poisoned 🕷️ peter parker [1]

19

Another week passed by. Jessica kept on planning homecoming and avoiding Peter as much as possible. Every now and then they'd exchange some looks in the halls, but nothing more than that. Even if Jessica wanted so, she could not allow it to be more than that. 

Everybody was getting more and more excited about homecoming. Everybody except Jessica. She already had decided not to go because she knew Tony would never let her go to a school dance if Peter was going there too. He had made it extremely clear that he wanted Jessica just to focus on her academic life, and dedicate as little as possible to extracurricular activities.

So instead of talking about the dance, she hung out more with Michelle. She didn't judge her for 'not wanting'  to go to homecoming and she respected that Jessica didn't want to talk about it. They would study in the library until late, what really upset Happy because she didn't tell him in advance and he had to pick her up every day to go back upstate. 

Coming back from one of these study sessions, she was surprised when she came into her room and found a dress laying on her bed next to a piece of paper. Jessica picked up the note and read it.

"I know you've been working really hard on this. You deserve to go." 

The note was signed under TS, to what Jessica immediately associated with Tony Stark.

She looked at the dress again, confused. She picked it up and felt it. It was beautiful and the fabric was really smooth. She realised she was staring at it and decided to find Tony and ask him for an explanation. She looked for him through all the facility but didn't find him anywhere. She had lost hope when she found Pepper on her way back to her room.

"Pepper!" She ran to her, the dress hanging from her right forearm. "Have you seen Tony?" 

"He's not here at the moment."

"Do you happen to know anything about this?" She nodded her head towards the dress.

"He left that for you." Pepper simply said. "There's another option if you don't like this one." Something in her voice gave away that she had, in fact, chosen the dress. Yeah, Jessica couldn't picture Tony Stark going shopping for a homecoming dress.

"But... why?"

"So you can't say that you cannot go because you don't have a dress." With that and with a wink, Pepper turned and walked away, leaving the young girl alone and thinking.

"How did he even know I decided not to go?"

__

Ned's mother stopped the car at the school entrance. There were people outside the building, most of them were couples. Jessica turned to her partner for the night. Ned seemed the most excited he had ever been. How couldn't he be? He was taking a beautiful senior girl to prom.

"Have fun, you two!" Ned's mom told us before getting out of the car. "It's been nice to meet you Jessica."

Jessica smiled and replied with her correspondence. Once they were out, Ned offered her his arm. Jessica took it, it was the least she could do.

"Thanks for taking me, I know it was very last moment..."

It was true. They weren't even wearing a matching corsage and boutonnière.

"Jessica, don't. Thank you for asking me to take you. I'm living my dream!"

They walked in and as soon as they did, Jessica spotted Liz, who had already seen her and was waving at her.

"Hey, Jess!" She hugged her, greeting her. "I can't believe you came! You look amazing."

"Thanks, you look beautiful." Jessica replied. She then noticed Liz was alone. "Who did you come with?"

"Peter." Something inside her chest twitched when she heard his name. But a part of her already knew that they would be going together. Especially after she had encouraged Peter to asked the other senior out. "But something's off. I think he wanted to come with someone else."

Could it be her? Jessica didn't allow herself to believe it could be, even though the boy had confessed his feelings for her a few days ago.

She saw how Liz's attention focused on something behind her. She turned to find him. Peter was looking strange. He looked worried and was clearly looking for someone. His gaze fell upon Liz and he started walking towards her. But once he saw Jessica in the dress Mr Stark had bought her he froze to admire her. They stood face to face, staring at each other. Liz decided to take action since she felt something unspoken between the couple.

She left, but not without telling Peter something in the ear. Then, the pair were left alone.

"Hi... I thought you weren't coming." Peter said, still amazed.

"I thought so too."

"D-do you want to...?" Even though he didn't finish the sentence and the words he said were practically inaudible, Jessica understood that he wanted to dance. They moved to the dance floor, a slow song was playing and everyone was dancing really close together. They did the same so that they would not stand out. Once they held onto each other and started moving to the rhythm of the music, Peter spoke again. "Uh- You look beautiful."

"Thank you." Jessica calmly replied, even though she felt how her cheeks were heating up. "Hey, where did you learn how to dance?"

"I've had a few lessons." She was pretty surprised by his response until he gave further explanation. "From May." They both laughed. There wasn't as much tension between them as there was before. "She misses you, you know?"

"Yeah, me too." Jessica spoke with a melancholic tone. "It was good while it lasted."

Peter didn't reply. Instead, he looked into her eyes. She looked at him differently now, like she wanted to say something but she didn't know how to. He felt the same way, but what she had to say was positive. Whereas, he felt guilty.

"I'm an asshole." He looked down, apologising. "But I gotta go. I'm sorry. You don't deserve this."

"Is it him?" Jessica asked, talking about the vulture. Peter looked up at her again, shocked. She decided to ask once more. "Has it something to do with him?" Peter finally nodded, confirming her suspicions. "Let's go."

Bewildered, Peter needed confirmation for what he had just heard. "What? Are you-? What about Mr Stark? Won't he be mad at you?"

Jessica couldn't take it anymore. She placed her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him down. Their lips collapsed into a short but powerful kiss.

"I think we broke pretty much all of his rules tonight."

She took him by the hand and ran out of the gym. They were going to take down the Vulture.