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When Peter walks into the tower on Saturday, he tosses his backpack haphazardly aside while slipping on the ugly loafer-slippers Harley had jokingly bought him on grandparent’s day and yells, as he is wont to do, “honey, I’m home!”
There is no answer from Harley, which surprises him.
Usually by ten in the morning, Harley is perched on the living room couch watching Property Brothers with Bucky or at the kitchen counter eating granola dry out of the box by the handful. When he isn’t around for the farce, he comes scampering in, fluttering his eyelashes and holding aside an invisible skirt, calling out, “why, thank goodness you’re home, darling, my world famous roast is just about done!”
When he isn’t there, he can’t help but worry. Harley has been doing about as well as expected since they returned from Tennessee less than a month ago— which is to say, not quite well. Peter has been doing his best to spend as much time close to him as he can- to keep an eye on him, to bolster his mood, to make sure he actually gets up and out of bed, at the very least- but the college application season isn’t quite over and they’re both in a bit of a flurry over it. It’s busy. They’re busy. Peter can only imagine the strain Harley’s under between it all.
He figures he ought to find Harley sooner rather than later and get whatever it is out of the way. The sooner the mushy stuff is done, the sooner they can train with Nat and then they have the rest of the day to dick around doing whatever they want. Probably blowing up the lab. They haven’t done that in a while.
The realization throws Peter for a loop. Christ, they’re being responsible, they’re growing up. He hates it. He needs a redo. Another year of high school- they’re seniors , what the what- and irresponsible responsibilities and living half with Tony and half with May and having the best, best family in the entire world. Forever of that. Never growing up sounds— great. Fine, whatever, he’ll play into the stereotype of his name. Slap a pair of green tights on him and make him shit glitter while he flies. He just wants things to stay the way they are.
He finds Harley curled on the ground beside his bed, knees to his chest, heart audibly quickened. His hair is a mess, as if he hasn’t yet gotten up for the day, and his back bounces with what Peter can only assume to be the weight of silent sobs.
“Hey,” Peter says softly, hurrying to his side. “Hey, what?” He rolls Harley slightly enough to catch the tears gleaming on his cheeks, his eyes screwed up, his mouth open. He can hardly breathe, each gasp wheezing through his chest. His hands are curled into tight, trembling fists. Peter’s heart stutters.
“Oh my god,” Peter mumbles. “Are you— what the fuck are you laughing at?”
Harley makes a sound like a dusty rubber duck and brandishes his phone at Peter. On the screen, Pete Davidson’s head is being tossed around a classroom with copious amounts of fake blood following it.
Peter can’t help but recognize the scene: the SNL spoof of Dead Poets Society — Farewell Mister Bunting.
Harley lets out a miserable croak of a laugh. “Oh mby— holy shihihihit , Beeeeter. This is hhhhhh the fundniest thing I’ve ever seeheeheen .” Harley breaks into a wave of aggressive coughing, the wet, hacking kind. “Dick onb a stick,” he grinds out, pressing his face into the crook of his elbow and heaving between giggles.
“Did you acquire a speech impediment since I last saw you?” says Peter, blinking.
“Ndo,” Harley says mulishly, mopping tears and snot on his sleeve. “I’m fide.”
“You are,” says Peter, “so sick.”
“Amb dnot,” says Harley. He clears his throat wetly. Sneezes four times in quick succession, violently, as if his soul is in the business of actively hurling itself from his chest.
“Bless you,” Peter offers.
“Fuck you,” says Harley. His nose is scrunched and he sniffles. “I don’d get colds.”
“I’m going to take care of you,” Peter announces, sitting taller.
“I will kick your ass wid vigor,” Harley says half-heartedly.
“I’ll tell Nat you can’t come down for training,” Peter plans, tilting his head, “and then I’ll wrap you in a blanket burrito you’ll never ever escape from.”
“Is dat a death threabt?”
“The snuggliest death threat you’ll ever receive. And your first ever. I took your death threat v-card. Did you love it? Was it as momentous for you as it was for me?”
“Whend did you become such a prick?” Harley whines, rolling on his side and sniffling with a husky snort like a backed-up lawnmower.
“Mm, musta picked it up from hanging around you so much.” Peter stands and places his foot on Harley’s shoulder, rocking him lightly. “Will you survive if I leave for five minutes to collect my patient care kit?”
Harley mumbles something unintelligible into the fabric of his sweatshirt sleeve.
Peter chuckles fondly. What a brat.
He goes and collects throw blankets from wherever he can find them. He sticks a rice-filled heating pad in the microwave for Harley’s neck and grabs an ice pack for his forehead in case he’s feverish. It takes some scrambling but he finds some long-frozen vegetable soup and yoinks it in a pot on the stove to melt down. He ambles back to the bedroom to drop off the blankets and heating pad so Harley can start setting himself up on the bed. Harley’s moving sluggishly, gingerly, as if wading through a sea of thick honey. He flops facedown on top of the comforter and grumbles.
Peter rolls his eyes and grabs the blankets, tucking them around Harley. “There you go, you big baby,” he says. “All better. Nice and cozy. I should get you one of those little onesies that covers your hands so you can’t scratch yourself with your fingernails accidentally.”
“Ndot a dnewborn,” says Harley stubbornly. He turns his face to the side against the pillows and his glasses stick straight up, lenses smudged and plastic digging into his nose and ear. He keens thinly, writhing to free his arms from the bundle and failing spectacularly.
Peter takes the glasses off for him and folds them before placing them on the nightstand. “C’mon, you whiny whiner,” Peter mutters, not unkindly, draping the heating pad over the back of Harley’s neck and wedging the ice pack against the unhidden part of his forehead.
Harley looks up at him through his lashes, glassy-eyed and pouty-lipped and mournful, and Peter says, “aww. Boohoo. Boo hoo .”
Harley gives him a scandalized sort of sniff and then closes his eyes firmly, scrunching up his whole face.
“Woof,” Peter marvels before heading back out of the room to collect some decongestants, a diffuser, and a glass of water. He knows Harley likes the diffuser on a regular day- he likes essential oils, says they’re the closest he gets to smelling actual plants in the city- but if he does one of those fancy scent mixes that May does- like the cleverest witch ever, he just needs to channel Hermione Granger energy- he’s pretty sure they’re supposed to enhance healing. Even in non-mutants! At least, May used to smear some oil that smelled like Christmas under his feet every time he got a fever as a kid and it would come down overnight. Peter is pretty sure that’s just because May is a miracle worker (and also a nurse), but he’s hoping some of her miracle skills have been passed on to him anyhow. That would be so convenient.
Peter brings it all back and sets it up, eucalyptus and peppermint filling the room on a cloud of steam and the soup gently smoking on the nightstand. Harley turns his head to look at it for a moment and sniffles, choking on a glob of mucus and pushing up onto his elbows to hack and wheeze. Peter hurries to sit on the edge of the bed near Harley’s head and rub his hand up the knots of his spine, trying to offer some sort of soothing to him.
Harley whines long and weak and then collapses back onto his stomach. He wrestles a hand out of the blanket and pats the spot next to him aggressively.
“Want me to sit with you?” Peter deduces.
“Hnbngh,” says Harley.
Peter snorts and shakes his head, but plops down against the headboard and lets Harley nose his way into the side of his thigh, sniffling and warm. Peter adjusts the ice pack against his forehead once he’s done moving, pushing aside the sweat-darkened fringe to cover the left side of Harley’s forehead— the side on which he always gets headaches. Peter knows this because Harley is the worst ever at being sick and whines like he stopped aging at six and never bothered to catch up. Peter doesn’t mind: he loves taking care of people. Especially Harley, because he super loves Harley.
