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you've been at oscorp for six months, which is long enough to know the rhythms of the place but not long enough to have earned a desk that isn't shared, and your entire existence in this building is contingent on not making waves. intern lab assistant. it says so on the lanyard you wear every single day because if you forget it the security desk makes you fill out a form and wait twenty minutes in the lobby, which you know from experience. you make coffee when dr. reeves asks you to and you label samples and you keep your handwriting neat on the filing forms and you are, in every measurable way, not someone that anyone above the fourth floor has any reason to think about.

you're fine with that. actually fine with it, not the kind of fine that needs reassurance but the kind that comes from genuinely caring about the work more than the politics around it. the research is interesting and you are learning things you wouldn't learn anywhere else and if the price of that is a shared desk and a badge that photographs you badly then that is a price you will pay without complaint. you restructured the entire sample cataloguing system in your third week because the existing one was, in the exact words you used in your report that you now slightly regret, structurally incoherent and a liability to the integrity of the trial data. dr. reeves had called it thorough and initialled the bottom of the page and you have not raised your voice about anything since.

so when norman osborn steps down you find out the same way you find out about everything that happens above your pay grade, which is standing at the edge of a conversation between two senior researchers who don't notice you're there. a handover, someone said. the son. someone else made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh and carried something in it you didn't have enough context to decode, some private verdict on a person you'd never met and weren't likely to. you filed it away and went back to re-labelling a sample rack and that was the end of it as far as you were concerned.

you have enough to think about.

and then one tuesday morning you look up from the filing cabinet you've been working through for an hour and there is someone in the doorway of the lab that you have never seen before, and your first thought, completely involuntary and immediately inconvenient, is that he is extremely good looking and that the fluorescent lighting is doing something deeply unfair and he seems entirely unbothered by it.

he's twenty-four, maybe, with dark hair pushed back from his face and brown eyes that are already moving around the room with a quick unhurried focus, cataloguing things, taking stock. he has a jaw with just enough stubble to suggest it was a choice rather than an oversight and he's wearing a grey suit that fits him the way suits only fit people who had them made, with a striped tie loosened exactly one half inch at the collar, and his hands are in his pockets and his weight is settled back slightly and he has the specific posture of someone who has never once in his life been the least important person in any room he walked into. he's leaning against the doorframe with his arms loosely crossed now and he's looking at you and the corner of his mouth is already moving toward a grin.

"you're the intern." he says, and somehow it doesn't sound diminishing, it sounds like he was looking for you specifically.

"lab assistant," you say, before you can think better of it.

and his mouth finishes the job it was already starting and pulls into a full grin, easy and bright and just slightly crooked, like you surprised him and he's decided that's interesting. he pushes off the doorframe and walks into the room the way people do when they own buildings, which he does, technically, own this one, and he stops at the edge of the central workstation and looks at the sample rack you've been reorganizing and then at the filing system behind it and then back at you.

"harry osborn," he says, and holds out his hand.

you cross the room and shake it. he's taller up close and his eyes are very blue and he holds the handshake a half second longer than necessary, watching your face while he does it, which you are fairly certain is intentional and which you are choosing to simply not react to.

"i've read your reports," he says, letting go. "not the summaries. the actual reports, the full ones, going back to when you started." he says it easily, like it's just a fact he's setting down on the workstation between you, but you feel it land anyway because nobody reads those reports, not fully, dr. reeves skims the executive summary and signs off and you have been quietly making peace with that since month two. "i had about thirty questions and i've been waiting six months to find someone down here who could actually answer them, so." he looks around the lab once, a quick sweep that takes in all of it, and then his eyes come back to you and there's something in them that might be appreciation and is also, unmistakably, a little bit of a challenge. "lucky you."

you open your mouth. close it. "i'm an intern," you say, because it feels like information someone should put on the table.

