Sam wasn't usually one to lock himself up in his apartment. He enjoyed going out with friends and having a good time. But he didn't do social medias.
Sure, he had Facebook, but he rarely used it and didn't see the point to Tweeter or Tumble or whatever it was that Ava tried talking him into. He was already spending too much of his time on Netflix; the last thing he needed was something else to take his attention away from school work.
And yeah, he was left out of the loop for those "memes" that Danny and Luke joked about so much, but he figured if it was really that funny, he'd figure it out eventually.
He couldn't be missing anything too important.
The seat across from him suddenly scraped back, and Sam looked up, confused.
The guy in front of him was brunet, he had glasses, and wore a shirt that probably had a joke on it, but Sam was never the best chemistry. He was cute, in that dorky way that always gave Sam a giddy feeling in his belly. The guy smiled and waved. "Mind if I sit here?"
Sam looked around at the pretty much empty cafe with a raised eyebrow. Seriously, the only other people in the place were the employees and a couple sitting somewhere behind him.
"Uh," he said, "not to be rude, but, why?"
"Do you have any Sodium Hypobromite?" the guy asked.
"What?" Sam asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
The guy smiled. "You don't go on Vine or YouTube much, do you?"
"What the heck is Vine?" Sam asked.
"Never mind." The guy looked over at the only other of people in the place and did the cut-it-out hand motion. "Alright guys, let's go see if that deli down the street has more people."
The girl, a pretty red head, sighed, and lowered a video camera, while the guy next to her gathered their things.
"Wait, were you recording me?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, don't worry, man," the first guy said. "We'll delete it, no problem."
"You can watch us delete it, if you want," the girl said. "I'd let you delete it yourself, but last time I handed someone my camera, they tried stealing it."
"Look," Sam said, raising a hand. "I have no idea what you're doing, or who you even are, but, uh, yeah. Have fun."
With a nod, he gathered his coffee and text book, and set out the door.
Another reason to avoid social medias, apparently.
Sam didn't think anything else of the weird guy and his friends. In fact, he got so caught up in classes that he didn't really think of anything else of anything for a solid two weeks. By the time Ava, Danny, and Luke convinced him to grab a coffee with them, he was sleep deprived and his mind kept repeating the quadratic formula.
He should have expected it to happen, but then again, he was sleep deprived.
He had just stood up to grab some extra napkins for the table (because honestly, as proper as Ava liked to pretend she was, she was a slob) when he stumbled. Next thing he knew, there were arms around him, and he was standing in a puddle of coffee.
Sam blinked, taking in the stranger holding on his arms. He looked familiar. Brown hair, pretty eyes.
Sam yanked back, blushing and apologizing, but the guy only laughed. "Hey, it's no problem. I should've watched where I was going."
Sam shifted, and was reminded of the coffee pool in the floor. "Really, it's my fault. Can I buy you a replacement coffee?"
The guy smiled, and looked as if he were about to nod when Ava was suddenly beside them. "Are you Peter Parker?"
The guy kind of choked on a laugh, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, that's... that's me."
"Who's Peter Parker?" Sam asked, then winced at his own question. Was this something he was supposed to know? Maybe he was out for longer than two weeks.
Peter did laugh this time. "Now I know why you look familiar. You're the guy who'd never heard of Vine."
Sam scowled. "I'm too busy for that stuff."
Ava grinned, but she was already facing Peter. "Can I have a picture?" she asked, already holding out her phone.
"Sure," Peter said, leaning over to to throw an arm around Sam.
Sam tried really hard not to look too shocked and forced a small smile on his face, and once Ava was done, he leaned back. "It was nice, uh, meeting you," he said, glancing around. They had gathered the attention of half the coffee shop.
Peter snorted and rolled his eyes. "If you watched my videos, I might have almost believed you." He gave them one last smile, and then he was gone.
Ava giggled and grabbed Sams hand, dragging him back to their table. "Guess who we just met," she gloated, waving her phone around for Luke and Danny to see.
