Peter is a waiter at a fancy restaurant in Forest Hills.
One night Tony comes in to the restaurant with a late reservation and Peter waits their table. Except, the girl Tony is with breaks up with him before the food is ready. It's big and spectacular.
They get to talking and it's the end of Peter's shift. He takes Tony to his favorite Thai restaurant down the block, and they commiserate about how much girls suck sometimes.
Years later, they reconnect and Peter mentions the restaurant is closed, and how bummed about it he is. He's still not found a place as good.
So Tony finds the proprietors, buys out the original building, recreates the interior, and reopens the restaurant.
These are not in any sort of order, and are just drafts/drabbles to get me comfy in this new AU of mine. I'm piecing everything together into a hopefully longer fic that I will post to ao3.
Peter was...happy. Some days were better than others, of course, the same was true for everyone. But overall he was happy. He had just turned 18 and was taking night classes as a freshman at NYU while working at the coffee shop during the day. It was a lot, but he was…he didn’t mind. It was fun. May needed his help, and he was more than willing to provide it. She had sacrificed so much in order to support him that he felt bad not doing the same for her, now that she needed him. Sure going to MIT would have been amazing, but it was far away, and May would have been alone. It was hard for May to pay the bills as a waitress, and honestly, Peter didn’t mind.
Koh-Fe-Bahr was located in Stark Place, a large complex of interconnected high-rises and underground luxury shopping areas in downtown Manhattan, right on the Hudson. It was a bit of a hike from their apartment in Forest Hills, but it was an easy enough trip; a straight shot on the E train, no transfers required! Sure it took like an hour door to door but for NYC that wasn’t unheard of. All things considered it wasn’t bad. He usually just listened to music and watched the people around him. He grew to recognize the people who took the train the same times he did. They never interacted, of course, but it was comforting to see them. Just to know that there were other people out there, doing that same grind every day.
Then of course there were the regulars.
The coffeeshop mostly saw business workers in the mornings. In addition to the luxury mall, the Stark Place complex also housed fifty floors of Stark Industries HQ, which sublet its unused office space to a number of law and banking offices. Peter was aware of at least two magazines which had space somewhere in the complex, a fashion something he wasn’t very interested in (but that MJ liked to read sometimes), and a science and technology magazine (that Peter actually had a print subscription to).
All that to say: the regulars were something else. Everyone was attractive and well dressed. They got AMAZING tips. Sure sometimes a new partner at one of the law firms would get a little mouthy if he had to wait for his flat white, but Peter could always shut them up with a wink.
Everything was fine.
Except…as Peter looked down at the glossy red envelope in his hands, he couldn’t help but feel like his life was on the precipice of something big.
Aether looked down at the inky black cat sleeping peacefully, curled in his lap. He had only found him a few days ago, wet and lost in the rain, but Aether would do ANYTHING to keep him warm and safe. His heart ached for the small creature. The thought of him back out on the street, in the cold, all alone; Aether got choked up just thinking about it.
The cat was fully dependent on him for its survival, and despite doing absolutely nothing but love Aether back, and Aether felt like he was the one who owed the cat everything.
He reached down and gave him a little scratch behind the ears. The cat shifted slightly in his lap and looked up, blinking at him with sleepy eyes. Aether felt a bit guilty for waking him up, but the cat leaned into his hand and started to purr.
Aether had never felt such unconditional love for anything before in his life, and it felt a little bit ridiculous to him that it was for a cat.
Inspo: My cat has been sleeping in my lap all day and I would literally die for her.
It was a beautiful summer day in Bishui Plain. The sun was still mostly hidden behind the ever-snowy slopes of Dragonspine in the dim distance, but the heat was strong despite the early hour. The morning dew which often clung to the path along the river’s edge had already dried. Xiao knew there wouldn’t be much time before the heat of the day drove the fish deep into the brackish water of the river to keep cool, only emerging once the sun had set. And Xiao wanted fish for dinner. He quickened his pace; fishing pole balanced over his shoulder, the bucket he carried hitting the side of his leg with each stride.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
As he trod north along the path to the water’s edge, Xiao took in his surroundings in the hazy morning light. The paths around Wangshu Inn had become familiar to him during his extended stay, and he took comfort in them. Xiao’s life had been marked by change and disruption, so the ever-constant landscape of the estuary was a balm on his ragged soul. The sparkling, tranquil waters of the Bishui River gently lapping at the shore, the heady perfume of silk flowers, especially heavy in this morning air, the undulating waves of silvergrass that danced with the ocean breeze. Xiao took comfort in it all. And a morning spent fishing was the perfect way to take it in.
