ii. HARRY OSBORN

Kedar Williams-Stirling in
SEX EDUCATION (2019 - 2023)




#02 . . . HARRY OSBORN

THERE WERE LOTS OF WORDS one could use to describe Spencer Sato. Let us begin with the one that first comes to mind the moment you lay eyes on her, all 5'4 of hard muscle and tangible intermittent explosive disorder, bleached hair and literal arsenal of piercings: hot. In second place, violent; third, easy. There were undertones with those—implications—but then we move past the pedestrian, on to the explicitly derogatory sort: slut, whore, cunt. Cunt, in this context, being used almost creatively as both a noun and an adjective, pleasantly surprised Spencer. (She was constantly astounded by her haters' command of the English language, especially when it came to cunt; in fact, it was one of her favourite words.)

From the slurs we move onto the specific descriptors. These ones, according to Spencer, became very redundant, very quickly, spilling over tongues, lips, teeth just a little too sloppily to actually leave a mark, clumping together like blood dark, dried and congealed.

Vicious, clever, cruel, cutting abrasive aggressive always looking for a fight.

The thing about blood was, Spencer found, it wasn't that hard to get rid of.

(And no, that last "word" wasn't technically a word, singular, not by definition, but Spencer liked the cadence of it. Always! Looking! For! A! Fight!)

What else was there? Dishonest. Manipulative. Indifferent. Emotional. Paradoxical. Confusing. The list went on and on. Hypocritical, high-strung. Opinionated—passionate. Loyal.

Loyal.

Loyal, of course, was the word Gwen had put forward when asked—to Spencer, it seemed very much a centrist response, a I don't know how to describe you honestly without being kind-of mean, so I'm just going to pick something neutral that applies to most people and hope for the best-type answer. However, centrist or otherwise, from the small sample size Spencer had accumulated over the years (the people she'd dated/fucked/fucked over) it was some of the nicest feedback she had received, so she took it.

So, yeah. There were a lot of words you could use to describe Spencer Sato. Loyal cunt was, perhaps, the most accurate. All-inclusive.

When it came to describing Harry Osborn, though, the only word Spencer could think of was gorgeous.

Let it be known: Spencer was not the romantic type, nor the flattering. She viewed the world through the eyes of a surgeon (or a serial killer): blade in hand, organ-desperate, searching for the cut. She was used to that sharpness—seeking it, expecting it, becoming it. You bite the hand that feeds you, or you take it and let it lead you into the dark. Spencer, as much as she hated the notion, was her father's daughter. Filth teaches filth. Violence begets violence. Once, Peter had told her she was too self-righteous—more words to describe Spencer Sato, too sure, too convicted, too close-minded. You see the world in black and white, he'd said, stabbing a straw through the plastic that covered his boba tea, his aim casually deadly.

At the time, Spencer had said nothing—she'd simply made a face, something half dismissive and half demonic. But she knew her answer. No, I see the world in red.

It was all she had ever known. Blood, knives, cruelty, the cut.

Harry Osborn, however, was a completely different kind of wound. He took a split second to release her hand after shaking it; that split second was all surgeon-slash-serial-killer Spencer needed to assess him, dissect him, slice him mentally in two. He was beautiful, sharp in a way that didn't draw blood but instead, a deep breath that whistled through the boneyard of her lungs.

That kind of beauty was rare. Have you ever seen a boy, and—well, he's still a boy, still just some guy—but he takes your breath away, regardless? You feel it, clean and acute, actual and true. Spencer was not the romantic type, and she was certainly not the verbose; most of the emotion she tended to feel was the kind you whet into a weapon and use to beat the shit out of bad people. But what Harry Osborn—and his perfect, beautiful, symmetrical face—made her feel something she couldn't put into words, nor into fists. She could think only of scientific fact; forget mating, forget attraction, she thinks first of the Brazilian wandering spider.

Phoeneutria nigriventer, she could imagine her father telling her, with an affection in his voice that only an arachnid could elicit, of the family Ctenidae. Spencer thinks of Dexter, but it was Scout who taught her about this critter, talked away that old, childhood fear and stripped it down to eight legs, eyes, fangs, and a cephalothorax, abdomen. This way, it was manageable. A monster in parts, a dragon slayed in chapters.

