Chapter Text
Everyone jumped with the heavy-thudded swing of the classroom door, but despite all the swiveling heads Peter might have looked the most surprised standing in the middle of the doorway.
"Sorry! Sorry!" he squeaked out and skittered off to an open desk in the back.
Harry picked up the pencil he dropped. Whispers started quiet and low, to which he watched Peter duck his head to hide his face. His swollen, bruised-up, eaten-shit face. If they weren't in the middle of quiet study for their exam next week, Harry would have stomped right over and interrogated him why he looked like roadkill.
Their math teacher, Ms. Brown, stood up from her desk and craned her neck. "Parker," she breathed out sharply, voice on the edge of a wavered tremble.
And of course, completely missing the point, Peter pointed his swollen nose down further and snapped at the papers he spread over his desk, "I know, I know—I'm late! Give me the tardy."
Ms. Brown plopped right back down with a nose-wrinkled frown. She wrote something down, eyes flicking back up to where Peter furiously opened his pencil bag.
Harry tried to refocus on the notes in front of him. He had a B minus in this class, which wasn't flying by his father very well. Blue-inked words and numbers started to jumble together on his graph paper in an soup of algebra. In the corner of his eye he caught Midtown High's football hero, Flash, profusely shaking his head at all the pointed fingers. The blond's shit-eating grin wasn't all too convincing. Neither were the spit balls he was making on his desk.
Eventually it quieted down. People got bored of wondering what happened to Puny Parker, and him running in late to class was becoming a near daily routine. Harry tapped the tip of his pen against his paper. A little blue dot for every time Peter made a wet, phlegmy cough. It got to the point where Peter rushed to the front of the classroom, to take up a tissue and hack his lungs out into. Harry started sliding his notebook and things into his satchel when he noticed the blood staining the crumpled tissue.
He rose his hand. "Ms. Brown, can I take Peter to the nurse's office?"
Peter snapped his head in Harry's direction, twitchy squint barely noticeable with all the purple and yellow over his face. Strangely, it seemed Peter's glasses were untouched. Not a single scuff present on the lenses, and no new tape where it hadn't been already. It was like Peter had taken them off in preparation of being beaten to shit.
"Yes, but uh… Be sure to come back before the period ends, and take the hall pass," Ms. Brown responded. Her brows were furrowed in concern, to which had Peter sending a glare in his direction.
Harry threw his arms open in a open-mouthed baffled shrug, but Peter just marched over to the wall to snatch up the laminated hall pass and march right out of the room.
He followed, rushing right past Peter' abandoned backpack and homework, and sprinted to catch up with him the hall.
"Hey! What the hell!" he shouted.
Peter danced on his toes to flip around. "Nothing! Just stop it, Harry. I don't need your help." His bruised-up face sagged downwards with his scowl, and Harry nearly kicked him in the shin when he managed to catch up.
"Um, excuse me? Have you looked at yourself?" Harry bristled at another huff and eye-roll. It all looked so painful. He was close enough to snatch out Peter by the chin, which apparently is what it took to get him stopped in his tracks. Harry turned him this way and that. Scabby road-burn dotted around his forehead and cheeks, which were swollen right up along his nose that was definitely slightly crooked in a way it hadn't been before. "What happened…" he muttered out.
Peter was wide-eyed. Harry didn't even think the guy was breathing. He was so still with his face in Harry's hands.
"N-Nothing…" he stuttered, voice just as low as Harry's, and squinted again. This time it was less venomous, and more helpless as Harry squeezed his hands tighter.
He quirked up a brow. "Bull."
Peter squirmed in place. "Really! Nothing happened, I was just being stupid!" And there he was, back to being that whiny, snot-nosed kid he'd known since fifth grade.
Harry smirked. "Since when have you not?"
"Okay, rude."
"Says the jackass trying to blow me off for getting him out of class."
Peter shuddered in his grasp, and shut his eyes with a sigh. Harry nearly had the nerve to start feeling sorry for him again, but he was pushed back with gentle hands pawing at his chest.
"I really don't wanna go to the nurse's office," Peter mumbled out, crossing his arms tightly. He looked to Harry with a pleading glance, the whites of his eyes prominent like a bad, begging dog. "Can we leave?"
"What do you mean?" he asked in a scoff. If he was right in what Peter was insinuating, then there must be some planets aligned to get their wires crossed. Harry was always the one to propose trouble, with Peter tugging on his sleeve for them to be cautious.
