Chapter Text
“Don't stop believin'! Hold on to that feelin'!”
Peter groaned in protest, reaching over to turn his morning alarm off as the blaring music interrupted his peaceful sleep. He squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun streaming through the curtains, and rolled out of bed haphazardly, stretching out his arms until he heard a satisfying pop.
As much as he wanted to stay in bed and lounge around, his stomach was grumbling for an early breakfast and he had chores to do this morning. With most of the students back home for the holidays, those who had decided to stay behind had the responsibility of pitching in to keep the Institute running.
Charles was working through the school’s curriculum, while Raven and Hank had spent the summer working on refining the Danger Room’s missions. Peter and his fellow X-men Scott, Kurt, Ororo and Jean had all elected to stay at the Institute over the summer, which meant that they were tasked with cleaning, dusting and general upkeep of the enormous mansion and its grounds.
Peter brushed his teeth, showered and got dressed in the space of about five minutes, pulling on his favorite Led Zeppelin t-shirt and silver jacket. His mom used to wonder at how he was so quick, and yet somehow managed to always be late for for everything.
Usually when school was in session, the hallways would be hectic in the mornings as students were getting ready for their first class of the day. Today, when Peter opened the door, there was only Kurt walking past him with a mop and bucket.
“Morning, Peter!” Kurt said cheerily, looking far too fresh-faced for such an early hour.
“Hey Kurt,” Peter said, yawning widely. “What’s with the mop?”
“Ah, a pipe burst in the basement this morning! Erik fixed the pipe, but the vater still needs to be mopped up.”
Oh, right. Erik was also at the Institute, having dropped by a few days ago for some important mutant business, the likes of which Peter wasn’t allowed to know about. Unfortunately it was impossible to eavesdrop when there was a telepath around, so he had resigned himself to staying in the dark.
As Kurt disappeared around the corner, Peter headed down to the kitchen to make himself a stack of pancakes with extra syrup. He wasn’t allowed to steal thousands of Twinkies and Ding Dongs anymore since moving out of his mom’s house, so he made up for it by helping himself to inordinate amounts of free sugary products that the Professor provided for them.
Ororo was already in the kitchen when he entered, making a fresh pot of coffee and arranging cutlery onto a tray. She gave him a bright smile as he entered.
“Morning, Peter! Coffee?” she asked, gesturing to the pot. “You look like you could use one.”
“Morning ‘ro, and yes, please,” he said, opening the fridge and rubbing his sleepy eyes. “You and Kurt are such morning people, I don’t know how you do it. You want pancakes?”
“I’ll have some blueberry pancakes, if that’s what you’re making.”
Peter checked the fridge and sure enough, they still had blueberries. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
He made the pancake mix, careful to go at normal speed to avoid whipping the batter all over the kitchen. Once he was done he heated up the pan, humming to himself cheerfully.
He could tell that today was already going to be a pretty good day; as most of the days this summer had been so far. Unlike previous summers where he’d holed up in his Mom’s basement or just sped around stealing whatever he’d liked, this year he had spent most of it helping around the mansion or spending time with friends.
It felt good to be useful for something, and to be around people who didn’t seem to mind that he lived life at a different tempo.
As he scooped some of the batter onto the pan, he heard a loud creak, followed by the telltale crash of shattering glass.
“Oh, shit!”
He turned to see Ororo standing over a mess of broken glass all over the tiled floor, hands holding open one of the cupboard doors.
“What happened?”
“I opened this cupboard and all of the glasses fell out,” she sighed. “I think the shelf is unstable.” She reached up and pushed at the shelf in question, which wobbled dangerously.
“No worries, I’ve got this. You just focus on the coffee,” Peter said, stopping her as she reached for the glass. He swept it up in record time and brushed the broken glass into the trash before Ororo could even blink. “That should be all of it, but maybe just don’t walk around barefoot.”
Ororo gave him a grateful smile, reaching for the pot to pour him a mug. “Thanks, Peter, you’re a lifesaver.”
Peter had been put on dusting duty yesterday for all of the students’ rooms, which he’d completed in about an hour before flopping onto the couch and napping for three straight hours while the others worked diligently at their chores. Then he’d been put on vacuuming duty for this morning, which would likely take a little bit longer if he wanted to avoid starting an electrical fire.
As Peter expected, he finished vacuuming every room before lunch time, and even did the hallways and all of the communal spaces as a bonus. He was pretty sure the only reason Charles hadn’t assigned him with all the housework was because the man wanted to be fair amongst the team and keep them all busy.
