Ok people. Got another chapter for you. Hope you like. So without further or due…

Disclaimer: I don't own Spiderman. Any names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. (How's that for a disclaimer…)

Coldness. The icy chill that numbed the whole right side of his body, from shoulder to knee, was what drug the wall crawler out of the darkness of unconsciousness. Straddling the line between sleep and consciousness, Spiderman groggily peeled his eyelids up across the gritty surface of his eyes.

Muffled voices hummed softly from somewhere nearby. Blinking back the haze that clouded his vision, Spidey lay motionless as the world seemed to fade in and out of focus through the milky white tone cast by his mask's eyepieces. Gathering his will power, he forced back the beckoning urge to let the darkness claim him again.

Pain throbbed through his whole body even as he lay on his side motionless. The side where he had been stunned ached terribly. Fortunately, the thick bandage that bound his wounded stomach had taken most of the force but had not managed to totally protect the web swinger from more damage to his already broken body.

Wanting to lift a hand to his pounding head, Spiderman winced as fresh pain sharply cut through his wrists. Flexing his muscles with more effort this time, the wall crawler strained weakly against the corded nylon that held his wrists securely behind his back to a structural support of the wall he lay beside. Thin cording also bound his ankles immobile.

Teeth clenched, Spidey's shoulders and arms began to ache as he struggled vainly against his restraints. 'Can't break it,' Spiderman thought with a growl of frustration as he stopped his struggling and lay still. Panting in exhaustion, the web swinger bit back the pain in his bullet wounded stomach. His brief fight with Harry's thugs had weakened Spidey even further then he had been before.

Slowly regaining his senses, Spiderman again heard voices resonate from nearby then abruptly stop. Shuffling himself with a groan upright from the cold cement floor to sit, Spiderman swiveled his head sluggishly from side to side. The room swayed as the wall crawler slumped forward and waited for the vertigo that distorted his senses to die down. Nausea threatened to heave his stomach's contents to the back of his throat.

As the retching heaves of his stomach slowly tapered off, Spiderman surveyed his surroundings. The dimly lit room was narrowed and stretched, only about a ten foot width, with a bank of windows spanning the right-hand wall from where Spiderman sat. A metal staircase wound its way into the blackness below a few feet to his left. Rain cascaded down the glass as lightening streaked the sky outside. Something about the place seemed eerily familiar to the web swinger.

Still not totally coherent, Spidey felt the nagging feeling he knew where he was. Suddenly, it hit him harder then a sack of bricks. He had been there, as a child years before. The chamber he sat in was the Statue of Liberty's observation room located in the crown of the copper structure. A sinking feeling drained the color from his face behind the scarlet mask.

"Oh no…" he muttered in distress. The Statue of Liberty now seemed like one of the perfect places for a viral bomb to be detonated. It was probably one of the most centralized positions to infect most of New York City and one that could be easily taken over with its scant security; especially since half the city had been evacuated.

"About time you woke up, eight legs," came a harsh voice through the thick fog of sickness that clenched his stomach. Tilting his head in the direction the voice had come from, the arachnid could make out the darkened silhouettes of several people standing in the far corner of the room. He recognized the men as the ones from the warehouse.

Radio equipment and high tech devices littered a folding table set up behind them. Several screens displayed technical data that was illegible to Spidey from across the room. Quickly scanning the rest of the room, he spotted a large cylindrical metal contraption sitting somewhat towards the center of the room. Connected to the side of the device was a long glass tube where multiple hoses snaked off into the main compartments. Inside the glass tube was a dark greenish fluid; the condensed liquid form of the deadly virus housed inside.

'The bomb,' Spidey thought, an overwhelming fear knotting his stomach.

Slowly stalking towards him, Harry Osborn strode across the small expanse of space. Coming to a halt, the young CEO towered menacingly over the debilitated superhero. Low thunder rumbled somewhere overhead, creating an ominous atmosphere.

Harry stood transfixed as he stared down upon his captive. Was this the man that had killed his father? He seemed so helpless and weak groaning in pain on the floor at Harry's feet. A moment of uncertainty passed through Harry before it was pushed away by the dark memory of walking into his father's room to find Norman Osborn's body laying dead with Spiderman standing over it.

He would never forget the surge of emotions that had poured over him as he turned to grab his father's revolver that was hidden in the drawer of an end table only to turn and find that Spiderman had disappeared and fled into the night, leaving Harry alone to mourn his father's death.

