V.
Pietro slept almost twelve full hours once he finally fell asleep. He only woke up when Sabretooth shook him.
"C'mon, kid, the boss said you could sleep through morning training, not afternoon training!"
"Huh?" Pietro rolled over and opened one eye. "What time is it?"
"Almost two. Get your butt in gear. I'll be waiting for you downstairs after you get something to eat."
"Okay."
There was a plate on the kitchen table for him, and a note.
Pietro,
Hope you're feeling better. You need to be at the training session
This afternoon. Very important.
M.
Well, okay then. Pietro folded up the note and looked at the plate. There were two slices of bacon, a fried egg, half a piece of toast, and some kind of protein smoothie that looked totally gross.
He wondered who had cooked. It was way too much fat for his liking, but he went ahead and had a bit of it anyway—
His stomach wasn't quite ready for rich food yet, though. No sooner had he taken his first few bites than he felt a queasy sensation in his stomach, and then he suddenly found himself standing over the sink and vomiting up what little he'd eaten.
"Too greasy for you?"
Pietro turned slowly and saw Remy standing by the table.
"I told him not to put so much butter on the eggs," he continued, "but he said that was the only way he knew how to cook them."
"Figures."
"You're wanted downstairs, by the way."
"Yeah, I know." Pietro followed Remy to the elevator, having given up on breakfast completely. "Training session. That's what he wants me for. That's all I am to him, a soldier in his unholy crusade . . ."
"You okay?" Remy was looking at him funny.
"I just wish for once he'd stop treating me like a soldier and start treating me like a—" He stopped as he realized that Rule Two was in jeopardy.
"Like a what?"
"Like a person."
The elevator stopped, and Pietro got out . . .
Magneto was waiting for him. "Nice of you to join us."
"Sorry. Little trouble with breakfast."
"Trouble?"
"It's nothing. I'm okay now," he lied.
"I hope so. The X-Men are no longer hiding, and we need to be prepared for any eventuality."
"You think they're gonna come after us?" Pietro said, without thinking. "But they don't even know where we are!"
Magneto's expression darkened. "It only takes one slip for them to find out." He seemed to be directing his warning at Remy, who shrugged it off. "None of you are to go out alone. They could easily capture you and force you to reveal our whereabouts."
For crying out loud, this isn't a war! What's with all the secrecy all of a sudden?
"Today we will split into teams of two, and practice defensive moves."
"Yeah, okay." As long as it wasn't anything too strenuous. Pietro was still hurting from yesterday's torture session. Not to mention what was going on in his stomach right now.
"Pyro and Colossus . . . Gambit and Sabretooth . . ."
Remy's usual cocky grin faltered a bit.
"Quicksilver, you're with me."
Pietro definitely wasn't ready for this. How was he supposed to fight his father?
As the pairs separated out, Magneto said, "Don't let your emotions get in the way of your mission. Your job is to take me down, and I expect you to do it."
"How?" Pietro asked. He winced when he heard how whiny it came out.
"Find a weak spot and exploit it."
"But you don't have any weaknesses! Rule One, remember?"
Magneto raised an eyebrow. "Rule One," he said, "is 'Never show weakness.'"
"So how do I know what it is?"
"You're wasting precious time here. Make your move."
Okay . . .
He charged at Magneto, and was knocked right off his feet. "Ow!"
"Now you know a frontal attack doesn't work.. Try another approach."
Easy for him to say. Pietro whirled around and attacked from the rear, but he was just knocked over again.
Magneto helped him up. "Think! Think of something that can be used against me. Or a different kind of attack."
Pietro glanced over at the other teams, who were having an equally hard time taking each other down. It didn't give him any confidence.
He tried again and again, always with the same result. Finally his body would take no more. He lay on the floor, gasping for breath.
"Quicksilver!" Magneto stood over him. "We're not finished yet. Get up!"
"Can't . . ." the boy moaned. Then he blacked out.
Magneto bent down to try and revive him. What he found when he checked his son's vital signs was alarming.
Pietro's breathing was dangerously shallow, and his heart was beating much too fast even for his rapid metabolism. As Magneto picked the boy up, he could feel how feverishly hot he was.
Why didn't he tell me?
"I'm taking him upstairs," he announced to the rest of the crew. "Keep up the training until I get back."
After he put Pietro in his bed, Magneto called a doctor he knew he could trust not to betray their secret. When he got off the phone, he turned and nearly bumped into Colossus.
"Is he all right?"
"He will be. But be careful about going in and out of there. Whatever this is might be contagious, and I don't have the facilities to treat all of you at once."
