So you should know better than anyone why it isn't acceptable to treat other people the same way. Especially considering there are people who like to say what happened was just Allied propaganda, and that seventeen million people just vanished off the face of the Earth for no discernible reason. [That said, he does, on some level, understand why Tony has issues with Erik. He does. Seriously. But that's never going to change how much Charles cares about him, because he's seen the good in him, he knows how much he's capable of, and he's proven over and over that despite his flaws, he's a good friend and a good person, when he lets himself be. And it doesn't change that Tony making light of something that vast, and comparing it to his own experience still just made him want to vomit.
But the problem isn't just with Erik and what he's done or said, or what Tony was doing now, and maybe it's a sign of just how vulnerable and fractured Charles has been feeling for weeks, now, ever since he heard about the Sentinels, only made worse by Jean basically siding with Erik, and he can't help but wonder if that's what Morgana had been seeing and what John had been talking about. Maybe it is his destiny to spend a lifetime fighting against the one person he cares about most in the world and eventually be killed by someone who once thought of him as a father figure, all while watching the human race tear itself apart.]
Erik doesn't care about the American military, or about you or the people you care about, unless you're doing things like making light of genocide. What he cares about is that there are people out there who want us dead because of what we're capable of. Not ten minutes after we prevented nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States, the same navies we just saved turned every gun they had on us and would have killed us all without a second thought, if Erik hadn't stopped them.
Now, I could tell these men were just afraid. They weren't bad people. Not all of them were good people, either, but they were mostly just afraid, of us and of what was going to happen to them, and even the ones who might not have cared one way or the other about mutants under any other circumstance were- [He almost wanted to laugh, somewhere between hysterical and bitter, but he held himself back.] They were just following orders. [Words that he'd regret using for the rest of his life, probably. He could still remember the way it felt like his stomach had suddenly plummeted, when he realized in his desperation to say something anything to make Erik stop, his still aching head had given him the worst of all possible things to say.
He still wonders, sometimes, if he'd come up with something better, if he'd said something different on the beach - but we do not - if Erik would have stayed. If none of this ever would have happened. But he knows that is naive, something he's so often accused of being. Nothing he could have done would have made Erik drop the missiles, nothing would have made him stay after he'd been shot.]
But Erik looks at that and all he can think of was watching his parents pulled away from him at Auschwitz, and being lined up with other prisoners to be executed before the Allies could liberate the camp, and I don't care how much he'll deny it, he was and still is scared, too. That's all this is. Two groups who are terrified of the other and what they might do to them.
[And this time, he can't hold back the frustrated, desperate laugh, because he feels so, so much older than thirty, his life before the Barge, before meeting Moira MacTaggert seems so far away sometimes, it might as well have happened to someone else.] And all I've heard since I arrived here is how bleak our future looks. I'm apparently destined to fight a war no one can win against my best friend while humans construct government sanctioned weapons of mass destruction to eliminate us, or at the very least round us up and put us in camps, or force "cures" on us, because there's obviously something wrong with us, for being different. For not looking or acting or just being the same as the people in power.
That's the future I have to look forward to when I go home, Mr. Stark. And while I might still - what I'm sure many people would consider naively - want to compromise, and work to find a way to stop the bloodshed and fear and learn to coexist, not everyone is capable of putting aside their own fears and taking that sort of risk. It's a lot easier to lash out to protect yourself and the people you care about than to put your faith in a group of people who might want you dead. That doesn't make it right, but it is easier.
So, forgive me, for understanding exactly where Erik's coming from. I don't agree with him, and I doubt I ever will, but I do understand. And I'm sorry if you can't understand that.
spam
But the problem isn't just with Erik and what he's done or said, or what Tony was doing now, and maybe it's a sign of just how vulnerable and fractured Charles has been feeling for weeks, now, ever since he heard about the Sentinels, only made worse by Jean basically siding with Erik, and he can't help but wonder if that's what Morgana had been seeing and what John had been talking about. Maybe it is his destiny to spend a lifetime fighting against the one person he cares about most in the world and eventually be killed by someone who once thought of him as a father figure, all while watching the human race tear itself apart.]
Erik doesn't care about the American military, or about you or the people you care about, unless you're doing things like making light of genocide. What he cares about is that there are people out there who want us dead because of what we're capable of. Not ten minutes after we prevented nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States, the same navies we just saved turned every gun they had on us and would have killed us all without a second thought, if Erik hadn't stopped them.
Now, I could tell these men were just afraid. They weren't bad people. Not all of them were good people, either, but they were mostly just afraid, of us and of what was going to happen to them, and even the ones who might not have cared one way or the other about mutants under any other circumstance were- [He almost wanted to laugh, somewhere between hysterical and bitter, but he held himself back.] They were just following orders. [Words that he'd regret using for the rest of his life, probably. He could still remember the way it felt like his stomach had suddenly plummeted, when he realized in his desperation to say something anything to make Erik stop, his still aching head had given him the worst of all possible things to say.
He still wonders, sometimes, if he'd come up with something better, if he'd said something different on the beach - but we do not - if Erik would have stayed. If none of this ever would have happened. But he knows that is naive, something he's so often accused of being. Nothing he could have done would have made Erik drop the missiles, nothing would have made him stay after he'd been shot.]
But Erik looks at that and all he can think of was watching his parents pulled away from him at Auschwitz, and being lined up with other prisoners to be executed before the Allies could liberate the camp, and I don't care how much he'll deny it, he was and still is scared, too. That's all this is. Two groups who are terrified of the other and what they might do to them.
[And this time, he can't hold back the frustrated, desperate laugh, because he feels so, so much older than thirty, his life before the Barge, before meeting Moira MacTaggert seems so far away sometimes, it might as well have happened to someone else.] And all I've heard since I arrived here is how bleak our future looks. I'm apparently destined to fight a war no one can win against my best friend while humans construct government sanctioned weapons of mass destruction to eliminate us, or at the very least round us up and put us in camps, or force "cures" on us, because there's obviously something wrong with us, for being different. For not looking or acting or just being the same as the people in power.
That's the future I have to look forward to when I go home, Mr. Stark. And while I might still - what I'm sure many people would consider naively - want to compromise, and work to find a way to stop the bloodshed and fear and learn to coexist, not everyone is capable of putting aside their own fears and taking that sort of risk. It's a lot easier to lash out to protect yourself and the people you care about than to put your faith in a group of people who might want you dead. That doesn't make it right, but it is easier.
So, forgive me, for understanding exactly where Erik's coming from. I don't agree with him, and I doubt I ever will, but I do understand. And I'm sorry if you can't understand that.