Work Text:
2024, Elsewhere
Peter Three is quiet as they finish up at the school.
He knows it’s not going to go unnoticed – this is two other versions of himself, after all but he can’t help it. Peter One handed him Max’s cure, started excitedly explaining how it works, how the technology it’s based on works and there’s so much he wants to learn about this world, so much he could take back home but as he’s thinking about it there’s something that makes him pause. Makes his heart stutter.
As they’re heading out, Peter Two drops back to walk next to him. “Something wrong?” His tone is soft, encouraging. “We’re here if you need help, you know.”
“What happens if we heal them now? Do we – Do they go back to the same universe? Just reappear in 2024 after being dead for years? Do we create new universes for them? Or do they go back to ours at the right time and change everything?”
Peter Two is quiet a moment, then he says, “I don’t know. But if everything does change then – ”
Peter Three is rolling Max’s device between his palms. “You know earlier when you asked me if I had someone and I said no?” he interrupts. “I uh, I wasn’t exactly telling the truth. It’s just – really complicated?”
And Peter Two says, “We can make time,” like they’re not currently trying to stop the fabric of reality from splitting.
------
2023, Home
In the year after Gwen’s death, Peter kills two men.
The first one is an accident, an honest-to-god miscalculation coupled with that patented Parker bad luck. He’s on a busy road downtown trying to stop a robbery. One of the thieves manages to wriggle out of his web and make a break for it straight into incoming traffic. Peter panics, snatches him out of the way but it’s too sudden, he jerks too hard. Hears the man’s spine snap and that’s it. He’s gone.
(It echoes like Gwen.
That terrible crunch. Her body going limp.
In his nightmares he sees the sound waves reverberating around her. They spike as she hits the ground. Pointed and deadly.)
The second one is less of an accident.
It’s the hottest day of the year. It’s 11 months, 12 days since she died and he still feels like it only just happened. It’s still raw, still festering. He wakes up to that sound and falls asleep to it every night and Aunt May knows. She must know. Kept trying to get him to go to therapy or counselling or join some support group or just fucking anything because she loves him so much, she wants him happy and healthy and fulfilled but she doesn’t understand.
She doesn’t understand Peter doesn’t deserve any of that.
Can’t have any of that.
He’s poison. And maybe he always fucking has been. Before the spider, before the mask. Maybe he’s always been a curse. His parents, Harry’s mom, fucking Harry himself –
And that’s what’s really at the root of it. That’s what’s driving him. Why he keeps hitting. Over and over and over and over.
Harry fucking Osborn.
He’s been writing. God knows how, god knows who he’s paying to ferry letters from a top secret institution that Peter certainly shouldn’t know about but he’s managing it. Once or twice a month, a neat little white envelope with Harry’s loopy cursive on the front. And it’s mostly just nonsense. Long incoherent ramblings, memories. But that morning – that morning all it had been was two simple sentences:
I’m sorry about Gwen. I just wanted your help.
And there was no blame there but it was pretty fucking implicit.
If I hadn’t have had to do this to myself –
If you weren’t happier letting me die –
If you’d helped me she’d still be alive.
And because he can’t break Harry’s skull he breaks the skull of the next bad guy he ends up running down.
No one’s around to see. It won’t be tied back to Spiderman.
He goes home with his ears ringing, wrapped in static. Nothing feels real but everything is horribly fucking real; the blood on his suit, the bruises on his knuckles. The mess he made of that man’s face.
I just didn’t want to die, Harry had written in one of his rambling letters. I didn’t want to die because of my father’s fucking curse. He’s already taken so much from me. He already ruined my life over and over and over. I just wanted to live for ME. Is that so fucking selfish?
The blood stains the sink and the tub but he’s too tired to clean it.
He wakes in the late afternoon, Aunt May sitting on his bed. “Peter,” she says, her voice gentle and calm but holding so much back. “We have to talk, honey.”
And Peter thinks no and please and I can’t so he says, “I’m moving out.”
-
He’s watching Cletus Kasady rampage across San Francisco and assessing his transport options when there’s a knock at the door. It’s probably his neighbour, a nice older lady who’s forever locking herself out and asking whether Peter can go across the balconies to let her in so he’s mostly on autopilot as unbolts and pulls open the door.
“I’ll be right with you Ms Makowski, just let me – ”
But it’s Harry Osborn at his door, slumped against the frame.
Peter lowers his phone. He’s suddenly in overdrive, firms up his stance, readies himself for a fight – he should’ve known before he opened the door, should have sensed the danger but Harry’s smart, he’s probably got all sorts of deranged enhanced friends now so maybe he’s found a way to slide under the spideysense radar – some sort of pheromone or soundwave or –
Then he actually looks at Harry. At the blood and dirt in his hair, across his pale face. At how he’s soaked through and trembling. The huge, tattered coat he’s wearing, how the zip must be broken because he’s holding it together with one shaking hand. It makes him look small and he’s always been slender – always been smaller than Peter but now he looks frail. Worn. Dark circles under his eyes like bruises.
“’m sorry,” he murmurs, gaze fixed on the floor. “Didn’t really know where else to go.”
He should say no. He should call the police. He should wring Harry’s fucking neck and make him pay for everything but it’s been eight years since Gwen died. He’s tired. He’s so tired. And the corridor is not a good place for this conversation.
So, he steps back, lets Harry in.
Harry mumbles something that might be a thank you. Peter directs him towards the couch and he sinks down onto it slowly, tips his head back, closing his eyes. Peter looks him over. The shoes he’s wearing aren’t his, they’re far too big. So are the pants, the shirt, the coat.
“How the fuck are you here, Harry?” Peter starts with.
