The thing about being friends with Peter Parker is that you meet a lot of interesting people along the way, so really the whole thing is kind of his fault.

The whole process was surprisingly easy. All Michelle Jones had to do was just never go away and Peter and Ned would end up drawing her into conversations. It happened so smoothly that part of her wonders if the two of them were looking for more friends themselves. When Peter had invited her over to his apartment with Ned the first time, she felt like maybe she was turning a corner in her life.

Homecoming night was roughly a little over 5 months ago now, which seems like an eternity at times. She had always been fairly certain that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, but to her surprise he had brought it up directly with her and told her shortly before the winter break from school. When asked why, all he would say was that he had gotten some advice, that she was his friend, and that she deserved to know. She's not entirely sure what led up to that, but she's not complaining. The feeling of being trusted so much was nice and well, maybe she's got just a little bit of a crush on him.

It's March now of her sophomore year in high school and Michelle has just come out of a movie theater with Peter and Ned mid-day on a weekend. They were a bit farther away from home than normal, but the two boys insisted on checking out a brand new theater that people were raving about. She had to admit, it was a really nice place. Exiting, the girl rolls her eyes at Peter and Ned's excited chatter about the dumb action movie they just watched. She liked it too, but she'll never tell them that.

"We're heading back to your place now, right MJ? You said there wouldn't be anyone around," Ned asks. "Actually, I don't think I've ever met your parents before. Where are they?"

It's an innocent question, but it stings more than it should. Michelle's parents travel together. A lot. As in they are gone far more often than they are at home. At best she'll see them for one or two days a week. This absence is the primary cause of her love of reading – it's an escape from the loneliness. It's also the cause however for her reclusive tendencies. When she was alone, she closed further in on herself rather than reaching out so Peter and Ned are the first real friends she's ever had.

Her parents aren't cruel people by any means, they're just not around. They provide for her just fine (even if she has to do a lot of shopping herself), but it's quiet. They know she's smart and expect incredible things from her. They push and push to see her study harder and do better in school because they want to see her get into a great college (ideally Harvard) and have a good career, but it feels hollow. In the limited time she gets to spend with them, they spend most of that time focusing on her grades rather than how she's actually doing or what's new in her life. She wonders if they care.

Nearing the street, Michelle can see Peter narrowing in his eyes at a road sign before recognition seems to flicker and maybe a hint of excitement – Bleecker Street. Quickly, Peter grabs out his phone and sends a text. A few moments later he gets a response and his eye light up light the sun. He pulls Ned and Michelle away from the crowds an into an alley before he shares the news.

"Guys, guys! There is a real wizard who lives around here that I met recently. Want to go meet him? I just asked if I could introduce you two to him."

Ned of course reacts first by breathing out, "A wizard. Meeting a wizard. That's like, top 10 coolest sentences of all time. Of course we have to go!"

Michelle's not sure how in the world this is her life, but she shrugs and goes along with it.

The building that Peter takes them to is surprisingly normal, and blends in fairly well aside from a very unique, large, circular window on the top floor. Inside, waiting for them, is a man dressed in a red cloak and blue robes.

"Welcome back Mr. Parker. Good to see you again." He nods towards Peter and then reaches out his hand to acknowledge the others, "And you two must be his friends he mentioned. My name is Dr. Stephen Strange. Welcome to the Sanctum Sanctorum."

Michelle reaches out first to shake his hand, but finds his hands are shaking themselves uncontrollably. Huh. "Michelle Jones. How exactly did you two meet?"

"There was a dragon that had somehow found its way here. Mr. Parker helped me detain it so that I could send it home."

Okay. That sounds pretty absurd, but Peter is scratching his head with a sheepish pride so it must be true. Squinting her eyes, the girl comments, "I feel like I would have heard about it in the news."

"I had moved it into a different dimension so that it would not damage the real world. Mr. Parker had accidentally stumbled his way inside too, but I cannot deny that he was a good help." And wow. That's a little too crazy. Time to check out of that conversation. Nodding, Michelle wanders away while Ned is in pure awe about how amazing that sounded.

She finds herself walking over to a small bookshelf along the wall. The books are all unmarked, but they look older than anything she's ever seen before. She pulls one out and begins flipping through it. It's entirely handwritten in English and phenomenally well maintained considering its apparent age. Looking back to Strange, it's obvious that Ned is being a little overwhelming by the tinge of annoyance on his face so she tries to save him for a moment.

She calls out to him, "How old are all these?" She points to the shelf.

"Depends on which one, but they range from about 150 – 3000 years old. The one you are holding is on the more recent side. I believe it's a translated copy that was made when the Mystic Arts began attracting other nationalities."

