sakura_no_miko

Rating: PG-13 to light R (more violence than sexuality)

Pairing: Erik/Charles, Mystique/Azazel, some one-sided Mystique/Destiny

Warnings: character death, mentions of imprisonment and torture/experimentation, character injury, angst

Other notes: big bang entry, illustrated, kid/family fic, fix it fic, alternate universe, some minor character point of view

Length: 23k

Summary: Four years after the events of X-Men: First Class, Charles Xavier finds his X-Men on the losing side of their continuing battle with Erik’s Brotherhood. Azazel and Mystique have a child in secret and, unwilling to raise Kurt in the midst of Erik’s war, they give him up to Charles to raise at his school for the gifted. He agrees to do so, on the condition that they visit their son regularly. This leads to tenuous contact between the Brotherhood and the X-Men outside of the battlefield for the first time in years, and both Xavier and Magneto realize that the lines dividing them are not as clear-cut as they previously thought.

The artwork is gorgeous. I’m amazed that the same person both wrote the story and did the artwork–the amount of time it must have taken to complete both puts me to shame, since I can barely finish writing nowadays. So much talent, I’m envious. That the artwork is part of the story–not just scenes of prose being turned into art, but part of the story expressed through art, rather than just prose–is just a lovely touch. It fits together really wonderfully. And gorgeous.

Anyway. I thought this made a nice companion to yesterday’s Never Too Late to be Who You Might Have Been. In fact, I had one of those moments where, as I read Never Too Late, I found myself confused, because I remembered a totally different ending. Turns out that was the ending of this story. Ah, Striker. He’s just a wonderful character to hate, and he gets well-deserved bad ends in both stories.

Again, this is Charles and Erik, in a future not quite as far ahead as Never Too Late, looking back at just how much of their past, their friendship, and ultimately their love they’ve destroyed because both of them are stubborn and idealistic. I like that Charles is the one full of righteous fury, here, giving him an edge of coldness and pain that isn’t touched on quite as much in the fics I’ve read. Erik is the one helplessly trying to apologize, full of self-loathing and knowing he deserves all the hate Charles is giving him. It’s a nice inversion, I think.

I’m terribly fond of Destiny here. Admittedly I’m not familiar with her character in the comics, except for the famous story about how she was almost Nightcrawler’s mother–and Mystique, her lover, would have been his father. She doesn’t get much time in the spotlight, but what she has is quite well done.

Anyway, it’s a great fic–a good balance of angst and reconciliation.

(Looking for more fic recs?)
Originally posted on tumblr on 01/13/13