Michelle "MJ" Jones

The next morning, Cessily made breakfast for me. It wasn't fancy, just some Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches heated up in the microwave, along with some orange juice. With the mood I was in, I wasn't going to complain. Not that I would've complained if I was in a better mood, but… you know. After breakfast, I went and got ready for school. Cess lent me some of her clothes to wear.

We took the Subway to school. As we rode the train, I was listening to music in my headphones. I was just trying my best not to be too down about my situation. Cess told Scott about what happened at Peter Pan. Surely, he was going to have a plan, right? Logically, that should've calmed me down. After all, it was because of Scott's planning that the X-Men were able to take down (the fake) Scorpion and play Hammer for a fool. If there was anyone who'd be able to match wits with Beck, it would be Scott, right? Even with those thoughts in mind, I still couldn't bring myself to feel any amount of optimism. How could I? Peter was hospitalized and Craig was still MIA. Meanwhile, the woman who was responsible for taking down the both of them was working for Beck.

Beck had the upper hand, and damn near sickening.

We arrived at our stop. We were quiet for a bit until we reached Midtown's campus.

"We should probably tell Ned about this," Cessily said as we approached the school's front doors.

"You're right," I said. "I'm a little reluctant, though."

"Why's that?"

"When it comes to keeping cool under fire, Ned is… fifty-fifty."

Cessily scoffed. "He can't be that bad if he helped the X-Men a few times before."

She was wrong.

During lunch, Cessily was explaining everything to Ned on the rooftop as I stood a few feet away. Ned was calm at first. He had a neutral expression on his face. It was surprising to me.

"So Beck knows about me, Betty, MJ, and Peter," Ned said with a slow nod.

"Yes," Cessily confirmed.

"And he has his pre-Spell memories."

"That he does."

"He, apparently, is backed by the U.S. Government."

"Allegedly."

"Not only that, but the fiery woman is working for Beck."

"So he says."

"The same one who took down Spider-Man and Frictor."

"Yeah, that one."

"And Beck is blackmailing MJ."

"Unfortunately."

Ned glanced at me before he looked back at Cessily and continued. "And because of that, if MJ doesn't flip on the X-Men, herself, me, and the other mentioned would be arrested."

"And so would I."

"And our families would be investigated."

"Them too, yes."

"And even if we did make it through this mess without being incarcerated, we're basically going to get the post-Europe, pre-Spell Spider-Man treatment."

"…Yeah, that about sums it up."

Ned took in a breath, then let it out slowly. "…So we're fucked."

And there it is, I thought to myself.

"I didn't say that," Cessily pointed out.

"But how are we not?!" Ned demanded. "Beck has all of his pre-Spell memories! He can find us at any moment! And if that fiery woman was able to beat the brakes off of both Spider-Man and Frictor, what chance do we have?"

Cessily brought her hands up and gestured to Ned to calm down. "We still got quite a few days left. Let's just wait to see what Scott has cooked up."

Ned glared at him. "And how's he going to help?"

"I don't know, Ned. I don't know. But what I do know is that he hasn't let me down yet. He was able to turn the tables in a bad situation time and time again. So, maybe we should put our faith in him."

"She has a point," I added. Both Cess and Ned looked at me. "Look, Ned, I understand how you feel. Really, I do. But we really don't have much of a choice in the matter. And even if we did, I think Scott has shown he'd probably the best person to trust in this situation." I was talking just as much to myself as I was talking to Ned. I was trying to use logic to convince myself to put my faith in Scott handling this. Ned stared at me for some seconds. He then huffed out a breath.

"So what do we do now?" Ned said. He sounded a bit defeated.

"Just live our lives normally and wait," Cessily said. "Hopefully, during that time, Scott will have a plan, Spidey will be back on his feet, and Frictor will be found."

A thought occurred to me when Cessily mentioned Frictor, prompting me to look at Ned. "Speaking of Frictor, have you tried finding him using your sling ring, Ned?" I asked.

"I've been trying since I heard he was missing," Ned explained. "Every time I tried, the portal just opens up to some random place. Just yesterday, I made an attempt ended locking eyes with a polar bear in what I assume was some part of the Arctic."

I tilted my head in confusion. "Has that happened before?"

Ned shook his head. "No, it hasn't. It wasn't like before when I was looking for Peter and I ended up finding Peters from other universes or his clone. It's like his whereabouts are being covered by like a VPN for magic."

I took in a breath. "Of course." I shook my head. "Maybe Clea would know something about that?"

"Maybe. I'll have to see." Ned started to massage his temple with his fingers. "God, I hate this!"

"We all do," Cessily said sympathetically. "But we have to have hope."

