AN: Mild swearing. CW/ mentions of anxiety. I am a big believer in learning to love yourself through the way other's love you. Nobody is perfectly secure without feeling like they can be secure and valued by others.

"For all your beautiful traits, and the way you do it with ease, For all my flaws, paranoia, and insecurities, I've made mistakes, and made some choices that's hard to deny, After the storm, something was born on the fourth of July," Endgame – Taylor Swift

…

What does one do when the inevitable happens, and you begin to fall, but you'll be moving 200 miles away in a few months?

Well, according to MJ, you begrudgingly go with the flow.

Just as she thought, over the months following Peter's confession, she began to develop feelings for the not-so-non-existent-anymore boy. After their night in the van, she set up a meeting between him and Ned that was similar to their own encounter. It's safe to say that Ned used his backpack as a weapon. Peter's spidey sense could only do so much against Ned's deserved wrath.

Nonetheless, in his bid to be a friend to MJ first, Peter made his daily stops to the diner into hangouts. As always, MJ found herself strangely drawn to him, open around him, and utterly unguarded. She still wasn't used to the feeling, but at least she knew why it was there. It was no longer an unexplainable mystery but an uninvestigated part of herself.

Sometimes, she'd notice Peter almost do something romantic–tuck her hair behind her ear, brush her cheek, hold her hand. But he always stopped himself and settled for gazing at her instead. With his eyes alone, now revealed and honest, he told her how much he meant to her. It was as if the whole world was in her face. The intimacy of it made MJ's heart race. She never knew she could mean that much to somebody who wasn't family. She'd never felt that wholly valued or understood.

That thought, combined with the fact that Peter was, well, hot, made her cave. She fell for him and fell for the version of herself she became with him: genuine, happier, wittier. She wasn't putting on a show of sarcastic snark for anyone. She was simply herself, the version she could only be in her room alone at 2 am.

Once again, she found herself making the first move in the delicate multi-year chess game they seemed to be playing.

"So, Peter," she said one day when he was at the diner studying for his GED. "Where are we at?"

"Uh, what sorry? What do you mean?"

MJ sighed. "Us."

"Oh," Peter said, eyes wide. "I thought that was up to you."

"Yes, but you know me well enough to know where I am at. You're holding back. Why?"

Peter hesitated, "I don't want to hurt you. Look, MJ, you've seen it." He pleaded with her, and MJ remembered one bloody night a few weeks back when he rapped on her window right after a gang fight.

"And? Peter, we won't make the same mistakes." She sighed. "Are you going to make me say it?"

Peter was dense. "Say what," he asked.

"That I don't care! God. I didn't care then, and I still don't." She murmured, "you make me better."

"I'm fucked up, MJ." Peter slammed the review book closed. "You don't want this."

"If you tell me what I want one more time, I'm taping your mouth shut. How many times do I have to say it for you to believe me? Even before?"

"I do believe you, I swear. I'm just paranoid and I can't lose anyone else," he admitted.

"How can you lose people you don't even let in, Peter?"

That seemed to do it. Stubborn, stubborn, and more stubborn. "What kind of life is that? Saved for what?" MJ pressed him.

"Okay, miss guarded. You're one to talk," he countered.

"You think you can beat me at sarcasm? Funny. Have you been listening? YOU made me realize that." MJ resisted the urge to smack him upside the head.

"We didn't make it through all this shit to be just friends, okay? Not even just best friends. I refuse to believe that," she continued.

Peter's eyebrows shot upward. "I thought you didn't believe in destiny."

"It's not destiny," she responded, "it's knowing our natures and choosing to follow them."

"Okay. What do we do?"

"You let me be there for you, without me having to force you, first of all." Peter tried to speak, but MJ continued. "Second, you visit Ned and I at MIT. Third, we're partners."

Peter grinned. "Howdy-"

"No," MJ interrupted, hitting his arm. "Not like that!"

"Like the A team," Peter said softly.

"Yeah," she replied.

The fight went out of Peter.

Truthfully, MJ could care less about Spider-man, even though she had the most memories of him. She cared about the kid, Peter Parker, who had no family, no reputation, no birth certificate. MJ found the danger a little intriguing and almost exciting. She didn't want the drama, but a part of her knew that Peter would sooner fall into the Hudson than cause problems intentionally. It was as if she was finally digging into a side of herself that she had no reason to explore. Somebody else thought she was the whole world. It let her know that she could be the world to herself too.

When Peter went to take her hand this time, he didn't pull away. She tightened her fingers around his in response.