Trying to Help

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Ashni could tell he didn’t want to talk about his childhood, she cocked her head, years listening to men had taught her signs of when they wanted to be coxed to talk more and he wasn’t exhibiting any that she could see. Ashni offered a nod to acknowledge what he said but she shook her head in negation that there wasn’t more to tell. “The Blitz much have been terrifying for a little boy.” She said softly. “Were your powers already manifesting by then?” She was still playing catch up on world history spending hours in his library, before leaving Pakistan her knowledge of history in general had been very sketchy after all what need did a girl like her have for that kind of lessons?



Ashni could not imagine the terror of a child FEELING people die around him, neighbors, friends, perhaps even family. She wanted to rest her hand on his share the comfort of touch but she wouldn’t force him to have that intimacy, instead if he cared to look or feel her mind was softly inviting a softly comforting hug for the boy that was more than thirty years gone.



“Why did you decide to make a mutant school?” Something she had heard a few answers from the other staff and teachers but wondered if his reasons were the same the others assumed. If he didn’t want to talk she was happy just to sit next to him as the wind whipped her hair back, a soft smile on her lips as contentment stole over her in this moment, she didn’t know where he was taking them, and she didn’t care as long as she was with him.

[x]

Charles kept his eyes on the road, becoming more aware of where they were. Just because he’d barely spent ten years in Westchester as a child didn’t mean he’d forgotten the area entirely; he used to spend the majority of his time in Salem Center and North Salem with Raven, both of them eager to spend their free time away from Kurt and Cain.

“The Blitz must have been terrifying for a little boy,” Ashni pointed out, her voice soft. “Were your powers already manifesting by then?”

He nodded, slowly the car as they came to a stop sign. “I was born with a few basic parts of my abilities—empathy, specifically; I was overly attuned to the emotional states of the people around me,” he explained, making the turn. “As for the terror...well, it was terrifying for any child, empathic abilities or no.”

It was a little hard to explain; he remembered the heightened emotions that suddenly vanished or slowly slipped away. He often spent the raids curled up in the bomb shelter, sobbing for reasons he didn’t fully understand while his mother tried to comfort him more out of response to his own out-of-control emotions pressing on her than any actual motherly affection. There was a faint sense of comfort radiating from Ashni’s mind, the sort of mental hug Charles would have cleaved to without question as a child. He smiled a bit at that.

“Why did you decide to make a mutant school?”

Charles’s smile widened into a grin as he remembered the first time he ever used Cerebro. It had been a rush, exhilarating and thrilling and it had made Charles feel alive in all the ways he hadn’t before then.

“When I used Cerebro for the first time, I was stunned to find that so many mutants were only children just beginning to tap into their potential,” he answered. “So many young minds, so many unsure of what was happening to them, of how to control their powers; I remember what it’s like to have to struggle with control on your own. I decided right then and there that I wanted to help them all as much as I could manage, and then some.”

Of course, he hadn’t seriously considered the idea of turning the family’s estate into a school until he’d been confined to a wheelchair. Once going out and working with them where they were was a non-possibility, the only other option was to bring them to him.

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Ashnis eyes widened hearing that he had been born empathic, “The world must have been so frightening!” she wasn’t sure she could imagine that, as a baby, a toddler. She stared at him trying to remember that his childhood must have been very different, that his family was not a house full of women and girls selling their skills.



Ashni pulled a strand of hair out from her lips where the wind had tossed it. “Babies know when they are loved..” She spoke almost absently. “but you would have felt it all, was it confusing? When did you understand that not everything was coming from inside of you?” Ashini prayed in that moment that he had as happy a childhood as possible. The idea of him being hit or… she shivered.



Please...let him have been happy…



And there was Charles attempting to downplay his own pain, focusing on others. Or perhaps just distancing himself from her question? Ashni wasn’t sure, she sighed slightly, tucking the hair behind her ear. His grin as she spoke about his reasons for opening the school pulled an answering smile to her lips, “how did you learn control?” She herself had held onto her powers with teeth and toenails, not really learning conscious control until Erik took her from the house.

[x]

“The world must have been so frightening,” Ashni said, her shock obvious in her voice.

Not so much frightening as...confusing. It had taken Charles years to work out that the sudden, intense emotions he had weren’t entirely his own; it had taken even longer to effectively shield against the world around him.

“Babies know when they are loved,” she added, more to herself than anything else. “But you would have felt it all; was it confusing? When did you understand that not everything was coming from inside of you?”

“It was rather confusing,” he admitted. “Though, it did become easier to manage when we came to Westchester—fewer minds around me and whatnot—but it wasn’t until after my father died that I realized what the problem really was.”