"i know what you are," he says, and pulls a stool from the corner of the room without asking and sits down, elbows finding the edge of the workstation, jacket still on, completely at ease in a lab he has never been in before in a building he has owned for approximately three weeks. "lab assistant, six months, city university, full scholarship, and you restructured the entire sample cataloguing system in week three because the existing one was," he pauses, tilts his head slightly, "your words, structurally incoherent and a liability to the integrity of the trial data." the corner of his mouth pulls again. "my dad's head of operations nearly had a stroke."

the heat that climbs your neck is unwelcome and you would like it to stop. "it was," you say, because it was, and you're not going to apologize for it.

harry osborn looks at you for a moment with that expression that keeps shifting just slightly out of reach, and then he laughs, short and real and not performed, just genuine, and it does something annoying to his face that you are going to ignore. "i know," he says. "that's why i'm here and not in the meeting i was supposed to be in at nine." he glances at the clock on the wall and something flickers across his face that is not quite guilt and is mostly the absence of it. "or the one at ten." he looks back at you and the grin resettles, easy and permanent-looking. "walk me through the regeneration pathway data. page seven, the telomere sequencing, because either your methodology is wrong or every senior researcher in this building has been running this project incorrectly for eighteen months and i want to know which one it is."

the sensible response here is to tell him that dr. reeves is two doors down and any questions about the research should be directed to someone with an actual phd. the sensible response is to remember that you are an intern who is still on probation and act accordingly.

you pull the relevant notebook off the shelf and open it to page seven.

"the methodology isn't wrong," you say, turning it to face him. "the model they've been running assumes a linear degradation curve but that's not what the samples are showing, it's logarithmic, and nobody caught it because they stopped looking at the raw data and started trusting the summary projections, which were built on the linear assumption in the first place so they just kept confirming themselves." you point at the graph in the margin, the one you drew at eleven pm on a wednesday three months ago when something wasn't adding up and you couldn't leave it alone. "circular. the whole thing. for eighteen months."

harry goes very still for a moment, looking at the graph.

then he looks up at you and something has shifted in his expression, the amusement is still there but it's sitting on top of something sharper now, the look of someone who came in expecting to be entertained and has been handed something that actually matters instead.

"you're sure," he says.

"i've run it eleven times," you say. "three different control sets."

he holds your gaze for a second in which you get the sense he is doing several things at once behind those blue eyes, and then he looks back down at the notebook and reaches across and pulls it slightly closer to himself and reads, with the quality of attention you have only ever seen in people who are genuinely, constitutionally incapable of being bored by a problem that interests them. you wait. you don't fidget, which takes some effort.

"okay," he says quietly, mostly to himself. then: "you have the raw data files."

it isn't a question. "all of them," you say. "backed up in three places. the server crashed in month one and i lost a week of work."

something moves across his face quickly, there and gone, the specific satisfaction of someone who has been looking for something and has just found it somewhere they didn't entirely expect. he straightens on the stool and looks at you and the grin that comes back is softer than the one he walked in with, a slightly different thing entirely.

"i have a building full of people with phds and published research and very impressive CVs," he says, "who have been running this project for a year and a half." a pause. "and then there's you."

"and then there's me," you say carefully.

"intern," he says.

"lab assistant," you say, and he smiles at that, wider, like you keep doing something he didn't predict and he has decided to simply let himself find it delightful, which is its own kind of problem.

"right," he says, and he doesn't move to leave. he sits there on the stolen stool in the expensive suit with the loosened tie and looks at you with that look, the one that started as a challenge and has become, in the last twenty minutes, something else underneath, something that has nothing to do with telomere sequencing and that you are not going to acknowledge right now or possibly ever. "i need to see all of it. the raw files, the control data, all eleven runs. and i need someone who understands it to walk me through it."

"i have sample labelling to finish," you say. "dr. reeves needs it by four."

harry glances at the sample rack. glances back at you. "i'll talk to reeves," he says, with the complete and total serenity of someone for whom talking to reeves is not a consideration worth the word obstacle. "send me the files. my email's in the directory." he stands and straightens his jacket and picks his phone up from the bench, and then pauses halfway to the door and looks back at you over his shoulder and his expression has gone easy again, light, like a joke you've both ended up on the same side of without quite meaning to.

