Fanfic / Confused and Dazed

People you meet unexpectedly can end up changing everything. Not just for you, but for the whole world.

Confused and Dazed is an AU crossover fanfic of X-Men: Evolution and Spider-Man. In it, a young Jean Grey is adopted soon after her powers manifest by one Irene Adler. Irene and her two adopted daughters, Jean and Anne Marie, then move to New York, right next to a lovely couple that is taking care of their nephew.

It can also be read here.

---

Confused and Dazed features the following Tropes:

• Accent Slip-Up: Anne Marie's accent is more present when she's surprised, such as when she wakes up next to Peter on her bed.
• Accidental Pervert: Jean apparently has a tendency of walking into the bathroom while Peter is in there, which makes him uncomfortable. She solves this by entering the bathroom by walking in backwards.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Due to Jean's Power Incontinence, her psychic presence inadvertently interferes with Caliban's ability to track mutants.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade:
  • Peter doesn't lose his Uncle Ben.
  • Anne Marie isn't traumatized over how her powers work. This is later explained to be because she didn't seriously hurt anyone when they manifested, unlike in canon.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • In this fic, Sebastian Shaw's son is named Sean Shaw. This is because the author thinks it makes more sense for a status obsessed, petty, rich asshole like Sebastian to name his son with a more normal sounding name than Shinobi.
  • In this timeline, Rogue's real name is Anne Marie instead of Anna Marie, because X-Men: Evolution never actually revealed her name, so the author decided to change it up a little.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • Due to a change in circumstances, Kurt is a little bit less of a careless and whimsical type and a bit more introspective and perceptive than in the cartoon.
  • Anne Marie is better adjusted than in canon, but still has some issues.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Jean and Peter shorten Anne Marie's name to "Annie". It takes on a bit of a tragic twist when Jean reveals that she first manifested her powers when she was 10 when she was in her friend Annie's mind when the latter died.
  • Kurt calls Jean "Angel".
  • Emma likes calling Peter "Darling". It's somewhat less affectionate when she calls Anne Marie "Streaky".
• Age Lift: Ben and May are from the same generation as Peter's parents.
• Appropriated Appellation: After Caliban asks if Kurt is some sort of night monkey, Kurt decides to make the German translation of it, Nachtaffe, his codename.
• Atrocious Alias: One of the mutants that goes after Emma calls himself "The Fabulous Frog-man".
  Peter: You guys picked your own names. I can tell.
• Bait-and-Switch: Once Peter and Emma start to leave Felicia's mind, they come across Jean's astral form, which is surrounded by the flaming form of a bird. However, it doesn't appear as the intimidating Phoenix, but instead looks like an enormous flaming duckling.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Peter is the one to suggest killing Carl and disposing of his body after they subdue him.
• Buffy Speak: Jean is fond of doing this, leading to Peter sometimes doing so as well, such as referring to telepathy as "braining".
• The Bully: Surprisingly, it is not Flash Thompson, but one Carl King.
• The Cameo:
  • The janitor who helps Peter in Part 1.3 is none other than the King of the Cameo, Stan Lee.
  • In Part 3.1, Peter, Jean, and Emma run into several people who Marvel fans may recognize.
    • They meet a security guard named Luis who's also a Motor Mouth.
    • They walk past someone who's identified as Mrs. Fisk.
    • They meet one of Janet Van Dyne's assistants: Rita DeMara.
  • In Part 3.2, Felicia mentions that Janet's former protégé was named Jumbo Carnation. We also get to meet a friend of Jan's: Lorina Dodson.
• Cassandra Truth: Emma is skeptical after Bast introduces herself as the real goddess and not some impostor.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Peter has some friendly banter with Duke while the two are fighting each other.
• The Chessmaster: Irene, aka Destiny, seems to be this, though her current goals with Peter, Anne Marie, and Jean are currently unknown.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Anne Marie is feeling territorial about Peter due to the fact that he's her First Love.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Jean's thought processes are rather odd, leading her to do or say strange things with little warning. It's explained as being a side-effect of her lack of control over her Telepathy. She's constantly getting the thoughts and emotions of other people, and these thoughts and emotions bleed into her personality.
  • It's later said that being around a precog is part of the reason Jean is the way she is.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Anne Marie and Peter are this to Jean, constantly making sure she doesn't make things worse with her provocative statements and constant social blunders.
• Combo Platter Powers: Peter and Anne Marie having this compared to other mutants will be discussed in-universe.
• Composite Character:
  • Some things that are associated with Silk in the comics will instead be done with Anne Marie.
  • Doc, a healer that knows Destiny, is a combination of two Morlocks from comics: Masque and Healer. There were combined because the author found the original characters bland.
