(moving here not new sorry same as last chapter)
Sicktember Day Two: Persistent Cough
*
He should really be more worried when his window slides open in the middle of the night.
But the fact that there's no blood, no tears in the suit, no first aid kit already in-hand, Harley only feels relief when the figure tumbles into his bedroom.
Yawning, he sits up to greet his boyfriend, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He fell asleep pretty early, he's had to adjust his sleep schedule ever since they got together, he had to with how often Peter tumbled through his window.
Peter tugs his mask off, water dripping from his hair and suit. He's grinning but his lips are more blue than pink and there's a stick in his curls.
"What happened to you?" he asks, shaking his head. It's nowhere near the worst state he's seen the superhero, but Peter smells like a swamp and he's leaving a puddle on his nice hardwood.
"What? No Hello Kiss?"
"Not when you smell like you just took a dip in the Hudson."
Peter laughs and rubs the back of his neck. "Actually..."
"I'm not letting you and whatever diseases you've caught anywhere near me until you wash off." Harley wonders just how concerned he should be. Peter's shivering but that doesn't exactly mean a lot in terms of the Hudson in mid-March. There's no blood, his breathing seems steady enough, and he's entirely conscious. It shouldn't bite them in the ass to let Peter shower and go to sleep and move on. Peter's slept off broken bones before.
Peter presses the spider emblem and lets his dirty suit pool around his ankles, leaving him in his damp grey boxer briefs and equally damp grey socks.
"Don't look so worried, this isn't the first time I've ended up in the Hudson."
"You know, that's not as reassuring as you think it is." Harley sighs, softening his voice and posture. "Go take a shower, I'll leave some pajamas on the counter for you, and I'll toss your suit in the wash."
Peter grins, shaking out his chestnut curls. "Thanks, babe."
Cassie, Harley's roommate, stops him in the hallway on his way to wash the suit. She knows about Peter, there's no way they'd be able to keep it a secret from her.
"He okay?"
"Fell in the Hudson, apparently." Harley rolls his eyes, but it's more fondness than real annoyance. If he couldn't handle a night like this, they would've never worked out.
Cassie rolls her eyes too, but hers is definitely more annoyance. She's never really liked Peter. She's had her fair share of superhero adventures, trauma, and near-death experiences, she just wants to finish her senior year and go to medschool and live a normal life, but Spider-Man practically lives with her and drags her into his world constantly.
"No doctors needed?" she asks.
"Nope, I think we're in the clear today."
"Good. I have homework to do." She lifts an eyebrow like she's expecting him to argue. In her defense, he almost always does. He almost always asks her to make some food or check on Peter or help him tidy Peter up.
He shakes his head, letting her return to her room, shoulders slumped in relief. He starts the washing machine with extra detergent in hopes of getting the swampy smell out of the spandex. And finally, he returns to his room to find Peter already in his bed.
Harley can't help but adore Peter like this. Wearing Harley's old Rose Hill Lacrosse Team hoodie and Spider-Man sweatpants Cassie bought him as a gag gift. He smells like Harley's shampoo and soap, like apple and eucalyptus, and their laundry detergent.
Peter makes grabby hands towards him, hair already curling wildly, and coughs into his shoulder.
"You okay?" Harley checks again, making himself comfy against the headboard and pillows, legs spread to allow Peter to sit between them, back against his chest. He rubs a hand over Peter's chest and sternum to try to help with his coughing.
"Still cold."
They pull the blankets up over them, tucking Peter into Harley's arms and legs. Harley tries not to worry about the heat of Peter's skin, it's not surprising that he's catching a cold after his night. But a cold is just a cold, it's not a big deal.
"Sorry for making you worry again," Peter says. It always seems to help him open up when they're like this. Alone in the dark, Peter unable to see Harley. "I've been trying to be extra careful because I hate making you worry so much, I hate waking you up at this ungodly hour to patch me up, it's not fair on you... But apparently the criminals didn't get the same memo."
Harley's never really loved anyone before. He cares his mom, of course, even if she'll never understand him the way he needs her to, even if his mom still sets him up on dates with the girls around Rose Hill when he returns for holidays, even if she always calls Peter 'that boy' or 'that friend of yours', even if she never accepts him, he still cares about her, she still tries.