Harry huffs. He gestures to the TV. “Cletus Kasady paid Ravencroft a visit. It didn’t pan out well for the staff or the structural integrity of the building.”
“So you came here?”
He cracks open an eye, shoots Peter a withering look. “I told you. I didn’t know where else to go. It’s not like they kept my apartment waiting for me.”
Peter folds his arms. Unfolds them. Paces. “You can’t be here,” he says. “You shouldn’t have come – I should - I can’t – You – ”
“Look, if you have to call someone, Pete, call them. Call the police or the FBI or whoever it is they have dealing with supervillain shit these days.”
Peter’s waiting for the but. The threat. Call them and I’ll tell everyone who Spiderman really is.
Harry raises his hands to rub at his eyes. “If I was going to blab your secret I’d have done it already, don’t you think? Might have shaved off a few years from my indeterminate sentence,” he laughs to himself. Not Harry’s laugh. The Goblin laugh. The one that makes Peter’s skin crawl. Then he sighs, drops his hands down dramatically.
Peter’s angry suddenly. He doesn’t want this Harry. He wants a Harry that came here for blood, for vengeance. He wants a fair fucking fight. “So, you thought I’d just let you in after everything you did? Everyone you hurt? Everyone you killed?”
Gwen hangs between them, limp and lifeless.
Harry hardly moves. “If you feel like you have to hit me or rough me up or kill me yourself, do it. Do what you want, Pete.” He’s looking at Peter now, bright blue through his lashes but there’s no guilt. There’s no apology. This isn’t an offer made to make amends, or punish. There’s nothing. Nothing. Like Gwen was meaningless. Unimportant. Just an obstacle in the way.
He’s surging across the coffee table before he can stop himself, pins Harry to the couch by throat. He’s thinking of that man all those years ago, his face a mass of blood and bone, hardly even human anymore. He’s looking at Harry beneath him, eyes so fucking blue, brighter for the mud and dirt and soot and blood. He feels fragile beneath Peter’s hands. Breakable.
“I should kill you,” Peter says, and his voice cracks because he’s looking at Harry – the man who killed Gwen Stacy, who took everything and anything she would ever do away from her and away from her family but he’s also looking at the first friend he ever had. The only other person who ever looked twice at him, who ever really truly saw him.
“Do it, then.” Harry says. His voice quiet and steady. “Just fucking do it.”
Peter growls, pulls Harry up, slams him back down. “Why won’t you fight?”
“Because I’m tired,” Harry shouts, and it’s like a dams been broken. Everything rushes in. There are tears in Harry’s eyes now. Exhaustion. “I’m tired, Pete.”
Peter lets him go, steps away. His hands feel hot. His skin tingles. He fidgets them together to try and get rid of the sensation. “Why did you come here?” he asks again.
And Harry laughs again, his own laugh this time. “Because I knew you’d either kill me or let me get a decent night’s sleep and I honestly didn’t care which.”
-
You think I took everything from you, Harry wrote in one of his letters. But you did it to me first.
And I didn’t even have much for you to take.
-
Harry sleeps for almost an entire day. Lays flat on Peter’s couch and hardly moves at all.
Of course that means Peter doesn’t sleep. He stays awake, sat in the lumpy armchair Aunt May insisted he take with him when he moved because it reminded her too much of Ben (not that she said that part out loud.) He stays awake and he’s thinking about the smell of Gwen’s perfume; about Harry when they first met, sullen and quiet and a cast on his arm; how he used to wish they’d met and got to know each other properly. His two best friends.
It’s early morning on day 2 when Harry jerks awake. Peter sees the fear in his posture, hears it in his breathing. Listens at it slowly levels out and Harry turns his head to face him. “I’m still here.” He says, and there’s a furrow to his brow.
Peter’s kind of confused too. He should have called someone. But he didn’t. “Mm. That Osborn intellects still intact, then.”
Harry’s still frowning as he sits up, that stupid coat of his sliding off of him, exposing just how scrawny he’s gotten. He looks at Peter expectantly. “So?”
You need to get out of here, is what he should say. If I ever fucking see you again I’ll snap your neck. But instead, Peter sighs, unfolds himself from Uncle Ben’s chair to sit forwards. “Are they going to come for you?”
“I have no idea,” Harry answers. “It’s a top secret facility and Kasady killed everyone there. I have no idea who knew I was there and who didn’t and whether they’ll want to publicise their massive fuck up.”
“Don’t they have anyway of tracking you?”
Harry snorts. “Please, Pete. I’m not an amateur. The tracker was the first thing to go.” He tilts his head, slightly indicates a bloody plaster on the back of his neck.
“That looks filthy,” he’s already across the room, easing the plaster up. It’s way too small for the gash on the back of Harry’s neck, is doing absolutely nothing to hold the jagged edges together. “What did you even do this with?”
“A piece of metal. Or glass, maybe. I don’t really remember.”
“It’s going to get infected. Hold still.” He keeps first aid kits dotted around the apartment for emergencies, draws one out from under the couch. Harry hisses at the first touch of the disinfectant. Peter doesn’t need to look to know that his hands are curled into fists, that his jaw is clenched. They’ve done this before, too many times to count back when Harry said he was a clumsy child but Peter had seen the way he flinched when his father raised his voice.
There are marks on his back now, disappearing beneath the collar of the shirt he’s wearing. Round like electrodes but with odd ridged patterns in the centre. He dropped off a villain once with an important looking agent who said they’d be bound for Ravenscroft and shuddered, told him very firmly that he’d willingly walk into the fires of hell before he let himself be put into a cell there.
