All I Ask of You

Chapter Four

After a couple of weeks, it was nearing the end of November and Annie had secured herself as the stereotypical theater kid. Constantly listening to showtunes and memorizing monologues faster than she could memorize equations. She started to move up the metaphorical food chain, gaining the respect of a few of the people in the theater class. Mainly the girls who sang in lower vocal registers. It was like the girls that shared choir and theater could smell another soprano from a mile away. They didn't outright say anything rude to the newer girl, but they would seem to leave her out of anything they talked about during breaks. So Annie found herself finding friends in some of the alto section instead.

Outside of the world of theater and singing, she had found some form of friendship with Spider-Man. Well, it was more of a frenemy relationship. They were both on the same side, but they had completely different ways of solving problems. The conflicting ideas sometimes got to be a bit much, but they often ended up finding a way to compromise. Especially after the other hero had managed to talk Tina into working with them on the case. Not to mention the solid friendship she had with Peter and Ned along with the interesting friendship she'd acquired with Michelle.

"Holy shit! You guys, did you see what he spring musical's gonna be?" Annie asked, practically slamming her books on the lunch table as she grinned at the two boys sitting across from her.

Ned shrugged, unwrapping his sandwich, "What about it?"

"It's West Side Story and auditions are right before winter break," she replied, a mischievous glint in her brown eyes.

Peter gave a look, thinking he was catching on to why Annie was telling them, "And you're going to audition, right? That's one of the musicals you keep listening to and tearing up about."

"Well, no shit, Sherlock, it's super sad and of course I'm auditioning! But I want you both to audition too! Oh, come on you guys, it'll be fun!" Annie pleaded, batting her eyes as she sat down and pulled out her lunch.

"I mean, as much as I would like to I have the-" Peter was cut off.

"Stark internship, I know. However, Pete, having multiple things on your resume looks better though, it makes you seem rounded," she replied insistently as she opened a bad of potato chips.

Ned laughed, "You know what? Fuck it, I'm in, it could be fun. But I'm not too sure about what they'll think of my voice."

"Oh please, you were doing that off-key stuff on purpose and you know it," Annie stated as she popped a chip in her mouth.

Peter frowned, "W-well why can't I just be a techie person instead?"

"Because I heard you singing when we were all watching Aladdin last weekend. You could easily get the lead," Annie responded before leaning forward, "Please? I don't wanna do this alone, but either way I definitely have to do this."

Ned shrugged, "It would be fun. Come on Peter, you can pull some strings, can't you?"

"I'll think about it," Peter relented, running a hand through his hair as he appeared to be thinking about something.

Annie ran to the other side of the table to hug Peter, "Great! I can help both of you come up with the perfect audition material. All you guys have to do is practice singing it, I promise!"

After lunch, the day consisted of Annie going through all the music on her phone. Along with her constantly bugging Peter and Ned about audition song ideas. Then she was worrying about what she was going to sing. The songs needed to be nice enough, but not overused at the same time. She was positive that if Ms. Beauregard heard one of the girls sing "Popular" one more time in her class that she was going to scream. Granted, Annie felt the same way after having heard every other girl use that damn song for an audition when she was in Seattle. Annie worried about the audition so much that she forgot about the other, much more important issues she was dealing with. Issues that included going and attempting to get Tina to finally say something that could help herself and Spider-Man to find out who was running that trafficking ring.