dynamics, 10
It took Peter realising that he was in New York to snap out of the funk he was in. It wasn’t like he’d blinked after running out of Harley’s room and found himself in another city. No, he was vaguely aware of what was happening. It was more like he just wasn’t paying attention. But he was in New York, after having fled from… Peter didn’t even want to think about what he’d done, what had happened. Not yet. He couldn’t, until he knew what he’d be able to do next.
It all just hurt too much. He couldn’t fall in love with Harley, it was too dangerous. Harley would just end up getting killed, or worse. Like everyone else. Maybe he should just stay in New York, start over again. Maybe losing Harry, and Gwen, and Riri and Daisy and everyone else he’d grown to care for was the price he had to pay for letting this happen. For thinking a crush like that would be fine, that nothing bad would come of it. For being arrogant and careless.
What Peter did know was that he couldn’t just stew in his own stress and misery alone; he was still dedicated to at least trying to live a better life. Glancing down at the tattoo on his wrist was all he needed in order to know he had to find some healthy way of managing this. Even if Harley was someone he had to leave behind, he and Harley had made an unspoken promise when they got those tattoos together. Never again.
And… there was one person Peter knew for sure he could talk to about this. Someone who had lived in pain and misery for so long and still toughed it out and made a life for herself. Maybe Jess would know what to do. So, he pulled out his phone and sent her a text. He’d gotten a new phone number since going to MIT, so Jess wouldn’t recognise the number, but he could sign it off and she’d probably still come.
Peter: Are you busy? I need to talk. Meet me on the rooftop of your building in twenty? ~Spider-Man
It would take him fifteen minutes to get there at a jog, giving him time to organise his thoughts before Jess emerged – if she even did show up. She still ran Alias Investigations, but her schedule was pretty improvised. The whole time Peter journeyed through Hell’s Kitchen and towards the apartment building, there was no texted response. Even so, he slipped into an alleyway and scaled the building before finding a spot where he could sit over the rooftop’s edge and wait.
Five minutes later, a door swung open behind him. Peter was almost amused that Jess took the stairs, when she more easily could have just jumped from the street - and she didn’t have a secret identity to protect so it wouldn’t even have been a big deal. The woman took measured steps across to the ledge and swung her legs over to sit beside Peter, a respectable foot between them.
“Yeah, that’s about what I expected you might look like,” Jess said after getting a good look at Peter’s face. “Like a sad golden retriever. No suit today?”
Peter shrugged. “I didn’t pack it. I wasn’t even planning to come back to New York, I just… ended up here.”
“A sad, angsty golden retriever, then,” Jess teased dryly. She had a mug of coffee in hand, from which she took a small sip. “So what’s the drama in Spider-Man’s college life?”
Peter shrugged again. He didn’t want to launch right into it. Plus, he missed Jess. Ever since they’d first crossed paths, he’d found he really enjoyed her company and had grown to care about her – even if he’d kept her at an arm’s length just like everyone else before Harley. “What’s new with-”
Looking down, Peter had to pause. Jess was wearing her usual combat boots, yes, but there were coloured beads on the laces now. Specifically, an aromantic flag on the left boot and a trans flag on the right one. “You put the beads on.”
Jess chuckled. “Sure did. A certain youngster in a red and blue suit encouraged me to be proud of who I am, and I suppose the words sunk in. I was already wearing them when I heard news of your own suit change, actually.”
To think that a few conversations about queerness while staking out Wilson Fisk’s son had evolved into this – to think that Peter had created some positive benefit for Jess during the recovery from his darkest months – it warmed something in him. “Yeah. I wanted people to know who I am, and that I stand with my community. The others joining in helped, too. And it’s made a difference that I could see with my own eyes, which is more than I could have asked for.”
“Quite a team you’ve amassed over there,” Jess remarked, kicking her legs gently into the air back and forth. “Some interesting names, too. Iron Lad, Ironheart, Witchboy, Zapdash and Quake, right? People are still speculating about what role Quake plays with you guys.”
Peter couldn’t help but wince when Jess mentioned Harley’s hero name. And from what he could tell, she noticed. “Yeah. They’re good people. Quake’s more of a… mentor for us. It is- was starting to feel like a family. But… how are you?”
