Disclaimer: They're Marvel's. Pity them. This is the second story in my "Satan and Lucifer" series, following the events in "The Moment". Thanks goes to Luba Kmetyk for beta reading.
The well-built, middle-aged man pushed up the sleeves of his tweed jacket before rolling his red-haired daughter's wheelchair up the gravel driveway to the front door, straining slightly at the lack of traction of the gravel. John Grey glanced from Charles to Magnus, obviously unsure who was who. "Dr. Xavier?" he asked.
Charles smiled and extended his hand. "I'm Dr. Xavier. You must be Dr. Grey. This is my associate, Magnus Lehnsherr. Please, come in."
Magnus and Charles stepped out of the way so that John Grey could push the wheelchair into the house. They led him into the living room and sat down in the stately leather chairs to talk.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Lehnsherr, but what are your credentials?" asked John Grey. "I know Dr. Xavier by reputation, but he didn't mention an associate on the phone, and I am very careful when it comes to my daughter's treatment."
Magnus didn't correct the mistaken title. He saw no point in taking a lower status than Charles and John, despite the fact that all his formal schooling had ended when he was still a child, when the Nazis had come. "I spent the last few years working with Holocaust survivors in Israel. My area of expertise is trauma victims."
"Magnus is second only to myself in helping people overcome trauma. I assure you, he has a remarkable success record," added Charles.
Grey relaxed somewhat and nodded. "About three months ago, Jean was playing with her sister Sarah and their friend Annie. My wife told me that Sarah suddenly ran into the house screaming that there had been an accident. Annie had been hit by a car. Jean was just sitting there, holding her hand, not moving. She hasn't said a word since, or shown any interest in the outside world. I've taken her to most of the specialists in the country but so far none of them have been able to help her."
Charles nodded. "I'll need her to stay here for treatment; my latest findings on catatonia show that constant moving and upheaval can make the condition worse." John Grey's face paled, Charles could feel the man's terror that his good intentions might have harmed his daughter even more. "It would help if I knew what other psychiatrists you have brought her to, so that I can confer with them about what treatments have proven ineffectual so far."
As Grey rattled off names, Charles telepathically weakened John Grey's resistance to leaving Jean in his care. There was no way he could psychically probe her and heal her in her parents' house, with them in the room or close by, without revealing what he was. Grey's reluctance to leave his daughter with a stranger was understandable, but Charles was not willing to risk exposing himself as a mutant.
Finally John Grey kissed his unresponsive daughter a tearful goodbye. "I have to get home. My wife is alone with our other daughter, they get upset when Jean and I are gone too long."
Magnus watched the car pull out of the driveway. "I'll make dinner and patrol the grounds. You have work to do."
"Patrol the grounds?" Charles echoed, "why?"
"Since you have ignored all my warnings about bringing the government into our search for mutants, I need to insure that there are no spies, soldiers or surveillance equipment on the property."
"Magnus..." Charles was about to launch into the old argument.
"Egypt," Magnus reminded him. "Excuse me while I go cook."
Charles frowned as he picked Jean up to carry her upstairs. In Egypt an alien had dropped a huge stone block on Charles in the middle of a psychic battle. If Magnus hadn't caught and repelled the block it would have crushed Charles.
Since then their roles had shifted dramatically. Magnus showed no interest in getting his doctorate, having credentials to match Charles's. Instead he left the psychiatry to Charles, himself acting as a mere bodyguard. A brilliant, paranoid, usually accurate bodyguard, to be sure, but it infuriated Charles that Magnus's talents were wasted like this, when he could be a more formidable political speaker, psychiatrist, or teacher than Charles himself.
Charles shifted Jean in his arms so that he could open the door to one of the bedrooms. "This room used to be mine as a boy," said Charles as he lowered the girl gently to the bed and pulled up a chair, "I hope your stay will be happier than mine was." The girl's eyes stared straight ahead, not focusing.
Something was very wrong. A true catatonic would seem almost dead to a psychic, their emotions blocked by a protective wall. But ever since Jean's arrival, she'd been projecting a riot of pain and fear that belied her motionless body. Charles had pretended nothing was amiss, eager to get the girl alone and discover the truth for himself. But now he paused, wondering what he'd find.
Charles gently probed the outside of the girl's mind, gingerly accustoming himself to the scalding emotions Jean radiated. He projected calm into Jean's mind, creating an eye in the storm of her thoughts, then gently expanded the peaceful area.
A light psychic touch, like a baby's fingers on his arm, brushed against his thoughts. Charles forced himself to remain calm. He had met other telepaths before, but only as enemies. So this was what it was like to explore another telepath's mind; no threat, no fear, just curious thoughts that reached out to his. <>Hello, Jean,<> he projected, <>My name is Charles. Would you like to come out and play?<>
()HURTS!() came the helpless cry.
