Archive of Our Own

A light breeze stirs the early morning fog that crowds the Avengers compound and whites out the world to none but their research team of four. Tony, their self-appointed leader, clears his throat and looks down his nose at them. Since he’s the shortest this is only possible thanks to the incline of the spaceship’s docking ramp and his position at the head of it.

He pitches his voice to carry. “Before we embark on this scientific expedition I’m going to lay down some very strict rules.”

On Peter’s right, Bruce shifts and huffs impatiently.

“Hey, this is serious, Jolly Green. Listen up.” Tony holds up five fingers. “Rule number five, anybody that messes with my music gets thrown out the airlock, no exceptions.”

On Peter’s left, Harley snorts.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you, Johnny Cash. Mitts off or you’re as good as freeze dried and vacuum sealed. Rule number four, no fragrances. That means no body spray, no candles, and no air fresheners. If I catch so much as a whiff of an artificial scent, I’ll make the owner eat it. Rule number three…”

He begins to pace across the width of the ramp.

“No sticky business. Sorry kid but we’re not chancing a heart attack in space because you get the itch to pace the ceiling and scare poor Brucie into thinking he’s in Alien. Which brings us to rule number two, don’t set off the green rage monster.”

“Tony—,”

“That one’s for me,” he says over Bruce. “I can be fair and include myself in the rules.” He stops pacing and looms over them. “The last rule is the most important so I need your undivided attention. Are you listening?”

He looks unmistakably from Peter to Harley then back to Peter.

Peter nods.

“Get on with it, old man.” Harley shifts his one allotted bag higher on his shoulder. “Some of us would like to breach atmo before the heat death of the universe.”

Tony eyeballs him but doesn’t rise to his bait like he usually does. His gaze shifts and Peter finds himself drawing up to his full height under his unlaughing stare.

“Rule number one, do not have a one-night stand with your coworker on the spaceship.”

A sliver of Peter’s soul slaws off and dies.

— 1 —

The ship stabilizes and a minute later, Bruce’s all-clear rings over the intercom. Peter unbuckles and folds his launch seat into the wall of the sleeping cabin. It locks into place with a satisfying click.

They’re in space. They’ll spend the next couple of days traveling to a small moon orbiting Saturn and then the collection and research portion of their trip will begin. He tried to convince Tony to make a pit stop on Earth’s moon, but apparently he’s the only who feels it’s a betrayal to take his first moonwalk on a another planet’s moon.

Harley sidles up beside him and opens a compartment set into the wall.

Peter’s face goes hot and he squats in front of his own compartment with his head down to hide what is surely a magnificent blush.

“So,” Harley pulls his travel bag out of the compartment, “any thoughts about rule number one?”

Peter closes his eyes. He’s going to die. Right here right now, before he gets to do any cool space stuff and before he has a chance to exact revenge against Tony, he’s going to pass away from the humiliation. He can’t believe Tony would out his crush like this but here they are. Suffering.

“Personally, I didn’t realize Tony and Bruce were that close,” Harley continues in the same casual tone.

It takes a moment for his meaning to soak through the wall of horror in Peter’s mind, but then he snorts and, unbidden, looks up in time to catch Harley’s crooked smirk.

“The tension has been unbearable,” Peter says. “I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

Harley’s smirk widens into a smile and maybe Peter is projecting but he thinks he spots a hint of relief in his expression before he steps around him and upends his bag onto Peter’s bunk.

Then he gets a look at what Harley brought and his smile slips. He abandons his compartment.

“What’s all this?”

“A project. You love projects.”

“We’re already— Hold on. You used our super limited spaceship storage space for hair dye?”

“And developer, lightener, and everything else we’ll need, yeah,” Harley says as though this is somehow reasonable. He paws through the heap of stuff and separates out his few articles of clothing from the rest.

“We?” Peter parrots. “We are nothing. I didn’t sign up for this. We’re—,”

“—on a spaceship! There’s no laws. No rules.”

“Uh, if you listen to Mr. Stark there are actually a few—,”

“That’s your problem, Pete. You gotta stop hanging on his every word and live a little. Help me out.”

Peter withers. “Why here? You’re an adult. You could dye your hair whenever.”

“Because I want to.” He crosses his arms. “Are you going to help or not?”

Peter sighs. Harley is, as always, an enigma.

He loves a good enigma.

~*~

“My ear is burning, my ear is burning.”

“Well if you would hold still—,”

“You’re taking forever!”

“It’s a process! Here, wipe off your ear.”

“Gross, did you just take this off your foot? I’m starting to think you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t. I told you that. It’s not my fault you didn’t think to download a tutorial before we went to space where there’s no YouTube. Either use the sock or suffer the chemical burns. I don’t care anymore.”

“Ah-ha! So at one point you cared.”

Peter stutters into silence. He’s 90% sure Harley is just bickering to fill the silence, as they do, but that 10% is compelling in its insistence that Harley isn’t going to gloss over Tony’s spilling of the beans forever. At some point he’s going to want answers.

Or rather, he’ll want to let Peter down easy into the garbage compactor of ‘I’m flattered but I don’t think of you that way.’

Either way, Peter needs to avoid that conversation for as long as possible.

“Seriously, Pete. I think we need to rinse now.”

“Right.” He returns his attention to the bleach coating Harley’s scalp and standing his hair in stiff spikes ringed with foam at their base. “And how do we do that?”

“The only way we can.”

