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Dim orange light painted stripes across Harry Osborn’s chest, the pattern shifting to and fro with each blink. The restless teen was splayed out under the covers of his bed and trying his damnedest to conserve heat, despite the fact that the massive thing could never be completely warm—there was always too much empty space, leaving at least half of the mattress icy cold at any given moment. Harry rolled over barely an inch and then stopped abruptly when his bare calf touched freezing sheets; just like that his entire body was seized with a chill, and he knew he’d have to start the whole process over.
Fuck . If only he could sleep . He sighed and threw off his comforter, regretting it almost immediately but ultimately resigned to a cold, sleepless night. Sitting up, the warm glow of the city seemed to ripple over his body, and Harry raised his fingers and wiggled them in the broken shadows. For a moment he was eight years old again and playing pretend in the parks along the East River, giggling and tussling with Peter as the sun set over the city. Harry dropped his hand into his lap and tried to redirect his thoughts, but he failed. Again. And again.
All he could think about these days was Peter Parker; at least, in the days since his father’s condition had finally stabilized. Without Norman Osborn’s imminent death to distract him, Harry kept being wrenched back to the moment when Spider-Man pulled off his mask and revealed green eyes that Harry knew better than his own—eyes that Harry had been seeing in his dreams for so many years. Harry relived the memory over and over, feeling a phantom punch to the gut every single time he pictured red webbing give way to that face . It had been two weeks, and Harry still couldn’t believe his own stupidity. How had he missed it ?
Fifteen days later and Harry still wouldn’t pick up Peter’s calls. Honestly, he couldn’t really tell if he was angrier at Peter or himself… So of course he chose the logical route and took his hurt out on everybody, including himself.
Harry rubbed at his eyes and grabbed his phone off the nightstand, which lit up at his touch with almost blinding light. Blinking rapidly, Harry squinted at the time—3:32 AM. Fantastic. He had to be up in less than five hours for a meeting with the Oscorp Board of Directors. Even under normal circumstances Harry had difficulty sleeping most nights—he had ever since his mother died—but added stress had morphed his insomnia into a whole different beast. The only thing that really worked anymore were some heavy pills that Harry had finally reached out to the family doctor for, and then promptly stuffed into the bottom drawer of his bedside table; it’s not that Harry didn’t want to help himself, he was just wary of becoming reliant. At least that’s what he always told himself, tossing and turning at night.
But it was way too late to take the prescription anyways, considering it would knock him out for eight hours at the least , so Harry had two options: lie back down and keep thinking, or get up and keep thinking.
He swung his feet out of bed.
Traipsing across the bristly carpet, Harry was drawn to the partially covered windows like a moth to an (artificial) flame. He drew open the curtains and welcomed in the familiar colors of Manhattan at night, which shone so starkly against the white walls and white furniture of the townhouse bedroom. Usually when Harry found himself awake at odd hours, he would stare out from his perch in the sky and watch the way the city moved and breathed. Sometimes he would track a taxi for thirty blocks; other times he would count the number of tiny luminous squares on a neighboring skyscraper and guess why those other restless souls were awake. He’d had a drawing phase at one point. A meditating phase.
Sometimes he thought about his mom, or he would try to recall every last detail about the family movie nights the three Osborns once had every Friday. He would picture his father’s laughing face and what it had looked like when he turned off CEO mode and became a regular dad—he would try to remember the last time he’d seen it happen.
But Harry wasn’t in that familiar penthouse where he could lord above Manhattan in the privacy of darkness. In fact, he was only a couple stories above the street, and he couldn’t see much past the balcony’s flower boxes and the tops of some neatly-trimmed trees. So, of course, the teen’s idle mind turned back to Peter Parker, as it always did—well, as it tended to do ever since Harry’s thirteenth birthday.
That was the year that Harry began to think about Peter… a lot. He would replay their conversations in his mind, and he would come up with the best ways to make Peter crack a smile; then he would pretend his heart didn’t flutter when he pictured that smile. Long ago Harry had discovered that it was easier to get through a sleepless night when he knew Peter was waiting with a smoothie and a grin come morning.