"lucky you," he says, and then he's gone, back down the corridor toward the elevator and whatever he's kept waiting for the better part of two hours, and you stand in the sudden quiet of your lab and look at the notebook still open on the workstation.

you sit down. you pull up the internal directory. his email is at the top of the list, which is the kind of thing that happens when your last name is the company name, and you attach the first file and then the second and then all eleven runs and both control sets and the raw data exports and the methodology notes you wrote for yourself at eleven pm on a wednesday that you were never going to show anyone because they were too speculative and too certain at the same time.

you hit send before you can think better of it.

your phone buzzes four minutes later. no introduction, no greeting:

page 4 of the methodology notes. expand on this. - h

you stare at it for a moment.

then you start typing.

the thing about dr. reeves

the thing about dr. reeves is that he isn't cruel, exactly. cruelty would be easier to categorize and therefore easier to dismiss. what he is instead is the particular kind of dismissive that has calcified over a long career into something he doesn't even notice anymore, the way you stop noticing a smell after you've been in a room long enough. he talks over you in briefings. he hands your work to the senior researchers to present without mentioning where it came from. he calls you sweetheart when he's in a good mood and says things like let's leave the interpretation to the people with the relevant qualifications when he isn't, and you have learned to let it move through you like weather because you need this placement and you are not going to be the intern who made a scene.

you are very good at not making a scene.

it's a thursday afternoon and the lab is quiet and you have been at the same bench for four hours running a set of quality checks on the newest sample batch, careful methodical work that requires more concentration than it looks like it does, and dr. reeves stops behind you on his way past and looks over your shoulder at what you're doing and makes a sound.

"you've logged these wrong," he says.

you look at the log sheet. "i don't think i have," you say, as evenly as you can manage.

"the batch numbers should be sequential from the previous set, not restarted. this is a basic filing convention, it's in the lab handbook, i'd have thought even at your level," he says, and that even at your level lands the way it always does, small and precise, like he's not even trying. "i'll have to have someone go back through and fix this. do you know how much time that wastes."

it isn't a question. it never is.

"the handbook was updated six weeks ago," you say, keeping your voice level and your eyes on the log sheet. "the new convention restarts batch numbers at the beginning of each trial phase. i can send you the updated version if you haven't seen it."

a pause. the particular quality of silence that means you've said something correct that he didn't want to be correct.

"just make sure it doesn't happen again," he says, and walks away, and you breathe out slowly through your nose and go back to the samples and do not throw anything.

you don't hear the footsteps stop in the doorway. you don't notice you have an audience until you hear a voice that is not dr. reeves's say, from somewhere behind you and to the left, at a volume and a register that is almost conversational:

"that sounded like it hurt."

you turn around.

harry osborn is leaning against the doorframe with his jacket over one arm and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his tie loosened and he is looking at you with an expression that is doing several things at once, something careful and something a little too perceptive and, underneath both of those, something that looks like it has already made a decision.

"how much of that did you hear?" you say.

"enough," he says. he pushes off the doorframe and walks in and sets his jacket over the back of a chair and looks at the log sheet you're working on and the sample batch beside it. "is he always like that."

it isn't quite a question. you look at him for a moment and decide that whatever answer you give is going to end up meaning something and you'd rather be careful about it.

"he's under a lot of pressure," you say. "the trial timeline is behind."

harry looks at you with those blue eyes and the expression on his face says very clearly that he knows exactly what you're doing and finds it both admirable and somewhat unnecessary. "right," he says, mild as anything. he straightens up and picks his jacket off the chair and checks his watch. "is reeves in his office?"

"harry.." you say, and something in your chest does something uncomfortable because you have been on first name terms with him for three weeks via text message and this is the first time you've said it out loud and it comes out slightly more like a warning than you intended.

he looks at you over his shoulder and smiles, and it's the specific smile that you have privately categorized as the one that means he's already decided what he's going to do and is finding your concern for the outcome charming rather than persuasive. "i'm not going to yell at him," he says. "i'm just going to have a conversation."

you watch him walk back out into the corridor. you give it thirty seconds and then follow, because you are apparently incapable of making sensible decisions where harry osborn is concerned, and you hover just outside dr. reeves's open office door and listen.

harry knocks twice, easy, and walks in without waiting.

"reeves," he says, pleasant and relaxed, "got a few minutes?"

you hear dr. reeves make the specific sound of a man who was not expecting the ceo to appear in his office doorway on a thursday afternoon but is doing his best to rearrange his face appropriately. "of course, mr. osborn, absolutely, what can i do for you."

"i've been doing a review of the lab outputs," harry says, and you can hear him moving, the particular sound of someone making themselves comfortable in a room that isn't theirs. a chair, probably. the one across from the desk. sitting down in it the way he sits down in everything, like he was invited specifically. "and i keep running into the same name on the interesting work. the cataloguing restructure, the logarithmic curve identification, the batch methodology notes that caught the phase three error before it compounded." a pause. "your lab assistant."

