No one at the scene could speak.
Even the bystanders were terrified out of their minds.
They had been watching the heroes fight like spectators at some wild street show, never expecting the S-man, who had become a citywide legend over the past few days, to suddenly appear and defeat the green-armored flyer in a single move.
"No... don't kill me!"
In the rubble, the Green Goblin lay on the ground, screaming and begging.
He was afraid now.
The man in front of him was too strong.
He had no will to resist anymore. Only the instinct to plead for his life remained.
He knew that against this monster, he had no chance of winning.
Clark slowly walked forward, thinking about what to do with Norman.
"Activate emergency retreat protocol!"
The Green Goblin pressed a command on his arm and, with all his remaining strength, yanked several smoke bombs from his belt and hurled them in every direction.
Green smoke erupted across the street.
Of course, smoke did nothing to Clark.
But then a thought suddenly came to him.
Let me fake him out a little.
"Ahhh! It hurts! Is this... smoke? Is this smoke somehow hurting me?"
Clark suddenly shouted loudly enough for Norman to hear.
An idea had just occurred to him.
Why not create one fake weakness after another and use them to bait supervillains later?
That sounded way too entertaining.
Clark's mouth was already starting to curl upward, but luckily, the Green Goblin couldn't see through the smoke. He could only hear Clark's pained cry.
While the smoke spread, the glider flew back to the Goblin, and he heard Clark's groan as he escaped.
At this point, Norman's fear had already ruined his judgment.
He didn't have the mental space to consider whether it was real or fake. He simply decided that the S-man had exposed a weakness.
After all, the stronger someone was, the more obvious their weakness might be.
That fear had completely clouded his thinking.
"Cough... monster! And you little insects too! You got lucky today! Next time, I'll send all of you to Hell!"
Clark didn't chase him.
Of course he could catch up in less than a tenth of a second and crush that green lunatic if he wanted to.
But he couldn't do that.
Norman Osborn was Harry's father.
If Norman died here today, Harry's life would fall into a bottomless abyss.
Clark didn't want that.
This was something Harry and Norman would have to face themselves someday, whether it ended in life, death, or prison.
To preserve his image, Clark bent his legs and launched himself away from the street, leaving behind the wreckage and a crowd of ordinary people whose view of the world had just been forcibly rewritten.
News reports and photographs were one thing.
Seeing it happen in person was something else entirely.
As the smoke cleared, Peter shook his head. The lingering effects of the sonic bomb were finally fading.
He climbed to his feet, checked on Gwen and Cindy, and confirmed they weren't seriously hurt. Then he staggered toward Ben, who was sheltering behind a wall.
"Sir! Are you two okay?"
Peter deliberately lowered his voice, trying to sound rougher and older.
It was painfully obvious he was faking it.
He walked up to Ben and Eddie and reached out to help them.
Eddie looked like he was about to pass out from excitement.
"God! Man, you guys were awesome! Okay, you got beat up pretty badly, but you still threw yourselves at that green freak! And the S-man! He's like a god! I got it all on camera!"
Eddie clutched his camera like it was the most precious thing in the world.
But Ben wasn't swept up in excitement like Eddie.
The old soldier and veteran reporter leaned against the wall, staring at the young man in front of him.
He looked at Spider-Man's familiar build.
He looked at the way the boy was awkwardly trying to disguise himself because of nerves.
Peter felt Ben's gaze burning through him and started rubbing one hand over the other.
It was a tiny movement.
Almost meaningless.
But to Ben Parker, it was painfully familiar.
That was Peter's habit.
Ever since he was little, whenever Peter lied or got nervous, he would instinctively do that exact thing. Ben had seen it countless times, whenever Peter tried to hide a botched science experiment or a bad test score.
He knew it too well.
As a sharp-minded veteran journalist, Ben pieced everything together.
Peter's fever that lasted through the night.
The sudden increase in appetite.
The broken doorknob.
And the spider-themed masked hero who had charged into the Daily Bugle weeks ago to save him.
So that's it...
Ben sighed inwardly.
His eyes held shock, concern, and, above all, pride.
But he didn't expose him on the spot.
With Eddie and the other two spider-themed girls here, revealing Peter's identity would only bring the boy endless trouble.
Maybe Ben even knew those two girls too.
After all, the S-man was his son.
Peter was Spider-Man.
So were the other two Mary Jane and Gwen?
"We're fine."
Ben stood up and refused Peter's help, careful not to let anyone draw a connection between them.
He looked at the masked Peter with complicated eyes, but his voice was unusually gentle.
"Thank you, Spider-Man. Thank you all for protecting us."
Hearing that "thank you," Peter felt his throat tighten.
He almost cried on the spot.
He had only done what he could, yet the man who had raised him was thanking him.
He quickly turned his head away to hide his emotions.
"It's what we're supposed to do. Goodbye, sir. And keep writing those reports. Also, next time, could you call me Spider-Man? I like Spider-Man better. The others are Silk and Ghost-Spider."
With that, Peter fired a web-line and disappeared into the night with Gwen and Cindy.
Ben watched the boy he had raised vanish into the darkness.
He felt, deeply, that his years of teaching had not been wasted.
Peter had not failed his parents.
Ben hoped Richard and Mary could see him now, wherever they were.
Late that night.
Queens.
The second floor of the Parker house.
Peter's bedroom.
Peter had taken off his mask. Wearing only the lower half of his suit, he sat shirtless at his workbench.
With a needle in hand, he was stitching the cut the Green Goblin's blade had left across the chest of his red-and-blue suit.
His ribs still ached faintly.
His enhanced healing was already doing its work, but tonight's fight had made him painfully aware of the gap between himself and a true supervillain.
If Clark hadn't stepped in at the end, the three of them might really have lost.
Then the door opened.
Peter jumped.
Instinctively, he reached for a jacket to cover the suit.
But when he saw who walked in, he froze.
It was Ben Parker.
Ben wore pajamas and carried two cups of hot cocoa.
He glanced at Peter's muscular upper body, far too developed for a fifteen-year-old boy, then at the red-and-blue suit on the table and the web-shooters beside it.
There was no surprise in the older man's eyes.
Only calm understanding.