I landed into a field of stares sharp enough to cut steel.
Every pair of mutant eyes tracked me like I was a disease they hadn't developed a cure for yet. Suspicion. Disgust. Contempt. I'd seen it all before. Just never concentrated like this.
To them, I wasn't just some outsider.
I was THE outsider.
The one who reminded them the world outside the island was still ran by men, not mutants.
The one who tried defending himself from their missiles and lasers. Mutant Logic.
They stood aside only enough for me to descend the ramp, but no farther. I took slow steps, the kind that say I'm not here to fight, but I will if you make me. Not a single welcome, not even a nod. Just tight lips and eyes full of history I wasn't part of.
Storm didn't spare me a glance. Her attention locked on the Quinjet as it touched down behind me.
The hull opened. Out stepped Sam Wilson.
Captain America The Second. The approved guest.
With him came his falcon-droned sidekick, glancing at me worried. The crowd around them shifted. Warmed. Cheered.
Literally cheered.
Applause. Praise. Even a few kids ran forward tossing flower petals like this was a damn wedding. Sam soaked it in like a man used to spotlights. Maybe he'd earned some of it. I wouldn't deny him that. He did earn some of it. Some of it.
But the contrast burned.
No one clapped when I arrived.
They barely tolerated my presence.
Then came Natasha—Black Widow, the legend herself. She got a quieter welcome, but a respectful one. Storm gave her a nod. A handshake.
Some of the younger mutants whispered behind her back, but they didn't block her path. They knew of her stories. I could see it in their eyes.
I figured I might as well stick near someone who hated me less than the rest.
I moved to approach her—only to be stopped dead by a wall of mutant muscle. A group of four stepped into my path like a living blockade.
One of them looked like he could crush steel with his eyelashes.
"Easy, fellas." I raised both hands, palms open, like a tired traveler at a hostile checkpoint. "I came in peace. No lasers. No threats. Just trying to reach my team."
I pointed toward the podium of praise. "Yeah. That team. The one you're busy throwing parades for."
They didn't budge. Instead, they glanced over their shoulders at Sam. One of them tapped a comm on his ear, face unreadable.
I caught the tail-end of a response—a crackle of static, then a single order that changed everything.
"Bring him."
That was all it took.
The air snapped. Literally. A sharp crack of electricity shot through the crowd, lancing up toward a nearby comms tower. Show of force. Or warning. Or both.
Storm raised one hand—not aimed at me, but not relaxed either. Lightning crawled around her knuckles like a pet waiting to be unleashed.
Another mutant stepped forward, comm in his ear, eyes locked on mine.
"Someone wants a word." he said flatly. "You're coming with us."
Just like that, the group tightened around me. No weapons drawn—yet—but their formation said everything. They didn't expect me to cooperate. They were ready to bring me down if I flinched.
I scanned the faces around me.
Sam, arms crossed, barely suppressing a smirk.
Falcon, concerned and glancing at me and Sam.
Natasha—watching. Not interfering. Not helping.
Storm, still radiating voltage like a storm cloud waiting for justification.
And then my gaze went further. Past the crowd. Past the soldiers.
To the high table.
The Omegas.
The gods of the mutant pantheon.
There sat Charles Xavier, serene as ever in his wheelchair. Eyes closed. But I could feel him. Not looking at me—but reaching. Subtle brainwaves licked around my skull like a scanner pressed against my soul.
He didn't speak. He didn't have to.
My armor sensors lit up faintly, detecting sudden shifts in magnetic density. The ground under my feet? It was being reinforced. Not by tech.
By Magneto.
I glanced toward him—helmeted, unreadable, unmoving. But his presence pressed against my suit like a hand on my chest.
"Lead the way." I said quietly, and took a step forward.
The crowd didn't part. They simply moved with me. Escort or prison detail—I couldn't tell. Maybe it didn't matter.
To them, I was still human.
And no matter how advanced my suit was, how many battles I'd fought alongside so-called teammates, how many threats I'd helped neutralize—I would always be one of the other.
-------------------------
"Can you not try to read my mind?" I said, eyes locked on the redhead across from me. "It's getting annoying. And you can't read it anyway."
The red haired girl froze mid-thought like a kid caught sneaking a hand into a cookie jar. Wide eyes. Slight flinch. Guilty.
"I wasn't—"
"Don't lie." I cut in. "You probed. I felt it. Like a cold needle up my spine."
"Shut your mouth." barked Cyclops, stepping forward, hands clenched into fists. His visor flared with a warning pulse of crimson light. "We don't know who you are or why you're really here."
