67% sure

So it turns out they are going somewhere, and that somewhere is Prague.

"Tour company called, they upgraded us!" Mr Harrington explains with his usual enthusiasm, "You should have heard me on the phone with them, I really gave them hell."

"All I heard was crying," Mr Dell retorts, but nothing can shatter his colleague's eagerness apparently. He encourages them to grab their bags and follow him to their ride.

MJ downs the rest of her tea – she's never drinking coffee again, she's spent an awful night and she's pretty sure it has to do with the couple of espresso she drank yesterday, and not the remembrance of the water monster or her very squeaky, very uncomfortable bed. She takes her backpack and purposefully ignores Brad who's offering to take her second bag. She knows he's probably just trying to be nice, but if he thinks for one second she's gonna let him carry her bag then he clearly doesn't get her.

She catches Peter's eye, and notices he's wearing her favorite stupid pun t-shirt. If you believe in telekinesis, please raise my hand. It's dumb. She likes it. He seems disappointed, and she gets it. She would have loved to go to Paris. From what he told her the night before, he seemed to be looking forward to it too.

But Prague is nice as well. Kafka was from Prague. There's also that Astronomical Clock Tower that's pretty famous. She remembers reading that the man that designed it had been blinded by some city councilors with a hot poker to prevent him from building a similar one somewhere else. And there's the Charles Bridge too. Haunted by ghosts. Pretty famous. Not Eiffel Tower famous, but still.

Should be fun.

They're going there by bus. It's an approximately 9-hour drive, so that's kind of a bummer, but she takes advantage of it and reads. Brad offered to sit next to her but she declined because really, 9 hours sitting next to Brad again? No thanks. He's nice, but sometimes way too chatty for her. So he's sitting in front of her and glances at her from time to time, and she chooses to ignore him. She's starting to suspect what's up with him being so nice to her all the time, and she is not going to encourage him.

Parker sat at the far end of the bus, on the row opposite to his best friend. Ned has now merged with Betty so that the two of them became a creepy monster with four arms, four legs and two heads. It shall be called 'Netty'. Netty keeps texting itself and really, it's just weird, MJ thinks. She wonders what Peter's take is on all this. No way in hell she's ever asking him though. She will not ask Peter Parker what he thinks about couple things.

She's even heard Netty talk about matching outfits. And wow, she likes Ned, and she likes Betty, but these two together are just weird. She can't help herself and wonders, hypothetically speaking of course, if her and a hypothetical dork would hypothetically be like these two creeps. She desperately holds on to the hope that they would absolutely not. Hypothetically speaking still. Obviously.

MJ realizes she's been reading the same paragraph for the last couple of minutes and shakes her head, tired of herself. She really needs to get a grip.

After a four-hour long drive, their spooky bearded 'chauffeur' Dimitri stops the bus at a tiny gas station in a tiny village in the Austrian Alps, and allows them a ten-minute break. Mr Dell's tiny bladder seems grateful. They gather inside the very small shop that sits next to the gas station, and to MJ's distaste Flash is live-streaming the whole thing. She really doesn't get that guy. And she's been a bit bored for the last hour or so, having finished her book, so she gives into the temptation to tease the idiot.

"–I'm so into other people's culture, and so like –" She watches as he grabs a plastic bag and puts it in front of his phone, "What are these? Are these chips?"

"It's a clear bag, it's obviously chips," MJ quips, reaching for the bag and narrowing her eyes at it, "in fact, it says 'chips' on it, in English."

Flash snatches the bag out of her hand, glaring at her – but not too much, she suspects he's somehow a bit scared of her. "Come on! This thing with their chips it's just – you need to understand that this is my living and you're messing up with –"

"You're still live." MJ cuts him with a smirk and Flash's eyes widen in shock.

"Oh no no no…"

Mr Harrington chooses this moment to show up and grab Thompson's phone and look at it with interest. Flash tries to pry the phone off the teacher's hands but MJ tells him he's still live and Mr Harrington waves at the camera with a goofy smile and an 'Oh hi Flash mob!' that might be the highlight of the trip so far. Water monsters are so overrated anyway.

