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THIRTY TWO ✖ VIDEO
[Private to Tony]
[Charles is already on the move towards Tony's room, pursued by a few little robots currently blaring Rolling in the Deep as they chase after him, and he looks, well. Really, really angry.]
You had better have a damn good explanation for what the hell is going on, because I am sorely tempted to let Erik punch you in the face. What the hell were you thinking?
[Charles is already on the move towards Tony's room, pursued by a few little robots currently blaring Rolling in the Deep as they chase after him, and he looks, well. Really, really angry.]
You had better have a damn good explanation for what the hell is going on, because I am sorely tempted to let Erik punch you in the face. What the hell were you thinking?
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But there's a part of him, too, that does want him to understand. There's a decent chance - not a sure one, but a decent one - that there are mutants in Tony's world, just as there had been a Captain America in his, and if Tony understands what it's like to be different and lonely and afraid, maybe he can help them when he goes home. Maybe he can be an ally in this, instead of an obstacle, or not a player at all, because he is a good person, and he's in a position where he could help. He's Tony Stark. He's got wealth and power and reputation, and a good heart, even if he was a massive asshole.
So it's for both reasons - to get Erik and Tony to stop this, and to hopefully protect the mutants that might already exist in Tony's world - that Charles brings his hand to his temple and lets his mind connect with Tony's.
He won't show him everything. There are some things he knows Erik would never be comfortable with people knowing, probably isn't even comfortable with Charles knowing, so he'll leave out the torture at Shaw's hands. But it's impossible to just leave it at the general feeling, that's the whole point. There's no way to succinctly summarize this, the deep, festering wounds left behind by this kind of physical, emotional, psychological trauma, and he's not toning it down for the sake of being succinct. He's not sparing Tony any of it.
He thinks of the sonderkommando, of the gas chambers piled high with bodies. There is a burning in your shoulders as you drag a woman from the pile, and you try not to breathe too deeply, even though you know the gas has dispersed. You know where to go, what to do: you learned quickly, like you learn everything quickly, and that's good. Learning quickly means staying alive. But as you lay the woman's body next to a child's and press them together (they will burn better that way, you learned that too), you wonder if staying alive is what you really want. And then you're angry, but you never let it show on your face, never let them know how much you hate them.
You do hate them, and you want to hurt them. But you can't, because you know how to make a necklace and find money in the street, but you don't know how to move a coin or crush a gun. You're small and getting smaller. When you wrap your hand around your wrist, you know you should be alarmed but how much empty space is between your fingers. Instead, you're glad you saved the heel of bread from two days ago.
Worst of all is the part of you that wants to give up. You think about it, when they march your squad from one building to the next; you know that if you step out of line by the fence, if you walk toward it, they will shoot you, and you will be done. Your anger has kept you from it, but the anger is distant, sometimes - and then you find what else drives you.
There is a girl you knew, once, in the neighboring camp. You made her a necklace; she smiled when she wore it. She was pretty then; she is not pretty now, and you barely recognize her with her shaved head. But she is the most beautiful thing you have seen in weeks, months, have you been here years? And you don't leave your place in line, because you have to save her. You have to find a way out.
Your hands ache and our skin blisters as you dig. Your heart pounds in your throat, and you want to throw up or laugh, because this is not thew ay out you meant, but it's the one you've been expecting. There are dozens of you digging, and they tell you to strip, to fold your clothes and leave them in a pile. They tell you to line up. You do, all of you, and you think you recognize the man you stand beside as your old schoolteacher. He takes your hand, and you hold fast. There is dirt under your finger nails. It's almost supper time. Your mother would give you that look when you don't wash up first.
The guns fire just as you realize how angry you are; you feel as if you watch the guns recoil, watch the bullets leave then, and you wonder if everything has slowed. You remember that your father told you, once, that sometimes -sometimes there is a moment, in life, when things just happen.
There is no pain, but you jerk backwards, dragged into the pit by Herr - Herr - you can't remember his name, but you tell yourself that you are breathing, that the bullet moved at the last instant, that you finally did it (move the coin, Erik), and you're alive. But you can't move, or they will shoot you again. Others fall on top of you, and you bite your tongue bloody to keep from screaming. And you wait there, barely breathing, unable to cry, or they will hear, they will hear you. It feels like hours, or days, until the sky grows dark, and you crawl, push, dig, haul yourself out of the grave. You don't throw up; there is nothing in your stomach.