They sneak down a narrow metal corridor that runs the length of the ship from sleeping quarters to cockpit. Midway down, Tony and Bruce’s voices carry from the engine room. He and Harley creep past then hang a sharp left and duck into the lab.

He hoses Harley down in the emergency wash station. He won’t lie, it’s cathartic. There’s no temperature control but that doesn’t stop him from thoroughly removing every speck of bleach while Harley writhes and spits like an angry cat under the freezing spray.

When Peter finally releases the lever and the water flow ceases, Harley glares at him from under dripping shock-white fringe.

“You enjoyed that too much.”

“Just enough, I think actually.” He pulls the lever and douses Harley once more. Then he has to run as Harley lunges at him.

There’s nowhere to go but up.

“Hey, you’re breaking rule number three!” Harley complains.

Peter nestles into the corner over the door, his hands stuck fast to the wall and his feet perched precariously on the door frame. His unsocked foot is quite cold by now.

“I thought it was rule number two.”

“Whatever. Get down here so I can wail on you.”

“You’re so charming and persuasive.”

Like flipping a switch, Harley goes from angry half-drowned cat to sleek southern viper. He combs his hair off his face and smiles his best lazy smile. The way he looks up at Peter makes the air in the room turn solid.

“Honey, I can be.”

A hot flush creeps from under Peter’s collar. He almost drops from his perch just to get away from the insistent invitation of Harley’s stare, but there is no away, only hither.

He stays stuck exactly where he is.

“I think you mean harming and putrescent.”

Harley rolls a step closer and purrs. “I contain multitudes. Come down here and I’ll give you a demonstration. Unless you’re scared, then stay in your little coward’s corner.”

“I’m not— I know what you’re doing.”

Harley tips his head to the side. His shoulders are soaked, turning the fabric from red to burgundy, and his hair is dripping rivulets down his neck. Peter tracks one over the hinge of his jaw until it disappears into the cotton of his shirt.

“Do you?” He takes a step closer. “‘Cuz I seriously doubt it.”

Peter narrows his eyes and in a fit of rebellion, releases his hold on the wall and drops. He lands fluidly in front of Harley. He’s not afraid of him. He won’t let his emotions get the better of him. He—

Harley steps closer, slow and deliberate. Like he’s trying not to spook a hungry raccoon but also really needs to get his backpack from behind the dumpster where she’s hunkered over a soggy pizza box.

Peter steps back but his naked heel skids against the door. Aw, beans.

There’s a moment, as Harley boxes him against the door, when Peter thinks maybe, maybe Harley isn’t going to trap him in a headlock and give him the wet willy of a lifetime. Where he thinks, maybe, instead of sucker punching him and running for the bathroom (the only lockable door on the ship), Harley might kiss him.

Their eyes meet. Harley’s gaze dips to his lips and Peter stops breathing. Surely—

The door slams open into the back of Peter’s head. His forehead forcibly meets Harley’s nose and his short fantasy devolves into blood, shouting, and lots and lots of swearing.

— 2 —

Peter is surrounded by stars.

Above, below, and ahead, the infinite cosmos is suspended around him— a dazzling explosion held frozen a moment after detonation for him to wonder at. It’s awesome in the most literal definition of the word.

Yet his attention continues to shift unerringly to the darkened interior of the cockpit and the person sprawled beside him with twin balls of toilet paper shoved up his nose.

As Harley’s hair dries, it fluffs up like a nest of feathers, white at the tips and a brassy yellow at the roots. He’s pretty sure the white is a sign he let the bleach sit too long but he refuses to feel bad since Harley sprang the whole thing on him without warning.

He feels a little bad about his nose though. Or he did, before Harley started roasting his taste in music.

“Again,” Peter snaps, “if I’d known you wanted to do a quasi space road trip I would have downloaded better music before we left Earth and the internet.”

“I’m not even talking about that anymore, Pete. I just find it fascinating that you only listen to movie scores and anime soundtracks.”

“I listen to more than—,”

“But that’s all you have saved and it’s not even good stuff.”

“You seriously need to listen to Tank before you dunk on me anymore. Also, How to Train Your Dragon has—,”

“—a killer score. Yeah, yeah I heard you the first time. What’s this?”

The first notes of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You begin to play, except they’re jangled and horrible because someone fed the mp3 file through a MIDI converter then converted back and Peter downloaded it because it made him and Ned laugh until they threw up.

He dives for his phone.

“Ow! The hell is wrong with— Get off!”

Peter dodges the wild fist Harley swings at his face, overbalances, and tumbles out of the co-pilot’s chair to the cold metal floor with his phone cradled against his chest.

Harley leans over and glowers down at him. Stars that have nothing to do with Peter’s impact with the ground dance all around him through the bubble of glass that encases the cockpit.

“You lost a thingy,” Peter says breathlessly. He gestures at Harley’s face where only one wad of toilet paper remains crammed up his nose.

Harley’s brow remains furrowed as he flares his nostrils and exhales like a bull, sending the final bit of toilet paper zinging out of his nose.

A laugh bubbles out of Peter so suddenly he’s helpless to contain it. By the time he catches his breath, Harley’s glare is gone and in its place is an indulgent softness that steals Peter’s breath all over again as they pass under a cluster of stars that seem close enough to touch.

“You’re so fucking weird, Parker.”

“You can’t judge when all you listen to is country.”

“That’s not what I—,” He shakes his head and sits back in his chair. “Are you going to lay down there for the whole trip or what?”

Peter watches his side profile, illuminated by the control panel and the pure glow of the starlight. His bleached hair sits atop his head like a halo.

