Thiefs... very stupid thiefs

"Then have a... lovely evening," Emma said with an undertone meant only for my ears. She rose elegantly, glided over to me and leaned down. Her lips brushed my cheek in a kiss that lasted a second too long to be purely friendly. "See you tomorrow, Dean."

"See you tomorrow, Emma," I replied quietly, hating Emma just a little bit. She had manipulated me throughout the entire party, and yet I couldn't be angry with her.

Jean had already gotten up, a little wobbly in her high heels, but determined. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up. "Come on," she urged with a conspiratorial grin. "Before I change my mind. The Eiffel Tower is waiting." As she laughed loudly, I finally realised what that meant and had to laugh out loud.

I followed her out of the VIP lounge, her hand firmly in mine. The music grew louder as we descended the stairs leading to the main hall. My gaze wandered over the crowd. Susan Storm had really done a great job. The Hellfire Club was barely recognisable, no longer a dark, Victorian secret society, but a glamorous, ultra-modern nightclub for the rich and powerful.

Now that red-haired women weren't constantly trying to seduce me, I recognised several faces from the news. Reed Richards was standing in a corner, animatedly discussing some scientific theory with Hank McCoy, both with drinks in their hands. Johnny Storm was flirting at the bar with a blonde I didn't know, but who seemed somehow familiar. She was a blonde with short, almost military hair, and Johnny didn't seem to be having any success with her.

Superheroes. Superheroes everywhere.

Jean leaned heavily against me as we navigated through the crowd. "God, I hate these events," she muttered. "Everyone acts like they're friends, but in reality..." She left the sentence unfinished and shook her head. "Forget it. Let's just get out of here."

"We're almost at the exit," I assured her.

My mind was already on what would come next. My room at school, the bed. Jean and me. Alone. Without Scott. Without obligations. Just the two of us. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. But it felt so damn right.

We were only a few metres from the main entrance when the doors flew open with a deafening crash. The first shot rang out at the ceiling.

"EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR! NOW!"

Twenty figures stormed in, dressed in black, masked, heavily armed. Automatic weapons, shotguns, tactical vests. They moved like a well-coordinated team, swarmed out, pointed their weapons at the crowd. Even though I was now studying at the X-Men school, even though I was a mutant, I froze in fear. Even though I knew the room was full of superheroes and that a single plea from me would have ended it all, I couldn't get a word out.

I was a coward!

The music stopped abruptly. For a moment, there was absolute silence. Then panic broke out.

Screams. Guests threw themselves to the floor, ran in all directions, tripped over each other. Glasses shattered on the marble floor. A table tipped over and the gangsters began to storm further into the room.

Jean froze beside me, her fingers clenching around my hand. I felt her body tense, her instincts awaken, and her hand become strangely warm, which even the **** couldn't completely dampen.

"Dean," she whispered, her voice suddenly more sober. "These are..."

"Robbers," I finished her sentence.

"Damn stupid robbers," she laughed, slightly drunk, and only then did my fear subside. What had Emma and Scott called her? Omega Level? Whatever that meant, it was powerful. Too powerful for a couple of guys with guns.

One of the masked men, presumably the leader based on the way he moved, stepped into the middle of the hall. He waved his gun over the guests lying on the floor. "Mobile phones! Wallets! Jewellery! Everything! And no one plays the hero, or there will be deaths!"

I had to stifle a laugh. "Nobody plays the hero," I thought to myself. A strange calm had suddenly come over me. It was strange to see shots being fired there and know that I was absolutely safe. "If only they knew."

My gaze swept across the room. Reed Richards had taken cover behind a pillar, his eyes already calculating on . Johnny Storm had stopped flirting and was staring at the intruders with an expression that wavered between disbelief and amusement.

And then, at the other end of the hall, I saw Susan Storm.

She stood upright in the middle of the chaos, her arms crossed. Her evening gown, which she would have willingly taken off 10 minutes ago for a fuck with me, which probably cost more than all the equipment of these wannabe gangsters, was immaculate. No panic on her face. No shock.

Just a broad, extremely amused smile.

She exchanged a quick glance with Reed. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Johnny was already grinning like an idiot.

The robbers still had no idea, and worse, they didn't recognise who was standing in front of them. Pepper Potts sat bored and grinning at the bar. She probably already knew how this would end. "I said ON THE FLOOR!" yelled the leader, his gun pointed at an elderly woman who was trembling with fear.

Susan sighed dramatically. Then, with the composure of a woman who had already fought Galactus, she stepped forward. The heels of her shoes clicked on the marble floor. Each step was deliberate, controlled, almost provocatively slow. The robbers turned to face her, guns pointed at her, and funnily enough, none of them seemed to recognise her. "How stupid can they be?" I asked Jean, but she just laughed and floated a champagne glass over to us, so that we were both standing there with a glass in our hands.

She stopped, directly in the light of one of the large chandeliers, and tilted her head. Her smile widened.

"Gentlemen," said Susan Storm in a voice that was both honey and steel, "I'm afraid you've made a little mistake."

