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To say that Harley was nervous was a massive understatement. He had been anticipating this day for weeks. Today, he was going to start school at Midtown School of Science and Technology. He had never been a “new kid” before. In Rose Hill, he was bullied, sure. But at least he knew the kids there. This time, the only person he knew was Peter. And sure, his soulmate wasn’t popular. But Harley hadn’t been either. He had been the “smart bad boy” as his sister, Abbie would say. But, today Harley would be meeting his soul mate’s best friends. And he wasn’t prepared. What if they didn’t like him? What if he seemed stupid here? This was a school for geniuses, after all. And sure, he had passed the entrance exam. But what if that was just luck?
A wave of calmness foaming from his left pinky He sighed and looked over to his soulmate, who was sitting next to him in the back of a basic black Sudan. Peter placed his hand atop Harley’s and gave one of his soft smiles.
“What are you nervous about?” The smaller boy asked. Today, he was wearing a red sweater. But not just any red sweater. After their date, Tony had insisted on getting the boys matching sweaters to wear on the first day back from winter break, the color matching their sting. It was common to wear the shade of scarlet that everyone knew once one met their soulmate. It was a form of announcement that, yes they had found their other half. It had taken a while, since Tony wasn’t actually thinking that they were soulmates. But, the sweaters were done just in time for them to show the students of Midtown Tech that the new kid was soulmates with one of their own, even if he was just the best on the decathlon team and one of the few people to have about a 4.0 GPA.
“Well, first off I’m meetin’ your friends, which is a little scary since even Tony is terrified of one of them. He said that she can rival Pepper, which is just downright terrifying. Then there's also the fact that I’m a new kid. I never have been a new kid. It’s a little unnerving.” Harley confessed as Peter looked at him, chocolate eyes meeting a beautiful mixture of gray, green and blue.
“Harley, Ned and MJ will love you. Sure, MJ can be a little...blunt but she’s really nice. Just don’t tell her I said that. And Ned is literally like a giant puppy. Once they see how you treat me and how happy I am, they’ll accept you just like that.” Peter gave the other a smile and kissed him on the cheek. Harley smiled and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The car stopped and the two teenagers made their way out to the entrance of the looming school building, hands locked together.
A few students did double takes as Peter lead Harley to the front office to get his school ID picture taken, along with Harley’s locker assignment. One girl with a black hairband over straight blonde hair along with a soft blue sweater that had the collar of a white polo over the top came up to them right outside the front office.
“Peter! Why don’t you introduce me to your friend?” She gave them both a wide smile.
“Oh, uh, Betty, this is Harley Keener. Harley, this is Betty Brant.” Peter smiled and Harley nodded, holding out his right hand for them to shake.
“Pleasure meeting’ ya. I feel a little left out of the alliteration names here.” He chuckled and Peter smiled at the joke.
“I’m a reporter for the Midtown School News! I have a few questions for you two considering that you’re both wearing string red.” She gave them another smile, an inquisitive look in her eyes.
“Uh, well if it’s okay with Harley we can talk to you during lunch. After MJ and Ned integrate him, that is.” Peter looked to Harley, who nodded.
“Sure thing.”
Betty smiled and left them with a smile and as cheerful “See you at lunch!”
The two boys were able to get Harley’s ID photo taken quickly and the slip of paper that had Harley’s locker number in it (right next to Peter’s, seriously Tony ships them so hard how did he even manage to do that) before they walked to their shared first period.
“So, Ned has this class with me. We’ve actually been missing someone at our table and you being there will probably throw Flash off his game. Or maybe he’ll just bully you too. I’m sorry.” The amount of anxiety that trembled through the string at the mention of Peter’s bully was immense and Harley squeezed Peter’s hand.
“Hey darlin’ it’s ok. If that kid wants to mess with you I’ll defend you.” The string stopped with the anxiety and instead filled with love and appreciation. Harley followed Peter into a classroom. There were only a handful of students, most looking at their phones. One with an open laptop in front of them looked up from a book and smiled, quietly greeting the duo as they passed by. Peter returned the greeting and the soul mates made their way to the back of the classroom, sitting at a table with three chairs facing the whiteboard in the front. Peter sat in the middle, Harley sitting to the right of him next to a wall.
“So, you’ll meet Ned in this class. MJ had third period with us and then we all have fourth together. We have 5th period lunch and then it's just us for the rest of the day” Peter took out a notebook along with a pencil case filled with pens of various colors and sizes. Harley pulled out a notebook and stole one of the black gel pens from Peter’s collection and made sure it worked before setting it down.
