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seriousficPeter smirked a bit as he watched the long line of cars waiting to receive a valet. Some days, web-swinging could be damn cool - he brushed at his black tuxedo – if hell on the laundry. Mary-Jane was waiting for him in a slinky evening gown, their gift to Harry tightly under her arm. Peter squeezed her arm before looking up the intimidating height of the skyscraper to Osborn Manor, far above.
”This place looks a lot bigger from the ground…“
”Those caviar wishes and champagne dreams,” Mary-Jane quipped in her Robin Leech voice.
As they rode up in the elevator, they had no idea they were being watched.
***
The Hobgoblin’s lair could be considered the basement of Osborn Manor, cold, drafty, and rotting. It’d been damaged in a fire and condemned after all efforts to repair it had met with disaster. Until the Green Goblin had found it. It was now retrofitted with cold, gleaming, sterile steel covering the wood and plaster like a cancer. One of the tumors was a bank of security cameras. Harry pointed a remote at it and instantly all the screens became a mosaic of Peter and Mary-Jane in the elevator.
As he listened to their pillow talk, like nails on a chalkboard, he washed his sweaty face in a lonely porcelain sink. He looked into the mirror, water dripping from his features. Just beyond the reflection he could see it.
He headbutted his smiling reflection, cracking the mirror. A spider-web effect. He laughed as he injected himself with two syringes, hearing a tribal beat growing within his mind.
”Come into my parlor, said the goblin to the spider…“
***
The hallway alone was enormous, with several dozen people milling around. Peter didn’t know Harry had that many friends. Well, good. Peter had the crazy idea that Harry’d been alone all this time.
”When does this place apply for statehood?” he whispered to MJ.
Harry’s voice startled him. “Ah, Peter's here! Now the party can really kick off.” Peter turned to see Harry approaching, smiling from the corners of his lips to the pupils of his bright eyes. He shook Peter’s hand, hard, then gave Mary-Jane a hug. “Glad you could make it, both of you. This’ll be a night to remember. The last time we three musketeers were together… it was your birthday, wasn’t it Pete? How times flies. Cradle to grave,” he snapped his fingers, “like that.”
”Dinner is served,” the butler announced.
Peter and the rest of the guests were led to an enormous mahogany table, fenced in by the marble pillars holding up the room. Several dishes were already on the table, with cooks bringing out more each second. Harry got Mary-Jane’s seat, then gestured for Peter to sit down as well. The couple were seated across from each other, at Harry’s side. He sat at the head of the table.
As Peter watched, four cooks struggled to set a large silver platter in the center of the table. The senior one, wiping his brow, raised the top to reveal a roasted pig, almost obscene in its dimensions. There were a few scattered gags, but Harry grinned.
“It’s an acquired taste.” Then, he said to Peter under his breath “You know, in many primitive tribes, the custom was to eat the heart of the enemy so as to gain their strength.”
”Who would want to know that?” Peter asked, disgusted.
”Who wouldn’t?” Harry held up his glass for Bernard to fill with champagne. He stood, champagne flute in hand. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to… well, my birthday party.”
The guests clapped. Peter felt a subtle tremor at the back of his head, like someone had just walked over his grave. Harry smiled and nodded.
”Or should I say, rebirth day? But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have three major announcements to make before we eat. They may make some of you lose your appetite, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. First, an apology. To Mary-Jane.”
Mary-Jane looked up in surprise in the same breath that Peter clenched his teeth. He didn’t like where this was going. Was Harry drunk? High on something? Peter tried see if Harry’s eyes were dilated, but he couldn’t get a good look with Harry facing Mary-Jane.
”I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Harry continued. “And I’m sorry you had to be involved. But most of all, I'm sorry that I couldn't make you love me.”
Peter almost stood, but Harry stilled him with a look. Peter could see now. Harry’s eyes were bright green.
“Which brings me to the second announcement, and it is a doozy. A secret that I share with my good friend Peter here. But there’s a little preamble, I have to go through so you’ll all be patient with me, won’t you? The payoff is well worth it. Secrets are funny things, aren’t they? You can look at someone dead-on and not see them at all, not through those outer layers. Take Spider-Man, for instance. Some people think he’s a hero. But once you dig down deep, you find a vigilante. A murderer.”
Peter seethed, wanting to deny it, to do something to win back his old friend, but he felt Mary-Jane’s gaze on him. Shut it down, save it for later. “If you say so.”
“You take pictures of him, don’t you? You know him better than anyone, I’d say. Except maybe for the people he knows when he’s not wearing that creepy mask. But how well can they know him, when he doesn’t even let them know that he’s Spider-Man and not… John Q. Public? So, tell me, while you were taking all those pictures and making all that money, did you ever figure out why Spidey does it?”
Peter calmly sipped his champagne. His glass only rattled a little. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“He does it for the thrills. And he doesn’t care who gets hurt while he has his fun. Like you, Mary-Jane!” He spun around to face the redhead, once more smiling darkly. “You and my dad. How many times has it been that one of Spider-Man’s ‘rogue gallery’ kidnapped you? Twice?”
“The Green Goblin kidnapped me, not Spider-Man. He was a monster,” Mary-Jane said pointedly.
“So it would seem, to the common folk, the average joe, the narrow-minded fool. But it takes someone who can dig beneath the surface to know a great man. It takes a son… or a lover. I wonder sometimes, what insight that kind of intimacy brings. Once you’ve seen the monster’s true form, do you accept it or deny it? Or embrace it? But don’t you worry, MJ. I’ll protect you from the monster. That’s what this party is all about, salvation. Saving others. Saving ourselves.” He swung back to Peter. “And that, buddy, is what my little confession is all about. You see…”
A loud noise permeated the room, rattling the chandeliers like windchimes. Harry set his glass down. The liquid inside rippled, as did the drinks of everyone else at the table.
