A/N: I got stuck while working on my other chapter fics, so I just wrote this to refresh some thoughts but still keep myself writing. And also I got this idea of Harley and Peter being brothers stuck in my mind that I had to get that out so that I can fully concentrate on the other things.

So this is actually a series of one-shots based on an AU in which Peter and Harley are both Tony Stark's biological sons and thus are half-brothers. Harley Keener and Peter Parker friendship/brotherhood trope is my recent obsession, and I cannot help myself ;D

Since this is a series of one-shots, each chapter is a separate story and the chapters may or may not be connected to one another. So I've marked this as a complete story, but there will be random updates whenever I get new ideas or feel like writing it. :)

With that aside, I hope you enjoy the actual fic! :)

Story 01: I Guess We're Brothers

Peter had always known who Tony Stark was. You might be thinking, 'who doesn't?' Tony Stark: a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, hero, and one (if not only) of the most successful businessman in the world - you've heard it million times before. Everybody knows it. But to Peter, the owner of Stark Industries was one more thing.

Well, maybe 'know' is a bit of a strong word. It was more of a suspicion than anything. It was just one memory of one night. Looking back, it was probably never meant to happen. His mother never really intended for little Peter to hear her. It just happened when it slipped out one night when alcohol took control of her mind and body - and Peter just happened to be there, waiting for her to return after work, when she staggered her way into their small apartment. That was the one time that she mentioned the name Tony Stark in front of Peter. He was six at the time.

Although Peter couldn't really say that he knew right away then and there, Peter could later come down to his own conclusion. Like any other ones, the memory of that night had distorted a little, with small details having been erased, modified, and maybe added, too. Yet, the incident itself was clearly stuck to his mind for him to use his high-functioning brains and deduct the story that his mother failed to fully explain before the plane crash that took her life. That was when he was thirteen.

So yeah, Peter knew - or believed that there was a possibility - that Tony Stark was the one who helped his mother bring him to this world.

Would you like to know what his reaction was?

So what?

No, don't get this wrong. Because that is not directed to you. That was actually what he thought about the matter. So what?

Of course, it wasn't his first reaction. His very first and raw reaction was a series of questions popping up into his head. Just how did Tony Stark come into the picture? Did Tony Stark know that he existed? If he did, then did that mean that Tony Stark intentionally neglected and abandoned him? Questions after questions were the only things he could think of. Unfortunately, by the time he came to that point, Uncle Ben and Aunt May have also passed away and Peter was in his fourth foster home.

And questions were one of the most unnecessary things in surviving through foster homes (Peter always found this notion funny - why did he have to 'survive' a 'foster' environment?). Unrealistic dreams about some billionaire somehow being his father and showing up to save him from the constant beatings and verbal batterings of the supposed caregivers did not really help fill his ever-so-hungry belly or protect him from the whippings and yellings. There was no time to find answers or wonder about the unknown part of his history. Dreaming about it didn't change the fact that he was still stuck in the reality of being an orphan that moves from one house to another. No matter who his biological father was, it didn't change his own reality. It just didn't suddenly bring his 'father' to the front step and look for him out of nowhere. It was not supposed to.

Thus, Peter closed this particular case of his mysterious father with a so what?

So, maybe you can imagine just how much it shocked him when the man actually knocked on the door of the worn-down house filled with parent-less kids in the middle of their temporary guardians yelling at them about dissatisfactory chores. How it shocked a certain Peter Parker, all the kids, and the guardians all alike.

The foster father was slapping the children's faces for their apparently 'poor' job at cleaning the house. Peter had just had his turn of receiving a full blow to his cheek when there were a few knocks. The foster father let out a string of colorful swear words all the way toward the front door only to stop at the sight of Tony Stark, the man who was also widely known as Iron Man, standing there.

Everything was quite a messy blur from there. Long story short: A brief argument between the two men, a commotion among the curious and confused foster kids, a couple of very awkward individual meetings with Tony Stark, and a few lawsuits and charges against his foster parents later, Peter Parker officially became a son of Tony Stark.

