This is kind of a frankenfic in that I wrote half of it in like July and the other half a couple weeks ago, so if it seems like there's any weird disconnects in writing quality, that would be why lmao also I had a tricky time translating Obi-Wan into a high schooler and I feel like he kind of still sounds like a tired middle aged dad even though he's only 16/17, so let's just assume that putting up with Anakin makes him that way no matter what age they are. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! :)

Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, for whom it was an endless source of entertainment), Anakin Skywalker had always been terrible at flirting. His latest misguided attempt to get Padmé to notice him? Blurting out in the middle of history class that maybe the government would work better if there was one all-powerful person making everyone agree on things. Sure, she may have angrily lectured him about the merits of democracy and evils of dictatorship for five straight minutes while the rest of the class (and the teacher) looked on in amusement, but at least she'd paid attention to him.

"I cannot believe you said that," said Ahsoka on the way to the cafeteria, having been filled in on the incident by the other two, who were juniors whereas she was a sophomore and therefore not in any classes with either of them. "What is wrong with you, Skyguy?"

"I don't know," Anakin replied miserably. "It's like my mouth just opened by itself and started spitting out anything that might grab her attention."

"Well, it definitely worked," Obi-Wan said, chortling. "The look on her face! And the look on your face when she started letting you have it. Absolutely priceless."

"I'm glad you think it's funny that the love of my life now thinks I'm some kind of psycho fascist sympathizer," said Anakin, frowning, as Ahsoka joined in Obi-Wan's snickers.

"It's your own fault," Ahsoka pointed out. "Besides, she's not the love of your life, she's just someone you've been hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with since fourth grade. Big difference."

"Hmph." Anakin turned back to Obi-Wan. "But it wasn't that bad, right? I mean, you and Satine argue in history all the time and it's always fine afterwards."

"Yeah, because I'm her boyfriend, not the desperate kid who's been stalking her for seven years."

"I haven't been stalking Padmé," Anakin grumbled.

"I beg to differ."

Before Anakin could open his mouth to defend himself, they turned the corner and nearly bumped into none other than Padmé Naberrie herself, accompanied by Satine and their other friend, Sabé. Greetings were exchanged all around—or rather, greetings were exchanged between Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Satine, and Sabé while Padmé politely said hello to Obi-Wan and Ahsoka before turning a disapproving look on Anakin, who wished the floor would open up and swallow him.

"Sit with us at lunch?" Obi-Wan asked hopefully.

"Sorry, can't," Satine said with a sigh. "We have to work on our speeches for the class office elections." All three of them were heavily involved in student government: Padmé had been voted class president every single year for as long as anyone could remember, Sabé had been vice president the previous year, and Satine was the student council president.

"Oh, right. Well, good luck! If your speech is good enough, I might vote for you," Obi-Wan teased.

Satine rolled her eyes. "You'd better. See you later." They exchanged a quick kiss, making Anakin and Ahsoka gag rather childishly, which earned them an amused look from Sabé and a disdainful one from Padmé.

"That sort of immaturity's not exactly the best way to go about getting Padmé to like you," Obi-Wan scolded Anakin once the other three were out of earshot.

"I can't help it. You two are gross."

"Oh, grow up."

Anakin claimed a table, pulled out a bagged lunch, and started munching on his sandwich as he waited for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka to return from buying their customary salad and three slices of pizza respectively. His gaze slid towards the other side of the cafeteria, where Padmé, Satine, and Sabé were bent over notebooks, scribbling madly and occasionally looking up to confer with each other. Padmé took a bite out of an apple, then furrowed her brow and tapped her lips with the end of her pen, chewing thoughtfully and reaching to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Anakin was pretty sure he internally swooned a little. She looked so cute when she was concentrating—

"Hey, Romeo, snap out of it."

"Huh?" Blinking, Anakin realized that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka had plopped down in front of him, effectively blocking his view of Padmé.

"Anakin, this is really getting ridiculous," Obi-Wan said sternly. "Can't you just tell her you like her and put us all out of our misery?"

They had had this conversation approximately three thousand times over the years, and Obi-Wan knew perfectly well what Anakin's response would be. "No way! Are you crazy?" asked Anakin in horror. "She hates me! She'll get really mad, or else she'll just laugh at me."

"She doesn't hate you, she just thinks you're annoying. Which, to be fair, you are," Ahsoka added through a mouthful of pizza.

Anakin snorted. "Gee, thanks, Snips."

