another time, a different place (I have loved you before)
Peter returns from what he's told was five years trapped inside the Soul Stone, immediately watches his mentor die to save the universe, and then has to learn where he fits in a world that kept spinning without him. Luckily, he wasn't the only one trapped in the stone and Harley Keener seems just as out of step as he is, if not more.
I don't know how you are so familiar to me—or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before—in another time, a different place—some other existence.
—Lang Leav, Soul Mates
Post an excerpt of something you're working on! Any creative project, whether it be writing, art, sculpture, fiber arts, whatever
@myarmsaretoolong thank you for tagging me in this, however, this was evil. I have SO MUCH I want to share but it's all MASSIVE spoilers. I just need to get chapter 7 posted already 😭 maybe chapter 8 too 😭 but first I need to figure out how much of the 44k that is Part 2 is chapter 8 😭😭😭
This is the safest but still somewhat interesting snippet I have. Enjoy. Oh and it's from another time, a different place (I have loved you before) but I'm not saying when 🙂
At the end of the week, Harley picks them up from school and announces, "Good news, everyone. I'm broke again!"
"Hooray!" Ned says as he climbs in the backseat.
"Do you feel better?" MJ asks.
"At home in my skin," Harley confirms.
Peter pulls the passenger door shut. "Does this mean we have to buy our own food now?"
"Yes."
They all boo but none of them mean it and Harley smiles the whole way to the city's cheapest hot dog stand.
okay so i made this post on wednesday and then got so caught up in my wip I forgot to post it lol oops. But guess what I did!
Tagging: @wildswrites @writer-or-whatever @writinglittlebeasts @shipskicksandgiggles @ploncc what are you guys working on 👀
Written for @drarrymicrofic's song prompt, Dangerous.
WC: 1121, rating: T.
***
He’s in Apulia when they catch up with him, renting a dusty trullo from an ancient Italian woman a half mile down the track. The timing couldn’t be worse, with the neighbours’ sideways looks finally giving way to tentative nods; even the occasional chuckle at the posh accent cutting through his rough, colloquial Italian. His delicate skin is no longer blistered scarlet, beginning to darken at last under the dry sun, and his hair curls around his nape, long enough these days to tie out of his eyes when he has to bend forward to feed the chickens. And then there’s this place, surrounded by olive trees – nowhere near the furthest he’s run, although it feels as though it might be – his little hut on the edge of the world.
He hasn’t used magic in ten months now. He should be untraceable.
And yet.
He wakes, and he’s sweating, and nightmarish shapes are dancing across the stones; old foes brought back to life. He’s never lit that fire, not even in the depths of winter when the cold seemed to seep straight through the walls and into his tired bones, and he’d crawled into bed straight after sundown every night just to escape the chill.
The man stooped before the flames is cast in shadow, although Draco doesn’t miss the glint of a bronze badge in his pocket. A Hit Wizard, then: alone, by the looks of things. Unfamiliar words run through Draco’s mind as he inches his hand under the edge of his mattress, feeling for the wand he keeps taped to the frame. His fingertips have barely brushed the wood when it rips itself out of his reach and flies through the air, Sellotape and all, straight into an outstretched palm. Draco almost laughs with relief. He’d know that cast anywhere.
“Christ, Draco, it’s freezing in here. I don’t know how you cope.” Harry’s eyes are twinkling in the firelight as he turns towards him. Draco tries to hide his joy; the way his heart has taken up residence in his throat, the way his body starts to shift, automatically, to accommodate Harry in his bed.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” says Draco carelessly, his first language suddenly a stranger to his own ears. “Besides, I can usually find some nubile young shepherd boy to share body heat with.”
“Really?”
“No, you absolute pillock. Are you getting in or not?” He lifts the pile of blankets so Harry can slide in, fit their bodies together perfectly. Icy hands slip under the back of Draco’s jumper even before their lips meet.
