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“i’m looking at you, and you're looking at me but the glimmer in your eyes is saying you wanna leave.”
‘How do you know whether you’re still in love?’
It was an empty question, hypothetical, as Harley had assured MJ one morning in class, but it still left a longing feeling of premonition in the pit of her stomach. There was always a silver lining, and through a sad smile from the blonde boy, MJ seemed to pick it up.
At lunch, she takes small bites of her sandwich as her best friends chat eagerly about Star Wars, Peter’s hand still interlocked strongly with the southern teen’s, with almost enough determination that most wouldn’t spot the unsteady connection between the two. Like he was trying to cling onto the boy so he wouldn’t leave, to convince them both that it could still work. From then, she counted each day, waiting patiently for the last inevitable one that finally split them apart, hopefully ending the uneasy tension between them all. She couldn’t stand it, Harley and Peter pretending they were so okay—okay enough to keep a lasting relationship.
There’s a chill in the air, a frozen spirit dancing through the sky around her. Dark clouds loom above, and despite not being one for superstition, even MJ could admit that there had been a change in the atmosphere. Her feet shuffle through the snow, no determination in her stride as she walks through the park, watching intently at the passerby as she adjusts her beanie over her dark, frizzy curls. The winter weather always found a way to mess them up, so she gave up in putting in effort when the weather lowered below 32 degrees. She wasn’t one to conform to societal standards anyway. Her stiff, icy hands are wrapped around a coffee cup, the murky black liquid swirling as she takes a slow sip.
There’s a quiet, timid sound of agreement nearby her, and as she turns around, her eyes almost meet the bloodshot gaze of her blonde classmate. However, he isn’t the one who’s agreeing, words slipping out of his mouth hesitantly. She does her best to remain a passerby, only someone a part of the obscure park walkers just happy to be out in the snow.
‘I love you, and I think I’ll always love you, somehow, but,’ Harley pauses, his voice shaky and hesitant like he’s still deciding whether he’s making the right choice or not. ‘The love I share for you now is different.’
‘Are you breaking up with me?’ Peter swallows, and his voice is raw and raspy like he’s on the verge of crying.
‘I don’t think we’re meant to be anymore,’ the blonde lowers his head, biting the inside of his cheek. MJ waits for Peter to protest, to plead that they were meant to be, that maybe the two were just going through a rough patch and they could fix it and all would be normal again and…
‘Okay,’ the brown-eyed boy speaks quietly, reverting to one-word answers because it meant his voice wouldn’t break and he wouldn’t start crying. MJ knew that. She’d seen it.
She expects to see them kiss, to hug, to maybe even show a shred of a smile, but it never comes and she’s left waiting like at the end of a livewire, and then she decides to leave.
“please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.”
Peter Parker hadn’t been coming to school over the past couple of days. He hadn’t been picking up his phone, even if Ned had texted and called and reminded him that there was a new sci-fi movie coming out at the end of the week, and that they should go see it together. Ned got a clue when Harley turned up to school Thursday morning, quiet and reducing his speech to only a couple of greetings and agreements. There was no question of where Peter was, nor was there any conversation brought up amongst them that suggested why either.
Ned sat his lunch tray down beside Harley, who was miserably picking at his cardboard-looking chicken with a wooden fork, pushing it through stale ketchup back and forth across the tray.
‘Are you okay, dude?’ Ned asked gently, and his friend looked up, blinking as if he’d not been listening.
‘Is Peter still in love with me?’ Harley asks reluctantly, his hands clamped around the fork with almost too much tensity to not be a sign of the inner feelings eating at him.
Ned frowned, tilting his head and reminiscing on the last time the two of them had chatted, when Peter had been so enthusiastic about meeting the blonde at the park, something about how it was so romantic that they were going to go ice skating. ‘He says you two are soulmates.’
Pursing his lips, Harley drops his head again and runs tired fingers through his hair.
‘Hey guys,’ MJ sits down opposite them, shutting her book and placing it beside her lunch. Ned doesn’t miss the regretful look Harley gives MJ, a strange, longing half-smile that the blonde had never given anyone else before, even after Ned had just witnessed the boy seem so devoid of warmth. There’s some sort of mutual agreement between them, and Ned wonders what he’s missed.
They sit wordlessly for too long, and he’s had enough of listening to the familiar bustle of cafeteria gossip to feel comfortable staring at his lunch.
‘Okay, what’s going on?’ He breaks the horrible silence, his words like a knife to the unfriendly tension in the air. Harley’s close to leaving, on the edge of his seat as he slings his backpack around his shoulder.
Remorsefully, he opens his mouth. ‘I broke up with Peter.’
Soon enough, Ned wishes he hadn’t asked, and he suddenly prefers the view of his green-ish mac-n-cheese. The tension is still there, but now Ned is a part of it and he understands the reasoning for staying silent, because what is there to say?
2 days ago
“my parents check in all the time but it's harder to see you're not mine.”
Peter dives through the window of the tower, carelessly smashing the window through as glass splatters amongst the room. Still choking on his own tears, he rips the mask from his face, throwing it against the wall with an echoing slap.
