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abetterlieSomewhere, sometime, in one of your lives, someone told you a story. You cannot remember who anymore, or which life. Sometimes, these things run together. It is a story about a man who hands over his heart to be eaten, bit by bit, by someone who uses a spoon, and when it is all used up, the hollow place inside is filled with glass.
You don't remember who told you, but you do remember the feeling.
It is not there yet on Tuesday night. You find a hotel, and then, while you check in, Harry gets a phone call from Kara. He doesn't talk about it when he comes back to the hotel room, and you don't ask; it occurs to you that you haven't told him why you went to Boston yet, as Kara hasn't given you the liberty to do so, and maybe that's redundant now. So many things are. You don't say something about that, either. Neither of you says much during the first hours or so, you just hold each other, and you remember Boston, arriving there after weeks on the run. He held you like that then. At some point during the night, he starts to talk about Bailey and daily walks and having forgotten to sent those flowers to Elizabeth for the Saturday outburst and where to buy them and which flower. Little things. It's everything. That's when the feeling starts. Of course, what the story doesn't say is that the man gives his heart to be fed on from his own free will. Give me your pain, she had said, and your wounds had appeared on her skin. You wish you could do that for Harry, but you can't, and so you give your replies and promises and those bits and bits from your heart instead, and hope it will sustain him, and most of all you hope that somehow, it will be enough to make him change his mind.
All the arguments he used why this was necessary are true, but you were always better at believing lies.
The reality you want to believe in changes after the early morning hours, after you make love, when you are in that strange state between utter awareness and utter exhaustion and think that maybe you have learned how to do Jasmine's trick after all because you aren't quite sure anymore where your skin ends and his begins. In your reality, the two of you decide that Peter Parker can deal with Green Goblin on his own and that whatever poison runs through Harry's veins can be dealt with without any outside interference, and you take the car and drive north together and abandon it somewhere in the New England woods. In your reality, you find a place where no one can track you down, and it isn't a slaughterhouse, and it isn't a Greek Island, and it isn't another dimension. Just a place were you are able to keep your promises and protect him, always.
In that other reality, you watch him make phonecalls which usually have him handing over the phone to you sooner or later on Wednesday morning, and then there are papers and websites advertising what looks horribly like vacation resorts but were prisons, no matter how sugarcoated, and he and you both know it, and by the time you bring him to Silver Hilll, just an hour away from New York, and they tell you to leave in that ever so practiced gentle manner doctors have, that place inside is nearly all hollow and ready for the glass.
There are certain advantages to being an automaton, and you remember them well by late Wednesday afternoon. You're back at the penthouse, you tell the staff what needs to be said because an automaton can do that, you take Bailey out for a walk, and you think. Without any fears, without any sorrow, without anything but that icy, cold rage that is the last thing to go. When you're back from the walk, you suit up. With weapons; you certainly have no intention of playing any more games involving masks.
Fact: as you now know, your possession or hypnosis theory in all likelihood is wrong because otherwise, Harry would have been used for the second Goblin attack, and he wasn't anywhere near the Daily Bugle office. Fact: that means whoever is behind this made a personal appearance there. Fact: that someone is in possession of not only the Goblin Glider, suit and mask, but various pumpkin bombs, all items that had be procured and produced anew as those manufactured by Norman still are safely entombed in cement in what used to be Norman's secret lab in the penthouse; you checked. Fact: these items also have to be stored somewhere.
Now, the OsCorp building is an obvious choice, except that Peter Parker has searched that from roof to lowest basement when looking for Harry on Saturday. Still, there has to be an OsCorp connection for a successful framing, and the storage couldn't be far away, either, not when whoever was behind it needed to check on Harry being unconscious at OsCorp before starting the attack on the Daily Bugle, but you have to take into account that the glider allows for flying.
You start asking about rented places where one can store chemicals. Huge storage rooms. Soundproof walls. And soon, "ask" becomes the wrong term for what you do. You think the creature who ends up with one of his arms torn out is a halfbreed demon, but you're not sure, and you don't check anymore. The woman who turns out to have wasted your time and ends staked is a vampire, but the guy who loses his right ear and actually provides a lead is human.
