They say that when something traumatic happens, your brain remembers exactly what you were doing at that moment for the rest of your life. Harley didn’t think he could forget that night if he tried. It was one of May and Ben’s days with Peter, and he had texted that he and Ben were on their way over an hour before. Tony tried to play it off like he wasn't worried, but the Parkers apartment was only 20 minutes away. He should have been back by now.
Harley and his dad both jumped when Tony’s phone rang.
“Peter?”
Harley knew it was bad when Tony's entire body went rigid. “Ok. Ok, yes, thank you. We’ll be there right away.” he hung up, flew from the couch, and turned to Harley, his face wild with panic.
“Call Happy and tell him we need to get to Beth Israel Medical Center now.” He didn’t leave room for argument. “Pepper!”
“What happened?” Harley’s questions fell on deaf ears.
“Dad?”
Tony was already in Pepper’s office, and though Harley wasn’t the one being spoken to, he could hear every word.
“Peter was involved in a shooting in Queens.”
It had been months since that day, and Peter was acting weird.
It wasn’t his usual non-stop bouncing off the walls weird. It was the kind that, though Harley would never admit it, bothered him.
Dad and Uncle Rhodey assured him that it was grief, that sometimes it changed people. But as the months dragged on and Peter got more secretive, Harley knew it was more than that. Then a vial fell out of Peter’s backpack. It was made of plastic, taken out of the school’s science labs, and couldn’t have been bigger than Harley’s index finger. It was filled with a substance he had never seen before.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. It wasn’t the first time drugs had crossed his mind, but Peter was a good kid. He barely ever got detention.
How did it get this bad?
How did I not see it?
A million questions ran through his mind as he sat on Peter's desk chair later that night, waiting for his brother to get home from Ned’s. If that’s where he really was.
“What are you doing in here?” Peter scowled when he walked through the door. “You’re trespassing.”
Harley snorted. “You can't trespass in your own house.”
“You can if you don't need to be in the area you’re in.”
“I do need to be here,” he said. “Care to tell me about this?”
He held up the vial, and Peter’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before turning stony. “Where did you get that?”
“It fell out of your backpack at school this morning.” Harley snapped. “What is it?”
“None of your business.”
“It is my business if you’re doing stupid shit.” Harley stood and jabbed his finger into Peter’s chest, lowering his voice only when he realized he was in danger of waking up his parents.
“Fuck you,” Peter hissed. “You don't know anything.”
“I know you’ve been sneaking out and that you hacked FRIDAY so that she wouldn’t tell Mom and Dad. I also know all these field trips and decathlon practices you go to are bullshit. So you need to tell me what the hell this is and what you're doing with it. Now.” Peter said nothing. “Fine,” Harley huffed. “If you won’t tell me, maybe you’ll tell mom and dad.”
“No!” Peter bolted for the door, blocking Harley’s way out. “You cannot tell them.”
Harley raised his eyebrows, waving the vial expectantly.
Peter sighed. “Do you remember that field trip we took to Oscorp last year?”
“The one that landed you in bed with the flu for a week? Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, I may not have told you guys everything that happened after that.”
Harley stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
Peter stepped away from the door and peeled off his hoodie, taking his T-shirt with it. Harley was about to stop him when he paused.
Peter had abs.
His skinny little brother had a literal eight pack and biceps to match. “What the fuck?”
“I know. And there’s more.” Peter backed up a few steps then pointed to the water bottle on his nightstand. “Throw that to me.”
Harley raised an eyebrow. Peter couldn’t catch for shit. Then again, he had seen weirder things today, so he picked up the bottle and chucked it as hard as he could in Peter’s direction. It flew through the air, end over end, and he hunched his shoulders, waiting for Peter’s bedroom window to shatter.
It didn’t.
Peter had caught the bottle, and if that wasn't incredible enough, when Harley opened his eyes, his brother was gone. “What the f- '' water splashed over his head, soaking him instantly.
Peter was on the ceiling, with the overturned water bottle in his hand, cackling. Harley was speechless.
Peter sobered and flipped back to the ground. “Are you ok?”
Harley blinked once, twice.
“Y-yeah, it’s just not what I was expecting.”
Disappointment flashed across his brother's face. “Its-Its cool, I just- it's a lot to process. I was only prepared to lecture you about drugs.”
