Chapter 2
That morning, It had been 205 days, 10 hours, and 38 minutes since Peter watched Harry’s coffin be lowered and covered with soil. A faint voice in the back of his mind keeps insisting that Harry hasn’t died. He sleeps, but he isn’t dead. He will wake up. He will wake up.
Peter knows he’s being delusional. That denial is the first of the stages of grief.
For the first nine days, Peter and MJ didn’t go more than 24 hours without seeing each other. For each of those nine days, Peter did not re-enter his run down apartment. He alternated between spending entire nights on patrol in the suit and sleeping in MJ’s apartment. They spent most meals together, not speaking but needing to be in the other's presence. To know nothing had happened to the other. To know they weren’t alone.
The first night on patrol after he died is rough, because the city is the same. Just as busy and unsleeping. There’s hum and bustle and lights, people rushing down streets and hailing cabs, and couples walking and laughing, hearts twined together through their woven together fingers. And it makes him angry despite himself. His entire world froze when the glider sliced through his chest. It hasn’t unfroze. And yet the city continues its constant movement, unstopping, uncaring that someone has died, someone that young. Uncaring that Peter’s heart now lies several miles away, beneath six feet of dirt.
Ten days after Harry Osborn was buried, Peter re-entered his apartment and feels the same pain and anger, because nothing is the same, Harry is dead. But the tiny studio apartment is unchanged, remaining the same as it has always been, run down and dirty, with paint chipping and suspicious stains in the ceiling and a door that sticks and a light too dim to truly banish shadow from the space. It almost looks about how he feels, broken and gutted and falling apart.
Twelve days after Harry Osborn was buried, he and MJ continue to spend every meal they can together. She goes to her auditions, he goes to her classes. They don’t spend the night at each other’s apartments as often, unless one is having a really awful night--why didn’t you get him help. Why weren’t you able to break free from venom faster.
You could have saved him.
Fifteen days after, Harry’s will is read. The two of them are the only people mentioned who are given more than that old trick of the dollar that prevents greedy family members from disputing. Peter can’t find it in himself to use that money for anything. It sits untouched, gathering dust in a bank account.
Twenty-one days after, Peter is given the staff job at the Bugle. He wishes he could feel any excitement, or happiness, but he still just feels hollow.
Twenty-eight days after, Peter receives a series of urgent texts from MJ to come to Harry’s grave. The voice in his head begins chiming in again, that he hasn’t died and he needs to be unearthed, Peter needs to save him, he’s going to wake up alone and trapped and Peter needs to save him. See? Even MJ knows he’s not really gone. But when he arrives, MJ sits beside the headstone, a variety of ready-to-plant flowers set in front of her, gardening tools in hand. They plant them together in front of his headstone, trading stories, and it doesn’t hurt to say his name as much as it once did.
When he goes out on patrol that night, it’s the first time in weeks the fact the city hasn’t frozen to mourn Harry doesn’t make him angry.
Forty-nine days after, the two of them have developed a habit in which MJ brings lunch for the both of them to share at Peter's campus after his morning classes. That day, he leaves the building chatting with a Gwen Stacy who’s agreed the disastrous date can be forgotten after they exchanged their apologies. The beginnings of a friendship have blossomed from the agreed upon lack of relationship.
When Gwen sees MJ waiting for Peter, she immediately begins apologizing all over again, nearly leaving out of fear of causing more problems. Before she can make her quick departure, MJ tells her she can make it up to her over dinner and leaves the blonde flushed and breathless.
Sixty-seven days after Harry was buried, Mary Jane begins visiting him on campus far more often--just as much to visit her girlfriend as to visit Peter.
One hundred and sixteen days after Harry was buried, Peter enters a coffee shop on a whim. He’d had a long and brutal night on patrol that has left his ribs bruised and his body thoroughly drained of energy and he has a day of classes ahead looking to be far less physically taxing but far more mentally.
