Peter stood at the edge of the building, looking out into the city. He had his new red and black suit on, except for his mask, which was in his hand. He had probably only been up there for a couple minutes, but it had felt like longer. He had put it on almost as soon as he and M.J. had gotten back to the apartment, deciding that the roof was a good place to swing for the first time. M.J. had offered to come up there with him, which he appreciated, but he explained that this was something that he had to do himself.

He glanced down at his mask. It was largely the same design, with the exception that the eyes were just a little bigger and had a thicker layer of black outlining them. It stared back at him, just like his last suit's mask seemed to when he looked back at it. Working up the willpower, Peter slipped it on over his face, pulling it taught. It fit perfectly, maybe even more so than his last one.

Peter took a breath, the smell of the new suit helping put him at ease. It had not seen countless battles with criminals, supervillains or aliens, nor had it seen countless washes through his and May's inconsistent washer. This was a new uniform, a clean slate. He needed to remember that.

He had done everything, including a check of his new web shooters, which were now mounted underneath the suit and directly on his wrist. Everything was in order.

It was time.

"Alright," Peter said to himself, "here we go."

Leaning forward just enough, Peter let gravity do its work, and soon he was free falling off the building. He spread his arms, allowing himself to feel the rush of the wind against his body. Adrenaline began surging through him, pulsing to every part of his being. He let himself get just a little closer to the ground, then a little more, then a little more...

Firing a web from his right wrist, his caught onto a nearby building. Pulling it taught, his momentum changed just before he came to the ground, and suddenly was swinging up into the sky. He released the web, spreading out his arms once more as he felt the rush of reaching the peak of his flight before beginning his descent. He then fired another web, once again just doing a deep, straight forward swing.

After a couple more swings, Peter started to get a little more creative, somersaulting in the air, webbing himself through tight spaces, and occasionally parkouring on a rooftop. At one point, he let out a loud shout of joy as he launched himself off the roof of a large building.

It was then that Peter realized just how much he had missed this. There was a certain freedom to it, a feeling that nothing in the world was tying him down, that he could be as creative or as simplistic as he wanted to, and nothing could stop him. Once more, the city was his playground, a place for him to push himself to his limits or simply go on cruise control depending on what he desired.

Finally, after about an hour of swinging, Peter allowed himself to land on a building overlooking much of the financial district of Manhattan. He hadn't realized how heavily he was breathing from all the excitement and the adrenaline that had been going through him. He had been swinging for over two years now, but something about this time, after going so long without it, just made it feel like it was his first time all over again.

"Man," he thought out loud to himself. "It's good to be back."

Over the next week, Peter made a point of going out as Spider-Man for at least a few hours each day, sometimes more. It felt so good to get out there once again and help others; to simply be a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. For the most part, there wasn't a lot of crime going on right now, save for some petty robberies or an occasional assault. For the most part, Peter's energy as his webbed alter ego was spent meeting more simple needs, such as helping old ladies cross the street, helping businesses carry new supplies in, or even helping cats out of trees. It was the stuff he did a lot early on, when he wanted nothing more than to drop out of high school and become an Avenger. Now, it seemed like stuff like this felt like the most rewarding things out there.

The city seemed to be changing too. Spider-Man's return was all over the news, with coverage on every single station. They played footage of him helping people out, stopping crimes and swinging through the city in general. All of this was particularly notable because, for the first time in Peter's young superhero career, the coverage of him was almost unanimously positive. Before, there were a few newspapers or networks that would paint his deeds in a more ill-mannered light, whether it was that he was secretly a menace to society, or that his work was causing more harm than good. Now, however, it felt like they were all rallying around him.

Peter could feel a change while he was out in the city too. Things slowly just seemed to feel a little more... positive. Life seemed to be returning to New York again, especially in Manhattan. People even cheered him when he would swing by. When he did interact with them directly, everyone seemed happy, even relieved to see him. It made Peter feel as though he was truly making a difference, which was the best feeling in the world.

Despite all of this, there was still one downside: Peter was no closer to tracking down Martin Li. Happy had coordinated a strong security effort to protect the last two remaining components, though Peter wasn't sure that keeping them together was the best idea. Happy insisted that keeping both together meant more security, which meant less chance for Martin to acquire them, especially since they still didn't know the full scope of what the F.E.A.S.T. owner was truly capable of.

There wasn't much more on Martin's background either. After the accident Peter and M.J. had read about, there was nothing to be found other than positive coverage of him as he put together and established the F.E.A.S.T. shelter. They continued looking for any reports, recent or otherwise, about people who exhibited the symptoms that Happy or M.J.'s attacker had but couldn't come up with anything. Wherever Martin was, and whatever he was planning to do with that device, he was doing a really, really good job of keeping the world in the dark about it.

Through all of this, Peter was surprised, even a little impressed with how M.J. seemed to be taking him being Spider-Man. She was really getting into the investigation on Martin Li; though to be fair, part of that was probably because he had tried to have her killed as well. Still, there seemed to be something else there. She appeared to get a joy out of being able to help him out, even by just trying to help him find answers.

More than that though, ever since he went back out into the city as Spider-Man, she just seemed... happy. She was smiling more than ever when they were around each other, and it always sent butterflies fluttering through Peter's stomach. He had NEVER seen her that happy before, even for so small a time. All of this caused him to reflect on their journey over the past several weeks, from just catching up at first, to him helping her make an emotional breakthrough, to volunteering together at F.E.A.S.T, and everything with Spider-Man now...

The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to feel there might actually be a chance that M.J. felt the same way about him that he did about her.

"What's the matter, not hungry?" M.J. asked.

