For the most part, Peter remembered his high school years in broad strokes. He knew it had happened, obviously, and he could recall the details that surrounded particularly memorable events of that time, but anything in between those specific highlights was a vague blur that had long since been forgotten.

He imagined it like a connect the dots puzzle from within a children's artbook; the dots marked significant things that were remembered and the lines that separated those dots represented the vague connections in between, the time that surrounded those moments – a smear of things that was simply unmemorable in the long term. Together, they made the complete picture: Peter's impression of his time in high school.

That was just how memory worked. It was normal. People didn't remember every single detail of their pasts, and memory of such was usually a scattered collection of important points compared to, say, the crystal-clear clarity that he had when it came to things that happened this morning.

The fact that this was normal didn't prevent it from being a problem for Peter anyway.

After spending much of the night before pouring over old class textbooks and reacquainting himself with lessons he barely remembered, Wednesday morning felt like it came much too fast, and Peter had reluctantly climbed out of bed after being awoken yet again by Aunt May pounding insistently upon his bedroom door.

He'd felt her eyes on him that morning, likely thinking him woefully irresponsible for failing to wake up early for school two days in a row. Some self-conscious part of him wondered whether she could tell her nephew had invisibly aged twelve years the other night.

Despite another delayed start to the day, he was (barely) able to avoid being late to class. Having already dealt with the ordeal of locating the first period's classroom and his locker, he didn't waste as much time. He still had to check his schedule for the specific room number, but having a better idea of where to go helped immensely. He was more or less retracing his steps from the day before, albeit slightly altered since Midtown High ran on a track system.

Though staying up to study old class material had cut down on his sleep, it'd proven to be a wise move. Period 1, Italian, had unforgivingly hit him with a quiz first thing, and the only reason he knew how to answer the questions was because he'd spent a significant chunk of the prior night burning old lessons into his mind instead of sleeping. And even with that, he still wasn't certain he'd done particularly great or anything – but at least he'd recognized the content there. He was pretty sure that if it weren't for last night's study session, he'd be significantly more lost.

So, studying helped when it came to being prepared for classes. There was nothing to be done about everything else, though.

Namely, it was his interactions with other people that kept tripping him up.

Case in point: between the first two classes, a girl he vaguely recognized but whose name he didn't remember approached him in the hallway and said, without any preamble, "Hey, um, actually – about Friday? My boyfriend's busy that day, so do you think we could reschedule?"

Peter's mind went terrifyingly blank, as did, likely, his expression. "What?"

"You know," she said, her tone prompting, "Friday. You said you could take pictures of us."

It was very clear from the look on her face and from the way she spoke that she expected him to remember, for this statement to be an easy reminder, for him to go oh and quickly move on. But he had absolutely no recollection of what she was talking about whatsoever.

"...Right," he said belatedly, after too long of a pause. He leaned back a little on his heels and nodded. "Right. Yeah, I know. I know."

He didn't, actually. Though from what she'd said, he could piece it together well enough. But she may as well have been informing him of this for the very first time.

The girl, presumably a classmate from… something, he couldn't say what specifically, smiled at him in that polite but slightly awkward sort of way people did when talking to someone they didn't really know. Tucking a couple of loose strands of hair behind her ear, she said, "Yeah, it turns out he's got a dentist appointment this Friday. So I was wondering if we could move it to next Monday instead. Is that good?"

Peter had absolutely no idea what his own schedule looked like, he realized. "Oh, I dunno," he said, struck by the distinctly strange feeling of having to play catch up when it came to his own personal life. "I-I can – check. I'll get back to you, alright?"

After that he practically fled, uncomfortably aware of the gaping, empty spaces within his own memory.

If she hadn't needed to reschedule and tell him, he'd have forgotten about it completely. Which, admittedly, wouldn't have been the end of the world or anything – but it was things like that, little things, that kept throwing him off. It was those moments when a teacher said, "Remember what I told you last week?" or when a boy asked the students seated around him, Peter included, "Hey, what'd you guys get on that last test?"

Peter realized now, more than he'd ever wanted to, how much people took this sort of thing for granted.

People didn't think about how day-to-day memory affected their everyday lives, and the only reason Peter was so aware of it now was because he lacked it. Simple things – like remembering what had happened days, weeks, or months ago – became vital.

