Chapter 181: Recruiting the Magneto Family
When the test was over, Matthew left in Tony's GTR with the satisfied bearing of a man who had made exactly the right bet.
Tony walked back to the center of the arena by himself and stood over the wreckage of the Titan, studying it with the particular focus of an engineer who is already thinking about the next version.
Losing a test had never bothered Tony Stark. He also knew, with complete honesty, that the Nemesis hadn't been at its actual ceiling. Full capability meant the Vibranium-powered suit he had personally designed for it, not the symbiote configuration alone.
"They say you can learn your character from seeing how others behave," Tony said to himself, directing a mechanical arm to start sorting through the parts scattered across the floor. "In my experience, using Matthew as the standard is a faster way to figure out exactly how strong something needs to be."
Matthew didn't go back to Umbrella immediately after leaving Stark Industrial Park. He went to the coffee shop where he and Magneto had first met.
Magneto was already there.
When Matthew pushed the door open, Magneto caught the server's eye. "Coconut milk. With ice."
"Of course, sir."
He had only met Matthew once, and he had remembered exactly what Matthew drank.
Matthew sat. He received the coconut milk from the server, left a hundred-dollar tip with the same ease he applied to everything, and looked across the table. "You came to me this time. Something on your mind?"
Magneto took a measured sip of his tea before answering. "Nothing urgent. I wanted to check in on the progress of what I asked you to look into."
Matthew answered without rushing. "That. I have people on it."
"Vought's security around their research records is tight. We haven't turned up hard criminal evidence yet. I'll need you to give it a bit more time."
Magneto absorbed this and nodded. His main concern had been that the man across from him had taken the money and moved on. Apparently not.
"In that case, I'll be going." He had what he came for.
He was halfway out of his chair when Matthew stopped him.
"Erik. No need to rush."
"Since you're here, there's something else I'd like to propose."
Magneto settled back. "A proposal. What kind?"
To make sure nothing leaving this table was going to reach another set of ears, Matthew let a gravity field expand around the two of them. It sealed off the air between their space and everything outside it, producing a vacuum pocket that sound couldn't cross.
He spoke.
"Erik. Candidly: I've been working with SHIELD and several government agencies to file for legal recognition of mutant civil rights. It's moving along faster than I expected. I don't think it'll take long before it becomes official."
"Once the legislation lands, someone will need to step into a public-facing leadership role. A mutant who can represent the community and serve as a point of contact for government and public coordination."
"Would you be willing to be that person?"
The man across from him had started wars between mutants and humanity more than once. Behind the quiet of his current life, something in that proposal still reached something he hadn't expected it to reach.
But the feeling was brief. He'd been out of that world for a long time. He shook his head.
"I appreciate it, Matthew Lawrence. More than I can say."
"But physically, I'm not what I was." He lifted his flat cap off and let Matthew see the full white of his hair.
"What you need is someone young, with energy. Not an old man who has one foot in the ground."
Matthew had expected exactly this answer.
"If age is the problem, that's something I can fix." He produced a syringe from his coat and set it on the table.
"This is an internal benefit reserved for Umbrella's senior leadership. We call it the E-Type Enhancer."
"It significantly amplifies physical function. As a side effect, it also reverses the aging process. Returns the body to a younger state."
"If you're willing to work within the company's arrangements, I'll give you this free of charge. We can also extend other internal benefits as part of the arrangement."
"What do you say, Erik?"
Magneto's gaze locked onto the syringe.
What matters most to a man whose body is failing him?
Money. Influence. Reputation.
None of those.
What matters is having a body that works again.
Matthew had placed that possibility in arm's reach, and the only thing standing between Magneto and it was a single word.
He reached for it.
The syringe slid back into Matthew's palm before his fingers closed.
"You haven't actually answered me yet, Mr. Eisenhardt."
Magneto looked at him. "I thought I was answering with my actions. Wasn't that clear?"
"So you're saying yes to joining Umbrella Corporation?"
"Yes." A single nod.
"Then let's set a date in the next couple of days. I'll arrange the onboarding from there."
The syringe containing the E-Type Mold, packaged and presented as E-Type Enhancer, drifted smoothly across the table and stopped in front of Magneto.
He caught it.
He turned it over in his hand, testing its weight, then looked up. "Mr. Lawrence. I have a clear sense of what your company is capable of. But I have one question."
"Go ahead."
"How can you guarantee that once I join Umbrella, that leadership position will actually be mine? The government may well choose someone from the inside, a mutant they already control, rather than someone who comes in from outside."
"Because if I want you in that position," Matthew said, "I will find a way to put you there. Whatever it takes. That's not a statement I make lightly."
He stood.
"Come by Umbrella in a couple of days to complete the paperwork. I'll have everything else handled."
He was about to leave when something occurred to him. He glanced back.
"One more thing, Erik. Given who you are, your onboarding package includes the option to bring your family on as well."
"Premium terms, of course."
He left.
Magneto sat alone in the coffee shop until his tea went completely cold.
Then he closed his hand around the syringe and left.
