Chapter Text
Nice day, MJ thought as she sketched absently, her shoulders warming under the light filtering through branches of the tree shading her bench. The birds chirped around her, the sound occasionally interrupted by the light chatter of families and couples milling about the park around her. MJ watched as one of the girls in the group on the other side of their little clearing kicked a soccer ball into the air before heading it at her teammate. The tip of MJ's pencil scraped against the paper as she traced over the curve of the girl’s smile, brilliant as she stood with her foot placed triumphantly over the ball.
“Looks good,” a mildly impressed voice came from over her shoulder. Footsteps crunched over grass, and MJ turned to find Jean joining her on the little bench.
“Dream-space, huh?” MJ asked, lowering her pencil. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember walking out to the park, nor how she found her way to the little clearing.
“Yup.” Jean popped the ‘p’.
“Real place? It feels real.” If she focused, MJ could see the slight fuzziness inherent to dreams, the distortion around the edges of reality. It felt too detailed to be wholly imagined though, the world too filled-in with everyday life rather than the nonsense of dream-logic.
Jean shrugged, holding out a little paper bowl filled to the brim with ice cream. She held another one in her other hand. MJ accepted it wordlessly, placing her sketchbook to the side.
“Mint chip?” MJ stared down into the bowl, poking at its contents with the little spoon sticking out of the top.
Jean nodded. “My sister’s favorite. You want mine?”
“No, this is fine.” It was actually amazing as MJ took a bite. Dream ice cream was on a whole different level. Go figure.
MJ held the little plastic spoon between her teeth, taking in the picnicking families, the group of friends playing a pickup game of soccer, the old men playing chess. “It’s pretty here.”
“I used to come with my sister all the time – to practice jumps, to see who could do a handstand the longest, or to just grab some ice cream and…talk. I miss it. Suppose that’s why we’re here, actually. I’ve been kind of lonely. No one to talk to without Scott around. Or–” Jean bit her lip as she cut herself off.
“Peter,” MJ finished. Her jaw worked, and she turned her attention to a little girl blowing bubbles on a blanket with her mother. It was oddly soothing. “So you needed a buddy, and your first––sorry, third—choice was the girl you once tried to walk off a roof?”
“Technically, we jumped,” Jean shrugged.
MJ gave Jean a long look, only for them both to burst into peals of laughter. Jean snorted when she laughed hard enough, which only made MJ laugh harder.
“God, that’s fucked,” MJ sighed, tilting her head back to stare up at the clouds. The sky became a technicolor swirl the longer she stared, thinning at the edges where Jean’s memory faded.
“So are we,” Jean agreed. “This whole situation is fucked.”
MJ hummed in agreement, stirring her ice cream around. “Seems like super-heroing is just jumping from one fucked-up situation to the next.”
“Do you ever regret it?” Jean asked, the mirth fading from her expression.
“Regret what?” MJ placed her ice cream on the bench beside her.
“Knowing about all of this? Being this close to it?”
MJ tilted her head back, contemplating. “I don’t know. I think I do, sometimes—definitely when Peter takes me swinging.” She shuddered. “But before I knew—before I remembered, I guess—I always felt like I was missing something, you know? And then Peter showed up, and everything clicked into place. That was worse, I think, the not-knowing.”
MJ’s hand came up to fiddle with the broken flower at her neck, her fingers tracing the grooves of its familiar petals absently.
Jean’s gaze was fixed on the mother and little girl blowing bubbles. “He’s lucky to have you. You and Ned. All I had was Sarah, after my mom kicked us out. She couldn’t handle it, when our powers kicked in. She thought we were turning into monsters, that something went wrong because she was pregnant when The Blip happened. I think she went a little crazy.” A bubble landed on the girl’s nose, sending her into peals of laughter. Jean tore her gaze away, and MJ’s hand dropped from the necklace.
“He got you that, you know.” Jean was watching the broken dahlia.
“Yeah, I know,” MJ almost whispered, eyes closed as a warm breeze floated through. “Ned told me.”
“And you’re still wearing it?”
“Yes.”