It was just expected to know about stuff that had happened recently. But recent for Peter was twelve years ahead in a future that'd likely never come into existence anymore, and he just didn't know enough about the current time to glide by as effortlessly as everyone else.

It certainly made things more difficult. In a way, it was like the past several years of his entire life only existed because he believed they did. The rest of the world was still in 2012.

By the time lunch rolled around, Peter thought he'd settled on a pretty good strategy. The idea was to let others fill in the blanks of his memory for him. Say just the right things, make appropriate remarks when necessary but without going into detail, and let other people provide that detail. Every interaction was a careful game of saying just enough to imply that he knew what they were talking about and was thus reacting appropriately while waiting for them to provide relevant information on their own, which he could then build off of if necessary as though he'd known from the start.

Anytime people brought up anything that had happened in the recent past – which was more often than he would've guessed – Peter played the I have no idea what you're talking about but I have to pretend that I do game. It was complicated, like a game of tennis where the ball was invisible to him, but he had to swat it back anyway. He couldn't say he was particularly good at it, but luckily most people didn't care too much if Peter missed the invisible ball once or twice.

But it was stressful. It left him constantly on edge, always on his toes. Every time someone made so much as a vague reference to something recent, Peter snapped to attention, like an animal with its ears pricking up in sudden, keen interest. Always trying to piece together clues, trying to solve a puzzle within a time limit. And that time limit was called how long you can get away with not replying to someone when they speak to you, which he frequently ran all the way down to zero and then some.

It was exhausting. Peter dropped into a seat at one of the empty cafeteria tables, feeling lost in the sea of his own life. Folding his arms, he buried his face into the sleeves of his jacket.

Peter had fought countless criminals. He could dodge bullets and hold himself up solely by his fingers. But this was a different sort of exhaustion – not of the muscles, but of the mind. Of being constantly vigilant, of having to navigate his life with practically nothing besides whatever he could glean from what others said.

Truthfully though, most people probably didn't care or notice if he seemed confused all the time for no apparent reason. That was a good thing. It gave him significant leeway while he figured things out.

Gwen Stacy, however, was not most people.

There was a thump at the table, and Peter lifted his head from his arms, blinking. Gwen slid into the seat opposite him at their lone, empty table, propped her elbows up on her small stack of books in front of her, and said, "Hi."

It was still kind of surreal to see her alive. Gwen's death had happened so many years ago that he'd long since become accustomed to her being gone, and he kept watching her as though she'd disappear.

"You know," she said, oblivious to the fact that her presence was, to Peter, like that of a ghost, "Dr. Connors showed up at Oscorp yesterday after you left."

He straightened a little, sitting up. "Oh – yeah. I know." It felt refreshing to actually know about something somebody else had referenced for once. "I, uh… ran into him. Afterwards."

Her eyebrows lifted up into her bangs. "You did?" she asked, her gaze searching. Curious, a little concerned. "Are you okay? Is he…"

"Yeah, yeah, no, it's fine," he said quickly. Maybe she thought that by ran into him, Peter meant he'd fought the Lizard again. But that wasn't the case – far from it, actually. "He's, uh… cured, now."

"Really?" she asked. Her gaze was intently focused on his face. Peter looked away, down at his hands. "How?"

Shit. "Um…" His leg started to bounce beneath the table, restless. Cured in another universe wasn't really a usable explanation here, unless he wanted to get into… all that. There was a part of him that almost did want to tell Gwen the whole story, though – after all, there was once a time where he told her practically everything. But he couldn't just unload something like that onto her out of the blue. Gwen was better off uninvolved in his life, and he knew that painfully well.

Peter licked his lips. "You know, the – there's an antiserum? It's somewhere in Oscorp's files." Technically, that was the truth. Just… the truth from the first time.

Gwen leaned back a little, something contemplative in her face. "Oh." But for all that it was the truth, the explanation didn't really make much sense if someone actually thought about it for a second, and she was quick to point out the biggest glaring flaw. "How'd you get it?"

"I…" he began, and then hesitated. If his life were a cartoon, he'd be anxiously sweating buckets right now. Dr. Connors being miraculously cured overnight was difficult to explain away; the timing of it all just didn't add up. "I-I dunno, it… it just, it was already…" he said, and trailed off, making a vague gesture with one hand towards nothing. Maybe it was the exhaustion, but he found himself struggling to come up with a plausible explanation that'd align with both the piece of the truth he'd provided and the idea that it supposedly took place yesterday after he'd left Oscorp.

