O n e
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In the eyes of Calliope Liu, New York City in the morning was vastly underappreciated.
Many people had said before that the big city never slept at night, and that was true. If anything, New York City would become even more active once the sun went down. However, Calliope loved mornings in the famous city. She loved the bustle of people getting started with their days, and the people who were heading back to their homes after an eventful night out. She loved the way the sunrise would peak through the buildings, painting the skyline in ways that Calliope had spent years trying to replicate in her drawings. Calliope loved grabbing a coffee from the bodega next to her apartment and walking through the streets with her music playing through her earbuds to the subway, catching whatever glimpses she could of the fascinating people around her. She rarely ever saw the same person twice on these morning walks.
When the city wasn't being attacked by some variation of a murderous alien, New York City was truly glorious to Calliope.
Wednesday mornings, however, were Calliope's least favorite time to ride the subway.
Normally, she didn't mind the subway. Calliope liked the ease of being able to get around the city without a car, even if it took a little too long sometimes. However, every Wednesday afternoon, Calliope had to be cheering at some sort of Midtown Tech sports game, which meant that she had to be wearing her bright blue and yellow cheerleading with the tiny pleated skirt on the subway.
Since joining the year before as a freshman, Calliope had been trying to convince Coach Ainsley if there was any way they could extend the skirt length by at least an inch. If anything, she kept trying to push her coach to not make them wear the outfits to school. But each time she did, Coach would double down on it and Calliope would be left dealing with leering men on the subway and freezing legs in cold months.
Calliope was thankful when the train came to a screeching halt only a block away from Midtown Tech. Getting to her high school after that was a short walk, and soon enough, she found herself sitting at a small table outside the school's entrance, desperately trying to complete a final few homework problems. Calliope was so invested in her Physics homework that she didn't notice a blonde girl in an identical outfit approach her from behind and smack her on the shoulder. "Didn't text me back last night, you bitch."
Rolling her eyes at Penelope, Calliope rubbed her now aching shoulder and shot back, "Not everyone is a vampire like you. I actually need sleep to function on a daily basis."
"Foreign concept, don't understand it," Penelope said, brushing Calliope off with a wave of her hand before remembering, "Hey, I already told her, but can you make sure that Coach Ainsley knows that I have an emergency Academic Decathlon after school and will be at the game as soon as I can but might miss some of the warm-ups? She's forgetful, and I can't miss these practices ever since that little bitch Peter–"
"Don't call Peter Parker a 'little bitch'–"
"I can call him whatever the hell I want after he ditched Nationals for his stupid Stark internship! I heard him talking about it with Ned the other day in World History!" Penelope practically spat. "Nobody knows Physics like him! I certainly don't, and neither does stupid Flash, who's probably going to have to replace Peter because he's our only alternate! I swear, if I get a hold of him, he's going to end up at the bottom of a ditch–"
"While it's awful that Peter had to ditch you guys last minute for his internship, you can't threaten bodily harm. Not out loud, at least. Someone could totally overhear and report you, and I'll have to be used as a witness in a court case."
"Bold of you to assume I'd ever get caught."
The two girls spotted several girls from the cheer team standing by one of their lockers. As they began talking about the game that afternoon, Calliope spotted Ned Leeds out of the corner of her eye hold up a small Lego figurine and place it on Peter Parker's shoulder. "Join me, and together we'll build my new Lego Death Star."
Peter whipped around, his mouth gaped open as he exclaimed, "What, no way!"
"God, so lame," one of the girls, Emma, said not so quietly. A few of the other girls murmured in agreement.
"Leave them alone," Calliope interjected with a roll of her eyes. "You do realize we're going to a science and technology school, right? We're kind of all nerds here."
"Stop being nice to him," Penelope hissed, earning a shove in the side from Calliope. "Best friend solidarity means we both hate him right now. We always hate the same people – it's like a rule."
"This is not the situation where you can invoke the whole 'best friend solidarity' rule."
Fortunately, before Penelope and Calliope could bicker too much, Peter and Ned stepped away from the two girls and began making their way down the hallway. Before they did though, the two boys made eye contact with her, and Calliope flashed Peter and Ned a small smile. She then turned back to the other cheerleaders and said a quick goodbye before walking off in the opposite direction of the two boys towards her Computer Animation class.
As she did, Calliope hooked her arm with Penelope's. "I have an extra dollar with me, so I can buy another pack of those hot chocolate chip cookies at lunch if you want to make you feel better about this whole Academic Decathlon situation."
