It has become Michelle Jones's reflexive response: "Peter Parker? Here's your coffee."
Startled, the guy turns around to look at her. "Right, thanks," he says, his eyes never leaving hers. Despite the wonderment apparent from his face, there is a look of weariness and sadness drooping from his eyes, a sort of nostalgia that Michelle finds odd. He lingers around for an awkward ten seconds and then hurries out the double doors with his coffee.
This happens on a near-daily basis.
"I hate it when people keep staring at me," she often quietly complains in different iterations of the statement.
"Yeah same," Ned replies, who is very much oblivious to the cause of her declaration. "I especially detest it, like, when I am doing something that matters and someone keeps checking on me," he adds while looming over his phone. "It's just downright uncomfortable and freaks me out."
Such exchanges often take place at the donut and pastry shop where Michelle works after school. The root of her discomfort arrives in the form of a frequent visitor who shows up just for a plain old cup of coffee. She has met quite a lot of people since she started working here, but none that have introduced themselves in the dramatic way Peter Parker did.
"Hi. My name is Peter Parker, and I would like a coffee, please." He had this rehearsed, rather expressive sing-song manner of speaking.
That was the first time. He never showed up for the rest of December, but somewhere from the mid of February his appearances grew in number, arriving at least three times a week. His visits include wondering into the store, a polite greeting and a request for coffee while gazing around like he's daydreaming, accepting his coffee, paying her two dollars and leaving like he's walking into a force field. All that just in a matter of five minutes.
Even Ned has begun to notice lately. Ned, who's so unaware of the world around him that he probably won't even know if someone kidnaps him, has started to take notice.
"I think he likes you," he suggests one day when he comes to hang around with her at the back of the shop.
"Duh," she replies, rolling her eyes, "he stares at you too. First at me, then at you."
"Ew," Ned makes a disgusted face. "Creepy."
If she has to be honest, to say that Peter Parker is one of those creeps gawking at her would be a misstatement; the only crime he has ever committed is his awkwardness, with his eyes harmlessly glued to her the whole time he is around. Strangely, he has never seemed to pose a threat, rather, only a perplexity.
For one she can never clearly guess what he's thinking behind those big brown eyes and raised comical eyebrows. And what seems to catch her attention the most is that for the short time he presents himself before her, he acts like he has known her forever, which in itself is outlandish because she has never been close to anyone for as long as she can recall. "Friends" is a relatively new experience and the thought of being out there for someone through and through is a concept totally alien.
Despite Ned's constant remarks about her increasing and improving social skills, a reminder she often finds ridiculous, she still has a hard time playing nice to total strangers.
"Are you okay?" sometimes Ned asks when they are lazing at the school rooftop during off periods, their perfect escapism to peace from the rest of the world.
Michelle nods after a pause. "Yeah. Why?"
"You just look down," Ned answers.
"My parents," MJ finally confesses one day. "They're fighting almost all the time and whenever it's quiet everything just feels very tense. Like a war is about to break out." She stops herself from saying further, because this is the most she has said to anyone about her family. Suddenly she wishes she had kept her mouth shut.
She steals a quick glance at Ned, wondering what made her open up to him, considering the fact that they hadn't even been friends till a year ago. To her surprise she cannot recall how they became friends in the first place.
"I don't know what's wrong with the Decathlon team," she says to change the subject.
Something shines in his eyes, as if a wave of realization has hit him. "Doesn't it feel like, I don't know, like we used to do better before? Like before the Blip? It's the same people but somehow it just feels like the IQ of the group has gone down as a whole."
She nods. With everything else going on in her not-so-interesting life, the school quiz team always manages to give her a bad dream even while she's awake. "And I wish they didn't keep running away from practice. We're gonna get disqualified if this keeps happening."
What Michelle fears happens a few days later on a Friday in the first week of March. The school team gets detained from a major event supposed to take place on the coming Sunday because of poor attendance in rehearsals and poorer performance from the few that are present. Five of her classmates who are a part of the team fail to show up for a practice supposed to be supervised in front of the Principal. Rest of the day doesn't really go well either because being the leader of the team Michelle has to stay back after school and listen to Principal Morita talk to her at lengths about responsibility even though a devastated Mr. Harrington tries his best to take her side and avoid further counseling.
With a growing headache and to prevent it from getting worse, Michelle skips going to her hellhole of a home for lunch and dashes all the way to the shop. Ned arrives an hour later.
"You alright?" he asks.
She subtly shakes her head. "I was late to work and I'm hungry."
"Your boss isn't happy."
"Nope. And I want to murder Flash Thompson right now."
He takes a deep breath. "Yeah. He is a jerk."
And right then, bells tinkle as the doors open and Peter Parker walks in looking very dazed. Michelle sighs. Not today. Not right now.
He asks for his usual cup of coffee.
