Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to Spider-Man blah blah blah.

Birds of a Feather

Graduation is a blur of tears and unfounded nostalgia and fear. Two months later, so is Gwen Stacy's funeral.

It is jarring to be reunited with her high school classmates so early after their departure from each other. Even in these two past months, which have been more brutal on MJ than any months she can remember, she has distanced herself so much from them: from their happy futures and their proud families and their nitpicking over class schedules and roommate assignments. In high school she always felt a little misplaced among her peers and the short separation of these past few weeks has only served to widen the chasm between herself and them.

More than anything, Gwen's death terrifies her. Gwen, who was smart and motivated, who had more of a chance of making something of herself than anyone at Midtown: dead.

The terror of it distracts, however briefly, from everything else. From the salty, hot taste of her own panic warm between her teeth, from the knot in her stomach that tightens with each passing day, from the ache of bracing her fists, her knees, her ankles against the complete and utter uncertainty of her situation.

Two days before the power outage, before the attack of the genetically altered madman they all call Electro, MJ's father had been evicted from their old home in Queens. She came home from a promotional gig out of state to find the place emptied, and hasn't heard from her father since.

"What was she even doing there?" asks Liz, her throat clogged with tears.

MJ doesn't cry. She is too tired, too scared, to afford any emotions. She keeps the grief at bay by standing still, by holding her breath, by forcing herself to look up at the blaringly bright sun instead of looking at the streaming eyes of her classmates.

She is surprised to hear Flash's voice in response: "She was helping Spider-Man," he says, with the same reverence for her that he usually only reserves for the man in the mask.

They all shift uneasily in the mud, watching as Gwen's mother and her too many brothers cry in front of the closed casket.

They are not old enough, not equipped enough to deal with tragedy. For most of them it's the first funeral they've ever attended, and the shock of it is still more profound than the sadness, which she is sure will endure and then ebb at them for years to come. MJ can barely remember her own mother's funeral, can barely remember crying even then. It seems like sadness is something that grew inside of her a little bit every year, like a childhood phase she never outgrew.

People are talking about Gwen but MJ isn't listening. She's remembering their junior year, the year Gwen spent tutoring her in trigonometry – how patient she was, how committed. Most of the teachers had given up on MJ by then. She couldn't blame them. She had other things on her mind and did a poor job of disguising it.

But Gwen wouldn't give up on her. MJ never had a chance to properly thank her for that – for the faith that she had in her, however undeserved.

She feels a tear slide down her face and touches her cheek in surprise. It feels like there is something leaking out of her, and it could be her grief, it could be her terror, it could be anything, but she can't stop it.

People are shuffling around her now. The proceedings are over. MJ glances around, wishing she had thought to say hello to somebody, uncertain who she should follow and suddenly too self-conscious to walk out of here alone.

She stands there for a while, maybe longer than she should. She sees Peter Parker standing just beyond the grave, a few paces behind Gwen's family. His face is stone-like, his posture ramrod still, and yet his despair is so evident that it seems to make the air around him heavier with its burden.

He looks older to her now than he ever has. Like he has crossed into some unreachable realm of grief that she herself cannot fathom.

They had been friends once. Before high school, before braces and bra shopping and leg shaving and all the other small but steady things that separated girls from boys in their teenage years. She is struck with the memory of standing on a subway platform, Harry on one side of her, Peter on the other, on a class field trip to Central Park. She remembers the feeling of being anchored between the two of them, the comfort of her Velcro sneakers and her well-worn overalls and knowing that she had the two of them even if sometimes it felt like she had nothing to look forward to at all.

When Harry moved away she and Peter tried earnestly to stay friends, not just with each other but with Harry, too. But Harry never returned a single one of their letters, and then the summer before high school there was an almost imperceptible shift that changed everything. It was about the time her father took a turn for the worse, about the time MJ started hanging out with the other drama kids and starving herself to fit in, and Peter Parker was the last thing on her mind.

She aches for that little boy now. For his goofy smile and his biting remarks, for the way he used to make fun of the bows in her pigtails and force them to listen to his offbeat mix tapes and poke her bedroom window with a stick if he suspected she was sleeping in on a school day.

