Chapter 2
The signs had crept in slowly, insidious in their arrival, like a tide inching closer to shore—inevitable, unstoppable. It started with hunger, a gnawing, endless thing that no meal could satisfy, as if his body had become something separate from him, something demanding. Then there was the weight of it, subtle at first—a slight swell beneath his navel, too small to be noticed, but there all the same. And finally, the sickness. The cruel betrayal of his own body, wretched and violent each morning, leaving him heaving and gasping, empty and knowing.
But it was the scent that mocked him most. That quiet, laughing thing in the air, whispering the truth long before he was ready to hear it. He had tried—God, he had tried—to rid himself of Bobby, to burn every remnant of him from his body, to shatter what remained until the glass was dust, too fine, too small to ever be put back together. But Bobby always found him. Always gathered the fragments, careless and clumsy, piling them together in a way that was never quite whole, but never truly gone.
And so here he was. Standing under the fluorescent lights of a rundown convenience store, the cold sting of Magneto’s presence beside him, the pregnancy test heavy in his hands.
They had drawn looks—of pity, of disgust, of something unreadable laced with fear. The cashier had hesitated before handing over the test, her gaze flickering between John and Magneto with something like apprehension, before finally offering it for free. A silent gesture, one that spoke louder than words, one that confirmed what they all already knew.
Magneto had laughed then, a deep, guttural sound, heavy as stone. He had placed a crisp twenty on the counter despite her refusal, his voice smooth as steel when he told her to keep the change.
But John wasn’t foolish.He had seen it—the glint in Magneto’s eye, the way something unspoken thrummed beneath his skin, something sharp, something eager. The old man had always been a man of war, a man of power, and this—this—was something new. Something he had never accounted for.
A child born of fire and ice creates obsidian. Dark and consuming, forged in the violence of molten heat, yet cooled, tempered into something impenetrable. A weapon, perhaps. Or maybe a legacy. And for the first time, John had seen Magneto smile. Not for him, for what he was, but for the thing growing inside him. A future. A war waiting to happen.
John had no say in it. He knew that. There was no choice to be made, no decision that hadn’t already been decided for him. Abortion was out of the question. Who in their right mind would dare get that close to a Brotherhood mutant? Who would risk it? Not that John wanted anyone up there anyway. No, this was his burden to carry. Bobby’s last, lingering touch—inside him, inescapable, undeniable. Another piece of shattered glass that he would never be able to wash away.
He had known. Of course he had known. The truth had been woven into his very skin, nestled deep within his bones, whispering in the ache of his stomach, in the way his body no longer felt like his own. But knowing had not softened the blow. Knowing had not prepared him for the sight of it—those stark, unyielding lines staring back at him, a confirmation he had never needed but still dreaded.
And so he broke, not quietly, nor gracefully. He sobbed—ugly, wrecked, snot and spit and shaking hands gripping the sink as if it could somehow anchor him, as if the porcelain beneath his fingertips could stop the way his world was splitting apart. The sound of it was raw, animalistic, like something torn straight from his chest, something too heavy to be contained. It came in waves, unstoppable, unrelenting, gasping breaths swallowed whole by the four walls of the dimly lit bathroom.
His knees hit the tile, his body folding in on itself, his stomach curling tight, arms wrapping around his middle as if he could squeeze the truth out of himself, as if he could press it down, hold it in, refuse to acknowledge it. But the weight of it was already there, pressing back, an undeniable presence, something living, something growing. Something that wasn’t his. It hurt in a way he couldn’t name, a wound that festered in the spaces between grief and rage. He had spent so long trying to erase Bobby from his body, from his mind, from his very existence, only for Bobby to root himself deeper, to leave a mark that John could never scrub away, never burn clean.
He had lost the war before he had even picked up his sword. And now, all he could do was kneel on the cold, unforgiving floor, his hands trembling, his breath stuttering, staring down at the proof of it in his shaking hands.
The months dragged on him like a beast with hooked claws, sinking deep into his shoulders, carving jagged wounds down his back with every passing day. He could feel the weight of time itself pressing down, thick and merciless, reshaping him into something unrecognizable. His chest swelled, his body softened, his stomach curved gently outward, and he hated it. He loathed it. Every change was a betrayal, a quiet, insidious thing that stole parts of him when he wasn’t looking.
People called him beautiful. Pretty. A perfect omega. They cooed at him, smiled at the way he carried the burden so naturally, as if he had been made for this, as if this was what his body had been waiting for all along. Their words felt like a brand against his skin, burning him from the inside out.
He wanted to claw at himself, wanted to dig his nails into his own flesh and tear it out, take back what had been stolen from him. But it wasn’t its fault.