Charles began to withdraw carefully. <>I'm hurting you? I'm sorry.<>
()No! They! Hurts!()
<>I can teach you to build a wall around your mind, a wall with a door. You can shut out other people's thoughts when you need to, or open the door when you want to explore their minds, like you're doing now in mine. Would you like that?<>
()YESYESYES() The reply was deafening.
<>For now, I'm going to shield you myself, so you can finally sleep. And tomorrow I will put up more permanent barriers in your mind, so you can be with your Mommy and Daddy and sister again without their minds yelling at you. Go to sleep now, Jean.<>
Charles walked downstairs and found a pot of soup with dumplings on the stove and a dish of chicken, rice and almonds in the oven. Magnus was nowhere in sight. Charles walked out the door and began strolling through the wet grass to the forest, looking for Magnus.
He found his white-haired, self-appointed bodyguard flitting through the woods, dropping little pieces of metal in the cruxes of various trees. Magnus saw him and dropped to the ground. "Is something wrong at the house?"
"Something is very right. I couldn't wait to tell you. Jean is our first student."
"She's a mutant?"
"A telepath, like me. She was never catatonic; she was just overwhelmed by the psychic noise of the people around her. Her abilities were probably triggered by sharing her friend's death. I'll have to block her talents until she's old enough to cope with them, but soon I should be able to train her. Magnus, we've found our first mutant! Do you know what this means?"
"It means it's probably a trap," said Magnus. "We're meeting that FBI agent tomorrow; Jean was probably planted here to test our methods and plans."
"I hardly think John Grey would put his daughter in danger for the FBI," said Charles.
"That's not the way it works, Charles. Dr. Grey doesn't know you. Someone gave him your name, pushed him in our direction. They could have been in the employ of the government. John Grey comes with his daughter, a perfect set-up because he himself knows nothing, and the government sends their FBI agent tomorrow to test what we've done with her so far and what our plans are."
"Magnus, I didn't even know she was psychic until I probed her. I appreciate that you have more experience in these matters than I, but there is such a thing as coincidence."
"I don't believe in coincidence."
"What about how we met? The world's two most powerful mutants, meeting in a country neither of them call home, and then revealing their powers under a highly unlikely, highly stressful situation. Do you realize what the odds are against us meeting? Or against either of us discovering that the other was a mutant?"
Magnus frowned. "You're right. But Charles, humor my paranoia tomorrow, please. If I'm wrong, we can always become more forthright with the agent. But let's start from a defensive position, all right?"
"All right. Come on, Magnus, let's go eat."
"You go ahead, I'll be there in a moment. I just want to finish up here."
Magnus paced back and forth. "I still think this is a mistake."
Charles got a distant look in his eyes. "He's coming up the driveway." He turned back to Magnus. "We've discussed this. We can't find mutants on our own, and I agree, it's too dangerous to advertise the school. We have to use the government's resources if we want to find students."
"If the government knows about us, they'll be tempted to use us, with or without our consent. And once they know about mutants, they could keep them for themselves instead of passing them on to us. Or they could simply lock us up for study as dangerous inhumans."
The doorbell rang.
Charles walked to the door and opened it.
The man was of average height and build, wearing a navy blue suit with his brown hair in a conservative cut. "I'm Special Agent Fred Duncan," he said, "You should be expecting me?"
"Yes, of course. I'm Dr. Xavier and this is my associate Mr. Lehnsherr. May we see your badge, please?" That was for Magnus's benefit, since Charles knew Agent Duncan was who he claimed to be. "Please come in."
As they showed the agent to the living room, Magnus added, "I trust we don't have to tell you we would like as few people as possible to know about this."
"If you can back up your claims, I'll keep this confidential. Only my superiors know about this meeting, and that's a short list. But you still have to prove your claims are true."
Magnus glanced at Charles and thought as loudly as he could, *I'll prove it. Keep your talents in reserve in case this goes sour when his superiors decide what to do about us. You're just a psychiatrist, a doctor studying mutants.* Then Magnus reached out with his mind and lifted an abstract metal sculpture from an end table, molding it in mid-air. With a few gestures, he turned it into a thin spiral, a perfect sphere, a likeness of Fred Duncan's face.
Agent Duncan watched, wide-eyed. "You're doing that? That's amazing!"
Magnus smiled. "I have a natural affinity with metal."
"That's why I want to open this school; to find mutants like Magnus and teach them how to use their abilities. But I need help tracking them down. So far I've found two mutants by chance; but most mutants hide their abilities for fear of being hunted."
"So you want the Bureau to find your students for you. But what do we get out of this?" asked Fred Duncan, "I need to justify the expense to my superiors."
"I have funds to repay you," said Charles, "This needs doing for the good of mankind."
"The government doesn't need to be reimbursed in cash. This will tie up resources and personnel who could be used elsewhere."
