Peter didn't think he'd ever been more uncomfortable.

Arguing it was a better place for conversation, Mr. Stark led them to a private lounge Peter had seen only once or twice before. Harry followed stiffly — wand still in hand, while Peter brought up the rear.

The three of them sat down, and God, you could just feel the tension in the room.

Peter wanted to beat himself up for letting things get this far, but…

'Fuck, I'm so out of my depth.'

If this was a stranger who was alive against all explanation and had all these weird powers, Peter wouldn't even question that they warranted surveillance. That was just the kind of thing SHIELD, the Avengers, and just about every organisation in the business did.

But this was Harry, and it was hard balancing his feelings of guilt with his sense of responsibility.

He tried to comfort himself with the thought that he had yelled at Mr. Stark about the ambush, but the cold hard truth was that he had then tacitly approved it by not storming out of there right then and there.

'I should have…'

Peter sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere with this. He shook off his gloomy thoughts, then panned over the other two occupants of the room. Harry was glaring at Mr. Stark, and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here, yet he broke the silence first.

"Right then, before we start, I want an apology."

"An apology?" Mr. Stark echoed.

"Yes."

Mr. Stark raised his eyebrow. "And what would I be apologising for?"

Harry scoffed. "The incredibly invasive surveillance? The ambush at gunpoint? Making plans to subdue and capture me!?"

"Ah, that," Mr. Stark said dismissively. "Sorry." He didn't sound the slightest bit sincere.

Peter wanted to slam his face into the coffee table in frustration. 'Why is he making this worse?'

"Mr. Stark," he warned quietly, "Harry doesn't need to be here, but he's choosing to. I think we owe him more than that."

Mr. Stark huffed. "Fine. Look, I'll apologise for the ambush, that was a questionable decision, I can admit that. But I'm not apologising about the rest. That was standard protocol — literally part of the job. You were an unknown factor and we needed to know more before making any decisions. Sure, it sucks to be on the other end of it, and there is an argument to be made about its morality, which is why we don't do it carte blanche, but you know what? It works, and it's helped us save lives before."

"And I'm just supposed to just be alright with it, am I?" Harry snapped.

Stark shrugged. "You can be as pissed as you want, kid. But that doesn't mean the espionage wasn't warranted."

Peter watched Harry stew with that information for a while. Mr. Stark wasn't wrong, but when you were an innocent person having your privacy breached, the legality of it didn't really matter.

"Fine," Harry relented, and Peter almost did a double take at how surprisingly easy that was. "I can accept that it was legal, and part of your job. I'll ignore it for now. But the ambush? What the bloody hell was that about? I hadn't even done anything!"

Mr. Stark lost his nonchalance and started to look uncomfortable. He drummed his fingers on his thighs and pursed his lips in thought.

"Um, to be honest, I don't even know what you were going for Mr. Stark," Peter voiced his doubts. Earlier, Mr. Stark distracted him from exploring the topic further, but now, just like Harry, he wanted to know why. "Earlier, when you wanted to confront him, you said we would just show up and talk to him — it wasn't even plan B or C to get aggressive, so I don't get why you escalated things so much last night. It was, um, needlessly provocative?" His final statement sounded like a question as Peter's nerves got the better of him.

Mr. Stark sighed and leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "Yeah, in hindsight, that didn't go very well," he admitted reluctantly, fixing his attention on Harry. "Your background is weird, but it checks out, and the surveillance turned up nothing, so I didn't take you that seriously as a threat. Obviously, with how you were getting close to underoos here, there were concerns, but I figured that you were just some mutant with some disturbing, but not alarming powers, and probably not something 'Iron Man' and 'Spiderman' needed to deal with directly," he continued, using air quotes for their other identities.

To Peter, Mr. Stark said, "and I didn't want to involve the actual feds, cause… well, you know, so I called in a favor to get those SHIELD agents to take care of everything instead. The idea was that if he cooperated and they got the truth out of him, great, and if he got aggressive they should have been capable enough to hold their own until back up got there. A sound idea, but...

