Chapter Text
Peter isn't sure why his feet led him to the door of the coffee shop. Not today, at least.
They swept him up from the couch once his hands were done writing the piece of paper in his hands. It seemed his body had made a plan that his mind had not been present for, and now the café doors loomed over him. His feet had gone cold in his shoes and his hands worried the already crinkled paper.
Lines that he didn't even know that he had written were leaving his chapped lips as he rehearsed them. He wasn't there, not really anyway, but he ran his mouth in the cool New York air.
It's now or never.
He's not sure where that voice came from, but it urged him on nonetheless. The bell chimed and then he was inside.
There, in all her coffee-barista glory, stood the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was laughing and chatting with an elderly man that she was serving, and for whatever reason Peter found himself somewhat relieved that her back was turned towards him.
Then she was facing him. Her smile fell, and Peter felt his heart go with it. She waved awkwardly and he lifted his hand timidly to do the same. He was about to smile back and offer a hello before a voice behind him beat him to it.
The bell chimed again. "Hey!" called a boy who breezed right past Peter.
"One sec," she nodded at the boy as he took a seat at the counter. She made her way across from Peter and fixed him with her dark eyes. "Can I help you?"
Wow. Wasn't that a question? There were a million and one different things that she could help him with, but instead, his muscle memory started off of the sheet in his hands as if it had been waiting for this moment for years.
"Hi, my name's Peter Parker, and I..." he trailed off. This was a horrible idea. He probably looked so stupid, so stupid holding that damned piece of paper in his hands like sheet music.
She raised her brows. He realized that he still hadn't answered her.
"And I would like a coffee, please," he finished.
"O-kay, no problem, Peter Parker," she chuckled at his awkwardness and went to go get a donut for her friend. Peter cursed under his breath.
He mentally slapped himself upside the head again. If this kept going the way that it was going then his brain was going to be covered in bruises by the time he left the café.
"Donut for my fellow Engineer." Peter perked up at this.
"Oh. Wait, what?" the boy asked, startled from whatever he had been so invested in on his phone.
"MIT, they're the Engineers, the mascot," the barista clarified.
"Oh! Right right right, I should probably know that," he realized, remembering now.
A pang of sadness shot through Peter's chest. How bittersweet was that?
"Look at you with the school spirit!" The cheeky smile was back in full swing.
"Tell anybody and I will deny it," the girl threatened and swung herself in the direction of the backroom to get Peter's coffee.
"Ah," the MIT kid sighed in a joking defeat. He returned his attention back to his phone.
Peter looked on in awe. Here were his two best friends, sitting in a coffee shop and vibrating with the excitement that came from being a nerd who was just about to start their first MIT school year. He wished that he could be celebrating with them.
But wasn't that the point of coming here? Telling them what had happened, risking the probability that they would write him off as crazy but praying that at least one tiny little ounce of them would remember something? Anything?
The lid snapped onto the tiny styrofoam cup.
"Peter Parker?" the barista called gently. When he didn't respond, she called again, this time a little more urgently.
Peter whipped his head around as he was broken out of his trance to find the cup sitting next to the cash register.
"Your coffee?" she reminded.
"Right, yeah." He lunged forward and was about to grab the cup but stopped himself. He didn't want this visit to be over just yet.
"So, um, you excited for MIT?" he tried to ask casually. Luckily for him, though, she didn't seem to mind the eavesdropping.
"Oh. Uh, r- yeah." She seemed more so startled by the question, and then by the answer that she discovered within herself.
"Yeah, actually, which is weird because I never really get excited about things. I kind of expect disappointment-"
"-'Cause then you'll never actually be disappointed?" Peter offered helpfully. "Right?"
"Yeah, right." She looked at him inquisitively. "I don't know, it just kind of feels different this time for some reason."
Hope struck up in Peter's chest when she started searching his face, seemingly as if she were trying to remember where she might've seen him before. He couldn't help the small smile that leaked out the side of his mouth.
A moment of eternity passed while they just stood there, thinking. One glance at the coffee cup later, though, and it was all over.
"Right! Uh-" Peter started digging around in his pockets for his wallet, but only came up with a handful of crumpled bills. He decided to start again, maybe by just asking her out this time?
"What I was-" Peter started but abruptly cut himself off.
The barista tucked her hair behind her ear as she took his money and placed it into the cash register, revealing the band-aid above her right eyebrow. He immediately felt bad as the memory of how she got it came rushing back to him.
"Are you okay?" he asked, concern obvious in his voice.
"Yeah, it doesn't really hurt anymore," she answered quickly as if she had already said that line about a thousand times. Which, Peter assumed, she had.
She closed the cash register. "Is there anything else?"
Peter's lips tightened in an effort to hold himself together and lightly shook his head, more so to shake the tears away than anything else.
"No," he finally voiced, throat suddenly feeling hoarse. He tucked the paper safely away in his back pocket. "Thank you."
"No problem," she assured him.
Peter looked around again, glancing at the Filipino with his donut and taking in his best friend for the last time, at least for a while, before making the quick decision to leave.
"Well I'll, uh, see you around," he finished, cinching their encounter with a hurried chord, and all but ran out the big glass doors.
Within the second he had disappeared out of sight from inside the café window. There he left her, extremely confused and with questions unanswered.
"Bye," she mouthed the barely audible word, fingers doing a little wave even though he couldn't see it.
Maybe the mysterious boy would return and she could interrogate him then. Maybe he would go down in her memories as just another weird-ass New Yorker, straight off his rocker. Who knows? Certainly not Michelle Jones.
"Hey, MJ!" the guy behind her called, looking up from his phone again. "Check this out!"
"Yeah Ned, for sure. Just gimme a second."
Ned shrugged. "'Aight," he conceded, content to show her once she was ready for a quick break.
MJ continued to stare the way Peter had left for just another second. The snow was light and it was starting to get dark. She surprised herself yet again with the silent I hope Peter got home okay from the back of her mind. She rationalized it with just worrying for her fellow New Yorker and gave her head a quick violent shake.
Then she was looking at whatever it was on Ned's phone and her busy thoughts melted away.
Almost.
Her hand stayed tight around the broken pendant of her necklace.
~