Michelle "MJ" Jones

There was no way. There was no way I was hearing this.

As Scott explained why he was in Europe and Mysterio's name came up, I felt the urge to throw up. I was hoping that his explanation wasn't going to go where I thought it was going to go. But, no, it did. Of course it did. Why wouldn't it? Scott wasn't going to have us gathered here in The Bunker at this time of night if he had nothing but good news. No, this conversation went right to the worst-case scenario – Quentin Beck's body wasn't in the grave they dug up.

Ned was panicking as he covered his face.

"He's going to come after all of us!" he said. "He's going to come after all of us and make us suffer because we helped Spider-Man beat him and see through his hero act and –"

"Ned, chill!" I interjected. "Even if he is alive, there's a good chance he doesn't remember us."

"We don't know that yet," Scott stated. "You have your memories back, after all."

"I mean…" I paused for a moment. I tilted my head briefly. He had a point. "Okay, you're not wrong, but…" I shook my head. "But that was because of magic."

Scott grimaced slightly. "The problem is… whenever there's one way of doing something, there's usually another. So, unfortunately, we can't discount the possibility of him having memories from before The Spell. Even if he didn't have his pre-Spell memories, he'd still carry a vendetta against Spider-Man. And given what he's done to Peter to first time around, I have little doubt that he'd do everything he could to get to him, such as investigating anyone who has even the slightest ties to him."

"…That means if he gets footage of The Friends of Humanity incident…" Betty began to say before she trailed off.

"To be fair, it ain't exactly unusual for Spider-Man to intervene in such a situation like that," Buford pointed out. "What is he going to do, investigate the whole school? You know how much time he'd be wastin' with that?"

Joanna scoffed. I looked at her as she gave Buford a glare. "Let's not act like that's not a possibility. Who knows how long he's been scouting Peter for until he made his move in Europe?"

I sighed as I bowed my head. "Well, isn't this spectacular?" I deadpanned. "So, either Beck has his memories, or he doesn't. Either way, what are we supposed to do? Just wait around for him to swoop in like we're guppies in a pond?"

"That's not what we're going to do," Scott said.

He sounded reassuring. In most cases, that would have been enough to calm me down. This wasn't most cases. I remembered what Peter told me about what Beck did to him – how he toyed with his mind and led him into the path of an oncoming high speed train. And Beck did this all without even a hint of remorse. He wanted to take over Iron Man's spot and be a bigger hero than he ever was for the sake of payback against Tony Stark, and he was willing to screw with a teenager to do it – a teenager with superpowers and enough combat history to be considered a child soldier, but a teenager nonetheless.

And that was the most worrying part of this all. There was zero doubt in my mind that Beck was going to be out for blood and there was nothing he'd stop at to do it. That meant I was in danger. That meant the people close to me was in danger – my folks, my sister, Ned, Betty…

Liz even…

Before I could dwell further on that, Joanna spoke up.

"Kid, are you okay?"

I looked at her. I thought she was talking to me. Then I followed her gaze to see Peter standing there without saying a word. I realized he was quiet for a while. I almost forgot he was in the room. He started looking around at all of us. When his gaze landed on me, his expression changed for a bit. Did he have something to say? Well, he didn't say it. Instead he shook his head and told everyone he was going home. He walked out of the room. I had the urge to follow him. Before I would act on it, Scott spoke up.

"Kitty, go after him," he ordered. "I'll fill you in on how the rest of this meeting goes."

"I got it," Kitty replied as she stood up. She pulled out her cat mask from underneath her jacket before she walked out.

"It's just been weird lately," Betty commented. "Luke Cage is in jail and Craig has been taken down." I looked at her. I saw the look of worry on her face. She shook her head. "And what about Carmilla?"

"Carmilla… she's in recovery over something that happened in Phoenix," Scott explained. "It'll take some time, but she'll be okay."

"Where is she?" Ned asked.

"In SHIELD's care." Scott stood up. "I laid a lot on you guys, so I'm ending things here. I don't know what to do yet. But I'll figure out something in the morning. In the meantime, just keep your head low and on a swivel. And if anything seems even a little suspicious to you, let me or Kitty know ASAP."

"Got it," I said.

"Buford, please take them home."

"Leave it to me," Buford said. "Come on, youngins."

When I was dropped off, I took the stairs up. I passed by a few people in the stairwell. I didn't even make eye contact with them. I just didn't feel safe. Luckily, it seemed like no one followed me. Once I reached my floor, I went straight to the door of my home. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. I closed it.

"You're here a bit late." I quickly turned my head, seeing my dad sitting on the sofa with a bottle of beer in his hand. I took in a breath before I let it out. He tilted his head. "Everything okay?"

"It's been a long day," I explained. I smirked. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra beer lying around, would you?"

"Miche', I love you, but the moment your mom finds out I even handed you a drop of alcohol, I'm going to have to go on the run." I chuckled. "But seriously, how was your day?"

I shrugged. "It's been kind of stressful." I couldn't tell my dad everything, of course. "I got harassed by this guy on the train this morning, and I've been sour about it since." That wasn't untrue. I was still mad about it. My dad raised his eyebrows in concern. I shrugged. "I ended up breaking his nose."

"Serves him right, I say. I see your martial arts training is paying off."

"Yeah, Colleen did say she was going to teach a lot of different styles. That Lethwei came in real handy." I looked towards the kitchen for a moment. "Any leftovers?"

"I think there's still half a chopped cheese in there."

I frowned as memories of my first post-Spell date with Peter came to mind. "Mmmmm, not tonight. I'll just turn in."

"Okay. Rest well."

I looked at my dad and nodded. I walked past the sofa he was sitting on. I then stopped and looked at him.

"Hey dad?" I said.

"Yes, MJ?" he said, looking at me.

