Harry quickly dialed Peter's number as he was on his way back to his mansion. The phone kept ringing, and Harry thought maybe he had gone looking for Mr. Fiers himself, when finally he answered.
"Hello?" Peter answered in an agitated tone.
"Everything good, man?" Harry asked.
Peter's tone eased up. "Yeah, just a little problem at home. I should be asking you that, what happened?"
"I took care of him," he stated simply.
"What did you do, Harry?"
"Don't worry about it. He's gone. He won't bother you guys again," Harry said. He noticed there was still blood on his left hand and wiped it away on his suit.
Peter gave out a small sigh. "Did you.. is he dead, Harry?"
"Yes," he said hastily, "but... I had to, Peter. I know it may have been wrong, and it's against everything you stand for, but-"
"Harry!" Peter interrupted him. "...Thank you."
Harry wasn't quite sure what to say to this, so Peter continued.
"Thank you for everything you've done for me these last couple of months. I know that you didn't want to kill anyone anymore, and-"
"I would do it again in a heartbeat to anyone who threatens my friends," Harry cut in.
This time Peter was the quiet one. Harry closed his eyes and shook his head. Peter would never see him as a friend again, and it hurt. It hurt so much that he was tempted to let the goblin take over just so he could have a break from reality.
"Anyways..." Harry began awkwardly. "Your house has surveillance on it. Two cameras. One on the roof of the house directly in front of yours, and one in the alleyway behind your house. I would have gone and gotten rid of them myself, but I didn't want to risk her seeing me," he said quietly.
"What?" Peter asked gruffly.
"Yup, courtesy of Mr. Fiers."
"Gotcha. I'm already taking one down." Harry heard something smash over the phone. "Can't believe I never saw these things..."
Harry landed his glider, took off his suit, and hurried into his house. "I'm turning in for the night, Peter. I'll see you around Oscorp."
"Wait—" Harry hung up the phone before Peter could ask him the question he didn't want to answer at this time: who had hired Gustav Fiers?
The mansion seemed empty, but it was pretty late, and he was sure there was a certain person that would be waiting for him...
"Felicia?" Harry called out as he made his way to his spacious bedroom. He opened the door and, sure enough, she was at his bar helping herself to a bottle of scotch.
"Harry, nice to see you. Want one?" she questioned gesturing to the scotch and he nodded to her. "Good." she smiled and made him a drink.
He stood against the wall with his arms crossed as she made her way over to him and handed him his drink. He wasn't really sure what to say to her.
"Come sit down with me, Mr. Osborn." she winked and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards his bed. He sniffed and downed his drink, following her.
Harry sat on the edge of the bed and Felicia straddled him, running her hands through his hair. "You're awfully quiet today." she pointed out. He watched as she finished her drink and set it on the small table next to the bed, and crawled onto his lap again. "Fine with me," she purred.
"Felicia—" he began but was cut off when their lips touched. She pressed her body up against his and their kiss intensified. She cut back from the kiss and grazed her teeth against his lower lip before gently biting down.
God, she drove him crazy. This had to wait, though. There were more important things on his mind at the moment.
"Felicia," he said a little more forcefully as he pulled away from her.
"What?" she questioned, a slightly offended look on her face.
"Why did you contact Gustav Fiers and have him observe Peter and his family?"
The question definitely caught her off guard. She got up from the bed and placed her hands on her hips. "Really, you want to talk about this right now?"
"Yes, I do. Why would you do that? Didn't I tell you to just leave them to me?"
Her annoyance changed to concern and she shook her head at him. "I don't trust him, Harry. At all. I don't know how you could believe in him so blindly." She began pacing the room. "It's taking him too long to make you this cure. And why? He has everything he needs and all he needs to do is replicate the data. I think he's up to something."
"Like what?" Harry smirked at her.
"I don't know! Several things have gone through my mind; maybe he's trying to perfect his abilities, or make his girlfriend just like him." Harry scoffed at that. "Or maybe, he's making something to inject you with that will kill you."
He sniffed and rolled his eyes at her. "Peter wouldn't do that."
She stopped pacing and looked him right in the eyes. "Really? How are you so sure about that? Yeah, maybe you two were best friends when you were kids, Harry, but you hadn't seen him in eight years! People change. I hired Mr. Fiers to keep tabs on them because I knew you wouldn't. I care about you and I don't want Peter to do anything that might hurt you."
"You don't spy on your friends, Felicia!"
"He's not your friend! You hate Peter Parker! He wasn't going to help you. He doesn't care about anything other than his own image. He was going to let you die!"
