Arc 1 - A New World - Chapter 5: Sins of a Father

X-23 felt listless. Naruto was studying the translated information Dr. Strange had provided to him. Dr. Strange had his duties as the Sorcerer Supreme to keep him occupied when he wasn't studying Naruto. She had nothing. He had even gone as far as to ask Dr. Strange and Naruto if they could teach her their techniques. Unfortunately, she was not gifted with ability in the mystic arts and was far too old to begin developing her chakra. Even if she had begun learning to use chakra in a body five years younger, it was doubtful that she would ever have developed a capacity beyond that beyond that of a rookie genin because chakra channels hardened with age if they were not constantly trained.

X-23 let loose one of her claws, examining the way the light reflected off of it. With a twist of her wrist, she saw the reflection of Naruto watching her.

"You okay?" Naruto asked.

"Just bored," X-23 replied, "There is nothing here for me to do."

"Spar with me?" Naruto suggested.

"Sounds like fun," X-23 said as she slid head first off the couch and did a back handspring to land on her feet as she led the way to a room where they knew they wouldn't do any damage. The door opened into a starry void. It was actually a separate reality pocket with a single link to their universe. Dr. Strange had told them that this place was used when you needed to be undisturbed, but it was also useful for when you needed to do something potentially destructive since the void extended forever. The room did come with one warning, however, they must remain within sight of the door or they may never find their way back.

"Taijutsu only?" Naruto offered.

"Okay. No claws. No jutsu," X-23 agreed.

"Let's go!"

Naruto began to run towards her, cocking his fist back and telegraphing his punch a good three seconds before throwing it. X-23 barely needed to tilt her head to avoid the strike before planting a knee in his diaphragm. Naruto fell to the ground gasping for air. He scrambled to his feet and attacked again with a flying kick that X-23 grabbed, using his momentum to throw him several meters deeper into the void. While his agility and stamina were impressive, it soon became obvious that either he had never been taught how to fight, or his teacher had sabotaged him. He was also obviously unused to being as slow as he was, an unfortunate side effect of his new adamantium skeleton.

X-23 decided on her purpose. While Dr. Strange would help him with the mystical arts, she would do everything in her power to help him with the martial ones. With this decided, she slammed a knee into the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

X-23 having dumped the unconscious Naruto into his bed, was now wandering the streets of New York. She had found a couple martial arts dojos so far, but she was hoping to find one that would uniquely fit Naruto's style and personality. Tae Kwon Do was much too rigid for him and Karate was reduced to a tournament art more than a fighting style. Boxing completely ignored half his body. Those seemed to be the styles the majority of dojos practiced. Jiu Jitsu looked promising for ground work and holds, but its striking was weak. She was hoping that she could find a place that taught Muai Thai since it was the perfect complement to jiujitsu and matched Naruto's aggressive style.

As she was crossing the street, X-23 noticed a man on a motorcycle with chops and a few days growth of facial hair. Something about the smell of him pissed her off. It really pissed her off. Without thinking, she released her claws and tacked the man off the motorcycle, causing the man to curse. It was surprising to her that her claw did not penetrate the man's chest. She had expected the man to be dead. She realized what had happened when the man revealed claws of his own, and with a roar, drove them up under her rib cage.

As she was choking on her own blood, she heard the infuriating man growl, "Why the hell do you smell like me?"

Wolverine was heading back to the X-Mansion when he was tackled off the motorcycle by some girl with claws not too unlike his own. He was not too upset about the two pairs of twin holes in his pectorals; those would heal in seconds once the claws were removed. What really pissed him off was the crashing and scraping from his mode of transportation.

'Cyclops is never going to get off my ass about the way I keep damaging his bikes,' he thought. Letting out a bestial roar, he slammed his own claws through her soft tissue and into her chest cavity. He had fought Sabretooth enough times to know how to deal with people with healing factors. Without oxygen and blood, the girl slowly began loosing strength and consciousness.

Logan took a good whiff of the girl to see if he could identify her. There had to be a reason she attacked him out of nowhere. "Why the hell do you smell like me?" he growled. Perhaps it was another of his illegitimate children. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't remember most of his life. He picked up the bike, ignoring the mirror that had broken off. He climbed on, tossing the girl over the back before continuing on his way. Perhaps Charles could answer some of his questions.

