Chemistry
They won.
Mrs. Henderson announced the results third period and Peter heard "Parker-Stacy" and "first place" in the same sentence and next to him Gwen's pen cap fell out of her mouth and hit the lab table and rolled off the edge and she didn't notice because she was already standing.
"YES." She said it loud enough that the back row looked up and Flash Thompson muttered "nerds" and Gwen didn't care. Her hands were on the lab table and her headband was crooked and she was grinning with all her teeth.
Peter picked up the pen cap from the floor. Handed it to her. She took it and put it back between her teeth and grinned around it.
"We won," she said through the pen cap.
"I heard."
"First place, Peter."
"I was here when she said it."
"FIRST PLACE."
Mrs. Henderson was still talking about the regional competition in March and the scholarship attached and the display that would go up in the front lobby but Gwen wasn't listening anymore. She was flipping through their project binder, their names on the cover in her handwriting. PARKER-STACY: ORGANIC POLYMER TENSILE STRENGTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION. The title was hers. Peter had wanted to call it "Why Spiderwebs Are Strong" but Gwen had vetoed that on the grounds that it sounded like a children's book.
She'd done most of the work. The literature review, the statistical analysis, the poster design, the forty-page write-up that Mrs. Henderson called "graduate-level." Peter had contributed the polymer chemistry and the testing methodology. He'd known more than he should have about material science and Gwen hadn't asked why.
"We should celebrate," she said.
"Okay."
"Derek's Diner after school. My treat."
"You don't have to-"
"My treat. I just won a science competition and I'm buying someone fries." She straightened her headband. Finally noticed it was crooked. "Also I need to tell someone about this and my dad is on shift until eleven and my cat doesn't care about polymer science."
"You have a cat?"
"His name is Isaac. After Newton. He's terrible."
"Terrible how?"
"He knocks things off tables and looks at me while he does it. He's a sociopath with fur."
Harry leaned over from the next table. "Congrats, nerds."
"Thank you, Harry," Gwen said. "Your support means everything."
"I didn't read your paper."
"Nobody asked you to."
"I wouldn't have understood it."
"That's also true."
Peter looked at Gwen. She was still grinning.
Derek's Diner was four blocks from school and it served breakfast all day and the booth in the back had a window that looked out on the parking lot where the light was good. Gwen ordered a milkshake and fries. Peter ordered coffee.
"Just coffee?" she said.
"I ate lunch."
"We're celebrating. Eat a celebratory thing."
"Coffee is a thing."
"Coffee is a caffeine delivery system. It's not a celebration."
He ordered fries too. She looked pleased.
The fries arrived. Gwen took one, dipped it in her milkshake, and ate it. Peter watched this happen.
"That's an abomination," he said.
"It's DELICIOUS."
"You just dipped a fried potato in vanilla ice cream."
"Correct. And it was delicious." She dipped another one. Held it out toward him across the table. Milkshake dripping off the end. "Try it."
He looked at the fry. He looked at Gwen. Her eyes were bright behind her glasses and her mouth was pulled into the smile she got when she was right about a thing and wanted you to know it.
He ate the fry off her fingers.
Cold and hot and sweet and salty and greasy and he hated it. But she was watching his face and her lower lip was caught between her teeth.
"It's... not terrible," he said.
She beamed. Her eyes creased and her cheeks pushed up.
Her hand was still near his mouth. She'd been holding the fry out and he'd eaten it and her fingers were still there, hovering, milkshake on her thumb. She looked at her hand. Looked at him. Pulled it back. Wiped the milkshake off on a napkin.
Her cheeks went pink.
First time Peter had seen Gwen Stacy blush.
She picked up another fry. Dipped it. Ate it herself. Looked out the window.
"Can I tell you something?" she said.
"Always."
"People see the headband and the grades and they think they know me." She was looking at the parking lot. A car pulled in and a woman got out and went inside. "They think, oh, that's Gwen, she's smart, she's got it together. She'll be valedictorian. She'll go to Columbia or MIT or wherever."
"Won't you?"
