you tell someone you love them, and then the next day you have a child
Peter lay on his back. He curled on his side. He turned, and tossed and turned and it was dark and the tower was quiet and New York City lights blinked down below him and he still couldn’t sleep. He growled in frustration, burying his head under his pillow before he decided it had been too long. Why couldn’t he sleeeeeeep?
Another five agonisingly long minutes later, he kicked off the covers and stood up in one swift motion and padded out into the corridor, wearing those dumb pink hello kitty pyjama pants that Mr Stark had definitely bought to embarrass him, but they were surprisingly comfy damn it, so he wasn’t not gonna wear them.
Harley stirred when the bed sank beside him, waking from his dream when the mattress creaked quietly as he felt arms wrap around him carefully.
“Mmm hey," he drawled sleepily, accent heavier than it would be during the day, his arms automatically reciprocating and curling around the boy beside him, “you okay darlin?”
“Yeah. Just needed some Harley snuggles.”
Harley opened his eyes to look at him, finding his outline in the darkness with messy black waves of hair squished against his pillow and big black eyes looking up at him with so much adoration and content. Peter’s sight was a little better, he didn’t have, like, night vision or anything as dramatic, but Harley was just as stunning in the night as he was in the daylight.
“I love you,” Harley said after a moment, because it was what he felt, no, all he felt, and he had to say it; he was nervous but not nervous at all because it was Peter.
The spider tightened his arms around Harley’s waist, squeezing gently and replied just as sincerely, “I love you too.”
Then he lay his head down on Harley’s chest, cuddling as close as he could get without disturbing the other boy too much, but arms were pulling him in closer anyway, and he felt home. Was home an emotion? It should totally be an emotion.
They drifted off into a calm sleep with twin warm feelings in their chests, waking up just as tightly wound together (which only Peter truly registered in the morning, Harley too groggy to notice anything but how warm and safe he felt).
⎊
Harley looked up from the desk in Tony’s lab, finding the man focused on the intricate welding in his hands, but there was a distinct energy absent from the room and it was making him antsy. Unsettled.
“I feel like he’s been gone too long. He said he’d be back by now, right?” Harley broke the silence; Tony didn’t even need to ask who he was talking about.
The billionaire sighed. “He probably got distracted on the way by some mugging or other petty crime and is swinging around being New York’s saviour,” he offered, sounding exasperated but Harley knew there was always an undertone of panic for him, because despite what the man tried to show outwardly, you could tell he cared.
“Yeah, well, we thought that last time and he had been kidnapped!”
Tony sighed again. “Friday, did Peter get distracted by Spider-Man business on the back to the tower?”
“No, boss,” Friday’s calm voice sounded through the laboratory, making both of them jerk straight up with fear before the AI rushed to add, “But he has not been abducted or injured either. The location of his phone says that he has been in an alley for the last 20 minutes.”
Harley and Tony turned to share a confused look before the boy stormed towards the elevator. “I’m going after him,” he determined, out of sight before Tony could say anything in return.
He sighed again, alone in the room, dreaming of a simpler time before he acquired a couple of teenagers.
⎊
It was an hour later, and Tony had went up to the common room where a few of the avengers were hanging out. He had told Friday to notify him if the boys were in any actual trouble, but he knew they were fine. He was actually glad for the short break from them, too tired to deal with their cutesy shit that he was secretly proud of, and poured a cup of coffee. Then everyone’s heads suddenly snapped towards the entrance when a voice rang out loudly.
“So. I found our stray,” he said, despite the absence of a Peter beside him, “but the thing is. He also... found a stray?”
And then Peter walked in, making Wanda and Bruce coo, Natasha smirk slightly before her face was schooled back to a calculating expression and Tony literally look like he regretted every life choice he made that had led up to this moment. His eyes looked into one of Friday’s cameras like an episode of the office and he looked deeply done. Done was now an emotion, too.
The tiny kitten mewled in Peter’s hand, so young that her eyes were barely open and the sound was so high pitched it almost didn’t exist. Peter’s mouth dropped into an ‘O’ as he “aww”ed before Tony cleared his throat and he whipped his head to look up at him.
He gave a sheepish grin before Tony started on him. “Why. Why have you brought a cat here. In my home.”
Harley and Peter ignored him.
“This is our daughter, Avocado. ‘Ava’ for short!” Harley said with a big cutesy grin on his face as he raised a hand to gently run his hand over the kitten’s fur.
“You can’t keep a cat here.”
“We are a family. You can’t separate a family, poor avocado had been abandoned and now you want us to abandon her again? What kind of abandonment issues do you think this cat would grow up with, never to trust another human or cat ever again, going through life with a-“
“Okay, okay shut up.” Tony interrupted Harley, rubbing his temple in irritation.
Peter pulled the kitty closer to his chest, and turned his gaze to the man. Oh no, not the puppy eyes. He made his brown orbs gleam, wide and begging and so deceivingly innocent and Tony didn’t have the heart to say no to him, leaving a pause in the room for a moment where you could feel the tension in the air.
“I fucking hate you,”
He said to the two, before sighing in defeat and walking out of the door, Harley and Peter cheering while Wanda skipped over to stroke Ava gently. They looked like proud moms as they gazed at the tiny being, Wanda as the cool aunt.
“Ahh just look at her little face!! She is our baby,” Peter breathed, before jumping at a notification buzzing in his back pocket.
you guys are responsible for food, litter and injections. keep her clean or she’s out
Harley read the text over his shoulder and snorted. “He is going to be one of those dads who says they will never get a pet and then ends up the one closest and most in love with them. And he’ll deny it, but then he’ll shout at us for not giving her treats.”
Peter grinned manically at him, knowing that that sounded about right.