beginnings, 3
After losing Aunt May, and after everyone forgetting him, Peter could never bring himself to go back to his shul community, even if he hadn’t been the type to go often. Instead, he had sought solace in Friday evening patrols; Shabbat stopped being about him, and about what he could do to allow others rest and safety. Besides, wasn’t it in halachah that saving lives outranked all other Jewish laws and obligations? Maybe Aunt May would have scolded him for it, since he’d always spent Shabbat evenings at home with her before. Maybe she’d be proud. But either way, when Harley had suggested Friday night as a patrol night, Peter had readily agreed.
It was kind of nice being outside in his suit, getting ready for patrolling again. Sure, it was a new city that Peter barely knew; Cambridge was so remarkably different to New York. It wasn’t the same kind of high rise city that Peter had become so well acclimated to moving around in. That just meant he had to do things a little differently, unless his patrols brought him into the inner city areas. But there were still people in need, and Peter was the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, so he would adapt.
It was tempting to take off his mask and feel the cool evening winds against his hair and face, but he had no idea who might see him. It wasn’t like anyone would recognise his face yet, but Peter did not want to deal with an exposed identity scandal here at MIT - it kind of ruined the whole ‘new start’ thing. No, he’d keep it on for now, and take it off once he got inside.
When Peter and Harley established that they had different afternoon schedules for Friday, Harley had suggested that Peter just meet him there at the small workshop doubling as a base. Since Peter had every intention to go out in his suit, and not be standing around loitering outside a bunch of workshops to be recognised, Harley had suggested waiting up on the roof, and checking out the surroundings some more from there.
The rooftop was a little higher up than the others surrounding it, which… left much to be desired when it came to stealthy entries and exits. It would not be ideal for people to be able to track down Spider-Man and Iron Lad’s base once they started making some enemies. Well, Peter might go back to his usual ways of picking an indiscriminate alleyway to get changed in, but he didn’t want Harley to still face that danger.
He leaned down, and knocked on the sealed hatch atop Harley’s workshop. Closing his eyes and focusing on his rather enhanced hearing, Peter listened as he knocked every few seconds, to try and pinpoint just how far the sound travelled. The answer was: not very. Good start. Next up - and if the hatch wasn’t up to scratch, both Harley and Pepper would be pissed - Peter punched down at it, making sure the impact was along the side of his closed fist so he didn’t hurt himself. No dents. Great, the hatch was up to par. No need to spend time convincing Harley that “if the hatch can be broken by me then it’s not a secure base”.
Satisfied, Peter stood back up and resumed waiting for Harley to arrive. It shouldn’t be long now, since the research presentation Harley had been so keen on was due to have finished about ten minutes ago. They’d both ended up agreeing to skip out on the movie night. It was a shame, but it was when Harley had decided to go out on his first patrol, and there was no way Peter was letting him go alone. As far as he knew, Harley had never patrolled anywhere before.
Well, at least the queer club had other events on later. Peter wanted to have that sort of a community, the kind that Midtech could never provide him with. The best he’d managed when it came to being open and proud of his identity was going to one pride march suited up, letting the world known that Spider-Man was bisexual - and it was easier, because it didn’t mean that Peter Parker had to be out as bisexual too. Maybe one day he could go out suited up flying the trans flag; he knew just how much it would mean for the world to see an openly trans superhero. But he wasn’t there yet. He hoped he would be soon.
The hatch started to slide open, impressively quietly - another good thing for maintaining base safety. Once it was open wide enough, Peter dropped down and landed inside the workshop. Habit had him confirm that it was just Harley before he took off his mask.
“Huh, even knowin’ that you’re Spider-Man, there’s just somethin’ about seeing you in that suit that feels like I’m learnin’ somethin’ new,” Harley declared with a grin. “How’s the view up top?”
Peter shrugged, grinning back. Harley was a little infectious like that. “Bit of a mix. It’s not exactly the stealthiest place to come and go, but it’s nice being able to see so much of the city from up there.”
“Ah yes, the New Yorker and his big buildings. I still don’t see what’s so neat about that place,” Harley teased.
Peter bumped a fist against Harley’s shoulder. “It was home. You try living a block away from the best sandwiches in the city and then tell me it doesn’t live up to the hype! How was the presentation?”
Harley huffed, and rolled his eyes. “Not as good as I thought it’d be. One of the September Foundation teams was presenting their work on retroreflective panel configurations and materials compositions, and I thought I might learn something new.”
That brought back memories of the cargo plane Peter had tried to save from Toomes all those years ago - except it wasn’t actually that long ago, without counting the Blip. That plane had been fitted with retroreflective panels, but they were… well, not exactly prototypes, but the technology left a lot to be desired at the time. Peter was vaguely aware that SHIELD had a better handle on them around the same time - some brilliant technician whose name Peter never did get to find out had built a command plane called the Zephyr One which had then set the standard for stealth systems. Peter wanted to meet him one day, if he was alive.
