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Harley froze in the doorway of the Avengers kitchen, duffle bag still over one shoulder and eyes narrowed. He scowled at the scene before him. Another boy, maybe just a couple years older than him, also a brunette, sat at the counter, munching away on a sandwich like he hadn’t a care in the world. As Harley watched, a big glob of jelly slid out and plopped onto the plate. Peanut butter and jelly, Harley mentally scoffed, could you be any more childish?
“Who are you, then?” he demanded.
The other teen didn’t even jump, just grinned at him around a mouthful of food before swallowing hurriedly.
“I’m Peter! You must be Harley! Mr. Stark said you were coming for a visit.”
Tony had invited him to stay for a week during the summer to do science and Harley hadn’t been about to turn down a chance like that. Granted, if it were up to him, he’d convince his mom to move them to New York so he could do science all the time. The lab Tony had built him was wicked awesome, even still, but it didn’t even compare to Tony’s labs.
Harley was about to ask what Peter was doing there when he heard footsteps behind him and turned to find Tony in jeans and a tank top coming down the corridor.
“Harley!” the man greeted exuberantly, reaching out to ruffle his hair despite his protests. “Good to see you. How was the ride from the airport? Happy treat you alright?”
Harley huffed in exaggerated frustration.
“He put the partition up after the first ten minutes.”
Tony cackled and gave him a high-five.
“New record! Nice!”
Harley was starting to feel pretty good, actually, his earlier irritation almost forgotten, when Tony stepped around him and into the kitchen.
“Have you met Peter yet? He’s one of my interns over at SI and if he doesn’t come work for me full-time after college I will pitch an actual fit. Not pretty, just ask Pepper. I invited him to hang out with us while you’re here, you know, get my two little Einsteins together and see what we can come up with.”
He reached over to ruffle Peter’s hair, too, making the other teen squawk indignantly, but it least it distracted him enough that he didn’t notice the expression on Harley’s face.
This was not what he’d been expecting from this week.
.
“So how did you meet Mr. Stark?” Peter asked him later when they were down in the labs and Tony was off yelling at the bots for delivering them smoothies of anti-freeze and motor oil.
Harley shot him a glare. He was trying to concentrate on the wiring in front of him and he didn’t need any distractions.
“Tony,” he emphasized, “broke into my shed after faking his own death and I helped him fix up the Iron Man armor and build a bunch of weapons and stuff so he could go save Pepper.”
“Whoa!” Peter exclaimed with wide eyes, “You mean that time with AIM and Killian and the Mandarin! That’s awesome. I just came home one day to find him sitting in my living room and hitting on my aunt. How gross is that, right?”
Harley’s fingers jerked and he yelped as a wire disconnected and shocked him.
.
It was the third day of Harley’s visit when the alarm went off for the Avengers. He supposed they were lucky to have made it that long. Tony tossed out apologies and promises to be back as soon as he could the entire time he was climbing into the suit. He gave Harley one last wink before the faceplate slammed down and then he was off in a blaze of repulsors. It wasn’t until he was gone that Harley noticed Peter had snuck off during the distraction.
Well, fine then. Harley didn’t want to hang out with just him anyway. He’d probably left to get away from the blaring alarms. It hadn’t escaped how Harley that Peter’s ears seemed extra sensitive. He must be one of those people who were really bothered by ambient noise. Harley’s mom’s hairdresser was like that and she always complained about how irritating it was when one of the other ladies in the salon turned on a hairdryer without warning her first.
So, instead of trying to figure out where Peter had gone off to, Harley headed up to the kitchen and popped a bag of popcorn before asking JARVIS to throw up the footage of the fight on the big tv in the living room. The best part of watching from the Avengers compound was not having to listen to any of the ridiculous reporters covering the event from a safe distance away.
He grinned as he watched Tony reflect a repulsor shot off Cap’s shield and Spiderman swung from the buildings above.
.
Harley awoke to the sound of hushed voices interrupted by quickly-quieted laughter. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes blearily, he realized he must have fallen asleep on the couch sometime after the fight had ended. It was dark outside now and someone had draped a blanket over him. The voices were coming from the kitchen, though, so Harley headed that way. Maybe Tony was still up and they could watch a movie together, get some time without Peter.
