{Author's Note: Hello! It's been a minute. I'm okay, but as I'm sure you're all aware, things have been crazy out there; and I didn't really feel like writing this fic for a while, but a commenter on AO3 inspired me to get back to it. Also, when I looked back into my draft document, I realized I had already written more of this chapter than I remembered doing, so that was a bonus! Anyway, enjoy, and please be safe and smart out there.}

ERIK POV

Erik was a failure—a failure of a son, a failure of a friend, . . . a failure of a father.

He knew this beyond a reasonable doubt. No further evidence required. No jury needed. Case closed, verdict entered. But his personification of failure was perhaps never quite as obvious as the moment when a metal beam pierced his daughter's chest and, only for a moment, did his steps falter before he kept on toward his son.

It didn't matter if he couldn't have stopped the projectile, even if he would have had time to try. It didn't matter that despite not knowing her, it still crushed his heart. It didn't matter that even if in failing her, he was trying not to fail his son.

No matter the finer details, it had still happened, and he was still to blame.

All of this he felt, as he dropped to his knees beside Pietro, putting his body between him and Apocalypse—who apparently, for the moment, didn't consider Erik worthy of his time, or perhaps he was dealing with more pressing issues as he heard the being yell out to (or at) Charles—even if it meant putting his back toward the man. Either way, however, Erik wasn't about to engage Apocalypse when his attention was elsewhere, not when his son was hurt, not even if the fate of the world was at stake.

"P-Pietro." Erik gasped as he took in the boy's horrifically broken leg and blood smeared outfit, along with various other cuts and bruises. His hands hovered over the boy. Afraid to touch him. Afraid to hurt him more. All the while thinking that somewhere behind him, the daughter he had never met was—was—she was . . . out of reach, and, if he didn't do something, his son could very well be headed down that same path. "I'm—I'm going to get you out of here, Pietro."

His son didn't respond. Pietro's eyes were shut tight, and he clutched his head with one hand. His other arm—which also appeared injured—was held tightly to his chest, and he was continually muttering something to himself too quickly for Erik to understand.

"Pietro." Erik tried again more forcefully this time, swallowing as he tried not to let himself wonder if this would be like before. That was, even if Pietro recovered from his physical injuries, would he once again be silent as he had been after his kidnapping not so long ago? And would that silence be forever this time? But he couldn't let himself think about that now. He had to focus on one task at a time, which meant he had to get Pietro out of the line of fire. He could think about the rest later . . . Wanda . . . Lorna . . . all of that was for later. Just—just later.

Erik put his hands under his son's body, preparing to pick him up as gently as possible, all too aware of his damaged leg. He started to lift him, but the moment he did, Pietro's muttering ceased and he let out an agonizing scream, for the first time removing his hand from his head to grasp wildly at his broken leg, both actions halted Erik in his tracks.

"No, no, Pietro, don't touch it! I'm sorry! I'm sorry." The last one came out more of a sob than a demand. "But I've got to move you. It's not safe."

But even as he said it, he didn't know how he could bear to make his son scream like that again. Maybe the old Magneto would have been able to. The cold calculating one who had stopped letting people into his heart because it only led to pain, but the thing was, as much as he pretended to be unfeeling on the outside, he'd never truly been able to tear his heart out completely.

Erik swallowed, hands digging into the dirt beside his son who was still withering in pain again but had gone back to clutching his head. Erik felt heat growing behind him and somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered who had the ability to control fire, but it was all so secondary to the reality of his son's pain that he couldn't give it proper thought.

Do something. Do something. Do. Something. His brain said, but he couldn't. He was failing—again and again and again, seeing not just his son in front of him, but also a home burning with little Anya inside, Wanda's lifeless form laid before him never to move again, and Lorna's look of shock as the beam entered her body.

But then, a familiar face appeared beside him—Hank.

"Come on, Erik. Move. Onto this." Hank said giving Erik a shake as he dragged over a long flat piece of metal—a perfect make-shift stretcher when you had a man who could manipulate metal around.

Erik didn't know if it was the touch or Hank's unexpected calm amid Erik's panic, but at any rate, it was enough to push him into action.

Together they lifted Pietro onto the stretcher. And this time, when Pietro screamed again, with Hank there, Erik didn't let himself stop. For Pietro's sake, he couldn't.

By the time Erik got to his feet, levitating Pietro up with him, (the sides of the metal slanted upward slightly to keep the boy from rolling off) Hank was already rushing away back toward an injured Raven and a terribly frightened looking Scott.

The heat grew stronger behind Erik and as he moved Pietro along to safety, he turned his head in time to see—Jean.

