A/N: My husband was bitten by a brown recluse spider last week. No super-powers yet, but we're still hoping.
Chapter Nine: Suspicions
He left the university, intending to go straight back to Harry's house and start on his essay. The winter sky began pelting the city with icy rain while he was in the Engineering department, and Peter joined the line waiting for the bus with less regret than usual; a warm, dry bus sounded more appealing than facing the endless wind rushing through the man-made canyons of New York while soaking wet, wearing spandex.
The driving rain reduced visibility and left the oil-stained streets slick. Peter rested his head against the cool glass of the window and peered into the grey gloom, watching shiny wet taxis snarl and dart around slower traffic. Looking down a cross-street, he saw a taxi dash across an intersection against the light. Beyond it, he noticed the headlights of an oncoming school bus, also gleaming washed-yellow in the dimness. Peter laid a hand on the window and leaned forward, holding his breath. The taxi blocked the school bus's path, and it braked and skidded sideways, swaying dangerously. Then Peter's bus moved on down the street, and his view of the accident was cut off by rows of shop fronts.
Urgently pushing his way through standing passengers to the front, Peter bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet until the next stop. Jumping down the steps, Peter ran for the nearest dark space between buildings, already pulling off his shirt. OK, maybe the bus crashed, but maybe it didn't, he told himself. It won't hurt to check, make sure there's nothing you can do to help. He barely reached the shelter of the alley before leaping up the wall, counting on the dark afternoon and the curtain of rain to keep people from noticing anything odd. Reaching the roof, he bundled his street clothes together, shoved them into his backpack, and webbed it hurriedly against a duct. Spider-Man pulled his mask over his head and took off.
The wishful theory that the bus had avoided damage died as he saw the flash of rotating lights from edge of a roof overlooking the accident. A single police car was there. One uniformed cop, wearing a reflective orange vest, was lighting flares and waving traffic to a muddled stop. The overturned school bus lay across one side of the intersection, its tires still spinning feebly in the air. Spidey's throat closed in fear as he saw the tanker truck that had smashed the bus into a U-shape, crushing it over and down until the row of windows along the far side were only cracks. The tank had split, and the smell of gasoline was overpowering the smell of the rain. A second wet cop in a reflective vest was bent over, scanning the twisted wreckage. Oh, God, it doesn't look like anyone could survive that.
Leaping off the rooftop to a streetlight, he clung easily to the slippery metal and pushed off to land on his feet by what remained of the bus's windshield. Through a narrow gap, he could see the bus driver, held upside-down in his seat by his safety belt. A trickle of blood ran down the old man's face and he wasn't moving. Behind him, Spider-Man could see movement and now that he was closer he could hear, thankfully, the high-pitched shouts and cries of children.
Moving quickly around the wreck, he spotted the truck driver groggily pushing at the driver's-side door of the tanker and swearing, blood on his face and hands. The safety glass in his windshield had shattered and fallen out, mostly in one piece, but the frame was tight against the bus and blocked by yellow metal. As Spider-Man reached out to grasp the buckled door, the cop at the scene moved into his path and rested a hand on his chest.
"Hold it, Spider-Man," she said, her dark hair plastered to her face by the rain. "We've got emergency personnel on the way..."
"That guy's panicking, and in shock, he could hurt himself. If I can get him out, I might be able to move the tanker away from the kids trapped inside," Spider-Man said as reasonably as he could manage, heroically restraining himself from simply shoving her out of the way. The shouts from the bus were getting louder, and he could her one of the kids sobbing hysterically.
Glancing over her shoulder at the truck driver, who was now screaming and banging on the immobile door, the hard-faced cop hesitated and then nodded sharply, stepping aside. His spider-sense was a constant warning buzz at the base of his neck. Spider-Man pulled the door out and off in one smooth movement and laid it carefully on the street. The next instant he caught the falling driver, carrying him quickly over to the sidewalk, where he lay moaning and cursing. Returning to the wreck, he bounded lightly up to balance on top of the bus. One of the kids screamed at the thump he made. Anxiously, he checked angles to make sure pushing the truck back wouldn't cause the bus to fall over, trying to see if the metal of the truck was interlocked with the bus. Gasoline was still streaming from the tank, diluting and streaking the puddles on the pavement.