The Phoneutria nigriventer was regarded as one of the most venomous spiders in the world. Although it could choose to deliver a dry bite, when threatened it injects into its attacker a cocktail of neurotoxic peptides—known collectively as PhTx3 and individually labelled as toxins Tx3-1 through to Tx3-6. Toxins Tx3-3 and Tx3-4 are bookended between their sisters, but they are just as deadly, if not more so. Broad-spectrum calcium channel blockers, they—as their name suggests—block calcium channels in the body, stopping nerve impulses as they move through the cells of whichever poor fucker the P. nigriventer has decided deserves a venomous bite.

What comes next is paralysis. Across the entire body, yes, but most notably, the diaphragm. If the spider injects enough venom—particularly in bites to primates, such as monkeys or, you know, humans—one can die of asphyxiation.

This is why South American market workers are careful to handle bananas; often found on plantain foliage, they are easy to miss, easier to aggravate. This is why Scout, when she coats her knives in poison synthesised from the venom of Phoneutria nigriventer, needs only to graze her victims.

This is why, at the sight of Harry Osborn, Spencer Santo's mind reaches for the wandering spider. Its venom goes straight for the throat.

Harry's hand, dark and veined in the way that makes Spencer shy, falls back to his side in slow motion. His pants are expensive—so expensive that if he told her the brand, she probably wouldn't even recognise the name—but he wipes the blood, her blood, on them anyway, completely and unequivocally unbothered. If blood doesn't concern him what will? Spencer wants to know. Fuck, she has to. "Hey," she says, beginning a conversation even though technically they were already in one, "I feel like I know you from somewhere."

"Maybe you know my father." It was a line he was used to reciting; Spencer could tell by the way it left his lips.

"Why would I know your father?"

"He's Norman Osborn."

"Oh, shit."

"Yes." He doesn't say yeah, another one of Spencer's favourite words. He says yes, and yes, he does sound American, because he is American, but his yes—Harry Osborn's Yes—is so proper that Spencer can only think of England, in strokes of parody excessive and polite. Julie Andrews. Queen Elizabeth. David Attenborough.

She liked David Attenborough.

"It's unfortunate," Harry added, as if to soften the blow. Whether that was for her benefit or his, Spencer did not know.

"He's a billionaire. It can't be that unfortunate."

"It can be," he says, and Spencer retrieves all she knows of Norman Osborn from the abattoir of her mind. Hung up on meathooks is what Peter and Gwen have told her. For the past year Gwen had been obsessed with Oscorp's cross-species genetics research; for Peter, Spencer would readily believe he had been obsessed since the moment he left the womb. With Oscorp opening senior-year internships up to coincide with the commencement of the school term, they had dedicated every waking second of the past six months (every waking second that hadn't been spending sharing saliva) to studying for the entrance exams.

Yes, it was that kind of internship. There was an exam, then an interview, then another. (And, gasp!, what a surprise, it was unpaid.) Spencer had listened to her best friend's impassioned rants on the subject on multiple occasions. Despite his disdain toward the exam—he hated standardised testing, on principle—Peter had sounded like he would fuck Oscorp's titular Norman Osborn any time, any way, if he were asked.

Gwen, to her credit, was a little less starstruck.

Spencer still found a way to be jealous. No-one had ever talked about her the way Peter and Gwen talked about the internship—about Norman Osborn. It was bad enough that, in the early days of their relationship, Spencer had to third-wheel their dates for Gwen's peace of mind. Now, she was third-wheeling their lame study sessions. During one of the more-boring occasions, Spencer had taken one of Peter's thick, glossy, Oscorp-issued "information packets" in an attempt to alleviate the nebulous cloud of boredom that had shrouded her brain, as well as the near-violent urge to tell her friends they were fucking nerds. Norman's face had stared at her from the booklet's front cover. He didn't look like a kind man, but he was a handsome one.

Harry had his eyes. At least there was that.

"I guess I believe you," Spencer replied, as if her opinion mattered to Harry, a complete and total stranger. Harry smiled like it did.

"Am I allowed to ask you about the blood on your hands?"

"I dunno, are you?"

He smiled again as if to say I'm going to find out. His smile, fuck, was some violation of natural order. "What's with the blood on your hands?"

"What blood?" Spencer asked innocently.

"Did you kill someone?"

"Today, or like, in general?"

"Hm." Harry paused, genuinely pondering the question. "I want to cover my bases, so—both."

"Yes," Spencer said without missing a beat. "On both counts."

Harry smiled again. His teeth were pearly-white, perfect. She was sure the rest of him was perfect too; still, she wanted to see for herself. Make sure. (For scientific purposes, of course.) "I think I like you."

"I'm honoured," Spencer said, and she was.

