Chapter Text
He stares at his window for a very long time. Ten minutes are a long time for a guy who’s had everything he wants in five, he thinks. The chuckle is dry, ripped from his throat and burning like Cognac.
Peter shimmers in the sky before him and although disgust bubbles at his throat, he can’t help but remain transfixed at the empty space where Peter swung out to the city from.
Peter. Spider-Man. Murderer.
His knees tremble and tears corrode his eyes because that was his only friend. He didn’t have anyone else.
If Spider-Man never killed, why did it have to be Dad? Was he that bad? Did he deserve to die? And why did he have to die like that? Giant, gaping bloody spaces where tissue and muscle should have been.
Was he scared when he died? Did Peter look down at him with menacing, icy hate? Should he have just let him get shoved in lockers and punched behind the parking lot?
He was just so pitiful. All the time. Always bullied and downtrodden and so, so nice at the very least. He was so pathetic that he didn’t even feel smart half the time because nothing he knew was ever useful enough to make people treat him with basic decency. It was only from his father’s own charity that he became valued— became loved. When did he become that mutant freak of nature? When did he become a murderer?
Harry’s mind begins to spiral even further. He grips at the windowsill, stooped over and ashen. His mind sways and pinpricks of hot, burning panic begin to consume him.
MJ would die; New York would perish. It didn’t mean anything to him then but now he feels so lightheaded and the world manages to contract stiflingly and expand hopelessly until he can’t navigate it any longer.
He takes a seat at the ledge and closes his eyes tightly, fingers running through each little wrinkle and crevice, glowering at the green spots in his vision.
He needs to kill Peter. He didn’t have the chance then but he has to make sure his father is avenged for. He shudders, aware of his skin and his beating heart and the blood which surges through him; his dad is rotting, worms burrowing into the skin that hugged him that very last time, all because of someone he called his friend.
Octavius would kill him anyways but it isn’t enough. He has to be there. If he dies in the process, he has to answer to his father.
“Bernard!” He shouts, rummaging through the safe. He finds his pistol and pockets it; the cacophonous gravity of the metal is almost enough to make him fall to his knees. He stills, then pulls himself steady, his face hardening.
“Mr Osborn.” Harry tips back the last of his drink, the mirage of Peter’s lax, bloody face within the glass.
“Get the car ready.”
“With all due respect, it’s not safe-“
“Do your job,” he grabs desperately at his collar, loosening it for some air.
He only grabs a coat, unwilling to look at the home— his father’s. He doesn’t know whether he’ll return and the thought does little to shake him. Peter Parker ruined his life beyond repair. There is nothing left for him except for the unarguable fact that he must do the right thing and kill him.
They stop some distance away from the chaos. Already, the gun and the buttons in his coat begin to pull away from him and the chauffeur speeds off in a flash, leaving magnetic fumes which waft unnaturally past him in soft beams before dissipating. People are running and screaming and the footfall threatens to push him back.
“Hey asshole! Get out the way!” A woman yells at him, jostling his side. More people are running and the pull gets stronger.
Oh, he numbly thinks, Otto must have started the fusion reaction already.
Suddenly, he stops. It occurs to him that he has no way of finding out where they all are, or whether Spider-Man, no, Peter even reached Otto. He really needs to stop separating them both. It will only make what he’s about to do harder.
His head whips around wildly and yet all he can see are high rises and the brighter inklings of night. He needs space— clearing.
He runs blindly towards wherever people are escaping from and the pull strengthens. He lets his buttons lead him like a compass.
Wind stings his eyes and the cold crisp air dries his throat. He breathes greedily; all his endurance crumbling away as he reaches the docks of the Hudson. Something faint and steadily growing in brightness catches his eye. It throbs urgently and beckoningly.
He runs blindly down the dock and a few people scream a ‘what the fuck are you doing’ and an ‘are you crazy’, lost in the wind.
By now, Harry can see flashes of the actuators through the crumbling panes. They wave around carelessly, grabbing at wood and metal and glass indiscriminately.
