AN: I'm annoyed cause everytime I put a page break in it never goes up right so I'm going to start marking how much time is passing in between each scene

I glare at the short, clawed man as I lean against the wall of the training room as I clutch my bleeding arm. How could I not glare as his leg cracks back into place as if I'd never broken it. "I hate you." He lets out half a laugh before stopping with a pained expression on his face that makes me grin. "Broken ribs heal slower huh?"

He gives me a grin "We'll see if your still laughing when I'm up tomorrow and you'll be cradling that arm of yours." I take a second to stop glaring as I survey the damage. My recently healed right arm is bleeding from two large scratches on my bicep and three smaller ones on my forearm pretty sure my ankle is sprained, and I might be concussed. I look up at the man again as he pushes himself to his feet using the wall as support for a few seconds before letting go. "You may be fast Parker, but you don't know the first thing about fighting."

I scoff, "You aren't exactly a martial arts master yourself, the hell do you know about fighting?"

He shuffles over to me and looks down with his cocky grin never leaving his face. "We'll I'm sure as hell better at picking my fights." If I thought I could I'd spring up and deal another punch to the face.

He holds his hand out to me, "You hungry kid?"

I look at the hand for a second before painfully shrugging and taking it, "I don't feel like going to the cafeteria."

With a pull he hauls me to my feet and I grit my teeth, Oh yeah that ankle is at least sprained. "Who said anything about the cafeteria?"

-twenty minutes later -

I take a sip of the drink in front of me and have to suppress a gag, I glance at the scantily clad girl dancing on the stage and avert my eyes to the man that somehow got me in here. "I thought we were getting lunch."

He doesn't even look away from the dancer as he starts his second drink, "We got food."

Again if I wasn't so hurt I think I'd strangle him. "This-" I point to the basket of chips on the table, "is not lunch!" Why the hell is a place like this even open at this hour?

He grabs a handful of chips while tossing a couple dollars on the stage, "Anything is lunch if you're hungry."

I just sigh and shove some chips in my mouth. They're actually not bad, I glance over at the ugly bastard that brought me here and a thought occurs, "What's your name?"

He takes another big gulp and lets out a belch, "Logan."

It sounds familiar but doesn't quite ring any bells, "If you're drinking so much how the hell are we gonna get back? If you're hoping I can drive a motorcycle then your wrong."

He chuckles a little at me while motioning to one of the servers to come over. "Relax kid, drink your beer, eat your chips and forget the small stuff for a while." A server wearing a tiny dress with giant high heels comes over and I watch warily as Logan whispers something to her. I am slightly alarmed when she giggles and walks over to me, "Peter this is Candy, she's gonna help you relax." I move to get up but wince as I put pressure on my ankle and sink back into the booth as 'Candy' slides up beside me. I wince as I down the rest of the beer in front of me. This is going to be a long day.

-the next morning-

I wake up on the floor of a strange room and panic for a second before realizing that I just moved in yesterday. There's a dull ache in the back of my head as I sit up wincing as I feel the still healing cuts on my arm. I stand up being careful not to put too much pressure on my still tender ankle as I stretch. Then I realize that this room is much bigger than mine.

I take a lf a step still trying to adjust to my surroundings when I feel and hear the crunch of an empty beer can underneath my foot. Now that I look around the whole place is littered with cans. I hear a sink turn on and slowly creep my way towards the sound, despite my danger sense I almost collide with Logan as he strolls out of the bathroom wearing jeans.

"Where the hell am I?"

Logan just raises an eyebrow at me as he walks past towards what looks like a bedroom, "Where the hell do you think?" He sniffs a white t shirt before throwing it over his head and looks at me as if he's surprised I'm still here, "Not my fault your drunk ass couldn't remember where your room is, should be thanking me for not leaving you in the hall."

I'd hurry up and get dressed if I was you, heard the professor wanted to speak with you."

Of course he does, annoyed and slightly hung over, I leave Logan's quarters as quick as possible to try and figure out exactly where I am in this maze of a mansion.

-Xavier's office-

I'm sitting very uncomfortably in one of the extremely comfortable chairs in front of the professors office, not because of the Xavier who is looking in my direction with a small frown, but because of Katherine who is in the other chair glaring at me.

"Ms. Pryde, Mr. Parker, I've asked you both here to speak of a sensitive matter." Thankfully his voice draws her gaze, "I'm sure that your time is valuable so I wont waste it by mincing words. You both have the power and instincts that with training I believe that you could one day join the ranks of the X-men. I'd like to make abundantly clear before I ask this that your answers are in no way related to your tenure here. As I said previously you both may call this place home for as long as you wish. That said, are you interested in standing up for the rights and liberties of both man and mutant along side me and the other X-men?"

