Chapter 2

The motel was filthy, and Harry wondered why Sigyn would have chosen this for herself. Even if she was trying to remain anonymous, there had to be better options than the run down crack motel. The bed creaked as he stretched out on it, the comforter made his skin itch and feel like something was crawling over it, and a broken coil poked his leg if he moved the wrong way. Even the T.V. was busted. He'd watched enough static ridden news footage to be sick of it, so he put on some reality show he used to watch, but it too held nothing for him. That had belonged to someone else. He was not the Harry Osborn who had partied and drank and slept his way around Europe. Nor was he the Harry Osborn who returned to New York to see his dying father. He was no longer dying, and thus no longer the Harry Osborn desperate for survival. So who was he now?

A spider crawled across his hand and his instinct was to fling it across the room and away from him. But it would still be alive, and probably return to crawl all over him at some point. Like he had a feeling another certain spider would. Sigyn may have covered all other bases, but it was only a matter of time before Peter figured it out. He would come for Harry, most likely to kill him, or put him back in Ravencroft. Before Sigyn, before Fiers, he had set himself opposed to Spiderman when he put the venom in his veins. He was his creature now, a little goblin superimposed on Harry Osborn.

He grabbed the napkin that came with his dinner and scooped up the spider before crushing it in his fist and shooting it into the trash.

The more time that passed, the more Harry wished he had gone with Sigyn. Vengeance and the satisfaction of killing Menken should be his. But Sigyn had insisted he stay here; it was too dangerous for his new found freedom and 'innocence.' Besides, she'd argued, he'd deserved a night or two of rest.

Not that he could sleep, even if he wanted to. Sigyn had place glowing sigils on the walls to protect him, but he still feared that S.W.A.T. teams would bust down the door and haul him back to prison. Or just shoot him. Just the sound of someone walking down the hallway kept his mind awake, even if his body didn't have the strength to move himself from the bed.

Well, the T.V.'s useless, he thought after the fifth round of flipping through channels and tossed the remote aside. Sigyn had left him no shortage of reading material. Newspapers, entertainment and educational magazines, including some special issue remembering the attack on New York. The kind with thick, glossy pages and better than average photo quality and a price tag three times the average magazine. It had a full section on each Avenger, and an even bigger section about the police and firemen who helped get people to safety. And of course there was a memorial section for all those who died. But where the spine was bent the most and the pages fell open easily was towards the end. There was a picture of Thor escorting Loki, who had a metal contraption around his mouth, presumably back to Asgard.

He remembered that she never learned Loki's fate, a thought that left an uncomfortable feeling in his gut, and thought of her staring at this picture for who knows how long. This was probably the first time she'd seen him in over a year, and he was in chains. It was wrong, and Harry knew what he would do the moment he had access to a working computer.


Sigyn watched from deep in the shadows of Menken's penthouse, waiting. The man was paranoid, she'll give him that much. Still, she'd gotten past his security system and disabled what she could. The suite was armed but not bugged, which probably had something to do with the several pairs of lace undergarments in his room and the 'appointments' she found on his calendar, all at 11:00 pm on Saturday nights. Whatever he did in this apartment, he didn't want anyone knowing about it, which worked to her favor. She'd even contemplated putting on a disguise as one of his escorts to catch him off guard. But the thought of him touching her in any way repulsed her, and Amora had always been better at seduction.

The door opened, and Menken meticulously laid his jacket and brief case on the chair as he came into the living room. He poured himself a glass of wine before sinking into the couch.

"Long day, Mr. Menken?" she asked after a few minutes, and he nearly spilled the wine all over himself. "Careful. Wouldn't want to ruin that suit of yours." She stepped out of the shadows, her hood still covering her face.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Friend of a friend." She sat in the chair beside the couch. It was an uncomfortable thing, hard with sharp square edges and practically no cushion. "And I'm here to warn you. You are in grave danger," she said with an ounce of artificial sweetness in her voice.

"That's why I have a security system, which you have somehow managed to get around."

"Then it must not be a very good one if I can get past it." She had placed her own barrier around the apartment in addition to disabling the phone and security system. If he tried to call for help, no one would come. "I take it the name Harry Osborn is familiar."

"Unfortunately. Why?"

"Because I have it on good authority that he has hired an assassin to kill you."

"I doubt it. The little creature is locked up at Ravencroft; he doesn't have the authority or means to hire anyone."

