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Miles thinks that his favorite thing about going to Midtown is that Harley and Peter go there, too.
Like—Midtown itself is pretty cool, he won’t deny that. It’s a STEM school that covers all of Miles’ favorite topics and challenges his intelligence in a way that the middle school he went to just couldn’t seem to do. There are enough clubs and groups to join to always keep him busy, too, and most of the kids there are a lot like him—smart, the stereotypical nerd, and even bullies are just nerds with big ego’s. It’s pretty much exactly what Miles could hope for from a high school. He loves going here.
But, it’s a bonus, for sure, that—while Miles is a freshman at Midtown, Peter and Harley and all of their friends (minus Harry—who is insistent on being called Uncle Harry, like a little shit) are all seniors, and… well, Miles doesn’t care about popularity, really, but when the big ego bullies see him talking with the seniors, those big ego bullies seem to decide to leave Miles alone. Which is… pretty nice.
And he loves Peter and Harley, that’s obvious—they may have joked about being Miles’ second pair of parents when they all first met, but it’s pretty much just a fact now, something that even Rio and Jeff, Miles’ actual, living birth parents, support and agree with. When random seniors approach them, Miles is always introduced as their son, and it’s a pretty nice feeling, rocking back and forth on his feet and beaming under the attention of these random teenagers that are, like, only four years older than him, all cooing at him like he’s an infant and giving him little gifts and treats. Maybe other kids would be embarrassed about—when it first became a thing, Miles felt pretty embarrassed, too—but he’s gotten used to it, now, and he basks in it, feels warm when someone calls him “Mini Keener” or “Mini Parker.”
It happens in the halls, at first—because it’s only the seniors that call him that—but then it catches on with the other freshman, too, and then they’re both just kind of one of his nicknames among the entire school. Depending on the subject, too—in Chem, when Miles gets a question right or has a test come back with an A, someone inevitably leans over and calls him Mini Parker. In robotics, however, or whenever they have an assignment that’s more about building things—that’s when he’s always Mini Keener. Either way, he adores it—because he’s seen how Harley and Peter work in the labs at the towers, knows that they’re both smarter than anyone at school even realizes, and being compared to them at all, being called a mini version of them—that’s a compliment, one hundred percent.
(The nicknames have reached the tower, too, and sometimes even come up at home. When Miles cleans the kitchen without having to be asked, or when he helps carry the groceries in, that’s when his mom will run her fingers through his hair and coo, “Look at all that Parker you inherited.” When Miles has dinner waiting after his parents both have long shifts at work or when he fixes up an appliance in the house, makes it work better, his dad will pull him into a side hug and tell him, “Good work, Keener.”
It was—really weird, at first, but now? It just makes him feel good about himself.)
There is one down side to Harley and Peter going to the same school as him, really, and that’s the fact that it’s kind of hard to keep a secret from them. Not that Miles is particularly keen on keeping secrets, but when he gets paired up with two people in class that end up being—really nice, and very cute, and—well, when Miles ends up developing two very strong crushes on both of them, he doesn’t want anyone to know.
And he definitely doesn’t want his weird, embarrassing adoptive teenage dads to find out.
Her name is Ellie.
She sits a few seats over in English, always has a green mechanical pencil that she taps against the inside of her wrist while paying attention in class. Her hair is a dark, dark brown that’s cut fairly short, reaching just above her ears in slight waves. There’s always some—strong, bright eyeshadow on her lids—she seems to like yellow the most, as that’s the one she wears most often—and she’s got this jacket that she always has with her, an old one, clearly passed down by someone, with a sort of faux leather material and a cracks along the surface from being worn for so long. Some days, she dresses up like she’s doing something important after school, sometimes with slacks and a button up shirt, sometimes with a dress and nice shoes—other days, she comes to school in her pajama’s, though she always, always, always has some kind of bright eyeshadow on, and it always, always, always, manages to fit with what she’s wearing. Miles is almost convinced it must be a secret power, to always match and look put together, even when she shows up in Spider-Man pajama pants and a sweatshirt that’s a size too big.
