Harry is walking alone. He left Peter Parker's house, a sad and happy place all at once, a while ago, and is walking through the Bronx. Alone. It's a rush of freedom that blows through his chest, flushing and chilling all at once. He doesn't think of his father. He doesn't think of the company. He just thinks of the liberating sound of his own shoes striking the pavement; for a brief moment, he answers to no one but his own will to walk.
This is how wealthy kids rebel, he thinks to himself with a laugh under his breath. If there's one thing that will get his father's attention, it's a frantic phone call from their highly paid chauffeur, announcing that the heir to the Oscorp fortune has refused to ride in the bullet proof Lexus in the dead of a wintery New York City night. But Harry doesn't care. He just keeps walking.
Which may have been a mistake. Indeed, like cosmic warnings, taxis and hired cars pass and pass him as he wanders down closer to Midtown, but he ignored them, too high on his own inflated sense of independence to notice that the streets are getting darker by the moment, that the cars are getting fewer and far between, and he's reached a part of town where finely raised gentlemen just do not go.
"The fuck you looking at, snow bunny?"
He hadn't been looking at anyone. But he looks up now, just in time to see a young kid, younger than Harry but twice the size, trouncing across the street in his direction. And, in true Law and Order fashion, Harry's eyes grow to the size of dinner plates just before he bolts. The sound of his feet on the pavement don't remind him of freedom, this time. Now, they just seem to chant like a dizzying carnival tune...Your father was right.
It isn't the inevitability of a conflict with this mugger that makes Harry's stomach sour and his mouth fill with metallic regret. It is the sudden knowledge that he just proved his father right. Nothing feels worse than that.
It is in this defeated state that Harry meets the face of his adversary. A hand sharply grabs him but the hood on his jacket, pulling him up against a dumpster. Harry's feet brought him into a dead-end alley. Law and Order episode, indeed.
"Gimme your wallet, asshole."
Harry's hands twitch. This man has him by the shoulders, and he's feeling the strain on his muscles
Then, like an angel, she comes to the rescue.
"What the fuck?"
A sharp, static voice erupts from the mouth of the alley, forcing both Harry and the man's heads to twist. There stands a young woman, arms folded over her chest, resting heavily on one of her hips. She's backlit, so her face isn't visible, but the hold on Harry's clothes are immediately released at her appearance. She storms toward the man across from Harry, her tone disapproving and condescending, before finally giving the man a little shove away from the Oscorp heir.
"What are you, new here? Go home."
The man does as she says without question, scampering off as if he were glad that he was getting off so easy, and wanted leave before she changed her mind. She steps into a shaft of light and looks at Harry, running a quick hand through her hair; she looks about his age. To look at, she isn't much, Harry thinks. She's dirty. That sort of two days without a shower look, which in New York City, means so much more than anywhere else. There's a hardness to her, as well, which makes his salvation at her hand all the more remarkable. She gives him a little smile.
"You alright?" She asks.
He draws in a deep breath, the gravity of the situation getting to him in that masculine sort of way that forces him to bury how deeply it all shocked and terrified him. He shrugs his shoulders and adjusts his jacket to hang without the crumples make by the man's fists in the expensive gray material.
"Oh, God. Thank you so much," he says, sincerely.
The stranger gives a shrug of her shoulders and rolls her eyes. Tommy's a good kid, but he's dumb as rocks and never listens to her carefully thought out advice. The pair begin to walk toward the street, away from the alley's dead end.
"Don't thank me. He knows better than to go after the rich ones."
This piques Harry's interest. How on Earth could she possibly know? She couldn't possibly know.
"The rich ones?" He prompts, barring any sort of weakness or sign of offense from his tone.
She chuckles and points at him as she walks.
"Yeah. What, you thought that sweatshirt was fooling me?"
He bristles, stiffening a little bit. It may not be the most convincing disguise in the world, but these jeans and this sweatshirt are the most casual things he owns, and he hates to go to Peter's looking the way... Well, the way he normally does. He doesn't like to rub Peter's nose in his wealth anymore than Harry likes his father rubbing his nose in their wealth.
"I wasn't trying to fool anyone," he says, defensively.
The woman snorts, allowing him to think whatever it is that he wants. If she had to put money on it, she'd bet this poor little rich boy likes to dress himself down every once in a while to pretend that he isn't what he actually is. Whether he knows it or not, he's not trying to hide from anyone but himself. And she's pretty good at playing the odds.
"Sure you weren't," she responds.
She turns, and nods ahead. There's a major cross section about two blocks away where he can get a cab, and she can't have him walking by himself all that way. She doesn't have time to save this stranger twice in one evening.
"Come on, I'll walk you."
Harry can't have that. He's only just now felt a bit of independence. He isn't about to require some girl to walk him to a well-lit area where he can safely get in a car.
"That won't be necessary," he says, brushing her off.
His pace quickens a few steps ahead of her, but she knows this neighborhood better than he does and the tone of her voice is smug.
"If you didn't fool me, you definitely won't fool any of the bigger ones."
Slowing down to walk beside her once more, Harry gives a challenging raise of his eyebrow. She doesn't look like much. Surely she doesn't think she'll be much by way of defending him?
"And you'll protect me?" He questions.
"I'm a friendly face around here. They don't mess with their own," she says, simply.
