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"I've been thinking about visiting Harry in Ravencroft, do you think that's a good idea?"
Peter looked from Gwen's gravestone up into the cloudless blue sky and sighed quietly, "I know it probably isn't but…ever since everything happened in the other Peter's universe, I just…I can't stop thinking about him."
Meeting the other two Peters had changed him, and he could tell for himself that it was a good change, like there was an enormous weight finally lifted from his shoulders, a weight that, in the past, had prevented him from seeing more than the loss of Gwen, the failure in catching her, in himself.
He placed a fresh bouquet of flowers in the vase next to her name, although he felt better about himself, he still visited her grave almost every day and took care of it while talking to her, it was like a calming ritual for him at this point, and it helped him before facing difficult choices that had to be made, choices like this one.
"I'll visit him…I think you'd want that too, eh?" A sad smile formed itself on his lips but changed slowly into a more hopeful one, "I think Peter 2 would want that too."
And so it happened the very next day, and although Peter had told himself that he could do it, that he was amazing enough to do it no problem, he now felt his stomach twisting and turning while following a young female doctor through the barely lit corridors of the Ravencroft Institute.
"I was surprised at first, Harry doesn't get many visitors and reacts aggressively sometimes, depending on who visits him…are you a friend of his?" The doctor asked, pulling the young adult out of his slowly growing negative thoughts.
"I-" He gnawed on his lower lip, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket as he shrugged, "I dunno what I am for him…it's complicated."
"I see…lots of complicated relationships."
Peter didn't know how to respond to that, now staring down at the dirty white tips of his sneakers while a door got unlocked for them, "Harry, you got a visitor, I'll leave you two alone then and see you in the group meeting after lunch."
And there it was, the moment Peter had dreaded so badly, the moment that made his already aching guts shrink down another size as the oxygen seemed to be stuck alongside his voice within his throat.
C'mon Peter! You can do it!
His eyes slowly moved up from the ground and met another pair of sickly, tired looking ice-blue ones.
Peter didn't know what or whom he expected to see, but there he was, ash-blonde hair falling in frizzy long strands over his pale face and ending just above his shoulders, dark shadows under his eyes told stories of countless insomnia-driven nights, sharp canines were nervously gnawing on lips crusted with dried blood, the pointy ears and scratched open patches of dry skin that looked like it was rotting away slowly told about both, his genetic disease and DIY spider-venom cure.
Despite the thick wall of armored glass between them, felt both a cold shiver running down their spines, only Harry made it much more obvious that there was a massive shift in emotions going on inside his mind, tilting his head slightly and starting to rock back and forth on his chair, he put the book he was currently reading aside and went into a crouching, goblin-like position, as if he was ready to attack or run away if necessary.
It was like seeing a ghost…
His long, claw-like fingernails started nervously tapping against the chair beneath him, "You…" His voice…it was the voice of a broken soul, broken and left alone in the dark, slowly rotting away and being torn apart by his own thoughts, it almost made Peter tear up, but he swallowed it, trying his best to stay strong, to stay hopeful.
"...you came back…why?"
"Because I wanted to see you…see how you're doing…" He swallowed another wave of bitter, honest emotions, because that wasn't just Gwen's killer anymore, it was still Harry, and he finally saw that again, and it hurt, it hurt so badly, "Harry listen, I'm-"
"DON'T!" Harry's voice cut through the cold air like a knife, but those eyes, those eyes colder than ice and deeper than the deep blue sea, didn't mirror any anger against Peter, no, they mirrored nothing but misery and self hate.
"I know it's rude to interrupt you like that Pete, I know, but don't you dare say that you're sorry or that you forgive me or any bullshit like that, all you did was go through the five stages okay? It's not about me, so please…"
"The five stages?" Peter asked bewildered, now finally also taking a seat on the chair in his side of the room.
