Chapter Text
The lab had settled into one of its quieter moods sometime after midnight, and for the first time in a long time, Harley was at peace.
Not actually quiet, because nothing in the tower was ever fully quiet, but quieter in the way the world got when everybody else had finally gone to sleep. Machines hummed low beneath the floor. Screens glowed blue across dark metal surfaces. One of DUM-E’s robotic arms clicked occasionally somewhere in the back corner, and outside the windows, Manhattan blurred gold against the glass.
Harley still wasn’t used to how high up they were. If Tony wasn’t here and Harley didn’t care about looking like a kid, he’d go to the windows and press his forehead against it, looking down at the tiny people crossing the streets below.
He always felt so tall in New York.
Harley was halfway through redrawing a circuit layout Tony had massacred with unnecessary modifications when he looked over to grab a tool, only to pause.
Peter had one arm folded beneath his head, cheek pressed against the table, curls smashed in every direction. His other arm stretched across approximately half the workspace like he was trying to take over the entire bench. There were grease smudges on his wrist. His hoodie sleeve had ridden up enough to show healing bruises along his forearm in ugly yellow-green patches.
More importantly, he was very obviously asleep.
Harley stared at him for a second.
Then he reached over and poked him in the side of the head with a pencil. Peter made a small annoyed noise without opening his eyes.
“Move,” Harley said flatly.
Nothing.
Harley poked him harder. “You’re taking up my space.”
Peter’s face scrunched vaguely into the tabletop. “M’not.”
“You literally are.”
Across the lab, Tony didn’t look up from the holographic display hovering around him. “Come on,” he said absently. “He’s tired. Give him a break.”
Harley looked offended by the very suggestion. “No? He’s asleep on my bench.”
“It’s a communal workspace.”
“It’s my communal workspace.”
Tony snorted softly.
Peter shifted further sideways in his sleep somehow, which should not have been physically possible considering the amount of space he already occupied. One sneakered foot bumped Harley’s leg beneath the table.
Harley stared at it in disbelief.
“And now he’s spreading,” he informed Tony. “This is getting aggressive.”
Tony finally glanced over, eyes flicking between them before amusement pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Kid’s exhausted.”
“He’s drooling on my schematics.”
“He is not.”
Harley pointed accusingly. “Look at him. He absolutely is.”
Peter’s breathing stayed slow and even against the tabletop, dead asleep. The overhead lights painted pale shadows beneath his eyes, and he looked tired even unconscious. His eyelashes twitched slightly every few seconds like his body still hadn’t fully figured out how to relax.
Harley narrowed his eyes.
Okay, maybe he looked kind of pathetic.
That wasn’t the point.
“And his arm is on my stuff,” Harley continued. “Look at this. This is selfish behavior.”
Tony leaned back against the worktable behind him, coffee mug balanced loosely in one hand. “You know, most people just wake somebody up normally.”
“Most people are cowards.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Peter made another sleepy sound into the bench, something halfway between a sigh and a complaint, and Harley looked down just in time to watch him slide approximately three more inches sideways until his shoulder bumped Harley’s arm.
Harley recoiled immediately. “Oh my god.”
Tony laughed outright this time.
“He’s doing it on purpose,” Harley accused.
“He’s unconscious.”
“That’s what makes it sinister.”
Tony shook his head. “Leave him alone.”
Harley gestured helplessly toward Peter like Tony was missing the severity of the situation entirely. “He’s sprawled across both benches.”
“Okay.”
“And?”
“And move him.”
“No.”
Harley blinked at him. “No?”
Tony took another sip of coffee. “Let the kid sleep. He’s worse than I am lately.”
Harley looked back down at Peter again.
Now that he was paying attention, the exhaustion really was obvious. Peter had stopped pretending he wasn’t running himself into the ground sometime around hour six of working in the lab tonight. His movements had gotten slower afterward, and much less coordinated. At one point he’d stared at a screwdriver for almost thirty full seconds before Harley had reached over and swiped it out of his hands.
Harley squinted harder at him.
“Well,” he said eventually, “I’m gonna wake him up and tell him to go to bed. He’s gonna hurt his neck sleeping like that.”
Tony’s eyebrows lifted immediately. Harley noticed too late. There was exactly one second where he considered pretending he hadn’t said it, and then Tony gave him the most unbearably smug look Harley had ever seen in his life.
“Aww,” Tony said. “You’re so sweet.”
Harley felt genuine offense ripple through him. “I’m literally insulting him right now.”
“You’re worried about his posture.”
“I am not.”
“You are absolutely worried about his posture.”
Harley looked back at Peter, who had somehow managed to curl slightly around the edge of the bench in a position that looked actively medically concerning.
Okay. Fine. Maybe a little.
That was still nobody’s business.
“You know what,” Harley announced, “I’ve changed my mind.”
Tony looked delighted already, which Harley disliked immensely. Harley made direct eye contact with Peter’s sleeping face for one long second, and then he promptly shoved him hard off the bench.
Peter hit the floor with a loud thud and a startled noise that sounded vaguely like a dying animal, and Tony barked out a laugh so abruptly he nearly spilled his coffee.
Peter jerked upright from the floor, hair sticking up wildly in every direction, blinking around the lab with pure betrayal written across his face. “What the hell?”
Harley sniffed and looked down at his nails. “You were sleeping on my schematics.”
“Harley.”
“You’re welcome, by the way. Now you won’t get scoliosis.”
Peter stared at him in exhausted disbelief. For one alarming second, Harley genuinely thought he might lunge across the floor and tackle him. Peter had that specific overtired look in his eyes where murder probably felt reasonable.
Tony pointed vaguely between them with his coffee mug. “Boys.”
Neither of them looked away from each other.
“Go to bed,” Tony finished.
Peter rubbed at his face blearily with both hands, swaying slightly where he stood. “Okay, Mr. Stark.”
Harley immediately pointed at him. “Yeah, Peter. Go to bed. With your little baby bedtime because you’re a baby-”
“You too, Harley.”
Harley whipped around so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. “Me?”
Tony looked entirely unimpressed. “Yes, you.”
“But I’m doing fine.”
Tony squinted toward one of the digital clocks glowing on the far wall. His expression shifted slightly. “It’s…” He paused. “Jesus Christ. It’s almost three.”
Harley followed his gaze toward the clock.
Okay. Maybe that was later than expected.
Still.
“It’s Friday,” Harley argued incredulously, like this should obviously excuse every bad decision currently being made. Tony stared at him. Harley gestured helplessly. “That means the rules don't count. They're fake.”
“The rules are extremely real.”
“Oppression.”
“You two should’ve been asleep… a while ago.”
Harley looked toward Peter immediately. “Peter,” he demanded, “back me up.” Peter blinked at him slowly. Harley waited. Peter blinked again, and looked like he’d fall asleep standing upright. Harley’s face twisted into a scowl. “You’re useless.”
