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Everything was going great for Peter Maximoff. He had chosen to stay at Xavier’s school after the En Sabah Nur incident, became an X-Men, and even told the “all powerful” Magneto that he was his son.
It had taken almost two months of painful awkwardness, but still. Peter did it.
And then through what Peter felt inclined to define as “quality bonding time” with his ex-terrorist dad, he genuinely thought that for once… just this once, maybe life was going to be somewhat normal.
Until he got sick.
Very, very sick.
It started off with nothing, really. Just Peter vomiting up his own blood.
He hid it for a while, mostly because it freaked him out a bit and if he was freaking out—the most undramatic person there was—then how would everyone else react?
But he didn’t have to wonder because Erik found out not even a day later. Peter had tried to be discreet rushing away during dinner, but apparently he hadn’t fooled anyone because his father walked in on him puking his guts out.
He was rushed to Hank and after some poking and prodding, the scientist-slash-doctor couldn’t find anything.
“It is possible you are overcoming a stomach bug of sorts,” was all Hank could come up with. “Take it easy and take this medicine, alright?”
Peter then asked what stomach bug consisted of chucking up your own blood, but after Hank started spouting off nerdy sounding words like ‘gastroenteritis’ and ‘peptic ulcer’ Peter figured he had heard enough.
“If you aren’t feeling better within a few days, come to me,” Hank told him firmly. “And I mean it, Peter. This could be serious.”
“How serious?” Erik had asked cautiously.
Hank seemed to hesitate before replying, his voice confident and assured. But that didn’t stop Peter from noticing the uncertainty in his eyes. “Knowing Peter, it’s probably just a stomach bug. Let’s not worry more until there’s more to worry about, okay?”
It was indeed not a stomach bug.
Much to Peter’s disappointment, his uncontrollable puking failed to cease, even with the disgusting medicine Hank had given him.
On one particularly painful afternoon he was making his way back to Hank’s office for his daily check up, his movements sluggish and his body aching in a way Peter had never experienced before.
And that’s when he collapsed in a pool of his own vomit at the scientist’s feet.
Peter had awoken some time later, finding himself in a medical bed with thin blankets draped over his body. He discovered an IV poking into his arm, a familiar red liquid traveling through the clear tube. He followed the tube to find none other than Erik Lehnsherr sitting in a chair beside him.
Erik seemed to finally notice he was awake, sitting up quickly. “Peter—how are you feeling?”
Honestly? Like he had been shot in the chest, run over by a semi-truck, and mauled by a bear all in one.
But Peter didn’t say any of that. “I feel alright.”
Erik gave him an unamused look. “Want to try again?”
“Alright, I feel like shit.”
His dad’s eyebrows creased in worry as Hank suddenly entered the room, rushing to Peter’s side as soon as he noticed his awakened state. He started fiddling with a machine by Peter’s bed, a small frown on his lips.
“So?” Erik prodded after a few moments. “What is the verdict?”
Hank looked over a few papers before clearing his throat. “I… don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Erik asked, his entire presence seething with impatience.
Hank rolled his eyes before sighing. “I’ve done tests and I can’t find anything. According to my data, Peter appears to be in perfect health.”
Peter huffed a laugh. “I don’t know man, me choking up my own blood says otherwise.”
Hank gave him an unamused look before continuing, turning his attention back to Erik. “Obviously I’m missing something. I’ll keep running some tests. Peter will need to stay here in the meantime.”
Erik went silent, his eyes boring into the floor in uncertainty.
“It’s going to be alright,” Hank assured.
But it wasn’t. Nothing was alright because only days later, Hank did find something and that something was very, very bad.
“There’s a bacteria eating away at your mutation, turning it into a virus,” Hank informed him in a solemn tone. “It’s… it’s killing you from the inside, Peter.”
“But?” Peter prompted, trying to ignore the clenching pain in his stomach and the frozen look coming from his father. “You can fix it, right? You have medicine?”
“No, I don’t, Peter,” Hank replied in a somewhat defensive tone. “I don’t have a cure for this because it’s never happened before.”
“But you can find one,” Erik finally said, his voice hoarse and somehow firm and terrifying all at once. “You can find a cure.”
“I… I can try.”
Hank must have noticed the mixture of panic and despair in the two men’s eyes, because he suddenly cleared his throat and looked at them with a newfound confidence. “I will find a cure.”