Charles Xavier was fascinated with the girl's mind. Only the most recent memories were real, the rest was a construct created by a telepath. It was not that old memories were suppressed, hidden, or erased, they had never existed. The work was obviously incomplete, but whoever had been working on her had been a genius. He doubted that he could have done much better.

He soon found the reason for her attack buried in her combat training. It was a trigger scent based on pheromones, pheromones that Wolverine obviously produced naturally. He disconnected the scent from her combat training and reconnected it to a block of memories containing the blond haired boy that she had imprinted on and moved Logan's image to the same area with a sense of protectiveness as is deserved of family. She would likely be confused for a while before the alterations set, but once she became accustomed to his presence, there should be no more unwarranted attacks. He did a quick check for any more unconscious control mechanisms before exiting the girl's mind.

"So, what did you find, Chuck?" Logan asked.

"Well, she is not so much your daughter as your clone, or at least a partial clone. She and another boy, unrelated to you, escaped from the same facility you did. They were using some pheromones derived from your unique physiology as a form of trigger scent to make her attack. I've tried to associate your scent with family instead, so I hope you will live up to the role as she will see you as her father once she overcomes her confusion. I don't recommend removing her restraints until after the confusion ends though." With a mental command, he caused the girl to regain consciousness.

X-23 screamed in rage and struggled. She was bound with leather restraints that were beyond the reach of her claws, and the man with that hateful scent was right in front of her.

Charles Xavier watched her struggle. After a few minutes, she calms down enough form him to address her. "X-23, I am Professor Charles Xavier, head of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children. The people who programmed your mind put in a compulsion for you to attack anyone who carried a particular scent. I have disabled that compulsion because that scent is naturally produced by the man you could consider your biological father. This man is Jim Logan, also known as Wolverine."

X-23 snarled and thrashed, snapping her teeth aggressively at her father.

"You are not a prisoner here. You are only being restrained until you can control yourself. It will be difficult because it has always been a part of you, you just need to realize that you don't need to fight when you notice that scent. Logan will stay here with you. Once you can speak civilly with him, he will release you."

This elicited another fit of rage.

"Meanwhile, I will contact Dr. Strange and Naruto and let them know where you are and what has happened."

Naruto was startled when the phone rang. He knew what the phone was because he had seen Dr. Strange make calls before, but he had never heard it ring before. He moved over to the device, watching as lights blinked as it rang again. He jumped out of the way when Dr. Strange entered the room and headed to the phone.

"Hello, you've reached Dr. Strange. How may I help you?" Dr. Strange said into the receiver. A few moments later he said, "One moment. I'll put you on speaker." He pressed a button on the device that had a flattened wedge with radiating lines. "Okay."

"Hello, my name is Charles Xavier from the Xavier institute for gifted children. I am calling to inform you and Naruto of X-23's whereabouts. The men who created her implanted a psychic directive to attack anyone with a certain scent on them. It turns out that her father, a teacher at my institute, naturally produces that scent. She attacked him in town today and he brought her here. I removed the command, but it might take a few hours for her to adjust to the change and we didn't want you to worry if she was late."

"I come see her!" Naruto said in a tone that brooked no argument.

"If you insist," Xavier said before giving him general directions to the school. Naruto raced out the door before he could be offered a ride.

Naruto knew exactly where he was... Lost. He had tried to follow the directions, but either his weak command of the English language or his short attention span and bad memory had failed him. He was now wandering through some sort of industrial district filled with warehouses.

Turning a corner, he spotted an odd vehicle. It did not resemble any car he had ever seen. It did not even appear to have wheels. There were several men in yellow hazardous materials suits moving crates from one of the warehouses to the odd vehicle. These men and the vehicle both had some sort of motif formed of hexagons on them. Had this been all, Naruto would have just ignored them, instead, there were a group of the yellow garbed men carrying strange weapons that looked like long thin guns and keeping a group of security officers subdued.

Naruto crept closer for a better look. He could see that the crates were all stamped with 'STARK INDUSTRIES LTD.' on the sides. The thieves were also not actually carrying them. They seemed to be using some sort of hovering platform to move them. Naruto did what came naturally to him when he saw something bad happening. He ran in and kicked one of the men in the face.

"These are not belonging to you!" Naruto announced, drawing a spattering of laser fire that he managed to dodge with some impressive acrobatics and the fact that these men really couldn't aim very well. He performed the shadow clone jutsu, sending the clones to disable the vehicle and rescue the hostages while he continued to fight the yellow villains.