A tight smirk of vengeful mirth crossed the young Osborn's face as he brought himself back from the past to the present. "It may seem contradictory considering the situation between us, but I'm glad your still alive. I didn't want you to miss the party," Harry said as he lowered himself to a knee to look eye to eye with his captive.

"Why are you doing this? Why are you so ready to kill so many innocent people?" Spiderman questioned in slow, garbled syllables, "You won't get away with this."

Harry's eyes hardened as he glared at the white insect eyes of Spiderman's mask. Snarling, Harry's face contorted in rage, "How dare you patronize me about killing innocent people! This coming from the man that killed my father with his own hands. You're nothing but a cold blooded killer!"

"Harry, I didn't-"

"Shut up! I don't want to hear your lies!" Harry shouted angrily, his hands clenched tightly by his sides.

Undaunted, Spidey tried to reason with his old friend, "I didn't kill Osborn. You don't know what kind of man he was. He-"

The hallow crack of fist against jaw suddenly split though the air as Harry pummeled his knuckles deep into Spiderman's cheek. Not that Harry would be considered a heavy weight, but his punch carried the explosive force of all the pent up hate and loathing he had held against Spiderman that had been building inside him since his father's death. Reeling to the floor, the wall crawler lay sprawled on the ground, stunned by the sudden attack.

Slightly hyperventilating in anger, Harry spat dangerously, "Don't you ever say that about my father! You have no idea of what kind of man my father was! He was a great man, so don't you ever ever speak badly of him."

Spiderman lay speechless at Harry's violent outburst. He had never seen his friend so upset. Regaining his composure and smoothing the ruffled brown hair from his eyes, Harry reverted back to his business like manner and said tightly, "You may think I'm doing this for money, and in a way you're right. See, I get a hefty chunk of that hundred billion dollar ransom if the government pays up. But your little unexpected intrusion gave me another reason even if they don't."

"And what would that be?" Spidey ventured warily. Getting decked by Harry again was not high on Spidey's to do list. He swore he could taste blood in his mouth and feel a loose tooth where Harry had decked him. Too weakened to hoist himself back up, Spiderman lay on the ground, looking upwards to Harry's looming figure. His whole body throbbed relentlessly.

"I want you to be the first to suffer and die when that bomb goes off. I want you to die from that virus knowing that everyone you know and care for is going to die horribly and there's nothing you could have done about it," Harry answered with cold malice, "I want you to know what is feels like to lose someone you love."

Underneath the hardened voice, Spiderman thought he detected sadness in his old friend's voice. But something wasn't adding up…
Slightly confused, Spidey questioned in a pained whisper, "Why would you kill yourself just to see me die? You'd die too from exposure to the virus when it's released."

Throwing his head back, Harry let out a cackling laugh. "I won't die," he chuckled, "Don't worry about me. I'll be here just when your about to meet your maker. Just before you die, I'm going to rip that mask of yours off and laugh in your face. Then I'll see who you really are and spit in your face for what you did to me and my father."

"But how?" Spidey demanded weakly.

With a smug smirk, he answered, "Oscorp took the extra step and developed an anti-virus that neutralizes the virus immediately upon injection into the blood stream. So even after the bomb is detonated, my associates and I,"- here he made a sweeping gesture to the small group of other men who stood in the shadows of the room-"we will not even be effected by the virus."

"Even if the government doesn't pay, Oscorp will still make a bundle by selling the anti-virus at top dollar to the rest of the American public. Panic will cause the frightened masses to jump for an antidote that can save them from this biological weapon. Either way, I win and can retire a very wealthy man," Harry added.

"Don't you think the government won't be even a little suspicious when Oscorp "miraculously" comes out with a wonder cure for the virus immediately after those bombs are detonated? They already suspect you're involved," Spiderman pointed out, becoming angered by his friend's apparent apathy towards the killing of thousands of innocent lives.

"Oscorp will wait a few weeks and give the appearance of working hard all that time to find a cure we already have. Sure, a couple hundred thousand or more people will have died, but…Hey, that's just business," Harry shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head to the side slightly to gesculate his helplessness in the ways of the world.

"You're worse then anything you may think I am," Spiderman whispered in a regretful tone of disbelief. Deep inside the wall crawler's mind, he began to question himself guiltily.

Had Harry really become a cold blooded monster like what Norman Osborn had become? Maybe it was his fault Harry had become like this. Whenever Peter Parker put on the blue and red costume of Spiderman, everyone he knew seemed to get hurt. First Aunt May, then Mary Jane, and now his closest friend Harry.

