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Peter drops his Iron Man helmet on the table then follows suit with his face. “There’s something wrong with me.”
Without turning from the slushie she’s pouring, MJ says, “There’s going to be even more wrong with you if Mr. Bulster catches you treating your suit like that.”
“The worst he can do is fire me and I’m starting to think it would be in my best interests.”
She rolls her eyes as she turns and snaps the domed lid atop the cup. She sets it in front of him and drops a straw beside it from the apron around her waist. “It was your dumb idea for us to get a summer job together before college. What did you think spending forty hours a week together would be like?”
He miserably unwraps his straw without picking up his head, and blindly jams it into his drink. “I thought we’d end up at a bowling alley or fucking Dairy Queen, I don’t know. Somewhere completely and utterly devoid of sex appeal.”
She snorts and perches on the bench opposite him as he sits up enough to slurp at his straw. “Some would say Coney Island fits in that shoe.”
“Some, sure. Someone like you working alone with only the deep-fried Oreoes to keep you company, but think of someone in my position, Em.”
“It’s not my fault you weren’t smart enough to request a position with air conditioning.”
“That’s not my point and you know it. You just like to brag.”
She smiles but then her attention shifts past him and her smile slips into a smirk. “Don’t look now but here comes your doppelganger.”
Peter moans and hunches further over his slushie. “Is he still wearing it?”
MJ’s stare moves leisurely up and down. “Oh yeah.”
“Stop it,” Peter hisses. “I can see you eye fucking him.”
She shrugs, unrepentant, and slips back to the slushie machine for a fresh cup. A moment later, the employee access door opens and Peter’s slushie is lifted unceremoniously from his grip.
“Hey!”
“Mmm, thanks babe.”
The bench shudders as Harley collapses beside him entirely too close. The heat of him after a day of prancing under the sun while encased in the plastic Iron Man armor is nearly unbearable. Peter doesn’t move away but he does rest his face on the table once more.
“I hate you.”
“Well, dang. Guess I’ll move back in with Tony.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
“Wonderful.”
“Fantastic.”
“Stupendous.”
“Subli—,”
MJ slams the second slushie in front of Peter’s nose. He flinches and pulls upright with a wounded expression.
She glares between them. “If you two don’t cut it out with your weird quasi-flirting, I’m kicking you both out of my shop.”
“Sorry.”
“I gotta go, anyway,” Harley says. He sets his filched slushie, now half-empty, in front of Peter and stands.
Peter perks up at his sudden fortune. One and a half slushies? For free? Score.
“How come?” MJ asks. “I thought we were all off at six on Wednesdays.”
“Mr. Bulster asked me to cover for Amy. She called in with the flu again. Figured I could use the extra cash and running the bumper cars is a sweet gig. Shaded. Breezey. No barf. And I get paid overtime. Wins all around.”
“You’re gonna miss movie night,” Peter points out without lifting his nose from his cup.
“Isn’t it Ned’s turn to pick?”
“Yeah?”
“Like I said, wins all around.”
MJ laughs and steps away to help a customer at the counter.
In her absence, Harley’s presence looms over him as he determinedly sucks until his straw runs dry. He sets the slushie aside to let it melt up a bit and pulls the other one under his chin.
“You gonna look at me?” Harley asks quietly.
“Nope.” Peter puts his lips around the straw and sucks.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m aware,” he says around his straw.
“I don’t look that bad, do I?”
Peter goes still.
This is a critical moment, he realizes. He can brush off Harley’s question with a joke—he can lean into it, rib him mercilessly, and maintain his pride—or he can tell the truth and humiliate himself but ensure that Harley doesn’t walk away self-conscious and insecure.
He closes his eyes. Sometimes he hates himself.
With a profound sigh, he releases his slushie and finally turns to face Harley.
The blue and red suit dazzles in the stream of summer sunshine through the picture window. His golden hair is a sweat-slicked halo that curls down to the red collar around his neck. The cheap shit spandex gleams over every curve of padding that he knows is under there to give Harley those pecs, the broad shoulders, the tapered waist, and that ass.
God strike him down now, his heart can’t take it. Don’t get him wrong, he loves Harley’s body—his natural body, not this artificial, sculpted thing in front of him. He loves Harley’s love handles and his soft tummy and how he can grab handfuls of thigh and—
Well.
