"She told me about an experiment she read and her team was trying to validate it."
MJ nods. "Yeah?"
"So they conducted this study on people with heavy memory loss. Heavy amnesia. The results were consistent with the original experiment and they concluded that even if those people had lost their memories about quite a lot of things, they still retained the emotions associated with them. Just like you know your old necklace is very special but you can't recall who gave it to you. Just like Ned forgot who he built his Lego Death Star with, maybe."
Then
New York shrinks and with it, a significant portion of Michelle's life when her plane takes to the skies. As the Earth turns into a smooth mixture of colors underneath her on the other side of the window and she has to gulp every other minute to avoid her ears from blocking off, she remembers watching the tiny plane from the school rooftop darting through the sky scrapers and towards the clouds, away from all the mess of the great colossal below. This is what she has wanted for a long time now, but as it eventually happens it doesn't seem as enticing as it did before.
Her parents wanted to come along and for the first time ever she didn't object. Boston is a decent place and MIT is a dream-come-true, something she has always fought hard for but without much expectations. There's a lot of bikes, is absolutely quiet and people are occupied in their stuff most of the time; she doesn't feel prying eyes judging her every move like she did all the time back at home. Seeing happiness in her folks is a kind of elation she has never felt before. They click a lot of awkward pictures. MJ grins along, knowing it won't last forever.
When they leave there's tears in her mother's eyes and MJ fights off the embarrassing pain in her chest. A certain emptiness fills her as she watches them make their exit off the dorms, the last signs of her old life having disappeared behind the other side of the door.
There's not much time spared for thoughts when classes begin. She goes early morning to the Civil Engineering department even before the classroom fills up. As they're all loaded with work and assignments and she's left to herself in her room, it is then that the entirety of the whole new phase of her life she's in right now dawns on her and if she has to be frank, it isn't a very comforting realization.
"I'm getting along just fine," she says over the phone, but more to herself. "You know me Dad."
She meets her parents on video calls maybe once or twice a week, mostly in the weekends, and although tiresome she doesn't mind spending a good thirty minutes trying to convince them that she's alright, that she has all the necessary supplies of food and first aid all stored up, that she's making friends.
The last of the claims doesn't happen very easily at first. Even after an entire month runs off the calendar and the ice breaks among her classmates, Michelle doesn't have a lot of people to talk to, and whatever meager conversation she has mostly involves work. Even Ned says he's managed to make a few new buddies. She decides one morning that this isn't going to work. She can't repeat high school all over. In the evening she forces herself out with the two of her roommates to a kind of movie she doesn't even like to watch, but just for the sake of going out. They get dinner at some place Michelle isn't familiar with yet, and later in the night they drag her into an uncomfortable fraternity party, but where for the first time people don't phase through her like she's a ghost.
She starts making better friends after that.
Her roommates are fine. Jean is from Chicago and lives in a three-storied house with a beautiful lawn and a huge garden. She has a dog whom she loves to paint. Mary's from California, lives in a flat with her dad and she likes to dance. Michelle often goes out with them on strolls, bumps into parties, goes shopping, watches movies and cooks new recipes. They share earrings and bracelets.
"That's a nice necklace," Mary says one day. "I've noticed you wear it all the time. Even while you sleep."
"Yeah it's a Black Dahlia," Michelle replies and clasps at it protectively because this is something she is not okay sharing. "It's really precious."
Jean teaches her to play the guitar. There's more people to talk to now; her conversations are ample and not all of them involve academics.
Nobody, however, learns to call her "MJ". All the new friendly folks are fine, but they leave her drained out by the end of the day.
She sleeps better. As the months roll by, New York and that shameful incident at the bakery on a certain Friday afternoon are reduced to just pictures in a magazine; sometimes she does think of them, but no more than she thinks of her neighbors back home or the bodega down the street. Sometimes in the evenings when she's left to herself, things do return to haunt her but she scoffs them away and fishes out some obscure amount of work to get occupied with.
She doesn't see much of Ned as he lives in a different part of the campus and goes to a different department where he's studying computers. On the days they meet, which is mostly on Sundays outside for lunch, he often tells her about the guy Betty keeps talking about from work.
"There's plenty more girls here," she says to cheer him up.
"Do you think they'll like me?"
"A lot of guys in my class like me. They've asked me out too but I refused." She laughs. "Though that's not what I'm trying to say." The last and only time somebody wanted to get close to her before college was on the school tour to Europe when a guy named Brad Davis tried asking her out, around the same time Ned and Betty were a thing. "You just have to be yourself." She doesn't remember why but recalls that by the time the most unexpected end met with their trip, everyone was pissed at Brad, and Ned and Betty had called it off.
"But do you?" Ned asks. "Are you being yourself?"
Michelle leaves it at that.
Other days they talk about what they'll do after college.
