Author's Notes: Here we are guys, the finale to We're Best Friends. Get ready boys and girls, and thank you so much for staying with me throughout this story. It's been a blast, and I'm glad I got to finish it! - Dave

Chapter Thirty Seven: Epilogue

...

Connors leaped across the street in Lizard form, Gwen swinging overhead on silvery strings, swooping and somersaulting with the blue cure in hand. They still had a chance to finally end all this, for their lives to go back to some sort of normality. Gwen swung up over a smoky skyscraper and saw the glimmering waves lapping at the cold steel of the sunken Naval vessel. The cannon was still intact and angled up to the sky. They could use it to fire the cure into the skyline and save the whole city, just like intended. Gwen was going to prove that she was a hero, that she was more than capable of being...of being Spiderwoman.

...

Peter limped through the quiet and abandoned night street, cold air clouding at his lips. He dragged his sore heel and hissed at every spasm of muscle. How had he lost the Goblin? They were still in the same physical condition, if anything the Goblin was worse off, so how had he vanished so quickly?. Peter stopped when his toes clapped against a plate of metal. He bent down and picked it up, turning it over to see the Oscorp logo and the scorched edges to it. It was a piece of the Goblin. Peter growled to himself and dropped the metal to the floor, looking up at the tall Construction site above, cranes creaking in the night breeze. His Spidey senses blared and he knew the Goblin was up there, he knew it. He had to finish this...now.

...

The blue liquid sloshed in the clear canister, cradled to Gwen's warm chest as she leaped and swung over the skyscrapers in her path, bounding herself high into the air and rolling her body over in the air, cyan boots angled towards the Naval vessel below. She landed with a thump on the deck, rolling across the smooth surface to relieve the impact force. Gwen sat up and panted, checking the canister in her palms. She rolled it over and saw scratches and scuffs on the thick glass. Content it was safe, Gwen sighed with relief, turning sharply as Connors' Lizard form leaped off the lip of New York and sailed above the oil filled harbor, landing with an explosion of concrete besides Gwen.

"Keep up." Gwen smirked. Connors rolled his eyes and growled in his throat. "You're getting slow, Doc."

"Very funny. Come on." He gestured to the cannon.

...

"Ah, I do like it up here. Looking over New York. So quiet...so peaceful." The Goblin sighed, looking down over smoldering Manhattan. "I could happily die up here with a content grin on my face...looking at all the damage I'd wrought." He laughed weakly.

"It's over, Goblin." Peter snapped, stepping onto the top floor of the construction site, metal creaking and groaning in the nightly winds. He let go of the Biocable he'd climbed to reach this point, swinging in the breeze. Stood at the very edge of the concrete platform, looking down at the hundred story drop to nothing but sand and stacked steel, the Goblin scoffed and tilted what remained of his head. Crane booms whispered between one another, winds rattling through overlapping beams.

"That it is, Peter." The Goblin hissed, jawbone hanging loosely from shreds of charred muscle. He turned with a limp, dragging his cracked and torn ankle, heavy titanium boot scraping deep gouges into the concrete. His left arm hung loosely from it's exploded socket, only wires and fleshy tissue keeping the titanium coated sleeve attached. "That it is." The Goblin raised his chin with a skeletal grin.

Peter's Spidey senses rung hotly, burning up and down his spine. He turned to confront the source, eyes expanding on Aunt May and Helen Stacy quivering in the corner, both bruised and stained in blotches of claret.

"Aunt May!" Peter exclaimed brightly, staggering when he heard the sharp rattle of a gunshot. Helen yelped and May screamed. Peter felt a searing heat in the pit of his belly, exclusively to the right to be exact. The heat was expanding and expanding, so his eyes peered down at the source.

Even through the spandex, he could see the spread of blood, especially as it came trickling in ruby beads out of the bullet's exit wound. Aware of the injury, Peter gasped and writhed, dropping to his knees, palms cupping the wound, fingers sticky with blood.

"Peter!" Aunt May cried, tears trickling down her cheeks. Peter shuddered and turned drunkenly to the Goblin, stood tall on shattered limbs, exploded plates of steel springing out from certain points on his destroyed physique. As the moon slowly loomed through the night sky, it came to settle directly behind the eclipsing Goblin, lunar white light pouring in rays through the massive holes in the Goblin's torso and limbs, even his face.