He fucking hates that he’s shuddering on Harry’s behalf. He stopped opening Harry’s letters, keeps them in a little box in his bedroom sealed away but he doubts he wrote about whatever they were doing to him in Ravenscroft. Maybe years ago it wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe Peter would have read about it and only thought good. He deserves to hurt for what he did. He deserves to scream. He deserves to beg for death.
But here and now in the weak, early morning light, with his anger and hatred cold and heavy as stone, it makes him feel sick.
“Thank you,” Harry says, slightly stilted when Peter’s done and steps away. He turns his head, looks up at Peter through his fringe, brow still furrowed in a frown. He’s waiting to be told to leave. To be hit, rejected. May and Ben wouldn’t turn him away though, not like this, so Peter says, “The showers through there. I’ll find you something to wear.”
-
While Harry’s in the shower, Peter sits on his bed, knees drawn up to his chest and calls Aunt May just to listen to her chat about nothing. She’s been volunteering a lot with this charity since she retired from nursing, helps ex-convicts and at risk youth get their lives back on track. She’s training to be a fully qualified counsellor.
He doesn’t do this as much as he should. Only calls these days when things are getting bad and she knows that but she always picks up, always sounds so damn happy to hear from him. But god, every time he hears her voice it’s like he’s back home. Sat in the kitchen, helping her cook dinner; waking up to the scent of bacon and pancakes; sneaking out of bed for a snack and finding her and Ben dancing to oldies in the living-room.
She tells him about the new women’s group she’s been going to, how a few of his school-friends are getting on. Doesn’t ask if he’s thought about college again, or about trying to expand his role at the Bugle. She asks how he’s doing at the end though, like always. Asks if he’s really okay, if there’s anything she can do, her voice tight over the things she won’t risk saying anymore.
I don’t know what to do, he wants to say. Harry’s here and I should want to kill him, I should turn him in but there’s something –
And the thing is, even though they’ve never actually spoken about the red-and-blue-webbed elephant in the room May knows. She knows because she’s not an idiot and Peter’s never been good at keeping things from her and things would definitely be easier if he had just told her but he just can’t. So he lies badly, promises to try and drop by for dinner next week and hangs up.
Harry’s out of the shower when Peter steps back into the living room. He’s examining Peter’s bookshelves but he startles and steps back towards the couch looking guilty when he notices he’s not alone anymore. He looks a little more like himself now but without the dirt it’s hard not to see how pale he’s gotten.
Kasady breaking him out was probably the first time he’d been outdoors for years.
This is such a bad idea.
“If you’re going to stay here we’re going to have to set some ground rules.”
For a moment, Harry’s jaw goes slack, his eyes go wide. Then he folds it all back away. “Stay?” he echoes.
Peter sighs. “Don’t make me regret it.”
-
He goes out on patrol but still feels restless, can’t properly focus on the police scanner, the words washing over him like static. He’s thinking about the last time he saw Harry before they graduated.
They were twelve, it was summer and Harry turned up on the doorstep at five or six in the morning and asked if he could stay. They lied to May and Ben, said Harry’s dad had given it the okay, he was busy with work, in and out of the country and Peter’s pretty sure they knew they were lying but they didn’t complain, treated Harry like family all summer until a black Oscorp car turned up.
Before that, though, there had been 4th of July. Sticky heat and sparklers and a neighbourhood BBQ, he and Harry clambering out onto the roof in secret to watch the fireworks. They’d talked about school and the future in the kind of abstract, rose-tinted way kids do and Peter had complained about being the only boy at school who hadn’t kissed anyone yet.
Harry had laughed at him, You could have just asked, Pete.
He’d tasted sweet, like soda and strawberry ice-cream. He’d smelt like burning.
They’d never really spoken about it. Peter hasn’t thought about it in years. Hadn’t thought much of it then beyond laughing and shoving him away. He’d thought Harry felt the same way. It was just a game, a silly thing they did as kids and would maybe one day laugh about but in the last letter Peter had read Harry had written:
Did I ever tell you that I’ve been in love with you since we were kids? I don’t think there’s anyone else I’ve even considered. It’s stupid but I actually thought you might wait for me but that was stupid, wasn’t it? You were too brilliant to go unnoticed.
I wanted to hate her. But you were so happy.
Harry’s asleep when he gets back, curled up in a ball on his side. All the lights in the apartment are on along with the TV, tuned in to some nature channel. Peter thinks about turning them off but resolves instead to make Harry find some way to take over payment of the electricity bill for as long as he’s here.
-
A few days later they’re watching the aftermath of Kasady’s rampage. A reporter stands in front of a wrecked cathedral and details the horror within; a priest and Kasady beheaded, his would-be wife crushed beneath the bell. A lucky detective the only confirmed survivor but Eddie Brock the journalist is a person of interest apparently.
“I used to love that guy’s videos,” Peter says, as the reporter explains Brock’s supposed links to Venom.
Harry doesn’t comment. Instead, he shakes his head. “Barrison was in Ravenscroft for practically our entire lives and she never gave up on him coming for her. They should have just let them get married. Let them be monsters together.”
Peter looks across at him, finds he looks fucking furious. Eyes narrowed and bright and burning, hands curled into fists against his thighs. He thinks of Harry in Ravenscroft, locked away with all the other people someone somewhere decided were too dangerous to even exist anymore. He wonders how many of them deserved it.
He visits Dr Connors sometimes – as himself not Spiderman – mostly just to talk. Thinks a lot about the great things he could have done if it hadn’t been for that serum.
“Did you know her?” Peter asks, if only to fill the silence.
Harry snorts. “It wasn’t summer camp, Pete. We didn’t have communal dinners or anything.” He’s tracing the creases in his pants with one finger. “Some of the guards and ‘researchers’ used to brag though. Thought it was a good intimidation tactic to talk about what they would do to other prisoners.”
