Work Text:
Posting about Harry was pretty normal for Peter - if he wasn’t posting about Harry he was posting about May or Ned or MJ and, occasionally, about the Stark Internship - but as they grew up Peter’s instagram slowly started to be dedicated almost entirely to Harry Osborn. That wasn’t to say he was obsessed - Peter was obsessed with only one thing and that was swinging through buildings in a glorified expensive onesie - but Harry was simply a fantastic subject. He could be a Greek god or, at the very least, a model with hair that was the color of fall grass and falling leaves and eyes the color of scarab beads with the smallest smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose. Peter remembered when he was younger - with shock red hair and gangly awkward limbs and a crooked smile.
Okay… maybe he was a little bit obsessed.
But who could blame him? Harry had always been the best thing about his life - the connection between his parents and dreams and a life that should have been snatched from his fingers at seven. He was the reason Peter knew random French swears, knew every single Katy Perry song, and why Peter learned how to drive. At seven months younger than Peter - a leap year baby on top of it - Harry shouldn’t have really been his friend, but with parents that worked closely together they had been forced into each other’s orbit.
Peter thought he would forever be thankful to Ben and May for not making him give up Harry when he moved out of Richard and Mary’s large house and into their small apartment. He would have survived but, what was survival without Harry Osborn in his life?
As it was, Peter kicked out his feet until his shoes brushed against Harry’s ankles under the table in the small coffee shop that Peter made the trek out to every Saturday for breakfast. Harry insisted on paying every time and Peter held his tongue because the prices were expensive and paying for both the breakfast and trip from the city to Connecticut would be painfully pricey for every weekend. Still, he didn’t have to act happy about it.
They had a system - in the mornings they’d do homework at the cafe over a breakfast of smoothies and sandwiches so they had the entire weekend to do whatever they wanted. Saturday afternoons were for lazy video games and amusement parks and evenings were for movie theaters and catching a train back to the city to visit May. Sunday mornings Harry had to check in with Norman and afternoons were usually spent on Peter’s bed dreaming up a future with shoulders pressed tight together staring up at the glow in the dark stars Ben had put up on Peter’s ninth birthday that refused to fall down. Sunday evenings Harry cooked for May and Peter and Peter pretended it didn’t hurt every single time he walked him to the train station and hugged him goodbye.
There was no need in thinking of that now, though.
Not while Harry was sitting across from him at eight in the morning, food half eaten, and on his last page of homework. Peter had finished his own minutes before but had grown tired of scrolling through his social media and opted to, instead, annoy the person he dedicated every weekend to. He kicked at Harry’s ankle again and smiled behind the screen of his phone when Harry shot him a small glare. “Knock it off.” Harry kicked back at him which, really, he should have known that giving Peter any sort of attention would only make him worse.
“What?” Peter gave him his best innocent smile and succeeded in Harry rolling his eyes before turning back to his work.
Peter knew he should have just let him finish - he was so close to being done and then he was all Peter’s for the next twenty four hours - but Peter was nothing if not annoying, currently in the beginning stages of a sugar high, and hated sitting in one place for too long. Harry had his headphones in, pen in hand and mouthed the words on the page in front of him to himself and Peter knew if he focused around the whir of the espresso machine he would be able to hear him muttering to himself. Always reading aloud. Peter knew it helped him focus.
Peter also knew that he was a terrible distraction and he refused to feel bad about that.
He kicked out at Harry’s shin again, purposely light in case he actually hurt him, and smiled broadly when Harry looked up at him, annoyance creasing at the corners of his eyes. “ What , Pete?”
“I’m bored.”
“You’re a genius, find something to do.”
“ Harry ,” Peter dragged the name out with a whine and tossed back his head in his best impersonation of Morgan Stark throwing a temper tantrum. “I’m bored .”
“ Peter ,” Harry mocked. “I don’t care .”
