4 Gym Class and A Peculiar Girl

Internally reprimanding myself for making a flag all on my own, I walked into the gym and was met by a crowd of teenagers of varying heights, physiques and skin color as they all stood in front of a tall man with brown hair.

The man looked well-built in the upper body and arm region but one too many donuts had turned his gut a bit too pudgy to be considered slim or healthy and it stuck out quite obviously, stretching his tracksuit a little. He had a somewhat red face and his brown hair was receding back up his head, giving him a widow's peak, while his skin seemed a bit oily and just by stepping into the same space as him, I could smell that he hadn't showered in a while.

...Jesus Christ, how bad do you need to smell that I can single you out from a bunch of teenagers, in a highschool gymnasium? That's gotta be some sort of hyper-stench, man.

Controlling myself, I suppressed my sense of smell through the experience I'd gathered throughout the years. Enhanced senses? Great. Enhanced senses in some parts of New York? Not so great. But at least it'd helped me gain the ability to set my senses to levels and sensitivities where I found the sensory information gained more bearable.

Bad smelling teachers aside, I walked forward and joined the somewhat organized crowd in front of me. Miles wasn't too far behind me and stood next to me, looking at the teacher who was speaking instructions in a somewhat loud voice that bounced off the walls of the gym.

"I don't know what you did in middle school or wherever you came from before here, but I need to know your limits, so...ten laps around the court! NOW!" he gave a bellowing shout.

Everyone was kinda stunned for a few seconds before a few people began moving to the wall of the gymnasium before they began to walk before jogging. Soon, everyone else snapped out of it and got to running as well. Just like the others, I picked up into a jog, easily overtaking most of the class not because I was trying but because my stride was so much bigger than theirs.

There wasn't really any need to stay in the middle of the pack, let alone the back of it, because just by looking at my body, you could see I was athletic. If I stayed in the middle or the back, it'd just look weird.

Unlucky for me, I'm not built like those anime MC's who are built like a stick but still have superhuman strength. Which means it's quite hard to blend in as an average person. Even if they'll never truly understand the extent of my physique, the average person who sees me will most likely think 'he's probably pretty strong'. I guess it's a drawback that I can't stay low-key...but at the same time, I'm not the type of person who lays low anyway. Outside of keeping my powers secret, anyway.

A few laps in and I felt something off. Not danger or fear...no, it'd be better to call it apprehension.

Discretely looking around at the people near me, I didn't see anything off. But when I looked behind me a little at the average runners of the class, I saw someone who stuck out like a sore thumb.

It was a girl with light green and piercing eyes, along with dark black hair that was whipped backward as she ran. Her running form...was average. Completely average. Too average. So average it looked wrong. No one is as average at running as this girl - well, not naturally anyway. Which is why she stuck out so much.

It was also weird because despite having ran a few laps around the court, she wasn't sweating at all. All the other more average runners around her were looking somewhat out of breath and were beginning to sweat a little but not this chick. She looked fine.

There was also the fact she was looking right at me.

For the few seconds I looked back at her, she didn't even stop looking. Instead she just made eye contact with me, not even blinking. It was kinda intimidating, I guess, but it was mainly just odd.

Turning away from the odd girl, I just kept up the running and got it over and done with. By the end, I faked catching my breath when the teacher came up to me and smiled while nodding his head, "Damn son, you run like you're a goddamn Terminator," he said before clapping me on the shoulder. For a second he seemed surprised before he nodded again, "Built like a brick house as well. You ever think about joining the school football team? Wrestling team? Hell, even track and field?" he asked, obviously thinking I was a good find to boost his career or whatever.

Smiling wryly, I gave him a noncommittal shrug, "I haven't really made my mind up yet, sir. I'll be sure to keep it in mind," I gave a somewhat vague answer but he seemed happy with it and he gave me another smile before he turned away and began barking at the rest of the people who were still running.

Sitting down on a nearby bench, I looked over at the other guy who finished a bit in front of me. He was another abnormality. I'd noticed him as soon as I walked into the gym but only after the running did I know he was odd...and only after the running did I know who he was.

He was 5'8", built like a runner with a lean and compact figure, packed with muscle made for speed. He had short silver hair that I assume everyone thought was dyed - but with my eyes, I could see it was his natural hair. He had blue eyes not unlike my icy ones but his were a bit greyer than mine, looking like a steely blue.

He wasn't even making an attempt to fake getting his breath and was just looking around with a bored look of arrogance on his face. Also, the odd girl kept looking at him every now and then so I assumed he was also of odd origin.

Call it a gut instinct - but I'm pretty sure this guy is Quicksilver. Or Pietro Maximoff, if you wanna get picky.

As I was thinking how the guy even got here, I wondered how much was different to the MCU I was aware of. I'm 100% certain Tony Stark looks like RDJ, and what I've seen of Norman Osborn does show him to look somewhat like Willem Dafoe. It was somewhat troubling that shit like this could come out of nowhere, but that's why I've been mentally preparing myself ever since I knew Oscorp was a thing - if all that was a thing, then other things could just pop up. There's no point in being confused or shocked. I just need to take it in my stride and make sure not to get caught too off-guard.

Looking away from the possible speedster, I saw that Miles had finished his laps and was tentatively walking over to me, unsure whether we were on friendly speaking terms after only a bit of conversation on two occasions.

Deciding to put his internal debate to an end, I gave him a wave, motioning him over with a smile. He seemed like a decent dude, and I bet him and Pete would get along quite well. The two of them gave off the same type of energy, I guess.