It was just a cluster of cells, multiplying blindly, feeding off him with a hunger it didn’t understand. It drained him, bled him dry, hollowed out his insides with greedy little hands he couldn’t yet see. It took from him relentlessly, pulling from his organs, leeching from his bones, siphoning the light from his eyes.
And still, he ran. He ran until his legs gave out, until his knees hit the earth and his fingers dug into the sodden ground, trembling, lost. The rain pounded against him, cold and heavy, each drop like a fist against his aching spine. It filled the cracks, the gaps in him, but it didn’t soothe. It only made them wider, only made the emptiness more unbearable.
He found a warehouse, not unlike the one Magneto had claimed as their temporary home. It was abandoned, skeletal, empty enough to be his. It would do, he told himself. It was no place to give birth. And yet, here he was.
He still couldn’t bring himself to call it what it was. Not a baby. Not a pup. Not theirs. But it was Bobby’s.
Bobby had found another way in. Another way to dig his hands into John’s life, to carve himself into his future, to exist inside him even after John had spent so long trying to rip him out. Bobby always did. And now, John had to accept it. He had to have it, he couldn’t kill it, he couldn’t. Because it wasn’t its fault, it was innocent, even as it drained him. Even as it made his bones brittle beneath the weight of something he had never wanted to carry.
The birthing was agony, a raw, all-consuming suffering that ripped through him with the force of something ancient, something primal. It was unlike anything he had ever endured—worse than broken bones, worse than burns that blistered and peeled, worse than the ache of old wounds reopening. This was not just pain; it was unmaking, as if something had reached inside him and scooped out his insides, tearing through muscle and sinew, stretching him open with no mercy, no reprieve. It burned like his own fire, relentless and searing, but there was no control here, no power to wield it—only the helplessness of a body surrendering to something far greater than his own will.
His skin was pale, slick with sweat that poured from him in endless rivulets, soaking through the sheets beneath him. He trembled, every muscle taut, locked in a cycle of pain and exhaustion, his gasping breaths swallowed by the sharp, guttural sobs that wracked his chest. His throat was raw, his voice hoarse from screaming, his nails tearing into the fabric of the mattress, gripping onto something—anything—to ground himself as his body split itself apart. Tears pricked at the edges of his vision, unbidden, unwanted, yet impossible to stop, a betrayal of the war waging inside him.
Somewhere between the waves of blinding pain, he cursed Bobby’s name, spat it out between ragged breaths like a plea and a condemnation all at once. He damned him for that one stupid night, for that rundown, piss-yellow motel with its flickering neon sign, for the sheets that smelled faintly of bleach and regret. He damned him for the way his lips had been soft, for the way his body had been solid beneath John’s hands, for the laughter that had cracked through the air like something bright, something that had made the world feel lighter—even if just for a moment.
But even as he lay there, body breaking open, consumed by pain that felt like it might swallow him whole, he knew the truth. That night was a mistake, an impulsive, reckless thing born from something neither of them had the words to name. And yet, John had never truly regretted it. Not then. Not even now.
Now, though, he sat slumped against the cold metal wall of whatever empty building he had stumbled into, an abandoned husk of a place that had no name, no purpose, nothing but walls to shield him from the world he had left behind. He had run from all of it—from Magneto, from The Brotherhood, from Bobby, from the weight of everything pressing down on him like a mountain he could no longer bear. And yet, here he was, with no one and nothing except the thing in his arms, the small, shrieking creature pressed awkwardly against his unnaturally swollen chest.
The sound was unbearable, a piercing wail that felt like it was splitting his skull open from the inside, reverberating through the hollow spaces of his mind like something clawing to get out. It dug into his bones, gnawed at his nerves, a relentless, needy noise that had no words, no meaning beyond its sheer existence. He grit his teeth, his head pressing back against the wall as if that could somehow steady him, but the weight of it all—of the screaming, of the blood, of his own trembling exhaustion—was sinking him further, dragging him deeper into something he didn’t have the strength to fight anymore.
And yet, despite the mess, despite the ruin of it all, the thing in his arms was beautiful.
It was raw, freshly born into the world, slick with blood and whatever else had been ripped from John’s body to make room for it. Its skin was velvety and red beneath the mess, impossibly soft, impossibly small, impossibly real. It looked like them, like him and Bobby, like a fractured reflection of the two lives that had created it, an inescapable truth staring back at him in the shape of something fragile and new. And the sight of it—of its tiny, delicate fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, of the way it breathed in quiet, shallow gasps between its cries—made something inside him turn rancid.
Disgust curled up his throat, thick and choking. This is disgusting.