Tony was relaxing with a glass of something obscenely expensive he had not bothered to check the name of before popping the cap off the bottle and dropping down on the couch.

"TV on!" he commanded. The automated systems turned on the device which occupied an entire wall of the lavishly large room. The television was already tuned to an international news channel. Tony had just spent the last twenty hours refining a difficult power coupling and almost doubling its efficiency at the same time. The new design would be integrated into his next build of his Iron Man armor and would decrease the vulnerable area around the joints where injuries were likely to occur. He was running out of improvements he could make to the current iteration of his armor without rebuilding the design from the ground up. Perhaps it was time to move up to a Mark V battle armor despite how well the Mark IV had served him for the past few years, there had, after all, been several advances in materials sciences that he could not integrate into his current suit.

His ponderings were interrupted when the screen of the television flashed red as his phone buzzed in alarm.

"Put it on screen," he ordered. The news was replaced with security camera footage identified as being from one of his New York warehouses. He could see men in Advanced Idea Mechanics uniforms subduing the guards and appropriating his technology. He sighed in irritation as he headed back down to his private lab. Automated assembly arms attached his armor as he walks to to launch bay. Once the last piece has been affixed, he blasted into the sky at supersonic velocities.

"Call Pepper," Tony spoke to the command interface.

"Tony, what's up?" His executive assistant asked.

"I'm heading to New York. A.I.M. is ripping off one of our warehouses as we speak. I'm going to crash at the tower tonight."

"Okay, be careful," Pepper replied, "I'll move your morning appointments to your tower office."

"Thanks, Pepper. What would I do without you?"

"Run this company into the ground. You're lucky you have me. Call me when you get to the tower." Pepper hung up.

After another few minutes at supersonic velocities, Tony arrived in New York and had his display direct him to the affected warehouse. He wouldn't have been too surprised to see Spider-Man or Daredevil since this wasn't too far out of their areas of action, but he didn't expect to see two dozen identical blond boys fighting off the A.I.M. agents with hand to hand combat. Occasionally, one of the boys would be struck with a laser blast, but would just disappear in a puff of smoke. It seemed to be some sort of temporary duplication ability.

Since the thieves were distracted, Tony decided to take advantage of the situation by shooting them in the back with his repulsar blasts. In this way, the thieves were quickly disabled and left to the tender mercies of the formerly captured security guards.

"Thanks for delaying them, kid. They may have gotten away before I could arrive if you hadn't stalled them for me."

Tony turned and blasted into the air. There was no point in hanging around for fans. He was surprised when he felt his launch jink downwards suddenly as his suit reported that weight had practically doubled and the drag was using up reserve energy as fast as his miniature arc reactor could produce it.

"Shit!" Tony swore as blond hair and blue eyes filled his view. His navigational aids meant that this did not cause him to fly into any buildings, but it was quite annoying.

He flew low, performing a barrel roll as he swerved side to side, hoping to throw his passenger off. To his surprise, the boy clung to him by his fingertips with a Spider-Man like tenacity as he screamed. On second thought, over the whistling of the rushing wind he could tell that those were whoops of joy. The kid was having fun riding him like a bucking bronco. He considered activating his unibeam to make sure the kid got the message that he was not wanted. Unfortunately, killing kids did not exactly look all that great on a superhero's resume. He decided that it would be a better idea to stop for a moment and see what the kid wanted, other than a thrill ride. It also wouldn't do to keep this up until it drained his power to the point that the magnets keeping the shrapnel from piercing his heart failed.

Tony gained altitude and hovered. He would have liked to cross his arms and glare at the grinning blond, but the boy was still firmly attached to his shoulders. "Was there something you wanted from me?" To his surprise, the blonde let go of him. He was about to dive after him when he realized that the boy seemed to be standing horizontally on his armor as if his own gravitational field was overpowering that of the planet. Since he was not Graviton, he felt that situation to be unlikely. He had thought that this boy's powers had been similar to Multiple Man, but it appeared he was mistaken.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head and grinned. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I is getting lost. You is knowing where Xavier Institute is?"

Tony sighed. He was just a normal mutant. It was kind of disappointing. "I know where it is, I can get you there in about five minutes."

"My friend is there," Naruto said, "I is going to see if she is okay."

"You're not a mutant?" Tony asked.

Naruto shook his head. "I is from different dimension. I is ninja!" he announced proudly.