There’s a flash of red and the pull is so intense that he is forced to keep walking forward.
The gun strains against his pocket and he picks it up, feeling the solid grip, shaking the heat and the feverish confusion that momentarily threatened to ground him.
He rushes in and a wave of heat attacks him. It’s potent and toxic and nauseating. Peter is strong. Peter broke through barbed wire like butter. He cannot give Peter time to react. The moment he sees him, Harry thinks resolutely, he needs to put a bullet through his brain.
And Peter is there: elusive, ready and in front of him. Sharp, angular and dangerous and Harry whips his arm, throwing the trajectory towards him.
There’s only one thing he failed to account for and only one thing that foils his crusade. It collects in the form of the reaction happening right in front of him.
The pistol aimed at Peter’s head moves millimetres off balance. Then, after a pulse, it all together flies out of his sweaty palms and right into the sun.
All the air in his chest is knocked out by the actuator before he even notices the sharp slash of long coiling metal.
“Spider-Man, another one of your friends have joined you!” He speaks grandly and Harry feels like prey. Otto is miles away from that warm, careful man he had decided he’d be.
His adrenaline surges and he kicks, forcing his body weight towards the ground futilely. Lights flicker around him and the pummelling heat pushes bile up his dry throat. He grunts, tears welling.
“Harry!” MJ’s here too. Peter’s voice is only slightly deeper, more gravelly and Harry wants to break his neck because how could he have not noticed?
“I beat him to a pulp,” he chuckles, “and you still couldn’t kill him.” He shrugs and Harry feels sick.
Peter shoots a web out towards the wall behind Otto.
“Not so fast.” He tuts and suddenly, Harry is thrown back, right onto the rough ground. He feels winded and his head swims violently. There’s desperate crying behind him and he barely registers MJ; why is MJ here?
There’s clanging and debris as Otto shreds the walls of the building. Peter webs away frantically, avoiding twisting metal.
Harry grabs a plank of wood for support, pushing himself up and scooting backwards until he hits MJ’s feet.
His heart roars and he knows that he has to run.
He doesn’t bother looking her in her eyes as he clambers to his feet and breaks out into a dead sprint. The lighter air of the night is closer, cooler and a spark of both self-loathing and blind hope flies across the night sky until-
Otto laughs and Harry chokes.
“Harry! Let him go!”
“Easy there Spider-Man, it seems you two’ve struck up quite a friendship,” he squeezes harder and Harry desperately gasps for air, “you know I don’t take pleasure in doing this— the Osborn brat was supposed to finish the job.”
The actuator zooms towards Peter and he shoots a web at it, going limp as it drags him towards Otto. Suddenly, he springs forward, punching him square in the face.
He falls backward with Otto, the actuator steadying him from falling into the path of a jutting metal pipe.
The other arm punches Peter in the chest with a sickening crack. The mask betrays no emotion, no glimmer of pain and Harry hates Peter even more for it.
Otto’s actuator rushes for Peter’s neck and he ducks quickly, the claws grip the top of the mask, ripping it off.
“Peter Parker? Brilliant but lazy.” Otto chuckles brokenly. He brings his hand towards his bloodied face and shakes his head. Harry remembers how he felt too— there’s something so comically obvious about it that he wants to scream. The metal is uncomfortably warm now and it snakes across his neck so tightly that he feels imprints beginning to root themselves on his skin.
“Dr Octavius please!” His eyes shine brightly and earnestly and like the blade of a knife. Harry wants to look away but his face is fixed towards the murderer in a hero’s suit.
“You can walk away, you know, and do him a favour, make sure we all die painlessly; I’ve met you boy, and I know for a fact you wouldn’t want me to crush his neck.”
“Please,” he presses his palms into the ground and lifted above him, Harry is sure he’s going to die. He doesn’t want to die now, not when he’s so close and he could end this hellish nightmare if he could just kill him, “Doc, all of New York will die if you don’t stop it!”
Otto scoffs and tightens his grip on Harry’s neck. A burst of white hot pain and dull throbbing constriction attacks him and he violently gags, trying to allow air into his lungs.