Well, a week goes by and Hank doesn’t find a cure.
Peter can see the dark circles under the man’s eyes, the worry and persistence emanating from every thing he does, and Peter knows. He knows that no matter how many restless nights this man endures, no matter how many failed experiments, Hank isn’t going to find a cure.
Despite what everyone else does to assure him, Peter knows he’s dying. It’s a fact that much like everything else, he quickly accepts—though not easily, of course.
If there’s anything Peter hates it’s staying still. He lies in the same bed everyday, with the same routine, and it’s hard for Peter to stay upbeat about it all but he can’t really do much else because his body hurts so much and the impending doom of death is way worse, anyway.
Hank comes in during lunchtime and checks Peter’s vitals.
“How are you feeling?” he asks for the billionth time.
Peter responds with the same answer he’s given every day. “Like shit.”
The two men share a small, humorless smile over the exchange. It’s something that they’ve grown to do overtime. Peter thinks it’s because it’s easier to find at least a little humor in such a dark situation. After all, if you can’t cry, you might as well laugh, right?
There haven’t been any other symptoms, really. Peter still pukes every now and then though it isn’t nearly as often. His stomach always hurts, his body aches, and he always feels exhausted.
It’s on the second week that it happens.
Peter knew it was going to happen, of course. But it still doesn’t do anything to soften the blow.
Because of the virus, Peter loses his mutation. His powers. His super-speed. The very thing that made him… him.
“I’m so sorry, Peter,” Hank says, his voice raw and his eyes full of pity. Pity that only makes everything so much worse.
“S’not like we were expecting it not to happen, right?” Peter replies with a tone so fake he knows he isn’t fooling anyone. Hell, he can’t even fool himself.
It’s later that night when he’s finally alone that he lets the tears fall.
Peter is surprised to see his mother and sister when he wakes the next morning, but guilt sinks in when he remembers why he’s avoided calling them. Hank must have finally told them.
His mom masks the horror in her eyes well, but Peter knows he looks awful. He can see the paleness of his skin and feel the tiredness in his eyes, and he doesn’t even want to know what his face looks like.
His mom starts to cry when Peter opens his eyes. She burrows her face in Peter’s hair as he uselessly holds her arm in support.
Lorna blinks through teary eyes and holds his hand.
“You’re going to be okay, right, Peter?” Lorna whispers desperately over his mother’s cries. “Say you’re going to be okay.”
Her voice cracks on the last word, and Peter wants nothing more than to hold her hand tighter and tell her that yes , he’s going to be okay. That she doesn’t need to worry because he’s fast and he’s going to heal fast and then they can go to that one restaurant she’s always wanted to go to but they could never afford.
But if there’s one thing Peter could never do, it was lying to his sister.
“I don’t know, Lorna,” Peter says hoarsely, watching helplessly as her face falls and tears cascade down her cheeks. “I don’t know.”
Peter supposes that if there’s one good thing to come out of this, it’s that throughout all his heaving and complaining and lonely nights, Erik never leaves his side.
Guilt eats at him through it all. The painful fact that Erik has already lost so much lingers—a daughter, a wife, and just when he had hope again… Peter had to take it all away. It’s easy to think that none of it is his fault, but the fact of the matter is that it sort of is because Peter brought him into this position in the first place.
It’s one evening that Peter finally admits his worries. They’re lying on a blanket under the stars, shoulder to shoulder. It had taken a lot of convincing on Peter’s end, lots of gripes of how ‘if he doesn’t get some air from that stupid medical room then he’ll personally combust,’ and Hank finally gives in. So Erik helps him out of the medical room, his arm supporting most of Peter’s weight when he’s surprised to find it’s hard to move at all.
“Do you wish I had never told you?”
Erik goes quiet at the question, turning his gaze to Peter, a look of confusion in his eyes. “Told me what?”
“That I was your son,” Peter answers, his voice almost a whisper. He keeps his eyes on the sky above because he suddenly realizes he doesn’t want to hear the answer. He doesn’t want to look into Erik’s eyes because if he does, Peter knows he’s only going to cry (he's been doing that a lot lately).
“And why would I ever wish that?”
Erik sounds so baffled by the question, as if it was an outrageous prospect to even think aloud. It makes Peter’s heart ache and he almost regrets asking the question in the first place, but he also feels the strong need to almost… apologize, in a sense.
