I do not own the awesomeness that is X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Which is kind of a bummer.

Time and Metal

He lay upon the cot now.

Peacefully.

Earlier he had sat on the floor, legs crossed, arms extended. Meditating.

Peacefully.

Everything he did now was peaceful. Every action, every thought, every aspect of his life carried out in the same way.

Peacefully.

And still he could remember the screams, the harsh sounds, the surging emotions that had swirled around him.

In the concentration camps.

In the experimentation rooms.

In the world.

Every move, every action he had chosen to make in his life all stemmed from that one fixed point in time.

The death of his mother. The death of himself. His first self.

That man had threatened to kill her if Erik did not move the coin. Erik, a young boy, unfocused and unpracticed, could not move the coin.

As it turned out, the man had not been making an idle threat at all.

He had shot her. He had shot Erik's mother. Murdered her.

And then she was dead.

Erik's mother was dead.

And he had raged.

Outwardly. Destroying everything.

And then through pain and torture and psychological destruction, he had learned to control it.

Always control it. The metal. The rage.

For years upon years later, that rage had remained within him.

He had fumed and he had raged and he had planned and he had schemed.

For so long. All alone.

Women, food, drink, hunger, murder, money. All of these things were but shadows of ghosts to him.

Only his rage was truly real.

Over the years, he had expected, prepared for many things.

Charles Xavier and his little band of misfit mutants had not been one of them.

She had not been one of them.

The bright place between rage and serenity had not been one of them.

And against his will, he had begun to feel a spark of light hesitantly grow within him.

Though the rage always remained.

They, all of them, had laughed together, smiled together, worked together, trained together.

Which wasn't very easy sometimes, considering they were unfocused, rash, hormone-driven young mutants.

And one night, just the two of them alone, they had even loved together.

Just for a little while.

Even now he did not know if he had truly begun to care for her or if she was just a useful ally to him.

Or both.

But he had begun to believe in them. All of them. Just a little.

Though he had never lost sight of his true mission.

The death of him. The man who murdered his mother.

And no one, not even Charles Xavier, would stop him.

Peace or no peace, the man who murdered his mother would die.

And so that man did.

By Erik's own hand and a very significant sliver of metal, the man who had murdered his mother died.

And another man died as well.

The man who had murdered him.

And a new man was born from the melted metal ashes of that terrible victory.

A man named Magneto.

For there was more work yet to be done.

To lead the mutants who would follow him.

Against the murderous, misunderstanding, cowering humans who just followed orders.

To lead her.

But even in his rage, he had not intended to do it.

He had never meant to harm Charles, his first friend.

That had torn his soul, blackened as it already was, into little shreds of sorrow and regret.

He had held him and mourned.

But in the end, when his friend had not listened to him, when he had rejected the plan, Erik had released him and walked away.

Because he still had a mission.

And nothing would stand in the way of that mission.

He had taken those who would go.

He would gather more who would come.

And they would form their own brotherhood of mutants.

And nothing would stand in their way.

They had undertaken many secret missions.

And they had lost many of their fellow comrades to that devilish scientist and his experimentations.

As if the concentration camp horrors had never been halted at all.

And though that knowledge was soul cripplingly black, it had made his resolution to avenge them all the more unbending.

And so he had continued fighting on.

With her at his side.

The last mission had not worked quite as well as he had planned.

Trying to save the president. The one who was a mutant like them.

Curving the bullet in a desperate attempt to save the man who could prove to be so very important for the mutant cause.

Failing.

The shame and rage at being captured by the weak and powerless humans.

Humans who did not understand that he had been trying to save the man, not kill him.

Humans who would not listen.

And he, a powerful mutant, remained alone and abandoned by all.

Again.

Held captive in a place completely alien to him.

A place with no metal.

Glass. Plastic. Cotton. Paper. Rubber.

But no metal.

He had reached out so many times on so many occasions.

Feeling for the comfort of the metal. The metallic taste of it upon his tongue. The cold smell of it in his nostrils. The humming, thrumming vibrations of it in his listening ears. The solid look of it to his searching eyes.

It was gone.

And a void was left within him where the metal once resided.

A gaping, black, empty hole where it had once been.

He missed them. He missed her. He missed the purpose of the plan, of the next mission.

But he missed the comfort, the security of the metal most of all.

And so first he raged, powerless and alone.

In the small, still cell. With its plain cot. And its sparse toiletries. And its white plastic food trays.

He raged in his plain, grey prison attire.

He raged in his forced number.

They, those he would never forgive, they had taken away his name and given him another number.

He had raged in the quiet, in the isolation, in the defeat, in the degradation.

Until finally, he had raged no more.

Because he had decided.

He would live. He would survive.

Because one day, everything would change.

He didn't know how or when or why.

He only knew that it would.

He knew because he must know.

He knew because it was the only thing he had left.

And so he waited.

He ate. He slept. He meditated. He passed endless time alone in his head, cavernously empty without the comforting presence of metal.

Ten long years he waited.

Peacefully.

And now, he lay upon the cot.

Peacefully.

And opened his eyes to see a peculiar-looking young guard above him smile like an imp about to perform a magic trick. A plastic tray slid to his side with a note reading 'Mind the Glass'.

He watched curiously as the boy, for he was surely no more than a boy, place his hands carefully on the glass.

And observed as those unassuming hands began to vibrate so fast they blurred.

He waited, ready and willing.

And then it happened.

The vibrating glass shattered and fell upon him as the powerful mutant Magneto reflexively covered his head with his hands.

And when the final pieces of shattered glass had fallen to the floor and the space was silent, he looked up.

And knew.

The time for peace had passed.

The time for metal had come.

For Erik Lehnsherr, the mutant Magneto, was free.

Hey all! Look at me! I went three whole summer days without publishing fanfiction! Yay!

Pitiful, you say? Oh hush. I'm happy and now I can finally go to sleep.

Hope you enjoy! :)

Thanks to thecatclouder, brigid1318, angeleye02, lol, Voodoo-Mutant-Child, Shanynde, and MoonlitShadowsoftheHumanSoul for kindly reviewing. :)

Thanks to IHeartStories, Jenna of the Red Robes, Hermione Sparkle, Jasper6509, Aletta-Feather, and elea121 for adding your support to this little bit as well. :)

Everybody appreciates feedback. Leave a review if you like.