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“winter’s bleakness, turning my skin to stone
all my feelings battered with the snow”
Harley thinks that the world is laughing at him.
Like, genuinely, he’s convinced that he is the universe’s personal form of constant entertainment. He’s the galaxy’s plaything that gets put in unfortunate and rather embarrassing situations purely to be the center of the joke.
Peter clears his throat. “You think they have any other rooms available?”
Kill me, Harley thinks, staring blankly at the single bed in the center of the shitty motel room they’ve been forced to claim for the night. “Receptionist said this was the last one that wasn’t already booked,” he murmurs, rather than voicing his internal desire to end it all.
“Oh.” Peter’s voice comes out weakly, and then he’s sucking in a slow, heavy breath, letting it out steadily, before stepping forward and setting his backpack on the dresser. “Okay. It’s fine.”
Harley’s eyes follow his movements before snagging on Peter’s lone bag. He curses under his breath and drags his gaze over to the window, watching in disdain as the white sheet of snow continues to fall. Peter looks back at him with a frown, and Harley lets out a weighted sigh and scrubs a hand over his features before explaining, “Our duffle bags are still in the car.”
Peter turns and looks out the window, then turns back to Harley with an even deeper frown. Despite his obvious disgruntlement, he still steps towards the door and says, “I’ll go get them.”
“Absolutely not,” Harley tells him, moving over to stand between Peter and the door. Peter gives him a confused, borderline annoyed look, but before he can do more than part his lips with some argument obviously waiting on the tip of his tongue, Harley is cocking a brow at him and saying, “You can’t thermoregulate properly, Peter. Going back out there when it’s like this could literally kill you. That’s literally why we stopped here in the first place.”
“I thought we stopped here because of the blizzard?” Peter questions, tilting his head slightly to the side with a furrow to his brows.
Harley vaguely waves a hand through the air and says, “That, too, obviously. There are multiple reasons. That’s not my point. My point is, that—” he points out the window, “—is not a place for you right now. I can grab the bags. You can turn the heater up and keep yourself from going into a weird spider coma.”
Rolling his eyes, Peter tries to say, “It’s not that bad, Harley. The car is right outside and—”
“I’m literally not going to change my mind no matter what you say right now,” Harley interjects. “The water heater is still good, though. Take a hot shower. I’ll be right back.”
He spins on his heel and marches out of their room to the sound of Peter’s exasperated laugh.
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It’s not that they aren’t friends, right?
Because they are. Honestly, Harley thinks that they reached best friend territory about five years ago, and he’s pretty damn sure that Peter would agree if he were to ask. He won’t ask, of course, but he’s still confident that Peter’s on the same page when it comes to their friendship.
They’ve known each other since they were fifteen, though they didn’t meet in person until the summer before they started college, both of them seventeen-turning-eighteen. Tony had been the one to introduce them, though the introduction had been half-assed and borderline awkward as Tony created a groupchat with the three of them, sent a single text to the chat that simply said, Kid, meet Kid,and then left the chat without waiting for a response.
According to Tony, he did this because he knew that Harley and Peter would get along pretty well. Why he didn’t tell either of them about the other first, Tony won’t say. Why he chose to introduce them like that, Tony also won’t say—but, after a few days of uncertainly messaging each other back and forth, they started to find similarities and common interests and their text messages became a daily thing. Eventually, they talked over the phone, started to video chat, and became pretty familiar with one another. Harley was introduced to Peter’s friend group in New York, somehow became a part of said friend group despite being in Tennessee, and the next two and a half years leading up to him graduating were spent hoping he’d get to meet them properly one day.
And then he got accepted to ESU, kept it to himself for two months while his friends all decided on where they wanted to go for college, and then excitedly shared his acceptance when they all, without the influence of Harley going to New York, chose to attend ESU, too.
It’s their last year before getting their bachelor’s degrees. Harley has known Peter for six years and plans to know him for the rest of his life. This shouldn’t be a big deal.
But Harley is kind of in love with Peter, which kind of makes this a pretty big deal to him.
Sure, they’ve had, like, sleepover’s and whatever throughout their years in college, staying over at each other’s dorms and crashing at the tower or May’s apartment after movie nights and shit. In a way, Harley should be totally fine with this, because it’s basically an impromptu sleepover, which they’ve done before. It’s just that this one is at a cheap motel. During a blizzard.
Also, there’s only one bed. They’ve never shared a bed before. They’ve never had to.
“There’s no signal,” Peter says with a sigh, turning the TV off to shut off the sound of never-ending static before tossing the remote back onto the nightstand. Harley is still standing, picking through their three bags of food that they thankfully bought before getting back in the car. It’s mostly snacks and protein bars and small yet substantial things, but it’s all they’ve got and Harley is trying to piece together how long they can make it last without feeling too many hunger pains (especially Peter with his enhanced metabolism) before needing to get more.
“No cell service, either,” Harley comments offhandedly, frowning down at their options. Ideally, the blizzard won’t last too long, though there’s definitely the possibility that the snow will just freeze over and become solid ice depending on how cold it still is once it stops falling from the dark winter clouds. Visibility would be better without the active snowfall, but the likeliness of hitting black ice makes him nervous enough to question if he’d be willing to drive until it thaws out a bit. If they’re stingy with it, they can make the food last maybe a week, but it wouldn’t be super comfortable. “I was gonna call Tony and ask if he could send a Quinjet.”
Peter sighs again, louder and twice as dramatic, and lulls his head back against the wall. “That’d be too easy.”
Harley snorts, then grabs a pack of peanut butter crackers and tosses it into Peter’s lap. “Eat.”
“Not hungry,” Peter says, picking up the crackers between two fingers with a little frown, like they’ve somehow offended him.
Harley snorts again. “Bullshit. We haven’t eaten in hours, and you need about three times the amount of food than the average person does. You need to put something in your system.”
Looking displeased, Peter holds it out to Harley and shakes it. “Share with me?”
“Oh.” Harley doesn’t know why he feels so caught off guard, but he tries to come across nonchalant as he forces himself to approach the bed, hesitating only half a second before lowering himself to sit on the opposite side from Peter. “Sure. Yeah.”
