#and i cancelled stuff for today bc tuesdays are more than packed really

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

bitches be like "wish i was doing something of worth for society/my local community" while doing three time-intensive community jobs unpaid and walking around as a living leftist/queer symbol and occasionally leaving behind leftist stickers

it's me i'm bitches

[winterrs-child]

What's Going On?

(honestly the title is my mood 24/7. i'll probably end up changing it bc it's terrible and i had to come up with it at a dudebro party. ((where i am rn)) so yeah!! enjoy this really short chapter... i ended up scrapping all of the stuff i had written before and started anew! :D)

Peter knew he shouldn't have been there. If May found out, she'd have a fit. And an angry aunt was not something he wanted to deal with right then. But today was Tuesday, which meant he was supposed to stay with Tony until dark, although his mentor had canceled last minute due to a meeting in Arizona and Peter was left to entertain himself until May got back from work. So, he had picked up a stray spray paint can and was working on the mural he'd started a week ago. It wasn't anything really detailed, but it was almost finished and he was actually proud of his art. He had spent nights thinking and rethinking his idea, designing every detail and once he was finally satisfied, he began to slip away to the park every night. If May noticed anything she didn't mention it, and Peter was relieved. He didn't enjoy the idea of lying to his aunt. He already had to bend the truth for Spiderman, and he didn't know if he could handle something else.

Speaking of angry May, it was getting dark. He'd have to pack up and head home soon or she would ask questions that he really didn't want to answer. He muttered something under his breath — probably an Italian curse — and began to shove the cans in his bag.

-

Harley wouldn't be able to stop himself. He knew that much from his constant parkour and he felt strangely calm as he plummeted to the ground. He could hear his friends laughing at him and he bit his tongue to keep from swearing at them. He would have probably done the same thing, after all.

Mom wouldn't care if he came home with a few broken bones. She would pay the hospital fines and go back to drinking with her buddies, completely unconcerned by the well-being of her son. Well, you couldn't expect a single mom to do all of the work for her son. At least, that's what she had said before leaving him for yet another day with her drunk friends.

He had been so occupied with his thoughts that Harley hadn't noticed the boy directly under him, and they both crashed to the ground. He didn't think he had broken anything, but the boy he had landed on might be a different story.

"You alright?" He asked, scrambling to his feet and reaching down a hand. The least he could do was help.

"Y-yeah." The kid groaned, accepting Harley's help and standing up. "Don't think you broke anything, just now. Hopefully." He grinned and brushed his hair back from his forehead, shifting the bag that was still firmly on his shoulder. "I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker."

"Harley." He smiled awkwardly and they stood there for a second before he came to his senses. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I literally just squashed you like a spider and I didn't even apologize! Please don't, like, sue me or anything. If you want to bring someone to court, find my dad." He cringed as he realized what he had said and there was another short pause as he struggled to find something to say.

"It's fine," Peter eventually said. "Don't worry about it. It was a worthy cause, you know? If I hadn't been there to cushion your fall you would've… I dunno… splatted?"

Harley let out a weird snort and bit back a laugh. "Yeah. Splatted. Nice." He paused, glancing up at the building where his friends had been less than two minutes ago. Either they were coming down to get him or they had left altogether, and honestly, Harley suspected the latter. "Uh, Peter. I have to get going—" Lie. "—my mom will get really mad if I'm out past sundown—" Lie. "—and I'll probably get grounded." Lie. "Sorry about almost killing you, anyway."

Peter grinned. "I wasn't even close to dying, man. You're lighter than a feather!" He paused before going on, "why were you falling from a building in the first place?"

"I wouldn't have been!" Harley felt his face go red — though he didn't know why — and he stuttered over his next few words. “I was doing parkour, and — well, I don’t usually fall, but — but one of my friends pushed me before I was ready and then I was — I was falling and… yeah.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’m pretty good at keeping my balance, generally. Don’t know how I let an idiot like him get the best of me."

Peter chuckled and clapped Harley on the shoulder, startling the other boy. "Don't worry about it. Besides, you said you had to go? I do, too. My aunt will ground me forever if I'm out later than my curfew. See you around?"

