Work Text:
FROM: my idiot cowboy [ 9:21 am ]
good morning sunshine!!
it’s lab day!!
more importantly: IT’S MILES FIRST LAB DAY!!!
and even MORE importantly: i haven’t seen u in three days and i MISS YOU WAKE UP
you don’t actually have to wake up obviously since we agreed on you getting here at 11 but like
i’m a clingy bitch and like i know you’ve been helping may out and catching up on your spidey business but it’s summer and i was hoping to see you every day so it’s easy to say i’m having peter withdrawals
so ur ass better be here at 11 on the dot or i’m gonna sue you parker
FROM: my idiot cowboy [ 10:52 am ]
pffkigdjf miles got here early he’s already a mini goody two shoes like you
i brought him to the kitchen to get him a snack and we ran into pepper and he squeaked
i think he’s excited
jokes about him being our son aside he really is our child and i love him
FROM: my idiot cowboy [ 11:31 am ]
ur over half an hour LATE
and you haven’t even answered my texts so i’m pretty sure you’re still asleep too
which is ILLEGAL
because i want to KISS YOU DAMMIT
but also you need your sleep so i’ll wait until noon to call and wake u up
FROM: my idiot cowboy [ 12:04 pm ]
did you put your phone on silent? your ringtone always wakes you up
i’m probably overthinking it but like
i’m feeling a little bit worried rn
um
i’m gonna call may
FROM: my idiot cowboy [ 12:11 pm ]
she says you were asleep when she left for work this morning but im still hhhhh
you never sleep in this late
okay you might get kinda pissed about this but i’m like actually worried now and miles is worried because i’m really bad at pretending i’m not worried and tony asked where you are because you always tell someone when you’re gonna be late and i told him what’s going on and then he got worried and now he’s getting ready to leave to go check on you because we’re all worried
you better be okay peter
i mean
you are okay i know you are but still
just wake up and answer my texts dammit
TO: my idiot cowboy [ 12:16 pm ]
nt o kya
FROM: my idiot cowboy [ 12:16 pm ]
what???
is that supposed to say not okay?
peter?
peter
what the fuck
okay fuck i can’t fucking do anything but i called tony and he left a few minutes ago so he’s on his way and he’ll be there soon a nd what the fuck waht th efuck
peter i swear to fucking god if ur hurt im gonna beat ur ass
fuck p elease be okay what thefuck
[ 1:03 am ]
When Peter finally falls through his bedroom window, he’s exhausted to the bone, ready to sleep, and overcome with a heavy sense of dread and dejection from his less than ideal patrol.
It’s not like he didn’t get anything done—he stopped a few muggings, reunited a runaway puppy with her family, aided a few elderly people with their groceries and offered directions to a couple groups of drunk people, tourists, and drunken tourists. Nothing all that exciting, sure, but he did his share of good, on a mostly quiet night, and usually he still feels satisfied when he gets home. Today, however, is different, because he may have gotten some good done, but he also let a bad guy get away.
Not on purpose, obviously, but Peter still feels upset with himself. Especially because the big, burly dude got away with the weird tech that Peter had been trying to get away from him—some remnants from Toomes alien tech dealing days, which Peter has been cleaning up ever since getting Toomes locked behind bars. The tech doesn’t pop up often anymore, likely because Peter has managed to get a majority of it off the streets by this point, but it still makes an appearance every now and then, and it always manages to catch him off guard. In this particular instance, the big baddie was waiting in a dark alleyway, likely waiting for someone to show up and chuck over some cash for the glowing green monstrosity that he had tucked away in a duffle bag, poorly concealed under the false safety the night provides. Karen had been quick to inform Peter of the unfamiliar surge of energy coming from two blocks over, and Peter had been quick to take action, making his over towards the alley in question and peering over the edge of the rooftop to see what was going on. The baddie was still alone, waiting, whistling under his breath.
Naturally, Peter jumped.
The thing is, he still isn’t entirely sure what kind of gun that dude had, because Peter can distinctly remember being blasted with some strange burst of green light and energy at least once, the blow hitting him in the ribs, but nothing had happened, and after the shock had worn off, he’d been able to keep on fighting. The guy must have been enhanced, though, because he was strong enough to hold his own, and after getting a good kick in that sent Peter stumbling head first into a dumpster, the dude made a run for it and managed to get away before the dizziness subsided. A small concussion, yes, but Karen had ordered him to go home and heal, and said that if he didn’t, she’d be forced to contact Tony.
It’s one in the morning, so Peter chose to head home, and he’s still beyond frustrated.
Nevertheless, he takes off his suit, throws on some comfy clothes, and climbs into bed with an alarm on his phone set for nine in the morning, his mood lifting slightly when he remembers that he’ll be heading to the tower after he gets some sleep for Miles first day at the lab. Harley will probably take one look at him and know he’s disgruntled about something, and he’ll find a way to make Peter laugh, and by the time Peter goes on patrol again and tries to track the gun wielder down, he’ll be good as new.
[ 9:30 am ]
The thing is, Peter Parker always heals.
Like, that’s just what he does. Ever since the bite, and his abilities, and his entire super crazy change in life… he has always healed, no matter how bad the injury. Punctured lungs and fractured ribs and concussions only take a night of rest and maybe a few hours of residual soreness before he’s good as new. A fall that would have killed him before is more of an annoyance now, a broken bone is something he can just limp off knowing that it’ll be healed just fine so long as he makes sure the bone is snapped back into place. Sure, it hurts like hell, but he always has that comfort of his healing, that reassurance that he’ll be back on his feet a whole lot faster than a normal person would, and that always seems to help the pain.
It’s because of this fact that it’s a little bit disconcerting when he blinks his eyes open, his alarm blaring on his phone, and when he reaches over to shut it off, his side aches in a way that feels more than just a residual discomfort, especially considering the fact that he wasn’t really all that hurt when he went to bed. It takes a moment of fumbling to get the alarm to be quiet, and when he tries to prop himself up on his elbows, he can’t really bite back the slight gasp of pain that comes from jostling his aching ribs, the strange stabbing feeling that comes with moving at all. After waiting for the pain to ease just a bit, and holding his breath to stay quiet before remembering that May has an early shift and already left for work, he carefully reaches down, grips the hem of his shirt in a somewhat trembling hand, and he lifts the fabric slowly, almost afraid of what he’ll find, unable to even guess what he might be uncovering.
