I Will Be There At Your Side (peter parker x harley keener)

Chapter 7: A Rose by Any Other Name Probably Wouldn't Sell as Much

When Peter discovers the project he's been working on, it wasn't on purpose. Well, sort of on purpose, like in-the-moment on purpose, but not really.

So, it goes like this:

When he hears the soft thump that sounds as Peter drops into the lab from the skylights onto the table that Harley was messing around on his phone while sitting at, he looks up in reflex at the sound.

The first thing that Harley thinks is he has freckles.

And then he realises Peter's not wearing his mask even though he's wearing his suit, which explains why he can see Peter's expression, wide-eyed and surprised as his own.

He only registers how close Peter is until he scrambles off the table and backwards, face flushed in embarrassment.

"Mornin', Peter," he mutters faintly, watching the other step a bit farther back and run a hand through his hair.

"Sorry, Harley," he laughs sheepishly, hands leaving his hair to search for pockets and coming up empty. He frowns down at them before settling on letting them go awkwardly limp. Harley resists the urge to grin at this. "Um, good morning."

Now that he's stepped back, Harley could see what's happened to his suit, and, uh, it's not great. As far as he could tell, Peter himself wasn't injured that badly or anything, which, great, we love that. His suit though, dear lord. There's rips and cuts all throughout the thing, thin lines of blood running along the breaking seems, looking like he came out of a fight with a tiger. The mask, which he now realises is in his left hand, is practically torn to shreds, and his gaze trails back to Peter's face, still washed a red from discomfort. Parts of his hair look uneven, like he had close calls with an angry pair of scissors.

"I think you need a haircut," Harley blurts out after a couple more seconds of weird silence. His grin is shit-eating in response to the unamused look Peter levels at him. He sighs so deep he half expects him to start coughing.

"Probably," he mumbles under his breath with an expression of such annoyed hopelessness his desire to laugh is renewed. He slumps down onto a stool on the other side of the table.

"What the fuck happened to your suit? Did you get in a fight with Catwoman or something?"

Peter dropped the mask on the table with a shrug. "Ah, you know. Sort of."

He snorts, picking up the mask and spreading it out. There's a long gash in the back of it, which might be where all his hair went. "Huh. You might need a new suit."

"You think?" he deadpans, crossing his arms on the table and resting his chin on his forearms.

Harley furrows his eyebrows at the mask, sticking his hand through the bottom and out the hole.

A new suit, huh?

His eyes widen and he snaps his fingers. "Oh! Suit! Gimme a second."

Peter lifts up his head curiously, watching him with a raised eyebrow. He rushes out of the room, mask still hanging off his arm.

———

Peter's managed to find a mirror and is grimacing at the reflection of his hair when Harley comes back in with his tablet in hand.

"Sorry, I forgot where I put my thing," he announces when he strides in, not sounding particularly apologetic about anything as he quickly steps up the platform and opens a set of files, sending them out to projection form.

The image of something humanoid forms out of the streaks of light he slides at it, and slowly but surely colours start to form. Black with gold stitching, made of metallic fabric with eyes that enhance sight rather than limit it. There's text in little boxes all around the suit, pointing to specific parts like the wrists, and when Peter walks up to the projection to read one of them, it feels so perfectly Harley in the way they were written, no capitalisation or properly formed sentences, just ideas jotted down as they come and go.