"Wren, Flash is here!" Stella Davies called as her daughter rushed downstairs, messenger bag slung over her shoulder and hands attempting to smooth out a stubborn piece of hair that continued to stick straight up on her head. Stella gave her daughter an approving smile, reaching forward and giving her a quick hug goodbye. "Have a great day, sweetie."

"Bye," Wren said, making a dash for the door so as not to be late. "Love you!"

Wren shut the oak door to the Davies family home behind her, hurrying down the stone steps to where her boyfriend waited in his shiny silver convertible. She slung her bag into the open backseat before hopping into the front seat and greeting Flash with a swift kiss on the cheek.

"Morning," he greeted before shifting the car back into drive, and taking off towards the looming skyline of Queens.

Wren reached for the radio as Flash drove towards the Midtown School of Science and Technology, settling for a classic rock station and watching as the skyscrapers finally towered over them the further they got into the city. When they finally neared the high school, it was a hustle and bustle of pedestrians exiting taxis and coming off the steps from the subway, all of New York trying to get to their morning commute. Flash nearly had to slam on the breaks as Wren looked up to see a classmate jumping out of their way in the parking lot.

"What's up, Penis Parker?" Flash called to the boy, Peter, as he and Wren drove off, finding a parking spot near the front door of the building.

The second Wren stepped foot in the building, all anyone could talk about was the upcoming homecoming dance, in a Totally 80s theme. In her first few class periods, girls whispered to one another about which guys they hoped would ask them, and what they wanted their dresses to look like, though for Wren, she knew there wasn't much to worry about. She already had her date, marking the special occasion that Flash had first asked her to be his girlfriend during their freshman homecoming dance, and she had admittedly spent a few hours here and there scrolling through Pinterest during the past few weeks to get an idea of what sort of dress she wanted to wear.

By the time lunch rolled around, Wren hoped that maybe she could get a bit of a break from the homecoming talk, though she didn't find much luck as she took a seat across from Flash and between two of her friends, Betty Brant and James Rogers at the lunch table. James she could count on to not be one for the dance talk, although from the moment she sat down, Wren could tell it was the only thing on Betty's mind, their other friend Liz Toomes standing on a ladder at the other end of the room hanging up a banner advertising for the occasion.

"Oh, Wren, just in time!" Betty exclaimed, causing Wren to shoot her best friend an amused grin where he sat on her right. "James here says he doesn't want to go to homecoming."

James shrugged. "From the movies I've seen, it just doesn't seem like my kind of thing. People nowadays don't dance like they used to, takes all the fun out of it."

"Sorry we left the sock hops back in nineteen-sixty." Betty joked. "But Wren, seriously, tell James he has to come."

Wren nodded. "You should come." she assured him. "You did say you wanted the typical high school experience."

"That is true," another friend of theirs, Juliana Valente spoke up from where she sat on the other side of James. "You did say you wanted every normal experience possible. What could be more normal than homecoming?"

A later addition to their friend group once he'd enrolled at Midtown Tech a couple months prior, James Rogers was in the process of catching up with the outside world. Once the news broke to the public that Captain America had a secret son who had been asleep on and off the past fifty-five years, especially after Steve Rogers's recent run-ins with the law overseas that had sent the Avenger into hiding, the tabloids had gone wild, though James himself wanted nothing more than to finally get the teenage experience he'd missed out on as a child, even if they were drastically different nowadays than the ones he'd always imagined.

"I'll think about it." he finally caved to the others near the end of the lunch period, after they listened to Betty go on and on about her date that had asked her that morning and the colors she was debating between for her dress.

Wren was nearly grateful that her last few classes of the day weren't with any of her close friends, so she could finally catch a break from the homecoming talk, instead taking a seat near the back of the class in history and busying herself with taking notes about the American Revolution.

When she finally found herself in the library with James after school let out, doing homework while they waited for Flash to be done with his academic decathlon practice, the two friends were able to relish in the silence, and just be themselves for a bit. Wren finished her biology homework early, while James was busy typing away at his laptop, his fingers clacking against the keyboard the only other sound evident in the room, until the door suddenly flew open with a loud bang.

"What's up?" Flash nearly yelled, causing Wren to narrow her eyes at her boyfriend, thankful the three of them were the only ones in the library, the librarian having left a few minutes ago to find more staples from one of the supply closets in the basement.

"You seem oddly happy," Wren noted as he stalked over towards them, hands shoved into his back pockets and a satisfied smirk on his face.

"You guys are looking at the newest starter for the Midtown Tech decathlon team." Flash boasted. "Parker quit so he could have more time for that bullshit internship, so now I'm up when we go to Washington."

"That's great!" Wren exclaimed as she began to gather her things up, James doing the same so he could follow them out to where his motorbike was parked near their car in the lot. "I'm sure you'll do amazing." 

"I'm sure," James repeated softly, only Wren able to catch his sarcasm as she shot him a look over Flash's shoulder on their way out of the library.

"See, what did I tell you guys?" Flash asked as he led them away from the library and towards the school's exit. "Sophomore year is going to change everything, just you wait."