He was looking around for the remote to his security system. It was hidden under his seat, cloaked with just enough shadows to keep it out of sight. "Just telling you what I heard."

"Why tell me? And for that matter why should I believe you? The only suspicious one here is you. How do I know you're not the assassin?"

"The bastard owes me a great deal of money, and instead of paying me back, he chooses to waste what little money he has left on a hit job. I want it to fail. I want to see him squirm for screwing me out of what should have been mine." The lie was well practiced and tailor made to strike a chord with Menken.

He took the bait. His hand trembled as he took a drink but the rest of the tension seemed to leave him. "To be honest, I hoped the little shit had died down in Special Projects. Or that Ravencroft would dispose of him properly."

Sigyn's fist clenched and she had to force herself to remain in her seat. Stick to the plan. "Incompetence is a disease, I'm afraid. It must be destroyed at the earliest opportunity, lest it infect the entire enterprise."

"Someone with some common sense," he filled his glass a little more. "Norman was my friend, but he was a fool to leave Oscorp to that boy. Dying made him sentimental. Harry would have run the company into the ground and then die within ten years at the rate he was going. Everything his father built would be in ruins."

"Ten years?"

"If the disease wouldn't have killed him, his lifestyle would."

"Is that why you framed him? For the good of the company?"

He was silent for a moment, and she thought he wasn't going to answer the question. "As you said: incompetence is a disease that must be destroyed at the earliest opportunity."

Sigyn rose from the chair, and with a slight flick of her wrist she had thin golden binds strong as steel wrap around his arms, ankles, and torso. "I see." She pulled a piece of paper out from her jacket pocket and unfolded it. With another flick, the crease lines were gone, leaving a crisp sharp single sheet. She cleared her throat before reading from it.

"I, Donald Menken, of sound mind and body, do hereby confess my crimes. I ordered the criminal Max Dillon, also known as Electro, to be released from Ravencroft and ordered him to kill Harold Osborn. When my attempts to kill him failed, I blamed him for Dillon's escape. My greed and ambition are responsible for those injured and killed during Dillon's attack on the city, and I can no longer live with their blood on my hands. May God have mercy on my soul."

"Let me guess: he wants that forgery planted on me when this assassin kills me."

"I don't know what you mean by forgery, Mr. Menken. You wrote it." She turned the paper around; the letter was written in his handwriting.

His eyes went wide and he tried to stand but the bonds held him down. "No! I didn't write that!"

"Sure looks like you did." She placed the letter down on the coffee table and retreated to the bathroom. As soon as she was gone, he started yelling for help and she could hear the couch scrape against the floor as he struggled. There were enough pill bottles in his bathroom to stock an apothecary, so she grabbed a couple bottles in each hand. "Oh, do stop yelling, Mr. Menken," she said as she returned to the living room. "No one's going to hear you."

"You said you weren't the assassin."

"I lied." She turned each bottle over, examining what is was and the required dosage and what shouldn't be mixed with what.

"Look, whatever the defective brat is offering you, I can double it."

Defective brat set her nerves on edge. The man was fortunate she didn't have a quick temper, otherwise he would find himself without a tongue. "It's not about money," she snapped. "It's about justice for Harry. Or revenge. Doesn't really matter."

"Please, I will do anything, give you anything you want. Just name it."

"I already told you, it's not about the money. It's not about power, and it's not about what you can do for me." She rolled the pills around in her hand as another idea came to her. "But maybe it's about what you can do for Harry." She materialized another blank sheet of paper. "Survival has a cost, Mr. Menken, and it's not always a monetary one. You have to ask yourself: what are you willing to live with in order to stay alive?"

"Anything!"

"Then you will turn over all information about your colleagues. Anyone who might be a threat to Harry, I want their names and all the information you have on them. Your survival will cost their lives."

In the end, Menken sang a pretty traitor's song, and there were several additional pages to his confession. "Are you going to let me go now? You promised."

"I did, didn't I?" She picked up the pill bottles again, dispensing a larger quantity into her hand. "And you believed me; that's incredible." He was still restrained and was struggling all the more to break free of them. "But for your cooperation, your death will be swift and relatively painless. Which is more than you deserve, considering how you were more than willing to let Harry die a painful death."

"What is he to you? Who are you?"