"Instead, it turned out Spellman had a whole lot more in his bag of tricks, and well, you know how everything turned out," Mr. Stark explained, laying out the series of events from his perspective. Then he turned his attention back to Harry. "I wouldn't normally apologise, but by that point there was basically nothing to indicate you were a bad guy, and thinking about it, there wasn't enough reason to sic 'em on you like that. So, I'm... sorry," Mr. Stark apologised with a grimace.

Peter tried to gauge Harry's reaction, but the guy wasn't giving anything away. Of course, it was too much to expect Harry to forgive Mr. Stark. Frankly, it was a miracle he'd forgiven Peter so soon — or begun to — but a small, idealistic part of him that Harry would accept Mr. Stark's apology and this whole mess could be over with. He did his best to squash that part.

'He looks like I forced him to pry his nails out.'

Despite how angry he was, Harry didn't hate Stark, having realised that despite his methods the man was trying to do good. It would be a lie, however, to say he didn't strongly dislike him. The aggrieved wizard was going to accept Stark's apology, if only because it was a smart move to maintain a cordial relationship with the influential prick. This was the world he lived in and, like it or not, Stark was a powerful figure in it, but by Merlin did he want to hex the man.

It should not have been that difficult for him to force out an apology. Still, the man was able to swallow his pride, if just barely, so Harry decided not to make an issue out of it.

"Fine. I accept your apology."

Stark raised an eyebrow, sceptical of Harry's easy acceptance. "Really now?"

Harry shrugged. "Oh I'm bloody pissed, there's no hiding that, but I don't see the point in dwelling on it at the moment. I've been through enough to realise that it doesn't help, no matter how good it feels."

Stark nodded in agreement but, while he didn't know the man, Harry didn't think for a second that he wouldn't do it again if he felt it was needed.

"Right then, I suppose it's my turn to answer questions…" Harry wondered if it was too late to leave. He sighed. "Well, have at it."

"So, why not sorcerer? That sounds cooler," Peter asked first.

Harry wasn't sure he heard the bloke properly at first. "Wha— that's your first question?"

A nod.

Harry was befuddled. He'd honestly never thought about that. "Erm, I don't know. No one ever told me why we're called wizards and witches, it's just how it is. Do you ever ask why we're called humans?"

"It comes from the latin, humanus, derived from homo — meaning man," Stark answered, not that Harry had asked him to. "Now what do you mean 'we'? Are there more people like you out there?"

Harry stiffened. Leave it to Stark to jump on that. "Next question."

"But—"

"Next. Question." he bit out.

Stark bobbed his head at Peter, as if telling him to intervene, but evidently Peter was doing his best to stay on Harry's good side, because he shook his head and offered no help. "He decides what to share, you agreed," Peter reminded the man.

Huffing audibly, Stark nodded and crossed his arms. "Okay, fine, I'll let it go for now. I just need to know; do I need to be worried about them?"

Harry debated on whether or not, and how, to answer Stark. In the end he settled on a vague reassurance. "They're not a factor," he said quietly, and perhaps he let on more than he intended, because Stark's face turned grim, his dark eyes showing surprising empathy.

"I see... Okay then, magic!" Stark clapped his hands. "Tell us about it —" Peter coughed indiscreetly, and Stark rolled his eyes. "— please."

"So, magic," Harry continued. "I can't tell you anything about how it works, that would be like asking a secondary school student to explain university level physics. Just know that I have it and that I was born with it."

"That's it?" Stark asked with dissatisfaction. "What about everything else? What can you do? Where'd you learn it? Is that a wand? What's it made of?" He rattled off questions faster and faster, sounding like an interrogation more than anything.

"Uh, Mr. Stark. Maybe you should give him time to answer your questions," Peter interrupted.

"Oh, right. Take it away, Fairy Godfather."

Harry rubbed his forehead in exasperation.

"It's simple," Harry explained slowly, like he was teaching little kids. "Wand," he held it up and pointed at it, "plus Latin words equals magic spell."