So he orders a coffee with as many espresso shots the barista is willing to pump into it and looks up to see that the face who laughs at that request is one sharp cheekbones and honey brown eyes and dark curls, lit up by the glow of the sunrise through the windows.
He finds himself, from the moment he looks up until the moment he receives his overly caffeinated horror, staring at this guy.
“Good luck with this… thing. Try not to have a heart attack.”
He can’t form words in response for a moment, just laughs. “Thank-Thank you.”
Peter finds himself with a phone number on a receipt and a date next week. He also finds himself knowing full well that he’s doing this because the guy looked like Harry. Knowing full well this is too fast. Knowing full well that he’s using this guy to fill the hole in his chest that was left when he died.
The voice begins chiming in again. Harry’s not dead. Harry’s not dead. Take a shovel and haul yourself to his grave right now, dig and you’ll find him alive and waiting for you to save him.
He visits the grave, but instead of a shovel he carries a bouquet of roses and an apology. It feels like a betrayal.
One hundred and forty days after Harry was buried, Peter visits Harry’s grave with his new boyfriend choosing to tag along. It still feels like betraying him. And he tells himself that kissing once didn’t make Harry his boyfriend and that it doesn’t matter after what happened, as though the man standing beside him doesn’t have the same honey brown eyes as Harry.
The barista is named John. Not Jameson, but it still strikes him as almost ironic that apparently every rebound in the history of his friend group has been named John. And then Peter scolds himself for thinking that, because even if he’s not in denial of the fact that that’s more true than not, calling it that feels like dooming the relationship to ending up six feet under. Six feet under, right beside Harry’s decaying body. And it’s just easy to have things like this. He’s kind and funny and patient, more patient with Peter’s flakiness than anyone has ever been, and he listens to the trivia that constantly spills out of Peter’s mouth more intently than anyone has in a long time.
One hundred and fifty-three days after, MJ nails her callback for a tv show and has promotional material and interviews dragging her across the states regularly, frequently only back in New York for a couple weeks (at most) at the time, weeks that end up filled with hang outs and double dates and visits to the grave before she's swept away by the winds of success all over again.
Two hundred and four days after Harry was buried, MJ is back in New York for the time being and himself, his boyfriend, MJ, and Gwen all end up piled into her apartment, huddled around her TV waiting to watch her debut. And they all cheer when her fiery red hair breaks through the green and blue hues of the current set, Gwen’s the loudest, only interrupted by a series of excited kisses to Mary Jane’s cheeks. As the conversation settles into eager commentary on the show, Peter’s eyes meet her’s and in that moment there’s knowledge shared between their eye contact, knowledge that there’s a space on the couch to Peter’s left that should be filled right now.
He went to bed that night aching to have his friend back more than he has in months by that point. Thoughts race through his head as he laid staring at his ceiling, eyes following the cracks in the paint and the stain from months upon months of water damage. He could have saved Harry. He knows that. Like they have dozens of times before, old scenarios replay in his head. Dozens upon dozens of tiny little things he could have done differently replay over and over in his head. Could have torn out of Venom’s restraints, could have left the fight to get Harry help, could have stopped Harry from jumping in front of him and just taken the hit himself.
The sleep he falls into that night is not restful. He dreams of something he has dreamt of many times before, more times than he really cares to admit. One where he and Harry run around a manor that in the reality he will wake in has not been touched in months, in the midst of a messy, unskilled game of basketball, stealing the ball from each other as they make their way out to the back where Harry put up a net a few years back. But as Peter pushes the door open, ball in hand, it’s not any expansive manor yard he sees, but the cold, menacingly metallic environment of the hideout Norman had hidden behind the mirror. When he spins to find Harry, he’s standing covered in the black straps, belts, and leather of the New Goblin equipment, scars returned to his face and one eye sightless. And two holes straight through his chest, on either side of his sternum, a ring of rusty red surrounding both, staining the fabric of his vest. He falls, the movement slow and drifting enough that Peter can rush to him and lower him gently to the ground in his arms, his body a weight that feels far too real, far to solid in his embrace as Peter buries Harry’s head in his chest and begs him not to die, not again, can’t he stay with him in his sleep at least? Can’t Peter not lose him when he’s dreaming? The world he wakes up in is so empty in his absence, like life has been diluted, can’t Peter visit him in his dreams?
