I looked at the Hobgoblin lying before me and wondered what to do. If the original Norman Osborn had been in my place, there would be two options. If this had happened before he took the serum, he simply wouldn't have ended up in such a situation. If it had been the Green Goblin, he would have blown everything up—including Hobgoblin—and flown off into the sunset, laughing maniacally.
I chose a different path. And perhaps because constant rage doesn't exactly promote rational thinking, I openly took the glider, suit, and grenades from Oscorp. Since I decided not to hide, I needed to act officially and cover my tracks as much as possible. So I took out my phone and dialed 911.
"911, what's your emergency?" a woman's voice came through my phone.
"I want to report a citizen's arrest of a man calling himself Hobgoblin. This is the same person the police are actively searching for, and he urgently needs medical attention," I said, glancing again at the unconscious Hobgoblin.
"Medical attention? The suspect was injured during the arrest? Are you armed?" the emergency operator asked in response. She was clearly following some emergency service protocols and was now trying to determine if I posed a threat to the police and paramedics.
"I don't have any firearms with me," I answered honestly. "The suspect mainly needs help due to severe radiation poisoning. By the way, please notify the appropriate services and have the police and medics proceed with extreme caution. The current radiation level about thirty meters from the source is 100 roentgens," I said after checking the device I had received from Otto. Holding the phone in one hand and grabbing Hobgoblin's leg with the other, I began moving away from the hangar toward the spot where I had left my glider. Given how weak I was feeling, dragging such a heavy load was not easy.
"Radiation contamination?" the dispatcher asked, clearly not believing what I was saying. "In New York? That's just not possible."
"Follow the protocols, you idiot!" I snapped at her, experiencing another brief surge of anger. To my surprise, Hobgoblin, who had just felt incredibly heavy, instantly became as light as a feather. Did anger give me strength? Interesting.
"I apologize for my colleague," a male voice came through the phone. "Please state your current address, and all necessary services will be dispatched to you."
"I don't know the exact address, but I'm somewhere in the warehouse district adjacent to the Brooklyn Port. I'll disable the tracking protection on my phone now, and you'll be able to determine my location from it," I said, launching a special app to disable the mentioned protection.
"Your coordinates have been recorded. Do you need help yourself? Are you injured? If possible, please leave the radiation contamination zone," the emergency operator told me. But I didn't respond to that. Instead, I just put the phone in my pocket without ending the call.
The first to arrive was a patrol car, which wasn't surprising given how many police units had been sent to the warehouse districts near the ports to search for Hobgoblin. I suspected that even if I hadn't found the right warehouse, the police would have soon—even without the radiation-tracking device.
"Hello, I'm Sergeant Hull, and this is Officer Johnson. We've arrived in response to your call. Please briefly explain what happened, and most importantly, tell us more about the radiation," the slightly overweight Black sergeant said cautiously, placing his hand on his holster, as did his partner.
"I'm Norman Osborn, and this is the very Hobgoblin you're looking for. The radiation situation isn't as bad as it could be. This idiot..." I began, giving Hobgoblin a light kick, to which the police officers didn't react. "...stole an early glider prototype from Oscorp that runs on nuclear batteries. He crashed into the corner of the warehouse while trying to brake, damaging the glider and, apparently, the batteries inside it. He received a significant dose of radiation in the process. I, assisting the police, tracked the glider's radiation trail on my own glider and neutralized him—obviously the criminal, not the glider."
"Why didn't you call the police immediately after discovering the criminal's hideout?" Sergeant Hull asked, a fairly logical question.
At that moment, I noticed that the strength I had recently gained from my anger had almost completely faded, and weakness was overwhelming me again. It was difficult to walk, dragging such a heavy load, especially with my batteries draining so quickly.
"I decided to lure the criminal out to... to save him. Yes, save him. Every minute he spent in the hangar near the radiation source was killing him, and if I hadn't lured him out, he would have certainly died. So all my actions were aimed at saving him," I said, kicking the Hobgoblin lying on the ground again.
"Is this glider also 'radioactive' like the criminal's?" Officer Johnson asked in a frightened voice, looking fearfully at my glider, which we were standing next to. The officers then began to slowly back away from it. Even considering the potential radiation threat, this looked a bit strange.
"Relax, this glider uses a completely different type of battery. They run on ordinary electricity," I reassured the officers, who calmed down a bit after my words. They then put handcuffs on Hobgoblin but didn't put him in the car, deciding to wait for the ambulance to arrive.
"Maybe I should fly back to Oscorp? I'm not sure I'll be able to do it later. The batteries in this glider are very imperfect and discharge constantly, even when the glider's engines aren't running," I said, looking at the special indicator on the glider, which showed 13 percent.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Osborn, but we can't let you leave until our superiors arrive. But don't worry, Captain Stacy should arrive soon, and he'll decide whether to let you go or not," Sergeant Hull informed me in an apologetic tone.
