Eric Lehnsherr, the man formerly known as Magneto, gives me a resigned look "I was wondering if the new Mutant Messiah would ever turn up at my doorstep. Very well, let's not do this out in the hallway, you might as well come in." He walks back inside, motioning for me to follow.
"Thank you, Mr Lehnsherr" I walk in after him, closing the door behind me. Unlike the rundown and rather dingy state of the rest of the building, Magneto's apartment is clean and well-kept, if somewhat sparsely decorated, with a couch, a few chairs, and a positively ancient television set in the living room, along with some old black and white photos hanging on the walls. He slides into one of the chairs.
"Please, have a seat. I don't have much on hand, but if you care for a drink-"
"No no, let me handle that." I wave my hand, and a steaming mug of coffee appears in front of him on the table, while a cold bottle of Coke pops into my hand, the cool glass a welcome feeling in the south american heat. I take a sip of my drink, noticing that Magneto is looking at his with some suspiction "Oh come on, you really think I'd go all this way just to kill you through one of the most banal and half-assed ways possible?"
"Someone of my experience would tell you that it would be exactly why you'd do it, not to mention that "all this way" is inherently meaningless for someone of your power. Nevertheless, this would be as good a way to get it over with as any other..." He takes a drink, and almost seems disappointed that the coffee isn't poisoned."I suppose that would have been too easy."
"Mr Lehnsherr, why exactly are you under the impression that I came here just to kill you?"
"Experience? Common sense?" He takes another drink before putting the cup down "When my powers did not return following the Regenesis, I eventually concluded that I was somehow deliberatly excluded from it, something that seemed even more certain when you were revealed to be the cause of the event. When my son eventually contacted me, revealing that he also remained powerless, it was all but proven, and while I haven't been able to find my daughter..."
"You'd be right, she's also powerless, and I intend for her to stay that way."
He nods "As I thought. So, it stood to reason that you, Ginnungagap, the abyss from once all of creation came, carried a grudge against me and mine, and if I ever were to meet you in person, it was because you had some worse punishment in store for me." His face shifts from resignation to fury "I may be a powerless old man, but if you expect groveling and pleading, not even your so-called godly power will bring that to reality. I've faced more than one madman with delusions of godhood long before I knew of my powers."
"...I'm sorry, are you trying to compare me to the Nazis?"
He calmly takes another drink of coffee "You might understand why people dressing themselves up in nordic mythology to express their superiority is a bit of a sore point for me."
Seriously, screw you too, old man "It's just a name, I don't actually think I have anything to do with the Norse pantheon. Besides, you had a follower who called himself EXODUS, you have no room to talk."
Magneto scoffs "He used that title long before I met him, his powers were too useful for me to reject him over it. You on the other hand..."
"Okay, let me just cut you off right there, I'm not a Nazi, my real name is Johan Magnusson, I'm Swedish, which is why I picked that name. Well that, and I was really into mythology when I was younger, if I was Greek I'd have used one of their mythological names. And I really don't like being accused of being one from someone who has tried to literally start a genocide on several occasions."
"What I did, I did for my people-"
I cut him off "No, what you did was make things worse at very turn in some misguided attempt at filling the hole inside of you. What you needed after the camps was therapy, not 50 odd years of trying to start a race war. Now, here you are, sitting powerless in a one-room apartment in Argentina, hiding from the consequences of your actions. The irony would be funny if it wasn't so depressing."
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I HAVE SUFFERED!!" He jumps out of his chair, throwing the coffee cup at me, though it pops out of existance before it can even reach me. "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!! NO RIGHT TO JUDGE ME!!"
"I HAVE EVERY RIGHT, YOU DELUSIONAL OLD BUZZARD!" I stand up, yelling right back at him "You doomed our entire species to extinction, do you even realize that?! It was your shitty parenting that made Wanda unstable, it was you never being satisfied even when you literally ruled the world that caused M-Day! The fact that I turned up to fix your goddamn screwups was just pure luck! Every thing, every single thing you've done in your ridiculous quest for mutant supremacy has done nothing except screw over mutantkind both in the short and long run! You took over a country! You INVADED A U.S MILITARY BASE! And that was just the start! What the hell did you think was going to happen?!"
"Ah, so you have thrown your lot in with Charles and his brand of mewling pacifism then? Just stand and watch while mutantkind is constantly brutalized under the guise of working in the system?! You have some nerve to call me out when you are powerful enough to simply ignore the consequences of your own actions!"
"Are you kidding me? You were the fucking MASTER OF MAGNETISM! Yes, I'm more powerful than you, but not by as much as you'd think. You could have changed the entire planet if you really wanted to, but all you could think to do with it was play warlord, just like every other so-called visionary. You just used nicer words about it than Apocalypse and Red Skull did."
Magnetos face goes blank and for a moment I think he's about to try and punch me... then his shoulders slump, and he sinks back into his chair "Does the mutant messiah have nothing better to do with his time than torment a powerless old man? Either get it over with, or get out of my sight!"
I sigh and rub my face tiredly "I told you, that's not why I'm here, and I'm not the mutant messiah any more than you were. I came here because I wanted to give you an offer."
"What could you possibly offer me that I'd accept? More importantly, why would you want to? You seem to have nothing but contempt for me."
"That's not-" I shake my head and sit back down "I'm sorry, I went too far, there's a lot of different emotions when it comes to you." He scoffs but let's me continue "The reason I want to make this offer is because I do belive there is a good man in you, but he's always going to be buried under a lifetime of pain and loss. It won't matter what you accomplish here, because it's never going to be enough to fill the void inside of you. So I'm going to give you something no one else can."
"...and that is?"
"A chance to start over."
The world turns white.
......
"What-what did you do? Where are w-" Magnetos voice cuts off as he stares down at his hands, which are no longer that of an old man, but once again returned to his prime. He reaches up, touching his rejuvenated face in amazement "You... made me young again? Why?"
"Because this was your turning point. The camps didn't break you, though I will never understand how, I can't imagine surviving something that horrific with my sanity intact. But what happened to you at this age, losing the new family you had built, that was the final straw. Losing Magda and Anya made the damage unfixable." I point to a small but modern cabin at the end of the gravel path we're walking on "So, I'm giving them back to you."
Magneto-, no, just Eric now, gapes for a few moments "Why? Why would you do this for me?"
"Like I said, I think you are a good man somewhere deep down. I'm giving you the chance to grow into him instead of Magneto." I gesture to the woods surrounding us "This is the same place where I grew up, I can't guarantee you'll be friends with the neighbors, but the odds of them trying to burn you alive are pretty low, and as far as anyone is concerned, you've lived here for years. The memories of your time as Magneto will fade as soon as you step inside that house, what you build from here on is up to Eric Lehnsherr."
Eric takes a step forward, but then he thinks of something "What about Wanda? And Pietro?"
I shrug "Wanda is happy where she is. Pietro... well, he's a jerk, but I might offer him help too. I'd rather not turn them back into kids just so you'll have a chance at raising them properly. Focus on the family you have a chance to fix instead."
Eric Lehnserr takes one last look at me, before he begins walking down the path towards the cabin, his stride seemingly getting lighter with every step. The door opens, and a woman holding a young girl in her arms welcomes him home. I stay and watch for a moment as the couple embrace, before they walk back inside together. Then I turn around and begin walking out of the woods, following a familiar road.
Magneto is never seen again.