It wasn't likely that they'd meet again; they both knew it. But that didn't stop Harley from firmly shaking Peter's hand and beaming, "yeah! 'Course!" The boys smiled at each other one last time and separated ways, Peter hitching his bag further up on his shoulder and Harley collecting his skateboard and water bottle from the far side of the park. Sure enough, his friends' things were gone.

They'd left him once again.

He wasn't mad, necessarily. They had done this before and it was sort of expected by this point, but still… it was annoying. He didn't like walking home alone, especially at night. It wasn't that he was necessarily afraid of the dark. He just… didn't really like the way people moved, the way they stared. Maybe he could get home before nightfall if he ran. Hopefully, his lungs could keep up with his legs.

It always helped if he had someone to call, to text, to talk to as he went home. Someone to ground him and help him feel safer. Someone that could call the cops if anything happened. Not that anything ever had — Harley had been very safe his entire life. He just… didn’t like the dark. Never had, never would

For whatever reason, his mind strayed to Peter. The boy he had landed on (but somehow hadn't broken), who had said everything was fine when it couldn't have been. Harley was easily close to two hundred pounds of muscle, and Peter was probably half that. Kid was tiny. There was no way he was as fine as he seemed… right?

-

Peter hiked his backpack up again and started home, walking with an ease he could’ve only picked up from Tony. In fact, he’d picked up a lot of habits from his mentor. Not eating, not sleeping, spending hours without looking up from his work, and the same dark humor they often found themselves using in the labs.

“You’re turning into a mini Stark,” May had said once, “he’s corrupting my baby.”

At the time, Peter had sunk further down into his chair and groaned, “May!” He’d felt his cheeks grow red and he buried his face in his arms. So desperately he wanted her to stop, to treat him like a grown-up. But then, but then, Tony Stark came into his life.

And the teasing just got worse.

Now there were two people that wanted to embarrass him, and he loved them more than anything.

Is this what it’s like to have divorced parents? He thought, then, is this what it’s like to have parents?

He’d never really thought of May as a mom. She was his aunt, his aunt May, and she had been kind to raise him. But she wasn’t his mom. She hadn’t carried him for nine months, gone through the pain of childbirth, hadn’t nursed him as a baby. Because that was something his mother did, something Elizabeth Parker had done for him.

Likewise, Tony wasn't his dad. Hell, they hadn't even known each other for more than two years! Tony was definitely not dad material, though it didn't really matter — at least, not when they were in the lab together, laughing and talking and building the most random thing they could think of. Not when he came to Peter's presentations, made sure Peter's suit was near indestructible, came to Peter's — oh god. Tony Stark was his dad. Tony was his fucking —

He shook his head. It wasn’t doing him any good to think about this, especially not right before he was supposed to call Tony. He couldn’t — he didn’t really want to slip up and call his mentor “dad,” because, at this point, he didn’t think he could stand any more embarrassment from either adult.

It seemed like hours before he slunk into the apartment, dropping his bag on the couch and unplugging his phone — thank god he hadn’t brought it with him, or it probably would have been broken, and Peter didn’t want to bother Tony about another new cell; it would be the third one that year, and he wasn’t keen on using all of Tony’s supplies.

“Hey, kid!” The words startled Peter out of his thoughts and he grinned, rolling onto his back. “How’s your day been? I’m sorry about the meeting, by the way.”

“I know, Mr. Stark. This is about the thousandth time you’ve apologized, and I get it. I went to the park, mainly. This kid almost crushed me, but it’s all good. Thanks to my super-healing, I was fine before he could even stand up.”

“Oh? How, exactly, did he almost crush you?”

Come to think of it, why was Harley parkour-ing from so high? Wasn’t it dangerous? Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. He said something about parkour but I don’t know much more than that. He was really nice, and seemed very worried about me. Didn’t really believe that I was fine.”

He could almost imagine Tony’s brow creasing as he listened. “Did you get a name? Maybe I’ll reach out to his parents. They can’t possibly know that their son is doing this. It’s not safe at all!”

“It’s fine, Mr. Stark, really. Listen, my day's been pretty boring. What's happening in Arizona?"

"You wouldn't believe it." Tony's voice sounded strained over the phone, but Peter assumed it was just static. "Honestly, Pete. I still don't believe it myself."