“I might. The view is incredible.”

Harley cranes his neck back to look straight up through the glass and makes a noise of consideration. “Alright, scoot over.”

Peter startles as Harley slips out of his chair and wiggles between the pilot and co-pilot chairs where he’s laying. He presses himself against the co-pilot chair but Harley still has to lay half on top of him to fit until they figure out how to angle their torsos to make room for the other’s shoulders.

There isn’t an inch of Peter’s left side from his shoulder to hip that isn’t mashed against Harley. He’s sure Harley can feel his thundering heart, they’re so close.

“Well, this is, umm—,” Peter clears his throat, “cozy? It was kind of chilly down here but now I’m—,”

“Wow.”

The word whispers from between Harley’s lips with enough reverence to stall Peter’s nervous babbling. His face is turned upward, illuminated in starlight, eyes wide and lips parted in wonder as he soaks in the cosmos.

Peter can’t look away. Harley isn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve. He’s not like Peter where every thought he has is displayed on his face for passerby to read like a book. He’s guarded. Everything he feels goes through twelve layers of filtering before he lets it show. So this unmoderated display of awe is a treat that Peter gobbles up like a gluttonous rat. He wants to get his greedy little hands all over the look on Harley’s face and squirrel it away to ogle at whenever he wants.

He doesn’t know how long they lay there, drifting through the stars, but eventually he becomes aware of a fine trembling against his side. He’s been sneaking looks at Harley this whole time, but now he props himself up on his elbow and looks.

Why is Harley only wearing a t-shirt? He knows space is cold. Tony told them a million times what to expect and what to pack.

“Are you cold?”

Harley shoots him an flat look. “No, I’m trembling with excitement,” he deadpans.

“Why don’t you go get—,” Realization strikes. He sits up fully, forcing Harley to do the same or get a knee jammed into an unfortunate location. “Did you seriously pack hair dye instead of a sweater?”

Harley leans back against the pilot chair so their legs, pulled up at the knees, are parallel. “And lightener and gloves and—,”

“Oh my God. Why would you do that? What’s so important about dying your hair now?”

“It’s not like I’m going to freeze to death. So I’ll be uncomfortable for a week, big deal.”

He’s staring Peter down as though daring him to argue and while normally Peter wouldn’t be averse to crushing Harley in a pointless debate, he’s still shivering.

He pushes to his feet. “Hold on.”

He, unlike Harley, utilized every inch of his restricted packing space for comfort. He brought games, fruit snacks, a puzzle, extra-thick socks, extra extra-thick socks, and three sweaters.

When he returns to the cockpit he’s disappointed to find Harley back in the pilot’s seat with his arms crossed as his scrolls through a playlist.

“Here.” Peter dumps the sweater on his head. “I can’t believe you’ve been walking around space with wet hair and no sleeves.”

It’s a testament to how uncomfortable Harley is that he slips the sweater over his head without protest.

Peter’s heart pangs painfully. Perhaps he chose the navy hoodie purely for what it would do to Harley’s eyes, but he’ll walk out the airlock before he admits it.

Harley thrusts his phone into Peter’s hands. “Choose something you know.”

Peter collapses sideways into the co-pilot seat with his legs over the armrest and dutifully flips through Harley’s music. “Why do you want to listen to music so bad anyway?”

“That’s what you do on road trips, right?”

Peter shrugs. “I guess. The only road trips I’ve been on are up to the compound and Happy doesn’t like it when I make any noise at all.”

“Really?”

Peter looks up and finds Harley watching him with an oddly serious expression.

“I don’t get out of the city much.” He shrugs and returns to the phone but watches Harley watch him in his peripheral vision until he finally finds a song he recognizes. He taps it and passes the phone back to Harley as the piano cuts in.

Harley laughs. “Dancing Queen? Really?”

“Why not? Turn it up, come on. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to sing along as loud as possible.”

With a grin, Harley cranks it as loud as it will go. Considering the ship is Tony’s design, it goes pretty freaking loud.

They’re standing in their seats screaming into Harley’s phone turned microphone when the door opens and Tony hauls Bruce into the cockpit by the elbow.

“You’re having a dance party without me?”

“I was in the middle of testing a highly unstable—,”

“Lighten up, Brucie Baby. It’s a party! Feel the beat from the tambourine, ohhh yeeeaaah!”

Peter cackles as Tony takes Bruce by the waist and twirls with him while Bruce’s expression collapses into a familiar exasperated fondness.

Then Harley is leaning in, eyes on Peter, and bellowing, “Yoou can tryyy having the time of your life, ohhh!”

Singing at the top of his lungs with his eyes locked on Harley is a ninety-story free fall. There’s a fluttering in his stomach and his lungs are tight from the lack of air in the room. He tries to reign it all in as the song winds to an end but he swears Harley’s gaze dips to his mouth for an instant, a heartbeat.

It’s his foolish, hopeful heart and his spastic limbs that make him slip off the chair. It’s his Parker luck that makes him fall onto the control panel.

A lever stabs into his kidney and knocks the wind out of him. Then the spaceship lurches and he tumbles to the floor.

Tony is yelling. Harley is yelling back. Bruce shoves past both of them and takes the pilot’s seat as Peter crawls off the floor.

Bruce taps a button and toggles a few instruments then there’s a kick from the engine and Tony and Harley go quiet.

“We’re fine.”

Bruce doesn’t look away from the control panel but Peter catches the hint of green coloring his neck and surreptitiously hooks Harley by the belt loop and tugs him back.

