They're drawing nearer to land.

That's the single-most thought that has occupied her head and MJ can think of little else. She can't help ignore the new sinking feeling of weightlessness now that the plane has begun its descent and her heart hasn't stopped hammering since the last twenty-four hours, since the conversation with Betty and the least expected call from Bishop Security. Stomach rising upwards and chest heaving recklessly she pushes back into her seat like she just wants to shrink into it, gripping the ends of the arm-rests like holding on to dear life, to not float away, and it isn't until now that she grows aware of the sweat in her palms, now slippery despite the air conditioners which have grown to bother her ever since the captain announced they would be landing shortly. She's cold and her hands don't feel like they're her own and she's pretty sure her knees will buckle and she'll fall back to her seat when she tries to stand up later on.

She looks beside her at Alex in the window seat.

"This Peter Parker," he had said. The words sounded strange is his mouth. They weren't uttered with any particular hint of emotion; it was just a statement. Yet, to MJ, it almost sounded like someone trying to talk about themselves in the third person. "I mean I don't get it. All this time neither me, Ned, nor your friends or your folks could convince you but just the mere mention of this name and you're in the next flight home."

"Not exactly the next flight," she replied, because she couldn't figure out anything else to say. "That was yesterday wasn't it?" But then she saw the look in his face. The unsatisfied, confused look and that was all she saw. Just some puzzled guy wanting answers. She shrugged and looked away.

He hasn't said a word since then. It's only been thirty minutes but in his case it feels like forever.

"Don't worry," she now whispers to him, making him turn his head to look at her. "I'll update you with everything soon okay?"

Past him New York shimmers through the clouds and peeks at her from the other side of the window, zooming in as it expands all the way down below them, growing into the colossal that she'd left long ago when she went to college. All she wanted then was to get away from the mess but now as home grows bigger she realizes she has missed this place.

Maybe it isn't that bad.

She thinks of Mary and Jean. They can literally never rest when it's time to fly home during the holidays. Ned looks longingly at the tickets he books months before it's time to go home.

It dawns on her that they all have something to look forward to. Michelle can't recall anything she has ever had to look forward to. Not at home. Not even at MIT.

Alex's fingers lock into hers and she is too drained of strength to pull away.

"My God you're cold," he exclaims squeezing her hand. "Are you alright?"

She forces a subtle nod.

Maybe it's just dread. Dread that she might not find what she's here to find. The uncertainty of it is insufferable. But despite everything she hasn't felt as close to it as she does now. Say, this is it. Perhaps it will eventually put a full stop to this miserable chapter of her life and she'll be able to move forward, move better. Maybe she can at last read out the apology she had written in her head an eternity ago; she still remembers it word to word.

She closes her eyes and tries to imagine the pilots up there at the front, pulling at all kinds of levers and pressing switches and maneuvering the huge bird with that strange handle-like steering they show in movies.

"Yoke," Alex explains to her. "That steering is called a yoke. But this is an Airbus. Airbus doesn't use yokes. Boeing does."

This makes her smile. She squeezes back his hand, warm to the touch. "So what does Airbus use?"

"Sidesticks? They're basically like joysticks but at your side. Feels weird controlling babies such as this with a stick but maybe it's just ergonomic preference. I don't know."

Outside, the map of New York grows into life as boxes turn into real-life buildings, growing excruciating in detail and a dark strip widens into the runway and they're ready to touch down.

Maybe Michelle does have something to look forward to. Maybe it's been with her all along. Right now. Right beside her. Explaining reverse thrusts and why an "A320" and JFK don't need any. Or perhaps it's waiting for her in New York, now more than ever. Somewhere out there in the mess waiting for an overdue apology.

"Yo Mr. Almond! What's up buddy?"

It's Flash Thompson racing to catch up to them with his luggage wheeling behind. Michelle is surprised to see him.

Alex feels no differently. "Oh hi Flash," he replies. "Didn't know you weren't already home."

"Let me ask the questions here," Flash says stealing a glance at Michelle. "I didn't know you lived here."

"I don't," Alex says. "Last minute change in plans."

Flash grins. He smirks. It isn't a very warm smile he presents towards Michelle. "I always forget you're dating Crusher Jones here."

He speeds ahead and hurries out the exit doors.

"Why did he call you 'Crusher Jones'"? Alex asks.

MJ brushes aside a strand of hair from her face. "I once pushed him against the lockers at school for being a pain in the ass. Why did he call you an almond?"

He chuckles. "It's his name for me. A shorter form of 'Alex Raymond'. 'Almond'."

"He's got one for everyone he thinks is smarter than him doesn't he?"

