I.

Hank is making hot chocolate - a particular guilty pleasure of his - when there's a repeated, forceful knock on the door. A visitor, at 11pm? Seems a little ominous. He looks outside the window. Rain is lashing down, and although it creates suitable pathetic fallacy, Hank has to worry because that's a sign that Ororo has wet the bed again, and although his heart goes out to the kid, it really does, he doesn't feel like changing urine-soaked sheets either.

KNOCK KNOCK. Whoever it is, they're very impatient. Hank would presume it's Magneto if not for the fact that Magneto would just levitate up and into an open window, and not bother to knock. He's considerate like that.

Hank carefully puts aside his mug and trots downstairs. He's halfway down the aforementioned stairs when Charles sends him a mental thought.

If you could hurry Hank.

Well that's not terrifying at all. Charles clearly telepathically knows who's outside, and that's great and all, but did he have to be so cryptic?

Hank hurls himself down the last couple of steps and half-flings the door open, fearing the worst.

There's a woman at the door. She's blue, naked, drenched, and unmistakably pregnant.

"Hey Hank. Did you miss me?" Raven asks, and then she's sagging and Hank is darting forward and he's catching her in his blue, hairy arms.

"Thanks," she mutters, looking away.

"C'mon, let's get you inside," he replies.

"Hank?" she asks as he half-carries her across the threshold - that could have meant something, once, but he pushes that thought away - "You're a doctor, right?"

"I have a doctorate," Hank says, deathly afraid of what she's going to say next.

"Have you ever delivered a baby?" she asks, gesturing towards her beach-ball sized blue-sky belly.

Hank has never in fact delivered a baby, and even if he had, he's sure that this particular birth is going to be a touch unusual, considering the mother involved.

It looks like he's not going to get to drink that hot chocolate after all.

II.

They've all gathered in the infirmary. Charles is rolling his wheelchair back and forth - his own form of nervous pacing.

"We can get you to a hospital Raven. There's an exceptionally fast mutant here-"

"And what, he's going to sling me over his back and carry me there? No thanks."

"Raven-"

"Charles, it's Mystique, and this was my house too you know. I'm happy doing this here. Leave it be."

Charles nods and turns to Alex. "Could you wake up Pietro and ask him to fetch Erik?"

"I don't care how stressed you are Charles, this is not the time for a game of chess!" Mystique half-screams through clenched teeth.

"Oh no, I just presumed that you would want the father present…?"

Mystique's yellow-eyed glare is chilling. "Who the hell said anything about Magneto being the father?"

Charles feels immediately abashed. "No one. My apologies."

She stares at him for another long moment, and then clenches her knuckles. More contractions. Lovely.

Charles had hoped for their big reunion to be decidedly less tense than this, but he'll make do with what he has.

III.

Pietro can't help but hearing. Everyone in the house just has these massive dramas, and they always expect the students to sleep through it, as if there wasn't a blue lady giving birth upstairs.

Plus Pietro is pretty sure it's the same blue woman who shot his dad in the neck last year. That's like, added drama, surely.

He contemplates his cellphone. Erik had given it to him for his birthday, so he could call him whenever he was off on one of those terrorist missions, which was kind of thoughtful. Pietro's never used it before but hey, first time for everything. He keys in the numbers that Erik elegantly scrawled onto the back of the phone on a sticky note, and waits.

"Pietro, now is not a good time," Erik says, predictably, answering on the first ring.

"Yeah fine," Pietro says tiredly, "but there's a blue woman giving birth upstairs and I thought you'd want to know."

"Mystique?" Erik says, and then, "Right. Can you pick me up?"

"Depends where you are. Like if you're in Europe or whatever, then no. I'm not Jesus, I can't run across water."

Erik sighs and gives him the address. It's not too far, couple of hundred miles. Pietro throws on a jacket and heads out. Normally Hank or Alex stop people sneaking out, but he guesses that they're a little preoccupied tonight.

The journey to get his dad will be easy. Bringing Magneto back on the other hand is going to be killer. The guy had nearly collapsed in the Pentagon after only a few feet of going Pietro-speed.

He must really care about the blue lady.

IV.

Erik and Pietro enter the infirmary some time later, Erik looking like he's going to get violently sick. Hank doesn't question it. There's bigger things happening.

Mystique grunts again, and the head is now actually coming out. Hank feels traumatised and violated somehow but they're almost there, it's nearly over.

"The head is blue," Alex says calmly from behind him. Alex has dealt with all of this much better than Hank has. He said he'd seen worse in the Army. Hank didn't want to think about what that meant too much.

"The head is blue?" Charles repeats.

"Like me," Mystique sighs happily.

"Also like Hank," Pietro points out, not at all helpfully. "Are you the baby daddy Hank?"

