Coming home after the fight was humiliating.
The thing was, Harley wasn’t a bad fighter. He wasn’t a hero like Peter who had been doing this for years and years and years- it physically hurt his heart to think of how his boyfriend had been doing this since he was fourteen, and eight years later he was still doing it- but he wasn’t someone completely new to all of this. He wasn’t some kid who had never done any of this before and he wasn’t exactly unprepared. He had his suit, he had his training, and he had his carefully crafted quips.
But one hero against six villains would always end up bad. Unless you were Peter Benjamin Parker, a literal superhuman who could stave off attacks from every single angle he was being attacked from, then six villains would always need backup. And eventually, later in the fight, when Doc Oc had almost ripped the armor from his body and hung him up like a Christmas light right then and there for all of New York to see, he had gotten back up. It just came too late.
He wasn’t in the mood for Tony’s lecture about safety, however. He didn’t care too much about the way that part of his helmet had shattered in, leaving a deep laceration in the side of his head that needed stitches, or how his leg was sitting awkwardly in the suit and he could no longer feel it beyond white-hot searing pain, or literally anything in the world than wanting to come home to his boyfriend and their shitty little apartment in queens and their bed and the cookies he had made earlier to celebrate that Peter was one final away from earning his masters. So of course he ditched the second that the fight was over and Tony was still rounding up the bad guys for jail.
Flying home in a broken suit was beyond humiliating though. The leg that he could no longer feel beyond a white-hot searing pain’s booster was out, so he was flying completely sideways and unsupported, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it beyond pray that he was able to make it home. Landing on the roof felt like a godsend, even if it sent cracks of sharp pain throughout his entire body.
God, he was so pathetic. His boyfriend could fight off all of these guys at once and he couldn’t even take down one without Thor’s help. And the rest of the avengers had to get involved, and Tony had panic shouted at him and made it clear he was gonna get yelled at, and goddammit he wanted some cuddles and some hot chocolate and maybe a good cry. Of course, he couldn’t actually have that. He knew Peter was studying for his last final, and he knew it was important, and he definitely wasn’t gonna ask his boyfriend to peel himself away from his books just to sit and cuddle with him after a bad fight. That wasn’t what he wanted Peter to have to do.
So Harley peeled the suit off himself, wincing at the movement of his broken limbs and hurt bones, and trudged his way through the roof access door and into their top floor apartment, trembling. Bracing himself, he prayed Peter was in the bedroom, and not their kitchen living room area.
“Baby?” He called, wincing at the sound of his own voice, “I’m home.”
Peter was sitting at the table, looking sleep-deprived and tired, with circles under his eyes that were darker than usual, “Mhmm… Hey, sweetheart.”
Slowly, Harley tried to creep his way into the apartment, praying Peter wouldn’t look up at him. If Peter didn't look up at him, he could slip into the shower and wash off the blood before addressing the rest of his injuries. If Peter didn’t look up at him, he wouldn’t be worrying his boyfriend about what had happened. If Peter didn’t look up at him he could get away with the fact that he was almost certain his leg was broken or at least sprained. If Peter didn’t look up at him everything would be okay.
Of course, Peter looked up at him, “Fuck-”
“Peter,” He protested as Peter stood up, and moved to him, “Baby, It’s not so bad, I promise.”
“You’re hurt,” His boyfriend’s jaw was tight, and he had never seen Peter’s eyes so angry, “You’re hurt, Harley. Your leg- god, your face-”
Peter reached for him, and he didn't protest to his boyfriend pulling him into his arms, and shifting Harley so that he was no longer standing, but rather being cradled around Peter in the gentlest way possible. He let his boyfriend manhandle him into the bedroom, relaxing at the heat radiating from everywhere they touched.
Guilt flooded his mind, “Baby, you have a final tomorrow.”
“Someone hurt the love of my life,” Peter’s voice was edging on feral and the look in his eyes was growing sharper, “Fuck any final I have. I’m gonna take care of the boy I love, and then I’m going to find whichever one of those fuckers did this to you.”
“You don’t mean that,” reaching up, he tried to cup Peter’s face, before noticing that his own blood was on his hands and Peter wouldn’t like that. He made a motion to stop halfway, but Peter caught his hand and gently brought it to his lips to kiss, “I know you don’t. It’s not so bad, Pete, it’s just my leg and my head.”
“You’re hurt worse than that, Harley, and don’t you dare try to protest that,” His boyfriend’s voice was as close to a growl as he could ever make it, “You’re hurt, baby, and I need to find the person who did this to you. I don’t care if they’re in custody or not- they beat you to hell and back, love, and that's not okay.”