“We’re fine,” Bruce repeats and falls back in his seat with a breath of relief.

Tony turns on Peter brandishing his finger, but Harley is conveniently between them and refuses to give ground in the face of Tony’s ire.

“No more dance parties! This is exactly why I made rule number five.”

Harley crosses his arms and pulls his shoulders back. “Dance parties set off the Hulk?”

“What? No! Rule number five was not to mess with the music.”

“No one touched your music, old man.”

“Congratulations, smart ass. Now you’re banned from the cockpit. Out! Go on. You too, Underoos. You’re just as complicit, if not more so. Out!”

Peter catches Harley by the hips as he steps back onto his foot and stumbles. Together they stagger toward the door while Tony stalks them like an angry goose.

“It was an accident!” Peter complains. “You’re the one who said no sticky business. I wouldn’t have fallen if—,”

“Nope, nope, none of that. You don’t get to pin this on me. You screwed up. You—,”

“Tony, it’s okay. We had a scare but ultimately—,”

Tony whirls on Bruce. “You’re taking their side?”

Bruce sighs tiredly and brings a hand to his forehead. Beneath it, he shoots them a pointed look.

They don’t need to be told. Peter turns, snags Harley by the hand, and they escape down the hall to the sleeping cabin. He doesn’t think anything of his choice of sanctuary until Harley pulls the door shut and the sudden close quarters scatter his vague thoughts of doing something nice for Bruce.

He releases Harley’s hand belatedly and hopes Harley doesn’t notice how quickly he snatches free.

In the quiet, he coughs and sits on his bunk. “You umm… You ready for color?”

He turns when Harley doesn’t immediately answer and finds him watching him with an unreadable expression.

“Sure,” Harley says after a beat. He pulls his pack from the secure compartment beside his top bunk and takes out a small bottle.

“Purple?”

He doesn’t know what he expected. Harley seems fond of bold feminine colors if his magenta and violet Iron Lad suit is anything to judge by, so purple is well within character for him, but he’s struggling to envision him looking any different than he has since Peter met him. There are few constants in Peter’s life but Harley has been one of them since the day he stepped onto the helipad at Avenger’s tower with a casual insult for Tony and a conspiratorial smirk over Tony’s shoulder for Peter.

Harley tosses him the bottle. “I had no choice. Look at the name.”

“Cosmic Violet.” He snorts. “Nice.”

“You ready to turn me into a space case?”

Peter shakes the bottle. “Tony’s going to have a conniption. I don’t think he noticed your hair before.” It was dark in the cockpit and there’s no way Tony would let something ridiculous like running a beauty salon on a spaceship slip by without comment.

“All the more fun.”

When Harley smiles, Peter has to blink the starlight out of his eyes.

— 3 —

“Hold still. You’re so squirmy.”

Peter sets his jaw and forces back a shiver as Harley runs his index finger down his palm. They’re alone in the lab and Harley’s freshly cosmic violet hair is damp and startlingly vivid. Rather than sit on stools, they have their backs to the chemical cabinet and the sink respectively and their knees are touching as they sit opposite each other with Peter’s hand in Harley’s lap and his heart in his mouth.

“I still don’t understand why we’re doing this.”

“You refused to play Bloody Mary and I couldn’t fit May’s tarot cards in my pack,” Harley explains with an irrational rationality. “So palm reading is all that’s left.”

“How do those things exist on the same list as space travel?”

He shrugs and consults the deeply creased scrap of notebook paper on his knee. He snorts.

“What?” Peter demands.

“Your head line is a fucking canyon.”

“So?”

“So that means you’re shit at communicating.”

“I could have told you that.”

Harley grins impishly from under his eyebrows. A purple lock slips and hangs over his nose. “Maybe if you weren’t so shit at communicating you would have.”

“Fuck off.”

Harley is still smiling as he returns his attention to the hand he has captured in both of his. Peter bites his lip as he smooths his thumb over the meaty ridge that cushions the heel of his hand and then across his wrist.

“Your heart line is broken.”

Peter’s heart thumps hard. “Doomed for heart break?”

“Nah, means you’re a cheater or some shit.”

“Oh.”

“But see how it splits and shoots up toward your index finger? That’s the ring of Solomon. Tells you how good you are at doing selfless good for mankind. Makes sense you’d break your own heart to help other people.”

What the hell is he supposed to say to that?

“Oh look.” Harley turns his hand so the inside of his thumb is prominent and grins up at him. “The top section is your will and the bottom is logic. Look how small logic is compared to your will. I always knew you were a bullheaded dumbass and now we have proof.”

Peter tugs his hand free. “This is stupid.”

Harley shrugs and leans back against the chemical cabinet. “I thought it would be but now I think there might be something to it.”

“You’re just reinforcing what you already think you know. It’s bullshit.”

Harley shrugs. “Yeah, probably, but I got to hold your hand for like twenty minutes so I can’t ignore that kind of value.”

There is a long moment during which Peter forgets to breathe and Harley studies him like a scientist experimenting with a new method, eager to track the results. His gaze sags to Peter's lips.

Although he's rooted to the floor with anxiety, Peter manages to lean away.

What is happening? Why is Harley doing this? It's because of what Tony said, isn't it? Now that it's in Harley's head that they could he's pushing Peter, testing to see if he will.

Dammit, Tony.

Harley's gaze flicks back up to Peter's eyes, then with a nonchalance that Peter couldn't hope to achieve in his wildest dreams, let alone after dropping a bomb like that, Harley rises to his feet and opens the chemical cabinet.

