Chapter Text
Hell is a teenage girl.
Hell is also backstage of a high school dance performance assembly. People running around to get ready, people trying to salvage 20 year old technology, and teenage pettiness around every corner. Getting her drum set ready upstage was Gwen Stacy, who was trying to shake off the last of her nerves before the final audience of the day rolled in. One of her very best friends, Peter Parker, stood by while looking closely at the pictures he’d taken of the dance performances from previous periods.
“You get good pics?”
Gwen asked him.
“Yeah, I gotta couple. Some of these really suck though,”
He sighed as he scrolled through them, leaning over to show her the screen on his camera.
“Better make this last show count,”
She teased.
The third person who completed their trio of best friends then approached them. The one who ran the culture club that was putting on the dance performance, Mitzi Tamanna. Mitzi was a mixed girl, being Romani on her mothers side, and Black and Filipino on her late fathers. She mostly presented as Black. She always wore lots of black with spooky, gothic accessories. Mitzi never went a day without black lipstick, black eyeliner, and sharp black acrylic nails. As well as her silver nose and lip piercings. She had a septum, a stud on both nostrils, and snake bites. Mitzi strolled over to them in a relaxed manner. She wore a flowy Black dress with a corset, a silvery scarf tied around her waist, and no shoes.
“Hi dorks, how ya doing?”
She greeted them. Whenever Mitzi spoke, there was usually a relaxed, flirtatious, and sweet tone to her voice. Speaking with Gwen and Peter was no exception.
“Fine, Peter’s just going over the pictures he took.”
“Oooh, get any good ones of me?”
She asked, trying to look at his camera. By leaning towards him, she accidentally gave Peter a face full of her thick curly hair that framed her face and bounced with her every step. He chuckled, gently pushing her hair out of the way before showing the pictures he took of Mitzi and the other dancers.
“Nice job! Those are gonna be so salty in the yearbook.”
“Uh, that’s good, right?”
“Yeah, it’s good,”
She confirmed with a wide grin.
Gwen then let out a long sigh.
“I’m so ready to go home.”
“6th period’s about to start, we just gotta pull through one last time. We got this,”
Mitzi reassured.
“Yeah, you’re right. That reminds me, you guys still up for dinner with me and my dad tonight?”
“Yep! Me and Aunt May both.”
“Same with me and my mom.”
“Cool,”
Gwen yawned while stretching out her arms.
Mitzi then looked back to Peter.
“Sooo Petey, you finally gonna come up and dance with me during this performance?”
“C’mon, you know I can’t dance. Those poles would totally crush my ankles!”
“But that’s the fun of tinikling! Besides, we didn’t get any volunteers to try it out last period, it was suuuper awkward.”
“Well…maybe, I’ll join you, I don’t know.”
“I won’t let your ankles get snapped~”
She reassured while nudging his arm.
Peter laughed bashfully and playfully pushed her shoulder back.
At that moment, the final audience of students and teachers began filling the theater. Mitzi quickly ran back stage, and Peter went to go sit on the front steps of the stage and prepare his camera. Gwen stayed seated at her drums, waiting awkwardly for the audience to fill up. Once everyone was seated, the principal of Midtown High, Mr. Krieger, came out and gave a brief and noticeably rehearsed speech with a microphone on the cultural significance of the performance they were about to see. With that out of the way, an upbeat but admittedly dated pop song began playing, and Gwen drummed along with it. Students came rushing out with long poles. Some were PVC pipes, and some were made of bamboo with colorful rings painted around the ends of them. Half the students kneeled down on the floor with the poles, and the other half stood in between them. Mitzi was in the front group standing in the middle of two other dancers, making her the most prominent. Once the intro to the music was over, the students holding the poles began sliding and clicking them against the floor and against each other to the beat of the music, and the others began dancing and weaving their feet in between the poles. It started out simple enough, just moving from side to side, but gradually got more complex. The pole-holding performers began moving along the stage while clicking the poles, and the dancers moved with them. After that, the dancers began twirling and spinning around while not missing a single step. The audience cheered and applauded with every advancement of difficulty. In between her spins, Mitzi waved at Gwen and blew her some kisses. She giggled at this while gladly continuing to drum. After this, Mitzi then removed the scarf from around her waist with a flourish, and tied it around her head to blindfold herself. She continued to dance without missing a single step, and the audience absolutely went wild over this. Peter was at work taking pictures again, walking along in front of the stage to get lots of dynamic angles. Unfortunately, sitting in the very front row was Ned Leeds, a student who constantly harassed and bullied his peers. Peter in particular. Ned saw he was about to walk in front of him, and just as Peter did, he stuck out his foot for him to trip on. Peter fell to the floor hard. After recovering, he immediately went to check his camera, worried it had been damaged. It thankfully wasn’t, but he could hardly feel relief at this as Ned and his friends insulted him.
