Chapter Text
Lots of people started their mornings with a cup of coffee, an early run, or maybe a nice breakfast. Erik started his morning by almost getting kicked in the face by a horse. Not as enjoyable as a cup of coffee might be, but nothing will wake you up quicker. That is, as long as you’re fast enough to dodge.
In the ten years Erik had worked as a farrier caring for horse’s hoofs and fashioning their shoes, he had never been kicked, and he wanted to keep it that way. Unfortunately, the spirited racehorse he was inspecting at the moment seemed to have other ideas.
Erik stepped away from the anxious colt, putting a generous amount of distance between those feet and himself out of habit, even though with the horse’s metal shoes he was never in any actual danger. Courtesy of his mutation allowing him to stop a stray shoed hoof in its tracks, he didn’t have to worry about being kicked as much as other farriers. Regardless, he still made a point to be cautious at all times. Accidentally getting sloppy around an unshod horse could be a lethal mistake, and he liked to keep his skull in one piece thank you very much.
Erik furrowed his brow in thought. There wasn’t anything wrong with the horse’s shoes or hoofs as the client had originally feared. The poor colt’s agitation had to have come from somewhere else.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with his shoes,” he noted. “Although, you’re right. There is something bothering him. Does he normally act out like this?”
The horse’s groom, Azazel, shook his head, “Only when the boss handles him or the rider whips too hard. He is not usually like this before a race. It is strange.”
Azazel stood off to the side where he’d been watching Erik's work with interest. Usually if someone watched him work this intently it was either in shock or contempt, but Erik had worked at this particular track during their larger races for the past three years, and he was familiar by now with their pattern of interaction. Azazel always found a reason to call on him to help with a horse-related issue, no matter how trivial, so this was all part of their routine. Erik figured Azazel sought him out every year both for the opportunity to interact with a fellow mutant and as a breath of fresh air from the rest of Shaw’s insufferable entourage. Honestly, he didn’t blame him.
When Erik had first immigrated to America looking for a fresh start after the horrors of the camps, he had naively hoped that his days of encountering the ugliest of humanity were at its end. Instead, Erik had learned over the years that cruel men with cruel ambitions were just as rampant here as they had been in Germany, they just hid themselves more effectively behind the tattered curtain of money and enterprise. Azazel’s employer, Shaw, was one of those men.
On top of being a generally unpleasant person to be around, Sebastian Shaw was also a betting man who spared no expense when it came to acquiring expensive racehorses and pushing them past their limit in order to win. He hired only the most aggressive jockeys and had been involved in numerous controversies over animal mistreatment over the two decades he’d had his horses in the ring. Despite this, every case against him was immediately swept under the rug the moment his lawyers entered the scene.
Erik hated how Shaw ran his business, but even he had to admit that it produced results. One of his horses won nearly every year, and Shaw made a fortune off of betting and breeding. The Garden State Stakes was one of the biggest races they hosted at the track where Erik worked, and where they were bets to be made, Shaw would undoubtedly be there.
Dealing with greedy assholes was an occupational hazard in his profession, but that didn’t mean Erik had to like it. Azazel was the only member of Shaw’s crew he could stand, and since Erik’s mutant status and abrasive nature meant he wasn’t particularly popular with most of the track’s clientele, he’d take the small amount of camaraderie where he could get it.
Extending his senses with all the confidence of a trained hand, Erik reached out to feel all the metal touching the horse, not just his shoes. Every brace, bit, and buckle hummed its existence out to him like a song, and if he focused hard enough he could even hear the iron pumping through the horse’s bloodstream, the same quiet melody that made every living thing harmonize together in his mind.
It had taken years of practice for him to be able to identify problems like this, without even touching the animal, and it was a large reason why he was so good at his job. In a world that hated mutants and their skills, it was an act of proud rebellion to flaunt his talents and relish in the fact that no human could never measure up to him in this field. He was the best there was, and no amount of human prejudice could ever take that away from him.
In less than a minute, Erik identified the source, “You have his bit fastened too tightly on the bridle. It hurts, and it’s agitating him.”
Azazel took a step forward and examined the bridle more closely, “Ah, yes. I see.” The man’s harsh Russian accent softened as he ran a scarlet hand over the horse’s nose, “I am sorry, boy. I will do better.”