Peter made a small wounded sound that somehow still managed to sound exhausted.
Tony snorted into his coffee. “Alright,” Tony said, setting the mug down. “Bedtime. Both of you.”
Harley groaned dramatically toward the ceiling. “This is authoritarianism.”
“This is parenting.”
“Same thing.” Tony pointed toward the lab doors. Harley grumbled under his breath the entire time he shoved away from the workbench and gathered his tablet. “Fine,” he muttered. “But I’m doing it out of spite.”
“Of course you are.”
“This is mean and evil and terrible. I come to visit from across the country and you’re telling me to leave.”
“I am, yes.”
Harley squinted suspiciously at him. “You don’t even sound guilty.”
“Because I’m not.”
Peter was still rubbing sleepily at his eyes beside the bench like his brain hadn’t fully rebooted after impact with the floor. Harley watched him sway slightly again and instinctively grabbed the back of his hoodie before he tipped sideways into a cabinet.
Peter blinked down at Harley’s hand.
Harley immediately let go like he’d been electrocuted.
“You looked unstable,” he said defensively.
“You shoved me onto the floor.”
“And yet somehow you survived.”
“Barely.”
“You’re a cockroach, you’ll be fine.”
Peter yawned in the middle of glaring at him, which ruined the effect completely. Tony grinned up at them. “Night, kids.”
“Night, Mr. Stark,” Peter called blearily behind him, rubbing hard at one eye with the sleeve of his hoodie.
Harley rolled his eyes toward the ceiling as the lab doors slid open. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t work yourself to death while we’re gone, old man.”
“I’ll do my best,” Tony said dryly.
Peter nearly walked directly into Harley on the way out. Harley caught him automatically by the shoulders before he faceplanted into his chest, and Peter just blinked at him slowly like his brain had stopped processing basic spatial awareness sometime around two-thirty in the morning.
“Jesus Christ,” Harley muttered. “You’re held together with duct tape.”
Peter made a sleepy offended noise.
The hallway outside the lab felt colder than inside. Quiet too, in that strange late-night way the tower always did after everyone important had finally disappeared into their rooms. The polished floors reflected strips of pale overhead lighting beneath their shoes while the city glowed distantly through the windows at the end of the corridor.
Peter swayed slightly beside him while they waited for the elevator. Harley pretended not to notice.
The elevator arrived with a soft ding.
Peter shuffled inside first, movements sluggish and heavy with exhaustion. Harley followed after him, and the doors slid shut with a quiet mechanical hum that sealed them away from the rest of the tower.
The second they closed, Harley relaxed. He leaned back against the wall and looked Peter over properly now that nobody else was there to see him doing it.
Peter looked exhausted. Not normal tired. Not even patrol tired. The kind of exhaustion that hollowed him out from the inside until he barely seemed fully connected to his own body anymore. Bruises darkened faintly beneath the collar of his hoodie. There was still a healing scrape near his jaw. His curls stuck up in every direction from sleeping on the workbench.
Harley’s chest tightened unpleasantly.
“You’re so tired,” he said finally. “What’s wrong with you?”
Peter glared at him without much energy behind it. “Someone pushed me off my bench while I was sleeping.”
“It was my bench.”
“You assaulted me.”
“You survived.”
Peter yawned halfway through his next sentence. “I was tired after patrol last night,” he complained. “I’m already bruised.”
Harley’s expression softened before he could stop it. “Oh, sweetheart,” he cooed mockingly. “Want me to kiss it better?”
Peter’s eyes flicked toward him immediately. Harley stepped closer automatically, backing Peter gently against the elevator wall. He half expected a vicious makeout now that they were in the privacy of the elevator, but Peter just melted toward him the second Harley touched him.
Peter slid directly into his space, forehead bumping lightly against Harley’s shoulder before he tucked himself against Harley properly with a quiet exhale. His arms slipped loosely around Harley’s waist and tucked in close.
Harley’s chest hurt a little.
God. He was exhausted.
Harley wrapped both arms around him automatically, one hand settling at the back of Peter’s neck while the other circled his waist and held him close. “Jesus,” Harley murmured into his hair. “You’re tired, huh, bug?”
Peter hummed softly against the collar of Harley’s throat. The sound vibrated warm against his skin, and Harley felt himself melt a little around the edges despite his best efforts.
“Bedtime,” he snorted quietly, pressing a kiss against Peter’s cheek.
Peter sighed like the affection physically loosened something in him. The elevator continued downward around them, and the soft lighting reflected warm colors across the metal walls while the city glittered distantly beyond the glass outside. Peter stayed tucked against him the entire ride. Harley could feel how cold his hands were even through his shirt.
The elevator doors slid open, and neither of them moved immediately.
Then Harley tilted his head down to ask, “You staying with me again?”
“Yes please,” Peter murmured sleepily, voice soft and wrecked with exhaustion. The answer landed warm somewhere beneath Harley’s ribs.
Harley huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “C’mon then, slowpoke.”
He tightened his arm around Peter’s waist and tugged him gently out into the hallway. Peter followed without protest, half leaning into Harley as they walked. Their shoulders bumped together every few steps. The tower stayed silent around them, most of the lights dimmed this late at night, and Harley found himself relaxing further with every hallway they passed through.
By the time they reached his room, Peter looked barely conscious.
Harley nudged the door open and guided him inside.
The room was dim except for the city light bleeding silver-blue through the windows. Clothes lay abandoned across the chair in the corner. A tablet blinked sleepily on the bedside table where Harley had forgotten it earlier. The sheets were tangled from where he’d left them this morning.
Peter immediately gravitated toward the bed.
Harley snorted softly and tugged his shirt over his head while Peter sat heavily on the mattress. Peter blinked at him blearily for a second before slowly pulling back the covers and crawling underneath them with no coordination.
“You’re ninety years old,” Harley informed him. “You move like a grandma.”
Peter made a sleepy noise into the pillow, and Harley dropped onto the bed beside him a second later.
Immediately, Peter rolled toward him, instinctive and automatic and terribly familiar by now. Peter pressed close without hesitation, cold hands sliding beneath Harley’s arm as he tucked himself against Harley’s chest.
Harley wrapped both arms around him automatically, and Peter sighed softly the second their skin touched. “You’re so warm,” he murmured.
Harley snorted quietly. “You’re freezing.”
Peter’s feet nudged against Harley’s legs under the blankets, ice cold and terrible.
“Oh my god,” Harley hissed, “what the hell, Peter?”
Peter laughed weakly against his shoulder.
Harley tightened his arm around his waist anyway, pulling him closer until they were chest-to-chest beneath the blankets. Peter practically melted into him afterward, tension slowly draining from his body in stages.
Harley’s hand slipped beneath the hem of Peter’s shirt, fingertips tracing absent little patterns against the warm skin at the small of his back. His other hand settled into Peter’s hair automatically, combing slowly through the soft curls there.
Peter made another quiet humming sound. The room stayed still around them.