The opportunity to read something like this is too great to pass up so she goes for it, "Can I borrow this?" She waves the book up. At Strange's disbelieving look, she quickly defends herself, "I'll bring it back next weekend. If I don't, just take it out on Peter. He can probably take it."

"MJ, that's mean," Peter pouts.

The man seems to not be offended, but rather surprised that the question was actually asked. Maybe he just doesn't have guests very often. After a minute of thought, he comes over to the shelf and grabs a second book to give to her. "Take both of them. They should get you started."

When they left, she wondered what he meant by "started".

Over the weekend Michelle finds herself completely absorbed into the book she had grabbed off Strange's shelf. It's a biography about a man named Agamotto. Apparently, he was an incredibly powerful sorcerer from thousands of years ago. The story discusses nearly all of his life before concluding at the creation the Masters of the Mystic Arts and establishing their first home at Kamar-Taj. When she finishes, she finds herself disappointed and wanting more because it reminded her of some of the best fantasy novels she'd ever read. Seeing that it was getting late however, she decides to save the second book for the next day.

At the lunch table during school, she pulls out the next book to read. She flips through one page, two pages, three. Confused, she skips around and opens to random sections. Michelle blinks rapidly a few times.

"This isn't in English." Well, that's going to make things hard.

Ned appropriately gets excited, "Whoa, really? Let me see, MJ!" Michelle passes the book over to him and he holds it like it's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. Faintly, she can hear him whisper, "Wizard book," in awe when he opens it. Her eyes roll so hard that it actually hurts.

He can't seem to make sense of it either. Most pages are filled with depictions of the human body in various positions, but without being able to read the text, it's hard to make out what it's supposed to be for. As Ned flips through some pages, Peter leans over and points at one of the pictures.

"Hey, wait. That looks familiar. I don't remember where from, but I know I've seen something like this before." Peter is also pretty baffled. Ned lays the book down on the table so all three of them can look at it.

Suddenly, it strikes Ned as to why. "I know where from! I've seen these in a yoga book that my Mom has!"

Michelle flips through a few more pages. In that light, all of the drawings make more sense and could definitely be interpreted as some kind of stretching instructions. "Are you telling me that a sorcerer gave me an ancient yoga manual?" she asks, baffled. They all get a good laugh out of it.

She still does all of the exercises shown from the book during her gym period for fun. Ned thinks it's hilarious and she certainly won't complain about the appreciative looks Peter subtly gives her while she does it.

That night her parents come back home and they all watch a movie together. It feels strange, being with them. Like they're just roommates who occasionally see each other instead of being a mother, father, and daughter. They check up on her grades and go off to bed, but they're gone again the next morning.

On some of her more depressing nights, she wonders if this is all that love is.

The next weekend, she goes back to the Sanctum to return to the books she was given. Without asking any questions, Strange offers her two more in exchange. Intrigued, she agrees.

The new pair of books are about chakras and an introduction to other dimensions.

Right. As if this is something that real people actually do and talk about. The yoga manual from before makes more sense now, but she can't take the theories about chakra seriously since they don't line up with anything she's ever learned about the human body. She goes to a STEM school so she's going to lean towards hard medical science, but it doesn't stop her from finishing the book and keeping notes on what she's learned. The information on other dimensions is one of the most incredible things she's ever read, but again it isn't something she can associate with the real world. She mentions this problem one weekend.

"Do you have any visuals on what the other dimensions look like? The book was rather vague in its descriptions."

Dr. Strange takes a long, analyzing look at her before pulling over a chair and responding, "I believe I can help you with that. This was done to me when I first started, but I will try to be more gentle."

"Um."

Nervous, Michelle sits down and looks up at Strange fearfully. He puts a thumb on her forehead and pushes.

What follows is a series of sights and sounds more intense than any dream she's ever had as she flies through space and time in other dimensions. More intense than what she imagines any drug could ever give her. It's not something she will ever be able to describe to anyone else. When she comes crashing back down into her chair, all she can do is gaze blankly in front of her.

"Oh," she squeaks out in a small voice.

Michelle gets up and leaves with her newest pair of books.

The cycle continues. Nearly every weekend she makes the trek out to see Strange and swap out her books and frequently they'll discuss the topics inside. The volumes progressively get older and older and soon enough they stop being in English at all. She can't even tell what language they're in, but eventually identifies it as Sanskrit after some research. Without a reasonable way to learn the language in a short time, she looks to more modern solutions – a Google Translate app to instantly translate any text in a photo. It makes the whole process much more of a pain, but it's exciting in a way. Like she's decoding secret information.