MJ's still snickering ten minutes later when they all get back on the bus. They switch seats. She ends up sitting behind Mr Dell, on the same row as Netty the monster. Parker is at the far front – first all the way to the back, now all the way to the front, he's such a weirdo – Brad is finally keeping his distance with her, which she's grateful for. Everyone is snacking on the things they bought at the gas station and the volume of conversation is way louder than it was before. MJ picked up another book from her second bag in the hold, and gets herself settled in it while snacking on the 'exotic chips' she bought at the gas station. Eugene would be proud. He's still sulking like a little kid on the front seat behind Dimitri.

Poor puppy.

She's zoning out the noise of the others having fun for a little while, but then Zoha says something that catches her attention: "Did you just punch Flash?"

"No!" Peter's voice retorts, and MJ looks up, curious. He's standing in the middle of the aisle with some glasses she's never seen him wear before. She doesn't have time to register anything else because suddenly the bus darts on the right, propelling her and everyone else on the left. It hits the protective railway on the side of the road in a scraping metal noise that makes her teeth clench and her stomach drop in dread.

"Peter! Plant your fanny in that seat and buckle up right now!" she hears Harrington say in an unusual stern voice.

"Look at the baby mountain goats!"

Somehow everyone gasps and all of a sudden they're all gawking and standing to look outside, but MJ doesn't. Mr Dell is standing in front of her so she's not sure, but she catches a sort of blur in the front of the bus where Peter's still standing. She hears a loud 'bang' and then everyone is sitting back in their sits and Mr Harrington is complaining he didn't see any mountain goats, and Peter is still standing there in the aisle, with his glasses and his hair in an even messier mess that usual.

"You missed them," he says with a nod, and he sounds out of breath for some reason. Betty then points out that she likes his new look, and Ned agrees – of course he does – and that's when it strikes her.

He looks like Tony Stark.

Well, not exactly like Tony Stark, but his glasses, they definitely are Tony Stark-y.

She goes back to reading, wondering what this all means. If she'd brought her Spider-Parker notebook, she would definitely have written that one down. There's never been any doubt that Parker was a big fan of Iron Man. MJ remembers all too well how happy he sounded when he got the Stark Internship back in Freshman. During their first year in junior before the Blip, he was also seen talking with him once. Wow, these days seem so far away now.

"Hey MJ?"

She looks up and finds Brad staring at her with a tentative smile that has her cringe on the inside for some reason. "'Sup?"

"Can I sit, for a minute?" He asks, and she just shrugs, so he does sit. "I need to show you something, I don't mean to upset you or anything, but I uh – I think you need to know the truth." She just stares at him and he lets out a small, somehow nervous laugh. "About Parker. The truth about Parker." he specifies with an earnest nod.

"What about him?" she sighs, weirdly annoyed. She glances up front and meets Peter's eyes before he hides behind the backrest of his seat, and she suppresses a grin from her face – what a doofus.

Brad takes out his phone and opens up the gallery app, swiping through the photos he took while in Venice apparently. But then his breath hitches and he swipes faster, clearly astonished. "Uh, this is so weird," he says with a nervous laugh, "It was right here on my phone I, I uh –"

"Yeah, weird," MJ says with a small frown. She glances towards Peter a second time, and meets his eyes for half a second before he ducks again like an idiot, and something tells her 'weird' has Parker's signature all over it, even if she doesn't know exactly how. Brad is very nervous now, shifting in his seat, still searching for the picture in his phone, and she can't help herself and asks casually: "Was that all?"

Brad meets her gaze and flushes, then excuses himself and goes back to his seat without another word. MJ goes back to her book, but her thoughts are all over the place. She catches Peter looking at her multiple times during the remainder of the trip, and she feels it growing inside her chest: the thought that maybe, just maybe, something will happen in Prague between them. She goes over the facts again and again, him staring at her a lot, his apparent jealousy when she talks to Brad, his nervousness when they talk to each other, and it's scary, and it's exciting, and her heart is pounding in her chest as she allows herself to consider what could happen.