Magnus cleared his throat. "I would be willing to offer my services as a soldier, tracking down Nazis, for example."
"That's very generous of you, but foreign affairs are the jurisdiction of the CIA, not the FBI. Even if you could be of use to us, my superiors are not going to consider one man's services, however great, a fair exchange for handing over dozens of potential soldiers. But what if we entrusted you with the duty of making a strike team, a mutant police force under the control of the government to combat threats by hostile mutants?"
Magnus obliterated the image of Fred Duncan's face, making the sculpture abstract once more and returning it to the end table. "I would prefer an independent strike force with a cordial relationship with the government; answering requests for help, but autonomous."
Fred Duncan frowned. "I'll have to check with my superiors. They won't be happy giving up control of a potentially dangerous organization."
"You are talking about civilians, Agent Duncan," Charles murmured, "Participation in a strike team should be voluntary, not the price paid for being born a mutant."
Agent Duncan frowned and considered this. "You're right. I'll convince them somehow. When I do, give me your criteria for defining a mutant, a profile of sorts. We'll contact you when we find any."
After Agent Duncan left, Charles turned back to Magnus. "We can trust him. He was not afraid of you, nor was he thinking of ways to manipulate us. His focus was on how to insure that his superiors would not take advantage of us. He considers us a wonder of the universe; he wants to see more, to be a part of it. He won't betray us."
"He's the perfect front man. We'll trust him because he himself has no negative agenda, and meanwhile his puppeteers will use the information we give him to use and destroy us," said Magnus.
Charles smiled. "I'll leave the paranoia to you, my friend. I should go check on Jean." He walked upstairs and opened the door to her room. Jean sat up in bed, rubbing her wide, green eyes, reaching eagerly for him with her mind even before he could sit down.
"It's so quiet in my mind, now," she said, "It felt so good to sleep. Who's the other man here? I couldn't feel him, not even before you put the walls up in my mind."
"That's my friend, Magnus. I can't feel him either. He holds himself in too much. I don't know if he's that way naturally or if he works at it."
"Why would he work at holding himself in? Is he like me? Does he need to shut people out? You will teach me to shut people out, won't you?"
"No, he's not a telepath like us. But some very bad men killed everyone he loved and hurt him very badly, and I think he holds himself back to make sure no one ever hurts him like that again."
"What bad men? I'm not a kid, I'm almost twelve. You don't have to talk down to me."
"I'm sorry, Jean, I've never really been around young people. Magnus is a Jew, and ten years ago in World War II the Nazis locked up the Jews and did terrible things to them."
"Yes, I've heard of the Nazis, everyone knows who the Nazis were. But what did they do to Magnus? You're still not telling me!" Jean frowned, obviously determined to prove how strong and mature she was.
"If I knew, I would tell you. I've talked to another survivor of the death camps, but Magnus has never talked about what happened to him. And it's hard to find any books discussing what happened; no one wants to listen to what happened right under their noses, what the human race is capable of. We have a few photographs, many mass graves and crematoriums, but very little understanding of day-to-day life inside the camps. Perhaps in a few years, when the world feels less ashamed for not acting sooner, we can finally learn what happened."
Charles rubbed his forehead. "Jean, your abilities are very strong. I think they're too strong for a young woman like you to handle. I want to lock them down, so that you can grow up normally, and then I'll teach you to use them when you're a little older. Is that all right?"
"I guess." Despite her earlier bravado, she didn't argue that she was strong enough to use her powers now. The experience of the past few months obviously still frightened her.
"Open your mind to me, then." Charles probed Jean's mind and laced protective barriers around her telepathic centers, as strong as he could make them, to prevent any outside person or event from breaking down the walls. Then he tested the defenses, pushing on them to see what outside stress would do to them.
Charles's back slammed into the opposite wall. He gasped for air, confused, trying to find breath to reassure Jean, who was screaming and clinging to his arm. There was a sudden crash, and Magnus floated in the air beside them, hands glowing with energy, ready to fend off an attacker.
Charles coughed and tried to sit up. "It's all right, Jean, Magnus. I was simply caught off guard. I thought Jean was merely a powerful telepath, but it seems she's a telekinetic as well."
"A what?" Jean asked.
"You can move things with your mind. I can't shut it off the way I locked down your telepathy; I don't know enough about how telekinesis works. I'll have to teach you to use your telekinesis now, so that you can control it."
"I should teach her that," said Magnus.
"Magnus, her powers are mental in nature. I would have a better understanding--"
"She controls physical reality with her mind. So do I. You don't. I didn't interfere when her powers were your specialty."
"They still are my specialty. More so with the psychic blocks I've just put up. She's my pupil, Magnus."
Magnus took Charles by the arm and pulled him up off the floor, urging him out into the hallway. "Charles, I have a much better understanding of physical powers than you do. She's obviously powerful, and if she doesn't learn to control herself, she could hurt someone as she just hurt you."
