#my love of glammim knows no bounds. i always end up putting a golem in like every story i do

[imarvelatthestars]

Zise: Emet

Notes: This takes place during the training sequence of X-Men: First Class and I chose to take some liberties with the plot, mostly keeping Darwin alive and not pairing Mystique and Erik together. I struggled to think of a way to weaponize the reader's plant powers like the other mutants are able to do when it finally came to me. I think you'll enjoy the answer I came up with.

Pairings: Erik Lehnsherr x Jewish!Reader

Warnings: feminine language used to refer to reader, references to the Shoah & the camps

Part 1

Four days of hard work and all you had to show for it was a terrace covered in blossoms and ivy, and a literal thorn in your side from when you got so angry with yourself that the thorn bush you'd been growing exploded and half impaled you. You were tired, you were sore, and even though everyone else was experiencing their own struggles, you felt wildly out of your league and out of place among them. Between Darwin's ability to adapt to literally anything, Alex's energy blasts, Raven's shapeshifting, and Erik's metal manipulation, you felt like a child dwarfed by all the greatness surrounding her.

"I don't think I should stay here any longer," you finally tell Charles that night.

He starts out of his seat and you can see it in his eyes that he's ready to talk you out of it, but you don't care to hear it. Because you know you're right.

"I don't belong, Charles. My abilities aren't of any use to you or your cause. What am I supposed to do, throw daisies at Shaw and hope that scares him off?"

"You simply haven't unlocked your deepest potential yet-."

"I know I'm strong, Charles, I know I'm capable. That's not the problem. It's the fact that my abilities are completely useless in this war." You fix him with your gaze and feel a bit of calm wash over you when he doesn't fight you again. "You came to me for help, but what help can I offer when the most threatening thing I can conjure are some brambles? I mean, the rest of you have the most amazing powers I've ever seen! Abilities that can do real damage in a fight."

He rubs a finger over his lower lip as he considers you. You can practically see the wheels turning in his head.

"I just... I think it would be best for me to go so the rest of you can focus."

Charles thinks for a moment later before he finally nods. "Perhaps it would help you to know exactly who it is we're fighting." You start to protest when he holds up a hand. He stands, gaze focused solely on you as if you're a wild, cornered animal. "I haven't told you the whole truth about who Shaw is, or who he was some years ago, because it wasn't my place to say. But before you leave, I think you should speak with Erik. Ask him about Shaw and then you can decide what you should do. Does that sound agreeable?"

You don't tell him that your bags are already packed, but you figure he probably already knows. "Okay," you sigh. "Tomorrow then."

٠ ¤ ٠ ¤ ٠ ¤ ٠

The sun is barely clearing the horizon when you wake. You say modah ani and the rest of your morning prayers, shower, and put on one of your more plain dresses with a pair of tights instead of your workout wear. You're not sure that you'll be staying long enough for Charles' exercises today and you want to be ready to leave at a moment's notice, before anyone can stop you.

Erik is waiting for you in the terrace, dressed in his sweatpants and sweater. He seems entranced by what remains of your work from yesterday - ivy and brambles tightly intertwined as they swallow everything in their path, from the statues and banister to nearly half the wall of Charles' house. The sight of him takes you by surprise, even though it shouldn't have, and a tiny rosebush sprouts by your foot, immediately growing about a foot tall and covered in a dozen blooms. The sound of the earth shifting and the bush sprouting to life draws Erik's attention, and when he turns, you feel his eyes pierce right to your heart.

"Hello," he whispers.

You swallow the sudden lump in your throat. "Hello."

The wind stirs your hair and the strings on Erik's sweater. You're not sure what else to say. He's been your greatest comfort since you left home, the only other Jew in a sea of goyim, your one lifeline to anything familiar, and he's been a good friend. It hurts that you'll have to leave him and you hope he won't think poorly of you in your absence.

"Charles said you're leaving." Something burns behind his irises then, something so dark and fierce that you can almost feel its heat from across the terrace. "You're choosing to abandon us."

And God, does the accusation sting. "No, that's not it, Erik, I swear. I just, I don't feel that I should be here anymore. My abilities-."

"Could help us take down Shaw. Don't you see that? Don't you see what you're capable of?"

You follow the line of his arm as it points to the brambles along the wall. "It's not a question of what I'm capable of. I know I'm capable. But you were right, Erik. I don't fit in here. Not because I'm frum, but because my abilities are nothing compared to what the rest of you can do. I can't influence people's minds or fly or destroy weapons with a sonic blast. I can grow flowers and little thorn bushes. What good is that against a man like Shaw?"

