Chapter Text
Harley’s fingers drummed against the window sill in time to the rhythmic bumping of the bus as it trundled along the road. His gaze sweeping across the landscape just as it had been for the past fourteen hours. Villages, towns and cities alike had swept past his watchful eyes on his goddamn trek to New York, all equally as uninteresting as the last. Suddenly the bus jerked to a stop as a herd of cows passed by in front of them causing Harley to groan and question why it was he had declined Tony’s offer to catch a private plane was beyond him. Seriously, a billionaire had just casually offered the opportunity to be flown directly to him and out of nothing but his own damn pride, Harley had passed up the two hour flight in favour of a sixteen hour bus trip. Sixteen. He was dying.
The engine rumbled back to life and off they went again. If nothing else the trip had given Harley plenty of time to think, and think he had. It was like, all he had been able to do. So he’d sat and he’d thought about how stupidly excited he was to finally be going to New York to hang out with Tony. He’d practically been begging for it since the moment he met the man. Well, really he’d been expecting their crazy meeting would be a one off and that would be the last he’d hear from Tony Stark because why the hell would Iron Man make time to check up on some random kid? But after that night he’d come home to see his garage totally transformed, well, he’d learnt that Tony Stark wasn’t one to just let his allies be forgotten. Yeah, he’d called Harley an ally. What a loser.
At last though, Tony was letting Harley come visit. Apparently he was not going to allow an “actual child free reign of my lab Harley, I know my reputation but I’m not that irresponsible,” or whatever. But Harley had just turned seventeen which means Tony basically had no more excuses left. Plus, Harley was pretty sure he wanted him to come visit anyway.
-
An hour later and Harley was nearly there. So. Damn. Close.
He’d just received a text from Tony telling him that Happy would be at the station to pick him up. Thank god, he was not in the mood to get on the New York subway after the trip he’d just taken. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, almost tempted to ask why he wouldn’t be picking him up himself. It was probably because of that kid. Really, he didn’t mean to let the grimace cross his face yet that’s exactly what happened. Of course it was because of that random kid, figures.
It’s been fine at first, just a passing mention by Tony that he had hired some new intern that was pretty smart. What else was new at Stark Industries? But then he’d come up in conversation again. And again. And again. Tony seemed insistent in mentioning the guy practically every time they talked which, uh, yeah was not often and Harley seriously didn’t need to waste half of the very limited time he spent actually talking to Tony spent on some random kid he’d never even met. Seriously it wasn’t like he was jealous or anything.
Oh, shit.
Maybe he was.
Ahhh fuck.
That would explain literally so much. It would explain the way Harley’s blood heated in anger, the way his eyes would roll back in reflex the moment he heard the words “My intern did something pretty impressive yesterday, I think you’d really get along”, it would also explain the incessant need Harley had been feeling for the past few months to just get to New York and prove to Tony once and for all that Harley was not just some random kid that he happened to have run into when he needed help. Harley was smart. Harley helped save Iron Man when he was twelve. Harley was better than whoever this Peter kid was. And he would prove it.
-
“There you go kid,” said Happy, whose name, Harley had learned, was hilariously ironic, “Now what’s the deal when you see him?”
“I tell Tony that you are not a chauffeur to all the random children he decides to adopt.” Harley chimed dutifully, repeating the words he’d heard at least a half dozen times on the ride over to the tower, and woah. What a tower. He took a moment to just peer up at the crazy tall building with a giant A stamped on the side, sheets of glass reflecting the morning sun.
Oh hell yeah. He could get used to a view like that.
Then a cloud passed out of the way of the sun and the beautiful reflections suddenly turned to a blinding glare which effectively reminded Harley just why it was he never woke up in the morning. He blinked the spots out of his eyes and immediately wished it was night, he was seriously not a morning person.
He entered the tower, feeling out of place the moment he walked through the shining doors to an impeccable lobby filled to the brim with fancy people in suits that probably cost more than his entire house. He watched them all, scurrying to and fro, and wondered if they actually had important places to go or if they all just liked to appear like they did. Huh, maybe that was all anyone was doing in places like that, just trying to fit in. Harley nearly laughed out loud when he thought that and looked down to see his own crumpled jeans and tshirt, a limited edition Dora The Explorer watch strapped to his wrist as a joke only one other person would get. God, he must look like such a mess, especially if the withering stares he was receiving from snotty adults was anything to go by. He was almost tempted to stick out his tongue just because he could, or maybe just let them know he was there to see Tony Stark, he could bet half of them hadn’t even seen him but there Harley was, by personal invite. Hah.
