The last day of Sixteen has Peter on a lengthy patrol.
He rescues three separate cats and they all try to scratch him. A runaway hot dog cart is caught right before it can plunge into the glass windows of a jewelry store, in which Peter proceeds to stop an attempted robbery. It was a shitty attempt- just a kid slipping a ring into her pocket- but he stops it nonetheless. He interrupts two muggings and pulls a scary man off of a girl who kisses his cheek tearily in thanks. He walks her to the hospital after.
He changes in the bathroom of a ridiculously crowded McDonald’s and meets Harley, MJ, and Ned for dinner at a pizza place. They have vegan cheese there, and Harley is thrilled. It’s a good meal— a good day, albeit a stressful one.
Michelle and Ned have a present for Peter. They give it to him at the restaurant.
“I chose it,” says Ned proudly, giving the box a little shake.
“I wrapped it,” says Michelle, and Peter can tell. The paper is crisp at every edge and the ribbon is artfully curled.
“You guys didn’t have to get me anything,” Peter protests, feeling his ears go red. “Really. Just hanging out with you all is enough.”
“Shut up, nerd.”
“Sorry, MJ.”
Peter opens the package carefully. He saves the ribbon. Harley ties it around his own forehead.
It’s two things: a paint-your-own mug kit and a scrapbook, each page of which is emblazoned with newspaper articles and print-outs of webpages recording Spider-Man’s greatest feats. The second page holds a screenshot from the infamous Peter catches a car incident that had attracted Tony’s attention way back when.
They flip through it together, laughing. Certain pages scream Ned, with colorful stickers and crooked scissor-work and loose strips of ribbon and gobs of glue, but others are MJ to the core, carefully layered in complementary colors with perfect borders and neat little cursive descriptions beneath the images.
He loves it. It’s perfect. He thanks them profusely.
They give him tight hugs before they all go their separate ways for the night. He isn’t sure, but he thinks Michelle looks at him as he turns away, and the thought makes him grin like an idiot for the entirety of the walk home.
Peter takes a quick shower, challenges Clint to an incredibly unbalanced Mario Kart match in which he is absolutely throttled by Clint’s expert video game skillz, and conks out in bed before nine o’clock hits. He’s getting old.
He wakes up early. He can’t help it; Harley left their blinds open again, because he’s an asshole and also an idiot.
The sun is sharp off the buildings across the way, like tilting a knife to catch a glare, and it shines directly into Peter’s eyes. It wakes him quickly, cutting through the layers of sleep’s weight pressing on him. It’s okay, though. He doesn’t mind it.
It’s a peaceful morning. The streets are still quiet; people aren’t bustling around yet, so there is no impatient yelling or shoes stomping on the pavement. Cars aren’t honking, pigeons aren’t screaming and shitting with reckless abandon, Clint isn’t crawling around in the vents above his room.
Harley is still asleep by his side, back to him, curled with his knees to his chest. The blanket pools around his waist, and his shoulders heave with every breath. His head is buried under his pillow. Peter never understood how he could sleep like that. He’d probably suffocate if he tried.
The sun crawls up from the horizon like it has claws, like it’s inching its way across the sky. Slow, and ragged, and a little bit desperate. The time moves languidly.
Somewhere around nine, Harley rolls in his sleep. He does this often.
He lands directly on top of Peter, knees in his stomach and feet- chronic case of icicle toes and all- jabbing into his calf.
“Harley,” Peter whines, struggling to roll the boy off his chest so he can breathe. He half-heartedly thwaps a hand onto Harley’s back until he comes to with a perplexed snort.
“Mm,” says Harley, and smacks his lips. He lifts his head off Peter’s chest and blinks a sleep-swollen eye open. His gaze locks on Peter’s and a lazy, content smile spreads across his face— the type that hikes his lip on his twisted front tooth and summons an instinctive smile from Peter. “H’ppy birthday,” he mumbles. “Happy birthday.”
Peter chuckles and drops a hand on top of Harley’s half-flattened hair. “Thanks, buddy.”
“My favorite turd,” says Harley, still with that bleary smile on his face. “Th’smelliest shit I know. S’your birthday. You overripe mango. The ugliest, plaguey-est rat in New York. If you took one’a the cats from the live-action Cats musical and tried to photoshop it back into a human, that would be you. Happy birthday, ugly.”
