Archive of Our Own ^beta

I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m going.

Or how he ends up here. After being lost for so long, Peter Parker had finally found his path: First, figure out how to save Harry without killing him sooner or doing something worse, then join Gwen in England. With his blood, they could figure out how to make the spider venom work on Harry too. Richard Parker said he didn't manage to kill all the spiders, right?

Now Gwen is dead, Harry has taken matters into his own hands, and Peter is standing at the front gate of Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane.

“What are you doing?” he mumbles, pacing. “What are you doing?”

Here he is again, looking at what he has, seeing what he lost.

“What are you doing?”

He turns around; he turns back. He can’t do this; he can’t let go.

“Sir, can I help you?”

He looks up. It’s one of the guards.

“Sir?”

“No. No, just… Just passing by. Nothing. Thank you.”

Just like the last time with Harry, he runs.

“I’m here to see Harry Osborn…? Is he allowed visitors? I’m Peter Parker.”

He goes to Gwen’s grave; he comes back here. He can’t keep doing this.

Security squints at him from the guardhouse, suspicious. “Are you with the press?”

“No! I mean, yes, I’m a photographer, but look, I didn’t even bring my camera. I—I’m not here for an article or anything like that. He’s just…” He runs a hand through his hair, then puts it back in his pocket. “We were friends.”

“You were friends with Harry Osborn?” He’s used to the condescension and disbelief. No one believed that eight years ago either.

“Look, just…” He fidgets. It’s like a repeat of the day he heard Harry came back to New York, only much, much worse. “Just tell him I’m here, okay? And if he doesn’t want to see me, I’ll go.”

For a moment, the guard looks like he’s going to say no, but then he reluctantly stands. “Just wait here.”

Two boys skip stones on a lake in a New York City park. The first stone skips once before sinking, and blond who threw it shakes his head before picking up another stone as the other, a slight brunet in a hoodie and shorts, takes careful aim. The second doesn’t skip at all, and the boy groans. The blond tries again.

“I’m going away,” he sighs after the third stone, even though it skips twice. He dusts his hands off on his expensive gray two-piece.

“Another trip?” His companion turns. “When? Where? For how long?”

“Boarding school,” he corrects listlessly. “I don’t know, Pete. Six years, at least. Maybe more?”

“Oh.” Peter’s face falls, ever expressive. “What’s wrong with the schools here?”

“Nothing,” comes the reply, the older boy’s voice bleeding bitterness. “My father just wants to get me out of his hair.” He tosses the stone so hard, it makes a big splash in the water, doesn’t even skip once. "Throw me away, so I can stop being such a disappointment in his face."

Peter turns to avoid getting water in his eyes.

"You should be his son instead. He likes you better."

"C'mon, Har." He takes Harry's hands. "You know that isn't true. I wish I could be anything like you. You’re good with people. And cool, handsome, witty..."

"Are you hitting on me, Parker?" A bit of a laugh, a twinkle to blue eyes, a mischievous grin.

"What's that?"

He wraps an arm around the younger boy's shoulders. "Never mind. Let's go get ice cream."

"Okay!" Peter agrees brightly, leaning into him.

They get rum 'n' raisin and birthday cake ice cream and slide down the bannister back towards the lake. Peter offers him a spoon of ice cream as they walk, and he decides birthday cake is not a bad flavor. Peter doesn’t like rum ‘n’ raisin though. The other gestures wildly with his hands, tells him about the latest Stark invention, laughs at a joke he made, carefree and happy, and he doesn’t manage not to resent it.

“Harry?”

He looks up. In the glow of the sun that’s starting to set, his friend looks like he’s shining, a symbol of everything unattainable in his life.

“It’s far away, isn’t it?” Peter asks in a small voice.

“Europe,” he confirms, looking down.

The brunet steps closer, dismal. “Can’t you not go?”

He scoffs. “I wish my life were like yours — normal. Free.”

Thin arms lift to rest on his shoulders as Peter leans in, and for a wild moment, Harry thinks the younger boy is going to kiss him, but the other only presses their cheeks together in a tight hug.

“You’ll write, won’t you? I’ll miss you, Har. Promise you won’t forget me.”

“Of course.” He returns the embrace, at once relieved and disappointed. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Peter started crying. “How could I forget my best friend?”

“Mister Osborn, you have a visitor,” the guard announces at his cell door.

Harry Osborn turns for a better look in the mirror. A visitor? It must not be Gustav Fiers. “Who is it?”

“One Peter Parker.”

“Peter…” Rage, betrayal, excitement, grief — he wonders which one he expresses, which one makes his skin crawl green with madness, and the face in the mirror cackles.

"Will you see him?"

He wonders why Peter is here, if this is about his dead girlfriend, if they're going to fight, if he should dignify a social visit from another false friend. It's complicated, whispers the sharp stab of pain, and Harry doesn't do complicated, but with Peter Parker, he never could resist.

"I will. Bring him in."

"Peter," Harry greets as he's led into the visiting room in an orange straightjacket, drawing out the name in a vicious smile. "It's so good to see you."

Peter looks up as the guards lock the door behind the other.

He stands; he sits. He reaches out, aborts the motion. He can't bear to see his best friend like this, that sick shade of green creeping into his beautiful blue eyes, can’t bear to realize he can’t even be angry about Gwen. He should have tried harder to help Harry sooner. Or at least explained himself better.

"Don't do this, Har," he pleads in a whisper. He doesn’t know how to do this. The staff tell him that Harry is unstable, that he should tread softly, be careful what he says, but he doesn’t know what to look out for anymore.

“Tell me, Peter,” Harry says in his slow and deliberate way, circling the table to sit across from him. “Why should I do anything for you, when you wouldn’t even do one thing for me?”

“I was trying to protect you!” he insists desperately; why can’t Harry understand?

Harry lunges out of the chair at him, face stopping a bare inch from his own. “At least pay me the respect of not lying to me,” the other hisses through razor-sharp teeth.

No, no, he's doing it wrong.

Carefully, he leans forward, presses his forehead to Harry’s. “Why would you think I wouldn’t want to help you if only I could?” He cups the other’s greenish cheeks. “How did you get so twisted?”

“Because you could have, Peter,” Harry replies bitterly. “And you chose to protect yourself.”

“It would have killed you. Faster and more painfully. No, listen. Listen, please.” His vision blurs. “I couldn’t do that to you, Har. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t.”

Harry sits back down, looking away with a scoff. “Max was right, you know. You’re so selfish.” He rises, heading to the door and indicating to the guards to take him back. “Go away, Peter. Don’t come again.”

"Harry? Harry," Peter whines outside the bathroom door. It’s early in the morning, Aunt May is nagging at them to get to their breakfast, and Harry has been in the bathroom for close to half an hour. "Are you done yet? What are you doing in there?"

There’s clattering, shuffling, the sound of the blow dryer turning on and then off, Harry making a sound of frustration like a disaster has occurred inside before the door opens to reveal the sopping wet ten-year-old, blond hair sticking up in weird places and partly obscuring his sullen face.

“I’m trying to… I’m trying to dry my hair. It’s um…”

And Peter can’t help it — it’s probably harder than it looks. Heck, he’s not even sure what his friend is trying to do, but it’s hilarious. “Why can’t you use a towel like the rest of us?” he asks between guffaws.

Harry levels him a piercing blue glare. “It won’t look right if I do, and I swear I am never sleeping over again if you don’t stop laughing at me right this instant.”

Now, he’s pretty sure this is Harry’s first time sleeping over anywhere ever, and he’s secretly pleased to be the first — it makes him feel special. So he schools his face into some semblance of seriousness and raises his hands in supplication. “Okay, okay. What’s this special drying thing you’re trying to do?”

"Well, at home, they comb and put the dryer on it at the same time. Like..." He awkwardly tries to demonstrate.

“Oh! We should get Aunt May to help. I’ve seen her do it sometimes, for dinners and stuff.”

