A Different World

of guns and subways

Summary: On her way to a lunch date, Michelle encounters a subway gunman and it goes about as well as you'd expect.

Falling into a routine after graduation had been easy, all things considered. Classes had ended, but they weren't without things to do. Instead of going to ESU for labs, Peter swung downtown to the Tower. Instead of taking the bus to ESU to attend a lecture, Michelle took the subway to a newsroom where she wrote the next day's pieces instead of essays.

There were some things, of course, that were more difficult, but that was just part of taking on real jobs in place of university coursework. Even if Peter's workload consisted mainly of labwork with Tony, he still had patrol in the evenings and Michelle had a job to go to the next morning no matter how injured he was. Unlike lectures, work was harder to skip out on when her boyfriend was lying in the Tower med bay. Fortunately, there had yet to be such an instance as Peter had gotten considerably better at not throwing himself in front of a gun.

One thing that had been harder to continue, unfortunately, was dates. Evenings were out of the picture thanks to Spider-Man, but they'd been able to have lunch dates while still at ESU. Now, with Michelle working in Brooklyn and Peter spending most of his days either downtown at the Tower or overseas on a mission, lunch dates were harder to come by.

"I'm leaving right now," Michelle said, her phone pinched between her cheek and her shoulder as she hastily grabbed her bag. She had one hour before she had to be back for a meeting, but she was determined to meet Peter for lunch at least once this week.

"We're still meeting at Andy's, right?" Peter asked. There was a muffled grunt followed by a quiet, "Hey, Karen!"

"You're swinging there?" Michelle asked with a small frown.

"I'm downtown," Peter explained, "it'll be faster."

Any excuse to get a bit of patrolling in, Michelle mused to herself.

"Alright," she hummed. Hurrying down the stairs to the subway, she said, "I'll see you there. Entering the subway now."

After a short goodbye, Michelle slipped her phone back into her bag and pushed through the subway crowds to catch her train. One stop later, she stepped out of the train car and made her way through the crowd to her connection. She had seconds to get from her current platform to the next and despite nearly running, she still missed the train. With a grumble, she glanced at her watch. It would be five minutes before the next one arrived, eating into her date with Peter, but she could likely convince him to swing her back to the office. If he was in the suit, he might as well.

She waited impatiently for the next subway, tapping her toe and checking her watch too often. As the platform filled up around her, she grew still and found herself searching the crowd instead of glancing at her watch. People were still moving to and fro across the platform, but Michelle's toe stopped tapping and an anxious buzzing filled her chest.

Peter was the one with the abilities and the danger sense, but Michelle liked to think it had rubbed off on her in the years since they'd gotten together. Perhaps it was paranoia, but as her eyes flickered over those who were waiting alongside her, an uneasy feeling settled in her gut.

To her left, there was a flicker of light on metal and a man reached for his belt. His hand stayed under his jacket as he slipped through the crowd, coming nearer to where the majority of people were waiting around her.

Behind her, the track rattled, signaling the incoming subway, and people took a step forward. A few paces away, the man pulled his hand from under his jacket and her heart plummeted.