Bayville Highschool, New York.
The principal's door opened up, and out came Rogue, along with the school's principal, Ms. Darkhölme. He didn't know what to expect from her, given she knew about his past grades, performance, and near arrest, he was either about to get a pep talk on how to change his life course or be marked as a troublemaker day one.
"Just remember Peter. Keep your head down, don't piss anyone off, and maybe just maybe, we can get through high school." Peter thought to himself as he walked through the office door. Ms. Darkhölme closed the behind them, which set off his spider sense.
"Well this is off to a great start." Peter thought. He sat down in the chair opposite from the principal's desk as she sat down and reviewed her paperwork.
"Let's see here...there." Ms. Darkhölme said. "Peter Benjamin Parker. Age 15. Born in Queens, New York City. Attended Midtown High. Right up until he was caught and arrested for breaking another student's arm."
Peter, wanting to give himself a chance to have a somewhat not stressful school year, tried to speak up. "It was in self defens-"
"Funny, I don't remember asking for you to speak." Ms. Darkhölme interrupted. Peter's confidence immediately deflated as Darkhölme spoke those words. He subconsciously kissed an stress free year goodbye. She got up from her desk and went to the front of the table.
"I won't sit here and pretend that you're a saint. That being said, I'm not going to play the Judge, Jury and Executioner. Whatever the purpose of that arrest was for, I don't care."
"Wait, seriously?" Peter was immediately elated. "Thank you Ms. Darkhölme, I promise-"
"I'm not done Mr. Parker." Peter shut up again. "I'm not gullible either. I assume I don't need to tell you the consequences of what happens if you get arrested again, do I?" Peter shook his head. "Good."
Darkhölme took a piece of paper out of her folder and handed it to Peter. "This is your class schedule. Seeing as your Aunt said you and Rogue were still unpacking, you two will start classes tomorrow." Peter took the schedule and got up from his chair.
"I promise you Ms. Darkhölme, no problems from Peter Parker."
"Good. Because if I hear so much as one complaint from any of the faculty, I'm enrolling you in my personal after school program." Peter didn't even wanna make a quip on that, much less think about what the program could be if she was labeling him as a troublemaker day one. He simply nodded and left the room.
"Ok. Survived that encounter. Easy." Peter said to himself. He started to walk when he bumped into somebody. He looked up and saw a guy around his height wearing a brown best with a black shirt, ripped jeans, and worn boots. He also wore black fingerless gloves and his hair seemed both tamed and slightly unkempt, mainly his fringe.
"Sorry about that." Peter said. He tried to go pass, but the guy side stepped in front of him.
"Say...you're that new kid. From the city, right?"
"Jeez, news gets here before Spider-Man can even make a upstate debut." Peter thought to himself.
"Uhh, yeah. I'm the new kid from the city."
"Cool." The guy stuck his hand out. "Lance Alvers."
Peter took the hand into his own. "Peter Parker." Surprisingly, despite the way the guy came off, Peter's Spider sense wasn't ringing or anything.
"So, why would someone from the big apple, come all the way upstate to this town?" Lance questioned. Peter thought of a myriad of answers.
"Doc Ock beat me in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors."
"Spider-Man took a Vacation."
"Broke a bullies arm, moved here so I wouldn't have to go to jail."
"My Aunt wanted a change of scenery." Peter ultimately said. Lance seemed content with the answer, and was about to ask more when Rogue showed back up.
"Parker, we need to go. Now!" Rogue grabbed Peter by his arm and began dragging him out the front door of the school. Lance stuck around for a few seconds before noticing Darkhölme at the door. She gestured over for him to walk in, which he did.
Darkhölme turned and locked the door, slowly transforming revealing her Mystique form. "What did you get on Parker so far?"
"Nothing useful. Why exactly is he important again?"
"Him and his Aunt currently are housing Rogue. That means either he or both of them know of her powers, meaning we can use them to get her to do whatever we want. And we want her to help us take down the X-Men."