Anyone else would have been surprised to see such a display of gentleness in such a frightening looking individual, but Erik wasn’t most people. He didn’t judge fellow mutants based on appearance, and he was familiar with how well Azazel tried to care for Mr. Shaw’s horses, even if Mr. Shaw himself couldn’t care less about their health or happiness as long as they were fit to race.
As Erik loosened the bit, Azazel gave him a worried glance, “He is still fit to ride today, yes?”
“Should be good as new,” Erik reassured him as he finished the adjustment. “No need for your boss to get nervous.” The horse shook his head in relief once the bit was loosened and nudged Erik with his nose in gratitude.
Azazel smiled in barely disguised relief, “Good. Mr. Shaw has bet a large sum of money on this race.” His smile faded, ”He would likely force the horse to ride today even if he was not ready. I do not like it, but he does not listen to what I think.”
Erik felt sorry for Azazel, forced to work under a cruel master because he cared too much about the animals to leave.
“Men like Shaw don’t listen to reason,” Erik reassured him. “Without you, his horses wouldn’t stand a chance. They’re lucky to have someone who cares about their wellbeing. God knows no one else who works for him will.”
Azazel accepted that in silence, continuing to stroke the horse in lieu of a response.
“I used to follow your racing career, you know,” Erik told him, trying to raise his spirits. He’d never shared that with Azazel before, but it felt important now to remind him of how important of an inspiration he’d been to young mutants like Erik.
Instead of his intended affect, Azazel just gave him sad smile, “That was a long time ago. I’m surprised anyone remembers me for my racing. If I am known, it is only for what came afterwards.”
Azazel didn’t have to elaborate for Erik to know what he meant. Mutants had been banned from all competitive sports nearly a decade ago due to bullshit human complaints about “fairness” that argued mutants using their powers counted as an “unfair advantage.” Predictably, in a world as greedy as theirs, the rules were especially strict when it came to sports that people actually bet on because of the potential for rich assholes like Shaw to lose money if a mutant used their abilities to get ahead. Even the smallest of mutations could get a rider banned forever.
Erik had barely been an apprentice when Azazel raced, but as one of the few visibly mutant jockeys racing at the time of the ban, Azazel had been a pivotal figure in the controversy and intense legal battle that had followed. His red skin and teleportation could hardly be used as an advantage in horse racing, but his right to compete had been cut off along with everyone else’s, proving to Erik and every other mutant who had been following the news back then that the ban had never really been about fairness. It was just another way to keep mutants out of sight and out of mind.
“Maybe one day people like us will ride again, eh?” Azazel posited with an air of resignation. “For now, we watch from the sidelines. Our time will come.”
“Only if we fight for it,” Erik added, the fire inside of him refusing to die down no matter how hard the humans tried to quench it. He didn’t have any ambitions to be a jockey, he was far too tall and lanky for it anyway, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight for others to have the right to follow their dreams.
Besides, just because the ban didn’t currently extend beyond the competitors didn’t mean that there wasn’t prejudice against those who worked “backstage.”Many potential employers had turned Erik away for that very reason despite his obvious talents, and almost all of the grooms, stable hands, and vets he came into contact with at the tracks were baseline. He’d only scored this job because of the recommendation of a friend, and the steely reception his mutant talents often received from his clients reminded him every day how precarious his employment situation was.
Azazel sighed, sounding far too much like a man defeated, “I fought once. I am too tired for fighting now.”
Erik saw the look on the other man’s face and decided not to press the issue. For now. This was a stressful day for everyone involved, and Azazel had more pressing concerns to deal with if he wanted to keep Shaw off his ass. Even Erik had to understand that.
“Is this one’s rider ready?” Erik asked, looking around the barn to try and spot a jockey wearing Shaw’s signature red uniform silks.
“Stryker is his name,” Azazel told him, looking disgusted just at the mention of the man. “He can be slippery, that one, but I will find him. He cannot be far.”
Ah, yes. That one. Erik remembered him. Stryker was an older jockey, but he was absolutely ruthless, whipping his horses far too hard and almost always running them into an early grave. Erik was glad he wasn’t here at the moment because he probably would have ended up giving Stryker a piece of his mind and losing his job in the process. He had no patience left for the cruelty of others, not after the cruelty he’d endured as a child.
