Chapter 1
Harry sits in the room alone, not moving except that he’s shaking all over (his hands with tremors, the rest of him with a fucked up bitter cocktail of fear and anger and hopelessness), and though he’s still got his eyes pointed out the open window, he’s not really focusing on anything, so it’s all just a trembling blur of shapes that might be clouds and buildings and cars filled with more people who aren’t going to help him. The voice inside him that sounds too much like his father berates him for showing so much weakness, for freaking out instead of holding the high ground and just calmly telling Spiderman to get the fuck out if he wasn’t going to prove he was a real hero: Harry tells the voice to go curl up and die like the worthless asshole it so closely resembles.
What the hell reason is there left for him to be calm and reasonable? Facts are facts, and the way he sees it he has nothing and no one left in the world, if he even had anything to begin with, and he owes no one anything. He spent his entire childhood, his entire life so far, the last ten years, not really living, and now he’s dying, so what’s the fucking point? His best hope just literally jumped out the window and left him behind alone. Friends betray you. Heroes only save you for the camera.
Harry doesn’t close the window and doesn’t get up, he just sinks deeper back into his sofa and tries to make his hands stop shaking while his mind runs a mile a minute, desperately grasping for a plan b. He’s dying, falling, and he knows he’s going to hit the bottom sooner or later, but there’s no way he’s going to just accept that, even if his constant struggling to find things to hold onto just bruises his fingers and tears them down with him.
It’s as hopeless as he’s ever been, but he’s nothing if not desperate and irrational, and there’s one place he has left to check before he self destructs. He sucks in a breath so deep it stings his lungs and makes him feel even more tired than he did before, but he ignores it like he’s always used to and draws himself out of the chair and up onto his feet again, running a hand through his hair, taking a moment to get his bearings as a rush of dizziness hits him before heading for the door. The light breeze outside makes him realize that he’s forgotten his coat, but he doesn’t go back for it, just shoves his hands into his pockets and keeps his head down to avoid eye contact with anyone he passes, and starts walking. He’ll call a car at some point, to get him to Oscorp, but for now he just needs to walk while he still can, and it’s a stupid cliché, but the chill makes him feel just a little more alive, and he’s not quite ready to let that go.
―
Her heart is hammering so loudly that she’s pretty sure both of her interviewers can hear it, and, it feels, however medically implausible, like it’s about to beat right out of her damned chest if she has to stay and answer any more questions. This is a big deal though, probably the biggest deal basically in her life so far ever, way bigger than even being valedictorian or finding out her boyfriend is a superhero or even her dad dying or, well, this is her whole life ahead of her, this is everything, so she manages through some miracle to hold it together until they finally let her go. Gwen thanks them three or four times, wincing slightly because she knows she’s overdoing it, though she’s pretty confident that her social skills, however currently flagging, are still better than any fourteen year old kids ought to be. She’s got this. She’ll get this, and she’ll go and… her and Peter will sort things out however they sort them out. She’s bigger than her high school boyfriend, even if he is Spiderman, and even if he is Peter, and they’ll get through this, so long as she manages to keep it together and remember how to breathe until she can get somewhere and call him to talk about it, anyway.
She gets out the door and onto the sidewalk, deep breaths and wordless reminders to not let her heart run away without her head on this one: no matter how good the chance is, it is still just a chance, she has got to remember that. She’ll just walk to the station and then she’ll take the subway home and she’ll get somewhere quiet and remember how to breathe and she’ll wait for them to call her back and then she’ll call Peter and soon things won’t be so complicated. Soon, things will be… things. Things will be things. She wants to say perfect, but she knows that’s impractical. Young love is like that, though, in addition to being exhausting and ridiculous and incredible.
