Chapter Text
Peter finally does Stone's homework. He gets out a ratty notebook and a pen and starts with the negatives—as is his way—Morgan being first on the list. His fear that she's not the same. The stomach-clenching thought that he stole a child from existence.
F.E.A.S.T. is the second, but he hesitates after including it. May has a realtor now and they're looking at locations in various neighborhoods throughout Manhattan. He has a feeling New York won't be lacking F.E.A.S.T. for much longer. He puts an asterisk next to it.
He struggles after that.
Surely, there are other people, other kids like Morgan, that he erased that he doesn't know about. It feels like a repeat though. He adds an asterisk next to Morgan.
He writes down Gamora, even though she was dead before he ever knew about her and his decision changed nothing regarding her murder. He still regrets that he couldn't save her.
He writes huge, unknown consequences for altering the time stream. He doesn’t know what those are—or if they exist—but that doesn’t mean it isn't worth worrying about.
After several minutes of indecision, he puts Harley on the list. It's purely a selfish addition. Even though Harley knows some things now, he doesn't remember. It's a lonely feeling. Peter can tell Harley—he can let Harley see and feel everything he, Peter, saw and felt—but it's not the same as Harley having his own memories. His own perception of events, and of Peter.
Begrudgingly, Peter moves on to the positives.
Harley and his family are first on the list. Harley never has to know how it feels to lose his family like that. Abbie gets to grow up and try her hand at changing the world for the better. Mama Keener gets to live and watch it all and run her diner. The Keeners—whole, intact, alive. Check.
The Starks are next. Tony lived. Pepper gets to keep her love and father of their child—even if that child isn't the same one as before. Morgan—whichever Morgan—gets to have a father for more than a few short years. Check.
Then the Avengers. They aren't shattered and scattered. They have all of Tony's resources at their disposal, and facing down Thanos and winning brought them even closer as a team under one uniting goal—to protect Earth. Check.
After that, he struggles—not because he can't think of anything, but because the changes for the better are so all-encompassing; it's difficult to distill them into things he can list.
Blip families, he writes. Not torn apart by five years. Not rendered incomplete by death. Not mutated and changed by those who blipped versus who stayed behind. Irreplaceable family heirlooms weren't lost while the blipped were gone. Homes and jobs and everything that makes up a life—undisturbed.
Civilization, he writes—for lack of a better way to capture it. No sudden and immense housing crisis or food shortage or unemployment or any of the million other nightmares caused by the blip and then by the blip being undone. Everyone was affected, whether or not they lost someone. Everything changed twice, only five years apart. It had an effect.
Peter doesn't bother to keep going after that. The point, he feels, has been made.
He sits back from his desk and stares at it. Not even a full page, but looking at it all laid out, he breathes easier. He still doesn't know if his decision to rewrite history can be considered "right," but it's a choice he can stand having made.
He calls Stone, and they answer as though it hasn't been ten months since they last spoke. He shares what he gleaned from his homework, and they say they're glad it helped. Then Peter tells them what happened with Strange and Harley.
When Peter hangs up two hours later, he feels better. Time, Stone said. Give Harley time. And Peter is to give himself time, too. They both need space to process, and processing takes time. Be gracious, Stone said, but don’t avoid him forever.
~*~
At the end of the second week, Harley calls while Peter is halfway through a bowl of cereal.
With his spoon frozen in midair, leaking milk onto the table, Peter watches his phone buzz until it goes to voicemail. He waits. He waits a full minute, but he doesn't get a voicemail notification.
Don’t avoid him forever.
With a shaky hand, he puts the spoon back in the bowl and picks up his phone. He opens his and Harley's chat history and sits for another minute while everything he could say rotates through his head. Finally, he decides on simple and straightforward.
Harley's response is immediate.
Sent | 11:53 AM
im not ready to talk yet
Harley
Me neither just answer the phone
His phone buzzes again in his hand. Peter's heart races. Is something wrong? Why would Harley call if he doesn't want to talk? It must be an emergency. Peter answers.