There was a booming sound down below, making its way upward. The shaking intensified. The silverware clinked together. Plaster fell from the ceiling. The apple rolled out of the roasted pig’s mouth. Harry looked up at the opposite wall as the thumping stopped.
”No… not now…”
Two tentacle claws shoot through the wall like nails, then opened up so their petals caught on the wall. When they pulled back, the wall ripped away to reveal Octavius, his face swathed with bandages. Everyone looked at his menacing tentacles in horror. “What, you said I could bring a few friends?”
His tentacles picked up silverware cabinets like dice and threw them in front of all the doors, blocking off all means of escape. With his human hands, Octavius took off his coat and threw it to the right. A tentacle grabbed it in mid-air and hung it on a clothes hanger. Another snatched the cigar from J. Jonah Jameson’s mouth and handed it to Octavius. He took a puff on it and coughed. “How much did this set you back, two dollars?”
”A buck fifty!“ Jameson said proudly.
Octavius’s tentacles pulled out the chair at the opposite end of the table from Harry, dumping the man seated there out onto the floor.. Octavius sat down and put his feet up on the table “Don't worry, good people, I have no intention of crashing your party. I just have personal business with one of the guests. The Hobgoblin.”
The room practically exploded in murmuring.
”Yes, that's right. One of you people is the Hobgoblin.”
”Oh my God! Is that Peter's secret?” Jameson turned on Peter. “If you’ve been holding out on an exclusive, I’ll fire you all over again! I’ll double-fire you!”
Octavius tentacle-shoved Jameson out of the way to see Peter. “Ahh, Mr. Parker. And company. Charmed, I'm sure. The poetry did the trick, right?”
”You've been reading poetry... because he suggested it?” Mary-Jane asked, incredulous.
”He wasn't insane at the time. No offense.”
”None taken. So no, Peter is not the Hobgoblin. He’s probably just has some unflattering sexual fetish. Now then…” His tentacles went to work like farmers’ scythes, hurling guests high and far. “Where is Osborn!?”
Peter ducked under the table in the confusion, pulling Mary-Jane down a moment later.
“You need to leave.” A body landed on top of the table, fracturing it. “Right now.”
Mary-Jane was already slipping off her high heels. “Promise me you’ll… oh hell…” She kissed him. It was quick, but the most passionate one Peter had ever received, and if another unconscious body hadn’t crushed the chair Peter had so recently vacated it, there would’ve been a distinct possibility of losing clothes. “Don’t let that be the last one I give you.”
“Are you kidding?” Peter had already slipped his mask on. “I’ll distract him, you run.”
Two tentacles smashed the end of the table, working their way toward Peter and Mary-Jane. Octavius was stomping through the table as his other two arms wrecked havoc with the guests. They were trying to simultaneously escape the room and stay well abreast of the rampaging Doctor Octopus, who moved through the setting like one of H.G. Wells’s Tripods, picking up potential targets and forcefully discarding them.
“OSBORN! OSBORN!”
Just as Octavius’s tentacles were about to come down on the last panel of the banquet table, Spider-Man flipped it and grabbed them. Thrown off-balance, Octavius pinwheeled into a fall. Octavius broke his fall with human arms and saw Mary-Jane fleeing.
“YOU!” His third tentacle grabbed Mary-Jane’s ankle, tripping her up and dragging her back to him. “You’ll do nicely!”
Spider-Man, wrestling with the first two tentacles, saw this and his eyes grew wide. “No!”
He lunged, trying to jump-kick Octavius, but the tentacles he was holding merely swung him into a wall.
“Yes,” Octavius said. His tentacles slammed down on Spider-Man, pinning him in place. “Now make yourself useful for once. Tell Osborn that if he ever wants to see his ex’s spine not exposed to atmosphere, he'd do well to be at the Statue of Liberty in half an hour. And should the girl’s death trouble you in the slightest, you could always bring him there yourself.” Then Octavius paused, remembering all the trouble Spider-Man had caused him. “Wait, on second thought, die!”
He released Spider-Man, who slumped to the floor in a daze. His tentacles whirled around, knocking down every pillar in the room. The room caved in. The mob stopped their frenzied escape attempts to scream as one, now descended into an orgy of fright that inevitably redirected inward, making them hug themselves, fall down and gibber, or duck and cover like they were in a 1950s propaganda film.
Most of the pillars were just crumbling; Ock’s attacks had knocked huge swaths out of them. Spider-Man fired out webbing, patching them as best he could. Octavius laughed and focused all his tentacles onto one pillar, ripping it apart. Spider-Man jumped to take the place of the pillar and hold up the roof. Octavius didn’t care, he was already on his way out, dragging Mary-Jane behind him.
Spider-Man looked at the fleeing guests as he strained to keep the roof up. “Somebody… help me!”
They ignored him. They didn’t ignore the explosion that ripped through a door, sending silverware flying like shrapnel. They poured out through it like rats from a sinking ship, Jameson leading the charge, clearing the way for the Hobgoblin to fly in. Hobgoblin threw a pumpkin bomb over his shoulder, caving the exit in.
”Alone at last,” he said as he pulled Spider-Man’s mask off. “And face to face… at last. Peter.”
The_Lurker
Date: 2009-09-11 09:07 am (UTC)