Archive of Our Own

After that one commenter, @imotgayurgay, had suggested that Harley could make a new suit for Spider-Man, he had mulled it over in his head a bit before he decided to do some research. He hadn’t really paid much attention to Spider-Man’s suit before, he hadn’t even heard about him before he came to New York at the beginning of the summer since news of him didn’t reach Rose Hill unless he was specifically searching.

His first action, of course, was the video that @mysunflower had posted, the one with Spider-Man swinging into a lamppost because he was flustered, and Harley needed a moment (or rather a few rewatches) to get over how plain adorable Spider-Man was. Then he tried to take a closer look at the suit, gave up on doing that on his too-small phone screen and decided to go into the lab for it instead.

Harley was glad that Tony wasn’t there when he made his own section in the lab that he used way too rarely to warrant it being reserved just for him. This way, Tony wouldn’t make fun of his celebrity crush, at least.

“Fri, open a new file and analyze Spider-Man’s suit from the video currently playing on my phone,” he told her and pulled up a holo screen before sitting down on his chair.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. gave an affirmative before the video popped up on the screen with a loading bar filling up rapidly underneath, and when it reached 100%, a transparent blueprint took its place. Harley zoomed in and took a closer look, then pulled it out to turn it into a 3D model. As he did so, lines to the different part of the suit appeared that were labeled with the fabric blends and thickness of the fabric and—yeah, that thing was definitely bought from your average clothing store, maybe even a thrift store.

“Is he wearing any more protective layers under that?”

“Judging from the way he and his suit move, there are no further protective layers,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. explained.

“Seriously?” Harley snapped and dropped his head in his hands. That was … less than optimal and definitely warranted him making a suit for Spider-Man. While he didn’t know to what extent the vigilante’s powers were able to protect him, a sturdier suit could in no way harm—and even if Spider-Man’s powers protected him enough as it was, it would be able to protect his dignity too, if his suit wouldn’t tear up as easily.

“Okay,” he decided, “Open a new file called Spider-Suit Draft 1.”

The next two and a half hours, Harley spent drafting a new suit before he even dared to send Spider-Man a DM. It was just a follower’s suggestion, and Harley was just a random guy that flirted with him for only a day, so he knew better than to expect Spider-Man to be interested—especially since he never had even answered directly to the suggestion.

Harley’s offer was completely uncalled for and to keep himself from stressing more about it, he wiped the browser from his screen and kept working on the suit design, refusing to pull it up again until F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced a new message.

Harley paused, then leaned back on his chair as he pulled Twitter back on screen and clicked on the message tab to find several new messages in his chat with Spider-Man. Holy shit.

His finger hovered over the preview while he watched as two more messages popped up and the white-and-blue number next to Spider-Man’s name stopped at eight. The word ‘yet’ stared at him from the preview, and he regretted not having paid attention to the other messages when they’d popped up. Eight new messages, all in the span of a minute, the last of it just the word ‘yet’.

He tried to figure out what it could mean, but all he could think about now was how Spider-Man would probably hate him now. He never asked to be flirted with in public after all, just as he never asked for a new suit. And now he probably hated Harley, and the ‘yet’ was probably just a part of a series of messages along the lines of ‘How dare you insult my suit like this. How dare you assume I’ll just let a total stranger work on it, a kid no less. How dare you just send me DMs like it’s nothing, I don’t even KNOW you. How dare you flirt with me like that, can’t you see how uncomfortable it makes me? I take pity on you because you’re a child so I won’t block you. Yet. But this is my last warning.‘

Harley’s shoulders slumped, and he didn’t even notice how close his finger came to the screen until his DMs with Spider-Man popped up.

That … was better than expected. Maybe Harley was too hopeful, naïvely so, but while Spider-Man sounded surprised, he sounded pretty intrigued, too, so the boy dared to lay out his criticism.

Harley flinched. In the heat of the moment, he had completely forgotten what had been pretty much a side-note in a reply the day before. No wonder his suit was so bad then. Harley didn’t know where prices for material for protective gear or even straight-up armor started, but he was pretty certain he wouldn’t be able to afford it himself if it wasn’t for Tony’s generous allowance. It wasn’t too surprising that Spider-Man was one of those people who didn’t have that kind of spare change lying around for anything other than emergencies, if even that. Maybe the summers in Tony’s labs when he never had to worry about materials spoilt him too much.

But Harley knew that a good suit could make the difference between life and death. He knew he wasn’t supposed to know about this, but he had overheard hushed conversations about some times when the armor Tony had created was only just good enough to stop an attack from being lethal, and how it haunted him.

And Spider-Man’s suit was nothing but polyester, nothing but flimsy plastic that would rip if it just caught onto something pointy. And, well, Harley didn’t know exactly what Spider-Man got up to on his patrols, but he remembered reports of armed robbers and muggers and the like webbed to the ground and/or walls.

If Spider-Man was too poor to get a suit that actually protected him, then maybe Harley making one for him would be the only opportunity he’d get in a long time, and by the time he got another one, it might already be too late.

Harley shook the thoughts off and quickly typed an answer.

Harley leaned back in his chair while bouncing his leg impatiently. He only saw the Tweet because he clicked over to his timeline as he waited.

Harley’s first reaction was a bout of panic. Did he misinterpret Spider-Man’s reaction? But wouldn’t he have blocked him then, like he threatened, instead of subtweeting about him? Harley hadn’t known him for long, yes, but so far it seemed like there had been no malicious intention the few time Spider-Man subtweeted about him. The boy hoped that that was the case this time around too.