Gwen thinks about Peter stumbling over himself in there, before the interview, and laughs softly to herself, looking down at her toes, but her head getting closer to the clouds as she let’s herself wander off in daydreams and heart flutters. So she’ll be in England - maybe - and he’ll be here, but why is that the end of the world? They’ve been on the rocks but that doesn’t mean anything if he’ll just start listening to her already, and it’s not like long distance is even that hard anymore really. He’ll risk his life to send her snapchats from the midst of a standoff with some criminal and she’ll reply with concerned captions over the tops of Oxford Tower and flowers on the green or whatever; they can find times to set aside in both of their schedules for Skype dates and watching movies over stream together or whatever. And she’ll be home for visits and he can come visit her too, maybe, at least once or twice anyway. They’ll be together again if they can just get through this, and of course she’s being overly optimistic and way too in love to be rational, but she honestly thinks they’ve got a good shot. They’ll talk it over, anyway, and besides, nothing’s a guarantee yet.
She’s lost in her thoughts, barely gone a block and a half, when she walks straight into someone else who isn’t paying attention to where they’re going, sending her armful of folders and books onto the pavement, and the other guy down after them.
“Fucking shit,” he swears, recoiling, a hand to his neck, and Gwen just thinks Oh hell, I’m going to wind up banned from Oxford for almost killing some guy, though that doesn’t really make any sense, and even though he’s clearly fine. Well, fine is relative, but he’s not dead or like, bleeding, and he doesn’t seem to have broken anything, so she’s probably fine. He’s probably fine, you know. Basically.
Gwen reaches out to offer him a hand up, pulling him back to his feet and apologizing, “Shit, dude, I am so, so unbelievably sorry, I just, wow, it’s been a really big day, so I'm a little head in the clouds, I guess, and -“ she freezes as the guy gets steady and meets her eye, his unsmiling, strained face all too familiar. She drops his hand almost too quickly. “Uh, hey Har - uh. Mr. Osborn. Hi. Nice to see you again so soon?” She winces and bites her tongue before she stumbles over it any more.
Harry’s sort of scowling but he doesn’t really sound particularly mad when he says, “Gwen. It’s fine, it's not like I was looking where I was going either,” so she figures maybe that’s just how his face always looks. I mean, she’s seen pictures of him smiling in magazines but like, everyone smiles in magazines, that’s kind of the point. She always thought he looked out of place in those pictures, anyway, but it’s not like she really knows the guy, so what does she know?
“Were you,” Harry starts, stops, frowns down at one of Gwen's folders, which he'd picked up before she had a chance to and hasn't given back yet. “Oxford, huh? Impressive. I thought about Oxford,” he adds in this obnoxiously flippant way like he's talking about breakfast cereal options and not incredibly exclusive esteemed higher learning establishments, “but my old man was pretty adamant about wanting me to go to a good old American school, for some reason. Probably something about investors, really. It definitely wasn't about wanting me closer to home, anyway.”
Gwen isn't sure how to respond to that second part, so instead she goes for sort of nervously laughing and telling him, “Well, you know, I'm not quite in yet, not officially,” she shuffles her folders around to get a better hold on them, but sort of regrets it, because now she's just standing here like a schoolgirl with her papers folded in her arms and her pleated skirt, and she feels even more out of place talking with Harry, who looks equal parts terrible and amazing. She guesses that's probably cultivated, though she doesn't really see the appeal personally of looking half dead all the time. On the other hand, it might not be a look. Harry's voice and face are deadpan with an aftertaste of stress, like he's just not used to having to work this hard to hold himself together: Gwen is pretty good at reading people, and the story she's reading on Harry Osborn isn't looking too great. “Look, I know it's not really my place,” she says, half because he's Peter's friend, and half because she is fundamentally incapable of not reaching out to people who look like they might need reaching out to, “but... are you absolutely sure you're okay?”
