18 Chapter 17: How Low Can You Go?

Peter was on his way back home after patrol, having not heard anything from Gwen or MJ during the night, when his communications headset in his mask rang softly. He answered. "Hello?"

Tony's voice crackled in through the phone. "Hey, Spidey, yeah uh, Professor X called. He um… he wasn't exactly happy that Laura and Anna left, but he acquiesced on a condition."

Peter waited for a second. "Uh… go on?"

"Right, yeah, he wants the Young Avengers, which is what we're calling it, to be able to assist him and his institute if they really need it. Like, if Magneto or somebody attacks, he said he'd appreciate it if the young Avengers would be available for the assist, considering 2 people on the team are mutants."

Peter sighed. "I guess that's fair. I don't like it, but… it's fair. Let Laura and Annie know. I'll drop by tomorrow."

"Sure thing. See ya, kid." Tony hung up.

Peter landed on a water tower and scratched the back of his neck. Damn. Was hoping to distance myself from the clusterfuck that is the X-Men and their timeline.

He resumed the swing home. Stepping into his bedroom though, his spider-senses blared like an air-raid siren, his head feeling like somebody had stabbed his brain with an icepick. He dropped to the floor and kipped up into a dropkick, nailing somebody in the face. Once he got a good look at his attacker, Peter tensed even more. 'Ohhhh boy. Not good.'

Standing before him, snarling like an animal, was Wolverine. "Uhhhh-"

"So, you're the Spider-punk, huh? Lemme tell ya, bub, I don't see much." Wolverine lowered his stance in an attempt to intimidate him.

Peter just sighed and reciprocated the stance, his stingers sliding out from his wrists. "Looks can be deceiving, Lumberjack. You saw me fight Jughead after all."

James "Logan" Howlett snarled, "But you haven't fought me!", and rushed Peter, claws swinging. Peter, though, matched him swing for swing. He bobbed and weaved, he parried the claws, he even webbed his floor and zipped himself under Logan to pop up behind him and kick him in the back. Incensed, Logan doubled the efforts, but Peter simply capitalized on the rage. His stinger zipped in at Logan's shoulder mid-swing, and Peter ducked, his other stinger hitting the exact other side of the shoulder. Logan's arm immediately went dead. It wouldn't last long, what with the regeneration, but it was enough to buy a little time.

Logan spun, using momentum to still make use of his limp arm, cutting three shallow lines across Peter's chest before he could fully dodge in time. The young man slapped away Logan's other arm at the wrist, his other hand coming up and around in a haymaker at full strength. Full. Strength. Why did he go all-out? Because Logan could take it.

Logan went literally flying out his window, a dented jaw and whiplash accompanying the sickening crunch of his neck breaking. He hit a tree back-first and just kind of… stayed there. Stuck inside of said tree. Logan's neck visibly fixed itself, along with everything else, but Logan's face stayed a bit dumbfounded. He popped his claws to pry himself out of the tree and landed on the grass before taking a knee to catch his breath. Peter zipped down to join him, his shock knuckledusters now procured. Logan sheathed his claws and put a hand up.

"Alright, alright. Don't get your tights in a bind." He took a couple breaths and stood. "Jesus, kid, you throw a mean punch." He rubbed his jaw. "Last guy who hit me that hard was Juggy."

Peter gave a wry grin. "I ate Juggy for breakfast the other day. Bit too much iron. And gamey."

Logan snorted. "And stringy. Laura talks about you a lot. Said some shit I don't think I ever wanted and/or needed to hear about someone I consider a daughter. Figured I'd test you myself."

Peter winced. "Oo. Yeah she uh… doesn't exactly have a filter. Or a sense of decency. Straight-up molested me before she left. Granted, I killed Kimura, but still."

Logan raised his eyebrows. "Huh. Killed Kimura. She never said that. Makes sense now why she seems so… obsessed I guess is the word." He shook his head. "Anyway, she's not why I dropped in outta nowhere. There's a little more reason to this." He scratched the bridge of his nose. "Magik is having a little trouble keeping Belasco down. Guy's trying to come back. But the demons comin' through are a bit of a shitshow. X figured it'd be a good time to cash in on your Young Dumbasses team."