The room is silent for a few seconds, just when I'm about to speak Kitty beats me to it. "I-i." She clears her throat, "If you would have me; yes, I'll join the X-men."

The professor smiles and nods in her direction before his gaze lands on me. With Katherine's answer said there's not much to think about, "Same."

I can't tell if he's pleased or not at my response, "I'm glad to hear so." He slides a key-card like the one Logan gave me across his desk towards Katherine. "This will allow you to access the lower floors. Mr. Parker I believe that you already have one?" I nod and hold up my card. "If you have no prior engagements I'd like to ask you to head to floor b1 and introduce your selves to the others."

A clear dismissal, I stand from my seat and move out the door, looking around this floor is empty except for myself and Kitty who is just closing the door to the professors study. "Kitty can we talk for a second?"

I've never seen her hazel eyes look at me so angry. "No, we can't Peter."

She goes to walk past me towards the elevator but I step in front of her, "Tell me what's going on, we're friends right? Why are you so mad?"

From the way her eyebrows shoot up and her glare intensifies that was probably the wrong question to ask. "Why the hell are you acting so normal, what the hell is wrong with you?! I-!" she lowers her voice from shouting to a near whisper, "I killed a man Peter! Youset out to kill someone and because of it there's blood on my hands! Friends don't get their friends involved in the mob and then make them become murderers." Before I can get a word in to reply she phases through the floor, probably all the way down to b1.

I'm left there alone feeling a mix of anger and sadness. I take a moment to rest and lean against the wall as I take a deep breath. After a moment I push my self to my feet and step into the elevator, I've had no friends for most of my life, I'm not willing to give up on the one friend I have left.

-1 month later-

I leap up from my crouch and flip over the robot kicking off of the ceiling and launching myself towards the goal. My danger sense goes off and I twist my body midair to dodge a laser and land in the goal with a back flip.

I hear Scott's voice over the intercom "45 seconds not bad Peter wash up and come to the meeting room." Not bad? That's the third best time ever! In a race like this it's not as if I have any chance of beating Night Crawler or Shadow Cat's times. I think Kurt's record is two seconds, and Katherine's is ten.

-5 minutes later-

My hair is still a little damp from the shower when I step into the briefing room. Katherine, Kurt, Bobby, and Anna Marie aka 'Rogue' are all sitting in the briefing room with Scott standing a the front. I try to make eye contact with Katherine as I walk in the room but as soon as she notices me she turns towards Scott. I can't help but to let out a small sigh, this is the hardest I've ever tried to be someone's friend and after a month of the silent treatment it's an understatement to say that I'm getting frustrated. If it weren't for my lunches with Logan I think I'd have lost it by now. Or at least ditched the mansion, it's a fantasy I consider more seriously every time.

The screen behind Scott clicks on as I take my seat. "All right listen up everyone. We've got an assignment."

Finally!

An image of an ugly man wearing thick goggles appears on screen. In the picture he's using an extremely elongated tongue to throw a motorcycle. "This is Mortimer Toynbee aka Toad. One of Magneto's lieutenants in the Brotherhood." The image changes to a streetlight photo that shows Toad mid hop into the window of an old looking building. "He was spotted last night in New York. We're going to find out what he's doing there. All of us except two have run in with toad before." I glance over at Kitty again but she still childishly refuses to look at me. "Because this is a stealth mission, in order to best make sure that we're not noticed Shadow Cat and Spider will be doing the infiltration while the rest of us standby in the jet. Any questions?" No one says a thing. "Alright let's go X-men!"

-2 hours later-

"Remember you two aren't here alone, if anything happens we can be there at a moments notice." I glance over at Kurt and he nods. "Remember your there for reconnaissance nothing more, you raise the mayday at the first sign of trouble."

I can't help but scoff, to think that I went from running with the most dangerous criminals in New York to getting babied in less than a month. "We'll be fine Kitty and I can watch each others backs."

M grin drops when I turn to look at Katherine. She turns away from me and steps off of the jet with a few parting words, "Try not to kill anybody this time."

I can't help but wince as I leap off of the jet after her.

I spy her rising from the ground in an alley right around the corner from the target building and swing to a stop in front of her. This'll be the first time were alone since landing at that mansion. "Listen Kitty, before we go can we talk for a second?"

She doesn't even look at me as she walks past, "We've got a mission to do, maybe later." My shoulders sag just a bit, I suppose it's better than a 'no'."

We walk out of the alley and into the streets that are more crowded than usual with foot traffic. "At least blending in will be easy." It's when we start to make our way to the target building that I realize that it's a little too easy, everyone is going in the same direction. I thumb the communicator in my ear, "You guys mind telling me why two hundred people are all heading to Toad's 'secret' hideout?"

Scott's voice answers in my ear, "No, just keep your heads down and go with the crowd, this may be more complicated than we anticipated."

