Chapter Text
“She’s my sister.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Keener but we-“
“I’m eighteen. I should be able to take care of her myself.” Harley crossed his arms across his chest as he argued with the social worker.
“You would have to talk it over with your roommate first to gain-“
“My roommate wouldn’t give a shit if she was with me or not!” He snapped.
“I imagine Mr. Parker would like to made aware of this situation if we were to allow you to gain custody,” the social worker explained calmly, “but it isn’t in her best interest. You only have two month’s worth of a steady income, you are about to go to college which comes with its own time commitment, and you haven’t exemplified being a fit guardian. Until we see some stability on your end, Mr. Keener, I cannot allow you to keep this child.”
“I’m her brother!”
“We are aware.”
Harley softened, realizing that this wasn’t the way to prove himself to the people he was trying to gain the approval and trust of. “I’m sorry. It’s just, she’s all I have left.”
“We know, Mr. Keener. But if she truly means this much to you, you don’t just have to prove to us that you’re a capable guardian, you need to prove it to yourself. Have a good day. We are done here.”
When Harley arrived home, he wanted alone time. He wanted time to sulk and to yell and throw things against the wall. The last thing he wanted was another confrontation with Peter. Instead, that’s what he got.
“Where have you been?” Peter leaned against the wall as he so fondly remembered Aunt May doing when he would come home from patrol when she didn’t know about his webbed friend.
Harley scoffed. “It’s none of your business.”
“That might not be my business, but what is is this apartment which you made no effort in cleaning after your last whatever the hell it is you do before disappearing for the weekend, leaving me to clean it myself.”
The taller boy rolled his eyes. “It’s not my fault that you’re a control freak who needs the house to “prim and proper” at all times.”
“It’s not because of that!” Peter had to refrain from completely blowing up out of frustration.
“Then what is it?”
Peter, his face red as a beet, said meekly, “it was the smell.”
“Oh poor Princess Peter. Can’t handle the smell of empty beer bottles in his pristine castle,” Harley snarled. “Flowers not enough for you? Maybe you should buy more.”
Peter, knowing he can’t just admit to his heightened sense of smell, the headache still pounding at his temples from the overwhelming scent still soaked into the hardwood, stood straighter. “You can’t just go and leave our apartment a wreck and leave me to clean it like your maid while you go wildin’ doing whatever you do.”
“Wildin’? What the fuck even is that?”
“It’s you going out having fun with no regard to rules or other people!”
“I wasn’t having fun,” Harley said, his voice softer and slightly pained, which Peter didn’t notice.
“It’s like you don’t care about anything but yourself. Personal gain and instant gratification. Is that all you care about?”
“Well at least I care about something !” He snapped. He stepped closer to Peter to tower over him. “If anything, it’s you who doesn’t care about anything. You have this facade of positivity and “everything works out in the end” attitude but you just use it as a defense mechanism to ignore the real issues of the world.”
“Well I don’t drown away my problems with parties, sex, and vodka. You’re gone for hours upon end fucking up your own life as you stumble home at 4AM just for me to have to clean up your drunken vomit and broken bottles.”
“Don’t pull that bullshit with me, Parker. I know for a fact that you come home just as late as I do, but you just sneak through the fire escape outside of your bedroom. Stop acting all high and mighty when you’re just like me.”
Peter tightened his fists. “I am not like you.”
Harley raised an eyebrow. “Really? I may put up my walls, but so do you, except you hide behind smiles and an ideal life of nerdy, perfect boy. You throw yourself into your schoolwork like how I spend my hours living my life. You’re not better than me. You’re a hypocrite. So get off this pedestal you’ve gotten on because you’re nothing but a hypocritical, controlling, crybaby who just wants his mommy back so bad that he tries to prove himself to everyone to get a glimpse of the parental attention he didn’t get. And that’s one thing we’ll never have in common because instead of projecting my loss on others, I pay attention to what I still have. Because you know what? Even though I’m an orphan, I’ve still got family, and that’s something you will never get back.” Harley spat out like a steady stream of venom.
“Fuck you,” Peter snaps, his eyes now glazed over with tears. He bit the inside of his mouth and went to his room, slamming the door. He had to get out of here. He wouldn’t cry, even if Harley wasn’t in his room, Peter wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying. He was fucking Spider-Man for crying out loud. He was a goddamn superhero. Superheroes don’t cry over something like this.
He swung out of their apartment and through Queens. After only fifteen minutes, he heard a distant scream and went straight toward it. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was upset and mad and distracted. He shouldn’t have been out at all that night. He should’ve had better judgement and not gone out with the headspace he was in.
That’s how his recklessness led to things like this.
At 2AM Harley heard stumbling in Peter’s room. He knew Peter had immediately left as soon as he slammed the door, so now it was probably him coming back from being a hypocrite and what not. What was he even lecturing him about when Peter himself was stumbling in drunk off his own ass at 2AM?
He heard the other boy hobble out of his room and into the bathroom; he also heard some slurred cursing and soft groaning. Maybe Peter was sober enough to feel embarrassment and Harley could lecture him for a change.
With a smug look and a plan Harley sauntered out to put down the younger boy, but when he peeked through the open bathroom door, his face turned white. All he saw was red. So much red
“Why the fuck are you bleeding?” He exclaimed. Peter barley paid any mind to it as he took so tweezers from a first aid kit and held his boxers up to get the bullet that was half lodged in his thigh. There was blood everywhere. Pooling around him, swiped across the counter from where he probably was gripping it earlier, deep in the grout of the tiles. Even in the first aid kit that looked way more used than it should’ve been.