"What's wrong?"
A relieved breath is the only response for several seconds. Then, "Peter?"
"Yes?"
Harley sniffs. "What are you doing?"
"I'm…eating cereal?"
"What kind?"
"Honeycombs."
"Are they good?"
"They're… I mean, yeah. They're a little big for my mouth, so they're not my favorite, but the flavor is good. What's going on?" Harley did not call to talk about cereal.
"Nothing. I don't know. I got myself all panicked. Got scared you were going to do something stupid."
Peter breathes deeply in and out, then forces himself to relax the death grip on his phone. Harley's okay. His family is okay. He was just worried about Peter for some reason.
"Why would I do something stupid?"
"Everyone says you've been really quiet and you haven't been going out as Spider-Man. I just… I over-thought it, and I needed to hear your voice. Sorry."
"I'm fine, Harley. I just…need some time."
"Okay. Okay, good. Me too."
They stay on the line together, just breathing, and Peter's heart rate slows to something bordering calm.
"Are you eating your cereal?" Harley asks.
"You want me to eat on the phone?"
"You can."
"What are you doing?"
"Just sitting. I'm in my room."
Peter closes his eyes and sifts through all the new memories in his head. "I don't know what your room looks like," he says after a moment.
"Oh." There's a thoughtful pause. "Eat your cereal and stay on the line. I need a couple minutes."
"Uh, okay."
Peter grabs his spoon, but waits, listening. He can hear Harley shifting around. A creak of springs. Something brushes against the phone's speaker. After a handful of seconds, Peter sets down the phone, so the speaker is away from his mouth but he can still hear. He spoons up a mouthful of Honeycombs.
He eats and listens to the faint sounds that the phone picks up. At one point he hears a faint, feminine voice say something. It sounds like a question.
Harley responds, "I'm showing Peter the house." And then, "It's not a video, Ma." And then, "Well then you shouldn't be in your jammies this close to noon." And then, "Sorry, Mama. I'll delete it."
Peter is smiling as he dumps his milk down the sink. He feels sort of like crying, but this time from relief. Maybe happiness? Like, things might be okay. Not now, but maybe soon.
He wipes up his milk mess on the table and then sits in the couch's corner with his knees against his chest as he waits.
Through the phone, a door closes.
"Peter?"
"I'm here."
"Okay, I'm almost done."
Springs creak. Something brushes against the speaker. Tapping against Peter's ear.
"Okay," Harley says.
Peter pulls the phone from his ear and watches the screen, waiting.
The first three pictures ping through together.
"I got— Oh." Five more pictures come through. Then a flurry that all pop in at once, too many to count. "How many did you send?"
"Twenty-seven, I think."
"Harley."
"Yes?"
Peter's heart is beating curiously hard as he taps a picture. He knows it's Harley's room without having to ask. It's cluttered and messy and lived-in—nothing neatened in anticipation of sharing it with Peter. There are pictures stuck haphazardly on the walls and an effort to put up string lights that ended with one end fixed in the corner above the bed but about halfway through they collapse in a heap on a baseball cap sitting on the dresser.
"I thought you and Abbie shared a room and she took it over when you left."
"She did, but Mama'd been clearing out the room in the attic and me comin' home meant it needed finished. Abbie called dibs."
Peter pokes through a few others and sees he's been given a photo to cover every angle of Harley's bedroom, and then a tour of what looks like the entire house—bathroom and laundry included.
"Thank you," Peter says. "You didn't have to do all this."
"I know. I want you to have something too. It's not much but… You know."
Peter flips to a new picture, and his heart leaps. There's a person in this one. A woman with Harley's hair and wide mouth and squashy nose. She's sitting in an armchair with one barefoot on the seat and the other hanging to the floor. Her toenails are painted pink. There's a book in her lap and reading glasses in her hand as though she just pulled them off. Her mouth is open as if she's asking a question. And she's wearing pajamas patterned with sprigs of lavender.
