Archive of Our Own ^beta

oOoOoOo

He’s back in New York for the first time in years. As they drive down the lanes from the airport to his father’s company, he thinks that he should feel something. Either nostalgia at the places that he’d frequented as a child flashing by him, or disdain at the dreary colors of the buildings which distinguishes it from Europe. But the putrid smell of gasoline which permeates every street, the passionless faces of the city goers as they pass by, the blue and false sky glittering above—it’s all the same. And he feels nothing.

“Welcome home,” his driver says when they finally arrive at the mansion.

Harry doesn’t bother to correct him.

oOoOoOo

He’d thought that after eight years, his bitterness at his father would have abated. It hasn’t.

When the news had come to him that his father was dying and that he wanted to see Harry, the twenty year old had decided that he would be calm and gracious. Because even if it were his father, an old man deserves that much.

All it takes is two sentences before Harry is scarcely holding back the anger which rises within him. His voice trembles with it.

And Father shuts him down like he always does. Acting as if Harry was an unintelligible eight year old that’d just thrown a temper tantrum. Back then it had caused tears.

But now, now Harry sees something which is different from the strong, immovable image of his father that he had. And the realization strikes him.

Father has always made Harry out to be a failure, yet as he compares them now, with his father’s scaly skin and rotting flesh, Harry feels no such inadequacy. Norman Osborn is a ghost of what he once was, pathetic and faltering, too weak to even sit up.

Harry’s anger recedes, because, he grasps, this is not someone worth getting angry at. For the first time Harry listens to his father’s words and is able to let them brush over him. There is something of pity too. Because Norman Osborn is not the invincible scientist and businessman he makes himself out to be. He is only an old man afraid to die. And he’s too pathetic to realize it.

And yet for some reason Harry does not feel condescending apathy. He feels as if he is going to cry. But Norman Osborn does not deserve his tears.

And then Father tells him of his disease. Their disease. He thinks he should react with horror. He is disgusted by the idea of ending up like the creature which now lay before him. Yet, he is also oddly fascinated.

Father asks for his hand, and Harry nearly refuses.

He finds his hand reaching forward anyway. It’s trembling.

Norman Osborn presses a small black and white box into the center of Harry’s palm, rasping about worthless inheritance.

“Maybe you can succeed, where I failed.”

He wants to refuse. He does not want to turn into this pathetic ghost of a man that his father has. He does not want to cling so desperately to life that he forgets what life even is.

But he does not refuse.

He’s that eleven year old again, crying in the bathroom because his father had seen the 95 he’d received on his test and thrown it out in disgust because it wasn’t 100. He’s that sixteen year old again, who had received a birthday gift that obviously wasn’t from his father and had been angry enough to smash it against the wall, but ultimately couldn’t because there was still the chance.

He wraps his fingers around the little box, grip so tight that his knuckles turn white. It’s so stupid. It seems that even after eight years, some part of him still seeks his father’s approval.

oOoOoOo

Norman Osborn dies, and his son sheds no tears.

He feels oddly empty afterwards. He thinks maybe he should be raging, or at least upset. The only other example of grief he’s had was like that. He thinks maybe he should feel relieved, because although that would make him a monster, it would justify his bitterness while his father was still alive. But Harry Obsorn feels nothing.

A board meeting is called to discuss the future of Oscorp. Harry can’t bring himself to care. He attends, but only because it is expected of him. Because he does not know what else to do now that he’s back in New York.

No, that is a lie. He hasn’t known what to do with himself since he graduated from that accursed boarding school. He’d thought that traversing the world would shed light on a few answers. It has not.

He takes more interest in his father’s box than he does the meeting itself. Oscorp is not his company. It has always been his father’s company and, he suspects, will continue to remain so even after the man’s death.

But the way the board members talk.

It’s not been a day since his father’s body cooled, and all they can talk about is profits and investor confidence. They were Father’s friends. Harry may have been a disappointment to Norman Osborn, and had been gone too long to truly feel any attachment to the man, but that should not have been the case with his coworkers. Yet they too act as if the death does not affect them.

 “—Oscorp’s been under intense public scrutiny in the wake of Dr. Connors’ recent breach of trust,” one of the board members is saying.