Finally, you have it. Some bomb shelter, a gigantic panic room build by someone after the 9/11 attacks who then promptly had a heart attack and died in bed, with his family moving to Florida and not bothering to sell it. It's not rented, either, according to the papers, except that, well, things were delivered, trucks were seen unloading in recent weeks. Christmas business, people explained. Surely. You're there, and you recognize the smell at once, that scent from the Greek island and from the lab in the penthouse, only not stale, no, not at all. Sharp. There is someone there. Someone who rather obligingly has just suited up as well, only in his case literary, in green, which makes identification easy. Same height as Harry, same build, but this close up, you who have tracked and hunted all kind of beings through most of your life are certain even if you didn't know Harry was currently facing the worst fear of his life, the horror of having committed himself to an institution, you would know it is someone else.
You don't waste time on opening quips or insults. You just charge.
The amused, laughing sound he makes when he spots you lasts about as long as it takes for you to make physical contact. Then there is silence from his side as well, except for quick breaths, trying to avoid your vicious blows, landing some of his own. You didn't have that narrow a vision, that much focus on destruction of just one individual, since beating the man who kept Emily prisoner to death. And so when he seems to come to the conclusion that hand to hand won't do and tries to reach one of pumpkin bombs, you miss entirely that you two aren't any longer alone. You hurl the axe you brought along, a throw aimed to slice of, not his hand, not his arm, but his legs, and a web shoots out and interrupts your axe mid flight.
You whirl around, and sure enough, there he is, Spider-man, come through the door you had kicked open, head tilted in your direction as if he's staring at you in disbelief. It doesn't occur to you until later that Peter probably still assumes at this point it is Harry beneath the green suit. At this moment, you just think, in as much as you think anything, that he has stopped you from finally getting the bastard who is the cause of all this, and in that heartbeat, you don't know whom you want to kill more.
The Goblin, whatever else he is, isn't stupid. He uses the distraction to do what you have successfully stopped him from doing so far, gets on the glider, presses a button and escapes through the window that suddenly reveals itself when a wall starts to part, shattering glass and cement in the process. It takes Spider-man, staring at you, some seconds to realize this and to shoot another web, but this one misses its aim. He runs in the direction of the window, jumps and follows the fastly dissappearing glider. You can't swing between skyscrapers, so you remain where you are. Maybe Peter will catch him, but somehow, you doubt it.
You sink to the floor, look at the splintered glass, take one of the shards and for a moment wonder just where they come from.
Then the hollowness you feel reminds you the glass inside is still there.
You don't remember who told you, but you do remember the feeling.
It is not there yet on Tuesday night. You find a hotel, and then, while you check in, Harry gets a phone call from Kara. He doesn't talk about it when he comes back to the hotel room, and you don't ask; it occurs to you that you haven't told him why you went to Boston yet, as Kara hasn't given you the liberty to do so, and maybe that's redundant now. So many things are. You don't say something about that, either. Neither of you says much during the first hours or so, you just hold each other, and you remember Boston, arriving there after weeks on the run. He held you like that then. At some point during the night, he starts to talk about Bailey and daily walks and having forgotten to sent those flowers to Elizabeth for the Saturday outburst and where to buy them and which flower. Little things. It's everything. That's when the feeling starts. Of course, what the story doesn't say is that the man gives his heart to be fed on from his own free will. Give me your pain, she had said, and your wounds had appeared on her skin. You wish you could do that for Harry, but you can't, and so you give your replies and promises and those bits and bits from your heart instead, and hope it will sustain him, and most of all you hope that somehow, it will be enough to make him change his mind.
All the arguments he used why this was necessary are true, but you were always better at believing lies.
The reality you want to believe in changes after the early morning hours, after you make love, when you are in that strange state between utter awareness and utter exhaustion and think that maybe you have learned how to do Jasmine's trick after all because you aren't quite sure anymore where your skin ends and his begins. In your reality, the two of you decide that Peter Parker can deal with Green Goblin on his own and that whatever poison runs through Harry's veins can be dealt with without any outside interference, and you take the car and drive north together and abandon it somewhere in the New England woods. In your reality, you find a place where no one can track you down, and it isn't a slaughterhouse, and it isn't a Greek Island, and it isn't another dimension. Just a place were you are able to keep your promises and protect him, always.
