“Aw, Harry. That stings.” His mouth pulled further into a smile, more relieved than anything. He tried to keep the eagerness from his tone, and failed instantly. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t mind that so much. “What d’you mean, ‘unfortunate sucker’? My advice can’t be that bad. Its decent, like, seven-ish times out of ten. That’s a safe number by IMDB standards.”

When Harry looked up – looked away, Peter couldn’t bring himself to do the same. He spared a brief thought for anyone or anything he might bump into, but it had all more or less faded into the background. Instead, he let his gaze linger on Harry. He looked…different. Older, maybe? Tired, he thought with a pang of guilt. Peter’s pulse tripped over itself, eyebrows drawing closer when concern fought for purchase on his face. He wanted so badly to ask after him. When was the last time he had slept? Was he even on speaking terms with his pillow? But…that ventured away from the gentle atmosphere they had built a conversation in. No, that wasn’t as safe, so he worried his bottom lip between his teeth instead.

Was that selfish? God, it certainly felt like it. But he wanted to keep things from crumbling for as long as he feasibly could, and a shift in topic felt too much like a one way ticket to the gritty, guilt-ridden conversation they both kept skirting around. Yeah, avoiding it was selfish, but right now, there wasn’t a bone in his body that argued against it. He wanted to be here, with Harry, and feel a little less like the world didn’t want to crush him for a moment. Let them have this, please.

Then Harry spoke again, finally looking back at him, and oh godohgod – he grinned, and Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or cry. He settled for the former, a slow, lopsided grin pulling at his mouth. It was almost impossible not to reach out for his friend, then. They were close enough for a hug, without a doubt, but it still felt like he would have to reach across a chasm to touch him. So he resisted the urge, again, and hated himself just as much as before. Maybe more, but for a beat, the smile on Harry’s face overshadowed the stab of guilt.

“Sure – yeah, yeah of course.” Quick to agree and thrilled with the small victory that didn’t really feel small by any means, Peter nodded. “That test is weeks out, right? We’ve got time. Besides,” He flourished a hand in the general direction of the city. “There’s always time for pizza. That’s a rule, somewhere – I’m eighty percent sure.”

Back to rambling, again, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Peter’s stomach felt like it might be trying to float out of his rib cage. He felt happy – a tentative, nervous sort of flutter that pulled his gut his five different directions. Still, an encroaching sense of dread was still settled right beside it, and Peter didn’t even know how to begin balancing those feelings. It was all raw, ready to twist and curl and tug his composure down in the blink of an eye. Fragile, he thought among the mess of nerves; it was all so fragile. But maybe, they could find a way to keep it from breaking. Years of living in each other’s pockets had taught him that, maybe, if anyone could do that, it would be them.

Harry’s proposition drew him out of his head again, and his eyes lit up. “Hey,” Peter clicked his tongue, biting back another laugh. “Whatever you’re imagining – its not that bad. Probably.” And really, he struggled to remember how bad it actually was. Which, okay, felt admittedly like a red flag. In his defense, schoolwork and Spider-Man left approximately no time for tidying up, but at least he could safely guess that it wasn’t a total disaster. “But, on the off-chance that it could use a little work, I’m gonna casually beg you not to tell May? Even though I’m sure she knows these things, we need to play it safe. I’m not willing to let good ol’ Jameson outlive me. Not a chance.”

A couple of students hurried past them and Peter drifted out of their way, and in turn a little closer to Harry. He told himself it wasn’t on purpose, but when he finally gave in and bumped their shoulders together, gentle and a little playful, that was no accident. It should have felt more pathetic, how aware he was of the small press of limbs, but god, he wasn’t anything but grateful. “Alright, pizza to go, it is. I’m close to campus, so we can swing by the place just down the road.” Was his voice unsteady? He coughed lightly, eyes flickering to the space in front of him, then automatically back to Harry. He couldn’t help it – after a year, he almost needed to keep checking, to make sure that his friend wasn’t some sort of sleep-addled daydream. 

