Mark hadn’t given a second thought to the Winklevosses before. He doesn’t give a second thought to anyone who isn’t of relevance to him, especially if they propose something as inane and useless like HarvardConnection and ask him to work on it. Mark isn’t the type of person to say no, but that doesn’t mean yes, either.

So when he’d absentmindedly replied to the last email, he thought it might be the end of it.

When he responded to the C&D, he thought it might be the end of it again.

Cameron Winklevoss had somehow managed to prove him wrong.

“Zuckerberg,” Mark had heard, on his way back from Dworkin.

Mark swore under his breath and tried to run away again like last time. This Winklevoss was sure to be the angry one this time –

But when he turned, it was the same as last time. The nice one.

He’d grabbed Mark’s arm, unfortunately. Mark scowled.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Cameron frowned at him. “Ever since thefacebook launched, you’ve been fielding my and my brother’s and Divya’s emails.”

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Take a hint.” He wrenched himself out of Cameron’s grasp.

He thought that might be the end of it, but then Cameron kept pace with him instead of actually taking the goddamn hint and leaving. Mark tried with all his might to ignore him the whole walk back from Dworkin, but he was shorter than Cameron and he wasn’t sure if he could outrun him this time when he was starting so close.

Neither of them said anything until Mark started heading down the street towards Kirkland. He knew Cameron already knew where he lived, but that didn’t make him any less wary.

“Thefacebook is more important,” he burst defiantly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I don’t have time for HarvardConnection. I never cared about it.”

Cameron seemed surprised. But then his expression smoothed, more interested than anything else.

“Okay,” he said to Mark. “What can we do to help?”

Mark hadn’t considered the Winklevosses’ help. Didn’t want it, really – he had Eduardo and that was enough.

But apparently that wasn’t enough for the Winklevosses to get.

“My friend put up the money,” he gritted through his teeth, after Cameron accosted him for the sixth time that week. “I don’t need your help.”

“Do you have experience in business?” Cameron asked. “My brother’s good with numbers.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Mark mumbled.

“Hey,” Cameron said, stopped in the middle of the street. This got Mark’s attention – he stopped with him, to his own dismay. “You have good ideas, Mark.”

“And, what,” Mark said, “you just want a way to ride on my ideas while offering money so you don’t feel bad about it?”

Cameron’s expression shuttered, but he wasn’t fazed. “I’m saying that we can recognize when an idea is good,” he said. “Let us help you. Your friend’s money isn’t going to hold thefacebook up forever.”

“It could,” Mark said stubbornly. “Wardo’s bad at saying no.”

“And you’re bad at saying yes,” Cameron said, which got Mark to spin around and continue walking off. Cameron caught up with him, anyhow. “I promise, this is the last time I’ll ask,” he said. “Do you, or do you not want my brother’s and my help?”

Mark wouldn’t meet his eyes. He said, “I’ll talk to Eduardo about it.”

Eduardo hadn’t really minded, to Mark’s disappointment.

“They actually have a business model in mind, Mark,” he said, when Mark turned back to his computer because Eduardo hadn’t said no fucking way like Mark had hoped he would. “I could do with a second opinion.”

“You have mine,” Mark bit out.

“A second opinion against yours,” Eduardo said gently. “Or for yours. They wanted you to work on their dating site, right?”

“Yeah, and it sucked,” Mark said. “They have terrible ideas. We don’t need them.”

“We don’t need them, but we should at least talk to them,” Eduardo said. “See what they have to offer. It’s not a bad idea.”

Mark didn’t protest when Eduardo managed to procure the Winklevii’s email addresses from him, but he still wasn’t all for it.

Their meeting felt more like a first date.

They were at Bartley’s for dinner, so burgers weren’t as fancy as first dates typically were. Mark was wary of the menu, because it looked more to be suited to people who were shaped like the Winklevosses, not like himself who was small and knobby, or Eduardo who was kind of reedy and lean.

Both the Winklevosses sat across from him. The more tolerable one – Cameron – was in front of Mark, and didn’t make Mark feel any better even when his smile was encouraging. Mark didn’t need encouragement – he needed this to be over with, so he could go back go coding for thefacebook and not waste his time.

“This is awkward,” Mark declared, as soon as the waitress had left them. “You guys tried to set me up with your father’s in-house counsel – ” He pointed between Tyler and Cameron ” – and Eduardo, you don’t know either of them.”

“That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it?” Cameron said to Mark. “So we can get to know each other?”

Mark buried his face in his menu. “I don’t care,” he said, scowling at the burger names.

Eduardo, because he’s Eduardo, said, “Sorry about Mark. What were your ideas for thefacebook?” He said this all so casually, but Mark knew that Eduardo could be bitchy too.

Tyler said, “Well, what my brother and I – and our partner Divya, but he has a meeting tonight – originally had mind was a networking site for students across Harvard, and – ”

“Ty,” Cameron said quickly.

Eduardo had frowned. “That sounds a lot like what Mark had done with thefacebook.”

Mark raised his menu higher. “They didn’t give me the idea,” he said from behind it. “I had my idea first.”

Tyler sneered. “Yeah right – ”

“Tyler,” Cameron said emphatically.

Eduardo said to them, “I’m sure Mark didn’t mean it – ” and Mark put his menu down and glared at all of them.

“I’d been thinking of making a campus-wide face book since I got here,” he said, mostly to Tyler. “It’s a coincidence. People can have the same ideas.”

“Yeah, you had access to our system and got out ahead – ”

“Mark didn’t do that,” Eduardo said in Mark’s defense, to just about everyone’s surprise. “Maybe he did get inspired, but he wouldn’t do anything like that deliberately.”

