|Towards the Endgame|

•Chapter 105• Old Friends

"Liz... what- uh, what are you- hi." Liz giggled at his nervous stuttering. Peter wasn't sure what to say or how to say it. Y/n jumped to mind almost immediately. "I want to talk to you. Can I come in?" Liz asked him politely. She was already stepping forward to get past Peter and inside the apartment but Peter stopped her. "Why don't we just talk out here?" Peter wouldn't let her into the house just like that. She seemed a little disappointed that he didn't let her in but she wasn't objecting. She hadn't changed a bit. She still had the same hairstyle – only a little longer in length – and her clothes were a little more grown-up rather than what she wore in high school. "I've missed you," Liz spoke up. "It's good to see you too, Liz. I heard from Flash you were back with your family." Peter really didn't know what to say to her. The vein in the back of his neck was pulsing under his skin. He wasn't ready to see Liz this sudden. "Yeah, my dad said he wanted to give us our normal lives again after what happened." She said, "We all blipped. In a way, it was a little comforting knowing that no one was left behind alone." Peter hadn't thought about that in a long time. He almost forgot that he disappeared for five years himself. So much has happened since. "May and I blipped too. I get it." Peter replied. Short answers, not too many details, maintain a certain distance between them. His heart thumped a little as he looked at her. It wasn't love, he knows that. Liz was his first crush. You never forget something like that. That's what May told him. She says that you will always feel something for a person like that. She's nothing compared to Y/n. "I heard from Flash you've been doing well. Y/n too." Peter leaned against the doorframe. "Yeah, we're both doing great," Peter answered. "Flash said you two are together now." Liz didn't know better than that Y/n was just the new kid. Now she was Y/n Stark and dating Peter Parker, the boy who took her to the homecoming dance. "Yeah, we are." He wasn't going to rub it in by telling her they started dating not too long after Liz left town. "Y/n Stark, huh? Not Rushman." Even after she revealed herself as a Stark, people would still sometimes call her Rushman in school because that was the name she gave herself. Y/n really didn't mind.

Peter nodded his head slightly. "Yeah, yeah, I knew. I just wasn't allowed to tell, you know? Stark internship and all that." Man was it a long time ago since he last said that. He didn't have to lie to anyone close to him anymore about that. Especially since Tony died. "So you're dating Tony Stark's daughter," Liz mumbled. Peter only nodded. He didn't want to talk about Y/n to Liz, it didn't feel right. "Liz, I'm sorry, but what are you doing here?" She looked at him with a polite smile. "To talk, I just told you that, Peter." She said. "Please don't lie to me," Peter replied. Liz's gaze dropped down to her feet and the floor they were standing on. "You could've talked to me, but you didn't. You had my number, you've always had it, and you never texted. If you wanted to talk you could've done it there." He didn't want or meant to sound like a dick to her. It has been years since she left. After four years, not including the years in which they blipped, she never thought about reaching out to him once? Why did she want to talk now? Did all her friends cut her out? "What do you want to talk about, Liz?" He repeated. "I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to have lunch with me. Catch up on some things. I mean, I'm back in town, I want to catch up with old friends." Peter sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sure, sure." He just wanted her to leave, really. He didn't know how to get out of this awkward situation. Her whole face lit up with joy. "Okay, how about we meet at the little cafe across Delmar's shop?" Peter was really thinking about saying no, but he might as well get it over with. "Sure. At eleven." Liz left happily.
He shut the door tightly and walked back to May in the living room. She was sitting on the couch with a frown on her face. "Was that Liz?" She questioned. Peter sighed and plopped beside her on the couch. "Yes. She wants to hang out and catch up." It's been a long day and Peter just wanted to sit here and enjoy the rest of the night. "And you said yes?" May asked. "Yeah. I don't want her to come and ask again, and again, and again for the next months. Just once so she'll leave me alone." He didn't want to give Liz the wrong idea, they're not going to become a thing or anything like that. They won't become friends all of a sudden. Peter wasn't going to ghost her. He did that to Nick Fury, and that didn't end too well either. May only hummed in response.