“So, nothing impressive?” Peter questioned, finding himself growing excited that this would lead into seeing just exactly what Harley was capable of on an engineering level.
Harley smirked. “Not to brag, but I’m a good few steps ahead of them. Here, why don’t I show you. Hey, Karen-”
Karen.
Karen.
Peter froze.
Karen had been his old suit’s AI up until the suit was destroyed by Mysterio in London. Karen had been there with Peter through just about everything. She’d been there when he ended up in space with Mr. Stark and Doctor Strange, all the way to fighting Thanos. Karen had been there when Peter got snapped out of existence - when he had died. And he had felt that death, no thanks to his improved healing trying and failing to hold him together for just an extra moment.
Karen had been there when Peter fought Thanos again, and then through everything that came after, up until Mysterio. Karen, a simple natural-language AI, had supported Peter in his personal endeavours as well, encouraging Peter to take the steps he needed to take to get together with MJ. And…
The AI probably would have no data memory of any of it. Just another remnant of the spell he had messed up, the damage he had wrought on his whole life and the lives of everyone around him. The damage that killed Aunt May. Peter really thought he had gotten past this, and had gotten to the point of moving on. Apparently not.
“Not her. No no no no not her. Please not Karen, I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I-”
She won’t remember me, Peter’s mind practically bellowed as his body staggered under his own weight.
The data will be gone, his thoughts raced as his breathing did too.
“No I can’t not her make it stop make it stop please no not-”
Even an AI has moved on without me, his brain taunted as his throat started to burn.
I’m all alone.
Buzzing ran through his ears, and Peter vaguely realised he was on the ground. Harley was in front of him - well, he thought it might be Harley, but it was a bit hard to make sense of what he was seeing - saying something that Peter couldn’t make sense of either. Everything around him just felt too tight, too enclosed, too much. His ears were buzzing and pounding. His heart, too. Like it was trying to escape his body, like it had just had enough. His throat hurt.
Peter’s hand moved, but not of his own volition. Something was wrapped around it, and then it was pressing against something solid, but soft. Something that was rising and falling.
“-ter. Peter. Focus on my breathin’. Can you match it for me? Breathe with me Peter, breathe.”
He did his best to listen to the voice - Harley’s voice. He tried to breathe, tried to match the rising and falling of whatever his hand was being pulled against. Slowly, he managed. The pounding in his heart and his ears and his everything started to settle. The buzzing went away. He kept on breathing, and started to take in what was going on around him.
His face was wet - with tears, probably. His hand was being held by Harley, pressed against the other’s abdomen. Harley was looking at him with a whole lot of concern, kneeling on the floor right across from him.
“You were havin’ a panic attack,” Harley said, his voice soft.
Peter gulped. “Yeah.”
“You’re shakin’.”
Peter looked at his free hand. He was shaking, a whole lot. That happened when he got like this. “Yeah.”
“You’re not okay,” Harley said this time, and Peter crumpled a bit.
“Yeah. I’m… sorry you had to see that,” Peter managed.
“Don’t be,” Harley countered lightly. “I’m your friend, I’m glad I was here to help. Do you want a hug or somethin’?”
He did. Peter really did, because he just didn’t want to be alone right now. To his best understanding, from having tried to unpack all this on his own since no damn therapist was even going to believe what he’d been through, the worse his mental health got, the more the loneliness hit him. It made sense, given that he’d lost everyone. But Peter also didn’t know if he should say yes. Harley barely knew him. He barely knew Harley.
Except they did know each other, especially after Peter had laid his story bare to his new friend, and Harley had later reciprocated by telling him more about what it had been like to grow up in Rose Hill, Tennessee. And… as hard as it sometimes was to accept that anyone might want to, Harley was offering. Slowly, Peter managed a nod.
Harley stood up, pulling Peter up with him, and then pulling him in. Arms wrapped around Peter’s back, and he found himself pressing his head into the crook of Harley’s neck. Harley squeezed, and somehow it was just the right amount of pressure to help Peter properly relax. It was almost like one of Aunt May’s deep pressure hugs, except not. It was different somehow, the way Harley did it. Not better or worse, just different.
A minute later, Peter broke away, flushing a little from the embarrassment of being so exposed and vulnerable. “Uh… thanks. I’m a bit better now.” Then, he decided to try leaning into the whole being open and vulnerable thing. “Not all the way, but I will be.”
Harley nodded. “Do you want to sit? Walls’re perfectly good for leanin’ against.”
“Yeah, alright,” Peter agreed, and they both moved to sit against an exposed section of wall. “That… it doesn’t usually happen often. I just…”
“Got triggered?” Harley offered, and Peter nodded. “If you want to talk, I’m listenin’. It usually helps.”
