Chapter 2
"MJ has a date." Ned said to me as I slammed my locker shut. He was repressing that pleased look Ned always has when proving me wrong.
"Really?" I asked feebly. I leaned my head to rest against the shut locker.
"I'm actually sorry for you. You have to excuse me from smiling." Ned said between smiles.
"Are you sure about it?" I asked without moving away from the rigid locker door. I imagined what my homecoming would presumably look like from hereon, not especially impressed with what I was visualizing and hence wishing I could sink through the locker.
"Yes. Assuming that she was telling the truth when she told me."
I leered at Ned, not believing what I was hearing. "She told you?" I asked enviously.
"It's not like it's juicy gossip, of course she told me."
"Why hasn't she told me yet?" I asked rhetorically.
A flash of panic crossed Ned's features, "Here she comes." He whispered not all that subtly.
I turned around, suddenly self-conscious. A hand instinctively reached for my hair when I saw her curly head bouncing closer to us with a smile. The last thing I had time to do was pray she would tell me, while at the same time dreading having to hear her say it.
"Hello." She said, seizing us with a skeptical frown. "Is your general mannerism a direct result of yesterday's 'private business', because I can leave again so as to possibly calm your pulses?" She asked sardonically. Typical Michelle, I thought. I'm not sure if she had studied ways to come in to a room, throw together some words and immediately get the upper hand on a conversation while simultaneously making everyone who wasn't her slightly uncomfortable, or if it came natural to her. My guess would be the latter of the two.
I laughed, hopefully not too nervously. "No, that's… resolved." I looked at Ned who was nodding vigorously. The truth of it was, we had gotten nowhere on that pursuit.
"So, who's your date?" I blurted before I'd had a chance to stop myself. Ned's eyes widened in my direction, Michelle shot Ned a look and I looked down at my feet in shame at my lack of tact. You were going to wait for her to tell you, I mentally lectured myself.
"Uuuh," Michelle stammered and I cursed everything. Yesterday had been so easy and fun, now everything just felt awkward. "Liz." She finally revealed, looking away from the both of us.
"Liz?" I questioned. "Liz asked you to the homecoming dance?" Liz was sweet, intelligent and everyone loved her, whereas I could maybe be considered one of those things. I played with the zipper on my hoodie in an attempt to not have to look into those brown eyes, suddenly feeling like a small bug in comparison.
"Damn, you got lucky!" Ned erupted and Michelle smiled shyly, looking away repeatedly. "Do you like her?" Ned asked, making me feel like I was taking part in a conversation I had not consented to.
Michelle's shoulders rose. "She's cute." She said. I looked up by reflex, to my horror meeting her searching eyes. I tried to play it off by looking around at the students whirling around the hallway.
"Are you a couple now?" I asked as naturally as I could.
"We'll see where it goes." Michelle answered with a somewhat confident smile. As confident smiles go, it was pretty confident, but then again, I've seen confidenter* smiles. "I gotta go." She said uncomfortably. "See you tonight guys." She finished before she left me slightly exasperated at her purposefully fuzzy answer.
"Hello Peter! Hello Ned!" Liz greeted us enthusiastically upon opening the door to her mansion and paving the way for a wave of sound to hit us all at once. Sometimes, when I felt a little too good about being called a "hero" I liked to compare the rugged flat where Aunt May and I lived to Liz's house. I found it reminded me of who I really was.
"Hi Liz, you look nice." Ned said whereas I merely mumbled something in response.
"Thanks Ned. You two look very nice as well." She replied sweetly.
When I, in contrast to Ned, failed to respond Liz rolled her eyes. "I take it you've heard that I asked Michelle to homecoming?" She conjectured jadedly, hand to hip.
"How would you know?" I asked without bothering to look at her, instead I searched the small, barely existent dancing crowd inside. Most of the people were still drinking up the courage to dance, I deduced.
"Well, you're not usually this rude, Peter." She raised her eyebrows reproachfully.
Ned was looking at the floor, probably in second hand embarrassment for me. I now felt pretty guilty about my behavior, but I refused to show it, carrying on with the charade. "Yes. M.J. told me." I lied. "We're pretty close." That part's true at least.
"Rub it in." Ned joked in an attempt to diffuse the tension, but Liz was not really having it at this time, facial expression remaining still as stone.
The party did not get off to a good start; let's just say that. We eventually found M.J. though. She was sitting in a beanbag chair by herself, looking strangely content with her situation.
"Finally!" She said once she could make out our figures through the dim luminescent light. "I've been fending of suitors ever since I got here. Thank god you guys are here to take the burden away."