He shook his head at her. "You just don't understand."
"I don't see why you're so upset about this. It's not like Mr. Fiers is going to harm them. When you finally come to your senses, or find that he is in fact betraying you again, that will be for you to do," she jeered at him.
"No, he won't be doing anything to them, because I killed him," Harry said as he poured himself another drink.
"You what?" she raised her eyebrows.
"I killed him. He found out about—" He paused. "—I didn't want another person running around that knew his identity. It's enough already that your friend, Eddie, knows."
Felicia thought for a moment before shrugging. "Guess I don't have to pay him anymore." Her eyes flickered to Harry's shirt. "Ah, I see now. Looks like you still have a little cleaning up to do," she pointed out.
Harry looked down and saw the blood splatter on his sleeve. Guilt suddenly rushed through him as he realized he had taken yet another life. Guilt, but not regret.
"How could Spider-Man ever be friends with a murderer, Harry?" she whispered to him before swiftly walking out of his room.
He couldn't, Harry thought to himself. It was always going to be a one-sided friendship. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, Peter would never look at Harry as a friend.
Peter Parker was swinging through the city, awaiting Mary Jane's prenatal visit. He had about an hour to kill and found himself looking for a way to pass the time.
The weeks had gone by since the Mr. Fiers incident. His and Mary Jane's lives were peaceful at the time being. Well, as peaceful as Spider-Man's life could be. The Spidey Pager device that Harry had made for him was actually a huge help. It gave him more time to respond to the more critical calls, instead of simple calls that the police officers could easily control by themselves. Best of all, it gave him more time to spend with his fiancee, Mary Jane.
He still couldn't believe how lucky he was. Mary Jane had agreed to marry him and he was going to be a father to two incredible children.
Aunt May was on board for the baby names they had chosen. She loved the name Violet Sophia; she kept calling her 'little flower' whenever she was speaking to Mary Jane's belly. She loved the name Andrew for the boy as well, and kept trying to throw out middle names to help out. So far, none of them worked well, but they still had about a month of time before Mary Jane's due date.
Peter checked the time and saw that he was due to meet Mary Jane at her appointment. He cut across the outer ends of the city.
A familiar black webbing shot out in front of him.
He swerved out of the way just in time and jumped onto the wall of a nearby building, wildly searching for the source.
It can't be him again, Peter thought. He crawled over to the piece of webbing on the building and carefully examined it. It was definitely the same kind of black, tar-like, webbing that Venom had used before.
His heart dropped; Mary Jane had been right. It seemed that Flash was back. He crawled up to the top of the building, realizing it was a bell tower on top of a church. Peter crawled into the top room and peered out into the city. There was no sign of the Venom creature, and Peter was about to search elsewhere when a guttural voice startled him. He turned around to see Venom clinging to the wall opposite him, black liquid dripping from his mouth.
"Flash..." Peter started calmly. "What are you doing?"
Venom just laughed and sprung at Peter, who quickly dodged the attack and shot out several strands of webbing, which Venom easily avoided.
"Thought we cleared everything up awhile back?" Peter tried again as Venom screeched and lunged again. It seemed that the creature had grown a bit since last time Peter had seen him.
"Listen to me, Flash, whatever it is, we can talk about this," he reasoned as the manic look in the creatures eyes grew. "...Flash?"
"Guess again, Peter." The creature smiled broadly, showing the razor sharp teeth that Peter could never forget. He had a more rugged voice then Flash had, even with this Venom creature speaking for him.
Peter huffed. "Who are you?" he asked as he crouched into another defensive position. How were all these villains able to find out who he was?
"What, you don't remember me?" he wheezed out a laugh.
"No, should I?" Peter asked as he dodged another strand of webbing. "Look, I'm running kind of late for something, so why don't you tell me who you are, that way we can both be on our way?"
"On your way to that pretty little redhead of yours?" Venom ran his tongue over his teeth, allowing more of the black liquid to drip from his mouth.
"Who the hell are you?" Peter glared at him.
"I'm the guy who's reputation you ruined, Parker." Peter heard a sort of grinding sound and before he knew it, a chunk of bricks was flying at him; Venom had torn it from the building behind his back. The hunk of brick hit Peter right in the stomach, throwing him against the wall. Venom stood above him, allowing the black mask to pull back, revealing his face.
"Eddie?" Peter questioned.
