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The click of a flashlight is accompanied by a bright, blinding light that causes Abbie to cringe and Morgan to shriek, half in discomfort, half in delight. Abbie grabs a corner of a blanket, folds it a couple of times, and places it over the bright light, effectively dimming it and giving it a scary, red glow from the color of the crimson blanket.
“There we go,” Abbie says, flashing a grin at the younger girl. It’s Abbie and Morgan’s fall break at school, and Pepper drove them all out to the lakeside cabin to spend the long weekend. Morgan and Abbie set up camp in Morgan’s tent in the backyard, the sound of the wind howling all around them. “Now, what were we going to do, Lady Morguna?”
“You were going to tell me a scary story,” the young girl replies, sitting cross-legged across from Abbie.
“That’s right.” Abbie places the flashlight on the ground face up, letting it cast its light and form long shadows against the walls of the tent. “Once upon a time there was a boy. He was a mechanic, which means he fixed things. He was really good at what he did, but he was very ambitious and never satisfied with just fixing things. He wanted to fix the world.”
Morgan props her chin up with her hand, staring at Abbie with dark, shining eyes. “What was his name?”
Abbie smiles sadly. “Harley. His name was Harley Keener.”
Of course, only the people who actually knew him called him Harley. Most people knew him as Junior. Once, that “Junior” stood for Harley Keener Junior, the son in the spitting image of a man who ran away from his family. Over time, it came to stand for The Mechanic Junior, the mentee of a legend who crash landed in Rose Hill on a snowy winter night.
Junior fixed things. He fixed cars, washing machines, lawn mowers, ovens, bicycles, tricycles, motorcycles, and once, even a unicycle that belonged to Dave Davis, who stubbornly refused to learn how to ride a bicycle or drive a car.
Every summer, a jet landed in a clearing in the woods behind the gas station. Little boys and girls like to run out and watch as Junior, sometimes accompanied by his sister, boarded the jet and took off.
The jet would eventually land in New York, on the grounds of a sprawling, high-tech compound that housed the world’s most famous, yet most controversial, heroes. Junior had never officially met any of them, save The Mechanic Senior. As soon as he arrived, Junior holed himself away in the expanse of laboratory space and got to work.
You see, Junior had a plan, a vision, a dream. He didn’t want to just fix things. He wanted to fix the world.
One summer, when Junior was seventeen and done with the formalities of high school, he locked himself in the labs and made a silent vow to himself to never leave. However, the universe had other plans for him, and these other plans came in the form of Peter Parker.
“I feel like I’m being watched,” Junior muttered aloud, fingertips buried deep in the recesses of metal and wire and electricity and something more like magic.
“You are.” Junior violently ripped his hands free at the unwarranted voice, eyes darting around. The sound of his pocketknife sliding out of its sheath and clicking open reverberated around the sterile room. “Don’t be scared. It’s just me.”
“Show yourself.” Junior swallowed a scream when a body dropped from the ceiling, landing gracefully at his feet in a catlike manner.
“You must be the other kid Mr. Stark talks about all the time. Junior, right? Or was it Tudor? Luther? I wasn’t really paying attention to him. I sort of had a stab wound in my stomach when I called him on the way here. But that was like four hours ago! I’m okay now. I’m Peter Parker, by the way. MJ says I talk a lot, so I’m sorry if I’m bothering you or something like that. I should really stop talking.”
Junior stared at the outstretched hand, let his eyes travel to the boy’s pale, glowing face as he talked a mile a minute, traced the swoosh of his freshly-washed hair, still damp. Before he even registered what he was doing, he placed his hand in the other boy’s. “It’s Harley, actually. Nice to meet you, Peter Parker.”
The gesture seemed to effectively shut the other boy up for more than just a breath. He stared at their joined hands, which should have been moving up and down but instead just held on tightly, but then his eyes wandered up to meet Harley’s gaze, and the world stopped moving for all of half a second. “Oh. Yeah, it’s nice to meet you, Harley.”
Morgan raises her hand like she’s in school. Abbie calls on her with the uptight air of an elementary school teacher. “Yes, Morgan?”
“That’s Harley and Petey, right? Mommy told me they were Daddy’s other kids, that they were my brothers, but I wouldn’t remember them.”
Abbie has to close her eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath before answering. “Yeah. That’s Harley and Peter, your brothers.”
Morgan’s dark eyes pierce through Abbie’s delicate demeanor, like she can see all of the pain buried underneath, and that’s why she just nods. “Tell me more.”
Abbie always finishes what she starts, so she hides her shaking hands beneath her legs and pushes on.
Peter Parker had a vision, and it looked a lot like Harley’s: Harley wanted to fix the world; Peter wanted to save it. They helped each other do just that.
Peter, with his signature sheer genius and emotional intelligence, helped Harley channel his energy into what matters. Within half a decade, they made remarkable progress, accomplishing what only the bright-eyed generation of young geniuses can accomplish. In return, Harley crafted an armor of iron and flies around New York, the country, the world with Peter, doing all they could to save make sure people lived.