“You think I care? I have a gift, Peter; I have to prove that it’s possible— the power of the sun in the palm-“
“-In the palm of your hand,” his voice cracks and Harry squeezes his eyes shut, “you have to destroy it.” He says resolutely.
“Why don’t you fight me boy? Here you are, begging at my feet, friend at my mercy and you and I both know, I- I won’t.”
“‘Not m’ friend.” He tries to choke out but only Peter seems to hear him, his eyes watering and jaw trembling.
“I can’t fight you Doc, those actuators, they’ve turned you into something you’re not.” Harry can feel the actuator loosening tentatively and he freezes. Unsure and teetering between running far, far away, any future self loathing be damned, or running blindly at Peter, killing him with his own bare hands.
“I had to- if anyone could prove that it’s possible, it had to be me! I did the math, the research, countless hours so this place— every ungrateful, ignorant investor could congratulate themselves on helping me gift clean, renewable energy to all of you! I was the only one,” the arms gesticulate wildly, spraying droplets and once again, Harry is thrown around with a sickening lurch. Ignorant? He’s getting real sick of playing bargaining chips to these idiots, “and I’ll see it through; you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“I-“
“It was my dream.”
Peter’s face crumples like it did that day he saw Harry’s bruises. ‘Flash wanted me,’ he said, ‘you shouldn’t have taken the beating for me.’ And like a stupid fool, he ignored him and took a few more until one day, Flash looked at him warily and asked if daddy really was going to sue him.
“Sometimes, to do what's right, we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.”
And who is he kidding? He can’t kill Pete! Everything is just so complicated, twisting threads of rot, and he’d do anything, pay anything if it just meant another day of drawing all over Peter’s blue notebook and throwing the gummy cafeteria pasta onto the ceiling to see if it would stick.
The actuator’s grip slackens and Otto whispers gently, telling them to yield. By now, slices of debris speed towards the reactor and a sharp scream slices through the thick air.
Harry feels faint, dumb and blind with panic as he sees the chains on MJ’s feet pull her towards the reactor.
Peter barely looks panicked before he has a web attached to her tied arms. Like a sailor, he pulls at the web, unwavering. Harry wants to look away and avert his eyes; it’s all his fault— if anything happens to her, it’s his fault. Her body strains against the chains and she screams even louder as Peter’s web stretches impossibly. He can feel tears on his face now and the patchy building contracts and he can’t breathe. The chains manage to slip off her ankles, hurtling into the reactor and Harry can swear he sees it start to melt as it reaches the very edge of it.
Peter flings MJ back safely, an arm easily wrapped around her. They both reach the ground, looking more like a comic book spread than his real, breathing and perhaps former friends. She cranes her neck lovingly and he presses his nails deep into his palms at the blatant act of betrayal. God, were they even his friends to begin with? Peter hesitates, perhaps wanting to stay, before ripping himself away from her, making a beeline for Otto.
“We have to stop it Doc, tell me how.”
“We can’t. It’s self sustaining.”
“No,” he grabs him by the shoulders, ignoring how the actuators move to grapple at him, “there’s some way, tell me how.”
Harry has an idea, but his chest feels too full to voice it. It couldn’t possibly work, he thinks, staring at the rippling, orange water of the Hudson.
“Drown it. We have to smother the reaction.”
Peter nods at Otto as if it was the only answer he ever needed and rushes towards the reactor, sloshing in mud and water. Otto looks terrified for a moment and his actuators move to grab him, to stop him. They’re too wet and stiff and Peter stands there, looking at all of them. His eyes are big and blue and watery and he looks almost childlike. He’s scared. He mouths something to MJ and she tries to run after him; Harry instinctively holds her back, ignoring her wails of protest.
It’s what he wants, what he set out to do.
“-Wanted him dead Harry is this what you wanted? Let me go you- you bastard let me go!”
Peter webs each foundation, gathers them and he pulls. Harry tries to push MJ into his chest as he disappears under piles of twisting and burning metal, right into the river.