In that other reality, you watch him make phonecalls which usually have him handing over the phone to you sooner or later on Wednesday morning, and then there are papers and websites advertising what looks horribly like vacation resorts but were prisons, no matter how sugarcoated, and he and you both know it, and by the time you bring him to Silver Hilll, just an hour away from New York, and they tell you to leave in that ever so practiced gentle manner doctors have, that place inside is nearly all hollow and ready for the glass.
There are certain advantages to being an automaton, and you remember them well by late Wednesday afternoon. You're back at the penthouse, you tell the staff what needs to be said because an automaton can do that, you take Bailey out for a walk, and you think. Without any fears, without any sorrow, without anything but that icy, cold rage that is the last thing to go. When you're back from the walk, you suit up. With weapons; you certainly have no intention of playing any more games involving masks.
Fact: as you now know, your possession or hypnosis theory in all likelihood is wrong because otherwise, Harry would have been used for the second Goblin attack, and he wasn't anywhere near the Daily Bugle office. Fact: that means whoever is behind this made a personal appearance there. Fact: that someone is in possession of not only the Goblin Glider, suit and mask, but various pumpkin bombs, all items that had be procured and produced anew as those manufactured by Norman still are safely entombed in cement in what used to be Norman's secret lab in the penthouse; you checked. Fact: these items also have to be stored somewhere.
Now, the OsCorp building is an obvious choice, except that Peter Parker has searched that from roof to lowest basement when looking for Harry on Saturday. Still, there has to be an OsCorp connection for a successful framing, and the storage couldn't be far away, either, not when whoever was behind it needed to check on Harry being unconscious at OsCorp before starting the attack on the Daily Bugle, but you have to take into account that the glider allows for flying.
You start asking about rented places where one can store chemicals. Huge storage rooms. Soundproof walls. And soon, "ask" becomes the wrong term for what you do. You think the creature who ends up with one of his arms torn out is a halfbreed demon, but you're not sure, and you don't check anymore. The woman who turns out to have wasted your time and ends staked is a vampire, but the guy who loses his right ear and actually provides a lead is human.
Finally, you have it. Some bomb shelter, a gigantic panic room build by someone after the 9/11 attacks who then promptly had a heart attack and died in bed, with his family moving to Florida and not bothering to sell it. It's not rented, either, according to the papers, except that, well, things were delivered, trucks were seen unloading in recent weeks. Christmas business, people explained. Surely. You're there, and you recognize the smell at once, that scent from the Greek island and from the lab in the penthouse, only not stale, no, not at all. Sharp. There is someone there. Someone who rather obligingly has just suited up as well, only in his case literary, in green, which makes identification easy. Same height as Harry, same build, but this close up, you who have tracked and hunted all kind of beings through most of your life are certain even if you didn't know Harry was currently facing the worst fear of his life, the horror of having committed himself to an institution, you would know it is someone else.
You don't waste time on opening quips or insults. You just charge.
The amused, laughing sound he makes when he spots you lasts about as long as it takes for you to make physical contact. Then there is silence from his side as well, except for quick breaths, trying to avoid your vicious blows, landing some of his own. You didn't have that narrow a vision, that much focus on destruction of just one individual, since beating the man who kept Emily prisoner to death. And so when he seems to come to the conclusion that hand to hand won't do and tries to reach one of pumpkin bombs, you miss entirely that you two aren't any longer alone. You hurl the axe you brought along, a throw aimed to slice of, not his hand, not his arm, but his legs, and a web shoots out and interrupts your axe mid flight.
You whirl around, and sure enough, there he is, Spider-man, come through the door you had kicked open, head tilted in your direction as if he's staring at you in disbelief. It doesn't occur to you until later that Peter probably still assumes at this point it is Harry beneath the green suit. At this moment, you just think, in as much as you think anything, that he has stopped you from finally getting the bastard who is the cause of all this, and in that heartbeat, you don't know whom you want to kill more.
The Goblin, whatever else he is, isn't stupid. He uses the distraction to do what you have successfully stopped him from doing so far, gets on the glider, presses a button and escapes through the window that suddenly reveals itself when a wall starts to part, shattering glass and cement in the process. It takes Spider-man, staring at you, some seconds to realize this and to shoot another web, but this one misses its aim. He runs in the direction of the window, jumps and follows the fastly dissappearing glider. You can't swing between skyscrapers, so you remain where you are. Maybe Peter will catch him, but somehow, you doubt it.
