Archive of Our Own ^beta

MJ was doing better.

Saying that she was fine would be a stretch and not at all true but she was better now than she had been one and a half years ago.

One and a half years wasn't nearly enough time to properly grief someone and to be able to move on from them and MJ wondered if there was ever going to be a time where she wouldn't grief Spider-Man, the hero of the universe, the person she had known as just Peter Parker, a dork in every possible way.
But he had been her dork, at least in a way.

She hadn't been friends with him for as long as Ned but they had just clicked and she had never felt as though he thought that Ned's and his friendship was in any way more or better than their friendship.
They had been friends and even though she had called him “Loser” on more than one occasion she knew that he understood her and how she had meant it. That had been her nickname for him even though he was anything but a “Loser”.
He had never, in his whole life, been a loser, even before the spider bite and all that followed it, he had never been a loser.
MJ had the feeling that he could never have been a loser, no matter what, he just didn't have it in him but she would never tell him that... She couldn't tell him that, he was dead and yet she hoped that he knew it. That somehow he knew it even though she had never told him.

The first time she had met Peter Parker wasn't actually in school. It had been a little weird as far as first meetings went and had set the tone for their whole friendship, which had been nothing short of strange.
But looking back on it now, she knew that she wouldn't change one single thing about that first meeting because while it might have been weird it had been just right for them.

It was a nice and sunny day outside, one of the last ones considering that summer was almost over and thus school would begin again pretty soon.
MJ usually wasn't a nervous person at all, quite the opposite actually but she was starting at a new school, where she didn't know anyone and thus would have no friends and not even that made her nervous, not really.
What made her nervous, and quite sickeningly so,was the fact that nobody knew her and the way she was. She knew that she wasn't an easy character to be around and had been told so on multiple occasions, but at her old school she still had had friends because they had known her their whole life and apparently had found something about her that had wanted them to keep her around. And she had liked it, had liked the way things had been and if it were up to her nothing would have had to change.
Things were just fine the way they were.

But like all things in life, it had to come to an end, just earlier than what she would have anticipated.
One day her parents had called her down from her room where she had been doing some research and had told her that they had something important to discuss with her.
At that point she had known that whatever followed would not be to her liking and low and behold she had been right.
They had started off by saying that her father had been offered a promotion at his job and then they had begun to list all the pros as to why that was a good thing and had she not known before that she would not like the news, she most definitely would have known it then and there.
Whenever her parents started out by telling her some big news and then, without so much as a second for her to process what she had just been told, began listing of all the pros that would have for her she knew that she wouldn't end up liking the but that followed.
And sure enough, once all the pros had been thrown out in the open, her parents had looked at her a little sheepishly and had then told her, that the whole family would have to move to New York City so that her father could follow through with the promotion.
She had been numb, not knowing how to process that certain piece of information.
Her parents had given her some time alone, knowing that she needed it in that moment like she needed the air to breath.
In the end it hadn't really been a question weather or not they would move.
The promotion her father had received was a once in a lifetime offer and they would have been idiots to not follow through with it.

And that was how she had ended up here, far away from everything and everyone she knew and alone.
Of course she had her parents but that was just not the same as having her friends with her and she was already starting to miss them though she would never admit that out loud.

Deciding to use her last few days of freedom she went out, in hopes of getting to know the city a little better, though it was unlikely that she would get to know the whole city just by spending one day in it but it was better than nothing and one had to start somewhere.
Just as she had been closing the door behind her she had decided that she would be taking her book with her, who knew maybe she would find a nice place somewhere she could read a little.
With her book in her back she was out of the door and on her way of getting to know New York City a little better.

A few hours later, MJ was pretty sure that while New York was a nice city it just was not for her. She had never cared about having man different clothing stores near her, or getting a Starbucks at every corner, or whatever else a teenage girl could want, as long as there was a decent enough bookstore with good books to buy, she was happy and didn't really need much more. Of course, New York had nice bookstores, it was bound to have them, New York was a big city, after all, but she had not yet found one that was just right for her.