"Where does the magic come from, is it the—"

"No," Harry cut Peter off. "The wand has magical components to let it channel magic, but that's all it does — channel my innate magic to make spellcasting easier. Without it, casting spells is nearly impossible."

Stark nodded along, eyeing him with — not exactly suspicion, but something close, like Harry was a puzzle to solve. He supposed that he was.

Pre-empting further questioning, Harry went on to tell them more about how magic worked. "So, we'd be here for an hour if I were to list every spell I know and what it did, so suffice it to say, I can use my magic to do a great deal of things."

"Invisibility?"

"Yes."

"Turning into an animal?"

"Tough, but doable."

"Singing tea cups?"

"Singing— wait, as in Beauty and the Beast?" Harry asked, remembering the film from one summer some years ago. He was doing chores in the Dursley's living room while the movie played on the television.

Peter laughed. "Yeah."

"Uh, possible, but I've no clue how to do it."

"Flying?"

"Haven't figured that one out yet."

"That's all well and good, but what're your limits?" Stark cut in, putting a stop to Peter's game of magical bingo. "Does it work like a battery that needs to be recharged? Does it cause physical exertion?"

"I'm not sure," Harry answered with a shrug. "I've never had reason to cast that much magic." In practice, most wizards rarely performed great feats of magic, and in a duel, physical exhaustion often set in first. The one time he had ever felt like his magic was on the verge of being depleted was that day in the graveyard, maintaining the Priori Incantatem between his and Voldemort's wands.

His answer clearly failed to satisfy Stark, but the bellend could sod off. The man had little time to press for more information, as an uncharacteristically sombre Peter asked a question that shook Harry to his core.

"Can you die?"

Harry nearly choked on his saliva at the question.

"What?" he coughed out.

"Well, last week, when I saw you dead in the alley—"

Harry felt his heart drop. "You… you saw that?"

"Uh... yeah, that was how I realised you weren't just some normal dude," Peter told him. "'Cause you know, I was patrolling, and I found the crime scene, with the two dudes knocked out and the one guy trying to wake them up. I took him down, then when I looked at the body, I realised it was wearing the same clothes as you. So I called your phone and well…"

Harry winced. That can't have been a pleasant sight.

"But the next thing I know, your body's just gone. I tried to figure out what happened, but obviously I didn't find anything, so I just went back home. Then I figured I'd check your apartment for any clues, but well, there you were — alive."

Harry leaned back in his chair, mind whirling.

"That… explains a lot," he mumbled, cursing Death in his head. He sighed and ran his hands over his face. "Merlin, Peter. I'm so sorry you had to see that."

'Sorry' could barely cover it. He was intimately aware how painful it was to see your friends die. Harry didn't want to overvalue his worth to Peter, not in light of what he'd discovered today, but he didn't doubt that it was upsetting regardless.

Harry couldn't bring himself to meet their eyes, staring at the floor and contemplating what to say instead. He was barely ready to admit his immortality to himself, let alone to others. It was his biggest secret, and he was not going to reveal it to anyone if he could help it — even without taking into account his current issues with these two.

"I can die," he lied. "Wizards are more durable than muggles — er, that is to say non-wizards. But they still age, they fall ill, they can be killed. In this case, I was close to death as can be, but thankfully I survived."

"You actually survived that?" the wide-eyed Peter asked. "Your brain was leaking dude! It was gross."

Harry winced. "Yes. My magic reacted and kept me in a sort of stasis. It teleported me home and healed me up enough that I was able to stagger up and grab a healing potion before I could pass out. Truth be told, if the mugger had fired a second bullet, I wouldn't be here today," he told them, hoping they wouldn't realise that the truth was most certainly not being told.

"Magic has sentience?" Stark crossed his arms, looking sceptical. "And that must be some powerful stuff there, Madoka."

Peter swivelled around to face Stark. "Madoka? Isn't that from a — Mr. Stark you know anime?"

"Really? That's what you're focusing on right now?" Stark asked, words dripping with the exasperation.