You sink to the floor, look at the splintered glass, take one of the shards and for a moment wonder just where they come from.
Then the hollowness you feel reminds you the glass inside is still there.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 05:33 am (UTC)"My first impression of you, after believing that you were merely latching on to Harry for his trust fund, was that you were a fighter. You didn't put up much of a fight to keep Harry out of that institution." Norman says, as he stands behind Connor. "What was it that you told him? You'd do anything but leave him?"
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 05:45 am (UTC)"You know," he says out loud, refusing to answer the charge which he had raised against himself whenever he wasn't focusing on tracking down the goblin and letting rage fill him, "that was clumsy. Hate to tell you, but as far as mindgames go? You suck. When it's not someone who loves you, and I don't. See, Norman, my father did that kind of stuff for centuries, and in comparison? You look like the pathetic amateur that you are."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 06:01 am (UTC)Norman's tone of voice is soft. In fact he almost sounds kind. The dog is still barking which annoys him.
"That's my fault of course, but we both know I fail him. I didn't think Parker would be able to manipulate him quite to easily or that you'd just stand aside and give Parker the opportunity to convince Harry he was a monster just like me. Parker never believed Harry was innocent and that is why my son allowed himself to be sacrificed in the name of this cause. He believes he deserves it, and I suppose you so readily agreeing to his arguments instead of fighting with him to convince him the sins of the father do not belong to the son only convinced him he was doing the right thing."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 06:16 am (UTC)Connor snaps before catching himself, but the imagine of Harry believing himself abandoned was too horrible not to. What Norman says about Peter also resonates, because ever since their last conversation in front of the Daily Bugle, the anger about Peter assuming Harry to be guilty has been boiling in Connor. And he has been wondering whether he shouldn't have just knocked Harry out and forced him to come along and dissappear together the entire day.
The cold around him increases, and he stares at the flames without turning around. He wouldn't give in to these taunts. Remembering how he had believed Angelus about Darla and the suggestion that she killed herself because she hated the child in her so much, he decides that however much truth there was in Norman' words, there were also lies, and he couldn't afford to let Norman in. Harry knows Connor will come back for him. He knows Connor doesn't think he's a monster. He knows Connor would not have allowed any of this to happen if it hadn't been Harry who wanted it. And Harry didn't do it because of the incredible easy way his old friend judged him. No. Bailey puts her head in Connor's hands, and the warmth of her helps a bit. He won't let Norman in. He'll strike back, though.
"I can see why the whole concept of Harry being willing to face his worst fears so Peter and I can take down that bastard who imitates you isn't something you'd understand,"
he fires back. "For a scientist claiming to have it done all for the greater good, you never caught on about the saving lives idea, did you? You've been telling Harry how weak he is his entire life, but guess what, nothing I heard about you makes me think you were ever capable of the kind of strength and bravery Harry showed today. And he does it to stop a killer. To save others. Harry is a hero. You're just a serial killer with delusions of grandeur."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 06:32 am (UTC)Norman paces the length of the room stopping to look at the portrait of his deceased wife.
"Harry looks so much like her. His eyes, his hands, the way he carries himself, all of it is from Emily and I love him and hate him for it. The constant reminder. Perhaps that is what he sees with you. You are his constant reminder of me, and you played the role perfectly by letting him sacrifice himself to try and please Parker and gain your respect of course. In the end it's Parker who has the most control over him, and I admit it angers me. He has Harry right where he wants him now. Locked away in a pretty institution so Parker can sleep well at night knowing the city is safe from Osborn genes running amok. He won't visit him because if he keeps his distance he won't see what that place will do to my son. You'll visit though, won't you, boy? You'll visit and let me tell you what you will see."
Norman moves closer to Connor and whispers in his ear. "Look in his eyes and watch as the life drains out of him. He'll lock himself up tight inside his head so he can keep everyone away. They will medicate him and he'll stay hiding inside his head, like a frightened child, because if he lets himself truly experience where he is then the walls will close him and he'll stop being able to breathe. It took him three days the first time to attempt to kill himself in one of those hospitals. I do hope you reminded them to put him on suicide watch. You'll have enough of a battle getting him out once Parker goes to the board and presents those tests results to them. It's to their benefit Harry stay locked up for good, and well you may have those papers, but Harry was surely not in his sound mind when he signed them. You're just his gay lover and what rights does that give you, really?"
