Norman Osborn's Journal Day 5

Doctor Octopus might have proven to be a nuisance later down the road, but at the time of his arrival, he served as a useful distraction. While the Spider-man was occupied with his idiocy, I was able to focus my efforts on eliminating Tombstone. Not that I would eliminate the Big Man without the Spider-man being present, of course. I had to prove my superiority over both of them, after all.

The stage was set, and I had prepared the most excellent of traps for my two enemies, with Hammerhead as the bait. I was ready to kill all three of them when the Spider-man surprised me. Somehow, he had deduced my identity, and called me by my true name during our struggle. I decided that it was possible that he had already shared what he had learned with somebody else, and that his confidant may go to the police should the Spider-man fall that day. With this in mind, I pretended to lose the fight and faked a limp as I fled the scene. Predictably, the Spider-man traveled to my penthouse to "arrest the Goblin," but I had acted first. My son Harry, who it turns out had been stealing Globulin Green from my lab and was overdosing on the drug, had passed out on my sofa before I returned. Seeing an opportunity, I dressed him up in the Green Goblin's uniform and broke his leg to complete the illusion.

The ruse worked perfectly. The Spider-man believed that the Green Goblin was a split personality that had arisen from Harry's overdoses, and he allowed me to get Harry some "help". He and I took a brief holiday in Europe, where I showed him what it really means to be a man.


It took Mark a great deal of effort not to say "I told you so" to his friend. The job that Tombstone had expected them to do turned out to have been an attack on a drug warehouse run by a rival gang. Specifically, the only thing they were expected to do was destroy the supply: whether or not they even hurt anybody working for this "Kingpin" was up to them. Robert was pleased with this, and Mark would be lying if he said he wasn't secretly relieved upon reading the email that had delivered these orders. They were happy that they didn't have to hurt anyone else after the breakout, and that Friday night, they quietly knocked out all of the people in the building and carried them to safety before Mark set it ablaze. They were in and out before anybody had noticed.

The Enforcers then visited their apartment the next day to give them their reward. Needless to say, it wasn't what Robert was expecting. "Six hundred bucks?" he asked incredulously. "Are you kidding me? The email said the job was worth twenty thousand!"

"That's right," Montana drawled. He and the other Enforcers were in their battle armor, which made Mark wonder if they expected a fight to break out. "The job did make twenty grand, and that's your cut. Big Man gets the rest."

"No, no, no," Robert said, forcing a laugh. "There must be some mistake. Tombstone said one job and we'd be paid enough to start over. He can't pull this shit on me now, I won't let him."

"Is that a fact?" Montana asked menacingly. His colleague – the big one, Ox – strode forward and grabbed Robert's shirt. Before Mark could react, Ox had slammed Robert against the wall. Mark let out a yell and started forward, but Montana pointed his fist at him, aiming a deadly vibration.

"I know you're smarter than that, Molten Man," he said. Mark had heard that tone of voice before. He could even imagine the polite smile that Montana must have under that Shocker mask. The fake courtesy meant that he was ready to kill somebody. Mark stopped and looked worryingly at his friend. "Good, now listen up," Montana continued. "Big Man's got some more jobs for you two. You do your jobs, you'll get paid. Save up your pennies and maybe you'll start over someday like you wanna. But if you try to wiggle your way out of your obligations, then it'll fall on us to discipline you."

"Do you think I'm afraid of you?" Mark asked.

"No, I do not," Montana conceded. "But I know that your friend cares about his mama, and you care about your pretty little sister. What was her name again...Liz, right?" He chuckled as Mark's face went white.


Why haven't you killed Parker?

I thought I told you that I wasn't interested.

You are a fool. Parker used you. He stole from you. He is arrogant and selfish, and he hurts everyone around him. You've said so yourself.

He's saved my life and the lives of my friends. More than once.

You do not owe him anything. You saw what he did to the girl, how he treated her. Doesn't that fill you with anger?

Of course it does. But that's not worth killing anybody over, you idiot.

You have so much hate in your heart. If not Parker, then who? Who will fall before us?

Just you wait and see. Just you wait and see.


Sable stumbled out of the bar, looking around carefully. The street was empty, with no sign of either her kidnappers, the police, or Spider-man. She couldn't believe her luck. She slowly walked down the street, looking for a train station. She needed to get back home, and she wanted to do it without drawing attention to herself. She had gotten enough attention that weekend to last her a lifetime.

Sable squeezed her side experimentally, and regretted it immediately. Pain shot up her side and her vision started blurring almost immediately. She fought to stay on her feet and choked back vomit. The big guy in the cloak had definitely caused a lot of damage to her, and she knew more than ever that she needed rest. She would take a few days to recuperate, she decided. She had been kidnapped and tortured, after all.

