newyorknative | how did you find me here waiting for you?

Entry tags:

michelle “mj” jones : neverdisappointed

how did you find me here waiting for you?

[ aka multiversal shenanigans ]

MJ really hated magic. But sometimes, she had to admit that it could do things that science hadn't been able to manage.

When she'd first noticed the blank spots in her memories and the vague sense of dread that flooded her veins whenever she'd tried unearthing her brain's secrets, she'd done the sensible thing: she'd started therapy. But when she'd finally opened up to Ned about the reason she was seeing someone, he'd gone quiet and admitted that he was experiencing the same memory issues. It had been a relief, talking about it with someone, but at the same time, it wasn't likely that PTSD would manifest in the exact same way in two separate people.

One thing they could both agree on, though, was that Spider-Man featured predominantly in the flashes of their memories they could recall. So if he was involved in this somehow, maybe they should just ask him. Getting ahold of him, though, was easier said than done, and so they had to resort to a desperate option.

It was supposed to be a simple plan. While visiting with Dr. Strange, one of them would discreetly lift the sling ring from his belt and wait for him to leave the room. Ned would open a portal while thinking of Spider-Man, MJ would run through it if it looked safe, Ned would close the portal and tell Strange that MJ had needed to run, and the two of them would link up after. Even if Strange found them out, he couldn't get mad at them, since the ring wouldn't be leaving the Sanctum. It was straightforward. Clean. Easy.

Except, when MJ emerged on the other side of the portal in what looked like a fairly quiet neighborhood in Queens, she frowned in confusion. She'd immediately looked up and around, expecting to see him swinging through the air or perched on a lamppost or something. Instead, it looked like a fairly quiet afternoon on a fairly empty street, and she would have thought no one was around if she hadn't heard the distinctive sound of a bus pulling away from somewhere behind her.

When she whirled around, she froze. It wasn't Spider-Man, no, but... it was. She could see his face clearly in her mind, knew what his voice sounded like without ever hearing it, and had a distinct urge to throw bread at him. That last bit was a little weird, but instead of focusing on where it came from, she pointed her finger at the guy who may have just come off the bus or who had walked around it.

"Hey! You! We need to talk!"

Peter was having a really good day.

It was unusual, in the way that any streak of good luck could be considered unusual for him. He’d not only been on time for his work study with Dr. Octavius, he’d been early, not a single mugger or high speed chase throwing him off his morning rhythm. Last everything bagel at the deli, check. Coursework done and not eaten by a rhinoceros man tearing up fourth ave, check. His visit to The Daily Bugle had even proved fruitful; Jonah had bought five photos out of Peter’s latest batch. $100 apiece when they should probably be $250, but still - five hundred bucks was a decent chunk of change, and a windfall for someone like him.

A good day doesn’t solve everything, though, and Peter’s embroiled in his usual melancholy by the time he’s getting off the bus. It always gets harder towards the end of the day, and especially when he comes back to Queens - it’s easier to ignore the memories when he’s out and about, visiting people and places She never touched. But here, as the bus crosses the border to Queens and he catches sight of the playground, he feels as though if he looks up, perhaps he’ll see her swinging, beckoning him to join her. Maybe she’s sitting under the tree where he carved their initials, studying something or other.

Or maybe she’s nowhere at all, except the one place Peter hates to think of her (but, as with all of the above, he fails stupendously) - two miles East, at the Calvary Cemetery, four feet of dirt separating them.

Peter’s earbuds are pumping a steady stream of music into the space between his ears (in a vain attempt to silence the static white noise), but his hearing is good enough that he hears the girl talking to him anyway as he gets off the bus. And she is talking to him - pointing right at him, actually. Peter’s brow furrows - he can’t recall her from anywhere, nowhere recent, at least. Perhaps one of Dr. Octavius’ undergrads? Then again, why would someone accost him outside of class? He’s a useful aide, but he’s not that useful.