His side, all around his ribcage, is stained with various shades of purple and blue bruising that hadn’t been there when he fell asleep, and when he goes to lightly prod at the skin, it’s impossible to bite back the cry of pain that rips its way from his throat as just how badly it hurts.
Something isn’t right.
It’s pretty obvious, the abnormality of this situation, because nothing like this has really happened before. Sure, back when he was wearing his homemade suit and didn’t have the high-tech stuff that Mister Stark made for him, it was pretty normal for him to fall asleep unaware of cracked ribs and things like that, but Karen lets him know about each and every little injury he has when he’s on patrol, and she said nothing about any bruising or fractures or broken bones. There’s no explanation for this.
But it’s still just bruising, he reasons with himself—unusual bruises, yes, but simply just bruises nonetheless, so there’s no reason to freak out about it, even as anxiety sort of bubbles in the pit of his stomach. He probably just needs to give his body a little more time to heal, and the fastest way to do that is to get some rest and let his abilities do what they need to do.
With that thought, his lets his shirt fall back into place, casts his phone a wary sort of look, knowing he should probably let someone know what’s going on, but opts against it. There’s no reason to make anyone worry over something that’s probably not even all that important. Instead, he slowly rolls onto his side, wincing at the way it makes the pain flare up, and wills himself to go back to sleep, reassuring himself that everything will be just fine, and in his already drowsy brain lulling into some much needed rest, he forgets that he had plans put in place and doesn’t check to see the various texts waiting for him.
[ 10:42 am ]
He wakes up again, and everything feels like it’s on fire.
Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it’s not a very big one, because the ache around his ribs has spread through his entire abdomen and part of his torso and it’s doubled in agony, each uneven inhale and every choppy exhale only serving to make it worse, and he can’t even bring himself to prop up on his elbows to look at it this time, just lifts his head and works through the dizziness as he yanks up his shirt to see the blues and the purples have not only spread, but they’ve become darker, the bruising looking almost black in contrast to his fairly pale skin. His back is starting to feel uncomfortable, and when he manages to sort of turn himself slightly and get a glimpse, he can see the bruising is starting to make it’s way around his hips as well, and it doesn’t make any fucking sense, but it hurts too much for him to try and think logically, to draw up a reason for why this may be happening. He just lets his head fall back against his pillows and lets out a pitiful sort of whine, squeezing his eyes shut and willing away tears but it hurts, every breath he takes burns, and he’s starting to feel nauseous.
“What’s happening to me?” he asks his empty room, the empty apartment, and he doesn’t expect a reply, but the silence that greets him only seems to make it worse. He doesn’t turn on his side this time, doesn’t really think he can, but he shakily pulls at his blanket and forces his eyes to stay closed and eventually drifts into a restless sleep, knowing that it won’t help but hoping that it might.
He still doesn’t check his phone.
[ 11:26 am ]
This time, he barely even registers that he’s awake before he rolls over, grapples for his trash can, and vomits up the little amount of food left in his system from dinner the night before.
The pain has spread even more, encompassing not only his abdomen, torso, and hips, but all along his back, as well, just now starting to reach the base of his shoulder blades. He thinks the puking will end pretty quickly, as there’s isn’t really much to bring up, but after the first round ends, it only takes a few moments before the second begins, and this time it’s all stomach acid and bile, burning his throat and filling the room with a foul smell. The convulsions that come with throwing up only serves to make the pain flare even more, which makes his gut clench and his stomach twist, and that makes him hurl yet again, and by the time he’s able to suck in a deep breath, his skin is covered in a thin layer of sweat and he’s honestly starting to think that he might be dying.
He hovers there for a moment, white knuckling the garbage in case another bought of vomiting is on its way up, but when nothing else comes, he carefully rolls onto his back with a wince, struggling to keep his inhales even and his exhales strong. He’s not sure how long he lays there, motionless and heavy with fatigue, but he thinks it must be at least ten minutes later before he musters up the courage to try and sit up, and even then he does so slowly, scooting back inch by agonizing inch until he can just sort of prop the upper half of his body against the wall, his entire body wracked with a harsh tremor from the effort and the pain. When he reaches for the hem of his sweat damp shirt to check on the bruising, his fingers are almost too weak to be able to grab onto the fabric, and it takes a concerning amount of energy just to grip the fabric and slowly pull it up to get a good look.
What he sees has him letting out a groan, the sound tinged with genuine fear as he hunches over the side of his bed and starts to throw up again. The dark black bruising is gruesome to look at, something straight of some kind of horror sci-fi film, and it’s making it’s way up over his collarbones in visible tendrils following his veins, which are now dark enough to see through his skin. It almost looks like some kind of zombie virus type of thing, and he can’t see his back, but he knows it must look about the same as his front, and if May were home, he’d be calling out for her in a panic, wanting some kind of reassurance, even if it was bling reassurance that did nothing to guarantee that he was really going to be okay, but she’s not here and Peter’s puking and hurting and something is horribly, terribly wrong.
He wants to grab his phone, call for help, because he’s fucking terrified and he needs help, but the vomit keeps coming, and he thinks he sees a hue of red in the mix but he reasons that out as his throat bleeding from the strain of puking as much as he is, and when he finally stops, his body feels too weak to lift a single limb, and he doesn’t pass out again, but he doesn’t feel all that awake when he slumps against the wall and tries to blink his blurry vision clear, to no avail.
On his nightstand, his phone vibrates, his screen lights up, and over in Manhattan, Harley sinks his teeth into his lower lip and tries to convince himself that there’s nothing to be worried about.
[ 12:02 pm ]
The harsh ringing through the air is what snaps Peter back into some level of awareness, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at the corner with labored breathing and a foggy mind, but the sharp sound of his phone going off only really serves to make his body jolt, and the pain, which is crawling up his neck and slithering towards the base of his spine, throbs in a grand gesture of knives-needles-stabbing agony, and instead of answering the call, his mouth drops open in a sob that gets cut off by a guttural groan and suddenly he’s puking again, only this time it’s a lot more red and it kind of lands on his bed and his floor and all over him, too, and everywhere the bruising shows feels like it’s on fire, his insides feel like they’re being torn into itty bitty shreds, and everything just hurts in a way it never has before.
A few seconds later, the ringing stops, is quickly followed by four, maybe five buzzes as a few texts come through, and Peter knows he needs to find the strength in his tired-sore-ow-ow-ow muscles to pick up the device and respond, knows that the blood dribbling down his chin is from more than a bleeding throat, but breathing enough to keep his lungs satisfied is already hard enough work as it is, and even that gets cut off as he gurgles and spits and grimace and vomits again, though it’s more of an aching dry heave followed by a mouthful of bloody spit that’s sure to stain his carpet for the rest of all time.
