Electric Shock Therapy

Part One

            "We're thinking about firing Max." The supervisor had said. "He's become a liability. He's just too afraid of going up to the lines to conduct repairs." He had sighed loudly, "That's a lousy trait for an electrician. We have to let him go."

            Max Dillon angrily snuck into the generator room. He remembered the words of his supervisor and was enraged by them. Fire him? How could they? Max had worked with the company for almost ten years. The idea was idiotic. All of it was just because he was afraid of going up there, on those poles. He did his job in every other aspect; it was just that little problem.

            When he was young, about twelve years old, his dad took him hunting out in the woods. They had talked all about how they would kill deer and anything else they found. Then he had choked. Max just couldn't bring himself to shoot the animal; killing just wasn't in his blood. His dad hadn't took that well.

            He opened the door to the generator room and found it empty. It was late, the only people were the guards and he knew they wouldn't be along this route for some time. Max brushed back his dark brown hair and rubbed his rough chin. He hadn't shaved for days and the beginning of a beard was coming in.

            Inside were a large central computer and two power conduits that fed energy to the rest of the plant.  Max reached for the fire extinguisher placed carefully against the wall. He gripped it tightly and approached the computer panel. Taking a deep breath he committed himself to his present course of action.

            He smashed the extinguisher against the panel as hard as he could; smashing the instruments. "You want to fire me?" Max asked furiously, "I poured my heart into this job!" Max continued to assault the panel, he hit it until it was a mess of circuitry, beyond repair. Already the smell of burnt chips and the sizzle of fired machinery flooded every dimension of the room. "You can't fire me. I won't let you get away with it without even batting an eye."

            Max turned his attention to the power conduits running along the side of the room, "I'll smash this place to bits!" He began to ram the side of the extinguisher against the conduits but found the result unsatisfactory. Max pulled out the wrench in the pocket of his jumpsuit and applied to the connection. There was a furious anger in his eyes as the conduits were severed. "Break down!" He roared, "It all breaks down!" Max smashed the conduit again with the butt of his hammer angrily.

            There was a pounding on the door that he had entered through. "Open up! Whoever's inside I need you to open this door." A guard demanded from the other side.

            "No!" Max responded, "They were going to take away everything I had ever worked for!" He lamented pitifully. Max turned back to the conduit and smashed it again, "Everything! I can't let them do that. If the plant's damaged they'll need help. I'll get to keep my job!" He smashed the conduit again with devastating results. The casing split open and thousand of volts of crackling electricity poured forth. It danced along his arm and spread throughout his body. "No, something's wrong! Help me!" Max screamed as the electrical energy ate him alive. He began to feel muscles tighten and his heart stop. He fell to the floor, gasping for air as his lungs were burned away.

            The conduit exploded consuming the entire floor; the fire spread relentlessly and destroyed everything and everyone in its path; all but one.

            "You don't have to shut me out." Mary Jane said, shrouded in the darkness of night.

            Peter was crouched on a ledge outside an open window of the abandoned warehouse that he had taken her to. "Stay away." He said quietly, "You don't understand." His costume was incomplete as his mask had been lost during the ordeal. They had been here for hours, ever since leaving the church he had been brooding and isolating himself.

            "Then make me understand!" MJ said pleadingly, "Why are you so afraid to open up to me?"

            "Everyone around me gets hurt." Peter sighed deeply, the moon hung in the sky staring back at him. "No matter how many times I try to keep them safe, they're the ones that will end up suffering."

            MJ grimaced, "Peter, whatever you did while that thing had you, it wasn't your fault."

            Peter shook his head from side to side, "No, it's not just that. This wasn't the first time that those I loved were hurt because of my actions."

            "What are you talking about?" MJ asked.

            He stared at her, uneasily and reluctantly answered. "I've never told anyone about this. Do you remember when my aunt May died?"

            "Yes?" She replied cautiously.

            Peter closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, "The burglar that killed her that night, I had a chance to stop him, to save her, but I threw it away." He sniffled holding back the grief that was bellowing through him, "She died because of my indifference. Then I tracked him down to this very warehouse and forced my uncle to lose a piece of his humanity. Because that's what killing does to you."

