~Broken Family~

Cha-Cha Real Smooth

At school the next day, Clay was a nervous wreck.

"You okay?" Harley asked as Clay sighed and ran a hand through his hair for the fifty-fourth time.

"What?" he turned, green eyes widening. "Oh. Oh, yeah. I'm fine. Doctors."

Clay never disclosed why, what for, or when he went to this supposed doctors' office, and he didn't ask. Clay never asked about his leg, either, so there was a sort of mutual medical confidentiality between them when it came to those things.

All he knew was that Clay got upset whenever he came back from his appointments.

"You coming over after school today?" Clay asked. Harley sighed as they walked through the halls, grateful Clay always took his time going down stairs to give Harley time to catch up.

"I can't," he admitted, squeezing the handle of his crutch for comfort. "I told Tony I'd help him in the garage."

"He always seems to be working you."

"Not really. A little more than lately, I guess. We're making Pepper a suit of armor."

"Oh, sweet!"

"It's a secret, dude, don't tell anyone about it."

"Right, right. Sorry."

Harley gave his shoulder a knock. "Don't worry about it. I know you can keep your mouth shut." Clay gave a harsh laugh, looking away.

"Oh, you have no idea."

***

"Watch it!"

A wrench flew over Harley's head and he ducked, pulse racing. He stood up quickly, brushing himself off as he saw Gwen across the room. The wrench was clenched in her hand, along with a strand of webs.

"Sorry, Harley!" she called. "I just needed to grab it, and since I'm so lazy, you know..." She trailed off with a nervous chuckle, twirling a strand of hair around her ear as she handed Tony the wrench. Harley could've been imagining it, but a pink flush was slowly creeping up her face.

"Tony," Harley started, clenching his jaw a little as he quickly limped over to his desk. As usual, since he was home, he'd tossed his crutch by the door. Now he was wishing he'd brought it with him---it may have been a burden to drag everywhere, but at least it helped him walk less like a penguin. "I thought you needed my help in the lab?"

"I do," he admitted, standing up to give him a quick side-hug. Harley tried not to take notice of the deepening stress lines in his face or his hair, which seemed to be getting more and more of the color sucked out of it. "But Miss Stacy called me, asked if she could drop by after school to make a new suit."

Harley wrinkled his nose. "A new suit? Why? What happened to the one you and--and Peter made?"

"I got a little too tall for it," she admitted. "Trust me, I'm not happy about it either. In fact, I'm using a lot of the old material for it." She gestured to the little tube where he'd watched Peter, Gwen, and Tony make the spider suits before.

It was half-finished, still with the same hood design and pink around the eyepieces. The secondary color was still black, but this one had a sort of purple sheen to it. A little teal spider logo that matched her old ballet shoes was printed in the middle. He gave the glass a little tap with his finger.

"Um...cool. You still using the old ballet shoes?"

Gwen snorted. "Oh, those old things? Nah. They got a bit too dinged up and kinda fell apart. The bottoms and sides of the boots are just gonna be the same color."