The library at Xavier’s school was designed to be the sort of place you never wanted to leave.
Charles had planned it years ago.
He worked with an architect who understood right away what was needed.
The ceilings were high, but not so high as to feel like a cathedral.
Over time, the oak bookshelves grew darker.
Reading chairs were placed where the light was best in the morning and afternoon, which was harder than it seemed.
Charles thought about it, and the architect solved it with skylights.
The pattern still made Charles happy.
Charles was at his desk.
The desk faced a window overlooking the grounds.
Outside, a few students were halfheartedly playing soccer.
Mostly, they stood around and argued about the rules.
It was Saturday.
The school had its usual quiet weekend feel: a few professors on their own errands, dishes clattering in the kitchen, and a piano upstairs where an older student kept practicing the same passage.
Each time, he slowly improved.
On the desk in front of him sat three tablets.
Each tablet showed a different intelligence feed.
The first displayed a SHIELD situation report.
It was technically leaked, but that word didn’t really fit how Charles usually got these things.
The report described something called the Helicarrier Incident.
The second showed a social media post and a graph of its engagement over the past few days.
The post was from a teenager who said his grandfather had been rescued from a sinking boat by a man living on a private island.
The third was a short diplomatic note, clipped to the tablet with a small magnetic clamp Charles had bought for this purpose, written in Thor’s large handwriting.
The note read: Charles, fascinating!
Forwarding this for your review.
Vantage.
Stable, civil, very good coffee.
Apparently.
– T.
Charles read each of the three documents in turn, taking his time.
Years of being a professor had left him with certain habits: pausing at every paragraph break, making a mental note of any sentence that felt unfinished, and rereading the most important parts.
He read the SHIELD report twice.
Then he sat back, set his hands on the arms of the chair, and looked at the man sitting across from him.
Erik looked up expectantly.
“Well?” he asked.
Erik had been there for about an hour.
He had arrived without a phone call, the way he always arrived, in a coat that was too warm for the weather and shoes that had walked further than anyone driving the sort of car Erik drove was meant to walk.
He had accepted tea.
He had made a small joke about the school’s hallway carpet, which had been the same hallway carpet for thirty years.
He had sat down in the chair across from Charles and read the three documents in turn, as Charles had, and now they were here.
Charles met Erik’s gaze.
“Well,” he replied.
“Aye.” “He cut the engines on a helicarrier.” “He did.” “Without a weapon.” Erik replied, “Without a weapon, without movement, without leaving his porch.
He sat in a camp chair and drank coffee while a six-hundred-thousand-ton vessel did its emergency landing protocol over open water.” Charles steepled his fingers.
“And you find this interesting.” “I find this very interesting.” “Yes,” Charles said.
“I thought you might.” Erik gave a dry smile Charles knew well.
“Charles.” “I’m not going to argue with you about it yet.
I’m going to read.” “Read what?
You’ve read everything that’s on those tablets.” “I’m going to read him.” Erik raised an eyebrow at Charles.
“From here?” “From here.” “That’s a long reach.” “It’s the easy part.
He’s on an island.
Nothing is in the way.” Erik gestured slightly.
Be my guest.
Charles closed his eyes.
He didn’t need to close his eyes.
Decades ago, he had developed his telepathy to the point where posture no longer mattered.
He closed his eyes for the same reason a violinist sometimes does—not to help the work, but as a kindness to himself, shutting out distractions to focus.
It was Saturday, and he felt he had earned that kindness.
He reached out with his telepathy, sending his mental awareness beyond the school’s borders, feeling his consciousness slip free of his physical senses.
Each step outward was deliberate, his mind searching as if casting a net.
His attention stretched across Westchester, over the sound, and out over water, heading north and east to the island.
Its location was confirmed by three intelligence feeds and by an Asgardian thunder god.
Reaching this far felt slow and careful, like walking through a dark room.
He searched for the place, found it, and met its edge.
And found something he had not expected.
Charles opened his eyes.
“Hm,” he said.
“Hm, what?” “There’s a…
I don’t know what to call it.
There’s a wall, but the wall isn’t really a wall.” “Meaning?” “Meaning I can press through.
I can extend it.
I can project.
The projection goes.” “And?” “Nothing comes back.” Erik considered this.
He had considered many things in his life for years.