There’s only six of the peanut butter crackers in the package, but they have about seven more packages so Harley takes the three that Peter hands him and lets the room fall into a comfortable silence, only broken up by the sound of their quiet chewing as they snack on the crackers. As he eats, Harley tries to think of what to do. The TV has no satellite signal, there’s no cell service, the receptionist warned them while paying for the room that the motel’s internet is already out and probably won’t be back on until the blizzard calms down, and they didn’t exactly bring anything to entertain themselves on what was supposed to be a single day drive.
They don’t necessarily need TV or WiFi or their phones to be able to hang out with each other, but as he looks around the room, he finds himself struggling to conjure up an idea of another way to pass their time. Their friend group has done board game nights, but they don’t really have any board games here. Motels sometimes have decks of cards hidden away in the rooms, but this place looks a little bit too run down and cheap to do that, though he’ll still look through the closet and the drawers to make sure. Still, even if there is a deck of cards, Harley doesn’t know of enough card games off the top of his head to keep them busy for very long.
“Hey,” Peter suddenly says, and when Harley looks over, he finds that Peter is already looking at him, something calculating in his gaze. The ends of his lips tug up, just slightly, into a small smile, and then he’s looking around the room with squinted eyes. A moment later, he looks back at Harley and matter-of-factly says, “I spy something green.”
Harley blinks, frozen for a moment, before fighting back the urge to laugh as he looks around the room as well. The walls are plain white, the scarce wooden furniture a dark, dark brown, desk shoved in the corner with a cheap black office chair with cracking leather. The lamp is beige, TV remote dark grey, curtains somewhere between beige and brown. Overall, the room is pretty bland and lacking liveliness—but there’s a booklet with information about the motel sitting on the desk, tucked away on the other side of the beige lamp, with a green cover. Harley points at it and says, “That thing. The book.”
Peter shakes his head. “Nope. Keep looking.”
The room isn’t big, so Harley keeps looking, this time with a slight frown and a furrow to his brows, trying to see what else is green. Maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’s childish, but it’s something to do, and he’s with Peter, and he doesn’t care about being stupid and childish with Peter. Plus, they were playing a bunch of silly road trip games a few hours ago, so this kind of feels fitting.
“The strap to your duffle bag,” Harley guesses next.
“Ding, ding, ding! Now you go.”
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Between the bed and the window, there’s a nightstand. It’s small, it’s kind of scrappy and it definitely looks water damaged, but it’s there, and sitting on top of the nightstand is an alarm clock from the mid-2000’s. One of the ones that Harley remembers having in elementary school.
They got to the motel at about three in the afternoon, hours after stopping for lunch, not too long before the blizzard became so bad that continuing to drive would have been a death wish. Now, when Harley goes to check the time, it’s nearing seven in the evening. They’ve been picking at their snacks here and there, but they don’t have anything that qualifies as an actual meal, because they were planning on stopping somewhere for dinner before Peter got behind the wheel and drove through the night, Harley getting some rest in the passenger seat.
They aren’t driving through the night, however, and they aren’t able to go anywhere to get some real food. Harley doesn’t mind too much—as a college student, he’s used to getting lost in studying and assignments and labs and presentations and forgetting to put more than chips and caffeine into his system—but he is worried about Peter, because snacks won’t be able to keep his metabolism happy after a certain point. He’s going to need something of real substance sooner rather than later. Of course, Peter tells Harley, “I’ll be fine. This is good enough.”
Harley thinks Peter deserves better than just good enough, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he throws another miniature bag of chips at Peter’s head and gives him an expectant look until Peter huffs out a sigh and opens it, grumbling under his breath as he munches on them.
The blizzard doesn’t seem to be letting up yet, and Harley has no way of checking the forecast to get an idea of when it might, but the sun has long since set and the low-quality lamps are casting a warm orange glow across the room, though the lights occasionally flicker. Peter keeps side eyeing the lamps with distrust but doesn’t say anything, though Harley is already planning to track his way through the storm to bring in the spare blankets from the car, just in case.
So far, they’ve played about thirty rounds of I-Spy, twenty-three rounds of 20 Questions (where Harley continued to choose the color red for approximately six rounds, until Peter looked like he was genuinely considering walking out into the snow in his exasperation) and have used the motel’s notepad and provided pen to play tic tac toe until their hands cramped up.
The heater is kicked up to the highest setting, but the crisp winter air is still managing to leak into their room. Harley finds shivers running down his back every few minutes, and though Peter is trying to hide it, Harley’s been aware of the goosebumps dancing along his skin for the past hour and a half. His hair has dried in wisps of curls along his forehead, but Harley is considering sending him back into the bathroom to take another hot shower just to assure himself that Peter isn’t about to drop into an impromptu round of hibernation. He’s never actually seen it happen, as it was a discovery that was had before they met in person, but he remembers the frantic text messages in the group chat and would rather not have to connect that memory with something happening in the present. He might actually throw up.
Hopefully it’s unrelated, but Peter’s eyelids are also starting to droop, even as he sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration and hunches over a blank page on the notepad to sketch out a maze that he expects Harley to solve once he’s done. Most likely, it’s because they left Rose Hill before sunrise in order to stop at the Sunshine Diner, where his Ma was already working, in order to pile up a big breakfast before getting on the road. It’s only a little over sixteen hours to get from Rose Hill to Manhattan if they were to drive nonstop, and the plan was to just keep going until they reached the tower, save for occasional bathroom breaks and gas tank refills and the one stop where they got lunch and bought the bags of snacks with one more stop planned for dinner, but the further north they got, the worse the weather turned out to be. Until it became clear that it wouldn’t be safe to keep going and they ended up using their shoddy cell service to find the nearest place with an available room. Apparently, a lot of people had the same idea, but Harley and Peter managed to snag the last room before someone else could take it, and now they’re here.
It hasn’t been a particularly hard day, but it’s been a long one, for sure, so Harley is pretty confident that Peter’s tired for that reason, because Harley is feeling pretty damn tired, too. But again: hibernation is a real concern. Like, Peter could literally just fall asleep because of the cold and not wake up for potentially days. Harley is very much not okay with that happening. Not at all, but especially not when there’s literally no way to contact anyone until the storm lets up enough to allow calls to go through. Even the landlines are currently down.
“I’m gonna grab the extra blankets,” Harley says, looking out the window again with a sigh, not wanting to go back out there but definitely feeling it’s better to do it sooner rather than later.
