Worst. Party. Ever
Peter
Why couldn’t the portal have opened up somewhere nicer?
Peter saw the box from this Mario Kart game. The world has meadows of friendly cows, a fun happy-looking rainbow place, pillowy giant mushrooms. But, because of Peter’s dimension-defyingly bad luck, he falls onto rock-hard rock. His hands and knees ache from the impact. The whole room is made of the same grey stone, with a moth-eaten red carpet at one end and an ominous-yet-enticing wood door (you know, the creepy kind with rusting bars over the window) at the other end. Stacks of Mario Kart games and white Wii remotes spill across the floor. The air behind him kind of shimmers, and the others all tumble out of nothing and land in one heap of skirts, arrows, and Danish pastry-shaped hair.
Leia wriggles out from underneath Legolas’s bow. ‘Peter Parker!’ She gnashes her teeth, and crawls across the floor towards him (like Anakin on Mustafaar?). ‘Peter Parker! What the hell were you thinking, kid? Are you trying to get us killed? Are you secretly working for the Villain in the Dark? Is your stupidity all part of some mastermind plan, huh?’ She hurls a new accusation with each step. It would all be extremely intimidating, if there wasn’t an arrow stuck in her sleeve and one of her hair buns hadn’t slipped down her neck like melted ice cream.
Legolas is straightening out his cloak. ‘Spider-Man, we are very disappointed in you. It is the hallmark of any hero to always…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Peter wails. Leia lurches at his leg. Peter hops out the way. ‘I know you told me not to, and it was, like, an objectively terrible idea and stuff. But none of you are really ones to talk, either!’ He points at Snow White. ‘You wanted to do the same as me. And Leia, I know you will think this sounds ridiculous now, but in a year or so in the middle of a vital war you’re gonna drop everything and risk two high-ranking generals and the last Jedi to rescue someone who isn’t even your boyfriend yet. That’s gotta be, like, at least twice as bad. And Legolas!’ He moves his finger to point at the elf, but realises he can’t think of anything to say. ‘I don’t know, Legolas. You’re basically perfect.’ Legolas shrugs, clearly unable to argue with that logic. ‘But you did make me the leader of the quest, and insist on it like every other minute. You can’t force me to have that responsibility, then not let me make any decisions. And I just can’t shake off the feeling, whether it’s Deadpool’s prophecy or my Peter Tingle or just general stupidness or what, that we’re going to need Hermione and Arya to save the Library. And, like, we’re supposed to be heroes. In our life, when you find people who need your help, you help them, no matter what, and yes I totally just get that line from Star Wars. Our whole aim is to stop the Villain in the Dark from editing all the storyworlds and corrupting them, right? If heroes like us stop being heroic, then we’ve already done half their job for them.’ When Peter runs out of things to say, nobody replies. His thoughts spiral and he runs through all the ways they could react – will Leia scream at him with all the sass and rage only Skywalkers are capable of? Will Legolas finally run out of patience, and snap like a shatterproof ruler?
Leia says, ‘fine.’ She slides onto her feet and retightens her hair bun so it sits parallel to the other one.
That’s it? Fine?
Peter hasn’t got time to doubt and overthink and panic about what the others feel about him. He’s got two friends to rescue and all of fandom to save. Perfectly aware of everyone’s eyes burning into his forehead, Peter turns towards that creepy-looking door. Snow White squeaks, ‘allow me!’ and rushes ahead to open it for him. Hinges creak.
And when Peter sees what’s through the door, all he has to say is, ‘holy shit.’
‘Holy shit what,’ Leia asks, ‘have you only just realised how stupid she is?’
Now, Peter is used to hating parties. He hates ugly, clashing music vibrating through houses. He hates hot, sweaty bodies pressing against each other like fries in a cardboard box. He hates having to force small talk with people you only half-know and half-care about, but you’re pretty certain are completely judging everything you say. But this party earns a whole new level of loathing.
