Michelle "MJ" Jones

As the door opened, I tried my very best to think of what to do next as I tucked in Black Dahlia necklace under my shirt and unzipped my jacket. Do I try to hide? Do I fight? Or do I try to make a run for it. Of course, I was expecting an FBI agent or one of Kraven's men to walk in. What I didn't expect to see was another student.

"Hey guys, it's me," she said. She was looking down as she reached into her messenger back. "I'm here to return the…" She trailed off as she looked up at me. She came to a stop and froze in her tracks and her eyes went a bit wide. It took me a moment to take in her features. She had blond hair, with the left side of it long enough to touch her shoulders and the right side of it just hanging above her ear. She had a metal piercing at the tip of her right eyebrow. She had blue eyes and some freckles underneath them. She wore a plaid knee-length skirt over some black leggings and a black Gorillaz shirt under a black and white hoodie. She was also wearing a pair of blue slip-on flats.

She's cute, I thought to myself.

That thought was fleeting however. She took a step back.

"Don't do it," I warned. She took another step back. "Seriously, don't do it!" She didn't listen. She quickly turned and tried to run. I quickly ran after her. She managed to reach the door and open it. She wasn't fast enough. Quickly, I closed the distance, brought my foot up, and kicked the door closed. Without taking my foot off of the door, I grabbed her by the back of her hoodie and pulled, causing her to stumble down backward to the floor. I glared at her from older my shoulder for a moment before I took my foot off of the door and locked it. "I probably should have done that before." I turned my body and faced the newcomer as she quickly scrambled to her feet.

"Stay back!" she warned as she backed away. "I'll scream!"

I crossed my arms. "I'd much rather you didn't. Rendering you unconscious kind of makes things hard for me."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"You want to try your luck?"

She glared at me. "What do you want?"

"From you?" I replied. "I would like for you to keep this serendipitous meeting our little secret. It's kind of better for the whole covert thing."

She shook her head. "Who are you?" she asked.

I was given pause. It didn't occur to me that I would need a codename. "…Silk. You can call me Silk."

She looked me up and down for a moment. "Are you Spider-Man's sidekick or something?"

"You mean the real Spider-Man, right – not that knockoff running around with Spider-Man's name?" She nodded. "Good, I would have been offended. But, no, I'm not Spider-Man's sidekick. I'm his girlfriend, actually. I'm here to help him out of a jam."

The girl raised her eyebrows. "Wait, are you serious?"

"As a heart attack." I paused for a moment. "Listen…" I beckoned my hand towards her. "Who are you?" She didn't say anything at first. "Look, I'm not going to steal your identity or anything."

"…I'm Gwen."

I nodded. "Okay, Gwen, here's the thing. As you can probably guess, the agents are on campus because a certain student here can't stop acting like he's Spider-Man best friend. Unfortunately, while Flash isn't Spider-Man's best friend… or friend in general… Spider-Man does have actual friends at this school, and they may or may not be carrying something that might compromise him while he recovers. So, I'm going to start a fire in the chemistry lab and try to grab the thing in question. With that said, you didn't see me. Got it?" Gwen nodded slowly. "Good. Now, do me a favor. Empty out your bag."

Gwen's eyes went wide. "Empty my bag?! What do you need my stuff for?!"

"I can care less about what you have in your bag," I assured her. "I just need the bag itself."

She stared at me for a moment. She then kneeled down and took her bag off of her shoulder. Slowly, she took her stuff out. I watched as she did so, just in case she tried to pull a fast one. Curiously, one of her binders had a picture of some graffiti art on the front. It looked like a black shadowy figure in front of the stylization of the word "expectations". After a couple of minutes, she emptied her bag before she stood up. She then tossed the bag towards me. I caught it with one hand.

