Chapter Text
Peter
I’ve lost my breath a lot. Between the gruesome falls I’ve taken during fights and all the unexpectedly tragic turns in my life, I should be used to it. I think I usually am.
This, this is different.
I jog down the stairs towards him.
Harry.
I honestly never thought I would see him again. I thought he was gone. My mind went to every horrible place it could go.
Things had changed so quickly. There were a couple months where he was always canceling plans, claiming to be “too hungover” or “all partied out.” I tried so hard to connect with him, but I just couldn’t seem to get through.
Then he had announced his big trip to explore Europe, tour the other Oscorp branches, and “find himself.” I told him I was really going to miss him and that he should keep me updated with pictures and postcards. I never got any. He never texted, never returned my calls.
I got so desperate, I asked Norman, Mayor Osborn, what was going on. He insisted that Harry was just “off the grid for a bit” for personal reasons. But I could help but spiral into all the things I must have done to drive my best friend away. I spent an entire year believing that, because of Spider-Man, I had failed to be what he needed in a friend. I knew I was unreliable. He knew I was unreliable. It was expected of me to cancel plans or run terminally late. I always played it off as just a quirky part of my personality, rather than the plague on my soul that it is. But I thought I had finally become so much of a flake, that even my oldest friend didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.
Then I got the phone call from MJ. I was so wrapped up in the crisis with Otto and Martin Li that I could barely process what she was telling me. It was awful stuff about a genetic disease and Harry being placed into stasis.
After that call, I just knew he was gone. Norman and MJ might have been in denial, but I knew he wasn’t coming back. If there was something that could have been done, Norman would have done it to save his wife. Harry was gone.
When Aunt May died, just a few days after that phone call, I sat in the dirt of her grave and mourned them both. I had made my peace with it. I knew my memories were all I had left with him. I was certain of it.
Air cannot move through my lungs.
He’s here.
My arms are around him as I pull him into a tight hug. His chest feels sturdy against mine. He’s real. He’s really here. He squeezes me back and he feels strong, vital—nothing like the withered image I had conjured in my head of my dying best friend.
He exhales, sighing into my neck, and suddenly I can breathe again. So, I do. I breathe him in. That familiar smell washes over me: the same expensive cedar cologne he started wearing junior year of high school.
My neighborhood comes back into focus as I step back, breaking the hug. I run my eyes over him, head to toe. His ginger curls are shorter than before, clean cut. His shoulders seem broader in that nostalgic green bomber jacket. The only indication of anything being amiss: the silver and gold cane that he’s lightly leaning into. He looks amazing.
I’m pulled from my head again by MJ’s laugh. “Well, I think he missed you, Harry.”
A mischievous grin lights up his face and he nudges me with his shoulder. “Yeah. It’s definitely mutual. Missed you both like crazy.”
“Ugh! I have to run but we will be catching up later.” MJ says emphatically. She leans in and presses a kiss to Harry’s cheek before turning and giving me the same treatment. “Don’t drool on his shoes, Peter.” And with another chuckle, she hops on her motorcycle.
“I wasn’t—” I start to protest, but she’s gone.
Harry’s opening the hatch on the back of his car as he responds, “For the record, you can drool on my shoes as much as you want. They might be leather, but I’ve got the scotchguard.”
“Ha-ha.” I roll my eyes at the back of his head.
He pulls a bike—my bike— out of the back of his ride and then my jaw is hanging open again.
“Wait, how did you get this?!”
“Ah, it’s just a similar one I found. Looks like it though, right? Thought some nostalgia might do us both some good.” He pulls his old bike out as well, swinging his leg over to straddle the seat.
“It’s got the same stickers and everything.” I’m smiling and it’s like I’m fifteen again, the weight of everything takes a step back.
He shrugs and starts peddling.
I hop up on the slightly uneven seat, my thumb finding that familiar groove in the handlebars and I know it’s my bike. Did he somehow keep these since we were kids? Or did he track it down for me?
With my cheeks already growing sore from my smile, I peddle after him.
We weave through the neighborhood, muscle memory dodging us past the same roots and missing chunks of sidewalk we’ve navigated for so many years.
I have a million questions for him, and an overwhelming number of stories to tell. It’s hard to even know where to start.