"Am I under arrest? Or detained?" I asked, feeling that if I stayed and waited for Stacy, I wouldn't be able to fly anywhere—both because of the drained batteries and my worsening physical condition.
"No, but..." Sergeant Hull began, but I didn't even listen to what he wanted to say, interrupting him.
"I'm willing to cooperate with the police, but not now. Have Captain Stacy contact me or my lawyers later," I told the officers and, under their disapproving gazes, got on the glider. Slowly rising into the air, I headed toward my mansion. I didn't think it was a good idea to fly to the Oscorp Tower and deal with problems there right now.
Looking down at the skyscraper beneath me, I spotted Spider-Man, who, bracing against the ventilation system, stretched his arms toward me and held onto the web, the other end of which was attached to the underside of my glider.
"What do you want, Spider-Man?" I shouted at him. I wasn't at all eager to fight him, and at that moment, Spider-Man began pulling the glider toward himself. And yes, I could have accelerated to the maximum and soared into the air, taking Parker with me, but what would I have achieved? How long could I fly with double the load and drained batteries? Very unlikely. So I didn't resist, focusing only on not falling.
"What do you mean, villain? Maybe you don't know, but half the city's police are chasing you right now—though maybe they just went for donuts," Spider-Man declared, and I was very surprised by his words. Was I wanted because I left the warehouse without police permission? That just couldn't be.
Not waiting for Spider-Man to pull me all the way to him, I directed the glider downward myself, landing on the opposite end of the roof from Spider-Man.
"You know, kid, I think you've got the wrong idea about me. I haven't done anything wrong—at least nothing that would make the police hunt me down," I tried to start a peaceful dialogue, but it seemed my interlocutor wasn't in the mood to listen to me.
"Dude, you're not a very good storyteller, to be honest. But I'll give you points for trying. Next time, you'll definitely be able to fool someone—but certainly not someone as cool as me. I know you recently broke into the Oscorp Tower and killed someone there. So save your pathetic excuses for the police," Spider-Man said and, with a determined look, headed toward me.
Given that I could barely stand, the fight between us would be very quick and very painful for me. But I wasn't going to give up without a fight either. Quickly shoving my hand into the bag of grenades, I pulled one out and threw it toward Spider-Man. Of course, it didn't reach its target. Spider-Man intercepted it mid-flight with an incredibly accurate web shot and sent it somewhere behind him. Thankfully, not at me, which I had slightly feared. He didn't see where, but I noticed it flew off the roof, falling somewhere below.
"You know, throwing a grenade down onto sidewalks where lots of people walk isn't the best idea for a so-called superhero. But let's chalk it up to your inexperience. After all, you've only been a superhero for a couple of weeks. But I don't even know how you'll sleep peacefully after so many deaths on your conscience," I said. Then, as if confirming my words, a muffled pop came from below, followed by screams of horror, which only confirmed what I had said.
"But how? I didn't want to..." Spider-Man whispered softly, then completely forgetting about me, he turned around and, quickly reaching the edge of the building's roof, jumped down.
I, realizing that I didn't have much time before he figured out that the screams of horror were quite real, but people were screaming not because they were injured by a combat grenade, but because of the horrifying smell released by the stink grenade, and returned to the roof.
Smirking, I nimbly—or so it seemed to me—jumped onto the glider and pressed the special plate with my foot to lift into the air, but... nothing happened. The glider remained a dead weight on the roof. That's what you get with experimental, not fully developed technology. I should be grateful that the glider didn't fail during flight.
"Come on, you damn piece of junk, start!" I roared and pressed the plate several more times, but apart from a very unpleasant crunch under my feet, I achieved nothing. And as if sensing something, I swallowed and turned 180 degrees, seeing—logically—the extremely displeased Spider-Man. It seemed he was very unhappy about the horror he had experienced from being indirectly responsible for people's deaths.
"Spider-Man, stop! I'm not a criminal, I'm Nor..." I began to say, but I didn't get to finish because Spider-Man shot so much webbing at me that within ten seconds, I was surrounded by a real spider cocoon. I hadn't even suspected Spider-Man was capable of this.
"Well, whether you're normal or not, let the police figure it out," Spider-Man said wearily, grabbing the spider cocoon with me inside and carrying me—apparently to the edge of the roof—before jumping down with me!
We didn't fly for long, but I managed to get quite scared. In the end, I ended up hanging from something, and judging by the swaying, there was still some distance to the ground. The most likely scenario was that Spider-Man had left me suspended from the nearest lamppost, expecting the police to find me. And I sincerely hoped it would be the police and not a couple of pumped-up Black men with unconventional orientations.