"Huh? Oh, sorry M.J," Peter replied, realizing he'd been in a daze for likely a while now. M.J. had offered to try her hand at some chili, and Peter had liked what he'd tasted so far, but his mind just wouldn't quiet down enough to even allow his hungry self to focus on eating. It was evening, and Happy was out at Stark Industries overseeing security measures, just as he had been much of the last week.

Naturally, this had meant more time where it was just him and M.J. at the apartment. It was great getting so much quality time together, but there were also times where it was clearly awkward for them both. Being proper was constantly on Peter's mind, as he remembered how Ben and May had raised him to treat a girl. Even as he entered high school, May in particular had told him that she was cool with him going on dates and getting to know different girls, but if he was ever dumb enough to get one pregnant so young... basically, she threatened to make sure it couldn't possibly happen again.

"Do you... not like it?"

"What? Oh, no no no, I love it," Peter tried to assure M.J. regarding her cooking. "I just have something on my mind I guess."

"You're going to stop him you know," M.J. said, taking up her finished bowl to the sink. "We're going to find him, and you're going to stop him."

She said it so matter of factly that it made it easy for him to believe it.

"I know," he said.

Despite that she wasn't even looking at him as she rinsed out her bowl, something about how he answered must have given away that Martin Li wasn't what he was thinking about, or at least not the primary thing.

"Is there something else?" she asked.

"Uh, no?" Peter said, his answer coming out sounding more like a question than an answer. In reality, he was contemplating telling her the truth about how he felt about her, but suddenly being put on the spot about him thinking along that line caused him to instinctively go into denial mode.

"You sure?" M.J. asked, setting the bowl in the sink and turning to face him, "because it sure seems like there's more."

"No, no, it's nothing," Peter answered. He felt bad for lying, but was it really the right time to tell her?

"Okay," she said, appearing to drop the matter. "I was going to turn on a true crime show, you know, if you want to watch it with me."

"Sure, yeah absolutely." Wow why did everything feel so awkward between them right now? Maybe he should just tell her.

"Great," she said, and Peter swore he was picking up a little nervousness in her voice too, which only made him even more nervous. He didn't say anything though, instead just following her over to the couch. They each took a seat, with a small gap in between them. M.J. took the remote and put on an episode of a show called "I Survived," which she had shared with him was one of her favorite shows.

"I feel like we should be on that show, with everything we've been through," she once told him.

She wasn't wrong.

The episode M.J. had put on involved the stories of people surviving a rape, a home invasion and a storm at sea, but Peter found it hard to focus on any of it. His mind kept coming back to M.J, his scientific brain analyzing the likelihood of her having a crush on him too. At times, everything seemed to point to that being the case, but then whenever he considered telling her how he felt, doubt would creep back into his mind, gnawing at him. Surely, there was no way someone like her could like a guy like him, right? They were similar in some ways, but they were still two very different people.

The whole thing didn't help by the fact that he swore he was catching her glancing his way every so often. Of course, this meant he was stealing glances at her too, then they would turn away quickly, as if doing it fast enough would make the other person forget what had just occurred. This happened every so often throughout the episode, and it almost seemed like a relief when it was over.

"Well, what should we do now?" M.J. asked, standing up. "You want to watch another one? Oh wait, it's probably almost time for your evening patrol, isn't it? Oh well, we can watch another one when you get back, if you want to. No pressure you know, I'm just..."

"Actually, M.J," Peter said, rising to face her, "there's something I need to talk to you about. Well, more like something I just need to tell you."

"Oh, okay," M.J. said, her body language indicating she had become a lot more nervous at his words, which once again didn't help Peter's own nerves, but his mind was made up.

No turning back now.

"So, M.J," he said, his words stumbling out of his mouth, "these past several weeks have been... different, obviously. They've been hard, for sure, but also good in a way, if that makes sense."

M.J. nervous expression remained unchanged, except for a hint of confusion, which did nothing to make him feel more confident, but he carried on.

"I'm sorry, that didn't make much sense," he said, nervously scratching the back of his neck. He took in and let out a deep breath, doing his best to reset his composure.

"Okay, I'll be honest, almost everything since I got back from Titan has been hard," Peter said. "Like, really hard, but there has been one thing, one constant in particular that's helped me slowly get better. That's you, M.J."

M.J. eyebrows slowly rose as she appeared almost stunned.

"Getting to know you better, working through this together," Peter continued, "it's been really good. We became friends, then I started looking forward to seeing you every day, and..."

Okay, he was drawing this out WAY too much.

"M.J, I really like you," he confessed. "Like, a lot."

Peter was expecting a big reaction out of M.J. one way or another; he was particular bracing himself for a negative one, just in case he had been wrong about her reciprocating his feelings. Instead, all he got was stunned silence. Her mouth opened just slightly, and her eyebrows were really high up, but no words came out of her mouth. She didn't look upset, but he couldn't tell if she was happy either...

Before he could say any more, his phone rang. He glanced at it, seeing that it was Happy. He really wanted to ignore it and deal with the situation at hand, but he knew there could be a very particular reason Happy was calling, so he knew he had to answer.

Responsibility would always win out for him.

He glanced back at M.J. before going back and grabbing his phone and answering it.

"Hey Happy," Peter responded.

"Kid, we need your help!" Happy shouted. "Martin Li and a bunch of guys in these weird masks attacked us at the Stark Industries building downtown! They're overpowering us!"

Happy's yelling, plus the gunfire he could hear in the background, made it clear how serious the situation was.

"I'll be right there," he said before hanging up, turning back to M.J.

"I have to go," he said. She slowly nodded, and he darted off into his room, changed into his suit, and dived out the window, swinging towards the scene.

Hopefully at least one thing would go right tonight.

Hope you guys are enjoying it still! Thanks to all who have been sticking with it!

Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8