He might be dying right now, feels like he’s dying, and he’s so fucking scared that he starts to let out gross, hiccup-mixed cries that make the pain worse but that he can’t seem to swallow. “It hurts,” he says to no one, to nothing but still air and spilled vomit and a room so empty that it seems to be weighing down on him. He forces himself to reach out when his phone buzzes again, a rough sob that makes his body throb in agony ripping from his already sensitive throat as he shakily fumbles for the damn thing, and he cries out, “Fuck, oh my god, it hurts,” as he manages to clasp his trembling fingers on the edges, probably gets some puke on the screen, but he doesn’t care, because he has it in his hand and he can’t really see the stupid thing, can’t read the texts waiting for him there, even as he feels the phone vibrate again and again with more incoming messages, and he’s ninety-nine percent sure it’s either Harley or Tony he sends the text to, but he can’t be positive as he allows muscles memory to take over as he tries to type out two simple words, fumbling a bit as he struggles to press send, and the second the message is out there, he lets the phone fall to the floor, with the blood and the vomit and the bloody vomit, and he lets his eyes roll to the back of his head because being unconscious is better than feeling this much pain.
Harley has never felt this scared in his life.
He’s trying to hide it, because Miles—poor, innocent Miles, who had been hoping to get a tour of the lab and see Spider-Man tech, not witness the meltdown of a seventeen year old boy shaking as he stares at his phone and feels the fear sink into his bones—is sitting five feet away, leaning into the love seat and looking around with wide eyes and probably swallowing back attempts at comfort because he isn’t really sure what to say. Harley taps his fingers against the side of his phone, squeezes his eyes shut and blinks them open again, and his voice is kind of croaky and uneven when he parts his lips and says, “It’s part of the superhero thing, this… this getting hurt stuff. I just freak out every time ‘cause I don’t like it very much, but it’s not the first time he’s been hurt. He’s gonna be fine. Don’t let my worrying stress you.”
It’s partially true, but it’s also not, because Peter has never given such a vague text followed by radio silence before, and Karen didn’t give anyone an alert about Peter getting injured the night before, so this definitely isn’t usual, isn’t a normal sort of thing, but Miles doesn’t need to know that. The poor boy isn’t even thirteen yet, and Harley won’t be the one to traumatize him with his own overwhelming concern.
Concern that is very much valid, and not an overreaction, but simply just concern nonetheless.
(For Miles sake, he hopes his words are believable, but he knows they probably aren’t.)
“Just wish Tony would fuckin’ tell me what’s going on,” Harley murmurs to himself, because he knows Tony must have reached Peter’s apartment by now, knows that Tony is probably on his way back, and he’s well aware that Tony can have Friday send Harley a message, so the fact that he hasn’t heard anything when Tony and Peter are probably almost back to the tower is making his skin itch.
And then the elevator opens and Happy steps in, looking sullen and pale and concerned, and he can’t look Harley in the eye when he says, “Come on. We’re taking the kid home and picking up your friends.”
Harley scrambles to his feet, his heart thundering. “What? Why? Where are we going?”
“To the compound,” Happy says, sticking out an arm to keep the elevator open as Miles gets to his feet as well, eyes wide and confused, following Harley when he stumbles his way over to the elevator, phone clutched tightly in his hand. Before Harley can question why they’re heading upstate out of nowhere, especially considering the fact that Harley’s been living in New York for close to six months and still hasn’t even seen the place, Happy speaks up to tell them, “It’s for Peter. In the condition he’s in… we need Helen, and she’s at the compound, and it’s faster for Tony to fly him and Peter there in the suit than to have Helen brought to the tower. Pepper is getting May. We’re meeting everyone there.”
“Peter—” Harley stops, presses a hand to the wall as the elevator doors slide shut because his legs are feeling weak and unsteady. He’s starting to feel queasy. “Is he—is—is Peter—”
Happy’s wearing a grimace, head held high to hide the look in his eyes. “I don’t know.”
If Harley had more than some toast in his stomach, he thinks he would be sick right about now.
Ever since Afghanistan, since Iron Man and the Avengers and alien invasions and Hydra agents and betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, Tony is pretty sure he’s seen it all, but he’s never seen something like this.
If it weren’t for Friday giving him constant reassurance that Peter’s heart is still beating, even if it is weak and too slow for comfort, Tony would have assumed the kid was dead the moment he pushed open his bedroom door and saw him slouched over on his bed, the stench of vomit thick and stomach churning, his skin pale and clammy, his shirt rucked up just enough to give a glimpse at the bruising hidden beneath. For a long moment, Tony hadn’t been able to react, hadn’t even remembered how to breath, and then he was scrambling forward, shaky voice begging Friday for his vitals and pleading with her to tell him what to do because Peter looked dead and Tony was so scared that he was too late.
But he wasn’t too late, and he thanks every God there is, every Thor and Loki and Christian idealism and anything else that comes to mind, that Peter is still breathing when he reaches the compound and rushes to the med bay, where Cho and her small team of trustworthy staff members are awaiting their arrival. Instantly, Peter is placed on a bed, limp and silent, and Helen is barking out orders, and Tony just stands there in an Iron Man suit that has smears of vomit and blood, out of it and lost until Helen looks him in the eyes and asks him, “Do you have any idea what could have caused this?”
“I don’t—” Tony stops, sucks in a sharp breath, and pushes aside the icy fear running up and down his spine as he stares right back at her, jaw clenched and eyes determined, and he says, “Not yet, but I’ll find out. Just keep him alive until I do, okay? And use some of Cap’s left over pain killers. I know they aren’t strong enough to last, but hopefully it’ll provide some kind of relief while we figure this out.”
Helen doesn’t seem pleased to not already have an answer at hand, but she nods once and turns back to Peter, giving out more orders and instructing one of the nurses to run to the pharmaceutical area to pick up the super strength pain killers made for Steve Rogers, the strongest ever made, yet still not strong enough to last more than thirty minutes due to Peter’s insanely enhanced metabolism. They’ve been working on developing something stronger for the kid, but Bruce and Helen made the formula for Steve’s pills together, and with Bruce still missing and Helen having to work alone, the process has been slow. Besides, Caps meds have been good enough so far, because Peter usually only needs them to work long enough to get a bullet taken out or some gashes sewn shut.
They should have been prepared for something like this, though. Simple bullet wounds and gashes were never going to be the only thing Peter deals with, but they hoped they had more time.