The newest book describes the manner in which you draw energy from yourself and from other dimensions. It discusses the mental state, the motions, and other requirements. Then it even spends a couple hundred pages explaining in fine detail why it works that way via a mashup of the various eastern mysticism teachings that she's been reading so far.

Giggling in her own embarrassment, she amuses herself by spending the night practicing drawing energy in and pretending she was a powerful sorceress.

"Michelle, if I remember right you are nearing the end of your school year."

It's the middle of May now and she's back in the Sanctum to do her weekly trading of books, but this time Strange has nothing to offer her. It feels stupid all things considered, but she's worried that he's about to cut her off.

"Yeah," she begins slowly. "Next week is finals week."

Strange contemplates the information for a moment. "As you may have suspected, I no longer have any new books to offer you. The next section of material you should be doing is more... practically oriented instead of theory based. Instead I'd like to ask you some questions." He gestures over to a couple nearby chairs and sits down. Feeling a bit nervous, she follows him.

"When I myself was first starting on this path, someone once told me 'Kamar-Taj is a place that collects broken things' Now, the man who said it was crazy and died a horrible death after he submitted his life to the Dark Dimension, but what he said was quite accurate. Everyone who has gone to Kamar-Taj to learn the Mystic Arts was broken in either a literal or metaphorical sense. I have seen men with their spine broken learn to walk again through it and I have seen others use it to escape their past and try to find new purpose." Strange leans forward towards her. "Why exactly are you here?"

The girl can't help but feel that maybe she's suddenly gotten in a little over her head. Unsure what to say, she remains silent.

"Are you in trouble or running away from something?" he presses.

"No! No, no. I'm not in trouble or anything," she replies nervously. What's going on?

"Bad grades?"

"I'm currently on pace for valedictorian," she says confidently, before answering his original question with a more uncertain voice, "The material is... interesting I guess. I have fun reading it." What else could she say?

"Interesting?" Strange asks.

"Interesting."

He leans back in his chair before making some kind of decision, "Interesting enough to want to try it yourself? With your summer vacation coming up, I believe we will have time."

"What." There's no possible way she just heard that right.

In response he just cocks an eyebrow.

"I'm a high school student. I can't do magic." What in the hell is he thinking? Does he not realize what he's saying? Don't these guys go fight dangerous monsters or something?

"And? Didn't you just tell me you were at the top of your class?"

"Uh, do you see any fireballs coming out of these hands?" Michelle feels like they are having two different conversations. He seems to be acting as though...

Strange seems a little confused as well, "Did you not read the books I provided? They should have laid the foundational theory on how to do so yourself. In our previous discussions, you've even told me that you have been completing the exercises to train your spirit."

That's technically true, but magic isn't something you just learn and do. Right? Even though she knows things like the multiverse are real due to the "guided tour" he sent her on, she has trouble making that connecting line between herself and magic. Even the tour of the multiverse is something she can't associate with herself. She's literally been to other dimensions and researched about them, but simply cannot see it as being something people actually do. Perhaps meeting Dr. Strange was a bad idea so she makes a decision to find a way out of this.

She tries to make her voice sound as apologetic as possible, "I'm sorry, but I don't believe this is something I can do. I don't want to waste both of our time and end up with nothing to show for it." She gets up to leave. "Thank you for the offer. It's been fun, but I think this is my stop." And it has been fun, really, but she knew it had to come to an end eventually.

"Humor me for a moment," Michelle stops, but doesn't turn around so Strange keeps speaking, "I'd like to make you a deal. You said you wanted to go to Harvard right? I went to school there myself and my name still carries a lot of weight so I might be able to help you there. If you stay and train here with me, I'll throw my backing behind you in admissions"

Okay, that's actually a really attractive offer even if it feels a little dirty, She may be at the top of her class in a nationally ranked school, but her hopes of getting into Harvard still seem out of reach at times. She knows exactly who Strange is after looking him up the first time she met him and a recommendation from him (or whatever strings he thinks he could pull) could be quite influential.

"Even though I won't be able to do it?" She needs to confirm that.

"Yes," he nods, "even if nothing comes of it."

Oh, Michelle, what are you doing you stupid girl? "Deal."

Studying for finals is a fantastic way to avoid thinking about things that keep you up at night. Tonight's topic for Michelle to suppress is thinking about the future. There's a saying "Do what you love, and you'll never work another day in your life", but she wonders what you're supposed to do if you don't know what you love. Part of her is glad that her parents push her so hard to go to Harvard because it's a hard goal that she can work towards and it buys her time to learn more about what she wants for herself.