Peter looks up from where he’s hunched over the notepad. “I can—”
Harley looks at him, silent and unimpressed.
“Jesus, fine, nevermind,” Peter grumbles, though he looks amused as he ducks his head back down to keep working on his maze. “Use both of our sweatshirts, though. Don’t freeze.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Harley says with a light laugh, only getting a bit louder when Peter silently flips him off, and then turns around to grab Peter’s spare sweatshirt, faltering only a moment before pulling it over the one he’s already wearing. They’ve shared clothes before, because Harley’s height comes mostly from his legs, so their shirt sizes are basically the same. Though, even if they weren’t basically the same size, Peter usually wears clothes that are a few sizes too big, preferring to swim in the fabric, so Harley would be able to make do no matter what. Still, despite the fact that they’ve shared clothes in the past, it still sends Harley reeling, suddenly being enveloped in a warmth that surrounds him, at least momentarily, in Peter’s scent. Which sounds creepy, but it’s familiar, and it’s Peter.
He’s kind of smitten beyond belief, alright? Like, head over heels, stupidly in love with this guy, so he’s going to be a little bit sappy about something as dumb as the way he smells.
Sue him. He’s gay and his heart beats for Peter Parker. Life goes on.
His heart stutters, though, when he steps outside, the hood to both his hoodie and Peters sweatshirt pulled up in the hopes of protecting him from the cold, but it still instantly seeps to his bones. The second he’s stepped outside of the motel lobby, he’s shaking down to his core, teeth rattling as he curses lightly and scrambles over to the car, parked (thankfully) only a few spots away from the door leading inside. His hands shake as he unlocks the door and the piled up snow tries to keep the damn thing shut, but it’s fluffy enough to only need a few harsh pulls before he’s able to reach inside the car, grab the pile of blankets, and barely remembers to shut and lock the door again before sprinting back through the lobby door. His teeth are audibly clicking together as he shakes the snow off of him, fingers feeling frozen even though he was only out there for a few short moments. The receptionist gives him a sympathetic smile and says, “Room 14, right?” Harley nods, movements stuttering as his body is wracked with shivers. They reach for the walkie sitting on the desk in front of them while telling him, “I’ll have one of our housekeepers toss some a spare duvet in the dryer and we’ll bring it up to you once it’s nice and warm, along with some candles and matches just in case the power goes out. Also—” they gesture towards the breakfast set up against the far wall, “—we have hot water and hot chocolate packets, if you or your boyfriend want to grab any at some point.”
Harley almost splutters at that, the barely strung together response of he’s not my boyfriend sitting on the tip of his tongue, but he’s shaking too hard to force the words out. Instead, he just nods again, this time with a somewhat strained yet genuinely grateful smile, and then makes his way back down to their room on unsteady legs.
“Oh my god,” Peter says, already on his feet as Harley pushes his way into their room. “You turned to ice, Harley. It’s been less than five minutes and you are already a statue.”
Harley shrugs and dumps the pile of blankets onto the floor. “I-It’s f-fuh-fine,” he says weakly.
Peter rolls his eyes, grabs Harley by the shoulders and spins him around. Peter’s hands are also shaking and there are still goosebumps dancing along the slivers of skin peeking out from his sleeves. “Your turn to take a hot shower,” he says, pushing Harley towards the bathroom.
“B-B-But—”
When Peter pins him with an unwavering stare, Harley stops, sighing. He was gonna have Peter take another hot shower—and part of his brain, probably rendered stupid by the freezing cold, suggests asking they take one together, which makes his heart quite literally skip a beat in his chest, something that he thinks he’s never going to admit to anyone literally ever—but that small trek outside has made him kind of useless until he warms up again.
“There’s h-hot chuh-choc-chocolate in the luh-lobby,” Harley forces out instead, then lets Peter finish pushing him into the bathroom, closing the door once he’s inside.
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When he gets out of the shower, his skin is pink from the surprisingly powerful water heater, and he doesn’t hesitate to put Peter’s sweatshirt back on rather than his own. The room is still carrying the weight of the crisp blizzard chill that’s somehow sneaking through the closed and locked windows, sending another shiver down his spine as he steps out of the bathroom, but Peter is already there and holding out a large paper cup filled with steaming hot chocolate.
“Drink,” Peter tells him, holding his own cocoa in his other hand. Harley blinks, but gratefully reaches forward and claims the cup, bringing it up to his lips to take a slow, satisfying gulp.
With a content hum, he brings the cup back down and holds it in both hands to let the warmth seep into both of his palms. “Thanks,” he says softly, gaze sliding purposefully around Peter in order to look out the window again. The only light is coming from the outdoor lights that the motel offers, which are pretty weak and keep flickering even more than the lamps in their room, so it’s hard to see anything clearly now that it’s so dark out, but there’s enough visibility to tell that the snow is already piled about a foot higher than it was when he went out for the blankets. “Jesus,” he murmurs. “That’s a lot.”
Peter turns, looks out the window as well, and puffs out a sigh. “Yeah,” he agrees. Then, a bit slowly, he admits, “It’s kind of pretty, though. I’ve never, like—I mean, it snows in New York, obviously, but a snow storm in the city is different than this. This is more… peaceful, I guess.”
As long as we don’t freeze or starve to death, Harley thinks, a little bit pessimistically. He doesn’t tend to be negative—his brain usually starts to path out the most hopeful outcomes before he’s able to weigh down his expectations with the heaviness of reality and realism—but he’s always scared of bad things happening, and when Peter is involved, a magnet of chaos and misfortune, he’s on high vigilance trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Harley is not in control of the world and the cards it deals Peter, but he can be damn sure to do what he can to make these hands play out in whatever way is most likely to end with Peter being happy and healthy.
Still, as Harley peers out the window, he can see what Peter means. He’s been living in New York for over three years now, where he’s spent almost the entirety of winter in the city save for about a week in December where he’s gone back to Rose Hill for Christmas. Matter of fact, this trip down south to visit Rose Hill for his sister’s sweet sixteen has been the first time he’s gone home in the winter outside of the week-long Christmas visits since he moved away for college, so he’s definitely seen what snowstorms in the city looks like. It can be pretty and he highly enjoys spending long weekends at the compound or in the tower while the snow piles high outside, but people need to work no matter the weather and there are always people trying to drive no matter the weather or the road conditions. It can be a lot less hectic than the average city day, but it’s hectic in a different way.