Struck with a sudden inspiration when Harry looked down at his notebook again , intent on ignoring Peter until he finished all of his work, Peter picked up his phone, thumbed open the camera app and prepared himself to deliver his worst joke. “Hey,” Harry ignored him and Peter rolled his eyes before nudging him enough that his pencil skittered across the page. “Hey, Harry.”
He looked up, exasperation on his face until he caught sight of Peter’s smile and then, seemingly, he softened around the edges. “What?”
“Why did the amoeba cross the road?” Harry stared at him, incredulous at being asked a joke of all things and Peter’s camera rapidly fired to catch every expression.
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Deadly.”
He sighed and shut his eyes before answering with the sigh of the suffering. “Why?”
Peter’s lips twitched. “It was time to split.”
Despite himself Harry laughed, shaking his head and turning back to his page. “You’re ridiculous, Parker.”
“You love it.”
He didn’t know why it elicited such a response but his heart seemed to pound in his chest in nervous apprehension until Harry said a soft, “I do.”
He posted the picture later that day, didn’t think twice of tagging Harry in it, and woke up to twenty thousand new followers on Instagram.
I am Old and on Mobile and cannot figure this out
Being Instagram famous was… wild in a way Peter hadn’t expected. He always assumed it would be because he accidentally posted from his account instead of Spidey’s, not because he took a picture and tagged Harry Osborn in one post.
Logically, he understood that Harry was a well known member of society. He was the son of a biological billionaire, the heir to a massive biochemical company, and attractive to boot. Of course he would have fans and of course they would be obsessed enough to follow the page of the one person that, aside from Harry, posted pictures of him. On top of it, Peter was followed by not only Harry Osborn but Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, and Norman Osborn. A small, insignificant kid on Instagram followed by some big names in the science and technology world.
They would be curious.
So far the fans had been pretty tame and Peter hadn’t posted much after that one picture. Life had been busy lately - between school, the actual internship at Stark Industries, Spider-Man, and trying to juggle a social life and being a good nephew Peter was almost tapped out. Harry had suggested that he didn’t come out that weekend but, busy himself and looking more and more exhausted during late night FaceTimes, but Peter refused to break the tradition. He was sketchy enough with everyone else - he wasn’t about to let his extracurricular activities affect the one friendship that had remained untainted by life’s darkness if he could help it. Harry deserved that much - he deserved that much.
Harry’s dorm was on the third floor and he was lucky enough to have gotten a single instead of a double (but Peter knew that was because of his name and he also knew how uncomfortable the comfort in it made Harry). He didn’t usually meet Harry at his dorm but Peter had gotten in later than usual and Harry had begged him for help with his chemistry homework so they decided to mix things up.
Harry opened the door before Peter could even knock - his hair was wild, his cheeks red, and his eyes looked like they hadn’t been rested since Peter had bid him goodbye at the train station just a week before. Peter blinked. “Which one of us has the super senses, huh?” He smiled around the tease, his own tension bleeding out of his shoulders when Harry’s relaxed.
“You are a literal hero, Peter Parker.” Harry’s hand wrapped around the sleeve of his sweatshirt and pulled and Peter could have planted his heels and fought back but he let himself be tugged into the room. Harry’s dorm was always warm and comfortable - he kept it at the perfect temperature and had a collage of Peter’s photos mixed with his own drawings lining his walls. Peter would happily stay in Harry’s room the entire weekend - it was like his friend had vomited himself all over the floor, his mess restrained to the corners and somehow still organized. His closet was open, shirts unbuttoned and ties hanging off open collars but kept in color order from light to dark and shining scuffed shoes placed in neat lines under them. His bed was made with its big, red, fluffy comforter and Peter knew he had interrupted Harry’s endless studying by the notebook and laptop that sat open on the foot of the bed.
“I am a literal hero.” Peter agreed because, well, Harry was right and he knew it - even if he was referring less to Peter’s nighttime activities and more to his biochemical knowledge.
