blue he asks, “What do you call your estranged father’s gay boyfriend?”
Erik turns to glare at him.
“It’s a valid question,” Peter says.
“You don’t have to qualify ‘boyfriend’ with gay everytime you say it.”
Peter grins.
“Also I don’t think anyone has ever referred to Charles as my boyfriend before.”
“What else would you call him?”
“Partner,” Erik says.
Peter nods at that. “Partner, okay.” His unbroken foot is tapping against the floor at a rapid pace, his knee blurring. “It’s okay if I call the sibs, right? ‘Cos I kind of just told them it was and you didn’t say anything, but like if not…”
“It’s fine,” Erik says. He glances in the rearview mirror but Wanda is staring out the window, ignoring them both.
He realizes he’s gripping the steering wheel too tightly, and forces himself to relax. He thinks back to the conversation earlier with Charles. Let them set the pace. Wanda’s silence makes her feelings loud and clear, but Peter…
“You’re welcome to come visit sometime, if you’d like,” Erik says.
“Really?” Peter asks, his head jerking around to look at Erik too quickly.
Erik nods.
Peter smiles at him. “Rad,” he says.
---
Charles
That night, Charles sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the mirror over the dresser. There’s a mirror on the back of the closet door as well and from this angle they reflect off each other. Charles normally uses it to check that his hair is lying straight in the back and not curling at an odd angle. But right now, all he can see is that there are multiple reflections, repeating infinitely.
“What’s wrong?” Erik asks, stepping in front of the dresser. Charles blinks hard, eyes watering a bit, and realizes he’d been staring.
Charles bites at his lip, then asks, hesitating a moment, “Can you cover the mirror?"
“What?"
“Just… I don’t know, cover it up. Or turn it around."
“What’s wrong with the mirror?"
“I don’t want to look at it."
Erik gives him that odd, worried look he’s been giving him ever since the plane ride back, but goes to get a sheet to cover the mirror with, doing the same to the one on the closet door and even the one in the bathroom, after Charles asks him to. Then he stands in the middle of the room, looking at the covered mirrors with his arms crossed and a distinctly uncomfortable expression.
“What?” Charles asks defensively, preparing himself for Erik to push for an answer to his earlier question.
Instead Erik shakes his head. “It looks like we’re sitting shiva,” he says.
Charles isn’t sure what to say to that. He supposes that it does, but having them covered has helped ease some of the nervous tension he’s been feeling all day, so he’s not going to undo it.
Erik doesn’t say anything else about it until they’re lying in bed later. “What happened with mirrors?” he asks.
“I’m just sick of them,” Charles says.
Erik props himself up on an elbow, looking down at Charles, and says, “Talking about it tends to help."
“That’s a bit rich, coming from you.” Charles feels bad as soon as he’s said it, as Erik’s expression hardens.
Erik drops back down, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. “Fine then."
“Erik,” Charles says, “I didn’t…” There’s a long pause, before he sighs deeply. “The room I was locked in was covered in mirrors. I’m sick of looking at mysel— at them."
Erik doesn’t say anything else, just pulls him close.
---
The next day Charles looks at a calendar and says, “I missed David’s birthday."
He must look as upset as he feels about it, because Erik hurries to tell him, “Actually, we didn’t do his birthday yet."
“What?"
“Things were kind of crazy, no one was in the mood for a party."
But that just makes Charles feel worse. “Did you at least have a cake?” he asks David.
David nods. “Lorna got me a chocolate one.”
“Do you want another cake?” Charles asks, though he already knows the answer. What child turns down cake?
“Sure,” David says. “Can it be chocolate again?”
“Of course.”
Erik doesn’t protest when Charles sends him out to get a cake and a present, and Charles realizes his mistake in not giving more specific instructions when Erik returns with an extravagant two-tiered cake and the new Nintendo video game that the kids have been begging for.
Lorna’s eyes are wide when she spots Erik setting up the game in the den. “He has to share that, right?”
