To Song With No Soul: I'm still working on a way to break the scenes because Document Manager compresses between paragraph spaces. No, I don't know those addresses, but I myself have been having trouble with the website. Concerning your recent NVN3 review, I was hoping that my Loyal Minions wouldn't notice that glitch in continuity. I guess your eyes and memory are sharper than mine.

Happy reading!

Chapter 3: Papercut

"Everybody has a face that they hold inside

A face that awakes when they close their eyes

A face that watches every time they lie

A face that laughs every time they fall

(And watches everything)

So you know that when it's time to sink or swim

That the face inside is watching you too, right inside your skin!"

Linkin Park, "Papercut"

after school

Norman Osborn had insisted on picking up Harry himself after school. Harry squirmed in the shotgun seat; he knew what was going to happen.

"How was your day, Harry?" Norman asked, in a tone of voice that implied he didn't really care. Harry didn't volunteer information.

"We need to talk."

Harry gulped. This could only go downhill from here.

"Go ahead. Ask me about what."

Harry gulped again. "Talk about what?"

"Your friend Parker. If the papers are right, he was taken hostage and murdered by a supervillain."

"The papers are right, Dad."

"He was there because he was taking pictures of Spider-Woman for the Daily Bugle, isn't that right?"

Harry was tempted to correct him, to tell him that Peter only went to the bank to cash his check, that Peter was only at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he knew better. The reason Peter was at the bank was irrelevant. The outcome was the same.

"I always thought Parker was a great kid. He was so brilliant, he had so much potential, he had such a bright future ahead of him, and—" Norman snapped his fingers. "Boom. Gone, just like that."

Harry was uncomfortably aware that Norman regarded Peter as a son, even more than his real one.

"You know that I hold Spider-Woman responsible for his death. Just as responsible as Doctor Octopus."

"You seem grieved, Dad."

"Well, who else was going to run Oscorp when I'm gone?" he asked. Because it sure as hell wasn't going to be you, shit for brains, Norman mentally continued. Sometimes I'm ashamed to admit you have half my genes.

"Look, son. Do you want to see justice done? Do you want to avenge your friend's murder?"

"If that's what you have in mind, Dad, Spider-Woman has disappeared—"

Norman was thoroughly irritated now. "That was a yes or no question, Harry. What is it?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"If this girl is as powerful as the papers say, you'll never be able to take her on alone. I know a way you can."

Peter haunted Mary Jane night and day. His ghost appeared even when she was just riding the school bus home, prompting her, like Hamlet, to carry on her moral duty.

Sometimes I want to ask God why He allows injustice, violence, and evil, when He can do something about it. You're with God now, Peter. Will you ask Him that for me, next time you see Him?

Don't you think that God is asking you the same question, Mary Jane? he'd answer.

evening

Harry, wearing naught but green swimming trunks, fidgeted as his father adjusted the straps of the gurney inside the glass isolation chamber. He started to wonder exactly what he'd gotten himself into. Let that be a lesson to you: never sign your ass up for something your head don't know about.

Norman checked the monitor readings one, two, five times. He thought about all those movies he'd seen featuring mad scientists trying out some kind of formula on themselves, becoming their own human guinea pigs. He shook his head. How could anyone be that dumb? He knew better than that. The chief maxims he followed in his business life were, to wit, never invest with your own money, use someone else's; and never test your formulae on yourself, use volunteers that were properly motivated by money, or in this case, revenge. However, Harry was starting to look positively ill, quickly losing his nerve.

"Dad—what are you doing with that?"

"Do you want to punish Spider-Woman or not?"

"Yeah sure, but what does this—"

Norman cut his son off. "I've read the papers. Her strength, speed, and agility are inhuman. Spider-Woman will yank your arm off and shove it up your ass as soon as look at you. You're going to need some extra help, which I am gladly giving to you, free of charge. Be grateful and get in."

Harry stepped into the chamber, up to the gurney, grumbling all the way. Lord only knew what was going to happen.

"Don't be a coward, boy," Norman disdainfully admonished as he checked the printout for the tenth time. "Risks are part of laboratory science."

It was then that Harry knew that the stakes were as high for his father as they were for him. Harry Osborn's bed was made; now he had to lie in it.

"She hardly talks anymore," the nurse informed Mary Jane as they clipped the stark hallways of Bellevue. "We have her on some medication for her depression. She might not even recognize you."