Her body quivers and he holds her, alive and moving and utterly miserable in his arms. He notices something large and shiny getting closer and Otto’s actuator pulls at them, leading them away from the crumbling building and pier.
MJ sobs and screams into his chest, dampening his coat. His sinuses pound with the assault of cool, nighttime air.
“Put your hands up! All of them!” Ah, he forgot about that.
“I guess it’s over,” Otto looks at him, strangely at peace, “they’re up! There’s someone in the river!”
“Hands up!”
“Wait,” Harry isn’t sure what he’s saying, “he’s right! There’s someone in the river! They’re drowning; he needs to save them!”
“This is the last time, shut up and put your hands up!”
“Spider-Man’s in the river! I promise he’ll come back, just let him save him!” MJ shouts.
“We’re gonna help you two, alright? Just stay still-“
“Look! I can’t escape by jumping in the river for God’s sake! Just let me save him!”
The growing crowd of spectators and camera flashes agree. Jeers erupt and Harry feels the passage of each second and the whistle of the wind painfully.
He thinks about jumping, the red glow of the river dissipating to nothing. Perhaps, he could keep him alive longer, kill him on his own terms. Perhaps, he could keep him alive and ask him why.
All he knows is that he can’t lose him, not like this.
The senior officer tentatively raises his hand, against all odds. Otto immediately turns around and pounces and although Harry can hear the wind and the sound of cars and radio dispatch and people’s voices, the only thing he focuses on is MJ’s bated breath and the quivering of her knees.
They stay there for a minute, even two. He can just about make out the shadow of actuators skimming the surface of the water. Police surround him and MJ, trying to drag them away but he holds his hand up like his father taught him to and tells them it won’t be necessary at the moment. The water rapidly dims, the reaction dying and God, he’s so scared.
His own knees buckle and MJ half-heartedly rubs his back as Otto bursts through the water, carrying a wet figure. The actuators are stiff and waterlogged and he’s never seen Otto look so undone. Her fingers are tense with poorly concealed loathing.
There’s a flurry of movement when Otto lays Peter’s limp body on the ground as police move to arrest him and reporters and photographers strain to catch a glimpse of the unmasked Spider-Man.
And perhaps he will always be a weak coward because while he wants nothing but suffering for the monster that stole his father, he cannot bear to think about Peter, exposed and vulnerable to the world.
Otto takes one look at them, nods and allows them to handcuff him and take him into the large, waiting van.
Immediately, EMTs and paramedics begin to swarm them. The flashes illuminate Peter’s ashen, bloody face, lips parted and blue. He looks peaceful, even as blood pours freely out of large gaping wounds in his shoulder and thigh, as if he’d been peeled off debris. There’s so much blood, patches of his suit ripped open with pink, raw, glossy burns.
“He appears to be white…around 5’8 or 9, dark hair…he looks around college age but in this lighting, it’s hard to tell. New York: this is the man behind the mask…”
“Harry Osborn, heir to defence contractor Oscorp appears to be one of the hostages along with Mary Jane Watson who, as we know was kidnapped by Octavius earlier today, although it’s not clear when, or if he was taken.”
“He’s not breathing, no pulse either. We have to start compressions.”
And Harry thinks of the Peter he used to know who took beatings that he never looked like he could survive and that sickening crack he heard only moments ago as he watches them push desperately.
“Secure the airway! Come on Spidey…”
He thinks of Peter’s soft voice as they grab his face harshly, suctioning the pink fluid that dribbles out of his mouth with every compression. There’s a vague haze of plastic tubes and plastic bags. Scissors glint as they cut off the leg of the suit.
It’s just Peter Parker, he thinks. Just ordinary Peter from Queens, even as photographers and journalists push through impromptu barricades to catch a glimpse of him.
There’s Peter Parker, dead in front of him, just like Dad, exactly like Dad and Harry got exactly what he wanted.
A kind woman grabs him with her warm, gloved hands and leads him away and he lets her take him into the ambulance, consumed by the phantom pain in his chest.