Chapter Text
***
Despite the widely spread opinion, Michelle can get nervous.
She gets nervous every time she has to get her blood drawn.
She gets nervous every time she goes to pet a dog because she remembers that time she was six and her neighbor’s dog bit her.
She gets nervous when she has to give a presentation or go to speak to professors at college.
Still, she doesn’t let it show.
She makes her expression neutral and tries to even out her breathing.
The only way anyone could tell she’s nervous is by the way she plays with her fingers on her right hand, touching her thumb to all her fingers.
Her mother knows how to read her and so does her dad and her grandmother.
They all have different tactics at trying to calm her.
Her mother takes her other hand in hers and smiles reassuringly at her.
Her father squeezes her shoulder and drops a kiss on the top of her head. (That became significantly harder as she kept growing ‘till she became almost as tall as him)
Her grandmother places a hand at her cheek and says: “Nothing lasts forever, pumpkin, only God.”
And so whenever she feels nervous or anxious, she imagines her mother’s hand in hers, her father’s kiss on her hand and reminds herself of her grandmother’s words.
And that’s what she does when she arrives at Peter’s apartment at 6:07 and raises her hand to knock.
She can hear him run to the door.
He stops.
Runs back.
Something crashes.
Michelle rolls her eyes, feeling her nerves ease up.
He runs back towards the door, slowing into a hurried walk before he opens it, smiling at her sheepishly.
“So,” she asks, trying to conceal her grin “what’d you break?”
He groans and she snorts as he runs a hand over his face.
“I went to open a window and knocked over a lamp in the process.” He steps aside and he walks in.
It’s not a huge apartment. There’s a small kitchen connected to the living room and a small hallway with three doors. It’s cozy and nice. And Michelle likes cozy and nice.
She can see he’s already set up the DVD and she appreciates it.
***
It’s awkward, at first.
Michelle sits on the left side of the couch, she pulls a throw pillow in her lap(she didn’t know men even owned throw pillows) and leans back into the cushions.
“Would you like anything to drink?” he asks, biting his lip and shuffling on his feet.
“That’s my line, usually.” Michelle smiles and so does he.
“I have cappuccino, orange juice, Coca Cola and water.”
“What, no coffee?” she teases him, but doesn’t understand the blush that appears on his cheeks when he says: “No, no coffee.”
“Orange juice would be great, thank you.”
And even the conversation seems stiff, too formal, too uncomfortable and Michelle regrets coming. She can’t wait for him to sit down and play the damn movie, the sooner he does that, the sooner she gets to go home; back to her bed and her books and out of this awkward mess she’s gotten herself into.
***
They don’t turn the lights off.
It would be better, watching the movie in the dark, but neither wants to deal with unwanted implications. And so he plays the movie and Michelle sits through trailers that come with the disc while he goes get her a drink.
He hands her a plastic cup(who the heck gives plastic cups to guests, she’s not freaking three years old), but the she sees it, the scribbled marker, covered under her finger.
She squints and looks at Peter as he sits down on the floor on the other side of the couch. He’s trying to act casual, but is as suspicious as a man dressed in all black with a mask over his face, walking into a bank.
And so she squints at him even more before lifting her finger to see what he’s written.
Hermione
She knows immediately it’s because of her hair that looks more like a birds nest than actual hair. Humidity really isn’t good for her usually perfectly messy curls.
She just sniffles and lifts her head a little, trying to act offended.
“Hermione Granger is the brightest witch of their time. I’m taking this as a compliment.” She says and takes a sip of her juice.
And Peter, Peter just turns, looks at her with wide “innocent” eyes and says: “Why that’s what I meant! You did say Clever is your middle name.”
And then he winks at her and even though Michelle’s stomach does that swooping thing you feel when riding a roller coaster, she glares at him.
“Just play the damn movie already.”
He just laughs and she rolls her eyes, trying to hide her smile.
And just like that all the tension and all the awkwardness has seeped out of the room.
***
It’s a fun movie, not something she’d watch once a year (like Lord of the rings, don’t judge her), but a fun movie nevertheless.
Somewhere around the time Elle impresses professor Callahan, Peter pauses and scrambles to his feet to go to the bathroom.
Now, Michelle isn’t one for snooping, but Peter’s in the bathroom and she’s curious, so she decides to “stretch her legs” and if she accidentally stumbles near the shelve and picks up a picture of Peter, hugging who she guesses is his good friend, it’s not really snooping.
In the picture, both boys have grins stretching from ear to ear. They are covered in flour, head to toe and there’s something yellow, that looks suspiciously like an egg, dripping down the side of Peter’s face. From the looks of it, both boys are around 8 years old.
Peter emerges from the bathroom and she lifts the picture a little.
“So, how exactly does a food fight start? That’s always been mystery to me. I’ve never randomly decided to start throwing my food at people.”
“Because there’s too many hungry people in the world?”
“Well, that too, but mostly because it’s food. You don’t throw food, you eat it.”