Jumping back to the ground, he went back to the cop standing by the truck. "Looks OK, I think I can move it," he said curtly.
"If you can do that, why don't you just rip the metal away from the windows, get the kids out?" she asked suspiciously.
"Because metal striking against metal causes sparks, officer." She looked blank. "There's gas all over the place?" Comprehension lit her face and she flushed, backing up. Spider-Man hauled himself into the cab and shoved the gears to neutral. Then he squeezed in between the cab and the tank, bracing his feet and putting his shoulders into it. Please, don't let this be a mistake...the thought of flames closing over the bus, the students crying to get out...Relying on his spider-sense to stop him if he was about to set off a deadly spark, grimacing each time the tanker screeched as it moved, he gently, slowly, rolled the heavy tanker back several feet over the gas-soaked street.
Several windows on this side, no longer sealed off by the tanker's cab, were bent but passable. Even as Spider-Man straightened and turned, one kid was wriggling free. Another police car had finally arrived, along with two ambulances. Paramedics and cops helped elementary students work their way out. As a fire engine pulled up and began hosing down the tanker and bus, Spider-Man risked pulling one window wider and squirmed inside to retrieve two unconscious students and the bus driver, moving them gingerly onto stretchers provided by the official emergency personnel and sliding them out of the bus.
Standing under the rain once more, Spider-Man wished he could pull his mask up and wipe the water off his face. On second thoughts, it'd just drip again. He was tired and uncertain that he had really done any good here. The kids could've waited for the official equipment to arrive and free them, he thought. But what if something had sparked? A burly fireman moved past him with a hose. Spidey jumped halfway up a wall, unnoticed for once in the confusion of crying children, storm, and emergency gear. One ambulance had already left, sirens blaring. Undecided, he looked back down at the cluster of kids and paramedics on the sidewalk. He saw a black-haired boy shove the female officer away from him, hard.
"Back off, pig!" the boy shouted. The officer and two paramedics moved closer, trying to calm him down, but the boy punched the nearest paramedic below the belt and tried to run. The female officer and the second paramedic caught the slender child and restrained him, the cop speaking urgently into the radio clipped to her shoulder. Spider-Man caught a fragment of what she was saying over the wind "...eyes dilated, possible drug use..." The boy was wrestled into an ambulance.
The wall-crawler's jaw dropped under his mask. The kid's what, sixth grade? Maybe? Shaken, and not knowing what else to do, he moved slowly off to collect his clothes and make his way back to the mansion.
Walking into Harry's house, Peter noticed his reflection in the hall mirror. His clothes were wet, wrinkled and dirty; he looked like he'd been rolling in the gutter. Depressed, he shuffled upstairs. Maybe he'd take Harry up on his offer of a car to go visit Aunt May later. Public transportation didn't seem to work for him.
"...bus driver still in critical condition. In other news, philanthropist Wilson Fisk will be hosting the presentation of the new corporate-sponsored public school curriculum this Friday at the historic Colonial Rotunda. Select teachers and students have been invited to the presentation, as well as political and business leaders. Free children's books, pocket calculators, and backpacks will be handed out. The new curriculum will be used on a trial basis in selected schools in the coming semester and implemented city-wide next fall." A film clip of Wilson Fisk, standing in front of a bank of microphones, appeared on screen next to the cheery anchorwoman. "We firmly believe that New York will set the standard for schools nationwide over the next year," he said in his deep voice. "Working together as a community, we can make anything happen."
