Chapter Text
“So, Peter, any luck with tinder recently?”
Peter looked at Ned, his eyebrows pulling together confusedly as he glances at his other friends gathered around the table. Betty and Shuri looking eager for his response, whilst MJ maintained her usual neutral expression.
“Tinder? Why would I be using tinder?” Peter questioned, “I am perfectly happy with my love life, thank you”
“I know, I know, you always say ‘I’m happy dating myself’ and I’m sure that that is partly true, but I am also your best friend and I know that you also want to find ‘The One’ and be in a loving relationship like the rest of us” Ned said as he gestured to the others around the table.
“But I -,” Peter started before being interrupted again by Ned rambling.
“If you don’t think you’re getting anywhere with tinder, then there’s this guy that works in my department who I think would be a really good match! Right Betty, don’t you think Dan would be a great match for Pete? We could go for double date next weekend if you fancy it Pete -”
“Ahem!”
“Yeah, or a triple date – sorry Shuri. That new lego café is opening, we could all go and have a chill time building and talking...” Ned continued his rambling as Peter stared at him dumbfoundedly.
Surely this was a joke, right? Peter thought as he scanned his friends faces carefully looking for the faintest trace of a joke in their expressions. Finding nothing it dawned on him, they are actually being serious right now. Suddenly the lack of interest or invasive questions directed his way recently made much more sense to him.
Ned reaching for his phone and saying something about calling this unknown Dan right now was the kick-start Peter’s brain needed to finally respond to his best friend. Peter grabbed Ned’s hand slamming it and the phone back down onto the table with a bit more force than he had intended and causing a few people on nearby tables in the Stark Industries cafeteria to glance over at them.
“Ned,” Peter said, his voice low and serious, “are you telling me – are you all telling me,” Peter glanced around the table, “that none of you have really been listening to me whenever I talked about relationships -”
“Of course we listen to you! -”
“That’s not true! -”
“Why would you think that? -”
“Nope, relationships are gross and you can be whiney.”
Ned, Betty and Shuri stop their clamouring of interruptions to stare down MJ who looks utterly unfazed by the sudden shift in attention, even when it’s paired with a light slap on the arm from her girlfriend. Peter looks MJ in the eye and lets out a small sigh, “Thanks for the honesty, MJ. I think the rest of you should follow MJ’s example. It's clear that none of you have been listening – no, I am talking Ned, no interruptions.” Ned quickly closes his mouth and looks down at his hands on the table in front of him ashamedly. “I know that none of you have been listening,” Peter continues, “because if you were, you would have known that I have in fact been in a relationship for almost a year now”
“WHAT?!” The combination of three voices caused even more people to glance disapprovingly over at their table, but Peter couldn’t spare a moment to feel self-conscious as his friends started questioning him instantly.
“How could I not know this? I’m your best friend!”
“How could you not know? How could I not know, I’m a journalist?!”
“ Dude! I thought we were science bros, and you kept this from me?!”
“Technically,” Peter addressed Shuri first but glanced at the others implying that his next words were also directed at them, “I didn’t keep anything from you, I have talked about my partner a lot, you apparently just never listened”
“Do we know them?” Betty asked, excitement of finding a good scoop clear on her face. “Do they work here?"
“Yes and yes,” Peter replied, he was still annoyed that they’d apparently spent this long ignoring him whenever he talked about this, he wasn’t going to reward them with all the information straight away.
“Harley” Shuri said with a gasp and eyes wide directing a pointed look at Ned and Betty who both gasped as well. Honestly Peter was more surprised than disappointed that he couldn’t drag this guessing game out longer.
“Oh my gosh,” Ned breathed before asking in a serious tone, “Does Harley know?”
“Does Harley -? Yes, Harley definitely knows -” Peter thought they had reached the answer, but now he wasn’t sure.
“Poor Harley...” Peter heard Betty murmur, sure that without his enhanced hearing he wouldn’t have heard it at all. “Is Harley okay with you dating? He’s always lo-, I mean, I’ve always thought - , that is to say...um” she stumbled over her words before taking a deep breath and blurting, “you’ve always gotten on so well with each other, we all kinda thought you may become a thing.”
