X-Men

[Zlataslawa]

Fill: Limited Release (12/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-13 19:05 (UTC)
"Hank's happy enough for both of us," Alex mutters, and Hank punches him in the arm for it, which hurts like a motherfucker, not that Alex is going to admit that. And because Alex, for better or worse, believes in the devil he knows, he asks, "How come you didn't consult me at all? What if I don't want to help you guys? What if I want to stay in prison?"

Lehnsherr looks unmoved, as usual. Asshole. "Then I guess you don't want my help finding your brother, either."

Alex grits his teeth, and he can feel Hank's hands on his shoulder, trying to hold him back. Scott's case isn't really a case, Alex knows. He's a street kid, and they've both busted out of mutant foster care -- basically kiddie prison, anyway, so Alex should have seen this latest development in his life coming -- so much the system would be happier to see them gone, Alex bets. But Scott's powers are even more fucked up than Alex's, and they'd barely had them under control when Alex had gone into real jail. Who knows where he is now, how they are now, if someone's trying to hurt him or use him.

Hank is whispering, "Alex, come on, just -- "

"We can make this work for both of us, Summers," Lehnsherr interrupts, and Alex thinks that this is the first time he's really felt like the dumb kid Lehnsherr clearly thinks he is, in all the time they've known each other. "You just have to learn how to work for me."
"Alex, come on," Hank hisses. "This is the best way, okay?"

Hank's right, but that doesn't quiet the part of Alex that wants to yell that fucking feebs who wear collar shirts and ties and get to hide behind their badges don't know anything about his life. That maybe Lehnsherr is a mutant, but he's clearly got his shit under control, and fuck, the government loves him, puts him on TV all the time to talk about helping prevent terrorism and how his task force is "uniquely able" to handle mutant threats. He wants to yell that there's no fucking way Lehnsherr knows how useless and angry and scared Alex feels all the time -- Lehnsherr probably doesn't have any family he gives a fuck about. Lehnsherr's probably never had a feeling.

But Alex has a brother, and if someone forced him to admit it, he has some feelings about that, and so he grits his teeth and says:

"Fine -- fine, we'll do it your way."

***

Getting Alex to do something rational, taking the route of least resistance, is one of those once-in-a-blue-moon occurrences, so Hank feels pretty justified about being ebullient with triumph all the way during the long drive from the prison to 26 Federal Plaza.

Agent Lehnsherr's a weird mix of law-abiding and control-freak risk-taker as a driver, shredding across three lanes at one point and then scrupulously sticking to within 10 miles of the speed limit in his big black hulk of a government-issued SUV. Hank wonders if the guy is nuts, because he can't imagine anybody else taking Alex Summers -- ex-supermax inmate and all-around terrifying-seeming mutant criminal -- out of jail without so much as another agent for backup, but Lehnsherr seems pretty unconcerned.

Of course, if what Alex says about Lehnsherr's mutation is true, then he could throw both Hank and Alex into traffic and orchestrate a 40-car pile up on their faces if they so much as put a toe out of place, so maybe it's not weird at all.

"My team's arranged housing for you," Lehnsherr says, out of nowhere. "It's not much to look at, but it's on the same budget as the state was spending on you per month in jail, so try to keep an open mind."

Hank blurts out, "How much was that?" since Alex seems determined to ignore everything going on in the in favor of sulking in the backseat.

Lehnsherr grins, half-apologetic. "About $800 a month."

"In Manhattan?" Hank gasps.

"Like I said: not much to look at," Lehnsherr says, the car slowing to a crawl now, finally, down beyond the long avenues and into the warrens of tiny, interlocking, knotted streets of Chinatown, Canal stretching angular and crammed with thousands of people, English vanishing from the signs along the street.

Frowning, Hank asks, "Can he stay somewhere else?"

"Is it within his 2 mile radius?" Lehnsherr asks, looking amused.
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Fill: Limited Release (13/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-13 19:06 (UTC)
Hank thinks about the warehouse in Brooklyn and tries to do the math in his head. "Maybe?"

"We'd also have to clear whoever he'd be staying with," Lehnsherr goes on, hanging a left, and Federal Plaza looms hideous and unyielding up ahead, sounding entirely too cheerful for someone giving this any genuine consideration. "Deep background check and all that."

Hank feels queasy at the thought, and he's trying to figure out how to backtrack on this when Alex -- ever gentlemanly -- elbows him viciously and mutters, "Forget it, Hank."

"Ah," Lehnsherr says, pulling up to a parking gate, "young love."

Bleak, Hank says, "Agent Lehnsherr," and Alex just rolls his eyes.

"Don't worry, I think it's cute," Erik assures him, eyes crinkling meanly in the rear-view mirror, which is sufficiently mortifying to make Hank subside into embarrassed silence until they're done parking and Agent Lehnsherr pulls open the door of the backseat and hustles them out into the underground lot like a particularly unfriendly camp counselor. That's pretty much par for the course the rest of the way up to the 23rd floor offices.

The elevator ride is endless, with Alex sulking in mute fury in the back corner and Agent Lehnsherr frowning at his BlackBerry, scrolling back and forth for something.

Hank knows that if there are good guys, then Agent Lehnsherr is as close to is as it's possible for them to find. Hank knows that Alex doesn't trust the feds, that his automatic reaction is to lie and cut and run, that distrust had been pounded into Alex, an indelible mark on top of bad circumstances. Alex hadn't had the parents to drive him to manifestation management classes or pay for nice ones, or even the luxury of being able to skip work to go to the (shitty) free ones offered by the government. Being in this building -- being around people in general, much less Feds -- makes Alex nervous, makes his skin crawl.

Hank's different. His parents had been nice, he'd had a pretty benign upbringing, and Harvard was really nice about letting a 13 year-old mutant take classes, there. They were less nice when they realized what he was doing in his off hours in the chemistry lab -- desperately trying to find a way to pass, completely, as ordinary. It wasn't really anything they could keep quiet, and Hank will always remember the tired, heartbreaking look on Dr. Matchmark's face when she'd told him she had to report him, that he'd probably have to do some time, because if it was one thing nobody was lenient about, it was mutants playing with mutant DNA.

"I'm going to go into my office," she'd told him, looking hundreds of years older than she was. "I'm going to go into my office and pick up the phone and dial it. I'm going to call the mutant juvenile line specifically, so it'll probably take a while before I can find the number -- am I being clear?"

"Yes," Hank had whispered, and he'd run.

So Alex had the bad life, and made the best of it, and Hank had a good thing going and screwed it up, and the only person who'd been nice to him after he'd spent a month sleeping in parks and scared as hell and passing into and out of shelters and too scared to take a shower in case someone see his feet was Alex. Hank didn't care if Alex was mad at him for caring, Hank was always going to care. Even if Alex was a dick.

"Look," Agent Lehnsherr finally says, when the numbers on the elevator tick past 15, 16, "I know you're nervous, but this is really going to be a nothing day. We'll do a debriefing, my team will have you look at some photos, we'll do a couple of interviews -- easy."

Then the elevator doors open into total chaos on the 23rd floor.

***

Fill: Limited Release (14/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-14 19:23 (UTC)
Charles had considered not telling Erik about the note on his office door, the shivery-cold impression of Sebastian Shaw left behind on a message taped to his name plate, but then he'd opened the letter — he can already hear Erik's explosive fury on that subject — and found the folded-up photograph and went ahead and canceled all of his classes for the day.

"I don't really see why I can't go now," Charles says reasonably. "I've brought you the note."

"You're kidding me, right?" Raven demands. "He was at your office."

"So were three pedophiles and a wheelchair fetishist, yesterday," Charles argues. He keeps up a low-level scan whenever he's at his desk because he promised Erik he would.

Raven stares at him. "Did any of those three pedophiles or that wheelchair fetishist shoot you five times?"

"No," Charles says shortly, and decides not to tell her that said wheelchair fetishist also has an extensive collection of possibly-fake-hope-it's-fake snuff films. The level of access Charles has always had to everybody's thoughts means that generally speaking it takes a lot to rile him, though his friends and family by no means have the same tolerance. "But I hardly see what my sitting in your office so everybody can trip over me is going to do."

Armando, who in Erik's absence gets to take over as World's Worst Boss, is yelling at everybody in the background, a phone clutched between his ear and his shoulder, waving a folder and directing human traffic left and right. Charles had barely passed Armando the note in question — which he'd opened carefully, using a handkerchief he kept in his jacket pocket — before phones had started ringing off the hook. Everybody is thinking extremely loudly, that this is the first indication of Shaw they've had in more than a year, that someone needs to set up protective detail for various and sundry former targets, that Columbia officials and campus security need to be alerted and read in on the situation, that Charles Xavier is a poor bastard, stuck in his chair, that oh shit, I hope he didn't hear that.

Raven, who can't hear any of it, just sticks the toe of her sensible heels through one of the spokes spokes of one Charles's wheelchair and glowers.

"You sitting here in the office so everybody can trip over you is going to keep you from getting killed, you moron," she tells him, fierce, and Charles can feel the worry radiating off of her in tsunami waves. They both know it's irrational, that to panic now is too late already, given that Shaw has apparently been strolling around Charles's office leaving him affectionate notes to say hello, don't worry, I still intend to make a martyr out of you.

Charles thinks that if Shaw was planning on killing him today, then he'd probably be dead already, but he's known Raven since he was 12 and she was 10 and he swears every time he makes her cry that he's never going to make her cry again.

He pastes a smile on his face. "Raven, I am sure there are no more capable hands than yours in case someone needs to be shot violently in the face."

She looks genuinely touched. "Shut up, Charles," she mumbles.

"Frankly, I'm more concerned about the boy in the photo," Charles returns, and they settle into an uncomfortable silence at the thought of him: blindfolded and obviously terrified, face wet with tears. There's no psychic impression on the photo — something snapped bloodlessly and without any interest, it's drenched in the same icy determination as the note Shaw had left on his door like an unwanted calling card. The child looks maybe 16, a little too thin, knobby-kneed, and he's curled into himself in the corner of a bland-colored room: not a single obvious detail in the photo other than a tremendous amount of fearfulness.

Raven puts her hands on his knees, and he can feel her proximity, but not her touch, not the weight of her hands or the warmth of them, and even though his injury is old, the tiny losses, the never-ending sense of absence, is eternally new.

"We'll find him," she reassures him. "We have our best people on it."
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Fill: Limited Release (15/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-14 19:29 (UTC)
(A/N: UGHHHH let's just all pretend I didn't briefly anonfail...)

Charles nods. Angel is already in the field, he can feel the whispery, feathery sensation of her in the distance, through the glass and steel and successive layers of concrete, up past Harlem and Jackie Robinson Park, ordering around forensics and caucusing with Homeland Security liaisons in the hallway outside of Charles's office. The psychic shielding around the division's offices is trembling with the volume and mass of everybody's thoughts, overfull, and Charles spreads his awareness out further, for some indication of Shaw.

Instead, he gets Erik: amused, light, BlackBerry outage, fucking RIM, fucking AT&T, has no clue what's going on, talking with two people Charles doesn't know. Wait, Charles thinks, frowning, yes I do. Or at least he knows one of them second-hand, the impression of a ghost in a photograph.

Either way.

When he opens his eyes again — he never means to let them drift closed when he does this, it must be reflexive — Raven is staring at him curiously.

"Did you find anything? Anyone?" she asks.

"Not Shaw," Charles says. "Either he's long gone, or heavily shielded."

Raven looks skeptical. "From you?"

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Raven," Charles says, and folds his hands in his lap. "Either way, I suggest you brace for impact."

Tensing, Raven asks, "What? Impact?"

Charles tips his head toward the glass doors to the elevator bank, saying, "Erik," and all the color drains out of Raven's face as they hear the elevator bell indicator. "Boom."

***

As soon as the elevator doors open, three things happen in rapid succession:

(1) Erik's BlackBerry finally springs to life, showing 15 missed calls, 5 voice mails, 2 text messages, and an embarrassment of work e-mail, most of them with the subject line: SHAW or RE: RE: RE: SHAW, URGENT

(2) The elevator next to theirs pings open, and McTaggert, their CIA liaison pops out.

(3) Hank sucks in a teenaged-girl gasp for oxygen and asks, high-pitched in a hush, "Oh my God, is that Professor Charles Xavier?"

The only reason Erik doesn't overreact when he sees Charles, finally, a singular oasis of wary calm in the midst of utter bedlam, is because McTaggert interrupts him with an arched brow, saying, "Erik," and casting a curious look over Alex and Hank, huddled behind Erik and gawping at the office.

"Moira," Erik says through gritted teeth. "I assume that as per usual, your presence here indicates the shitshow has hit 11."

She smiles at him, nicer than he deserves for his tone. "Not yet. And if we play this right, maybe not at all — now, if you'll excuse me," she demurs, and calls out across the room, "Raven? We're ready for that read-in."

Across the room, Raven's familiar blond head pops up from where she's been camped out next to Charles, obviously babysitting, and Erik spares her an acknowledging nod before he turns to her brother.

The very first thing Charles does when their eyes meet is to project the thoughts, I'm fine, no harm done, and Several of those missed calls of yours are from me.

That doesn't make the argument they're about to have any less imminent, though, so Erik snags Sean by the back of his suit jacket, ignoring his strangled gulp, and spins him around.
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Fill: Limited Release (16/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-14 19:33 (UTC)
"Cassidy, this is Summers and McCoy," Erik says, pointing at Summers and McCoy and ignoring the way Raven is rolling her eyes dramatically at him as she and McTaggert brush past, heels tapping dully against the carpet, and each of the metal pins inside feels like a little stab in the back of Erik's eyeballs.

Sean waves, sounding vaguely choked. "Hey," he manages.

"Summers, McCoy, this is Agent Sean Cassidy," Erik clarifies. Hank waves back, but he's still staring over Erik's shoulder at Charles, gap-jawed. "Cassidy, I want you to sit on these guys until I'm done with Charles and resist — " Erik holds up an arresting hand at Sean's smirk " — the urge to say the first thing that comes to your mind at that."

Throwing off a sloppy salute, Cassidy says, "Aye aye, sir," and wriggles out of Erik's grasp, slapping a hand on Hank's shoulder and wisely leaving Summers alone entirely, saying, "Hey guys, hey, welcome to hell."

"Seriously," Hank says as they're led off, "is that Charles Xavier?"

Erik's already walking off when he hears Sean say, "Oh, man, you have no idea, do you?"

Armando barely looks up from his computer or lean away from the phone when Erik walks past, just turning to glance at him long enough to say, "Sit-rep in 15 minutes in the main conference room, Angel's on site at Columbia working with Homeland Security and forensics, and before you yell at us, the Professor was the one who decided to drive the note here himself."

Long-suffering, Charles says, "Carrytale."

"I'm giving him a raise," Erik says. "My office. Now."

Smiling sweetly, Charles says, "Really, I'd rather do this here."

Looking pained, Armando murmurs, "Please, don't," and Charles talks over him, saying, "Really, Erik, I can tell already that you're going to overreact — this isn't as big — "

The rest of the familiar litany gets lost when Erik's patience snaps entirely and he skids Charles's wheelchair down the long aisle and through the door of his office, ignoring the way he can feel everybody's eyes on him in favor of staring down Charles's murderous expression instead.

"Was that," Charles grinds out, once the door to Erik's office is shut, "necessary?"

"Why didn't you call the police immediately?" Erik snaps, instead of answering.

"Because I don't think you're fully cognizant of how humiliating it is when you do things like that," Charles goes on, pitch rising.

"Did you forget that you're his number one target?" Erik talks over him. He knows Charles hates it when he does that almost as much as he hates it any time Erik brings attention to the wheelchair, but everything in his head a rattling cacophony of terror and he's no good at hiding it around Charles. "Did that somehow slip your giant fucking mind?"

Funny enough, back when Charles had the option of walking away, he never would. He'd follow Erik room from room and through locked doors and into angry car rides, talking into Erik's head, never willing to let it go, also resulting in a couple of hilariously awkward moving violations for Erik. Charles is uniquely capable of knowing when people need space, he's just too much of an arrogant shit to give it to them. Now that leaving's a production — between the awkwardly placed chair that had been pushed aside where Erik had stormed in after Charles, the door that's going to prove an annoying angle for the chair, the people in the way between Erik's office and the elevators that Charles can't just weave between with furious speed anymore — walking away is the only thing Charles looks like he wants to do.

"Strangely," Charles says, his vowels absolutely flat and icy, knuckles white on the arms of the chair, "it has not slipped my mind."

Which is enough to deflate Erik's swelling fury all at once.

Fighting with Charles is second nature to Erik; being mad at him is far more foreign. Mostly when they argue it's over philosophical differences, or about whether or not Charles is violating Erik's right to not incriminate himself when he pokes around Erik's head and discovers he may or may not have passed on wearing kevlar on one more more occasion. Erik is used to be angry about Charles, being angry for Charles, but being angry at him is hard.
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Fill: Limited Release (17/?)

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2011-06-14 19:35 (UTC)
Charles is wrapped up inside layers and layers of privilege, oblivious to the uglier complications engendered in the lives of people who aren't backed by vulgar trust funds who live like kings off of the interest. He's always known exactly what everybody is thinking and what they want, if they want him, and when Erik had first met Charles, years ago, fresh off the fucking boat from England and embarrassingly sweet, he'd never truly been hurt, either. Erik hadn't wanted to be the first; he doesn't want to be the next, the continuing, the ever-present ache.

But Charles also knows every terrible thing, seen it, done it, lived through it, wanted it and hated it and been victimized by it, lived inside of it. Erik's confident of his own limits and limitations, but he never really knows Charles's — there's no way to tell because Charles is rarely changed by it, still the volubly witty and charmingly dry professor, eternally interested in everything and everybody — nothing a hopeless case. What the hell is Erik supposed to do with that, he wonders every fucking day.

He puts his hands on his face. "Why didn't you just call the cops, Charles?"

"There was no rush, he was gone, I could tell," Charles says, quiet now and tired-sounding. "And I just saved your team the trouble of driving me down here — they would have been forced to anyway."

"You can't know he was gone for sure," Erik protests, but it's hollow at the core and Charles knows that, too. "What was in the letter?"

Charles raises his eyebrows, face clearing. "I'd prefer not to say while I'm still nearby and easy for you to yell at, if it's all the same." Don't worry, I'll yell at you when I get home, anyway, Erik thinks, sullen, and Charles ignores it entirely to ask, "What do you think it means?"

"That Shaw's re-emerged?" Erik asks. "I don't know. Probably he's planning something."

"Or he's been planning something, and now he's about to act," Charles muses.

Resisting the urge to tug at his hair, Erik agrees, "Yes, or that."

Charles makes a humming noise, simultaneously meditative and dismissive.

"Who was with you? Coming up in the elevator?" he asks.

Erik looks out the glass walls of his office, down the open floor and the bustling desks, at where Sean is talking about Alex, who's ignoring him in favor of staring at his shoes, and Hank, who is ignoring him in favor of staring directly into Erik's office, gazing at Charles with something close to abject infatuation.

"That is Summers and his pre-pubescent 'lawyer,'" Erik mutters.

Charles turns to stare back at Hank, grinning crookedly and waving a little, at which Hank goes totally red and then completely white and then pasteboard green before managing a feeble wave back. "Alex is a mutant — Hank's one, too?"

Erik turns, eyes narrowed at Hank. "McCoy is a mutant?"

"I have got to stop accidentally outing people," Charles sighs to himself, and tipping his head to one side, he goes back to staring at Alex and Hank through the window, thoughtful. "Where will they go? Now that Alex is out?"

The other trouble with telepaths is that when Erik thinks, hah, he's going to hate this, and flashes to the image of the shitty by-the-week flop they'd lined up for Summers.

Charles's expression is obviously appalled. "Erik, no."

"I have to play by the rules," Erik protests. "Same money it takes to put him up in jail."

Raven comes up and knocks on the door, peering in and asking, "Are you guys done fighting? The meeting is starting next door."

"We're done fighting," Charles assures her, and looks around her, back to Alex and Hank — who is back to staring at him with the bleak sort of adolescent longing Charles is pretty used to by now from enduring long-term exposure to college students. "If you guys are going to the meeting, can I talk with Alex and Hank?"

Erik says, "No," the same time Raven says, "Why not?"

Charles is already beaming, waving at Hank and Alex some more and ignoring Erik's, "Charles, no, no," as he heads for the office door, saying, "Oh, come on, it's not like you're going to let me go home unsupervised, anyway, I may as well keep myself entertained while I wait," and makes a beeline for the kids.

***

TBC

Fill: Limited Release (18/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-17 20:32 (UTC)
***
Absolutely nothing about this fucking donkey show has indicated that this thing isn't bullshit yet, so Alex is fully prepared to scowl his way through whatever Lehnsherr has planned and to make himself as irritating as possible until someone finds his little brother. He doesn't particularly give two craps if they ever find Shaw, but sitting here while everybody is freaking the fuck out about the guy is starting to make him feel like he missed something giant in the transaction when he was running with Florick's crew. Alex had known better back then than to ask dumb questions when he was being hired to blow stuff up, but now he wishes he'd paid a little more attention at least — if for nothing else, as leverage.

Next to him, Hank starts making a choking noise, and digs his man-claws into Alex's forearm.

"Oh my God," Hank hisses. "Oh my God, Alex!"

Because that hurts like a motherfucker, Alex is mostly focused on digging Hank's fucking nails out of his flesh, when he says, "Jesus God damn Christ, Hank, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"He's just a touch excited," someone says, and Alex jerks his head up in time to see some guy in a wheelchair smiling at them. He has brown hair and blue eyes and looks like every fucking first-year social worker Alex has ever had the misfortune of encountering. "And — oh, my goodness, Hank, I'm flattered, but that's hardly true."

Alex frowns, and next to him, Hank makes that wheezing noise again.

In one high-pitched exhalation, Hank squeaks, "Oh my God, you're reading my mind."

Smiling with only the barest touch of obviously fake apology, the guy says, "Well, yes, but you are thinking terribly, terribly loudly, Hank — I can stop, if you'd prefer?" Pausing, he glances at Alex, the grin on his face stretching into something more genuine. "Alex Summers, it's excellent to finally meet you, and what a marvelous mutation you have."

Alex yells, "What did you just say to me?" the same time Hank simpers, "No, no, it's just such an honor. You're amazing."

The man just laughs, saying, "My apologies, chaps, I should have introduced myself first — "

"I mean, obviously, we know who you are," Hank interrupts, blushing like some a teenaged girl.

What the fuck, Alex thinks, and snaps, "Uh, not obviously. I don't know who the fuck this guy is."

While Hank is looking like Alex just punched Mother Teresa in front of a school full of orphaned kittens, the man's smile goes crooked, and he says, "Charmingly said, Alex — I'm Charles Xavier, pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Whatever," Alex snaps. "How do you know about my — my shit?"

Hank has transferred his clawing from Alex's arm to his own face by this point, so thank God for that.

"I'd say it's refreshing to meet someone without any preconceived notions of me, but that would be inaccurate," the man ripostes, still cheerful. "I'm a telepath — I know about everyone's 'shit,' as you say."

A hundred thousand things things blow through Alex's mind all at once, and every single one of them he'd rather saw off his arm with a rusty knife than admit to anybody, which leaves him feeling vaguely sick and hoping that Xavier didn't catch all of it — hell, any of it.

"So, what?" Alex asks, flustered. "Are you the FBI's pet psychic or something?"

"God, no, I'd be bored to tears," Xavier answers, easy. "No, I'm the object of the investigation today."

Alex must look skeptical, or maybe he's just thinking, fucking yeah right really loudly or something — this is the first time he's ever met a telepath and he already hates telepaths, great — because Xavier just tips his head back toward the huddle in the conference room, saying, "I brought them a note Shaw was kind enough to leave me today. It's caused a bit of excitement."

"God," Hank says, voice shaky. "I mean, are you okay?"

"It's very sweet of you to worry, Hank, but I'm fine," Xavier assures him, and while Hank is nurturing a starry-eyed expression like God just shot off in his face or something, Xavier directs his attention back to Alex. "Tell me, Alex, did anyone ever help you work on your powers? Learn how to control it?"

Alex stares at him for a little while. "Dude, are you for fucking real?"
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Fill: Limited Release (19/?)

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2011-06-17 20:34 (UTC)
"Stop," Hank begs, actually putting his hands on Alex's face. "For the love of God, stop."

Ignoring both those things, Xavier says, "I think with time, patience, and effort, you could gain complete mastery over your powers."

"I also hear there is no try, there is only do or do not," Alex retorts.

"I hate you," Hank tells him feelingly. "You're just — this is my hero, stop being a dick."

That tiny wrench in Alex's stomach definitely isn't guilt, but he says, "What? I don't even know who this guy is and he's reading my mind? Come on!" anyway, because Hank's expression of pained distress is so fucking annoying. It's always been like this, ever since Alex found him on that corner in Central Park like he was just dying to get raped under a bridge, and then when Hank wouldn't go away, just hung around quietly — like he was worried Alex was going to hit him — and fixed everything in that shitty little flop he and Scott were sharing at that point, rewiring stuff, magicking the plumbing, stealing them cable.

"You'll be pleased to know that I stopped," Xavier reports cheerfully, and like a switch has been flicked, he tilts his head two degrees to the left, and Alex has a clear and total understanding that he's been dismissed — just like that. Now, Xavier's turning that smile up to a billion watts, directed completely at Hank, who looks like he might just expire from an excess of awesome under its power. "So, Hank, where are you guys going to be staying?"

Every hair on Alex's body stands straight up at that tone. Xavier sounds totally fucking harmless and completely painfully sweet, which is exactly the sort of voice every single con man cultivates if he's at all good at what he does.

"Agent Lehnsherr says they have a place lined up for Alex," Hank admits, but he sounds skeeved out just saying it. It's probably a shithole overrun with rats, because that's just the sort of dick thing that dick Lehnsherr would do. He might be one of the less douchey Feds, but he's still a Fed.

Xavier smiles. It's a total snake-charmer smile. Alex looks over at the meeting room, where Lehnsherr's on his feet now pointing at something complicated-looking on a white board, totally unconcerned about the more or less deserted bullpen and Alex and Hank. What the fuck. Either Lehnsherr's so badass he's completely convinced Alex isn't going to try anything or he's secretly the worst FBI agent ever.

"I wasn't worried about Alex," Xavier says, giving Alex a brief, amused glance. "I'm sure Alex is more than capable of taking care of himself — I was more concerned about you."

Momentarily, Hank looks trapped. "I uh, I have a place. In Brooklyn."

"Brooklyn," Xavier says delicately, but he makes it sound like a cesspool. Which, since Hank's "place" is off of the Graham Avenue stop on the L, down past the fucking BQE and behind a Mexican butcher's, is frankly pretty accurate.

"It's fine," Hank rushes to assure Xavier. Yeah, okay, Alex thinks with painful resignation, Hank's about ready to throw up a gospel hand and pledge his life savings to the Church of Oh, Professor Xavier already. Typical. "Really, I mean, it has nice windows."

Xavier just shakes his head, reaching over to put a hand on — to put a hand on Hank's wrist. "Now, you're such a nice, young man," he says.

"Wait, what is happening," Alex asks, because holy shit.

Ignoring him, Xavier says, "And I have this gorgeous annex you can stay in, very inexpensive."

Hank looks like he's mentally already moved in and hung up all his ugly ass posters. Out loud, he says, "I couldn't possibly, Professor, that would be just — "

"Please," Xavier interrupts, "call me Charles."

Hank is probably going to look underaged until he has some underaged kids of his own, Alex is aware, and in the past this has been awesome for getting half-price movie tickets and old ladies to feel bad for them when they need stuff, but this entire situation has now taken a turn for the seriously God damn creepy. Because he is sort of Hank's friend, and Hank has always managed to get him HBO, Alex graciously slaps Xavier's creepy hands off of Hank's wrist, growling, "No thanks, asshole, he's not buying what you're selling."
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Re: Fill: Limited Release (19/?) — (Анонимно) — Развернуть
Re: Fill: Limited Release (19/?) — kyme — Развернуть
Fill: Limited Release (20/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-17 20:36 (UTC)
Xavier just gives Hank a self-deprecating look. "Of course, I understand. A young man with vigor such as yourself would surely have better things to do than help an old fart like me with my research."

Hank makes that noise again, like a hamster being sucked in a pool drain, and before Alex knows what's happening, he's saying, "Yes. Yes, I would love to. That would be just. I've read all of your papers. Are you sure I can stay with you? I can commute. The L train usually runs okay," and Xavier's putting an affectionate hand on Hank's knee — seriously what the fuck — and saying stuff like, "Hank, I would worry myself sick if you stayed in that horrible place. And don't lie about it, I can read your mind you know. It's too brilliant a mind to waste! And we have your own fantastic mutations to investigate as well, have we not?"

"I am actually about to throw up in my own mouth," Alex tells them both.

Then Lehnsherr appears out of nowhere, popping up behind Xavier looking like someone shat in his coffee.

"Are you mouthing off, Summers?" he asks.

"Damn right I am," Alex reports.

Xavier just tips his head back, smiling in an entirely different way than he'd been smiling before. "We're just having a spirited discussion, Erik. These young people are wonderful."

Looking like maybe he'd discovered the shit in his coffee by chugging it, Lehnsherr says to Xavier, "You are, if even, like 13 years older than them. Please stop thinking you are everybody's kindly grandfather," and turns back up to Hank, asking, "Is he harassing you?"

Mortified, Hank murmurs, "No, Professor Xavier is amazing."

"Jesus, now I'm going to throw up in my mouth," Lehnsherr sighs, genuinely revolted. "All right, Summers, I'm going to have Cassidy drive you to your place and get settled in. Hank need a ride?"

For all Hank's dumb about people and really stupid when it comes to Alex, he's too smart to ever let a Fed follow him home. Alex doesn't say anything, and Hank doesn't say anything, and eventually some smoking hot woman everybody's calling McTaggert says, "Erik, we've got NSA on the phone," and Lehnsherr disappears back into the conference room.

"Can I go home if I take an agent with me?" Xavier calls at Lehnsherr's back.

"Yeah, but only if you take an agent with you," Lehnsherr lobs back, looking over his shoulder to say, "Otherwise, you sit your ass here and wait for me, got it? No funny business, Charles."

"Me?" Xavier asks, all innocence, "never."

Sean Cassidy, who'd already told Alex and Hank his entire life story, and then spent 15 minutes complaining about his lot in life as the designated indentured servant of the FBI's mutant task force, is easily collected from an enormous pile of photocopies he's tending by Xavier saying, "Sean? May we borrow you for a moment?" After some negotiations, Sean goes to get keys for a bureau car, and then they're all hanging around the elevator together, watching the numbers tick town, Hank and Xavier having some kind of incomprehensible conversation about alleles that makes Alex feel more and more like they should retract his GED just listening to it.

Once they're in the car, driving up the island, out of the gnarled mess of traffic below the grid, Xavier — who'd neatly got himself into the passenger's seat, and folded his wheelchair up to tuck away in the backseat with Hank's effusive help — says to Cassidy:

"Actually, if you don't mind, let's just drop off Alex first, Hank and I are both going back to the house."

Alex says, "What, seriously?"

Cassidy smirks. "Does Erik know about this?"

"Why does Erik need to know that I'm keeping a lovely young man in the annex?" Xavier asks. Next to Alex, Hank blushes a Baskin Robbins 41 flavors of fucking pink, and Alex is suddenly bombarded with horrible, graphic images of Hank and Xavier, making sweet morally wrong love over a thousand chemistry textbooks and wants to die, immediately.
Fill: Limited Release (21/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-17 20:37 (UTC)
"No way," Alex hisses at Hank. "You are not going over there."

"You said yourself the warehouse should be condemned," Hank argued.

"First off, the warehouse is condemned," Alex snaps. "But that doesn't mean you can just — sign yourself over to the nerd love of your life, okay? He's ancient! He's like 40!"

Hank clears his throat. "Don't worry, Professor, I'm definitely coming. I know the Library of Congress system. I could totally redo your library."

"That's spectacular, Hank," Xavier says. "Really, Alex. You don't need to be so concerned. Hank is clearly a very sweet young man, I'll be nothing but solicitous with him."

In the driver's seat, Cassidy looks like he's choking. Alex doesn't blame him.

"You know what, fuck this," Alex snarls. "Where Hank goes, I go."

There's always that moment where the enormity of what a giant dumbass Alex is sometimes becomes completely clear. It's that bit from boy scouts where he'd learned how to tie the knot that you can pull taut with a single tug, and Alex feels a little like he just stepped in it — big time — when Xavier grins at him in the rearview mirror, all teeth and Cheshire Cat satisfied blue eyes, and says:

"Oh, only because you insist, Alex."

"Uh," Alex says. "I do. Okay?"

Xavier's annex isn't filled with muscle mag pics of exploited 18-year-old boys or anything. Firstly, it is situated in the east wing of Xavier's giant house, which Alex has seen before in his years tooling around the Upper West Side, but he'd always just assumed it was a museum, or the headquarters for some sort of global supervillain syndicate. He feels too poor even to be in the zip code, and Xavier leads them through the entryway and a marble-paved foyer, into a dark-wood corridor and then into a goddamn elevator. Alex wants to believe Xavier had it installed because of the wheelchair, but he has a really shitty feeling that Xavier has just always had a fucking elevator in his house.

The annex itself was overflowing with books and oddly furnished: an old black-top lab table, bookshelves creaking with volumes caked over with dust, an double bed with a brass frame, a couple of battered sofas, a kitchen table with mismatching chairs. It looks like the extras, the leftover stuff, and Alex is still busy puzzling over a shelf full of police procedure books when he hears Xaiver saying, "I'll speak with the housekeeper, she'll bring up some fresh things for you boys — see you in the morning?"

Hank offers to sleep on one of the sofas, and then the floor, and then the rug, and then an armchair, at which point Alex just drags him down on the bed, and they lie there, arms pressed together, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling.

"I'm glad you came here," Hank whispers. Old habit, even though nobody's listening in on them now, and even if they didn't talk, Xavier was probably eavesdropping on them like a creepy pervert anyway.

"Like I was going to leave you alone with that guy," Alex mutters.

"Professor Xavier is the world's most prominent and widely respected mutant rights activist," Hank lectures him, sounding tired and dreamy already. "This is like if Nelson Mandela and Gandhi had a baby that could shoot lasers with his eyes and we were staying in his house, okay?"

And that, suddenly, is the funniest fucking thing Alex has ever heard, and he laughs and laughs, muffling himself in the pillows, until something hitches in his throat and all he can think is, Scott, Scott, so loud Xavier can hear it for sure, and Hank has to run a hand up and down Alex's back for hours until he shuffles off to sleep, miserable, wrung out.

***

TBC
Fill: Limited Release (22/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-18 23:00 (UTC)
***

Erik spent most of the rest of the night either going through tactical scenarios with various intelligence agencies, or reaching out across the black-blue stretches of New York, lit up, and asking, Are you okay? Is everything okay? at Charles until Charles finally got fed up and said back, If you don't leave me alone and save America from terrorists, I'm going to start watching a documentary about brain chemistry and broadcast it at you in high definition.

It must be pretty obvious when Charles shuts him down, because Raven alternately smirks at him and babies him with coffees, and Erik goes over and over the note until he's sick from reading it, and over and over the photograph until he's sick from looking at it, and calls it quits for the night.

Manhattan after 11 p.m. is still wide awake, but the streets he drives are a little emptier and less chaotic, and once he gets up the long avenues, things go liquid and charcoal gray and blue, orange from streetlights. He listens to the scanner as he goes — couple of stolen cars, a mugging, some money stolen out of a bodega — all in all its a quiet night. He parks and locks up and he's everything is quiet and dark and soft in the house, too, even his footsteps feel muted, and Charles is blanketing everything in the mansion with an earnest, familiar comfort, like the weight of his hand on the back of Erik's neck.

He checks the mail, trips over a stack of books one of Charles's TAs must have left in the study, sets the house alarm for the night, and peeks in Mrs. Hendry, who's also asleep, tucked away safely in her room and breathing deeply.

It's ten past midnight by the time he finally gets up the two flights of stairs and into the bedroom, stripping out of his slacks and shirt and the ugly, tired skin of being tense and terrified all day. In the bed, a familiar lump, Charles is sleeping on his side, huffing short, rabbit-breaths into the pillow because every night is another opportunity for him to smother himself to death by sleeping face down.

"Hi," Erik whispers, into Charles's shoulder when he slides under the covers, already warm from contact heat, and tugs Charles over, a languid spill of arms, his hair soft and messy in his face, cheeks pink. "Hey, come here."

Charles makes a murmuring noise, letting Erik rearrange him. Years ago, they used to sleep on opposite sides of the bed, since just because Erik was trained by the government to take a beating if he had to do it for national security didn't mean he wanted to take one every night when Charles biked the fucking Tour de France in his sleep. It seems like one of those cruel, strangely sweet trade-offs, after the shooting, that now Charles can press himself along Erik's chest, face in his shoulder, no worries, his legs dead weights in their bed.

"I felt you get home," Charles mumbles, still 90 percent asleep. "I'm glad you're home."

Erik just presses his face into Charles's hair, because Charles always forgets that between them, Erik's just another government hump, that Shaw probably doesn't remember little Erik Lehnsherr anymore than he remembers his dozens of other victims, a string of scared shitless kids and desperate parents who'd let him get away with literal torture for ages. It's Charles Xavier that should really be scared, his name's on everything, advocating integration and unity and understanding and the great beacon of hope for mutant and humankind to work together that Shaw would just love to see ripped to pieces.

"You really scared the shit out of me today," Erik mutters, into Charles's temple, because even though Charles can hear it — especially now, when they're sleepy and every wall is down, and Erik's thoughts are swimming rich with Charles's sleepy murmurs — he needs to say some things out loud.

Charles just sighs, presses a kiss wherever he can reach — Erik's chest, his collarbone, the joint where his arm meets his torso — and says, "I know. I'm sorry."

He doesn't say he won't do it again, which Erik has to at least respect for honesty.

"Go to sleep," Charles says instead, fingers knotting a fist into Erik's t-shirt. "I love you. Go to sleep."

"Okay," Erik agrees, and does.
Fill: Limited Release (23/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-18 23:01 (UTC)
He wakes up to the sound of rain slapping against the windows, the covers light on him where Charles has left already, and Erik stares at the ceiling for a few minutes, blinking awake, before he rolls out of bed and into the shower. There're wet towels all over the God damn bathroom, which means that Charles is probably already destroying the kitchen downstairs, and he reaches down through the walls and the pipes and gooses the boiler a little so that the water goes from steaming to nuclear.

Since Charles has pretty much been on the top of everybody's shit list since four days after he was born — probably already spouting obnoxious opinions — Erik had suffered the great misfortune of meeting the guy, literally, at the airport, as part of the protection detail the Feds had sicced on Charles when he'd come into town for a conference. Given the delicate state of mutant-human relations at that point, the U.S. government had wisely decided that to have the emerging luminary of the mutant equal rights movement harmed in any way during his first American lecture tour would be awkward. Using the same principals that have non-Asians asking Koreans about Chinese characters and people assuming all black women over 40 were sassy, Erik, because he was also a mutant, had been put on the case.

He'd been resentful for about five minutes, and mostly for show. Having spent the balance of his life post-Shaw consuming every piece of research he could find about mutation, he'd read Dr. C. F. Xavier's work before. It was painfully idealistic, and too certain of its correctness, but it had been remarkable to read in a time when almost all the rhetoric was about whether or not mutants were to be feared or contained, to see Xavier arguing that in a generation almost everybody would be mutated, integration already an afterthought as far as he was concerned. Anyway, the point is, all of that academic drivel had of course led to his obviously inaccurate assessment Xavier had to be a doddering 90 year-old in tweed with a respirator in tow, because nobody under the age of almost-dead was that earnestly nerdy.

Except of course Charles had been younger than Erik and annoyingly adorable and, if possible, more enthusiastic back then, in navy and gray old man sweater vests with bangs that were forever in his blue eyes. As if that wasn't bad enough, after they were first introduced, Charles was constantly fucking smiling at him, touching Erik's wrist, leaning into his space. If nothing else, Erik had figured the world's most powerful telepath would be beyond blushing, but no, of course not, because why would anything that made Erik want to fuck this guy in the back of multiple government vehicles less actually happen?

So that had been an awkward as fuck and erect two weeks. He figured he was off the hook when Charles went back to England, except then the letters and e-mails had started, under the guise of, "By the way, my sister, Raven, has just entered Quantico herself." Erik had spent an entire four months masturbating sulkily over Charles's cunning turns of phrase and charmingly rambling penmanship, convinced Xavier had a sister like Jim Carnegie from three apartments down had had a fucking girlfriend in Canada until the latest recruits had been taken for a tour of the offices, at which point he'd been forced to admit he might be going nuts.

"I've heard lots about you, Agent Lehnsherr," Raven told him, impish and blonde and terribly pretty, and obviously just as spoilt as Charles was.

"Funny, I've heard nothing about you," Erik said.

"That's a lie," Raven chirped, and pressing a hand into the crook of his elbow, leaned in close to whisper, "You should just give in — Charles always gets what he wants."

Erik should have known back then Charles was always going to break his God damn heart.
Fill: Limited Release (24/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-18 23:02 (UTC)
It's still pouring when he gets out of the shower, the entire house feeling a little haunted and over-large, and he's in the process of scratching his balls and pouring himself some coffee — Charles, strangely, nowhere to be found in the kitchen — when Alex fucking Summers wanders in, yawning and scraping his nails over his belly, hair making a crazy bid for space, tufted on his head.

Fifteen seconds later, the entire contents of the knife drawer has Summers pinned to the wall by his boxers and his t-shirt, and the kid looks like he's about to shit himself when Hank McCoy wanders in, too, and freezes by the cupboards, saying, "Oh, no."

"What the fuck," Erik asks reasonably.

Oh, did I forget to mention? Charles pipes up, unperturbed, echoing through Erik's head with casual amusement. I asked Alex and Hank to stay with us. They're in the annex. We weren't using it anyway.

Hank looks like he's reaching for one of the knives in the wall, which immediately relocates itself to pin McCoy to the same wall by the leg of his pajama pants and puts an end to that bullshit while Erik yells:

"Charles, get your ass down here. Now."

