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"So... Do I got a girlfriend?" Harry winked at Peter as Bernard was passing them.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" Harry frowned and it just drove it home to Peter how wrong and unusual it was for them to not know everything about each other. How far they have grown apart, and Peter felt like maybe it wasn't just the Spidey stuff.
"Well." Harry eventually chose to ignore it and continue. "What about you, Pete! Got a girlfriend yourself, didn't you? You and MJ seemed pretty close in the hospital."
Peter made a face.
"Not really. I mean, we actually tried dating once but it just didn't work. And I got my eyes on someone else."
"Ooohh, do I know that someone?"
Peter smirked and took sudden interest in the view through the window.
"Hey, you know how some guys can like other guys sometimes?"
"Are you asking me if I'm aware gay people exist, Peter?"
He turned around and smiled at Harry teasingly. It felt really good to have him back.
"I don't know, I heard you hit your head and lost some memories."
"Ha. Ha." Harry pretended to laugh ostentatiously. "No, I haven't forgotten I'm gay. Well, half gay."
"It's called bisexual. And yeah, about that. I'm also gay. Half gay. Bisexual. Jesus, man, your stupid lingo is rubbing off on me."
Harry laughed.
"Well, great, so I take it that someone is a guy. Do I know him?"
Peter say down on the ottoman next to Harry. It felt awkward because it was the same ottoman...
"Well, yeah, I think you may know him. He's rich, and handsome, and pretty smart even if it's not always obvious. So you could say you turn around in the same circles. And he is a fantastic businessman. His father died and he took over his company, and he's taking it in some really interesting directions. And I know for a fact he likes guys."
"That does sound like someone I should know. Who is he?"
Peter turned around and smiled, a bit sheepish.
"The new CEO of Oscorp."
He watched the cogs turn around in Harry's brain for a while.
"Wait, I'm the new CEO of Oscorp!" And then it was like a light lit up in his head and he blushed.
"Oh."
"Yeah. But I don't know if he likes me back."
"I think he does."
"Oh, really?" For a second, Peter felt on cloud nine, like all of his problems disappeared. And then he realized that they didn't. "The problem is just... There's a lot I have to say him before I can ask him out."
"Then say it. He'll listen to you, I can promise you that."
„Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.” Peter refused to meet Harry’s eyes. „That he will hear-- God, no, this whole third person thing is getting tiring. It’s just, a lot, you know. I am afraid that you won’t look at me the same way if I tell you. Our relationship, Harry... We weren’t the same, before your memory loss. You don’t remember the shit that went down between us and with this amnesia, it’s like I got the old you back. And I loved every version of you but I’m afraid that if I tell you... I will loose what I just got back.”
„Is it worth it?” Peter looked at Harry. „The secret. Is it worth keeping if it could jeopardize what we can have?”
Peter just shrugged.
„It’s not even one secret. There’s just this whole... web of lies.” He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. „You know, like a spider web. Because...” He was just going to say it. „Because I’m Spider-Man.”
„Like the superhero?”
„Like the superhero.” Peter smiled, shooting a small web at the window. Harry’s awed stare was a huge ego boost. What did it matter if the entire city adored him, if at least for the moment, Harry did?
„But you hated me. You wanted to kill Spider-Man. We fought, after you found out it was me. And that’s how you hit your head.”
„But why would I hate you?” Harry avoided his gaze, staring at the web, touching it to see if it was sticky. „Aren’t you a hero?”
„I guess. That’s the problem. There’s this... There’s another secret, a secret your father didn’t want you to know.”
„My father?” Harry whipped around faster than light, the sticky web still on his hand, and something in Peter broke. Harry deserved so much better. Harry deserved every ounce of love Norman refused to show him over the years.
„Your father... was the Green Goblin.”
***
Despite Peter’s fears, Harry took everything surprisingly well. It both gladdened and worried Peter because at some point he realized this Harry was much closer to the depressed Harry he first met than the guy he graduated next to. Even pushed by anger and pain before his memory loss, Harry was more used to communicating than this Harry. This Harry internalized everything.
But at the same time, Peter could tell he was just... detached from it. To this Harry, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin were just headlines he later read up on, and Norman’s death hurt him, but he was resigned to it more than hurt by it.
And a part of Peter hated it but he had no idea how to help. And ultimately, it was Harry’s fight. And life wasn’t bad. Harry was dealing with it. Peter could see that not remembering things was frustrating but at the same time, the two of them have never been better in... literally years.
Harry took exactly one look at Peter’s apartment before buying the building and giving it a makeover, more for the Ditkoviches than for Peter though, because Peter, despite his vehement protests, was no longer allowed to live there.
