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Johnny Storm definitely had to go over everything again, as he looked at Peter Parker, sitting in front of him eating dinner as if nothing had happened. Johnny thought he was great, HE KNEW he was great, he was the fucking Johnny Storm for God's sake!
He was handsome, charismatic, famous, hot (in more than one sense of the word, clearly.) and attracted attention wherever he went. He had even dated and slept with the most important and hottest models of the moment, but then...
Peter Parker, a random guy that most wouldn't look at twice, not that he wasn't good looking, not at all, in fact, Johnny considered him to be really attractive, and he didn't say it because he was his best friend (or because he, not so secretly, wanted to kiss him.) but Peter just went unnoticed. He was a common dude, doing common things, leaving aside his spandex suit and the webs and stuff.
So when Johnny is finally able to ask his spider friend out, he was proud of himself, he wasn't getting the wrong ideas or anything, Peter liked him back. But then, the date came and Peter had called it a simple friends outing, something platonic.
"What the hell do you mean with that?" Johnny questioned and from Peter's reaction he knows he made a strange face, he was frowning a bit too much.
"What?" Peter seemed clueless and Johnny just wanted to hit his own head with the restaurant table.
"Dude." Johnny was absolutely flabbergasted, he's fault for falling for a man with zero social skills. "I don't normally take friends to restaurants."
And it was true, Johnny had multiple cover photos in celebrity gossip magazines of him with the model on duty having dinner somewhere nice that backed up his words, friendly outings were kept in cafes or something more casual, just because that's how Johnny worked.
"Oh?" Peter blurted out in confusion. Then realization returned to his face. "Oh."
"Yeah. Oh." Johnny says sarcastically, feeling how the palms of his hands began to lightly set the restaurant tablecloth on fire, his blonde hair was also starting to catch fire. It gets worse when Peter, in a failed attempt to calm the situation, compares him to Hades, from the Disney movie Hercules.
"Dude, I really thought I was doing things right..." Johnny sighed, sounding defeated, which rubbed Peter the wrong way.
"C'mon, Johnny...you know me, I'm Peter Parker! You should have been clearer with me." Peter tries to defend himself.
"Damn, Pete! I literally said, 'Would you like to go out with me sometime? We could go to a nice restaurant, my treat.’ How could I possibly have been clearer than that?” Johnny replied and Peter had no actual defense to that.
"You always invite me anyway, I'm broke!"
Johnny just gives up after that, no matter how much Peter wants to talk to him, Johnny keeps his brow furrowed and his head fixed on his own plate, eating dinner in silence. As soon as they're both done with their food, Johnny pays the bill and quickly leaves without turning around once. Peter is not one to make scenes, so he doesn't call Johnny.
When Susan Storm finds out what happened, after Peter tells her like a little snitch (he had actually come looking for Johnny, wanting to make it up to him for the terrible date). She practically dragged Johnny out of his room, while telling him that it was unfair of him to punish Peter for something that he was fully aware could happen. Everyone knew Peter in the Baxter Building, outside of the suit, he was as clueless as a puppy.
The problem was that Johnny was invited to the party of one of his relevant famous friends of the moment, so now he was in front of Peter, half dressed in the lobby of the Baxter building, he decided that the two would have a 'second first date'. (Maybe then Peter would understand hints...or direct words. Johnny wasn't being resentful, thank you very much.)
"I do not like this." Peter pouted, his arms and legs spread out as Johnny looked him up and down.
"Well, we're going to a party, I won't let you accompany me in your second-hand clothes." Johnny rolled his eyes as he tossed Peter another of his shirts.
Much to Peter's discomfort, they both spent a good half hour going through Johnny's closet, only to end up returning to the first outfit Johnny gave him. Peter complained that they were wasting time, but Johnny said that no one would show up to a party on time anyway.
The party sucked, there was no other way to put it. Peter had hated every second he was in there, he didn't know anyone but Johnny, but he was the fucking Johnny Storm, everyone wanted to be close to him and talk to him. Peter went unnoticed, no one cared that he was there. It was like high school all over again.
Maybe even worse than high school, even when Johnny made the slightest effort to introduce him to a woman, who was really eager to talk to him, she simply looked at Peter for a second, giving him a simple 'Hey.' What made it more infuriating was that she wasn't even looking at him when she said that, she had gone back to looking at Johnny as quickly as the blink of an eye.
So, Peter ended up staying alone in a total stranger's house, surrounded by even more drunk strangers, the most fun he had in a long time. Johnny was too busy with his friends to notice how bitter he seemed. Anyway, Peter stayed. Because he really liked Johnny, even if he had been a jerk to him, ignoring him after their failed date and practically abandoning him now, on their second date.
Peter can't believe he's here, missing a patrol as Spider-Man, ignoring his duty as a hero to be ignored by Johnny. He consoled himself by telling himself that there were many other heroes and vigilantes taking care of New York at that moment and that maybe tonight he could fall asleep before 5 in the morning (to wake up at 7:30 and continue with his life as Peter Parker.)
When Johnny got bored around dawn, he looked for him and they both left. Peter mentioned that he was hungry and they stopped at a McDonald's that was open 24 hours. It was 3 in the morning when the two entered the fast food place, it was completely empty and the only worker there seemed to be a young man with little will to live, who didn't look at them twice, so Johnny was safe from paparazzis or fans who wanted something from him.
They ate in peace, while Johnny chatted about people he had talked to or silly gossip he had discovered, Peter looked him in the eyes for a second.
"I hated every second of that party, Hot stuff,” Peter said bluntly. "Never expect me to accompany you to parties again."
"Yeah...I think I noticed it a little," Johnny said quietly, eating a fried. "I saw your face from afar."
"Well, it suck. My bad for insisting on going with you to 'make it up’ to you," Peter replied, looking exhausted; that had been worse than any fight with any villain. And yes, he's counting Morbius on that.
"Well...we could have not gone at all, no one would care." Johnny shrugged, he felt bad anyway, he was deliberately ignoring him and acting like a child over something stupid. "I'm sorry for being a jerk to you, you didn't have to make it up to me."
"Yeah, you should be sorry," Peter said with some amusement in his voice. "Now you have to make it up to me, jerk."
Johnny snorted, as if that idea bothered him, but he agreed and smiled, because Peter wasn't really mad at him, even if he had every right to be.