Shaking his head, he winced, “No, Hey, Pete- please baby- just- stay here. Stay here with me.”
“Baby-” Peter’s demeanor suddenly melted, “Love- I- this shouldn’t have happened.”
“I offered to go out there, Peter,” reaching up again, he traced Peter’s brow, “I said that you were busy, and the suit needed a run anyway, and I could go out.”
“I shouldn’t have let you!”
The words come out as a shout, and they’re sharper than Peter means to make them and he knows that from the way the second he stops speaking his face grows red and his eyes well with tears. Harley takes a breath, looking away from him, and his eyes fall to the book of the Iliad he was reading a few nights ago and the cover portraying Patroclus and Achilles. It’s still on his bedside table, and he wonders if that's how Peter is feeling seeing him hurt.
Looking back at him he decides that Peter, who has always had that urge to fight and that god-like nature about him, had looked at the state he was in coming back, and it had broken something in his gut, “I told you I wanted too. And I did. The patrol was okay until the Sinister Six popped up and I tried to be like you. Wonderful, amazing, sweet, powerful you, Peter, who is able to fight guys like them day to day basis. I was trying to be like you.”
“I don’t want you to be like me,” His boyfriend's breath hitches, and Harley watches as those tears make their way down his face, “I like the person you are and I like that when you do want to go out on patrol you ask me to come with you. I like that you’re a reserve avenger. I like that you aren’t out there fighting in your suit every night- and I hate that just because I needed to study, you went out without me and now you’re hurt. I- I never want you to be hurt, Harls-”
“But being hurt is a part of living, baby,” He struggled to sit up, to wipe his boyfriend's tears away, but Peter pushes him back down and kisses his forehead, “And I'll heal. I’ll be okay. It’ll take longer than it would if it were you but- but baby, I’ll heal, and you’ll be by my side the entire time. Okay?”
Peter let out a rough sob, and his lips didn’t leave the skin of his forehead, “Okay. I just- You’re the one thing I live for most days, Harley, and I can’t- they can’t take you from me. They’ve taken everything else. They don’t get you.”
He knows the ‘they’ and what they’ve ‘taken.’ Know’s Peter’s flashing back to the night Ben was killed by a mugger Peter could’ve stopped earlier in the day. Know’s he’s thinking of May, and how she almost died because a villain found out his identity. Know’s he’s thinking of the people he’s lost.
It makes his gut curl because his boyfriend’s barely twenty-two and all of this is destroying him. This is destroying him. Instead of voicing that, he tucks it away for another night, and gently murmurs, “And they won’t. You’ll protect me. You’ll always protect me. I know you will. I know you. I know who you are: A hero. My hero. Don’t doubt yourself now, Superman.”
“Okay,” the nickname makes Peter let out a tiny and broken laugh, but when he pulls back, there are no more tears in his eyes, “Now let me please patch you up, baby. Please?”
“Alright, alright, because you’re asking so nicely. Just- get me some pain meds first?”
“Of course.”
He counts the second's that Peter's gone and the number of footsteps it takes for him to get back and the spinning feeling in his head, and he waits. When Peter returns, he pulls him down for a kiss, gentle and soft, “We’re not Achilles and Patroclus, Pete. I didn’t take your armor. I put on my own because I wanted to do something for the man I love. I know you’re gonna blame yourself, later, when I fall asleep after the bath you give me. So just- remember that I wanted too. I wanted to.”
“Let me fix you up,” He whispers instead of acknowledging what Harley says, “Let me help you. We can- we can talk about it in the morning when things are different. But- I- Let me help the man I love, and then let me hold you. Please, Harley?”
The energy he has is zapped out of him as the pain in his leg grows into a throb, and the only thing that takes his mind off of it is how Peter’s running a hand through the uninjured part of his hair. Sighing contently he whispers, “Okay. Okay. Just- I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.” Peter murmurs back, and he feels himself relax even more at the words and the way that Peter leans down to kiss him so softly and tenderly that he’s almost certain that he’s gonna cry, “God, I love you too.”
He pulls his boyfriend down for another kiss, and then melts into the bed, humming quietly as Peter gets to work. In the back of his mind, he feels guilty for pulling Peter away from the studies he was doing, but the him right now was too busy feeling content at the way Peter was smoothing out his hair, and pressing feather-light kisses to the bruises on his chest, and wrapping his legs.
Maybe it was humiliating that he got taken down and out so easily, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care now that his boyfriend was here, wrapping around him, and making him feel whole.