"No, myself and Mystique never-"

"GRNNGH," Mystique cries, and they all shut up. Hank holds the distinctly blue head in his paws and urges Mystique on.

"Ahhh," she says after a moment. "Hank, are you sure about that?"

"About what?" he replies distractedly. "You don't mean- you and me- this is my baby?"

So it's his. No, it's not an 'it', the baby, the baby is his. Okay. Well he was present at the birth, that's a start-

"I'm only fucking with you Hank, it's not yours," Mystique says, somehow smiling despite being in labour, and then she's crying out and pushing again and Charles is gripping her hand so tight Hank fears he could break it, and then- then it's all over, just like that.

"Let me see it," Mystique commands instantly.

"It's a boy," Alex declares to the room at large.

"Really?" Mystique asks. "Give him to me."

"You gotta wait until it's cleaned up," Pietro says, and hands a bunch of towels to Hank.

The baby has a tail. Hank tries to process this information but it's too much so he just ignores it. The baby is otherwise adorable, a chubby blue little thing, but the tail is too much, babies don't have tails.

"Who even are you?" Mystique asks Pietro weakly, though Hank barely hears her. He's still thinking jesus christ it has a tail should I cut it off, should I say something-

"Hi, I'm Pietro, Magneto's son, how you doing?" Pietro replies amicably. "Hank man, cut the umbilical cord already, would you?"

"How do you know all this?" Hank asks, still frozen in shock. He glances at Magneto, who looks a peculiar shade of green, and then back to Pietro, who's smiling like he sees childbirth all the time, and looks unfazed by the tail situation. Hank has turned away instinctively, holding the baby so that no-one else can see it just yet, but Pietro at least is taking it well.

"I watch a lot of medical dramas," Pietro admits. "So is this little guy my half-sibling so Dad? Pretty soon you'll have an army of children."

"Magneto is not the goddamn father now would someone hand me my baby!" Mystique yells.

Hank hands her the baby, freshly swaddled. He didn't know quite what to do with the tailand leaves it poking out. He did his best.

"My baby has a tail," she says after a moment, a little shocked.

"It's magnificent," Erik says, sounding awe-struck and Hank doesn't think he's joking.

"You," Mystique spits. "Stay away from my child. I don't care how special you think he is. I don't care if he's the greatest mutant to ever mutant. Leave him alone."

Magneto actually has the audacity to look offended, and Charles cuts in, evidently trying to calm things down.

"Okay, how about we get mother and baby to a hospital?" he suggests, somewhat carefully.

"The mother is blue with yellow eyes, and the baby is also blue, and has a tail." Magneto smirks. "What would the humans know about caring for a child like this?"

"The tail," Charles muses. "Surely not…"

"Surely what Charles?" Mystique asks.

"The father- the father was Azazel?" the Professor splutters.

"What?" Erik says blankly.

"No way," Alex breathes.

"Who's Azazel?" Pietro asks, and everyone ignores him.

Mystique crosses her arms. "I don't think this is any of your business."

"He has your colour and Azazel's physical characteristics," Hank says, relieved now he knows the tail is supposed to be there. "Genetically, it'll be interesting to see who's mutation he favours."

He doesn't say I'm sorry Mystique, because Azazel was experimented on and killed by Trask, and she doesn't say anything about it either. It doesn't seem like the right time to bring that up.

"What's worse, a shapeshifting baby or a teleporting baby?" Alex says, breaking the moment as he wanders out of the room. He comes back in a moment later, carrying a tray with glasses of water. "I thought that everyone should get hydrated," he says, which is Alex for 'I think everyone should calm the fuck down.'

Hank gratefully accepts his glass and downs it in one go. The whole room seems to relax a little, now that the baby is born and they have established the father, and Hank thinks that maybe, just maybe, this will all work out.

Then there's a clap of thunder and for one second Hank thinks that Ororo is having another nightmare upstairs, but the noise seems to come from within the room.

Mystique screams. "My baby just disappeared!"

"No way," Pietro says.

Alex turns to Hank. "Okay, scratch that, teleporting baby is way worse."

"Stop standing around and find him," Mystique orders, and they all spread out - save Charles, who doesn't look like he's ever going to let go of Mystique's hand - and begin searching.

Raising a teleporting baby with a devilish-looking tail is going to be hard work, Hank gets that, especially when the baby has no father. But Hank sees Magneto on his hands and knees, peering under the bed and probably ruining his costume. He sees Alex trying to look not to look worried but getting Mystique more water and pillows. He sees Charles holding onto Mystique's hand and calming her down. He even sees Pietro, darting back and forth at top speed trying to find the baby, and Hank realises that it's okay that Azazel isn't around anymore. The baby is going to have enough father-figures as it is.