Peter and MJ had been crushing on each other for a while. For Peter, it was painfully obvious. From the way his eyes would linger on her for too long, to the casual blush that would settle on his cheeks when she would talk to him, he was pretty much whipped.

    Peter had had his first kiss when he was seven. He remembered it like it was yesterday. A cute girl about the same age as him was hogging the monkey bars, sitting at the top in a way so that no one else could climb up. She even went as far as to shout at anyone who went within a five foot radius, including parents who were unhappy about the selfish child. At this age, Peter had adored the monkey bars, his holy grail of any play park. If it didn't have metal bars to hold on to, he didn't wanna go. So when he saw a blond stopping him from climbing up, being the polite boy that he was raised to be, lifted his head and locked eyes with the little girl.

   "Please can I join you?" It took a long time of silent deliberation with the girl's imaginary friend, but eventually the blond unhooked her legs, and Peter proceeded to climb. When sitting up on the highest bar next to the blond, they talked about Hot Wheels, and finding mutual interests didn't prove to be a problem. Eventually, the parents of the blond, who he had learned went by Hal, but her real name was Hallelujah, (looking back, Peter suspected that Hallelujah wasn't her real name) had come back from their cooking class and were ready to pick up the girl and take her home.

   The two said goodbye, but before little seven year old Peter could register, Hal leaned over and pecked his lips, jumped down and swung in between her parents. He never saw her again.

    MJ had always been someone to hide her emotions very well. It wasn't entirely her fault, she just did it by forced habit. When she was a child, she was taken away from her home and pressured into doing things nobody would want to do. Fast forward a couple of years and she was reunited with her family, however most emotions stripped away from her previous happy self. She never did admit what happened to her from the age of nine to twelve, but the raised scars on her back were enough to give her family a rough idea.

   But as she grew older, she started to change. She read more, she went out more, she started acting more normal. MJ had also even started opening up to her parents more, describing how she felt with her words, rather than actions.
  
    When she met Peter Parker, the shy and dorky teenager from apartment block D, she didn't know how to describe what she felt. Her stomach felt queasy but she was never sick, her hands went clammy even in the cold, her breathing sped up although she wasn't even exercising. Everything she felt, everything that she had experienced, was all connected to Peter.

   And then she realised. She was in love with Peter Parker, the boy from apartment block D.

   But of course, who would love a loser like Michelle Jones? A girl, too traumatised to feel, to pained to open up to people because of her fear of rejection, too nervous to go leave her safe sanctuary that she calls home without going through a series of breathing exercises, rude to anyone who dared look at her in the eye. She didn't know that Peter had the exact same feelings for her. Oh how she loved the boy from apartment block D.

   "Hey Ned." MJ said in her usual monotoned voice.

   "Yo," Ned replied, not looking up from his laptop as he furiously typed out codes for his homework project (two weeks overdue and the teacher was still on his back for the ancient homework assignment). MJ glanced over his shoulder at the series of numbers, evaluating and processing as Ned continued to type, seemingly unbothered by the minty breath over him.

   "That's wrong. You're using binary here, right? Then you need a zero instead of one right. . . There," She tapped the screen at a series of ones and occasional zeros, the binary somehow imprinted in her head. Ned made a show of completing a painful facepalm before going back to fix the beginners mistake. MJ chuckled and patted his shoulder with amusement."Get some more sleep, bud."

    "Sorry," He said, wiping a sweaty hand over his also sweaty face. MJ made a mental note to buy him a Frappuccino. "No-can-do. Too busy worrying about this stupid homework project. Old man Kyle is always pounding my ass about it. No homo, though."

   "Maybe you should choose your words more wisely, Ned." She said with a slight laugh. "I'll go grab you a coffee." With that, MJ turned and walked over to the coffee machine at the end of the cafeteria, ignoring her friend's protests and futile attempts of stopping her. Not that he could stop her anyways.

   She bought a coffee for herself and Ned, adding specific amounts of sugar and milk. Walking back to the table, she noticed a certain curly haired boy overlooking the coding to Ned's assignment, in the same position as she once was. Here we go again, she thought as she felt the butterflies return and her hands become clammy. Playing it cool, she walked back and placed the coffee in front of Ned, who thanked her and chugged it with an eager face.

   "Hey Parker," MJ nodded her head towards him. He grinned back with an ever present blush. MJ noticed a layer of heavy purple underneath her crush's eyes and sighed loudly. "Is this a new trend that I'm missing out on? Not sleeping or caring about my wellbeing?"

  "I'm fine, I just forgot to go to sleep." Peter said with a shrug.

"How do you forget to fall asleep?"

-.-

   Lunch was exhausting.

   Mainly because MJ was pissed, with her head resting on her hands as she refused to look at anyone, and the two boys didn't know how to deal with an enraged teenage girl without making the situation worse. They learned this from experience.

   "So, doctor Ned, what's the diagnosis?" Peter wasn't entirely sure why he decided to say that, but it got the desired reaction when he saw a twitch at the corner of her lip.

   "I'm assessing the patient now, doctor Peter. It seems that the patient is experiencing teenage angst." Peter struggled not to burst into laughter, glad that his friend had the same sense of humour to go along with the joke.

    "Oh no, the most incurable disease ever discovered." Peter declared as he placed a backhand to his forehead and mock fainted briefly.

    "Don't worry, Doctor. There is a high chance it will pass. Just give it time." Ned patted Michelle's shoulder as the girl looked up temporarily. "You'll be alright, Michelle."

   "You two are so annoying." MJ decided as she lifted her head up fully, shrinking away from Ned's gentle touch. The two boys shared a secret grin, a knowing look that showed their relief in cheering up the girl. In other eyes, it would've looked like they had pissed her off even more, but they knew that she was happier.

   "Did anyone ever tell you that you are annoying?" Peter said to Michelle, his constant blush subsided. She frowned at the question with slight confusion.

    "No."

   "Good. I didn't wanna have to fight anyone today." With that, something truly historic happened. Something that was worth taking hundreds of pictures of because it was so beautiful. MJ smiled. It was wide, beaming, pleasant. The corners of her eyes creased and previously invisible dimples displayed happily on her face. For the first time that Peter had ever met the strange girl, an obvious blush set across her cheeks and dusted her nose.

   "T-thanks. . .d-dork."