Chapter Text
MJ is cursed with the gift of observation. It beats talking to people and besides, eavesdropping on customers makes her job at the coffee shop an ounce less boring. Take old Stan – he comes in to sip coffee and work on his memoir in peace, but in reality, he spends the hour going on and on about the good old times to whomever will lend him their ear. Bag Lady never wants mayo on her sandwiches and saves a corner of the crust to share with the fat crows that poop all over the walk. These particular corvids have broken through the wire spikes over the door and roosted. If MJ opens in the mornings, she has to scrape their turds off the sidewalk or else it gets tracked in all over the shop. So gross.
Then there’s Peter Parker.
He is the kind of awkward where he gave his full name the first time he ordered, as if he’d never ordered at a shop counter before. But some people are like that and Peter has been improving. He comes in a couple of times a week. Never exactly at the same time, never overstays his welcome. He’s polite to the point of suspicion, takes his coffee black when he’s obviously a cream person but is too awkward to ask for it, but always, always, gives a blush when she says, “Peter Parker. Coffee.”
He’s cute.
Pretty.
Cute and pretty in a safe, distant way. Objectively, she understands the distance between them is why her hormones have run roughshod over all reason to have this infatuation devolve into a bit of an obsession. Who can blame her? Even his hands are sexy. How has she never noticed how sexy sturdy hands can be? He’s always gentle when he takes his cup from her despite the brush of rough callouses on his fingertips. They’re a man’s hands, even though his face has big, bright, soft brown eyes and equally soft, pink lips. He’s about her own age, white, a bit shorter than her. Slim, but built like a jock.
If they’d gone to school together, he’d probably hate her.
So this little crush, held at a temperate distance, was safe.
***
Early in February he comes in without a hat.
His hair is brown, soft, with curl. He needs a haircut. It’s disheveled and a bit damp from the light snowfall. Flecks of white snow shimmer in it.
There’s something more intense about the way he strides straight in without a hint of the awkward boy and his eyes fix on her.
“Hi,” he says.
MJ misses her lines and delivers them about twenty second too late. “Peter Parker. Right. Coffee.” She turns her back so he can’t see her blush. By the time she turns around with his order, he’s back to normal, shuffling from one foot to the other, adjusting the backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” he says, taking it with one hand.
“Are you back in school?” she asks before she thinks.
His body freezes as his lips struggle to speak. He’s overtaken by the awkwardness. “I--no. Sorry. I don’t. Go to school, I mean.” He then manages to collect himself. One finger extends from around the coffee cup to point at her. She’s then graced with a bright, perfect smile that makes her stomach flip-flop. With confidence, he says, “You got into MIT, right?”
She barely remembers, but yes. The day she and Ned finally got their belated acceptance letters was at the same time he’d stumbled over his first order. “Yes. Next fall. Right now I go to Midtown Tech.”
He nods, stepping backwards. “Later, MIT.”
“Yeah,” she says, trying to conceal any disappointment that was not in her voice.
***
Peter Parker works very odd hours. When she has the late shift on Saturdays, which she hates, and if he comes in, it’s always a minute before close when the donuts have gone stale. This Saturday his eyes are red from exhaustion and when he yawns, it’s clear someone punched that perfect jawline. Which might be a crime.
“Peter Parker,” she says, and with a touch of skepticism given it’s 10:59 PM, adds, “Coffee?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. But I’ve got work tonight.”
“Third shift?”
“Yeah.”
“Graveyard will kill your biorhythm.”
“That it does. But I’m not dead yet.”
She pours his coffee. Black. As she hands it over she says, “No operating heavy machinery.” And then holds out a cheap creamer cup to go.
“Light machinery only,” he agrees, accepting both the cup and the creamer with the hint of a smile. “Promise.”
Their fingers touch, briefly. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’m not responsible if you lose a finger.”
“Definitely not,” he agrees as he goes.
***
The very next time she sees him is during a weekday, early in the evening. He’s not better rested and has his backpack again. He looks like he’s in crisis and her fingers itch to draw him. She knows that’s kinda creepy.
“Peter Parker. Coffee,” MJ greets him.
“Yeah, uh, actually. I know this is around dinner rush and you probably don’t want kids taking up tables, but do you mind if I studied here? Like, at the end of the counter, out of the way?”
“I thought you said you didn’t go to school.”
He ducks his head. His curls have had a trim. “I did three years of high school. I dropped out this fall.”
“So back next year?”
“GED test. Don’t judge me, MIT.”
“I observe without judgment, Peter Parker. High school is shit.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely.”
There is a brief silence which weirdly isn’t awkward. “Coffee, though.”
“Yes.”