Still, she seems intent, her gaze unmistakably fixed on him, and Peter is helpful by nature. He pops an earbud out, taking a step forward out of the crowd exiting the bus, coming to a stop in front of her. He looks pretty innocuous at the moment - his usual hoodie/jeans combo, a camera slung around his neck. “Hey uh - can I help you with something? You lost?”

Well, he isn't avoiding eye contact with her and assuming she's some random crazy person in the street, so that seems to solidify that he knows her, so MJ can probably trust that much of her memories. Now that she has his attention, though, she finds that she's not really sure what to say, especially not when there are other people around and he's not even in the suit. She can't just blow Spider-Man's secret identity, can she? Is that why her memories had gotten screwy? Because she knows too much about him and he was trying to make her forget? Is that one of his spider-powers?

That feels right on some instinctive level, but intellectually, it also feels all wrong. If Spider-Man had been trying to keep her and Ned from remembering and revealing his true identity, his expression right now would be very different. Annoyed, maybe, or exasperated, or surprised; she doesn't know him enough to know what his reaction would be, but the innocent look on his face gives her pause long enough for her to look a little unsure of herself.

No, nope, if she looks uncertain, and he is trying to keep something from her, then he can lean into that uncertainty and self-doubt and claim that he has no idea what she's talking about. So she steels herself to be as blunt as she usually is, if discreet enough to keep her voice down to vaguely confidential levels.

"I have questions. For Spider-Man."

Peter's not altogether sure what he's expecting to come out of the girl's mouth, but when they start treading familiar water, he supposes he probably shouldn't be too surprised. Most inquiries about this sort of thing came through the Bugle's office, and the only ones Peter ever answered were the official ones - cops, occasionally, wanting to know how he got the photos he did. Once or twice - or three times, now, with this person - someone had found him intentionally outside of that to ask.

"I'm sorry, but I just take pictures of him." Peter taps two fingers against the camera around his neck, offering an apologetic smile. She's nice enough (so far), even if she is accosting him at a bus stop - which makes him wonder how much she knows about his schedule? Comings and goings? Someone really does want to talk to Spiderman, but his senses aren't tingling so Peter is going to assume (again, for the moment) that this hasn't been born of malintent. "I don't know him, not personally."

Moments like these always remind him of Harry, pleading with him to help him find a way...was this girl in trouble? She didn't seem panicked, but maybe she knew something - had a tip about something, somehow? It wasn't a secret that Spiderman had been having clashes with the various crime syndicates of New York, especially after some big arrests were made, a few months ago. Something always floods to fill to the gap; just a never-ending cycle.

Rather than look disappointed, MJ's expression becomes entirely perplexed. "Pictures? What-?" She frowns deeply as she looks down at the camera he gestures towards. It has to be a cover, right? She distinctly remembers his head on Spider-Man's body. Unless he's been experimenting with some crazily realistic photo editing, she assumes that he uses pictures of Spider-Man as a way to explain away any affiliation he might seem to have with the costumed hero among his family and friends. She doesn't know much about comic books, but didn't Clark Kent write articles about Superman for the same reason? It stands to reason that a real-world superhero would use a comic book hero as some sort of inspiration.

"I don't care about what pictures you take for your blog or whatever," she tells him with a dismissive wave of her hand. "That's not-...." She looks around for a moment before stepping in closer to him, hating that she feels like she's breaching his personal bubble. But if he's being difficult, then she's going to have to be even more forthright than she's been so far.

"You," she hisses quietly. "You're Spider-Man. And don't tell me you're not, because your mind control or whatever it was is wearing off, and I'm remembering now."

That stab of uncertainty strikes again; what if he actually doesn't know who she is and her so-called memories are just illusions or something? What if he'd just dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween and so the portal had just sent her here, because he's the last person Ned had seen dressed up like that?

