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#and they're like oh god how can two people be so equally whipped for each other y'all are fucki g ridiculous
imthursdaysyme · 2 months
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Arthur and Gwen at a sports game
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parkneroses · 5 years
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Parkner #04 please! MJ, Ned, Peter and Harley are #squad, but Peter and Harley have a love/hate relationship (even tho it's obvious to everyone else they're idiots in love). I've blown through every AO3 fic and need more content :/ Thanks!
04 - “I’d punch you, but that’d ruin your perfect face.”word count: 2034 | if you enjoy this, buy me a coffee?
“Hey Penis, nice sweater! What’s it made of, your mom’s chest hair?- Oh, wait, never mind,” said Flash, pushing in front of Peter in the cafeteria queue. Flash’s little group of cronies forced their way in behind their leader and snickered, glaring at Peter whenever they could.
Harley smacked his tray down on the table Ned and MJ were sitting at. Ned jumped about a foot in the air and stared at Harley in shock. MJ didn’t even flinch.
“This motherfucker is really tryna make me hate Mean Girls.”
MJ looked up from her book. It wasn’t something that happened often, so Harley decided he would sit down. To, like, show her some respect. It wasn’t weird.
“Peter’s been leaving decathlon early for the last two weeks. He only does that so he doesn’t miss the train when he’s too sad to swing home. Some good news might be pretty good for him right now. And it might be good for you too. You can thank me later.” MJ said, breaking the illusion of disinterest that usually surrounded her. Her voice was always a little softer when she spoke about Peter.
Peter had that kind of effect on people. They would take one look at him, five foot something always clad in baggy cargo pants and a sweater that didn’t fit him, and suddenly every paternal instinct they didn’t know they had would come out to shine. Harley wondered if he bought his clothes like that on purpose. Maybe it felt nice being surrounded by so much soft material? Being six feet tall, fairly muscular and with very broad shoulders, Harley tended to be a larger size anyway, so he’d never really tried it. Sometimes he liked to imagine Peter in his clothes. Maybe in a hoodie, with the large hood pulled so far over his head it hung in front of his pretty brown eyes, or in one of his many flannels, complaining about how country Harley was while breathing in his scent. It was a pretty sight- or at least, Harley imagined it to be. He didn’t exactly know if he’d ever get the chance to see it in real life.
He was pulled out of his reverie when Ned spoke.
“What do you mean? What good news do you have Harley? Ned furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
“Nothin’. None. Don’t got any news, I dunno what she’s talkin’ about.” Harley muttered. He hated that MJ could read him so easily. Nothing was ever going to happen between Peter and him, so he tried not to get his hopes up. Harley wasn’t even quite sure if Peter even liked him. He didn’t even mean, like, in that way. It was just that-
Peter was so damn pretty. And Harley really liked looking at him. And in New York, that was okay, but Harley wasn’t from New York, he was from bumfuck Tennessee, where looking at pretty boys got you hung from your itchy school tie on a clothes hook in the boys’ locker room. It was kind of traumatising, and so Harley had learned to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself, which resulted in him ignoring Peter, or being extra cold towards him for no reason, which then resulted in arguments, and fights, and- yeah, there was no way Peter would ever like him. Harley hated being the reason Peter stopped smiling, but he had this bad habit where every time he caught himself getting lost in Peter’s eyes, or staring at his pretty lips, he would force himself to stop by saying something snarky to Peter that he one hundred percent did not mean. Then he would have to watch the corners of Peter’s lips turn down in confusion, and then his eyes would narrow and he would say something equally snarky back, and then they would be bickering again and Harley could feel his chances slipping away through his fingers.
*
It wasn’t so bad in the lab. At least, Harley didn’t think it was. Peter seemed pretty reluctant to fight in front of Tony. They would work quietly on opposite sides of the room, or when Tony was in the lab with them they would use him as a buffer for their awkwardness. If Tony noticed anything weird about how they acted around him, he didn’t mention it. Though Harley wasn’t entirely sure Tony ever paid attention to things outside of what he was fiddling with at any given time. It would explain a lot.
Today, they were alone in the lab. Tony had been forced out by Pepper for some business proposal, so he had reluctantly decided to just leave the two teenagers to their own devices.
“Try not to blow anything up!” Tony had yelled before leaving the lab, to which Peter had rolled his eyes, and Harley had replied “No promises!”
Peter was tinkering with his web-shooters, forehead creased and eyes squinting in concentration. He was so beautiful when he worked- and so clever, formulas and diagnostics dancing off his tongue, stars in his eyes as if the little pieces of metal in front of him yielded a whole world of opportunities. It was breathtaking to watch, yet also heartbreaking because Harley knew as soon as Peter caught him staring, the ethereal smile would slip off his face and he would bundle himself up as though he was trying to hide from the big bad world around him.
Harley gave up. There was no way in hell Peter would ever like him back, and he cared about the little shit too much to continue pretending to hate him. Harley would just have to suck it up, and try and be friends with Peter without falling infinitely more for him. He would start simple - get him coffee. That was a thing friends did for each other, right?
