Chapter Text
"Nice jacket, Parker."
Peter didn't look up. He was doing that thing where he hunched over his notebook and wrote like his life depended on it, which was probably calculus but could have been anything because Parker was a freak about all of it equally.
Flash leaned against the locker next to Peter's. "Seriously. What is that, like, a windbreaker? It's November."
"It's my jacket," Peter said to his notebook.
"Yeah, no shit it's your jacket. I'm asking if it's your only jacket, because-"
"It's my jacket, Flash."
Peter said it flat. Not angry, not upset. Just a fact, delivered to the page. Like he was telling Flash that water was wet and could Flash please go away now.
Flash opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Whatever, dude. Freeze."
He walked away. Got six steps. Turned around and saw Peter pull the jacket tighter around himself, one-handed, the other hand still writing. The jacket was grey. It might have been blue once. The zipper was broken and the sleeve seams were pulling apart and Peter's wrist stuck out a good three inches past the cuff.
Flash went to lunch and ate a fourteen-dollar sandwich and talked shit about the Jets for forty minutes.
ii.
Flash tripped Peter in the hallway on a Wednesday. Got his foot out at exactly the right moment and Peter went down hard, books scattering, one knee hitting the tile with a crack that made two freshmen wince.
"Whoa, Parker, watch where you're going."
Laughter. Not a lot - people were used to it - but enough. Seymour snickered. Sally Avril made a face but didn't say anything.
Peter picked up his books. His knee was bleeding through his jeans, a dark spot spreading on the denim. He didn't look at Flash. He never looked at Flash during these, which pissed Flash off more than anything, the way Parker just took it with that blank expression, like Flash wasn't even worth the energy of being angry at.
"You're welcome for the wake-up call, Penis," Flash said to Peter's back.
Peter walked away. He was limping slightly. Flash watched him go and then turned back to his friends and said something about the Knicks that he forgot before it left his mouth.
iii.
Tuesday morning. Flash showed up to school in a beanie his mom's assistant had bought him in a three-pack last Christmas and a jacket from two seasons ago that was too bright and a little tight across the shoulders. He'd grown.
"What are you wearing?" Jason said.
"Yeah, it's bad, right?" Flash pulled at the jacket. "My mom bought like six of these. They've been in my closet forever."
"It's very..." Jason searched for the word. If Flash had been anyone else, the word would have come faster and meaner.
"Ugly. It's ugly, dude, I know." Flash yanked the beanie off his head and looked at it. Looked at it a second too long. Put it back on. Took it off again. "Whatever. I don't know why I even grabbed it."
The hallway was full of people. Peter was at his locker, doing that thing where he worked his combination lock like it had personally wronged him.
"Hey. Parker."
Peter's shoulders went up. Just a fraction. He didn't turn around.
Flash crossed the hallway. Pulled the jacket off and balled it up. "This is more your speed anyway. Zero style, zero effort. Like, I'd have to literally not care about how I look to wear this."
He threw the jacket at the back of Peter's head. It hit and slid down to the floor. Peter turned around.
"What-"
"And this." Flash pulled the beanie off and tossed it at Peter's chest. Peter caught it on reflex, which Flash hated about him, those stupid reflexes. "Since apparently you don't own a hat either. Jesus, Parker, do you even have a closet?"
Peter looked at the beanie in his hand. Looked at the jacket on the floor. Looked at Flash.
"I don't want your-"
"Oh my god, it's not a gift, you weirdo. It's literally garbage. I'm literally throwing it away. You can take it or it can go in the trash, I genuinely do not give a shit."
Peter's jaw did something. That thing it did. Then he bent down and picked up the jacket.
"Fine."
"You're welcome."
"I didn't say thank you."
"You're welcome, Penis."
Flash walked away. His ears were hot. Behind him, he heard a locker open and close.
iv.
Peter wore the jacket the next day. And the day after. It was too big on him. The sleeves covered Peter's hands. The hem hit mid-thigh. Flash kept catching himself clocking it across the cafeteria, across the hall, the flash of that specific blue.
"Yo, Flash, you listening?"
"What? Yeah. What."
v.
"PENIS PARKER."
The cafeteria went quiet for a second. Not really - it was never quiet - but the tables nearest Flash went quiet, which was functionally the same thing.
Peter was carrying a tray. Mashed potatoes and whatever the brown thing was. The free lunch, the one you got if you qualified, which meant your family made under a certain amount which Flash knew because he'd looked it up once in eighth grade and then closed the browser tab.
