Hi. Long time no see. Well here's the next chapter of 24 hours.
Disclaimer: I don't even own my own room. What makes you people think I could afford to own Marvel? Stan Lee holds his property tightly and highly valueful.
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Every one present gaped at Pietro. His last comment stirred around their minds for a few moments.
"Y-You just saw your own funeral?" Wanda bit her lip. "How can that be?" She turned to the doctors present with a look of confused fright.
"If I may," Betsy began hesitantly. "When I went into his head, he was reliving memories. Is it possible that he was going through them so fast and so frequently changing them that he ran out and started seeing stuff that hasn't yet happened?"
The adults pondered this. "That would be highly unlikely." Moira Mactaggart frowned.
"Yes, but this whole situation is dealing with slim chances and unlikelihoods." Beast furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. "Hm, I wonder, if his powers may be advancing. It certainly makes sense, given the stress his body is under."
"He never should have left the medical bay. I knew he was far too fragile to be up and about!" Moira snapped.
Beast nodded in passive agreement and went to his computer console. He was typing away very quickly and trying to create a test that could see the evolution of Pietro's mutant powers.
"Yes, that's what I'm looking for." Beast smiled and with a few more clicks another monitor turned on and displayed some various charts and numbers that made no sense to any of the kids. "Gracious! Pietro's powers have advanced 23 percent in the past two hours. It is very plausible that Miss Braddock's suggestion is at least partially accurate. It seems possible that you are indeed seeing parts of the future, Pietro. However I know if I explained the exact nature of it, most of you would be reduced to drooling monkeys."
The boy's eyes widened and after he let that information stew a bit, he leaned over the side of his bed and threw up violently. He settled back in his bed and closed his eyes with a pathetic whimper. "I don't want what I saw to be the future." He moaned.
"Whatever did you see that upset you that badly?" Moira asked curiously.
Pietro opened his eyes and sighed. With a creased brow his cast his eyes on his father, then on Rogue. He groaned and rolled over to throw up again. "I don't want to talk about it." He mumbled weakly.
"Relax." Xavier said in a soothing voice. "Don't stress yourself." He glanced at the other adults present. "I will enter your mind and find out."
"No don't!" Pietro growled and clenched his eyes shut. "I'll tell you..."
"Alright." Xavier nodded calmly and steepled his fingers.
"I saw...Father...and my new...step-mother...and they had a kid, and...and..." He threw up again.
"Relax Pietro, relax." Moira patted his arm.
Everyone fell silent and then a couple people remembered his outburst earlier. "Oh mah Gawd..." Rogue flushed crimson and moved closer to Remy who gladly took the opportunity to hold her close.
Tabitha's jaw dropped, but she afforded a chuckle and a mock salute to Magneto and Rogue, of which the former had no clue what was going on.
And Evan stared in disbelief from Rogue to Magneto and back again. "Oh man...that is...woah!"
"Could somebody shed some light on what is going on!" Magneto erupted, frustrated with the odd glances the students were giving him. It was unnerving.
"Well, Pietro woke up after that induced nap thing earlier screaming about Rogue and a baby."
Magneto paled dramatically and stepped back. "Surely it's not what all of you are thinking..."
Pietro groaned again, his misery confirming its truth.
"Dieu..." Remy glanced down slightly at Rogue who wouldn't look anybody in the eyes. "M'sieu McCoy, tell Remy yo' calculations be wrong, sil vous plais!" He pleaded.
"I'm sorry my Cajun friend, but I cannot discredit my calculations." Beast looked paler than usual as well. "Though I must admit this is definitely a shocking development, to say the least."
"How old are you, man?" Spyke asked Magneto apprehensively.
"I hardly think that is any of your business," The older man grumbled testily.
"Don't matter." Toad piped up. "Either way, it's wrong as Hell. I'd definitely call that cradle robbing."
"Thank you for your input, Toad." Magneto scowled. "Though I can assure you that I don't rob cradles. And have no intention whatsoever of pursuing a relationship with a young woman who is barely six months older than my own children!"
Most of the students present sighed in visible relief. But they all still looked vaguely creeped out. After all who wouldn't be. But Rogue was definitely the most upset by the potential.
"Well, 'least now Remy understand why Quickie be orderin' Remy t' date y', Chére." He joked, trying to comfort her as well as his own nerves.
"Pietro, don' worry. Ah ain' neva marryin' yo' daddy." She shuddered. "That's jus' gross..." She pulled a face.
