send me ☞ + a character to see how i would portray them.
"You've been avoiding me, Henry."
There was a moment where Henry started, seemingly still not used to hearing Charles approach without his wheelchair - the turn of the wheel, the whirr of the motor, even the soft anti-grav hiss of the Shi'ar chair, he was used to anything but the sound of footsteps when his mentor made his presence known.
He almost hit his head off a lab bench table, looking up at Charles for a moment - and then turning away, giving truth to the Professor's statement.
"Have I? I can't say it's been intentional, Professor, I apologise if you feel I've been ignoring you. Just been rather busy is all."
There. Right there. Charles can feel it, right in the midst of his parietal lobe - that pull to just reach out and know. It would make it so much easier, to just, gently touch at Hank's mind and know what he was thinking. It would make it easier for him, he would know what was upsetting one of his star pupils, it would make it better for Hank, to have someone who understood better than even he, man of a million words, could express, it would allow them to begin the healing process so much more quickly, it would -
Instead, he simply sighs, keeping his mind to himself, and moves into the lab.
"Henry, I've known you since you were but seventeen years old, and I don't need to be one of the most experienced telepathic presences on the planet to know that something is bothering you."
He let the words sit in the air for a moment.
"And, not to correct you, but the rather pedantic young man you once were would point out that you misspoke. You haven't been ignoring me, you've been avoiding me. A subtle difference, but one that you and I both understand, and that I keenly feel."
Henry seemingly grasped for an excuse. Not like him, truly. But Charles was patient, and he would give him the time he needed to formulate a response - a luxury he had afforded to Robert many a time, after all, so why not Henry?
In the end, all it took was for Henry to truly look at him, and Charles understood in an instant, with a pang and a sharp intake of breath.
" - I understand. You'll need time, of course."
Cassandra Nova. Of course. How could it not be that, be her? She had been . . . brutal, in her treatment of his students, of Henry, of those he held most dear to him, and he hadn't even considered that she had looked like him when she had done it. Of course.
"I . . . apologise, Henry. I overstepped. Be well."