Michelle hopes she figures it out someday. All she wants is to live a life where she's happy.

She comes back the Monday after finals week. It's now near the end of May.

Dr. Strange passes her a small item, "This is a sling ring. Using it, you can conjure portals to travel the dimensions." Michelle is unimpressed. It looks like a bad set of brass knuckles that were broken to only fit on two fingers. She puts it on anyway.

He goes on with the lecture, "In addition to its usefulness, it is also one of the easiest things to learn. I will demonstrate." With a wave of his hands he draws a circle and a hole in space appears before her. On the other side is Mt. Everest.

"What."

Having a social life with real friends and tons of time off school is nice, Michelle finds. Most of the Decathlon team stays close knit and even arranges meetups for lunch every couple weeks. She makes sure to glare at each one of them and demands they keep practicing, but her heart feels light. Her days are filled with more terrible movies and television than ever before, but she doesn't mind. Even just lying on the floor and listening to Peter's horrible Spotify playlist while they talk about absolutely anything at all is a good memory.

The decision to not tell Peter and Ned about her time training with Dr. Strange is an easy one because frankly, the idea that she's being bribed to wave her hands around in the air for three months is embarrassing.

A month passes and she continues to show up at the Sanctum four times a week for a few hours in the morning. The trip takes nearly an hour, but she doesn't mind so much since she gets to spend the time reading or sketching on the subway (there are endless people in crisis on the subway).

"Hmm," Strange muses as he circles around her. "It seems you are doing everything correctly, and yet you are failing to draw the energy required. I suspect it may be a psychological issue. Can you think of any reason why this may not be working?" It's nice in a way, how he handles her failure. The way he speaks is that he is genuinely confused as to why it's not working. As if he honestly believes she should be able to do this.

Of course, Michelle knows exactly why it's not working. Magic is not a thing normal people do and Michelle is a normal girl. She explicitly told him this when he offered to teach her so she's not sure why he's so surprised. All of the books she has read over the past few months were fascinating, but she has trouble accepting them as real. In her mind, she treats them like an expanded lore book to a massive fantasy world. A world where the multiverse exists. A world that's not the real world. It's something that she probably should tell Strange, but there isn't exactly a nice way to say "By the way, I've only been pretending to accept everything I've been reading".

"Again," the sorcerer commands.

She'd much rather be doing meditation exercises. At least those were relaxing.

"Again."

Feeling herself start to drift off into daydreams, she closes her eyes and imagines a fantasy world where magic is real. Slowly, Michelle adds layer after layer to this world as she fits in everything she's read about the human spirit and the multiverse. Once all of it was put together, she places herself in the world as a sorceress in training. Perhaps she's in a building just like the Sanctum. She wonders what it must be like to cast a spell.

"Again."

She moves her hands, but something's different now. There's resistance on her hands as if she's dragging it along something and it's making a noise like a small fire crackling at night. Before she can complete the hand motions, she's broken from her daydream and opens her eyes to see what's going on. About four feet in front of her is 3/4ths of a large circle made of pure orange light. It's constantly showering in sparks like fireworks.

What the fuck.

Shocked, she drops her hands and the light instantly fades. Looking to Strange, Michelle finds him remaining silent and staring intently at her.

Did I just, Did I, Did I, Did I-

"I need," she stammers out, "I need, I need to go." She grabs her things and races out of the building.

She doesn't go back to the Sanctum. It's been nearly two weeks since then and she tries to continue being normal and spend time with Peter and Ned, but even to them it's clear that she's more distant. They don't know why, but it's not exactly as if she can explain to them I just almost cast a magic spell and I'm too freaked out by my own success that I can't concentrate. The truth is that she's just scared. She's scared of being different. She's scared of the idea that she may one day she'll be asked to help the sorcerers fight something. She's scared that maybe she got in to this for all the wrong reasons. She's scared that maybe she's gotten in over her head.

Distantly, Michelle wonders if Peter felt like this when he first gained his powers. From what she can remember, he was acting very strangely for a while after that Oscorp field trip where he was bit, but he did eventually come back to normal so maybe she can too if she just gives it enough time. Unfortunately, the universe seems to have it out for her. Peter, in a perfect example of all his wonderful qualities, comes by to check up on her because she isn't returning his calls.

"I'm fine," she grinds out much more harshly than she meant.

"No, you're not. Please tell me what's going on," he's practically begging. "I just want to help you MJ."

His puppy dog eyes are on full blast and it's so hard, but she resists it. "I'm completely fine. There's nothing wrong so go away." She needs to get him out of here before she says something she regrets.

"No, I won't. Please just tell me?"