"Like. Let's skip class. I want a hot dog. I'm hungry."
Harry couldn't help his laughing. Peter listed it out all so mathematically, and he screwed his face as Harry wheezed at him.
He snatched the hall pass and threw it in the air. "Alright. But we're getting ice first."
—
The hot dog stand they went to ended up giving them a free bag of ice to go with the paper boats of hot dogs they ordered. Peter rested it against himself every once in a while, but once they claimed a bench he was more focused on stuffing his face full.
"You look like one of the zombies from Resident Evil," Harry teased in between bites. His hot dog was drowned in ketchup, which Peter had called childish compared to his mustard. Who the hell cared though, it tasted good.
"Do not!" Peter spat out, mustard-covered crumbs spewing into the air.
Harry bumped their ankles together. "Yeah you do, like one of the extra ugly ones."
"Jeez, Har. You sure know how to make a guy feel loved," Peter drawled and drew his foot away.
Harry swallowed. He didn't mean to always be so… Mean all the time. Spats between him and Peter were getting more common, and it itched at something deep under his skin. It made sense that the guy would be more hostile lately. With his uncle dying recently and all that. But Harry had a gut feeling that there was something more. What was he doing all the time? Peter's class absences were starting to rack up, and he'd show up more and more beat up than the next time.
At least the swelling had started to go down. More yellow than purple at this point. He watched Peter wipe a hand over his mouth, both corners crusted by mustard. Some was dotted on his chin too. Harry circled a finger around his own mouth.
"Hey, you've got some mustard on your face." Peter stuck his tongue out, one hand holding his second half-eaten hot dog and the other with the ice back. Harry laughed as he wildly missed each spot he tried to helpfully gesture to.
"Right there, nope. Hold on, let me just…" Harry licked his thumb and inched into Peter's space, who blinked and let him nearly crawl over his lap to carefully dab the condiment away. "There."
Man, the swelling really had gone down. Yellow. A little pink now. Still, his nose laid at an odd angle. It probably needed to be reset, but he didn't know how far that conversation would get. Harry scooted back, but not before brushing his bangs and mussing up his hair.
His heart leapt as Peter leaned into the touch, and ended up butting his head against Harry's shoulder. The half-eaten hot dog rested over Peter's leg, while the bag of ice began to dribble on the ground.
"Thanks for the food… I really was hungry," Peter mumbled into his sweater.
Harry swallowed. Some few feet away pigeons landed and bobbed their heads. They cooed and fluttered their wings. He took a pinch of his bun and threw it out to their flock. Not the healthiest of bird food. Back when Mom was more healthy she'd take the two of them to feed the pigeons proper treats, grains and seeds she kept in paper bags.
The square frames of Peter's glasses dug into him as he pressed into Harry further. He itched the back of his neck, trying to ignore the fact that Peter dropped the ice bag to grab onto him.
"I know, I could hear your stomach the whole time we were walking," Harry chuckled.
There were a few other people scattered across the courtyard they were settled in. It was a sunny day in New York. Not too hot, not too cold. A pigeon twisted its head to blink at the rest of Harry's bun. Gawking and looking. He wondered how many people were judging them, two teenagers not in school when they definitely should be.
His hand hovered, lifting up and down, before finally settling to scratch through the back of Peter's fluffy-soft strands of hair. Whether his shaky-handed petting did any good at comforting, he wasn't sure. Part of Peter melted further against him with a sigh, but he also started up in a fit of trembles.
Harry winced. "You know if something's wrong, or if you're in trouble. You know you can tell me about it, right? I'm not gonna rat you out, hell I think I'd make a pretty good gravedigger if you know what I mean."
He didn't mention that his Mom had connections with the best lawyers in the world, and that his Dad could pay for any of them. Or that if someone other than Flash Thompson and the rest of Midtown High was giving him trouble, he wouldn't waste a second throwing his scrawny little body at them until they learned their lesson. Harry was scrappy. He could bite.
But the way Peter's finger started to play with the hemming on the edge of his sleeve suddenly had him feeling much more weak in the knees and much less brave. Spit thickened in his mouth, and he could hear his heart thudding in strong, straining beats in his ears.
