|Towards the Endgame|

•Chapter 145• Black as Night

Y/n moved back and forth through the shed, around the table. Harley stood across from her with the tweezers in his hands. There were wires, lights, and screwdrivers everywhere. Y/n was holding a pink one. The one her father had bought for her sometime ago and apparently still had. She had no idea why, but she wanted to use it. Harley looked up at her every now and again – Y/n avoided his gaze, but not on purpose – trying to start a conversation. Eventually, Harley ran out of patience and broke the silence. "Why are you keeping this from him? It's not like he's never going to find out. He'll see it eventually, won't he?" He pointed at their newest project on the table. She would have kept it to herself if she hadn't had to take a break every twenty minutes from exhaustion. And she found it quite annoying that people kept asking her what she was doing and why. She sighed. "It's a safety precaution, Lee. I might not even use it." If she planned on using it, she would add a lot more to it. It just has to work, and then it's good. No fancy gadgets or anything. "I still think he should see this. This is awesome." Harley had a big grin on his face whenever Y/n brought up working on the project in the shed. Like giving a child his favorite toy on Christmas morning. "Are you scared that if he sees you like this, he'll put a ring on it?" Harley joked. He could already see it happening: Peter dropping to his knees to ask her to marry him, and Y/n politely trying to tell him no because of how young they are. Y/n finally looked at him, but not with a friendly gaze like he imagined. "Nobody's getting married. And Peter's not seeing this. He'll tie me down if he does."

Nobody aside from Harley would like her idea. "Aren't you scared?" Harley asked her. She kept smiling and being breezy about all of this. Shouldn't she be as worried as Peter was? Or at least a little less optimistic. Not that there was anything wrong with her being so happy. Y/n frowned. "For what?" She asked him. Harley took three steps to his left and attached one of the wires to the board. It was almost as if he was back home working in his mother's shed like he had always done. "About this Mysterio guy." He locked their gazes again, even if Y/n tried to look away a few times. "I saw the way he looked at you like he wanted to eat you." He saw the villain looking at her like some kind of predator, and it freaked him out a little bit. Y/n chuckled and put her pink screwdriver away. "Beck's a lot of things, but he's not a cannibal. Imagine if he had been... Oh, then we would have been screwed." She laughed. She laughed it all off as if nothing had happened. Peter was upset; even Harley could have seen that. He went back to his aunt's to see her and reluctantly left Y/n with Harley. Natasha was fine but weak. Y/n checked if her best friend had become a hologram to spy on them, but she wasn't. Tony tried to make contact with his daughter every time he saw her, but Y/n waved him off. Too consumed by her work and her own plans. Why was she laughing? An actual laugh. "It's not funny, Y/n," Harley said to her in a serious tone. Y/n sighed, but her eyes remained very open and inviting, almost positive. "What do you want me to do then, Lee? Sit around and sigh and whine and complain about how screwed we are?" She picked up her screwdriver again. "Someone has to do the hard work."

A few strands from her bun fell out and brushed against her face and neck. Harley also had a few drops of sweat on his head, pulling down his curls and making them stick to his forehead. He briefly looked at the clock and saw that they had already been here for three hours. Three! He turned back to Y/n instead. "Parker's unable to perform?" Harley replied with a little smirk at his own dirty joke. "Aw, that's why you asked me. I'm honored." He placed his hand over his heart. "Lee, shut up and hand me that blue wire." She told him a little sternly. He clicked his tongue and handed her the wire she asked for. "Think about how you'd feel if the people who tried to kill you since you were fifteen show up again, one believed to be dead, and trying to kill you yet again," Y/n said whilst shaking her head, making Harley feel like some kind of dumb goose. He wouldn't let Y/n talk to or about him like that. He's not stupid. "Because of you and your dad." He pointed it out to her. Y/n frowned but remained focused on twisting the screw. "Are you putting this on me?" Harley shrugged and started moving across from her again. "I'm saying, it's refreshing to see you solve his problems that were mostly caused by you or your dad." That was very black and white, wasn't it? "And you're hiding all of this from him." Harley pointed at the monstrosity lying on the table in twenty different pieces. "I wanted to include him, but Pete's... He's not okay. I'm worried about him." Spending some time with May could calm his mind a little bit. His aunt promised that she wouldn't let him swing out of his window for any kind of Spider-Man business; it would stress him out too much – Stress that he couldn't handle very well right now. May said she would keep an eye on him.