Azazel disappeared with a poof, leaving behind his signature red haze and a sulphur smell that always made Erik gag as the reluctant groom went to go hunt down the missing jockey.
Despite how much time Erik spent at racetracks, he had never been the biggest fan of the jockeys he encountered there. He found most of them either too cocky to be like-able or too prejudiced to want a dirty mutant touching their precious horses. Typical human arrogance in action.
Prejudice against mutants hadn’t always been so prevalent on the racetrack. It was only since the ban that public attitude began to shift so harshly, and it got worse every year.
Not that Erik was going anywhere, though. He had a nice gig going, working with the racehorses at the track, and he liked his job despite the sometimes insufferable people whose company he had to endure. They even gave him his own blacksmithing shop in the back, which gave him somewhere to work even though he rarely used the forge that came with it. What purpose was there to heat and bend metal with a hammer when he possessed the power to manipulate it even better without? Erik could make a perfect shoe in seconds, a record he suspected no other farrier, mutant or not, would ever be able to beat.
Erik only had an hour or two of downtime before it was time for him to do the mandatory pre-race inspections, so he gave Shaw’s horse a quick pat across the nose before leaving the barn to make a quick exit to his shop to prepare.
His friend Emma Frost, who had actually been the one to pull some strings and get him the job at this track, called the shop his “office,” which was definitely one way of describing it. Still, she’d never be caught dead anywhere where she could get dirt or ash on her clothes, so she’d never actually been inside. The only people who ever came to visit him there were Erik and his clients, which meant that it was the perfect place to hide from the crowds of people who had been funneling into the track all day for the big race.
That is, it would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the knock on his door.
As soon as Erik heard it he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to keep from snapping out some sort of angry retort to the person responsible. He’d only managed to sit down for fifteen minutes, and downtime was a precious commodity on race-day. Still, it could be his boss needing him, or a nervous groom with a hoof related emergency that it was his job to handle, so pretending he hadn’t heard the knock wasn’t exactly an option.
Erik sat up and winced as the pain in his lower back flared. Almost all farriers dealt with chronic back pain from spending their days hunched over hoofs or a forge, and Erik’s taller than average height meant that he had to bend over more than most.
He slid the shop door open expecting to see one of the racing stewards or a young stable hand sent off to deliver a message. What he wasn’t expecting to see was a handsome young man in a jockey’s uniform who lit up when he saw his face.
“Hello!” the man greeted him in an unexpectedly English accent, his demeanor a unique mixture of friendly confidence and posh formality. “You must be Erik. I hear you’re the man to talk to about replacing a thrown shoe.”
“That’s my job,” Erik replied dumbly, slightly taken aback by the man’s cordial attitude. Tensions usually ran high in the mornings on race day, so most of the people he was used to interacting with were tightly strung and impatient, far too worried about their careers and gambling fortunes to bother with pleasantries.
The jockey pointed back towards the stable area where the racehorses were housed, “Well, my horse lost his top left shoe while walking from the paddock to the barn area, and he’ll need a new one if he’s going to pass inspection and be ready for the race today.” He smiled knowingly, “I’ve heard that for a man of your particular skills that should be easy work, am I right? I’d love to see what you do.”
Erik crossed his arms defensively. The way “particular skills” was emphasized made for no doubt in his mind that the man was referring to his powers. Despite the praise, he didn’t like the idea that his mutation was the subject of gossip around the paddock. He especially didn’t like the idea of ignorant humans wanting to watch him work like he was some sort of freak show side entertainment.
The jockey’s smile fell when he saw Erik’s cold reaction, “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. Please forgive me if I offended you in any way. Ms. Frost told me about how you use your mutation for your work, and I have a sort of scientific curiosity about that sort of thing. If you can really do what they say then I think it’s extraordinary, but I would never want you to feel uncomfortable.”
The man looked a bit embarrassed as let out a sigh and put his hand on the back of his neck, turning to look back out towards the barn nervously as he added, “However, I wasn’t lying about the thrown shoe. We could really use your help at the moment.”
