Chapter 25

Your head was spinning. You couldn't work out how Peter didn't know you and Adam broke up, or how he wouldn't think that you would after that night. The look on his face told you that he genuinely did not know. You couldn't pinpoint how you felt about it.

You dialled Ruby's number as you walked back to yours in a haze.

"Well that was quick." She laughed into your ear once she picked up. "That bad huh?"

"He didn't know." You said quickly.

"Didn't know what?"

"That me and Adam broke up. He genuinely didn't know. Then it was weird, and awkward, and this poor girl is just sitting there as he's staring at me and-"

"Whoa whoa slow down. You walking home now?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, well nothing else is gonna happen tonight is it? So take a breath, tell me what happened, then once you're home, turn your phone off and get in the bath."

So you did. You told her all about the very short dinner, trying to explain Peter's facial expressions as best you could over the phone, and you both came to the same conclusion that he did not know about you and Adam. She also made you agree that now he did know, you needed to talk to him again. About why he never got your text, and what he expects you to do now.

But that would be another day, because your best friend gave you very strict orders that, once you hung up on her, you would turn your phone off, get in the bath, and go to bed. And you did exactly that, following her words to the letter.

Just as you snuggled into the warm cloud of bubbles, you heard a voice.

"Luka?!"

You sat up, the water sloshing around you.

"Luka?!" The voice came again. But not any voice.

Peter.

"Peter?" You called out, then you heard footsteps, and the door swinging open. "WHOA I'M IN THE BATH!" You yelled, your hands covering yourself, just as his face appeared.

"Shit sorry!" He covered his eyes with his hands and turned back out of sight, probably just standing on the other side of the wood. "I...can you come out?"

"What the hell are you doing in my house? In my bathroom?"

"I..." His figure appeared again, his hand still holding the handle, his other hand still covering his eyes. "I need to talk to you. Your phone's off."

"So you break in?"

His hand came away from his eyes. "It's not breaking in if your window is open." He smiled a little, then remembered he was supposed to not be looking and his hand shot back up to cover his eyes.

You sighed.

"It's not like you haven't seen it all." You muttered as you got out, wrapping a towel around your bubble covered body. "And I don't mean to be rude Peter, but I don't really have tons of energy after that car crash of a dinner. I'd rather we didn't do this."

His hand fell from his eyes again.

"I'm sorry. I didn't...I didn't know you and him broke up." He said with sympathy. You scoffed and pushed past him, heading to your bedroom, and making a point of shutting and locking your window. "You could have told me before."

"When? When your apartment door was opened by your girlfriend?" You turned to look at him as he stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. "I didn't have time to think. I came over to...for a reason, and then she was just...there. I just wanted to leave after that."

"What reason?"

"It doesn't matter."

He stepped towards you. "What reason?" He repeated.

"Like I said, what did you think was going to happen after that night Peter? That I would go back to him?"

"You did."

"What?"

"You did go back to him. I saw you, with him, walking down the street like nothing ever happened." He said, his voice raising towards the end as he marched towards you. "Like we never happened."

"I went with him because I was breaking up with him! I wasn't going to do it over the phone, so yeah, I met him after work and we went back to his and I dumped him."

Peter was silent as he looked you in the eyes, a slight frown in his eyebrows.

"I came straight to yours afterwards, but Ned said you'd already gone on the mission." You continued. "So I texted you. I texted you that me and him were over. That I was waiting. For when you got back."

"I never got that text."

"Yeah I figured that much."

He ran his hands over his face.

"I broke my phone. Before I went. That afternoon when I saw...Stark gave me a new one a few days into the mission. I thought he transferred everything...but I guess he didn't include messages."

You looked up at him. He looked at you.

"I never got that message." He repeated.

"Would things be different if you did?"

"I wouldn't have spoken to Jenny, that's for sure." He said, trying to chuckle, but he stopped when he saw your sour face. "I felt like shit. Thinking you were still with him, and you didn't try to contact me."

"I didn't because you didn't reply to my other texts. I thought you were ignoring me."

"Yeah...it makes sense now. But I was still fucking heartbroken." He shrugged. "Figured if you moved on I should too."

"I don't get why you'd think I would stay with him after..." You said, trailing off, not wanting to say it out loud and get dragged into the memory of it all over again.

"I woke up without you. No note. You wouldn't answer my calls. You didn't answer my texts. Then I saw you together. I wasn't exactly thinking straight."

"It made sense at the time to...to just get that over with, then talk to you. I wanted it finished before we..." You looked down. But then his finger came to your chin, and he guided your face back up to his.

"Before we what?" He whispered.

"Peter, I-"

"Did you get my last text?"

"Today? I don't-"

"No. Before I went. The one I sent that morning." His eyes bore into yours as you realised exactly what text he meant. The same text you read pretty much every morning for the first 4 weeks while he was gone. You tightened your towel around you. And nodded. He licked his lips. "And?"

"And what?"

"What's your response?" He asked, watching you simply breathe instead of answering. "What do you want me to be?"

"Well..." You started to say. "Single would be a good start."

He narrowed his eyes at you as he dropped his hand.

"It's true thought isn't it?" You scoffed. "I'm pretty sure not being single is how we got here in the first place."

He just stared at you, not responding, because he knew you were right.

The unsaid answer hung between you. Both of you knew what it would be. Both of you knew that it couldn't be said right now. So, when he stepped back, heading for your window, you knew that it was the right thing to just let him leave.

So that is what you did. You watched him leave. After the window shut behind him, you let out a heavy breath.

It felt like all that you and Peter were destined to, was to cross paths. Never once being in the right time, or the right place, never having time to settle, or to enjoy each other. Always just watching each other leave, it seemed.