Chapter Text
Prologue
Erik looked around while queueing up for the Passport Control in Stansted Airport. He knew it was quite silly to expect something impossible, as his friend had been in England for the last month and there was no way he could be on his side of the UK Border. It wasn't even the same airport as that first time.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn't realise at first when the officer called for the next person to be checked. It got him a light push from the people standing behind him – a family of four, with two small children, one of which was of a peculiar shade of lilac – and an angry look from the officer, followed by a suspicious one when he read the X code on his passport.
He didn't understand the latter, as he had queued up in the right section reserved to registered mutants, but then maybe the officer was just being a discriminatory dick by taking an extremely long time to examine his passport.
“Where are you going?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You're underage. Where are you going, all alone?” the word mutant wasn't pronounced, but it was clearly implied.
“I'm going to school, term starts tomorrow.”
“And what school would you be going to?”
“Genosha International College.”
“Oh, of course, that one... and do you happen to have anything to prove that you're actually going there?” Erik's mouth opened in disbelief. Was he actually serious? Why would he lie about it?
“I do, actually” he answered, giving him his school student card. He looked a bit stupid with that very short hair he used to have at the beginning of Sixth Form, but the officer seemed to have finished his excuses to keep him waiting and gave him his documents back with a grunt.
“Have a nice stay in the UK, homo sapiens.” Erik wasn't sure if he actually heard those last two words, or if it was just the result of the man's hostility and his tiredness. Anyway, the officer would have been insulting himself, comparing himself to a Neanderthal.
He stood next to the baggage reclaim and turned his mobile phone on while waiting for his suitcase. No messages, not even from him. If only the whole Cuba accident hadn't happened... he let himself recall that exact time of the year before, when his life had been lightened up by those ridiculously blue eyes.
[FLASHBACK]
He was waiting for his suitcase in front of the baggage reclaim, small in the vastity of Heathrow Airport. If only the plane company hadn't gone on strike, he could have landed at the airport which was closer to the school with his mother, but the unfortunate event had led to one more expensive ticket to the wrong airport, and quite a long train trip to get to his school. It certainly wasn't the brightest start for his new life.
Erik Lehnsherr was about to start the IB in a mutant-friendly British boarding school, thanks to a scholarship achieved with his skills of control on his mutation, as the fees were so high that Edie couldn't have paid for them with the income of twice a lifetime. It would have probably been full of posh people, but at least he was going to have a good education in an environment that would not discriminate him for his nature, unlike it had happened in his hometown after the Mutant Registration Act.
He tried to relax his nerves by playing with his suitcase's padlock, worried about his German accent that was too thick and his limited ability to make new friends. What if his roommate was human and mutantphobe? Were mutantphobes even allowed to attend the school? He hoped not.
He looked around, wondering how many in that mass of individuals were like him. Maybe Britan would have been different. Maybe it was detached enough from the rest of Europe that those stupid stereotypes and rumours weren't that impressed into the people's heads. The look a woman gave him when she saw the padlock being deformed was enough of an answer, as she pulled her kids away from him.
Maybe humans were just stupid, he thought.
'Don't be rude, my friend. If you generalise like that, you're no better than them.'
Erik gasped and looked around as he heard that voice. No, he didn't hear it. Was it his imagination? Somehow, he knew it was for him. Maybe Britain had a special mutant monitoring system that messed up with their minds in public places?
'We might be obsessed with immigration control, but we're not that bad. It's not like we're in America. Don't be afraid, you're not crazy. I am like you. Turn around.'
Erik could feel goosebumps on his neck as he slowly turned around, not knowing what to expect, suddendly becoming aware of the presence behind him.
“Nice to meet you, Erik Lehnsherr. Did I pronounce it in the right way? My name is Charles Xavier. I grasped from your mind that you're going to Genosha – it's not like I intentionally read your mind, but you were projecting your thoughts quite loudly. My mother's car is waiting outside. Would you like a lift to school?”