Chapter Text
In Charles' dream, he's suffocating. Darkness surrounds him. There's no air around him, nothing to enter his lungs. He screams but no sound came out.
He jerks awake with a gasp.
He can breathe, physically, but the world still feels muffled to him. Has he gone deaf? No, no, he can still hear crickets chirping outside. Then what is this weight around his-
Not Magnus' helmet. Would he really be that bold?
Something cold and sharp touches the edge of Charles' skin. A knife.
"Don't move."
The voice doesn't belong to Magnus. It's too young and high, and filled with a fear that Magnus would never allow himself to have.
"Pietro?"
He rolls his eyes towards the shadowed figure, not daring to turn his head. As he becomes accustomed to the darkness, he can make out the thin frame and white hair. The shape of his face clears, sharp bones that are the only thing he inherited from Magda Maximoff.
"Pietro, what are you doing?"
"Shut up. Don’t talk."
The words are rushed and frantic. His breath shakes, and he pushes a hand through his hair.
Charles swallows. The cold blade kisses his skin.
"Did your father send you?"
Pietro lets out a jagged exhale and pushes his hair back again. It falls over his face in a frantic disarray.
"I said, shut up!"
He's crying. It comes as a shock to Charles, not because of the act itself but because it took so long for him to realize. With the helmet blocking his telepathy, he has no way to call for help, no way to know what the boy is thinking. He can do whatever he wants before anybody else even realizes he was here. He could have easily forced the helmet on and killed everyone in the mansion before Charles even awoke. God, what if he had? What if that's why he's shaking so badly?
No. No. Pietro isn't a monster. Even if Magneto told him to, surely there are lines even he wouldn't cross. And surely not even Magneto would give such an order.
He has to remind himself to breathe. He has to stay calm here. Pietro is a very intelligent young man, if not reckless and impulsive. He can, in theory, be reasoned with. If Pietro wanted to kill him, he would be dead by now. He has to remember that and take it as a good sign.
"Did Magneto send you?" No answer. "Pietro, did you steal you father's helmet?"
Pietro chokes on a sob.
"He's going to kill me when he finds out."
Despite the fact that he's effectively a hostage, Charles can't help feel a twinge of sympathy at the crack in Pietro's voice. He wants to reassure him that it wasn't true, but they both know it is. Magneto won't take this lightly. And as much as it pains Charles to think, it would be like him to make an example of Pietro. Of course, Charles doesn't think he would actually murder his own son, but he would certainly teach him a lesson.
"Pietro." His voice is softer this time. "Why don't you turn the light on and let me sit up so we can talk."
The knife shakes against his skin. The press isn't enough to draw blood, but it's plenty to make him anxious.
Pietro sniffs and hiccups, but he doesn't pull back.
"Pietro, it's very difficult for me to talk to you when I can't even see your face."
"If you try anything, I'll cut your throat out."
He says it with such conviction, even if his voice is rough, that Charles' spine feels cold. There's a flash at the back of his mind of Ororo finding him in the morning and-
No. No, he can't let himself go down that path. He has to keep himself together. If he lets himself see Pietro as an enemy here, Pietro will see it and he won't have a chance. For now, he has to pretend to trust the boy. When he settles down and removes the helmet, he can take action. All he would need is a couple of seconds to enter Pietro's mind and shut him down.
Though he might not even have that time.
"I wouldn't dream of it. Would you mind?"
The words are barely out of his mouth before he's blinded. He squints and turns his head away from the light. The knife is back against his jugular, a silent reminder not to move too far. It takes longer to adjust to the light than it did to the dark. By the time Charles is used to it, Pietro is already fidgeting. He turns his head back to the boy. Anything he was going to say is forgotten.
A large, hand-shaped bruise circles the front of his throat. His nostril is caked with dried blood, and his lip is split on the same side.
There's no question of who could have done this. But still, Charles has to ask.
"Who do you think?" Pietro spits.
"Why would he do this to you?"
Pietro laughs and rubs his eye with the heel of the hand holding the knife. Part of Charles' mind screams at him to grab it. It should be so easy. And with anyone else, it might be.
"Because he's a fucking psychopath, that's why. He's a psychopath, and you left me with him!"
If that didn't wake somebody…
Is that why Pietro is here? Because he's looking for somebody to blame? How could Pietro possibly think he is in any way responsible for Magneto's behaviour?
Because Charles had left him.
The guilt he'd been suppressing for over ten years almost knocks the wind out of him. For a moment, he can't breathe. He'd found a hundred ways to ignore the fact that he'd left two small children in the care of a man who had more than the occasional violent tendency, convinced himself that he'd atoned for it by helping other mutant children, by helping Wanda. He'd convinced himself it was enough.
It clearly wasn't. And yet…
"What else was I supposed to do?" he whispers.
"You were supposed to protect us! You were supposed to stay or-- or take us with you!"
"Do you really think Magneto would have let me?"
"It shouldn't have mattered!"
He's going to wake everyone in the mansion at this rate. Charles has to remind himself that that isn't a bad thing. But Pietro grabs a fistful of his hair, the knife coming close to his scalp, and Charles worries for him. His breathing is laboured, painful-sounding.
The door clicks open. Charles' heart stops. The knife is on the hollow of his throat.
"Chuck, you ok-" Logan unsheathes his claws. "Take it easy, kid."
"Close the door. Move away from it. Now. If you try anything, I'll kill everyone in this place."