“No.” The look of pure and undisguised horror on Harry’s face cracks him up again, and the blond frowns and stomps past him.

“No, wait, wait.” He stops Harry with a placating arm around pale shoulders. "Don't be mad, Har, c'mon." He likes Harry. "Sit down and let me try."

The other turns to him reluctantly. "You'll ruin it."

"No more than you have." Harry looks ready to throw another fit, so he quickly adds, "You can't look bad anyway. You don't know how."

The blond smirks, that smile that makes him so popular, and sits down, combs his hair into the usual style. "It needs to stay like this. You remember."

Peter gets the comb under a lock of gold hair and holds the dryer over it like he saw Aunt May do. "Yeah, hard not to." He's been looking at it almost everyday for two years now.

"I can't decide if you're flirting with me or making fun of me, Parker."

"What's flirting?" he asks absently, flipping on the dryer and pulling the comb down the lock of hair with it before moving to the next lock.

"That's for you to find out." Harry examines Peter's work in the mirror. "And I suppose that's passable.”

“Just passable? Oh, c’mon! Aunt May says I’ll get a girlfriend someday. I hope she isn’t like you.”

Harry shrugs. “Then don’t get a girlfriend.”

Peter pauses, considering. “That makes sense.” He nods slowly. “Then she can’t be like you.”

He continues fixing Harry’s hair.

“I thought I told you not to come again.”

“I thought you would refuse to see me.”

As if he could. “As if I would run from you, Peter.” Harry sits down in the other chair. "So. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, Peter seems to take him in before smiling slightly. "You look good, Har."

There he goes again, with his brown doe eyes and false affections. The urge to hit him, hurt him, hold him down crawls under Harry's skin, but he only says blithely, "It comes and goes."

The boy has the gall to blink back tears. "I'm sorry, Har. I never wanted you to end up like this."

“This? This?" He stands abruptly, feels the change. "Are you calling me a monster?"

"No!" The look of pained horror on Peter's face burns him with sadistic glee.

He leaps over the table to bodily slam Peter to the ground. "After what you made me do?"

It pisses him off that Peter doesn't defend himself, just lets himself fall, his hands coming up, not to push Harry away, but to hold on to his shoulders — still pretending he cares when all that matters is protecting his itsy-bitsy secret.

Fuck you, Peter. "I could just rip your throat out with my teeth now. Isn't that nice?"

He could out Peter as Spider-Man here, force him to reveal the truth before the cameras he knows are recording their every move, but no, no, no. That would be too easy, too unsatisfying when Peter’s already quit, when he has so little spirit left to break. Peter is his. His to crush, his to ruin, his to tear apart when everyone else puts the fraud back together. And they will. They need to. But in the meantime, even these little hurts are like a salve unto his own wounds.

The guards come to pull him away, but he's not done, no. Oh, he's not done by a long shot.

"You're the monster here, Peter!" He struggles against their hold. "You destroy everyone you touch! Max, me, Gwen, her father, your uncle Ben! Isn't that right? It's all your fault!"

"No!" Peter cries, leaping towards him.

A moment later, a needle pierces his neck. Oh.

"Why did you do that?!" Peter wails as if from very far away. "You didn't have to— He wasn't going to do anything!!"

Oh, you have no idea, my friend; you have no idea. One day, I'll make you feel the pain I felt, Peter. You'll see, you'll see, you'll see... and Peter's dismay fades into the darkness.

”Peter, let’s go to the mall.” They’re in the library, studying.

The younger boy looks up. “Aren’t we going this weekend? We have tests tomorrow.”

“Oh, c’mon!” Harry whines, standing. “I don’t care about that, and you’ll ace it anyway. I wanna go now.”

Peter looks at his textbook and notes, then at Harry’s imploring face and caves. There’s little reasoning with his friend when he’s made up his mind enough to insist. He shuts the book. Harry’s right, at least — he’ll ace it regardless.

“What am I going to tell Aunt May? We can’t exactly hide it, but she’ll kill me if I tell her we went shopping when we were supposed to be studying.”

Harry grabs his hand and pulls him along. “When we get back, I’ll tell her I dragged you along.”

Which is the full truth, but still, “Harry…”

“Fine. Fiiine. We’ll say we left later like we actually studied, and we’ll reach your house a little later too, and then you just let me do the talking.”

Harry’s butler, Bernard, picks them up in the Osborns’ luxurious Aston Martin. They stop at Trump Tower for ice cream and crepes, and Peter’s never been here, but it reminds him a bit of Harry’s mansion. With its marble walls, mirrors and the bridge over the waterfall pool, it looks like something from another world. Everyone seems to know Harry and Bernard though, from the girl at the ice cream parlor to the attendants at Gucci. Harry tries on half the boy’s selection before picking out a belt and scarf and making Peter try on several jackets. Peter has never seen numbers that large on a price tag before, though, granted, he doesn't go shopping much. Despite his protests, Harry insists on buying him a blue woolen coat.

"It looks good on you, Pete."

That's true, and it feels positively luxurious, but "Har, I can't take this."

"Sure you can. I’m insisting." Bernard is already at the counter, paying for the items.

"Harry, I—"

"Peter, you are going to take it, and you are going to wear it, or you are not my friend," Harry interrupts with an air of finality that brooks no argument, and really, what can Peter say to that?

So he sighs, thanks Harry and lets them bag it. Bernard looks mildly affronted when he suggests carrying the coat himself, so he reluctantly hands the shopping bag over.

“Now, let’s go get some hot chocolate.”

“But we just ate!” Peter protests, following Harry out.

“Yeah, so? It’s just drinks. Besides, it’s on the way to the next store I really want to see.”

They head a fair way down the road and get hot chocolate that comes in little pots on tea light warmers with thin biscuits and fresh strawberries dipped in more chocolate. It is the richest and most delicious hot chocolate he has ever had — he only wishes they had marshmallows. As soon as he mentions marshmallows, Harry turns to Bernard.

“Can we get marshmallows anywhere nearby?”

“No, no, Har, don’t worry about it. We can get marshmallows next time,” Peter interjects quickly.

Bernard bows slightly. "I believe there are several candy stores in the vicinity that stock them, sir, yes."

Harry gestures expansively, at once "Wonderful!" and "See?", before saying, "Well, get us a bag then."

"No, no, Harry, please. Harry, it's not a big deal. We'll be done before it even arrives."

Before Harry can answer, one of the waitresses speaks up. "Um, Mister Osborn? We're just about to make another batch of our chocolate dipped marshmallows. If you’d like, we can cut some up for you."

Jubilant, Harry smiles — his most winning. “There you go! Yes, please do. What’s your name again?”

The strawberry blonde ducks her head a little, possibly to hide her freckles. “It’s Jess, sir.”

“Bernard, do remember to leave Jess here an extra tip for the fantastic service.”

“I will, sir.”

When the marshmallows arrive, Peter thanks Jess profusely. Harry seems delighted to watch Peter add the marshmallows to his cup, and he’s sure Harry is nothing if not generous when pleased, so he supposes it all works out, but he can’t help feeling like he’s troubled her unnecessarily. When they finish, they walk another block or so, then turn a corner where Harry insists on getting ice cream floats to drink as they walk, and then they’re in a camera store. Harry, as usual, is going to work his way down from the top of the range, so he asks to have a look at the latest professional model from Canon. Lifting it briefly, he decides it’s far too heavy and requests “something lighter but equally good.”

The store manager, a portly bespectacled man, informs him that lighter and equally good don’t come hand-in-hand (“more features, more parts, more weight, unfortunately”), but he does have one that is much lighter and as close as it gets given the size and weight. He takes it out of the box and sets it up to show Harry. It’s the Nikon Peter has been saving up for, but even on sale as it is now, he won’t be able to afford it till next year. Lately, he’s been thinking of getting a Sony instead — top of their range is about the price of a mid-range Canon or Nikon. Besides, he’s only just starting out — he can get the best tool once he’s mastered the art.

