Scott shot Logan a glance but didn’t press it further, straightening his expression to answer Angela’s question.
“I need to see you about something—well, to be precise, the Professor does.”
Angela started, then said at once, “Why doesn’t Charles just send me a voice message directly?”
Scott smiled.
“Maybe because the Professor would rather not have his telepathy treated like instant voice messages all the time.
Come on—a guest has arrived and asked for you by name.”
“A guest?” Angela asked, curious.
“Someone’s come looking for me?”
She hadn’t even set foot outside Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters this whole time.
Scott nodded and, with a touch of surprise, said, “I didn’t expect Magneto to show up here again either.
Come on, I’ll go with you.
I still don’t trust that guy.”
“I’m coming too,” Logan said immediately.
Scott said bluntly, “You?
If Magneto actually tries something, you’ll just go get yourself thrashed?”
“At least I could thrash you first,” Logan shot back with an equally cold smile.
Angela stepped between them, breaking their dueling stares, and smoothed things over with a smile.
“Let’s not keep the guest waiting—we’ll all go together.
I really am curious why Magneto’s come to see me.
Could he be bringing me a silk banner of gratitude—you know, the kind praising a doctor’s miraculous healing hands?”
“A banner?” Scott said, baffled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“To thank someone, you write words of gratitude on a special piece of cloth so it can be hung up to honor the deed.”
Logan ran through the explanation for him.
“Generally, people in the East are fond of doing it that way. Here in the States, folks usually just hand over money, or some other gift, to show their thanks. Maybe it’s because people in the East care more about ‘honor’—they see it as face, something far loftier than anything material.”
Angela raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised, and gave Logan an admiring look.
“You really know your stuff, Logan.”
He even knows the Chinese set such store by face.
Logan gave a soft laugh.
“I’ve been over there.”
Scott ignored Logan’s near-boast, waiting until he’d finished to say, “Magneto came with several big crates.
I didn’t see anything resembling a banner.”
“Big crates?” Angela turned to look at Logan, dimly catching a thread of it—though she hardly dared believe her own guess.
Logan had clearly thought of it too; he quickened his pace without making it obvious, tugging Angela along by the arm so she wouldn’t fall behind. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Let’s go see what he’s up to.”
In the headmaster’s office just then, Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr sat across from each other, a cup of tea before each of them—the mood, it seemed, quite peaceful.
Charles asked with a smile, “Getting on all right these days? Are Magda and Nina adjusting to the New York climate?”
Erik gave a grunt.
“No need for your concern. I’m not here to reminisce. I’ve simply come to give these things to your school doctor. Charles, you know what Mercy’s ability will draw to her.”
Charles ran a hand over his knee and nodded in understanding.
“I’m aware that many will covet Angela’s power.
I’ll keep watch.
Logan is protecting her.”
“Wolverine.” Erik gave an unreadable smile.
“His power… is passable, I suppose.”
Charles shook his head, helpless.
Wolverine’s combat ability ranked among the very best of all mutants; it just so happened that Magneto hard-countered him, and that alone was enough to get it dismissed as merely “passable.”
“They’re here.”
The words had barely left him when a knock came at the door.
Charles invited them in.
Scott gestured for Angela to go ahead while he stayed in the doorway on guard, in case Magneto suddenly snapped; Logan didn’t go in either, leaning against the wall outside and lighting a cigarette.
Angela greeted the two men.
“Headmaster. Mr. Magneto. I hear Mr. Magneto wished to see me?”
Erik stood, using his power to shift all the crates to the floor in front of him, and they all sprang open at once—inside, neatly stacked, sat bundles of cash.
“Your treatment fee. Not a cent short.”
Angela stared at several crates’ worth of U.S.
dollars, dumbstruck.
“You—I—I thought we’d already settled this?”
Erik tilted his head back slightly and said proudly, “I never owe anyone.”
Angela glanced at the crates on the floor, then at Magneto, then turned to Charles, calling out to him in her mind in a frantic, urgent appeal.
(Headmaster—this money wasn’t, uh, robbed straight out of a bank, was it?)
How else would it be cash this neat, with consecutive serial numbers?!
She wouldn’t get arrested on the spot the moment she tried to spend it, would she?
Out of courtesy, Charles rarely used telepathy to contact Angela; only now, hearing her “cry for help” at close range, did he link their minds, soothing her with a smile.
(Don’t worry, it isn’t stolen goods. Take it. Erik went out of his way to bring it.)
If Professor X said so, then it was definitely fine.
Only then did Angela breathe a sigh of relief and nod to Magneto. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“All right.
I have indeed received your treatment fee, Mr. Lehnsherr.
How are Ms. Magda and Nina recovering now?”
In good spirits, Erik replied, “They’re recovering well.
They asked me to pass along their thanks to you, Doctor.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Angela bent down and touched each crate on the floor in turn with her right hand, picturing them stored away the same way she stowed weapons and gear.
Sure enough, the system acknowledged the gesture.
The crates on the floor vanished in an instant, off into her system inventory.
Angela straightened up, beaming.
“Well then, I won’t keep the two of you—I’ll head back and count my money at my leisure.”
The moment Angela stepped out of the office, Logan came over and asked tensely, “What on earth did Magneto come for?”
Angela pulled a stack of bills from her inventory and gave it a couple of flicks in her hand.
“To pay that twelve-million treatment fee from before.”
Logan stared at the thick wad of dollars, so astonished his cigarette dropped right out of his mouth.
“Magneto actually paid?!
You know he dines and dashes whenever he eats out, right?”
Angela thought it over and answered earnestly, “Maybe it’s because dining and dashing is something he pulls off by his own skill—whereas the treatment fee is something I earned by mine.”
Logan and Scott fell silent at the same time.
Skipping out on a bill by your own skill—she wasn’t wrong about that.
But was the takeaway really that two skilled people respected each other’s craft?
Paying no mind to how dumbfounded her two colleagues were beside her, Angela carried on to herself.
“Which just goes to show how important it is to master a skill.
Honestly, Magneto’s power is perfect for robbing banks.
Or he could do mineral prospecting.
Failing that, he could collect scrap and salvage metal—one wave of the hand and all the scrap comes flying over.
How easy is that?”
Logan recalled Magneto’s glorious past—one wave of the hand and an entire stadium took flight—then thought about “collecting scrap and salvaging metal,” and fell even more silent.
Scott imagined Magneto going around collecting junk, and gooseflesh rose all over him on the spot.
“I’m begging you, Angela, stop. Let’s just let Magneto stick to robbing banks.”