Peter took a deep breath, and tried to decide if he could talk about it without panicking again. “I didn’t expect it to hit so hard, I just- Karen,” he said the name slowly and carefully, measured so that he wouldn’t lose control, “was my suit’s AI - the suit Mr. Stark gave me, and I was even the one to name her that. And she was always there, regardless of what personal shit I was going through. She was just a constant through everything, up until my suit got destroyed in London, and then I never got a chance to get her re-uploaded to a new suit. The thought that I- that she would have been affected by the memory spell, since computer systems got hit too, it… bad.”
Harley had his head in his hands now. “God, Peter, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
Peter shook his head weakly, taking a breath that felt steadier than the last one, his throat already beginning to heal. “It’s… It’s not your fault. Like you said, you didn’t know. I didn’t know that it’d be a trigger. And look, she’s your AI now. I’ll… I’ll get over it.”
Harley’s hands moved away, revealing an affronted look on Harley’s face. “What the fuck? No way, Peter. That’s not on you. I’ll talk to Pepper, I’ll get a whole damn new AI sorted. And we can cancel tonight’s patrol, just hang for a bit instead.”
“Nah, no way,” Peter countered, already starting to get up. “Patrolling always helps me clear my head and settle down from stuff like this.”
Harley got up too, and raised an eyebrow at him. “Won’t you be distracted? Sounds kinda dangerous, if you’re askin’ me.”
“By the time anything happens, I’m always good to go,” Peter insisted. “Seriously, it’ll be fine. Plus, you think I’m letting you go on patrol before I know you can handle yourself?”
Harley chuckled. “Oh, is that how it is? Well then, why don’t you go on and head up the hatch a minute, and I’ll put a little bandaid on the trigger situation. Then we can go to the training room.”
Peter glanced around. He didn’t see any doors or pathways or exits other than the main entrance and the hatch above. Either this ‘training room’ was at another location, or it must have just been well hidden.
“You seriously think Miss Pepper Potts would let me run an operation like this with just one tiny workshop? Go on, I won’t be long.” Harley nudged Peter forward to the spot below the hatch. “Wait, do you need me to do the hatch manually, or are you fine with the other AI names?”
“The others are fine,” Peter said with the certainty that came with already having attempted to access Friday’s interface some months back to see if any data of him was left. He was denied access.
Harley nodded. “Friday, can ya grab the hatch? Oh also, remind me to key Peter Parker into the system later.”
“Certainly,” Friday’s nostalgically familiar voice sounded from an overhead speaker system.
Peter took that as his cue, and jumped right up the hatch. He managed to undershoot the strength needed a tiny bit, and pulled himself up onto the roof rather than simply landing there. A clear sign that he needed to put in some practice with his jumps; it was hardly surprising, with how much more he just swung places back in New York. Things were different here. He had to adapt.
With the wind back on his face, Peter went over to sit on the edge of the building, and let his legs hang. Even with what he was thinking about safety and privacy earlier when he arrived, Peter knew that Pepper would have had this precise area evaluated for safety concerns before having a workshop or anything else set up here. The chances of him being spotted by anyone dangerous right now were low - the most that would happen is someone snaps a picture of him and the news catches on maybe an hour or two earlier than they otherwise would have that Spider-Man was in Cambridge.
Lifting his mask up just above his lips and nose so he could breathe more freely, Peter thought back to what had just happened. After simply just hearing the name of his old AI, he’d completely frozen up and panicked. It had hit him that hard, like how it had been with thinking about having permanently lost Ned, MJ and Aunt May before he’d had time to properly process. It made sense, though, for the exact reasons he’d divulged to Harley.
Karen had just been there all the time. His mind wanted to wander into contemplation about how that was the name of Harley’s suit AI, but Peter pushed the thought away. Not not, it wasn’t a safe thought to have. He could deal with it later.
Instead, Peter kicked his legs out over and again while he thought on the way Harley had acted, and how their dynamic had come to be. He’d known the guy for a little over four days, and the two of them had just slotted together. It was strange, but stranger things had happened. Perhaps it was because they were grieving a loss in common. Well, that had drawn them together at the start, at least. Peter also supposed it wasn’t that surprising that two boys Mr. Stark had taken under his wing would get along.
There was something there to be said about Mr. Stark’s affinity with different kinds of people, and the way in which he took on a fatherly position - perhaps without intending, at first. Mr. Stark had a rough exterior, and he traded in jabs and mockery more than any kind of soft compassion - he just showed he cared by being there, and with rather surprising acts of service. Something Peter also hadn’t realised until recently was that Mr. Stark’s seemingly cold jabs at a literal teenager - perhaps at two of them - had been a way he showed that he respected them. He wouldn’t even give someone he didn’t care about and respect the time of day, much less a mocking comment - unless they happened to be an enemy of Iron Man’s.
