what have they done to us?

Childhood

Harry Osborn knew there were 4 absolute truths in the universe. 

The first came from one of his oldest memories. He was just around 6 years old, back when he still went by his father's name, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't going to be home schooled. There had been an argument about it between his parents. He'd tried not to listen in through his bedroom door but it was hard not too. Not when his father was shouting. 

"There's no reason to send him away, Emily! He's perfectly fine here!" His mother didn't agree. 

"He needs to be around children his own age! You can't just keep hiring tutors!"

"He's got us! What more done he need?"

"But he doesn't have us! You're never here because you're always off fucking any girl who looks your way-"

"Emily-"

"Don't you dare, Norman. Don't insult my intelligence. I don't even know why I'm still here!"

"So leave! You crazy bitch, just leave! He doesn't need you!"

"And he needs you? You're a crazy, unstable man-child who whines and blames everyone around you when things don't go your way. You're pathetic, Norman."

Harry didn't see what happened next but he heard it. He heard the SMACK loud and clear and his mothers cry of pain. Then... nothing. Nothing but light sobbing. 

He heard the voices start again, softer, but still audible. 

"Emily? Emily, I'm so- I didn't mean to-" His mothers voice cut him off, harsh but shaky. 

"Save it."

"I-I'll send him to a day care, Emily. I'll fire all the tutors. Anything, just please forgive-"

"Forgive you?" His mother laughed, a crazy, hysterical laugh. "It's too late for that."

Harry didn't remember anything else from that night, only that the argument had started up again. Hours, later his mother came into his room, her eyes red from crying, and she sat on the bed next to him. 

"Harry, you know I love you, right?" Harry nodded but didn't speak. 

"Whatever happens, you have to remember that."

"Mom?" Emily looked away from him and all Harry could remember was how she flinched when she looked at him and how much he hated that he looked just like his father. 

"I'm sorry, baby." She got up from the bed and hurried to the door. She turned to look at him one last time. 

"Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, mom." She turned her head and walked out the door. 

That was the last time Harry ever saw Emily Lyman. That was when Harry learnt the first absolute truth of the universe. 

Everyone leaves. 

--{🎃}--

Months later, his father drove him to the day care. Harry didn't know why. Maybe he felt guilty. It was hard to tell. His father hadn't spoken more than a few sentences to him since his mother had left. 

He dropped him off without so much as a word. The day care staff took him to a room filled with other kids. Kids he didn't know. 

He tried approaching some of them but they wouldn't have any thing to do with them. They conveniently always had just enough players for their game. Harry would just overcrowd them. 

He knew they were lying. He didn't care. He was sure of it. It's not like they'd stay anyways. 

Everyone leaves. 

So why was it so hard for him when he saw them welcome the other kids with open arms? Why did it hurt so much when he saw them having fun together, knowing he couldn't join them? 

He tried not to think on it too much and kept to himself. He got out a piece of paper and a pencil and started drawing. There was no direction. No object to model. Just random shapes and the feel of the graphite pencil sliding over the sheet of paper. 

It stayed like that for a while until one kid came over to him, pointed at a random scribble he'd done a while ago and told him that it looked like a spider web. 

Harry looked up at kid, only a little bit younger than him, and scoffed. 

"It's not a spider-web. It's- it's-" He struggled to remember the word. "Gah!" He hit his fist on the table. Why couldn't he remember?

"Abstract?" The boy replied. Harry blinked in surprise. How did he know that?  

"My mom's got one of them hanging in her living room." He said. "She called it a Pikachu or something. It looks nothing like a Pikachu." The boy crossed his arm and huffed, like the fact that there wasn't an actual Pikachu in his living room was a personal affront to him. 

"You mean a Picasso?" 

"Yeah! A Pikachu!" Harry laughed which surprised him because he hadn't laughed in a long time. Long before his mother had left. 

"I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker." Peter offered his hand to Harry. He looked at it and all he could think of was his first absolute truth. 

Everyone leaves. 

But does he have to care? 

Just this once, he tells himself. 

Just this once, I'll pretend it's permanent.

He took Peter's hand and shook it. 

"Nice to meet you Pete. I'm Harry."

Years later, when him and Peter were in high school, Peter's academic decathlon team went to Washington DC for an interstate competition. 