Some part of her though, the one that's been consistently disappointed in her parents' behavior since forever, still thinks it's dumb to even begin to hope. This is not going to happen. Why would she be the lucky one to have the boy she's been crushing on for so long actually crush on her too? This doesn't happen in real life. This is just for stupid rom-coms and teen movies and whatnot.

But he's still glancing at her from time to time, she can feel it, and what else could it mean? He's switched seats, taking the one in front of Ned and Betty, propping himself on his knee to look above the backrest of his seat and talk to his friend every once in a while. And she doesn't listen to their conversation, because considering Betty's bored face it's probably just nerd stuff, but she can feel his gaze on her every now and then, and it sends shivers down her spine even if she pretends it's no big deal.

Eventually they make it to Prague, and the night is already falling. Turns out it's the Carnival of Lights during the entire week, a new festival instated after the Blip to celebrate the return of the Vanished and really just a pretext to have fun for an entire week at the beginning of summer. MJ's classmates are delighted to go – she's a little more skeptical but whatever – and for a little while they're all convinced that's what they're going to do this evening.

They all go their separate ways for an hour or so of free time. MJ spends it alone exploring a little around the hotel then resting in her room. When it's time to gather downstairs she finds everyone – except for Peter, and Brad who's still sulking about his missing picture – wearing glow sticks and super excited to, quoting Flash, "take part in the biggest party in the world".

That's when Mr Harrington announces that they're actually going to the Opera instead because the tour company gave them some tickets. And then they're all complaining, except for Ned which is weird, but Mr Harrington is adamant and tells them to go dress nicely and to meet back downstairs in twenty minutes. So that's what they do.

And for some reason, MJ feels more comfortable about that than the Carnival. It's a four-hour Opera, which is probably going to be excruciatingly long, but she keeps thinking that if she can sit next to Peter then maybe, maybe, a four-hour Czech musical won't be that bad. She puts on her flowery dress, lets her brown curls loose except for a couple of hair-clips to keep them out of her face. She grabs her jacket then finds her way back in the hallway of the hotel.

That's when she sees it.

His affection.

She sees it in his eyes as she walks down the stairs and their gazes meet. And it's quite cliché really, but she couldn't care less at the moment. They look at each other for a couple of seconds then he looks down to his feet with a definite flush, and when she stops by his side while they wait for Mr Harrington, he doesn't say anything. He looks nice too, with his black jacket and white shirt. He's managed to comb back his hair, which is unusual. He reminds her of him ages ago during the Homecoming of their sophomore year. She hadn't seen him that much back then but she distinctively remembers how nice he looked that night too.

Not that he doesn't look nice all the time, or that it matters in any way really. She's getting confused. Her palms are sweating so she puts them in the pockets of her jacket, breathing deeply to keep her focus. But keep her focus on what? As they exit the hotel and walk among the people heading to the Carnival, Peter and her follow the group side by side, and there's only one thought circling in her head:

Is this it?

They get inside the opera house, and she stops to pretend she's looking at the gorgeous settings of the place – which, to be fair, really are beautiful – but all she wants is to take the leap, finally. After years of endless crush on that stupid boy, she thinks tonight is the night. Brad smiles at her and tells her he's keeping her a seat, and she gives him a closed-lip smile. She really has to do something about this before he gets his hopes too high.

She doesn't linger on the thought at all. Peter stops next to her, and he's looking at her so she smiles, heart pounding in her chest. Dear God she hopes he can't hear it, because it's pretty much all she can hear right now.

"You look really pretty," he tells her quietly, and he's clearly nervous and it's just stupidly endearing.

"Therefore I have value?" she quips back, raising an eyebrow at him.

And there it is, his special dear-caught-in-the-headlights Parker look, and really he's such a cute dork she can't even. "No, no that's not what I meant at all. I was just –"

"I'm messing with you," she cuts him with a smile and he lets out a nervous chuckle at that. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"You look pretty too," she tells him a little awkwardly, but somehow he doesn't seem to think it's weird because he thanks her too.

