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Hues of bright red and mellow blue, melding together to create a blur of soft purple on a small photograph. This is what Zoee sees under a haze of wet eyes.
Harry Osborn sits in front of her on a blue velvet seat, holding an action shot of Spider-Man swinging through buildings in the city. They are in the Osborn mansion, currently sedentary in the library-slash-office while the Osborn boy shows Zoee different pictures of the spider vigilante as if they are flashcards.
"Come on Zoee," Harry's once-patient voice is now shaky with impatience and unshed tears. "You can do this, you can save me now. Remember who is under this mask."
A couple of days prior Norman Osborn, Harry's father, died due to a hereditary degenerative disease. His death shook Harry to his core as he was trying to prevent this with Zoee's forgotten knowledge of the Spider-Man. He had assumed that the Nixon girl's memory would have recrudesced in a short period of time as per the head trauma doctor had predicted, yet that was not the case.
With a sniffle and a wipe to the nose, Zoee shakes her head. "I'm sorry Harry, I don't know who he is. I can't remember."
She feels terrible, feeling like she had a part in his father's death. She is blindsided, not knowing how her memories could've saved his dad. Harry won't tell her a thing no matter how many times she asks. All she knows is that Harry has the same genetic illness and that it was time to save him like she should've saved Norman.
Scoffing, Harry flings away the picture of Spider-man, the film floating down to the glossy floor. He then briskly stands making his seat sling back with a screech and causing Zoee to flinch.
The Norman boy wipes away a stray tear when suddenly his phone starts to ring. As he answers the phone with a snap, Zoee starts to collect the Spider-Man photos from the floor to pile them in a neat pile on the glass coffee table in front of her.
Carefully going through them one by one to make sure they are set down correctly, she can't help but stare at the bug eyes that the hero has sewn into the suit. A sense of deja-vu sends a chill through her body, causing hairs to rise at the back of her neck. "Wait!" She blurts out in a whisper before slapping her hands over her mouth. Spider-Man saved me, mom.
Her mind thinks back to the vivid daydream-like memory she had on Max's birthday a couple of days ago in his presence. She hasn't seen Max since then, his absence sudden. It is unlike Max to not be around, and working in the building Zoee is likely to bump into him at least once. But he seemed to have disappeared, only the Atkins girl taking notice of it.
Zoee closes her eyes tightly and begins to focus, suddenly remembering being scooped up by the masked hero as she walked in the lonesome streets of the city at a late hour.
