Work Text:
This was a disaster.
“HARLEY KEENER?” Tony’s eyes were almost out of his head as he looked back and forth between Peter who was at his side, and the boy working the counter of the coffee shop. “You’ve been talking to me about this adorable barista kid for months and all this time it’s been HARLEY KEENER?”
Peter grabbed his arm and slapped a hand over Tony’s mouth, his cheeks going crimson. Oh God, he was sure the boy must have heard Tony shouting his name across the coffee shop. Tony had promised he’d be subtle.
“How the hell do you know him?” Peter whispered to him, turning them both so their backs were facing away from the counter, “you said you’ve never been here before!”
“Yeah, because Harley never told me where he worked so that I couldn’t come in and embarrass him!” Tony’s face contorted into childish delight, and he clapped his hands together until Peter grabbed them and hastily silenced him with another hiss. “Oh, this is fucking classic! I’ve known that guy since he was what, 11? I’ve just been listening to you wax poetic about the kid who’s been sending me Captain America memes for seven months!” Tony dissolved into laughter again, and Peter thoroughly regretted taking him to the place where his long-time crush worked. Tony had bugged him about it for ages, and after he’d listened to Peter go on about the boy for so long, he’d figured that he may as well just let him tag along and get a look. Peter had assumed Tony might be helpful.
He had, apparently, assumed incorrectly.
“Okay, well this was a fun trip, let’s go now,” Peter declared hastily, grabbing hold of Tony’s arm and yanking him away again. Or at least, trying to. Tony didn’t budge.
“What?” Tony looked at him incredulously, “no, we can’t go now. I want to talk to Mr. Keener over there, catch up, you know? He’s been working his ass off to afford his place in New York, so I haven’t had much chance to talk to him.” Tony wiggled his eyebrows, snorting inwardly at Peter’s intense glare. “Oh, come on, you gotta admit, this is like fate. You have to ask him out now. It was practically meant to be.”
Peter glanced over rapidly to the counter, where the boy was currently flipping an empty cup absently as he talked to one of the customers, a bright smile on his face. This place wasn’t even on Peter’s route– he’d ended up here totally by accident after leaving a party one night a few months ago. He’d come in, laid his eyes on the barista with a name tag that read ‘Harley’, and…
Well. Peter had been hooked.
As often as he could, he came to this little place, tucked away on the end of Becker Street. And Harley always smiled when he saw him, and he didn’t even look at Peter weird when he inevitably stumbled over his words. He’d just say something funny, make Peter laugh, then take his order with a wink and a grin.
And obviously, every time when he’d come back to the Tower to work on something with Tony, he’d inevitably ended up going on a little rant about the boy, and what he’d done on that particular day to make Peter fall a little bit deeper for him. Whether it was helping a deaf person by talking to them in sign language, or kicking out a customer who’d been harassing a woman in the corner of the room (that was probably the only time Peter had ever seen his face look anything other than charming and happy. It had been… kind of hot, he wasn’t gonna lie). Tony had ended up having to allocate a specific ‘Harley Time’ for them, so that they’d still have time to finish whatever it was they were working on despite Peter’s little rambles.
Of course, Tony must not have realised that when Peter had been talking about Harley the cute barista that Peter may or may not have been taking 30-minute bus rides across the city in order to see, he had also been talking about Harley Keener, Tony’s first protégé and the kid he’d been helping to start up a life in New York after his mom had died.
Talk about coincidence, huh?
“I can’t ask him out,” Peter said with a shake of his head, “he’ll just– I dunno, he’ll say no, he’ll laugh at me, then you’ll laugh at me with him–”
“I wouldn’t do that, Pete, come on,” Tony’s voice went softer and he nudged Peter’s shoulder, “look, I’ll call him over right now–”
“NO, Tony, don’t you–”
“Hey Harley!” Tony waved across the room, and Peter took a small moment to internally burst into flames before he put on his best smile and caught the boy’s eye. Harley looked at the two of them in bewilderment, clearly wondering why the guy who came into his coffee shop and stared at him every day was now apparently in conversation with the man Harley had known for about 7 years.
Tony walked forward, tugging Peter’s shirt encouragingly. “Lets gooo,” he whispered, and God, he looked so fucking smug. Peter was going to kill him . He was never going to speak to him again, and then never come here again either, and never leave his room for the rest of eternity, actually–
“Hi,” Harley said, looking between the two of them, “this is a strange combination of people. Tony, how did you find me, and also can you please un-find me immediately so that I don’t have to kick you out–”
“Nonsense, I’m just a regular paying customer who can and will write a scathing review on yelp if the mood takes me.” Tony pulled out his wallet and looked at Peter. “What do you want, kid?”