“Even though you know what it meant to him? To both of you?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know what it means. All I know is that when I’m wearing it, I feel right.”
“And without it?”
MJ sighed, not answering and refusing to open her eyes. A warm smile, stretched wide across an open face, flashed behind them.
“You should see the way he sees you, in his mind. Like you’re the source of all light in his world.” Jean sounded somber. “I’ve never felt that before.”
MJ let her head fall back over the top of the bench, rolling her head to the side to look back at Jean. “Is that why you kissed him? That night on the roof?”
Jean went pink at the tips of her ears. Her gaze fell to her lap, where her fingers tugged nervously at the edge of her shirt. “He mentioned that?”
“Yeah, the same day I found out about the letter. He apologized.”
Jean snorted. “He would. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. Not my best moment.”
“Thanks,” MJ shrugged. “But I’ve been over it for a while. I don’t even remember it.”
“Do you want to?” Jean offered, cocking her head. “It wasn’t a bad kiss.”
MJ gave her a sour look. “Don’t push it, I’m still not thrilled about it.”
Jean winced.
“So?” MJ raised an eyebrow.
Jean sighed, staring up at the branches swaying overhead. “I guess I did it to be cruel? I don’t know, I was mad at him—at everyone that kept getting between me and Sarah, really, but he was right there, and I knew exactly how to hurt him. I wanted him to feel what I felt—to understand what it was like to have the person you most missed in the world, only to have them ripped away again.”
MJ felt a protective surge run through her, fists curling on instinct.
Jean continued, “You can imagine how shitty I felt when I found out he didn’t need the reminder.”
MJ’s fists relaxed at her side as she felt her anger drain away to quiet, somber resignation. “He really is a walking tragedy.”
“New York’s favorite martyr,” Jean agreed. “Whatever he’s going through right now, he doesn’t deserve it.”
“No,” MJ agreed. “But I bet he’s not making it easy on whoever has him.”
“He’s amazingly annoying,” Jean nodded. “Like, spectacularly.”
“Insanely cocky, too,” MJ grinned. “But highly competent. It’s probably why he gets himself into so many stupid situations.”
“Smartest dumbass I’ve ever met,” Jean agreed. Her smile widened, then turned down at the edges. “I just hope he’s not alone.”
“Never,” MJ shook her head, bumping her shoulder against Jean’s. “Neither are you.”
“Thanks, MJ.” Jean murmured, leaning into the gesture. “Sorry I dream-napped you.”
“It’s okay.” MJ patted her back. “We are getting you a cellphone, though.”
Jean wrinkled her nose. “Seems like an unnecessary extra step.”
She squawked as MJ flicked a glob of ice cream onto her nose, arms flailing under baggy long sleeves. She swiped at her nose, regarding MJ suspiciously.
MJ brandished her spoon triumphantly. “Consider that revenge for the roof. And you one-hundred percent need a phone. How else am I going to update you on the search? This system we’ve got going isn’t exactly a two-way street.”
Jean stopped rubbing at her nose, sleeve still pulled over her fist. It made her look younger, more like the child she should have gotten to be. “Fair point. I can’t promise this won’t happen again, though. I’m still figuring this out, and sometimes my subconscious just…wanders in.”
MJ raised her bowl. “Tell you what, you keep the ice cream coming, and that’ll be just fine.”
“When you texted me about girls’ night, this isn't exactly what I had in mind,” Kate grunted at Yelena’s back as they shuffled down the maintenance tunnel. Her nose had long-since gone numb to the smell, but she was pretty certain all of her nose hairs had burned off.
“What were you expecting?” Yelena tossed behind her, scanning around the tunnel walls.
“I dunno, takeout and a movie night?”
“Please, like you wouldn’t have been bored out of your mind,” Yelena scoffed. She knelt down to look at something on the ground, tracing a gloved finger over the damp floor.
Kate shuddered as a drop of water hit the back of her neck, sliding below the collar of her suit. It felt slimy, but she hoped her brain was making that up. “Depends on the movie.”
She stopped a few feet behind Yelena, casting the beam of her flashlight around the tunnel. She kept waiting for something to jump out of the darkness, all pointed fangs dripping drool and razor-sharp claws coated in gore. She shivered again. “God, it’s creepy down here. Remind me why we’re here again?”
