Bayville highschool, Cafeteria.
After the random kid yelled food fight, Fred continued his rampage from his embarrassment of his food situation. He began throwing food at everyone once he pelted Duncan and his crew. The cafeteria fell into chaos, with half of the students throwing food at each other, and the other half trying to get out of the path of flying food.
Peter and Webber ducked down under their table to avoid the frenzy of food flying around them, while Rogue and Risty moved towards the main hallway.
Scott and Kurt threw themselves to the ground to avoid being hit, as well as Jean created a telepathic shield in front of her face to ward off some food. Unfortunately, Kitty got pelted in the face with a burger, with the toppings falling off and landing on her clothes.
Kitty recoiled in disgust at her "Excuse me, I'm skipping dessert." She proceeded to phase down into the ground, waving goodbye to Jean.
"This is not how I imagined the first day going." Webber said, both him and Peter still ducked under the table.
"Well...still better than my first day freshman year at Midtown. At least I got to actually save my lunch this time."
"What?" Webber questioned, obviously confused.
"Never mind, I'll explain another time." Peter noticed Rogue and Risty had made it back out into the hallways, and figured the logical thing at this point was to get out of the food war zone.
"Webber, how good are you at running?"
"Uhhh, decent, I guess?"
"Good, because we're running for the hallways." Before Webber could retort in any capacity, Peter took off, running straight at the door. Thanks to his Spider sense (as well as Fred now being distracted with Jean rather than the jocks in general), he avoided most of the food being flown. Webber, however, wasn't as lucky.
By the time Webber and Peter reached the door, Peter was sweating, and Webber was sticky from being covered in various foods and drinks.
"Oh god damn it! I just got this shirt yesterday." Webber exclaimed in frustration.
"Yeahhhh, sorry about that. Figured we would've gotten through without getting hit."
"Yea, for you anyways. I'm going to the bathroom to clean up." Webber headed for the nearest sink, leaving Peter in the hallway. He decided that now being out of the danger zone was a good idea to find his next class.
On the way there, he was suddenly stopped by 3 guys, and only recognized one of them.
"Hey Lance. Uhh, who are you two? And-" Peter stopped when a unholy stench suddenly made its way to his nose. He thankfully stopped himself from throwing up, but it wasn't going to stay down a second time.
"Ughh, which one of you reeks that bad?"
The short one, who looked like the main culprit, tried defending himself.
"Aye, cut a dude some slack. I didn't have time to shower today."
"And the other 364 days in the year?" The short kid got upset, but the kid with sliver hair stepped in.
"Cool it Tolansky, I mean, you're from New York City same as Pete here right? Shouldn't be fighting a fellow neighbor."
"Whatever Pietro."
Peter was mildly confused at what they wanted, and the 1st bell ringing out to signify lunch was over was all Peter needed to tell himself to get out of here.
"Right, well while you guys take your stink and snark routine on the road, I have to get to class." Peter said sarcastically, as he went around the group."
"Oh sure, walk away. Guess we don't need to talk about a certain X-Men and Spider problem, do we?" Peter froze in place.
"How the hell does he know about those two?" Peter thought. Immediately his head began to fill with playbacks of yesterday and earlier today, but he had no way of being seen as Spider-Man from today or yesterday. Unless...
"Warehouse out the edge of the city...ring any bells?" Pietro pushed. Peter turned around and surprisingly looked calm.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Yeah, sure you don't Spider-boy." Tolansky said, simultaneously pulling out his phone. He pulled up his gallery and showed Peter pictures of him, putting on his mask and swinging away after his argument with Rogue yesterday. Sure enough, Peter's calm demeanor broke.
"What's a matter Parker? Got no clever comeback now?" Pietro jeered.
"Enough Pietro." Lance butted in now, in a sort of defense for Peter. This didn't amuse Pietro, who wanted to keep rubbing in the blackmail to Peter.
"What do you mean enough? Far as we're concerned-"
"Maybe you forgot, but Mystique left me in charge. So if I say lay off, then lay off." Lance demanded. Pietro looked pissed off, but also didn't push the issue more. Still, it didn't help Peter's current issue.
"Look, just meet us by the bleachers outside when schools done. And come alone Parker." Lance turned towards Peter. Peter didn't give a verbal answer, rather he gave an angry scowl to all three teens. They started walking away when Pietro decided to get one last jab in.