So both he and Harley were the kinds of people who, as kids, could earn Mr. Stark’s strangely shown respect. What was the quality they had in common? Was it even a common quality? Perhaps he’d never know, but all the same, Peter found himself trusting and enjoying the company of Harley so quickly. Harley was a giving guy, and he didn’t judge. He was interesting, too, and rougher around the edges than he’d first let on. Peter had been worked into laughter on several occasions during which Harley had thrown sarcasm and wit around during some more unpleasant encounters on campus. Even with some friendlier faces, he liked to tease people every now and then. Perhaps Peter really could see bits of Mr. Stark in him, so it made sense after all.
The hatch opened again - though it didn’t make a sound, Peter could tell because Harley’s suit wasn’t so silent, rising up through the hatch and landing on the roof. Peter pulled his mask the rest of the way around, and flipped up onto the roof. “Well, you took your sweet time!”
Harley’s suit did resemble Mr. Stark’s ones somewhat, but it was very much his own. Silver plating replaced the gold, and Iron Lad’s suit was a little more compact. It also had external weapons - two batons, holstered on either side of Harley’s waist - which was definitely a new addition to both the look and hinted combat style. All in all, Peter found himself approving - because it wasn’t just a ripped off Iron Man suit. It was Harley’s take on the whole thing.
“Sorry, sorry, I had to make sure my makeup was perfect,” Harley joked. With that, the tension from what had happened earlier lifted entirely. Peter was fine now, he was ready to go.
“Naturally, gotta make sure the cameras get the good side on your debut night,” Peter bantered back. “So, where are we headed?”
Harley gestured to follow, and then lifted back off the ground with the thrusters on his hands and feet. From what Peter could see, he had passive, non-agitated flying pretty under control. Peter didn’t have much to swing from, so aside from crossing wide roads, he mostly leapt from rooftop to rooftop - which just so happened to be great jumping practice.
About three blocks away, Harley landed atop one particular rooftop of a rather large warehouse, that looked to have been only loosely locked up from the front. “This is the place. Darlene, open ‘er up!”
Peter snorted. “You renamed the AI ‘Darlene’? How southern of you.”
“Born and raised!” Harley gave Peter a two-finger salute before jumping down an identical hatch to the one from the workshop. Peter followed.
He found himself landing in a very wide, open space that had been kitted out to look much like the more generic training rooms at the old Avengers Compound. That is, simultaneously unassuming yet obviously durable. Peter was impressed, but not surprised.
“So this is your training hall, huh? I’m guessing Pepper expected you to have friendlies to spar with?” Peter asked.
Harley nodded, though it looked a bit odd on him specifically when he was wearing the suit - something Peter would get used to. “Sure did. Plus, it doubles as a containment space. So what’s the plan, boss?”
“Boss?” Peter questioned, amused.
“For now,” Harley answered playfully.
“Alright,” Peter said almost unbelievingly. He would have raised an eyebrow if not for the mask. “So first things first, I’ll run through the main skills and concepts I think are important for patrolling and small-scale work, and then we’ll do some sparring. Then, we head out. You’ve got access to local police scanners, yeah? I haven’t gotten around to that yet.”
“Already hooked up through Darlene,” Harley confirmed. “Oh yeah, before we start, is it alright if I show you the thing I wanted to earlier? I’m real excited about it, if I’m bein’ honest.”
Peter chuckled, and stepped in just a little closer. “Do tell!”
“It does come with a Tony story, if you’re alright with that?” Harley checked. Peter gave him a thumbs up. “Right, so I met Tony when I was twelve, which you probably know. He was hijackin’ my family’s garage to tend to his broken suit. I was givin’ the suit a look-over and suggested he could fit it with retroreflective panels for a ‘stealth mode’. He said it was a good idea.”
Peter saw where this was going. “So you implemented that in your suit?”
“Sure did,” Harley confirmed, and Peter just knew he was grinning behind that mask. “The configs that research team had put together were novice work, if I do say so myself. Check this out!”
Harley’s suit shimmered for just a moment, and then all but disappeared. Peter could still see that Harley’s suit was there, but any detailed visual information was practically gone. Despite the fact that he could hear Harley waving his arms around in front of him, it wasn’t something he could really see. In the dark, that was going to be even more of a threat.
“Damn, that’s high quality stuff!” Peter exclaimed excitedly. “How did you do it?”
“Well, I was workin’ on the actual mechanical efficiency of the reflectors and hit what I’m pretty sure is a functional limit for retroreflectors as a whole, when I had another idea,” Harley explained. “It’d be easier to show you first. Web me?”
