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The mutant once known as Erik Lensherr stands alone on an isolated Cuban beach, a bullet cradled in his hand.
It’s been a pilgrimage of sorts, though he didn’t realize that at first. Poland, Germany, England, Argentina: places he's lost people, parts of himself.
Metal and blood, metal and pain. It’s like they can make visible the events that have warped his life the way he can wrench metal to his will.
The bullet that killed his mother was in a garbage dump near Oświęcim, Poland, still caked with ash when he called it. That death put him in Shaw’s hands, made him the monster (the Savior) he is today. She told him until her last breath that it was fine, that she loved him. That was the last time he was loved (and deserving).
The coin that killed Shaw (always Schmidt, first, in his head, until he catches himself) is buried in the depths of the burnt-out submarine, less than a hundred yards from where he hovers. For almost two decades hating Shaw had been his only purpose, only the only thing (that, and nagging voice that said having survived so much he would never die) that kept him from following his mother down to ash.
He leaves the coin where it fell, rotting with Shaw’s bones, and not because of the uranium tang that burns his skin. He can savor his maker's death every time he tells Azazel who to kill, or catches Frost running her fingers over her throat, as though the cracks he gave her are still there.
The bullet that paralyzed Charles lies quietly in his hand, such a small thing to ruin a life he never knew he wanted. It had been buries when he alighted on the beach, dragged halfway out to sea, but it came to his hand now as easily as he had pulled it from Charles' spine that day.
He doesn’t even know how long he lived the dream. Those weeks training with Charles and his children were the closest he will ever come to Paradise (while there are humans still alive in the world; while his mother is dead, impossible desires that have neither the need nor the ablility to be reconciled). He runs what-if scenarios oftentimes, when even the fever beat of Mystique's iron blood beneath his hands (beneath her skin, surrounding him) cannot exhaust him into sleep wondering what it could have been. What if he stopped the bullets, killed the humans fast while he had the chance, sunk those ships, killed Moira long before or listened to Charles when he said peace was possible (Would they be fighting at each other’s side, now, surviving, winning, or would it be this same distant sun on his armor, this salt wind in his cape?). What if the bullet had deflected a hair to the left? It was a firm bit of metal, heavy in his hand. It could easily have torn through Charles’ soft, deluded heart.
A world without Charles doesn’t bear thinking about, and yet he can’t stop. Perhaps after so many years of torture, he needs pain always with him to be always what he is. Pain is strength. Rage is focus. Charles taught him that rage and pain were not enough, that peace could bring strength too (like a thread of manganese strengthens iron) but Charles is gone. That day was the last time he was thoroughly, completely, (undeservingly,) loved.
Now, he has the Brotherhood and the cause, Mystique’s firm hands and quick, wicked smile, and mutants seek him out because he can protect them, because he understands so much worse than death.
He’s not sure why he doesn’t drop the bullet, but with a thought absorbs it into the curve of his steel gauntlet (they will never catch him without his weapons, not the filthy humans, not the mutants that watch him with mixed awe and fear). It’s not like he needs another scar, another memory of what will never be. But whether the bullet brings him peace or pain, it's power. And the mutant known as Magneto never throws power away.