Chapter Text
Washington D.C., January 20th, 1969
“Mister and Missus Charles Xavier, of New York,” the doorman of the Inaugural Ball called out as they passed, and Erika Xavier née Lehnsherr bit down a silent stab of irritation as she remembered to smile, wave and generally act the part of the obliging society wife that her evening gown informed the crowd of rich and powerful men around her she was. I ought to have pursued a degree, Charles, she grumbled in the near-privacy of her own thoughts. Then it would be Mister and Professor Xavier, which would be far more satisfactory.
Although society events always dampened her mood, Charles’ gentle tug at her elbow and accompanying affectionate smile were at least charming. I could have someone forge you a diploma, he suggested lightly. You’ve done more than enough research to deserve one. Pulling a glass of champagne from a passing tray, he took one swallow, pleasure fizzing through their connection, and then handed the rest to Erika. Couldn’t resist. You can save me from the rest.
As ever, husband. Erika’s lips curved up in a private smile as she accepted the glass like the romantic gesture it was - though not for the reasons the idiots around them would have imagined - and she took a small sip of her own before leaning her head delicately on his shoulder. Someone would notice the degree and ask the wrong sort of questions. What I’m doing with all that independence and intelligence now, for instance, beyond redecorating your home and micromanaging the first class of your new school. My pride will just have to endure without the sop of sheepskin. Now, who is our first victim that you wish me to charm?
Charles took a seemingly casual look around the room, his customary mask of polite interest on his fine features. It will look odd if we don’t have a word with Mister Stans - Commerce would affect our business interests, after all, and we’re supposed to be deeply involved with those - but the prizes of the night are Mister Finch and George Romney. The policies of the Secretary for Health, Education and Welfare directly affects the school and clinics, and our work to break up mutant ghettos will go more smoothly without objections from Housing and Urban Development. Smiling and greeting other guests as they went, the pair moved further inward. They’re both farther on our side than the administration is likely to be, and Romney more so. Another server with a tray passed by, this one with an assortment of hors d'oeuvres, and Charles continued their secret conversation as he chewed and watched the crowd. Seems that Finch enjoys German classical music. Romney likes cars, if you don’t think it’s too unseemly for a Missus to talk about them.
I doubt I can hold a straight face while he tries to educate me about them. I’ll hold Finch for you - introduce me, and I’ll engage him on the school and German composers until you’ve finished with Romney. Association with civil rights for blacks or not, he’s a Mormon, and their doctrinal views on ‘our kind’ are far from favorable at the moment. It will need a deft touch. Erika leaned up to murmur in his ear as if sharing a confidence, though the words were a simple remark on the quality of the music that neither of them paid any attention to. If we’re fortunate, you’ll be done before I begin thinking about wrapping a fork around Finch’s neck.
Placing a chaste kiss on her temple, Charles sighed. My dear, I hope I will be able to stop myself from abusing perfectly innocent flatware for the entire evening. The introduction proceeded smoothly enough to be entirely automatic, and they waited through the usual pleasantry before bracing themselves for the real task at hand. With a squeeze of her hand, he turned to work on his mark. Viel Glück, my love.
Viel Glück, meine liebe. Erika smiled the peculiarly fascinated and subtly vapid smile that had required so much practice and observation of American society women to master as she listened to Robert Finch hold forth on the changes he planned to make to the public school curriculum to enable to country to stay ahead of the Soviets. It was a merely tactical matter as to where best to make her move, to step from the background and catch his attention....
“But Mister Secretary - excuse me, of course it’s still Mister Finch, but we all know, don’t we? - surely there must be some means of providing for less fortunate children who still have the capacity to be of use?” She modulated her voice to allow only the slightest trace of her German consonants to intrude and as little as possible of her Yiddish vowels - it grated, to hide the sound of her mother and her father and her father’s fathers, but the more she sounded like a native of New York with a hint of European glamor, the better for the purpose. “Mrs. Xavier - we were introduced a moment ago, of course, but I never remember everyone’s names at these sorts of events.” Not too bright, not too clever, but charming and well-meaning. Erika Xavier at her public best.
“A very commendable idea, Mrs. Xavier, but the matter is complicated. With our universities in chaos and our young people so easily led astray by rock-and-roll culture....” Finch was off and running now, stumping by reflex, and Erika allowed herself to nod and smile pleasantly while he talked. Politicians were like that - they assumed because they were speaking, one was listening, and as long as one didn’t disabuse them of the notion they could carry on for some time without losing steam. Charles was already deep in conversation with Mister Romney, a few steps to the side of everyone else, and it wouldn’t take long for him to take the soundings he needed to begin the work of persuasion without unnecessary tinkering.