Unspoken questions hang heavy between them in the silence. Peter’s decided he doesn’t want to know the ins and outs of it, doesn’t need anymore reasons to pity Harry, to care. But there is one thing nagging at him. “Did they - ?” he starts but realises halfway through he has no idea where he’s going.
Harry looks across at him, expression prickly and guarded.
“I mean you’re – you look – ”
He rolls his eyes. “Less scaley?”
Peter rubs the back of his neck. “Um, sure, that.”
Harry’s turned away again, back to the TV where they’re talking about some upcoming (or recently played?) sports game. “Yeah. Took them a few tries to get it right.”
And Peter should probably leave it at that but of course he can’t help himself. “And are you – your condition, is it still - ?”
Harry exhales, shrugs one-shouldered. “I have no idea.”
I just didn’t want to die.
Harry turned to look at him again, like he’s about to say something, to finish this conversation Peter shouldn’t have started so Peter stands up, announces, “I’m heading out. Don’t do anything criminal while I’m gone.” And leaves as quickly as he can without being accused of ‘fleeing.’
-
They fall into this odd sort of rhythm. Peter spends a lot of time out of the apartment, works out of coffee shops and occasionally empty desks at the Bugle’s offices; extends his patrols until he’s practically dead on his feet. Harry cleans, organises and reorganises Peter’s things without asking, occasionally makes surprising decent meals from the meagre content of Peter’s fridge. If their interactions weren’t so coloured by everything that’s come before, it’d be almost like having a normal, non-morally questionable roommate.
But it’s not, of course, it’s not, so Peter has to muddle his way through things like this:
He gets home from work (work work, for once) to find Harry watching a very oddly scored documentary on the relatively recent rise of superpowered-villains and the speculated link with large companies like OsCorp. Peter sinks down next to him, only half paying attention to the grainy footage and talking heads (he did live most of it, after all) until the last segment regarding the so-called Goblin.
The media don’t have much on him, don’t even tenuously link him to Harry and Peter realises for the first time that someone somewhere seems to have a vested interest in keeping the identity of people like Harry a secret. Whatever their reasons are, they can’t be good.
When the credits roll, Harry switches off the TV. “What was the story?” He asks. “When I – ” he breaks off, closes his eyes before continuing. “What story did they use?”
“Breakdown,” Peter says, watching Harry closely. “You were institutionalised somewhere upstate. OsCorp wish you well.”
He hated all the press back then. The news segments, the cover-page-stories filled with interviews of people Harry went to school with, people who used to work for the family. They all told the same story, their eyes wide, their movements exaggerated. Harry Osborn was always strange, always delicate, slightly unstable. It’s why his father sent him away, after all.
Harry turns to look at him. “Did you have anything to do with it?”
Peter shakes his head.
Harry searches his faces but must decide he’s telling the truth because he relaxes a fraction and turns the TV back on, handing Peter the remote.
A few days later they’re eating cereal together and Harry says, “I need you to buy me some hair dye.”
Peter’s been awake all of twenty minutes and is operating on two hours sleep so it takes a few more mouthfuls before he registers what Harry said. “What?”
“Hair dye,” Harry repeats.
It’s such a weird request that Peter’s brain struggles at first to understand but then he gets it. Works out what Harry’s really asking. His first thought is a flat no and it must show on his face because Harry’s gaze hardens. “You’re not seriously planning to keep me locked in here?”
“Okay, first of all, I’m not keeping you locked anywhere,” Peter reminds him. “You came to me, remember? Second of all, if anyone catches you, you’re putting me at risk too.” He realises as soon as he’s said it that he’s assuming Harry wants to stay here, that he’s not just going to leave outright and that probably says a lot about his current headspace.
“Hence the hair dye,” Harry says, eyeroll implicit in his tone. “Come on, Pete, what do you think I’m going to do? Crime spree?” He says it lightly, a smirk in his eyes. Like it’s all just a joke.
There’s a flash of anger but it burns out quickly. Another layer cold against his skin. “People got hurt last time, Harry.”
And there’s a moment where Harry looks like he’s been slapped, then his face crumples, his eyes narrow. He stands up in one fluid movement and storms off.
Peter’s pretty sure he imagined the slight flash of green.
-
He ends up at May’s, lets himself in because even though it’s been literally years he still forgets sometimes this isn’t home.
“I said Thursday,” May calls from the kitchen but she’s making his favourite pasta dish so she knew he’d forget and end up arriving on Friday.
“Uh, I’m pretty sure you said the day after Thursday. Which would be today, right?”
She hums as he kisses her cheek and sets a mostly intact bouquet on the counter. “You know you’re always welcome.”
Over dinner she tells him about how her studies are going, how the charity she’s working with are planning a big party for her graduation and that if he’s not in attendance she might have to rescind her standing invitation for dinner. God, he’s so proud of her. He’s always been proud of her, always known she could do incredible things, that nothing could break her.
He stands up to hug her, almost sends his plate clattering to the ground. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“I know, sweetie.” She doesn’t sound convinced so he pulls out his phone when he sits back down.
“Look, I’m setting an alarm and a reminder. No, two reminders. Unless, three would be crazy, right? Well, you know what? You’re worth it, May. You are worth three reminders. Maybe even four – ”
“Peter,” she cuts him off, laughing so hard there are tears in her eyes. “Peter, I believe you. Gosh, I’ve missed you.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll come around more often, I promise.” He says, the same way he’s said it hundreds of times by now.