Once he was past the northern Wangshu bridge, Xiao turned off the worn cobbled path and made his way around the grassy hill to the western beach of the island, where the shallow, reedy waters were perfect for fishing. He set his bucket down atop a nearby stone and leaned his fishing pole against it. He sat on the pebbly beach, took off his boots and rolled the hem of his pants to his knees. Xiao stood, stretching his arms above his head and dug his toes into the smooth pebbles of the beach. He closed his eyes. The morning sun was warm on his body, the pebbles cool between his toes. Xiao just breathed. Slowly in through his nose, filling his lungs with the salty marsh air, and out through his mouth, exhaling all the tension and stress of his existence.
After a moment, Xiao opened his eyes feeling fully awakened, and grabbed the fishing pole, carefully slipped a crystalfly on the hook, and stepping into the shallow waters, cast it far into the river. It fell into the water with a quiet ‘plop,’ a little bit of cork suspending the hook below the surface.
For a long while nothing happened. The sun fully emerged over the slopes of Dragonspine. A gentle breeze ruffled Xiao's hair and pushed big cottony clouds high across the sky. Crickets began to chirp in the dry grass by the beach, and a toad croaked in the distance. The cork bobbed lazily on the surface of the water, and Xiao thought how peaceful it must be under the surface, the weight of the water pressing on all sides, cold and dark. He wiggled his toes in the cool shallows. The utter stillness of it all appealed to him.
Suddenly, the line went taut, and the cork dipped below the surface. Xiao was startled out of his dreams and jerked on the line, which darted side to side as the fish tried to escape. Xiao reeled the line in quickly, pulling back against the weight of the fish. But as he drew it closer to shore, the line suddenly snapped back, the hook flying out of the water with no prize. Xiao reeled in the empty line. He stuck another fly onto the hook and cast it far into the river a second time. It was rare to catch a fish on the first cast anyway.
Xiao stepped out of the water and sat down on the beach next to his boots, leaning against the rock. He closed his eyes. How warm the early sun felt. Soon, he was asleep.
For a second long while nothing happened. The sun grew brighter as it rose over the distant mountains.The breeze blew, salty and warm over the water. The small creatures around him went about their business without care. But suddenly, quietly, something. The bobber slipped below the surface with barely a ripple. The water was still for a moment, and with a ‘pop’ the cork appeared again, gently floating on the surface. Xiao’s nose twitched in his sleep.
Gentle ripples spread over the surface of the water in overlapping circles, but soon even they were still.
After a quiet moment, something moved in the stony shallows by his feet. If Xiao was awake he would have seen the water quietly rippling, a strange gold shimmering tangle of hair, and then two amber eyes broke the surface, blinking, watching.
Peter quickly ducked behind the counter and stumbled the few steps to the supply room at the back of the coffee stand. He threw his backpack into the corner and quickly slipped an apron over his head. Tying it behind his back, he stepped back behind the counter where MJ was attempting to steam milk with one hand and grab a croissant with a pair of tongs with the other. The line of customers was around the corner.
"Where have you been, Parker?" She flung the tongs at him, which he easily catgut. "Get me a croissant will you, then hop on the register!"
"Sorry sorry!" Peter said, shooting her an apologetic smile over his shoulder as he slipped the croissant into a paper bag. "I overslept! My phone didn't charge. The port's messed up or something. Or the cord." He handed her the bag. "Or maybe the battery?"
"Register, Peter!" She nodded her head at the long line, pouring the steamed milk into the awaiting shot of espresso.
---
"What's this?"
The morning rush was finally over, and Peter was wiping down the counter.
"Hmm?" MJ acknowledged but didn't look up from her phone.
"Someone forgot a present." Peter picked it up. It was neatly wrapped in glossy red paper, and a small tag hung from its gold bow. He flipped the tag over.
For Peter P. So I don't miss you again. IM
"Oh my god MJ someone left a present for me!"
"What?" MJ looked up from her phone.
"A present! For me!" He waved it in MJs face.
She snatched it and read the tag.
"Might be a different Peter P." She held the box up to her ear and gave it a shake.
"Hey!" Peter snatched it back. "Don't shake it! What if it's delicate?"
"If there's something delicate in there then it's definitely for a different Peter P. You're like a labrador in a china shop." MJ smirked and handed the box back to him. "Who is IM?" she asked.
Peter shrugged. "I dunno, maybe it's like, a secret admirer or something. Maybe someone is madly in love with me!"
"Or maybe somebody just forgot their present for their nephew."
"Yeah but like, how many Peter P.'s are there out there? I-"
"Oh my god Peter!" MJ laughed, "just open it!"
Needing no other encouragement, Peter ripped open the paper and gasped. It was a Stark Phone. He opened the box and tipped the thin glassy slab of a phone into his palm. It was already powered on, and there was a message on the home screen from a number Peter didn't recognize.
Don't be late on Friday. IM
"Holy shit Peter!" MJ whacked him on the back. "You do have a secret admirer!"