“Oh.” Belatedly, he remembered the only current decorative feature of his small apartment, and pushed a somewhat-nervous laugh past his lips. “And – uh, there are pictures? On the walls. Like, everywhere. Just so that you…know. So you’ve, uh, been warned, I guess? This has been a psa?”

With everything that had been going on in his own life since they stopped seeing each other regularly, with all the distractions, Harry should by all accounts and reason have neglected to pay attention to Peter. And he had, to some extent, as a defense mechanism when he realised his best friend had stopped meeting his gaze across classrooms and courtyards. Like a withdrawn lifeline in the gulf that surrounded him after the loss of his father -- and even still, the ache in his chest had only grown as he realised he was doing the exact same to Peter, who had had Gwen. As if the thread they’d both held onto since they met turned into a double-edged blade without a hilt. Harry couldn’t explain it any more today than he’d tried to to himself back then.

But when Harry had been looking at him, Peter had seemed dragged and burdened, even haunted on the worst of days. Not constantly, because Pete never did. When a teacher or student approached him, he’d perk up and plaster a smile back on, maybe a bit slowly depending on how far back in his own thoughts he’d been, but it’d always appear. Harry recognised that. He’d done it, too, back when he had the energy for it. Covering up what you were carrying like dirty laundry, even when all it was was being in a bad place. Society didn’t have as much sympathy on rough patches as it liked to advertise, and it seemed they’d both learned that the hard way. Adapted, with a talent for white lies as cleverly developed as their aptitude for brushing off well-meaning words like dust off their clothes. A duet they’d been practicing subconsciously, except Harry only seemed to be aware of Peter’s part when he was subtracted from the pair. Peter had been the stronger player, too, he thought. He had gone through this first at fifteen, and then simply kept it up every day since. It just hadn’t been this frequent or fervent in a long time. Given the situation, that wasn’t unexpected, but it wasn’t promising either.

With all that at their backs that they carried so casually, he supposed he wasn’t really surprised by how smoothly this was going, all things considered. Sure, there were glimpses of something deeper as they rearranged their feet to an old dance where the music had been added onto, but all in all it was going a lot better than what Harry’s imagination had told him to expect. The best part, something he’d discarded every time he’d considered approaching Peter again, was the genuine joy. Pete was shining like a sun, radiating warmth like he’d been holding it in. Harry found it hard to keep his usual schooled expression, feeling an upwards tilt of his lips that reached his eyes more often than not. In the past few minutes, that avalanche between them had melted away, leaving a surface of ice to walk, but at least they knew where they were headed, what waited on the other side. If only for this brief moment between them, but it had, and he’d do all he could to keep it that way. 

If it hadn’t been happening right in front of him, he wouldn’t have believed that just him being there could change that pattern. Harry felt like his heart didn’t fit; like it wasn’t big enough to house this... whatever this was -- what this meant. And at the same time, it felt... obvious. There was probably something wrong about that, after how he’d been avoiding him for so long, after how he’d been a terrible friend. But then a part of him that he barely knew existed whispered that it was natural, of course it was, they’d been there for each other longer than they hadn’t. It wasn’t like the effect wasn’t mutual, either, he thought with an absurd amount of wonder. 

Pete had been saying something -- shit, Pete had been saying something. His eyes widened a fraction as his mind caught up, slow on the uptake, and scrambled for the words he’d meant to dedicate himself to. Nothing. Harry had no idea what had been said, no clue what was being responded to, which was probably worse. Had he really been zoning out that bad? He opened his mouth, feeling air pull in past his lips as he halted another second before answering -- whatever it had been, when his friend unknowingly came to his rescue, and the held breath was released in a relieved huff, a smile curving it into something reminiscent of a chuckle. 