"Good." He mumbled. "That's one future I don't want to be apart of." He breathed deep and coughed. "I don't wanna be 30 years older than my half brother...I don't even want a half brother...And I'll never call you my mom Rogue."
"Ah don' wanna be yo' Mama either." Rogue snapped back. She was severely weirded out by his little dream thing, but intrigued at the same time. Not because it was Magneto, truth be told that detail made her want to hurl. But a baby, well that didn't sound so bad. She had never really been around anybody with genetics directly related to her own. The idea fascinated her. Now if only her husband had been just about anyone else.
"Well this topic is highly disturbing." Beast commented jovially.
"No kidding." Wanda seemed like she had just regained the ability to speak. "Please let's talk about something that doesn't apply to anybody related to me?" She pleaded.
Silence threatened to strangle them. "Well, this is so much more comfortable." Pietro tried to chuckle weakly.
"Anyone wanna play a game?" Tabitha suggested, hating the suffocating awkwardness. "We could go on the old stand by truth or dare."
"How bout no." Rogue raised her eyebrows. "Ah don' particularly trust any o' y'all enough fo' that. Yah'd prolly make everyone do and say stupid stuff that Ah can't anyway."
"Good point." Wanda chipped in.
"Ok, so then what do we do?" Tabby asked, not wanting to sit and think about her dying ex-housemate any longer.
"I like, kinda have an idea." Kitty spoke up. "I was watching 'A Walk to Remember' the other day, and-"
"Oh no, Lord help us. Quick everyone run for cova, Kit's gonna go into ona her 'hot guy moments'." Rogue teased.
"Oh come on Rogue. Even you have to admit that-"
"Shane West is, like, totally dreamy!" Rogue raised her voice a couple notches and imitated the way Kitty was just about to say it. With a smirk her voice returned to normal. "Save it, Kit, Ah don' wanna disappoint ya but Ah don' really agree."
"But, he like totally is!" Kitty defended, and Piotr looked a bit edgy.
"Yo' makin' Petie uncomfortable Kitty." Rogue chuckled. "An' face it, Shane West ain' hot." Rogue shook her head.
"Peti'e, Remy don' t'ink Rogue like de same hommes y' do, an' Remy t'anks Dieu fo' dat every night." Remy smirked.
"Yeah what the Cajun said." Rogue nodded in agreement. "An' that don' mean Ah like ya, Swamp Rat."
"Rogue, that is like, such a lie." Kitty said shrewdly.
"Chère, y' do love Remy!" He chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Well yeah that's totally obvious." Kitty laughed. "But I meant that she was lying about not liking my taste in guys."
"Oh really?" Remy laughed, failing to notice that Rogue was suddenly on edge.
"Kitty..." She warned.
"Yeah, 'cause, like, if she didn't think Shane West was totally hot, why was she down there watching the movie with me?" Kitty giggled slyly.
Rogue sniffed. "I happen to like the story."
"Yeah right." Kitty grinned.
"Ah'm gonna kill ya, Kathrine Elizabeth Pryde, if ya say ONE. MORE. WORD." Rogue growled. Her menacing tone made the other girl step back.
"Woah, down girl." Tabitha laughed and put a hand on Rogue's shoulder. "Anyway, Pryde get on with what you were gonna say, preferably without the Shane West fan commentary?"
"Well the girl in that movie was dying, and she had a list of things that she, like, wanted to do before she died." Kitty shrugged. "So wouldn't it be cool if we all did that since Pietro already..." She trailed off guiltily. "Sorry, I totally didn't mean to..."
"Hey don't worry about it." Pietro muttered softly. "There's no denying the truth." He shrugged.
Wanda looked ready to cry again. She gently reached for his hand.
"Hey look, I don't want any pity." He tried to look all tough. "Besides there's still the chance that McCoy can fix this, right?" He put on a brave face.
The others nodded, knowing that if he was sugarcoating it, it must look hopeless.
"Sure, Speedy." Tabby tried to laugh after swallowing the lump in her throat. "So I'll go get paper and pens and we can all do it."
She turned to head upstairs. This was as good a shield as any to hide the confusion bubbling away in her mind. She lingered in the library for a few minutes before returning with a lot of paper and an unopened box of pens.
"Ok, got an order for pens and paper?" Tabitha put a smile on before she entered the room.