She nods. "Sure." She doesn't wait to look at him looking at her. She has no patience for that today. She turns around swiftly, takes a new paper cup and fills it with plain coffee from the machine. Turning around she finds him looking dolefully at Ned, stiff as a statue. This is a regular. "Peter Parker?" She is tempted to snap her fingers before his face. Her hands itch. The coffee is starting to burn her palm. "Excuse me," she says a bit more loudly, withholding her temptation to scream. She rests the cup on top of the counter, fearful she might drop it. Fearful, she might let it slip on purpose. "This is yours I believe."
"Oh, yeah, yeah," he gasps. "Sorry."
She tries to avoid meeting his eyes and instead chooses to focus hers on the floor. Heat rising in her cheeks she starts tapping at the counter top with her finger.
"Michelle, are you oka-?" Peter Parker asks softly but stops.
She is about to lie. She is about to answer in the affirmative.
"None of your business," she says instead. Tersely. Her voice has attained a higher decibel and the rest of the people inside start looking.
But something else is off. Something in what he just said. She never told him her name. And for that matter nobody here even calls her "Michelle". Her employer addresses her as "Jones" and long ago she asked all her classmates to call her "MJ".
It's not something very significant. Maybe somebody did call her that earlier and he overheard, which right now is all the more annoying because he had likely eavesdropped on her and Ned's conversation once about MIT along with all his melodramatic staring and even tried to be a part of it.
Right now all she wants is a reason to lash out. It's not correct but she is mad, and she wants to remain mad till she tires off.
"How the hell do you know my name?" she asks in an accusing tone. She is aware of all the spectators but she has just lost the cause to care.
His face has grown pale. "Uh, I heard someone call you the other day-"
"Bullshit."
Something new dawns on her. Or maybe it is only her trying to justify what she is about to ask: It hasn't been very long, but since the mishap at the Statue of Liberty she has always felt a presence lurking behind her. Checking her out. At times on the streets she thinks she feels something moving in the alleys. Sometimes she feels she detects movement in the back of her eye. Sometimes there is a faint gush of air when there is actually no wind.
Michelle does not believe in ghosts.
"You keep following me don't you," she says, rather than ask, with finality.
Peter Parker looks around himself nervously and smiles. His breathing is rapid. "Uh, no?"
"Oh really?" His usually enlarged eyes have grown wider. His cheeks are flushed while the rest of his face has gone paler. And it is in this very moment that she notices the bruises under his left eye. It's an old bruise, healing, but nonetheless still lingering. The side of his forehead is scrapped like somebody had thrown him face-down onto rough gravel and his lips look like he had them split open at some point of time. She can't help but notice his jacket. It's fading and worn out. The guy tries to dress descent but it's always the same stupid attire screaming fake innocence.
It's crazy she found him nice all along.
"You know, you can just leave. Take back that money. You don't have to pay. It's okay. Just take your cup and go." Her heart is literally machine-gunning inside her. Her head feels like it's on fire. And the more she sees the devastated face of Peter Parker, the angrier she gets. Here is this guy she has just publicly embarrassed, who already looks like he is in the brink of a breakdown. She can't believe he's such a great actor. For a moment she isn't even sure who she is more angry at. Him. Or herself.
"No, no, please," he begs.
Michelle doesn't move. She doesn't blink. She doesn't even breathe. Simply stares at the floor. As slowly and carefully as possible he tries to hand her the two dollar bill but she doesn't accept it. "I'm sorry," she says.
Peter Parker doesn't move either. For a while. Then he puts the money on the counter top where he returns his un-sipped cup of coffee.
And then he's gone. Within a second he swings open the door just enough to let him pass through and Michelle sees him walk past the glass walls of the shop from the corner of her eye.
Time seems to freeze as a very uncomfortable silence follows. Before anyone can say anything she leaves the front of the shop, thankful that Sasha is here to take her place and rushes over to the back where Ned is seated, and while he watches, picks up her backpack and slips it on. She doesn't look at him but in the brief fraction of a second their eyes meet she realizes she has overdone herself.
"That was a bit harsh," he whispers, more to himself than to her. But of course, he's her friend. "Are you okay?"
"I'm gonna quit this place," she declares. She doesn't wait for him. Instead, she races down the length of the store and out into the cooler air where nobody's watching. She doesn't take her usual route because that's the way Peter Parker went.
She just wants to be left alone, is all.
Michelle gladly shuts herself in her room over the next two days. She doesn't go to work at the shop on the pretext of having developed a fever. She mostly takes to her bed and rolls around, wrapping her pillow around her head whenever she remembers the disconcerted voice of Peter Parker. She made a real fool out of herself and now she may even lose her job but she doesn't care.
All she can think of are the words she said and the way she behaved towards a total stranger and insulted him before other people. She cringes. This is not her. The look in those brown eyes haunt her and she sees them everywhere, even with her eyes open.
She switches off her phone and tucks it away into a corner. She doesn't want to talk to anybody. But Monday comes and she's back in her apron at work after school. While she expects a full thrashing from her employer, and even expects to get fired, all she gets is an apology from him for lashing out on her for being late last Friday.
"Sometimes I forget you still go to school," he adds. "Your friend talked to me. And Jones." She looks up to face him, heart hammering. "Next time someone misbehaves with you here, you talk to me. I'll take care of it."
