Chapter Text
"Oh, I'm sorry. We didn't actually order these."
Peter's eyes followed the server's nod to one of the booths in the back corner as she finished placing a shot glass on the table in front of him. It wasn't exactly a crowded night at Ditko's Tavern, as most of the usual crowd were stuck at home, poring over their notes and textbooks as finals week at ESU was wrapping up, but there were still too many patrons for him to make out exactly who she was motioning towards.
He and Ned had gotten lucky this semester in the most unlucky way possible, with all of their actual exams taking place early in the week. Studying and stressing only lasted from late Thursday night until mid-afternoon on Tuesday, but that meant all of the anxiety was jam-packed into their weekend.
There was enough tribulation for any normal college student. It was a special kind of hell to go through with spider-sense.
"The young lady with her face buried in Ulysses said ‘Happy collective, belated birthdays, losers.'"
The waitress smiled at the two of them and headed back to the bar after setting a third shot down in front of the empty spot next to Ned, who turned and searched in the same direction, now knowing exactly who they were looking for.
"What are you idiots staring at now?"
The fact that he didn't scream at the surprising sound of her voice was both a shock and something that he was incredibly grateful for.
Ned wasn't so lucky.
"Jesus, Leeds, I'd figured it would take a little more than that to make you jump," Michelle chuckled as she slid into the booth next to Ned, setting a nearly finished glass of clear liquid next to the small glass of…actually, Peter wasn't sure what was in the shot glasses sitting in front of them. He was still pretty new to the whole ‘drinking' thing.
"I just, y'know, wasn't really paying attention and didn't realize you were here. I didn't even know you were back in town," Ned was breathing heavily, his hand resting over his rapidly beating heart as he tried to calm his nerves.
"Finals were last week for me, so I got in kind of early on Monday," she picked up her glass and tapped it against the beer in Ned's hand. "Then I saw your status about needing to wind down after a long semester and figured I could join in and we'd all get shitfaced together."
She tipped her head back and finished off her drink, setting the glass down before turning and finally making eye contact with Peter. He could feel his eyes were still wide as hell, still completely shocked to see her.
This was going to be so fucking awkward.
"I can see you're still the good old, quiet dork I remember from high school, Parker," the sarcasm seemed to drip from her words like venom.
"Uhh..."
"Use your words, dork," she slid the small mystery glass in front of him and raised her own. "Maybe try starting out with ‘Hey, MJ, it's so nice to see you. Thank you for the shot. Sorry I didn't get you anything for your birthday.'"
He followed along and picked up his ‘birthday' shot, still unable to make his eyes stop being so wide, but she seemed to ignore that fact as she and Ned met him in the middle and *clinked* them together, tapping them to the table, and downing them, each giving their own reaction to the alcohol.
Ned shuddered in near-disgust.
MJ smacked her lips and stuck out her tongue like it was burning.
Peter was so distracted by how awkward he felt that he completely bypassed the taste and launched into what most people would consider diarrhea of the mouth. Either of them would have noted that he hadn't actually blinked in the past two minutes if they were able to pay better attention.
"Hi, Michelle, it's nice to see you! Thanks for the shot! Sorry I didn't get you anything!"
He couldn't stop himself from speaking as fast as he did and he seemed to be having trouble controlling the volume and inflection (or lack-there-of) of his voice.
The tables had turned now as they stared awkwardly at him, until a late reaction finally kicked in, his eyes closing shut in a wince and his tongue sticking out as a quick "yuck" escaped from his now-frowning lips. Michelle was the first to burst out laughing, followed shortly by Ned.
"What the actual fuck was that?" He quickly chased the shot down with a long drink of beer, chugging the remaining half of the bottle in his hands.
"Does Aunt May know you're using that kind of language, Parker?" She stifled her giggling as she answered his question with her own query. "I can't imagine how she must feel now that college has corrupted her innocent little angel of a nephew."
Ned quickly finished off his own beer and flagged down a server.