It could only be her floating through the air with that fiery red hair, but it was Jean like he had never seen her—aflame and unstoppable. If it were a different time or place he would marvel at her power, but as it stood, he could only think how powerful his children were. How powerful Wanda and Lorna were and yet . . . it wasn't enough to save them.

But this time it was enough. Jean beat Apocalypse to dust—literally. When she was done with him, there was nothing left. But the damage he had done . . . the damage they had all done, remained.

His son lay at his feet in agony and somewhere across the way another one of his children was dead or dying. Those facts so consumed his mind that he had hardly room to consider whether Charles—the man who, despite their many differences, was like a brother to him—was still alive somewhere in the wreckage around them.

The immediate threat defeated, Erik allowed himself to collapse onto his knees beside Pietro once more. He looked around for Hank—or any assistance really—but Hank was gone again; Raven was down for the count; and Jean, despite her impressive display moments earlier, seemed shell shocked. Scott had run to her side clearly not yet aware that his brother was a short distance away, and Charles, Moira, and Kurt were nowhere in sight.

But then, Hank returned, appearing suddenly as a shadow above him.

At first he ignored Erik, glancing over Pietro's leg and then holding the boy's head as still as he could as he looked into his eyes. Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him because it was at that point that he turned to Erik.

"Erik." Hank said a hand on his shoulder. "You need to move so I can help him and . . . you need to go to her."

Erik was already moving before Hank could finish his thought, grateful that there was someone competent enough to help his son. He shuffled to the side to make room for the other man, but he had no intention of going far . . . that is, until the second part of Hank's command sunk in. Erik didn't have to ask who he meant by 'her'. He knew.

"I—Pietro—I can't leave him." Said Erik gesturing desperately at the boy.

"Erik." Said Hank forcefully but not unkindly, though he stopped what he was doing to look over and address Erik properly. "Listen to me. He's going to be fine. Peter. Is. Going. To be fine. He's not fine now, but he will be. Lorna, on the other hand . . . you need to go see her, Erik. You'll regret it if you don't. I'll take care of Peter while you're gone."

Erik hesitated, looking from Hank to his son—who was back to reaching for his leg as Hank started to examine it again—and back again. He couldn't do it. He couldn't leave him. Peter was in so much pain . . .

"He's not coherent enough to even know you're here, Erik. You need to go!" Hank finished literally shoving Erik in the shoulder, which in almost any other circumstance would have enraged the man and caused him to respond in equal—or more—force, but in the here and now, it didn't.

Erik fell backward, catching himself with his hands. Hank stared at him expectantly.

"I'll—I'll be right back, Pietro." Said Erik scrambling to his feet staring down at his son still before he repeated his message, this time to Hank with greater conviction, "I'll be right back."

"I know you will, Erik." Said Hank rather sadly. "You're wasting time."

LORNA POV

Earlier . . .

Lorna fell to the ground and as pain radiated throughout her body, she wondered if this was what Wanda felt in her last moments.

Suddenly, someone was leaning over her.

It was Alex.

It couldn't have been so quick, but Alex's appearance felt almost as instant as the pain.

Of course it was Alex. It would always be Alex.

He'd been the metal to her magnet. Or maybe the magnet to her metal? Or maybe they were both magnets, sometimes attracting, sometimes repelling depending on how they aligned in the moment, but in the end, they always found their way back together.

No matter how many times she pushed him away, he always came back to her.

Maybe they weren't magnets at all. Maybe, she was the sun, and he a planet, orbiting around her, sometimes farther away, sometimes so very close. Never worrying that if he drifted too near, he would be burned.

"Alex . . ." she managed. Why was his name so difficult to say, when it was so familiar?

She felt so cold. It was an odd sensation being that she'd always ran hot.

"Shhh, don't try to talk. I'm going to get you out of here and get you help." Alex said, and he started to lift her up, but the moment she rose not even an inch off the ground, she screamed so violently that he set her back down.

But he hadn't given up yet. He'd always been stubborn like that.

Alex put his hands on her stomach, desperately trying to quell the unending rush of blood spilling from her body. He knew enough not to try to pull the projectile out of her, but even if he did rip it from her body, she doubted it would make much of a difference in the end.

Lorna lifted her hands and placed them over his much larger ones. "I'm sorry, Alex."

"D-don't. Don't do that! You don't have to be sorry. You don't get to be sorry. You helped stop him. Y-you stopped him."

"I-I stopped him?" she questioned. That didn't seem right. She was quite certain that she'd done the exact opposite of that, but there was a fog descending over her mind that had her slowly losing her grip on reality, though not so much as to forget that she was dying.