Of course, with Peter on the team, it was impossible for them not to come first. For a guy like Peter Parker, who was normally the social pariah of Midtown High, the following few weeks were different. People didn't leave the lunch table when he sat down with them anymore and if Eugene 'Flash' Thompson had miraculously stopped shoving Peter into a gym locker then, well that was no-one's business. 

Some time after that, it was announced that the whole AcaDec team would get a chance to attend a Genetics in Robotics exhibit at Oscorp. Peter had been uninterested until he learnt the centrepiece of the event was the Isotope Genome Accelerator, donated graciously by Empire State University. 

Peter's dad had worked on the IGA and that made all the difference.  

He always said to people that the exhibit had changed his life. Many people brushed it off, thinking that it just made Peter want to follow in his father's footsteps. Be the next great name in science next to all time legends like Albert Einstein, Nicola Tesla and Bruce Banner. 

Harry knew otherwise. The IGA was a DNA splicing machine, capable of splitting and fusing genetic codes. It could fuse a lizard to a mouse, an octopus to a squid, or a spider to a man. 

One week later, the Amazing Spider-Man became a wrestling sensation. One week later, a corner store thief slipped through the law's fingers. One week later, Spider-Man looked the other way. 

One week later... 

This was when Harry found his second absolute truth. The universe loves to see Peter Parker suffer but Harry... Harry refuses the universe this time. 

He vowed that he would be the best friend possible to make a grieving boy's life just a little bit brighter. After all, this was someone who spent his life giving the world just a little bit more hope. Making the neighbourhood just a little bit more friendly. 

What kind of person would Harry be if he didn't give some of that kindness back? 

--{🎃}--

Growing Up

The third absolute truth did not come to him in some big event in his life, nor some large sacrifice. 

It was a quiet moment. Harry doubts anyone else even remembers it. 

He was a few months into college. Peter was there, a miracle considering he was always out 'tutoring' but even Spider-Man needed an education. Harry covered for him, not that Peter realized. He still thought he was good at keeping secrets. Added onto the fact that Peter had started seeing Gwen Stacy, Harry was pretty alone. 

He didn't hold a thing against Peter. It had been a long time since Harry had seen Peter this happy and he'd be a shitty friend if he'd tried to take it away from him but it gave Harry a lot more time to himself. 

He spent most of his free time (whenever he wasn't studying business) wandering the campus and exploring. One day, he goes out of his normal path. He doesn't stick to the campus. 

It's one of the best things he's ever done. 

He found a small café, simply called 'The Coffee Bean'. It's quaint, filled with a rich aroma that smells so good that Harry just can't help himself. He buys a coffee one day. Then the next. Then the next. He becomes a regular. The staff know him by name. When he walks in, his order's ready for him, still hot but not so much that it burns his tongue and as he takes the coffee cup from the barista, he can't help but feel like this coffee shop is more of a home than he ever had when he lived with Norman Osborn. 

A few months later, Flash Thompson walks into the café. He's tired, which makes sense considering there's just been a big game, but he's not excited. Harry wonders why. ESU won the match. Flash got the winning touchdown. So why did he look so down?

Harry thinks he should just leave it. What has Flash ever done for him anyways? Not to mention how he used to treat Peter in high school. 

But something about Flash just feels so familiar. The way he held his shoulders. The way he hunched his back. The way he avoided everyone's eyes. Harry's stomach sinks. 

Memories flash through his head. 

So leave! You crazy bitch, just leave! 

Forgive you? It's too late for that.

Harry, you know I love you, right?

I'm sorry, baby.

Goodnight, Harry.

He sighs. 

"Please, Flash, don't make me regret this." He mutters to himself. He gets up from his corner, gesturing to the staff to let them know he's not leaving just yet, he's just getting up for a bit, and he goes over to Flash. 

"Mind if I sit here?" Flash looks up, a tired look in his eyes. He doesn't like Harry and the feeling's mutual but Harry doesn't leave and Flash is too tired to argue. 

"You feeling okay?" Flash scoffs. 

"That obvious?" Harry nods. 

"Well you're sitting in this, admittedly very nice coffee shop, instead of the victory party that people are hosting for you."

"It's for the team, not me. Football's a group sport, Osborn." Harry shrugs. 

"You did score the winning touchdown." Flash shifts uncomfortably. 

Harry frowns. If there's one thing he knows about Flash Thompson, it's the fact that he loves his own achievements. You couldn't go one week in Midtown without hearing about Football Hero Flash Thompson's new trophy. 

"Does it matter?" Harry blinks. He did not expect that. 

