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Michelle thinks the regular at the coffee shop is equal parts strange and endearing.
The first time he comes in he orders with his full name. Hi, I’m Peter Parker. Who does that? Sure, New York is full of all kinds of weirdos, but they’re usually just that. Weird. But he’s a ball of nervous energy, hands wringing at some crinkled piece of paper with smudged ink that he kept shuffling in out of his raggedy coat pockets.
And he looks at her like he’s found the love of his life.
Ned’s words, not hers. Once he leaves, Ned chuckles, nimble fingers tapping away at his phone and announces, “More tension than Darcy and Elizabeth. You might have finally found a boyfriend.”
She disagrees. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t intrigued.
He comes in again, about a week later. He still looks a little starry-eyed, though that might be the Christmas lights twinkling all about. He takes a moment to actually look at their menu board while he scuffs snow sludge off his boots and onto their rug by the counter.
She glances at his boots and notices he’s wearing bright blue, shiny socks.
“I think I’ll get-,” he pauses a moment to clear his throat. When he lifts his hand to his mouth, she sees dried blood on his knuckles. “-a hot chocolate this time.”
Michelle nods. “Sure,” and turns around to start making it. “With or without whip?”
“Without, is, uh, fine.” He stumbles over his entire sentence. If Ned were there to hear it, she’s sure his laugh would echo across the shop.
He pays with cash, bills as wrinkled as the paper he had the last time, and stuff the change in the tip jar.
“Thank you, uh -” He blinks a few times, a look not unlike a deer in headlights on his face, before he awkwardly points to her nametag on her uniform “-Michelle.”
She just nods, fingers drumming awkwardly. “You’re welcome, Peter Parker.”
And then his whole face just lights up. “You remembered!”
His enthusiasm is so pure and genuine. The wonderment in his exclamation makes her heart beat a little faster, but she plays it cool - well, she makes do with a timid smile with a twinge of humor. “Yeah. I don’t get a lot of people who order with their full name. Kinda hard to forget.”
He deflates a little then and if Michelle wasn’t so observant, she would have missed the crushing look of disappointment in his eyes before he plays it off with a laugh and an overly charming (and admittingly) adorable smile. “Right, right. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Michelle says with a shrug. “It’s-” She pauses, thinking about a snarky comment that echoes some sentiment of how important it is to march to the beat of your own drum and own all your eccentricities, but it falls out of her head. Peter Parker is looking at her like - well, maybe not the love his life, but like she matters and -
“Don’t be sorry,” she repeats. Her smile gets a little brighter.
The one she receives in return could put the Rockefeller Tree to shame.
The third time he comes in, he looks pretty busted.
It’s five ‘til close and she’s putting the lid on his ginger tea. He’s got dark circles on his eyes and new blood on his knuckles and a cut on his cheek that stretches from chin to ear.
“Looks like that hurts,” Michelle says, sliding the tea across the counter. It takes him a little longer to look her in the eye today, but once he does, his features relax.
“Boxing. Met my match today.” He shrugs with one shoulder before he uses the hand holding his tea to point to her own head. “I see yours healed pretty nicely.”
She touches the scar that’s formed on her forehead, trying not to feel self-conscious. He brought it up the first time and she was embarrassed, mostly because she can’t remember how she got a wound so deep. “Yeah, it did.”
“How…How’d that happen, anyway?”
She snorts out a laugh, and he smiles, nose wrinkling a bit. “Probably tripped on my dresser in the middle of the night.”
“Probably?”
She shrugs, fingers continuing to run over the smooth skin of the scar that’s been left behind. “Yeah, I don’t actually remember.” It’s been kinda bugging her. She doesn’t think she sleepwalks, but sometimes she thinks she must have lately. She has tons of bumps and bruises that she simply can’t explain.
Though they definitely aren’t as bad as the ones on this Peter Parker.
His brow furrows a bit as he spins the hot cup of tea in an un-mittened hand. Makes her cold just looking at him “I hate when that happens,” he finally says, staring at the tag dangling from the cup.
When he rips the tea tag off completely, Michelle’s brain can’t help but make the comparison that Peter Parker looks a lot like a kicked puppy left out in a snowy puddle. She doesn’t know what can fix that, but she does know that donuts can’t exactly make it worse.
“Here,” she says while he zones out, staring at the steam coming off of his cup. “I have to throw them out, anyway. Take-ugh-” She pulls out a bearclaw, squeezes it, and then throws it away, mumbling about how it’s stale. She swears she hears Peter laugh a little. “Taaaaaaake,” she tries again, reaching for the last two plain glazed, and shoves them in a paper bag. “Take these.”
Peter Parker reaches for his wallet, but Michelle just shakes her head. “No. Just. Take them. Really.”
“Oh,” he says softly, gripping the bag. Reminds her of the death grip he had on that piece of paper that first time. “Thank you.”
“No worries. Um,” she bites her lip and Peter tilts his head, waiting. “Stay warm and uh.” She gestures pathetically at his bruised and bloodied knuckles. “Stay safe.”
He smiles, head still slightly tilted. It’s a nice smile. “Thanks, Michelle.”
The bell over the door rings as he leaves, and the wind that rushes in his wake is colder than she’s ever felt before.