Peter put a hand to his chin. "One two conditions. The first: If Xavier tries to read our minds, we walk. Full-stop. And 2: If we're gonna be staying on-campus to help with this stuff, let me work with Forge."

Wolverine grunted. "Should be fine. Let me call X really quick." He pulled a cracked phone from his back pocket and fumbled with it for a minute before he put it to his ear and walked a bit away. Peter made a call of his own to Tony to fill him in. He got off the phone about the same time Logan did. "X wants the surface thoughts. It's a safety thing. Forge agreed, too. Anything else you need, bub?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I just let Tony know, and I'm gonna notify the team here in a second. When do you need us?"

Logan shrugged. "Probably the next day or two. We'll call it in."

Peter nodded and doubled back into the house to pack a bag. He had zero intentions of exposing his identity, so he grabbed the half-mask from his first costume and crammed that into his bag after everything else.

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They got a call from Logan a day or two later. They stepped onto the Blackbird jet on the top of Avengers tower. Peter was dressed semi-casual. Black jeans, a slate gray dress shirt rolled up to the elbows, unbuttoned, with a pale yellow t-shirt underneath. He wore black sneakers with white markings. His first mask, pale yellow with black webbing stitched on that went from his neck to his nose, hid his identity from those not in the know. His old goggles covered his eyes as well. He threw down a black duffel-bag under the seat between Laura and Gwen, sitting down in said seat. He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back as much as he could with the seatbelt still on.

Gwen had taken similar steps to veiling her identity, though that mostly amounted to a white crop top hoodie (with a black t-shirt underneath), blue skinny jeans, and teal sneakers. Her mask covered her head underneath her hood.

Across from Peter sat Logan, slouched and drinking a beer. Next to Laura was Anna. On either side of Logan was a dark-skinned woman with a silver mohawk and a man quite literally made of metal. This was Storm and Colossus respectively. Neither of them had seen Peter dismantle Juggernaut, but had heard stories. Colossus seemed like a good guy, but he seemed to be the kind to only believe things that he sees with his own eyes. Storm seemed eager to believe it though, based on a confirmation that she heard about Peter and Logan's scrap.

The jet landed on the lawn of the Xavier Institute, the trees around it blowing back. Peter and Gwen waited until Anna and Laura were off and then followed. The Institute was massive. Mansions wish they could be this big and fancy. Waiting by the door was Professor X and Scott. Behind them was a furred boy with 3 fingers on each hand. Vague trickle-down of knowledge told Peter that this was Kurt Wagner, AKA Nightcrawler. He looked vaguely young, maybe about 16 or 17.

Logan led the way, and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Scott went frosty and scowled deeply when he saw Peter. Peter did what Peter does and gave him the brightest shit-eating grin he could.

Before Logan or X could speak, Scott cut in. "Why do we need them? We're fine! We can handle these damned Limbo monsters. Belasco has nothing on us! What can they do that we can't?"

Peter scoffed. "Keep a team together apparently." He shook his head. "The depth of your pride and arrogance really knows no bounds."

Scott snarled. "You don't get to talk to me like I'm less than you, little pu-"

Logan put a stop to this entire argument rather swiftly: He smacked Scott in the side of his head. "Scott, do you have a death wish? He may look like a wimpy pipsqueak, but trust me… he's the real deal." Scott raised an eyebrow. "I ambushed him to test him. He promptly handed me my ass on a silver platter. Granted, I wasn't going all-out, but still." He rubbed his jaw. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say my jaw is still broken."

Peter sighed. He was beginning to get the impression that this Scott was quite a bit more arrogant than the mainline comics Peter remembered. Something about this particular universe? He didn't know. He did know that he needed to fix it, or what was left of the X-Men would eventually implode. He sighed. "Look, Scott, you're not a bad dude. Despite your tone and the way you've treated me I can tell you give at least a fraction of a shit about your team. But let me give you a small piece of advice: There is no "I" in "team". It's cliche, I know, but it's nonetheless true. Stop putting on the Macho Man mask and think about the people around you. Not a single soul here is gonna respect a supposed leader who only appears to care about himself, his over-inflated ego, and his pride. Pride has no place in heroics. Hubris is how people get killed in this rodeo."