He rests his hand on top of Harley’s head and gently scritches his nails against his scalp, drawing out a calmed huff. Harley’s free hand finds its way to Peter’s sweatshirt, grabbing a ball of fabric in his fist, and Peter looks at it with his eyebrows raised. Fucking precious.
“You gonna have your soup now, buddy?” Peter says.
“Mbph.”
“Just wanna nap?”
“Hngbh.”
“Alrighty. Sleep good.”
Harley’s out within a minute, drawing thick, snotty breaths, eyelashes fluttering against the skin of his cheek. He has red splotches on his cheekbones, over the bridge of his nose, but the rest of his skin is sallow. He’s still almost six inches taller than Peter, but he looks positively childish, knees bent and eyebrows knotted and cold hands.
Peter wonders who took care of Harley when he was sick as a kid. No dad, mom always working long shifts, late shifts, double-triple shifts, three jobs, no time. And Poppy couldn't have— she’s younger, she had school. Maybe a neighbor helped? That Missus Next-Door Harley mentions, who sometimes watched him and Poppy until Harley was old enough to do it himself?
He thinks it’s more likely Harley stuck it out alone, and the thought depresses the crap out of him. No one should have to be miserable alone, especially when there isn’t anything they can do to fix it.
At least Harley has him now. And he always will, of course, duh. That is resolute. That is written with magma across the underside of the earth’s crust in looping curlicue cursive, blazing and burned and predetermined by gods of old, scraped against by sneaker bottoms and yet never smudged, they are the stuff of stories, they are the stuff of the universe, they are a whole made of wholes that fit like gears in a clock and they they are time incarnate.
Harley sleeps for two hours while Peter reads Revolutionary Road for AP Lit before waking to take the most frustrated piss Peter has ever seen someone take, dragging his feet the whole way there and back, whining while washing his hands, dropping back onto the bed and scrambling into the spot he vacated like a pillbug. He grabs Peter’s hand and deposits it back into his hair.
Peter huffs a laugh. “Okay, drama queen. You gotta eat your soup. Let me go nuke it real quick.”
“You’re puttig bombs ind mby soup?”
“Maybe. You might want to avoid any floating grey bits you see in it. They might maybe explode.”
Harley huffs and noses into the pillow. “You dob’t have t’get me soup.”
“Uh,” says Peter. “Maybe not, but I want to.”
“Dob’t bother.”
“Why, huh?” Peter nudges Harley’s shoulder. “Are we about to have a heart to heart? Because I can just deliver my half- the good half- now so I can put soup in you faster.”
“Blargh.”
Peter can’t hold in his snort. “You’d make a good caveman. Alright. Okay, dude, here’s my speech. I know you get all guilty when people do shit for you because you didn’t have many people doing shit for you before. But, guess what! I’m here now! And I’m gonna do so much shit for you, to help you! And you don’t need to feel awkward or even thank me because it’s more for my own well-being than yours-“ a truth, Peter has been anxious all day wondering if this illness is going to turn into pneumonia or something- “so get used to it. Because I love you a whole lot- stop grumbling, you know I’m soft as hell for you- and I’m gonna take care of you, like it or not. I’m your mother now.”
Harley half-heartedly swats at Peter’s thigh, turning towards him to glare through his eyelashes. Between his wavy bangs and his button nose, it gives the impression of a pissed-off Bichon Frisè. He then grabs Peter’s nearer hand and presses it to his cheek for a moment.
Peter smiles down at him. “Alright?”
“Mmph,” Harley says.
Peter warms the soup and sits next to Harley, scrolling through Twitter, while he finishes most of it. He shows him highlight tweets. Harley huffs laughs. It’s nice.
When Tony and Pepper are released from their meetings, they find Harley assed out face-down across also assed out Peter’s prone figure, diagonal over the length of Peter’s back.
Tony moves Harley over onto the open half of the bed so he doesn’t squish Peter. He takes in the balled tissues strewn across the sheets and the floor, the mostly empty soup bowl, the lingering essential oil smell, the hot and cold packs. He wraps his fingers over Harley’s forehead to take the temperature and winces when he feels the warmth.
Harley blinks an eye open sluggishly. “Mmph,” he says, his face relaxing into a drowsy smile when he sees Tony. “Hi, Tondy.”
“Hey, patatino ,” Tony whispers. “You’re sick, huh?”
“Very.”
“Pete taking good care of you?”
“The best.”
Tony smiles. Of course. He didn’t expect any less.
“I’m glad, squirt. You need anything? You just want to go back to sleep?”
Harley’s nose wrinkles as he thinks. Tony’s chest feels all warm looking at him. He shouldn’t be all soft over a sick kid. But he just looks so sweet and little .
“I’mb good,” Harley decides. “Thandk you.”
Tony pushes his bangs from his forehead. “You got it. Call Pep or me if you need anything, okay?”
Harley strains his neck to see where Pepper is— perched on the other end of the bed beside Peter, tracing his spine under her fingers. “Oh, hi, Pep,” he says.
“Hey, honey,” she says with a soft smile. “Sorry we weren’t here to take care of you today.”
“Were the mbeetings borinbg?”
She looks at him so gently. “Very. Would’ve much rather been here with you, soaking in your germs, getting sneezed on.”
“D’aww,” Harley says.
Pepper stands and crosses around the bed to press a kiss to the crown of Harley’s head. “We’ll leave you to rest now, okay? How about we all watch a movie later, if you’re up to it? I’ll call Rhodey and Happy, it can be a big family movie night.”
Harley smiles sleepily, his eyes fluttering shut. “Mm.”
Tony leans over and drops a quick kiss onto Harley’s temple before standing with a huff. “Sounds good, kiddo. We’ll come grab you when dinner is ready, okay?”
“Mm.”
“Love you.”
“Yay. Love you.”
It’s six when they finally wrench themselves out of bed, and Happy and Rhodey are milling in the living room as promised, sipping beer. The kitchen smells like chili, which means Tony is cooking , thank God, Peter loves it when Tony cooks because Tony is a really great chef when he actually has the energy to get into the kitchen.
Peter has a hand hooked around Harley’s elbow as they walk to make sure he doesn’t get woozy and eat shit, and they plop down onto the couch in tandem.
“You look like a crack addiction incarnate,” Rhodey tells Harley.
“Screw you, Mbister Colonel.”
Happy snorts a laugh. “Amazing. Grumpier than usual.”
Tony brings in a tray covered in bowls of vegan chili, handing them out one by one. He hooks an elbow around each Pepper and Rhodey and makes them sit with him on the two-person loveseat, both of them rolling their eyes fondly.
They chatter contentedly as they eat, and Harley manages his way through half the bowl, which Peter guesses is better than nothing.
Harley requests Dead Poets Society because he hasn’t been able to get it out of his head since watching the Pete Davidson sketch.
“You should sit with us, Happy,” Peter says, painting on his sweetest grin and pointing it at where Happy is perched on the floor near Pepper’s feet.
Happy looks at Peter and Harley dryly, then looks at Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey squished hip-to-hip-to-hip on the loveseat, practically in each other’s laps. There’s definitely not room for him there. It’s the couch with Peter and Harley and Harley’s germs, or the hard, cold floor. Peter is very satisfied.
“Give me enough room,” Happy says before wiggling himself right in between the boys, to everyone’s general surprise.
“Aw, Happy,” Peter says, leaning onto his warm shoulder. Happy elbows him in the ribs, but it isn’t particularly violent so Peter thinks it’s a win.