‘Holy shit! Peter!’ Clint is sitting on the couch, leaping up from his spot in shock, his coffee spilling across his lap. After swearing colourfully from the scorching liquid on his lap, he turns to the boy whose mask has been ripped off his face.
‘Kid! Shit, are you okay?’ Tony’s eyes widen, sharing a gaze with the boy whose eyes are bloodshot and rimmed with red, like he’d spent the last twenty minutes crying. Peter immediately takes a deep breath, appearing to swallow whatever emotions he was just letting go of.
‘It’s…it’s fine,’ the boy speaks hesitantly, like he’s unsure of whether to withhold information or not.
‘Pete, I’m here for you if you need to talk,’ Tony smiles hesitantly, extending his arms.
‘I’m sorry, I just…need some time alone,’ Peter breathes, pushing past the two Avengers towards the sink. He turns on the tap with extra force, freezing water drilling into the drain as he runs his hands under it. He then splashes it onto his face, squeezing his eyes shut as droplets drip down his jaw and neck. Tony is so close to stepping forward to help him, but before he can say anything, Peter has darted down the hallway.
It’s past midnight and Tony catches Peter slinking into the lab, cheap Hello Kitty pajama pants, their ends pooling around his ankles. If the kid hadn’t been drowning in his own tears before, he would be now. The man cursed himself for not checking up on the boy, but he believed if Peter wanted space, he deserved it.
‘You know how you said you had connections at MIT?’ Peter asks inquisitively, chewing on the inner corner of his cheek.
‘Yes?’
‘I want to go to university early.’
Tony tilts his head, eyes wide. ‘What sparked this? I thought you wanted to stay with your friends?’
‘There’s been, um, changes.’
Tony knew better than to pry, even if it worried him to see his kid so broken. When Peter was ready to speak, he could speak.
In an almost silent voice, he finally does speak, and the five words spoken are like a bullet to Tony’s chest. ‘Harley broke up with me.’
The man immediately wraps his arms around the kid, who melts down into a puddle of tears. He’s shaking, sobs wracking his frail body.
‘I’m sorry, kid, I had no idea,’ the billionaire squeezes him tighter, and the more he holds Peter, the more the teen drowns in his own tears.
‘Did I do something wrong?’ He chokes out, sniffling.
‘Never, kid, never.’
‘I thought…sniff…I thought he loved me. I love him.’
Tony desperately wishes he had an answer. He was a genius. He was supposed to know anything about everything, but here was his kid, asking questions that he couldn’t answer.
Tony had watched the light fade from Harley’s eyes, anticipating the end of the teens’ relationship as an eventual event. He’d caught the boy’s pet names slipping out less, usually not being the one to initiate physical contact anymore.
He’d caught the pair fighting once, and it was Tony’s sign that a breakup was bound to happen. It was a busy day in the lab, when Peter had tripped over one of the tools lying on the ground and crashed into an unstable counter of the rest. Wires and machinery had spilled onto the floor, and instead of laughing over it like they would’ve done earlier into their relationship, it escalated. Tony had caught the two yelling at each other, Harley waving around his wrench while Peter laughed humorlessly at the boy’s threats.
He knew the breakup would hurt when it would inevitably happen, but he’d never considered how soon it would be and how much it would hurt Peter, who was still so in love with the southern teenager. It clawed at his heart, feeling for Harley who shouldn’t feel pressured to stay in a relationship, but also for Peter, who didn’t reciprocate his ending feelings. Peter, who was still clinging onto his last strands of affection like a lifeline.
‘Kid, let’s sit down. Or have some water. You want water?’
Peter shakes his head and unsticks himself from the billionaire, padding over to where his Spider-Man suit was splayed out. Tony takes a slow breath, holding out a long pair of tweezers in his grip. The teenager takes them, cradling them as if the metal would shatter like glass if he dropped them.
‘What about ice cream?’ Tony tries, and a small smile breaks on Peter’s tear-stained face. His cheeks are still red, but there’s a little more life in them.
‘FRI, order us a couple pints of ice cream from that shop down on fifth that Pepper likes,’ the man grinned. ‘And plenty of candy and chocolate.’
‘And whipped cream,’ Peter adds quietly, and Tony is tempted to fake a gag. He does so, and the teen laughs wetly, shaking his head from the ridiculousness of it all.
‘And whipped cream.’
“i can’t fall in love with you.”
Another school day goes about as slowly as it can go when your best friends have just broken up. MJ almost wished Flash would interject with some useless piece of crap he found out from his cool friends at other schools. Maybe it would stop the class from being so fucking silent. Even students they didn’t know walked on eggshells around both boys because even they knew how Harley and Peter had been. She wishes people didn’t see it as a big deal. Maybe then she could speak to Harley without feeling like she was breaking some sort of friendship code.
There’s a quiet hum in the silence of the classroom, each student already rushing for the door to go home. Harley pushes in his chair, its rough legs scraping the vinyl floors.
