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Harry is eleven years old and he frickin’ hates boarding school.
He hates the fancy academy with its boring neutral walls and squeaky floors and pristine equipment. He hates the strict rules, the cutting-edge curriculum that is so much harder than normal school. He hates how the school is situated out away in the middle of nowhere, so different from home, from the spiraling skyscrapers and pulsing city streets that are in Harry’s blood.
Most of all, he hates being away from his dad.
Sure, Harry and his dad aren’t super close. But Harry is a heck of a lot closer with him than he is with his mom (who, after her divorce years ago, seemingly dropped off of the face of the earth—right after she dropped him off with his dad. His dad never talks about her, and Harry’s not sure if she’s even still alive).
Harry would deny it, but he spends the first night trying not to cry, and when he finally does get to sleep, it is with tears still clinging to his lashes. His dreams of home are vivid and homesick.
(Right before he left, his dad had sat him down for a talk to explain the situation.
“Now that you aren’t in elementary school anymore, it’s time for you to start getting ahead in your studies,” his dad had said. “These school years are important and you need to get as much out of them as you can. Your grades up until now have been unsatisfactory, but I am convinced that you just need more stimulation to motivate you. This is a fantastic opportunity; the academy is one of the finest schools in the country, and I’m sure you’ll rise to the challenge.”)
Harry was never a good student—average is about where he peaks—but unhappiness makes it worse, and his grades are atrocious.
When he returns home for the summer, his dad says, “Harry, I’m disappointed in you.” He looks reproachfully at Harry from where he sits at his desk in his study, the diplomas and certificates that cover the wall behind him a backdrop to his disapproval. Most prominent is his diploma from MIT.
(Graduated at eighteen. Summa cum laude. Papers went wild over the teen genius who started his own cutting-edge research company. Oscorp, with his dad at the helm, has since become a multi-million-dollar enterprise, and is one of the biggest names in the scientific world.
Harry will one day be expected to take over from his father. He’s not looking forward to it.)
“Well, I’m disappointed in boarding school,” Harry says, crossing his arms and sticking out his jaw. “I hate it, Dad. I want to go back to public school here in New York. I want to stay here.”
I want to stay with you, Harry thinks but doesn’t know how to say.
His dad hums and starts a lecture about how Harry isn’t taking this seriously. Harry doesn’t think his dad his taking it seriously, either.
They are not able to take each other seriously.
Despite his dad’s disapproval, and how frustrated it makes him feel, Harry enjoys his summer. He’s just glad to be home. He slides down the banister and pesters the butler, Shore, with questions and jokes and riddles. He eats dinner with his dad, and tags along to the office sometimes. He hangs out a lot with his best friend, Peter Parker.
Harry had really missed Peter. They’d become friends way back in kindergarten, and had been inseparable until elementary school ended and Harry’s dad booted him off to the stupid academy. Peter, like Harry’s dad, is smart. Crazy smart. But he doesn’t expect everyone else to be just as crazy smart, like Harry’s dad does, or rub in people’s faces, like some of the kids at the academy do. Peter just bristles with a boundless enthusiasm and curiosity for learning that overflows into every possible subject, and pours out in his willingness to help his less-gifted friends.
Harry knows Peter hasn’t had it easy, either. His parents died when he was four (two years before Harry’s mom left), which is why he now lives with his aunt and uncle, the Parkers. Some kids in school also like to bully Peter because they’re jealous of how smart he is, and Harry has had to teach more than one kid a little lesson. Even if Peter does insist that he doesn’t need Harry to fight his battles for him. Whatever. Peter looks grateful just the same, and what are friends for if not to beat up bullies?
So Harry spends his summer hanging out with his best friend, wrestling and playing basketball and chess and climbing trees and going to the library and eating Aunt May’s fabulous cookies. Harry drops plenty of hints about going to Peter’s school in the fall, and when Harry’s dad stops looking at him like he’s spat on the family crest and instead starts looking at him thoughtfully, Harry hopes he’s taking the hints to heart.