There was a pregnant silence for a moment, wherein Peter ran through a self-realization. Death had implied once that his past life was… promiscuous for a lack of a better word. That life must have been very confident, because Peter Parker had never been quite as blunt about things like this. Maybe this was a manifestation of his past life wanting to do things differently, combined with Peter? He wasn't sure.

Logan was the first to speak. "How long have you been doin this shit again?"

Peter shrugged. "Like… a year or so?"

Logan's eyebrows rose. "No shit? Huh." He shook his head, like he was in a fog or something. "Anyway. Uh-" He turned to the stairs. "Piotr? Could you show them their rooms?"

Peter nearly flinched before he turned to the metal man beside him. "...Peter?"

Colossus, aka Piotr Rasputin laughed. "Piotr is Russian Peter. Either is fine." He began strolling forward. "Come. Your rooms are on second floor."

Peter sighed. That was gonna get confusing.

The inside of the mansion matched the outside. Grand halls, rich shades of wood for all the doors, magnificent chandeliers, the works.

When they finally got up the spiral staircase up to the second floor, Colossus took them to their rooms. Peter was situated at a corner before the hall turned. Gwen was situated in a room next to him. Laura and Anna were perched in the rooms they'd already had, down the hall. They were close by due to the team situation.

After they'd dropped off their stuff, they moved down to the first floor and through a series of hallways and doors. They entered the famous Danger Room, finding the full team of X-Men: Wolverine, Beast, Colossus, Storm, Forge, and Professor X. Off to the side stood Scott, Kurt, and Jean, though there were a small handful of students Peter hadn't seen yet, though he certainly knew who they were. Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman. Kitty Pryde, AKA Shadowcat. Standing even further off to the side was a woman, definitely not a student, with long, purple hair. This was Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock, AKA Psylocke.

Peter chose to more or less tune everyone else out to focus on the situation at hand. Ilyana Rasputin, AKA Magik, Colossus' sister, stood in the middle of the Danger Room, leaning on her sword. Peter crossed his arms, standing between Anna and Laura, with Gwen standing beside Laura with her hands on her slim hips.

Ilyana spoke, in an authoritative manner which tracked considering the situation. "Thank you for coming. I am Ilyana, although I assume you know. If you do not know, I am ruler of Limbo. The demons of Limob are beginning to swarm the wall between Limbo and Earth. Either Belasco is trying to take it back, or the demons are just rebelling. In any case, they must not pass."

Peter nodded. "Agreed. For purposes of operating instructions: Lethal or nonlethal?"

Ilyana scoffed. "Man of Spiders, I swing a sword. What about a sword is, how you say, non-lethal?"

Peter raised a finger, opened his mouth, and then closed it. He put down the finger. "...Fair."

Gwen giggled lightly before returning to seriousness. "I don't know if it's painfully obvious or not, but I don't really have a weapon."

Ilyana cocked her head, put a hand to her chin, and then lifted her sword. She slashed open a portal and reached in. When it came back out, she held a black-iron axe. The head had a crimson stain to it, though not of a blood color. "Here. Use this. I don't know how this will work with the… spider stuff, but it is a weapon that will work against the demons." She turned to the rest of them. "Anyone else?"

Peter lifted his hands and let his stingers slide out, until the points were about a foot past his knuckles. "I'm good."

Ilyana walked forward and looked intently at the stingers, her straw-yellow hair framing her face. "Hm. Show me you can use them."

He raised an eyebrow. "Why me, and not her?"

Ilyana shrugged. "Her weapon can be switched for something else if it does not work for her. Not so much you."

He shrugged. "So long as you don't mind the webs either. Kind of used to using them together." He knelt down into a loose stance, near to the ground, both stingers out and hands open, ready to loose his powerful web spinnerets.

