Summary: Michelle Jones gets kidnapped and she is decidedly Not Happy™ about it

Michelle should have anticipated that someone was going to have a big enough problem with one of her pieces at some point in her career that they would hunt her down. However, should have anticipated and had anticipated are two very different things.

It was Michelle's turn to pick up lunch for her and her team, a little tradition they'd started at the beginning of their work on the whole the-government-has-a-whole ass-RAFT-prison situation. There were a lot of files that had been dropped by SHIELD all those years ago, and it had taken them weeks to sort through everything and find information relevant to their project. During times when there was too much to read and they didn't want to put it all on hold to eat, they'd started alternating lunch run days.

Even now, months after they'd finished (and published) their work, the used-to-be-team still alternated lunch-buying days and although it was windier than a goddamn hurricane, Michelle had still volunteered as it was her day to go.

She should have (again, there was that little whisper of both irritation and regret: should have) noticed that she was being followed.

She'd been distracted. Her hair broke free of her braid at the same time a gust of wind nearly knocked over the stack of Thai takeout she had in her hands, so it was all she could do not to drop the food and avoid running into a lamppost just in front of her. Between her hair, her worry about the food, and the stench of what she was certain was dog poop stuck to her shoe, she hadn't noticed the man until he had a gun pressed under her ribs and a tight hold on her arm.

"Get in the car," he hissed.

She hadn't even been able to see the car, but with a huff, she let him shove her into the backseat, only protesting when he dumped the takeout on the ground and slammed the door behind her. After that, it had only gone downhill.

They had barely pulled away from the curb when the man who had grabbed her pulled on a gas mask. Michelle frowned, opening her mouth to ask what the hell he was doing, only for him to toss a canister of something that had to be toxic into the backseat. It started to hiss and although she couldn't see smoke, she could smell the gas it was emitting.

"What the hell is that?" she snapped, coughing as she breathed in the fumes.

Unsurprisingly, the man didn't respond.

It didn't take long for the effects of whatever was in the canister to take hold of her. She coughed again, her lungs shaking with each jolt of her body, but soon enough, the gas won out. When she tried to blink away the burning in her eyes, she didn't wake back up.

* * * * *

Peter was having a bad day. He'd showed up at SI Tower to fix his suit, only to discover Tony had covered his side of the lab in what Peter could only assume were old suit parts. The lab itself was empty, but Tony had clearly been in recently. When he asked FRIDAY, though, the answer was less than clear.

"Boss has left the premises," she replied. When pressed for a less vague answer, she didn't respond.

"Fine," Peter grumbled.

He cleared off his work desk but made sure he dumped everything on Tony's side of the lab. He didn't even attempt to organize it, tossing one thing after another on the floor. By the time his space was clear, he was annoyed and still grumbling. It got worse when he realized he hadn't saved his last notes and FRIDAY hadn't been given access to them in an attempt to keep Tony from realizing what he was planning.

He started over, racking his mind for any memory of what he'd scribbled down yesterday. As the afternoon rolled around, he felt fairly confident that he was back to where he'd left off.

In an attempt to turn his bad day around, he decided to order a late lunch with Tony's card in the name of payback for the mess in the lab.

After picking up his food from the front desk, Peter went in search of Pepper. Although Tony had sold the Tower to SI and turned the penthouse into a conference room, Pepper's top-level office was still hers and, if Peter asked nicely, she let him eat in it. The fact that it also had a balcony was entirely the reason he did so.

Pepper was not in, but FRIDAY let him slip into her office and out onto the balcony for some much-needed fresh air. With his food in hand, Peter made himself comfortable in one of the chairs and took his time eating.

He had nearly finished eating―was on his last bite―when FRIDAY spoke up.

"Karen has reported an anomaly you might want to know."

Peter frowned and glanced at his watch. It was nearly 3PM. In theory, he could leave the lab early and start patrol, but he'd promised MJ that they would have the afternoon together. Karen and FRIDAY both knew this, though, which meant that if Karen was alerting him to a situation that needed his attention, it would likely require more than a few hours.

"What is it?" he asked with a sigh. He'd have to text MJ to cancel their plans.

It was Karen's voice that came over the speaker this time. "Michelle never returned from her lunch."

"She may have had a meeting?" Peter suggested. A weight settled in his gut even as he said it.

"Unless she did not put it on her calendar," Karen said, "I do not think that is the case."

With a twisted gut, Peter asked, "What's her location?"

"Her phone was traced to the pier, coordinates―"

Peter dove off the balcony as Karen read off MJ's last location, tapping his wrist for his suit and swinging himself in the direction she indicated. God bless nanobots and god bless Tony's idea of a retractable suit.

Karen echoed in his ear, telling him where MJ's phone had traveled from up until it was left on the pier. When he arrived, he was unsurprised to find it half-crushed and kicked behind a fishing crate, but he was still riddled with fear at the sight of it.

"Run me through her route again," Peter instructed, turning the phone over in his hands in the hope it would reveal where MJ was.

Karen was in the middle of repeating MJ's travel route when suddenly she was interrupted.

"Call incoming," she said, cutting herself off.

An unknown number flashed across his hub and without thinking, Peter accepted.

"I've got someone here who wants to say hi, Spider-Man," a voice said. It was distorted, clearly run through a modulator, but Peter still crushed MJ's phone at the sound of it.

"You mean this isn't about me?" MJ could be heard saying. "I wrote a whole ass article on the secrets of the government's RAFT prison, and you kidnapped me because of Spider-Man?"

"She's alive for now." Even through the distortion, Peter could hear him snarling at MJ and his blood ran hot.