"Really?" I asked while cramping my way into the chair as well, as she made room for me. Ned had his own, but there were only two, which meant we had to make compromises. I didn't mind sitting next to M.J. though, her flannel felt soft against my arm.
"Yes." She motioned at the beanbag chair next to hers, the one Ned was now occupying. "This old thing has had suitors coming as if they were running on a fire." She said funnily, "But I told them, I said, 'It's waiting for Mr. Right.' in this case Mr. Leeds." She emoted. She winked at Ned, whose eyes were big and lost, whose eyebrows were curved in puzzlement and whose mouth was ajar.
"We can tell you've held the fort without us." I laughed. "You haven't talked to Liz anything?" I asked, voice suddenly soft and unsure and wondering how come she'd been sitting in this corner all by herself.
Michelle paused. "I — … I definitely greeted her upon arriving!" She finished light-heartedly after a small stumble.
Ned laughed, a little too hard. "What's the deal you two anyway? I will always respect your decisions M.J., but seriously? Liz? Don't get me wrong, she's great, but what do you guys even have in common?" I inwardly thanked Ned for daring to articulate exactly what I was thinking and I glanced at M.J. to see how she was taking Ned's words.
Michelle didn't seem too bothered by the criticism. "She's in the Academic Decathlon." She said, putting on her most logical voice. "And… She's cute I guess." Michelle ended uncertainly.
"I she much more than that though?" I asked bitterly. They both looked at me as if I had two heads and I deliberated if I should take the night of from speaking.
Thankfully, M.J. chose to ignore my ill worded utterance. "I feel like dancing tonight!" She erupted enthusiastically. "We need to dance tonight!"
"Yeah!" Both Ned and I chimed, thinking they were empty words. We were then more than surprised when Michelle actually stood up, ruining the perfect balance I had in the bean chair and therefore causing me to fall over. She offered her hand to help me up, which I took — out of obligation and not out of desire to take part in her proposal.
We should have known better. We really should have. Of course M.J. wanted to dance. Of course she asked Flash to put on Ramones. Of course she didn't really dance, more like waved her long sleeves around while jumping, the objective being to waste as much energy as possible. "It was how they did it in the 70's!" She'd say. And of course I could do nothing but watch her in awe with a funny feeling in my stomach.
Suddenly the music stopped and everyone turned to Flash, who was looking at me from across the room. Damn. I thought, knowing exactly what was coming.
"Parker!" Flash called for me, knowing he had the attention of the whole room, which was apparently the whole point of this exchange. "Where's your friend?"
The room was quiet.
"Gee, I don't know. Protecting the city?" I suggested sardonically.
"Yeah, from what I hear he's a pretty busy guy isn't he?" When I didn't reply to his clear attempt at mockery he pushed further. "I mean you would know, wouldn't you? …You're his friend?" Flash continued rigorously, tempting me to consider the suit I knew lay stacked inside my backpack. But I knew better, I wasn't going to use Spider-Man, I was going to wait for this little act to be over and then go back to semi-enjoying this party. "I'll lay off Peter. I can tell you're getting annoyed." Flash said, thinking he had me in the palm of his hand, which in itself instigated annoyance in me beyond anything he had said up to this point. "Just a word of advice before I go: if you're always the first one to text, then he's just not that into you." He said condescendingly, pretending to smile in his most compassionate way.
Michelle groaned, "Will you leave him the fuck alone, Flash?" She said, motioning with the coke in her hand.
"You know what? I'll call him right now." I announced to the group, speaking clearly enough for the people in the back to hear me. I glanced at Michelle who was raising my pulse simply by looking surprised at my proclamation.
What I did next I could barely believe, myself. I slid my phone out of my pocket while leaving the scene, I pretended to search for Spider-Man's number and once I'd got to a more secluded part of the house I pretended to make the call. I actually faked a whole phone call only to then exit the house, with my pack back, containing the suit. I could not for the life of me visualize how the rest of this night was going to play out and that scared me. I had no clue what to do next. I did know for sure that I couldn't have my friends having to stand up for me, I didn't want to be stood up for. I had to stick up for myself.
Pretending to be friends with a superhero is not the same as standing up for yourself, a voice in the back of my head said. They're actually so far apart that I find it amazing you could confuse the two.
If you can't stand up for yourself without the suit, then you shouldn't have the suit. The voice continued.
Your powers are your responsibility to use for doing good; impressing a bully doesn't constitute as doing good. The voice in the back of my head sure had a lot of sound arguments.
I put on the suit, just to see how it felt. As soon as it was on I suddenly felt incredibly stupid. Like, if the plan had felt stupid to begin with, this was next level stupid. On the streets of New York the suit made me feel powerful, but at a party with high school students, it was an entirely different story.