Harry turned it off and began rummaging through the kitchen shelves. Rain was pattering rhythmically against the large window over the sink. Peter, sitting at the long table in the middle of the room, tilted his bowl to scoop up the last of his cornflakes and milk and frowned. How did Fisk's curriculum fit in with Cheap Shot and his lethal device? Was Cheap Shot just hired muscle? The death of the councilman and the PTA members pointed to the curriculum being in the center of whatever was going on, but for the life of him, Peter couldn't see anything illegal in providing books for kids.
He poured himself another bowl of cereal, returned to the table, and started shoveling food in again. Since his change, he'd been eating two or three times as much as before. Web-slinging took a lot out of a person. He watched Harry grab a couple of pop-tarts from a cupboard and shove them into the toaster. His friend had spent the whole day yesterday in bed, being nursed through the aftereffects of his ordeal by the houseman, Bernard. Apparently, he had decided to rejoin the living this morning—wearing jeans and a sweater, for a change.
His mood was sour though, and he'd heard all about Spider-Man's connection with the bizarre attack. Peter hoped fervently that Harry's situation would be resolved soon, now that Aunt May was improving, so Peter could leave the oppressive mansion behind.
As Harry stared morosely at his appliances, waiting for breakfast to heat, Peter wondered if casually commenting on Wilson Fisk or the curriculum would get any results. Fisk had made some kind of proposal to Norman Osborn, and Harry had chosen to back away from it. Why?
"Wilson Fisk," Harry said suddenly. Peter dropped his spoon. Mopping up milk and cornflakes gave him a few seconds to calm his thudding heart and come up with a reasonable reply.
"Huh?" he said.
"On the news just now? The guy going in for education, that's passing out all the textbooks?" Harry turned, leaned against the marble counter, and folded his arms over his chest. Taking a deep breath, he went on. "I think...I don't know if I should tell you this, but I think...there's something fishy about the whole thing." Harry huddled his arms tighter, and didn't look up from the floor tiles.
"How do you mean, fishy?" Peter tried to sound nonchalant. He couldn't believe Harry was bringing this up.
"Well, I don't know much about it...it was something my dad got involved in, right before—you know, before." Harry closed his eyes. Opening them again, he continued, "One of his lawyers showed me this contract, told me it was an agreement to contribute to the school program in return for OsCorp advertising in the textbooks. You know the kind of thing, PR stuff—'OsCorp: helping to secure America's future' type of crap, we do it in magazines all the time. Only, the amount for the contract? Huge. Bigger than OsCorp's whole advertising budget, really." Harry was finding it easier now that he'd gotten started. Peter stopped pretending to eat and sat quietly, knowing that any questions would probably stop Harry's confession.
"So I asked questions—I mean, education's a good thing, but—and this lawyer, Miles, got kind of nasty...hinted that I was too young and stupid to know what I was talking about, my father had agreed to it, that kind of thing. Pissed me off." Harry frowned. "So I refused to sign it. This Fisk guy comes to see me the next day, walks into Dad's office at OsCorp like he owns the place, starts pushing me to go through with the contract. I think I was pretty smooth about it—I kind of blew him off, said our reputation was solid and we didn't need to spend that kind of money to make OsCorp look good."
Peter kept his eyes on his cereal bowl and mumbled encouragingly. Harry, standing up to Fisk? He was willing to bet Harry was stretching the truth on that a little. Or maybe not—Harry might have been so wrapped up in his young executive impression that he'd failed to recognize Fisk for the shark he was.
"So, then, he says...this isn't normal advertising, this had guaranteed results. Worth every cent because OsCorp was getting on the fast track to total public approval and support."
Peter couldn't help it. He blurted out, "What, like subliminal advertising? That kind of thing?"
"Yeah, only...Fisk didn't say anything I can repeat, but I got the idea...that there's some kind of...mind control going on." Harry chuckled nervously. "OK, saying that out loud, it sounds pretty stupid."
Peter turned in his chair and looked directly at his friend, who had forgotten all about his pop-tarts. His mind was racing. "Maybe not so stupid...What did he say when you refused? Uh, you did turn it down, right?"