Trembling, Peter points ahead of him. Through the door is a stone balcony that leans over a great volcanic chamber, the size of a football stadium. It’s dark like a nightclub (well, like how nightclubs look in Riverdale), with flashing disco lights illuminating different areas at different times. The more Peter can make out of the party, the more he wants to leave. A colossal statue of a monster towers over the far end, smoke curling out of its nostrils. Glowing lava bursts through the dark stone in fountains and puddles. And the entire chamber is crawling with enough villains and monsters to go trick-or-treating round all of New York. Legions of stormtroopers dance around a karaoke machine. Leathery trolls take turns beating an elf-shaped pinata covered in ketchup. A ginormous monkey, so vast that it has to bend their neck to fit under the dome of the cavern, grabs a fistful of screaming goblins, and tips them down its throat as if they were cheese puffs. Tables are ladened with all kinds of food – egg sandwiches and crunchy green apples and a suspicious-looking red liquid with chunks floating in it, which Peter really hopes is just sangria. Most terrifying of all, bad guy is blaring around the chamber – you know, that song by Billie… Eyelash? Irish? Something like that. In a space this big, the bass beat echoes like an alarm. Peter scans the faces, praying that he won’t see any evil villains from his world like Thanos, or Donald Trump, or the Vulture, or Elon Musk, or Mysterio, or Taylor Swift’s nasty ex-boyfriends.
Hanging from the ceiling on chains is a kind of pathway, made of bolted-together metal scraps. It snakes around the chamber, winding its way past demon dance-floors and a werewolf karaoke and vampire fang-whitening stations. Then the track starts vibrating. Metal grinds against metal. Someone pauses Billie Eyelash. Robots and werewolves and aliens and nasty billionaires all turn towards the track, gasping and shushing each other. Then twelve karts and bikes burst out a tunnel in an explosion of colour and whiz down the metal track. Shells are hurled. Bombs explode. A ghost at the back transforms into a shiny bullet, and charges along the track, mowing other people other. A very outmatched toadstool on a bike tumbles off the edge into the spitting lava moat. Then, as quickly as they appeared, the racers vanish into a second tunnel. Billie Eilish continues singing about seducing people’s family members. The villains turn their attention back to whatever they were doing, and chatter rumbles back across the chamber.
A hot pink spotlight flickers at the feet of the massive monster stature. And Peter can’t help but laugh a little at their terrible luck. Because at the centre of all this chaos, right under the monster statue, sprawled over a golden throne, is Harley Quinn. Her white hair is twisted in a cone on top of her head, like a zombie bride from the 19th century (What? Peter knows his historical clothing. Aunt May loves period dramas, and BBC Pride and Prejudice slaps). Her silk gown sweeps to the floor, studded with pink and blue diamonds. The triceratops sits beside her throne, adorned with a matching gold ‘PUDDIN’ collar to Harley’s. She leans up to scratch its neck, and it thumps its tail against the floor. Chained to the base of the throne are Hermione and Arya. Hermione’s grey fleecy hoodie and Arya’s fur cape are gone. The girls have been forced into metal bikinis with wrought gold spirals and red satin trains, which ripple from the bikini bottoms onto the floor. ‘What supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell,’ Peter whispers.
‘Holy shit.’ Leia is peering over his shoulder. Hermione and Arya must have caught her attention too. ‘What poor loser has to wear that in a story?’
‘You,’ Peter confesses, ‘in two movies time.’ Leia turns pale. ‘You do get to strangle the giant slug who makes you wear it, though. It’s really symbolic,’ he offers.
Leia’s eyes brighten. ‘I get to strangle the director?’
Peter opens his mouth to explain how Jabba the Hutt and George Lucas are not quite the same person, but Legolas speaks first. ‘Why can the sorceress not teleport away?’
Peter squints. He can just about see Hermione’s wand placed on the arm of the throne. Arya’s bag is nowhere to be seen. Presumably blood-stained leather bags containing the petrified faces of murder victims don’t really go with the party décor. ‘She can’t do any of the magic sparkly things without the stick.’ But maybe if Peter found a way to get the stick, she could magic them all out of here?
Legolas says, ‘we need a plan of rescue. It is not entirely impossible to fight so many foes at once. I myself, with this very bow, at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, once…’
‘Are you crazy?’ Peter asks, ‘we barely survived fighting Harley Quinn when she was with, like, fifty stormtroopers. You want to attack hundreds of crazy villains all at once? We need a plan. One that actually works, for once.’ He studies Harley, who is sharing a strawberry ice-cream with her triceratops. ‘Leia! You could use that old Jedi mind trick, to brainwash her into letting them go. Use the Force!’