Jess paused, and took another sip of her coffee before gesturing gently with the mug. “Three months sober, now. The coffee helps, gives me something else to drink. Plus, Vido’s pouts are still just as disarming even though he’s a junior in high school now. I told you about Vido, right?”
Peter chuckled. “Ah yes, the ‘brat’ who decided you were still family even after you and his dad stopped sleeping with each other.”
Jess nodded her head sideways at him, smirking just a little. “Yeah, that’s the one. Something else too, which is new and interesting. Ever since I decided to get sober, I figured I should probably look into my medical history so I can look after myself. It was Claire’s suggestion, actually. Since all of the family I know of are either dead or locked up in the Raft, I figured I’d just go down the genetic testing route. For a few extra dollars, I got some genealogy stuff sent back too, and… turns out I was adopted by the Jones family as a baby, and nobody thought to tell me. Took me a while to believe it, and involved digging around and finding my childhood neighbours to verify.”
“Huh. I can’t imagine that’d help with the sobriety,” Peter said, not meaning anything by it. The world-weary thoughts just came to the fore more easily, just like how they did before MIT.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Jess said with her usual dry amusement, the one that said that the whole world was such a damn joke. “Except for the fact that it made it easier. I mean, I looked into my biological parents and what I found wasn’t pretty. They worked for Oscorp as biomedical researchers. Jewish, too, which is fun, but I don’t know if I’ll ever really dive into the religion crap. Not for me.”
Peter’s eyes widened a fraction, but he didn’t say anything. He just let Jess keep talking. A small, cynical part of his mind was hunting for any clues or slip-ups that revealed that Jess might be messing with him, but he was just too tired for that part to win out.
“They died in a plane crash, apparently. Richard and Mary Parker – from what I could find, my best guess is they had me while they were college students and didn’t feel ready for a kid. Lines up with what the old neighbours said, too, that the Jones family was giving me a better home that my birth parents couldn’t. Obviously that didn’t exactly pan out,” Jess continued. And somehow, Peter found himself believing her. Against all odds, against the absurdly low probability that this could possibly be true, he believed her. “It was just… they had another kid. I couldn’t find much, but maybe she’s out there somewhere. Maybe we could connect. Her name is-”
“His name. His name is Peter,” Peter blurted out without much thought. It felt like the kind of thing he should have thought through, but honestly he just didn’t want to hear his deadname right now of all times and that was enough. “Peter Parker.”
Jess turned to look at him, something discerning in her eyes – but there was usually something discerning in her eyes, what with her being a private investigator and all. Still, this felt different, and it had every reason to. Peter returned her gaze, and tried to wear a smile. It didn’t quite happen.
“Yeah, the records cut off from around when I was thirteen, right?” Peter began rambling, the only thing he could do to stave off the everything that was this revelation. “I got my legal name changed. I lived with my uncle Ben and my aunt May, and they were pretty supportive. They’re dead too, now. And you won’t find any records of me under my name because of a thing with Doctor Strange and my own stupidity.”
Jess shuffled a little closer to him. It wasn’t any kind of grand gesture, but it was something. It felt to Peter like a quiet acceptance. Jess’s quiet kind of acceptance. “Sounds like quite the tale.” She reached into her pocket for something, but then her hand came out empty.
“It’s actually pretty awful,” Peter responded. He resolved to ignore the fact that apparently he and Jess were biological siblings for now. A little because he didn’t want to let her in and get her hurt too, but a little because he just couldn’t handle it right now. “Everyone I love either died or forgot who I am.”
“So that’s what this is about,” Jess huffed, and took another sip of coffee. “I guess the fans are onto something about you and Iron Lad, huh? Well, the few who are sticking their noses in other peoples’ business and shipping real people - which, gross. I don’t know if you heard the rumours cropping up. You can look into it yourself, if you want to.”
Peter winced again. But he’d come here for Jess’s advice, and he couldn’t get that unless he pushed on forward. “Harley. He- he really likes me, a lot. I can tell. It took my friend Harry asking if something was going on between us a few days back for me to realise, and I also realised that I- I felt the same. He’s… Harley just slotted into my life like he’d always belonged there.”
“And now you’re scared,” Jess said. Her words punched, and they weren’t pulled punches either. “You’re scared of him getting hurt so you came to doom and gloom Jessica Jones to tell you how to break things off.”