"Yeah," Harry half smiled at Peter. "Yeah, I did. He wasn't happy about it. In fact, he..." Harry studied the ceiling for a moment, shifting uncomfortably. "The other night, when we all went mental? I don't mean to go paranoid on you, but I think it might have been an attempt to..." He trailed off and looked embarrassed. "Spider-Man was here, too," he added, his voice growing hard. "I think he might be working for Fisk. First my father, and now me." Harry clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowed.
Wincing at the mention of Spider-Man, Peter picked up the remnants of his breakfast and set it in the sink. Mind control...irresistible advertising, aimed at kids...and Cheap Shot, who has a device to influence the human mind. What did Dr. Bell say? 'Higher frequencies could cause extreme suggestibility'. Lost in thought, he started when Harry spoke again.
"I know you think that freak is some kind of hero," Harry said in a low voice. "But I've got to ask you, and I'm asking you to remember that I'm your best friend, and my father thought of you as part of the family. Spider-Man should be brought down. What I need to know is, do you think I should tell the police about all this? Do you think they'll take it seriously?" Harry was pleading.
"Yes," Peter said firmly. "I do." Harry grinned at him, relieved, and for a split second their old friendship was there between them, the way it had been before Mary Jane, Norman Osborn, and Spider-Man had torn unpatchable holes in it.
Then Harry said, "Good. Stay with me, I'll need moral support."
"Stay with you?"
"Yeah, this detective guy—Lamont—wanted to come by and question me as soon as I felt up to it. He's supposed to be here by nine." Harry frowned at the toaster. "Dang it. Can you re-heat pop-tarts?"
Peter sat nervously in the armchair in front of the fireplace, homework spread out on his lap, unable to concentrate. C'mon, MJ saw you in costume a couple of times, spoke to you even, and didn't get it...Peter thought that over wistfully. To tell the truth, he'd said some really stupid things to her...I was in the neighborhood...you know who I am...some part of him trying to sabotage his own secret identity, hoping Mary Jane would figure it out. Lamont on the other hand—just relax. This isn't going to be a problem. Peter looked down at the math problem he was working, realized he'd made a mistake six lines up, and erased furiously.
Harry was at his father's desk again, a stack of OsCorp reports in front of him. He had the same frustrated, puzzled expression on his face that he had used for his chemistry class, before he left school to run the company. When Bernard came to the door and announced Detective Lamont, Harry stood up immediately and walked around the desk, holding out one hand to the thin, grey-haired detective with the strong, harsh face.
"Detective. Thank you for coming to see me," Harry said. He waved a hand at two low-backed chairs in the middle of the expensive rug. "Please, have a seat."
"Mr. Osborn. I hope you are fully recovered?" Lamont said in his smoke-roughened voice, sitting across from Harry.
"Certainly, yes, well maybe just a trace of a headache," Harry replied with a brave smile.
Seeing Detective Lamont sitting calmly in Norman's familiar study was surreal. Peter, setting his homework on the floor and moving awkwardly over to stand in front of the fire, wished intensely that his schizophrenic world would stop finding ways to collide.
Lamont was already asking Harry to go over the events of Monday night.
"—and then, everything began to sway and move, I started seeing things that weren't there. It—it's hard to remember now, like a nightmare—"
"Do you know what time this began?"
"Of course not, I told you, I was confused, hallucinating—"
Peter raised his eyebrows and stared at the rug. The authoritative, practical detective brought out the worst in Harry, who was becoming defensive.
"I don't expect you to understand, it was a terrible experience. I passed out from the pain and suffered the effects all day yesterday." Harry stared haughtily down his nose at the policeman. "I missed a whole day's work at OsCorp. In my position, that is a serious loss."
"I'm sure it is." Harry looked mollified, plainly missing the insincerity in Lamont's reply. "And no one recovered consciousness before the paramedics arrived, right? Can you remember anything at all about the circumstances, Mr. Osborn? Anything that happened just before the incident, anything unusual or out of place?"
Harry considered that, resting his chin on his fist. "Didn't I see you come in, Pete?" he said finally. "Just before?"