"But I can get inside her mind, control her powers for her, see how she does what she does. I could teach her better than someone who had to explain things verbally as you would have to. You can help train her, but she is principally my pupil."
"I'm not going to convince you," said Magnus.
"No, you're not."
"Very well. Just don't turn this into a repetition of what you did to Gabrielle."
"A more politic man would cease mentioning my failings every five minutes if he wanted to convince me of anything."
"I thought I was leaving politics to you, my friend, and using my time and energy to bring dangers to light. Good night, Charles." He walked down the hallway, presumably to get drunk as usual before falling asleep. Charles watched him go, and then turned his attentions back to his bright, beautiful girl.
The truth was, Magnus hadn't pressed the issue with Jean because he was afraid that if he taught her himself, they might grow too close. She was about the age his daughter would be now, if she had lived, and she seemed so fragile, so innocent. She might see the darkness in his past, even with her hobbled telepathy, or worse, he might warp her innocent soul into something as monstrous as his own if he became too involved in her life. So Charles taught her control, and Magnus merely sparred with her in the woods, or in the new training facility they were building underneath the mansion with Charles's money and government blueprints they received through Fred Duncan.
But Magnus didn't like the way Charles hovered over Jean, constantly watching her. Charles should have told John Grey his daughter was awake, but that she needed to come back daily or weekly for more therapy, and used that as an excuse for further lessons. Instead he said that Jean was awake, but her condition was too unstable for her to return home just yet.
"I know what you're thinking," said Charles one day after a particularly long session with Jean.
"And yet you keep protesting that you cannot read my mind."
"It's true, I cannot read your mind unless you consciously project your thoughts. Your face is another matter entirely. Gabrielle was a mistake I have no intention of repeating. I've changed. You don't need to watch me like a parole officer."
"Then why did you lie to her father? Jean should be back with her family. You can teach her without keeping her here."
"I still have no assurance that a nightmare or strong emotion might not trigger a telekinetic act. I can't let her return to her normal family and run the risk that she might harm them or frighten them into attacking her."
Magnus frowned. "So far you've always admitted when you were wrong, Charles, even when it meant admitting something shameful. I've admired that about you. But why can't you admit how closely your relationship with Jean mirrors your relationship with Gabrielle? If you'd truly changed, you would admit this was a bad situation and remove yourself from it."
"No, Magnus, I trust myself in this situation because I truly have changed. And I'm offended and insulted that you would believe me capable of molesting a child. But I worry that if your fears become much more intense, even Jean's blocked telepathy will sense them. I don't want her finding those sort of pictures of me in your mind, especially when they are patently false. Jean will sleep in her home, and come here daily for training, if it makes you sleep easier, but I never want you to make such an accusation again."
Agent Duncan was as good as his word. Over the next two months he began giving them reports of possible mutants both in the United States and abroad. He never interfered with their affairs, nor did his superiors, but Fred often came by to watch Jean train on her frequent visits or to watch Magnus using his powers to help construct the new underground facility.
"Thought of a name for it yet?" asked Fred.
"Magnus wants to call it the Crucible," said Charles, "I keep reminding him that our pupils will most likely be teenagers who won't know the meaning of the word. I want to call it the Danger Room, so they will remain cautious when they use it."
"And I think the Danger Room is an idiotic, back-country title for such a state-of-the-art facility," said Magnus.
"Well maybe your new pupil can help you figure out a name for it," said Fred with a broad grin.
"You've found one? A confirmed mutant?" asked Charles.
"Remember that missing kid I was telling you about a month ago? The one who blasted through a loading crane with red beams from his eyes? We think we have a lead on him, and we want you to help us bring him in and bring him here. There's been a series of bank robberies and other crimes. It looks like a man calling himself the Jack of Diamonds is using the kid to blast through bank vaults. We can't take down Jack unless we have someone strong enough to stop him and the kid."
Magnus frowned. "The child is either a criminal himself by now, or he's being threatened. I'd hate to think of what will happen to him if it's the former. But I will join you in stopping them, and we will see afterwards what may be done with them."
"We will join you in stopping them," Charles corrected.
"Charles, although your skills as a psychiatrist are duly noted, I sincerely doubt that they will be useful in combat," said Magnus, "I'm the mutant, remember? However, I do agree that you should be at the scene when I capture them, so that you can determine if the boy is innocent or guilty." They still hadn't told Fred Duncan about Charles's telepathy; Magnus hoped Charles would understand the coded message without an argument.
When Charles nodded in agreement, Magnus focused his mind, reaching for iron buried deep within the ground. He smiled fiercely at Fred's wide-eyed delight as the metal burst up through the ground to encase Magnus in a suit of red armor, complete with a helmet and a purple steel cape. "If the boy has the power to shoot force beams from his eyes, I must protect myself," Magnus explained. It felt so good to encase himself in metal. He could sense the air through it, like a second skin. It obeyed his every thought. He only wished he didn't have clothes insulating his skin from the armor. He would remember next time. Perhaps he could even form the body armor into a likeness of regular clothing and wear it all the time.
