Peter leant against the treadmill breathing heavily. He wasn't used to getting tired out by running. But when forced to go at it solidly for the past two or so hours, he could feel the exertion taking its toll on his body. His cell door clicked open and Stryker entered, a malicious smile plastered onto his face. Two soldiers entered from behind him and marched straight towards Peter.

"Whoa, hey. What do you want?" He asked backing away from the soldiers in a blur, as far as his chains would allow.

"Are you going to behave? Or am I going to have to make you?" Stryker asked holding up the remote for the collar in his hand.

"Chill man. There's no need to use that. No need. Just put it away." Peter said, eyes widening in fear. He wanted more than anything to keep running out of the way of the men, but knew that if he kept it up he'd end up a writhing mess on the floor.

The two guards roughly grabbed an arm each, forcing his manacled wrists out towards Stryker who skilfully unlocked the chains. He allowed the links of metal to drop to the floor as he clamped another, shorter chain, onto the metal cuffs, trapping the kid's hands together tightly. One guard stood behind him, arms looped around the kid's elbows as he pinned him against his gorilla body, keeping him still with inhuman strength.

"What ... What are you..." His confused protests were cut short by a rough hand gripping his hair and forcing his silver head back as the other guard shoved a rag into his mouth.

"Peter, your protestations are going to end up giving me a headache they're so repetitive."

Peter tried to shake off both men's grips, only to receive nothing but excruciating pain as electricity coursed through his body. He sagged in the gorilla guard's iron grip, screaming in pain from behind the gag. After a painfully long ten seconds the electric pulse was cut off, eliciting a pained groan of relief from the young mutant. A cold sheen of sweat glistened on his pale body as he took several deep breaths into his aching lungs, trying to steady his heart respiration rates. He could hear the foggy sound of tape being ripped from a roll and could feel rough hands on his jaw, forcing his head to stay still as the tape was fastened over his mouth. His vision fuzzed and blurred and, as the two soldiers went to pull him to his feet, and slowly became nothing but darkness. The soldiers took an arm each, following their leader out of the room with the dead weight of the speedster being dragged along the floor between them. The heavy sounds of breathing the kid was making through his nose was the only thing that confirmed to them that he was still alive, thank heavens for that. If they'd been dragging the literal dead weight of the boy between them then serious repercussions would befall them both. Regardless of the fact that it would have been by Stryker's hand that the boy would have met his end.

The pair dragged the boy down the hallway, head lolling uselessly forwards and his trainer-covered feet squeaking as they were dragged down a flight of stairs. With the swipe of a card, a heavy steel door was opened by Stryker, and the soldiers followed him in, dragging the Maximoff boy with them.

Stryker walked around the other side of the metal table and tapped it impatiently, signalling for them to strap him down as Stryker pulled on a white lab coat and pulled out his leather-bound notebook, placing it down gently on the counter.

"Dismissed." He told the soldiers once the chain linking the manacles had been removed and the kid strapped, spread eagle, to the table, gaffa tape still securing the gag in place. He turned to face the two doctors in the room with a smile, "He's all yours. But I don't want him dead quite yet, remember that this time." Stryker said leaning casually against the wall, "He could prove to be a very useful asset."

"Yes, Sir." Nodded the two women before setting about their business.

Dr Abi Taylor motioned to her colleague, Dr Sophia de Sousa Alves, to prep the syringes whilst she set up the equipment to carry out the blood examinations. Taylor approached the boy, wheeling the tray of needles and tubes with her, before picking up a needle and easing it into the vein in the crook of the boy's elbow. Thick red blood flowed freely into the tube and, one it was full, she switched it out for a fresh one, clipping it onto the needle in his arm. Once she had seven vials of the kid's blood, she pulled out the needle and, using a puff of cotton wool, dabbed at the puncture wound until it stopped bleeding.

