A F T E R G L O W - N W H「3」

F O U R

- NO REST FOR THE WEARY -

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     The hours following her visit with Strange weren't an easy few to get through. Whatever feeling she had that she might make it home was slowly deteriorating with each passing day.

It hit her hard, something she put nine years into researching and trying to find a way around, and all she came up with was a bunch of nothing.

She'd just barely made it up the stairs to her apartment before her phone started to ring and a deep sigh passed her lips as she found it to be Peter's contact shone across her screen.

Long story short, he needed her help and she had nothing better to do it seemed. She did have to go all the way back to the Sanctum Sanctorum again after just leaving there a few hours ago, but hey, Peter needed her.

She met MJ and Ned outside the front doors, both of them bundled up comfortably much like herself, Peter having presumably explained the cold temperature to them.

"Whoa." Ned looked around the snowy interior in awe, smile wide with giddy excitement. "I can't believe I'm in the Sanctum Sanctorum."

Strange, who looked to be more stressed and peeved than Liz left him, muttered under his breath as he walked towards the stairs. "Neither can I..."

Ned followed him as he started climbing the steps, the boy still taking in all the sights before him. "So how did you know you were a man of magic? Because my nana says we have it in our family and sometimes I get these tinglings in my hands—"

"You should talk to your physician." Strange cut him off with a nod in finality.

MJ shook her head from beside Liz before she spotted Peter and sped over to him. "Peter!"

"Hey!" He smiled once sighting her, the two sharing a hug as Liz and Ned walked over.

"I'm so sorry for dragging you into this, you just gotta help me find these guys..."

"You don't have to apologize. You got us a second shot at MIT." MJ assured, her smile not ever being too big or even evident most of the time, but her lips turned up nevertheless in his presence.

"So, how did the bad guys get here?" Ned asked Peter, Liz whipping her head in his direction as his words came as a surprise.

Peter didn't say anything about bad guys.

"He screwed up a spell trying to get you into college." Strange spoke over the silence from the stairs, looking down at the four irritably.

MJ looked over Peter with a squinted eyed stare. "Wait, what? I thought it was the MIT lady you saved—?"

Ned looked confused, but also interested. "You did it with magic—?"

"There are bad guys here?" Liz finally questioned, lost on why she was even here in the first place and now Peter was looking at her with pursed lips as he nodded his head to answer her question.

He then turned to MJ to reply to her. "No, that was after. Let's just focus on the good news, okay—?"

"No, let's just focus on the bad news." Strange interrupted from the very top of the steps, voice laced with annoyance. "As of now, you have detected zero multiversal trespassers, so get on your phones, scour the internet, and...Scooby-Doo this shit!"