But no, nope, before that doubt can weaken her resolve, she remembers something else that confirms he's more than just some random guy with a really good Spidey costume. "You were climbing on the ceiling at Ned's house and got rid of a cobweb for Lola. Heck, you were trying to prove to me that you were Spider-Man." The why of the matter is still fuzzy, but the more she talks to him, the more information keeps flooding back.

"Not really a blog, it's like, a syndicated newspaper..." Peter trails off with genuine confusion, eyeing the girl and wondering what the hell he's just walked into. Does she not know about his photography? If not, then why on Earth would she approach him? As Peter Parker, he's no one special. Aside from his photos and the way tragedy seems to follow him like a cloud, there's nothing -

But then the girl steps closer, vitriol in her tone, and Peter's blood freezes like ice. It has to be the ravings of a mad woman, because Peter's never seen this girl before in his life - she must have seen his name in conjunction with Spiderman and spun it into this conspiracy that just so happened to be real, but - but. It still strikes home, that he's been found out even if she has zero proof - and the angry tone, well. Peter was never under any illusions that people would be happy with what he's done.

"My spidery mind control?" Peter snorts, chin raised defiantly, even if his hands have to ball into fists to stop them from shaking. "Look, lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've never even met you before. I don't know a Ned or a Lola, and I'm definitely not Spiderman."

"I take pictures with a long lens." Peter lifts the camera as if to illustrate that, trying not to squeeze it with excessive force. Breathe. Don't think about it. She doesn't have anything concrete. Your hands aren't shaking and all is well. All is well. "You want Spiderman, go find him. Godspeed."

He pushes past MJ, intent on just continuing on his way - maybe if he did, she'd leave him alone, but odds weren't looking good on that front. Still, he's trying not to freak out and spiral, so trudging on ahead is probably the best course of action to at least attempt.

No. No, no, no, no, no. Of course he'd deny everything if ever confronted with whatever he'd done to her memories. Of course he would gaslight her. Of course he would walk away. MJ's not really sure how she'd expected this to go, but she hadn't accounted for the way the panic immediately sets in when he pushes past her.

The memories might be coming back, but they're not coming back nearly quickly enough. Snapshots of images, sound bytes, flashes of things that may or may not have actually happened with zero context whatsoever are all flooding her brain in a confusing mess. He's Spider-Man. She knows he is.

But he's also not.

She has no idea how both of those things can be true, and her chest tightens with every step he takes further and further away from her. Whirling around to look at him, she blurts out, "You saved me. You couldn't save her, but-...."

Where those words came from, she doesn't know. But as soon as they're out of her mouth, she knows they're true, the memories clicking into place like overturning the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle before locking them together. "I was falling, and-... and I knew that I was going to die. But I remember your face, because you were the one who caught me, and you held onto me until we were safe, and you asked me if I was okay. And then I asked you the same."

Because he hadn't been okay. That impression is clear enough, much more so than the story she vaguely recalls him telling about another woman - his MJ, whatever that had meant - and how he couldn't save her, and how that had changed the course of his life. But when she'd asked if he was okay... he had been.

Covering her face in her hands as she takes a deep breath and tries to make sense of this, she tells him, "Please tell me you remember that, because this is the first clear memory I've had in a long time."

Peter's trying to stuff his earbuds back into his ear and ignore the way his hands are shaking (easier said than done), swallowing down the anger (it's not anger, it's grief, rising up to choke him as it always does), continuing on his way. Back home, to an empty house, because May was always on nightshift these days, so Peter would just have to sit with this by himself in the emptiness. Which would probably end up with him on patrol, because he never claimed it was the healthiest coping mechanism (going from wanting absolutely nothing to do with Spiderman to picking it back up because it's what She would have wanted, to using it as an escape from all the awful things he was feeling and thinking, still - yeah, you could say it's complicated) -

But then the girl continues, calling out to him with probably the only words that could still his feet in this moment, that could stop his need to run in its tracks. Peter turns back around, incredulity warring with that overwhelming grief for control of his expression. The space between them hangs for a moment, commuters from the bus parting around them - they probably think it's some teenage relationship drama, paying them no mind. Typical New York, the hum of life continuing on when the earth felt like it was shattering.

