Peter sank down to one knee as he caught the figure.
"Hey, hey!" he said, trying to shake them back awake. When that didn't work, he put his fingers at the neck in order to check for a pulse. He managed to find one, which relieved him greatly, both because it meant whoever it was was alive, and they were actually human this time. Still, their warning played on repeat in his head.
"It's coming."
The crowd that had momentarily backed away was beginning to reassemble, everyone seemingly asking something about what was happening, who the person in Peter's arms was, and many other questions that he couldn't pick up on. He fired a web and swung off before they could crowd him too greatly. From a public relations standpoint, fleeing the scene was likely not the wisest move, but he didn't really care too much. Whoever he was carrying right now likely needed medical attention of some kind, and that was the priority right now.
Coming to the nearest hospital, Peter landed just in front of the emergency room, quickly making his way in.
"I need a doctor!" he called out. Naturally, everyone turned their attention to the fact that Spider-Man was the one calling for assistance, and soon a nurse and doctor came along with a stretcher, which Peter promptly laid the stranger on.
"Who is this?" the nurse asked.
"I...I'm not sure," Peter conceded. They asked him several questions as they rolled him down the hall, and he did the best he could to answer them, though he felt he had very little to offer that would help the situation.
"Okay, we're going to take care of him," the doctor assured him. Once they got the figure to a room, they allowed Peter to wait just outside without so much as an argument. It wasn't exactly standard protocol, but given the extraterrestrial nature of the situation, it made sense to him that they would want to keep him around, just in case.
One of the first things they did was remove the helmet, and Peter was shocked to see that behind it was someone maybe not even quite his own age, if probably just by a couple years or so. This only caused him to watch with even more concern as the doctors went to work, checking every little detail of the kid to find out what was going on. Minutes turned into hours as the process seemed to drag on, and eventually Peter had to turn away, the anxiety of the situation becoming nerve-wracking.
While it helped not to specifically watch the whole thing, Peter's mind still swirled with unanswered questions that would not leave him. Who WAS this latest stranger to come into his life? Who was he talking about when he said someone was coming? Also, when were they coming?
"Spider-Man?" a doctor said, dragging Peter out of his own head and back to reality.
"How is he?" he asked eagerly.
"Well, he's alive, if only barely," the doctor replied. "He's severely dehydrated and malnourished, worse than anything I've ever seen before. If his will to live hadn't been so strong, I'm not sure he would've made it from wherever he came from."
Peter turned and glanced back into the window. The boy was hooked up to IVs that were undoubtedly pumping him with lifesaving water and nutrients.
"Is...is he going to make it?" Peter asked.
"He should now that he's getting the nutrients he needs, though it will take him some time to recover his full strength," the doctor answered. "He might not even wake up for another day or so."
"Okay," Peter said, letting out a breath. "Can you excuse me for a moment doctor? I need to make a call."
"Of course," the doctor said before turning and heading down the hall. Once she was a decent distance from him, Peter turned around, tapped the side of his mask and set it to call M.J.
Maybe talking to someone would help him at least begin to process all this.
M.J. scrolled through the story she was reading, looking for whatever seemingly scarce details she could find. Not long after she had finished treating Kate's injury, she had gotten a news alert on her phone. When she checked it, she found that it was about a small spaceship of some kind crashing to earth, and that Spider-Man had swung off with whoever, or whatever, was inside of it. Unfortunately, there was hardly anything to really go off other than speculation.
She was tempted to call Peter and ask about it, but M.J. ignored this impulse, guessing that Peter was likely still dealing with the situation. While he always said she could call anytime (and had clearly answered her while in dangerous situations before), she didn't want to be an added stressor to him right now as he was surely seeking answers. Besides, he would probably reach out to her once he had it handled, if for no other reason than to check on her current houseguest.
M.J. glanced over at Kate, who had been sleeping soundly for a while now. She was grateful that the girl had given up prying about her relationship with Spider-Man for the latter part of her work on the wound, as she had a harder time coming up with excuses than she had anticipated. She knew she needed to try and get some rest too, as the hour was growing very late, even for her. Her bed was taken right now though, so if anything, she would have to settle for leaning on the front of her desk from her chair, which didn't sound too comfortable to her.
Even if her bed had been available, M.J. wondered if she'd be able to fall asleep anyway. Her mind was restless, her thoughts rarely giving her a break. She was worried about Peter; she had never seen him this stressed before. Even during the conflict with Martin Li a couple years prior, he had shown a relatively cool head at the time. Now, however, as a conspiracy of Alchemax employees gradually escalated into a potential android invasion, she had never seen him so tense.
His body language when he left Kate with her had been particularly telling. M.J. had not even seen his face, but she didn't need to. She could tell how tight his body was, and there was something in his voice, a deep worry and concern that she had never heard before. The fact that the closest thing he currently had to a field partner was lying on her bed with a gash in her stomach, which fortunately had not been as bad as it initially seemed, was surely not helping the matter.
If anything, it was likely hitting far too close to home for him.
M.J. wanted nothing more than to ease Peter's concerns, to make all his fears go away. How could she though? She had done her best throughout the course of their relationship to support him, to be there for him, but she wasn't the one going through life-threatening situations daily. She was not the one who saw the worst of the world on the regular, so she knew she could never fully relate to him. It wasn't that she WANTED to go through those things as well, but she wished that somehow, she could understand, so that she might know better what to say or do.
She leaned her right elbow against her desk, rubbing her temple with her fingers. M.J. prided herself on being strong, not just for Peter, but in general. It took a special kind of strength to get through everything she had endured; to face a world that had been turned upside down in an instant and come out okay, much less in the fortunate position she considered herself to be in. Yet, for all that strength, all that experience, she felt surprisingly helpless right now.