Harry could also remember the first time that grin invaded his dreams, and the way his body ached when he woke, taunted by the ghostly touches of his best friend. Puberty was a bitch.
Not much had changed.
Oh, wait—one thing had changed. Peter was goddamn Spider-Man .
Harry didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or to cry; it was a unique sort of emotion that he hadn’t had to deal with before, but was now too well acquainted with—it bubbled up in his throat every single time he thought about his best friend. Peter Parker was Spider-Man. It was crazy—no, it was fucking insane. It was ridiculous . And there was nothing outside the window to distract Harry from his spiraling thoughts.
There were other townhouses facing Harry, dark and almost identical, their balconies and planters a mirror image. There were street lights just under Harry’s eyeline, splashing the brick buildings with flickering gold. There were shadows darkening the edges of Harry’s vision, daring him to try and fall asleep, creeping over the glass panes and shrouding them like a moving being…
No, wait… There was actually something alive out there.
Harry unconsciously took a step back, his mind racing. It was a supervillain—a murderer—someone who wanted to finish off the Osborn line for good. They could’ve already visited the hospital where his father lay, helpless, and now they had Harry trapped as well, staring down death for the second time in as many weeks. It could be the Jackal’s associate, or it could be another vengeful Oscorp employee, or-
Or it could be Spider-Man. Of course it was Spider-Man.
Harry’s fear dissipated. He turned to flick on a lamp that stood against the wall, and when he pivoted back around the costumed vigilante was illuminated from head to toe, framed by the clear glass. The red-clad teen stood hunched and utterly still in the suddenly bright light, and Harry wondered if he was waiting for permission or simply expected to be let in. Harry knew that Peter would never assume that anyone would do anything for him unprompted—Spider-Man, though? Harry couldn’t pretend to know.
Spider-Man shuffled his feet and Harry considered ignoring the other teen entirely, undoubtedly forcing him to land on some other sucker’s balcony for pity. But curiosity burned Harry from the inside out, and, well, if the masked hero finally had an apology for him, Harry would certainly like to hear it. He unlocked the door and slid it open.
Freezing air raced into the poorly heated bedroom with a whoosh, bringing with it the din of distant honking and music and laughter—and also the faintest whiff of the orange blossom shampoo that Harry knew so well. For a moment everything was still, and then Harry began to shiver in his boxers and Horizon High PE t-shirt. He crossed his bare arms and broke the silence.
“Are you coming in?” Harry bit out, “Or are you just gonna stand there looking cold all night?” He turned his back to Spider-Man with a murmured “Close the door behind you” and sat on the foot of his rumpled bed, pointedly not looking at the vigilante who quietly followed him in.
A not-insignificant part of Harry wanted to yell at the boy in his room until he couldn’t breathe—to finally let everything out—and the rest was relishing the painful, awkward silence that Spider-Man deserved. So Harry sat and he sulked and he waited, until finally,
“Hiya, Har.” Almost a whisper, the words were delicate enough that they didn’t quite cut the thick tension. Time paused as Harry listened for something more—something that never came. Of course Harry would have to do the heavy lifting in the conversation. He always did.
“Are- are you kidding me ?” Harry hissed, lifting his chin to pin Spider-Man with a glare, “Is that all you have to say to me right now?” Peter didn’t even shift—he seemed to be barely breathing.
“You just popped in to say hello? After-,” Harry’s voice broke. He swallowed, “After everything that happened? After you -“
There was a terrible, wet cough from the masked boy—and then another; and another—and Harry’s words left him in a rush. For the first time that night, Harry really looked at Spider-Man. And then he was scrambling from his bed and reaching for his friend.
Spider-Man was swaying on his feet, his shoulders rounded and his head bowed. His left side was covered in blood. Where before Harry’s mind was filled with righteous anger, it now raced with panic and fear. He grabbed the closest limb his fingers found and pulled fervently until Peter shuffled forward and collapsed into a half-lean half-sit in the space Harry had just occupied. The taller boy dropped to his knees on the carpet and looked up into white lenses that gave him nothing to work with .