Plus—Spider-Man pajama pants? As someone who knows Spider-Man—who jokingly calls Spider-Man dad when they’re working in Tony Stark’s lab on the weekends—that’s definitely something to admire. Miles has had childish crushes before, in elementary school and in middle school, would meet people’s eyes and look away with a blush, but nothing more than that. With Ellie, Miles likes to think about holding her hand and watching a movie with her, or something like that. He just… thinks she’s cool.
His name is Dylan. And he’s—funny.
Like, really funny. And not the kind of funny that tries too hard to be funny, either—the kind that disrupts class just to try and get a few laughs, like a bunch of the “funny” kids from the middle school Miles had gone to. His grin is all teeth and kind of crooked, and he has a habit of crinkling his nose when he laughs. Auburn strands of hair always seem to be falling in front of grey eyes that always have some kind of sparkle to them. It’s like he’s always amused, finds humor in every situation, and Miles didn’t even know he was capable of laughing as hard as he does when Dylan sits next to him at lunch and instantly spouts out a joke that comes out of no where and catches Miles so off guard that he chokes on his water. Dylan is a flannel thrown over an old t-shirt with a ratty pair of shoes and simple blue jeans—average, maybe, on a physical level, but bright, and eye grabbing—talks in a way that draws you in until he’s all you’re listening to. Miles quite likes it when he tells a crappy joke that makes Dylan laugh.
They aren’t similar—not at all, really—but when they’re teamed up in English for a project, Miles finds himself cherishing every moment they work together on it. Dylan has his crooked grin and says something that has Ellie letting out a chiming laugh and Miles can’t help but feel a bubble of warmth in his chest when he offers an idea and they both look at him with wide eyes, as if awed by his brain. They sit at lunch together to work on their project more and then they just—start sitting at the same table because they want to, and—Miles isn’t stupid. He knows that having a crush on both of them probably isn’t realistic—polyamory exists, yes, but he’s thirteen, they’re freshman in high school and polyamory, according to what he’s read about it, takes a lot of compromise and communication that high school freshman aren’t known to be able to handle all that well. So, he doesn’t expect either of his crushes to go anywhere, he just enjoys spending time with them and lets that be the end of it.
But then, Harley happens to approach him in the hall, with his bouncing on his toes happy walk and a wide smile on his face. Miles is trying not to—trying, but not succeeding—stare at Dylan, who is talking with someone else at the end of the hall and looking very cute when he lets out a loud laugh. Harley doesn’t even seem to notice at first, just stops in front of Miles and tells him, “Peter is definitely planning on trying to convince you to build a bot that’s supposed to make me drink more water, and I need you to know right now that if I end up having a little metal stalker constantly telling me to hydrate, I might go actually insane, so if he asks you to help him with that, you should—are you listening to me?”
Miles blinks once, sudden, whips his head around to look at Harley with wide eyes. “I—Yeah, I’m listening. Sorry, I’m—don’t let Peter convince me to help him build the bot, right? That’s—”
“You were looking at something,” Harley says, matter of fact—spins on his heels and peers down the hall, in the direction Miles had been looking. “That is the first time you have ever blatantly ignored something I was saying to you, so it’s gotta be important. Was it the—science fair poster? No, that’s stupid, you’re already signed up so—maybe the—no, couldn’t be that, but—”
“Oh my god,” Miles murmurs, feeling mortified as Dylan seems to end the conversation with whoever he was talking to and instead spots Miles and beams, starts walking over with an excited sort of haste. Miles tugs on Harley’s shirt and pleads, “Don’t embarrass me, I’m begging you, Harley, please—”
Harley crinkles his nose. “When have I ever embarrassed you? What are you even—?”
“Miles!” Dylan greets, chipper and loud—but not too loud, just loud enough to sound upbeat and energetic with his words. His eyes glance over at Harley, widen, a bit, but then turn back to Miles with that big, crooked grin that he always wear. “We get our grades back today, and I bet Ellie that we got an A, but she’s convinced that we got too distracted while working and didn’t do as good as we should have so she thinks we’re gonna get a B, but you totally agree with me, right? Like, there’s no way we’re not gonna get an A, right? We put way too much work into that thing to get less than an A.”