His voice echoes from the depths of the cabinet. "Are you more of a whiskey guy or a cheap-shit vodka guy?"

"Excuse me?" Peter squeaks.

Harley's entire upper body is in the maw of the cabinet now. Glass clinks and he grunts as he retreats and turns with two bottles of alcohol held aloft in victory. "Vodka or whiskey? I'll be honest, neither are good but they should work for our purposes."

"Which is what exactly? You want to get wasted on a spaceship? Is that on your weird bucket list or whatever you're doing?"

"It's kind of the opposite of a bucket list," Harley says musingly. "But yeah, getting drunk with you is on the list, which brings me back to my question." He wiggles the bottles and hikes up his eyebrows until they vanish behind a wall of purple.

Peter sighs. He's so going to regret this.

— 4 —

Peter moves the whiskey bottle away from Harley's fumbling fingers and pours another finger of vodka down the sink above his head while Harley is distracted untangling his legs enough to stand.

For Peter's part, he's stone-cold sober.

First of all, there is a desperate lack of foresight in half of the crew of their lonely little spaceship getting drunk without so much as giving the other half a heads up. Secondly, he doesn't know if his metabolism will even let him. He'd have to chug this entire bottle of vodka to get close and even then, who knows how long it would last. Third, he doesn't trust himself to be drunk around Harley.

So he's faking it.

It’s a new low, yeah.

"This is nice, Pete." Harley settles beside him with his back against the sink and slumps over his shoulder. "I thought I'd hate it cuz of my dad, but it's nice."

"Why'd you do it if you thought you'd hate it?"

He sniffs and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "It was on the list. All the stuff I missed."

"What list, Harley? You said it's not a bucket list."

"'S'not. Bucket lists are stuff you wanna do before you kick the bucket. This is stuff I shoulda done when I was young and dumb but didn't."

"You were supposed to get drunk and didn't and that's a bad thing?"

"No, like, kid stuff, you know? Normal stuff. I figured since you and me, we weren't really normal, we could do some of it together while we aren't distracted by save the world stuff, you know?" He grins against Peter's shoulder and huffs a quiet laugh. "’s kinda far away for savin'."

"I guess, yeah.” He swirls the vodka and together they watch it whirlpool in the bottle. “How long have you been thinking about this?"

"Not real long. Just since Abbie's eighteenth. She was tellin' me all the stuff her ‘n her friends got up to and I realized I'd never done any of it."

"Harley,” Peter begins delicately, “Abbie's going to turn twenty-one next month."

"Mmm, 's why I had to hurry up. At least I got to do this part before her."

Peter considers the bottle that he's holding by the neck. Harley's right that neither of them grew up "normal". Peter nipped his childhood in the bud at fourteen when he got bit by that spider and decided to pursue a life of vigilantism. And Harley... Well, he didn't step into the vigilante life until he was a fully-fledged adult with rent to pay and a full-time job, but from what Peter knows he had to grow up fast.

He's not sure which is harder, being a single parent or being the eldest child of a single parent.

"You've really never been drunk before?"

Harley turns his face towards Peter's and ends up burying his nose in the underside of his jaw. His breath is hot on Peter's neck. "Not with my best friend."

Peter closes his eyes. His pulse is a steady thrum of electricity under his skin, testing him, prodding him to lean into Harley like Harley is leaning into him. To dip down and catch Harley’s lips with his own.

But he owes his friend better than this lie.

Decision made, stupid though it may be, Peter puts the vodka to his lips and drains the rest of the bottle. Finished, he drops it into the sink behind his head.

"Shit, Pete." Harley is no longer leaning into him. Instead, his hands find Peter's cheeks and he sways so close their noses nearly brush. "You're gonna drink us out of house and home." His smile twists into a bitter thing. "Ha, sorry. Tried to be funny but—," He shakes his head and falls away. "Sorry."

"I'm not drunk yet. Do you want me to be drunk with you? That's what's on the list, right?"

"Yeah, but I dunno if I'll like it. My dad was a real shithead when he was drunk. Probably when he wasn't drunk too but I wouldn't know."

"I promise not to be a shithead."

"Nah, I know. You're a sweetheart under all of your grump and dorkiness."

"Wow. Thanks."

"It's me I'm— You know… What if I'm just like him? That would suck. I’d hate that."

"Harley, you're drunk right now and you're the same as you've always been. Maybe a bit chattier than normal, but still you."

Harley hums. "Well if I start being an asshole just knock me out and when I'm normal again tell me I'm not allowed to drink anymore. Ever, I mean."

"Alright. I'll do that, but if you want me drunk I'm going to have to down the whiskey now or I'll never get there."

"M’kay. I'm gonna watch again."

Peter pauses with the bottle halfway to his lips. It's dirty to ask revealing questions while Harley is drunk but he swears there have been several times since they breached atmo where Harley has looked at him like he wants to kiss him and Peter needs to know why. For his own peace of mind.

He turns so he and Harley are face to face. "How come?"

"Hmm?" Harley raises a hazy stare from the bottle to Peter's face.

"How come you want to watch?"

"Oh. Because you look incredible." His expression lurches. "Don't worry though. I was joking when I told Tony I was gonna have a one-night stand with you."

Peter's stomach flips. "You— What?"

Harley leans close, anxiety written all over his face. His breath reeks like alcohol and stale Cheetos. "I wouldn't, you know that right? I wouldn't ever. Not with you, Pete."