Tony considered this for a moment. It was not the first instance of interdimensional travel he had heard of. Usually this type of this was handled by Reed since he was usually the cause of such events, or Steven Strange.

"You have nice armor," Naruto said.

"Thanks. I made it myself," Tony preened.

"You is knowing where I can is having weapons made? Weapons using chakra?"

Tony frowned. Chakra was one of those mystical concepts that Asians sometimes talked about. He had never heard about using it for weapons. Perhaps the boy was referring to something different since he was from another dimension. "What is chakra?"

"Is energy from body and mind," Naruto explained.

Tony sighed. It was exactly as those Asian mystics explained it. Why couldn't people just stick to science instead of mumbo jumbo that couldn't be seen, measured or quantified.

"Ah, I show you!" Naruto announced as he held out a hand. A swirling mass of some form of energy gathered in his hand.

Tony's eyes widened in shock. This was a visible level of energy. To be emitting photons at a rate to be so visible, the amount of energy in the boy's hand had to be incredible. "Activate all sensors and analyze that energy," Tony instructed his suit. The potential of the energy was astounding. The small amount of energy in his hand held the same explosive potential as a similarly sized block of C4. He could also tell that the energy was unstable as if it was constantly trying to fall into different states but was somehow kept at a neutral balance. If he could reproduce this energy and harness it, he could revolutionize technology. He could imagine it now, energy that had the potential to be converted directly to whatever form is needed with little or no loss.

"Is also why feet no move."

Tony scanned the boy's feet. He could indeed detect much smaller energy emissions. Once again, it was unspecialized energy on the verge of falling into other specialized states. He detected no magnetic or gravitikinetic forces. He certainly wasn't being held by friction. It almost seems like he was being held by a rubberized vacuum, but that just didn't make sense.

"That energy, it has some interesting properties," Tony said, "How about you come to Stark Tower this weekend, that big building over by the traffic circle next to central park that says Stark on the front. Stark industries can make pretty much anything, so if you let me study that energy of yours and as a thanks for helping out today, I'll make you the best weapon you've ever laid hands on."

"Arigatou! Err... Thank you, Iron Man," Naruto said with a smile.

"Where were you coming from anyway?"

"We is with Dr. Strange," the boy answered.

That made total sense considering what he had said about his dimensional travel. "Doesn't he live in Greenwich Village?" Tony queried, pulling up the data on his screen as Naruto shrugged, not knowing the names of the districts of New York. "You were going in the complete wrong direction. You headed headed west. Xavier's is mostly north and a little east. If you had gone straight North until you might have walked right by it... After a couple days. Were you seriously going to walk there?"

"I is run fast?" Naruto chuckled nervously.

"Hang on tight. This is going to get fast!" Tony said. He would drop this kid off, then head to bed.

The boy latched on with his fingers again as Tony rocketed into the air. He took a trajectory in a lesser imitation a suborbital flight, rising high enough that all of Manhattan was visible. The kid was once again screaming his joy, despite the ice crystals forming on his follicles as they began to plummet towards the open country of Salem Center about fifty kilometers north of the outskirts of downtown New York City. A hundred meters above the ground, Tony engaged thrusters and came to a swooping halt.

"See that walled area over there?" Across the highway, the back of a walled estate was visible. "That's the Xavier School," Tony said, preparing to fly over at a more sedate pace.

"Thanks. Bye!"

Naruto's miraculous adhesion released as he plummeted towards the ground. Tony was about to dive after him and soften his landing, but remembered all the other abilities the boy had. Surely he wouldn't jump from a damaging height right? There was a thud and a small crater formed in the wild turf.

Tony was mentally patting himself on the back when the blond collapsed to the ground, rolling around and swearing while he clasped his ankle in pain. Okay, maybe he had found the source of all those stupid blond jokes, assuming the kid could turn into a woman, but what were the chances of that? The boy stumbled to his feet, limping for a few steps before taking off at a run. Apparently he had a healing factor as well. Whatever else the kid did today, he was on his own. Tony was much too tired to care about anything other than a soft bed, unless there was a beautiful woman occupying said bed.