Although she appeared to still be fuming, Penelope glanced at her hopefully. "You know those are my favorite thing in the world."
"I know..." Calliope sang teasingly. "That's why I offered them in the first place."
"You're an angel."
"I try my best," She shrugged. "Especially when it comes to dealing with you."
"Love you, too!"
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In the back of one of Midtown Tech's many Chemistry labs, two teenage girls sat, copying down notes from their teacher and getting ready to start an experiment. Michelle Jones – who had asked Calliope to call her 'MJ' about two weeks into the semester – and Calliope had vastly different personalities. But strangely enough, they ended up making the perfect lab partners. MJ always knew what she was doing, and even when Calliope had no idea what was going on, she managed to bug MJ enough to actually communicate with her and work together instead of doing the entire experiment on her own.
While their Chemistry teacher was distracted by some technology mishap on her computer, MJ leaned over to Calliope and outright questioned, "No offense...but why are you wearing your cheer uniform right now? Doesn't that break so many lab rules?"
"We're required to wear them everywhere on game days, even here. There's someone in this class who snitches to Coach if I change, though, even if it's just for this one class. Tried it in the beginning of the year. So...don't really have a choice if I want to stay on the cheer squad."
"So you're risking chemical burns for school spirit?" Calliope nodded slowly, and MJ stared her down with a raised brow. "I suddenly have a new respect for you."
Calliope blinked. "...Thank you?"
MJ didn't respond to that. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and leaned a little farther off her stool as she tried to get a better look. "Why the hell does Peter have all those chemicals in his drawer?"
Calliope, however, did not even pay attention, as she was more focused on copying down the notes on the chalkboard in the front. When she didn't respond, MJ shrugged but turned back to her work as well, not wanting to question it aloud.
Soon enough, the two girls were focused on their experiment. Even though Chemistry wasn't Calliope's strongest subject, she surprisingly didn't mind doing the labs. The lectures bored her out of her mind, but performing the experiments herself was more fun than she initially imagined. Maybe there was a part of her that loved seeing all the chemical reactions taking place right in front of her eyes, from the way the solutions would change color or crystallize from just adding a simple chemical or changing a small outside factor.
Over her table, Calliope saw a shadow cast over it as if someone was standing right in front of it. She looked up from her work and smiled when she saw the brown-haired boy. "Hey, Peter! What's up?"
He looked down at a sheet of paper covered in complex chemical molecules that didn't seem to resemble anything their lab teacher had given them before looking up at her and asking, "Do you guys have any extra ethyl acetate I can borrow? Or do you have any idea where it is?"
Confused, Calliope's eyebrows furrowed together as she pointed out, "We don't even need ethyl acetate for this experiment."
"Woah...what..." Peter whispered awkwardly, desperately trying to find some sort of explanation for why he was asking for a chemical that wasn't even needed for the experiment he was supposed to be performing.
Even though she was still eyeing him strangely, Calliope pointed to the back of the classroom and said, "He always keeps the chemical closet unlocked, and I remember that specific chemical not being too well protected – which, frankly, is kind of weird considering how flammable and dangerous it is."
"You're not going to kill us though, right?" MJ interrogated with a raised brow.
Neither Calliope nor Peter could fully tell if she was joking, but Peter decided he wasn't going to risk it and joke about it. "Nope, definitely not going to try and kill you guys. Just need it for a experiment."
At most schools, students would've probably received several sessions of detentions for even attempting to use some of the chemicals without the teacher's permission. But, at such a top science school, students stealing dangerous chemicals to use for experiments was a more common occurrence than the teachers would've liked to admit.
"Well just don't blow up the classroom," MJ muttered. "And if you do, do not say a word that we were the ones who told you where it was.
As Peter walked away, Calliope stared at the drawer of chemicals curiously. But, feeling that she was probably just overthinking the whole strange interaction, eventually shrugged it off, thinking it was nothing too out of the ordinary and turned back to her chemistry experiment.
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a/n:
hi guys!!
the way i've been working on forming this story months now and am finally able to start sharing it w the world !! i'm so damn excited !! first chapters (for me at least) are always kinda slow/mainly for introducing characters and building the world around them but i loved having this fun little introduction to miss calliope. life got in the way and kept me from writing this fic for a while, but rn i have a lot more time to focus on writing and i'm so excited to finally have the time to write it.
let me know what you guys think !! i hope you all enjoyed the chapter and have a lovely day !! i'll see you at the next update :))
- g ♡