Why are things never simple?

I lose sight of Katherine as the crowd sweeps us away towards the abandoned building, no telling if that's intentional on her part or not. When the crowd finally settles we're in a large open area packed with I would guess around four hundred people. There's a stage of some sort set up but from where I am it's a little hard to see. My headset buzzes with Kitty's voice, "I've got eyes on Toad, he's got friends too."

Just a second later the room brightens as two large suspended monitors come to life broadcasting the stage so people in the back like me can see. I see Toad, along with a tall woman with blue skin a white dress and red hair, "He's with Mystique."

Scott's voice sounds tense when he replies, "Are you sure? We had heard-".

I interrupt him when a figure cloaked in iconic magenta armor with a billowing red cape walks onto the screen, "Magneto's here."

The line is silent for more than a couple seconds before we get a response, "If Magneto's here that means that this is big. We stick with the plan, stay with the crowd, when everyone starts to clear out you disappear. Under no circumstances do you engage Magneto understood?"

Kitty answers with a small amount of trepidation "Got it."

"Peter, lay low you hear me?"

As much as I hate being bossed around by Scott even I'm not dumb enough to think about fighting Magneto. "No problems here."

The entire crowd is silent as Magneto strolls into the room. The way he walks it's as if he expect people to follow, a confidence that's scary, along with the power to back him up. There are very few people that can pull this off. He walks to the microphone in the middle of the stage with Mystique and Toad on either side of him as he addresses the audience. "Look around you. These people, the faces that you see, these are your Brothers and Sisters. Too many of our family decide to separate them selves into groups fighting over petty things while our real enemies grow stronger. I can't let this continue any longer!"

The crowd erupts into cheer, although I can see not everyone is as thrilled, there are a few people that I can see that look about as nervous as I feel. There's one tall guy I see on my left in a trench coat that's sweating bullets.

The cheering dies down as Magneto raises his arm, "Now is the time for us to unite! The humans aren't so stupid as to ignore our superiority. They are as we speak plotting against us, creating newer machines to-"

My danger sense goes off and I dive to the right seconds before the man on my left rips open his trench coat, exposing black body armor and tosses several spherical objects around him screaming, "Die you Mutie bastards!"

The crowd erupts into panic as several explosions rock the building. Windows shatter as body armor clad people burst in through the entrances, exits, and even a few weapons, all with the letters F.O.H. emblazoned on their chests.

I roll to the ground to avoid a laser that flies past my face, and then jump to avoid a mutant with spikes sprouting from his body running towards an exit, He gores the trench coat guy who presses reaches into one of his pockets "For Humanity!" and the two are engulfed in flames.

"What the hell is going on down there?! Get clear from the crowd, I'm sending Kurt for extraction."

He doesn't have to tell me twice, I think about stopping to look for Katherine, but in this chaos I'd have almost no chance. With her powers though I'm sure she'll just waltz right out.

I shoot a web at the ceiling to get above the crowd and figure out how the hell I'm going to get out of here. With all the chaos happening my danger sense is going off constantly, which is why I'm not able to dodge fast enough when a large figure dressed in black tackles me mid air slamming me into one of the walls of the auditorium.

I feel a hand on my throat pressing me into the wall, the person holding me looks like a man in a full skin tight black suit with small holes for eyes, "Thought you could escape you filthy freak?"

I can't help but grin through the pain, "You just jumped ten feet in the air and tried to break concrete with my body and you think I'm the freak?"

I brace myself against the wall and manage to get my feet plated in his chest and kick as hard as I can. He does a flip in the air and lands crushing someone that was trying to flee in the process. He cracks his knuckles and looks up at me. "I just found a way to even the playing field."

"Peter where are you? Get the hell out o-" I rip the earpiece out and throw it to the side, I crack my neck as I ready myself sticking to the wall with just my feet.

This time when he jumps at me, I jump to meet him. The developing bruising on my neck shows that he's stronger than the average human, probably faster too, he's gonna have to do better than average to beat me.

Now that I' focused when we meet in the air my danger sense goes off and I'm able to see his fist as if he were moving in slow motion, I grab his wrist and web up his hands while I flip him over my body throwing him at the floor. Before he lands I've already attached webbing to the ground on either side of him and slingshot myself feet first towards the ground. He lands with a crash belly up and I follow him driving my feet into his chest.

I flip back and wait a second to see if he gets back up, when he doesn't I can't help but let out a little laugh, "I'd say your odds were less than even." I swing out of an open window putting the earpiece back in. Not noticing as the black of his suit sticks to the bottom of my shoe, leaving just another terrorist.

"-amnit! Peter I swear to-"

"Relax Scott I'm out side of the building on the northwest side."

Kurt appears seconds later to take me back to the jet.