Stepping out the exit is like walking into a freezer; there's a drizzle. MJ looks up at the New York sky after fifteen months. Strange. It's the same as in Boston. Same sky. Similar-looking clouds. Only maybe it's colder here. Far in the horizon the city rises. Maybe from somewhere out there a jet carrying the Avengers will shoot upwards. She's sure Alex is thinking along similar lines.

"Your dad'll be here won't he?" he asks with a foggy breath, hugging himself.

"Supposedly."

She steps off the curb and Alex follows. Ahead of them they find Flash speaking to a bald guy in a black suit.

"Why do you have to show up?" Flash asks the silent guy. It is more of a whine. "Can't mother come?"

…

Michelle's father is waiting by the parking zone wearing a brown overcoat and a grey scarf.

"You must be Alex," he says shaking hands.

"That's right, Sir. Good to meet you at last."

"Funny," MJ's dad says, a comical look in his eyes. "It feels like we've already met. Only you look taller than I imagined."

The car ride home is almost cozy, only if MJ has the time to appreciate it. Her father seems to have developed an automatic liking to Alex, which should be a relief, but she is conscious of feeling nothing as such. She could almost take it for granted.

She's home, though.

Back to ground zero.

They're amidst the high rise of the city. It's snowing now. Their car rolls by the buildings in a moderate speed. The alleys are back. The alleys and the emergency iron stairwell of the buildings: the integral parts of the portrait of home she has painted whenever she closes her eyes. The city of the Avengers. The place of the most unusual activities.

The home of Spider-Man.

She's sure somewhere out there he's swinging at the moment. Diving off the edges of a building. Climbing onto a wall. Dodging bullets. She can almost see the webs he leaves behind on the walls as soon as he swings by. The cobwebs in the back of houses. The houses with no paint and just the bare exposure of bricks and dirt. The dumpsters. Garbage. The Wall-Crawler lying in the alleys by those dumpsters. Clothes torn in half. Gnawled, like by a tiger. Maybe a broken rib or two.

"What are you thinking?"

Ned snaps his fingers before her. "Hello?" he calls. "Earth to Michelle. Alex is asking something."

"It's MJ."

"Alright. MJ. What are you thinking?"

"Do you have work today?" MJ asks Betty. "At the Bugle I mean."

Betty shakes her head. "Not on Sundays, unless there's an urgent requirement. Which, honestly though, isn't that unusual." She turns to Alex. "So, Alex. Liking New York much?"

He nods. "Absolutely."

After arriving home MJ wasted not one minute to get out of it again. She called Ned and asked him in turn to call Betty so that they could meet somewhere in the afternoon. Perhaps for lunch. She kept the specifics of the meeting to herself but she figured Ned knew.

The gap in between, she asked Alex out for a roam around the city. He was like a child taken to a playground; his gaze never left the sky and MJ had to hold on to his hand so to keep him on path. Once he even almost bumped into a pedestrian with a dog which began to bark but Alex payed no heed. He held out his phone before him and began recording, even going as far as to narrate the views from the lens.

They met like any other friends she has seen meet at college and in TV episodes. A clichéd rendezvous. Her, Alex, Ned and Betty. In a glass restaurant near Central Park. Betty, the odd one out. First time in forever. And MJ feels the need to make her at home. She has been there.

"About Peter Parker," she now decides to get to the point. "Do you know where he lives?"

Betty shakes her head once more. "No. He hardly ever shows up at work."

"Then how does he keep his job?" Ned asks.

"He's a photographer for Spider-Man. Mails them directly either to Jameson or to Mr. Robertson. Or both. I don't know."

MJ leans forward. "Any idea where he lives?"

"No."

"Dude!" Ned exclaims. "You're supposed to know. Aren't you dating him?"

Betty slowly turns to her side and gives Ned an angry stare. "No," she says flatly. "I am not dating him. I wish I were but I'm not."

…

"It's a strange time for you to be home."

The next stop is Kathrine Bishop back at the offices of Bishop Security. After lunch MJ called the woman back and set an appointment time for seven in the evening. Walking into the building was an awkward experience given the last time MJ was here she had stormed out in a fit of rage.

Kate Bishop isn't at all how MJ imagined she would look. She had assumed a blond in her thirties with thick glasses in a green sweater but all she finds is a young woman hardly in her mid-twenties with jet black hair and in a purple fluffy jacket.

If she remembers correctly, Kate Bishop was the very woman who had pleaded with MJ from leaving the last time.

"Why so?" Alex asks.

"Because weird shit has been going around lately," Kate Bishop answers. "You should see the new supervillains in town. There's this huge hunter guy with a spear and last week there was a crackhead in a rhinoceros armor pummeling the cars in the streets."

"Wicked," Ned remarks and MJ shoots him an angry look.

Kate smiles. "Right?" She gets off her chair and proceeds to close the door of her cubicle. Then she spins around one of the two client chairs and sits down facing the four of them in the sofa. "So you want to know the whereabouts of Peter Parker."