‘MJ,’ he nods, his eyes bloodshot as they both freeze, and her gaze meets his tired, grey pupils, missing the spark they used to carry a month ago. ‘So you broke up with him?’
Harley bites the inner corner of his cheek. ‘I did.’
She shuts her book, holding it like a dead weight between her hands.
‘I thought it would be easier, breaking up with someone you’ve fallen out of love with,’ he speaks again softly, like the quieter he speaks, the less likely it’ll be true.
‘It never is,’ MJ looks down, and it reminds her of sophomore year.
Peter held her hand, almost clinging onto it for too long, despite their breakup being mutual. They would stay close friends, but their romance was messy and confusing, especially for two young teens who didn’t quite know enough about love to hold onto it. She’d been the one to bring it up, dropping his hand as he smiled sadly. She knew he’d miss it more than she did, because Peter always held onto love harder even if it really wasn’t what he was feeling. They’d always have a mutual appreciation for each other, and they’d stay friends, but it didn’t stop them both from avoiding each other’s gaze for a while, until the decathlon trip had rolled around and they felt like they could finally be friends again.
Harley stretches out his hand, and gracefully, she takes it, and follows him out of the classroom. The hallways are empty now, so she follows him back to his locker and they don’t talk about Peter Parker for the rest of the day. She knows it eases his mind, because it’s all anyone ever mentions.
“it only feels this raw right now, lost in the labyrinth of my mind.”
Peter turns up to school on Monday, still speaking with that raw, aching tone that tore at MJ’s chest. He doesn’t smile, just pursing his lips and nodding as a sign of acknowledgement as a cloud of despondency trails him. He hugs MJ at her locker and then he hugs Ned, chewing anxiously on his lip as the boy tries at making Peter happier, explaining something about a new Star Wars LEGO set. Peter’s face lights up a little, and MJ notes to thank Ned for being such a nerd later on.
In AP Chem, MJ watches Peter change seats, shuffling away from his typical seat beside Harley to sit with Betty and Abe at the front of the classroom. They spend the class speaking about politics, and the teen is finally plastering a smile. Real or not, it stops him from focusing on the break up, which word has spread about around the school. MJ has the urge to call out her own contribution, their chatter a topic of interest, but her eyes are fixed on the blonde boy in front of her. Harley too is watching Peter, but rather out of the corner of his eye while he focuses on the board.
After fifteen minutes, the view point has changed. Peter, Abe and Betty’s conversation had just ended, leaving the broken teen to chew eloquently on his pencil.
From the way the teen stares longingly at Harley, MJ can tell Peter’s feelings towards the boy never changed and he was still fighting the break up in his head. Even if it was over in person, the way one’s thoughts distort reality was having an affect on her friend.
The break up doesn’t quite ruin their group dynamic, but at the same time, it absolutely does. At first, MJ catches Peter’s hesitancy to sit with them at lunch, deliberately choosing to sit with a couple of the others from their decathlon team just to avoid the weird tension in the air.
Peter gives them a wistful, glassy eyed before turning the other way towards Flash and their group, and MJ winces because usually he’d never choose Eugene Thompson over them. Ned catches this too and she has to remind him that Peter’s hurting, and there's a little leeway where he’ll still be reckless.
‘He’ll come to his senses, right?’ The boy takes small bites of cardboard chicken, eyes fixed on his best friend who’s in a happy conversation, or at least as happy as one who’s heart is collapsing on itself.
Harley ignores them both, staring down at his food. MJ nudges him with her foot, and gives him a gentle smile when he looks up. He reciprocates it weakly, before he deflates again.
“and that's the thing about illicit affairs and clandestine meetings and longing stares—it's born from just one single glance.”
She doesn’t know what she’s doing when they’re both sitting together in the cafeteria, a secluded corner separate from where Ned and Peter are rekindling. MJ lets the blonde wrap an arm around her, and she, just barely, lowers her head onto his shoulder. She knows it’s selfish, letting him get so close to her when he was supposed to be mourning.
‘Thanks for not leaving me alone,’ Harley murmurs, brushing hair out of her face. A wave of heat dusts her cheeks, and she tries not to draw attention to the fact that she’s blushing.
‘You’d ruin yourself if I left you,’ MJ snarks, keeping her tone as light-hearted as she can.
Harley gives her a lopsided grin. ‘You think I’m helpless.’
She thinks before answering. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, I am,’ he places a soft kiss on her temple. MJ hates how she craves it, relishing in the tiny movement of affection before it’s over too quickly. She moves closer to him, and hopes no one in the cafeteria is watching too directly. They probably are. She doesn't mind.
“so stay for the night, it'll bury the crime.”
Harley waits for her outside on the curb of her house, donning his motorcycle helmet and hugging another under the arm of his leather jacket. She feels underdressed in her tight jeans and a stripy violet sweater that hangs over one shoulder, but she reminds herself they’re going to a rager and her fantasies about a romantic night fizzle out.
‘You look pretty,’ he smiles softly, and she hugs him, shivering slightly from the outer material from his jacket.
‘Therefore I have value?’ She giggles, pushing a curl behind her ear.