While he was in the process of storing away the vacuum, a familiar voice entered his mind.
‘Peter, there’s someone called Wanda on the phone for you.’
He jumped slightly at the intrusion, nearly smacking his head against the storage rack.
‘Agh! Uh, yeah, that’s-Wanda’s my sister. I’ll get it.’
‘Sorry, I thought this would be quicker than trying to find you,’ Jean said apologetically.
‘No problem,’ Peter thought. ‘I should probably get used to it.’ He would probably never get used to having voices in his head, but he didn’t need to tell her that. She probably already knew it.
He headed down to the living room, kicking his feet up onto the couch and picking up the landline.
“Hey Wanda, how’s it hanging-”
“Peter, did you steal my Diana Ross cassette?” Wanda’s irritated voice cut through his cheerful greeting, and he paused. Crap, he thought he’d have more time before she noticed that the cassette was gone. “Mom says she can’t find it in my room.”
“Uh…no?” he said hopefully.
“Peter!”
“Okay, yeah I did, I’m sorry! I was going to return it before you noticed, I swear,” he admitted, lifting his hands up placatingly even though she couldn’t see him. “I mean, you’re the one who left it in my Walkman when you were visiting, so really it’s your fault.”
She scoffed in indignation and Peter struggled not to laugh; Wanda was never angry at him, not really.
“Ugh, you are so…just, Mom and I are going to check out the college campus next week and you know I need my Diana songs for the road.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get it back to you tomorrow? We can go to lunch or something, and I can congratulate you for being such a huge nerd and getting into Princeton,” Peter said, unable to stop the swell of pride in his voice.
Just like him, she’d been a high school dropout - not because of her grades, but because she had itched to explore life outside of school. Unlike Peter, who had languished in their Mom’s basement all these years, she had packed her bags and set off within days of dropping out, traveling around the world and working whatever jobs were available in an attempt to find meaning in her life.
Now, almost a decade later, she had set her sights on coming home and attending college for the first time, and Peter couldn’t have been more happy for her.
“Fine, but you’re paying,” Wanda said, but he could tell she was smiling. “I can’t talk right now, I’ve got a flight to catch. Love you, and don’t get into any trouble!”
“I never do,” he replied innocently. He knew without looking that she was rolling her eyes. “Have a safe flight, and love you too.”
He held the phone for a few seconds after she hung up, wondering where he should take her for lunch tomorrow.
Probably California; Wanda’s favorite seafood restaurant was in San Francisco.
It was a beautifully sunny day, Peter suggested having a picnic on the grass near the swimming pool for lunch. The others had agreed, enthusiastically dropping their chores and changing into their summer outfits and swimsuits before heading outside.
Peter helped Ororo and Kurt set up a blanket and an array of food and fruits, while Jean and Scott had wandered off and were sitting under a tree talking in low voices and facing the pool.
He had also brought along a box of Twinkies, although he knew that no one else would eat them.
Hank was working away diligently in his lab, while Charles and Erik had declined to join them, still busy working on their top secret project together.
Raven, however, had decided to join them for lunch halfway through as she mentioned wanting to get a tan, which Peter had found hilarious. Fortunately for him, she wasn’t particularly concerned about keeping secrets and was more than happy to spill the beans about what the others were working on.
“Charles got word from Moira that there’s a facility near the border that’s experimenting on mutants,” she said, munching on a carrot stick. “Rumor has it that William Stryker’s heading up this place, but Charles hasn’t been able to locate them using Cerebro. Moira’s working on finding the location for us by today.”
“So we might need to suit up later?” Peter asked. They hadn’t been on a proper mission for a few weeks; it would be nice to do something that didn’t involved flipping mattresses or pulling weeds.
“I’d prepare for it.”
He shoved a couple of chips into his mouth, leaning back to enjoy the sun’s rays beating down on him. Today was a great day weather wise; he might even go for a swim later if he had time.
Kurt had had the right idea, as he was sprawled on a unicorn pool float wearing sunglasses and a big sun hat.
Behind him, Scott and Jean were moving steadily closer to each other, and Peter wondered whether they were about to kiss. It would be nice not to have to suffer them dancing awkwardly around each other anymore.
“So, when are you going to tell Erik he’s your father?”
Peter nearly choked on his chips, not having expected the question. He swallowed them painfully without chewing, immediately regretting it as they poked him uncomfortably in the throat, but he ignored the pain and turned to see Raven looking at him expectantly.
