you make me feel like a fool
“What happened to no more secrets? No moresuffering in silence?” Harley looks at the boy in front of him, the boy he can’t say he knows anymore. Spiderman’s suit is on Peter’s body.
“Harley, I -“
“I’m not even mad that you’re Spiderman, or whatever, I just can’t believe you never said anything. I spill my guts to you and - this? This is what you don’t say? I feel so - stupid. I just thought you were getting bullied. I thought, for one second, that someone cared about me, that someone fucking understood me -” he scoffs.
“You need to understand. You couldn’t know. You would have been in danger -” Peter has his hands spread wide, still gloved from that stupid suit, like he’s trying to stabilize himself during an earthquake.
Harley sits, dumbstruck, on the couch, letting himself fall onto it with a soft thump. “How much of it has been a lie? The internship? Cassie? How much?”
Peter inhales sharply. He sounds like he has a cold, but his voice comes out clogged with the heaviness of unshed tears. “I have the internship because of this. Cassie is Ant-Man’s daughter. But nothing else, I swear! I’m still me.”
Harley stares at the window, at the ongoing city outside. “I don’t think I know who that is anymore. I honestly don’t care about the vigilante shit. I get why you do it. You told me. Hell, I patched you up before. But, Peter, I can’t lose anyone else I know. My dad, my mom, not you, too.”
Peter sits on the couch, on the opposite end from Harley, but still on the same couch. It depresses with his weight. “You won’t lose me unless you want me lost. The second you do, I’m gone, I promise, and I’ll leave you alone. Just say the word.”
Harley sighs, that initial shock breaking like a summer storm into rain. “Peter, I don’t want you gone. I want you safe.”
“I am sorry, if you can believe me. But I need you safe, too, and this is who I am. It’s what my uncle said, with great power comes great responsibility. I can’t let people get hurt. I can’t let you get hurt.”
“The city needs a protector, Peter. I just needed my friend.”
Peter winces at that. Harley gets up, walking to the elevator. Peter doesn’t say anything. He just sits on the couch, balking like a fish, no words coming out.
Harley ends up on the rooftop of the Avengers tower, but rooftops don’t feel quite the same anymore. This must be one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan. The sun has long since set. Windows are lit up like eyes in all direction
How did his life turn into this?
He chews his cheek and scoffs to himself. Last month, his biggest problems were, in this order: his mom, Rose Hill, and the broken sole on his shoe. This all feels unreal. He could wake up in his bed back home right now and not question the fact that this was all just some weird dream. He came to New York to try and catch a break. But, as Murphy’s Law would predict, everything that could go wrong, did.
Maybe not everything.
He did come out. That’s not exactly small, no matter how upset he wants to be right now. It was only to Tony at first, and he’s still not out to his mother or sister, but - it happened. That feels real. He did that and the world didn’t end. He did that and he still has a family. He did that and people don’t hate him for it, at least not the people that matter. Harley stares down at the street hundreds of feet below him.
“Why me?”
He asks this question to himself, to G/d, to anyone on the street that could answer.
Why Harley?
Why is this his luck?
Why is this his life?
“Why me?”
The city doesn’t answer back. Father Lantom would probably say something about finding his own answer. His phone buzzes. For a fleeting moment, he really hopes it’s Peter.
Mom: [7 images attached]
Of course, it’s not. Why would Harley ever get what he wants? His mom has sent him another burst of pictures. Two of her and her new scar, one of him, one of Rosie, and three that she must have taken on accident. They’re blurs of tables and a window, the kind you take and tell yourself you’ll delete later but never do. Harley rests his eyes for a single, shaking breath. He doesn’t feel at home anywhere. Home was his mother, but that’s slipping through his fingers. Then it was in the garage, the one place he could find peace. For the past weeks, it’s been with Peter. Peter, who makes him laugh. Peter, who takes him to rooftops and says that he’s amazing. Peter, Spiderman.
Harley downloads the pictures his mom sent, like always. His camera roll has become a hall of memoriam for everything that hasn’t actually died yet, but instead stares back at him as he scrolls through it.
Then, near the recent photos, he sees one of Peter, Cassie, and him, smiling in the karaoke bar-that’s-not-actually-a-bar. Lord, Peter’s pretty, and shit, Harley still needs to cut his hair. Cassie, of course, looked as pretty and San Francisco as she always does. The memory sits like warm soda. He stays there for a moment, looking at a photo of three people that don’t feel very real right now, not when his mom has cancer and has just send him another picture. Why him? Why is it always him? Everything around him is crumbling away and he can’t even find the energy to feel all of it. **He should be inside and talking to Peter, he should be in Rose Hill with his mom who just got out of fucking surgery for her cancer, he should be dead, but he’s somehow here.** G/d. His fingers graze the cool cement of the ledge as he tries to feel his spirit in his body again.
“I didn’t want to be Spiderman,” Peter says suddenly from the stairwell doorway, voice hoarse. Harley instinctively turns his neck at the sound before turning back wordlessly. Peter walks up beside him. Still not as close as they have been. The distance between them has a definition now. “I got bit by a spider. It - it gave me all these things I didn’t actually want. I was happy being a nerd. But, suddenly I was this thing, this thing that could help people, and I couldn’t not do that. When the bad things happen and you could have stopped them, the bad things become your fault. I didn’t want to be Spiderman. I just wanted to be Peter.”
Harley doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Minutes pass by in the city sort of silence.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Peter looks down at the street. “Yes. I wanted to tell you. I just - it never gets easier, telling people, especially the ones you care about.”
Harley grins sardonically. He can’t believe that any of this is real. Not just Peter being Spiderman - the way this trip has collided with the rest of his life. “I’m someone you care about?”
Peter scoffs and leans on the ledge next to Harley. Their elbows could touch, but they don’t. “Yeah. Cowboy. I, uh, I really care about you.” He stammers through his statement. He moves his hand closer to Harley’s. Harley crosses the gap. Their pinkies touch, rough skin to rough skin. Neither move away.
“We’re not just friends, are we?” Harley watches an airplane’s flickering tail light as it dots along the sky.
“I hope not.” Peter hesitantly takes Harley’s hand. Harley lets him.
They stay there for a while, watching the city blink, hands intertwined, not finding anything more that needs to be said.