It was nice, Peter decided, laying under Harry’s comforter while he sat himself on the floor and skimming through his chemistry notes to pinpoint where Harry was going wrong in solving the formula. He adored working with Tony, but while Tony could hold a conversation with Peter about biology or chemistry he so rarely worked on projects that actually needed Peter’s scientific specialties. Peter liked explaining things to someone who could keep up and Harry could keep up and when he couldn’t he wasn’t afraid to interrupt Peter’s ramblings to ask him to explain more.
“Okay,” Peter sat up and turned the laptop around to face Harry - sans contacts and, instead, wearing the wire frames that made Peter’s heart beat just a little bit faster - and pointed to where Harry had messed up in his notes. “So redox stands for reduction-oxidation, yeah? And oxidation all has to do with the number of electrons that are either lost or gained.”
Harry nodded - he got a little crease over his left eyebrow when he was concentrating and Peter found it adorable even if it was distracting. “So oxidation is the loss of electrons and reduction is the gaining of electrons. You lose electrons as you add oxygen and gain them as you take oxygen away. You mixed those two up.”
It wasn’t done on purpose, really, and Peter knew he was usually the nicest person to explain things to Harry without demeaning him. His special brand of dyslexia caused the words to flip sometimes - float off the page and jumble up and confuse him - but, usually, Harry caught it. Peter usually read over all of his science notes to be sure he wasn’t mixing things up that weren’t supposed to be but he must have missed this one particular instance. “That makes so much more sense.” Harry sounded awed, and a little bit put out, when he realised what Peter was saying.
Peter nudged his shoulder and passed back the computer. “Try the formula now.”
He didn’t notice Harry had posted a picture himself until he got home on Sunday, and he only blushed a little bit at the comments.
MJ really had to chill it with the dating thing.
I'll be damned if you're not seeing these one way or another
Harry got out of school a week before Peter but he hadn’t moved back to OSCORP tower until the day of Peter’s last final. He hadn’t expected to see him, Harry was busy and Peter was busy and they still had their usual weekend plans until summer opened them up to be able to spend more time together. Plus, he had promised Ned a movie marathon and MJ was planning on crashing their dinner with her new girlfriend Gwen (who was adorable , Peter had to add. She was on the dance team and completely not someone who Peter would have pegged as being interested in MJ until they started dating and the way the two of them fit was absolutely precious). Mary Jane, Harry’s cousin and Peter’s friend by association, was due to move into the city with her family a few weeks into the summer anyway and Peter was more than a little bit excited for his circle of friends to expand. He couldn’t wait for Harry and Ned to meet - they would be instant friends, Peter was sure of it - and he was only a little worried that MJ would say something borderline rude and send Harry running.
He didn’t know why it was so important other than it was like two parts of his life coming together.
Minus the third part.
Tony had been glaringly annoying ever since Peter had posted that picture of Harry. Peter didn’t know why other than the odd, and somewhat humorous, feud between Tony and Norman online. He hadn’t expected it to extend beyond that, yet… here they were. “Osborn, huh?” Tony had asked just that Wednesday with a glint in his eye that Peter didn’t want to try and place. He had felt his haunches rise, had been prepared for a fight that he didn’t want to come, and nodded once. “ Why does it have to be Osborn?”
Peter hadn’t graced it with a response because the only thing floating in his mind was a petulant, why would it be anyone else that would only get him into more trouble than he wanted to get into. Tony didn’t bring it up a lot - Peter knew he only pretended to dislike Harry by association and truly accepted the fact that no matter what he said Peter wasn’t about to stop being his friend - but when he did it it was without shame. Peter knew he was trying to gauge the same things MJ and May were - Peter and Harry did act a bit like a couple and Peter wasn’t against the idea even if the fear of ruining a perfectly wonderful friendship was like a stab in the gut. Plus, Norman Osborn wasn’t exactly the kindest man and Peter was uncomfortable with the idea of putting Harry in that position.