"Did he already have it on him?" she asked, trying to clarify.

Sure, he'd take that as his intended meaning. "...Yeah. Yes."

He must've looked rather troubled – being a time traveler was hard, okay? – because she didn't pursue that topic any further and instead peered at him, squinting a little. "...Are you alright?"

Peter blinked at her a little stupidly. "Yeah," he said, at length. He sucked in a breath. "I'm fine, why?"

"You look terrible," she observed. That was a little harsh, he thought, even though he was tired. And stressed, from having to navigate his old life. Of course he wasn't exactly having a great time. His flimsy explanation probably wasn't helping his image, either. "Is it the allergies?"

"What?"

"The allergies?" she repeated, her expression taking on that you know? sort of look he kept seeing today. Unlike many of the previous instances though, this time it actually did click, even if it was a little late.

"Yesterday you said–" she began to prompt him, but he cut her off.

"Oh, right, right, right," he said hastily, and nodded. "Uh, yeah. Mm-hmm."

Damn, that was literally yesterday and he hadn't remembered at first. And he'd been here yesterday.

There was just so, so much to remember.

What followed was a brief lull where neither of them said anything. The silence lingered for all of a couple of seconds before Gwen shifted slightly over her books.

"Are you busy this Friday?" she said suddenly, apropos of nothing.

Well, as Peter had just found out earlier, his Friday was now open, seeing as that other girl's photography thing had just been rescheduled. So he answered honestly: "No."

"You know, sometimes I tutor Flash on Fridays," Gwen informed him. He knew that, actually. At some point, she'd started inviting him over too, and the three of them had formed a little study group of sorts. Peter didn't need to be tutored, but it'd been… nice. He'd never had something like that before, and had never had something like that again afterwards.

It'd helped contribute to his friendlier relationship with Flash, he knew; frequently seeing him outside of school just did that. Although after high school graduation, he'd lost touch with Flash. He'd gone to South Dakota or something for college, Peter was pretty sure.

It seemed like maybe this was the start of all that. It was a strange flip of the usual situation, where he knew nothing, and had to figure things out mid-conversation. In this case, he'd probably have to play dumb.

"If you want, you can come too. Uh, not to get tutored," she added quickly, and chuckled. "But just, you know, we can work on stuff. It's at 3:30. Friday after school, at my house?"

Peter bit at the inside of his cheek and hesitated for a second, torn between the need to keep Gwen safe, to keep his distance… and the part of him that selfishly wanted to keep her in his life.

On one hand, the safest thing for Gwen would be if he stayed as uninvolved with her as possible. Though it'd probably come across as cold to just abruptly cut her off, it'd be better in the long run. It'd hurt – but not nearly as much as her death did. She'd be alive. And wasn't that what mattered?

But on the other hand, he didn't want to do that. And, the selfish part of him reasoned, there was no real need to isolate himself from her completely, even if his paranoia thought otherwise. They could stay on friendly terms, at least. Cutting her out of his life entirely would be extreme.

Besides, this was a study session. He'd done this before countless times and it'd been perfectly fine.

Against his better judgement, he said, "Sure."

It was worth it just to see her smile.

Gwen Stacy's death took place right on the cusp of her leaving for Oxford. Now unwritten out of existence, it was only a possibility that lurked on the distant horizon. A prophecy of loss, of pain and misfortune, of a life taken too soon. From where Peter stood on the timeline, he could see it. It was like a terrifying silhouette of a monster in the distance, a promise of death and the lasting stain it'd leave in its wake.

For the average person, the future was an unknown thing, a path clouded and completely obscured; people only knew what came next as they lived it. Every step was a mystery until they were already there.

To Peter's eyes, the path to the future was clear, the fog banished; a result of having already traveled that journey once before. Hindsight really was 20/20. Or perhaps it was more like foresight, what with it now being 2012 and all.

The path to the future, though, wasn't set in stone. Currently, it was still recognizable in an overall sense, though it wouldn't stay that way. It was already changing – Dr. Connors was cured early, and so Captain Stacy would live. And Oscorp wanted Spider-Man more than a year before Harry had ever set his sights on him before. Things were different.