After school was done for the day, I was walking out with Cessily. Ned decided to portal himself straight to Kamar-Taj to see if he could find answers as to why he couldn't open a portal to Craig's location, wherever that could be. Cess and I barely reached the sidewalk up front when a red SUV pulled up in front of us. I was about to panic until the window rolled down, revealing the driver to be Buford.

"Howdy," he greeted.

"Buford?" I said as I walked up to his vehicle. "What brings you here?"

"I figured I'd check up on you ladies after your uncle Erik told me about y'all's situation. I'm running errands at the moment. Want to join me?"

I looked over at Cessily, who looked at me. She shrugged. I looked back at Buford.

"…Sure."

"I call shotgun," Cessily. I glared at her.

The two of us got into his SUV. After I took my seat and closed the door, I put on my seatbelt. I looked over my shoulder to glance out the back window when I saw the many bags in the row behind me.

"Were you grocery shopping?" I asked.

"Yeah, but not for me," Buford replied. "We've been taking care of our Russian friend from Madripoor while we try to figure out a permanent living situation for him. I'm actually headed over there now. I just figured I'd stop by Midtown since I was nearby and I knew school was ending soon. So, how're you two holding up?"

I thought about the question for a moment. I then shrugged. "I'm… stable, I guess."

"It's been pretty rough the last several days, to say the least," Cessily added. "This is why I don't like getting involved into X-Men stuff."

Buford made a noise of acknowledgment. "I can't say I blame you. Ever since Scott told me the news about Beck, I've been eyeing every other officer in the precinct a lot more closely than usual. Only officer I'm really trusting is my partner Misty, and even then, I'm watching her to see if there's anything out the ordinary with her. I was even looking at her funny when she decided to grab something different for her coffee order."

I nodded. "Paranoia's a bitch, isn't it?" I commented.

"And one that keeps breeding."

"So where we headed to anyway?" Cessily asked.

Buford took a moment to adjust his rearview mirror. "We're heading to Yonkers."

Over an hour later, we were in Yonkers. We ended up at this brick house. Despite Cess and I offering help, Buford picked up all of the bags himself. I wanted to make a snarky comment about how typical it was for a guy to want to avoid the second trip, but with the way he was built, he was definitely strong enough to carry all of the bags by himself. Once we reached the door, Cessily knocked on it. As we waited, I looked up to see a camera pointing down at us. I brought my attention back to the door when I heard the sound of the lock. I didn't know who was going to be on the other side. I certainly didn't expect to see a toweromg behemoth ducking his head underneath the doorway to look down on us.

"Privet, Buford!" he greeted. He then looked at me and Cess. "You've brought friends, I see."

"Yup. Mikhail, meet Cessily and Michelle. They're connected with my other 'friends'. Michelle and Cessily, meet Mikhail. He's here on an unauthorized vacation."

Mikhail nodded towards us. "Pleased to meet you."

"The pleasure is all ours," Cessily replied.

"We came by to restock," Buford explain.

"Good," Mikhail said. "I could use some company for my meal."

About twenty minutes later, we were at the dining room table, eating borscht from bowls.

"So this is borscht," Buford commented. "I never had it before. I have to say, it's damn good."

"Thank you," Mikhail said. "I've never been much of a cook before. So, I decided to take time to learn how to cook while I'm here, starting with food from my home country."

"Well, you're definitely learning," I commented.

"Definitely," Cessily said in agreement.

"Glade you're keeping yourself busy," Buford said. "Still, I'm sorry you're stuck here. The X-Men… we've ran into major trouble."

"So I saw on the news," Mikhail replied. "Are things really that bad?"

"Spider-Man is in a medically-induced coma, Scorpion is sidelined, and Frictor is still MIA. Both Spidey and Frictor were taken down by this woman covered in fire. She seems to have a vendetta against Spidey for reasons we don't know. We're down three." Inside of my head, I was kicking myself for forgetting about Carmilla. I started to wonder how she was doing.

Mikhail nodded. "…You know, if you need help…"

"I wouldn't be opposed usually and I would suggest it to Scott. But we have you hidden for a reason. And with your height and build well… a full grown tiger would have an easier time hiding amongst a litter of black lab puppies."

It took quite a bit of effort for me not to laugh at that comparison.

After we were done eating, Buford and I were sitting in the living room, waiting for Cessily to be done helping Mikhail with the dishes.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Buford asked. I looked at him. "Just asking, because the last several days or so hasn't been kind to you."

I blinked a couple of times. I then averted my gaze. "I've been better," I said.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not really." I looked at him and frowned. "Nothing against you or anything, but had you not picked me up, I probably would've been in bed sleeping."