It's the way the girl covers her face, the way her chest heaves with a breath that could only have been meant to calm her, that sends a clear thought ringing through Peter's head - despite the way this didn't make sense, the way she'd come in at him hot - he recognizes her body language. She's scared. His grief and anger fizzle out as easily as they were called to mind, retreating to that shelf in his heart where they live nowadays - it's much harder to walk away from someone when you can recognize they're in crisis.

Dammit.

Peter takes a cautious step back towards her, fingers worrying against the wire of his dangling earbud. His tone, at least, is more patient than it was before. Less affronted, and genuinely sincere as he says: "Listen, I really - I really don't know what you're talking about."

"What do you mean 'memory'?" His gaze flickers appraisingly over her, trying to puzzle out what she could possibly be talking about. The fact that she knew enough to invoke Gwen - when no one knew what had happened at the top of the clock tower - there's something happening here that he doesn't understand. "What's your name?"

When he continues to insist that he has no idea what she's talking about, MJ realizes that this whole thing is a lost cause. Either the portal had messed up and this guy isn't Spider-Man but someone that both she and Ned had somehow conflated with him, or he is Spider-Man and will never admit as much in public. Either way, this is a waste of time.

Trying not to crumble, she reaches into her back pocket and gets out her phone, shaking her head at his questions. She has to call Ned, has to tell him that he'd gotten this wrong and they'd have to decide whether they want to take another crack at it or just discreetly return the ring to Strange and figure out the next best steps.

But before she can even bring the phone to her ear, she realizes that the call hasn't gone through. Frowning, she tries again before noticing she has no service. As she turns on airplane mode with the intention of turning it off again to see if that helps, she passes the time by absently answering his questions. "Forget it. I'm going through something, and I thought you could help me. But if you don't know what I'm talking about, then I guess I'm out of luck."

When her phone still has no service or data, she realizes that the portal might have messed it up somehow. That doesn't make sense; if anything, it would have either had no impact or would've completely fried the phone. Why would she be disconnected all of a sudden?

Okay, no reason to panic. She can figure out where she is and just take a train back to the Sanctum. But if there's a chance that this is Spider-Man, maybe she can save herself a train fare if she can offer enough of a namedrop to help her out here, so she finally looks up at him as she tries to stamp out her feeling that something is terribly wrong here.

"I'm MJ," she finally offers. "I, uh-... sort of found you via Dr. Strange. But he technically doesn't know about this so please don't tell him."

"Maybe if you explain it to me," Peter offers, brows drawn low in confusion. The girl is messing with her phone now and not looking him in the eye, trying to either figure out her GPS or call someone, he's not sure. He can see the defeat in the slump of her shoulders, the way it seems to get worse when her phone doesn't appear to give up the answers she's looking for. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have - I'm not having a good day."

It's honest, at least, even if it's just the state of his life. He was having a good day, but it's always short-lived. He's pretty sure it's always going to be that way, and that's not pessimism talking, it's just - he thought his live was divided into Before and After with Ben...but this was a new kind of After.

Peter takes another step forward, close enough now to lower his voice to something more hushed, not broadcasting their conversation to the rest of the street. He hesitates a second after she gives her name - no, he doesn't recognize her, but she clearly recognizes him...somehow. "MJ. I'm Peter. Nice to meet you."

"...I won't." Peter doesn't mention the fact that he doesn't recognize that name, either, more intent on understanding what it is MJ is after, here. "You said you found me through him - you were looking for me? Why?"

Looking for Spiderman, but recognizing him by sight. How? Unless she really had conflated Peter Parker with Spiderman because of the news...but that felt less likely, given the details she was able to provide. Peter takes the earbuds out completely and tucks them into his pocket, staring at her imploringly. She remembers him, but not entirely, and he has no recollection of her...could something have affected both of their memories? The thought is troubling - some piece of technology he'd come across someone misusing, and then...?