"Besides, I doubt she'd get mad or laugh at you," said Obi-Wan. "Padmé's a very nice person, which is what made you like her so much in the first place. Worst case scenario is her letting you down gently."

"Yeah, and that's also the best case scenario, since there is literally no chance that she likes me back."

Ahsoka's face suddenly lit up. "I have an idea. Why don't you ask her to prom in the spring? That way it's kind of letting her know you're interested without having to explicitly say that you are, so if she looks like she's weirded out you could just backtrack and say you were asking as a friend."

"That would work, except that we're not friends," Anakin pointed out. "I was planning to maybe ask her to senior prom next year, because at least that way if—when she rejects me in an extremely humiliating way, I can escape to college right afterwards and never have to look her in the eye again."

"But what if she says yes and you have a great time and she realizes she likes you except then it's too late because you're both going off to different colleges?" said Obi-Wan. "Ahsoka's right, you should do it this year."

Anakin looked unconvinced, so Ahsoka said, "Skyguy, I bet you ten dollars that you can't ask Padmé to junior prom."

Anakin's eyes narrowed. "Ten dollars, you say? That's a decent amount of money." He considered it. "I just have to ask her? She doesn't have to say yes?"

Ahsoka started to nod, but Obi-Wan interrupted her. "No, let's raise the stakes. Ahsoka and I bet you ten dollars each that you can't ask Padmé to prom and get her to say yes and go with you."

"Okay, well, that's just unreasonable," Anakin replied. "She'll never say yes. Not in a million years."

But Ahsoka seemed to have changed her mind and sided with Obi-Wan. "That's twenty dollars if you do it, Skyguy," she said. "Twenty dollars. And I'll still give you ten if you ask and she says no."

Anakin started to waver. "I don't know…"

"It's only September," Obi-Wan said. "Junior prom's right before April vacation, and people usually start asking each other in, what, March or February? So you have five or six months to get her to like you enough to be willing to go to prom with you."

"If I haven't gotten her to like me in seven years, what makes you think I could do it in six months?"

"She used to like you, when you first moved here," Ahsoka countered. "You told me you guys were friends for a couple years."

"That's right. I was his first friend back in fourth grade, but once Padmé started talking to him, he latched onto her and basically ignored me for the rest of the year, and most of fifth grade, too," said Obi-Wan.

"I didn't ignore you!" Anakin objected. "Anyway, that was years ago. We grew apart in middle school, and now she just thinks I'm an idiot."

"Well, now's the perfect time to change that," Obi-Wan declared. "Remember, Anakin, your best friend is dating her best friend. I'm sure Satine and I could pull a few strings."

"No! You can't tell Satine, she'll tell Padmé!"

Obi-Wan sighed. "I'm pretty sure that every single person in this school other than Padmé herself already knows about your huge, embarrassing, seven-year crush, but fine, I won't tell Satine. Now are you going to take the bet or not?"

Anakin thought about it.

"Twenty dollars."

Anakin thought about it.

"Twenty dollars, Skyguy."

"Fine," he said at last, holding out his hand. The other two took turns shaking it, looking delighted. "It's a deal."

Every year, the juniors at their school had to do a semester-long research project for history class, and Padmé, unlike the rest of her classmates, had been looking forward to it for ages. History was her favorite subject, and she always loved an excuse to learn about a certain period or event in a much more in-depth way than she'd be able to in class.

But she hadn't counted on arriving to class the day the assignment was handed out and hearing that, in an attempt to help relieve stress and lighten the workload, the history department had decided to change it from an individual project to a partner project.

Padmé's immediate reaction was to suppress a groan. Whenever she had to work with a partner, they either slowed her down or sat back and watched as she did all the work herself, and she didn't even know which scenario was worse. But then the teacher said they could pick their partners, and Padmé quickly turned to Satine, knowing that the other girl was just as motivated and hard-working as she was. To Padmé's dismay, she saw that Satine was standing up to go find Obi-Wan and ask to be partners with him.

Traitor, thought Padmé sourly. Sabé wasn't in their class, nor was anyone else whom Padmé was particularly close with, so she was forced to hover awkwardly on the sidelines as the rest of the class made a mad dash for their preferred partner. When it was starting to really look like no one was about to approach her anytime soon, Padmé reluctantly slunk up to the teacher and mumbled that she didn't have a partner, praying that there was an odd number of students in the class so that she could join Satine and Obi-Wan's group.

No such luck. "Ah, perfect," said the teacher. "Anakin was just looking for a partner, too."

