"And you're sure she'd like that better than a bouquet? There's still time to run out for a cute corsage-" Aunt May began, helping Peter tighten his tie's knot. Peter glanced over to the corner of the living room where the potted oxalis he'd chosen that afternoon from the Home Depot nursery was. It had beautiful reddish-purple leaves that were almost translucent, and the guy at the nursery said it was great for windowsills. He nodded, finishing adjusting the tie himself, so it wasn't choking him.

"Yeah, I think- yeah. She's going to like it."

May held up her hands in surrender. "If you say so." She still seemed slightly perturbed from earlier, when Peter had suggested that maybe Kat wasn't such a good nickname- not that Katya had said anything about it, but Peter knew her well enough to know that wasn't going to fly long term. "You look dashing."

Somehow, between the dancing and the pizza and even with their nightly facetime call- this time during which Katya had fallen asleep first, not like he could blame her in the least- they hadn't talked about the whole 'matching' idea, ever since Katya had slightly mocked it when he'd mentioned it in the first place. So Aunt May and him opted for a slate suit and a dark gold tie, because Peter had…well, a tingle about the gold motif. So he went with it. "Thanks, Aunt May."

"So is it game time?" She asked gleefully, picking up her car keys.

Peter grinned, and went to pick up the potted plant. "It's game time."

Aunt May insisted on a picture ("just put the plant down for a second, Peter-") beforehand, but soon they were on their way upstate to pick up Katya.

"I can't believe she does this drive every morning for school," Aunt May muttered as the city began to thin out and trees replaced skyscrapers alongside the highway.

"I know-" Peter was about to mention that web-slinging his way to training was usually pretty fun, but decided against it, since the Spiderman stuff still seemed to be more of a dont-ask-dont-tell policy between the two of them. "-but I guess you can sorta get used to anything."

He realized the error of his thinking when they pulled up to the compound. He quickly sent a text to Katya.

Where should I meet you? We're here, but you don't exactly have a front door.

Almost immediately, she texted back, Oh! You can just stay there, I'll be right down.

"Oh, no, you don't-" Peter muttered to himself, jumping out of the car. Thankful for both his knowledge of the compound's layout and for the mostly glass exterior, he watched a light flicker off in the general area of where her room was, which, if she took the nearest elevator down, would take her directly to the left wing's landing entrance. He started towards it, at a slight jog and then, realizing he'd forgotten the plant, ran back to the car to grab it. "I gotta beat her to the elevator-" is all he offered May's confused look, before grabbing the plant and running back out. He couldn't see the elevator from here, but her room was on the seventh floor, and the gym on the fourth, so judging by how long the elevator usually took to travel he had about thirty seconds to sprint across the landing and into the lobby if he wanted to beat the elevator.

Happy was already waiting there, which meant he'd picked the right route, and made it just in time. "Hey, Happy." Peter said, slightly breathless, over a faceful of leaves. "You know my Aunt May is driving us, right?"

Happy nodded, his hands in his pockets. "Yeah- I just wanted to see her off, is all. Nice plant."

"Thanks."

They waited in silence for the two more floors the elevator had to travel to get to ground level,

Finally, with a ding, it opened, and Katya stepped off.

Peter couldn't quite see her at first through the plant, but heard her squeal as soon as the doors opened. "Oh my god, Peter, it's beautiful!" Her hands briefly overlapped his as she took it from him and handed it to Happy wordlessly before throwing her arms around him in a hug, stamping a kiss to his cheek Peter grinned and hugged her back, before pulling away to actually look at her.

"Wow" he breathed, "you look…"

Well his spidey-sense (or Peter Tingle, as Aunt May had once called it, which he really hoped she'd drop) had been correct in going for gold. She wore an ombre jade dress, that started translucent at the top save for the all-over gold leaf vine detailing it had, which turned to a light green and darkened in hue as it reached her mid-thigh, where the dress ended, layered but uneven, almost fairy-like. All day, Peter'd been trying to imagine what she'd look like when he picked her up, and this was so much better than anything he'd come up with.

"Absolutely beautiful." Happy finished for him, shifting the plant so he could clasp her on the shoulder affectionately. "Looking really good, Kid."

The vine detailing of her dress glinted gold in the lobby's light, taking a cue from her hair, which was slightly curled. She grinned. "Thanks, Happy." She still wore her boots, these white with black laces, but Peter hadn't expected anything different.

Happy walked them out to where Aunt May was parked, and greeted her, too. "Don't worry," Aunt May assured, after accepting a compliment about how nice her own hair looked (though she hadn't done anything to it, and Happy had seemed a bit nervous when he'd said it, which struck Peter as odd), "I'll have them back at a reasonable time." Her tone suggested this was partly a joke.

"Yeah, er, reasonable time sounds good," Happy fumbled. "Have fun guys!" He called into the back seat, where the two of them had clambered into.

"We will!" Katya waved, smiling brightly,

They began the drive back, which May helped pass quickly by playing some danceable music throughout the ride, which had them all laughing and dancing along as the trees thinned into cityscape once more. Peter noticed that Katya, for once, didn't have the tracker wrapped around her wrist- something they'd talked about that day at school- but she kept rubbing where it was supposed to be. Peter grabbed her hand and muttered under the music. "It's going to be okay. It's one night, and we're supposed to be laying low, remember?"

She glanced at him, offering a small smile, and squeezed his hand back. "I know." she tried to sound assured, but her tone betrayed her anxiety.

They soon pulled up to the school, where the Snowball was already well underway, made obvious by the music you could already hear even through the closed doors. The occasional students were still streaming in, but the students that normally stood outside to take tickets had long since disappeared, and the parked cars that lined the street suggested most everyone was already inside.

"Have fun you two," Aunt May's grin was practically splitting her face. "When does this end, eleven?"

"Yeah," Peter reached across Katya to open the door for her unnecessarily, ("Peter I can open it-") "I'll text you if we go anywhere after." Not that he was expecting to, but to keep up appearances after Homecoming.

"Okay Pete. Love you."

"Love you too, Aunt May"

And with that, she drove off, leaving them in the parking lot.

Peter's hand, who hadn't let go of Katya's for the entire ride up essentially- squeezed hers again, and pulled her towards him. "You really do look beautiful, myshka." He pressed a kiss to her lips, which she smiled into-

And then froze.

Peter pulled back. Did he say something wrong? "What-?"

Katya was looking somewhere over his shoulder, her eyes scanning the area calculatively, before turning around to look behind her. It was like she was looking for something.

Peter tugged at her hand. "C'mon, let's go inside."

Katya shook her head. "No, somethings-" she let go of his hand and started to wander off to the side of the school, near where the schoolbuses were parked.

"Katya," Peter called after her- he'd be exasperated if he didn't know that she knew better than him- "C'mon." He followed her around the corner.

"No, Peter, something's not right." She cursed under her breath in Russian, Peter could only guess she was complaining about having left the tracker at home. Peter could feel it too, now, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. His Spider-senses were telling him something. Katya switched back to English. "I think-"

And then, as if on cue, a figure dropped down behind her from the roof of one of the school buses, wrapping an arm around her neck.