She caught a face out of the corner of her eye and buried a frown. I know that man. From where could I possibly know that man? There was no way to turn and look without breaking the pretense of attending to Finch, but the ache in her left wrist that always acted up when her instincts told her there was trouble afoot would not go away.
Charles, she called out silently, still keeping that attentive smile on her lips, there is a man behind me - tall, dark brown hair, stern features, brown eyes. He carries himself like a soldier, even if he wears a tuxedo, and he seems to be accompanying Mister Laird - the man who will shortly be running the Defense Department, if the Times is to be believed. I feel that I know him, but I cannot say how, and my instincts are stirred. He is behind me now and coming closer, is he not?
A moment, dear, her husband began. Like her, he had appearances to keep up, and she expected he would need a few seconds to look without jeopardizing his current conversation or use extra focus to borrow someone’s eyes.
“Robert,” Melvin Laird interrupted Finch smoothly, “hope you don’t mind, but there’s someone I want you to meet. Could we have a few minutes?”
Finch’s jaw set slightly with irritation, and he straightened his shoulders in the manner of man being addressed with more familiarity than he felt was deserved. “I was just in the middle of speaking to Mrs. Xavier on her very cogent question. Can it possibly wait, Congressman?”
“I’d rather it didn’t.” Laird set his puggish jaw stubbornly and dropped his voice, clearly intending the words for Finch’s ears, but he misjudged the keenness of Erika’s attention and the noise of the room. “Look, the Major here is backed up from on high, know what I mean? The Boss says we need to give this guy a hearing, first thing. You have a problem, you should take it up with him.”
“Xavier. Erika Xavier, isn’t it? I thought I recognized you, but I couldn’t be sure.” The broad-shouldered soldier - yes, she could certainly believe him a Major, despite his relative youth - was looking at Erika very intently now, as if searching for something in her face, and she retreated further into her role as Mrs. Charles Xavier as she offered him a blandly polite smile.
“I don’t believe we’ve met, Mister...?” she pitched her voice in the most off-hand, curious sort of inquiring, as if she were fumbling through her memory searching for him. Charles...
“Stryker. William Stryker.” The man smiled extending his hand, and she offered him hers with a reluctance she did not dare show - terribly, sharply conscious of the numbers burned into her arm that were concealed by the length of her long party gloves and formal jacket. “I suppose you could say your husband and I share an interest, Mrs. Xavier.”
A third-hand image flashed in Erika’s mind in the same moment that she felt Charles’ stomach drop. Don’t you worry, Mister Hogan. You’ve done your country a great service, said the man from the stolen memory Charles had been carrying next to his heart since the spring of 1963. The man who had taken mutant prisoners from a New York jail for shipment to an experimental facility upstate without ever showing proper identification or a badge, the sort of man whose very handshake breathed patriotic solidity and who had worked for a program willing to experiment on mutant children obtained by any necessary means.
A man who quite strongly resembled the Major shaking her hand, if one were to add a bit over a decade of age and the customary swagger of a secret policeman in lieu of military stiffness.
“My husband has a lot of interests, Mister Stryker,” Erika confessed in a voice that only the practiced habit of lying cultivated in the camps, at Oxford and in New York high society assured her was perfectly innocent. “Most of them entirely too intellectual for me to wrap my head around. He once tried to explain horticulture to me, for instance, and my garden took years to recover.”
Keep him talking. I’ll see what I can dig up. The borrowed alarm in the back of her mind was fading swiftly, replaced by an iron resolve that mirrored her own, and for a moment Erika felt a flicker of grief at the memory of how certain Charles had once been that he would never be comfortable using his powers so readily, never be sure of his own good intentions. They had come a long way together, compromising at every step, and it seemed that every day he woke with fresh lines weathered into his lovely face from the burdens she never ceased piling on to him. Sometimes, though she would never have told him so, she missed the callow and laughing boy who had stolen her heart with his simple, decent kindness.
Even if it had only been six years, Oxford sometimes seemed a lifetime ago.
Stryker’s polite chuckle at her joke had subsided, and she could feel his attention beginning to wander. That wouldn’t do - best to take a chance. “Since you’re obviously familiar with my husband and his work, Mister Stryker, perhaps you would like to join us at the celebratory dinner that the Foundation is holding next month? Charles will be breaking ground on a new Community Health and Care Center here in the District, and I’m sure he’d be pleased to have another new face present.”
If it was possible, the man’s jaw set into an even harder line, and the skin around his eyes tightened subtly over his now-brittle smile. “I appreciate your invitation, Mrs. Xavier, but I’m afraid I start a new assignment next week.” He laid a too-familiar hand on her shoulder and gestured. “Would you introduce me to your husband? Now that I know he’s here tonight, I can’t pass up the opportunity.”