For the first time, Harry says more than a simple yes or no. His voice is cool as he interrupts. “You mean, people are pissed off because he tried to turn everyone in New York City into giant lizards.”

The shocked silence which greets him is soothing.

The meeting continues, but it does not go their way any longer. Harry’s chair, which had been facing the large bay window, is swivelled back into a position where the boy can easily meet each of their gazes if he so chose.

He is calm, composed, biting. His years at boarding school have not failed to teach him how to conduct business. He’s learned over the years. Learned to turn weakness into strength, tears to vengeance. Learned to wrap it all beneath cool aloofness so that his enemies could never know what was coming. He even uses his previous apathy as purposeful nonchalance.

This company is not his, but neither is it theirs.

And then his butler comes with the name ‘Peter Parker’ on his lips, and Harry feels some of his composure fracture. He leaves the meeting, even though he knows that he shouldn’t. 

He finds his childhood friend gangling about awkwardly about the entrance, just like he always did when they were eleven.

“Peter Parker,” Harry says as he stops at the edge of the staircase. “It’s like seeing a ghost.”

And he is unsure if he can deal with more ghosts. Father was bad enough. How much could Peter have changed? Harry knows that he isn’t the same innocent boy who used to run around with his best friend pretending to that they were pigeons anymore. He doesn’t expect Peter to have remained the same.

But then Peter looks up at him, and smiles that same goofy smile he’s had when they were kids. The smile that says he’s sincerely happy to see the Osborn scion and nothing will change that.

“Hey Harry.”

“Random.” Harry murmurs, even though it isn’t. Perhaps he’s just not expected Peter to remember him after all this time. “It’s been ten years.”

“Eight,” Peter corrects. He smiles again, although this time it’s slightly dimmer. “Close.”

“What’s up?”

 “Saw the news, man.” Peter says. His eyes are sad as he takes a step forward, to ascend to where Harry has placed himself. “I heard about your dad, I just wanted to come and check and see how you were doing—”

“I’m ah, I’m with some people, Peter.” Harry says, to get Peter to stop. Peter does. Surprise gleams across his eyes, followed by disappointment. Harry’s stomach churns, though he does not know why. “I’m in a meeting.”

The meeting is, actually, quite important. It is supposed to decide the direction Oscorp will now be going in after Norman Osborn’s death after all. Truthfully Harry hadn’t been thinking when he’d answered Peter’s summons. Still, for some reason the explanation feels like an excuse as it passes between Harry’s lips.

Peter is quick to apologize. “S—sorry, I don’t want to intrude. It’s been a long time. I kinda know exactly what you’re going through right now, you were there for me when my parents—”

He’s fumbling and awkward. But he is also always sincere. It’s so different from Harry’s years abroad, where everyone was sophisticated but so fake that listening to their glass-like laughter physically hurt.

“That’s why I’m here for you.” Peter finishes.

Harry wishes he had something that Peter could be here for. It’s different from when Peter’s parents died and the younger boy had come to Harry’s crying. It’s different from the days Peter spent telling stories about the Parker family to his best friend because he needed to keep the memories alive.

Harry has no grief, has no stories. He has nothing to give.

“Thank you,” Harry says quietly.

“It’s good to see you man, it’s good to see you.” Peter nods, descending the stairs. He’s still looking at Harry, like he’s searching for something. Hoping for something. “It’s good to see you.”

Harry only nods.

The light in Peter’s eyes dim somewhat. His shoulders slump as he finally turns away.

“Sorry about your dad.”

The statement strikes him.

His dad. His dad. Everything since he’s been back has been about his dad. His father’s summoned him back from Europe. His father’s given him a curse for a life. His father’s board of directors awaits behind Harry’s back.

Perhaps this is why he’d come to see Peter when he should have told his butler to tell the other he was busy. Because Peter is the one consistent thing in Harry’s life which has never been his father’s.

Impulse moved him before, and impulse moves him now.

“You got your braces off,” Harry says as he finally steps forward. Peter pauses, turns up to look at him. Harry lets out a deliberate breath of amusement, “Now, there’s nothing to distract from your unibrow.”