Next to them, Ororo perked up and moved to sit up on her elbows.
“Oh yes, I want to know as well,” she said eagerly. “Have you told him yet, Peter?”
“Soon and no,” Peter said dismissively, ignoring their disappointed expressions. “The dude is here for an important mutant-rescuing mission, the last thing he needs is to find out he has a long lost adult loser son. I’ll do it another time.”
Ororo sighed, shaking her head and lying back down on the picnic blanket. “You always say that, but you’re just being hard on yourself. You are not a loser, Peter.”
“You are total chickenshit though,” Raven piped up.
Peter stuck his tongue out at her, but he was saved from the subject by Scott approaching them, looking downtrodden.
“Hey bro, you hungry?” Peter asked, lifting up a bowl of grapes. Scott politely declined and sat down on the picnic blanket, his sunglasses staring a hole in the grass. It didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened. “You didn’t kiss her, did you?”
Scott shook his head sadly. “No, I just…the moment wasn’t right.”
Raven scoffed. “Both of you are-“
“Chickenshit,” Peter sighed, reaching out to pat Scott on the back sympathetically. “Yeah, we know.”
Later that evening Charles sent out a telepathic message asking everyone to meet him in his office, no doubt having received his long awaited message from Moira.
Peter was the first one there, naturally, and as he reached the office door he could hear what sounded like a tense conversation happening inside. He paused at the office door, hand hovering over the handle as he strained to hear what was being said.
“…why you can’t keep this promise-”
“Those men deserve so much worse-”
“Can’t keep having this conversation, Erik-”
Another second of listening and Peter knew that Charles would catch on to his eavesdropping, and the last thing he wanted was to be exposed to his dad as some guy snooping in on his private affairs, so he opened the door and let himself in at a normal speed.
Erik straightened up from where he’d been leaning over the Professor’s desk, the movement so smooth Peter could almost believe he had intended it all along. His posture relaxed slightly when he saw who it was; just the harmless, goofy speedster who had once broken him out of the Pentagon for kicks.
At least, that’s what Peter assumed Erik was thinking whenever he saw Peter. It was hard to tell with the man’s poker face.
“Hello, Peter,” Erik said, giving Peter a polite nod.
“Hey, man,” Peter replied, giving him a casual wave. His hand was already breaking out in a cold sweat, and he’d learned from experience that the best thing to do around Erik was to keep his mouth shut and try not to make a fool of himself.
The result was a polite yet comfortable relationship, which Peter was determined to maintain, even if it meant keeping his secrets to himself.
When the others had joined, Charles wasted no time in bringing them up to speed.
It was exactly as Raven had told them, and Peter had to applaud her for her ability to summarize the details the way she had because Charles, on the other hand, was insistent on telling them every minute detail of the information they had garnered from Moira.
Peter knew he should appreciate Charles’ transparency, but he often wished that the Professor could speak about ten times faster so they could get straight to the missions.
Apparently the government facility, which was definitely under William Stryker’s command, was located at Lake Superior and was both experimenting on mutants, and potentially using the outlines of Trask’s plans to build new Sentinels. Both of those things were equally horrifying to Peter, however he could see Raven and Hank both stiffening at the mention of Trask and knew there was more to it that the crazy robots he saw Magneto controlling on television all those years ago.
“The objective is three-fold,” Erik said, once they had been fully briefed. “Extract the mutant prisoners so we can return them to their families, retrieve any and all files being kept in the facility, and destroy what is left.”
“Without shedding any lives unnecessarily,” Charles added, ignoring the way Erik snorted next to him.
It kind of encouraged Peter to see that his dad could be as childish as he was, although he was a bit concerned that it was on the subject of murder.
They were strapped into the jet within half an hour after the briefing, suited up and fully informed on the plan of attack.
Peter then spent the next hour trying not to think about the fact that Erik was sitting directly in front of him.
The man was wearing his usual getup and cape, although he’d dispensed with the helmet since Charles would be communicating with them from the X-jet. Peter hadn’t actually seen the helmet at all lately, not since their encounter with En Sabah Nur, which was probably the biggest sign that Erik actually trusted them.
It took just over an hour to reach the Lake, and when they had finally settled in, Erik stepped out of the jet without hesitation and ripped open the doors of the underground facility, which were nearly hidden within the trees and bushes.
Several alarms rang out in warning, and before long multiple armed men were pouring out of the entrance and shooting at them.