Other than that she had found a nice, small coffee shop not to far from her apartment which served amazing coffee.

Considering her coffee-to-go cup was still half full and she wasn't feeling all that tired out just yet, she decided to check out a small park that was near where she lived and had looked quite nice, at least while she had looked it up online.
And even if it wasn't as nice as the internet had described it, she had an amazing coffee and a good book to continue reading and those two things could make even the worst place at least acceptable.

She knew that the way to the park wasn't a long one and yet it seemed to her as though she had been walking forever, when in fact it most likely had only been something between 5 to 10 minutes.

Once she entered the park it was as if New York fell away behind her, like it ceased to exist... It was beautiful, submerging into the quite, with no city noises and a good book.

With a small smile tugging her lips upwards, MJ found a bench, away from everything else, with just enough sunlight to make it comfortable but not become hot after some time.

MJ hadn't known it at the time but that place would turn out to be her sanctuary in the city. Whenever she would need to unwind or just relax, she would always end up on that bench, sometimes with a coffee from the nice coffee shop, sometimes without one but the important part was that she would end up there and that nobody would disturb her there, considering it was so out of the way and one could only see the pathway that lead to this bench if one was actively looking for it, which she doubted anyone did.

She had been wrong, because like so many other times, Peter Parker liked to do the things that nobody expected him to do and surprise everyone.

And so it happened that, after MJ had spent one hour in blissful silence, reading her book and getting submerged in the story, a boy came walking down the pathway that lead to the bench and the little grass patch around around it, it all being framed by rather big trees.

MJ watched the boy, who had yet to realize that he wasn't alone though MJ used that time to get a good look of him and to try and understand him at least on a very basic level.

He wasn't all that tall, probably shorter than herself and was wearing a rather big t-shirt that hung off of his frame rather loosely. He had a backpack on his shoulders and seemed to be carrying some notebooks in his arms. It was a wounder that he was able to hold all of those notebooks and not have them topple onto the floor but MJ figured that every now and then there had to be some miracles in the world.

She had not known back then that she had been looking at one of the best miracles the whole universe had had to offer but she had learned that.

The boy had nice, brown, curly hair on top of the face of a teenager who was starting to become a man, a rather awkward process for anyone involved, that is not to say that the process of a young girl becoming a young woman was not awkward for anyone and everyone involved, because it was, but it was awkward in a different way.

Just as MJ had finished that thought and was about to return her full attention to the boy she realized that the boy had now spotted her as well and was looking at her in the way teenagers look at one another if they don't know the other person.

Subcoming to the awkward teenager inside herself, something she doesn't do all that often, she slowly raised her right hand and waved at him.

Looking a little taken aback the teenager waved back and if MJ's eyes had not betrayed her he must have been blushing slightly while waving back at her.

Once his hand was back down by his side, he smiled at her and then proceeded to walk onto the grass in front of her bench and a little away further away where he then just dropped his backpack and flopped down next to it, his notebooks still held securely in his arms.

He then carefully placed the notebooks on the ground next to his backpack before he started digging through said backpack just to pull out some books.

After having watched the boy some more and having determined that he must be here to study, MJ turned her attention back to her book and got lost in its pages again.

As it was getting colder, MJ decided that she had been out log enough and would be heading back now. As she was putting her book back in her backpack she realized that the boy must have had the same thought she had had because he was getting ready to leave as well.

They both started walking at the same moment and so it was no real surprise that they ended up walking next to one another on the small pathway.

The first few minutes they were walking in a somewhat comfortable, though slightly awkward silence and MJ would have probably been just fine and dandy with that but the boy had other plans.

“Hey, I am Peter Parker.”

Confused, MJ looked over at the boy and sure enough he was looking at her with a grin tugging the corners of his lips upward.

He had a nice grin MJ decided then and there. It made him look nice and like a person you wanted to tell your deepest and darkest secrets, like a person you wanted to confide into, without even knowing him. That grin made you feel comfortable and somehow at ease, like you have been wandering for the longest time, searching and now you have returned home.

MJ liked his grin.

“Hey Peter, I am MJ.”

