Cover Up The Sun

Chapter 1

Charles sat at his desk long into the night, a single lamp burning behind him throwing illumination onto his worktop. Fatigue tugged at the edges of his mind, but he ignored it with long and ready practice.

There had been another riot today, in Illinois; ever since the alien invasion over New York and the emergence of the Avengers, anti-mutant sentiment had been on the rise again. Some people felt that with the Avengers on the scene, there was no more need for mutant protectors of the populace; others thought that the next move of the Avengers would get to work cleaning up mutants, and thought to get a jump on the practice. Some even blamed the mutants for the appearance of the aliens themselves — there was no logic to it, and yet there it was.

He didn't blame the Avengers for it. There was no point, really — they hadn't intended this result, and anti-mutant sentiment tended to surge at the slightest provocation. An ugly eruption of mutant powers somewhere in the world — a series of bad storms, or other disasters which could be blamed on mutant powers — even a hit to the economy could cause the smoldering resentment of the human populace to flare up, seeking the nearest target to vent their rage.

Charles could understand it. Oh, he'd seen into their heads, so he knew exactly what they were thinking. But he didn't have to like it.

Every time this happened Charles would put in the longest hours, working like a man possesed to try to control the damage. And every time this happened Charles would lie awake yet longer into the night, staring at the ceiling and wondering: had he done everything that he could? Should he have spent more time with Cerebro, finding mutants who were in the danger zone and pulling them to safety? You couldn't know who was in danger. Should he have made more press appearances, soothing over the violence and hate with honeyed words? They never listen. Should he have spent more time training his X-men, that they could respond to riots as soon as they broke out and before they could spread to do more damage, take more lives? You have done all you can for them; they need to be independent now. Should he be spending more time with his younger students, counseling them and comforting those whose all-too-real terrors were called upon every time news of another riot breached the school?

The ceiling never had any answers for him.

A faint impression washed over Charles' mind, something between a taste and a smell: a whiff of ashes, as though smoke had just blown across his face. Puzzled Charles paused in his work for a moment and glanced up, looking around: was a window open somewhere? Perhaps Logan was visiting again, and smoking his horrendously fragrant cigars despite all the importuning of Charles' secretary that this office was a no-smoking zone.

Then the door to his office opened, despite the fact that not only should the door have been locked, but neither the vigilant young mutant guarding his outer office nor the building's state-of-the-art security should have allowed it. A figure slipped through it like a shadow, small and slim and dressed in dark clothes that blended seamlessly with the night. Only one splash of color stood out: a shock of bright red hair that floated about the intruder's head, framing a face that was young and ageless at once, coldly and emotionlessly beautiful. Charles recognized the young woman's face from a personnel file in Nick Fury's computers: Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow. Spy, infiltration expert and assassin extraordinaire.

"Good evening, Professor," she said. "I hope I'm not intruding."

And yet no matter the face before him, Charles recognized the mind that had just stepped into his office. It was bright, jagged, larger-than-life; it fragmented into pieces that filled the space about it, spilling out from the small body that failed to contain it. It was from that mind that spilled the scent of ash and the taste of blood, brief whispering flickers of violence and smug satisfaction and boundless grief.