Chapter Text
The warehouse smelled like old coolant and wet cardboard, the kind of place that had been forgotten on purpose. Tony came in low and fast, suit lights off, repulsors throttled down until the air barely noticed him. His HUD painted the space in ghost colors—heat stains on concrete, rat trails along the walls, a single human shape slumped against a stack of shipping crates like it had lost an argument with gravity.
There he is.
The Goblin.
The green armor was scuffed and ugly under the fluorescents, paint chipped down to bare metal in places. The glider lay tipped on its side nearby, one wing bent, hydraulics whining in a tired, animal way. The helmet was still on, tilted forward, chin resting on chest. If Tony hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the guy was asleep. Or drunk. Or dead.
His jaw locked. The suit fed him heart rate data from the figure—fast, erratic, like a rabbit cornered in a trash can.
Tony landed without ceremony. The floor shuddered. The Goblin didn’t move.
“Get up,” Tony said.
Nothing.
He took a step closer. The figure smelled wrong—not just sweat and fuel, but something chemical underneath, sharp and sour, like a lab accident trying to pretend it was cologne. Tony’s fingers flexed inside the gauntlet. The repulsor whined, eager.
MJ’s taped mouth flashed behind his eyes. Peter gone. Again.
He reached down and grabbed the Goblin by the front of the armor, hauled him upright with one hand like he weighed nothing. The helmet lolled.
Tony ripped it off.
The face underneath was pale and slick with sweat, lashes clumped, lips parted like he was trying to remember how breathing worked. Red hair plastered to his forehead. A familiar scar at the brow from a childhood bike crash. Eyes glassy, unfocused, rolling like marbles in a bowl.
Harry Osborn blinked up at him.
For a second Tony’s brain refused to cooperate. It kept insisting this was wrong data, a glitch, a cruel little hallucination stitched together by exhaustion and rage. Harry didn’t belong in green armor. Harry belonged in designer sneakers and careless laughs, in penthouse kitchens complaining about protein shakes. Harry belonged alive and ordinary.
“Mr. Stark?” Harry said hoarsely.
His voice cracked on the name. He sounded young. Younger than the armor made him look. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the green of his eyes. Sweat slicked his face in a way that had nothing to do with the cold warehouse. He smelled like chemicals and panic and something sweet gone rotten.
Tony didn’t answer.
Harry’s gaze drifted, unfocused, then snagged on the green plating at his own shoulders. He twisted, clumsy, armor plates grinding against each other with an ugly metallic cough. The sound seemed to wake him all the way up.
“What—” Harry swallowed. “What is this?”
He looked down at his hands. Gloved. Clawed. The fingers trembled like they didn’t quite belong to him. He flexed them and stared as if waiting for them to stop.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no—”
He jerked, trying to pull away, and Tony’s grip tightened without conscious thought. The armor creaked in protest as Tony hauled him closer instead, lifting him until Harry’s boots scraped uselessly over concrete.
“Tony,” Harry said, breath hitching. “Hey—hey, man, I don’t— I don’t know what this is, okay?”
His words started tripping over each other, tumbling out faster as the panic caught. His chest heaved against the rigid green plating like it was a cage.
“I was at the party,” Harry babbled. “Or— no, wait, I think I left early? I don’t remember. I swear I don’t remember. I woke up and my head feels like it’s full of broken glass and—” His eyes flicked wildly around the warehouse. “Why am I here? Why are you here?”
Tony stared at him.
Every part of him wanted to close his fist. To squeeze until the armor collapsed, until whatever was wearing Harry’s face stopped breathing. The suit whispered compliance, calculations flickering in the corner of his HUD, easy solutions laid out like polite suggestions.
He thought of MJ’s wrists. The raw skin. The cable marks.
“Why,” Tony said quietly, “were you wearing this.”
Harry let out a broken sound that might’ve been a laugh. “I don’t know! I swear to God, I don’t know.”
Tony dropped him.
Harry hit the floor hard, armor clanging, the impact rattling his teeth. He scrambled back on his elbows, boots skidding uselessly, helmetless head knocking against a crate.
