Chapter 3
It’s two days later that Kate is first woken up by the sound of a window closing in the apartment. She bolted into a sitting position, her eyes wide, and frantic as she held her breath and listened for any sign of an intruder. Her fingers were already inching towards the bow and arrow she kept beside her bed.
But then she hears the familiar sound of her roommate cursing quietly, and treading to the bathroom and it didn’t take long to realize that it must have been him. Still, the sound sent enough adrenaline rushing through her veins that’s she knew sleep probably wasn’t going to come back easily. She fished around her bed until her hand came into contact with her phone and clicked the button so she could see the time. 2:15 am. What the hell.
With a groan, she let her head fall back down on the pillow. She had an early shift tomorrow and then a meeting- or rather, a training session - with Yelena. Her meetings with Yelena were always exhausting, and she hated it when she was already tired at the start of their training.
Slowly, her heartbeat reached more normal levels, and aside from the sound of the toilet flushing, she didn’t hear any more sounds from her roommate. Eventually, she did fall back asleep, but it felt like the moment she did, her alarm was going off.
To her surprise, Peter was already up, sitting in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal, fully dressed, with his book back sitting on the table next to his bowl. He looked just as stunned to see her as she was him.
“Do you ever sleep?” She blurted, crossing the room to turn on the coffee machine. “You want some?” She asked over her shoulder, before he had a chance to answer. He was still staring at her with his mouth hanging open a little, and if she didn’t know any better - or if he didn’t still have his spoon in hand, hovering over the bowl- she’d suspect he was still asleep.
“No,” he said finally, blinking and returning to what he was doing before she’d walked in. “To the coffee I mean. I can’t - I don’t really like coffee. Or anything with caffeine. I can handle some chocolate though, that doesn’t have enough in it to bother me,” he pressed his lips together and stared at his bowl of cereal as if it personally offended. “Sorry. That was way too long of an answer to a simple yes or no question. I ramble when I’m tired. Actually, I ramble when I’m not tired too, so that’s a moot point.”
Kate just stared, and blinked stupidly at him before letting out a laugh. She was pretty sure that was the most she’d ever heard him say in one sitting. But of course, they hadn’t actually seen each other much either. Her brain was just not working fast enough yet to keep up with it. But she had to admit, she was a little disappointed that this time was going to be no different. She needed to leave in like… five minutes at the latest.
“Okay, I need coffee. I don’t know how you survive without caffeine,” she scoffed, grabbing a banana off the counter and peeling it while she waited for her coffee to finish brewing.
”I’m a rare breed,” and he said it with a smirk as he stood from his chair to place his bowl and spoon in the sink, like there was some sort of inside joke with that statement. But she didn’t have the brain function to think about that too hard yet. “I’ll do the dishes when I get back. I have to get to the Bugle by 6 or Jameson starts paying me less for the photos. Which is dumb, because he doesn’t even show up until 8 usually.” He shuddered, grabbed his bag and started to leave, but stopped just before he walked out the door. “Oh, thanks again for the pizza the other night. Haven’t seen you since then.”
“Yeah, no problem,” was all she had a chance to say before he was out the door. Always coming or going, that one, she thought to herself as she blinked more sleep from her eyes and poured her coffee. Having a roommate was weird.
———
Yelena was especially brutal during their training that day, and by the time the both of them made it back to her apartment, Kate was exhausted.
“I will make us some delicious mac and cheese. Even if you do not deserve it today, Kate Bishop. You were slow. How will you be undercover detective if you can not stop me?” Yelena, like Clint, always made herself a little too comfortable in her apartment. But Kate was used to it now- she’d stopped pretending to be annoyed by it a long time ago.
She did groan at the underhanded insult though as she all but collapsed onto the couch as Yelena got to work in the kitchen. It was almost always Mac and cheese when she offered to cook. Just like the day she broke in almost a year ago. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, cut me a break. And besides… I think I did pretty good. Still not sure why I need to know all this combat to be a detective.”
“Having too much fun with your new pretty roommate is no excuse for your slow reactions, Kate Bishop,” Yelena scoffed, laughing at her own joke. She put the pot on the stove, still chuckling as she turned it on.