“He’s never gotten below a B+,” Harley cuts in, voice informative. He’s looking at Dylan curiously, glancing between him and Miles with a slight furrow to his brow. “Who are you?”
Dylan falters, looks intimidated under the gaze of the—much taller, much larger—senior. “Dylan.”
Harley hums. “I’m Harley. Miles’ dad.”
“He’s not—” Miles stops, squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a heavy breath before forcing his eyes back open again, seeing the way that Dylan looks confused. “He’s not really my dad. You know the—in class, when people call me Mini Keener? This is Keener. Harley Keener. Likes to call himself my dad.”
Looking at Miles with a pursed lipped frown, Harley tells him, “You know, refusing to admit that we’re family is pretty harsh, bud. Me and Pete have a custody agreement with Rio and Jeff.”
Miles glares at Harley. “Because my actual parents like to embarrass me more than you do.”
“I’m not embarrassing you!” Harley defends, wiggling a finger in the air with a scoff. “I’m not embarrassing, okay? I’m cool! I’m, like—the coolest nerd in this school of super nerds, alright?”
“Oh my god,” Miles groans, holding his face in his hands. “You sound like Tony.”
Harley splutters, clearly caught off guard, and points his finger at Miles with an exclamation of, “No, I don’t! Take that back! I’m so—I would never sound like Tony, alright? He’s a grouchy old man with back problems and an addiction to those weird strawberry pastry things. I’m not at all like him!”
“You’re just like him,” Miles says, shaking his head. “You’re almost worse.”
“That’s just mean. You—” and Harley turns back around, points at Dylan with raised brows. “I’m not embarrassing, right? Like, you don’t think Miles should be embarrassed right now, right?”
Dylan glances between them with wide eyes, looking shocked and unsure about how to react to this. “Um.” He looks over his shoulder, down the hall, and lets out a strained sort of chuckle before pointing his thumb over his shoulder and saying, “I gotta go to class, so… talk to you later?”
It takes a moment too long for Miles to realize that it’s him being talked to, but as soon as it clicks in his head, he can’t help the wide smile that grows on his face. “Yeah, of course. See you in class.”
With another unsure glance towards Harley, Dylan ducks his head in a nod, tucks his thumbs behind his backpack straps, and then walks away—a bit brisk, but still smiling. Harley looks after him, a contemplative look on his features, before slowly turning back to Miles with a wide, knowing grin. He giggles, clearly pleased and amused, then sing songs a simple, “You have a crush!”
Much like Harley had splutter upon being compared to Tony, Miles splutters now, his face becoming warm to the touch as he rapidly shakes his head back and forth—the reaction telling in itself. “No, I do not—I don’t have a crush! Why would you even—you don’t even—”
“Oh my god,” Harley says, his grin becoming even wider. “You totally have a crush. On Dylan. You have a crush on Dylan, and you can’t lie to me about it, Morales, I can read you like a book.”
“What about a crush on Dylan?” Peter asks, trotting his way up to them happily, hair—wind swept, like usual, and when Harley looks at him, he shakes his head fondly and instantly reaches up once Peter is within an arm’s distance to try and tame the wisps of curls. Peter clearly doesn’t mind, just slightly leans into it and looks between Harley and Miles curiously. “Who’s Dylan?”
Harley hums, drops his hand once he’s deemed Peter’s hair decent enough, only to wrap his arm around Peter’s waist to pull him closer until they’re pressed side to side. “Kid in Miles’ grade. I just met him.”
Peter frowns, looking confused. “I thought he had a crush on that one person, with the leather jacket?”
“It’s not real leather,” Miles corrects instantly, only to freeze—close his eyes, knowing he just gave himself away. He can be observant—was observant enough to find out that Peter is Spider-Man based on the fact that he was holding hands with Harley alone—but his dumb adoptive father’s are just as observant, if not more so, and he knows a slip up like that isn’t gonna go unnoticed.
“Oh,” Harley breathes, sounding—ecstatic, almost. “You have two crushes. What’s the other person’s name? Are they in the hall right now? I gotta meet them and make sure they’re good enough for you.”