"I wanna get a PhD," Ned says.
"I'll probably find a good job," MJ says. "Got to return all the tuition fees my parents are paying. Maybe after that I'll think of a further degree."
She doesn't go home during the holidays. "Got to find a job," she reminds Ned. "Not going home until I do so."
"But that's years away," Ned protests.
"I know right."
She, however, has a different excuse to say to her parents. On calls she tells them she's into a dozen different activities including three different practical projects which is actually true. One of them involves designing a new airport infrastructure to support large passenger supersonic jets run on Stark Repulsors. Which is how she meets Alex Raymond from Aeronautics and Astronautics.
"Oh I know Flash Thompson," he tells her. "He goes to my class."
"How's he doing?"
Alex scratches his head. "Uh he's actually good, you know? A brilliant person. But tries a little too hard to make a good impression. You should check his online presence. Gives me the impression he's a little insecure."
"Yeah I agree," Michelle says. "Mostly he shows off about traveling and knowing Spider-Man right?"
She immediately feels at home with him. He's her age, about her height, maybe a centimeter taller, has dark green eyes and brown hair. He has a spring in his step and the way he looks at her, all awestruck like he's blown away is eerily familiar but cozy. He talks a lot about rocket engines and aerodynamics and hypersonic travel and she enjoys listening to him. He digs out common interest in the form of some "building aerodynamics" but she knows it's an excuse to spend more time with her.
He begins calling her "MJ". And by the end of the day when she goes to bed she doesn't feel drained or tired anymore.
"Nice guy," Jean remarks secretly over one of their guitar lessons. "I wish I had met someone like him."
"That's what happens when you wait for a musician for a boyfriend," Michelle teases her.
"Shut up."
"Me likes him," Mary coos at Michelle.
When he meets Ned they connect at once.
"I build Legos!" Alex tells him on a Sunday at a café. "I've got like this huge Batmobile from The Dark Knight trilogy. The new model."
"How many pieces?" Ned asks.
"Two thousand and forty-nine," Alex replies proudly.
"Dude! I had like this Lego Death Star. It was a massive one. Built it with-" Ned stops short. "Wait. Who did I build it with? I remember I built it with someone. MJ?"
"Don't ask me."
"I don't even remember how I lost it," Ned says after some thinking and chuckles. "But I don't have it. That's why my folks won't get me a new one."
"Yeah man," Alex agrees. "I mean it's costly. Especially the big ones."
The three of them initially meet regularly on Sundays outside the campus – a day MJ fondly looks forward to. Alex feels like a long-lost and severed connection found again and morbid thoughts don't bite her anymore.
"Dude feels like we've known him forever," Ned tells her. "I don't know why. It's just crazy."
The frequency of their gathering increases and MJ learns to balance class, roommates, classmates and time with the two of them. Ned's made a good friend and she hasn't seen him this happy in a while. He's reduced pining over Betty and sometimes she is surprised to find him and Alex all by themselves, even without her.
"Tell me about Spider-Man," Alex says one day to the both of them during lunch after a movie. "Flash brags he came to your school. That Spidey helped him saved you all in Europe?"
Both Ned and MJ exchange glances and tell him about the incident at Washington where the Wall-Crawler had saved a few of them from a falling elevator inside the Washington Monument. Then they met him again in Europe where they had to face the Elementals.
"The Elementals weren't real," Ned says. Unbeknownst to the two of them they skip the part about the night at the Statue of Liberty.
"How did he get to Europe at the same time you guys did?"
"Did he?" Ned ponders. "Or wasn't that a spin-off or something of Spider-Man? Night Monkey?"
Sometimes he asks them about the other heroes, about how it is to live in a city with super-powered people and the Avengers. He himself is from Michigan where, according to him, superhero activities are minimal except the ones involving the whole world or the universe. From a family of four, Alex was the only one who had blipped. He has a sister who was four years older to him and now has gained another five years on that age gap, and who has a daughter who was already two when Alex blipped back to existence.
Days pass unnoticeably with MJ absorbed into her research projects and what little time she has left to spare go by in a heartbeat just as she relaxes on her bed. Every day she has a visitor in the form of a female stray dog whom she regularly feeds pieces of biscuits or bread crumbs. It's the only other thing she looks forward to during the weekdays when rest is meager. The dog, as observed by Jean, has kids and has no fixed time of showing up. On days when she shows up in the evening both Mary and Jean join Michelle in her ritual of feeding her.
Michelle's developed a habit of looking out the window every now and then and checking her watch; on days the dog doesn't show up she is restless and can't help wonder if she'd mistreated her.
Marry and Jean try to allay those thoughts.
The end of year begins with the gripping onset of a chilly winter and MJ's well into her second year of college. She is left to herself when both her roommates leave for home and the dorms begin to empty out for the winter holidays.
"Why're you not home?" her mother asks over the phone.
