Work Text:
He stares down at the entirety of the city, admiring NewYork's beauty from this height. He swings his legs and knocks them backwards onto the wall of the building, thoughts far from the situation.
Everything. He's lost everything. No mother, no father. No love and no friends. No income, no passion and no smiles; it's like he's on top of the world from this vantage point, but he feels like he's hit rock bottom.
His frosted gaze turns downwards, at the countless story drop, and his stomach dips instictively. But it could end, be over, all the pain and agony and hate could stop in a second, and all he'd know is fear until he meets the bottom with a happy grin because he finally escaped.
Harry Theopolis Osborn is sitting at the top of OsCorp, and he wants to make the jump.
His family is all dead. Max is dead. Felicia moved. Peter despises him.
And Goblin? Harry had been with Goblin since he was four; his own imaginary friend to look out for him like an older sibling. They called him crazy instead, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and prescribed anti-psychotics. Goblin told him to stop taking them, and he'd stay by Harry forever; no matter what. So of course he listened to that promise.
Well then, where was he now?
It's dead silent, and Harry finds himself choking on a sob. Damn Ravencroft. Actually found a cure, took the illness out of him, but it felt like they took his soul.
Some fancy operation that saved his life. But when he opened his eyes, he felt more dead than ever. So much emptiness, so much despair; he's barely spoken a word since then.
Five times. He had tried five times, and everytime it'd come back as a failure. He took a bottle of Tylenol; woke up in the hospital. He took two bottles of Advil, some poor idiot found him on the street and again, he woke up in stark white sheets.
Attempt number three, he stood in the middle of the train-tracks and waited. That was the closest he had gotten to date, but a driver had pulled over from the highway and dove for him, barely saving him in time. He didn't wake up in foreign, sterile sheets, but he did scream and fight and cuss at the man who wouldn't let him go until the train passed. He had called Harry fucking crazy before advising him to check into a psych ward. He didn't.
So then round four came, and he thought he could bleed to death. Thought this would be the last try he'd need. Broke his mirror in a fit of rage and then dragged the spiked glass down the inside of his thigh, trying to find the right vein. He passed out sometime during it, and woke up feeling incredibly ill and faint, with crusted blood and a four inch long incision ground into his leg that was physical proof of his failure.
And then, then there was last night. He had bought rope, strung it around the balcony in his front hall and stepped into the loop, kicking his chair out from underneath. Scratchy twine scraped at the skin of his throat, gasping breaths getting more and more pathetic. Eyes fluttering shut and then... He found himself coughing violently, face-first on the floor.
The fucking rope had snapped. Harry was tiny, no more than 150 pounds and the damn product that could bear more than 500 pounds couldn't hold him for more than four minutes. That's all he needed. Four fucking minutes and it was ripped away when the rope ripped in two.
He had curled up on his side and bawled his eyes out, gasping through anxiety attacks and sniffling through self-hate. He fell asleep at some point, and when he woke, came here.
He missed Goblin more than anything. It didn't matter if he would hurt Harry, or cut him down or make him incessantly insult any friends he could maintain for longer than a week. Goblin was all Harry felt he ever had, those lonely nights when his face had bruised from his father or when his arms had bruised from his bullies. It didn't matter, Goblin was there all through boarding school, holding his hand and keeping Harry safe; emotionally, at least.
He didn't have anything left to live for, nothing worth staying for.
He pulled his palms from his lap and set them on the edge of the building, twisting his fingers into the stone. He inhaled as deeply as he could, holding it for thirty seconds and sputtering it back out. Tensed his muscles, and –
"What the hell are you doing?" He startles, almost slipping forward but he instictively slaps his hand on the other side of the rail he's seated on, barely saving his life.
He turns to the speaker, flashy red and blue contrasting each other aesthetically. Harry sniffles and wipes his cheeks; didn't even notice he had been crying,
"Nothing." Silence. "Why are you here?" He means to come off threatening, but his voice cracks and he sounds so small.
"I'm Spider-man, I'm always up this high. Now get the hell away from the edge before you do something stupid and fall."
It would only be stupid if it wasn't intentional, and Harry finds his arms twitching in defiance. They press into the ledge again and Peter starts to get angry.
"Harry stop it. I'm not playing this game." The blue-eyed truly does believe his words, but Harry doesn't want to 'play' this game, he wants out of it, and his escape is seconds away. It would only be a moment. "Harry, get away from there. You've had your fun."
Was he really ready for this? Ready to meet his fate in hell and take the punishment he so deserved? Maybe losing Goblin was his punishment, and that's why he hasn't died; he had to stay to suffer.
No, he couldn't accept that. Harry's fate was up to him and him only, and there was nothing that could stop him from becoming road vomit.
"Harry, don't – !" He's weightless, feeling frozen in time as he is fully suspended in the air, and then it's increasing tenfold and he's rocketing down down down. He finds himself grinning because it's so exhilarating.
He thought he'd be afraid.
Thought he'd recollect his entire life's memories.