Fred Duncan shook his head in amazement. "Right. We should get going. We'll take my car. We've had a surveillance team tracking Jack of Diamonds; he's currently in New York City. I told them to hold off until I brought you two; I don't want any of the agents getting hurt."
Magnus stood outside the door of a squalid New York apartment. On both sides of him, federal agents armed to the teeth waited for orders. Fred Duncan motioned for them to pull back, watching Magnus with an eager, irrepressible grin. And Charles waited downstairs in the lobby, playing the part of the civilian consultant out of harm's way.
Magnus could hear whimpering inside the apartment. He extended his sense of metal, feeling for the iron that coursed through the human bloodstream. What he sensed inside that apartment sparked rage he hadn't felt in more than a decade. He wanted to torture Jack slowly, painfully, but he couldn't bear the thought of repeating the mistake that had made his wife Magda flee in terror. He couldn't let this boy fear him. He looked around to make sure the other agents were out of line of sight of the door. Then he reached into the apartment and pulled at the gold bars, wrapping them around Jack and yanking him off of his young apprentice. He sent some of his metal costume under the door of the apartment to make false clothes for Scott Summers. And then he lifted the door off by its hinges and walked in. The terrified boy sat with one hand over his eyes, the other hand searching for a pair of red glasses knocked out of reach. Magnus stooped and handed the boy his glasses. "Are these yours?" he asked.
The boy reached out a hesitating hand and put on the glasses, looking at Magnus and then at Jack in confusion and terror. "I'm holding him still," said Magnus, "You don't ever have to be afraid of him again." He offered the boy a hand up. "You have an amazing power, Scott. But you're not alone. I have powers of my own, and I can teach you to control yours. My name is Magnus. Would you like to come with me, Scott?"
The scrawny teenager looked up at him, his fear obvious even behind the huge red glasses.
"I told you, Scott, you don't ever have to be afraid again. I promise you, I will never hurt you."
The boy stared at him in silence for a long moment. Then he took a step forward. Magnus led him out of the apartment and left Jack to the human agents.
"I still can't believe you did that!" said Fred as he walked downstairs with Scott and Magnus, "You captured him before he could even fire a shot! That was incredible!"
"What happened?" asked Charles as they came into the lobby.
"Magnus tore the door right off its hinges without even touching it! And when we went inside, Jack of Diamonds was wrapped up like a Christmas present in a gold cocoon!"
Charles reached for Scott's arm, but Magnus shook his head. "Scott doesn't like to be touched."
Charles glanced at Magnus, confused, and then turned back to the boy. "Scott, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer it honestly. Do you like robbing banks? Is that what you want to do with your life?"
"I just did it because he made me," Scott mumbled, "He was stronger than me and I didn't have anywhere else to go."
"He's telling the truth," Charles told Fred.
"How do you know?" Fred asked.
"I read his body language. The body can't lie, and in children the signs are particularly pronounced."
Fred Duncan seemed to accept this. "Well, we should get him home then. I imagine you have your work cut out for you."
"You're taking me back to the orphanage? But they'll kill me! They think I tried to blast those people on purpose! I didn't mean it!"
Magnus put up a restraining hand. "We're not taking you back there. Charles and I would like to teach you how to control your optic blasts. We're taking you to our house. Come, the car is right outside."
On the trip back, Magnus thought as hard as he could at Charles, *MINE*
"It's so terrible how Jack of Diamonds treated you like his personal possession," Xavier said aloud to Scott, "I assure you, we won't subject you to anything like that."
*You had Jean, over my objections. If you stop me from becoming Scott's primary teacher, I'm going to leave. Forever.*
<>Very well,<> came the faint reply in his mind, <>You may be his primary teacher.<>
*Thank you so much for your permission, my friend and equal.*
When they got home, Magnus said, "Scott? I want to show you the training facility in the basement. Charles, could you get dinner ready?"
He didn't have to be a telepath to see Scott's fear increasing as he led the teenaged boy downstairs to the reinforced metal door. The boy's eyes kept darting around, checking for exits, careful not to let Magnus close in on him. And when Magnus closed the door behind them, Scott kept his back to the door, his eyes wide behind his red glasses.
"I want to explain some things to you, and I know you are going to pay me perfect attention, because you are currently terrified," said Magnus. "First of all, Charles can read minds. Though he doesn't usually pry, you were probably shouting your fears very loudly, mentally. He probably knows what you are afraid of." Scott's face was now red, though his body was still tense and ready for an attack.