Leia rolls her eyes. ‘I’ve told you, spandex-boy, I don’t know how to use the Force. Nobody’s ever trained me. My friend Luke can only do it with so little training because his father was a powerful Jedi, and…’
‘Yeah, I know, I know,’ Peter interrupts, ‘I’ve watched the movie, like, twenty times.’ He wishes he could just tell her that she’s Anakin’s daughter too, and that she could totally be as powerful of a Jedi as her brother (and probably a better one, to be honest, since she’s a badass queen and Luke is a bit of an incesty whiney wuss when you think about it). The words are on the tip of his tongue. But he pictures an angry Dr Strange again, yelling ‘spoilers’ and shushing him and ranting about silly little things like the space-time continuum. Surely if Peter doesn’t tell Leia anything she doesn’t know already then it’s not messing anything up? Peter lowers his voice to sound like Obi-Wan Kenobi. ‘The force will be with you always, Leia. Search your feelings…’
Leia scoffs. ‘Kid, this isn’t the time to be faffing around with all that mystical hocus-pocus airy fairy mushy stuff. We need to get the girls and get the hell out of here before something else goes wrong.’
‘But…’ Peter protests.
‘No buts! Now, how are we going to rescue Hermione and Arya from those bikinis?’
Peter is tempted to make a comment about a different kind of buts, but thinks better of it. Leia and Legolas bicker over whether they could try and negotiate with her, or if she’s too crazy for that, and how much dairy ice cream a triceratops can digest. Snow White is sitting in the doorway, her eyes transfixed on the party, her leg shaking.
‘I have an idea,’ Peter suggests.
Leia sighs. ‘Is it stupid?’
Peter can’t really lie about that. Literally every idea he’s ever had exists in middle space of the Venn diagram between stupidity and genius. ‘Probably.’
Instead of scolding him, Leia smiles. ‘Good. The most stupid ideas are always the best.’
It’s a good thing that Peter is wearing the Spider-Man mask, because otherwise Leia would be judging him right now for smiling so much. Taking a deep breath, he steps onto the balcony. Legolas and Leia follow him. Snow White tiptoes behind them, singing, ‘I hope I can chat to some animal groups / and that the crisps include hula hoops…’ Leia groans so loudly that the karaoke stormtroopers probably heard it on the other side of the party.
A flimsy-looking metal staircase takes them down into the main party area. The bone-chilling rattle of the stairs is just the perfect musical accompaniment to the electro beats in the Billie Irish song, the chatting of all the monsters, some random screams from the far side of the crowd, and Peter’s racing heartbeat.
They wade through the crowds of partying villains. Daleks carry drinks trays on their metal arms. Zombie pirates play darts, using their bones as the darts, and a live Ewok as the dartboard. Peter could swear that he just glimpsed Jeff Bezos playing Russian Roulette with Emperor Palpatine. None of the guests look twice at them – maybe the nightclub lights are concealing their faces, or maybe everyone here is so used to unhinged outfits like princess ballgowns and spider spandex that they don’t bat an eyelid at them. A scarred warlock is arguing with a gang of Chitauri. One of the aliens whacks the warlock on the head with a champagne bottle, and he topples onto the floor, stone-cold. Chitauri swarm over him like ants. The foaming champagne mingles with the bloody entrails. Peter’s stomach churns. He keeps his eyes fixed to the ground.
Billie Eyelash’s husky voice weaves through the clusters of villains. ‘Wearing a warning sign,’ she whispers, ‘wait ‘til the world is mine. Visions I vandalize, cold in my kingdom size.’ And it takes the lyrical genius of Billie and her creepy brother for Peter to realise what the scariest thing about this party is – if the Villain in the Dark reaches the Library, and all their villain minions can end their stories however they like, every storyworld will become like this one. Villains will ransack people’s homes in search of what they want, set fire to anything they don’t, and drink sangria and sing bad Billie Ellish karaoke in the ashes.
Peter slides past a game of beer bong (with what are hopefully just novelty mugs shaped like human skulls?). Visible through a huddle of transparent ghosts is Harley Quinn, draped across her golden throne. The chains, like puppet strings, are pulling Hermione and Arya into a paint-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls pose. Peter peers at them on his tip-toes and waggles his head, trying to get their attention. Hermione and Arya both stare ahead blankly. Peter can’t tell if they’re ignoring him to protect him, or if they just haven’t noticed him. Now Peter’s closer, he can see that even their hair has been plaited to look like Leia in Return of the Jedi. Peter would be impressed at the attention to detail if it wasn’t, you know, all so problematic and horrifying.
