Disclaimer: Neocolai does not own Xmen or anything related to the franchise. Yada Yada.

Human life was of little consequence to Erik after they murdered his mother. Charles had convinced him to try.

After the forest….

After they took his daughter; his one treasure; the reason he felt compassion….

After they killed his wife; his dear love; the one he thought would see him to old age in peace …

After they stabbed his Nina through the heart….

After they slew his little bird….

Human life lost all value.

He was numb to their screams as he razed the earth. Bodies scattered the ocean, and rubble breaking away from metal crushed thousands more. He ceased to care. They had taken everything from him. He was only returning the favor.

Until Raven was suddenly standing before him, shouting words that seemed familiar. "You never had a chance to save your family before, but you do now."

She vanished and he heard another scream, louder than all the rest. He looked down at the silver-haired mutant, sprawled in a crooked kneel, and scoffed. Charles, too, had recruited youth to his cause, but they would never match the powers of the first mutant. Better than they had all united with En Sabah Nur and fought as one, than joined the pitiless mass grave.

Then the scream wrenched him and Erik staggered, his shield warping out of balance. He shouted and reached out for Peter, Peter who knelt before En Sabah Nur, the foolish, impudent pest without a purpose save to cling to what family he had. It was his boy, his son, and how dare the treacherous apostate stain a single silver blade on that trusting head.

In an instant he was standing before the false one, railing the fallen city upon him, pummeling him with steel that only ricocheted in futile clatters. When the metal fell away he rammed his fist into the insipid expression. Over and over, his blows pillowed as his muscles refused to fight. En Sabah Nur stared, unmoved, until Erik forced the thought of hurt him, kill him, bleed already!

Then there was blood, a splash on the lip that gave him no satisfaction. En Sabah Nur merely strode past him with the same pitiless, hateful expression. "Rescue your weaklings."

Horrified, Erik whirled and cried out. No silver. No sign of the silver fledgling.

And there – he saw it. A tiny bird with a dragging wing. It chirped frantically, trying to hop out of a cage of shifting metal. Despairing brown eyes locked on Erik and the bird flapped its wings fervently. He ran towards it, shutting out En Sabah Nur's mockery, cupping his hands to scoop up the fluttering little one.

Feathers scattered between his fingers.

"No. No, no, no, no, no!"

Snatching feathers out of the air, he looked for the one that looked most like a bird, terrified that he was running out of time and that single feather would soon drift into the rubble.

"No. No, Peter, where are you?"

"Erik, stop." Charles' hand latched onto his sleeve and tugged him away.

"Erik."

"Leave me!" He shoved the mutant back, turning to the rubble, sobbing out when the feathers vanished.

"Erik!"

"Are you quite all right?" Charles said uncertainly. "You know thousands of children are dead. Why should one or two more make any difference?"

"Don't you dare speak against them!" Erik shouted, thrusting him away. "Not my Nina! Not – "

His eyes widened as the wheelchair rolled back towards the precipice of floating metal. Panicked, Charles reached for him. He lunged for the telepath's hand, brushing his fingers, and then Charles was falling, falling, falling towards the sprawled bodies of Peter and Nina and Raven and his dear one, and all he could do was stand and watch as –

"Erik!"

Bolting upright, Erik stared into the darkness of his room. Windows on the west wall. Door on the far right. Pillows behind and a creaky mattress beneath him. Shaking, he leaned his forehead against his knees.

"You can tell me, Erik," Charles' voice lightened the muggy shutters of his dream. The telepath sounded as weary as Erik felt; who knew how many other nightmares he was soothing when he should be sleeping himself. "Erik."

"M'fine," Erik mumbled as he rubbed a hand over his face.

"…. Was it Peter?" Charles prodded gently.

Crossly Erik slung out of bed and flicked on the lamp, stumbling to the adjoined bathroom. Splashes of cold water on his face woke him but could not banish the warped, vivid images from his mind.

"His room is downstairs, just down the hall."

Scoffing, Erik shook his head. "I don't need to check up on him."