Trying another approach, she ventures, "Do you not trust me?"

"Of course I do."

"Then why won't you believe me when I say I'm fine?" Michelle can taste the bullshit on her tongue and she hates it.

"Because you're not." Judging by the look on Peter's face, he already knows that was probably the wrong thing to say. In a burst of anger, she pushes him out of the door with a snarl, slams it shut, and locks it. Peter immediately begins knocking on the door and calling for her, but she ignores it as she goes back to her bedroom. The knocking finally stops an hour later and all Michelle can do is stare at the wall thinking about what she's just done and why she's screwing up the best thing she has in life.

The world may have gotten a lot weirder over the past 10 years with alien invasions, killer robots, and the occasional supervillian, but the reality is that New York City is an incredibly safe place to live. After the attack in 2012, local law enforcement worked obscene amounts of overtime to reassure people that they were secure and could continue to live a normal life. During the rebuilding, plans were even made to help coordinate future city-wide evacuations. It blew up the budget, but it worked.

There's a reason Spider-Man spends so much time on minor things like getting cats out of trees, giving people directions, or general community involvement. There isn't always all that much to do. As far as Michelle can tell, Peter doesn't mind it. In fact he seems to love all the little things. He's a people person - even he gets comically nervous at the thought of public speaking. He loves people and Queens loves him back in return. She thinks it's adorable. Still, things have been good and relatively calm ever since the plane crash on Homecoming night. Maybe she's not surprised that something had to go wrong eventually.

The first indication comes a couple nights later when a blackout begins to roll across the city at night. All the lights go out as far as she can see out her window. She checks her phone, but there's no service so the cell towers must have been knocked out as well. With no light left to continue her reading, she lies back in bed and begins to doze off.

The next thing she's aware of is waking up to a noise of something falling on her floor. It's Peter in the Spider-Man suit. The window is open so he must have crawled through.

"Peter?" Michelle asks as scrambles to get up from her bed to check on him. Something's wrong. The suit is smoking and heavily charred as if he was on fire.

He can barely whisper out, "Help," before falling into nothing but harsh breathing and gasps as he twitches on the floor. Michelle pulls off the mask to look at him. There are cuts all over him, he's practically covered in blood, and he just keeps twitching. His breath is shallow and the gasping is getting worse.

Oh my god.

She checks for a pulse and it's there, but somewhat erratic.

Oh my god.

Grabbing her phone, she does the only thing she can think of and calls 911. It doesn't go through. The cell towers are still down.

Trying to suppress the beginnings of what she imagines might be a panic attack, she reaches into Peter's suit to grab his phone hoping that maybe Stark gave him something more reliable. When she pulls it out, her hopes are quickly smothered. It's fried as well and smoke is coming out of it.

Michelle looks around hoping for anything, anything that might help. She doesn't have a driver's license, but she starts looking for her parent's spare car key when a small bit of moonlight glints off something on the nightstand next to her bed.

The sling ring.

Swallowing, she can feel her heart drop out of her as she reached over to grab it. Taking a long look at it, she rolls it over in her hand. It looks different now, somehow, as if she was just now examining it properly for the first time. Remembering the urgency of the situation she tries to put on the ring, but fumbles it for a moment before it's secure. Her hands are shaking and can't get them to stop.

"Come on," she mutters to herself. steadying herself, she tries to recall everything she's ever read and heard from the lectures that Strange gave her. She's never hated herself more for not taking it seriously. She hates herself for backing away and getting scared the moment it looked like she was actually learning magic. Attempting to draw up energy like she had learned, she tries to imagine a place that can save his life. A hospital might not have electricity so she brings up a memory of the one time she was in the lobby of the Avengers compound. Image in mind, she begins the motions to create a portal. Nothing happens. Not a spark. The room is still pitch black.

What's left of her heart shatters into pieces. Her hands are still shaking.

"Come on!" she shouts out in frustration, feeling tears creeping into her vision. She takes a breath, gets the image of her destination in mind, and tries again. She begins the motions, but this time it sparks for a full second before it wisps away into darkness. There's a faint hope that glimmers inside of her and she grabs hold to it frantically.

She tries over and over again. Four, five, six, seven times before her arms go slack in disbelief that this is how Peter is going to die. What even happened to him for him to end up like this? The magic sparks, but never holds for more than a moment.

Closing her eyes, Michelle can feel tears freely flowing down her cheeks. "Please," she whispers, "please." If this stupid, idiotic, adorable boy dies because she was too scared, she'll never forgive herself. If she never gets the chance to tell him just how huge of a crush she has on him. If she never gets the chance to kiss him. She doesn't want to continue the thought.