Afterwards, they throw the covers off and lay pressed tightly together. Harry’s thumb absently rubs over Draco’s where their hands lay on his chest. It’s what Harry does – what they’ve always done – this silly game; play-acting intimacy, as though they didn’t belong to two entirely different worlds. It’s always like this: awful and wonderful both together, and sometimes it’s too much for Draco to bear, but he gets so little human contact these days he can’t bring himself to stop.
It takes a while, but eventually he gathers the courage to ask. “So, how long have I got this time?”
Harry squeezes his hand. “Oh, no. You’re fine. Trail’s completely cold; they’ve all but given up.”
“But you managed, somehow.”
A quiet huff of laughter. Harry brings their joined hands to his mouth, kissing the tips of Draco’s fingers one by one. “To be fair, it took me three months. And the Ministry don’t quite share my level of… motivation. It was a trace – barely even that – of your magic at the Portkey station in Naples. That was all I could find.”
“Ah.” It made sense. He’d had a Glamour on for travel; hadn’t known whether removing it as the Portkey activated would work. It had been his only option at the time.
A foot hooks carefully around his ankle. “Hey, don’t worry, I erased it. The guy there too; he didn’t seem to recognise your picture, but I Obliviated him anyway: safe side, y’know? And I’ve thrown up a few wards outside; nothing too crazy, but you should be able to cast Warming Charms to your heart’s content.”
Touched beyond words, Draco rolls away. His eyes are stinging now – probably the smoke from the fire – and he takes a few steadying breaths. Harry seems to understand, snaking an arm around Draco’s chest, burying his face in the tense muscles of his back.
“So what d’you get up to around here, anyway?”
Stubble scratches at Draco’s skin as he speaks, making Draco squirm away, suddenly ticklish. “Bit of this, bit of that. Farming, mostly. Back in the autumn I helped out with the olive harvest. The beach is about ten minutes away – I cycle, can you imagine? – and one of my neighbours brings me English novels when they come in to the local library. It’s not much, but –”
“No, sounds perfect.”
“Well, it’s a damn sight better than that fishing hut in Greenland, anyway.” He turns back, traces the curve of Harry’s smile with a gentle finger.
“God, Draco, I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years. D’you ever get tired of all the running?”
“I don’t know,” counters Draco, eyebrow raised. “You’ve had fifteen years of chasing me – what about you?”
Harry’s face turns serious, and his muscles tense, and Draco realises his mistake even before his mouth opens. “Oh, believe me, I’m tired, Draco. I’m really tired. In fact….” He pauses, taking a deep breath. Draco squeezes his eyes shut, pressing a single finger against those treacherous lips.
“Don’t.”
“Draco.” Harry’s voice is steady and sure. “There’s no-one else. I’ve tried, believe me, but it’s true. And I think maybe it’s time to stop trying.”
“We’ve been here before, Harry. A life on the run – we both know you couldn’t do it.”
“Running? Perhaps not. But farming? The beach? I could do that, Draco.”
Something ignites in Draco then, something rash and dangerous, sat just behind his breastbone. Unaware, Harry grins. “Maybe we’d need a bigger house, but –”
Draco rolls over, pressing his lips to that infuriating mouth, hating him just a little: the way he thinks nothing of barging straight into Draco’s careful, uncomplicated life, kindling hope in his chest where it doesn’t deserve to be. He does it every time.
In the morning, Harry tucks the blankets around him carefully, pushing Draco’s curls aside to drop a gentle kiss on his forehead before he leaves. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.” Helpless, he watches him duck on his way out, the flimsy wooden door swinging shut behind him.
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t.
The flame flickers, licking away at Draco’s insides.
During the Blip, when Rose Hill was on the brink of blinking off the map, Harley Keener donned his homemade Iron Man armor and began stealing whatever his hometown needed to survive. They called him a hero, even when he pointed out that stealing ain't exactly hero work. Now, five years after the blipped have returned, things are still dire. He can't slow down. He can't take a day off. And he can't let anyone know how close he is to slipping and bringing all of Rose Hill down with him.