It’s a lame joke. Peter’s eyebrows are bushy, but they accented his face well. Harry’s sure that none of the supermodels he’s met would even had problems with Peter’s facial features. But it doesn’t really matter if his joke is funny.

The wide smile that spreads across Peter’s face shows Harry that he gets it. Harry smiles in return, because this, they still have this.

“There he is, there he is.” Peter laughs as he turns back to Harry with sparkling eyes. “Do you still blow-dry your hair every morning?”

This time his amusement isn’t forced.

 “Uh, you know, one my man servants holds the hair dryer and I hold the comb,” he says in a mock-serious voice. He’s barely controlling his voice enough to talk and not just burst into laughter. “So at least I’m not completely helpless.”

Peter is laughing hopelessly. He bounds up the stairs in a few quick steps and pulls Harry into a friendly hug. Harry hugs back.

He lets out a breath, and with it, the convoluted feelings within him seem to finally take leave as well. Somehow, Harry finally feels like he’s home.

oOoOoOo

They fall back into their old rhythm effortlessly.

As always, Peter makes him manage to forget about whatever new affliction had struck Harry Osborn’s life. It’s so incredibly easy to laugh and joke with Peter. And for the first time since he’s stepped out of that damned airplane, the suffocating thoughts of his father and his illness lift.

They catch up. Harry lets Peter know of his adventure in Europe, and somehow, sharing them now, it feels like they might all have been worth it after all.

Peter asks Harry about the supermodels he’s dated. Harry is quick to return fire.

“You got a lady?” Harry asks as Peter leans back against the harbor railing. It’s a throwaway question. Harry doesn’t know why, but he didn’t actually expect Peter to say anything resembling a yes.

But Peter does give a yes. Or rather, the response he gives as he climbs over the rail like some African monkey is ‘it’s complicated’, which might as well means a yes. At the very least it means Peter has feelings for someone, and it is not completely unreciprocated.

The reply sends a sharp stab of pain through Harry’s chest. He doesn’t know why.

Harry’s voice cools by considerable degrees, although he doesn’t mean for it to. “Yeah, I don’t do complicated.”

Peter gives a shrug, and though he nods, Harry can tell that it’s more of an ‘I will respect your point of view’ than ‘I agree’.

Harry shakes his head. He knows he’s being rude, and he does not mean to be. He tries again, though he knows with uneasy certainty that it’s the last thing he wants to know.  “What’s her name? Who is she?”

“Her name’s Gwen,” Peter said. “Gwen Stacy.”

“Gwen Stacy,” Harry mutters. The name sounds ridiculous. Like a stripper trying to be classy.

“She works for you.”

“She works for me?” Harry asks with a forced smile.

“Yeah, she works at Oscorp, she does work study there.”

“Wow.” There’s an almost mocking edge now to Harry’s smile. “Is she a model employee?”

Peter nods, but thankfully seems to want to talk about his not-girlfriend as little as Harry does. He asks a question about something else and they’re off to joking about tacos instead.

They talk about anything and everything, from the latest loss of their favourite basketball team to the vigilante known as Spider Man. It’s amazingly easy with Peter.

When they part, Harry is lighter than he has been for years. Abroad, Harry was Harry Osborn, heir presumptive to Oscorp and someone to take advantage of. He attended parties and galas, and carried smooth conversation, but his opinions were always tailored to whomever he was talking to. With Peter there’s no need, and it’s freeing. He hasn’t realized that he’d missed being able to express himself so candidly.

He can’t remember why he ever thought it was a good idea to try to send Peter away before they could truly talk.

And he remembers that life can be something more than the hollow existence of his father. And that he wants life.

oOoOoOo

He goes back to Oscorp rather than the manor.

He’s too wired to sleep, as funny as the thought sounds in his head. He’s clean of drugs and drinks, coffee or sex, yet he feels more energized than ever. Amusedly, he wonders if some of the Parker twitchiness might have rubbed off on him.

And then he finds the patch of scaly skin on his neck.

oOoOoOo

He doesn’t mean for his second meeting with Peter to go as it does. Only—only Harry’s frustrated, because he’s finally figured out how to look into his father’s research and it yields nothing except Spider Man.