But all he does is experience the realness of the situation and beam because he's finally fucking doing it, and the ground is seconds away. He's going to make it this time. He's going to end his worthless life. He's going to –
– feel the equivalent of a truck hit his side and find himself secured on the sidewalk.
"No." He whispers, already shoving away from the cage of arms refusing to release him. "No, no. No you can't do this." He looks at Spider-Man's mask, everything in him crashing down and focusing on the intense curve of the eye sockets. "No, no! You fucking bastard!" He lashes out, adrenaline-stuffed knuckles hitting Peter in the face. Civilians walking by are looking on in awe and confusion at Harry's reaction, and it feels so pressing and suffocating with all the eyes.
He flies himself and Harry out more, to an abandoned street where Harry's sobs have only pitched in volume.
"Fuck you! Why can't you let me fucking die!?" His limbs entirely fail him and he collapses, Peter's arms finally letting him go to gently ease him to the ground.
His shaking hands find the ground and start hitting it incessantly until they're bloody and broken and Harry can't scream anymore.
Peter's head is reeling because the sight of Harry falling was far too similar to watching Gwen plummeting down, and he really thought he'd end up killing Harry too. He needs to sit beside the broken (shattered, ruined?) boy, because Harry is still hitting the ground, and Peter is feeling his fear take away the functionality of his limbs. He can't believe that happened. He can't believe that almost fucking happened.
"You're so damn selfish." Peter starts, anger consuming fear. Harry freezes and looks over, startled at the turn.
"Excuse me? You're the one who –"
"No, no I'm not doing this Harry. You're being a damn fool if you think no one would care if you died." The mentioned boy swallows and pushes himself upright, staring with mistrust at Peter. The darker-haired finally tugs the mask off, looking at the wreck in front of him with red, glassed eyes. Harry opens his mouth to talk, but stops short, wiping his nose again instead because he truly doesn't know what to say.
"What are you talking about?"
"I hate you. I hate your guts Harry, I really do. But you don't get to take your own life. You think you're all alone? Think there's no one left to save you from your own fucked-up self?" The words are acid and Harry cringes, because despite the brutallaity, it's true. "Who do you think admitted you to Ravencroft? Who do you think brought you to the hospital when you took those stupid pills? Twice, I might add. And who do you think saved your ass again, literally minutes ago?" Peter huffs angrily, hot aggressive tears rolling down to his jaw. "You may be a complete bastard, but you're all I have, Har. And you don't get to take that from me, too."
"Pete, you don't... You don't understand. They took Gobin away from me. I'm nothing now, I'm a pathetic nobody without him. I need him!" He wails, but then finds himself stunned into silence when a palm collides with his face.
"Stop it! This isn't about you. You always hog all the drama, well fuck you. Because I get to be dramatic now, and we're going to talk about me."
Harry brings a raw-knuckled hand up to cradle his reddening cheek, and swallows thickly, darting his eyes away from Peter's pleading orbs.
"You left. You left for eight fucking years without a word to me. You come back and don't even bother to come see me – wouldn't have even thought of me if I hadn't –"
"That isn't true!"
"Shut up." The taller's glare is terrifying, and Harry tucks his lips in to demonstrate sealing them. "You contributed to my girlfriend's death, you've scared the shit out of me three times now, and you don't even have the balls to apologize."
"I'm sorry, Pete. I didn't think –"
"No. No you really didn't, because you only ever think about yourself." He's been harassed into silence, Peter's frustrations making him feel shittier with every passing word.
"I'm sorry," he mouths, because his voice isn't strong enough to make any actual sound.
"What was that?" Peter genuinely didn't hear.
"I said I'm sorry. I didn't see you after I was released, so I assumed you'd... I thought that you'd erased me from your life."
"I tried." Peter mumbles back, all his anger settling back down to typical rationality. "But you're my best friend. Even if you're a damn ass. And I can't change that." Quiet. Harry is truly and utterly speechless, and his hands are really starting to ache now.
"You're mine too." The brunette turns his head from the cement and gives him a questioning look. "You're my best friend. You're... I guess you're all I have left too."
He thought he had lost Peter, thought that there was no way to fix the way things had ripped apart between the two of them.
Turns out he didn't have to fix things, he just had to be his best-friend. Be Peter's everything.
He could do that.
"And what the hell did you do to your throat?" Peter starts up, and Harry flinches from the lunging fingers, assuming the pale flesh is scribbled in purple.
Awkward. Peter said he'd saved Harry three times? Too bad there was five attempts, six including the most recent one.
He chooses not to share, and just shrugs at the boy in front of him. He guesses he didn't realize how important Peter was as well; didn't even consider the boy could care back after everything Harry had... Everything he'd...
"Don't cry anymore. We'll be okay." Peter says, wiping the fresh tears away from Harry's pretty eyes. "No more crying." He affirms, pulling his hands back.
He isn't so sure he can, but he'll try. He'll try in his empty, vacant shell of a persobality and he'll try to be better.
Better for Peter.