Norman makes a tsk sound with his tongue as he adds, "Parker got just what he wanted, and you played right into his hand. Your father, Angelus, must be so proud."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 07:02 am (UTC)Connor says automatically while trying not to listen, but what Norman says has the increasing sound of the truth. Norman admitting that he loved and hated Harry for the resemblence with his mother was an openess Connor had not expected, and though he doesn't consciously realize it, it makes it harder for him to dismiss Norman as a manipulative liar. It also has an eerie resonance he shuts down as soon as it occurs.
You have your mother's eyes. Her mouth, too.
Better to attack, always to attack.
"You're the one who can't get over Peter Parker. Harry already was over him when he fell in love with Kara. If he wants anyone's approval, it's hers."
He hadn't meant to say the last sentence exactly, but he can let it stand.
"You know, I think you're projecting. Blame my psychology classes, but it seems to me you were the one who desperately wanted Parker's approval. Who tried to buy him. Who is still obsessed with him. I guess if he suddenly decided to follow your footsteps after all and carry that research out by drinking the green goo himself, you'd even get over the him killing you thing. Did you ever wonder just what you wanted of Peter Parker, Norman? Because I do."
Killing. Harry in that place, losing hope, attempting to kill himself. But that wouldn't happen. Harry knows Connor will get him out. If Spider-man hadn't interferred, that would already be possible tomorrow, because surely, once the Goblin was out of the way Harry de-toxing can be done at home? Spider-man. Peter Parker. It was his fault that the Goblin wasn't dead. Connor had sent him a brief SMS about Harry being in Silver Hill by now, not trusting himself to speak on the hpone. And tomorrow they'd have a class together.
But Peter didn't want Harry locked up for good. No. He wouldn't tell the Board Members. He didn't have nearly enough faith in Harry, but he liked him, he was his friend.
"He doesn't want Harry locked up. He was willing to let Harry hate him rather than have him hate you. That whole self sacrifice concept again. Must be galling, Norman, that Peter always liked Harry better. He's a good guy."
A judgmental one, sure, who interferred when he shouldn't have, and who had to be deaf, dumb and blind not to realize Harry loved him, and to turn that gift away, and were those superficial traits like blue eyes and dark hair and superpowers the reason why Harry orginally had interest in him? But that all was beside the point. The point was, Peter Parker was a hero, and Harry's friend. He wouldn't stand for Harry being locked up, even if the board for some reason found out and wanted to make a play, and surely they wouldn't?
Not if Connor killed the Goblin and brought Harry home in time. Which would already have happened if not for that interference.
Get a grip. He interferred because he's one of the righteous. He didn't want you to cripple someone, not even a murderer who framed Harry. And because he is one of the righteous, he'll also help free Harry if it comes to that. What kind of hero allows his friend to be locked up?
Well, Connor did. But Connor is no hero. A hero would have found a way, any way, to keep Harry from making that sacrifice and would have found the true Goblin in time.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 07:19 am (UTC)Norman doesn't deny the obsession with Parker. It's no secret he expected great things from Peter Parker, and he was denied those things. However, Connor is missing an important piece of his puzzle.
"I wanted Harry to avenge me. Harry to kill Spider-man, once and for all, and I believed he could do it if he had faith in himself. He didn't do it, but did that matter to Parker? Did Parker even once consider all the times that Harry could have betrayed his secret but didn't? All the times that Harry could have hurt him without having to put on that mask, but instead he honored their friendship? Did that matter when it came time for Peter to believe in my son?"
His tone is bitter and angry. It was one thing for him to belittle his son, but for someone like Peter to make Harry feel so small? No. Not acceptable.