His finger hovered above the last option, then the third, then the first and then the last again. Of course Spider-Man wouldn’t see his answer, so he didn’t have to worry, but he didn’t want to give an inaccurate answer either, so he decided ot call him out for subtweeting instead.

Harley pumped his fist when he refreshed the page to find a keysmash. He couldn’t have fucked up too badly then.

Two more minutes went by as Harley wondered whether that was all Spider-Man had wanted him to wait for, and he was just about to ask him when F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced a new message. He clicked over to the message tab and paused when he saw a new group chat with Spider-Man and … ‘Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law’? What? Why did he get lawyers involved now?

While Spider-Man explained the situation, Harley realized that the decision whether he’d be able to make the suit hung on what happened now. He might have managed to convince the vigilante enough to have him bring in legal support—which, ouch, but Harley understood why—, but if said legal support didn’t consider him trustworthy enough, his plan might just fall apart like a house of cards, so he pulled out all his manners and all the charm he could muster.

Fuck. His ma was still in Tennessee. And just when Harley’s anxiety was starting to fade. That was it, now he could forget about making Spider-Man’s suit.

“Boss signed for your guardianship two years ago, remember?” F.R.I.D.A.Y. piped up. Harley had completely forgotten about that.

Harley bolted out of his seat to the elevator, impatiently bouncing on the balls of his feet. How could he forget about that? He’d had a long discussion just about that with his ma, about how dangerous it was that he was out of state for almost ten weeks each year with his guardian so far away. What if something happened? She’d allowed it one time but she was adamant that it would be only that one time because she simply couldn’t afford to lose the income for that time to come with him.

He had called Tony that night, crying, and the man had demanded to talk to his mother. Next thing he knew, he sat in a plane with her and Abby, because they certainly wouldn’t leave a ten-year-old alone at home, and then they found themselves in Tony’s penthouse with a lawyer who explained their options. After some more discussion, his ma finally caved under the condition that Harley only could go during his summer break, that he would come home for the week of his birthday, and that Tony would pay all expenses of both travel and accommodation.

The chime when the elevator doors opened pulled Harley out of his memories. “To wherever the old man is,” he demanded as soon as he stepped inside, and the few seconds of the ride were way too long before the elevator spit him out in the penthouse where he followed Pepper and Tony’s voices to the living room where they sat next to each other, each with a StarkPad on their lap, and working on something Harley couldn’t recognize from the distance.

“Tony?”

Tony looked up, brows furrowed. “What did you do this time?” Which, rude, but to be fair, Harley almost never called him by his name to his face.

“Fri, can you send screenshots of my DMs with Spider-Man and the group chat with him and Mr. Murdock to Tony?”

“Screenshots sent,” she answered, and Harley could see them pop up on Tony’s StarkPad as he read them. Pepper leaned over to take a look at it too.

“So,” Tony started when he looked up again. “You want to make Spider-Man a new suit because his current one is, and I quote, ‘a pile of hot garbage?’”

“Mr. Murdock’s words, not mine.” Harley shrugged. “But yeah.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “For free?”

“I assume the reason his suit’s off-the-rack is ‘cause he can’t really afford the materials for an armored suit, let alone payin’ someone to make it. So, yeah.” Harley tried not to cave under Tony’s scrutinizing gaze, but then he looked back at the StarkPad, and Harley quickly added, “I thought it’d be okay since you insist on getting me all the materials I might need, and I’ll definitely get some experience outta it too, so it’s not like I don’t get anythin’ at all.”

Tony raised his eyebrows and looked back up. "You’re that worried about your little celebrity crush, huh?”

“What?” Harley’s voice was approximately an octave too high and cracked halfway through. Heat crept over his face as he stared Tony down. “He’s not my—I—I don’t have a crush on him!” He wasn’t even sure why he was protesting, he was pretty sure his mentor had noticed that he was gay—maybe it was just the fact that he would make so much fun of him once he admitted it. Probably even if he didn’t admit it.

If Tony’s eyebrows could rise any higher, they would have disappeared into his hairline by now. Or maybe hovered off his face altogether, floating off into space.

“Your blush disagrees with you, kid,” he noted.

“Shut up,” Harley demanded, but only felt his face getting hotter. Fuck.

Tony just smirked knowingly. “You can tell them I’m alright with it. Now go answer, I’m sure your crush is already waiting.”

Harley spluttered indignantly before stomping off with his face so hot he was surprised it didn’t combust.

Once he was back down in the lab, he swiveled in his chair a few more times while he tried to figure out how to phrase it best. And to calm down a bit because despite what he just told Tony, he definitely did have a crush on Spider-Man.

A few spins and deep breaths later, he stopped, turned to the holo-screen and noted with surprise that Mr. Murdock had sent another message.

Harley grinned.

What? Harley’s heart skipped a beat. It was one thing to think about the possibility of Spider-Man getting hurt, or even dying, and a different thing entirely to hear him talk about it so casually, as though it was nothing but an inconvenience. It chilled him to the bone with a different kind of worry. Maybe it was just a weird sense of humor, but … it also kinda sounded like he made his peace with it. Maybe he didn’t quite understand the gravity, the danger he was in, or maybe, and that was even scarier, he did know and just not care. But the reason he said it didn’t matter, because each possibility sent a pang of worry through Harley, making him want to complete the suit as quickly as humanly possible.