“Nerd!”
“Loser!”
“Geek!”
At hearing this, Mitzi lifted up her blindfold to see the aftermath. She stepped away from the poles to reach from the stage and help Peter up. After making sure he was okay, she then pulled him on stage and had him join the dance. A good portion of the audience cheered for him as he clumsily matched Mitzis steps. Ned and his friends just scoffed and rolled their eyes. Wanting to really make them jealous, Mitzi then pulled Peter in to kiss his cheek. Students cheered and hollered as she did so. Ned tried booing this, but was greatly drowned out by everyone else. The dance continued just as planned. Mitzi held Peters hands and went at a pace best for him. And when that didn’t work, she simply scooped him up into her arms and held him as she did her fast paced footwork. Soon, the performance concluded. All the dancers, as well as Peter and Gwen, took some bows. Mitzi took the mic and gave a heartfelt thank you to the audience.
“Thank you all so much for coming to see a dance that means so much to me, and thanks for being our final audience of the day! You were great to end things out on. With a few exceptions,”
She said with a glance at Ned.
Principal Krieger stood off to the side, gesturing for her to drop it.
She huffed before ending things with a final,
“Thank you.”
The student body gave one last applause before beginning to file out of the theater.
Soon, the trio left as well, and began walking to leave campus as the school day was over. They had their backpacks on and chatted as they walked. Mitzi was noticeably a bit taller, as she now wore her favorite platform boots. They were thick and black with lots of silver buckles.
Gwen noticed this.
“You get in trouble for dancing with no shoes on stage?”
“I got yelled at once, but it’s whatever,”
Mitzi shrugged.
As they got closer to the schools entrance, Ned then came running up behind them and gave Peter a harsh shove in the shoulder, making him fall down again.
“Oops!”
He obnoxiously shouted at him.
Gwen quickly pushed Ned to the ground while also grabbing his collar.
“You’re pushing your luck today, Ned!”
“Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it, Stacy?”
After helping Peter up, Mitzi stood besides Gwen.
“Hey Ned, your mama wears a real cute nightgown to bed. Make sure to let her know I’ll give it back soon~”
His face dropped into a look of disgust.
“Shut up, acne freak!”
“I get one zit for every time I do your mom.”
Mr. Krieger then walked over to break things up.
“Enough of this! Girls, just back off! Everyone take a deep breath.”
“You’re telling us to back off? He started it!”
Gwen argued as she let go of Ned.
“I don’t care who started it! What matters is who’s gonna finish it!”
Mitzi rolled her eyes before taking Gwen and Peters hands and running off with them.
“H-Hey!”
Mr. Krieger tried calling after the trio, but simply waved them off to deal with Ned.
Once they were far enough away, they slowed down.
Gwen looked to Peter.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah…I’m so sick of him,”
He sighed sadly.
“Mr. Krieger’s such an ass,”
Mitzi grumbled.
“At least the day’s finally done. When do you think you’ll be at my place by?”
Gwen asked.
“Aunt May likes to be early, so I’ll be over sooner.”
“Same here,”
Mitzi added.
“See you guys then, love ya~”
She kissed both of their hands before turning to head towards the subway to get home.