Peter groggily awoke as she wheeled the trolley back over to the counter. When was the last time he'd actually slept of his own free will, without being gassed, or forced to run until he dropped, or shocked by the collar until his body couldn't cope. He could only hope that the electricity was having no lasting effect on any of his organs. Opening his eyes, he tried to figure out where he was. The bright lights blinking down at him were different to the ones he'd spent the last however many days waking up to, and the bustle of activity in the room was new. Peter tried to sit up but, to his dismay, found he couldn't move at all, what with the nine straps pinning his body to the harsh metal table. A strap was fastened around his forehead, preventing him from moving his head so much as an inch, and two were fastened around his wrists next to the manacles with two more around his biceps, another two held his thighs down and the final two kept his ankles pinned. He tried to speak around the gag but it came out as nothing but a mildly annoyed gargle of noise despite the fact he was yelling in fury.

"Subject is awake." spoke Dr Alves as she moved over to him and forced his eye wide open before shining a penlight into it to gauge the response of his pupils, Peter tried to move his head away before she moved onto the other eye but found that the strap over his forehead had absolutely no give, "Pupils are responsive, though a little sluggish. Presumably due to the high voltage it just experienced as the subject is not yet fully lucid."

Did she just call him an 'it'? Peter scowled, wrenching his wrists wildly in a bid to free them. His body was moving violently fast within its constraints as he tried desperately to free himself, making the table itself tremble and shake and causing it to knock against the tray of surgical tools, sending them tumbling, with the clink of metal on stone, to the ground.

The doctor who had called him an 'it' muttered something unintelligible under her breath as she glanced up at Stryker.

"Peter I would be more than happy to push this button and send out an order to shoot your mother dead." Stryker warned him, voice like ice piercing through his heart.

Finally, Peter stilled and Alves busied herself again with sticking multiple electrodes to his bare chest. Peter glared bloody murder up at her as she wired the cold electrodes up to a variety of machines, the only one within Peter's line of sight being the heart monitor. His heart beat super fast anyway, but coupled with the panic that had been growing inside of him, he highly doubted it would even show up on the screen. A loud solitary bleep filled the air, causing Stryker and the two doctors to look up at the monitor in confusion.

"He's moving therefore he's alive and I was able to take his blood, ergo blood is being pumped around his body. His heart must be beating at a frequency too high for the monitor to detect." Taylor concluded, looking up from her blood samples. Peter frowned at the blood, had she taken it from him while he was out? It was the only way she could have done it, even so, Peter couldn't help but feel even more vulnerable than he did before.

Taylor went back to inspecting her blood samples while Alves, much to Peter's reluctance, pulled off his shoes and socks and took a large silver pair of scissors and began to cut off his jeans – a pair that he really liked for that matter – leaving him only in his boxers and feeling very exposed, a shiver moved down his spine as his body began to register the cold in the room, although none of the three others in the room seemed to give a shit.

"Sir," Taylor piped up and Stryker made his way over to her, his stride brimming with overconfidence that made Peter want to stick a crocodile up his arse, hell, maybe even two, "He has extreme hemochromatosis which means that his blood iron count is far higher than the average man his age. But surprisingly, it isn't actually causing him any harm. In fact, given how high his heart rate is I think he needs it this high to get enough oxygen around his body when running otherwise he would become fatigued in seconds."

Peter couldn't help but notice how she referred to him as actual person as opposed to the other doctor who seemed of think he wasn't worth it. It really shouldn't have been the thing that he spent the most time dwelling on, he really should've been trying to formulate a plan to escape, but being referred to as something less than human, it brought forwards a whole bunch of unwanted memories from school. All those 'normal' kids making fun of his hair… Peter clenched his fists, no, he had to push those thoughts and memories to the back of his mind. The cool touch of a scalpel on his flesh brought him back to the real world. Alves stood at the far end of the table, holding a silver scalpel in one hand as she gripped his lower leg with the other. She pushed the blade through his skin, wrenching a muffled scream from within him as she dragged it along, excruciatingly slowly - it was a though she wasn't even trying to be quick about it, the sick bitch seemed to enjoy the pain he was in. Peter's back arched as he tried to let out a yell from behind the gag, as soon as he removed the scalpel he sagged back down onto the cold surgical table breathing heavily. He was only granted a second's relief however, before her gloved fingers started poking into the wound, stretching the cut so as to get a nice clean view of his calf muscle. Peter was squirming and sweating, desperate to remove his leg from her grip but the leather strap around his ankle and thigh and the iron grip the doctor had on his shin kept his leg firmly in place.