Kenosha County, Wisconsin.
The door swung open.
Magneto, in his black wool coat, walked in with an ease that belonged to someone for whom every door was already unlocked. He raised one hand. The door swung shut and locked behind him.
"Dad?" Polaris came out of the kitchen holding a piece of bread, reading something in his expression that she couldn't quite identify.
Magneto registered her voice, made a small sound of acknowledgment, and went upstairs without stopping.
Polaris watched him go with a furrowing of the brow, decided not to pursue it, and went back to spreading jam on her bread with a kitchen knife she wasn't using her hands for. She settled on the couch and ate.
About half an hour later.
A faint red light moved across the locked front door, and it opened. A girl in a deep red jacket came in. Behind her: a young man in silver.
Scarlet Witch. Quicksilver.
"Lorna. It's not even evening yet. Why is the door locked?" Wanda went to the foot of the stairs and craned her head up, as though looking for an explanation in the ceiling.
Polaris looked at her with mild exasperation. "There's nobody up there. Dad locked it. Not me."
Wanda started to say something. Polaris cut her off before she could.
"Don't ask me why. I don't know either. He came home with something on his mind and went straight upstairs. That's everything I have."
"You could go ask him yourself," Polaris suggested.
"No." Wanda settled onto the couch beside her.
They proceeded to discuss everything except the clearly preoccupied father upstairs, with complete mutual ease.
"Wanda. Didn't you two go to New York today for the Seven tryouts? How did that go?"
Polaris looked at Wanda and then at Pietro, who was pouring himself milk in the kitchen.
Pietro answered first and at speed. "Pretty solid overall. The process was straightforward. I ran through my abilities, the Vought rep put me in the candidate pool for the Seven."
"All I need to do is get through the second round tomorrow against the other candidates. After that I'm in."
"What about Wanda?"
A brief pause.
Pietro: "She was cut."
"Judges said her ability was too limited. And she can't fully control it yet. First round."
He spread his hands as though this was a simple logistical matter.
Wanda sighed. "Yes. I was cut."
"It's fine. I wasn't that invested in joining the Seven anyway."
Pietro considered this for a moment.
"Lorna. She's lying."
"She really wanted to join the Seven."
Wanda gave him the look of someone who has located a target.
Before she could do anything with it, a sound came from the room upstairs.
A sharp crack. Something breaking.
Wanda's attention shifted. She raised her voice toward the ceiling. "Dad? Is everything all right up there? Do you need us?"
Nothing from upstairs.
Pietro set his milk down.
A blur. He was gone.
Then nothing from him either.
"Pietro? Pietro? What's going on up there?" Wanda called.
About four or five seconds. Then Pietro's voice, coming from upstairs at a pace that did not match any sense of urgency.
"Wanda. You should come up and see this yourself."
"Lorna too."
The two of them exchanged a look. That had the specific cadence of someone who had found something and didn't know how to describe it. They went upstairs with the careful posture of people who have mentally prepared for the possibility that someone has been taken hostage.
They stepped into the room.
And stopped.
The man standing in front of the mirror was their father. Same frame, same bearing. Same eyes.
But the white hair was gone. The face looking back from the glass was not the face of an old man.
It was Magneto at fifty years younger.
He hadn't fully processed it himself yet. He was standing there motionless, one hand moving slowly across his own cheek, feeling for what was supposed to be there. The wrinkles. The texture that had been there for decades.
"...WTF."
Polaris said it into the silence. The silence absorbed it.
Wanda and Pietro took a collective breath. Pietro spoke first.
"...Would you like to explain what happened?"
Magneto pulled his gaze from the mirror and tested his own grip. Closed his fist. Opened it. The farsightedness was gone. The ache in his bones. The tightness in his chest. All of it, gone.
What was left was the feeling of a body that worked exactly the way a body was supposed to.
He straightened up.
"Downstairs," he said. "I'll explain."
The living room. The four of them arranged across the table and the sofa.
Magneto told them what had happened, while they watched him with expressions that kept shifting between confusion and something that didn't have a clean name yet.
Silence when he finished.
Wanda broke it first.
"So... this was just your sign-on benefit?"
"That's correct."
Magneto paused, then continued.
"Matthew Lawrence also mentioned that given my position, family members can join as well under my terms."
"Premium package."
"I'd suggest you consider it. Umbrella's benefits are not something you find often."
Umbrella's reputation in that regard was not an exaggeration. It had the same energy as a company where the line to apply started around the block and everyone in it is quietly convinced they're going to get the job.
Wanda and Polaris looked at each other.
Both nodded. No deliberation needed.
Pietro was the holdout.
He had just passed Vought's first round. The second round was tomorrow. Umbrella was one thing, but the Seven was what he'd been working toward, and the decision was sitting right in the middle of two options with a clock attached.
Wanda watched him thinking about it.
"You might want to make up your mind. This particular offer has a shelf life."
The words settled.
Pietro was quiet for another few seconds. Then his hand came down flat on the table.
"A family stays together."
"My decision is made."
"I'm joining with you."
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