"I wanted an heir, boy. You think I want him to kill himself in some institution just because Parker is convinced that Harry was mentally unstable before he ever had the drugs ingested? He left Harry and didn't come back to check on him after his mask was ripped off. If you think he will risk his secret, his family, or this precious city to take a chance on Harry recovering then you are a fool. Just because you love Harry and believe in him doesn't mean anyone else does. You and the girl, you're the only ones he can believes in and then you went and shook his faith in Kara. All he has left to cling to is the hope you won't turn your back on him like Peter, Kara, and I did. You better get this Goblin and Parker situation taken care of quick, because your problems are just beginning. I guarantee you the board knows about Harry by now. Who would have rushed and told them, Connor? You? The staff? Or Parker?"
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 07:49 am (UTC)But then Norman hits deeper and in another way than he probably intends. Connor puts Bailey down and stands up.
"Avenge you. Right. That's all any of you ever want, is it? And you didn't care what became of him afterwards. Do you know what it is to avenge someone yourself, Norman? What it's like to do that by striking against someone you love?"
And Connor turns around. For the first time since what might or might not have been a hallucination in a Californian forest, he sees something coming into focus in the air. Someone whose picture he has seen but whom he never encountered alive.
"Of course you don't," Connor says tonelessly. "If he had done what you wanted, he'd have killed himself or ended up in that institution for good, Norman. But that doesn't matter, does it, as long as the great revenge gig is accomplished, right?"
He makes a step towards what he knows is just a phantom, untouchable. For now.
"Don't worry. I'll get Harry out of there. And I'll kill anyone who tries to stop me, Goblin or Spider-man or board members, because guess what, I'm not one of the good guys, and what do you think I researched all Monday for? But it will be for Harry. Not for you and your vengeance obsession, and if you think you'll get your jollies out of enjoying the results, well, forget that. Ways to take down Goblins and Spiders weren't the only things I researched, and I looked up the other things for way longer. I'm really not a good person, Norman. And I'm not definitely not a masochist. If I get off on pain, it's pain I cause. So even if you're right, and Peter betrayed Harry to the board, and I do have to kill him, I think Peter is going to have it easier than you. If you have any chats on the supernatural plane, check out a guy named Pavayne. I did."
And he looks at the man standing in front of him, unflinching. Harry's father. It's not the only father who comes to mind.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 05:29 am (UTC)Norman smirks at the threats of what Connor will do to him once he has successfully saved Harry. His eyes dance, much like Harry's do when Harry is feeling devious, and Connor can probably see the family resemblance more now than he ever could in the family portraits that hang on the penthouse walls.
"Harry wouldn't let you destroy my office. Do you really believe he'll let you take me completely away from him? The bond between fathers and sons transcends death. You should know that better than anyone. Tell me, do you believe it's a coincidence that the people you choose to love almost always end up destroyed within months of being with you? I'm starting to believe the curse that follows you is much more damning than the genetics I passed on to my son."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 06:52 am (UTC)But Connor has come back, because he found Emily and Emily needed someone who cared for her and protected her, and because Harry kept writing and needed someone as well, and being needed was powerful to Connor, even more so than the fear of dooming people.
Emily. Emily is alive and well in that other dimension. He has to believe that. He didn't destroy her.
"Harry let me do an exorcism once already," Connor says, thinking that this time, he simply won't ask, and it won't be an exorcism anyway, it will be something more unpleasant. He has those names of the former Board Members who died courtesy of Norman Osborn now. He remembers what Cordelia told him about how her ghost Dennis got rid of her other ghost, his mother. Once there isn't a Goblin to track down anymore, he'll swallow his dislike of magic and find the next witch or shaman to contact those board members. He looks at Norman, wondering why the man was here and not at Silver Hills at all, and suddenly, in the middle of hate and exhaustion, there is that memory again: Emily saying goodbye, telling him to be well. Jasmine embracing him. Harry replying to him, when Connor said that he wished he had found Emily earlier.
"And maybe we have those things in common," Connor says, "but I still don't think you have a clue about the bond between parent and child. You think it's all about what you want, what you think he should be. About punishing him. It's not about that all. It's about being loving them without any conditions. He gets that. He knows. But certainly not from you."
He turns away again, and puts a new bit of wood into the fire, turning his back to Norman.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 02:55 pm (UTC)"Perhaps I should have done as you did? Harry could not stand living in this world back when he was a teenager. He tried more than once to kill himself, yet I believed if he lived eventually he would find a purpose in this life. Perhaps you would have preferred I helped him self-destruct completely and buried him next to his mother."