He was so distracted fantasizing about the expression they would be making he entirely missed the person right in front of him. They slammed into the floor simultaneously, both groaning in unison as they blinked away their surprise. Harley’s eyes drifted over the sight of another teenage boy. A dorky science pun adorned a shirt that sat snuggly against a body that was honestly too lean and muscular to be legal, and right above the shirt was quite possibly the single cutest boy he’d ever seen. Soft curling brown hair that Harley immediately wanted to run his fingers through and just… damn. That jaw line. His eyes were still preoccupied drinking in the sight of his lips moving he almost didn’t register the question he was being asked.
“W-what? Oh, oh yeah I’m fine,” Harley tore his gaze back up to the boys eyes, finding nothing but kindness and concern. It took all of his will power to ignore the light red flush on the other boy’s cheek, clearly he was embarrassed at not noticing Harley even though he was the one to run into him. Oh! He should apologize. Right.
“I’m so sorry for running into you like that,” Harley said, scrambling to his feet quickly just so he had time to reach down his hand, offering him help up. The boy considered the extended hand, glancing up at Harley’s face before shyly reaching up to accept the offer. Harley pulled back a moment late, caught up in the feel of his rough calloused palms against Harley’s own skin. It seemed he needn’t have even offered help in the first place though, the boy’s grip was firm which shouldn’t have been such a surprise considering the muscles he could still see. And oh, that sure was one hell of a sight.
The boy laughed, shaking himself off. Their shared grip was released so he could pull the mess of curls back out of his face. “It’s alright, my fault really I should’ve been paying more attention.” He grinned at Harley, who immediately smiled back. Who wouldn’t when someone smiled at them like that.
“Really it was my fault,” Harley insisted.
“Well, still I’m sorry for knocking you over. Don’t know my own strength sometimes,” he laughed as though he’d just said something particularly funny, Harley was almost tempted to join him just to make sure he kept making those charming sounds. “I’ve gotta go, but I hope you have a nice day.” The boy waved suddenly as he stepped away, drifting into the flowing crowd of suits and briefcases that passed through the lobby.
Harley just caught his final words over the sounds of shuffling feet, and then he could see him no more.
“Damn it,” Harley muttered, wiping his face in frustration, “I didn’t even get his name.”
He managed to keep pouting at his mistake the entire time he made his way up towards the lab that the cool AI lady told him Tony was in. At least half of the pouting had to do with the fact that he was embarrassed at how much of a mess he looked. It suddenly stopped being as fun when he was messing with judgemental adults as opposed to cute boys. Damn it.
His sour mood was quickly dispelled the second he stepped out of the elevator, being sure to thank the nice AI lady before he moved further into the room and… woah.
From wall to wall Harley could see the entire lab was filled to the brim with blueprints and design for machines and technologies decades beyond half the products on the market. He grinned widely when he caught sight of an old Iron Man armour laid out across a table, it looked like it was taking a nap as opposed to simply lying in wait for it’s creator’s return. He was so caught up in wandering around, picking up half finished inventions that Tony must’ve begun creating in a fit of inspiration before something else caught his fancy, that Harley didn’t notice the very obvious lack of Tony anywhere in sight. That particular mystery was soon solved without Harley even realising it was a mystery that was in need of solving.
“Gah!” Tony yelped, crashing to the floor. Harley whirled around to the sudden cacophony of noise where he witnessed the not-quite-so-empty Iron Man armour open from it’s place on the floor to reveal Tony Stark who sat up suddenly, looking wildly around the room until his eye’s alighted upon Harley’s frozen form.
“Uh hi?” Harley said, half raising one hand in greeting, wary of the way Tony was waving his hands around carelessly like he’d forgotten it was currently encased in a weapon that had the power to just melt Harley’s flesh with one careless blast. No pressure or anything.
“Harley?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re here.”
“So it seems.”
Tony cleared his throat and clambered to his feet, apparently prepared to just pretend like Harley totally hadn’t caught just caught him sleeping in his own armour.
“So kid, you’re here. That’s great. You want a tour?”