Harley holds a martini in one hand, and a toasted sandwich in another. Hermione’s wand and Arya’s sword lie on a silver cake-platter on the armrest of the throne. The sword is coated with pink gunge – has Harley been using it as a marshmallow-roasting spit? The creepy bag of faces is still nowhere to be seen. Harley pops half the sandwich into the triceratops’ gummy mouth, bites into the other half, and instantly spits it out. ‘Stuart!’ she calls.
A stormtrooper leaves the pin-the-lightsaber-on-the-Darth-Vader game, and scuttles towards her with a drinks tray.
Harley plonks her cocktail on his tray. ‘This martini is revolting. What was James Bond thinking? It should really be stirred, not shaken.’
Stuart the stormtrooper bows. ‘Yes, my Queen of Criminals.'
‘Ooh,’ Harley coos, ‘I like Queen of Criminals. We should totally make that a thing. Sue!’ A second stormtrooper scampers towards her. ‘Make that a thing.’ Sue the stormtrooper curtseys, and leaves. Harley turns back to the first stormtrooper. ‘Now Stuart, are we not part of the greatest evil scheme of all time?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
Harley sighs. ‘Yes, Queen of Criminals. Get with it. Has my benevolent benefactor not assembled the largest army of scumbags and villains ever to terrorise heroes?’
‘Yes, Queen of Criminals.’
Harley purrs. ‘Much better. Has said benevolent benefactor’s army not already finished searching half the storyworlds for the Library?’
‘Yes, Queen of Criminals.’ Stuart the stormtrooper rubs his hands together with glee.
‘Is this party, benefacted by my benevolent benefactor’s benevolence, not, like, the greatest party you’ve ever been to in your life and the most horrifyingly beautiful thing you’ve ever set your pretty little eyes on?’
‘No… I mean, yes, Queen of Criminals.’
Harley hurls her sandwich at him. ‘Then why is this egg sandwich so abysmal? Don’t you get how emotionally co-dependent we are on these egg sandwiches?’ She strokes her triceratops, who rolls over so she can scratch its belly. ‘Don’t they?’ she coos. Then she screeches, ‘so make me a better one!’ Her voice softens again, as she turns to Hermione and Arya. ‘You two morons want anything? I’m buying.’
Hermione glares at Harley with an intensity that suggests she is not a fan of breakfast sandwiches. Arya is staring blankly ahead of her.
Harley sighs. ‘No need to look so glum, now. I’ve told you that you can get out the stupid outfits the second Mr J shows up.’ She dismisses the stormtrooper with a flick of her wrist.
Two sweaty old men in silly-looking capes saunter past the throne, beer cups in hand. One points at Hermione and Arya and loudly whispers some comment to his buddy, who clearly finds it hilarious because he laughs so hard that he spills beer down his trousers. Arya bites her thumbnails and flicks them. Peter doesn’t need to have turned up to his medieval history classes to understand that the gesture is rude. The men jeer back at her until Harley barks at them to leave. The two jerks stumble away, cursing the women and swigging more beer.
Harley pats Hermione and Arya’s cheeks. ‘Mr J will be here soon,’ she promises. But her voice is wavering.
Billie Elesh chants, ‘all the good girls go to hell, ’cause even god herself… has enemies.’
Peter can’t watch anymore. He notices his leg has started shaking like a palm tree in the wind. He grabs his knee to steady it, and Legolas notices. The elf places his hand on Peter’s shoulder and whispers, ‘remember, the heroes always win.’
Buzzing from Legolas’s confidence in him, Peter runs through the plan in his mind. He’ll burst out the crowd of partying villains and make all the guests gasp and faint and clutch their smelling salts and stuff. Harley will be struggle to hide her fear behind a mask of confidence and annoying little jokes. And while Peter and Harley have some kind of snarky debate about good and evil, Harley will lose focus, Peter will be close enough to get Hermione’s wand, and she can magic them all out of here (maybe with sparkles to make more of an exit?)
But when Peter takes a deep breath and steps out of the crowd, Harley doesn’t gasp or faint or even threaten to feed him to the triceratops. Instead, she sings in a duet with Billie Eyellesh, ‘walk in wearing fetters, Peter should know better.’