Dread pooling in her stomach, Padmé glanced over and saw that Anakin Skywalker was indeed standing a few feet away. He reddened a little as their eyes met, but Padmé was too horrified to notice. Of all the other people in the class who could've been partnerless, why did it have to be him? She had to admit that he was actually quite good at subjects like math and science—he claimed to have built a robot at the age of nine, though she wasn't sure she believed that since whenever someone asked to see it, he'd give the convenient explanation that he'd had to leave it behind when he moved to their town—but it was a well-known fact that Obi-Wan's notes were the only thing that kept him from flunking out of history every year. Not to mention that he was irresponsible and annoying as all hell, and Padmé didn't even want to think about what his time-management and organizational skills were like.

All things considered, this might well be the worst possible way the situation could have worked out.

Anakin looked like he was about to say something, but just then the teacher called everyone to attention, and Padmé strode back to her seat, fuming. "I can't believe you abandoned me!" she hissed to Satine. "Some friend you are!"

Satine was unfazed. "I'm sorry for abandoning you, but I'm sure whoever you ended up with can't be that bad."

"Oh yeah?" Padmé jerked her head over towards where Anakin was doing his best to distract an exasperated Obi-Wan from paying attention to the lesson. "Anakin Skywalker. That's who I ended up with. He's the worst."

"Oh, no he's not," said Satine, waving a hand dismissively. "Sure, he's not great at history, but other than that he's actually really smart when he wants to be—"

"Which is never," Padmé muttered.

"—and now that I've been hanging out with him more lately since he and Obi-Wan are practically joined at the hip, I have to say, he's pretty fun to be around."

Padmé sniffed. "That's just Obi-Wan talking."

"No, I'm serious," Satine insisted. "Anakin's a nice guy, Padmé. Just give him a chance. I mean, you're going to be working together until January, anyway. Might as well try to get along."

"I have every intention of trying to get along with him, seeing as I'm not about to let him stand in the way of me getting a good grade on this project. It's the succeeding part I'm worried about."

"Padmé, Satine," the teacher said suddenly, making them jump. "Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us?"

"No," they chorused sheepishly, and they obediently fell silent and pulled out their notebooks as class resumed.

On her way out some forty-odd minutes later, Padmé heard someone call her name, and she turned to see that Anakin had followed her. "Oh. Hi."

"I was thinking, we should probably exchange numbers so we can text each other about meeting up for the project and stuff," he said in a rush, looking weirdly nervous.

Padmé gave him a funny look. "Sure, good idea." She handed him her phone, then took his, typed her number in, and switched back with him afterwards. "Start thinking of a topic you want to do. Maybe we can meet this weekend and pick something."

"Okay."

"Cool. See you later." Padmé turned without sparing him another glance and hurried to catch up with Satine.

"I got Padmé's number!" Anakin bragged as he and Obi-Wan sat down across from Ahsoka, who had beaten them to lunch and already started eating.

"Only because you needed it so you could work on your project," Obi-Wan pointed out. "It doesn't really count."

"Um, of course it does."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Sure, Anakin."

"What are you even talking about?" asked Ahsoka. She was quickly filled in on the story, and she grinned in delight. "So you and Padmé have to work on a project together for the whole semester? How great is that? And it sounds like the perfect opportunity to get to be friends enough that she'll want to go to prom with you."

"He might have his work cut out for him, though," said Obi-Wan rather cryptically.

Anakin furrowed his brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I was talking to Satine while you were getting Padmé's number, and she said that Padmé is, ah, not exactly thrilled to be partners with you."

"Not exactly thrilled?"

"I believe 'pissed as hell' was her precise wording."

Anakin huffed indignantly as Ahsoka laughed. "What for? I'm an excellent partner."

"Anakin, I've been doing projects with you for years, and I can assure you, you are not an excellent partner," Obi-Wan said. "I always do all the work."

"That is so not true."

"You always goof off when we're supposed to be working, then you try to distract me, then you get mad when I won't pay attention to you."

"No, I don't!" Anakin argued. "I totally pull my weight in projects. Like that time last year when we were doing a presentation for English and you forgot what you were supposed to say so I jumped in and saved your ass."

"That doesn't count."

"It does too!"

"Anyway," interrupted Ahsoka. "I guess you'll just have to work really hard on this one and prove Padmé wrong, won't you?"

Anakin nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to be the best partner ever. She'll see. And so will you," he added, glaring at Obi-Wan, who just rolled his eyes.