Peter snorted. “There's something else I want to show you.” He reached over to pull a pocket knife Tony had given him years ago out of his nightstand drawer, opening it with a sharp click. Harley’s heart leaped into his throat when he pressed it to the skin of his palm.
“What the hell are you doing?” he cried, trying to yank the knife from his brother’s grasp. Peter deftly kept him away.
“It's ok, I promise.” Harley hesitated but let Peter go, watching as he cut a line across his palm. In a matter of seconds, it started to knit itself back together.
“What the fuck?”
Peter wiped his hand on his jeans. When he held it back up, a thin red line was the only evidence the cut had ever been there at all. “I know. It's crazy.”
Harley began to pace and accidentally kicked over Peter's backpack, sending a pair of sweats tumbling to the floor. Harley would recognize them anywhere.
“Oh my god.” he gasped. “You’re Spiderman. The guy from Youtube.” Peter, who looked as shell shocked as Harley felt, only nodded. “Dad’s going to kill you.” Peter nodded again. “And you've been doing this for what? Six months now?”
“Yeah, since Ben died.”
And there it was. The answer Harley had been looking for.
Finding out Peter had a gun pointed at him wasn’t the worst part of that night. The worst part was how Peter had flinched away when Harley reached out to touch him. It was the guilt on his face when he explained what happened to their parents. Survivors guilt, a nurse had called it.
It dawned on Harley that maybe that was why Peter had become Spider-man in the first place. If he couldn’t save Ben, maybe he could save everyone else.
He already had. In the months since Spider-Man had appeared, local crime had dropped significantly, and it was enough to put him on the Avenger’s radar. And for Tony and Nick Fury to have argued about making him part of the team the week before.
“I just want to talk to him, Stark,” Harley heard from his hiding place on the stairs. “See what he’s about.”
“I hear you. I just think there’s a reason he’s been dodging us.”
That must have surprised Fury because, where he had been pacing before, there was silence. “You think it's an act?”
“Maybe not, but come on,” Tony said. “even Wade Wilson was willing to talk to us, and he’s about as far in the moral gray area as you can get. There’s something he doesn’t want us to find.”
“Or he’s protecting someone.” Fury offered. “Isn’t that why you keep your boys away from the press?” Harley sucked in a breath. His dad had made it clear that he never wanted Harley and Peter to have anything to do with his fame, from Iron Man or otherwise. They attended Midtown under different last names and were rarely seen in public with Tony or Pepper. Even the team, save Natasha, hadn’t known about them until a few years ago. Fury knew he was crossing a line bringing them into the conversation, and Harley suspected that was exactly why he had done it.
“Maybe.” Tony’s response was clipped, and it was clear the conversation was over. “Do what you want, but my gut is telling me that something isn’t right.”
Yeah, because the person swinging around the city in sweatpants is your son.
“I want in.” The words fell out of Harley’s mouth before he could stop them, and Peter shook his head vigorously.
“No. Some of the people I’ve stopped are bad, like really bad, and if they found you if something happened to you because of me, I’d never-”
“Pete,” Harley cut him off. “Dad’s been Iron Man for how long now? We’re kind of already in that position as it is, and besides, it doesn’t matter as long as your identity stays a secret, right?” He cast a sideways look at his brother, teasingly reaching for the doorknob. “Or I could go talk to Dad if you’re that worried about-” There was a thwp! like wire slicing through the air, and suddenly his hand was stuck to the door. Peter was wearing what looked liked a bracelet on his wrist, the vial that had been in Harley’s hand a moment before tucked into the material.
So that’s where the webs come from.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
“I won’t if you let me help.”
There was a long pause. Eventually, Peter caved.
“Fine. But just so you know, that’s blackmail.”
….
As Harley would come to find out, Peter was terrible at keeping his secret identity a secret.
Not even a week after he found out, Ned had shown up at their house grinning ear to ear about being Spider-Man’s self-proclaimed Guy in the Chair. MJ came a few days later, and they had since become a sort of team Ned was calling the FOS, or Friends of Spider-Man, helping Peter get in and out of places without being caught by bad guys or worse, their dad.
It was going well. Until it wasn’t.