She is unable to respond with anything other than a nod, not sure whether to be grateful or feel guilty for framing a person with a cause that might not be true.
This just simply isn't her.
"You talked to him?" she asks a jittery Ned next day at school.
"Yeah," he replies shakily. "I didn't want you, like, to get your ass fired. Besides, I love those free donuts. I don't think anywhere else would be so generous."
MJ forces a smile.
"So did that Peter Parker come visit yesterday?" Ned asks carefully. He hadn't been there to hang around with her yesterday since he's having guests at home.
"No." It's fine by her, she thinks. She can do with him not showing up. Although she isn't sure about the cause of the light-headedness she experiences right now.
"What do you think he wanted?"
MJ shrugs. "I don't know." Yeah, she really doesn't care. She just wants to get out of school.
They are back on the rooftop, Michelle sitting with her back resting against the railing and Ned lying face up on the floor, his hands clasped underneath his head. Far in the horizon she can make out a flock of birds taking off from a terrace into the afternoon. To her right a plane takes to the sky, tiny and quiet, leading its way to the clouds from within the mess of tall buildings striping the skyline.
"I think he just wanted to be friends."
A cold wave passes through. She snaps her head sideways to look at him. "Why do you think so?"
He sighs and sits up. "I've been thinking. It's just that, the way he looks at you, maybe me, it feels like maybe he just needs to talk to someone. Maybe all he wants is to make friends but is too scared of sorts that we'll reject him. I mean, he sure doesn't feel like he has anyone to talk to. Guy always comes in wearing the same clothes, all alone. He looks like he's starving, yet out of all the dozen different donuts you sell he only buys coffee. Just think. Like, whenever I used to see him, he's always smiling at everything. He smiles at the door, he smiles at the tables, he even looks at his coffee like he can't believe he's holding it! It's like he's in Disneyland! Seeing roller coasters everywhere but not having the cash to ride on one. Just look at that face! Does it even look like he can hurt a fly? Maybe. But I don't think he ever will. I don't know. It's only my view. I mean, I've had that look on my face before. Awestruck at everything! Nervous and unsure. That's how it is, to be a loner. You know? Takes one to know one."
Michelle works at the shop from Monday through Saturday, sometimes even on Sundays if she can. Over the days she has developed a habit of keeping an eye out and she jumps and looks every time the door opens and somebody bursts in.
But Peter Parker doesn't show up.
Two endless weeks pass, three weeks and then an entire month rolls by with no sign of the guy in the neat jacket and dark jeans. Without admitting to herself she has even secretly developed an apology of sorts.
She never gets the chance to use it, though. Two more months pass and school is nearing its end. People have started talking about college all over again in an ever-increasing fever.
There is no sign of Peter Parker.
Maybe that was the end of their strange encounter, Ned even reluctantly suggests one day. Michelle, though, is restless and keeps checking the clock and counting the time till school is over so that she can run over to the donut and pastry shop. She has become so regular that her employer even suggests a permanent position if she should like. Michelle never answers.
She opens as many social media accounts as she can just to find the guy, but he isn't there in any of them.
"You really wanna find this guy huh?" Ned asks one day. She nods. "Well then, would you like to call nine-one-one?"
"What? No!" But the idea has crossed her mind before. "He has to be here somewhere. In this city. Comes on foot to get his coffee remember? Maybe he lives nearby."
Ned shrugs. "He could use the train?"
"He'll pay for the train just to come over and get coffee? I doubt it. And if he does, maybe he has some other work too."
One day Ned suggests something else. A little bizarre, but it makes sense.
"So you wanna ask Spider-Man." MJ says, more to herself than to him.
"Yeah? I mean it's strange, but he's met us right? On multiple occasions?"
"But no one's seen him in a while."
"What do you mean?"
"Haven't you heard the news? There hasn't been any sign of him in quite a while."
A week later they try to do it the hard way.
"He's our age right?" Ned asks on their way back home after MJ's shift has ended. "Give or take a year or two?"
"Likely. Yeah."
"Peter Parker." Ned rubs his palms together. "So he's either in school or in college. Let's at least hope that he's literate. And educated. And that he isn't home-tutored. I'll try searching for him."
"How will you even do that?" asks an uncertain MJ.
"In every way possible. Ask. Request. If possible hack into school databases though I have zero idea how to do that."
Michelle agrees, albeit doubtfully.
It takes them two weeks. Two weeks of traveling around at their free time and on weekends, making calls and Ned typing away at his computer and sticking his eyes into the screen literally everywhere he goes: school, library, MJ's workplace.
"Any luck?" an anxious MJ asks.
He shakes his head defeatedly. "No. I searched every school. Every college in a two hundred mile radius. Everything else I could. No. No match. No records." He looks at her with something in his eyes that scares her. "It's like he never even existed."
A/N: To be continued in the next chapter. While working on another story based on No Way Home, I had this sudden idea and wrote it down. Hope you enjoyed it!