"Nice lunch, bro. What is that, dog food?"
"It's Tuesday's special." Peter's voice was dry. Flat. He didn't stop walking.
"Yo, Parker, I'm talking to you."
"I know." Peter sat down at his table. His table being a table near the windows where Ned Leeds was already sitting, talking to himself about something. "That's the problem."
Jason and Marcus laughed. Flash felt his face go hot. The thing about Parker was he was quiet, quiet, quiet, and then every once in a while he'd say something that landed, and because he never said anything the rare times he did hit, it hit harder.
"Wow. Sick burn, dude. Really got me."
Peter was already eating. He ate fast, hunched over his tray, like someone was going to take it from him.
"Whatever." Flash sat back down. "Fucking loser."
vi.
November, sophomore year. Flash had a cold. His nose was running constantly and he kept sniffing in a way that he knew was disgusting but couldn't stop because he'd run out of tissues second period.
He was standing at his locker blowing his nose into a paper towel from the bathroom when Peter walked past wearing the jacket. Flash's jacket. It was November again and Peter was wearing it again and it fit better now but it was starting to get that worn look, the cuffs fraying, and Flash realized with a strange dropping feeling in his stomach that this was Peter's good jacket now. This was the jacket Peter had.
Peter glanced at him.
"You look terrible," Peter said. Not mean. Not nice either. Just an observation.
"Eat shit, Parker."
Peter kept walking.
Flash blew his nose again and leaned his forehead against the cold metal of his locker and stood there for a minute. The hallway was emptying out. He was going to be late for English. He didn't move.
vii.
The thing about the clothes was it hadn't worked the first time.
March, freshman year. Before the jacket. Flash had found a hoodie in his closet, a nice one, North Face, barely worn because he'd decided he didn't like the colour. He'd brought it to school in his backpack and caught Peter by the water fountain after last period.
"Here." He held it out. "I don't want it."
Peter looked at the hoodie. Looked at Flash. Something moved across his face - Flash couldn't read it, had never been able to read Parker, even when they were kids and Flash could read everyone.
"No."
"Just take it, it's-"
"I said no."
"Parker. It's a hoodie. I'm giving-"
"I don't want your stuff, Flash." Peter's voice cracked upward. His face went red and splotchy in a way that was clearly furious and possibly something else. "I don't - I'm not - I don't need you to feel sorry for me, okay? I'm fine."
"I don't feel sorry for you," Flash said. "Jesus. It's a hoodie."
"Then why are you giving me a hoodie?"
Flash stared at him. Peter stared back. Peter's hands were shaking - not from cold. From the specific vibrating anger of someone whose pride has been touched.
"Forget it," Flash said.
"Already forgotten."
"You're such a-"
"Yeah."
Flash shoved the hoodie back in his bag and walked away and called Peter an asshole under his breath, which was rich, which was really fucking rich, and he did not try again for seven months.
viii.
Flash's house was very clean. It was always very clean because someone came three times a week to make it clean, and when she wasn't there it stayed clean because nobody used any of the rooms.
He got home from school and dropped his bag in the kitchen and opened the fridge. The fridge was full. His mom's assistant did the shopping on Thursdays. Everything was organic and expensive and arranged neatly and the bananas were the exact right shade of yellow.
Flash ate a banana standing up and scrolled his phone and looked at the fridge and the kitchen and the big empty living room with the TV nobody watched and the dining table with four chairs where nobody sat and then he went upstairs to his room and sat on his bed and did nothing for a while.
He texted Jason. He texted Marcus. He played a game on his phone. He lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
After a while he rolled over and opened his closet. It was a walk-in. There were a lot of clothes in it. He grabbed a jacket off a hanger - the North Face, the one Peter hadn't taken - and threw it on his desk chair. Grabbed another one. A hoodie. A sweater he'd outgrown.
He left them on the chair and went downstairs and watched TV until he fell asleep on the couch.
ix.
December, sophomore year. Flash showed up to school with a cardboard box. He carried it into homeroom and dropped it on the floor next to his desk with a thud.
"What's that?" Sally asked.
"My mom's on a cleaning kick." He wasn't looking at anyone in particular. "She wants me to donate a bunch of old stuff but I'm not driving to fucking Goodwill."
"There's a donation bin at the-"
"Yeah, I'm not doing that either."