“Peter?” Harry almost didn’t recognize his own voice, “Peter! Peter are you ok? Shit .” Another brittle cough. Harry lifted his hands to his best friend’s face—well, what he assumed was his best friend’s face—palms running over the skin-tight mask and the sharp angles of Spider-Man’s jaw until he found a seam at the nape of Peter’s neck. His fingers curled under the spandex and gently tugged, coaxing the fabric up—he had always wondered if Peter’s hair was as soft as it looked, but the thought didn’t even cross his mind as he dragged his fingertips through the waves; Harry’s eyes never left the blank white ones before him. And then nothing was between them, mask discarded on the floor somewhere. Harry’s hands stilled.
“There you are,” Harry breathed, drinking in Peter’s beaten, bruised, beloved face. Those green, green eyes were half hidden by heavy eyelids, but they were lucid as they danced over the kneeling boy’s twisted expression.
“Why the long face?” Peter rasped, attempting a little grin that quickly became a grimace as the words rattled in his chest. Harry felt a hysterical laugh threaten him from within and he swallowed it down, gaze grim as it cataloged all the blood on his friend’s body. The rips in the webbed suit were easy to identify—of which the largest was a horizontal tear just under the left side of the rib cage—but any bruises and small abrasions were completely hidden from sight, though Harry knew he was probably riddled with them. Extending his hand to a dark spot on the fabric that turned out to be damp and came away red, Harry huffed.
“Did you make your suit red so it would be easier to wash,” Harry said through gritted teeth, “or so you could pretend everything’s fine, even when you’re bleeding out?”
“…Is ‘both’ the wrong answer?”
“You’re such an idiot, Pete,” Harry scoffed, trying to keep his voice from wavering. Normal—this was completely normal and they were both totally fine. It was a hard lie to sell, because all that was running through his mind was fuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK . Harry was prodding at a gash on Peter’s shoulder when the injured teen sighed, and Harry froze.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, I just… I missed your voice,” Peter mumbled, his words slurring together slightly and his head lolling to the left so that it hung just that much closer to Harry’s hovering fingers, chasing their warmth.
“I- Um,” Harry cleared his throat and stood, “I need to clean you up.” He tried to ignore the way his heart raced as he rushed to the en suite and began ruffling through cabinets. The shelves were full of generic brand soaps and lotions and little bottles of who-knows-what that probably hadn’t been touched in years, which meant—thankfully—that there was also a pre-packaged, sealed first aid kit. Harry ripped into it and turned back to approach his friend, who was holding one gloved hand flat in front of his face and squinting at it.
“This can’t be right,” Peter murmured, “I’m spinning.”
Harry also fetched a cup of water.
Once back at the vigilante’s side, Harry set everything he was holding onto the carpet and steeled himself.
“We need to get this off.”
Peter blinked. “You’re also spinning.”
Harry groaned (internally) and climbed onto the bed, crawling gingerly until he was behind Peter. He reached for the neck of the webbed suit and felt for a zipper or a clasp or something, fumbling around and finding absolutely nothing.
“Down,” Peter muttered, “It’s stretchy, just pull it down.”
Harry’s eyebrows furrowed and he centered himself as best he could as he began to do just that, pulling the material over Peter’s uninjured shoulder before repeating on the other side. He had prepared himself for the bruises and the blood. What Harry hadn’t anticipated were the planes of pale skin—how it would feel to reveal the muscles and moles and scars inch by inch, like peeling back Peter’s shields until all that was left between them was breath and anticipation. Harry wanted to stop and he wanted to keep going; he wanted to feel every curve of Peter’s back and arms and to trace the crisscrossing, fading and faded marks that covered so much of him. Harry wanted to hold him until his pain went away, and keep holding him so he would never hurt again.
