Cover done by mariexhood

Also available on Archive of Our Own.

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All the school seemed to talk about was Flash's Halloween costume party and it was starting to annoy the hell out of Peter. Sure, Flash threw oneamazing Halloween party as a freshman and was planning to continue the tradition. The hype was up. Peter watched as even the upperclassmen seemed excited about Flash's party; they often went up to Flash to talk about it.

"Oh yeah," Flash smirked at the older girl. He leaned against the locker and tried to seem all nonchalant. "There'll be booze, don't worry cupcake. The pool? Heated. And did I mention that I snagged DNCE to perform? Yeah, one of my dad's is a cousin of Joe Jonas."

Peter wanted to barf at Flash's attempt at flirting but getting a live famous band to play at a high school Halloween costume party? That was sadly pretty impressive to Peter.

He made the unfortunate mistake of walking by Flash. The bully spotted Peter trying to walk past the tall girl he was talking to. Flash nearly pushed the girl out of the way to get Peter's attention. He yelled, "Yo Penis Parker!"

Peter huffed out a breath. He stopped his stride to glance at Flash over his shoulder. Annoyed, he said, "What is it Flash?"

Flash stepped between him and the tall upperclassman, who appeared to be bored with their conversation. Flash didn't mind, however, because he was focused on Peter instead. "You heard of my party right?"

"Everyone has heard of your party," sighed Peter.

"That's right." His answer made Flash pull on a smug smile. "But, uh, I'm going to have to officially un-invite you to said party."

Peter blinked at him. No way, he thought. At the end of a Decathlon meeting, Flash made a big announcement. He had stood up on a chair and declared that the team was invited to his party when in reality, the entire school was silently invited to his party. It was a come-all party because Flash wanted everyone to know who he is and how rich he is. But damn him for making Peter the only person who technically wasn't allowed to go.

Peter's mouth had fallen slightly open. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? Sure, Peter wanted to go. He had never been to a party for more than five minutes and that was at Liz's house... which didn't go so well.

He started to speak, not quite sure what he was going to say. "Come on, Flash. You invited the entire Decathlon team and I am part of the team just like you."

"Since when?" he scoffed at Peter. "You barely made it on when we left for finals and you missed finals anyways. I'm surprised you're still attending school, much less on the team."

She came out of nowhere. It's like Michelle lives in the shadows. When Peter saw her, he nearly jumped out of his own skin. She eased up beside Flash with her terrifying blank expression on her face and she asked Flash, "Hey, are we allowed to bring plus one's?"

Flash did a jump. He spun around and stared at Michelle before he nodded. "Yeah, bring how many people as you want."

"Cool." Michelle turned away from Flash and she started to walk towards Peter. She forcibly shoved her shoulder against his and whispered: "You're my plus one" before she kept walking down the hallway.

Flash didn't hear her, thank god. Instead, he turned to the upperclassman girl who was starting to move away. He caught up to her to finish their conversation while Peter stared at Michelle.

Did she just...? She did. Peter knit his brows together, unable to comprehend what had just happened. How long was she even there? Long enough, obviously, if she knew that Flash tried to get rid of Peter's invite. But the question that bugged him the most was: why did she do it?

Peter had to tell Ned. But not at lunch, lunch was way too risky. Michelle would more than likely sit on the opposite corner of their table with her book and she could definitely overhear their conversation. Ned wasn't exactly quiet.

Fortunately, shop class was basically free time. Their teacher rarely paid attention and well, Peter could work on his web-slingers in peace with Ned. Ned was helping him this time with the web slingers since he too had his own experience with them at the homecoming dance which saved Peter's life. Peter thought he might as well learn how to make them and use them properly. While they were working, Peter casually brought up what happened earlier. "So Michelle asked me to the Halloween Party."

Like I said, casually.

Ned's jaw hung open as if it was broken. "She what?!"

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, cringing at the way he decided to go about this. "I mean," he said with a sigh, "Earlier Flash said he didn't want me to come to the party- which was ridiculous cause-"

"He invited everyone!"