But then the thoughtful looks take on an entirely different meaning when Harry’s dad gets him a tutor who takes away Harry’s last month of summer and puts him through an intense academic boot camp instead—“to better prepare him for the school year”—and Harry gets packed off to boarding school in the fall just the same.
—
Harry hates boarding school.
He hates the pressure, he hates the expectations, he hates his dad for sending him back, and he even hates himself for missing him.
This time he does not cry himself to sleep. Instead, he lies awake with clenched fists and whispers angry promises to himself long after the sun goes down.
For the next two years, Harry suffers grimly through boarding school. And he makes sure his grades suffer right along with them. The teachers are at their wits’ end as to what to do with him, and every disappointed lecture Harry’s dad gives him over the phone just results in a failed research paper or a bombed math test.
(“You’re an Osborne, and you need to live up to the family name,” his dad had lectured, once.
Harry’s temper had flared. “Oh yeah? What family name, Dad?” he had snarked.
“Because last I checked, family names are supposed to stand for something good. Well, news flash, family isn’t leaving your kid and then never coming back. Family isn’t sending your kid away when they aren’t ‘satisfactory.’ Not a lot to fail there, Dad.”
Shame had filled him as soon as he’d said it, mixing with the still-present anger, and it had made his stomach twist. Harry had slammed his thumb down on the red ‘end call’ button and thrown his phone across the room before his dad even had a chance to reply.”)
Oh, Harry’s motivated. Plenty motivated. Soon he becomes a byword in the school. His test scores make his overachieving classmates hyperventilate. One memorable occasion, a girl had even cried. Harry had felt kinda bad about that, but he didn’t see why she was so upset. It was just a stupid test. It didn’t matter as much as other things did.
Harry excels at nothing at school, except for maybe poker. His dormmates soon discover that he is a veritable poker shark, and after he makes all opposing players go broke in five consecutive games, his classmates refuse to play with him. So they switch to Monopoly, where Harry cheerfully bleeds them dry of fake money instead.
His classmates aren’t his friends, really—he has friends back home, and he doesn’t want to put down roots at the academy, doesn’t want to belong there like his dad thinks he should. But Harry can’t stop himself from being friendly, and he gets along well with those of his classmates who don’t avoid him like his low GPA is some kind of infectious disease. They goof off together in their free time, and when the studying gets to be too much for his roommates (not Harry, Harry never studies) he can usually convince them to help him prank the teachers.
Harry still misses Peter, though. None of his classmates can compensate for the loss of his best friend.
Summers are a mix of euphoria and tension. Every single one is a battle of wills between Harry and his father, but Harry refuses to give up.
(“You are wasting all your opportunities!” Harry’s dad keeps shouting. “Think of your future!”
“What future?” Harry yells back. “I hate where I am now, what makes you think I’m going to like what you have planned for me any better?”)
Harry and his dad do not have the same ideas for what Harry’s future should look like.
Harry is not his dad, and he just wishes his dad could see that.
Finally, Harry’s dad is forced to give up his dreams for his son to attend a fancy genius boarding school, and right before he starts freshman year, his dad enrolls him in Midtown High, the high school Peter goes to.
Victory is sweet.
—
The next few years are good. Not perfect, but good. His dad is still disappointed in him, and has taken to ambushing him with internships, networking opportunities, and of course, lectures. Harry evades them with the skill of long practice.
But Harry is home, and he has Peter, and lots of friends at his gloriously normal school. Harry actually starts trying to study again, and with Peter’s help, his grades are higher than ever before (a subtle reminder to his dad to not try anything).
Oscorp starts contracting its scientific research out to the military. Deadlines are harsh and the workload is intense. Harry’s dad starts working longer and longer hours, and Harry tells himself he doesn’t care.
(That’s the kind of life Harry wants to avoid. What’s the point of getting straight A’s in every subject, of going to the best schools, of landing the best internships, of earning the best promotions, of having diplomas and certificates and nominations and awards, if all you get in return is having your life sucked away into one single-minded, obsessive pursuit, with no room or time for anything else? Anyone else? That drive consumed most of the kids at the academy, and it’s consuming his dad, too. Harry’s not going to let that happen to him. He’s not.)