“Habby,” Harley says ruminatively from Happy’s other side, and Peter thinks oh no. “Are you, like, a mob boss?”
Happy squints. “Kid, what the hell?”
“I just. Dneed to dnow.”
“Happy has all of the skill sets necessary to be a mob boss and none of the inspiration,” Peter says. He is a saver of situations in this moment.
“Don’t you ever forget it,” Happy says, before ruffling Peter’s hair. Peter grins, letting his eyes shut. He likes it when Happy likes him. It’s, like, extra layers of validation ‘cuz he knows he had to earn it.
“Look at us,” mumbles Tony quietly, mostly to himself, one arm around Pepper and the other around Rhodey, grinning. “My favorite person in the world, and my fiance.”
Pepper looks dryly across the room at Peter and Harley. “My whole life,” she says.
Harley sneezes twice, gloriously. Happy says, “fucking gross.”
Harley says, “dat will mar my self-esteeb forever.”
Peter kicks his feet over Happy’s legs to lie in Harley’s lap. Harley says, quietly, “I’ll rip ‘emb off.”
“Nah, you love me too much,” Peter says as Pepper flicks through the movie list.
“Yeah, I do,” Harley agrees, pulling Peter’s feet closer to his chest like a kid with a stuffed animal.
Peter feels something warm go surging through him. His grin comes so wide and so quick that it twinges his cheeks. “Man, we joke about you changing me, but look at you. The softest. You weren’t this soft at first.”
“Bleh,” Harley says.
“Like a teddy bear,” Peter postulates. “Like jello. You’re a soggy french fry.”
“Gross,” says Harley, closing his eyes and scratching his fingers gently over the part of Peter’s ankle covered by his sock.
“You guys are so strange,” Happy tells them.
Peter nudges his face into Happy’s shoulder, cat-like. “You loooove it, Happy.”
“Bleh,” he says to echo Harley.
They watch the movie. Harley and Happy cry quite hard.
Within a week they all wake up sniffling, but none of them can bring themselves to regret it.
~
Peter swipes a hand over his forehead. “I did not think it would be so warm here in January,” he says, squinting over at Tony, who is taking picture after picture of the walls, the ceiling, the statues. He really isn’t that warm. It’s just. This is— he’s wanted this. For a long time. And now it’s here , in front of him, and he’s speechless. He can talk about anything other than this. This ancient stone, this stuff carved from the earth and stood, monolithic, bold, unmoving. Permanence makes the marrow of his bones rattle. It spooks his very soul. “No wonder they sell so much gelato. They need to keep everyone cooled down.”
Pepper’s hand finds his and squeezes as she browses a brochure over the top of the tiny-lensed sunglasses she wears at the tip of her nose. Her skin is thickly freckled and she has a new sort of glow about her. Italy has done her well.
Harley’s head is tilted fully back on his neck at an angle that looks uncomfortable— if not downright painful. His eyes shine behind his glasses.
He seems to sense Peter’s gaze on him and turns his head just slightly in his direction. He jerks his chin towards the ceiling. “Can you believe a ninja turtle painted that?” he says.
Peter clamps a hand over his mouth to keep a laugh from spilling out. Harley winks at him. Tony throws an awkward arm up high, around Harley’s shoulders. The sun gleams off Tony’s reddish windbreaker and Peter squints against it. He rubs a thumb over Pepper’s knuckles and reminds himself that this is real. This, this thing between them all, is very real. It cannot die, so long as they remember it.
They retreat back into the streets of Vatican City, walking slow, Tony explaining everything in a special version of Italianish that allows all of them to comprehend what he describes. “ E quello, that’s Castel Sant’Angelo ,” he says, pointing at a roundish, orangey building. Hulking statues of saints stand sentinel along the pathway to its mouth, like it is the entrance to heaven itself. These are their guides, their compass. “ La fontana di Piazza San Pietro,” offers Tony, a wistful grin on his face. “It’s no Trevi fountain, but my mamma and I tossed coins to make wishes the few times we came.” His gaze lingers before he turns back to the boys and Pepper. “We spent most of our time in Napoli,” he says. “Mamma was born in Firenze- which is great, wine, olives, hills, the works- but Napoli. Something about that city was always, always alive. Vibrant.” He rubs his knuckles along his jaw as they walk. The married scent of cigarettes and gasoline is ever present. “We split up our time between the vineyard house and her apartment, from when she was older. She, she, she was lucky, she got to keep them both. Even when she grew up.”
Pepper watches him something tender. Peter feels something in his chest click into place.
They’re away for two weeks: their whole winter break. They go to Pisa. To Siena, Venice. Stay in Maria’s old house in Firenze and picnic on hills, smell the sun-baked grapes, meet the small staff that still lives there, tends the land. Go to Baia Domizia on the southern coast. They watch crowds undulate and writhe. They toss each other beneath the rare, small swells, Tony floating beside them with deep, sun-darkened creases across his cheeks and a contented look about him. Pepper takes pictures on an old, clunky Polaroid and Peter feels, for a moment, wistful for the camera he used to steal from Ben to take pictures of animals at the zoo, or sunsets on Coney Island, or May, radiant, with a bowl full of Apple Jacks on Sunday morning. It gathers dust on the top shelf of his closet, now, beside a few half-filled Sudoku books and a Yankees ballcap from that year he was feeling rebellious (and the Mets especially sucked. He thought Ben was gonna disown him that year.).
After the beach, they settle in the red Cinquecento Tony had rented, smelling of sweat and sun and salt air, their hair stiff with seawater and sand clinging to the bends of their knees.
“Dinner?” Pepper suggests, a green silk scarf wrapped around the crown of her head. Her nose, cheekbones, and chin are cherry red. Peter, with stinging shoulders and kneecaps, feels deeply sympathetic.
“I know a really nice fish place around here,” Tony suggests. He has sand in his beard and a tan in the shape of his sunglasses. “ Bella Mbriana. ”
“Vegan,” Harley says.
“Salad,” Tony counters.
“Protein,” refutes Harley.
“Valid,” says Pepper.
Peter, googling on his phone, says, “someone on Yelp says the vegetable side is good.”
“Bread,” Harley says.
“Bread and veggies. Breggies and vead,” Peter says.
“What,” says Pepper.
“What,” says Peter.
They set off towards the restaurant. It isn’t a long drive from where they were parked. The place is crowded despite its size, though, and their entry requires the use of elbows.
They’re seated by a tall boy with black hair and enormous honey-brown eyes and a name tag that says Fabrizio and Harley looks like he’s gonna fall out of his seat so Peter kicks him in the shin.
Once the waiter leaves with their drink orders, Harley turns to Peter, frazzled, and asks, “what do you think of my hair?”
“It’s beautiful,” says Peter, “like a desert tumbleweed.”
“Thank you for those thoughts,” says Harley.
“We’re only here for two more days,” Tony says.
“Yeah,” says Harley, furiously rubbing his fingers through his crunchy, salty waves. “That’s enough for him to fall in love with me. I’m irresistible.”
Dinner is good. Tony laughs like they’ve never seen him laugh, like some heavy yoke has been unhooked from his shoulders and now he sits freely, chin in his hand, eyes glimmering and lively, nose wrinkled, overjoyed . He’s vibrant, technicolor, loose and languid, he’s right. This is right. Peter thinks they ought to get out of the country more often.
(The waiter, surprisingly, does not fall in love with Harley. Harley takes the blow poorly, but Peter is sure he’ll recover.)