Harley hadn’t heard from Peter in almost half an hour. In retrospect, it seemed like a very short amount of time, but when it came to Peter, those thirty minutes of silence had him panicking. He had been fighting someone called the Green Goblin, and he seemed to be winning until Harley heard something like a body hitting a wall and static before the comms went completely silent. He tried to get them back online and, when that didn’t work, calling Peter’s phone.
He hadn’t answered.
Ned was scanning through the little security footage he had access to from the computer in his apartment while MJ drove around searching for signs of him, and there was nothing left for Harley to do except pace. The waiting was killing him.
Then Peter knocked on his window.
He didn’t give Harley a chance to open it before he undid the latch and dropped to the floor. His torso was covered in blood, his suit torn clean through.
“Jesus fuck Peter!” Harley dropped to his knees, peeling off his Midtown hoodie and pressing it to Peter’s midsection. “What happened?”
“Um…. glider stabbed me.”
His eyes started to close, his breathing slowing to a terrifying few breaths a minute, and Harley had no idea what to do. His jacket was completely saturated, and the bleeding wasn’t slowing. He wasn’t a doctor. He didn’t know how to fix this.
“FRIDAY, call Dad. “ his voice shook. “Tell him it’s an emergency.”
He barely noticed when his dad came pounding up the steps, shoving him out of the way to carry Peter down to Medbay. Barely noticed when Helen Cho took his brother into surgery and his dad whirled on him, both horrified and expectant at once. His attention was focused on his hands, which were covered entirely in his brother's blood, and, at that moment, he realized he didn’t know if Peter was going to live or die. He barely noticed because tomorrow, he could wake up an only child, and it would be all his fault.
….
Forty-eight hours.
Harley and his dad waited in Medbay for forty-eight hours before Peter woke up. And it was the most awkward two days of Harley’s entire life.
At some point, he had told Tony everything. About Spider-Man and FOS and what happened before Peter fell through his window. Every couple of seconds, his father’s expression would shift from concerned to confused to furious. It always went back to furious.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Tony hissed through gritted teeth.
“Dad, I know you’re angry-“
Tony cut him off with the most ferocious glare he had ever seen, and he fell silent. “No. First of all, this is where you zip it. Your opinion is neither wanted, nor is it required.” He took a deep breath, slowly. “Second, angry doesn’t even begin to describe what I am with you and your brother right now. You know how dangerous this is, what I and your aunts and uncles do, and I could understand wanting to be a part of it when you’re older but-“ he broke off, eyes shining. “Peter’s fucking sixteen. This is nowhere close to being his responsibility. You know that.”
Harley stared down at his hands. Most of the blood had been washed away, but Harley knew that if his brother hadn’t survived, if he had kept Peter’s secret, it would always be there. Maybe even now, when Peter was alive and breathing, albeit barely, the blood would always be there.
“I thought I was helping.” He whispered, refusing to look up.
“Helping who, Harley?”
The boy put his head in his hands.
“I don't know. Him? The people he was saving?” his voice pitched like a question. “You should have seen him when he first told me though,” For the first time in two days, Harley looked his father in the eyes. “He was so happy. And I wanted to tell you but, after Ben,” Tony winced. “I couldn’t take that away from him, you know? And if he was going to do something stupid, he might as well have had the backup.”
For a moment, Tony’s expression softened. Peter had been so depressed after Ben. He closed himself off in his room and refused to come out for anyone until Midtown called and said that if Peter didn’t come to school for at least one day, they would be forced to hold him back. Harley remembered hearing his mother cry after Ben’s funeral, saying they would have to bury Peter with him, and he knew his father was thinking the same thing he was. Yes, being a superhero was dangerous, but how much worse would it be if they took it away? And if they lost him, would they ever get him back?
….
When Peter finally opened his eyes, the first thing he was aware of was the ache spreading through his entire body.
Weird. His healing factor usually fixed his injuries before he woke up the next morning.
Then he realized.
The lights he thought were attached to his bedroom ceiling were the lights of the Medbay, and the snoring wasn’t his own but his dad’s.
His dad, who was fast asleep in the chair to his left.
His dad, who probably knew everything.
Fuck I am so screwed.