"Sorry," Peter apologised sheepishly. Harry made a mental note to ask what that was all about later.

"I don't actually know the answer to that," Harry answered honestly. "Perhaps it does have some degree of sentience, or maybe in my dying moments I was able to command it to heal me. I couldn't tell you," he shrugged. "As for the healing potion, yes it was very strong. Unfortunately, it's the last one I had. And I won't be able to make more for the foreseeable future."

"And why's that?"

Harry scrambled for an answer. "The ingredients are rare, and it, err, needs to be... made during a total solar eclipse — something about the sun's magical energies. I won't pretend to understand the specifics."

"Friday?"

"The next Solar eclipse is predicted to be in July 2019," a feminine Irish voice spoke, the sound seemingly coming from nowhere. Harry was initially alarmed, but there was something about the voice that reminded him of those 'AI' things from some science fiction movies he'd seen recently. He made a note to ask about that too.

Meanwhile he thanked the heavens for the information the voice delivered. He'd have been buggered if the next eclipse was next week or something.'

After that, Stark asked more questions, wanting to know more about his repertoire of spells, while Harry answered as best he could, keeping certain facts to himself here and there. Before long, having given Stark enough to think about for now, the man told Harry and Peter they were free to leave.

"Happy can give you a ride home, kid, unless Dorothy here can click his heels and get you both home."

Not quite getting the reference, but understanding the general message, Harry shrugged. "How strong is your stomach?" he asked Peter.

"Whaddya mean?"

"You'll see," he smirked, grabbing Peter's arm as he apparated away roughly, only putting in enough effort to keep them from getting splinched. It was a petty act of revenge, but it would be a lie to say he didn't enjoy it.

Teary eyed and doing his best not to gag from the taste of bile and acid in his mouth, Peter panted and tried to catch his breath.

"You… could… have… warned me," he said breathily.

"I could've," Harry agreed, "but where's the fun in that? Though I didn't think you'd actually vomit. Evanesco."

The vomit at his feet disappeared, and Peter belatedly realised that Harry had cast a spell to clean it up. 'God, that's gonna take some getting used to. Pretty cool though.'

Once the world stopped spinning and Peter no longer felt like he was going to hurl up his insides, he stood up and looked around, realising they were in Harry's apartment. He turned to the amused wizard and said, "If you don't mind, I think I'll take a car next time."

Harry snorted. "I'll keep that in mind."

After that, they lapsed into an awkward kind of silence until Harry excused himself. "It's been a long day, so I think I'll just take a nap. I'll see you later, Peter."

It was only a little past noon, but Peter didn't call him out on it. He left the apartment with a cheery goodbye, only for his smile to fade fast once he heard the click of the door being locked. He shut his eyes and stood there for a few short moments, hands curling into clenched fists, then let out a deep breath and walked the two steps it took to reach his front door.

His aunt wasn't back from work yet. Peter was left alone to deal with the emotional fallout. He made his way back to his room and surveyed it. His hands were itching for something to keep themselves busy, so he numbly set about cleaning up and sorting through the scattered books and papers.

When everything was ready for the start of his junior year, Peter found himself at a loss for what to do. In the end he decided to grab his backpack, stuff his Spidey suit into it, and run out of the apartment. In the privacy of a nearby dead-end alley, Peter got changed, then took to the skies. He patrolled the city until the bright blue hue of the sky gave way to orange and purple, swinging back home as the last signs of day hid behind the horizon.

This time, he found May sprawled on the couch when he went in.

"Rough day?"

May picked up the remote and muted the TV. "You could say that," she said, sitting up and turning to face him. "Just had to deal with a bunch of hot-headed jerks at work. How about you?

'Kind of awful' he wanted to say, but that might have been overdramatic. All things considered, his and Harry's secrets were out in the open, and they were still 'friends'. It could have gone much worse.

It was just… he felt guilty about hurting Harry's feelings, and when Harry all but kicked him out earlier, he started worrying that maybe he did do permanent damage to their friendship. All Harry ever promised was to try to put this behind them. What if he couldn't truly forgive him?