They have all been touched by tragedy now. Her mother, Peter's uncle, Harry's father. Gwen. They are eighteen and newly orphaned in their own fashions. She has never thought too much about it, but it makes sense that the three of them found each other as early as they did. There would always be something that connected them, a darkness, an uncertainty, some deep-seated longing for something that they could never quite place.

She turns away from him just as his chest shudders with an unsounded sob. He loved her. She has never seen anyone love more fiercely than he and Gwen did; she remembers how they all laughed and catcalled when he made out with her on the stage at graduation and the memory of it seems so distant from the present that she almost smiles, almost forgets why they are here and what they are mourning.

She can't linger here. She says her silent goodbye to Gwen, her silent thank you to one of the few true friends she had in her otherwise misguided time spent at Midtown Science.

And then she turns and leaves the graveyard without looking back.

There is a reception somewhere, but MJ doesn't attend. She doesn't think she can stand talking to the other kids. Most of them are headed to college, or have jobs lined up, or families they can lean on until they know what they're doing.

MJ doesn't have any of that, and doesn't even have an excuse. She applied to college, but her father never filed taxes and the FAFSA never went through. She scraped an acceptance into Empire State but what did it matter if she couldn't even get loans?

She thought maybe it was a sign that she should focus on auditioning in the city, that she should just skip college altogether in favor of finding her big break. Up until a few weeks ago she was fine. She was living at home despite the near constant verbal onslaught from her alcoholic father, supporting herself with waitressing and promotional gigs, auditioning every time she got the chance.

But then the eviction warnings came. She tried everything she could to rouse her father to save the house and after spending every penny she had to her name and forcing him to contact someone who could help him manage his debt, she thought she might have succeeded: but now she was both broke and entirely, devastatingly wrong.

She takes a bus back into Manhattan. It drops her off at Port Authority and she opens her wallet to find thirty dollars and some change. She thinks she might cry, but when she opens her mouth a laugh croaks out of her throat, dry and unseemly. She stands to the side of the crowd bustling through, her hair greasy and unshowered, her skin crawling, her most important worldly possessions all crammed into a duffel bag and a backpack.

She is out of options. For the last two nights she's been staying in hostels, but now it is official: she has nowhere to go.

She wastes two of the precious dollars on a bagel, and then sits in the terminal eating it as slowly as she can, just so she can have some place she belongs, some place she is allowed to sit, for another few minutes. She imagines sleeping in Central Park. She wouldn't. She couldn't. But it's going to be night soon, and she is out of practical options.

There are homeless shelters, she knows that. But who would believe her if she showed up at their doorstep? In her nicely-fitted black funeral dress and flats and a curling iron in her backpack. Even if they let her stay, all her stuff would be stolen before sunup. She isn't an idiot.

There isn't a person in the world she can call, either. Her phone provider cut off service to her cell months ago anyway. She knows she has an aunt living somewhere in Pennsylvania, but she has no means to contact her. She could try Flash, but Flash's parents were never subtle about their disdain for her while the two of them were dating and besides, today of all days she couldn't possibly face him or anyone else from school.

She leaves Port Authority and wanders toward midtown, walking aimlessly, not even realizing until she's practically at the front gates that she has wandered back to their high school. She sees a few kids lingering outside, getting out of their summer classes, and feels a sudden pang of regret. Why was she so eager to leave?

She walks past the campus, her duffel heavier with every block. It's stiflingly hot, even as the sun sinks lower into the sky, threatening her with the passage of time and her complete indecision about what to do next. Her hair is sticky with sweat, plastered to the back of her neck, dripping at her hairline. She has to sit down.

"Mary Jane Watson?"

She turns at the sound of her own name, instantly shamed by the glamour of the girl talking to her. Her hair is perfectly coiffed, her skin glowing, her posture assured. One swift, unconscious glance of her is all it takes for MJ to envy everything else, from her hip-hugging pencil skirt to her smart pointed heels.

The woman's smile is condescending and reserved, but there is some warmth in it. "You're a difficult young woman to track down. I've been looking for you all week."

MJ tries to smile back. "Who are you?"

The woman is unaffected by MJ's bluntness. "Felicia," she says, extending her hand for MJ to shake. It's cold to the touch. "Personal assistant to Harry Obsorn."