Harley Keener is, undoubtedly, undeniably, and unfortunately, the best thing to ever happen to Peter Parker.
“Thanks,” Peter says dryly.
“Mm. No problem. M’goin’ back t’sleep now.”
To Harley’s general dismay he does not get to go back to sleep, because at that very moment there is a solid knock upon Peter’s door and Peter knows by the complex pattern of it that it’s Tony on the other side. And if his nose is telling him the truth- it always is- Tony has pancakes out there. He can smell the damn blueberries. He might cry.
“Special delivery, rush order for a Mister Peter Parker, on account of the fact that the Earth is orbiting the sun right now this very moment and, thus, he is older.”
He hears another heartbeat join the first through the door. May.
“Come in,” he croaks through his sleep-sore throat as Harley groans and flops onto the other side of the bed, tossing an arm over his eyes.
The door opens smoothly, Tony and May shoulder-to-shoulder and grinning on the other side of it. Not even a second passes before Pepper joins in, scurrying up and standing behind the two of them, a good few inches taller than both. She gives them both a shove- ever the pragmatic one- and they stumble into the room, Tony maneuvering his arms to keep from dropping the tray holding a battalion of syrup-soaked pancakes and fresh fruit salad and a pot of steaming coffee.
It smells like mornings, the best kind.
They’re all grinning a little anxiously at him as they make their way over to his bed, grabbing his and Harley’s legs and heaving them out of the way so they have room to sit. The mattress bounces, the sheets shift. Harley shoves himself up onto an elbow, surveying them all with suspicion.
None of them are really speaking. Peter realizes they’re probably waiting for him.
He has absolutely nothing to say. He settles for sinking down into his shoulders and trying to hide the furious blush that is threatening to crawl over his cheeks, kiss his nose, cup the shells of his ears. Like they are all the sun. Like he is being burned, but by the sweetest of lights.
“Hi,” he says, because he is obligated. Because Tony is sitting there with the tray in his hands and grinning fondly, and May is biting her lip with how wide her smile is, and Pepper looks two seconds from giggling, which is mildly terrifying.
“Happy birthday!” Pepper exclaims, and it’s like release, all of them breaking out into snorted laughter as Pepper grabs Peter’s wrist and pulls him into a tight hug. “Ugh, seventeen. I can’t believe it. I remember when you were fourteen, you were still so little the first time I met you, and, well, you’re still so little, really, but you were littler, and now you’re so grown, and such a good boy-”
“Pepper,” Peter says, wrinkling his nose but hooking his chin over her shoulder.
“Sorry, sorry,” she says, rubbing his back before releasing him. She squeezes his arms. “Birthdays are just so exciting.”
Harley squints at her. “Who are you and what have you done with our Pepper? Really, tell me the truth, or I’ll sound an alarm.”
Tony finally places the tray carefully onto the sheets and waves a hand. “She’s always been like this. Not for her own birthday, of course, but for other people’s? She goes just as hard as she does with everything else in her life.”
“Full force,” Pepper says with an evil smile.
May shakes her head. “Sometimes I really wonder how we ended up here.” She leans forward, then, grabbing Peter’s hand and pressing a firm kiss to the back of it. “Happy birthday, baby.”
“Thanks, May,” he says with a small grin.
“Me next,” Tony declares, leaning bodily forward to grab Peter by the back of the head and press a kiss onto his forehead. “Happy birthday to the best of us,” he murmurs, just for Peter and him.
For some reason, this one brings tears to Peter’s eyes. He squints at Tony, scowls, and offers a mumbled, “yeah, yeah, you old sap.”
Tony laughs aloud and leans backward. He grabs the tray in his hands and plops it on Peter’s lap, the stack of silverware tinkling. “Let’s not let this get cold, mmkay? Dig in, everyone, I made plenty.”
“You made it?” Peter says. “You. You made it.”
Tony scoffs around a strawberry. “Uh, yeah I ‘ade it.” He swallows. “What do you think I am, inept?”
“Yes,” says Peter.
Tony jabs him with a spoon. “Eat your damn pancakes, you ungrateful shrimp. All I do for you and this is my thanks.”
Pepper winks at Peter and takes a sip of coffee. There’s cinnamon in it. Peter thinks this is perfect.
