The door creaks open and a girl slips in. She is dressed in a black vest and peach-coloured shorts. Her wavy hair, the colour of hot glowing cinders, bounces steadily, swaying from side to side as she tiptoes to the bed where Peter Parker is scrolling through his phone, sitting on his bed with his back leaning against the head-rest and his legs tucked under the thick white covers. He has his eyes fixed on her, and she smiles from the shadows. The entire room is dark; all the lights are switched off, except the table lamp.

Mary Jane climbs onto the bed and sits on his lap. Before Peter gets a chance to act, she leans in and gently touches his lips with hers. For a moment he is shocked- his eyes are wide and he is struggling to collect himself together. A few seconds stretch by as they stare at each other, and his pounding heart calms down. He places his hands around her and pulls. He is careful to be gentle, aware that he might hurt her with his superhuman strength, but the way they kiss right then makes him look pretty normal. It's like a wrestle, a showcase of power between the two. Mary Jane has him by the neck and they tussle, tangled in each other's arms. Peter has to fight to keep up, and his hand misses the lamp switch.

They pull away, panting, and Mary Jane gets under the covers. Peter stirs as she crawls over him, their nose meet, and they kiss again. His face is hidden by her flaming red hair. She playfully runs her fingers through his arm and grabs hold of his wrist, and caresses it. Peter's fingers reach for the lamp and tugs at the string. The lamp goes off.

The only source of light is gone, leaving them engulfed together in the darkness.

It's a painful sight to behold. It's better to see them rather than guessing what they are possibly doing. The darkness is unfair, because Michelle can hear them, but she can't move. Her jaws are tight and they pain. She has had enough and she wants to cover her ears, but she can't. She writhes and struggles but she is just still. She is in shock. Like a living statue she stands, completely quiet, as if every joint in her body has been plastered. She wants to let out a scream, and she tries to push it through her throat.

It is then that she wakes up, sighing. Her eyes snap open and she stares at the ceiling. Pale light flows in from her window. She didn't leave the curtains closed, in case Peter decided to drop by.

He didn't.


"I still can't believe you are Spider-Man," Mary Jane whispers into Peter's ears after school, but loud enough so that Michelle can hear. Peter grins uneasily glancing at the latter. Mary Jane lingers around for a while, and then hurries off behind them.

Michelle feels like asking him, you know people hear better when you whisper, don't you? but she doesn't. Instead, she comments, "Your lips are swollen." Lately, she's decided to keep herself completely occupied during school hours. She'll do anything to keep her mind off morbid thoughts, though she can't help but notice that Peter's lips look swollen than usual. Or is it just her imagination?

Peter is busy in his phone when his hand shoots up and touches his lips. "Oh this?" he says. "Yeah, it's uh, you know, it's winter and my lips are parched. So I keep licking them, and, sometimes, biting them." He shrugs. "Maybe that's why."

Michelle shrugs. "Oh." So much for not kissing a red-head. She looks away. An image of last night's dream flashes before her eyes. The entire day, she's had a rough time trying not to think about it. She hates the memory of seeing Peter's face hidden under the unnaturally natural red hair, even though it's not real. It almost angers her. Michelle was surprised at herself when she wanted to hurl a table at the red-head when she came into the hall and took her seat next to Peter. Mary Jane looked so happy that it led Michelle to wonder if such a thing had really passed over the two of them. She kept on reminding herself she was being paranoid, but gaining control over her subconscious was something she had not yet mastered.

"Guys the Quinzylvania is pretty near and my nerves are starting to tingle already," Mr. Harrington announced. He pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose where it constantly came sliding down to. "So I want you to push the limits even farther, MJ."

"Yes Sir," both Michelle and Mary Jane answered in unison. Stunned, Michelle glared at the red-headed girl, and the red-headed girl in turn stared back, her face not giving away anything.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked down at her notebook, maybe a little embarrassed, Michelle thought.

She rolled her eyes. Out of all the girls in the world, it had to be this one. Not only was the new girl stealing Peter's time with her, but also what she liked to call herself. From an early age, Michelle was reluctant to share her belongings with others. Not because she was selfish, but because she didn't trust them enough to get them back in one piece. And now every time someone said MJ, she'd have to look up even though it was only the other girl they were calling.

Like Mr. Harrington now, every praise to MJ's name would not be Michell's.