When he takes a step closer to her, MJ is struck by another fleeting flash of recognition, breath catching in her throat for a moment. But his name doesn't ring any bells, since the only Peter she's had any recent interaction with is that one weird kid who'd come into her job and had introduced himself by his full name just to order a cup of coffee. Strange as that interaction had been, it doesn't really hold a candle to how surreal her current situation is.

Her words are initially stuck in her throat as she makes eye contact, echoes of familiarity toying at the edges of her memories. It's beyond jarring, and so she forces herself to look down at her phone again, once more fiddling with the various settings in an attempt to get it to connect to a network. "I was looking for Spider-Man," she finally manages to answer after a deep breath. "And I'm having some memory issues. So I thought-... forget it. I must be misremembering something. Either that, or you're successfully gaslighting me to keep your identity secret, which I can begrudgingly respect even if I hate it."

She glances up at him once again, trying to assess his body language. He's obviously giving her his full attention now, given that he's put his earbuds away and looks visibly concerned. He's probably just wondering how to go about getting someone committed to an institution in this day and age, but what if he's concerned because he really is who she thinks he is, and he has little or no memory of her in return? If the amnesia isn't something that Spider-Man had done but that had impacted him and people around him, this could be a much bigger issue than she'd previously anticipated.

"Can you tell me how I can get to the Sanctum Sanctorum from here?" Everyone knows about the Sanctum Sanctorum, so even if he really is just a random guy named Peter that she'd crazily accosted on the street, he should still be able to direct her in that general direction. Holding up her phone, MJ explains, "I was going to call my, uh... ride, but my phone's decided to go on the blitz. Or just point me towards the closest train station and I'll get out of your hair."

Although given the bus he'd just disembarked before she'd spotted him, she finds herself hoping that if this is Queens, it isn't one of those out-of-the-way neighborhoods that will require her to take a bus before taking several trains to get into the city. She's really in no mindset for a long commute, especially if Ned would have left the Sanctum by the time she gets there, leaving her to explain her predicament to the prickly Strange.

"What kind of memory issues? You remember - me, doing something?" Saving her, by the sound of it. Saving her from a fall, and he can picture exactly how that would have made him seem not okay. But then - why couldn't he remember it? Peter can admit that he probably doesn't remember all of his saves - when he's got half his attention on a rampaging man in a rhino costume, flitting around the street to pull people out of the way in between getting the shit kicked out of him - yeah, that's how Max happened. But this? A girl, falling to certain death? He would have remembered something like that. It would have been imprinted on his brain. Peter huffs out a breath, trying to figure out how to respond - he can't rightly say he isn't gaslighting her when he is, in actuality, Spiderman - and a part of him just wants to come clean, even if that's the craziest impulse he's had in a long time.

"...I've gotta be honest with you, I have no idea what that is. And I've lived here my entire life." Peter offers a helpless shrug of confusion, brows knitting together in thought. It's not ringing a bell, same as this Dr. Strange guy she's looking for. Everything about this is so totally bizarre, but even Peter has to admit, weirder things have happened. He was genetically altered by a radioactive spiderbite, after all. "Just..."

Peter suppresses a sigh, running a hand back through his hair, and using the other to gesture down the street. "Come on. We don't have to do this here. Let me...get you a cup of coffee, and we'll take a look at your phone, okay?"

He's definitely not going to leave her stranded, wandering around looking for Spiderman and/or a potentially-nonexistent place, with no phone service. Peter shifts his backpack higher on his shoulder and looks to MJ imploringly.

When he presses her about her mention of memory issues, MJ presses her lips together, wanting to just forget about this whole mess. She'd sort of wished she'd left this particular mystery alone without any attempts to solve it, but she knows that's never been her way; even if she'd somehow known in advance that she'd just embarrass herself to a total stranger, it wouldn't have stopped her from trying to figure this out. "I remember Spider-Man saving my life," she replies levelly. "And Spider-Man had your face. I know he did, because-... because of the way you looked at me when you caught me."