Miles buries his head in his hands again, mortified. “How did you even find out about Ellie?”
Harley visibly perks up when Miles glances between his fingers, clearly pleased to have a name. Peter has the audacity to look a little sheepish, brings a hand up to rest on Harley’s shoulder and leans further into him and shrugs his own shoulders, just a bit. “I know we have different lunch periods, but I was taking something to the office for Mr. Harrington and walked through the cafeteria while you were at lunch and I saw you sitting next to them and just—I could tell by the way you were looking at them. I didn’t mean to, like, pry into your business, that’s why I didn’t bring it up to you, but—Ellie, huh? And Dylan?”
“This is so embarrassing,” Miles murmurs, squeezing his eyes shut again with a groan.
“Hey, no, it’s—” Peter uses his hand that isn’t resting on Harley’s shoulder to reach forward, tugs lightly on Miles’ wrist until he drops his hands with a glare. “It’s not embarrassing, Miles. You do realize that I had to have a huge crush on Harley before we started dating, right? It’s perfectly normal to get crushes.”
Miles shakes his head. “No, that’s not—I’m embarrassed because I know you guys are going to start meddling in my business and making things weird and I don’t want that.”
Peter looks over, shares a look with Harley—in their own little language that only they seem to know, something that Miles has spent months trying to learn and figure out but just hasn’t been able to decipher quite yet. This is, however, one of those times that Miles is let in on the loop, as Harley clears his throat a moment later, looking less amused and more genuine. “We won’t meddle,” he promises. “I just think it’s cute, seeing you with a crush. You’re, like, a baby in my head, okay? It’s adorable.”
“I’m thirteen,” Miles stresses. “You were at my birthday party. You know that I’m thirteen.”
“Oh my god,” Harley says, looking at Peter with wide eyes. “He sounds like you. Like, when Tony talks about how you were when he first gave you the suit, you know? He sounds like that.”
Peter shoots Harley a glare, but doesn’t respond to him. Instead, he looks back to Miles and his expression softens into a warm smile, kind and understanding and open. “Miles,” he starts. “I know we can kind of tease you sometimes, but I want you to know that, when it comes to your privacy and your boundaries, we will never, ever intentionally cross them or push for information you don’t want us to know. I’m sorry if our behavior has made you think we would ever purposefully meddle into your life and make things weird somehow, but that’s never our intention, and if we ever act in a way to make you assume that, then please just let us know what we’re doing wrong so that we can fix it.”
For a moment, Miles just glances between Harley and Peter in a mixture of surprise and uncertainty. Then, he looks around the hallway, checks that it isn’t too crowded and that no one is close enough to listen in on them, before looking back to Harley and Peter again, telling them, “I don’t—I don’t think you guys really, like—I don’t think you really meddle or anything, but I’m just—worried, that you will.”
“We won’t,” Harley assures. “Seriously. Anything you want us to stay out of, we’ll stay out of.”
Peter nods along to show his agreement to Harley’s words, and Miles sinks his teeth into his lower lip, thinks, for a few short seconds. “I mean… I don’t want you to really be involved, but—but when Dylan or Ellie are nearby, can you maybe just—not say weird things? And say, like, nice things, or something. About me, you know? Just so they know that—that I’m not weird, or… yeah.”
Already, Harley has a grin pulling at the ends of his lips. “You want us to talk you up to your crushes?”
“Not—to them, no,” Miles quickly says. “But, like, around them. Like—I dunno. This is stupid.”
Shaking his head, Peter assures him, “It’s not stupid. And I promise we’ll try our best, okay?”
Ellie is the first to bring it up, even though it’s Dylan that’s already met Harley.
“I’m curious,” she says, setting her tray down next to Miles’ before sliding onto the bench to sit next to him. Today is a blue eyeshadow sort of day, it seems, with a pair of old looking sweatpants and a flannel that’s about two sizes too big, sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
Miles finds himself getting lost looking at her for a moment, before stammering out, “Wh-What?”