Erik sighed and used his powers to summon the tools he’d need for a reshoeing, which floated through the air to his side. Usually, humans found the sight of knives and hammers floating through the air terrifying, but the other man’s whole face brightened, and he grinned from ear to ear at the sight.
“Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous,” he whispered in barely disguised awe.
“Where’s the horse?” Erik asked, changing the subject since he was starting to feel a bit self-conscious at the man’s earnest admiration.
The jockey pointed towards the opposite end of the track, “We’re camped out in row H, towards the back. I’ll show you.” He looked behind him at the forge and tools Erik was leaving behind and asked curiously, “Are you sure you don’t want us to come to you?”
“No,” Erik answered with conviction. “If his shoe is off then he’ll be walking unbalanced. I wouldn’t want to risk him tripping so close to the race by having to walk all the way back here. I’ll come to you. I don’t need as much equipment as the farriers you’re used to.”
The jockey clapped his hands together with pleasure, “Excellent. Thank you, my friend. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”
Erik raised an eyebrow at that expression, “My friend.” He didn’t have many friends, and even those he would consider friends were more like colleagues. If Emma or Azazel barely made the cut, then this strange man he’d met barely a minute ago certainly didn’t qualify. So far, the man seemed nothing but genuine, but he couldn’t help but feel suspicious over anyone who considered people friends so quickly. It was unnatural.
As they walked out from the shadow of the shed into the full light, Erik was able to examine the man a bit more closely. He had a typical jockey build, although he was at the taller end compared to most of the other jockeys he’d seen. He was also slender but compact-looking, the strong lower body muscles needed for the sport practically on display with the tight racing pants he was wearing that made it very difficult for Erik not to stare.
His racing silk, the lightweight uniformed shirt that all jockey’s wore, was a beautiful royal blue pattern that Erik had never seen before, which piqued his curiosity. According to regulation, the combination of color and design for each silk was unique to the owner of the horse, and at this point Erik prided himself on having been around the block enough that he could recognize most of the familiar patterns around the track. For example, Shaw’s jockeys wore red with angled black stripes that were far too Nazi-like for Erik’s taste and Emma Frost’s jockeys wore white with a grey diamond pattern. This pattern, blue with what looked like a family crest on the front, was unfamiliar to him.
Erik’s first estimation of the man’s age had been that he looked like he was in his mid twenties, but upon closer inspection he guessed the man was likely closer to Erik’s age of early thirties. His brown hair was slightly longer than Erik’s but still cut short, a few stray curls escaping as they walked in step. There was a soft, youthful air to his features, but also a confidence and maturity that spoke to him likely being either well educated or absolutely full of it. Erik wasn’t sure which of those options he’d prefer.
“What’s the horse’s name?” Erik asked as they walked towards the barn. It wasn’t one hundred percent necessary for him to know the name of the horse, but he liked to get to know his patients. It also made it easier to communicate with their team if he knew what to call the animal he was working on.
“Oh, his name is Francis, and he’s a real gentleman,” the man answered fondly. “Puts all of us to shame. I think you’ll like him.”
“You’re his jockey, I take it?” Erik asked, restating the obvious in lieu of an actual conversation starter.
“That I am.” Another grin spread out across the man’s face as he held out a hand in greeting, “The name’s Charles, Charles Xavier.”
Erik stopped and looked down at the outstretched hand with skepticism. Charles’s hand was meticulously clean, meanwhile Erik’s hands were filthy from working all morning. Why this man wanted to shake his hand was beyond him.
Still, Charles didn’t relent and continued to hold out his hand with that ridiculously charming smile on his face, so Erik wiped his hands on the worn leather apron he wore and shook his hand. If Charles was offended at all by the dirt, he certainly didn’t show it since his smile only grew as he shook his hand earnestly.
“I really can’t thank you enough for helping,” Charles continued. “The way his groom about had a heart attack when he noticed the shoe fell off, you’d think we were all doomed.”
When they finally arrived, Charles led him over to the back side of the barn where the strangest man Erik had ever seen was brushing a beautiful dark brown colt with a jet black mane. The groom was tall, blue, and absolutely covered in fur, clearly a mutant, which shocked Erik. With the exception of Azazel, he’d never seen another mutant groom, and especially not one whose mutation was so openly visible.
