Peter & Kamala
Saturday December 17 | Bright Moon Castle | PG
⚠ very brief mention of death/grief
Kamala had never been to any kind of fancy Princess Ball. She never would have dreamed of going to one if she was still back in Jersey City. And honestly, the reason she had decided to check it out was for the sake of possibly providing a distraction to one Peter Parker who she felt could use it.
Instead, she had been absolutely awestruck at how beautiful the place looked, she was pretty sure her phone’s memory was quickly being depleted with how many pictures she took. And selfies! She wasn’t entirely distracted herself though. The whole point was to have fun, but she also made sure she pointed out anything that caught her attention to Peter. There were a few rounds of dances with any and all of her friends she had made here, along with trying everything she possibly could. (Except ice-skating… she was pretty sure she would fall flat on her face if she tried that.)
Finally after indulging as much as she could of the party, she was returning back to Peter with two cups of hot cocoa with the requested ingredients of his choice in his cup. She set them down on the surface closest to him and said, “Okay, I am pretty sure I’m going to be in a sugar coma after this. Straight through Sunday into Monday!”
Peter thought he was doing pretty well. It hadn’t been a full year since May had died, not really – he’d skipped some months when he’d first arrived in Vallo – but somehow he’d already come through the anniversary of her death, in November, had made it through his first Thanksgiving without her, and was heading into his first Christmas without her.
And everything was reminding him of her now.
You wouldn’t think it would. Vallo and New York weren’t really the same. He didn’t pass by restaurants and go Oh, this is where May took me for my 15th birthday or Man, May used to love buying her clothes from here. But now it was decorated Christmas trees, and gingerbread houses, and Christmas movies and… he missed her. He missed her a lot.
Fight Club had helped, though he felt a little bad. He hadn’t been pulling his punches as much as he should have been, but he’d ended up taking second place, and had had just enough time to change into his suit and make sure his hair looked alright before heading to the Princess Prom with Kamala. He was still a little bruised, but it wasn’t bad – he’d be healed up in a couple of hours. And he was determined to have a good time. Let it never be said that Peter Parker wasn’t more than willing to let himself get distracted from things he didn’t want to think about.
“Totally worth it,” Peter said, taking his hot cocoa and taking a sip through the pile of marshmallows. “I can’t believe how much food is here. They must’ve known their audience.” Peter knew that he wasn’t the only one in Vallo with a superhuman metabolism. “How do you think your high school prom would’ve measured up to this?”
Kamala was trying very hard not to basically inhale her hot cocoa right there and then. This was something that deserved to be savored. It was just that somehow, with all the good and bad hot cocoa drinks she’d had in her entire lifetime, Vallo and its inhabitants had the magical touch to make this possibly one of the best ones she had ever had. First place though would always go to the ones made by her mom.
“Hmm, I think…” She took the moment to look at all the decor around her again. “If Zoe Zimmer was on the committee, which honestly, I think she probably is. She has like fifty different extracurriculars, she would probably pull off something really nice, especially with whatever sponsors she gets from her massive TikTok following.” The Princess Prom was beyond “something really nice” though. “But not as good as this. Probably nothing in any high school prom is going to be as good as this unless its like one of those really rich elitist schools in.. upstate New York or Hamptons or whatever.”
She turned back to Peter and smiled, very tempted to ask him how he was doing. But that would go against one of the rules of Distraction Time, to bring up a topic she was trying to distract him from. But her goal wasn’t to make him forget entirely – it was to make new memories, hopefully good ones. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a strong urge to ask him about his mental state. “What about your school?” she asked instead.
“Oh, I did go to one of those elitist schools,” Peter said, a little sheepish. It offered a lot of scholarships to exceptionally gifted students, students like Peter and Ned and MJ, who might otherwise not have been able to afford going to a private school, but it was still fairly prestigious. “But most of the money went toward the labs and stuff, not school dances. I don’t think we would’ve had anything like this either.”
