Chapter 1
Unknown: Hi, is this Peter?
Peter blinked, one foot still in his suit. He’d just finished a rare early patrol. Great timing, rando. It was only eleven-thirty.
Me: Can I ask who’s texting?
He had saved everyone’s number from Decathlon, right? He hadn't forgotten anyone?
Unknown: Did you happen to attend Horizons Elementary?
Not from Decathlon, then.
Me: Who is this?
Unknown: Ugh, I didn’t want to give my name in case this number is wrong, but it’s Harry. Emilie’s son?
Peter tripped, clipping his hip on the corner of his desk as he went down. A loud swear left his lips, and he was so, so grateful May wasn’t home at the moment. He limped over to his bed, still in his boxers as he stared at his phone.
Me: HARRY OSBORN???
Unknown: Peter?
Me: YES ITS ME HI
Unknown: Peter!!!!!!!
Unknown: Hi!
Me: It’s been so long!!! Years!!
Me: Four!!
Unknown: Yeah almost four
Unknown: I’m SO sorry Peter I didn’t want to lose contact with you
Me: I did kind of pick up on that when you hugged me and burst into tears before getting taken out of school
Me: It’s okay :DD
Me: Are we,,, allowed to be in contact now?? Like is that why you’re talking to me again?
Peter crossed his fingers.
New Contact: Harry!!
Harry!!: Yeah :) and I can encrypt my phone now too, so no snooping
Harry!!: I’m actually so glad you still have the same number I was worried you would’ve changed it if you got a new one
Pete: New phone, same number!!! And with this luck, I don’t think I’ll ever change it
Harry!!: Please don’t lol
Peter shuffled back against the wall.
Pete: Im not really sure how to do the whole thing
Pete: Like this feels like a hallmark movie childhood friends reconnection or something
Harry!!: Well it kind of is
Harry!!: Twenty questions??
Pete: You can have first go!!!
Harry!!: I feel like I have so much power right now
Harry!!: Hmm
Harry!!: Has your favorite show changed? Or is it still Merlin??
Pete: It’s still Merlin!! With clone wars a close second
Pete: This is a bad question but do you mind if I stop texting like a middle aged mother
Harry!!: By all means
Pete: much better!! okay that was a waste but it’s still your turn
Harry!!: Oh man I have so many questions
Harry!!: How are Ben and May doing?? Did they ever finish redoing the kitchen??
Harry!!: This is a third question, I know, but who won the fight about the cabinet paint?
Peter sighed, having already had a feeling that question would come up. May and Ben had always treated Harry like a second nephew whenever they saw him. That didn’t happen as often as anyone would’ve liked, but often enough that Harry would definitely ask.
Pete is typing…
His fingers stilled on the keyboard. How did he even say that?
Pete: we actually moved into an apartment
Harry!!: ?? But you guys LOVED that house?? The garage? May’s backsplash?? Where does Ben work on his bike??
Pete: Harry
Pete: there was a mugging a year and a half ago
Pete: Ben’s gone
He sniffled and wiped his eyes, picking up a pillow and roughly scraping it across his face. Now wasn’t the time.
Pete: we already weren’t doing that great so May had to sell the house to cover the funeral
Pete: and then there was a bunch of extra costs because they never finished paying off the mortgage and yeah
Pete: i’m sorry
Harry!!: Oh my God Pete
Harry!!: What are YOU sorry for???? I’M sorry
Harry!!: Oh man and I wasn’t even there
Harry!!: God I’m so sorry
Harry!!: Is there anything I can do?
Pete: it’s been a while so it’s fine now
Pete: we’re pretty settled
Pete: can we talk about something else?
Harry!!: Yeah
Harry!!: Of course
Harry!!: It’s your turn
Pete: did you ever get any better at dutch??
He paused, then added:
Pete: or do you still sound like a choking cat
Harry!!: :OO
Harry!!: Traitor
Harry!!: I’ll have you know I’ve always been perfect, you just don't get Dutch because you don't SPEAK it
Harry!!: Do you still know Italian?
Pete: oh definitely!! i don’t use it as much anymore but a ton of italian movies are actually super good
Harry!!: Didn’t May make us watch Mamma Mia all the time??
