Chapter 1
Not long before Harley keener met Iron Man in his garage, he went to a space camp in Texas. It was a month-long course for a few selected kids and he met many new intelligent people. One, in particular that stuck out to him, was a short kid named Nick. Now Harley was never one to judge, so when Nick pulled out a panda onesie and explained his panda-craze, he just went along with it. Little did Harley know, as he grew up Nick, or ‘Pandas’ would become one of his best, lifelong friends.
Nick was the first person he frantically messaged when Tony Stark crashed in his garage. Nick was the first person he called when he found out his family were going on holiday to Texas for the summer. Nick was the person he messaged, wishing his Dad had been better.
Every now and again they’d meet up in person. It wouldn’t happen often, but they could at least call or text to keep contact. After all, they remained close friends. Harley had taken a diversion from their planned summer meet up to visit his friends at Stark tower.
It was then he found out that Peter was a Minecraft YouTuber, and then that their antics on stream took place.
Eventually Harley said goodbye to Peter, Tony and New York and made his way down to Florida. He was set to go back to MIT after summer, but he figured he could have a lad’s holiday in Nick’s place in Florida. When he arrived at the airport, he was picked up by Nick, and they had a long awaited catch-up. They went to Nick and his roommate's apartment and Harley dropped his stuff off in their spare room. Yes, their flat had 3 rooms, Harley was worried about the roommates’ occupation.
Their first stop in Florida after dropping stuff off and having a bite to eat was the Kennedy Space Center. Now, it was a bit of a drive, but no matter where they went/met up, they always tried to do something space related. As expected, it was fun, though neither of them were as invested in the workings of space and space exploration as they used to be. They reminisced of the times they’d previously met up, looking back at old photos. Harley posted on his private instagram, a photo of the two standing in front of a NASA sign, just like the one they took at space camp all those years ago. After it was posted, they continued on looking at more photos, until Harley got a frantic message from Peter.
Beter: DBHCADGUJIKBJGDEFHn
Beter: WHAT WAS THJAY PHOTO YOU JUST POSYED?//
Harley chuckled aloud, clearly Ned was on Peter’s phone,
Harls: umm? me n nick
Beter: like ur bff nick!?/?1?
Harls: yeaa… who else would it be?
Harley looked back to Nick, who was also clearly mid text conversation, and went back to his phone. “Nick, do you know why my friend is freaking out over the fact I know you?” Nick had clearly been expecting a question like that for a while. “Umm I’m a Youtuber,” he chuckled, seemingly embarassed. “Oh, the 3 bedroom apartment makes more sense now,” Harley said, showing it was nothing to be embarrassed about, and their conversation moved on. They were on the journey home when Harley remembered to check his messages from Ned/Peter.
Beter: UR FIRNED IS SAPNAP!!!!!!
Beter: HARLEY THIS IS IMPORTNTA
Beter: HARLEY PLS THEYRE TAKING TEHIR PIONE BACJKSJ
Beter: Harls, do I even wanna ask?
Harls: not sure, bff pandas is part of your minecraft thing
Beter: That's cool, does he like me?
Harls: he doesnt know i know you but i’ll be sure to ask later on
For the remaining car ride, they just listened to music and talked some more.
When they arrived back at Nick’s apartment, Harley decided to make Ned and Peter proud, and to talk to him about minecraft/youtube. “So where’s the streaming set-up? Don’t worry, I can’t really critique it, all I’ve seen is my friends’ back-up.” Nick’s face lit up with intrigue as he heard about Harley's friend. “It’s just in my room, now, you say your friend has a streaming set-up. Am I not the only Minecrafter you know?” He replied, showing off his desk. “One of many, apparently I’ve spoken to one of the most famous ones.” Nick started grinning, “No, not you, well I wouldn’t put it past you- from my friends’ reactions’.”
Nick thought for a second, “Harley do you actually know anything about Minecraft youtubers?”
“Well I know about hermitcraft,” Harley started, “But I only just found out the DreamSMP was a thing the other day,” he shrugged. Nick’s eyes gleamed with mischief at the mention of the SMP, he sure was excited for Dream to get back from his meetings.
Nick motioned for Harley to sit down and play a game, so Harley- knowing no games other than Minecraft- opened Minecraft. “Are you cracked at the craft?” Nick asked Harley jokingly,
“Pandas, you know me, I grew up on a farm, it’s the only one of these games I’ve even heard of. So why don’t you teach me how to be ‘cracked at the craft’?” Nick thought for a second
“Teaching my nerdy friend how to play Minecraft does sound like a banger video,” Harley feigned being hurt at Nick’s backhanded comment.
