XXXV. Interconnection
When the first police-car in the neighborhood arrived on the scene, the two NYPD officers took one look at the goings-on and decided not to get out of the car. There were craters from explosions, wackos with big guns, some big furry monsters beating the tar out of each other, and at least three spider-people fighting everyone. "Hey, uh, Bob," said the officer in the passenger-seat, "what do you say we let the spiders take care of this one? Maybe set up a perimeter and phone it in?"
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea, Joe," said the other cop. He turned the car around and positioned it to block off the street from that direction. Then he radioed for backup.
• • •
After Felicia ran off into the church, Gwen balled a fist and threw herself at Kraven. The hunter's instincts kicked in; he ducked, and Gwen's punch connected solidly with Man-Wolf's jaw, staggering the beast back.
"Do not interrupt our battle!" Kraven demanded.
"I ain't interrupting squat, jungle-boy; I'm ending it!" Gwen pivoted around and took another swing at him.
Kraven smiled as he made easy work of dodging the girl's punches. She had spirit, but she was inexperienced. "Perhaps someday, you will make a worthy opponent, little one," taunted Kraven. "But not today." He reached out and snatched Gwen by both wrists.
Gwen, at least, was both strong and fast enough to reverse the hold, breaking free for a second, but neither fighter was willing to back off. So they gripped each other by the hands and pushed, Kraven matching his strength against Gwen's. Then it was Gwen's turn to smile—and her hands started glowing. "Night-night, Jungle-Boy."
Kraven barely had time to utter a surprised "What?" before Gwen zapped him with her bio-blast. She fed the current directly into Kraven's arms, using just as much juice on him as she'd used on Peter earlier; and Kraven went out like a light. He slumped to the ground, unconscious, just in time for Man-Wolf to recover and tackle them both from behind.
The three of them went rolling across the ground, Man-Wolf howling in a berserker fury and raking his claws into both Kraven and Spider-Woman. Gwen cried out in pain at the first set of lacerations into her flesh, but then she just got angry. She pushed away with all her might, springing high into the air; then she turned a flip and landed on her feet. Man-Wolf was up in an instant too, all thoughts of Kraven forgotten now. He snarled like a mad dog and stared Gwen down.
They both exploded into motion, Man-Wolf charging Gwen and Gwen firing a spray of webbing from all her fingertips. The werewolf kept on coming, kept on swiping with his claws, but Gwen just walked backwards as fast as she could, laying on the webbing as quickly as it could come out. (So far, she hadn't found a limit on how much web-fluid she could secrete in a day; but she was starting to feel a little hungry now.) Eventually, Man-Wolf's forward momentum slowed to a halt, with a thick net of webs holding him firmly in place, even as he continued to struggle and rage.
Gwen, breathing heavily, tried to focus all of her remaining bio-energy into her hands. "Your turn, Wolfie," she said. "Eat hadouken." The energy formed into a glowing yellow-green ball, which she threw at Man-Wolf. The blast caused Man-Wolf to yelp in pain, but it didn't knock him out. He just kept on tearing at the webs, trying to claw himself free. "Aw, nuts," muttered Gwen. She was really starting to feel the fatigue from using her bio-blasts so heavily.
• • •
A short distance away, the gunfight between the Punisher and the Wild Pack had just come to an end, and now Castle found himself squared off against both Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider. "I don't suppose there's any chance you'll both give yourselves up and come quietly?" asked Castle.
"Funny," said Spidey, "I was just about to suggest the same thing. I'm gonna guess you don't have a permit for that?"
"What, this?" asked Castle, brandishing the net-launcher. "Nah. They don't even issue permits for tech like this." He fired a lazy shot at Spidey, who easily dodged the weighted net.
"So we're really gonna do this, huh?" asked Spidey.
"Looks like," said Scarlet. "Impact webs?"
"You really like those," Spidey commented.
"I really do," she affirmed.
