Chapter Text
Peter’s grin is brighter than the sun as they take a picture with their diplomas, hair a mess from his cap and eyes twinkling. Harley loves him, loves him, loves him.
He’s counting down the days until he can say it.
- to build a family, part 13: what a safe place to be (look at me in a big bad dream)
o n e
The first time they have a fight, it’s pretty shitty.
Harley hates it. He hates every single second of it, and how it feels, pressed against his skin and squeezing his lungs and twisting his stomach until he’s nauseous, but even then—even when his body protests the feeling of it all, protests what’s happening, his can’t help the flare of irritation, the anger that rises in his chest, despite the aching heart that thuds within it. “You don’t get it,” he says. “You just—don’t.”
“I never said that I did!” Peter tells him, his tone giving away his own frustration as he runs a hand through his hair and looks up at the ceiling, as if trying to find an answer up there. He sucks in a harsh, sudden breath, lets it out slow and shaky, then does it again, and again, until his inhales are calm and his exhales are closer to steady. Only then does he look back at Harley, brows bunched together and arms crossing over his chest. His shoulders are squared—but not the Spider-Man kind of squared, where he exudes the confidence only being in the suit seems to give him, instead the kind of squared where he’s forcing himself to not look small and timid, like he’s afraid of coming across as afraid in the first place.
It’s been—god, almost a year since they started dating. May 12 will be the day, and it’s only a week and a half away from them. Over a year since they met—March of last year. Harley feels like it’s been so much longer than that, and also like it’s only been a month, all at the same time.
Throughout it all, they’ve been so good. They’ve talked through it all, they’ve tried so hard to keep communication open, to avoid—to avoid the stupid shit that’s so easily avoidable.
And now, almost a year into dating, and…
“I just—I never said that I get it,” Peter repeats, his tone more level this time, words even and slow. “I know that I don’t get it, Harley, and I know that I never will. But neither will you. That’s all it is.”
“It’s not a competition, Peter—”
That frustration flares back up in his eyes. “I’m not the one that made it one.”
“Well, it definitely wasn’t me!”
Harley can’t remember where it started, actually. He remembers talking about his dad, and his half siblings, and Abbie trying to convince him to give them a chance again, and how much it weighs on him whenever he thinks about all of that for more than a few minutes at a time. He remembers hearing Peter murmur gently about his parents and the plane crash that he sometimes thinks too hard about, and Ben, though he still hasn’t talked too much about him. Harley remembers that it didn’t seem like they were going down a road that would lead here, remembers, at first, feeling like they were simply talking through some of the things pressing down on their chests, as they tend to do. At first, it’s just them, and it’s nice.
Somehow, it turns into something that isn’t so pleasant. Somehow, it turns into a griping grumble of at least you have, and at least you didn’t, and at least you can. Somehow, it turns bitter. It turns angry.
It could have been him that started the whole thing, really. He can’t remember if it was. It could have been Peter. It could have just been a bad day and now they’re unintentionally taking it out on each other without realizing that neither of them started anything at all and a perfectly innocent conversation was simply twisted into whatever this is to fit preexisting bad moods. It could have been nothing, or everything, something small, something big. In the haze of what it isn’t, it’s hard to remember what it is.
But what it becomes, eventually, is this:
Peter tells him, “This isn’t about me, Harley!”
And Harley stupidly replies, “Oh, that’s a fucking first!”
“I—"
Harley thinks he can feel it in his chest, like a bullet lodging between his ribs, the very second that those words settle in the air enough to be fully and properly processed. He thinks he, himself, can sense the sudden stabbing of pain that erupts in Peter’s eyes, the clouding confusion and the striking hurt that overtakes his features—can feel it all like a punch to the gut as Peter stares at him, unblinking.
He swallows thickly. Does it again. “Oh,” he whispers.
“That’s—” Harley stops, because something large and awful clogs up his throat, because the realization of what he said rolls over him like a boulder, because he’s not an idiot. As simple as the words may seem, he knows that they pack a mean punch when it comes to Peter Parker. Because Peter Parker will look his own demise in the eye and think that telling anyone about it may be a bother, and Harley just snapped at him about—about what, exactly? He doesn’t even know, but he does know that it sounded a lot like he was saying that things are always about Peter, and it sounded a lot like he was implying things being about Peter is a bad thing, and it sounded—it sounded like he meant it, too. It sounded pretty fucking real.
Peter looks off to his right, clenches his jaw and wipes under his nose with a sniffle. “Okay,” he says.
Harley shakes his head rapidly, his chest feeling tight with guilt. “No. No, not—not okay. Definitely not okay. That wasn’t—I—I didn’t mean that. I swear to god, Pete, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t—I wouldn’t—I would never fucking mean something like that. I didn’t mean to say it.”
“Then why did you?” Peter asks, but he doesn’t demand it or look back at Harley with a fire in his eyes or square his shoulders like he’s trying to not look scared. He hunches down on himself and looks at the ground and bites his tongue, frowning. It looks like he regrets asking right after the words are out of his mouth, and he shakes his head, just a little bit, before forcing a smile. “Nevermind. I, um…”
It’s like he swallowed needles and knives and rocks with jagged edges. It burns. “Peter,” he tries, and talking only makes it hurt worse, but only because he’s so god damn scared he won’t say the right thing. “I wasn’t even thinking about what I was saying, or what it sounded like. I just—I heard you say something, and that—that angry part of me thought, hey, there’s something that I can use, and I did without even thinking, and—and, Christ, honey, it is about you, alright? And it’s about me, too. It’s about both of us.”
But Peter doesn’t look at him. “It’s alright,” he says. “It’s—I’m—I get it. It’s okay.”