High school is high school, and Harry plays team sports, and beats up bullies, and crushes on girls, and hangs out with his best friend. It’s a good life. Freshman year bleeds into sophomore, which turns into junior, which fades away until finally senior takes its place.
And then comes the senior science field trip.
(Years later, Harry would look back on that field trip, the one where everything started, and hate it with every fiber of his being.)
The field trip is to visit and tour the Oscorp labs, which are located along with their offices in their headquarters down town—a big ol’ building with OSCORP emblazoned across it like some kind of advertisement. Harry suspects his dad has personally arranged it with the school.
Ugh. Harry knows what his dad is trying to do. He’s doing what he always does: trying to pressure Harry into being what Harry doesn’t want to be. He’s even driving Harry to the Oscorp building himself. In a stupid frickin’ Rolls Royce. Talk about ostentatious.
The car ride over is stilted and silent. His dad seems consumed by his own thoughts, and Harry is disinclined for conversation. Instead, he slouches back on the expensive leather seats and stares out the window, watching the faces that whizz past on the street, studying them, wondering about the people who they belong to. What they’re like, and what kinds of thoughts are hiding behind those neutral expressions.
Harry wonders what they dream about, and how those dreams compare to reality.
Finally, when they’re about a block away, Harry breaks the silence.
“You can drop me off here, Dad.”
His dad side-eyes him, and makes no move to stop driving. Harry gets increasingly antsy.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want my friends to see me driving up in this,” Harry gestures irritably at the luxurious interior around them. “It’s pretentious and therefore embarrassing. You didn’t need to drop me off anyway, I could’ve taken the bus like the rest of the kids.”
“I’m not letting you out here, Harry.”
His dad pauses for a moment, and Harry is just taking breath to argue further when his dad speaks again.
“You’re not like the rest of them, you know.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, Osborne name and all that, whoop-de-doo, heard it before.”
The car rolls to a stop outside the Oscorp building, and Harry winces as he sees his classmates, who are milling around outside, begin to gawk. Peter, bless his oblivious soul, has his nose buried in a book and doesn’t even look up.
He turns to say goodbye to his dad, and finds his dad staring at him with measuring eyes.
“You don’t need to be ashamed of who you are, Harry,” he says quietly.
Harry juts out his jaw and looks his dad in the eyes. “I’m not.”
Harry gets out and slams the door shut.
You are.
—
Harry will remember that school field trip for a long time. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it, actually.
He remembers most vividly how it started, and how it ended.
It starts with Harry saying hi to his friends, and teasing Peter about his crush on MJ Watson. It starts with Harry’s dad tapping him on the shoulder and handing over Harry’s backpack, which he’d apparently forgotten in the car when he stormed off.
It really starts with Harry introducing Peter to his dad.
(Later, Harry would look back on that school field trip, and realize that everything spiraled from there.)
Peter and Harry’s dad have never met before. Not directly, at least. Harry has mentioned Peter to his dad and Peter knows that Harry is the son of the Norman Osborne, but otherwise, those two parts of his life are completely separate.
There are many reasons for this.
One is that while Peter has, a few times, come over to Harry’s house, they usually just go over to Peter’s. Harry’s house is ostentatious and lonely, and he much prefers the Parker’s cozy clapboard house to his own drafty townhouse-cum-manor.
Another reason is that Harry knows that if he introduces his dad to Peter, Peter will inevitably start bringing him and his scientific achievements up in conversation. Harry just doesn’t think he can handle that without ranting about his issues with the man, which, aside from being just plain awkward, would also be insensitive. Because even if Harry’s relationship with his dad is a mess, at least he still has a dad. Unlike Peter.
(And maybe there are other reasons too, but Harry isn’t going to think about them. Not if he can help it.)