You find the girl as the camp falls apart. You run with her, hand in hand, then her arm over your shoulders, and you wish you could carry her, but you can barely carry yourself. You feel your heart in your throat, certain they'll notice you, shoot you in the back. You think of the coin, of your mother, of the girl who is with you. You think of the bodies of a woman and a child, and you think you must tell everyone who will listen, and everyone who won't. You think you must not let this happen again.
You run until you can't anymore, and eventually you have to leave the girl. She's safe, and you have things to do, you need to find the man who killed your mother, and for a long time, you're alone. You're Frankenstein's monster, looking for your creator, you're a weapon, you're a freak, she never would have loved you because of what you are.
You're alone until you're trying to raise a submarine from the ocean, because he's getting away again and you can feel yourself running out of oxygen, but you don't care, but then there's a voice in your head, a person in the water with you, dragging you back to the surface, telling you to fight another day and I'm like you and calm down. And, most importantly, because you've been alone for so long and still thought you were you are not alone.
And there are others. You really aren't alone, and for a while, you can see the appeal in having a friend, having a team, and you're not content - you can never shake what happened before, you'll always eat food like you're afraid it will be taken away and startle awake at the slightest noises - but you think you're close to it, almost. There's training, there's camaraderie, there's mastering your abilities, being told that there's so much more to you than you know, and you don't really believe it, but you might start to.
And then there's a beach. You've saved the world, but you know they're not grateful, they don't care. They're afraid of what you're capable of, and they should be, because you aren't a scrawny, starving, filthy little boy who couldn't move a coin or stop a bullet anymore. Charles can't prove you wrong. The humans are firing on the beach, not caring that they owe their small band their lives.
(And here, Charles slips in other pieces of the minds of the sailors he touched - impressions of terror on seeing a man create tornadoes from his hands, from seeing a submarine lift out of the water, kids who have beams of energy coming out of their chests, who are these people what are they doing here. They're afraid of who they are and what they're capable of, and wiping them out seems like the safer option.)
But you stop it. It's easy, after lifting the submarine, and you almost lazily turn the missiles back towards the ships. And that idiot, your friend, the person who stopped you from killing yourself and showed you true control is saying the four words you absolutely could not have a worse reaction to.
They're not any different, these humans. They're afraid, and they don't understand, and they have the power and the authority to stamp us out here and now, without remorse, because we're different. Despite us saving them. Despite most of them being barely more than kids, despite Charles pleading for you to spare them, despite Moira being one of them. Once again, you're seeing humans turn against those that are different, those they fear, despite posing no real threat to them.
And you're never going to let it happen again.
I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. Never again.
Charles cuts it off before it goes any further. His eyes stung and his throat felt tight at the end of it, but he forced it back, swallowing before trying to speak.]
There isn't such thing as a general feel for it. The whole point is that it's personal, Tony.
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Logically, he could separate it, could pull back enough to observe the situation as an outsider, not as the boy whose memories Charles was showing him, casting him right down in the middle of. But somewhere in the middle things blurred. Tony Stark might be brilliant, might have amazing control of his thoughts, his mind, but he's no telepath. And when things become that real, it's hard to forget who he is and where he is. Hard to separate himself and the thoughts, the emotions, the sensations of the frail boy desperately fighting to survive.
So Tony was there, shoving humans into the fire, digging and standing with a man's hand clamped tight around his own. Frail and starving and feeling bodies fall on top of him, tasting blood and smelling it, seeing it everywhere. He was there through all of it, sometimes more than others, sometimes able to step back, the jarring sense of I'm Tony Stark and This is Erik Lensherr coming to the forefront every now and then, long enough to push him out from the heart of the thoughts, the memories, long enough for him to see as a spectator, but that wasn't really the point, was it?
The point wasn't to watch as if it were some sort of educational film. The point was to feel. To experience. So every time - be it by Charles' powers or Tony's own stubbornness - he was dragged right back in, reality and a memory not his own blurring at the edges and- he's out. He's out of that place and Tony can relax, just a bit, just for a moment. He can shift, outside of his mind, can release the white-knuckled hold he'd had on the back of his chair.