The problem is, Peter is Spider-Man. Lusting after his boyfriend because he’s wearing a bastardization of his suit is giving him some serious identity issues. It begs the question: given the chance, would he fuck his clone? If his clone looked like Harley you bet your ass he would. Without hesitation.
There’s only one reasonable course of action. Straight-faced and dour, Peter meets Harley’s stare and admits, “You look incredible.”
Harley’s mouth twists into a frown. “Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping for an honest answer, Pete. I know I’m not…” He smooths a gloved hand down his chest and over his midriff where washboard padding obscures his natural pouch.
Peter has to close his eyes.
“I’m not you,” Harley finishes in a hush, “but I… I thought I looked okay.”
Peter opens his eyes. He looks only at Harley’s face, pink-cheeked from the heat, doubt shading his eyes, and repeats, “Harley, you look incredible.”
He shakes his head. “Then what’s—,”
“Maybe you should see about taking over the bumper cars full-time.”
“What? Why? I thought you wanted to work together this summer.”
“Maybe when we get home later you could try on my suit.”
There’s a choking sound from the counter and, too late, Peter realizes MJ is finished with her customer. Abruptly, the cotton candy machine fires to life.
Harley shoots an annoyed look toward the sudden noise then throws a leg over the bench, straddling it, and sits far far too close to Peter. He leans forward and raises his voice, “I don’t get it. Is it insulting? Is it…” He trails off, expression shifting. He searches Peter’s face and realization dawns like a struck bell.
Heat is creeping along Peter’s ears. He’s barely breathing now that Harley is so tantalizingly close. Only MJ’s presence keeps enough sense in his head to refrain from climbing onto his lap and losing them their jobs. Under his fingers, plastic creaks and he releases his thigh before he breaks his costume and has to drum up funds to replace it.
Harley leans back. “Holy shit. For real?”
Peter jerks his chin up and then down. He can’t help it. His gaze travels down down down to where the spandex stretches tight around Harley’s thighs. That, he knows, is all Harley. He licks his lips.
“I think… when we get home you should— You should try it on. My suit, I mean.” His eyes flick back to Harley’s face and catch the blush that crawls up above the collar of the suit and paints his face to his hairline in brilliant pink. Not kissing him now is physically painful.
“Pete, I… What the hell?”
“Something’s wrong with me.”
Harley laughs but it comes out a wheeze. “I’ll say.” He presses his hand to his face. “You know I’m not gonna fit, right? I’m too big.”
Peter makes a dying sound in his throat. “I think—,” He clears his throat. “I think we should try.”
Harley peeks at him through his fingers. “Jesus, look at you. This is really why you’ve been so weird?”
He nods woodenly.
“Is this like, uh, a possession thing? Like wearing each other’s clothes?”
Peter blinks at him. “I was thinking more a clone-fucking thing.”
Surprise flits across Harley’s face. Then he throws his head back and laughs.
All in one motion, he rocks forward, presses a slushie-cold kiss to Peter’s forehead, mutters, “I love you,” and rises to his feet. Peter keeps his eyes closed until he dismounts the bench and moves away.
“I’m off at ten,” Harley says. He cracks a grin. “Wanna get me off at eleven?”
Peter is too far beyond shame to answer with anything but the open honest truth. “Yeah.”
Harley’s grin grows until it wrinkles his nose. “It’s a date.” Then, hateful man that he is, he turns and struts toward the door, swinging his hips and whistling a bright tune.
He pushes through it, Peter’s forehead hits the table, and the cotton candy machine cuts out all in the same moment .
The door shuts.
“Ohhh my Goddddd,” Peter groans.
A quick pair of hands snatch away his slushies.
He lurches upright. “Hey!”
MJ makes direct eye contact as she drops them into the trash. “You’re forever uninvited from my shop. Leave.”
“Aww c’mon, Em. I’ll be good?”
“Leave.”
He knows that tone. He snatches up his Iron Man helm and shuffles for the employee exit. With one hand on the bar, he halfway turns and asks, “Forever, forever?”
She purses her lips and drums her fingers against her thigh. “You can come back tomorrow, but I don’t want to see you at movie night tonight. Me and Ned will do our own thing.”
He nods rapidly. “That’s totally fair. I think I’ll be busy anywa—,”
“Get out, Parker!”
Snickering, he ducks through the door and crams his helmet over his head. If he’s quick, he might be able to catch Harley in the locker room before his shift starts.