Peter's next few weeks weren't full of words, but full of actions.

And, in other words, he didn't talk that much, preferring to write notes or speaking in a quiet tone.

He still did his usual routine; writing a note to Bucky every morning (he just wanted him to come out of his room), grabbing an apple for his breakfast, being late to school.

The only time he really talked, honestly and properly, was when he was Spider-Man. And even then he didn't say as many witty puns as before.

(Could puns even be described as witty?)

Ned and Harry were worried, he could tell. They nudged him when they had a chance; sometimes Ned tried his hardest to punch him and see if that had any reaction at all.

It didn't.

~~~

Harry was concerned. Peter hadn't spoken for the last few weeks, and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know if this was just a thing that Peter did sometimes, if he just had to be apart from the world before he could go back to it.

He was confused, to be honest.

By Ned's reaction, this wasn't a normal thing that Peter did, but he still didn't know what to do.

He hadn't been there for six years, what was he supposed to do? Act like he had when they were eight? Give Peter a stuffed toy and act like everything was better?

Because truthfully, Harry knew something was up. He knew that it had something to do with him. What, he had no clue. But something.

Peter gave him these looks, looks like he was scared for him - scared of him, sometimes. But why?

Maybe it wasn't Harry who Peter was seeing, who Peter was afraid of. After all, Peter had been avoiding coming to his house recently, hadn't he?

Whenever Ned wasn't free, he'd just say he had homework (which was a lame excuse, but a liable one). Whenever Peter said it, which was rare nowadays, he gave a small smile.

Harry didn't know why.

He just wanted to know what was up with his friend. What more could he ask?

~~~

The same thoughts were going through Peter's head those few weeks. Over and over and over again, they wouldn't stop, they wouldn't change.

It's almost as if his mind wanted him to figure something out.

Still the thoughts reigned through his mind. His best friend's dad had hurt him? Tortured him? Aware of every action he was doing?

He had to constantly remind himself that it wasn't really Harry's dad, that Norman was the Goblin now, but it didn't do anything. After all, if your good and you turn into a monster, you don't immediately turn evil.

What if he'd been planning this all along? And Harry was at Oscorp with him, what if he -

A sudden realisation had Peter sitting up in his bed, giving a small gasp.

Was that Norman's plan? Was he going to hurt Harry when Peter least expected it? As a horrible way of revenge?

He stood up, grabbing his backpack that had his suit in and walked calmly out of his room. He didn't want to be caught, after all.

Of course, with his good old Parker luck, he managed to.

"Hey, Pete, we were thinking -"

Peter turned swiftly towards the speaker, sighing softly when he saw it was only Clint.

"Don't scare me like that, dude," he said, putting his hand over his heart dramatically, "I almost died."