Immediately, the two boys were gawking over the phone and asking a million questions that Sam didn't even try to keep up with. He really just did not understand.
Sam waited until he was alone in his apartment before he pulled out his laptop and Googled Peter Parker. YouTube popped up first, but there a link to Vine right underneath it. He clicked on YouTube first.
He wasn't sure what he expected - maybe just a guy who sat and talked to the camera for ten minutes. Or pranks - it would explain the guy randomly wanting to sit down next to him.
Maybe the chemistry shirt should have tipped him off, but he really did not expect Peter's videos to be so much science. He clicked on the first video, the most recently uploaded, and saw it was a compilation of Peter and the two other people he was with that first time just randomly sitting next to people and asking that same Sodium Bro question. Most people seemed to recognize them immediately, responding with some quip, but there was one or two that was as clueless as Sam.
He scrolled down to one of the earlier videos, and clicked.
The red headed girl smiled and waved at the camera enthusiastically. "Okay, guys. Mj here. So in this episode-"
"Look out!"
MJ threw herself to the ground, and the camera shook a bit as what looked like a toy helicopter flung itself into the wall.
"Peter! Come on, man, I gotta pay for that," complained a voice off screen, and Sam assumed it was the other guy of their trio.
"Sorry, dude."
"Right, so, this episode, Peter rigged his old copter to reach insane speeds and heights," MJ continued, a smile back her face. "Which means this reporter is going to get her biggest scoop yet."
"And then we're blowing it up."
"You always want to blow Peter's stuff up," MJ glared.
"That's not true. Pete's the one always finding new ways to blow his eyebrows off," Harry defended.
There was a squawk of defiance somewhere off camera, and Sam paused the video.
A science nerd. That's who Peter was. Sam looked at the subscriber count and startled. That was a lot of people.
He clicked back to the Vine link, and found a bunch of six second videos. Every single one was either an explosion in slow motion, a science joke or both.
Sam really just did not understand it. He ended up following Peter's YouTube and Vine account anyway.
The next time Sam saw Ava, he didn't even get to say "hi" before she was shoving her phone in his face with an excited smile.
"He retweeted our picture," she beamed. "See? And followed me."
"Um," Sam said, raising an eyebrow. "Congratulations?"
Ava only rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know you don't care, if you even know what I'm talking about. But he replied to the tweet, and said 'this is guy doesn't know I exist.' Dude, you should see some of the things people are saying about you two."
Sam blinked. "Saying about what? What does that even mean?"
"It means that some people think you're a hermit who only just now stepped into the 21st century." Ava continued scrolling on her phone before she snorted. "And this person thinks you guys are dating."
"What?" Sam choked. "How-? What?"
Ava laughed at him. "Can you blame them? His arm is around you."
"His arm was around you too!" he defended, but Ava only shook her head.
"Actually, it wasn't." She spun the phone around so he could see, and Sam felt his cheeks grow warm. "Dude, relax," she continued, "it's one person. It's not like people are going to stop you in the middle of the street asking for an autograph. Plus, they have no idea who you are. For once, I think it's a good thing you don't have a Twitter."
"Right," Sam nodded. "What's one person gonna do?"
Peter was glaring somewhere off camera, and for a second, it looked like he might flip someone off. Instead, he faced the camera, pushed up his glasses, and sighed. "Okay, people of the internet. For some reason, my love life is a hot topic these days, so you should know I'm totally single and that guy in the picture was just someone I met trying to make a video a while back. Please stop trying to stalk the poor dude."
Sam really wasn't all that affected by whatever the hell was going on. He had seen the newest Vine, where Peter tried getting people to leave him alone but...? No one was bothering him. Ava had been right - since he didn't have Twitter or anything, and no one knew his name, no one could find him, and he could have been clueless throughout the whole ordeal.
Except, of course, his friends wouldn't shut up about it. They teased him relentlessly, and when Sam annoyed Ava for a few seconds too long, she threatened to release his name and address online.
Sam toned it down after that.
