When the alert sounds on the television, May has no idea what's happened.
That only lasts a second, though, and the emergency broadcast system mingles with screams from the other apartments, screams from the street, sounds of cars crashing. And she goes out to the street and sees a woman clutching a handful of dust to her chest, a man weeping, on his knees.
She goes back up to the apartment and grabs a kitchen knife and her mace, locks every lock on the door and runs down the street. It would be stupid to take the car with the chaos in the streets. It reminds her of when the towers fell, and everyone in New York wandered home stunned and grieving. She walks to Midtown. It takes her more than an hour and the looting has started already. She marches into the school, which - for God knows what reason - is not locked down, and collects Ned and MJ.
Ned starts on about how he left this morning, from the bus, before the field trip got canceled because fucking aliens were in Central Park and of course Peter had to get involved. How nobody has seen him since. It's not much, but at least there's still the chance he's safe. Some chance he made it out of this.
She insists they hold hands on the walk home. People run down the street. The air raid sirens go off, two and a half hours after the fact. She herds the kids into the apartment and shoves a dresser in front of the door, and a bookshelf in front of the window with the fire escape.
They're sitting quietly on the couch when she comes back out. Ned's chin trembles and MJ looks lost. The air smells burnt.
She breathes deeply and calms down everything in her that wants to freak out right now. It's not what she needs and absolutely is not what they need.
"What are we gonna do?" MJ asks. She's got her hands balled up into little fists on her lap.
"We're going to get through this. The cells are dead but the landline still works. I am going to call both of your parents until I reach someone." May gives them both a level look.
"Until we have some more information, Ned – I want you to fill up the bathtub with water, all the way to the top. MJ, please take every gallon jug and soda bottle you can find and fill those with water," she says.
They look confused, which is at least a step up from the 'about-to-go-off-the-deep-end' looks of before.
"Why?" asks Ned.
"There's not really a handbook for this kind of thing. But until we know what the hell is going on, this is like a hurricane mixed with 9/11. Mixed with the Chitauri." Ned snorts.
"So our plan for the moment is to get some water before it maybe shuts off, make those calls to see – and then we'll watch the news until we're about to freak out and then play an intense game of Scrabble and go to bed. Capisce?"
"Capisce," they say back, unenthusiastically.
"Great, let's go."
They glance at each other, look back at May, and go to do their tasks.
When she's alone in the living room, May closes her eyes, rubs her face. She wants to cry, to scream. She wishes Ben was here. She wishes she knew whether Peter was safe, wishes he was here, barricaded in their apartment, ready to play emergency 'trying-not-to-freak-out' Scrabble. But there's no time for that, not yet, when she has two kids who need her in the other room.
May takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and picks up the landline.