Chapter Eight
The radio on Peter Parker's alarm clock clicked on as he rolled over in bed, clinging to the last precious moments of sleep.
"Get a load of this, Robin," came the voice from the radio. "This guy we've got coming in to play Win Fred's Money today, is a professor from some college in Dunkirk."
"Where is that?"
"Who knows, sounds like some real hole in the wall if you ask me. I don't know where we find these people."
"Hey Howard?"
"Yes, what is it Gary?"
"You might want to put on the news, there's a report coming in about that Green Goblin character flying around the city again, like right now."
Peter's eyes snapped open.
"Oh, man, that whack job is back? You gotta be kidding me, I thought Spider-Man kicked his ass. Hey Gary, do you think we can get him on the show?"
"They say he has a hostage with him, they think it's that Lex Luthor guy."
"Who?"
"You know, the bald rich kid from Metropolis?"
"Oh, yeah! I think we saw him at Scores one time, didn't we Artie?"
"Yeah, he seemed like a pretty cool dude."
Peter was already in costume and out the window, web-slinging his way towards the city.
Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan awoke to the sound of a loud crash that literally shook their entire room.
Clark, wearing boxers and a t-shirt, leapt up off the couch and ran into Chloe's room to have a look out the window.
"What was that!" Chloe asked, getting out of bed herself.
"I don't know," Clark said. He pulled open the blinds.
Just outside, the Green Goblin was tearing around the city on his glider. A chain hung off the back of the glider, with an unconscious Lex Luthor suspended from it. The Goblin was purposely crashing his glider into various buildings, allowing Lex's limp body to take impact after impact against the solid walls.
"Oh my God! That thing's got Lex!"
Chloe ran to grab her camera and something to throw on besides her nightshirt. By the time she turned around again, Clark had already disappeared, leaving the door to the hotel room wide open.
In the few seconds it had taken Chloe to grab some jeans and her camera, Clark had thrown on a new set of clothes, ran down three flights of stairs and was already outside on the street. A crowd had started to gather and people were looking up at the scene taking place above their heads, pointing and shouting.
No sooner did Clark get outside than a newcomer entered the fray… Spider-Man sailed by on a webline, and landed on a rooftop just in front of the Goblin.
Spidey had no idea how he was going to deal with this. Just the night before, the Goblin had almost given him more trouble than he could handle, and he didn't even stick around to fight that time. Now he had a hostage, and it looked like the poor guy was barely alive.
"Haven't you been keeping up with the fashion pages, Gobby? No one's wearing green this year," Spider-Man called out. He might as well talk the talk, and hope that he could walk the walk when it came time.
The Goblin stopped his glider in mid-air. "Spider-Man. I knew this would draw you out sooner or later."
"Isn't this always the way with you? You never write, you never call… then all of a sudden, it's drama, drama, drama… I just can't deal with it any more!"
"Always so smug," the Goblin said. "So full of yourself."
"Me? You've got me all wrong, buddy. I don't even like myself!"
"Save the wisecracks," the Goblin said, pressing a lever on the glider with his foot. A pumpkin bomb shot up into his hand. "And see if you can save your own skin." The Goblin tossed the pumpkin bomb at Spidey and took off into the sky, circling around the rooftop.
His spider sense gave him the cues he needed to dodge the bomb, which exploded somewhere behind him as he did a double backflip. Two more bombs came his way, which were dodged with similar ease and equal style.
"I could do this all day, Goblin, really I could, but I thought we'd moved beyond this, you and I. Actually, to be quite honest, I thought you were dead."
The Goblin let out what sounded like a low growl. "You would think that, wouldn't you?"
This time he launched a rocket from the back of the glider. Spider-Man was unprepared for it and was barely able to leap out of the way in time, the resulting explosion leaving him slightly dazed. He crouched down low and placed his hands on the sides of his head and waited for the roof to stop spinning around him.
"C'mon," Spidey said when he'd gotten his bearings. "I don't care what happens between you and me, but how about letting the bald guy go?"
"Sure, why not?"
A blade shot out of the back of the glider, and the chain was severed, sending the unconscious Lex plummeting down toward the street.
"Oh, great," Spider-Man thought. He leapt from the roof and fired off a webline, swinging wildly outward. Still in a haze from that last explosion, he was barely able to find the focus to swing himself beneath the falling Luthor and catch him before he hit the ground.
They swung back upward and made a violent crash landing on another rooftop, across from where they had been but considerably lower.
Spider-Man tried to shake Lex awake. "Are you all right?"
Lex stirred, barely, but was still unconscious.
The Goblin slowly descended behind them, casually tossing another pumpkin bomb from one hand to the other.
