lucy couldn't stop her heart from sinking in disappointment. tonight was supposed to be the night, she thought, it was supposed to be normal. but of course, nothing was normal when the boy she liked was spiderman.

for a few pitiful minutes, she stood there, in the middle of the floor, unsure of what to do. liz was standing around with the others in their friend group, but she didn't want to go over and have to explain to them that her date left her in the middle of a song. so she didn't. just stood there, until she saw michelle, one of peter's other friends, standing towards the outside of the gym.

"hey," lucy said when she reached her, having to shout to be heard over the loud music. "do you know where peter is?"

she was disheartened when the dark-skinned girl shrugged, eyes downcast in what seemed like boredom. "i don't know, but ned just ran off. that kid is faster than you'd think." she pointed a finger down the hallway, in the direction of the computer labs.

"thanks," she called over her shoulder as she hurried down the dark hallways. 

she arrived faster than she'd expected to, thanks to her flats, but it proved to be helpful, because she'd just entered the computer lab when she heard ned say something. 

due to the distance, she couldn't tell what it was, but he'd definitely said the name "spiderman." 

huh, she remarked silently, so ned knows as well. perfect, then he can help.

as she got closer, ned still oblivious to her presence, she watched as he typed out commands to the computer. and he was talking to someone, obviously, peter. 

"ned?" she stifled a laugh as she saw the teen jump almost a foot up from the chair. "where's peter going?"

"uh..." he trailed off, unsure of how to explain. "he's not with you?"

"obviously," she smirked, and grabbed her own chair, sliding over to inspect the computer screen. "okay, so who's spiderman fighting now?"

"spider..." ned's mouth hung open in astonishment. "you know what you're doing?" 

she gave him an are-you-serious-right-now look. "this is the reason i got accepted here. now move over and let me do my thing."

ned gladly obliged, muttering something like "oh my god, i love you."

rolling her eyes, lucy spotted ned's phone, open on a call to peter.

"peter?" she said into the phone, and got a surprised, "luce!" in response.

"hey, what's up? what do you need me to do?"

"um, nothing right now, unless you can get this plane to stop from crashing!" he said, his voice louder than it should have been. 

"what? how'd you even get on a plane this fast? it's been, like, three minutes!"

"i can't really give you the details right now, lucy, i'm kind of fighting a birdman right now!"

"right, right, sorry. is there anyway you could get inside the plane? so you could, you know, put it on autopilot?"

"this thing has been on autopilot from the moment it took off!" he said, and she could hear him grunt in effort. "there's no stopping it, i just need to make sure no one steals mr. stark's stuff!"

"tony stark?" lucy said, eyebrows furrowed. "i thought your internship was over?"

"yeah, it is, but..." there was a pause as he wrestled with the vulture, the heavy wind distorting his words. "it doesn't mean i stopped caring. he just doesn't see what i can do yet."

"peter, are you okay? you sound hurt."

"yeah," he grunted. "hey, luce?"

"i'm here."

"i'm really sorry about the dance." his voice was small. 

"that's okay, pete, saving the world is more important than a few hours of corny eighties music."

with a few seconds of garbled noise from the wind, she heard peter's voice one more time. "okay, luce, this thing is going down. i can't stop it. but i can't let him get away with this. it's not right, and i wouldn't be able to live with myself."

"you sound like you're going to die," lucy spoke softly into the phone. "you're not going to die."

"whatever you say, luce."

"i'm serious, peter parker. we still have to slow dance."

ned coughed back a laugh at that one. 

"o-okay," peter replied, his voice stammering like she was used to. "i'll be back in a little--"

the phone line went dead. she would have called out his name, but she knew it would make no difference. whatever was happening to peter now, she had no chance of knowing. 

[a/n: this was probably trash but it was like 750 words! usually these things are like 400 at the most, i guess i couldn't stop myself! and i hope you guys like this, i'm almost done with it, and then we've got a new bucky fic coming out!]