Between his dad leaving when he was little, and Abbie running off with some motorcycle-riding, mullet-wearing, high school dropout when she was fourteen, he doesn't exactly have a lot of faith in permanence.
He knows that when his mom sent him to New York for 'better education', she just wanted an excuse to get him out of her house.
He's never had anything that mattered to him.
Until Peter fell onto his fire escape in the middle of the night, bruised-up and absolutely breath-taking under the moonlight, and asked if he had some ice, Harley finally understood what people were talking about when they talked about destiny.
And if this is the price he has to pay in order to feel this just-on-the-right-side-of-unbearable warmth, so be it.
"I love you," Harley says instead. It's not easy for him to say, but if it makes Peter light up like a child on Christmas morning, he'll fight every engrained instinct he has.
Peter coughs in response, back shuddering against Harley's chest, and Harley laughs, pressing a kiss to Peter's damp hair.
*
Harley wakes up, disoriented and confused, to strange noises which certainly isn't his alarm.
He tightens his grip on Peter, blinking his eyes open and desperately trying to get his bearings. Peter's having a coughing fit, that's what woke him up. He pats his back, gently at first, and then more firmly when he continues coughing.
It takes a few tries for Peter to catch his breath and even then his breathing is short and labored. He's too warm against Harley, sweat clinging to their skin, turning their blanket haven into an absolute sauna. His fever must've gotten worse while they were sleeping.
"Let me grab you a water bottle."
He extracts himself from beneath Peter, propping him up against the pillows.
By the time he returns, barely two minutes later, Peter's gone.
For a moment, he panics. He thinks that Peter's left Spider-Manning in his condition, that somebody kidnapped him right out of Harley's bed, that Harley turned his back for two minutes and Peter's slipped through his fingers.
And then he hears the coughing coming from his bathroom.
Peter's sitting on the bathroom tiles, sweat dripping from his forehead, coughing hard again.
"Did something more happen on patrol?" Harley asks. He kneels down on the tiles, gentle and worried, rubbing circles into Peter's back to try to help the shuddering coughs.
"Some crazy wannabe supervillain tossed me in the Hudson like I told you."
"And?"
"And... he held me under." He looks sheepish as though somehow this whole thing was his fault and he's embarrassed.
Harley pauses, reeling in his angry protectiveness. The idea of anybody hurting his boy makes his blood boil. He has to work to keep his voice even. "If you inhaled any water or..."
"It's just a cold, right?" And Peter looks so small, so nervous about what Harley's implying. "So what if I inhaled a little water."
"You've heard of secondary drowning right?" Harley doesn't want to scare Peter but there's a chance that this is a lot worse than they think it is and Harley can't take a risk like that. "Pneumonia? There's a lot of possibilities with near-drownings."
Peter coughs again, head lolling onto Harley's shoulder. "I didn't really think about it."
"We should get you checked out anyway."
"It's just a cold, Harls. I fell in the Hudson, of course I got some kind of flu. You're overreacting."
Harley sighs knowing that Peter's probably right. He overreacts a lot when it comes to Peter's health and safety.
"Just promise me you'll tell me if anything is even slightly worrying."
"I promise."
Harley takes Peter back to bed, getting some water into him before letting him get some sleep. It takes a long time for him to relax enough to fall asleep, too worried about Peter's coughing fits and labored breaths and fever. But eventually, he does, lulled to sleep by the warmth and comfort.
Cassie shakes him awake after what feels like no time at all.
"He hasn't stopped coughing," she says. "The ambulance is still another fifteen away."
"What?" he says stupidly groggy. It only takes another second for the words to take effect.
Cassie has Peter on the floor in the recovery position, hands on his shoulders to keep him on his side as he struggles to breathe properly.
"Oh god." He tumbles out of bed, onto the floor, hands hovering his boyfriend as he tries to figure out how to help. "What do I do?"
Peter lets out a shuddering breath and then stops altogether.
"CPR. I think he needs CPR. You were taught, right?" Cassie says, nearly as panicked as Harley.
"No. I never learned. You have to- Cassie, please."
She turns Peter on his back to give him CPR and Harley begins pacing, heart hammering in his chest as he waits for Peter to give any sign of life.
"Call May. She'll need to know," Cassie says while giving chest compressions.