"Right, thats good and all. But...didn't he break some guy's arm?" Lance added. Mystique rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Seriously? That's what you're afraid of regarding him? He's a human."
"A human who can break bones when he's angry. Assuming all we do is piss him off, you don't think he might come after us? Hell, do we even know if he's a mutant or not?" Mystique had to admit, Lance did bring up a good point. If he was, it'd serve in her best interest to recruit both Rogue and Peter to help The Brotherhood fight against the X-Men. However she needed confirmation that Peter even had powers to begin with.
"Try to befriend him. See if he admits to being a mutant or not. But do so discreetly. I don't want a repeat of Tolensky's trip to the mansion with him."
"Meaning?" Lance questioned, confused at the comparison.
"Don't reveal to him you're a mutant unless you're 100% sure he's one as well! Now go!" Mystique yelled. She quickly transformed back into her Darkhölme disguise as a mysterious figure came out the corner of the room once Lance left. He waved his hand, and the door immediately shut and locked without it being touched.
"Are we sure she has no pleasant memories of the X-Men?" The man asked, inquiring about Rogue.
"I'm positive. She'll come to us willingly. I'm more worried about how this Parker kid will influence her."
"If he becomes a nuisance, take him out. No matter what." The man said. Mystique simply nodded, as the man started to fly out of the window of the office.
Outside the Campus.
"Rogue, why are we hiding behind a tree?" Peter asked. His response was Rogue shushing him, which got him slightly irritated and confused. She was leaning out of the tree, trying to look for something.
"Well can you at least give me a hint as to who we're stalking?" Peter whispered. He started to lean with Rogue, trying to find what she was looking at or for, until the both of them found it at the same time.
"Its them. From the cemetery." Rogue pointed at the group of teens. Peter looked back to earlier in the week and sure enough, the hair and look of some of them matched up, excluding the kid with the medium length black hair and another kid with a blonde flat top haircut.
"Well crap." The pair stopped leaning outwards and now where fully behind the tree. "There's no way they followed us from the city to upstate New York, AND all applied and accepted into this school to start the new semester."
"Why not?" Rogue questioned. "They knew enough about me to track meh down all the way from Mississippi. Ah didn't even have mah phone on the whole time."
"Ok, one, remind me to teach you the basics of electronic tracking. And two, the only theory that makes sense would be that they live here, and we just stumbled our way back into their crosshairs."
"Well, crap." Rogue replied. She looked down at the floor and seemed depressed about the whole situation. "I just... I want to live a normal life. I don't want to be tracked down like I'm an animal."
Peter put a hand onto Rogue's shoulder, causing her to turn her attention from the ground onto him. "Look, I promised you I wouldn't let them hurt you as long as you were with me and my Aunt. It still applies here Rogue."
Rogue smiled a bit as Peter took his hand off her shoulder. "Thank you Peter. It means a lot to meh."
"Don't mention it." Peter said. He looked past Rogue for a second and saw a speeding mustang passing by the school, followed by a speeding van behind it. Rogue turned to see the speeding vehicles as well, and the two teens immediately wanted to know why.
"Not everyday you see a mustang absolutely dusting a van in a race."
"Not everyday you see a van trying to race."
"Unless they weren't racing." Peter suggested. He looked at Rogue. "We still got time before Aunt May expects us home."
"And you think we should try to catch up with two speeding cars with no car of our own to see what the deal is?"
"We have transportation faster than cars." Peter said, flipping one of his spare web-shooters.
"Ah don't know."
"Alright, how about this? We go to see what the deal is. If it's something illegal, we'll go tell the cops immediately. If not, we'll head back home. Deal?" Peter asked. With no risk presented for either on them (at least the with the way Peter simplified it) Rogue agreed to it.
"Deal." Rogue took the extra web-shooter and put it on, as well as the spare mask Peter had. The pair of them got a bit farther away as they looked for. Building to swing off of. A few minutes later and they were on the chase.
