CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
DANCIN' IN YOUR LEVI

AMELIA shuffled inside the cafeteria with a purpose. She glanced around the room and paused when her eyes fell on her friends. She stalked closer to them and raised her eyebrows when they looked up at her. 

"You guys done?" she asked.

Gemma nodded, "Yeah."

"Walk with me." 

Gemma stood up to accompany her and so did Monika, asking, "Oh, Amy. Ask me about the Emu War of 1932."

"No," Amelia made a face, interlocking her arm with Gemma's, "I don't think I will." She started walking, pulling Gemma with her, and Monika rushed to keep pace with them. "Gemma, do you think you have a vague idea about the theme of our yearbook?"

Gemma's eyebrows furrowed. "Yearbook?"

Amelia nodded. "Yeah."

"No."

Amelia patted her arm, "You're gonna learn."

"Why?"

"Betty Brant needs your help."

Gemma's face screwed. "Why?"

"As the head of the Color Department of the Yearbook and Photography Committee -- "

"There is a Color Department in the Yearbook and Photography Committee?" Monika interrupted.

Amelia rolled her eyes and said impatiently, "Yes."

"Made up of the members of 'I'd be one of the Plastics if they were real' club?"

Amelia glared at Monika. "Do you wanna mock people or do you wanna let me talk to Gemma?"

"I wanna mock people."

Amelia sighed and turned back to Gemma as they continued to walk down the bustling hallways. "The Color Department of the Yearbook and Photography Committee. Betty wants to take a look at the pictures I took for the Yearbook and try to pick out a palette to start work."

"And?" Gemma asked.

"I have a Decathlon meeting at the same time the Yearbook Committee is meeting. And, as I have yet to develop the ability to be present at two places at once, which by the way seems like it should be the next step in our evolution seeing as it would make our lives much easier -- I need you to take these pictures to her."

They came to a halt at a fork in the path and Amelia held up an envelope of pictures for Gemma who frowned. "Can't anyone else do it?"

"No," Amelia shook her head.

"Why?"

"There's nobody else I trust." Monika made a sound of discontent making Amelia glance at her. She corrected herself, "There's nobody else responsible that I trust. What are you smiling at?" This last part was directed towards Monika who was grinning ear to ear.

"Nothing," she shrugged, but laughter spilled from her lips. "Gem got the palette assignment."

Gemma's eyes narrowed at Monika. She said, "Amy, I'm gonna need some help."

Amelia jerked her thumb in Monika's direction, "Take Mon."

"Thanks," Gemma grinned. She shoved the envelope of pictures in Monika's hands and said, "Congratulations, you're choosing the color for our yearbook."

The two of them left Monika standing in the middle of the hallway, her expression still trying to catch up with what had just happened. "Well, that turned around fast."

AMELIA entered the library sneakily, hiding the tray of coffee from the librarian. She made a beeline for the table the Decathalon team was sitting on and announced her arrival making a relieved smile appear on every face. "Okay! I got coffee for everybody! Flash, Ned Stark, Michael Jackson, Peter Pan."

Peter took his coffee from her hands and raised his eyebrows, "What about Tinkerbell?"

Amelia held her cup up to show him as she settled beside him. "I got one, too."

"Oh, I was talking about Mr. Harrington."

"God, I hate you sometimes."

Peter smiled and looked at her from under his lashes. "No, you don't," he shook his head.

Amelia stared at him. Yeah, she wanted to say, I don't. But the words wouldn't come out. Ever since she had realized her crush on Peter, she found it harder to look away from him. From his perfect face and perfect hair and perfect eyes and  -- 

Flash's laughter broke her away from admiring Peter for the hundredth time today.

Amelia inhaled and turned to Michelle. "Hey, MJ, here." She placed her coffee cup on the table and dug through her bag. Pulling out an envelope, thinner than the one she had handed Gemma, she turned to Michelle. "Some pictures of you and Gem from that robotics lab project. You guys were great."

Michelle accepted the envelope with a grin and peeked inside. Peter asked, leaning forward, pencil tapping against his bottom lip, "Did you win?"

"Duh," Michelle shrugged. "Was that ever in question?"

"Nope," Amelia giggled. "Congratulations."

Her congratulations was perfectly in sync with Mr. Harrington's as he started his speech. "Congratulations, Decathlon National champions."

Everyone cheered wholeheartedly. 