Harry sat down beside her. "What are you listening to?"

"Russian rap."

He lifted a brow. "I don't believe you."

"Tebe ne sleduyet."

"You have an answer for everything." Harry scoffed, but there was no spite in the sound. If anything, he seemed amused—equal parts taken with and aback by her hot violent easy slut whore cunt nature. "Are you smart, or just an asshole?"

"Both," Spencer said, but she had never really thought about it. She had been surrounded by such palpable genius her entire life, she had never even thought herself a player in the draft. There was Peter, who had been the top of every class he had ever even thought about taking; Gwen, who was second to Peter only because the Midtown High grading system of achievement wouldn't allow two students to tie for first place. Then there was Scout, a prodigy in death as well as orchestra, a viciously clever strategist who viewed the world through the exacting eyes of a musician. Bow to string, knife to throat, plan to action.

It all came, Spencer believed, from caring. Peter and Gwen cared about the animals they studied in the hopes of blending their DNA; Scout, more than anything, cared for her music. Spencer, conversely, understood things, but she did not care about them. There was a necessary devotion, and Spencer was devoted to very little.

Killing people, and Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy. What a combination.

"Sorry," Harry said, as if he had offended her. But he hadn't, and Spencer doubted he ever would. 1) She had heard worse, so much worse, and 2) she in fact liked the hard edge of his words, the sharpness of his tongue. She was always looking for the cut—that didn't mean it had to hurt. "Sometimes I just... say things."

"So do I," Spencer said plainly, then—after about 0.01 seconds of hesitation—offered him one of her earphones. "You don't have to apologise. I am an asshole. We can laugh about it."

He didn't laugh, but he did accept the earphone. "You're past trying to better yourself, then?"

"You sound like a school counsellor."

"Do I?"

"A very, very resigned school counsellor who's just about given up on me."

"I haven't even begun." That smile again. "To be fair, you have got blood on your hands. A school counsellor might be exactly what you need. Or, you know, any kind of professional help."

Harry was right, and also fucking hilarious, but Spencer still didn't validate him with a response. No nosebleed. No cutting, needlessly-cruel remark (although, ever the observer, ever acute, she felt that his thinly-veiled daddy issues were a vein just begging to be opened.) Instead, she slid her song—well, MJ's song—all the way back the beginning with her thumb and pressed play. Harry seemed shocked by the song's first few seconds, looking as if he'd been bludgeoned by the baseball bat of bad music, MJ's hoarse 1, 2, 3, 4! and the sudden, arresting drum-line beaten to death then brought swiftly back to life by Gwen and her dependable Vic Firths. Harry leaned back, like it would help him listen better, and the earphone cord was drawn taut, tight, strung to break. Spencer watched him, studying him for the specimen that he was.

Face it, Tiger! faded into nothing as Spencer took Harry in. What she searched for first on people, in people, were scars. Some scars of note: the keloid on the back of Peter's left ear, where he had once had a helix piercing but, after battling four weeks of infection—both Peter and that pus-filled mess as determined as each other to win—he had taken it out.

A cut across Gwen's right eyebrow that, years later, had faded somewhat and appeared to be a purposeful, aesthetic choice. In fairness, the silver matched her piercings quite well. But those closest Gwen knew the truth—no, she didn't take a razor to her eyebrows every few weeks. She'd actually taken a tree at age seven, then a branch, then another branch, then one more! Then, the ground.

Harry didn't have any scars. None that Spencer could see at least, none that were left for examination upon his skin by his black dress shirt, his black trousers, his black shoes or his black cashmere sweater. (Evidently, he liked the colour black.) His cheeks and chin did have splotches, here and there, of acne scarring, but he seemed to have reached the other side of it, the rest of his complexion clear and smooth. He had a jaw that was about as sharp as her knives—which, by the way, was an achievement—and his other features were just as keen, the cut of his cheekbones, the clean slope of his nose. His lips were perfect, too; Spencer had no complaints there. The way he spoke was intensely satisfying, and if Spencer had to slice her reasoning in two it was one half his voice—low and smooth and Proper, with a capital P—and one half his mouth, the way it moved around words, the way it made them his own.

She wanted him to say her name. In the general, conversational sense.

Amongst others.

The song ended. "That was... intense," Harry said, as he gave her back her earphone. "But it seems like the type of thing you'd be into, Spencer." There it was. "I liked it."

"I didn't think you would."

