Chapter 14: The First Real Party

Peter knew nothing of high school parties except what he'd seen in the movies. The same went for his siblings. He had no idea what to expect, and that non-knowing made him incredibly nervous. At least he knew for sure that he'd know at least a few people there. And if things truly got overwhelming, he could retreat to his room.

Peter expected them to arrive late and little by little, but they must've carpooled because they all showed up at once, at nine o'clock on the dot. The population of their living room quadrupled in a matter of seconds.

"Wow, this place is huge."

"You weren't kidding when you said this would be a great party house."

"Thanks for hosting, Steve."

"Where's the drinks table?"

Steve gestured to the kitchen table. Peter assumed they meant soft drinks, until Valkyrie slammed two six packs of beer down and Yelena walked over with a bottle of Smirnoff in each hand.

"Where did you even get that?" Gamora asked her.

"My parents are Russian. I was drinking this stuff out of baby bottles."

"Papa says it doesn't count as a party unless there's good vodka. So he sends the good vodka with us," Natasha explained.

"That sounds like very responsible parenting," Kate remarked.

"Isn't your mom in jail?"

Kate crossed her arms defensively. "She's on parole."

Peter felt like he wasn't close enough to any of these people to be hearing these sorts of things about them. Steve didn't seem to know what to do with himself as nearly every member of the team thanked him for offering up his home. Wanda and Pietro stood together in the corner looking shell shocked. Natasha produced a portable speaker and started blaring pop music.

"Peter?" Kate walked up to him.

"Hi Kate."

"What are you doing here?"

"I…live here?"

"You're Tony Stark's kid too?"

"No," he said immediately. "He's married to my aunt."

That only seemed to confuse her more.

"My aunt is my legal guardian. Because my parents are dead."

"Ohhhh." Kate finally nodded in understanding. "So he's your uncle?"

"My uncle died too. She married him after that."

"Oh. Geez."

"Yeah. Sorry, that's not exactly a party mood setter."

"No, it's okay. I just…never knew that."

"I didn't know your mom went to prison."

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Yeah. She did some shit with money. I still don't even really understand it. She was only gone a year."

"I'm sorry. That sounds really hard."

"Yeah, it was weird."

This is the last thing Peter ever expected to discuss at a party. No party scene from a movie had ever contained a conversation anything like this.

One of the other dancers called Kate's name and she left to go talk to them. Peter wandered over to Wanda and Pietro, still tucked in their corner. The three of them watched as everyone grabbed a solo cup and poured some combination of alcohol and other stuff into it. Natasha even coaxed Steve into adding a shot of vodka to his soda.

"That's not going to do anything," Pietro said.

"How do you know?"

"Steve can't get drunk. His metabolism is too fast," Wanda explained.

"Oh." Peter had no idea how they might've gone about testing that theory, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Mr. Stark didn't keep any alcohol in the house. Peter was pretty sure he was a recovered alcoholic, but he didn't have the courage to ask and confirm his hypothesis. From here, he couldn't hear anyone's conversations over the music, so he just watched them dance around the furniture. They seemed to be making a game over who could produce the worst dance move, which he supposed was more fun than the other way around considering they all already knew how good they could dance.

"What are we supposed to do?" Pietro asked.

"I think getting drunk would be a good first step," Wanda replied. She poured a generous amount of vodka into a solo cup and topped it off with cranberry juice. Drink in hand, she returned to her post beside Pietro.

"You're not going to mingle?" he asked.

"Not yet. I haven't lost my inhibition yet."

"Why do you need to lose that to talk to them?" Peter asked.

"I'm way too nervous to talk to these girls sober."

"That's a good point." Pietro also made himself a drink, though he chose tonic water instead of juice. Peter resigned himself to being one of the only two sober people at this party. He'd never had more than a sip or two of alcohol and he didn't want to experience an actual buzz for the first time surrounded by so many people he didn't know. He suspected he'd be a pitiful lightweight.

Ten minutes later, Wanda decided she'd worked up enough courage and plowed right into the middle of the dance floor. Pietro followed soon after. Peter wandered close enough so he could make out at least some of what they were saying.

"You guys are Russian, right?" Pietro asked Natasha and Yelena.

"If the next words out of your mouth include any reference to Communism, I will hit you," Yelena warned.

"Nah, I was just curious if you ever pronounce English words wrong in your head when you read. Because some Cyrillic letters look the same but are pronounced different."

They exchanged a glance.

"I can't read Russian," Natasha said. "Only speak it."

"Oh. Okay."

"You don't have a Russian equivalent of Chinese school?" Shang-Chi asked.

"No. What's that?"

"You go every Sunday and learn how to read and write in Chinese."

"That sounds awful," Yelena said bluntly.