Castle stood his ground and calmly reached for a bandoleer of grenades which he'd had strapped across his chest. While the spiders started firing explosive little web-balls at his feet, he danced back out of the way and threw the bandoleer—depressing a switch as he did so, which removed the pins from all of the grenades fixed to the strap and sent them scattering off in the general direction of the two spider-heroes.
Frag grenades, incendiary grenades, smoke-screens, flash-bangs, tear-gas, knockout-gas… a dozen different kinds of explosions all went off around Spidey and Scarlet. They dodged at first, but soon enough they were coughing, tearing up underneath their masks, and staggering blindly through clouds of gas and smoke.
Peter, almost blind to the world except for his spider-sense, coughed and stumbled ahead, feeling around for MJ. "Red… I can't… where'd you go…?"
Castle stood and waited. The smoke wouldn't dissipate for a while yet, but in the full moonlight, he could just barely make out some shadows moving within the cloud. As soon as he was sure he had a target, he fired the net-gun, latched onto someone, and reeled them in. A few seconds later, he dragged a coughing and sputtering Scarlet Spider out of the gas-cloud. Castle smiled; Spider-Man might have been the famous one that the crazies were always chasing after, but Scarlet Spider was the one that he genuinely wanted to bring down. After all, she was a known criminal—heists to her name and blood on her hands. If anyone could tell him where the Green Goblin was, she could. And she was the one that Harry Osborn wanted to question, for whatever reason. Which meant that it was time to go.
He picked up his now incapacitated quarry, slinging her over one shoulder, still wrapped up in the titanium net. He carried her over to the Battle-Van and threw her into the back. Then, for an added measure, he pulled a very big gun out of his van—an M249 SAW, the "Squad Assault Weapon" anti-personnel machine-gun—and he proceeded to waste the whole area with 5.56mm rounds, focusing mainly on the cloud of gasses and vapors where Spider-Man was probably already succumbing.
If Spider-Man hadn't been killed by the grenades, surely that would've done it. Satisfied, the Punisher placed the machine-gun back inside his van, shut the back, and strolled around to the driver's seat. After making sure that the Spider-Woman in the white and gray costume was still too occupied fighting that wolf-man to notice him and possibly follow, he climbed into the driver's seat and took off.
• • •
Gwen pressed the fight against Man-Wolf, shooting webs with her right hand and letting off little green bio-blasts with her left. The bio-blasts seemed to be tiring her out just as fast as they worked on her opponent, though, so eventually she gave up on that strategy. Whatever this Man-Wolf was made out of, it couldn't be natural. It was as if he could heal from any wound, given sufficient time to regenerate.
Blade came roaring back out of the church, looking for someone, anyone to fight. He saw the varcolac still up, still fighting, and he realized that he still had a chance. The creature was bound to the service of Morbius; it would follow the vampire wherever he went. He just needed to turn it loose, and track it. So he strode up to Man-Wolf and Spider-Woman and placed his sword between them. "Stop fighting!" he commanded.
Gwen paused and stared at Blade. Her white mask, with its big lucha libre-style eyes, hid her expression, but Blade could tell from the way that she was breathing so heavily that she was in no shape to carry on fighting anyway. Man-Wolf looked a little bit worn down too, but that would never stop a lycanthrope. So Blade addressed the creature directly: "Your master has fled," he said, pointing his sword to the sky. "There's nothing more for you here."
Man-Wolf tilted his head, as if he were skeptically considering Blade's words. Then he lifted his muzzle skyward and sniffed the air. The creature's eyes widened when he realized that Blade was telling the truth: Morbius and Debra were gone from this place, fleeing. He reared back and howled at the moon before turning and running off into the night.
"What the… hell was that?" huffed Gwen. "You're just… letting him go?"
"He is no longer your concern," said Blade. "I will follow the creature. You would be wise not to follow me."
Blade was already getting back onto his motorcycle and zooming away, when Felicia finally rejoined Gwen. "Where did everybody go?" asked Black Cat.
Gwen looked around. "Uh… I'm not exactly sure."
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack were still mostly present and conscious, either webbed up or netted. But now that Man-Wolf was gone, and Blade after him, the girls realized that Peter and MJ were nowhere to be found, and that some kind of gas-cloud now filled the street out in front of the church.
