Through All The Days
word count: 1.4k, longest piece of shit so far in this event
warning(s): peter has depression and anxiety (bc im projecting onto him), hints to dysphoria (bc im projecting onto him), cursing, sensory overload, hurt/comfort, i think thats it, let me know if there's more
~~~~~
Peter has bad days.
Some of them are angry bad days, where he just wants to scream at the world and everything in it and he does, but the people close enough to hear are the people he loves, and those lead to guilty bad days afterwards, where he doesn't know what to do or say, doesn't understand when they tell him they love him anyway.
Some of them are muted bad days, where everything is too little and his favorite colors bleed into each other and his eyes can't see them except that they can, and that's what makes them so horrible.
Some of them are misery bad days, where he swears he's in a music video for a sad song and rain is hitting the windows no matter what the weather is outside, where he swears he can feel his heart sinking and shriveling up, empty of something, but he didn't know what.
And then there are days like today. The itchy bad days, where everything seems to rub him the wrong way and he feels like exploding but he has just enough awareness to know that isn't what his therapist wants, isn't what he wants, and so he spends the whole day scratching at things not there and pushing waves of anger back into himself.
So it's no surprise that he's standing in one of the Stark Tower 'living rooms,' if you could call them that, fuming so hard he thinks he can feel smoke coming out of his ears and feeling his heart turn angrily in his chest. He'd carefully avoided the rest of the Avengers that day, but it was exhausting, and a break was inevitable, so he isn't surprised when he feels himself boil over.
One of Harley's cowboy hats was sitting on the coffee table and he knows in the back of his mind that usually they would make him smile and he would either leave it or stick it back in the closer with the other two, but today isn't usual, and he stares at it for far too long until the anger becomes too much for the rational part of him to suppress.
"Harley!" Peter hears a rustling to his left and doesn't bother to turn around.
"What'd'ya want?" Harley asks, and the anger surges up again.
"Get your stupid fucking hat off the table." He can feel him glance at his back in confusion, then hears the slight creak of the doorframe he leans on.
"Make me, darlin'," he drawls, and that does him in, his sweet, musical Southern accent Peter should love so dearly and he drops to the sofa next to him, choking out a sob. Harley's by his side quick as he can blink and that makes him sob harder.
He doesn't ask any questions, just softly rubs his back until his sobbing subsides and Peter feels himself tear in half when he scoots away from Harley's hand, his skin losing the distraction of the tears and feeling itchy again. His binder feels too tight for his rapidly expanding and contracting chest, and then too loose for his chest to feel flat and a few more tears escape before he gains enough control to speak.
"You okay?" Harley asks. "Havin' a day?" Peter nods. Harley stays silent for a minute, waiting for an answer he knows is coming. The thought that he's used to it, used to Peter acting like an ass, punches him in the gut, and he takes longer than normal – normal? When did this become normal? – to give him a reply.
"It's an itchy day, I think. Maybe a low-level misery day." He tells him, because obviously they've talked about this before and he knows what it all means.
"Okay. Wanna bath?" Peter starts crying again and nods.
"Not..." He sniffles. "Not alone, though, Lee. Please."
"'Course," Harley says, and Peter feels better and worse at the same time. He fights off feelings of inadequacy and thoughts of Harley deserving better than him and lets his boyfriend lead him through the halls to the bathroom.
"Mmkay, lovely. Go ahead and strip, do you want rose or honey?" Tears spring to Peter's eyes again as he wrestles with his binder.
"Honey, please." The honey soap wasn't scented as heavily, and Peter didn't think he could handle more brain input than he needed to. Harley had turned on the water at some point, so Peter tosses the socks he used to pack in the laundry and steps into the tub. It was just slightly too warm, perfect for today. There was barely an inch of water in the tub but he sits down anyway, his back to the spray of water, letting it press harshly against the tight muscles there and waiting for the skin to go numb.
"'M gonna take a quick shower to get this grime off me and then join you?" Peter nods. He lets his eyes track Harley across the room into the shower as the water slowly rises over his ankles and brushes the underside of his knees. He hears the shower turn on and feels a wave of overwhelmingness, a wave of too much wash over him, so he ducks his head under the water, leaning so far forward that his back protests.
He stays under for as long as he can, which, thanks to his enhancements from the spider bite, is quite a while, before coming back up for air, gasping and coughing, welcoming the burn in his lungs that distracted him from everything else. Then he leans back against the flow of water for just a second before turning it off. His eyes slide shut, basking in the silence, the lack of input.
After what seems like either forever or a second, he feels Harley gently push at his back, and he automatically slides forward a bit before even opening his eyes. "I didn't even hear you." His words blur together slightly.
"You were on sleep's porch, I don't blame you." Harley murmurs. The noise didn't grate at Peter the way it seemed to before, and something deep inside him relaxes. Harley shifts slightly after sitting down, and Peter leans back against his bare chest, basking in the warmth and reveling once again at the way his skin doesn't rebel at the contact, his body going a bit more pliant. Harley laughs lightly, more of a movement than a noise.
"I can't massage your back if you lean on me." Peter just hums in reply, so Harley pulls himself up a bit and reaches his hands down to Peter's thighs, squeezing and rubbing gently. After a few minutes, Peter leans further into Harley.
"You don't have to do that anymore. Just hold me." Harley sighs into Peter's ear and wraps his arms around his waist, careful not to touch his chest. They sit like that for a while, just feeling content in the silence, in each other, and Peter thinks that maybe this is what feeling safe is like. What feeling loved is like.
'*'*'*'
"Pete." A quiet, soft voice. "Pete, lovely, wake up." Peter makes a small noise and kicks out his leg, which promptly hits something hard and painful.
"Ow," he mutters, then opens his eyes. He must have fallen asleep in the bathtub.
"You were sleeping. You wanna go to bed?" Peter nods and slowly stands up, his eyes already wanting to close. He reaches up for a towel and steps out of the tub, making room for Harley to get up, and half-heartedly wipes all the water off himself, barely trying. Harley looks up and laughs before taking the towel from him and rubbing it on Peter's head swiftly, drying it off. By the time he's done, Peter looks like a disgruntled dog coming in from the streets. He shakes his hair out like one, too, and snatches one of Harley's shirts from the closet, pulling it on while stumbling back to the bedroom.
"Um, Petey?" Peter turns back around with vague disinterest. "You forgot to put underwear on," he says, and holds up boxers. Peter holds his hand out and Harley tosses them to him, and he hops out of the room, kicking his legs into them.
By the time Harley climbs into bed with him, he had already collapsed onto his stomach, his face shoved into the pillow, body splayed haphazardly over the sheets. Harley laughs and plants a sloppy kiss on Peter's shoulder before pulling the blanket from under him and lying next to him, pulling the blanket over their bodies. Peter rolls to his side and looks at Harley through half-lidded eyes.
"Love you, Lee." He mumbles.
"I love you back, Petey."