Instead, Harry helped guide Peter’s arms from his sleeves, keeping still as his friend winced; then he rolled the fabric down to Peter’s waist, as carefully and slowly as he could. Harry’s throat was sandpaper, his nose just centimeters from the dips of Peter’s spine—he had never felt so close to the other boy. Harry’s body told him to run as fast as he could—that he was too close; that he would ruin anyone this close—but he didn’t have the time to run.
For the next half hour Harry cleaned and bandaged every cut on Spider-Man’s torso, not making eye contact once. Generally it was easy to keep his gaze down and focused on his work, the only issue arising after Harry finished Peter’s back and had to crawl off the bed and face his friend head-on. The mattress creaked offensively loud in the tense silence, which did nothing to calm Harry’s nerves as he hovered in front of Peter and fidgeted with yet another individually-packaged antiseptic wipe. He squatted between the other boy’s legs and tried to breath through the heat rising in his face. In avoiding Peter’s piercing green eyes—which Harry knew for sure were clearer now that he wasn’t actively losing blood—Harry was faced with Peter’s incredibly toned chest and oh holy Jesus. Abs.
Harry gulped. The now scabbed-over slice under the shorter boy’s ribs wasn’t quite bad enough to capture all of Harry’s attention. Even as he wiped it down and rummaged around in the kit for a big enough Band-aid, Harry found himself stealing glances at the pale contours of the body in front of him.
The long gash extended to Peter’s side, so Harry shifted on his haunches for a better angle. Peter’s knee came to rest just above Harry’s waist, scorching Harry through his t-shirt.
“Can you, uh,” Harry’s voice was a rasp. He cleared his throat and gestured with one hand, eyes fixed on the wall, “Can you lift your arm?” Peter did so without a sound.
Harry was half on top of Peter’s leg as he secured gauze over the tail end of the wound, taping it down with the sticky parts of a couple Band-aids, and then the worst was over. Harry leapt up and put as much space as possible between himself and his gorgeous best friend—whom he was definitely still angry with —and tried to look as if he wasn’t fleeing. With the room to finally breathe, Harry attempted to wish away the redness that burned his cheeks and his ears. He occupied his hands with the small pile of empty plastic packaging that littered the carpet, and then with the first-aid kit. He paced. He grabbed his phone to check the time. He debated scrolling through Instagram. He flicked on the overhead light—it was horribly bright—and then decided that just the yellow lamp light was more than fine.
He most definitely did not put off the very important conversation that he knew they had to have.
“Harry, I-”
“So what happened out there?” Harry cut in, fist clenching around nothing by his side—ok, so maybe he was putting it off.
“Oh. Oh, well,” Harry still didn’t look at his friend, but he could hear the slight confusion in Peter’s voice, “I was all the way downtown—like around wall street—a bit after midnight, just doing my rounds and stuff. Looking out for rowdies… Thieves. Y’know. Um-” Just based on the pause and the quiet ruffling sound coming from behind him, Harry could imagine the other boy running one hand through his hair like he did whenever he was embarrassed. “Well I guess you don’t know. But, yeah, I was just patrolling. And then when I was about to head back home, this one guy—he was big —he got the jump on me and bruised me up a little. So after I got him webbed up I was thinking ‘maybe I should take the train back home, it’s been a long night,’ so I hopped on the R uptown. Then—I don’t even remember what station it was—I saw these three cops harassing this kid on the platform. He wasn’t even fourteen, Harry,” Peter’s voice cracked the smallest amount. Harry heard him swallow. “So I got off and, uh… Well, I taunted the cops and got them to chase me a couple blocks. And it was late, and I was swinging slower than usual, and one of them… One of them may have shot at me?”
Harry whipped around, something in his neck pulling, “I’m sorry, an NYPD officer shot you? ”
“Well, yes, but- Woah, hey,” Peter saw Harry’s alarm and pushed up from the bed, still a little wobbly, “Har, I’m fine . It just grazed me. I’m alright.” The vigilante stepped forward until he was mere inches from the taller boy and peered up into blue eyes that looked almost gray in the dim light, “You patched me up, and I heal quickly—I’m gonna be fine.”