This, however, is just… it’s quiet. Other than the soft murmuring and distant footsteps of people holing up in the other motel rooms for the exact same reason as them, the only sound they can hear is the wind outside and the words coming out of their mouths. There’s potential for disaster, sure, and Harley is for sure going to keep his worries in mind to be as prepared as possible for the whatever might happen, as always, but also, it definitely is peaceful, in a way.
“I’m not used to when there isn’t a lot of noise,” Peter comments. “I mean, there’s a lot of heartbeats and some voices, but the snow kind of dampens it. I don’t know, it’s just…”
Harley nods. “It’s not New York,” he offers.
Peter’s lips quirk up, just a bit. “It’s not New York.”.
Peaceful is a good word for it, Harley thinks. It’s calm, and it feels gentle, and—
And the lights flicker, flicker, and then turn dark. The heater goes silent.
The power is out.
“Fuck,” Harley says into the darkness.
“Fuck,” Peter agrees.
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There’s a checklist in his head.
- Keep Peter warm.
- Keep himself warm.
- Make sure neither of them starves.
The receptionist, upon bringing them the heated up spare duvet and the candles that they had promised Harley, assured them that they have a backup generator, but that it’s pretty old and might take a while to get working. The water is still on, and the water heater appears to be working just fine, but until the generator is up and running, that’s basically all they’ve got.
Almost instantly, they light the candles and set them around the room in order to provide some kind of lighting, and then Harley starts wrapping Peter up like a burrito in every blanket they have, including the dryer-warmed duvet and the duvet on the bed. Peter complains and insists that he’ll be fine, but Harley’s brain zeroes in on the fact that their room is already starting to carry the crispness of the outside chill and all he can focus on is making sure Peter is okay.
He doesn’t realize that he’s already failing at objective number two until Peter wiggles an arm out of the bundle of blankets wrapped around him to grab onto Harley’s wrist and hold him in place, voice coming out stern despite the cold-induced waver. “Harley, stop.”
Something about the conviction in Peter’s tone—and the fact that Harley is hopelessly unable to deny Peter much of anything—makes Harley freeze in place, eyes snapping over to settle on Peter’s face. Peter, in turn, is looking at Harley’s hand with a frown. Harley follows his gaze to look at his own hand and is shocked to find that it’s trembling like a leaf in the wind.
As if a switch has been flipped, awareness washes over Harley and he can feel the way he’s borderline violently shivering. He looks back at Peter, clenching his jaw to try and prevent his teeth from chattering like they were earlier, then weakly says, “It’s fine.”
“You’re bad at lying,” Peter fires back instantly, gaze flickering up to meet Harley’s eyes with a quirked up brow. “Grab the food so we can reach it and then get in.”
Harley blinks at him. “Get in what?”
Wiggling his other arm out of blanket wrap, Peter starts to unravel the blankets entirely with a scoff, replying, “In the blankets, obviously. You need to stay warm, too.”
Which, like, yeah, Harley put that on his list of priorities for a reason, but clearly he isn’t focusing very well on achieving that goal. Dumbly nodding, Harley reluctantly pulls his wrist free from Peter’s grasp to fetch the bags of snacks and places them on the nightstand, then waits for Peter’s prompting before clambering onto the bed and allowing Peter to rewrap the blankets, only this time around the both of them, and—
I’m going to die, Harley thinks.
They’ve been close before in their years of friendship. Like, they hug, and have held hands a few times, and have both participated in the cuddle piles that their friend group makes when hanging out sometimes, but they’ve never been this close for longer than a few short moments, and certainly not when it’s only the two of them, none of their other friends involved.
Like, Harley can feel Peter next to him. They’re hip-to-hip, arms pressed together, knees slotting between knees in order to wrap the blankets more effectively around the both of them. Harley freezes when his brain catches up, momentarily forgetting about the cold as he owlishly blinks at Peter, their noses mere centimeters apart. The flames of the candles placed around the room flicker, shadows dancing on the walls, and the soft, warm lighting makes Peter’s eyes look like shimmering gold as he peers back at Harley curiously. That’s a common look for Peter, that curiosity—he’s always analyzing and learning and searching for answers, his brain in constant motion. Usually, Harley can relate fairly well, but his own head has these moments where everything goes silent and still, where every single thought comes to an abrupt end and he finds himself stuck, frozen and vaguely overwhelmed.
Peter bumps his nose into Harley’s and smiles, crooked and sweet. “You good?”
He’s probably asking about the cold—asking if Harley is warm enough now, which, to be fair, Harley thinks he’s about to spontaneously combust, so he’s being fairly honest when he manages to croak out a quiet, “Yeah.” The tip of his nose feels tingly from where Peter’s skin brushed against his, the muscles in his legs are tense as he worries about making Peter uncomfortable, his fingers are curled into his palms, forming tight fists inside the sleeves of the sweatshirt he’s wearing—of Peter’s sweatshirt, the one he had put on after taking a shower. The world is topsy-turvy and he’s about to have a breakdown, but still he asks, “Are you?”
“Yeah,” Peter answers, smile softening into something somehow even warmer while his eyes take on that calculative glint again. He wiggles his arms up, reaches out until he’s holding onto Harley’s hands within their blanket burrito—gently uses the tips of his fingers to tentatively unfurl Harley’s clenched fists, presses his thumbs to Harley’s palms soothingly until Harley manages to make himself relax them, even as his every breath stutters in his chest from the tenderness.
He realized he has feelings for Peter when they were seventeen.
Actually, that’s not quite right.
He accepted that he has feelings for Peter when they were seventeen, but he’s fairly certain that those feelings developed not long after their friendship began. It was forged in admiration, in fondness, in the constant exasperation of being spammed with shitty puns and bad jokes in the middle of class in Rose Hill while Peter, sitting in his very own classes up in New York, fifteen and dorky beyond belief, hid his snickers while sending the texts. He remembers thinking that Peter was his best friend when he was sixteen, remembers his sister saying that he never had many friends before and that she’d never heard of people becoming such good friends as quickly as the two of them did.