"she's," dr. reeves starts, and there's something in the hesitation that makes your jaw tighten, "she's capable enough, yes, for the level she's at."

"for the level she's at," harry repeats, in a tone of such genuine thoughtful interest that it takes a second to notice there are teeth in it. "what level would you say that is."

another pause, longer this time. "she's an intern, mr. osborn. she's here to learn the protocols and assist with the administrative side of the research."

"right," harry says. "so when she identified an eighteen month modelling error that your senior team missed, that was sort of above and beyond."

silence.

"i'm asking," harry continues, still pleasant, still entirely relaxed, the tone of a man discussing something of only mild interest, "because i want to make sure we're utilizing the people in this department correctly. it'd be a shame to have someone solving problems at one level and logging samples at another. inefficient." he lets that word sit for a moment. "and you know how i feel about inefficiency."

you do not know how he feels about inefficiency. you are not sure dr. reeves does either. that is, you suspect, somewhat the point.

"of course," dr. reeves says. he sounds like a man who has just realized he is in a conversation he thought was about one thing and is actually about something else entirely. "of course, i'll make sure she's given more appropriate responsibilities."

"brilliant!" harry says, warm, like this has all been very easy and agreeable and nothing of any particular significance has just happened. "and reeves, the updated lab handbook. the one from six weeks ago. worth a read if you haven't had the chance." a beat, light as anything. "lot of useful stuff in there."

you are three steps back down the corridor and looking very intently at your phone by the time harry comes back out of the office. he falls into step beside you without breaking stride and says nothing for a moment, just walks, and you keep your eyes forward and your expression neutral and you are not going to say thank you because you don't need rescuing and he probably knows that.

"you didn't have to do that.." you say.

"i know."

"i had it handled."

"i know that too." he glances sideways at you and the smile is back, the quieter one, the one that isn't performing anything. "i was in the building anyway."

you look at him. "your office is twelve floors up."

"is it?" he says, like this is mildly interesting information, and then his phone rings and he looks at the screen and sighs through his nose in the way you have come to recognize as his specific response to calls he has been avoiding. he slows to a stop outside the stairwell door and looks at you and there's something in the look that makes your stomach do something you are going to categorize later when you are alone and can be more honest with yourself about it.

"page four," he says. "you never finished explaining it."

"you never finished asking," you say.

he smiles, answers the phone, pushes through the stairwell door, and is gone. and you stand in the corridor for a moment in the quiet and then look back down at your phone and there is already a message there, sent approximately thirty seconds ago, before he even came out of the office:

come up to the fourteenth floor tomorrow. bring the methodology notes. - h

you stare at it.

then you save his contact name, which has until now just been the letter h because that is what he signed the first text with and you have been pretending that is a normal and professional way to exist in someone's phone, as something slightly more legible.

you head back to the samples. you have work to finish.

but you're smiling when you sit down, just slightly, and you don't do anything about that either.

it becomes a thing. that's the only word for it, a thing, undefined and unaddressed and existing in the space between professional and something else entirely, which is a space you are becoming increasingly familiar with and increasingly unwilling to examine too closely because examining it would require you to do something about it and you are not sure yet what doing something about it looks like when the other person's name is on the building.

he texts you most days now. it started as questions about the research and has become something harder to categorize, observations mostly, things he's thinking about, the kind of messages you send to someone when something occurs to you and they are the person you want to tell. you respond in kind and tell yourself it's professional and mostly believe it and then he sends something at eleven thirty on a friday night that has nothing to do with telomere sequencing and you lie in your bed and smile at your phone like an idiot and believe it a little less.

thursdays you go up to the fourteenth floor. this has become a fact of your week the way coffee in the morning is a fact, something you'd notice the absence of. you bring whatever you've been working on and he clears two hours in a schedule that his assistant has told you, in the conspiratorial tone of someone who has been managing harry osborn's calendar for eighteen months and has feelings about it, is not a schedule that clears easily for anyone.

today you are twenty minutes in and the work has already migrated from the desk to the floor, which keeps happening because he thinks better when he can spread things out and you have given up being surprised by this. the methodology notes and the new data prints are arranged in a loose grid on the carpet and you're both sitting cross legged on either side of it, close enough that your knees are almost touching, and he's holding one of the data sheets and frowning at it in the particular way that means he's found something.