"Probably." She dipped another fry. Chewed it slowly. "But they don't know that I go home to an empty house three nights a week because my dad works Enhanced Crimes shifts. And my mom-" She stopped. Her jaw tightened. She looked at the fry in her hand like she'd forgotten what it was for. "My mom isn't around."
Peter was quiet. The diner hummed. The coffee machine behind the counter made a grinding noise. A bell rang when someone came through the front door.
"I know what empty houses sound like," he said.
She looked at him. Her eyes were steady and the blush was gone.
"Yeah," she said. "I think you do."
They ate fries for a while. She dipped hers. He didn't dip his. She tried to dip one of his and he blocked her hand with his coffee cup and she laughed. She sat back in the booth and her shoulders dropped and her feet were tucked up under her on the seat.
"Parker, can I ask you something weird?"
"Always."
She put her milkshake down. Leaned forward. Her glasses caught the light.
"Why do your hands stick to things sometimes?"
The fry in his hand stopped halfway to his mouth.
"What?"
"Your hands. They stick. Not always. But I've been watching." She pulled a notebook out of her bag. The notebook had a tab labeled P.P. and she opened it to a page covered in small handwriting and dates and observations. "September fourteenth. Chem lab. You picked up a beaker and set it down and the beaker stuck to your palm for half a second before releasing. I thought static. September twenty-first. You caught a textbook Flash knocked off a desk. Your fingers were on the cover for maybe a second and I could see the indentation when you let go. The surface was depressed. From adhesion, not grip strength."
She turned the page. Her handwriting was tiny and precise and there were more entries than he'd expected.
"October third. Library. You leaned on the table and when you stood up your palms peeled off the surface. There was a sound. Faint. Like tape coming off glass." She looked up. "October eighth. Hallway. You caught yourself on a locker when someone bumped you and your hand was flat against the metal for three seconds and when you pulled it away your fingerprints were visible in the condensation and the pattern was wrong. The ridges were too deep. I took a photo."
"You took a photo of my fingerprints."
"For reference." She turned another page. "November second. Gym. You climbed the rope in Mr. Bertolucci's class and your time was four seconds and nobody climbs a rope in four seconds without their hands doing what yours do."
He put the fry down.
"You have anomalous grip patterns," Gwen said. "Consistent across multiple surfaces and environmental conditions. It's not sweat. Sweaty palms reduce adhesion. Yours increase it."
"I have sweaty palms."
"You have the LEAST sweaty palms of anyone I've ever met. I checked. October fifteenth. I shook your hand after the polymer test and your palm was completely dry and your grip produced a measurable resistance when I pulled away."
"You measured my handshake."
"I estimated the force differential. There's a difference."
He looked at her. She looked at him. The notebook was open between them on the table with dates and observations and a hypothesis she hadn't stated yet.
"I don't have an explanation for you," he said. "I'm just a kid with weird hands."
"You're not just anything." She closed the notebook. Put it back in her bag. "You don't have to tell me. But you should know that I noticed." She picked up a fry. Dipped it. Ate it. "I always notice."
The conversation moved on. She talked about the regional competition in March and the scholarship money and what she wanted to study in college and Peter listened and drank his coffee and across the table Gwen ate milkshake fries and talked about the future with her headband crooked and her notebook in her bag and the blush still faintly visible on the tops of her ears.
He walked her to the bus stop. She had her bag over one shoulder and the project binder under her arm. The afternoon was cold and the sky was grey and a pigeon was eating a pretzel on the sidewalk near the bus shelter.
"Parker."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for the fries."
"You bought the fries."
"Thanks for eating the milkshake one."
"It was terrible."
"You said not terrible."
"I lied."
"I know." She smiled. Small, warm. "You're a bad liar but I appreciated the effort."
The bus came. She got on. The doors closed and the bus pulled away and she was sitting by the window and she waved once.
He walked home. The bite mark on his neck was fading and two days ago he'd sat between two girls on a ledge and tonight he'd eaten a milkshake fry from a third girl's fingers and the fry had been terrible and the look on her face when he said "not terrible" had been worth it.