“Hank!” Charles called out at the blue-furred man who turned to look. Charles gestured towards Erik, “I’ve brought our salvation!”
The groom, Hank, looked relieved, and Erik noticed that he was wearing glasses, a strange sight on one so clearly evolved.
As Erik set up his hoof stand, Charles cleared the space nearby and asked, “Hank, could you bring him over to me? There’s a good lad.”
Even without Hank leading him, the horse seemed to gravitate towards Charles. There was clearly a strong bond of love and trust there, and Erik noted with amusement that Charles gave Francis a quick kiss on the nose before leading him towards Erik. When it came to being good judges of character, Erik found that horses couldn’t be matched, so he took Francis’s endorsement of Charles into mind. If the horse trusted him, he couldn’t be too bad, unlike some of the other jockeys he’d met.
Once Francis was in place, Erik bent over and placed the horse’s hoof on the stand he’d brought with him. Charles stayed by Francis’s head while he worked, petting and making soothing noises to keep the horse calm. It almost sounded like he was cooing. The whole thing was rather endearing to listen to, actually, and Erik had to hide the hint of a smile he let out at hearing the sound.
Once both him and the horse were in position, he went to work cleaning up and filing down the hoof with a rasp in preparation for a new shoe. This part of the job he’d done so many times it was muscle memory. He could probably do the whole thing in his sleep if he wanted to.
To his credit, Francis was exceedingly well behaved the entire time, not even flinching when Erik pulled a hunk of metal out of his apron pocket and formed it into a perfect horseshoe. Clearly, he was either very well-trained, or Charles’s skills at distraction were unmatched.
As Erik hammered the nails into the shoe, securing the hoof, he heard Charles say, “You’re the horseshoe inspector as well, correct? I hear you run a tight ship on inspections, and we wouldn’t want to be caught with our trousers down, so to speak, would we Francis? Not on his last race for the year.”
Wiping the sweat off his brow and sitting up to give his back a break before leaning back down to finish his work, Erik asked Charles, “This his first racing season?”
“Yup,” Charles replied. “Mine too, in this country anyway.”
Erik was surprised, but not too surprised. After all, he didn’t recognize Charles or his jockey silk pattern, so it made sense that he was a newcomer. Still, most racehorse owners raced multiple horses or used different jockeys over the years, so it was surprising that he hadn’t seen that crested blue pattern before on another jockey.
“Who do you work for?” Erik questioned. “If you don’t mind me asking.” When Charles looked surprised at the change of subject, Erik pointed at his uniform, “I don’t recognize the design on your silk.”
“Oh this?” Charles replied, looking down like he’d forgotten what he was wearing. “This is my family’s design from back when my father and grandfather used to own racehorses. I figured when I started racing that I should carry on the family tradition, as it were.”
Erik's hand paused mid hammer as his brain short-circuited, “Wait… Francis is your horse? You’re the owner AND the jockey?”
“I know it’s not typically done,” Charles admitted with a flush, “But I’ve wanted to ride since my father took me to watch the races as a child. This is the first year we’ve had Xavier horses racing on the track since he died nearly twenty years ago. I’m the trainer too, although Hank and I share that position since he likes crunching numbers and working on strategy.”
Charles went on explaining, but Erik was still struggling to get his brain around the idea that he was both a professional jockey and the sole inheritor of a multigenerational racehorse-owning family. That simply wasn’t done. The owner and the jockey were NEVER the same person. There was training and experience that went into being a jockey. Sure, Charles mentioned that he’d done some racing overseas, but Erik was more than a little terrified that this poor rich man was about to go out on the track and either be embarrassed by his poor ranking or thrown from his horse and crushed to death.
Instead of voicing any of those perfectly natural concerns, Erik blurted out, “So you’re what… rich?”
Charles blushed and tried to act nonchalant as he responded, “I suppose you could say that.”
If there was one thing Erik knew about rich people, it was that those who tried to downplay their riches were usually the richest of them all.
“New money likes to show off. Old money likes to hide”, as his father used to say, “That’s how they stay rich for so long.”