But I didn't have long to ponder these topics. My body, after all the stress I had experienced, simply couldn't take it anymore, and I lost consciousness. Maybe the sudden descent and the resulting overloads had something to do with it, I thought before darkness swallowed everything.
I don't know how long I hung there unconscious, but I came to when I heard voices and realized I was being lowered to the ground.
"Be careful lowering him. If something goes wrong, he'll sue us, and he'll be right," some man said.
"I told you we should have called rescuers to take him down, but no, someone was too confident and decided to do it himself," someone replied in a voice I had heard somewhere before.
"Stop arguing, Sergeant Hull. You said you had a knife in your car somewhere. Bring it here. We need to open this cocoon," Captain Stacy said, whom I recognized by his voice, as I was already being laid—apparently—on the asphalt.
It didn't take more than a couple of minutes, and I was freed from the spider's captivity. Finally having access to fresh air, I could breathe normally. Amazingly, I could breathe—albeit with difficulty—in the webbing, as it somehow allowed oxygen to pass through.
"Welcome to freedom, Mr. Osborn," Captain Stacy greeted me, lifting me to my feet.
"Judging by your words, one might think I've spent ten years in prison and just got out," I said, approaching the nearby police Jeep and leaning against it. I couldn't maintain an upright position on my own anymore.
"Well, if you had stayed at the site of Hobgoblin's capture and waited for me, I probably wouldn't have had to say those words," Captain Stacy said with a smile.
"Quite possibly," I didn't argue. If I had stayed to talk to Stacy, the glider would have completely discharged, and I would have likely headed home by car, which, if you think about it, wouldn't have been the worst option.
"Why did you come for me, exactly? Or rather, why did you specifically rescue me from this damned webbing?" I asked, looking with disdain at the remains of the spider cocoon lying on the ground.
"As soon as reports came in from witnesses who saw Spider-Man pulling someone on a glider toward himself, I immediately knew who it was. Leaving the nuclear safety agency personnel who had arrived at the warehouse to work, I came here," Captain Stacy replied.
"Captain Stacy, would you mind taking me to my mansion? On the way, I'm ready to answer all your questions," I said to Captain Stacy, simultaneously taking out my phone and sending his brother a message with the address where I was, along with two words: "roof," "glider."
"Why not? My car is at your complete disposal," Captain Stacy said, pointing to a Dodge Charger parked behind the police car I was leaning against.
"Ask your questions, Captain," I said as we were already driving toward my mansion.
"My main question is: why didn't Oscorp immediately report that the radiation trail of the glider prototype could be tracked?" Captain Stacy asked me, posing a question I hadn't expected.
"Because we didn't immediately realize it could be done," I admitted frankly. "As soon as I understood that the criminal could be tracked this way, I immediately contacted Otto Octavius to clarify the details, and then Arthur informed the police. He did inform them, right?" I asked, as I wasn't entirely sure about this fact.
"He did," Captain Stacy said, nodding. "Mr. Osborn, I don't understand one thing: why would a wealthy and, as I know, not very healthy man like you personally go on a glider to search for a criminal? If we're talking about helping the police, why not use one of the pilots who tested the glider for this purpose?" Stacy asked very uncomfortable questions for me.
And what was I supposed to answer? That I had injected myself with Oz Serum Plus and it had driven me a little crazy? A simply brilliant idea, but no.
"Rumors about my severely deteriorating health are just rumors. As long as I take my pills, I can live a full life. I went on the glider because I didn't intend to make contact with the criminal but only wanted to track him for the police, so I considered the risks to myself minimal. And the pilot testing the glider was far from the Oscorp Tower because no tests were scheduled for that day," I answered all of Stacy's questions, seemingly logically.
"You don't look entirely healthy. Maybe it's better to take you to the hospital instead of your mansion," Captain Stacy said, giving me a concerned look. Do I really look that bad?
"No need to worry. Upon arrival, I'll immediately call my personal doctor. Who better than him to help me?" I said with a smile, feeling incredible weakness throughout my body. I even had the impression that I was staying conscious purely by willpower.
"By the way, why did Spider-Man attack you?" Captain Stacy asked curiously.
"You'd have to ask him, but I think he just confused me with Hobgoblin," I replied, not very clearly.
"I have many more questions, Mr. Osborn, but they can wait. I think you really should call a doctor," Captain Stacy showed concern again. "It seems to me that you were somehow also exposed to radiation while neutralizing Hobgoblin."
"Possibly," I said quietly, but most likely, I shouldn't have performed feats of heroism immediately after taking the serum.
I don't remember how we got to the Osborn mansion or how I said goodbye to Captain Stacy—or if I even did.
I only remember entering the mansion and, seeing my butler hurrying toward me with concern, saying in the calmest and most confident tone possible:
"Bernard, please call a doctor for me. It seems I urgently need help."
And with that, I collapsed to the floor, losing consciousness.