"F... Felicia, what are you even talking about?" Clark stiffly leaned back, trying to put a little life-saving distance between himself and the upperclassman who felt more dangerous than most supervillains.
"That S-guy is obviously impressive. He's front-page news," Clark said, lying through his teeth so awkwardly it almost hurt to watch. "But I didn't go see any of it last night. Peter and I were home playing video games, right, Peter? And you still never texted me back, by the way."
He even stepped on Peter's foot under the table for emphasis.
"Huh? Right, right!" Peter sucked in a breath from the pain and nodded frantically. "We were playing King of Fighters. My brother's Kyo Kusanagi is really good. You should come challenge him sometime this afternoon."
Felicia looked at the two lying brothers and couldn't help laughing.
Clark shot Peter a look full of betrayal. He should've just said he was writing or something.
"I'll pass for now," Felicia said, standing up. "But I'll definitely make time to come find your brother." Then she tilted her head toward Clark. "You really are terrible at lying. No finesse at all. I do like the glasses, though. Just don't hide behind them forever."
Then she leaned close to his ear and murmured, "This black cat happens to love hide-and-seek. We've got time."
With that, she turned and walked off like a proud cat who had already won.
"...Terrifying," Clark muttered under his breath.
"Oh? So even the mighty Clark gets scared sometimes?" Gwen's voice drifted over like a cool breeze, which only made Clark feel more exposed now that he was already sweating.
He honestly had no idea how to deal with this kind of attention.
He never had.
Was being too outstanding actually a crime?
Before the atmosphere could turn any more awkward, someone drifted toward the table with the vague, exhausted grace of a ghost.
"Hey... morning."
It was Harry Osborn.
Usually the young Osborn heir was polished to perfection, but today he looked like a complete wreck.
His hair was messy, his collar wasn't fastened properly, and most striking of all was his face. He was pale on a good day, but today he looked almost translucent, like someone had drained all the life out of him.
"It's lunchtime, not morning," Mary Jane said, staring at him. "What happened to you?"
"Harry? Good Lord, what happened to you?" Peter shot up at once, steadying Harry before he could sway too much and guiding him into the seat beside him.
Clark's super-senses swept over Harry in an instant.
Elevated heart rate. Adrenaline spiking. Severe muscular tension. The exact physiological profile of someone stuck under crushing stress for too long.
So what, a fight with his father?
That didn't quite fit. Norman Osborn was a businessman to the bone, sure, but he'd also seemed like a decent enough father.
"How many days has it been since you slept?" Clark asked, frowning as he slid a cup of warm milk toward Harry. "Drink this, Your Highness. What happened, are you bankrupt, or did somebody kidnap your dad?"
Harry rubbed a hand over his face and looked at the milk.
"Worse than bankruptcy," he said quietly. "I'm about to lose my father. And Oscorp's about to collapse with him."
That got everyone's attention immediately.
The whole table froze.
"How did things get that bad?" Peter asked.
"What happened, Harry? Take it slow," Cindy said gently. "We're your friends."
Harry looked up. His eyes were full of helplessness.
Then he looked around at the friends he'd made at Midtown and finally let the words he'd been holding in come out.
"Did you guys see the news? Tony Stark shutting down Stark Industries' weapons division has triggered a total collapse in defense stocks across the country. Oscorp dropped twenty percent in the first hour of trading this morning."
Harry buried his face in his hands, more exhausted than angry.
Because once something like Stark happened once, the market assumed it could happen again.
So everyone dumped shares.
"But if it were only the stock market, Oscorp could survive that. We've got real infrastructure, real capital. But then this morning the Bugle ran that follow-up story with the black-market smuggling list."
At that, Harry gave Peter and Clark a complicated look, though not an accusing one.
He knew perfectly well their uncle and father, Ben Parker, had written it.
And besides, Oscorp had been involved in criminal activity. The article hadn't invented anything. It had exposed it.
"That story linked high-tech scrap and weapons diversion to Hammer, Oscorp, and even Stark-affiliated channels. That got the Pentagon and Congress paying very serious attention. This morning the FBI and NYPD financial-crimes investigators showed up with warrants and locked down three Oscorp subsidiaries for surprise inspections."
"Wait," Peter said, confused. "But Mr. Osborn definitely cut loose the outside executives and contractors who were involved. That shouldn't trace back to him directly, should it?"
"Legally? Probably not," Harry said bitterly. "But the board doesn't care about legal nuance."
He looked miserable.
"My father built everything Oscorp is now, and those greedy fossils on the board have wanted him gone for years. Stark's market crash and this police scandal gave them exactly the opening they needed. At nine this morning, the board held an emergency meeting and handed my father an ultimatum."
Harry took a breath.
"If Oscorp can't produce something in the next seventy-two hours, something big enough to shock the world and reverse the damage to public confidence, basically a military breakthrough, then the board will trigger a joint removal vote in three days."
He laughed once, without humor.
"And the thing they want? The same super-soldier replacement project that's swallowed an absurd amount of funding and still hasn't delivered anything."
"If he fails, they're going to force Norman Osborn out as CEO and throw him out of Oscorp for good."
Clark listened, and the first thought in his head was that Norman had brought a lot of this on himself.
But Harry was his friend, and he wasn't about to say that out loud.
Besides, replacing the CEO didn't automatically mean things would get better. For all they knew, the next person in charge could be even worse. As things stood now, having Harry in place still meant access, information, and a degree of leverage inside Oscorp.
Peter, meanwhile, felt something else rising in his chest.
Guilt.
Because Oscorp's super-soldier replacement program had been those fifteen genetically edited super-spiders.
And three of those fifteen had fallen through the ventilation system in that accident.
Those three had bitten Peter, Cindy, and Gwen.
After that, the spiders hadn't just escaped. They'd effectively lost what made them special.
Or more accurately, the genetic payload that mattered had transferred into Peter, Cindy, and Gwen.
Oscorp's core research samples were no longer whole.
***************************
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