Pete: harry if you think you watched it enough times, i want you to think about how i feel
Pete: may and i watch a few episodes of uomini e donne every once in a while!! it’s basically the bachelor but in italian
Pete: may lets me watch in spanish subtitles so i get double practice
Harry!!: Spanish too?
Pete: and low-level dutch and a couple of words in cantonese
Harry!!: Aren’t rich people supposed to be the ones that learn languages?
Pete: exactly, so catch up!!
Pete: didn’t your dad say he was going to put you in mandarin way back when?
Harry!!: There was… an attempt at Mandarin
Harry!!: I’m still in classes for it but I’m so bad he’s mostly given up
Pete: do you want to learn together???? my spanish is pretty good so i can move on!!
Harry!!: I’d love that actually
Pete: do you
Pete: do you want to call
Harry!! is typing…
The dots vanished.
Harry!! is typing…
Peter blinked at his screen, watching as they disappeared once again and then reappeared.
Pete: if you don’t want to it’s fine
Pete: we literally just found each other again
Harry!!: NO
Youch.
Pete: jeez i can take a hint
Harry!!: No!! I do! That’s what I meant
Harry!!: One second
Pete: oh! okay, i’ll wait!
Peter laid his head back against the wall. What was he nervous for? It was Harry. And sure, he hadn’t seen him in a while, but… he’d still grown up with him. Harry couldn’t possibly have changed so much in four years that he wasn’t the same guy.
He ignored the voice in his head reminded him of how much he’d changed in that time, choosing instead to focus on Harry.
He seemed… weirdly nervous? It was almost cute. Peter had no intention of being mad at him for all but abandoning him, but Harry was acting like he’d vanished out of the blue sky for ten years or something.
If he had, Peter would probably be a bit more mad.
But he remembered very clearly their last hug, so he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but sad that Harry had had to leave.
Harry had been called to the office out of the blue, in the middle of lunch. It hadn’t seemed like anything special to either of them, since he was occasionally picked up to go to… lunches or whatever it was that tiny heirs to billion-dollar companies did. So Harry had gone willingly, with a promise to see him tomorrow as he left Peter beneath the tree they ate lunch under on Tuesdays.
Twenty minutes later, Peter was shocked off the bench he was sitting on when Harry had come sprinting out the doors to him, red-faced and panicked. Peter was trying to figure out what had happened, and had gotten out of him that his father was pulling him out of school.
It was a wild conversation, and they’d both made frantic promises to keep in touch until Harry’s driver had come to take him.
Peter had been devastated for months when Harry didn’t call him like he promised. Harry’s number had been the only one in his brand new flip phone besides Ben and May’s, so it was even worse to his little pre-pubescent brain. It wasn’t like he’d had any other friends to distract himself with.
Ben had eventually sat him down and explained that, if Norman wasn’t allowing Harry to see him again, wouldn’t it make sense that he wouldn’t let him call, either?
So Peter had focused all of his buried attachment issues, and the anger that stemmed from having them triggered in that way, at Norman Osborn.
Not Harry.
Never Harry.
A call came over his screen, and he beamed.
“Harry?”
“Pete! Hi!”
Oh. His voice was definitely a lot deeper. ‘High-pitched Harry’ had finally inherited the good old Osborn vocal cords.
“I can’t believe you actually called!”
“Are you saying you thought I lied?”
“No, but you definitely took long enough. Were you running vocal exercises or something? What is it, do re mi?”
“Fa so la ti… da, I think,” Harry snorted. “And no, I definitely wasn’t.”
“What were you doing, then?”
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing,” Peter said, almost amused. “I didn’t even move. I was just waiting for you.”
“... Oh.” Harry coughed. “So, Mandarin?”
Peter perked up. “Right! I’m pretty busy nowadays, but I think that would be super fun. I’ve never tried to learn a language with someone else! I mean, technically I learned some Spanish at school, but I really only took it because I needed another elective. It’s really similar to Italian, so I pretty much picked it up in a few months.”
Harry sighed. “Oh, to be able to just pick up languages. Why is it so much harder for me than you? Dutch was easy.”
“You’ve only ever tried to pick up Chinese, Harry. You were raised bilingual. It doesn’t count if your mom taught you Dutch and English at the same time.”
“Sure it does. My first word was in English. First language.”