It all unravels when Harley nabs a charity donation from under Spider-Man's nose and the hunt for the Iron Impostor begins.
Out of context quotes from my wip that I shan't be naming bc spoilers.
"This is because of Thanos, isn't it?"
Of course it's because of Thanos. Everything is because of Thanos. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Thanos was there.
"Fri, give me a read on Spider-Man's injuries."
"Hey," Peter protests weakly. "I thought you were respecting my privacy now."
"Tried it. Hated it. Pep gave me permission to make a special exception for you. Broken ribs, sprained wrist, and a torn ligament in your knee? Seriously? What are you doing out here?"
"In my defense, the ribs were only bruised until, like, thirty seconds ago."
Mr. Stark's eye twitches. "That's not the glowing defense you think it is."
Tony snorts. "Try the other one, Underoos."
Peter hesitates, then asks, "The other what?"
"Forget it." Tony sighs. "Sometimes I forget you're an infant."
"Rude."
"But not wrong."
"Title of your memoir."
Tony's still laughing when they hang up.
He holds out his plate and says, "You want? I just lost my appetite."
Abbie regards his meager feast with a wrinkled nose. "How many have touched your feet?"
Violet, like these delights Accountability Tracker
*Spoilers in the picture! Read at own risk!*
This is the remaining outline and I'm GOING to finish by the 15th. It looks like it won't end up needing more than 20k right? My hopes are not high 😭 but regardless
Lemme know if you remember this one. It's been *checks wrist* a minute...
another time, a different place (I have loved you before)
Present
“Look around you, Harley,” Principal Morita’s ever sensible tone carries through the closed door of his office, “this isn’t the rural country school you grew up in.”
“You didn’t hear—,”
“I don’t need to hear it. That’s my point. They’re all talk. All of them. This is the mathlete school of stunted social development. The last time we had a physical altercation was three years ago when Betty tripped and took down the woodwinds during marching band practice.”
There’s a fraught pause where Peter stares at the ceiling like he can’t hear the conversation on the other side of the door, clear as day, and isn’t taking offense to Principal Morita’s case against the student body of Midtown School of Science and—
Okay, maybe he has a point. A small one.
Morita sighs. “You’re a smart kid, Harley. This is, as far as I can tell from your transcripts, an unprecedented shot at getting somewhere. Don’t waste it by taking out your pain on a kid who calls his academic rival ‘penis’.”
Despite his best efforts at disguising his super powered eavesdropping, Peter’s face scrunches into a sour pucker.
Morita lowers his voice and says gently, “Taking you in was a stretch. The Stark name still carries weight, but not enough weight to overlook violence against other students. You won’t get another chance. Don’t blow it.”
There’s another long pause, so long, Peter thinks Harley is trying to stonewall Principal Morita, but then, finally, he hears, “You know he calls him penis?”
Morita sighs. “We reprimand him for it, but Peter might surprise you. He’s a tough kid, been through a lot. Nothing Eugene says really seems to stick to him.”
There’s a beat and then Harley says quickly, like he’s trying to say his piece before getting shut down again, “He called him an orphan and a drain on society.”
“Oh.” Principal Morita’s tone turns sad. “And that hit too close to home?”
It takes hours to tell Tony everything. Mostly because he interrupts constantly with questions, or to argue when Peter tries to take responsibility for his failures.
"Not your fault. Nope, I won't believe it. There were multiple points of failure that lead to the fate of the universe resting on a sixteen-year-old's shoulders. It's not your fault it got that bad. It's just not."
"Okay, fine, do you want to hear the rest or not?"
By the time Peter gets to meeting Deadpool, Morgan is awake and bouncing on Tony's knee.
"Pause. You met Deadpool, the mercenary?"
"Oh, you know him?"
Oh, you know him? How am I supposed to keep going? It' so fucking funny I can't. It's been like this for days. I get in the mood and then I open my draft and Oh, you know him? slaps me in the face with a fish and all of my thoughts and ideas vanish. PETER PLEASE I HAVE FANFICTION TO WRITE
