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Even if Peter hadn’t given out the specific coordinates for them to meet up at, it’s easy enough to spot Harry in the abandoned, dark alleyway from above thanks to the blue glow of his newly designed goblin tech. With one last swing forward, Peter lands almost silently to the ground, knees bent, with one set of fingers pressed to the gritty concrete. As he straightens back up and quickly pulls off his mask Harry is approaching him just as swiftly, the metal pieces of his own guise slotting away with a release of condensed air as he reaches up to slip off the hood, revealing a relieved, notably human face Peter has never been happier to see.
If anything, Peter planned to at least muster up a “Hey” when he got here, and Harry too looks as though he means to say something at Peter’s arrival, but in the end, as they come together each with uninterrupted strides, like two attracting magnets, they simply throw themselves at one another in a tight, wordless embrace.
They stay like that for long, stretching minutes, even with thoughts of Aunt May swirling around at the back of Peter’s mind, that he needs to change out of his suit and into his normal clothes and get home as soon as possible to let her know he’s even alive. But he has time, he’s sure. At least the time it would take for May to walk all the way back to their neighborhood in Queens.
If he weren’t so exhausted, Peter would have to watch his strength with his arms firmly—desperately—around Harry, even with the protective body armor on. But as it is, he’s almost leaning against the other for support, the bone-deep fatigue of the last several hours finally sinking in now that everything’s over, and there’s no one else to see him but Harry. Closing his eyes, Peter breathes in the familiar scents of metal, sweat, and chemicals, but with the mask and hood off, there’s the faintest whiff of lavender too that clings to Harry’s hair from his shampoo.
Harry, meanwhile, while keeping one arm wrapped around Peter’s waist, moves his other hand up to dig fingers into the back of Peter’s hair. He curls a fist into the strands at first, as if grounding himself, or perhaps determined to pull Peter all the more flush against his body. But as the calm seconds tick by, that grip eventually loosens, and then Harry is idly combing the tangles out of Peter’s saltwater dried hair, becoming a soothing drag against his skull that lulls him into an even deeper comfort.
But he has to say something. The longer time drags on, the higher the words bubble up in Peter’s throat, clogging up at the anxious lump there. But he swallows it down, and with an unconscious, bracing squeeze around Harry, Peter opens his mouth and—
“I’m so sorry—” comes their two overlapping voices on the exact same phrase.
Peter’s eyes snap open.
“What?” they both say at the same time, again.
They simultaneously release one another, still holding each other at arm’s length by light touches against an elbow or shoulder.
“For what?” they mimic in tandem.
“For blasting you out of the sky—”
“For dragging you into this mess—”
They stop short as their speech finally differentiates despite the continued overlap, and for a handful of heartbeats they just stare at each other, until they abruptly break the stillness by bursting into laughter.
It feels good to laugh. For as long as Peter allows the amusement to run through him like warm liquid, he can almost forget the hurt of his bruised up ribs and aching sides earned by tonight’s endeavors. And it feels good to see Harry smiling too, his cheeks slightly pink with mirth and eyes bright on pleasure. Peter would do anything to make sure Harry can always smile like that.
“I mean—” Peter starts to say through lingering chuckles as the laughter dies down enough for him to form words again, “I’ve certainly been hit with worse.”
Harry smiles wide but warm, down to a last small chortle before replying, “And I knew what I was getting into when you asked for my help.” The touch of his hands rest more solidly on Peter’s upper arms.
“…Yeah, well.” Peter breaks eye contact as he forces his next small laugh, “Pretty sure out of all the things you signed up for, being taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform along with all of our friends bent on hunting me down and taking over the entire planet wasn’t one of them…” At first his voice is high on flippant teasing, but as the words spill out like a flood he can no longer contain, he can feel them settle at the bottom of his stomach like lead weights, dragging down the lift of his tone and pulling strain across his features.
“Hey.”
Gloved hands come up to cup Peter’s face and guide it back to look Harry in the eyes again. The smile is gone from Harry’s mouth, but to replace it is a soft, yet penetrating look to his gaze that immediately makes Peter want to cry.
“I’m okay,” Harry says firm but gentle.
Peter blinks back a sudden, burning surge at the back of his eyes and his tense smile falls. He swallows again.
“I-I know,” Peter replies and means it. “I know. It’s just…” He brings his own hands up to place over Harry’s and move them off the sides of his head so he can look away again, but he doesn’t let go. “I don’t know.” He huffs a frail laugh. He feels so tired. “When it happened, I just— It all happened so fast I…” while Peter talks, he can feel Harry shifting his hands in Peter’s own to intertwine their fingers properly, and Peter squeezes them for comfort, “It’s like I blocked it out?” he rasps as the sting of unshed tears starts to blur his vision and choke up his throat, even if he’s not really looking at anything, only trying to avoid meeting Harry’s eyes. So his head drops and he leans forward to press his forehead in the crook where Harry’s neck meets shoulder, and he doesn’t have to worry about maintaining any sort of facial expression.
“Otherwise I couldn’t function—” Peter continues, shutting his eyes, but cuts himself short out of the fear of attracting a sob if he goes on.
“I get it,” Harry soothes, and he releases his hold on Peter’s hands to wrap his arms around him again, but nowhere near as crushingly tight as before.
“You must’ve been scared—” Peter croaks as the hands left at his sides ball up into trembling fists.
“Yeah,” Harry answers light and easy. “Not gonna lie. This is pretty high up there on my ever-growing list of lifelong traumas.”
That startles a shaky laugh out of Peter before he can reel it in, and he instantly feels awful about it.
“I was scared, but…” Harry keeps on talking, voice lowering to a calm, comforting tenor near Peter’s ear, “…I knew you’d save me. Save everyone. Save the city.”
Harry slips his arms away from Peter’s frame and takes a half step back to give himself the room to tip Peter’s chin up by a hand, forcing him to look at the soft, affectionate smile that graces Harry’s perfect face. Peter is so caught by it he doesn’t even make a move to turn away to hide the building tears marbling at the corners of his eyes.
“You always do, Pete.” Harry utters with far more fondness than Peter thinks he deserves, and Harry brings his other hand up to wipe at Peter’s right eye with a thumb, before tipping in to press his lips to Peter’s.
It’s a brief, but tender kiss, and as Harry pulls back the tears start to roll down Peter’s cheeks. He sniffs hard and buries his face again into Harry’s chest while wrapping his arms around him, and Harry doesn’t hesitate to return the embrace.
Peter doesn’t know for how long he cries for, only that it’s until he can’t physically cry anymore. All the while Harry doesn’t say a word, and his hold around Peter never wavers, somehow feeling incredibly warm despite the metal pieces to his garb that should chill it. Still there’s a nagging at the back of Peter’s mind of other things he should be doing, other places he should be. But for as long as he’s here, in the quiet and peace of this moment, this spot, with the sensation of strong, familiar arms securely around him…those things can wait.