Chapter Text
Magneto woke up past noon with a stabbing back-pain. He’d barely slept, his stomach cramping. He had been sleeping on bare planks in the warehouse where the brotherhood had been meeting, so as he rolled to his feet, he attributed his pain to the hard floor. Of course, he was used to crummy places to sleep, but he was getting older. To make matters worse, he’d developed a wound on the skin under his scrotum, which stung and ached.
Outside, the rain poured down and hammered on the thin roof. Another bolt of pain shot through him, and a hand on his belly. It had turned rock hard, as he panted, leaning towards the wall. He had trouble with indigestion, but his belly hung lower, tender all over.
He had gained weight, and his tight abs turned to a beer gut. A nomadic lifestyle meant eating unhealthy food. His heart clenched together. While his work with the brotherhood pleased him, and their efforts for mutant rights, how he parted from Charles left a hole in his chest.
He groaned again, needing the bathroom, but as he stood, a sudden cramp petrified him, starting at his back, turning his stomach rock-hard. Erik pressed his palms into his lower belly, trying to get the cramping muscles to cooperate.
The metal roof cracked as he lost control of his powers. Finally, the cramp relinquished its hold over him, and he could stand and straighten his back. He wore sweatpants, the only thing accommodating his girth. He worried what the other members of the brotherhood thought when they saw.
Erik staggered down the stairs from the attic to the main warehouse. The pain faded while he crouched on the toilet, but no matter how much he strained, nothing happened. Straining and pain made him nauseous, while sweat ran down his temples. Not for the first time, he imagined Charles’ arms around him, his chin on Erik’s shoulders, his soft hands running through Erik’s hair.
He looked down, blood ran down his legs. The metal tap shrieked, and a pipe tore from the wall, as Erik stumbled over again onto his knees, a hand on his hard belly. Clenching his eyes, he would die without seeing Charles again.
Although Charles hated him, as Magneto placed him in a wheelchair, marred for life, crippled. And Charles would rightly blame him. His arms would never be around Erik again. Erik finally stumbled, a flat hand against the dirty tiles in the restroom, water wetting the floor from the broken pipe.
The warehouse had a connected landline in the office. Another streak of pain rippled through him, worse than the last. Biting his lips, concentrated his powers not to ruin any more of the bathroom, he decided to call Charles. Beg his forgiveness. He needed to get to a hospital, but with the warrant for his arrest, it was impossible. Besides, Mutants weren’t getting treated in hospitals, they were increasingly unwelcome everywhere.
Erik reached for the phone, calling the familiar number to Charles’ manor. It rang for an eternity, and another pain rippled through him, and he moaned, the nails pulling from the planks in the floor.
Hank picked up.
“Yes?”
“I need to talk to Charles,” Erik gasped out. Please put Charles on. I need his voice, I need him to hear me, comfort me as I am dying.
Hank paused on the phone. Hushed voices sounded in the background, meaning Hank conferred with someone else.
“Charles says he’s busy. Can I take a message?”
Erik gasped out, a hand pressed against his abdomen. He had hoped at least Charles would pick up the phone, so at least he would hear his voice, soft and comforting.
Erik groaned in frustration and hung up. The manor was at least three hours’ drive away. If he died on Charles’s doorstep, he’d force the telepath to react. He pulled on his helmet and waddled out into the rain. He breathed, gasped as he struggled to his car, a hand against his back, and with trouble, maneuvered himself into the car and closed the door.
When pain overpowered him again, the intense wave contracted the muscles in his abdomen and a flush of water rushed out from the pained wound under his scrotum, between his legs and down the seat. Unable to do anything, but lean the seat backwards, gasping, the intensity, as he realized he would soil the car, as he pushed.
There was no way he would make it to the bathroom. He leaned backwards; the mask blocked most of his vision, but he pushed and spread his legs as much as possible.
He didn’t dare drive yet, his stomach cramped, and he pushed, and pushed, desperate to alleviate the agony. He twisted in the seat, the skin under his scrotum was tearing and stretching.
Something was definitely coming out between his legs. His pants were drenched and stuck to his skin as he pushed them down, gasping out as the intense need to push overtook the pain, and he realized what was sticking out was too big, he probed the mass between his legs, fighting through being torn apart as he pushed again, leaned backwards, something gave away inside him and something ripped and tore as he couldn’t stop pushing.
The lamppost sparkled a few times before it shattered and the metal collapsed. The loud bang distracted him, and the mass between his legs slid out. He looked out through his helmet’s slit, realizing it was a baby. Wet and soiled. Her hair was black, and she faced down. Fearing she was dead, he scooped the lifeless child up and turned her. Her umbilical cord hung over her belly, still fat and red, and still partially inside him. Her hand clenched a fist, and her little squeezed face pulled together in discomfort. But that she was alive. He gasped, relieved.
Ignoring the afterpains, he needed her cleaned and dried and she would lose body-heat in the freezing car, he unbuttoned his shirt and slid her inside, and turned the heater in the car to max, and pulled up his soaked boxer-shorts and sweats.
His stomach was still swollen, but his skin was warm, and he closed his shirt over her back. Her skin was unnaturally soft against him.
He needed Charles. While Charles despised Erik, the child needed a doctor if she was going to survive. He turned the key, and pulled out the car, but his legs trembled so much, he could barely use the clutch, and had to restart the car twice.
The full realization of the baby stuck him suddenly, and overwhelmed, speeding up, his body dislocated and throbbing, and the tiny infant inside his shirt, hidden and supported by his left hand. It was evening, and the road was abandoned, his helmet not being noticed. But he wasn’t sure he could face Charles if he read his thoughts, his jumbled emotions and his longing, and the pain best kept to himself.
After an hour, the baby cried, low fuzzy noises, but Erik didn’t know what to do, and he couldn’t stop. He peered down. She smacked with her tiny mouth. Maybe she would use his nibble to suck until he could get a bottle from somewhere.
Then he realized the baby began sucking, at least sinking, realizing his other breast leaked. Which made him slightly nauseous. He was proud of his mutations, but this was different, an unwanted mutation, more uncanny than the ability of levitate and influence metal.
His hand on the steering wheel shook while the rain whipped the car-windows, the wipers barely keeping pace. He needed someone, anyone, to take the child. Panicked, he realized Charles was her father. Charles, who he drove towards, and who hated him. Charles, who he put in a wheelchair. His body protested, and afterpains rippled through his body, and a nausea and thirst dried his mouth, as the windows fogged from his wet clothes and smelly car heater.
As he pulled up to the manor, he realized he likely wasn’t able to stand. The umbilical cord had grown limp, and cold and slimy, while still connecting him and the infant. She had fallen asleep on his stomach, her soft mouth, and her tiny hands splayed against his chest, like she already owned it.
The umbilical cord locked against his lower belly, sticky and drying. He pulled off the helmet, hoping Charles would realize he was there. Inside the large well-known manor, the lights were lit, and he pulled his jacket over himself, shielding the baby. The water poured down, and he waddled, barely making progress. His stomach ached, and he swayed on his legs as he hammered the door, his other shaking arm around the baby still inside his shirt.
And his legs buckled under him as Hank opened the door.