It's amazing how fast the word can spread in only five minutes. A large crowd of students had now gathered behind the gym during the lunch hour, expecting quite a show. Michelle, or Circe, stood in the middle of the ring with a smug on her face, looking pretty self-confident. MJ was facing her, not really enjoying this quite as much. The guys watching seemed, however, to enjoy it. Several of the jocks had joined together and started cheering "Catfight! Catfight! Catfight!"

Peter was definitely not among those guys, in fact he would rather have MJ fighting Norman Osborn then doing this. Not only could she accidently give away her secret identity, she could also hurt her opponent real bad, and he had now idea how MJ's wound was gonna affect it all. MJ could actually get really hurt despite her powers. In short, Peter was worried sick.

"Okay. Let's get started." Michelle said as she stepped closer to MJ and raised her hands into fists.

"I- I don't wanna fight you, Michelle..." MJ said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't wanna fight me either."

Michelle launched a punch against Mary Jane's face, which the smaller girl dodged pretty easy. She then tried to punch MJ with her other fist, but hit only air.

"Stand still you little skank!" Michelle cried out.

"Come on, Michelle! Hit her already!" some guy yelled. And hadn't Peter been so anxious by the situation right now, he would have given that guy a pounding of his own. On Peter's other side, Flash Thompson was watching the fight with much interest.

"Wow, Parker!" he said. "I can't believe those two girls are fighting over YOU!" Peter did however not find it as amusing as Flash did.

MJ had a terrified look on her face, she didn't know what to do. She saw one of Michelle's fist coming flying against her, and she reached up her arm and blocked the punch.

"What are you, some kind of black belt?" Michelle yelled as she tried so hard to land a single punch on MJ.

"Y-yeah..." MJ managed to blurt out. She looked over at Peter's way, and he looked just as scared as she felt. She could see how he mouthed words with his lips and shaked his head at her, trying to tell her to not do anything stupid.

Then suddenly, MJ felt a great pain in her wounded shoulder and fell down to her knees. "Aaahhh...!" she cried out. It wasn't that Michelle's punch had hurt her, but all the nerves in her shoulder was reacting to the pressure in it, causing her entire arm to start aching like hell.

MJ looked up at the bad girl standing over her, noticing Michelle cracking her knuckles.

"So much for those fancy karate moves. Don't worry, when I'm done with your face, Peter don't wanna be seen with you anyway."

"OKAY! That does it! This bitch is going down!" MJ thought, and within one second she had moved her weight, leaned on her healthy arm and whisked her leg in a semicircle in front of her with great speed, making Michelle trip.

Michelle fell backwards and landed on her butt, and when she was trying to get up, Mary Jane stood up and had already turned the tables in her own favor. MJ sent out a punch that connected with Michelles nose and the bitch fell back to the ground as the crowd went silent.

First Peter was worried that MJ had used too much of her strenght, but Michelle only gave out a groan in minor pain. MJ seemed to only have given her a quick smack, causing Michelles nose to bleed and some of the cartilage to break. Nothing that couldn't happen on any other football game on a sunday afternoon with the family. Michelle staggered up from the ground, turned tail and ran away from the amazed crowd while holding her swollen, bruised nose, trying to stop the bleeding.

MJ, feeling pretty proud from winning without outing herself, yelled after her; "And stay away from my man!!!"

All the girls in the audience and several of the guys let out a roar like a sports audience who's team just had made a field goal, they surrounded MJ and started to give her hugs and tap her back while yelling out congratulations to her. "That was awesome, MJ!" "Yeah, like Karate Kid-awesome!" "That sure showed her!" "She totally deserved it!" "She aint pretty no more!" "Where did you learn to do that?" "You are SO invited to my sweet sixteen!" was among the many cheers MJ heard.

MJ managed to push herself out of the group of teenagers and walked up to Peter, who had a expression of both relief and pride on his face. One of the girls yelled out "Kiss!" towards them, and they happily obliged. Their lips met in a long kiss while the crowd around them cheered out loudly. When their mouths finally split up, MJ took Peter by the hand and started to lead him away from her new fan-club.