One of the robbers, nervous, too young for this job, took a step towards her. "Shut up, lady, or... Wait. Don't I know you from somewhere? Never mind. I'll... "

"Or what?" Susan interrupted him, still smiling. "You're going to shoot? At me?" She let the question hang in the air.

The leader frowned behind his mask. His instinct, perhaps the last bit of his will to survive, told him that something was wrong as Susan let her gaze wander over the twenty armed men, then over the guests lying on the floor. Her smile turned into a grin.

"Did you know," she said in a tone as if telling children a bedtime story, "that you just tried to rob a club sponsored by the Fantastic Four? At a party to which literally half of the Avengers and the X-Men are invited?"

The silence that followed was absolute.

I saw the information slowly sink into the robbers' heads. How their gazes became more uncertain. How some of them looked around nervously.

One of them, smarter than the others, lowered his weapon. "Oh... shit."

Susan Storm laughed. A bright, melodic laugh that echoed through the hall. "Yes," she said, still grinning, her arms still crossed, completely unimpressed by the twenty guns pointed at her. "Oh shit is about right.

She took another step forward, directly in front of the frightened guests, who were now slowly realising that they were safe. Slowly, the air in front of the guests began to shimmer as Susan created one of her indestructible fields.

"So," said Susan, her voice now with a dangerous undertone, "do you want to surrender now, or should I call my little brother? He seems bored and, on top of that, he got rejected by Captain Marvel. That means he's in a pretty bad mood." My head jerked towards the blonde. That was Captain Marvel? The alien warrior or something? Almost as strong as Thor?

Somewhere behind me, I heard Johnny Storm giggle. I was still standing next to Jean, her hand still in mine, watching the scene with a mixture of fascination and amusement.

So much for our departure, I thought. But somehow it only made things more interesting.

The leader of the robbers hesitantly raised his weapon, the muzzle trembling slightly. You could literally see his mind jumping back and forth between flight and **** aggression. His men were getting more nervous, some already taking small steps backwards.

"I... we...," he stammered.

Then the large panoramic window facing the street exploded.

Glass rained down in all directions. The chandelier above us swayed dangerously. Several guests screamed. And through the opening, accompanied by a deafening roar, a massive green figure leapt out. It was huge. A mountain of muscle. Immediately, my calm was gone. It was him. HIM. The monster. The monster the military had been hunting for years. The monster Iron Man had talked about. The monster...

THE HULK!

Hulk landed with an impact that made the ground shake. Cracks ran through the marble slabs. An entire table shattered under the impact of his feet.

He stood up to his full, impressive height, at least three and a half metres of pure, green muscle mass. His eyes glowed with rage, but it was the special kind of rage I had always seen on television or in wanted posters. So was it really true? The Hulk was more than just a monster. He was an Avenger.

"HULK NOT INVITED!" he thundered, his voice making the remaining glasses on the bar vibrate. "EVERYONE HAVING FUN! WITHOUT HULK!"

He looked around, saw the armed robbers, and his face lit up like a child at Christmas while the guests now began to panic. Villains with guns were a dime a dozen, but this was the Hulk. The creature that had been hunted by the military for years.

"Ohhh! BAD MEN! HULK CAN HIT?"

Susan groaned loudly and massaged her temples. "Bruce... Banner... HULK! How did you even..."

"HULK IS THROUGH WINDOW!" he announced proudly, as if it weren't obvious. Then he pointed accusingly at the party in general. "TONY SAID: NO PARTY FOR HULK! HULK TOO LOUD! But HULK saw party. LOTS OF LIGHTS! MUSIC! And now..." He grinned widely, baring teeth as big as my fingers. "...BAD MEN TO HIT!"

The leader of the robbers did the stupidest thing he could have done at that moment.

He fired.

The bullets bounced off Hulk's chest like grains of rice off a concrete wall. Hulk looked down at the small bullet holes in his already torn T-shirt, then back at the shooter. It was almost funny how pityingly he looked at him.

"THAT WAS RUDE!" roared the Hulk before he stood up. He had been huge before, but this was something else. This was a titan. A giant. I suddenly felt the fear of ****.

And then all hell broke loose.

Hulk charged forward at the speed of a freight train. The first robber he reached flew halfway across the hall and landed, surprisingly gently, in an improvised net formed by Reed's outstretched arm, which had stretched like bungee cords.

"Hold on!" Reed shouted, his voice striving to remain calm despite the absurdity of the situation. His other hand stretched over ten metres to the bar, grabbed three of the robbers and wrapped them up like gifts. "My wife simply has the best parties statistically. However, 99.998% of the time, you haven't thought this through very well.

"Finally! FLAME ON!" cheered Johnny Storm, transforming himself into a living torch. Flames shot out of his body, illuminating the hall with orange-red light. He floated into the air, his hands already formed into fireballs. "I've been making small talk all night! This is so much better!"

A fireball shot over my and Jean's heads and hit a robber's weapon, melting it into useless metal. The man screamed and dropped the glowing mass.