"If something weird happened to you, you'd tell me, right?"

"…I would." He had a look of confusion on her face. "Are you sure everything is okay?"

I smiled slightly. "Yeah, I'm sure. Just… like I said, it's been a long day." I paused for a moment. "It's actually been a long couple of days." I skipped over the part where I had the urge to fight my boss. I really didn't feel like getting a lecture about not using my newfound skills for something other than self-defense.

I already get enough of that from Colleen.

My dad tilted his head. "Is everything okay between you and Peter?"

"We're fine." That was probably the biggest lie I ever told my dad. And considering what I've been holding back from my parents, that was saying a lot. Peter and I were not fine. We weren't dating anymore and I wasn't even sure that we were even friends at this point. "Peter is just trying to work through things." I wasn't even so sure if that was the case. I made a mental note to talk to Ned the next chance I got.

My dad nodded. "I'm sure he'll work out whatever he's going through." He took a sip of his beer. "That boy don' been through so much it's wonder he hasn't found his thirteenth reason why."

You don't know the half, I thought to myself as I nodded. "Yeah. Well, I'll be in my room if you need me."

"A'ight."

When I went into my room, I got changed into a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. I then sat on my bed. I looked forward as I thought about my current situation. I wanted to believe that Scott was going to come up with a plan to protect all of us. Why shouldn't I? Scott used to be a part of the Air Force version of the Navy SEALs, leads the X-Men, and used to be an Avenger. He was also the type of guy who had many plans for different scenarios. I should be okay with letting him handle things. Problem was, Beck managed to outsmart SHIELD and I was more than sure that he knew how to get people in places he needs them to be. There was nowhere that was really safe. For all I knew, Beck could have had people at Midtown, in the NYPD, this very building… Heck, I may have even served coffee to one of his people at work. Making things even worse was that the X-Men were down two people, with Craig being in a coma and Carmilla still recovering from something that happened in Phoenix that I didn't know about.

I closed my eyes and rolled them. "I feel like I'm in a K.A. Applegate series," I muttered to myself. "Maybe I should become a superhero. I'm already halfway fucking there."

I went to bed after that. I was supposed to be studying, but there was no way in hell that was happening. But, when I tried to sleep, I couldn't. I had way too much on my mind. After about an hour, I got out of bed and walked out into the kitchen. My dad wasn't there. He was probably in his room sleeping. I turned the light on in the kitchen and checked the cabinet where I kept my tea at and…

"Empty," I muttered to myself. I closed the cabinet. "Because of course it is." I then walked over to the fridge and opened it. I looked around until my eyes landed on a certain can. It was a can of Arizona. Specifically, it was African Rooibos Red Tea. I eyed it for a bit. As memories flooded my head, I closed the fridge. "Yeah, no… just no."

I went back to bed. I tried to go to sleep. And I did… three hours before I was supposed to wake up. After hearing my alarm, I slowly got out of bed, grabbed my phone and stopped my alarm. I then stood there. I felt sluggish and my brain was a bit foggy. I had to take stock of the day I was going to have. I was sure I could get through school. I was going to need some coffee before I headed out, but that was no big deal. And I was sure I could sneak in a nap here or there. Work was probably going to be a big issue. I had to hope my boss wasn't in an (extra) pissy mood today because something told me that my bullshit tolerance level was going to be quite a bit lower than it usually was.

And I didn't think my bullshit tolerance level was that high on its default setting.

"Today is going to suck," I muttered to myself. It was at this moment my cell phone rang. I looked at the screen for a few moments before I picked it up and answered the call. "Hey Betty."

"Good morning, MJ," Betty greeted. "I just wanted to call and check up on you. I've been calling everyone. Are you okay?"

"I didn't get that much sleep last night," I replied, not even having the energy to make a sarcastic comment. "I feel like I'm in zombie mode. Other than that, I guess I'm okay?"

"I didn't get that much sleep either. I probably won't be getting much sleep anytime soon."

I tilted my head. "Why not?"

"It's because of my internship with Jessica Jones. I'm guessing you heard about what's going on with Luke Cage."

I almost scoffed. "Who hasn't?"

"Well, Jessica's trying to investigate what really happened behind that situation. She doesn't believe he's responsible for it."

"I don't think anyone is. I guess the You-Know-Who's aren't the only ones having a rather bad last several days." I paused for a moment. "How's everyone else?"

"Kitty's okay, mostly. She's still pretty bummed out about what's going on with Craig. Ned is… worried."

It took me a moment to realize she didn't mention a certain name. "…What about Peter?"

"He didn't pick up. I tried to text him, but he left me on read. So, I'm going to kick his ass as soon as I see him at work today."

"I see."

"Maybe you can try talking to him?"

"I don't think that would help anything at the moment." I was talking to both her and myself when I said that. I changed the subject. "We're going to have to be very careful about how we move at school. If You-Know-Who does have his memories back from before the You-Know-What, we're going to have to be extra careful about the people we interact with outside of our circle. We'll also have to keep our heads on a swivel, like Scott said."

"I know, I know." Betty sighed. "You know, I feel like I'm in some kind of spy novel. And you know what? It's not fun. It's not fun at all."

I chuckled. "Fun went out the window for stuff like this a long time ago. Anyway, I got to go. I'll see you later on."

"Okay. Just be careful."

"You, too, Betty. Bye."

"Bye."

I ended the call. I stood there for some moments. I then started to go about getting ready for school. Once I was done, I tried to make some coffee. There was coffee grounds. I sneered in disappointment before I made my way out.

Sometime later, I was on the subway, earbuds in my ear as I drunk from a can of Monster. I didn't have my head down. Instead, as I drunk from the can, I was paying attention to any and every person that entered and exited near my part of the train car.