Outside the green copper framework of Lady Liberty's jagged crown, rain pummeled in thunderous waves against the thick metal. Lightening flashed brightly in brilliant streaks across the dark sky. Spidey could make out one or two of the other men shifting uneasily as the storm raged outside.

Glancing over his shoulder towards the bank of windows on the other side of the room, Harry paused as the wind began to howl and whip around the tower of iron.

Turning his dark brown eyes back to look down upon the wounded web swinger, Harry again let a small smirk to curl the corner of his mouth upward. "I assume you're familiar with that children's nursery rhyme, 'The Ittsy bitsy Spider?" he asked enigmatically.

Receiving no answer from behind the crimson mask, Harry continued nonplussed, "Remember that line: Down came the rain and washed the spider out?"- he softly sang the line- "It seems ironic that the weather should lend itself to such a phrase just when the deadliest virus since the bubonic plague is about to be released upon the world."

"What are you talking about?" Spidey demanded as he pulled himself with determination up to sit. Wincing under his mask, he pulled himself eyelevel with the young Osborn. Fresh pain cut through his body as his chest heaved up and down from exertion, his breath whistling between gritted teeth.

"This wonderful little storm front is blowing inland," explained Peter's old friend, "Oscorp's scientists designed this virus to be carried in the air and to be highly contagious. Meaning, once the bomb is detonated, the virus will be carried by the winds and in the storm, doubling the initial infection zone further inland then if it was dispersed by itself. And just to let you know, I checked the Weather Channel this morning and it looks like San Francisco is having a bit of a rainy season too…"

Spiderman felt his insides twist with dread at those words. As far inland as Western Pennsylvania and Ohio could be infected, raising the death toll of the virus drastically into the tens of millions, not to mention most of the east coast if what Harry said was true about San Francisco. He had to get free and stop them. He couldn't let all those people die. It was all up to him.

Standing straight, Harry barked an order to one of his men as he crossed the room, "Smith, watch the bug and make sure he doesn't try anything. There's still four hours until the deadline."

"Can I have some fun with our little friend, Sir?" the brute that stepped forward rasped as he cracked his knuckled loudly.

Stealing a final glimpse at Spiderman's weakened form from out the corner of his eye, Harry answered, "Just don't kill him. That's going to be my pleasure…"

As the young CEO returned to the group of men, Harry's crony lumbered over to where Spiderman slumped against the wall weakly. A cruel smile was sketched across his beard stubbled mouth as the thick muscled, wall of a man glared down at his victim.

Shooting a quick glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching, the man knelt in front of the wall crawler. Narrowing his eyes vengefully, the man clamped a beefy hand over Spidey's mouth, earning him a muffled grunt of surprise. Thrashing frantically to free himself from the man's unrelenting grip, Spiderman's body exploded in more pain as he strained to somehow escape. Desperate for air, he ignored the pain and continued struggling.

"This is for covering us with that web-crap of yours," the neck-less thug whispered harshly into the arachnid's ear. Powerfully pistoning his fist deeply into Spidey's bandaged abdomen, the squishy ripping of stitches from flesh echoed in the web swinger's ears as his vision flashed white.

Beneath the man's smothering grip, Spiderman's tortured scream of agony became nothing more then a garbled whimper as he jackknifed over. Releasing his hold over the web swinger's mouth, the man calmly stood and stepped back to survey the pain he had caused with a grin as Spiderman dropped to the floor in a heap. Spidey could feel blood beginning to seep from the bullet wounds along his stomach

Gulping air into his lungs in raspy uneven breaths, Spidey curled his legs tightly to his chest. Writhing weakly against his restraints, Spiderman gradually lay still as his senses went into overload, sending the arachnid into unconsciousness.

**************

A still silence permeated the air as Spiderman forced himself awake. Rain pattered loudly against the hull of the copper structure. For a moment, the wall crawler thought he was alone in the Statue of Liberty's observation room, but as his surroundings came into focus through the dim lighting he saw Harry and his associates huddled around the TV sets and radio equipment set up along side the far wall with their backs turned to him.

Not wanting to draw attention to himself, Spidey quietly heaved himself up to lean against the wall he was tied to. Groaning inwardly in pain, he sat motionless as one of the foreign men began speaking urgently into the radio in an understandable language filled with heavy consonants and quick, harsh sounding syllables.