Harry didn’t exactly know what he was feeling; his mouth tasted like ash and his stomach turned and his skin buzzed with unknown energy. His fingers itched to reach out, but he was frozen in place. It was a struggle just to get words out.
“And what if you hadn’t found me? What if- How did you even know I would be here? ”
“I remembered.” Peter’s whisper was an anchor drifting between them, “You once told me that your mom had bought a—I think you said mansion?—on 3rd and 62nd, and that you thought it was awesome because there were little lion statues on the stoop. I knew I couldn’t make it back to Queens, so I thought of this place, just sitting empty for years. Where else would you be staying right now?”
“I told you that when we were kids , Pete. What if you remembered wrong? What if I was at the hospital with my father, or at a hotel, or literally anywhere else ? What would you-,” Harry breathed and studied the ceiling, “What would have happened to you?”
“Harry, I would’ve- Hey, look at me,” Peter raised his arms to hold Harry’s shoulders. He didn’t continue until Harry ripped his stare away from the ceiling, “I would’ve been fine. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve always managed alone. And I would never remember something so important wrong—I know you better than anyone.”
As Peter spoke, he ran his hands down Harry’s biceps and forearms until he could gently take Harry’s hands in his own. Harry looked at their loosely linked fingers and sighed,
“I used to think the same about you. Now I’m not so sure.” The taller boy made to pull away, and Peter grasped him harder. This was it, the moment Peter had been playing out in his mind for two weeks now, and he was nervous . Spider-Man couldn’t be the end of them—Peter wouldn’t let it.
“Harry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for lying to you, for tricking you, for hurting you. The last thing I wanted was for your life to get fucked up by Spider-Man’s- by my mess, so I tried to keep Peter Parker and Spider-Man separate. But, well, I just made everything worse, and I couldn’t see it until now. I swear that I’ll never lie to you again, I just- I need you in my life, Harry; you’re the most important person in it.”
Harry’s eyes finally locked onto Peter’s, searching, open. Then he quirked one dark eyebrow. Peter let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and let one corner of his lips slide up,
“Don’t look at me like that, Har, that’s all I rehearsed. Now it’s your turn to say something.”
“‘Most important person’ in your life, huh?” Harry drawled, “I think I can work with that.” And he dragged Peter into his arms.
Peter melted into the hug, ignoring some of his smarting cuts to hold his best friend as tight as he possibly could.
“If anyone ever shoots you again,” Harry muttered into Peter’s hair, “I will use every Oscorp resource that I have to hunt them down.” Peter pulled away the slightest bit so that he could grin into Harry’s face.
“You know I can handle myself, right? I’m literally a superhero.”
“Sure, Spider-Man. Tell me that when there isn’t blood staining my sheets.” Peter’s eyes widened almost comically.
“ Shit . I’m so sorry. I always have a Tide pen in my backpack, but I don’t have… And I’m not sure that would help in this- uh, in this situation.”
Harry laughed in his friend’s face, “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
And then he kissed Peter Parker. On the mouth.
Time stood still for a moment. Harry stumbled back three entire steps, horror painted across his expression. Peter brushed his fingers against his lips, slightly dazed. The world was silent, and then they both spoke at the same time— loudly .
“Oh god, Peter I’m so sorry- ”
“ I KNEW IT! ”
Peter stopped. Harry gaped.
“…What?”
Peter looked caught. He scratched at his ear,
“Uh- I mean, I wondered if… I kinda suspected? But-”
“And you didn’t SAY ANYTHING? ” Harry sounded more surprised than angry, but Peter still winced.
“Well I didn’t want to assume!” Peter threw up his hands, “And if you hadn’t noticed , I’ve kind of been trying to save the city here-”
“Uh, yeah I hadn’t noticed , I didn’t even know you were Spider-Man!”
Peter frowned, “Ok, you got me there, but-”
“And you just let me embarrass myself like an idiot- ”
“Woah woah woah. What?”