The fog along the path to the future was beginning to creep back in, but only slightly. Right now, if Peter were to change absolutely nothing from this point forward, it was very possible that Gwen would still die in a similar fashion. And for all that Peter shouldered a certain amount of the blame himself, he'd have to be purposefully ignorant to dismiss the role that Harry Osborn had played in Gwen's untimely demise.

But that was where things got complicated.

Harry Osborn was the only person Peter had ever called his best friend. And yet, he was also the person who'd directly contributed to killing Gwen.

Most of Peter's memories of Harry – the good ones, the ones where they were close – were from childhood. They'd both been very young: six and eight. Harry was older than Peter by almost two years, and at that age, two years could feel like a lot. After Peter's parents had left, when he'd been struggling with the realization that they weren't going to come back for him… through the misery of it all, the one thing that Peter remembered was that Harry had been there with him.

Harry's presence had been a comforting constant, up until Peter was ten – and then Harry had been shipped off to boarding school. Peter's lasting impression of Harry had always been positive – but how well did you know someone, really, when you were ten?

The next time they'd seen each other, Peter had been eighteen to Harry's twenty. And Harry had seemed relatively fine at first, but then… it was like he'd gone insane overnight. Peter had always wondered what had happened to him. He'd never really figured out what had caused him to just snap like that, but judging by what happened to Dr. Connors, his best guess had been that he'd injected himself with some sort of botched serum – though from where and what, he had no idea.

Harry had looked terrible, too – it was difficult to put into words, but the best description Peter could think of was that it was like he'd grown mold under his skin. But it was like he'd just suddenly gone crazy. The person Peter had once called his best friend had become unrecognizable.

In the aftermath of Gwen's death, Peter simultaneously mourned the loss of his friend and absolutely despised the person he'd become. He'd hated him. Could've killed him, even. He'd thought about it more than once. But in the end, what would killing Harry do for Gwen? Nothing. There was nothing to be done for Gwen anymore.

Now, however, was different – and if Peter was going to prevent her death, this was where to start.

After school, Peter made his way over to Oscorp Tower and headed straight for Dr. Connors' office in the cross-species genetics wing. Dr. Ratha, evidently on his way out after some sort of discussion, passed him, sparing Peter little more than a glance.

Peter pushed open the glass door; inside, Dr. Connors was sitting at his desk, his expression deeply contemplative, seemingly lost in thought. His hand was atop his desk, fingers curled against the screen of some sort of flat, tablet-like device propped up in front of him at an angle so low that it seemed rather pointless to have it propped up at all. Dr. Connors looked up at him as he entered, expression softening when he saw who was there.

"Hey," Peter said as the door shut behind him. For a beat he hovered there, back pressed to the glass, not quite sure where to begin now that he was here. "How's, uh… how's it going?"

Dr. Connors stood up from his desk with a tired-sounding sigh, snagging a couple of folders off its surface. "If you're looking for Max, I'm afraid I don't have any news on his whereabouts, Peter," he said, apologetic. "As far as I'm aware, he still hasn't shown up at work."

Peter blinked. "Oh, that's – I know." He'd already figured as much. There were no messages from Dr. Connors informing him of such, after all. "But I actually – I wanted to ask you something."

Dr. Connors didn't pause in his task of clearing the folders off his desk, though he did look up at Peter again, still standing at the door, and nod towards a stool by one of the cluttered tables. "Go ahead," he said. "And feel free to sit down."

Pulling away from the door, Peter dropped onto the stool. The table alongside it was so full of miscellaneous papers, vials, and pens that there was only a sliver of space in front of him. Hooking the heels of his shoes upon the bottom rung, Peter pressed his fingers to his lower lip. Might as well get right to it. "What do you know about Norman Osborn?"

That gave Dr. Connors pause. "Osborn?" he said, eyebrows lifting upwards as his gaze flicked towards Peter. "He's the founder and CEO of the company."

"But he's sick, right?" Peter pressed, because – he needed to know this. Harry's disease had been inherited from his father, and therefore they probably shared the same symptoms. And he had a new theory.

The Norman Osborn from Peter Two's universe was strikingly similar to what Harry had become, glider and all. That, combined with his fraying sanity – they mirrored each other. It wasn't that much of a stretch to assume that the Norman Osborn of Peter Two's universe had the same disease – and maybe that was just how it manifested. It'd certainly help explain Harry's abrupt shift into insanity.