Peter complied, sending just a small bit of web at Harley’s chest. Half a moment after it landed on the near-invisible suit, the web shimmered too, and… it didn’t quite disappear to the extent that Harley’s suit had, but it was definitely harder to see. Intrigued, he ran his mind through possibilities for what could be doing that. Perhaps the panels could be shifting around foreign materials on the outside of the suit, but that wouldn’t explain the reduced effectiveness of hiding the web. It also wouldn’t explain anything about the suit itself being more well hidden than SHIELD-grade retroreflectors. There could be some kind of chemical being excreted by the suit that was additionally retroreflective, perhaps?
“Is it chemical?” Peter asked.
“Nup,” Harley said. “That’s so not my area of expertise, anyway. Nah, I literally just installed projectors along the suit.”
Peter blinked. His current suit didn’t have eyes programmed to do the same, so it wouldn’t visible or exaggerated. Oh well. “That’s it. Just projectors?”
“Just projectors,” Harley confirmed almost mirthfully. “Granted, well designed ones. They’re designed to determine and project an overlay of what the retroreflectors should be showing, and if the suit detects foreign material stuck to the outside, it’ll project over it too.”
Peter whistled, impressed. “Nice. You know what, let’s speed things up. Sparring and talking at the same time, because ideally you should be able to do that out in the field. No blasters or anything for the moment, just hand to hand on the ground.”
“Ookay,” Harley agreed, but to Peter, he sounded a bit nervous about that. Autism or not, Peter had to be able to pick up on things like tone and body language to do what he did, so he’d studied it. He knew what most things meant now, as long as he was paying attention.
When Harley didn’t make a move, Peter decided to start by kicking at his chest. He held back, of course, not wanting to break the suit. He didn’t know how much it could actually handle, but he could ask Harley for durability specs later. The fact of the matter was, Peter could lift an ambulance; he had to hold back. Harley managed to ride the movement to dodge and then counter, so the dance began.
“Right, so first things first. In this house we do not trust or like the police,” Peter stated as he and Harley exchanged blows. He could tell that Harley was having a bit of trouble listening and fighting, so he slowed down and held back a little. That was going to need work. “Cops are bastards, they just perform state sanctioned violence. And don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a matter of ideology, it’s a matter of preventing harm. We still have to work with them, we just limit how much involvement they need to have as much as we can, yeah?”
“Got it,” Harley said as he jumped out of the way and tried to disengage from the fight. Peter followed, not wanting to give him exemptions to building this new habit just yet. “Woah!” Harley called, reacting to Peter kicking particularly high, instead of exploiting the opening. Natasha would have flipped him on his ass for that. Peter missed Natasha. “So we don’t trust cops. Already on board with that.”
“Great,” Peter said as he went for a low sweep. Harley jumped over it. A little too high, but not dangerously so. That could be corrected later. “Cops includes both SHIELD and SWORD, by the way. Next up, and I get the sense you’re already on board with this, we don’t kill. If I were to have told you in the same sentence that we have each others’ backs when things get tense, would you know what I mean?”
Peter thought back to the events at Liberty Island last year. The second bit was a lesson he had only understood after what Peter Two had done right at the very end, holding him back. That fight still haunted him, but he was working through it as best he could.
“Try to protect each other enough that we never have to choose between lives?” Harley guessed, incorrectly. Peter couldn’t say he was surprised.
Peter punched Harley in the jaw, and was impressed when the iron suit compensated and used the thrusters to ride the blow and lessen the impact. He knew Harley’s reaction time wasn’t that good yet; it had to have been the suit. “A good thought, but not what I meant. I’m… uh, I’m talking about things like… revenge killings? Maybe that’s a bit extreme, but heightened emotions, when an enemy gets under your skin really bad. Teammates have to be ready to hold each other back sometimes, literally.”
“Oh,” Harley responded, and then completely failed to block another kick from Peter. He stumbled back, and then corrected his balance with his hand thrusters. “That’s… yeah, okay. I hope we never have to do that.”
“Me too,” Peter agreed, wholeheartedly. This time, he gave Harley the opportunity to have small break and initiate the sparring once more when he was ready. “Have you ever, like, manually learned how to read people?”
“Not a lot, but I did grow up as a weird gay kid in the bible belt. I’ve got the basics of avoidin’ fights down, I think,” Harley answered, and Peter nodded. It made sense. “I can see exactly how it’d be helpful to avoid unnecessary conflict.”
Peter smiled. “Exactly. Plus, it helps with figuring out how serious a threat is. My Spidey Senses are great for that, but you don’t have that. Alright, go ahead and add in flying for the next round of sparring?”
Harley nodded, and flew straight at him. Peter had to push to curve out of the way, with how fast the suit flew. Harley laughed as he corrected course. “Shit, I’ll have to get better at not overdoin’ that!”
Peter snorted. “Yeah, practice makes better though! What’s next, what’s next… right! One more thing before we do a bit of all out sparring and head off. You gotta know your strength and know how and when to hold back. I don’t know if that’s something I can exactly teach you though? It’s kind of an experience thing.”