Naruto leapt across the road with a grin. Not only had he met another of New York's superheroes, but he'd also found someone willing to manufacture the weapons he was accustomed to. Getting lost today had been a good thing. As he mused, he wasn't paying attention. Instead of coming in for his next chakra enhanced leap off the road, he had landed but first in the laps of a busty blonde and brunette in the back of a convertible. Naruto grinned nervously, wondering if perhaps Jiraiya being his godfather had rubbed off on him in some way. Then there was screaming, and slapping, and Naruto was fairly sure he had accidentally copped a feel of the brunette before he had leapt out of the vehicle and was sent careening off a tree.

Naruto sat up in the grass at the side of the road. Fortunately his rib cage was made out of metal, or else that might have caused some serious damage. He flexed his hand for a moment, remembering the soft handhold he had used to vault over the car door. Somehow, he felt hitting the tree had been totally worth it. He slammed his head into the tree a few times reminding himself that he was not a pervert like Jiraiya.

Naruto took to the trees. They were not as large nor as sturdy as those in Hi no Kuni. He found himself breaking many branches and bouncing off the trunks instead more often than not, but it was still an effective method of travel. Good thing he wasn't being followed though, he was sure a blind monkey could follow the trail he was leaving.

He hopped over a couple fences and ran across a grassy divide before scaling the brick wall that surrounded the institute. He prepared to land in a crouch and race towards the main building when he noticed three things in rapid succession. The first was a ball made mostly of white irregular hexagons that surrounded black regular pentagons. The second was a large red boot. The third was a hit that reminded him of when he had replaced Tsunade's sake with disinfecting alcohol.

The his had dazed him rather badly. His vision was kind of fuzzy. He could feel the jagged edges of broken bricks in his back which meant that he had flown back and busted the wall. He was beginning to almost feel thankful to the bastards to gave him a metal skeleton. He was sure he would have likely had a serious skull fracture without it.

Naruto groaned and forced himself to his feet. He shook his head to clear his vision.

"Are you okay dude?" The speaker looked like he was made of ice.

"I think I am," Naruto said. He felt his forehead, adjusting skin that had been ripped aside by the kick, allowing his healing to deal with the cut. "You is always kick visitor in face?" Naruto asked, looking at the large man who was on the ground cradling his ankle, his body loosing a metallic texture and changing into normal skin.

"No, but it iz not a gut idea to jump head first into a game ov power soccer," this was from a blue guy with a tail that had appeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke.

"I remember that... If no brain damage..." Naruto replied, getting a laugh.

"I can't believe y'all hurt Colossus here with that skull o' your when he kicked you," a girl with white forelocks said, "I'd shake your hand and introduce myself, but you're looking bad enough already. Don't need to be adding my powers to the mix."

Naruto wiped the blood from his face to show that the gashes he had accrued had already healed. "Is not too bad. Grandma Tsunade is hitting harder." This drew laughs from several of the boys and girls, but then they didn't know Tsunade. "She is usually putting me through two walls if she not angry and she is liking me." This brought even more laughter from some and odd looks from the others. "Is someone can be showing me to Xavier?" Naruto asked.

"He's been in infirmary for a while with Wolverine and some girl. I think I may have sprained my ankle, so if you can give me a hand, I will show you the way," Colossus offered with a wince.

X-23 still felt irritated by her father's scent, but it was not longer an irrepressible urge. They had been talking for a while now, mostly about the Xavier Institute and the facilities it offered for training mutants. Her ears picked up a familiar voice. Turning to Professor Xavier she said, "Naruto is coming."

"Indeed he is. Apparently he found his own way here despite running off so hastily earlier," Charles acknowledged.

Naruto enters the infirmary, supporting the much larger Colossus on his shoulder. Upon laying eye on Wolverine, he drops Colossus and tackles Wolverine to the ground. Wolverine, not to be taken out by a young whelp, rolls with the tackle and throws Naruto into a cart of medical supplies. Naruto regains his feet as Wolverine lets out his claws. The two start to dive for each other only to freeze in impossible positions.

"Perhaps you can discuss your problems civilly rather than destroying the expensive equipment in the infirmary?" Charles suggested, "What grievance do you have exactly against Logan?" The two suddenly regained control of their bodies and almost tumbled to the ground.