I jumped up into a tree so as not to be seen by anyone. I watched M.J. and Ned dance to the muddled sounds of Blitzkrieg Pop on the inside. I say dancing, but it was mostly just uncontrollable jumping. When the song ended I watched as M.J. walked up to Flash to request something new. She could never stand having to listen to music she didn't like.
I imagined what I would say if I went inside, but I couldn't think of anything that didn't make me feel incredibly uneasy. And also, a unitard didn't exactly "fit perfectly" with the dress code.
My eyes adjusted to the scene inside once again, but I was thunderstruck when I saw Flash, the man of the hour, forcefully pulling M.J. toward him and her resisting with all her might. All thoughts of "should I go in or not?" were lost to me and I jumped.
With a few swift jumps I was inside the house, I climbed up along the wall and no one spotted me until I was right above the crowd. Ned was now trying to push Flash away while M.J. was pouring her coke down his hair. I cursed all the drunken teenagers who had barely noticed the scene.
People gasped. "Oh my god, is that the real Spider-Man?" Someone exclaimed.
Before the golden trio could spot me though, I made my move. I shot my web to trap his feet, making him loose his balance and nearly fall over. Flash stopped in his movements to try and figure out what the strange substance around his feet was and Michelle was able to get loose from his grip. Her face was hard, but I could see that she'd been scared.
"What a party you guys are having here!" I said to announce my presence. I back-flipped and landed in front of Flash, from there I kept firing my web at him, trapping his hands and legs until he was covered in it. I stepped closer with each shot until I was right in front of him. I poked him to see if he'd fall, but Flash stood like a rock, covered in the sticky web.
I glanced at my friends, whose jaws were dropped open. Ned leaned in and gave me a high five. Flash's mouth was just as agape as everyone else's, shocked into submission. I don't think anyone had expected New York's famous masked guy to swing by their party, much less make a scene as this one.
"Don't worry," I said, "It'll dissolve in about two hours. By then hopefully you will have learned not to harass people. I mean it's not exactly rocket science, so I think you'll get there." I turned to the group with a newfound confidence; "You guys are with me on this?" They cheered in response, glasses filled to the brim with alcohol raised in salute. "See, these guys believe in you. Now you've just got to believe in yourself." I told him sarcastically with an encouraging slap on his shoulder, only to then have to steady him so that he wouldn't fall to the floor — I wasn't a complete sadist.
"So you are friends with Peter?" Flash quipped from his locked position. I couldn't believe my ears; after this whole ordeal he was still on that subject? I wanted to tape him to the ceiling, have him hang there for the rest of the night, but I kept the charade going. After all, I had initially sought out to prove a point.
"Peter?" I began, "Peter and I are more than friends." I emoted, only to subsequently realize my blunder. I caught M.J. snort and my head turned to briefly meet her eyes. "What I mean to say is… he's like a mother to me." I corrected light-heartedly to make her laugh even more. When she did I found myself continuing, "It's like he gave birth to me. It's like he birthed me out of his metaphorical womb. That's how close we are." Flash looked on, shocked at the odd situation I'd created among a room of partygoers.
"Right. And where is he now?" He hissed.
"He's a busy guy, you know." I reasoned. "Anyway…" I had begun to realize it was time to leave before any other queries arose. I put my hands in my nonexistent pockets. I made a mental note to talk to Mr. Stark about pockets, so as to avoid situations like these.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of my head rose and my muscles turned hard. Time suddenly took longer to pass. I realized that someone was right behind me. In one move I turned and caught their arm right as it was about to latch onto my mask. My eyes were wide in shock as they stared into some random drunk girl's. I pushed her back lightly and she stumbled but didn't fall. Next, I took a few leaps before I was out the window, gone from everyone's view.
Why does this always happen, I thought. Some idiot always tries to remove the mask without my consent. The great thing about the mask was that it created this sort of mystery. No one ever knew the true face of the web slinger, meaning I could go unnoticed if I so please. The problem with the mask however was that everyone loves a mystery. And a fair few love being the smartass who unravels it, especially disrespectful teens who've had too much to drink.
I sat down on top of the roof, watching the lilac smog spread like a curtain over the distant city. I pondered whether or not I should head back inside, Spider-suit off. But I decided it would be too suspicious if I suddenly appeared, having missed the whole show. It might set the ever-notice-how-Batman-and-Bruce-Wayne-are-never-in-the-same-room effect in motion.
My phone buzzed, Michelle was calling. I thought about answering, out of curiosity, but I didn't know what I would tell her if she were to ask about why I had left so suddenly. Eventually the buzzing stopped and I was left waiting for the leaves to fall.
* Used with humorous intent.
Authors note: Did you like/dislike something? Please let me know!
4 August 2017