A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Thaddeus finds himself on an impromptu date~

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Contacting Emma and demanding she have a solution within a week was very tempting… but he quickly recognizes that it’s coming from a place of pettiness that he really doesn’t want to indulge all that much. Sure, Emma hadn’t been entirely truthful with him. But she’d been honest about enough stuff that he didn’t really regret his decision to go with the Hellfire Club over his other options.

Especially when his other options had wound up following him anyways. Thaddeus was just starting to really realize how valuable he apparently was. Natalie the Government Spy might claim to not be after him personally, but the same couldn’t be said for some of the people on his floor. Professor Xavier had sent Kitty and Laura to keep an eye on him, and there was no doubt in his mind that Mystique and her ‘roommate’ were also there for him and nobody else.

It was a little overwhelming to realize just how badly groups like the X-Men and the Brotherhood wanted a piece of him. If he’d gone with either of them, would he still be dealing with this level of scrutiny from the other, or from Hellfire Club? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Wondering what could have been would ultimately get Thaddeus nowhere. Wondering what COULD be on the other hand…

Still, until Emma came through for him, Thaddeus did feel more than a little exposed. The only problem was, he didn’t know HOW she was going to come through for him. Demanding psychic resistance was one thing. But the way his power worked; he would have to fuck whoever she supplied to him quite a few times in order to develop any real strength in the new ability. Which, to be fair, would be a win-win for whoever it was since their own abilities would be heightened.

All in all, Thaddeus doesn’t want to harangue Emma too badly, but he DOES want to make sure she’s working on it. Lighting a fire under her ass couldn’t be too bad, right? With that thought in his head, he takes out his phone… and shoots off a quick text message to the beautiful blonde psychic instead of placing an actual call.

Hey. Just checking in. First week’s gone well. What’s the status on what I asked for?

There’s a beat and then the phone shows that Emma is typing. Thaddeus doesn’t have to wait long, seeing as it’s a short answer.

Still working on it.

Honestly? More than fair. And he’s not looking to push it any harder than that, so he nods and types back a curt but polite response.

Fair enough. Thank you.

He waits a minute, but when there’s no immediate response to that, he tucks his phone away. His and Emma’s relationship might be strained right now… but Thaddeus has hope that perhaps something can still be salvaged. And he has to admit, he still very much wants to make sure of Emma and her Hellfire Club’s connections and resources, so for the time being at least, he has to play ball.

Even still, this does leave his entire weekend free. And while he COULD spend it with Laura like he’s spent the last several days, that feels like… well, it feels a little too same-y. Is that his mutation talking? Maybe. But Thaddeus can’t deny that he’s itching to get closer to the other girls in his dorm. At the very least, he’s itching to figure out the mystery that is the last room on his floor.

Gwen Stacy and Doreen Green. He still doesn’t know what to make of them. To be fair, he doesn’t quite know what to make of his next door neighbor either. But he can’t quite blame Felicia Hardy for avoiding him, not when Laura insists on making noise, even when he tries to make it as quiet as possible. Regardless, he knows everything there is to know about the X-Men and Brotherhood rooms. And while he COULD try and tackle Kitty with Laura’s help, that feels like low-hanging fruit.

Likewise, he doesn’t necessarily want to make it too easy on the shapeshifter by walking right into whatever trap Mystique might have planned for him. Better to let her continue thinking he has no clue who she is, so that Thaddeus can be prepared to turn the tables on her when she finally makes her move.

But Gwen and Doreen… well, he’d passed up one opportunity to get to know the two girls and while he didn’t regret it, he did feel like he needed to divide and conquer, so to speak. Getting to know one away from the other… well, that would halve the load and make it a lot easier to figure out what was going on with them, wouldn’t it?

Fortunately, Gwen had a routine that Thaddeus had taken note of pretty early on. Namely, she seemed to go for an evening run every single night. He almost never saw her come back, but that was usually because he was too busy with Laura he figured. And so, standing off to the side in the otherwise empty common room, Thaddeus is waiting when Gwen comes on through wearing her signature sneakers and a form-fitting set of exercise clothes.