And maybe somewhere out there, there’s a god who felt compelled to provide Peter Benjamin Parker with a little kindness. For as the lights in dream-Harry’s eyes fade, he opens his own and wakes into a world where there’s a solid, warm, real weight beside him, burrowed into his chest, breathing softly into his shirt.
His heart stops when he notices the gnarled skin of scars around the person’s jawline. His own shaking hand slides into his view as he pushes tangles of matted hair out of their face.
You knew he was alive.
Immediately, he’s sitting up with the sleeping but alive and breathing, Harry held tightly to his chest. One of his hands traced his face, making pathways through the dirt on his cheeks, feeling the muscle and bone beneath skin, the transition from smooth skin to the rough texture of his burns, and it feels real. It feels like no dream he’s had. And with that thought he immediately reaches for the cheap, flimsy flip phone that charges on the floor beside his bed, eyes flicking back and forth from it to Harry as if looking away from him for too long will make him disappear. His eyes fix firmly back onto him the minute the number he needs is dialed.
“Peter, it’s 6AM…” Comes MJ’s exhausted voice.
His voice trembles when he replies. “Please come over.”
A pause. “What’s going on?” comes a much softer reply.
His mind is devoid of any genuine reply, any sentence he could form to make anything about this make sense. She’ll see if she comes. He won’t have to explain if she comes. “Please just come.”
“Okay. I’m on my way.” There’s a moment of pause before she hangs up, as if she's unsure if she should add anything, but the call ends without another word.
He tosses the phone onto the blankets beside him and attempts to lower Harry back onto his bed. To his shock, the other man’s eyelids twitch and an unexpectedly strong hand shoots out to grasp the front of Peter’s shirt so tightly and desperately it almost tears the fabric, lifting himself up and setting his head back against Peter’s chest.
He’s listening to your heartbeat. Peter realizes suddenly, vision beginning to blur, slowly starting to curl his fingers as gently as he can through the greasy, matted clumps that make up Harry’s hair, eventually rubbing slow circles near the crown of his head. “H-hey buddy. We missed you a lot.” A lump forms in his throat that he struggles to swallow. When he looks back down to Harry, his vision blurs once again, quickly blinked away, just in time to see a tear fall from his face to Harry’s. The sensation makes Harry’s eyelids flutter, and then open. Peter flinches slightly at the sight.
They’ve looked like that since he took the performance enhancers, he reminds himself. Yellow sclera, green iris, slightly haunting. That’s what was looking back at him every time they fought. Though now, one green iris is bleached and faded. Sightless. By Peter’s own hand.
The performance enhancers… It’s far too possible that’s what’s responsible for bringing him back to Peter’s side. Could those drugs really have healed him from so much? Even after Harry was in a state that allowed him to be identified as dead?
And how did something in Peter’s own brain know that he was still alive?
The door eventually opens, harshly slamming into the wall, MJ stumbling in with the shoulder she used as a battering ram leading her. “Peter, what’s going o-” She goes silent with a gasp. “Harry-”
Peter’s mouth silently opens and closes for a few moments. “I just… I just woke up and he was here,” he eventually manages to get out.
“Oh my god,” she steps closer, slow with one hand out until the hand rests gently on Harry’s shoulder, sitting beside the two men on Peter’s bed. “Oh my god, he’s…”
“I think… it had to have been the performance enhancers… right?”
Her eyes bug out slightly at that. “We buried him alive, Peter.”
His throat closes up all over again. “I… I know. Maybe he only woke up recently! I hope so. I don’t want to think he’s been awake since…” 205 days, 11 hours, and 2 minutes. Please, he can’t have been conscious through that much time. He didn’t deserve that. He didn't deserve any of that. He looks back towards Harry. The distant, empty look that has appeared in his eyes isn’t encouraging.
