Here’s my contribution to the Quicksilver Fanwork Exchange. My giftee is @egc2002 so hope you like it!
Shifting his gaze from the brightness of the window clad in the golden morning light, to the doorway where Ororo was standing, he tried for a smile though he knew it was strained.
“He didn’t come, did he?”
Her eyes shifted and he looked away. Figures.
Ever since he had woken up five days ago, he had done nothing but ask for his father. It was almost funny. He found him ten years back, freezing at the sight of his all encompassing and destructive power, claiming that he would tell him soon enough. Once they had come back from Egypt. Once his leg had healed. Once Erik had stopped grieving. Once he would come back. Once he would come to visit from Genosha. He surely would. He never did.
It must have been enough that he could converse with Xavier in his mind, and Raven had… She asked him every time if he wanted to go to Genosha with her. But he never did. There was always an excuse. Either he had training, he had classes to handle, he was going to hang out with Remy or Lance that weekend, or he was going on a date with Crystal. There was always something he could do, though most of the time he managed to make the plans after she had asked.
Now she could not ask anymore. She would never bring back cookies from Blob, or show the drawings she had gotten from the kids living on the mutant island. She would never again tell him what an idiot he was, and that he should just tell him before it was too late.
Then Jean’s power had exploded and he had almost been too late.
He had always thought that when Raven talked about time being wasted, it was because Erik was getting older and he had many enemies. He had never made the connection to his own mortality and how easily his life could be stopped.
Crashing like that had brought him into a month long coma. He had not known that both Jean and Raven were gone until he could sit up without fainting. Hank had told him everything. And he hurt, God, had it hurt. His body was aching and his mind was weeping, and he just wanted his dad, because he had been standing on death’s door with two of his best friends, and they closed the door on him when they had been let in.
Blinking, he tried to inconspicuously sniffle against his pillow.
“Last I heard he went to France,” Ororo told him. “Hank said that he’s looking for the Professor.”
“I don’t get why, everybody hates him.”
We should. If it had not been for his arrogance then they would still be alive.
Grunting, he shifted his way upwards and into a sitting position. He had not felt so weak before, it was nerve wracking and did not help with his sudden fear of death.
The plastic chair scraped by his bedside as she sat down, sighing tiredly as she rested her arms on her knees.
He began fiddling with the necklace he had begun to wear after meeting Crystal. The David Star that hung from the leather cord floated upwards as his mind wandered to an exotic island where mutants lived in peace but in rackety container homes.
Metal manipulation was not even a thing he cared much about anymore. It had been quite the shock when he first found out during a mission, where his legs had been out of commision again and metal beams had been falling toward him from the construction site they had been fighting within.
Ororo and Hank knew about it. Raven had known too.
He had told Crystal about it after he freaked out, since she already knew about him from being an x-man. She had come clean about her own powers after that, since her power was on the branch of elemental manipulation as well. Surprised the hell out of him when she suddenly began conjuring fire figurines from their dinner candlelight.
“He would’ve come if you had told him.”
Rolling his eyes he turned to look in the other direction, away from her. the leather chord taught as the pendant pulled outwards.
“You can’t blame him for your own inaction” she reprimanded. “If he doesn’t know, why should he care? You have never made an effort to speak with him in private, you only ever joke around with us when he’s here and it sometimes looks like you’re ignoring him.”
“Why would you? I thought you wanted him to know? Raven thought you wanted that.”
“Maybe I did!” he groaned loudly. “But what good would that do?! He’d still go to that stupid island where he’s some kind of mutant king, and he’d still play chess with freaking Baldy McRuiner all day long! He doesn’t care about anyone else, Raven should’ve known! He never cared about her eith-!”
Springing from the chord, the necklace ripped and flew to the other wall, pendant crashing into the beton and staying stuck there.
Peter made to grab at his throat, kneading at the sore skin.
How he hated that power, how connected it was to his emotions and how it connected it to him. He was fine without it, he was the cool mutant, the cool teacher. If anybody knew about this he would forever stand in the shadow of a man who never cared enough to stay.
Shaking her hand away just as she touched his arm, he flung away the duvet and maneuvered his aching body to the edge of the bed.
“I’m fine. I just need to get out of here” he said, standing on shaky legs and holding onto the bed for dear life. He would walk through that door if it was the last thing he did.
“Peter c’mon, get back to bed,” Ororo complained.
Nope! He was not going back, he was going to take a lovely walk out of here. Out of the medical wing, out of the mansion, away from the grounds and perhaps all the way to New York to visit Crystal. Better there and appreciated than waiting for nothing here.
Just as he was at the door away Ororo yanked at his arm, almost making him fall.
“Sorry! But please, Peter. This is stupid and you need rest, do you want me to call Hank? Because I will.”