She doesn't know how she could have forgotten that expression - tormented, conflicted, but undeniably relieved as he resisted tears while she clung to him - but now that she's remembered, it's as clear as day. The context behind that mental picture is still grainy at best, but that's just all the more reason to try and make sense of all of this.

For now, she can only blink at him when he claims not to know what the Sanctum Sanctorum is. "... what? It's in the Village. Bleecker Street. Dr. Strange's place? With weird portals and other wizard goings-on?" Anyone who's heard of Dr. Strange knows about the Sanctum. Unless.... "Do you... not know who Dr. Strange is? When was the last time you read a newspaper or watched the news?"

Alarm bells are going off in her head. The situation has, somehow, managed to get weirder, especially since Peter seems like a more or less intelligent guy and so he should be aware of the caped crazies that live in his metaphorical backyard. Whatever doubts she's beginning to have, though, are more about the situation and less about Peter. He seems like he's trying to help, even if he's insisting that she's got him pegged all wrong. So either he's an uncommonly sweet person, or else she isn't wrong about him and he just doesn't want to admit it in public.

Going off with a guy she's never met sounds like the premise to at least half of the episodes of the murder shows she watches, so MJ frowns and shifts her weight a little as she looks Peter over. They're about the same height and he seems to be more on the wiry side, so he doesn't have any obvious physical advantages over her; if she needs to fend him off, she might stand half a chance just based on the fact that she's paranoid enough to constantly be on her guard. Of course, if he actually does have superpowers, she won't stand a chance should he prove hostile.

As much as she hates to do it, she knows that she has to hope for the best despite it going against everything she generally believes in. "Sure," she murmurs reluctantly, opting to harvest as much information from this potential lead as she possibly can. "Just-... weird question, I know, but can you tell me which neighborhood we're in?" The street signs she can see are all numbered and so that doesn't narrow it down, but the area looks familiar enough to make her think that she doesn't live all too far away. Not that she's going to tell him that, of course.

For a long moment, Peter just...stares. Yeah, he would definitely remember something like that, and while his first instinct is, of course, to reject the whole thing out of hand (it's impossible he would remember) - there's something about MJ's tone that stops him. Is this really the strangest thing to ever happen? Is this really outside the sphere of possibility? Is anything, anymore? She seems certain, and she's not crazy, if only about the fact that he is Spiderman. If nothing else, he needs to figure out how she knows that. The silence stretches until Peter can't bear to look her in the eyes anymore, gaze cutting away down the street. It feels too raw, too real - they're out in the open and he doesn't know what it is, really, that MJ is after. They can't talk about this here (he'd prefer they talk about it never...)

"There is no 'Dr. Strange'," Peter tilts his head at her, bewildered by the description of a wizard. What, magic is real now, too? Again, he has to slow down and ask himself - is that really the strangest thing he's seen? He fought a man who turned into a lizard. Wizardry and portals - hm. "Every day. I work for a newspaper."

"There's a diner, around the corner," Peter offers, when the beat of silence after his suggestion stretches with evaluation. MJ is looking at him like she's assessing her options, and Peter's walked enough women home in the late hours of the night (usually drunk sorority girls, and more than a few who had been roofie'd) to know offering information upfront is the best strategy. He tucks his hands in his pockets, backpack shifting higher on his back with the motion as he starts them for said diner. Peter eyes MJ for another beat, trying to figure out where on earth that question fits into her narrative before he does answer, voice lilting on it like it's a question. "Forest Hills, Queens?"

When he claims there's no Dr. Strange, MJ narrows her eyes, wondering whether or not he's just gaslighting her at this point. But no, somehow... she believes him. Because why would he lie about a thing like that? Maybe Strange had found out that she and Ned had planned to steal his ring and this is some wacky mirror dimension or something. That's a thing he can do, right? (... how would she know that's a thing he can do?) So if nothing else, MJ at least believes that Peter believes there's no Dr. Strange, which means she'd either been sent to someplace almost like home but not quite, or whatever's messing with her memories has gotten worse.