Buford nodded. "I get that. There have plenty of times when I've been through situations that made me go home, pour up some bourbon – neat or on the rocks, depending on how bad the day was – and just sit there to just stew while I sip slow."

I nodded towards him. "Life as a cop?"

"Yeah. It was never easy for me, and it got only harder when I transferred to New York City and ended up in Harlem. NYC was definitely different from Texarkana. It took me a lot of time to adjust. Getting acclimated to the culture and way of life was a struggle, especially in the rise in tensions between officers and the people we swore to protect. Not that I blame those people. While I'll never reach the point of believing that all cops are bastards, I've seen enough to understand why there people with that belief. After a while, I questioned if I was even built for this, let alone be ready to what I came to New York for. And that's not even considering the fact that I'm a mutant."

I nodded slowly. "…Even before Beck got into the picture, I was going through issues recently. But now that Beck is back, it seems like, lately, I've been constantly a few seconds away from crashing out."

"I hear that. Beck has us all a little rattled."

I scoffed. "Rattled? Me? No. A maraca is rattled. The trunk of a car with a custom sound system is rattled. I'm not rattled. Rattled doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling." I shook my head as I stood up. I walked away a few steps. "…I really hate Beck." I looked back at Buford, who was looking at me with raised eyebrows. "I know that 'hate' is a strong word, but I don't know if there's a better way to describe how I feel about him. Beck… Beck is smart. He's one of the smartest people on Earth. And the technology he developed is like nothing people have seen before. He could've done so much with it to help change the world for the better. He could've given his tech to schools and training facilities so students and/or trainees could learn in a realistic environment. He could have given it to hospitals – God knows a different environment could help a patient recover from what they're going through or help doctors better explain the diagnosis. At the very least, he could have changed the world of visual arts. You know how many movie studios and theatre companies would kill to have something like his holographic technology in their hands?

"But he didn't do that. He didn't do any of that. Instead, he wanted to become a hero so he could replace and outshine Tony Stark. And you know? Fine. Maybe it's not the most noble of goals. But you know what? Regardless of how selfless or selfish a hero is, if he's still saving lives on a daily basis, who am I to judge? But he was willing to kill many people, destroy large parts of a city, and manipulate a fucking high schooler to do that. And he basically ruined my life from beyond the grave before The Spell. And that's why I hate him – he had so much power to do good in this world, and yet this what he chooses to do with it. So, as far as I'm concerned, fuck Beck and everyone who's with him. The world was better off with him dead." I tilted my head. "Am I wrong to feel that way?"

Buford shook his head. "Not at all. I haven't heard one lie come out your mouth the whole time. I haven't seen anything or been told anything about Beck to even begin to say otherwise." He frowned. "Some people say power corrupts. Others say power reveals. Either way, unfortunately, power falls in the hands of the wrong people. And then the wrong people ruin things for those around them." He tilted his head briefly. "Sometimes, though, having a lot of power can be a weakness in and of itself."

I raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Back in Arkansas, I had this one piece of work for a partner. Even to this day, I never had a hating bone in my body, but goddamn if that guy didn't make me wish I had one. He was one of the main reasons I started to understand why there are people who hate law enforcement. So many times, I had to intervene because he kept creeping on women and harassing those who, according to him, 'didn't fit the profile of the area'." Hearing that made me sneer in disgust. "Yeah, I know. But one day, he harassed the wrong one. See, one day, he decided to harass this kid while he was eating inside of a Mickey D's. The problem was that kid happened to be the son of another officer in the precinct. The next day, I walked in and I was told I was assigned a new partner. As you can imagine, I was far from sad about it. Still, I'd figure I'd ask why. Chief told me that, off the record, the kid went and told his parents. And the parent who was the officer wasn't the least bit thrilled. So she pulled up to my soon-to-be ex-partner's place and had a little 'chat' of sorts. A few days later, he was forced to resign." Buford chuckled. "The thing is, sometimes people spend so much time with their nose so far up in the air that they don't really take time to look down below."

I digested what Buford told me, especially that last part. I started to get ideas.

I didn't know what Scott had cooking up. I didn't know if he was going to be able to come up with something that would get us all out of this. It knew it was likely he would – it was Scott after all. But I couldn't bring myself to wait around. It wasn't lack of faith in Scott. Well, maybe it was a little bit, but my lack of faith was due to of the pessimistic mood I was in rather than doubt in his capabilities. I've been stewing since I heard that Beck was back. The annoyance I was feeling from having to watch my back had me heating up. But the fact that Beck had the audacity… the gall… to swing by Peter Pan and blackmail me sent me well on my way to going full Jordan.

It became personal to me.