Chapter Text
Peter tried not to wince as the alcohol burned its way down his throat. Guess brandy wasn't his drink. It had been Uncle Ben's tipple of choice, and he would often pour himself one in the evening to help him unwind. He'd swirl the amber-coloured liquid in a fat glass, while reclining in his lazy boy, sock-covered feet up on the foot rest as he asked his wife and nephew about their day. Aunt May liked gin, and white wine with dinner. Peter sometimes joined her in a glass during their weekly meals together, but he wasn't a fan.
So far at this bar, he'd tried a glass of scotch, a shot of tequila and, of course the brandy, but none were to his taste. He'd kinda skipped the experimental drinking phase of college so was making up for lost time tonight, applying his scientific mind to the task of discovering a beverage that would:
A. Get him drunk and
B. Not make him want to gag in the process.
If he even could get drunk. He never had been before. And maybe his high metabolism and accelerated healing wouldn't allow him. Did spider's get drunk? Was that a known arachnid defence mechanism? Maybe he could write a paper after this little experiment and turn the world of entomology on his head: 'New study suggests spiders can't get drunk!'
Shaking off his idiotic thoughts, he flagged down the bartender for the third time in 20 minutes, yelling "Can I get a vodka this time?" The bartender spared a semi-judgemental glance at the half empty glasses lined up in front of him, before nodding and turning to the rack of bottles behind the bar. "With tonic!” Peter added, not wanting to endure another swig of pure alcohol. The bartender nodded again, back still to him, not bothering to try to converse over the heavy din of the music.
Peter swivelled around in his stool while waiting for his latest drink to be made, taking in the strobe-lit bar-slash-nightclub. The air was thick with sweat, and a crowd of people were dancing and stomping to the pulsing electronic music mere mere feet from where he sat. This was not his typical scene - at all. His lack of drinking experience was enough proof that bars in general were not his scene. This time of night he'd usually be swinging through the city on the look out for criminals, not downing drinks.
Its not like he was part of a roaring social circuit, where he was meeting up regularly with friends over drinks, and he wasn't a guy that needed alcohol to destress or help him sleep - his Spider-man activities did that for him. He wore himself out physically night after night, swinging from buildings, stringing up thugs and mobsters, getting the occasional beating in return. Then, in the early hours of the morning, he'd stumble through his apartment window, strip off his suit and collapse into bed, just sparing enough consciousness to set the alarm for later that day. Deep down he knew that wasn't exactly a healthy method for coping with life, but he justified it to himself that at least he was helping people and not just selfishly drowning himself in a bottle.
So yeah, this was not his scene. But after leaving May's that night, he'd arrived on his block and just...couldn't bear to go home alone. Again. His little foray into the multiverse had shown him how solitary his life truly was. Seeing Peter 1 with his MJ and his best friend, and hearing about Peter 2's relationship with his MJ…it had thrown Peter 3’s last nine years into stark relief.
His life as Peter Parker was...non-existent. He had no social life. He survived paycheck-to-paycheck and, while he loved photography, taking photos of himself to sell to tabloid newspapers was not exactly creatively challenging. In fact, he was doing nothing to challenge himself. His degree was going to waste, he had no ambitions, he was just coasting.
Barely existing.
After he returned to his own universe, he vowed to change some things. The first thing he did (the only thing, if he was honest, but, hey! Baby steps!) was get a new job. From Monday he would be the newest research assistant at the well-respected GenTech biogenetics institute. He would actually be using his brain - and his degree - for something useful. The pay wasn’t life changing, but given enough time he might be able to upgrade his shitty apartment to something marginally less shitty.
Yay.
He still couldn’t cut back on the Spider-man activities though. Until his life as Peter truly began, he needed to be out in the city, in amongst everything. The alternative was sitting home alone, with no-one around to distract him from this thoughts…and that was far too depressing to contemplate.