Gwen went rushing into the cloud, covering her mouth with one hand and futilely trying to wave the gas away with the other. "Spidey! Red!" She coughed as she shouted. "Where are you guys!?"
"Over here!" said Felicia. She found Peter rolling on the ground nearby, half-conscious and coughing his lungs out.
"MJ…" he sputtered. "He got MJ…"
"Crap," breathed Gwen. "Who was that guy?"
"The Punisher," said Felicia. "He's like a bogeyman to anyone who's ever done anything criminal. Some ex-military nut who thinks he can just run around killing people for jaywalking."
"What!?" cried Peter. He was still weak, but he was starting to come around. "We have to go after her… if he kills her…"
"He might have taken her alive as bait for us," suggested Cat. "I think he wants us all dead."
"It's not that!" said Silver Sable. "Get me out of this, and I'll tell you where he's taking her!"
Gwen walked over to Sable and said, "You attacked us too. Why shouldn't we just leave you for the cops?"
"I was hired to bring you people in," spat Sable. "So chances are, that's where the Punisher is taking your friend. Get me out of this net, and I can tell you who hired me. Deal?"
"Yeah, sure," said Gwen. She started untangling Silver Sable from the titanium mesh. "Who sent you?"
"The president of Oscorp," said Sable once she was free. "Harry Osborn. He thinks you all killed his daddy, and he wants revenge."
Gwen, Peter, and Felicia all started at Sable's words. "H—Harry Osborn?" repeated Peter.
"Yeah," said Sable. "Rich little snot. But I don't care anymore. He tried to break out of our contract, and now one of my men is dead. So if you guys want to go beat him up or kill him or something, go right ahead. Little punk deserves it."
She didn't even get a reply. Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, and Black Cat were already off and swinging their way back towards Manhattan.
• • •
The Battle-Van pulled up to the curb outside Oscorp. Castle climbed into the back of the vehicle and found Scarlet Spider sitting upright, still tangled up in his net. "Don't bother struggling," he said. "Even your strength can't break through that."
Scarlet Spider didn't say anything. Although she was terribly pissed to have been caught in a net again. It had been embarrassing enough the first time, during the fight with the Spider-Slayer. Now it was just humiliating.
"You don't have to give me the silent treatment," said Castle. "I'm not gonna kill you. Probably not, anyway."
"Who are you?" asked MJ at last.
"Someone who punishes evildoers. That's all you need to know."
"I'm not evil," said MJ.
"Really?" Castle rummaged through his gear until he found a tablet computer, switched it on, and pulled up a file. "Assassinations, bank-robberies, prison-breaks… Scarlet Spider's a good name for you. You've got a lot of red in your ledger."
MJ shook her head, her voice quavering. "That… that wasn't me!"
"Oh? A different super-powered spider-person in a red costume did all the bad, nasty stuff, and you're just a rosy-smelling super-hero?" Castle set aside the tablet and chuckled. "What kind of dope do you take me for?"
MJ looked around. There were no windows in the back of the van. She didn't have any idea where she was. And she was completely at the mercy of this psychopath. "Where are we?"
"You'll find out soon enough," said Castle. "First, let's find out about you. Then maybe I can piece your story together." He started to undo the net, just enough to untangle MJ's head. With one swift pull, he removed her mask and sat back, staring. "Well, well." He picked up the tablet computer again and scrolled through some more files, until he matched a photograph to the face in front of him. "Here we are: Mary Jane Watson. Kidnapped by the Green Goblin…" then Castle let out a low whistle, "…and the Goblin killed your parents. Huh."
For a long while, Castle stared at MJ. She had a look of wide-eyed, abject fear on her face. Finally, he asked, "What happened? The Goblin murdered your parents; so did you… take revenge? Is that why the Green Goblin hasn't been seen in a while? Did you kill him?"
"All right, yes, the Goblin is dead!" said MJ at last. "But I didn't kill him! He killed himself during a fight with Spider-Man!"