Peter smiled down at his hand before looking to Gwen.
“We’ve known Mitzi for how long? I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how she is with us. I mean, in a good way! It’s cool to have a friend that like, flirts with you and kisses you and stuff.”
“Yeah, I like it too. Not a lot of people have friends that affectionate. Speaking of which, you’ve still got some of her lipstick on your cheek.”
“Oh, thanks,”
Peter replied as he wiped it off with his sleeve.
With that, Gwen and Peter went in different directions to get to their separate apartment buildings.
Gwen didn’t make it very far from school before a beat up, black van zoomed past her on the road with multiple police cars chasing after it with their sirens blaring. Immediately, she knew what she had to do. She dashed into a nearby alleyway and speedily got changed into her Spider-Woman suit. She webbed her school backpack to the wall before running up it and jumping off the building. With this momentum, she started web swinging alongside the fast cop cars. Spider-Woman was able to pinpoint the police captain and her father, George Stacy, in the drivers seat of the car right behind the van. She jumped on top of the car and bent down to look at him through the car door window.
“Captain Stacy, what’s the situation?”
Spider-Woman asked, deepening her voice to better conceal her identity.
After being startled, George let out a heavy groan as he kept driving after the van.
“Stolen shipment. Nothing we can’t handle on our own!”
“Yeah right,”
She said before webbing away.
The van made a sharp turn, and began heading towards a relatively empty intersection. Spider-Woman soon got an idea. She swung ahead of the van and landed on a building on the corner of the intersection, stuck some webs on it, and then jumped onto the stop lights opposite of it. She continued going back and forth from the building to the stop lights until she had created a large net of webs. The van came barreling towards it, attempting to drive right through them, only to find they were too strong. It stopped dead in its tracks, and Spider-Woman went to pull out the driver and web him to the side of the van. He was your typical, non-noteworthy robber. The cop cars then caught up and were all able to safely stop.
While the other officers quickly went to arrest the robber and unload the van, Captain Stacy rushed over to Spider-Woman.
“There was no need for that!”
“I stopped him, didn’t I? The bank will get it’s money back thanks to me, won’t it?”
She pointed out.
“It’s not money,”
George crossed his arms.
She looked to the officers unloading everything, seeing it actually contained advanced science equipment and, surprisingly enough, bats in cages. They were visibly frazzled from the whole ordeal, but ultimately unharmed.
Spider-Woman was silent for a moment before speaking.
“Oh. Well still!”
“Well still?? You could’ve caused serious damage to!-”
“Captain? Everything’s accounted for without a scratch on it,”
One of the officers chimed in.
Spider-Woman crossed her arms back at the Captain, and gave him a smug look that was palpable through her mask.
He huffed,
“Okay! You didn’t cause damage this time, but next time!-”
“Whatever man,”
Spider-Woman rolled her eyes before suddenly webbing away.
She made it back to the alley, grabbed her backpack, and was now just Gwen Stacy again. She kept walking, got on the subway, and made it back home.
***
Later, once he was back from his eventful day at work, George was cooking dinner with the help of his daughter. They prepared an entirely made from scratch lasagna together. While George put it in the oven, Gwen made sure the rest of their apartment was tidy and presentable. At that moment, there was a knock at the front door. Gwen went to answer it, and standing there was Peter, his Aunt May, Mitzi, and her mother Meera Tamanna.
“Hey guys! Come on in,”
Gwen encouraged them.
“Hey Gwen!”
“Hi Gwennie~“
Peter and Mitzi greeted their friend.
Meera was a slender Romani woman with a strong nose and some light wrinkles. She carried herself in a shrunken and anxious manner, but still wore a bright smile at seeing her friends. She wore some simple makeup, both to feel pretty and to conceal her wrinkles. As well as give herself eyebrows. Meera was entirely bald due to alopecia, and so always wore a wig. It was thick, wavy, and black with streaks of gray in it. It looked nice, but was clearly a wig that wasn’t fully secured to her head.
They all walked inside and went to sit at the dinner table.
