topic 170 Time House of TM plot rp open to Peter Parker
Time stands still when the call comes in. Harry is in Greece and has been using the family's private island to work on mastering his abilities. No one is around to watch as he uses the webbing to glide from tree to tree. There is no one to spill his secret to his father about how Harry Osborn has become some freak of nature. He's heard about schools for mutants and other genetically enhanced people, but to show up at one of them would be to admit that he is different. Harry can't afford to acknowledge that he is different. Norman doesn't want a son who is different. He hasn't kept in touch with his friends. It was in a brief phone call with his father that he learned of Peter and Mary Jane's marriage. Harry wasn't sure how he felt about that news. Of course it came followed by Norman demanding that he get his act together and come home to begin his education and training to take over OsCorp. Harry told him someday soon, but they both knew he was lying. Someday soon turned into a year later and then a couple months past that. He's a man, he tells himself, when he tries to justify not coming back despite his father's demands. I'm a man that can stand on my own two feet. I'm nineteen years old, and I don't have to answer to anyone. Then the phone rings one night, and Harry Osborn, man of a full nineteen years, picks it up only to find time stands still.
It's Peter on the other end of the line. Peter who had to demand the private number from the staff members so he could be the one to call Harry personally and tell him that he had to come home. He had to come home to bury his father. Suddenly Harry doesn't feel like a man at all. He feels very much like a frightened and needy child, and he can't understand how his father could be dead. But Peter doesn't get time to explain what happened because Harry is on autopilot. He tells him to inform the pilot to come and retrieve him from Greece. He'll be back as fast as he can. Someday soon has finally arrived, but not in time for father and son to finally work out what drove them apart. Norman died without knowing Harry's secret, and Harry isn't sure what to do with that. There is a flight back from Greece that is spent in virtual silence because he can't accept the comfort that Phillip extends to him. Instead, he drinks Scotch and stares out the window and tries to remember what he is going back too.
When he walks through the penthouse doors he can still smell the lingering scent of his father. His father who was this larger than life presence in his life is gone now, and Harry can't really wrap his mind around it. There is the scent of his father's aftershave, his favorite cigar, and something else that Harry can't quite place. Sometimes enhanced senses and abilities are a curse, and sometimes they are a blessing. Harry isn't sure which he feels they are now as he makes his way up the stairs only to become surrounded in memories of his dad. He knows they were never close. They were never destined to be close. Emily Osborn lost her life not that long after Harry was born, and Norman felt like it wasn't a fair trade. He made sure his only son knew it wasn't a fair trade.
Staring at his reflection in the floor to ceiling antique mirror in his father's bedroom, Harry searches for some trace of the boy that ran away from Manhattan after being bit by a spider, but he can't find any. He's a man, he reminds himself, just before he loses the hold on the emotions that had threatened to spill over since he received that phone call. Tears and screams and destruction as he unleashes his anger and grief by destroying the mirror and anything else that he can reach before the staff rushes in to calm him down. He stares at them like they are strangers, and realizes they are looking at him the same way. Time stands still, sure, but it's clear it moved at a rapid pace while he was gone. Everything has changed, and Harry is convinced he fits in less now than he did when that fucking spider first bit him. He wants to go back and kill all of those spiders if they happened to have survived this long. He wants to turn back time and change his destiny because it cost him time with his father.
He ends up spending the night in his father's closet, legs pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees, as he let all those ancient memories wash over him like a cold rain shower on a hot summer day. The fights, the misunderstandings, the near misses, the disappointments, and the longing to just once be the son his father had wanted. He's drowning in all of it, and he doesn't feel like a man at all. He feels like the boy who is being punished for once again fucking up, but there is no way his father can open the door this time. His father doesn't live here anymore.
It's a little after eight am when he opens the door, climbs out, and walks over broken glass and priceless heirlooms before making his way to his old bedroom. Harry takes a shower and dresses in black clothes as is appropriate when in mourning. He speaks with the executor of his father's will and makes the final arrangements for the funeral. He avoids Peter, Mary Jane's, Aunt May's and Uncle Ben's calls for condolence. He doesn't bother returning anyones calls, but he has his father's assistant send out the information for the service. He'll deal with everyone then. For now he isolates himself in the fancy prison that he escaped not even two years before. Did it always feel like a prison? He can't remember.
The morning of his father's funeral Harry spends the first hour he is awake in the bathroom losing the contents of his stomach. It's mostly scotch anyway. Scotch is all that he has allowed himself to use to numb the pain, but he promises himself that after he is done burying his father he will go for the harder chemicals. The things that can truly take the edge off. He had been clean and mostly sober while in London and in Greece, but he's back in Manhattan and this city is much too harsh to look at through sober eyes. The chemicals and booze will give it a more mellow haze. It will dim his enhanced senses so he can tolerate what he has to do here.