"I thought you were supposed to delete this one?"
"Oh, of my mom? You heard that?"
"I heard you."
"I liked it too much to delete it. That's my mom. Like… That's her."
"She's pretty."
"Try telling her that. How come you sound so distant? You didn't earlier. Quiet, I mean. The volume."
"Oh, sorry. I guess I could put you on speaker. I just don't need it."
Harley snorts. "Yeah, I know. It's crazy."
And with a start, Peter remembers that Harley knows exactly what he means. Harley may not have been in his body for long, but he got a crash course in nearly all of Peter's peculiarities.
"You don't have to though," Harley adds. "I can hear you fine."
"Okay."
It becomes moot as they lapse into silence. Peter looks through the pictures and scans them for every little detail, lingering on some for multiple minutes before moving to the next.
"What are you doing?" he eventually asks. He's almost out of pictures.
"Nothing," Harley says. "Just…sitting. Listening to you."
"But I'm not saying anything."
"Yeah. It's still nice."
"Oh. Okay."
Again, silence.
Then Harley says, "I know I said I'm not ready to talk, but uh, the weirdest part of all this has been every time I catch my reflection my heart jumps. It's like I have a crush on myself." He chuckles, but it sounds forced.
Peter's fingers freeze as his cheeks burn. "That's humiliating."
"Really? It shouldn't be. My ego is through the roof."
"I'm so happy for you and your ego."
"If it makes you feel better, Abbie would say the weirdest part is I hug her like thirty times a day now. I think Mama likes it though. She was never happy about my graduate-early-and-move-to-New-York plan."
Peter stares at his phone for what feels like a small eternity but what must be only a handful of seconds. Then he brings it to his ear, and his voice is rough with emotion as he demands, "What do you mean? Why are you— How much did he give you?"
"What do you mean?"
His Honeycombs churn in his stomach. "The memories. I only got the soul stone, so I thought—" His skin is tight with horror. "How much did Strange give you?"
There's a pause, and Peter can hear Harley breathe.
"All of it, I think," he finally says. "It's hard to… It was all out of order—just a jumble of memories with no context or… But I think I've got most of it straightened out now. It starts that day—the day we lost—and it goes through… I think all the way to prom, but it's messy. It's extra confusing when I have my own memories too."
Peter closes his eyes and holds his hand over his mouth. He breathes harshly through his nose.
"Don't hang up. Put the phone down and walk away if you have to, but please—"
Peter puts the phone down on the couch and stands. He needs to go, to move, to run, but his stomach is twisting and threatening an upheaval. He shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes and sucks in a breath through his nose.
"I'm sorry," he says to the room. "You were never supposed to know. I'm so sorry."
Harley's voice is small and comes from far away, but Peter has no trouble picking it up. "Don't be. I'm okay. I promise I'm okay."
Peter sniffs hard. "You shouldn't have to know. I didn't want you to have to— It's supposed to be better. Everything is supposed to be better." A dry sob bursts from his lips.
"It is," Harley insists. "Everything is better, Pete. Please tell me you see that."
In through his nose, out through his mouth. Repeat five times. He recalls his homework with Stone and the lengthy conversation that stemmed from it.
"You saved me," Harley says emphatically. "You saved the world."
In through his nose, out through his mouth. Repeat seven times.
"You left New York," Peter says slowly, "to be with them. Not to…to get away from me."
"Of course. Pete, I… The you and me part of this whole thing does not bother me. It's… I'm going to say something kind of cringe and I need you to stick with me, okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay. I was… I was already on that path. This—the memories, seeing me as you see me—it's like a sneak preview of everything I want. Being loved by you is the easiest thing in the world. Peter loves Harley, and I'm Harley. I get to be Harley. It's huge. That's huge. That's not a problem."
Peter lowers his hands. That's from their conversation in the med bay. He didn't think Harley would remember any of hat. He takes a step toward his phone. "How much do you remember? You were really out of it that night. I was scared there'd be permanent damage."