He remembers stepping off the Quinjet that Tony sent for him, coming to New York for the first time with the intention of spending the whole summer leading up to his first year at ESU in the city, and seeing his friends—seeing Peter—waiting for him on the roof of Stark Tower. Remembers Peter beaming and enveloping Harley in a hug that had left him reeling.
He remembers thinking, Oh, shit, and quickly admitting that what he felt was a lot more than what the average person should probably feel for their best friend.
It’s been years, is the thing. Harley is pretty well-versed in how to navigate his emotions and keep himself at an arm's length in order to preserve what they have, in order to avoid risking ruining it—but he has never been faced with these circumstances before, and he kind of feels like he’s drowning right now, but also like he could float simply from the attention that Peter is currently giving to him. The unwavering looks, the surety of his movements.
The way he’s still holding onto Harley’s hands.
“Rose Hill was nice,” Peter says conversationally, as if he isn’t causing Harley’s entire life to crumble around him right now. “It was cool, seeing where you grew up.”
Harley swallows thickly and tries to pretend like he isn’t on the brink of shaking apart at the seams. “It’s not much,” he murmurs, because Rose Hill may be where he was raised, but it sure as hell isn’t his home and he knows that Peter is aware of that.
Peter just shrugs, though. “It’s part of you, so it matters.”
Something about that response—about the conviction in Peter’s tone, the simplicity of the words doubled with the impact of the meaning behind them—stuns Harley into another lapse of silence. It takes him a moment to gather his thoughts enough to piece together a sentence, finds himself changing the subject just slightly to say, “Amelia was excited to see you. She’s wanted to meet you in person for forever. Think she was more excited about you than me.”
“Aw.” Peter’s smile twists, crinkles up the corners of his eyes, turns teasing. He lets go of one of Harley’s hands in order to reach forward and poke at Harley’s stomach. “You jealous?”
Although the moment is overwhelming, Peter’s teasing is familiar enough for Harley to roll his eyes and deadpan, “About my sixteen-year-old sister being excited to meet one of my best friends? Why the hell would I be jealous about that, Parker?”
“Maybe because your big brother instincts made you upset that she wanted to hang out with me instead of you,” Peter says. “Or maybe because you couldn’t have me all to yourself.”
There’s a twinkle in Peter’s eyes when he says it, but the words are stifling to hear. Truth be told, Harley had wished that he had brought Peter to Rose Hill outside of the context of his sister’s birthday. Not because he was upset about Amelia wanting to meet Peter or anything, honestly, it’s heartwarming to know that the boy he’s so gone for gets along well with his family—but, rather, because he had hoped to have more time to show Peter around.
Rose Hill isn’t much, but Peter has taken Harley on tours of the city specifically to tell Harley about moments from his childhood—stories from specific alleyways and skate parks and hot dog stands. Harley was hoping to do the same, but they didn’t really have enough time.
“Maybe I’ll bring you back,” Harley tells Peter, not much thought going into his words before he says them, tone thoughtful, maybe even a little wistful. “Show you around town.”
Peter’s gaze stays trained on Harley’s face—sometimes looking into Harley’s eyes, sometimes flickering across his features, settling on the dimple on his left cheek, the crease between his brows, the way Harley’s lips quirk right before he speaks. Harley feels Peter’s gaze like a burning trail and finds that, despite the blizzard outside, he has never felt so warm.
“What would you show me?” Peter asks, so gentle it sounds like a whisper.
Harley offers a half-shrug, clunky and uneven. “I dunno. Just… places. The lake, maybe. If it’s warm out, you know? Pack a bag, go swimming, have you try out the rope swing that I put there when I was eleven. Hopefully you won’t fall off and break your wrist like I did.”
A small laugh pushes past Peter’s lips at that, a familiar little chiming noise that settles in the center of Harley’s chest, makes something fond and loving bloom from between his ribs. The close proximity—the hips-to-hips, the knees between knees, the fact that Peter is still holding one of Harley’s hands, his other now settled like a warm and gentle weight against Harley’s side—is a lot, sure, but the more they talk, the more Harley relaxes, the overwhelming anxiety of it all reducing into a constant yet appreciative awareness.
“Maybe we can take a summer trip,” Peter suggests. “After graduation. All of us.”
It sounds nice, but Harley falters. “All of us?”
Peter nods. Their noses bump together again with the action. “Yeah.” Then he hesitates, too, blinks once, settles his eyes on Harley’s before softly prompting, “Unless you don’t want to…?”
“I do,” Harley assures. He debates how to phrase this, how to say it in a way that won’t be too obvious, but he’s warm and he’s comfortable and he finds that the usual block he has between his brain and his mouth is working slower than it’s supposed to, and he doesn’t have time to put together a well-structured response before he’s saying, “I’d just prefer if it was only us.”
He processes the words after he says them and promptly chokes on the sharp inhale that follows, eyes going wide. For half a second, his delusional brain hopes that Peter didn’t hear him, but Peter’s enhanced senses make it harder for him to not hear something, and judging by the way Peter’s eyes are just the slightest bit wider, he heard Harley loud and clear.
Harley squeezes his own eyes shut and curses under his breath. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t, uh—I just, I didn’t mean, like—”
“No,” Peter says, tone somehow even softer than before. “No, it’s fine. I’d prefer that, too.”
Cautiously, Harley peeks one of his eyes open and finds Peter looking at him with so much fondness that it makes Harley feel a little bit dizzy. “You sure?” he asks.
Peter sinks his teeth into his lower lip, biting back a grin, and nods.
“Okay,” Harley breathes out. Then, trying to fumble for something more familiar, he says, “Hopefully we won’t end up snowed in again, though. Summer seems safe enough.”
Releasing his lower lip, Peter brings up one of his shoulders in a shrug, shuffles impossibly closer, until each and every breath results in their noses brushing. “It’s cold as hell,” Peter says. “But… I mean… I don’t mind the rest of it. Like, the rest of—the rest of this, you know?”
Harley does not want to get his hopes up, but he also can’t help but to send out a vague prayer to some kind of Thor or Loki or whatever the hell else there might be, wishing that he isn’t reading into something that isn’t there. So many times, he has thought he was catching onto certain vibes between him and Peter, only for nothing to come of it. If he gets his hopes up now and it falls through again, he might lose his mind.
He thinks he already lost it, though, being this close in the first place.