‘Ha ha, very funny.’ The teen has a shit-eating grin on his face, and he outstretches his arm to guide her towards the gleaming treasure behind him.
He’s picked her up on his motorbike, a shiny, hot-rod red bike that’s gleaming in the milky moonlight.
She sits at the back where she imagined Peter would, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder. It’s so intimate for such a simple thing, and it makes her realise, just barely, why Peter is still grieving, even weeks after it ended.
‘Hold on,’ the boy whispers, and she clings even harder as the motorbike speeds up. Her heart leaps, ready to upheave as Harley dodges all sorts of vehicles.
“and it's hard to be at a party when i feel like an open wound.”
There’s a sick buzz in the air and MJ can almost predict that tonight is going to leave them all ruined and shitfaced and with horrible regret. Harley’s clung to her but his arm snakes away from hers as they enter the trashed house, the scent of various flavours of alcohol hanging heavy like a mysterious cloud that she could get high off of. Before she can say anything, Flash loops his fingers around Harley’s wrist, dragging him into the crowd of stumbling teens.
She’s alone for a moment, vacillating between getting absolutely shitfaced to wash her uneasy feelings away or just suffer through the music.
Ned is giggling at Betty, who twirls her perfect pristine hair around a shaking finger. They’re both a little tipsy, but not as wasted as the others in this miserable party.
‘Do you know where Peter is?’ She asks reluctantly, and Ned’s ecstatic smile fades like it was never there before.
‘He’s in the kitchen drinking his feelings away.’
‘Of course he is.’
Slowly wandering through the crowd of teens, she stands in the kitchen, but Peter isn’t there. She doesn’t want to look for him, not when there’s liquor in his system that messes with his mind and makes him believe things that aren’t trye. MJ takes a jello shot, frowning as she swallows the oddly-textured concoction of fake flavouring and cold hard vodka.
‘Wanna dance?’ Harley exclaims, and she can tell by his voice that he’s had a little too much to drink. Reluctantly, she takes another jiggy neon cup and follows him towards the middle of the room. Music is pounding through the walls and the floor, and she follows his beat, copying his awful dance moves to some synthpop tune she’d heard at a music festival. He’s smiling stupidly, and she pretends his weird movements are the best she’s ever seen. They sway drunkenly to the music, before he bops his head back and forth and she retreats in a fit of giggles.
Then their lips meet for the first time, and it’s vibrant and chaotic and she swears she sees tiny fireworks bursting around them.
“unrequited love—to me, it's nothin' but a one-man cult and cyanide in my styrofoam cup.”
It’s close to 1 in the morning when Ned finds her alone in the sea of shitfaced teens, spinning to some random radio pop song like it’s her favourite and drags her to the back porch.
There’s audible, slurring shouts coming from outside.
Soon enough, she finds herself in between Harley and Peter standing by the pool, but they aren’t smiling or drinking or hooking up like what normal people do at parties.
‘Y’know the sickest thing, Harley?’ Peter stumbles forward, and the southern teen has to step back before he wraps his arms around the miserable boy and it all goes back to how it was. ‘The sickest thing is that I still love you. Even when we’d fight and stuff, I never once thought you weren’t my soulmate.’
A sob escapes Harley’s throat, and through a mind of hazy drunkenness, he begins to cry hysterically. His feet are wavering near the edge of the pool, and MJ is close to dragging him away so he doesn’t fall in.
‘Sobbing? I’ve done a lot of that recently.’
‘Peter, stop, you’re drunk,’ MJ pulls him away frantically, but he just swats her hand down with a sloppy movement of his wrist. There are hot tears in his eyes but his tone has escalated into a yell. His voice comes out in a slurring shout, and she knows he’s drowned himself in liquor.
‘Maybe you’ll understand how shitty I've been feeling.’
She takes his vibrating hand, numb from alcohol, dragging him past the sobbing blonde and into a slightly quieter corner. A couple beside them make out fervently against the inside fence of the pool, but she shoves them and after a dirty look, they disperse.
‘Don’t blame him, Peter,’ she pleads quietly, holding both his hands gently as she waits for him to take a deep breath. He does so for a minute, before he snaps again, breaking it apart.
‘I love him, MJ,’ a sob escapes his throat, and for a split second, guilt settles in her stomach.
‘Maybe you just miss being with someone.’
‘No, you don’t understand, we were supposed to get married in Italy and adopt three kids and grow old together,’ he wails, and she knows he’s breaking again.
‘Peter.’
‘MJ, I can’t be alone, not again,’ he lowers his head, and the words are an unfriendly reminder of the shit running through his head, tormenting him like a gun to the skull. He begins to pace drunkenly, feet stepping in haphazard movements until he takes a sudden inhale, his body flopping into the neon lagoon.
MJ’s throat clenches. ‘Shit, shit, someone help him! He’s gonna fucking drown!’
Harley doesn’t move, and it’s probably for a good thing because he’s too wasted to be useful. She dips her toes into the water, the temperature immediately sobering her up. A chilly shiver runs up her spine, but she still slides in and swims out towards the flailing boy.
