Three's a Crowd

"Happy!" May called to the man washing the dishes, "can you come here. I wanna give our gift to Peter."

It's been over two hours since we last left our marvelous characters. They had a good time celebrating Peter's birthday and were now starting to wrap things up. They had put on the TV to be a distraction if anybody was disinterested in a conversation that was going down. Tony was the first to leave, probably because he forgot some wedding thingy Pepper had scheduled. As mentioned before, Happy volunteered to help May with the dishes. Peter would usually have been the one to help, but there was a head of curly brown hair resting on his shoulder preventing him to move. Michelle had fallen asleep amongst the activities, not really interested in all the conversing going about the small group. Peter didn't mind at all, he liked it when she rested her head on him.

Happy soon appeared from the kitchen and sat down with May and Peter. "You guys got me a gift... together??" Peter asked.

"More like May's gift that I helped pay for" Happy explains as he reaches inside his jacket for a small white envelope. He hands it to May, who hands it to an intrigued Peter. Carefully opening it, he finds three ticket stubs inside. He pulls them out and reads the name "Billy Joel" printed on all of them for a concert in the next 3 days. Peter's eyes widen and his mouth starts to gape as a spark of excitement ignites inside him. "Guys, this is awesome! Thanks!" he says.

"I thought we could all go" May explained, "you, me and MJ." Peter looked to May, clearly appreciating the fact that she was being so thoughtful of MJ. "Do you think you guys would be up for that?" Peter was of course down for seeing Billy Joel, but he wasn't sure about Michelle. He didn't know if that would be something she would be interested in, especially this early in their relationship.

"I would love to, May" Peter answered, "but I don't know about MJ. I'll ask her later."

"Okay" May nodded, "it's okay if she doesn't. Otherwise, Happy can come along." Peter's eyes narrowed at this, wondering why Happy would be the one to take the third ticket. In one way, it would make sense since he helped pay for the tickets. Peter wasn't necessarily against Happy going, it's just he had another alternative in mind.

"What about Ned?" he suggested and explained that he was on his way back from his vacation. May and Happy looked to each other momentarily, trying to see the others reaction to this thought. Reluctantly, they nodded and shrugged in unison. "That works too..."

*** *** *** ***

Later in the night, Peter and Michelle were walking back to her apartment. Peter had just explained to her about the concert and asked if she was interested.

"She wants me to come with you guys?" she asked, looking at Peter. "What did you say?"

"I said I would ask what you thought" Peter answered normally. Michelle was silent for a moment, contemplating the notion of going to a concert with her boyfriend and his aunt.

"What if I said 'no'?" she said dryly. Peter's eyes stared at her as if she was not interested. Heck, his body tensed up a bit from her question. Michelle knew that he would respond to her question this way and was quick to assure him of her approach. "That's not my answer, I'm just wondering."

"I suggested that Ned might want to come."

"He's coming home?" Michelle narrowed her eyes quizzically.

"Yeah, tomorrow" Peter replied. "He called me earlier when I was patrolling."

"Are you excited to be reunited with Nerd #2" she teased. A smile appeared on Peter's face, making her smile in turn to see him happy. "Super excited, I really miss spending time with him."