“This?” Harley asks—needing the clarification, wanting it to be what he’s thinking of.
Peter nods. “Yeah. Like…” He trails off, scans over Harley’s features again, then meets Harley’s gaze with a boyish glint in his eyes. “Being with you,” he explains. “Like this. Just us. Y’know?”
It’s so close to what Harley wants to hear, but it isn’t exactly it. Harley hesitates, but he thinks there’s something about where they are—something about the several feet of snow outside, trapping them in this motel, illuminated only by candlelight with no way to access the outside world. Yeah, there are still so many things that could go wrong, and he refuses to lose sight of any of them—the food is in reach, he’s doing everything he can to keep Peter and himself warm, and until the power is back on, that’s all he can do—but right now, quite literally wrapped up with Peter, knees between knees and hip-to-hip and hands touching, noses touching, everything touching… Harley feels a little drunk on it, and maybe a little bit more brave than usual, and his hesitation quickly fades into some kind of faux confidence as he quietly admits, “You’re my favorite person. Did you know that?”
“I am?” Peter asks, looking genuinely surprised. Harley nods. “But I—I mean… Amelia, right? And your mom, and Tony, and—and our friends, and—”
“They’re different,” Harley cuts in. “They’re different to me than you are. They’re family. You’re… you.”
Peter appears dumbfounded. “I’m me?”
“Yeah,” Harley says. “You’re you. And you’re my favorite person. I always want to be around you, and I always want to talk to you, and everything is always better when you’re around.”
There’s a crease between Peter’s eyebrows. “But I’m… not family?”
Harley tries to find a way to say that, yes, Peter is family, but in a very different way, because Peter is also his best friend, and Peter is also his partner in crime, and Peter is also the most annoying person in the world, and Peter is also the funniest person Harley has ever met, and Peter is also a million other things that will never be able to fully encompass just how much Harley adores him, all the reasons why Peter is and always will be Harley’s favorite person.
“You’re everything,” Harley settles on, because he thinks that’s close enough.
For a long moment, Peter just blinks at him, wide eyed and startled. The moment drags on long enough that Harley is starting to wonder if he should backtrack and apologize, but then Peter lets out a slow, shaky breath, says, “Okay,” and leans forward, closing the space between them.
Harley doesn’t really register what’s happening at first, mind screeching to a halt the moment that he registers that their proximity is getting even smaller, but his eyes shut on their own accord and soon enough it clicks that Peter is kissing him. Their mouths are pressed together, a still yet lingering sort of kiss, like the kind that people share in hidden corners on playgrounds as kids, behind lockers in middle school. It’s simple and it’s innocent and Harley leans into it before he’s fully accepted that this is actually happening, already craving more.
The second that Peter seems to realize Harley is leaning into it, he becomes frantic, pressing forward with both hands coming up, almost getting tangled up in the blankets with his haste, until he’s got one hand clasped on the back of Harley’s neck, the other tenderly cupping Harley’s face in his palm. His lip's part and Harley can’t think, can’t think, can’t think of anything other than the places they’re touching, other than the fact that the heat of Peter’s body, so close to his, is more than enough to bat away the cold. His only hands reach out—hesitate, only for a moment, his brain struggling to accept that this is something he can do—and then he’s got one hand on Peter’s hip, the other clutching his sweatshirt and pulling him impossibly closer. When Peter’s mouth moves against his, Harley feels like the sun must have exploded, like the floor beneath them has suddenly disappeared—like he is in a free fall, enveloped in a scorching fire that burns beneath his skin, warms him from the inside out.
With each passing second, Harley dives further and further into a simmering desperation, half of him convinced that this is an incredibly realistic yet entirely impossible dream, the other half of him accepting that this is reality yet terrified that this is the only chance he will ever get to kiss Peter Parker, and he drinks in every moment like he’s a man dying of dehydration. He’s sure that his lips will be puffy and bruised with the force in which he pushes into Peter, but Peter doesn’t seem to mind, kissing back just as fiercely, like he’ll die if he stops.
It feels like hours have gone by—weeks, years, centuries all blinking away at the speed of light, and Harley only wants more, but when Peter pulls back, Harley makes himself do the same. He may want to spend the rest of his life kissing Peter, but he would never force that on Peter, and if Peter is stopping, Harley is stopping, too.
If that’s all I ever get, Harley thinks to himself, I will die happy.
But Peter doesn’t look like he’s planning to move on as if nothing happened, doesn’t look like he’s about to brush off their kiss as a one-time thing. He’s staring at Harley’s mouth hungrily and looks like it’s taking every ounce of his control to stop himself from leaning back in. Harley’s tongue darts out, runs along his bottom lip without him meaning to—finds the taste of Peter there, lingering and addictive, and feels the way his stomach swoops and his head spins when Peter tracks the movement with golden, golden eyes.
“I—” Peter stops immediately, has to clear his throat when his voice comes out in a low croak. Even that, the way his tone dips and curves past kiss-red lips, making evident just how effected Peter is, has Harley’s heart feeling like it’s about to burst from within his ribcage. Peter looks away from Harley entirely for a moment, but the hand still holding onto the back of Harley’s neck slides up, just enough to tangle up in the waves of Harley’s hair, while his thumb on his other hand gently glides over the apple of Harley’s cheek. In turn, Harley’s grip tightens on Peter’s hip, the hand clutching Peter’s sweatshirt loosening its grip in order to flatten his fingers on Peter’s chest—feeling, he thinks, the rampant thundering of Peter’s heartbeat thumping under his palm. It very well might not be, Harley could be imagining it, because he doubts that he’d be able to feel Peter’s heart through the thick layers of Peter’s clothes, but the mere idea of Peter feeling the same bout of dizzying want that Harley is currently suffocating on makes hope and happiness bubble up in Harley’s gut. Peter’s eyes slide back after a moment, landing first on Harley’s barely parted lips, then rising to meet Harley’s wide-eyed gaze. Peter swallows thickly, appearing suddenly sheepish as he murmurs, “Sorry. I should have asked first.”
Although Harley knows that Peter is probably right, he can’t find it in himself to give a single shit, because the past few minutes have been the best of his life so far and he refuses to allow Peter to feel any sort of regret towards them. He shakes his head, one curt movement that nudges their noses once again, and tells Peter, “It’s fine. I would have said yes anyway.”