“In this case, Ned, he’s my best friend, and I were helping my Aunt May bake cookies and at one point she thought it would be a good idea for her to go to the bathroom and, of course, we decided food fight was long overdue. That was something that really sealed our friendship.”
“I mean, of course, you’re not really friends until you’ve had to clean eggs your friend threw at you from your ears for the next three days.”
He smiles at her and goes to pick up his phone. “I was thinking we could order something.”
“Pizza?”
“It’s like you’re reading my mind.”
“Well, I am the brightest muggle of our time.” She dead pans at him and he smiles widely.
Michelle thinks his cheeks must hurt.
***
Michelle chooses bacon and cheese as toppings and Peter gets seafood.
She wrinkles her nose when she hears him place an order.
“That’s disgusting.” She says when he hangs up and he grins at her.
(She really doesn’t know what’s with all the grinning.)
***
There’s only half an hour of the movie left when the doorbell rings and they decide they would press pause while they eat.
It wouldn’t be fair to Elle Woods if they didn’t give her all their attention.
***
She ends up eating half of his pizza.
Michelle glares at him after taking another slice and he grins at her, chewing with his mouth half open and his eyebrows raised.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything. Not a thing.”
(Seriously, what’s with all the grinning?)
She ends up throwing a throw pillow at him.
(Also, that pillow should be thankful to her for that, it’s finally lived up to its name.)
***
“So, how did you manage to snatch this apartment?” she asks after the movie’s done and the credits are rolling.
“It’s Ned’s grandmother’s friends’. She loves him so she lowered the rent.”
“Cool.”
“It has its perks over living in dorms.”
“No communal bathroom.”
“No RA.”
“No loud parties when you’re trying to sleep.”
“It definitely has its perks.”
***
She doesn’t stay for much longer.
They talk for a bit, mostly small talk and then she’s off.
She offers him a hand before she leaves and he takes it in a firm handshake and she likes it.
Her mother has always told her to shake hands like a boss.
She takes four steps and then she turns to look back at him, almost shyly, over her shoulder.
He’s watching her and he smiles.
She waves her hand at him with a quiet ‘bye’ and then she’s off.
***
Michelle lies in bed that night and smiles to herself as she remembers him stealing glances at her while they were watching the movie.
And she doesn’t have a crush on him.
And it definitely wasn’t a date.
But then she remembers the quiet need to take one last look at him before leaving and thinks that maybe, just maybe, she might be lying to herself.
***
Peter Parker is a mess.
He takes a shower at 4 PM and then goes to make himself some cappuccino.
He manages to spill it all over the front of his shirt.
He’s nervous. He seemed all cool, asking Michelle to come over and he’s still not quite sure how.
His palms are sweaty, he’s biting on his lip like crazy and so when the doorbell rings he somehow thinks running towards the door is a good idea, but then he remembers the discarded shirt on the floor and runs back to put it away.
In the process, of course, of course, he knocks down a lamp.
Thankfully it doesn’t break.
He then runs back to the door and opens it to a grinning Michelle.
***
It’s awkward.
It is so, so awkward, but then he asks her if she wants something to drink and she teases him and he blushes, but he doesn’t mind.
It gives him a bit of courage.
Not a lot.
Like a spoon of courage.
Maybe a teaspoon.
Still, it’s enough for him to write Hermione on her cup and it earns him a glare and a roll of her eyes and maybe, after he presses play on the movie, even a smile.
He doesn’t know why he winks at her, but she blushes, just a little and he’s pretty sure it’s because of that teaspoon.
***
He gives her a real, glass cup later, but she makes a show of pouring the drink in the plastic one and he grins at her widely.
She just drinks her juice and ignores him.
***
She’s holding the picture of him and Ned when he comes back from the bathroom.
He tells her about the food fight.
At one point she smiles at him widely and his heart flutters.
Well, maybe it doesn’t flutter exactly, but it most definitely skips a beat.
***
When he orders pizza she wrinkles her nose at him and it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.
He has to remind himself that it’s not a date.
They’re just friends and he is not going to fall in love with her.
There’s a voice in his head that snorts at him when he tells himself that.
It sounds awfully like Ned.
***
She eats half of his pizza.
He doesn’t say anything, just grins at her smugly and raises his hands in defense when she throws a pillow at him.
***
They talk about his and Ned’s apartment.
Her eyes land on their collection of Harry Potter DVD’S and she tells him she’s never seen the movies.
He almost chokes on his own spit, but then, when he tells her that she has to watch them with him, she just says ‘Fine’ and it makes him happy because if all he gets out of this relationship is even eight more nights where she glares at him and talks to him and maybe even smiles at him, just a little, well, then he’ll be a happy man.
And he won’t fall in love with her.
Because they’re friends.
And Peter Parker can be just friends with a girl without wanting something more.
***
Next Saturday Peter comes in at nine, as per usual, and the doorbell chimes and Michelle looks at him and they both blush.
He gets coffee, again and they pointedly don’t talk about their not-date.
He sits in his booth and as he drinks his coffee and steals glances at her over the brim of his book, even the usually bitter drink tastes kind of sweet.