"Hmm..." Harry turns to him suddenly. "What do you think, Peter?"

"Ah? Um, that's a very good camera."

"You know how to use it?"

"Err... Somewhat?"

"Good, good. Can we test it?" The manager inclines his head in agreement, and Harry presses the camera into Peter’s hands. “Here, Peter, take some pictures of me.”

Peter turns it on, adjusts a few settings and takes aim. Harry poses, and he shifts to get a better angle before snapping the photo. He takes a few more shots —close up, full body, profile, bust and so on— in several poses before showing them to Harry on the screen.

The older boy nods approvingly. “Do you like it?”

Peter blinks. “Yes, of course, but do you?”

“Well, the photos look good, so I’ll take your word on the rest.” Harry turns to the manager. “We’ll take it.”

Bernard follows the guy to the counter to ring them up as Peter hands the camera over.

“No, no, you hang on to it.” His best friend loops the strap over his neck. “I can’t very well take pictures of myself, can I?”

“O—okay.”

They hit Saks 5th Avenue next, and this is clearly the store Harry really wants to see. They head up to the kids section, and Harry goes to town, trying tops, bottoms, blazers and shoes. Peter laughs and takes pictures as Harry catwalks out of the fitting room until Harry insists he try some clothes on too and makes Bernard take pictures of them both. Harry is about halfway through the shoe section when Bernard leans down to tell him it’s almost dinnertime.

“Crap! I told Aunt May I’d be back before dinner!”

“We’ll take these then,” Harry tells the sales associate calmly, indicating the two piles of items he’s decided he likes. “Bernard, my phone please. I need to call Mrs. Parker.”

“Harry?” Peter’s voice is a panicked squeak. “What are you going to say?! Harry!”

“Shh…” Harry signals for him to calm down, then, “Hello? No, it’s Harry. Mrs. Parker, I am so sorry. Peter’s with me. I offered to take him home, since Bernard was here, so we left a little earlier, but then there was a store I really wanted to see today, so I dragged Peter along.” He gives her his most imploring and apologetic whine. “Yes. Yes, of course. We only left half an hour early. That’s why we’re late. I got carried away, I’m sorry. It’s just… I never knew shopping was so much better with friends! And Peter is… well, I don’t know that I’d want to do this with anyone else.”

And maybe Harry is just that good of an actor —he’s even gone all teary-eyed and a little choked up— but Peter really wishes he isn’t just making it up as an excuse for Aunt May. They’re friends, aren’t they? Best friends? Or is that just wishful thinking on his part? He and Harry are from different worlds. Today, he’s seen another glimpse of Harry’s, and he doesn’t dare to hope Harry won’t get bored of him soon enough. He feels plain amongst the dazzling stars that orbit Harry’s glamorous life.

“Of course. We will be back soon. Yes. I will. Again, I’m terribly sorry about this. Oh no, I couldn’t impose! You’re too kind. Well, I mean, when you put it that way, how could I? Thank you, Mrs. Parker. I’ll see you soon then. Bye!” Harry hangs up, takes a deep breath, then turns to face him with a victorious smile. “All settled. Just remember we left the school at half past four.”

He stands and slips the phone into Bernard’s pocket just as the butler arrives with the shopping bags.

“Bernard, Mrs. Parker insists I stay for dinner.” He looks in each bag before picking one out. “Don’t forget to take this one with you, Peter. It’s yours.”

Peter looks into the bag. It has the clothes and shoes he tried on earlier. “Harry…”

Maybe this is it. This is why they’ll grow apart, and in a few years’ time, Harry will forget they ever were friends, leave him behind just like his parents did. He doesn’t wear Gucci or Burberry or Armani, doesn’t buy anything new till what he has is worn out, shops at thrift stores instead of Fifth Avenue. This is what makes them so different, makes him inadequate to be by Harry’s side, makes Harry want to fix him.

“Don’t give me any of that ‘I can’t take this’ nonsense again.”

“Harry, are you… embarrassed by me or something?” Oh God, he’s going to cry. This is pathetic.

The blond turns, a mask of confusion and disbelief.

“Like, do I h— do I have to wear these to hang out with you? To be good enough to be your friend? So no one can say you’re— you’re mixing with the lower classes? Is that it?”

“What?” Blue eyes look hurt. “No! How can you say that? Is that what you think of me?”

Peter just shakes his head, swallows the lump in his throat and wipes his eyes with his shirt sleeve. He likes Harry, he really does, and he doesn’t want them to not be friends anymore. It hurts to even imagine.

“Oh Peter, c’mere.” Harry wraps his arms around him, and Peter buries his face in the soft fabric of the older boy’s scarf. “No, no, of course not. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Harry rubs his back soothingly. “I just… They look good on you, Pete. Even with your unibrow.”

Peter can’t help chuckling through the tears.

“I just want you to have them, okay? You look amazing in them. More amazing.” He pats Peter’s back again, then lets go. “C’mon, let’s go home.”

Peter nods, wiping his face. “Aunt May’s expecting us.”

“Yes, and you’ll always be my friend, Peter. No matter what. I won’t throw you away.”

He spends all the time he isn't at Gwen's grave in Roosevelt.

He looks over his father's work, tries to figure it out. There's got to be a way to make it work, to fix Harry, to control the mutation that turns him green and drives him mad. Perhaps some kind of anti-venom could be developed to reverse the damage. So he visits Dr. Connors, but the man isn’t terribly coherent. He breaks into Oscorp and steals all the remaining venom to study. But he's not his father, and he's not Gwen, and this isn’t really his area. He needs help, but if he reveals this to the wrong person, he could destroy the world, undo everything his father died for.

He misses Gwen.

She was like a beacon, and he’d all but lived by the brilliance of her mind and soul. In the darkness she left behind, he feels so lost, so helpless. He doesn’t know what to do, who to turn to. It’s hard to find meaning in anything without her light to illuminate it.

The sirens blare, the news speculates on Spider-Man’s absence, and Peter wonders what the point is. He can’t save anybody, not when it really matters. All he does is put the people around him in danger.

He reads the research again and again, file after file, till the words blur, and he falls asleep on the keyboard.

He visits Gwen; he eats whatever’s convenient; he does it all over again.

Until the day he passes the Coffee Bean on a street corner in Manhattan.

He buys their café crème and buttermilk currant scones with clotted cream and raspberry preserve. He remembers Harry likes preserves, but not jams (there’s an important difference), and he’ll drink lattes because they’re in vogue, but he really only likes his coffee with heavy cream (and scotch, but he’s pretty sure Harry only drinks scotch in some misguided attempt to live up to his father’s expectations). The silly boy; he shakes his head fondly.

But it’s worth it to see Harry freeze at the door to the visiting room as he rambles, “It’s gotten a bit cold on the way here, but I hope it’s still good. I um… was passing by, and I remember you liked it, wonder if you’ve had it since… well.”

Harry doesn’t answer, just sits down, pulls the paper bag over and starts eating in silence.

At least he seems to be enjoying it. He’s also no longer in the straightjacket, which must mean he is doing well. And ignoring Peter, who’s trying valiantly not to fidget from the awkward tension, fingers curling and uncurling in his pockets.

As Harry drinks half his coffee between scones, Peter stands abruptly and all but runs for the door. “Look, I—I’m gonna go, all right? Get out of your hair, and—”

“Why do you keep coming back, Pete?” Harry sighs the question, like a caress from another life.

He stills and turns. It hurts that they’ve come to this, that Harry has to ask. “You’re my best friend.”

“You betrayed me. When I needed you most, you betrayed me.”

“No, I told you we needed more time to figure out how to do it safely.”

“I was dying, Peter." Harry stands. "Dying! I didn’t have the luxury of time!”

“Your father lived with it for over thirty years, Harry!” He throws his hands up in frustration. “No, you couldn’t wait. You've never had to wait for anything. Anything you want, you want now, and you've always gotten it. I told you it wouldn’t work, Har! My mistake was forgetting that you can't be reasoned with once you've decided you want something!"