Lamont transferred his assessing gaze to Peter and grunted. "This is...Peter Parker?" He referred to a notebook in his lap. "You are a guest of Mr. Osborn?"
Clearing his throat, Peter fought back a flash of panic. "Ah, um. Yes. I mean, yes sir," he stammered. Relax. Doesn't cloth distort voices? Yeah, in old detective stories people are always using a handkerchief over the receiver to disguise their voice on the phone. He smiled tightly at Harry and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets.
"And you came into the study, just before the incident?"
"Um, no sir, not right before. I, um, came in, because I forgot a book, but I was back in my room before I got dizzy. It was just before midnight," he added helpfully.
Lamont grunted again, making a note. "Yes, that agrees with the houseman's statement."
"Really?" Harry looked puzzled. "I seem to remember you being in the room—I guess my memory is still confused," he said with a sigh. "Although the doctor assures me it isn't serious."
"And you Mr. Parker? Were you as seriously affected?" Peter knew he wasn't imagining the mocking tone, but he hoped it was over Harry's theatrics and not because he suspected Peter of being super-human.
"It was pretty rough, I didn't feel good yesterday," he answered, meeting Lamont's eyes squarely.
"Detective Lamont," Harry said, a shade too loudly. "There is something that we—Peter and I talked it over and we think it may be relevant. Of course, I expect you to respect the confidentiality of what I am about to tell you." Harry straightened in his seat, and launched into his Fisk/Spider-Man theory. Lamont listened politely without a flicker of expression betraying previous knowledge of a curriculum plot, or threats made by Fisk against Harry Osborn. He made several notes.
"I see, Mr. Osborn," he said when Harry finally trailed off. "We will of course, follow every possible lead in our investigation of this unfortunate incident."
Peter snorted before he could help it. "Did you have something to add, Mr. Parker?" Lamont asked.
"Is that it? I mean, there's been a death threat, and attempted murder...don't you think you could give Harry some police protection or something?" Easy on the sarcasm, Pete. No need to give him clues...and you'd never dream of mouthing off to a total stranger. Leave that to Spidey.
Lamont was observing Peter thoughtfully, one hand on his tie. "I'm afraid that without a clearly defined threat, I can't do that." Harry shook his head unhappily. "I will however, tell you this," Lamont said slowly, still looking at Peter. "We believe that Spider-Man was actually in this house that night. An unidentified person placed a 911 call from this address." He turned back to Harry. "Which is odd, if his intent was to kill you."
Peter was speechless, torn between fright over Lamont's deliberate look as he brought up Spider-Man's phone call, anger that he'd given Harry another reason to obsess over Spider-Man without even mentioning Cheap Shot, and surprise at his defense of the vigilante. Harry stood up and glared at the detective, his face red with rage.
"The police have totally failed to take Spider-Man seriously," Harry hissed. "He killed my father, and he's tried to kill me, and you people aren't doing anything about it!" he practically shouted.
Lamont was unruffled. "If you remember anything that might be useful, this is my card." He laid a business card on the desk and stood, shaking his pant legs down. Harry stalked over to the French doors, turning his back on Lamont. Peter shrugged helplessly at the detective and indicated the study door. Peter walked Lamont out of the study and down to the main doors in silence.
As the detective put his hand on the knob, he turned to look at Peter again. "You too, Mr. Parker. Call me if you...remember anything."
Peter shrugged again. "Sure. Um, yes sir."
Lamont dropped his hand from the door. "You know, you interview people often enough, you start to know when someone's lying, or hiding something," Lamont said in a friendly, casual voice. "Usually, it's nothing criminal or serious—just those everyday things people don't want the police or their friends knowing about. But it helps if we can clear up any little mysteries. Cops don't necessarily have to make a big deal about it." Peter kept his eyes straight on Lamont, refusing to blink or react.
Lamont shook his head and pulled the door open. "Call me if you change your mind, Mr. Parker," he said, and walked out.