MJ rides the bus to school next day feeling peculiar. Maybe it's the late night, the stress, or far too many thoughts about a certain guy in her class but she just feels as if the Suit isn't working so well.
It's May. Peter's aunt being so nice to her. Kindness is a killer of Suit-powered cool.
MJ scowls and raises her paperback between herself and the rest of the bus. The seat beside her is empty and Peter Parker's stop is coming up, but she swears if he so much as dares to sit next to her -
She never reaches the end of that thought because right then the bus lurches left, right and backwards - and everyone is thrown forward.
MJ smacks her head on the seat in front. The book flies from her hands and skitters away under twenty seats. "Crap!"
The bus has stopped. It's full of teens clutching banged heads and complaining.
The driver, a big guy named Derek, calls out. "Sorry about that. I -"
And then he jerks, stiffens and grips the wheel with arms locked straight in front of him. Everyone stares, then yells as he stamps his foot on the gas and the bus jolts forward.
MJ is thrown back in her seat. "Ow -"
"I just can't seem to shake you off," calls Derek in a weird cheerful voice. He's still rigid and his foot is still pressed down hard. "Gotta keep trying..."
MJ grabs the seat in front as streets and junctions speed last. "Hey. Slow down!"
Everyone is yelling, hands snatch wildly at seats, bags and lunches and drinks roll on the floor. The bus tilts sideways and rights itself as they go around a corner. MJ sees a red light flash past.
"This place is a hot mess," observes Derek. "What to do, what to do."
He wrenches the steering wheel and the bus veers around another corner, skidding so hard to the right that MJ is thrown against the window, bashing her shoulder. She swears the bus went up on two wheels.
"Well that has not done the trick," says Derek. He looks in the rearview mirror and shakes his head at the kids.
"Stop man." One of the senior boys has worked his way to the front to try to get hold of Derek. Derek brakes sharply and the boy tumbles to the floor.
The bus is lurching around so much MJ cannot get at her phone. Outside the window she sees back streets, workshops, warehouses. In the distance she glimpses the East River. "Oh god-"
She forces her way off the window and shoves aside the freshman girl who has fallen in the aisle. "Move!"
"A little bath," says Derek thoughtfully. "That ought to do it."
The kids are yelling and scrabbling and clawing for their phones, and Derek, but Derek has developed a lethal focus and a mean punch. He fells kids casually, scattering them in the aisle, without taking his eyes off the silvery water at the end of the dock.
"Right," says MJ. If Derek won't stop then maybe the bus will. She claws her way toward the front, ducking kids and loose luggage. Which lever would be the handbrake? Do buses work like cars?
If she reaches the brake and if it works then the bus will probably roll over but that, even in the roughest calculation, is a lot better than going into the dock.
She's behind Derek, shielded from his rearview mirror by the back of the driver's seat.
"Here we go," cries Derek merrily.
MJ crawls forward, grabs at the brake lever and misses, and Spider-Man lands on the front windshield, clinging with fingers and toes and looking quizzically at the chaos.
MJ freezes in shock. Derek says "What in the hell -" and she uses his distraction to reach across and grab the lever.
Dammit that's the gear stick. Why can't she drive?
"Hey," calls Spider-Man to Derek. "You missed your stop!"
He leaps onto the roof. Light footsteps thud along the length of the bus.
Jesus. The dock is right in front of them and at this speed nothing can decelerate them in time-
She sees sparkling webs fly out either side of the bus. Where the hell is the brake?
"Let's turns that frown upside," Spider-Man yells from overhead.
That one. MJ lunges for it, ducking Derek's fist. The lever is stiff. "Stop dammit!"
The bus is encased in gleaming white webbing. She can't see Spider-Man. He better have a plan, because although the brake is screaming, metal on metal, this bus is too near the edge and is going over for sure.
She thinks of her mom. Oh god.
She heaves on the brake lever, Derek batting her all the while.
The bus wheels howl. It's too late. The edge of the dock is right and front of them. They're going into the water -
Then silence. The bus's wheels leave the ground.
A gleeful voice from above: "Please keep your hands inside the ride...!"
Spider-Man swings past on a fine thread as the bus is carried out over the water in the opposite direction. Then he vanishes. The bus reaches a high point in its arc. And drops down again.
MJ screams.
With a massive judder the bus lands. The webs across the front windscreen split apart and MJ sees that the bus is now on a barge. A barge in the river.
She runs to the front. Streams of webbing reach back to two warehouse roofs back on the dock.
"He sling-shotted us," she says. It's amazing. -Amazing any of them is still alive.
"What happened," says Derek. He's wild-eyed and seems to be in shock. The engine has stalled and his hands are limp on the wheel.
The bus doors open. Spider-Man pokes his head inside. "Everybody ok?"
MJ, face to face with a real-life hero, cannot speak properly. She makes a massive effort and manages, "Yeah…"
"What's going on," says Derek, and Spider-Man whacks him with a ball of webbing and ties him to the wheel.
"He tried to kill us," says MJ to Spider-Man. "How did you do that?" she asks. "The slingshot."
Spider-Man shrugs, flicks an imaginary speck of dust off his bright red spider-suit. "Basic aerodynamics. Only what you would have done yourself."
This is beyond surreal. She feels a trickle of moisture run down her cheek and touches it. "Oh-" Blood from a scrape. Or maybe from when Derek swatted her.
Spider-Man reaches into his collar and pulls out a handkerchief. He hands it to her gallantly. "You got the brake," he says. "That's pretty cool." He doesn't tell her she should have waited for the heroes to come help. "Really cool."
MJ dabs her cheek. It's not bad, just a scratch.
Kids are rushing up, dazed but buzzed to see an actual Avenger on their bus. And presumably, buzzed to be still alive.
"Ok then," Spider-Man says, backing away. "I gotta go. Call 911," he says to MJ, and catapults away as the sirens start wailing.