Disclaimer: My only rights to the X-Men universe come from First Sale rights and Fair Use. Yay, Fair Use!
A/N: This was written in response to the prompt: X-Men, Erik, coins
Keep the Change
People in concentration camps didn't use currency. Neither did lab rats being experimented on.
Erik knew how money worked, he wasn't an idiot and he hadn't been all *that* young when his family was taken, but it wasn't anything he had ever used himself.
But he used a coin when Dr. Schmidt offered him it to him and told him to move it. The first time, he only managed to move it after Schmidt killed his mother.
From then on, whenever Erik struggled to do as Schmidt said, Schmidt would offer him a coin. It was a reminder to work harder, to work faster, or else...
After the war, after the everything, after he figured out how to live in the world, he took a dollar that he had earned and purchased a soda pop.
He threw up when the cashier gave him his change.