Ellie doesn’t seem phased by the lapse before his response. Instead, she picks up the sandwich on her lunch tray, takes a bite out of it, and speaks around her food to repeat, “I’m curious.” Then, after chewing her bite and swallowing it, she adds on, “About the seniors, I mean. Like, I’ve heard a lot of people talk how you know a bunch of the seniors and are, like, their adopted son, or something? But I figured I would just ask you about it instead of just, like, listening to everyone else, you know?”
“Oh,” Miles breathes, looking away for a moment and—honestly, feeling pretty thankful that the Peter and Harley have second lunch, not first, so they aren’t anywhere to be seen. He trusts them, and their promises not to meddle, but he would feel significantly more nervous if he looked over and saw them sitting a few tables down. As it is, he’s nervous enough, always on edge that he’ll say too much and somehow reveal the secrets he’s been entrusted to keep. “Right. The, um—the seniors, that’s—that’s Harley, and Peter. They’re sort of—I mean, they both have internships at Stark Industries, and I guess Mr. Stark was looking into other Midtown kids to consider giving internships to, you know? And then, when my school had a field trip here last year, they were part of the group from Midtown that were here for us to ask questions to, and I met them there, and they, uh—they kind of put a word in for the smart kid who skipped a grade and was about to start at Midtown, but since I’m still so young, I can’t have an official internship, so I sort of shadow them on their internship on weekends. And, somehow, this joke came up that I’m their adopted child because they’re dating and it just—it spread, I guess. So…”
“Huh.” Ellie purses her lips, seems considerate for a few seconds. “So, you work for Tony Stark?”
Miles hums, high pitched in the back of his throat. “I mean, kind of. It’s unpaid right now, because I’m not of legal age to have a job, but when my parents signed all of the paperwork, there was an option that says that all of the money I would be making can be saved up and then given to me once I turn sixteen.”
“That’s… pretty cool, actually,” Ellie says, smiling. “But, I thought—I mean, I don’t wanna, like… assume, or anything, but people were saying it was more than two seniors, or something.”
Miles frowns, just a bit. “I mean, I guess? Peter and Harley’s friends all took to the joke and insist on calling me their nephew, and a lot of the upperclassman have gone along with it, too. I mean, even my parents call them my other parents, and they always talk about having, like—a custody agreement, or whatever, which is—probably a joke, I think, but maybe not. I dunno. It’s a whole… weird situation.”
“It sounds fun,” Ellie shrugs, picking up a grape and popping it in her mouth. “I mean, my older sister is a senior but she doesn’t do shit for me or anything, so it’s like—it seems cool, you know? To have all of these upperclassman that clearly love you and stuff. It’s like you’re protected, or something.”
“I mean—” Miles stops, tilts his head slightly to the side, and smiles. “Yeah, I guess I kind of am.”
Miles is just trying to ask about plans for going to the lab the following weekend when, suddenly, both Harley and Peter go a bit rigid in stance and Peter says, a bit too loudly, “You aced the test?!” Miles startles at his words, and thinks—well, yeah, he aced a test, like, a week ago, but that’s not at all part of this conversation and doesn’t matter in the slightest. Still, Peter beams and adds, “That’s awesome!”
Harley nods as if this makes perfect sense even though, no, it doesn’t make any sense at all, no matter how Miles tries to think about it. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re—”
But before he can say more, Harley sharply shakes his head, just once, so quick and curt that Miles only really sees it because they’re standing somewhat close to each other. In what is practically a whisper, Harley tells him, “Both your crushes just turned the corner. We’re doing our job.”
“Wait until we show Mr. Stark that you got over a hundred percent,” Peter says, as if Harley didn’t say anything at all, a wide grin—and a genuine grin, too—growing on his features. “He’s gonna try to buy you ice cream or something like that. Maybe we can convince him to have a movie night after lab time on Saturday, huh? You can choose the movie this time, since Harley is the worst—”
“Hey, no, excuse me,” Harley cuts in, looking somewhere between flabbergasted and offended. “I am not the—do you even hear yourself? Mr. Let’s Watch Star Wars For The Millionth Time In A Row?”
