Spider-Man

  She could hear the children crying in terror, hear the fathers shouting to them that everything was going to be all right, in that way parents had when they were lying through their teeth as loudly as possible.

  And suddenly the Goblin was there, right up on the bridge with her, and he wrapped one of his cold, armored hands around her. She tried to push him away, but a hand that was capable of supporting a cable car wasn’t going to have a great deal of difficulty restraining a struggling eighteen-year-old. In the other hand, he still gripped the cable that was the only thing supporting the tram.

  “Spider-Man!” he bellowed from behind his distorted mask, and that was when Mary Jane spotted the wallcrawler again. He had just landed on one of the suspender cables and was now in the process of clambering up toward the main cable that led to the tower. He backflipped upward as if gravity were a concept that didn’t apply him, and landed on the main cable. But froze when the Goblin spoke.

  “This is why only fools are heroes!” called the Goblin. “Because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice.”

  Mary Jane’s frozen mind couldn’t even grasp what he meant, but then she understood as the Goblin shoved her forward. Her toes went over the edge, and she almost lost her balance. Hundreds of feet below, cars were still trying to cope with the fallen debris. Within moments they might well be driving around the small bits of whatever was left of her, as well.

  And all the fear she’d ever felt at her father’s hands, all the abuse she had endured, that had made her feel small and worthless and unworthy to live, abruptly fell into proper perspective. The Green Goblin set a new gold standard for angst.

  Perched atop the main cable of the bridge, Peter had never been happier that he was wearing a mask, because he never would have wanted the Goblin to see the expression of pure horror on his face as the lunatic crowed, “… you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice! Let die the woman you love …”

  Don’t say that, you idiot! She’ll figure it out, if she hasn’t already . . . !

  And then the Goblin’s right hand, the one holding the cable, abruptly relaxed. The cable snaked through his gloved hand, the tram dropped with sickening speed, the children screamed, and then in an instant, the tram halted again in its plummet, as the Goblin’s hand tightened once more.

  “… or suffer the little children,” the Goblin continued, sounding almost conversational. It was as if they were sitting on a couple of bar stools, knocking back brews and discussing the latest scores. And it was at that point that Spider-Man realized how little it mattered whether or not M. J. knew his identity. Lord, first the Goblin had quoted cummings … and now he was quoting Jesus.

  Peter had no intention of allowing a tram full of innocents to enter the Kingdom of Heaven before their time … but Mary Jane, the girl he’d loved for years … And they were strangers, he’d hear their screams in his head at night, yes, but at least M. J. would be curled up next to him … But there were, what, eleven, a dozen of them, one of her, one life against a dozen …

  “Make your choice, Spider-Man!” howled the Goblin, “and see how a hero is rewarded! This is your doing! You have caused this! This is the life you have chosen! Choose!”

  Peter looked left, right, left, and right again …

  … and the Goblin released them both.

  Insanely, the only thought that managed to penetrate M. J.’s frozen brain at that moment was that she never got to tell off her father.

  She plummeted, arms and legs pinwheeling, and suddenly Spider-Man was right there, tucking her under his right arm.

  “Hold on!” he shouted, even as he fired a web line that snagged the underside of the bridge’s center span, and Mary Jane thought giddily, He chose me! right before she was overwhelmed with guilt over the fate of the plunging cable car.

  But Spider-Man wasn’t done, not remotely.

  Suddenly he released his web line, and there was the cable of the car whipping past them. She could barely see it, but Spider-Man homed in on it as if he had radar. He shifted Mary Jane onto his back even as he grabbed the trailing cable. She let out a scream as the two of them were yanked down, hard, hopelessly at the mercy of the tram’s weight.

  Then Spider-Man fired another web line at the underside of the bridge, and the white substance snared it, sticking with unbreakable adhesion. There below the span, the gondola slammed to a halt, bouncing up and down, kids and dads tumbling everywhere.