Everything about it—the birth, the blood, the unbearable softness of the thing in his arms. And the smell, God, the smell, the thick, metallic scent of blood filling the air, coating everything, seeping into the cracks of the concrete beneath him like something permanent, something that would never wash away. He could feel it—warm and sticky between his thighs, painting his skin in deep crimson, a grotesque reminder of what had been torn from him, of what had been taken. The blood hadn’t stopped. It was still trickling, slow but steady, an unceasing, insistent flow, a constant drip, drip, drip of something leaving him behind.
Was this normal? Was he supposed to be bleeding like this? Was he dying? Probably. Maybe. He wasn’t sure if he cared.
Feeding the thing had been its own form of torment, a cruel test of endurance that he failed over and over again. The screams were unbearable, a jagged, grating sound that fractured the already fragile spaces in his mind, gnawed at his sanity with every passing hour. It never stopped—high, desperate, demanding, piercing through the thick fog of his exhaustion like a blade. It clawed at him, pushed him to the brink, forced him to acknowledge its needs when all he wanted was to forget it existed.
The first time it tried to latch onto him, bile rose thick in his throat. The sensation was wrong, so horribly wrong, a violation of something he couldn’t even name. It made his stomach churn violently, his hands shaking as he yanked the thing away from him, gasping, repulsed. He barely had the presence of mind to turn his head before he was vomiting beside himself, body wracked with dry heaves even after there was nothing left to expel. He wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, the taste of acid burning at the back of his throat, but the damage was already done.
Still, the pup screamed.
John had no choice but to shift it closer, his entire body recoiling at the feel of its fragile weight against him. His skin crawled where it brushed against him, the warmth of it almost unbearable, a tether he didn’t ask for, didn’t want. He didn’t know how to do this, didn’t know why he was even trying.
By the time two days passed, he was nothing more than a wreck—his limbs leaden, his eyes hollowed out by exhaustion, his entire body trembling under the weight of needing to keep something alive. It never stopped crying, never stopped needing, its tiny, helpless body in constant demand of things John had no strength to give. Food, warmth, comfort. He could barely keep himself alive, how the hell was he supposed to care for something else?
He tried. He swore he tried. But he could only stomach feeding it for five minutes before nausea roiled through him again, before he had to tear it away from himself, shaking, breathless, and force an hour of space between them. It wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t enough. The thing must have been starving, and yet, it still clung to life, still screamed for him, still begged without words.
Two days of stubborn silence. Two days of telling himself he didn’t need help. Two days of trying to convince himself that he could do this on his own, that he had to do this on his own. But by the end of it, his body was betraying him, his vision blurring at the edges, his mind slowing down with the creeping weight of exhaustion so thick he thought he might pass out.
With a groan and a grimace, he finally gave in. Fumbling for his phone with unsteady fingers, he dialed the only number that would lead to results, the only name he could force past his lips without choking on it. Magneto arrived within two hours. Two singular hours. John should have expected it. He knew the old man would never hesitate to collect something of value.
The air in the warehouse shifted the moment he stepped inside, steel-cold, thick with the unspoken. Magneto took in the sight before him, and for a fleeting moment, something like surprise flickered across his face. Maybe it was disappointment. Probably. But John didn’t have the energy to care, didn’t have the strength to sift through the layers of whatever this was.
He hadn’t moved from where he had given birth, still sitting in the wreckage of it, pale, bloodied, hollowed out. He could feel Magneto’s gaze on him, weighing, assessing, calculating. The pup wailed in his arms, squirming, kicking weakly against his chest. John kept it at a distance, away from his body, wrapped clumsily in his own shirt in a half-hearted attempt to protect it from the cold.
He wasn’t sure how it was still alive. Between the trauma of its birth, the starvation, the sheer lack of anything remotely safe or hygienic, it should have died already. But it hadn’t. It still screamed, it still clung to him, still demanded to be acknowledged, still refused to let go. John couldn’t tell if that was a miracle or a curse.
Magneto approached with careful steps, measured and deliberate, as if drawing too close too quickly might spook John into bolting. There was something unsettling about the way he moved, the quiet patience of a predator tempered into something gentler, something almost human. It reminded John of the way people spoke to wounded animals, to creatures too small and broken to defend themselves. And maybe that’s what he was now—something wounded, something small, curled around the fragile life in his arms, clinging to it not out of love but out of obligation.
For a moment, Magneto’s sharp, calculating eyes softened, just enough to be noticeable, as he looked at the screaming, red-skinned thing wrapped in John’s old, tattered band shirt.
“A miracle,” Magneto murmured, reverence slipping into his tone, his voice almost hushed, as though he were gazing upon something holy.
John flinched. It didn’t feel like a miracle. It felt like a mistake, like something that had crawled its way out of him unbidden, something that shouldn’t exist but did. It felt wrong.