For about five seconds, Peter couldn’t do much more than stare at the buildings across the road. “Yeah, something like that,” he finally admitted. “I’m just cursed, I guess. I can’t drag other people down with me.”
Jess drained the rest of her cup. “Well, tough shit, Peter. I’m not gonna do that, help you fuck over your own damn happiness.”
Peter’s breath caught, just as much as he’d been caught off guard. “I, uh, I didn’t mean to-”
Jess reached out and pushed him a little. There was no strength behind it, almost as though the act was meant to be playful or something. “You didn’t say anything wrong, I’m well aware of how doom and gloom I am. Sobriety’s made it a bit milder, sure, but I have a reputation to keep. No, I’m not gonna do that because your whole ‘nobody can ever love me’ thing is a sack of crap, and after all the shit you’ve been through, you deserve something nice. As soon as you mentioned Doctor Strange I put the rest of the pieces together, matching up everything I’ve ever found from looking you up.
“Time for some tough love, kid. You are really fucking arrogant if you think you’re causing all these people to die simply by existing. Real shit hand of cards you’ve been dealt, sure, but you’re not cursed. I know plenty about losing people you love. I’ve even lost the same people multiple times, but life goes on and you make new connections, or revive old ones you never expected to come back,” Jess said like it was some kind of lecture. Like she was some actual big sister making sure her little brother got things through his skull.
“Have you had the entire world forget you exist?” Peter bit out, harsher than he’d meant, but without any capacity for restraint.
Jess rolled her eyes, and reached into that same pocket again. “But is that true? Did the whole world forget you?”
Peter might have been angry and upset and mentally kind of fuzzy, but he was still clever enough to see the glaring little tidbit there. Jess wouldn’t be saying that unless she knew something. And… she was right. “Well, not everyone.”
“Okay, who didn’t forget?” Jess demanded. “Lay it out for me, right now.”
Peter eyed her warily. “Harley remembered my face when we met at MIT, because he never knew my name to forget it. Harry remembered our childhood together because he’d only known my deadname. I guess somehow MIT kept my records and my application and scholarship? I still don’t know how that happened, though.”
Jess shuffled even closer, and bumped shoulders with Peter before pulling a slip of paper out of her pocket. “I do. I saw you arrive on this rooftop, and brought this slip of paper with me just like I was told to back on the day the Statue of Liberty got all busted up. It’s a message for you, from that Doctor Strange guy. I’m sure it’s for you, now.”
Time felt like it was coming to a standstill. Doctor Strange had left a message for Peter? But how was that even possible? Slowly, Peter took the slip of paper. He unfolded it, and began to read.
Kid,
I can’t address this directly to you or the spell will erase the letter, so I can only hope that Ms Jones is able to get this to the correct person. I have a few hours before the spell draws back in and completes by erasing my memories too, which I am using to pen this letter and ensure it reaches the right messenger.
Back on Titan, when I used the time stone to search all possible futures for one where we defeated Thanos, I made sure to look further after finding the singular timeline where we’d won. I needed to see that what we were fighting for was worth it. I saw all sorts of lives being led, the conflicts that would arise, and the small joys of those who had been downtrodden.
Specifically, one such episode I bore witness to you was you sitting on a rooftop with Ms Jones, discussing how you believed that you could not let yourself love anyone anymore. There was a person whose name I recall being ‘Harley’ who you thought you had to push away to protect. At first, I had thought that such an event was just life, not something worth worrying about when it came to the grand scale of the multiverse. Just tough luck.
And then the fabric of the multiverse was at risk, and at your suggestion, I erased all memories of your name from our universe. Well, almost all of them. Remembering your sorrow on that rooftop, I could not allow myself to condemn you to a life of pure solitude. I made one singular change to the spell. This change came with a risk – should even one singular person undo their memory loss by magical means, the multiverse could begin to unravel again. But that choice was worth it, and I beseech you not to question me on this.
You, kid, are good. Though I may not have shown it so clearly in the past, you have been a pleasure to work with and to fight alongside. I can see how much good you have to share with the world, and I wish to see you share it. I want you to share it with this ‘Harley’, and anyone else you meet and come to care for.