In the process of fixing and saving the world, Peter Parker and Harley Keener fell in love.
It started with the little things, as the big things always do. Catching the other staring while working in the labs, not-so subtle touches while working together, saving each other day after day.
It was a cold day in October, back in New York for Peter’s last semester of high school. The door to the lab hissed open, and in slipped Peter with two cups of apple cider and a weary smile. “Rough day?”
Peter shrugged, but the way he collapsed into the nearest chair, said a lot. “You could say that. Could you take over patrol tonight? I know it’s my turn, but I have this huge essay for English due tomorrow, and I’ve barely started. And by barely started, I mean I made the document, but it’s blank and haunting me.”
Harley laughed as he stood and made his way to where Peter was curled up. He settled in the spaces Peter’s body didn’t and tried to get comfortable as he draped the blanket over them. “Of course I will. I’d do anything for you, you know that?”
“You’re a gift to the world, Harley,” Peter sighed, burrowing closer to Harley. His cider mug, cupped in his hands, seared Harley’s skin, but he welcomed the warmth.
“I don’t really care about the world, I just care about you.”
“Bold words from a man who told me he wanted to fix the world. Seems like that man would care a lot about the world.”
“What if I told you that you are my world?”
Peter burst out laughing, cider sloshing dangerously in the mug. “That’s awful, Harley. Truly awful.”
“You love me anyway.” Harley hid his smile in his own mug as Peter flushed.
“Yeah. I love you anyway.”
“This doesn’t sound like a scary story to me,” Morgan pointed out.
Abbie just ruffled her hair and pulled the girl closer. “The best scary stories don’t start out scary. They’re happy at first, and then they become horrible. That’s what makes them so terrifying.”
Morgan sighed, but she still had a light smile plastered on her face, so Abbie knew she wasn’t actually bored. “Can we just get to the scary part now?”
The scariest thing about love was that it never lasted.
When Peter didn’t show up in the labs one afternoon after school, Harley got worried and emerged from the labs for the first time in weeks for something other than patrol, but Peter was nowhere to be found. “FRIDAY, where’s Peter?”
“Mr. Parker is not on the premises. Would you like to call him?”
“Yes.” FRIDAY redirected the call to his phone, which he clutched tightly to his ear, ignoring the stuttering of his heart.
“Junior? This is May.”
May’s warm voice did nothing to calm him. “Hi, May. Where’s Peter?”
“He’s sleeping. He wasn’t feeling well today and stayed home from school.” Peter was Spider-Man. No simple illness was supposed to be able to bring him down, which meant whatever was afflicting him was serious business.
“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Will you tell him I called?”
“Of course. Take care, Junior.”
“You too, May.” Harley ended the call with trembling fingers and retreated back to his section of the labs with a sinking heart.
Hour later, or maybe days, FRIDAY says, “Mr. Parker has entered the labs and is heading your way.”
Harley pulled himself away from his task and stared at the door. After a few moments, it opened, revealing a tired-looking Peter in his favorite pajama pants and one of Harley’s shirts. “Harley?”
“Hey, sweetie. What are you doing here?”
Peter burst into tears. “I’m dying.”
“This isn’t scary. It’s sad.”
“Patience, oh tiny demon.” Morgan giggles. “The fright is yet to come.”
The story is so cliche. It’s the perfect tragedy of love and death and shattered hope, and it makes Abbie want to vomit as she tells it, but Morgan’s looking up at her, enthralled, so she pushes on.
Peter was dying of radiation poisoning. The spider bite left radiation in his DNA, in his blood. The symptoms of it had been subtle at first, barely noticeable, but it had been nearly three years since he was bitten, and the rate at which he was dying sped up enough to cause alarm. The diagnosis from Bruce -- who worked in the same labs that Harley did, so he had no idea how he missed that -- came in that morning.
“Four months?” Harley asked, holding a shaking, sobbing Peter in his own weakening arms. “That’s plenty of time to find a cure.”
Everyone knew those were empty words, but an empty promise was better than letting an empty heartbreak consume them both.
Harley did work on a cure, alongside Peter himself, Bruce, Tony, and any other doctor or scientist Tony brought in. It was the first collaborative project Harley had ever done, aside from whatever he did with Peter, whose soul was so intertwined with Harley’s that it had never really felt like a group project at all, but rather shared ideas and genius. The only difference between Harley and everyone else working on the cure was that he had hope.
“Harley?” He hardly looked up when Peter woke up from the couch he had collapsed on while waiting for Harley to finish his work. He had claimed it would only be ten minutes, but that was ten hours ago, and the early risers of the team were starting to trickle in.
“Yes, honey?” Harley felt Peter’s presence creep closer, felt the fatigue rolling off the other boy in waves. “You should go upstairs, get some sleep.”