Flicked you on the raw, didn’t I? You don’t like the Centers, you jack-booted young thug, and unless I’m very much mistaken you don’t like the Foundation. Erika made a show of turning her head this way and that indecisively, shrinking a little under his hand to feign a moment of intimidated nervousness, and reached out for Charles’s mind again. Shall I bring him to you, meine liebe, or keep him away?
His thoughts were foggy, an indication of his preoccupation. May as well. He’s had some kind of mental block training. Hard to read through.
Best to pretend to refresh your glass, then. A hint of intoxication is better than people wondering why you seem distracted. Erika allowed the moment to stretch out a little longer, then cleared her throat nervously and smiled up placatingly at Major Stryker. “I suppose it really would be rude to refuse, even if he is very busy tonight. All these new people in Washington to get to know - it’s always like that around the changing of an administration. What is it you wanted to speak to my husband about anyway, Mister Stryker? Something to do with one of his humanitarian projects?”
“Nothing of the sort, ma’am,” Stryker deflected casually, his eyes already focused on Charles with a fierce intensity. “Call it scientific curiosity. Your husband, after all, is one of the foremost scientific experts in the world on a subject very near to my heart.”
“Charles?” she murmured, pretending to surprise. “It’s been many years since my husband worked on any sort of laboratory projects, Mister Stryker. Are you sure you’re not mistaking him for someone else?”
“Certain,” he clipped off sternly, his expression turning dismissively contemptuous as he glanced down at her, and Erika buried her tiny spark of cold triumph at seeing that flash of dismissal in his eyes. Another harmless, doting wife with no idea of what her husband really does. Oh, yes, Mister Stryker, do go on thinking that. Go on thinking it until the day comes to settle our accounts for good.
Please wait to murder him until after I can get more information, darling. Diffuse as it was, the thought was tinged with dry, familiar mirth. Charles was joking, or thought he was. Mostly.
Erika was content to let him go on thinking so. I shall await your permission with baited breath, meine liebe. She drew to a stop in front of him, gesturing to the Major and smiling in a nervously mystified way that suggested a woman very deeply out of her depth. “Mister Stryker, my husband Charles Xavier. Darling, this is Mister William Stryker - apparently a great scientific admirer of yours. Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”
Taking a rather large swallow of champagne, Charles smiled, and looked almost like the young Professor Xavier she’d met in a pub all those years ago. “Genetics, darling,” he answered in a mildly superior tone, one he was always nervous about employing with her, even for their necessary charade. The burned hand, after all, taught its lessons in way that was hard to unlearn. “I have tried to get you to read my dissertation any number of times, you know.”
“Oh, that,” Erika said in the voice of a woman struck by the sort of revelation that only added to one’s confusion. “Why ever would he be interested in that old thing? The charts alone would put one straight to sleep.”
At the in-character insult, Charles laughed just a touch too loud, enough to indicate his supposed inebriation, and the Major seemed to relax just a shade. Patting Erika on the arm like the good old boy he was supposed to be, he turned to Stryker. “Well, Mister Stryker, what did you want to discuss?”
“Nothing.” Stryker looked him over scornfully, dark eyes full of the kind of sharp-edged contempt that only follows a certain element of disappointed respect, and he jerked the edge of his suit with a hand slightly to straighten it as if it were the uniform he would likely have been far more comfortable in. “I didn’t want to talk to you about anything, Charles. I just wanted to see for myself what kind of man could be a traitor to his own species and still show up at respectable parties like a spoiled prince.”
Stiffening, Charles used some of his real hurt to make his performance all the more believable. “Excuse me!” Got him. Following the thread now. “There’s no need to be rude, Mister Stryker, and how can one be a traitor if there is no war?”
Only a few weeks ago, Charles had admitted to her that he saw the storm clouds of exactly such a war gathering on the horizon while they ate breakfast on the veranda before the start of morning classes and read through the stack of reports from the Centers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Wichita. The last had been particularly disturbing, full of reports of anti-mutant militia activity and violent dissatisfaction in the peripheral mutant groups in contact with Erika’s unofficial protectors who looked after the Center. Charles hated the prospect of war even more than she did, but at least he was beginning to be able to look the possibility fully in the eye.
For the moment, however, the man he’d been before the world had forced that knowledge on him was not too distant a memory to recall to perfection. “Surely a nation that is about to land an astronaut on the moon can get past biological differences.” His voice flattened just a bit on the last word, the evening’s second pang of alarmed surprise spilling over into Erika’s perception. Dear lord, he was involved in Godric’s Hollow. He worked with the man who designed that helmet. The testing he did, that he intended to do....