"Extremely dense muscle tissue. Arteries pumping at very high rate, they're practically a blur, Sir. If we could understand how his body deals with the stress of speed we could perhaps even begin to improve the capabilities of regular humans." she said as she poked around within his leg, sending stabbing pains shooting up his spine. Peter groaned and screamed, mentally begging her to stop and take her hands out of his calf. He didn't want to be an experiment. He didn't want be some sort of breakthrough. He just wanted to go back home to his mother and sister. She took ahold of two short metal rods and shoved them into the incision, keeping the wound help open. Her hands fetched a small pair of surgical scissors, a set of tweezers, and a few Petri dishes and she sliced into his muscle tissue, pulling out small chunks and placing them into the dishes before she sealed them closed. Peter's fists were clenched in pain, his nails digging into his palms as she screwed with his leg. His eyes were bloodshot and a single tear trailed down his cheek. As soon as she set the instruments down, he could feel the muscle in his leg attempting to knit itself back together, but with the metal dividers in place and his wound exposed to the open air, Peter highly doubted that and progress would be made.

"Fascinating, absolutely fascinating." She muttered in awe, clearly pleaded by something she'd seen, hastily peeling off one bloodied glove and scribbling something down in Stryker's notebook before looking up at him again, "Sir, could I perhaps use the remote for a moment?" Alves asked, sending a burst of panic to shooting through Peter's body to join the sheer pain he could feel from his leg. His nails had torn through the skin of his palms and blood was slowly trickling down his palms and dripping onto the floor.

"Of course." Stryker said, striding past Dr Taylor and handing over the remote.

"Thank you, Sir." Dr Alves smirked, taking the remote in her hand, pushing her glasses back up her nose with the back of her gloved and blood covered hand. Her clean hand's thumb hovered over the button as Peter watched, eyes wide, begging her through the gag to put the remote down. The world around him moved in slow motion as her thumb pressed down on the button, sending agonising shocks through his body. The pain seemed never ending and, coupled with the agony radiating from his leg, it was a surprise he was still conscious by the time she removed her finger from the button and set the remote back down onto the counter behind her. She prodded around in his muscles a little more before removing the metal separators and peeling off the second bloodied glove, "Leg's all yours, Abi." she said to Dr Taylor as she began to write up the rest of her findings in the notebook Stryker provided for her. Peter let out a breath of relief, she seemed done with poking around inside him for the time being.

Dr Taylor reluctantly looked up from her blood sampling and nodded, "As soon as I've extracted his DNA from the blood." she said, already onto her third vial for her third test. Brushing her strawberry blonde hair out of her eyes and behind her small ears, she looked back down at her work.

Alves nodded and went to collect a clean scalpel from the tray along with two plastic disks, one slightly smaller and flatter than the other. She moved over to Peter's chest. It seemed his relief was short lived. His back arched as she sliced into his left pectoral muscle, pain was still pounding through his leg, her gloved fingers picked through the flesh and muscle, tearing deeply through it - being careful to avoid his arteries. She slipped the larger disk into his body, as closely to his heart as she could without causing him to bleed out all over the table. Peter groaned, barely managing to stay conscious as she extracted her fingers from the wound and began to stitch it up. His leg was still dripping blood onto the table, though the blood seemed to have clotted and he wasn't at any risk of bleeding out any time soon. Once satisfied that her subject wasn't about to die on her, she made another incision with a fresh scalpel into the tender flesh of his forearm. Peter's jaw clenched tightly as pain shot through his arm, his whole body felt as though it was on fire. Alves slipped the smaller plastic disk deep into the boy's arm and began to roughly stitch up the wound. Peter squeezed his eyes shut, but tears still leaked from them due to the short stabbing pains that floated through his nervous system at each pinprick. He was on the verge of unconsciousness when Alves finished, taking as many deep breaths as he could through his nose, he fought his way back to lucidity. He desperately wanted to slip into oblivion and to be free from the pain, if only for a short while, but he refused to leave his unconscious body to the mercy of the psychopaths in the room.

"Ideally I'd want to take a look at his heart." Alves told her boss, "His nervous system too. The rate at which his neurons must work at must be phenomenal."

"We're not killing him yet, Alves. But I assure you, when he dies you get to lead the autopsy." Stryker replied.

