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It’s cold. That’s the first thought Harley has as he wakes up. The second is pain. Deep in his bones, aching and stiff and forever. He’s always felt like this. He was born in pain and he’ll die in pain. Alone and cold in the dark.
He groans as he sits up, cringing at the scrape and clatter of his chains as they drag on the concrete. He wiggles his fingers but he can’t feel them—whether because of the cold or how he was laying, slumped at the base of one of four walls that makes up his cell, he doesn’t know.
It’s only a matter of time now. He can feel himself slipping. He’s spending less time awake and what little time he has been is jumbled and fuzzy. Soon. Soon he’s going to close his eyes and forget how to open them again.
Soon.
Soon…
…Soon…
With a gasp, he resurfaces from the black to the clanging of his chains. They’re so loud. He wants the noise to stop. Stop. He grabs at them with hands he can’t feel, attempting to still them, to quiet the racket, but it persists. Crashing! Booming! They’re oddly still despite all of the—
The wall at his back shudders and his chains— No, not the chains. Something else is making the noise, far away but drawing closer. A battle maybe.
He wishes he knew the ending. The heroes ought to win. The best stories end with the heroes winning, even if they lose some things. He wishes that…
He wishes…
Wishes…
A series of pops, harsh and forceful, bring him back this time. They’re close now. Much closer than before. His heart swells with hope for the first time in… a long time. It’s hard to track time here. Time doesn’t exist in this cell. Only dark and cold and pain.
Once more is all he needs. Just once and he can rest. Once and he’ll go quietly. Just so he knows what happened. One more time so he can tell him that’ll he’ll survive this. It’s all he asks.
Bang!
He blinks blearily at the open doorway across from him and the figure in white scrambling towards him with a gun across its torso.
“No,” he mumbles. No, this is all wrong. The good guys are supposed to win. This isn’t right at all. Don’t they know anything?
The figure grabs his arm and yanks, babbling something too fast for him to follow. He jerks back and cracks his head against the wall. He cries out. Pain. It’s all he knows. It’s all he’s ever known. He was born—
The white figure vanishes and in its place is a different figure, a familiar figure made up of red and blue.
“Harley?” He drops to his knees and takes in the manacles around his wrists and the chains embedded deep within the wall.
“Hey baby,” Harley croaks. He tries to smile but it hurts. Everything hurts.
“Oh my God, Harley,” Spider-Man gasps. Peter. That’s his Peter under there. “Can you stand? We have to get you out of here.”
Harley hums. He’s not sure if he has legs. He used to. He used to have them, but that doesn’t matter now.
“Naw. ‘S okay though. I only asked for one.”
“What? One what? We only have a little time to get you—,”
“One more. Kinda stupid now that I think about it,” he slurs. His tongue is like a block of wood in his mouth but slippery. “M’be shoulda asked for two.” He forces the corner of his mouth to shift up into an almost smile. He wishes he could see better. He wishes Peter wasn’t wearing the mask, but he can’t complain. “Just glad I got the one.” He puts a numb hand over Peter’s and pats it while his chain shriek at him. “You’ll be okay, darlin’. You’ll be okay.”
Then he stops fighting the darkness like he promised he would and it takes him.
~*~
The first thing Harley feels when he wakes up is surprise. This wasn’t part of the deal. The second is a familiar warm body beside him and he thinks, ‘Screw the deal.’
Moving still hurts but not as bad as before. The soft mattress certainly helps and there are at least ten pounds of blankets keeping the cold away from his bones but he can turn his head freely and when he does he finds Peter curled beside him scowling at his phone. Harley doesn’t say anything, he only drinks him in, but Peter must feel his gaze because he looks up and their gazes meet.
Two. He got two after all. At least two, he tells himself, joy swelling in his chest like a balloon.
“Hey,” he croaks when Peter fails to speak. First time for everything, huh? It takes an insane amount of effort but he manages to free an arm from under what he now sees is only three blankets. He brushes the back of his fingers against Peter’s cheek and is surprised when the chains don’t make a sound. Right, because they’re gone. He feels weird without the weight of them pulling against his every movement. “Missed you,” he tells Peter. It’s the understatement of the century but he doesn’t have a speech prepared considering he didn’t think he’d get this far.
“I—,” Peter clears his throat but his voice is still tight and for the first time Harley notices the red around his eyes and his pale pallor. “I’m not talking to you.”
“Oh?” he asks with a levity he doesn’t feel. He wants to wrap Peter up in all of these blankets and never let him out of his sight again. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
Peter glares, eyes glassy, then hides his face by pressing it against Harley’s chest. He says nothing.
