Magneto. It's a good name, for a man like him. A man that can control metal. Magneto.

It doesn't mean anything that he uses the name that the kids thought up for him.

People learn the name Magneto (when the X-Men don't get there first). They associate it with power and metal and fear and a new world order for mutants.

He lets them. It's what the name is for, after all. Magneto is, after all, a better name than Erik.

And nobody cares if he cherishes the name, if occasionally he allows himself to think of a mad man who dived in to save a stranger, of training, of the kids and late night talking and chess. Of acceptance. The warm, brief feeling of belonging.

So he dons the helmet and calls himself Magneto, a name with duel meanings.

And perhaps he likes the fact that only one man now who calls him Erik, and perhaps he is the only one now who calls that man Charles.

It's a twisted sort of love, but he holds onto it.