"Charles can't read my mind, though. I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone, Scott, not even Charles. When I was about your age, the German police came to my town. They took everyone out to the woods, and they made us dig a very large hole, and then they made us stand next to it and they shot us all. Many of the Germans were sickened by what they were doing, but they did it anyway, knowing it was wrong. Still, their nausea made them bad shots. They didn't manage to kill me, only my parents and my sisters. But they found me, crawling up from under the bodies, and they took me to a camp where other Jews like me waited to die. They killed hundreds of people every day, and made some of us work to help kill the others and burn their bodies. If you helped them, you were certain not to be killed yourself. I did terrible things to survive. But even that wasn't enough. I was too young, too weak to do the work they gave me. They didn't feed us enough, and the camps were full of diseases. But one of the guards took a liking to me. He would get me extra food and protect me. But in return I...I..." Magnus suddenly couldn't breathe. He tried to speak, but his throat locked shut.
"He used you," Scott whispered, "Like -- like a man uses a woman."
Magnus stared at the slender, brown-haired boy, who was suddenly not frightened any more. He erected his shields, a crackling pulse of electromagnetic energy. "Take off your glasses."
"What?"
"Take them off! Try and hit me!"
The blast was sudden and powerful. Magnus nearly staggered under the weight, but forced himself to remain standing and calm. He took a step towards Scott, and then another. "I would never hurt you, Scott. I know what it means to be hurt. And your gifts can't harm me. We're safe from each other."
He put his arms around the boy, and Scott nearly pulled away, but then relaxed into his arms, hugging him back. "Thank you, sir."
Charles took the broiled salmon out of the oven and set it on the table, then took a lemon from the refrigerator and began slicing it. It pleased him that Magnus was finally taking an interest in the workings of the school, but why did he have to do it in such a sullen, one-upmanship manner? Scott obviously had deep psychological problems: abandonment issues, the childhood amnesia the orphanage had on record, guilt over his recent, forced crime spree, and that bizarre and frightening mental picture Charles had caught a glimpse of twice: once when he tried to take Scott's hand, and once, much stronger, when Magnus took Scott downstairs a few minutes ago.
Scott and Magnus headed back up the stairs. The boy seemed much calmer now, almost happy. Charles felt a sudden surge of jealousy. He was the telepath, the eminent psychologist, and yet Magnus had seemingly discerned the boy's problems and laid Scott's fears to rest almost instantly, without the slightest doubt or misstep.
No, that wasn't fair. No one recovered from deep trauma in a few minutes. Scott still had severe problems, Magnus had probably just said some tripe to make the boy feel welcome in his new home. Though Magnus's mind was closed to him, Charles had to suppress the sudden urge to read the incident in Scott's mind, to discover what Magnus had said.
"Wash your hands please," said Charles. "Scott, will you say grace?"
As usual, Magnus followed the grace with a quick Hebrew prayer over two slices of bread, more to be obstinate than out of any real religious feeling. The meal passed uneventfully, and afterwards Charles had Magnus put Scott in one of the guest bedrooms. Magnus showed the boy where the library was first, though Charles warned Scott that many of the books were old and should be treated carefully. Magnus answered this by telling Scott he would buy the boy books of his own.
And then, finally, Magnus followed Charles without comment down the hall to Charles's study. "This is a complex situation," Charles began, "and I think we need to decide whose authority should take precedence in various areas of the boy's life."
Magnus chuckled. "You really can't stand it, can you, Charles? The boy is under my authority. For once in my life, I know exactly what to do."
"Scott has deep psychological problems--"
"Which, in this case, I can handle better than you. You have led a rich, privileged life, Charles. You don't understand the choices Scott's had to make to stay alive."
"You're right. I don't understand them. I'm disturbed by how weak-minded the boy is, acceding first to Jack's desires, and then to ours, with no moral center of his own. We must correct that deficiency."
Magnus shook his head, his lips curving in a condescending smile. "I knew you would say that. Charles, when have you ever been helpless? When have you ever had no choice at all?"
Charles wanted to make an angry retort, but he suddenly saw a chance to turn the conversation around to his benefit. Perhaps a painful revelation from him would not only win the debate, but get Magnus to finally reveal his own past as well. "My stepfather was a violent man. He used to beat my mother until she could barely walk." Fearing Magnus would make some scathing retort, Charles didn't add that he had been beaten as well. "I used to think he would kill her some day. I would hold her afterwards, while she cried, soothing her pain with my budding telepathy. She could have taken me and left him, left this house, but she never did. On some level she must have wanted the abuse; it must have satisfied some subconscious need."
"That's sick," said Magnus.
"I always thought so."
"No, I mean it's sick that you would think that." Magnus's eyes crackled with electromagnetic energy. "We've never fought, Charles. But do you honestly think you could defeat me? Do you honestly think that if I killed you, that it would be because you gave me permission?"