“My other streamer friends will be jealous they didn’t think of it first,” he said, “let’s go for it!” Nick made sure all of the recording things were set up properly, talking to Harley about his ‘other streamer friend’ as he did so. “So, this other friend, do I know them?” So Nick was taking it as a challenge to figure out who Peter is, Harley thought to himself.
“Maybe, I’m not too sure, they were on a call with a bunch of y’all the other day when I was still in New York.” Harley tried to be as vague as possible, but it wasn’t that easy. He could see Nick thinking and decided to give him a hint, “Even that Dream guy was there, which excited my streamer friend and my non streamer friend.” Pandas’ eyes gleamed at the mention of Dream, god was he excited for Harley to find out who his roommate was. Nick typed a quick message to his roommate:
Nick: yo clay when you get back help me mess with harls
Nick: he knows im sapnap and knows that dream exists, but desnt know ur u
Clay: sounds good man, im excited to meet space boy
“Right okay,” Nick started, “I’m gonna start filming the screen and our audio, so don’t worry about being on camera.” Harley thought back to when he was on Peter’s stream,
“What woud you like me to call you, Nick, Pandas or something else like Sapnap?”
Nick thought for a second, “Any is fine, I’m sure the viewers will love you if you call me Pandas,” he chuckled.
“I’m sure they’ll love me anyway,” Harley said with a wink. The two got to filming, it wasn’t a very serious filming session and Nick had completely underestimated Harley’s lack of Minecraft skills. Harley’s curiosity got to him and the first server he clicked on once they started filming was ‘MCC training’. A Minecraft newbie like Harley being on this server was clearly not a good idea, nor was it the right course of action for Harley to learn how to play the game. Nick took him off of the server and onto the DSMP, probably also not the best place to learn but he saw that Tommy, Ranboo, and some new guy were online, and he figured it’d be funny to join a call. As Pandas took control of the mouse to join a discord call, Harley messaged Peter.
Harls: pete pet pete ptet petet
Harls: pete
Harls: pte
Harls: ptette
Harls: ptete
Beter: HARLEY!
Harls: hi so umm we r joining a dsmp call pretend you dont know me k thx
Beter: Okay then Harls, talk to you then.
Just as Harley finished messaging Peter, the two joined peters call with ‘Ranboo’ and ‘Tommyinnit’. Sapnap muted for a second to clarify with Harley “Harls I’m not too sure who the new guy is but Dream seemed to like him, and I hope your friends have told you who Tommy and Ranboo are.” Harley nodded and sapnap unmuted to, as per usual, Tommy saying questionable things. Harley cleared his throat, “Hey guys it’s minecraft time,” the call went silent but Harley could hear Peter holding in a laugh.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Sappy Nappy?” Tommy questioned, getting way too close to his mic. “That’s no way to talk to someone Tommy, like you can ask who he is, but calm down Tommathy,” Pandas cut in. Harley was still getting over the nickname ‘sappy nappy’ when Nick introduced him to the three on call. “This is Harley my friend, we go like way back.”
“I figure you’re Sapnap then?” Beeper checked “I’m Beep.”
“Nice to meet ya,” He replied before Harley got into playing the game. They played- if you’d call what Harley did playing- for another half an hour or so before a cat wandered into the room. Harley gave a yelp, surprising and concerning everyone in the call. “Nick, you never told me y’all had a cat here!” He exclaimed, forgetting the others’ on call.
“Oooh Patches is there? Give her pats from me,” Ranboo said, to Harley who replied with a nod before taking the headphones off to say hi to the cat.
“Yeah so that's Patches, she’s my roommate’s but she likes me better so I’m sure she’ll love ya’. Speaking of Clay, he’s probably gonna be back soon so we should say goodbye to the others and film some sort of into/outro,” Sapnap said, trying to coerce Harley away from Patches.
“It was nice meeting y’all, see ya later,” Harley said once he’d put the headphones back on, knowing Peter would find it funny. Nick organised the intro and outro, and halfway through the filming of the intro, his roommate arrived home. Harley was very excited to meet Pandas’ best friend, but he was forced to sit still and film the outro, making sure to call Nick ‘Pandas’ as much as he could to score extra brownie points with the viewers. “Right,” Nick shouted at the door, making Harley jump, “I know you’re probably waiting out there, you can come in now.” Nick clearly knew his friend as sure enough, he walked right into the room. “Hi, you must be Space boy,” the friend started, making Harley glare at Nick for the nickname, “I’m Clay, Pandas’ other best friend.” Harley liked this guy. “I like your cat, Clay, she’s very cute,” Clay smiled,
“I’m sure this guy over here has tried to convince you he’s her favourite, even though I am.” He said, gesturing to Nick, who was clearly realising that introducing them to each other was a bad idea. “So what’ve you been up to all day?” Harley questioned his earlier absence.
