Barely escaping the flames, Peter's leap carried him clean through the window and into the next room. He landed hard on his back but managed to use his momentum and quickly roll back onto his feet. That was when he saw him, the man who'd summoned him here.
"That sixth sense of yours is really something, Wall Crawler!" the Goblin shouted as he hovered about twenty feet over him. "No matter what I lay out for you, you always seem to have just enough time to escape!"
"If you like that so much, how about you come down here mano y mano?" Peter challenged. "I'd be happy to show you just how impressive my fists are!"
"Ah, but why settle for just the basics..." the Goblin said, pulling out two razor bats, "... when I am offering the premium package!"
He then flung them cross armed, with Peter doing a side flip and narrowly avoiding them. Wasting no time, he fired a web to pull himself up towards his nemesis, the Goblin responding by backing up and firing several blasts from his gloves his way. Quickly springing off a rafter rail and landing on a wall, Peter raced ahead of each blast, occasionally leaping to avoid one that was a little too close for comfort. Glancing back, he observed as his opponent followed him and, timing the moment just right, he performed a backflip and landed right behind the Goblin on his glider.
He then wrapped his opponent in a bear hug, tugging at him to try and yank them both off the Goblin's method of transport. Unfortunately, his opponent met him with seemingly equal resistance, the glider almost instinctually shifting to counter the weight, even as their course was thrown off partially, causing them to nearly collide with the floor at one point. The incident triggering an idea in Peter's head, he gave one more hard tug to the right, turning them just hard enough to where the glider crashed against a large vat still in the building and sending both men flying off it.
Contorting just right, Peter fired several webs, successfully pinning the Goblin to the hanger area.
"Wow, some premium package," Peter teased.
"Oh, but that was just the first part of it," the Goblin replied. He then slid out a hidden blade in his glove, slicing open the web and leaping back. "Here's the next part..."
Pressing a button on his gauntlet, Peter's spider sense then rang out as several large guns emerged from the sides of the wall.
"Oh wow, all this for me?" Peter questioned, his mind sent into a frenzy regarding what to do. "Very flattering, but..."
They began firing.
"REALLY UNNECESSARY!"
"Betty, send Robbie in for me, would you please?"
"Of course," his secretary replied. Jonah then took out his phone, moving around his desk as he searched for the directions to the location he'd just been given. He'd just grabbed his coat when the man he'd called for arrived.
"You wanted to see me, boss?"
"I just wanted you to know that I'm stepping out for a bit," he said, "and we've got that crew coming in to look our HVAC, so if anyone needs anything..."
"They can come to me, got it," Robbie finished for him. "What's the sudden urgency all about?"
"I got a call from an anonymous source," Jonah said. "Claims they might have a clue as to where the Green Goblin's base of operations is."
"And you're not telling the cops because..."
"Because I need to verify that this isn't some loser who has no time on his hands but to play a practical joke," Jonah explained. "If I call the police and waste their time like that..."
"I know, it'll look bad on you and all of us too," Robbie reasoned. "Well, if you think there's a good chance it's legitimate, I'm coming with you."
"Not a chance," Jonah said as he walked forward to leave his office. He was suddenly stopped, however, by a firm hand on his chest. He glanced up, his gaze meeting Robbie's.
"Jonah, this is too dangerous," he said. "I thought we were partners in this?"
"We are, Robbie," Jonah assured him, "but right now, I need you here. I need someone I can trust to watch over this place while I'm gone. Now, if you want to tag along with me outside of traditional office hours..."
"Traditional office hours?" Robbie questioned, stifling laughter. "I didn't think you even knew what those were, Jonah!"
Jonah then did something he rarely seemed to do these days: he chuckled.
"Don't worry, we can tear this town upside down looking for clues later," Jonah assured him.
Robbie sighed.
"Alright, if you're sure."
Putting on his hat, Jonah then stepped out of the office, where he was suddenly greeted by one Ned Leeds.
"Oh, boss, great!" he said. "Listen, I wanted to run something by you real fast..."
"Sorry, Leeds, I have a potentially hot lead of my own to check out," he said, moving past him. "Robbie can help you."