"Harry?" She is so delirious with heat and exhaustion that she wonders if she has misheard this alarmingly well-dressed person. "You know Harry?"

She nods curtly, with exaggerated patience. "I work for him. Are you free right now?"

MJ almost laughs in her face. They both know if she said anything otherwise it would be a bold-faced lie. "Yeah. Is Harry around? Did he—did he want to see me?"

"Harry's out of the country at the moment," says Felicia. "I've come here on his behalf. He has a favor to ask of you."

"Of me?"

There's a sharp pinging noise and Felicia pulls out a phone so contemporary and state-of-the-art that MJ has never seen a model like it before. She holds up a finger to silence MJ, something that MJ would ordinarily not take to kindly, but she is so bewildered she can't even think to react. Felicia raises her eyebrows and finishes typing something before turning her attention back to MJ.

"Yes, of you. The car is right over there. We can discuss it in my office at OsCorp."

MJ feels uneasy and almost tells her no right then and there. She may be desperate to get off the streets right now, but it isn't worth getting into a car with a complete stranger for some ambiguous favor so she can have maybe ten minutes of air-conditioning and this stiletto-wearing beauty queen judging her for looking like the homeless person she is.

But she remembers Harry. Not the Harry she's seen in pictures, gallivanting with super models and popping champagne bottles at museum openings or even the Harry she saw solemnly standing in a procession at his father's funeral. She remembers the Harry who lost his two front teeth at the same time in first grade and taught her to play poker and always shared his lunch whenever she forgot money for it at home.

She swallows her shame and looks toward the sleek black Lincoln town car. "Okay."

Felicia's office is every bit as sleek and intimidating as she is. The room is not necessarily wide, but expansive, with high arching walls and ceilings made entirely of glass. There is so little in the way of furniture – one sharp-edged glass desk, two chairs, a locked cabinet in the corner – that MJ can't help but wonder what exactly Felicia's function is at OsCorp.

She searches the room for some clues, like a nameplate that might say her full name or a document, but she doesn't see it anywhere and she's too embarrassed to ask now.

Felicia gestures to the glossy chair that faces her desk. "Sit, sit," she says to MJ.

MJ obeys, trying to be graceful about setting all of her stuff down on the floor as she does it. With her sweat and grime and disheveled luggage she is a sharp and ugly contrast to the room and its owner.

Felicia sits, and gives MJ another tight-lipped, calculating smile. There is an indistinct pause and MJ wonders if she should say something just to fill the silence, but then Felicia says, "Harry tells me you're an actress."

"Well," MJ blurts. She feels her face growing hot. She wonders how Harry would even know that. Has he been keeping tabs on her? Or did he just assume from the ballet recitals and after school choirs of yesteryear that she would eventually get pushed in that direction? "Kind of. Yes. I mean – I want to be, I haven't done anything professional."

"Right," says Felicia, and the way her eyes are fixed on MJ's she can tell that Felicia already knows this, that she might know a lot more than she has indicated so far. "So you don't have any college plans?"

MJ purses her lips, her legs chafing as she adjusts herself in this too rigid chair. "No. Why?"

"You applied out of school, though, didn't you?"

"Yes," says MJ, trying not to sound defiant. She can't help but add: "And I got in. To Empire State." She doesn't want this smug woman to think that she's completely inadequate, even though she may look it right now.

The smile on Felicia's face doesn't waver for a moment. MJ wonders what it's like to be so self-assured, to be so confident of her place in the world. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

MJ's brows knit. "College? Harry wanted to talk to me about college?"

She's almost insulted. Of all the things Harry wanted to talk to her about, it was her obvious shortcomings? Why wouldn't he talk to her himself, why wouldn't he reach out? After all the letters she sent, the emails she and Peter wrote, and not a word from him. For the better part of a decade.

She shakes her head, and before Felicia can reply, she says, "You know, I haven't seen Harry in like ten years. I'm not sure if he even –"

"No, he was quite specific with me," says Felicia, somehow managing to overpower MJ without raising her voice so much as one decibel. "He cares about you, you know. He says he deeply regrets losing touch with you, but that his father forbade him from associating with his old friends when he left."

MJ feels her eyes narrowing. "If Harry regrets it so deeply then why can't he tell me all of this himself?"