Charles could see him filing this one in the appropriate folder, somewhere between operationally interesting and politically interesting.
“You can talk in,” Erik said.
“But you can’t listen.” “I can talk in.
I can sense the general shape.
There’s a person there, the person is calm, the person is at the center of what is around him.
Beyond that, no.
The interior isn’t blocked.
It’s sealed.
The information only goes in.” “Have you encountered that before?” “No.” “Anywhere?” “Anywhere.
Nothing.
Not in a magical context, not in a technological context, not in any mutant I’ve ever scanned.
The closest thing I can compare it to is a door you can knock on, but you can’t hear if anyone is home.” “That’s a peculiar door.” “It is, yeah.” Charles tried again.
He didn’t say anything about it; he just switched to a different technique, using a passive scan instead of an active probe.
It was like holding your hand near a closed oven to check for heat without opening the door.
The result was the same.
He could send out his thoughts, but nothing came back.
The entire island was sealed off by a one-way barrier.
He withdrew.
Sat back in the chair.
For a long stretch, neither of them spoke.
The piano upstairs found the difficult passage again, missed it again, and tried again.
Outside the window, the soccer game appeared to have devolved into an argument that had moved off the field.
Erik broke the silence first.
“This is very interesting.” “You said.” “I did say.” “You’re going to want to visit.” “I’m going to want to visit also.” Erik turned his head slowly.
The small surprise on his face was not theatrical.
He had known Charles a long time; Charles knew it.
“Are you?” “I’m.” “I hadn’t assumed that.” “I hadn’t assumed it either, until I tried to read him.
I’d like to see who he is.” “My friend.
You know what he is.” “I know what he has done,” Charles said.
“That’s not the same thing.” Erik nodded slowly.
He had brought a small notebook, the way he always brought a small notebook, and he flipped it open now and made a brief annotation in the precise, tight handwriting of a man who had escaped from a place where good handwriting had once mattered.
“You want to go first,” Erik said, not looking up.
“I think I should, yes.” “Why?” “Because if you go first, he’ll spend the rest of his life believing that you and I are aligned.
We’re not aligned.
He should know that we’re not aligned.
The way he comes to know that should be that I show up alone.” Erik allowed himself a longer smile, this one.
“Very Charles.” “It’s a little Charles, yes.” “And what will you say to him?” Charles considered.
“I think,” he said slowly, “I won’t plan that yet.
I’ll go and see what kind of conversation he is having.
I have a feeling about it.
The feeling is, I’m going to be more interested than I want to be.” “That’s also very Charles.” “So it is.” “You’ll let me know what he’s like.” “Of course.” “You’ll tell me the truth, even if you decide you like him.” “Erik.” “I want to be sure.” “I’ll tell you the truth.
I always tell you the truth.
We disagree about what to do with the truth, but I don’t lie to you.” “Mm.” Erik closed the notebook and stood, taking his coat.
He had not finished his tea, which Charles knew was a subtle way of ending the conversation.
He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle, and looked back at Charles with the expression of a man who had just thought of one more thing.
“Charles.” “Right enough.” “He cut the engines without leaving his chair.” “And then he released the airspace once the helicarrier was done with its emergency descent.” “Sure.” “That last part is the part I keep coming back to.” “I know.” “He could have kept it locked.
He could have left them sitting at five hundred feet on auxiliary power for a week.
He could have made them ask permission to leave.” “Yes.” “He didn’t.” “No.” “What kind of person doesn’t, Charles?” Charles looked at his old friend across the long distance of two seats and a desk and a forty-year argument.
“That,” he said, “is what I’m going to go find out.” Erik nodded once.
Opened the door.
Left.
After Erik left, Charles sat at his desk for a long time, watching the soccer field.
The argument had moved to the dormitory steps.
Upstairs, the piano found the difficult passage again.
Late afternoon light came through the skylights in the same pattern Charles still enjoyed after all these years.
He picked up his phone.
Quietly, without flagging it as anything in particular, he opened Cerebro’s monitoring software on his tablet and added a small standing query.
The query was simple.
It would tell him, on a daily basis, the island’s population count.
Right now it said one.
He had a feeling it wouldn’t stay one for much longer.
He set the phone down.
He looked out the window.
He thought about how he would phrase what he wanted to ask.
After a while, he got up to make himself a fresh cup of tea.