"Wh-Wh..." Peter fell forward onto his face with a clap, nose smacking against the cold concrete. All he could hear was the rushing blood in his ears, heart beating quicker and quicker. He slid his bandaged hand along the gritty surface, only to retract it when his fingertips brushed the steel of the Goblin's only intact foot.

"So predictable." The Goblin scoffed, swinging the pistol in his right handed grip around loosely, aiming it from Helen to May. "Speaking of predictions...can you predict how this is going to end, old boy?" The Goblin wheezed, limping around Peter, his heavy ankle scraping behind him like a dragging anchor. "I'll give you a clue."

Another loud gunshot rang out, reverberating off of the vibrating steel walls, the noise lessening against the whipping tarps billowing in the breeze. Helen gasped in shock and fell back against the tool boxes with a drunken clatter, desperately clawing to put pressure on the expanding red wound in her shoulder. May ventured closer, pressing her hands either side of her shoulder, applying the perfect amount of pressure, despite the tremble in her clammy hands.

"Th-There's an exit wound, you'll be okay." May blinked teary eyed.

Peter tried to sit up, but the pain in his abdomen ruled supreme, dropping him heavily back to the concrete.

"Get the picture?" The Goblin sneered, his jawbone listing to the side. "You take away my world, I take away yours."

"G-Goblin...please..."

"So many opportunities I gave you! So many to get out of this life, to stay safe and keep your loved ones safe!" The Goblin drummed his gun against his hip. "Norman and I, we offered you a cure. You spat in our faces." The Goblin scoffed, shaking the remains of his temple. "Time and time again you set out to prove that the world needs heroes. That they work?" A deep and guttural laugh resonated behind a plague of coughs. "Guess what, Parker? They don't. Heroes belong in fairy tales, in comic books!"

"Th-This city needed protecting."

"No but that's just it! It didn't!" The Goblin laughed hysterically, waving his gun maniacally. "It was fine, then you came along, then the lizard, then me, then Kraven, then Blondie, then Harry! Don't you see? It all stems from you!" He pointed the gun at Peter's head. "You! You-You-You you you YOU!" he repeatedly punched the barrel of the gun to Peter's throbbing temple. "Th-The balance of power is so outta wack!"

"Why? Cos you're not in control?" Peter snapped, managing to stand on shaky legs. He fired a mist of webbing to his wound, sealing it. Slowly Peter paced to Helen and did the same to her. May stared at unmasked Spider-man, at her Nephew and smiled sadly. Peter reciprocated. The Goblin chuckled and stared out at the moon. "You never were in control, Goblin. Norman was. Now you're parading around in his corpse, not letting him rest! The Osborn family is over. Time to give up Norman and let the Osborn's find peace!"

The Goblin scoffed and turned, disgusting face illuminated in the lunar glow. "We shared the body. He leaves early, and I'm supposed to go too? Nah, I-I'm having fun." The Goblin raised the gun at Peter again. "In fact...I forgot about the prediction game!"

BANG!

In the blink of an eye, the Goblin had turned and pulled the trigger, shooting Helen in the gut. The blonde woman gasped in shock and spluttered, blood trickling down from her lips. May screamed in horror and tried to suppress the bleeding, but it was substantial.

"Ooh, that looks sore. Hmm, I'd give her...hmm, what'd ya say Nurse May? Half an hour till blood loss claims her?" The Goblin chuckled darkly. Peter panicked and bent down, cupping Helen's face to keep her awake, to give her something to keep her eyes trained on. He snapped his eyes over to the Green Goblin. "Told you I'm in control." He snarled at Peter directly.

"St-Stay awake, Helen, please stay awake, please, please!" Peter begged, pressing his forehead tightly to hers. "Th-Think of your children, okay?" Peter whispered softly to the gasping woman. "Think about how they'll wanna see you, stay awake for them, please."

"P-Peter." Aunt May cried. Peter cupped the back of his Aunt's head and kissed her scalp, holding her close to Helen.