“Sure, because he values the integrity of original ideas so much – ”

“Don’t you?” Eduardo said to Tyler.

Tyler floundered. “I do,” he said.

“You’re not the one who actually wants to help invest in thefacebook though, aren’t you?”

“I’m not against it,” Tyler conceded. “I don’t – My brother and I are just looking to invest – ”

“And not the credit?” Eduardo challenged.

He kept his gaze level with Tyler’s. Tyler floundered again and picked up a menu for himself.

Mark set his own menu down. “I apologize for Eduardo,” he said dryly to Cameron, who’d merely been tracking Eduardo and Tyler’s conversation, with amusement. “I don’t know what got into him, usually he doesn’t start shit.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Eduardo said, annoyed and taking a sip of his water.

Cameron had his elbows rested on the table. Mark was glad he had better taste; he was clearly the superior Winklevoss twin. “I’m used to mediating, don’t worry,” he said, which made Mark’s mouth quirk up to his own surprise.

Eduardo took a gulp of water and then said, “I’m going to the bathroom.” He got up and left the table.

Mark watched Tyler watch him leave. After another second, Tyler said, “I’m going to the bathroom too.”

Then it was just Cameron and Mark alone. Cameron waited patiently, giving Mark all the time he wanted, but Mark had already settled on what he wanted so he called the waitress over. After Mark ordered, he said to Cameron, “Are you eating?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Cameron, before giving his order to the waitress, who nodded and took their menus back. Cameron hadn’t even looked through his.

“You come here a lot?” Mark said, awkwardly. Eduardo didn’t usually leave him alone with people very often.

Cameron shrugged. “Yeah. Creature of habit.” He picked up the drink menu thoughtfully.

Mark blurted. “I knew you’re the preferable Winklevoss twin, but not by this much.”

Cameron raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m preferable?” he said, amused.

This was when Eduardo and Tyler had come back from the restroom, Eduardo with a red mark on his neck and Tyler’s lips dark and bruised. Both of them had their hair disheveled, and Mark just stared and didn’t know if he either wanted to bleach his eyes forever or gouge them out.

“Well,” Cameron said. “That just happened. We already ordered, by the way.”

“Of course,” Tyler grumbled, reading down the menu. He said, “What are you getting?”

Cameron opened his mouth like he thought Tyler was talking to him. Eduardo said, faster, “I think I’m having the Charles River.”

Tyler grinned at him, like they hadn’t just had an argument ten minutes ago. “Good choice.”

They barely talked about thefacebook. It would’ve been annoying, except by the way that Mark liked the way Cameron talked when he wasn’t bothering Mark about thefacebook – and then when he was, at the end of the dating, and saying, “So are we helping you invest or not?”

From anyone else, it would’ve sounded challenging, a threat. Instead, Cameron seemed to be asking a genuine question and Mark surprised himself by saying, “Sure.”

It didn’t help that Eduardo and Tyler kept giving each other looks that made Mark just want to tell them to go home and go at it again.

“I’ve got a single,” Eduardo said to Tyler.

“I’m not coming home tonight,” Tyler said to his brother.

Mark and Cameron walked together after Eduardo and Tyler had gone off to their way back to Kirkland. Cameron didn’t bring up thefacebook again, just chattered about the restaurants he had been to on Harvard campus; and suddenly Mark was thinking about Cameron shoving him up against a wall and ravaging him.

Or, really, taking him apart gently. Mark wasn’t too picky.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have taken his chances. But Cameron was the one who had bothered him nearly every day for two weeks, so Mark always had that to fall as an excuse on. And even if he didn’t, he could always pull back the investment in thefacebook if he got too badly rejected.

Mark said, interrupting Cameron’s spiel, “You’ll be alone tonight since your brother’s not coming back, right?”

Cameron paused. “I don’t have to be,” he said, and the smile on his face made Mark’s stomach all warm.

They continued talking on the way back – Mark recounted the time he and Dustin and Chris and Eduardo had gone to the Kong and shared a Scorpion Bowl and Cameron howled with laughter – then Cameron knew all the good Indian restaurants on both sides of the Charles River, and liked all the same things Mark did. Mark suggested, “We could try some together,” and Cameron had lit up at that. Being with Cameron was just so nice.

Then they were at Cameron’s dorm, and Cameron said, “You’re coming in, right?”

Mark nodded, and then he was being pressed up against the inside of Cameron’s dorm, right next to a bookshelf, and being kissed.

Mark liked being right.

Afterward, with Mark’s head lying on the endless chiseled planes of Cameron’s chest, Mark rested his chin on his pec and said, “I wonder what Eduardo and Tyler are doing right now.”

“Oh god.” Cameron laughed and covered his face. “Don’t make me think about it.”

“Sorry,” Mark said, only feeling it a little bit. “I can’t believe they had sex in a public bathroom.”

“Jesus.” Cameron still had his hand over his face, but he was laughing still too. “Ty probably calls Eduardo Eddie in bed.”

“Why would you make me think about that,” Mark said, elbowing him in the stomach.

Cameron yelped in surprise, but he was still laughing. He was golden when he laughed; they’d left the lights on, and even though Mark had felt skinny and pale and awkward, Cameron was gorgeous and had made him feel like he was more than just the idea for thefacebook or something to invest in.

Cameron said, “I’m glad you have better taste than my brother,” and Mark said, “I do, too.”

Mark shuts his laptop off and places it on the floor next to him, before curling next to Cameron on the mattress. He smiles as he listens to the sound of his boyfriend’s soft breathing, glad that someone came out to California with him.

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being the middleman

by aroceu

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© 2009-2026 aroceu