Hi all! Hope you are doing well and staying safe. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter :/
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Routines were the foundation Peter built his life on. Like playing the long game in chess, Peter chose his pieces carefully and played each move keeping the end in mind; only moving when all routes had been thought out. He made his decisions when he knew it would be safe.
But his routine was gone now and Peter was walking on a crumbling chess board. Or maybe he had never been playing chess. Maybe it was a different game altogether.
His body stiffened under the sheets that clung to his skin. Peter ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the sweat at the back of his neck.
A sliver of moon shined through the window and into his room. Peter turned his phone on the dresser, blinking at the brightness of it and groaned at the late hour. With one eye closed he read through the messages and put the phone back down on the nightstand without answering.
He threw a wrist over his eyes and focused on his breath. The sheet moved with every inhale and exhale. Still feeling restless, Peter turned to face the wall. He reached out, brushing his fingers against the imperfections in the wall.
Peter sighed and waited until it was early enough to get up for the day.
Allowing himself a few days of moping was hard as he only wanted to stay in bed for longer but he couldn't stand the hovering May was doing. How she was casting worried eyes on him for longer and longer.
He created a new routine for himself. It was just as good as his old one, if not better, he argued with himself.
He was fine.
Peter sighed as he bypassed the hallway he knew Ned was waiting in and made his way out of the school. One in the midst of a crowd.
He slipped away, down the stairs and outside. Breathing fast he quickened his pace and kept his head forward when he heard his name being called from behind.
"Peter!"
The toes of his shoe dangled off the top step. Peter turned around as Flash reached him. Flash put his hands in his pockets and Peter shifted under the gaze of his friend.
"You're avoiding me." He said.
Peter rubbed the back of his neck, pulled the hair there when he felt the blush rise on his neck and cheeks.
"No, I'm not."
"Let's not pretend I'm stupid. I know you're avoiding me and the rest of the little group." Flash said. His eyes pierced Peter until he dropped them to the ground, looking small for once. "We need to talk about it, Peter."
He was beginning to hate the sound of his name anytime someone said it. Since Oscorp, his name became more of a plea, a worry from the people around him.
Peter glanced at his watch.
"No, we really don't. I'm late so I'll see you around sometime." He said turning around and walking down the stairs.
"Answer your text messages." Flash yelled from the top of the steps to Peter.
Peter shook his head to himself and continued on his way. His stomach clenched at the confrontation and he turned off his phone, even though it was only a matter of time before something would happen and everyone wouldn't be content with only trying to talk to him.
Still, they hadn't tried anything too uncomfortable yet and after the conference he could distance himself further in the summer. He would have to keep working, now in the library, until after their presentation.
The subway ride was full of people on their way to jobs in the city.
It was the same subway he'd taken before to get into the city. The same one to get to the internship.
Peter put his headphones in, blocking out the thoughts that threatened to overrun him.
He was fine.
After he got off the subway he walked by a rusting news stand. Across ten screens a woman was crying, speaking between breaths about being mugged. She called for help to the people and the government to stop the frequency of crime in her neighborhood. She called for someone to help.
Peter pulled his jacket tighter around his body and began walking again. Peter navigated through the other hordes of people and kept his head down.
Barry Electronics was situated across from a Bagel & Coffee and a Starbucks. Barry, the owner, joked with Peter that they would never run out of snacks and more often than not Peter found himself waiting in line, food order in hand.
The small brick and mortar shop door was innocuous and the sign nonexistent. Dave, his Ham friend from Dayton was the one who the one told Peter about the store and their opening.
The bell rung as he entered the shop and rows of transmitters and radios greeted him. Classical music wound through the aisles. Peter sat behind a desk in the back where a Yaesu FT-DX3000D sat exposed. Its parts were scattered across the desk all in place where he left them yesterday.
"How's it going back here?" Barry leaned around the doorframe, taking in the tense set of his newest employee's shoulders.
"It's going well, Mr. Barry." Peter said. He stood up, pushing the chair in to face his boss. He played with the hem of his sweatshirt before looking down at the man's shoes. The white plastic covering the toes of the Converse were pealing and brown but the red color of the canvas was bright. Peter looked at his own black ones and the holes forming in the side.
"I just wanted to apologize again, sir. I'm not the best with peo-"
"Now stop there, young man. You don't have anything to apologize for. Mr. Steffes has been coming here for a long time and you were doing your job is all. Not your fault you knew more about the FT than he did."
"But isn't the customer always right?"
The man stepped into the room, pulling the ends of his beard and observing Peter.
"Well, normally that's right but us radio folks sometimes think we know everything and when a new comer, especially a young one such as yourself, arrives it can be intimidating."
"Intimidating?" Peter never in a million years would have thought he would be described as that.
Barry shrugged and Peter smiled with a fresh blush and another thought to the sale he'd lost them at his boss's next words.
"You're young and you know your stuff. That's why I hired you, kid."
At the nickname Peter flinched, curling his shoulders in on themselves.
"Sorry again, Mr. Barry, and thanks for putting me back here."
The man sighed and Peter stopped himself from remembering another person who sighed the same way only a couple weeks ago.
"Think nothing of it, eh? If you're more comfortable back here, I can deal with those pesky customers, alright?"
His shoulders dropped a smidge when Barry left and Peter got back to work. He allowed himself to get lost in the turn of the screw and the electrical board.
The street lights were long on by the time he arrived back at their apartment. May was already asleep and Peter leaned against the counted in the kitchen watching the ramen spin around the microwave.