The modification I made to the spell was small and simple, and as much as I could manage. I recall your enrollment and scholarship at MIT, and so I made sure it would be preserved. That way you would have a chance at something new. Yes, maybe you have lost all the people who you once loved, but you can forge new connections. You can live your life to the fullest, and the price we paid to defeat Thanos will be worth it.
Kid, you deserve this. Make the most of it. Do not waste my efforts, or I’ll be pissed.
Dr Stephen Vincent Strange, M.D., PhD, Master of the New York Sanctum
Peter couldn’t help but loose a shaky laugh at how Doctor Strange’s letter had ended. There was the weary snark Peter had been used to from him. And… well, it was a lot to process. Peter could feel the magic interwoven with the signature, vibrating against his skin as he held the letter. He could feel something unlocking in his chest, something freeing him from the fear.
Doctor Strange had done this for him, had risked the multiverse for him to be happy. How could he not listen after that? Between his letter and what Jess had said… what if Peter just let himself have this? What if he did let Harley in, see what kind of love they could create together. See what experiences he could share with the beautiful guy who had already shared so much with him and understood him so well.
And then he remembered the events of the morning, barely five hours ago now. “Ohhhh shit I fucked up!”
Jess squinted at him. “I’m sure you did, Pete. Want to tell me what you fucked up?”
Peter’s breath hitched. For a moment he thought he’d stop knowing how to breathe, and start panicking – but he didn’t. He just cried. All of the tears that under normal circumstances might’ve spilled all over the letter came flooding out now. “I- I ran from Harley, I said something- something awful.”
At that, Jess just snorted. “Yeah, and? That doesn’t make you special, everyone fucks up like that at least once or twice. So, what are you gonna do to fix it?”
Peter didn’t get a chance to answer. His phone started buzzing in his pocket. When he fished it out, Peter saw a name on the screen that had him feeling fear and white hot shame. It was Xander.
“Go on, answer it,” Jess insisted, seeing Peter holding the phone but not doing much with it.
Cautiously, Peter accepted the call.
“YOU ABSOLUTE PIECE OF SHIT!”
Jess snorted some more, and Peter could see her fighting to suppress more full laughter. And he couldn’t do much but hold the phone and listen, because he had fucked up, and he was sure that everything Xander was about to say to him was warranted and deserved.
“IT TOOK HARLEY HOURS TO BE OKAY ENOUGH TO EVEN TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED, BECAUSE HE HAD AN ACTUAL CHAIN OF PANIC ATTACKS AFTER YOU LEFT HIM. PETER, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?”
“I- uh,” Peter tried, and then gave up, as the guilt began eating at him with razor teeth. Harley had gone through panic attacks, plural, after he left. “Yeah. I fucked up.”
“YEAH, YOU SURE DID, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” Xander screamed, and then took a very audible breath. “I used to think you were cool, Peter. I sort of still do. Hearing Harley talk about you all the time was what made me feel like I could come out to Ma, and to him. He always had good things to say about you, and Ma and I could tell how happy you made him. I don’t even know if you know how he feels about you, but what you did… damn, I don’t know how he even forgives you for it. Yeah, you hear me? He forgives you. Already. He kept trying to tell me you’d never just do that and something must have been going on. But you know what? I don’t buy it.”
“I do, I know how he feels. And I hurt him,” Peter managed. Because he had hurt Harley, and he did know how Harley felt about him. And he’d thrown it all in Harley’s face in a moment of panic. “I mean, yes, I panicked. I took unresolved shit out on him, and he didn’t deserve it at all. Xander, I… I don’t know if I deserve it, but I want to make it up to him. I like him so much, Xander.”
There was quiet across the line for a moment. And then-
“So why? Why would you- you know what, I don’t even want to know. I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you exactly how much you hurt him, so you have a fucking crystal clear picture of what you did to my brother. And you’re gonna listen, and if he lets you stay in his life, you’re never gonna hurt him like this again or I swear I will hunt you down and kill you myself, superpowers or not.”
Yeah, now Jess was cackling, because even if xe wasn’t yelling, Xander was still loud enough for Jess to hear. Peter could only send her a meek sort of look, one that said he knew he was getting his just desserts.