"The five stages of grief…I read about it, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance." Harry sighed quietly, two of his fingers now playing with the frizzly strands of hair that were brushing against his pale cheeks, "You just finally accepted what happened, that's all. Listen, if you were going to say sorry, say sorry to yourself, because that's what your brain was doing, forgiving yourself…not me, I-I still killed-"
"In what stage of grief are you?" Peter interrupted him, he didn't want to hear Harry say it, he already sounded broken enough on his own without stating what made them both fall apart and drift away from each other so badly.
"What stage?" A dry chuckle left Harry's mouth as he got up from his chair, "I'm stuck on a merry-go-round of denial, anger, bargaining and depression, Peter, I have no clue what life-changing event you went through but there's no reason for me to accept what happened or to forgive myself."
Tears fell down onto the concrete floor as he started pacing back and forth, Harry tried so badly to overplay it with his usual sass, but it was an already lost battle.
"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
- T S Eliot."
He monologued quietly to himself while furiously drying off his tears with the long sleeves of his sweatshirt, all while Peter just listened to him, completely in awe, he whispered, "That was beautiful."
Hearing that made Harry stop dead in his tracks and snort quietly, "Shut up Pete." He sniffled quietly before turning around, a sad smile grew on both of their faces.
"That merry-go-round of yours…is there a way to make it stop doing its rounds?" Peter asked, his voice now quiet, as if he was afraid of driving Harry away again, like a timid animal he'd spot near a forest in the morning hours.
"I don't think so…" Harry went back onto the goblin-like crouching position on his chair slowly rocking back and forth, "You were all I had left in this world…and I lost you."
"But I'm back n-"
"NO!" He barked, the tears in his tired eyes sparkling in the cold LED lights like pearls, "DON'T YOU GET IT PETER I-" The anger in his voice turned into sobbing, into just another hollywood-worthy heartbreak, into something tragic, it could really only happen to someone with the Osborn name, "I LOVED YOU! I ALWAYS LOVED YOU! I SHOULD'VE BEEN STRONGER THAN THIS! I SHOULD'VE LISTENED TO YOU! BUT I WAS SO ANGRY AND-"
Harry leaped from his chair against the glass, fists banging against it, "LOOK AT ME PETER! I'M A MONSTER! I KILLED THE GIRL YOU LOVED IN COLD BLOOD! NOBODY WHO TRULY LOVES SOMEONE WOULD DO THAT! SO WHY-" The tears were rolling down his pale cheeks in angry streams, all of that anger held against himself, tearing him apart from the insides as he slowly fell onto his knees, hands still on the glass, "Why would you ever forgive me…why would you ever come back for me…why why why?!"
"Because everyone deserves a second chance, Harry." Peter got up from his chair, "Yes, I lost Gwen, and it tore me apart, it still hurts and it'll never stop hurting…but you're still here Harry, and I'm still here too."
The young adult sat down on the concrete floor in front of the glass wall and carefully placed his hand directly on top of Harrys'.
"You didn't lose me Harry…and I…I hope I didn't lose you either yet, I'm sorry…for being such an idiot and so damn complicated."
Perhaps it was the spider-venom rushing through both of their bodies or just his imagination but Harry could feel Peter's warmth through the thick glass, he smiled weakly without moving his hands away, "I mean you're Peter Parker…things are always complicated with you I guess."
"I missed you Harry…"
"Everything's dark and I feel cold,
Because my sunshine went away.
I hope and wish that my sunshine finds a way back home to me.
And once the darkness goes away, I'll tell my sunshine, that life's not the same…when he's away."
"Who's that from?" Peter asked softly.
"It's from me…my brain's nothing but a mess of sticky notes full of gay poetry, sorry Pete." Harry leaned his forehead against the cold glass.
"Maybe…you can read it to me sometimes?" Peter did the same and Harry smiled, it was a soft and honest smile, one that made Peter's heart flutter, one that slowly healed more of the cracks in it.
"I guess I can do that, yeah…"