“Darlene can help me manage that,” Harley offered before flying at Peter again, this time with considerably more control. Peter jumped up, and landed on his back.
“Consider Darlene your training wheels, then,” Peter said firmly. “Training wheels are super handy, but you’ve gotta take them off eventually.”
After a no holds-barred spar in which Peter definitely held back anyway - but only his actual physical strength - he determined that Harley’s suit was either not quite as powerful as Mr. Stark’s final model, or Harley just didn’t know how to use it as fully. Towards the end, Harley had said something about Mr. Stark having left him an incomplete suit to customise and put the final touches on, which made Peter lean towards believing the former.
They’d then set off on patrol, and Peter had insisted on handling the first thing that came up if it was small, so Harley could watch. Harley had called him a ‘mother hen’ about it, which… yeah, maybe he was. But that was fine by him, because Peter had figured out how to care again after the numbness that followed Liberty Island, so he damn well was going to let himself do that.
The first incident to be handled hadn’t come from a police scanner - it was something that Harley had spotted with the variety of extra forms of sight his fancy suit afforded him. It made Peter miss his Stark-designed suit some more, but all the same, Mr. Stark had made sure that Peter knew how to do his thing without all the fancy features.
Peter dropped down into an alleyway, and landed behind a pretty stock-standard pair of muggers. The muggers had found themselves a target in a rich-looking college age student who must have been on his way back from a party off campus. Peter was vaguely aware that there were a fair few of those.
“Hand it all over!” One of the muggers demanded, still not aware that he had Spider-Man standing right behind him. “Phone, wallet, and that fancy necklace of yours!”
Peter cleared his throat. “Evening gents, how’re we doing here?”
Both muggers whirled on Peter, one holding a knife and the other with a gun. He could tell that the one with the gun was nervous and probably didn’t want to use the thing, but that also meant he would probably fire by accident if Peter startled him any more. So, Peter took a quick opportunity to fire out some webbing and relieve the man of the small firearm. The guy yelped, and pulled out another knife.
“Fuck off!” The recently re-armed one shouted a little shakily. “Or I’ll… I’ll cut you!”
“Oh no!” Peter wailed sarcastically, pretending to shield his face and torso with his arms. “Small knives, my only weakness!”
He also took the opportunity to check on the would-be victim, disappointed to see that the guy still hadn’t run off. No, instead he’d pulled out his phone and was… yep, he was filming. Peter rolled his eyes.
The mugger on the right - the one hadn’t at any point shown a gun - grinned. “Can you believe this, bro? We found Spider-Man’s weakness!”
“Bro,” the other one responded, still a little shaky. “What if he’s a fake?”
Peter sighed, and jumped to flip over them, landing beside the richy-rich college student. It was the easiest way to take down the muggers without having them accidentally trample the guy. A few shots of webbing later and the muggers were bound to each other and had toppled over onto the ground in a failed attempt to pull apart.
With that all sorted, Peter debated snatching the would-have-been victim’s phone and tossing it over to Harley, so that Darlene could wipe the footage and give both of them some time patrolling in Cambridge before word got out. In the end, he decided against it. Better now, before classes had actually started, than when the two of them had a whole bunch of classwork to juggle as well.
Instead, Peter snatched the phone, stopped the recording, and then handed it back to the now mildly afraid student. “Hey, you got plans to get the rest of the way home safely?”
The guy shrugged. “I’m, uh, new here? I live on campus, I didn’t expect… that. Are you really Spider-Man? What are you doing in Cambridge?”
“Figured I could use a change of scenery,” Peter lied. “Can you call yourself an Uber?”
The guy hesitated, and then nodded.
“Great, you do that, and I’ll keep an eye out from above until you’re in the car,” Peter said, and then leapt back up to one of the nearby rooftops. He eyed Harley, who was unreadable under his suit… for now. “Thoughts?”
“And prayers,” Harley joked. “I heard you telling him to order an Uber back to campus. You weren’t gonna offer him a ride? We’re not that far.”
An amusing thought struck Peter too fast for him to get started with a straight answer. He held out his hand, offering it to shake. “Hi Mister new at this whole gig and therefore not knowing how fawning rescuees act, I’m someone who knows to save that offer for people who really need it.”
Harley batted Peter’s hand away playfully and groaned a little. “Not even to be nice? Though, he does kind of look exactly like the guy who’da called me a slur back in Rose Hill.”