"Oh." Something in his chest squeezes until it cracks. "Okay."

Harley's fingers find his jaw, tentative and probing but firm. His brow is creased with concern. "What's wrong? It's good, right? I wouldn't ever, ever, ever—,"

"I get it, Harley," Peter snaps.

The whiskey is even less appealing than it was before. He's never been one to drown his sorrows but maybe if he's very very lucky he'll drink this fast enough to erase the memory of his broken heart.

— 5 —

Finishing the whiskey was a mistake. His stomach is hot and unsettled. While his mind is foggy, he’s still uncomfortably aware that Harley just told him that he wouldn’t ever, ever sleep with him.

“Truth or dare?”

“I hate truth or dare,” Peter grumbles.

“Truth then. Who do you have a crush on?”

“Harley, I'm not playing.”

All he wants is to go to bed and hope that when he wakes up he finds all of this was just a nightmare, but Harley is determined to utilize his less than sober state while it lasts.

“Ugh, fine.” Harley swirls the empty whiskey bottle with his finger. “Spin the bottle?”

“You're hilarious.”

Harley sighs and lays flat on the floor. To the ceiling, he says, “Thanks for putting up with me. Sorry for making this trip so weird."

“I'm not putting up with you.”

Harley doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know I'm like, a pain in the ass.”

Peter sighs and doesn't make the joke he wants to. His heart isn't in it.

“I just, I never got to do stupid shit when I was supposed to, you know? Mama had too much on her plate and Abbie needed someone who’d always be there and I was it, so...” He sniffs and gingerly rubs his nose. Dark purple bruises are starting to fester under his eyes from his meeting with Peter's forehead earlier. “I did what needed done and I don’t regret doin’ it, but I missed all the stupid little things. It’s dumb, I know.”

“It’s not dumb.”

“Feels dumb. Feels like— I dunno. I’m sorry I made you do all of this stupid stuff. It’s not even fun. Sorta sucks actually.”

“You’re not having fun?”

Harley shakes his head. “You’re not having fun.”

“The road trip was fun,” Peter offers tentatively.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Doing your hair was fun.”

Harley pulls a face. “I don’t like it. Looks weird.” He blows a purple lock forcefully from his forehead. The bleach killed his natural curls so it hangs weirdly straight.

“You’ll get used to it. It’s only been a couple hours.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’ll shave it off when we get home and it’ll be like none of this happened.”

Peter wishes it was that easy. “How come you want to pretend none of this happened?”

“Said somethin’ wrong. I don’t… I can’t remember, but I said it and now you’re upset and you’re not having fun.”

“I’m… I’m having fun.”

Harley snorts. “Try the other one, sweetheart.” He winces and sits up. “That was shitty. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. God, I’m such shit.”

"It's fine. It didn't bother me."

"It bothered me. I don’t wanna talk to you like that."

Peter frowns. "Like what?"

"Like how my dad talked to my mom.”

Peter’s damaged heart sinks to his toes. Like, oh. Harley doesn't want to have sex with him or be romantic. Got it. Got it. Got it.

All at once, he’s too tired to keep pretending. “I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“Wait!” Harley surges onto his knees, overbalances, and lands against Peter’s chest.

Peter catches him and they end up nose to nose, breathing the same air. Harley blinks slow and again his eyes dip down to Peter’s mouth before slowly crawling back to his eyes.

“Can I?”

Peter closes his eyes. “No. Let’s— Let’s go to bed, Harley.” He stands and helps Harley to his feet. Whatever minuscule buzz he had is gone now. “You can take my bunk so you don’t have to deal with the ladder.”

“I fucked up. I’m sorry. I thought— Can we just pretend this didn’t happen?”

Peter wishes he could. He really really does.

— +1 —

The next morning, Peter wakes up with heartburn and a sour stomach. He lays in Harley’s top bunk staring at the ceiling with each miserable memory intact, wishing them away until Bruce quietly climbs down from his own bunk and gets dressed.

For want of a distraction, Peter follows him to the lab.

After a few hours in the lab, he follows him to the engine room and assists him with the daily maintenance check. When they finish, he moves to follow him to the cockpit for his turn monitoring the controls, but Bruce stops him at the door with a hand on his shoulder.

“Peter, what’s going on with you and Harley?”

“Nothing!” He crosses his arms. “He— We’re fine.”

Bruce forces a strained smile. “No. You’re not. You’ve been joined at the hip since we launched— Well, for years actually, but it’s obvious you’re avoiding him.” His expression turns pained. “You didn’t break rule number one, did you?”

Peter’s cheeks flare hot so fast it hurts. “No! We— No. Just no.”

Relief colors Bruce’s expression. “Good, good. So what’s going on? Did you have a fight?”

He shrugs. “Not really. He just… He’s being really confusing. I don’t know… I don’t know how to act around him right now.”

Bruce ticks his head to the side. “Confusing in what way?”

Peter expels a gust of air and leans back on the coolant pipe. “He said— I don’t know. It made sense last night. All I know is that he keeps saying he doesn’t want anything to do with me but he looks at me like he wants to kiss me. It’s like he’s still in the closet or something even though I know that’s not true. I’m just— I don’t know what he wants, I guess.”

“Do you know what you want?”

Peter ducks his chin to his chest, shrugs, and scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip. In a hush, he admits, “Yeah.”

“Then it sounds like you need to talk to him.”

He picks up his head. “Why? So he can tell me about how he never ever wants to be with me?”

“Is that what he said?”

