please hold me ('cause i can't keep holding on)

memory (n.): the fact or condition of being remembered

sometimes you find yourself in mj feelsTM related to the nwh memory spell and you just gotta write it out

~*~

MJ knows it isn't safe.

But that's why she's careful.

Pepper spray in one hand, brilliantly purple taser in the other. The streets in New York hold mercy for no one, least of all a Black girl in the dead of night, but MJ knows how to fend for herself if she must. It's been a while, but she can recall the basics from those Tae Kwon Do classes she took in middle school when push comes to shove.

Of course, logic still dictates that MJ shouldn't be out here, roaming Queens on her lonesome. No amount of training, no amount of preparedness is guaranteed to stop a powerful, ill-intentioned perpetrator from—well, from snatching her.

And yet fear still finds it nigh impossible to take hold in her chest.

MJ knows why.

"You really shouldn't be out by yourself at night," a voice says, lilting with amusement, and a smile tugs at MJ's lips despite herself.

"But I'm not by myself," she says. "Not anymore."

Her eyes land on a certain red-and-blue-clad hero perched atop a nearby lamppost. "Am I?"

Spider-Man laughs. "You got me there."

MJ can't remember exactly when or why she started these midnight walks, even though they've completely destroyed her circadian rhythm. She does know, however, that the main reason these walks have continued without a need for constant safety concerns is Spider-Man's company.

He's not permanently attached to her side, of course. Serious emergencies always prevail. And out of respect to his role as Queens' protector, MJ tries to limit her walks to once or twice a week, and only on the days that violent crime is statistically less likely to occur. The company is nice—for her, at least, and she'd like to think for him as well.

She's put way too much thought into her rationale for these nightly walks, she knows. But MJ has put too much thought into Spider-Man for years now. Who might lie behind—beyond—the mask.

If only she could recall why, precisely, she started to make these mental calculations about him.

"Familiar" is a useless word. MJ believes it's part of the human condition to make the distant seem close, the unexpected seem prepared for. And yet...

"Familiar" is still the best word she has for him.

"Somewhere specific you're heading tonight?" Spider-Man asks, and MJ shrugs, her immediate reaction a simple one: evasion.

"A friend's house."

It's not that MJ doesn't trust Spider-Man. Notwithstanding the fact that she doesn't trust anyone, MJ finds it difficult to articulate exactly how she feels about Queens' local hero. How does one put words to the sensation, the necessity of regularly drinking ginger and peppermint tea to ease a perpetually imperceptible nausea? How does one capture in a sentence the neverending conflict between utter comfort and unparalleled anxiety?

He's someone she can tell anything.

And he's someone who would rip consistency out from under her life like a rug.

MJ isn't sure Spider-Man even deserves these mixed feelings she has. She hardly knows him, after all.

MJ's fingers unconsciously twist the broken dahlia that hangs around her neck. She can't tell if Spider-Man notices.

"Want some company on your way there?" Spider-Man thumps his chest with one hand. "My best feature is that I double as a bodyguard."

MJ smiles at their usual song and dance. "If I were wiser," she says, and continues walking past Spider-Man, "I'd probably say no."