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With a small smile, the strange new customer placed what appeared to be a piece of paper he was holding in his back pocket and gingerly took hold of the coffee cup. Did he need to write down his order? A plain black coffee?
“Thank you,” he breathed out, eyes flitting over to Ned for a moment before turning back to her. “See you around.”
And just like that, the stranger that was Peter Parker left.
MJ stared out the door long after the boy had exited, lips slightly parted. Something was off, but not in the foreboding sense that Michelle Jones was accustomed to.
How did you know what I was going to say?
Why did you look at me like-
“Michelle, get back to work! I don't pay you to stand around and look pretty!”
With a soft sigh she quickly began reorganizing the variety of cups and lids, a task that would get Steve off of her back yet still allow her some time to think. To say she was an untrusting person would be an understatement. It took years to form bonds with people and even then she was still wary of admitting too much. She was aware of that though and wished to open up more. That’s how she ended up friends with Ned -
“Well, that was pretty odd.”
Think of the devil…
“What are you talking about?” MJ mumbled as she finished her stacking. She picked up a cloth and started on a ringed coffee stain on the counter that would never come out. It’s probably older than she is.
“That dude who just came in, he was weird right?”
“Eavesdropping on my conversations with customers, now? I thought you were on Reddit or something.”
“Technically I was- on Reddit, I mean. But I couldn’t help but be interested when he gave his full name to you. It was like… I don’t know. He had more to say. Do you know him?”
MJ paused her useless wiping for a couple of moments. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he was weird either.” To be honest she didn’t know if she was supposed to know him or find his actions strange. The fact that she felt comfortable with a stranger asking her questions about college? A stranger who was finishing her personal sayings? Why wasn’t she perturbed by that?
Ned raised an eyebrow and shook his head, “Well, you’ve always taken a liking to weirdos. Case in point, me.”
With an eye roll she continued her wiping. “Yeah, okay. Although weirdos, plural, is a bit of an overstatement. You’re like my only friend.”
“Aww, thanks! You’re like my only friend too!”
They gave each other small understanding smiles. MJ couldn’t help but feel like what they were saying didn’t have as much weight to it as their minds and memories were telling them it did. Which is absurd because your brain can’t make up or forget shared experiences like that.
Right?
===
Peter Parker doesn’t return to the Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop for three days.
Not that MJ was keeping track or anything. She’s just good at remembering. Particularly faces.
Faces of boys with bright eyes and a fond smile.
The second time Peter visited the quaint store, it was three minutes after her shift began. The morning rush would be starting in under ten minutes and the local news bulletin was playing its opening tune. His head warmed by a fluffy grey beanie, a single curl poking out and a thick brown winter coat on. Cozy. There was much less energy radiating from him this time around, so much so that MJ visibly deflated. God, what is wrong with me? As quickly as she allowed herself to pout, she put back on her customer service smile and walked towards the register.
“Good morning, what can I get you?”
Peter met her eyes for a second before staring down at his feet. “Hi. I’ll just have a tall hot chocolate? Yeah.”
MJ nodded and gave him a small smile as she walked over to the coffee machine. “No offence but that is definitely more appealing than a cup of black coffee.” She murmured under her breath, “Especially from this place.”
Peter let out a little giggle and moved his weight from foot to foot. MJ looked up quickly. Did he hear… no, I’m standing 15 feet away from him. He must be agreeing that hot chocolate is better than regular coffee. Simple.
While waiting for the machine to create the sweet drink, MJ’s eyes caught a blur of red and blue on the television. Without a thought her hands reached for the remote and she raised the volume up enough that Sasha poked her head out of the back room to see what the commotion was.
Spider-Man.
The local female news anchor was reporting about the vigilante’s busy night out on the city, explaining that he stopped a carjacking, the robbery of a 7-Eleven and the most notable of the three: a potential mass shooting at the mayor’s Christmas holiday dinner.
“He really is something, isn’t he?” MJ found herself smiling to herself against her better judgment. Peter looked up and tilted his head to the side in question. This boy looks and acts like a puppy.
“Spider-Man. You know, our friendly neighbourhood superhero?”
He gave her a shrug and a small wry smile. “He is. Although sometimes… I wonder if it’s a good something or a bad something.”
…Huh.
“Well, I know for a fact that it’s a good something. I’ve… met him a couple times and although sometimes he screws up, he tries his best to help. That’s what matters.”
Peter blinks. “You- you’ve met him?”
“Well, yeah. I don’t mean to brag. He saved my decathlon teammates during the Washington monument incident,” Why am I telling him this? “Then he saved us from the Elementals in Europe a few years later. Most people believe it’s some other hero called the “Night Monkey” but I don’t buy it.” She moved her loose strands of hair behind her ear. “And a few weeks ago we-”
The machine let out a little beep and instinctively MJ stopped talking and turned around to get to work, missing the ashen look on her customer’s face. She stirred cinnamon into the drink, added a dollop of whipped cream and finished by sprinkling sugar over the top of it. She turned around again and placed it on the counter between them.
One, two, three seconds passed.
Peter was staring down at the drink in shock.
Wait-
“Shit. I’m sorry, Peter. That was not what you ordered, let me just-”
She goes to pick up the cup once again but Peter raises his hand slightly to stop her.
“It’s… okay. That’s how I like my hot chocolate, actually.”
MJ looked at him, eyebrows raised. She’s unconvinced. “Yeah right, as if I could’ve known that.”
A silence washed over the pair. MJ frowned, trying to catch his eyes whilst Peter continued to stare at the drink like it had started talking to him. After a few beats he put down a five dollar note and picked up the cup. He looks between it and MJ.
“Right. Must’ve been a lucky guess.”
“Right.”
The bell above the door rang, signalling the entry of a new potential customer and Peter took that as his cue to leave, taking a few tentative steps back. “Keep the change. Have a nice day.”
“Thanks.”
MJ didn’t really have time to reflect because it wasn’t one person who came through the door, it was a couple who were desperately trying to conceal the fact that they were arguing. Oh boy. The rest of her shift was filled with her handling donuts and brewing cups of coffee for dozens of customers with a pained smile on her face. She really wasn’t a people’s person, even though that’s exactly what she told Steve about herself when she applied for the job.
It was late evening when she finally arrived home. After her morning shift she and Ned went over to the library and went over some theory for their upcoming Chemistry assignment. She immediately trudged to her bedroom and fell face first into her pillows.
She shouldn’t have been harping on Peter Parker. But she was.
Whenever she was around him, MJ felt odd. And to be quite frank their actions around each other were this brand of odd too. There was a sense of familiarity to it that tugged at her heartstrings.
There was something weird going on, and Michelle Jones planned on figuring it out.