Seeing he was not currently of any concern to his capturers, Spiderman edged his body closer to the steel support beam that ran vertical against the wall and acted as the solid base the ropes binding his wrists together were anchored to. Determined to free himself, Spidey ignored the pain coursing through his body. He didn't know how long he had been out for. He had to hurry or he may not be able to stop the terrorists.

Keeping half his focus on the group of men and the other half concentrated on the strong ropes binding his limbs immobile, the wall crawler pressed the cord against the edge of the steel beam. Moving both hands in a rhythmic sawing motion, he tried to remain inconspicuous while the Iranian man began to relay messages from the other end of the radio to the foreign leader who in turn translated to Harry in flawless English.

Ignoring the biting pain of the rope cutting into his wrists, Spiderman continued to slowly shave away the cording of his restraints. On the other side of the room, his captors went on.

"Mr. Osborn," said the Iranian leader in English after a moment of conversation with the radio man in his native tongue, "We have just received confirmation from the drop off point that the US government had delivered the ransom."

"Wonderful," Harry smiled in victory. Glancing at his hired thugs he ordered, "Get the helicopter ready for departure and pack up the equipment." Turning slowly on his heels, Harry faced the captive superhero.

Abruptly halting his escape attempt, Spiderman froze every muscle in his body, hoping the young CEO hadn't seen him sawing at the ropes. He could feel the cording beginning to give way, but the stubborn ropes were still too much for the weakened superhero's muscles to break.

As his men hurried about the room gathering equipment into padded silver cases, Harry slowly walked towards Spidey, an evil glint shining in his eyes. "Well, it seems I don't get to see you die slowly after all," he said as he stopped several feet in front of Spiderman, "The government caved and paid up. That means I'll have to find another creative way of disposing of you. Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of time seeing as how I have to catch the first available plane to Europe. So forgive my lack of creativity, but I think a simple bullet to the brain will have do the job."

Spidey had to think fast. He had to stall Harry before he got his brains blown out. But before he could formulate a plan, a voice forced both Osborn and Spiderman to look up.

"Actually, Mr. Osborn, you're going nowhere," said the middle easterner with the bushy mustache as he stepped forward to address the young CEO. Forgetting his threat against the spider, Harry turned towards Kathal.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked, annoyed that he had been interrupted. Not saying a word, a gun suddenly appeared from the folds of Kathal's trench coat and leveled itself at Harry.

"What do you think you're doing?" the young Osborn demanded as he stared down the dark barrel of the gun pointed at his heart. Spidey could sense a twinge of fear in his old friend's voice.

Seeing the change of situation as a diversion to buy him more time to escape, Spiderman began to hurriedly saw at the cords binding wrists. He could feel the warm sting of blood beginning to seep through his gloves and trickle down his hands. He just hoped he wasn't permanently damaging his web shooting abilities in his attempt to free himself. Swallow the pain, he continued as the ropes became looser and the rope began to fray and unravel slightly against the corner of the steel beam. Harry's thugs that had been packing the equipment away had frozen in their places as Kathal's cronies pulled their own guns on the startled men.

"You Americans never cease to amaze me in how trusting you are," Kathal said as he slowly wagged his head from side to side, "I never intended to not detonate those bombs. You honestly didn't think we were paying you $200 million to develop those bombs and then not use them, did you?" That's just stupid. You people don't call us terrorists for nothing."

Shaking his head in admonition at Harry, Kathal pulled what appeared to be a thick remote control out from the depths of his black trench coat. Holding it away from his body, Kathal held it face out for Harry to see. The startled expression on Osborn's face and the thin shine of nervous sweat that beaded on his forehead confirmed his recognition of the device.

"What are you going to do with that?" Harry demanded in the feeble voice of fading authority and control.

Not answering immediately, Kathal turned the remote in his hand so the buttons dotting the shiny surface faced up towards him. Cradling the device in his palm, he maneuvered his thumb agily over the pad of numbered buttons as he punched in a sequence of numbers. Finishing his tapping, Kathal again held the remote out for Harry to view. On the small black screen flashed the bright red digital numbered reading, 30:00.

"Thirty minutes. That's all I'm giving before all six bombs are set to detonate. But by then, I'll be far away from here with your precious anti-virus safely in my possession," Kathal explained as he slowly moved his thumb over a large red button towards the bottom of the remote.

"But you can't…" Harry stuttered in a mixture of anger and fear at his associate's sudden betrayal, "The government paid our ransom. It's not right."

