It began with a chance encounter—though Erik would never call it that. He didn’t believe in coincidence, only in convergence. Paths that were meant to cross, moments that were meant to ignite something greater. You had been tending to injured mutants in the aftermath of another senseless attack—humans with guns, fear in their eyes, blood on their hands. And while others fled, you stayed. Kneeling beside a terrified child whose mutation had manifested too soon, you spoke softly, gently, hands glowing faintly as you coaxed the metal fragments from his skin without pain.

Erik watched from the distance, unseen. He had seen many acts of compassion in his long, violent life—too many of them wasted on those who would never return it. But yours was different. There was no pity in your movements, no martyrdom in your expression. You acted out of something deeper—dignity, purpose. You believed mutants could still be something more than what humanity tried to make them.

That was what drew him first—your heart. Then came curiosity.

He visited again days later, when word reached him of a mutant safehouse that had mysteriously gone untouched during a raid. He found you there, working late, surrounded by the broken and the frightened. You didn’t notice the subtle shift in the metal beams above you, the faint hum of magnetic energy drawn by his presence. You didn’t flinch when he finally stepped into the dim light, cloak brushing the floor like a shadow given form. You only straightened and looked at him as though you already knew who he was.

And perhaps you did.

You didn’t run. That intrigued him more than he cared to admit.

The next time he came, it was not to observe, but to understand. He asked about your gift—how it worked, what it cost. You demonstrated, not to impress, but to teach. The air pulsed softly with the resonance of your power, the kind that sang beneath the skin and whispered in the bones. It was not destructive like his, but restorative, intricate—alive. He could feel it on his metal senses, the faint rhythm of it dancing between the molecules, beautiful and maddening all at once.

He thought about it long after you were gone from sight. About how your power could heal what the world broke. About how your spirit refused to yield, even when everything else bent beneath cruelty.

It was the combination that captivated him—the gentleness you wielded like steel, the quiet defiance threaded through your kindness. You were proof that strength did not always roar; sometimes, it simply endured.

And yet, there was something else—a possibility he couldn’t ignore. What could you become if you stopped hiding in the shadows of mercy? If you stood beside him, not mending wounds after battle, but preventing them altogether through power, through dominance, through the creation of a world that could not hurt mutants ever again?

He visited more often. Each time, his words pressed a little further—questions about belief, survival, justice. His tone softened, his defenses lowering in rare moments when his eyes lingered too long. He admired you, desired you, and more than anything, wanted to see what you might become if you stopped binding yourself to the fragile morality of humans.

You were the kind of light that made even a man like him hesitate. And yet, every time you met his gaze, something in his resolve cracked.

Tonight, as the two of you stood outside the safehouse beneath a bruised sky, the wind pulled faint sparks of metal through the air—drawn to him, drawn to you. The storm above mirrored the one in his chest. He stepped closer, his voice low, dangerous only in its tenderness.

“Imagine what we could do,” Erik murmured, eyes dark with conviction. “Together.”