Tonight he didn’t have the option to suit up; the still-healing bullet wound in his bicep (courtesy of a particularly over-zealous armed robber from the previous night), prevented him from using his webs, and it was too risky even for him to venture out without them.
So as he’d passed by the bar near the corner of his apartment building, contemplating the endless stretch of night awaiting him, he’d figured 'what the hell'. He'd get drunk - enough so he could sleep without dreaming - and then head back to his miserable apartment.
A figure emerging from the crush of intoxicated dancers caught his eye and brought him out of his reverie. She was tall for a woman - taller than even some of the guys she was trying to squeeze past. Her hair was...well, he couldn't make out the colour but the way the strobe lights hit the loose, wavy strands, he figured it was light - a blond or maybe a red head. Her shoulder's were bare, exposed by a metallic halter top, and her long, slim legs were encased in skin-tight jeans. Surprisingly, she wore heavy black biker boots instead of more fashionable heels. His eyes moved back to her face to find she was looking straight at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. Busted for checking her out, Peter blushed and swung back around to face the bar.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, his Spidey-senses tingling; not with a feeling of danger, just...awareness...as she came to stand at the bar next to his stool.
Huh, he'd never felt that before.
"Jack Daniels and diet coke, please," she called out to the bartender, her words laden with an English accent. Peter tried and failed to keep himself from looking at her face once more. He peered up at her profile, noting the cheeks flushed from dancing and the plump, slightly parted lips. Her heavy eye makeup made her grey irises seem pale and otherworldly. Those eyes flicked down to his and he quickly averted his gaze, taking a sip of the vodka in front of him. He forgot to hide his wince at the sharp taste, and heard a soft chuckle from the woman next next him.
"Does your drink taste bad, or are you grimacing at this appalling song choice?" she asked. He looked up to see her pointing at the speaker hanging over the bar, which was now blasting out a screeching techno hit from the late 90s.
He met her smile with one of your own. "It was the drink but...yeah, the music sucks too."
She reached over and lifted his drink, taking a small sip through the straw. "Hmm, just vodka. I was expecting paint stripper from the way you screwed your face up."
He laughed at that. "Are you familiar with the taste of paint stripper?"
"You'd be surprised what a poor, struggling student will drink on a night out," she replied straight-faced.
His grin stretched wider. "And is that what you are? A poor, struggling student?" he asked.
"Not anymore thankfully. I graduated a couple of years ago. Now I can afford the good stuff." She raised up her own drink as if in a toast before taking a quick sip. "Here," she offered the glass to him, "Maybe you'll like this better."
He took the glass from her, their fingers brushing for a moment. The contact set his Spidey-sense off again. He didn’t know how to interpret what his body was telling him. She didn't feel like a threat, and she certainly didn't look like one. It was more like he was being told 'pay attention. She's important'.
"Are you going to drink that, or absorb it through osmosis?"
He shook off his thoughts and took a drink, pleasantly surprised at the taste. So maybe he was a Jack man? Then his brain caught up to her words. "Osmosis? Are you a scientist then?"
"Wow, so knowing the word 'osmosis' labels me a scientist? Didn’t know you Americans had such low standards in academia," she teased.
He laughed but narrowed his eyes, pretending to peer intensely at her. "You are something science-y though," he guessed, more out of hope for a common interest than anything tangible.
"I'm a doctor," she admitted.
"Hah, I knew it! Medical or PhD?"
"Medical," she confirmed, looking abashed.
"Why are you so embarrassed, that's cool!”
"No, I know, and I am kinda proud of it," she sighed. "But people make such a big deal sometimes, like, just graduating Med School is this huge achievement, when really I was just lucky enough to be born with a reasonably high IQ and an ability to memorise a whole bunch of random information. Most of medicine is just memorising lists,” she finished with a shrug.
“Even if that’s true, it is a big deal being a doctor. It should be the first thing you tell people! You should only ever introduce yourself as 'Dr. So and So'. Brag about it!"
"Brag?! Have you ever met a British person before? We're sorta famous for our charming modesty," she said wryly.