"Correction. My ransom," Kathal cut off sharply, "If you hadn't been so greedy, you may have lived through this. But now, you've just become another lose end that's served its purpose and has to be disposed of."

Glancing at his men, Kathal nodded to them while stating, "Tie them up and leave them." With that, the Iranian gently pressed the button his thumb was poised over. Ticking off the seconds, the remote's displayed thirty minutes began to quickly disappear.

"Hey, I ain't dying from this shit!" shouted one of Harry's thugs suddenly. Lunging for the closest Iranian, the man grasped for the gun pointed at him. Following suit, the other two of Harry's men jumped at the other middle easterner.

Panicking from the first man's resistance, the Iranian quickly fired two shots. A gurgled scream issued from the shot man before he dropped to the floor, dead. Meanwhile, the other two were beginning to overtake the last Iranian in a flurry of fists and flying limbs.

Turning his eyes away from Harry, Kathal snapped his head to look over his shoulder at the sounds of shouting and gunfire. His face wrinkled in anger as he shouted in Arabic to his remaining man. Growling, he brought his gun around to point at the mass of struggling men.

Glancing uncertainly for a moment between Kathal's turned back then to his two hired men that were wrestling with the last Iranian, Harry leapt for the gun that no longer was trained on him. Caught off guard, Kathal stumbled under Harry's thrown weight. Recovering, Kathal straightened and swung his elbow into Harry's ribs, shoving the younger man to the ground.

Chaos ran ramped in the confining room as the two Iranians fought back Harry's men. Maneuvering his gun, one of the middle easterners managed to shoot off a bullet that clipped the man he was fighting in the side. Leaving the wounded thug writhing on the ground by his feet, the man went to help his partner who still struggled with the last of Harry's hired men.

Spiderman thrashed against the ropes holding his wrists. They were on the verge of breaking, only a single strand kept him from freedom. Straining his muscles, Spidey grit his teeth as he pulled against the cording. He had to get free.

'Just a little further…" he muttered in determination. Suddenly, the ropes broke with a sharp snap, sending his arms flying around his sides from the forward momentum of his struggles. Spiderman didn't waste a moment as he snapped back his glove torn and bloodied wrists in the direction where Kathal loomed over Harry's fallen body.

"Mr. Osborn, I think this is where we say our goodbyes," Kathal said as he leveled his gun to point directly between Harry's frightened eyes. Slowly cocking the gun, he took aim.

Expelling a thick line of webbing, Spiderman snagged the tip of the gun with a startled grunt of surprise from Kathal. Yanking back, Spidey torn the gun from the middle easterner's hand just as the blast of the bullet meant for Harry shot through the air. Ricocheting off the metal hull of the room, the bullet clipped off the wall and into the center of the room where the sharp sound of glass being chipped echoed.

Savagely clawing at the cords binding his ankles together, Spiderman managed to loosen the ropes and wiggled his feet from the tangled mess. Hoisting himself from his knees then to his feet weakly, Spidey turned to face Kathal. His abused body swayed unsteadily, dizziness overwhelming his senses.

Dramatic tension filled the room as thunder cracked loudly though the heavy, humid air. Rain smashed heavily onto the bank of windows on the far side of the room. Kathal glared angrily at the arachnid as he clutched his injured hand from which his gun had been ripped from.

"You…" the Iranian snarled as he narrowed his eyes at the superhero. But before he could think of anything more to say, a frightened shout rang through the room. It was one of foreign men, calling in his native language frantically. The last of Harry's men lay unconscious beside his partners dead, blood stained body.

Glancing in the direction his underling was motioning to, Kathal's face drained of color. Following his gaze, Spiderman suddenly felt the insistent vibrating of his spider-sense at the base of his skull, alerting him to lurking danger. He now knew without needing a translation what the man had said.

From the side of the bomb sitting off to Spidey's side, a small pale greenish cloud hovered in the air. From a small puncture hole in the clear glass tubing attached to the device's side spewed the deadly viral gas of the bomb into the room.

"Oh god, no!" Harry cried as he stood from the ground hurriedly, and backed against the wall as the vapors began to fill the room, "We're all dead now…"

To be continued…..

Next time: The final showdown.

Note from author: I've never actually been to the Statue of Liberty so I had to go on the internet and try to research it a little. I couldn't really find that much on structural blueprints or anything like that so I had to adlib a little from what I found. If I made any major mistakes for all you New York buffs out there, tell me and I'll fix the chapter to make it as realistic as possible

Don't forget to review! It would really make my day!

-LAXgirl