"Yes," MJ answers.

Kate shrugs. "Okay. No problemo. But just so if you don't mind, why exactly do you wanna find him? It's about some apology or something right? Don't worry. I won't scoff at you."

MJ looks around herself at the puzzled faces of Alex and Betty.

"Okay," she says. "I'll tell you the story so far."

…

"Are you sure you're allowed to do that?" Ned asks leaning into the computer screen behind Kate's chair.

"I guess not," she replies nonchalantly. "But I work here now so it shouldn't be a problem because I can accept my own clients and besides, Miss Watson's case is something I picked out of my own interest."

"What exactly are you doing?" Alex asks.

"Not much," Kate Bishop says, typing into her keyboard. "More than a year ago when Miss Watson came here looking for Mr. Parker, since then I'd been secretly working on this case whenever I got the time. What I had to do was really go through all the registered contact numbers and check to see if there's any match with the name 'Peter Parker'. It was a very slow process but in the end a match came. It was a relatively recent number not more than a year old. I'm just trying to track it now. Sent out a spam call and all he had to do was receive." She turns to look up at him. "That was three days ago. Now all I had to do was trace the call once he picked up, and then locate the nearest security camera. We're a security company after all, if you're worried at all. Then voila! I've found where he lives."

"Whoa that sounds a lot like God's Eye!"

"Exactly like God's Eye," Ned exclaims.

"God's Eye?" Kate Bishop asks.

"It's something in a movie. Furious 7."

Bishop stands up, stretches, and turns to MJ. "Let's go."

She's a stranger. It hasn't even been two hours since they met but Michelle suspects she's already starting to like Kate Bishop second after second.

"You can call me MJ," she tells her on their way to the dingy building in Midtown Manhattan.

"Kate," Bishop replies.

The apartment Kate has identified to be Peter Parker's is on a shabby, noisy floor. The landlord said the door isn't locked; he's asked Mr. Parker to evacuate because of falling behind on the rent. Therefore he isn't actually inside, on the other side of the door at the moment. He's probably somewhere out hunting for a new place to reside. Or probably he ran away; he hasn't showed up here for three days.

"Damn door won't budge," Kate exclaims, pushing against the door with her shoulder. She clutches hold of the knob and tries twisting it.

"Looks like it's jammed," Ned says. "How does this guy get in?"

"Let's try again," Alex says. "Miss Bishop and I'll push while Ned you try turning the handle. Ready?"

It eventually takes a collective effort of all five to get the thing open.

"How strong is this guy?" Kate says.

MJ's heart begins thudding harder. Inside, the one-roomed apartment is actually tidier compared to the rest of the corridors on the floor. The bed is devoid of any covers, just a bare and exposed mattress. There's a sewing machine resting on its sides on top of it. There's not much stuff in the room. There's a table by the window with the photograph of a middle-aged woman. Probably his mom.

But the thing that catches her attention is the empty paper cup of coffee beside the photograph. MJ recognizes the cup, with the overall blue with brown lettering spelling "we are happy to serve you" around it. It's one of the most common styles of coffee cups used nowadays, and something they used in the bakery she used to work while at school.

"Look what I found!" Ned startles her from behind. He's holding out a small toy figure. She recognizes it as a Lego mini-figure.

"That's Emperor Palpatine," Alex says.

"Exactly like what I used to have," Ned says. "Like the one that came with my missing Lego Death Star. It was exactly like this."

"The last I'd heard of him was a weak ago" Betty says, sitting down on the bed. "What about ringing him?"

"I've been trying," Kate says. "He isn't picking up, though."

"But we can't leave," MJ says. "I mean, let's wait another hour or so. Maybe he'll get back."

"MJ," Alex says. "We're almost trespassing."

"No we are not! The landlord literally let us in. How is that trespassing?"

He sighs. "I don't get it. What is it that you wanna say sorry to him so bad? It's not exactly your fault. You said so yourself, he was giving you strange looks-"

"Stares."

"Whatever. And you tried to be polite with him, which is, asking a lot in his part. I personally wouldn't be mad if you even publicly berated me for constantly looking your way. It's rude!"

"I agree," Ned says. "It's not your fault."

…

Kate Bishop's apartment is a huge place which looks more like a garage than a home.

"It's undergone some renovations," she says. "It caught fire once."

Waiting for them by the door was a one-eyed Golden Retriever, which now keeps circling around them and occasionally receives a pat from Kate.

"Come on, Dog," Kate says, proceeding to produce a plastic bowl from a wooden cabinet and fill it with dog food.

"You call your dog, 'Dog'?" Ned asks, amused.

"Yeah, like John Wick," Alex adds. "He got no name? It's a 'he' right?"