"She's actually pretty cool with it all. As long as we're not TOO open about what we get up to, she's happy to hear about us allowing ourselves to try new things and be a little bit irresponsible," he held up his thumb and index finger with a little bit of space between them to emphasize how irresponsible they get. "She even bought us each a box of co—"
"Maybe that's enough information, Ned," Peter briskly interjected as the waitress approached the table. "Hi, can we get two more of whatever cheap beer you have and whatever the lady is having, please and thank you."
"Gin and tonic with lemon and lime, please."
"Go ahead and put it on my tab, Abby," Peter followed up Michelle's order with a quick smile to the server.
He turned back to face the two, the goofy upward curve of his mouth disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared when he made eye contact with her again. Dammit. He was having so much fun before she decided to walk back into his life.
"So, where are your girlfriends at? I would figure Betty and Gwen would want to accompany a pair of lady killers such as yourselves anywhere you go."
"Um…" Peter could only half-heartedly utter the filler syllable before he choked on it. A torrent of memories and feelings started flooding into his brain; memories and feelings that had just nearly been purged from the space they were now starting to occupy once again. It was a point of pride that he was desperately hanging on to that he wasn't yet slipping from his seat and curling into an anxious ball on the floor.
"Betty may try to come in, but she's currently in the middle of her philosophy final. Gwen…well, we probably won't be seeing her for a pretty long time," Ned sort of chuckled awkwardly, reaching over to pat Peter on the shoulder.
Michelle formed a worrisome wrinkle in her brow, like she may have actually been concerned. It definitely didn't help the situation.
He felt the muscles in his legs start turning to jelly and he slowly began to sink beneath the table, his face tinting to crimson, flush with embarrassment and regret. God help him, he really didn't need this right now.
"Wait, what happened with Gwen?" Michelle tried to whisper to Ned, even throwing a hand up to block Peter from reading her lips. It didn't help, of course. Enhanced hearing and all made it very difficult, even in a noisier environment like Ditko's, for anyone to not be heard by Peter. "I thought they were Midtown's ‘Ultimate, Destined-To-Last-Forever Sweethearts?"
That was the first photo he'd ripped up, along with any other picture of them in his senior yearbook.
"Well, they were…and then Harry Osborn showed up and snatched her away and…"
"And we don't like to fucking talk about it," Peter piped up, now sitting on the floor, the top of his hair barely visible from over the table. "Ned, when the next round arrives, I'd like to go ahead and put in for another; something stronger this time around."
Six months had passed since Gwen had walked out (or been pushed out) of their lives forever. He had finally gotten over it but here he was again. The old Parker luck strikes as if on queue. At least this time it was only girl trouble and not another…well, you know.
"I need to go to the men's room," he spoke up again as he crawled out from underneath the table, dusting himself off before shoving his hands in his pockets.
"What, like bourbon or something?"
"Vodka cranberry," he replied as he shuffled towards the restrooms, trying to appear less sulky. "I just want to forget about my feelings. I don't want to make myself throw up."
"Fuck, Leeds. Maybe inviting me out wasn't such a great idea."
Peter had left for the little boy's room maybe ten minutes ago. His beer was starting to get warm and the ice in his vodka cranberry had started melting and diluting what little alcohol was in it, to begin with. She couldn't help but feel at least fully responsible for his little freak-out in the fifteen minutes she'd been back in his life.
"He'll be fine, MJ. I probably should've filled you in on the whole Stacy situation," Ned rubbed the back of his neck, "I just was hoping it wouldn't come up."
She took a quick sip from her drink and fully turned towards Ned.
"Can you fill me in now? Keeping up with you is easy enough with regular texts and actually having a Facebook profile but, other than your secondhand information, Parker has been completely off of my radar."
Did she sound as pathetic as that last sentence she blurted out made her feel?
She wasn't wrong, she felt. It used to be so easy to keep track of Parker up until she left for school three years ago. Not that she was obsessed or anything. She was just…observant. They'd gotten so close after the Blip and the European vacation, and then Gwen Stacy showed up and she was pushed away, back to her little spot at the other end of the table.