"As much as I'm enjoying this, Spider-Man… it could get old, fast. What do you say we end it right now?"
"You kids these days, with your short attention spans." Without turning around, Spider-Man fired a web over his shoulder, which stuck the bomb right to the Goblin's hand. "Why in my day, a good super villain fight could go on for hours!"
The Goblin started flying around erratically, trying to shake the bomb off.
"And I suppose you've already heard how we had to walk 15 miles to school every day, in the snow? Uphill both ways?" Spider-Man checked Lex's pulse and breathing, and when he was sure that he was going to be okay, Spidey turned his attention back to the fight.
The Goblin had pried the bomb loose from his hand and tossed it away just before it exploded.
"Nice try, webhead," the Goblin scoffed.
"Wait, maybe you were on to something after all," Spidey said. "If we wrap this up now we can probably still make it home in time for The Price is Right."
As they continued their banter, Clark Kent watched from the street below, feeling helpless. There had to be something he could do to help… but he didn't want to call attention to himself…
A limousine pulled up just in front of the building that Spider-Man and the Goblin were currently fighting on. A tall black man wearing an eyepatch stepped out, yelling into some kind of walkie-talkie radio.
"Tell me we've got somebody on this thing!"
"We're working on it, Director Fury," came the reply over the radio.
"Working on it! Where's Steve? Where's Tony?"
"Steve is on a diplomatic mission in Latveria, sir, and Tony…"
"Tony what?"
"He went out drinking again last night, sir. He is in no shape for active duty at the moment."
"Then who the hell do we have, god damn it!"
A new voice came over the radio. "Nick, it's Clint. I'm getting into position now."
"Thank God! What's your location, son?"
"I'm on the rooftop right across from them, sir. Orders?"
Clark surveyed the rooftops with his acutely keen eyesight… he saw a man dressed in a long black trench coat running across a nearby rooftop, pulling some kind of bow and arrow from a holster on his back.
"Your orders, Clint, are to blow the hell out of that Goblin thing. He obliterated that convention hall last night, we are dealing with a severe threat to the population here, I want him taken down and I want him taken down now."
"What about Spider-Man and the bald guy?"
"Your orders are as given, soldier. Just get the job done."
With a cold dread, Clark realized that these guys were not above taking Lex and Spider-Man out along with the Goblin if they had to. He didn't wait another second. As his feet sprang into motion, the world around him seemed to freeze in place. Birds halted in flight, conversations were paused in mid-sentence, all movement simply stopped. The only thing in motion was himself, as he blew past the man with the walkie-talkie, ran into the building and up the stairwells leading to the roof.
He crashed through the doorway as he burst onto the rooftop. The man was just releasing the arrow from the bow string… it slowly began to cut through the air, heading straight for the rooftop across the way. The arrow's flight seemed to slow to a crawl as Clark made a mad dash for it, speeding right past the man, knocking him aside with a casual flick of the wrist. The man sprawled out flat on his back as Clark plucked the arrow from the air with one hand. He knew as soon as he'd caught sight of it that it was no ordinary arrow. That had to be some kind of explosive on the end of it. Clark clutched the arrow close to his chest and let it explode in his arms, taking the full force of the blast against his own body. He could feel the power of the impact, but he felt no pain… His shirt was slightly singed, but he was unfazed.
The man stared up at Clark with a bewildered look on his face.
"Clint?" The voice crackled through the two-way radio. "Clint, what's going on up there, man? Talk to me?"
The man reached for his quiver of arrows, but Clark had them in his hands before the man could lay a finger on them.
Another new voice over the radio, a female this time.
"Nick, this is Natasha. I've got the rooftop in my sights. Do you want me to blow it?"
"Roger that, Widow, Hawkeye's gone offline… it's up to you now, girl."
Clark ran to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. Another building, across the street… a woman dressed in black had what looked like some kind of laser cannon pointed out the window at the rooftop Lex, Spider-Man and the Goblin were on.
No time to run all the way over there, even at his fastest speed he might not make it before she pulled the trigger. Instead, he focused with all of his might, setting off one good strong blast of his heat vision, which tore the laser cannon right in half.
The woman cursed in Russian over the radio.
"Natasha, what happened! Damn it, what's going on up there!"
The Goblin had apparently noticed the commotion taking place on the buildings surrounding them, and decided it would be wise to take the fight elsewhere. He swooped down and grabbed Lex by the collar of his shirt, and took off again, weaving around the buildings to hide his trail. Spider-Man followed suit, quickly firing off a series of weblines and swinging his way after the Goblin.
Clark wasn't sure he'd be able to find them again, but he was sure going to try. He sped off back down the stairs, leaving nothing but a crushed quiver, a pile of broken arrows, and one very confused soldier behind him.