"No he's got a name," Kate says. "Yes. He is Lucky."

"Lucky?" Betty says. "Why so? Because you adopted him?"

Kate chuckles. "No. I mean, his name's Lucky."

"Oh."

"I'd prefer calling him 'Dog'," Alex says. "Like John Wick."

"Make yourself at home," Kate says. "There's the couch. A bed. A sofa. TV. Whatever you need."

MJ walks to the window and looks outside.

They were so close to finding him. No. She can't wait much longer. She has to find Peter Parker. Some way or the other.

She realizes she's been clutching at her Black Dahlia necklace the entire time. Thinking about it makes her nauseated. That's another mystery she hasn't been able to get her mind around. She fiddles with it, rubbing it between her fingers. She imagines someone giving it to her. It was broken, perhaps, the moment she got it because she doesn't remember how it exactly looked as a whole.

She turns around so fast she almost slips. She walks over to Ned.

"Happy," she says.

"For what?" Alex asks.

She meets Ned's eyes. "Happy Hogan. I just remembered. Happy Hogan gave this necklace to me. The Black Dahlia necklace."

"Happy Hogan?" Betty asks. "You mean, Stark Industries' Happy Hogan?"

MJ nods. "We were at the tower when London was under attack. Remember? The drone? Mysterio's drone that was about to kill us?"

She sees realization dawn on the faces of Ned and Betty.

"Shit!" Ned exclaims. "Yeah I remember that. Wasn't he saying he worked for Spider-Man?"

"No he didn't," Betty says. "He said he worked with Spider-Man."

"It was him," MJ says, excitedly. "He gave this to me."

"I don't understand," Betty says. "Why would he give you a necklace?"

"No he didn't give it to me just like that! It was on behalf of someone else. I can't remember who, but I'm sure he can tell us."

"Here," Kate says after typing into her laptop for about five minutes. "Found him. I mean, it's not that difficult finding him but the only issue with the Stark Industries Head of Security is that he won't answer random calls."

"Where do we find him?" Ned asks.

According to Kate's findings, Happy Hogan communicates mostly from his house to the new offices of Stark Industries. And that's it. Nothing much. The only other place he frequently visits is a cemetery. At least four days a week.

"We'll find him," Kate says. "Tomorrow."

As predicted, Happy Hogan came to visit the grave. Ned, MJ, Alex and Kate observed from a distance and watched him stay still for a while. Then as he began to leave and make his way to the other side of the cemetery MJ made a dash for him.

"Mr. Hogan," she calls, panting.

The guy stops in his tracks and turns around. He runs a hand across his beard and squints at her. He seems like an irritated guy. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Do you remember me?" MJ asks. "Michelle? Michelle Jones? We were in that tower together. In London. You said Spider-Man asked you to save us. The Mysterio drones?"

He stays still for a few seconds and then his eyes go wide. "Michelle. Of course I remember. Huh. How could I forget? Tell me. How are you."

MJ smiles. "Yeah I'm doing fine. Just home for the vacations. I wanted to ask you something."

"Right. Fire away."

MJ fishes out her Black Dahlia necklace from underneath her shirt and shows it to him. "You gave me this. When the attack ended and you gave me this. You told me it was from someone but I can't remember. Who was it?"

She takes it off and hands the necklace over to him. He studies it carefully and is silent for a while.

"It's broken," he speaks at last. "I mean it broke in my pocket. Sorry for that. It was otherwise a beautiful glass flower."

"Do you remember who gave it to you?"

He flashes a smile at her and returns the necklace. "It was Spider-Man."

It takes an entire minute for MJ to register the words. Spider-Man gave it to her. It was Spider-Man. Spider-Man who was trying to fight a maniac who was using killer drones to produce visual effects.

Spider-Man had given it to her.

Spider-Man.

It was Spider-Man.

She's about to ask him again. If he is sure. But something within her convinces her that he is indeed telling the truth. Somehow, it seems understandable. It makes sense.

"Look, I got to go," Happy says pulling her away from her reverie. "It was nice meeting you Michelle. Take care."

She doesn't bother saying anything in return. And he doesn't wait either; he just leaves.

She turns around to find Alex staring at her from a few feet away.

"You heard that?" she asks.

He nods.

"MJ!" Ned calls from a distance, standing next to the grave Happy Hogan just visited. "Look at this."

She forces her rubbery legs to take her forward. The ground feels nonexistent. Her feet can just let go and she may even float and fly.

MJ finds her voice. It's almost squeaky. "What is it?"

Kate points at the headstone.

It has a quote scrawled across its width: "When you help someone you help everyone."

Above that is a name. A female name. And for some reason it sounds very familiar.

May Parker.

MJ gulps. "Parker."