And if that was the cause, then it meant that if Peter could find a cure for Harry, it'd not only prevent his friend from dying, but it'd also prevent him from going crazy and trying to kill Gwen. Curing Harry would save them both.

Peter Two had cured the Norman Osborn from his universe somehow, so it was possible.

"He is sick, yes," Dr. Connors acknowledged. Folders successfully sorted, he gave Peter his full attention, looking thoughtful. "Retroviral hyperplasia. It's a rare genetic disease, thought to be incurable."

Peter was going to have to look that up later. He nodded slowly and ran his tongue over his teeth. "Is one of the symptoms… insanity?"

"Insanity?" Dr. Connors repeated, and from his mild surprise alone, Peter could already predict his negative answer. "Not as far as I'm aware, no."

Peter frowned. No. No? Then why had Harry suddenly gone insane, if not for the disease? It was all so uncannily similar to Norman Osborn from Peter Two's universe. It made sense.

If it wasn't the disease, then Peter's next best guess was going back to the serum idea – but there had always been a problem with that theory. After the very public incident with the Lizard, the cross-species genetics wing had been shut down, all of the research destroyed, deemed too dangerous. There shouldn't have been any sort of botched serum for Harry to get his hands on in the first place.

Dr. Connors was still talking. "Even in his debilitated state, I believe Norman Osborn still runs much of the company," he said, leaning up against the front of his desk. "Although I suppose it's possible he's suffering from… insanity, as you put it. He hasn't made any public appearances in years."

Peter shifted in his seat. "You know him?" he asked, curious. "Norman Osborn?"

"Not personally, no," Dr. Connors said, and gave him a look. "Your father worked much more closely with him than I ever did."

Peter's gaze fell to his knees and he let out a breath. "...Right."

In a weird way, this entire line of questioning had just made him even more confused. This was what made curing Harry so difficult – he just didn't know enough about the circumstances that surrounded his situation in the first place. It was the abrupt, unpredictable shift into insanity that was the biggest problem, that he needed to figure out how to prevent. But how was he supposed to cure that when he didn't know the cause?

Dr. Connors was watching him, considering. "Is there any particular reason you were asking about this, Peter?"

"Just wondering." Peter unhooked the heel of one of his shoes from the stool, pulled his leg up beside him – and then promptly let it drop again upon the abrupt realization that dirtying the surface of the stool with the bottom of his shoes would probably be rude. "You know it's inherited? In – in the future, Harry, he… he kinda went crazy. I dunno. I just thought it might be connected."

"Harry Osborn?" Dr. Connors said, with visible interest. "I wasn't aware you were acquainted."

"Yeah, uh, we were – are – friends." Peter reached up with one hand and scrubbed at his face, grimacing. Time travel was complicated. Technically, in 2024 he'd say they were friends – but in the current day, there was no reason to demote their relationship to past tense. He shrugged. "We just, y'know. Knew each other as kids and stuff."

"I see."

Peter stared down at his lap, thinking. As loath as he was to hand more of his father's research into Oscorp's hands – he wanted to know what could be done. What the possibilities were. And because… curing a genetic disease just wasn't something he knew how to do on his own. It was easier to undo something done to someone later, like in Dr. Connors' case – and even his cure was already in Oscorp's files. To cure a genetic disease like Harry's…

"D'you think… Would cross-species genetics be able to cure that?" Peter asked, looking up. "The, uh – the – retrovir–"

"Retroviral hyperplasia," Dr. Connors said. In his hand was a ballpoint pen he'd snagged from the surface of his desk. "And it's difficult to say. In theory, yes. But until we can get cross-species genetics to provide successful results consistently, it's just a theory."

Peter shoved his hands into the depths of his jacket pockets. "...Yeah."

"Your father worked on a cure with Norman Osborn for many years," Dr. Connors said, his gaze far away. Remembering days past. The ballpoint pen in his hand clicked. "He was more knowledgeable in the area. I apologize I'm not able to be of more help."

Peter waved his apology aside. "Nah, it's okay," he said, and flashed him a half-grin. "Uh – thanks."

But that, he thought, was a good idea.

Perhaps it was a good time to pay another visit to the abandoned Roosevelt line.