"this variable," he says, and leans over to point at something on the sheet in front of you, which requires him to lean across the space between you, close, closer than the desk allows, and his shoulder presses against yours for a moment and stays there. "you've held it constant but it shouldn't be constant, it'll read as flat because you're not letting it move."

"i held it constant because i needed a baseline," you say, and you are very aware of the warmth of his shoulder against yours and the fact that he hasn't moved back. "if i let it move in the first run i can't isolate what's causing the shift."

"fair," he says. he doesn't move back. he's close enough that you can smell whatever he's wearing, something clean and expensive and warm, and he's looking at the data sheet with his brow slightly furrowed and his jaw doing the thing it does when he's thinking hard. "run it twice then. constant first, variable second, compare them."

"that's what i was going to do," you say.

he turns his head and looks at you and you are not prepared for how close his face is when he does that, a few inches, close enough that you can see the particular shade of blue in detail now and the way it shifts slightly toward grey in this light. he looks at you for a second. "then why are you arguing with me."

"i'm not arguing," you say. "i'm telling you i already thought of it."

"that's the same thing," he says, and he's smiling now, slow, and he hasn't moved, is making no effort to move, just sitting there with his shoulder against yours and his face close and his eyes on you.

"it really isn't," you say.

he hums, unconvinced, and looks back at the data sheet, but he shifts slightly when he does and now your knee is against his instead of almost against it, and this is not an accident because nothing harry osborn does is an accident, you have spent enough time with him now to know that the ease is real but the carelessness is mostly performance, he is one of the least careless people you have ever met. you look back at the data sheet in front of you. you read the same line three times and retain none of it.

"are you going to the department showcase next friday," he says.

"i wasn't invited," you say. "it's for senior researchers."

he looks at you sideways. "i'm inviting you."

"you can't just invite me."

"i own the company," he says, pleasantly.

"you say that like it's an answer to everything."

"it answers more than you'd think." he picks up a different data sheet and looks at it and says, casually, like it's nothing, "come. it'll be boring without someone to talk to who actually understands what the presentations are about."

"you understand what the presentations are about," you say.

"yes," he says, "but i have to stand at the front and look like i'm paying attention to all of them equally, which means i need someone in the audience i can look at when dr. fenwick starts explaining his soil density research for the fourth consecutive year."

you look at him. "is that what i am," you say. "a focal point for when you're bored."

and he puts the data sheet down and turns to face you properly and this means he's turned toward you while you're still facing forward which means he is very close and slightly behind you and you can feel him there before you turn your head and find him looking at you with an expression that has dropped the lightness completely, just for a second, something underneath it that is direct and warm and entirely serious.

"no," he says, quietly. just the one word. no performance around it.

the room is very quiet. outside the window the city hums along not caring at all about what is happening on the fourteenth floor of oscorp industries on a thursday afternoon, and you are sitting on the floor of harry osborn's office with your knee against his and his face close and his eyes on you and the data sheets going completely unread around you.

"harry," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you meant it to.

"yes," he says. the same way he said it last time. careful. paying attention.

"this is getting complicated," you say.

"is it," he says, and his hand comes up and picks something off the shoulder of your lab coat, a piece of lint or nothing at all, and smooths the fabric back down slowly, and his hand doesn't entirely leave your shoulder after, just rests there, light, asking a question without asking it.

"you know it is," you say.

"i know it's something," he says. "i'm not sure complicated is the word i'd use."

"what word would you use," you say.

he considers this with what appears to be genuine thoughtfulness, his thumb moving slightly against your shoulder in a way that is almost certainly intentional and is doing something significant to your ability to think clearly. "inevitable," he says finally, and the way he says it is quiet and sure and a little bit like he's been sitting with that word for a while and has decided it's the right one.

you look at him for a long moment.

"that's very confident," you say.

"i'm a very confident person," he says, and the smile is back, that specific one, the real one, and his hand is still warm on your shoulder.

"i noticed," you say.

"and yet you keep showing up on thursdays," he says.

"you keep inviting me," you say.

"and yet you keep saying yes," he says, and there's something in it that's gentle and certain all at once, not a trap, just the truth of it laid out simply between you, the back and forth of two people who have been circling something for weeks and are both aware of it and have been making a mutual unspoken agreement not to say so, until now, apparently, on the floor of his office on a thursday with the data sheets going unread around them.

you don't say anything for a moment. then you pick up the data sheet closest to you and look at it and say, "page twelve."

you feel him smile more than you see it.