Norman's tone is harsh. This insolent child dares to speak to him about a parent's love? He has no idea what Norman has sacrificed for his son.
"You have my relationship with my son all figured out, do you? Do you honestly believe that Harry understands the true dynamics between the relationships of you and your fathers? Having known you as long as you have known him, sharing your secrets and so forth, do you truly believe he understands everything there is to know about you and your fathers? I have a feeling the answer is no, so perhaps you should take a step back young man and ponder just how much you really know about Harry and me."
Norman approaches Connor and stops next to him. He waits to see if Connor will look at him, and when he doesn't he continues.
"He was coming down from a drug binge, had been drinking for days, had no sleep, and realized his girlfriend was going to be devastated by the news that he got caught fooling around with her brother in public when he allowed you to perform you little spell. Do you truly believe that Harry, in his right mind, or even his current state, will allow you to do that again? If he ever finds out you did it without his permission he will never forgive you and will toss you out of his life. No one can come between a parent and child, boy. You know this better than anyone, do you not? Perhaps you should remember what happened to dear Kara when you interfered between her and her father."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 04:11 pm (UTC)He looks at Norman again. His face is taut.
"I don't think Harry ever believed you loved him after you started sending him away. Now given that I was a stupid kid from hell and you were an acknowledged genius, I can't help but wonder how that worked out."
One of his hands absently starts to stroke Bailey again, but he doesn't take his eyes from Norman.
"What are you doing here, Norman? Really? Want to goad me into taking over the grand kill Peter Parker gig? We already covered that. Want to take some pot shots because I'm the reason Harry isn't married to Kara or anyone else? Fine. But see, here's what I can't figure out - what kind of a father who has even a little love for his child isn't with his child when that child is going through hell? What kind of a father rather wastes his time exchanging threats with his son's lover?"
He shakes his head, and he looks eerily amused.
"Norman Osborne. That's who. And here I thought Angelus sucked."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 04:20 pm (UTC)"I am a reminder of everything that has hurt him. I would think keeping my distance is the kindest thing I could do for him. Just as keeping him in those schools rather than having him here, when I was seldom around due to business was better for him. He wanted to come home. Why? You've been here, boy. Does it feel like a home too you? This house is a shrine to his mother, and she may not haunt Harry with her spirit, but she is everywhere in this place. Better he was with boys his own age than waiting for me to come home. I did what I could for him, and I may not have been the father he needed me to be, but if I truly wanted to destroy him? I'd think I'd be in that hospital room urging him to finish himself off."
Norman shakes his head as he gives Connor a glare. "Instead I'm here with you, trying to give you the information you need to save my son not just from this goblin or Parker, but himself! You may not like me, hell you may hate me, but don't presume that I am wasting my time with you. I'm giving you what you need to save him before it's too late. You already let it get this far out of hand, stop fighting me, and pay attention. Harry didn't use the drugs on himself, right? You believed him when he said he didn't take them. Where could he have been drugged, Connor? Who had access to do this too him? Start thinking offensively and not just defensively."
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Date: 2006-01-20 04:39 pm (UTC)But Norman makes a Harry gesture, and it hurts watching it, and the last things he says actually make sense.
"If you were really concerned about Harry you'd tell me," Connor says in a mixture of distrust and unwilling belief. "I guess you know. Don't ghosts know everything? Peg knew about you. So if you want to help your son, just spell it out. Tell me who did it to him, because right now I'm not in a riddle solving shape. Did Todd Campbell bribe someone at OsCorp? Some Jake Davidson revenge gig because Harry helped Claire? Or did you have a clone hidden somewhere who just got activated by Bernard who is playing Ygor?"
Those are angry taunts, but also genuine questions. Well, except for Bernard as a suspect. Connor and Bernard didn't exactly hit it off, but he doesn't believe Bernard would in any way deliberately harm Harry, other than through a sharp tongue.
"Tell me," he says, all sarcasm gone from his voice, which is almost pleading. "If you know, and if you can, just tell me who it is, and I'll kill him tonight."
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Date: 2006-01-20 04:49 pm (UTC)Before Connor can answer, Norman fades away. He is certain that going to Silver Hill is a bad idea, but figures a brief check in on the boy without being noticed won't cause any harm. If Harry is medicated enough then he won't realize Norman is there.