“Any classes with that Betty character?” Harley asked as he looked at the pens that Peter had seemingly collected over the years, if the faded labels were any indication.
“4th period. Really anyone we have lunch with has the same 4th as us. At least anyone in our grade.”
“And what exactly are all the classes? I never got to actually see the schedule, Tony just set it all up.”
“Oh, well this is Calculus, next is APUSH, third is AP Language and Comp, fourth is gym, then lunch and after that we have a business economics class and then engineering and we finish with AP chemistry.” Peter gave Harley a smile and Harley smiled back, kissing Peter on the lips quickly. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Harley texting his sister and Peter scrolling through Instagram (after taking a selfie with Harley with the blond wrapping his arms around the shorter boy, placing a kiss to the secret vigilante’s temple and posting it to his story) until a rather girlish shriek came from the classroom door.
Both looked up quickly, Peter wincing and pressing his head against Harley’s arm to shield one of his ears while his hand came to the other side. At the door was Ned Leeds, bowl cut and all. Peter smiled and waved the boy to come over already seriously there’s people s t a r i n g. The Filipino quickly rushed over and Harley straightened up to try and make the best impression possible since holy shit this is the Ned Leeds, Peter's guy in the chair Keener if you fuck this up you’ve fucked up for life.
Ned came and sat down on the other side of Peter, holding his hand out to Harley. “Hi! I’m Ned, Peter’s best friend. You must be Harley.”
Harley took the hand and shook it with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Ned. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Peter speaks highly about you.”
The bell rang and all three turned away from each other to face the front of the class, Harley wrapping one arm around Peter’s shoulders in a protective manner that was also a little possessive. Peter didn’t mind - he actually adored the way that Harley would find ways to make it known that they were soulmates.
They stayed like that for the entire period, and it appeared as if Flash wasn’t actually going to show up today. He hadn’t come in at all. Hopefully he wasn’t just at a doctor’s appointment or something similar. When the bell rang, the teacher asked Harley to hold back to give him some papers. He did so with Peter next to him. The teacher gave them a smile as she handed the papers over and congratulated them on finding each other.
As they walked down the now crowded halls to their next class with Harley’s arm holding Peter close, people took notice of their sweaters. It was extremely uncommon for soulmates to find each other before the age of 25. So, the glances were mostly curious. A few were jealous, since it’s a high school and most people want to meet their soulmates. Then those people realized they were jealous of fucking Peter Parker and decided to just let the guy be happy.
They walked to their second period, and once more there was no sign of Eugene Thompson. Peter sighed in relief and Harley smiled. He was happy that for today at least, his soulmate would be happy. It was during this class that all of the TVs across the campus came to life with the morning announcements.
The class was easy going, and the teacher gave Harley notes from the previous semester along with any handouts that were helpful for studying at the beginning of class. The period consisted of a discussion of recent news, and Harley had a lot to say and almost controlled the conversation with Peter. To say that the teacher was surprised would be an understatement. The way that they somehow managed to connect everything brought up with relevant information was astounding and, if after the class they were given candy for participating the most no one else needed to know.
Once they left the class, Harley's anxiety spiked.
“What’s wrong, love?” Peter asked.
“Next period we’re meeting the terrifying one.”
“Harls-”
“Petey, it’s terrifying.”
Once they entered the classroom, the two once more sat next to each other. This time, however, there was a girl with mocha skin and out of control curly dark hair across from them. Her eyes latched onto Harley as she watched his every movement. He was truly scared.
“MJ, stop you’re scaring him,” Peter stood closer to his soulmate and the girl shifted her gaze to him. Peter coaxed Harley to move forward from where he had stopped in fear.
“Tony was right. You are terrifying.” At Harley’s comment the girl smiled for half a second and her gaze softened a fraction.
“Michelle Jones. But, my friends call me MJ. And so do their soulmates.” MJ held out her hand and Harley took it.
Her grip was strong and Harley matched it as he introduced himself, ”Harley Keener. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Potts has talked very highly of you. So has Peter, but I said that to Ned and I feel like I would just be repeating myself.”
MJ nodded and the two boys sat next to her. The bell rang once more and the teenagers were thrown into a lesson, the teacher handing Harley papers during a lull in class. Once the bell rang the trio made their way to the gym.
In the boy’s locker room, Harley went to get his uniform while Peter and Ned made their way to the lockers. The two waited for Harley to come back before changing, all three of them talking about building a robot like one that Peter had seen in a YouTube video.