"Does what matter? That you scored the win? I mean, yeah, without you ESU would have lost that match hard." Flash shakes his head. 

"Not the win. I'm-" He pauses. "I meant football. Is it worth it?"

"What do you mean? Football's your life!"

"So what does that say about me?" Flash cries out. "My life is me throwing a fucking ball around for a few more years before I get too old and have to sit back and do nothing of any fucking value! You're all set with Oscorp in your future, Gwen's got big names just lining up to hire her and we all know Parker's a fucking genius and could do anything he sets his mind to, so where does that leave me?" 

Harry sat, stunned. He'd known Flash for years but he'd never seen this side to him. All he really knew was him and Peter used to be friends once and they had a falling out. Some time later, they met up again in Midtown and Flash started shoving him around. 

A buzz came from Flash's pocket. His phone. He took it out and saw an incoming phone call. Harry couldn't see much, not that he was trying to, but he read the name, Harrison Thompson. 

A brother maybe? 

Flash's finger hovered over the decline button for a second before pressing down. 

"Just my father. I can talk to him later."

"You save your father as his full name?" Flash narrows his eyes. 

"So what, Osborn?" Harry can't help but smile, a soft smile, yet sad. He knows what that means. 

"Nothing. It's just... I do the same thing." Harry pauses, trying to decide whether to confide or not. 

"I've not got the best relationship with my dad." He confesses. "Nothing I do ever seems to be enough for him. Top of the class isn't a thing to celebrate, he says. It's just a thing that should be. If it isn't I'm not good enough." Harry scoffs. "As if that's possible with people like Gwen and Pete around."

Flash stays quiet for a bit but Harry knows that he understands. This wasn't just Harry airing out his family's dirty laundry. It was an olive branch. 

They talk for a few hours. Harry tells him about the time he and Peter snuck out of school to go skateboarding. Flash calls Harry out on his bluff, not believing that 'Perfect Parker' would ever want to skateboard so Harry does the only sensible thing possible and provides video evidence. 

"That does not count as skateboarding!" Flash laughs. 

"Hey I never said we were good at it!" Harry replies. 

They keep this up for a few weeks. Slowly, Flash stops acting like the pig-headed idiot he tends to in public. 

He apologises to Peter, something which caught everyone off guard (except Harry) and he ends up joining their little group. 

Peter and Gwen start coming to the Coffee Bean with Flash and Harry which very quickly becomes their designated hang out spot. 

Sometime later, Peter introduces a new kid to the group. Mary Jane Watson. She's his neighbour's niece, he tells them, who's one year younger than the rest of them but rowdier than all of them combined. Apparently Pete got saddled with her because her aunt was out of town and May offered to stay with her for a bit, forgetting that she'd be in the hospital for a check up. 

Peter, being the good Samaritan he is, offered to keep her company. She joins the four of them and somehow she fits in perfectly. 

The five of them make up the perfect dysfunctional group of friends and to Harry, they're the closest thing to family he's had in a long time. 

They aren't perfect. They're hurt and damaged and scared. 

Flash is like him. Too much like him but he stays happy. He stays upbeat. 

Gwen hasn't experienced loss, not to the extent that the rest of them have but she knows. Harry knows she knows about Peter and his powers. He knows that every time Spider-Man is on television, she isn't thinking how cool he looks. She's thinking like Harry. What if he gets injured? What if his identity is revealed? What if he doesn't come home? What if? 

He doesn't know as much about MJ but he knows something happened to her. The way her smile drops when she thinks no-one is looking. The way her posture falls and she closes in on herself when someone raises a hand. 

He asks Peter about it one day but he just looks sad and says he can't say. 

Peter. 

He's lost so much. His mother and father taken by a plane crash, his uncle taken by the bad choices of a corner store robber on an off day and his childhood stolen by the bite of a spider, yet somehow he keeps smiling. 

Harry asks him how he manages. He asks him how he keeps smiling. 

"It's hard." Peter admits. "But it's necessary. Loss is a part of life. Knowing that someone isn't part of yours anymore hurts. Sometimes, you just look at life and think, can I risk it? If I keep on living, who else is going to die?" 

He goes quiet for a bit. "But then I remember what my Aunt May told me after Ben died. 'It's not risk', she said. 'It's hope'. If we don't keep smiling when everyone else can't, then we might as well be gone too."

It is then, sitting around a coffee table with Gwen and MJ and Flash and Peter that Harry realises his 3rd absolute truth. 

