Spideychelle one-shots

Dear Journal (Pt. 5)

MJ was bored.

It had been nine days, three hours, and six - no, seven - minutes since she'd been shot, and in that entire amount of time she had done nothing but watch TV and sleep.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so lazy. Nope - it would have been the summer after eighth grade when she'd caught pneumonia. 

But even then she could do work - the doctors said she should try not to move her arms too much, to let the wound heal as much as possible and so that the scarring wouldn't be as bad. Which meant no writing. 

This wasn't a huge problem, as her journal had been lost with the rest of her belongings, but... that wasn't really the point.

The point was that she was useless and helpless and hated it. 

The point was that everyone in her life (her parents, doctors, police, the therapist she was forced to go to) was tiptoeing around her like she was going to break at any moment.

A freak accident, they said. Investigation ongoing, they said.

MJ had been forced to tell them about the attempted muggings and stabbing. Which had led to a lot of shouting. She was pretty sure she was now grounded for life. 

After that, the police had changed their tactics: stalker, they said. Or just a criminal angry at being thwarted by Spiderman so many times, who had noticed that he had saved MJ a few times. Out for a win, out to prove that he was better than Spiderman. 

MJ didn't know what was the truth. Everything was mixed up in her head - the moments after she was shot combining with the endless fragments of dreams and snatches of reality in the days after. 

All she does know is that she hasn't seen Spiderman since. Besides all of the clips of the accident posted to social media that is - not the shooting, but the moments where Spiderman had been there. 

When he'd held her in his arms. When the EMT's practically had to tear her away from him. And, caught on camera by a particularly close bystander, the moments where he'd begged her to stay alive. 

Please, MJ, he'd said, his voice breaking. Please wake up. 

Her face was all over the internet - as well as her name and any and all other information people could dig up on her. They were calling her Spidey's girlfriend. 

Her parents were furious. In fact, all of the media attention was what had led her to confess her other scrapes with danger - told when she was questioned wether she'd ever met Spiderman before. 

It was all ridiculous, and she'd told them as such, but deep down she couldn't help but wonder: how had Spiderman known to come save her all of those times. Very quickly, too, as if he knew where she was. 

But then she would shake it off as ridiculousness, because why would Spiderman pay attention to her?

Her room had become sort of a prison. If prisons were fluffy and warm and full of get well cards and slightly creepy teddy bears.

Seriously, did all of her parent's friends still think she was 8? Not that she had anything against stuffies (she still treasured Mr. Foo Foo, her teddy bear since she was born) but that didn't mean she wanted 10 more. 

All of her flat surfaces were covered with the things, which made it hard to anything useful, like tidy her room (which was something she actually could manage in her invalid state). 

She thought some days that her parent's would prefer it if she just never did anything again, if they could just keep her there, safe, forever.