Harley nodded, vaguely curious what Tony would consider qualified as a tour. It turned out that an exclusive tour of a very interesting and expensive Stark lab involved Tony meandering around and pointing at projects he was working on and getting halfway through an explanation before becoming distracted by something else that “is way better than that garbage, see now this one is what you want to be looking at Harl”.
Harley was just putting down a device that was called a “disintegrator ray” and was in the middle of debating whether or not that title was a joke when Tony called out to him from across the room. In his hands were a pile of tools and, holy shit, that was the Iron Man armour. Holy shit. Tony wanted his help fixing Iron Man.
Yes.
That’ll show Tony’s stupid intern who’s the favourite. Excellent.
-
Sunlight streamed through the window panes above Harley, who lay draped across the gigantic bed he’d been given for his stay at the tower. His fingers ran softly over the soft silk sheets as he smiled lazily at the ceiling, happy to spend some time doing absolutely nothing. It was glorious.
FRIDAY, as he had learnt the AI lady was named, alerted him that Tony was in the kitchen if he’d like to join him. He grumbled even as he got dressed, ignoring the absolute mess that was his hair because if he’d learnt anything in the past two days of hanging around the man, Tony was incredibly unobservant for a certified genius. If the two of them were busy making things in the lab Tony’s attention would be solely occupied by whatever was in his hands with zero regard for the outside world. Harley had met Pepper perhaps only because she had come to the lab to check that Tony had actually fed Harley at some point in the first twenty four hours they were together because “even if you can survive on nothing but coffee and sleep deprivation you are responsible for this young man Tony, pay attention” to which his reply had been “Oh, Pepper. You’re here.” So Harley was interested at just what would be offered as a breakfast made by Human Disaster Tony Stark.
The smell of chocolate led Harley right to Tony who was perched upon a bench at the kitchen bar, absentmindedly eating a chocolate crepe from a ludicrously tall pile. Harley wandered over to inspect and to his great surprise they did actually look edible. Without looking up from his tablet Tony snorted in amusement at Harley’s antics.
“Kid they’re fine. I ordered them to be brought up. Don’t worry even I wouldn’t subject you to my cooking.”
Harley grinned at him, entirely shameless about his obvious scepticism of Tony’s abilities. He’d heard Pepper laughing about the omelete he once tried to make so really no one could blame Harley for being more than a little suspicious. After taking a bite he figured that they were far too good to even be real. God, he seriously loved staying at the tower it was like nothing could ruin his mood.
“Hey Harley you have any plans to actually see New York or are you just going to hole yourself up in my lab for the next six weeks?”
“What’s wrong old man? You afraid I’m going to outdo all of your work?” Harley teased, shoveling more food into his mouth.
“Aright first of all; no calling me old. I will ban you from the city. Hey, don’t raise your eyebrow at me like that. I could totally do it if I wanted. You don’t know my power.” Tony waggled his finger at him in some mock attempt to appear like an actual adult for once, “And second of all I’m trying to nicely kick you out of here kid. I’ve got an, uh, appointment with my intern that I need you to skedaddle away from for a minute. You can probably coerce Happy into taking you somewhere.” Tony’s new line of thinking distracted him from noticing the scowl that crossed Harley’s face at the mention of that intern. “Y’know his name is Peter-” yeah, he did know thanks Remind me to introduce you two at some point. You’d like him. It doesn’t always look it but he’s got an attitude to rival yours at times.” Tony chuckled at that, clearly reminiscing about that kid again. What else is new?
“Cool. I’ll get out of your hair.” Of course Tony didn’t notice the sudden coldness in Harley’s voice. Why would he? He’d probably notice if it was fucking Peter instead.
Harley stalked out of the room, leaving half of his breakfast behind. God. Why was he so jealous? It was stupid. He hadn’t even met the kid so there is no way he was being fair. Could Tony seriously not see how much he meant to Harley? Yeah he wasn’t exactly great at talking about feelings, and if he remembered anything from all those years ago when they’d first met,; neither was he. But still, what kid would wait five years to finally hang out with someone who, against all odds, actually had become a friend to him, and then that kid would be happy to share the very limited amount of time he had with him just so he could meet some random guy he didn’t care about. Sure maybe it was kind of selfish but didn’t Harley deserve to be selfish? Just this once.
He was still fuming even as he made his way down to the bottom floor of the tower he wasn’t sure yet just where he was going to go. A small cafe situated in the corner at least gave him an idea of his next move; drown out his anger with coffee.