Outside the windows, Manhattan glowed. Traffic lights blinked red and gold far below the tower while distant sirens echoed faintly somewhere downtown. The air conditioner hummed softly near the ceiling.
Peter’s breathing started slowing within minutes.
Harley felt it happen gradually beneath his hands in the way Peter’s body loosened further against him. The way his grip softened slightly in the fabric of Harley’s shirt. Exhaustion dragged him under fast once he finally stopped fighting it.
Harley brushed another kiss into his hair. Peter breathed something sleepy and incoherent against his collarbone.
“Go to sleep,” Harley whispered.
Peter did, just like that. One second awake enough to cling weakly onto him, the next fully asleep against Harley’s chest with slow steady breaths warming the skin of his throat.
Harley stayed still afterward.
Peter always got clingier when he was exhausted - softer too, and less guarded around the edges. Sometimes Harley thought Peter spent so much time holding himself together during the day that sleep was the only time he fully let go of anything, despite the way his palms would stick to Harley’s skin.
Harley understood that feeling more than he liked.
Carefully, he shifted them both lower beneath the blankets and tightened his arms around him again. Peter instinctively followed the movement in his sleep, pressing closer immediately, and warmth spread slowly through Harley’s chest.
For all the bickering and sharp edges and pretending they couldn’t stand each other half the time, moments like this still felt strange sometimes. Not bad strange. Most of the bickering was for show, because Harley was too much of a coward to hold hands in public, and Harley hadn’t asked Peter if anyone knew he didn’t just like girls. Telling people made things complicated, so they just… didn’t.
But it was nice that Peter trusted him enough to sleep like this. Harley relished in being able to be the one to hold him together for a little while.
Harley rested his cheek lightly against Peter’s curls and stared out at the city lights beyond the windows while Peter slept against him warm and breathing and alive.
Eventually, Harley closed his eyes too, still holding him close.
—
Harley saw Peter again in a Wakandan medical wing that smelled faintly like antiseptic and rain.
For one terrible second, his brain refused to process it properly - not because Peter looked different, but because he didn’t. That was the problem.
The room blurred around the edges the moment Harley stepped through the doorway. Bright white lighting reflected softly off smooth metal walls and unfamiliar technology humming quietly beneath the floor. Somewhere nearby, machines beeped in slow steady rhythms beside Tony’s bed. Voices murmured low from another room down the hall. Outside the windows, gray skies stretched endlessly over mountains Harley still couldn’t quite believe were real.
None of it registered properly.
Peter stood near the far side of the room with May beside him, and Harley’s entire body forgot how to function for a second.
Peter looked seventeen - exactly seventeen. Not older. Not taller. Not different enough.
Seventeen.
His hair still curled wrong at the edges. His hoodie sleeves still swallowed his hands halfway. His face still had that awful softness around the edges that made him look younger whenever he was exhausted or upset, and right now he looked both.
Harley felt hollowed out so suddenly it almost hurt.
Five years.
Five entire years, and Peter Parker still looked like somebody had pulled him straight out of Harley’s memory from yesterday.
Peter looked up at the sound of the door opening, and their eyes met. Harley stopped breathing.
The thing nobody told you about grief was how physical it became after long enough. It settled into bone, into muscle memory, into all the tiny places somebody used to occupy without permission. Harley had spent five years existing around Peter-shaped absences. Five years of instinctively reaching for his phone before remembering there would never be another text message. Five years of thinking about stupid things Peter would’ve liked and then feeling sick afterward.
Five years of missing him so constantly it had become background noise.
And now Peter was standing six feet away looking confused and devastated and heartbreakingly alive, and Harley thought he might actually collapse.
Peter stared at him like he couldn’t figure out the same thing in reverse.
Because before-
Before, Peter had been older. Barely. Less than two years. Technically stupid, but Peter had never let him forget it anyway.
Harley used to ignore it because he’d hit his growth spurt early and Peter had still been all sharp elbows and too-big hoodies back then. Scrawny as hell and easy to tease about it when Harley could rest an arm on top of Peter’s head and call him short just to watch him get offended.
Now Harley stood there at nearly twenty years old looking down at him, and something about it felt fundamentally wrong.
Peter was still seventeen.
Harley had aged. Peter hadn’t.
The realization carved straight through him. Harley looked away because suddenly his own eyes burned too hard.
Tony lay motionless in the hospital bed beside them.
That reality settled back over the room in pieces after the initial shock wore off enough for Harley’s brain to start functioning again. The monitors. The oxygen cannula beneath Tony’s nose. The bruising still visible along one side of his face. Bruce had said temporary coma due to severe exhaustion and a slew of injuries. Recovery should only take a week or two at most.
Should.
Harley hated that word now.
Peter looked toward Tony too eventually, expression folding inward immediately. The devastation there felt raw and fresh and unsteady.
Harley knew that look.
Peter moved closer to the bed slowly, like he was afraid getting too close might somehow make everything real. One shaking hand reached toward Tony before hesitating midway there. “He was awake earlier,” Rhodey said quietly from near the doorway. “For a little while.”
Peter swallowed hard. “Okay.”
His voice sounded wrong and thin. Harley stared at him harder than he meant to.
Peter looked exhausted in a way Harley had never seen before - not patrol tired, and not school stress tired. Not even grief exactly; worse than that, somehow. Like reality itself had slammed into him too fast for his body to catch up.
Which… Yeah.
Five years. One second alive. The next-
Harley’s stomach twisted violently.
Peter had no idea.
That part almost made it worse, maybe, because for Harley, grief had happened slowly. Brutally. Five years stretched thin and agonizing and endless around the shape of Peter’s absence. There’d been funerals without bodies. Memorials. Empty bedrooms. Birthdays that kept happening anyway.
Peter had gotten none of it.
To him, the last thing he remembered was dying, and now suddenly the world had moved on without him. Harley thought about waking up to discover everyone else had lived five years while he stayed frozen in place. The thought made him feel sick.
Peter finally sat down beside Tony’s bed after a while, movements stiff and uncertain. May settled beside him immediately, one hand wrapped tightly around his wrist like she was afraid he might disappear again if she let go.
Harley understood that feeling too well.
Nobody spoke much after that.
The room settled into quiet eventually with monitors beeping and the sound of breathing, and Peter sat hunched beside the bed staring at Tony like he couldn’t look away for even a second.
Harley couldn’t stop staring at Peter instead. It felt impossible.
Peter rubbed hard at his eyes at one point, and Harley recognized the gesture instantly. Same as always. Same nervous habit. Same tiny crease between his eyebrows when he was overwhelmed.
Five years.
Harley had spent five years trying to imagine what Peter would’ve looked like at twenty-two. Older, probably. Broader shoulders, maybe. Less baby-faced. He’d joked once that Peter was gonna hit a growth spurt late out of pure spite just to become taller than everyone else.