"Oh... okay," the man replied, but Jonah didn't even turn him around, paying him no mind as he made his way towards the elevator and pressed the button. He felt bad brushing off Ned like that; though they didn't agree on several things, he respected Ned as both a reporter and a man. Plus, there was a fifty-fifty chance at least that this wasn't even going to pan out. On the side that it did, however, it would prove too important to delay at all.
The elevator doors opening, Jonah side-stepped as a couple aforementioned HVAC workers came through before stepping inside, turning back to face the office area. Though they were more than fifty feet away, he could see the eyes of Robbie, Ned and Betty all trained on him. He knew they were concerned about him, but he remained stoic, determined not to let anything shake his resolve as the doors closed in front of him.
Peter was growing tired.
Granted, this wasn't in a purely physical sense, though his reflexes had been pushed to the extreme at points. No, he could go all day and night with the Goblin if he needed to, but that was just it: it was starting to feel like he needed to, and he didn't like it. Every time he thought he'd had an opportunity to pin his opponent for good, the Goblin had either broke free or managed to elude even his best-efforts while presenting still more bombs, razors bats, flamethrowers, gases, and seemingly anything else he could throw at him.
In short, the Goblin may have been giving him a chance, but he was blowing it. Not to mention the fact that the building, which had already been shaky in its foundation ever since the original accident, was likely about to come down at any minute. Though the property wasn't exactly heavily populated, he still didn't want to push the fight outside if he didn't have to, but if it came down to that versus the two of them being buried beneath a building's worth of rubble, the choice was clear.
His spider sense going off for what seemed like the billionth time since the fight had begun, Peter spun around just in time to see his opponent flying almost clean through the fire, his hand extended as he reached for him. Acting quickly, Peter took hold of the Goblin's wrist, firing another web onto the ceiling and pulling it taught. The ensuring momentum halt yanked his enemy clean off his glider, allowing Peter to toss his enemy out through a ceiling skylight. Firing two more webs, he yanked himself upward, quickly getting on top of his opponent before firing two more webs, slamming his opponent down hard against the roof, his knee keeping him pinned.
"Alright, Gobby, time for some Q before I have you hauled off to get some help," Peter spoke up. "Where's Harry? What have you done with him!?"
His enemy didn't answer, but instead broke out into a maniacal laugh.
"This isn't a game, Norman!" Peter yelled.
"It's always been a game between us, Parker!" the Goblin fired back almost gleefully. "And you can't even see yet that I've won this round!"
Peter could feel his spider sense more subtly this time; the light buzzing in the back of his skull was telling him that the roof they were on was about to give way, but he didn't care. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
"What are you talking about?"
"All the people you love will soon be gone!" the Goblin shouted, "and I'm about to take the first ones from you!"
Peter then seized Norman's throat, giving it a firm squeeze as he brought his face down closer to his nemesis's.
"Whatever you're about to do, CALL IT OFF!"
The Goblin, though he surely was struggling to breathe only smiled.
"It's too late," the Goblin mocked even as his voice was strained from Peter's hold on his throat. "The pieces have been put in place just today in fact! It should be any minute now..."
Peter's spider sense went off much harder this time, the roof giving way almost instantly. In the process, his grip on his opponent was loosened just enough for the glider to sweep in seemingly out of nowhere and carry Norman away.
"NO!"
Peter tried firing a web, but fallen debris cut it before it could even attach to anything. Acting quickly, he fired a web in another direction, managing to pull himself just ahead of more falling debris. He then made his way out a window, landing on the ground just in time to see the final collapse of the whole building, the dust shooting out past him. In all this, the Goblin was nowhere in sight.
"Alright, Pete, think!" he told himself. "What could he have planned to..."
Suddenly, a loud explosion could be heard in the distance; it was so intense that the ground shook beneath Peter's feet. He glanced out, seeing smoke rising in the distance.
That was when it hit him...
"No... that's the..."
The Bugle.
Though Jonah couldn't see with his eyes, he knew this city, specifically where the Bugle was like the back of his hand. As he quickly flagged down a cab and instructed it where to go, he kept hoping against hope that he was wrong, that ear-piercing explosion he'd just heard that had shaken the ground beneath his feet had not originated at the place where his life was, where all the people... no, he couldn't think that way... or should he prepare himself...