While he waited for his order Harley leaned back against the bench, his eyes perusing the lobby. He watched more busy people going about their busy lives and he was quite content to just keep doing that until he caught a glimpse of an unruly mess of brown curls. He knew those curls.
“Double espresso for Harvey?”
He reached behind quickly, grasping the proffered coffee, his eyes never leaving his target who was about to get on the elevator. Fuck.
Harley did not sprint across the lobby just so he could check out a cute guy. That would be childish. He did however walk very quickly and intensely over there just managing to squeeze in right before the doors closed. He was almost tempted to think FRIDAY was watching and let him in because he was her favourite. Well, he was going to think that anyway.
Quickly Harley got his heavy breathing under control, his eyes locked firmly onto his coffee cup, he didn’t want it to look like he’d just dashed into the elevator specifically to talk to the boy again. Even though he had. But no one needed to know that. After a few seconds had passed, plenty of time probably, he glanced up and… oh. There he was. Harley seriously hoped FRIDAY didn’t monitor heartbeats because his was suddenly racing and he did not need her to tell Tony that Harley was crushing on some random guy in the tower. Oh no. It’d been to long. He was staring. Crap. Distraction distraction distraction.
“Nice to run into you again,” the boy looked up at his words, recognition flashing in his eyes, “And we didn’t even fall over this time.”
The boy laughed, his voice soft and sweet.
Harley wished he wasn’t such a damn sap but there he was. It was chessy and gross and he was too pretty for words damnit.
“Yeah I think we should just maybe try and avoid doing that again,” he said “It’s a bit easier to talk to you when we’re not both lying on the floor.”
Harley really didn’t mean to imaging the two of them lying somewhere else… not that he was exactly complaining.
“So,” he struggled to think of any topic of conversation now that he’d successfully confined the two of them in an enclosed space “What do you do around the tower?” Maybe one of his parents worked nearby. Or he could be some kind of intern, although judging by the new but equally dorky t-shirt it must not have been for anyone that important if he could get away with dress code like that.
“Oh, nothing too exciting. I’m just an intern here,” called it “How about you, uh, Harvey?” He asked, peering at the cup in Harley’s hand that very much did not say his name. Damnit.
“Close, it’s actually Harley.” He said, sticking out his free hand to shake. The boy smiled kindly, clasping their hands together in another grip and yet again Harley was impressed by the sheer amount of strength in that slender body.
“Nice to properly meet you Harley my name is P-”
Just at that moment the doors opened onto the boy’s floor in the moment of distraction it provided he seemed to forget he was halfway through introducing himself, instead he just checked his watch, panic lighting his expression and began to dash out of the door. At the last second before he ran from Harley’s view he seemed to remember they were talking.
“Sorry Harley! I am so freaking late I gotta go. Bye!”
The doors closed.
Fuuuucckkkkkk.
-
The sun was setting by the time Harley made his way back to the tower. Was he avoiding his return because he didn’t want to explain the lasting misery that he’d been sporting since that morning’s encounter? Or maybe it was just because he was not in the mood to meet that intern Tony kept talking about.
It appeared though, when he finally alighted upon the right floor that it didn’t matter what his wishes may have been because even as he was in the process of collapsing face first into his bed he became aware of the sticky note attached to his pillow.
Harley,
Come meet Peter. We’re in the lab.
Knock first
The Mechanic
Urghhhh.
Harley dragged himself back up, determined to be as big a pain in the ass as he could. Maybe that was childish of him considering Tony didn’t even know he was pissed let alone why . But still. It was the principal of the matter.
His feet tapped impatiently against the floor as he rode the elevator for what felt like the hundredth time that day. In the back of his mind he pondered just how quickly he could get himself excused from the meeting. Even if he acted like a total brat he knew Tony wouldn’t kick him out. The two of them had a bit of a mutual understanding that they both sucked with emotions and sometimes that came out in the form of them being rude as hell. If Harley could forgive Tony for abandoning him in the cold as a child he was pretty sure he should be forgiven for being a dick for ten minutes to some random kid.
The doors opened. Harley resolutely kept his eyes on the phone in his hand, determined to get out of there in five minutes tops.
“Harley is that you?” came Tony’s voice from somewhere amidst the mess of machinery. Jesus christ, where had it all even come from? None of that was present the night before which means he and that stupid intern in their “appointment” must’ve been doing something seriously fun. Fuck.