"Oh my Gosh, Opera glasses!" Betty says behind them, and MJ figures it could be her opening.

She can do this. From what she's observed he seems to want it too, so what's so scary about asking him one little question? One teeny tiny question, just a few words, she can do this, come on.

"Do you wanna go in on a pair?" she asks him, grasping her jacket a little tighter because she feels like she has to hold onto something as she's never felt so stressed out before in her entire life. It's even worse than that time he asked her if they were friends.

"You mean sit next to each other?" he says, a small smile starting to light up his face, and her heart effectively jumps in her chest at this sight.

"Yeah." she nods with yet another shy smile.

But then his face stills and he says curtly, "No."

MJ frowns, lost at his sudden change of demeanor, and looks down in surprise. "Okay, no… no you don't want to sit next to me or, no you just don't want the glasses?"

He frowns too, reaching to smooth the hair above his right ear with shaky fingers, visibly nervous. "I didn't mean that I– uh, uh if you go ahead I'll go grab us a pair."

What was that, she has no idea, but she doesn't dwell on it because he actually said yes. He wants to sit next to her. This is just great. Awesome, not at all terrifying or nerve-wracking or anything. Just two people casually agreeing to sit next to each other during a four-hour long Opera. Two friends. Are they still friends? She's getting sidetracked, she really needs to just get a freaking grip.

"I'll save you a seat, next to me," MJ trails off, her throat so dry she's not sure her words make any sense, and he nods.

"Awesome."

"There's a lot of seats so I'll be up there…" She nods too, then smiles, then lets out a nervous chuckle that he mirrors, and god this is so scary, and yet so exciting she can't help the slight skip in her steps as she walks to her seat. Brad waves to her, and nods to the seat next to him and she frowns. Right, there's still him to deal with.

"I'm uh, I'm actually saving a seat for Peter," she tells him nicely but with a sharp smile, thinking that should do it, "but thanks, Brad."

He stares at her, clearly taken aback, but she doesn't acknowledge it. She will not find herself in a stupid love-triangle of some sort, these are just ridiculous. She sits down, leaving a spot between Brad and her for Peter, debating over where to put her jacket for half a second. She can't help being annoyed at herself for the way her hands seem to shake the slightest, and she knows it's just nerve and it's probably fine, but she still finds it stupid. She's a strong, independent woman, she doesn't need to feel this nervous because a stupid boy is about to sit next to her.

He agreed to it. He said yes, he seemed actually happy about it.

Wow this is just so dumb.

"MJ?"

She looks up, realizing that Betty sat next to her while she was over-analyzing stuff, and Ned is looking at her, handing her something. She grabs it without really registering what it is, until Ned speaks again: "Sorry but Peter told me to tell you that he's sick, he left to go back to the hotel."

"What…?" She looks down to the opera glasses in her hand, and she doesn't understand. She doesn't get it. He said yes, and then he bails on her three minutes later? Peter Parker, sick? He hasn't even been sick since… since… since forever! There has to be another reason than that. As she's trying to figure out exactly what just happened, the curtains of the stage open and music starts playing. She can't keep her eyes off of the Opera glasses Ned gave her. She feels more than she sees Brad sitting next to her, and she takes a large gulp of air to still the rambling thoughts in her head.

She turns to look back at the entrance of the Opera house, and takes a decision.

Peter is never sick. Peter vanishes all the time. This has to do with Spider-Man. Otherwise it means that he's a freaking liar and he had her completely fooled into thinking he actually liked her. She can't bear actually considering this, because she knows him. At least she thinks she does. The Peter Parker she knows and likes would never pretend to like someone and hurt them.

Wouldn't he?

She's got to make sure of it.

So she stands up quietly, puts the glasses on her seat, and leaves the Opera house without a glance back.

She makes it to Old Town Square, wandering among people enjoying the Carnival, looking up the facade of buildings, opening her eyes to anything that looked remotely like the stupid wall crawler. Maybe she's wrong, maybe Peter really is sick, or maybe he just wanted to enjoy the Carnival alone. Without Ned? Weird, but considering his morphing with Betty maybe not that weird. Without her? Nope, not going down that road again.

