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It's the sixth month after Peter agreed to help Harry find a cure to his sickness and has started working part time as his employee. Just like our fathers, Harry thinks sometimes, when Peter puts on his white coat and looks like he always remembered his father to look like before it all faded away and there were no memories to connect to him anymore. But those thoughts vanish when Peter climbs into his room late at night, wet with rain and bruised from whatever fight he's been through and kisses the whiskey from Harry's lips. They're more than friends, clearly, even though no official term has ever been established.
And Harry is okay with that, even though labels originally make things easier and he likes it easy.
He doesn't need to hear the words. They'd make everything that hangs in the air between them more tangible and would make the eventual outcome of their relationship more painful. He'd be dead and Peter would be grieving in any case, but at least he wouldn't have to mourn another special someone. Boyfriend. He muses over the words sometimes. Officially they're lab partners. Childhood friends. No one really needs to know, even though the occasional press picture speaks for itself.
One day when he leaves Oscorp in the evening to have some peace and quiet without the ever watchful eye of security cameras, the by now trademark scarf tugged neatly around his neck to hide any evidence of the sickness that is eating him up from the inside, he's snatched by the waist and tugged into a secure embrace that makes him yelp.
“Hello, stranger.” Peter jokes and despite of the fact that he sounds like he jumped right out of a cheesy fifties movie, his eyes are so warm that Harry's frown immediately softens. Pete is already dressed casually, though he knows that if he'd give the zipper of his jacket a tug he'd probably find red and blue underneath it from the way Peter is still breathing like he's ran a thousand miles. Still, Harry doesn't get to say a word because they're all pouring out of his mouth instead.
They begin to walk side by side, Peter's arm still slung around him like he's leaning on to him even though Harry sees himself as the weaker one. It's a nice feeling. It's too late that he realizes that he completely zoned out of listening to the ever so excited webslinger and he decides to focus on what he's saying in case their one-way conversation is going to turn into an actual one.
“---and I was about to be impaled. IMPALED! By a damn light pole can you imagine?! It made me think. I know it's probably the worst time to stop and think about essential things like 'wow life is so short I barely even lived it, what am I even doing here?' and then you just put the next bad guy in prison. Go home and sleep. Is that really it? I don't want that to be all I want to live ,Harry, I want more than just superhero business. I've seen too many people die. And I could lose you, too. I-...I thought maybe we should go away.”
Harry swallows and wants to respond something reasonable, but when he opens his mouth he's cut off by a sentence that makes him stop in his steps.
“Far far far away maybe Vegas or...just go somewhere. And get married.”
Most of what's inside of him wants to tell Peter off in exactly that second, wants to run, run far away and back to a place where he mattered to no one but himself. His heart beats fast and hard and he wavers, fingers clenching in Peter's shirt where he had put his arm around his side as they walked. He wants to spare the both of them the misery. He can't see anything beautiful in signing an infinite contract with someone who's as finite as he is.
But then there's also the memory of a boy in worn out clothes that never once looked at him as though he was something that disappointed hopes and expectations. There's the memory of a sand box and his knees in the dirt, hands forming a castle together with that very same boy. They're older than most of the kids on the playground, so when it begins to rain there's no one that's with them to make them go home that instance. Harry's lips knit as he realizes that their castle is going to crumble, despite of all the work he and his newly declared knight put into it. The rain grows heavier and it does just that, so Harry's lips tremble and he gets out of the sand to angrily pat his knees dry when Peter begins to shield the castle with his body, hovering above it despite of the strain it puts to his legs. He remembers Peters smile and he remembers how he hurries to help, arm in arm with the other boy, protecting their castle together, their backs soaking with rain that begins to run down their nose and lips.
He also remembers how Peter's parents end up picking them up and how Mr. Parker doesn't seem all too angry with them even though they broke one or the other rule. He shakes on the backseat on the way back, so his friend scoots closer and rubs his arms, pressing their cheeks against each other. He remembers how he asks to marry him out of thin air and how Peter's Dad laughs and Peter declares that Harry is his favorite playmate and will always be. He remembers how he said yes.
“Aw, come on, you said yes 12 years ago, you can't chicken out of it now.”
Peter remembers, too, even now. He's the only damn person that would, and Harry hates him for it. He hates him so much that his throat feels dry and his hands clammy as he reaches for his jaw to twist that silly idiot's face around and press a kiss on his lips, forgetting that their picture might be taken and that they'd be all over the news by tomorrow if it would.
“Let me say it again.” He murmurs, and his voice cracks with how stupidly emotional he's suddenly gotten. “Yes...” It came out quiet, so he tries it again, propping his forehead up against Peter's and looking him right in the eyes to find his strength. “Yes. I want to marry you, Peter Parker.”
It's a minute and an almost clumsy kiss later that hands push against his shoulders and he's ushered backwards so he can watch Peter fumble for a box in his jacket pocket. Harry knows it's childish, overly emotional and weak, but he has to blink tears away because the only person he has ever let himself love back honestly wants to tie himself to him, no matter how short his life is. No matter what is going to happen, be it in health or in sickness, Peter wants to stay at his side, volunteers to be with him even when his body begins to rot and when he's bound to wires and a sickbed and his face turns gray, to hold his hand when he can't make it stop shaking anymore.
Peter has to give the ring a rough, awkward push so it glides on his finger but it fits. He can see that Peter is embarrassed with how cheap it probably was compared to everything Harry owns, but it's perfect. It's simple. Harry likes it simple.