He laughed again. God, when was the last time he laughed this much? He found it easy to joke around as Spider-man. The banter and quips flowing thick and fast under that guise. But as plain old Peter…he’d alway been kinda shy. Thankfully, he’d pretty much grown out the stuttering awkwardness of his teenage years, but he was never good with small talk. Especially with strangers. ESPECIALLY with beautiful female strangers.
To demonstrate, he followed up with the most inane question possible. ”So what are you doing here?”
"In this bar or in this country?" she countered.
"We'll start with this bar and then zoom our way out."
"I like to dance," she said, with a shrug of her slender shoulders.
"I can tell."
She cocked her head, "How?" "
"By your boots," he said, and they both peered down at her feet. "You want to be comfortable, right? And not have to worry about breaking your ankle in pretty heels when you're out on the dance floor."
She gave him a thoughtful look, as if he'd done something clever, and he felt stupidly proud of himself. "How do you know its not the height thing? That I avoid 'pretty heels' so that I don't tower over every guy in here?"
He shrugged. "Something tells me that doesn't bother you."
"Correct again," she said softly, with that same thoughtful look. "I like being tall."
"How tall are you?" he asked, as he got up off his stool. He breached the small distance between them to gauge it better and realised she was the same height as him. Out of nowhere, the notion came to him that he wouldn't have to bend down to kiss her.
Just as he was shaking off that thought, the crowd that had been amassing at the bar suddenly surged against her back, pushing her against his chest. His hands automatically came up to steady her, wrapping around her bare arms. Now he knew why Peter 1 referred to his Spidey-sense as a 'tingle'. Because upon touching her again, that sensation suddenly coursed through his entire body, leaving him flushed and slightly out of breath. Her gaze met his, the two of them no longer smiling. The air between them grew heated, and his fingers tightened imperceptibly against her skin.
"Um...," Peter said, feeling like he had to say something to break the mounting tension between them. He knew he could just release her and step back, but found himself unable - unwilling - to do so. Being so close to someone so stunningly out of his league was short-circuiting his brain.
The decision was made for him when the crowd at her back let up the pressure and she stumbled back. His hands lost contact with her skin and, suddenly at a loss with what to do with them, he raked them nervously through his hair.
"Its getting a bit crazy down here," she laughed, and he thought he could hear nerves in her voice too for some reason. "Do you, um, want to get a table upstairs?" she asked.
His self preservation instincts wanted him to decline. Just ignore this connection with this beautiful stranger, end this whole experiment with socialising, go home and go to bed. Return to his solitary life where he didn't have to reveal anything of himself, or risk getting hurt again. 'What would the other Peters do?' He thought. It had become an almost mantra over the past couple of months, whenever he felt himself slipping back into bad habits. 'What would they do in this situation?'. And that cinched it for him. Because they wouldn't let this opportunity go so easily.
"It's okay if you don't," she said, responding to his silence. "I just thought, we c-"
"I'd love to," he interrupted. "Yeah, um, I mean yes. Let's go. Upstairs. Let's do that," he rambled, before finally clenching his jaw shut and nodding like an idiot.
They managed to find a free table on the balcony overlooking the dance floor - free because it was situated annoyingly close to the line for the bathroom. But the irritation of the milling, sweaty bodies around them and the relentlessly bad music soon faded away as they talked and talked and talked.
They found they had a common interest in scifi and fantasy, and spent an hour comparing thoughts on their favourite movies and books. They also had a lot not in common, but enjoyed trying to change each others minds about their respective passions.
He found out she loved music but couldn’t play an instrument to save her life.
He told her about his photography.
He loved her self-deprecating humour, and her intelligence - she was intimidatingly well-read and had theories on all sorts of scientific pursuits, including the multiverse (she was completely wrong, but he couldn't tell her without divulging some pretty hefty revelations). He was having fun verbally sparring with her.
