Chapter Text
Moments after Harry left his apartment, Peter hopped onto his computer, a burning question taking residence in the foreground of his mind. He opened Google and typed ‘How to tell when someone is flirting with you’. He closed the tab before he could even look at the results. The idea that Harry liked him, ludicrous. What was he thinking. He definitely hadn’t been flirting…. had he? No, no. There was just no way. He wasn’t his type, Peter though. He wasn’t anyone’s type. He was way too awkward and nerdy to be. Harry was cool. Rich. Fashionable. There was no way he’d ever be caught with a guy who wore Star Wars pajamas and Chemistry pun shirts, a guy like Peter.
He sighed. His mind was in a whirlwind. Harry had taken the lead with their project, but Peter made sure not to slack off and space out too much during the hour and a half they worked together. It was clear Harry was a good writer the moment he started describing what they should do for the short story. They were no doubt going to ace the project, even if they barely put in any effort. But Peter really wanted to spend more time with Harry, he couldn’t deny himself that desire. He wasn’t sure if it because of his crush or because of his ever present urge to help people, in this case to help Harry with his cocaine issue.
He always wanted to help people, something MJ had once offhand said was his fatal flaw. It was the major reason, along with some advice from his uncle shortly before his death, that he had become Spider-Man; he wanted more than anything to make other people’s lives a better place, even if it was through as small as an action as stopping someone from stealing a person's bike.
Helping Harry, however, was going to be complicated than stopping a bike thief. He had to figure out some way to help the other boy without revealing that he knew about the addiction in the first place. And he had no clue how to do it by himself.
He had never been great at talking to people, so trying to subtly drop hints that he was there for Harry was a plan for inevitable disaster in his mind. He would never be able to do that. In any other circumstances, he would ask either Ned or MJ for advice, but it wasn’t his place to reveal Harry’s secret to him. Doing that would make him feel way too guilty. He was at such a miss on what to do.
Peter slumped in his chair, idly kicking his desk with his legs. The white glow of the computer screen beckoned his attention. Maybe a little downtime with some video games could clear his head and help him think of a game plan.
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Writing had always been there for Harry. An outlet where he could create a whole world, somewhere he could let the continuous stream of observations and criticisms pool into and saturate. Sometimes he had epiphanies, moments of an almost ethereal clarity, where he would grab for his laptop or a notebook in a flurry of anxious movements and write and write and write until that moment would leave him in the same suddenness it came to him, like sand slipping from his clenched fist. Most of the writings became short stories, ones so intimate he kept them in nondescript files where only his critical eyes could gaze on the words. They were filled with all of his deep shit, like feelings about neglectful fathers and dead mothers.
He reread them sometimes, the stories and entries he had written. The older ones, from before he had started partying back in the Upper East Side, were alright, but lacked anything exciting.
Of the newer ones, most were unfinished and bordered on unreadable. Lately, he got the inspiration to write when high, all jittery and energetic and uncharacteristically hopeful that he’d finally write something that he would enjoy and not hate. But those projects usually turned into ramblings about anything and everything. Henry the Fifth. Fictional accounts of what Captain America was up to during his current exile. Overly passionate words claiming that, yes, Achilles and Patroclus were undoubtedly in love.
He never could focus enough when he was high to actually write something that wasn’t an unintelligible stream of consciousness. When he was sober, he could barely find motivation to do anything, let alone actually put in effort into work.
So, the project he had with Peter Parker made him nervous. He was filled with self doubt, a bit more than usual. He was afraid he was going to bomb the writing assignment, and get both himself and Peter terrible grades. He really couldn’t afford terrible grades; Norman had been very clear what would happen if he repeated the mistakes of the previous semester at his old school. He didn’t want that punishment to be any closer to the realm of possibility than it was already at.
He wasn’t entirely sure if he was stressing himself out or if it was indeed the circumstances that was causing the pressure to not fail this assignment. Perhaps it was a mix of both. Regardless, he refused to screw this up, more for Peter’s sake than his own. The faith the other boy had obviously put in him for this project, although misplaced in Harry’s own opinion, was sweet. He was starting to like Peter Parker.
The thing was, he wasn’t sure if these budding feelings were reciprocated; although Peter was very shy, blushing or laughing nervously when Harry spoke to him, he genuinely wasn’t sure if Peter had a crush on him or if he was genuinely that socially awkward. Harry was usually pretty adept at reading people, but Peter was so goddamn fidgety and slightly manic all of the time it made him hard to solidly analyze.
Harry honestly doubted he would act on the emerging crush he might have on Parker; he was a disaster just waiting to destroy the other boy’s life. His life was a trainwreck, he didn’t need to cause someone else’s to become one too. Besides, what would a normal kid like Peter see in an arrogant, self-absorbed asshole like himself? He would probably bore the kid to death in a day from complaining about his problems, or scare him away with his cocaine dependency. It would be better to just keep his feelings to himself until they blew over.