Peter rolled his eyes at how apt Harley’s evaluation seemed. “He kinda does. But snark aside, there are a few reasons. Firstly, if we give rides to everyone, we’d get reputations as a glorified taxi service - which I learned the hard way in my first two months as Spider-Man. If someone needs a lift to safety, yeah absolutely I’d swing them somewhere suitable. Bit hard to do in most of Cambridge though, that might be more your thing now. Secondly, carrying people places means you can’t divert as quickly if someone needs help, and thirdly I got stabbed in mid-air by some asshole who pretended to be stuck on a rooftop, and she stole my sandwich. Seriously, I really would have rather she just asked for the food.”
“You got stabbed??” Because apparently that was the bit Harley decided to latch onto.
Peter shrugs. “It happens. I heal fast. I do try to avoid being stabbed, it’s not exactly a hobby.”
Harley reached up to awkwardly scratch at the back of his neck, which was all sorts of funny given he was wearing his suit. “Er, yeah, I guess. Oh look, there he goes. I also saw how you repositioned yourself down there at the start. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Mhm,” Peter hummed approvingly. “Meant I didn’t have to actually hit either of them. If someone’s not gonna be able to get up and fight back after, it’s better to injure them less while subduing them. Look, those guys can’t escape the webbing. They’ll be good in a couple hours when it begins to deteriorate, and maybe they’ll reconsider their actions.”
Once the Uber left, Harley was quick to get up. Despite the fact that Peter couldn’t read as much off his behaviour when he was in the suit, it wasn’t hard to tell he was eager to get some action.
“So…” Harley started, and Peter pushed himself upright. “My turn?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I was thinking we could turn in for the night,” Peter teased. “A job well done, you know?”
“What? No!” Harley protested indignantly. Peter couldn’t help but snicker a little at that, which gave him away. “Oh, you were kiddin’. Wow, I didn’t know ya had a mean streak in ya!”
“Me, mean? How could I be mean when I’m like an adorable little puppy?” Peter joked, and then took off at a run to continue the patrol.
Harley flew after him. “Hey, even puppies can be vicious! They’ve got surprisingly sharp teeth.”
Peter gasped. “How could you say such a thing?”
Instead of responding directly to Peter, Harley addressed his AI. “Darlene, show me google image searches for evil golden retriever, please.”
A moment later, a projected display popped up on Harley’s upper arm, and he flew over to show it to Peter. The display was a picture of a golden retriever with an unnervingly evil sort of smile, sitting in the back of a car.
“This is you,” Harley insisted. “You never went into retirement, did ya?”
Peter burst out laughing, and almost tripped on his face.
“Got somethin’,” Harley then said all of a sudden, tone having gone serious. “Police callout, about five blocks north of here. Suspected vehicular kidnappin’. I’ve got the license plate, and I’ll have Darlene try to track the car for us.”
Peter steadied himself quickly, and turn northward. “Let’s go. I’ll watch and be ready to jump in, otherwise do you think you can handle this one, Iron Lad?”
“I helped Tony stop a bunch’a firebreathin’ crooks when I was twelve, how hard can this be?” Harley answered, and they both picked up the pace.
It was a good thing that Darlene managed to get access to local camera surveillance and follow the car, because it was driving away pretty fast. Harley opted to go ahead without Peter - which Peter silently approved of, since he just couldn’t get around as fast without taller buildings to swing from.
After slingshotting himself a few times, Peter caught up just as Harley was firing some needle-thin energy blasts at the escaping car, which hit at the base of the back wheels without blowing up the car or hurting anyone.
Nice, Peter thought approvingly, as he went to find a perch on a building near where the car swerved to a stop. Meanwhile, Harley flew in to assess the action. Peter could hear that there was a victim stuck in the car’s trunk, making very muffled cries for help.
“Hi there darlin’, where ya in such a rush to?” Harley called to the man clambering out of the driver’s seat of the car.
“Piss off,” the man barked, and pulled a gun on Harley. “Do you usually go around busting people’s cars when they’re just passing by and taking care of family matters?”
Harley pointed at the trunk of the car. “Hun, I don’t think ‘family matters’ involves tyin’ someone up and stickin’ them in the back of a car. So, are we doin’ this the easy way or the hard way?”
“How I deal with my miscreant, perverted son is non of your business!” The man fired on him. Bullets bounced off Harley’s suit easily, and he looked unbothered. Peter was curious to see how Harley would deal with this? Was he going to take a direct approach, or-
Harley’s suit shimmered and he disappeared. Peter smiled, watching and listening very carefully as Harley curved around to the ground and grabbed the guy from the side, knocking the gun out of his hand in the process. Then, without deactivating the retroreflectors, Harley brought the man up to where Peter was sitting.
“Hey Spidey, mind keepin’ an eye on this guy while I take care of the car?” Harley asked, a little loudly to overpower the very vocally agitated kidnapper.
“Sure thing,” Peter agreed, and Harley dropped the guy up on the rooftop. Before he had a chance to react, or even process, Peter webbed the man onto the roof, keeping him in place. Not wanting to inflict the same cruelty the man had back on him, Peter opted to tune his screaming out instead of webbing his mouth. His attention went back to Harley.