Harry slowly closes the distance between them and fists a hand in Peter’s collar. "You would have me rot away on the inside, a desperate haunted man whose search for a cure eclipsed his entire life,” he enunciates deliberately. “You would have me turn into my father." His voice drops to a whisper, blue eyes meeting brown. "I can't do that, Peter. I thought you’d understand, but all you cared about was her. I thought you were my friend, but in the end, you threw me away too."

Peter shakes his head, covers that pale trembling hand with his own. "That’s not true, Har. I'm going to figure out how to fix this. I won't stop looking, I swear."

Harry steps back, a wistful smile, a bitter laugh. "Some things that you throw away you never find again, Parker.” He leaves with the guards.

"Harry! Harold Osborn!"

Harry turns and stops, leans against the railing around the park’s lake. Peter is running towards him, red in the face and panting heavily.

"Peter. What's the matter?"

"Harry, why d—" He gasps for breath. "Did you really offer Aunt May and Uncle Ben money?"

“Why, yes. Did they finally decide to let me help them?”

“No! Why did you have to go and do that?!”

Blue eyes blink in incomprehension. “If I can help a friend, should I not try to do so?”

“No! I mean—” He spins full circle, running his hands through messy brown hair. "Yes. But I don't want your money, Harry! I’m not— I’m not some kind of charity!" He lifts the camera strap over his head and holds the Nikon out. “So you can take this back because I’m done processing all the photos on it like you asked. And I’ll bring all the clothes and sh—”

“Okay, okay!” Harry throws his arms around Peter. “I promise I won’t try to give your family money anymore!” Softly, he adds, “Just… please don’t return everything I’ve ever given you like we’re b— like we’re cutting ties. We’re— we’re not, right? We’re still friends?”

Peter sighs, returning the embrace. “Of course we are, Har. That’s why I don’t want it to be like that between us. Please stop trying to buy me. You can’t, and you don’t have to.”

Harry rests his head on Peter’s shoulder. It’s a little awkward because he’s taller. “I wasn’t, but… no one’s ever told me that before.”

“Oh Harry…” Peter tightens his hold briefly, then cards his fingers through blond hair.

His friend always acts like he’s all that, but even amidst his luxuries and admirers, Harry always seems so lonely and unhappy. It’s sad that none of his many “friends” have told him they don’t care about his riches, and Peter can’t help but resent Norman Osborn for being a neglectful father at the best of times. Sometimes, there are bruises Harry refuses to talk about, that he hides beneath those long sleeves and high collars, but most of the time, Harry may as well be an orphan too. Maybe that’s why they’re best friends.

Privately, a dark little part of Peter thinks Harry would honestly be better off as an orphan, then he could give up on that lost cause of a man, but he can’t really wish that on anyone, much less his best friend.

“Keep the camera, Pete,” Harry says, stepping back without letting go. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. You make some real magic with that thing.”

The orange glow of the sunset casts a brightening shine on Harry’s lovely golden hair, warms his pale skin and makes his brilliant blue eyes stand out in even greater contrast. Peter steps back and snaps a picture. Harry blinks, then chuckles.

“What do you do with all these pictures you take of me anyway? I’m not going to get phone calls from modelling agencies soon, am I?”

Inexplicably, Peter finds himself blushing. “Do you want to? Get calls from modelling agencies, I mean.”

“Maybe?” Harry grins playfully, climbing up on the railing and perching one leg on it bent at the knee while the other dangles down, one hand gripping the top bar and the other resting on his bent knee. With his most winning smile, he teases, “How’s this for an audition photo?”

Peter giggles, but clicks away on the camera from several angles. Harry shifts poses a few times, the breeze tousles his preppy combover bangs into some semblance of natural casualness, and all in all, Peter thinks it’s a pretty great impromptu shoot.

Until Harry nearly backflips into the lake and he almost drops the camera leaping forward to grab the older boy’s hand and pull. The blond falls sprawling into his arms, and he staggers back a few steps.

“Whoa.”

Breathlessly, Harry only laughs as he regains his footing. “Show me,” he says, waving at the camera. “C’mon, show me.”

They weave over to a park bench and sit down. Harry presses him to his side with an arm around his waist, and they pick out photos. He’s going to be looking up modelling agencies tonight.

He packs up every picture of Gwen but one. He leaves all of Harry’s where they are.

He can’t give up. There must be something he can do.

He reads up on genomics. He returns to Roosevelt.

Finally, he climbs the new Avengers Tower.

Maybe Mr. Stark can help. Maybe Dr. Banner knows a thing or two about turning green and mad. He doesn’t think they would use the knowledge for evil.

He ends up telling them almost everything and begging them to save Harry. He doesn’t dare take any risks with the formula this time. He’s failed enough of his loved ones already. He can’t lose Harry too.

Mr. Stark says he knows someone who might be able to help and seemed rather apologetic about being off-planet when the mess with Max and Harry went down. Dr. Banner only suggests to tread softly (there it is again; if only he knew how) and try not to provoke any intense emotions to keep things under control.

On his way home, he stops a few crimes, rescues a few people, and visits Gwen’s grave. Hope, she said. In the five months he’d wasted wallowing in his grief, how many people’s hope had been taken away? She would never have wanted that. He can’t stop walking. He's been paralyzed for too long already — first by indecision, and then by grief. And in all the time that he'd stood still, he’d hurt so many people — Aunt May, Gwen, Harry…

He wants to visit Harry again, but it will probably only provoke “intense emotions” and trigger the mutation. He flops back gracelessly on his bed, staring at the wall of papers that make only some sense on his best days. Things had gone okay the last time though. Perhaps he could bring another distraction?

He heads back to Fifth Avenue, gets fruit crepes and a hot chocolate to go before going to Ravencroft. The place still looks more like an army base than an asylum, and he longs to get Harry out, back to his silk sheets and down pillows, to the luxuries his friend is accustomed to. As usual, the personnel search, but don’t stop him, and he’s allowed into the visitors’ chamber with his treats.

Blue eyes brighten at the sight, and once upon a time, it would be him and not the desserts that cheered Harry up. He can’t bear to think that those days are forever gone. Harry seems frailer as he reaches for the hot chocolate, his already fair skin a little paler under golden hair that could use a trim. His hands shake as he holds the crepe, and his long nails show traces of rust-colored flecks and stains.

Again, Harry seems content to ignore Peter as he eats, but where he had avoided eye contact before, he meets brown eyes head on now. To his surprise, instead of the usual anger, Harry seems haunted now, afraid. He’s about to ask what’s wrong when the other takes his hand.

“Peter,” Harry murmurs, rising as he finishes the crepe. “You seem better.”

He should be glad for the pleasantry, Peter thinks as he stands as well and laces their fingers, but it only fills him with worry. “As do you,” he hazards, searching the blond’s face for the barest flicker of a clue.

“What do you know,” Harry enunciates bitterly, stepping slowly closer with a sweet smile. “Perhaps all I needed was therapy, after all.”

“It seems to be working out for you,” he offers, taking a step back in turn. It’s a little like the dance Harry tried to teach him as a kid, only he’s taller than Harry now and doesn’t have two left feet anymore.

The other sighs, dropping his gaze. “I wonder when they’ll give up on me.”

“Isn’t it their job not to?”

It comes and goes, Harry said. He vacillates between resentment and amiability, between the madman he’s become and the friend Peter remembers.

“Not all that is broken can be fixed, Parker,” he spits through gritted teeth. “And wouldn’t you know best?”

“But you can be, Har,” Peter insists as his back hits the wall. “I’ll find a way.”

Harry leans forward to rest his head on the brunet’s shoulder. “You won’t give up on me, will you?”

Wrapping his free arm around the older boy, Peter answers, “Never have and never will.”