Peter sends a glare towards Harley, but his smile is as obvious as ever—completely, wholeheartedly fond. “You made us sit through The Pest, Harley. The fucking—I never even knew that movie existed until you made all of us watch it at two in the morning, and it was—it was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. It was—I don’t even know how to explain how weird that was, so—yeah, you’re the worst. The worst at picking movies. And I know I’m not the best, either, but still. At least Miles offers variety and good taste when he picks the movies, alright? He’s never had a bad pick on movie nights.”
Harley rolls his eyes. “Could you sound any more like a proud dad bragging about his child?”
“I could,” Peter says. “Is that a challenge, Keener?”
“Please, for the love of god, do not make that a challenge,” Miles begs. “I will walk away right now and never talk to either of you again, alright? I’ll just—disappear. No trace. Seriously.”
There’s a light laugh that comes from behind him, and when he turns—spins, really—around, he finds both Ellie and Dylan standing just a few feet away, both watching the interaction in differing stages of amusement. Miles resists the urge to let out an embarrassing squeak and instead manages a somewhat normal looking smile, holding his hand up in some kind of half assed wave. At the same time that he tries to offer the semi-normal greeting, Harley lets out a snort and says, “We’ve got Iron Man on our side, bud. You can try to disappear, but with Tony, Rio, Jeff, and everyone else working together to find you, it wouldn’t take long to figure out wherever the hell you disappeared to.”
The amusement is still clear on Ellie’s face, but Dylan, on the other hand, looks shocked. His jaw is dropped, just a bit, and his eyes are wider than usual. “Wait,” he says, clearly stammering over his syllables as he tries to get them out. “You know—you know Tony Stark? Like, you actually—you—?”
“We call Tony his grandpa,” Harley helpfully (sarcasm is thick, here) adds. “’Cause he acts like a dad to Pete and I—and a very overprotective one, at that—so, since Miles is like our kid, it kinda just happened.” He shrugs, doesn’t seem to notice when Miles shoots him an exasperated glare.
Dylan parts his lips around words that he can’t seem to form, closes them and then opens them again. Ellie just lets out a little huh sound and says, “I knew you sort of worked for him, but I didn’t know you actually, like… knew him, or anything like that. That’s… even cooler. Like. Super cool.” She looks at Dylan with a wide grin and nudges him with her elbow. “It’s cool, right?”
“Uh—” Dylan clears his throat, and, though the shock is still clear in his eyes, he starts to beam. “That’s so cool. I didn’t—I mean, I heard you worked at Stark Industries and stuff, but that’s—so, so cool.”
Miles can’t help but smile under the attention of both of them. “It is?”
Dylan scoffs, reaches forward to lightly shove Miles’ shoulder. “Are you kidding me?! That’s awesome! Like, that’s—I would kill to know Tony Stark. Do you know any of the other Avengers?”
“He knows Spider-Man,” Peter pipes up.
Harley hums, high pitched and teasing. “Spidey isn’t an Avenger.”
Peter glares at him. “He’s an Avenger in training. It counts.”
“Please stop bickering in front of my friends,” Miles cuts in, trying not to sound as pleading as he feels. Even though he thinks it’s kind of embarrassing, both Ellie and Dylan seem thrilled to hear about this, even if it is through the bickering of a high school couple that already act like they’re married.
“Keep bickering,” Ellie tells them. “It’s funny.”
Peter turns his head to squint at her, then looks to Miles with raised brows. “She reminds me of MJ.”
Miles just shrugs and doesn’t offer a response. Ellie, however, frowns. “Is that a compliment?”
“Of the highest order,” Harley says with a nod. “Michelle Jones is a force to be reckoned with and one of the most powerful people I have ever met. She’s already got a job waiting for her working with Pepper Potts once she’s out of college. Not that she knows it yet, but—still. Powerful, y’know?”
Ellie seems pleased by this. “Well, in that case, thanks, I guess.”
“Wait—” Dylan cuts in, looking like a little kid in a candy shop. “You know Spider-Man? How?!”