Now Harley stood there realizing Peter never got the chance, and the grief hit sideways this time instead of head-on - not because Peter was dead, but because he wasn’t. Because Harley had mourned somebody currently sitting twenty feet away from him.
It made his entire chest ache.
Eventually the room emptied slowly around them - the last nurse left after checking Tony’s vitals again, and Rhodey followed not long afterward. May disappeared briefly with Pepper somewhere down the hall after someone insisted she needed coffee and actual sleep before she passed out.
Peter stayed exactly where he was beside the bed. Harley stayed too.
Neither of them acknowledged it. For a while, the only sound in the room came from the machines monitoring Tony’s heartbeat.
Peter looked wrecked, though he wasn’t crying anymore, but it still felt somehow worse than that; kind of like it was quiet in the frightening kind of way. He sat hunched forward with both hands clasped together between his knees, staring down at the floor now instead of Tony.
Harley knew that posture too.
Finally, softly, Harley said, “Hey.”
Peter looked up immediately, and his face crumpled. He stood and crossed the room so fast Harley barely processed it before arms wrapped hard around him. Harley froze. Peter buried his face against his shoulder with a small broken sound that shattered something straight through Harley’s ribs.
And Harley-
Harley could’ve cried.
Instead he grabbed Peter back so fast it almost hurt, arms locking around him automatically while relief crashed through his entire body hard enough to make him dizzy.
Peter was alive.
Alive.
Warm and breathing and shaking slightly against him.
Harley ducked his head against Peter’s shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut hard. Five years. Five fucking years, and now Peter clung to him like he was drowning.
Harley held him tighter, and neither of them said anything. There wasn’t really language for this anyway. How were you supposed to explain five years of grief to somebody who skipped them entirely? How was Peter supposed to explain dying?
Harley felt Peter breathing unevenly against his neck. “I don’t know what to do,” Peter whispered finally.
The words came out small, and Harley’s throat tightened painfully, because neither did he. Not even a little.
He swallowed hard against it. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly into Peter’s shoulder. “Neither do I.”
Peter made another awful little noise against him, and Harley held him harder. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen.
Harley remembered the funeral, standing beside Tony in a black suit while the lake reflected gray skies behind them. Watching everybody cry quietly into expensive sunglasses. May holding herself together through sheer force of will alone. Peter absent in the most unbearable way imaginable.
Harley had spent that entire day feeling hollowed out beyond repair.
Now Peter was alive, and Harley still didn’t know how to process either of those things simultaneously.
Peter pulled back eventually, though not far. His hands stayed twisted tightly in the back of Harley’s shirt like letting go entirely might physically kill him. Harley probably would’ve allowed it.
Up close, Peter looked even younger somehow. Or maybe Harley just looked older now. The difference between seventeen and almost twenty shouldn’t have felt this massive. It was stupid. Objectively stupid. Except Harley had lived those years, and Peter hadn’t. Harley could still remember being seventeen. Loud and angry and reckless and convinced adulthood existed somewhere very far away from him. Now Peter looked exactly the same age Harley remembered while Harley himself felt exhausted down to the marrow.
The imbalance of it scraped weirdly beneath his skin.
Peter looked up at him tiredly. “You got taller.”
Harley barked out a startled laugh before he could stop himself. It sounded dangerously close to crying. “Yeah,” he managed.
Peter stared at him for another second before exhaustion folded his expression inward again. “That’s weird.”
“You disappeared for five years,” Harley said softly. “Everything’s weird.” Peter’s face crumpled slightly around the edges, and immediately Harley regretted saying it out loud. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly.
Peter shook his head once. “No, I know.” His voice sounded thin again. “I just… it doesn’t feel real.”
Peter finally let go of Harley’s shirt enough for them to sit down beside each other near Tony’s bed afterward, though their shoulders stayed pressed together. Neither of them moved away. Peter watched Tony sleep quietly, expression tight and exhausted.
Harley watched Peter instead. He couldn’t stop.
Every few seconds his brain couldn’t process the fact that Peter existed again, and small things kept catching him off guard. The exact shape of his profile in the hospital lighting. The way he rubbed his thumb against the side of his hand when anxious. The tiny scar near his chin Harley had forgotten about until now.
Peter eventually leaned sideways enough for his shoulder to rest fully against Harley’s arm, and Harley’s chest hurt.
Carefully, he reached over and threaded their fingers together where they rested between them. Peter held on immediately.
Tony slept motionless beside them.
Peter sat alive and warm at Harley’s side after five years of being gone, and Harley thought maybe his heart would never fully recover from the sheer impossible relief of it.
—
Tony waking up changed the shape of everything in a way nobody really said out loud, but everybody felt anyway.
It wasn’t dramatic like Harley had half expected from Tony - there was no sudden moment of clarity, no cinematic return from the brink. Instead, there was just a painfully slow but steady improvement, quiet days where machines got unhooked one by one and voices stopped sounding quite so careful around his bedside. One morning he was awake long enough to complain about the lighting. The next he asked for coffee. After that, it stopped feeling like waiting and started feeling like continuing.
Life went on.
It always did, whether anyone was ready for it or not.
Harley noticed the shift most in the lab nights, because once Tony was well enough to be back in New York, he was back in the lab whether people argued with him or not. When Tony returned to the lab, so did Peter. There was a tentative return to the normalcy that they’d had before everything had turned upside down; they still stayed too late. The same projects still sprawled across worktables in a half-finished mess.
But everything felt different, still, too.
Before, it had been easy in a way nobody admitted to, because they were younger and stupider and thought consequences were something that happened to other people. Harley used to pretend he didn’t care when Peter fell asleep on the bench. Used to poke him with pencils just to get a reaction, just to hear him complain.
Peter used to play along too.
Half of it had been a performance, really. They’d act like they hated each other just enough to make it believable, then slip out of sight later and end up in whichever room was closest and quietest and belonged to neither of them for long.
Sneaking around had felt like a game back then.
Now it didn’t.
Now Harley just stood there sometimes and didn’t know where to put his hands. Peter still fell asleep at the benches.
That part hadn’t changed.
He would start sitting upright, pretending he was fine, and then slowly he would tilt forward over the work. His head would dip. His breathing would even out. The pencil would slip from his fingers, and Harley would notice.
Every time.
The first few times after everything, he’d hesitated. He’d let Peter sleep, convinced that maybe that was what he was supposed to do now. Let him rest. Let him stay there. Let things be simple.
But Peter didn’t sleep like that. Harley knew that now.
He’d seen it too often since everything came back together in pieces, because he noticed the way Peter’s shoulders would jerk faintly even when he was asleep. The way his fingers curled like he was still holding onto something in a dream. The way his breathing would change just slightly, like he was somewhere else entirely for a while.
Nightmares, then.
Harley didn’t need anyone to tell him that. He just… understood it.
It made something sour settle in his chest whenever he noticed it, because it explained things he hadn’t understood before. Why Peter used to refuse to sleep alone back then without turning it into a joke. Why he’d always ended up in shared spaces, couches, desks, floors, anywhere there were other people nearby.