“I’m sure if you ask nicely he’ll share,” Charles says.
“That is so not fair. He doesn’t even know how to play it!”
“Neither do you!” David argues. “It’s new!”
“It’s a present for everybody,” Erik says, using his this is the last word voice.
The Nintendo serves as a good distraction for the rest of the day, with the kids all arguing over who’s turn it is to play.
“I can’t believe he bought that,” Charles mutters to Hank, watching from the back of the room. Erik has decided it’s his turn, and is halfway into a rant about the accuracy of the gun controller that came with the duck hunting game. Lorna is trying to tell him to just hold the gun closer to the TV. (“Like, press it against the screen,” she tells him. “I know how to aim a gun!” Erik insists.)
“Good luck getting him to do anything else until he beats the entire game,” Hank says, patting him on the shoulder.
Charles tries not to groan too loudly.
---
The next afternoon, Charles is sitting by the fountain on the front lawn, surveying the rubble that’s left of the foyer, front hall, and surrounding rooms. His study is one of those rooms, and just thinking about the destroyed paperwork and books is making him anxious. A lot of it is stuff he can manage without, but irreplaceable all the same.
“I think we can rebuild it ourselves,” Erik shouts over at him, from his position in the middle of the ruined foyer. “It looks like it’s all cosmetic."
“Don’t listen to him,” Hank shouts. “There’s at least two load-bearing walls that are half gone.” He picks his way back out of the rubble, heading towards Charles. “We’re lucky the whole thing hasn’t collapsed on top of us."
Erik’s hot on his heels. “If it were going to collapse it would have done it already. It’s been like this for over a week."
“We need to get some temporary walls up before we start clearing debris,” Hank says, gesturing at the house.
“No, we don’t,” Erik argues.
“The second floor is completely unsupported on the left side. The library is up there."
“The library is fine."
“Maybe,” Charles interrupts, “we should hire a contractor."
Erik waves a hand to dismiss this idea. “That’s a waste of money when we can do it ourselves."
Charles looks back and forth between them, and Hank finally relents. “If we get the temporary walls up—which yes, Erik, we need—then maybe we can do the work ourselves,” he says.
“Temporary walls first then,” Charles says, before Erik can keep arguing. “Now does anyone want to tell me why my Mustang is upside down in the middle of the lawn?"
They all turn to look, and indeed Charles’ ’73 Mustang convertible is lying crumpled halfway across the lawn, clearly ruined.
“I thought you didn’t like that one,” Erik says.
---
Once Erik and Hank get the temporary walls up—which takes awhile since they keep arguing about who should be holding things in place and who should be actually using the power tools—they enlist everyone's help in clearing the rubble. Jean is able to do quite a bit of it, levitating the wood and bricks that Erik can't lift with his powers, and the others set to sorting out what's salvageable.
It’s unseasonably warm outside, so Charles is sitting in the grass with piles of debris from the study surrounding him, attempting to sort through it. He’s trying to decide if he really needs to keep a couple pages of a lesson plan when Erik walks up and deposits David down in front of him.
“Here, you can help Dad sort through all of this stuff,” Erik tells David.
“I was helping you,” David protests.
“It’s too dangerous,” Erik says, sounding like it’s not the first time he’s said it.
“Here,” Charles says, sensing that David needs to be occupied with something else quickly. He shoves some of the papers towards him. “You can help me look for the important stuff.”
David crosses his arms, clearly not buying the attempt to keep him from the ‘fun’.
“I want to help with the house,” he says. Erik’s already headed back across the lawn, and David hurries after him, ignoring Charles calling his name.
When he gets closer to the ruined front of the house, David stops, closing his eyes and raising one hand in front of him, making a slow, sweeping gesture. As he does, the front of the house seems to… melt, for lack of a better word, turning to what almost looks like sand, before flowing back into its old shape. It only takes a minute, and instead of rubble the front of the house looks exactly as it had before Apocalypse had destroyed it. Better, actually. There’s less age on the stones, and the ivy isn’t overgrown.