<>NEVER PRESUME THAT I CAN'T GET INTO YOUR HEAD SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU'RE IMMUNE TO THE LOWEST LEVEL OF MY POWER. YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN ME FIGHT WITH MY GLOVES OFF.<>
To his credit, Magnus didn't stagger back under the telepathic assault, but the electromagnetic energy vanished from his eyes. Charles continued verbally, "Scott is a very weak-minded boy. He does whatever he's asked, right or wrong. If he truly detested being Jack's accomplice and catamite, he could have run away or defended himself with his powers."
"You have no conception of the responsibility that comes with having a physical power, Charles. The terror that a flash of anger, denied release through your fists, will lash out as a terrible, killing force despite your best intentions. You have no idea how strong that boy is, to hold back the impulse for defense or revenge out of his unwillingness to commit murder; to endure that daily torture without breaking. He never took the easy way out, Charles; he's not one of your precious catatonics! Is that where you got your taste for helpless women? From your mother?"
Magnus was on his knees before Charles even realized he had lashed out telepathically. But Magnus got to his feet under the terrible assault, his hands crackling with energy. "I see I hit a nerve," he murmured.
"If you ever mention my mother again, you will no longer be welcome in this house," said Charles. "For now I suggest we both go to sleep."
With the help of Charles's ex-lover, a brilliant biologist and geneticist named Moira MacTaggert (who had a jealous husband and many high-necked, long-sleeved outfits), they discovered that although the ruby-quartz glasses Scott wore would keep his powers in check, an old head injury prevented him from ever shutting his power off. His only relief from his fears came after a long day of practicing control with Magnus, by which time his powers were often drained dry. Then Magnus and Scott would talk together face to face until Scott stumbled up to bed and locked his door.
Magnus found it hard, sometimes even terrifying, to be the teacher and guardian of a young mutant. But he knew Charles scorned the boy as pathetic, a criminal, a catamite. He had a responsibility to make sure the boy was both trained in the use of his powers and healed from the traumas of his life, because he knew Charles would fail despite his best intentions. And Magnus found he had another thing in common with Scott: the boy's amnesia and orphaned status meant he had a drive to discover the people who had abandoned him, the people who should have been his family. It mirrored Magnus's own quest to find Magda, a quest he had postponed but not forgotten.
Thanks to Fred Duncan, who had also recently found confirmed accounts of several other mutants, they discovered that Scott had a younger brother, Alexander Summers, who had been adopted and was seemingly living a normal life. Scott emphatically refused to meet his brother. Magnus agreed. After all, it could be hurtful to Scott to see his normal brother leading an innocent, carefree life, and run the risk that Alex would reject Scott after the hard life Scott had led. But Scott's parents remained 'missing, presumed dead'. It was as though they had vanished off the face of the Earth.
One day, a few months after Scott had joined their family, Charles sorted through the mail, hoping for a fresh copy of the latest psychiatric journal. "Here it is! Oh, and a package arrived for you from an English rare book seller. Did you order something, Magnus?"
"Mm," said Magnus, inspecting the brown wrapping. He took it upstairs to his room and carefully unwrapped the package to reveal a leather-bound copy of Maimonides's Guide to the Perplexed with a bill tucked under the front cover. The cost was far higher than a copy of a commonplace Jewish religious text would warrant, but Magnus would pay it in full. Some of his friends in the Irgun, the Israeli 'terrorist' army, had joined up with ex-British secret service agents to kill Nazis still in hiding. He had promised to use his powers to help them if they needed him. They had promised to tell him if they found news of his wife. He flipped the book open. On each page, random letters had tiny pencil dots above them. Though the text of the book was in English, the fact that it was written by Maimonides (who had written Hebrew words in Arabic letters) implied the code was in another language. Hebrew? German? No, Polish. Grave found twenty miles WNW of Transia, near the Balkans, confirmed as Magda. Rumor of orphaned children. Conflicting rumors of boy, girl, or both, possibly mutated or disfigured, raised separately or together with gypsies, possibly as a circus act. Stop.
Magnus put the book down. Children? But Anya had died in the fire, he'd buried her body himself! The mere possibility was laughable. And yet...perhaps Magda had been pregnant when she fled. Magda was dead. There was no way he could ever make amends for what he had done, or win her back. But somewhere in Europe, he might have children, wandering in poverty, reviled for their race, in danger for their lives. He had to save them, bring them here, raise them. He couldn't allow them to suffer what he had endured. Was it a boy or a girl? Twins? The child would be ten years old; it wasn't too late to make up for those ten lost years. He had to find the child now.
He walked back downstairs and found Charles flipping through his magazine. "I must take a brief sabbatical from the school, Charles. I hope to return soon. In a year at the most."
"A year? Now? Magnus, we're about to contact three more mutants and bring them to the school! Your timing is somewhat less than perfect. And what about Scott? He sees you as a father figure; you can't just abandon him!"
"Charles, I have urgent business which can't wait. I don't have to explain myself to you."