She's hurt, she can't deny it, but she shushes away the pesky feeling because it clearly won't get her anywhere. Right now, all she needs to do is find him. Whether he's out Spider-Maning or Peter-Parkering.

There's a fountain in the middle of the square. She approaches it, intending to go up the small steps to try and get a better view of the surroundings. Fireworks are blasting in the sky, people are chattering and laughing, little kids are enjoying the Carousel with delighted shrieks, everyone's having a good time.

Then it all stops. Unlike the water monster's attack where she felt hyper-aware of everything, this one feels more like an out-of-body experience. MJ watches with a distant horror feeling as the steps of the fountain crack and magma pours out of it, creeping up the metal statue. She doesn't wait for the full formation of what she expects to be a fire monster of some sorts – what has her life become? – and runs away.

She's hearing the screams and cries for help, she's feeling the fear of people running alongside her, but it feels so distant and hazy she can't fully register any of it. There is one thing in her mind, and only one thing. She hides on the side of a building and stays there, looking out for him. Because somehow she's convinced he is coming, and she doesn't feel as scared as she probably should.

Something is happening, but she can't see what exactly without stepping into the danger zone, so she waits. But it is clear, someone is fighting off the lava monster. She wonders if it's bubble-head man aka Mysterio. The monster is close now, she can see its back from her hiding spot, and feels the burning heat emanating from it. And is it she or is it actually getting bigger? This is bad.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

She watches as the monster stomps over to the Ferris Wheel. It brings down its fiery fist to the ground – she's not sure but she thinks there is someone down there and she feels fear crippling her heart. Then Mysterio's magic forms a round shield and the monster angrily hits it again and again trying to break it. It eventually breaks and MJ watches as two figures dash out of the monster's grasp, Mysterio to the left, and someone else to the right. And she can't risk trying to figure out who the second person is because he/she/it is out of sight from where she stands, but she knows, deep inside of her heart, she knows.

Then a couple of seconds later she sees him.

There's no doubt in her mind. She could recognize his bearing anywhere. He's not wearing his usual red and blue suit, but a dark one that is probably a poor attempt to hide his real identity as Spider-Man. But it's him. She's sure of it. She sees him jump and land on a street lamp, shoot a web and haul a rock with it, throwing it at the fire monster. The monster stumbles under the attack, then swings a hit at him and MJ watches as he barely dodges it, heart pounding in her chest.

If only she could help.

But what could she do against a freaking fire monster, she has no idea.

That's when the Ferris Wheel suddenly starts to wobble, and MJ hears the screaming of people still trapped in it. Spider-Man or Black-weirdo-guy or whatever shoots a web at it to try and prevent it from toppling over, but it hits something else. MJ watches as he pulls on his web and tears something off, sending it flying towards her. The thing crashes down next to her, and if there ever was the slightest doubt in her mind that this guy is Spider-Man, it's now completely gone.

She's seen his webs before. The one laying down on the ground is just like these. It's stuck on some piece of electronic equipment that she's never seen before. She doesn't even hesitate. She grabs the thing and stuff it inside her pocket. When she looks up again, Mysterio is firing his green magic stuff at the lava monster, and she watches in horror as it stumbles closer and closer to where she's hiding.

Fear finally strikes its last blow and she runs away from the scene, scared for her life. Crossing her fingers that Peter will be alright. She trusts him though. She knows he'll be fine. He has to. Because they have some serious talking to do when he comes back.

Okayyyy so I thought this one would be my last chapter for this fic, but I wrote and wrote and wrote and then I realized I had reached 4,300 words and had barely covered a third of what I was planning to do so yeah, I suck at planning stuff LOL

Thanks a LOT for the wonderful reviews, apparently there are so problems to comment on this website, so I'm even more glad you guys took the time to still do it

sceptilezeno, the popo is here, Alex Quinn (your enthusiasm brought a big ass smile on my face LOL), Guest and bro thank you guys so much for your kind words, they mean a lot to me