Confused? Well, you're not the only one, as Peter himself couldn't really grasp what the heck was going on.

And what you see here now is a week later, Peter getting off a fancy black car with his eyes gaping at the shiny tower building that he could only barely imagine seeing on TV screen or internet. His backpack that surprisingly (and not so surprisingly at the same time) contains everything that he possessed from his former abode hangs behind his back. He is led by the driver - Tony had introduced him as Happy Hogan - and enters the tower. Peter cannot help the overwhelming sensation as he takes in the view of the luxurious features. He gulps down the heart that was beating so hard that it had jumped up all the way to his throat. He quickens his footsteps and follows Happy, who is heading straight for an elevator.

The elevator takes the two of them up to the penthouse floor. When Peter gets out of the metal box, Happy tells him to sit on the couch and wait for a moment. He then takes the elevator and disappears from the room. Peter watches the man leave before taking a deep breath as he looks around. The room is nothing like he had ever seen - at least not seen in person. One side of the room is not even a wall but a giant window that overlooks the city of Manhattan. The modern style navy blue couch doesn't require an expert perspective to tell its value. Even the paint of the simple white walls seems overly luxurious(and Peter can assume that it probably is). One side shows the kitchen and another side that was opposite from the elevator leads to rooms.

He suddenly feels so small as he stands there in his dirty ragged old clothes. He slowly walks over to the couch and awkwardly sits down, putting down his backpack on the floor. He straightens his back, fearing that he might dirty the expensive furniture somehow with his tattered t-shirt. He looks down at his hands and plays around with his fingers for a few minutes until he hears the elevator opening again and a young voice.

"Hey."

Peter nearly jumps up from where he was sitting as he turns to see the owner of the new voice. A teenage boy that seems to be about his own age is standing by the elevator.

Peter remembers Tony talking about his other son that was already living with him. Although he had not even seen a picture of the said kid, judging by the fact that he so freely and casually walked into the residence area, Peter concludes that the one standing before his eyes is his… brother. Half-brother.

"Hi."

Peter barely manages to show enough manners of returning the greeting. The boy looks at him with a face that shows no particular feelings or thoughts. Peter quietly returns the gaze. He is sure that he doesn't have any emotions written on his face, either. The boy looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Harley Keener," the boy says after a short while. "Seems like I'm your brother."

Harley. That was the name Peter heard from Tony.

"Peter Parker," Peter said. "Yeah, I guess I'm your brother."

Harley's face softens.

"I just said that, you know," he retorts but there is no trace of ill will in his voice.

"And what, you patented it?" Peter replies, and there may be a bit of unintended sass laced on his tone.

Harley has a small smirk creeping on his mouth.

"No, but it was a little redundant, don't you think?"

Peter simply shrugs a little.

"Well, there was nothing else to say, really. I was just trying to fill that uncomfortably awkward silence."

Harley has a full smirk on his face at this point. He snorts out a short laugh.

"Yeah. This is getting awkward," he says. "This small talk bullshit is lame."

Peter doesn't know what to say to it, hence stays quiet. Harley doesn't seem to mind the lack of response, for he continues nonchalantly as he walks to the couch and plumps freely on it, half lying rather than sitting.

"I hear you're what, fourteen?"

Peter watches him in his awkward standing position before slowly sitting down again. He makes sure that his body stays upright so that he does not make any unnecessary mess. He thinks he sees Harley looking at him quite intently. He tries to dismiss the thought as he answers Harley's question.

"Yeah. yeah, I'm fourteen."

"Well, I'm fifteen. That makes me the older one." Harley smirks.

Peter ponders on the meaning behind his words. He studies his face and wonders if Harley is looking for a chance to take advantage of his older age against him. Harley seems smug and rather light-hearted, but Peter knows better than to trust a person based on their outward demeanor. If it is the case that Harley will be more of a bully kind of a brother, he needs to be ready for whatever is to come.

There is a brief silence that fills the room as the two teens sit there. Peter is in his own thoughts as he tries to assess the kind of person Harley is, and Harley doesn't say anything, either. After a few-minutes-long of quietness, Harley breaks it.

