Chapter 4
“You guys are gonna miss me, I’m gonna miss you. There’s gonna be a lot of manful tears around here,” Tony said on the drive up. “I mean MIT is a huge deal. But, it’s a bit too far from New York for my taste.”
Peter rolled his eyes. Tony had been on the phone with them since they left New York.
“We’re gonna be fine Tony…” Harley said for the thousandth time.
“Well, you could’ve at least said goodbye in person,” Tony said bitterly.
“We would’ve been two days late to orientation if we did,” Harley said, not taking his eyes off the road.
“It was Harley’s idea!” Peter shouted.
“You snitch.”
“Are you guys sure you don’t want me to come down there? I could help you unpack.”
“Yea until you get all sentimental and try to guilt-trip us into going back to New York,” Harley laughed.
“No I wouldn’t…” Neither Peter nor Harley believed that.
“We’re gonna be ok,” Peter said. “And if anything happens, we’ll only be like four hours away!”
“Oh god…” Yea… Maybe Peter shouldn’t have mentioned that.
“Ok, we’re here!” Harley changed the subject.
“Oh my boys are in college! I’m so proud.”
“Ok gotta go now…”
“Wait! I just wanna say I'm gonna come visit your dorm. What days work for you guys?”
“We’ll figure it out later, Bye mom!” Harley joked.
“Fine… I’ll just sit here and think about how old I am…”
“This is what we meant by guilt-tripping us,” Peter said.
“Fine, You guys unpack and text me when you get your schedules ok?”
“Yea thanks great talk bye!” Harley said and ended the call before Tony could get sentimental again.
“That was rude!” Peter said.
“Dude I didn’t want to have to spend another hour in the car when we could be unpacking!”
Peter rolled his eyes and slid out of the car. He was super excited to room with Harley. Over the last year, they had gotten really close. They spent pretty much all of their senior year together. And since they were both going to MIT, it only made sense for them to room together. They grabbed as much stuff from the trunk that they could carry and made their way to the front desk. They got their room keys and a trolly for their bags. They were practically jumping up and down when they unlocked the door for the first time. It was a small room with two beds, two desks, and a bathroom.
“Hey! We got our own bathroom!” Harley exclaimed.
“Thank god! I would die if we had to share with the whole floor.”
“I call this bed!” Harley shouted and jumped onto his bunk. Peter rolled his eyes and plopped his backpack onto his bed. The room was so empty. The walls were bare and the beds were just mattresses. It was weird for him to think that would be where he would live until June.
Harley dropped his phone on the bed beside him and pretended to be dead. “You’re gonna have to unpack for me Parker…”
“Why?” Peter asked, laying back on his bed.
“Because I’m dead.”
“That’s gonna work,” Peter replied sarcastically.
“Ok I drove. You unpack.”
“Fine next time I’ll drive then.”
Harley snorted. “Fuck no.”
They both got to work. It was going to be a long day. A very long day. They unpacked for about an hour until Harley spoke up.
“This sucks…”
Peter laughed. “What did you expect? Did you think we were gonna go to a party on the first day?”
“Maybe…”
Peter rolled his eyes and closed his desk drawer. He was finally done. He celebrated by flopping back onto his bed and closing his eyes. God… It felt so good to finally be done with that. It felt like he had been unpacking for days.
“You’re done too?” Harley asked from across the room.
“Yup!”
“Wanna get some dinner then?”
Peter couldn’t believe it was already dinner time. They went to this gross pizza place nearby. After living in New York his whole life, Massachusetts pizza was horrible. The rest of the night was pretty calm. They explored the city a bit and then ended up watching a movie on Harley’s laptop. It was a bit of an awkward way to watch a movie. They both ended up sitting side by side on the floor and rested their backs against the wall. It was a good movie though. Die Hard was one of Harley’s favourites. Peter wasn’t super interested. But, it was a pretty cool movie.
After the movie, Peter felt like he had scoliosis. His back cracked as he stood and stretched. Harley snorted.
“You sound like Tony when he stands up.”
Peter laughed. If Mr. Stark were there, he would’ve pretended it wasn’t funny. But, he wasn’t there.
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They had both settled into bed for the night. Harley was still scrolling his phone when Peter fell asleep.
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Peter was in his old suit. He was in the warehouse. His warehouse. Peter looked up at the ceiling. It was cracking. He took two steps before the whole ceiling collapsed onto him. He felt his bones crunch on impact. He screamed for help. For anyone to get him out. Last time, he could get out. But, this time was different. He knew it was useless to try to get out. So, he just screamed for anyone to help him. But, then something was familiar about this. He had this dream before… it was a dream.
Peter squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. He was standing by a pool. Something was sinking to the bottom. Peter got a sudden feeling of panic. His legs began moving on their own ad he ran to jump in. Harley was down there. As he jumped, he was caught by the collar of his shirt and yanked back. He landed roughly on the pool deck. Toomes jumped on him and wrapped his hands around Peter’s throat. Peter clawed at The Vulture’s hands. He had to get to Harley out of the pool.
“Harley!” he groaned. But, it was strange. It didn’t sound like his windpipe was being cut off. He sounded normal. The edges of his vision got blacker and blacker. The vulture grabbed Peter’s wrists and pushed them into the concrete. He couldn’t escape his iron grip. Greg walked onto the pool deck with May. She was crying. Greg had quickly snapped her neck. She crumpled to the ground and didn’t move. He screamed for help. But, May and Harley were dead. And he couldn’t even move. No one was going to help.
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Harley tried to laugh quietly as he scrolled through Instagram. He could hear Peter mumbling in his sleep across the room. After an hour of scrolling, he got tired. So, he put his phone down and rolled onto his other side. The second he closed his eyes, he heard something.
“Harley,” Peter said.
“What?” Harley replied into his pillow. There wasn’t an answer for a moment. “What?” He said again sitting up from his bed. He jumped when Peter screamed. He ran out of his bed and approached Peter’s bed.
“Dude, wake up.” He didn’t respond. He just kept yelling for Harley.
Harley turned on the light and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. His eyes shot open. He sat straight up and grabbed Harley by the shirt and held his fist up ready to strike. Harley put his hands up in surrender. Peter’s eyes were full of hate and fear. Harley had ever seen him like this. Not even when the whole Justin Hammer thing happened.
Peter suddenly snapped out of it and let Harley go. His face crumbled he sat back against the wall. He buried his face in his hands tried to hold in a sob. Harley stood for a moment before crawling up onto Peter’s bed and wrapping him in a hug. Harley was ever the biggest fan of hugs. But, he felt now was the best time for one. Peter hugged him back. For the first time in Harley’s life he enjoyed a hug. They stayed in the hug for a while. Peter sighed and leaned back against the wall. He had his eyes squeezed shut again.
“Wanna talk about it?” Harley asked after a moment of silence.
Peter sat ad thought for a minute. He opened his mouth to begin talking before closing it again. “You were in the pool… But I couldn’t get to you in time. Toom-” He stopped himself quickly. “Greg was there and he stopped me from getting to you. And May… He got her…”
They both sat in silence for a minute. Harley nodded.
“I get dreams like that too. I go in the pool and you can’t pull me out. Or Justin Hammer comes back…”
Peter nodded. It was silent for another few minutes. Harley broke it by laughing.
“What?” Peter asked.
“Dude,” He said between chuckles. “We’re so fucked up.”
Peter laughed and nodded. It was too true.
“You can go back to sleep now,” Peter said.
“You sure?”
“Yea I feel better…”
“I’ll leave the light on,” Herley said sliding back onto his own bed.
“Goodnight,” Peter said into his pillow.
Harley hummed in response as he drifted back into sleep.