telephone wire
unknown number: hey this is peter parker! mr stark gave me your phone number
unknown number: i hope that’s okay
harley: of course it is
harley has changed [unknown number] to peter
peter: cool cool cool
peter: i am not a good texter. apologies in advance
harley: ‘apologies in advance’ are you three hundred years old
peter: i think i’ve adopted your southern accent
peter: i blame you
harley: okay mr new yorker
harley: eyyyy i’m walkin here
peter: that was horrible
harley: don’t even joke you literally said that yesterday
peter: you literally call people darlin
peter: and you say ‘oh my lord’
peter: mr tennessee
harley: mr new york
peter has changed harley’s contact name to mr tennessee
mr tennessee has changed peter’s contact name to mr new york
mr tennessee: your contact name doesn’t even fit on the notification bar
mr new york: fine fine fine
mr new york has changed mr tennessee’s contact name to cowboy
cowboy has changed mr new york’s contact name to darlin
cowboy: karma
darlin: serious question
darlin: do u own cowboy boots
Smiling, Harley puts down his phone after sending Peter a photo of him flipping the camera off. Peter’s with his aunt right now.
“Who’s got you smiling like that?” Tony prods, looking up from his lab station.
“No one. A friend.”
“Which one is it? No one or a friend? Does this friend have a name?”
“A friend. And it’s someone you wouldn’t know.”
“Someone from Tennessee? How does your mom feel about you getting a girlfriend?” Harley’s heart pangs. Tony still doesn’t know, he reminds himself, and Mom doesn’t either.
“Mom doesn’t care much about my romantic life, Tony. I shouldn’t either,” he sighs, “kind of on the backburner right now.”
Tony sets down the plate of wires he was working on. Harley knows he’s about to get a Tony Stark Talk™, one of those rare serious lectures that neither know how to end, that leave them sitting in a pool of uncomfortable silence because neither of them talk about their feelings. “Kid, you’re allowed to have a life. It’s what your mom wants. She sent you up here for a reason. And you don’t have to put it on hold until…” he trails off.
“Until after my mom dies?” Harley’s voice cracks as he tries to be light-hearted. “I have survivor’s guilt for something that hasn’t happened yet. And I can’t spoil myself while Rosie’s still just a kid. It’s too late for me. Not for her.”
Tony’s eyes go soft. “Harley, you’re 16. It’s not too late for you to be a kid. Go - fall in love. Party. Stay up way too late. Whatever kids do nowadays. Talk to that girl.”
Harley’s heart races. Might as well be now, right?
“Tony -”
“Yeah?”
“Well, don’t go too quiet, I might have been about to actually tell you something.”
“I’m gonna use that next time Barton interrupts me. And I’ve interrupted you again. Continue.”
Harley gulps. His palms are sweatier than they’ve ever been.
“Tony, I’m not talking to a girl.” He looks up, seeing if Tony’s going to interrupt him again. “I’m, uh, I’m talking to a boy.”
Tony barely reacts. Harley’s stomach flips. He’s done something wrong. He can just tell. His eyes burn. His cheeks flush. He looks back down to his desk, blurry and swaying.
“Did I ever tell you about my first crush in high school?” Tony breaks the silence. Harley doesn’t chance looking up, lest he starts full-on bawling. “Mack Evans. He was this total art nerd. Smart. And he had this messy red hair, that looking back at it was a total trainwreck, but he pulled it off. Always had paint on his hands.” Tony pauses wistfully. “But it was the 80s.”
Harley doesn’t know what to think. How to react. How to tell Tony that he understands, that Tony understands, that a huge weight just lifted off his shoulders.
“And I’m from Tennessee.”
“And you’re from Tennessee.” Tony smirks a little, the exact right thing to do. “I don’t have to do the whole ‘I love you no matter what’ thing, right?”
“G/d, please don’t.” Harley’s voice cracks like a firework this time.
“Can I hear more about this boy? Other than the fact that he exists?”
Harley laughs. There are still tears in his eyes, but not the same ones. He can't tell Tony that he's head over heels for Peter. That would make things far too messy, knowing Tony and how he would react. “Well, he’s - not easy to explain. He’s super sweet. Calls me Cowboy. And, shit, he’s so smart, it’s insane. Like, how does that happen? And he’s pretty. Not just cute, pretty. He has this really nice hair. Kind of curly. Kind of not. And he runs his fingers through it constantly so it sticks up all funny. He’s, like, literally perfect. And he likes good music. The music even you would approve of.”
Tony’s smiling now. He looks at Harley so warmly as he’s gushing about his crush. And Harley, he feels like he’s just breathed properly for the first time. This weight is off his shoulders and, contrary to all laws of physics, is just gone. It’s not anywhere now. Harley came out for the first time. And he’s fine. The world didn’t fall apart. It’s not raining hellfire. He didn’t get pulled into hell.
He’s fine.
He’s good, actually. Great.
Tony immediately bought just about as much gay merchandaise as possible - most of it being ‘parent of a gay kid’ themed. Almost none of it is for Harley. He’s glad he didn’t have to say anything. Harley doesn’t want to be a walking rainbow, at least not yet.
His favorite is a plain black beanie with a covert heart on the inner brim, the part that folds up. He’s the only one who gets to know that it’s there. And Tony put up the pride flag himself. He’s not very good at that type of thing. He hit no studs in the wall until Harley showed him how to find one, and managed to bend half the nails.
“You should keep your engineering to the lab.” Harley dusts drywall off his hands, marveling at the flag above his bed that has replaced the painfully minimalist paintings. For Harley, it’s so much more than a flag, a piece of fabric. It means more than being out. It means he’s not just surviving - it means he’s living. He’s putting himself first. That whole ‘put your own mask on before helping others’ thing. It means he’s made it through all that shit for a reason.
Tony elbows him. “But we got it up!”
“I’m surprised you didn’t put a nail through your hand.”
“And I’m surprised you didn’t just hit them in without a hammer.”
They stand in the center of the room for a moment. Tony hooks his arm around Harley’s shoulder.
“I’m proud of you, kid.”
“Me too.”