3 Scenes That Weren't In the Movie, But Should Have Been
He could've taken Harry to the hospital as Spiderman, but he couldn't have sat in the waiting room. And he couldn't get information -- no one listed "Spiderman" as their emergency contact. Plus, he had to do something with all the Goblin gear. So Peter dropped the gear at his apartment to deal with later, and threw some clothes on over his suit while he listened for the ambulance. When it arrived, he rode in the back with Harry. He even tried to remember the prayers he'd recited when Aunt May and Uncle Ben used to drag him off to church every Sunday. His mind stayed stubbornly blank. It had been too long since he'd believed in anything but his own abilities, and the fickle nature of fate.
Afterwards, when Harry had pulled through, Peter tried to forget that he had a Goblin glider wedged into the back of his closet. Harry had forgotten, after all. But every time Harry smiled and said, "Hey buddy," Peter remembered. When he couldn't take it anymore, he dumped all the gear in a box and shipped it to Bernard, with no return address. The butler clearly knew what was going on in his own house; he could figure out what to do with it.
Out of respect for his friend's wishes, Peter waited until Harry was unconscious. Then he flipped open the phone and began dialing as fast as he could. Mary Jane looked shocked. "Who are you calling?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"Someone who can help," Peter told her. There had been too much killing already. No one else was going to die if there was anything he could do to stop it.
"Where did you get that?" Mary Jane asked.
"Glider," Peter answered absently, as someone finally picked up.
"Hello, Clark Kent speaking,"the voice on the other end of the phone said.
"It's Peter Parker," he said quickly. "I need help."
The voice turned serious. "How fast?"
Peter looked at Harry. "Fast," he said. "Or sooner."
There was a burst of static on the phone line, and then a gust of wind that rattled the beams. Superman had arrived. "Crap," he said, taking in the scene. "What happened?"
"Long night," Peter said. When he looked up, his vision blurred, and he wasn't sure how much longer he was going to be able to hold it together. "Medical attention?"
"For him, or you?" Clark asked. Then he shook his head. "Never mind. Watchtower?" Peter nodded wearily. "Her too?"
Mary Jane had frozen at the appearance of yet another spandex-clad superhero, but she jerked back at his words, scrambling away from Harry. "No," she said shakily. "No way." She was trembling, and Peter looked at Clark with mute appeal.
"Wait here," Superman told her, kneeling down to put some kind of transmitter on Harry. "I'm going to send someone down." He put his hand on Peter's shoulder and raised his phone again. "Aurora," he said. "Three. We're ready." Peter closed his eyes against the wave of vertigo.
"I'm not going back."
"You can't just disappear."
They both looked up as a door slid open. "Oh good, you're awake," Clark said, striding into the room. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and smiled brightly at both of them. "How are you feeling?"
Peter shrugged, and Harry frowned. "Who are you?" Harry asked suspiciously.
Clark leaned up against what was probably a ridiculously advanced piece of alien medical equipment and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm Clark Kent," he said. "Also Superman," he added, as if it had just occurred to him. "You're on the Watchtower, which is an orbital space station used by the Justice League to keep tabs on what's going on down on Earth and in the local galaxies. We met up with Peter a couple months ago, when we needed some help with our point-to-point transporter. We've also got some of the best medical gear on the planet up here -- maybe more than just this planet; there's a lot of aliens in the League. Both of you were in pretty rough shape last night, but the AI says you'll be fine."
He stopped, and looked expectantly at Harry. "Really?" Harry said. "Fine?"
"See?" Peter said.
"I'm still not going back," Harry told him.
Peter didn't know what to say. Lately, all his answers had been wrong. His own life was falling apart. He thought he'd be able to at least help Harry hold his together, but now he wasn't sure. Peter just looked at him. Harry looked back, saying nothing.
"Maybe you both need some time off," Clark suggested diplomatically. "How do you feel about Italy?"
3 Things They Don't Do At the Villa
Apparently, all heirs of wealthy and paranoid families knew how to fake their own deaths. Harry even had a will drawn up, and some kind of chain of bank accounts that would somehow allow him to inherit almost all of his own assets. Still, there was the penthouse to clean out -- especially the lab -- before the lawyers went through. At some point in the scramble, when Peter was gingerly packing computer equipment into boxes and Harry was sorting through stacks of financial documents, Harry said suddenly, "Sometimes I see my father in the mirror."
Peter looked over, startled, but Harry was staring at the papers in front of him. Huh. See his father as in "I remind myself of my father sometimes," or see his father as in actually seeing him? "He talks to me," Harry added, still looking down.
Okay. Peter took a deep breath. He reminded himself that while Norman Osborne had been the first person to try to kill him, he fell way behind Venom for "scariness quotient," and had even been supplanted as "most-guilt-inducing" by Flint Marko. He also reminded himself that it was entirely possible (given the brief look he'd taken at the formulas for that green vapor stuff) that psychic and/or spiritual communication was one of Harry's goblin powers, and that his friend wasn't actually insane. Still. "Maybe we shouldn't have any mirrors in Italy?" he suggested.
"Yeah," Harry said, still looking away but sounding intensely relieved. "Good plan."
In addition to no mirrors, there were also no televisions at the villa. No internet access, no newspapers, no magazines. Peter Parker and Harry Osborne were taking a break from the world. They slept, swam, and ate. Peter spent a lot of time brooding. Harry spent a lot of time lying on the porch staring at the sky -- Peter wasn't sure if he was brooding too, or if he was just bored.
They'd arrived in Italy on a brilliantly sunny afternoon, transported directly to the villa using Justice League technology. On the third night, it rained. It was a driving, spitting, stinging rain, that started in the evening and lasted into darkness. Rain that brought lightning, and huge peals of thunder that shook the windows in their panes. Peter eyed his bed warily, then headed for the kitchen, turning on lights as he went. With all the curtains drawn, and every light in the room switched on, Peter sat in the middle of the floor and munched on cereal straight from the box.
