Chapter Text
Part 3
Chapter 1
The Dinner Gods
September 2029
Peter blinked, not entirely sure where or when he’d gone wrong in this discussion. “I don’t…” he started, though the sentence died long before he could fully formulate the thought for it.
“You don’t?” Gwen repeated, her face scrunched in an unimpressed scowl.
Peter motioned between the two of them with his index finger and then made a slow circle in the same pattern. “Yes?” he tried.
Gwen harumphed, likely stuck in an emotion akin to a baby duck trying its best to eat soggy bread and realizing it was nothing more than a paper towel. “What do you mean you don’t?”
Peter’s expression cycled between a series of different things, though he was sure it landed on existential bafflement. Because, really, what the heck had happened. “Listen, you asked me to make dinner,” he stressed.
“Which you definitely did not!” Gwen gasped. She pressed a hand firmly to her sternum and swiveled her head backward. Like if she moved further away she could see the entirety of his culinary failures in one fell swoop.
“I mean, it’s better than the last time I tried to cook,” Peter offered, his smile creeping up on him.
“What do you mean this is better?” Gwen put her hands up between them and chopped them aggressively back and forth. “That is an atrocity!”
“I mean,” Peter offered and then shrugged.
“What?” Gwen squawked.
Peter sent a long, determined side eye at the pot of goop and the side dish of what he was pretty sure should have been rice if it wasn’t, you know, a sludgy grey thing that likely held the souls of the dearly departed. “Yeah, yeah that’s definitely an improvement.”
“Peter, that’s a biohazard!” Gwen argued vehemently.
“I feel like I’d be just fine if I ate it,” he said seriously.
“Oh my god, please tell me you’ve never eaten something like that before,” Gwen breathed in horror.
Peter switched his focus from his, quite literally, best cooking efforts and smiled as sweetly as he could. “Did you want me to starve?”
“No!” Gwen denied heatedly. “I wanted you to make dinner!”
“And I did,” Peter reminded her. He raised his hand and pointed one finger back and forth like an inch worm. He made an obnoxious little noise to go with it, like he thought the situation might improve if he reminded her exactly where this discussion was headed. Because he was dumb and kitchen inept. He knew it, the dinner gods knew it, and now Gwen would know it.
“What the heck happened?” Gwen muttered under her breath. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, her wispy, overgrown bangs fluttering around her fingers. She turned to look at the stove and stared at the mess he’d made.
Peter scuttled closer and peered over the uncovered pots. “I think that one’s moving,” he hummed.
“The stove isn’t even on,” Gwen argued immediately.
“I like how you think that wouldn’t mean it couldn’t be moving,” Peter teased. He flickered his eyes over to her horror-stricken face and smiled as innocently as he could manage. He let his eyes round, ‘cause he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to survive through this night otherwise, and raised his shoulders to his ears. “Eat it before it makes an escape attempt?”
Gwen opened her mouth to argue, already preparing to tell him off, and then she stiffened. She looked like she’d just seen an actual food demon and then immediately slapped her hands over her face. “Why duh fuhk cahn yo- fahse loohk lyke daht!” She shrieked.
Peter’s brow furrowed and he asked, “I feel like you’re speaking nonsense at me.”
“No!” Gwen shouted into her palms. She let them fall a second later and said, “Peter, why are you demonizing your face?”
“Demonizing?” Peter laughed. Her shoulders relaxed, though her brows remained tugged upward with mild distress. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Liar!” Gwen flapped her hand between them. “I was over here, minding my own business and trying to decide what the hell happened in this universe that led to that—” she paused her panicked words, aggressively jabbing at the dinner he’d made, “being a thing, and now I’m stuck wondering how the fuck you managed to make kicked-puppy into an entire personality trait!”
“Gwen, it’s just my face,” he deadpanned.
“Uh, no!” Gwen rapidly shook her head. She quickly patted her own cheeks and then pointed at him with two raised chopping hands. “I have a face. You? You have a weapon instead of a face!”
Peter couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or feel mildly offended. “I’m not a dangerous creature.”
“Oh, no, you are definitely a dangerous creature! You tried to poison me today, then you gave me that evil demon face, and now you’re acting like I’m a crazy person!” She stared at him, a look in her eyes that was leaning toward ‘you will regret this very soon’.
“Gwen, you’re very cute, but I feel like you might be reaching hangry very soon,” Peter said tentatively.
“Which is where I’ll stay because that is not food,” she hissed.
Peter plucked a pot lid from the counter and covered the dish he was starting to suspect would grow limbs any second now. “Do you want me to try again?”
“Hell no!” Gwen’s hand shot out and caught his wrist before he could reach out to pick up the pot next. “You’re never allowed in here again!”
“Hey now, I can make mac and—”
“Mac and death, maybe!”
“Cheese and you can—”
“Take over because you’re abysmal!”
“Rest on the couch.”
He smiled at her fierce scowl. And because her head tilted back far enough to glare at him, she was perfectly positioned for him to steal a kiss. Which he did, of course.
“What, hey!” She protested, though she’d already stepped further into his personal space.
“I can feed you something else?” He snaked his arm around her lower back and tugged her against his chest.
“I like snacks,” she agreed.