Erik was so dumbfounded that he almost forgot he was still working on the hoof until Francis stamped his back foot and let out an impatient whinny. Erik shook his head incredulously and went back to hammering and smoothing out the hoof, but he still kept stealing glances back at Charles, looking at him with new eyes. He couldn’t figure out if the man was a dreamer or a fool. Probably both.
“You know,” Erik huffed as he wiped away spare bits of hoof dust and examined his handiwork, “Most people with your kind of money use it to breed the horses or bet on them, they don’t put their lives on the line to race them themselves.”
Charles gave him another one of his charming smiles, “I think you’ll find I’m not most people.”
Erik snorted and said, “You’re confident. I’ll give you that.”
Charles laughed and the sound was oddly beautiful, making Erik’s heart flutter in a strange way he wasn’t familiar with.
“I take it that means you won’t be betting on us, then?” he asked.
Erik moved Francis’s hoof off the stand and watched him walk around on it just to make sure the fit was right as he answered, “Oh, I’m not allowed to bet. Conflict of interest. Can’t have the man who fixes the shoes potentially sabotaging a rider just to make some extra money on the side.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” Charles replied thoughtfully. “I’ve never really thought about that.
Francis trotted over to Charles and started affectionately nibbling at his hair, which made him giggle. Erik thought that Charles looked ten years younger when he wasn’t talking like a posh English gentleman. It made him even more concerned for the man’s safety on the track today.
Charles didn’t look worried, though, as he said, “Even if you can’t bet, you can still wish us luck. Not that we need it, eh boy? Me and Franny here have been in the top three in every race we’ve ever ran.”
“Every one?” Erik questioned. That sounded unlikely, but if Charles was telling the truth then clearly he was more experienced than he let on. That made Erik feel a little better. His chances of watching Charles break all the bones in his body later today were made steadily less likely with each new piece of information, for which he was grateful.
“Yup, Franny and I… we’re a good team,” Charles told him honestly. “He and I work so well together that when we’re on the track it’s like the two of us become one.” His voice got quieter as he said that last part and he looked at Erik cautiously, like he was letting on more than it seemed.
Just then, the groom, who Erik had forgotten was there, cleared his throat loudly and looked at Erik, “Inspections are starting soon. You should probably go.”
Erik was familiar enough with this part of the job to know when he was being dismissed, but still, it was strange for the employee to be the one dismissing him and not the boss. He looked towards Charles for permission to leave and noticed that the man had gone quiet all of a sudden for the first time today, looking down at his boots like a child who had been caught disobeying the rules. Something about the energy in the stall had changed, and Erik wasn’t about to stick around and figure out what. He had too much to do today to get distracted by other people’s business.
Erik grabbed his things and shuffled off without a word. However, the whole way back to his shed all he could think about was how strange that whole interaction had just been.
It wasn’t just that Charles was unusually friendly or that he was both owner and jockey, it was that he knowingly surrounded himself and was friendly with mutants without shame or prejudice, despite being a human competitor. Usually, competitive sportsmen avoided mutants like the plague, afraid that people would suspect them of being one themselves. A persistent mutant rumor was something that could haunt a competitor and eventually lead to court battles and invasive medical examinations.
The way Charles was acting now was risky, especially for such a new and unexperienced athlete. Erik didn’t necessarily want the other man to have ignored him, he’d proven to be a nice man and a fine conversationalist, but he did wonder as to what his motives were if he was willing to take such a risk, much less in public.
Maybe he had so much money that he thought he was untouchable, like Shaw. Surround yourself with enough lawyers and anyone can get sloppy, but even Shaw didn’t dare hire too many mutants to his team. In the current political climate, it simply wasn’t done.
Even Emma Frost, a known mutant who had inherited a large horse racing empire from her late mother, didn’t dare hire other mutants onto her team. She’d pulled strings to help Erik get his job at the track, yes, but their professional relationship was discreet and off the books. They both knew the risks of being a mutant in this industry far too well to play things fast and loose like Charles was.
Even though the required hoof inspection before the race took up most of his attention the rest of the afternoon, Erik still found his thoughts occasionally drifting back towards Charles and the strange way their conversation had ended. However, when it eventually was his job to inspect Francis, all the previous awkwardness when he left earlier that day was gone, and Charles was all charm and confidence once again. The strangeness of it all almost made him wonder if he’d imagined what happened.
