Peter Parker, who walked out on Harry when he needed him most, when he was literally crawling after him begging for help, is completely oblivious to why Harry is angry with him
See, here’s what I love about whole Death Of Gwen Stacy arc and all the fallout from it – almost all the sympathetic characters do behave like assholes, and yet it’s so understandable why they’re acting that way that it utterly breaks my heart. Peter walks in on Harry having a bad acid trip hours after Gwen was murdered. Just hours! While he’s looking for Harry’s father so he can kill him. No-one’s even remotely in their right state of mind. Peter’s reaction – “I have more important things to do than hold your hand” is cruel (…especially since it’s Harry’s only living relative he’s about to go kill…) but under the circumstances, I think it’s just about understandable. Back in the real world, I think there’s probably hundreds upon thousands upon millions of friends and families of drug addicts who’ve thought those words at some point, and it’s awful, but it rings pretty true, is what I’m saying.
Anyway, by the time we get to the scene depicted in the original image, a few more things have happened. Not only is Gwen dead but Norman is too, and Harry witnessed Spider-Man kill him (well, sort of). He doesn’t know that Peter is Spider-Man, but at this point he’s had two loved ones murdered in ONE DAY so he’s not really functioning at all. Peter lost the girl he loved and now probably sees her killer every time he looks at his roommate. (Y’know, since Harry and Norman look pretty alike and all.) Peter and Harry should have talked to each other properly, they should have done something, but they didn’t, setting the stage for Harry’s bouts of supervillany later on. But all things considered – and this is what makes these characters so sympathetic for me – it’s amazing things didn’t turn out even worse than they did.