“But didn’t you say the second was ‘doei’?”
“Still my second,” Harry said stubbornly.
Peter laughed, and a little pleased sound came over the line.
“Har?”
“I just haven’t heard you laugh in a long time,” Harry told him. His voice was so fond Peter was hit with an ache. He thought he’d mostly moved on, but God, he’d missed him.
“Me either. I missed you, you know?”
Harry sighed again, and Peter heard a desk chair rolling. “I missed you too, Pete. More than you know. Homeschooling is not as fun as regular school, let me tell you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. No recess.”
Peter snorted. “I’m sure that was definitely the worst part. Though if it helps, I don’t get recess either.” After a second, he thought of a new question to ask. “Did you finally get a rolling chair?”
“I did!” Harry shifted, and Peter heard the wheels again. Harry had wanted one forever, like his dad’s office chair, but Emily had stood surprisingly firm on the idea that Harry would spin too fast and fall off if he had one in his room.
It was a valid concern, given that Harry had done it before. He’d scraped the skin off the top of his knee, and the two of them had been banned from the Oscorp offices for almost a month.
“What color is it? You fallen off yet?”
“Har, har,” Harry snarked. “You’re so funny. And it’s brown. I wish I could show you.”
Peter cocked his head. “You could send a picture.”
“It’s not the same! You can’t see it spin in a picture, and that’s the most important part.”
“Videocall?”
Harry made a considering sound. “Can your phone do that? Unless you’re still on that old LG, but I can’t imagine a Peter Parker that doesn’t see an outdated piece of tech and try to fix it.”
“Hey, I may have dumpster dived for most of the parts, but my phone is just as good as what was on the market last year,” he protested. “And mine doesn’t pixelate from Apple to Starkphone like a normal one would. You still have an IPhone, right?”
Harry hummed. Peter’s phone lit back up with the videocall request.
He immediately pressed accept.
Harry’s face was spread wide with a smile, about two inches from the camera.
“Pete! You look great!”
“You do too! You still dye your hair!” Peter beamed back, crawling out of the bottom bunk so he was more visible. There was hardly any light there, so he knew Harry couldn’t really see him, but it was still nice.
He stood up and trained the phone back on himself, then immediately tore it away.
Harry looked dumbfounded as Peter tossed his phone back onto the desk and scrambled for a shirt.
“Sorry! Sorry, I forgot I had just started changing when you texted!”
“Were those Iron Man boxers?” Harry asked, and man, Peter wished he was there so he could whack him in the arm like he used to.
“No!”
He peered over the desk to gauge Harry’s expression. Sure enough, he looked about to laugh. “Thor, then?”
“...shut up, Harry.”
He hopped on one foot through the leg of a pair of sweatpants and scrambled for a t-shirt to throw over his head as he kicked his suit into his closet. Then he threw himself into his rolling chair, which was also picked up via dumpster diving.
The two of them took each other in for a few quiet seconds.
Peter couldn’t begin to guess what Harry was thinking, but he was taking in as much as he could.
Harry still dyed his hair, he noted again. Harry had always had red hair, the same as Norman. But when they were eight, only a few months before she died, Harry had begged his mom for permission to dye his hair to match Peter’s.
Ben had driven the two of them to the store to buy the dye, since Harry insisted on Peter helping him. They’d reluctantly agreed to Ben keeping a loose eye on them, which had pretty much amounted to Ben downstairs putting together a model jet while the two of them destroyed Peter’s bathroom.
They’d made a disaster of the sink. There had been so much dye under the towel rack that Ben had had to repaint the walls.
And it was only once the dye was fully set and one hundred percent not coming out that they realized that a) they’d bought semi-permanent and not single-wash, and b) they’d bought brown- black and not medium brown.
(It had been a good dye job, though. There were a few dark smears around Harry’s newly blackened eyebrows, which he was not supposed to dye, but for two mostly-unsupervised eight year olds, there was a shocking lack of mistakes around his actual hairline.)
Norman had not been happy.
Emily had thought it was hilarious, though, and Peter almost grinned at the memory of her sitting on the edge of Norman’s desk flashing the two unrepentant children a thumbs-up as Norman scolded them for not reading the labels properly.