“I needed air. Someone was holding a gun and pulled the trigger. You’re from the south, you know how it be.” He rambled casually as he continued to dig out the bullet wound like it was no big deal. He hissed as he muttered, “damn femoral artery.” Like this happened all the time and was just a pain to deal with.
“We need to call 911,” Harley said panicked, pulling out his phone as Peter threw a roll of gauze at him.
“No!” He insisted and then looked at the gauze on the floor. “Could you maybe get that? I kinda need it”
Harley huffed but bent down to pick it up and put it on the counter. “Why don’t you want to go to the hospital?” He asked as he looked at the phone and the gauze, unsure.
“Uh we’re broke for one.” Peter countered easily. “And it’s totally a common occurrence. No need to make a big deal of it.” Peter waved off.
Harley blanched. Was this what Peter got up to? Getting shot? “What do you mean “ common occurrence?” What do you even do?” Harley nearly screamed. Peter winced at the volume.
“Shh. Walls are thin, young one.” he said in a sage like manner. Like fucking Yoda.
“Here, at least let me get it out,” Harley said as he kneeled down to his level to help, even though Harley knew absolutely nothing about treating a bullet wound. Peter held the tweezers just out of his reach.
“I’ll have you know good sir that I have done this on many of occasions.” That was even more alarming.
“When?”
“Wouldn’t you want to know, you beautiful beautiful man.” he leaned forward so their noses were almost touching. Harley looked at Peter’s chocolate eyes. They were getting bleary like he was in a daze. He was losing too much blood.
“Yeah I would, that’s why I asked, ya dill.” He joked meekly trying to grab for the tweezers. Peter suddenly looked sad.
“What’s the point of this anyway?” Peter nearly whispered and Harley stopped his pursuit for the tweezers.
“What are ya goin in about now?” Harley asked with almost a roll of his eyes if he weren’t so concerned at the matter at hand.
“I said what is even the fucking point? It’s like you said. I don’t have any family. I’ve got nothing to live for. I lost everything and I’m never getting it back. So what’s the point? There is no point in of me staying when everyone I love is gone.” Peter said and Harley was stunned for all of a moment. “I just wanna be with them again. I just wanna go home.” Peter said softer.
Harley felt like someone punched him in the gut. He is an absolute jackass. What the fuck was that even supposed to mean? Harley should know better than anyone that people have different coping mechanisms. That people were fragile with grief. He had been so mad at everything else and took it out on Peter. He said things that would hurt and that he couldn’t take back. He said those thing because he knew they would hurt.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
“You’re a dumbass and I have to help you because you’re a dumbass,” Harley said lamely because he had nothing else to say. Peter hummed and let Harley have the tweezers. It was only when he got a hold of them that he realized that he really didn’t know what to do. And that was a lot of blood.
“I’m sleepy. Night night.” Peter hummed again, and Harley knew for one thing, that Peter could not go to sleep right now.
“You are not going night night, Parker,” Harley said frantically and Peter hummed again lolling his head forward.
“Okie dokie.” he complied.
Harley looked over the wound again to figure out what he should do before he heard a soft groan. He looked up with a furrowed brow. Peter had gone paler in the time he looked down to inspect the wound. “Peter… are you okay?” he asked, leaning in closer, Peter groaned again before he vomited all over himself and Harley. It was mostly stringy bile, but still gross.
“Whoopsie.” Peter responded unapologetically.
“Ah fuck, is this what it’s like to be with me?” Grossed out beyond belief, he hyperfocused on the task at hand.
“Go to WebMD. Those guys are good,” Peter advised before promptly passing out, falling onto Harley who swiftly caught him before his head could come in contact with the bathroom tiles. Wise advice for a guy who is dumb enough to get shot. “Fuck fuck fuck,” Harley muttered.
He followed the first YouTube tutorial that came up from his Google search and prayed that there wasn’t anything else left in that bullet wound rather than that bullet which he had to dig out. With one of their more torn rags, he gently cleaned the wound, wrapping it in gauze when he finished. Harley didn’t realize he had been shaking until he had finished.
With an uneven breath, he peeled off his vomit soaked shirt and pants, leaving him in just a pair of boxer briefs. Concerned that Peter may be even more injured than he led, he also pulled his shirt off, pausing in shock. Why is Peter as fit as a fiddle? He shook his head. Not the time.
Rather than some old scars and the bruises already fading from his torso, there was nothing to be concerned about, so he left Peter on the ground of the bathroom, and hopped into the shower to just scrub off the feeling he could never forget. Crusty blood under his fingernails, the stench of bile on his skin, and all of the red. So much red all over his arms and body.
Not forgetting about Peter, he dried off behind the safety of the shower curtain, and quickly ran to his room to throw on pajamas, before coming back to the unconscious boy. He pulled a pair of his own sweatpants over the smaller boy’s legs so he wouldn’t get any blood on his bed, and carried the light boy over to his own bed now that he was in fresh clothes. Setting him down gently, he covered him with a throw blanket before moving to leave. However, Peter’s delirious, dormant mind thought otherwise, and his arm gripped a tight hold around Harley’s waist, yanking him toward the bed again. Stumbling into it, he landed right on top of Peter who groaned sleepily in response. Harley looked at him and then the hold that hasn’t let go and sighed as he made himself comfortable right there, being spooned by Peter, cautious not to move the carefully bandaged leg. Peter sighed in content.
Harley looked down at the boy, his heart racing from shock and adrenaline. Taking a deep breath and staring at the sleeping teen, he whispered “good night, Peter,” before collapsing into sleep from exhaustion.