Forever

chapter three

"Ughhh, you suck."

"If I suck, you gotta be the worst on the planet," he laughed.

"No one's actually supposed to be good at Mario Kart! It's one of those games that everyone's really bad at for no reason!" Peter complained, having lost for the fourth time in a row.

"Were you even trying?"

Peter groaned again while Harley laughed. "Whatever. Have fun playing by yourself," he said, standing up.

"Come on, don't leave! I'll only play with one hand to give you a chance," he joked.

Peter snorted. "Yeah, sure. I actually have to go though, I'm hanging out with Nico."

He still felt guilty about a few days ago when Harley had helped with his shoulder. When he'd gotten home and thought about Nico... Well, he figured Nico wouldn't have been happy knowing he'd stayed up for four hours in the middle of the night with another guy. Not to mention the fact that for half that time he was shirtless, even if it was because of his shoulder.

Of course, nothing had happened. They just talked for a few hours. Nico didn't know that though and maybe it was better if he didn't. Still, if he wanted to be friends with Harley, he couldn't hide that from him.

"Hey, babe," Nico greeted him with a bright smile as Peter stepped inside.

"Hey. How are you?" They hadn't actually hung out for a few days now.

Nico led them to the kitchen. "Pretty good. Just had practice this morning, but nothing new. My parents aren't here, by the way. They had another flight last night."

Peter knew his parents were never home often. They were both pilots so they were always hopping from flight to flight, but they always paid the bills and sent Nico more than enough money. He said he didn't mind.

"Isn't it cold to be practicing?"

"It's not bad once we get moving. Anyway," Nico sighed, getting snacks out of the pantry. "What've you been up to?"

"Just hanging out at the tower mostly. Mr. Stark blew up the lab again so we couldn't really work."

"So what'd you do then?"

"Just hung out with him and the others. Oh, that reminds me, I have to tell you what happened earlier, it was so funny. Clint went to prank Mr. Stark earlier by moving his coffee a few feet every time he set it down to confuse him..."

He went on to explain how the prank had spiraled out of control until it ended up involving half of the other Avengers too. Nico looked mildly amused and had a small smile.

"...and if it wasn't bad enough that this intern had to bring up six coffees one at a time, then he managed to pull Harley into it. He ended up figuring out it was Clint though and he dumped an entire pot of coffee on him."

Peter was laughing and Nico was smiling, though his eyes told a different story. "That's funny," he commented. Peter felt a pang of disappointment in his obvious lack of interest. "Do anything else today?"

He could feel his mood deflate but tried to ignore it. He looked over at the TV playing in the living room. "Not really. Just hung out with them and played video games with Harley."

"I thought you guys were just working on that project together. I didn't know you were friends," he wondered, frowning and glancing over at Peter.

"Well, yeah, but Mr. Stark blew up a bunch of the parts for it, so we can't start it yet. Anyway, he's always in the lab when I'm there so we're kinda friends now."