"What's wrong, honey?"

Peter sighed. It seemed that his face gave him away. He joined May on the couch, scooting over when she beckoned him closer.

"It's Harry, he…"

"Is he alright? Did something happen with him? Wait, did he do something?" May asked, brows furrowed in concern.

"No, he's fine. I think. And sort of? I…" Peter trailed off. Before his aunt could question him further, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Harry. "Just a sec," he told May.

It took a few rings, but Harry answered the phone.

"Hullo?"

"Hey Harry. Sorry, this is kinda sudden, but can I tell May? About, you know…"

There was silence on the other end of the line. For a moment Peter thought the connection dropped, but eventually Harry spoke up.

"...she already knows about everything else?"

"Yeah, she found out from Mr. Stark and Happy," Peter admitted, watching his aunt frown in confusion.

"In that case… alright, you may as well."

"Great, thanks. I… I'll let you go then."

"Bye." Harry hung up, and Peter winced at how stiff he had sounded.

Trying not to think too deeply about the brief exchange, Peter put his phone away, then proceeded to let loose a veritable flood of words as he described the day's events to May, hardly pausing to take a breath. May made a few comments during, expressing incredulity at Harry being a wizard, and empathising with Harry when she found out he was held at gunpoint by four armed agents the night before, but otherwise she let Peter say all he had to say.

"Sounds like a tough situation," May empathised when Peter's tale was done, patting him on the shoulder. "He has reasons to feel betrayed, but we had plenty of reasons to be careful. Do you think you should have done things differently?"

"Maybe? If I just talked to him—"

May crossed her arms. "When you didn't know for sure that he didn't mean you any harm? It sounded unlikely, we knew that even then, but would it have been worth the risk?" Her tone of voice made it clear that she didn't think so, but then she was his aunt, it was her job to be overly protective of him.

Peter started, taken aback by the question. Would it have been worth it? He honestly didn't know. He liked Harry, as much as he could like someone he'd only known for a few weeks, but no matter how guilty he felt, he still couldn't rationalise the risk that confronting Harry directly would have invited. His heart was telling him otherwise though, and maybe he should have trusted it.

"I'd love to have done right by Harry, and if it had been more than just two weeks, then yeah. But at the time…I really don't know. This is bugging the hell out of me."

"Talk me through it, what are you feeling exactly?"

"I don't know. Guilty? Sad? Kinda scared?"

May pulled Peter closer, cuddling him. "What is it that's scaring you?"

Peter gave it some thought. "I guess that, even with all the reasons and excuses and all of it, I'm scared that Harry's gonna end up holding this against me permanently. Like, I don't know what I expected to happen when he found out about everything, but I guess I hoped it'd all work out."

His aunt scooted over and gave him a warm cuddle. "You apologised, right?"

"Yeah."

"And he accepted it?"

"Sorta?"

"Then just make sure he doesn't regret giving you another chance. Harry seems like a sensible kid. I'm sure he understands why everyone was suspicious, even if he's feeling hurt," May told him.

"You think?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Absolutely. Just give it time. It's only been a couple of hours. It's not surprising that he wants to be alone to think everything through," she reassured, disentangling herself from Peter and standing up. "Now, I don't feel like cooking. What do you feel like ordering?"

"Chinese," Peter answered absently.

'Yeah, I'm being overdramatic. We won't go back to our previous dynamic instantly, but it doesn't mean this can't just be a hurdle our friendship once overcame.'

Feeling somewhat better, Peter got up to debate the restaurant order with his aunt before she ordered a bunch of stuff neither of them wanted to eat, as she often did in the name of 'mixing things up'.

He'd already been through the ringer emotionally today. No need to let her put his stomach through the ringer too.

Talk about karma.

It had been a week since his and Harry's web of secrets unravelled and the wizard had placed a near tangible wall between them. They'd seen each other a few times since that day and, the one time Harry didn't make up an excuse to leave, they muddled their way through an awkward conversation that made it obvious things were nowhere near okay. Peter guiltily wondered if this was how he made Harry feel before.