And now Peter is in agony, a pained grimace on his face even as he sleeps, and they have nothing.
Tony bites his tongue until he tastes blood and spins around, marching into the hall and instructing Friday to bring up the last twelve hours of footage from Peter’s suit, telling her to sort through it and find anything that could be blamed for whatever’s happening to the kid. While she works through that, he steps out of the suit, waves it away and doesn’t look until it’s out of the room, not wanting to see the blood and the puke glistening against the metal. He silently wills Friday to work faster, taps his foot against the tiled floor and digs his nails into his palms impatiently, and it’s only a minute or two later when she brings up the results of her search, but it feels like far too long as Tony flicks through the clips she’s found. A mugger had gotten a good hit on Peter, but that’s nothing new. His web canister had run out mid swing, sending his slamming into a rooftop with a groan, but there’d been nothing more than a sore spot that probably healed up and went away with fifteen minutes.
Nothing. He swipes through more, impatient and struggling to breathe. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And then, he finds it—the only possible culprit for this whole thing. A burly man in the middle of the night, aiming a glowing green gun at Peter and managing to get the shot in before Peter could get away. Scans show that he’d been hit on left side, directly against his ribs, but no real damage had been done. “Fri,” he says, pausing the clip with furrowed brows. “What can you tell me about that weapon?”
“The weapon is question is unrecognizable, but seems to have similar properties of Chitauri tech, likely another remnant from Adrian Toomes,” Friday informs him. “The gun’s abilities are unclear, but according to Karen, Peter had been fine after the initial blast. However, his ribs were slightly weaker by the time he made it home. No further data is available due to Peter removing the suit after that.”
Tony frowns, trying to piece together those words. “What does that mean, Fri?”
“If I were to make a calculated guess, I would assume that the damage of the blast has developed over time, and it seems to be getting worse. Peter’s healing may be fending it off, but it seems to be losing.”
“Losing,” Tony repeats, not as a question. Peter’s healing isn’t working well enough. It’s losing, slowly but surely, to the unknown energy that got blasted at him, and with losing means dying, because if Peter’s healing can’t save him from this, then he’s not going to make it. Peter will die if they can’t fix this.
They have no choice but to fix this.
“Go over every single second of this footage with Karen, see if she has any other information available,” Tony instructs, already turning back around to tell Helen what he knows. “Keep me updated on anything you find, and if there’s anything you think of that can help Pete, tell me.”
Friday sounds as determined as Tony feels when she replies, “Of course, Boss.”
May and Pepper get there in fourty five minutes, and when they hurry through the door, bursting into Peter’s room, they find a heartbreaking sight.
Tony is in tears, attempting to help hold Peter down as the poor kid screams and cries, thrashing around and shaking his head back and forth wildly. “It’ll help, Pete,” Tony promises, his voice shaking as he carefully pushes against Peter’s shoulders, which only serves to make Peter let out a cut-off sob of agony, trying to wiggle his way out of Tony’s grip. “I know, I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but—but you’ve taken these meds before, you know they’ll help, you just have to stay still—”
“Stop,” Peter groans, letting out a rough hiccup and spitting weakly, resulting in a nasty glob of bloody saliva to roll down his chin. “Stop it, stop touching me, it hurts, Mister Stark, please just stop—”
“I will, kiddie,” Tony says, sniffling. “I will, I promise, but I need to hold you down while they set up the IV. You keep moving, and I gotta keep you still, even if it hurts. I’m sorry, bud.”
Helen is standing on the other side of the bed, but when she sees Pepper and May, she quickly steps back and tells them, “Help calm him down. We can’t do anything while he’s like this.” There’s a certain sense of calm that seems to settle over her despite the chaos of the situation, but in her eyes is the worry, the concern, the fear that doing her job might not be enough to save this teenage boy.
May moves forward, already cooing out gentle words with tears in her eyes, and she doesn’t touch him, seems afraid to even try, but she does hum under her breath and adjust the pillow behind Peter’s head and tell him, “You’re the strongest person I know, Peter. You just need to calm down.”
But Peter can’t seem to focus on anyone’s words, keeps writhing on the bed with choked off sobs and delirious screaming as Tony continues to hold him down, pressing into the bruising and spitting out bloody chants of it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and he’s barely recognizable as Peter Parker like this, looks like a deranged, red faced mangled mess of who Peter Parker is supposed to be. Pepper places a shaking hand over her mouth, and she’s about to step forward and try to help calming the poor boy down when she hears a shout from the hall followed by the door slamming open, and when she turns around, Harley is standing in the doorway, out of breath and visibly anxious, Happy hot on his tail saying, “Kid, you can’t—”
“I don’t care,” Harley snaps, taking a stumbled step further into the room, only to freeze the second his eyes land on Peter, flinching at the sound of his sobs. Pepper steps towards him, shakes her head when he snaps his eyes up to her, and instantly he’s begging, “Please, let me stay, let me—let me help, or just sit in the corner, or something, you have to let me do something because I can’t just fucking sit out there—”
“Okay,” Pepper interrupts, because she’s quite used to stubborn people, knows that Harley needs to be here even if he shouldn’t see Peter like this, and she reaches forward to settle a hand on his shoulder, keeps her voice gentle when she speaks. “This might get a little bit… overwhelming, though, and if Helen says you need to go at any point, you have to listen to her. Do you understand?”
Harley’s eyes are flickering back and forth between Pepper and Peter anxiously, but he still nods, rushes out a quick, “Yes, yeah, I understand,” and tries not to make his impatient shuffling too obvious.
Trying for a smile, Pepper keeps her hand on Harley’s shoulder and goes with him towards Peter’s bed, telling him, “Right now, we’re just trying to get him to calm down so he can get an IV put in.”
“I can help,” Harley offers instantly, though he manages to stay put as he glances around at all of them, practically pleading with his eyes to let him get closer. The sheer amount of need—the need to do something, to make this better—in his eyes is hard to look at, and it only gets stronger when he insists, “I know—I know exactly how to calm him down. Let me help. You have to let me help.”
It looks like Tony is about to protest, but May, with a deep breath, takes a small step back and says, “Be careful. He’s out of it, he might accidentally hurt you.”