"I'm okay, I swear. After Tony got the story from May, he went off the handle at Strange and made him do a whole brain scan and 24/7 monitoring to make sure. There was an unusual amount of activity, even when I was sleeping, but it slacked off after the first few days, and they gave me clearance to go home."
"How much do you remember?"
"Of what? I already said—"
"Of that night. After Strange gave you the memories, how much do you remember?"
"All of it," Harley says.
Doubtfully, Peter says, "You could hardly speak. You didn't know who you were."
"I remember," Harley insists. "I was… I couldn't stop watching you. I…I wasn't sure who you were. All the memories— There were so many I sort of lost myself in them, but they were your perspective. I never saw you in them because I was you, but I recognized you from them—your mannerisms, your voice, all the little nuances—and I recognized you as the Peter I already knew. At first, I couldn't reconcile the two into one person who also wasn't me. I wasn't brain dead. I just… I had too much going on to add communication to the mix, and taking in new information was almost impossible until I sorted out the base facts."
"That sounds horrible."
"It wasn't that bad."
"It sounds terrifying."
"It wasn't. I had you. Even before I knew who you were, I knew you would take care of me. Thank you, by the way. For taking care of me."
"I wasn't— I couldn't leave you like that."
"You could have woken up Tony and let him deal with it."
"No, Harley, I couldn't have."
There's a drawn-out, thoughtful pause. Then Harley says, "I guess I know that."
"You know me better than I know you now."
Harley doesn’t disagree. "Is that…uncomfortable for you?"
Peter sits on the floor and rests his chin on the cushion holding his phone. "I don't know yet. Maybe a little, but I don't think it'll be bad."
"Will it be weird that I know how you feel about stuff?"
"No, that'll be a relief. Finally, I don't have to say it."
Harley laughs—snorting and inelegant—and the sound brings a smile to Peter's face.
"You might still have to say it sometimes. I can make a go of being the Peter interpreter, but I'm not a mind reader."
"Boo," Peter complains, "up your game." He's rewarded with another laugh.
"Can we stay on the phone for today? We don't have to talk. I just… I have so much of you in my head, but you're not here and it's like this glaring hole and I…" Harley trails off.
"Yeah," Peter says. "Yeah, I'll stay on the phone."
Harley breathes out like he was holding his breath. "Okay, cool. And after today, can I text you? I don't know how much space you need."
The less, the better, Peter thinks. He's already forgotten why he was avoiding Harley. He wants all of this and more.
"Are you going to spam me?"
"Absolutely," Harley replies without missing a beat. "And when I send you thirty texts, I want thirty responses. No skimping. And I'm going to send you pictures, and I want pictures back."
"Should we use Snapchat then?"
"No, fuck Snapchat. I want them for keeps."
"You can save them to your—"
"I said fuck, Snapchat, Peter."
He smiles. "Well, okay, if you insist."
No response. Peter's smile wanes the longer the silence stretches.
"Harley?"
"Sorry! Uh… I just, uh… So there's this— I haven't told you, but… I don't know how to explain it, but you feel things a lot stronger than I do? I don't know, maybe it's something to do with the brain dump, but I'm a pretty mellow guy. I'd say I operate at maybe a four most days, but you're at a ten. All the time. Just like, way more emotion than I'm used to processing. Which isn't bad! I'm not— I'm not saying it's anything other than what it is. It is what it is, you know? It's actually kind of fascinating, but anyway. There's this bleed-over. Sometimes. Little bursts of Peter-sized emotions. Like a firework. Intense, but over quickly. Are you following?"
"I— Yeah. I'm sorry th—"
"No, don't apologize. Like I said, it is what it is, and I'm… I'm not upset about it. It's kind of cool."
"Okay."
"You're okay?"
"I'm okay."
"Good. So all that to say, I just got blasted with like, insane levels of jealousy over you saying you'd fuck Snapchat."
Despite everything—the embarrassment of learning he's overly emotional compared to Harley, of the situation as a whole—Peter laughs.