“Yeah. Well, not word-for-word. He said he wouldn’t ever have a one-night stand with me and then he said he wouldn’t treat me how his dad treated his… his mom…” Peter trails off as he hears what he’s saying. “Oh my God. Am I stupid? His dad was an asshole! Of course he wouldn’t treat me— Oh my God.”

With a chuckle, Bruce squeezes his shoulder and repeats, “It sounds like you need to talk to him.”

~*~

He finds Harley still in the sleeping cabin with Peter’s blanket pulled up over his head, now with a sticky note stuck somewhere in the region of his forehead that reads, ‘Baby’s First Space Hangover’.

Peter peels it free and sticks it to the bed frame. “I see Tony’s been here.”

The Harley-shaped lump doesn't respond but he knows how Harley's breathing sounds when he's asleep and besides that, the uptick in his heart rate gives him away. He's awake and he's listening.

If only Peter knew what to say.

"Can we talk?" He perches on the edge near Harley's knees where they're curled into his chest. "I think I misunderstood some things you were trying to say to me yesterday and umm... Yeah. I didn't handle it very well."

He chews his lip while Harley continues to lie motionless and unresponsive.

"I guess if you don't feel good we can talk later, but I was hoping... I don't like us not talking. Feels shitty. And Bruce is tired of me following him around, so...” He sighs. “Would you say something at least? Harley?"

A sigh from under the blanket. "Don't laugh," Harley mutters.

That's an easy one. Peter feels far closer to throwing up than laughing. "Okay."

Harley peels back the blanket and sits up all at once. As the blanket falls away, Peter’s attention is captured by his scalp, patchy with dye and barely-there cosmic violet fuzz. His hair is gone. When did he even— Did he pack hair clippers too?

"Oh." Peter can't tear his eyes away. "Oh no."

"Never let me drink again. I mean it." He falls back against the wall miserably. "Tony is going to shit himself when he sees."

"Why?"

“Because he’ll be laughing so hard.”

“No, I mean, why did you do it?”

He crosses his arms and shrugs. “Felt like it.”

“Last night you said you didn’t like it.”

Harley sighs explosively and runs his hand over the remaining fuzz on his scalp. He makes a face. “Yeah. About last night, I… I’m real sorry. I was way out of line.”

“What…” Peter studies him. “What was out of line?”

Harley shoots him a lip-curled look. “The whole thing, Pete. I got you drunk and then—,” He blushes brilliant red. It washes over his face all at once, making the purple on his scalp all the more striking. “And then I came onto you like an asshole.”

“I wasn’t drunk, Harley,” Peter says softly. “I was barely buzzed.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he snaps. “Don’t you see how that doesn’t matter?”

“You were drunk. You—,”

Harley sits up, hands fisted in his lap, expression screwed up in a hateful snarl. “That’s not an excuse.”

Oh. Oh, this isn’t about him at all.

Regret creases Harley’s face. He curls in on himself, knees to his chest, and buries his face in his hands, but it’s too late. Peter has already seen through to the heart of things.

He links his finger and thumb in a loose circle around Harley’s ankle, the closest he can get without chasing him further into the corner. When he speaks, his voice is hushed but firm. “You’re not your dad, Harls. You’re nothing like him.”

“Stop. I don’t want you to make me feel better.”

“I’m only telling the truth.”

“You have no idea what my dad was like. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know enough. I know you.”

Harley shakes his head and doesn’t respond.

Peter narrows his eyes. “Okay, fine. Let’s do this your way.”

He shoves to his feet and pulls Harley’s pack free from his cubby.

“Peter—,”

He digs past what was a nonsensical assortment of things yesterday, but now that he’s seeing them all together, it makes perfect sense. They’re the stuff of teenage hijinks and rebellion—two things Harley never had the freedom to chase when he was of the age.

He finds what he’s looking for slipped down the side of the pack and tugs it free. The pack fits easily back in the cubby with room to spare. This time, instead of perching on the edge of the mattress to give Harley space, he crawls up beside him until his knees are pressed into his thigh and holds out his hand expectantly.

Harley eyes him in silence until Peter wiggles his fingers impatiently. He gives in with a breath of defeat and places his hand in Peter’s, palm up.

They sit in silence for a long time while Peter consults the single sheet of notebook paper onto which Harley seemingly attempted to fit every palmistry tidbit he could find on the internet. While he picks apart the familiar chicken scratch, he keeps a loose hold on Harley’s hand. His thumb wanders in slow circles as he flips the paper over. It’s just as cramped with information.

Finally he settles the page on his knee and turns his attention to scrutinizing every line, wrinkle, and bump of Harley’s hand.

He pokes the freckle in the span of skin between his index finger and thumb. “You’ve got a freckle on the lower mount of Mars. What do you suppose that means?”

“That I freckle easy.”

Peter hums and pretends not to clock the uncharacteristic softness of Harley’s tone.

“I think it means you’re a bit of a perfectionist. That you count failures when you don’t measure up to your goals even though your shortcomings still land you miles ahead of most people.”

“That’s not on the paper. You made all that up.”

Peter ignores him. He leans close and turns his hand to better catch the light.

“You’ve got effort lines coming off of your life line pointing to the mount of Saturn. What’s the mount of Saturn mean again?” He flips the paper over. “Oh.” He snorts. “It governs your attitude towards your duties and responsibilities. So this basically means you live your life in service to those responsibilities.”

Curious, Peter checks his own palm. “Look! I’ve got them too! We match.”