He wouldn't end up getting the time to decide which was the better option, as the taxi suddenly came to a stop, with a police officer coming up to the window of the driver. He tried to tell the man he couldn't pass, so Jonah shoved enough dollar bills to the front of the vehicle to cover his fee before stepping out of the cab, immediately heading for the corner of the block, where he would be able to see the Bugle building.
"Sir, this is a restricted area!" the officer shouted, coming alongside Jonah. "You need to..."
"Officer, with all due to respect, I NEED to see this," he said. "Let me pass."
The man ultimately ceded his position, and Jonah continued until he rounded the corner... and his jaw dropped at what he saw. The Daily Bugle, the largest media empire in the city and one of its tallest buildings, had completely been destroyed, a heap of rubble all that remained. For the longest time, he just stared at it, his mind seemingly unable to even begin to process the implications of what he was seeing even as another officer came up to him.
"Mr. Jameson, I'm so sorry."
Managing a thin swallow, Jonah fought to ask the questions he was afraid to know the answers to. He was not normally a man to struggle with words, but it took everything in him just to summon the will to make his first inquiry.
"What happened, officer?"
"It's hard to tell for sure until we investigate further, but one of our experts hypothesizes that, based on the manner the building came down, it was a series of bombs that produced explosions that caused the building to cascade back down in its original footprint."
Bomb? Like, terrorists? An enemy of the place? Who could have done this, and why would they do it?
Yet, despite all those questions floating around in his head, there was one other that terrified Jonah the most, yet he knew he needed to ask it next.
"Did anyone... did anyone make it out?"
The man's silence spoke volumes, especially accompanied by the shaking of his head.
"I'm sorry."
The man walked off, leaving Jonah alone to stare at the rubble. The very sight of it was now tearing his heart apart piece by piece, yet he was unable to pull himself away from it. His mind was simply racing to connect all the dots: Robbie, Betty, Ned, Ben Urich... it had to be the Goblin. Yes, it made sense, given that he'd chosen the Bugle to use as a means to break his announcement and leave taunting messages, which had been especially directed toward...
... toward the man who'd just swung onto the scene.
Peter couldn't believe the sight before him as he released his web, dropping to the forefront of the scene. The towering skyscraper that used to be the pride of its district was now nothing but rubble. He scoured around, searching for any sign of survivors, but found only workers doing clean up. An officer then started to walk past him.
"Excuse me," he said, grabbing the man by his sleeve and gaining his attention. "I need to know, did anyone... did anyone make it out?"
The man simply shook his head; it was clear he was taken aback by the situation at hand too, so Peter released his grip on him, turning back to the site before him.
"This was what he wanted," he thought, "to draw me out and make sure I couldn't be around to..."
"YOU HAVE SOME NERVE SHOWING UP HERE!"
Peter didn't even turn to face Jonah as the man was clearly drawing closer.
"Officer, arrest this menace for the destruction of the Daily Bugle!"
"Mr. Jameson, it's far too early to..."
"This is all your fault!" Jonah yelled in Peter's ear, seemingly turning his attention solely to him now. "If you didn't egg on these other costumed freaks, innocent people like them wouldn't get caught in the crossfire!"
Peter turned sharply to Jonah in anger, the man not even flinching as he maintained a hard, rageful stare. He maintained eye contact with him for a moment, neither one of them saying anything. As angry as he was at Jonah's tirade, he was far angrier at the circumstances, which he knew had taken important people from them both, which ultimately prompted a response.
"I'm sorry."
Turning and firing a web, he swung off even as Jonah yelled after him, shouting all manner of nasty things his way. Eventually, once he got far enough where the noise of a grieving man was drowned out and the sight of the destruction was no more, Peter tumbled onto a high rooftop. His breathing growing heavy, he yanked off his mask, trying desperately to regulate the flow of air in his lungs again. It was all hitting him like no weight he'd ever felt before: Robbie, Betty, Ned... they were all dead...
... and it was all his fault.
Yep, that just happened...
Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!
"Jesus replied, 'Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.'" John 14:23