“They experiment on people in here, Parker,” Harry hisses into his ear, raising his free hand to Peter’s neck in a chokehold. “And you put me here.”

“Harry…” he wheezes as the hand wrapped around his throat tightens. “I—”

Abruptly, Harry lets go as the guards rush to the door. “Help me, Peter,” he whispers, caressing a lightly tanned cheek and guiding Peter’s jaw so their eyes meet again. “Save me from them.”

And then he presses their lips together.

It’s strange, surreal, but Peter is kissing back before his mind has even caught up to it. Harry's lips are soft, and he tastes like fruits and whipped cream from the crepes and traces of some kind of chemical.

Like water in a desert, it makes him feel alive.

All at once, it is everything and nothing like kissing Gwen.

But then Harry pulls away with a gasp before Peter can put any further thought into that.

“Harry?”

The blond falls to his knees with a sharp cry of pain. When he wraps his shaking arms around himself, Peter sees the other’s hands are green and clawed. Slowly, he kneels as well.

“Harry, what is this?”

Bloodshot blue-green eyes dart to him, then drop to the floor. “You don’t want my money, so I was hoping I could offer you something else instead.”

He’s not prepared for the pain, for how easily the words reduce him to tears. “No,” he sobs, burying his face in Harry’s shoulder like he always used to. “No, no, no.”

“Is it so unwelcome?” Harry asks in a small voice.

Peter shakes his head. “It’s not like that, Har. It’s nothing like that. I—I’d— not like this, Har. Not like this. You don’t have to offer me anything.”

“Then you won’t help me?” The blond’s voice is chilling. “You’ll abandon me again?”

“Of course I’ll help you, Har. I just… I just need a plan.”

“Sure you do.” Harry shoves him away. “To keep me here or somewhere else forever!” He lunges at Peter with sharp claws, and only the spider reflexes allow the younger boy to roll away in time. “You put me in here!!” he screams as he attacks again, and the guards grab him but he throws them off effortlessly. “You don’t want me out!! You don’t really even care about me, onl—aahhh!”

“Harry!!”

The guards shot him, and he whirls on them. They’re just tranquilizer darts, thankfully. “You fools. You don’t know what you’re playing with.”

More guards arrive. He sways, and they quickly grab him. He struggles, but his movements are weak, sluggish. What kind of tranquilizer could work so quickly on even a failed spider venom mutation?

“Harry, no!” Peter runs toward them, but they slam the gate in his face.

“You’re a fraud, Peter!” Harry yells weakly as they haul him away. “I hate you! Keep your false affections! Where were you whenever I needed you?! You were never there for me, Peter! Never!!”

Harry’s leaving to Europe in two hours. They’re at the airport, and he keeps scanning the crowd.

His father isn’t here.

Peter doesn’t think Norman will come, but he can’t bear to dash Harry’s hopes. Instead, he takes a gift box out of his backpack.

“This is for you.”

Harry brightens, and he’s glad.

“May I open it?” His excitement turns teasing. “Or are you the type that believes you shouldn’t open gifts in front of the giver?”

“Um… You can open it,” he mumbles. He hopes Harry will like it. But maybe Harry only buys designer brand photo albums handmade from Italian leather or something.

The other lifts the cover and carefully takes the bright blue (like Harry’s eyes) album out, but doesn’t say anything as he opens it and turns a few pages.

Nervously, Peter adds, “You asked me once what I do with all the photos I take of you…”

“You made this?” Harry asks at last.

He nods. “It’s n—”

“I love it.” Harry dives forward to throw his arms around Peter. “I love it, Peter. It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“Will you visit?” he asks, returning the hug.

The older boy sighs. “I don’t know, Pete. I don’t know what European boarding school is like. We’ll see.”

Peter bites his lip. He won’t cry. He doesn’t want Harry to cry too. “I wish I could go with you, Har.”

Harry strokes his hair. “Me too. Maybe in a year or two?”

“Sir, I hate to interrupt, but we must be going,” Bernard says quietly.

Harry nods, pulling away reluctantly. “I’ll miss you, Pete.”

Peter blinks back his tears. “I’ll miss you more.”

Harry shakes his head, but doesn’t argue. Instead, he wipes the rim of tears off Peter’s bottom eyelid with his thumbs. “Goodbye, Peter.”

Peter only shakes his head as well, and he turns to follow Bernard to the gate. He wishes he were as thoughtful as Peter, that he’d gotten his best friend some kind of farewell gift too.

“Wait,” he tells Bernard as it occurs to him, and he runs back to where Peter is still standing. “Take this,” he says breathlessly, removing the ring on his left middle finger and pressing it into Peter’s hand.

“A—are you sure?”

It’s platinum with small aquamarines set at evenly spaced intervals around it. It was his birthday gift from his father last year, but he’s pretty sure it was actually from Bernard, and his father didn’t even know he’d paid for it, since he asked why Harry was having a party when they ran into each other in the hall that night. At least it will have fond memories for Peter — his best friend always said it matches his eyes. And Father would probably rather buy Peter a gift anyway.

“Yeah. I want you to have it.”

He needs to give up and stop being bitter, forget all about this life. Father isn’t coming, probably doesn’t even know his flight departs in an hour, probably wouldn’t care if he was never seen again. It’s Peter who doesn’t need anything to remember him by, who will revisit all their favorite places in his memory, whom the ring will comfort whenever the distance seems too great to bridge — a validation and a promise.

“Thanks, Har.” The brunet presses it with Harry’s hand to his heart. “I’ll take good care of it.”

Someday, Peter can sell the ring for a better life, but Harry knows he will instead cherish it among his favorite things. He smiles, squeezing that smaller hand one last time. “I know you will.”

Peter gets a call from a Dr. Elias Wirtham, a friend of Tony Stark’s. He suggests, as Peter himself had considered, synthesizing an anti-venom from the data in Roosevelt to neutralize the side effects, which might have some effect on the failed mutation itself. However, he worries that if it is successful, Harry’s illness will kill him soon after. Hope, Gwen reminds him, so Peter says they have to try.

They meet up for coffee along with Dr. Wirtham’s assistant, Anna Maria Marconi, a tiny girl beside the 6’5” doctor, and they seem like good people. Eli (as he insists Peter call him) says he agreed to help because he doesn’t want Harry to die needlessly like his brother, Joshua, had. Deciding he can trust them to a point, Peter suggests the theory he’s been going over in his head — if they can isolate his father’s DNA in the spiders or their venom, and then replace it with Harry’s, it may work as a proper cure on Harry. Anna Maria says it’s possible, but that they’d need a sample of his father’s DNA as a reference.

He searches Roosevelt, but there’s nothing. So he returns to them the next day with a small tube of his blood. When they ask him whose it is, he shrugs and says he found it frozen and unlabelled in his father’s hidden lab, so he’s guessing it’s either his father’s or an early test subject’s. They don’t question it, but Anna Maria says that they’ll need some time to analyze and use it.

That night, as Spider-Man, he breaks into Ravencroft.

He knocks a few guards out and checks their records. Harry wasn’t lying. They do experiment on humans here. He finds, among other evidence, files and videos on the late Electro.

The other guards rush in, and he waves at them, continues reading. “Don’t mind me,” he says, dodging attacks. “Just reading up on an old friend. No trouble at all. Yet. You guys were mean to Max, man. That’s so not how my last therapy session went.”

Just then, the alarms go off. A patient has escaped.

“Uh-oh.”

They look accusingly at him, and he shrugs.

“Don’t look at me. I just dropped in to read a few files.”

That night, Harry Osborn escapes from Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane. Someone else broke Harry out while the guards were distracted by Spider-Man’s break-in.

The next day, reporters flock to Ravencroft after an anonymous tip accuses the institute of human experimentation. A week later, the place is bombed to the ground. Spider-Man glimpses a metallic figure leaving the scene, but doesn’t manage to capture it — the other had too much of a head start.