She didn't know why she had told him her name was MJ, her friends back home had to work rather hard to earn the privilege to call her “MJ” and yet with him, having him call her anything but MJ would feel not right, downright wrong.

And that was how their friendship had begun.

They had talked about anything and everything and somehow the topic school had come up where MJ learned that he was attending the same school she would be going to.

She hadn't realized until then how nervous she had been about her new school and not knowing anyone at all.

Knowing that Peter was attending the same school soothed her, in a way.
She knew someone, a very nice person at that and would not be totally alone on her first day.

From what Peter had told her, he wasn't all that popular which was alright with her, she actually preferred not having popular friends and he and his best friend Ned were huge nerds, even at a school for nerds.

If Ned was as nice as Peter, which she thought he must be because Peter didn't strike her as the type to have mean friends, then she might even end up liking it here.

Maybe, she thought, as she was laying in her bed later that same day, already half asleep, having moved to New York wouldn't be that bad after all.

Every time she thought about how they had met the very first time she just had to smile.
It had been awkward and weird but at the same time had also been kind of nice, plus it had also just sort of fit them and set the tone for their friendship, which had been, at least at the beginning, kind of awkward and weird but they had grown out of that phase rather quickly.
Of course hers and Peter's friendship was different than the friendship between Peter and Ned but that was to be expected and it was fine the way things were.

With Peter and Ned, which she had met her first day at the school and also kind of liked, by her side school had been fine.
They had had a lot of fun, usually in their decathlon practices and competitions.
Sitting at lunch with them had also been fun, she never said much, preferring to listen to those two Nerds and all the topics they loved to talk about. From the Star Wars saga to the newest technological invention, she had heard them talking about everything. Sometimes she found it hard to believe that those two dorks were both highly intelligent and could and would one day change the world for the better, they would both make a difference in the world... Or Peter certainly would, she wasn't so sure about Ned though. She knew that Ned could make a difference but she never got the feeling that he was meant for something bigger, meant to make a difference in the world and be remembered for it, like she got about Peter. She knew for sure that Peter would make a difference, that one day everyone would know the name Peter Benjamin Parker.

And now the people knew his name, people all over the world, throughout the whole universe, everyone knew his name and if they spoke his name they did so with the utmost respect and care.

She had known that Peter was meant for something huge but she had never thought that he might die.

That though had never even crossed her mind and why should it have?

She had though he would make some great scientific breakthrough and blow everyone away with that.

In the end he had blown everyone away with what he had done but for a different reason entirely.

It was about a week after having been brought back to live, which was still boggling everyone's minds and MJ had a feeling that nobody would ever get used to that, could ever get used to having died and then been resurrected, in a way.

She had come back, like all the other students who had been snapped, on their field trip to MoMA, exactly in the spot she had stood in as she had been dusted, right next to Ned, who had been worried sick about Peter back then and came back worrying about his best friend.
Worrying about Peter Parker and thus Spider-Man was really an all-time job and MJ was happy that Ned was doing enough worrying for the both of them so that she might ignore her worries, which she very much had, and concentrate on doing something useful, like figuring out what exactly had happened and where everyone else was.
She had to worry about Peter later because if she did that now, she wouldn't be able to stop and right now she needed to figure out what was going on.

The other students, who had returned with her, were just as confused as she had been and so had not been of any help at all.
They had looked for Mr Harrington but had not found him and decided to approach an employee to ask them for help. As far as they knew, only a matter of maybe a minute had passed and yet everything was different.
Their teacher wasn't with them, a lot of their classmates were missing as well and everything seemed to be run down.
It was as though something terrible had happened and torn everyone apart.
They hadn't know back then that something terrible had, indeed, happened and torn everyone apart.

Because nobody knew what was going on, MJ decided to call her parents.
It was a far-fetched idea, she had no clue if her parents would know what was going on but it was her only resort right then and there and it was better than what they ha been doing up until then.

As she was starting to pull out her cellphone to call her parents it had started ringing, the cellphones of her classmates following close behind.

