𝙄𝙣 𝙁𝙖𝙞𝙧 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝙔𝙤𝙧𝙠...

Head Over Heels in Denial

Narrative: Peter Parker and Michelle Jones were definitely NOT in love with one another. And Denial is just a river in Africa.

A/N: This is really just a long winded enemies-to-lovers trope introspection, because I might have a bit of an obsession.

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"For the love of Thor, would you just screw him already and end us of this misery?!" Elizabeth "Betty" Brant whined in annoyance to the girl beside her as they were in the library, practicing their flashcards. The others surrounding her: Ned Leeds, Liz Allan, and Cindy Moon, snickered hysterically at her suggestion. However, said-girl she addressed, Michelle Jones, glared at her, causing Betty to further tease Michelle with a sly smirk and raised brow.

Unable to muster a defensible reply to her earlier actions and against Betty's goading, Michelle huffed in silence, continuing on with her work and ignoring more commentary from the others. However, she only did so after sending one final, fierce glare towards Peter Parker—who'd been the cause for her onslaught of ridicule prior to.

As one can see, it is a truth universally acknowledged, or at least it was in the minds of the students attending Midtown High, that Michelle Jones and Peter Parker were not exactly on friendly terms with one another. In fact, there was no greater and (in most of the student body's view—even to some gossipmonger staff members) more entertaining, pair of enemies residing in the walls of the building.

No one knows exactly how their rivalry had emerged. Perhaps, it had occurred during freshman year when Peter, along with his rowdy, ragtag gang of prepubescent teenage friends, had started a food fight inside the cafeteria, and their first unfortunate victim had been none other than the new girl, Michelle. Or it could have transpired during their study hall in the same year when Michelle, who'd been a library assistant at the time, knocked over a top shelf of books right on top of Peter's head. Whether it had been accidental or on purpose, no one would ever know, nor question it. But the news had spread around fast through out the relatively small school that Michelle Jones had the guts to play with the fire that was Peter Parker.

And the whole school knew of the growing, and slightly dangerous tension between them as they both ran against one another for the title of captain on the Academic Decathlon team: a club the school held as their pride and joy seeing how successful it'd been every year. The tension only just expanded when it'd been announced that they'd work together as co-captains because the vote from the team and Mr. Harrington was a tie, therefore inconclusive. Or in Michelle's very "optimistic" judgement, indecisive.

Some figured that their rivalry would last a life time. While others had said that it would blow over after high school or once the two would "get their shit together and realize they were meant to be." Curtesy of Ned Leeds and Harry Osborn and their hopeless romantic ideals. Though most had perceived the relationship between the two to be on the spectrum of borderline annoying and entertaining, others, especially the close friends of both Peter and Michelle, viewed their dynamic to be the foundation for a great friendship or maybe even more.

Yet, it was nobody but the two that could truly determine the fate of the nature of their relationship. And had anyone asked either of them, Peter and Michelle would say for certain that they were definitely NOT in love with one another. There was no possible way for that to ever occur in their eyes.

Michelle, who'd been the first to scoff the notion to be preposterous when her friends had brought it up, couldn't see how she and Peter would ever get past associates on a level of cordial relationships. She didn't see him as an affable and agreeable person from the moment they met, nor could she say she was magnanimous enough to be able to speak of him in such a way. Her abhorrence towards him and his actions would voluntarily blind her of the chance for something greater to blossom between them.