“Any new pizza places open up since I’ve been gone?” Harry calls over to me.
“None that I’ve tried. But I’m sure there’s at least twenty!”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Oh geeze, I’m not sure my body can handle another full day pizza sampling fiasco!”
He scoffs. “It was not a fiasco! It just happened to be that our data revealed mostly the worst pizza in Staten Island. Now we know, so all of those pies are off the table!”
“You just wanna ride the ferry again.”
Harry purses his lips and says nothing.
“You know I can just take you on the ferry. We don’t have to have a mission.” I chuckle.
“Pete, do you have any idea how much I’m being fueled by nostalgia right now? That is quite literally what’s peddling this bike.”
“I… concede to that. I’m not shooting down the pizza recon mission. I’m just saying, tums and milk of magnesia might be in order.”
“Milk of magnesia.” Harry snorts. “How are you just a seventy-year-old man wrapped in that packaging?”
“What packaging? I’ll have you know, I’m very spry for my age.”
“You’re very spry for any age.”
I pause, and then; “I get the sense that I’m being complimented now, so, I won’t argue with you any further.”
“Nice catch.”
I smile as we fall into pace alongside each other, slipping down sidewalks, through fences, across lawns.
“I’m really sorry to hear about your old boss.” Harry says, his voice becoming more solemn.
My chest ceases up. “T-thanks. It was… really rough.”
“I know you really looked up to him. That job must have been so important to you.”
I want to tell him everything. There’s so much pain tied up in those memories. I would love nothing more than to be able to share that with him. But I know I can’t.
“It was. It was so much more than a job though…”
“I know.” He sighs.
“So much happened while you were gone.”
“I know.” He says again, this time his voice even tighter.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to—I didn’t mean to imply… I know it wasn’t like you just left. I know you didn’t want to be gone. You were sick, it wasn’t your fault—”
He cuts me off, “You weren’t implying anything. It’s the truth.” He swallows. “I was suspended in a tank, receiving an experimental treatment, while you were out here. Losing two of the people closest to you. When I was in agonizing pain, trying not to become the third, I wasn’t able to be here…”
“You’re here now.” I say, still in awe of that fact.
“And somehow, not in agonizing pain.” He tosses me a soft smile.
“I can’t imagine what that was like for you, Harry. You were confined to a tank for that long?”
He nods. “I wasn’t… fully conscious the entire time. But I was for plenty of it. They had to make sure what was curing me wouldn’t have some adverse effect and kill me differently.”
“Shit.” I exhale.
“Figured out where we’re going yet?” Harry asks, changing the tone as he pulls ahead of me.
“Wait, Midtown High? Is that actually where we’re going?” I ask, a bit incredulous.
As we pull up to the school and drop our bikes, I realize that this wasn’t some stop-by, check-in. How long has he been planning this? This is really important to him. Was he dreaming about this reunion for months while he was being treated?
My heart drops into my stomach. I should have planned for this too. I shouldn’t have just assumed it was the end for him. Am I an awful best friend for not planning out what we would do together when he came home?
Harry nudges me forward. “Don’t look so pensive, Pete! You do realize we’re not actually going to school, right?”
I nod and follow him. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
His gait is still a bit uneven, and I can’t help but reflexively turn every time his breath hitches.
Reminiscing about the day we broke into the school to get our project, we wander around the side of the building. I’m briefly terrified when Harry once again jimmies the door open.
“We’re gonna get in trouble!”
“Pshhh.” Harry shrugs me off.
I can tell he’s still reading the concern off my face as he sneaks us into the building. “We’re fine, Pete.”
As usual, I decide to trust him and go along with his plan.
Wandering the halls, everything comes rushing back to me. That mission to get the flash drive, our senior prank with the spray cheese and hula hoop, feeling my heart break that day I saw him kissing Mary Jane outside the chem lab, catching him kissing Stephanie under the bleachers—actually, way more memories of Harry kissing people around this school than I should probably have been keeping track of.
In the gym, we pick up a ball and start shooting around a bit. I take it easy, faintly missing the days when he could easily best me at most sports. Back when I had subpar reflexes and was just happy to be included in a game. Even though he was more athletically built than I was, we had both prided ourselves in spurning jock culture. After the spider bite though, I had to start faking my clumsiness and that felt pretty gross.
