"I'm not just some girl who thinks she knows Spiderman." MJ was sitting in her living room, Mr. Stark (Ironman, her mind screamed) lounging across from her. "I'm not one of his," her nose wrinkled. "His groupies. I know him, and I know Peter."
"They're the same person." Mr. Stark was hiding it very well, but MJ could tell he was nervous. Her bursting into tears in front of him probably hadn't helped, but she had recovered quickly. She could cry more later, after they had saved Peter.
"Are they?"
Mr. Stark gave her a long, assessing look. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that sometimes, who Peter is at school is as much of a persona as Spiderman is. But you probably know him better than anyone, huh?" The glint in her eyes was purely challenging. Mr. Stark froze, and MJ could almost see the gears in his mind whirring. He carefully set down the coffee MJ had given him.
"What did he tell you?"
MJ smiled, ice and fire. "Oh, nothing really. He just confirmed some... rumors."
"I don't know what you think it is you know - "
"Don't lie to me." MJ leaned forward. "Oh, don't look like that. I'm not going to tell anyone. That would just hurt him and that's the last thing I want. I just want you to know that I'm not in this blindly. I know what's going on. And now you know that Peter - that Spiderman - trusted me enough to tell me."
"He told you as Spiderman?"
"Yup." MJ couldn't help the look of satisfaction on her face. She admired Tony Stark but he had been treating her like an idiotic naïve child and that had needed to stop.
"So, what's the plan?"
Mr. Stark paused. MJ waited expectantly. "You have a plan, right?" she asked. "I mean, to rescue Peter. You have..." she watched his face. "Some sort of an idea?"
"You were our next lead. You were the plan."
"So you really meant it when you said you had no idea where he was."
"Yes."
"None?" MJ couldn't help the look of incredulity that passed over her face. But come on! This was Ironman! She was expecting gadgets backed by the billionaire in a suit himself! Not the sad, tired man she saw before her. "That's not good enough."
"What do you know," he asked, eyes not meeting hers. "I was hoping you had more info, but no, you're a dead end like everything else."
"How do you know? It's not like you really asked me anything." And he hadn't. They'd gone over that day, briefly, the last time she saw him and the things they'd done. "You didn't ask me about my attackers, or about getting shot."
"No, I didn't. But maybe if you'd contacted the police the first time you got attacked, or even the second, the police would have been able to get some prints off you and we wouldn't be in this situation."
MJ stopped. Bit her lip. "I know," she admitted. "I keep thinking, they probably have the knife..."
"What knife?" Mr. Stark looked interested.
"The knife I was almost stabbed with," MJ said, irritated. "Are you even paying attention?"
"Right, sorry. I must have... missed that bit. You were stabbed?"
"Almost."
"Right. You were almost stabbed, but your attacker left the knife behind?"
"Peter hit it out of his hand. This was the second time he tried to stab me," MJ said. Mr. Stark makes a, "oh, of course," face, but MJ ignores him. "He said he would stick around till the police got there. I assume they took the knife?"
Mr. Stark looked angry. "You mean, this whole time, there's been a piece of evidence that probably has DNA of your attacker on it, and the police have done nothing?"
MJ shrugged. "Yeah, it sucks, but whatever. They brought the guy in, but all they could convict him on was an attempted mugging. Since he tried to stab me, they brought out the case of assault, but the laws are all freaky around superheroes. Peter's testimony wouldn't have counted as much as a police officers, and they couldn't get a hold of him anyways. I... didn't count as much, either."
"That's bullshit," Mr. Stark growled.
"Language," MJ, smiling. "And yeah, it is. It sucks. But right now, we need to focus on Peter, okay? He could be dying right now. Do you really think that guy could be working with the kidnappers? I mean, the police arrested him. He's on file, and you didn't know anything about it? That's really weird...Oh."
"It could be a cover up."
"By the police? But why would they want that? You've seen the reports. Crime has risen exponentially since Spiderman went missing. And he doesn't even cover that large of an area."