Not that Peter was exactly terrible. It was just that something about him grated on Harley’s nerves and Harley had visited hoping to spend time with Tony, not some other kid. He could do that at home with his little sister.
As Harley drew closer to the kitchen, he heard a familiar chuckle, Steve’s. It was quickly followed by the low murmur of Tony’s teasing voice. A grin broke out across Harley’s face, the last dregs of sleep disappearing, only to freeze in a bitter mockery of his frozen expression and he rounded the corner.
Steve and Tony were in the kitchen, sitting at the table and leaning toward each other. There are cartons of ice cream on the table on front of them and they both wore dopey smiles. Steve’s eyes were crinkled nearly shut as he laughed at whatever Tony had just said. Sitting between them, looking nearly-asleep as he slumped against Tony’s shoulder, was Peter. It was clear none of them had noticed Harley yet.
He retreated back into the corridor, fists clenched at his sides and cheeks burning. Coming here had been stupid. Why had Tony even invited him? Why had he bothered with Harley when he clearly liked Peter so much better? Well, whatever. That was fine. Fine. Harley didn’t need him either.
Throwing his stuff back into his duffle bag, Harley hauled it up and onto his shoulder. It was a long walk to the airport, but he didn’t want to ask JARVIS to call Happy and risk him also telling Tony that Harley was trying to leave. Tony didn’t need to be bothered by it. He just barely resisted the temptation to slam his door on the way out. Of course, he also knocked right into someone as he turned around, too. Peter blinked down at him sleepily, grabbing onto his shoulders to keep from falling over.
“Harley?” he asked, squinting at the other boy. “Why do you have your duffle bag? Weren’t you on the couch? That’s where Mr. Stark found you. He put a blanket on you.”
Harley scowled and stepped out of his reach.
“None of your business.”
Peter’s face scrunched up as he tried to blink himself more awake.
“Are you mad? Why are you mad? That’s Bruce’s thing. Wow, I’m really tired.”
“Maybe you should go to bed, then, and leave me alone! Why are you always in the way?”
Harley may have said that last bit a tad louder than intended and Peter straightened up a bit, his brain finally seeming to turn back on.
“Uh… Should I get Mr. Stark?”
Harley wanted to stamp his feet and cry like his sister did when she didn’t get her way. He was just so frustrated!
“Don’t bother,” he spat. “I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
He brushed past the other teen, knocking his shoulder purposefully. Peter stumbled slightly, but recovered and grabbed onto Harley’s arm in a surprisingly firm grip, stopping him for going any further.
“Wait, I think we should talk for a minute. What’s going on? Did something happen?”
And, really, there was only so much a guy could be expected to take. Harley whirled on Peter, knocking his hand away and getting right up in his face.
“You happened!” he shouted. “You with your internship and job opportunity and your aunt! You get to see Tony all the time and I had this one week! One week! Out of the whole year! And most years I haven’t even gotten that! What makes you so special, huh? You don’t even call Tony by his first name! What gives you the right to take him away from me?”
Peter couldn’t have looked more surprised and taken aback if Harley had hauled off and hit him. Shame burned Harley’s cheeks and he immediately dropped his gaze, unable to look Peter in the eye. He hadn’t meant to admit any of that. Now he sounded like a clingy baby on top of everything else. It only made it worse when Steve and Tony both came barreling around the corner, probably alerted by the yelling. A few doors down, a grumpy-looking Natasha with sleep-mussed hair poked her head out of her room to glare at them.
“What happened?” Tony asked hurriedly, the concern in his voice impossible to miss. “Are you both okay?”
Harley couldn’t look at him either.
“Fine,” he ground out. “I’m going home.”
“What? Why? Harls, talk to me.”
The use of his nickname stung and Harley wasn’t even sure he could form words around the knot of anger and hurt welling up in his chest. He just crossed his arms instead and refused to look at anyone. Tony apparently decided he wasn’t going to talk and turned instead to Peter. Of course he did.
“Pete?”