"That's convenient," said Castle. From his tone, MJ could tell that he wasn't convinced at all.
"Why are you even doing this!?" cried MJ. "Why come after us? If you want to stop criminals, shouldn't you be going after crime bosses like the Kingpin?"
"You make a fair point, kid," said Castle, "but the problem with that is, nobody's really sure just who the Kingpin is—"
"Yes we are!" said MJ. "It's not like it's a big secret or anything—he's Wilson Fisk!"
"Really? You know that for a fact?"
MJ nodded.
"Well that case… thanks. I might just have to pay him a visit later." Castle picked up MJ's mask and carefully put it back on over her head. "But that doesn't get you out of this. Now come on; let's go meet a friend." He opened the back of the van, picked MJ up over his shoulder, and carried her outside.
Mary Jane was upside down and backwards, slung over the Punisher's back, but when she finally realized where she was—Oscorp—she got a very bad feeling indeed.
• • •
Harry Osborn paced around his office impatiently. The recent fight between the Spider-Squad, the Wild Pack, and the Punisher had finally made the news. Details were sketchy, but there was a chance that Harry would finally have his desires realized at long last—the identity of one of the spiders, and the truth about what had happened to his father.
When Frank Castle finally burst into Osborn's office, carrying the Scarlet Spider with him in a metal net, Harry grinned wide and almost felt like dancing. "You did it!"
"Yeah," said Castle. He set MJ down on one of the office chairs. "Here you go, kid. I trust you can handle things from here?"
"Oh, you bet," said Harry. "Wait; are you leaving?"
"I just got some very interesting intel about the Kingpin," said Castle. "So, yeah, I gotta go. You two kids have fun now."
And just like that, the Punisher left.
He left Harry Osborn alone with the Scarlet Spider. Harry looked at the costumed woman; she was staring back at him through those blank white eye-pieces in her mask. What is she thinking about? he wondered. Does she know what I'm going to do to her if I don't get what I want?
At last, he spoke. "I guess you know why you're here."
"I didn't kill your father."
"But you know who did!"
Scarlet Spider remained silent.
"All right," said Harry with a decisive nod, "if that's how it has to be." He walked over to his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out a knife—really just a very sharp letter-opener that Norman Osborn had liked to keep in his office—and stalked back over to Scarlet. He pointed the knife at her neck.
"Harry…"
"Don't you think you should call me 'Mr. Osborn'?" He reached for her mask and added, "Let's find out who you really are."
Mary Jane started to struggle against the net. "No, Harry, please don't—!"
The mask came off. Harry Osborn found himself staring down into the eyes of Mary Jane Watson, a girl he'd been friends with for years—even loved, if mostly from afar. "No," said Harry, stumbling back and dropping the knife. "No, it can't be…"
MJ had finally had enough of this. Wasn't she by far the strongest member of the Spider-Squad? She strained all of her muscles against the titanium-mesh net, and finally, one the strands snapped—and when that one gave way, the whole net weakened and the rest soon followed. In seconds, she was free.
Harry, still in shock, fell down to his knees. "MJ… you killed my father?"
"No, Harry!" said MJ, kneeling down beside him. "None of us did. Your father killed himself."
"I don't believe it!" growled Harry, pushing her away. "You lied to me! Why should I ever believe anything you have to say?"
"Because it's the truth!" said MJ. "Listen, Harry—your father, he—" She was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass.
Spider-Man crashed right through the office window and swung into the room in that moment, with Spider-Woman and the Black Cat right behind him. "Let her go, Harry!" said Spidey angrily.
MJ looked up at Peter and said, "I already broke free, thanks. But I appreciate the thought."
Harry grabbed the sides of his head and screamed. "Arrrrgh! Why are you people in my life?!"
Still talking to Peter, MJ said, "I was just about to tell him the truth."
Peter sighed. "That's probably for the best."
"Harry, look at me," said MJ. "Your father was the Green Goblin. All along. I don't know how he pulled that two-places-at-once trick at the party when he kidnapped me, but it's true. Your father was a murderer, Harry. He killed my parents, just to spite me! And he really did kill himself. I was there. I saw it."