"It's the fear factor," Mr. Stark said. "It makes people think before they do something. Spiderman isn't everywhere, but he could happen to be where they are. Not to mention that most people, criminals or no, like the idea of superheroes. They don't want to be caught by them, to be a criminal in their eyes."
"I never thought about it like that," MJ said. "But I still don't understand why someone in the police force would want Spiderman gone. For the most part," she said, "I like the police. They do good work, and you guys couldn't do what you do, y'know, saving the universe or whatever, without them."
"No, you are right," Mr. Stark said. "I don't really get it either. But it doesn't make sense. I should have had access to these files. I should have known all of this by now, but someone doesn't want me to. Someone who is either in the police, or working very closely with them."
"So what's the next step? Where do we go from here?"
"I have some calls to make. Hopefully now that I know this, we'll be able to find Peter." He looked her in the eyes. "I know that it's a long shot that that guy knows anything. But it's more than we had before."
MJ nodded. "I know. So... what can I do?"
Mr. Stark stood up. "You've helped a lot, but I don't want to involve you any further. No, don't argue - you've already been shot because of this. And you're just a child."
"But Peter - "
"Peter has superpowers. You don't."
Mr. Stark moved towards the door, leaving her with one last, "I'll call you, okay? I'll make sure you're kept in the loop."
"Okay," MJ muttered, but Mr. Stark had already pulled the door shut. She was alone.
********
It had been 3 weeks, 2 days and 8 hours since Peter had been kidnapped.
3 weeks, 2 days and 8 hours in which MJ couldn't breathe, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't do anything but stare at the wall and feel the guilt press down on her.
Mr. Stark hadn't called her.
She'd gotten a short and to-the-point email from someone named Happy Hogan, who she was pretty sure was Mr. Starks driver and also maybe his head of security? It just said that they were following up on some leads and were pretty hopeful about finding Peter, whatever that meant.
And MJ had nothing to do but sit there and twiddle her thumbs like a loser.
She should be out there helping them.
But Mr. Stark would never let her. To him, she was just a useless child. She ignored the voice in the back of her head that said she probably would be pretty useless in a hostage situation. That she wouldn't really have any skills to contribute to saving Peter.
That didn't matter. At least she would be doing something. Instead of what she was doing right now, which was drinking a lot of tea and feeling very anxious.
She was still jumpy, and had taken some time off school after what her parents had deemed "the Incident" - she had punched a boy in the face after he had "snuck up" on her. In reality, she had been standing, zoned out, by her locker, and he had asked her if she was okay. The fact that she had been having a flashback was unfortunate and not her fault, but everyone had agreed some time at home would be best.
So she was sitting there, tea in hand, contemplating what to do now that her schoolwork was over, when the doorbell rang.
She froze.
She didn't remember putting down her tea, but she must have, because the next thing she knew she was standing at the door.
Happy Hogan was standing there, and he was smiling.
MJ held onto the doorframe. She felt suddenly like the wife of a sailor or a soldier, being told whether her husband's mission had gone successfully.
"We found the kid," he said, and it was like something came loose in her chest.
"Oh god," she said, and "thank-you, thank-you!"
"He's beat up pretty bad. The boss is in the hospital with him. I brought the car around, if you want to come see him?"
"I - yes, if you're sure, yes -" suddenly MJ was unaccountably shy.
"He asked after you," Happy said, voice soft. "When he first regained consciousness. He wanted to make sure you made it out of the fire okay."
MJ felt the tears in her eyes, and she wiped them on her sleeve impatiently. "Okay."
"Let's go," Happy said.
MJ couldn't believe it was really over. Peter was safe. She was safe.
It was all over.
Okay, hi, so it's late and I'm tired but I wanted to post today. I wanted this to be the last but obviously I have to have a cute scene with them in the hospital so I will probably write that tomorrow!
Love you all.
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