“I told you that you hadn’t lost everything,” Peter finally says after a moment. “After… after Nina, I just wanted to give you hope. And now…”
Peter’s breath hitches, a strangled sob in the depths of his chest. He clears his throat and blinks rapidly, if only to keep his tears at bay. “Now I’m leaving too.”
Peter feels Erik’s gaze but he keeps his eyes ahead until he feels a hand against his cheek, turning his face so that he’s eye level with his father, and damn it Peter almost starts crying right then and there because of the sheer pain etched into Erik’s features.
“It may be painful, seeing you like this,” Erik confesses, his voice rough. “You are going through a lot right now, Peter. And perhaps the saddest fact of it all is that out of everyone on this planet, you are the one person I can think of that deserves it the least—”
Erik stops suddenly, sighing as he wipes a stray tear from Peter’s cheek.
“—but even if I have to feel that pain, I would much rather feel it by your side,” he finishes.
And… Peter doesn’t know what to say to that. And even if he did, he doesn’t even think words could properly convey what he was truly feeling, anyway.
So he doesn’t say anything. He musters a smile and leans into his father’s touch, closing his eyes and just pretending that for just this one moment, everything is normal.
Everything only gets worse.
Peter wakes up one night in a panic, his chest heaving and gasping for air that won’t come. Hank runs in moments later, dressed in ruffled pajamas as he frantically puts something over Peter’s mouth and nose and at once, sweet relief enters as he finally breathes.
“Charles alerted me that he sensed something was wrong,” Hank informs him. “You must have been projecting really loudly in your state.”
“Uh, yeah man,” Peter rolls his eyes, his voice muffled and distorted through the oxygen mask. "I stopped breathing."
It’s later that day that they figure out Peter’s lungs are starting to fail.
Yup—like an eighty-year old man, Peter’s lungs stop working.
“You will need to be hooked up to this machine as often as possible.” Hank inserts what he refers to as a ‘nasal cannula’ into his nose. It feels uncomfortable and irritating and Peter doesn’t hesitate to voice those feelings aloud.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” Hank says with clear pity (always pity).
His friends visit often. Each of them always interacts with him in their own little ways. Scott always stands around awkwardly, as if he wants to be there but doesn’t all at once. Jean gets really talkative, always filling Peter in on what he’s missed but doesn’t really ever give him a chance to respond, as if she’s always trying to fill the silence. Kurt always sits at Peter’s side and listens. It doesn’t matter what Peter says, he just listens. Ororo acts like nothing’s wrong, talks to him like she always has, as if he isn’t on his literal deathbed. Raven is always accompanied with her dry sense of humor, something that most would be uncomfortable with but Peter finds a breath of fresh air.
They never bring Peter’s state to attention, but they know. And he knows—he’s running out of time.
Besides Erik, Charles is the only other constant in Peter’s life. There rarely is a time where Charles isn’t at Erik’s side, and Peter knows it’s not just for his comfort but for his father’s, too.
Sometimes they play chess at Peter’s side, the soothing sounds of Rush playing as they chat quietly. Erik had his Walkman and record player brought in a few weeks after he got sick, something Peter didn’t even need to ask for but that Erik already had the initiative to do. It’s something that’s so small—so easy to pass off—but Peter can’t help but feel somewhat moved by the fact that Erik already seemed to know him so well, despite their difficult past.
This time, they sit and play a game of cards, Erik on one side of his bed and Charles on the other in his wheelchair. Peter’s propped up by some pillows as he draws another card.
“Hey, Erik. When I die, you can have my Walkman,” Peter says rather abruptly, because although his mutation has disappeared doesn’t mean his mind still doesn’t run at high speeds.
Erik freezes for a moment, a look Peter can’t place on his face. He continues, “I know you don’t like music. But that thing is the most important thing to me and I don’t trust anyone else with it.”
“That’s very kind, Peter,” Charles says after it’s clear Erik isn’t going to respond.
“And you can have my jacket, prof,” Peter adds. “It’ll remind you of when we first met. For the Pentagon break-in.”
Charles’ smile fades a bit, and he swallows. “That it will.”
Peter looks back at his cards and pretends not to see the tears glistening in both of the older men’s eyes.