May's advice was to give Harry more time, but Peter disagreed. He had broken Harry's trust in him, and he needed to be proactive in trying to repair that damage. Now, there were no easy ways of doing so — no guide for him to follow — but Peter was determined to show Harry that their short-lived friendship was worth keeping.

So here he was, knocking on Harry's door at noon.

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*▬

"Peter?"

"Mornin'! Or, uh, good afternoon," Peter said, checking his watch to make sure.

"Good afternoon," Harry echoed. "What brings you here?"

"Well, if I'm remembering right, you have a console sitting there waiting to be used. I, your friendly neighbourhood tech wizard, am here to help you set it up," he explained, grinning at his bewildered friend.

"Err, what?"

"Can I come in?"

"Nice of you to ask for permission," Harry muttered. Ouch. Peter had to force himself not to react. "But alright. Come in," he relented, stepping back into his apartment and waving Peter inside.

The place looked the same as ever — simply furnished, with only the necessities and a few flower pots and vases interspersed to add some colour. Peter had once marvelled at how spotless the apartment was, with not a speck of dust to be found, but after seeing Harry make his vomit disappear the other day, his housekeeping skills were admittedly less impressive.

"So you're here to deal with that?" Harry pointed to the still boxed and wrapped console, tucked against the side of the TV.

Peter walked over and picked it up. He placed it on the coffee table and set about unpacking the box. He could feel Harry's confused gaze on him, but he ignored it, busying himself with hooking up all the wires. In no time, he had the console set up below the TV and booted up.

"Voila! Now it just needs to be configured, updated, and we can plop a game in and play," he told Harry cheerfully.

"Right…" Harry replied absently.

Shortly after, while Peter connected the console to his apartment's wifi, seeing as Harry didn't have any yet, Harry spoke up.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just connecting the—"

Harry cut him off. "That's not what I meant. What are you doing? What is this?" Harry asked quietly. No doubt he was confused why Peter turned up at his door and was acting like nothing happened, but Peter was prepared for that question.

Kind of.

Sort of.

Well, okay, not really. But he had a vague idea of what he wanted to say, so he was just going to wing it.

"Well, there's this friend of mine who's upset with me," he began uncertainly, "and I know I deserve it. And he said he's willing to try forgiving me, but he's been really distant the last week and you know, maybe he just needed some time to himself." Peter shrugged, staring down at the controller in his hands.

"But I also figured that maybe I need to be more… uh, more…proactive in showing him the friendship is worth keeping," he went on, struggling to find his words for a moment. He looked up at Harry, meeting his eyes and praying that the boy would see how honestly he meant his words. "You said I 'shattered your trust', and I get that I can't fix that in a day, but still... I was thinking that maybe we could still spend time together while I work on that?" Peter's gaze fell as he muttered, "I uh... really miss having you around."

Harry's eyes were wider than usual, giving away his surprise, but otherwise Peter couldn't really read him. He hoped he didn't just make a fool of himself. God knows enough people considered him a loser.

"I..."

Peter braced himself.

Harry had given matters a great deal of thought over the last week, considering exactly what Peter and Stark had done. It was a war of heart and mind — anger and understanding.

Merlin, he had been absolutely fuming that first night, once he was alone and had time to play it all over in his head. Yet, the next morning, he couldn't summon up any of that anger, feeling sad and a little upset, but far more in tune with Peter's perspective of things. And so it went, but as the week went on, he found his feelings oscillating less and coming to a sort of equilibrium.

Ultimately, while he still had some frustration to work through, understanding won out. Peter and Stark had to keep certain dangers in mind, and seeing him dead, however briefly, would have been quite alarming.

In the end, he realised that he couldn't have expected them to act any differently, so he wasn't particularly upset at Peter, and his anger at Stark had dimmed — though he still disliked the man.

But he didn't know how to be Peter's friend again, or even whether he should. He felt bad, because he had reassured Peter that he was 'willing to try' that day, but then started having second thoughts as soon as he was back home.