“Okay, first of all. You’ve never even met my roommate, and second of all… we aren’t sleeping together. I hardly ever even see him,” she sat up, turning to look at her friend in offense. “I don’t want your Mac and Cheese if you’re just going to make ridiculous insinuations all night.
“Oh, but I have met your pretty new roommate. You always underestimate me, Kate Bishop. Even now. I’m honestly offended,” she paused what she was doing to turn back towards Kate with her hand on her chest, “Truly, I’m wounded.”
”Stop calling him pretty, he’s just Peter,” Kate argued, for lack of anything better to say, and she hated that she could feel her own cheeks burn- something she knew Yelena would notice immediately. She fought the urge to lift her hands up and cover her own face. Yelena only laughed again, turning back to the stove.
“What? Are you telling me you don’t think he’s pretty? That you don’t think he’s attractive?”
“We are so not having this conversation. He’s just my roommate. I’m going to shower.” She got up, and stalked past her chuckling friend, down the hallway to her bedroom.
Kate spent the rest of the night after that worried that Peter actually might show up while Yelena was still there. She didn’t trust her not to make her roommate uncomfortable, who was already a bit skiddish and awkward as it was. Yelena was too forward, and even though she was better since they’d first met- she wasn’t always the best at picking up on normal social queues.
”Well, Kate Bishop,” Yelena clapped her hands onto her knees before standing up from the couch a few hours after they finished eating. “Looks like your pretty-“
“Not Pretty.”
“Do not deny it, Kate. I know you better than that, please. Anyway… Peter Parker sadly does not seem to be making an appearance. I have a plane to catch. I have an assignment in Peru. It was good seeing you. Take care of yourself.” She reached over and pulled Kate up too and pulled her into a hug. It was slightly awkward- this type of affection still new between them, but Kate happily accepted it.
”You too. Stay in touch, you know, if you’re allowed, and leave my roommate alone.” She warned- only half joking, as she walked Yelena to the door.
She didn’t end up seeing Peter again before she went to bed, despite being up late. But that night she did hear the window again, followed by the same muffled cursing and some fumbling around in the room next door. Thankfully, this time around, it didn’t take as long for Kate to fall back to sleep. But the fact that it had happened two nights in a row did strike her as odd. It ended up being the first thing on the list she stored away that were definitely… strange… about her new roommate, Peter Parker. Now matter how much she was growing to like him (as a friend!) the little amount of times they actually shared together so far.
The window thing soon became a common occurrence, and Kate wondered more than once if Peter was a secret smoker or something. But she never smelled anything on him. He actually usually always smelled pretty good whenever she got close enough. Then she wondered if maybe he had insomnia and the fresh air helped calm him down. A million possible reasons for him constantly opening and closing the window in the middle of the night.
It wasn’t even until they’d been living together for a little over a month before they actually spent more than thirty minutes together.
Most of their interactions had been early mornings, with them both ready to leave for work, and half asleep. It didn’t take long for Kate to become accustomed to Peter’s random rambles. He definitely hadn’t been kidding when he said he rambled. They usually gave at least some insight to his life without ever actually giving her a chance to share much about herself. Normally, she was too sleepy to say much. As exhausted he always seemed- he definitely was much more of a morning person than she was.
Seriously, how was he even human with the amount he slept, and didn’t drink any caffeine.
“Trust me on this one, caffeine and I don’t get along,” he’d said once when she’d commented on that very thing, with his nose wrinkled like he was remembering something awful. There was a story there, and someday, she was determined to get it out of him. Maybe during one of his tired morning rambles…
“I’m not sure how I’d survive without it. My mom and I always joked that people who lived without coffee weren’t human,” she’d retorted, taking a long exaggerated drink from her coffee for added measure.
“Yeah, you aren’t the first person to say that to me,” he smiled back, grabbing a protein bar from the cupboard, and he almost looked sad as he turned and left.
Actually, he looked sad a lot. But every time she noticed it, it was gone in the blink of an eye, and she thought it rude to bring up. Not to mention that if it weren’t for her training with Clint and Yelena, she might not have noticed it all.