Chapter 8
“Y’know Peter, I actually want to thank you for one thing,” Norman said as he kicked Peter in the face. “You made my life interesting. Without this rivalry, I would have just been another boring industrialist. But you inspired a new wave of Super-villains. You showed me what I could really do with the power at my FINGERTIPS!” As he said that, he zapped Peter in the chest with a blast from his glove.
“And you’ll regret that,” Peter spat blood as he got back onto his feet, landing a solid right hook on Norman’s face.
“Will I now? Why don’t you make me?” Norman asked, smiling.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Peter said evenly as he leapt into the air. Norman leapt up and met him halfway, slamming his face into the gravel. But Peter countered by wrapping his legs around Norman, flipping him onto his head a few feet away. Norman threw several razor bats at Peter, who managed to dodge most of them. One scratched his shoulder, causing him to yell in pain, which Norman used as an opportunity to kick him into a wall.
Peter leapt to his feet, slamming his fist into Norman’s gut as he approached. He used the opening to flip the Goblin into the same wall he had just been thrown into, laying into him with a series of punches that disoriented Osborn badly.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, you monster?!” Peter cried. “Anything at all?”
Norman coughed up blood as he raised his head to look Peter in the eyes.
“It’s not easy being green.”
Peter felt the rage in his chest boil over as he slammed his fist into Norman’s head again and again and again.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say? YOU’VE NEVER LOVED ANYONE, HAVE YOU?! Except maybe yourself, and your son, who was only an extension of yourself in your eyes! You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you actually care about!”
Norman coughed. “Cry me a river. People die all the time. Did you really think anybody in our line of work gets a happy ending?”
“SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!” Peter screamed as he kept beating on Norman. He pulled hisfist back for one more strike, only to pause. This wasn’t what Gwen would want. This wasn’t what Captain Stacy or Uncle Ben had taught them. The last person who encouraged him to act like this…was the symbiote. As tempted as he was, Peter knew that he couldn’t let the Goblin make him into a murderer. Sighing, he dropped Norman to the ground and started walking away. Hobbling, Norman pulled himself up to lean on what remained of the brick wall.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “What happened to all that big talk earlier?”
“I realized you aren’t worth it,” Peter replied, picking up his mask. Despite the numerous injuries all over his body, he felt his spider-sense returning to him incrementally.
“The cops will be here soon to put you away. See you around, Norman.”
“Oh no,” Norman yelled. “Only one of us walks away tonight: either me…or you!”
With that, he pressed a button on his gauntlet. Silently, his glider picked itself off the ground and circled around the rooftop out of sight. It swooped back up violently, its sharp metal tongue sticking out to impale any unsuspecting victim. Time slowed down for Peter as his weak and faint Spider-Sense went off, still recovering from Norman’s toxin. He was barely able to leap in time as the wing of the glider sliced across his leg painfully, sending him spinning through the air. He tried to fire a web at the glider, but it missed it by centimeters as he was flung through the air.
“Oh,” Norman murmured as he saw the Glider speeding towards him. Peter pulled himself to his feet in agony, only to be horrified at what he saw. Norman Osborn was impaled through the stomach by his own glider, painfully trying to push it off with the last of his strength.
Peter only hesitated a second before running over to try and help him. Futilely, he tried to web up the wounds.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Despite everything Osborn had done, he didn’t want to kill him anymore. That wasn’t who Spider-Man was.
“Don’t apologize…” Norman coughed up blood by the gallons. “I…never…do…”
Peter stared in shock for a while before pulling his mask on and swinging away. There was nothing more he could do there.