Harley popped the car trunk open, revealing a kid squirming against rope bindings and still crying out through a muffle - but Peter didn’t have quite the right angle to see any details.
“Hey there, kiddo, I’m here to help,” Harley reassured the kid softly. “I’m goin’ by Iron Lad, and I’m a new hero in town. If it helps ya feel any safer, I’m openly gay too.”
When that got the kid to calm down, a pit formed in Peter’s stomach. He had a bad feeling about what this situation really was. Then, Harley helped the kid out of the car. A young teenager with long hair and a simple dress, who had been bound up in ropes and gagged. Suddenly Peter understood far more about the situation. Holding back from webbing the ‘father’s mouth shut became far harder.
Harley helped get the gag out of the kid’s mouth and seared the ropes away. The kid stumbled against Harley, and started sobbing. Peter steadied his breaths. He knew exactly what was going on here. While Harley looked after the kid, Peter moved to squat right next to the supposed parent. He took a deep breath, trying to keep the surge of anger in check. This wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed or had to stop this particular type of crime.
Carefully, Peter contemplated and selected his words. “So, you’re the kind of scum who can’t handle that your kid’s trans, huh?”
The man growled. “I’ll never let my son follow that unnatural, delusional thinking that he can be a she. Now let me out! The Bugle’s right about you, you’re a fucking menace!”
Peter took another deep breath. “Unnatural is not loving your child for who she is. Unnatural is abusing your kid. Unnatural is everything about how you’re handling this situation. You have a chance to get yourself together and grow the hell up, and maybe one day your daughter might willingly let you into her life. Otherwise? I know your face. I’ve got my eye on you. You can get yourself down once the webs have weakened.”
With that, Peter went and leapt off the building, landing a fair bit away from Harley and the younger girl before slowly, peacefully pacing towards them. “How are you two doing?”
Harley turned to face Peter, a hand on the girl’s shoulder as she sat against the car trunk and cried some more. “This is Jessie, she’s been stayin’ at a youth shelter when her- when that guy saw her outside and nabbed her. I told her we’d take her back and make sure he can’t do anythin’ to her again.”
“Good,” Peter sort of praised, except it wasn’t really praise because this wasn’t a situation where praise was important. The girl’s wellbeing was what was important. “Hey Jessie, we’ve got you, okay? I want you to know that you’re not alone, and that there’s nothing unnatural about who you are. Okay?”
Jessie’s crying settled down a bit, now having receded into intermittent sniffling. “How could you understand?”
She wasn’t biting back, Peter could tell. She was really, genuinely asking. She wanted someone to reassure her more deeply that she was okay. Peter could do that. He could be open about himself, for all the good it would do for kids like Jessie. “I know because I’m the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Trans.”
It was an awful joke, but it was honestly the best Peter had, and he was trying very much to lighten the mood and give Jessie a bit of emotional reprieve. Judging by her sniffly laughter, it worked.
“Oh god, that was bad,” Jessie said, giggling as a small grin forming on her face. “You’re… you’re really…”
“I really am,” Peter confirmed. “I figured it was about time to be open about it. Look, I don’t know your situation, but do you think you’ll be safe if we take you back to the shelter? Or will he come after you again.”
Jessie looked down. “I, uh. I tried to hide from him, but he just saw me on the street. I… think it was just chance. But now he knows where I- where… he- what do I do?”
Peter sighed. “I really hope things get better for you, and that you can stay somewhere familiar. But if you need to get further away so he can’t find you? See if you can make it to New York, and find your way to a shelter called ‘F.E.A.S.T’ in Chinatown. They take care of all kinds of folks, and you’ll be safe to be you there. They can help you get back on your feet, yeah? I’ll come by in a week and get you on a bus if you need.”
Hesitantly, Jessie nodded. “O…okay. Can we go now?”
“Yeah,” Harley assured her, stepping in and squatting down in front of her. “Climb on? I’ll give you a ride, I’ve already got directions to your shelter.”
“What the shit,” Harley cursed once he and Peter were back at the workshop, suiting down. “That was… god, that was fucked up. How do you deal with it?”
Peter grimaced. Half of the truth was that he didn’t, when stuff like that came up. He just learned to cope as best he could. “It helps to know that you can help. We do what we can when we’re out there. And… you handled that situation pretty perfectly.”
Slowly, Harley nodded. “The shelter Jessie was at is specifically for homeless queer youth. Did you hear how the people said that shit like this has happened several times before? I… I want to make it a regular part of my patrol route, keep an eye on them when I can.”
“I will, too,” Peter agreed. “Do you need anything? How can I help?”
“Can I… have a hug?”
“Of course.” Peter hugged him, and held him tight. In all honesty, Peter needed it too.