Pulling away his arm from her fierce grip, he stretched it out to tug at the tiny piece of metal stuck in the wall, and pulled it harshly from its confines. It sped almost as fast as he into his palm, leaving behind a drizzle of concrete dust falling to the floor.
Turning, he walked straight into a body and knocked his brow against a nose. Arms grabbed him from both the front and back to steady him, but he could not think of anything other than that his father was standing in his doorway, a hand clutching at his nose, the other holding unto Peter’s shoulder and his eyes wide upon the clenched fist in which the David star was hidden.
“You’re here” Ororo stated.
“-He’s here” he helpfully added.
“I didn’t know you had telekinesis as well” Erik contributed.
“Well, not exactly-” Peter started.
“It’s metal” Ororo quickly threw in.
“Metallokinesis?” Erik asked, finally looking up but Peter would like for him to look away again.
He was sure he was looking like a ghost. Was he faint? Maybe he should sit down.
“He’s actually been waiting for you,” Ororo told him. “All week. I’ve been trying to contact you, but last we heard you were in France.”
Glaring back at her, Ororo finally let go and inched her way around them to leave the doorway. She left with no other word. Leaving him behind with a wide eyed father who kept shifting his gaze from his face to his closed fist.
Though he finally had him here, after wishing and asking and demanding for a whole week, he did not have the words to say what he wanted. What was it that he wanted to tell him? That he was his son? that he had known for close to twenty years? How was he going to tell him? How could he possibly have thought that he could succeed in sharing such information without either being branded a liar or an egotistical bastard.
Because that was what this was right? He had gotten scared and wanted to have a dad for his last remaining years on this goddamn planet. Had he even thought to consider how Erik would feel about having a 35 year old son suddenly sprung on him? What good would that bring him? He was not a child, he did not need a father anymore.
“Hank told me that I should see you” Erik said all of the sudden, making Peter slightly jump. “I’ve returned with Charles for the day to let him repack, and I was told that you had some important information for me.”
“Um, I guess,” he said, scratching his neck.
Erik waited a bit for his further response, but when Peter could not stop thinking about how the slope of their noses were pretty similar, Erik gestured into the room.
“Perhaps you should get back into bed.”
That was how they ended up with Peter back in his bed, sitting rigidly against the headrest, and Erik sitting in the plastic chair looking for all the world like he belonged there.
Peter had been clenching and unclenching his fist anxiously, trying to get the pendant to let go of his skin, however the star stayed put.
Erik had been watching, hand covering his mouth and forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. Taking a deep breath and letting go of his mouth, he leaned further back in the chair still watching the now open fist, with the palm facing downwards.
“How long have you known?”
“About your metallokinesis? When did you gain your powers?”
“I was eleven when I got the speed, and thirtythree with the metal thing.”
“And how old are you now?”
Erik looked almost surprised at that.
“That’s late” he told him. Like he did not already know. He taught mutant kids, they did not exactly get adult mutants here.
“Yea… Xavier said that it could have been dormant and was triggered by fear, but I call bullshit on that one.”
“Why? Because you don’t tend to get scared?”
There was a twinkle in his eye. Why was there a twinkle in his eye?
“Nah. Why wouldn’t it have come sooner?”
Looking down and away from prying and curious eyes, he found that the pendant had finally let go and was laying prettily on his bed sheets. Picking it up he smiled slightly, remembering strawberry blond hair flying in the breeze on the sunny April day when he got it. Her laughter had sounded like the little pretty bells you would hear at Christmas time.
Erik was holding out a hand, but looked at him for permission. Shrugging he made the pendant float into the hand of his father, watching as curiosity turned to wonder, which then turned to pensive thoughtfulness.
Silence reigned between them, as Erik took in the form of the star upon the metal surface. Touching it gently with the tip of a finger.
“You’re Jewish?” he asked in a whisper after a minute or two.
“My father is,” he answered gently.
Erik looked up slowly, the wide furrows in his brow disappearing the further he looked up and the closer he took his features in.
Peter let him watch. Let him find his own conclusion. Though he mentally felt more calm than he had formerly believed he would once he was in the moment, his body gave away other signals. His hands were shaking and held tightly together, his teeth were slightly chattering with anxious energy and his muscles were cramping up in his arms and shoulders until it hurt.
Erik was staring, but Peter was staring back.
“You had information for me.”
Sighing through his nose, Peter nodded and gestured for the tiny pendant to float in smooth circular motions in between them. Erik watched him with rapt attention rather than the star of David.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time… I was scared about what you would say, but then the thing with Jean and Raven happened and I didn’t want to-”
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
snowghoul
2087
dailybridgerton
jbbartram-illu