This quiets Harry's superior attitude for a moment. It humbles him.
"Alright. Thanks," he mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walk up the block side-by-side, not even close enough to touch.
In the distance, the air is filled with car horns and people's lives, but from here, Harry hears little more than the voice of the girl beside him, and the sound of two pairs of footfall against the concrete.
"So, what's an Upper East Sider doing in The Bronx at this time of night?" She says.
For a moment, he thinks she might be teasing him. From the corner of his eye, he can see her lips quirking upward. Her voice is lilting and nice, a contrast to the banshee's condemnation that was his first encounter with her.
"I have a friend who lives a few blocks up," he says, throwing a hand in the general direction of Peter's place.
A look of genuine surprise crosses her eyes and he's certain this time that she's smiling. It's warm and inviting, and it's odd how at ease it makes him feel.
"Oh, yeah? And you thought it was a good idea to go traipsing around looking like you do?" She prods, a tease in her lips.
Words come out of his mouth unbidden and walled. Defensive and strained.
"I just wanted some time to think. I'm always being looked after. I wanted to breathe," he says.
There isn't any reason for him to tell her that. She didn't need to know it. But, perhaps, it wasn't so much her needing to hear it as Harry needs to say it. He needs to tell someone about the itching in the cavity in his chest for some room to just be himself.
"Well, you got your fresh air and then some," she says, softening.
She must sense that he needs that in his life. Softness. So she quiets, content to walk in silence and let him sort himself out. Harry takes the opportunity to size his companion up. Tattered clothes, but they're at least clean. She may have greasy hair, but she has pride. And then, it hits him like a ton of bricks. A voice in his head mutters it and he knows, somehow within himself, that's it the gospel truth. She's a thief. She's a thief, just like the guy who had him up against the wall. Harry reaches into his pocket and pulls a thick stack of American greenbacks out of a billfold before extending them to her.
"I think you deserve this. A reward," he offers.
The moment it comes out of his mouth, he regrets it. It sounds exactly like something his father would say. Hollow. No sincerity. All performance. But he is saved from total embarrassment by her shaking head. She doesn't even twitch to accept the money.
"No, thank you. I don't accept anything that I don't earn," she proclaims.
He laughs, filling the space between them with irony.
"So, if you'd stolen this wallet, you'd have been fine with taking this money?"
A sharp inhalation of breath fills her lungs. How he figured it out, she doesn't know. But she hadn't wanted him to. All the same, she moves on, brave face firmly in place.
"I'm not stupid. I wouldn't have stolen your wallet."
That's the truth. It doesn't make her any better of a person, but it does make her blameless in this moment.
"How come?" He asks.
The young woman wouldn't have answered if not for the real curiosity she hears in his voice. He actually wants to know. Not for the novelty or sport of it, but because he cares in some way. For the first time in a long time, the thief doesn't feel like she's being made a circus sideshow of.
"Because then I would have been seeing you across from a court chamber and not on this nice walk."
Gritty and real, she answers with her most honest voice. She doesn't want him to feel bad about it, though perhaps he should. The system serves him in a way that it simply doesn't serve people like her.
"That's why you don't go after rich guys?" He asks.
She shrugs and slows her steps to a stop. They've reached his corner.
"Like I said. I'm not stupid."
For the first time this evening, there isn't anything between them. Harry stops beside her and turns to look her fully in the eye. Practically toe-to-toe, he offers her a smile he wasn't sure he was capable of. The air around them, chilly from the winter breezes, crackles and sparkles with that one look.
"I don't think anyone could ever accuse you of that," he reassures her.
Gulping down hard, the girl turns away from his gaze and gives him a sheepish glance.
"I'll catch you a cab."
It hardly takes her evening stepping into the street for a yellow monster of a car to pull to the side. She opens the door for him and Harry slides in, leaning through the open window to continue to talk to her, ignoring the protestations of the anxious driver.
"Can I take you anywhere?" He asks.
She doesn't have any cash on her with which to pay the fair and she isn't taking any favors from him. So, she makes some bullshit up, as she's often known to do.
"I don't like cars. I'm a New York girl. We walk."
Harry looks at his hands.
"Look, I'm bad at this. But can I have your number?" He asks.
She doesn't believe for a moment that he's as bad as he's saying. She's read the papers. Supermodels and movie stars and socialites... The Bugle always catches him with some magnificent tribute to ideal beauty or another. There isn't any way he's bad at asking for girls' numbers. He might not know that she knows who he is, but she knew him the moment she entered that alley. So, she levels with him.
"You're a smart, guy, Harry Osborn. And you're rich, too, which, in New York, is worth double," she reminds him.
Taking a few steps backward from the car, she raises a challenging eyebrow and smirks, stretching her arms out at her sides as if to say, "you'll have to catch me."
"If you want to find me, you'll find me," she shouts.
She winks and reaches out to bang on the top of the cab, urging the driver on as she calls after him.
"Get him home safe," she commands.
Harry turns around in his seat as they drive off just to catch another glimpse of her, releasing a breath he didn't know he'd been keeping trapped in his cage of a chest. Joy crosses his face as a feeling settles into his bones.
This must be what it feels like to be free.
Thoughts? This is just a one-shot (for now...) but I'd love to get your feedback and thoughts and reactions, please! :)