“So, how are things with MJ? She was at your house, so I’m guessing good.” Harry asks, his eyes trained on the basket.
Tension ratchets across my shoulders at this turn in the conversation. “Yeah. I’m not sure if she’ll move in, though.”
“Really? Are things on the rocks?”
I avoid his eyes, my stomach twisting at the notion of discussing that with him right now. “I wouldn’t say that. I mean, we haven’t been on a real date in probably two months. I’ve gotten better at making dumplings! But we mostly just end up having TV dinners on her couch…”
“I guess that’s kind of how it goes after a while?” Harry responds, shooting at the hoop and completely missing.
“We’re just always so busy. There’s no shortage of news for her to cover in the city. One of us is always having to run off once we get in the middle of anything.”
“What has you running off?” He asks, chasing down the ball.
“Oh—you know, tutoring emergencies! Last minute tests, forgotten presentations!” I try to abort the conversation. “We’d probably have sex more if I actually made the house a place anyone would want to be…
“So, uh, not very intimate these days then?” Harry swallows.
“We were last year when we first got back together. I stayed at her place for a couple weeks and it was crazy. Especially with all the bio toxin could have wiped out the city stuff, it was kind of ‘get it while you can,’ I guess.”
“Oh.” Harry passes me the ball.
I take my shot, also missing the hoop entirely. “Things stayed pretty good while I had my last apartment. But, financially, I couldn’t keep up with it. I had to face up to moving back into the Parker house… as the last living Parker.” My mouth goes dry with those last words.
“Damn, Pete… I can only imagine. I remember how hard it was to go back home after my mom died. And I still had Dad there.” He places a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah, but your dad has never exactly been a comforting presence.” I cover his hand with mine.
“Maybe not, but he was a reminder that I wasn’t going through it alone.”
I sigh. “Alone sucks. I didn’t know a house could get that quiet… Especially after having my apartment in the city, the silence kind of hit me like a truck.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Sometimes, I’ll switch May’s TV on and pretend she’s in there playing her little Yahtzee game.”
Harry looks like he’s struggling with something for a second and then he offers, “If you need someone there when MJ can’t be, I’ll stay with you.”
I meet his soft green eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, okay! I’d like that a lot. I mean I’d love to have you there!”
“Yeah?” He offers me a smile.
“Will your dad be okay with that? I imagine he’s probably pretty excited to have you back home.”
“It won’t matter. I’m not staying at his penthouse any more anyway. That felt like a step backwards, and I’m only interested in new frontiers!”
The basketball! I remember suddenly and retrieve it from where it rolled across the gym.
As I jog back, I reply, “That’s great! Although we might need to get an air mattress. We’re a little bigger than we were the last time we shared that twin bed.”
He shakes his head at me. “Eh, just squish me against the wall. You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Yes, I will. There’s a ninety percent chance I wake up with your hand on my face.”
“I don’t intend to put my hand on your face! It just ends up there!” He protests.
“A likely story. Anyway, that’s been another recent challenge with MJ.”
“She puts her hand on your face?”
“No—I mean the twin bed. It’s hard enough for me to remember to change the sheets—I promise I will when you sleep over! But who wants to have sex in a twin bed after high school?” I pass him the ball.
He dribbles it a bit. “I don’t know… Does this stuff seem like things that will get resolved?”
“We’ll work it out, we always do.” I state.
He pauses like he’s about to say something else but then shakes his head and shoots the basket.
“What?” I prompt him.
He retrieves the ball, running his finger along its grooves as he speaks. “I know you’ve always loved her.”
I sigh and look up through the skylight. “Haven’t you?”
Harry chuckles dryly. “Who wouldn’t?”
“MJ’s all I’ve ever known. I think… I think I decided I would be in love with her before I even knew what that meant. The first time I saw MJ, I didn’t even like girls yet. I just kinda decided right then: that’s the girl I’m gonna marry.”
“How… romantic.” Harry nods at me. The corners of his mouth are turned up, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He passes me the ball.