“You need, Spider Man’s—blood?” Peter asks as he sits down. His voice is blanketed by shock.

“It’ll save my life.”

He expects Peter to be delighted. Harry’s future is no longer so uncertain.

But Peter’s face resembles nothing of happiness. “It might not, Har. It may not be that simple. You saw what happened to Curt Connors, right?”

Harry’s lip spasms as he turns his head away. Yes he knows exactly what happened. Connors lost control of his mind and of his body shortly afterwards. Harry’s not Connors though, and his will is stronger than that.

Neither is he stupid. He knows what it means to test an unfinished drug.

But he is running out of time. The illness killed quickly, and he does not want to undergo the treatments that his father had to prolong his life. They’d turned him into a monster.

He still remembers the peeling, crusty creature he’d seen in the dark. That was not his father. And Harry would rather die than end up like that.

“Connors was weak,” he says coldly. He pauses. “This is me, Peter.”

He tells himself that it will be fine. Spider Man evidently was able to thrive with the drug, so survival was possible. Harry will simply do the same.

He pointedly ignores the little voice in the back of his head telling him that it isn’t so simple. For a second he feels fear—because he’s sure that if Peter points it out, Harry wouldn’t be able to deny it.

Thankfully Peter doesn’t press the point. For some reason, both relief and disappointment wash over Harry at that. And then all that disappears when Peter begins to lie.

“Well, I don’t think you can just set up a venue…” Peter mutters.

Harry can only stare in disbelief as Peter begins talking as if he doesn’t know. And then the anger floods him.

He cannot believe it. Peter’s the one who’s made him remember the values of life, and now Peter’s the one who is denying the thing himself?

He tries to get control of himself. It’s an impossible task. “You know him.”

 “Harry,” Peter swallows, “I took a picture from a long way away. A long lens. I don’t know him.”

Peter—Peter has always been a bad liar. Still is. The blind fury drains out of Harry, replaced by a more pained kind of feeling. He wonders how Peter doesn’t know that Harry can read the lines of the brown haired boy’s face better than his own.

“I put together what you said at the river,” he says instead. It’s a miracle he’s able to keep his voice as calm as it is.

“What I—”

“About how he gives people hope.”

Peter looks stricken.

Harry hates it. Hates using Peter’s own words against him.

“Just say yes,” Harry asks, because he doesn’t want to do this anymore either.

But Peter only shakes his head. He gets up. Turns, to leave. Like Father whenever he’s too disappointed in Harry to stay.

Harry’s up in an instant. He doesn’t even mean to be. He lunges forward and grabs Peter’s arm. “Don’t turn your back on me!”

Peter swivels back around, regarding him with morose brown eyes.

Harry swallows. He lowers his voice.

“I don’t want to end up like my father, Peter. Please.”

He’s learned over the years to make use his vulnerability. Slender and graceful, young and inexperienced, the method seemed tailored to him. Boastful businessmen never liked clever retorts, but were quick to fall to a few truthful if exaggerated pleas for help. They never quite saw the moment they were caught in Harry’s web until it was too late.

He’s just never thought he’d have to use this on Peter.

“Please,” Harry whispers. “Please. I can’t—”

He hugs Peter tightly. But Peter is stiff in his arms. There is no warmth in this hug. When Harry pulls back, he is uneasy.

But then Peter stutters out an agreement.

The sense of triumph and elation which rises within him is enough to drown out the disquiet from the hug.

oOoOoOo

Peter leaves, and this time Harry lets him.

He stands there for a long time, by the doorway, simply thinking about the conversation. With the excitement dying down, Harry realizes that perhaps it was wrong of him to get so angry with Peter. No, he knows it was wrong of him.

It is wrong of Peter also. Peter lied, when he should not have lied. But Peter is doing Harry this favour in the end.

Harry thinks that when all this is over, he’ll treat Peter to something incredible. Perhaps the next Stark Expo. Peter was always such a fanboy about tech. His friend’s Aunt May and Uncle Ben could come along as well.

 Harry feels good when he leaves the office, despite being pale and sickly and not having slept for thirty-six hours.