Kitty reached for the paper but when Tabby held it out to Piotr he shook his head.
"What's up, big guy?" Tabby asked curiously.
"I do not really feel like playing a childish game." The Russian shrugged.
"I don't think it's childish." Kitty looked at her paper sadly. "I think it'll be fun."
"I am sorry Katya, but I do not enjoy lists very much." He said as he stood to his gigantuan height. "I shall be in my room, painting, if any of you should require my assistance."
Without a single other word he left. Kitty stared in awe at the door he'd exited through.
"Well that was rude." Tabby joked as she finished handing out papers and dropped into a chair. "He didn't even say good bye."
Lance was also staring at the door. His look was slightly disgusted at the way Colossus had just treat Kitty.
"Ok...so yeah..." Wanda stared at her paper. "So what exactly do we do?"
"Oh yeah, we, like, just write down everything we want to do before we die." She turned apologetically to Pietro. "Well I know you only have, like, one day and all, but you can still do what you would have wanted to do."
Pietro bit his lip and nodded. For about ten or fifteen minutes the group was silent, thinking about their goals.
"Hey let's share them!" somebody spoke up excitedly.
"Uh, let's not." Rogue announced, pulling her list close.
"Where's the fun in keeping them secret?" Kitty wondered. "Unless you have something to hide..." She grinned mischievously and craned her neck to see the paper.
"No, Ah ain' hidin' anythin'." Rogue shrugged with a guilty gleam in her eye.
"Ok, I have an idea." Tabitha spoke up. "Why don't we all rewrite the lists and not write our names on them. Then we can put them in a box and one person can read them aloud. That way nobody knows whose list it is but we all hear 'em."
Everyone generally agreed. A few minutes later Kitty ran out of the room and came back with a shoebox. "Okay. So everyone put your list in." They did and she looked around. "So I guess, I'm reading?"
"No!" Everyone jumped up, knowing she was one of the most likely to identify handwriting.
"I'll do it." Tabby volunteered.
"No really, that's ok." Wanda took the box. "I know the least about anybody here and I can't bias. She fished the first one out. "Okay, this person wants to get a big dog and name it Pipsqueak, sky dive, go to college and then write romance novels...Ok yeah I am definitely not asking who this one is...but anyway, they want to maybe get married someday and have a son named Alfred?"
Wanda put the paper down with an odd look across her face. "Ok moving on. This next person wants to go to college, visit all of Europe, get married, have a family, and become a computer technician."
Wanda set that paper down with a smile as she reached for the next one, as she definitely recognized that handwriting. "This person wants to get a decent job and a house, get a decently working car, and get married and have kids someday." Her eyes quickly scanned the room. She knew that this one belonged to Lance but she also knew he'd never own up. "And also, they want to get a college degree and maybe start their own car garage."
As expected Lance gave no sign that it had been his. So Wanda reached for the next. "Ok this one wants to finish school, get a doctorate in psychology, own a big house in the country with a picket fence, and a dog, tour the world, get married, have kids, and write murder mystery novels."
"And this person wants to get rich and open a 24 hour gourmet buffet, Become a sumo wrestler in Japan, and fall in love with somebody nice before dying."
"Ok then we have somebody who wants to...um that's really a little obscene so I'll just skip it, get famous, get rich, go to Mardi Gras at least once, and marry a rich and good looking person."
Wanda looked around hoping to identify the last few. But not a single twitch gave anybody away. With mild disappointment she continued. "This person wants to...get divorced? Um, okay, then marry somebody they really love, Scour the image of Rogue and Magneto having a baby out of their head, but don't we all wanna do that? Lets see they also want to open a restauraunt/casino, star in movies, and the last line says 'shh don't tell anybody, but I'd kinda like a kid or two'. Ok...yeah..."
Wanda read through a few more, deliberately skipping hers, and then one was left in the box. It was in blue ink, in a rushed but still tidy scrawl that she knew almost as well as her own deep and heavy pen strokes.
She looked at her
brother, emotion showing heavily. "This person wants to make sure their
family is happy, prevent Rogue from ever marrying Magneto, Eat Sushi,
and star in a movie." Her voice was shaky and she slowly put the paper
down not bothering
to read the rest, for fear of crying.
"Right moving on." Lance broke the tense and heavy silence before it started. "What should we do now?" For some reason everyone looked towards Pietro uneasily.
"Come on!" He snapped, in agitation. "Stop acting like I'm going to break or cry or something."