Peter, as he had been instructed, dashed through the facility and searched for any files that could be useful, running back and forth from the facility to the jet as the others took care of the armed men and entered the facility to search for the imprisoned mutants.
As Peter ran back in after having collected as many files and computers as he could, he peeked into the small windows of each of the holding cells. Several of them were empty, however in many others he could see mutants of all ages, crouched and staring in apprehension at the sudden chaos outside.
He dodged bullets and guards, giving them a quick elbow to the cheek and tossing their guns to the side as he ran.
Kurt was in the control room when he ran past, and within seconds the doors to all of the holding cells opened and mutants began streaming out. His teammates began to usher them out, Jean using her telekinesis to rip off collars and restraints where she could.
“Peter, check the cells for any stragglers!” Raven ordered, her arms full with a child who had wrapped his thin arms around her.
“Aye, aye, cap’n!” Peter said, giving her a mock salute.
He began running through each and every cell, encouraging any of those left behind to start moving, with a few of the mutants still hesitant to leave. The chaos and gunshots outside probably weren’t the most comforting of noises to hear for traumatized prisoners, but as they caught sight of his inhuman speed they seemed to be reassured that he wasn’t one of them.
As he reached the end of the hallway, Peter stepped into one of the cells that he knew had been inhabited from his previous checks.
His eyes landed on a mutant who was crouched in the corner of the of the cell, staring up at him with wide and frightened eyes. Her pupils were so dilated he could barely see her irises, and her skin was pale and sweaty under her thin shirt.
“Hey,” he said, approaching her slowly and crouching down to her level. He thought of speeding her out of there, but worried that it would only scare her. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here to help you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, moving back slightly as he held his hand out to her.
“We’re here to rescue you,” he said, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “We just want to help you get out of here.”
Behind him, he heard the sound of something metallic creaking and crashing across the hallway and someone cursing angrily, followed by another spray of gunshots. The young woman flinched, and Peter turned to check what was happening.
Maybe it was sheer stupidity, or the fact that the mutant seemed so small and vulnerable, but in that moment it hadn’t occurred to Peter that turning his back on a terrified stranger might not be the brightest idea.
He felt a sharp pain across his throat, like a white hot fire burning his skin.
When he turned back to the mutant, she was kneeling close enough to him that he could see bruises around her neck from the metal collar she was wearing. Her hands were limp by her side, and for the first time he noticed that her fingers ended in razor sharp claws rather than normal fingernails.
They also had blood dripping down them, droplets splashing onto the floor. The prisoner stood up and ran past him, giving him one last terrified glance before disappearing down the hall.
Something wet was gushing down his chest. He reached up to touch his neck; his fingers came away bright red under the lights of the ceiling. He opened his mouth to comment on how weird that was, but all that came out was a choked gurgling noise.
His legs gave out from under him then, and his back hit the ground with a loud thud. As his head smacked against the stone floor he coughed, spraying blood everywhere.
It then became crystal clear that he was about to die.
Peter was dying, and he was scared. He couldn’t breathe through all the blood filling up his throat, and he tried to reach up to touch the wound and put pressure on it, even though he was terrified to because it hurt so damn much, but he was too weak to even move a finger.
His vision was fading and he realized that no one would be able to get here in time, because he was going to pass out in a few seconds, which meant that he was pretty much going to die alone.
He really didn’t want to die, and even through the pain he could feel the overwhelming fear at the thought that he wasn’t going to walk out of here. He tried to force himself to stay awake, even as he could feel the wetness seeping into his hair and into his uniform, but he just wasn’t strong enough anymore.
As Peter closed his eyes, the last thing he could see were the white ceiling lights glaring down at him.
LOOP 1
“Don't stop believin'! Hold on to that feelin'!”
Peter’s eyes jolted open, his whole body jerking up as he gasped in a breath so violently his lungs burned like fire. He grabbed at his chest, at his neck, trying to feel the blood pouring out of the slash wound, pressing hard enough to bruise. He expected to feel nothing but pain as he touched his neck, but to his surprise there was none.
He stared down at the front of his shirt, vaguely realizing he wasn’t wearing his X-Man uniform, and blinked. With the exception of his sweat, it was completely bone dry. On shaky legs, he staggered over to the mirror above his dresser and stared, expecting to see a gaping, bloody wound around his neck.
There was nothing there but untouched skin.
Had it all just been a bad dream? He sure as hell had never had a dream that vivid before.
Peter took a few seconds to calm his breathing, not wanting to leave the room looking like a flushed mess. He jumped into the shower, scrubbing his chest and neck extra hard even though they were completely clean, and by the time he got dressed he didn’t look as if he’d just awoken from a shockingly realistic nightmare of his own horrifying death.