Peter’s arms wrapped around his waist, his cold fingers nipping at Harley’s skin, even through his lab coat. “You should too. You look exhausted.”
Harley sighed, marking his place in his readthrough of the data from the latest tests, and whirled around to face Peter. “Have you seen yourself?”
“I look like I’m dying because I am. You look like you’re dying because you are. If you keep up like this, you are going to kill yourself.”
“Peter, I have to keep working.”
“Working on what? Harley, in nine weeks, give or take, I will be dead. I want to spend what time I have alive with my boyfriend, who insists on spending every hour of every day in these freaking labs. It used to be fun down here, when we would create and make to our heart’s content, but now it’s all tests and pitying looks and empty promises.”
“They’re not empty.”
Peter screams out of frustration then, startling Harley out of his sleep-deprived daze and drawing the glares of the few people in the room. “Nine weeks, maybe less, to find a cure for radiation poisoning? You’re mad.”
“Peter, I have to at least try. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I didn’t do everything I could to fix this.”
“You haven’t left this lab in weeks. You haven’t eaten in days. You haven’t slept in days either. You haven’t patrolled once since I got the diagnosis. You haven’t done anything at all. Once upon a time, I met a boy who wanted to fix the world. What happened to him?”
“He fell in love.” Harley reached out to cup Peter’s face, shining with rage and disappointment and concern and heartbreak. “You are my world, Peter. I have to fix you.”
The fight left Peter in a single breath, and his shoulders fell. “Okay. Fine. Just promise me something.”
“What is it?”
“You’re my world too, Harley, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was save the world. Let me save you from yourself.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t easy. They still got into fights about it, but Harley left the lab more, went on patrols with Peter, spent some time with his boyfriend, who grew weaker with every passing day. In return, Peter submitted to the tests and the spark of hope in Harley’s eyes that refused to die.
Then Peter died, and with him, all of Harley’s hope.
Harley Keener fixed things, but he wasn’t even able to fix the one thing that mattered most to him. How was he supposed to be able to fix the world?
That doesn’t mean he stopped trying. He tried his best to carry on with his dream, with Peter’s dream. He ran away from New York, and although he knew Peter cared a lot about New York, about his home, Harley was never able to step foot in the area again. He roamed the world, doing what he could, but he never felt like it was enough. Peter always made him feel like he was enough. God, he missed Peter so much that it hurt to breathe most days, but he carried on and tried his best to live.
They say he’s still out there, that sometimes, when you’re in need, you’ll find yourself visited by a knight in shining iron armor.
“The End,” Abbie sighs, switching off the flashlight. The harsh shadows and red glare in the tent disappear, leaving only the faint, warm glow of the single electric lantern in between their two sleeping bags.
“That’s so sad,” Morgan says, squeezing Abbie’s hand in both of her own. “So what’s what happened to Petey and Harley?”
“Yeah. Your mom or dad ever tell you anything about them.”
“Daddy doesn’t really like talking about them. I think it makes him sad. Mommy mentions them sometimes, but I never knew what happened to them.”
“Well, that’s their story.”
“It’s a sad story. It was a very nice story, but you said you would tell me a sad story.”
Abbie laughs gently, as she helps Morgan zip up her sleeping bag. “I’m sorry, baby. I forgot. Maybe next time?”
“It’s okay. I like it when you tell me stories, even if they’re not very scary but very very sad.”
Abbie smiled fondly. Morgan was still young, but one day, she’d understand. Abbie hoped that day was very far away because she didn’t want to imagine her little sister’s heart broken, shattered. There’s nothing scarier than a broken heart, than the pain of loving someone. the scariest thing in the world is to watch the people you love get hurt or slip away or die, knowing you can do nothing about it. “Goodnight, Morgan.”
“Night, Abbie.”
Abbie reaches over and switches off the electric lamp. In the silence and the darkness, she takes a moment to collect herself, allows a few of the tears she had held in to escape. It’s been years since Peter died and Harley disappeared, but she feels their absence deeply every day.
“Abbie?” She sniffles quietly and wipes her face before replying.
“Yes, Morgan?”
“I feel like I’m being watched.” Abbie sits up and listened hard, to the world outside their little tent, their safe haven. There, amongst the chirping crickets and the rippling water, was a familiar sound.
“Don’t worry. It’s just the Iron Knight. Want to tell him goodnight?”
Morgan quietly giggles. “Goodnight, Harley.”
The pain in Abbie’s chest intensifies, and for a moment, she can’t breathe, blinded by the tears that threaten to fall whenever she misses Harley the most. “Goodnight, Harley,” she repeats.
Within moments, Morgan’s asleep again. Abbie too lies back down, but she keeps listening intently to the quiet whine of a repulsor hovering just outside the entrance to their tent. When she’s on the brink of sleep, she hears a quiet blast of acceleration and listens as the sound of the repulsor fades away.