A couple lines up behind him, so she quickly pours the coffee and adds a splash of cream to it, followed with the usual handoff. This time he doesn’t leave the shop. He sits at the end of the counter, unobtrusive as possible, and takes out his books. GED study material, as mentioned.
He rolls up his sleeves.
MJ thought she liked his hands. She hadn’t met his forearms.
Hormones are the absolute worst and she ignores the gorgeous picture he makes, taking notes as he pours over his books. Putting his pen in his mouth as he thinks. It may be the hottest thing she’s seen a boy do.
About an hour later, she checks in with him.
“Peter Parker,” she says and his head shoots up a second early, like he noticed her hovering with the coffee pot. “Refill?”
He situates the mug. “Oh yes, thank you.”
She shouldn’t do it. There’s a reason she doesn’t wear a name tag. It will not maintain the safe distance away from the idea of him versus what is likely to be the reality.
She does it anyway.
“I’m MJ.”
He’s all sunshine, bright smiles, warm and beautiful. “Yeah?”
“Yes. And if you need help with studying, I’m offering.”
“Thank you,” he replies with earnestness could rival a happy puppy, “Though I do alright with tests. It’s life stuff that’s happened.”
She nods; she understands even without knowing the specifics. Poverty and unstable housing are major, major factors in truancy in NYC. And it’s clear Peter does not have adult supervision if he is living alone. He might be the only person he has. The silence is awkward now and customers have come up to the till.
“Offer stands,” she says, returning to work.
“You bet,” he replies.
Peter comes in to study for a couple of weeks and it’s . . . nice. He’s still painfully polite and is trying to keep out of the way. MJ hasn’t any idea why he chooses the donut shop to study when there are surely better options. (Secretly she hopes it could be – she can’t even name it, she’s so stupid—but it’s not the burnt coffee, that’s for sure).
When the weather is better, and if she has the evening shift after school, Ned likes to come to hang around until her shift is over. Since he, too, is trying to stay out of the way of the regular customers, Ned now has a prime view of the interactions between her and Peter Parker. MJ’s pretty sure Ned knows all about her horribly embarrassing crush.
At least he has the courtesy to talk politely with Peter about, of all things, Lego movies which Peter is surprisingly receptive to, and waits until Peter leaves before springing on her.
Ned rests his chin on his fists, dopy smile on his face, and heaves a sigh with a mischievous glint in his eye.
“Peter Parker.” His voice is shrill and stupid. “Coffee.”
While her first instinct is to flip him off, two can play this game.
She turns, wrapping her arms around herself, and drops her own register to his dumb level. “Betty, you’re so hot. May I pretty please touch a boo—”
A sugar packet hits the back of her head.
“Dude! Not cool!”
MJ straightened her shoulders. “I do not have a crush on Peter Parker.”
”Really?”
With a deep breath, MJ says, “He’s a beefcake, for sure. Dropped out of high school. Works nights, light on money, not yet admitting to himself he may be desperate. His shoes have fallen apart, and he is likely living on the streets if the housing situation he used to have has fallen through. That's still up in the air. I'll find out. He’s always starving because he’ll dumpster dive out back, so he lives nearby since that’s regular. Dropped out of school and those notes he’s taking are for his GED, but he’s smart. Proper smart, and if the world weren’t total shit and if he didn’t need money, he would be in school. And half the time I see him he’s had some visible injury.”
“Wait, wait. Really?”
“Yes, Loser, you don’t pay enough attention to people. He was sitting right next to you with a bandage under his right sleeve.”
“That’s heavy.”
"I'm pretty sure he’s making money on the side as a male escort. Or wrestling. Or illegal lightweight boxing. Or all three.”
“No way!”
“Yes. And I think he’s fascinating.”
“There’s no way,” Ned repeats, with feeling.
“It’s not 100%. I’d say it’s a 67% possibility.” MJ muses, “I’ll need more observation to confirm.”
“Oh my god. You’re serious.”
MJ frowns. “Sex work is real work, Ned. And if you throw a fight, you’re not really gambling. I do not judge him. I observe.”
“If you’re only 67% sure, how are you going to confirm?”
“I don’t run experiments on paying customers, Ned. He tips me, every time, and that’s more than can be said Thursday-Soccer-Mom-Karen.”
Ned leans over in that painfully obvious way boys do when they think they’re being subtle. “You should ask him out.”
“No, gross. He’s my customer, I’m not his customer.”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s clear you’re friendly, and he at least trusts you to refill his coffee without ever having to ask. So if you asked him out, he would say something if he were an escort, right?”
“There are so many problems with this suggestion I cannot even name them all while I’m at work, Ned. Boys are so disgusting.”
She goes back to work, but now the idea is in her head.