"I suppose I should introduce myself." She pulled her hood back, and the color drained from Menken's face. The last minute touch was worth it just for this.

"Emily? No, that's impossible. You died nearly twenty years ago."

In her research on Menken, she found an old picture of him with Harry's father and mother, presumably before Harry was even born. The glamor was just the final detail to make this final night a little more horrifying. "Yes, well..." she poured the contents of a couple pill bottles into her hand and approached him. "Never underestimate the lengths a mother will go to protect her child."


Harry didn't remember falling asleep, but when he woke the sun was coming through the blinds and directly into his eyes. He rolled around so that his back was to the window and saw Sigyn sitting on the other bed, staring down at the same magazine he'd been looking at last night. "Morning, little goblin."

"Hey. When'd you come back?" He asked as he pushed himself upright. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Thought I'd let you sleep." She closed the magazine and shuffled it back in with the rest. "You haven't slept in a proper bed for months."

"Not sure I'd call this a proper bed." His neck was stiff, so he rolled it a few times before he heard that satisfying pop. "How, uh, how'd it go?"

She picked up a newspaper next to her and gently tossed it onto his bed. "See for yourself."

His hands trembled as he picked up the paper. The headline read in big bold letters: OSCORP CEO FOUND DEAD IN SUICIDE. He skimmed over the article, too eager to read it in depth. There had been a suicide note where he confessed to unleashing Dillon, and several high ranking executives were being investigated or arrested as well. The remaining executives were meeting to decide what should be done. Harry figured Oscorp's stock would take a hit but he'd take it. Menken's suicide and confession, plus Sigyn's work at Ravencroft, destroyed any connections from being drawn between him and Electro and Gwen Stacy's death. "This is quite a homecoming present. Thank you."

"I know you would have liked to have been there, but I promise when the time comes, you will have your chance for a greater revenge."

"Spiderman." Her grin matched his; already this partnership was turning out to be more promising. "So what's our next move?"

Sigyn got up and sat on his bed, handing him a flash drive. "We're keeping your freedom quiet for a while. Spiderman knows what really happened that night and the last thing we need is his involvement. But if you want to keep your ties to Oscorp, then you will need a new council. A group of competent men who will keep your company afloat, but who aren't so ambitious as to take your place. An ambitious man is a dangerous man."

"Competent but not ambitious, got it." He could only guess that there were the names and files of possible candidates on the drive, probably pulled from Menken's computer before his death. "I'm going to need access to a better computer." He thought of contacting Felicia, she might have some ideas, but she was most likely long gone. Not that he could blame her. Losing two bosses in less than a summer is plenty enough incentive to leave. "So that's it, then? I still own Oscorp and no one else suspects I..." That I killed Gwen or released Max. "No one suspects my involvement?"

"No one of importance, at any rate."

"And my estate?"

"Still owned by Oscorp and belongs to you, if you want it."

That's the thing, he didn't. Spiderman...Peter...knew where he lived, and when word eventually got out that he'd returned, because it was bound to happen sooner or later, this would be the first place he'd come looking. Sigyn may be powerful, but if Peter shows up with cops or SHIELD or the Avengers, he wasn't sure even she could keep them safe. But he longed for his own bed, and the thought of spending another night in a cheap motel on another uncomfortable bed was unappealing. If they kept everything quiet, a few days at his old place while they searched for a new one shouldn't be a problem.


Six months since he was last in it and the estate had barely been touched. A thick layer of dust clung to everything and dust particles floated in the light coming from the large windows. Everything felt cold, an echo from the past. This didn't feel like a homecoming; this felt like walking into a crypt.

Glass crunched beneath his boots. When he threw the glass at Spider-Man he never bothered picking it up and it seemed to one else had either. He still had a scar where one of the pieces had cut his cheek. You're a fraud, Spider-Man!

Sigyn opened one of the windows and the sounds of city below came rushing in, nearly taking the air from his lungs. "Close it," he rasped.

"This place needs air."

"Sigyn, please. What if someone notices? Or Spider-Man flies by and sees me in here or..." His heart was racing again, and he felt the need to run as fast as he could away from this place.

The window clicked as it shut and Sigyn approached him. "Harry, no one is going to know you're here. I'm going to spend the rest of the evening putting my own security around this place, and by the time I'm done, this place will be as secure as Odin's treasure room. But if you are still uncomfortable staying here we can find someplace else."