"I'll have to put this back in the trophy case soon . . ." Amelia glanced at the trophy on the table, "but just for motivation right now at this practice. I'm ahead of the game, but we will need . . . a new team captain next year. So I am appointing Michelle."

"Yeah!" Amelia cheered, clapping with everyone else.

"Uh, thank you," Michelle nodded. "My . . . My friends call me MJ."

"I thought you didn't have any friends," Ned questioned.

"I didn't."

Peter's phone dinged beside Amelia who glanced at him as he checked the message. He looked up to find her eyes on him and leaned closer. So close that his voice was in her ear, so close that his breath tickled her cheeks. Whatever he said, Amelia barely registered, overwhelmed. But she forced herself to clear her head, "Hey, I, uh, gotta go. Happy's here."

She frowned. "Everything okay?"

He shrugged, shaking his head, "I don't know."

As he stood up to leave, Michelle interrupted him, stopping him in his tracks. "Hey, where you going? What are you hiding, Peter?" Amelia almost buried her face in her hands before Michelle chuckled. "I'm just kidding. I don't care. Bye." As soon as Michelle turned back to the group, Peter shared both an alarmed and relieved expression with Amelia, before sneaking out of there.

IT hadn't taken the group long to figure out that Peter had been gone. It was Flash, actually, who brought it up. Amelia asked if he was obsessed with Peter at which the group had laughed but then Mr. Harrington had also asked where he was and Amelia had said that she would go out and look for him.

So here she was, outside, looking for him. On her way back from searching through hallways and classrooms, she bumped into Brian McKeever who had informed her about the convention going on in the boy's bathroom at the end of the hall. Peter and some weird old guy, he had said.

And that was how Amelia found herself leaning against the wall outside the boy's bathroom, arms crossed waiting for Peter. First, the weird old guy that Brian had mentioned walked out, taken aback by her presence. She didn't give him the time to calm himself, instead started questioning him. "So, you're Happy? The one who didn't believe Peter and left him to essentially die on that plane?"

"Who are you?" Happy asked. "Who is this?"

Peter poked his head out from behind Happy, eyes finding Amelia's. He walked around and stood beside her, commencing introductions. "Uh, Amy, Happy. Happy, Amy."

Amelia gave a fake pleasant smile. Happy sighed in annoyance. "Okay, kid, we gotta go. Now."

He stalked away, gesturing for Peter to follow him. Peter nodded and turned to Amelia with an apologetic face. "Yeah. I gotta go."

"Where?"

"Mr. Stark wants to see me," Peter stated, starting to rush off.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, hey, hey," Amelia caught him by the back of his sweater and jerked him back. "What do I tell the team?"

"Oh," he smiled, "you'll figure something out."

"Peter, no fair," Amelia pouted, letting go of his sweater and crossing her arms as she watched him go. "I won't keep doing this every time!" she called after him.

"See ya later!" he waved goodbye and she poked out her tongue at him.

Now, she had to come up with an excuse. Again. How many times was enough times for a person to have stomach problems? Well, guess she would never know. She was pretty sure some of her classmates believed Peter seriously needed to see a doctor. 

IT wasn't until the end of school that she saw him again. Gemma and Monika had stayed back to complete the yearbook and from what Amelia had heard, Monika had certainly found her enthusiasm for colors. She was bossing everyone around and ordering how things should be. Well done Amy, Amelia thought, you have found the perfect place for Monika's dictatorship.

She was walking down the street when she came upon the billboard mounted up high. The news of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts' engagement took the world by a whirlwind. Amelia raised her eyebrows. Is this why Stark had called Peter? She dug out her phone and clicked a picture of the billboard before sending it to the group chat with Monika, Gemma, and her.

She turned to go, wanting to go to Blue's for donuts and coffee when she heard the familiar swish and an unfamiliar, very painful thwack, as if something had hit the wall. Or, more accurately, someone. She glanced over her shoulder and found Peter, rubbing his head as he caught up to her.

Amelia raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything about it. "So," she asked. "How was it?"

"Oh, uh, exceeding expectation," he half-chuckled, half-sighed. 

She showed him the picture of the billboard on her phone as they continued down the sidewalk. "Was this why he wanted to see you?"

Peter's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Well, no, but about time."

Amelia chuckled. "That's what Monika said." She showed him the texts.