  “’Probably?’” His attempt to bite back the doubtful smirk forming was a brave and ultimately futile one. It was probably unkind, finding so much comfort in the way Pete fumbled through life, but then that was what was familiar, that was Peter, and Harry hadn’t been more grateful for anything his whole life. On a deeper level that he didn’t delve into much, the Parkers were a relief, someone and somewhere and something -- because at this point they were a concept and a feeling to Harry -- to take the edge off, to bring him down and let him stand steady on his feet, or sink back when that was what he needed. “Mmm,” he hummed as if he considered the guy’s request, lips almost trembling to contain the heart-felt snicker threatening to surface. “I don’t know, Pete,” he said once he had his voice mostly under control, a spark to his eye as he looked to him, “Depending on the scale, it might just be a civic duty. I have to consider where my loyalties lie, here.”

Barely registering the students brushing by them, his attention unusually focused, Harry felt the air hinge in his chest as Pete briefly leaned into him. Maybe it was from the forever-upheld Osborn composure, or the fact that he suppressed more things than not, but he was fairly certain the scarce touch had no right to feel as revolutionary as it did. Warmth spread from his arm through his whole body, and he could feel a heaviness lift, easing his expression, his chest, shoulders, and he’d be damned if his steps didn’t seem lighter, too. It was ridiculous, but a quick glance to his friend -- his best friend -- told him that if this was pathetic, well, then they both were. And he was fine with that. Harry felt his hand slip out of his pocket before he was entirely conscious of it, but once he was he had no idea what to do with it. His fingers had twitched, wrist arched, and he knew his subconscious had been seeking Peter’s hand before he’d even caught up to the ancient impulse. But while this was a break-through, Harry was fairly sure there were still some steps to climb, and let’s not jump in feet first when inching along was working so well.

Instead he raised his hand up and splayed it across the strap of Pete’s backpack and the span of his shoulder, diplomatically steering away from complete contact, but still. In the process he took a step out as they walked to better face Peter, whose voice had stumbled a little, and fixed him with a reassuring look and a gentle curve to his mouth. “That sounds great, Pete. Here I think I live in luxury and then you’ve got a pizza place for a neighbor,” shaking his head, he let his hand fall, completely at ease. It might be virtue of him being too exhausted to be anxious, though it could just as easily be the fact that this was Peter, being open and hopeful and as receptive as ever. Harry couldn’t have dreamt of a more comfortable situation.

They swung off the front lawn of ESU, falling into step down the pavement leading -- presumably -- towards this place Pete was familiar with. It was weird to think there were parts of his life Harry didn’t know about, especially simple details like where and how he lived, what his day-to-day looked like now, because he used to be an unquestioned part of that. He was pulled from his thoughts as the other spoke up, that uncertain jittery energy from before, and-- oh, Pete. Harry felt his eyes go soft, watching him as he practically ‘confessed’, and maybe let that expression hang on a little before he readjusted into something lighter, hinging a bright smile back on. “That’s supposed to shock me? Buddy, you do keep doing that. I don’t know how to separate ‘Peter Parker’ and ‘a weird amount of photographs’.” And ‘sentimental’ and ‘caught up in the past’ and yeah, he was definitely too tired to deal with the implications before he had to -- but a small shrivelled part of him let himself hope that, well, maybe he’d find himself somewhere on that wall. That was probably egoistical and undeserved and unrealistic, but then Pete had proven him wrong before in where the limit was before he was considered unwanted. 

Breathing in deeply, he was no longer surprised by how easy it was to just to do that, and it was honestly refreshing. Just existing, here, with him. Harry exhaled, softly and without a thought, and calm eyes lit up a little as he recognised a promising sign down the road. His fingers moved to his bag, unclasping and unzipping, briefly brandishing his wallet to fish out a 20 that he rolled between two fingers before slipping it into his pocket. He didn’t really think about any of it, replacing the wallet again and closing the bag as he tilted his head in Pete’s direction inquiringly. “So do they have tuna, or am I gonna donate a perfectly good 20 to a pity-pineapple?”