• Double Entendre: Jean is fond of giving these.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Several times in the story, a school called the Future Foundation is mentioned.
  • In Part 1.7, Peter watches a debate on mutants between Dr. Essex and Dr. Pym. Fans of comics will quickly recognize them as Mister Sinister and Ant-Man.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Inverted. Jean claims that Peter's Code Name is Night Crawler due to the fact that he was the first one seen when people started calling them the Queens Night Crawlers.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • In his youth, Ben met three people he assumed were mutants. In truth, they were Loki, Thor, and Ulik.
  • When Emma first gets to know Peter, Jean, and Anne Marie, she assumed they were part of some mutant group, and that Peter's mutant power was Super-Intelligence.
• Eyebrow Waggle: Jean likes doing this whenever a Double Entendre or something that could be misconstrued as something lecherous is said.
• Fille Fatale: Felicia Hardy tries to be this, but doesn't exactly succeed.
  Emma’s expression had remained flat and completely unamused through the entire exchange. For his part, Peter was doing his best to keep his expression neutral, but he had to admit he alternately found the woman fascinating in a sort of helpless bumbling sort of way and maddening for the very same reason. Even without Emma’s input, he could tell she was trying her best to be charming and intriguing, but it was falling flat. Rather than coming off as a sultry minx, it was closer to watching a clumsy kitten stumble off of the edge of the couch, fall flat on its face, then pretend that everything went exactly as planned.
• Freudian Slip: Jean has a tendency of saying these.
• Freudian Trio: Jean is the impulsive Id, Peter is the intelligent Ego, and Anne Marie is the responsible Superego. This dynamic is later expanded upon.
• Friendly Enemy: Duke appears to be one when the heroes clash with the Acolytes. The big guy genuinely finds their jokes and antics funny and trades The Princess Bride references with Peter for much of their fight.
• The Gadfly: Jean enjoys saying things that embarrass others.
  • Irene is little better. One way she does this is by using her blindness to mess with people, such as with her "If You Seek Amy" shirt.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Peter builds various type of gear for himself and his friends, like the web-shooters or the telepathic range boosters/psychic-enhancing earbuds he makes specifically for Jean.
• Giver of Lame Names: Jean naming things leads to things having very silly names, such as calling Anne Marie's Spider-Sense her "danger tingles".
• Harem Genre: Averted. Though the story will feature polyamorous groups and open relationships.
• Hate Sink: Carl King is a ruthless bully who pressures the other jocks into bullying the weaker students, like Peter. He goes into irredeemable territory when he breaks into Peter's room with a gun, and ends up shooting Uncle Ben when the older man found him.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Part of the reason Jean acts like this is because her telepathy is picking up the lust that other teenagers feel as well.
• Jerk Jock: Carl King is the captain of the football team and uses his influence to get other jocks to be bullies too.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Peter and Emma have to enter Felicia's mind after an unknown telepath messed with her memories.
• Lives in a Van: As she has been kicked out by her family and lacks practical life experience due to having a sheltered life, Emma has to sleep in her car.
• Locked into Strangeness: A lock of Peter's hair turns white after he is drained Anne Marie.
  • The kids at school think this is Anne Marie's way of marking Peter as hers.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Anne Marie was initially unaware of Jean's powers.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Jean is this to basically anyone, but mostly Peter and Anne Marie.
• Meaningful Rename: Some mutants take on self given names to symbolize leaving their human lives behind when they became mutants.
  Peter, Jean, Kurt and even Anne Marie and herself… they all self-identified by their given names. Emma thought of herself as ‘Emma’. Their normal names. Human names.
  These mutants, however, identified with their self-given mutant names even in their mind’s eye. Caliban, Duke, Frog-man, Callisto. They had bought into lines of thought from old pro-Mutant Rhetoric that Emma had come across in a few others she had encountered either at college or at the Club. People who had subscribed to the belief that to be a mutant meant leaving your old human self behind so that you could be reborn and take your place with your mutant brothers and sisters.
• Money Dumb: Emma is really bad at managing her own finances.
  • At the very least, Emma won't have to spend too much money for her wardrobe after Peter starts making her clothes.
• Mundane Utility: Irene uses her precognition in stock trading.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Darcy has to tell Luis this the first time they meet.
• Named by the Adaptation: scriviner gave Candra the last name Dehors.
• Nice Guy: Peter is a nice young man who likes helping others simply because it's the right thing to do. Emma notes that Peter believes that most people want to help others, not just themselves.
  “I swear, darling, you give me such a headache.” Emma put a hand up to her temple and began rubbing small circles there. “You really believe that. Really, truly, deep down in your soul believe that people want to help.”