"I'm glad you're back to your old self, Pete," Clint said, giving Peter a small smile, shaking his head when he remembered what he was going to say. "So, it's about -"

~~~

Harry texted Ned (they'd all finally exchanged phone numbers since they thought letters were a bit too old fashioned now) and asked him to come straight to his house.

Ned did so without a second thought, just reminding Harry that he wouldn't be there quickly since he had to walk and Oscorp was decently far from Ned's house.

DatGuyInDaChair
Sorry I'm going to be late Har, yours is farther than I thought.

YouHaveCoolNamesAndICan'tThi
^ I ran out of space
It was going to be you have cool names and I can't think of one
But it didn't work
Also, don't worry Ned, as long as you're here it's fine :)
Also help with name?
Please?

After their quick conversation (Ned refusing to help Harry with his plight), Ned arrived ten minutes later.

"So what's up, dude?" he asked, collapsing into Harry's bed as soon as they got into his room.

"I want to do something to help Peter get back to his usual self."

Harry was blunt. Straight to the point. It was almost his catchphrase at this point.

He remembered at his boarding school where the other kids didn't like that personality trait of his; often bullying him and ignoring him. He only had one true friend.

It was too bad she had to leave.

He shook his head, trying to remove the memories that had infiltrated his brain.

"I know, you're going to say something like what are you on about, Harry?" he quickly rushed on, "but I swear I have a good reason."

"Can you tell me that reason?" Ned asked, raising his eyebrows. Harry mumbled his answer.

"Because I want Peter to go back to normal again. I don't know why, but I feel like it's somehow my fault. He gives me these weird expressions - sometimes he looks scared of me, sometimes scared for me, I don't get it!"

Ned gave a small chuckle.

"I don't know if you couldn't tell when we were younger, but Peter has a serious people saving thing. Or animal saving thing. Or an anything saving thing. Whether it's a human or a plant, he'll save it, trust me. He's worried for you."

"But why?" Harry couldn't help but question Ned on this.

Why would Peter be scared of - for, it was definitely for - him? Why would he be worried about him? Was it his dad?

"It's the Green Goblin, Harry," Ned said gently, looking around, almost as to make sure nobody was listening. "Do you know who he is?"

"Well, no," Harry admitted. "I've been trying my best to keep up to date with this stuff, but my dad didn't send over the newspapers for a while. I just thought it said something bad about him. Why, who is it?"

Ned gave Harry a sympathetic look.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Obviously I want to know, Ned! You've actually managed to get me interested, and that's just rare. Besides, this might help with Peter, you know what I mean?"

"I just... I don't know if you're ready, Harry," Ned said softly, looking away from him.

"I am ready, I swear! I just want to know how to - to fix Peter, you know? Make him the same way he was when we spoke for the first time in ages last week."

"Okay. Fine. Harry," Ned said, looking at him in the eye. "Your dad is the Green Goblin."

~~~

"- Bucky."

Peter stared at Clint, wide-eyed. Had his letters finally worked after all?

"What is it? Is he coming out of his room now? It probably stinks, he hasn't had a shower in days - but he has a bathroom connected, doesn't he? Is he the Winter Soldier again? Hurry up and tell me, Clint!" Peter said hysterically, rambling.

"Oh my god, was that apple I gave him yesterday rotten? It didn't look rotten, it looked like the best out of all the others! Is he sick? Is it my fault? Is -"

"Okay, shut up, Peter," Clint said, rolling his eyes, exasperated. "Is this what's going to happen whenever I give you news about Bucky now? Because if so, I seriously don't want to be the messenger all the time."

"No, no, I swear I won't, can you tell me?"

"Okay," Clint said, giving a sigh before a massive grin came upon his face. "Bucky's out of his room! He's just over there." Clint nodded his head to the left.

"What - seriously?" Peter exclaimed, smiling happily. "It was my letters, wasn't it?"

"It definitely helped," a voice said, one that Peter knew and hadn't heard for several days - perhaps a couple of weeks?

Peter turned toward the direction of the voice, giving a delighted yelp and running towards it, giving the owner of it a big hug.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "My letters helped, didn't they? Or did they make you feel worse? I didn't really know what I was thinking when I wrote them. How was that apple? Was it -"

"Peter, you've gotta calm down," Bucky said, grinning. "The letters helped a lot - I'm usually in there for a lot longer than a few weeks."

Oh, it had been a few weeks.

"I know there were some days I forgot," Peter said, giving Bucky a guilty smile, "but you won't believe what happened! My best friend, the one who I always used to talk about but you never managed to meet, came back!"

Peter suddenly remembered what he was going out to do as he spoke of Harry.

But he couldn't leave Bucky, not when he just came out of his room, could he?

No. There was no way he could do that. He would just have to search for the Green Goblin later.

How much later that would be, he didn't know. But he'd wait.