Even if Peter had been justified in his suspicion, how was Harry supposed to trust that the superhero wouldn't be reporting his secrets to Stark, and using their friendship to keep an eye on him? Stark still had doubts about him, of that he was certain — particularly after refusing to reveal any information about the rest of his kind.

He considered admitting the truth, but…he felt possessive, in a manner of speaking, towards his secrets. There was no particular reason for it, not fear or an abundance of caution. Perhaps he felt as though they didn't deserve to know that much about him, even if it might prove advantageous for them to. So that left him in a quandary, one he handled rather inelegantly by tucking his tail and avoiding Peter when he could.

Now that Peter was here in his living room, he could admit that he missed having him around. It had been quite the boring couple of days spent by himself. He tried going out, perhaps meeting new people, but those attempts never lasted long. Part of it was that he was still learning how to blend in, so inevitably he'd say something that marked him as odd. The other problem was that he felt like he was under Stark's unblinking gaze the whole time.

"I… I honestly don't know Peter. I understand why you did what you did," Harry explained sombrely, "but it certainly makes me wary of your company."

Peter's eyebrows drew together and the corners of his lips turned down. "I get it... I just—"

"I know! I know... look, I… urghhh," Harry growled and clenched his fists as his frustration bubbled up and spewed forth. He turned his head and glared at the wall, taking a deep breath and slowly relaxing his hands. "Look, I don't doubt you mean well, Peter, but that's exactly it! How am I supposed to feel comfortable around you when for all I know, and for what I'm sure you'd consider 'good' reasons, you could be feeding everything back to Stark and whoever else you're affiliated with!?"

Peter crossed his arms and frowned. Harry braced himself for some sort of outburst at his accusation, but Peter's actual reaction threw him for a loop.

"Can you cast a spell on me? Something that makes sure I can't spill your secrets?" he asked, jaw set in determination.

Harry's lips parted in surprise. 'He can't possibly—'

But Harry's ears hadn't misled him. Peter was actually asking, possibly consenting, for Harry to use magic to ensure his silence. That was a large show of trust, if he meant it.

"Are you serious?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I'm basing this on a buttload of fantasy novels, but if it's possible it'd be perfect, right?"

"Well, I could come up with something," Harry said slowly, entertaining the idea. A plethora of options came to mind, like unbreakable vow, magically binding contract, Fidellius charm… but they were all swiftly discarded. They would all prevent Peter from tittle-tattling, but that would just be the magic at work, not Peter actually proving his trustworthiness. Maybe he could use a jinxed parchment like the one Hermione made for the DA, which served to identify betrayal, rather than prevent it.

"But why?" Harry asked, still in disbelief, even as he considered the options. "That's a little extreme, isn't it?"

"Is it? Obviously I don't know how it works, but it'll solve the problem, right? We can hang out and be friends without you worrying that I'm telling Mr. Stark every little detail."

"And you're not at all bothered by the idea of having magic used on you? I could do anything."

Peter hummed. "No, not really? I know you won't do anything to hurt me."

Harry couldn't help but scoff. "Not a week ago, you were worried I could be plotting to kill you!"

"When I didn't know what you really were," Peter protested, gesturing wildly in frustration. He sighed then ran a hand through his hair. "We've talked about this dude… the odds of you living here, your unexplained powers — we had to keep the worst in mind."

Harry still had his doubts about Peter's sudden show of trust. "And what've you learned since then that's changed things?"

"Honestly, for me it was your reaction when you saw my face. You were so shocked, and I..." Peter shrugged and bit his lip, briefly lowering his head to avoid Harry's gaze. He sighed, then lifted his head to look at Harry again — Harry subconsciously relaxed at that moment, as he took in Peter's expressive face and some part of him decided then and there that the bloke was being honest. "I guess you coulda been faking, but I don't know, I believed it was genuine— believe you're being genuine."

"I can't imagine Stark was that easy to convince."

Peter looked startled. "What do you mean? He said he was convinced, right? That this was obviously just 'teen drama', or something like that?"