"This," Naruto growled as he pulled off his shirt. His body was covered in scars. His healing factor did not waste time making things pretty when his life was endangered. There were eight of particular prominence. Two fist sized scars with radiating electrical patterns could be seen on his right chest and shoulder with matching exit wounds on his back. These were not the scars Naruto traced though. He ran his fingers along six short, almost parallel vertical lines of scar tissue. "You stabbed me in back for no reason. You is reason those assholes is use me for replacing you. I is liking having bones that don't break, but I is not wanting to be stuck in tube for sick experimenting!"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but I don't remember any of that. Those assholes, as you put it, were messing with my head. I only remember flashes of my time with them in some of my dreams, even with Chuck's help. I don't have any clear memories until I woke up naked in a barn and all I had to remember myself by were these dog tags saying my name was Jim Logan. I can't exactly be held responsible for that."

"Well, now, I is knowing I can live if losing my heart. Next time you will not be taking me down so easily." He stuck out his tongue childishly then turned to X-23. "What was you doing when you is running into your old man?" Naruto asked.

"You lack proper form in your hand to hand fighting skills. I was looking for a place that could teach you hand to hand fighting skills that match your personality and style. I found a Jiu Jitsu dojo which is good for holds and submissions and ground fighting. I was hoping to also find a Muai Thai dojo or something similar since I believe that style most closely matches your personality and is most easily adaptable to your unique approach to fighting."

Naruto sighed, looking dejected that she thought so little of his combat skills. He had worked so hard to learn those forms from Mizuki and had finally reached the point where he could use them effectively... His mind began connecting the dots as he came to the realization that Mizuki had purposefully sabotaged his training. He couldn't believe he had never realized it before. No wonder the perverted sage had spent so much time trying to fix his taijutsu.

"These should allow you to fight aggressively and unpredictably, while not relying on luck for offense and your healing for defense," X-23 concluded.

"If you want, I can program those styles into the institute's danger room. That would allow you to train here without worrying about harming normal people as long as there isn't anyone else using it at the time," Wolverine suggested, "I can help you train, give me a chance to get to know you and your friend." Wolverine turned to Naruto after a moment of thought. "And to make up for stabbing you, even though I don't remember it."

"That would be acceptable," X-23 turned to Naruto for confirmation. He grinned happily.

"Well, it's good that all that is settled," Xavier chuckled, "There is one other issue that has me concerned. You, miss, have been going by the label X-23. That is an experiment number, not a name. Logan, perhaps it is time you gave your daughter a name."

"I haven't exactly been a model father," Logan replied, "Choose your own name kiddo. It will be whatever makes you happy."

"Charles, Jim, Steven, Naruto; Those are all the names I know. What should I call myself?" X-23 queried innocently.

Charles chuckled. "I think you will find it better if you chose a name traditionally used for females. You don't seem to have come into contact with any since you escaped."

"I will need to think on it," Laura said, furrowing her brow. "Do you have any suggestions?"

Naruto thought about the women he knew for a moment. "I is not say. If I say, I think person when you use name. If I choose, I choose of who I want X-23 be like. X-23 is X-23. I can not give name."

"That is a rather mature view for you to take," Xavier commented, "It is good that you respect her so much that you want to preserve a friendship with her rather than burdening her with any expectations that you attach to a name of a person you know. It is better that she choose a name that suits her own goals and sets her own expectations so you can continue to think of her as who she is and who she chooses to be. I'm not so sure I can say the same for you Logan."

Wolverine crossed his arms and snorted, glancing away to an empty corner of the room.

"Even if one of you is not technically a mutant, I want to let you know that you are both welcome at this institute whenever you want, whether as guests or if you should so choose students in residence."

Naruto shifted uncomfortably at the thought. "Is better for me to stay at Dr. Strange. I is needing his help to learn and for... another thing," Naruto mumbled, crossing his arms defensively and glancing away much as Logan had done when Charles had chastised him.

"I suppose you're right, but don't feel that you'll be unwelcome. I am sure many of the students would enjoy a spar or a game once in a while."

Naruto nodded.

"I will stay with Dr. Strange as well. I do not feel comfortable among crowds. His scent," X-23 jutted her chin towards Wolverine, "is everywhere as well." X-23's claws slid half out then back in. "I also do not wish to leave Naruto. He feels safe when others are threats. I am used to his presence."

"I understand."

"If you're heading back, I guess I can give you a lift," Wolverine offered.

"One thing," Naruto said, he turned to Colossus whose foot was being wrapped in a pressure bandage by a furry blue man. "Is you being alright."

"I will be fine in a few weeks. It is only a minor sprain," the large muscular man laughed, "How is your head?"

"Still there, so is good," Naruto joked.