"Oh, so you do remember then." Eddie held out his hand, allowing Peter to watch as his claws extended. "That's good. I thought you'd like to know that just last night, we got the go ahead to branch out to find you. Doc Ock is back, and he brought friends," he snarled.
Peter jumped up and swung the chunk of brick at Eddie, hitting him in the side of the face. The venom mask quickly covered his face again and let out a roar. Venom jumped at Peter and pinned him to a wall.
"This is crazy, Eddie. You're the one who tried to take my job!" Peter ducked as the black claws narrowly missed his head.
"You humiliated me in front of everyone, Parker!" He took another swipe at his head. "You ruined my reputation, and I lost my girl because of it."
"I'm sure she was just waiting for an excuse, Eddie. All I did was provide her with one," Peter said.
Venom growled and hoisted Peter up by his neck.
"I'm sensing a bit of deja vu here," Peter choked out, trying to kick himself away.
He gave a smug laugh. "Really? This should be new then..." Venom pulled Peter down closer the him and began to widen his jaws.
Peter looked puzzled at first, but once he realized what was about to happen, it was too late. Venom bit down on Peter's shoulder and the side of his neck, causing him to howl out in pain. Peter quickly grabbed the front of the creature's face and grabbed at the eye area to hopefully pull it off him. It worked and Venom jumped backwards into the large bell, causing it to chime loudly.
Venom shrieked and held his ears.
That's right, Peter thought. He quickly picked up the chunk of brick and repeatedly slammed it against the bell. Venom bent over and tucked his head away in his arms, making pitiful rasping noises. Peter's vision was becoming blurry and he could feel his body weaken. He took the brick and smashed it as hard as he could against Venom's head, knocking him out cold.
Peter was pretty sure he was dying. He could feel the venom coursing through his bloodstream. He took out his phone and called the one person he could think of for this situation. White dots were starting to cloud his vision.
Please answer, please answer, Peter repeated in his head. He was already starting to lose consciousness. Maybe he should have called Mary Jane first. He would have at least been able to tell her goodbye...
"What's up?" Harry's lively voice greeted him.
"Har- Harry," Peter gasped out, falling to his knees. His muscles seemed to be tensing up and his hands were beginning to shake.
"Peter, what happened?" Harry's voice was alert at once.
"Bell tower... Venom—" Peter noticed it was getting hard to breathe. Every breath was agonizing. He dropped onto his side. "—he bit me."
Peter swore he heard the whirring of the glider through the phone. "I'm on my way. Hold on," Harry said in a tight voice. Peter thought he detected an edge of panic to Harry's voice as well, but he couldn't be sure of anything at this moment.
"Think I'm... dying, man," he coughed out. "Tell her- tell MJ—"
"You're not going to die. I'm on my way!" he growled.
Peter let his phone slide from his hand. His vision was now completely obscured and the last thing he remembered was hearing Harry's voice shouting to him from the cell phone.
What felt like only a minute later, Peter shot straight up, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. He was sitting on the floor somewhere. The confusion was intense and he heard voices around him, but he couldn't focus. Where was he? What happened?
The first thing he noticed was his heart was beating so rapidly, he swore he could hear it pumping against his chest. He looked down and gasped. There was an empty syringe sticking inside him, right where his heart was. Without thinking he pulled it out and flung it to the side. His rapid breathing was panicking him, and he tried hoisting himself to his feet.
"Hold on." He felt someone grab his arm to support him. "I got ya."
Peter focused and saw two other people in the room with him. One of them had a concerned, yet relieved expression on his face. The other merely stared at him, raising her eyebrow.
"Harry? What happened?" Peter asked in a raspy voice. He suddenly felt dizzy and sat back down on the floor.
"You... you died, man!" Harry choked out with an agonized look on his face. "I thought I was going to be too late."
Peter froze. His breathing began to slow. "I died? What?" He looked around. "Where are we? What happened?!" The pain in his shoulder returned. Peter grimaced and shot his hand to the inflamed area.
"You called me and told me where you were. You said Venom had bitten you." Harry shook his head. "I didn't think I would reach you in time. If you were any other average human you would have been dead before I got there."
It all rushed back to Peter. Venom. The bell tower. Eddie Brock.
"We're at my house," Harry finally said, still staring at Peter as if he was going to drop dead again. "The venom quickly shuts down your body and you die. But it depletes after it's run it's course. I flew you back here as quickly as you could, but you weren't responding to anything I said. Finally, your heart shut down. You- you died—" His voice broke on the word. "—and I plunged an adrenaline shot into your heart. I had no idea if it was going to work or not..."