And, it’s—cool, seeing Dylan so excited about something, but, as much as Miles really does love Peter, loves knowing Spider-Man, the—origin of it, it’s not exactly… happy. Peter’s smile seems to fall, at the same moment that Miles’ does, and Miles looks away, rocks back and forth on his feet a bit and furrows his brows and answers, “My, um… my cousin, Mandy, she was—she got kidnapped, and Spider-Man tried to save her. She still, um—she died, but he still tried, and then he came to apologize to my family for not being able to save her, you know? And then, I met him again, after I started at Stark Industries, so…” He clears his throat, bunches up his shoulders in a shrug. “He’s good, though. He’s really nice.”
Ellie has a sad look behind her eyes, and Dylan looks like all the air has been pulls from his lungs by some invisible force. “Oh,” Ellie breathes, softly. Peter is looking away entirely and Harley is subtly reaching over to grab his hand, and—and then Dylan reaches over, too, wraps gentle fingers around Miles’ wrist and lightly squeezes, something almost like… understanding written in his features.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really need to.
When Miles smiles at him, Dylan smiles back.
“So,” Tony says, not so casually as they’re working in the lab, flipping a wrench over and over in his hands, hips leaning against the side of the work bench. “Little birdy told me you have a crush.”
Instantly, Miles sends a glare to both Harley and Peter, who are piecing together the engine for Peter’s car, which they’ve been slowing working on since hie birthday. Peter stops and holds up his hands, shakes his head and promises, “It wasn’t us, I swear. He’s just nosy and found out somehow.”
Tony scoffs. “Little Birdy did tell me. Little Birdy just happens to be—“ he gestures upward, towards the ceiling. “A handy little AI who spilled the beans when I asked if she knew why you were being so secretive. Don’t blame her, by the way—I programmed her. Should probably update her to actually keep people’s secrets, ‘cause it took three seconds to get her to tell me and we do actually value privacy here.”
Miles frowns, slouches his shoulders and honest to god pouts. “You’re the worst.”
“Well.” Tony clicks his tongue. “You sound like a grouchy teenager. What happened to the cute little twelve year old who was always excited whenever he was here? I miss the little guy. We can’t have already lost him to the haze of teenage hormones, right? Not so soon.”
“I’m thirteen,” Miles stresses. “I can sound like a grouchy teenager because I am one.”
Tony huffs, holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright, grumpy. I won’t pry, I was just curious.”
Grumbling, Miles turns back to the little bot he’s been tinkering with for the past few weeks with no real goal in mind, more just giving him something to fiddle with when they aren’t all focusing on one big project together. He hears muffled laughter come from Harley and Peter’s direction, but elects to ignore it, hunches his shoulder down to try and block the rest of the room out. He can feel eyes on him, though, and it doesn’t take very long before he’s letting out a ragged sigh and pushing himself up to stand straight, spinning around and crossing his arms over his chest. “Find,” he says. “I’ll talk about them.”
Instantly, Tony brightens like an excited child, tossing down his wrench and taking a seat. It makes Miles roll his eyes and pulls at the ends of his lips, remembering that—yeah, Tony is kinda lame, and getting a little old, and is definitely an embarrassing grandpa, but it’s… not really a bad thing.
As Miles spills about his dumb little crushes, he finds that it’s—kind of nice.
The thing is, Miles kind of… assumed, a few things.
Which, people do, sometimes, and they shouldn’t, but sometimes, they do. And Miles tries not to do that whole making assumption things (even though he had assumed he was right about Peter being Spider-Man and that turned out to be true, but—still, in general, a no-no) but he had made one.
He kind of assumed that both Ellie and Dylan were straight.
Which, you know—heteronormativity is a new word for him, and he thinks that’s probably why, ‘cause society sort of taught him to assume that everyone is straight unless they come out or are proven otherwise. So, that’s kind of what he did. He figured, if he had a chance with either of them, it would be Ellie, because Dylan probably doesn’t like boys and Ellie probably does.
Probably.
Funny, how both of these assumptions turn out to be young.
He finds out about one of them being wrong when he looks over and—walking down the hallway, he sees Ellie, with a beaming grin and her yellow eyeshadow and that joyful glimmer in her eyes and she’s… holding hands with a girl—Anna, Miles thinks her name is; she’s in history with him—and that’s not telling, necessarily, because sometimes friends hold hands and that’s fine and—but then Ellie sees him and smiles even wider and tugs Anna over, comes to a stop in front of him and says, “Hey, Miles! This is my girlfriend, Anna—she said she knows who you are, but I wanted to introduce you anyway.”