"Oh and Peter, if you think somehow you can outsmart us-" Peter witnessed Pietro move fast enough to get out of his main view and end up behind him, where Pietro opened his bag and shoved him. Peter hit the ground and all his books ended up falling out.
"You can't." The three teens walked away as Peter stayed on the floor, processing exactly what happened.
"Great. Now I gotta worry about those three blackmailing me?" Peter thought to himself. Despite the stress of the situation, he quickly gathered his books and made a B-line to his next class.
1 Hour Later.
Despite the fact that she had to do a play scene with someone she was running from to avoid certain death, Rogue decided to bite the bullet and rehearse the scene they need to do.
Once the final bell rung, everyone flooded the halls. Rogue was praising in her head the fact she wasn't claustrophobic, as the whole school was shoulder to shoulder. Still, knowing what would happen if she touched anyone ever so slightly, it'd be bad news. So she opted to wait until the hallways cleared up a bit.
Rogue thought back to her life in Mississippi. Sure, it wasn't much different than now, minus the obvious change of her having powers and having to not touch people. Despite that, she was still self reserved, not really having friends. More so just repeated acquaintances.
Luckily she had Peter, the only real person she could trust right now, yet she wondered if it was a good idea to try to make friends even if it meant stepping out of her comfort zone.
"Uhm, excuse me?" A voice came from behind Rogue, slightly startling her. The girl saw this and immediately was apologetic.
"Ohh, sorry! I didn't mean to scare you." Rogue turned to see a Asian woman behind her, with medium-ish length black hair, and wearing a long sleeve sweater, black skinny jeans, and black flat pumps.
"Its alright, ah was just daydreaming and sorta wandered off."
"Yeah, I could tell...not that its a bad thing, I just...uh...could I get to my locker please?" Rogue could guess either the girl was a social introvert, or was trying to be very careful in not getting her upset. Either way, she stepped to the side and let the girl get to her locker.
"Hey, your new here, right?"
"Yeah, you could say ah just moved recently."
"Where from? If you don't mind me asking."
"Mississippi...well technically New York City."
The girl was lost, not that Rogue could exactly blame her. Trying to be vague was bound to lead to confusion eventually.
"Its a long story that ah don't got time to tell right now."
"Oh, that's fine. I'm Cindy by the way. Cindy Moon."
"Rogue." Cindy looked confused again. Rogue simply sighed.
"That's your actual name?"
"Ah got amnesia." Cindy seemed content with the answer, although was still confused at the name choice. Despite that, she still continued to talk to Rogue.
"Hey so, I'm guessing your new right?" Rogue nodded her head, albeit hesitantly as she didn't know where Cindy was going with this.
"If you want, I can show you around. If you're free."
"Ah appreciate the offer, but ah gotta do this rehearsal for drama class. Maybe next time?" Cindy simply smiled and nodded, which did make Rogue feel a bit better with her denial. She left Cindy's company and made her way to the meet up with Scott.
5 Minutes Later.
Rogue ended up seeing Scott at a picnic table near the outside bleachers. She was still weary about him, but figured he wouldn't try anything reckless on school grounds.
"Hey Rogue. I'm glad you didn't bail on me."
"Yeah well, Ah'm only doing this for the grade. Don't get any funny ideas."
"Yeah, I got it." Scott responded. Gaining her trust was going to be difficult, but that plan of action would have to wait. They had a play to rehearse.
The pair of them went through a quarter of their scene in about 15 minutes and started to continue again, with Scooter starting the midway point for them.
"Do you like me Kate?"
"Pardonnez-moi? Ah can not tell what is 'like me'" Despite her best attempts at a French accent, Rogue couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed reading her lines, not only because of the accent, but because the whole scene was essentially both of their characters flirting with each other.
"An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel." Scott felt he was doing a good job at reading his lines, so he was confused when Rogue started to giggle.
"The girls are right. You are a charmer." Rogue blurted out before realizing what she said.
"Why did ah say that?"
"L-look, I'm just reading the lines, ok?" Scott replied, obviously caught off guard. He knew that he got the attention of most, if not all, of the girls in Bayville High, but didn't take Rogue to be one of them. Or for her to be bold enough to relay that rumor to him in person.
Rogue, now both internally and externally embarrassed, covered her face in her hand.
"Yeah, ah know. It's just sometimes..." Rogue stopped herself, wondering if Scott would even be the right person to talk to about her own personal issue. "Ah wish..."