Peter was mentally throwing every curse word he knew at the pair of prize dicks. Even though the gag was stopping him from verbally swearing at them, it didn't stop him from raising his hand as best he could and giving them both the finger.

"You got spirit kid. I'll give you that." Stryker chuckled, as though he hadn't been just talking about murder as though it were something as trivial as afternoon tea.

A short while later Taylor stood up and moved over to their test subject, she snapped on a pair of surgical gloves and picked up the surgical thread and needle from the tray on the main counter. After removing the needle from its sterile packaging and doing the same to the thread, she threaded the needle and crouched down by his leg, "This will hurt." she warned him, wishing she was allowed to use an anaesthetic on him, but Stryker forbade it and Sophia de Sousa Alves didn't seem to want to use it either. With a sigh, she began to stitch up the wound, doing her best to ignore the whimpers of pain coming from the kid. She managed to complete the task fairly quickly and grabbed a bandage from the white marble counter behind her. Carefully, she wrapped Peter's lower leg up in the bandage and, once she was sure it was secure but not too tight that it would restrict his blood flow, she returned to her desk. Peter glanced at her was she walked away, gratitude in his eyes for not letting him bleed out all over the table. As she inspected the extracted DNA she couldn't help but feel a sense of déjà vu. Something about this boy's DNA was bugging her, and it wasn't the fact that it possessed, what had been nicknamed as, the X gene. She spent a few minutes in deep concentration, furiously clicking away on the computer, oblivious to the fact that everyone in the room was watching her. Eventually she pulled up a set of information on another mutant's DNA and ran it against Peter's.

Alves had attached more electrodes to the subject's forehead and torso and had reached over to grab the remote when she was interrupted by Stryker speaking.
"Well I never…" Stryker muttered in amazement as he stood behind her, "This is more than I bargained for, much much more."

Peter tried to turn his head to see what they were seeing, even Dr I-Have-An-Obsession-With-Cutting-Into-People-And-Messing-With-Their-Muscles dropped what she was doing to see what discovery they had stumbled upon in the subject's DNA.

"Why didn't you tell me kid?" Stryker asked approaching him with a vicious grin plastered over his face.

"Tell you what?" Peter tried, and failed, to ask bravely behind the gag, grateful that he hadn't been electrocuted again, but unsure as to which secret he was supposedly keeping.

Stryker seemed to figure out what it was Peter was saying by the confusion on his face, "You did know your father was Magneto right?" he asked with a hint of amusement on his face, "No?" he asked in response to Peter's wide eyes of panic and confusion, "My men are hunting him down as we speak, and when I find him. I'll be sure to tell him; it's a boy. You're his little monster." Stryker chuckled, grabbing his remote, as he exited the room, pulling the door closed with a buzz behind him, he'd originally thought finding the boy presented him with a goldmine of power, now he knew that it presented him with so much more.

Peter lay back on the table, mind running over what he'd just learnt. Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto aka the man he broke out of the Pentagon aka the mutant terrorist, was his father? They had to be lying, it had to be some sort of ruse… what exactly they hoped it would achieve he wasn't sure… but it couldn't be true. But then again, his mother had known a man who could control metal… but that didn't mean anything did it? Knowing someone wasn't the same as having sex with someone… great, now he was thinking about Magneto having sex his mum. They had to be lying… they had to be. But deep within him Peter knew they weren't, he really was Magneto's son. Fuck.

The jet landed silently behind a belt of trees that shielded it from both the road and the compound and Erik stood up waiting for Hank to open the door.

"Hank, you stay here and watch Charles. And be ready. We may need a speedy getaway." Erik said sternly, glancing towards the open door of the cockpit as Hank tapped a button on remotely lowered the steps.

"Remember, get rid of the block first. I can't help you if I can't get in." Charles reminded him.

Erik glanced back at him and nodded, "I'll do what I can Charles." he said before dramatically floating out of the plane as Charles rolled his eyes.

Always with the melodrama, Erik…

Shut up, Charles.

Charles chuckled and shook his head, focusing his gaze out the window.

Erik moved through the air unnoticed by those patrolling the grounds below, he silently landed on the roof of the compound and crept over to the trapdoor that lead down into the depths of the building.

I'll lose you as soon as you enter Erik. Disable whatever's blocking me out first. Charles instructed as Erik, using his powers, silently opened the trapdoor and eased himself down the ladder.