~
Harley pushes the bathroom door open and grabs his toothbrush, talking at a hundred miles per hour. “So I found this incredible enormous heated blanket online and I was thinking that if we open it up and mess with the wiring we can put heat-safe lights in it and make it look like constellations because I know you like the fuckin’ stars a lot and you can’t see them here but you also can’t keep warm for shit so it’ll be like you’ve got-“ he sticks the toothbrush in his mouth and talks around it, “da sky wif you all da time, but you’w awso be waaar’. Am I a denius or wha’?”
“Harley,” says Peter. “Could this not wait for me to finish peeing?”
“No,” says Harley, before spitting in the sink. “Cute boxers,” he adds, before putting the toothbrush back in his mouth.
~
“Okay,” says Harley. His fingers are visibly shaking. “Okay, okay.” His breath hiccups on the way in. The welding gun he was using lies forgotten on the countertop, smoldering lightly. His goggles are pushed up onto his forehead, and his hair ruffles awkwardly around them, wild.
“Hey, Harls,” Tony says, dropping his screwdriver immediately. He looks across the lab table to where Harley stands. “What’s up?”
“I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta ask you something,” he says. He swallows compulsively and steps away from the lab table. He paces down the aisle, all the way to the other end of the lab and then back. His shoes squeak against the tiles when he stops short, and he winces. “So, uh. Let’s say there’s this person. Right? And they’ve had an idea of what they want to do with their life since forever, they’re, they’re good at something, really good, and they always thought that’s what they’d do .”
“Like Tim Allen in the Santa Clause ,” says Tony, taking the clumsy metaphor in stride.
“Yeah— what?”
“Thought he’d work for that company forever. Became Santa Claus. Change in career, one might say.”
“Oh, uh.” Harley scrunches his nose. “I guess.” He wipes his palms down the front of his jeans. “Sure. Let’s go with that. He’s done that one thing. He’s good at it, really good, a natural. But he, he finds something else he really likes, too. Maybe— maybe even.” He breaks off. He looks up at Tony. “Maybe even more than the other thing.”
Tony’s face is carefully emotionless. Painfully attentive. Smart eyes, sharp.
“But he’s scared,” Harley breathes. “He’s super, duper scared because, like, this second thing, maybe it isn’t as stable a career path as the first thing, and, like, he doesn’t know how to be Santa, he’s got the potential, he’s a good guy, generous, funny, but he hasn’t got as much practice at it, compared to, to working for that company. And he’s especially nervous because it’s going to disappoint his— the people he loves,” he scratches his eyebrow, and then his eyes seek out Tony’s, vivid and terrified and just a little wet. “What should he, what should he do?”
Tony’s lips are quirked. He holds a hand out, wiggles his fingers. Harley stares at the hand for a second, brows knit.
“C’mere, slugger,” Tony says.
Harley lilts forward and scrambles into Tony’s half-embrace, one strong arm wrapping around his shoulders. He buries his face into Tony’s clavicle.
“Be an English major,” Tony says. Harley’s heart stutters. “What, do you think I’m stupid? I’m not stupid, I know my boy. If it makes your heart happy, do it. Absolutely.” He pulls Harley away by the shoulder and holds him in place. “And, for the record, you could never disappoint me by doing what you’re passionate about. Are you kidding? Buddy, I’m— I’m so proud of you. Always. Y’know? So proud. It takes cajones to come out and say what you want to someone. It really does.”
Harley blinks hard. “I still want to minor in Mechanical Engineering,” he blurts, as if it will assuage some unspoken wound his admission wrought in Tony. “I don’t— I’m not, I’m not some different person or anything. I’m not.”
“I know,” says Tony softly. “You’re just— especially you, now.”
“Yeah,” Harley says even more quietly. “So we’re— we’re good? It’s okay?”
“Of course,” Tony says. “I’m always on your side, honey. Whatever you want to do, I’m with you.”
Harley lets his forehead fall forward against Tony’s collarbone. Tony’s hand comes to the back of Harley’s head, ruffles his hair.
~
Peter never wracks the nerve to ask Michelle out.
She beats him to it.
The plan is to get coffee, but MJ insists on them studying for Decathlon first. She is so proactive. Peter likes this about her. (There isn’t much he doesn’t like about her.)
“Quarter-finals are coming up,” she says, and drags Peter by the sleeve towards his bedroom. His heart thumps in his chest for a moment.
May, flipping idly through a copy of Better Homes and Gardens, says, without looking up, “door open, kiddos.”
“I have no intention to lose my virginity in a bunk bed,” Michelle tells May.
May says, “oh. Good.”
That is the end of the conversation.
They study for an hour, and Michelle only punches him twice. He thinks this is a wild, rousing success.
The date goes— really well, Peter thinks. They sit in the dead center of an empty theater and watch Little Women , and Peter cries. Michelle doesn’t, but. She seems very satisfied at the end.
They make plans for a second date. She kisses him on the cheek before returning home.
Peter blushes for about twelve hours straight while Harley cackles at him, positively joyful.
It’s a surprise to all of them when they only last three dates.
“I don’t think it’s what I want right now,” Michelle says to Peter, wincing. “I’m not ready for a… this.”
“Okay,” says Peter weakly. “That’s, okay. I want what’s best for you, anyway.”
“Thank you,” she says softly. She still kisses his cheek before she scrambles into the subway car.
“Well, that was nice while it lasted,” Peter says, tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter and dragging his feet as he makes his way into Tony’s living room.
Harley and Bucky are watching Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta. Jennifer looks lovely in classic lace. Both of them look over at Peter after his words.
“Aw, no,” Harley says, and leans forward. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
Peter shrugs and opens the fridge. He pulls out a bottle of Gatorade and cracks it open, taking a long sip. He smacks his lips and then comes over to the couch, collapsing on the other side of Harley. He scoots down on the cushions until his chin is nearly level with his knees, and balances his drink in his lap. Toxic yellow.
“Wanna talk about it, champ?” Bucky asks, moving his hand towards the remote, as if to pause the episode.
Peter shakes his head. “Nah, I wanna see if Jennifer gets that dress or not.”
Bucky snorts. “Of course she will. Are you kiddin’? It’s a thousand under her budget and sits off the shoulder, which is exactly what she wanted. She looks like a million bucks.”
“If she manages that long without getting pregnant— I mean, look at her fiancé—“ Harley says.
“A stud,” Bucky agrees, nodding. “She’s a much stronger dame than me, that Jennifer.”
“He’s like. The fried oreo of humans,” Peter says, jaw dropping slightly when the shot changes to include the star-struck, hazel-eyed fiancé sat on the couch.
“What a sweet summer child,” Bucky says.
That is how they spend the afternoon. Tony comes in from a meeting, harried and rumpled, around four. Peter pats the couch cushion next to him and Tony gives an exhausted looking smile before unbuttoning his jacket, throwing it on a stool along the kitchen island, and plopping into the spot.
They eat Chinese food. Some sort of sodium shock overtakes Bucky and Harley and they knock out before nine pm has the audacity to arrive.
Peter feels Tony’s eyes locked on the side of his face as they watch House Hunters. He can imagine the halo of ultra-white TV light shrouding his profile.
He turns towards Tony.
“MJ dumped me,” he says.
“Mm. May told me.”
“Should’ve figured,” says Peter.
“You know May and I have a super secret pact to keep each other in the loop; of course she told me.“
“No— no,” Peter shakes his head. “About MJ.”
Tony turns fully towards Peter, dropping his socked feet onto Peter’s thighs. Peter wraps a hand loosely around one of Tony’s ankles and looks towards him, heavy.
“I know we weren’t together long, but I’ve really liked her for a while,” Peter says. “And— and I shoulda guessed it was too good to be true, for her to like me back.”