For a moment, I wish he would push me on it. Prompt me to unpack my romantic development. But then I remember that I’m dating the girl of my dreams, so there’s not much I need to think about.
I shake myself out of my thoughts, but not well enough, because my shot ends up bouncing off the rim and slamming into the PA system, knocking the speaker askew.
At this Harry laughs, fully himself again.
“What?” I ask, my smile returning.
He opens his mouth and then holds up a finger for me to wait while he laughs again. “Remember my diversion to get you out of the gym?”
I nod, knowing exactly where this is going.
Harry clears his throat and then sings, “I—just wanna tell you how I’m feeling.” He shimmies his shoulders. “Gotta make you, understand!”
My face exploding in a grin, I chime in for the chorus, “Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down.” I join him in the awkward shuffle dancing. “Never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry. Never gonna say goodbye. Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you!”
Still singing, he steps closer to me, tip-toeing his fingers up my shoulder, “We've known each other for so long-”
I jump back from him laughing, waving my hands in front of my face. “Okay, that’s enough!”
“Your heart's been aching, but-” He cups the side of my face in his hand, finishing the verse. “You're too shy to say it!”
Heat rushes into my cheeks as I playfully bat him away. “Did you just bring me here to serenade me?”
“You wish.” He winks at me before turning and heading out of the gym.
I follow, my chest buzzing with the excitement of getting to play around with him again. I guess it’s been a long time since I’ve really let my guard down like this with someone. I joke around with Miles, and I try to be honest with MJ, but I guess… I guess it’s been too long since I’ve actually had this kind of fun. I don’t exactly have many other friends, and I definitely don’t have any with the same ease I feel with Harry.
Before long, we’re sitting on the bleachers outside and I am, yet again, finding myself dumbfounded today.
I turn the badge over in my hand. The Emily-May Foundation. Incredible!
Eyes wide, I turn to him. “So, this means?”
“What do you think it means, Pete?” He crinkles his nose. “We’re going to heal the world.”
“Heal the world.” I echo, a twinge of grief pulling somewhere in the pit of my stomach.
“Me and you. Just like we always talked about! Only now, we actually have fully developed brains and the means we need.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Are you implying that our adolescent research and hormone fueled excitement wasn’t top of the line?”
“No, it was. I completely stand by what I said, we would have won state, without question. But now, we really have the chance to make my mom and Aunt May proud.” He’s looking at me now, childlike hope dazzling his already handsome face. “I can’t do it without you beside me.”
My mind whirls with all that we’ve lost, everything I have on my plate, the difficulty I have keeping my promises, and how little my word means these days. I feel the cold bars of cynicism sliding up around me. The hope and excitement on his face reinforces my realization of the emotional exhaustion within me.
I don’t know if it’s possible for me to get mine back. But I have Harry again, and I’m going to do everything I can to protect his dream.
“You’re incredible, Harry.” I return his grin and pull him into a tight embrace. When I pull back, I ask, “So, what’s your plan?”
“Take you to the lab, pretty much impress you really good and get you to commit to joining me.”
“You have a lab already?!”
“Right according to plan.” His tongue pokes out between his teeth as he snickers. “Here.” He pulls out his phone and sends me an address.
My phone dings and a much younger Harry stares back at me as his old contact photo pops up: all swooping red curls and freckles behind black poetry glasses.
“Oh, god! Delete that. You cannot have me in your phone as a vestige of 2012 hipsters!” Harry’s cheeks flush red.
“What? You were cool! It’s a good picture!” I insist, knowing how much time I’ve spent pouring over our old photos this past year.
“I was not cool. It was a good thing those glasses weren’t actually prescription, because Flash broke them a week later! I guess he did me a favor that time.”
I open my phone camera. “Okay, then smile!”
He swipes at his hair really quickly and then hits me with the signature Harry smile that has always managed to significantly improve my day.
I snap a couple photos and turn my screen around. “Does this satisfy your delicate sensibilities?”
“I approve.” He nods his assent and then throws his arm around my shoulders, snapping a selfie of us on his phone. “Now, follow me. We have a lab to tour!”
Just like that, he’s whisked me away again.
Knowing the significance of Harry’s plans for today, I silently thank the city for not needing a hero right now. I don’t want anything to tear me away from him again.