"page twelve," he agrees, and he doesn't move his hand.

he walks you to the elevator at the end of the two hours the way he always does now, out of his office and down the corridor, and his assistant pretends to be very busy with something on her computer as you pass which you suspect means she has opinions about all of this that she is keeping professionally to herself.

at the elevator he reaches past you and presses the button and doesn't step back afterward, just stands close, hands in his pockets, looking at you in the unhurried way he has when he's decided something.

"next thursday," he says.

"next thursday," you agree.

the elevator opens. you step in and turn around and he's standing there with one hand braced on the elevator door frame, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, tie long gone, looking at you with that expression, the inevitable one.

"wear something that isn't a lab coat," he says.

you stare at him. "it's a work event," you say.

"it's a showcase," he says. "there's a difference." his mouth curves. "you always look good in blue."

the elevator doors start to close. he steps back and lets them.

you face forward and watch the numbers count down and press the back of your hand briefly against your cheek with a grin.

friday

you find something blue.

it takes longer than you're going to admit to anyone, the better part of wednesday evening spread across your bedroom floor with every item of clothing you own assessed and discarded until you land on a dress that is simple and dark navy and fits well and that you bought for a job interview fourteen months ago and have worn exactly once. you hold it up and think about the fact that you are doing this because harry osborn said two words in an elevator and then texted them again afterward like punctuation, and then you put the dress on and look in the mirror and decide you are not going to think about that too hard.

you get to the showcase at seven and hand your name to the woman at the door and she finds it on the list and you try not to look too surprised that it's actually there. the venue is one of oscorp's upper floor conference spaces transformed for the evening into something that required significant budget and somebody's good taste, low lighting and tall tables and the kind of catering that comes on actual plates rather than paper ones. the senior researchers are already clustered in their familiar constellations and you get a drink from the bar and find a spot near the edge of the room where you can see the presentation screens and also the door.

you are not watching the door for any particular reason.

you are absolutely watching the door.

he comes in at seven fifteen with the ease of someone who is never late because time works differently when you own the room, and he's in a dark suit, no tie, top button open, and he does a quick scan of the space that you recognize by now as the thing he does when he's looking for something specific, and it lands on you and stops. and even from across the room you catch the expression, that quick thing, there and gone, and then he says something to the person beside him without looking at them and crosses toward you and the room does the thing rooms do around harry osborn, a slight unconscious parting, people stepping back without knowing why.

he stops in front of you and looks at you and says nothing for a moment.

"blue," he says.

"you specified," you say.

"i did," he says, and the way he looks at you is warm and unhurried and not even slightly professional and you take a sip of your drink and look out at the room because it's easier than looking back at him when he does that.

"dr. fenwick's presenting first," you say.

"god help us," he says, and takes a glass from a passing tray and stands beside you, close, shoulder to shoulder, and the evening begins.

it is, as promised, mostly boring.

dr. fenwick presents for twenty two minutes about soil density which is fourteen minutes longer than necessary and harry spends the back half of it with his head slightly bent toward yours, murmuring commentary under his breath in a low voice that doesn't carry, and twice he says something that makes you have to press your lips together to keep from laughing out loud in the middle of the presentation, and once you say something back that makes him do the same, and you are both staring very seriously at the presentation screen with your shoulders shaking slightly and it is entirely possible that you are being obvious and you find that you care about this less than you probably should.

between presentations people move and mingle and harry stays near you, not attached, not hovering, just near, drifting back after every conversation someone pulls him into like you're where he's defaulting to, and you talk to a few of the senior researchers who are being noticeably warmer than they were before whatever harry said to dr. reeves filtered through the department, and everything is fine and manageable and you feel good in the blue dress and the evening has a pleasant ease to it.

and then someone introduces himself as dr. callum walsh, visiting researcher, biomechanics, and he is attractive in a straightforward uncomplicated way and he talks to you for ten minutes about your work with a genuine interest that is nice and normal and not complicated by anything, and at some point his hand finds the small of your back in that way people do at parties, light, easy, and you are in the middle of answering a question about the regeneration trial when you feel something change in the air slightly to your left.

harry has come back.

he doesn't say anything. he steps up beside you, not between you, just beside you, and picks up the thread of the conversation completely naturally, asking walsh a question about the biomechanics research, and walsh answers and the three of you talk and it is all perfectly pleasant and unremarkable except for the fact that harry's hand has settled on your waist.

not dramatically. not possessively, or at least not in a way that announces itself. just his hand, warm through the fabric of your dress, at your waist, his thumb moving in one slow absent stroke that is so understated you're almost sure walsh doesn't clock it. almost sure. harry is talking to walsh about something with complete attention and his hand stays where it is and you look straight ahead and breathe normally and say something appropriate at the right moment and are having absolutely no thoughts about this whatsoever.

walsh excuses himself eventually to find his colleague and harry drops his hand and takes a sip of his drink and says nothing.

you say nothing either.