"All caps?" Peter asked, reading Monika's aggressive rant.

"She's excited," Amelia shrugged. "I told them you had stomach problems. Again." Peter glared at her. "They think you should really see a doctor."

He brushed her off with a wave of his hand which was the universal symbol for shut up.

"What do you wanna do? We have four -- five hours till dinner," she said as they passed the coffee shop she had been meaning to go to.

"Specific," Peter pointed. "What can you do in five hours?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Walk around," she suggested. And they were walking, closer, shoulders brushing, arms rubbing against each other, fingers lingering where they touched. From an outsider's perspective, they would've looked like young love ─ only for them love was a concept. Something to be observed and theorized ─ chemical reactions and physical needs ─ atoms to atoms. Science ─ something to be understood and learned, something to be pulled apart and examined.

But love was spilling coffee on important papers. Here, there was coffee and here, there were important papers; but the love remained unspilled.

"Already doing that," Peter answered, glancing around the approaching autumn in the New York streets and curling his fingers into his palm when they once against brushed against Amelia's hand.

Amelia stole a glance at him ─ just a sliver of his image. The afternoon sun in her eyes robbed her of a clear picture but she felt his smile, there was something warm about it. And not warm like a scorching day or warm like a boiling tea kettle ─ it was warm like hot chocolate, and fireplace, and books and blankets, and a forever embrace. And Amelia wanted this feeling to last forever.

Peter turned to say something to her but found his side empty. Panic gripped him for a moment before he noticed her standing frozen. His eyebrows furrowed. He took a few steps back and stood in front of her, followed her eyeline but found nothing there. Confused, he frowned. It had been almost three days now since he had admitted to himself that he couldn't stay away from Amelia, not even if he tried. And he didn't want to. Something in her stilled the chaos of the world and the chaos inside him.

And since this admittance to himself, he had become a little less shy towards her. He didn't know if she had noticed, she probably hadn't. Ned kept pressing him to tell Amelia that he liked her, but Peter was still a little hesitant. He didn't want to get his heart broken if she didn't reciprocate. When.

Amelia hadn't realized she had stopped walking, not until Peter clicked his fingers in front of her face. Her gaze wavered from staring at the cracks in the concrete sidewalk. She looked up at Peter and blinked.

"Ames? You okay?"

Amelia smiled. As always, Peter's features intrigued her. They were not quite conventionally handsome, but they were interesting. He had prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes, but his version of them was more delicate. It made him seem a little alien. A little impenetrable.

She locked arms with him and started walking again. "I'm fine," she said, though to Peter she didn't sound fine. Time and time again, Amelia had these little bursts where her nightmare would just grip her, even in broad daylight and then she would just start overthinking and her body would freeze. But she forced these thoughts out today.

Peter pulled her towards an antique bookstore and Amelia giggled soundlessly as they waltzed down the aisle. Stumbling towards the comic book section, Peter looked around for the next issue of Batman as Amelia watched him from afar with a smile. There was a light in her eyes that was only there with Peter. And Peter turned to explain to her what had happened in the last issue and how it was left on a cliffhanger and there was a smile on his face that was only there with Amelia.

She was leaning forward now, watching the comic book cover with an intense gaze, as if trying to unravel all the mysteries it held. She tensed when she felt Peter's fingers against her spine.

He tilted his head down, bringing his lips closer to her ear ─ these were places where you whispered. And these were words which you whispered. And there were hearts quelled with the wanting of more. If he was different with Amelia, the difference was not happening inside himself, in his personhood, but in between them, in the dynamic. "I feel bad for dragging you into this," he said to her. "This Vulture, Spider-Man, the whole superhero shtick."

"You didn't drag me anywhere," she told him then looked up at him. He was close, so close. Why did he enjoy torturing her? Her eyes fluttered, her dusty lashes resting on her cheeks. "I got there on my own." Then, she smiled, "Though I do enjoy the company."

He laughed, and if she could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, she would have. It terrified her. She had never known what to make of him. Not since the day they met. And it terrified her. He terrified her. And the idea of him walking away, vanishing from her life, terrified her most of all.

Then, as if realizing where he was, Peter quickly shushed himself. He gazed down at her, their gazes locking in an undisclosed understanding. "Thank you."

Amelia said nothing. She took his hand and squeezed it, and they both averted their attention back to the books on the shelves.