Gwen, Laura, and Anna moved out of the way to stand beside Logan, who had moved the group of older X-Men over to the students.

Colossus, watching, grunted and stepped forward a bit. "On three. Three, two, one. Пука!" (Pronounced puka. Means "shoot" or "fire". Used as a phonetic for a starting gun or something.)

Ilyana kicked off first, soaring in with an overhead chop. The semi-suited up Spider-Man raised his stingers in an X, blocking the chop. Her attack came to a dead stop, but she simply smirked at him, a portal opening underneath her. She fell into it, emerging from a portal behind him with a side-swipe aiming to bisect him. Peter jumped over the swing, his right leg snapping out to strike her forehead, snapping her head back. She backstepped to recover. Peter took the opportunity to raise his left hand and discharge a heavy dose of his webs, sticking to her chest and wrenching her towards him, his left stinger extended. The flat of her blade blocked it, a piercing screech erupting from it. She slid her sword off the side of his stinger, deflecting it and sending a punch into his jaw. He took it on the chin, though moving his head with the punch to lessen the damage. He took the momentum to spin, his right stinger lashing out in a swipe, which she ducked. His left came forward in what would normally be a gut strike, though now it was face-level considering her ducking.

Her sword came swinging up, deflecting the stinger high. He free hand punched him in the gut, eliciting an "oof" from him. She stood up and advanced on him. His stingers went to work, deflecting a bevy of slashes from her before he made further use of his webs. He did a handspring back, shooting a well-placed web to stick her sword to her body and push her back at the same time. He used his other hand to web-zip in, placing a flying kick against the flat of her blade, sending her flying backwards and onto her back. He zipped upwards and downwards in a blink of an eye, and his left stinger came down with a thunderous boom, a large cloud of dust rising around them.

When the dust cleared, his left stinger was embedded deeply into the floor, less than an inch from her ear, his hand resting flat against her strange black crown. His right hand was cocked back, ready to rocket his right stinger forward. Peter was a little bit out of breath. An actually armed spar was a bit more intensive than an unarmed spar. He was about to ask if he'd won, until he saw Ilyana's smirk. He looked above him, where an incomplete portal had been made. Her hand was flat against the floor, and Peter realized: This was a tie. She could have easily made a portal underneath herself to turn the tables. Going technically airborne would have been an opportunity to switch her sword into a more cutting position, rather than the flat, in which case she'd come down onto him with the blade on him. However, he'd also just basically won on his own. It was a tie as far as he was concerned.

He took his left stinger out of the floor and stood up, holding a hand out to her. She promptly took it, and he pulled her up. "Got a question. How much of those portals are mutant powers, and how much is magic?"

Ilyana see-sawed her hand a bit. "Pretty equal."

Peter hummed. "Know anybody I could talk to to learn the magic?"

Ilyana, again, see-sawed her hand. "That depends. Can you handle a guy with a tree trunk up his ass?"

Peter laughed. "I work with the Avengers on a near-daily basis. I can handle a guy who can be uptight. Patience is a virtue after all."

After a conversation about what would be expected of the team and where the demons may come in at, and when they'd be expected to head out, Peter's team headed back to their rooms to get settled. Ilyana walked off to make a quick call to a certain surgeon. Peter had been unpacked for less than 3 minutes when a harsh knock sounded on his door. He glanced in the peephole at the top of the door and sighed.

He opened it. "What the hell do you want, Scott?"

Scott stayed silent for a minute, his face twitching as if he was struggling with something. His words came out in a loud blurt. "I'm sorry."

Peter blinked. Then he blinked again. "Come again?"

Scott sighed in frustration. "I said I'm sorry. Don't make me say it again." He rubbed his temples. "I hadn't actually seen you fight yet. I didn't believe the stories, even though I trust everyone who said it. Now I know better. Your help would be welcome, I'll admit that… I guess."

Peter chuckled softly. "The apology is accepted, Scott. I'll be sure to humble you whenever you let things go to your head."

Peter watched Scott swallow his pride. "Yeah. Sure." He walked stiffly away.

