sorry wasn’t enough, and it never would be. too many were dead. but it was all charles could say, all he could really manage. his head and body ached and his insides felt cold, and he wished it were as easy as going to sleep and never waking. giving up had never sounded so sweet. and the more accusing and angry his old friend sounded, the more he knew he could never. “erik, please. i’m tired of fighting.” he glanced at his old partner, eyes soft, chest aching. “not today.” his tone was more pleading than he would’ve liked, but charles xavier was nothing if not honest.
he wondered where erik would’ve struck. the white house, perhaps. the pentagon. perhaps there would’ve been children on a school field trip, as innocent as the children at the school… charles sighed. “we have to be better than them,” he whispered, and squeezed his eyes shut. “perhaps neither of us have ever been right,” he said quietly, and looked down, shaking his head. “perhaps there is no solution as simple as peace or war.”
perhaps it was time that they took on the offensive. he’d considered it time and time again – how simple it would be to march on people like ross. but to what end? “but if i know anything, my friend, i know this: if we start a war, it will never end. not until one side commits genocide.” he looked up, finally, and saw erik lehnsherr instead of magneto – they way they were when they first met, brought together by impossible circumstances and with the mindset to change the world and mutant kind. they had been so close.
“i know you, erik. and i know that’s not what you want.” he paused, and his good hand tightened over the handles of his chair, knuckles turning white. “i have to believe that’s not what you want.”
Tired of fighting. Not today.
Erik’s fist clenched, and metal ripped from concrete with a harsh scream, before splintering and falling to the ground as he fought to regain control. “Fighting isn’t a choice, Charles,” he said, but his tone had moderated to a low growl. Pain seeped around it, dark and bloody like the wound on Charles’ leg. “Don’t you understand? For as long as the humans hate us - and they’ll always hate us - we don’t get to say ‘I don’t want to fight today’.”
He knew Charles was capable of fighting back. He’d seen him in action, had seen the quiet resilience, the brilliance of a strategic mind at work, the sheer power that Charles could bring to bear - even without ever tapping his powers. His was a voice that could raise armies, could move continents, could truly, spectacularly, change the world.
And yet he fettered himself - yes, lives were important, moral high ground was important, but that wasn’t the point. In fact, Erik could agree with him that unnecessary bloodshed wasn’t the way to go. That slaughtering all of the humans wasn’t the way to go.
What they disagreed upon was, really--
“Your misplaced optimism,” he found himself saying out loud. “You look for the best in people even when it isn’t there.” He stared into the other’s eyes, readying himself for another rant, but he could start to see the gathering storm behind the clear blue, and that-- that made him bridle his tongue, made him pause, and listen.
“You’re right,” he said, sudden clarity of thought breaking through the confusion in his mind. Somehow - that was always the way with Charles - as much as the man confused him, drove him to distraction with frustration, made him so furious that he couldn’t see straight - some times, some very rare times ... he lent him an insight into himself that Erik could never find on his own.
“You’re right,” he repeated, “I don’t want them dead.” And he never had. He’d made that choice -- way back when they fought Apocalypse. When he’d turned his back on the ancient mutant. When he’d chosen the side of the X-Men; the side of Charles Xavier; the side of stupid, hopeless, doomed optimism. “What I want is -- all of our kind -- safe.”
He drew a breath. Knelt before the chair. Placed a hand over Charles’, and willed him to understand. “You once said - true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity. Perhaps the true solution does too. And perhaps it doesn’t - perhaps we’ll never find it. But we can’t stop fighting.
“Fight alongside me, Charles. Not alone; and certainly not against.”