Erik is frozen, staring, but finally turns slowly to look at David. “Did you…” he trails off, as though unsure how to articulate what David had just done.
“I told you I could help!”
Charles pulls himself back up into his chair and heads towards them, arriving at the same time Hank does.
“Did he just rebuild the entire front of the house with a wave of his hand?” Hank asks.
“Looks that way,” Erik mutters.
Charles studies the new front steps. They look more even than they were and somehow David’s managed to make the ramp look like it was always a part of the house, instead of a late addition. “Apocalypse did something like that,” Charles says softly, thinking about the way David had seemed to turn the materials into sand and then reshape them. It was the same thing Apocalypse had done to turn the buildings of downtown Cairo into a giant pyramid.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Erik demands.
Raven chooses that moment to appear in the doorway, looking around in surprise. “Am I imagining things or was this still a pile of rubble five minutes ago?”
“I fixed it,” David shouts, smiling.
Raven stares at him in surprise. “How?”
David shrugs. “I just… did.”
“Is that his power?” Raven asks.
“It’s… part of it, I think,” Charles says.
“Well, that’s awesome. You turned seven and got your powers.” Raven’s smiling at David now, and he grins back up at her. “Way to go kid!” He laughs as she offers him a high five.
“Part of his powers?” Hank asks.
Charles shakes his head a bit. “I’ll explain later.” As best he can, anyway. He’s not sure he entirely understands what David’s just done either.
---
Charles’ study looks the same as it did before, down to the unfinished game of chess on the table. He’s going through the papers on the desk when Erik comes in, closes the door, and says, “What the fuck was that?”
Charles sets the papers down. He looks around the room again—perfect, it’s perfect—and finally says, “Apocalypse is locked up inside David’s head. In his… his psyche.”
“You said that before, but—”
“I mean it literally. His mindscape was like walking through a replica of the mansion, so I helped him to lock Apocalypse in the bunker in the basement.”
“So Apocalypse isn’t dead?”
“I… don’t know,” Charles admits.
“How can you not know?”
“Because I don’t know what it means that he’s locked in David’s head! I’ve never seen anything like it.” Charles runs a hand through his hair, and blows out a frustrated breath. “I thought he was just empathetic, but this is something else…”
“So how do we get him out?”
“I… I don’t think we can,” Charles says.
“Of course we can. You can go in his head and get him out and then we’ll actually kill the bastard and—”
“Where’s his body, Erik?”
Erik’s been pacing, but he stops at that, turning to look at Charles.
“He was dead,” Erik says. “There were just bones. We left him there because he was dead.”
“So there’s no body for him to go back to,” Charles says. “Except for David’s, which he’s already inside of.”
“He’s possessing him?”
“He could,” Charles says. Then, “Maybe. I don’t know. I told you, I don’t know what David did. And neither does he.”
“What if he does it again?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if he… locks someone else up inside his head?”
“Multiple…” Charles shakes his head. “I don’t think that bears thinking about.”
“But he could?”
Charles is thinking about it now. How many people could David potentially absorb into his psyche the way he did Apocalypse? How many could he lock away? How many before he couldn’t control them, before his own personality, his own sense of self, was overrun by them?
It really doesn’t bear thinking about.
---
David has a nightmare that night. Charles is woken up by him climbing over Erik and burrowing into the space between them, and lifts his head, squinting against the darkness in the room. “What’s wrong?” he mumbles, fighting to wake up fully.
“Papa said I can sleep in here,” David says, instead of answering the question.
Charles smoothes a hand over David’s hair, and asks, “Did you have a nightmare?”
“I thought Apocalypse got out,” David says.
Charles feels fully awake suddenly, the name alone chasing away any lingering drowsiness. “What do you mean?”
“He was asking to come out.”