Erik jerks as if he's been hit. His chest caves in on itself, his jaw goes stiff, and he turns his face away until you can only see the back of his head and the ragged heaving of his chest. And you can't help feeling angry that no one seems to be listening to you. You won't be any help on the battlefield, you'll just be the scared woman that watched Shaw and Azazel take Angel and almost kill Darwin all over again. And your little brambles and rose thorns won't be any good then.

Then you remember what Charles told you last night: ask about Shaw. So you do. And you watch Erik transform into something you've never seen before.

"His real name is Klaus Schmidt. We met at Auschwitz." His Adam's apple bobs and his voice trembles as the world crumbles down around you. "When he murdered my mother and abused my powers for his own enjoyment."

You can hear your blood rushing through your veins, can hear your heartbeat, can feel it all the way in toes as your heart threatens to hammer through your chest. Erik was at Auschwitz. Erik was in the camps. Erik survived the Shoah. It's like a nightmare you can't wake up from because you've heard the stories from other survivors on Yom HaShoah, you remember the radio broadcasts during the war when you were just a toddler, how they spoke of bombings and ghettos and Kristallnacht while you sat safe in the confines of your four walls and continued going to shul each week with your parents. Untouched by the horrors of the war, sheltered from Hitler's tyrannical reach by the simple fact that your family had left their shtetl a decade before his rise to power.

"He walked away from it all unscathed, unhindered. Because he could. Because no one held him accountable." There was that dark ferocity, the one you'd seen in Erik's eyes only twice before, now seeping into his voice until it was almost unrecognizable. You could hear the German-Yiddish tint of his accent more now than ever before, it was thick like blood and ash in your ears. "But I will."

What can you possibly say now? You'd joined Division X to stop Shaw from initiating World War III and murdering the whole of humanity, and perhaps you'd also joined because you finally knew you weren't the only one with abilities you couldn't explain or understand. And you had planned to leave because you knew you couldn't measure up to what Erik and Charles needed of you, but... Shaw was a Nazi. He took part in the brutal massacring of your people, he oversaw executions and gas chambers and Hashem only knew what else, and he wanted to take what he'd learned in the camps and apply it to all the non-mutants of the world? Eradicate them like he'd tried to eradicate the Jews? If he succeeded, then for all you knew, the only ones left alive would be himself, his henchmen, and Division X. And that you simply couldn't abide by. You would rather die in the heat of battle, useless and broken but still fighting, than stand back and let Shaw destroy what remained of your people.

You can still hear Erik somewhere in the back of your mind, but it's impossible to make out the words over the noise of your fury. You feel sick to your stomach and righteously angry. You feel as if you could take on Shaw yourself this very instant, wrap a vine around his neck until he stops breathing and then your people will be safe, then there will be justice for Erik and all the other innocents once at Shaw's mercy.

Something pulls hard at your arm and you come to. You hadn't even realized that you were literally seeing red until your vision returns to normal and the rage fades from your eyes. Now all you can see is Erik, tall and lithe and frantic as he shakes your arm. You frown, recoiling from his sudden proximity and start to back away when your heel catches on something and you drop like a stone. Erik catches your hands as you hit the ground. You're not sure if it's him or the impact that winds you, but you're back on your feet a moment later and he puts his hands on your shoulders. It's uncomfortable, it's strange, it's almost nice, and it would certainly make your mother scold you if she could see you now, but then he turns you around and you see what it is you've tripped over.

Erik breathes a laugh into your ear and you can feel it warm your skin. "I do believe you've disproved your own argument, my dear."

The golem that stands before you is massive, more comparable to a boulder than a human. Its domed head looms at least a meter above yours, its shoulders broad and its arms thicker than tree trunks. Two hollow eye sockets, a nose, and a faint line of Hebrew lettering form its stony face. And perhaps even more startling than its mere existence is the fact that this golem seems to be alive, crafted from a shifting mass of rock, brambles, and vines.

You blindly seek out Erik's hand, unable to tear your gaze from the golem. His fingers squeeze around yours and send a thrill down your spine. Perhaps you ought to stay after all.

#erik lehnsherr x reader #magneto x reader #erik lehnsherr #magneto #x-men #marvel #jewish reader #my love of glammim knows no bounds. i always end up putting a golem in like every story i do