Rating: R (for the non-consenual, but nothing explicit)
Pairing: Peter/Mary Jane, Harry/Peter (aka: slash or m/m)
Disclaimer: Spiderman and all its related characters are not mine, they belong to Marvel and Stan Lee and all those other important people. No copyright infringement intended, hey, I'm just a fan. I'm also poor, so please don't sue.
Warning: Slightly AU. Nonconsensual. Spoiler for the movie. English not my first language. The usual.
Betaed by Fire Tears. Thanks!
The first scene is set after Dr. O smashed Spidey's head against the subway floor and dragged him to Harry's penthouse, where Harry pulled a knife and was just about to gut the poor Spidey.
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Winter is cold and bitter
It's chill us to the bone
Haven't seen the sun for weeks
Too long, too far from home
.
Feel just like I'm sinking
And I claw for solid ground
Pull down by the undertow
Never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness, I feel like letting go
.
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Coming lift me from this place
I know I can love you much better than this
Full of grace
.
It's better this way, I say
Haven't seen this place before
Everything we say and do
Hurts us all the more
.
Just as we stay, too long
In the same old sickly skin
Pull down by the undertow
Never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness, I feel like letting go
.
If all the strength and all of the courage
Coming lift me from this place
I know I can love you much better than this
Full of grace
I know I can love you much better than this
It's better this way
-
-Sarah McLachlan, Full of Grace-
-------------
He woke to a bone-deep tiredness and the smell of leather. The softness beneath him was soothing and the air saturated with warmth. The fog of sleep lingered and attempted to drag him back into its gentle embrace.
He resisted and it persisted.
There were noises around him. The padding of unsteady feet against thick carpet, the clapping of burning logs, the flapping of an overhanging fan and the presence of another. Close, a mere breath away.
What should have alerted him only calmed him further.
He couldn't move his arms, but it was okay. There was nothing to worry about. He could simply lay here. He was so tired, but he could rest in this cocoon of mellowing heat, in this place of light and dark.
In this familiar place.
He knew this place. How many times had he been here?
The ghost of a memory skipped pass the surface of his mind.
How many times had he been here. Crouching before the fireplace, legs crossed with the weight of open books on his lap.
He remembered laughter, too.
Yes, there was laughter once.
There were also the frustrated groans murmuring the evilness of Shakespeare, the muffled curses directed toward some mathematical equations, and the gibbering in between with mouthful of snacks.
But mostly, there was laughter.
Once, this was where he thought he belonged.
Not among his faceless peers, where he would rather be invisible than at the end of careless cruelty. Not in a kitchen with flowery wallpaper, where expectations were heavy and silent and intangible. And not in front of beautiful green eyes, where he never knew the right thing to say and was forever making a fool of himself.
It was here he felt at ease. A place absent of pretences, masks and lies. A place of comfort and companionship.
This place. This den of warmth.
He had the sudden violent and most irrational urge to cry.
What happened? What went wrong? Where had it gone all these time?
He missed it so very, very much.
Light shone into his face, and chased away the last drowsiness from his slumber. He blinked, stunned by the sudden brightness. The cold evening breeze brushed his naked face and yanked him into a rude awakening.
No mask.
Clarity came to him instantly and all his senses screamed in alarm. A loud gasp above him and his eyes followed the harsh whisper of his name. His sight was still dampened by the abrupt increase in illumination. But that person, that person in front of him was recognizable even with the blurring still behind his eyes.
Unmistakable.
Harry.
For a few petrifying moments, he froze completely.
Harry stumbled away from him. Shaking. Face white. Slowly sinking into an armchair.
The events of the day flowed back into him with the savageness of a river breaking through a gateless dam. He remembered everything.
Mary Jane's scream as she was hailed into the air. His anger, helplessness and the return of his powers along with new determination. The fight with Dr. Octavius on the subway train. The feel of web slipping from his grasp and the strain in his arms as he tried, so desperately, to hold on. The awed and measuring gazes upon his unmasked face. The metal tentacle covering his face, the impact with the solid ground and the darkness that followed.
He shivered. The memory of pain brought renewed sting to his protesting limbs.
Yet among the throes of warring emotions, one thing remained as starkly clear as daylight. And the implication of it cut through his heart like a hot knife through butter.
Harry knew.
Oh, god. Harry knew.
He felt sick.
---
Like unwilling actors, they played out their parts. The brave hero defeated the villain and saved the damsel in distress. Only the damsel was someone else's prize. And the villain, who redeemed himself through the ultimate sacrifice, was the real hero.
He couldn't say the same thing about himself.
He had left his best friend alone in that penthouse, torn, confused and clearly betrayed. Mary Jane's safety was foremost on his mind. And even guilt-ridden and shocked as he was, he could not forsake her. He hadn't been thinking, only reacted, but Harry's accusation had bored into his mind.
"You killed my father."
He wanted to explain, but Harry loved his father and already had so little left. He couldn't take anything else away. Even if it was a just false image, a lie was better than nothing, right?