She waits until they’re doing the dishes to ask him how he’s doing, puts a hand on his wrist to turn him towards her and says, “And don’t say fine, you might be able to get that by me on the phone but it won’t fly here, Peter.”
“But I really am fine, May. I am,” he tries but his resolve crumbles. He sighs, leans against the counter. May draws back a fraction, looking quietly relieved.
“So, I’ve uh, I’ve got this friend staying with me right now. We uh, didn’t end things in a super great place? But they’ve had a rough time recently and they’ve not really got anywhere else to go, so I don’t think I can just – ” He sighs. “I want to help them but I’m still angry about everything and I don’t – ” he trails off.
May’s eyes are searching his face. There’s every chance she’ll figure it out. Not just because she’s always been able to read him but because she knows there’s only ever been one other person Peter’s ever called friend.
“Are you safe with him there?”
“Yes,” Peter assures. “He doesn’t want to hurt me. Mostly, anyway.”
“That’s not funny, Peter,” she scolds.
“I know, I know. But – I really don’t think he wants to hurt me. I think – ” And suddenly it all comes flooding out. The regret, the anger. That constant refrain of: all of this was your fault. His eyes are stinging. “He asked for my help before, you know? But I was – I wasn’t sure and I was – Gwen and everything and I just – If I had maybe everything would have been different. Maybe I could have stopped – ”
You were my friend, he hears. You don’t give people hope; you take it away. So I’m going to take away yours.
May’s arms are around him then, holding him up, holding him together. “Your friend made his choices, Peter,” she says.
“And I made mine, so don’t I owe it to him to make things right now?”
She draws back a bit so she can look him in the eyes. “If you think he’s worth that, then I trust you, Peter. And I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Thank you,” he murmurs, crumbling back against her. “Can I stay here tonight?”
“Peter, you can stay here whenever you like. This is your home and don’t you go forgetting that.”
-
He drops by the drugstore on his way home from May’s, stands in front of the shelves of hair dye for a long, long time considering. So many shades. So many stupid names. He grabs a handful that Harry – the old Harry he thinks would find funny and tosses them in his bag with the literal tonne of food May packed up for him.
Harry stands up as he unlocks the door and steps inside. His eyes are wide. He looks just like he did all those years ago when he showed up on their doorstep. “You’re back,” he says, uncomprehending.
“Yeah, I was just at May’s. She sent food and – ”
But Harry’s still staring, his hands slightly trembling.
Peter sets his bag down. “Harry, I was always coming back. I wasn’t going to just leave you.”
“You did before,” he spits. His teeth are suddenly razor sharp. Peter tenses, readies himself for something worse but Harry only squeezes his eyes shut, turns his head away. His breathing is heavy and laboured. Peter takes a step forwards but Harry jerks back, flashes his teeth again, his eyes a sickly green. “Don’t,” he snarls.
Look what you turned me into.
“Don’t,” Harry says again, softer this time. Like a plea. So Peter stops. Curls his hands into themselves to stop from reaching out.
“Harry, I know, okay?” he says gently. “I know I left you before. I should’ve done more – ”
“You should have done anything,” Harry corrects. He’s shaking all over now, his legs start to buckle and Peter’s moving forwards before he can stop himself, easing them both down to the floor. Harry doesn’t protest, doesn’t fight.
“You’re right,” Peter says. “You’re right, Harry. You’re right. I should have helped you. I should have saved you.”
Harry’s eyes are blue again, damp with tears. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs and then he’s pressing his face into the crook of Peter’s neck, clinging to him like Peter’s the only thing holding him together. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, Pete.”
And Peter holds on just as tight. Rubs soothing circles into Harry’s back like May would. “I’m sorry too,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”
-
“I can control it mostly,” Harry tells him later. They’re both still on the floor, Harry with his back against the wall, Peter opposite him against the couch. He’s scratching absently at the skin around the scab on his neck. “It took a long time but I found myself eventually.”
Peter thinks about blood on his hands, bones breaking, the cold sweat of reality, of a faceless man’s last rasping breath.
Harry shakes his head, drops his hand down to his lap. “I should have stayed in Europe. As far away from my father as possible.”
“You’d have died,” Peter says.
Harry tips his head back against the wall. “Might not have been so bad.”
-
They don’t talk about it.
-
Harry dyes his hair this deep, dark red that makes Peter walk into the kitchen divider. In his defence it’s early - for a Sunday – and he’s completely un-caffeinated. “You dyed your hair,” he says, winded.
“You bought me the dye.”
“Well, yeah, but – yeah.”
Harry frowns at him and turns to peer at his reflection in the mirror. He tilts his head, runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure about the colour. I thought it’d be darker. Maybe I’ll – ”
“No, keep it,” Peter blurts. “It suits you.”
Harry cheeks tinge pink and smiles, looking pleased.
To distract himself from wondering whether his hair is as soft as it looks over breakfast, Peter asks, “So, where do you wanna go?”
Harry sets his spoon down. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Well, no. But I don’t know, if I’d spent the last few years locked up I’d maybe want a friend with me when I ventured back out for the first time?”
After a moment Harry nods. “The park,” he says. “The river. Maybe you can finally teach me to skip stones properly.”
“I’d be honoured.”
Harry snorts, “And I’m sure I’ll regret asking so much.”
-
A month more in, and Harry decides to build a new identity. Says it will be easier for the both of them. He could get a job, Peter could stop pretending not to know what his neighbours are talking about when they ask who he’s got staying. He’s also bullied Peter into buying a few bottles of scotch to help with the creative process.
(He doesn’t need to know Peter acquiesced less because of his whining and more because he’s been seeing Mrs Stacey around a lot lately. She’s always very kind to him. Smiles, says hello, asks how May is and how he’s doing, her voice slightly strangled.)