"Thank you," I said. I turned to walk away, stopped, then looked back at Gwen. "I'll get this bag back to you, or at least, enough money for you to buy another one." With that, I walked out, zipping up my hoodie as I did so. I put my hood up and kept my head down as I walked through the halls. During this, Ned spoke in my ear, telling me where to turn to avoid agents and other people. At one point, I "accidentally" bumped into a student and kept on walking. I knew he was a stoner. I had nothing against him for that. I just knew he had a lighter, which I needed to borrow. I looked the lighter over in my hands. I felt kind of bad for pickpocketing it from him. It was a chromed Zippo lighter. It wasn't expensive, but I wouldn't call it cheap, either. I made a note to get him a replacement before I pocketed it. A few minutes later, probably a few more minutes than usual, I made it to the lab. I looked left and right before I entered.

I let the door close behind before I looked around. "Ned, keep an eye out for me," I said.

"Watching out now," Ned replied.

I walked. I knew where the chemicals were stored. They were locked away in a special storage closet. I didn't know the code to get in. But I didn't need it. I had other ideas. Instead, I made my way over to one of the cabinets. I opened it up to see bottles of rubbing alcohol. I grabbed four bottles before I walked over to the desk. I cradled the bottles in one arm and kneeled down to grab the trash bin, which had some balled up pieces of paper in it. I stood up and walked over to the door where the chemicals were held before I kneeled down. I placed the trash can and bottles on the floor. I opened up the bottles, picked two of them up, and poured the alcohol out on the floor slowly, making a puddle. I watched as the puddle creeped underneath the door. I stood up as I continued to pour, not wanting the alcohol to touch my clothes. Once the bottles were empty, I tossed them to the side and picked up another bottle. Like before, I poured the alcohol out, adding to the puddle. Once that was empty, I grabbed the last bottle. This time, when I opened it, I poured the alcohol over the trash bin. I tossed the bottle aside after it was empty before I pulled out the lighter. I used my thumb to flick it open.

"Okay, Ned, can you shut down the fire retardant system?" I asked.

"Working on it now," he replied. He went silent for a couple of minutes. I looked over my shoulder, checking the door. Ned spoke up again. "Okay, system is shutdown. It should be down for half an hour, fire or not."

"Good stuff. Thank you." I took in a breath before I used my thumb. I flicked the lighter once. I looked at the flame for a moment before I dropped the lighter on the bin. The bin went up in flames before it spread across the alcohol puddle. Thinking quickly, I took off my jacket and the messenger bag. I quickly removed my shirt and tossed it into the fire. I snatched my wig off and took off my wig cap and tossed it into the fire, followed by the red ski mask. I then quickly grabbed my jacket, put it on and zipped it up, picked up the messenger bag, and shouldered it. I then walked out, pulling the pins out of my hair as I did so.

I casually walked out of the lab, closing the door behind me on my way out. I walked down the hall, tossing the pins into a trashcan along the way. I didn't get far before I heard the explosion behind me. I quickly turned around before I walked up to the nearest fire alarm and pulled it. As the alarm sounded, I turned and walked.

"How is the footage looking?" I asked.

"I've been shutting down most of the recording across the whole school," Ned replied.

I furrowed up my eyebrows. "Why most?" As I asked that, I saw students being directed by faculty.

"This jock was creeping on a girl. The idiot didn't realize he was on camera. Wouldn't it be a shame if the footage was sent to the principal's phone?"

I smiled. "Good one." I weaved through the forming crowd of students as I moved through the school. A few minutes later, I made it to Betty's locker. I looked at the dial lock. "What's her combination?"

"19, 6, 3."

I turned the dial on the lock three times. I then pulled the lock open and removed it. I opened the locker and looked inside. Sure enough, there was Betty's silver laptop, standing slanted inside. But there was also another laptop there. It was black looked slightly thicker than Betty's. I narrowed my eyes. What did you do, Betty? Quietly, I grabbed each laptop one by one and put it in the bag. I closed the locker and relocked it. I turned the dial once before I walked away, exiting with the rest of the students.

"I got it, Ned," I said. "Get out of there, okay?"

Once all of the students were outside, I looked for Betty and Ned. It took me a few minutes to find them. I eventually spotted them. They were standing with Flash. Betty looked like she was ripping into him. I made my way over.

"…and seriously, stopping telling people you know Spider-Man!" Betty growled out. "You know the government is gunning for him, and they already think Spider-Man is connected to Midtown because of the whole suit situation! Just stop before you have the whole school arrested!"

