“i just need a moment,” she whimpers, at the sound of johnny’s voice, “i have this under control.”

Shit. She couldn’t properly see them, the light from their body nearly blinding but she could see the way his shoulders were starting to slump and the way his feet kept repositioning for better purchase or balance. She looked out the window, trying to judge the distance. Could they jump? If they kept running were they just delaying the inevitable? Now wasn’t the time to hesitate. Shielding her eyes she slammed her elbow into the pane, sighing with relief as she heard the smash of the glass. “This way!”

   ... and okay maybe the dozens of boxes and seemingly randomly scattered maps and photos made him look a little bit like a mad man right now. He had been working on this case for a whole week now, feeling like he had gotten absolutely NOWHERE with it so far. Maybe a bit of help wouldn’t be so bad after all, even if he would have to swallow his pride first. “ I might have gotten a bit carried away in the middle of this but I swear its still under control ... mostly. ” It very much wasn’t, he was sure Johnny could see that but he still tried to minimise the idea of how lost he REALLY was. He was Spider-Man, damn it! He needed to figure this out!

   “ You think I’m not tired of this too? I’ve gone through this a million times before believe me I’m sick of it too but fact is things weren’t this complicated before you showed up! ” That wasn’t quite true, things for Harry were always complicated one way or another — deep down he knew this had nothing to do with Johnny per se, but his rationally was currently buried deeply under his ANGER, under his fear of losing out to the perfect hero he had no chance of ever keeping up with. “ But fact is I’ve been Peter’s friend for a while, we were room mates for years — I think I’m allowed to claim I know him better than you and I know better than you what he does and does not want. ” It was ridiculous to argue about this, he knew that, but jealousy made for quite a willingness to continue pointless debates, especially when they fed so directly into his INSECURITIES.

   “ Did something happen today or ... ? ” There wasn’t anything he himself would be able to pick out as unusual, nothing that might cause THIS kind of reaction so he would need his friend to tell him what this was all about. Or maybe they would just punch it out — that was what he and Kaine tended to do. Not the most healthy way of dealing with anger but then again neither of them would win any prizes for the state of their metal health.

But the only thing she really knew was that none of the stories covered the whole breadth of any superhero. “Well, you’re just as charming as they say.” The heat of his lips against her hand makes her wonder about the feeling of hugging him and then what it’s like to face the full force of his power. 

    “ I don’t know what you mean. ” But his response had come too quickly and sounded too obviously DEFENSIVE as that there was any chance Johnny could miss just how right he was about his assumption. Harry was not the kind of person to start arguments without good reasons usually, he had stopped gossiping in college and yet the undeniable truth was that he did in fact act passive aggressive around Johnny. It was pretty pathetic, wasn’t it? The jealousy over the fact that Peter had another close friend — as if he wasn’t lucky Peter was still friends with him at all, as if he could demand Peter should only be friends with him. No, he wasn’t that pathetic as to demand something like that. But he still had done enough for Johnny to notice something was WRONG. “ I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I don’t like you. That was not my intention. ” He wasn’t sure how honest his words were, if he didn’t feel a little bit of malicious glee over the fact Johnny knew he didn’t like him. It wasn’t right, this whole situation was ridiculous ... but he wasn’t sure how else to deal with it.