It's some kind of fear that engulfs Mary Jane when she slowly steps into the room. She hates hospitals anyway, and all that creepy atmosphere, calm yet not peaceful, puts her on the edge of her seat. She almost feels dizzy as she pushes herself to walk forward. Mary, mom's calling us. She wants to see you.

Before her lies a woman hidden in bandages and wires. Suddenly MJ is lost in a dark room, and she can't feel the floor underneath her. Come, Mary, come on dear. Your mother wants to see you. It's alright.

Deep down she always knew it wasn't.


"Miss Watson," the school counsellor Mrs. Forester began, "I've heard you've been doing pretty well. Your teachers, especially Mr. Harrington, is quite happy with you. Although, Mr. Dell says you're not trying very hard in your chemistry classes, he thinks you can do far better."

Usually trips to the counsellor wasn't something Mary Jane Watson considered amusing. They'd ask the same question everyday, or rather, every visit. And every time MJ came, she had to pour a bit more of her mind out than she did the last time. It was no picnic.

"I find it pretty dry," she admitted. Chemistry was boring. She knew the risk when she had opted science, she'd heard some elders whine about it, although she hadn't had the slightest idea how true to the word they would be. All the reaction, methane with this gave you that, this with that gave you some weird ring, benzene, whatever, gave her headaches and mouth-aches. She hated the fact that she had to memorize stuff in science classes.

Mrs. Forrester smiled. "But it's there all the same. You have to try, don't you?"

"I guess so," MJ hated saying it.


The room pretty much tells her everything about Peter's girlfriend, and she can't but feel annoyed at herself for thinking the way she did about her. She should have known. She's also a little pissed at Peter. It should be him with May here. Not her.

"Thanks for coming," Michelle says tonelessly, but Mary Jane knows she means it.

She avoids looking at the girl. "Don't mention it."


The counsellor leaned on her elbows across her desk. She seemed very focused, and she was looking at MJ very intently, which made the latter's skin crawl, not because it was a threatening or disgusting look, but because she wasn't used to be stared at like that. "Mary Jane, I need you to close your eyes and tell me everything about your nightmare you told me about."

MJ shrugged. "It actually wasn't a nightmare. I just saw my mother. She was crying and calling me."

"And do you feel there's a reason why you saw what you saw?"

MJ nodded her head. She tried to keep her eyes open and focused them on the window to keep the picture out. Old thoughts returned to haunt her mind. I don't know how or why my parents ever got married. "Before she died, she wanted to see me. I never went."

It sucked to have her parents for who they were. And therefore, there was a time when she hated herself too.

"I didn't because I didn't want to believe our mom was dying," she said. "My sister and I. It was impossible for me to think we would be living only with our father. It had been our worst nightmare."

She looked at Mrs. Forester, who was looking at her with the same intensity. "My father was a drunk. Even before our mother passed away, he had these affairs with other women he met-anywhere he met them. Then one day after mom…died, I was nine, and he made me iron his girlfriend's clothes. My sister caught me that night doing so, and she snatched the cloths from me and burned them at the backyard. My father, who wasn't in his senses, was violent with her. She left that very night. With all his money.

"The father became a monster from then on. I was pretty mad with my sister. I began to hate her, and I began to loathe myself, for I couldn't run away like she did. She was seventeen, and I was just ten. I waited six years for my aunt to come and take me away. And then the blip happened, and although Thanos killed trillions, I was thankful because father hadn't blipped away, because when I came back, he was settled with a new family. Sure, he's sober and all, but he isn't my father.

"And so here I am, changed too. I learned to be indifferent to people who don't care. Mom used to say, smile, sweetie, just smile! And here I am, the most carefree girl you could spot in a thousand miles, and I hate people who keep to themselves, or people who prefer a dark world, and although their…however it is-filled with a shitload of people or if it's a paradise, I hate it when people consider their only source of happiness is some other person. I-I-I loathe such people. Because it reminds me of myself. I was once the same too. You are never alone. People think that I make friends everywhere I go, but I bet you, no one knows anything about me."


MJ suddenly feels like her head weighs a ton. She crawls to the chair beside Michelle's mother, and sits down. It feels like it's been a long day, and her mind automatically tries to do what the human mind does best-search up a satisfying reason. She knows she hasn't done a single thing to make her feel this tired, and she is about to ask for a glass of water because that's what her mind tells her-she's dehydrated-when she notices May and Michelle both holding their heads.

"Gosh," May mutters.

"Where's Peter?" Michelle asks and Mary Jane sits back on her chair.

That morning, Mary Jane was about to run down the stairs to grab herself a coffee across the street when she noticed Peter running up the stairs to-she knew-the terrace. And if she wasn't wrong, he was trying to take off his jacket on the way.

So it wasn't a question. MJ was there on the terrace too within forty-five seconds, and Peter was already Spider-Man, crouched on the edge of the terrace. He was looking at her, and she could tell he looked pretty destroyed.

"Haven't heard a single siren," she said, "or is it a special call from the Avengers?"

"I'm off to find someone," he replied. "I need some answers. Something's going really, really wrong. I need to know what."

Mary Jane could see the look in his eyes. They were afraid and agitated. "What happened?"

Peter shook his head. "Michelle's mom has had an accident. I've told the others, and now I'm telling you now. Please, go visit her with Aunt May. She knows, though. I can't go. I really can't. So please, Mary Jane."

With that he swung away. MJ was left there gaping at him. She'd just seen someone who she never knew. Peter was transformed into some other person, and it scared her.


"Where did you tell he was going again?" Michelle asks.

Mary Jane closes her eyes and tries to remember. Peter, putting on his mask and talking to her. Where was he going? Where was he going? Ah hah-

"Bleecker Street, I think," she says, but she doesn't even get to complete.

Michelle is already out the door.


A/N: Thanks everyone for the follows, favorites and reviews. Hope you enjoyed it.