“Dude, who’s car is that?” It was Brad that asked - Brad , Peter would rather deal with Flash than have a ten minute conversation with hot throb Brad - and Peter nearly bounced off his back when he abruptly stopped in the exit of the school.
Ned walked only a few more steps before noticing that Peter was no longer trailing behind him and glanced over his shoulder in confusion. “You good, Pete?” Was Peter good… was Peter good? Because that car - that stupidly expensive sleek black Jeep that served no purpose in being in New York City other than as a status symbol and a poor attempt of an absent father to prove to his son that he still cared for a sixteenth birthday present - was Harry ’s car. And Harry was supposed to be busy all day moving back home and…. Well Peter was happy enough he felt like he could burst into a cloud of rainbows.
Flash’s car looked tiny compared to the big black thing, and he looked tinier from where he was gaping at it and then at Harry when he slid smoothly out of the driver’s seat with sunglasses perched atop his head. Flash had been mellowing out over the year - rarely bothered Peter ever since seeing that he frequently interacted with Tony, Harry, Pepper, and Norman on social media but he was still a little fanboy at heart. And Harry was ridiculously attractive, Peter could, at the very least, admit that to himself. The stares were honestly something Peter had grown used to over the years. “Hey there, Parker.” Harry called out from the doorway, his feet still in the car so that he could leverage himself over the metal roof and smile at Peter like he was the sun. “Want a ride?”
Of course Peter wanted a ride, and of course he was going to get in the car regardless but… Peter had plans with Ned and he cared too much about his friend to want to let him down. “Only if Ned can come too.”
Ned was speechless himself. He had been given plenty of time to get himself used to the idea of meeting Harry - the son of one of his scientific idols - but, still, Ned managed to be starstruck. Peter remembered when he had met Tony - it was all stuttering rambles and verbal exclamation marks. He only hoped today would pass without that brand of secondhand embarrassment. Harry smiled, waved at Ned from where Peter had stopped next to him, and waved them forward. “Hey Ned!”
That was the thing with Harry - one of the things with Harry - that Peter loved. He went with the flow so easily that Peter somehow forgot that anything could give him pause or catch him off guard. Peter pulled Ned forward with a soft, come on , and climbed in front while Ned slid in the back of the still idling car, the leather seats cool against his back despite the heat (because Norman would spare no expense while trying to buy his child’s love and had gotten the top model with cooling seats provided - Peter thought that he was, perhaps, the only one that employed them during the summer). He pulled Ned into an easy conversation - asked him about Star Wars of all things when Harry didn’t even like Star Wars - and Peter looked at him, really looked , while Harry effortlessly pulled the car out of the school parking lot with the ease of only someone that had grown up in New York could have in their traffic. It was perhaps longer going in a car than taking the train but Peter was thankful for the blast of the air conditioning.
Plus, this way Peter could get his fill - Harry looked better outside of the stiff boarding school uniform of light greys and blood red dress shirts. The way the sun carried in the summer always lightened his hair - made it look more blonde than orange - and brought out his light brown freckles and the surf torn blue of his eyes. Gorgeous, Peter thought before he could stop himself.
It was only after posting his second picture of Harry tagged on his instagram that it hit him what that meant.
When exactly had he fallen for his best friend?
I went through all this work to make these for this story
The thing about Harry being home for the summer was that Peter spent most of every day with him. They didn’t even do much most days, simply lazed around one of their homes or coffee shops and played copious amounts of video games, but Peter was comfortable with Harry by his side. Sometimes MJ joined - usually with Gwen and usually to drag them out for ice cream - and sometimes Ned crashed - mostly on video game nights and Peter was incredibly happy that him and Harry had hit it off so well - but, regardless of the location, time, or date if Peter wasn’t out as Spider-Man he would be found next to Harry Osborn.