“We should… we should…” MJ takes a long, deep breath. “Is your key here? To the penthouse?”
Peter looks back up at her slowly, the confirmation that Harry’s really there making it feel slightly less like he might disappear during the time he’s not looking at him. “Why?”
She’s staring at her hand, where it rests on the filthy, moth-eaten suit he was buried in. “You don’t have your own bathroom here.” Her eyes flick down to one of the holes in the fabric of the sleeve, where is proudly displayed a patch of raw, bruised skin surrounding a crater-like gash in his arm. “We… should clean him up. Let him rest.”
Peter feels dazed. “Y…yeah.” He nods slowly. Just listen to her.
Her eyes are on him now. “Can you carry him?” She asks, voice gentle, shoulders set like there’s a weight upon her back only she can carry.
He nods slowly, bundling Harry in his arms like he’s a stray cat he’s just rescued. A comparison apt in the way Harry seems constantly intent on burrowing further into his chest, having as much of their bodies touching as he can possibly manage, his hands tightly grasping handfuls of his shirt, eyes once again distant.
He silently follows MJ, who strides ahead of him with far more confident steps, hailing a cab whos driver gives them a not shocked, simply exhausted look as they pile into the back, Harry unwilling to be separated from the contact with Peter.
Stepping into the old manor, Peter feels Harry flinch against his chest and looks down to see that his eyes have squeezed shut against the dark, haunting browns and greens of the place, untouched from the last night Harry had left it those six months ago. MJ flicks the lights on, an action that makes far less of a difference in this dreary place than it would in most others. She purses her lips, sets her shoulders, and turns back to Peter.
“He seems very attached to you right now.” Harry’s brow furrows and he briefly squirms in Peter’s grasp. Like he resents that. “I’ll draw a bath. Try to get him out of those clothes.”
He follows her to the master bedroom, her red hair vanishing into the bathroom with the door shut behind her. Harry’s eyes remain shut, his body beginning to tremble like a painting on the sea. He sets him on the bed, watching dust cascade off his body, unsure of how to proceed. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe.” He whispers, movements unsure as he shifts the suit jacket off the emaciated man’s shoulders. “We’ve got you.” The first few buttons to the tatters of the once white dress shirt are undone slowly to allow chance to push him away, increasing in speed slowly as he descends down his chest, pulled away from his chest slowly so the fabric can be pulled away from bloody gashes with some degree of delicateness. Harry visibly stiffens at the sensation, but his eyes finally open again, fixed on Peter’s face, body relaxing slowly. Peter’s eyes meet his as he loops his fingers beneath the stained tan tatters of fabric that once covered his chest. Harry only raises his arms in response, face going blank all over again as Peter pulls it off of him. “You’re going to be okay.” Clearly, if he came back from all that. He has to force himself not to gag when he pulls shoes and socks away and finds his feet covered and blisters and dried blood. He tosses them into the pile of fabric scraps that were once clothing, tears his eyes away from the sickening sight, and does his best to be delicate around the area when he pulls the remaining clothing off, tossing them aside and watching Harry’s body slowly curl and his arms cross over his chest.
The door to the bathroom cracks open, cueing Peter to lift the stunningly light and frail looking Osborn and carry him there, watching the dirt drift off his body as he lowers him into the bathtub. Then watches Harry’s eyes become wild as he cups water in his hands and begins to attempt to drink it.
“Wait!” Oh, he should have thought of that. Of course he's dehydrated. “I-” He glances toward MJ. “I’ll go get you water. Fresh, not dirty…” He trails off as Harry gives him a look that probably translates to ‘dirty water isn’t even close to the worst thing that has happened to my body recently.’ He feels his face flush in inexplicable embarrassment. “I’ll go get you water.” He finds himself repeating, backing his way out the door, preparing to trek across a manor roughly the size of Rhode Island to find a cup.
The minute that he shuts the door behind him, his mind goes totally blank, leaving him on a zombie hunting for water instead of brains. His noble quest is successful. Peter returns proudly carrying a full glass as if it were the head of a dragon he had just slain.