"Please," she begs anything willing to listen.

Eyes still closed, Michelle tries again.

The human spirit and the multiverse are real. I can draw power from them.

Beginning the motions, she can hear it spark and it holds. The girl doesn't dare look so she keeps her eyes closed and completes the motions. Then, and only then, does she open an eye.

There, inside of her apartment, in the middle of the living room, is a portal. It's not very circular and looks extremely unstable, but it's a portal. On the other side is a well lit room that looks exactly like the image she remembered. The Avengers compound. Realizing the portal may not hold very long, she races back and tries to pick up Peter. He's heavier than she imagined. Draping his arm over her shoulder, she drags him back to the portal and steps through.

Faintly, there is a computerized voice speaking, but she can't make out the words. A couple people run up and speak to her, but she can't tell who they are or understand what they are saying. Her vision is blurry from crying and she's practically choking on her own breath. Everything seems to have stopped making sense and she stares down at herself uncomprehendingly.

Her hands are still shaking.

It's quiet when Michelle wakes up. Awareness comes to her slowly as she starts to realize that this isn't her bedroom. The bed is uncomfortable, the lights are too bright, and the air is too dry. Opening her eyes, she sees she's in a hospital bed, but can't recall why she's here. Regardless, the girl isn't hooked up to any equipment as far as she can tell so she crawls out of the bed and heads for the door. There in the hallway, looking through a window into another room, is Tony Stark. He's holding a large cup of coffee and seems to be drinking it far faster than any sane person should. The noise of the door closing behind her startles him and he turns around.

"Miss Jones. I don't think we've formally met before so it's good to see you awake. We weren't sure how long you would be out," Stark greets with a nod. There's no smile on face, but rather grim determination. She's clearly not his focus right now.

Michelle fishes for some information, "Where am I?" She doesn't remember getting hurt. Even if she was, why would Stark be here?

The man quirks an eyebrow at her, "You brought the kid here. Do you not remember? It was only thirty minutes ago. You looked like you were on the edge of a panic attack before you fainted."

Oh.

It comes back to her all at once. The blackout, Peter, the portal, the portal.

She cast a real, honest to god, magic spell. Michelle's legs collapse beneath her feet and she falls to the floor.

Stark reaches out to catch her before she falls and mostly succeeds. "Whoa, do you need to lie back down?"

"I, N-No," Michelle stammers out as she finds her footing, "Just, just. Just give me a second." She needs time to come to terms with this new reality where she can actually cast magic rather than just be pretending. She needs to get away so she can freak out and cry and scream, but she can't do that here so she tries to hold it together. Changing the topic seems like the best way to go, "Where's Peter?"

"In here," Stark points through the window he was looking through earlier. "Still in surgery, but Helen thinks he'll be fine."

She doesn't look. She's not sure she wants to see. "What happened to him?"

With a dark look through the window, he responds, "We don't know yet. As far as we can tell he was electrocuted by something far more powerful than what is reasonably achievable. It fried the whole suit and damn near melted parts of it to his body. He's got a lot of burns on him, but amazingly they're healing." Stark takes a deep breath before continuing, "I'm having trouble getting in touch with his aunt so I'm about to fly out there to tell her what's going on."

Good, good, she distantly thinks and nods. She owes him an apology for yelling at him and her life could really use some of Peter's endless positivity right now so the sooner he's back to normal, the better, but Michelle can't face him right now. Not while she doesn't understand what's happening to herself. Looking back to Stark, Michelle asks, "Can you take me home?"

Stark turns back to her with a long look. She expects him to ask why she doesn't want to stay with Peter, but when she sees his eyes there's a glint of understanding. Huh. He turns back to the window. "Yeah, I'll have Happy drive you back. Head on out to the front. FRIDAY will show you the way."

As she passes by him, he speaks again, "I watched the security camera footage to see how you two got in. I can't pretend to understand what you did or how you did it and I probably should be sitting down with you to talk to you about it, but that in there," Stark taps on the window, "that in there is all the bribing I need to not ask questions. You saved his life tonight." She knows that on some level Tony Stark cares about Peter, but she'd never seen it first hand before. "Does he know? About whatever it is you did?"

Boy, that's a hard question to answer. The implication that Peter never told Stark about the sorcerers leaves her with confusing feelings in her stomach and Michelle can't meet his eyes because she isn't sure what to say. Peter and Ned knew she was borrowing the books from Strange, but she never told them about the rest. "Sort of. It's," she reaches for words because it was never supposed to be real doesn't seem like the right thing to say, "complicated." She walks away to her ride home.

Michelle doesn't sleep that night.