Peter sinks his teeth into his lower lip again, though he isn’t biting back a grin this time, rather just gnawing lightly in a way that appears almost anxious, though the usual glint of distress that Harley can usually see in Peter’s gaze when he’s battling anxiety is no where to be seen. It looks like Peter wants to protest, but after a moment, he lets his lower lip go—Harley watches, shamelessly enraptured by the way he can see the difference in the redness caused by their kiss and the red indents left behind from Peter’s teeth—and then Peter says, “You are, too.”
Feeling kind of dumb in the aftermath of Peter’s divine and demanding mouth, Harley takes a moment to reply, having to painstakingly drag his gaze away from Peter’s lips in order to meet his gaze and asks, words slow and brain struggling to catch up, “I’m what?”
“My favorite person,” Peter murmurs, looking bashful, as if the admission is embarrassing to make, as if he thinks that Harley may judge him for it despite being the first to say the same thing about Peter only a couple minutes ago. “It’s like you said, right? I have—I mean, there’s May, and Tony, and all of our friends, and—and, yeah, I love them, and they’re definitely family, but you’re different. You’re—You’re Harley, you know? You’re…”
Harley blinks at him, rapid and holding his breath as Peter searches for the right word.
“When I think about anything,” Peter slowly says, like he’s plucking the words out of the air one at a time, like he’s holding each and every syllable to an impossibly high standard, applying carefully and intentionally selected meaning to anything and everything he says. “When I think about just, like—life, you know? The future, or tomorrow, or whatever, I always think about you. If I’ll get to see you. If I should get extra food for dinner because I know you like the restaurant I’m ordering from. No matter what it is or why I’m thinking about it, you’re always there. In every thought. Every moment. Always.”
“Pete,” Harley says—but it comes out in a whisper, a waver in his voice, wanting to say so much but fearing that he’ll somehow, in some way, say the wrong thing and shatter this moment. It feels obvious, where this conversation is leading, but still he fears that any interruption will steer the whole thing off course and prevent it from ever happening again.
He’s grateful when Peter keeps talking, even though every word makes Harley feel more and more overwhelmed, more and more choked up with emotion. “I’m kind of stupid,” Peter tells Harley, lips quirking up at the ends in a small and amused smile that only grows fond when Harley huffs out a laugh. “I can be oblivious. Kinda slow to pick up on stuff, you know? I mean, of course you know, you’ve teased me for it for years, but I picked up on this pretty fast.”
“This?” Harley questions—unsure, exactly, what Peter means.
“You,” Peter clarifies. “How I feel about you. Or how much I feel about you, I guess. I mean, Ned and MJ started making fun of me after only a few weeks because I wouldn’t shut up about you. Usually, before that, it took me forever to realize that I had a crush, but it was—it was pretty much instant with you. And it threw me off, I think, how fast it happened, but it was just the first time that you were different. That we were different. That we were… special.”
It feels kind of idiotic after everything that’s just gone down for Harley to fixate so instantly and intensely on one single word, but still, his brain latches onto it and he murmurs a soft, “Crush?” Then, because the one-word responses are starting to make him feel like he sounds just as idiotic as he feels, he clears his throat and asks, “You had a crush? Like, on… on me?”
Peter gives him a look—something exasperated and fond and a bit unsure. “Have,” he says.
“Have,” Harley repeats. “You have…”
“A crush,” Peter tells him. “On you.”
Harley blinks at him. He’s thought about something like this happening since accepting his feelings back when he was seventeen. He’s thought about romantic confessions. He’s thought about casually throwing it out in conversation and seeing what happens. He’s thought about first dates and every single cheesy romcom kissing-in-the-rain type of moment that they could ever possibly share. He’s thought about being too young to be in love and he’s thought about the fact that, despite their youth, he’s absolutely in love anyway. Every possibility has played out in his head since moving to New York. Still, despite imagining thousands upon thousands of ways that this could happen, he finds himself speechless in the face of it.
Various responses run through his mind—a simple reciprocation of feelings, a cry of joy, a particularly pitiful request to kiss Peter again and again—but none of that is what he says.
Instead, Harley tells Peter, “I am embarrassingly in love with you.”
Which, to be fair, is a reciprocation of feelings—but in love and crush are not the same, and immediately, Harley finds himself terrified that he’s already destroyed whatever this is, whatever it could be—or what it could have been, had he not opened his mouth.
But then Peter grins, so wide and toothy that it looks borderline painful, and he says, “I mean, I was gonna ease into that one, but yeah. That works, too.”
Relief washes over Harley so suddenly that he melts with it—every muscle in his body going lax, other than his grasp on Peter’s hip, which tightens with the need to have Peter close. He tips his head forward, wants to kiss Peter again but just barely resists the urge, instead pressing their foreheads together as he lets out a long, heavy breath. Then, with an honesty that he’s held back, trapped within his chest, for years, he says, “I love you.” And then, just because he can, just because he wants to, he says it again: “I love you. It’s stupid how much I love you.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Peter tells him quickly, bumps his nose gently yet so, so intentionally against Harley’s, peering at him so earnestly and endearingly that Harley is maybe choking on it, just a little bit. “But if it is,” he adds, “then it’s stupid how much I love you, too.”
Hearing those words makes Harley’s world stop. Everything goes still—his hearts stutters into silence, the wind outside no longer whistles past the motel window, even their breathing seemingly goes silent. It’s one of those things that he’s sure was being implied the entire time that Peter was speaking, but to actually have it spoken out loud, to hear it in Peter’s voice and know that it is directed at him—to know, with absolute and striking clarity, that the swirl of emotions he feels every day, every time he simply looks Peter’s way, is the very same thing that Peter feels, too—it makes this entire moment solidify, quite suddenly, into a real and tangible thing. Where before it was overwhelming and fuzzy around the edges and felt too good to be true, it now feels like something that Harley can reach out and touch—like something he can pick up and cradle gently and lovingly in the palm of his hands. It’s solid and it’s real.
Just as suddenly as the universe pauses, it moves into motion once more, and this time Harley doesn’t hold himself back, pushes forward with the urgency and the ferocity of a hurricane, pressing himself as close as he can to Peter as he slots their lips together again, because he loves Peter and Peter loves him and the happy little noise that Peter hums against his mouth is twice as addictive as the euphoria he feels every time he merely stands in Peter’s presence.