And yet, Magneto’s weathered fingers stretched out, brushing against the pup’s cheek, the touch unbearably gentle. John’s chest tightened at the sight of it, a sharp, curling thing that twisted somewhere deep inside him. He wasn’t sure if it was disgust, wasn’t sure if it was the long-buried instincts that had been missing since the moment he realized what was growing inside him. But here it was—proof of something alive, something undeniably his.
And he had made it. John had made something pure, something untouched by the ruin that had followed him his whole life. He had created something fragile, something innocent, something that had not yet learned what it meant to suffer. It was beautiful in a way that made his stomach turn. He still felt the disgust every time he looked at it, still felt the weight of his own revulsion pressing down on him, suffocating, relentless.
But still, he adjusted. It was slow at first, reluctant, but inevitable. The thing needed him, and for all his hatred, for all his disgust, he couldn’t let it starve. He increased the feeding time bit by bit, forcing himself to endure it, to stomach the nausea that clawed up his throat with every press of its tiny mouth against his skin. Every day, he allowed it to linger longer, let it take from him what it needed, until eventually, it was feeding as much as it should, drinking enough to gain weight, enough to grow.
Magneto assured him it had not been deprived long enough to suffer permanent harm. That should have been a relief, but John wasn’t sure he cared enough to feel relieved. He didn’t want to abandon it, didn’t want to hurt it, but it wasn’t love that kept him here. It wasn’t tenderness that had him staring at its small, helpless face in the dark hours of the night. It was duty. It was the unshakable knowing that this was his, and that no one else would bear it for him.
People always said raising a pup was hard, but that it would be worth it. They promised that the love would come, that he would adore the scent of its skin, that he would crave the warmth of its tiny body against his own, that he would never want to leave its side. But all John could smell was spit-up milk, and all he could feel was trapped. And deep down, beneath the layers of exhaustion and quiet, festering dread, he prayed that Magneto would take it from him, finally, so he could escape the weight of it all. So he could run, leave behind the pain and the pressure and the thing that kept reminding him of a night he could never take back.
John didn’t feel like this was his pup. Not really. It felt more like he had been saddled with someone else’s burden, forced to care for a creature that demanded too much and gave nothing in return. It wanted from him constantly, without rest, without hesitation, without mercy. It pulled at him, drained him, left him hollow and raw. He couldn’t sleep. Every hour, like clockwork, the thing would wake and scream, high and piercing, cutting through the fragile spaces in his mind like shards of glass. His body ached, exhausted and sore from the toll of it all, yet it never stopped needing, never stopped pulling, never stopped taking.
He barely ate. There wasn’t time. When he wasn’t feeding it, he was trying to soothe it, trying to find some moment of silence, some fleeting second where he wasn’t listening to its cries burrowing into his skull. The few moments he managed to put it down, when it wasn’t latched to him, when it wasn’t using him up, he felt like he could breathe again. He cherished those moments, held onto them like lifelines, even as they slipped through his fingers. But they never lasted long. Maybe it was the birth—traumatic, brutal, violent—that made this all feel worse. Maybe it was those first two days, the ones where he had tried, again and again, to force himself to feed it, where he had screamed in pain and shaken with nausea at the sensation, something so deeply wrong in the act itself that it made him want to tear at his own skin.
The pup cried constantly. Loud, sharp cries that rang in his ears, even in sleep, even in the brief, fleeting moments of rest he managed to steal. It didn’t need a reason. It wailed for no discernible purpose, and yet, John had to be there always, had to keep it close, had to touch it or the screaming would begin again, over and over, until he was ready to throw himself against the walls just to make it stop. His head ached—an unbearable, splitting pain that rattled inside his skull, that vibrated through his bones, that made him want to slam his head into the cold concrete just to shake it loose. Tylenol barely touched it, barely numbed the throbbing pulse that lived behind his eyes. The screaming never stopped.
He hadn’t showered since leaving Magneto’s base. If he so much as stepped out of the room, the wailing would start again, a relentless, desperate sound that filled every crack and crevice of his soul. The idea of water, of warmth, of anything remotely resembling care for himself, felt impossible. There was no space for it. There was no time for it.
When he finally managed to lull the thing to sleep—after endless exhaustion, after it had latched onto him long enough to fall into a restless, needy slumber—John broke. Tears burned hot and unbidden as they slipped from his eyes, as he curled himself into the corner of the room, arms wrapped around his aching body, shuddering, silent. He hated this. Hated it with every fiber of his being. He hated being relied on. He hated being trapped. He hated the way it felt like he had no control, no choice, no escape.
But he couldn’t let it die. Even now, through the bitterness, through the exhaustion that made his limbs feel like lead, through the resentment that settled deep in his gut like something rotten—he couldn’t let it die. And maybe that was the only maternal instinct he had left. Don’t let it die. Nothing more, nothing less.