AUTHOR'S NOTE
This story is my own continuation of the events of the comic 'What If...? Dark: Spider-Gwen', a story in which Spider-Man died on the Brooklyn Bridge instead of Gwen Stacy. Scenes in this story are primarily based on the events of 'Amazing Spider-Man #124-130', along with various other issues.
Many thanks to jettmanas, who kindly did the cover art for this story.
All characters and concepts are owned by Marvel. This story is written for entertainment purposes, with no copyright infringement intended.
The torrential clap of thunder echoed loudly through the sky, as the thick, dark storm clouds hung ominously over the city of New York. The relentless downpour of rain continued to cascade down the rooftops, through the drain pipes and into the gutters of the city streets at the bottom. Those having to traverse along the streets with their coats and umbrellas mumbled complaints about the weather, and some even swore as they got soaked by cars splashing puddles at them.
This miserable weather perfectly reflected the equally wretched mood of Wilson Fisk, the notorious Kingpin of Crime. Although warm and dry in his office at the top level of his office block headquarters, it did nothing to relieve him of his feelings of intense displeasure, as he gazed out through the large glass window and onto the view of his city outside, his fist clenched tightly over the top of his cane. For the past week, the criminal rackets under his control have been subjugated to a series of attacks by the masked madman known as the Green Goblin. Several profitable, albeit illegal, ventures have been seriously disrupted, such as gambling interests and diamond smuggling operations, as they found themselves getting literally bombed out of existence.
Fisk had at first been puzzled by the Goblin's apparent declaration of war on him. But an anonymous message, delivered two days ago along with the head of one of the Kingpin's most loyal lieutenants, made the position clear. The Goblin wanted a cut of all criminal operations in New York, and these attacks were merely a demonstration of the Goblin's power, to show how formidable he was, and to force Fisk into a position to negotiate on the madman's terms.
Fisk could not help but admire the Goblin's sheer audacity. But if the masked lunatic thought that he could intimidate the mighty Kingpin, he was in for a disappointment. Fisk had no intention of bowing to anyone, and he had some extensive research done by his men, which had brought some interesting revelations to light. Revelations that might make the Goblin think twice before he made any further attempts to muscle in on the Kingpin's business.
As Fisk mused over all this, he was unsurprised to see the figure of the Goblin, flying through the stormy sky on his Goblin Glider, straight towards the Kingpin's office. Even from this distance, Fisk could make out the manic grin on the Goblin's grotesque green mask and the sheer look of insanity in his eyes. But this did not bother the Kingpin one bit. Although he was a bit annoyed when the Goblin came crashing through the window, sending shards of glass all over the carpeted floor, before he took up a hovering position directly in front of Fisk.
"It is customary to knock before entering another's dwelling," said the Kingpin crisply, as he regarded the Goblin thoughtfully.
"Pah! The Green Goblin can go wherever he wishes," sneered the Goblin. "I've given you enough time, Fisk. Will you agree to surrender certain control of your operations to me, or shall I be forced to put you out of business permanently?"
"Neither," said the Kingpin simply. "However impressive your theatrics may have been, they have caused me a certain amount of indignation. As has your clear lack of respect for your elders, boy."
"Fool!" snarled the Goblin. "Have you not heard of the power of the Green Goblin? Do you not know that it was I who recently slew that accursed masked meddler, Spider-Man?"
Fisk gave a cold smile. "I have heard rumours that the Goblin has indeed rid the city of Spider-Man. But I have done some digging of my own, and I know that the real Goblin is dead. Slain by his own son, with the aid of some other, currently unknown, person. Is that not true... Mr Harold Osborn?"
The Goblin gave a loud, almost inhuman, cry of rage, the insane look on his face growing greater than before. "You are mistaken, Fisk! There is no Harry Osborn anymore! Just the Green Goblin!"
"No, a pale imitation of the Goblin. Nothing more," said Fisk evenly. "I will concede that you are mildly impressive, for an amateur, but it is now time for your infernal interference to come to an end!"