"About time you finished, man," I joked and Miles gave me a roll of his eyes before he sat down next to me.

He looked up at me with a shake of his head, "You know, not everyone's built like some sort of Greek demigod, right?" he easily threw back his own witty remark and the two of us laughed before he posed another question, "What was the teacher over here speaking about a second ago? He seemed pretty excited after speaking to you, man."

Giving a half shrug, I gave a pretty concise answer, "He asked me about joining one of the sport teams for the school. I gave him a little hope so he wouldn't pester me about it," I gave a laugh as I told my own small manipulation to the guy who was quickly being considered a friend of mine. Miles just gave me a look, and curious about it, I asked him, "What? Something on my face or something?"

Miles looked at me for a second longer before he cracked a half-smile, "Nah. Just thinking that for a guy who looks like he'd like sports, you're really not too bothered about 'em, are you?"

"Eh, I wouldn't say that," I shook my head, "I do like sports. But I only like playing them when it's against people who actually make it a challenge, you know? It's not really that fun otherwise," I gave him the actual reason why I wasn't ecstatically enthusiastic about joining any of the schools sport teams.

Hearing my answer, Miles hook his head, somewhat in disbelief, as he gave an answer to what I'd said, "Man, I don't know whether you're arrogant or you're just that good," he chuckled before continuing, "Something does tell me it's the latter though," he nudged me with an elbow and the two of us shared a short laugh before we were interrupted by the gym teacher shouting for everyone to get up and move to the center of the court.

In the center, there were a set of ten ropes hanging from the ceiling and the teacher pointed to them, "Climb those. I don't care about what order you go up, just make sure you get climbing, understand?" he then took a step to the back and just watched.

Turning my attention away from the teacher, I decided to get it out of the way.

Stepping up to the rope, I tugged on the thick rope, wondering if it could handle my weight. It looked old, sure, but that wasn't why I was wondering about it snapping.

Well, how should I put it...I weigh a lot. I don't weigh tonnes or anything absurd like that. But I'm much heavier than my size and build would have you think. Last time I checked, I weighed in at just under 400lbs despite not even being THAT big. I was 6'0" tall and while I was pretty muscular, it wasn't to the point that I could be anywhere near 300lbs, let alone 400lbs.

This came down to one thing: Tissue Density. My body was denser than a humans by quite a bit, honestly.

Deciding to play it safe, I focused on my body and suddenly, I felt myself lifting ever so slightly off the ground. This was the way I flew. If you want me to be honest, I'm not exactly sure HOW I fly, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with me being able to consciously decide how gravity effects me. Now, I can only do this for flight and any time I tried to control the gravity of something else, it failed instantly. It seems purely for flight.

To avoid people noticing it, I wrapped my hands around the rope before I hoisted myself up. I made it look perfectly natural and I wrapped the rope around one of my legs as I pulled myself up quickly, making the whole thing look like child's play.

Which is was. Even without the slight levitating I was doing to save the rope from straining under my weight, I could do this sort of exercise with an arm tied behind my back. Hell, I could probably drag myself to the top with nothing but my legs and my jaw.

Once I reached the top of the rope, I clanged the bell at the top before rapidly getting down.

Brushing off the slight dust on my hands, I fully stopped my flight and gravity once again grabbed at me like living restraints, holding me tightly to the ground.

Walking away from the group waiting for their chances on the rope, I locked eyes with the coach for a second and he gave me a thumbs up before going back to looking at the others climbing, with a mild disappointment for most of them apart from a select few, who like me, quickly did the rope climbing.

Two of such people being the odd girl and the guy I suspected was Pietro Maximoff.

I looked to the ropes and saw Miles struggling halfway up the rope and with a shrug, I went back to sitting on the bench. Only this time, I was actually approached by the odd girl who sat down next to me, occasionally looking at me from the corner of her eye.

Eventually, I got fed up with feeling her taking glances and turned to her, "You need something? You've been staring at me for a while and it's making me kinda uncomfortable," I posed the question in a straight-forward way. Not aggressively. Just directly.

She answered back just as directly, her voice cold and sharp.

"What are you?" she asked, her voice somewhat quiet but I heard her loud and clear, "You don't smell like a Human."

...Huh. Did I just get made? Well, at the very least...I do know that I'm not entirely human.

Not done, however, the girl continued, "If you wish to harm this place...it's under protection. We will stop you if you have bad intentions."

Hearing how serious she was...I actually chuckled. Man, talk about jumping the gun, huh? Is everything not human automatically evil or something? Oh boy, we're actually entering that territory of jumping the gun. Well, this girl better count her lucky stars and thank her guardian angel that I'm not some evil nonhuman.

"I have no clue what you're talking about," I gave a wry chuckle, "Are you saying I smell bad or something? I mean, if that's the case, saying I'm not a human just because of that...yeesh, that's pretty harsh," I kept it light, joking about. But the joke just went right over her head as she looked at me with a confused look.

I wasn't at all worried about her seemingly knowing I wasn't human based purely off of scent - I mean, it wasn't like she could do anything with that type of information. Not unless she could get some DNA from me. Which really wouldn't be easy.

My hair doesn't fall out. I don't leave flakes of dead skin on things I touch. I don't make it a habit to spit on things either. Blood is even more impossible for them to get from me because I doubt there's a needle on the planet capable of penetrating my skin. So there's no way for her, or whoever she's with, to get tangible proof.

Thoughts aside, the girl just looked at me for a few more seconds in silence before she stood up and left.

...She really was an odd one, huh? Pretty cute, I guess. Like a clueless puppy.