“Pete—” Harley feels like stepping forward is equivalent to stepping into a field of landmines, but if it were and Peter was on the other side, he wouldn’t hesitate, so he doesn’t hesitate now. Two long strides, and he’s close enough to touch, though he doesn’t just reach forward like he usually would, because this isn’t like they usually are and he knows it, and he has to adapt with it. Fighting is a first for them, which means this—the after fight imbalance, the making up and trying to recover and comfort and apologize and feel out where the boundaries are and how to mend them—this is all new, too. Harley’s got to be careful with this, and maybe it’s usually a two way street on that front, but in this case he’s pretty sure that he’s the one that fucked up, and he feels pretty confident in the fact that it’s on him to feel out this new territory mostly on his own. He starts by not reaching out right away and instead ducking his head, just a little bit. Keeping his voice gentle and quiet as he murmurs, “Can you look at me, Pete? Please?”
The thing is, comforting is something he’s well versed in. As in, Comforting Peter Parker is a language he’s become fluent in over the past year, just as Peter has become fluent in Comforting Harley Keener. But there’s a difference between Comforting Peter Parker in the context of the world and other people and injuries and things like that, versus Comforting Peter Parker in the context of something that Harley said to him. In the context that Harley is the one that just hurt him. It’s a whole new dialect to learn.
And, hopefully, one he will rarely—preferably never—have to use again after today.
It takes millennia, he thinks, for Peter to raise his head, slow and uncertain, something he has never been when around Harley before—save for, perhaps, before they started dating, but even then it wasn’t like this; it was a cute and nervous uncertainty, the kind where they were both wondering if it would be weird to reach over and hold the other’s hand—and seeing that uncertainty makes Harley want to scream at himself for letting his anger take over his self control to the point of saying such a stupid, horrible thing.
“Hi,” he whispers, when Peter has eventually met his eyes once more, offers the smallest and shakiest of smiles just because, if nothing else, he wants it to be clear that any of that frustration he’d been feeling, anything he had been wielding while they were arguing, is no longer here. The only anger left in him is aimed solely at himself, but Peter doesn’t need to know that, at least not now, and Harley does not need to show that, so he doesn’t. Peter just looks at him, mouth pressed into a firm line as his brows twitch together, the edges of his lips twitch down, his eyes shining in the worst of ways. Harley can’t believe he’s made the most beautiful and incredible person he has ever met look so fucking sad. “I…” he trails off, clearing his throat to try and empty it of all the jagged rocks that are still slicing mercilessly away. “I’m sorry. God, I—I’m so sorry, Pete. For lettin’ myself get so caught up in whatever the hell we were even arguing about in the first place, which I know wasn’t worth it ‘cause I never want to argue with you and I can’t even remember how it started, but I… I—I’m—I’m not excusing myself, okay? I’m sorry I allowed myself to speak without thinking, and I swear to god, I’m never letting it happen again ‘cause I’ve never regretted saying something the way that I do right now.”
Peter keeps eyeing him warily, which Harley would think is well deserved, except he knows Peter isn’t wary of Harley right now—he’s wary of himself, not wanting to seem selfish even though he’s the one who just got hurt and he has the right to be selfish, especially now. Harley wants to tell him that, but it isn’t his place to try just yet, not when he firstly needs to address his own actions, and make it clear that what he just said is not remotely okay for him to say—make it clear that it was wrong and cruel.
So, Harley just puffs out a heavy breath and finishes with, “I’m sorry, Peter. I’m a jackass for sayin’ that.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Peter murmurs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking like he wants to shift his eyes somewhere else but manages to keep them, for the most part, on Harley.
“I do,” Harley insists. “I absolutely have to apologize. Peter, things can be about you. Things should be about you. Hell, I love it when things are about you! I just—” He stops, and he takes in a long, slow breath, trying to calm the erratic beating of his heart, then lets it out. “I just… I think it’s been a rough day, and I was in a bad mood, and somehow that turned into… into a fight, even though there was no reason for it to be one, and the only thoughts in my brain were just bitter and angry and I wasn’t being rational about anything and I said the first thing that came to mind that I knew would hurt. And it worked, obviously, and… and I’m never going to let that happen again. Never—Never again, okay? I won’t take out bad days on you, or bad moods, or anything like that. Not like this. ‘Cause I… Peter, I just—I—”
He wants to say it. God, he wants to say it, can feel the way the words form on the back of his tongue, and now would be so perfect, but… but they have a deal, they have a promise, and he won’t break it.
“Eighteen,” he breathes instead, wobbly smile pulling at his lips. “Y’know?”
Peter doesn’t move, not for a moment that feels like it lasts years—but then he sucks in a sharp breath, jerks his chin down in some kind of nod, and says, “Yeah. I—I know. I, um—” He steps forward, closes the space between them, and suddenly Harley’s got an armful of Peter Parker, clutching onto the back of his sweatshirt and still nodding against his shoulder, voice almost weak when he says, “Me, too.”
“I’m sorry,” Harley tells him again, arms curling around his waist, holding him close. “I’m—”
“I know,” Peter interrupts. “I hear you, Harley. It’s… I know you didn’t mean it. And hearing it wasn’t great, and—yeah, but. But I know you meant the rest of it, and you won’t say it again, so… it’s okay. And I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have been arguing with you. You're right, it was stupid and it shouldn't have turned into that.”
There’s so much more that Harley feels like he needs to say, but he can’t seem to find the words to fit any of it, no matter how hard he tries. So, he just hugs Peter even tighter, lets his head fall down to press his forehead to the side of his neck and take in a long, deep breath. Lets it out, slow and steady.
Eighteen isn’t enough, but for now, it kind of has to be.