Tony tilts his head to the side. “Why would that be too good to be true? Because I think I know what you’re implying but I want you to say it out loud so you can hear it. With your ears instead of your— brain ears. Your imaginary inner ear. Because it’s gonna sound crazy. I’m hoping you’ll laugh; that’s the preferable reaction to what you’re about to say, considering it doesn’t deserve to be taken even a little bit seriously.”
Peter shoots Tony a glare. It’s short-lived, melting away into something more mournful, heavy-eyes and downturned lips. Ashy grey. Cracked concrete and chipped paint. “Why would someone as, as, as awesome as her go for a guy like me?”
“Because a guy like you is literal cream of the crop,” Tony says. “You’re overwhelmingly kind and good. You’re a big nerd. You’re considerate and witty and fun. Pete— kid, there’s no reason, no real reason for her to not like you.”
Peter rolls his eyes.
Tony sticks his tongue out at him. “What did she even say when you split it off? Like, her exact words.”
“I don’t think it’s what I want right now,” Peter quotes. “She said she wasn’t ready.”
Tony presses his heels into Peter’s thighs more firmly. “See, kid? That’s an it’s not you, it’s me breakup, but the type where she’s being honest about it. It is her, not you. How could that in any way be your fault?”
“I could think of a few, I’m sure,” Peter mumbles darkly. At the other end of the couch, Bucky gives a snuffling snore and Harley’s head falls onto his shoulder.
“It’ll be good, then, going to college now,” Tony says, and Peter is immediately unfooted by a sweep of adamonia so visceral he tastes it like salt on the back of his tongue. Wait. Can everything just. Wait a moment. Jesus. He can’t catch a breath, pummeled in a surf he can’t see.
“May—maybe,” he says.
“Pete,” Tony says. “ Piccolo , I’m sorry you’re hurting. I really am. Would it help for me to tell you about my failed romantic escapades or do you just want to, like, have some hot chocolate and put on Ancient Aliens? ”
Peter turns his eyes to Tony. Tony always throws him a life preserver, even when Peter is too far out to sea, even when his arm is dead-tired. “The second one,” he whispers, voice thick with a fierce gratitude he hopes Tony can detect.
The small smile Tony shoots him and the scratchy kiss that lands on his forehead give him reassurance that he had.
~
When Peter and Harley decide to have an early-June hurrah at Coney Island, they plan for it to be a boys’ day: just they two and the sun and the crowd of thousands with sticky-fingers and sour breath and the salt mist from the waves rocking against the jetty.
But, like all things where the Avengers are even slightly involved, it quickly becomes a group activity. Light erupts in Bucky’s eyes at the mention of the place, and Clint mutters, “aw, yiss, funnel cake,” under his breath, and Thor elbows Bruce hard enough to knock him over in a flurry of emphatic questioning as to the features of this Island of Coney.
They take the train, all of them, to Atlantic Avenue and then stuff themselves on the ever-crowded Q to get the rest of the way to Coney Island.
Peter feels almost lucky that his head is so dangerously close to Thor’s armpit as the god clings onto a handle for balance. Rhodey had offered his seat to a pregnant woman, and is now steadying himself with a hand on Tony’s shoulder and a slight scrunch in his nose— the only sign that his knees are being bothered by the jolting start-and-stop of the train.
Peter is overjoyed that both Bucky and Steve seem to be fine on the train— something he’s not sure they would’ve been capable of months before. He sees Sam, too, watching them with a blatant smile. Peter’s chest is almost unbearably warm.
The place is so familiar when they arrive that Peter lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. All orange and yellow and framed by a perfect blue sky, the sun so hot that just the gaze of it blisters, an old friend, a familiar embrace, a childish laugh bubbles out of his chest. Wild and without abandon.
Rhodey stares at the ferris wheel intently. “Hey, Tones,” he says, grabbing Tony’s sleeve and yanking, “do you remember when we—“
“Yes,” Tony says with a grimace.
“And you met Madonna’s—“
“Yes.”
“And he—“
“Yes, Rhodes.”
“All over your dress pants—“
“For the love of God,” says Tony.
“Did he have sex on a ferris wheel with Madonna’s bodyguard or am I just fabricating things?” Harley stage-whispers into Peter’s ear.
The sharkish grin Rhodes pulls is answer enough.
They eat funnel cakes and Thor gets powdered sugar all over his beard. They all pretend not to watch Bruce swipe it away for him. (Some of them do a better job of pretending than others. Harley, for instance, does not pretend at all, choosing to give a cutting wolf-whistle and then cackle a laugh as Bruce blushes violet.)
Tony and Bucky and Natasha and Clint take them on rollercoasters. Clint pukes up a hotdog after the Thunderbolt and taps out, going in search of Steve, who despises rollercoasters and calls them stupid and ridiculous ( just because they make him sick and he can’t stand the idea of not being able to do something , Bucky explains to them).
They crane their necks and look to the top of the Cyclone. Harley shudders.
“What, are you afraid?” Peter asks innocently.
“Yes,” says Harley, “yes I am. I’m afraid of everything. I have an anxiety disorder.”
Bucky grabs Harley’s wrist and says, “I want to take the kid.” He grins.
Nat grabs Peter’s hand, then, knotting their fingers. “Dibs,” she says. “I want to hear Antoshka shit himself next to a stranger.”
“You realize I moonlight as a rollercoaster without a track,” Tony says dryly.
Natasha smirks and plies on a seamless Russian accent . “Yes. And now we take away the variable within your control and see how you handle it.”
“I’m so scared of you,” Tony says. “Did you know that? I like to think I could take on most of the Avengers and win but I will never kid myself into believing I can beat you at anything.”
She blows him a kiss, the slight wrinkles at the corners of her eyes betraying how pleased she is.
They ride the Cyclone, and then they ride it again, without Tony, who stumbles down the steps at the end with slightly crossed eyes and pale cheeks and says, “I need my Rhodey,” hobbling off to find him.
Bucky buys them soft serve- and a pretzel for Harley, more vegan than ever- and they sit on a bench to eat it.
“What did you do at Coney Island back when you and Steve were kids?” Peter asks him, chasing a drip of vanilla over his fingers.
Bucky crunches on the edge of his cone for a moment and then turns towards Peter with the slightest of smiles. “We didn’t get to go often, cuz we were poor as shit,” Bucky says, “but damn if we didn’t make a day of it every time we did. We usually saved up some money for games, on account of the fact that I was a stickball champ and could knock down any pin, and Steve was a damn good cheerleader. Or— well. He just called me a noodle-armed, shit-for-brained invalid every time I missed and that was pretty good incentive to do better.” Bucky takes a slow lick of his ice cream and grins ruefully. “I was always tryin’ to impress him, even then.”
Nat, sitting on the back edge of the bench, nudges Bucky’s shoulder with a flip-flopped foot. “Did he scream on the Cyclone?” she asks.
“He puked—“ Bucky breaks off with a snort. “We were— still on the ride, still going, when he puked.”
Harley barks a laugh and Bucky grins at him. Peter leans his head against Nat’s knee and just sort of looks at them all. Feeling happy, so terribly happy.
~
“Did you know, have you ever know, have I ever deigned to tell you that my suit, my baby, my Iron Man suit, can filter human piss and turn it into delicious, crystal clear water? Like Fiji water but piss. Purified piss. Water to piss to water, like God?”
“I’m… glad?” says Peter.
“But,” says Tony, waving his hands wildly for a moment, “but, but. That’s not even the best thing my suit does.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Ask me what the best thing my suit does is.”
“Oh, Tony,” Harley says, “what ever is the best thing your suit does?”
