Few people were kept at the Pentagon. Even fewer were incarcerated a hundred floors beneath it. But how many could say that when they looked up from inside their cell, they were greeted by their own kid’s cheeky grin through the reinforced glass ceiling? Erik was sure he had to be the first and only.

He thought he had seen it all, having lived through wars, fought against and alongside soldiers, special agents, and mutants alike. But in that moment, nothing quite clicked in his mind.

The prison was made of concrete, reinforced glass, and plastic, without a trace of metal for him to manipulate. He spent most of his days staring at the wall, feeling the magnetic fields of Earth and reflecting on his past.

The loss, the rage, the pain.

Today wasn’t supposed to be any different. It was lunchtime, and a guard armed with a plastic gun was about to deliver his lunch on a plastic tray with plastic cutlery. It was almost amusing to see the army avoid metal like the plague around him.

He'd been kept here for an entire decade, the routine etched into his mind. He didn’t even bother to look up when he heard the light commotion, knowing the guards saw mutants as nothing but monsters and freaks.

But then he saw the note with “MIND THE GLASS” written in that all-too-familiar handwriting, attached to his lunch tray. His head snapped up, staring through the glass in sheer shock and utter disbelief.

Instead of the usual special forces, he saw his kid with their face pressed against the glass. “What in the…” For a solid minute, he just stared. Shock, joy, worry… Every emotion on the spectrum swamped his mind. He never thought he’d see his own flesh and blood again, yet here they were.

“Why are you, no, how are you even here?”