And then he tells her where they are, and that's when the surrealism seems to start clicking into place. She's home. Literally home. Based on the street signs, she should be just blocks from her apartment building. Except... she can't see her building from here. She tilts her head to look a little further up the block, and things just look... a little off. This bus stop, for instance, definitely isn't supposed to be here, and that house on the corner isn't supposed to have a yard that big. They're little things, definitely, and maybe she's just got her internal map turned around a bit, but she's almost positive this is her exact neighborhood and yet somehow not exactly her neighborhood.

The thought of being stranded in some weird mirror universe or whatever is one thing, but being stranded here alone is even worse, so when that eerie feeling settling over her bones begins to feel like it might morph into panic, she scurries after Peter, trying to force herself to worry about just the one issue at a time. She doesn't know if that's really possible considering how big the issues she's facing are, but if she's going to panic she at least wants to be sitting down, maybe with a warm drink on its way for her to cradle between her now-shaky hands.

"I didn't-... didn't know there was a diner here," she muttered, trying not to look flustered as her eyes continue to scan her surroundings for the points of familiarity among the unfamiliar. "Are we, uh, by Midtown High, or...?"

MJ's reaction is difficult to parse, and Peter catches himself staring a little, brow furrowing as she seems to go from relatively-combative (or maybe that's just the way she is, how should Peter know?) to decidedly quieter. Suspiciously (though is it, really? Because he's getting more...perturbed vibes from her than suss) quiet, after so brazenly accusing him before. He has no idea why, but...Peter is definitely starting to think there's more here than first meets the eye.

"The Bel Aire," Peter provides, gentler than he had before. It's there, as promised, visible after they turn the corner - a simple diner with a retro-style sign at the front, red vinyl distant in the window. MJ seems to be looking for something - danger? - but Peter doesn't sense anything. He does another sweep of the surrounding area himself, but there's nothing - a couple of teenagers, goofing off with a skateboard on the corner; an old man walking an even older dog, bending down to pick up the droppings up ahead; a lady tending to the plants hanging from her window, arguing in Spanish with someone else inside the apartment.

The mention of Midtown only makes the situation even more curious - did she go? Is she an alum? She doesn't seem young enough that Peter wouldn't have run into her during his tenure there - and his brow furrows further in bewilderment. "...yeah, it's about eight blocks south of here. Are you - like, from around here?"

... she knows the Bel Aire. But it's not here. Or, rather, it's not supposed to be here. It's supposed to be maybe twenty minutes away from here, which is far enough away that there can be another diner with the same name, but it's too close for a business owner to want to compete with a classic neighborhood diner. While her brain might be working overtime as she tries to figure out where all these new pieces fit into this puzzle, MJ remains silent, frowning a little as she catches sight of the diner in question.

"Huh," is all she manages to eventually utter. It's been a while since she's visited the Bel Aire, but this very much looks like it. Is this some weird alternate universe where the landscape is a little different? Different histories translate into different neighborhoods being more or less affordable for businesses and contractors, so the exact locations are there but don't quite line up? First she'd have to accept that alternate universes are even a thing.

Which... let's be honest, shouldn't be that surprising, since they're arguably more scientific than simply being poofed into a pocket dimension by an ornery sorcerer.

"Sort of," she answers softly when Peter asks if she's from the area, looking off in the direction that he claims the high school is in. You should be able to see the steeple from blocks away, but that's yet another thing that's suspiciously absent. Midtown isn't that close to her apartment, but she's already ascertained that her apartment isn't where it should be, so....

"You already think I'm crazy, so I won't go into the 'sort of' aspect of things. At least, not until I've had a cup of coffee or something. But yeah, I'm wrapping up my senior year now."

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