Lost Home

Wishing

"Umm...who?"

"I said guess, loser."

MJ rolls her eyes, and the tote bag makes a strange clunking sound as she puts it down on the floor.

"Uh...someone from school?"

She rolls her eyes again and begins to pull stuff out of the bag.

"No shit Sherlock."

"I don't know! Who would visit an art...place? Studio? Um, flash? You?"

She glares at me, and I glare back. Have you ever heard that predators can smell fear? Well I'm not so sure about animals, but MJ sure can, and I'm trying my best not to show it.

"Yes, actually, it was Flash. Well, with his mom. She was commissioning a Spiderman work. I was told there have been a lot of those in the last little bit."

Her smirk suddenly turns into a frown, "It felt awful to lie though. I've worked so hard to be honest, I just...yeah."

My annoyance at Flash suddenly disappears, "Hey, you don't have to lie! Just say people call you MJ, and, and, stuff like that! You don't have to tell them your entire life story while introducing yourself."

She smiles wryly, and holds up some of what was in the bag; a shirt with the same logo on it as the tote bag.

"Your new uniform?"

"Yeah, I'm customer service. I hate people."

When she says the last bit her mouth puckers up as though she just sucked on a sour lemon.

After she tells me about everyone and how terrible some of them are, I show her she system I set up. I don't take her up to the roof; she HATES heights, but I do give a demonstration by playing the thing from earlier.

She doesn't say anything for a bit; just stares at the corner of the wall where the speaker is duct-taped up.

"You know, we're going have to find a way to stop him. He isn't afraid to kill people, he's been holding back because....I don't know. But he seemed fine with taking innocent lives in Venice. Ugh. What's for dinner?"

I walk to the kitchen sink, mini fridge, and counter top, and open the cupboards.

Inside is a single unopened box of crackers.

"Um...a cracker. When are you getting paid?"

MJ sighs, and jumps onto the couch.

"At the end of the month; next week. I have maybe ten dollars in my bank account, I was my mother's savings."

"Aunt May and I didn't have much. And I didn't have time to work with Spiderman and school."

Oh, no.

"And if Aunt May did have anything, it's going to have to go towards the hospital bill."

It sucks being poor. And even worse when you're struggling to eat as a 16 year old. Like, big time sucks. I wish Mr. Stark was here, yes, I would feel guilty about taking his money, but at least if he was here I wouldn't have had to run away.

I watch as MJ pops a single cracker in my mouth.

"Mmm, filling. I'm going to go to bed."

And soon enough I follow suit.