“Gwen! Hey!”

Turning to look his way, she doesn’t look surprised to see him, giving away the fact that she’d heard him and sensed his presence through enhanced senses long before entering the common room. Still, she does quirk her head to the side and give him a half-smile as he approaches.

“What can I do for you, handsome?”

Giving her one of his signature grins, Thaddeus wags his eyebrows.

“Actually, I was hoping we could discuss what we could do for each other. In other words… wanna hang out?”

The interest in Gwen’s eyes is obvious. Her gaze slides up and down his body and she makes no secret of her appreciation of his physical form. However, when her eyes slide back up to his eyes again, they do then dart to the side… towards the exit.

“… I was about to head out…”

She sounds torn between her workout and spending time with him. Which is a little odd because Thaddeus has never had a girl choose working out over being with him before. It’s honestly a little bit of a blow to his ego. Then again, maybe his ego needs to take a few hits sometimes. He’s certainly been getting a little too big for his britches, hasn’t he?

That said, the answer seems obvious, at least to Thaddeus.

“For your evening run, right? Then I’ll join you. A little more cardio can’t hurt.”

To his surprise, Gwen peers at him for a moment.

“You sure? I know that you’re on the Football Team. And I’ve also heard that the Head Coach likes to run them ragged. Shouldn’t you be saving your strength?”

Thaddeus just laughs. Sure, the practice was grueling… for any normal person. But he wasn’t a normal person. And neither was Gwen. Was he likely giving away his abnormality if he went out with her tonight after what SHOULD have been a week of long, exhausting practices with the team? Maybe, but then shouldn’t he already know about his powers if she were here to spy on him?

Either way, he shakes his head with a cheery grin. One might even call it arrogant… but one would be wrong, because arrogance denoted a lack of ability. And if there was one thing Thaddeus very much wasn’t lacking in, it was physical ability.

“I’ll be fine, Gwen. If I can’t keep up with you on a run, then do I even really belong on the Football Team in the first place?”

As expected, that gets to her. Her smile becomes a little sharp and her eyes flash at the challenge inherent in his tone.

“Fine then… but I might hold you to that. Keep up if you can~”

Spinning on her heel, she bolts out of the common room, forcing Thaddeus to jerk forward into motion in order to follow after her. He lets out a laugh as he manages to get right up next to her and match her pace as they leave the dorm behind and get out on the streets of New York City.

They share a look with one another… and then Gwen picks up speed. Thaddeus is quick to match her again of course, finding it all too easy. Sure, maybe if he was a tired normal human being who had just gone through a week of grueling training he’d be beat… but this really is nothing.

Unfortunately, just as their fun is picking up, they reach the busier parts of Manhattan. The main thoroughfares, meaning that they run into not just bumper to bumper car traffic, but also shoulder to shoulder and ass to crotch foot traffic. It puts a serious damper on the run as they suddenly find themselves having to push their way through a bunch of people just trying to get through their days.

Obviously, Thaddeus COULD just bulldoze his way through the crowds, sending people flying and causing untold amounts of injuries. For all he knew, maybe Gwen could do the same. But neither of them WERE going to do that, not when it would not only cause more trouble and draw more attention than it was worth, but it would also hurt a bunch of innocent bystanders.

That did beg the question though… where the hell did Gwen normally go running each night if she went out every night for an evening jog? Just as Thaddeus is trying to wrap his head around this, he finds himself following Gwen into a dirty, empty alley, the blonde coed letting out a sigh of relief once they’re out of the press of people.

Hands on her hips, she whirls around to look at him, narrowing her eyes when she finds that he’s not even out of breath. Then again… neither is she.

“You keep up pretty well, Thaddeus. I like that in a guy. But… I’m not expecting you to follow me on this next part. Look, you’re cute and all… so let’s go on a date tomorrow night, yeah? For now… see ya.”

