Forever

chapter ten

Waking up the next morning was, for lack of a better word, hell.

He could hear Harley downstairs in the lab, despite the soundproofing of each room. He could still smell alcohol from the party, but now it was a thousand times stronger. The light was blinding. The joys of super-powered sensory overloads.

"FRI, shut the blinds," he said, only just above a whisper. Tony had done his room so that he was able to completely block out the lights after his first sensory overload at the tower.

His head was killing him too. This time, he suspected it was from both his senses and how much he drank last night. Good to know that even if he couldn't get drunk, he could still get hungover.

For hours, he slept, hoping it would fade. Tony came to check on him, but after FRIDAY told him about his sensory overload, no one came the rest of the day.

Tony tried to get him to eat, but his senses stayed unbearable all day. Not that it mattered; the thought of eating anything made him want to throw up with how bad he felt.

As boring as it was doing nothing all day, it was better than trying to deal with his senses. The end of the day couldn't come soon enough.

The next day, he woke up to a handful of texts. There were a couple from May checking on him after his sensory overload, which he responded to easily enough. Same with Ned and MJ, checking on him too.

Then, there was a couple from Nico. Peter hadn't even checked his phone yesterday, so he'd completely forgotten that they were supposed to hang out. Peter texted him that he'd been really sick all day, but Nico didn't seem to buy it. He was picking Peter up after school apparently.

Throughout his history class, Peter could see Harley glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. He kept clicking his pen too. For almost forty-five minutes.

"Hey, what was up with the whole sensory thing yesterday?" Harley finally asked, clicking his pen again.

Peter put his hand over Harley's and the pen. "Harley, I swear I'll go crazy if you don't stop."

"Sorry." He offered an apologetic smile that made Peter smile back.

They were all working on their projects in history and it was fairly loud, so no one would overhear. Still, Peter leaned closer. Maybe a little too suddenly, if the way Harley's heartbeat stuttered was anything to go by.

"You know how my senses are, like, super dialed up 'cause of my powers?" Harley nodded, his blonde hair falling over his eyes. "Well sometimes they get way worse and everything sucks. Like yesterday I could hear you in the lab from my room and it's soundproofed."

"You could hear me?" A blush started to creep up his neck and Peter grinned mischievously.

"Yup. For the record, I like Carrie Underwood too and you're not a half-bad singer," Peter laughed.

Harley groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "Whatever," he said before changing the subject, a move which Peter recognized but chose to go along with anyway. "So what caused it yesterday then?"

"Uh... you can't tell Tony."

He scoffed. "That old man doesn't have to know anything."

"Ok, well I went to a party with Nico and it already kinda sucked for my senses cause everything was so loud and like, the smell of alcohol and stuff was overwhelming. I already had a headache by the time I got home. And then he wanted me to drink a ton—"

"He made you drink a lot?" Harley asked, mouth tilting down in a frown.

Peter stopped, mouth open for a moment, before quickly replying, "No, what, uh... what makes you think that?"