Disclaimer: Neocolai does not own X-Men or anything related to the franchise.

Question of the day: What does Magneto do in his free time? (Besides rule the world and challenge Charles to games of chess determining peoples' lives….)

"So, who was she?"

For once it wasn't a nagging insistence. ("Whadja do man, whadja doooo?")

It was simply… asked.

Erik glanced up from The Art of War, prepared to shut down the conversation regardless.

Anticipating brown eyes stared back at him. Impatient limbs were wrapped around the back of a chair, forced immobile for the sake of a question. Sighing, Erik took his time laying the book aside; marking the page just so; mulling over the last sentence so that he wouldn't be lost when he returned to the chapter.

He expected Peter to grab himself a soda and give the dog a belly rub in the meantime. Maybe even snatch a kiss from Jubilee, if she was his type. Perhaps the kid did accomplish all of that in ten seconds – Erik would never be able to tell from his scope of time. He only knew that by the time he turned around, the chair was practically humming with Quicksilver's impatience.

"Nina was my daughter," Erik said softly. Case disclosed. End of conversation.

"So I had another sister?" Loss accompanied curiosity in Peter's voice, and Erik didn't have a chance to feel resentful that Magda had found satisfaction with another man. "What was she like? Did she look like me? Cause it's kind of annoying being the only one with silver hair – not like I hate it, man, but everyone thinks I dyed it and I want proof that – "

"Peter."

The kid shut up.

Exhaling quietly, Erik knit his hands around his knee and leaned back. It was raining outside. Suiting.

"She was very young." His voice husked, and his heart begged him to stop. She was his only. She wasn't meant to be shared.

"Six or seven?" Peter guessed after a pause. "I mean, you were gone for a while and…."

He was glared into silence.

"This isn't the time," Erik said dismissively. He moved to rise, and was stopped by a flutter of silver and aghast dark eyes.

"Wait – I won't interrupt again, I promise." Nodding emphatically, Peter stepped back and jammed his hands into his pockets. It must have been brutal, forcing himself to stand so still.

Danged kid had a way of creeping past his walls.

"Eight," Erik said curtly. "Dark hair. She … she looked like her mother."

Peter nodded again. His eyes were wide and troubled, and Erik wondered what he would have glimpsed in that expression had the boy witnessed his onslaught on D.C.

He tried not to think about it.

"She was a mutant," he continued quietly. "Inexperienced and poorly practiced." He should have trained her. Given her more exercises instead of stories. He should have treated her like a soldier. Maybe then they would have left her behind. Breathing.

"What could she do?" Peter asked.

"She…." She entranced the woodland. Surely the flowers curtsied when she passed by, and the brook hailed her as queen. "She was closely affiliated with animals. They trusted her."

They protected her when she was frightened in those last moments.

But like En Sabah Nur, they couldn't save her life.

"She's gone now," Erik concluded. He would not speak further.

Not without weeping.

The kid vanished.

Disgusted, Erik flung The Art of War across the room. Of course, the boy got what he wanted and off he went, fleeing to his realm of methodical time as though he could escape all his troubles if he ran fast enough. Maybe he could. Maybe he'd spent the last ten years in his mother's basement. Negligent, irresponsible –

"Here."

Half-out of his chair, Erik stared at the breathless speedster. Silver hair was flurried with haste, and clammy hands proffered a stone raven. Stunned, Erik looked from the bird to the boy (his son, however strange it was to associate at times), as Peter rambled an explanation.

"I didn't steal it – it was on Petra's desk – she was going to sell it, I think, so I left some cash. I've been doing odd jobs for the professor – mainly delivering the mail for him, I guess it's faster than the postal system, so I use most of it for snacks but I had some left over and I thought maybe she liked birds a lot, I don't know, Proff says you seem to associate with them a lot – not that I was asking what you might like for Father's Day, seeing as it's later in Poland, but just out of curiosity and Moriah says it's polite to give someone something if you've hurt them and I shouldn't have pushed about Nina, I'm really sorry and I promise I won't bring her up again, I just wanted to know – "

"Peter."

"Yeah, got it," Peter mumbled, clipping his mouth shut. He fumbled awkwardly with the bird until Erik tugged it from his hands.

Even if it was stone and immune to her soft voice, Nina would have loved it.

Erik lightly clapped the stone feathers and nodded.

"Thank you."

It didn't soothe the wound. Grief was a brutal gore in his heart, and his little bird could not be replaced.

But there was someone else to father now, and the renewed glow in his eyes was worth it.