He opened the door, still rubbing at his eyes roughly, only to see a fresh-faced Kurt walking towards him.
Holding a mop and bucket.
“Morning, Peter!”
Peter stared.
“Ah, you’re vondering about the mop and bucket, right?” Kurt lifted the items up, the bucket swinging in his hand. “Vell-”
“Let me guess, a pipe burst in the basement, but Erik fixed it and now you’re going to mop it up,” Peter interrupted, his voice slightly hysterical. Kurt slowly lowered his hands, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“I-Ja, but how did you know?”
“Just an…educated guess,” Peter muttered, moving past Kurt before the guy could see him freaking out.
What the fuck.
He reached up to squeeze the bridge of his nose, taking a deep calming breath to stop the panic rising up in his chest. Freaking out wouldn’t help him right now, he needed to focus.
He wasn’t sure what the hell was happening, so he decided that the best idea was to just go with the flow and see what happened. He tried to retrace his steps from yesterday-today-whatever it was, and ended up in the kitchen where Ororo was making a fresh coffee.
Right, he’d come in here to make pancakes. Ororo had wanted blueberry pancakes.
“Morning, Peter! Coffee?” Ororo asked, gesturing to the pot of coffee. “You look like you could use one.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “You want…blueberry pancakes?”
“Oh, yes please if you’re making them.”
Peter began to pull the ingredients out of the fridge reluctantly. He didn’t particularly want to make or eat anything right now, but he couldn’t just stand around like a freak waiting for something to happen.
As he went through the motions, he watched as eventually Ororo reached up to open a cupboard door. As if in slow motion, the shelf tilted down and the glasses all rolled off, falling and smashing onto the ground.
“Oh, shit!”
Peter swallowed, feeling…he wasn’t even sure what the hell he was feeling. I need to get out of here.
He turned to leave, pausing as he realized that Ororo was bending down to pick up the glass shards. In the blink of an eye, he grabbed the dustpan and brush from their storage place and swept up the glass, tossing it into the trash.
“I’ve got it,” he said, giving Ororo a forced smile. “Mind if I take a rain check on the pancakes? Just realized I have something to do.”
Thanks Peter. You're a lifesaver.
“Thanks Peter, you’re a lifesaver,” she said. “And no problem, but I expect pancakes tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, ‘ro,” he replied, shoving the dustpan and brush back into their cupboard. “Hey, um…do you ever get the feeling that some things have already happened before? Like this day, specifically, and what just happened with the cupboard. Has that…do you feel like that’s happened once already?”
She frowned, looking thoughtful as she pondered his question. Just the fact that she wasn’t agreeing with him immediately told him everything he needed to know.
“Not really, no. I haven’t broken any glasses since arriving at the mansion. Do you-”
“Alright, that’s cool,” Peter interrupted, before rushing out of the kitchen.
If what had happened yesterday had happened, and he’d actually died, he was pretty sure that anyone else who had remembered would have been banging down his door to make sure he was alive that morning.
The fact that no one had mentioned anything so far made one thing clear; he was the only one re-living this day.
Peter decided to continue the day exactly as he had done the first time around, mainly because he couldn’t think of what the hell else to do. He felt like he was wading through water, doing each motion in a dazed dream while everyone around him was going about their day.
There was no question that it hadn’t been a normal dream - the details were just too precise for him to believe it, with Kurt and the burst pipes, Ororo and the cupboard, and now Jean prodding his mind as he was putting the vacuum away to tell him that there was someone on the phone for him.
‘Peter, there’s someone called Wanda on the phone for you.'
He still jumped, even though he’d been prepared to hear her voice in his head.
‘Sorry, I thought this would be quicker than trying to find you.’
‘No worries, I’ll get it,’ he thought hurriedly. ‘Hey Jean, could you…is there something funky happening in my head right now?”
Jean was silent for a few seconds, and he wondered if he was doing the whole telepathic message thing wrong. Did he need to think louder?
‘HEY JEAN-’
‘Yes, yes, I heard you the first time, Peter!’ she said hurriedly, and he winced. He had made that mistake previously with the Professor, who had subsequently gotten a whopping headache, but he kept forgetting. ‘Sorry, I just don’t know what you mean by funky.’
‘Oh, right. Think like, epic déjà vu. Like this whole day feels like it’s all happened before or some shit.’
