Denial
“All the things you could do on your eighteenth birthday and you just wanna come over my house?” Peter’s voice echoed out of Harry’s phone’s speaker.
“Yeah Pete! I haven’t been over in ages!”
“I mean, I’m not refusing, if that’s how you wanna spend your ascension into adulthood, I’d love to have you over friday.”
“‘Ascension into adulthood’? What are you? A best selling YA novelist?” Harry laughed.
“No, I’m a scientist.”
“Not with that vocabulary you’re not!”
“You got me! See you tomorrow morning, Harry.”
“See you tomorrow morning.”
* * *
The saturday morning sun blazed through penthouse’s the massive window paigns, burning Harry’s slow-opening eyes. He sat up, holding his head.
I just got up, how do I already have a migraine?
Using almost all his energy, he swung his legs over to sit upright on the couch, but froze as his socks were dampened by a cold wet substance on the floor that served as a reminder of the previous evening’s trauma.
Every memory of Peter his mind contained came to him at once, like his life flashing before his eyes. He felt dizzy again.
Why couldn’t it have just been a nightmare?
Almost as if by design, the living room TV, which was still on from the night before, played the morning news.
“As a follow up to last night’s breaking news, the death of Spiderman, we now give you information on the funeral arrangements of New York City’s fallen hero.” The anchor began. Harry wanted to turn it off, to preserve what little sanity he had left but something in him felt obligated to keep watching. “There will be a public funeral tomorrow at 11am followed by a private wake for friends and family only.”
Peter was his friend, his best friend, never once had he doubted that…
Until this moment.
Spiderman was a menace, he got him booted from Horizon, pulled him into the line of danger many times, he caused so much damage and yet got hero’s praise. So many things Harry convinced himself he was over were making his blood boil.
But Peter? Peter wouldn’t do anything like that. All the boy ever did was look out for him. Peter was a good kid, and an even better friend. But he was Spiderman? The story didn't add up.
And now it was too late to ask him about it.
So many of these questions raced through Harry’s mind that he forced himself to rush to an answer.
No.
He thought.
This is fake.
This is some publicity stunt Spiderman pulled to hide himself like the coward he is and Pete took the fall for him.
That’s the only possible explanation.
* * *
The night was still relatively young but it felt nearly over to the two teenagers, sitting on the roof of the small house in Queens. The stars were difficult to see, due to the mild light pollution from the dim, flickering streetlights that lined the pothole-filled road below them. Still, it wasn't impossible, some major constellations were visible and Peter wouldn’t dare hesitate to point all of them out and Harry, despite undoubtedly knowing said constellations, would listen intently to his infodumping. Peter knew that sometimes Harry was just humoring his words and that he knew the information already, but it was still comforting to know that he was listening anyway.
Tonight was a bit different from the usual talk of constellations and school, seeing that the boys were slightly buzzed. Aunt May let them drink a bit so long as they were in the house so as they sat on the roof, they were each holding a bottle of Bud Light. Peter’s was nearly empty but Harry’s still had three quarters of the bottle’s contents left. He tended to naturally finish his drinks at snail pace so as a result very rarely got fully drunk. Peter drank at a normal speed but had a decent alcohol tolerance, leaving him only slightly more buzzed than Harry.
“Still nursing that beer?” He teased.
“As per usual.” Harry responded with a small laugh to his voice.
“So, how does it feel to be an adult?”
“No different. I’m still in high school, still live with my dad, still barely know how to drive. Age is just a number I guess.”
“Yeah.” Peter said, tone slightly different in an indistinct way. There was silence for a good while before he forcibly changed the subject. “Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think would’ve happened if you had stayed at Horizon?”
Harry paused, the question came out of nowhere.
“Uh… I don't know, I never really thought about it.”
“Ah.”
“Why do you ask? What do you think would’ve happened?”
“I don’t know, I guess it’s just something I think about a lot. I just miss you sometimes. I care about you a lot, painfully so to be honest.”
“I care about you too. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”
Peter simply laughed to himself, but it sounded forced, like he was hiding something.
They sat there in silence for a good while. Peter finished his beer and looked deeply into Harry’s eyes.
“Harry, I have something to tell you.”