They finish breakfast quickly, mostly quiet, just enjoying each other’s company. The city awakens below them. The sun continues to amble across the sky. Everything is inexplicably lovely.
Harley clears his throat as he puts down his empty coffee mug. “Alright, everyone,” he says. “You all clear out so I can give Peter his gifts.”
“Gifts?” Peter protests immediately. “I don’t need-”
“Yeah, but I want,” says Harley with ringing finality.
“Bleh,” says Peter.
Harley flicks his ear.
The adults leave with the message to be quick, we have shit planned, and that makes Peter thrum with a combination of dread and excitement. Being with the people he loves is nice. People doing things for him is… not.
But here’s Harley, perched on the edge of the bed like a bird poised for flight, turned towards Peter. He’s chewing his lip, his eyebrows knit so they get that little wrinkle between them.
“Okay,” Harley says nervously. His fingers are trembling. “Okay. So, I couldn’t think of something to get you, mostly because I wanted it to be perfect and I have debilitating anxiety.”
“Anything you could ever get for me would be perfect,” Peter says softly. “Because it’s from you, dumbass.”
“Yeah, well,” Harley waves a hand. “Bullshit. So. I didn’t get you something. I do have three little things for you, though.” He takes a deep breath and it stutters on its way in as if his lungs are a little misshapen.
Peter knits his fingers together and leans his elbows onto his knees. “My soul is ready.”
Harley nods, then nods again. He reaches under his bed and pulls out a guitar case.
Peter’s pulse immediately jumps, skipping into something threadier, clumsier. “Oh my gosh,” he breathes. “I didn’t even know you brought that to New York.”
“I didn’t,” Harley says. “Poppy sent it to me a few weeks ago because she says I’m wasting my potential, or some shit.”
“She’s right,” says Peter.
Harley smirks a little, just a quirk of his lips. “She usually is.”
He flicks the latches of the case open and pulls out his guitar— small in his long arms and big hands, a dark mahogany wood. His thin fingers settle on the frets and he strums a little. He scowls and fiddles with the tuning pegs, humming under his breath to find the right notes.
Now, Peter doesn’t know all that much about music, but his year in marching band did teach him a few things. “Are you- how are you tuning it without using reference pitches?”
“Hm?” Harley looks up, as if he only half-heard the question. “Oh. I have perfect pitch.”
“Literally fuck you,” says Peter. “What the fuck. Is there anything you can’t do.”
Harley holds up a trembling hand. “Handle my stress, apparently.”
Peter presses one of his feet against Harley’s kneecaps. “Remember, whatever you do will impress me and almost definitely make me cry. You could sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I would ask for an encore, throwing roses at your feet and fanning myself like a Victorian drapery missus.”
Harley shrugs. “Nonetheless,” he says. “Anyway. Uh. Here’s Shrike, by Hozier.”
And he begins to pluck with earnest.
Peter listens very carefully, trying not to be distracted by the Harleyisms of Harley playing guitar: his eyes shut half-way as if he’s cheating, only looking partially at the frets; the sinew and joints of his hands popping out through his skin like surging rivers; the pink flush on his cheeks as if his body is denying him, as if it’s trying to make it seem like this is not the most comfortable place Harley has ever been (one with the music, that is). His fingers press the strings sweetly, like he’s massaging down someone’s back, producing a merry vibrato with little wiggling movements that bring Peter more joy than they probably should. The way Harley forms each lyric, rolling it between his lips as if he has thought about it endlessly, extensively, every moment.
“I couldn’t utter my love when it counted,” are the first words that fall from Harley’s mouth and Peter is done.
“Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now,” he continues, and Peter’s eyes sting.
The song elapses more quickly than Peter would have liked. It’s one of his favorites. He knows it word for word, knows it like he knows his blood or the swell of his ribs.
He knows Harley this way, too.
That’s why he can sense the tension in Harley’s shoulders, in the stiff set of his fingers on the neck of the guitar, as he approaches the final chorus.
“Remember me, love, when I’m reborn, as the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn,” he sings, his fingers slowing as the song ends.
There hangs a tension in the air. It could be cut with knives into curlicue ribbons.
“Harley,” Peter says thinly.
Harley puts his guitar down on the floor, ignoring Peter. “So, that wasn’t all,” he says, pushing his hair off his forehead. He digs under his bed again and pulls out a small, flat box. He drops it gently onto Peter’s lap. “Open it.”