Peter, predictably, immediately goes ballistic upon learning that he is speaking to Norman Osborne himself, New York celebrity, Oscorp CEO, and—most importantly—genius scientist. He starts talking a million miles a minute, peppering his dad with highly technical questions that are all far too advanced for someone his age. Harry’s eyes start crossing about three sentences in.
Harry’s dad first looks surprised, then impressed, then entranced. He starts swapping science anecdotes with Peter, like a couple of old veterans at a bar, and when they start bonding over a paper Peter wrote on nanotechnology based on research his dad had done, Harry is officially bored.
(He’s also maybe a bit jealous that his dad and his best friend have hit it off so well.)
(And maybe that was one of the other reasons why Harry hadn’t ever let his best friend and his dad interact.)
So he cuts the conversation short, saying that teacher has arrived and they should really get going on the field trip. Harry’s dad shakes hands with Peter and says,
“You have a brilliant mind, Peter. I hope to see you again sometime.”
Harry covers up the resentment that flares in his chest with a laugh.
“Wow, Peter, you really did a number on my old man,” he jokes as they walk away. “If you don’t look out, he’s gonna adopt you. Genuis Junior.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter grins, and slugs Harry on the shoulder.
The school field trip ends with Peter getting bitten by a spider, and going home early due to illness.
—
The weeks before graduation pass in a hazy blur.
Harry’s dad has been acting…erratic. He keeps startling whenever Harry speaks to him, practically lives at work or in his study, and Shore, when quizzed, reports that he hasn’t been eating much. Harry knows there’s been some hullabaloo going on at Oscorp with deadlines and military contracts, so he just puts it down to work stress. It’s not until he walks into his dad’s study and finds him passed out on the floor that he really starts to worry. Harry’s dad insists he’s fine, and refuses to go to the doctor. Harry tells Shore about it, though, and makes sure to keep an eye on his dad.
(His dad isn’t supposed to look that fragile. Harry’s never considered his dad dying before, and it scares him.)
Peter’s been acting erratic, too. Mr.-I-Always-Arrive-Five-Minutes-Early is now perennially late for class, is getting into fights with Flash Thompson, of all people, and he keeps making up excuses when Harry wants to hang out. Homework, Harry’s foot. Like Peter doesn’t finish his assignments in half the time it takes everyone else in class. Harry keeps an eye on Peter, too.
And then one day Peter doesn’t come to school altogether.
And Harry finds out that Peter’s uncle is dead, shot by a mugger in an alley.
Harry gives Peter space to grieve. A few days. Then he shows up at Peter’s house with flowers for Aunt May and, he hopes, some comfort for Peter.
“I know you probably don’t want to talk,” Harry tells his best friend. “But I’m always here if you need me.”
Peter looks pale and haunted, but he does nod his head, and they sit for a moment in silence before Harry takes his leave.
Harry and MJ are the only ones, outside the family, who come to Ben Parker’s funeral.
—
Peter takes his uncle’s death hard, and he throws himself into school and whatever else it is he’s doing that takes up so much of his time. Harry barely sees his friend in the week right before graduation. Harry devotes most of his time to worrying about Peter and his dad, and to school.
(Because despite all his arguments with his dad, Harry doesn’t think school is a waste. He just thinks it’s not as important as other things.)
Finally, the day itself arrives, and Harry stands on the stage in a cap and gown alongside Peter and MJ and the rest of his classmates and receives his diploma.
Harry Theopolis Osborne, it says in crisp, clear lettering.
Peter, of course, wins some sort of science award, and Harry shoots him a grin and a thumbs up. Peter deserves it, and he’s happy for his friend.
After the ceremony, the students disperse in flurry of thrown graduation caps and excited shouts, streaming into the crowd to find their families. Harry searches for his dad, who finds him first.
His dad greets him with a handshake, firm and emphatic.
“Well, Harry, I must confess I didn’t think you’d graduate. But I’m glad to be proven wrong.”
The words are like a slap to the face.
No, they’re not.
That would just be humiliating. This…this hurts.
Like a knife twisted in wound.
Really? Really?
That’s what his dad gives him? A handshake and a “you proved me wrong?”