  Mary Jane heard faint cheers floating down toward them. People were gathering along the Queensboro Bridge, all traffic having come to a halt due to the debris. Applause, shouts of encouragement, it was all very sweet, really, to witness such a gratifying show of public support.

  But none of it meant a damn, really, because Spider-Man was hanging suspended in midair, his right hand clutching the cable line, his left hand clutching the web line. Mary Jane was hanging on his back, and every muscle in his body had to be screaming from the strain.

  Peter thought he was going to die.

  It might have been preferable.

  He gritted his teeth beneath his mask to avoid the shriek that wanted to rip itself from his agonized body. His arms were on fire, his muscles trembling. When he did speak, his voice was a strained, harsh whisper, as he said to M. J., “Climb down. The cable to the tram … climb down …”

  Her voice quivering, she said, “I can’t.”

  “M. J., just do it.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Trust me,” he said, in the exact same tone of voice he’d used back at the hospital.

  Mary Jane stared into his eyepiece, and it was as if she could see right through the mask, into his heart … as if she were seeing him in so many ways for the first time, and he said again, “Trust me,” keeping his voice level despite the incredible strain.

  Without another word, M. J. eased herself down his body and wrapped her hands around the cable. She started to descend, and Peter couldn’t help but think that if the Goblin wanted to pick the worst possible moment to show up, this was pretty much it.

  Then his spider sense kicked in.

  He barely had time to twist his head around before the Goblin zoomed in and slammed him in the jaw, and then rocketed away with only laughter floating behind him. Obviously he was in no hurry to finish things, and equally obviously there was no reason for him to be. He had Peter cold, and they both knew it.

  Mary Jane was almost thrown from the cable. She barely managed to hang on, when the Goblin slugged Spider-Man with incredible force. The fact that the webslinger was still conscious, much less maintaining his grip, was nothing short of miraculous.

  Nevertheless the tram dipped precipitously, again throwing around the kids and their fathers. Hold on, God, please, hold on, she mentally begged.

  The Goblin swung around for another assault. He cackled as he extended his arm, exposing razor-sharp blades that adorned it. The webslinger watched, helpless, as the Goblin delivered a crushing blow to his stomach. Pieces of flesh and costume went flying, and that was it: He lost his grip on the cable.

  Mary Jane couldn’t help it: She screamed as she and the tram plummeted toward the icy waters below.

  Spider-Man dangled from the web, grasping for the cable that was racing past him. As the last of it whizzed by, he lunged for it, catching it. And now it was Spider-Man’s turn to scream, in agony rather than terror, as blood gushed from his hand. But the cable went taut again.

  Mary Jane lost her own grip and fell, landing on the tram below. She raised her head and saw Spider-Man, his head lolling to the side, finished, looking for all the world as if he’d been crucified with his arms outstretched. And yet he was still holding on, impossibly, miraculously, to the cable in one bleeding hand and the web line in the other.

  Then she heard the glider’s engine as the Green Goblin circled in for the final blow.

  But he stopped. He hovered in front of Spider-Man, looking at the hero whose body was stret
ched to the limit and beyond, looking like a pitiful rag doll that had been thrown on a scrap heap after a lifetime of service. For an instant, Mary Jane thought the Goblin was going to break off the assault.

  Spider-Man raised his head, looked at his oppenent.

  And then the Goblin threw back his head, laughed, and roared toward Spider-Man, his glider on full throttle.

  It ripped at Mary Jane’s heart. Her last thoughts—or at least what she believed her last thoughts were going to be—weren’t of her own death, or the deaths of the children and their fathers, but rather of how ghastly and unfair it was that Spider-Man had suffered to such a degree, gone to such Herculean efforts, all for nothing.

  A huge chunk of asphalt slammed across the side of the Goblin’s head.

  It sent him spiraling out of control, and he missed Spider-Man clean. He pulled himself out of the spiral, looked around in confusion, and more asphalt hit him. And then bottles, rocks, shoes, a virtual rainstorm of garbage and debris.