After his shower, he puts on his designer suit, and checks his reflection in the mirror again. He wishes, just for a moment, he could see his father staring back at him, but it's just Harry standing there. Closing his eyes briefly, he takes a deep breath, and emerges from his room to take the stairs two a time. There is a limo waiting to take him to the service. It's mostly attended by old friends and business partners of the family, but Harry sees Peter, Mary Jane, and his family in attendance. They are the comforting faces among a crowd of stern strangers. Natalie Spencer sits next to her father and sister in the second row, and Harry vaguely remembers attending her mother's funeral with Norman. She gives him a sympathetic smile and he nods before turning back to the front. Time isn't standing still anymore. The service goes back so fast, and for the most part he has held it together. It's not until the final prayer is said and the casket is lowered into the ground that the sob rips through him so hard he is sure he's going to fall to his knees. But there is a hand on his shoulder, gripping it firmly and sympathetically, and without needing to turn around, he knows who is there. "How did it happen, Pete?" he manages to ask as he forces himself to turn away from his past so he can make a step toward the future. Time waits for no one. That is the harshest lesson he's ever learned.
It's Peter on the other end of the line. Peter who had to demand the private number from the staff members so he could be the one to call Harry personally and tell him that he had to come home. He had to come home to bury his father. Suddenly Harry doesn't feel like a man at all. He feels very much like a frightened and needy child, and he can't understand how his father could be dead. But Peter doesn't get time to explain what happened because Harry is on autopilot. He tells him to inform the pilot to come and retrieve him from Greece. He'll be back as fast as he can. Someday soon has finally arrived, but not in time for father and son to finally work out what drove them apart. Norman died without knowing Harry's secret, and Harry isn't sure what to do with that. There is a flight back from Greece that is spent in virtual silence because he can't accept the comfort that Phillip extends to him. Instead, he drinks Scotch and stares out the window and tries to remember what he is going back too.
When he walks through the penthouse doors he can still smell the lingering scent of his father. His father who was this larger than life presence in his life is gone now, and Harry can't really wrap his mind around it. There is the scent of his father's aftershave, his favorite cigar, and something else that Harry can't quite place. Sometimes enhanced senses and abilities are a curse, and sometimes they are a blessing. Harry isn't sure which he feels they are now as he makes his way up the stairs only to become surrounded in memories of his dad. He knows they were never close. They were never destined to be close. Emily Osborn lost her life not that long after Harry was born, and Norman felt like it wasn't a fair trade. He made sure his only son knew it wasn't a fair trade.
Staring at his reflection in the floor to ceiling antique mirror in his father's bedroom, Harry searches for some trace of the boy that ran away from Manhattan after being bit by a spider, but he can't find any. He's a man, he reminds himself, just before he loses the hold on the emotions that had threatened to spill over since he received that phone call. Tears and screams and destruction as he unleashes his anger and grief by destroying the mirror and anything else that he can reach before the staff rushes in to calm him down. He stares at them like they are strangers, and realizes they are looking at him the same way. Time stands still, sure, but it's clear it moved at a rapid pace while he was gone. Everything has changed, and Harry is convinced he fits in less now than he did when that fucking spider first bit him. He wants to go back and kill all of those spiders if they happened to have survived this long. He wants to turn back time and change his destiny because it cost him time with his father.
He ends up spending the night in his father's closet, legs pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees, as he let all those ancient memories wash over him like a cold rain shower on a hot summer day. The fights, the misunderstandings, the near misses, the disappointments, and the longing to just once be the son his father had wanted. He's drowning in all of it, and he doesn't feel like a man at all. He feels like the boy who is being punished for once again fucking up, but there is no way his father can open the door this time. His father doesn't live here anymore.
It's a little after eight am when he opens the door, climbs out, and walks over broken glass and priceless heirlooms before making his way to his old bedroom. Harry takes a shower and dresses in black clothes as is appropriate when in mourning. He speaks with the executor of his father's will and makes the final arrangements for the funeral. He avoids Peter, Mary Jane's, Aunt May's and Uncle Ben's calls for condolence. He doesn't bother returning anyones calls, but he has his father's assistant send out the information for the service. He'll deal with everyone then. For now he isolates himself in the fancy prison that he escaped not even two years before. Did it always feel like a prison? He can't remember.
The morning of his father's funeral Harry spends the first hour he is awake in the bathroom losing the contents of his stomach. It's mostly scotch anyway. Scotch is all that he has allowed himself to use to numb the pain, but he promises himself that after he is done burying his father he will go for the harder chemicals. The things that can truly take the edge off. He had been clean and mostly sober while in London and in Greece, but he's back in Manhattan and this city is much too harsh to look at through sober eyes. The chemicals and booze will give it a more mellow haze. It will dim his enhanced senses so he can tolerate what he has to do here.
After his shower, he puts on his designer suit, and checks his reflection in the mirror again. He wishes, just for a moment, he could see his father staring back at him, but it's just Harry standing there. Closing his eyes briefly, he takes a deep breath, and emerges from his room to take the stairs two a time. There is a limo waiting to take him to the service. It's mostly attended by old friends and business partners of the family, but Harry sees Peter, Mary Jane, and his family in attendance. They are the comforting faces among a crowd of stern strangers. Natalie Spencer sits next to her father and sister in the second row, and Harry vaguely remembers attending her mother's funeral with Norman. She gives him a sympathetic smile and he nods before turning back to the front. Time isn't standing still anymore. The service goes back so fast, and for the most part he has held it together. It's not until the final prayer is said and the casket is lowered into the ground that the sob rips through him so hard he is sure he's going to fall to his knees. But there is a hand on his shoulder, gripping it firmly and sympathetically, and without needing to turn around, he knows who is there. "How did it happen, Pete?" he manages to ask as he forces himself to turn away from his past so he can make a step toward the future. Time waits for no one. That is the harshest lesson he's ever learned.