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Abe hated working in service. Unfortunately, he also has student loans he would like to be small enough to pay off one day, and for whatever reason, his full-ride scholarship to ESU doesn’t cover food. Which is why, as a senior in college, he is somehow pulling double duty as shift manager and waiter at IHOP.
So sure, this isn’t the way a normal Saturday night would go for a college student, but Danielle having quit just a few hours earlier was enough entertainment for his weekend, truth be told. In Abe’s professional opinion, the position of IHOP hostess isn’t a particularly necessary one, anyways, so they just a put up a little “seat yourself” sign at the area by the front, and hoped that any customers that they had for the rest of the night were literate.
So yes, his place of employment is admittedly a mess, but Abe also gets paid 17.50 an hour, and gets take home leftovers, so it’s a net win.
And so, seeing as the day’s entertainment has already taken place, Abe focuses on his Chemistry lab report, absently listening for the bell by the doorway while tuning out the giggles from the cooks behind him.
When said bell does clink, Abe doesn’t even bother to look up immediately, forgoing the required “welcome to IHOP” greeting in favor of finishing entering his last piece of data into his Google Sheet, before looking up and oh.
It was Spider-Man that just walked in, and that really does explain the giggles that he was hearing, seeing as he was like, seventy-percent sure that his cooking staff were not into each other. New York’s favorite vigilante seems to have no qualms when it comes to eating at an IHOP.
One well placed glare and a mouthed “get a camera or so help me god” later, Abe is taking Spider-Man’s IHOP order, which, okay. This is fine. Deep breaths, Abe.
As it turns out, Spider-Man is very hungry. As soon as Abe reaches the head of the booth Spider-Man is practically laying in, he explains that he wants “exactly three breakfast samplers, two with only bacon and one with only sausage, all with scrambled eggs, with like five cups of water and a hot chocolate.”
This seems like a crazy amount of food to Abe, a fact that Spider-Man seems well aware of.
Before Abe can even ask, Spider-Man laughs, and gestures to his right side, which he has so far hunched over. “Hey, fighting crime is hard work, and The Shocker broke...” Spider-Man pauses, before rapping his knuckle right against his rib cage, “... at least one of my ribs, probably two,” he seems to decide.
“Is that normal?” Javier screams from the kitchen, drawing a laugh from Spider-Man.
“The ribs?” Spider-Man asks. “Sort of, but it depends. I’m getting better?” He adds but it sounds more like a question than an actual answer.
Abe just shrugs, offers a sheepish nod to Spider-Man, and scuttles way, clutching the clipboard with the order to his chest like it might get stolen.
Javier has already started on the eggs, and Lilian is already toasting the white bread by the time Abe gets back to the kitchen, where he slams the orders onto the table before letting out a muffled scream into his elbow.
Lilian fights back a laugh. “You good, boss?” She snarked, looking up from her phone at him. “Peachy,” Abe drawled, filling the third cup with ice cold water as he watched Spider-Man poke and prod at the assorted jams on the table. His lips, now visible seeing as his mask was pulled up to his nose, were pulled into a small frown of concentration. Whatever - as Abe has already established, Spider-Man was weird.
“We working on that bacon, guys?” Abe called out, taking note of the thumbs up from the back as he pushed back through the doors to approach Spider-Man’s booth. As he set down the tray of waters on the table, he took note of the empty plastic jam cartons that were scattered across the table.
“They're calorie dense, and I wanted to know which tasted the best,” Spider-Man said by way of explanation. Which, okay, fair, but also, still very gross. Abe didn’t have much to say to that, and so he didn’t, instead placing the waters down in front of Spider-Man, before picking the tray back up, and going back to the kitchen.
“Spider-Man ate the jelly packets.” Abe said, if only to convince himself that it actually happened. In his twenty years on earth, Abe had only ever seen one other person do that: Peter Parker, who Abe hadn’t seen since he quit academic decathlon freshmen year when his uncle died, and before he had transferred schools. As far as he knew, Parker took pictures of Spider-Man now. How’s that for irony?
“He did,” Javier confirmed, patting his back. Abe decided that he wasn’t going to understand, and instead busied himself finding where the extra jam packets were.
Lillian had decided that it was now her job to deliver food to the table, and Abe definitely was not jealous of her, even if he did plan to remind her of proper procedure soon after. Another thing Abe was almost certain she wasn’t supposed to do was flirt with Spider-Man, but Abe could let that one slide. Besides, in his admittedly inexperienced opinion, Lilian’s flirting wasn’t getting her anywhere anyways. Abe couldn’t blame the girl for trying, though. Just about every girl Abe had ever known had at least a small crush on the hero.
The full staff of the IHOP (just Abe, Lilian, and Javier, but that was besides the point,) watched as Spider-Man scarfed down all three plates, and drained the water like it was nothing. According to the official calorie amounts on the menu, he had just inhaled somewhere between 3700 and 4000 calories, a number which, based on the extra-generous portion sizes Lilian and Javier had produced, was probably closer to 5000.
Eventually, Spider-Man did finish his food, at which point he stood up, and began to dig through a pouch in his costume for a moment, before revealing a $100 bill and placing it on the table.
“Keep the change as a tip, you three, and thanks,” Spider-Man said, offering a small salute. “Abe, Lilian, and...” the man squinted, reading the last name tag. “Javier. I appreciate you all,” He said, before walking out the front door like nothing about the meal was a big deal.
As he so often did, Spider-Man left chaos in his wake.
“Spider-Man knows my name,” Lilian gushed, his thumbs already flying across the screen of her phone.
“Mmhm,” Javier confirmed, “he read it on your name tag. What I’m more confused about,” the man said, shaking his head, “is how he pronounced Abe’s name right. Abe never even talked.”
And huh, Abe realized. That was a really good question.