Of course, that was also back before Norman had started getting stricter, so he’d let them go after about ten minutes with promises to pay attention to the things they put on and in their bodies next time.
After a few compliments from teachers and Oscorp employees alike, Norman had allowed Harry to keep dying his hair that color. Harry had kept it up until he left.
Peter hadn’t expected him to keep it until now.
He said as much out loud, and Harry smiled again.
“It’s a good memory, and I look good with this color.” He shrugged. “Why fix what isn’t broken? Maybe when I’m old and half-gray like my dad I’ll go back to being a ginger.”
“I’ll be there to make leprechaun jokes,” Peter assured him, laughing again when Harry just stuck out his tongue.
Then he paused. “Pete, you’re still a science nerd, right?”
“... Yeah? Why are you saying that like you aren’t one?”
“Oh no, I am,” Harry assured. “I just don’t also do the thick glasses and pun shirts and awful handwriting like you.”
Peter’s mouth fell open as he pretended to be hurt. A hand pressed to his chest. “Slander of my character! I am wearing no glasses, and my shirt is--” he glanced down to check. “--plain and pun-free!”
“So you admit to the handwriting.”
Peter’s snort was so sudden it shot up his nose and actually hurt on the way out. “Harry, no one with eyes could say I have good handwriting.”
He’d never really moved on from the cursive unit in second grade. His writing was fluid, but his letters tended to connect and blend together when he was writing quickly, like he did when he was taking notes. The only time his handwriting looked fully legible was when he was writing out a formula, and that was mostly because the letters had to be kept separate to distinguish between elements.
“True.” Harry looked smug. He better, after all those handwriting classes he’d taken. Harry was the only person in the world other than his mother that Peter had ever seen regularly use a fountain pen outside of a movie. Even Norman used ballpoint, though Peter had seen him pick up Harry’s pen once to demonstrate a word.
Peter had been awed.
He shook his head. “What were you asking? I forgot.”
“I was making sure you still liked science, Pete. I want to hang out with you, so we’ve gotta make you look like a good influence to my dad.”
“I’ve always been a good influence!”
Harry gave him a look, and Peter glanced away.
“We filled the kitchen twice,” he grumbled. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“We filled the kitchen twice with elephant toothpaste,” Harry corrected. “Remember when we tried bubble bath on the dishes? Or the colored smoke on the stove? Or--”
“Okay, yeah, I remember!”
Peter counted on his fingers. “I’m on Academic Decathlon, so that would look good, right? And my Italian and Spanish are good enough that we could say I’m tutoring you in it.”
Harry considered it. “He’d probably prefer Spanish.”
“Works for me!”
With that, their conversation devolved into a mess of teasing and brainstorming things to say to Norman. It was nothing like the excited, babbling conversations they’d had as kids. Peter liked it just as much.
Harry was dead set on a) seeing him as much as possible and b) making this the perfect Instagram friendship, so Peter was kind of excited to see where it went. And Harry seemed absolutely determined to make this work this time around, and that apparently meant treating Peter like any normal teenager would treat their friend.
“So we’re friends on Instagram now, right?”
“Harry, I followed you like, a week after I got Instagram. Yeah.” Not that they'd been in contact then, but it had made Peter feel good to keep up with Harry’s life, even if most of his shots were so carefully composed and staged they'd looked like things from magazine covers. (Some were.)
“And Twitter?” His twitter was painfully boring, just Oscorp updates and the occasional retweet of the popular side of a controversial topic.
“Mm-hm.”
“And Tiktok?”
“Harry, we just did of this two minutes ago. Yeah.” Neither of them really used it that much, Peter for something to scroll through on slow patrols, and Harry apparently to keep up with the world outside of the Osborn penthouse. Peter wasn’t sure if he’d ever posted a single video.
“And Snapchat?”
“Do you even have Snap?”
Harry frowned. “No, but I can get it. Do you use it?”
“Not really? Sometimes, I guess. The other people in Decathlon use it a lot, so I have it to make sure I don’t miss anything.”
“I’ll get it,” Harry decided. “It’ll be good, anyway. What’s better to avoid getting caught tarnishing the Osborn name than disappearing messages?”
“Harry,” Peter groaned. “You said you wanted to meet up tomorrow, right? So we need to get off the phone so we can get up in the morning. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“We’re meeting at… you said Little Collins?”
