Restless

Peter pulls on the tie harder, trying to simultaneously free his neck and rid himself of the suffocating workweek exhaustion he’s getting used to feeling. Rain runs down into his eyes and he tries to blink it away. The weather station this morning hadn’t made any mention of storms today.

It’s Thursday. The bar is closer than home. And yeah, there’s not a lot of money being thrown around in Peter’s life at the moment, but he’s got a few bills in his pocket—enough to feel a little less lonely, enough for a slightly better night.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

His skin prickles in the cold as he crosses the street, heading east.

There’s a drumming of water onto the lid of a nearby dumpster, steady and securing and offsetting the occasional spray of a puddle as a set of tires rolls through it. Peter keeps his head down and moves along.

It’s a little past seven when he pulls open the door to Jenny’s and ducks inside, shrugging off the drenched winter coat. It looks lonely on the rack.

“Hey, Peter,” the bartender says as he takes a seat. She pulls a glass out from under the counter.

He rubs at his eyes and returns a smile. “Hey, Essie. How’s your week been?”

“Not too bad,” she responds, pushing the Scotch towards him. He knows he can’t get drunk. That’s not the point.

 “Glad to hear,” he says, offering a soft smile before looking away. The chatter in the room is light and the lights are dim. He recognizes a couple of regulars in a booth in the corner, but the others are only strangers.

When Essie returns to his end of the bar, she points towards one of the few TVs above—an offer to let him choose what he’d like to watch. He shrugs and takes a sip from his glass instead. She heads to the back room.

Peter pulls in a heavy breath. These last few months have aged him more than he’d like to admit. Fresh out of college, a degree in Chemical Engineering from one of the world’s top institutes, a superhero side gig, a family upstate and Aunt May in Queens—he should be at the top of his game. But he’s not at Stark Industries—not right now, not for a bit. Couldn’t handle it alone yet. Couldn’t take the name for himself.

He’s finding that guilt ferments.

Peter pushes himself from the counter. This is a slippery slope, he knows—thinking at all these days is slippery—and he isn’t one for killing a vibe. The other people are having fun. It’s almost the weekend.

His phone buzzes with a notification about a post from Ned—Ned, who has recently started at an entry-level job in the State Department down in D.C. He’s on his way to big, secret agent-type things—a dream he’d never thought he’d have, but becoming Peter’s “guy in the chair” in high school had had a way of changing things.

Peter misses having him around. These days, Karen is his best companion. Some weekends, however, they link up over FaceTime while Peter’s in the suit and pretend they’re eleventh graders all over again. Ned draws on his new hacking abilities to help Peter win his fights, and Peter gets to hear about Ned’s blossoming love life. It’s good.

His thumbs move to send Ned a text, something like hope you’re not too busy tracking terrorists to send me that photo of Katrina like you promised, but the teeth-chattering gust of wind that sweeps in through the doorway pulls him away from his phone. The new patron shakes off her umbrella—prepared—and sends half a glance towards Peter before taking a seat a few stools down.

Peter slides the phone back in his still-wet pocket and pretends like he’s more in the moment than he is. On his right, the woman orders a martini. She pulls out a sketchbook a minute or so later, and without looking, he feels her eyes watching him.

He gives a couple minutes, but then turns cautiously towards her. She doesn’t avert her gaze. Peter definitely doesn’t expect to hold eye contact with her, but there she is, studying him like he’s someone worth studying.

“Sorry-“ he starts, coughing when he realizes his voice is pitched strangely from not being used in a while, “sorry, can I help you?”

“No, you’re good,” she responds, making some more marks on a page he can’t see. “I just like to draw people in crisis.” The woman picks up the book and juts it towards him proudly, her pointer finger leading his eyes to a sketch of…himself? Yeah. That’s him.

“Oh,” he says after a few seconds, not sure how to respond. “Didn’t think anyone could tell.”

“Your body reads pretty easily.” Peter’s eyebrows raise a little bit, and she fumbles for a moment. “Just, like, your face is easy to read. Not that anyone’s watching.”

“You are, though.”

“Am I?”

Peter doesn’t know what to say. He feels his body closing in on itself, so he turns back to study the labels of the liquor bottles on the shelf on the wall.

There’s a pause. “I’m Michelle,” he hears her say. When he glances back, he sees her notebook closed, scooched a little closer to him than she is.

“Peter.”

“You’re awfully wet, Peter.”

His uneasiness breaks a little. “Yeah—I, uh, didn’t know it was supposed to rain today. I’ve been at work for a while. And the cabs are getting too expensive. I saw you brought an umbrella, though, so, good preparedness on your part.”

“Oh, now who’s watching?” Michelle says, turning the corner of her lips up.

A smile breaks through the cloud hanging over Peter’s head. He finds himself leaning towards this girl, this woman, desperate for some sort of approval from her in the form of a full, eye-brightening smile—something he doesn’t think she gives out easily.

He tells her about people he’s met on patrol, without, of course, disclosing that he was ever “on patrol,” and she tells him about her favorite courses in college and her overworked coworkers at the unnamed newspaper she’s employed at.

Later, when she comes back from the restroom, she takes the seat next to his. Michelle says more to Peter in one night than she’s spoken since she graduated school. Peter remembers why he loves New York.

At two, when the bar closes and he remembers he has to be at work in the morning, he offers to walk Michelle home. She reminds him that she is fully capable of fighting off anyone who dared to mess with her, but lets him anyways. Michelle holds the umbrella for the both of them.

As she unlocks the door into her building, Peter shields them both from the storm. She steps inside and turns around, watching his body tense against the iciness of the rain for a moment before deciding she can be a little bit bold tonight. Maybe it’s the martini(s), or the fact that she knows Peter isn’t even tipsy, or maybe it’s because she doesn’t know if she’ll work up the confidence again to say these things and her roommate, Liz, is in Singapore for another week, but she opens her mouth to invite Peter to come dry off and maybe call him an Uber (later)—and then Peter beats her to the punch.

“How about I bring your umbrella back next time?” he says, switching from one foot to the other occasionally. “How’s tomorrow? I think the weather may be clear by then.”

“Okay,” she says. She wants to tell him that he can just dry his clothes in her machine, sleep on her couch, and not leave tonight at all, but the moment is fading. Next time it rains, she will. Next time.

He grins, leaning to the side, pulling a slip of paper and a pen from his pocket, and then writing something quickly before pushing it into her hands. “It was good meeting you, Michelle.” She nods in response, and then he backs up into the rain. A sudden flash of lightning turns the shower into a thunderstorm and he hesitates to walk on, but before Michelle can call him back inside, he folds in on himself and hurries off, umbrella doing nothing to keep him dry.

She’s not good at asking for things like this.

But next time, she won’t have to.