He rounded the corner of something that looked like a cross between a cement mixer and laser cannon, he caught a glimpse of Tony and the back of some teenager before remembering he was supposed to be moodily avoiding any sort of interaction.
“-well yeah Mr Stark, obviously the tensile strength has gotta be questioned. I’d like to not fall out of the sky please but it’s at least worth a look at right? If we got these shooter’s mechanics sorted it would at least halve the amount of wind drag I get every swing and then we coul-”
The kid’s voice stopped with a noise of surprise, Harley couldn’t be sure but he thought Tony might’ve just jabbed the kid in the stomach. Sheesh. It’s not like Harley actually cared about whatever they were saying, he was way too preoccupied with the fact that the guy called Tony “Mr Stark”. If they weren’t even on a first name basis maybe he’d actually had nothing to worry about the entire time and was just being a dramatic little shit for no reason. While that wouldn’t exactly surprise him he figured he should at least give the kid a chance before going back to Operation: Be A Dick.
With a heaving sigh in preparation for whatever may come ahead Harley finally dragged his eyes up. First he noticed Tony standing there with his arms crossed and a disapproving look on his face. Oh right…. Harley was supposed to have knocked. Whoops. It’s not like it mattered anyway. Next he saw the blueprints on the screen before the pair, they were showing some kind of arm brace thing but the second Tony registered where he was looking he tapped a button and they were swiftly replaced with designs for a car engine. Spoil sport.
At last, against his better judgement, Harley looked at Peter.
Oh.
Oooh.
“Hey.”
“Hey you,” the boy- Peter, said. Smiling widely at Harley, “Fancy running into you again.”
Harley grinned back. “What a coincidence.”
“Wait,” Tony said, looking between the pair that were yet to remember he was still standing right there, “How have you two met? You weren’t supposed to meet.”
“What? But you told me-” “You said I should-” “That I was supposed to-”
“-Meet this guy.” They finished together. Both laughing immediately at their unexpected synchronising.
Tony huffed, already realising he was about to be outnumbered by smartass teenagers that apparently liked each other enough to gang up against him when he was wrong. Good. “Yeah, you were meant to meet now, because I said so.”
They both fixed him with identical stares. Surely with the two of them working together Tony would figure out how much he sounded like a petulant child who just had their surprise birthday party spoiled for them. Sucks for him.
“Alright fine,” Tony said dramatically, “I guess I don’t need to do introductions then. Guess I should just leave you two to it because clearly I’m not needed here anymore.”
“Mr Stark calm down.”
“You can leave if you want,” Harley said, smirking just enough that they knew he was joking, but also would have been fine with it if Tony actually had decided to bugger off somewhere else for a while.
“Yeah good luck with getting me out of here that easily kid,” Tony said ruffling Harley’s hair which he then immediately reached back up to fix while Tony laughed at his oh-so-sudden obsession with his appearance, “But I’m not going to leave either of you, let alone both of you, alone in here when there are far too many things lying around that will explode because I do not intend to explain to your parental figures how it was such a tragedy that you both were unfortunately lost in the fires.”
“Why do you think we’d go straight for fire?” Peter asked, indignant.
“Yeah, obviously I’d go for the explosives.” Harley chimed in, ignoring the way Tony just rolled his eyes, clearly not believing him. Hah, proving him wrong will be fun , Harley thought.
“Cool, so you’re now banned from the lab,” he said dismissively, he turned to Peter, “You’re my new favourite.”
“I was the favourite before?” Harley couldn’t help but ask.
“I wasn’t?” Came Peter’s response.
“Okay you know what?” Tony said, his gaze flicking between the two of them, “I regret this. I now see that bringing the two of you together was a terrible idea because you just want to gang up on me and that’s illegal.” he ignored the twin snorts of amusement, “That’s on me for not thinking this through. I accept that. So,” He looked between them one final time, coming to a decision, “New plan: We’re going upstairs, stealing Pepper from work and having dinner together so there can be an actual responsible adult around to manage you two.”
Harley muttered under his breath as Tony shepherded them out of the room back towards the elevator, “More like the three of us.” He was happy that not only did Tony entirely not hear what he’d said, but apparently Peter had, causing him to throw his head back and laugh loudly while Tony simply ignored the pair of them. Harley really hoped the blood he could feel rushing under his skin wasn’t showing brightly on his face.