"I thought you were dedicated to our dream. You can't just walk out whenever you please, especially when so much hangs in the balance."
Magnus agreed, the dream was important. And certainly he'd grown quite attached to Scott. The young mutant's confidence was increasing; he had started going to public school in the area and had become both a quiet scholar and a formidable soccer player. He was growing into a fine young man, one whom Magnus would have wanted as a son. But the last thing he wanted to do was to show up to reclaim his lost child and have to explain why he had another child with him. "More hangs in the balanced than you might think, Charles. That's why I have to go."
"It's a classic case," said Charles coldly, "You're afraid of the connection you're making with Scott. You're afraid of becoming vulnerable, so you're running away before you become too deeply involved. Whatever excuse you've made up, that's the real reason for your sabbatical. I thought you were a man of greater strength and principles than that. I'm sorry to see I was wrong."
"You know nothing about it. It is a personal matter of great urgency. If I don't take steps to correct it immediately, I will be guilty of a terrible crime."
"What is it?"
"I do not wish to discuss it, Charles. I'm sorry."
"In Israel I thought we were friends. And later I realized we could be something more. Equals. Partners. But ever since I brought you to the States, you've seemed to relish the role of loyal protector. You refuse to study for academic credentials, to take your place as a psychologist or as a legitimate teacher at this school. You leave me to do all the politicking, and now you're running away. Why? You're a passionate, driven man, Magnus, why have you spent the last year holding yourself back?"
"And you have been oh-so-supportive of my efforts to stand up to you, haven't you, Charles? You listened when I asked to teach Jean to use her telekinesis, instead of just sparring with her. You deferred to my expertise with Scott, instead of giving me permission, as though I were one of your pupils! You don't want an equal, Charles, you want a yes-man. If I asserted myself, my desires, the two of us would become arch-enemies! I'm trying to do things your way, as I promised, but even I have needs and limits!"
"I don't believe you, Magnus. You can shut me out of your mind, but even as a psychiatrist I can see that's not the real reason for your actions."
"And what, in your expert opinion, is the 'real' reason?" Magnus asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"You're afraid that if you assert yourself, you'll taint my dream. You're holding yourself back because you believe yourself to be a monster."
"What in God's name would make you think such a thing?" Magnus demanded.
"I remember our discussions in Israel, the terrible vengeance you wanted to visit upon the Nazis, upon the human race. I saw the way you looked at me when I was a gentile and you were a Jew. I've seen the way you look at Fred Duncan, despite all he's done for us, because he is a human and we are mutants. You want my dream to succeed, and you will protect it from all who oppose it, but you won't put your passion into it because you are protecting me from your hatred, from yourself, as much as you are protecting me from the government or bigots."
Magnus clenched his fists and kept a tight rein on his powers. Charles's words hurt with the force of truth.
"You need psychiatric help, Magnus, to let go of your hatred, your grief, your fear. Won't you let me in, so I can help you?"
"So you can judge me, judge what I've done. You get to dissect me while you remain untouched. Isn't that what you wanted from the beginning? Power over me? And what if I don't want to lose my feelings? What if I need them again for the war ahead of us? And it will be war, Charles, no matter what you say. Humanity is not going to give up its supremacy without a fight."
"I just want to help you, Magnus--"
"No. You want to control me." With that, Magnus stormed out of the house. He flew up into the air and touched down in an empty parking lot close to Scott's school. Scott's clothes had metal fibers woven through them, as a precaution in case he ever fell or was trapped. Magnus used them now to locate Scott, marching purposefully through the halls until he found the right classroom. He rapped on the glass window and waited for the teacher to open the door. "Can I help you?" she asked.
"I'm Scott Summers's guardian. I need to speak with him immediately about urgent family business."
The teacher shot him a worried look and told Scott he had permission to leave the classroom. Magnus closed the door after them and debated how to phrase what he was about to say. "Scott? Do you remember I told you about my wife, and how I wanted to find her? I just received news that she is dead, and I want to go find her grave. There's also a possibility that she was pregnant when she left me, and that my child is still alive somewhere. I must leave for Europe immediately, before the trail gets any colder than it is."
"Oh." Scott turned away and hugged himself, staring at the wall. "I understand."
"No, I don't think you do. I would like you to travel with me, as my son. If you want to."
"You want to adopt me? Me? Really?" Scott asked in a voice strangled and squeaky with emotion.
"We'll get the legalities of it straightened out when we get back. But what kind of a father would I be if I abandoned my son?" He'd prove Charles wrong. Not that Charles's opinion mattered to him in the slightest. "We should go immediately, though. Neither of us has any possessions that matter to us, so we can leave directly."
"But what about Professor Xavier?"
"He's staying here. I've explained matters to him." They walked together out of the school. Then Magnus created a magnetic bubble around the two of them, and they took to the sky.
End.