Life is scary. It takes and it takes and it takes but sometimes...

Sometimes it gives. 

--{🎃}--

Turning Point

It only takes a year for it all to fall apart. 

This moment wasn't like the 3rd truth. It wasn't quiet. He remembers exactly when it happened. 

He remembers everything. 

"You're hopeless." His father told him one night. The grimace on his face has become a default for him whenever he talks to Harry these days. "I've recently received a call from your professor. She says that you've been failing your classes." Harry knows. He's tired but he doesn't really care much anymore. About anything. All that matters to him is the happiness he feels when he's with his friends. They make it all better. 

"Rest assured," Norman continued. "If this continues? There won't be anyone who can save you from what I will do. No thunder god will come down from the sky. No metal men will swoop in to be your saviour. No Spider-Man to lift you from the wreckage when you're down. You will be alone and afraid."

Harry shrugs it off at first, this isn't the first time his father has threatened him, but something about him has changed. He's been acting... different. Harry can't put his finger on exactly what it is. Is it the random mood swings he's been having? The aggressive twitch of his fingers when someone tries to disagree with him? Is it the mad glint in his eye? 

He's more hunched over, like a gargoyle, Harry realises, despite having berated Harry for the same thing for years. 

Harry decides to ignore this interaction. His father has always been on the eccentric side. This was just a one time thing, right?

He walks away and doesn't notice his father standing up. He doesn't notice the look on his face that is distinctly no longer Norman. 

What he does notice is that the giant poster of his father has been swapped out for some other painting. 

"Where'd the self portrait go?" he asks. His father turns to the painting and smiles. It's not a normal smile, but more grotesque and unnaturally wide. His father has never looked like that. 

"What do you mean? It's right there, my son. It's right there."

4 days passed and he didn't think much about that interaction. He should have. 

4 days ago, the Green Goblin was defeated by Spider-Man in a brawl in Central Park. He managed to escape but his pride was wounded. In all their battles before, he's never been humiliated to this level so this time, he wants revenge. 

Last night, on the 13th of March, Gwen Stacy was taken from her room. Spider-Man chased the Goblin and found him on Brooklyn Bridge. 

That night was their turning point. 

That night, Spider-Man killed the Green Goblin. 

That night, Harry went back to his father's office and looked at the painting. 'The Great Goblin' by Justin Gerard. 

That night, Captain Jean DeWolff took off the Goblins mask and the world saw Norman Osborn's corpse, laughing till the end. The blades of his glider are embedded into his chest. 

That night was the night Gwen Stacy died and nothing was the same ever since. 

--{🎃}--

5 years. 

5 years since the death of Gwen Stacy and her spirit still haunts them all. 

MJ and Flash and Peter mourn her memory. 

Harry scoffs. Peter.

He doesn't deserve to honour her memory. He's seen the autopsy. He knows what Peter is. 

Cause of death: Broken neck. Whiplash. 

She was found, hanging from the bridge suspended by a single strand of a spider web. Next to her body were the bloodied remains of Norman Osborn, his glider buried in his chest. 

Spider-Man killed the Green Goblin and he killed Gwen too. 

Murderer.

Harry looks at the Justin Gerard hanging in his fathers office and he prises it open. He'd long ago found the room behind it. It had taken him years but he'd finally unearthed the lair of the Goblin. 

The sins of the father...

Harry sees the mask of the goblin next to vials of thick green liquid, calling to him. 

...shall be visited upon the son.

That day, when Peter came to him and told him about his fathers death and couldn't even bother to tell him the truth that Harry knew, he found out his 4th absolute truth. Friendship is a weakness. You are always alone. 

He knows what he must do. 

--{🎃}--

Darkness

Harry knows Peter is different now. Years of being the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man have taken their toll and he's wondering how much of the Friendly Neighbourhood is still in there. 

The suit has changed too over the years. Gone are the days of a red and blue hero. He's darker now. He's a murderer and he knows it. 

Harry had decided to make some changes too. The Spider had evolved so the Goblin would have to as well. The Green Goblin was old news, Harry thought as he looked at his black and gold suit. 

It was time for the reign of the Black Goblin. 

Harry watches the black and white blur swing onto the bridge. The same one where his father had perished. 

Every Valentines Day, without fail, Peter came here and left a rose for Gwen, like he wasn't the one who killed her. 

This year he found something else. Someone else. 