            MJ covered her mouth and closed her eyes remembering the incident, the horror in Peter's eyes. "That wasn't your fault." She said emphatically, "You didn't know."

            "Don't you think I tried to tell myself that?" He replied sharply, "I tried to move on, but I couldn't. So, I became Spider-Man and tried to find some way to make amends, and all it did was made things worse for those I love."

            "What about the people you've saved?" MJ said strongly, "You've brought so much good to this city, you've given people hope where there wasn't any. What would have happened if you hadn't been there when you were needed?"

            Peter turned his eyes towards her and then back out to the city, "I'm sick of this job. I don't want to do it anymore; I want to leave it all behind me. Its not worth the pain it brings the people that surround me."

            MJ dug deep and spoke lightly, "I don't know if you can. This is something that you can't just throw away in a trashcan and never look back. Whether you like it or not, Spider-Man is a part of you that you are hiding, and take it from me, hiding doesn't make the problem go away."

            The silence between them became depressing. He just stared out there with a forlorn expression. "It felt like I had been drowning all this time, and when I saw you on that roof, it was like I came out of the water and got my first breath of air." Peter said quietly.  

            "Peter." MJ said shakily, "We need to talk, there's something I needed to tell you before."

            "Not right now." He replied, "I need to rest. There's a mattress, lying around, on the upper floor, it's pretty clean. I'll figure out what I need to do in the morning."

            "Wake up my good boy!" A voice screamed to Harry, "Its time to wake up!" Harry's eye-lids opened up and he was immediately greeted by a bright sun.

            He squirmed uncomfortably, "What's going on?" He asked feebly.

            "Your wake-up call, that's what's going on." Norman Osborn appeared in front of Harry, dressed in a garb of purple and hovering on his menacing glider. "What do you think?"

            Harry frowned at the sight of his father, "You're crazy."

            "Wrong." Norman replied angrily, "When people try to do things outside the confines of society, no matter how great they may be, society tends to label them insane." He smirked in a rather sly manner, "I assure you, I am quite sane."

            Harry attempted to move forward but found he was restrained. Ropes held him against a steel beam implanted into the ground of the mill that his father used as a base. "What are you going to do to me?"

            "I haven't decided yet." Norman replied coldly and backed away on his glider, "You've put me in a difficult position. Why couldn't you be the son I wanted?"

            "You could never accept me for who I was." Harry retorted, "I would have been living a lie and you would have hated me for that too."

            Norman grimaced, "Who said I hate you? We've had our problems, true, but I've always appreciated you."

            Harry rocked his head back, surprised, "Name one nice thing you've said about me, recently?"

            Norman opened his mouth to answer but no words poured out. He frowned and grabbed his jaw, "I like your haircut." He offered up feebly. Harry didn't answer, making Norman uncomfortable. He shook his head, trying to brush it off and failed somewhat. "We'll talk about this later. For now, I need to know how you uncovered my secret."

            "Somebody led me to you." Harry answered back.

            "Oh?" Norman leaned in towards his son, "Who?"

            Harry shrugged as much as he could, "I don't know. All I ever got were phone calls."

            "That is very interesting." Norman commented, "I'll have to look into that. Until then, I think you should know I've decided to handle our problem."

            "What does that mean?" Harry asked fearfully.

            Norman grinned, "It is clear that in its current state our relationship can't survive. So, I will be forced to fix certain flaws in your character, flaws that plagued me in my youth. I'm going to break you down and build you back up into something that resembles an Osborn. It's not going to be fun, either, well, at least not for you."

            "No!" Peter screamed desperately leaping from the cardboard box he had been sleeping on. "I was only dreaming." He told himself, "It was just a dream."

            The warm glow of the sun beamed in through the windows. Peter clicked his tongue, "Everything is fine." The images of the dead still flashed through his mind. He began to wonder whether they were just dreams or in fact memories.

            "Dear God." Peter hid his face in his hands and sighed, "What did that thing do to me?" He stared out at the bright sun, "I need help, aunt May. I can't do this alone, anymore."

            "Peter!" Mary Jane called out to him, "We need to talk. It's important. There's something I have to tell you."