But, yeah, overall, Sam didn't care. At least, he didn't care until he went to the nearest Starbucks for free WiFi and coffee.
He had went by himself, because Ava claimed he would distract her from her math homework, and Luke and Danny were stuck in some tutoring their history professor had roped them into. Everything was fine, nothing out of the ordinary.
Until someone took a picture of him.
He blinked, looking up from his laptop to see some girl smiling at him excitedly. Her phone was out, and she was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You're Peter Parker's boyfriend, right?"
"Uh... no?" Sam glanced around, but they had already gained the attention of the nearby tables. "Listen, I'm really not whatever or whoever you think I am."
The girl pouted. "Well, I didn't really think so either, like, I mean I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but, well..."
She pointed to the counter, where a small line of people was waiting for their coffee. Sam was confused at first, but then he spotted him - Peter was up there, scrolling through his phone, completely oblivious to the world.
"You guys are on a date, right?" the girl pressed. "Listen, can I have a picture? And your name?"
Sam groaned. "Listen, you can go ask Peter yourself." Actually, did Peter even know his name?
The girl raised her eyebrow. "Fine," she said. "I will."
Sam watched her walk away before sighing. He was supposed to be able to avoid this stuff, not have people walk right up to him and expecting some kind of interview.
Someone plopped down in the seat across form him, and Sam's eyebrow twitched. "Look, I already told you, we aren't dating, and you can't have a picture. Please go away."
"Well, that's rude."
Sam glared. "How am I supposed to get people to believe we aren't dating if you keep showing up?"
Peter winced. "I'm really sorry about that. I didn't realize a picture would cause such... drama." He glanced back at the girl who tried to hide behind a venti frappe, and shook his head. "You don't get harassed by people all the time, do you? If you are, I can try something else to get them to back down."
"No, she's the first one." He sent a light glare towards the girl who now had her phone out. "I was serious when I told you I had never heard of Vine. I mean, I know now, but, social media sites and I don't really go together. Ava says it'll help me remain unknown."
"Ava's the girl who tweeted the picture to me? The girl in the photo?" Peter clarified, and Sam nodded. "Well, she's right. For the most part. The only thing out there is your face, so unless someone has some serious high tech, they won't be able to figure anything else out about you. So at least there's that."
"At least there's that," Sam agreed. "So, uh, do you usually deal with girls going up to you and asking for pictures?"
Peter shrugged. "Sometimes. In most of the videos, I wear glasses. Apparently, Clark Kent was right. It really is that easy to hide your identity."
Sam chuckled. "So I just need to get a new pair of shades. I'll keep that in mind."
Peter grinned, and glanced around. He cleared his throat and asked, "So, uh, it's kind of unfair that you know my name and I don't know yours."
"Oh," Sam startled. "Uh, it's Sam. Sam Alexander."
"Well, Sam, if you ever do decide to test out the Glasses Theory, you should invite me." And suddenly, a napkin was dropped on the table, and Sam could clearly see seven digits written on it. "I mean, I understand if you want to stay out of the Internets eye, but, if you ever want to grab a coffee, we could maybe plan our next meet up?"
Sam blinked, glanced over at the girl still hiding behind her coffee. She didn't seem to notice the exchange, and breathed a sigh of relief. "That sounds... yeah. That sounds nice."
"Cool," Peter grinned, then checked the time on his phone. "I have to go," he said, and he sounded almost disappointed. "I'm late for our video. And I guess I better try to get that girl to leave you alone. It was nice seeing you again, Sam."
"You too," Sam smiled.
"Don't forget to use that," Peter reminded his voice lowering, and he stood up, and nodding towards the napkin. "I'll be expecting at least a text."
Sam snorted. "You'll have to wait for me to buy some glasses first."
Peter practically beamed, and then he was gone. After a short conversation with the girl and a quick picture, he was gone. The girl stuck around a bit longer, but pretty soon, she was gone, too.
Sam stared at the napkin for a bit, before standing to leave himself. He was pretty sure he had an old pair of sunglasses somewhere.