‘Peter, you’re fine,’ she assures him, but her voice betrays her and becomes a frantic shout.
‘MJ…MJ? Where are you? Why are we in the ocean?’
She falters for his arms, which flail sloppily in the currents of the pool. ‘Stop fucking moving!’
He does so, but then begins to sink like a dead weight.
‘Fuck, fuck, kick your legs!’ She calls, and he begins to move like a motor boat.
They both lay on the edge of the pool, gasping for air. Their fingers are still intertwined, his icy on the back of her hand. MJ finds his pulse on his wrist, and exhales a little, her curls a sopping mess on the concrete.
“and I'm fresh out of any good judgment, i'm intentionally careless—at least i’ve got self-awareness.”
MJ is grateful Harley doesn’t show up to decathlon after school the next day, because it’s Peter’s turn on the podium and his answers are blunt and darkly witty, and he laughs at his own self-deprecation too often. It’s like they’re watching a campy tear-jerker film, and he’s the main character. MJ’s too distracted to captain the team, often finding herself staring off towards her heartbroken friend rather than corralling the other students.
‘Betty, um, what was the date of Queen Victoria’s coronation?’ She finds herself stammer, cursing herself for the hesitancy in her voice. She was supposed to be commanding and authoritative, not letting her thoughts take over her body.
‘June 28, 1838,’ the blonde girl speaks slowly, as if she’s convinced MJ won’t catch it.
From his stance at the other podium, Peter groans wilfully. ‘June, pride month, the most gut wrenching time of year.’
‘Peter,’ MJ sighs, rolling her eyes. The teen just shrugs miserably, and then on a whim, he turns around to join in on Flash’s snickering. Peter’s fond friendship with Flash is nothing but weird, but she appreciates the other teen’s effort to not completely screw over everything as usual. She turns away from the two boys and focuses her attention back at Betty, who is unbeknownst to the tension between Peter and quite literally everybody else.
“where did you go? i should know, but it's cold and i don't wanna be lonely.”
Peter’s chosen another pencil to chew on in AP Calculus, and MJ reminds herself to tell him to stop, because he’ll break his teeth and it’s not a habit to get into. Beside her, Harley is scribbling over a math worksheet, the problems finished but now a part of his abstract collection of doodles that she can’t just make out.
The clock ticks by, and MJ wonders if their teacher will ever stop droning on. Even she’s resorted to her distractions, deep in a chapter of a book she’d borrowed from the library.
Eventually the teacher finishes his long spiel and the class erupts into chatter, a familiar social buzz that although MJ relents to, it’s comforting especially due to the recent events.
All until Eugene Thompson opens his mouth. Because Flash, even if he tries not to, can't keep anything to himself.
‘Peter, I can’t believe you hooked up with a guy from another school. Harry something,’ Flash snickers, reading off his phone. ‘Some dude from their school caught you two sleeping together.’
The brown-eyed teen lets out a humourless laugh from the back of the classroom like he’s trying to pass it off as if it was never said. Then he goes silent because everyone turns to look at him. Harley’s eyes snap up, and he’s staring straight at Peter who looks ready enough to let the tide of stares swallow him alive.
‘I’m sorry,’ the brown-eyed teen whispers, his voice suddenly about as small as it can get. Flash tilts his head, but decides to not interject any further.
Harley turns his torso around stiffly, his voice low and quiet. ‘You told me you loved me, and then used someone else as a…a rebound.’
Peter swallows slowly, his lip quivering. His eyes are glassy, like he’s almost unaware of making the mistake, let alone accepting it.
‘I can’t believe you,’ Harley’s voice breaks, and he drops his head in his hands.
‘I don’t want to be alone,’ the teen almost breathes, so quiet it’s barely audible, but it’s heavy with remorse. MJ catches it, but apparently so does Harley. The southern boy has paled, eyes full of dejection. ‘Well we can’t always get what we want, huh.’
After a second, Peter gets up and ignores the teacher calling his name. As soon as he steps into the hallway, he digs for his phone.
‘Mr Stark…Mr Stark, Tony, please, please pickup,’ he begs, his voice cracking with each step he takes to the exit.
One more ring.
Two more rings.
It goes to voicemail.
As soon as he’s out of sight, the tears in his eyes finally fall, and he spends the rest of the lesson sobbing into his sleeve in the stall of an empty bathroom. He doesn’t even bother to stifle it as a couple of jocks slink into the room to skip class, quickly leaving at the sound of tears.
“the doors are closed with lights off inside and all the while, therе's no one home. you're still outsidе. i wonder why.”
Tony braces himself for round two of ice cream with candy and chocolate and whipped cream as Harley storms into his lab, throwing his bag across the room in a fit of rage before he takes a deep breath and lowers his voice.
‘Peter told me he still loved me,’ Harley breathed, frowning at the billionaire. ‘And then he slept with some random guy from another school.’
Tony swallows, the idea of his kid hooking up with a stranger to escape the pain a sore spot in his chest. It was all too close to home.