"enjoying yourself," he says, after a moment.

"yes," you say.

"good," he says, pleasantly, and flags down a passing tray for you and that is all, that is the entire acknowledgment, and somehow that is worse than if he'd said something because at least then you'd have something to argue with.

the limo is his idea, or rather it is simply what happens, his car is outside and you live thirty minutes in the same direction and it is a completely logical and practical arrangement that you agree to without quite meaning to and are sitting in the back of before you've fully processed the sequence of decisions that led here.

it's quiet. the city moves past the windows and the partition is up and the leather interior is dark and close and he's sitting beside you rather than across from you because that's how he got in first and he's close in the way that small spaces make people close, close enough that you're very aware of the line of his arm against yours.

you watch the city for a moment.

"dr. walsh seemed nice," harry says, and his voice is entirely neutral, which is how you know it isn't.

"he was," you say, equally neutral. "very interested in the research."

"very interested in something," harry says.

you turn your head and look at him. he's already looking at you and he doesn't look away, just holds it, and the city light is moving across his face in slow intervals and something about the small contained space and the quiet and the hour has stripped the usual easy performance back to something more immediate.

"harry," you say.

"you had a good time," he says, quieter now. it isn't quite a question.

"i did," you say. "did you."

"yes," he says. "and no."

"which part was the no," you say, and you know the answer, you know exactly what the answer is, you want to hear him say it.

he looks at you for a long moment and you can see him making a decision, something shifting behind his eyes, the same recalibration you've seen when he's working through a problem except this isn't that, this is something with less calculation in it and more of just him, the actual him underneath the confidence and the name and the twenty-four year old ceo of everything, just a person sitting in a car looking at you like you are the only thing in the room worth looking at.

he reaches up and tucks a piece of your hair back, just one piece that's fallen forward, slow, and his fingers stay at your jaw afterward, light, tilting your face toward his slightly, and he searches your expression for something and seems to find it.

"i've been patient," he says quietly. "i'm generally not a patient person."

"i know," you say, and your voice comes out barely above a murmur.

"i've been very patient," he says, and the corner of his mouth moves, that familiar thing, except it's softer now, stripped of the performance of it. "for weeks."

"is that what that was," you say.

"what would you call it," he says.

"torture," you say, and he laughs, the real one, and then closes the remaining distance and kisses you.

it is not a tentative kiss. it is not the careful measured thing of someone unsure of the reception, because harry osborn has not been unsure of this for weeks and you both know it. it's warm and certain and his hand slides from your jaw into your hair and you have grabbed the lapel of his jacket without planning to, and for a moment everything outside the car simply stops existing, the city and the showcase and dr. fenwick's soil density research and all fifteen sensible reasons and all of it, and there is just this, just him, just the quiet dark interior of the car and his mouth and the hand in your hair and the feeling of something that has been building since a tuesday morning in the lab doorway finally, finally arriving.

he pulls back enough to look at you and his hand is still in your hair and your hand is still twisted in his lapel and you are both breathing slightly differently than before.

"okay," he says quietly, and it sounds like the first time he said it, in the lab, except completely different.

"okay," you say back.

harry’s mouth claims yours with that same certainty, his tongue sliding hot against yours as his fingers tighten in your hair. you yank harder on his lapel, pulling him closer until your bodies press together in the back seat. his free hand finds your thigh, sliding up under the navy dress, palm rough against bare skin as he pushes the fabric higher.

you spread your legs without thinking, and he takes the invitation, fingers brushing the thin cotton of your panties. he groans into the kiss when he feels how wet you already are. two fingers press the soaked fabric aside and stroke directly over your pussy, parting your lips and circling your clit with slow, deliberate pressure.