It was very hard not to roll his eyes. "I don't know the man well, but I can't imagine he actually dismissed any suspicions of me just like that. What's more likely? That he decided to change tracks and keep an eye on me from a closer position, or that — after breaking into his lab and surprising him — he decided I was no longer someone to be worried about?"

To his credit, Peter didn't dismiss the possibility immediately. He stood there and absorbed Harry's words, ruminating on the likely behaviour of his fellow superhero, before nodding in acknowledgement.

"Yeah, you might be right," he admitted slowly, then tilted his head as if literally examining the situation from another angle. "I think it's a bit of both, though. He probably still thinks you're fishy, but he's also seen enough to, uh, give you more rope to, uh…"

Harry filled in the words. "Hang myself with?"

Hearing it out loud, Peter grimaced. "Probably."

There was a period of silence after that, as Harry considered all that had been said. He plopped himself on a sofa and crossed his legs, leaning forward, hands on his chin and elbows on his thighs. If Peter said something, Harry didn't hear it, deep in his head as he was.

First there was Peter's apology.

'He didn't hold back, I appreciate that.' And he really did. Harry appreciated that Peter had acknowledged what an effort it would be to earn Harry's trust again, and didn't think he had a right to Harry's confidence.

'He does seem to trust me, if he's willing to let me bind him into secrecy. And he's not the sycophant I worried he might be, if he can acknowledge that my worries about Stark aren't unfounded…'

In the end, Harry found himself swayed. He decided that while he still had to be careful around Stark, he believed that Peter really did just want to be his friend. He was still sort of worried that Peter would — unwittingly or not — be one of the man's tools of information gathering, so he still planned to take Peter up on his offer.

Having arrived at a decision, Harry took a deep breath and focused on his surroundings once more, fixing his gaze on Peter. His guest was looking out the window, fidgeting with loose threads on his pants while he waited.

"Alright," Harry said.

Peter jumped slightly. He turned his head to stare at Harry with wide hopeful eyes.

"Alright?"

"Alright," Harry repeated. "I'm giving you one chance. A real one, this time. Now," he pointed at the console. "How about you show me how that thing works?"

A dumbfounded expression graced Peter's face initially, but slowly it gave way to delight. A wide, infectious grin spread on his face, one that Harry found himself matching with a small smile of his own.

He patted the space next to him. "Well? Are we going to play or not?"

Peter didn't move at first. His grin faded into a softer, appreciative smile. "Thank you, Harry."

Harry didn't need thanks, he just wanted a true friend, and he chose to give Peter that second chance for his own sake, not Peter's. He nodded at Peter, but opted not to say anything and patted the sofa cushion again.

Peter hurried to join him, and started explaining the basics of how to operate the console. "Okay, so this is the controller…"

They ended up spending the rest of the day playing various competitive games, which Peter won almost every time, save for when he let Harry win — which would have hurt Harry's pride, but it was already battered by the many, many defeats. All in all, it was just what they needed — no room to think about what-ifs and could-haves, or to talk about the cracks in the friendship, just mindless fun.

Eventually, Peter had to go home for dinner. He invited Harry over, but Harry decided to turn down the invitation this time, preferring to keep to himself for the rest of the night.

"How about tomorrow night then?" Peter asked, not giving up on the idea.

Harry nodded. "I suppose. Why not?" he agreed.

And with that, they said their goodbyes and Peter made the short trek across the corridor.

Harry kept himself busy for the rest of the night — badly playing some of the games Peter introduced him to, cooking dinner, practicing some magic — and later, when he was in bed, he thought, 'I hope I made the right decision.'

Although, as sleep claimed him, he felt confident that he had.

[A/N]: Apologies for the wait! Life got busy for a while, and when I did have time I got tired of bashing my head against this chapter & decided to do more productive things until the writer's block was gone.

I'm still not sure how to feel about this chapter, with how many times I've read through it. You sort of lose perspective after a while. So it could be amazing, or utter trash, who knows? At least it's a long one, so I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers!