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"I'm sorry, did you say they left?"
Lilandra, ex-empress of the Shi'ar empire turned pirate (for the time being) took a long drink of liquor made from a plant that neither of the two of them had ever heard of before. "They left in the Starjammer. Corsair said there was some business on a nearby planet and they needed to leave immediately."
"Why didn't they come back for us?" Charles Xavier, ex-Professor of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and leader of the X-Men turned reluctant member of the Starjammers, sat balking at the bar on a planet he'd only arrived on four hours ago.
"I don't know, Charles, you know what he's like! It was some kind of emergency. Hepzibah practically slammed the door in my face, but she still hates me." He knew that Lilandra was almost as frustrated as he was but was making an admirable attempt at hiding it. "They'll be back in a few days."
The professor sighed and rubbed a hand over his head. Silently the two of them agreed: the Starjammers were doing business that Lilandra and Charles would not have been comfortable with. Which meant it had to be pretty bad, because the pair of them had gotten up to a lot of shit since they'd gotten stuck in the far reaches of space with the rebel pirates. They were probably right, he didn't really want to know what they were doing, so he'd have to avoid reading their minds too deeply for a while when they got back.
"What are we supposed to do until then?"
Lilandra rested her elbows on the bar and let her chin fall on her intertwined fingers. "We should have enough money for a room and some food for a few nights. Why not enjoy ourselves? It's been a while since we've really had time to relax."
That was true enough. There were periods of downtime in the life of a space pirate, but the past few weeks had been chaos.
A smile made its way across her face. "Maybe we could find somewhere to go dancing."
Charles chuckled. "You aren't afraid we'll make fools of ourselves? Neither of us has any idea what the local customs are."
"Oh who cares! I spent my entire life having to worry about the political repercussions of making a fool of myself. What's the point of having my empire stolen out from under me if I can't look silly every once in a while."
Charles had never been as important to his world as Lilandra was to her own, no matter how much he flattered himself. But they shared the experience of being forcibly unshackled from their responsibilities, from the roles they played. Lilandra was fierce in her determination to reclaim her throne, but he sometimes envied her ability to enjoy this life in the meantime. He still struggled to take it for what it was. It was particularly difficult to be less self-conscious when you had to exert a conscious effort to avoid knowing what everyone in a room thought of you.
"You know a friend of mine did once try to teach me how to tango," he mused, a smile growing on his face in time with hers. Lilandra thought highly of him, and that was something.
They found a motel—or some kind of similar establishment, it looked more like a beehive—and rented a small affordable room that would give them a place to sleep for however long it took Corsair and the rest of the Starjammers to come back. The next step was to find someplace that could provide dinner and dancing, which gave them an excuse to walk around and enjoy the nightlife for a while until they found it.
Lilandra took his arm in hers and relaxed into his side as they walked, and he enjoyed the gentle buzz of her thoughts. The psychic connection that bound them together had disconcerted him at first. It was overwhelming to find your thoughts suddenly woven together with alien royalty. But in time it had become a comforting tether, in no small part because he could feel how comforting it was to her. There had been few people Lilandra could really trust in the past few yearsl—too much chaotic politics and family drama. But they cared for each other, they were both sure of that.
And, as he was reminded because it crossed her mind now as they passed a reflective window, she found him very attractive. He was not so humble that he didn't enjoy that.
"Oh look, that seems to be some sort of lounge!" She pulled away from him to point at the building as they passed it. This one looked a little bit less like a beehive and more like some sort of ammonoid.
"Do you think they have food?"
"Might as well go in and find out right?"
The interior was just as alien as the rest of the planet, but the dim lights, the chatter, and the loud music were familiar. They found one of the tables around the edges of the room and ordered food and drinks based on the host's recommendations. What came back was not entirely recognizable but it was fortunately very edible and quite good.
"Is the dancing here very different from a tango?" she asked as they sipped their drinks, empty plates pushed to the side of the table.
"Hm." He watched the dancing crowd in the large open area that took up the center of the room and projected a memory of tango dancing into Lilandra's mind. Not of himself and the man who had taught him, but of other dancers he had seen once.
She laughed. "Oh I see. How intimate."
"It is a… romantic dance," he acknowledged.
"You will have to teach me."
"I've never tried with this new body come to think of it, and I was never particularly good to start with." He'd also very rarely been leading, mostly because Erik was significantly better at it than he had any hope of being and grew impatient anytime he tried to teach him from that position.
"How lucky that you're the only person here who knows what it's supposed to look like." She placed a hand on his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek as she rose from the table. "I'll be right back with more drinks, maybe then I can get you dancing."
Alone now, his mind drifted into memories. A small apartment, the moonlight coming in through the curtains.
"At this rate you'll have to let Gabby lead," Magnus muttered.
"I'm not that bad am I? We can't all compete in the championships."
"I've never actually competed." They slid against each other to the tune of the music, Magnus's hand firm on his back. "I merely said that if I had, I would have won."
" You really don't do anything by halves, do you?"
They moved so that Magnus was above him, Charles's knee between his legs. "No, not really."
"As long as I'm good enough to impress Miss Haller, I suppose that's enough," He laughed softly.
"Hm," Magnus pulled him forward. "I've never known you to be satisfied by being just good enough, Charles. Surely you of all people can dream bigger than that."
He didn't notice the hum of familiar thoughts at first, lost as he was in the past. But slowly it tugged at him, too present to just be part of the recollections.
He stood without thinking. "No, that can't be right...."
"Charles?"
Lilandra's hand was on his arm, concern on her face. "What's wrong?"
"Lil, just wait here, won't you?"
"What do you mean? What's going on?"
"It's nothing, I'll be right back—or, I'll meet you back at the room maybe."
"Wait—"
But he left quickly, hoping his loud thoughts of "it's fine, don't worry about it" would reach her. Of course it wasn't fine at all, but he could explain that after he'd found out why he was here.
Charles wove his way out through the crowded room and onto the street outside, turning and apologizing absentmindedly as he pushed past someone outside. Broad shoulders draped in purple and that bright white hair. He grabbed him by the elbow.
"Erik?!"
He could feel the faint beginnings of rumbling as he said it, and barely had time to wonder if he was about to be encased in metal somehow before the cape whipped around and reveal his old friend's face, staring at him like he was looking at a ghost.
Magneto had aged these past few years, which was a bit of a relief since he looked far too young after the whole thing with the de-aging. At least there were some of the old lines on his face now.
His mouth was open. "Charles...."
"Erik, how are you here? Why are you here? Where are the children?"
That look of awe and confusion turned very quickly into a scowl. "I have absolutely no idea. In horrible danger, I imagine."
"What?! What are you talking about?"
"You met them, didn't you? Illyana told me as much."
Charles cringed at that. He did not feel good about what he'd done to Illyana when she and the New Mutants had found him with the Starjammers. Asking Karma to control her and force the young girl to use her powers had been wrong, but it had also been his only option. Still, that didn't answer any of the questions racing through his mind.
"We need to talk, we should go somewhere. I don't understand why you're here."
Erik sighed. "Fine, come on." "Follow me."
That last part was heard only in Charles's mind, and he followed silently behind Erik as he continued down the street in the direction he'd been going before.
"A lot has happened since you left, Charles. Your X-Men needed you."
"I didn't mean to leave. We were stuck, the ship is broken. And Lilandra's sister—"
"You should not have left them in my care."
Charles's stomach churned. They were walking at a brisk pace down several side streets, until Erik quite suddenly turned into a small building, pushing aside some sort of beaded curtain in the doorway. "Zura, I'll be using your backroom."
"Excuse me?"
Erik placed some of the city's coin down brusquely on the countertop, which the shop owner grumbled as they took with one of their tentacle-like appendages. The shop was small, though in the brief glimpse he had time for Charles could understand why Erik might be familiar with it—as much as he could understand why Erik would be familiar with absolutely anything on this planet at all. It seemed to be some sort of junk technology vendor.
The door of the backroom slammed behind them, and Erik sat down at a small table with three chairs and a deck of octagonal cards. "The New Mutants left when the mansion was destroyed."
"What?!"
"They had grown dissatisfied with my leadership and no longer listened to me. They did not trust me after… Charles, Doug Ramsey is dead."
Charles slid into the seat nearest to him. "Oh, Erik."
He raised a hand to interrupt him. "I was not able to gain their trust or their respect. If they had recognized my authority, or anyone's frankly, this wouldn't have happened. But there's more."
Charles did not want to imagine how the death of a teenage boy would not be the worst of the things Erik had to tell him.
"Hatred and abuse against mutants has continued to grow. The Morlocks were massacred, the vast majority of them killed in the tunnels by our own kind. Due to injuries sustained in the attack, Miss Pryde and Nightcrawler were convalescing in Moira Mactaggert's care the last I heard of them. They were fortunate in that regard, because they were not with the X-Men when they were slaughtered."
His blood ran cold. "No, no I don't understand."
"Their deaths were televised."
"Good god." All this time, all this time he had wanted nothing more than to return to them. Would things have been different, had he returned with the New Mutants? Could he have prevented this?
This was not the first time that the X-Men had died, at least not the first time that Charles had thought they did. He had believed it was Erik who had killed them then, only Jean and Hank escaping that damned volcano dungeon. Perhaps the revelation that the rest had survived that death made it all the more difficult to believe this now. How could it be possible? How could he have lost them without even realizing it?
"I am not you, Charles. I can not watch my people be slaughtered again and think of compromise and peace. Perhaps you could have offered us alternatives, but unfortunately you were not there."
"What do you think I've been doing, Erik?!" He couldn't help but raise his voice, cracking under the weight of his grief. "I've been trying to get home since I left!"
"And you could have returned! You made a choice, Charles!"
"The Starjammers have taken care of me, they would have died! Lilandra as well, and her empire with her—"
"Your excuses do not change what has happened. We have both failed."
They sat in silence for some time before Charles spoke again.
"I do not regret asking you to take my place."
"I regret accepting."
He didn't know what to say to that either, so he searched Erik's face, the edges of his mind. Erik's rage was fueled by grief, something he had always recognized.
"They needed someone who would care for them, protect them. You did what you could in difficult circumstances."
"I do not need your forgiveness, Charles."
No, but Charles wished he could ask for Erik's forgiveness, he realized. But he was too proud and too ashamed to ask for something he did not believe he would receive. Perhaps Erik could see that in him, as he pulled away from Charles's gaze. It was difficult to stop his thoughts from bleeding over into Erik's sometimes, even when they were like this.
Very rarely, there had been peace between them. Those many years ago in Haifa, and the few weeks Erik had spent with him and the X-Men before his arrest. He remembered the feeling when they had first met and first began to recognize something shared between them. God, it had felt like they could do anything together. Side by side Charles had felt more sure and confident of himself than he ever had alone, before or since. A shame, that they had not been able to see what might happen if they could really work together.
"Why are you here? You still haven't told me."
"I'm rebuilding the asteroid." Charles couldn't stop himself from groaning. "There is equipment here that could be useful to me."
"You accuse me of abandoning mutants while you're running away and playing supervillain of your own volition."
"I am building a base of power. I am making a point to the humans that we are outside of their control. We are being killed and enslaved, and we must prepare for the war that is coming."
"Did you talk to Moira about this?"
"I have explained my reasoning to her, and I believe she has come to understand it, whether she agrees or not."
He appeared to be telling the truth, about all of it unfortunately. There was too much for it all to sink in.
"Erik...."
"Will you return with me?"
Charles closed his eyes. He'd expected it eventually, had even tasted the idea on the edge of Magneto's thoughts while the other man had tried to push it aside.
I need you.
He wasn't sure which one of them had actually had that thought.
"I wish I could," he realized how true it was as he said it, "but the Starjammers are coming back here for Lilandra and I. I shouldn't leave them after all of this. What am I going back to, Erik? My home is gone and my—the children are gone. What's left?"
Me.
Erik stood up from the table, the cape adding a dramatic flourish to his movements as always. "If you still intend to return eventually, you should speak to Zura about the ship. She may be able to assist you with repairs, or know someone who could."
"I'll get Corsair to speak with her when they return."
Erik nodded. "I'm glad you're alive. One less of us dead."
"Things will get better, Erik. I have to believe that."
"You know, I'm growing weary of waiting for people to see that I am right after it is too late. If you had listened to me from the beginning, I wonder if it might have gone differently."
He could ask Erik the same, but he wouldn't.
"Goodbye, Charles."
He stayed seated as Erik left, and for a while after that before he began making his way back to the motel.