"Don't you dare touch her," he snapped. "I'll come, unarmed or whatever you want, but don't lay a finger―"

"Your threat is in vain," the voice drawled. Peter saw red. "If you follow our instructions, though, we might consider playing nice."

"I swear to god―"

"Time's ticking, Peter Parker," the voice said, "might want to spend it looking for your girl and not threatening the one who has her in his hands."

The line went dead and Karen informed him that her attempt to trace the call had failed. Before Peter could thank her anyway or ask her to find Tony, a message appeared on his hub with new coordinates.

"That's the―" Peter gaped at the location Karen pulled up for him. "They're in the middle of the bay!"

It was exactly where Spider-Man would be useless. There was nothing to swing from, stranded in the middle of a body of water.

"Call Tony," Peter instructed, staring out at the water and wondering how the hell he was going to do this.

* * * * *

Early on in her relationship with Peter, Michelle had figured that she'd find herself in this situation: kidnapped and used as some perverse type of bait or lure. After six years of nothing happening, though, she'd been at least a little hopeful that this kidnapping had been because of her last article. It certainly would have made for a great follow-up story: the government kidnapping the lead writer on an article directly exposing them and their prison for enhanced individuals. To say she was annoyed and disappointed was an understatement.

While she did not have prior experience being kidnapped, she was a quick learner. Unfortunately, she also had a smart mouth and she was (quickly) learning that it was probably better to just keep silent.

Already, her jaw ached from a hit that she hoped would bruise. It was painful enough that it should and she'd feel robbed if it didn't.

"There's movement at Stark Industries," one of the men muttered, hunched over a screen in a way that was reminiscent of when Ned and Peter played video games.

"He contacted Stark," the second man, the one who had snatched her from the sidewalk, replied. "We figured he would, that's why we're out here."

"No, that's just it," the first man said. "He's not with Iron Man."

Michelle frowned, but she couldn't see the screen with three men hovering around it. If Peter hadn't contacted Stark, though, she would be both exasperated and unsurprised. There were only three men on board (yes, she'd discovered they were on a boat after the rocking waves had made her nauseous) so Peter could handle them on his own, but the extra backup (that had wings) would have been appreciated.

"Then he's coming alone," the second man said with a lift of his shoulder. "Better for us."

"I'm not so sure," the third man said slowly. Tapping the screen, he drew the second man's attention to something in front of them. "He seems to have something with him."

* * * * *

This was either the worst idea Peter had ever had or one of the best. Hanging from a tangle of webs and four drones over New York City, Peter had Karen make a note to incorporate drones in his next update. If Tony got to fly, then he could too.

"Can't these things go any faster?" Peter grumbled, glancing up at his little team of drones.

"In order to avoid snapping your webbing," FRIDAY explained, "we cannot travel any faster."

Peter groaned and adjusted his grip on his webs. Karen made a note to include faster drones without him having to ask.

* * * * *

Michelle did not know what Peter's apparent plan was, but it was enough to make the three men in front of her reach for their weapons. With a bruise already blossoming on her jaw and zip ties cutting into her wrists, she was not in the best mood as they pulled her to her feet.

She'd blame it on the fact that she was forced to skip lunch and annoyed at being used for bait, but rather than let them pull her to wherever they had planned, Michelle twisted and jabbed her elbow into the jaw of the nearest man.

"Motherfuc―"

Blood hit her face as the man bit through his tongue and before Michelle could be entirely grossed out, the man retaliated by breaking her nose and she could no longer tell whose blood was whose.

Between the pain spreading across her face and the watering of her eyes, Michelle reacted too late to do anything about the second man that grabbed her and pushed her into what had to be a closet. There was a click of a lock and Michelle grit her teeth as she was faced with nothing but darkness.

"Great," she muttered, spitting blood from her mouth. "Just great."

It took less time than she expected for her to hear Peter's voice through the door, spewing threats and jokes at the same time. There was an echo of a gun, followed by a sound that Michelle couldn't quite pin down before it went silent.

She was mid-blink when the door was ripped off its hinges and she was momentarily blinded by the light that spilled in.

"MJ!" Peter gasped.

His hands found her cheeks and Michelle grumbled, shoving her zip-tied hands between them for him to break first. He did so easily and as soon as her wrists were free, she let him pull her to his chest and work through his residual panic.

"I thought you were dead!" he exclaimed, arms circling her shoulders.

"I was gone for, like, four hours, nerd."

"You could have been dead!"

"It'd hurt less than this would."

"MJ."

"I'm serious," she said, pulling back so his face was no longer buried in her hair. "Broken noses? Hurt like shit."

Peter eyed her nose, still bleeding and aching like nothing else Michelle had ever experienced before.

"Karen says it'll heal alright," he told her gently. He carefully wiped the blood from her chin. "She also says it'll bruise."

"It better," Michelle said. "It hurts. I deserve a nasty bruise for this."

Peter pulled off his mask and the look on his face was both something she expected and hated. The panic was still clear in his eyes as he looked at her and his brow was pinched. She found herself reaching up and smoothing her thumb over the furrow between his brows subconsciously, frowning at the sight.

"I'll be okay, tiger," she promised. Despite the blood drying on her face, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. Unsurprisingly, there was smeared blood on his face when she stepped back. "I'll be good as new in a few weeks, yeah?"

Peter nodded, lacing his fingers with hers, and pulled her back to his chest. It was only when she hooked her chin over his shoulder, deciding to let him hug her until the panic in his eyes faded, that she noticed the mess behind him along with the four drones hovering over three unconscious bodies. With a sigh, she closed her eyes. She'd let Peter deal with that.