Harley fully expected to be ratted out, then, but Peter stayed silent, too. Harley risked a quick glance and he was staring at Tony with an expression like a deer caught in the headlights. He wasn’t talking though, wasn’t spilling any of Harley’s embarrassing secrets.
“Right,” Tony finally said. “Okay, don’t tell me. I can work with that. I can respect boundaries and all that shit. No problem. Let’s try this another way. Are either of you hurt?”
They shook their heads.
“Good. That’s good. Harley, is there some kind of family emergency that you’re trying to get home for? Or something like that?”
Reluctantly, Harley shook his head again.
“Okay, then. In that case, I’m gonna propose we not make any hasty decisions. Let’s just all go back to our rooms and we can talk about this again in the morning, alright? We’re all tired from the day and emotions are running high. Tomorrow morning will bring cooler heads. Is that okay with you, Harley? And I promise you, if you still want to go home when we talk tomorrow, I’ll drive you to the airport myself.”
“Yeah,” Harley mumbled. “That’s fine.”
A ride to the airport sounded a lot better than trying to walk there, anyway. Besides, there was no way he was gonna be able to sneak out now. Tony would probably put JARVIS on the lookout for if he tried.
“Great,” Tony said. “Let’s all head to bed, then. Off we go.”
Harley let himself be herded back to his room by Tony as Steve stepped up to escort Peter back to him. Natasha’s door was shut already and there was no sign of her so she must have deemed the whole exchange beneath her. At least the others hadn’t woken up. Harley might have actually died of embarrassment if they’d all been there to witness his little meltdown. He was pretty sure Natasha had heard most of it anyway.
“Hey,” Tony said quietly as he slipped into Harley’s room after him. He pinned Harley with a serious look. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, you can tell me. You know that, right? You can tell me anything.”
Which really only succeeded in making Harley feel ten times guiltier.
“I know,” he said.
“Good,” Tony said with a nod, suddenly looking awkward. “I wouldn’t want you doubting our connection.”
And then he was gone, slipping back out of the room and into the corridor. Harley sighed as he kicked off his shoes and crawled into bed without bothering to change.
.
Harley woke up feeling possibly even more tired than he had when he’d gone to bed the night before. He wasn’t at all looking forward to whatever ‘talk’ Tony was planning to have with them. If he could just get through it, though, then he could get on a plane and be headed home by noon. He stubbornly ignored how just the thought of it made something inside him feel hollow.
He’d barely managed to sit up and get his feet on the ground when a soft knock came at his door. It didn’t sound like Tony’s knock, but Harley wasn’t sure who else it could be. Maybe Steve coming to check on him? That sounded like a Steve thing to do.
Peter gave him an awkward grin and a wave when he opened the door.
“Uh, hi. Morning! Can I, uh, can I come in?”
Harley couldn’t even sum up the anger he’d felt the night before. With a deep-seated sense of resignation and tiredness, he allowed Peter into his room and shut the door.
“What do you want?” he asked, sitting back on the bed.
Peter stood awkwardly are a moment before sitting down beside him, turned to face him with one leg bent up under him and the other hanging off the side. He seemed nervous, hands fluttering around gaze never seeming to settle on one spot.
“I, uh, I feel like I owe you an explanation,” he blurted, which wasn’t at all what Harley had been expecting.
“What?”
“An explanation,” Peter repeated. “For… things. I guess. Me. And Mr. Stark. Look, I don’t usually do this, okay? And I’m kinda seriously freaking out because, like, only two people know outside of the Avengers and Happy and Ms. Potts. And technically they both found out. I didn’t tell them. And I’m not even actually sure it’ll make anything better or if I should tell you, but Mr. Stark trusts you and you helped him that one time so I figure it’s probably okay. You have to promise not to tell anybody, though, okay? Like, promise-promise.”
“Tell anybody what?”
“Promise first!”
Something about how adamant Peter was gave Harley pause. He didn’t seem like he was just jerking Harley’s chain. Still, that didn’t make it any less irritating.
“Okay. I promise not to tell anyone the deep, dark secret you haven’t even told me.”
Peter took a deep breath and looked Harley right in the eye.
