A regular day
Peter is going on his usual way to work at the bar when his hearing picks up a man getting mugged. He freezes in place and hears the poor man begging the thieves to leave him alone, guilt weighing him down the stairs of the subway knowing he can't get there in time to save him unless he swung there and he's already late to work. He whips his backpack around to the front and almost pulls out his suit until he hears the police yelling for the muggers to put their hands in the air.
Peter heaves a sigh and continues on his way to work.
It's been 3 years since the Spider-men fiasco and Peter has gotten used to his life, albeit a little lonely and filled with leeches of his memories sucking his will to live but yeah, life's going great.
Once he reaches the yellow line in front the subway tracks, he looks in front of him and sees a poster, 'Tony Stark's opinions on green energy'. He turns back around tearing his eyes off the image, trying to get it out of his head and walks around to a stray dog. Petting it to distract himself from the image of his ex-mentor.
These days one look at his face or accidentally catching one of his interviews in TV stores is enough to send him spiralling. The first time, he listened to Tony's voice after the spell, he wanted to do nothing but find him, hug him and beg him for help. He almost left to go to the cabin before realised why even had Strange do the spell kn the first place. The vibration of the train on the rails distracts him from these thoughts.
Boarding the subway, he tries to get himself ready for the long 45 minute crowded ride to Hell's Kitchen.
---
Peter's taking a sip from the almost empty whiskey bottle when he notices that Millie, his co-worker, had caught him in the act.
"Seriously?", she says to him from the behind the carton of lemons she's carrying. He only shrugs in response to the pink streaks in her hair poking out from behind the box and throws the empty bottle in the garbage.
He helps her cut some fruit and washes the glasses. When they see the previous shift employees wave at them, both of them go up to the bar to take over their shifts, already being bombarded with people snapping in their faces for drinks.
With a side glance, they wish each other good luck and start taking orders.
It's going to be a long night, he just hopes he can squeeze a little patrol time into it.
---
"God, fuck, that was a long day", Peter says as he slumps into one of the plastic half-broken chairs in the alley behind the bar. He takes out a lighter from his trouser pockets and lights a cigarette up.
"Understatement of the century. I could die and come back to life and I wouldn't feel this exhausted, oh wait, I did.", Millie says while snapping her fingers for emphasis. She snatches the cigarette from Peter's mouth to take a puff.
"Hey!?"
"Oh please, didn't I buy this?", that shut him up.
Dragging herself from her spot where she was leaning on the wall, Millie pulls him out of the worn out chair and sits in his place propping him on her lap. Peter for some reason never protested whenever she did this. He tucks her head under his chin and looks up at the pollution filled sky, wishing he could see the stars. Millie taps him on the arm and hands him the cigarette.
Silently, sharing the cigarette they sit in each others embrace until the cigarette is out and Peter pulls back. "Your place or mine?"
---
As Millie pushes him over the kitchen counter sliding his jacket off of him, Peter opens the cabinet above his head and takes out safety also sliding every pan and plate onto the floor in the process. The loud noises illicit complaints from the neighbours.
Ignoring the complaints from the neighbours, they make their way towards the bed in the corner of the room and plop onto it, still not letting go of the other. Peter starts unbuckling her belt while she takes his shirt off. They end their day with sex while sharing a bottle of beer Peter had nicked from the bar storage.
"You know you should really buy a bed, it's good for your back", Millie says with her feet propped up against the wall beside Peter's head.
"I have a bed." Peter replies while pinching the skin on her foot.
"Ouch," she retreats her feet and tucks them into the side of her torso "What you have is a mattress and it's really uncomfortable. I don't know how you get any sleep on this thing with all those bruises everyday"
So she noticed, Peter thinks. It's not like he ever made any effort to hide them anymore. He's almost proud of them, even the scars he used to hide under jeans and long sleeve sweaters.
"Hey who said they wanted to come here?", that shut her up.
In retaliation, she starts tickling his feet which results in him pinching her even more, their day ends with giggles a d beer, eventually getting to sleep while Peter hogged the blanket.
In the end, he never got to patrolling.