Harry's lips tighten into a thin, strained line, and for a second she's sure he's just going to walk away without another word, but he doesn't. Instead, he avoids her warm gaze like it's burning him, and shrugs. “Honestly, Gwen Stacy,” he says, smiling one of those tabloid smiles as he says her whole name like he's weighing it in his mouth to see if she's worth his answer, “you're one of the only people who's ever bothered to ask that twice. My father just died, and it's the best thing that's happened to me since I was fifteen.” He hesitates, just for a moment, like there's another item he decides to leave off the list, before he asks, soft and bitter, “How okay do you think I am?”
“Well, Mr. Osborn,” she begins, and he cuts her off.
“Please, Harry's fine. You're not one of those ancient weasels who work for me. From you, Mr. Osborn just makes me feel a little too much like my father.”
Gwen nods, trying not to feel too stung by the acid in half the things he says. “Well,” she tries again, “Harry,” he smiles, and it's a little less forced this time, or maybe that's just wishful thinking, but either way, it's something, “I guess your day probably has kind of sucked. Maybe the whole week, even. I know mine hasn't been a picnic, but my dad, well,” she hesitates, breathes, keeps going, “my dad's been dead a little longer, so I guess my problems this week haven't been on par with yours?”
“You loved your father?” Harry asks, though he doesn't really say it like a question.
Gwen nods again. “Yeah. He was the best dad I could have ever asked for.”
Harry laughs, this just one little sort of coughing burst that he bites back and swallows like bitter medicine. “Yeah, well. Mine wasn't.” He doesn't say anything else, and Gwen draws her coat tighter around her even though she's feeling a little too warm. She figures he must have been different when him and Peter were different, because honestly she's not too sure how anyone could spend a lot of time around someone who makes it so obvious that they don't want anyone anywhere near them.
Her phone rings as she's trying to figure out what you even say to that, I mean, this is Harry Osborn, he's Peter's childhood best friend, and he's a billionaire, and he's her boss, and as it turns out he is also just incredibly hard to talk to for a bunch of reasons even beyond those ones, and she hopes she doesn't seem too relieved for the excuse to cast him an apologetic look and spend a minute reassuring her mother that yes, she's on her way home and yes, the interview went fine. The call doesn't last more than a few minutes, but Harry stays on the sidewalk with her, unmoving except for his constant slight tremors.
The call ends and Gwen hangs up, slides her phone back into her pocket, readjusts her folders and books. “I should probably get to the station,” she tells Harry. “Mom's expecting me home soon and I promised Peter I'd call.”
“By all means,” Harry responds, absently moving a lightly trembling hand to the side of his neck. “Don't keep your loved ones waiting on my account,” he says, which should be a soft sentiment, but the way he says the words 'loved ones' make them sound like profanity on the lips of an priest.
“Yeah,” Gwen says, “of course.” She starts to take a step, then stops, and meets Harry's sleepless eyes with an expression so earnest that he breaks eye contact with her almost immediately, like her tenderness is made of lasers or something. “Peter cares, just so you know that. I don't know everything that's going on with you, or the two of you, but I know he really loves you, and he wants to do everything he can to make sure you get through, uh,” she hesitates, careful not to let on how much she knows, not wanting Harry to feel that Peter had betrayed his trust, “this. And I trust that Peter cares about things that deserve to be cared about, so anyway, I'm on your side too. You don't have to be alone if you don't want to be.”
“You should go,” Harry tells her stiffly. “Wouldn't want to miss your train.”
Gwen bites her lip. “It's New York City. There's an infinite supply of trains,” she replies, but she goes anyway. “I'll see you later maybe,” she says, not pushing her luck with too much a hopeful tone, and turns to leave before they can manage to find a way to make this conversation any more awkward.
“Maybe,” Harry agrees softly, more to himself than to her, she suspects, and Gwen picks up her pace to the station, suddenly incredibly aware of how eager she is to put distance between the two of them. She still isn't sure how Peter can stand to be around him for any length of time, but she's starting to get a bit of why he might just ignore that feeling out of the sheer magnetism of the guy. He's like a black hole, she thinks. You can't help but be drawn in.