"fuck," he mutters against your mouth, breaking the kiss just enough to speak. "you’ve been thinking about this too." his fingers dip lower, one pushing inside you in a single smooth thrust. you gasp, hips jerking forward to meet the intrusion. he adds a second finger immediately, fucking you with them in steady strokes while his thumb keeps working your clit.

the car is dark and private, the city lights streaking past the tinted windows, but all you can focus on is the wet sound of his fingers moving inside you and the way his cock strains against his suit pants. you reach down, palm him through the fabric, feeling the thick length twitch under your touch. harry’s breath catches. he curls his fingers inside you, hitting that spot that makes your thighs shake, and you squeeze his cock harder in response.

he pulls his fingers free, brings them to his mouth, and sucks them clean while holding your gaze. then he’s unbuckling his belt, unzipping, freeing his cock. it’s thick and flushed, the head already slick. you don’t wait for an invitation. you climb into his lap, straddling him, and sink down onto his cock in one slow, relentless motion.

harry’s head falls back against the seat, a low groan tearing from his throat as your pussy stretches around him. his hands grip your hips, guiding you as you start to ride him. each downward thrust takes him deeper until he’s buried to the hilt. you roll your hips, grinding your clit against him on every stroke, the friction sending sparks through your nerves.

he leans forward, mouth finding your neck, teeth scraping over your pulse before he sucks hard enough to leave a mark. one hand slides up your back, fingers finding the zipper of your dress and tugging it down. he pulls the fabric off your shoulders, exposing your breasts, and immediately takes one nipple into his mouth, sucking and biting while you keep fucking yourself on his cock.

the car hits a bump and the motion drives him even deeper. you moan, clenching around him. harry’s grip tightens. he starts thrusting up to meet you, hard and fast, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the quiet interior. his other hand slips between your bodies again, thumb circling your clit in time with his thrusts.

"come on," he growls against your breast. "let me feel you." you’re close, the pressure building fast, and when he pinches your clit between two fingers you break. your orgasm crashes through you, pussy pulsing and fluttering around his cock as you ride it out, hips stuttering.

harry doesn’t stop. he fucks you through it, chasing his own release, and when you clench down hard again he buries himself deep and comes with a rough groan, flooding you with hot pulses of cum. you stay in his lap, both of you breathing hard, his cock still twitching inside you as the car continues through the city.

he kisses you again, slower this time, tasting the sweat on your lips. his hand strokes your bare back in lazy circles while his cum leaks out around his softening cock, soaking the front of his pants and the seat beneath you.

"friday," he says against your mouth, voice low and satisfied. "we’re doing this again."

harry’s hands stay on your hips as the car rolls on through the city lights. his cock is still buried inside you, softening slowly while his cum leaks out around it and soaks into the seat. you shift in his lap and feel the wet mess between your thighs, the way his pants are ruined under you.

he watches your face with that half-smirk, thumb stroking slow circles over your bare skin where the dress has slipped down. "you feel too good to let go of yet," he murmurs, voice low. his fingers slide down between your bodies again, gathering some of the mess and rubbing it over your swollen clit in lazy strokes.

you twitch at the touch, still sensitive, and he chuckles softly. "sensitive already?" he keeps rubbing, slow and deliberate, until your hips start moving again without thinking. his cock gives a small twitch inside you as it begins to harden once more.

"ride me again," he says, gripping your ass to encourage the motion. "slower this time. i want to feel every inch of you squeezing me."

you lift up just enough for his cock to slide almost free before sinking back down, taking him deep in one smooth motion. harry’s head tips back, throat working as he watches where your bodies join. the wet sounds are filthy in the quiet car. his fingers keep working your clit while you fuck yourself on him at that unhurried pace, grinding down each time you bottom out.

he leans in and sucks a mark into the side of your neck, teeth scraping, tongue soothing. one hand comes up to cup your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple until it tightens. "look at you," he breathes against your skin. "taking my cock like you were made for it."

you keep moving, rolling your hips, feeling him thicken fully inside you again. the car turns a corner and the motion pushes him even deeper. harry groans and thrusts up to meet you, matching your rhythm until the pace starts to build once more.

his free hand slips around to your ass, fingers digging in as he helps lift and drop you onto his cock. the wet slap of skin fills the space between you. he kisses you hard, tongue pushing into your mouth, tasting you while he fucks up into your pussy with steady, deep strokes.