"I'll stay with him," the Russian offered.
Magneto considered this. "All right. But limit your contact with the others. The doctor should be here soon."
"What do you think it is?"
"Hard to say. But I don't want to take any chances on spreading it."
"I understand."
The doctor showed up a few minutes later, and spent nearly an hour examining Pietro, who was awake now. Magneto waited in the living room for the official word. When the doctor finally came back, he didn't look too happy, but neither did he look like he was about to deliver distressing news.
"Well?"
"I'm afraid your son has picked up a rather nasty stomach virus. Been going around a lot, I'm not surprised. It seems in his case to be complicated by extreme exhaustion."
"He's very active," Magneto said, surely the understatement of the year.
"Well, right now, he needs to be a little less active. I want him on complete bed rest for at least a week. See if you can get some food into him, and especially fluids. He's dehydrated as well."
"I see."
"If he doesn't start improving within three days, give me a call. But once his fever goes down and he starts drinking something, he should be all right."
"Thank you." Magneto showed the doctor to the door. "Just send the bill to this address."
"Don't worry about it."
As soon as the doctor was gone, Magneto went back to his son's room. The boy had gone back to sleep, Peter sitting by his side in constant vigil. He hadn't left even while the doctor was there.
"I'll take over now," Magneto said. "You can go watch TV or something. Stay up here, though."
Peter nodded, rose, then thought of something. "He could use some attention from you. He . . . he thinks you don't care about him."
"He told you that?"
"Not in so many words, but . . ."
"I see. All right, I'll see what I can do with him."
Once he was alone with his son, he looked down at the boy and realized how little time they'd actually spent together over the past few weeks. Actually, over the past few years, once he thought about it. Could Pietro really hate him that much? Wanda certainly did, but the twins weren't at all alike anymore. At least it seemed that way.
And where is Wanda now? Captured? Dead? On the run? Why didn't I go back for her?
He stared down at the sleeping boy and wondered where he had gone wrong with his children, and whether he could ever make it right.
When Pietro woke up, some time later, he noticed a letter resting on the table beside his bed:
Pietro,
I came to your room to check on you, but you were still asleep. So I've gone to get some supplies. I should be back in about an hour, and we need to have a serious talk.
Not another serious talk!
He read on:
The doctor said you have to stay in bed for the next few days, perhaps as much as a week.
A week? He'd go crazy!
This is very important. I want you to get well as soon as possible. I'll be around if you need anything.
It was signed, Dad.
Pietro put the note down and looked around. The small TV/VCR combo that had been in his father's room was now on the dresser, a stack of tapes beside it.
On the bedside table where the note had been was a plastic pitcher full of water, and a glass. He poured himself some of the water and gulped it down. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was. Refilling the glass, he drank some more.
"Wow, that felt good," Pietro said to himself.
"What felt good?"
He looked up and saw Remy LeBeau standing in the doorway. "Training over already?"
"Already? Man, you have been out of it! It was over hours ago!"
"Really? What time is it?" He couldn't have been asleep that long, could he?
Looking at his watch, Remy said, "It's almost eight-thirty."
"Eight-thirty?" The training session had started at about two. Had he really slept for six hours?
Well, no, he'd been awake a couple of times, but he didn't remember too much. He tried to get up, but found that he was too weak to move. "I can't move my legs!"
"You're just tired," Remy said. "Get some rest."
"I've had some rest! I can't stay in bed for a week! Help me up." He reached up, but all the jerking around wasn't doing his stomach any good. Before he could stop it or give any warning, he threw up over the side of the bed, onto somebody's fuzzy bear slippers.
Remy looked at the mess. "Maybe I should get you a basin or something."
"Too late now." He wondered whose slippers they were, and hoped they could be washed.
Magneto came back, carrying a paper bag of groceries, and nearly stepped in the puddle on the floor. "Oh, dear God," he gasped.
"Sorry," Pietro said weakly.
Magneto saw Remy lurking in the doorway, and said, "Make yourself useful, Frenchie. Mop this up before it sets into the carpet."
Remy went to the kitchen to get a wet rag, and that basin he'd mentioned.
Peter came in to help, and got an unpleasant surprise. "My slippers!"
"Sorry!" Pietro repeated. "I'll buy you a new pair as soon as I can get up."
"You're not going anywhere anytime soon," his father told him, and began unpacking the bag. There were enough medical supplies to stock a drug store.
"Do I really need all that?"
"Of course you do. You want to get better, don't you?"
"Yeah . . ." Pietro said, but he wasn't so sure.