He left the box by his desk all morning. It sat there through homeroom and first period and second period and by third period people had stopped looking at it. Flash kicked it ahead of him into the cafeteria at lunch and left it by the end of his table.
Peter walked past with his tray.
"You're just going to leave that there?" Peter said. Peter, who could not keep his mouth shut when something was wasteful, when something was wrong, when someone was throwing away perfectly good-
"Unless you want it."
Peter stopped.
"I mean, you clearly have strong feelings about my closet, Parker. Be my guest."
"I don't-"
"Take it or I'm putting it in the dumpster after school. Those are the options." Flash picked up his sandwich. "I'm not hauling this shit home again."
"Those are someone's-" Peter started, in his Peter voice, his righteous voice, and Flash cut him off.
"Yeah, they're my someone's, and I don't want them. You want to play charity case, go ahead. You want to stand there giving me a speech, I literally could not care less. Pick one."
Peter stood there. His knuckles were white on his tray. Ned was hovering behind him, looking between them.
"Fine," Peter said. He said it like it cost him a tooth.
He took the box. Walked away with it balanced on top of his tray. The back of his neck was red.
Flash ate his sandwich. Prosciutto and mozzarella on sourdough, from the deli on 73rd that his mom's assistant ordered from.
x.
After Christmas break, Peter was wearing a charcoal wool sweater that Flash recognised because he'd worn it to his cousin's wedding when he was fourteen. It was a good sweater. It was a really good sweater, actually, because Flash's mom didn't buy cheap things even when she was buying them for a son she barely saw.
Peter had his sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He was arguing with Ned about something, some movie or show, and he was using his hands the way he did when he was actually invested, cutting the air with his fingers.
Flash looked at him across the cafeteria. The sweater fit Peter better than it had ever fit Flash, which was annoying, because Peter was smaller.
"Hey, Flash, you coming to-"
"Yeah. Sure. Whatever it is, yeah."
xi.
"Parker, what the fuck is wrong with your shoes?"
Peter looked down at his sneakers. One of them had a hole in the toe. Not a small hole. A hole that showed sock, which was also a sock with a hole in it. Flash could see skin.
"They're shoes."
"They're corpses. Those shoes are dead, dude."
Peter wiggled his toes. Through the holes. Like a little demonstration of how little he cared, but his ears were red.
"They work fine."
Flash stared at him. Peter stared back. That thing was happening again, the thing where they looked at each other and Flash felt a hot, formless frustration that he could not have named if you'd paid him.
"Whatever. Walk around looking homeless. See if I care."
He walked away. He thought about the shoes through practice. Through dinner - leftover Thai from a restaurant that charged forty dollars for pad see ew, eaten alone at the big table. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, the image of Peter's bare toe poking through a hole in his shoe like some kind of Dickens shit.
On Friday, his backpack was heavier than usual. He found Peter after sixth period.
"Yo. Parker."
Peter turned. Wary. Always wary with Flash, like a cat that had been picked up wrong too many times.
Flash pulled a pair of sneakers out of his backpack. Nike. Last year's model. Flash had three pairs of sneakers that were better. "These don't fit me anymore." They fit him fine. "You want them or should I just-"
"Oh, come on."
"What?"
"You're not even-" Peter's voice went tight. "You can't just-"
"They don't fit," Flash said, louder. People were looking. Good. "I'm literally just-"
"Find someone else."
"Find someone-? Parker, you have a HOLE in your SHOE. I can see your FOOT."
"So?"
"So take the fucking sneakers, you stubborn-" Flash threw them. Overhand. Peter caught them - those reflexes - one in each hand, looking startled and furious.
"I'm not your-"
"My what? My project? My charity case? Get over yourself, dude. They're shoes. I don't want them. You literally don't have shoes. This is not complicated."
Peter's mouth was a thin line. His chest was moving like he'd been running. He was holding the sneakers in a death grip.
"I have shoes," he said quietly.
"You have a shoe and a suggestion of a shoe. Take those or don't, I'm done."
Flash walked away. His heart was hammering. He got around the corner and leaned against the wall and said "fuck" very quietly to nobody.
Peter wore the Nikes on Monday.
xii.
Peter punched Flash once. Junior year.
It wasn't a big thing. It was a Tuesday and Flash had been doing his bit, the daily Parker roast, something about Peter's hair or his backpack or his sad little bagged lunch, Flash didn't even remember later what he'd said. And Peter - quiet, skinny, takes-it-on-the-chin Peter Parker - turned around and punched Flash in the mouth.
