Big fans

Dragged inside the mansion by Rogue, I can't help but notice all the strange looks I am getting from the people walking around or hanging out in the hallways. Perhaps they don't often get visitors who walk around in a full spandex suit?

Already used to getting all sorts of odd looks thrown at me while on patrols, I manage to ignore the numerous eyes on me and continue walking along to wherever Rogue is guiding me.

"Where are we heading to?" I ask Rogue, who seems to have a clear destination in mind.

"West wing of the mansion. It's where the older students like me and the rest of the X-men live." She says, looking back at me briefly but not stopping her movement. "Oh, and as I said earlier, no need to worry about your secret identity, I'm not gonna tell anyone here."

Continuing in a quieter tone that ordinary unenhanced people wouldn't be able to hear, she mumbles to herself, "Your secret is safe with me, Peter… as long as the professor doesn't look into my mind, but… he wouldn't do that, right?"

I hope so, Rogue… but if he does, I'll just deal with things as they come. My first deed as an unmasked hero would be killing a cripple, which probably wouldn't look great on my resume, but oh well.

After a short half a minute of navigating the hallways and dodging kids asking for autographs later, we finally make it to what seems to be a living area with a large tv mounted on the wall. Right away, I notice many familiar faces like Scott, Kitty, Kurt, Jean, and Bobby in the room sitting on a couch, taking turns playing some sort of a fighting video game on the tv.

"Hey, guys," Rogue says as we enter the room, getting a few greetings in return, but as most eyes are glued to the screen, my presence goes almost entirely unnoticed. The only person who looks at us is Jean, as she appears to be mostly uninterested in the ongoing game.

"Oh Anna, did you have fun with… wait, why is Spiderman with you, and why do you look like you've been in a fight?" Jean questions Rogue, appearing more and more confused as she inspects us.

Both Scott and Bobby turned to look at us after hearing Jean speak, but Kurt and Kitty being in a heated match, didn't bother tearing their eyes from the screen.

"Haha, Jean, I know you are on Kitty's side, but you can't honestly think I would be stupid enough to fall for the bait of turning away from the screen and losing my focus just because you say spiderman is in the room with us." Kurt laughs while button-mashing his controller.

"Oh no, Spiderman is actually here, no joke," Bobby replies to him.

"Yeah, right, and I'm the strongest mutant alive. Come on, Bobby, I thought you were cheering for me…."

"Let's make a bet for 100 dollars. I can guarantee he is here right now."

"Alright, that's worth the loss." Kurt throws down his controller and turns around before his eyes nearly bulge out of his head. "Holy shit!"

Seeing her victory, Kitty also puts down the controller and stretches while saying. "Ha! Good job distracting him, Bobby, who would have thought he could be baited so easily."

But as she turns around, she has the same reaction as Kurt. "What the fuck!?"

Moving faster than I could even perceive, the two of them bolt out of the room and return right back with pen and paper, coming to a standstill in front of me.

"Can you give me an autograph? I've been your biggest fan ever since you defeated Sandman so dominantly!"

"No, give me one. I've been following you… I mean, all the news about you since the first day you appeared in New York and beat up that Blackwing guy."

What the fuck? It seems like I have some… extremely enthusiastic fans among the X-men… well, whatever. I take their papers to give them autographs, being somewhat careful to make my handwriting different from Peter's even though I doubt it really matters. What followed was a barrage of high-speed questions about all my adventures as spiderman that I tried to answer to the best of my ability.

"Hey, how strong are you by now, exac-" Nearing the tenth or so question from Kitty, I am finally saved by Scott yelling from across the room.

"WHAT? Why weren't we told anything?" Scott screams from the other side of the room. Both he and Jean were much more concerned about Rogue's wellbeing than me being here and dragged her away for questioning before Kurt and Kitty could even begin bombarding me with their questions.

"Calm down, I'm sure there is a reaso-" Jean tries to reason with him, but it's fruitless.

"No, Jean, there is no sensible reason as to why we weren't told anything when our teammate was in trouble fighting against the brotherhood alone. I'm sick of the adults constantly hiding things from us, especially when I'm the leader of the team here." Scott continues his outburst but ends by deeply breathing in and out to calm himself down. "Sorry, we shouldn't do this when we have a guest around. We will talk about this later."

He approaches me with a smile almost identical to the one the professor had and extends his arm for a handshake, unlike the professor though I gladly take it, and he looks pretty happy about it. "Sorry about that, uh… Spiderman. My name is Scott, and I'm the leader of this team so let me thank you personally for saving one of my teammates. If you ever need our help with something, we would be happy to consider you as an ally."

"Don't sweat it, I was just in the area though I have to ask… I hope someone can fly me back to the city since I think I'll have a bit of a hard time getting back by myself."

I can't express how much I'm looking forward to finishing the Spider-man class and picking up new ones just so I wouldn't be so limited in powers. I suppose I could just teleport with my sling ring but I'll just have these guys put in some work in order to bring me back since they unceremoniously dragged me here after all.

"I'm sure that can be arranged, though I'm not entirely sure as to why you were brought here in the first place."

I open my mouth to explain Wolverine and Storm suspecting me of being a mutant, incorrectly, may I say, but instead, I feel someone poking my shoulder with their finger.

"Hey, you never answered my last question. How strong are you? Could you beat the X-men?" Kitty asks when I turn my attention back to her from Scott.

Scott, by the way, looks slightly offended at even the thought that I could be stronger than them. "Oh, come on, there is no way just one guy could be stronger than all of us."

"Well, we could put that theory to the test." A new but already familiar voice enters the conversation. Looking over, I see Wolverine, who has swapped out of his blood-soaked clothes, has entered the room with a brand new ice-cold beer bottle in hand. "Why don't we show our guest to the Danger Room."

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Note: Sorry if the grammar in this chapter is not as good. The internet where I am currently at is sometimes so bad that Grammarly literally doesn't work.

I am currently helping renovate an old house, so when I upload chapters, expect them to come out around this time (Late at night in Europe) or early in the morning.

Also, good luck surviving the sweltering heatwave, all my fellow Europeans.