Still, she was probably never gonna get the chance to do this again, and the booze had her feeling brave if nothing else. So she smiled at the guy and took arm, “Oh, thanks a bunch, I’d really like that.” Now… C’mon Darce, you’ve been wanting to say this for the past ten minutes! She closed her eyes, took a breath, opened them and faced the guy she now knew as ‘Rob’ “And Rob,” he looked over to her, “You wanna go home with those eyes you better take’em off my chest.” she threw out smugly, all but running away with the guy who’d given her a way out.

She couldn’t help but laugh as she left, that felt amazing! That Selina’s woman’s advice about talking back had been right on the money! Now she was alone with the guy she felt nerves creeping back up again. Still, he seemed pretty nice, “Well uhh, no. I was looking for my friends, I think they’re too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other on the dance floor.” she snorted, “Oscorp, right?” she smiled at him, “I know who you are. I studied your dad’s impact on local politics. Sorry everyone’s on at you about ‘filling the shoes’ and all that crap. I say just be you, can’t be anybody else.” Just like this dress didn’t make her gala material in any way. She shrugged a little, “Oh that was just a run-away mouth and inactive brain. I’m not interesting at all Dude.” she told him, “Seriously, I shouldn’t even be here right now.”

  “Yeah, people can disappear easily here,” he said lightly, not a trace to bitterness or annoyance to his voice. Harry had been to enough events like these -- and simply parties in general -- to know that you could arrive and leave with completely different people. Not that it happened often at these formal things. He cast a brief glance out on that dance floor, aware that there was no way he’d know what ‘friends’ she was referring to, but with a brief hope he’d see his own. No such luck. Oh well, whoever was his company right now seemed interesting enough.

  “Oscorp, right,” and more than that he didn’t get to say. Less because she kept talking and more because of what she said. Harry closed his mouth, licked his lips, and remembered to smile a little belatedly. It wasn’t that he was surprised she knew who he was, and especially not his father, but the word of advise -- that was something he hadn’t heard before. Not in the context of the Osborn legacy, anyway. The idea honestly seemed so absurd, he decided to politely skip responding to it beyond an upward quirk to the corner of his mouth. “You’re studying politics? ... So does this count as a field trip?” The grin came a little easier with the joke, and as she continued onto excusing herself, Harry shook his head in disbelief. “I think you’re plenty interesting. Brains be damned, I’ve never needed it,” he shot a quick look around them as that slipped out, and when he couldn’t see any suspicious reporters around, he grinned back at her again. “Can I at least get a name?” 

Flash was no stranger to undercover missions in the name of Project Rebirth. The symbiote was perfect for making the wheelchair using amputee look like any other able-bodied Joe, and this secret section of the military was not above using it, just not tonight. Agent Venom had a personal life, and happened to know some of the guests, who would certainly notice if the war hero had suddenly grown back his legs. So today, he wasn’t undercover, not exactly. Despite his mission, he was here as the war hero he truly was, corporal Eugene Thompson, veteran with a Medal Of Honor to his name. The mission seemed simple, on paper. Get close enough to Fisk to make good use of the symbiote, and Project Rebirth’s technology. With merely a prick of his finger he could insert a tracking chip right under the mayor’s skin, making it real easy for the government to spy… well, within the government. 

With the alien snugly posing as the watch on his wrist, Flash uneasily eyed the crowd. He had never been comfortable in formal situations, let alone around all these rich people seeming to know exactly what they were doing. This hour alone he’d already been offered four drinks, and every time it had been a process of saying no. When he had made the decision to stop drinking for good, about two years ago now, he never though he’d wished there was a bar in this room, just so they wouldn’t have to keep offering him drinks. He had almost risked it. One glass at a special occasion like this wouldn’t matter… right? He didn’t even have to drive, because, well… he couldn’t. The thought alone had made him sick. Guilt had spiked him like nothing else, and his jaws had clenched together tightly in a helpless attempt to numb the anger he felt towards himself. No more alcohol. That was the deal. No excuses. Especially while carrying the most dangerous weapon he’s ever held in his hands, this mind controlling weapon that just happened to be drugged, neutered. He was done with alcohol, for good.