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Scorpion is heavily influenced by Danny Trejo.
• Nonchalant Dodge: Peter handles Carl so effortlessly that videos of it become an In-Universe meme.
  • Later on, Destiny/Irene does this to Callisto.
• Noodle Incident:
  • When Jean asks Emma if she's ever met another telepath, Emma replies yes with a snarl, ending Jean's inquiry.
  • Janet ending her professional relationship with her former protégé Jumbo involved a scandal and a double homicide.
  • Jean gave her version of The Talk to Ben and May after the first time the two of them walked in on her in Peter's bed, asleep on his face.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Jean has a tendency of being very handsy with people she likes.
• No Social Skills: Due to relying on her powers to tell how people are feeling since getting them, Jean can't really read social cues from people who are blocking her powers, like with Emma.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Janet van Dyne compliments Peter's ability to do this.
  “Oh, lovey.” Janet winked at him, “You managed to look my Elizabeth in the eyes while talking to her. Your delightful redheaded friend has spent more time ogling our rather zaftig server than you have and I’ve seen your eyes on me — you’re more interested in what I’m wearing than in the fact that I have a delightfully pert little arse.”
  Peter made the valiant attempt to reply, but couldn’t manage more than a distressed choking noise.
  “I mean clearly you noticed,” She said as she gave her hips an exaggerated swing,, savoring his mild discomfort. “But you pulled your attention away quite quickly. You’re already shown more poise and grace — and class, I might add — than half the interns I’ve had work for me.”
• Oblivious to Love: Peter. He was never a bad looking guy, merely poorly socialized until the Adlers moved in next door. Mattie reflects on growing up with him and how he never noticed the attentions of anyone due to being so insular. She speculates (correctly) that it likely took Jean spelling out Anne Marie's attraction for him to realize it.
• Oh, Crap!: Frog-man reacts this way after he lets his anger get the better of him and attacks Jean.
• Older Than They Look: It is heavily implied that Irene has a method to keep herself youthful looking.
• Out with a Bang: Downplayed and played with. As Kurt is teleporting himself, Emma, and her car away from Blob and Caliban, his thoughts are: "At least I will die the way I always dreamed. With my face buried in an absolutely wonderful pair of tits.".
• Parental Substitute: Due to being taken in when he was young, Ben and May are effectively Peter's parents.
• Polyamory: Jean is aiming for this.
• Power Incontinence: Jean has a severe lack of control on her powers. As such, she isn't allowed to watch scary movies before bedtime.
  • It's later explained that Jean's out of control telepathy resulted in Jean reflecting the personality traits of people in her vicinity.
• Projectile Webbing: Anne Marie can fire webbing from her fingers. Peter uses the webbing she creates for his own web-shooters before he makes his own synthetic version, which he then shares with Jean and Kurt.
• Psychic Link: Peter and Felicia develop one after Peter and Emma enter the latter's mind and fix the damage done to it, which allows them to know certain things about one another, and in at least one instance taste what the other is eating.
• Psychic Nosebleed: This happens to Jean when overworking her telepathy. Emma mentions that it also happened to her in the past, so it may just be the same for all telepaths.
• Race Lift: The Kingpin is African-American instead of Caucasian.
• Renaissance Man: Luis being this is very plot relevant.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Carl can get away with a lot due to having rich parents.
• Secretly Wealthy: Implied with Irene.
• Seers: This is Irene's power.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: To Emma's surprise, Peter, Jean, Anne Marie, and the Parkers are as nice as they all seem, with no ulterior motive to approach her.
• She Is All Grown Up: According to Lorina Dodson, Emma was short and skinny when they were younger.
  Emma: That’s because I was thirteen, remember? Everyone’s short at thirteen.
• Shipper on Deck: Jean really wants to see Peter and Anne Marie get together, which does happen.
• Shout-Out:
  • Jean names their pet spider Shelob.
  • The In-Universe meme of Peter calls him the ‘Ultra-instinct Geek’.
  • When Jean demonstrates her telekinesis to Emma, she recites a spell from Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
    “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee!”
  • Kurt's moniker of "Nachtaffe" is German for "Night Monkey".
  • Suicide Squad (2016) is referenced when the Morlocks introduce themselves to Kurt.
    Duke: You can call me Duke. This here's Caliban. He's got my back.
    Caliban: [groans]
  • One of the chapters is titled "The Boy Falls From The Sky", a reference to the ill-fated Broadway musical.
  • The codenames that the Queens Night Crawlers choose are based on Dungeons & Dragons classes.
  • During Peter and Duke's Casual Danger Dialogue, the two quote The Princess Bride.
  • Doc being a touch-range bio-kinetic and being related to a bone manipulator is a reference to Panacea and Marquis from Worm.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Name dropped by one of Janet Van Dyne's employees who was assigned to assist Peter.
