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[homo_superior]

This is Erik Lehnsherr. I'm not available, so please leave a message.

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text | un: wolverine

[danzan]

I keep worrying about all these fucking kids.

[homo_superior]

I told you that was going to happen.

[Sorry, Logan, he knows for a fact you're really a mother hen under that feral exterior.]

But all you can do is teach them to protect themselves. You can't be there every moment of the day to keep them safe.

[danzan]

You sure I can't?

[homo_superior]

Logan, if you try to save everyone all the time, you're only going to set yourself up for failure and disappointment.

[Listen to Erik. He may not be older, but he is wiser.]

[danzan]

Yeah, I've been there.

[ Funny how innocent people tend to die around you. It plays in his head all the fucking time, fucking Zero. ]

It's just hard
hard meeting kids who come from worlds that have futures.

[homo_superior]

I know. Perhaps that is why we were brought here. So that they have the chance to get back to their futures. I don't believe them when they say we're only dreaming.

[danzan]

What, you think this is another world?

[ To be honest, Logan doesn't like thinking about it too much. ]

[homo_superior]

To be frank, I'm not entirely sure what precisely this is. But considering there isn't a timeline for us to go back to, I think it's safe to say I'm not dreaming.

[danzan]

[ This is something he's wanted to ask for a while now, but he still hesitates on it. Hesitates a bit more, and... ]

What happened when I left?

Voice

[homo_superior]

[He hesitates before he switches. If he puts this all down in text, it'll take a while. Plus it's not something he wants Logan to read that way.]

It went alright for a while. But then something went wrong. You started slipping between the time streams and you started thrashing around. You slashed cut Kitty badly before I could get a hold of you. [Something Erik blamed himself for. What was the point of his being there if he couldn't prevent something like that from happening?]

She lost too much blood and couldn't continue. We needed Rogue to take over. She was being kept in the mansion so Bobby, Charles, and I went to get her. We got her out but Bobby-- he sacrificed himself to give us time to escape.

When we got back, we discovered one of the Sentinel's arms had gotten stuck to the Blackbird. They knew where we were and it was only a matter of time. When they came, we knew this was the final fight. When they came, they started killing and didn't stop. I got injured during the fight, and after I barricaded the entrance as best I could, Kitty pulled me through to the other side. The others were all killed. There was nothing I could do, my injuries were too great at that point.

The four of us, Charles, Rogue, Kitty, and myself, we were the last ones. Rogue kept going until the end. When the first Sentinel appeared, I knew it was the end. There was a flash of light...and then I was here.

[He'd thought at the time that they'd all died, but Logan's photo from the alternate timeline proved that instead they'd been wiped out of the timeline instead.]

[danzan]

[ Logan doesn't speak, but Erik can probably hear the way his breathing changes, subtle though it may be.

It's... a lot to take in. And if Erik thinks it's his fault for not being able to keep Logan restrained, then Logan's damn sure it's his fault for not being able to keep himself from going into a panic attack at the mere sight of William Stryker.

Even weirder is the name "Bobby"-- he's sure he knows who that is, and in his head he thinks of Rogue and how there used to be a boy around her, but. Why can't he remember what the boy looks like?

Shaken, and his throat dry (he swallows with a dry click), Logan whispers: ] I'm sorry.

[ The timeline may have changed, and none of it ever happened now, but Erik had been there. And Erik had seen it all himself. ]

Jesus... I'm so sorry.

[homo_superior]

You did all that you could. We both did.

[Still, Erik thinks, he could have done more. If he hadn't been wounded by the shrapnel, he could have fought to the end. He'd never given up before, and even in the face of so many Sentinels, he could have done something more.

He doesn't like to think about what happened to the others. Most of them were dead, but Rogue, Kitty, Charles... would they eventually find their way here? Perhaps this was a place for those displaced from their own timelines. He hoped so. If he could see Charles, just one more time, tell him just once more how he felt, that would be enough.]

[danzan]

[ Erik's right, naturally. And Logan no longer thinks it's a bad thing when he is.

But he's still got a hand covering both his eyes, the fluid pressed tight enough to his ear it hurts.

Tentatively, and with some self-directed anger, he mutters: ] ...I saw Stryker. That's it. That's the only reason Kitty got hurt. I saw him and remembered Weapon X and.

I just stopped breathing. [ He's breathing a little harder at the mere memory of it. ] It didn't have to get that bad. Storm, Colossus-- they didn't have to...

I know we changed the future but it.

God. [ Fury and despair make for words through gritted teeth. ] It didn't have to end like that.

[homo_superior]

Stryker. It would be him.

[He should have known it would be something like that. Stryker's actions continued to ripple outwards after he was long-since dead. Damn that man. Magneto should have done worse than chained him up and left him to die.]

We were going to stop. But Charles, he received a message from the past, his younger self somehow contacting him. After that, we knew we had to continue no matter what.

[danzan]

[ His head lifts slightly at that. He remembers that conversation well enough. ]

...yeah. [ In the haze of guilt and self-loathing, more sober thoughts come to him in kind of a blur-- thoughts like the memory of young Charles with his hands to Logan's temples and his presence filling his skull. ] Yeah. I hit a wall and asked him to read my mind, and he...

[ He brings his hand down, running it over his mouth before it falls away. ]

You think when we escape this place, you and I'll just disappear?

[homo_superior]

That's a very good question. I'm not entirely keen to find out the answer. But at least your mind has a body to return to in the new timeline.

[Magneto would likely just disappear into the ether. So even though this place was a hellhole, he wasn't particularly inclined to leave it.]

[danzan]

You know I don't wanna go home without you.

[homo_superior]

I'd like to say you won't have to, but this place has very little regard for what we do or do not want.

[danzan]

God. It's just... [ A brief moment's hesitation, and Logan sighs quietly. ]

I have all these pictures but they're not mine. And I see myself but it's not me.

You understand? What I'm getting at...? [ He can't put it into words. ]

[homo_superior]

I know. You're afraid you'll be going back to a place where you don't belong.

[That had always been a theme throughout Logan's life, trying to find a place he truly belonged.]

[danzan]

And I'm going to kill the version of me that deserves to be there.

[homo_superior]

You can't think of it like that. We did what we had to.

[Something Magneto has always believed wholeheartedly.]

On the pessimistic side, perhaps neither of us will leave here alive.

[danzan]

[ He laughs, quiet. ] Hell, I'd rather die with you than live without.

[ And sure, that can be taken literally, but it applies to everyone Logan left behind. Will leave behind, most likely, if he survives this.

The smile on his lips is tired. ]

...but at least we did it.

[homo_superior]

[Magneto is silent for a moment before slowly shaking his head.]

Such sentiment, Wolverine.

[But he gets it, he really does. They're the last two soldiers in a war no one except Logan will ever remember.]

[danzan]

With the fucknut timeline we come from, I figure sentiment goes pretty far. [ He's not necessarily feeling... better, per se, and chances are the new world's going to keep depressing him whenever he remembers there isn't a real home waiting for him. But there're more important matters to discuss. And in the end, at least he'll have family here now, and he'll cling onto that until he can't any more. ]

Thanks for calling. And telling me all that.

[ Even if it had been depressing. Logan was going to find out eventually. ]

...hrrngh. I got things to do. I'll talk to you later?