"It's the second Christmas without you," her father complains on another call. "When are you getting back? Your uncle and I, we are planning on a winter camp. Just like the stories you used to read when you were little."
Ned has given up trying to convince her.
"I'm not going home until I get a job," she remains firm.
If homesickness does get to her – and it does occasionally – she goes out on a stroll around the campus. Classes have receded and most of the faculty are on leave. She enjoys the emptiness in the area. Even though she likes the quiet hustle and bustle of college, the vacant corridors and lack of activity is almost nostalgic; it reminds her of school.
"The perks of being a loner," she quips. "I get it now."
"You can come over to my place," Alex offers as they ramble on the neighboring streets outside the campus. He's leaving in four days. Ned's already in New York. "If you don't wanna go home that bad. We've got two extra rooms now that my sister's married and doesn't live with us."
"That's very kind of you," MJ replies. "But I'll be okay here."
Two days before he leaves for home Alex gifts her a necklace with a pendant the shape of a crescent moon.
"Now I hope you can keep track of your time and sleep well," he teases her. The moon has more often been an inside joke between the two of them because MJ has developed a habit of working tirelessly and till late at night and has begun dozing off at odd times of the day, wishing her friends "good morning" whenever she wakes up from sleep be it any time from morning to night.
"It's beautiful," she replies with a soft smile and puts it on.
"You're going to wear two of them together?" he asks curiously, and a little puzzled.
MJ looks down at her Black Dahlia necklace which rests proudly and prominently on her chest with the new one. "I never take it off," she says. "It's just that it's always been a very important part of me. It is me, in a way."
"Oh. Someone special gave that to you?"
"No it's just-" her head snaps up to look at him in the eye. She stares at him for a complete minute as her heart begins to pound. "I don't know," she finally says, deep in thought, struggling to remember. But nothing comes to her mind. "I can't remember. I just know that it's really special. And if you meant by 'someone special' an ex-boyfriend, then I told you long ago. I don't have one."
"It's okay, it's okay," Alex tries to comfort her. "You just reminded me of something very intriguing. My sister. More like, my cousin. She's a year older to me. Still is. She's reading psychology."
"Right."
"She told me about an experiment she read and her team was trying to validate it."
"Yeah?"
"So they conducted this study on people with heavy memory loss. Heavy amnesia. The results were consistent with the original experiment and they concluded that even if those people had lost their memories about quite a lot of things, they still retained the emotions associated with them. Just like you know your old necklace is very special but you can't recall who gave it to you. Just like Ned forgot who he built his Lego Death Star with, maybe."
Now
"Great," MJ remarks. "So now you're saying I've got amnesia. Both me and Ned."
Alex bursts out laughing. "No no," he says. His puts his hands on her waist and leans towards her. "Actually I was just wondering if you'll even remember me tomorrow."
"We'll see," MJ replies. "Only tomorrow will tell." She wraps her arms loosely around his neck and kisses him.
Michelle is restless that night. She arrives at her room and wishes to go early to bed and avoids dinner. There's a message from Alex, a slight tease complimenting that she kisses really well even though she'd long ago stated she'd never done that to anybody, or for that matter had never dated. She replies with a wink emoji, tosses the phone aside and dives into bed. She should be happy. She should be feeling butterflies in her stomach right now but all she feels is a pang of guilt. Like she did something she wasn't supposed to do.
Sleep isn't easy. She squirms under her blanket.
When she's finally asleep, she's looking up at the clear sky of Venice, back at the banks of the Grand Canal and surrounded by a flock of pigeons. It's cold and the streets are foggy; she can't see beyond the nearest building which stands just a few feet away. Everything's silent save for the distant chirping of birds and the flutter of pigeon wings. Michelle is covered head to toe with feathers but she doesn't mind. She never minded.
"Hey MJ," a voice greets from behind. She turns around but she already knows.
It's those large brown eyes that get to her first. Brown hair neatly combed to the sides. A half-smile with a flushed face. The blown-away look she's gotten so used to lately. It's freezing, but there's a warmth about him she's been missing a long time that holds her steady.
"Where were you?" MJ asks, stepping closer to him. She is unable to get hold of the tremors in her voice. "I searched everywhere for you."
He doesn't reply. Just stands there with his hands in the pockets of his old worn jacket. He is about to say something, then stops. He gapes at her and the corners of his lips curl up ever so slightly.
MJ feels the burn behind her eyes. But why do tears streak down her face? Why does she want to cry?
He takes a step closer so that the only thing separating them is the counter. She's now at the coffee shop back in her uniform, and what she's holding in her hand isn't coffee but the Black Dahlia necklace. She gives it to him, but it doesn't bother her. It doesn't bother that he's not only touching it, but that it's completely in his hold.
"That's nice," he says softly. "Thanks."
"Anything else?" MJ finds herself asking customarily.