Harley groaned. “I told you not to track down where I work! You’re so annoying–”
“Hey, this was totally an accident!” Tony pointed accusingly at Peter. “He invited me here, I had no idea this was where you were working at all! Pinkie swear.” He held out his little finger across the counter, and Harley glared at him unimpressedly before just turning to Peter.
Peter blinked as Harley’s full concentration shifted to him. Oh God, he was pretty. His eyelashes were so long, and his mouth, and his cheeks– oh no, Peter had no idea what to do with himself. “So how do you know Tony Stark?” He asked, glancing back at Tony as the man subtly stuffed a couple hundred dollar bills into the tip jar.
Peter took in a small breath. Okay. Uh. That was an easy question, right? “Internship,” he said hurriedly, “it was the– the Stark Internship thing, I was… he said I had potential and wanted to, uh, take me under his wing. I guess.” Great, now he sounded like a showboater. Good start.
But Harley didn’t seem to mind– he just nodded, his face lighting up. “Oh wow! Me too, sort of– well, I mean, I’ve signed up to the internship program, not sure I’ll get it though.” He stuck his tongue out at Tony. “I would have thought I could get some sort of fast-lane through, considering I saved your life and all.”
“You saved his life?” Peter asked, just as Tony rolled his eyes and said, “you hardly saved my life, merely… aided somewhat toward my survival.”
Harley turned back to Peter. “I totally saved his life,” he murmured, and Peter found himself grinning shyly at the way the boy leaned in conspiratorially close to him.
Tony glanced between them both again, clearly hiding a smile of his own as he pulled out his phone. “Oh, would you look at the time,” he said loudly, glancing between the two of them, “I just realised I have a totally important– uh– thing, that I have to be at. That’s a shame. Hey, here’s a thought. Seeing as both of you are doing this Stark Internship, and both of you have the amazing fortune of knowing me, maybe you should exchange numbers? Get to know one another a little better?” Tony patted Peter on the shoulder as he started to back up, and Peter turned to face him, shooting him daggers as the man waved. I hate you, he mouthed, I hate you so much.
“That’d be nice,” Harley said, and Peter turned back to him rapidly, trying not to blink like a total weirdo as the boy gave him another smile, “plus, I do love receiving phone numbers from cute boys who sit in my coffee shop and smile at me when they catch me staring.”
Oh, wow. Oh… Harley just called him cute. Harley definitely just called him cute, right?
“He called you cute!” Tony shouted helpfully back at him, and Peter once more turned around, trying to see whether his glare would be enough to make Tony shut up. It wasn’t. “That’s the cue for you to ask for his number!”
“Yes, thank you, I think he gets that!” Harley informed him, balling up a napkin and throwing it in Tony’s direction, “go away, old man. Read a newspaper or yell at clouds or something.”
Tony placed a hand over his heart. “You’ll miss me when I’m not there,” he said, waggling a finger and then turning on his heel in order to push at the door. He was still laughing to himself as he walked out, and Peter buried his head in his hands as he leaned against the counter.
“I hate him,” he declared firmly, “he’s… the worst.”
“Yeah,” Harley nodded, before adding, “although, I mean, he had one good idea.” When Peter looked up at him blankly, Harley just waved a hand. “Uh, phone numbers? Unless that’s not your thing, which is fine. I mean– not fine– I’ve been kind of trying to get up the guts to put my number on one of your coffee cups for ages now, but I kept pussying out at the last minute, so– not that you needed to know that, wow, okay, so now I sound creepy.” Harley laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair, pulling the dishtowel off his shoulder and then fiddling with it nervously.
Peter felt a small smile bloom on his face. “You don’t sound creepy,” he mumbled, “at least not as creepy as walking thirty minutes to go sit in a cafe just because a really cute barista works there and you like to imagine one day getting the courage to go and ask him out.”
They both looked at each other for a second, before Peter nervously looked away with a little laugh. He heard Harley’s reciprocating one, and his heart fluttered.
“So my break’s in like, fifteen minutes,” Harley said after another moment, “maybe we could go grab some lunch or something? Work out a really brilliant plan about how we can make Tony regret ever thinking us together would be even vaguely fun for him?”
Peter giggled, nodding jerkily. Was this seriously happening? Was this a date with the cute barista he’d been swooning over for months?
It seemed like it. Which was… admittedly terrifying. But also amazing.
“I’d like that,” he said, “I’ll, uh– I’ll just get a coffee while I wait for you?”
“Sure.” Harley grinned and winked at him again, and it made something funny happen in Peter’s knees. “Your usual order, I take it?”
Pete nodded and handed him the money, then turned around and went to go sit in his usual spot. Don’t do a stupid happy jig, he told himself sternly as he walked over– but even the internal chastisements couldn’t stop him giving the air a little fist-pump when his back was turned.
He pulled out his phone, glancing up at Harley as the boy made him his drink on the other side of the counter.
This time, he didn’t look away when the other boy caught him.