Eli calls. The anti-venom is ready, but there’s no way to test it without poisoning someone else, which is neither ethical nor feasible. They need all the spider venom they have to create and test the cure for Harry. The doctor gives the anti-venom to him in an autoinjector.

He tries searching for Harry, but the other hasn’t been back to either his mansion or his penthouse. He looks around to see if he can find any clues that point to other hideouts, but instead, in a drawer full of expensive watches, he finds a dusty gift box. Inside is an old photo album, the edges and binding worn from years of being flipped through.

He recognizes it — page after page of photographs he’d taken of them both and handwritten captions, little messages that seem so corny now that he’s nineteen instead of nine. His vision starts to swim, and he blinks to clear it. Harry kept it all this time.

Suddenly, his phone rings. It’s Anna Maria — she’s succeeded at isolating the human DNA with the given sample, but now she needs a sample of Harry’s from before the mutation.

Glancing around the penthouse, he steals a toothbrush and a cushion cover he’s sure Harry has used recently. He takes the album with him.

He searches his things, turns his room upside down.

It must be here. He knows it. He only put it away when they fell completely out of touch. And God knows that’s his fault too. He should have tried harder to stay in contact, gone to visit when the letters stopped, switched to e-mail when he got his laptop or something. Heck, he should have at least tried to get a hold of Harry when he saw his friend in that magazine with the models, maybe tease him about finally having a reason to buy the other half of the store, but no. There had been school. And work and bullies and money, and he’d let his best friend slip away, let the world trample their childhood dreams and promises.

Maybe Harry was right — he’d never cared enough until it was too late.

Harry and Gwen, he should have cherished them both when he had the chance. And maybe if he'd just kept all his promises, Harry would be fine, and Gwen never would have had to die.

At last, in the third box under the bed, he finds a padded case. It’s his first camera, the Nikon Harry gave him nearly a decade ago, and the pictures can’t compare to the camera he has now, but he could never bear to give it away. The only part that looks worn is the strap, and he runs his fingers over the camera lovingly. The lenses are still good — it’s a pity they won’t fit his current model.

Among them, in a little plastic bag, is a ring, long since too small to wear even on his little finger. The gems match Harry’s eyes, and he’d worn it everyday until he couldn’t anymore. Looking at it now, it’s probably worth more than his entire family’s possessions, and maybe if he sold it, Aunt May wouldn’t have to work for him to go to college, but he can’t.

Maybe if he’d worn it, even on a chain around his neck, when he went to see Harry that time, things could have been different. Maybe if he’d just told Harry the truth and made him take Peter’s blood sample for a test before using it, they never would have come to this.

Harry, Gwen — he feels like a fool now. How long had he wasted not realizing how much he loved them both? How much he'd always loved them both?

Sometimes, his life just feels like mistake after mistake. Gwen, George, Harry, Max, Uncle Ben — he keeps doing it all wrong, and he can’t fix any of it.

Just then, he hears emergency sirens outside the window, and his heart leaps as he puts on his suit and grabs the autoinjector. Harry. Maybe it’s Harry.

But when he swings out into the night, he hears about a winged man dropping police choppers after a robbery spree over the radio and can’t help his disappointment.

He’ll find Harry, he swears, and save him. For once in his life, he prays he’ll get this one thing right. He owes Harry that much.

”Wow…” Peter breathes as he steps into the mansion. He’s never been to Harry’s house before, and it’s gorgeous, enormous, overwhelming. He can’t believe Harry only lives here with his father, Bernard and a few other servants — it looks like it could house an army.

“This is the main hall,” Harry explains with a smile, leading him past a decorative marble table inlaid with many different stone rings to a door on the right. “Here’s the living room.” It’s spacious and inviting with its plush leather sofas and elegant wooden panels, and they have a huge television surrounded by speakers of varying size and shape. “That’s the dining room, which you will see at dinner, and the kitchen is behind it.” He indicates the doors across the hall from them. Taking Peter’s hand, Harry leads him up the marble and wood staircase (they even have those pretty crystal chandeliers he’s only seen in movies) to a carpeted corridor lined with windows overlooking a perfectly landscaped garden. They go straight to the door at the very end, which Harry opens with a flourish. “And this here, is my room.”

It’s big and airy with billowing white curtains and a private balcony. The bed is massive, enough to fit five comfortably, and they could probably swim in the adjoining bathroom’s tub. Several rugs adorn the shiny wooden floor, and there’s a glass case filled with figurines —robots, superheroes, planes and the like— in the middle circled by a train track. Harry even has his own desk, couch, computer, Playstation 2 and television set. Given a food supply, he wouldn’t need to leave his room at all.

“It’s beautiful,” and Peter almost can’t believe he’s spending the weekend here.

Harry smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Here.” He indicates the black leather couch before Peter can ask. “Set your things down, and let’s play some games before dinner.”

They play a few rounds of Guilty Gear (Peter only wins one), then move on to Baldur’s Gate for a few quests before they are informed that dinner is ready. They head down to the palatial dining room with its framed paintings and wooden accents to match the tables and chairs. Harry sits at the head of the table with Peter to his right; Bernard pours them each a glass of water, folds a napkin onto their laps and nods to a lady who then leaves through a door Harry says leads to the kitchen.

Seconds later, cream of asparagus is served in an expensive-looking dish with an even more expensive-looking spoon on a thick white placemat. Next, the servants bring them a strawberry and walnut salad with grilled chicken and raspberry vinaigrette, and Peter is so glad Bernard is introducing the food because he would otherwise have no clue what he was really eating. Harry keeps asking whether he likes the food and, when he assures his host this is better than some of the restaurants he’s been to, smiles, a bit knowing, a little proud. When they finish, they are served halibut in a sauce of lemon, butter and chives, accompanied by some spaghetti tossed in truffle oil and broccoli tossed in garlic butter. Finally, there is some kind of coffee dessert called tiramisu, coffee with hot cream for Harry and hot chocolate with marshmallows for Peter.

Everything is delicious, and Peter doesn’t think he can eat anymore after all that.

“Oh Harry, do you eat like this everyday?” he sighs, leaning back in his chair.

“Only sometimes,” the other replies, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “I think I’d get sick of it if I ate like this all the time.”

“Really?” Peter yawns and stretches. “It’s so good though, all of it.”

Harry slides off the chair and extends his hand. “C’mon. Let’s take a bubble bath and then you can help me with that homework you claim is so easy.”

Peter beams at him and takes his hand. “We’ll be done in no time, I promise,” he declares cheerily as they head up to the room together.

Bernard runs the bath as they get all the books they need out on Harry’s desk. Peter explains the problem to Harry, and for a moment, the older boy envies how much cleverer Peter is despite the age difference. His friend could probably be in high school now if he really wanted. Then Bernard calls them in for the bath, and they wade around in water scented with expensive fruits. The built-in jets come on and Peter giggles — it’s ticklish. Harry enjoys it though, finds it relaxing, so he slides next to the blond, presses his back up against a jet just like Harry does, and oh, it really is very comfortable like this. He links their hands, and they recline side by side with their eyes closed until the water cools. Then they rinse off under the shower and dry themselves in large fluffy towels. Peter dresses quickly and watches Bernard dress Harry with some amusement before leading the blond back to the desk to finish their work.

Half an hour later, they’re done, and Peter is tired. Harry says he’s heading downstairs to get something, and that Peter should wait here for him, so Peter nods and sits on the couch to wait.

Some minutes pass before he checks the clock, yawning. He wonders what Harry is getting, what’s taking so long. Bernard could probably help him get whatever he wants in a jiffy, unless it’s not in the house. Surely Harry doesn’t plan to go out now? He gets up and goes to the door. Harry didn’t say he couldn’t leave the room. Quietly, he opens the door, slips out and shuts it behind him. From afar, he hears some commotion, seeming to come from downstairs, so he hurries down the dimly lit corridor, bare feet soundless on the carpet. It’s when he reaches the top of the stairs that the yelling begins in earnest.