"Come on Tiger."

"Where are we going?"

"Anywhere else. You're my trophy now and I would like to enjoy you on my own."

The two of them quickly left their schoolmates and sneaked away somewhere were they didn't had to deal with any more drama.

Right now, Mary Jane was now somewhat of the queen of Midtown Highschool. Everybody wanted to hear how she had teached the biggest bitch in the whole school a lesson she wouldn't forget, and half of all the girls told her how she had managed to do what they all wanted to do. MJ was worried some people might think it was suspicious that she manage to win a fight with a dangerous girl like Michelle, but those worries disappeared when she overheard one of the male students talk with one of his friends.

"Dude, don't you think Watson looks just like that Jackpot on the news?"

"Mary Jane Watson? Haven't you seen Jackpot? She's like a whole foot taller then Watson, AND she got a way bigger rack then her."

"Yeah, guess you're right."

MJ had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing, these guys were unbelievable. Otherwise, this day flew by smoothly. After the last class, MJ even ran into Michelle in the hallway, with her nose patch up and cotton sticking out of her nostrils, and when she saw MJ, she ran the other way. MJ couldn't help but feel proud of herself.

Peter earlier called Reed and had made a time to take MJ in for a check-up right after school. Since the weather was so lovely, they decided to walk all the way to The Baxter Building. Sure it was a long walk, but superstamina tend to help. This also gave them time talk to each other about stuff they felt was needed to be said.

"...and I felt hurt because it seemed like you didn't want me with you. You asked if they could remove my powers and all, like my opinion didn't matter to you." MJ said as they walked hand in hand along the sidewalk.

Peter rubbed his neck with his free hand, feeling a bit guilty. "I'm sorry you felt that way, MJ. Of course your opinion matters to me, it's just- I just didn't wanted your life to be as screwed up as mine is. And to be honest, I'd rather have you living a normal, boring and safe life then being stuck in this crap. I'm sorry, but that's how I feel."

"It's okay, I understand."

"But it doesn't mean that I don't like having you as my partner. I have a great time busting criminals with you, and I'm happy knowing you can defend youreself. Now- Now when I've taken all this in, I'm actually glad it happen'd. You just have to practise on a few things."

MJ nodded. "I know what you mean, Tiger. You think you can teach me?"

"Of course I can, I'll teach everything I know. That should take about... five minutes." he joked. "Trust me, you're amazing and with a little help, you can go far. If we just do this together, nothing can go wrong."

He smiled at MJ, and she smiled back. They then rounded a corner and the shining skyscraper of the Baxter building towered up above them.

"Well, we're here. Let's go see the doctors." Peter said as they walked in throught the entrance.

Reed and Susan met up with Mary Jane and Peter as the two younger heroes stepped out of the elevator.

"MJ, Peter." Sue greeted them. "How are you two doing? Was security any problem?"

"No, the guys with the robber gloves was quite gentle." Peter joked.

"They didn't even touch me." MJ followed up. "Makes you wonder."

Reed had MJ change into a hospital gown and step into the medical room. There he carefully removed MJ's badage, much more cool-headed then Peter did, being a real doctor and all, and examined her wound.

"This looks great, MJ." he said. "I think we can already remove the stitches. It's amazing to see how fast your skin regenerates."

Reed then took out a pair of tweezers and started to carefully pull out the suture from MJ's shoulder. "Tell me, MJ," he said while doing it. "Peter said on the phone that you mention something about 'changing'?"

"Well, yeah..." MJ answered a little uncomfortable. "When I was shot, I kinda transformed. I'm not sure how to tell you, but it felt just like when I was changed by the Oz the first time, from that deranged clone thing."

"Mhm." Mister Fantastic said as he took out the last of the surgical suture and instead took out a syringe. "I could take a blood sample and see if there's any change in your DNA, if you don't mind?"

MJ shaked her head and showed up her forearm for Reed to take some blood from. After which he said; "That should do it. You can get dreesed now if you want."

Mary Jane walked behind a screen Richard had pulled up and started to change back into her regular outfit while Reed put her blood in the computer and started to study her DNA-chain. At the same time, Susan turned to Peter.