Not even an I’m proud of you?
Not, maybe, an I love you?
Any words he’d thought of saying die in his throat as he numbly shakes hands with his father, any sense of excitement or euphoria he’d gotten from graduation gone in an instant.
His dad turns away and begins congratulating Peter on his science award. Harry hears the words through the ringing in his ears.
“Peter, the science award. That’s terrific…. I know this has been a difficult time for you, but I want you to try to enjoy this day. Commencement. The end of one thing, the start of something new. And remember, if you ever need anything, I’ll be there for you.”
And just as suddenly, all the emotions are back, and Harry’s visions blurs as rage sears through him. He clenches his fists, trembling as he strains to maintain a neutral expression on his face so his friend can’t see.
Enjoy this day? What, why, why did he get to congratulate Peter when Harry, his actual son, was standing right in front of him, when he’d just given Harry the most backhanded compliment Harry had ever heard and then walked away like it was nothing, when it was Harry’s graduation and he was supposed to be proud of Harry.
I’ll be there for you.
That was the part that stung the most.
Where was that when Harry needed it? Where was Norman when Harry had ever needed him? What is it about Peter that makes him so much worthier of his dad’s care and attention and approval than Harry?
Harry hates it. He hates how Peter is the walking personification of everything Norman thought Harry should be. Hates how Peter is the son that Norman always wanted but never had. He even hates Peter, for daring to be there, for daring to be so perfect and steal his dad away from him and—
No. No. Harry shoves it all down. It is not Peter’s fault. Peter isn’t trying to do anything. Peter is his best friend, and Peter has just lost his uncle, and Harry is frickin’ happy that Peter won that stupid science award and is getting praised for it.
Harry stands there for the rest of the conversation, slowly bottling up his fury in a brittle ball of glass in his chest. It seethes and seethes, but Harry doesn’t let it break.
Not until Harry gets home, and throws his diploma in the trash, and lets the glass shatter into a thousand jagged, angry shards.
Broken pieces of a dream Harry didn’t even know he had.
—
After graduation, it seems to Harry that his life speeds up, accelerating faster and faster, as if it is heading at full throttle towards some unseen but inevitable end. Life goes on, and on, and on, and some parts stand out more vividly than others.
Harry and Peter rent an apartment together.
Harry and MJ start dating, and Harry slowly falls in love.
Spiderman starts making a name for himself as a vigilante, and his picture is in the newspapers almost every day.
Peter is still his best friend, but the unexplained absences keep up, and his behavior is stilted and off-kilter. It only gets worse when Harry tells him about MJ.
Oscorp goes through business troubles, and Harry’s dad gets paler, and thinner, and sharper.
As if the existence of a hero called for the balancing of the scales, a villain makes his appearance, an armored lunatic that the press dubs “Green Goblin.”
Green Goblin attacks Oscorp’s World Unity Day Celebration, and kills several board members.
Harry’s dad seems to regain some of his spirits, and his face is no longer so gaunt and pale, but Harry can still see the sharpness lingering in the corners of his dad’s smile. His smile is a bit too wide, nowadays. A bit too cruel.
Spiderman and Green Goblin continue to clash, and New York echoes with the thwip of a spider’s webs and the eerie laughter of an insane goblin.
MJ leaves him for Peter.
This is the first time his heart has truly broken.
This is the second time Harry is forced to bottle up the anger and stow it away in a safe place where it can’t hurt Peter, because even if it hurts, Peter is still his friend.
This is the third time someone has rejected him.
—
Harry’s not even sure what he wants out of life anymore, but he keeps on going, because that’s where the momentum is heading.
Life goes on. Faster and faster and faster. Blurring, picking up speed, hurtling like an arrow toward a target.
—
And then one day Harry goes to visit his dad, and he walks into the study, and sees his father lying quiet and still. Dirty and bloody on the sofa.
Spiderman leans over his father’s corpse.
—
Time stops.