Harley watched it happen once more late one night when the lab was nearly empty except for them.
Peter was bent over a diagnostic interface, face half-lit in blue light, eyes already unfocused. He tried to straighten up once, stubbornly, like he could outlast it.
He didn’t. His head dipped forward.
Harley crossed the room before he really decided to, with no pencil to poke at him with this time. He took a quiet step closer and a hand on Peter’s arm. “Hey,” he said softly.
Peter startled awake immediately, shoulders tensing like he’d been pulled out of somewhere deep underwater. His eyes snapped open, disoriented for a second, breathing uneven before he focused.
Harley kept his grip gentle. “You’re falling asleep again,” he added quietly.
Peter blinked at him like he was trying to remember where he was, and then his expression softened slightly around the edges in recognition.
“Oh,” he breathed.
There it was again. That exhaustion. Harley squeezed his arm once, steadying. “Go to bed. You’re staying the night, right?”
Peter opened his mouth like he was going to argue out of habit, then stopped. Harley watched him reconsider it in real time. Peter exhaled slowly. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Okay.”
It was always like that now. There was less of a fight and more acceptance, like they’d both quietly agreed that pretending had stopped being necessary.
They gathered their things in slow silence after that. The lab dimmed behind them as they left.
Tony was in the common area when they stopped by to say goodnight, propped up on the couch with a tablet in one hand. “You two still here?” he asked.
Harley shrugged. “Unfortunately.”
Tony hummed. “Go get some sleep.”
“No promises,” Peter murmured automatically. That earned him a look. Harley almost smiled, but it didn’t fully sit right. They stood there for a moment longer than necessary. Then Peter shifted his weight slightly. “Night, Mr. Stark.”
“Goodnight, kid,” Tony said, softer this time.
Harley hesitated a fraction behind him. Then, like muscle memory that didn’t quite know where to go anymore, he added, “Yeah. Night.”
And that was it.
They left. The elevator ride was quiet, but it wasn’t as comfortable as it used to be.
Peter leaned lightly against the wall, staring at the floor. Harley stood across from him, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes fixed somewhere above Peter’s shoulder instead of on him directly. The reflection in the metal doors showed them both too clearly, and Harley didn’t like looking at it for too long.
Before, there would’ve been handholding or clinging or making out against the uncomfortable wall behind them. They would have had a shared plan, or an excuse to not split apart when the doors opened.
Now there wasn’t. Now there was just the quiet understanding that they would, and that it was inevitable.
Neither of them wanted to address why.
The elevator chimed, and Harley looked at him for a second longer than necessary.
Peter looked tired again already. He hadn’t moved, but his posture was tense with that slight slump of his shoulders and his eyes kept drifting unfocused for half a second too long.
Harley’s chest tightened.
“Go sleep,” Harley said simply.
Peter nodded once. “Yeah.”
A beat passed. Neither of them moved. Then Peter managed a small half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You too.”
“Yeah,” Harley echoed.
Peter hesitated, like he might say something else, like there was something sitting right on the edge of his tongue that didn’t have an easy shape yet.
Instead, he just nodded again.
Then he stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hall. The door shut softly behind him, and Harley stood there for a second longer than he needed to. Then the elevator doors closed again, and he made his way back to his own room and dropped at the foot of the bed, miserably.
He didn’t know what he was supposed to be now. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He wasn’t someone sneaking through hallways just to steal a few hours of closeness before morning came too fast.
Harley lay back eventually, still fully dressed, one arm over his eyes. The ceiling didn’t answer anything. And in the quiet that followed, he tried very hard not to grieve something that was still standing on the other side of a closed door a floor above him.
—
It started slowly enough that Harley almost convinced himself he was imagining it.
There wasn’t ssome catastrophic collapse that immediately set off alarms - instead, it was just little things accumulating quietly around the edges of Peter until eventually Harley couldn’t ignore them anymore.
Peter got tired first.
At first, it didn’t seem unusual. Peter had always been tired. Patrols and classes and lab work and the general horrifying lifestyle choices that came with being Peter Parker tended to grind him down eventually. Harley was used to finding him half-asleep in the lab at ridiculous hours or passed out sideways across couches with homework still open on his chest.
But this felt different somehow, but Harley couldn’t explain why.
Peter moved slower lately, too; it was like every action took an extra second to process before his body followed through. He yawned constantly now, rubbing at his eyes so often Harley started noticing the faint redness around them. Sometimes, Harley would look over during lab nights and catch Peter staring blankly at nothing for several seconds straight before jerking back into focus.
The worst part was how hard Peter tried to pretend otherwise.
“Dude,” Harley said one night after watching Peter nearly walk directly into a worktable, “you look dead.”
Peter blinked at him tiredly. “Rude.”
“You almost concussed yourself on a countertop.”
“I’m multitasking.”
“You’re losing a fight against basic motor function.”
Peter rolled his eyes automatically, but the movement looked sluggish. “I’m fine.”
Harley wanted to believe him. That was the problem. He always wanted to believe him, and then Peter started eating less.
That one Harley noticed immediately, mostly because Peter usually ate like somebody preparing for winter hibernation - because he did hibernate, to an extent. Before, Harley could barely leave snacks anywhere near him without watching them disappear within minutes. Peter’s metabolism burned through food like gasoline.
Now he picked at meals absentmindedly and claimed he just wasn’t hungry.
Harley watched him push fries around a plate for twenty straight minutes one afternoon before finally asking, “Are you sick or something?”
Peter shrugged one shoulder without looking up. “Probably just tired.”
“You’re always tired.”
“Exactly.”
Harley frowned harder.
And then there was the cough. That was the thing that really started scaring him - at first it sounded harmless, because it was just occasional. A dry little cough every once in a while that Peter brushed off immediately whenever anyone noticed.
Except it didn’t go away. Weeks passed, and it was still there.
Sometimes Harley heard it echoing down the hallway outside the labs late at night. Sometimes Peter would turn his head quickly into his elbow halfway through conversations, trying to hide it. Sometimes it got bad enough Harley noticed him pressing a fist briefly against his ribs afterward like his chest hurt.
Harley hated it. He hated all of it.
Mostly he hated not knowing what he was allowed to do anymore.
That was the cruelest part.
Before everything happened, Harley would’ve just grabbed him and forced him to sit down. He would have hauled him into his lap, pressed a hand against his forehead dramatically and bullied him into resting, whether Peter liked it or not.
Now every instinct still screamed to do exactly that, but Harley kept stopping himself halfway there, because things had changed.
They still spent time together. They still worked in the labs until stupid hours, and still gravitated toward each other unconsciously in crowded rooms, but there was distance, now, too. Small and invisible and impossible to name directly. The kind grief carved into people even after they got each other back, and Harley didn’t know how to cross it anymore without permission.
So instead, he watched Peter deteriorate in inches.
