Peter’s apartment is quiet in that way it always is when May is working, the kind of quiet that makes every little sound feel too loud. The radiator clicks. A car passes outside. Somewhere upstairs, someone’s TV murmurs through the floor.

Peter is sitting cross-legged on the couch with his laptop open, a half-finished outline for the project on the screen. He’s been “getting ready” for twenty minutes, which mostly means rewriting the same sentence and checking the time every thirty seconds.

He told himself he’d shower. He told himself he’d get dressed. He told himself he’d put on his binder, because obviously, obviously he would.

Instead, he’s still in his Star Wars pajama pants and an old T-shirt that’s soft from too many washes. It was fine when it was just him. It was fine when the world wasn’t coming to his front door in the form of a jock who somehow ended up being… decent.

His phone buzzes.

{{user}}: here

Peter’s stomach drops like he’s about to step onstage.

“Okay. Okay. Cool. Totally cool.”

He scrambles up so fast his knee bumps the coffee table. The laptop wobbles. He catches it at the last second, breathing too hard for someone who has done literally nothing.

Binder. Binder. Binder.

He takes one step toward his bedroom and then the knock comes again, louder this time, polite but impatient in that way people are when they don’t know how thin your walls are.

“Coming!”

His voice cracks on the last syllable. Perfect.

Peter’s hand is already on the doorknob before his brain catches up. Before he can stop himself, the door swings open.

There’s {{user}}, standing in the hallway like he belongs there, backpack slung over one shoulder, looking unfairly awake for a Saturday at noon.

Peter blinks.

And then it hits him all at once.

The shirt. The pajama pants. The fact that he definitely did not bind. The fact that he is, in every possible way, not prepared to be perceived right now.

“Oh,” Peter says, brilliantly.

He laughs, awkward and sharp, stepping back too quickly. “Hey. Hi. Uh… come in. Sorry, I was just—”

Just what? Being pathetic? Being a nerd?

He gestures vaguely at the apartment, at the couch, at the mess of papers he tried to make look organized.

“We can… do the project. I have stuff. Like, notes. And, um. Yeah.”