And then, much to both his amusement AND bemusement… the blonde does a back flip up onto the fire escape right behind him, and then begins scaling the thing like… like some sort of spider-monkey, right before his eyes. Said eyes go wide as Gwen reaches the top of the squat two story building in no time at all, free climbing her way up onto the roof and then leaning back over the ledge to grin down at him.

“Bye Thaddeus! It was fun!”

“What?! Not even going to give me a chance?!”

The words are out of his mouth before he can think twice about them, but he can’t really bring himself to regret them. Especially when he sees the stupefied expression on Gwen’s face. See, Thaddeus is beginning to get the impression that Gwen… doesn’t actually know he’s superhuman. It seems impossible. The sheer coincidence that it would have to be for her to be stuffed into HIS dorm with superpowers but not actually be affiliated with anyone that was after him… well, it seemed ridiculous.

But nothing about her attitude suggested she knew what he could really do. In fact, so far all she’d done was try to get rid of him tonight. That said, at his boastful question, Gwen looks surprised for all of a moment before letting out a laugh.

“Sure! Go ahead, Thad! Just don’t hurt yourself, okay?”

She sounds genuinely concerned underneath the teasing tone. More proof that she has no clue who or what he really is. Hurt himself? He was pretty sure he might be able to LEAP up to the top of that building in one bound at this point with the amount of power he’d gained from fucking Laura. But of course, he wasn’t about to test it. Not now. Not and risk fucking it up and making a fool of himself.

Instead, he does a much more modest, albeit still impressive jump up to the bottom of the fire escape that Gwen had back flipped up onto. He grabs hold of it, very carefully modulating his strength to avoid ripping the whole metal structure down. It still shakes a little bit under his weight though, even as he carefully lifts himself up.

From there, he ascends the stairs four at a time rather than climbing up the outside of the fire escape like Gwen had, before leaping the rest of the way to the ledge of the rooftop right next to where she was leaning on. Pulling himself up and over, Thaddeus lands on his feet in front of a very surprised Gwendolyn Stacy, grinning at the baffled look on her face.

“You were saying, Gwendolyn?”

Honestly, he was just trying to get her back. A little quid pro quo. Teasing tone? Check. Disliked full name? Check. Only… Gwen HAD warned him, hadn’t she? She’d told him point blank that she’d punched the last man who’d called her ‘Gwendolyn’.

So really, Thaddeus shouldn’t have been surprised when she lashed out seemingly on instinct, purely by some subconscious impulse, and buried her fist in his gut. But he was surprised, for two reasons. Number One, he saw it coming but far too late to stop it, showing just how inhumanly fast Gwen was. Number Two, while she DOES have the good grace to at least pull her punch… he knows how tough he is at this point. It wouldn’t be unfair to expect someone to break bones trying to hit him. Or at the very least, tear skin.

But… no. While he does he double over her fist, there’s no crunch for either of them.

“Oh my god! I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean to…!”

And when she pulls her hand back, her knuckles are perfectly fine as well, despite coming into contact with his VERY tough skin. Slowly straightening back up, Thaddeus looks at Gwen’s fist… and then at Gwen herself. And she looks at him, having trailed off as she furrows her brow in surprise and confusion. Sure she’d pulled her punch enough that she wouldn’t have killed him if he was a normal man, but it’s obvious that she still expected to have incapacitated him or at least sent him to his knees.

Neither of which has actually happened.

“You… you’re like me.”

Thaddeus blinks at the note of wonder in Gwen’s voice. She sounds amazed… but a moment later, that amazement is replaced with suspicion as she takes a step back and crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

“Who are you? Really? What do you want with me?”

He doesn’t detect a hint of deceit. Meaning that she really has no idea who he is or what he’s truly capable of.

Well. That changed things, didn’t it?

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[X] Let the conversation flow naturally back and forth, don't try to manipulate it's direction at all - 80%