"Keep her awake, please." Peter begged his Aunt. May nodded. He stood with a groan and hiss, cupping his own wound. Peter turned and saw the Goblin stood by the edge of the construction tower, lunar light and crane booms crisscrossing before him. Wind howled through the bullet holes and exploded tears in the Goblin's torso.

"What more do you want, huh? What more can you try and take from me?!" Peter snapped. The Goblin turned his shredded face.

"Man of the people, yet so self obsessed." The Goblin sneered. "That word: Try. It just shows that I have yet to take from you! Every time, you take it back, you find a way to save it! You know how infuriating that is?"

Peter suddenly figured it out, hitting him with sudden crystal clarity, like a gallon of ice cold water to the face, numb with realization. His whole body wracked with fear at that moment as the Goblin waved his gun around in his only hand, chuckling darkly.

"So...who to take? Your Aunt...Or the mother figure you so crave? The mother to your lover." He flicked the barrel from May to Helen.

"J-Just...stop pointing the gun." Peter begged. "Please."

"I once offered you an ultimatum. A vial of liquid to escape this life, so none of your loved ones got hurt, and you spat in my face! So here we are, months later, my final ultimatum for you in play."

"G-Goblin..."

"Choose. That's the Ultimatum, Peter. Choose who you want to save more. Your old, alone and frail Aunt, or the vibrant blonde matriarch to what remains of the Stacy family. What's gonna have the biggest backlash? Who's gonna hate Spiderman the most, and for who? Will your failure to save dear old Aunt May get the city's blood boiling, or will the death of the late Police Captain's wife really stick the nail in Spiderman's coffin?"

Peter gulped and tears dripped down his cheeks. "And what about Gwen, huh? How's she gonna cope if you choose your Aunt over Helen? She barely kept it together when dear old daddy passed..." The Goblin limped pneumatically around Peter. "...Will the death of her Mother drive her to finally step on a rickety stool and tie a rope around the ceiling fan? Will the domino effect take down the rest of the Stacy's?"

"I'm gonna kill you." Peter seethed, spit billowing across his gritted dentures. The Goblin whirred and pressed the cold barrel of the pistol to Peter's spine.

"Or maybe I can kill Spiderman, but keep the man behind the mask alive...paralyzed from the waist down, never to swing or walk again!" The Goblin laughed and wheezed. Peter clenched his jaw and shut his eyes tight, feeling the hot boil of pain throb deep inside his wound.

"Do it. Take me." Peter pleaded in a whisper. Aunt May gasped and tried to stand.

"Peter, no!" she pleaded, only for the Goblin to turn and aim the gun dead at her, a snarl to what remains of his shredded lip.

"Sit...Down." He snapped. Peter blew out a held in breath, condensation fogging at his lips, a shiver wracking his spine as more high speed winds wailed through the skeletal tower.

"Aunt May, please...just do as he says. Keep Helen awake." Peter begged with his back turned.

"Yes, May. Do as Peter says. He is the Amazing Spiderman after all." The Goblin chuckled, stepping around Peter, dragging his snapped and buckled heel. Aunt May gingerly nodded and sat back down, gently tapping Helen's cheek to wake the pale and dying woman.

"Better choose soon." The Goblin stepped in front of Peter, grinning as lunar light poured through the holes in his torso. "Neither of them have much time."

Peter thought about the fact that Helen was the only one to be critically injured. Aunt May was okay...so what did he have in mind?

"Take me, I said, let them go and kill me, I'm the one you want." Peter spat.

"Oh, Pete. I don't really wanna kill you, I'm all talk! You're my best buddy, the ying to my yang, my arch rival! Why would I wanna spoil the fun we can have, battling for the balance of power for eternity!" The Goblin exclaimed loudly, chuckling. "New York at our fingertips, forever battling for the city's people. I wanna kill, you wanna protect, we were born to do this!"

Peter looked over at Aunt May whispering to Helen, trying to keep the weakening woman awake, blonde hair falling over her closing eyes.

"Choose soon. She ain't looking too good." The Goblin giggled. Peter bit his lip and danced his eyes between Helen and May. "Or I choose for you." The Goblin snapped. Peter's heart froze.

