Work Text:
Peter groaned, laying his head on his desk. He had been hard at work trying to fix this one bug for two days now, and he still had no luck.
"What happened?" Harley, his coworker, asked, leaning back in his office chair to look around the cubicle wall. Harley was a newer addition to the office, but he seemed to fit in better than Peter, despite the fact that the latter had been working at this company for a year longer than the blond had.
"Bug," Peter grumbled, not even bothering to pick his head up off the desk.
"Oh..." Harley hummed, nodding sympathetically. "Can I take a look? Two eyes are better than one."
"I have two eyes," Peter replied, picking his head up with a small smirk. "You mean two sets of eyes are better than one?"
"Uh-" Harley blushed lightly, embarrassed. "Yeah. You're right. Can I look at the bug?"
"Knock yourself out," Peter offered, pushing his chair to the side so that Harley could roll his chair into the cubicle. The blond stared at the program, frowning as he tried to run it.
"It runs fine, what's the issue- oh." The program suddenly crashed, an exception blaring red on the screen. "What? How even-"
"I know," Peter interrupted. "It doesn't make sense." He grabbed the Redbull on his desk, taking a generous sip. "I've been working on this one bug for two days now. I still can't even figure out where it's coming from."
"Did you forget a semicolon?"
"It wouldn't even build if I did," Peter murmured, sighing. "But it does build, and it runs fine for about 5 seconds before suddenly crashing. It wasn't doing this before so I'm not sure where it came from."
"Okay... well, it says it's a NotFound exception… so something might be missing?"
"Oh, let's check the variable names. That file there, check the spelling!" Peter exclaimed, eyes widening as he quickly glanced over the code file. The excitement quickly faded as he realized there was no spelling error.
"So weird..."
"Tell me about it," Peter grumbled, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.
"Okay, no, we're going to find and fix this bug. Any other ideas?"
Peter and Harley spent the rest of their shifts pouring over every detail of the program, editing small things here and there in hopes of fixing the bug.
"How!? Literally how!?" Harley exclaimed, raising his arms and gesturing angrily at the computer.
"What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck." Peter shook his head, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling while repeating the phrase over and over again. "What the fuck."
"This is... so annoying," Harley huffed, eyebrows furrowed. "And it's nearly quittin’ time." He stood up quickly, rolling his chair back with the force. "Fuck this. I'm going home."
"You and me both," Peter agreed, logging off his computer and standing up as well. "You working tomorrow?"
"9 to 5, baby," Harley remarked, throwing up tired finger guns at Peter. "Unfortunately."
"Relatable. See ya."
The two went their separate ways for the night, preparing to return to the issue tomorrow.
~
The night had come and gone, and before they knew it, Peter and Harley were back in the office. Neither of them were happy about it, of course, knowing that they were destined to spend another shift frustrated and upset. When Peter arrived, Harley was waiting for him, already having rolled his chair into the brunette’s cubicle.
“Hey.”
“Hi…” Peter sighed, sitting at his desk and logging into his computer. “Ready for another day of bullshit?”
Harley laughed, a strong, clear laugh that would’ve echoed through the office if the floors were not carpeted. Once he had stopped laughing, he grinned at Peter, nodding.
“I mean, I am a programmer. I’m pretty used to bullshit by now,” Harley remarked. Peter nodded once, grunting softly. He pulled up the code, leaning back in his chair to sulk.
“Ugh.”
“Well… yeah. Fair enough, I guess. Let’s just run it again.” Harley took the mouse, starting the program. First it took about 20 seconds to build the project, and then the small window popped up. “Looks good so far…”
“Don’t jinx it,” Peter interjected, pressing his lips into a thin line. “I’m getting pretty tired of this bug.”
“You and me both,” Harley agreed. “But seriously, it seems-” The program crashed, a new exception popping up on screen. “-fine…”
“For fucks sake, what is this program on? I don’t even-” Peter paused, squinting at the monitor. “Wait. Is that a different exception?”
“Uh-” Harley glanced at the red “x” on the screen, scanning the pop-up error. “Fuck. It is.”
“Aagh!” Peter exclaimed, leaning his head back and raising his arms up. “What the fuck!”
“Wait, maybe that’s a good thing?” Harley suggested. “This one can be solved with a try-catch.” Peter sat up, watching as Harley implemented the new lines of code.