“Just meetings, you know, always on the grind. What were you guys doing, before recording a video?”
“Space stuff,” Pandas cut in before Harley could respond, “Smart people things, you wouldn't get it,” he chuckled, from his place at the desk.
“Clay, would you like to see some childhood photos of our dear friend over there?” Harley offered, he had some particularly cute ones of Sapnap in his panda onesie.
He showed them to Clay, “Wait can you send these to me, I’m sure his viewers would love to see them.” It’s safe to say, the two got along well.
It's also safe to say that when Dream tweeted the photos on his private twitter, it was a hit tweet.
While Harley and Clay were getting along, Nick ordered food. The food arrived and the two were brought out of their conversation to eat, they got to the table and the conversation started back up. “So, Clay, I know Sapnap over here is a Youtuber, what do you do?” Harley said, still curious.
“I’m the same,” Dream said with a chuckle, “Apparently you have very little knowledge, so I’m going to leave it up to you to figure out my channel.”
“Did this one put you up to this?” Harley guessed, pointing toward Nick, who smiled back
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, who knows?” He said with a shrug. They got onto another topic of conversation and Harley messaged the nerd crew (Peter and Ned).
Harls: guys theres another one
Harls: fuck this gay earth
Nick and Clay were in an in-depth conversation about American football, so Harley decided to stay out of it.
Beter:??
Need: Another what
Harls: another f*kn Youtuber
Need: Aaaaaa
Need: So you need help finding his channel
Harls: uhuh
Beter: No wait! I know this one!
How does Pete know more than I do this is unfair, Harley thought
Beter: Sapnap’s roommate right?
Harls: the very same
Beter: It’s Dream! You’ve spoken to him before!
Fuck
Harley waited for a break in their conversation- if you’d call it that, Harley’d say it was more of an argument or brawl. “I thought your voice sounded familiar, Dream right?” Harley said with a smirk. “Familiar? You’ve watched my videos before?” Dream was confused, Sapnap had said he was clueless. This made Harleys' smirk even wider “Nope, never, one of my best f- well someone I know is on your SMP,” Sapnap was sure to make fun of Harley’s stumble later.
“Wait, are you one of Beep’s friends?” Dream asked, connecting the dots, the cogs turning in his head was almost visible.
“Yup!” Harley smiled.
It was now Sapnap’s turn to add to the conversation, “You mean to tell me that we recorded half a video with them and you pretended you’d never met them before?” He faked outrage. “Speaking of the video, just for that you’re gonna have to help me edit it,” Nick said pointedly.
“This is what I get for being friends with so many nerdy Minecraft Youtubers,” Harley said with a chuckle. “Oi, don’t call me nerdy, space boy!” Dream cut in.
They finished dinner and Sapnap dragged Harley with him to edit the video.
In the middle of cutting the video down, Harley begged for a break, bribing Sapnap with a gift.
He brought the gift from his bag and Nick’s face lit up, before he realised he hadn’t gotten Harley anything. “I feel so bad you didn’t have to get me anything,” Nick said, expecting far too much from Harley. “You know what, I can get you added to the DSMP if you want?” At this point, Sapnap was too invested in his computer screen and created a Twitter account to hear Harley’s objections. “I literally don’t stream, or even own Minecraft.” He managed to get in before Sapnap showed him the Twitter account he had set up ‘Manatreed’.
“It’s like an anagram for ‘Dream Team’!” He said excitedly before moving onto the gift in his lap.
Sapnap unwrapped it and Harley got his phone out, to capture Nicks reaction to… A panda onesie. Pandas looked at him in shock, before slapping Harley across his face, and hitting the phone out of his hand.
The first thing Harley posted on his new Twitter account was a blurry photo of Sapnap unwrapping the onesie.
The account blew up, especially after Dream, Sapnap and another guy named ‘GeorgeNotFound’ followed it. Not many people had figured out the photo was of Sapnap, but enough had for them to follow him.
The mystery of the ‘Manatreed’ account lasted until Sapnap released a video of him teaching his hilarious nerd friend how to play Minecraft.