"I-I-I..." Peter stammered, heart pounding, no answer to this impossible ultimatum. May looked at Peter sadly.

"It's okay, Peter. I-I've lived a full life. If I have to go and see Ben early, then so be it. I won't be alone. Just...don't give in to this cowards game! Do the right thing, no matter what." May smiled as tears ran down her cheeks. Peter's lip trembled and he too sniffed, tears dripping onto the concrete below.

"Tell you what, let's test your instincts, see what your instant reaction is..." The Goblin limped around Peter, shoving off the Teen as he tried to grapple the Mechanized remains. He pressed the gun barrel to Helen's head.

"NO!" Peter screamed, grabbing fistfuls of his chestnut hair helplessly. The Goblin grinned, cocking the hammer back on the pistol. Then he quickly swung the gun around and aimed at May. The instant the gun leered at his Aunt, Peter leaped at the Goblin, only for the gun barrel to slam against Peter's thigh and a loud bang and bright flash to resonate between their shattered bodies. May screamed in horror as Peter felt the cold wind mix with the leaking hot trickle down his leg. He gasped and dropped to his knee in agony, hopelessly clawing at the gushing wound in his blue spandex.

"We have a winner." the Goblin grinned, swinging the snapped and loosely hanging remains of his left ankle up to smack Peter's chin, knocking the teen back in a pile. May screamed and ran to Peter, pressing her palms to his wound, trying to keep her boy awake.

"He's my boy, my boy!" She cried, tears dripping onto the silvery spider emblem. The Goblin sneered and limped behind May, pressing the gun barrel to the back of her head. May gasped at the contact and her body froze, tearful eyes shutting tight.

"I-I'm not scared of you." May's teeth chattered in fear. The Goblin scoffed, locking eyes with Peter.

"I'm not doing this to scare you. I'm breaking a hero."

Suddenly with a final blast of adrenaline, Peter pushed Aunt May aside and a loud bang resonated, a puff of concrete spraying up from the bullet hole. Acting quickly, Peter slammed the Goblin down into the concrete with a crack, shards of broken steel shedding from his skeletal frame. The Goblin laughed as Peter clambered atop him, piling fist after fist onto his warped nose.

"Y-You think you've won?! You think this is truly my final act?!" The Goblin laughed at every punch. Peter paused, fist reeled back.

"W-What?" He panted. The Goblin spat blood through the cracks in his jawbone, grinning.

"I-I'm always one step ahead of you, Pete." Peter panted and licked his lips, a thousand questions racing through his mind. What had the Goblin done? What was his final act?

"What'd you do?!" Peter roared. The Goblin spat oil and blood. "Tell me!"

"I simply changed a few rules!" The Goblin cackled. Peter growled and grabbed the tattered remains of the Goblin's left arm, tearing it cleanly away from the hoses and rotten flesh that suspended it. Peter threw the arm off of the tower and panted in rage, seething. The Goblin grinned and licked his lips. "I liked that arm, it captured my best side."

Peter hoisted him up by the throat and snarled at the grinning corpse.

"I-It's okay, I'm gonna tell you exactly what I did, cos that's part of the fun!"

"What did you do?!"

"You think I'd achieve all this chaos without a Contingency plan for Spidey's inevitable win?" The Goblin chuckled, and Peter's eyes widened.

...

Gwen and Connors scampered across the listing deck of the sunken vessel, cold night water lapping at the charred metal. Gwen watched as Connors leaped up to the cannon and roared, muscles heaving as he tilted the titanic barrel towards the city. Gwen bit her lip and looked down at the blue vial of liquid in her palms.

...

"Wh-What?" Peter dropped the Goblin with a clatter and staggered back, bumping into a nervous Aunt May. The Goblin laughed maniacally and rolled over, sparks drooling down his snapped armor.

"Fascinating stuff that Gathoric Grenolium, or the Goblin juice I've named it." The Goblin laughed hysterically to himself. "Look at the carnage it can reign over a whole city!"

Peter gulped and listened to the maniac.