After verifying that all of the horses racing that day were free from hoof damage and had the correct shoes on, there wasn’t much for him to do except make his way among the crowds to an empty spot in the stands and watch as spectators filed in.
Erik spent a while like that, occasionally pulling a piece of metal out of his pocket to practice with out of boredom, and also because using his powers in the stands was an almost surefire way to make sure that the humans shuffling in to find empty seats stayed far enough away to keep his view of the track clear. This was a race he wanted to see for once.
When the call to post music played, indicating it was time for the competitors to head to the starting gate, Erik strained his eyes to try and pick Charles and Francis out of the crowd. Thankfully, because he was the only one of the jockeys wearing a blue uniform, he was relatively easy to spot, situated as number three in the lineup after Shaw’s horse and Emma’s.
Right on time, the announcer’s voice rang out from over the loudspeaker, “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the 1964 Garden State Stakes. It’s a beautiful November day, conditions are good, and the track is rated very fast. We have some fine colts out here today including Red Danger by Bold Ruler, Shining Diamond by Bold Ruler, Flying Francis by Princequillo…”
Erik let out a chuckle at hearing Francis’s full racing name. He wondered if Charles was the one who came up with that. Even though he barely knew the man, it still sounded like something he would do.
Erik watched Charles as he got into position, looking for signs of nervousness or inexperience. Despite the man’s confidence and the fact that he’d supposedly placed top three in every one of their past races, Erik still had his doubts. The irrational part of his brain was terrified that they were all about to watch this poor, rich man get pummeled to death. Usually, Erik loved watching millionaires suffer the consequences of their own actions, but something about Charles’s kind earnestness had gotten to Erik and made him actually care about his wellbeing. It was confusing, to say the least.
“Competing today are two-year old colts for a distance of 8 and a half furlongs…”
The sound of the announcer faded into the background as Erik’s focus narrowed. Stretching out his metallokinetic awareness to the metal buckles and stirrups on Francis’s saddle, he could feel every minuscule shift in position Charles made, the jockey’s tension and anticipation radiating through the metal like static electricity.
Usually, Erik watched these races with an air of casual curiosity. Today, he felt almost as nervous as the gambling men he saw sitting across from him in the stands, nervously gripping the railings and holding their breath as the fate of their pocketbooks hanged in the balance.
The announcer cut in, “All in line, they’re ready for the start…”
Suddenly, the starting bell rang and the gates opened, releasing a flood of hooves and dirt as nearly a dozen horses raced out onto the track.
“And they’re off!”
Erik stood up in his seat as the crowd roared with excitement, trying to figure out where Charles was in all the commotion.
“Strong start right out of the gate! We have a few horses pushing their way to the front here. Sparkling Diamond is in the lead and, Oh! Now it’s Red Danger pushing Sparkling Diamond out of the way with Flying Francis creeping up behind both of them.”
Erik finally spotted him in the crowd up by the front, just behind Shaw’s and Emma’s horses who were in the lead.
“Red Danger is still leading but Flying Francis just passed Sparkling Diamond and is picking up speed!”
Erik had never been happier to be proven wrong. Charles WAS right to be confident. He was doing well, better than well, in fact. Francis was in second now, just behind Shaw’s horse. Stryker, Shaw’s jockey, saw Charles creeping up on him and started angrily bringing down the riding crop onto his horse, who was already running at full speed.
“Red Danger and Flying Francis are currently neck to neck with half the track to go.”
Charles bared down on Francis, shifting his weight gradually as they took the turn around the track and narrowly inched their way past Shaw’s horse. Erik couldn’t help but cheer along with the crowd, letting out a rare full-mouth grin at the sight of Shaw’s horse losing. Erik looked up at the box where Shaw and his people were and saw the man glaring daggers down at the track where Charles was steadily gaining distance on Stryker. If looks could kill, Charles would have been eviscerated.
“Flying Francis in the lead with Red Danger coming up as a close second…”
And then it happened, Stryker brought down his whip HARD. A look of anger blazed in his horse’s eyes as the animal threw back his head and barreled into Charles’s horse, nipping his flank aggressively and causing Francis to lose his footing for a brief moment. Erik held his breath as he saw Francis stumble badly in surprise, nearly toppling both of them over. He could feel the way the metal of the shoe he’d just fitted suddenly lurched, and for a moment he feared that Charles would be thrown off his horse.