“Mm-hm. It’s close to Oscorp Tower. I went with Ben once, the food is good.”
“Pretty far from Queens, though.” Harry bit his lip.
“Harry. I take the subway to Midtown every morning. An extra ten minutes won’t kill me.”
“I'll feel bad.”
Peter rubbed his fingers together in a motion May had long ago taught them both.
The world’s smallest violin.
Harry laughed. “You're a dick, Pete.”
“Love you too,” Peter cooed.
“G’night, man.”
“Goodnight,” Peter said, more genuinely, still smiling a bit as Harry waved bye and finally cut the call.
Harry!!: See you tomorrow!
Peter smiled, shaking his head.
Pete: see you then
Peter jogged up the steps, joining the mid-morning crowd on the sidewalk. Harry had texted him that he was leaving Oscorp five minutes ago, so they should be arriving at about the same time if Peter kept to a non-Spider-Man pace.
Which he would, as proven by his taking of the subway. See? An effort was being made!
He shuffled along with the rest of the commuters, pleased to be a native New Yorker as he slapped the hood of a cab that almost hit him.
He’d done that once when he'd had to cross the street to get to Happy. The cab driver had leaned out the window and cussed at him after, and when Peter stuck up his middle finger and continued to run across the street to Happy’s waiting car, he looked at him like he'd just killed a man in front of him.
It wasn't long before he spotted the front of the coffee shop.
He stood on his toes near the door, scanning the crowd for a familiar face.
“Pete!”
Peter's face lit up as he whirled around. “Harry!”
The two ran in for a hug, Peter lifting him off the ground.
“It's been so long!”
Harry patted his hand until Peter set him back down. “I missed you!” he said enthusiastically, looking down at Peter's covered arms.
“Since when did you get strong enough to lift somebody up?”
“Oh, I work out sometimes.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck, using his head to motion toward the doors. “Wanna head in?”
“After you,” Harry teased, holding the door for him.
Peter curtsied. “Why thank you, my good Osborn.”
Harry shoved him inside, both laughing. Peter poked at him as they got in line, earning a swat.
Harry threw an arm over him and just hung off of him. Peter let him, pleased with his warmth.
“So….” Harry drew it out with a long breath. “I like the hair.”
Peter felt the back of his neck, realizing he'd still had that awful shaggy haircut when he'd last seen Harry. “I like it too! May cut it for me when I started at Midtown.”
Harry whacked him in the side lightly, an excited expression over his face. “No way! You made it into Midtown?”
“Yeah! Partial scholarship! Ben was so happy he bought me a Playstation.”
Harry whacked him again, still light. “That's great!”
“It is! I'm getting so much use out of my MetroCard,” he said dryly. Harry snorted. “What about you? Anything exciting?”
Harry shrugged. “Not really. Just company training.”
“So… modelling campaigns in Cabo are just dirt, then?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “It's not as fun as it looks on Instagram. Long days, sunburn…”
Peter batted his eyelashes. “I could take over the next one for you,” he offered magnanimously. “Out of the goodness of my heart, of course.”
“Of course,” Harry echoed. “Such a good samaritain.”
“You know me,” Peter said sweetly. “I'm joking, though. I burn like May’s food. Instantly and without warning.” At least now he healed in a few hours. The freckles were almost worth it.
“Yeah, I know. Everytime we went to the park, you got slathered in so much sunscreen you looked like a marshmallow.”
“And smelled like a pharmacy,” Peter agreed.
Harry looked up at the menu. “What’re you getting? I'm paying, obviously.”
“I'll allow it,” Peter said absently, eyes scanning over the menu. “I think… I'm going to get the Schnitzel.”
“Do you even want it or do you just like the name?”
Harry knew him too well. Peter shot him a sideways grin.
“No, I want the Smash,” he admitted.
“Not Green Eggs N’ Damn?” Harry sent him a shit-eating smile. “I'm getting the Holy Shishito.”
Peter cackled, getting a weird look from the couple behind them.
Harry put in their orders and they grabbed a table. They sat on either side and grinned at each other like idiots for a full twenty seconds before Harry broke their gaze and stared at Peter’s hair.
“Is it weird that I almost miss the mullet?”