Peter nodded. "Exactly! And so Michelle came out of nowhere and asked if she could bring a plus one. Flash says whatever, it's fine and then Michelle purposely bumps into me and whispered that I'm her plus one. And then she left without saying anything else!"

"Dude." Ned let the web-slinger down and he regarded his best friend. He opened his mouth to say something and then squeezed them shut. After a beat, he simply said, "I don't understand her."

"You think I do?" Peter shook his head. "Great, what am I going to do? Does this mean we have to hang out with her at the party?"

Ned raised a single eyebrow. "Um, we?"

Peter's eyes widened once he realized what his best friend was hinting at. Ned was going to abandon him with her?! Now that he thought about it, Peter did abandon Ned at Liz's party. Defeated, with his shoulders slumped he said, "You're not going to hang out with me and Michelle?"

"Look, man, you did stand me up at what was supposed to be our first high school party." Ned pursed his lips. "Besides, she did invite you, so you have to spend the entire time with her. Like a date."

"A what?!" Peter yelped.

Their shop teacher didn't bother to look up from his book. "Pipe down Parker! I'm not hearing any work!"

Peter's face flushed red and he muttered an apology. He thought of spending an entire night with Michelle- at a party- as a date. What would they even do together? "Oh my god what have I gotten into?" mumbled Peter. He glanced up at his friend and his mind clicked with an idea. "How about I just say no to Michelle and you could be my plus one! Everyone wins!"

Ned opened his mouth, flashing his teeth as he sucked in air. "Sorry man, but if Flash finds out that I invited you, we both get our asses kicked to the curb. At least with Michelle, he's scared of her. And who knows what she might do if you reject her- which would be super rude by the way."

Peter responded with incoherent sounds to express his frustration.

After school, Peter was going to do his usual routine: go out at Spider-Man and do some patrols, come home and finish up any homework and get dinner, and then go out again. He rarely had ay homework to do after school since he tried his best to finish it during lunch or his free period in shop. He jogged down the front steps, already had said goodbye to Ned to head on home on his bike when he spotted Michelle sitting on the grass, up against a tree. She had a sketchpad on her lap and she stroked the paper with a led pencil, occasionally glancing up to peer at the environment before her before she returned to her work.

Peter unlocked his bike and he contemplated climbing on and riding off to do his patrol... and then he looked back at Michelle under the tree. He sighed. Instead, he grabbed the handles of the bike and walked it over to her. She didn't glance up at him when he arrived. "So um," he cleared his throat, nervous about this entire thing, "How come you got me an invite earlier?"

"Does it matter, Peter?" Michelle asked simply. She didn't sound annoyed or anything- more earnest.

He scratched the back of his head, his brown hair curled in his fingers. "I mean-I- yes. To me it does, kinda."

Michelle sighed. She dropped her pencil on her artwork and stared up at him. Her dark curly hair covered half of her face while the rest of it was tied in a low ponytail. She held his gaze, making him incredibly uncomfortable with this amount of... well, pressure on him. Michelle pursed her lips. "You'll owe me," she said.

"I'll owe you?" Peter repeated, confused.

"Yeah, this favor isn't going to be free."

Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But I didn't ask you for this favor!"

"Are you kidding me?" Michelle laughed and Peter noticed how her eyes lit up as she did so. "If only you saw the look on your face, man! The devastation was so clear. I swooped in and did you a solid."

"But you don't even like parties."

"I don't."

"Then why the heck are you going to this one?"

"I like Halloween."

And that was when he realized that was the first time he ever heard her sound genuinely interested in something. Peter didn't know a damn thing about Michelle except for she draws people in misery, and she reads all sorts of weird books. So her liking Halloween struck him like a bullet.

Michelle noticed him staring at her dumb. "What?" She frowned at him. "There's an entire holiday where you get to scare children and eat candy. What's not to like? Anyways, if I didn't go to the party, I wouldn't know what happened at the party for myself."

Before Peter could even figure out how to respond to that, a car honked. They both glance up to the road where a vehicle was waiting for Michelle. She packed up her things and slung her the strap of her bag over her shoulder. With a wave of her hand, she called over her shoulder, "See you there."