Like everyone else, MJ accepted the call and brought the phone to her ear. A second to late she realized that she hadn't registered the caller ID and thus had no idea who she would be talking to.

“Hello?”

For a few seconds there was no answer and just as she was about to repeat herself and ask who this was, she heard a choked up voice, trembling and full of tears answering her.

“Michelle... Michelle is that really you? Are you really back?”

It had been her mother and in the background MJ had been able to hear her father sobbing quietly.

“Yes, it's me. Who else would you be talking to? You called my cellphone.”

At that her mother dissolved into a sobbing mess, choking out “It's her, it really is her... She is back, oh God she is really back. We have our baby girl back. Oh God, she is back, she is back, she is back.” And then she was only sobbing.

MJ didn't know what to do and so she just waited and sure enough after some time, she heard rustling coming from the side of her parents and then she was talking to her father.

“Michelle, baby, we need to know where you are.”

“The field trip to MoMA, or more specifically we are in MoMA... Dad, what is going on? One second we are all here and now there are students missing, Mr Harrington is nowhere to be found, you and Mom are crying like you just got the best news of your entire life and I just don't know what is going on...”

“Michelle, stay where you are, don't move. Stay where you are, your Mom and I are on our way to you right now and once we have you secure in our arms we will tell you what had happened. Just stay put, you Mom and I are coming.”

“Okay, then I'll see you soon.”

She was about to hang up when the panicked voice of her father stopped her. She had never heard him this panicked and on edge.

“NO, Michelle. Don't hang up on us. Don't hang up on us. Stay on the phone, we are on our way to you... Just stay on the phone until we get to you.”

He had always been a controlled character, with a tight grip on his emotions.
His emotions never got the better out of him and yet here he was, sounding as panicked as she had ever heard him.

Just that told her that whatever had happened must have been absolutely terrifying.

“Okay, I will stay on the pone with you until you get here.”

And she had stayed on the phone wit them.
The whole time it had taken them to get to her, she had been on the phone with them.

And then they were there, they came rushing in, eyes fanatically scanning everyone else until they found her and then they ran towards her like they would die if they didn't reach her within the next 30 seconds.
MJ was looking at them as well and the nearer they came the more she saw how they had changed.

She had left her parents looking a little younger than they actually were and now there they were, looking much older.
They had demons in their eyes, there was no other way to describe it. They looked haunted, worn down, like something had happened that had torn their world apart.

She hadn't known it back then, but she had been dead for five years and that had torn their world apart. Her death...

Her mother had reached her first and grabbed her face with both her hands. Enclosed it with them and just looked her in the eyes.

“You are back, you really are back.”

And after she had said those words, she hugged her. She just hugged her, held onto her as tightly as humanly possible. MJ had still been confused but had hugged her mother back non the less.
Her father had joined them shortly after and, much like her mother, was sobbing like there was no tomorrow.

Everything after that was more or less a blur. So many different things were happening all at the same time and it was just a lot to take in. Especially with MJ's whole body feeling as weird as it did. It was like it belonged to her but she didn't quite know what to do with it. Like she had to get used to it first, before anything else made sense.
She had been feeling like that ever since she had 'come to' again but she couldn't have done anything about it because she had not felt entirely safe but now with her parents she had felt safe and so decided to deal with whatever it was that was going on.
And thus everything had become kind of blurry because she had been focused on the emotions her body was sending her and not at all on her surroundings.

The next thing she remembered with clarity was being in their apartment, sitting on the sofa with a blanket wrapped securely and comforting around her, her parents to either side of her, just holding her in their arms while tears were still running down their faces and then fell down.

They just held her and she let herself be held by them.
For whatever reason she was feeling raw, like an exposed nerve and she didn't understand why she was feeling that way.
She just knew that she was feeling that way and that she would have to wait the feeling out and what better place to do that than in the arms of her parents.