“I’m pretty sure you already know that Rose Hill is a fucked up place for queer kids to grow up. I’m literally only out to Ma and Harley here, because I know it’s not safe for me to tell anyone else. We’re even thinking of moving purely because of it. Harley kept in the closet until he moved to college, too. And in the past, he’s told me about how scared he was for anyone to find out. He imagined telling people he was even remotely friendly with, and every single time, it would end in them telling him they wanted nothing to do with him, that he needed to just stay away from them. Sound fucking familiar?”
Peter gulped. “Uh… yeah. It does.”
“So it doesn’t fucking matter that you’re queer too. It doesn’t sound like you were rejecting him if you feel that way about him too, but you fucking ruined him. There was a moment in our call when he thought he was back in Rose Hill, where he thought he’d been outed. Do you get that? Do you get how fucking bad that is? That he derealised like that?”
“Yeah, Xander, I do,” Peter said truthfully, and the waves of guilt just continued crashing down on him. “I want to make it up to him, I never want to hurt him like that again.”
He could practically hear xem rolling xeir eyes at him from across the phone line. “If I had it my way, Harley would drop you and stay the fuck away from you, but that’s Harley’s choice and not mine. Just know this, Parker, you’re on thin fucking ice. Hurt my brother again and I will make sure you live to regret it.”
“I’m pretty sure I already do,” Peter admitted.
“Good,” Xander said harshly, and then the line shut off.
“Well then,” Jess said, patting Peter on the shoulder. “That was… colourful.”
Peter sighed. “Yeah, that’s Xander for you. Harley’s little sibling. Xe’re… fierce. I’m glad Harley has someone like xem in his corner.”
Jess swung her legs back over onto the rooftop and got up. Peter followed. “So, what are you gonna do now?”
“Apologise?” Peter said, sounding as though it was more of a question than an answer. “I don’t know, I want to go back to MIT and make things right.”
Jess nodded. “Okay, good. I don’t have any experience with these kinds of feelings, but I do know relationships. Clearing the air by being honest and just telling the truth goes a long way. Besides, if this Harley wants to forgive you, he probably wants to know why it happened in the first place.”
“Yeah, okay. Right, so I should head straight back, I guess?”
This time, Jess shook her head, and gestured for Peter to follow. She started making tracks for the stairwell back into the building. “First, come with me. So, not that I’d be forcing anything or expecting anything from you, but how would you feel about this whole… connecting as siblings thing?”
Peter smiled. This was another thing that he could have, if he was going to let himself let people in. And he already liked spending time with Jess, so there wasn’t really any reason left to say no. “I’d like that. So you’re really- we have the same parents?”
“Birth parents,” Jess corrected, no actual judgement or upset in her voice. “But yes. I guess we do. Before you go, how’d you like to meet my family here? You know, my people, the ones I’ve chosen.”
Peter smiled some more, and followed. This time, when he looked at her face, he could see the resemblance between them. It was only slight, but it was there, in the position of their cheekbones and in their perfectly matching complexion. “Sounds good.”
Jess led him down a few flights of stairs, and through a hallway until Peter saw a glass sign that said ‘Alias Investigations’. Jess pushed the door open, and Peter followed her inside. As he entered the main space, there was a dark-skinned woman with thinly trimmed eyebrows and a very sleek business-like outfit. To the right was a tall man whose skin was similarly coloured but a little less copper, with a full undercut and tidy black curls sitting atop his head.
“Back from your impromptu meeting already?” The woman said as soon as she heard Jess enter. “Good, we’re on a schedule here, and you need to actually make the money to pay me and Malcolm. Oh, you’ve brought company? A new client?”
Jess shook her head, and gestured towards Peter. “Not a client. Remember when I was looking up information about my birth parents and found out I had a sibling out there somewhere? This is Peter.”
The woman turned to look at Peter, something intensely warm in the way she smiled at him – especially in contrast to the weariness she directed at Jess. “So you’re… you’re a Parker?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Peter answered. “Peter Parker. It was a surprise to me too, but I can’t say I’m upset about Jess and I being related.”
Jess jabbed an elbow at Peter, all play and no malice even if her face didn’t show it. “Peter, this is Gillian, and on the other side is Malcolm. They work here with me, and they’re as much of a family as I’ve got now. Plus Vido and his dad, but Vido’s at his school and Oscar is off working.”
