by Peter David
Peter was silent. All of this was so different from what he had imagined. It had never occurred to him that a hardened criminal such as Flint Marko could possibly show remorse… could possibly care about others. Peter thought of the regret he had endured over his belief that his inaction had resulted in Ben’s death, and how he had wished in vain that he too could take back his actions.
And, yes, he had recently done some things because of the symbiote. But they hadn’t come out of nowhere.
They’d been fueled by his inner demons. The symbiote had simply unleashed the potential for evil that lurked within him… that probably lurked in everyone.
And he thought of what Aunt May had said… about what Uncle Ben would have really wanted for them. Marko knelt down next to his daughter. “I still want to be with you more than anything. But I did wrong. Gotta pay for what I did.”
With a choked sob, Penny pulled against her mother’s hand, and this time—a bit to Spider-Man’s surprise—Emma released her. “I don’t want you to leave,” she wailed, and threw her arms around her father. She looked up at Spider-Man and said, “Won’t you forgive him? I know he did a terrible thing to you, but he’s a good man.”
Peter knew perfectly well that what he said, that his beliefs, weren’t going to make a bit of difference in terms of what happened to Flint Marko. But there was more involved than this. There was a little girl who desperately needed to believe that her father stood for something valuable and good. And he wasn’t entirely sure that she was wrong to believe that.
“We’ve all done terrible things,” Spider-Man told her. “I…” He paused a long moment, then finally managed to get the words out. “I forgive him.”
A sudden sound came from above them. They all looked up to see Venom, who had reappeared atop the partially completed building. An earsplitting roar resounded, and Spider-Man shouted to Marko, “Get your family out of here!”
Marko hesitated, looking from Spider-Man to the frightened faces of Penny and Emma. He hugged them fervently as Spider-Man again cried out, “Go! Save them!”
Aware of the danger, Marko quickly clambered onto the construction elevator with his family, shielding them with his body should Venom try to attack them.
Venom wasn’t the least bit interested in assaulting Flint Marko’s family. Instead his full focus was on Spider-Man, and he lunged with a howl of rage.
Spider-Man leaped toward him, prepared to end this one way or the other.
Harry Osborn had impressed the hell out of himself.
He had always given little credibility to his own technological or scientific abilities, but when push came to shove, he was able to get the job done. In this instance, he had landed the Sky Stick, completed the makeshift repairs, and gotten it off the ground again, all in a few minutes. Hurtling toward the construction site, he now saw Venom and Spider-Man slugging it out and gunned the engine so he could get there to help.
Grabbing a steel pike, Venom swung it around and bashed Spider-Man across the chest with it. His ribs already damaged from earlier, Spider-Man felt a new jolt of pain rip across his torso as he was thrown back against a girder. Venom flipped the pike around, revealing its sharp, jagged edge.
Clinging to the girder as much for support as anything else, Spider-Man grated, “Don’t give in to the anger, Eddie. It just feeds the suit. It wants you to hate. Give it up!”
Venom hesitated, and just for a moment Spider-Man thought he was getting through. But then Venom’s voice grew firm, even challenging. “How can I give this up? Finally, I’m somebody. Look at them down there”—he pointed at the crowds below—“waiting for my next move.” He advanced on Spider-Man and said cheerfully, “I like being bad. It makes me happy.”
His slow advance turned into a rapid charge as he thrust the pike forward for the death blow. Spider-Man braced himself, prepared to dodge but not sure if he would make it.
From out of nowhere, Harry flew in, placing himself directly between the pike and Spider-Man.
“Harry!” shouted Peter, and his heart shattered as the pike impaled Harry Osborn. Harry pitched backward as the pike slid out of him… losing control of the Sky Stick and crash-landing atop a construction platform.
Giving Harry no further attention, as if he had just stepped on an ant, Venom lunged again with the steel pike. Spider-Man twisted aside, and the pike struck the girder with a loud, almost deafening clang.
The black goo of the Venom suit vibrated, migrating away from the shrillness, moving in ripples across Brock’s body. Venom stumbled back, pained.