Once everything had calmed down and she didn't feel raw anymore she sat up straighter and asked her parents what had happened, because it had been clear that something must have happened.
Her parents had exchanged a look, full of emotions and heartache before her father had taken a deep breath and started talking.
He had explained everything to her, how, five years ago, 50% of all life had been killed, turned to dust by a mad titan who called himself Thanos. The Avengers and some other exceptional people had fought him but to no avail. He had won and then killed of half of every living being across the universe. Nobody knew how he had managed to kill 50% of all life, seeing as the Avengers had never addressed that particular mystery and the rest of the world figured that the didn't want to know if it made even the Avengers uncomfortable. Her Parents had seen other people turn to dust, colleges they had known for quite some time had disintegrated right in front of their eyes. Nobody knew what had happened, they all only had questions but no answers. Her parents had tried calling her, they had done everything in their power and beyond to get to know what had happened to her if she had been dusted or not. While they still had been holding onto hope that her cellphone had just died and that was the reason why she didn't pick up their calls or called them herself they both had known, deep down, that she would have found a way to contact them, had she still been alive.
And then they were told that she had indeed been one of the dusted and it had broken them.
They didn't tell her how the last five years had been for them and selfishly MJ was thankful for that. She wasn't sure if she could handle them telling her what her death had done to them.
They told her how people had just randomly started to reappear out of nowhere and how that had gotten them thinking that she might be alive as well. She knew what had happened after that.

It was all a lot to take in, being told that she had been dead for five years, that five years had passed without her and yet to her, it was like she had just blinked and everything was different.
It was maddening just thinking about it so she let it be for now and was just happy to be in her parents arms.

The next day everything had gone crazy once again but for a different reason than five years ago.
Back than everything had gone crazy because 50 % of every living being had been killed, now everything was going crazy because those thought dead for the past five years were back again, very much alive and confused.

Every News station one turned on covered the same news, asked the same questions and had no answer to any of their questions.
Everyone was looking towards the Avengers, hoping they knew what was going on and that they might explain it to them.
Finally, there was some sort of answer though it was one not many people would have expected.
On the official Avengers Twitter account there was a short explanation of what had happened and why but the how and by who was never covered and MJ doubted it ever would be.
The short rundown of things was that those five years ago Thanos had used the most powerful weapon of the universe to accomplish what he had done. The following five years were rather bleak and hopeless but then out of nowhere they found a new hope and had an idea to righten the wrongs made by Thanos five years ago. They had not told anyone because they had not wanted to get anyones' hopes up too much, should their plan not work. It had worked however as one could clearly tell by the fact that all the people who have been dead for five years were back now.

It had all been a lot to take in and MJ knew that she wasn't the only one to feel that way.
Ned, Harley and Shuri felt exactly the same but for an unknown reason Peter didn't. He handled it the best of them all and it didn't make any sense to them. He had been dead, just like they had and yet it appeared as though he didn't have any trouble adjusting to a world that had continued on without him for five years.

MJ had decided to not press the matter any further, after all Peter had been through enough pain and heartache in his life, he didn't need any more of it.
He deserved peace.

Back then MJ had not known that Peter would find eternal peace rather soon.
Had she known, she would not have thought any differently but she would have told him what he had meant to her.
She would have told him all the things she had never dared to say to him for fear of rejection.
Looking back on her reasoning now, it seemed invalid, compared to what had all happened.
She should have just told him, he would have deserved to have known the truth. But he had died not knowing what he had meant to her...
The moment she had seen his video being shown on the news she had known that something bad must have happened.
And yet she had hoped to be wrong, she had never hoped for anything more in her life and she had a feeling she never would.

It had been one week since MJ had been back from the dead and she had caught up on quite a lot. She had been chatting and talking with her friends every day and she had been rather happy to learn that her friends had all been dusted as well. The second Peter had told them that he had been able to feel every atom of his body tearing itself to shreds, she had wanted to kill Thanos all over again. Peter had endured enough pain as it had been and yet Thanos had had to add to it. It was not right, someone as nice and kind as Peter should not have to go through all those hardships. And once she learned that May was dead and would remain so she had felt something inside her break. Not because she and May had been overly close but because she knew how much May had meant to Peter. She had practically raised him, he was her nephew in everything but blood. She wouldn't have had to take him in, they had not been related by blood but she had taken him in because they were the only family they had left in this world. So for Peter to return to a world only to find his aunt dead and to be told that Tony Stark was his father... He had lost a family and gained another but he could not have both.