He shakes his head and beams at her, pocketing the necklace. "No," he says and for reasons she doesn't understand she feels a hard lump form in her throat. "That'll be all. Thank you."
"When are you coming back?" Her voice is barely audible.
He shakes his head slowly, holding her gaze. "I'm not coming back."
"But please. I… I…"
Peter Parker turns back one more time before he leaves and smiles at her. "Boh."
He disappears behind the doors and Michelle jerks awake.
The first rays of sunrise seep in through the windows. A small portion of her pillow is wet with tears, and as she sits up she can't hold on any longer. She lets go of it all and sobs, giving in to herself.
Boh.
"What do you mean boh?" Alex asks later during the day at their usual spot in the café. She has her laptop open before her as the two of them talk to Ned over a Zoom call.
"That again?" Ned asks. "It's what she kept saying in Italy during the school trip."
"It's my new superpower," she says mechanically.
"But what does it mean?"
"It can mean a million things," Ned explains, "like 'get lost', 'I don't know', 'I don't know' and 'get lost' together."
"Who were we waiting for again?" Alex asks.
"Betty," MJ replies. "The entire purpose of this conversation was to introduce you to Betty."
"Oh." Alex takes a sip from his coffee. "But why was that?"
"Well you're really interested to learn about Spider-Man right?" MJ asks. "She works at The Daily Bugle and they've recently begun running their tabloids. They cover Spider-Man extensively on the front page almost always. And also, Betty's an old flame of Ned's."
"I see," he grins. "Isn't she the one Ned says he keeps having nightmares about? Nightmares of her sleeping with another guy?"
"Shut up!" Ned snaps desperately. "She's gonna join any minute now. She could have heard that."
"You know," Alex says, "they say that if you're dreaming about someone, then they are really thinking about you. Well Ned if you're lucky she might even miss you given how daily you say you see her in your dreams."
MJ's phone begins vibrating but she ignores it; it's an unknown number.
Five minutes later Betty joins the call and MJ can't help but smile as she observes Ned when she introduces Betty and Alex to each other.
"You should really be here," Betty tells MJ. "We haven't had you in a while. Last year and even this Christmas we met with the rest of the class and Mr. Harrington took us out on a treat. He says he really misses you. Even Mr. Dell."
She goes on telling them about work and as MJ observes, is very careful and precise whenever she has to say anything to Ned because he looks really uneasy. Alex questions her about Spider-Man for most of the call and Betty looks really pleased to talk to him.
"Got to tell you," she tells MJ when Alex goes to fetch another cup of coffee. "I like him."
"Thanks," MJ replies and the two of them burst out laughing.
"Really," Betty says, "he does remind me of the guy I work with at the Bugle." At the corner of the screen Ned flinches.
MJ takes this as her cue. "Yeah Betty. Ned tells me you speak of this guy. Tell me more."
"You must already know," Betty replies. "I mean, Alex is totally like him. At least from what I can tell from today. He's really… I mean, there's only a few people at the Bugle who can stand up to Mr. Jameson and you know how he is. Those few people include this guy and me."
"What does he do?"
"Uh, I don't think he very much enjoys doing what he does but he clicks pictures of Spider-Man and also works as one of the web designers for our online tabloid. I mean, he's the only photographer in the entire city who manages to get good takes on the Web-Slinger so JJJ can't get rid of him even if he wants to."
MJ smiles at Ned. "He got a name, Betty?"
"Peter Parker."
The words hit her ears like thunder. For reasons unknown she starts shivering and the chilly winter wind gets to her. Betty says something more but she can't hear; all she sees is her mouth moving and an awestruck Ned who's begun talking as well.
It's only when she feels Alex's hand on her shoulder that she gains awareness of what's happening again.
"You should pick up that phone," he says pointing at her cellphone buzzing on the table. It's the same unknown caller but her fingers swipe at the green button on their own and she answers it anyway.
"Hello?"
"Is this Michelle Jones Watson?" a female voice asks.
"Yes?"
"The same Michelle Jones Watson searching for a guy called 'Peter Parker' who was a regular customer at the bakery she worked?"
"Yes." God. How many such Michelle Jones Watsons are there? MJ clutches at her jacket. It's too cold all of a sudden.
"Right," the woman says. "Good. Miss Watson, I've been trying to contact you for the last three days but it seems you don't live here anymore."
"No I don't," MJ replies. "Who is this?"
"Oh yeah. Sorry. Hi. This is Kate Bishop speaking, from Bishop Security. You know, the name gives it away doesn't it? Anyways, coming to the point. In case you were still interested to know. I got news."
A/N: This was originally meant to be a part of the second chapter. The finale is the next chapter (or next two chapters, depending on the length). I really want to thank you all for all the follows, favorites and reviews. Looking forward to your continued support! Stay tuned!