Peter saw it all and remembered when he himself had been struggling to divest himself of the black suit. The church bell had been thundering overhead, but Peter had simply chalked up his ridding himself of the symbiote as some sort of battle of wills that he’d won. Now, though, he realized the truth.
“Sound,” he murmured.
Venom had meantime recovered. He raised the jagged pike and charged yet again. There was only a split second—Spider-Man kicked up into his hands a length of re-bar at his feet and, in one fluid motion, struck it against the girder. This time, with Peter’s full muscle behind it, it generated a clang so sonorous that Peter could feel the fillings in his teeth vibrating in response. Because the rebar itself was generating the sound, the symbiote would be vulnerable to it… at least in theory.
He lowered the rebar to meet the oncoming Venom, and Venom—staggering from the ringing—was unable to control his forward motion. He impaled himself upon the makeshift tuning fork that Spider-Man had fashioned and gasped in surprise. The deadly pike dropped from Venom’s hands.
Peter had taken care not to make the wound mortal.
Eddie Brock would be in a world of hurt for a long time, but it wasn’t intended to be fatal by any means. With any luck, though, it would be fatal for the symbiote because of the tonality.
Peter’s eyes widened in shock. Whatever the symbiote had done to him, it didn’t compare with what it had done to Brock.
It slithered off him, in response to the sound assault… but it left nothing behind.
All that remained of Eddie Brock was a smoking skeleton, and Spider-Man couldn’t help but wonder in horror if Brock had even been present at all. It might well have been the alien creature all along, talking and acting the way it believed Eddie Brock was supposed to.
The gelatinous black goo reared up, forming a hideous face with gleaming fangs and serpentlike tongue.
It had absorbed the materials of Eddie’s form and fashioned it into its own rudimentary body. An arm or tentacle or some sort of appendage emerged from its amorphous structure as it snarled, “Never wound what you can’t kill.”
It snared Spider-Man by the leg and started to draw him forward. It opened its mouth impossibly wide, ready to swallow Spider-Man whole.
At that moment, a desperate Peter spotted a sling suspended from a crane. The sling was holding what appeared to be hundreds of steel rods. He fired a webline, snagged it, and yanked with all his might.
The sling tilted wildly, dumping out steel rods, which, in turn, struck against the girders as they fell.
A virtual hailstorm of eighty ringing rods pierced the creature in rapid succession, the sonic vibrations ripping it apart, bit by bit.
The symbiote sizzled, evaporated, and Peter was sure he heard the creature screaming in protest as the last of the black goo burned off into an inky smoke.
Immediately he gave the creature no further thought, for his attention was entirely on Harry. He fired a webline and swung over toward the platform where Harry had crash-landed. Mary Jane, whom he had brought to safety a short distance away, had already run to Harry, and now she was kneeling by his side. MJ was shaking her head in disbelief, saying, “Oh, no… no, no, no,” over and over.
Harry grimaced, weak, clutching his chest where an ugly red splotch was spreading quickly. “He got me pretty good.”
“I’ll get help.”
“No.” Harry clutched Mary Jane’s hand
before she could move. “Stay with me.”
She cradled his head in her lap. He smiled sadly up at her and said, “Sorry. About everything.”
“But in the end you came. For Pete and me.”
“I was kind of brave back there, wasn’t I.”
She stroked his hair. “I’m so proud of you. I could never be that brave. Like Peter or you.”
“No.” Harry shook his head, although the movement dearly pained him. “It’s there inside you. And Peter’s only strong because you’re there.” He coughed weakly, then said, “Hold my hand.”
Mary Jane took his hand and kissed it gently. Harry’s fluttered, but he fought to keep them open as Peter showed up and knelt next to him, pulling his mask off so Harry could see his face. “Don’t leave us, pal,” Peter urged.
“We need you. MJ needs you.”
“It’s you she loves,” Harry said. “It’s only, ever, been you.”
He fought for breath as Peter touched the side of his face that had been terribly mangled. “I… should never have hurt you,” Peter said. “Said those things.”