Peter does so slowly, still blinking wetness from his eyes. He uses the utmost care in untying the ribbon, and slides his fingertips along the seams in calculated motions, never ripping the paper. He wants to keep it forever.
He lifts the package carefully out of the loose nest of wrapping left on his lap. Harley grabs the paper for him and lets it fall to the floor.
“Impatient?” says Peter.
“I’m gonna piss myself if you don’t hurry up.”
Peter laughs and scoots closer to Harley, their knees pressing together. “Okay. Fine. Excuse me for trying to maintain the reverence of this moment.”
He lifts the top off the box.
Inside of it lies a leather-bound journal and an unlabeled CD in a clear cover.
Harley pulls on his shirt awkwardly. “So, I’ll explain. Uh. The journal first.”
Peter picks it up, intending to follow along with the dissertation. The leather is worn along the binding but the pages are crisp, as if the thing has been carried around for ages but treated with the utmost of care. He traces the edges with his fingers. He flips the cover open and there is a message, in Harley’s neatest scrawl: for Peter. Carrying this was like always having you with me. I hope it can feel like I’m with you now.
Peter looks at Harley.
“So, when I first moved here,” Harley says, scratching his neck, “I started filling out this journal with the best things that happened every day so that I could remember them.”
Peter flips to the first few pages and realizes quite suddenly that the entire thing is filled, every page, from corner to corner and cover to cover. He fans through it. They’re all like this. Different inks, different handwritings, different days, nearly a year’s worth of Harley’s hand.
“Thing was,” Harley continues, “I realized pretty quick that most everything I was writing ended up being about you. It was dumb stuff, really. Peter threw an apple at Sam Wilson today. Peter helped me study for French and his attempt at an accent is hilarious. I tripped walking up the stairs and broke my toe and Peter was so grossed out by it that he blacked out and had to leave the room. Stuff like that. It helped me remember why I was here. It put everything in context: I didn’t have this back home. I didn’t have you back home,” Harley says. He shrugs. “It ended up becoming a sort of glorified almanac of all your best moments. They’ve got little commentaries from me, most of ‘em. It’s… dumb, and kinda lame, but I don’t know. It’s to remind you why you’re so important to me on days where you don’t feel like much of anything. Plus, I figure college stuff is coming soon, and. Well. There’s no way for us to know how that’s gonna go. So I wanted to make sure you always have a little piece of me with you, too.” He crosses his arms tight over his chest. “Yeah.”
Peter stares.
“I know it’s stupid— sorry,” Harley says, hasty to correct. “You don’t need to read it if you don’t want.”
“Harley,” Peter says.
“You can burn it, or whatever, I don’t know, don’t feel obligated to pretend to like it-”
“Harley,” Peter says.
“- just because it came from me or something, it’s nothing, really.”
“Harley,” Peter repeats.
Harley finally cuts off.
Peter’s face feels strange and numb. Like he’s disconnected from reality. Because. How could this be real?
How could someone care about him this much?
How could Harley, the best person he knows, care about him like this?
“It’s incredible,” he says. “It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me. It’s- Harley. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
Harley frowns and blinks. “Are you-? You don’t have to thank me, Pete. It’s, like, lame.”
“It’s not,” Peter says. “It’s the least lame thing ever. You’re- God, Harley.” He kicks him in the kneecap.
“Ow,” says Harley.
“You suck. You’re giving me so many emotions. You don’t even realize how incredible you are, do you? Like, what. What the hell. Harley. This is rude, frankly. I’m so lucky to even know you.”
Harley’s shoulders rise up to his ears.
“Don’t turtle,” says Peter. “You don’t need to address it because I know you suck at taking compliments, but just know that I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
“I,” says Harley. “Okay.”
Peter snorts a laugh and shakes his head. “Okay.” He lifts up the CD case. “What about this one?”
If possible, Harley looks even more uncomfortable. “Well. I went full 90’s rom com. I skimmed through your ‘favorite songs’ playlist on Spotify and recorded myself singing a handful of them. With the whole who knows where the fuck we’ll be a year from now thing in my brain. I don’t know. It’s another piece of me for you, I guess.”
The disc in Peter’s hands suddenly feels infinitely precious.