Suddenly, M.J. heard a phone ringing. It took her a second to realize that it wasn't hers, so she glanced over towards Kate. Sure enough, the girl was stirring, her eyes opening slowly as she reached into a pocket, pulling out her phone.
"Oh no," she muttered quietly as she tapped it and put it to her ear.
"Hey mom," she said, M.J.'s eyes narrowing a little in curiosity. She couldn't hear the voice on the other end of the line, but from Kate's frequent attempts to interrupt, she guessed that Kate's mom was worried about her. She did not have much time to worry about that, however, as her own phone soon rang. She quickly picked it up to see that it was Peter. Moving over to her bathroom, she answered.
"Hey," she said. "You okay?"
"More or less," Peter said. He proceeded to fill her in on everything about the boy who was on the ship, how he was in the hospital right now due to severe malnourishment and dehydration, and that he had warned Peter that something was coming. Throughout his recount of events, M.J. could hear the tiredness in his voice, how this whole thing was wearing on him.
"What do you think that means?" M.J. asked, referring to whatever the something was that the boy had warned Peter about.
"Not completely sure, but I think it has something to do with what's been going on at Alchemax," Peter answered.
"How so?" M.J. inquired.
"M.J, when I went back for Kate's gear, a couple of guys came out to the roof," Peter explained. "I overheard them talking about the entire satellite system being down. That, plus this guy showing up and warning me about something...it feels like more than just coincidence."
M.J. turned to listen to her room; sure enough, she could hear Kate still talking to her mother.
"Peter," she said quietly, "are you sure you're okay?"
"I don't know what I am right now," he admitted. "I just know that something is coming, and I feel like I know next to nothing about it."
"Maybe it's time to call in some of your new friends," M.J. suggested. She might not be able to help directly, but perhaps she could point him to those who could.
"I don't know," Peter said, hesitancy strong in his tone. "Maybe I'm blowing this all out of proportion; maybe this thing is something I can handle."
"Or maybe it's not," M.J. said. "I'm not trying to be a pessimist; I just want to be prepared."
"I know," Peter replied, letting out a sigh. "How's Kate?"
"She was sleeping for a while, until her phone woke her up just now," M.J. answered. "From what I can tell, her wound should heal fine, but then again, I only have your enhanced metabolism's experience to go off."
"Right," Peter said. "Well, hopefully I'll be able to get away and help her get home here soon. I want to get one more update if I can from the doctors before I do."
"Okay, and Peter...just think about what I said," M.J. replied. "You know, about the others."
"I will," Peter assured her. His voice was genuine, but she could tell he was still nervous about the idea.
After hanging up, M.J. walked back into her room, where Kate was lying, her phone now discarded on the nightstand next to the bed.
"How'd that go?" she asked.
Kate rolled her eyes.
"Not great," she said. "I managed to convince her that I was staying with my friend Megan from boarding school, but she wasn't too happy that I didn't tell her anything."
"Such is the life of you vigilantes, I guess," M.J. said, pulling up her desk chair closer to her bed, sitting down. "I'm guessing you don't want to put her in danger by telling her?"
"That's part of it," Kate replied, hesitating briefly before speaking again. "But I'm also not sure she'd accept it either. She thinks I should be more focused on a career in our family's business; that I need to prepare to take over the company one day."
M.J. looked down for a moment, thinking of how much she wished her own parents were still around for her to even have such a disagreement with.
"Well," she finally said, "maybe she'll come around."
"Maybe," Kate replied, "but I'm not counting on it."
Silence briefly fell over the room, before Kate spoke up again.
"I feel like...I don't know, I feel like it shouldn't bother me as much as it does, you know? It's not like her not approving would stop me from doing this, but I want her to accept this part of my life and support it. I know it's not what she had in mind for me, but I love doing it."
"I wouldn't know too much about that to be honest," M.J. admitted. "My parents were always just kind of there without actually being there. They didn't seem to care what I did, so long as I got good grades and stuff."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Kate said. "Here I am complaining about my own family issues when you've got ones of your own."
"It's fine," M.J. replied before rethinking her word use. "I mean, it's not actually fine, it's just...they were victims of the Snap, so they're not here anymore."
"Oh," was all Kate said in response.
"Yeah," M.J. said.
"That must be hard," Kate said.
M.J. nodded briefly.
"I'm sorry," Kate added, "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories for you like that."
"It's okay," M.J. replied. "I guess that was the one good thing about the Snap: it forced us all to come together to get through it. I'm still working on it personally."
"Me too," Kate said. "I've actually always made friends pretty easily, but since I committed to, well, this, I've had to make some sacrifices. I guess I'm just trying to figure out this whole double life thing."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out," M.J. said.
"What makes you so sure?" Kate asked, looking at M.J. inquisitively.
"Well, you've handled that wound a lot better than most people I know, so I can tell you're strong," M.J. said. "People like that tend to be able to find a way with things, and if they don't, they make one instead."
Kate smiled.
"Thanks," she replied.
For the first time in the conversation, M.J. allowed herself a smile of her own.
"Of course," she said. "You should try and get some more rest though."
"Yeah, probably a good idea," Kate said, letting out a yawn before grimacing a little. "Wow, I can't even express my sleepiness without it hurting."
"It'll get better soon, hopefully," M.J. replied.
"I hope so," Kate said. "Anyway, thank you; you've done a lot for me tonight, playing doctor, host, now therapist..."
"It's not a problem," M.J. replied.
"Well still, thank you," Kate said before closing her eyes and settling back in, leaving M.J. alone with her thoughts once again.
As always, I hope you are continuing to enjoy it!
Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!
"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went to a solitary place, where He prayed." Mark 1:35