"We just don't want to hurt your feelings." Kitty looked a little worried.
"Well don't treat me like a baby." He growled. "I hate it. And I know I'm dying, you know I'm dying so end of story." He looked down bitterly. His tone had shocked just about everybody and Kitty did look close to tears.
"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"Drop it Pryde." He took a deep breath. "Look there's the whole off chance thing. And I know you're trying to help and all that crap. But its only making me feel worse."
Kitty smiled sadly. "Sorry."
"Yeah well don't be," Pietro sighed. "This whole thing is driving me crazy. I'm stuck here at Xavier's where I don't belong to start with. I can't even walk around, I feel like crap. I just want to go home and have everything be alright."
Nobody knew what to say to that, so they all said nothing.
Ms. Mactaggart got fed up and threatened to shoo all of the kids out of the infirmary but Xavier decided it would be even more stressing for him to be all alone with just his own mind and the beeping of the computer consoles. So she allowed them to stay but only if they would not distress Pietro so much.
The sitting and waiting was getting nothing done. The adults were all working as hard as they could to find the solution but none of their ideas were working or even seeming possible. Most of the X-kids took their leave, until just the brotherhood (past and present) sat around Pietro's bedside. Spyke was there because he felt this was something a best friend should do. And Remy stayed too but he was just out to spend more time with Rogue.
Nobody wanted to talk, but the silence was unbearable. For a while Pietro seriously considered going to sleep to avoid it. Then his father entered the room, a somber expression on his face.
"Pietro, may I speak with you?" He asked cautiously.
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Ok and that's a wrap. Sorry to leave you on a cliff hangar but I'm leaving for Florida and I wanted to get this up before I had to leave. Next on the list is Heart's Desires. As I've stated before, this story is on its way with the finish line in sight. And while the polls are still open, so far Anastasia's in the major superior lead. And Lady and the Tramp is nipping at it's heels for second place. There is a full list of what I am considering to parody in my most recent chappi of BID. So submit a vote with your review. I'll probably get to all of them eventually but the question is the order I do it in. And speaking of reviews...
howlerdrode- Yeah I imagine it would have to be very odd and awkward. And yes definitely a nightmare. Nah Speedy won't be getting his race with the Flash in this story. But that would be an awesome undertaking for you to look into, seeing as you're fond of DC/Marvelverse crossovers. Yes they all should be pitied. Somebody close to them is on death's door. Good parody idea I'm gonna do that as an impure parody. I'll spin the story a bit and make the characters of X-men fit it rather than forcing them to fit the chars in the story. Thanks for reviewing.
childrenwithblades- Thank you for the advice, I'll try to take it, and thanks for reviewing.
xmengirlzrule- Don't we all have days like that? I don't honestly think I would do so well if I saw my own funeral. Yeah I admit he has a good heart... Thanks for the review!
waterlily- Ok. Thanks for telling me. Glad you like it, thanks for reviewing.
Dis Chick Digs Da Fuzzy Dude- Ok I know you're not having an identity crisis. But you did change you're name and the first time I got the author alert I didn't know it was you until I started reading. I am inclined to agree, poor Pietro. I promise the ending will be a surprise to everyone, including me because I change my mind daily on this topic. Your ideas are pretty cool and I'll probably get to most of em...eventually. Thanks for the review.
tonianne-Glad you liked it, thanks for the review.
silverbells- Uck schoolwork bites. But now Summer Vacay is here so I get to party! Well maybe not, but I get to write more so that's a plus. I will definitely be doing Sweet Home Alabama but it won't be a true parody Cuz I'll be fitting the story around the characters not the chars around the story. Thanks for reveiwing (even if you weren't supposed to)
hatethehaters- Sorry. When you get to therapy tell em I sent you, they'll understand. You can use my discount if you use Dr. Smilee (Lol) just kidding. I know but I don't support Rogue and Magneto. And don't worry, it won't happen. Thanks for reviewing.
MagCat- Well I absolutely love that you love this story. Don't worry, Kitty will end up with the right guy soon. I just need it to be credible and not sappy. Nope Bucket head doesn't know but she does. Or thinks she does, as he isn't really her father. But rest assured that will come up.
SangoMiroku13- Glad you like it, thanks for the review.
zakuro-girl- Yep you got it. I figured it would be more mysterious that way. Thanks for reviewing.
PS DONT FORGET TO REVIEW!