The universe loved to mess with Peter Parker and fuck him over again and again.

She had not known how true her words would turn out to be in just a few short minutes.

She had been in her room, catching up on some of the things she had missed in the past five years when her parents had called her downstairs.
Usually she would have told them she would be with them in a minute but something told her to get downstairs now. Not really knowing where that sudden urge came from, she followed it and while walking down the stairs she realized that something must be wrong.
It was like the feeling one got if one knew that something was seriously amiss but one could not pinpoint what had caused that feeling, one just knew that it was there. The feeling became more and more intense the farther down she went.
Her parents had sounded shaken up, shocked to their core.
She had entered the living room where her parents were, both seated on their old but very comfortable sofa, starring at the TV with looks of shock, horror and understanding all at once on their faces.
MJ looked at the TV, not knowing what she was expecting to see exactly but a crying News woman was not it. The woman on TV had the same look of shock and horror on her face as her parents though on her face the understanding was missing completely. Tears were slowly leaking out of her eyes, running down her cheeks before falling to the ground.
MJ did not understand why or how she knew but in that moment, as her eyes zeroed in on the tear that was starting to fall to the ground, she just knew that Peter had died as Spider-Man and that now the whole world knew of his identity.
She knew it and that knowledge broke her.
She had turned towards her parents and the only thing she had been able to choke out had been a desperate “Please, no.” That had been all she had been able to say and she had said it over and over again. She had started whispering it instead of saying it out aloud as if whispering would make any difference.

She knew that Peter was dead and she knew that this time around nothing and nobody would be able to change that.

The small funeral, of sorts, that the Stark's held was beautiful and so very Peter she thought for just a second that Peter must have had a say in it but she dismissed the thought just as she had had it.
It was too painful to think he had known that he would not become very old at all and decided to prepare for his death by planing his own funeral. He had been 16 and with 16 you should not have to think about weather you will live until next week or not. Of course it had been his choice and she had supported him and thus it but whenever he had come back from patrol all beaten up and bloody she had often wished he would just stop and put himself first, just for once.

But Peter Parker would never put himself first if he knew that others needed his help.

And others always seemed to need his help.
In the end even the universe had needed him and he, being the amazing and kind person that he was, had helped without thinking about how it would affect him, that it could and would cost him his life.
He had always been selfless and in the end that character trait was the reason for his death.

MJ couldn't even be mad at him because his selflessness had been a big part of him and trying to just be mad at his selflessness felt like being mad at him and she couldn't be mad at him. She simply couldn't.

So she learned to deal with her emotions.
It took her some time and even some appointments with Mrs Xeng to come to terms with her feelings but in the end she had come to terms with them, even though they had terrified her at the beginning.

The first time she had shown up at Mrs Xeng's door was exactly a week after the funeral at the Stark cabin and she had just needed a shoulder to cry on. Normally she would have gone straight to Peter but now she couldn't go to him because he was dead. She hadn't wanted to worry her parents but she had also know that she had to talk to someone and thus she had ended up in front of Mrs Xeng's door.

MJ stood in front of the door and, before she could think twice about it and then change her mind, knocked before opening the door slightly. She knew from other students what Mrs Xeng's room looked like and over all just what to expect in general so she wasn't overly surprised to see Mrs Xeng sitting behind her desk, with several sheets strewn all over the surface of her table and her looking at them with desperation. As she had opened the door her head had shot up and her eyes had zeroed in on MJ, taking everything about her appearance in and there was a lot to take in, not in the sense of her clothing, she just wore a jeans and a t-shirt, but in the way she looked over all. MJ knew that she looked more dead than alive. Her eyes were in a constant state of puffy and red, with all the crying that was happening and if, by some miracle, her eyes were not as puffy as was usual one could see how dead and void of emotions they were.