‘I don’t know what to do, Tony, I want to let him go but it’s like fate keeps bringing him back to me.’
‘Peter’s never broken up with anyone before,’ the billionaire takes a slow breath. ‘He’s only ever been broken up with. He’s still learning to cope.’
There’s an uncomfortable beat of silence, and Tony has started to debate which dessert would work to heal Harley’s heart. That is, of course, until the southern teen opens his mouth again.
‘I kissed his best friend.’
Tony gapes, his jaw dramatically slack. ‘Who? Ned?’
Harley rolls his eyes. ‘No, old man, MJ.’
Tony’s eyes go wide, and he takes an elongated breath. There’s a siren going off in his head that’s screaming “warning”, but he ignores it, choosing his words carefully. ‘Do you love her?’
‘What?’
‘Harley, you can be with anyone you want, but answer me. Do you love her?’
‘I…’
Tony swallows, and then flashes the memory of his kid, young and naive, zoning out at every chance because he hadn’t yet learned how to feel. ‘MJ and Peter used to date, back in sophomore year. Don’t go after her unless you mean it, because it’ll crush Pete if he thinks you’re going for her to hurt him.’
The southern teen purses his lips, nodding, but the billionaire isn’t sure he grasps the full weight of it.
Tony grabs his hands, staring into his eyes. ‘Harley, you have to understand me. If you don’t explicitly tell him, he’s going to believe you’re trying to hurt him.’
‘He already thinks that,’ the teen scowls. ‘What difference is it going to make?’
The billionaire begins to rub his temples. ‘It’ll be better for both of us, please.’
“you shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles, i wish i could un-recall how we almost had it all.”
MJ catches Peter in the library, curled up against the encyclopedias while staring at an open textbook, his phone buried between the pages. He looks up, pulling out an earbud and letting it dangle lazily against his hoodie.
‘MJ? What’s going on?’ He tilts his head, a mixture of confusion and sadness on his face. MJ hadn’t studied his face in a while, having given up that habit a while ago towards the brown-eyed boy. Her target has changed.
‘Peter, why have you been pushing everyone away? We’re all trying to help but you keep leaving us and blaming Harley for the breakup and holding that stupid grudge.’
Peter lowers his head, chews on his lip anxiously, and at last, he opens his mouth. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Fuck, Peter, you can’t just be sorry, it’s tearing our friendships apart by making us pick sides. We can’t just do that, y’know, when you’re both our friends.’
Friends. There was that word again.
‘I don’t want it to ruin the group,’ he mutters, looking down at his phone. It has turned off, now just a humble black screen, but he still continues to stare at it
‘I know. I know you’re trying,’ she finishes, attempting a gentler tone. Peter had been a dick, but there were things playing in his mind that she didn’t want to even imagine.
‘I don’t know how to cope,’ his voice is small, just like when he’d apologised for sleeping with a stranger, but she knows just how hard it was to say it out loud. MJ guessed it, from the ditching school to ditching their table. She guesses Peter couldn’t cope. She doesn’t respond, because she can’t grasp the weight of it, even if she tries.
one month after the break up
Peter reduces himself to almost a shadow, barely scraping through classes and disappearing entirely at lunchtimes. MJ wants to believe he’s trying to be better, but when he pushes past her, Ned and Harley, she realises there’s a little more to it. It pains her, watching him be so eager to be alone.
Meanwhile, she and Harley have gotten closer, close enough that they can’t hide it at school. They aren’t going to hide it to protect Peter’s feelings.
‘Am I a bad friend?’ She asks Ned plainly in APUSH, the one class it’s just the two of them. They’re at the back of the classroom and she’s keeping her voice low to avoid sticky beaks.
‘No, we’ll help Peter adjust,’ the boy speaks slowly, choosing his words because she knows he doesn’t want there to be anything bad in between them. ‘It will just take time.’
The words help her heart heal just a little, but she knows whatever happens, Ned won’t hold any animosity towards any of them.
MJ and Harley meet up at her locker, and she’s still just as hesitant as she was before her short conversation with her best friend.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ The southern teen asks her, gently running his fingers along her jawline.
‘If we don’t face the music, it’ll only continue to grow,’ she murmurs, pressing her lips to the southern teen’s. They stand there for a moment, before entering the cafeteria.
For the first time, Peter is there, and MJ is too close to turning on her heel and backing out—backing away.
There weren’t any words to be said, especially as Peter’s gaze shifted from the pair to their tightly interlocked fingers. His expression was unreadable, like he was fighting off the urge to both be sad and angry, but also supportive. Like the despondency was heavy in his chest and he was doing the best he could to force it down. For his friends.
‘We’re seeing each other,’ MJ spoke slowly, because surely, if she sounded confident, it would prevent Peter from reacting, from feeling any pain at all. She loved Harley, but Peter was still her best friend.
After a beat of silence, Peter nods and he stares off into the wearily in an attempt to zone out. MJ lets him process the four words, but before she can open her mouth again, he picks up his coffee cup, bluntly swinging his backpack over his shoulder before wordlessly leaving.