  Rita DeMara: (about Peter being given a large amount of resources with no supervision) As long as he gets results, Miss Van Dyne isn’t particularly picky about methods. She expects people who work for her to be capable, independent, and self-motivated. If there’s anything he needs or needs to know, Mr. Parker is welcome to reach out to me and I will do what I can to help. But for the most part… yes, he can do as he wishes. For Miss Van Dyne, it’s sink or swim and she always expects the talent pool to come from the deep end.
• Slut-Shaming: Anne Marie does this when accusing Emma of flirting with Peter.
• Smoky Gentlemen's Club: Averted. As this kind of club has gone out of style, the Hellfire Club of this story is more along the lines of fancy restaurants for the super rich.
  • This change was partly influenced by Club 33.
• Spiders Are Scary: Shelob is a big spider that has very potent venom. As such, most people are at least wary of it the first time they see it.
• Spider-Sense: Peter and Anne Marie have different versions of this. Peter's is the standard version, while Anne Marie's only reacts when people she cares about are in danger.
  • More detail on how Peter's works is given.
• Statuesque Stunner: Emma is described as tall and thicc.
• Switch-Out Move: When Peter, Jean, and Anne Marie find themselves in a stalemate against Duke, Callisto, and Frog-man respectively, Emma advises that they swap opponents, though only Peter and Jean actually do this.
• The Talk: Jean makes her spiel about mutant powers sound like this for laughs.
  “Oh, oh! I have a whole spiel ready.” Jean said brightly. She then shifted her voice, taking on a lecturing tone and held up a finger as she spoke. “Ahem… so… as you are getting older and more mature you may notice your body undergoing some changes—”
  “You know,” Peter interrupted, “Usually when someone starts with this kind of talk, it’s to explain why I’ve got hair growing in weird places.”
  “Or why I’ve got tits suddenly popping up.” Anne Marie chimed in.
  “Or why other things start popping up,” Peter deadpanned.
  The two Adler girls stared at him in dead silence. He merely waggled his eyebrows in response.
  • Anne Marie's thoughts later reveal that Jean gave this to Ben and May after the first time the two of them walked in on her in Peter's bed, asleep on his face.
• Team Pet: One of the spiders that bites Peter hitches a ride in his clothes when he goes home. It is named Shelob and it acts as the teens' pet.
• Teen Genius: Peter's a genius even in high school, and his intellect is all natural.
  • It is later expanded that before he met the Adlers, he was bored with school. Meeting them actually helped him improve by getting him interested in stuff outside of school.
  • Even before he met Emma, he's already created world-changing tech.
  • The reason he isn't in a school for gifted students is because he wasn't trying as hard as he could in school before he met the Adlers.
• Theme Naming: Frog-man points out that the Code Names of the Queens Night Crawlers are based on D&D character classes.
• Took a Level in Idealism: This is happening to Emma thanks to the Parkers and Adlers.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Jean gained her powers after her best friend died.
• Unexpected Virgin: Jean implies that Emma is this after Anne Marie slut-shames Emma.
• Unknown Relative: Mattie Franklin is initially unaware that her aunt is dating J. Jonah Jameson.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Jean's telepathic and telekinetic abilities are incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, because she has never been instructed how to, and because her powers are so great, she has difficulty controlling them. She is getting tutoring from Emma to overcome this.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Anne Marie will punch out anyone who threatens Peter, as Carl found out when she knocked him out with a single punch to the face.
• Wall Crawl: Peter and Anne Marie have different versions of this power. Peter has tiny hairs on his hands that help him cling to surfaces, while Anne Marie relies on the webbing from her hands to stick to them.
• We Used to Be Friends: Peter put up with Carl's bullying due to his former friendship with Flash Thompson in grade school (though the latter has some misgivings about the bullying by the time of the story's start).
  • This also happened with Liz Allen, who nursed a crush on Peter all through grade school and middle school, though like Mattie, she never told him.
• What Does She See in Him?: Played with. The fact that Anne Marie is with him actually makes Peter more attractive to the girls at their school.
• World's Smallest Violin: Played for Laughs. Jean has an actual tiny violin that she plays with her telekinesis.
  Peter opened his mouth to respond, but a barely audible squeak caught his attention just before the tiny wail became a mournful, if quiet, tune. “Where’s that violin music coming from?”
  Everyone turned to stare at Jean who was holding a finger up. Balanced on it was a tiny violin that had a miniscule bow sawing across the strings producing a recognizable, though off-key, rendition of the Godfather theme.
  "What are you doing?" Anne Marie demanded.
  "Playing the world's tiniest violin for you,” Jean replied with a bit of cheek, before stopping the playing with another quiet squeak and palming the tiny instrument.
  "Where did you even get that from?!" Emma pointed at Jean’s closed fist.
  “Peter’s room.” Jean replied brightly.
  She turned to Peter, “And you have a tiny violin, why?”
  Jean cheered, “Who says prop comedy is dead?”
  “I do,” Emma said, her voice flat. “You killed it.”
  “Oh, yeah. I’m totally killing it,” Jean replied agreeably.

---