“Can I come in?” she had asked, unsure if she was intruding on her downtime or if it was okay for her to come in.
“Of course, step right on in.” Mrs Xeng had told her, while getting up and moving towards the sofa and the two rather comfortable looking chairs.
She waited for MJ to take place on the sofa before she sat down in one of the two chairs, smiling kindly at MJ.

“How can I help you...” “MJ, I am MJ.” “Okay, so how can I help you MJ?”

MJ took a deep and shuddering breath, trying to sort her thoughts.
She knew that she had a lot to say and at the same time it felt like she had nothing at all to say. Like there was nothing she could say right in that moment because there was just to much to say.
She had too much to say and at the same time not enough.
But she had to start somewhere and so the words just started coming and once they did they didn't, couldn't be stopped, not even if she had wanted them to. They needed to be said and they were being said and there was nothing that could stop that from happening.
Words kept tumbling out of her mouth and that was okay.

“I knew that Peter was Spider-Man, I have known for some time, not for as long as Ned but long enough to know that any day he put on his suit and went out to help others there was a chance that he would not make it back home alive. I knew that, I fucking knew that. I knew that being Spider-Man could end up costing him his life. I knew that. And I also knew that he knew that, God knows we have talked about that often enough. We talked about it because I couldn't lose him and e couldn't stop being a hero. He just couldn't and I understood that. I understood why he couldn't just stop being Spider-Man. Being Spider-Man was a part of himself and he couldn't give that up.
I think the very first time he had put on his first Spider-Man suit he had been doomed to the life of a superhero. He was meant to be a superhero. I don't believe in callings and all that but being a hero was Peter's calling. He became a hero at an age where others don't even think about it, not even the other heroes we have...
And I know that Peter was happy with the way his life was, I know that he wouldn't want to change anything if he could. He had been happy with the way things were. He had found his place in this world, his true place, the place that was made for him and only him. And I was happy for him, I was happy that he had found his place, even though I knew it was a dangerous one but I had this irrational thought that he would be okay. I thought there was no way he would die, not anytime soon. And yet here I am because he was a fucking hero and had to die to give the universe a second chance! He had to die... At the and of the day, the hero has to die for all the others to live. I never really thought that to be true but now I see that it is true. Peter was that hero, he had to die to ensure our survival. He died and we are still here... I am still here but without him. Why am I still here when he isn't? I might be alive but I am not living. I can't live the way I used to knowing what it took to ensure that, my life for his... All our lives for his and that might be okay to the people who didn't know him but I did know him and it is not fair in the slightest. He, more than anyone, deserved to have a happy ending but he didn't get one...”

After that Mrs Xeng had been quite for some time. Just as MJ thought she would not get an answer Mrs Xeng had looked her in the eyes and had started speaking.
“If you can't live just for the sake of it at the time being, then live for Peter. He gave his life so that we can make the most of ours, that you can make the most of yours. Just try, take one day at a time and just try. Don't bottle your emotions up, let them out, it will help you to feel better.”

MJ had thought about what she had said and had asked, after some time “Can I make an appointment for another time? I think this might help me...”

“Of course, you can make as many appointments as you need. I am here to help you and other students deal with whatever it is you are going through during this time.”

MJ had made many appointments with Mrs Xeng and they helped.

She had always known that the progress of grieving someone wasn't linear, that there would be good and bad days but knowing something like that and experiencing it were two different things entirely.

Some days she was doing okay whereas on other days she had trouble getting out of bed let alone going through the whole day like nothing was wrong.

But with time the bad days became less frequent and the pain she felt each time she thought about Peter made room for all the positive emotions she had felt whenever she had been around Peter.

So yeah, she was doing better.

When she thought of Peter now she didn't feel anguish and pain because he was gone but she felt honored, happy and somewhat humble because she had known him while he had been alive, she had been his friend, maybe a little more than that but the point was that she was grateful for the time she had had with him, however short it may have been.

She had known him and the memories she had of him, she would take with her to the grave.

“We will meet again.”

“Yes, you will meet again. You all will meet again, once the time is right.”

“I know but I also know the time is not yet the right one.”

“That is true but the right time will come.”

“I know.”