He had so many questions.

"Okay, so, Robbie, you know girls, don't you?" Spider-Man leaned against the hot dog stand casually with a wrapped up hot dog in his hands while he chatted with the seller, Robbie.

The big man gravely nodded his head as if he was remembering a lost art. "Got some troubles, kid?"

"Yeah," Spider-Man nodded. "I do actually. So there's this girl and I think she's sending some confusing mixed up signals. Like I don't know what she wants."

Robbie tapped his chin, thinking thoughtfully on the matter. "Ladies tend to do that, son. But what happened? What is she doing?"

"So like she's always like rude to me, right? She's just there. I don't know how to describe it. She doesn't have any friends. I only have one so, like, I understand why she hangs out with me kinda. But at the same time, she's like 'Screw you' but she got me an invite to this really huge party when she didn't have to. What am I supposed to do?"

Robbie gave him a hearty laugh. Spider-Man huffed and pushed himself away from the hot dog cart in embarrassment. Robbie's laugh finally drowned out and he gave his answer. "Well, if I may, I think that you know what you're supposed to do, Spidey, especially if it worries you so much."

"Man, you're no help, Robbie." Spider-Man shook his head and Robbie shrugged his shoulders.

A car alarm sounded, drawing Spider-Man's attention away from his hot dog selling friend. He made a break for the sound, yelling his goodbye to Robbie. Robbie called after him: "Good luck with the girl, little man!"

"Thanks!" shouted Spider-Man. He struck out his arm toward the sky and his web shot out to grab onto the side of a building and Spider-Man was off to duty.

A few blocks later, Spider-Man saw a car speeding through the street. The alarm shut off when he got there. Dropping down to the street level, Spider-Man shot out another web to latch onto the back of a luxury sports car and held his ground. He pulled, slowing the sports car down, making the tires skid against the street. Spider-Man strained against the pull of the sports car and he gave a massive yank on the web, sending the car backward- straight at him.

"Shit!" Spider-Man cursed. "Shield web!" he yelled at Karen, the Ai in his suit. He crossed his arms in front of his chest toward the buildings on either side of the road. A thick webbing appeared in front of him that acted as a shield that stretched across the street. Spider-Man stepped back as the sports car slammed against the webbing and he narrowly missed getting hit himself.

Then he realized that- oh god- the sports car lurched forward from its impact. Another curse came from his lips and he launched himself over the webbing in a powerful jump. He landed in front of the sports car and braced himself to catch. The metal hit against him and Spider-Man pushed it back with all of his might.

The sports car's momentum was brought to a halting stop. Spider-Man dropped the car and he saw the terrified driver screaming his head off. Spider-Man chuckled, circling around the hood of the sports car to the driver's seat. He tapped the window with the back of his hand, using his knuckles.

The man in the sports car, breathing hard from the adrenaline of flying back and forth in the vehicle, slowly rolled down the window with his hand shaking. Once the window was fully lowered, Spider-Man leaned forward and folded his arms on the door, peeking his head through. "Nice car," he said, "not yours, I presume?"

The man shook his head, his entire body vibrating.

"Okay good, cause it would have been embarrassing for me to catch the wrong guy trying to get into a car again." Spider-Man stepped back. Speaking in his own deeper voice, he cleared his throat. "Excuse me, sir, I have to ask you to step out of your vehicle."

The man slowly stepped out from the stolen sports car, his knees buckling from beneath him.

"Hands in the air, sir," Spider-Man imitated a police officer further. "You know what? Hands on top of the vehicle, sir."

The man turned and placed his hands on top of the sports car, only to find them webbed down by Spider-Man. He glanced over his shoulder to stare at him in disbelief.

"Next time you think about stealing a car, don't." Spider-Man gave him a thumbs up.

Spider-Man left the scene, satisfied with his work, yet he was still troubled by Robbie's rotten advice. He knows what he is supposed to do? Please, the last time Peter knew what he was supposed to do, he left his homecoming date before their first dance together and sent her father to jail.

After the Liz fiasco, Peter didn't think he would have to worry about a girl for a long time coming, and boy was he wrong.