"Little known facts about the Goblin juice? It's so potent, that a dose of over two percent is lethal to the host! I-I'm a gentlemen, so I only gave Manhattan a little tiny one percent of the stuff, but look at what that little amount did!" He gestured drunkenly to the smoking city of Manhattan. Peter panted and his heart rate climbed.

...

"Gwen, drop the cure in the barrel, and we'll launch it." Connors hissed, green scaly skin sliding over bulging muscle. Gwen gulped and nodded, swiping her thumb over the clear canister of blue liquid.

"Okey Dokey." She huffed, leaping up to the tip top of the pointed cannon.

...

"W-Why're you telling us this?" Aunt May stammered. The Goblin spun around, maniacal grin on his face and bolstered wide green eye.

"Another little fact that barely anyone knows, is that the Goblin juice...i-it's clear! Like water! They add the green pigment so that it isn't ingested or misplaced! Th-That gorgeous green hue is a health and safety trick!"

Peter gulped and his eyes flicked up to the distant harbor. His fingers fidgeted nervously by his side.

...

Gwen dropped the blue canister into the barrel and it slid down to rest on the hammer. Connors nodded and ran his Lizard legs up the steel to vault through the glass of the Bridge, smashing the shivering panes and gripping the trigger between huge scaly fingers. Gwen poised on the barrel and watched the Military sending a flurry of jeeps and helicopters deep into Manhattan, already quarantining parts of the city off. They were going to cure these people, she could feel it!

...

"...I mean, all pathogens or cures made by Oscorp all get formulated and cooked through the same machine. Be a shame if someone meddled with it." The Goblin shrugged, and Peter's eyes snapped wide.

"Ah the ol' Goblin Juice! The best thing about it being clear?" He laughed hysterically. "...You can make it any color with a little pigment! Even Blue." He grinned. Peter suddenly realized with horrific clarity.

...

Gwen leaped off the cannon and gave Connors a thumbs up from the deck. Connors nodded and squeezed the trigger. A loud bang resonated and the cannon barrel jerked back violently, a blue glowing canister flying high up over Manhattan. Gwen smiled proudly and crossed her arms as she watched it sail up and into the clouds, a loud thump sounding and a flash of blue erupting above the clouds.

Soon enough particles of blue flakes began to snow from the sky. Gwen sighed with relief and looked up above as those same blue glowing flakes began to flurry down over her head.

...

Peter heard a spout of coughing and looked to his left as Aunt May began to wheeze and clutch at her throat, dropping to her knees as blue glowing flakes rained down through the shredded tarps above.

"Aunt May! Aunt May!" Peter screamed, cupping his Aunt's face as it began to turn a sickly shade of green. Peter looked up as Helen too began to cough and wheeze, rolling on the floor and writhing in agony. Tears prickled Peter's eyes as he looked up at the Goblin, grinning back at him.

"I always win."

...

Connors stood next to Gwen and sighed with relief too, until he coughed, shaking his lizard head, staggering drunkenly on his feet. Gwen saw this and watched as every blue petal touched his green scaly skin, pealing the scales away and turning his hard flesh to soft human skin. Blonde hair began to sprout from his head and Connors violently coughed and wheezed, dropping to the deck with a thud as this formula rid him of his Lizard qualities. Gwen panicked and dropped to her knees, trying to help Connors breathe.

She heard a horrific echo of screams all across Manhattan and she looked up with wide eyes as Helicopters began to spin wildly out of control, tumbling down in huge fireballs against the skyscrapers.

...

"Count yourself lucky you got bit by that Spider, Peter. Had it not sunk it's fangs into you, you'd be dying too right now." The Goblin chuckled. "Oooh, I did it! I did it!" He cackled and wheezed, looking out over the night time skyline of Manhattan, a chorus of horrific screams and dying coughs echoing across the city. Peter cupped May's face as she coughed violently and fell to the floor. Tears blinking off of his eyelashes, Peter tried to keep his ill Aunt awake, trying to keep Helen awake at the same time as she too dropped to the floor in a fit of retching coughs.

"Oh my god, oh my god, st-stay awake Aunt May, please!" He panted, quickly sliding over to Helen to cup her face and shake her back awake, boils and sizzling green scars covering her skin. "Ah Christ, stay awake!" He panicked.