May thought it was adorable - she adored Harry and had ever since he was little and made a macaroni picture of her face… plus, he could cook where neither of them had any skill in the kitchen - and only encouraged it. Tony gave him a month away from the legitimate internship to enjoy his summer like a normal teenager and Peter was soaking it up as much as he could.
He found himself posting more of Harry, though.
He knew he shouldn’t , if only to avoid any backlash from Norman slamming into Harry unnecessarily, but Harry’s fans seemed to soak the pictures up. Not that Peter was blaming them - Harry was the perfect photography subject and usually more than willing to put up with Peter’s constant picture taking.
“Mary Jane wants to see you again.” Harry said from where he was leaning back against Peter’s stomach, flipping idly through a book on the carpet of Peter’s living room. Peter himself was laying down and frowning at his phone - this mobile version of Mario Kart was killing him and, somehow, six year old Morgan had managed to beat him even on the hardest setting. He had a sneaking suspicion Tony had messed with the settings.
Harry’s hair was soft and that was the only reason Peter had weaved his hands through the strands - it was not because he wanted to keep Harry’s head where it was. “I miss Mary Jane.” And he did . The cousins together was a gorgeous view Peter rarely got to enjoy, but Mary Jane took her birthday a week after Harry’s as seriously as twins took a shared day. They were closer than siblings and Peter remembered he had had a ridiculously huge crush on her back in elementary school that Harry never let him live down.
She didn’t make his cheeks warm as much as Harry did, though. She was like a warm summer day - bright and loud and happy. Harry was as soft as night - he was a crackling fire and cozy blankets over their shoulders and soft secrets only between the two of them. Peter could live without summers as long as he got the fall. “You should ask her out.” Harry smirked but Peter saw the way his shoulders tensed.
He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. It was an offhand comment - Harry made a lot of them - but Harry liked to put his insecurities and questions behind them so that he could hide the hurt behind a wrong answer easier. “I don’t want to ask Mary Jane out.” Because he didn’t. The thought of her head on his stomach didn’t make him nearly as excited as it used to - his crush on Mary Jane had been childish and fueled by puberty. It was fleeting and gone and he didn’t miss her that way. I like someone else , he thought about saying with his hands petting the soft strands of Harry’s hair and eyes counting the freckles he knew Harry hated that dotted his cheeks.
Was it worth ruining a friendship?
The small smile on Harry’s face told him it was, told him that he had said the right thing and confirmed something that Peter didn’t know Harry even needed confirming. His chest felt light - like he had just jumped from a skyscraper and into the night air - and Harry’s lips looked ridiculously plush pink against his skin and….
May stood above them with a smile, hands on her slim hips and hair flowing down her shoulder. “Hey Harry, think you can help me in the kitchen?”
Harry stood easily and Peter felt torn between a blush and a chill with him gone and May winking at him in that conspiratorial way she had.
He posted a picture later that night - Harry’s freckles on display and smile soft.
I have given up on actually posting the pictures
He supposed he shouldn’t have been shocked that it was Mary Jane that got the two of them together. It was under the guise of meeting up again after years apart - she met them at her favorite coffee shop, or, rather, Peter met them as Harry and Mary Jane had been there for hours before catching up on things. They almost had their own language and Peter took a moment to simply observe before making himself known. They looked like siblings, Mary Jane’s hair more bright than Harry’s and her freckles more misplaced around her face but they had the same smile. Their mothers had been sisters and both had somehow married ginger men - Peter like Mary Jane’s dad more, though. He cared more.
Not that Norman didn’t care… he just… had a very different way of showing it.
She caught sight of him before Harry and perked up almost instantly. “Peter!” It had been years and she had grown taller and slimmer and when her arms wrapped around his shoulders he found he could easily pick her up. Mary Jane was beautiful - slender, pale and feisty she should have been just his type.
It would have been easier if she was.
“Hey Mary Jane!” She hugged him tight and he returned it happily and when she pulled away it was only to study his older face with critiquing eyes.