Harley was sitting in the chair across from Tony, scrolling through his phone. The dark circles under his eyes were nearly black, and his hair was a mess, curls sticking up in odd directions like he yanked his hands through it one too many times. He was wearing the same hoodie and jeans he had worn the day (two days?) before.
Peter tried to call out to him, but all that came out was a rough squeak. The other boy’s head shot up. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “You’re awake!” Peter nodded and pointed to the water bottle on the bedside table.
Harley frowned. “What? What is it?” Peter shook his hand more vigorously.
“Oh!”
Harley unscrewed the cap and handed it to him, relief and worry rolling off him in waves. “Please don’t ever do that to me again.”
Peter swallowed. “What? Get stabbed by a maniac? Yes, sir.”
“It's not even funny,” he chuckled humorlessly. “I thought you were dead.”
Peter had sat where Harley was a hundred times after his dad had come back from a mission injured. He had seen the blood and damaged armor and thought about the last thing he said to Tony, wondered if it would be the last. It wasn’t a good feeling.
“I’m sorry.”
They were quiet for a long moment, Peter looking back and forth between his dad and Harley. “So I'm assuming he knows.”
The older boy snorted. “I didn’t know what else to do. You were unconscious and bleeding all over my floor. It’s not like the shitty stitches I did when you sliced your arm open on Halloween. I-”
“Yeah, we’re gonna be talking about that one later.”
They jumped.
Tony was awake now, sitting upright in his chair and regarding his boys with exasperation.
“Dad,” Peter scrambled to explain. “It’s not-”
“No.” His father cut him off. “First of all, don’t even try and tell me that it's not what it looks like. That's not going to work. And second, this isn’t going to happen again.”
Peter’s heart sank. Tony couldn’t take Spider-Man away. He didn’t understand how badly Peter needed this. “Kid.” he cut off his son’s mental rant. “I’m not taking Spider-Man away.”
“You’re not mad?” Peter balked.
“Oh no, I’m upset, with both of you,” he waved a finger between his sons accusingly. “But I understand why you do it.” He leaned over onto the bed and took Peter’s hand in his, tracing circles over the boy’s knuckles in slow figure eights. It was something he used to do when Peter and Harley were little. So much had happened since he was young enough to need this and he missed being this close to Tony. He wished he wasn’t the reason there was a distance between them in the first place. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I should have told you the truth.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
Peter could feel his father's hands shaking where their fingers were interlaced.
“And because you didn’t tell me, you’re grounded,” Tony paused to think. “For the rest of your lives.” Peter and Harley rolled their eyes in unison. “And there are going to be ground rules, like curfew, when you can go out and where. What you wear when you go out,” he held up Peter's old suit, now destroyed, and eyed it with disgust. “Which means no more traipsing around New York in a onesie.”
Peter groaned. “Dad, it's not a onesie.”
“Whatever, this thing is no more.” he dropped it back to the floor with a flourish, his expression serious. “This stays between us, you understand me? That means the three of us, your mom, and Happy. And maybe the team, I don't know, we’ll figure that out later, but my point still stands. No one else. Ross and the Accords are a mess I don’t want you involved with yet.”
“What about Ned and MJ?”
Tony facepalmed. “Kid, what’s the point of having a secret identity if you can’t keep it a secret?”
“That’s what I said!” Harley exclaimed, hands thrown up in a gesture that said Why does nobody listen to me?
“Technically, I didn’t tell MJ she figured it out.” Peter was too tired to care about the knowing looks his family shot him as his eyes drifted closed.
“We’ll figure it out later,” Tony said as he pressed a kiss to Peter’s forehead. “Get some rest, bambino. I love you. Keep an eye on him,” that was to Harley. “I’m gonna call Mom, let her know he’s ok.”
Peter listened as his footsteps receded into the hallway, cracking an eye open when he heard Harley shifting restlessly. “You ok?”
Harley started, his hand pausing mid-pass through his hair. “Yeah, I just- I’m just really glad you’re ok.”
“Aw, you do care. That’s so sweet, man, seriously.” Peter chuckled as Harley rolled his eyes then winced when it pulled at the stitches in his sternum.
“Whatever, idiot, that’s karma.” Harley shook his head.
“Love you, Harls.”
He was asleep before he heard Harley mutter, “I love you too, Pete.”