He places it down with the utmost of care.
He moves the stack of it and the journal onto the floor atop the wrapping paper.
He grabs Harley by the ankle and yanks him sharply across the mattress until he’s able to dive forward and render him completely prone under a hug, Peter on top and Harley underneath, his breath pressed out of his lungs but his arms unshakably tight around Peter’s shoulders.
Because this is all he needs. This is all he has ever needed. Here, and now, and forevermore.
Peter’s weight on Harley feels as easy as gravity, part of his world and nothing more. To be studied, admired, thanked, but intrinsic. There is no way to get rid of it. He would never want to, anyway. He would be perfectly content to be under this pressure for the rest of his life, clunky knees around his and elbows digging into his ribs through his back and Peter’s breath warm and thick against his throat. He squeezes him tighter.
This is salve on any wound. This is invincibility, being with him. The two of them together make one indomitable energy. The universe beats in them. Thrumming. Teeming with life, and they are the lifesblood, roaring and raging and alive.
“Happy birthday, Pete,” Harley says weakly.
“Thanks,” Peter says, muffled by the fabric of Harley’s shirt. “Thank you. So much. For everything.”
The tension seeps out from Harley like he’s just a little bit melted. He pats the back of Peter’s head.
The rest of the day goes like this:
A trip to a food festival. Peter gorges himself with artisan mac & cheese and fancy sliders and whatever lemony vegan desserty thing Harley shoves into his mouth between sips of raspberry kombucha. He has an arm around May the entire time and he can’t stop laughing.
They return home with farmer’s market produce. Tony goes alone to the kitchen to start prepping it all for dinner because Pepper is as equally hopeless a chef as May, if not more so. Instead, the four of them, plus a slyly grinning Natasha and a hopelessly sweet Bucky, turn on the TV to marathon season two of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. They slather on face masks that Pepper brings them, blue and green and charcoal grey, ones that foam up and ones that peel off and ones like slimy pieces of paper. They crunch on cucumber slices Tony brings them. Harley puts two over his eyes and conks out for an hour. (Peter wakes him up when they reach the Catskills episodes. Those are Harley’s favorites.) Natasha sits at Peter’s side, an ankle crossed with his, and presses a switchblade into his palm when no one is looking. It has a deep red leather handle and is emblazoned with what she whispers are the Russian words for spider, brave, and family. He holds her hand for the rest of the afternoon.
Tony makes a great ruckus in the kitchen, enough for Peter to come up from the ground and go to help him. He cuts sweet-smelling tomatoes into hunks while Tony seasons an enormous pan of fresh shellfish. The pot beside it will hold a sauce from these tomatoes, for Pepper and Harley and Nat and Bucky, none of whom eat meat. Peter learned of the latter only recently, for he had never known Bucky had been raised by a Jewish mother, and Bucky had forgotten himself for so long that keeping Kosher took a while to work back up to. It was a nice moment for them to share: a heritage that bonded them, even if practiced differently. Now, Tony throws a handful of salt into the pasta pot. Peter watches and takes mental notes. He wonders if, one day, he can get a copy of Maria’s recipe book, the one with the sticky notes and the ripped binding and the loopy Italian scrawl that lounges loose on the countertop now. Tony points, and smiles, and nudges Peter’s hip with his own. Peter cuts, and drops, and giggles. The kitchen smells like basil and seawater. He could smell this, feel this bubbling in his stomach, forever.
Everyone comes for dinner. The table is crowded elbow to elbow. Lettuce leaves fly everywhere. Natasha sticks olives on her fingers and refuses to take them off until Sam cuffs her around the back of the head. Harley sits across from Peter, stepping on Peter’s toes intermittently through the meal. May is on one side of Peter, Steve on the other. Bruce stammers a happy birthday to him and gives him a textbook annotated in his own hand. Peter chokes on his Sprite. Clint keeps prodding Pepper with his fork, asking her if she wants to borrow it to brush her hair. Everyone can’t stop complimenting Tony’s cooking. It’s warm. He’s sweating. He’s smiling so hard his face aches with it. Like his muscles forgot how to do this. Like he’s learning how, still. Like training. Like becoming better.
Everything is so loud and yet so quiet. This is insanity, and it is peace.
Peter is seventeen. He made it.
And he feels so, so lucky.