“Thank you,” Harley breathes, already scrambling forward in his haste to reach Peter, and he sort of hovers there for a long moment, takes the sight in—scans over the bruising and the clothes that they haven’t changed Peter out of yet and the blood and the vomit and the way Peter’s kicking his legs and trying to push Tony away and still sobbing, sobbing so loud and so hard that he probably isn’t getting enough air—and then Harley takes a deep, steadying breath, and he reaches forward, very gently and carefully wraps his fingers around Peter’s wrist, and whispers, “Hey, sweetheart. Can you look at me?”
Peter doesn’t seem to hear him, but the arm that Harley’s got a hold of stops flailing, even as his hand clenches and unclenches as he lets out a pitiful sort of noise, eyes squeezed shut as he continues to throw his head back and forth, trying to wiggle away from Tony’s hold and letting out more sobs because of the pain. A few feet away, May and Pepper watch while Helen makes herself busy making sure everything else is ready to set up the IV, but Harley pays them no mind.
Moving slowly, Harley unfurls Peter’s clenched fist, then brings Peter’s hand closer to rest gently against his chest. “I know it hurts,” he says, voice still soft, barely over a whisper, “but can you try to look at me? That’s all you gotta do for now, okay? And I know it’s hard, but you gotta try, Pete. Just give it a shot.”
“I c—” Peter cuts off with another sob, but he actually heard Harley this time, which is already an improvement. He shakes his head, presses his hand a little bit harder against Harley’s chest, and he can barely form words through his crying as he chokes out, “I can’t, I can’t, it—god, it hurts, please—”
“You can,” Harley assures, voice careful-caring soft, as he places his free hand over Peter’s. “I know you can, and so do you. One step, okay? Just look at me. That’s step one. Just look at me, Pete.”
It takes a few more slow, careful minutes before Peter even opens his eyes, and he’s still wriggling a bit, but he isn’t thrashing around like he was before, and as soon as he’s actually squinting up at the ceiling, Tony has Friday bring the lights down enough to make it easier. Thankfully, that seems to help, as Peter blinks a few times, still heaving in uneven breaths that seem to rattle in his chest, before his head lulls to the side, eyes searching, and he immediately sags against the mattress when he meets Harley’s gaze.
With a slightly wobbly smile, Harley says, “There you are. Do you think you can stay still, just like this?”
Peter seems confused by the question, pushes the pad of his fingers further against Harley’s chest, curls his hand into a little fist and clutches onto the fabric of his shirt. “I don’t—I don’t know,” he murmurs.
“Okay,” Harley soothes. “That’s okay. Doctor Cho needs to set up an IV, okay? I might have to move—”
“No,” Peter cuts in, breath catching. “No, no, don’t—don’t leave, please, don’t go.”
Harley looks away, glances around the room in uncertainty—he’s in the way where he is, he knows that, but he doesn’t want to move, and Peter clearly wants him to stay. May appears to be as a loss for words, Pepper is simply watching the scene unfold, and Tony does nothing more than blink owlishly in some kind of shock. So, Harley looks to Helen, hopes his question is obvious in his eyes, and when she merely nods with a simple little smile, he turns back around, brows furrowed in thought. “Alright. I’m—I’m not gonna go anywhere, but I can’t be standing here like this ‘cause then I’ll just be in the way. Can I—I mean, do you want me to lay on the bed with you? You’ll have to move a bit so I can fit, which’ll probably hurt, but it’s the only way I can be right here without being too in the way.”
Sniffling, Peter nods, the action slight and barely there, and he doesn’t try to wiggle away from Tony’s grip as the man helps to sit him up. They move him slowly, carefully, but it only takes a few short moments before Peter is sobbing again, tightening his hold on Harley’s shirt and stammering out incomplete attempts of it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. As soon as Peter’s moved forward enough, Harley quickly slips onto the bed behind him, keeps his movements careful and calculated yet fast and precise, not wanting Peter to be in pain for a moment longer than necessary.
“Okay,” Harley breathes, lets Peter settle back between his parted legs, leaning heavily against his chest, and he’s gentle-gentle-gentle as he starts running a hand through Peter’s hair, uses the other to carefully loosen the grip Peter has on his shirt. Peter’s shoulders are shaking with his quiet sobs as he turns his head, presses his cheek to Harley’s collarbone, and Harley tells him, “You’re doing so good, honey, you’re almost done. Now we just gotta let Doctor Cho set up the IV, okay? Can you do that, Pete?”
It takes a moment of labored breathing and hitched cries, but eventually, Peter nods again, mumbles a pitiful little, “Okay,” and lets go of Harley’s shirt completely.
Helen approaches the bed, looking somewhere between impressed and grateful, and quickly gets to work, telling everyone in the room, “Tony knows this already, but this isn’t a permanent fix. Peter metabolizes medicine so fast that most of it is useless, but the pain killers we made for Cap are just strong enough to offer some relief, which is all we can do for now while we figure out how to fix this.”
“What—” May steps forward, clears her throat a bit shakily. “What is this? What’s happening to him?”
“As far as we know,” Helen says, “this is the result of Chitauri tech, likely a gun meant to cause the body to… well, let’s just say, if it weren’t for Peter’s abilities, we’re fairly certain the gun used would have had enough power to turn the poor kid to ash. It looks like the weapon is strong enough to still be in his system even though he got hit with it over twelve hours ago, and his healing is slowly losing the battle the fend off the opposing energy that’s trying to kill him.”
May looks sick to her stomach. “So, that means that Peter… that means he’s dying. That means that Peter’s dying.”
With a sharpness to her features and a clipped tone that makes everyone in the room go stiff, Helen tells her, “No. It means that Peter’s fighting off something we can somewhat compare to an infection, and his healing isn’t strong enough as it is to win the fight. It means Peter could die, yes, but we already have various ideas for how to help him. There’s still hope, and I’m not giving up on saving him. Got it?”
She steps back, IV in place and pain killers on the move, and everyone nods—even Harley, who’s trying to blink back tears as he presses a kiss to Peter’s temple, letting out a shaky sigh. Tony reaches over, rests his hand on Harley’s shoulder, and when they meet eyes, the fear is clearly mutual, though neither of them dares to say it out loud.
“I get it now.”
The room is quiet, not exactly tense, but definitely not calm, either. Peter, thankfully, has fallen into a restless sort of sleep, thanks to the pain killers, and is currently curled in on himself, leaning heavily against Harley, who hasn’t moved since he got into this bed. Pepper and May are in the hall, updating Happy, Ned and MJ on the situation and how they’re handling it, and Helen is currently getting ready to set up more IV’s—nutrients, she said, because Peter’s healing will only get weaker without the proper amount of sustenance, and making sure his metabolism is happy will help strengthen his ability to be able to beat this. Tony is slouched in a chair by the bed, swiping through every little detail that Friday and Karen were able to get on the gun, the guy with the gun, and other ideas for treatment in case the nutrients aren’t enough, though he freezes when he hears Harley’s voice, looks up to see that Harley has the pads of his fingers pressed to the pulse point on Peter’s wrist, eyes shut and lower lip wobbling.