With a snap of Fisk's fingers, the main office doors burst open, and several of the Kingpin's most lethal bodyguards burst into the room, their guns already trained on the Goblin. But as the triggers were pulled and bullets were sent flying forwards, the expert killers were left shocked, as the Goblin sent his glider flying across the room at an incredible velocity, evading the deadly projectiles with ease. Before the guards had a chance to recover their wits and take aim again, the Goblin sent a series of pumpkin bombs flying right at them, exploding at their feet and knocking them all to the ground.
Irate that he would have to handle matters himself, the Kingpin raised his cane, in truth a deadly laser gun in disguise, in order to personally blast the Goblin into atoms. But as Fisk pulled the trigger, the Goblin moved with unbelievable speed and sent another pumpkin flying straight at the cane, hitting the nozzle just as the laser beam was discharged. There came a tremendous explosion and a loud cry from the Kingpin, both a mixture of pain and self-anger, as his blackened and scorched form stumbled backwards. Before Fisk had a chance to recover, the Goblin fired a titanium cable from his glider, which wrapped itself firmly around Fisk's waist. The very next second, the Goblin was flying back out through the shattered window and across the rainy sky, dragging the Kingpin along with him.
"A pale imitation, you said? Perhaps your research was not as thorough as you believed!" said the Goblin mockingly, grinning manically as he gazed down at the dishevelled form of the Kingpin dangling below him.
"Don't be a fool, Osborn!" bellowed the Kingpin. "Harm me, and my business associates will see to it that evidence of your true identity will be leaked to the press and the police! You will be hounded forever, unable to return to your life as Harry Osborn!"
"What does it matter to me?" laughed the Goblin. "I told you, Harry Osborn is dead! There is only the Green Goblin!"
With a final manic cackle, the Green Goblin released the cable and sent his unwilling passenger plummeting helplessly down towards the ground far below like a large stone. He did not even bother to look back to check where the Kingpin landed, as he was too busy thinking over his own schemes for taking control of the criminal underworld, just as his father, the first Green Goblin, had always intended to do. Once the entire underworld was in his grasp, he could then direct his intention towards the one truly responsible for his father's death. Although he could have destroyed his prey at any time weeks ago, there was no real rush, and the longer he postponed his inevitable revenge, the sweeter it would be when it finally came about. For without any powers of her own, Gwen Stacy would be completely unable to stand against the power of the Green Goblin...
Across town, Gwendolyne Maxine 'Gwen' Stacy was in her apartment, standing by a window and gazing thoughtfully at the rain outside, a tear in her eye as she thought of all that had happened to her, since the day her whole world had shattered, and the enormous decision she now faced and was trying to gather the courage to undertake.
Just three months ago, she had been kidnapped by the masked villain know as the Green Goblin, who had taken her to the Brooklyn Bridge, with the intention of using her as bait for a final deadly trap for the Amazing Spider-Man. Though she had been unconscious through much of the incident, including the final battle between Spider-Man and the Goblin, Gwen had been able to piece together the horrifying tragedy that had followed. The Goblin had thrown her right over the top of the high bridge, sending her plummeting down towards the water at the bottom, and Spider-Man leapt after her in a desperate bid to save her. Although the web-swinger had succeeded, using his own body to cushion Gwen's fall into the water, it had come at the greatest cost of all. For in the process, Spider-Man had struck the side of a bridge pillar and snapped his neck, killing him instantly.
Upon waking in the cold river water, a shaken and confused Gwen had found the body of Spider-Man floating next to her like a broken doll. Removing the hero's mask in a desperate attempt to see if he was still alive, Gwen was devastated to discover that her dead rescuer was her own boyfriend, Peter Parker. As the Green Goblin flew off to gloat over his victory, Gwen, in her shock, acted to protect Spider-Man's identity by quickly stripping off his costume and discarding it in the river, before the police boats arrived to rescue her and fish out Peter's body. She had told the police that the Goblin had taken her and Peter both hostage at random, and that when Gwen fell off the bridge, Peter dived after her. The last part of Gwen's story was certainly true, and by omitting those certain details concerning what she had discovered, she ensured that Peter would be remembered as a hero by those who knew and loved him.