  He craned his neck and looked upward, as did Mary Jane, and she was astounded to see dozens—maybe hundreds—of bystanders, lined up on the bridge, no longer satisfied with being sidelined like simple cheerleaders. Instead, they were pelting the Goblin with anything and everything they could get their hands on.

  The creature howled with frustration, shielding his face with his arms, and angled down and away, vanishing into the darkness under the bridge, skimming near the surface of the water.

  Peter was stunned, shocked beyond his ability to comprehend. His body was no less tired, his muscles no less spent. But as he saw the support and adoration being voiced by those most jaded of people—New Yorkers—strength began to flow through him, born of newfound confidence. He didn’t know how long this second wind—second … more like fifth by that point—was going to last. But then he saw, at the bottom of the tower leg, a massive amount of rock that spread from the support piling. If the tram had simply fallen onto it, everyone aboard would have been crushed. That, however, was not going to happen.

  Gently angling the gondola in a pendulumlike swing, he lowered it further and further until it touched down onto the rocks below. The moment it did, a new roar of approval erupted from the crowd. He almost passed out from relief as he swung his torn and bleeding right hand around to clutch onto the web line with both hands. He felt absolutely light-headed; in fact, he felt as if he were floating in zero-G, having gone from supporting the weight of the tram to simply his own body weight.

  He saw Mary Jane, perched atop the cable car, looking up at him with concern, and more. Then suddenly her expression shifted to fear at about the same time his spider sense warned him of danger.

  A cable snaked around Peter’s waist, and for a split second he thought it was from the tram car somehow. Then the Goblin, holding the other end of the rope, swept past him. The cable went taut, and Peter was yanked off his web, high into the air, hauled behind the Goblin glider completely out of control. He thrashed about, to no effect, and the glider angled down and around, back toward Roosevelt Island.

  The Goblin turned and cackled, clearly delighted at the costumed teen’s struggles. Then, apparently having seen enough, he held out his arm, once again exposing the blades on it, and the blades sliced through the rope. Peter crashed into the abandoned, hulking ruin of a condemned smallpox hospital at the southern end of the island.

  He staggered to his feet, and suddenly from everywhere they were coming at him: The bats. Razor sharp, sweeping in from all around. He had no idea where the Goblin got them, no clue how they functioned, no concept of anything except that they were ripping into him, shredding his costume, leaving glistening lines of blood on his chest, his legs. Every time one struck him, pain exploded behind his eyes, to the point where there was so much that he just wasn’t feeling it anymore.

  “Enough!” bellowed the Goblin. But the bats, failing to heed their master’s call, continued slicing at Peter as he staggered across the dusty floor of the hospital. “I said enough!” the Goblin bellowed, and this time some cybernetic circuit must have kicked in. The razor bats stopped their destruction, flying meekly away.

  Peter didn’t even realize he was on the ground, lying on his back, until the bats departed. He rolled over, leaving an outline of blood marking his resting spot. He looked up at the Goblin, who was hovering over him, and tried to stand. His legs turned to jelly and he crashed to the ground.

  The Goblin, laughing, reached down onto his glider and pulled out a rod. At the top of the rod was a button, which he pressed, and three blades popped out of the front, giving the weapon the appearance of a pitchfork.

  “Ahhh, misery, misery, misery,” the Goblin said sadly, as if commiserating. “Again and again I’ve tried to make my case, but you won’t oblige. Had you not been so determined, your sweetheart’s death would have been quick and painless. But now, now that you’ve really pissed me off, I’ll see to it that it’s slow and … painful. Just … like … yours …”

  The Goblin reared back with the spear, bringing it down toward Peter’s chest. At the last moment, Peter caught it, and as he looked at the Goblin, stared into the face of hate, his strength returned. He yanked the spear out of his grip and smashed it against the monster’s armored head so hard that it nearly decapitated him. As it was, it knocked the Goblin clear off the glider, sending him flying back ten feet and crashing to the ground.