Peter looked at her, blinking slowly and taking in what she had said. Apparently, his friends were a living representation of the phrase ‘very clever but no common sense’. Peter grinned inwardly to himself as his brain rapidly started running through all the ways he could mess with his friends over this. Peter steeled himself before saying as nonchalantly as he could, “I would say that Harley is pretty okay with it considering he’s dating someone as well, which clearly you also didn’t know if your question is anything to go by,” he continued on as his friends gasped at what he’d said, “and before you ask, yes we have met each other’s partners - we do live together after all – and I don’t want to speak for Harley, but I think we’ve both managed to find ‘ The One’ like Ned said earlier.” Peter finished with a small smile tugging on the side of his mouth. His smile then started to spread as he picked up the sound a familiar heartbeat approaching the table from behind him. Before his friends could say anything and ruin his fun, Peter got up and hurried to intercept Harley before he reached their table.
“The others don’t actually know that we’re dating each other, so now we get to mess with them,” Peter said hurriedly in a hushed tone as he stood in front of Harley.
“What?” he said, a puzzled look replacing the easy smile that had been on his face. “How could they not know?” he asked.
“To be honest, I don’t know, we haven’t exactly been subtle, but apparently, they didn’t. All they know is that we are both dating people; we know the person that the other is dating and that I am dating someone that they all know and who works here. So, everything is completely true, just ambiguous.” Peter grinned up at Harley as a matching grin slowly spread across his boyfriend’s face.
“Oh, this is going to be fun” he drawled as they continued to walk to the lunch table. As they reached it, Harley was immediately bombarded with questions.
“Harley how long have you been seeing someone?”
“Who is Peter dating?”
“Who are you dating and when do we get to meet them?”
“Did you know that you have motor oil in your hair?
Ned, Betty and Shuri again turned to MJ with incredulous looks at her apparent lack of interest in their recent revelations, whilst Peter laughed at Harley who was cursing and furiously scrubbing his head with a paper napkin.
“What? He needed to know” MJ deadpanned before opening the small notebook on the table in front of her and starting to sketch the faces and expressions of her friends.
“So,” Shuri started turning back to address Harley, “Come on then oil boy, who are the two of you dating and when are we going to meet them?”
“Darlin’ Shuri, Shuri, Shuri. Do you seriously think that you are going to get those answers from me if you haven’t even managed to crack Pete yet? We all know the extent of his verbal diarrhoea, if he can keep quiet then I definitely can. And there is absolutely no way that I am going to let this opportunity to mess with the lot of you pass me by,” Harley taunted.
“Oh c’mon!” Ned exclaimed, “we need to know! You guys are our friends, we want to check these people out, make sure they’re good enough for you!”
“Good friends who didn’t even realise either of us had a partner for the better part of a year. Gee, with friends like that, who needs enemies, eh Pete?” Harley said as he nudged Peter with his elbow, earning a chuckle from the boy.
“We can’t be blamed for not knowing something that neither of you told us about!” Betty whined.
“Ah, but it’s not as if we hid it from you guys.” Harley explained, “I remember very clearly telling you all that I couldn’t go to the cinema last weekend because I was going out with my boyfriend -”
“Oooh, so it’s a guy!” Shuri squealed, “that eliminates quite a few possibilities. Do they work here?” Her stare intent on Harley.
“Damn...” Harley cursed under his breath. “That’s it, I’m not talking to you anymore. I’m just going to eat my lunch in peace,” he said before shovelling a large bite of lasagne into his mouth.
“Fine,” Shuri said shifting her gaze towards Peter, “I’ll ask Peter then. As you rightly pointed out, he is a much easier egg to crack.”
Peter cleared his throat nervously under the intense stare. Yes, he had kept his cool so far and was eager to have the opportunity to mess with his friends, but there was an undeniable truth to the words. If he didn’t get out of there soon and regroup with himself, then he would undoubtedly crack. Peter looked down at his bare wrist, “Oh my, look at the time! I’d best be getting back to work. Lovely to see you all as always; let’s not do this again soon,” he said, standing from the table and hurrying towards the elevators, ignoring the shouts from his friends behind him.
~~~~~
Peter leaned against the wall of the empty elevator, watching the doors close when he suddenly heard a voice call, “Hold the door FRIDAY!”
Groaning to himself, he stood up as MJ slipped into the elevator with him. She gave him a quick, rare half-smile as they both stood in silence facing the closed doors. Peter was trying to think of what to say to dispel the awkward silence he was feeling, when she leant slightly towards him and said softly, “So, Harley’s the one, is he?”.
Peter’s head whipped round to see MJ still facing the doors before she slowly turned her head to meet his eyes, that half-smile back on her face. “I’m not going to tell the others,” she continued, “it is way too fun watching them in crisis to tell them outright, so I am more than happy to help the two of you keep misleading them. But, I couldn’t not tell you that I’m happy the two of you have gotten your shit together enough to stop pining over each other. Seriously, it was exhausting watching you both.”
