The first day of college was an important milestone in a person's life, and Macy O'Hara would be damned if hers wasn't perfect. She'd been waiting for her first day at Columbia since the eighth grade, and it had finally arrived.

She woke up early, making herself coffee in the new coffee pot she'd bought especially for college. Macy didn't really like coffee, but she didn't want to risk dozing off during her very first day of college classes.

She showered, did her makeup and dressed in her lucky pair of worn black Levi's and a white halter top, then double-checked everything to make sure her day would go according to plan.

Intro to Literature was her first class, with Dr. Kerrigan. Then she had History of Women's Rights (the class she was most looking forward to), Biology Lab (even a pre-law student needed a science credit) and Basics of Political Science. Her classes were mostly electives, as a first-year had a lot of catch-up to do before they could really dive into law courses, but she didn't mind. She was excited about all of them.

She tied her feet into her trusty Doc Martens and settled down into her desk chair, as she still had thirty minutes before she even needed to leave for class. Her roommate, a bubbly young woman by the name of Valentina Eduardo, slept soundly still in her bed, though Macy knew Tina was in the same 10 AM Intro to Lit class as she was.

A knock on the dorm door jolted Tina out of bed, and Macy out of her pre-class meditation.

"Who is knocking at this hour?" Tina groaned, glancing over at her alarm clock. "I still had ten minutes to sleep."

Macy stood to open the door, peering through the peephole to see that it was her sister that stood on the other end. "Gretchen, what are you doing here?" Macy asked as she opened the door.

Macy's sister grinned at her as she forced her way into the room. "Well, we're in the same Intro to Lit class, so I thought we could walk together."

"Macy, is that your sister?" Tina groaned from underneath her covers.

"Twin sister!" Gretchen exclaimed as she fixed her pink lipgloss in the mirror that hung on the back of the girls' door.

"Fraternal," Macy grumbled as she stood in front of her sister, her arms crossed. "Gretchen, do you remember why we agreed to not room together in college?"

"To meet new people," Gretchen replied, plopping herself down in Tina's beanbag chair.

"So we wouldn't have to see each other all the time," Macy said. "And yet, here you are, in my room, again."

"Listen, Mace, I'm just here so we can walk to class together, okay? Other than that, you'll find me down in my room on the third floor. I promise," Gretchen said as she picked at a loose thread on her plaid skirt.

Macy rolled her eyes and looked at Tina, who was finally pulling herself out of bed. "Are you ready to leave for Dr. Kerrigan's class soon?"

"Yeah, just one minute, let me ..." Tina pulled some clothes out of a pile at the edge of her bed.

"Is that ..." Gretchen squinted at the posters that plastered Tina's end of the room. "A uterus?"

"Yeah," Tina said, pointing to the cartoon. "I drew it myself. 'Hands off my uterus', you know?"

"Right," Gretchen replied, glancing nervously at her sister as she played with the pearls that hung around her neck.

Though both of the O'Hara sisters were privileged in every sense of the word, one couldn't necessarily tell by looking at them. Gretchen, yes, with her plaid and pearls and Prada, could easily be picked out as one of the Connecticut-trust fund-Ivy Leaguers that Macy despised, despite being one herself, too. Their mother had left when they were both twelve — a very impressionable timeframe in a pubescent girl's life — and the twins had dealt with it very differently.

"Don't be scared of the uterus, Gretchen," Tina said as she tugged on a pair of nylon tights. "Be scared of the crusty old men that are trying to take away your rights concerning it."

Gretchen was obviously uncomfortable, but Macy rather enjoyed her sister's discomfort. Gretchen had always followed their family's old money, conservative beliefs, while Macy was rather the liberal, feminist black sheep of the family. Nevertheless, their father adored them both equally.

Macy grabbed her backpack, which she had already packed with her brand new literature books the night before. She poured her coffee into a travel mug and waited not-so-patiently next to her sister as Tina dug around for an outfit in her already-dirty clothes.