“What’s a cortado?”
Michelle keeps her eyes down, flipping through the course booklet for MIT next fall. “Equal parts espresso and steamed milk.”
“...Like a latte?”
“No,” she sighs a little, “It’s -”
She looks up and Peter Parker is back.
He looks better. Knuckles aren’t bruised and bloodied, eyes look like they’ve seen sleep and hair has seen a comb. He’s got a backpack today, but his book is underneath his arm - GED PREP AND PRACTICE.
“-less milk,” Michelle finishes lamely. “Cortados have less milk.. So they’re more bitter.”
“Oh, okay,” Peter says. He rocks back and forth on his heels and stares back up at the menu. He opens his mouth like he’s about to ask another question but then he ends up just biting his lip with a single, quick shake of his head. “I’ll try the cortado, please.”
“Sure,” Michelle agrees quietly. She lazily leaves her pen in her open course book before wandering over to the espresso machine. “That all?”
“Uh,” he sounds distracted. “Maybe one of those bear claws. If it isn’t stale today.”
“Eat at your own risk,” she says.
When she finishes packing up the pastry and making his drink, she turns around to find him leaning over her course manual, hands behind his back so as to not touch what isn’t his. “What are you going to study?”
Normally, Michelle isn’t too keen about people poking into her business, but it’s Peter Parker. Whatever that means, she isn’t sure, but she finds she doesn’t mind. “Mathematics.” She sets his order on the counter beside the catalogue. “For now.”
“I like math,” Peter nods in approval. “I always wanted to be an engineer. MIT has a great materials science and engineering program. That major gets selected for the September Grant the most often.”
It’s not exactly the response she expected. But Peter seems to fall under the unexpected category. “I’ll, uh. I’ll have to tell Ned.” She stares a little too long at the GRE prep book under his arm.
“Ah,” he stumbles a bit, uselessly waving the book about as he reaches for his wallet. “It’s a long story.”
She’s embarrassed him, she thinks, and something in her gut twists. She rings up his order and makes the coffee free for her social misgivings. “I hope it goes well,” she ends up saying. “Your, uh, test.”
“Thanks!” If he was embarrassed before, he doesn’t show it.. He just shoves his change in his pocket and nods to the course manual on the counter. “You too with the course selection. I’m sure whatever you pick, you’ll be at the top of your class like always.”
She blinks. “How -”
The bell rings and he leaves without another word.
“Write. Your number. On. The cup.”
Michelle rolls her eyes for the umpteenth time, swatting Ned’s hands off the counter so she can wipe it down. “You watch too many rom-coms.”
“Excuse you -” He slaps his hands back on the counter. Fiend. “I watch the appropriate amount. And I’m telling you, that guy is into you. He’ll definitely call you. This is a fool-proof plan.”
“I don’t know.”
Ned squints. “You don’t know if he’ll call you, or you don’t know if you want him to call you?”
Michelle keeps her head down, cleaning the same spot over and over again while her mind races. “Both,” she grumbles out before she lets out a shoulder-sagging sigh, tossing the rag harshly across her shoulder. “Look, I don’t know anything about him.”
“So?” Ned shrugs. “We’re almost done with high school. If you’re ever gonna want to make new friends or go on any kind of date, you’re going to have to spend some time with strangers.”
“Yeah, but -”. She pauses. What Ned is saying is true. He’s a stranger. She doesn’t know why his knuckles are often bruised, why he wears blue metallic undershirts with matching socks, or why he’s taking the GED instead of going to school.
But at the same time -
He’s warm. Friendly.
Familiar.
Why, she doesn't know. She just knows that he is.
And that's enough.
“Fine. But if he doesn’t call me,” Michelle hands Ned a stale donut. “We will never speak of him again.”
He takes an unflattering bite of the pastry. Crumbs fall out of his mouth as he declares, “We have a deal.”
When Peter comes in next, he orders another cortado.
He still has the same wonderment in his expression but Michelle is too nervous about writing her stupid number on the cup that she kinda keeps her head down. She does a lot of pushing her hair behind her ear, rubbing the back of her neck, tugging on pendant of her -
“-necklace.”
She looks up from the counter, willing her thoughts to not wander. She responds with a very eloquent, “Huh?”
“Your necklace,” he says, a little more quietly than is normally his style. “It’s pretty.”
She rubs her finger along the black glass. “Yeah.” She stares down at it, finger moving to the sparkly center of what had to once be a whole flower. “I’ve had it for a while. Been broken the whole time, too.” She laughs a little. “I never take it off. Feels weird to uh, be without it.. Strange, huh?”
“No,” he whispers, and when she looks up at him, he’s got that Rockefeller Tree smile. “Not strange. It’s nice. Really nice.”
A quiet settles over them - soft, delicate, like the winter’s first snow that blankets over the city - and Michelle is only left to do what she set out to do.
She scribbles her phone number on the cup and pushes it his way.
“Here,” she says shyly. “One cortado.” She watches as he spins the cup, face bright as he catches sight of her number on the cup. “And uh, just so you know, my friends call me -”
“-MJ.” He finishes.
He looks at her and, wow, that smile.
“I’ll call you, MJ.”