"Huge green-eyed monster over you saying you'd metaphorically dick down an app."
Peter laughs harder. It's hysteria, he thinks, an emotional release after so long being stressed and quiet, but he can't stop it. He laughs until there are tears leaking from his eyes.
"Peter," Harley says as he's hiccuping himself down from the high.
"Yes, Harley?"
"I miss you. There's a lot of stuff in my head that I need to untangle and figure out what's mine and what's yours before I come back, but that one's mine. I'm sure of it."
"You're coming back?"
"Of course I am. Did you think you could weasel out of me owing you a million dollars that easily? I'm— This is a sabbatical, not a permanent move. I'll be back."
"Don't rush." Peter wipes his eyes on the back of his arm and rests his cheek on the couch. "Not because of me. I want… I would have given anything for you to have this back. To have them back. Both in the stone and after. Take care of yourself and soak them in. Give Abbie a thirty-oneth hug."
"Thirty-oneth? And they say the boy is going to MIT."
Peter winces. "Well, the boy was thinking about staying local and going to ESU instead."
"Oof. Well, the boy should tell the man sooner rather than later."
"I'm going to," Peter says without an ounce of conviction.
"He's been bragging you up left, right, and center. This is going to devastate him."
"I know. I feel bad."
"He whined and moaned for months when I told him I wasn't going. He still does when the mood strikes."
"That's why I've been putting it off. That and because I wasn't sure what I'd do instead until recently."
"You didn't change your mind because of this, did you?" Harley asks, then answers his own question before Peter can get a word in. "No, that's right; you've been thinking it for months. Or was that before? No, because you told Ned and MJ—"
"Both," Peter says before Harley can twist around again. "Since the blip, really. I just…"
"You've been depressed," Harley says matter-of-factly. "The things you love haven't been making you happy or fulfilled."
Peter blinks several times. Not even Stone has laid it out that succinctly. "Well… I was going to say school hasn't been a priority."
"Oh, sorry. I'll shut up for a while. Sorry."
"It's okay," Peter says, but he can hear the stiffness in his voice, and Harley must too because he stays quiet.
He's not mad or even upset, not really. But it's strange talking to someone who has been in his head and can see past all of his bullshit. Suddenly, he's out of places to hide.
As the hours pass, they chat off and on, but never as deeply as they did for the first. Peter learns Abbie is prone to barging into Harley's room without warning to gab his ear off for half an hour, and then disappear just as abruptly. He discovers Mrs. Keener has a lovely singing voice when she walks past Harley's room and a line of song carries through the door before fading as she moves through the house. And he learns a million little things about their family and their town when they all sit down together for dinner and the ramble of conversation carries over the sound of clinking silverware.
During dinner, he also learns that Mrs. Keener and Abbie don't know what happened. He supposes he should have wondered whether Harley would tell them the truth or lie, but he didn't. Harley told them he got caught up in an accident at prom. Some guy knocked him into the river, and he broke his wrist and injured his head, so he came home to rest and heal. Almost all of which is technically true.
Afterward, Harley must go back to his room because a door closes and suddenly it's quiet again.
"Harley?"
There's a shuffle of fabric and then Harley says, "Yeah?"
"May and I are going to have dinner soon."
"Oh? What's eatin'?"
"Thai."
"I love Thai. Wait. No, I don't. That's you, I think."
"You don't like Thai?"
"Umm…" Harley sounds embarrassed. "I've never had it, actually."
Peter smiles. "So you're saying I love Thai so much it just jumped out ahead of your own preference?"
"It's like that sometimes, especially with things you feel strongly about."
May is in the bathroom fixing up her hair and makeup, so Peter sinks down into the couch and asks, "Like what?"
"Well…sometimes there are other memories, older ones, that come attached to a memory. Like there's one where you and May were at a thrift store and you found your uncle's old university sweater. And then there's this—this hint of a memory where you spilled something and it stained the hem. Just a vague echo. But, umm, I saw him. Your uncle. In a memory within a memory. That's kinda crazy, right?"