The veteran idly fiddled with the sleeves of his uniform’s coat, letting his eyes scan the crowd once more. The gang had to be out here somewhere, right? MJ had mentioned that Peter and herself would both go as Harry’s platonic plus-ones, and honestly, it was hard to miss any of them. After all, he had years of experience picking out Peter from any crowd, except this time minus the cruel intentions. A deep sigh was pushed from his lungs, irritation slowly building as he had still not found anyone he even remotely recognized. Sure, he was supposed to be here with the V.A. Office, but even they seemed to be another needle in this haystack of people, after he had left them a little while ago. He barely threw a short glance around before pushing his wheelchair forward, with a single, controlled stroke. 

He almost didn’t care when he felt the chair roll right over someone’s foot— hell, maybe he meant to do it. One of the advantages of wearing a military dress uniform, and sporting the kind of medals he did, was that people were easily distracted once they saw and noticed. The smug little smirk tugging just softly at his mouth just couldn’t be helped as his eyes darted up at his victim. Okay, it was a little funny.

He’d been looking for a red head swimming in the crowd for a while now, knowing that searching for Peter was hopeless in almost any situation. MJ must’ve found someone and wandered off, though, because she really wasn’t hard to pick out from a crowd. He had no idea how directors even managed to overlook her. He wasn’t bothered, though. She was here more for business’ sake than himself. Harry exhaled, set a foot out to turn around -- and immediately regretted the decision.

The cry died in his throat instantly, sucking in a sharp breath between his teeth instead. He was ready to round on some retired politician and apologise for being in the way, but all that came out of his mouth when he turned was a stunned “Wow.” He wasn’t entirely conscious he’d even said it, and when his eyes flicked up from Flash’s decorated military uniform to hear his dumb comment, the brief, stunned admiration ( appreciation? ) was swept under the carpet. “’Whoops’ my--” Harry cut himself short, eyes darting briefly to the people around them. A slightly sardonic smile twisted his lips as he looked back to the hunk in the wheelchair, “Is this your way of getting attention, Thompson? ‘Cause it’s working.” 

Then any bitterness seemed to dissipate, smile genuine as he pulled the leather shoe back from harm’s way. “Looks like someone’s shaped up. Is it ‘corporal’ for the rest of the night, then?”

The only downside so far, apart from sleazy folks trying to check out her boobs, was the conversation. Darcy’s usual conversation skills tended to lean towards the obscure and the outright strange, all these people wanted to take about were the mayer and politics. That was way to close to her Masters and sounded like work. So she could only hold down conversation for about fifteen minutes before she felt the need to run for the hills. 

And then the guy next to her had to go and bring it up again. Ugh. As it so often did when she wasn’t paying great attention, maybe the three glasses of champagne were having a little impact, her mouth just went ahead without her brains input, “Dude, the Mayor is clearly an ass and frankly the best part about tonight so far has been the food.”

In all honesty, he’d have liked nothing more than to cut them off as blatanly as the stranger had done Fisk’s reputation, but he was trying to rebuild. At the moment, though, the ‘lady’ was a lot more intruiging than corporate sharks. And a lot more comfortable. Turning around, he offered his arm to her with a grin now that his back was turned, “Do you mind?”

Harry steered clear of the dance floor ( for now ) and stopped once they’d gotten out of hearing distance from the others. Retrieving his arm, he dropped his hand to his pocket, tension seeping out of him as he faced her. “Sorry if I’m wrong, but it didn’t seem like you wanted to be there any more than I did.” Relaxed, maybe, but ever the one for formalities, he extended his hand, “Harry Osborn, CEO of--” Remembering what kind of person he was talking to, he paused, smile quirking, “Eh, if you don’t already know, you probably don’t care about it. So, who’s this woman not afraid to step on the rich and powerful? ‘Cause I’d love to get to know her.”