“You know why.” Yelena crept forward, following whatever she had found along the floor.
“And don’t you hate it as much as I do?”
With Ned’s help, Yelena and Kate had tracked Spider-Man’s last-known whereabouts to Central Park. After wandering aimlessly for the better part of an hour, two twitchy-looking teens from a homeless encampment flagged them down and pointed them in the direction of the sewers. One of them had watched the webhead slip through a manhole two weeks prior. Of course, the exact manhole Spider-Man used had cost Kate two-hundred dollars and a gift card for a local sandwich shop—something she was still a little bit pissed about.
Kate also hadn’t been crazy about spelunking through the sewers after something that had ostensibly dog-walked Spider-Man of all people. But where Yelena went, Kate followed.
Yelena offered her a sidelong glance. “I said you could wait up-top.”
“Please, like I was going to let you come down here alone. But if something eats us, I reserve the right to an I-told-you-so.”
Yelena grinned at her, turning back to whatever had caught her interest. Kate peered over her shoulder.
“Find something?”
“Maybe,” Yelena mumbled. “These marks look like–”
Her head snapped up, and she held up a hand as something rustled ahead of them.
Kate immediately switched off her flashlight, snapping on the night-vision goggles around her neck and stepping back into the lip of the wall, bow drawn.
Yelena didn’t move, but there was a low whine as the stingers around her wrists hummed to life.
Kate’s hand flew to her quiver as she heard the click of a safety disengage. She notched the arrow, but didn’t draw, waiting for Yelena’s signal.
Rubber-soled boots squeaked over wet concrete, and a large man came into view, an automatic rifle held aloft as he swept across the tunnel in a practiced motion.
“Hands in the air, weapons on the ground,” he growled. His hair was cropped close to his head in a buzz cut, the hard set of his jaw and disciplined rhythm of his movements betraying him as someone with military training.
Yelena shrugged, still crouched on the ground. “Which is it? Weapons down, or hands in the air?”
“Do I look like I’m in the mood for back-talk?”
Kate could feel Yelena’s eyeroll. “You're the one with a gun on me, Frank. Don’t want you blowing my head off over a misunderstanding.”
Kate drew back the bowstring, sighting the man’s trigger-finger hand as he growled, “How the fuck do you know who I am?”
Kate could hear the coy smile in Yelena’s voice. “We have a mutual friend.”
“Yeah, who’s that?” The guy snarled, edging towards Yelena, gun still trained on her face.
Kate slipped out of her hiding place, raising her arrow to the guy’s head. “Drop it, or I put one through your eye.”
The man—Frank—froze, but his gun stayed on Yelena. “Reckon you can shoot me before I shoot her?”
Kate didn’t waver for a second. “Wanna find out?”
“Okay, whoa,” Yelena interjected, slowly rising from her crouch with raised hands and stepping between the pair. “Let’s all calm down and lower our weapons before we embarrass ourselves and make a mess all over my crime scene. Look, I’ll go first.”
Kate kept her bow up and her eyes locked on Frank’s as one of Yelena’s knives clinked against the stone.
Yelena pointed at the discarded blade, nodding at the pair. “See? Now, introductions. Kate Bishop, Frank Castle. Frank Castle, Kate Bishop. I’m Yelena, Spider-Man may have told you about me?”
“Potato chick?” Frank grunted, eyes sliding to Yelena. The barrel of his gun dipped down slightly. Kate’s arrow stayed firmly locked between his eyes despite the burn starting between her shoulder blades.
Yelena threw up her arms. “Did he tell everyone about that?”
She scoffed at Kate as she spun around, seeing the still-knocked arrow. “Weapons down, Bishop. He’s not a threat.”
Frank’s gun was still half-up. He made an offended noise. “That depends. Are you here to take me in?”
“Not today,” Yelena answered, waving a hand flippantly.
The barrel went fully down, and Kate relaxed, arrow lowering to the floor. She pulled her goggles down around her neck, switching back to the flashlight clipped to her side.