It's another week before Michelle ever steps foot out of her apartment and nearly all of it is spent locked in her bedroom. Honestly, the only reason she even left was just to restock on groceries. There's a slew of texts on her phone from May and Ned that she doesn't read and a single text from an unknown number that simply says Contact me at this number if you ever need a favor – TS. Her parents came and went with barely a word spoken to them which is probably for the best right now.

She's pretty certain she'll never be able to tell them what happened or what she's been doing the past five months.

The news following the blackout reported that a Maxwell Dillon, calling himself "Electro", caused mass sweeping electrical outages along the east coast before he was stopped by Spider-Man. Video footage of what exactly happened was unavailable as the raw electrical charge in the area shorted out most cameras. There were press conferences about the matter, but Michelle had turned it off at that point.

That night, a week after The Incident, she climbs out the fire escape and lies down on the roof. Light pollution from the city keeps her from really seeing the stars the way she wants to, but it's better than nothing. It's nearing the end of July now and it's a warm summer's night so she wants to take advantage. With a bit of inspiration, she runs back down inside to grab her sketching book to draw. It's been a while.

Sometime later, she hears rapping on glass below her. Peter, she quickly realizes. Michelle hadn't even been aware that he was released from the compound, but then again she hasn't been reading any texts so she only has herself to blame. She does a quick check of the time. It's getting close to midnight.

"I'm up on the roof," she calls out. A few seconds later, she sees Peter climbing up the fire escape. He's in plain clothes so he must have walked here. She pats the ground next to her, "Sit."

"MJ, I-" he pauses as he realizes what she just said and sits down next to her, then starts over. "I don't remember much after I got hurt, but I know I was on my way here. Mr. Stark said you drove me out to the compound though and that you saved my life, so thank you. I mean it. I'm sorry I put you through that."

"You don't need to thank me." Idly, she's surprised that Stark decided to keep secret how he got to the Compound. Saying that she drove him is somewhat plausible, but considering how bad the traffic must have been in the power outage she wonders if he buys it.

"Yes I do. You went really, really far out of your way for me when no one else could help," Peter can't help but disagree.

Michelle can't help the anger that rushes out of her, "What is it with you and thinking your life is so worthless? All I did was deliver you to people who could actually help you, but you're acting like it was so much more than that!" She takes a deep breath to calm herself. She's overreacting due to stress and doesn't really want to take it out on Peter. "You go out there at least 4 days a week and risk your life for people you don't know. Why can't you believe that people who care about you are willing to do the same for you?"

A defeated sigh, "You were closest, after the fight. But you've been... avoiding me the past few weeks and the last time we spoke – we were yelling at each other. I was afraid I pushed too hard and did something wrong. Something that'd made you angry and didn't want to be my friend anymore. So when I was coming here for help, I was worried that the last thing I'd see before I died was you being angry at me. That's... That's the opposite of what I want."

How did everything become such a mess? Emotions suck. It's just like Peter to overreact and assume everything is his fault and part of her wants to yell at him about it, but this isn't the time for that. This is a pain that was caused by her and she can fix if she just puts her cards down on the table.

"I wasn't hiding from you. I was hiding from myself," she reveals. "Something... happened." At Peter's hopeful expression that she's finally telling him what's going on, she tries to explain but the right words just won't come, "You've got to understand! This was never meant to be anything serious! It was always just a joke! Something for me to kill time on and pretend!" She can feel a little hysteria coming on.

Taking several deep breaths, she goes all in. "Let me, let me try and show you. It'll make more sense." Michelle stands up, does her best to calm down, reaches out her hand, and draws a single, perfectly solid line of manifested magic.

Risking a look back to Peter, he's utterly gobsmacked. He looks like he could have been told he won the lottery and would have been less surprised. His silence is convenient though so she finishes her explanation, "So that happened and I got terrified and didn't want to talk to you or Ned because, well, you just saw. I didn't know what to think." I'm not sure who I am anymore, she doesn't say but hopes he hears. "Did you get scared when you woke up after the bite?"

It takes a full 10 minutes for Peter to process what he just saw, which is fine. She understands the madness of it all so Michelle lets him stare at her. For a moment, he looks like he wants to ask question after question, but he seems to get that this probably isn't the time.

Eventually, the boy realizes what was asked and gets sheepish as he runs a hand through his hair, "I uh, it was. Scary, I mean. And really awkward too. The first time I opened the door to leave my bedroom, my hand got stuck on the doorknob and I couldn't get it off. Then I pulled too hard and the doorknob snapped in half. Oh man, I was panicking like crazy that morning." She laughs at the mental image. "And it was really scary too, right? I'll never tell May or Mr. Stark, but one of the reasons I never wanted to tell May about it was because I was afraid that she'd think I was a freak. I still get that way sometimes so I try and avoid doing anything around her that's... abnormal."