The feeling lasts even when he’s going down the elevator and Gwen Stacy rushes in.

He recognizes her immediately. He’d been too curious after Peter’s mention of her and had found her on the employee database. She looks absolutely frazzled and nearly jumps a mile when he notifies her of his presence.

He introduces himself. He does not feel the ugly feeling today as he did when he looked at her picture. She’s even more perfect in person, and Harry can see why Peter might like her. But it is for Harry that Peter is seeking to contact Spider Man for.

But her response crushes his favourable feeling. She’s all smiles when she replies that she knows who he is. Not Harry Osborn the boss, but Harry Osborn the childhood friend of Peter Parker. It could only mean that Peter told her of Harry after their conversation.

“I’m sorry that he never introduced us,” Harry smiles. It’s forced. “I thought you two had broken up.”

Gwen seems to sense the change. She withdraws a little, “Oh, um, yes. We had. Then it’s…”

“It’s complicated.” Harry says with a twist of his lips. Gwen returns it with a mumbled ‘yeah’ and a cute little laugh. “Everything’s always complicated with Peter.”

It’s a lie. When he’s with Peter it’s the simplest thing.

“Yeah.” Gwen laughs. She gives a small shake of her head, looking away. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“But that’s why he needs you, right?” Harry asks, accessing. There is nothing outright mocking about his tone, but if Gwen is as intelligent as Peter seems to think she is, she can’t miss the implication of his words. “To help make his choices clear.”

He knows nothing about them save that they have a ‘complicated’ relationship. Nothing about them except for the fact that evidently, Gwen cannot make Peter decide one way or the other. Her power over him is minimal.

Gwen’s face closes off.

Harry absently wonders if Peter would have agreed to track down Spider Man if it were Gwen in Harry’s place. Or perhaps Peter would have agreed for Gwen from the start.

The elevator door dings open.

Gwen is polite as she makes to leave, though her earnestness from before is completely gone. “Nice to meet you, Harry.”

That is fine. Harry has no more desire to pretend. He doesn’t bother to smile as he nods in goodbye, “Yes. Such pleasure, Gwen.”

His mood for the night is spoiled.

oOoOoOo

When Spider Man comes to visit, he ignores the familiar voice, muffled as it is through the mask.

He ignores the fact that Spider Man has offered to help him but has refused his money, and only one other person has done that.

He ignores it because he doesn’t want to see it. Doesn’t want to believe that his friend—his best friend, his only true friend—would do this to him.

oOoOoOo

It goes downhill from there.

His company betrays him and he’s slowly losing the war against his body. He cannot even use Oscorp to find a cure anymore. He does not want to die like his father, alone and barely human. Anything is better.

He doesn’t hesitate in injecting the spider venom into his bloodstream.

oOoOoOo

Maniacal laughter in his mind.

He just wants it to stop, stop, stop.

Yet at the same time, he’s afraid of what would happen if it did.

oOoOoOo

Harry wasn’t completely unaware of what he did while under the effects of the serum. He certainly remembers finding Peter’s secret, the angry words which had heated his tongue, and the subsequent battle which followed.

But he will say he remembers nothing. It is what his lawyers have advised him to do and he does not disagree.

Nor can he particularly care.

He thinks that he should feel something. Either guilt at being responsible for a girl’s death, or, more darkly, vindication at causing Peter indescribable pain like his best friend has caused him. He feels nothing.

He dons his outward cloak of calm and authority, not to hide himself—but as a gift to his shell of a body. For it is empty inside.

When Mr. Fiers comes to visit him in his cell, Harry is the man he was for the past eight years again.

They discuss Spider Man and the future of Ravencroft. Harry no longer cares so much about his life, but he’s worked so hard for it already, done so much for it already. There’s nothing else to fight for, so why not fight for this?

“Speaking of progress, you’re looking better,” Fiers comments.

“It comes and goes.”

He wants to blame Peter for this. Blame his best friend for betraying him and turning him into this. But he knows better.

It isn’t Peter who has taken his vitality from him. Harry has been like that from the start.

He looks at the mirror and his reflection smiles brokenly back at him. Harry has always been a monster, and now there’s no more need to hide it.