“Sounds like you and Jess already knew each other,” Malcolm said appraisingly from behind Peter. He turned to face the man, and weighed up his options mentally over the span of a couple seconds.
Peter leaned in first to whisper to Jess. “Reckon I can trust them with that?”
Jess shrugged. “You do you, but they won’t run amiss with the information. I trust them.”
Peter nodded, and directed his attention back to Malcolm, who looked like the kind of man who could either patiently await information from someone, or dig it out of them if he had to. “Yeah, I, uh…”
Then, like the impressively articulate young man he was, Peter made web-slinging gestures with his hands.
Malcolm blinked. And then turned to face Jess. “Spider-Man is your brother.” He sighed. “Why does nothing surprise me anymore?”
“Because Jess’s life is an absurd smoothie of bullshit, that’s why,” Gillian answered, and Peter let out a small laugh. “Welcome to the family, Peter. It’ll be nice to see you around now and then when you’re not busy with college.”
After meeting Jess’s family of coworkers and taking some time to grab some bagels and discuss his game plan, Peter legged it back to the station and got on the first train back to Boston. His train arrived at its destination a little after 7pm, which left Peter a little bit of time to make haste back to his dorm and set everything up. He owed Harley the biggest of apologies, and he wanted to do more than just say some nice words to show that he meant it. He wanted to do something nice for Harley, something that would should him that Peter wasn’t going to leave him or force him to stay away. Not now, not ever.
Without stopping to rest, Peter stripped off his bed and put down a clean set of bedding. He opened the window and used the overhead fan to air the room out, and started decluttering the whole space. With a little rifling around, Peter found a small projector that he set aside for later. He booted up his laptop and navigated his way to one particular show that could be nice to watch and relax a little. There wasn’t time to go grab any snacks, but Peter also didn’t want to push it too much with the coziness. Harley wasn’t just going to jump back into his arms like nothing had happened.
Once everything was ready, Peter pulled out his phone and opened up his chat with Harley. His fingers a little shaky from the combination of nerves and guilt, Peter managed to type out the message and click send.
Beet: I know I fucked up big time, and I want to apologise if you’ll let me.
Beet: I was thinking we could talk in the morning if you’re willing? It’s entirely up to you.
Beet: What I said this morning, I didn’t mean. I’ll explain as much as you want me to tomorrow, but I want to show you that I’m not going anywhere.
Beet: I cleaned up my room and picked out a nice show to watch, just to relax a little? I know you had a rough day and I think this might help.
Beet: Of course you don’t have to. I’d get it if you don’t even want to see me right now, much less talk to me.
Beet: It’s up to you, but I’m here. I’m staying, I’m not going anywhere.
Harls: ...
Harls: ok
Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock at Peter’s door. He rushed over to open it, and his insides felt like they could melt when he saw the state Harley was in. There were tear tracks running down his face, and his eyes were red and puffy in a way that suggested he’d been crying recently. Even so, he was dressed in what looked like pajamas, and he’d brought a pillow. As far as Peter could tell, Harley wanted to be here.
“Uh,” Peter tried, but his voice failed him. It took a few breaths before he could make another attempt at speaking. “Have you seen Heartstopper?”
Harley shook his head. “Not yet. Been meanin’ to for a little while.”
“Wanna watch it now?” Peter offered. Even though Harley was here, Peter found himself wanting to make sure he gave the guy chances to back out. It was Harley’s right, and whatever happened, Peter was going to do everything he could to make amends whether now or later.
Harley shrugged. “Sure, I guess. You’re not gonna run off again, are you?”
Peter’s breath caught. His eyes started to water, but he fought back the tears. It wasn’t fair on Harley for Peter to start crying now. “I promise you that I won’t. And I’ll tell you everything and apologise properly in the morning, if you’ll let me.”
“Okay,” Harley agreed, and stepped inside. There was so much emptiness to how he moved and talked, like he was just completely drained of energy. And that was Peter’s fault.
Peter was just glad to see Harley gradually relax the more they watched together. There were no jokes or commentaries shared between them. Just watching quietly while sitting on Peter’s bed, peering over at the laptop set up on his desk. The distance between them tore at Peter’s heart, and he wanted nothing more than to close it. But he didn’t deserve that. Not yet, not until or unless Harley chose to let him back in.