After his father’s death, there were times when the sudden need to drink seized Charles. While he’d known what alcohol was, he’d never found the idea of drinking to be at all appealing when he was that young and it had been start of it. Then Kurt and Cain had become increasingly permanent fixtures in his life and the emotions they had brought with him had been the final pieces of proof that there was more to it than Charles simply being sensitive. The idea that he was a mutant wasn’t one Charles had considered until he’d stumbled across his father’s notes on his empathic abilities after his telepathy properly manifested.

“How did you learn control?”

Charles let out a shaky laugh at that. “It wasn’t so much learning control as it was learning how to shield properly. And it was more of a sink-or-swim situation, to be perfectly honest.”

His had been a rather violent manifestation: the sudden onset of so many minds around his...it had been so much more intense than the press of emotions he had been trying to distance himself from.  He had knocked half the county unconscious that night, before he managed to build up rudimentary shields. 

"What about you?  You've seemed to developed a great deal more control over your abilities that what you had the first time we met," Charles pointed out.

He knew she'd spent time with Erik and his Brotherhood; it stood to reason that they'd taught her some form of control.  But how much of her impressive control was actually a result of Erik's tutelage? 

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"—but it wasn’t until after my father died that I realized what the problem really was.”



Ashni could hear the hint of a greater story there so she pushed lightly. “Why then?” Because grief wouldn’t have done it not unless he hated his father, feeling grief from other minds would have only made his strong wouldn’t it?



“What made it so suddenly urgent?” Ashni wanted more then anything to know more about him, but he was such a private person that it was hard to make sure she wasn’t making him uncomfortable. Under other circumstances Ashni was a master of bedroom talk, taking in conficandes of powerful men. But while the consequences before if she had upset a patron had been..harsh, this was the first time she felt like she could lose everything by a single misstep.



Her abilities? Ashni held her hands out, watching the ruby sparks drip off of them “Mostly necessity, I had to hide, had to keep bending luck to help me.” she wiggled her nose. “And a year and change as Magneto’s pupil, he is a very good teacher, and between that and trying to make sure his daughter didn’t kill me I had a LOT of practice bending probability.” She had tried to make friends with the girl, they were both the same age, and she respected that as Magneto’s daughter her status was above Ashni’s own but it hadn’t been enough for the green hair’d girl.

[x]

“Why, then?” Ashni’s curiosity was obvious, but relatively light—enough so that he barely sensed it at all.

Charles worried his lip a bit as he weighed the pros and cons of telling the truth. On one hand, he didn’t want any pity from her. What had happened was decades in the past and he had long since come to peace with it. On the other, he had opened himself up to that line of inquiry.

“Ah, let’s just say there were a number of emotions and feelings that were incredibly out of character for me,” Charles finally answered, settling for one that wasn’t exactly a lie but not the whole truth, either.

“What made it so suddenly urgent?”

“Well,” Charles began, trying to choose his words carefully, “despite being born with fragments of my power, when I properly manifested it was...rough, to put it delicately. The emotions didn’t simply morph into thoughts; the emotions stayed and the thoughts joined them. It was quite a bit to take in all at once, so I had to get shielding down as quickly as I could manage.”

He’d been left with a horrendous headache for weeks after the fact, no matter how many painkillers the maid and the butler gave him. And then there had been other initial complications that resulted in Kurt nearly having him institutionalized, but those had faded as he grew older and gained more control over his abilities. He hardly seized at all anymore, and the last time he had was when he’d convinced Hank to let him do a double session with Cerebro (after the fact, Hank had quickly put a stop to that), and headaches were something that only cropped up if he spent too long in a crowd.

“Mostly necessity,” Ashni answered when he asked her about her own control. “I had to hide, had to keep bending luck to help me. And a year and change as Magneto’s pupil—he is a very good teacher—and between that and trying to make sure his daughter didn’t kill me, I had a lot of practice bending possibility.”

“Erik has a daughter?” The question slipped out before Charles could stop it.  He hadn't exactly been stalking Erik, but he had no idea that the man had a daughter.  How old even was the girl? 

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The urge to run a finger over his lip and pull it from between his teeth was strong, Ashni pulled her own lip into her mouth in sympathy.

“Ah, let’s just say there were a number of emotions and feelings that were incredibly out of character for me,”





She could hear his reluctance to explain more, the careful why he picked his words, debating on how to answer how much to push she settled for a simple. “I’m sorry.” Ashni though that if the emotions had been...pleasant he would have been more forthcoming. It was compassion a desire to comfort in her voice if he wanted it. But not pity, never pity.



God she wanted to pull his head into her lap and stroke his hair, massage his head for all the headaches he put himself through. She saw the strain he was under every time he came out of Cerebro which was what had prompted her to start bring the tea and snacks, hoping to give a small amount of comfort and peace to his day.

“Erik has a daughter?” he sounded shocked

She was startled by his question but nodded. “Yes, Lorna, she’s my age. Her powers are similar to his, as well as being a plague bringer.”