It’s—it’s—Harry can’t—no, his dad can’t be dead, can’t be gone—
The grief is overpowering, and that—the idea that this isn’t right—is the only thing Harry can latch on to.
(That, and the knowledge that Spiderman is somehow responsible for this.)
This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
He’ll—he’ll never get to see his dad again, never get to talk to him again, never get to hear him say I love you, I’m proud of you—
And—and when was the last time he told his dad he loved him? Because he did, he did. Otherwise it wouldn’t hurt so much.
And now Harry is never going to get the dad he wanted, and his dad is never going to get the son he wanted, and they’re never going to be able to finish what they never started.
How do you cope with an ending when you never even got to begin?
Harry can’t cope.
—
The funeral is at the same cemetery where Ben Parker was buried.
The sky is grey, and the grass is wet from the previous day’s rain. The trees are leafless, clawing at the sky like the grasping hands of a withered skeleton.
Harry’s face feels like it is set in stone as he numbly shakes hands and receives condolences. Person after person passes him by in the line, mostly Oscorp employees or other business acquaintances. A few of his classmates come.
(Nothing is heard from his mother, but Harry wasn’t really expecting there to be. Either she’s dead and that’s it, or she’s alive and doesn’t even care enough to visit her grieving son, and Harry’s not wasting time and money trying to trace her.
He has much more important things to be doing with his resources.)
Peter comes, and Harry doesn’t even care about MJ, he is just so thankful that Peter, who was always there for him in his childhood, is here for him now. Peter is more than just his best friend—he’s Harry’s rock—a constant that Harry can depend on.
“I’m so, so sorry, Harry,” Peter tells him, voice soft with pain. “I know what it’s like to lose a father.”
Harry feels his stoic mask crack. Peter’s words reach past the numb despair and touch the hot core of hatred he’s been holding inside himself ever since he found his dad dead, and Spiderman responsible.
When he speaks, his voice is trembling with suppressed emotion.
“I didn’t lose him. He was stolen from me. One day, Spiderman will pay. I swear on my father’s grave, Spiderman will pay.”
Harry turns and looks at his friend’s shocked face.
“Thank God for you, Peter. You’re the only family I have.”
—
For the two years following his fathers’ death, Harry steps up and becomes what Norman always wanted him to be.
Well, not exactly. Harry will never the same kind of genius his dad was.
But it turns out, Harry doesn’t have to be in order to run Oscorp as its new CEO. Harry’s dad always leaned hard into the scientific part of the job—he was more scientist than businessman, most of the time.
Harry may suck at the science, but he discovers that he does pretty well at the business. He knows people—knows how to read them, knows how to find out what they want, and knows how to make them like him. He selects a few of the more trustworthy board members to advise him, and with their experience and his own surprisingly business-savvy common sense, Oscorp prospers under its new leadership.
Harry makes some changes, of course. Closes down some areas of research, boosts others, fires some people, promotes others, creates new positions as he sees fit.
(He signs a lot of papers, some of them terminating certain Oscorp programs that aren’t earning the company any money, and authorizing the resources to be redirected elsewhere. One of the ones Harry terminates is the enhanced-spider experimentation project that he and Peter toured on that field trip so long ago. Harry spares it barely a glance before scrawling his signature and moving on to the next document.)
—
Harry dreams of his father.
He does that a lot now.
Sometimes his dad is proud of him, and he puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder and tells him that he always knew he could do it.
Sometimes his dad is disappointed in him, and Harry gets sent back to boarding school.
Mostly, his dad is lying dirty and bleeding on the sofa in the study, looking at Harry, begging him, pleading him—
Avenge me, Harry’s dad says.
I’m trying, Harry wants to say.
—
Harry wracks his brain, trying to think of ways he can get revenge. Trying to think of ways he can hurt Spiderman.
He comes up with nothing. Spiderman is unreachable.
Harry’s money and power are useless, and Harry knows with a cold and precise bitterness that he is no match for Spiderman one-on-one.
Harry needs an advantage. An edge. He’ll take anything he can get. He just needs something.
—
Harry discovers that his father was the Green Goblin.
