Chapter 168: Magneto Signs On, and Strange's Longing
Xavier's question landed in the room, and Magneto turned to stare at his old friend with an expression that was equal parts surprise and personal offense.
He's going to beat me to it.
The realization hit Magneto with the specific indignation of someone who has spent considerable time arranging a dramatic entrance only to find the door already open. He'd been planning to raise this after Xavier left. He'd wanted the moment to himself. And now here was Charles, of all people, walking through it first.
You scheming old man, Magneto thought, with something close to genuine admiration.
He turned to Ethan immediately.
"The Brotherhood will also be relocating to Hell's Kitchen," he announced, in the tone of someone who has decided that dignity is a cost worth incurring.
Ethan looked at both of them.
"When did Hell's Kitchen become somewhere people wanted to move to?" he thought. The neighborhood had spent decades being the place people fled. And now he had two of the most powerful mutants on the planet in his restaurant, competing over who got to join first.
He also wasn't worried about hidden agendas. Schemes were fine. In his experience, schemes stopped working the moment the person running them stopped being more powerful than you. He had that covered.
Still — he felt he should be honest about his reservations.
"I don't have a problem with it," he said. "But you're doing the thing again. Deciding for them." He looked between the two of them. "Ask the actual mutants. If they want to come, the door is open. If they don't, that's their answer."
Xavier smiled slightly. "I'll respect their choices. I'm not asking them to come — I'm making sure the option exists. If there comes a day when I can no longer offer them what they need..." He paused. "At least this would be here."
Magneto nodded. It was, he had to admit, sound reasoning.
Ethan looked at both of them for a moment and then said, very clearly: "One rule. No special treatment. Everyone in Hell's Kitchen is equal, and equal means accountable. If someone in your Brotherhood causes problems—" he looked at Magneto specifically, because Magneto's people were specifically the kind who caused problems — "that's handled the same way everything else is handled here."
Magneto straightened slightly. "Anyone who joins and breaks the rules answers to me personally. You have my word."
He said it with the weight of a man whose word had historically been backed up by the ability to rearrange metal on a continental scale, which Ethan took as a reasonable guarantee.
Then Ethan smiled — the particular smile of a man who has just identified a revenue stream.
"Housing is going to be a significant expense," he said. "New residents, new accommodations. I'm sure two people with your resources can work something out." He stood. "Wanda — I'll leave the details to you."
Wanda, who had been sitting nearby with the composed expression of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment, nodded once.
Ethan walked away.
Behind him, Xavier shook his head — something between amusement and resignation. Of course. He had savings. This was manageable.
Magneto turned to Wanda with the expression of a man hoping his daughter might exercise some filial flexibility on the rental rates.
Wanda opened a small notebook and began reciting line items. Per unit. Per month. Breakdown of utilities. Community amenities charge. She did not look up.
Magneto considered whether being her biological father gave him any negotiating leverage and concluded, based on available evidence, that it did not.
Ethan crossed the restaurant and found Strange still at his table.
Still here. Of course he was. Strange had been staying in Hell's Kitchen all day, apparently helping with the wounded — Ethan had heard this from three different people before the dinner started. There was a version of Stephen Strange that presented to the world as precise and skeptical and faintly superior, and then there was whatever had been happening today.
Soft touch underneath the scalpel, Ethan thought. He'd suspected it for a while.
He sat down across from him.
"Still here," Ethan said. "I thought you hated this neighborhood."
Strange looked up. His eyes had the quality of a man who had spent a long day doing something meaningful and was now sitting with the complicated feeling that follows.
"I've been thinking," he said, which for Strange was usually the beginning of something.
He was quiet for a moment.
"Does medicine actually matter?" The question came out more nakedly than he'd probably intended. "I watched Wade do things today with that talisman of yours. I saw what the Senzu Beans do. I'm a surgeon — I've spent years training at the highest level — and standing next to people who can just fix things, I started wondering what I'm actually contributing."
Ethan looked at him.
Strange had watched the Horse Talisman work. Had seen the Senzu Beans close wounds that would have required hours of careful surgery. Had stood in the middle of a neighborhood full of people with abilities that made his own carefully assembled expertise look like very expensive effort.
"You want abilities," Ethan said.
Strange hesitated. Then: "If it's possible. Yes." A pause. "But I'm not becoming ugly for them."
Ethan almost smiled.
He thought about what he knew — what he couldn't say directly. The car accident. The shaking hands. Kamar-Taj. The long road that turned a gifted surgeon into the Sorcerer Supreme. Strange was going to get there regardless. The only variable was whether the road had to be as brutal as it was in the version Ethan had seen play out in a different life.
Maybe it doesn't.
"Stay tonight," Ethan said. "Tomorrow morning, I'm taking you to meet someone."
Strange frowned. "Who?"
"Someone you were always going to meet eventually." Ethan stood. "Someone who can give you what you're looking for. The roundabout way involves a car accident. I'm offering you the direct route."
Strange stared at him.
The cryptic delivery was, Ethan knew, not ideal. But there were limits to how much of a person's future you could hand them before it stopped being theirs.
"I'll have Pietro sort out a room," he said. "Get some sleep."
He left Strange sitting there with an expression that was somewhere between intrigue and the specific annoyance of a man who dislikes not having complete information.
Then Ethan finally, finally headed upstairs.
He sat down, and opened the system.
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