Not that Peter would know first-hand. He wouldn’t be going to prom, after all. He’d never put much thought into prom before – he’d even considered dropping out of school entirely and taking up the Spider-Man and Avenging thing full-time – but now that he was here, he realized he was a little disappointed that he wouldn’t be going. It would have been fun to go to prom with MJ and Ned and…
He shook his head, as if to dislodge the thoughts, and took a sip of his hot chocolate. “And the hot chocolate definitely wouldn’t have been as good as this,” he added. “Not that I think there would’ve been much hot chocolate, since prom’s usually… in the summer, I guess. But if there was hot chocolate, it would probably have been that watered down stuff.”
“Of course you did,” Kamala said, a little amused. “Yeah, see, I think the elitist schools care more about the sciences in the city and more about dances in like… the more conservative areas. Like upstate New York!” Prom had still been a far away thought for her. Even then it probably wouldn’t be too complicated; she would end up attending with Nakia and Bruno as a group. Although maybe this time, it would be just Nakia since Bruno had decided on early enrollment into CalTech.
“Glad this is less of a prom and more of a ball, because then we wouldn’t have this delicious hot chocolate! And about… fifty other really good stuff!”
“Oh, and no prom king and queen,” Peter added. Peter and his group of friends definitely weren’t likely to ever be elected, but it had always seemed stressful to the people who did get involved in that sort of thing.
“I’m glad we came,” he added after a moment. “It’s nice to be able to do, you know, fun stuff with my friends during the holidays.”
“Oh, god, seriously,” Kamala exclaimed, throwing one hand up. “I mean, I did once consider coming out with my identity and being like ‘yeah I’m the girl who is a new superhero!’ because of fame and thought it would get me to win something, but I am never the girl who won prom queen.” Although, to be fair, she had said brown girls from Jersey were also never superheroes and look how that had turned out.
“But then I kind of dialed that back. And yeah, it is nice. Thanks for agreeing to come with me as my date.”
“You’re keeping your identity secret then? Back home, I mean.” There wasn’t much for secret identities in Vallo. Even if Peter had wanted to keep his lives separate, it sounded like a previous Peter Parker had spilled the beans, so there’d really been no hope of that.
He shot her a bit of a smile. “Do you dance at all?” he asked.
“Well.” Kamala paused to take a sip of her drink before putting it down on the table nearby. “I thought about it, held back… considered it a bit longer until I found out the DODC was looking for me, and they weren’t against using, well, tactics the government was already using. A.K.A. monitoring our mosque. I didn’t want to put my community in danger, especially not my family in danger by letting anyone know.” It was the downside of being a hero. The people who thought you were an enemy would do anything to get to you.
“Buuuut, yes, I do dance. Not regularly but it was my brother’s wedding just a few days before I landed here and I had definitely planned on dancing the whole night!” Until the party was attacked but Kamala didn’t think it was worth bringing that up right now.
Peter nodded, and then sighed. “It gets tricky when you get outed,” he said. “I mean, maybe not for anyone else. The rest of the Avengers never seemed to have any trouble when they came out. But for me it got messy.” He grimaced a little, realizing Kamala probably didn’t know that everyone had known exactly who Spider-Man was for nearly half a year. “I don’t know what the right answer is for that sort of thing, but if you think you’re safer keeping it under wraps, you’re probably right.”
Or maybe, if Peter had been out from the get-go, things would have turned out differently. Maybe it was different when the hero was a minor, or maybe it was just that the rest of the Avengers had already had their lives in line with being a hero, and coming out didn’t change the entire trajectory of their future and the futures of the people they loved.
“We should go dance,” he said, grinning at her. The music was energetic, and Peter had all sorts of energy to burn. “I’ll have you know, I can really cut a rug. People are always commenting on it.”
Not necessarily positively, but they commented.
Kamala raised her eyebrows at him and then glanced over at the dance floor. Was she the best person to dance with on the floor? Hmm, most likely not. A performance was different from dancing with a partner at a party. But then again, this was Peter and she highly doubted he would be judging her dancing.
“So I guess it’s time for me to make comments on it? I promise only good words so long as you only give good words on my dancing.” She stood up, smoothing out her dress over her legs.
“Deal,” Peter said, offering his arm to Kamala. “Good comments only. Now let’s show them how we do it on the East Coast.”