And even when there was a lull in the conversation, it never felt awkward. They would just sit with each other and look out onto the crowd below, then start talking again. At one point he had moved to her side, the loud music necessitating closer contact to avoid having to yell, and they had stayed like that for the rest of the night. Their arms would brush against each other as they reached for their drinks and he'd occasionally have to lean even closer to her to be heard, his lips near her ear. He had to restrain himself from leaning in the rest of the way and allowing his lips to rest against the soft, inviting skin of her neck.
At one point he had taken her hand, gently turning her arm. "You have such pale skin," he had remarked softly, tracing his finger over the surface, captivated by the way she almost glowed in the soft light of the table lamp.
"Curse of the British: pale skin and bad teeth,” she joked.
“You have great teeth,” he murmured, his eyes not moving from the path his finger was taking across her skin. “I bet you sunburn easily," he commented, almost to himself.
"Yeah," she breathed. "Not really built for sunlight. We're more of an indoors people."
He met her eyes, grinning at her response, and suddenly realised how close they were, their lips mere inches apart. It would take no effort at all to lean just a little bit closer, to press his lips to hers...He swallowed nervously and sat back, maintaining his distance but keeping hold of her hand until the lights came on in the club signalling closing time.
That light offered him his first proper glimpse of her, and despite the late hour, the dance-induced sweat drying at her hairline and the harsh fluorescent bulbs, his first impression had been correct… she was absolutely, stunningly beautiful.
She ducked her head when he caught her staring and started blushing. It was funny, she looked like a freaking supermodel, but blushed whenever he stared at her. That British modesty thing really was charming as hell. He tugged on her hand to help her up from the table, and they made their way downstairs and out of the club together.
The cool night air was refreshing, and Peter raised his face up to the sky, eyes closing as he took a deep breath. He felt her come to stand against his side as he stood on the sidewalk, feeling comfortable in silence with her.
Her.
Peter laughed. He turned to her face her, and met her curious expression.
"What is it?" she asked, stifling a yawn. The cold air had invigorated him, but its seemed to have made her tired.
He took a step back and stuck out his hand. "Hi. My name is Peter."
She laughed too. All those hours getting to know each other...and they seemed to have forgotten the basics. She grasped his outstretched hand but...hesitated slightly, her eyes darting to the left before meeting his. "I'm Jen. Nice to meet you."
His thumb brushed against the back of her hand, the 'tingles' from the contact still present, but less jarring now. "Nice to meet you too," he replied, softly.
They stood there, hands clasped for several long moments. Peter didn't want this night to end, he wanted to invite her to his apartment and keep talking to her, but couldn't find a way to say it that didn't sound like a sleazy pick-up line.
She took the initiative once more. "Peter," she said, and, man, did he love the way his name sounded in her accent. He could see intent in her eyes and it made him swallow nervously. She stepped closer to him, grasped the back of his head with her free hand...and kissed him.
He stood rooted to the spot, his mind flinging in a million different directions. Was he ready for this? What was this? She didn't really know him - would she still want him if she knew the blood he had on his hands? He couldn't do this again. Was he betraying Gwen? What would the Peters do!?
Before he could sort out the maelstrom of his feelings, she broke the contact and tugged her hand free of his. "I'm sorry," she said sounding embarrassed. She wouldn't meet his eyes, and turned quickly to look down the street. “Shit, I'm so sorry. Just forget that happened."
A yellow cab made its way down the street and she stuck her hand out to hail it. She glanced back at him, "I'll get going now. Nice to meet you."
The cab slowed to a stop in front of them, the tires splashing through a puddle from the rainstorm earlier in the day. The sound of the water shook Peter from his stupor. "No! Wait!" he yelled, grabbing her hand. "Just...wait, please wait."
She looked at him and bit her lip, her other hand on the cab door. The driver called out, irritated at the delay, "Are you coming or not, lady?"
Peter answered for her. "She's not.” He pulled Jen away from the cab and grabbed her other hand. "I'm sorry, just listen to me for a sec and let me explain and if you never want to see me again, I'll flag down another cab. Or call you an Uber or something, okay?"