So, that answers that, then. And that’s—not a problem, really. If anything, it makes him rethink his crush pretty quickly and decide he’d rather get over his crush and be her friend rather than make things awkward because he likes her. Plus, Anna is pretty cool, and super into science stuff, too, which makes talking to her pretty fun when she and Ellie sit next to him at lunch. Harley can’t help but laugh at the fact that there’s a clear similarity here to when Peter had a crush on MJ before she came out to him, but other than that, it’s not really groundbreaking news. It’s just a crush that he gets over and a friend that he keeps.
What catches him off guard is Dylan, who—a little bit after Ellie introduces Miles to Anna and he goes from crushing on two people to just crushing on one—randomly approaches him at the beginning of school one day, and just… shoves a bag of sour patch kids into Miles’ hands, looks nervous and unsure when he asks, “Those are the—I mean, you said… you said those are your favorite, right?”
“Um—” Miles looks down, and… not really, no. He said they were his favorite when he was still crushing in Ellie because she said that they were her favorite and he had spoken in agreement without thinking. But, gummy worms aren’t much different, so he just nods and says, “Yeah, they are.”
“Cool.” Dylan looks over his shoulder, looks back, and looks away again. “I just—I was at the store yesterday, with my mom, and she said I could get some candy, and I thought—I just saw them, and I was like, hey, what if I got some for Miles, too? And it’s—probably dumb, but I just—yeah. Yeah, I dunno.”
Miles clears his throat and grins, wide and warm. “That’s not dumb. That’s… Thank you, Dylan.”
Dylan rubs a hand against the back of his neck and smiles, all cheesy, showing off his teeth. “I mean, you’re welcome, I guess. I just—I thought it would be nice, or whatever. But, I gotta, um—I forgot my essay that was due yesterday and promised to bring it to Miss T before first period, so…”
“I’ll see you in class,” Miles finishes, trailing off at the end in an almost question.
“Yeah,” Dylan says. “Yeah, I’ll—see you then. Yeah.”
Miles watches him walk away, holding onto the bag of sour patch kids in the middle of the hall and can tell when Peter approaches him, comes to a stop next to him and looks down the hall where Dylan disappeared, and then muses, “Did he just give you a bag of candy?”
Holding up the bag, Miles says, “Sour Patch Kids.”
“Huh.” Peter takes the bag from Miles hands, examines it with an impressed look on his face, then hands it back with a smile pulling on the ends of his lips. “Cute. He’s crushing on you, too.”
Miles whips his head around, eyes wide. “He’s what?!”
Peter’s grin widens. “I’m gonna go.”
“Wait—” Miles tries to stop him, but Peter steps around and walks away. Miles stares after him, too, clutches the sour patch kids to his chest in confusion. Thinks about what Peter said over, and over, and—
Dylan likes him back?
(“Ten bucks that they start dating this school year,” Harley says, arm wrapping around Peter’s waist to pull them closer to one another, pops a baby carrot in his mouth and glances around the lunch room.
Peter scoffs. “Are you kidding? They’re freshman gays, Harley. It’s gonna take longer than that.”
Ned points at Peter, brows high. “I agree with him. Baby gays are hopeless. They’re super slow.”
“Baby lesbians aren’t slow,” Michelle corrects. “But baby gays? Definitely slow. I say twenty bucks on them not getting together until their junior year. Thirty for senior year. Fifty for college.”
“Have a little faith,” Peter chides, shakes his head with the click of his tongue. “Sophomore year.”
Harley hums, then holds out his hand. “Ten bucks?”
Peter looks at him, quirks his lips. “Twenty bucks and a coffee date.”
“Ooh, you’re pushing your luck, Parker,” Harley laughs. “We have a deal?”
“You guys are gross,” Flash says, quirking a brow, though his smile is fond and amused.
Ignoring him, Peter grabs Harley’s hand and shakes it. “We have a deal.”)