They were all in gym class. Their coach told them to take warmups first, then they were asked to lift the tiny 5lb weights. Michelle lifting up her book instead of the weights caught Peter's eye. He grabbed a hold of it, making her jump up to her feet.

"Parker," She said. "Give it back." He ran around, and she chased after him. At some point, Peter tripped and MJ tripped after him, and she falls over onto him. Students around them start whistling and cheering on. Michelle looked at Peter and blushed as he smirked at her. The whistles caught the attention of Coach Wilson.

"Get off of him, Ms. Jones." He said stagnantly.

"With pleasure." She gave Peter a dirty look as she got up to her feet and snatched the book from him. He seemed pretty amused.

"Won't bother helping me up, Jones?" He asked, but she ignored him and went back to where she was originally.

Their next activity was volleyball, one of Michelle's most-hated sports. She willingly got benched and as she walked back to the bleachers, Peter followed her. A girl put her foot out to Michelle and she tripped. Luckily, Peter caught her. The girl chuckled silently.

"Falling for me now, are you?" She swiftly gets up and he smirks yet again. She walks away. "Not gonna thank me, MJ?" She rolls her eyes.

"Thank you." She said, irritably.

"That's more like it." She continues walking back to the bleachers with a slight grin on her face. Peter lingers one last look on her before he turns his attention back to the class.

Their next class was chemistry. The teacher assigned them to a buddy. She randomly took a name from the girls' list and another random name from the boys'.

"Brant and... Leeds." She said, as Ned and Betty high-fived.

"Moore and.. Ionello." Jason sighed at this while the girl seemed hyped.

"Mitchell and... Thompson." Flash grinned and the girl looked pissed.

"Jones and... Parker." He grinned at her as she gave him an unpleasant look.

After the teacher buddied them up, she explained the instructions and the theme of their project. She also explained that the deadline is next week. All the other students discussed about where they'd meet up and do the project, except for MJ and Peter. After the class, he approached her at her locker.

"So, where are we meeting up?" He asked.

"Leave me alone. I'll do it by myself and just tell Ms. Howard that we both did it." She replied, avoiding his glance and organizing her locker.

"Hey, I wanna be fair here, Michelle. And why are you so mad at me?"

"You know, for a smart-ass, you're pretty oblivious of the most obvious things."

"Woah woah woah, you kiss your mother with that mouth?" He leaned on the locker beside hers. She finally looked at him.

"My house after school." She said as she slammed her locker closed. Then she stormed off to her next class. He chuckled as he lingered one last look at her.

Peter rang the doorbell outside of Michelle's house. He heard someone say 'Coming!' from the inside.

"You must be Peter." said the woman.

"Hello, Mrs. Jones."

"Actually, it's only 'Miss' now."

"Oh."

"But call me Reia." Peter nodded. "Come in." He did what he was told. "Michelle's in the bedroom. Just head on upstairs, second door to your right."

"Thank you." As he entered Michelle's bedroom, she swiftly cleaned up everything on her bed and closed her laptop. She looked at him and blushed.

"Hey." She said.

"Hi." He raised his eyebrow as he scanned her messy bed.

"Just tidying up some stuff." She replied. He nodded. "You can put your stuff there." She pointed at the side of her bed as she put all of her own stuff in her closet. Peter sat there, waiting patiently. When MJ walked back to where he was, he suddenly noticed something.. different about her. He shrugged off the thought. "So," She started, crossing her arms. "Where do we start?"

Once in a while between their work, they would ask each other random questions.

"What happened to your mom and dad?" She asked.

"Aunt May said they died in a plane crash, but I have a feeling that it isn't entirely true."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's fine. Really." There was a moment's pause. "So, shall we continue?"

"Yeah, okay."

°~°~°

"What about you? What happened to your dad?" It took her a while to reply, so Peter tried to take the question back. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"No no, it's only fair that I do because I asked you about your parents." Peter waited patiently for her reply. "He cheated on her and he didn't even try to hide it. So they got divorced. Sometimes I even wonder if he really did love us."

"He did. He loved the both of you. But maybe it just wasn't enough for him, so he went looking elsewhere. Don't blame yourself, MJ. It isn't your fault."

"I've never really told anyone about this before, well.. because I don't have any friends."

