A/N : A prompt for hp80 who would like to see something about Peter's experiences as a world record holder (briefly) and how he dealt with that experience. Enjoy! xx
1
By the time the two men had left his office, Oliver Bloomsbury was just about ready to start banging his head against a wall and not stop until this had all gone quietly away. He'd *known* that kid was a bad gamble, knew deep in his heart as soon as he'd recognised the kid who he'd once dropped from the basketball team at the try-outs that he really shouldn't take that risk. Track and field was different though – he remembered that the Maximoff kid was a terrible team player, but surely in an event where he had only himself to count on, he couldn't be such a bad idea.
Besides, he was fast…. Way faster than anyone else that Oliver had to pitch to the championships this year. He cursed his vanity at wanting to pull down a record for his team, wanting that glory, the knowledge that if he pitched the kid then he could win. It had been the only reason he'd eventually decided, against his better judgement, to let Maximoff have a chance.
21 now and grown up tall, long-legged and with a narrow wiry frame that was perfect for athletics, the kid still had that cocky grin he remembered from his high-school basketball days. In fact, very little aside from some extra height had changed about him at all. He still had that long, thick silver-grey hair that no matter how many times he was told to cut or tie back he still would not. And he still seemed to be defying authority with every glance from those deep dark eyes, still had that sarcastic look on his face that had Oliver almost able to hear him thinking screw you, man, every time he was given a command.
The rest of the team hated him instantly. Oliver almost dropped him in his first three weeks of training just because of how much having him around lowered everyone else's morale. He barely needed to stretch before he was ready to take on the field, goofed off continually, arrived and was ready to run without warming up, not winded even after thrashing Oliver's second-fastest runner hands down and not even breaking a sweat. Worse, where everyone else would bring along some fruit, healthy snacks, bottles of water, he'd always come with a bagful of Twinkies and chocolate, making everyone feel awful that they had to work at their fitness whilst his training regime seemed to consist mainly of eating junk and cracking wise. He'd even sometimes scoot off to the nearby McDonald's during breaks, making everyone hate him even more for not making himself feel sick by running on several Big Macs. Despite the resentment of the rest of the team, though, Oliver's vanity just wouldn't let him drop Maximoff from the roster. He was just too damned good to let go.
He'd expected Maximoff to bring him a trophy or two from the upcoming Track and Field Championships. What he hadn't expected, however, had been for him to pull out all the stops and bring him eight broken world records. There had been press all over the field after that, Oliver stunned and slack-jawed in the pictures in the papers, Maximoff grinning that maddening Cheshire Cat grin, looking like he'd just gone for a gentle stroll rather than zoomed around for the past day smashing records in every distance event and two of the hurdles. Still full of energy and looking inhumanly athletic in blue vest and tiny red shorts, happy to talk the ear off any reporter who came near him. Not even an attempt at any kind of humility. The papers took to calling him 'Quicksilver', and teams from across the country had started calling Oliver's office asking if he'd be willing to give up his star runner for some quite dazzling sums of money.
Then the two men in grey suits had come calling, and told him that those world records were going to be declared null and void now that they had discovered a little secret about the Maximoff kid. Oliver didn't even know what an X-gene was, but it had been very patiently explained to him over the past hour.
He'd thought all those blood tests had just been about doping – to be fair, he hadn't entirely ruled out the possibility that Maximoff was on something, he certainly acted that way. The kid had been fine with it all, though both Oliver and the officials had noticed with some distaste that rather than a vibrant ruby red, his blood was a dark shade of crimson that was almost black. He'd sat and grinned and chattered away whilst they took all their samples, and Oliver had never anticipated that he would later be contacted and told that far from being on drugs, Maximoff wasn't even human. Apparently, the sporting body who had overseen the Championships didn't think it was particularly fair that a 'Mutant' should be competing against humans.
Suddenly it all made sense why Maximoff had been the fastest kid Oliver had ever coached. Why he didn't even need to work at it to beat anybody, and how he kept up that incredibly tiny figure and perfect form. No wonder nobody could get near him, now that it was obvious he was some kind of freak of nature. So there went the world records, and now the press were calling Oliver to hound him about why he hadn't declared that he had a Mutant running track, how he could justify that, angry parents of the other team members telling him he was a disgrace for putting some kind of freakish abomination against their kids, for even allowing him to be near them at all. Once the controversy went national, the debate had been over fast. Genetic tests for all professional athletes – no more Mutants in competitions. Even if their Mutation didn't help them in the slightest, they were simply not welcome.