“How do even start picking a name?” he wonders aloud, wincing from the scotch. The world is just beginning to fuzz at the edges. His fingertips feel slightly odd against the glass. If he’s not careful, they’ll get stuck.
“It has to sound believable, genuine.” Harry says. They’re on the floor again, the lights are low. Outside, New York churns on, the hum of traffic, the distant sound of voices. “I could just go with Theo. It’s my middle name after all.”
“Actually, Harry, I believe your middle name is Theopolis,” Peter corrects.
Harry’s brow pinches. “I was thinking Theodore would be more – ”
“That would be disingenuous, Theopolis.”
Harry laughs and Peter thinks, like he’s thought a lot lately, how good it is to hear that sound again. Something real. Not the Goblin’s cackle or the broken, wry little snorts. And he thinks how easy it’s been to just slip back into this, how easy it would be to just pretend that whole year didn’t happen but then he thinks about the way Gwen would laugh. Her wildly unattractive attractive chortle that she just couldn’t hold back and –
“We could just mine baby name websites,” he suggests and Harry makes a face.
“That’s too much choice. And you’d just try to bully me into something dumb.”
“What? I would never.”
But they end up bent over Peter’s laptop together, trawling through lists like 30 Weirdest Baby Names in History and Uncommon Baby Names that Aren’t Totally Bizarre. “I don’t know,” Peter is saying, struggling to keep a straight face while Harry shakes in silent laughter against him. “I just think Windy has such a good ring to it.”
“Fuck you,” Harry manages. He’s warm against Peter’s side and his eyes look very blue in the shitty lighting of Peter’s apartment – or maybe they’ve always been that blue and Peter’s just had his head too far up his own ass to notice. Like he’s always missed that little smattering of pale freckles or the way Harry chews on his bottom lip to keep from laughing sometimes.
Peter scrolls down a little further and Harry mock-gasps. “No, no, there it is. That’s it. Window. I mean, it’s just incredible.”
“Inspired, even,” Peter agrees. Harry’s very close to him now. It would be easy to lean forward, press their mouths together but –
Harry saves him from himself by flopping back down to lie on the floor. “I dunno, Pete. How the hell do people do this?” He rolls onto his front, props himself up on his elbows. “What would you do, if you had to? How would you pick?”
Peter swallows. It’s actually something he’s thought about. In case someone found out he was Spiderman, in case he had to hide, to start again somewhere. “I found this list in the attic once when I was – when we were going through some of Uncle Ben’s things. I guess May wrote it when they were still trying way back when.”
Harry has dropped his gaze.
“Sorry,” Peter says, around the lump in his throat. “That’s probably not super helpful.”
But Harry shakes his head, exhales. “No, it’s – My dad told me once that my mother wanted to name me for her father.”
Peter’s never heard Harry speak about his mother before. All she is in Peter’s had is a well-worn photograph, kept tucked away in Harry’s bedside table. They hadn’t looked alike, Harry and his mother, except maybe in their eyes. The expression, not the colour.
He doesn’t have that anymore, Peter realises. That one little shred of evidence that she existed is god knows where now.
“Oh,” Peter says.
Harry is chewing on the inside of his cheek. “It wasn’t a nice conversation,” he says, bitterly. “He said he should have let her. I was obviously too weak and defective to earn his father’s name after all.” And Peter can almost hear Norman’s voice shaping those words, can picture how Harry would have flinched, how he would have been shaking, desperately trying to make himself as small a target as possible.
I should have saved you then, he thinks but he’s not quite drunk enough to say that. Instead he starts, “Harry, you’re not – ”
“I am,” Harry snaps, a sheen of green across his features. His breath has turned raspy. He squeezes his eyes shut, ducks his head.
“Harry,” Peter says, shuffling closer. His hands are outstretched and miraculously, Harry doesn’t flinch back when they land on his shoulders. “You’re not,” Peter says firmly. “Your father was a monster and you’re nothing like him.”
Harry’s breath shudders. It sounds a little like a sob.
“What was the name?” Peter asks, when his breathing has evened out a little.
“Michael,” Harry says. “Her maiden name was Jones-Lyman.”
----
2024, Elsewhere
“So, I don’t actually know what happens when we send you back,” Peter One says. Peter Three can see how he’s trying to figure it out by his facial expressions. He’s following the same strings Peter did, probably, running scenarios and possibilities and theoretical models and coming up with a multitude of maybes and could be’s and if yes x than y’s but no definitelys. No most likelys.
It’s kind of fascinating to watch this younger, different but still the same version of himself frown in the same way he did. He keeps thinking way longer than Peter Three had.
“I don’t know what happens,” he repeats. “I didn’t even think – ”
“It would make sense that they go back to wherever they were pulled from in the timeline,” Peter Two says, thoughtfully.
“Which would be?” MJ asks.
The Peters answer as one. “The moment they learnt who we were.”
It’s a really nice moment. Peter Three and One take a moment to bask, Peter Two keeps on track. “The only question is whether they go back to our universe and change everything about our futures or whether we create a new continuity just for them.”
MJ hums. Peter One looks conflicted. Ned looks between all of them and then says, “But if we fix these guys presumably they don’t become villains who want to kill you, right? So, even if things do change, they should be better, right?”
“For me, yeah,” Peter Two says. “I mean there are variables, sure but it’s better odds than I’ve had before, so.”
Then they’re all looking at Peter Three who twists his mouth. “Yeah, I think, maybe, but – ”
----
2023, Home
For whatever reason, Captain Stacy’s death has started to hit a lot harder these days.
