This only ends in the most dangerous and debilitating ways for all involved.

They’ve both known this now since Florida State began rattling the ACC’s cages about revenue sharing and the Grant of Rights and falling behind the rest of college football.

And how in blue blazes can we get out?

So now it has come to this: the ACC is fighting back in court, and it’s about to get all kinds of ugly. For FSU, for the ACC — and for anyone involved moving forward.

We’re headed toward mutual destruction — when the problem can easily be eliminated with a simple exit fee.

Double the original fee to $260 million, and say good luck, Noles. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Because this thing is about to blow up. We haven’t even hit the discovery phase of proceedings, where all the dirty laundry over all these years will be exposed.

Right now, it’s a spitting match. FSU threatening to leave, the ACC threatening to make FSU’s life in the ACC — for however long it lasts — a living hell.

Once it gets to discovery, and after the back and forth legal arguments over logistics and jurisdiction, the gloves will be off. FSU will do everything it can to get out — for nothing.

At this point, we have the initial stages of the lawsuit: FSU filed the original complaint in Leon County (Florida) in December seeking relief, and the ACC countered with a suit in Mecklenburg County (North Carolina) that essentially asked for the moon.

Hey, if your most important football property (therefore, most important property) is trying to get out of Dodge — and open the door for others in the conference to to do the same, and break up the 70-year-old league — you’re going to do everything you can to stop them.

Even if it means getting closer and closer to mutual destruction.

The ACC doesn’t want its dirty laundry exposed, and FSU doesn’t want to look like a rogue actor, hell-bent on taking down a conference. And once free, go with hat in hand to the SEC or Big Ten and ask for entry — knowing full-well those conferences know the steps FSU took when it didn’t like the parameters of a deal.

In its filing Wednesday, the ACC did essentially the same thing FSU did in its initial filing: it asked for everything.

The ACC, first and foremost, wants the court to declare the Grant of Right deal signed by FSU (and every other ACC school) valid and enforceable. In other words, if FSU leaves, it owes the ACC $572 million in exit fees and media rights revenue.

Everything else after that — asking the court to prevent FSU from challenging the validity of the GOR, monetary damages owed to the ACC from FSU if it breaches the GOR contract — all hinge on the court declaring the GOR valid and enforceable.

There was also one key ask that stood out, one “Prayer for Relief” from the court: that it implement a permanent injunction barring FSU from “disclosing confidential information from the ESPN agreements.”

You see what the ACC did, right?

It slipped in that prayer to the court with the 8 others, as part of a 9-step claim against FSU. But don’t kid yourself, the permanent injunction from disclosing confidential information from the ESPN agreements is as important as declaring the GOR valid and enforceable.

Because FSU has proven over the last year that it will do anything to get out of the ACC. If that means burning bridges in the process — and forcing the ACC to kick them out — that’s what they’ll do.

But there’s a catch there, too. By disclosing confidential information, FSU runs the risk of damaging any future working relationship with ESPN, the sole provider of all things SEC beginning with the 2024 football season. ESPN is also heavily invested in the new Big 12.

If FSU has any hope of landing with the SEC (or the Big 12), the last thing it needs is ESPN telling SEC officials they’re not interested in paying more than pro rata for the Seminoles (like they did for Texas and Oklahoma). Because then it makes no sense for the SEC to expand and include FSU.

That leaves FSU with one option to remain among the elite of college football: the Big Ten. And if they’ve burned bridges to get out of the ACC, do you really think the Big Ten presidents — which already would have to look past FSU not being part of the Association of American Universities — will be so welcoming?

It’s a difficult spot for both the ACC and FSU. The ACC is staring at its mortality; FSU is staring at slow death while other programs in the SEC and Big Ten earn double the media rights.

The easy way out for both is the exit fee. If it’s $260 million, that’s a significant number of precedent.

In other words, if North Carolina, Miami and Virginia want to follow FSU out the door, that’s more than $1 billion in exit fees — that can be shared with the remainder of the conference.

Or FSU and the ACC can keep filing court documents and eventually reach discovery.

And arrive at mutual destruction.