"I will say that it isn't really my vibe. I'm less... that. More hip hop, R&B. Psychedelic. Introspective stuff."

Spencer was genuinely curious. "That sounds interesting. I prefer my alternative, and punk rock—new wave, too. Bubblegum," she added, thoughtfully.

"Bubblegum? I have no idea what that is."

"You're missing out. I'll make you a playlist." Spencer paused, then—as shyly as she was capable of being—she said: "That was me on bass, by the way."

Harry gestured to her phone. "Bass guitar?"

"Uh-huh."

"So when you're not killing people you're in a band."

Basically. "Basically."

"Wow." He closed one long-lashed eye, as if trying to reconcile the two Spencers, one with a guitar and the other with her hand curled into a fist. "That's—"

"—Hot?" There was an edge to her tone, sharp, sarcastic, but part of her hoped that this was what he'd meant.

He seemed surprised by her boldness. Spencer wondered if anyone had ever spoken to him like that before; if his outrageous wealth (or his outrageously wealthy father, rather) had shielded him from the world and its appetite, the world and its teeth.

Ultimately, that meant nothing. Fuck the world, Spencer was the real threat. The Phoneutra nigrventer, Scout had told her, didn't have the patience for weaving webs. Instead, it stalks. Ambushes.

Hunts.

"Yes?" He sounded sure and unsteady at the same time. That beautiful mouth. "Yes," he repeated, declaratively this time. "Hot and badass. Can I get your number, or... something?"

"Or something?" Spencer repeated tauntingly, but—despite her tone—she reached for his phone the moment he offered it. Again, Harry didn't seem to mind the blood, now sticky and half-dry, as Spencer created a contact for herself, typed in her name and number. She called herself, so she'd have his number too, then handed the phone back.

"Mr. Osborn?" Suddenly, Spencer wanted to kill somebody again. But Mrs. Davis' secretary, Crystal—who had been seated behind her desk, minding her own business—would have been one of her more undeserving victims.

"That's me." Harry stood, stepping up up up and away from Spencer.

"Mrs. Davis will see you now. We're so sorry to keep you waiting."

"It's no problem. Don't apologise." He turned back to Spencer, "It was nice meeting you, Spencer. I'll text you, yes?" Yes. "We could hang out."

Spencer nodded. "I'll kill you if we don't."

Crystal looked alarmed—which was fair, considering the reason Spencer was waiting to see the principal in the first place—but she said nothing of it. Harry simply laughed. Then, he turned, disappearing into Mrs. Davis' office, and Spencer was alone with her music again. Instead of replaying the song, she rose; even though she wasn't technically allowed to leave, she stepped silently past Crystal and wandered down the hallway until she found a bathroom.

In classic Midtown High fashion, the mirror above the sink was cracked, but Spencer could still salvage something of her reflection in the glass. She stared herself down for a long, long moment. Hot, violent, easy. Slut, whore, cunt. Vicious, clever, cruel, cutting, abrasive, aggressive.

Always looking for a fight.

Not always.

I think I like you.

She cracked her knuckles, then washed her hands clean.










🕷️ LMAO i'm 99% sure it's been an actual, full year since i last updated this fic. me when i wonder why people lose interest in my stories, all the while my fics sit rotting on my account with no updates for months on end.

🕷️ let's look on the bright side, guys! welcome back to american animals, aka your annual spider biology lesson! today we learned about the phoneutria nigriventer. if you're still here, i love you! thank you!

🕷️ this chapter was initially longer, but i've split it in half because it would've ended up being 6-7 thousand words long, and i don't think that would've been enjoyable for everyone. this chapter introduced harry osborn as spencer's primary love interest through volume one. i know we didn't get that deep into his character outside of spencer's very biased observations, but... what do we think so far?

🕷️ and what do we think of the gorgeous gifspam that my lovely friend soulofstaars made for this fic? everyone say thank you, julia! although this story doesn't use faceclaims, if it did gwen stacy would definitely be portrayed by hunter schafer (the love of my life) and spencer by ayumi roux.

🕷️ here's a fun p. nigriventer fact before i go: for men, the symptoms of this spider's venom also includes priapism, which is an extremely painful, involuntary erection. this wasn't really relevant to the chapter, hence why i didn't include it in spencer's internal monlogue, but... the more you know.

🕷️ also, i don't know how obvious it is, but i didn't proofread this chapter. we die like men.

🕷️ thank you for reading. i hope everyone is doing well. please don't hesitate to let me know what you think!

graphic by soulofstaars . . . 🕷️

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