And then, she would make them pay, she thought. The Manfredi family had taken a blow, to be sure, but she was determined to show this city that nothing would stop her from taking her rightful place as queen of New York. The woman in white, the man in the black cloak, Spider-man, the man with the skull shirt, Tombstone, the Master Planner...all of them would pay for defying her. She was Sable Manfredi, and it was high time this city knew what it meant to challenge her.


You know what's crazy? I don't think I've ever been shot before Castle. Sure people have shot at me, but I don't think anybody ever actually hit me before. And he wasn't even aiming at me! Does that say more about my evasiveness or the incompetence of the goons who tried to shoot me before? Better question: Why am I more focused on something like that instead of useful questions like where I am or what I should do next? Soon after getting shot by Castle, everything went black and the next thing I knew I was lying on a boat's deck with Black Cloak staring down at me.

"Hey," he said, lowering his hood. "H-How're you feeling?"

"Better than I expected," I admitted, looking down at my leg. "You know, what with having been shot and all."

"Yeah, well, that's Tandy for you," he answered, beaming with pride. "She can heal wounds with those daggers, you know."

"For real?" I said, pushing myself up to my feet. "That's not something you expect when you see something so pointy."

Black Cloak laughed. "Yeah, so, I'm sorry about all the trouble we caused, Peter."

"No hard feeli-WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?"

"He called you by your name," Dagger Lady – didn't he call her Tandy? - said behind me. "Word of advice, kid: If you want to keep your identity a secret, don't carry your school ID around." I turned around and saw her holding up my wallet and my mask with a smirk.

I panicked and ran my hands through my hair. "You took off my mask?" I asked indignantly.

"Well, between the bullet and the stab wounds from Tandy and the m-m-mental strain from the illusions I showed you, you ended up going into shock," Black Cloak said apologetically. "We had to make sure you were still breathing while Tandy treated your wounds."

"...Oh," I said lamely, letting my shoulders fall. "Well, that makes sense, then."

"Yeah, so, since we know you're name, it's only fair you know ours," Dagger Lady said, with a look that told me that she was only being polite because her partner had insisted on it. "I'm Tandy, and that's Ty."

"Yeah, yeah, nice to meet you," I said snatching my mask and my wallet out of her hands. I pulled the mask over my face and said: "Well, I'm just thrilled to be going on a cruise with a couple of kidnappers, but I really gotta get going, so if you'd just turn yourselves in, that'd be great." I tried to fire a web and tie them up, but nothing happened. "You guys took my web-shooters, didn't you?" I asked.

"We'll give them back," Ty said quickly. "We just want to talk first. Tell you our side of the story, you know?"

"Maybe this is news to you guys, but we left a gun-toting psycho unsupervised in the same area as a crazy mobster lady who wants to make New York her little kingdom!" I shouted. "I don't have time for your side of the story! I have to go back before someone gets hurt!"


"Frank, what's going on?" Microchip asked in his ear.

Frank swore. "The guy in the cloak pulled his disappearing act again," he answered. He lowered his sniper rifle and gazed down upon the street where the fighting had been taking place only a few seconds ago. "He took his partner and Spider-man with him."

"You think he's planning to retaliate?" Microchip asked.

"Not today, he isn't." Frank said, glancing behind him. "I set up a bunch of claymores just in case he thought it was a good idea to suddenly appear behind me." He looked back down to the street while adding, "In any case, he must have noticed that I was aiming for Bowen and that Spider-man had saved her life, because I don't think he's coming back." Frank looked through the scope at the bar, searching for people he already knew were gone. "What's the status on Spider-man's tracer?" he asked Microchip.

"The tracer's stopped responding." Microchip answered. "I can't find him anywhere. Either he's left the city or-"

"Or the tracer was destroyed during the teleportation like the one I put on Bowen," Frank finished. "That's hardly surprising."

"So, what now?" Microchip asked.

"I'll return to base in a moment," Frank said, spotting movement through the scope and tracking a lone figure limping down the street. "I just found our secondary objective." He carefully aimed the rifle at Sable as she neared the corner, and squeezed the trigger.

Author's Note: This was a bitch of a chapter to write. I wanted to sort of touch base with a bunch of different subplots and wrap up the Silver Sable arc, but for some reason things felt difficult this time around. Originally, I wanted to have Spidey not make an appearance at all in this chapter because he just got shot and all, but that was lame and I changed my mind about halfway through writing. I also wanted to keep going with Spidey and Cloak and Dagger, but I felt that I took that scene on the boat as far as it could go, so I decided to just leave this as a short in-betweeny chapter before I start the next arc. Here's hoping that the next chapter is actually bearable!