“That looks good,” he approved. “Run it.”
“Alright. Here we go…” Harley ran the program once more, both men watching the monitor carefully as it booted up and the window appeared on screen.
“Okay…” Peter murmured, nodding. “Try a test run.” Harley hummed, following the program’s directions to complete the task. “Holy shit… it ran fine!”
“No crashes!” Harley exclaimed, grinning.
“No crashes!” Peter repeated, matching Harley’s expression. “Finally! Oh, I can’t wait to work on literally anything else-”
“Fuck that, let’s celebrate! I’m clocking out early today!” Harley declared.
“We’ve only been here for-” Peter checked the time, raising his eyebrows. “4 hours…” He hesitated, debating it. With a shrug, he logged off the computer, nodding. “Alright. Yeah. Let’s celebrate.”
“Where should we go? It’s a bit early for drinks…” Harley mused. It was only 1 PM.
“I know this great restaurant down by the waterfront. They’ve got great sandwiches; it’s mainly a lunch place,” Peter explained.
“Sure, sounds good to me,” Harley agreed. “Let’s go!”
~
After a delicious lunch of specialty sandwiches, Peter and Harley found themselves walking along the waterfront pier, chatting idly about their lives and various other subjects.
“Back in college, I was pretty crazy. One time I woke up in Canada with a hangover, no idea how I had gotten there!” Harley laughed, shaking his head. He had grown up in the backwoods part of Tennessee, but ended up going to college near the northern border of the country. Knowing that made the Canada thing a little less shocking, but it was a wild story nonetheless.
“What? I think the wildest thing I did in college was…” Peter made a face, grimacing. “...eat at the cafeteria… I swear our food was the worst! It made me sick so many times, but I didn’t have many other options since my freshman year dorm didn’t have a kitchen.”
“Yikes,” Harley reacted, wrinkling his nose. “Sounds like we had very different college experiences.”
Peter nodded in agreement. “Yeah, for sure. And yet we still ended up in the same place. How about that?”
“Huh. Yeah.” Harley nodded slowly. “That’s weird to think about. Glad we did, though.” Peter swallowed thickly, glancing at Harley. The blond was watching the path in front of them, so he didn’t notice Peter’s staring.
“Yeah,” Peter rasped. He cleared his throat nervously, nodding. “Yeah. Me too…”
Harley stopped walking abruptly, startling Peter.
“I’m really glad we met,” he said earnestly. “I really like working with you.”
“Me too,” Peter replied, nearly breathless. Harley was right there, so close he could feel the other man’s body heat.
Harley gently gathered Peter’s hands in his own, cradling them.
“Perhaps this is a little too forward, but…” Harley took a deep breath, watching Peter closely. “I enjoy your company. Maybe more than I should… but I think you should know.” He swallowed, exhaling softly. “I’ve known for a while now… but I think I’m in love with you.”
Peter couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. His extremely hot coworker just… confessed his love?
When Peter had finally recovered enough to reply, he– naturally– chose the dumbest option possible.
“You think?”
“I-” Harley raised his eyebrows, surprise melting into a grin as he saw Peter wince and swear softly under his breath.
“Fuck… sorry…” The brunette sighed, shaking his head.
“It’s okay. I should’ve been more clear.” Harley took another deep breath. “Darlin’, I know I’m in love with you. And if you would like, I’d like to take you out on a date.”
“Yes,” Peter agreed, nodding excitedly. “Holy shit.”
Harley chuckled lightly. “Wonderful. I’m looking forward to it. Until next time…” Peter gasped as Harley got down on one knee, dropping one of Peter’s hands to cradle his other. He glanced up, mischievous blue meeting surprised brown as Harley’s lips pressed against the back of Peter’s hand, pulling away seconds later.
“See you tomorrow, darlin’,” Harley murmured, standing up with a smirk. Peter was still staring at him, mouth agape in shock. He barely had time to compose himself before Harley had left, walking away with such speed Peter wasn’t even going to attempt to catch up.
He felt starstruck by Harley; his charming mannerisms and stupid (sexy) southern accent had only tightened their hold over him. Peter felt powerless, but at the same time stronger than he’d ever been. Weak at the knees, but strong in the heart.
God, he couldn’t wait for that date.