He'd do it today.

~~~

"Are - are you - you can't be serious," Harry breathed, eyes glistening. "My dad - he can't be the Green Goblin. I saw him earlier, and I'm pretty sure that he wasn't a massive green monster."

He crossed his arms, wanting to believe Ned was lying (but he knew deep inside he wasn't).

"Man, I'm sorry," Ned said, looking away.

Harry wanted Ned to tell him that he was lying, that the Green Goblin wasn't actually his dad, that it was actually their English teacher, or someone - anyone - else.

"I know this isn't exactly what you wanted to hear," Ned continued.

Harry gave him an expression of disbelief. Yeah, he definitely wanted to hear that his dad was an evil villain. Totally.

"But it's the truth," he finished, giving Harry a sad look. "And I'm sorry about that, I swear, but I couldn't really do anything about it and I still can't."

Harry gave a small sigh, shaking his head.

He couldn't be annoyed at Ned for this. It wasn't Ned's fault that his dad was like that. It wasn't Ned's fault that his dad could be potentially be using Harry as bait. It wasn't Ned's fault that Harry had a murderer living in his house.

"... Don't worry," Harry finally said, moving his hair out of his eyes. "I know it isn't your fault that my dad's evil. Is that too harsh? I guess not."

Ned wasn't paying attention. Instead, his eyes were locked onto the television screen behind Harry's head. Confused, he turned around, looking at the screen. He gave a small gasp.

~~~

"You wanna go and see your friend, don't you?" Bucky asked, giving Peter a small wink.

That was one of the main reasons Peter (honestly and truly) loved Bucky so much. He always knew what he was thinking - even if it was something as stupid as 'I really want to eat an apple'.

(He'd always hand him one with a knowing look in his eye. Peter was pretty certain that he was telepathic.)

Peter gave Bucky a guilty look. He didn't want to leave Bucky already, not now that he had just gotten him back after so long.

(And despite the fact that Bucky was offering to let him leave, Peter felt that maybe, just maybe, a small inch of Bucky missed him too.)

"But - I only just got you back!" he protested, frowning. "I want to spend some time with you, Bucky. I haven't seen you in forever."

"I know, Pete," Bucky said gently, "but you haven't seen Harry for a while either. Maybe when you come back me, you and Steve can play a board game together? Since everyone else finds them too boring."

Clint gave a sheepish grin.

"Okay," Peter conceded, knowing that Bucky wasn't going to let up. Sometimes he forgot that Bucky was from World War Two as well. He just seemed so accustomed to this time, Peter forgot. Steve, however... "Okay, but you'd better keep your promise on that board game, okay?"

Bucky gave Peter a smile. "Promise."

To be honest, Peter felt slightly bad that he was using Harry as an excuse to go out as Spider-Man. But it was fine.

As long as he got to play the board game later, he'd be happy.

He gave Bucky one last hug before he ran to his room (supposedly to change into some better clothes rather than the pyjamas he was wearing), quickly getting into his suit.

Besides, this was better, right? At least this way he was protecting Harry.

He went to seek out the Green Goblin.

Peter wasn't big on revenge, but if the Goblin hurt Harry - he was going to pay.

~~~

On the screen, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin (his dad, Harry reminded himself, giving the screen a small scowl) were fighting.

And the worst part was that Spidey was losing.

Ha, I left it on a cliffhanger. Again.

I was actually going to make the cliffhanger way worse than that, so you guys are lucky :)

Also, seriously, read the author's note on the next (and final) chapter. I know it's long (over 1400 words... whoops) but it's IMPORTANT!!!!!! I added a bunch of exclamation marks and made it in capitals so it's true.

(Also, I did some of this on my laptop, so if it's misspelled in some places, it's because I secretly can't spell and just use auto-correct to save me.)

Also... this is the last time I'm doing my amazing catchphrase in this book. It's so SAD.

I'm also sorry this is published later than it usually is, I had to finish it today because I fell asleep yesterday (in my defence, I had a headache and people on here keep on telling me off for writing with a headache, so you're welcome - it's gone now).

I hope you like it! And, for the last time...

I'll see you next next Thursday, my young Wattpadians!

(I was reading through our messages, Cem, and I realised it was actually fellow and not young, but I've made it this far and I can't be bothered to change it all now.)

- WriteCrazyForLife

🕷🕸Until next next Thursday🕸🕷