“When did you stop being a scrawny kid?” She asked with a hand to his cheek and he smiled softly at her.
“Probably the same time you got taller.”
“Which you’ll never be.”
“Excuse me?”
Mary Jane hit his chest and laughed. It was still loud and bright and he followed her over to the table the cousins had claimed earlier. Harry moved Mary Jane’s purse from the seat next to him and slid over the coffee he had ordered Peter when he said he was on his way (decaf, because May would kill him if he had too much caffeine). On impulse Peter pressed a kiss under his eye with a thank you and stared intently at the way Harry’s cheeks colored. “Hey,” he said it as though he had done nothing, testing his theory that Harry, perhaps, liked him too, and tucked into the table. “What have you two been talking about?”
Mary Jane studied them intently with the barest hint of a coy smile before answering. “Harry was waxing poetic about you.”
“I was not .”
Peter laughed and slung his arm around the back of Harry’s chair - the cafe was chilly and Harry was radiating heat - and tried to ignore the way Mary Jane studied their every move. If Ned thought the way they acted around each other was weird he never said, and MJ made her opinion very well known but Peter was used to her. May teased only when she knew it was allowed and Peter had pointedly steered away from any conversation with Tony regarding his potential feelings for his best friend. “Can I hear a sample of this poetry?”
“ No .” Peter had decided that one of his favorite expressions on Harry’s face was the blush that colored his cheeks.
“I think he might catch on fire if we keep it up.” Mary Jane took pity before he did, though, and artfully changed the conversation towards school. She kept watching them, though. Peter knew she was cataloguing everything everyone else around them did - the casual touches, the way Peter stole half of Harry’s sandwich without asking, the nonverbal communication they had down to an art form and the countless inside jokes that only needed a look or a tap to get the other laughing.
She smiled and watched and participated and, when they were getting ready to leave, called them out on their bullshit in only the way Mary Jane ever could. “You two are dating though, right?” Harry nearly dropped his mug - luckily, Peter was quicker and caught it with sticky fingers.
“N… no .”
“No.”
“No no,”
“Not yet.”
“No we’re not.”
“We haven’t really…”
“I’m not against …”
“Wait.”
“It’s just, we haven’t…”
“ Wait .”
Mary Jane smirked as they stammered and smirked even harder when Harry grabbed Peter’s arm to force him to stop speaking. Peter could feel his own cheeks aflame and blinked stupidly at Harry’s ridiculously gorgeous face. “I’ll leave you boys to it, then.” Mary Jane blew a kiss at both of them and waved on her way out, flipping her long hair over her shoulder and laughing.
“Not yet ?” Harry’s voice was perhaps a bit higher than usual and when Peter nodded wordlessly he slapped a fifty on the table - way more than the bill called for - and dragged Peter out of the building by his wrist. They stopped on the sidewalk - almost the alleyway - and Peter didn’t know what he expected but it certainly wasn’t Harry’s hands to frame his cheeks and lips to press desperately against his own. Peter gripped at his elbows before sliding his hands around to his waist when Harry made to pull away, his eyes fluttering shut and the tips of their noses brushing just so when he tilted his head.
It felt natural to kiss Harry Osborn. It felt like everything Peter had imagined it would be like and more. It certainly wasn’t the most romantic setting - they were in the middle of the city, could be bumped into at literally any moment, and it was eighty five degrees out and Peter could feel his back sweating - but nothing about it felt odd or different. Harry’s lips were soft where Peter’s were chapped, his nails softly raked at the skin of Peter’s face before linking behind his neck and he curved so perfectly into Peter’s body that he felt almost as though he had been cheated by waiting so long to do this.
He had loved Harry since the day he had met him, the idea of a future without Harry in it was absolutely terrifying and no one knew him better. He felt happy enough he was sure he could have flown through the city then and still the smile wouldn’t have been wiped from his face.
He posted later that afternoon and, well, the internet went wild .