Maybe he’s just all cried out over Gwen. Can’t even bring himself to mourn anymore because mourning would be acknowledgement and he just can’t anymore. Maybe it’s that if he’d just done what he asked Gwen would still be here. Saving the world in England, curing diseases, creating ground-breaking treatment, doing way more with her life than Peter is or ever will.
So, he spends a lot of time lately flinching away from ghosts on the street and in his path and in his nightmares. He gets tired. He gets angry. He gets sloppy and reckless and comes back bleeding most nights.
They’re also trying to take down OsCorp so things are a little complicated.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Harry snarls, patching up a particularly nasty head wound.
Maybe I should kill you, instead, Peter thinks or maybe says. Spits. Growls. He went to the cemetery with blood on his knuckles and glass in his hair before coming home to Harry – to this ghost from the past who took everything from him once.
But you did it to me first.
“I told you that months ago,” Harry says.
They’re on the couch, Peter slumped, head tipped back as Harry sits over him – practically in his lap – to stick the gash together. Gwen would do this sometimes. Her movements precise and clinical where Harry’s are precise and practised.
God, he misses her.
God, he wants to make Harry pay.
But he also –
He reaches out to grab Harry’s wrist and Harry flinches but then he meets Peter’s gaze. His eyes are fierce, his jaw is clenched. There’s only a flicker of fear. And then Peter is jerking him forwards to crash their mouths together.
“Pete – ” Harry gasps against his mouth and he’s gone all slack so Peter manoeuvres him into his lap properly. His hands are flat against Peter’s chest. “Peter, what – You don’t want this – You don’t -”
“You have no idea what I want.” He strokes his hands down Harry’s sides until they settle at his hips. He shudders, lets out a shaky little breath. “Is this what you want?”
In answer Harry kisses him. Slow and tentative at first but then messy and desperate. He gives as good as he gets. Snarls into Peter’s mouth when he bites Harry’s bottom lip, tugs painfully at Peter’s hair, rakes his nails across Peter’s skin. And fuck, Peter wants him to hurt, wants him to beg, wants him to make that sound again as Peter reverses their positions, presses him down into the couch.
In the afternoon, they wake up still tangled together and Peter thinks what a fucking mess.
----
2024, Elsewhere
“So, you want to what? Not cure them?” MJ asks when the silence has started to get uncomfortable.
“No,” Peter Three says quickly. Because that’s not what – That’s not quite – but he doesn’t know how to explain it. The words tangled in a ball in his throat, refusing to be pushed beyond his teeth. “I mean, Dr Connors is fine but Max – ”
He looks down at the device in his hands. This little ingenious miracle. Thinks of Max as he had been, stuttering and sweet and so damn smart. So eager to please. To help.
So easy to manipulate.
“Max deserves to be whole again,” he finishes.
MJ is very direct. She folds her arms, “Then what’s the problem?”
The problem, Peter thinks, bleakly.
And the fucking joke of it is: it shouldn’t be a problem.
If Max goes back cured - sane, whole – he doesn’t go after the grid.
If he doesn’t go after the grid, Gwen doesn’t die.
So, what’s the fucking problem, Pete? A familiar voice asks in the back of his mind.
“Harry,” Peter Three says quietly. “Harry’s the problem.”
----
2023/4, Home
Unsurprisingly, they don’t really talk about so mostly it goes like this:
Peter comes home angry and raw and fucks Harry into the floor or couch or mattress. Or they’re arguing or he wakes up from a nightmare to find Harry pressed against him and kisses him so they don’t have to talk about it. And he does the same for Harry, when he wakes up and hears Harry whimper, begging, pleading with his father, with some unknown doctor to stop, please stop, please help, please, please, please –
But sometimes, it’s different. Sometimes Harry will drop into his lap in the morning and kiss him while the coffees brewing or they’ll be curled together on the couch watching Netflix and laughing or Peter will kiss him awake, or –
“You seem a little happier, lately,” May tells him as he walks her home one evening.
Peter makes a non-committal sound. “I’ve picked up some new hobbies.”
“Uh-huh,” May says, something almost akin to a smirk in her expression. “Well, feel free to bring him by for dinner sometime.”
And Peter wonders if he could talk the pavement into swallowing him up.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
----
2024, Elsewhere
“Harry,” Peter Two echoes with a complicated expression. “I – you – you’re - ?”
Peter Three nods, hangs his head. Still tastes something bitter on his tongue like shame even though it’s been over a year. So he should be thrilled. He should be so fucking relieved that he has a chance at saving Gwen. That he can give her her life back. Give her mother and her siblings a bit of their family that should never have been taken away.
But he keeps thinking about the soft, sad way Harry smiles sometimes. The way he buries his face in Peter’s shoulder after nightmares. The sound he makes when Peter scrapes his teeth along his collarbone.
The way he looked on that couch years and years ago. Pale and small and stinking of scotch, smiling at Peter like he was the first rays of sun after a long, long dark winter only for it all to have been snatched away.
“That’s – I’m glad,” Peter Two says, but then: “In my world, he – uh, took after his father?”
“Yeah, in mine too – except Norman never – so it was just him.”
“Wait,” Ned interrupts. “So, you’re dating that goblin dude’s son?”
“I did say it was complicated,” Peter Three mumbles.
“If he’s a villain, is he here?” MJ asks.
Peter Three shakes his head. “I don’t think so. When he found out, he was – so if he was here I’m pretty sure we’d know by now.”
“So, we can’t cure him?” Peter One says, sounding devastated just as MJ says, “Alright, but what does that have to do with Electricity Man?”