“you're good at impersonating someone who cares, and you had me for a minute there.”
Peter Parker never thought he could feel so empty, not until he saw their intertwined hands. It was like the ceiling had fallen and crushed his spine, metal protruding through his skin until he was crawling and begging to not be alone. His body was numb, yet it hurt so much at the same time, wracking his bones and killing his heart. His heart, that had shattered, broken and torn into tiny pieces, disappearing like dust from the blip. He’d never thought he could feel such aching agony, not since after the passing of his parents and then his uncle.
He’d lost the love of his life to the love of his life.
His first instinct is to leave. Harley and MJ are staring at him, anticipating for him to speak or react or let them sit down with him. So he nods, he stands up, and he leaves.
They’re well out of earshot when he climbs out onto the rooftop, shedding his tear-soaked clothes for his Spider-Man suit. The material is like a blanket on his skin, reminding him that even through all the berating words and betrayals, he still had one thing going for him.
Peter’s eye catches a group of terrorists, an easy target to unleash his anger on.
‘I suspected it for a while, I just didn’t want it to be true,’ he murmurs, shoving his knee into the first criminal’s gut. The man, a stocky blonde, moans in pain, doubling over as Peter sloppily reaches for the gun in his grip. Forcibly removing it from Blondie’s tense hand, he thwacks the man in his skull. He doesn’t limit his strength as much as the man’s hair reminds him of Harley. The colour makes bile swim in his stomach.
‘Y’know, it fucking hurts,’ he exclaims miserably, punching another in the jaw. He has deep brown eyes, and it’s like staring into MJ’s as she tells him she’s dating his soulmate. ‘It hurts so much that the two people, who I loved so so much, love each other.’
‘Dude, that sounds rough,’ the third, a red-head luckily, exclaims as he swings a briefcase over his shoulder. Peter might just spare him because he looks like a leprechaun.
“i never was the best to you.”
Peter began to distance himself from Harley and MJ. It wasn’t unnatural, but just looking in their eyes was like someone was taking a knife to his heart. He knew it killed Ned, his best friend, but it was easier if Peter was the one who left. He knew they didn’t want him, so why fight his legacy to be alone?
So he sits on the sports field and eats his sandwich, debating whether to pick up football or just pick at the spray-painted grass with his calloused fingers. A couple of jocks jog past in their warm up lap, giving him a sympathetic nod like they’re sorry for him but don’t know him enough to say anything. He realises just how far word of his break up has spread, and the weird significance of it all to everyone but himself. By now, he’s understood he won’t be with Harley again, and he curses himself and the blonde boy equally for how it’s left him.
The boy he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with is no more than a stranger, someone he only passed by in the hallways. He didn’t know the person who’d fallen out of love, who they’d couldn’t share his life and passions anymore. He didn’t know the person who’d gone to his best friend for love.
Standing up from the icy slush of ground, he makes a run for the train line. Once he’s barely certain he’s out of eyeshot, he strips, almost paralyzes himself from the cold, and pulls on the red and blue suit.
‘Shit, Karen, turn on the heaters,’ he exhales out, his teeth chattering. He’s filled with a sudden relief, and it’s as if warmth has just flooded through his bones and muscles. There’s a blizzard of snow, but he shoves down the irresolute, leaping out into the sky.
The sun is scraping at the sky, orange light pouring out from the horizon as he sits against a billboard. His throat is raw, burning from when he’d cursed out into the sky. Blood pools at his ankles, which have probably been snapped in half but he’s too numb to think about that now.
He’s heaving and sobbing, frozen air sucking like a vacuum into his lungs. His body is shaking, turning purple from the bruises and snowy weather. Stumbling from his stance, he fiddles with his web shooters, but his knuckles are painfully stiff, icy limbs deciding against movement. He weakly throws out a web, and lets himself drop from the billboard and towards the centre of Manhattan.
He’s in the middle of Times Square when he collapses.
-
He’s wrapped in a dozen blankets when he wakes up, swaddled like a baby. Rolling off the couch, he meets the eyes of a very concerned Tony Stark. He instantly melts, relief flooding over him like the warmth he feels now.
‘Harley and MJ are together,’ he breathes, his voice shuddering. Tony immediately engulfs him into a hug, and for a second, it’s all okay. He has someone on his side, for once.
He’s sobbing into Tony’s chest for a couple of minutes, before he suddenly looks up, a panicked expression on his face, his bloodshot eyes piercing into the man’s soul.
‘Did you know?’ He chokes out.
Tony wants to lie. He’s so, so close to lying and pretending and making the kid feel better but that wasn’t the right thing to do. He knows it all too well that it’s better to know the truth early on.
‘I did know, kid,’ he says and his throat clenches up on him.
Peter unlatches himself, fury in his eyes. ‘You let this happen?’
‘Pete.’
‘You knew that my best friend and my boyfri…my ex were dating?’
‘Kid, I talked with Harley, he said he loved her.’
‘I loved both of them so so much, and they turned their backs on me and went for each other.’
‘They didn’t turn their backs on you.’