"Are you ready, Tina?" Macy asked, glancing down at her watch. She wanted to get a seat in the front row and knew that the large lecture hall would probably fill up quickly.

"Yeah, one second," Tina replied as she tucked a pack of cigarettes into the side pocket of her messenger bag.

Macy hated smoking, but so long as Tina kept doing it outside of their room, she wouldn't say anything.

"Okay, let's go," Tina said, following the O'Hara sisters out of the dorm room.

They took the stairs to the street level, where the noise of New York hit Macy like a truck. She was obviously familiar with the city, but growing up in nearby Connecticut meant she wasn't quite used to living in all the noise.

"The English building is down the street," Macy said, taking the lead. She knew Gretchen would be lost in the city without her, and she knew Tina never toured campus before arriving.

"So, what are you studying, Gretch?" Tina asked as she trailed behind the sisters, struggling to light a cigarette.

"Economics," Gretchen replied. "I want to work on Wall Street."

Tina let out a chuckle. "Of course you do."

"What about you?" Gretchen asked, either not noticing the dig or choosing to ignore it.

"Sociology," Tina replied after taking a long drag from her cigarette.

Gretchen wrinkled her nose. "Oh. One of those degrees where you don't actually make any money..."

Apparently, Gretchen had heard Tina's dig.

"...Like Macy's."

Macy swung her head around, her boots stopping firmly on the cement. "I'm going to law school, Gretchen. I'm going to help a lot of people."

"Yes, but as Dad says, you don't make money as a lawyer by helping people. You make money by ripping people off," Gretchen said with a smirk.

Macy exchanged an annoyed glance with her roommate, the latter of whom had her arms crossed over her chest.

"And what exactly will you be doing on Wall Street, Gretchen? Stealing people's money out of the kindness of your heart?"

Gretchen rolled her eyes. "You know, I don't need this. I thought we could walk to class together, but you know what? I don't really want to," she said, stomping off.

"Good luck finding the classroom! From what I remember, you were hungover on our Columbia tour and you don't remember a thing!" Macy called out after her.

The roommates let Gretchen get a good twenty yards in front of them before they continued on for the English building.

"Shit, your sister is a real piece of work, isn't she?" Tina said, dropping her cigarette in an ashtray as they passed.

Macy sighed and nodded her head. "Yeah, unfortunately."

"I'd always heard twins were typically polar opposites, but I've never met a set until the two of you," Tina joked.

Macy didn't know about other twins, but she and Gretchen could not have been more different. It was a good thing they didn't look alike, otherwise things would have been even worse.

She knew Gretchen would somehow find a way to ruin her time at Columbia, but Macy just didn't expect it to happen on the very first day.

"Hey, you alright?" Tina asked, nudging Macy with her elbow.

Macy sighed and nodded her head. "Yeah, it's just Gretchen. She's always had a spectacular knack for making me feel awful."

"Listen, don't worry about her. She might be your sister, but this is a much bigger fish pond than whatever preppy institution the two of you climbed out of. There's enough Irish people in New York that people aren't even going to take a second glance at the two of you having the same last name," Tina said, linking her arm through Macy's. "Now come on, I've heard Dr. Kerrigan is one hot mama, and I don't want to miss a second of her class."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ author's note ✫・゜・。.

here's the first real chapter of this story! what did you think so far? if you've seen the original movie (10 things i hate about you) do you see the parallels? i'm hoping to draw some inspiration from the movie, but not the whole thing. i'm not a fan of the whole "paid to date someone" trope so i won't be including it here. macy is inspired by kat, and gretchen is inspired by bianca, who are sisters in the movie. 

this fic will take place completely during macy & stephen's college years, so we really won't see any of the MCU in this. maybe towards the end? maybe an epilogue? idk, haven't thought that far ahead yet. 

what's your favorite y2k-era movie? let me know in the comments!

thanks for reading :)

xx,
madi