The three were the last out of the locker room, but the class hadn’t even sat for attendance. A few students were shooting hoops next to a container of balls. MJ was already out, sitting on the bleachers while reading a book. The three made their way over to sit next to her, Harley once more with his arm wrapped around Peter’s shoulders.
More people looked at Harley and Peter now. Betty had mentioned in the announcements that Peter and Harley were soulmates and she was going to report more on it the next day. Once more, they were mostly curious. A few of the girls were jealous, but accepted that it would be inappropriate to try and flirt with the new kid. And if any of them didn’t think that, they sure did when Harley kissed Peter to shut him up.
For gym, it was a free day. Which meant most people playing basketball. The group of four decided to walk around, Harley looking at the jumping ropes with interest.
“You like jumping ropes, Keener?” MJ asked when she noticed where his gaze was.
“Yeah, back in Rose Hill me n my little sister would have competitions. Course, it was with a real rope until Tony came and bought us like ten.” He smiled at the memory. Peter smiled and darted off to go get a few.
Ned opted to not participate, merely he watched as his friends began to jump over the rope. After a minute, Harley began to do tricks with the rope, He started by crossing his feet back and forth. A few doing that for a few minutes, he began to jump on one foot a few times before switching to the other foot. All three of the others watched in curiosity and Peter tried to mimic Harley. It was actually really easy, and Harley took up the silent challenge of the competitiveness that transferred from the string. Harley began to do jump squats, only for Peter to do the same but managing for the robe to go under twice when he jumped up.
The rest of the gymnasium slowly fell silent as people noticed the competition happening between the soulmates. Harley began to jump over the rope not just front to back, but left to right before front to back and then right to left. Peter upped him by solely going from left to right while the rope went under him twice.
This continued on for ten more minutes, each boy finding some way to outdo the other. By the time that Halrey tripped up and fell backwards, the entire gym was watching them. A few students were surprised, a few were staring at the new kid, and one was live streaming it on Instagram. Peter stopped and set down his jump rope to smile at Harley.
“I win!” He said, catching his breath.
“Yeah, only cause I let you.” Harley huffed and accepted Peter’s hand to help him up.
“Sure, Harls. You totally meant to fall on your ass.” Peter smiled as Harley wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
“You know it sugar.”
The coaches called for everyone to change and the couple along with Ned makes their way to the locker room. They quickly change, shoving the uniforms into a bag that would be thrown into the laundry chute when they got into their room and be fresh for the next day.
They walked out of the gym a few moments earlier, using the excuse of Harley being new and needing to be shown where the cafeteria is without the crowd of students so that he isn’t distracted. They sit at the table that Peter, Ned and MJ have sat at since freshman year. They pulled out their lunches made by their choice of restaurant in the Tower’s food court. Today, Peter had his favorite noodles from Olive Garden and bread sticks. Harley had some Southern fried chicken with cheesy grits. MJ walked in right before the bell rang, causing Peter to look at her confused.
“How do you always get out of gym early? The coaches are really strict about it.”
“All the girls huddle around the door and open it because of perfume. Then a few slip out and one will make sure that the coaches don’t notice.” MJ sat down and pulled out a lunchbox wit some form of leftovers and a soda. A few moments later, Ned joined the group with a tray of the school’s lunch in his hands.
The group chatted, MJ threatened Harley, and Ned quizzed him on things to make sure that the boy was prepared to deal with Peter. After all, if you’re going to be part of Spider-Man’s life, you need to be able to deal with him putting himself in danger.
“I think I’ll be fine. Old man Stark may or may not be building something he thinks is a secret for me.” Harley took a bite of his grits and moaned, causing Peter to turn redder than a tomato. “Grits are the one thing that I will never get sick of. Oh, and everything about Peter.” Harley smirked as Peter somehow turned even more scarlet.
Betty approached the table to see Peter as red as the string on her pinky and softly smiled. She knew her soulmate, of course. It was just he was always too busy to really pay attention to their connection. She didn’t even know if he looked at his string anymore. She pushed away her thoughts and stood behind the one that she was connected to.
Harley looked up too see Betty behind Ned, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh yeah, Petey, interview time.” Harley smiled at Betty and she gestured a little down the table so that they could talk more privately.
Harley and Peter scooted down, bringing their food to finish .
“Alright, I guess the first question should really just be for Harley,” Betty started off once they were all situated. She took out her phone and began to voice record, as long with taking out a notepad that had the questions she wanted to ask on it. “Where are you from and why are you here now?”