But... well, he didn’t mind living with Harry. He didn’t care much for the opulence and the size of the mansion, but he loved the never ending hot water, and most of all, he loved the fact Harry was there in the bed next to him.
Harry.
Peter felt the bed shake as Harry sat up violently, the heavy panting waking him from his own sleep too. He sat up calmly, with slow movements, not wanting to disturb Harry any more. He was sitting with his face in his hands now, knees pulled up to his chest as he was catching his breath.
Peter begun rubbing gentle circles on his boyfriend’s back, very familiar with night terrors himself.
„It’s okay, you’re fine. You’re home, Harry.” He waited for Harry’s breathing to even out. „Nightmare.”
„Peter, I...” When Harry’s eyes turned to meet his, they were red from crying, but clearer than he’s seen in months. „Peter, I remember.”
Oh.
Oh.
„Do you need me to leave?”
„Don’t you dare.” Harry’s hand clasped firmly around Peter’s wrist, gentle but holding on for dear life. „Don’t you fucking dare.”
For a moment, they just sat like that, in silence broken only by Harry’s erratic breath, Peter holding Harry, Harry fondling the blankets to death. Checking the clock, Peter saw it was 4am already, and realized there was no way either of them was going to get any more sleep that night.
„How about we just get up, huh?”
He nudged Harry a bit, his boyfriend still lost in his head. He looked at Peter for a moment, processing, before eventually nodding, getting up and throwing on a sweatshirt on top of pyjamas. Peter smiled a little. Whatever happened after today, at least he had it for a while. Even hidden under the sweatshirt, he knew there was a cartoon Spidey on Harry’s shirt.
He made the bed, more out of habit than need, and certainly not because he wanted to stall, and changed himself into sweats, no red and blue suit underneath. It was Saturday, they both had a day off, so their plan was to sleep in until noon and then do nothing for the rest of the day.
Well, plans changed. Life tended to be like that.
When he entered the kitchen, Harry was sitting at the table, looking asleep as he laid his head on his crossed arms on the table, but Peter could see his eyes open, unseeing as they stared ahead. He let him think, muddle through the mess that was his head right now. Peter opened the fridge, well stocked, most certainly thanks to Bernard and not either of them. Even when Peter remembered about the eggs, Spider-Man could never bring them home whole. He grabbed a few now, cracked them onto a skillet on low heat. Harry never liked his eggs crispy. He preferred the white to still be white when the egg landed on his toast.
He distracted himself with a routine. Put on the kettle for tea, set the bread in the toaster, cube of sugar in Harry’s mug and nothing in his own. Normally, Harry would actually drink coffee in the morning, but Peter was pretty sure it was already unwise at this early hour, let alone in Harry’s state.
He put the plate in front of him, and Harry blinked, eventually realizing it was breakfast and grabbing with a quiet thank you. They ate and drank in silence, Peter focusing hard on his own toast in order to stop looking at Harry with anxious glances, feeling a bit like waiting for a court trial verdict.
„Thank you.”
He eventually looked up from his still full mug, seeing Harry done and with eyes locked on him.
„Um... You’re welcome? It’s just some eggs, I didn’t--”
„No, Pete. I... thank you. For... everything. Giving me time to think, the eggs, yes, that too.” He chuckled. „But also for telling me instead of using the fact I had amnesia against me, for being patient, and hell, even ready to walk out now that I remember, even if that was stupid.”
Peter smiled sheepishly.
„And thank you for being a better friend to me than I was to you, before this. I was stupid too, you know. So goddamn stupid and chasing after my father’s love when I knew I could never have it. Asking you to pursue Spider-Man and choose between us when I thought you were just his photographer when deep down I knew there had to be more to the story, that he couldn’t have just murdered my dad.”
„You were reacting to loss, Harry.”
„But I wasn’t, was I?” Harry stared at him, intense and questioning gaze. „I was overreacting. I found a target for everything that went wrong in my life. Even if Spider-Man was someone else and actually murdered my dad, that wouldn’t change that my dad would rather have you as a son. I never realized how lucky I was. Because even when I lost my mom, your aunt was there for me, and even if I had shitty father, I always had a family and always had someone who loved me unconditionally, loved me the way my dad never did... and it was you. You taught me what love should be like, Pete. You taught me what family should be like, long before all of this. So... thank you for that.”
Peter’s throat was tight, not sure what to say in face of such an emotional speech, so he did the thing he always did when faced with too many feelings - used humour to cope.
„So... Does that mean you don’t want me to leave?”
Judging by Harry’s genuine laugh, it was not the wrong thing to say. He grabbed Peter’s hand again, this time no longer frantic, just a loving hold Peter returned.
„Don’t you dare.” He said with a smile, squeezing it briefly. „Don’t you fucking dare.”