Twenty minutes later he was padding down the stairs, cursing each squeaky floorboard. He slunk past Scott's room, overhearing yet another nightmare smoothed away as Charles did his work, and ignored the creepy, accented prattle from Kurt's room as the mutant chattered in his sleep. Two doors further brought him to the only room burdened with more bikini posters and rock bands than would be suitable for a downtown pub. (He made a mental note to insist that Charles restrict the boy's computer access in the future.)

"Really, Erik?" Charles gave a tired laugh. "He's twenty-seven now."

"Still a boy," Erik stated dispassionately. He turned the door handle gently, coaxing the hinges to open without a creak.

The room was cheerily aglow with two impressive lava lamps (stolen, Erik was sure), a television flickering on low volume (definitely not one of Charles' contributions), and the aquarium that was supposed to be in the public study. Scratching the back of his head, Erik wondered which would be the lesser evil to mete out to his new charge; his checkbook, or a good spanking. Either solution would be tedious and no doubt short-lived. Maybe he'd just let Charles deal with the kid. It was his school, anyways.

A soft mutter from the bunk interrupted Erik's musing, and he remembered the flash of panic and drifting feathers. Relieved (and a little sheepish at his foreboding), he leaned against the doorpost, satisfied that the boy was safe.

Another muffled sound accompanied by a full body flinch snapped his attention to the quivering figure.

"Charles," Erik growled, irked that the telepath was late to intervene. How long had the boy been dreaming? He hastened to the bedside, alarmed when the lava lamps' glow revealed blurring, flickering limbs. The kid was trembling.

"Peter," Erik called softly, uncertain if he should shake him awake. He called louder, "Peter."

Another violent twitch shook the bed. Instinctively Erik clapped the boy's shoulder. "Pe – "

Brown eyes flew wide before the covers fluttered and Peter zipped into the wall. He braced himself against the closet door, poised for a second flight, and fell back when he saw Erik.

"You know it's totally creepy when you look up and someone's leaning over you in the dark," Peter stated pragmatically.

"You were shaking the bunk to pieces," Erik retorted. He folded his arms loosely, watching the kid calm down. (He noted the lightning bolts on red flannel pajamas, and wondered if Magda had sent them for irony's sake.) Softly he asked, "Bad dream?"

Brown eyes blinked in confusion, morphing to appreciation. The covers flitted and Peter leaned back against the pillows, looking up with cheeky snide.

"Why, Dad, were you worried?" His grin strained for a moment as he waited for Erik's reply.

A week wasn't long enough to get used to the idea. Erik tried to remember the light in Nina's smile when he came downstairs in the night, shaken by the recurring nightmare that someone had taken her away. "Did you come down 'cause you were scared, Papa?"

It hurt too much to compare the two.

"Just wondering," Erik said distantly.

The smile faded and Peter took great interest in the fuzz on one pajama knee. "Actually, I was having a great dream," he said after a moment's pause. "It was kinda weird in a way, but pretty awesome. I dreamed that the Apocalypse guy recruited me, only the creepy purple lady was really Mystique and I felt bad because I turned out to be a turncoat and I punched her in the face. I really didn't mean to hit Mystique – just the other creep, you know?"

"Uh-huh." Yeah, the kid was fine. Erik settled down on the edge of the bed to listen. Not because he enjoyed losing his mind to ceaseless gibberish. In fact, this was all Charles' fault for insisting he work on his "family time".

"Anyways, you were there too, but you kind of floated away at some point – I assume you were helping the good guys. And Hank was with the gang of freaks instead of that winged dude, and I don't even remember if Storm was around – Ohhh, yeah – she kept electrocuting me, but it didn't hurt so I just shook it off and started bugging the blue guy. I was having so much fun punching him around, and he just drifted like a dummy of doom and gloom and then Wanda was there lecturing me about being late for school which was really weird cause I'm never late, everybody's just there early and ….."

He might have dozed off at some point. Not that Peter probably cared. Kid could talk En Sabah Nur into psychosis.

If this didn't satisfy Charles' criteria for "family time", Erik was going to solder his wheelchair to the grandfather clock.