"Yes Lorna. He's done. Gone." Alex said. He wasn't crying. He'd been a solider. He'd seen death and life-threatening injuries, she supposed, so that wasn't unexpected, but she knew that his grief would come later, after she was . . .

Neither of them said anything. They just stared at each other and it felt like a second and an eternity all at once. Just the two of them, alone in a world of billions.

But then, another face appeared above her, and Lorna took in a quick breath, which only served to exasperate her pain.

It was him.

The reason she'd been distracted moments before. The reason she'd been distracted her whole life really. It was the man she had idolized since she was old enough to understand that she was different, since before she knew who he truly was.

Her father.

"Hello Lorna." Said Magneto. His voice was quiet, so much softer than the news clips. Sadder too.

Lorna wanted to smile, but instead, she felt herself begin to cry. Even though she'd thought him dead, part of her had been waiting for this moment for her whole life—waiting to meet her father. But she always thought she'd be standing for it, side-by-side, if not as his equal, then at least as some that he could depend on.

Her tears continued and—after a moment of hesitation—her father reached out and brushed a strand of green hair behind her ear, as if this wasn't the first time they were meeting. As if they were just a normal father and daughter who had shared too many heartfelt moments together to count.

"Is he okay? Is—is Pietro, okay?" Lorna asked, even as she felt herself fading.

"He's going to be fine." Answered Erik, his voice steadier than it had been when he'd greeted her, but still she wondered if he, like Alex, was lying to her too.

"I—I put him in danger. I'm sorry." She'd never done so much apologizing in her life, but she'd never had quite so many things to be sorry for.

"No. No, you saved him." Erik replied, gazing down at her with cool, unyielding eyes.

"No, I—I didn't—I couldn't—I just . . . " She swallowed, or tried to but felt herself coughing instead. It was difficult, but with her remaining strength she forced herself to continue, "I just w-wanted you to be proud of m-me."

Her father gave her a sad smile, closed his eyes for a moment and looked away. When he looked back there was a tear running down the side of his face.

"I am proud of you, Lorna. More than you could ever know. I'm sorry this is the first chance I've had to tell you that."

She knew what he didn't say—I'm sorry it will also be the last time.

But it was okay. Because he was here. And Alex was here. And her brother was okay. And Nina had to be miles and miles away in a different country perfectly safe too.

Lorna didn't speak again. Not that she could have, even if she had tried. Instead she focused on the feeling of the metal beneath her body, and the feeling of Alex's hand in hers and her father's hand in the other. The two men she had cared about the most in her life—despite only meeting one before now—both by her side. And in the end, it wasn't so bad, not really. With them there, and knowing she had a sister waiting for her on the other side, it was enough.

Lorna closed her eyes, and—for the first time in her life—she felt as though she was truly where she belonged.

ERIK POV

As soon as Lorna breathed her last, Erik turned away, curling his hands into the ground just to feel the dirt beneath his fingernails. He wanted to scream. He wanted to destroy something, but what was there left to destroy?

Erik unclenched his fingers, and looked over at Alex. The younger man was sitting back on his heels, both hands still clutched around Lorna's, as if he could force the life back into her by sheer force of will alone.

But Erik knew he would soon realize—as Erik had long ago—that there was no bringing her back. No matter how impossible the death of someone so young and full of life seemed, once they were dead, they were gone just the same as anyone else who had left this world.

Surprisingly steady, Erik rose to his feet, looking at the spot where Apocalypse had been burned away, rather than at Lorna's body. He could not bear to see the forever-still form of one more daughter. He could not look upon her frozen visage and see it flash from Anya's to Wanda's and then back to her own unknown, yet still familiar form.

He should not grieve for her, not because she didn't deserve his grief, but because he did not deserve to feel the loss. He may have fathered her, but he did not know her.

And yet . . . although it did not hurt him in the same way that Anya's death or Wanda's death did, it hurt him all the same.

As he walked away, Erik registered Alex's brother running past him toward the heartbroken man he'd left behind. The sliver of joy the boy expressed at finding his brother alive seemed as out of place in that moment as a sheep among a pack of wolves.

Erik walked on, past Jean who—despite her immeasurable display of power moments ago—once again seemed like the insecure child she truly was, beyond the crumbling wall where he had left his broken son in Hank's care to witness another one of his children depart this world.