"It's boring sometimes, but my parents were adamant their culture not die just because they moved to America."

"Our parents keep their culture alive by scaring the neighbors when they argue in Russian," Yelena remarked.

Natasha examined her right fingernails. "Everything sounds ten times more threatening when it's yelled in Russian. Even when they're just arguing over who takes out the trash."

"That's actually hilarious," Shang-Chi said.

Peter turned his attention to Steve, then immediately stopped paying attention because he was just discussing politics with T'Challa. He did notice, however, that Steve's gaze kept flitting in the other direction, where a few other girls were dancing and chatting. On the other side of the room, Wanda and Xialing were commiserating over having idiot brothers. Peter hoped she was referring only to Pietro and Steve, and not himself.

Someone shut off the music mid-song. Kate held it aloft and asked, "Turn contest, anyone?"

"It wouldn't be a dance team party without a turning contest!" Peggy agreed.

"We'd better do it before we're too drunk to turn."

"Val, you're already too drunk to turn," Thena grumbled.

"I can't even turn sober, so I'll sit this one out," Danny said.

"Who's in?" Kate asked. Everyone except for Danny, T'Challa, Valkyrie, and Thena raised their hands. The next thing Peter knew, they were moving furniture to make space in the middle of the living room. He flinched as the sofa made contact with the wall with a loud thud. Mr. Stark probably wouldn't care if they damaged the wall—money was never an object with him and he could have someone fix it within days—but May would care. And Peter feared her more than Mr. Stark. The people participating in the contest took off their shoes and right socks. Their left socks they only took off the heel and left the front part on, which only deepened Peter's confusion.

"How many people can we fit?" Xialing asked.

"Probably four, as long as no one drifts out of formation," Gamora said, pointedly glaring at Nebula.

"That was one show!" Nebula shot back. "And we were nine!"

"I say we go in pairs, then the four winners go against each other," Yelena proposed.

"Sounds good to me," Natasha agreed.

Kate and Peggy exchanged a glance. Nebula caught on to whatever they were thinking and said, "Absolutely not!"

"It's too perfect!" Kate said. She turned to address the crown. "All in favor of a sibling face off?"

Peter had no idea what a turning contest was and he was frankly scared to find out considering how riled up it had everyone. Most of the team was in favor of a sibling face off. Valkyrie was literally hopping up and down with her hand raised.

"What song are we using?" Natasha asked. "And don't say American Pie. It's way too slow."

Yelena pouted.

"Jai Ho," Shang-Chi suggested.

"Good enough for me. Who's on first?"

Xialing dragged her brother to the center of the floor. The rest of the team fanned out into a circle around the room. Peter ended up sandwiched between Wanda and Danny.

"Which way are we spotting?" Shang-Chi asked.

"That way." Xialing pointed to the front door.

Jai Ho began blaring through the speaker. The team chanted, "Five, six, seven, eight!" in eerie synchrony. On seven eight, Xialing and Shang-Chi planted their left feet. And then Peter understood what they meant by turning contest. The two dancers spun in circle after circle, right legs extended. Their heads whipped around to face the door in perfect timing with the music. Peter had always been intimidated by these people, and as they reached fifteen rotations he grew even more so. It was completely and utterly mesmerizing. At nineteen, Shang-Chi lost momentum and had to stop. Xialing tucked her knee in and finished with three continuous spins.

"Show-off," Shang-Chi grunted.

"You're the one constantly springing into straddles for no reason."

"Hey, there's a reason we put one of those in every jazz piece."

Peter soon learned that as far as siblings went, Wanda, Pietro, and Steve's bickering was fairly tame. Gamora and Nebula's turn battle ended with Nebula refusing to speak to her sister, only glaring murderously. In the only non-siblings pairing, Peggy beat Kate at twenty-two turns, and then an eager murmuring broke out as Natasha and Yelena took their place in the circle. Peter didn't think anything could impress him more than what he'd already seen, but Natasha and Yelena sailed past twenty-five without any signs of slowing down. Once they passed thirty, people started counting off every other turn.

"Thirty-two!"

"Thirty-four!"

"Thirty-six!"

Peter grew dizzy just thinking about what it must feel like to do that.

"Thirty-eight!"

"Forty!"

He couldn't even tell if they were getting tired. These last ten looked exactly the same as the first ten. Finally, at forty-seven, Yelena dropped her heel to initiate the next turn and never got it back up. The instant she saw her sister stop, Natasha stopped. Neither of them looked the least bit dizzy. Frankly, Peter was as impressed by this as he was by his siblings' literal superpowers.

"To make it fair, you should start the final round right now," Kate said with a smirk.

"I don't even get two minutes rest?" Natasha asked.

"No," the crowd agreed.