Bruises lingered longer than they should have. Cuts healed slower. One scrape along Peter’s knuckles stayed pink and angry-looking for nearly two weeks, and Harley caught himself staring at it hard enough that Peter noticed.
“What?” Peter asked.
Harley looked away immediately. “Nothing.”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The worried face.”
“I don’t have a worried face.”
“You absolutely have a worried face.”
Harley scoffed. “You’re hallucinating from sleep deprivation.”
Peter smiled faintly at that, but it faded quickly around the edges when another cough interrupted him. Harley’s stomach twisted.
Things finally shifted from concerning to genuinely frightening the night Peter skipped patrol.
Harley found him sitting alone in the common room around ten, curled sideways into the corner of the couch beneath a blanket. At first Harley thought maybe he was just waiting before heading out, and then he noticed Peter was still in sweatpants.
“You’re not going?” Harley asked carefully.
Peter looked up slowly from where he’d been staring blankly at the TV without actually watching it. “Nah,” he said quietly. “Too tired.”
Harley stopped moving, because Peter didn’t skip patrol unless somebody physically forced him to. The room suddenly felt colder somehow, and Peter coughed again into the sleeve of his hoodie, shoulders curling inward slightly afterward.
Harley sat down beside him before he could think too hard about it.
“You okay?” he asked.
Peter shrugged weakly. “Yeah. Just exhausted.”
It sounded automatic and practiced, and Harley stared at him for a second too long. Peter looked awful and pale beneath the dim lighting. Dark circles bruised beneath his eyes, and he looked thinner too, maybe. Harley hated realizing that.
Carefully, cautiously, like approaching a wounded animal, Harley said, “Maybe we should go see Cho.”
Peter immediately stiffened beside him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m just tired.”
“You skipped patrol. Peter.” Peter looked away. Harley swallowed hard. “Hey, sweetheart.”
That finally got Peter to glance back toward him. Something complicated flickered briefly across his face; fear maybe. Exhaustion. Something deeper underneath both.
Harley’s chest ached.
“I think something’s wrong,” he admitted softly.
Peter was quiet for a long moment after that.
The TV murmured pointlessly in the background while the tower hummed around them. Somewhere downstairs, somebody laughed faintly. Life continued normally somewhere outside this room.
Finally, Peter exhaled slowly through his nose. “Okay,” he said.
Harley blinked. “Okay?”
Peter rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “We can go to Cho.” Relief hit Harley so abruptly it almost hurt, and then Peter added quickly, “But we can’t tell Tony or May.”
Harley hesitated.
Peter looked genuinely nervous now, fingers twisting tightly in the blanket pooled across his lap. “Please,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to freak May out. It was so hard to stay over here a few nights a week as is, if she thinks something’s wrong…”
Harley’s throat tightened. “Okay,” he agreed.
—
The medbay smelled like antiseptic and recycled air and something faintly metallic underneath both. Harley hated it instantly. Peter looked like he hated it too. He sat perched on the edge of one of the examination cots with his shoulders tense and drawn inward while Cho scanned through medical data on a holographic display nearby.
“So,” she said gently, “tell me exactly what’s been going on.”
Peter shrugged one shoulder. “Tired.” Cho gave him a look. “Very tired,” Peter corrected.
Harley leaned against the counter nearby with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, trying not to look as anxious as he felt. Cho continued asking questions while Peter answered quietly.
Fatigue. Loss of appetite. Persistent cough. Occasional dizziness. Healing delayed beyond normal enhanced recovery expectations. Harley watched Cho’s expression become more serious with every answer. His stomach dropped lower each time.
“How long?” she asked eventually.
Peter hesitated. “A few weeks,” he admitted.
Harley stared at him immediately. Peter avoided eye contact. “A few weeks?” Harley repeated incredulously.
Peter looked defensive instantly. “I thought it would go away.”
“You thought wrong.”
Cho raised one eyebrow at both of them. “Do you always argue this much?”
“Yes,” they answered simultaneously.
Peter coughed immediately afterward, and nobody laughed. Cho sighed softly and pulled open a drawer beside the cot. “Alright. Let’s start with bloodwork.”
Peter visibly wilted. Harley noticed instantly. “Oh my god,” he said slowly. “You’re scared of needles?”
Peter looked horrified. “No.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m not scared of them,” Peter muttered. “I just hate them.”
“That’s literally the same thing.”
“It is not.”
Cho looked deeply unimpressed by both of them, before her expression softened. “Peter.”
Peter sighed dramatically and held out his arm. Harley expected him to pull away afterward, but instead, a second later, Peter’s hand found his. Harley froze. Peter didn’t look at him while he did it. He didn’t acknowledge it at all, actually - he just wrapped cold fingers loosely around Harley’s hand beside the cot while Cho tied off his arm and prepared the needle.
Harley swallowed hard.
Peter squeezed once when the needle slid in, small and instinctive, and Harley’s chest hurt so suddenly he almost forgot how to breathe. Carefully, he squeezed back. Cho pretended not to notice.
The blood collection only took a minute, but Peter’s grip never loosened the entire time. Harley watched his face instead of the needle; the slight tension around his mouth. The way he stared stubbornly at the opposite wall while trying very hard not to think about it.
God.
Harley loved him so much it physically hurt sometimes.
Cho removed the needle carefully and pressed gauze against Peter’s arm. “Alright,” she said. “I’m going to run a few things. FRIDAY should have preliminary results in a couple minutes.”
Peter nodded quietly.
Cho glanced between them once, expression unreadable. “Just wait here.”
Then she disappeared into the adjoining lab, and silence settled over the medbay afterward. Somewhere farther down the hall, footsteps echoed briefly before fading away again. Peter still hadn’t let go of Harley’s hand. Harley realized that slowly, but neither of them acknowledged it.
After a minute, Peter leaned sideways slightly until his shoulder pressed lightly against Harley’s arm. “I hate needles,” he muttered.
Harley huffed softly through his nose. “Yeah. I noticed.”
“And I hate the medbay.”
“Same.”
Peter glanced up at him tiredly. “Really?”
“This place always smells weird.”
That finally earned him the faintest hint of a smile. “Antiseptic,” Peter murmured.
“No,” Harley said firmly. “It smells like cough medicine.”
Peter snorted quietly despite himself, and the sound loosened something tight in Harley’s chest. For a second, sitting there beside him felt almost normal again.
Almost.
Peter’s fingers still curled loosely around Harley’s hand.
The overhead lights still reflected pale across exhausted skin and dark circles beneath Peter’s eyes. Harley looked over at him carefully.
Peter leaned heavier into his side now, visibly drained just from sitting upright this long. His eyes had drifted half-shut, and the cough came back a second later, rough enough that Harley instinctively reached toward him before stopping himself midway there.
Peter noticed.
Their eyes met briefly.
Neither of them said anything, and Harley lowered his hand slowly. The silence afterward felt delicate, like glass. Peter looked away first, staring down at their joined hands instead. Harley did too.