That’s okay. He rests his hand on the back of Peter’s head and comforts himself by playing with the over-long curls at the nape of his neck. Talking this much has already taken a lot out of him. He doesn’t want to sleep yet. He wants to stay here with Peter at his side, basking in the warmth of him, the novelty of getting to hold him again after he resigned himself to never having this again. To never having anything again.
Despite all of his determination, he’s on the brink of sleep when Peter says, “You gave up.”
He hums in agreement and Peter sits up, propping his elbow on the bed so he can look Harley in the eyes as he says, “I saw you give up.”
He takes Peter in. Three. He got three more when he only asked for one. At least three. “I know,” he says.
“You know?” Peter sits up fully. It’s a tight fit in the bed but Harley isn’t going to complain about all the ways Peter is shoved against him, even if his knees are bony. “That’s all you have to say? Why didn’t you fight, Harley?”
He shakes his head. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“What deal? What are you talking about?”
“You know, the deal. I… It was to see you one more time so I could make sure you knew what happened to me and—,” He swallows, recalling the relief he felt when he realized Spider-Man had arrived. Not for himself. Not for rescue. “And so I could tell you that you would be okay.”
“You almost died, Harley!” Peter exclaims, tears pooling in his eyes.
“I know. Why d’you think I made the deal?”
“No,” Peter says emphatically. “No, not there. Here. You had hypothermia and you were dehydrated and— and— bruised all over but you wouldn’t wake up. You should have but you wouldn’t and you know what the doctors said? They didn’t know I could hear them but they said that sometimes when someone goes through a trauma like you did, they don’t want to come back. They don’t want to fight anymore. You— You quit on me, Harley.”
He lets out a shuddering breath and the tears break loose, running down to his chin before dripping free.
“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t think he can sit up or he would and he’d hold Peter the way he wants to. “I didn’t think… The deal was—,”
“The deal,” Peter spits. “What a garbage deal. Seeing me one more time? That’s it? What a waste of a death wish.”
“You think I started with one?” Harley demands, his temper cresting to meet Peter’s. “You think I didn’t run the gamut on everything else I thought I couldn’t miss out on before I settled on the single most important thing I absolutely couldn’t bear to leave without doing? I was dying, Peter.
“I could feel my body shutting down with me stuck inside it and all I could think about was what if you never found me? I can’t tell you how many times I woke up surprised I was still here and thought, I need to hang on a little longer so Peter knows. So he doesn’t have to wonder. Peace. A little peace of mind was all I had to give and it cost me everything to get it to you. So don’t— don ’t call me a quitter. I would never quit on you.”
A sob bursts from Peter’s lips and then another. “Harley, I was so scared.”
His flash of temper vanishes as quickly as it came. “I know. Honey, come here. I’m sorry. For all of it, I’m sorry.”
Peter curls over him, burying his face against his neck as he shudders and gasps.
He presses a kiss to Peter’s cheek and clings to him as tightly as his fatigued muscles can manage. ‘Thank you,’ he mouths silently. He thought it was a deal with the devil but either that wasn’t the case or the devil is a hopeless romantic.
The adrenaline rush he got from arguing is fading quickly and taking his remaining energy with it. As Peter’s sobs subside and his eyelids grow heavy he says, “Sweetheart, I’m gonna sleep again. Will you still be here tomorrow?”
Peter sits up and mops his cheeks roughly with his shirt as he says, “Of course.” He threads his fingers through Harley’s hair and leans close. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Harley stares up into his warm dark eyes. Four. Wow, how did he get so lucky? At least four, he reminds himself. At least. “I’m expecting number five now.”
“Five what?”
“The fifth time I get to see you again.”
A funny look graces Peter’s face. Like he wants to laugh but it hurts. “You’ve been counting?”
“Yeah. All of them.”
“Oh, your count might be a little off then. This is the fourth time you’ve woken up.”
“Wha— Really? I don’t remember anything.”
“It’s okay. You were pretty out of it. It’s been a long… Well a long two months, I guess.”
“Two months?” Harley echoes. “That’s how long they had me?”
Peter’s expression pinches into a very familiar one. “I’m sorry it took so long. We had to—,”
“Hey, let’s not go there, okay? I know how you are, Pete. You did everything you could and you got to me as fast as possible, probably faster than what should be possible knowing you. I’m just surprised is all.”
“How long did you think it was?”
He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to remember the way it felt. As though no time was passing at all. Like he’d always been there and always would be. Life before was less memory and more dream.
He shakes his head. “It felt like years,” is all he says. The need to sleep nags at him. He refocuses. “Tomorrow, or whenever I wake up, it’ll be eight times?”
“Yeah.” Peter smooths his hair from his forehead. Harley closes his eyes and basks in the gentle touch. “See you tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait,” Harley murmurs. He drifts to sleep to the feel of Peter’s hand in his hair, anchoring him, reminding him of what he needs to come back to.