He piled blankets over his lap and ate the siracha soaked noodles in bed while trying to finish some last-minute math homework for the next day.
The empty bowl sat on his nightstand beside his turned off phone. Peter worked until he fell asleep, slumped over the Pythagorean theorem.
His woke with a start, chest heaving against his pounding heart. Peter grabbed his t-shirt. Hands raked down his chest trying to wipe the blood dripping off of it away.
He brought his knees to his chest knowing in a distant part of his mind that there was only sweat there. There was no blood now. It was only a memory now.
Shivers racked his spine. Without turning on a light Peter swung his legs off the edge and walked over to his backpack. By feel he found his old notebook and brought it
Without turning on the light Peter swung his legs off the edge and walked over to his backpack. By feel he found his old notebook and brought it back to his bed. He curled under the covers and flipped to a random page.
Peter couldn't see the words but he knew they were there stained across the page. The indents from the pen on paper created strange patterns on the tips of his fingers. Some were deep and others he could barely feel at all.
He knew his were the deeper scratches. His scrawling handwriting stabbed into the paper in an attempt to sow all his thoughts into something coherent. In the urgency to prove himself Peter often found his wrist cramping and the sides of his hand smeared with black ink. He wrote as if this was all he could, as his life poured onto the page along with the ink.
The other handwriting took up the margins and like small vines plunged into the spaced between his own thoughts on the page. The indents there were shallow, casual, in their impression. They began sparse, only filling in spaces here and there with notes of encouragement or corrections, but as Peter flipped farther into the book they began to intermingle with his writings. The two merged, playing off of each other and entangling.
Tear drops fell onto the pages, smearing the words into something illegible.
And sleep stayed a stranger till the morning. Peter woke to find the notebook crushed between his fist.
He shoved it in the crack between the wall and his bed frame as the alarm blared, before stumbling to the shower.
Please answer. We're all worried about you - Julia.
Peter shoved his phone into the locker and straightened the visor he was wearing. He'd have to make sure to email her the rest of his work for their project later.
Suppressing a yawn, he walked to the front of the café mentally going over the different coffee recipes he needed to learn.
Cindy, his manager, stared at him as he began cleaning the counter and he wondered again why she was a manager at a coffee shop if she was not a morning person.
"You're taking orders today. Can you handle that?"
No.
"Sure." he said.
The cash register glared at him. He tapped the counter wishing the shift would go faster and hoping, against prior reason, school would get there faster.
As he typed in the code for a chai latte and toasted bagel, he berated himself for thinking he would excel at a job at a coffee shop.
There were appealing aspects such as the routine which was filled to the brim with recipes and schedules, but there were drawbacks. People, however kind they were at normal hours of the day, weren't at their best in the morning.
His late hours were making work before school a problem he should have seen coming. But all he thought about filling out the applications was that he needed to keep busy, to do something with his time now and not how to talk with customers.
Not to mention, now that his involvement with Stark Industries had ended so prematurely, he had to make up for it with something for his applications.
Cindy wasn't as accommodating as Barry it turned out and this morning Peter was taking a woman in a smart suit's order.
"Right up, Ma'am" he said, not making eye contact.
The woman stepped aside, she was a regular and knew the drill, and two teenagers around his age stepped forward asking what their specials were and how they were made.
He couldn't wait till school.
He couldn't wait till school was over.
Peter sat in stacks of the library, lunch forgotten beside him. His eyes traced over his work and school schedules again. He swallowed. One more glance at all the deadlines in red and closed his planner.
His eyes closed. He exhaled. The air around him was still.
Peter's mind wandered around safe topics: his new jobs, May's attempt at making flan, and the laundry he needed to do.
Someone poked him and Peter flinched back, hitting his head against the books.
"Sorry."
Ned sat next to him munching on pretzels. The boy glanced over from the corner of his eyes and back up the aisle. Peter went to gather his stuff but Ned interrupted him before he could stand up.
"Don't go. I- I'll go if you want to be alone but I won't pester you. Not right now at least." He said the words softer than necessary for the library and Peter settled back tensed against his spot.
As if calculating his movements, Ned settled back against the shelves. He handed the bag over and Peter grabbed a pretzel, nibbling at the ends of it.
Ned smiled at Peter.
They sat in silence until the bell rang. Ned squeezed Peter's shoulder before he hurried off to class and handed him the rest of the pretzels.
Peter held back the tightness nestled in his chest.
The time in the library replayed in his mind on the subway into the city.
He'd almost forgotten how understanding Ned could. How patient his friend was.
But he knew the questions would start soon. From Ned or Julia or someone. The curiosity practically burned in their eyes and he couldn't talk about it. Any of it.
Barry smiled from the front desk when Peter walked in.
"The FT is waiting for you in the back. I got the part she needed."
Peter nodded and after punching his card, wandered into the back.
May was gone when he got home and a note sat at her place on the kitchen table. He didn't heat anything up for dinner and played his filled lunchbox back into the fridge to use tomorrow.
Peter climbed into bed, clothes on and cracked his back. He set an alarm for the coffee shop in the morning and refused to think about May's handwriting and her missing him at dinner.
He closed his eyes and thought about coffee orders and radio parts.
The new routine was good. Peter was busy now and busy was good.
Not two hours passed from when he laid down that Peter jerked up with nightmares clinging to his pores and sweat sticking to his back.
He groped the notebook in the slot besides the bed and laid there thinking about how tomorrow and the next day would be the same.
How he hated his new routine.
A/N: Barry Electronics is a real shop in New York!
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