It wasn't a good punch. Peter's fist connected with Flash's lower lip and Flash tasted copper and Peter's eyes went wide like he'd surprised himself.
The hallway went silent. Actually silent.
"Did you just-"
"Sorry," Peter said. He didn't sound sorry. He sounded like he was vibrating apart. "I - sorry."
He walked away fast. Almost running. Flash stood there with blood on his lip and thirty people staring at him and he should have been angry, he should have been furious, he should have gone after Parker and made him regret it because that was how this worked, that was the dynamic, that was-
"Dude, are you okay?" Jason said.
"I'm fine. He hits like a fucking - yeah, I'm fine."
He went to the bathroom and looked at his lip in the mirror. It was split. It was going to bruise. He ran the tap and splashed water on his face and pressed a wet paper towel to his mouth and stood there until the bell rang.
He said "hey, Penis" across the hall the next day, same as always. Peter ignored him, same as always.
xiii.
January. It was cold. It was the kind of cold that made Flash's car - his car, his sixteenth-birthday car, his used-but-still-a-fucking-Audi car - take an extra minute to start. The kind of cold where you could see your breath inside the vehicle.
Flash sat in the parking lot waiting for the engine to warm up and watched Peter walk out of the school.
Peter was wearing the jacket. Flash's old jacket. And the beanie. And a pair of gloves that Flash didn't recognise. Good. Gloves were - yeah. It was January.
Peter started walking. Peter always walked. Peter walked to school and Peter walked home and Flash had driven past Peter's building once, on the way to Jason's, and it was far. It was far to walk in January.
Flash sat in his warm car. Peter got smaller.
Flash pulled out of the parking lot and drove home. The car was warm. The seats were heated. He turned the radio up loud and sang along to something stupid.
xiv.
Peter got sick in February. Not in school - Peter disappeared from school for four days, which was unusual because Peter had a perfect attendance record that Flash only knew about because the school announced it every year and Flash made fun of him for it every year.
Day one, Flash didn't notice.
Day two, he noticed the empty seat in homeroom and assumed Peter was being weird somewhere.
Day three, he heard Ned Leeds telling someone that Peter had the flu and it was bad, like, really bad, and May was - and Ned lowered his voice and Flash couldn't hear the rest.
Day four, Flash was in a shit mood. He picked a fight with Jason over nothing, snapped at his lab partner, got a detention he didn't deserve and one he did. He sat in detention staring at the clock and when the teacher asked if he was okay he said "I'm fine" in a tone that ended the conversation.
Peter came back on day five. He looked like a ghost. He looked like he'd lost weight he didn't have to lose and his eyes were too big in his face and he was wearing Flash's old sweater, the charcoal one, and it hung off him.
"Back from the dead, Penis?"
Peter blinked at him. Slowly. Like even processing the insult was more energy than he had.
"Hi, Flash."
Just that. Hi, Flash. Tired and flat and not even bothering to be defensive.
Flash went to his desk and sat down and did not say another word for the entire period.
xv.
Sophomore year. Gym class. They were doing the physical fitness test, the one where you had to run and do pull-ups and sit-ups and all that, and Peter Parker was one of those kids who you'd expect to be terrible at it because he was skinny and quiet and spent his life in the library, but Peter Parker could do more pull-ups than anyone in the class and he ran the mile in a time that made the gym teacher look at his stopwatch twice.
"What the fuck, Parker," Flash said. Because what the fuck.
Peter's face was red from running and he was breathing hard and he looked like he was trying to be worse at this than he was. Like he was holding back and had miscalculated.
"I walk a lot," Peter said.
"You don't walk a six-minute mile."
Peter shrugged. He'd already turned away. He went and sat on the bleachers and drank from a water bottle that was actually a reused Gatorade bottle, the label half peeled off, and Flash stood there sweating from his own mediocre mile time and thought about how Peter had blown past him on the second lap like Flash was standing still.
"Parker's on something," Jason said.
"Parker's on nothing," Flash said. "Parker eats cafeteria mystery meat and walks to school. There is nothing to be on."
Jason gave him a look. Flash went and did his sit-ups.
xvi.
Late March, junior year. The trains were out.
Flash heard about it in sixth period. Some kind of signal failure, the whole line down, no estimate on when service would resume. Flash had a car.
It was twenty-eight degrees out. It was twenty-eight degrees and dropping and the trains were out and Peter Parker walked home from school.