“I’m Spiderman.”
Harley stared at him.
“You’re Spiderman?”
Input error. Does not compute.
“Yeah, I got bitten by this radioactive spider and that’s how I got my powers but I can’t risk any of the bad guys finding out about Aunt May or my friends or anything so that’s why I keep my identity a secret. Plus, Mr. Stark says it’s a good idea if I keep my mask until I’m at least, like, twenty-five because by then I’ll have a better idea of my options. But, yeah, that’s why I’m around all the time. I’m not really Mr. Stark’s intern. That’s just a cover we tell people to give me an excuse to be here or at the Tower.”
It made sense, actually, now that it was starting to sink in. Harley could science with the best of them, but he was no hero. And Peter would have been up with Tony and Steve last night for ice cream because he would have gotten back from the fight with them. Of course, Tony would pick him. Peter could actually keep up with him.
“Oh,” Harley managed, which Peter seemed to take as a cue to keep right on talking.
“I started out just trying to do my own thing, you know? Friendly, neighborhood Spiderman kind of deal. Mostly, I just gave people directions and returned some stolen bikes. I had no idea what I was doing. I was running around in what was basically glorified pajamas. I was a joke. No training, no direction… I was a disaster waiting to happen. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s obvious when I look back.
“Mr. Stark, he came out of nowhere and saved me from myself. I told you I just came home one day to find him in my living room, right? Well, he told me he knew who I was, what I was doing. He brought me into the Avengers to train me and teach me how to do things in a way that actually worked. He built me new gear and watched my back. Things didn’t always go smoothly, especially at the beginning. I fucked up, a lot, but Mr. Stark never gave up on me.”
Harley looked down at his hands. Hearing about how much Tony cared for Peter was not making him feel any better.
“That sounds like Tony.”
Peter nodded eagerly in agreement.
“Yeah. He’s great, even if he says he’s terrible at that kind of thing. But I think it helped that I reminded him of someone he already cared about a lot.”
Harley’s brow furrowed.
“Who?”
“You,” Peter said with a smile in his voice.
Harley couldn’t help but look up again in surprise.
“Me?”
“Yeah. He used to tell me stories about you all the time, you know? Not of your first meeting or anything like that, but he liked to talk about your projects and what you’ve been working on. I can’t even count the number of times he’d get off of a call with you and you’d be all he could talk about. I’m pretty sure he has a file somewhere with every accomplishment you’ve ever gotten. So, I think he was just excited for the two of us to meet. We’re his two baby geniuses, you know? I’m not a replacement. I never could be. I’m different and, yeah, I get to hang out a bit more, but I think that’s more of a geographical thing than anything else.
“The point is that Mr. Stark really cares about you, Harley, and I don’t think that having me here this week was supposed to make you feel bad or be a way to avoid you or whatever it is you’ve convinced yourself it is. I think he just wanted to give you someone more your age to hang out with. And I didn’t realize what it was doing. I’m sorry for that. So, please stay, for Mr. Stark. I’ll go back home for a bit so the two of you can have time together. Okay? Will that work?”
He sounded disgustingly sincere and Harley sighed, already feeling like a heel for the way he’d acted in comparison. He’d really shown his ass, hadn’t he?
“No, I’m sorry. I got jealous and took it out on you instead of just speaking up and saying something. I would like some one-on-one time with Tony, but I don’t want you to feel left out either… and thanks. For trusting me.”
Because he hadn’t missed that part of the conversation either. (And later, privately, he would take a few minutes to freak the fuck out over the fact that he knew Spiderman’s secret identity!)
Peter grinned at him.
“No worries. Gives me time to help my friend Ned build his latest Lego set. I’ll swing back by before you leave, okay? I really have liked hanging out with you.”
Harley chanced a small smile back.
“I liked hanging out with you, too, when I wasn’t acting like an idiot. You’re really good with chemicals.”
Peter laughed and popped to his feet, offering a hand out to Harley.
“Thanks. Shall we go tell Mr. Stark we’ve sorted everything out, then?”
Harley put his hand in Peter’s and let himself be pulled to his feet.
“Yeah, let’s.”