It’s after a late night spent sorting through his father’s files, and the bottom of his coffee mug has long since gone dry, and he’s tired and uncoordinated, and he trips and falls right through the mirror in his father’s study. Right into a secret room.
No. Not a secret room. A secret lab.
Green Goblin’s lab.
The armor is there. The hoverglider. The tools and equipment and gadgets, scattered about on the work tables amidst diagrams and notebooks. On the far wall, in a place of honor, is a special case filled with vial after gleaming vial. Human Performance Enhancer, the labels read. Goblin Formula, his dad’s notebooks say.
His reality shatters around him, much like the glass that now lies on the floor and cuts into his palms.
His father was the Green Goblin. This changes everything.
Or does it?
Does it really matter, when now Harry has a way to get to Spiderman?
When now Harry has an edge?
—
Harry wavers. What if the serum changes him? It changed his dad.
He does his research, carefully pores over the notes his dad left. Most of the notes are in his dad’s precise handwriting—a scientist’s handwriting. In others, the letters are like slashes of ink upon the page, no less precise, in their way, but with an eerie intensity that bleeds through the paper.
His dad refined the serum, apparently, produced a different version than the one he originally took. In his notes, he calls the original Goblin Formula CX0009, the new one OC0001. Harry has no idea what the numbers or letters mean. But he trusts his dad knew what he was doing.
(He is—was the scientist, after all. Harry is just the failure trying not to screw up.)
Finally, when Harry has researched so thoroughly that he now no longer has any excuse for stalling, he locks himself in his dad’s study, goes into the lab, and picks up a syringe.
He stares at it for a long moment.
Avenge me, his dad says. Harry can almost hear him. Can maybe almost see him, from the corner of his eye. Bloody. Dying. Desperate. Spiderman killed me.
Coward, somebody says. Harry’s not sure if it’s his dad’s voice, or his own.
Harry takes a deep breath and plunges the needle into his arm.
—
That night, he dreams that he’s playing tag with his dad in the twisting, empty corridors of their house. His dad laughs, chasing after him, and Harry squeals and runs away. Faster and faster and faster into darker and darker hallways, until finally Harry realizes he’s lost.
He calls out for his dad. The only answer is faint laughter. Harry panics, blindly beating against the walls. The laughter gets louder and louder, and suddenly it’s everywhere, all at once, and Harry doesn’t know where it’s coming from, where his dad is. It rings through Harry’s head, and he beats on the walls with his fists, only for them to shatter beneath his hands as suddenly they are no longer walls, but mirrors made of glass.
The glass breaks, and breaks again, turning into more and more mirrors, each one reflecting Harry, and Norman, and—the Goblin.
Glass twists and tumbles like crystals in a kaleidoscope, and Harry’s reflection becomes Norman’s becomes the Goblin’s. They blur, distorting and fragmenting, mirrors bending and splintering into a thousand new mirrors and a thousand new faces, and all the while the laughter echoes off the walls, getting darker and darker.
Harry wakes up with sweat on his forehead and a shiver running down his spine.
—
Goblin takes to the skies. Harry grins, fierce and vicious, as he trades blows with Spiderman, giving as good as he gets.
He’s not able to beat Spiderman yet. But that’s fine. Harry just needs to practice, to bide his time and wait.
Harry no longer sees his father dying every night. Instead, he sees him in the daytime—flickering in the corner of his eye. He supports Harry, encourages him, tells him he’s proud of him, that he’s doing the right thing.
He still has dreams. But now they are vague and formless things, like tendrils of mist on a pitch-black night, that whisper through Harry’s brain and leave nothing behind but the impression of echoing laughter and the phantom sound of shattering glass.
—
Peter is Spiderman.
Peter is Spiderman.
Peter is Spiderman.
Peter is Spiderman.
His best friend, his family, his brother is the man who murdered his father.
Betrayal and hurt and loss and pain and rage and hate and love and sorrow war in Harry’s chest, as he loses his grip on the only two constants he has left:
Peter is his friend.