As he approached, Erik could hear Hank speaking in a soft soothing tone as he attempted to examine Pietro's leg, but the boy still shook. Hank had somehow already managed to cut the material away from Pietro's leg, and the resulting combination of bone, flesh, and bruising looked grotesque and extremely painful. It was clear that Peter's arm was also worse for wear by the way the boy was holding it tightly against this chest, and Erik noticed that there were the bloody cuts on both the palms of his hands too.

"Peter." Hank spoke calmly despite the chaos and horror that had just unfolded around them, he was forever a doctor intent on keeping his patients calm and relaxed. "I know it hurts, but please try to hold still. I need to examine your leg."

Whether Pietro could not hear Hank in his distressed state or was simply unable to comply due to the immense pain was unclear, but either way he continued to shake, clutching his head with his good hand, fingers intertwined tightly in his hair and eyes squeezed shut tight one moment and open and flittering around the next. He was murmuring rapidly too, something that sounded like it might have been 'myheadmyheadmyhead' over and over again, further confirming Erik's suspicions that Apocalypse had done something to the invisible wall Erik had so earnestly encouraged Jean to create, while also causing Erik to fear that Pietro had internal injuries in addition to the noticeably severe visible ones.

Hank moved Pietro's leg ever so slightly and the boy screamed, his voice reaching a pitch that could have rivaled Sean's.

Hank didn't look at Erik, and so too did Erik avoid his gaze, not ready to acknowledge the finality of what had just occurred, and what Hank had to know Erik's return meant. Instead, Hank focused on the boy before him, and Erik stroked his son's hair, trying and failing to soothe him, to hold him together, even as he himself fell to pieces on the inside.

Peter reached out and grabbed Erik's shirt tightly with one bloody hand, whether the action was a conscious one or merely a reflexive attempt to stamp out the pain was unclear.

"Peter." Said Hank again, finally drawing Erik's gaze over to the man. "I need to set your leg now, just enough so we can move you, but it can't wait."

Peter, of course, didn't answer. His rapid breathing and gasps of pain simply continued, each one piercing the lingering remains of Erik's heart.

"Now? You can't possibly set his leg correctly with this severe of a break merely by looking at it." said Erik. His voice sounded distant and hollow even to his own ears, but he forced himself to continue, only dealing with the facts in front of him. "The jet Alex and I came on likely has something in the way of first aid. Give him something for the pain, and then we'll get him somewhere you can examine his leg properly."

Hank shook his head. "I'm sorry Erik, but this needs to be done now. I can't leave it the way it is." Hank gestured down at the horrific arrangement of bone so clearly out of place. "You're right that I don't have the proper tools to treat him here, but transporting him like this isn't an option. I haven't had time to adequately examine his physiology. I don't know how fast his healing factor will kick in, and if it does, what complications might arise in the long run if we wait. And as for giving him something for the pain . . . you know just as well as I do that his metabolism is off the charts. Any normal dose of narcotics isn't going to affect him, and without proper equipment . . . I don't trust myself to try a dosage high enough to compensate for his mutation. Erik . . ."

"Alright, alright I get it." said Erik, running one hand across his face and through his hair in despair, before taking both his hands and grasping his son's hand that still gripped his shirt. He took comfort in the fact that, unlike Lorna's, it was still warm. Then, Erik drew his son's hand away from himself, but still he held fast. "Just, be—be quick about it."

Hank nodded as Peter tried to pull away from them both, perhaps because he was absorbing their conversation, perhaps because he thought he could run away from the pain. Erik held him in place, even as the boy started shaking his head and started up his 'myheadmyheadmyhead' mantra again.

"Okay, Peter." Said Hank gently. "On three. One—"

Hank didn't wait for the end of his count, instead, he straightened the appendage in one quick movement. Pietro released one last tormented scream and then, mercifully, passed out.

Time went quickly after that. Hank performed a similar task with Pietro's arm, which, fortunately, he suspected was merely sprained. He then went off elsewhere, presumably to examine Raven or Charles—who Erik had finally spotted looking alive, but not terribly well (and bald)—or perhaps just some other injured soul.

That left Erik alone with Pietro then, or as alone as they could be, while still being surrounded by those who remained.

It was only as Erik finished constructing a make-shift stretcher and transported his unconscious son aboard the jet in near soundless solidarity with the others that at some point, Pietro's rant had turned from 'my head' to 'she's dead.'

And with that realization, it was obvious to Erik that Peter hadn't meant Lorna, and that he now knew for sure. Pietro knew that—like Lorna—Wanda was gone, and she wasn't coming back.

{Author's Note: Can you see why I was not feeling up to writing this chapter given the fact that it's suuuuper depressing? Also, there were probably so many medical inaccuracies in this chapters because I'm no doctor, but I tried guys.}