"I ain't bite, you know."

Peter snaps out of his thoughts.

"What?"

There is a small smirk on Harley's face - the kind that adds smugness but holds more of an understanding than offence.

"No need to be all defensive and everything, is all I'm saying," he says.

Peter becomes uneasy.

"I wasn't defensive," he says - defensively, one might add.

Harley snorts.

"Nice try. Except, it wasn't."

Peter knows that he's been seen through, so he just purses his lips tightly. Harley laughs a little. He straightens up his posture.

"If you'd rather be alone, I can just show you your room and leave you to whatever secret guily pleasure you have, just say the word." he says.

Harley looks to Peter as if he awaits his answer. But Peter can give none as he himself cannot really tell if he truly wants to be left alone. And the mere notion of having a choice is unfamiliar and strange to him.

When Peter remains speechless, Harley shrugs his shoulders.

"Well, whatever you do, it's on you, dude, not me," he says. "If Dad thinks you're left alone, he's gonna nag me all week about it."

Dad. Among all the words that pass through his ears, Peter picks up on that one particular word. It rings in his ears with an odd echo. He tries to say the word himself silently inside his mouth, but the tongue suddenly feels out of control as it refuses to form the word.

"I tried, okay? For the record, I did-"

"You call him 'Dad'?"

Peter wasn't really listening to Harley and cuts his words off when he blurts out his question. Harley stops talking and looks at Peter with a mixture of surprise and… amusement?

"Duh. He is my dad," Harley answers. "And yours too, I guess."

Peter suddenly feels a lump crawling up his throat. He feels nauseous. Dad. He now has a dad. That was just pure insanity of an idea, right there.

"It feels weird, I know," he hears.

Peter gives him a questioning look. Harley has a knowing look on his front.

"You know what they say; 'takes one to know one'," he says. "Been there, done that, all that shit."

Peter swallows hard. He turns his eyes away as he looks down at his hands. They are fidgeting from his entire nerve system being jittery. He still refuses to meet Harley's eyes as he directs his words to him.

"When did you first know?" He asks. "That he's your… you know."

He hears Harley hum shortly as he probably thinks back on his memory.

"About two years ago," says Harly. There's a bit of laughter mixed in his words. "It's really funny because he actually popped up in my old garage back home in Tennessee."

Peter looks up to really listen to his story. Harley has a full smirk on his face as he seemingly reminisces on the event.

"You remember the whole Mandarin thing and Dad, like, openly threatening him and everything? His Malibu home got destroyed and all that?"

Peter simply nods quietly.

"Right after that, he just turned up in Tennessee, for some reason, and chose my house to break in. It was like in the middle of the night and I woke up from that sound. Mom was out for work so I went to check what it was and just found Tony Stark standing in my fucking garage." Harley pauses for a moment before adding, "I shot my potato gun at him."

Peter raises an eyebrow at the revelation. Harley smirks at his reaction.

"Long story short, I helped him figure out what he was looking for," he says. "I tried to tag along, but he just ditched me in the middle of the street and drove off."

Harley finishes the sentence in a clearly sarcastic manner and with an overdramatic shrug.

"You know, it's really ironic, because I actually said that we're connected or something to him. When I tried to go with him. Of course I didn't know who he was back then."

Peter quietly listens. Harley lets out a short laugh as he continues.

"Then it turns out that he's actually my biological dad?" He says. "That's just pure crazy, dude, right? I mean, he didn't know who I was, I didn't know who he was. And then he's just magically in my house by coincidence?"

Harley stops himself to take a moment. Peter sees that he is probably a little lost in his own thoughts. There is a rather nostalgic smile on his face. Peter just waits for him to return and continue.

"I didn't tell Mom that I'd met him," Harley finally says after taking a few more seconds. "At first, at least. She was busy anyways, and it's not like I could sit down and have a real chat with her. But then, she soon found out because Dad left stuffs in my garage. Robots and computers and things like that. He basically reformed the entire garage with fancy new techs. Even for Mom that knew absolutely nothing about machines or technologies, she had to know.