"Things were going great between them until Harry transferred over from NYU and started hanging out around us, taking almost all of Gwen's classes with her. He used it as an excuse to go to her for tutoring and being study buddies. That and Peter's own…busy schedule," Ned winced as he stumbled over his own words, "sort of took up all of the time they had to hang out and be together."
He took a quick drink from his beer.
"And Harry took advantage of that, too. The two of them got closer, started spending less of their time together studying and more of their time, um," he drummed his fingers on the table, struggling to come up with the right words to say, "It was kind of a private anatomy class."
"Wait, Gwen was…she was canoodling with Osborn behind Peter's back?"
Ned took another fast sip, "Canoodling seems almost too innocent of a word for what they were doing."
It was MJ's turn to let her mouth drop and hang wide open in shock, her eyes almost bulging out of their sockets as she listened to Ned.
"Gwen ‘Practically-Fucking-Perfect-In-Every-God-Damn-Way" Stacy was fooling around with Harry ‘Daddy's Money' Osborn?!"
"I'll be honest, it's kind of weird that you're the one being a little bit louder than you probably should be and I'm the one talking at a normal volume," Ned chuckled in a way that people chuckle when something isn't actually funny. "But, uh, yeah. Peter came home early from class one night with flowers and take-out and found them in the middle of a shower together."
MJ's hand went over her mouth, struggling to find the right way to respond to what she was hearing that wasn't just more unhinging her jaw and letting it fall to the floor. To tell the truth, that hurt like hell.
"Wait, wait, wait: Flowers and take-out? Tell me it wasn't…"
"Our anniversary."
It was Michelle's turn to freak out at the surprise voice popping up behind her. She turned around, her heart rate increasing at the sight of Peter in front of her. His eyes were bloodshot, tear stains streaking down his cheeks. He was trying so hard to appear normal that it only made it worse for him.
"So, are we all caught up?"
"Sorry, dude," Ned spoke up, his voice nearly hoarse as he slid the watered-down vodka cranberry over to his best friend in the world, "I thought she might as well know."
Peter slid back into his seat and picked up the glass, throwing it back quickly and finishing it off without taking a breath. It would be impressive if he weren't drinking for the wrong reason right now.
"It's fine. She was gonna learn about it eventually. Michelle Jones knows everything there is to know about Peter Parker," a stifled laugh escaped him as he picked up his just barely colder than room temperature beer. "She is particularly observant of whatever happens to be going on in my life."
She clinked her glass to his bottle and shot a worried smile in his direction.
"L'chaim."
He shotgunned his beer as though he were the mighty son of Odin himself, wiping his mouth on his already dampened jacket sleeve.
"I'm gonna go get another round and maybe a pitcher."
"Maybe you should slow down a little bit, Parker, huh? Nothing good ever came of overdoing it because of some stupid girl," Michelle said, putting a hand on his arm as he moved to get up.
He looked down at her hand and then back up to her face, his eyes still a pretty deep red.
"I thought you said you wanted to get shitfaced with us?"
Her brow furrowed again.
"Besides, it takes a lot more than the little bit I've had to get me close to where I'd like to be. You can ask Ned about my legendary tolerance levels."
"It's true. The first time we went out together, I was completely wasted before ten. Peter was still barely tipsy by the time we got home at three in the morning," Ned stated almost matter-of-factly. "He woke up later on and went on a five-mile run."
Michelle sighed, her hand still on Peter's arm. "Well, at least let me get this next round. You've paid for the last two."
Peter sat back down, pulling out his phone and fumbling around as she went to stand up.
"You both still alright with what you got or would you like to try splurging on yourselves?" She knew they were drinking on the average budget of the typical American college student, hence the cheap beer they'd relegated themselves to, but she had plenty of cash to throw around at the moment.
"If you're offering, I wouldn't mind trying a martini. Bond style," Ned responded first, a little more enthusiastically than someone who wasn't an absolute dork would have.
"I'll just do another vodka cranberry."
She'd find his moping more pathetic if it weren't so genuinely heartbreaking to see, knowing how he'd felt for Gwen since she first popped up at Midtown. She never figured it would end as it apparently had.
Of course, she never would have figured she'd find herself being this pissed off at Gwen, either.