Pointe Shoes and Spider Webs

42. Balance

Merry Christmas, everyone! Two chapters for you! <3

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The next day, Peter found out that Daphne has pointe classes on Wednesdays and usually sticks around until very late to practice technique. This explains why she was out so late the first time he swooped in as Spider-Man to save her from David. He also realized he's never actually seen her dance en pointe. They wear regular canvas shoes during their classes together and when she trained Peter, she didn't even bother bringing them. Tomorrow's going to be different, though. She needs to wear her pointes for the pas de deux classes. Peter is weirdly excited for this. The classes somehow feel like a next step for them together.

Patrol went by smoothly that evening. Just the regular stuff. Stopping petty theft, breaking up a gang fight, nothing out of the ordinary. School on Thursday seemed to take forever though. The classes were slow, the questions were easy and he just wanted to dance. With her. He was practically bouncing when the final bell rang and when he met up with Daphne, they both made their way to the dance hall. They're early, as usual. Madame Touha wasn't there yet. They warmed up with a few exercises to get ahead of the game and suddenly, Daphne grabbed her pointe shoes.

Peter stares at the torture devices that Daphne is going to put on her feet. They look hard. Painful, even. She wraps a few of her toes in medical tape and she has some special silicone thing to put between her big toe and the others. Peter can't take his eyes off of her. It's like he's watching a sacred ritual. She carefully places a fabric toepad over her feet and tugs it tightly before finally putting the shoe on her foot. She wraps the ribbons around her ankle. He frowns.
"Don't the ribbons go up further?" Daphne is snapped out of her own trance by his words. She collects her thoughts quickly, realizing what he asked.
"Nah, that's what the media want you to think," she laughs. She shows him where the ribbons would go if she wore them how he thought she would. "They'd fall down my legs the moment I would stand up."
"Huh," Peter says as he cocks his head. Daphne chuckles.

This curious scientist side of him is cute. He's not just staring at her, he's studying her. Her movements. All the steps she has to go through to put on her pointes. She ties the ribbon around her ankle and tucks it into itself. She moves on to her other foot and not much later she's standing in them. She does a few pliés and rolls up and down her pointes. She's completely focused on her movements, getting accustomed to the tight shoes and the shift in balance. Peter can't look away from her. He already knew she's the most beautiful dancer he's ever seen, but the way the pointe shoes extend the lines of her legs is just... Just...
"Ah, Daphne, Peter!" Peter snaps out of it and looks at the door. Madame Touha stands with her hands on her hips and a smug grin on her face. "Looks like you're ready to get started!"

Peter gets up and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He picks at the leotard that Mr. Stark made for him. The regulators Mr. Stark installed into the fabric seem to work perfectly. There shouldn't be an issue with them touching each other. However, Peter's quite nervous about another thing that has to do with being Spider-Man.

He's unsure what parts of his strength he's going to have to restrain for the pas de deux. Daphne weighs nothing to him, as does pretty much every mundane thing since he got bitten. But having to lift and catch and push and pull while using little to no force and at the same time making it look like it does take a lot of effort: that's hard. He's also never had any classes from Madame Touha, so he has no idea what her teaching style is. The only time they spent together in a dance hall was when she was assessing his progress not too long ago.

And then there's the part where Madame Touha knows about him. About who he is, what he's capable of. He is Spider-Man, after all, and she found out by merely doing the math based on one news paper article. He knows she had his suspicions as to why he was there, but Madame Touha ended up being a lot more insightful than he initially thought. He hopes with every cell in his body that she'll go easy on him. Or at least help him keep this a secret from Daphne. So far, he's been terrible at hiding his secret from her, but at least she hasn't caught on yet.