Peter can't speak through the knot in his throat. He blinks and is surprised to find his eyes are dry. The thought that Harley can see through time to someone dead long before he and Peter ever met… All because of how strongly Peter feels about Uncle Ben.
"You okay, Pete?" Harley asks gently.
Peter swallows thickly. "Uhh—" His voice trembles. "What are— What are the others? The ones that jump out, I mean."
"Every time I hear my name, I feel how much you loved me. It's like a physical weight. Full of meaning and emotion. All tied up in my name."
"It's not past tense, Harley."
There's a pause. "Oh. I mean, I knew that. I know that."
"I thought I wasn't gonna have to say this stuff anymore," Peter jokes weakly. May is going to pop out of the bathroom any moment, and he needs to not be a weepy mess about Harley and Uncle Ben when she does.
"I definitely said the opposite of that." Harley pauses, then asks, "After dinner, will you take me swinging?"
"What? You mean you want to patrol with me?"
"Yeah. You know, over the phone. You can call me through the suit and— You don't have to talk to me."
"I like talking to you, Harley."
"Yeah? That's good. It's crazy how much I miss you."
"I can imagine."
"You're not going to say it back?"
"What, that I miss you? Harley, I've missed you for longer than I've remembered you. If I ever don't miss you, I'll probably die of shock. Just take care of yourself, okay? And…" He tries to hold back the selfish thing that comes to his lips, but, like always, he caves to it. "And come back."
"What if you come here?" Harley blurts.
"What?"
"I mean, I was thinking— Okay, full disclosure, it's an idea Tony floated to me, and I thought it was stupid at first because you—" His voice drops to a whisper, "You're Spider-Man." At normal volume, he continues, "So I didn't think— I mean, I figured you wouldn't want to leave New York, but Tony says you haven't been going out much and when you do, you just swing, and he thought maybe it would be good for you to get away for a while. Like a vacation. Somewhere new. Somewhere you can make new memories. And I thought— Like I said, at first I thought it was stupid, but now… I don't know. What do you think?"
Biting his lip, Peter stays rooted to the couch, staring at his reflection in the TV. He looks small and tired. He wants to refuse on principle. Because it's something he's never done before. Because the last time he left New York, he was carried off into space. And the time before that, he fought Captain America at a German airport. He's never just…gone for the sake of going.
But there's a pull in his chest. A line of string connecting him to a small town in Tennessee and a family he, once upon a time, wanted desperately to know.
"Can I think about it?"
"You want to?"
"I… I mean— I just need to think."
"Okay."
"Do you mind if I hang up while May and I are at dinner? We're going out, so…"
There's a long pause. Finally, Harley asks, "Do you promise to call me back?"
"Yes."
"Do you swear?"
"I swear."
"I'm gonna be pissed if you ghost me because I got you all freaked out. My feelings will be hurt. I'll be mad."
"I promise I will call you back as soon as we get home."
"And then you'll stay on the phone with me all night?"
Peter exhales a laugh. "Harley, do you remember—"
"Yes."
"Shut up, I'm asking a question."
"Okay, okay."
"Do you remember after I got back from Titan the second time, what two promises I made to myself? One was to put May, Ned, and MJ above everything else. Do you know the other one?"
"To stay away from me."
"And how well did I keep that promise?"
"Oh, you fucked it up completely."
"Exactly. You don't have to worry about me shutting you out. I've never…" Memories from within the soul stone flash across his mind—Harley persistently tagging along despite Peter's insistence on being left alone. "I've never been any good at it."
"So is that a no to staying on the phone tonight?"
"No, it's… It's whatever you want; tell me and I'll do it."
"I want you to call."
"Then I'll call."
"And I want you to stay on the line until I fall asleep."
"Then I will."
"Okay. Okay, good."
Peter hangs up a few minutes later, and it's in that moment he realizes he's going to Rose Hill. Harley wants him there, so he's going. It's as simple as that.