Flash sat in the parking lot. The engine was running. The heat was on. He watched Peter come out the front doors with his backpack and his jacket - Flash's jacket, a year and a half old now, the cuffs starting to go - and Peter looked at his phone and Flash watched Peter's face do the math. The walk. The cold. The distance.
Peter put his phone away and started walking.
Flash watched him go.
Flash pulled out of the parking lot. He turned right, toward home. He drove three blocks. He stopped at a light.
He made a U-turn.
He pulled up beside Peter, who was walking fast, head down, hands jammed in his pockets. Flash rolled down the window. The cold came in like a wall.
"Get in."
Peter kept walking.
"Parker. Get in the car."
"I'm fine."
"It's twenty-eight degrees and your train is fucked and you live four miles away. Get in the car."
Peter stopped. He stood on the sidewalk and looked at Flash through the open window.
"Why?"
"Because you'll die, you moron. Get in."
"I won't die."
"Parker, I swear to god-"
"What do you want me to say? Thank you? Is that what you-"
"I want you to get in the FUCKING CAR."
Peter got in the car. He sat in the passenger seat and stared straight ahead and didn't put on his seatbelt until Flash said "seatbelt" in a tone that brokered no argument, and then he clicked it with a violence that the mechanism did not deserve.
They drove in silence. Flash turned the heat up. Peter's hands were red. Peter sat on them, tucking them under his thighs, and Flash watched this from the corner of his eye and turned the heat up more.
"Your jacket's shit," Flash said, after four blocks.
"It's your jacket."
"Yeah, well, it was shit when I had it too."
Peter almost laughed. It came out as a huff of air through his nose, not quite a laugh, not quite anything, and then it was gone.
Flash drove. Peter didn't tell him where to turn. Flash took a left on Ingram and a right on 43rd and pulled up in front of the building. It was a brick walkup with a broken buzzer panel and a fire escape that looked like a code violation. Peter opened the door.
"Flash."
"What."
Peter didn't say anything for a second. His hand was on the door. He was looking at the dashboard.
"Thanks for the ride," he said, in a voice that was mostly just air.
"Whatever. Don't freeze to death. I don't want to deal with the paperwork."
Peter got out. He shut the door and walked inside and didn't look back.
Flash sat in the car for a minute with the heat running. Then he drove home and ate dinner alone and did his homework and went to bed.
xvii.
The next day at school, Flash knocked Peter's books out of his hands in the hallway.
"Oops. My bad, Parker."
Peter knelt and picked them up, one by one, and Flash walked away with Jason and Marcus. Jason was telling a story about something. Flash laughed at the right parts.
xviii.
Peter had one good shirt. Flash knew this because Peter wore it every time there was a presentation or a school event or picture day. It was a blue button-down that was slightly too small and had been ironed so many times the collar was permanently creased.
Flash owned eleven button-down shirts.
xix.
Senior year. Flash's birthday. His parents gave him a credit card with a five-hundred-dollar limit and a text that said "Happy Birthday Eugene! Love Mom and Dad" that was clearly written by his mom's assistant because his mom always wrote "Luv" and his dad called him "Gene" and neither of them would have used an exclamation point.
He threw a party. He threw a party because that's what you did and his house was big enough and his parents were in - he didn't actually know. Somewhere. People came. Jason and Marcus and Sally and half the football team and some juniors who felt lucky to be there.
Peter was not invited. Peter would not have come.
Flash stood in his kitchen at midnight with music shaking the walls and people in every room and a drink in his hand that someone had brought that he was too young to be drinking. He leaned against the counter and watched Marcus try to do a backflip off the couch and land on Jason. Someone was going to break something. This was a good party.
He went upstairs and sat on his bed for five minutes with the door closed and the bass coming through the floor. His room was very clean. The cleaning lady had been that morning. There was a card on his desk from his aunt in Connecticut, the only person who'd sent a physical card.
"FLASH! Great party, man!"
"Yeah," Flash said, coming back down. "It's decent."
xx.
The last snippet is not a snippet. It's a Monday in April, senior year, and it's warm for the first time in months, and Peter Parker walks into school wearing a t-shirt under Flash's old jacket, which is open because it's warm enough to leave it open, and the t-shirt is too big because it's also Flash's, from the box, and Flash is standing at his locker and he sees Peter walk in and Peter sees Flash see him and for one second -
One second. Not even a second. A fraction.