"Alright then." She flexed each of her feet a few times and got into formation with the other three winners. Yelena started the song over and the crowd repeated their count of, "Five, six, seven, eight!"

It was even more mesmerizing with four people going at once. Peter leaned over to whisper to Wanda, "Remind me to go to the next dance concert."

"Believe me, I will."

Natasha only made it to forty-three this time, but that was still ten more than Gamora, her closest competition.

"And that's why she's usually our soloist," Kate remarked.

The music changed to a basic pop song, someone cranked the volume way up, and the circle of people converged into a mosh pit. Peter skirted around the mass of people and fled to the kitchen for a glass of water. He found Steve in there too, his elbows on the counter and his head resting on his hands as he gazed out at the dancers. Peter could only describe the look on his face as lovestruck. At first, he assumed Steve would be looking at Natasha, but closer observation revealed it was actually Peggy.

Peter walked up beside him and asked, "Is this why you've been hanging out with them?"

Steve jumped. "What—no."

"It's okay." Peter smiled. "I won't tell anyone."

"I don't think she even knows I exist," Steve sighed.

"Well she came to your party, so that's definitely not true."

Steve shrugged. "Maybe."

"Are you just going to stare like a creep, or are you going to talk to her?"

"I don't want to embarrass myself."

"You either have to start talking or stop staring, my friend, because what you're doing right now is downright creepy."

Steve and Peter both jumped and turned around to find Pietro sipping at a beer. "When did you get here?" Peter asked.

Pietro shrugged. "A few seconds ago." He bounced his eyebrows. "I'm fast, you know."

Steve's voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "You'd better not be using your powers with all these people around. Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Relax. I walked in here like a normal person. You were just too busy creeping to notice me."

"I am not creeping. I'm admiring."

"Those are the same thing."

"They are not. You know what, I don't have to listen to this." Steve stormed out of the kitchen and bumped into another person on her way in. "Sorry!" he blurted out. When he took a step back and realized who he'd run into, his ears lit up bright red.

"Pardon me," Peggy said. She reached up to steady herself and accidentally tapped his left pec.

Steve's ears turned impossibly redder as he glanced down at the spot where her fingertips had made contact.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!"

"It's okay," Steve assured.

Pietro muttered to Peter, "Good thing it wasn't the other way around. He'd be in a lot more trouble."

Peter swatted him.

"Are you…having fun?" he asked her.

"Absolutely. Are you?"

"I guess so. I've never really…been to a party before. Are they all like this?"

"I imagine not the bit with the turns, but everything else is typical."

"You must get invited to a lot of these."

She giggled. "Heavens no. Pretty much only the dance ones."

Steve's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Why do you sound surprised?"

"I would've thought a girl like you would find herself invited to everything."

She smiled playfully. "What do you mean by that?"

"Uh…just that…I don't know, I would always want to invite you to things, so I assumed that…others felt the same."

"You've never flirted before, have you?" she asked knowingly.

"No ma'am, this would be my first time. If this can even be considered flirting."

"Whatever it is, it's working. Would you like to dance?"

"I'm afraid I might step on your toes."

"I've done pointe for three years. My toes have had worse, I assure you." With that, she grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the people dancing.

"That went far better than I ever expected," Pietro remarked.

"Give him some credit. Your brother has game."

"If playing bumbling and awkward is a game, then sure."

"Maybe she likes bumbling and awkward."

Pietro shrugged, finished his drink, and started up a conversation with Shang-Chi. Peter couldn't hear them, but wondered if they were complaining about their sisters. That would be funny.

The alcohol ran out around midnight. Besides the rearranged furniture, property destruction was minimal, much to Peter's relief. Maybe the movies exaggerated high school parties just a bit. Either that, or the dance team were just exceptional house guests, even drunk.

At one am, Kate announced, "Clint agreed to pick us up, but he says he's not putting his aids back in this late at night so nobody better try to make conversation."

"Clint's car holds fourteen people?" Steve asked.

"No, it holds eight. But Shang-Chi's willing to take multiple trips."

"He's our designated driver," Yelena added.

"Because for some reason he sees valet parking as a dream career," Xialing scoffed.

"Laugh all you want now, but only one of us is going to spend the rest of their life driving only whatever used car they can afford."

Shang-Chi took four people home and by the time he got back to take the next group, Clint had also arrived. As quickly as they had all arrived, they were all gone.

"Well, that happened," Pietro remarked.

"Indeed," Wanda concurred.

"Do we clean up now or save it for tomorrow?" Peter asked.

"I vote for tomorrow," Pietro said.

"Same," Wanda agreed.

"There's nothing that can't wait until morning," Steve said. Only now did Parker see the faint lipstick mark on his cheek.

"Good night guys," Peter said. Now that there wasn't music thumping in his chest, he realized how exhausted he was.

"Good night."