“Oh, well I’m from this little place in Tennessee called Rose Hill. Really, the only interestin’ thing that’s happened there was when Tony Stark went missin’ back when the manderin thing was happening. He crashed there,” Betty’s eyes went wide. No one had ever said anything about what happened in the week that the billionaire went missing, “He actually ended up breaking into my garage. I saved his life and helped him build the suit he crashed with, since it was pretty badly damaged. We stayed in contact since then, and he got me a workshop build where he broke into. He actually offered to bring me here to have an internship with him, since the schoolwork there is like child’s play compared to the stuff here. Here I’m actually challenged, though I’m confident I will pass.”
Betty nodded, the surprise only partially on her face. “That’s actually pretty cool. Now, how did you two meet?”
Harley once more answered, “When I came into the city, I was taken to Stark Tower. Our string was going straight up for me, and so I asked Tony if Peter was in. Little did I know that Peter decided to come down the elevator to the garage and there he was. We hugged and I think we scared Tony with how fast we talked.” Harley nudged Peter with his shoulder and the boy nodded.
“Yeah, uh you know how I live at the tower? Well, I was up really late from a nightmare and went to watch TV but the string was moving and when it was going straight down I had the elevator go as fast as possible. I think it was like 2 AM?” Peter nodded to himself and Betty nodded. Sure, it wasn’t exactly common knowledge that Peter lived at Stark Tower, but it was common that a car with a Stark license plate picked him up and dropped him off everyday. It didn’t take a genius (and the school was filled with those) to figure out.
“Alright. Since most people haven’t met their soulmate here yet, can you guys explain what it felt like, emotionally?”
Peter pursed his lips together in thought and Harley ate his chicken while thinking. Eventually, Peter answered, “It kinda felt like how you would feel as a kid after a nightmare and go to sleep with a parent. Lie really safe and loved. It felt like I was finally home . It was really happy and exciting.”
Harley nodded with everything that Peter said, adding “It was like the feelin’ of bein’ wrapped in a warm blanket and watchin’ a really good movie with a full stomach. Pure happiness and for the first time it was like I was really content and happy.” Betty nodded and looked back at her notepad.
“Alright, one more question - how is it being with your soulmate?”
This time, Peter was quick to answer much to the surprise of both Betty and Harley, “It’s amazing. I feel like I can be myself around him and I also know that he will be there for me anytime I need it. He also helps me a lot with my emotions and making sure I’m okay.” Peter turned red as he finished, leaning into Harley. Harley wrapped his arm around Peter, bringing him in close.
“Yeah basically what this tomato said. For once, someone knows exactly how I feel and how to help when I’m havin’ an off day.” Harley smiled down at Peter and Betty nodded.
“Alright, can I just get a picture of you two for the news?” Betty stopped the voice recording to open up her camera. The two nodded and made sure that they looked presentable, Harley gently wiping some Alfredo sauce off of Peter’s mouth while Peter pushed part of Harley’s hair to the side. Betty positioned them and took a few pictures, promising to send Peter the ones that looked nice.
As the two went back to their friends, Betty felt herself choke up. Ned was her soulmate, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She could feel the happiness that her classmates felt, could have that look in their eyes, all of it. But, it seemed as if Ned didn’t. So, she turned away. She ignored the worry and confusion that overcame her from the string and left the cafeteria. The surprise and guilt that happened as she left the doors made her stop and wonder, but she shrugged it off and left for the journalism classroom so that she could prepare what she would say for her report on Midtown’s only soulmate match that seemed to matter anything.
Back at the table, Ned looked at his string in confusion when it vibrated with annoyance and yearning. Usually the string was giving off happy or annoyance, but the sudden change in emotions hit him like a brick to his face. He looked down and followed it, only to see the other half walking out of the cafeteria. Oh no. He’d fucked up. To be honest, Ned hadn’t concerned himself with his soulmate. He figured he’s find them when he was able to support himself. Not in high school. And not Betty Brant.
Ned quickly left, only saying, “Soulmate Betty, fucked up.” before leaving his best friends and Harley (since, even if the boy was really cool, he wasn’t quite at the level yet. But probably would be by the end of the week, if today was anything to go by.)
The trio that was left just looked at each other in surprise before Halrey started talking about Buzzfeed Unsolved, causing MJ to start raving with him about the show. Peter chimed in every once in a while, and soon the lunch period ended.
The rest of the day was like a breeze, and soon Peter and Harley were on their way back to the tower. The couple had been inside the car for less than 10 seconds when Harley pulled Peter close and kissed him like his life depended on it. Peter hummed happily and obliged, the two parting for air a few moments later.
“Fuck school PDA rules.” Harley said with a kiss to Peter’s forehead. Peter giggled and Harley practically melted, holding the boy close and kissing all over his face.