“What did I tell you, Harry?! You’re always like this!!” It’s Harry’s father, and he doesn’t hear Harry’s response, but Norman Osborn just continues his tirade. “Why can’t you be more like your mother?! The only thing you got from her is your face. You don’t understand anything!!

Harry cries out then, in obvious pain, and Peter is running down the stairs without thinking.

“You want this, you want that, but you can’t do a thing I say!!” Norman is hitting Harry with his big metal walking stick every few words, oh God. ”It sh—”

“No, stop!!!” Peter dives in front of Harry, wraps his arms around the curled up blond tightly. “Agh!!!”

“Peter!!!” Harry screams, sitting up and clutching the younger boy.

“Parker’s…?”

Father had been midway through delivering the next blow when Peter jumped in, so he’d borne the brunt of that last brutal hit to the back of his left shoulder. God, Harry hopes Peter hasn’t suffered a fracture.

“Harry, why didn’t you tell me Peter was here?” The old man’s voice is deadly calm over the sickly sweet stench of scotch in the air.

“I—I tried,” Harry barely manages to mumble. “You wouldn’t listen.”

Norman strikes his walking stick on floor, and Harry flinches. “I’m sorry you had to see this, Peter,” he says stiffly before heading up the stairs without another word, his heavy footfalls and the thump of his walking stick echoing throughout the large house that suddenly seems so cold and empty.

"Peter? Peter. Why did you do that, Pete? Are you okay?" Harry runs his hands over the smaller boy's body, making sure he’s all right. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Peter lifts his tear-stained face and cups Harry's cheeks in his small warm hands. "He hurt you, Harry. He hurt you."

"It's okay. It's okay." Harry sniffles, taking Peter’s face in his hands too. "I made him mad. It's my fault."

Peter shakes his head vigorously, gripping the blond's pale wrists. There are dark bruises all over his arms and legs where he braced against his father's assault. "This is too much, Har. This is too much."

"I—” Harry gasps, collapsing in on himself. He can’t— He can’t. Oh God, he usually makes it back to his room before he starts crying, but with Peter, and the ugly truth staring him in the face, he just…

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Peter murmurs, pulling him back into thin arms, tears still falling freely from his sweet brown eyes. “It’s okay. I’m here, I’m here. God, I wish I could protect you.”

The older boy shakes his head, choking back his sobs in Peter’s pajamas. “No. No, it’s fine. Father, he— he wasn’t himself. He’ll apologize in the morning like he always does, and—”

“Harry.” Peter takes Harry by the shoulders, feeling anger rise up in his throat like hot bile. “Always? He always hurts you like this?”

“No!” Harry covers Peter’s hands with his own. “No, no, no. It doesn’t happen often, I swear. I—It’s not like I see him much anyway.”

“Oh Harry,” Peter sighs, burying his face in messy blond hair and cradling his best friend close.

Maybe his parents didn’t want him anymore, but they never hurt him like Norman hurts Harry. Uncle Ben and Aunt May have spanked him in anger too, but they don’t leave bruises like these. He can’t bear to see Harry like this, his beautiful friend covered in tears and swelling blue-black patches. Maybe Aunt May can tell him if parents are supposed to do that. He doesn’t know how anyone can bear it.

“C’mon,” he whispers, carding his fingers gently through golden silk. He likes Harry’s hair better like this — natural, instead of that perfectly coiffed style Bernard helps him set every morning. “Let’s go put some ice on these bruises, okay?”

Harry nods and lets Peter help him up before leading the way to the mansion’s incredibly well-equipped kitchen. The servants appear to all be asleep — no one’s around. They find a clean napkin in one of the drawers before making their way over to the large refrigerator. The left door is the freezer, and Harry helps him pull it open. They wrap some ice cubes in the napkin before heading back up to Harry’s room and sitting on the king-sized bed. Harry winces when Peter presses the ice pack gently to the bruises on his forearms, but doesn’t complain. Bernard usually does this too. Then Peter moves the ice pack to the next bruise and leans down to touch his lips to the first one.

“P—Peter? What are you doing?”

The brunet grins. “Aunt May says that makes them better. She always does that when I get bruises.”

That reminds Harry. “You have one too, don’t you?”

“Just one. It’s not a big deal. I’ve had worse falling from my bike,” Peter answers before kissing the next bruise, but he flinches when Harry touches his shoulder.

“Let me see.”

Hesitantly, Peter removes his pajama shirt and turns. There’s a growing bruise on his left shoulder blade, visibly darkening even in the dim illumination of the nightlight. Harry takes the bundle of ice and presses it to the spot, eliciting a soft sound of pain.

“If… If um… it’s more than just a bruise, and you go to the doctor, I’ll pay for it, all right?”

“Harry—”

“No. No, I insist. You did this for me, Peter. You shouldn’t have, but you did, and I can’t— I can’t let you suffer for helping me, okay?”

“Okay,” the younger boy agrees reluctantly. “Okay. I just… didn’t want him to hurt you anymore.”

“I know,” Harry murmurs, lifting the ice pack away. “Thank you.” He kisses the bruise tenderly, winding an arm around Peter’s bare waist to hold his friend close and rest his head on the back of Peter’s neck before kissing it again. “Hope it’ll heal faster.”

“Um…” Peter shivers, then laces their fingers and turns. He’s blushing, and it’s the cutest thing Harry has ever seen. “Your bruises.”

Harry lets him resume icing and kissing them, and when Peter finishes, they leave the ice pack in the sink and curl up under the luxurious covers. Peter molds his smaller body to Harry’s, and for once, the bed is warm, comforting.

“Promise me,” Harry whispers after several moments, clasping their hands.

“Hm?”

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone what you saw tonight.”

Oh. Asking Aunt May for advice is out of the question then. “Okay,” Peter sighs, tightening his hold protectively on the older boy. He’ll just have to stay here or take Harry away more often.

He’s delivering Vulture to the police when the first bombs fall, and he’s not sure how many dived for cover quickly enough. He doesn’t have time to worry about that though. He needs to lead Harry away from the city center, from civilians. Vulture has already done enough collateral damage.

“Listen, Har,” he pleads when he’s close enough to be heard. “We can still fix this, so—”

“You had your chance, Peter! Harry’s dead!!”

Peter dodges several razors and swings around Harry, leading the other further away from the city. “Harry, please,” he begs as he blocks another blow now that they’re back in close quarters. It’s too late for Gwen now, but he can still save Harry, and he has to believe. “L—”

“Stop talking about fixing me, Parker!” Harry snaps, a sinister hiss in his voice as he presses the attack. “There’s nothing to fix! I’ve never been better!”

“Not better, Har. Normal. Like you wanted. Like you deserve.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about what I deserve!” He rams the glider violently at Peter, who narrowly evades around a spire.

“No, Harry, listen. I—”

“I’ve always hated you, you know? Deep down inside.” He grins, feral, as they continue trading blows. “Everyone’s favorite little boy. Father liked you better. Bernard liked you better. Even the girls.”

“What? Harry, c’mon, you know that can’t be true. Bernard adored you, girls didn't know I existed, and your father didn't care about anyone.”

He ducks under the swing of the other’s arm and tries to trip Harry off his glider, launching some web into a wall to hold on, but doesn't quite succeed. He grunts in frustration. He needs to inject the anti-venom, but the suit Harry is wearing means the only viable place is the neck, and he only has one shot at this.

“But you tricked me.” Harry throws Peter into the wall, darts in and slides his hands up to strangle. “You tricked me with your sweet little lies, then left me behind, and oh, I hated you so much even then.”

“It was never a lie, Har,” he gasps, pushing at Harry’s hand with effort.

“And then you have the gall to waltz back in just to tell me you’ve found someone more important!”

As soon as Harry’s chokehold slips, he kicks the blond back and swings around him to strike again, but Harry backflips away, dropping a pumpkin bomb. Peter leaps for the next building to avoid the blast, but Harry knocks him out of the air, laughing maniacally.