“The heartbeat thing,” Harley goes on, voice hoarse, and Tony realizes that he’s talking to Peter, still fast asleep and leaning against his chest. “I mean, I—I kind of got it before, I could imagine why it would help, but now I really get it. I… I understand.”
Waving the holograms away, Tony leans forward in his seat, brows pinched together. “Harley? What are you… what are you talking about, kid?”
For a moment, it looks like Harley didn’t hear him, but then he sniffles once, rests his cheek against the top of Peter’s curls, and he says, “When, um… when Mandy died, and Peter was—was super out of it, y’know, he… I noticed that he kept doing this thing. Every time he needed comfort, he would—he would grab my wrist, and I thought it was just a physical contact sort of thing, you know? But then he—then he held my hand, and I could feel his pulse against mine, and I—I realized it’s the heartbeat that he cares about. He likes to—likes to listen to them, y’know? He likes hearing peoples heartbeats, but when he’s really upset, it’s like he needs to feel your heartbeat, and I kind of knew why, but I really know, now, ‘cause I’ve been feeling his pulse on his wrist for the past thirty minutes and it’s—it’s the only thing keeping me sane right now. It’s like a physical reminder that he’s still alive.”
Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, can only find it in himself to nod once as he settles a gentle hand on Harley’s knee, hoping that it’s a comfort.
“Y’know, my Ma said somethin’, while we were in Tennessee,” Harley murmurs, and his features are scrunched together now, nose crinkles and eyes squeezed shut, holding back tears. “On my birthday, we had a—we had a talk, and she… she said that he’s my something special, and… and he made it so I actually liked my birthday for the first time since I was seven, and now his birthday’s in a few weeks and I’ve been trying to think of somethin’ to make it good, as a thank you, and now he—now he might not even make it to his birthday, and I wanna—I wanna say something but we promised to wait to say it ‘til we’re eighteen and he might not ever turn eighteen but I can’t break that promise and it—it sucks, Tony, this fucking sucks, and—and there’s nothing I can do to help, and—”
“Alright, come here,” Tony interrupts, keeping his tone soft and warm as he gets out of his chair and carefully sits on the edge of the bed, not enough to jostle Peter, but close enough to wrap an arm around Harley’s shoulders and let him lean into some kind of half embrace. Keeping his voice level and kind, he says, “You are helping, Harley. I mean, did you see how distraught Peter was when you got here? I thought he was inconsolable, but then you stepped up and you calmed him down within minutes. If it weren’t for you, he might not have gotten that IV done, and we might not have been able to give him these pain meds. He’d still be in pain right now if you hadn’t came in and helped. You did so good, kid. And your mom has a point, you know. I admittedly don’t have much to compare to, considering the first real relationship I’ve ever been in is the one I’m in right now, but you two… you seem different then a normal teen romance, in a good way. I won’t say you two are meant to be or anything, because you might not be forever, and that’s okay, but… something special is a good way to put it.”
With another little sniffle, Harley lets his head rest against Tony’s shoulder, a few tears managing to escape as he tries to blink them away, thumb still pressed to Peter’s pulse point like a lifeline, afraid to let go, and all he can think to say is, “I… I don’t wanna lose my something special. Not yet. Not so soon.”
Tony lets out a slow breath, looks up at the ceiling while something aches in his chest, and he knows it’s not a promise he should make when they’re still scrambling to figure out what to do, but that doesn’t stop him from keeping his voice soft as he assures, “You’re not losing him, not today, not any time soon.”
And Harley knows Tony can’t say that for sure, but he lets it ease his worries, just a bit.
The good news is that the nutrients seem to be helping.
“It hasn’t stopped the spreading,” Helen informs them, swiping at the Stark Pad in her hands with a deep frown on her face, simultaneously swiping through the other ideas of treatments to try, all theory based but all worth a try, as well. “However, the spreading has slowed significantly, which is definitely a good thing, considering the fact that it’s starting to get close to more vital functions that we want to avoid being shut down. This also helps us to think up more ideas that may help, seeing as the easiest option is to find the proper way to strengthen his healing and have his abilities fight this off naturally, since anything else will be shooting in the dark and we’d rather make more informed decisions than test out new ideas.”
On the bed, Peter shifts, no longer sleeping but not seeming all the way there. He’s got one hand in May’s, who’s sitting in a chair by the bed, and the other hand’s entangled in Harley’s shirt, clutching onto the fabric like it’s a lifeline. His skin is pale where the bruising hasn’t shown yet, clammy and warm despite him shivering under the blanket that’s draped over him, and he sounds so weak when he speaks up to ask, “What happens if it… if I start to shut down?”
“That’s something for me to worry about, not you,” Helen says simply. “For now, we need to focus on supporting your natural healing ability. Tony says that getting a lot of rest and keeping your metabolism happy are the two main ways to boost your healing a bit, so we’re going to up the nutrients a bit and try to steadily provide you enough of the pain killers to help you sleep, and we’ll be checking for any sort of progress or changes for the next hour before deciding to take any other steps. Is everyone on board?”
Everyone nods, even as they share wary looks. Peter simply lets out a sigh, his eyes fluttering shut as he rests his head against the crook of Harley’s neck to listen to his heartbeat, hoping that this’ll be over soon.
There was a bedtime story, one that Ben used to read to Peter when he was five years old. It was a strangle little story that came from a strange little book that they found at a thrift shop while buying Peter some new clothes. Thinking back on it, Peter doesn’t remember a whole lot about the story, but he remembers a dragon trying to protect it’s home from the kingdom across the land, remembers that the dragon, while trying to fight, had left a noble knight blind. He never thought much about it, the idea of being able to see one second and not the next, and the story always had a happy ending.
When Peter wakes up again and opens his eyes, everything is black.
He thinks the lights might just be off, but they’re never fully off in the Med Bay, and even if they were, there are monitors and machines that would be flashing and offering light. Confused, he simply blinks, untangles his hand from who he assumes is still Aunt May’s, and rubs at his eyes, trying to see if that will help. It doesn’t. When he drops his hand again, nothing has changed,
“Oh god,” he murmurs, breath catching in his throat, hands shaking as he curls them into the fabric of the blankets covering him, and he belatedly realizes that Harley’s not laying with him on the bed, no longer feels his body heat behind him, a constant and comforting presence. He lets out an uneven breath that ends in a fearful whimper, and he whispers into the darkness, “I can’t—I can’t see. I can’t see.”