Peter chuckled, “Thanks MJ. Glad to see one of my friends proving they have the brains to go with their certified title of genius. I was worried I was going to have to tell Pep or Tony to fire the lot of you!”
“I would say that they definitely all deserve for you to still do that, but then I would have to spend my lunches with only you and Harley for company and I don’t think my stomach could cope with that much disgusting PDA,” MJ faked a gag, “it’s been bad enough dealing with the filtered version for the past year.”
“Wait,” Peter said, “you’ve known the whole time?”
“I’ve known since the Christmas party,” MJ explained, “but I’ve suspected since you came back from that mission upstate.”
Peter blushed at the implications of both of these events and was impressed with just how observant MJ was of the people around her. The Christmas party had seen himself and Harley both slightly overindulging in the free drinks and being bold enough to escape to Peter’s old room at the tower for an hour or so. They both thought they had been successfully sneaky over the whole thing, but perhaps the alcohol had distorted parts of their memory.
The mission upstate, however, had been the catalyst that started their relationship. Harley was still in training with the Iron suits to take over from Tony one day, but when a threat had been located and the rest of the Avengers team were all scattered across the globe completing their own missions, that had only left Peter and Harley. Peter had insisted on going alone, leaving Harley to be his Guy in the Chair, but Harley was stubborn and had donned his Iron Lad suit anyway. They had almost completed the mission successfully when an electromagnet aimed at Harley caused the suit’s power to cut out and for the nano technology to start to peel away. Peter had watched, horrified, as Harley plummeted to the ground trying to think of a way to help. Peter managed to build a web to catch Harley, but not before he’d crashed his way through a lot of tree branches and had earned himself a couple broken ribs and a sprained wrist. Once safely on the ground, the two had argued about stupidity, safety and responsibility, each getting more and more angry before Peter had blurted out with tears in his eyes, “You could have died and I would never have gotten over it because I love you!”
As far as love confessions go, it certainly wasn’t the worst. What was infinitely better was Harley’s little gasp followed by his small voice saying, “I couldn’t let you try and do this alone because I love you too”. The two had then shared a shy and tender kiss. A voice in the back of Peter’s mind had been singing about how perfect the moment was whilst a second, smaller voice was saying how glad it was that none of the rest of the team had been there to witness their little confession. After their first kiss, Peter had made quick work webbing up the few remaining enemies and called FRIDAY to send a jet to pick them up. Peter remembered the moment fondly, despite the fear he had felt at the time. Peter also remembered that himself and Harley had acted like limpets with each other for the following few weeks, so it was hardly surprising that MJ had picked up on the shift in their relationship. Really, thinking about it, Peter was even more surprised that their other friends hadn’t picked up on it.
“Wow,” Peter breathed, “you’ve known the whole time and you never said anything?”
MJ shrugged, “I noticed that you spoke about each other more, but you never actually openly announced you were dating each other and, honestly if I hadn’t worked it out myself, most of the time you do just sound like you’re talking about your flatmate or close friend. I just assumed you were keeping it quiet and I wanted to respect that.”
“Oh,” Peter said, “I’ve just always thought we were super obvious. We never really considered that we actually had to tell you. I kiss Harley all the time! Like when we went to that theme park a few weeks ago, or literally every movie night we ever have!”
“Whilst the kissing is a valid point, we are always in places where something else has the others’ attention. They’re too preoccupied to notice the two of you making-out all the time – which is gross by the way, please tone it down for my innocent eyes -”
“We’re not that bad!”
“- yes, you are. As for everything else, I have to be honest with you Pete, you don’t act that differently. You’ve always been in love with each other, whether you knew it or not, so you act exactly the same – like utterly love-struck idiots. It’s not really that hard to believe that the others didn’t see it.”
“Huh,” Peter huffed, “well, in that case maybe it won’t be as hard to trick them as I thought then. If, according to you, I don’t have to change how I act with Harley - maybe just take that advice about fewer kisses now that they’ll no doubt be scrutinising everything we do... Let’s see how long it takes them to put the pieces together.”
The ding of the elevator sounded and the two stepped out onto the new floor.
“Well,” MJ said holding out her hand for Peter to shake, “congrats again on the boyfriend. I look forward to supporting you in hiding their identity from our friends.” With a nod of her head, she turned and headed down the corridor towards the business and marketing offices, leaving Peter to walk in the opposite direction towards the private labs, a small smile etched onto his face.