“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Harry said quickly, desperately. “If that’s what this is about, I didn’t. I would never— I’m not—”
His gaze slid to the glider. To the bent wing. To the pumpkin-colored scorch marks on the concrete nearby.
His breathing stuttered.
“Oh,” he whispered.
He stared at the glider like it was a dead animal he’d woken up next to. His face drained of color, freckles standing out sharp against pale skin.
“Oh my God.”
His hands came up, hovering in front of him, shaking violently. “No. No, no, no.”
“You kidnapped a girl,” Tony said. Each word landed heavy and precise, like nails tapped into place. “You broadcast a threat to lure Spider-Man out.”
Harry’s head snapped up. “Spider-Man?”
His expression folded in on itself, confusion curdling into horror. “No. No, I wouldn’t— Tony, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t touch her. I wouldn’t—”
“You did,” Tony said.
Harry’s mouth opened. Closed. His eyes went glassy, filling too fast.
“I don’t remember,” he said, voice small now. “I don’t remember anything. I—I get these gaps sometimes. I wake up places and my phone’s dead and my muscles hurt like I ran a marathon in my sleep. I thought it was stress. Or drinking. Or—”
His gaze darted away, guilty.
“Or what,” Tony said.
Harry swallowed hard. “The serum.”
The word came out like a confession and a plea all at once.
Tony’s jaw tightened.
“My dad keeps all this stuff locked up,” Harry rushed on. “I know it was stupid. I know. But everyone’s faster than me, stronger than me, and he’s always looking at me like I’m… like I’m a failed experiment. I just wanted to be better. At sports. At something.”
Tears spilled over, hot and humiliating, cutting clean tracks through the grime on his face.
“I only took a little,” Harry said. “I swear. Just enough to keep up. I didn’t know it could—” He gestured helplessly at the armor, the warehouse, Tony’s burning stare. “I didn’t know this could happen.”
Tony took a step closer.
Harry flinched violently, curling in on himself like a kicked animal.
“Please,” Harry said, words breaking apart. “Please don’t tell my dad. He’ll kill me. He’ll— he’ll put me in a lab or something. I’ll stop. I swear I will. I’ll flush it. I’ll do whatever you want.”
His voice pitched higher, slipping into something raw and childish. He scrubbed at his face with the back of a gauntleted hand, smearing tears and grease together.
“I didn’t hurt anyone,” he said again, like saying it enough times might make it true. “I wouldn’t. I’m not like that.”
Tony stared down at him.
In another life, maybe he would’ve believed him.
In this one, Peter Parker was missing. Again. And Harry Osborn was sitting in green armor in a warehouse that smelled like lies.
“You don’t get to bargain,” Tony said.
He reached down, seized Harry by the collar again, and hauled him upright. Harry made a strangled noise, boots kicking weakly, armor scraping against Tony’s gauntlet.
“I’m handing you over,” Tony said. “Right now.”
Harry sobbed openly. “Tony, please. Please don’t. I’ll do anything. I’ll call MJ. I’ll apologize. I’ll—”
Tony activated his comm.
“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he said flatly. “I have your Goblin.”
Coordinates pinged out into the dark.
Harry shook his head wildly. “No, no, no— Tony, trust me. Trust me, okay? I swear I would never hurt anyone. I swear on my life.”
Tony leaned in close, close enough that Harry could see his eyes through the faceplate.
“Trust me,” Tony said softly, almost kindly. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is a lot worse than your dear old dad.”
Harry let out a wail, something ugly and undignified, as armored footsteps echoed outside the warehouse. Floodlights snapped on, white and merciless. Shadows fled. Men with rifles and insignia moved in practiced lines.
Hands grabbed Harry. Cuffs clamped down. The green armor suddenly looked too big on him, swallowing him whole.
As they dragged him away, he twisted, frantic, looking back at Tony like a drowning man looking for shore.
“I didn’t mean to,” Harry cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!”
Tony didn’t answer.
He stood alone in the warehouse as the doors slammed shut, the echo ringing long after the sound died. The glider sat abandoned, leaking fuel in a slow, mocking drip.
Tony clenched his fists until the servos whined.
Peter was still gone.
And nothing about this felt over.