"Peter, I just showed you myself channeling inter-dimensional energy. Five months ago this was just a bunch of books I was reading for fun, but it's so much more real now," A pause, "The sorcerers learn this stuff to go fight monsters from other universes. I can't do that. I don't want to. I just want to be Michelle Jones."

Silence. Peter turns himself to look directly at her, "Tell me about Michelle Jones."

Part of her wants to snap at him because emotional self-reflection is going to leave her feeling vulnerable, but she can't deny his request. She thinks about her relationship with her parents – how they expect a lot, but are never around to see her succeed or encourage her. She thinks about how uncertain her future feels. While she knows she could do many things in life, nothing ever jumps out as something she actually wants to do. Nothing inspires her and it leaves her with a faint dread about getting older. The only reason she ever joined the Academic Decathlon was because her parents insisted she join something to improve her college chances, but she sticks around because she's made friends there for the first time.

Maybe this is what Strange meant when he implied I might be broken. I'm not broken, but I might be lost. Where is my life going?

It's stupid really. She's just a sophomore in high school and has years to figure it all out, but there's this deep feeling in her stomach that it's not going to get any better. Looking away, Michelle responds with the only words she can think to say, "I don't know who she is."

Again, silence. Without saying a word. Peter pulls her into a hug. Holding her tight, he says, "This whole thing about being scared. I've been there. I get that. I want to help you. Will you let me?" When he feels Michelle nodding into his shoulder, he continues. "But there's one thing I want you to promise me. It's a pretty big thing to ask."

"What is it?"

"Don't stop doing this magic thing, okay? The idea that maybe one day you're supposed to use it against big, scary things makes me want to go beat the crap out of Doctor What's-his-name, but when I saw you reading those books during school you always had a smile on your face. That's not something I get to see very often so if this makes you happy, then I want that too." Michelle knows she must be blushing something fierce right now.

Intellectually, he's right. Despite her skepticism that popped up a lot during the whole process, it was a lot of fun until she had her freak out. It might be a while before she truly believes it, but maybe this is a good thing.

Maybe through the Mystic Arts, I can find out who Michelle Jones is.

She takes a long, shuddering breath and breaks up the hug. "Okay. Okay. I promise."

His smile is infectious. "So we're good now?"

"Yeah, we're good." Really, she is. Showing Peter what she did/could do has helped her feel more normal than she has in weeks. Maybe this isn't so bad. Part of her wonders if this same feeling is why Peter told her about Spider-Man back then.

Surprisingly, he asks no further questions. Instead the stupidest, biggest grin she's ever seen grows no his face and he asks, "So I'm best friends now with a sorceress? Is this what you've been doing at the Sanctum over the summer?"

That's odd. She doesn't recall ever telling them about her visits to the Sanctum other than when she started out and was borrowing their books. "Have you been stalking me?" she accuses.

"No, no, no, no. No, of course not. That would be absurd. Okay, maybe once. Or twice. No comment."

Michelle can't help it. She laughs. Banging her head on Peter's shoulder, she gets out between her laughter, "You idiot. You stupid idiot."

If Peter went full blown tomato when she kisses his cheek afterwards, then she's kind enough to not say anything. Probably because she was red too.

It takes her a few tries, but she sends him home via portal directly into his apartment which blows his mind. She realizes she forgot something important though when she hears May out of view dropping a plate and shrieking "What the fu-" right as the portal closes. Yikes.

Epilogue:

"Why did you try so hard to get me to learn this stuff? Like, you could have let me walk away." Michelle asks, putting away a stack of books away on a shelf.

Strange shrugs his shoulders. "I believed you could do it." That sure smells like bullshit, Michelle can't help but think.

"Uh huh. And you just so happened to be prepared to offer me the exact thing that would convince me to stay."

"Ah, in that case I may have cheated." At the girl's disbelieving look, he elaborated, "The Masters of the Mystic Arts are in possession of an artifact that allows viewing possible futures. I saw a future of you succeeding in your training and a glance at the critical junction of what I needed to offer for you to continue training."

To her dawning horror, she realized the implications. "And that's why you never blinked an eye at the fact I ran away for three weeks." Strange doesn't respond. She has so many questions, but isn't sure if she really wants to know the answers. Dropping the stack she's holding, she marches off down the hall. "You deal with this. If you need me, I'll be having an existential crisis in the spare bedroom."

The sound of Strange's laughter follows her down the hall.