Felicia nods as if in understanding. "He's a busy man now, as you can imagine. He did tell me to give you this."

She holds up an envelope; "Mary Jane" is written on the back in sloppy cursive. But she doesn't give it to MJ quite yet.

"You might be aware of the scholarship program here at OsCorp," she says, tapping on the clear glass of her desk. To MJ's surprise some sort of interface pops up on the desk with the OsCorp web page. Felicia taps it again and the image widens, a picture of ethnically diverse college students smiling with ridiculously perfect teeth. "A scholarship from OsCorp would provide full tuition, as well as room and board."

MJ shakes her head. "That's nice." She looks away from the screen. "I didn't apply."

"Yes, but you do qualify."

MJ laughs out loud at this. "How do you figure? I'm not – I hate science, no offense," she says, gesturing vaguely to the entire building, "and my grades weren't exactly stellar – "

"OsCorp is expanding its scholarship program to support the arts," says Felicia evenly. "And besides, your standardized testing scores more than qualify you for –"

"Wait, what? How do you have access to –"

"Empire State's records are all accessible to OsCorp through our affiliation with the school. That has been the case for years," says Felicia easily.

"You said he needed a favor," says MJ, without missing a beat.

Felicia allows herself one small chuckle. "Smart woman. You get right to the point, don't you?"

"We have that in common, I see," says MJ, whose nerves are possibly more strung out now than they were when the bus dropped her off a few hours ago.

Felicia clasps her hand together and the interface on the desk disappears. "Maybe 'favor' is the wrong word," says Felicia, plucking the envelope and running her fingers along the crease of the paper. "He's particularly concerned about a mutual friend of yours. Peter Parker, I believe?"

MJ feels the familiar knot in her stomach tighten at the sound of his name, intensified by an abstract brand of guilt. "Peter?"

Felicia nods solemnly. It is evident that she knows about the circumstances, and it occurs to MJ for the first time since she walked onto OsCorp property that it's likely that Felicia might have known Gwen herself.

"Harry tried to reach out to Peter without much success. He's worried about him. The only favor he asks is that you try to reconnect with him."

MJ considers this for a few moments. There is something vaguely offensive about being told to be a better friend by this woman she has never met, this woman who knows nothing of her history with either of the boys but sees fit to start advising her on how to handle them. But MJ can't necessarily rationalize being angry with Felicia for doing her job.

Finally she says, "That doesn't sound like Peter. He wouldn't ignore Harry. He's not like that."

"I understand you and Peter haven't been very close in the past few years. Is it possible he might have changed?"

MJ feels her cheeks heating in frustration. "No." She grabs her duffel bag. Something is wrong here – she can't say what it is, but she feels it gnawing in her gut, impossible to ignore. "Thank you, but no thank you. I don't need the scholarship. And if I get in touch with Peter it will be on my own terms."

"The scholarship isn't conditional," Felicia assures her. "The funding has already gone through. You would have received an e-mail this afternoon, had you been able to access it."

She blinks, afraid that she will spill over like a chipped cup. If it's true, it's almost too much to fathom. She hasn't felt any semblance of safety in such a long time. She can't trust it, especially when it comes voiceless and faceless from a person in a past lifetime.

Felicia rises from the desk and offers MJ the letter. "Read it," she says. If she has been at all irritated by MJ's attitude then she is doing a marvelous job of hiding it. "I'll be in touch on Harry's behalf again soon."

MJ accepts the letter warily. "Does he not want to talk to me himself?"

"Read the letter," says Felicia again, more firmly this time. "I'll show you out. Oh, and Miss Watson?"

"Yeah?" says MJ, slipping the letter into her purse.

"Be sure to get to campus housing before they close tonight. They'll have the key to your dorm room."

MJ's lungs feel concave as she exhales a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, shaking with her mingling sense of foreboding and relief. For a moment the rest of it doesn't matter. The mysterious absence of Harry, the letter in her purse; the grief heavy on Peter's shoulders and the eviction notice nailed to her front door; none of it. She has a place to sleep. And right now that's all she can ask for.

She should thank Felicia. This woman might have just helped save her life. But the elevator doors slide shut and MJ is left standing alone, plummeting fifty floors back down to the bottom, wondering how long she will be haunted by the ghosts of people she used to know.

... I'm back (help).