“Asking… He talked to you?” Charles asks, feeling his stomach clench. He meets Erik’s gaze; he’s watching them, eyes narrowed.
David shrugs.
“He can’t talk to you, sweetheart. We locked him away, remember.”
“But—”
“That bunker is soundproof,” he says. “Remember, I told you a nuclear bomb can’t get through it.” While the bomb part is true, the rest he’s making up as he goes. He has no idea how having Apocalypse locked inside David’s head actually works, which is terrifying. It clearly grants David access to Apocalypse’s powers, but at what cost? Apocalypse existing as some kind of parasite in his mind? A voice in his head forever? A presence waiting to possess him?
“David, you locked him away and he can never get out. Never. He can’t leave that room and he can’t talk to you from inside it. And you can’t open the door either, it’s shut forever. Alright?”
David looks up at him, eyes wide.
“Promise me you’ll never open it,” Charles says.
“Promise,” David says.
Charles smoothes his hand over David’s hair again. “Good, that’s good.” He tries to relax. “It was just a nightmare. Go back to sleep.”
David settles and drops off to sleep before long, but Charles is too unsettled to fall back asleep, and it appears Erik is as well. He reaches out, over David’s head, to brush his fingers against Charles’ cheek.
“Do you think just telling him to keep him locked up inside is going to be enough?” Erik asks, his voice low.
“I don’t know,” Charles admits. It’s going to have to be.
Erik doesn’t reply, and silence settles over them again.
Charles still can’t sleep. He stares up at the ceiling, his mind turning circles over everything that’s happened recently. There’s plenty to ruminate over. David is pressed against his side like a space heater, the same as he was the night before. It strikes Charles that under normal circumstances Erik would be sending David back to his own bed, or at least complaining about letting him stay, but tonight David had gone to him first instead of Charles.
Nothing is back to normal yet.
The next morning David wakes with the sun, and his first order of business is to beg Erik to help him with something on the next level of the Nintendo game.
“I can’t get past the fireballs,” David says.
“Lorna didn’t figure it out?” Erik asks.
“She won’t help me.”
Erik frowns, but says, “Alright, but after breakfast.”
David is on his feet, trying to drag Erik up with him, and Erik shoos him toward the door. “After everyone eats breakfast. Go on.”
Charles sits propped against the headboard, watching them, then after the door closes behind David he watches Erik move around the room, getting dressed.
“You’re thinking very hard,” Erik says, his head inside the closet.
“You can’t tell what I’m thinking,” Charles says.
Erik turns around. He’s got jeans on, but hasn’t found a shirt or belt yet. They’re slung low on his hips. He walks across the room and leans over to press his finger to Charles’ brow, between his eyes. “But I can tell when you’re thinking it. You get a wrinkle right here.”
Charles swats at his hand, and Erik grins.
“I think you enjoy that game more than the kids,” Charles says.
Erik laughs at that.
Charles smiles back at him. It feels like a soft expression. Softer than usual. Then he finds himself saying what he was really thinking about: “Do you still want another one?”
Erik looks startled. “What?”
“You said, before… before everything, that you wanted another baby.”
“I said maybe.” Erik sits on the edge of the bed.
Charles normally avoids reading Erik’s thoughts. They’ve had too many arguments about it over the years for him to be comfortable doing it on a whim. Erik in turn tends to avoid thinking too loudly, but right now he’s doing it. Yes, he’s thinking, loud and clear and unavoidable. Everything that he’s not saying out loud.
“Well, I’m asking if you meant it.”
“Do you mean it?” Erik asks, still hedging.
“Maybe.” Charles grins.
Erik stares at him, then he shakes his head and laughs again. “We’re both idiots to be considering this.”
“Probably,” Charles agrees. Then, “I don’t know, it might be interesting to have one we actually plan on.”
Erik leans in and kisses him, and it’s not until several minutes later that Charles is able to say, “Of course, Hank is going to kill us.”