Tony grins a little evilly. He turns slowly to reveal, one on each ass cheek of the suit, a “My Kid Is An Honors Student” bumper sticker magnet.
“Oh,” says Harley. “Oh.”
“Thank— thank you?” says Peter.
Tony wiggles a little. “You’re very welcome. You’re worth it— you two, you’re worth it. The only kids I’d put bumper stickers on my ass for like I’m a Transformer of a two-thousand-eleven Honda Odyssey.”
~
The thing about Flash Thompson is that he’s mostly backed off from them since the fated day upon which Harley rocked his shit. He’s still an asshole, sure, but he doesn’t try wrangling his groupies around Peter like a ringmaster to put on a show for the general student body.
Now, he’s been demoted to resident clown.
Decked in an outfit meant for a fashion magazine rather than a blue-lockered, gum-speckled high school hallway, Flash knocks bodily into Peter- who Harley steadies with a tight grip around his elbow- and grumbles, “there’s no way you two didn’t cheat on the AP Bio exam. Were you texting under the lab table? You don’t have the brain cells to score that well alone.”
Peter and Harley absolutely did not cheat on the Bio exam, and they absolutely do have the brain cells to score that well. (They also have the Tony to help them study, but. Semantics.)
Harley stops walking, so Peter and Flash stop too. He closes his eyes. Tents his hands and presses them under his nose. “Sploosh,” he says calmly. “Splat, my dude, you need to start going to yoga or something. Deep breathing. Zen the crap outta yourself. An exorcism may be necessary. This whole high school bully hoo-hoo act is getting old.”
“Yeah!” Peter adds emphatically.
“Go, like, take a nap in your racecar bed,” Harley says.
“Yeah!”
Flash goes slightly pink. “Shut up,” he says, sticking his tongue out at them before muscling his way down the hall again, leaving them in a cloud of his sharp cologne.
Harley nods approvingly and wipes his hands. “Good work, team.”
“That was so expedient,” Peter marvels. “We’re getting great at this.”
Harley flicks up an eyebrow. “I actually thought you were a little stiff-“ Peter pouts, “— but that’s okay, it still rocked.”
Peter grins. “We’ve still got it.”
~
The biggest secret Peter and Harley ever keep from Tony Stark is that they make a friend on the first day of Orientation at MIT.
He’s got hazel eyes like rounds of mossy dirt, stark against anemically pale skin, and brown hair shorn short around the back and sides but left in a curly puff at the top ( Aaron Taylor Johnson in Nowhere Boy style, Harley coins it). He stands with a slouch and the impression it gives- what with his lanky limbs- is that he’s a limp Twizzler. The first words they hear out of his mouth are a mumbled “so, when is it socially acceptable to start pissing on statues without it seeming like it’s a cry for attention rather than a vehement mistrust of and hatred for the capitalist nature of universities?” and Peter thinks for a moment it’s the ghost of Michelle, but it can’t be, because this boy smells strongly of a strange mix of sharp cologne and burned weed, and his gaze is equal parts unamused and mischievously keen in a way Michelle’s never quite was.
Peter manages to pull himself together first. “I’d give it, uh, a solid six days. Long enough for everyone to settle in, but not so long as to make it seem like you’re complacent.”
The boy turns towards them fully and slips into step with them as their Orientation Leader drones about the library hours. Bugs still buzz; pens scratch on pages as kids take notes; the boy has a wicked grin and Peter thinks oh, another.
“What’s your name, by the way?” says the boy. Peter picks up the slightest New York twist. Even though he can’t pin a borough on it, it immediately comforts him.
“Parker,” he says. “Peter. Parker. My first name is Peter, I’m just an idiot.”
The boy gives a crinkly smile. “Charmed.”
“Harley Keener,” says Harley, and Peter has to hold in a snort what with the way his dumb Tennessee accent comes shining through like a nervous beacon, coloring his words gold as the sun on his hair.
The boy’s eyebrows shoot up and wiggle. “Ooh, he’s foreign ,” he says. “A white boy from the south is the most culture we’re gonna get at this elitist shitbag of a school.”
Peter says, “why did you, um, choose this school, then? Since it sounds like you, you really hate it. Or, the idea of it.”
The boy tilts his head. For a moment, Peter thinks he overstepped and curses his mournful lack of social skills, but then he’s talking. “Running from dear old dad and his work. Needed some space, a new city to settle into, a new assortment of people to meet. A new culture. So I said to myself, well, Cambridge could be nice. ” The boy breathes deeply through his nose and his eyebrows shoot up. “Wow, it’s just like New York: piss and cigarette smoke. But! Hey! No dad!”
Harley gives a weak smile. “Well, look at that. Like finds like. Welcome to the daddy issues club, population: us three.”
The boy’s lips twist. “That’s so couture of us.” He then blinks and says, “sorry, I’m stoned, musta slipped my mind. I’m Harry. Osborn, but that’s gross, so. Pretend I hail from, like, Mark Ruffalo’s lineage instead. Harry Ruffalo. Has a nice ring to it.”
Peter and Harley cannot rip their gazes off of each other. Wordlessly they manage to communicate: Tony can never know this. No, no he can not, because they like alive Tony, not heart attack Tony, in no danger of immediate death from the stress of them befriending the infamously young-Tony-like son of one of his biggest competitors Tony.
Still, Peter needs to bite his tongue to keep the so your dad made both of us joke from slipping out.
“That’s really something,” Peter says instead. He knows MIT is the big leagues- he gets it, he saw how much Tony is paying to send the two of them and Ned here- but he didn’t realize that he would be meeting actual rich famous humans. Peter wonders idly if he has a magnet strung over his shoulders, clanging against his spine as he walks, summoning fat-walleted people bearing enough trauma to wallpaper the Sistine Chapel with.
It turns out Harry Osborn lives two floors below them, in a single, corner room, because when your last name is Osborn you get first dibs on choosing shit like that. His sheets are burgundy and his comforter white, and his desk is adorned by both a computer and fish tank. The fish tank is full of water but, notably, completely empty otherwise. No colored gravel, plastic plants, or fish. Harry keeps the shades opened all the way and the slightest breeze spits through the open window, doing little to ease their sweat-dampened sleepiness.
“Do you have a TikTok?” Harry asks Harley, laying upside down with his back flat on his mattress and his legs from ass to ankle pressed against the wall. A poster for The Mummy crinkles under his socked heels. He smokes lazily, handing off the joint to Peter and Harley every few moments. They try to blow the smoke out of the window so they don’t set off the fire alarm. “You’ve got…” he gestures with his hand, circling the crown of his head, “the hair for it. Like, you could be one of those TikTok boys that rolls his eyes back and shakes and gets a million hearts for it.”
Harley, with a droopy, slackened face and glasses slipping down his nose, stops where he spins circles in Harry’s desk chair. “I absolutely do have a TikTok but I don’t… make stuff.” He snorts a laugh and yanks on the strings of his hoodie with two hands. “No way. I’m not cool or funny enough for that.”
“Nah,” says Peter. “Shh. You’re so cool. You could totally get, like, famous on TikTok.” Harry hands Peter the joint and Peter thanks him before sucking in hard and lunging towards the window to let the smoke out cleanly. They smell like a California forest fire. “I’d follow you. You could siiing . You’d get famous for that, I bet.”
“Gasp!” says Harry. “You sing?”
Harley says, “oh, now you’ve done it, Petey Boy.”
“Sing me a song, Mister Sinatra,” says Harry, scooting on the bed, turning himself upright so that he can meet Harley’s eyes properly. “Sing something good.”
“ Young man, ” Harley sings, “ there’s no need to feel down. ”
“I changed my mind,” says Harry.