"Okay," she said, and waited.
And waited.
Peter swallowed. He couldn't really explain to her why he was acting so weird. From her point of view, she'd met a guy in a bar, they'd talked all night, done some mutual flirting, so she’d kissed him. It was all completely reasonable, and yet he'd had a mini freak out.
That wasn't normal.
But what could he say? "Sorry, I'm an emotionally-stunted superhero who lost his first love because he didn't catch her when she fell from a clocktower, and I’ve spent the last 9 years in a guilt-induced spiral of violence and solitude".
Yeah, that wouldn't freak her out at all!
"Peter," she sighed, "It's okay. I misread the situation, it happens. No big deal."
"But it is a big deal," he countered. "This doesn't happen to me. I don't meet people and have it be so...easy and effortless, and, and...nice! Tonight was really nice!"
Her brows came together in confusion. "Okay..." she said.
He dropped her hands and dragged his own through his hair, feeling agitated. He tugged on his locks and spun in a circle before facing her again. "I know that sounds weird, but you have no idea how much I needed 'nice' tonight. And it wasn't just nice. That makes it sound so...so...boring. It was so much more than just nice - it was amazing. You're amazing. And God, you’re so beautiful. And I wanna keep talking to you and yeah, I think I want to kiss you - properly this time - I'm sorry I was weird about it before. But, yeah," he finished, his smile growing with the realisation. "I wanna kiss you."
He reached for her, but the air was suddenly filled with the drunken cries of the young revellers spilling out of the club behind them. Making a quick decision, he grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the mob. "Look, my apartment is just there," he said, pointing to his window on the fifth floor of the building opposite. "Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee, or something?" He grimaced internally - guess he ended up going with the sleazy come-on after all.
But she just smiled and nodded and squeezed his hand.
He met her smile. “Good! Great, okay, lets go.”
Once they got through his apartment door, the nerves and awkwardness intensified. "Um, I'll get the coffee," Peter said, locking the door behind them. He started to shuffle towards the kitchen but he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she wandered around his small studio, studying the books on his shelf and the photos on the wall. She leaned over slightly to check out the view from his window, presenting him with the full expanse of her bare back. There was literally no material from the thin band at her neck to the waist band of her jeans - how did he not notice that before? And when did he become a back-guy? Because that's evidently what he was. Seeing all that milky soft skin...it snapped him out of his awkwardness and self-doubt.
He marched over to her, spun her around and kissed her.
There was no freezing this time. No hesitation or second-guessing. He kissed her, and kept kissing her, bring his hands up to tangle in her hair, angling her head so he could kiss her deeper. She kissed him and kept kissing him in return, stepping closer to him so they were pressed tightly together, her hands roaming over his back.
‘That’s a good idea’, the part of his brain still engaged in higher reasoning thought, as he moved his hands down to caress her back in return. God, her skin was even softer than it looked, and he could feel hints of delicate muscle under his wandering hands.
It wasn’t enough - he needed to feel her everywhere.
He started backing her towards the bed in the corner of the room, all the while tugging the material of her top from of the front of her jeans.
Once freed, his hands moved underneath, reaching up to cup her breasts. The sensation of hands on bare skin, jolted him slightly, enough for that last remaining bit of higher functioning to kick in. “Is this ok?,” he checked with her between kisses.
Her knees hit the bed and she collapsed backwards. He followed her down, resting the length of his body over her long, slim form. “Jen, is this ok?” he asked again, pulling away from her slightly. “I didn’t invite you up here for this. I mean, I thought, maybe another kiss or something…I just don’t want you to think I’m that guy. The one just trying to get into your pants, I li-“
“Peter!” she gasped, her tone slightly exasperated. “It’s all good, we’re good. I want this. So just shut up and kiss me!” She grasped him by the hair and pulled him back to her.
“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled against her lips with a smile.