“It wasn't a mullet. But no, not really. My neck felt cold for days.”
“I can imagine.” Harry ran a hand through the front of his hair, a gelled strand falling loose over his eyebrow.
Why didn't Peter’s hair ever look that nice when he ruffled it?
He leaned forward on his arms, pillowed under his chin. He let his eyes wander around the little coffee shop, taking in all the faces there, as well as the ones passing them by outside. “It’s a good thing it’s a Saturday. May would have killed me if I skipped school for this.”
Harry scoffed. “Like you would skip school. The guilt would hit you before you even decided to come.”
Peter looked back at him. “I’d skip school in a heartbeat to see you, Harry.”
Harry went red. “Don’t say that,” he hissed. Peter wanted to laugh at his embarrassed face, but decided not to as he heard footsteps behind him.
He turned his head just as the girl who’d taken their orders set two plates down, their drinks sliding in front of them. Harry exchanged more pleasantries with her before she left, smiling at the interaction.
Harry was so nice.
“It feels like you never left,” Peter sighed happily. He took a big bite, staring at the food with crossed eyes. “This is so good! Man, if this food wasn’t so expensive, I’d come here all the time.”
His spider-sense went off faintly, and his head shot up to see Harry, his phone pointed at Peter’s face and food.
“Oh no, keep waxing poetic.”
Peter made a stupid face at him. “Food is food. This is good food.”
“A literary masterpiece for the ages,” Harry sighed dreamily, fumbling the phone when Peter grabbed his fork off the table and whacked his hand with it.
“Why are you so mean to me?” he whined. “I don’t see you for years and you bully me on our first day together?”
“You’ve taken at least twice as many shots at me as I’ve taken at you,” Harry deadpanned.
“Yeah, but May has shown you all of my baby pictures. In terms of embarrassment levels, that means I have unlimited shots at you.”
“That’s… not how that works.”
“Sure it is,” Peter announced, smiling smugly around another bite. He was going to destroy this toast.
Harry cut the video and set his phone on the table. Black case. “Sorry, just adding to the home video collection.”
Peter narrowed his eyes playfully. “Since when do you have access to the home videos?”
“I don't, that's why I'm starting my own. I'll name the file ‘Pete’s Greatest Hits’.”
Peter snorted. His greatest hits were either the most embarrassing moments of his life or some of the most dangerous nights of his life. Sometimes, he thought, they might even overlap.
“Pete and Harry’s Greatest Hits?” he offered. “I have a few screenshots of you from the call last night I doubt you want to find anywhere but that file.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “What screenshots?”
“Well,” Peter started, “there's this one from when you leaned back in your chair, I got an excellent view right up your nostril. And that face you made when I told you about Ned, that one was great. And--”
“Okay, okay, I get it!” He looked around to make sure no one had seen the outburst, and then leaned forward and poked Peter in the nose. “I will kill you if I see those on Twitter.”
Peter nodded solemnly. “Harry, I'd never do that.”
Harry relaxed.
“Who posts pictures on Twitter, anyway? I’d put them on Instagram.”
“Peter--!”
Harry draped himself over Peter’s shoulders as they left the movie theater. “That was like watching a puppy cry.”
“Shut up.”
“No, really. Or like, one of those videos of a duckling crying for its mother.”
Peter stuck his tongue out, pulling his arm off of him. “Some of us have emotions, Harry.”
“You didn’t cry when he lost his entire family, but burst into tears when the dog died?” Harry pulled at his sleeve, shoving his shoulder closer to Peter’s face. “Do you see this? The wetness? The tears you left on me?”
Peter’s eyes welled up against his will. “He was a good dog,” he whined. “You don’t understand, because you didn’t read the books. He was a perfect dog.”
When Harry just kept walking, Peter whined again, reaching out his arms and making grabby hands. He was being stupid, but it was so fun.
“Harry.”
With a big, heaving sigh, Harry turned and put his arm over Peter’s shoulders, patting his head once. “You’re such a big baby.”
“Only for you,” Peter teased, walking with him toward the subway station. “This was nice,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” Harry said back, looking almost… fond. “Yeah, it was. We should do it again.”