"How are YOU feeling about this, Pete?" she asked.

"Me? Why do you ask?"

"Seeing loved ones going through such hard things can be very tough, and I saw how worried you were when you brought MJ here last night. I'm just wondering how you're holding up?"

"Fine. Well- not fine, but close. Last night was scary, but I'm happy she's feeling all better again." Peter answered.

Sue nodded.

"Hey... Where's Johnny and Ben by the way?" Peter wondered. "You think that seeing MJ half-naked isn't something ol' Flamebrain would miss out."

"Oh Johnny is taking Ben to a Nascar race somewhere, I'm not sure where he said. For some promotion-thing."

MJ then stepped out from behind the screen and joined her friends in the conversation.

"Can I get you anything, MJ?" Sue asked.

"Well, surprise surprise, I'm hungry."

Susan smirked. "I'll go after the energy bars."

"How are you feeling?" Peter asked Mary Jane when Sue left.

"Good, I guess. Nice to be rid of the suture, though. They kind of itched."

Susan soon returned with a invisible tray of candy bars, which MJ gladly took from her and sat down on a chair with.

"How are you doing over there, honey?" Sue asked Reed.

"Just a second, Suzie." Reed called back.

Peter, sitting down next to MJ, reached out his arm and tried to take one of MJ's chocolate bars, just to try out how they tasted, but she slapped him on the back of his hand and he quickly pulled his arm back.

"You know," Reed said. "I can't find anything that's different from last time you gave me a sample. MJ, do you think you can describe how it felt when you changed into... what ever it was?"

MJ swallowed down a big mouth full of chocolate. "It's hard to say, there was so much adrenaline I can't really remember clearly. But in a way, it felt good. I felt stronger, faster, the pain disappeared. And all the emotions..."

"What kind of emotions?" Susan asked.

"Well, mostly rage, I think. It was so strange, even thought I was aware of what I was doing, it was like my brain was on autopilot. I could have stop myself, but I didn't want to."

Reed rubbed his jaw. "I'm not sure, but I think we're dealing with a kind of defense mechanism. When your having severe trauma, the mutated cells in your body goes through a reaction that causes you to become stronger and more like the redfurry Oz-goblin-thing we already seen. I think it's some kind of a fight-or-flight-mode."

"Is there... is there anything you can do about it?" Mary Jane asked.

"I don't think we can do that without damaging your DNA, or removing your powers entirely. No, I think that you should focus more on sheer willpower to prevent it. Who knows, maybe you even learn how to control these transformations one day. I doubt this will give you any trouble, but if there's any problems at all, I want you to call me."

Peter and MJ agreed to do that, and after that, there wasn't much left for them to do here. Sue and Reed followed them to the elevator where they bid goodbye.

"Thanks again, so much." Peter told them. "I don't know what we would do without you guys."

"Don't mention it. It's what friends do." Sue said.

"Friends with a multi-billion dollar laboratory." Reed quickly added.

After stepping out out from the entrence of The Baxter building, MJ stopped for a while, leaned her head up and just took in the sunlight.

"So how are you feeling, emotionally I mean?" Peter asked her.

"I'm not sure." she answered. "I guess I'm fine, but I'm not feeling like I can jump back into the game right away. Plus I have to make a new suit again. Do you- do you think it's selfish of me to take this weekend off? From the whole crime-fighting thing?"

"Not at all." Peter told her. "Even heroes need to take a vacation now and then, especially after going through something like this. You just sit back and get your groove back, leave the butt-kicking to me. You'll jump back into the game when you're feeling ready for it."

MJ smiled and put her arms around Peter's waist. "Thanks Tiger. You're sweet taking such good care of me." She then sined up like she got the best thought in her entire life. "Ooh! I just had an idea. Let's go to the beach."

"The beach?"

"Yeah! Tomorrow, after I'm done with work, let's go to Coney Island beach, just you and me. We can bring something to eat and have all kinds of fun."

"I don't know, sweetie. Sun and bathe isn't really my thing."

"I'll wear my new bikini."

"It's a date then!"