"Looks like the hero's all outta time." The Goblin limped behind Peter. Peter staggered back on his knees, hands shaking as he looks helplessly from May to Helen as they writhed and retched. The Goblin bent down besides his snapped ankle, picking up his pistol with a clinking of metal on concrete. Peter felt his rage boiling at the laughing of the madman behind him, the echoes of screams across his city, the state his dear Aunt and Girlfriend's Mother currently lay in, all of it was frothing over the edge, his snapping point near it's limit.

He felt the cold barrel of a gun press to the back of his head. Peter's lips firmed and twitched along with his eyelid, unparalleled rage pouring hotly through his veins and in a split second, all the overlapping sounds vanished into a loud ringing. The demonic laugh, the deathly screams and cries, it all merged into one white noise.

"I really don't wanna kill you, I really wished we could fight one another forever and ever till time itself collapses anew. But oh well, I can dream I guess. Can't have you being the hero anymore."

Suddenly Peter threw his head to the side of the gun and grabbed the Goblin's forearm, cracking all his weight into opposite forces. His wrist snapped loudly and the Gauntlet folded downwards in a deafening bang. The gun fell from the Goblin's broken grip and Peter swung around, hand smashing inside the exploded steel of the Goblin's chest cavity.

In a split second of eye contact, Peter gripped the Goblin Suit's power reactor, despite it's unbearable heat currently burning the skin from his palm, and twisted with a guttural snap deep inside the Goblin. The Green Goblin groaned and sunk his eyesight into Peter's ferocious gaze. Hoses and veins snapped from the burning hot reactor and Peter tore his arm back, feeling the jagged tears in the Goblin's armor strip the spandex and skin from his wrist. The Goblin gasped and staggered, looking at the beating heart of the suit in Peter's burned palm.

"A-And...I...th-thought I...was...evil." The Goblin scoffed, watching his reactor's glow dissipate to cold blackness. Peter threw the reactor down harshly and panted, looking up at the Goblin with bleary eyes as the monster staggered back on shaky heels towards the lip of the tower. Tarps billowing in the breeze brushed along his steel contours.

"You still lose, Peter...Spiderman can be no more after this is over...Th-They'll hate you for unleashing that pathogen..." The Goblin's eye flickered. "You and Blondie are done...Balance is restored."

The Goblin died with a grin on his grotesque face, tilting backwards and falling off of the tower, tumbling soundlessly down to the earth below, only the whistles of wind howling through the holes in his falling corpse.

Peter panted and stared bleary eyed at the stone cold spot the Goblin once teetered, listening to the distant screams filling the icy air, and the muffled thump of the Goblin's corpse hitting the earth. Peter blinked and looked down at the dead reactor on the floor, lying on snapped pipes an hoses, Norman's long cold blood trickling onto the concrete. Peter shut his eyes and bit back the relieved sob, conflicting with the guilt of having to defile Norman's body that way. He mouthed an apology to Norman and wiped his eyes.

He suddenly turned back to May as she grabbed his Spandex coated wrist.

"P-Peter!" She cried over guttural coughs, green scarring etching over her skin. "Go...save...yourself...please." she wheezed. Peter shook his head and hugged May to his chest, sobbing into her neck. He had no idea what to do, looking up through watery eyes and ragged breaths as more of those deathly blue flakes fell through the torn tarps overhead. What could he do?

...

"G-Gwen!" Connors fell to the floor, legs snapping back to straight human shins. Gwen panicked and tried to hold the writhing and shrinking man as he bucked and coughed, flaky green skin peeling away from his hand, disappearing to the wind. His tail dissolved and peeled away into dust. Gwen whimpered and trembled, gloved hands trembling above Connors.

"W-What do I do!?" she cried in a yelping panic.

"Y-Your blood!" Connors twisted across the deck of the sunken ship. "You're not changing, i-i-it's something to do with your blood!" He coughed, grabbing fistfuls of his regrowing straggly locks. Gwen looked on with wide eyes through her billowing gold fringe, panting through the tight white and black suit.

"M-My blood?" she looked down at her hands, at the cuts and splits in the fabric of her suit, slits of claret. "My blood..."