***

Charles makes Erik return the knives to the drawer, which he does with extreme reluctance and a great show of making them dance dangerously through the air, first. Alex, at least, has the good grace to look freaked out, Hank just keeps staring in between Charles and Erik looking betrayed. By what, Jesus Christ, Erik thinks, annoyed.

"Have they been here all night?" Erik asks.

"Ob — " Alex starts, and the knife drawer pops open again, all the sankostu blades hovering in the air, just waiting for an excuse. "Right, Jesus, I'm shutting up."

Charles sighs, long-suffering, and wheels over to collect all the knives out of the air and stick them back in the drawer, saying, "Yes, what about it?"

"You let them stay the night?" Erik feels like he's having a migraine, pain creeping up at his temples. He can feel Charles trying to pluck it away from him, which is sweet, normally, but Erik wants to feel pissed today, flicks Charles away, which of course explains Charles's tone when he says:

"I was hardly going to let Alex stay in that flea-infested brothel you'd lined up for him."

He says it like this is obvious and naturally he would bring home some pet mutant criminals so they can stare at Erik scratching his junk first thing in the morning, which is at once completely infuriating and triggers a sort of resignation Erik remembers from years of succumbing to Charles's bullshit.

"And there's no way Hank is going back to that festering pit he calls home," Charles went on, and turns to Hank, looking chiding as he says, "And don't give me that look, young man, you have an army of rats living in your walls."

Alex glares at Hank. "I fucking knew it."

"I was going to get a cat," Hank mutters.

"I think we're missing the salient point in that they can't stay here," Erik interrupts.

Whenever Charles decides something is a personal challenge, he doesn't clench his jaw or fist his hands or anything. He just raises his eyebrows, opens his mouth in a pink, wet challenge, and with the flattest, most obnoxiously posh English vowels he has says something that makes Erik what to rip all the copper wiring out of the house walls. Like:

"It's my home; I can have a guest."

"Well, Summers isn't a guest, he's a criminal, which means he's mine," Erik retorts. "He goes where I say."

Summers, because apparently he picks up social cues to back the fuck off as well as Hank does, pipes up to say, "I don't care where we stay, but I'm not leaving Hank alone with this guy," and glower at Charles.

Don't worry, Charles interjects here reassuringly. I may have convinced him I'm a sexual predator. Alex appears actually to have some commendable protective instincts.

I don't even want to know, Erik thinks back. Out loud, he says, "Look, I appreciate you're concerned, Charles, but not only is this none of your business, it's probably against some ethical code to have them here."
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Fill: Limited Release (25/?)

(Анонимно)
2011-06-18 23:04 (UTC)
"I checked, it's not, although obviously as their landlord I will have to be certified," Charles says, steely, although more of his personality is leaking into his tone, so it's possible he's already decided he's winning. Worse, when Charles says, "I checked," what he probably means is, "While you were asleep last night I rifled through your head to see if I could get away with it, and somewhere hidden in the darkest recesses of your unspoken fears, it turns out I can."

Erik narrows his eyes. "How is this not against any ethical code? I'm his handler," he says, and regrets it as soon as it's out of his mouth, because he doesn't need telepathy to know what Charles's response is going to be, and it's fucking terrible.

"Well, it's not like we're married," Charles returns, icy. "I can keep whoever I want."

Erik points at him. "That. That right there is the reason Summers thinks you're a dirty old man."

"Oh, God," Summers interrupts here, sounding sick and staring at Erik. "You two — you live together?"

Usefully, that derails the entire argument in progress when Charles, Hank, and Erik are all forced to stare at Summers. It's always humbling to realize that you've cashed in a lot of political capital at work on a kid who's apparently a giant idiot, Erik reflects morosely. If this bullshit doesn't catch a terrorist, he's going to be furious.

"How did you survive in prison?" Hank asks Summers.

"He was in solitary," Erik mutters. "And no, Summers, I just break into Charles's house and steal breakfast every morning in my underwear."

"God," Summers says, covering his face, "this is worse than when I walked in on my parents fucking."

And then there's that click of heels again, neat, on the floor, and Raven saying, "You have my sympathies, Summers. I lived with them for a while and almost got diabetes in the process."

Now it's Charles's turn to cover his face. "Yes, thank you for that, Raven."

"Does she live here, too?" Summers demands, glaring at Erik as Raven makes her away across the kitchen, helping herself to coffee and a kiss on the cheek from Charles, who closes her hand with his — easy and affectionate — and it helps Erik not to think about why she'd lived with them for almost a year. Trading off looking after Charles with Erik and maintaining a relentlessly upbeat tenor no matter how hard Charles fought her or threatened to get the locks changed.

"She's my sister," Charles explains, and grins up at her, pressing the back of her hand to his temple affectionately before turning back to Summers and McCoy. "You two should get used to having her around."

"No, they shouldn't, because they're not staying," Erik insists.

Ignoring him entirely, Charles tells Raven, "They're going to be living in the annex."

"I'm not getting in the middle of this. You're my brother, he's my boss, this can only end in fucking awkward holidays," she tells him wisely, extracting herself and turning to Erik. "Actually, I'm here about work."

Frowning, Erik asks, "Yeah?"

"We got a hit on the photo," Raven says, going to her hardbag and pulling out a sheaf of papers, a color photocopy of the picture Shaw had left stapled to the first page. "Sort of, anyway. It's a missing person's report — about four years out of date, but the description more or less matches if you account for age."

Erik takes the pages, and he's flipping through the notes — boy, 12, 4'6", brown hair, visual problems, multiple entries into the foster system — when he hears a strangled noise from Hank.

"I — Agent Lehnsherr, can we see the photo? More closely?" Hank asks, voice wobbly.

Next to him on the kitchen bench, Alex Summers is wide-eyed and frozen, all the color drained out of his face like he's seen a ghost, every muscle in his body tensed to snap. Raven glances over at Erik, who shrugs and glances over at Charles, who ignores it when Erik passes Hank the photograph to stay focused on Alex's face, watching his eyes dart over to the papers now in Hank's shaking hands.

"Oh, Alex, I'm so sorry," Charles murmurs, before anybody else says anything, and Hank follows up with:

"That's — this is Scott. This is Alex's brother."

***

TBC

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