May doesn't pick up so he leaves a message. "It's Harley. I'll call you as soon as I know anything, we're taking Pete to the hospital. He's been coughing and feverish and sick... I'll call you back. Don't panic. It's Peter, after all."
"Do you hear the ambulance?" Cassie asks, breathless from the exertion. "Grab the door."
Harley takes the steps three at a time, nearly needing his own ambulance when he hits the ground floor hard. The ambulance is just pulling up when he throws the front door open, prying neighbors beginning to exit their apartments and circle around.
"He's not breathing," Harley cries, beckoning the paramedics to follow him back up the stairs to his and Cassie's apartment.
The paramedics push Cassie away to make room to get to Peter.
"I can't lose him," Harley says, letting Cassie hold him, be strong enough for the both of them. "After Dad and then Abbie and then Mom... I just- I can't lose him."
"You're not going to lose him." She sounds so certain that Harley can almost believe her. Almost.
One of the paramedics steps aside as the other three begin strapping Peter to the table and getting it setup to take him out to the ambulance. "Are either of you over eighteen?"
Cassie lifts one of her hands. Harley's still seventeen, birthday not for another two months.
"You can ride with us if you'd like."
Harley's jaw drops. "I'm his boyfriend. Please, I have to-"
"We can't let you. You'll have to get a ride in."
They've already started wheeling him away, taking the love of his life away from him.
"I'll go with him and meet you there. Take my car," Cassie says, already pulling away to follow the paramedics. "He's going to be fine, Harley."
And then they're gone and Harley's sure his universe has fallen apart.
He has no idea how he makes it to the hospital in one piece.
He's so far from his own body, vision blurry, thoughts hazy, skin numb. What is he going to do if... He can't think about it, can't imagine a future without his boy.
"Harley!" Cassie's hands are on his shoulders, his eyes don't focus, he can't help looking around as though expecting to see Peter over her shoulder, alive and well. "Harley, he's okay."
He just stares, information not sinking in.
"You hear me?" She shakes him by the shoulders, fingers digging into his skin. "Peter's okay."
"He's okay," Harley echoes.
She nods. "He's okay. You wanna see him?"
He mindlessly follows her lead, unable to believe it until he sees it with his own two eyes.
"I'll call May back, let her know what happened," Cassie says when she stops them outside a closed door. "I'll stick around the lobby if you need anything."
Harley will never get used to seeing Peter in a hospital bed, no matter how many times he sees him like this.
He's awake already, oxygen cannula sitting lopsided on his face as he smiles tiredly up at Harley.
"Do you want to start a recording before I say it?" Peter says, voice rough and low. He coughs a few times and has to clear his throat before he continues, "You were right."
"You almost died." Harley hasn't moved beyond two steps past the doorway. "I almost lost you."
"You didn't."
"That was too close, Peter. I can't do that again." He wants to be angry but he just doesn't have the energy for it. "You stopped breathing. I woke up and you weren't breathing."
Peter looks down and away. "I'm sorry."
"I can't lose you. I can't do that."
"You won't."
"I almost did. Just a few hours ago Cassie was breathing for you because your body gave up."
"You didn't. I'm okay."
"You won't always be so lucky!" He's almost shouting now. "I can't lose anyone else, Peter, especially not you."
Peter goes quiet, clearing his throat again.
Harley can't have this fight now. Not when Peter's in this state.
"I'm not asking you to give up Spider-Man," Harley says quietly. "I just need you to be more careful."
"I'll try." Peter finally looks up at him and offers a crooked smile. "Be angry at me tomorrow? The doctor prescribed kisses and cuddles for me to get better, and I think Cassie would hit me if I asked her."
"Yeah... alright," he sighs like it's really a tough call to shower his boyfriend with affection.
He crawls into the small bed beside Peter, extra careful of the tubes and wires, peppering kisses over any skin Harley can reach.
"I'm really sorry," Peter whispers, coughing once, twice, three times.
"Don't be. I can't be upset with you for things others do to you."
"I love you." Peter always says it like it's the most magical thing in the world.
Every time Peter says it, Harley feels like it's the most magical thing in the world.
I Love You has never been easy for Harley.
But here? Now? With Peter? It's natural.
"I love you too."