"So I killed her. Pretty Gwen Stacy. She fell just like this, didn’t she?”

Peter twists to avoid the falling debris, sends one flying at the other as a distraction and uses his web to sling him back up onto the roof of a nearby tower. “It was never like that, Har! Stop this. This isn’t you.” Gwen believed too.

“Oh, but it is!” Harry flies up higher, spreading his arms. “I’ve never felt so free! All those thoughts I pushed away, all those things I didn’t say… If only Father could see me now.”

And this is it, Peter thinks, the heart of the problem. Maybe it’s all true, and he’d just forgotten. Harry told him before that he should have been Norman’s son instead because Norman approved of him, but nothing Harry did was ever enough. Maybe all those little things they did growing up led Harry on to the added disappointment of their lost friendship. He should never have stopped writing, should have saved up to visit, should never have left Harry alone. He’d forgotten the fragility hidden under that veneer of spoilt arrogance, how lonely and unloved Harry had always felt. “Everyone wants my money!” Harry screamed that day, and instead of reaching out when he saw that tightly wound desperation, he ran away. He didn’t know how to deal, with Harry or with Gwen, so he went to chase ghosts. That he could do, that he understood. Maybe he’d always been selfish with the people he loves — every time he couldn’t deal, he ran. From Uncle Ben, from Harry and from Gwen. And this is how it ends.

He needs to stop. He can’t run anymore. If he hasn’t learned any better, then Gwen has died for nothing.

“And your lady, she deserved it,” Harry snarls, charging at him. He evades, and Harry throws more razors — one grazes Peter’s left shoulder, giving him the opening to close in and throw a punch, which Peter parries. “She let you be selfish." Another punch. “She took you away from me!”

He backflips to avoid the last punch and throw his opponent over the edge of the roof with his legs before diving after his friend. He lands heavily on the glider as Harry tries to right himself, and moves in before the other can react.

He kisses Harry.

It’s a little awkward through the mask, but the moment of shock is all he needs.

“Agh!” Harry flinches and shoves him away as the autoinjector stabs into his neck. “You—”

“I’m sorry.” He clings to the nearby wall to stop his descent. He’ll hold on to hope, hope that he can still reach Harry through the wreckage that lies between them. He's not lost anymore.

“Wh—” Harry screams in what sounds like excruciating pain.

“Harry!!!”

He dives after the blond as Harry suddenly drops. This time, he grabs his target before flipping them over and crossing his arms behind the other’s back to shoot two strings of web at the nearest building. They attach, and he swings into the wall, breaking the impact with his legs and Harry’s glider.

Faint and dismayed, Harry cries, “What have you done?”

Harry always believed his father brought him along to the Parkers’ to distract their son, so the adults could talk business. So he endeavored to do just that. Maybe if he served his purpose well, Father would be proud of him for a change.

It wasn’t hard to focus on Peter though. With his bright brown eyes and excited chatter about the little inventions he put together, truth be told, Peter was the one doing the distracting.

He’s brilliant, “just like his father,” Father kept saying, and Harry couldn’t help but envy that.

Maybe he wasn’t a distraction. Maybe Father hoped Peter will rub off on Harry.

So he tried to be more like Peter — studied harder, read more, spent more time with the boy. Father didn’t notice, but Peter did and showered him with affection. It's hard to resent someone who adores him so much. Even if Father still wishes he were more like Peter.

Peter doesn’t have many friends even now — he’s shy, so he doesn’t talk to others much. When Peter started attending the same elementary school, Harry found him being bullied at the bus stand outside the gates after school, but the bullies fled when Harry and Bernard approached. He didn’t let Peter take the bus that day, nor any day after. Peter would rest his head in Harry’s lap on the way home to avoid car sickness, and in spite of everything, they were content.

Then Peter’s parents disappeared.

Days later, they found the bodies in a plane crash. Peter was distraught and grew even more withdrawn than usual. He didn’t go to school; he barely left his room; he wouldn’t even talk to Harry.

Today is Peter’s parents’ funeral.

Peter can’t stop crying. Harry is terrified.

He’s terrified Father will try to adopt Peter, and he’ll never hear the end of how much better the younger boy is. He’s slightly relieved to see Ben and May doting over the boy when he approaches with Father to pay his respects. Father asks to speak to Peter though, and Harry would give anything to prevent the conversation, but he’s frozen to the spot, and he doesn’t know any words that would convince his father of anything. For all he knows, he’s invisible to the man anyway.

“Peter?”

“M—Mister Osborn,” the boy sniffles.

“I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“T—Th—Thank you.”

“Richard and Mary, did they tell you why they left?”

Peter shakes his head violently, and May Parker looks about to protest, but Father turns to the remaining Parkers next.

“Did they say anything before they left at all? To any of you?”

“Just that they needed to leave for a couple of months and they couldn’t take Peter with them,” Ben answers, squeezing his wife’s shoulder. “That’s the last we heard of them until the plane crash.”

Father looks from Ben and May to Peter. “Are you sure? Not even hints?”

To his surprise, Peter suddenly runs to him, burying his face in Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t know!” he wails, clinging to Harry’s black Armani jacket as he ruins it. “I don’t know why they went away! I don’t know why they didn’t want me anymore!”

“Oh Peter,” May sighs, wringing her hands, and Ben squeezes her shoulder.

“What did I do wrong? Harry, what did I do wrong?” he sobs. “Why wouldn’t they want me anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Harry whispers, wrapping his arms around his friend. “I think you’re perfect.”

“Really?” Peter leans back to look up at him, hopeful brown eyes peering out of his tear-stained face. “Mom and Dad used to say they love me. Maybe they went away because they don’t love me anymore. Do you love me, Harry?”

He wipes Peter’s face with his thumbs. “Of course I do, Peter.” He pulls the younger boy into a tighter hug. “You’ll always have me, I promise.” He knows what it’s like to be thrown away. But even if no one else wants them, they’ll always have each other.

Harry Osborn wakes to a familiar ceiling. He hadn’t wanted to come back here after the requisite deathbed visit. This house is too big for him, too empty even when there were people milling about. Maybe it wasn’t like this when Mother had been here, but he can barely remember that.

It’s warm though. He’s not alone.

“Mmngh, Harry?”

It’s Peter Parker lifting his head to look, blinking sleep out of concerned brown eyes and running a hand through sleep-mussed dark hair, but the increasingly familiar hate doesn't surge. He remembers the fight, but there are no marks on his neck, no voices whispering of betrayal in his head, no twitching and no pain. In fact, he feels healthier than he’s ever been. He’s naked as the day he was born though, wrapped only in a thin sheet, but somehow, the location of his armor seems somewhat less important than the fact that Peter is at least shirtless too and had, until a minute ago, been cuddling him in bed.

Maybe this is another dream.

“Peter,” he says hoarsely, trying his best to sound dignified despite his sandpaper throat. “If all you wanted was to get between my sheets, you should have just asked.”

To his surprise, Peter starts crying before laughing and throwing his arms around him. “Oh Harry. Thank God. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

Then they're kissing, and after the last two times, Harry doesn't bother pretending he hasn't always wanted to. It’s different this time though, more like an old fantasy he’d tried to deny. Peter’s wiry but muscular body slides warm and wanting against his own through the sheet between them, and the kiss is slow, deep and gentle. There’s a tenderness that had never been there before, and he doesn’t dare to hope.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” he asks when they part for air, and he doesn’t want to wake up. “Peter, what is this?”

The other pinches his arm, then holds up the chain around his neck for Harry to see. The aquamarines glimmer in the moonlight from the window, and he never thought he’d see that ring again. Of course, Peter never would have sold it unless he was truly desperate, but still, he never could quite silence his doubts. Far too many dreams lying in ruins at his feet, after all. Peter presses their foreheads together, and oh, perhaps he hadn’t only imagined this.

“A promise, Har,” Peter says with an adoring smile. “My promise to you.”