Some People Have Real Problems

Harry Osborn can’t sleep. He gets advice from his dad.

Cw: mental Ilness, angst, insomnia

Harry couldn’t sleep. He didn’t know why. He’d gone to bed late, feeling shaky and half exhausted as usual, and yet here he was, lying in bed with his eyes open, staring at the grey light on dawn glowing behind the bedroom curtain. 

He’d been dreaming about something, hadn’t he? His father, maybe… Harry didn’t want to follow that thought any further.

He glanced over at the clock. Years ago, this would be the time he would have been getting up for school. It all seemed so simple, then. He wondered if it had ever really been simple, or he had just been naive. 

‘If I had a real job, this is probably when I’d have to get up for work, too,“ he mused to himself as he stared at the ceiling. ‘put on a tie, drink a cup of coffee and hurry out the door. Like in a movie.’

Harry didn’t have a real job. Oscorp existed and money just… happened. From a series of trusts, and stock portfolios, and men in ties who had real jobs.

Harry rolled out of bed, narrowly avoiding falling on his ass. He put his hands on his hip, and stretched out his back, before running his fingers through his tight ginger curls.

He wasn’t getting back to sleep. That much was obvious. He was starting to feel a tight heat in his veins, like a march of fire ants. 

The big house made him feel claustrophobic.

The big house made him feel like a lost dog.

He’d been dreaming about his father. 

It had been a nice dream.

Harry wished that he was still asleep.

He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He made faces at himself in the mirror, looking at the tired dark circles under both his eyes.

‘You look just like me, kiddo,’ the voice of his dead father said. ‘Right before I kacked it.’

Harry ignored the voice, and thought, ‘I look just like him. Right before he…’

Harry dried his face with a towel.

He sat on the edge of the tub in the spacious, beautiful bathroom.

Some people had real problems. Some people couldn’t even afford rent. His own best friend couldn’t–

The thought of Peter brought bile into his stomach, and he put his head in his hands, squatting there on the edge of the tub in the dim bathroom for a long moment.

‘Aw, kiddo,’ his father sat beside him, and put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Why the long face, huh? Come on, I know just what will cheer you up.’

Harry looked up and gave his father a wan smile. The ghost offered him a hand, and Harry stood on shaky feet, following him through the house in the early hours of dawn.

‘What you need, my boy, is some fresh air,’ Norman lectured him jovially as they walked. ‘Can’t stay all cooped up in the house. Not good for ya. You’ll go a little stir crazy, if ya know what I mean.’

"Sure, dad,” Harry mumbled back as he stepped into his father’s drawing room, or library, or whatever the hell he called the damned place. 

His father waved him over to the secret door. ‘Don’t you ‘sure dad’ me, young man. Your old man knows what’s good for ya. I know I haven’t always been there, but you know I try my best.’

“I know, dad. Sorry." 

Harry stumbled on his way through the little alcove, bracing himself momentarily against the wall for support, before he shook it off.

He stood in the center of the strange little room while his father handed him pieces of kit, and watched him get dressed.

‘Man, kiddo, those abs,’ Norman grinned at him as he slipped into the light fitting flight suit. ‘At least you haven’t been skipping gym day, huh?’

He smiled embarrassedly. "The body goes, the mind goes, like you always used to say ”

‘Damn right, Harry,’ his father grinned at him. ‘Looks like you can listen after all.’

Harry slipped the head gear on and took a breath. “I do my best, dad.”

He slipped his boots into the locking mechanism of the glider and felt it hum to life underneath him, sending it’s thrum of energy through his body.

‘And I’m proud of you, son.’ Norman put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and stepped into the glider behind him. There wasn’t really anywhere for him to be, aside from right up against Harry’s back, but that was fine. Harry didn’t think about it.

He brought the glider up, and out through the secret skylight, into the early morning New York air.

He took a breath as he rose, looking down at the city from way up high, and he felt dizzy. But at least it wasn’t the same dizzy he felt, laying in his bed, unable to sleep.

It made sense to feel dizzy up here.

Up here it all made sense.

“You were right, dad, this was just what I needed.”

‘Attaboy, Harry. Attaboy.’

The Green Goblin swooped through the skies of New York.

AO3 link