Her hand was on his shoulder, and whether by her magic or not his heart rate slowed down. "What would you do?"

She inhaled and looked around the mansion. "This place can be made a fortress, more so than any penthouse, as your friend Menken found out. A few servants have been maintaining this place, so any activity will attributed to them, and Oscorp keeping your involvement quiet means no one will bother looking here. You know this place, you know the people who work here. This place is under your control. My fear is that you will lose that advantage if we move someplace else."

Despite how uneasy as this place made him, she was right; all servants were made to sign a non-disclosure agreement upon their employment, especially once his father started getting worse. He could always hold them to that. And if Sigyn had gotten him out of Ravencroft without any trouble, she could surely keep them safe here. "Make me a fortress, then."


He didn't see much of Sigyn for the rest of the day until he brought her the Chinese food he'd picked up for dinner. Getting out of the house had been his big achievement, even if he wore a hoodie and dark glasses, had the driver use the oldest car, and practically sprinted from the car to the restaurant and back. Knowing his luck Peter would either walk into the exact same restaurant or swing over it.

While she worked, Harry looked at the flashdrive in his hand. He should be going through it, picking out a new council, but he was exhausted and a full stomach was making him sluggish. His laptop was still good, though the updates took forever, so he settled himself onto the couch with the laptop propped up on his legs. There was some news story about the Avengers and their new tower on the home page, and he remembered there was something he needed to do first.

Most pictures of Loki were like the ones he found in that magazine: muzzled with Thor leading him on a leash. That's how everyone wanted to remember him: the would-be tyrant brought to heel. But he did manage to find others that showed him the way Sigyn described him. Commanding, regal, his arms outstretched before a kneeling audience. Even if the golden horned helmet looked like something out of a fucking opera, there was no mistaking Loki for anything other than a king. Someone must have managed to take it during his visit to Stuttgart. The picture was high enough definition he could zoom in and not lose the details.

Thank god for smartphones.


He found Sigyn much later that night in her wing of the estate, staring out one of the windows. She'd taken the guest room and moved a desk in there so she had someplace to work. The room still felt...empty. Sigyn had only a single bag with a few clothes and things shed managed to pick up since coming here.

"Your fortress is secure," she didn't turn towards him, but he could hear the exhaustion in her voice. "I'll double check in the morning, but we'll be safe tonight."

"You heard me?" He'd tried to be quiet so as not to disturb her. His hands gripped the present he held behind his back a little tighter as he approached.

"Your stealth needs work. I could hear you coming from halfway down the hall." Once he got closer, he realized she was staring up at the night sky.

"Can you see Asgard from here?" It was probably a dumb question, but it was the only thing he could think of given how intently she was staring at the sky."

"No." There was a touch of sadness to her voice. "Even if you could see all the stars, Asgard is too far to be seen from Earth. None of the Nine Realms can be seen from the other, save for by Heimdal or the Hlidskjalf."

"The what?"

"Odin's throne. It grants him power similar to Heimdal's and lets him see into all the realms."

"Great. A mystical grandfather who creeps on everyone from a chair that sounds like someone sneezed." She laughed at that, and while he was glad to see her break her pensive mood, he worried that she was masking her fear that they were being watched. "Think he can see us right now?"

"Not here," she said with a final glance towards the sky. "Besides I'm sure there's other more pressing matters for him to keep an eye on." She noticed his hands behind her back and tilted her head. "What's that?"

Harry brought the gift forward, suddenly feeling awkward. "It's, uh, a thank you and a housewarming gift. I couldn't find any cards that said "hey thanks for busting me out of prison, killing one of my enemies and giving me my life back."

It was wrapped in an old pillow case and she slowly pulled the gift out. The frame was old, something that once held one of those really formal professional looking photos of him and his father. The frame was nice though, wooden and detailed, but not overly ornate. And in it was the picture he found online. Her fingers brushed along the image, lingering on Loki's face. "Those magazines are full of shit anyway. Tryin' to make people feel good about the terrible shit that's happened by putting it in some glossy collectable. Anyway… you should have a better picture of him than the one they've been selling."

There were tears in her eyes, and then threw her arms around him in a hug. "Thank you, little goblin."

He froze, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder, but was glad she liked it nonetheless. "You're welcome."

She pulled away, smiling, the picture clutched to her chest. "We should get some rest. I have a feeling the next few days are going to be very busy."