“Should we go get Dunkin’ Donuts?” says Peter, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Stoned?” says Harry.
“Yes,” says Harley.
“Okay,” says Harry with a shrug.
They’re basically inseparable after that.
~
“ Hi, Pete,” says Harley. “ Hi, Pete. Hi, Pete. ”
“Uh,” says Peter.
“ I’ve been at this pregame for thirty minutes but I’a’ready had seven shots a’Smirnoff and an Angry Orchard .” Peter appreciates Harley cutting straight to the chase. “ So you need t’get here now. I can feel my stomach turnin’ somethin’ wild and it’s the precursor to the Vodka shits. ”
“Do you need me to bring you a snack?” Peter says. Harry bumps their shoulders together in a question, and Peter meets his gaze just enough to give a half-hearted shrug. Harry shoots him finger guns and then slings him arm over Peter’s shoulders.
“No,” says Harley. “M’ friend Alexei tol’ me I took it like a champ.”
“He did,” comes another voice, tinny from bad reception. “Kid eats a— fucking spinach salad for lunch every day, I surely didn’t expect him to—“
“Okay,” says Peter, “nice to— nice to meet you, Alexei, we’ll be there in fifteen minutes, don’t let him, I dunno, choke on his puke or anything.”
“I haven’t puked!” comes Harley’s proud call.
“Yet,” Peter says.
“Yet,” Alexei says.
Peter says, “bye, Sondra, we’ll be there before you can pick up Ritz Bitz for soccer practice.”
“Don’t forget the oh-jay, Stephanie,” says Harley, and the line clicks off.
Harry rises and says, “I’ll grab a loaf of bread.”
Peter says, “I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this but you’re a saint. Have I ever said that? You’re holy. Biblical. A blessing upon my life, a gift from God himself.”
Harry winks and Peter’s cheeks go hot.
Peter and Harry split up upon sneaking into the party through the back door. Peter looks in the basement and Harry, upstairs, where he capitalizes upon somewhere around eight rapid shots and thus smells strongly of Fireball by the time he finds Peter and Harley in the basement of the house, the latter holding a red cup between his teeth and squinting down his nose at a dented ping pong ball in his hand as if it had personally offended him. Peter found Harley quickly. It’s just— keeping an eye on him, a grip on him, after that. Harry eats slices of bread as Peter takes Harley by the hand and pulls him away from Alexei, who is standing on the pong table and whipping his shirt around in the air. Harry silently offers Harley a slice when they end up in the corner all together, the three of them and the strobe lights and the music thumping so incredibly loudly that the floor shakes beneath their feet. Peter feels rattled. Jackhammers in his heels and tanks rolling down his spine. Bad, bad.
Harley takes proffered the slice of bread and shoves most of it in his mouth at once.
“Hey, buddy,” Harry says. “We’re gonna go.”
“Goo’,” says Harley. Peter feels Harley’s gaze, heavy and assessing, and is somewhat touched that, even smacked halfway back to Midtown, Harley is checking on him. “Too loud for Pete.”
“Mm,” Harry says. He grabs Peter’s hand and Peter grabs Harley’s and they shove through the crowd to find the basement door, the exit, like Saint Peter’s gates. By the time they reach it, they’re sticky with sweat and spilled jungle juice and the sweet stink of weed lingers in their hair.
“That was garbage,” says Peter, blinking hard, trying to clear the spots from his vision. “Gee whiz.” His ears ring. He feels off kilter.
Harry hasn’t dropped his hand. “Let’s go. Leave. Away, party bad.”
“Party bad, bread good,” Harley says. Harry nods seriously, as if this is an astute observation.
Peter leads his two enormously lanky, clumsy best friends back to his and Harley’s dorm room like a mother duck her ducklings. He feels it’s a miracle the RA at the front desk doesn’t stop them before they can go up the stairs.
Peter makes them both shower to sober up, sitting on the bathroom countertop and texting Tony as he waits for them to finish. The room fills with steam and Harley hums as he cleans himself, as he always has. Peter listens carefully to the beat of his heart, the pounding of his pulse, keeping track. Harry uses one of Peter’s extra towels. It’s patterned with a large Donald Duck surrounded by tiny ice cream cones. Peter’s phone falls from between his fingers onto the countertop when Harry stumbles out of the stall, towel low on his bony waist and curls hanging water-straightened and damply dark into his eyes.
Holy fuckin’ smokes.
He picks his phone up as inconspicuously as he can manage and tells a very nervous Tony that Harley is fine- Harley had apparently drunk texted Tony a string of incomprehensible gibberish and a block of emoji hearts which had, logically, made Tony nearly shit himself- and he’s sober and entirely capable of managing his drunk best friend.
He has a gut feeling Tony will be in Cambridge before morning.
There’s a thud in the shower stall.
“Shit,” says Peter, and he slides off the counter, pulling off his socks so as to not get them wet as he approaches the shower area. “Harls,” he says, shoving the socks into his pockets. He knocks on the door. His heart jumps into his throat. “Did you go down, you dumb, dumb idiot.”
“Mmph,” comes a groan after a long second. “Ow.”
“Thank fuck,” says Harry softly from behind Peter.
“Do you need me to come in?” says Peter. “Did you fall or faint?”
Another moment passes. A grunt, and the clumsy sound of Harley finding his footing, flip flops clapping. “Too warm. Head rush. Blacked out. Back now.”
Peter smushes the bases of his hands into his eyes. “Doofus.”
“I’m a doofus.”
“Big one.”
“Biggest. Sorry.”
“No, no,” Peter sighs. “No sorry, dude. I’m not mad, just worried. Can you finish up yourself? Are you, are you stable now?”
“Yup,” says Harley. “One minute.”
It’s more like four, but Peter doesn’t mind. Harry leans against the wall next to him, silent, warmth rolling off his damp shoulders in waves, staring at the opposite wall unseeingly. His eyelashes flutter like he’s fighting off exhaustion. Peter tries not to think about Harry smelling of his shampoo.
Harley has a towel around his waist and another around his head when he exits the shower, his plastic caddy on one arm, scowling and rubbing his elbow with venom. “Bruised it falling,” he says scathingly. He looks between Peter and Harry. Wrinkles his nose, gives Peter a knowing look, and then deflates. “Sorry for making you guys come,” he says.
“It’s okay,” Peter says quickly.
“I got free drinks out of it,” Harry says with a shrug. “And we take care of each other.”
“S’my fault you had to, like, come out though. Like, find me. Collect me.”
“That’s not your fault,” Peter says, stepping forward to take Harley’s forearm in his hand. Harley looks far less steady on his feet than Harry, who handles liquor like a fucking marble statue. “It is, however, your fault you went full Victorian maiden,” Peter says, “‘cuz you never drink water or listen to your body when it’s sick.” His hand flexes so tight around Harley’s elbow that Harley’s fingers begin to turn purple. He lets go immediately.
“Sorry, pal,” Harley mumbles.
“C’mon,” Peter says. “Let’s get you into bed.”
Harry disappears to get a pair of pajamas from his room and returns as Peter blow dries Harley’s hair, the latter newly decked in a graphic tee and Hulk boxer shorts with a blanket around his shoulders like a cloak. His eyes are closed, a water bottle in one hand, a metal straw poking out of it and pursed between his lips even though he isn’t actively drinking.
Peter watches Harry climb up into his lofted bed from the corners of his eyes, watches him settle like a cat, nudging a spot with his shoulder before curling there, his head on Peter’s pillow.
Peter turns back to Harley, pointing the blow dryer into his face to startle him awake.