“What?” So it is Aunt May by his bedside then, and now she sounds frantic, the sound of her chair scraping against the floor loud and sudden. “Peter, honey, what did you just say?”
Peter’s lower lip wobbles, and he can feel the tears gathering in his open eyes but everything is still nothing but black and he tries to take a deep breath, to calm down and try not to panic too much, but then his breath comes back out in a sob and he cries out, “I can’t see! May, I—I can’t—it’s just dark, May—”
Gentle hands cup his face, turn his head to the side. “You can’t see anything?”
“Nothing,” Peter says with a rough hiccup, one that makes his body lurch and his stomach clench. He groans, pulls his head back from loving hands. “I can’t do this, I’m gonna be sick, I can’t—fuck, I can’t see an’—an’ I’m gonna puke, I’m gonna—” he gets cut off by a harsh gag, and those hands are now on his shoulders, gentle-gentle-gentle as they turn him on his side, and he thinks there must be some kind of bucket or something, because there’s no sound of vomit hitting the floor when a mixture of blood and stomach acid and bile comes up, and he doesn’t know what the hell to do, doesn’t know anything other than the fact that it hurts and he’s in pain and he just wants it to stop, and that’s what he says, when he’s done puking and the door bursts open, Helen’s voice speaking over various others to ask what the hell happened, and before May can respond, Peter simply begs, “Make it stop, please, please just make it stop, I can’t do it, I can’t, I can’t see and it’s dark and it hurts, please, someone just make it stop.”
There’s the sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor and footsteps approaching before different loving hands cup his face softly, and Harley’s voice murmurs, “You’re gonna be okay, Pete. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Peter sobs, leaning into the contact, the feeling of whatever he puked up dribbling down his chin, but he doesn’t care. No one bothers to speak up, and when Harley finds his way back onto Peter’s bed, this time next to him rather than behind him, all Peter can do is cling to his shirt and cry.
He doesn’t think he can fall asleep after that, but after a bit of sniveling, he manages to pass out again.
Tony doesn’t sound angry, per se, but he’s definitely on the frustrated side as he paces back and forth and exclaims, “I thought you said this was working!”
“It is,” Helen says calmly, which does nothing to help the high anxieties in the room. “The bruising has stopped spreading, thankfully before being able to shut down any of his vital organs. Now we need to continue to support his healing ability, and as time progresses, the bruising should be able to recede. I don’t know how long that may take, but so long as it doesn’t start spreading again, it’s working.”
“The kid can’t see a damn thing, Cho,” Tony seethes, his pacing coming to a stop as he buries his hands in his hair and tugs. “He’s gone blind. Fully, completely, totally blind, and you’re telling me this is a success? You’re joking, right? Will his sight come back? Can his healing fix that?”
Helen tilts her head slightly to the side, lips somewhat pursed. “Assumedly, yes. I hypothesize that Peter’s healing will be able to restore him to full health once this is done, it’s just a matter of how long it will take. Considering the fact that his abilities are more advanced than anyone I’ve ever seen before, I’d say that, once he’s done fighting off what’s left of the energy that’s trying to hurt him, the healing itself won’t take more than a few days. However, he is still fighting off that energy, and since the bruising and the damage is no longer spreading, then yes, it’s a success. Another hour of two of spreading would have resulted in his organs beginning to fail, and I don’t know how we’d be able to save him then.”
That, plus Pepper resting a gentle hand on his upper arm, seems to help calm Tony down, and he takes a moment to breathe in slowly, let it out in a long, steady exhale, and then nod his head once. “Okay,” he says, a bit firm. “I trust you. Sorry for… blowing up, or whatever. Just don’t… don’t let him die, Cho.”
“He’s my most frequent and well behaved patient,” Helen says. “I wouldn’t dream of failing him.”
“And what we talked about?” Pepper asks. “Would you be alright with that?”
Again, Helen pauses, thinking for a moment, then nods. “I think it’d be a very promising arrangement. A bit difficult, maybe, especially at first, but worth it in the end. So, yes, I’d be more than alright with it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on Peter and try and get both him and Harley to eat something. I swear, if Harley doesn’t get something in his system soon, he’ll need his own IV.”
Tony’s lips quirk up in a small smile. “Yeah, he’s a stubborn kid. Can you send May in here, please?”
With another nod, Helen makes a brisk exit, leaving only Pepper and Tony alone in the room. Pepper moves her hand up to Tony’s shoulder, offers him a warm smile, and says, “This is a good idea, Tony.”
“Last time I asked, she said no,” Tony points out, eyes sort of squinted with disbelief.
“Last time you asked, you didn’t actually think it through and had no real reason to be asking.” Pepper chuckles at Tony’s eye roll. “You know I’m right. It’s different this time. No need to be nervous.”
Tony scoffs. “Nervous? I never get nervous, Miss Potts.”
“Whatever you say,” Pepper chuckles, squeezing his shoulder once before taking a small step back as the door swings open, May Parker stepping in with a slight frown on her face, clear worry written on her features. Quickly, Pepper speaks up to assure her, “Everything’s fine. We don’t have bad news.”
That doesn’t seem to do much to ease May’s worry, but it helps enough for her to nod and enter the room fully, arms crossing over her chest as she glances between them. “What’s going on, then?”
“We have a… a question, I guess? An offer?” Tony frowns, trying to think of the right way to phrase this. When nothing better comes to mind, he simply shrugs a bit, doesn’t let his nerves (because he is nervous, no matter what he says) stop him as he meets her gaze and says, “Basically, we want to ask you and Peter to move into the tower. So, a question and an offer, I guess.”
Already, May is shaking her head. “We talked about this, Tony. I can’t—”
“You can’t accept it without paying rent, and you can’t afford rent,” Tony says, quoting May’s exact words from the first time he brought this up. “Yeah, I’m aware, but that’s only part of the offer.”