Don’t think about it, Erika warned him silently. You are already going pale, and if you look ill it will not appear to be reasonable anger. Witness, record, remember and bury it. Think of it later, Charles.
“There is always a war, Xavier - it’s just a matter of who’s on what side. You get people on one side who can smash a train in half by wiggling their fingers, it might be a damn short one, especially with people like you ready to make them vanish down a hole when they get on the wrong side of the law. You bleeding hearts think just because a few of them look pretty flying through the air over New York or charming sitting in the stands at a Yankees game, they aren’t dangerous?” Stryker’s voice was calm, almost cold - the voice of a surgeon discussing an operating table, not a man expressing his unspoken hatreds. “The man who wrote Dispossession and Depopulation couldn’t possibly be that stupid.”
“I really don’t think you ought to speak to my husband that way,” Erika began - sparing Charles another moment to compose himself and acting as the loyal wife she was supposed to be.
"Shut up. Now." Stryker cut her off with a cold look and a crisply snapped order. “I can’t imagine how you managed to find work in Oxford with your looks or your wit, Mrs. Xavier, but I suppose there’s always room in a scientific laboratory or a Westchester mansion for another curiosity.”
Suddenly Charles was standing between Erika and Stryker, somehow standing toe-to-toe with a man significantly taller than him. “Accuse me of whatever you like, Captain or whatever your rank is, but if you speak like that to my wife again I will....”
“Will?” Stryker inquired dryly, looking down at Charles with a subtly arched eyebrow as those dark eyes evaluated him again with a merciless intelligence. “What exactly will you do, Mister Charles Xavier?”
Charles, Erika breathed into his mind, her face still turned away in the imitation of shock and concealed tears but her thoughts as sharp and clear as a hard grip on his arm, he’s pushing you. Testing you. He knows there has to be more to you and he’s using me to make you show your hand. Swallow your damned pride and stick to your cover, husband.
I am inches from making him think he’s a golden retriever, Charles fumed. Temporarily, of course, so he can wake up and feel proper humiliation.
Outwardly, Charles took a half-step back and pretended to have second thoughts. “Hire enough lawyers to keep you busy for quite some time. Good night!”
“It wouldn’t be for the obvious reason, would it?” Stryker murmured as Charles began to turn away, his voice coldly speculative. “Your little spoon-lifter of a wife can’t possibly be exceptional enough in bed to drive a reasonable man to abandon the interests of his own kind.”
That, the incensed telepath mused, is almost funny. He’s certainly pulling out all the stops.
Come, now, a few years ago that would have had you punching him in the face. Erika tucked herself against him, still doing her best to appear to be weeping into her hand as they retreated from the field of conversational battle.
As Charles guided Erika away from the confrontation, he let all his fury show in a glare over his shoulder. At least the situation allowed him that. Maybe an ape. The headlines alone would be very satisfying.
Hush. Erika leaned into him, hiding her smile behind her glove and against the curve of his shoulder as he fumbled for his handkerchief. Now pretend to comfort your poor, middle-aged mutant Jewess of a wife with her little floating metal party tricks as a prelude to the payoff for your gross treason to humanity that will doubtless be waiting for you at our hotel.
Placing a kiss on the crown of her head allowed him to hide a smile of his own. Is this ‘treason’ going to involve ruining my suit? Because that would be very appropriate, don’t you think?
I assure you, your suit will be giving its life valiantly for the cause of mutants everywhere. Erika’s laughter danced in her head as she wiped at dry eyes with his handkerchief, playing out the last of her part to perfection. Still, Major Stryker and his new assignment will bear close watching.
Of course. Some real sobriety crept into Charles’ eyes as he smoothed her hair from her face. We’ve bought some time. His disappointment in us will keep his eyes away from the school a little longer, keeping him looking for someone else behind the Centers for whom we’re hapless dupes.
I would resent that popular opinion if it were not quite so useful. Erika’s own eyes sobered, almost matching the mournfulness of her expression. The lamps are going out, Charles.
He kissed her again, weariness and affection bleeding through. I know, Erika. But we aren’t without torches, or torchbearers for that matter.
Then they will have to be enough, my darling, she sighed into his mouth. How I wish I had been wrong and you had been right.
You may still be, love, he murmured as he straightened up and offered her his arm. If it is to be a war, let us hope for a short and victorious one with a generous peace.
Charles, she sighed, a small smile on her lips as she looked up at him and caught the fresh light of hope in those clear blue eyes. My beautiful, foolish dreamer. Take me home so we can enjoy the last lamplight together. There will be time enough for the necessary work tomorrow.