Chapter Text
Peter sighs, sitting back on the heels of his feet with a small, slowly slipping smile, an almost empty closet and a few full boxes stacked in front of him. 3 down, only one more to go. His body aches, his back sore and his arms throbbing (damn, old age sucks), so he takes a small break, taking the time to look around the room.
It used to be full once. With stuffed animals and princess toys, then with posters of boy bands and actors, and anything inbetween. The walls having changed colors from pink to black to blue as the years went on, decorations changing with the times, and the ages. The room aging along with his little princess, from kid, to teen, and now... an adult. Now, the walls are still blue, but bare. The bed sheets made for once, neat, not unkempt and all over the place. The room spotless, no toys or stuff animals or trinkets that she loved to collect, all of it put away into the same boxes sat in front of him, the only things left behind two side tables and a desk. Peter never used to notice it before, but the room was so full of life with her in it. Now, it was dim. Dull. Empty.
"Dad, are you almost done with those boxes??" A higher pitched, feminine voice calls out from the other room, and Peter shakes himself out of his head, blinking the blurriness from his eyes and swallowing the lump in his throat.
"Almost! Just got one thing left, Mila!" He calls back to his impatient daughter, who is blissfully ignorant of his struggle to stay composed, of the internal battle raging in his mind, of the nostalgia and melocholic memories that are flooding him and threatening to drag him down.
He shakes himself off again, and gets back to work, trying his hardest to ignore his mind, trying his best to push away the thoughts of a little girl, only 4 years old, dressed in frilly princess dresses and pixie wings. He grabs the last few things in the now bare closet, some more small trinkets, Mason jars full of rocks and glass from the beach that Mila loves to collect, before he grabs the last bigger thing in the small area. A binder.
He furrows his eyebrows, trying to think back on a time that Mila went through a photography phase or something similar to it, but nothing comes to mind as he opens the pages, freezing as soon as he does. He lets out a faint laugh, barely a breath, and runs his fingers over the plastic covering, a large, wet smile growing on his face. "Hey, Harls?" He calls out over his shoulder, eyes staying focused on the photographs in front of him. "Can you come here a minute?"
He waits a few seconds, before the familiar heavy footsteps of his husband step into the room, padding over to him. "Yes dear?"
Peter glances up at the man, unable to control his bubbling tears anymore as they spill down his pushed up cheeks, his blurry vision making out the man's graying hair and wrinkled face, still so, so beautiful to him, and murmurs, "Do you remember these? When we took them?"
Harley looks over his shoulder with a squint, his vision worsening year by year, before a wide smile grows on his face, the corners of his eyes scrunching, his baby blues softening. "Wow," he whispers, awed. "I haven't seen these in years. We took them senior year."
Peter nods, and glances back at the pictures, chuckling even his chest heaves with a sob. He runs a finger over a smaller picture of himself, stood at the corner of the street, on his phone and unaware of the camera. "You always took them whenever I least expected it." He glances at another picture, with him at his desk, head on his hand and looking bored out of his mind. He laughs again, his voice wet and thick with tears. "Even in science class."
Harley chuckles along, running a hand up and down Peter's back as he settles beside him on the floor, huffing as his bones creak. "Do you remember prom?" His voice is still soft, still quiet, as if it raised any higher it would ruin the fragile moment they had found themselves in, pointing to a picture near the corner of the page, showing Harley leaning against the wall, in a suit with sunglasses on.
Peter snorts, wiping at his running nose. "Oh, do I. You thought you were so cool, wearing that bright blue suit."
Harley shutters as if hes cringing, before laughing, a cheeky grin on his face. "You loved me in that bright blue suit."
"That I did." Peter murmurs, before looking over his shoulder at the other man, now looking back at him, connecting their eyes, sapphires to honey, a soft, warm smile on his face. "I still do."
Harley smiles back gently, and raises a hand to wipe away his tears, before holding his chin and pressing a kiss to his lips, gentle and sweet. "I love you." He whispers under his breath for the millionth time, but it still feels like the first, Peter thinks it will forever, his heart stuttering and his face flushing.
"I love you too."
Just as they lean in for another kiss, another set of footsteps approach, softer and practically noiseless on the hardwood floor. "Dad, are you- ugh, are you guys being sappy again?"
Both men stare at each other, before bursting into laughter, glancing over to see Mila's face twisted with faux disgust, the small grin growing showing her true feelings. "Come on, you can be sappy later, I gotta goooo." She whines, pushing her long brunette hair back into a ponytail, her green eyes twinkling. "I'm meeting up with-"
"With Haley by the fountain outside your school at 4 o'clock sharp, we know, sugarplum." Harley snickers, groaning as he stands. "We're almost ready to go, right honey?" He holds out a hand to Peter, who shuts the book of photographs and grabs it with a grateful smile, standing with ease.
"Yeah, just got a few more things and then we'll be ready to go."
"Okay, well, hurry up." She huffs, before her face softens, giving them a real, gentle smile. "Thanks dad, papa." She says, her eyes shining with appreciation and love before she turns heel and marches out of the room, her head held high.
Peter huffs out one last laugh, shaking his head, 'she got that from him', before Harley speaks back up, voice filled to the brim a bright amusement. "Well, you heard the princess. Let's get this done."
Peter agrees, before pausing, placing the photograph book on the end table in the room gently, vowing to finish going through the rest of it later before walks back to his husband, packing up the rest of their daughters things, a small fire of warmth and love swelling in his chest.