That gets Peter's attention. MJ has been threatening to introduce them to her best friend for months. Peter knows surprisingly little about the woman beyond the fact that she apparently exists in a perpetual state of professional crisis. There is always a deadline, a tour, a call, a meeting, or some other vaguely literary emergency preventing her from joining them. Peter has started suspecting MJ invented her.

MJ rolls her eyes and turns toward the hallway.

Peter drops his phone onto his thigh, already wearing the lazy grin he reserves for meeting someone new. Cocky. Friendly. Then the woman steps through the doorway. The grin disappears. For one impossible second, Peter forgets how to fucking breathe. She's stunning. But she's painfully familiar. Years have passed. Her face has matured, her hair is longer, and there are pieces of her Peter has never seen because he wasn't there to watch them happen. But it's her. The girl from Midtown. The girl who used to catch his eye across classrooms and crowded parties. The girl who once told him she couldn't wait to see him and then not say a word. The girl he'd spent an embarrassing amount of high school getting three inches away from kissing. His girl. Even if she'd forgotten him. Even if she's looking at him now like he's a stranger.

Ned gets up from the couch, rescuing Peter from the fact that his brain has apparently evacuated his skull.

Peter stands. He has fought aliens. Been to space. Died. Come back. Watched the entire world forget his name. Apparently none of that prepared him for this. His eyes flick over her once before returning to her face.