"Oh, yes, Mary Jane," he said. From the last few sessions, he was pretty impressed with her. The whole class knew that. But Michelle knew differently. It was not always a very good sign with Mr. Harrington. Though a nice man, most of the time he didn't seem to know what he was doing. Years back when Michelle helped the team finally win Decathlon, she was voted the team leader after Liz had left. Mr. Harrington used to be so confident with Peter that he'd even put Flash in the first alternate. "I'd like you to stand as deputy…head for the team and stand in for Michelle when she's not feeling like it."

Michelle sighed. Her subconscious, something new to her, screamed at her- I told you! The words itself were a black hole. They sucked out every rational thought and awareness from her. For a second she stood in space, completely levitating. For what is your might be her fair share.

"And Peter," Mr Harrington wasn't finished. "You're going to join us, right, or do you plan on going for some other business?"

Peter put his pencil down and cleared his throat. "I, um, totally plan to go with you this time, for sure."

"You have to join Black Widow over here," Flash said out loud. Michelle smiled. It could only be him, stupid enough to say such a thing. Black Widow too had red hair, but oh, it was such a foolish comparison.

"No man, Black Widow's dead," Jason, an unlikely member in the team, said flatly. The rest of the room looked on, amazed at finding him here. Usually he was the one around in the school's news segments, swearing, to his co-host Betty Brant's disapproval.

"Yeah, I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't make fun of it, dude!."

Flash rolled his eyes. "Look man, I said I'm sorry alright?"


What is yours might be her fair share.

Michelle turns to look behind her. There in the distance she sees her classmates around Mary Jane. They are laughing and smiling and talking, and for the first time a wave of regret shoots through Michelle, so light that she doesn't feel it at first. Usually she doesn't allow self-sympathy, but after all this time of ignorance, she can finally feel it building up. Slowly the walls she has created to surround herself with, to hide within, starts to feel a little claustrophobic. Too tight and rigid. It's her own fault, anyway. She's grown up in such a way that it was necessary to do that, otherwise she would never have been able to escape the hole she wakes up to everyday. Suddenly she yearns for friendship, for some kind of a friend circle. The problem is she knows she can't do it. Her lips will seal themselves on their own if she wants to try. Hell, the way she is, nobody would be friends with her, and she'd have to change herself if she ever really wanted one, which she hates to think about. So it's a miracle that some Peter Parker is always there for her, her constant, who too perhaps is beginning to tire of the intricacy of her nature.

A burst of hot air greets her face. It's too late by the time she sees what has actually happened. For the days to come, Michelle will never forget that loud, ear-piercing sound that threatens to burst her eardrums. It looks too large than usual. She remembers unknowingly hearing the screech of the tires as the truck skidded, its horns blaring. She stares at the grills and the radiator within, and she can almost feel the vibration of the engine, with its large pistons and all the machinery that keep the thing moving.

In a fraction of a second Peter throws himself at her and together the two of them are in the air, shooting across the width of the street. Michelle's breath is knocked out of her, and a thudding pain hits home as she lands on the sidewalk with her back. Her hand grazes the gravel as she comes to a halt with Peter beside her.

"Shit," he lets out, breathing very heavily.

Michele is in a frenzy. For sometime, she doesn't feel anything, doesn't realize the extent to which things could have turned to. Not until she sees the truck driver swearing at her and speeding away, not until she sees her classmates rush across the street to be by her side. Mary Jane is still there where she was seconds ago, her hands on her mouth and her eyes wide. Their eyes meet briefly before Michelle looks down to examine the back of her right hand. The skin is abraded. The colour slowly turns red before the first drop of blood oozes out of the surface.

She doesn't hear the others call out her name for the grip of panic still hasn't completely left her.

"Oh my God, MJ!" Peter exclaims, hugging her, bringing her back. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I…" Michelle struggles to find her voice. "I, I was lost in…in thought. Never noticed it coming."

"Well," Peter says, seeing her hand. "Yeah." He takes it and stares at it in horror.

"It's nothing," she says. "Really. Just a bruise."

There is something unsettling about the way Peter looks at her. His face is horror stricken, and his eyebrows furrowed. She can see he has stopped breathing, and he stands. She doesn't know what's happening, but he looks scared. He shivers a little as he walks backward.

"Peter?" she calls. "What's wrong?"

He doesn't answer. Nor does he look at her eyes. His eyes are glued to her injured hand, and he cups his mouth and gasps. His strides gain length and his pace quickens. He turns around and runs away faster than any normal human can so that following him is pointless.


A/N: Thanks everyone for the favorite and follows. Thank you Gmac for your review. Hope you all keep reading!