Determined to avenge the death of the man she loved, a grief-stricken and angry Gwen had donned a modified version of one of Peter's spare costumes, and with Harry Osborn's help, she managed to capture the Goblin in an abandoned warehouse, using Peter's leftover web fluid. Although she had intended to kill the ensnared Goblin herself, using her father's old police gun, when the moment came and she had the Goblin at her mercy, Gwen realised that cold-blooded murder was not the way to honour Peter's memory and she choose to spare the man who had killed Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Harry felt differently, and before anyone could stop him, he had snatched up the discarded gun and killed the Goblin himself. The young man was subsequently horrified to discover that the Green Goblin was his own father, Norman Osborn, and the shock caused him to become unhinged. Blaming Gwen for leading him to kill his father, Harry ultimately took up the mantle of the Green Goblin and begun terrorising the city.
As her thoughts came back to the present, Gwen wiped the tears from her eyes, her heart heavy from guilt, not only of the mess she had caused, but of how she had treated Spider-Man, since her own father's death. For a long time, she had hated and blamed the web-spinner for the death of Captain George Stacy, and now she realised just how unfair she had been to Peter's alter ego. Was she not, after all, as much to blame for Norman Osborn's death as she once felt Spider-Man supposedly was for George Stacy's? More so in fact, since what had happened to her father was in truth an accident, whereas the death of Norman Osborn was premeditated. Maybe she was not the one who pulled the trigger in the end, but Gwen felt that she was to an extent guilty of being the one who had set that chain of events in motion. She felt like an absolute heel.
She kept thinking of the hate she had seen in Harry's eyes, directed towards her, and she wondered if that was the same look she had given Spider-Man. The thought that the hate and rage that had consumed Harry could easily have consumed her made Gwen shiver, and she knew that it was only a matter of time before the new Green Goblin would come for her, to exact his revenge on her as he promised. Frankly, it had surprised her that he had not done so already.
All this made Gwen all the more determined to fix her mistakes and properly honour Peter's memory. However, it soon proved easier said than done, for although she had been able to get the hang of Peter's old equipment, such as deciphering his web fluid formula to make her own batch, she was without powers of her own, which left her at a clear disadvantage. One particularly embarrassing moment occurred when she tried to pursue the new Goblin, donning her makeshift spider-costume in an alley, whereupon she fired a web-line, swung upwards... and crashed in undignified pile on top of some bin bags. After that humiliating scene, Gwen took up judo and agility classes to help train herself up, but she knew that whatever skills she had learnt in such a short time would not be enough by themselves to stop Harry.
There was only one solution that Gwen could think of, and that was to find some way to get spider-powers of her own. But she had no idea how Peter had gotten his own powers, so she was essentially working in the dark. However, Gwen was a brilliant student of biochemistry, and for the last couple of months, she had studied harder than she had ever done before at the Empire State University library, reading all the books and research papers written by scientists like Professor Miles Warren and Doctor Curt Conners. In addition, she had been lucky enough to discreetly get hold of some spider specimens that some fellow students had finished with for some science experiments and were in the process of chucking out. Then, once she was ready, she had begun work in her apartment, using her own chemistry equipment to create a serum that would hopefully duplicate Peter's own powers.
Snapping her mind back to the present, Gwen cast her eyes towards the table, upon which was a glass vial containing the now completed serum, partly created using various forms of spider-venom and DNA. The long work of the past couple of months had been finished just two hours ago, and now Gwen was faced with the moment of decision, whether to take the risk and drink the bubbling liquid now. Although all the tests she had made indicated that it should perform as she hoped, she knew that the serum could still produce potentially dangerous side-effects that she had no way of predicting. It could kill her, or turn her into some six-legged monster, or maybe do absolutely nothing at all. There was simply no way to tell what effect it would have on her.