"JOHNNY, NOT THE FURNITURE!" Susan yelled as she casually created a **** field that trapped four robbers in a transparent bubble. They banged against the invisible wall from the inside, their screams muffled.

"This is your furniture! And knowing you, it's fireproof anyway. That means," Johnny countered with a grin, "I can set it on fire if I want to!

Ben Grimm – The Thing – stomped out of a corner where he had presumably been standing and eating canapés the whole time. His orange, stone fist crashed into the floor in front of three fleeing robbers, forming an improvised barricade.

"It's clobberin' time," he muttered, almost bored, grabbing two of the robbers and lifting them up like dolls. "You boys really picked the wrong club."

Captain Marvel, now bathed in golden light and wearing her iconic armour, floated in golden light, her eyes glowing with energy. She didn't even have to use her hands. A beam of energy shot out of her hand and knocked three weapons out of the hands of their bearers, who dropped them in fright.

"Seriously?" she exclaimed, half laughing. "A robbery? Here? Don't you guys have internet?"

Natasha Romanoff moved through the chaos like a dancer. A robber swung his weapon in her direction, she ducked, kicked his leg away, disarmed him with a fluid movement and had him in a stranglehold on the floor in seconds. Her evening gown hadn't even slipped out of place.

"Amateurs," she muttered. This Natasha bore no resemblance to the woman who had just been lying next to Pepper in bed with me.

Hank McCoy,akaBeast swung himself from a chandelier, landed on the shoulders of one robber and used the momentum to knock over two more. "Statistically speaking," he lectured as he took another robber's weapon away, "the success rate of armed robberies in establishments with a superhero presence is about 0.003 per cent. You should have done your homework!"

Scott Summers stood at the edge of the dance floor, his hand already on his visor. His gaze scanned the crowd, presumably looking for Jean. I felt Jean stiffen beside me.

"Scott," she whispered, half guiltily, half annoyed.

But Scott had no time for such things. Three robbers pointed their guns at a group of frightened guests. His visor clicked open and a red beam shot out, perfectly controlled by , precise – knocking the guns out of their hands without even grazing their fingers.

"Get down... now," Scott ordered in a voice that brooked no argument.

The three obeyed immediately.

Wolverine was... Wolverine. He charged through the chaos with his claws extended, faster than most could see. Weapons were slashed, tactical vests torn open, and within seconds, five robbers lay **** or whimpering on the floor. For some reason, he hadn't killed them, but only incapacitated them.

"That's it?" he growled disappointedly. "I've only just warmed up."

Emma Frost was still standing upstairs in the VIP lounge, leaning over the railing and watching the spectacle with an amused smile. She hadn't even activated her diamond form. Why should she? It was already over.

But I saw her eyes wander briefly to me, then to Jean, then back to the fight. Calculating. Always calculating.

Hulk now had three robbers under each arm and one on his back, clinging desperately to his shoulders. He didn't seem to notice.

"HULK HAD FUN!" he announced cheerfully. "BAD MEN ARE FUNNY!"

Susan used her **** fields to build improvised prison cells, into which the **** or surrendered robbers were thrown. Her expression was a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

I was still standing with Jean, my back against a pillar, watching the spectacle. Jean leaned heavily against me, her breath warm on my neck. The **** and adrenaline seemed to be mixing inside her.

"This is so absurd," she murmured. "Twenty armed men against... this." She pointed vaguely at the assembled superior forces. "What were they thinking?"

"Probably not much," I replied quietly.

The last robber – the leader – desperately tried to crawl towards the broken front door. Natasha placed a high-heeled shoe on his back, pressing him gently but firmly to the ground.

"Stay," she said, as if training a dog.

And then it was over. Twenty robbers. Defeated in less than two minutes. Susan took a deep breath, brushed a strand of hair from her face and looked at the chaos, the broken window, the scratched dance floor, the **** criminals in their **** field prisons.

"This club has been open for exactly one hour," she said to no one in particular. "ONE. HOUR."

Johnny landed next to her, the flames extinguished, and put his arm around her shoulders with a grin. "Hey, Sue. Look on the bright side. Best opening party ever." Susan stared at him. Then, despite everything, she had to laugh.

Hulk was still holding his three robbers, looking around in confusion. "BAD MEN ALL GONE? HULK WANTS TO HIT MORE!"

"No, Bruce," Reed said gently as he retracted his arms to their normal length. "You've hit enough."

"HULK NEVER BEAT UP ENOUGH!" protested Hulk, but reluctantly dropped his prisoners into one of Susan's **** fields.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone must have called the police. Not that they had anything to do except haul away the already defeated criminals.

Jean pulled away from me slightly, her face flushed, her eyes still slightly glassy. She looked over at Scott, who was adjusting his visor and giving orders to a few security guards who were finally coming out of cover.

"We really should go," she whispered. "Before Scott... or should he watch my Eiffel Tower fuck me?" she laughed drunkenly and horny.

"Yes," I agreed. "Let's get out of here."