"G-go! Get to Oscorp, use your blood!"

"B-But we won't have time to synthesize another cure from it! I can't fire it from this ship in time, people are dying!" Gwen cried over the distant screams. "oh god, what do I do?!"

Connors panted and stared with uncertainty. "I...I don't know." Connors said brokenly between spasms and cramps. "But you n-need to try. Go to Oscorp, at least try to formulate a cure from..." he pointed a trembling finger to the red stains on her suit. "...That."

Gwen wasted no time and clambered to her feet, turning back towards the chaos clouded city, a snowy flurry of blue flakes unleashing madness upon them all. She didn't want to think about all her friends who were no doubt caught in the pandemonium. Gwen sucked in her breath and pulled her white hood up over her head, leaping off of the deck and somersaulting through the air, firing a Biocable up to the nearest Skyscraper. Feeling it tug on the concrete lip, she pulled up and swung over the screams of dying exposed people below. Her tears trickled down her face and speckled her billowing hood.

Gwen had to get to Oscorp, she had to fix what they'd done. She swung up over a construction site, when her Spidey senses flared. Gwen looked to the source and saw Peter on the tower's top floor, hugging someone, and a blonde woman splayed out beside him. Gwen let go of the cable and landed with a soft thump beside the crying boy.

"Peter! W-We gotta hurry, we gotta get to Oscorp and fix this mess!" Gwen panted, before slowly succumbing to realization. "Peter?"

"Gwen, i-it was the Goblin." Peter sobbed, hugging Aunt May as she began to grow weary. "H-He won! He meddled with our cure! People are dying, my people are dying!" he wretched and sobbed. Gwen cupped her trembling lips and looked down at the blonde woman coughing into a puddle of blood...her own blood.

"M-Mom?" Gwen gasped, dropping to her knees beside her violently ill mother. She gently overturned her green skinned mother and burst into tears at the blood spitting from her lips. "Oh god, Mom, Mom, no! No, no!" Gwen cried, cupping Helen's face and trying to keep the dying woman alive, unawares of the trickling bullet wound in her Mother's shoulder and stomach.

Peter looked up at Gwen's blood curdling cries, his own eyes blood shot and bleary.

"Peter, w-we need to cure them! NOW!" Gwen screamed. Peter broke back into tears and frantically looked around at the dying city, stuck under a cloud of toxin.

"We did this, we unleashed it, we have to fix it!" Gwen cried heartrendingly. "Mom?" Gwen looked down as Helen's coughs and raspy breaths had stopped, and her eyes had closed. Gwen gasped in horror and tried to shake her Mother awake.

"Mom, oh my god, Mom, please no, please! N-Not you too, god no!" Gwen buried her face in Helen's bloodied neck, sticky with claret. Peter looked around helplessly, as Manhattan succumb to the Goblin's toxin that he'd tricked them into releasing in one final diabolical act. Peter didn't know what to do, he didn't know how to save Manhattan, his Aunt, Helen, he didn't know what to do! Gwen's cries of loss filled his thumping ears, his nose filled with the smell of smoke and burning embers. His lips quivered and his eyes watered as Aunt May's grip around his neck grew weaker, her hands slipping into his lap.

He was still a Teen, and the Goblin had only proven that Peter was still very dependent on the care and love of his Aunt, that he was unfit to fight a war alone, to save millions in a heartbeat. In desperation and desperation alone, he looked up to the blackening clouds above, the claps of thunder roaring overhead, and Spiderman screamed...

"HELP US!" to anyone listening. "PLEASE!"

As if an answer from God, A loud bang sounded above the clouds, and a bright white light illuminated the night sky, blinding Peter's wincing eyes. Silence reigned over Manhattan as all looked up to the heavens, a golden glow enriching the abyss above, tiny flakes of golden embers beginning to fall down like molten rain. Peter blinked and shielded his eyes with his wrist, Gwen doing the same through wracking sobs.

