Your needs, my needs
Peter had learned, through his short time walking and talking and living as a human being, that sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. For the longest time, he tried to treat everything like a formula; if something good happened, and then two bad things happened, then the scale would tip from okay to horrible. Some might call it a pessimistic, scientific mindset, but he truly believed that equivalence was the standard. Good things came lightly, afterall, so he had to toughen up and prepare for the lurch of the scale. He thought he had to jump before the rug was pulled out from under him. He thought that he had to mourn the bad at the same time he was experiencing the happy.
Peter had learned, in the very short time between dying and waking up, that he was inexplicably and hilariously wrong.
His Aunt had told him a really long time ago, probably a month after Uncle Ben had died, that just because the bad things happened doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the good moments. He never really dwelled on it, filing it away behind a mountain of guilt and hoping that his scale would rebalance by the next year. After everything—losing Tony, losing five years, losing the meaning behind the orderly numbers he held so dear—he finally understood what she meant. He didn’t need to feel bad for feeling good, and he didn’t have to find that deep, ugly satisfaction when he felt awful. He didn’t have to. He didn’t have to. He didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.
He told MJ first after he kissed Harley. It wasn’t really something he felt like he needed to live tweet or anything, but it left him feeling giddy and full, and it showed on his face apparently enough that she picked up on it. He was excited to swing with Harley, which he’d promised they’d do after they go out properly for the first time, and he was trying to figure out the best way to hold him so he wouldn’t fall to his death when Michelle tapped him on the shoulder.
“You’re here,” She said, an odd look on her face.
He smiled, and tilted his head. “Yeah? I haven’t been absent in like a year?”
“No, I mean,” She gestured, vaguely, to his face. “You’re present. Not far away. Not moping.”
“I don’t mope, I wallow,” He argued, automatically, then he processed the meaning behind her words.
“It’s good to have you back,” She added, her tone soft and teasing.
He gave her two big thumbs up, feeling his throat tighten and his lungs strain. He was right, in a way, that everyone had noticed he had changed. But maybe it was that he was just a little farther away, in a sense, not completely unrecognizable. He turned around to face forward in his seat, tapped his pen against his knuckles, and knew that he was there.
He helped May in the kitchen more often, and he found her waiting with a cup of tea on the couch whenever he would get back from patrol. He began to head home earlier, making an effort to climb onto the couch with a snack and watch the tv with her. Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he would head out again after he made sure she was safe in bed, slipping out through the front door and changing on the roof before swinging into the night. Sometimes, when he would be tucked tightly into his mattress, he would blink awake at the sounds of rustling in the kitchen, his Aunt opening and closing cupboards and clinking a spoon against glass cups. He knew they each had their little secrets that they thought they kept well from one another, and he knew that they each started getting a little worse at hiding them.
He told her he loved her more often, making sure that he was conscious of every time he thought about it—when his chest would ache and he’d remember all the little things that he appreciated and admired in her—and that he was aware enough to write it down. They left sticky notes in each other’s bags and would add it into casual conversation.
“We need more milk,” She’d say. “I love you forever, can you pick some up from the corner store?”
“I’m heading out for patrol,” He’d tell her. “I love you as easy as breathing, I’ll be back before midnight.”
Dinner with Pepper and Happy and Morgan were frequent, almost weekly events now. May still coordinated, and he would get little warning before heading over, or on the not-so-rare occasion, walking into the apartment and finding the table already set. He found it easier to swallow his food, and he talked more in the car, and he felt almost normal again.
There was still a wound, small and dripping and deep, that was left whenever they had an empty seat at the table that would never really be filled. There was still some grief he had to work through; sadness and loss that nipped at his heels and got too comfortable on his shoulders as it pushed and pushed against his spine. He wasn’t sure if it would ever go away, if it would ever get easier, if one day he would fail to notice the shadow that hung over him. He wasn’t sure why it felt lighter, in a way, that he knew a few other people were waiting for the same thing: an unattainable, delusional enlightenment that would suddenly cure a broken heart and get rid of all the sleepless nights and lumps in their throats.
He texted Harley every moment he had a chance, and it made him pause a little when he realized not much had changed in their relationship. Before the kiss, they would text during breaks, and send each other selfies and pictures of dogs and pigeons, and funny cat videos. Sometimes, after he had accidentally-on-purpose revealed his identity to Harley, he would send articles and reels of Spider-Man, some showing more of his inner fanboy than others. Now, they would add more hearts at the end of things, and Peter was pleased to report that there was some obvious flirting, but the big things hadn’t shifted. He sort of liked that. He sort of always adored Harley, afterall.
“I want you to come to the movies with me,” He told Ned one day as they were stalling next to their lockers before English. “With me and Michelle and…my boyfriend.”
Ned perked up, looking wildly around with a blinding smile on his face. “Of course,” He answered, nearly yelling, switching his books between hands so he could shake them out with unavoidable excitement. “Unless it's a bad movie you want to see. I can handle your bad movies but if it's your boyfriend’s bad movies then I’ll have to judge him. Harshly.”
“You can pick,” Peter compromised, also feeling the infectious energy he seemed to have, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Then Harley can judge you for your bad movies.”
“Harley,” Ned repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Oo, la la, you certainly work fast, Mister Parker.”
“Watch out,” Peter played along. “You might be next to fall for my irresistible charms.”
Ned burst into laughter. “Charms? You mean your brown-eyed stare and off-putting mannerisms?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m swooning,”
“You will be,” He insisted, and for the rest of the day he kept fluttering his eyelashes and winking at Ned whenever they locked gazes.
They piled into May’s car that night, and she gave him a few knowing glances when Harley immediately grabbed his hand and crossed their ankles together. They’d picked what seemed to be a shitty sci-fi movie with more CGI than necessary, and Ned and Michelle bickered over snacks and popcorn prices, and Harley never let go of his hand. This was his normal, now, and he couldn’t stop smiling.
He plopped his forehead into Harley’s shoulder once they sat down, after MJ threw napkins at him and Ned made all of them turn their phones all the way off. “Everyone in my life is plotting against me.”
Immediately, his boyfriend’s hand was carding through his hair, smoothing the little curls at the nape of his neck. “Yeah, I think they must be,” He commented, cheerfully. “Why else would they be so nice to you, and love you unconditionally, and want to see you happy?”
“They’re lulling me into a false sense of security,” Peter agreed, his voice comically low.
“For the experiments,” Harley finished for him, and he hummed in raspy agreement.
“It’s going to be a real shame when the government takes me away,” He sighed. “Because my boyfriend is very cute and I want to kiss him all the time.”
“Oh my god,” Harley laughed, startled. “You are so dramatic,” He accused, leaning down and pressed a kiss, short and sweet, to his lips.
“Maybe I’m not dramatic,” He said, confidently as he sat up. “Maybe everyone else is always underreacting.”
Ned, silently from the other side of him, handed over a pamphlet for theater auditions, held next Tuesday in the auditorium. He took it with grace, folded it in half, and stuck it in his back pocket.