Harley doesn’t look. “You already said this whole thing is bullshit. You see what you expect to see.”

Peter sucks his teeth. Harley is slumped over, cheek resting on his kneecap. While his arm outstretched toward Peter, he’s not looking at him. He’s frowning at their hands with a furrowed brow.

Peter knows that look. He’s thinking, but whatever he’s thinking isn’t anything good.

He changes tracts.

“Then explain these.” He splays Harley’s hand flat and strokes the callouses adorning each tip of his fingers and the rough skin that rings the basin of his palm.

He looks up as the silence stretches, but Harley still won’t meet his eyes. Instead, he is staring hard at their hands where Peter is absently worrying his thumb across the dip of his palm.

Peter pokes a callous. “You make things.” He pokes another one. “You’re meticulous about the details. You work hard. You’re dependable. Even if I didn’t know you like I do, it’s all right here on your hands and I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me what it all means. I know you.”

Harley pulls his hand away. “What’s the point of this, Pete?”

His patience runs out all at once and irritation takes its place. “The point is that you haven't been acting like your dad. You've been acting like you want to kiss me but you haven’t and I want to know why.”

“I… Why? Because every time I get close you get this look on your face like you’re about to bolt. You’ve made it abundantly clear you don’t want anything from me that you’re not already getting.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“You’re bullshit, Peter. You don’t get to— Do you know how long I’ve been— You’re so fucking oblivious I don’t know if I should hate you or envy you.”

“Oblivious to what?”

Harley laughs, barking and miserable. “To the fact that I’m in love with you, you asshole. If you could just— just see me for two seconds you’d know it, but you run away so fucking fast and one of these days you’re not going to come back and it’s going to break my heart.”

I’m in love with you.

There’s a buzzing in Peter’s fingertips, soaking into his brain.

I’m in love with you.

“Harley, I’m not… Do you really— But you always seem—,”

Harley grabs his forearm and glares into his eyes. “Don’t you dare run.”

“I’m not,” he snaps. “I swear. I’m—,” I’m in love with you. The bottleneck in his throat tastes like laughter. Harley’s right. He’s been a miserable coward, but this time is different. I’m in love with you. Why would he run from that?

He links his fingers around Harley’s wrist and meets his eyes. “Kiss me.”

Harley’s fingers spasm around his forearm. He watches him seriously. “If I kiss you and you run, I’m gonna hunt you down, kill you, and spit on your grave until I dry out and collapse to dust. Get me?”

“No graves in space, Laddie.” Heart pounding, he shifts closer. “Guess I have no choice but to stick around.”

“You’re not half as romantic as you think you are.”

Whether or not that’s true, it doesn’t stop Harley from closing the space between them and pressing their lips together. He does it fast, all at once, like if he doesn’t catch him now, Peter will get away.

But he’s not going anywhere. He chases Harley when he tries to pull away and softens the kiss, making his lips pliant and soft. He draws his palm up the back of Harley’s neck and over the stubble studding his scalp, all the while, Harley keeps a tight grip on his forearm.

Naturally, that’s when the door bursts open.

They rip apart, but Tony already saw.

Tony flinches back. “Jesus— What are you—,”

“Get out!” Peter shouts while Harley yells wordlessly and hurls a pillow at him.

Tony ducks back through the doorway and pulls the door most of the way closed. “I said no one-night stands! That was rule number one! You can’t—,”

“There’s not gonna be anything ‘one night’ about it so fuck off!” Harley bellows.

“You are the most ungrateful— We’re going to have a conversation about— And don’t think I didn’t notice what you did to your hair!”

The door shuts with a metallic bang and leaves them sitting in ringing silence.

“So… he kinda ruined the mood, huh.” Peter slumps against the wall. “Just when it was getting good, too.”

Harley eyes him solemnly. “I’m gonna need some words, Pete. I told you I’m in love with you and you didn’t say it back. What are you wanting here? If it’s anything less than a committed romantic relationship I’m gonna have to walk, you get that right?”

He sits up. “Oh. I— That’s my bad. I want that, too. With you, I mean. Because I’m in love with you too. Like… it’s bad. I get so stupid around you, you don’t even know.”

A small smile lights Harley’s face. “I think I have an idea.”

“You don’t,” Peter insists. “I’m so smart and suave when you’re not around.”

His smile flourishes. “Uh-huh. C’mere cool guy, I wasn’t done with you.”

Normally, Peter would put up more of a fight. Normally, he would insist on arguing his point until he goes blue in the face, but Harley’s eyes are full of light and warmth, his palms are hot on his thighs, and Peter meant what he said; when Harley looks at him like that, he can’t think at all.

“We should make out in the cockpit next,” he blurts when Harley is millimeters from sealing their lips together.

Harley’s forward momentum stalls. “What?”

“I just want to.”

“Why? To piss off Tony?”

“No. Well, now yes, but that’s not what I was thinking.”

Harley’s callouses skim across the back of his neck. He inhales and gets a lungful of pure Harley. He closes his eyes.

“What were you thinkin’ about?”

“You,” he answers honestly. “And me. The stars.” He opens his eyes. “We don’t really get stars in New York and I… I like the way you look under them. Wanna soak it in while I can.”

Harley presses a kiss as soft and sweet as morning dew against his jaw. “Okay. You, me, and the stars.”

“Then maybe we can do other stuff too. Give 'em a reason to call it the cockpit.”

When Harley laughs, Peter can’t help but kiss it from his lips and then, well…

It’s a good thing Tony shut the door.