"I'm here." He said in the softest voice, placing his hand on hers. Butterflies churned in her stomach. She pressed her lips on one another.

"Thanks."

"Well, I had a great time." He said, exiting her house.

"You weren't supposed to. We were doing a project." She said, grinning.

"Being with you made it fun." He smirked.

"I'll take that as a compliment, then." He chuckled.

"I'll come by again tomorrow."

"I'd like that."

This was their routine for the rest of the days that passed by. They both procrastinated whenever they would work on the project though, because they loved hanging out together. The two liked each other, very very much. Yet both of them denied it. MJ tried to forget about all of those feelings, and Justin Hayes answered her wishes.

One day, he asked her out to go to the movies. It was the same day where she and Peter were gonna finish their project. She planned on rushing through it so she could prepare early. Peter noticed this and was concerned.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" He asked.

"None of which concerns you."

"I'm just curious. Come on, just tell me."

"Well, I'm gonna have my first date later tonight." Peter was taken aback and a bit pissed as well, but he tried being stoic about it.

"Oh. W-With who?" He scratched the back of his ear.

"Justin Hayes."

"That prick." He cursed to himself. MJ heard him.

"What'd you say?" Now she sounded pissed.

"Nothing."

"No, no, you said something. What is it?"

"You shouldn't go out with that guy." He finally said, standing up.

"And why not? You can't tell me what to do." She took a step toward him.

"I'm just.. I'm just saying. You deserve to be with someone... so much better. Someone like-"

"Someone like who? Someone like you who tells everybody what to do? Someone like you who snoops in someone else's business?" Now she was completely in denial. She didn't want to fall for him, and she was scared that she already did. She saw Peter's hurt in his eyes and it almost made her cry. But she knew there was only one solution, and that was to push him away. She had to, because she knows he shouldn't be with her. A good guy like you doesn't deserve someone like me, she wanted to tell him. And it was hard for her to get attached to someone again, because she was afraid they'd all leave her.

"Have fun on your date then." Peter said, grabbing his stuff and putting a strap of his backpack onto his shoulder. "You know what, I honestly didn't care about our project from the very beginning. I loved hanging out with you, and that was the only reason why I kept coming back. Just tell Ms. Howard that I didn't contribute anything to the project. I'd rather have a failing grade made by me than sharing an A with a complete stranger." And with that, he left.

Peter didn't go to school the next day. MJ disregarded what he told her and still told Ms. Howard that he helped finish the project.

As Michelle was walking back home after school, she was reviewing her notes for her test the next day. And because her nose was stuck in her book, she wasn't able to look both ways whilst crossing the street. Everything around her seemed to be in slow-motion as the drivers hit the brakes as hard as they can. As she held in her breath, Spiderman grabbed her by the waist and swung her up to the rooftop of a building.

"Th-Thank you." She said.

"You could've gotten yourself killed out there, MJ!" Peter said, removing his mask. Michelle let out a slight gasp.

"Y-You're Spiderman?" Peter sighed and ignored her question.

"Michelle, just please please be careful." She ignored him.

"Is this why you skip classes? Because of this?" She gestured towards his suit.

"Well... yeah."

"So, all those things I hear in the news about Spiderman, all the dangerous things he does, that was all you?" Peter silently nodded. "Then why are you telling me I should be careful when you're the one living life on the edge here?!"

"Because I care about you, all right?" He said, pockets of tears in his eyes. "And I don't wanna lose you. I've lost so many people in my life and I never got to save any of them."

"Oh, Peter. I care about you too. You have to be careful if you wanna continue putting up with that Spiderman business of yours. And I'm so so sorry that I said all of those things yesterday. You know I didn't mean it. I just.. I was scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Of falling for you. Because being attached to someone so important in your life is so scary. You never know when they'll leave, and that's the scary part. Because I know all of them will leave, just like my dad did. So I just.. push everyone away." She tried biting back the tears but she couldn't. She never could whenever she felt vulnerable.

"Oh, MJ." Peter embraced her. "Not everyone's going to leave. The real ones will always stay, no matter what."

"Will you stay?" She asked, and Peter didn't even have second thoughts.

"Of course I will. I promise." When they pulled away, they just stood there and looked at each other. Peter cupped her cheek and started to lean in and kissed her.

"Finally." He said after they pulled away. MJ chuckled and leaned back in for another kiss.