Peter didn’t notice when he slipped out of the lab.
*
Harley placed the grande Starbucks cup down on the workbench in front of Peter, who was still tinkering with the same part of his web shooter- albeit now with much less enthusiasm, bags under his eyes now much more prominent as he stared with blank eyes at the mechanical puzzle he couldn’t seem to figure out.
“What’s this?” He asked.
Harley shrugged and took a swig of his own black coffee. Peter eyed the cup apprehensively, before reaching out and taking a tentative sip. He looked up at Harley in confusion.
“How’d you know my order?”
“Dunno. Guess I just remembered it.”
That was a lie. He had a vague idea it was something with lots of caramel and sugar and whipped cream, but in hopeless fear of getting it wrong he had texted both Happy and Tony to ask. Tony hadn’t replied- not because he was in a meeting, he had read the message, but most likely because he was an asshole who liked to watch the world burn. Or at least, Harley’s world.
“Oh, uh, thanks,” Peter said, a pretty peach blush spreading across his cheeks. Harley felt himself melt at the sight. He took a step forward and put his cup down on the bench. Peter didn’t look up, continuing to fiddle with his project, so Harley grabbed the wheely chair from behind his own workbench and pulled it up to sit across from Peter. He faced the chair away from the bench and sat down on it backwards, with his chest resting against the padded back support, reaching his arms around to grab his coffee again.
“What’cha doin’?” Harley asked.
Peter wheeled his chair to the hologram table beside his workbench and gestured for Harley to come with him. He pulled up a projection of his web-shooters, and began taking pieces away and zooming in to the pressure sensor on the release mechanism.
“This fucking thing,” Peter said and Harley chucked.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Peter looked up at him incredulously.
“It… doesn’t work?”
“Oh. Can I take a look?” Harley asked. He wasn’t really as smart as Peter when it came to chemistry, but he was a mechanic, an engineer. He could do wires and metal. Plus, a fresh pair of eyes were always helpful. Peter nodded and the pair walked back to where the little demon device was sitting on Peter’s desk.
Harley picked it up gently, turning it over in his hands and examining it. He gently moved Peter out of the way and sat in the chair that was in front of the magnifying glass. He searched the table for something small enough to prod at the device- his fingers weren’t as dainty as Peter's, and they were callused from years of working with heavy metals and power tools. He found a scrap piece of copper wire and used it to pick up the flap of metal covering the pressure sensor. He held it under the magnifying glass, and-
“Peter, you’re gonna kill me.”
Peter choked on his coffee. “What’d you do? Did you break it? I swear to god Keener if you broke my web shooter you are replacing it yourself because I am so sick of-”
Harley cut him off.
“No, I didn’t break it. I found the problem,” he said. Peter’s eyes went comically wide, and Harley budged himself half off the chair so Peter could sit next to him. He was acutely aware of how close they were once Peter sat down- hips pressed together, Peter’s head only reaching his shoulder, but he forced himself to ignore it.
“See here?” Harley said as he lifted up the flap again. “The wire that actually connects to the pressure sensor is coming up at a weird angle so it’s attached when you look at it like this,” Harley held the device up for Peter to see, “but every time you actually hit the sensor the wire detaches and it stops working.”
Peter’s shoulders dropped and he grabbed the shooter back from Harley and stared at it, before turning to Harley with fire in his eyes.
“I have been working on this fucking thing for six fucking hours and I couldn’t figure it out and then you come here, look at it for TWO MINUTES, and you fucking figured it out. I can’t fucking believe this. I’d punch you, but that’d ruin your perfect face.” Peter ranted, although he didn’t sound angry so much as he was annoyed.
That shocked Harley, but he tried to play it cool. “You say fuck a lot when you’re mad. It’s kinda hot. You think my face is perfect?” he said.
Peter blushed.
“Wh- I didn’t say that” He lied. His cheeks turned a shade Harley could only describe as fire-engine red as he realised what Harley had said. “You think I’m hot?” He asked.
Harley smiled. “Yes, I do. And yes you did, you said you don’t wanna punch me ‘cause it’d ruin my perfect face. So which one you gonna do?”
Peter stared at him in confusion.
“The punch or the face?”
Peter still looked confused.
Harley sighed. “I’m phrasing that badly. I was tryna be smooth but it ain’t workin’ right now so I’m just gonna say it. Parker, I want you to kiss me until I can’t breathe. But if you don’t wanna do that, you’re welcome ‘ta punch me instead.”
Harley didn’t think Peter would punch him, but he braced himself anyway. Squinting his eyes shut and scrunching up his face, he waited for a hit he knew wouldn’t come. He wondered if the other boy could hear his heart racing. He could feel Peter’s breath on his face from how close they were sitting, and barely heard the faint whisper of his name before a pair of soft lips were pressing up against his, and Peter’s hands reached up to grab where Harley’s undercut was growing out. Harley relaxed and kissed him back desperately, sliding his hands up under Peter’s giant sweater to hold him properly.
This was not how he’d expected trying to be friends with Peter to go, but he couldn’t exactly complain. He supposed he would have to thank MJ after all.
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