Peter was surprised to see Felicia put a comforting hand on Harry's back. Sure, she looked at him with contempt and distrust, but when she looked at Harry, you could tell her feelings were real and that she actually cared about him.
"Where's Eddie now?" Peter questioned suddenly. "I need to make sure Mary Jane is safe, I need-"
"Chill out, Parker." Felicia glared at him. "While Eddie was unconscious, Harry was able to quickly take the Venom suit. He has it locked up in this house. We're going to have a talk with Eddie before we give him the suit back. He won't bother you again anytime, soon." She gave a small wink at Peter.
Peter glowered at her as she whispered something in Harry's ear. Harry nodded to her and to Peter's distaste, he pecked her on the lips before she left the room.
"You and Felicia, huh?" Peter questioned dully.
There was a short pause and Harry rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. "I guess it just sort of happened." He shrugged. "Nothing too serious, of course." Harry played it off with a grin.
Peter nodded, finally starting to feel right again. "Listen Harry, I wanted to thank you for saving my life today. Again."
"Ahh, it was nothing." Harry shrugged it off and offered Peter a small glass of scotch, which he accepted.
"Thanks." Peter nodded to the glass and sipped on the liquid. He definitely preferred the whiskey to this stuff. "I'm serious though, Harry. I'd be dead if it wasn't for you. I can't thank you enough."
"Yeah, right," Harry laughed. "You're just lucky that I had nothing important going on when you called."
Peter threw him an incredulous look. "Says the guy who told me I was on my own if any of your goons happened to catch me." He smirked.
"And wasn't your reply along the lines of 'I'd rather die than accept your help, Harry.'?" he mocked.
Peter shook his head and snickered. "Okay, you got me there. Obviously, I am glad that you didn't let me die." Peter raised his glass. "You're a true—" and then Peter quickly brought his glass down. "—truly an admirable person," he finished clumsily.
Harry smiled at him, but Peter could see right through him, the deep pain in his eyes that he was trying so hard to cover.
"Look, Har, I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Sorry for what?" Harry questioned, attempting to look uninterested in whatever Peter had to say.
Peter let out a slow breath. "I'm sorry that I'm not able to- for—" he began stumbling over his words. "I'm trying. I'm trying to get past everything, Harry. I just- give me more time maybe..."
"Time heals all wounds," Harry said, his voice thick with emotion. "Yeah, right." He took out his pill bottle and popped a few in his mouth, chasing them down with scotch.
Peter's heart clenched. He hated seeing Harry like this. He was no longer able to hold up his usual arrogant, sarcastic, confident demeanor.
"It's not that. I need to get rid of the goblin. I want to fix this for you, because if I had just done something to begin with, this would have never happened." Peter paused a moment. "I know that you and the goblin are two different people in a way, Har, but I can't allow myself to get close to you while it's still—"
"What if it doesn't work and I'm stuck like this forever, Peter?" Harry raised an eyebrow at him. Peter didn't answer, and Harry nodded to himself.
"It will work, Harry. I'm sure of it," Peter said cheerfully, then saw the time on his phone. "Look man, we can finish this talk if you want next time I come down to Oscorp. I have to go home to MJ. I missed her appointment."
Harry sniffed. "Yeah, better hurry up and get out of enemy territory."
"You know that's not how I feel. Why do you think I'm having such a difficult time forgiving you, Har? It's easier to forgive your enemies than your friends."
"It's funny..." Harry laughed darkly to himself. "that I now know how you felt."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, caught off guard.
Harry lowered his eyes to the ground. "When you wanted to die."
Peter stared at him, lost at what to say.
"I just... I feel stuck, man. Nothing really matters to me because I figure I'm just going to mess it up anyways. I just want out. But I know that's not an option right now, because I need to make sure you're okay first. I need to fix this. Just like you need to fix me." Harry laughed but it didn't reach his eyes. "I just want it to end."
Peter clenched his fists at his sides.
"Seriously, don't ever say anything like that again. Even if you actually do 'want out' or 'want it to end,' as you put it. I don't think you realize how much pain I'd be in if I lost you too." Peter didn't expect himself to say it, but it was the truth nonetheless.
"Yeah, right," Harry sneered.
Peter shook his head and walked to the door. He paused before opening it and turned towards Harry.
"I swear, Harry. You'd better not do anything to yourself. I don't care how depressed or sad you think you are." Peter began in an irritated tone. "You're Harry Fucking Osborn. Suck it up and deal with it!" he yelled before slamming the door.