Right?
It had to be.
Would he lie again?
To Harry? Yes. He had promised and to break that promise would mean breaking Harry.
To Mary Jane? No. She, he had already told the truth.
Like snowflakes fell on top of one another, inconspicuous until they piled and filled his world with nothing but white. Was that how his love for her grow?
He had told her that he loved her, had always loved her and would always love her. But they could never be together.
He couldn't lose anyone else.
She had wordlessly agreed, understood or pretended to understand. He didn't know and couldn't find the energy to care any more.
In a way, she was already lost to him. Out of his reach.
But she was going to be safe, and that's what was important.
He was glad. Really, he was. She would never be hurt again because of him. He would at least feel grateful for that fact alone.
He would make himself feel grateful.
He had lowered her onto the ground, watched as she was embraced by someone else, watched as she was kissed by someone else, and watched as she watched him. He didn't fret over it; he was just tired.
Like Auntie May told him, sometimes to do the right thing, we must give up things that are most important to us.
Important things.
Like Mary Jane.
Like Harry.
All those precious, precious things.
Afterward, he went back to his apartment.
Harry was waiting for him.
---
"I let you go," was the first thing Harry said.
He felt the gun as much as he saw it. Black, sleek and polished, the same one Harry used to shoot him that first time. He was strangely numb.
The city was quiet. The room was quieter.
His little apartment, his little piece of sanctuary, here was where he dreamed of fragile dreams and played war with his heart. He was cold here. Colder now that Harry's mute suffering simmered just beneath the rigid set of shoulders.
Harry was happy once. Harry smiled at him once. And now, his angel of silent vengeance, who spoke more with a jaded glance than a thousand words. Here, with him. Their tattered trust laid between them, in pieces.
"I finally caught him, my father's murderer," Harry continued softly, as if talking to himself, "and I let him go. ...I let you go!"
The last statement was shouted out. The gun flew toward him. He didn't move. It missed, but Harry's tackle did not.
He found his back against the wall, an elbow jagged into the base of his throat and a silvery blade embedded into the wall beside his head. Harry was almost hysterical.
"Why?! Why?! WHY!?"
Each angry word marked another descent of the knife. He almost wished that they didn't miss. If the blade met flesh instead of concrete, would that make Harry feel better? Would that make him feel better?
The body pressed into his was thin; Harry had lost weight. He wanted to open his arms and hold back the last trace of warmth in Harry from fleeing. Not just for Harry, for himself as well. But he had lost that privilege even before his mask was ripped off.
"Say something!"
What could he say that was not another lie? Harry had licked away all the sugary deceptions, and there was only the bitter truth at the core. Harry, he realized with infirmity, had nothing else to hold on to. Harry's faith in him, Harry's trust, Harry's friendship. He had stripped away them all and left Harry to grieve in a shell.
"Damn you, SAY SOMETHING!"
Harry's voice was raspy now, and grew weaker with each labored breath. A hard tug on the collar of his shirt and he was being lifted from his slump.
"You owe me," Harry hissed beside his ear. "You owe me everything."
All the truth he hid and all the lies he told. All the times he should had been there, but hadn't been.
Everything.
He tried. He really tried. But his hardest was never good enough.
He couldn't fight any more.
He didn't want to fight any more.
He let Harry push him back. The firmness of the mattress was the only steady thing. Everything else was spinning. He closed his eyes.
He felt the edge of the knife cut in him, felt the thin material of his shirt parted, and then the spandex, and then his flesh. His screams swallowed by another mouth. His groans eaten by another tongue. Teeth raked down the side of his neck and bit down harshly on the crook of his shoulder. A palm muffled his moan of pain. The teeth bit harder and he choked back a sob. Fingers clawed down his chest, leaving bloody trails in their awake. Tiny little red fissures linked together by kisses and more bites.
He reached up with one hand, eyes still shut.
Harry's skin was freezing and his cheeks roughened by the beginning of a beard. They were wet. The coldness seeped into his skin until as if his veins were filled with ice.
Harry shifted against him, drew his knees up, apart, and crushed him into the bed. Lips grazed his, gently this time, sweet in their gesture and rich with poison. They grew bolder as his body slacked and stole the last fight left in him. Tongue flicked out and mapped the inside of his mouth. Offering? Taking? He tasted tears and blood and muttering.
He didn't want to hear it.
His back arched and his mouth clamped onto Harry's.
Let Harry say whatever he wanted. Let Harry take whatever he wanted.
He owed Harry.
It hurt.
The bed shook. The springs squeaked.
He couldn't think and didn't want to feel.
It hurt so much.
---
When he woke again, Harry was gone. His body ached from the slightest movement.
Was he surprised to find that the guilt stayed?
Fool.
Such a fool.
He curled up.
It's okay, he told himself. It's going to be okay.
With blankets wrapped tightly around himself, he trembled and cried and waited for a morning that refused to come.
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I hope that didn't squeak too many people.
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