"Thanks… Har," Peter croaked, finger now tracing the seam of where his fabric covered Harry's skin. He started up in a sigh, "Look, you're my best friend. And I trust you, but…"
As much as Harry wanted to listen, and he did. He practically begged for it, but his eyes were stuck to where Peter went to trace circles around his wrist. They felt a little rough. The pads of Peter's fingertips. Like sandpaper. No, a little softer than sandpaper. Harry wanted to catch his by the hand, and press his thumb into Peter's palm so he could look at it and inspect the dryness. But he didn't. He stayed still as Peter shuddered into him.
"I can't unpack this all right now. I just can't. It's too much."
And maybe right now Harry could take that answer. Especially when his stomach was flipping over and over, and his skin felt too hot underneath. But the way Peter's voice pitched up all high and the small undignified grunts he made to cover up his whimpering broke his heart.
Harry patted over his back. "Hey, it's okay. No, no it's okay. Forget I said anything. Here, we should keep up with the ice, yeah?" He reached over Peter's body to pluck up the ice bag, and held it against the only side of that bruised face that wasn't hidden away in Harry's shoulder.
Something settled back into place when Peter's hand withdrew from Harry's wrist. He could feel the ground more firmly underneath his feet as Peter pulled away, and traded with Harry to grab onto the ice himself. The bag was beginning to become slushy. Plastic full of water and little floating ice bits. Droplets from the top leaked and dribbled down Peter's chin.
Harry swallowed, and looked back to observe the pigeons taking off again.
—
Peter ended up going with him on the subway back to the penthouse, and walked him all the way down to the lobby. It was nice. They hadn't spent quality time like this together in a long while. Aside from Peter's ill-timed bathroom break, that lasted the whole thirty minutes of a police chase wailing along the block, they were together from the afternoon until dark.
"Are you sure you don't want me to call my Dad? He could send a driver to chauffer you home," Harry asked at the elevator doors.
He scuffed his shoe against the ground. Really what he wanted to ask was Peter to stay over the night. A sleepover hadn't occurred in what felt like centuries. He'd be able to dress Pete in his pajamas, feed him, and look over his wounds in the bathroom. Wrap him up all safe and sound. Thanks to the ice the swelling had gone down quite a bit, almost like it wasn't there, but there was still the scabs and the angle of his nose to worry about.
Peter sighed, "No… I have a feeling I'm gonna get an earful from May. Probably will get even more of an earful if I don't get back soon. Thank you though."
Harry nodded and winced in sympathy. Dad checked voicemails from the school less as Mom's condition in the hospital worsened. He'd probably get TV privileges revoked, if he was even noticed sneaking back in at all. May on the other hand… Who could blame her for being so sensitive after her husband died?
Here seemed like an appropriate time to say goodbye and split apart for the night. But neither of them spoke up as the elevator ticked down in soft chimes. Neither of them moved. Harry flexed his fingers by his side and chewed his lip as he watched Peter mentally prepare himself for something.
He recognized this of course because of the furrowed thinking-hard wrinkles in his forehead, and the way his eyes ducked up and down. Harry could practically hear the churning of gears turning in his head. So he waited, mouth shut, for Peter to figure whatever it was out. It was the polite thing to do.
Peter turned his head from one direction to the other. Looking. No one else but them was in the lobby at this hour—except the man at the front desk reading a newspaper.
What happened next, Harry could almost attribute to his dim-witted daydreaming if it wasn't for the soreness in his neck from being jerked down by Peter, who had quickly invaded his space in the time it took to blink. A peck. Planted only over about the left half of his mouth. Peter had his fists bundled into Harry's collar. His warm nose brushed against Harry's cheek as he left. Mustard-breath lingered as he inched back.
Hazel eyes glimmered up at him from behind lenses tinged with fog. Harry was sure he looked stupid all hunched over. Mouth hanging ajar with Peter's absence, and hands open and floating it the air as if he were shrugging. The elevator gave its final chime with a loud and happy ding!
Peter gave a twitchy nose-wrinkled blink, and skittered backwards. While Harry stood frozen, he started running off for the lobby's front doors, but not before twisting back to wave.
"That's for the food! And for making my day better!" Peter called, grinning idiotically.
And then he was gone.
Harry drifted off into the open elevator. His back hit the side wall heavily, and he pressed for his floor with a shaky finger. The whole ride up he kept brushing the back of his hand against his mouth—trying to remember the feeling. He still smelled mustard.
Harry was glad to find his father wasn't waiting up on him in the penthouse, so he could sprint to his room, shove his face in his pillow, scream, and start kicking his legs for the rest of the night.