‘I see…sorry, I’m not getting anything like that from you. Is there anything specific you’re looking for?’ She didn’t seem particularly confident, so Peter decided not to pursue this any further. Jean had been quite cautious about her powers ever since the showdown with En Sabah Nur, and he didn’t want to put her in a difficult position without knowing what the hell was going on.
‘Don’t worry about it, I think I just had a weird dream.’
Before she could respond, he zipped down to the phone and picked it up, eager to end this telepathic conversation.
“Hey Wanda.”
“Peter-”
“If this is about your Diana Ross cassette, I’ll bring it to you tomorrow when you’re back home, okay? I can take you out for lunch to celebrate you going to college.”
“I…yeah, it was. How did you know?”
“Call it a sixth sense,” he said, smirking widely. “I always know when you’re about to unleash hell on me.”
“Like you don’t always deserve it.”
“I deserve nothing but greatness,” he said, grinning as she snorted disbelievingly in response. “So about lunch, how does San Francisco sound?”
Peter continued through the motions of the day, suggesting the picnic once again because frankly, that was probably the most relaxing part of his entire day, and why wouldn’t he want to relive it?
As they did before, Scott and Jean parked themselves under the tree, while Kurt immediately brought out the unicorn pool float once he’d eaten his lunch. Raven asked him about Erik and he changed the subject, instead watching intently as Scott failed to make a move and Jean broke away looking disappointed.
As Scott walked over to them, equally despondent as the last time, a theory occurred to Peter.
Maybe he’d had a prophetic vision, some sort of ‘dream of the future’ that would warn him about his impending death, so that he could re-live the day again and avoid it entirely.
It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, considering he lived with two telepaths, a guy who shot lasers out of his eyes and multiple mutants who were actually blue. Perhaps his powers had sent him forward into the future, so that he could see the terrible fate that was going to befall him and avoid those very circumstances.
If that was the case, then Peter knew exactly what he needed to do this time to survive.
It took all of Peter’s willpower not to tap his foot impatiently as Charles ran them through the intel again in excruciating detail. He knew that the Professor could sense how jittery he was feeling, however the fact that Charles didn’t say anything was a testament to how impatient Peter was on a daily basis.
The one thing that Peter hated about about this prophetic vision crap was how boring it was to have to relive certain parts of his day. Why couldn’t he have died on a day he’d attended a music concert, or gone to a rave?
When the meeting came to an end with instructions to get suited up and head to the jet, Peter dashed out of there before anyone had even stood up. By the time the others were entering the X jet, it was a miracle that he hadn’t burned a hole in the floor with the amount of pacing that he had done.
“Are you okay?” Jean asked him as she strapped herself into the seat next to him. “You seem really nervous.”
“I’m fine,” he said, too low for anyone else to hear. He didn’t want the others questioning his weird behavior right before this critical mission. It would only serve as a distraction to his main objective; not dying a horrible, bloody death. “Just glad to get some action finally.”
Once Hank had confirmed everyone was strapped in, the ceiling of the hangar began to split apart. Peter took a deep breath as the plane ascended, struggling to keep his nerves down as he thought of what was ahead of him.
His death had been an easily avoidable mistake. He had let his guard down and turned his back on a dangerous and frightened prisoner with razor sharp nails and he had paid the price. It was unbelievably stupid and he was almost embarrassed to think about it, but on the bright side no one but him would remember it once the day was over.
All he had to do was not make that same mistake, and he would walk out of there with his life. Easy peasy.
Except that wasn’t what happened.
As the plane lifted into the air, the sound of the engine running was interrupted by a sudden blast, shaking the interior of the jet violently. The others screamed in shock, grabbing at their straps and shielding their heads as the plane began to tremble violently and tilt to one side.
Peter grabbed wildly for anything he could hold, mind racing as the plane jolted once more from an unseen explosion.
This hadn't happened last time.
“Hank, what the fuck is going on over there?” Mystique barked over the sound of the alarms and the engine running.
“I don’t know! I think-”
Something whacked him in the face, hard enough that tears sprang to his eyes. He reached for the object, pulling it away and staring in disbelief when his vision cleared and he could make out what it was.
It was his belt buckle, which had somehow come undone in the mess. How was that even possible?
“What the fuck-”
Before he could even finish the thought, the plane swung round so violently he went flying out of his seat. The back of the plane rushed towards him and he could hear the screams of his teammates before his head smacked hard against cold metal and everything went black.
LOOP 2
“Don't stop believin'! Hold on to that feelin'!”