Norman Osborn's day began precisely at five in the morning, and it rarely ended before nine at night. This wasn't a schedule enforced by a board of directors; it was a religious devotion.
He stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse office, staring out at the sprawling, twilight-lit grid of Manhattan. Unlike Tony Stark—a pampered heir who could casually hand the keys of his empire to his secretary and go play superhero—Norman had built Oscorp with his own blood, sweat, and cutthroat instincts. The towering glass-and-steel monolith beneath his feet was his true legacy. Regardless of what the media or his own son thought, Norman harbored a burning, obsessive passion for his company that easily eclipsed any affection he held for his own flesh and blood.
The sharp trill of his private cell phone broke the silence.
Norman pulled it from his tailored vest pocket. Peter Parker. He accepted the call, pressing the phone to his ear. "Peter. What is it?"
"I'll make this short, Mr. Osborn," Peter's voice crackled through the speaker, tight with urgency. "Adrian Toomes has been forcibly bonded to an alien symbiote. It's a highly aggressive, parasitic organism that heavily amplifies extreme human emotions and drastically enhances physical strength. Based on his psychological profile, Toomes is almost certainly coming to kill you. You need to evacuate and take refuge immediately."
Norman didn't flinch. His mind worked like a supercomputer, instantly connecting the dots. Alien parasite. Amplified strength. He already knew about the military's botched bio-weapon program at the bottom of the Hudson River. He also knew Peter possessed a black, shape-shifting suit with similar properties.
"An alien possession?" Norman chuckled, a dry, dismissive sound. He turned his back to the window, walking toward his massive oak desk. "You don't need to worry about me, Peter. Oscorp security is impenetrable. My office is an absolute fort—"
Norman stopped mid-sentence.
A massive shadow fell over his desk, blocking out the fading evening light. Norman slowly turned his head. Hovering just outside the reinforced glass was a monstrous, hulking gargoyle. It had a thirty-foot wingspan of dark green, biomechanical feathers and a face split by rows of jagged, overlapping teeth.
The creature raised a massive wing. A dozen razor-sharp metallic feathers shot forward like armor-piercing rounds.
Norman instinctively threw himself to the floor, covering the back of his neck. The heavy, bulletproof glass—rated to withstand sustained heavy machine-gun fire—shattered inward with a deafening, explosive CRACK. Jagged shards rained down over Norman's expensive Persian rug.
"A.I. interface!" Norman barked into his collar mic, scrambling behind the thick oak of his desk. "Protocol: Green Goblin. Standby!"
The monster crashed through the remaining window frame, its heavy talons gouging deep trenches into the hardwood floor. The Vulture Symbiote threw its head back and unleashed a piercing, unnatural shriek.
"Die, Osborn!" the creature roared, its voice a terrifying, dual-layered distortion of alien bass and Adrian Toomes's raw fury. "The Vulture has come to collect!"
Norman didn't panic. He slammed his palm against a hidden red button under his desk console.
"High-frequency sonic defense. Engage," Norman ordered.
Concealed acoustic emitters in the ceiling immediately dropped into the room. A paralyzing, ultra-high-frequency sound wave tore through the office. The noise was physically agonizing, vibrating the fillings in Norman's teeth.
The symbiote collapsed. It shrieked in absolute agony, its massive wings violently thrashing against the office walls, smashing bookshelves and shattering monitors. The thick green sludge rapidly boiled and peeled back, desperately retreating from the noise.
Norman covered his ears, keeping low to the ground as he sprinted for the heavy oak doors. As he reached the exit, he glanced back. The symbiote had peeled away enough to reveal Adrian Toomes's pale, sweating face.
"Help... help me..." Adrian gasped, reaching a trembling hand out toward Norman. "I can't... I can't get it off..."
Norman stood in the doorway. He looked at the pleading, desperate man. He calculated the risk, measured the value of Adrian's life against his own safety, and let out a cold, sharp exhale.
Norman stepped into the hallway and hit the emergency lockdown panel.
Thick, interlocking plates of solid titanium violently slammed shut over the office doorway, sealing the room into an airtight vault. Norman immediately pulled a secure comms device from his pocket.
"This is Osborn. We have a severe containment breach," Norman stated, his heart rate barely elevating. "Classify it as a Level One Mutation Hazard. Deploy the tactical response team to the executive penthouse. Arm them with heavy flamethrowers and sonic cannons."
Inside the sealed office, the Vulture writhed.
Lasher was a significantly older, more resilient strain of symbiote than Venom. As the agony peaked, the creature realized the source of the noise. It lashed out blindly. Thick green tendrils and razor-sharp metallic feathers whipped through the air, systematically obliterating every hidden acoustic speaker in the room.
