Ethan didn't sleep well. Again.
His body was drained, but his mind ran laps like a dog chasing fireworks. The coke billies gig kept looping in his head. This wasn't the usual noise. Not some puffed-up turf war or two-bit idiot with delusions of grandeur.
It was different. Unexpected. Bigger.
And that made it worse.
How do you work so hard watching a gang so pitiful it barely registered as a criminal enterprise and still find yourself with twenty kilos and enough money to pay off five cops and a half? Preparation was supposed to remove the element of surprise.
Now was he going to investigate and see what this was about? Hell no!
When he got to Midtown the next morning, the heat was already unbearable. The sun seemed to hang lower than usual, cooking the school's brick walls and warping the air above the pavement. Ethan shuffled through the front entrance with the same dead-eyed zombie walk as everyone else, half-hoping the building would spontaneously combust.
He grabbed an iced coffee from the bodega two blocks away, but it wasn't doing much. His eyelids felt like sandpaper, and the caffeine was just enough to keep his brain twitching without helping him focus.
Thankfully, Peter wasn't around to make it worse. He'd been spending more time with Harry Osborn lately, and Ethan couldn't blame him.
Harry had an allowance that could feed three households and enough clout to get out of pretty much anything. If Ethan had a friend with that kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, he'd stick close too, but the two of them didn't get along one bit.
Something about a billionaire's only kid feeling sorry for himself just rubbed him the wrong way.
It's not like Harry knew Papa Osborn sold his boy's soul for the sake of the business in some continuities.
So, yeah. Peter was occupied, the heat was miserable, the coffee was failing.
And then there was Gwen.
She slid into the seat next to him before third period, like she always did, but it still startled him a little. There was something about Gwen Stacy that always cut through the fog, like her presence was just brighter.
She had a way of smiling that made the day suck a little less, even if the world was upside down.
"Wow," she said, giving him a look, "You look like a raccoon that lost a bar fight."
See? He was already feeling better.
"Flattering," Ethan muttered, blinking slowly. "Is it the hair or the general aura of regret?"
She leaned in a bit, grinning.
"Definitely the aura. And maybe the bags under your eyes. Rough night?" She tilted her head like she always did when stating the obvious.
"Didn't sleep", Ethan just grunted.
"You alright?" she asked, more serious now.
"Yeah. Coffee betrayed me. That's all."
She didn't press. Instead, she pulled a folded flyer out of her notebook and slapped it onto his desk.
"Okay, well, maybe this'll cheer you up. Guess who's going to Empire State University next Friday?"
He blinked once. Long. Then again.
Was there a university with this name in his old world?
"...Yankees?" he mumbled, already slumping lower.
"No, dummy. It's us. Field trip. Sophomores and Juniors in the science program. We're getting a full lab tour. You need to remember to get your permission slip signed." She laughed, poking him in the cheek and giggling some more when he didn't react.
Ethan's head gently dropped against his folded arms on the desk. He gave a vague thumbs-up without lifting it.
"I'll take that as a yes," she said softly.
By the time the next class rolled around, Gwen had opened her bio textbook and was scribbling notes on genetic recombination like it was a love letter.
Ethan hadn't moved. His slow, steady breathing told her he was out cold, probably for the first time in hours.
She glanced at him with a small smile. His face, usually sharp with sarcasm or skepticism, looked softer when he was asleep. Less guarded. She kept working quietly, pen tapping out rhythms that matched the hum of the overhead lights.
Somewhere between sketching out a Punnett square and underlining a dense chunk of text, she found her fingers idly brushing through Ethan's hair.
She didn't even realize she was doing it until a voice behind her cleared its throat.
Peter.
He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, smug in that classic Parker way.
Gwen's hand shot back like she'd touched a stove.
"Shut up." She warned him.
"I didn't say anything," Peter whispered, grinning.
"You were thinking it." She growled, promising violence and a very strongly worded letter.
Peter glanced at Ethan, dead asleep, then back at Gwen. "He looks like he needed it."
She smiled, but didn't answer. Her pen started moving again, this time a little slower.
Peter quietly sat on the other side of the table, pulling out his own notebook. The three of them worked in companionable silence, well, two of them worked, and one of them slept through a class he definitely wasn't going to remember later.
By the time Ethan woke up, Peter was gone and so was the third period, he was glad for both of these things.
Lunchtime brought a bit of relief. Ethan and Gwen found a patch of shade in the courtyard, sitting on the grass with sandwiches and warm bottled water. It was too hot to think, which made conversation easier in a weird way.
"You ever think about the future?" Gwen asked, stretching her legs out.
"Hm? Philosophically or career wise?" Ethan raised an eyebrow.
His immediate answer was yes and featured Tinkie Winkie's genocidal cousin, alien invasions and so many headache he just wanted to sleep and let someone else deal with the fallout.
But he couldn't; butterfly effect, the existence of doomed timelines and a healthy dose of paranoia saw to that, he had to step up.
He couldn't exactly tell her that though.
"Career. College. What you wanna do." She said patiently in that soft tone he could just listen to for hours on end.
"Make money," Was the obvious answer, though she wasn't really satisfied with it so he continued, "Work in computer science, code something that'll waste people's time and money and fill up my pockets, you?"
"Engineering, I like building things, but I wouldn't mind a career in biotech, ESP has an awesome program…" She sighed.
They lapsed into silence again. Ethan watched the way the breeze caught strands of her hair. She was drawing again, some kind of spiral on a napkin with her pen.
"What's that?"
"Just something I saw online," she said. "A golden ratio thing. It's calming."
He nodded, then said without thinking, "You're calming."
Gwen looked up, startled.
Some part of him was tempted to say 'forget it' or bumble an explanation, but that part sucked and could go screw itself as far as he was concerned, so he just shut up and owned his cheesy line.
Like a proper man.
"Eh... thanks." she was blushing again, which made the embarrassment worth it.
"You're welcome." Ethan smiled.
The heat, the chatter of other students, the distant sound of Flash yelling at someone for stepping on his sneakers, it all felt far away for a moment.
For a minute, Ethan let himself enjoy it.
And though he didn't realize it, he never actually heard when the ESU trip was happening, or what exactly they would see there.
Or what other students might be going.
But Gwen didn't bring it up again. And neither did he.
It wasn't all that important though? Right? Gwen would probably forgive him if he ended up forgetting to get the permission slip signed and miss the whole thing, she'd probably just feel bad for him and tell him all about it in detail.
She was sweet like that.
Though Peter apparently fainted during the visit.
"Shit."
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.