“The other part,” Pepper speaks up, because she actually talks to May regularly and is good friends with her, and she’s just better at this sort of thing in the first place, “is a job offer. You’re a nurse, and our medical staff is small because there aren’t many people we can trust. That being said, we trust you, and Helen has agreed to help train you in the more advanced stuff, including a full run down of everything we know about Peter’s abilities and how it affects him. Because of the secrecy needed for the job, you’d be paid well—not as much as Helen or the rest of her team, not at first, because you’ll be making your way up the ranks, but we’ll be able to deduct whatever price you deem fair for rent and utilities from your paycheck and leave you with the rest. We also pay for employees phones and plans, partially to ensure safety measures will be built into your phone, such as secure lines and classified servers meant only for people with a high enough access, but also because we have a lot of employees at SI who rely on the company for family plans for their spouses and kids. You can choose to decline that offer, but we would still require having those safety measures and stuff installed on your phone, just to be sure. And any other questions or concerns you have, we’re more than willing to discuss, obviously. We don’t want to be unfair and we understand you feeling like we’d be giving special treatment, so we want to do whatever we can to avoid making you feel like that.”
May looks absolutely speechless by that, eyes bugging wide and a hand held over her mouth to hide the fact that her jaw is dropped. Tony uses this as an opportunity to cut back in, voice going softer when he tells her, “And I never want something like this to happen to Peter again. If you two were to live in the tower, Friday would be able to inform us about him being hurt or sick, instead of us having no clue that anything was wrong for hours on end. And, when he is hurt, you won’t have to worry about taking time off work to be here for him, because you’ll be by his side, helping Cho get things done the entire time.”
“I don’t…” May trails off, lowering her hand slowly as she leans heavily against the wall, looking like her legs are about to give out beneath her. She shakes her head again, this time more incredulous than defiant, and her voice trembles slightly when she asks, “What about the—the others? Aren’t they coming back soon? I don’t know if I feel comfortable being in the same building as them. Would we be safe?”
A strange sort of expression crosses Tony’s face then, some kind of offended frown mixed with something else entirely. “Yes,” he says firmly, leaving no room for an argument. “I know… well, I don’t feel super comfortable having them move in, either, but I’ll move them down a few floors, put in limitations and set up boundaries. They won’t even be allowed on your floor unless you give explicit permission, and that permission will be allowed to be revoked. And Peter already has a room in the penthouse, too, so we can set another room there for you, so you both have the option to stay on the top floor or go down to where you’d be living. And if any of them do anything to step out of line, I’ll kick their asses out, no matter what Ross or anyone else says, because…” Tony trails off, averts his gaze to the side with pinched features and a small sigh. “Well, to be honest, because I don’t trust a lot of people, not after what they did, but you and Peter are family now, and you’re way more important than them. Okay?”
There are tears in May’s eyes when she steps forward and pulls both Tony and Pepper into an embrace, sniveling lightly as she hugs them tight. “Okay,” she whispers, heartfelt and grateful and wondering when the hell the only family she had left went from her and Peter to something as grand as this.
Healing is tiring, which is something that Harley never actually realized before, but now he knows it well, because Peter keeps falling asleep despite the fact that his waking moments are spent in pain and discomfort, the pain meds not able to do much to help. “It’s almost worse,” Peter whispers, during one of the brief lapses of consciousness that he has, his arms encircled around Harley’s shoulders, their legs tangled together. Ned and MJ have just left, having finally been allowed into the room to see Peter after nearly two days of sleeping and sobbing and puking and blood, and there’s this five minute period where it’s just the two of them. Harley’s got Peter’s hair twisted gently around his fingers, his other hand rubbing calming circles against his back, and he just listens when Peter says, “I know—I know that I’m not getting worse, I know that I’m gonna start healing soon, but it’s like I’m just stuck right now, you know? I’m stuck like this, and breathing hurts, and I can’t see, and I still feel so scared.”
“I’m scared, too, even though I know you’re gonna be okay,” Harley admits, and from where his chin is hooked over Peter’s shoulder, he can see the bruising peeking out from underneath the large MIT sweatshirt that Tony gave him to wear after the last time he puked on himself. “And I really wish there was something I could do to make it easier for you, take away some of the pain or something.”
Peter shakes his head, presses his forehead to Harley’s collarbone with his eyes shut because it’s easier to pretend there’s nothing wrong with his sight if he keeps them closed. “I don’t want you to feel like this. It’s… I mean, I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s just bad. I never want you to feel this bad.”
And I hate seeing you feel this bad, Harley thinks, but he doesn’t say it, because that’s a very selfish thing to think. Watching Peter suffer through this has hurt him in a way he didn’t really know was possible, but he knows it’s nothing compared to what Peter’s going through, and he knows that making it even remotely about himself is wrong on multiple levels. Instead, he bites his tongue, lets his own eyes flutter shut, and quietly says, “You know, I almost broke our promise.”
Instantly, Harley feels Peter go still, his breath catching a bit, hands clenching the fabric of Harley’s sweatshirt briefly. “You did?”
“Yeah,” Harley breathes, brows knitting together. “I dunno how much you remember, but when I got here, you were… you were screaming, Pete, screaming and kicking and crying and there was so much blood on your clothes, and I watched as you tried to push Tony and May away, and… and I managed, y’know, to kind of just suck it up and be calm while I helped calm you down, but after you fell asleep, when I was laying with you, I kept thinking, y’know… what if that was it? What if Helen couldn’t save you? And I even told Tony that I had something I really wanted to say but promised to wait, and I almost broke that promise because I was so scared I’d never get the chance you tell you if I didn’t.”
For a long, long moment, there’s no response, no movement, nothing, to the point that Harley almost thinks that Peter fell back asleep, but then he suddenly shifts, pulls back and lifts his head, and it’s clear that he still can’t see because when his eyes open, they don’t focus on anything, are sort of glazed over and looking in front of him rather than at Harley, and he says, “I really wish I could see you right now.” And then, using a hand to carefully cup Harley’s face and locate where, exactly, he is, he guides their mouths closer, follows instinct to line up their lips and kiss, a special sort of kiss, tasting of toothpaste (because Peter’s brushed his teeth every time he’s puked) and orange flavored gum that Harley was chewing earlier, and it’s a fairly short kiss, but it holds a lot of meaning, and when Peter breaks the kiss a minute or so later, he leans his forehead against Harley’s, keeps his eyes shut, and breathes, “Eighteen.”
Harley swallows the lump that suddenly forms in his throat, knowing that, in order to not break their promise, this is the closest they can get to saying it. Right now, Peter is saying I love you in a hidden sort of way, almost like a code. So, Harley nods a bit, smiles, and when he murmurs, “Yeah, eighteen,” he really means his own sort of under the table, hidden in plain sight version of I love you, too.
For now—and until they’re eighteen, as promised—that’s more than enough.