‘It sure fucking feels like it.’
Peter darts out of the common room, dragging fifty blankets and pushing past whoever he comes in contact with before entering the empty lab, the fresh scent of motor oil like addictive drugs in his lungs.
‘Lockdown, FRI, don’t let anyone in,’ he breathes, before pulling out his computer to change the AI’s coding so even Tony can’t get in.
He’s pushing people away, and he knows it. He knows it so much that it kills him to be reminded. He’s pushing away Ned and Mr Stark and May and MJ and Harley.
Both names are like a sore spot in his stomach.
The lab door clicks shut, and he turns up his music so loud until it’s consuming him. It’s a hazy blur, but the kind of consolation he needs. He’s so stupid. People have never wanted to be on his side. He’s the nobody, whose love life only ever consists of him forming stupid unbreakable attachments before he’s broken up with and left in the gutters. He’s the loser who can’t stop crying and sobbing out his feelings, because things mean too much to him and that’s why it hurts so much when he has to let go. He always loses them. He can’t seem to hold onto anything.
He can’t go back home to May, because his room isn’t yet stripped of Harley’s belongings. There are still hoodies strewn over his bed with the teen’s lingering scent, infecting his room with his ghostly presence even if he isn’t there anymore.
“baby, though I've closed my eyes, i know who you pretend i am.”
It’s past dinner and probably at least two days later when his stomach rumbles loudly, a reminder that he can’t just lock himself up, but he has to eat and shower and do normal human things that don’t consist of living out of a minifridge.
So of course he jumps out of the window and into the cold again, deciding on his nanosuit as warmth.
He swings down to the local corner store, the nanotech fizzling away from his skin as he ducks down, entering the bodega. It’s almost empty, except for a mother and her son who carry a bag of chips and a slushie to the front counter. He dips to the back before he accidentally backs himself into someone.
‘Watch it,’ the voice scowls, and Peter mutters a half-assed apology, scanning the shelves of snacks for food with more substance than just salt and flavouring.
‘Peter?’ His eyes snap up, and then they shift away. MJ is leaning against the fridges of neon drinks, arms cradling variations of unhealthy snacks that she’d normally avoid unless she was with friends. Friends, referring to people other than Peter. She’s twirling a roll of Lifesavers between her fingertips, Harley’s favourite. The one candy he could eat tons of and never even feel a hint of nausea.
The longer his eyes linger on her, the more he notices differences. She’s wearing Harley’s MIT sweatshirt, Tony’s alma mater merchandise that still smells like sweat, booze and motor oil. He’s tempted to bring it up, but he also doesn’t want to waste his breath on her. Dark blue sweatpants hang low on her hips, and he guesses they’re also Harley’s, a pair Peter’s worn before too.
‘Peter,’ she tries, meeting his gaze.
His eyes flicker away, and he begins to dig through the shelves for packets of chips that don’t just taste like air. ‘Don’t.’
‘Please, let me talk.’
‘There is nothing to talk about, Michelle,’ he repeats with glassy eyes.
MJ falters, the sound of her government name bitter on his tongue.
‘You told me off for holding a grudge, for blaming Harley for breaking up with me, and then after you knew I was still in love with him, you still fucking kissed him.’
‘It’s been a month, Peter,’ she speaks gently, her voice smooth like silk.
‘I wasn’t gonna get over him so easily,’ he snaps, snatching his food and making a beeline for the check out counter. The girl at the cashier takes a slow sip of an electric blue sports drink and wordlessly scans his food. MJ is still behind him, and he wishes for once his animosity towards her was mutual. Maybe then it would hurt less.
There’s a buzzing in his pocket.
i larb may
harley came to get his stuff back from the apartment
he wants to apologise, baby
peter-man
why does he want to apologise
what is there to apologise for
i larb may
for leaving you, and for dating mj
Peter takes a slow, shaky breath. Hopeful music is playing through his earbuds, and he lets the tension drop from his shoulders.
peter-man
he doesn’t have to be sorry
Collecting the snacks in his arms, he turns around towards the girl.
‘I don’t need either of you to apologise,’ he speaks softly, eradicating the bitterness from his tone. ‘I want you two to be happy.’
Even if he didn’t really believe it, he had to, because MJ was still his friend. Even if it killed him.
When he swings back through the open lab window, he asks FRIDAY to unlock the lab door, just barely, and his eyes hover over a box of pizza, completely untouched. A gentle smile stretches over his face. Maybe he wasn’t so alone.
-
Peter had learned to cope. It took a while, and shit, was it difficult. He still talks to Ned as much as he can, and makes the effort to be at least respectful towards Harley and MJ even if it still leaves a slightly bitter taste on his tongue. It’s still kind of a knife to his chest, but MJ is his best friend, and he can keep the peace with Harley if it means they can be a group again, sort of. His love for Harley did fade, eventually. It takes a while to learn that your heart can hold love for more than one person. Tony led him through that, being the expert of getting through relationships with people whom he’d loved too much.
He learnt he could be alone, and not be so dependent on someone.
Long story short, he survived.