“I forgive you, Pete.”
Peter looked at him in amazement. “How could you forgive me?”
To Harry, the answer was so simple that he was surprised Peter even needed to ask. “You’re… my friend.”
Peter was smiling through his tears as Harry took his hand and grasped it firmly one last time. Harry returned the smile, and with that on his lips, with the rays of a rising sun stretching over the horizon, Harry Osborn passed away.
* * *
Epilogue
Peter Parker is now more open to the idea of one’s life flashing before one’s eyes when death is imminent. But his own death is not imminent, and it is not the entirety of his existence that he is experiencing now. It is simply the most recent days.
He sees himself, Mary Jane, Aunt May, and the Stacy family surrounding Harry’s gravesite. His casket is in the ground. Peter and Mary Jane drop in some flowers.
Gwen is standing there, now an austere, more thoughtful, no-nonsense young woman. She stands next to her father, across the lawn from Peter and MJ and Aunt May. Gwen and Peter eye each other. She moves toward him. Peter moves away from Mary Jane, toward Gwen. Mary Jane and Gwen exchange a look and smile. Peter and Gwen, facing one another, speak not a word between them. There is forgiveness and understanding between them. They embrace. Then Gwen looks again toward Mary Jane. She moves to MJ and hugs her as well. As all parties at the cemetery affirm their affection and support to each other, Peter muses to himself
The air is clear today. The lessons have been learned, but not easily… and they will be taught again… they are those things we know but often get forgotten along the way. That all we have that truly matters in this world is the love of our friends and our family, and that they are worthy of the highest trait that we can aspire to: our forgiveness. That is the gift my friend Harry gave me.
Peter’s world spins forward once more, and he hears a jazz band’s playing of a torch song. It grows louder, and Mary Jane is singing, standing in front of the band, bathed in a soft spotlight, wearing a rather simple but divine gown.
A sparse number of patrons are at a few tables, a couple at the bar. Everyone is captured by the song and the soft mood of the room. In the front window of the Jazz Room is a poster showing Mary Jane’s attractive, enchanting photograph. Above it, on a small marquee, are the words: featuring mary jane watson, and beneath it is a clipping from a newspaper review giving her performance three stars, describing her as a “new enchanting songbird who has flown into town.”
Peter sees himself gazing at the picture, reading the review, then moving to the doorway. He enters. Mary Jane keeps singing…
As she sings, she smiles, surprised and pleased, upon seeing Peter standing in the doorway.
She stops singing, and the band continues behind her. Peter steps toward the dance floor and mouths the word Dance?
She waits and then moves away from the microphone and onto the dance floor. They meet and slowly come together to dance as the band moves into its rendition of “Falling in Love.”
The lounge’s manager and bouncer eye Peter warily. MJ had told them, pleaded with them, that Peter’s mayhem had been the result of clashing prescription drugs, an aberration that would
never recur. Still, they never take their eyes off him. Well, let them stare. The last thing on Peter’s mind is causing trouble.
And Peter suddenly understands why his life or at least recent events are flashing before his eyes. It isn’t because he is on the edge of death. It is because he is on the edge of finally living.
After a few moments he brings his cheek close to hers and whispers, We have a lot to talk about.
Let’s not talk about the relationship. Just shut up and dance.
And so they do. And in his mind’s eye, Peter sees Spider-Man swinging across the city, through its cavernous streets, and Mary Jane is in his arms, laughing in delight.
And all is as it should be.
About the Author
PETER DAVID is the New York Times best-selling author of numerous Star Trek novels, including Imzadi, A Rock and a Hard Place, and the incredibly popular New Frontier series. He is also the author of the best-selling movie novelizations for Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Hulk, andFantastic Four and has written dozens of other books, including his acclaimed original novel Sir Apropos of Nothing, and its sequels, The Woad to Wuin and Tong Lashing.
David is also well-known for his comic-book work, particularly his award-winning run on The Incredible Hulk, and has written for just about every famous comic-book super hero.
He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Unnamed