Gwen's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden buzzing of her phone, and as she picked the device up, she gave a small smile as she saw on the screen that it was Mary Jane Watson calling. The young red-head had been an absolute rock of support since Peter's death, and Gwen was not sure how she would have been able to cope without MJ's friendship and happy nature to give some light through the gloom. Gwen had tried to spend as much of her spare time as she could to hang out with her friend, who was now rapidly becoming her best friend, as it helped remind her that however bleak things had been lately, at least she was not entirely alone.
"Hi MJ, what's up?" said Gwen as she answered the phone.
"Gwen, have you seen the news in the last hour?" came the almost frantic voice on the other end of the line.
"No. Why? What's the matter?"
"You better see for yourself. It's about Harry."
Her heart suddenly filled with growing trepidation, Gwen dashed over to her laptop and quickly checked the local news sites. What she read made her blood run cold:
"GREEN GOBLIN UNMASKED!" stated the main headline. "ANONYMOUS SOURCE REVEALS MASKED CRIMINAL TO BE DECEASED BUSINESSMAN, NORMAN OSBORN. MANTLE ASSUMED BY SON, HARRY OSBORN".
Gwen read the rest of the article in a blur, barely able to take all this in. Whoever this 'anonymous source was', they had given the press full details of Norman's criminal activities, as well as how Harry was the one who killed his own father and taken the role of the Green Goblin. The only thing omitted in the article was Gwen's own involvement in what had happened, apparently because no-one else knew she was there when Harry had pulled the trigger.
Gwen's mind was racing, as she tried to take in the full ramifications of this. Now everyone would be on the hunt for Harry, and if they caught up with him, it could lead to a bloodbath, considering the state of his mind and the weapons at his disposal. And it would be her fault, since she was the one who had unintentionally set Harry down the path he had taken.
As she slumped down in her chair, almost in a daze, Gwen remembered that Mary Jane was still talking on the phone.
"Gwen? Are you there?"
"Yeah. I'm still here," said Gwen quietly.
"Sorry, I guess this must be as much a shock to you as it is for me," said Mary Jane gently. "Do you want me to come round over?"
"No, I... I'll be fine, Mary Jane," said Gwen. "I just need time to process all this. How about you? Are you coping okay?"
"I don't know, Gwen," sighed Mary Jane. "After all that's been happening lately, I just feel a bit... numb. Get what I mean?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do," said Gwen. "Look, I do appreciate you calling me. Why don't I catch up with you for coffee tomorrow, when we've both had a chance to take this in?"
"Sounds good to me," said Mary Jane, trying her best to sound chirpy. "Okay, I'll catch up with you later. Just... take care of yourself, okay?"
"Thanks. You too," said Gwen, before she ended the call and slowly put the phone down on the table.
Gwen's eyes wandered back over to the vial containing the serum, her mind now made up. It was her responsibility to catch Harry, before anyone else got hurt. And that meant she had to take the ultimate risk, to give her the abilities she needed to stop the Green Goblin.
Hands trembling slightly as she thought of the desperate gamble she was about to take, Gwen picked up the vial and held it up before her, wondering one last time if this would be the right choice. But deep down, she knew she had nothing to lose. Both her father and the man she loved were dead, and one of her closest friends had now become a monster, all because of her. However great the risk, she had to take it.
"Ah well, here goes nothing," sighed Gwen to herself, as she then put the beaker to her lips and downed the contents in one gulp. Almost immediately, her head began spinning and she started to feel incredibly nauseous. As she swayed about on the spot, the now empty beaker fell out of her hands and shattered on the floor. Struggling against the dizziness that was enveloping her, Gwen managed to stumble over to her bedroom and collapsed on top of the soft duvet, her whole body sweating and shaking violently, as the effects of the potion took effect at an incredible speed.
As she felt consciousness slipping away from her, Gwen dimly knew that there was no turning back for her now. She could only pray that she had not made another dreadful mistake, and that the serum would indeed give her the chance to rectify the errors she had made before.
Then she blacked out completely.
TO BE CONTINUED!