Knees between knees, bodies connected from calves to thighs to hips to stomachs to chests to shoulders to mouths and foreheads, and yet it doesn’t feel like enough. Harley thinks they could merge into one and he would still crave to be closer. Part of him wonders if he will always want more, but a majority of him knows that anything and everything that Peter is willing to give him is more than enough, so long as Peter is here. Just knowing Peter makes his life better. Being lucky enough to have anything more is a bonus that he is incredibly grateful for, that he is adamant to not take advantage of, that he will happily and eternally cherish.
Peter kisses like he’s scared of losing the chance to do so. He gives himself over selflessly and wholeheartedly, yet still asks for more with the intentional tilt of his head, the further opening of his mouth, the tentative touch of his tongue against Harley’s bottom lip, and Harley is absolutely helpless to deny Peter of anything, is more than willing, more than happy, to part his lips and give Peter exactly what he’s asking for. And Peter takes it, but not in a way that’s forceful, not in a way that leaves Harley pliant despite Harley’s absolute willingness to be precisely that—he kisses Harley deeply and greedily and still gives back, gives Harley everything he can, hands over the same vulnerability that Harley does and more.
It’s enticing and it’s incredible and it’s somehow better than every single daydream and fantasy that Harley has allowed himself to have. He gives what he takes, and he takes what he gives, and he absolutely and obsessively devours any and all of the content little noises that rumble out of Peter’s chest. He’s kissed people before—boyishly innocent pecks as a kid, hidden away secrets in small town Tennessee with the only other boy who was questioning his sexuality as a teen, a few messy make outs with guys who seemed nice enough at the time during the few college parties that he’s been dragged along to as a college student—but this, just like every other thing in his life that Peter has been involved with, is different. It’s Peter.
It’s everything.
Time ticks by, though Harley can’t for the life of him determine how much, each minute blending together in a haze of Peter—of Peter’s mouth, of Peter’s hands, of Peter’s soft little sounds and the heat of their proximity and the comfort of his touch—but he lurches back in shock when bright light shines behind his eyelids. Although the last thing he wants is to part from Peter, that’s still what happens, both of them blinking their eyes open in shock, only to have to squint through the light of the motel room—the lamps, which have suddenly turned on.
Harley lifts his head once his eyes have adjusted, looking around the room in bewilderment.
“Huh,” Peter says, looking around, too. His voice is gravelly and holds a rasp that usually isn’t there. His hands haven’t moved from Harley’s face or neck. To be fair, Harley’s haven’t moved from Peter’s hip or chest, either. “Power’s back on.”
The heater kicks to life, an audible little whine as the fan starts to circulate the air into the room. Harley shivers, the chill of the room registering in his head for the first time since Peter wrapped the two of them up in their cocoon of blankets. Although the lamps are just as dim and shitty as they had been before the power went out, they still provide a crisp quality that the candlelight didn’t have, and when Harley looks back at Peter, he wonders if shining a light on the moment they’re sharing may alter what it just was.
It’s not that he thinks Peter is lying to him, but he’s worried that the picture he’s painting in his head isn’t going to match the reality of what may follow. His worries are once again disproven almost immediately as Peter blinks back at him, offers him a lopsided, dopey kind of grin, and then leans in to press a quick peck of a kiss to Harley’s waiting lips. When he leans back, it’s with an air of reluctance that Harley can feel, palpable and heavy in his chest, but still Peter withdraws completely—pushes the blankets down and off of himself, a visible shiver wracking his body as the cold air greets him, and Harley watches curiously as Peter clambers off the bed and patters around the room. He’s not sure what to expect, but when Peter reaches the desk, he flicks off the lamp, and then he disappears into the bathroom.
Harley’s hands clench onto the sheets of the bed, feeling empty and cold without having Peter to hold onto, but he stays quiet as the bathroom light, which had also turned on upon the power returning, goes dark and Peter reemerges. The only remaining light is coming from the lamp on the nightstand, the incredibly dim outdoor lamp that’s further dimmed by the continuously falling snow, and the candles still flickering with dancing flames scattered around the room.
Peter grabs one of the bags of food off of the nightstand and then settles back on the bed again, though he doesn’t tuck himself under the blankets and lay back down—instead, he pushes his legs under the blankets and leans back against the headboard. Digging through the bag, he pulls out one of the remaining packages of peanut butter crackers and looks at Harley, holding it up with a slight tilt to his head. With a tone that’s dripping sugary sweet and a small little smile that matches, Peter asks, “Share with me?”
Only a few hours ago, when Peter had requested this same exact thing, Harley was reeling with worry about the blizzard, with uncertainty about them sharing a bed, with a general lurking anxiety constantly shadowing his thoughts—and now he’s told Peter that he loves him, and Peter has said it back. There’s still the rest of the snowstorm that they have to wait out, and there’s still further conversation for them to have (Harley won’t sit here and assume that what they’ve said so far equals putting an actual label on anything, and he definitely won’t assume that labeling anything is what Peter wants, but that’s something he’ll bring up later, when their confessions aren’t so raw and electric as they hang in the air), but right now, there’s this.
There’s Peter, with an adoration shining in his eyes that Harley now knows matches his own, looking down at Harley with peanut butter crackers held out in silent offering, his mouth red and definitely at risk of bruising, hair mussed up and sticking out with the static electricity left behind from his head resting against the pillows. Harley peers up at him in disbelief, in awe, in absolute wonder of how a few short hours has turned his universe upside down and then righted it again—and then he pushes himself up, curls his knees up towards his chest with the blankets falling down to rest at his hips, and he accepts his half of the peanut butter crackers.
It’s similar to earlier, the two of them snacking on the crackers in a peaceful and comfortable quiet, only Peter scoots over to press himself against Harley’s side, tucks his head against Harley’s shoulder and lets out a wistful little sigh. Harley doesn’t freeze or fumble for a way to react, instead rests his cheek on the crown of Peter’s head and lets his eyes flutter shut.
The heater hums, the fan whines, the wind whistles and the snow still falls.
Harley allows the moment to settle over him like another blanket and finds himself hoping that it never ends.
”i never knew it would feel like this
but now that i do, i just want you to kiss me again”