The mask hid his face, but they couldn't hide his emotions. Spider-Man saw a man in a Goblin mask standing on the sight of his greatest failure and his vision turned red. 

He launched himself at the Black Goblin, using his webs as a slingshot, but Harry had prepared for this. Peter's aim was true but Harry's forcefield, made from experimental Oscorp technology, was better. 

"Bad luck, Peter," he crooned, relishing in the confusion and horror that came over the Spider when he used his name. "But we won't be fighting today. It's not the right time. Our final battle needs to be on the perfect day. Next month, on the day you took everything from me, we will end this."

Harry can't see it, but he thinks Peter's eyes widen. Harry curses himself. He's said too much. Peter knows. 

As if to confirm Harry's fears, Peter calls out, softer than Harry's ever heard him speak "Harry?"

His voice wavers, shaking of betrayal. Harry's anger grows. How dare Peter think of him as the traitor. Not after what he did! 

"You killed my father, Peter, and I've let you get away with it for too long. I'll give you the month, and then... Then we finish this." Harry's glider swoops down from the sky and he leaps onto it. 

One month. 

One month till the anniversary of that day. 

It's symbolic. That's why he's given Peter time, he tells himself. 

It getting harder to believe it. 

--{🎃}--

The day arrives faster than Harry expected. He thought there would be more time. He waits on the bridge and tells himself he's doing the right thing. 

He's ridding the world of a murderer. 

He hears the THWIP of Spider-Man's web shooters and suddenly he's alert. Panic flashes through Harry's mind. 

Can he win this? Peter is experienced and most of all, he's strong. Stronger than people think he is. Harry's studied the footage, he knows how much Peter holds back. 

If he wanted, he could kill him. Just like his father. 

Does he want to die, Harry asks himself. He doesn't know the answer but it's too late to back down now. 

Spider-Man swings up to the bridge but he's not wearing the black suit, nor the red. He's just... Peter. 

"Harry," he begins, and Harry realises what he's doing. "You don't have to do this-"

"No!" Harry yells. "You won't do this to me! You're trying to guilt trip me and get me in close so you can kill me, like you did my father!" He lifts a sphere of golden metal and readies it to throw. His hand is shaking. "But it won't work."

"Harry, I don't want to kill you! You're my friend!"

"You were my best friend, Peter, and you betrayed me!" He steadies his hand and throws the bomb. Peter backflips in the air, dodging it and watches the golden explosive sail down into the water. 

"Harry, I didn't kill you're father! He-"

"Liar!" Harry throws another, but with only months of practise, he's sloppy and it misses its mark once again. 

Peter stands, perched on the edge of the bridge. The glider floats behind him, cloaked. Harry hits the thrusters. 

Hit him from behind, he thinks, but Peter senses it and flips into the air. The glider strikes nothing and keeps moving. 

He realises his mistake too late. He closes his eyes as he waits for the glider to come to him, for it's blades to slice into him, and he thinks, this is penance for the life he has lived. This is what he deserves. 

He waits. The blades never come. He opens his eyes and sees the glider, blades hanging inches from his torso. The thrusters are on full power but the glider isn't moving. He sees the web, stretches out over it and he sees Peter, hanging onto it. 

He... He's saved him. 

"Why?" Harry asks. Peter looks at him and his heart breaks. 

"You don't know? I'd never let you die. Not the same way he did." 

Harry's world stops. 

Not the same way he did

It's then when everything clicks into place for Harry. Peter's insistence that he hadn't killed his father. 

The mysterious stab wounds on his father's corpse that matched the blades on the goblin glider. 

Not the same way he did

"You didn't kill him." Harry whispered. The thrusters on the glider depower and it flops to the ground. 

"I was going to." Peter admitted, his voice even softer. "I wanted to, but I couldn't. I couldn't do that to you, Harry." 

"I tried to kill you."

"None of that matters, Harry. You're my best friend."

Harry falls to his knees, takes off his mask and let's himself cry. 5 years of his life, consumed by meaningless vengeance because he couldn't trust his best friend. 

It's here that he realises that his 4th truth is all wrong. Friendship isn't a weakness. It's a strength, one that Harry has neglected far too much. 

It's here that he realises that he would do anything for Peter, who has been more like family to him than his biological family ever were. 

"I'm so sorry, Harry." Peter says and all Harry wants to tell Peter is that he doesn't need to apologise. If anything, Harry should be the one to do so. He can't.  

Instead he just cries. 