There was a stark distinction in Mary Jane's life before and after the spider bite. Before, she wouldn't dream of going into a place like this. She especially wouldn't be caught dead being seen with an actual patient.

But that was then, and this is now, she told herself. This is what misusing my powers has done. This is where abjuring my responsibility has led me.

A good start, but it's not too late to accept it, Peter's voice intruded in her head, and then her nerve failed her.

Mary Jane thrust the roses and the cookie platter at the nurse. "Just take these to May Parker," she said. "I think it's—too soon."

You mean not soon enough, Peter rebuked.

Norman thrust a bottle towards Harry. "Sodium phosphate. Decreases nausea when the vapor hits the bloodstream. Down the hatch."

Harry accepted the flask with half a smile. "Cheers," he said, and drank it in one gulp.

Because Harry's mouth was otherwise occupied, Norman belatedly offered a toast. "To the realization of man's true capabilities."

"To the memory of Peter Parker," Harry added. "To the successful defeat and capture of Spider-Woman."

Norman buckled the straps securely, crossed his fingers and hit an array of switches. The gurney, Harry still strapped on, lifted up inside the tank. Harry was frightened and frantic, and obviously disturbed that his father remained a picture of perfect calm. It seemed like Norman neither knew nor cared about what the consequences of this whole endeavor would be. He was absolutely convinced that he was in the right and perfectly content to sit back after this and watch the human comedy.

Norman hit the final switch. Ghostly white gas poured through vents in the floor, creeping up Harry's legs and feet like a living thing.

Seeing the look of horror on his son's face, he sneered, "Calm the hell down, boy. It'll be worse for you if you don't."

Harry obeyed as the cloud enveloped him, finally forcing himself to take a deep breath. He started to breathe normally, sighed and smiled, and prepared to tell his father not to worry.

Until he started convulsing, his ice blue eyes rolled into the back of his head, feeling like someone stuck a hot needle into every nerve ending he had. He wanted to scream.

Norman was screaming at him now. "Don't worry, Harry! It will pass!"

Harry heard frantic beeping from the body monitors. It sounded like it was flat lining. No, that couldn't be. That meant no heartbeat, which meant you were dead. And he definitely wasn't dead. In fact, he felt more alive than ever. He felt like he was bigger, stronger than his own body, as if his body couldn't contain him anymore.

Norman watched, fascinated, as his formerly scrawny son began to "pump up," as it were. The last of the gas was starting to fade away. Harry gradually stopped convulsing and slowly opened his eyes. Success!

Harry slowly came to inside the tank, looking at his body like he'd never seen it before. He clenched his fists a few times, watching the veins pop out and in. He decided to jump for joy and scream, "Yes! I did it! I'm the man!"

It came out as a primal shriek. It felt great. He felt great.

Norman involuntarily stepped back. Harry ripped through the straps like they were made of tissue paper. Then he ripped the sensors off his chest, madness glinting in his eyes. It was like he was a totally different person!

Norman stepped up to his son, preparing to shake his hand to congratulate him on their triumph, and lasted exactly as long as it took Harry to notice him. He thought even with his son's new superpowers, he still had a strong psychological hold on him.

He was wrong. When Harry did notice him, he knocked his father away with one sweep of his arm.

The strength of the blow was stunning in its utter casualness. With no more effort than a child would use to brush away a fly, Norman soared up, into, and through the glass tank, sailing headfirst into a pillar across the room.

Ungrateful boy, Norman thought as his vision darkened, blood seeping on the floor.

Harry hungrily snatched the exoskeleton and the glider. I'll take these, thank you.

Mary Jane peered over a friend's shoulder. Her friend was reading the evening edition of the Daily Bugle, and the headline was, in typical Bugle fashion, "Oscorp CEO Murdered, Son Missing; Supervillain 'Green Goblin' Linked to Crimes."

My new boyfriend is missing just after I lost the old one. His father's dead and his experiments stolen, Mary Jane thought.

You know what you promised on my grave, Peter reminded her. You swore not to let anyone else's life end the same way mine did. Dead at the hands of a supervillain.

Finally, Mary Jane gave in. Okay, I get it! I get it! Tell God that for me, Peter! Tell God I've learned my lesson! You told me that with great power comes great responsibility. I was just ducking mine, thinking I was noble when I was really just looking for the easy way out and looking out for number one. I was Scrooge, and you were the Ghost of Christmas Present, telling me that mankind should have been my business. I get it now. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?

Doesn't really matter, does it? Peter replied. I'm dead, remember?