Peter’s visits outside with Erik continue. This time he’s sitting on a bench just outside the front of the school, the breeze wafting through his thin hospital shirt and pants. They’re ugly and nothing like him and Peter hates them but he’s at a point in his life where he has no other option but to wear them.
Erik’s at his side, reading a book as Peter stares at the commotion ahead of him. Some of the kids are out for PE, Scott in Peter’s place with a whistle in hand. One of the kids—who Peter recognizes as Billy—trips and Scott walks over to assess the damage.
A wave of emotion hits Peter then, because of the combination of the entire interaction, the breeze against his skin— everything—it gives him a sudden realization: he doesn’t want to die.
He supposes he’s never particularly wanted to die of course, but there was an acceptance that came with it. He knew he was going to die, so why make things worse by being depressed about it, right?
But it’s then he truly realizes. He’s never going to see these kids again. He’s never going to bump into them in the hallway, never going to tell them to slow down and then laugh because the whole thing is so ironic. He’s never going to feel the wind against his skin when he runs, he’s never going to see the crease of Charles’ eyebrows when he’s in deep focus, the spark in Hank’s eyes when Peter asks a question he can’t wait to answer, the laughs from his friends when he says something funny. He’s never going to see the roll of his mother and sister’s eyes when he makes a bad pun. He’s never going to see his father’s smile ever again.
Peter doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels a shake of his shoulder, blinking to find Erik’s face in front of him, his eyebrows creased in concern. “What is it, Peter? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”
And Peter only begins to feel worse because no matter how hard he tries, he won’t stop crying. “I don’t wanna die, dad—I really don't wanna die.”
Peter doesn’t even mean to call him that, it just slips out, but he decides it doesn’t even matter because it might be the last time he ever even gets the chance to.
Erik looks surprised for a moment, whether from what he called him or the confession, he can’t tell. But it doesn’t make him hesitate to pull a blubbering Peter into his arms, a hand cradling his neck as Peter sobs into his shoulder.
“I know, son,” Erik whispers into his hair. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”
And Peter can’t say anything back, tears falling from his eyes and his body shaking uncontrollably.
He sobs for everything he’s lost and everything he’s going to lose. And it’s not long before he feels the shake of his father’s shoulders and his hair dampen with tears.
Sometimes when Peter drifts off to sleep he wonders if it’s the last time. He wonders that if when he wakes—if he wakes—it won’t be on Earth. He then wonders if Heaven is even a thing. Will he turn into a spirit and watch his friends and family from afar or will he drift into an endless black void for eternity?
It’s things he never really used to think about before but now consumes his thoughts more often then he’d like to admit.
Peter’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling as his Queen vinyl plays from the corner, Erik asleep on the chair beside him. He’s taken quite a toll since Peter got sick, with disheveled hair and dark bags under his eyes. Peter always tries to be particularly quiet when his dad sleeps because he doesn’t know when he’ll ever get the chance to again.
This time is different. Because this time, a sharp pain enters Peter’s chest and it’s not the usual sharp pain he sometimes feels. It’s then he realizes he can’t breathe. He begins to choke and clutch his chest in fear.
Erik wakes immediately, placing a hand against Peter’s back in support.
His blue eyes bore into Peter’s, and he knows. Peter knows that this is it. And judging by the look of utter sorrow and fear in his dad’s eyes, Peter thinks Erik knows, too.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” Peter chokes out, placing a shaking hand on Erik’s shoulder. Because it’s suddenly he realizes that even if he were somewhat easy with the thought of death, he was leaving his dad. His dad who just gained a child only to lose one once more.
Erik doesn’t say anything, only moves so that he’s supporting Peter’s upper body in his arms, cradling his head gently.
“I want—I want you to—” Peter gasps, and his vision begins to blur but he has to say it. He can’t die before saying it. “I want you to know—”
“It’s all right, son,” Erik says softly, tears cascading down his face as he strokes Peter’s cheek. “It’s all right. I’m going to be all right.”
He says it with such certainty, as if he is only worried about Peter’s conscience in this situation and damn it his father truly knows him too well.
“I love you, dad,” Peter finally whispers in the steadiest voice he can muster. He hears a rapid beeping sound from somewhere in the room as his sight dims. He feels light kisses being pressed against his forehead and the shake of his father’s body. He hears sobs and words that he can’t make out before the beeping accelerates and then…
And then everything goes black.