Peter thought over his week. He was pretty free with the exception of school, Spider-Man, Decathlon… okay, maybe he wasn’t that free. “When are you free?” he asked instead. He could probably make any day work if he needed to. Harry’s schedule had sounded pretty strict over the phone, so he’d be a better option to go off of.
“I could do… Wednesday, I think? I’d have to check my calendar.” He pulled his phone from his pocket with his free phone and flipped it around to see. Within the span of a few taps, he was nodding at the screen.
“Yeah, tomorrow, Tuesday, and Friday, Dad has me with him. He likes to have me kind of shadow him around Oscorp, I already told you that.”
Peter nodded. “Monday and Wednesday?”
“Monday, I’ve got lessons. A ton of them. And Sarah wrote in a meeting about a new modelling campaign on Friday, so that’s a double no. Wednesday has a teleconference, but it’s in the morning.”
Peter opened his mouth to agree to Wednesday, when he remembered that Mr. Stark had told him to come up to the Compound to update his suit. And he had Decathlon practice.
But really, Mr. Stark was always busy. And he’d probably even be thankful for the free evening if Peter cancelled. And Peter could probably update the suit himself, no help needed. And Happy wouldn’t have to make the trip, and Mr. Stark could relax, and Peter could hang out with Harry again, and wow, Peter was a genius, because why hadn’t he thought to cancel before? This would be perfect for everyone.
“I can do Wednesday.”
“Really?” Harry’s entire demeanor brightened, cementing without a doubt that Peter had made the right decision. “I thought you had Decathlon?”
Peter waved a hand. “That's only for an hour after class. I'll be ready to go by four.”
“Perfect! I'll have Jacob take me to pick you up, and then we can do something. Where do you want to go?” He had his fingers over Messages, ready to book just about anything for the two of them.
Peter nudged him, knowing he probably looked as fond as Harry had a minute ago. “We don't have to go anywhere. I'm hanging out with you, not a movie theater. You could come see me and May’s new place?”
“Sounds good.” Harry said softly, putting his phone away.
They went down the steps to the subway entrance as one, and Peter proudly swiped his MetroCard for the two of them.
“See? Subway is superior transportation.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I could buy the subway.”
“You and what MetroCard?” Peter teased. “You gonna have Jacob drive you over the turnstile?”
“I could!”
Peter patted his back condescendingly, dodging the hand that came toward his head.
Harry nodded to the station map. “You coming back to Oscorp with me, or are we splitting here?"
Peter shook his head. “I’ll walk you back and then head toward Grand Central.”
“You… don’t have to, you know that, right?”
“I know,” Peter said brightly, “but also you’re used to a personal driver and like six layers of security. I think your dad would hate me for real if I let you get snatched."
“I can take care of myself.”
“Not as well as I can!” Peter flexed, his muscles barely visible under his loose overshirt. To be fair, Peter could probably beat the asses of whatever security team Harry had, but Harry would, of course, not know that. Therefore, Harry did not at all look impressed.
“I feel so safe,” he deadpanned. He earned the shove Peter gave him toward the platform.
Peter plopped down on the bus, finally relaxing. He was in suit, of course, and on the bus, but it was headed back toward Queens, and this way he didn’t have to pay bus fare. Small joys.
As the bus hit the bridge, already stuck in traffic, Peter pulled his phone out, closing the pictures he’d just taken with Harry and switching to Messaging.
Me: hi happy!! can you tell mr. stark i can’t come to the compound on wednesday?
Happy (Work) (SI!!) (Internship!): What? Why? Tony’ll kill me if you don’t show up
Me: no, it’s fine! now he doesn’t have to worry about clearing any time for me
Me: a school thing popped up
Happy (Work) (SI!!) (Internship!): I was picking you up after school anyway.
Me: it’s an afterschool thing
Me: it just popped up
Me: super important, i promised i’d be there
Happy (Work) (SI!!) (Internship!): I’ll just get you when it’s done
Me: it’s for decathlon
Me: it’s a super cram session
Me: it always runs super late
Happy (Work) (SI!!) (Internship!): Fine. I’ll tell Tony.
Me: thank you!!!!
Seen ✓
Peter relaxed. At least that was done. No worries now. At the worst, Mr. Stark would probably just have to reschedule. At best, Peter wouldn’t have caused any trouble at all, and Mr. Stark could just send the update to him.
Perfect.