More and more of those golden speckles fell from the black clouds, dousing Manhattan in a shower of golden rain. Peter looked back to May with a start as wet splashes of golden liquid doused her green face. He shielded her with his wrist, but his eyes widened as every splash of gold turned her green skin back to normal, a cure from the heavens no doubt. He gasped in awe and looked up as the rain fell through the holes in the tarp. He lifted his wrist with a loud crunch of his elbow and fired a Biocable to the tarp, tugging it down and ripping it off of the steel struts.

More of the mysterious golden water poured over May and Helen, Gwen looking up in awe as it trickled down the steel. Peter's hair was wet with it, as he set May down gently and let the rain wash over her body. Suddenly May coughed back to life and gasped, spluttering and choking. Peter sat her up and laughed with glee, hugging May tight. She was so close to death, and here she was sitting up, her green scarred skin healing. Peter laughed hysterically.

"Y-You're okay! Oh my god, y-you're okay!" Peter laughed, kissing May's cheek.

"Peter? W-What happened?" she asked. Peter sat back and looked into her eyes, unsure of what to say.

"Mom? Mom!" Gwen heard spluttering and felt Helen's body jerk awake, coughing in harsh fits. The screams in the streets had ceased, Peter noticed as he rose to his broken feet with a gasp of pain, limping to the edge to look down at the crowded streets below.

"I-It's some kind of cure?" Peter raised an eyebrow. "B-But who?" He looked up and traced the missile smoke trail across the sky to the horizon where the Cure had been fired from, detonated in the atmosphere above.

Gwen kissed her Mother's cheek and hugged her tight.

"G-Gwen?" Helen wheezed, gasping at the pain in her stomach and shoulder. "Wh-What are you wearing?" Helen looked at Gwen's attire. Gwen bit her lip and slowly reeled out of the hug.

"We need to get her to a hospital, soon!" May coughed. Helen cupped the still bleeding wound in her chest. Gwen gasped at the sticky red fabric and slowly lifted the sweater to fire a spray of webbing over the wound.

"What on Earth?" Helen shouted. Gwen shushed her, sighing to herself.

"I'll explain later, Mom, but first, w-we need to find a Hospital.

"People of Manhattan. This will be a day that you'll never forget."

A voice Gwen and Peter recognized filled the air, chilling their radioactive blood. All of the screens in Times Square all lit up and a familiar face with a wide rimmed hat filled the screen. Peter and Gwen stood up and craned their necks around the edge of the tower to just catch a glimpse of one of the screens behind a smoking skyscraper.

"People are already referring to these events as Judgement. The day that retched Goblin claimed this beautiful city and defiled it with our own weapons. This will be the day that you take a look at your saviors, Spider man and Spider woman, and question whose side they are truly on." Gustav Fiers announced across the city. "Years from now you'll all ask, where were you the day everything changed?"

Gwen and Peter both gulped and looked at each other with unease. Looking down at the streets, they saw hundreds of white paneled vans convoying together through cheering crowds, each van etched with the black OSCORP logo. The speakers suddenly blared powerful and patriotic music behind Gustav's voice.

"When you were weak, we gave you our strength. When you were sick, we gave you the cure. When you were afraid, we gave you our courage! When you felt alone and forgotten, we reminded you otherwise. When Spiderman and Spiderwoman told you you were safe under their care, we came to light up their lies, and show you true care and love."

"Uh oh." Peter gulped, listening to people cheering in agreement to the opinion of both Gwen and Peter's heroics. "This ain't good, Gwen."

"Who are we?" the screens turned bright white and the Oscorp logo filled the screens at the uplifting crescendo of the advert. "We are OSCORP...We're the way forward."

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Notes: Well, that's the end of We're Best Friends! Gustav has finally formulated Spidey's blood into a cure, and used it on Manhattan to not only clean up Gwen and Peter's mistake, but show Manhattan that they can not be trusted with the city's safety. Oh no! What does this mean for Gwen and Peter as heroes?

You'll find out soon in the sequel to We're Best Friends...

So what did you guys think of this long story? Did you like it from start to finish? What would you like to see in the sequel, who would you like to see in the sequel? What did you think of how I portrayed certain characters? As final reviews for this story, please guys, let me know what you thought of it as a whole. I'd love to hear one last ho-rah on this story! Love you all and speak to you all soon! - Dave