Everything had changed so gradually he still couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it happened - when touching each other stopped being easy. When affection started feeling careful instead of instinctive. But Peter was still holding his hand.
Even now. Even like this.
Harley swallowed hard against the ache rising slowly in his throat.
Across the room, medical scanners hummed quietly while FRIDAY processed bloodwork results somewhere behind the walls. Peter leaned tiredly against him beneath the harsh white medbay lights, warm and breathing and visibly falling apart inch by inch, and Harley thought nothing in the world had ever scared him more.
He just didn’t know how to do this. That realization sat ugly and heavy somewhere beneath his ribs while Peter’s hand stayed tangled with his own between them.
Because he still loved him.
That part hadn’t changed. Not after five years. Not after funerals and grief and learning how to exist around an absence so large it swallowed entire pieces of his life whole. Seeing Peter again hadn’t erased any of it either. If anything, it made the feeling worse, more unbearable in its relief.
Peter loved him too.
Harley could still feel it in the way Peter leaned unconsciously closer every few minutes like his body remembered Harley before his brain fully caught up. In the instinctive grip of his fingers. In the exhausted trust of letting himself soften against Harley’s shoulder without hesitation.
But five years had still happened.
Harley had lived them. Peter hadn’t, and Harley didn’t know how to bridge that distance without feeling like he was standing on cracked ice, so instead he focused on Peter’s hand in his, warm and real, slightly rough at the fingertips from web fluid and calluses and old scars.
Alive.
Harley kept getting stuck on that part.
Peter shifted beside him, curling slightly inward until his shoulder pressed more firmly against Harley’s arm. Peter’s head tipped sideways until it rested fully against Harley’s shoulder, and the movement happened so naturally Harley almost forgot to breathe.
Carefully, before he could think too hard about it, Harley lifted his free hand and brushed his fingers back through Peter’s curls. Peter immediately leaned into it.
God.
Harley’s entire chest ached.
Peter tipped his face slightly into Harley’s arm afterward, eyes drifting shut briefly beneath the fluorescent lighting. He looked exhausted enough to fall asleep sitting upright again if left alone too long.
Harley wanted-
Jesus.
He wanted to tip Peter’s face upward and kiss him, just soft and familiar and real enough to lose himself in it. Five years of missing him rose painfully beneath Harley’s skin all at once, making every inch of distance between them suddenly unbearable.
But he couldn’t.
Not because Peter would pull away, and that almost made it worse.
Harley didn’t know what they were anymore. Did five years dead count as a breakup? Did grief? Did funerals? Did Peter even remember where they’d left things before Titan before everything before-
The thought spiraled unpleasantly, and Harley swallowed it down hard.
Before he could decide whether speaking would somehow make things better or catastrophically worse, the medbay door slid open again.
Cho stepped back inside carrying a tablet tucked beneath one arm, and Peter straightened automatically.
Harley felt the tiny tension that tightened through his shoulders and fingers all at once, nervousness replacing some of the exhausted softness from moments earlier.
Cho noticed too. Her expression shifted slightly when she looked at Peter, more serious now beneath the gentle professionalism she always carried around patients. Still, she offered him a small reassuring smile as she crossed the room.
“Peter,” she said softly.
Peter sat up straighter beside Harley. “Hi.” His voice sounded thin.
Cho settled into the chair across from him while glancing down briefly at the tablet in her hands. The movement looked casual enough, but Harley caught the crease between her eyebrows immediately.
Something tightened unpleasantly in his stomach.
“How are you feeling?” Cho asked carefully.
Peter shrugged one shoulder automatically. “Okay, I guess.”
Harley looked sideways at him. Peter looked back for exactly half a second before looking away again.
Liar.
Cho didn’t look convinced either. “Any dizziness?”
“A little.”
“Nausea?”
Peter hesitated. “Sometimes.”
Cho nodded once like she’d expected that answer already. “Headaches?”
“Yeah.”
“How severe?”
Peter rubbed absently at the side of his neck. “I dunno. Kinda bad sometimes.”
Harley frowned harder. Peter hadn’t mentioned headaches. Cho typed something briefly into the tablet. The room stayed quiet except for the soft tapping of her fingers against the screen. Peter’s hand tightened slightly around Harley’s, and Harley squeezed back automatically.
Cho looked up again after a moment. “Any changes to your senses? Vision issues, hearing sensitivity, temperature regulation?”
Peter blinked. “Temperature?”
“Have you been unusually cold lately?”
Peter paused. Harley felt the hesitation immediately. “A little,” Peter admitted slowly. “But I’m usually cold, so…”
Harley’s stomach twisted harder, because Peter had been freezing against him earlier. Cho nodded again, but this time something about the movement felt too careful.
“What’s going on?” Harley asked before he could stop himself.
Cho glanced toward him briefly. Peter did too now, anxiety creeping visibly into his expression. “It may be nothing,” Cho said carefully.
Harley hated that sentence immediately.
“But,” she continued, “I want to run a few more tests.”
Peter’s shoulders tightened. “Why?” he asked quietly.
Cho exhaled softly through her nose before setting the tablet down against her knee. “Your scans are showing some abnormalities.”
Harley felt Peter go still beside him. “What kind of abnormalities?” Harley asked.
Cho hesitated, and that was worse. Peter looked pale suddenly beneath the fluorescent lights. Cho chose her words carefully. “Your cellular structure is… unstable.”
Silence settled hard across the room.
Peter stared at her. “What does that mean?”
Cho folded her hands together loosely. “Normally, enhanced mutations stabilize after adolescence. Your body adapted to the spider bite years ago.” She paused briefly. “But your current scans suggest something disrupted that stability.”
Harley’s chest tightened.
Peter looked confused more than anything else. “Disrupted how?”
Cho glanced down toward the tablet again briefly before meeting his eyes. “Your DNA is changing.”
The room suddenly felt too cold.
Peter laughed once under his breath, nervous and disbelieving. “Okay. That sounds bad when you say it like that.”
Cho didn’t laugh. Harley felt Peter’s fingers tense harder around his hand.
“What’s wrong?” Harley asked quietly.
Cho’s expression softened slightly around the edges when she looked at Peter again. “I haven’t seen anything exactly like this before,” she admitted.
Peter swallowed.
“The radiation from the spider bite altered your genetic structure permanently,” Cho continued carefully. “That mutation became part of you, and stabilized.” Another pause. “But… during the Blip, for a lack of a better term… dying and returning…” She hesitated again. “Something about the event may have destabilized it.”
Harley didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Peter looked very still now. “Destabilized,” he repeated. “Like… I’ll get more weird powers? Am I gonna start growing extra eyes or limbs?”
Cho frowned. “Your cells are replicating incorrectly. There’s significant mutation activity in multiple systems.”
Harley felt cold all at once.
Peter stared at her for another second before asking quietly, “Are you saying I’m sick?”