Harley jumps a little, sloshing water onto his hand. He scowls at Peter through half-closed eyes.
Peter sticks his tongue out at him. He turns off the blow dryer, done, and tosses it onto the nearest dresser, to be dealt with the next morning. He then slides onto Harley’s bed, letting his eyes shut for a blissful moment. He’s heavy-limbed, not quite overloaded from the party but close enough to feel drained, sensitive, scratchy and strained and stretched like ancient, well-worn, woolen socks.
“Boo,” Harley says.
Peter blinks, then grudgingly turns out of Harley’s pillow to meet his glance. Harley stares at him expectantly. “Oh,” Peter says. “Did you want me to—? Ah! Oh, boy, oh, jeez, you really scared me, Harls. Got me— got me so good. I think I just peed a little.”
A little smile quirks Harley’s lips but it looks glazed. Peter tries not to let it worry him. Some of the color has returned to his cheeks, anyway. An empty trash can is beneath his bed, ready for puke. The water bottle is nearly empty. He’s doing all he can.
He stays up while Harley sleeps, Harley’s nose pressed into his thigh, his hand resting heavily atop Harley’s head. Not running his fingers through his hair, just listening to him and Harry breathe and trying to slow his furious heart.
Harry wakes up around five, sits straight up, disoriented, the bed rocking above Peter’s head, and Peter whispers, “Harry. You’re good.”
“Jesus fuck,” he whispers back. “Forgot where I was. Ow. Hangover.”
Peter sighs. “You want me to grab you some water?”
Harry leans over the edge of the bed, eyes half shut, and looks at Peter. He stares silently for a long moment before saying, “nah, I’ll just go back to my room. Got Pedialyte in there. Grape.”
Peter wrinkles his nose. “Bubblegum is better.”
Harry snorts a quiet laugh, then winces and claps a hand to his forehead. “Don’t be cute. It pains me, physically and emotionally.”
“You think I’m cute?” Peter says, fully intending for it to be teasing and feeling thusly mortified when it comes out sounding a little desperate.
Just one corner of Harry’s lips quirks up. “Duh. You’re, like, the cutest.”
“Oh,” Peter says quietly. “You, too. You are also, uh, really cute.”
Harry chuckles and shakes his head. “Don’t give yourself a hemorrhage, Pete.” He climbs down the ladder at the end of the bed, and Peter can’t look away from his stupid pretty eyes, even in the dark. “To be continued,” Harry says, and starts towards the door. He gets halfway there before stopping short, turning on his heel, crossing back, and getting all up in Peter’s personal space before he has the chance to do much more than gasp a breath in the shape of Harry’s name.
Harry presses a quick, gentle kiss against the corner of his lips.
He pulls away slow, meets Peter’s eyes for a honeyed moment, and then leaves the room.
Peter presses his free hand to the place Harry’s lips had touched, feeling like a teenage girl in a dystopian young adult novel.
Tony arrives not long after, in a suit, knocking on the goddamn window. Peter hasn’t even had enough time to recover, really, still red-cheeked as he scrambles up to wrench the window open for his gilded mentor to swoop in.
“Knew it,” he whispers smartly as Tony disengages the suit, standing in the middle of their rumpled room. The moment the metal is melted away, Peter whimpers unconsciously and throws himself into Tony’s waiting arms, wrapping him up tight, not realizing he’s sobbing until Tony’s voice catches in his ears.
“Shh, aw, Pete. I know, kiddo. I know you were worried. It’s okay. I’ve got you now. You did a great job.”
“I mi-missed you,” Peter sighs, trembling in Tony’s warmth.
Tony’s hand cards through the hair at the base of Peter’s neck, ever gentle. Ever kind with him. “I know. I missed you, too, buddy, I really did. You wanna know how much? I’ll tell you how much. May and Pep have had to stop me from flying down to see you on approximately twelve separate occasions.”
“Should’ve come anyway,” Peter mumbles.
Tony sighs a laugh, squeezing tighter. “Any time you ask me to come, I’m here. You know that?”
“Okay,” Peter says.
“That’s… not a yes, which makes me think you did not know that.”
“Okay,” Peter says again.
Peter knows Tony rolls his eyes even though he can’t see it. It’s practically audible. Tony presses a firm kiss onto the top of Peter’s head and then pulls away, holding him by the shoulders and getting a good look at him in the blue, early-morning light.
“You look tired, cucciolo ,” he says.
“I just miss you,” he says. “And May, and Pepper. And everyone.”
“I know,” Tony says quietly. He’s hushed. Always gentle. Worlds different from how he was when Peter had met him, about three years ago now. “But we’re always here for you, still, even when we’re not close by. And fall break is coming up, right?”
“Two weeks,” Peter says.
Tony squeezes his shoulders. “That’s doable, right?”
“Yeah,” Peter says.
Harley mumbles in his sleep.
Tony says, “let’s check on the hooligan, shall we?”
Tony clambers up onto the bed, scooting over so that there’s room for Peter to sit on his other side. Harley, jostled by the movement, groans. His eyelids flutter a moment before scrunching closed in a fierce wince.
“No,” he says.
“Yes,” Tony answers.
“Oh my god!” Harley yelps, suddenly sitting straight up, looking at Tony. His face breaks into an enormous grin, every second of pain from the moment before flushing away. “Oh my god!” He throws himself into Tony’s arms, face right in Tony’s clavicle, and he’s shrill with excitement, “I was dreaming about you, I guess I heard your voice, it was real, you’re here, you’re here, I knew it, we are fucking connected .”
Tony chuckles, rubbing a hand up and down Harley’s back. “I’m here, buddy. Right here.”
“I messed up,” Harley says.
“Yeah,” Tony agrees. “You gonna be sick?”
Harley shakes his head against Tony’s shoulder. “Nah. Not that nauseous, only headache. I’m just—“ he turns his head to Peter. “Sorry, Pete,” he says meekly.
Peter shakes his head. “Learning experience. It’s fine.”
“You’re too good to me,” Harley sighs.
“Yup,” Peter says.
Harley slips out of Tony’s arms and reclines back on the pillow. Tony loops an arm around each of their shoulders and just holds them for a moment in quiet peace.
“So everything is okay here?” Tony says. “I… honestly. I know I get the texts, we FaceTime, I know, we talk, but it’s not like seeing you, for real. I like seeing you, hearing it from you, live in living color. Everything is okay? It’s, it’s good?”
“Yeah,” Harley says.
“Because we’re good— we’re good,” says Peter.
Tony wraps his arms tighter around their shoulders. “I know you’re good,” he says. “I trust you guys. Did you know that? I do, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. I trust you both. And you’re— I’m so proud of you. I’m so goddamn proud of you for being here, doing this, living your lives, you’re… you’re both so strong. So brave. I’m so proud.”
Peter nudges deeper into Tony’s hold, breathing the scent of his cologne and detergent deeply. He watches Harley’s hand knot in the front of Tony’s shirt, over his stomach. “We’re doing this,” Peter says. “College.”
“Real life,” says Harley. “We’re doing it.”
“You are,” says Tony. He noses Harley’s hair. “Do you… you’re ready? Everything is good? You’re ready for real life?”
Harley takes an audible breath through his nose and, when he speaks, it’s unshakable, certain. “Yes,” he says. “Of course we are. Because we’ve got each other.”
Peter peers over the wrinkles in Tony’s shirt to meet Harley’s eyes. He smiles. “That’s— damn right. It’s us three forever.”
“For always,” Harley says.
Tony’s heart thrums contentedly and he thinks about Serendipity for a moment. Thanks Her. “For always,” he echoes, holding them to his chest.
It’s good.