That was where Harry found him, almost an hour later. Harry stumbled out of his room and squinted against the sudden light. "Pete?" he asked sleepily, running a hand through his hair. "What's going on?"
"Last time I fell asleep during a thunderstorm, I got possessed by an alien entity and became evil," Peter explained, not getting up.
"Oh," Harry said. "Okay." Instead of going back into his room, he grabbed another box from the cupboard and joined Peter on the floor. After a minute, he said, in a thoughtful tone, "You know, have you thought about cleaning your apartment more often?"
Peter threw a handful of cereal at him.
3 Conversations They Really Should Have
Peter fiddled with a set of blocks he'd found on the porch. Harry was painting again. Peter would have called it a still life, except that Harry was staring at the ocean, and painting a bowl of fruit. Peter sorted the blocks by color, trying to figure out how to start.
"Why do you think there's blocks here?" Harry asked suddenly. He glanced over to where Peter was sitting and gestured with his paintbrush.
"I don't know," Peter said. "I hadn't thought about it, really. Look --" He paused. "I'm really sorry."
"About the blocks?" Harry sounded confused.
"No --" Peter shook his head. "About -- everything, I guess."
"Everything like both of us being completely healed, on vacation in an Italian villa, with the Justice League doing our grocery runs?"
Peter took a deep breath. Harry was giving him an out, but Peter had been making excuses for long enough. "No," Peter said. "Everything like your father dying, and lying to you, and throwing a bomb in you face, and almost getting you killed."
There was silence for a minute. Peter rubbed his thumb over the edge of one of the blocks, a red one. "I know," Harry said, unexpectedly. "Me too." Another long pause. "I'm sorry too," he said. "And I know just saying the words doesn't really mean anything. But I think we can do better." He finally turned, and looked Peter straight in the eye. "I know I'd like to try."
They were lying on the beach. Peter had his t-shirt draped over his face to block out the sun. He was drifting on that delicious feeling that he was about to fall asleep, and that it was perfectly okay because there was nowhere to be, no one to save, no deadlines to meet and no appointments to keep. He could hear the waves, and the seabirds, and his own heartbeat.
In a soft voice that hardly broke the rhythm of the surf, Harry murmured, "I'm not in love with Mary Jane. Not really."
"Me neither," Peter said without thinking, still on the boundary between waking and sleeping.
As soon as the words registered, Peter shot up. "Oh god," he said. He stared at Harry, eyes filled with shock. Harry stared back, silent.
"You know what's weird?" Harry sprinkled cheese into the pan and didn't wait for a response. "My whole life, my goals have pretty much been defined by my father -- pleasing him, rebelling against him, avenging him. Now I'm not even an Osborne anymore."
Peter looked up from the computer screen. He'd been trying to figure out what to put in his email to Aunt May, and had no idea how to respond to a statement like that. Still, they were supposed to be working on their communication. "Is that good?" he asked.
Harry shrugged. "I guess," he said. "I mean, I'm glad to be away from all that. But I kind of feel like the guy from that movie, you know? I put all my energy into getting rid of Spiderman, and now I'm just not sure what to do with my life."
"Have you thought about fighting crime?" Peter asked.
3 People They Invite to the Villa
Peter called her from the Watchtower. Harry called her from the Watchtower. Peter called her from the phone outside his apartment while Harry cleaned out his refrigerator. Harry called her from his apartment while Peter told Aunt May he was going away for a while. She never picked up the phone, and she never called back.
Finally, Peter called the lounge and asked when Mary Jane Watson would be singing next. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Harry asked.
Peter wasn't. He really wasn't sure of anything at that point, except for one thing. "I have to see her, Harry. I have to make sure she's okay."
They didn't actually invite Clark, he just showed up every couple days to ask what they wanted for groceries. One day Lex appeared instead -- literally appeared, in the middle of the living room. "Hey," he said casually.
"Lex Luthor?" Harry asked.
Peter was instantly worried. "Where's Clark?" he wanted to know. He hoped nothing bad had happened in New York.
"Good to see you too," Lex said, sounding amused. "Clark and the League are doing some " he waved a hand in a vague gesture, "thing at The Hague. I do more than enough of that stuff for LexCorp; I don't need to tag along on the League's publicity stunts." He looked around the room and spotted the blocks -- Peter had brought them in off the porch during the rainstorm. "I see you found the blocks. Jason said he thought they were here."
"Jason?" Peter asked.
Harry was still on his original question. "Lex Luthor?" he repeated.
"The one and only," Lex replied. "Anything you two would like at the market?"
"Did you know my Dad?"
Penny had arrived with her mom, via LexCorp jet. Emma had been suspicious of the offer at first, but it helped to have Superman on your side in situations like that. "Superman" assured Emma that Penny's invitation to join an experimental treatment program was completely legit. The fact that the program had been created specifically for Penny, and been expanded from there, was not -- as far as Peter knew -- ever mentioned. His head was still reeling from how quickly everything had come together.
"Mr. Parker? Did you know my Dad?" Penny looked hopefully from Harry to Peter. He noticed Penny's mom giving him a warning look, and wondered what Harry had said.
"I did get a chance to meet your dad," Peter said slowly. "He told me that he loved you very much." Peter paused. The next part was important, and he wanted to say it right. "Penny, everyone has to make a lot of hard choices in their lives. And I don't know a lot about the choices your dad made, but I do know this: your dad helped me make the right choice in my life better to be a better person -- and that's something pretty special to say about anyone."
Emma looked surprised, but Penny just nodded solemnly. Peter breathed a sigh of relief. He could do this.