The Calm before the Storm
Part One
"What are you hiding, Gwen?" Her psychiatrist asked, blanketed in the silence of the modest office.
The young and attractive daughter of police captain George Stacy looked at her doctor, an experienced old man by the name of Clive Barber. She frowned nervously as her heart skipped a beat, "I'm not hiding anything."
Clive smiled behind his thin spectacles, "Come on, Gwen, there's something you're not telling me."
She'd been here, day in and day out, ever since the…incident. After Peter talked with her father she had been forced to go into counseling, it wasn't helping. Her school mates watched on as she transformed into a shriveled up shadow of her former self. Peter and Mary Jane had tried to talk to her but it was no use, her life had changed.
"Like what?" Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
"I don't know." Her therapist leaned in towards her; his smile was a warm, inviting one. It invited her to confess her secret but what loyalty remained to the love of her life refused to surrender.
Gwen shrugged, "You're wrong. I don't keep secrets." He is Spider-Man.
Clive shook his head firmly, "You kept secrets from your father, things he should have known." He sighed, "Gwen, we can't make real progress unless you open up to me."
"Then we won't make real progress." She coldly replied.
"This is going to eat at you." He stated confidently, "I've seen it before; eventually whatever you're keeping hidden is going to boil to the surface and you're heading for a meltdown because of it." Clive sighed gently, "Tell me now and save yourself from that. Trust me in the end it's not worth it."
Gwen stared at him. For a moment, just a moment, she would have. She wanted to pour her heart out and cry, she needed somebody to help her. There was nobody else besides Peter, and she couldn't be near him without feeling the loss. "Time's up."
"Harry, I wish that my efforts had not been in vain." Norman Osborn stated grimly at the sight of his son curled up in a corner of the penthouse scratching at his face, if it could be called that. "I've given you everything I could. I sacrificed for you, I bled for you, I built a company for you to inherit and now look at what all my struggles have brought about."
The shell that once was Harry Osborn stared back at his father fearfully, "Father? I don't know what to do."
"I know, Harry." He sighed, "This is my fault. I should have realized you wouldn't be able to handle the power I granted you; it's not your fault, boy." Norman reached out with his hand towards his son, "Please get off the floor."
Harry obliged and Norman sheltered him with his arm. "You're so like your mother. It's a shame really; so many weaknesses were passed on to you, it was unfair really." He led Harry towards the boy's room, "I had hopes, Harry; I wanted you to take on my legacy, I wanted you to become the prime Osborn." He smiled and patted his son on the head as he led Harry to the edge of his bed on which he lied down.
"I suppose certain things are not meant to be. Rest, Harry, for what it's worth, I do love you, son." The younger Osborn closed his eyes to sleep as Norman shut the door while leaving. He stomped towards the fireplace, an empty spot where his father's portrait once hung stared back at him hungrily.
That man had done this. The defective genes that were responsible for Harry's breakdown had originated from his own father. "Blast you!" He screamed to the missing portrait. "I'm sorry, Emily." He proclaimed weeping to his lost wife and true love. "I tried to save him, I tried so hard."
Norman swung from grief, to love, to consuming hatred within seconds. He hadn't taken his medicine, the ones the doctors had told him he needed. He needed nothing, he was invincible.
"You couldn't let me beat you, is that it dad? Your pettiness has destroyed my son, I did everything I could to make him right, but you were always there breaking him down." Norman snarled at the vacant spot, "It's not over, father. There's still Parker I can still save the legacy with his turning."
He rubbed his finger along the sealed mess of burnt skin where one of his eyes once had been located. "And with Spider-Man's destruction."
Otto Octavius stared at the fusion chamber. This was going to be the most important moment of his career. He could feel the energy coursing through him from the chamber even behind the blast shield.
The experiment, tonight would be the crowning moment of his career, it would represent everything he'd ever worked for.
"Will this work? Are you sure you don't want to run another simulation?" One of his colleagues asked. A man with a small mind that Otto had no appreciation of who could never quite understand what awaited humanity just beyond what was accepted science.
"Of course it will." Otto replied, "I've already run though twenty simulations. By manipulating the fusion as it occurs I will be able to create a limitless power source. This will be amazing. I can't wait to behold the power of the universe; my life's work will be validated." He stated proudly from behind his thick black goggles.
One of the workers snickered and whispered to a friend, "Here he goes again."
Otto grimaced. They'd see the product of his brilliance soon enough. "Won't that be dangerous? A simulation is far different from the actual thing." The associate asked.
"Didn't we debate this in last month's conference meeting? The metal tentacles that Stark Enterprises gave our project are more than durable enough to handle any of the machinery inside the chamber. They alone have the durability to withstand the energy from the chamber." Otto grinned, "We start tonight at nine; I expect everyone to be ready." The anticipation felt as if it were slowly ripping him apart, finally he'd show that he need not be accepted into the elitist circles of professors and physicists; he could be great and soon he would be.