"Yeah? Wish what?" Scott closed the playbook, wanting to pay attention to what Rogue had to say.
"...it's nothing. Forget it. It's stupid."
Scott slightly chuckled, although it was more in nervousness about what he was going to say, knowing how she felt already.
"Rogue, I know you think we tried to kill you, so you're going to think I'm a hypocrite when I say this, but you can trust me with whatever it is you're thinking. I'm not going to tell nobody your business."
Rogue, for some reason, felt like Scott wasn't lying. It seemed too sincere to be a lie.
"Ah just wish...Ah could get close to someone." Rogue's attention turned to the distant bleachers, where she could see Peter walking back and forth in the same area frantically, as if he was panicking.
Scott noticed Rogue staring at Peter. "Look, don't get mad at me for saying this, but you two seem pretty close."
"He's..." Rogue thought about how she could realistically describe Peter, without revealing his Spider-Man identity.
"Brave?"
"Heroic?"
"An idiot?"
"Clown?"
"Been a good friend to me. Him and his Aunt. Ah just feel like Ah've been freeloading off them since the whole cemetery thing."
"I'm not going to pry into what you mean by that, but Rogue, it sounds like he's a good guy. If his family took you in with you being a runaway." Scott said, regretting his choice of words.
"Crap, I didn't mean it that way."
Rogue simply giggled a bit. "Its fine Summers." The pair sat in silence for a bit, until a cloud of brimstone and sulfur filled the area in between both of them and Nightcrawler appeared.
"Woah! Tender moment here? Sorry to interrupt." Nightcrawler said. Scott could tell Rogue was either scared, upset, or both as she reverted back to her mentality as if the last 2 minutes didn't even happen.
"Ah swear, he's like an annoying little brother." Nightcrawler didn't take the remark well, as he was at first confused, and then retorted back by sticking out his tongue, sort of playing into what Rogue was saying.
Scott, however, wanted to get to the bottom of why Kurt was here with no disguise on. "What's the problem Kurt?"
"Jean's been nabbed."
"WHAT?!" Scott exclaimed, catching both the blue mutant and the goth off guard. What caught both of them even more off guard was Scott's sudden handsy treatment of Kurt, grabbing him by the collar.
"Whoa! Easy on the exquisite costume mein freund!" Kurt said, slapping Scott's hands off of him.
"Wolverine's on the scent, but I'm supposed to collect you. And next time, don't manhandle me please?"
Scott remained quiet for a few seconds, but then became overwhelmed with a sense of anger and slammed his hands on the table, shaking it and the books.
"It was Blob! If he's hurt her, I'll-" Scott noticed Rogue was looking away from him, following her eyes to Peter, who was in a conversation (or scheme) with The Brotherhood.
"You or Peter know anything about this?" Rogue was stunned by the question and sudden accusation against her and Peter.
"Peter doesn't know jack about y'all. And ah don't know anything either. And even if ah did, ah wouldn't tell you."
"Then I hope you can live with your conscience." Scott spat back. Rogue immediately shifted her attention away again, sort of feeling defeated and regretting what she said.
Scott didn't have the right mind to continue the argument, nor was he in the mood too. His main focus now was rescuing Jean. He turned over to Kurt, who was crouched awkwardly between them.
"Teleported to maximum, Mr. Wagner."
"Aye, Captain!" Kurt responded with a salute. He then prepared himself and Scott for teleportation. Rogue witnessed the teleport, and the unfortunate scent Kurt left when he did it, being the sulfur smell from when he first popped in.
"This is just great. First ah had to do a play with Scott, now he's yelling at me cause ah don't pay attention to Ms. High and Mighty." Rogue rested her face in her hand, wondering if she was right, still being stand-offish with the X-Men. It did seem pretty uncharacteristic of them to want to befriend her after they attacked her. She thought maybe it was they were just insane. But then the idea of Ms. Darkhölme not telling her the whole truth started creeping in her mind.
"Overthinking this isn't going to help me. Ah need to talk to Peter." Rogue got up from the table and made her way to her friend.
Bleachers.
"Heya Spider-boy. Fancy meeting you here, hehe." Todd said. Peter, still reeling from what happened after lunch with these three, was not in a very joking mood. Within 24 hours of living in Bayville, his life was already at risk of crumbling.