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About a day later, demons began to attack the barrier between Limbo and Earth. Ilyana had the team enter into Limbo and gear up. Peter was in his normal suit, as was Gwen. Laura was decked out in a black crop top and black leather pants that ended in black combat boots. Anna was in a green and yellow jumpsuit, tight to the skin, with her brown-with-a-shock-of-white hair tied back and out of her face in a ponytail. Peter stretched out his arms a bit and went into a low stance to wait for the demons to get closer, his stingers emerging.

When the tide of demons hit, they were like boulders in a river. They put a good stop, but a fair amount of demons still made it through (who the older X-Men got to take care of). Peter noticed this and took a minute on autopilot to think, as he stabbed two demons in their throats, and webbed another demon in the face, slingshotting himself into its face with enough force to cave in its skull.

Got it!

He webbed a few demons and tied them up, spinning with them to do a wide area of denial. He regrouped with the others then. "Annie, take the glove off!"

Rogue nodded and slipped her right glove off. Peter proceeded to hold her hand and count to 20. He felt a drain, but he knew he could still go at the same efficiency he just was. But what he gave to Rogue was significant. She flexed her fingers and webs flew out with force, and she felt a buzzing in the back of her skull. She spun around and her right foot instinctively flew out in a push kick to a demon's chest, breaking two ribs and sending chunks of bone into the demon's internal organs. "Whoah…"

Peter smiled. "I know, right? Take off the other glove, the webs won't work through it." He swung back into the fray, passing a bat-shit crazy Gwen swinging her axe around at the end of her webs.

When Peter began fighting again, his stingers and webs began again in earnest. Giving Anna a sizable peace of his power set meant that she could have a bigger impact on the fight. He heard a small SNIKT as Rogue popped stingers that tore through her suit, which elicited a curse from her and then a cheer.

He heard a much more violent SNIKT and then saw it, as two claws pierced through the back of a demon's head and said hello to him through what used to be eyes. The claws went back the way they came, and Laura came into view, covered in demon blood, as wild look in her eyes. She leaped over Peter and pounced into a group of demons, ripping and tearing her way through.

Peter shrugged and continued on his way, roundhouse kicking a demon's head around 180 degrees and stabbing his right stinger to his right, tearing out a throat. He ducked low, snagging a few layers of bodies with his webs and spinning before he flung them wide, sending scores of demons tripping over their brethren to give him and his team some breathing room. 'God, this is only wave one. Shit.'

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Back at the X-Mansion, they'd taken time to bathe the blood off of themselves and strip clothes off to wash them. He'd swapped his normal costume for his facemask and went to wash his full costume so it wouldn't smell like iron anymore. He was shirtless and hadn't even thought about it. He turned around after he'd set the washer, and found a hamper full of bloody clothes, seemingly dropped with no reason. He raised an eyebrow before he actually looked at said clothes. A yellow and green suit, with a couple repaired holes, and covered in deon blood lay in a ball in the hamper, along with what appeared to be socks and other undergarments.

He just shrugged and put it on the washer so Anna could come put them back later. His phone rang then, so he answered. "Yello?"

A man's voice was on the other line. "Yes, hi, is this Spider-Man?"

"Uhh… yeah?"

"You may know my name, you may not, I'll introduce myself anyway. My name is Steven Strange. I'm told by Ms. Rasputin that you're interested in learning some magic?"

Peter quietly cheered before he cleared his throat. "Ah, yeah. Not no much how to do these wide attacks or anything. Not interested in throwing around fireballs or whatever. Much more interested in enchantments for my equipment, and resistances to magic. Considering you fight things I've probably never even thought of, I feel like having resistance to some magic would be a decent idea, y'know?"

He heard a hum. "I should probably be able to put together a more specialized tutoring package. You care about teleporting?"

"Not particularly."

"Got it, so no sling ring. I should be able to help you, I'll just need to narrow the scope a bit. But please be patient, I have a couple other students here." Peter heard his voice fade, like he was holding the phone away from his face. "Chavez! Minoru! Please, no Tiktok videos in the library!"