Harry groaned. "I don't… I don't know what to believe anymore."
"Believe us!" said Black Cat, who knelt down on the floor beside Harry and MJ. "We're your friends, Harry—and we always have been!" With that, she removed her domino mask. "See?"
"Felicia… you're… what?!"
Gwen and Peter looked at each other. Gwen said, "He deserves to know." And so Peter shrugged his shoulders, and they both pulled off their masks.
"Hey, buddy," said Peter, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "We'll give you a minute to take all this in."
Now Harry was confronted by the sight of his best friend Peter, revealed to be Spider-Man, sitting down before him; and Gwen standing there smirking down at all of them. "A real kick in the pants, ain't it, Osborn?" she said.
Something in Harry snapped then, and he started laughed. "Peter… it was you, all along?"
"Uh… yes."
"So… every time that I asked if you knew who he was, or how to find him, or how you took his pictures… you were him?" Now Harry was really losing it, gripping his sides and pounding the floor with a fist as he laughed.
"Harry, are you okay?" asked MJ.
"NO!" he shouted, his face suddenly contorting with rage. "No, I'm not!" He stood up and backed away from all of them. "First, you tell me that my dad was a criminal—a killer! And now I find out that everybody I know—everyone I've ever cared about—has been lying to me for—for—months and years?"
"Harry, it's not like that," said Felicia, standing up. "Sure, we all have secrets, but we keep them because we have to. To protect our families from… well, from what your father did to MJ."
Harry closed his eyes tightly and answered in a small voice, "Go away."
"What?" said Felicia.
Opening his eyes again, Harry fixed an angry stare on everybody in the room. "Go away! All of you, just… get out of here! Leave, now!" He scrambled for the knife on the floor, picked it up, and waved it threateningly. "Just leave me alone—I never want to see any of you, ever again!"
MJ said, "Harry—" and tried to approach him, but he pointed the knife at her.
"I'm serious," said Harry. "Get out of here, before I call the police."
MJ looked over at Peter sadly. He put an arm around her shoulder and said, "Maybe we should do as he says… let Harry sort this out for himself."
"All right," said MJ. "But I'm taking this." With reflexes that astonished Harry and baffled his sight, she shot out a web-line and plucked the knife right out of his hand. "Don't hurt yourself Harry. We're your friends; we love you."
One by one, they left him—Mary Jane, Peter, Gwen—they all put their masks back on and swung away from his office on webs. Felicia was the last to go. She paused in front of the broken window that Peter had crashed through and said, "I've… done some things in my life that I'm not proud of. But I didn't really have a choice, and now that I do… I'm trying not to let my past control me." She took a deep breath and heaved a heavy sigh. "It's hard sometimes. But it's worth it—to turn your life around and start doing the right thing. …Anyway. I'll keep in touch, Harry." And then she too was gone.
In a daze, Harry dragged himself over to his father's liquor cabinet—nobody had ever emptied it, despite the fact that the office was now occupied by a seventeen-year-old—and he retrieved a decanter of some amber-colored spirit. He didn't know what it was; he didn't care. He just opened the bottle and tried to lose himself within it.
• • •
Harry wasn't in school the next day, or the day after that. Friday was the day of the school play at Midtown High. (The upcoming Tuesday would be Election Day for the mayoral race, but already polls were starting to show that Sam Bullit was effectively sunk. The recent bad press following the mercenary debacle had done his campaign in completely, and a sound drubbing for both the candidate and his anti-vigilante platform was all but certain now.)
Over at Midtown High that evening, Mary Jane was amazing in the role of Othello's Desdemona. Peter and Gwen were there to see it, along with Aunt May and Aunt Anna. But Harry was nowhere to be found.