"Yeah, blackmail tends to have me meeting people I don't want to meet, in places I don't want to be at."
"Hey now, place nice you two." Peter turned to see Pietro and Lance walking towards him.
"And here they are. Edge lord and a wannabe Jack Frost." Peter quipped. Pietro simply didn't respond to the jab while Lance seemed more annoyed by the comment.
"Jokes aren't going to help you out of this Petey. Here's what's going to happen. We now know Rogue isn't the only one of you two new kids to be a mutant-"
"What do you want with Rogue?" Peter interjected.
"Why you wanna know? Got yourself a little crush?" Todd asked. Peter shot him a dirty look, but he didn't seem to be intimidated in the slightest.
"The short of what we're saying is that you two have had a run in with the X-Men, and both of you have fought them." Lance stated. "We want you both on our side."
"Right, right. I forgot that blackmail is a great motivator for team building." Peter replied. "I don't want whatever you're selling."
"See thats the thing Peter, you don't exactly have a choice." Pietro brought up. "In case you forgot, we have a phone full of pictures of you using your powers. And it just so happens that a local reporter is hosting a news contest for a reward."
Peter grew increasingly furious and also desperate for the phone, as he wanted to stomp it to pieces at this point, and Pietro's consistent pestering wasn't helping the case.
"So Peter, here's your ultimatum. Convince Rogue to join us alongside you to fight the X-Men, or Bayville gets a inside scoop behind the mask." Pietro flaunted the phone in front of Peter again, knowing he wouldn't be able to grab it fast enough.
Peter heard the chuckles of Todd and Pietro as they left, but Lance remained with him.
"Look Peter, it's better if you join us anyway. You can't trust those X-Men losers regardless."
Peter crossed his arms. "Yeah, because following me and holding blackmail is making me trust you guys a whole lot more."
Lance wasn't oblivious to the sarcasm, but he couldn't lie and say it didn't somewhat hurt him that if Peter went through with joining, he wouldn't be able to trust Lance and Lance wouldn't be able to 100% rely on Peter's help.
Knowing the conversation wouldn't go anywhere positive, Lance sighed and walked away. Simultaneously, Rogue just arrived to Peter, seeing the three other shady teens leaving his presence, and seeing the stress on Peter's face.
"Peter, you alright?" Rogue asked, concerned. Peter looked up at her, still processing the choice, or lack there of, that Pietro gave him.
"Y-yeah, it was nothing."
Safe to say, Rogue wasn't buying the lie.
"Peter, ah know enough of your memories to tell when ya lying." Peter sighed as he saw Rogue's face shift into the same annoyed face she had yesterday.
"They...got me on camera using my powers."
"O-oh..."
"Yeah. And now they want us to join them in fighting those X-men, otherwise they're gonna send that pic to the local news station, and suddenly Peter Parker turns into a public menace." Peter said. He started reliving the memory of when Venom tried to reveal his identity, but failed due to lack of evidence (and from a good stunt from Flash). He didn't have that type of Hail Mary with him this time, and he knew it.
During his impromptu visit down stress memory lane, Peter felt a weight onto his arm, he looked down to see Rogue's gloved hand resting on it as she attempted to ease his stress.
"Trust me, we're not joining nothing. And ah don't know how, but we'll figure out a way to get those photos deleted." Peter felt glad in the moment that Aunt May was willing to let the goth southern come with them, as he really was grateful for her friendship in this moment.
"Thanks for the reassurance Rogue." Peter replied with a smile. Rogue even cracked a slight smile too, although it was short lived when she remembered why she came to him in the first place. She stepped back, taking her hand off his arm.
"Peter, ah know you have this whole "superhero morals" thing going on, but if you had the chance to help someone you didn't trust get someone they cared about, would you help them?"
"If they weren't planning to kill me after, then yeah. Although, I'd probably be inclined to help anyways." Peter replied honestly. "Why do you ask?"
Rogue looked Peter in his eyes, showing the severity of the issue without really telling him specifics.
"Ah need your help."
And thats all for chapter 7. If you don't know now (probably because I didn't make it obvious enough, my bad), this is starting from X-Men evolution's first season. And obviously I've changed some stuff around already, especially with this chapter. And with this chapter, Cindy Moon is now involved in the story, although she still has some more down the road time before she starts really being Silk, so just hold out for a bit. Either way, I hope you all enjoyed, and until next time.