He found himself on a suspended metal pathway that seemed to run the length of the building and levitated himself into the air so as to move along it in silence. A guard walked along the corridor below him, periodically checking each room they walked past. That, presumably, was where the other mutants were being kept.

"I've found them Charles." Erik whispered out of instinct before remembering that his friend wouldn't be able to hear him. As he floated along the metal walkway he noticed, at the end, a generator. Moving silently towards it he could sense the wires that ran from the machine into the walls, but he would also sense the wires within the building from the main power grid and this one didn't seem to be corrected to the building's electrics in the same way. But then again, it could just be a backup generator, although Erik highly doubted that alternative. With a small hand movement, he disconnected the wires within it, tearing them apart and tangling them together into a complex mess. "Charles?" he whispered again.

Erik! Came Charles' relieved voice into his mind, What was it?

Some sort of frequency generator I assume. Erik said as he mentally tore a bunch of wires out of it, now it would take a very long time to fix.

Have you located Peter? Charles asked seeing what Erik was doing through his eyes.

Not yet, but there are a bunch of cells down there, there's a chance he and the other mutants may be within one of them. I'm going to go and check it out.

Be careful Erik, and please don't kill anyone. Charles said sounding worried.

But Erik didn't reply as he crouched down, reaching for the guard's gun. His mind locked onto the metal and, with a sharp hand gesture, the gun slammed into the head of the guard, knocking him unconscious. Happy Charles? He asked floating himself down to the floor before waving the cell doors open.

Peter's in the west wing in the first level of the basement. Charles replied, I'll take care of these mutants, I'll let them know where to go.

Erik nodded and ran down the corridor past the confused mutants as they emerged from their cells, "Get out of here!" he hissed as he ran past them towards the stairwell. The mutants nodded, some looking confused, as Charles entered their minds, instructing them on where to go. The mutants ran in the opposite direction, tearing towards the eastern stairwell, one boy ran after the others, eyes scrunched shut, gripping tightly onto the hand of a young girl, seemingly made of glass, as she led him after the others. Erik has no time to ponder over the boy's mutation before a screeching alarm blared out throughout the building making Erik curse in German, "So much for the element of surprise then." he muttered, "If you want a fight then you'll get a fight." he growled as he searched for metal reinforcements within the concrete walls and floor. With a slight smirk he concentrated his power on the iron reinforcements of the stairs and tore out the entire stairwell, tossing it through the outer wall as though it were nothing, creating a gaping hole to the outside world. He levitated himself down onto the first level of the basement and ran along the corridor trying to find the boy. Troops of soldiers blocked his way down the corridor, metal guns aimed towards him. It seemed they hadn't known who had broken in and opted for their usual weapons. Big mistake.

Erik don't kill them! Charles butted back into the man's head, he knew better than to try

and convince the man to let them live by reminding him that they were "just following

orders".

The soldiers took aim, guns clicking before they fired. Erik calmly held a hand up in the air, causing the bullets to freeze where they were. Realisation of their mistake dawned on the faces of the soldiers as Erik sent the bullets flying back at them, not aiming to kill, just aiming to maim. There were gasps of agony as the bullets tore through the flesh of the men, and a chorus of yells and Erik grabbed ahold of the metal buckles of their uniforms and effortlessly flung them all back and into a wall, where they collapsed in a boneless heap.

Happy Charles? Erik asked bitterly as he approached the room outside which the soldiers had been positioned. He tore the metal door off its hinges, dropping the crumpled sheet of steel to the floor with a clatter. Erik froze at the sight that greeted him.

Behind a blood soaked table stood one woman proudly, plastic gun pointed right at him. The gun in the second woman's hand shook, fear evident on her face, she really didn't want to die, but she didn't want to kill someone either.

Erik's attention, however, was focused on the two other people in the room. A young-ish looking colonel stood with a younger looking silver haired man in front of him. A strong arm was wrapped around the boy's neck with a small plastic box in hand. The second arm wielded a plastic gun, shoving the barrel against the side of the boy's head.

"Come any closer, Magneto. And I shoot your son dead."

Longest chapter yet! Hope you're all still enjoying it! Please drop me a review to let me know what you're thinking!