  Peter staggered back from the exertion for a moment, went down to one knee, taking deep breaths. There was blood everywhere, all his, and the Goblin, who had terrorized so many, who seemed to exist purely to bedevil him, was lying on the floor moaning. The fact that such a monstrosity could exist filled him with a nameless rage, and he felt as if everything he’d gone through had happened purely to bring him to this moment. To look into the face of evil and say, Your day is done.

  It was Peter Parker who had been knocked to the floor, torn and bleeding, but it was the amazing Spider-Man who got to his feet and snapped the pitchfork across his knee, tossing the parts to the side. It was Spider-Man who grabbed the Goblin by the chest, pulled him up from the ground, and threw a haymaker that would have dislocated the Goblin’s jaw had he not been protected by his armor, and came damned close to doing so anyway.

  The Goblin went flying through a nearby wall. He rose, managed to advance a few steps, and then Spider-Man struck another devastating blow. The Goblin crumpled against a nearby stone wall, and his voice was pathetic and pleading when he said, “Please …”

  Spider-Man didn’t want to hear it, would not hear it. He picked the Goblin up yet again, and he wanted to crush his opponent’s face beneath his fist. Wanted to see the Goblin’s blood, for once.

  He ripped off the Goblin’s mask, and the battered face of Norman Osborn looked up at him and whispered, from between swelling lips, “Peter …”

  Spider-Man’s fist remained cocked, but this wasn’t the Goblin. This was Norman Osborn. It was … it was some sort of trick, that had to be it. The Goblin had hypnotized him or … or Spider-Man was hallucinating, that was it. Or it was a trick of light, or an android, or a clone … something … it couldn’t be …

  The fury within him ebbed as disbelief pushed it aside. Spider-Man pulled away his own tattered mask to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. He released Osborn, who slumped to the floor, looking up pathetically.

  “Peter … thank God for you,” Osborn said, as if waking from a dream.

  Still trembling with rage, shaken by the overwhelming desire to inflict violence upon the man he saw before him, Peter said, “Can’t be … you’re a monster …”

  “Please … Peter … don’t let it take me back,” Osborn begged him. “I need your help. I’m not a monster.”

  “You killed those people on the balcony,” Peter reminded him sharply. “You could have killed your son… .”

  Osborn was shaking his head furiously. “It killed. The Goblin killed. I had nothing to do with it… . Please … don’t let it have me agai
n. Protect me, I beg you. Talk to me about this… .”

  Peter could barely comprehend. Protect Osborn … from himself? Madness! But … wasn’t the Goblin mad? That certainly wasn’t news. Maybe he really was the victim here.

  Maybe …

  Then Peter’s heart hardened. “You tried to kill Aunt May. You wanted to kill Mary Jane.”

  “But not you.” Osborn was shaking his head desperately. “I would never hurt you. I knew from the beginning, if anything happened to me, you were the one I could count on. You, Peter Parker, would save me, and so you have. Thank God for you.”

  He had pulled himself to his feet. With his back against the wall, he held out a hand in pathetic supplication.

  “Give me your hand. Believe in me, as I believed in you. I was like a father to you. Be a son to me now.”

  “I had a father,” Peter said tightly. “His name was Ben Parker.”

  And then … Osborn began to laugh. It was the most bizarre thing Peter had ever seen, as the tortured face of Norman Osborn seemed to transform itself, and even though the tattered mask was on the floor, his face twisted into a semblance of the madness that the mask reflected.

  “Godspeed, Spider-Man,” he said.

  That was when Peter realized that Osborn was manipulating, ever so subtly, an electronic pad on his wrist. He knew in a flash that Osborn had been doing it the entire time, and then his spider sense kicked in, seeing all around him simultaneously. And behind him was the Goblin glider, making absolutely no noise at all. It had risen up and was coming straight toward his back. As it did so, a spear snapped into place.

  Peter hurled himself to one side, twisting and bending, and the glider’s turbines kicked in for extra speed just as he leapt completely clear. It screamed through the air and terror suddenly creased Osborn’s face.