"I just told you." I said, patience fraying. "I came for the meeting."
"With what agenda?" Cyclops snapped. "Because last I checked, guys like you show up when kids with glowing eyes go missing. When mutant bodies turn up in alleys."
I rolled my eyes. "Ask the Captain America knockoff you people threw a parade for. He invited me."
That landed wrong.
Cyclops stiffened. "What do you mean 'you people'?" His voice dropped, low and venomous. "You mean mutants?"
There it was.
The line.
"You think we're some second-class species you have to 'manage'? Is that it?" His visor lit up again, hotter this time. A red glow spilled onto his cheeks.
"You kill mutants." he snarled. "You kill kids—because they look different."
I didn't respond. There was no point. Cyclops was too deep in his own martyr complex to hear anything outside his rage.
Instead, I looked back at Jean, who was clearly trying to calm him with gentle touches and telepathic nudges. Useless.
"Can't you send someone stable if you want to interrogate me?" I muttered. "Instead of whatever this is?"
"Scott's not wrong to be cautious." the red haired said, her tone soft but strained. "But we're not trying to start a fight. All we want is peace. We just need to understand where you stand."
"You want peace, maybe don't start by digging around in my head." I shot back. "That kind of thing sends the wrong message."
Her jaw tightened. "We didn't mean offense. We just—"
"No offense?" I interrupted, voice rising. "You people treat every outsider like a loaded gun with a hair trigger. You wonder why the world's still afraid of you? This. This paranoia. This persecution complex. You talk about peace while locking down every entrance and reading everyone's minds like you're the goddamn NSA."
Cyclops stepped forward again, but she held him back with one arm.
"I'm not your enemy." I said, quieter now but colder. "I'm not your savior either. I'm just here to do a job. Let me do it. Then I'll vanish, and we can all go back to pretending we don't exist to each other."
I let that hang in the air a second, then turned slightly—just enough for them to know I was talking to someone else now.
"Xavier, I know you're listening. You've been listening ever since I touched down."
She blinked. Cyclops froze. Even the hum in his visor died down.
"Let me do my mission." I said to the air, to the mind in the chair behind the curtain. "I'm not here to pick a fight. But if you treat me like your enemy, I'll become one. That's a promise."
Then came the metal.
Thin bands wrapping tight around my arms, ankles, chest—swift, surgical, inescapable. They hoisted me into the air like a caught insect.
And then he rose.
Magneto.
The master of Magnetism.
No more introductions were needed.
Helmet gleaming like a crown, cape trailing behind him like a banner of war, he floated into view with the calm of someone who knew he controlled the entire battlefield.
He stopped in front of me, eye level. Cold. Composed. Effortless.
"It matters little whether you see yourself as an enemy." he said, voice low, rich, and perfectly measured. "You came here in armor. Armed. Defiant. That tells me more than your words ever could."
I didn't respond. Just stared back.
"You are not welcome here." he continued. "And the only reason you are not crushed where you hover is because I am, in this moment, choosing restraint."
He leaned slightly forward. "But do not mistake restraint for mercy."
My suit groaned under the pressure. The HUD flickered.
"I get it." I growled. "You're the big scary mutant god. You've got metal tricks and a persecution complex the size of a continent."
His eyes narrowed.
"I didn't come here to start a war. But you keep pushing like this..."
I let the words hang. Didn't finish the sentence.
He raised an eyebrow. Curious. Measuring me like a scientist studying a rat who refused to run the maze.
The red haired spoke but another voice came from her mouth. "Let him down, Erik. He's telling the truth."
Cyclops made a noise of protest, but Jean cut him off.
Magneto didn't blink. But the pressure eased.
Slowly, the metal bindings unwrapped from my limbs and slithered back into the ground like snakes losing interest.
I dropped onto my feet. Hard.
But I didn't stumble.
Didn't thank him either.
Just dusted off my shoulder and turned toward the meeting hall.
"YOU PEOPLE make peace exhausting." I didn't let it come out as a mutter.
-----------
Time to be racist towards the mutants, lol.
Scott Summers has a mental problem cause if he didn't. Let's just say, the story would be at a hard impasse to go through. After all, he is a bloody good leader. I would say for the mutants, he is a tier below Optimus Prime level and a little less than Captain America(Steve), in terms of leadership.
Jean Gery is well immature and naive in this fanfic simply cause she is the bloody Phoenix, too overpowered. So I had to give her some downside otherwise she could just do whatever she likes and the universe would bend over to let it happen.