30 Minutes Later.
Peter and Rogue ended up at some sort of factory site following the cars. They were a block away, and had landed in a nearby alley as to not draw attention to themselves by being in the open.
"I really hope this is some type criminal activity and we just didn't chase a carpool who were late to work." Peter said. Rogue simply rolled her eyes as the pair of them got closer to the factory.
"Is everything a joke to you?"
"I feel like we've had this conversation before. And no, I just tend to make bad jokes when I'm nervous." Peter explained. Now on the same block as the factory, the teens hid behind an abandoned car and watched the building. The mustang went straight into the factory, but the van was parked outside.
"Shady stuff does always come out of a van." Peter quipped. He took out his camera, aimed and zoomed in to try to see what was going on. He saw the side door of the van open and a beaten up man in a suit was thrown out, along with a briefcase of what Peter assumed was money, as well as a few packages of what looked like drugs.
"What do ya see?" Rogue asked.
"Well, we found shady to the 10th degree alright." He took a few pictures before putting the camera down to face Rogue. "They got some guy beaten and tied up in there. Along with a briefcase and some suspicious packaging, I'm guessing we stumbled into a drug dealer kidnapping."
"Great." Rogue responded. Before she could say anymore, Peter's senses went off again. He looked back at the kidnappers, but didn't see anyone moving from the van. He turned around, but immediately had a hand on his mouth. He saw another hand going towards Rogue, but he grabbed it before it could make contact.
"Seriously?" A familiar voice originated. Peter moved his attention from the hand he was grabbing to the person it belonged to.
Frank West. But what was he doing in Bayville?
"Let him go." Rogue said, while slowly reaching to take her glove off. "Now."
"Fine, but you two need to promise to keep quiet and let me explain some things." Frank said. Rogue looked at Peter for an answer, to which his nodding told her to go along with it. Frank removed his hand from Peter's mouth and crouch down with the teens.
"Alright, first things first you two are in some serious danger right now."
"Why?" Peter asked.
"How about you let me finish so you don't ask repeat questions?" Frank snapped at Peter.
"Geez what is this, pick on Parker day?"
"Ok, like I was saying. These people in that factory are bad news. I'm talking part of the mob, if not a mob themselves. They have no qualms about who they hurt or how old they are, so you two need to-"
"Well well well, looky here boys." A voice came from behind all three of them. Rogue, Peter, and Frank looked towards the voice and saw a goon wearing a black and red suit with a baseball bat in hand. A few other goons followed behind him holding an arrangement of weapons, from crowbars to brass knuckles.
"Got us a couple of reporters, too stupid to keep their noses out of peoples business."
"Follow my lead." Frank whispered. He got up from crouching, as did Rogue and Peter.
"Hey fellas. You guys are a little bit late for my fan meet and greet. Its isn't until Saturday." Frank quipped. The goons looked unimpressed, as Peter and Rogue looked mildly confused.
"I was just showing these kids the sights. Story of my life." Frank said, trying to walk with the teens out of the small group they found themselves in. The goons surrounded the three of them, as one pushed Frank back into the middle.
"Nah, the way I see it, we just came in the nick of time. Right boys?" The goons all nodded in agreement. "Now here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take both of your cameras, smash the shit out of them, and then break ya legs. Capiche?"
"I'm kind of a fan of having working legs, and a working camera. My answer's gonna have to be no." Peter replied. He knew he couldn't start pulling out Spider-Man moves in front of Frank or these mob guys, but he knew enough basic defense to send these guys to a hospital visit without any permanent injuries.
"Can't believe this, but I'm going to have to agree with the kid on this." Frank said.
Rogue was quiet, but Peter had the feeling she was ready to fight if necessary. Frank was ready to fight and held his camera securely, and Peter got into a fighting stance while moving the camera strap across his chest and having the camera rest at his hip.
"Fine, it's your idiots' funerals." The main goon said, as he pointed the baseball at his head.
"Kingpin ain't gonna have no press problems after this."