Harry gestured to the space between them a little maniacally, “You- I just kissed you , and-”
“ Harry . Ohmygod.” Peter had to collect himself; he took a breath. Let it out. “You know I love you too, right?”
Harry just blinked.
“Wow. I sometimes can’t believe people think you’re a genius,” Peter said, and closed the distance between them to grab Harry’s face and pull him down for a real kiss.
Peter tilted his head for a better angle, but the taller boy was still clearly shell-shocked, so Peter nipped at his lip to try and get the point across; it must have worked, because Harry was suddenly kissing him back. Hard. It became readily apparent that Harry was really, really good at this, and Peter was putty in his hands—one of which held the shorter boy’s neck while the other pressed into the small of his back, pulling him unimaginably close. In an attempt to regain the upper hand, Peter was grabbing handfuls of Harry’s thick, dark hair; he tugged at the short bristles on Harry’s nape, and a deep sound rumbled up Harry’s throat. He broke away for a breather.
“One day,” Harry panted, forehead resting against Peter’s, “Peter Parker- One day you’re gonna be the death of me.”
“Ha,” Peter exhaled, “Nice,” and dove back in.
Lips locked, Harry grabbed the smaller boy around the middle and lifted him off the ground with a muffled mmmph , half-dragging and half-carrying Peter until they both collapsed on the bed. Harry, just barely avoiding crushing the smaller boy, found himself hovering over the still shirtless Peter, who was smirking up at Harry with sparkling eyes,
“Hey there.”
“You are much heavier than you look.”
“Yeah,” Peter responded, his smirk somehow widening even more, “It’s all the muscle.”
“ Ugh - I can’t. I very much know it’s all the muscle.”
“Oh, and I know you know it’s the muscle,” Peter said with a wink. “You’re not very subtle.” Harry scoffed and enacted his revenge, leaning down to ravage Peter’s very bare neck. Peter’s breath hitched and he fisted Harry’s t-shirt, trying (and failing) not to squirm underneath him.
“How,” Peter did not whine, “are you so good at this?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Spider-Boy,” Harry said into Peter’s skin, right before kissing down to the other boy’s collarbone and biting softly. Peter stifled a moan and then tightened his grip on Harry as Harry soothed the spot with a wet kiss and dragged his lips into the canyon between Peter’s ribs.
“You know, most people would ask to be taken out to dinner first…”
Harry rested his chin on Peter’s sternum with a stupid smile,
“I cannot even count the number of times we’ve gotten dinner.”
“You might have a point- oh ,” Harry had begun to kiss every bruise and band-aid across his torso, the touches featherlight and so soft that Peter almost couldn’t breathe. Liquid fire doused Peter from head to toe; his skin was alight in a way he had never felt before—and he jumped into burning buildings every couple weeks. It became abruptly clear that Harry’s shirt being on was utterly unfair, so Peter lugged the other boy up by the hair until their lips found each other once more. Peter was too blissed out to do more than fumble with the hem of Harry’s t-shirt, but Harry noticed and chuckled into Peter’s mouth.
“Whatcha doing?”
“I am trying … To take off… Your stupid. Shirt ,” he gasped, which really just made Harry laugh harder.
“And how’s that going for you, Spider-Man?”
Peter fixed him with a glare and pressed his lips into a thin line. Harry’s attempts to coax them open again were met with the same unimpressed stare, so he sat back with a dramatic sigh and pulled his PE t-shirt off in one smooth motion. Peter’s eyebrows raised.
“Do you practice that move in the mirror, Osborn?”
“Oh shut up, Parker.”
They were both grinning into the next kiss, teeth clacking, messy and perfectly in sync. Harry flopped over so that he was on his side and facing Peter, who scooted closer until they were chest to chest—skin to skin—trading kisses and smiles as their eyes grew heavy and their movements slow. Each touch was lazier than the last, and when Peter finally fell asleep his body was draped over Harry’s and his ear was pressed over Harry’s heart. Harry tried to keep his eyes open as long as possible, just watching those brown eyelashes flutter, but eventually he drifted, too—finally holding the boy he loved.