This was because, that very evening, Harry was sitting in on a late meeting with the Oscorp board of directors. He was badly hung over, even at that late hour; he wore his sunglasses while inside to conceal the dark circles under his eyes. And he didn't really pay much attention to the meeting, at least not until Donald Menken mentioned his name aloud. "…Which brings us to new business. First on the agenda is a counter-suit that Dr. Ratha filed with legal this morning, to remove Harry Osborn from both the presidency and the board."
Harry had been leaning back in his chair, listlessly counting the ceiling-tiles. Now he sat up and peeled off his sunglasses. Darkened eyes stared at Ratha. "What?"
Ratha smiled. "I'm pleased to report that a judge has granted us an injunction against a minor running the company. Harry, we expect you to be out of Norman's old office by tomorrow."
"You can't do this!" said Harry. "I'll fight you. My lawyers will—"
"Oh, certainly, I expect they'll keep things tied up for months," said Ratha. "Maybe even years. But in the meanwhile, company by-laws state that nobody under litigation can serve as acting president of the board. To that end, I hereby nominate Mr. Menken as your replacement, effectively immediately."
"Let's bring it to a vote," said Menken, who was almost instantly voted into the position. Menken fixed his gaze on Harry and said, "You're out… Mr. Osborn."
"Good luck ever getting back in," taunted Ratha.
Enraged, Harry rose from the table and went for the boardroom door. Just before he stormed out, he turned and faced the board-members. "Out, am I? We'll see…"
• • •
Something else happened over the course of those two days: the full moon waned. By Friday evening, it was in the waning gibbous phase. And on Saturday morning, Colonel John Jameson woke up in a jail cell in Atlantic City, having been arrested the previous night for… well, he didn't really remember, but one of the officers standing guard said something about multiple counts of assault and battery, public intoxication, and indecent exposure.
That afternoon, a woman in chic business attire met with Colonel Jameson outside the police station. She was short, kind of plain-looking, with brownish hair and big, thick glasses—everything about the woman said "awkward, nerdy lawyer". "Colonel? My name is Jennifer Walters, from the firm of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, & Holliway. I'm your lawyer."
"Who hired you?" asked John.
"Your father. He also posted your bail this morning." She opened a briefcase and pulled out a sheet of paper. "My firm specializes in cases with… unusual circumstances. Yours seems… pretty unusual. Is there anything you can tell me about what happened?"
"Not really," said John. "I'm afraid it's all a great, big blur."
"That's unfortunate," said Ms. Walters. "Nice necklace, by the way."
John looked down at the amulet around his neck. "What, this? It's just some cheap trinket I bought from a fortune-teller once. You want it?" He held it out to her.
Ms. Walters laughed. "Thank you, no. Mr. Jameson is already handling all the legal fees; didn't I mention that?" She blushed a little bit and added, "But, if you'd like to come have some coffee, I think there's a Starbucks on the corner—I mean, um, so that we can discuss the case, not for anything personal. Not that I wouldn't mind, since, you know, it's not every day I meet a famous, handsome astronaut. Oh, great; did I say that out loud? Now I'm babbling…"
Colonel Jameson coughed and blushed as well. Without even thinking much about it, he pitched the amulet into a nearby wastebasket and forgot all about it. He and Jennifer walked down the street together, away from the police station and out of our story.
• • •
That evening, Madame Cassandra Webb rolled her wheelchair up to the front door of an ugly old house in Greenwich Village. It looked like some kind of haunted mansion, right out of a Scooby-Doo episode—which made it stick out like a sore thumb, sandwiched as it was between much more modern-looking buildings. When she came to the front-porch stairs, she didn't bother trying to wheel herself up them; she just stopped and waited.
After a while, the door opened. A middle-aged man of Chinese descent, his head shaved bald, appeared in the doorway. "Madame Webb," he said. "Are you here to see the doctor?"
She replied by holding up one arm; dangling from her hand was the Amulet of Lycaon. "No; thank you, Wong, there's no need. But you may tell Stephen that I have no need for this any longer; it's served its purpose; and I'd like you to convey my thanks for his letting me borrow it."
"As you wish, Madame," said Wong. He bowed, took the amulet from her, and went to give it back to Dr. Strange.