Thankfully, Charles kept a tight hold on the saddle as Francis regained his footing and continued to run. Erik was relieved until he saw the look of wild panic in the horse’s eyes and knew there was no chance of Charles winning now. He knew horses, and once something went wrong that had them spooked, there was no fixing it on the race track in the middle of all of that commotion. It took focus for a horse to stay in the lead, focus that would be near impossible for Francis to regain now. Maybe if it had just been a bite, there might have been a chance, but after stumbling that badly, Francis and his rider would be lucky to make it into the top five, not with the other horses steadily gaining on them.
Shaw’s jockey had just taken out the competition, and now victory for Shaw was almost certain. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen one of Shaw’s competitors using underhanded tactics to get ahead, and he was beginning to suspect that those poor animals were being trained to misbehave on the track.
According to the rule book, biting as sabotage justified disqualification, but it was rare, and with Shaw’s influence over the judges, Erik doubted that anything would be done. Money would be exchanged under the table and those that mattered would undoubtedly turn a blind eye. Gambling men loved to complain about mutants using their powers to cheat in sports, but from what Erik had seen over the years, the real cheaters used the power of money, not genetics to get ahead.
“Whoa! Bit of a collision there between Flying Francis and Red Danger with Flying Francis falling behind Red Danger, Rising Thunder, and Sparkling Diamond who are trailing close behind!”
Erik watched Charles with pity, sure from the fear and panic in his animal’s eyes that he would spend the rest of the race struggling to regain the horse’s focus, but that’s when something strange happened. Charles furrowed his brow like he was concentrating on something and suddenly all the signs of panic Erik saw in the animal, from his slower, distracted stride to the shocked look in his eyes, suddenly faded, replaced by a glazed over determination as he regained his previous pace with ease. The time between the stumble and recovery happened so fast that you could have blinked and missed it, and in no time at all, they were back in the running, only a few feet behind the horse who was currently in second.
Erik didn’t know what to make of it. He knew horses. It was a necessary part of his job. He’d trained for years to able to read every minuscule change in their body language at lightning-fast speed otherwise he risked being kicked in the face every time he took off a shoe, but this? This was not normal horse behavior. Horses were naturally skittish animals. No horse, no matter how determined to finish a race, would be able to shake off fear that quickly. It was unnatural. It was like nothing Erik had ever seen.
“Flying Francis seems to have made a quick recovery and is quickly overtaking Sparkling Diamond and Rising Thunder. Could he catch back up to Red Danger?”
Erik watched Charles like a hawk the rest of the race, noticing more and more intricacies and details that he’d overlooked about Francis and his strange rider.
For one, Charles never actually touched the horse with his whip like the other racers. Riding crops were a controversial but common part of horse racing, and while outright cruelty with them was banned, almost all jockeys still used them as a communication tool, following the rules on where they were allowed to hit and how often. Charles carried one, and sometimes when he needed to correct behavior or get the horse to move faster, he would move his crop in a way that made it look like he was striking the horse, but Erik could tell from the subtle lack of vibration in the metal on the horse’s saddle and bridle that the crop never actually made contact.
Despite this, the horse still followed Charles’s “commands” just as quickly and dutifully as the horses who were being hit. It was baffling. If he wasn’t using his whip to give orders, then how the hell were they communicating?
“Red Danger is still in the lead, but Flying Francis is right on his heels! With only two furlongs to go, this is going to be close, folks.”
As Francis gained a final burst of focus and inched past Stryker’s horse, Erik remembered what Charles had said about the two of them being like a single organism on the track, their minds working as one, and realized that Charles hadn’t been boasting. He was telling the truth.
“Flying Francis takes the lead again right at the last second! And there he goes across the finish line! Flying Francis with a victory right down to the wire! I don’t know about you folks, but that’s one hell of a comeback!”
Anyone who wasn’t familiar with what an invisible mutation looked like in action would have missed the signs, but as the stadium filled with cheers Erik was absolutely sure of what he’d seen.
Charles Xavier was a mutant.