George went to see them while wiping his hands with a dish towel.
“Hey guys! Sorry, lost track of time a little, I only just got dinner cooking. It won’t take long though.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it George,”
Meera kindly reassured.
“Yeah! We can catch up in the meantime,”
Aunt May added.
“How’s the hospital been?”
George asked her.
“Real stressful, those people are working me to the bone,”
She sighed. Peter frowned and put a hand on her shoulder.
Meera frowned as well.
“I’m so sorry May, is there anyway I could help you out?”
She offered.
“Nah, you’ve got enough going on at the soup kitchen. How’s that been going?”
“Pretty okay, I’ve got a nice full staff now!”
“Hey! Congrats!”
George told her.
“Thanks! I might be able to finally have some more mom and daughter time!”
Meera smiled as she put an arm around Mitzi, who smiled back and held her hand.
“I hope so, mama.”
Aunt May then looked to the kids.
“So how’s school going for you all?”
“Ehh,”
They all said in unison.
“Why ‘Eh’? Did something happen?”
May raised an eyebrow.
“Ned was giving us trouble again today, he kept tripping Peter on purpose,”
Gwen explained while resting her head on her hand.
“Did you report him?”
George inquired.
“We didn’t have to! Mr. Krieger was there both times and did nothing,”
His daughter grumbled.
Mitzi crossed her arms.
“He always lets Ned off with just a warning, it’s total bull.”
“Mitzi, language,”
Her mother warned.
“Well it is!”
She insisted.
Peter let out a sigh,
“Just forget it, Ned’ll get what’s coming to him one day.”
Aunt May rubbed her temples, not liking what Peter said, but not wanting to dispute it either.
“Let’s all just forget it, is there anything nice we could talk about?”
She suggested.
George then perked up,
“Mitzi, how’d your dance thing go today?”
“It went good, people really liked it. If I can organize another assembly like that, I’d love to do a showcase for belly dancing. Orrr maybe flamenco?”
She suggested, looking to her mother.
Meera let out a small chuckle.
“Mitz, you know my flamenco days are far behind me. And even if they weren’t, I couldn’t bring myself to perform at a high school. High schoolers terrify me! Erm, present company excluded.”
“If that’s the case, why not dance for us now?”
May suggested.
“I couldn’t! I’d get stage fright!”
She tittered bashfully.
“In front of us? Didn’t you used to perform?”
George tilted his head.
“Well, yes, but-”
“Mama, please?”
Mitzi asked.
After a few moments, Meera finally caved.
“…Alright, I-I suppose I could whip out a few old moves,”
She conceded.
The others cheered for her as Mitzi quickly pulled out her phone to find some music for her. Meera sheepishly got up from her seat and stood aways in front of the table. She shook out her hands and legs, and took in a deep breath. As the music began playing, she started off slow, with simple heel clicks and snapping her fingers. They all watched her with interest and curiosity. After a bit, the music started amping up, and Meera matched its incline perfectly. She began going faster, twirling around speedily and slapping her thighs and flexing her hands around. Mitzi started clapping along with the music and the others joined her. Meera began stamping and clicking her feet with vigor and joy. The music swelled more and more before suddenly, a loud voice and knocking could be heard from below.
“HEY! Keep it down up there!”
It was the Stacys downstairs neighbors.
Initially heavily startled, Meera covered her face in embarrassment and laughed awkwardly as she returned to her seat at the table. The rest of them laughed with her.
“I’m so sorry about that, I-I guess I got too into it!”
She nervously said while fixing her wig, which nearly fell off from her dancing.
George chuckled as he went over to pat her shoulder.
“Ahh, don’t worry about it, we get lots of complaints from them. Especially whenever Gwen practices her drums.”
In response, Gwen just rolled her eyes with a smile.
A little later, the lasagna was ready, and George served it to everyone with his daughters help. The six of them proceeded to have a lovely dinner while continuing to chat and catch up. Unfortunately, none of them were even slightly aware of what would happen the very next day, and how everything would spiral in the following weeks.