That pride is slain efficiently when he re enters the bathroom and gets to see the exact state Harry’s body has been in beneath the tattered suit and layers of blood and soil caked to his skin. Every rib in his body juts out like it’s trying to break free of his chest. His back appears to have become a solid mass of scar tissue, riddled with dark bruises. Hell, it’s not simply his back, every joint or prominent bone appears to be surrounded by masses of mottled skin. But that doesn’t compare to the patches of his body, heaviest on his legs and chest, where it appears that entire sheets of his skin have simply fallen away, revealing flesh pale and blood starved. His hands display fingers where it appears that skin was simply worn off, considering how the crusted blood seems significantly fresher there, likely rubbed away as he frantically unearthed himself. The entire front of his body is covered in unknown gashes: deep and asymmetrical, often corresponding to where the suit was torn, and, near his chest, hips, and shoulders, dozens upon dozens of tiny, barely healed over circular holes in the man's flesh that Peter can’t look at for too long.
He is forcefully snapped out of his stupor when Harry raises his entire body out of the water specifically to grab at the glass of water, chugging it with a desperation that has him spilling it all over his face and the knotted curls surrounding it. When empty, the glass is promptly handed back to him and a bony finger is pointed towards the sink in the room. The request for more is clear.
And so Spider-Man is converted into Harry Osborn’s personal water boy.
When the bathwater becomes so cloudy that it definitely isn’t doing any further good, MJ changes her strategy, drains the bathtub with Harry remaining inside, and begins spraying him with the shower head like he’s just a particularly muddy dog. Which Harry also appears to resent. And then Peter gets sent away on yet another fetch quest, this time for clean clothes. One that he takes his good sweet time on, now that he’s seen the damage sustained. Peter probably ends up in Harry’s closet for a good ten minutes, trying to find the combination of pajamas least likely to irritate exposed flesh.
Long enough that when he returns, Harry has hoisted himself up enough to perch on the toilet wearing a towel, head bowed. And long enough that MJ is now stooped over above him, wielding an electric razor, matted, tangled curls falling to the ground.
“What-” He asks slowly.
She glances up. “It was badly matted. Not much of it was going to be salvageable to begin with.” Looking back down at her work, bringing the razor to strip away another row of his hair, she adds, “He wanted me to.”
He doesn’t have much of a reason to not take her word for it, so he simply sets the clothing on the counter next to the sink and leans against the wall, observing her handiwork as dark hair piles up on the pale beige floor tiles. Harry is left with less than half an inch of fuzz covering his head, revealing burns on the side of his head that had once been hidden by his hair, streaks of scarred tissue traveling away from his eye. With MJ putting the razor away, Peter is firmly pushed away when he comes to help him dress. Despite his state, Harry insistently dresses himself, then refuses to be carried to bed, though allows the other two to support him, arms over their shoulders, as he walks over himself.
When Peter shifts the blankets for him, he briefly considers offering to fetch softer, but Harry is dragging himself toward the center of the bed with a determination, never letting go of either of their wrists and looking expectantly up at them from his position, on his side with knees bent, looking almost small in the massive bed. MJ gently shoves him towards Harry before striding around towards the other side of the bed, removing her shoes before sliding beneath the covers and wrapping her arms around his back, kissing him on the cheek. “We missed you, Harry.”
He leans his head gently against hers but still stares at Peter with expectant eyes. Feeling a little awkward, he scoots in beside him, covering them both with the blankets, Harry immediately wrapping his arms around him. The second he has both beside him, Harry is out like a light. Peter supposes he’s earned that. MJ follows suit quickly, head against Harry’s, leaving Peter alone, awake, with his thoughts.
Here he is, with Harry back alive, back beside him, something he’s wanted desperately since the moment he died. He’s alive, worse for wear but alive. Peter thought it was only possible in his most desperate of dreams, and yet here he is, that’s reality. Why does he feel like something terrible is about to happen?