"She asked me. And I told her. Told her that it was Tony Stark. I think Mom thought that Dad had somehow found out that I was his kid and came to me because of it. So she talked to him, Dad found out that I had his blood in me. It was a total chaos for a while, with everyone just trying to figure out just what the fuck was going on."

Harley chuckles. Peter, on the other hand, remains still. Harley takes a quick look at Peter before he keeps talking.

"Dad asked me if I wanted to come live with him. He actually asked my whole family to come, but Mom refused. She has her pride. She didn't even want to take the money Dad was offering. Because of that, I said no at first. Didn't want to leave my sister all by herself when Mom went to work, and with there being no male in the house… It felt unfair for me to just leave them for a rich as filth father, too."

"But I think a part of me still wanted this. Not the money part, but the Dad part, you know? To have an actual father that even knows about what I like to do, that can teach me in that area." He pauses momentarily before adding the next words in a lower tone. "Someone who is willing to support me."

Peter assumes that Harley has some issues with a father figure. Then again, it's probably not that surprising and very natural considering that both of them were sons of Tony Stark that met him only years after they came into existence.

"God, that got sappy," Harley grunts. Peter watches him relax on the couch, leaning more backward like he did when he first sat down. Peter wonders what it meant for his family with Harley eventually leaving them. He wonders if he should be asking such private matters, but decides to try it.

"Uhm," he began cautiously. "What happened? To your mom and your sister, I mean?"

Harley looks at Peter and blinks before he straightened up a little.

"Oh, Mom met a new guy," he said. "They're living together in Tennessee. I am kinda worried that he might turn out to be another son of a bitch. Judging by the history of her men, I'm not fully convinced. But she's insistent and seems happy. For now. And Phoebe made her choice to stay with Mom. She was intimidated by Dad."

Peter simply nods at his answer. Peter can see another silence creeping up as he has no words to say. He could presume that Harley was done telling his history as well.

"Well, I'm tired of all the talking," Harley says. "Now you talk."

Peter flinches a little.

"Me?"

Harley rolls his eyes.

"No, the couch you're sitting on," he says. "Yes, you. What's your story?"

Peter looks down and just entangle his fingers with one another.

"Well, I thought you'd already know," he begins slowly. "I was in my foster home. Mr. Stark just turns up at the door and says he's my… biological father."

"Yeah. I heard that part," Harley huffs. "So you never knew about him until he came to find you?"

Peter shrugs.

"I don't know, I mean…" he says. "I think I kind of suspected? I mean, I just thought that maybe he could be my father. Maybe not."

Harley frowns and seems more engaged in Peter's story.

"How?"

Peter fidgets as the memory squeezes through into his brains. It was something from a very long past, probably one of the very few earliest memories. He tries his best to be as casual with his voice.

"My mom was drunk one night. She said something about Tony Stark. It kind of stuck to me because that was like the only time she was ever drunk in front of me. And that was the first time I heard her say another guy's name that was not about my dad. Well, he wasn't my dad, he was just her husband. She just told me his stories as 'dad stories'."

Harley remains silent but his demeanor urges Peter to continue.

"I didn't really know what it all meant at the time, I think. Or maybe I did at least notice something odd about 'my dad'. But then, Uncle Ben and Aunt May were always like my real relatives, so I guess I really didn't think much about it. They even took me in when my mom died. Until they died when our apartment building caught on fire."

"Shit," is Harley's reaction. Peter lets out a small laugh.

"Then it was just me moving around foster homes."

Peter simply concludes his life story. Really, there is not much for him to say about it. Harley eyes him for a moment. Maybe he expects Peter has something more to say. When he gets none, he decides to get it out himself.

"If you had a suspicion, why didn't you bring it to him?" Harly asks.

Peter gives him a skeptical look.

"How would a kid from the poorest part of Queens have a way to confront Tony Stark?" He retorts. "It's not like I had a solid reason or evidence to confirm it in the first place. My mom and both Uncle Ben and Aunt May were probably the only people who knew the full story, and they were gone. I just couldn't bang on his door claiming that I'm his son."