--{🎃}--

Brand New Day

It's been 10 years and Harry is 34 years old. 

Life is different now, in almost ever way. He's married with a son. 

His name is Norman. Norman Osborn the Second. Harry had thought long and hard before giving him the name. 

It's the name of a killer, one part of himself said. 

It's the name of an Osborn, the other said. 

His father had tainted our legacy, the first part said. It's time we take it back. His father would become nothing but a footnote in the Osborn legacy. Normie would not rise up and bring them back to greatness. His father had tried that before. 

No. Normie would bring them back to goodness. Pure, before all else. 

He is a father. The thought makes him giddy but sometimes he doubts himself. 

What if he's like his dad? The idea of it terrifies him. He can't do to another kid what his dad did to him. 

There are days that he can't stop thinking about it but every time, almost like clockwork, he sees his son, playing with his friends or smiling about something and feels so grateful for him that he can't imagine hurting that little boy. 

What kind of messed up mind did his father have that made him like that? Harry no longer feels anger at Norman. Just... pity. 

He was a sad, pathetic man who met a sad, pathetic end. There was nothing more to it, except... that wasn't true. 

Norman Osborn wasn't an idiot. Anyone who'd met the man could say that with certainty. He knew very well that his one man crusade against a superhero could lead to him meeting his end. 

He was also a sore loser. Even in death, he'd left some presents. And now? 

They were about to wake up and everyone would suffer all the more for it. 

--{🎃}--

New York had been subject to an infinite number of battles and incursions. The Chitauri attack, the Battleworld Dome, the Klyntar Invasion and so many more. 

But now, the world had slowed down. For the first time in decades, it was quiet. The Avengers mission, to create peace in our time, was finished. 

But the malevolent forces of the world couldn't allow that. They needed their dark reign to continue but they knew they didn't have enough time. They just had one night, so they had to make it count. 

It was time for the Night of the Goblin. 

--{🎃}--

Harry had never seen terror like this. 

He had been there when the Carnage symbiotes had attacked and ravaged the city. The corpse of his father, laughing with the mind of Cletus Kassidy, chasing him to the ends of the earth. 

He had been there when the Chitauri attacked on a day unlike any other when Earth's Mightiest Heroes had banded together and fought off the alien threat. 

He had been there when the world was about to die and none of it was as horrifying as this because none of it had sprung from the mind of the cruellest source of horror in the world. 

The human mind. Specifically, his father's mind. Flying goblin robots terrorising the city. No plan, no direction. Just plain chaos. They seemed almost programmed to hurt, to torture. It made Harry sick. 

Whilst the Goblin Nation ravaged the city, Harry did something he'd vowed to never do again. He went to his father's office, to the painting behind his desk and opened it. The face of the Black Goblin lay hanging on the wall, taunting him. 

"Just this once." He told himself. "They need all the help they can get."

Within minutes, he was flying through the skies. He throws a pumpkin bomb and drops a ton of rubble of a gang of Goblin's who would have blasted a school bus. 

Another blast and he's saved a mother of three. 

Then a father. 

Then a sister. 

Then a son. 

He keeps going through the night and into the morning. He sees a building about to collapse and sees a woman in the window, screaming for help. 

He flies, faster than he ever went before and he thinks, this is who I am. 

Harry is great, not because of his father, or in spite of him, but because of Harry. 

He smiles. This is where he should be. 

Harry is broken from his thoughts when he sees Peter, swinging civilians to safety, out of the way of the Goblins but he doesn't see the gaggle of flying monsters above his head. Harry flies. 

The Goblins ready a barrage of attacks and Peter's spider-sense flips. He can't move out of the way in time, not without dropping the civilians and that's just not an option. 

Suddenly Harry flies in and he takes the blast. Peter screams but not as loudly as Harry. 

The Black Goblin falls. 

--{🎃}--

"H-Harry? I'm so sorry. I should have seen it faster. I should have moved quicker."

"Pete-" Harry coughs. It hurts to move his mouth. He can't see it but he knows his face is scarred beyond recognition. 

"Please- I'm so sorry." Peter sobs. 

"No!" Harry manages. "Don't blame yourself. I chose this."

"But I should have been faster-"

Harry begins to close his eyes as Peter pleads with him. He can't hear the words anymore but he knows Peter's asking him to stay. 

"None of that matters, Peter." Harry tells as he feels himself slipping. "You're my best friend." 

Harry Osborn sighs one last time. 

"My best friend..."