“So you know the kid,” Frank huffed. He switched the safety back on his gun, slipping the strap over his shoulder.
“He’s why we’re here, actually,” Yelena nodded.
“Yeah?” Frank crossed his arms. “Does that have anything to do with the drag marks you’ve been following down these tunnels?”
Kate let her gaze drop to the floor, sweeping the beam over where Yelena had been crouched. Long scuff-marks trailed along the stained concrete.
Yelena’s mouth thinned. “I had hoped not, but it appears so.”
“Where is he?” Frank’s eyes were flinty, but Kate could see the concern shining in their depths. “He’s been dodging my calls for two weeks—not completely out of character when he’s working a hard case, but then you two show up looking for him? Got a bad feeling in my gut.”
Yelena paused, considering. Kate huffed, watching the gears spin behind the Widow’s stoic gaze.
“He’s missing,” Kate blurted, earning an exasperated look from Yelena. She made a ‘what-can-you-do?’ motion. “What, you want his help, right? You want information, you give information. Not everything has to be a super-spy mind game.”
Yelena huffed, then shrugged, acquiescing. “Fine. Yes, Spiderman is missing. He was investigating a string of disappearances and went missing somewhere near here. We followed his trail down here, and found the drag marks. Any chance you know where these marks lead?”
Frank nodded. “They end down a side-tunnel to the left where this main passage splits off, about another half-mile down. I followed it a few days ago. It looks like they took the tunnels for a few miles before heading above-ground again. Foot-traffic probably destroyed any chance of a trail topside.”
Yelena swore viciously in Russian, punching at the wall nearest.
Kate blinked, surprised by the sudden display from the typically stoic woman.
Frank didn’t react, eyes narrowed as he appeared to be considering something. “You said Spidey was investigating disappearances. Any chance these were mutant disappearances?”
Yelena’s head snapped up. Her tone was sharp, her eyes bright. “Yes.”
Frank nodded, gaze distant as he turned hurriedly down the tunnels. He motioned for Kate and Yelena to follow. “C’mon, I’ve got some people you should meet.”
Frank grunted as he came to a stop before a seemingly dead end, Kate nearly smacking into Yelena as the spy screeched to a halt before they could slam into the Punisher’s back.
Frank didn’t seem to notice, feeling along the wall in front of him. “A few months back,” he started, tracing the brickwork, “I had to clear out a few of my stash pads down here. Sometime around my second or third trip, I noticed my rations were looking a little light—strange, considering I really only ever had to use the one.”
Frank knelt, still feeling his way down the wall. “So I took a chance and decided to camp out for a bit. Imagine my surprise when I found out my thieves were an albino and a half-starved thirteen-year-old with spikes growing out of her back—nearly took my head off with one of them, I startled her so bad,” he chuckled. His expression turned dark. “Either of you familiar with the Friends of Humanity?”
Yelena and Kate nodded. They both had had their share of run-ins with the anti-mutant supremacist group since Senator Creed took office, dangerously emboldened by their leader’s newfound influence and open disdain for mutant kind. More than a third of the arms deals Yelena had been tracking had ties to the group.
“Bigoted bastards,” Frank muttered, squinting at the wall. “They’ve been targeting people with physical mutations—lynchings, fire-bombings, good old-fashioned torture—real mideival shit. Hard to keep your head down when you’ve got gills on your neck or quills all over your face, you know? A lot of refugees found their way down here—started calling themselves the Morlocks.”
“‘Morlocks?’” Kate interrupted, rolling the name over her tongue.
“H.G. Wells, apparently. Caliban’s a reader—hah!” Frank let out a satisfied shout as he pushed down on a brick, a false wall revealing itself and swinging back with a groan. “Been a while since I came down this way. Hard to remember where the catch is. Anyway, I’ve been helping out where I can, stopping by with food, clothes and whatnot, and they keep an ear to the ground, passing along any information that comes their way. If anyone knows about missing mutants, it’s them.”
He indicated the open maw of darkness stretching out before them. “Ladies.”
Yelena scoffed, grabbing Kate despite her yelps of protest, and charged forward into the dark.