Harley doesn't show any visible reaction, but Peter can see that he saw his point.

"And I thought he didn't want me," Peter continues. "He was never a part of my life. No one even mentioned him. I thought that even if I was actually his, he probably didn't even know that I existed or he just simply didn't want a kid. Why would I reach out to him, then? I had more pressing matters at hand. I didn't really think that much about it."

When Peter is done talking, Harley quietly shakes his head a few times.

"Dude, we're messed up," he says. "Our lives are just messed up."

Peter's lack of response was enough to express his agreement. Having too focused on the conversation and the weight of it, he forgets how cautious he had been and just lets himself relax and lean tiredly on the back of the couch. As expensive as it looks, it is quite comfy.

"Well, you were wrong about one thing," he hears. Peter looks at Harley. "I don't think he doesn't want you. He actually searched for you and took you here."

"It's not like I hold a grudge against him or anything," Peter replies. "I really had no particular feelings about it. It's just that…"

Peter stops to think for a moment. What was it, then? So much has been going on that he could not really form a word to incorporate his exact thoughts. Raw, formless thoughts lingered in his mind.

"I guess it's just weird," he finally says. "That I have a… father now. Out of nowhere. I just… I never had a dad in my life. I've never used that word on anyone."

"Yeah, I figured," says Harley.

The two of them spend a good minute as each of them deal with the aftermath of the confessions. Come to think of it, Peter is actually surprised how easily he had just talked about all the things he had been trying to avoid discussing. Once he began, everything just came out before he could even stop himself. Was it because of Harley? Because he began this whole thing himself? Then he realizes how easily Harley had broken the shell that Peter had been holding onto for so long.

How was he doing it?

As if Harley knew that Peter is thinking about him, he suddenly stands up.

"Come on," he says. "Dad said he'll be in a meeting until three or something. I'll show you around before he comes back."

Peter nods once before standing up himself and picking up his backpack by his feet. He follows as Harley walks away from the couch area toward deeper into the residence. Before they move five steps, Peter decides to voice his thoughts.

"How are you taking this so easily?" Says Peter.

Harley raises his eyebrows in question.

"This whole… brother thing," Peter adds.

'You mean how can I take the fact that I have a total stranger as a new brother so easily?" Harley says - quite casually, too.

"I guess that's a way to put it."

Harley simply shrugs.

"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone else just turns up claiming to be Dad's kid," he says. "I mean, you know what he was like. He was a publicly known playboy. I'm pretty sure we might not be the only ones."

Peter blinks. Then again, he can't help agreeing to it.

"And like I said, I have a sister. Another younger sibling is not going to be a problem," Harley says. "That is, as long as you're not a complete asshole."

Peter laughs softly at his remark. He grins a little as he says, "Well, I can't really promise anything about that."

Harley snorts.

"Considering Dad's genes, you are probably one," he says.

The two of them stop in front of a closed door.

"This is yours," Harley says as he stands next to it and crosses his arms over his chest. He points to another that is placed on the opposite side of the path in a diagonal position from that of Peter's with his head. "That's mine."

Peter looks at the door that is supposed to lead him into his new room. He slowly reaches a hand out to the door knob. Just as his hand touched and grabbed on it, Harley grabs his attention.

"Get in there, get your stuffs sorted out," he says. "Meet me out there in the living room when you're ready. We could have a tour of other floors, see a movie, play games, whatever you want."

He then walks off over to his own room, leaving Peter alone. Peter takes a deep breath and opens the door.

A/N: Sorry if Harley (or Peter) is out of character. Since they're Tony's kids, I added some Stark snark touches to them. And also I haven't watched Iron Man 3 in a long time, and I wrote Harley mostly based on what I remember. Also, I wanted him to be a good brother to Peter because always, Peter is always my lil cinnamon roll!

Always, thank you so much for reading my fiction! I love hearing what you have to say about it, so feel free to leave comments and reviews! :)

I hope you all have a great day!

Best, Lisa :)