Flash scoffed. "You guys are just jealous because I actually have a friendship with a hero!" he retorted.

"So does half the city, dipshit!" Ned deadpanned.

Before Flash could respond to that, I spoke up. "Flash, go away before I break both of your legs!" I threatened. He glared at me. I glared back. After a few seconds, he grumbled as he walked away. I took in a breath before I looked at Betty. "I got your laptops."

Ned looked at me. "Laptops?"

"Thanks," Betty said. "I'm glad you got them."

I frowned. "So, you want to explain why you have two laptops?"

Betty smiled at me wryly. "I may or may not have stolen a laptop from one of Kraven's men here."

My eyes went wide. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Look, one of them left it unattended in a classroom, so I took it while he was off doing who knows what."

Ned moved to my side as he looked at her. "Betty… what the - ?!" He was interrupted when Betty made a shushing noise and beckoned to Ned to keep quiet. Ned and I both looked left and right to see if anyone was listening. Seeing that no one was, we looked back at her before Ned continued in a lower tone, though he was still pretty cross with her. "Betty, Kitty's going to kill us!"

Betty glared at him. "I did this for Kitty and the others. I know it was risky, but if this laptop has something important that they could use, it'd be worth the risk. And if it doesn't… well, it was worth a shot."

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. "You know what, fuck it," I said. I looked straight at Betty. "You get to talk to Kitty about this. Also, you owe me a shirt… or Peter a shirt." I paused. "Screw it, you owe me and Peter a shirt."

Betty raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I'll explain later."

Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day as the Fire Department arrived, along with a HAZMAT unit. Much to my relief, no one got hurt and most of the damage was to the lab itself. Like Ned said, the fire retardant system became active sometime later, making the FDNY's job easier. I met Ned and Betty at the front of the school before we made our way to The Bunker. Along the way, we called up Kitty, telling her that we needed to meet up with her. The trip was a bit stressful. I was doing my very best to keep a calm exterior because I was panicking like hell underneath. I was expecting some government agents to snatch us up at any moment as we took the subdway. I didn't relax until we made it to The Bunker, with Kitty waiting outside.

"Looks like you three had an eventful day," Kitty said.

"You have no idea," I muttered.

Once we were inside and after we sat around the roundtable, Betty and I explained everything to her. As expected, Kitty didn't look the least bit thrilled about what we did. She leaned back in her seat and covered her face with her right hand. After a few moments, she sighed. She lowered her hand.

"Okay," she began slowly. "…Why didn't you guys call me?"

"We didn't know where you were at," I explained. "And we had to act quickly because we were afraid that Betty might give them reason to search her." I looked at Betty. "No offense."

"None taken," Betty replied. "Honestly, I'm a bit touched that you would risk getting an arson charge for me." She then looked at Ned. "Thank you for looking out for her, Buttercup."

"Hey, I'm just being The Guy In The Chair," Ned replied bashfully.

"I was literally in Manhattan," Kitty cut in harshly, getting our attention back. "I could have solved this without you going through such lengths. I understand things were desperate, but you should have called me. Then, at the very least, you could have confirmed that you were out of options." She shook her head. "What you guys did was stupid. You could have gotten hurt, you could have gotten arrested, and you could have endangered your college careers before they even start." She frowned. "I'm glad you're thinking about us, but leave the superhero stuff to us and –"

Kitty stopped midsentence as she looked down. She reached down. I assumed she was for something in her pocket. I assumed right as she pulled her phone out. She looked at us. "Excuse me." She brought her attention back down to her phone. She was apparently checking a message. She then laid her phone on the table and stood up as she bared her teeth. "…GODDAMNIT!"

I wanted to ask if she was okay, but I had a feeling that wouldn't have been too wise. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Ned was about to speak. I nudged him with my elbow as I looked at him. When he looked back at me with a look of annoyance, I shook my head.

"You three stay here," Kitty said as she walked away from the table. "I'm going to go save Peter and Craig's bacon and try not to skin them alive when I bring their asses back here!"