It doesn't get better, though. Not really. The terror isn't there, the torture and horrors that made Tony's stomach roil. But it's not good, either. And he gets it, kind of. He thinks it's wrong, what Erik wants. What he tried to do. Killing terrified people just because they were scumb-
If Charles is listening, as much as he's projecting, he'll notice the sudden halt and scramble of Tony's thoughts, the memories of his own flooding into the surface, as he watches the memory being broadcast to him. Memories of sand and dry air, the burn and pull of hot metal against his skin, too heavy, but something he had to deal with. He'd hear the screams, the sound of bullets ricocheting off the metal around his body. Feel the impact of every one of them. He'd feel the heat searing out, burning the metal around his wrists, where the flamethrowers were attached, heating and burning through the jacket and cloths, reaching skin and all Tony could do is hiss and move forward.
People running, screaming, some running away, on fire, trying to escape. Others just kneeling, fully ablaze, skin peeling from their faces. Weapon crates exploding, people dying left and right. The people who'd kept him in that cave, tortured him on and off for three months, the people who'd killed Yinsen with Tony's own creations. He'd killed almost everyone in that place, had killed countless terrorists
Obadiahsince then.And here he was, pretending for just a second that he's disgusted that Erik would want to kill the people trying to kill him.
It's enough that, as the memory winds down, as the story ends and Charles pulls out of Tony's mind, lets Tony himself drag himself back, fight off the disorientation, he can already feel the bile rising in his throat, is coughing, gagging as Charles speaks, heaving and pressing one hand hard over his mouth, eyes screwed shut and the other hand gripping the back of the chair. Auschwitz, the fear, the beach, Tony's own triggered memories, the realizations. For a few seconds it's almost too much.
And then he brings himself under control, just slightly. He looks pale, shaky, trying to catch his breath, and blinking away the last of the lingering images in his mind, dragging himself back to the here and now as he drags a hand hard through his hair, rubs at his chest with the other (that nervous tick back, a response to stress).]
... He's still psychotic. [The words are automatic, and the voice he's saying them in is hollow, shaky, almost hoarse. So he closes his eyes again, ducks his head down and presses the back of his wrist against his forehead, counting quickly through the first thirty digits of pi, just to try and get his mind a little more in order.]
I get it. [There. His voice sounds almost normal, again.] No more poking Jaws with a stick. [Finally, he drops his hand, looks up at Charles again.] He's still mostly crazy and I don't trust him, but I get it. That-
[He stops, another wave of nausea coming back at the simple memory of what he'd seen and... yeah, alright. He'll give into some almost hysterical sounding chuckles.] Couldn't have done this before the drinking ban, huh?
[His right hand is shaking, just slightly, and he clenches it tight into a fist to try and cover it up.
God damnit he needs a drink.]
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They could see it, feel it, think they were there and be horrified, but they still hadn't lived through it. With time and space, they could both compartmentalize, remember who Tony Stark and Charles Xavier were and act like they were fine. Erik didn't have that luxury.]
I'm sorry. [And he is, genuinely, because he knows how deeply affected you were when you experienced something like this, and he could see when Tony remembered escaping the cave, striking back at the people who'd attacked him and killed Yinsen, and he knew he understood. Probably better than Charles did, in some ways, because he'd never had that, not really. He hadn't been able to fight back against the Vanquish, and he'd never had anything like that happen to him, before he came to the Barge.
But he still understands the need to be sick, the shakiness, the trying to reassure yourself that you're in your own body and mind again, and he tries to help as best he can, sending waves of calm and you're safe, you're alright, just breathe, trying to soothe and calm him down before he says anything else, nudging the nausea and discomfort away a little bit.]
I'm not asking you to trust him, and I'm certainly not going to ask you to be his friend. I just- [And he has no idea what to say. He's never been great at really discussing his feelings for and about other people, and Erik, especially, is difficult for him to put into words. He loves him, he's almost like a brother, they just understand each other, even if they didn't agree on some really fundamental things, and putting all that into words without feeling uncomfortable is basically impossible. For someone who, in theory, knew more about most people than they knew about themselves, he really wasn't someone who enjoyed talking about himself.