Cho’s silence lasted too long.
Harley squeezed Peter’s hand too tightly before he could stop himself. Peter looked sideways toward him immediately, panic flickering sharp and fast across his face now.
Cho leaned forward slightly in her chair. “We don’t fully understand the mechanism yet,” she said carefully. “But yes. Something is wrong.”
The room blurred unpleasantly around Harley’s edges, because no, absolutely not. Peter had just come back.
Harley had just gotten him back.
Harley’s grip tightened around his hand, and Peter looked pale.
“What kind of sick?” Peter asked softly.
Cho’s expression tightened. “We’re seeing rapid cellular deterioration in some areas,” she admitted. “And accelerated mutation growth in others.”
Harley hated every word coming out of her mouth more than the last. Peter let out a shaky breath beside him. His hand had gone colder.
“I think,” Cho continued carefully, “that the… resurrection event may have interacted unpredictably with your mutation.”
The phrase sounded deeply wrong spoken aloud, because humans weren’t supposed to die and come back. The thought landed ugly and immediate in Harley’s chest, and Peter looked terrified now despite how hard he was trying not to show it.
Harley shifted closer automatically until their shoulders pressed fully together again. “What happens now?” Harley asked.
Cho looked at Peter for a long moment before answering. “We monitor it,” she said softly. “We run more tests. We figure out how extensive the damage is.”
Harley’s stomach twisted violently.
Peter laughed again suddenly, short and strained and completely humorless. “Okay,” he said faintly. “Cool. Awesome.”
Harley looked over at him immediately. Peter kept staring straight ahead. His expression had gone distant again in the frightening kind of way.
Shock.
Harley recognized it now. Five years gone, the world moved forward without him. And now this.
Harley felt something desperate rise hard and ugly in his chest.
No. No fucking way.
He tightened his grip on Peter’s hand again, and Peter finally looked sideways toward him. Fear sat naked and raw in his eyes now, and Harley thought his own heart might stop, because suddenly all he could think about was grief.
Again.
The shape of it waiting patiently somewhere ahead of him like it had never really left at all.
Cho kept asking questions after that, small ones that sounded careful. How long had Peter been feeling exhausted? Had his healing slowed down at all recently? Any unexplained pain? Changes in appetite? Trouble sleeping? Fevers?
Harley didn’t like the sound of any of it.
Peter answered quietly beside him, voice getting thinner every few minutes while Cho typed notes into the tablet balanced against her knee. Harley could feel the tension building gradually through Peter’s body where their shoulders touched. His fingers stayed wrapped tightly around Harley’s forearm now instead of their hands linked together, grip slowly tightening harder every time Cho asked something new.
Harley let him.
Peter’s thumb rubbed anxiously against the sleeve of Harley’s shirt in repetitive little movements that made something ache low in Harley’s chest.
“Have you noticed increased bruising?” Cho asked gently.
Peter hesitated. “Maybe.”
Harley looked down immediately. Peter avoided his eyes. That answer alone told Harley enough, because Peter bruised all the time. Patrol. Training. Existing recklessly in general. But Harley knew him well enough to recognize when he was cutting down the truth down into smaller pieces.
Cho noticed too.
“What about fatigue?” she continued. “Before the Blip, did you experience exhaustion like this often?”
Peter shook his head once. “No,” he admitted quietly. “Not really.”
Cho nodded slowly.
Harley couldn’t stop staring at Peter’s hand gripping his arm. His fingers felt freezing through the fabric, and Harley wrapped his other arm more firmly around Peter’s shoulders without really thinking about it. Peter leaned into him immediately.
Harley’s chest hurt.
Cho glanced between them briefly before looking back toward Peter. Her expression stayed soft around the edges, but there was something else beneath it now too. Professional concern. The kind doctors wore when they were trying very hard not to scare somebody.
Harley hated it.
“Peter,” Cho said carefully, “I need you to understand that I don’t fully know what we’re looking at yet.”
Peter swallowed hard beside him.
“But,” she continued gently, “that doesn’t mean we can’t try to fix it.”
Harley felt Peter tense harder, and something cold crawled slowly down Harley’s spine. “So my DNA’s just…” Peter gestured vaguely with one hand. “Breaking down?”
Cho’s expression tightened slightly. “I wouldn’t phrase it that way.”
“You didn’t say no.”
Silence.
Harley wanted to throw something. Instead, he tightened his arm around Peter’s shoulders and felt Peter lean harder against him in response.
Cho looked genuinely regretful now. “I know this is frightening.”
Peter stared at the floor. Harley stared at Cho.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Cho glanced down at the tablet again briefly. “More tests,” she said carefully. “Monitoring. We need a better understanding of how extensive the mutation changes are and whether they’re progressing.”
Progressing.
Another horrible word.
Peter looked pale beneath the medbay lights. Harley could feel him thinking too hard beside him. Feel the way his breathing had gone shallow. The way he kept unconsciously curling inward against Harley’s side like he was trying to make himself smaller somehow.
God.
Harley had just gotten him back.
Cho spoke more gently after a moment. “Tony and May also need to be informed.” Peter’s head lifted immediately, and fear flashed sharp across his face. Cho held up a hand quickly. “I’m sorry, Peter. While New York state allows patient privacy for minors for certain topics, this unfortunately isn’t one of them.”
Peter looked away again immediately. Harley felt the conflict twist through him in real time as Peter’s fingers tightened harder around Harley’s sleeve.
“These may be issues that require significant medical attention,” Cho explained softly. “And support plans that need guardian input and approval.”
The room went quiet again. Harley looked down at Peter. Peter stared blankly at the floor for another long second before finally nodding once, small and defeated.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
Harley’s chest ached.
Cho’s expression softened visibly with relief. “Thank you.”
Peter leaned further into Harley afterward like his body had simply run out of energy to hold itself upright alone anymore. Harley wrapped both arms around him fully this time without hesitation, and Peter immediately folded into his side.
Cho stayed quiet for a moment before speaking again, gentler now. “Peter.”
Peter looked up slowly.
“I understand this is frightening to hear,” she said softly. “But I am going to do everything I can to help you.”
Peter looked exhausted. Cho offered him another small smile, tired around the edges, but sincere. Harley felt Peter’s head lower slowly against his shoulder again.
For a second, Harley just closed his eyes, because he wanted desperately to believe her.
Cho sounded optimistic. She wasn’t panicking. She wasn’t talking like this was hopeless, and maybe that meant something. Maybe Harley was just clinging blindly to any version of reality where Peter stayed alive.
Again.
The thought made his chest tighten painfully.
Peter’s breathing had slowed slightly against him now, exhaustion pulling at him harder than before. Harley brushed his hand gently through Peter’s curls again while Cho quietly gathered the tablet back into her hands.
Harley looked down at Peter curled against his side and tried not to think about grief waiting patiently at the edges of the room again, ready to make a home there the second he let his guard down.