And this is where it gets complicated. Peter Three takes a breath, his mouth dry. “If Max is cured then he doesn’t – Gwen won’t be there when Harry comes for me and she’ll – she won’t – ”
And there’s this horrible moment where he can tell Peter Two has worked out exactly what happened, why it’s so messy and complicated and painful. Peter One and his friends are still frowning, looking between themselves trying to put things together and he keeps remembering they’re so fucking young. But Peter One seems to have figured it out now, looks at him with this horrific level of sympathy that has him fucking crumbling.
He brings his hands up to cover his face and tries to focus on breathing.
“Could we maybe get a minute?” he hears Peter Two say from somewhere to his left. There’s the sound of Ned and MJ leaving, presumably grateful they don’t have to watch the rest of his breakdown.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. There are hands suddenly on his shoulders, rubbing his back soothingly. A refrain of it’s okay, you’re alright, we’ll figure this out, and eventually he can breathe again. He looks to find both of them – of him – frowning with concern. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, steadier this time.
“It’s fine,” Peter Two says. “It happens.”
“Yeah, also, I don’t think any of us really expected to ever have to deal with this? And it’s also entirely my fault so – ”
“No, hey, no – ” Peter Three starts, squeezing Peter One’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have known this would happen. And, honestly, if this had been your intention I’d be very concerned.”
“Sure,” Peter One says. “But we’re not talking about me right now, remember? I’m guessing Gwen was your MJ before uh, Harry, was it?”
Peter Three smiles faintly, “Actually, if we’re being specific, Harry’s technically my MJ. Gwen’s my – Gwen was my Gwen.”
“And if she doesn’t die, what do you think will happen?” Peter Two asks.
“We were supposed to move to England. Oxford. I was going to give up being Spiderman and I don’t know, get a job in a pub or something?” He spent so long imagining how it could have been. He fucking aches. “Harry might have found me, might have eventually figured out who Spiderman was but – If he didn’t kill me he probably would have ended up at Ravencroft eventually.”
Peter One is obviously struggling to put the pieces together but he’s trying. “But you could still help him? Or end up together, who knows!”
“I wouldn’t have,” Peter Three says, quietly. “It’s been ten years in my world. Ten years. And I could have helped Harry before he – Before he turned himself into a monster but I didn’t because I was too busy with Gwen and finding out about my dad to actually think about it.” The tears are back now, blurring his vision. He squeezes his eyes shut and fuck, he can’t stop it now. Can’t hold it back.
“He was dying and begging – begging – for my help and I was chasing ghosts and now I’m – I’m so fucking in love with him and I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be because he killed Gwen but it was my fault. It’s all my fault – and I miss Gwen so much, she shouldn’t have to die, she should have lived but I don’t – I can’t lose him. I love him. Fuck. I’m in love with him,” It feels like a weights off his chest, like he can breathe easier than he has since Harry showed up at his door, since before then maybe.
He draws in a deep breath, then another and then Peter Two is hugging him. After a moment Peter One joins in.
“I’m sorry,” he says, when they draw back. “I shouldn’t have messed with your worlds. I also definitely shouldn’t have locked the only person who could probably answer your question for sure in another dimension. I’m really, really sorry about that. Knew it was probably a bad idea…”
“Look, we don’t have to cure Max if you don’t think – ” Peter Two starts.
“No,” Peter Three says. “No, we’ll cure him. I’ll just – I’ll have to figure everything else out when I get home.”
“I wish we could help,” Peter One says.
“I’d just like to remind you that he did this when he was trying to help us,” MJ calls from the door. “So, you know. Maybe he should cool it on the multiverse-level shit for a bit? At least until we’ve fixed this mess.”
“Right,” the Peters say.
-
Right before he’s sent back, when things are getting fuzzy at the edges, Peter Two squeezes his shoulder and says, “I’m sure you’ll end up where you’re meant to be.”
----
2024, Home?
He blinks and he’s home. Standing out in the morning sun by the Statue Of Liberty. There’s no Max, no Dr Connors but he doesn’t let himself think about what that means, he swings home as fast as he can.
Everything looks the same, feels the same. His key slides into the lock and it turns, opens.
There’s someone in the kitchen, silhouetted against the sunlight they turn and –
“Where the fuck where you?” Harry demands.
He’s expecting it to be bittersweet but it’s not. Everything’s drowned out by fucking relief. He crosses the room, pulls Harry into this bone-crushing hug and kisses him but Harry pulls away.
“What the fuck, Peter! You don’t get to just do that without an explanation. I thought you’d been killed or – ”
“I’m sorry,” Peter says. He doesn’t let go “I’m sorry. It’s a long fucking story, I’m just so happy to see you, Harry, you have no idea.”
Harry has relaxed a little. The anger ebbing away into relief. He huffs, rests his head against Peter’s shoulder. “I was so fucking worried, Pete.”
“I’m sorry,” Peter repeats. He kisses the top of Harry’s head, buries his face in his hair (still red.) “I love you,” he whispers. “I love you.”
Harry sighs. “I love you too.”
And they stand there for a few moments, and Peter feels pretty fucking happy and really, really exhausted but then Harry stiffens and presses away, “Fuck,” he says. “I should phone Gwen.”
“Gwen?” Peter echoes, feeling dizzy all of a sudden.
Harry glances at him, looking slightly guilty? Or sympathetic? “I phoned her when you dropped off the face of the earth yesterday. I thought she was going to end up on a plane over here. Which I suppose she might actually be doing? So, you should phone and let her know you’re okay before she – ” He trails off. “Pete, you okay?”
Peter’s not okay. He’s probably never going to be okay. “Gwen’s alive?” He manages through the – whatever is happening with him right now.
Harry guides him down onto the couch (the same couch), holds his hands tightly. “I think you should probably tell me where you were.”