He finally settles on something safer, less personal, in some ways, less of a plea to leave his friend alone because Charles cared and more global, focusing on the important impact, here.] Needed you to understand.
[And, really, he means it in so many ways. He wanted him to understand Erik, to know where he was coming from, but also to understand how powerful fear was, when it came to these issues, with people like Erik were willing to set fire to the world if they thought it meant they wouldn't be victimized again, to lash out at the people who hurt them before they had a chance to do it again, and how ignorance and fear was going to shape the lives of everyone like them. But also, selfishly, because he was selfish, sometimes, he needed him to understand why he was so defensive of his friend when it came to this sort of thing. He knew that Erik didn't need it, that he was more than capable of standing up for himself, but he wanted to do it, because he knew exactly what he'd been through, and it made him sick when people tried to brush it off.
Still. Whatever the motivation had been, it was a relief to know he did understand.]
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At the end of the day, what people said about Tony Stark was right. At the end of the day he'd been a man who lived in the lap of luxury for thirty nine years. He'd been spoiled, thrown his money around everywhere. He'd had girls hopping in and out of his bed, had never had to seriously work even once to make sure that he had a meal on the table or a bed to sleep in. He had thirty five luxury cars, seven vacation homes, four yachts, two actual homes on opposite sides of the United States.
He'd spent three months in a cave, sure. But he wasn't a solider, wasn't living in a hole and fighting for his life. He wasn't a survivor of an event like the Holocaust. He wasn't born to nothing and forced to fight his way up, he wasn't trained for nothing but killing, didn't have an experiment blow up in his face and give him a pretty stellar anger management issue. He was just a genius who'd had a wake-up call he never should have needed. He was a guy with a heart made of metal and money, dressing up and pretending, for a moment, that he isn't like every other billionaire playboy in the world. That he isn't the selfish dick pretending that he cares about the world.
Tony'd been serious about this, about wanting to understand. To experience something like this, even second-hand. To stop, for a moment, being that selfish prick who pretends like they get it, but in reality can never even hope to understand.]
Trust me, I get it. [He's still shaken, but at least now he can meet Charles' eyes. But there's still something raw in his expression, the flicker of residual unease, anger, and terror as his mind processes the memories for the umpteenth time since Charles had broadcast them. Finally, though, his lips quirk up in a tired, bitter half of a smirk.] Probably for the first time in my life, I get it.
[He's just kind of letting his head fall forward a little, forehead resting on the back of the hand clutching at the back of the chair, his other hand up and moving, gesturing from Charles to his own head in probably the vaguest read my mind gesture in the world.
Because damnit, Tony's tired. He's tired and emotional and still processing the memories, picking them over in excruciating detail, because that's just how his mind worked. It picked everything apart a hundred times over, memories every little detail and analyzed it thoroughly.
So instead of talking, because words are just too much right now, if Charles does reach out and touches on Tony's mind, just below the surface thoughts, he'll be hit with a few intense and alternately cresting waves of thought. Of frustration, being passed off when and where it mattered, given what his name means back home. Who he is, the money he comes from. And, conversely, the need to be passed off, that the Iron Man suit never would have been finished if people didn't write him off and leave him alone. How being written off had never actually mattered to him until he realized that people on his team were doing it - Steve's words echo up, suddenly You know you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero - and then...
Nothing. All of that disappears, his thoughts almost seem to still for just a moment, only to be replaced with an ache that's actually physically painful, for Tony. A full body ache for just a glass of alcohol, a bottle of beer, a goddamn sip of wine. An all consuming mental need for it. Calculations and plans that always seem to hum in the back of his thoughts seeming to scramble, the numbers just out of reach, nothing making sense in that overwhelming need for a drink.
And in reality, outside of his mind, Tony actually makes a noise in the back of his throat, drags a hand over his face and says hoarsely, annoyance more than clear in his voice.]
I haven't been this sober in twenty three years. [Because even in Afghanistan, they'd kept him on rudimentary painkillers.
They needed him to be able to move after the surgeries, after all.]