Pietro's words are rushed. Charles can barely make them out, but Logan closes the door as quietly as possible and moves towards the end of Charles' bed. Charles wants nothing more than to make eye contact, to silently tell Logan to just listen to Pietro, to do what he wants, to tell Jean to tell the students to go back to their rooms and stay there if they're awake. But he doesn't dare look away from Pietro, not when he's shaking and nearly hyperventilating with the knife still against his skin. They have to de-escalate him, calm him down. Then, only then, can they do more.
"Think about what you're doing," Logan says.
"Shut up! Don't talk. Just-- Just shut up." Pietro coughs and rubs his mouth with his free hand. "You'll save every mutant on the planet, even Avalanche, of all people. But not me. Why wasn't I worth saving?"
Charles squeezes his eyes shut. It's a fair question. He would have been lying if he denied ever asking it of himself. The time he spent with Wanda had often made him wonder what therapy sessions with Pietro would be like. Now he knows.
It isn't that Pietro isn't worth saving. It's that he can't be saved. Magneto's claws are hooked too deep in him. Trying to save him would be suicide.
But Pietro won't understand that. Especially not now.
"It isn't like that, Pietro. It's… complicated."
"You were my family. You were s-supposed to protect me."
The words, combined with the bruising on his face, are something out of Charles' nightmares.
"I know. I failed you, and I'm sorry. But there was nothing I could have done for you. You know that. He broke my spine. What do you think he would have done if I tried taking you away from him? Do you think he would have just stood by and let it happen?"
"He experimented on me! Turned me into a weapon! How could- How could you let that happen?"
"Pietro, believe me, if I'd known-"
"And what about when he abandoned me? You could have come for me anytime then, but you didn't. You just left me to take care of myself. And then you treat me like the bad guy for it!"
He's sure Pietro didn't want to hear that he didn't know Magnus had abandoned him. Whatever Magnus had done to him in those experiments made it impossible for Charles to find him. Pietro likely wouldn't believe that Charles had checked in on him every day using Cerebro until he could no longer identify Pietro's mutant signature.
He'd thought -- perhaps even hoped -- Pietro was dead. It seems the reality of it was worse.
"You were stealing. What was I supp-"
"I was being raped! Again and again, by so many people. What I was doing was to survive, so I didn't have to keep doing that. But you don't give a shit! None of you do!"
Much, much worse.
Emotion thickens Pietro's voice with an accent Charles remembers from the boy's childhood. Magnus had shaken his own accent after decades of practice. It reminds Charles of the small, black-haired boy who would always make a face when his father would snap at him to speak English. Charles had always forced himself to tolerate German-Polish-Romani mix, though it had always given him a headache. He'd loved Magnus and because he loved Magnus, he loved Magnus' children.
Now, that boy is a young man, as broken as his English had been back then.
Whatever Pietro says next is lost. Charles only hears a shrill buzzing. He watches Pietro's blurred movements, feeling numb. This feeling normally sends panic through him but now, he's too focused on Pietro. The experiments… He'd known about them since he'd first sat down with Wanda. There was nothing he could have done.
But the rest… Good God. He should have been able to do something about the rest. He can't find the words to apologize. There aren't any.
"I don't want to live like this anymore!"
"Don't do this, kid. You don't have to do this! Charles!"
Charles forces himself to look at Pietro.
He holds the switchblade to his own throat now. He's still shaking, but there's a look of resignation in his eyes. It's the look of someone who'd thought of doing this, maybe even tried it, a thousand times before.
Do it, Charles thinks. You've suffered through too much, and it likely won't end here. It'll be kinder on yourself if you end it now.
Pietro doesn't react. The helmet still blocks Charles' telepathic influence. It seems almost cruel to stop him. What kind of life would Pietro have, always under Magneto's thumb?
Logan clearly doesn't see it that way. He inches forward, his hands raised and palms open.
"You don't want to do this," he says. "You have your entire life ahead of you."
"I know. That's the problem!"
"Look, what Magneto did is… There aren't words to describe it. And what those other people did is even worse. You're still just a kid. You didn't deserve any of that. Nobody does."
Pietro shakes his head. By this point, they're only feet apart.
"I can't promise we can protect you from Magneto. God knows I can't. But--" Logan glances back at Charles. "-- we owe it to you to try. What do you say? Can you give me the knife?"
"I-- I can't. Lance gave it to me."
But Pietro does pull it from his neck and close it before holding it against his chest. There's sadness in his voice that hadn't been there a moment ago. Are he and Lance…? That's a question for later. As Logan spoke, Charles realized he's right. They owe it to him to find another, better way to help Pietro than letting him end his life.
More than that, they can use this to their advantage. With Pietro here, the Brotherhood has lost their most terrifying weapon. Magnus has lost his most terrifying weapon. They can end this quickly and painlessly.
"We won't take it from you," he assures. "Logan will set you up in one of the spare rooms."
"Father's helmet."
Charles pushes himself up onto his elbow. Before he can reach up for the helmet, it's gone. Finally, he can breathe again. He reaches out to Pietro's mind but it's a mess. There are too many thoughts and images moving too quickly for Charles to focus on any.
'You okay, Chuck?'
'I'm better now. Please make sure he has everything he needs.'
'I think he needs a hell of a lot more than what we can offer.'
'I know, Logan. Do what you can. Get him something to eat. He must be starving.'
'Will do.'
Logan guides Pietro out of the room. It isn't until the door closes behind them that Charles can begin to relax. And even then, he can only relax so much.
He lifts himself up to a sitting position. He would have asked for Logan's help, but he needs Logan to watch Pietro more right now. With a slow exhale, he presses his fingers to his temples. Part of him hopes this doesn't work.
'Magnus? Magnus, can you hear me?'