Spiderman is his enemy.
But Peter is Spiderman, and suddenly Harry doesn’t know what to do. The entire focus, the entire purpose of his life is to kill Spiderman. Revenge his father. Get satisfaction.
But he can’t kill Peter. Peter is his friend.
So Harry pulls his punches and flees from his maskless friend, retreating, trying to find some solid footing in a world whose foundations have been shaken again.
—
The dreams of his father are back.
Not only that, but there are two of them now.
His father and the Goblin. They follow him everywhere. By day, they’re always lurking in the background, haunting his peripheral vision. It makes his enhanced senses go haywire, and Harry is always looking over his shoulder, always watching his back.
By night, they figure in his dreams, begging and threatening, weeping and growling, laughing and shattering.
Harry paces up and down in his study.
“I’m disappointed in you,” his dad whispers.
Don’t you want to revenge your father, kid? The Goblin asks. His voice echoes in Harry’s head, louder than his dad’s voice. It’s almost like the Goblin is speaking with two voices.
“Peter Parker is better than you,” his dad continues. “He was always better than you. Maybe that’s why you can’t best him.”
Harry clenches his fists. He imagines all the emotions that that statement causes streaming down his arms to pool in his fists, a swirling tempest cradled in his white knuckles. Knuckles that can hit harder and faster than a normal human should be able to.
Harry doesn’t deserve this. He’s trying.
Kill Spider-Man, the Goblin snarls.
Kill Spider-Man, a little voice in Harry’s head echoes.
Then his dad and the Goblin speak together.
“Show me you can take him.”
—
After hours and hours of pacing, Harry finally comes to a decision.
Harry refuses to kill his best friend. Not Peter.
…Or at least, not yet.
Harry’s not quite sure what he’s going to do. He doesn’t want to kill Peter, his only friend, the only family he has.
On the other hand…
Kill him, the voices say. Kill him, his dad pleads. Kill him, the Goblin snarls.
Harry’s not quite sure what he wants to do. But he knows that whatever he decides, he wants to be able to follow through on it.
Harry takes the vial of Gobin serum in his hand and stares at it for a long moment.
Show me you can take him.
Harry wants to know if he can take him.
Five minutes later, an empty vial falls to the floor.
—
Kill him, the voices snarl. Harry can’t tell which is his dad and which is the Goblin any more. They’ve morphed into one. The Goblin has two faces now.
Harry says nothing.
Harry just goes over to the desk and picks up a syringe of Goblin serum, weighs it in his palm, then jams the needle into his arm.
He feels the liquid rush into his veins, feels the weight of two sets of narrowed eyes, hears the sound of distant, ringing laughter.
—
Kill him.
Harry takes out another syringe.
—
Harry paces and paces and paces, and the serum sings in his veins and the laughter rings in his head. His feet pound against the metal floor of the lab.
Avenge me, Goblin demands.
Harry wants to tell him no.
You’re weak, the Goblin taunts. Do what needs to be done.
What needs to be done? Harry doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. Harry has always known what he wanted—he just knew he couldn’t have it. And now he doesn’t know what he wants, and it’s killing him.
The dream had warped and changed, but it had always been there.
He’d dreamed of home and of having a dad who would always be there for him.
He’d planned to get even, to show his dad he couldn’t be pushed around or sent away.
He’d wished for a time when his dad would appreciate him for him. Imagined a future together with Mary Jane. Wanted to keep being best friends with Peter.
Needed to make his dad proud, even if only in death, needed to prove himself, needed to get revenge, needed to kill Spiderman.
Hoped that maybe not everything in his life had to fall apart and shatter, that even if his dreams had died and his dad was gone and his life was in ruins, at least Peter would be someone he could depend on, someone who would always be in his corner.
Kill him! Goblin thunders.
Harry roars and sweeps out a hand, knocking the vials off of the table in front of him, and they fall to the floor.
Harry stands among the jagged shards of his sanity, fingers digging deep into his scalp, struggling to breathe, and wonders—
When did the dream become the nightmare?