The paralyzing noise cut out.
The green sludge immediately washed back over Adrian Toomes's face, sealing him away in the dark. The brief separation had actually forced a deeper, more permanent cellular fusion. Adrian's memories, his resentment, and his overwhelming hatred for Norman Osborn poured into the symbiote's consciousness. It was a perfect cocktail of malice.
Yes, the symbiote purred internally. We will tear this human apart.
The Vulture spread its massive wings. Hundreds of dark green, biologically hardened feathers shot forward like a relentless barrage of Gatling gun fire. The titanium blast doors groaned, dented, and finally blew apart in a shower of shredded metal.
The monster stalked out into the hallway, its long, serpentine tongue tasting the air. It picked up Norman's scent instantly.
It sprinted down the corridor, rounding the corner just as the VIP elevator chimed. The silver doors slid open. A heavily armed, six-man Oscorp tactical squad stood inside, assault rifles raised and aimed squarely at the Vulture's chest.
Before a single trigger could be pulled, the Vulture flicked its wrist. A thick, razor-edged whip snapped forward, carving straight through the metal floor of the elevator car and severing the heavy, braided steel suspension cables.
The tactical soldiers screamed as the elevator car instantly dropped out from under them, plummeting down the darkened shaft.
The Vulture let out a rattling laugh and turned to leave.
THWUMP. SCREEEEECH.
A horrific, groaning sound echoed from the shaft. The elevator hadn't crashed. The Vulture paused, turning slowly back toward the open doors.
Spider-Man hung upside down from the top of the elevator shaft, his boots anchored to the concrete. Both of his hands gripped a massive, braided cable of thick white webbing that was currently suspending the multi-ton elevator car in mid-air.
"Long time no see, Lash," Peter grunted, the muscles in his arms burning as he held the immense weight. He glared down at the monster through his white eye lenses. "What, you think you can take me down just because you glued some metal feathers to your back?"
"Ah. Venom. Or Spider-Man," the Vulture mocked, stepping to the edge of the open shaft. "It has barely been twenty-four hours. Tell me, insect... can you fly?"
Peter gritted his teeth. He couldn't fly. But he wasn't trying to fight right now; he was stalling. He focused his enhanced hearing, listening to the frantic scrambling of the Oscorp soldiers below as they pried the elevator doors open on the fiftieth floor and evacuated the car.
The sudden release of weight sent a jolt of relief up Peter's arms.
"Maybe I can't fly," Peter said, rolling his shoulders as he dropped the now-empty webline. He flipped upward, landing smoothly on the edge of the shaft right in front of the monster. "But I've got more than enough to deal with you."
"Arrogant!" the Vulture shrieked.
The massive wings snapped forward, firing a deadly volley of razor-feathers. Peter's spider-sense flared, painting the trajectory of every projectile in his mind. He moved in a blur, contorting his body to slip through the deadly barrage. Mid-dodge, he fired two thick web-lines, anchoring them directly to the Vulture's chest.
Peter planted his feet, hauled back, and violently yanked the monster forward.
Gotcha. Peter's analytical mind calculated the physics instantly. The symbiote might be older than Venom, but Adrian Toomes was a middle-aged engineer. His base physical stats were significantly lower than the highly trained S.H.I.E.L.D. operative the symbiote had possessed yesterday. Peter had the raw strength advantage.
He pulled his fist back for a devastating right hook.
But the symbiote's intelligence had also merged with Adrian's engineering genius. The monster didn't try to out-muscle Spider-Man. With a mere thought, the symbiote triggered the anti-gravity harness integrated into its biology.
The physics in the hallway violently inverted.
A localized gravity field pulsed outward. Peter's stomach plummeted as he was instantly stripped of all his weight. His boots detached from the floor. The taut web-lines in his hands went entirely slack as he floated helplessly into the air, his arms flailing for an anchor.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Peter yelled, his equilibrium completely scrambled.
The Vulture let out a shrill, victorious laugh. It lunged forward, grabbing Peter by the throat. With a single, explosive flap of its wings, the monster blasted straight up, smashing through the reinforced ceiling of the hallway, tearing through the roof of the Oscorp building, and soaring high into the freezing night sky.
The wind howled around them as the city lights shrank into tiny, glittering dots below.
"I only need to adjust my gravity field once, Spider-Man!" the Vulture roared over the rushing wind, its claws digging into Peter's suit. "And you will fall until you break!"
"Yeah, yeah, I figured you were gonna do the whole 'drop the hero from the sky' routine," Peter yelled back, perfectly calm despite dangling two thousand feet above the pavement. He tapped the side of his mask. "So I asked a friend to introduce me to someone who actually likes the altitude."
Before the Vulture could process the insult, the ambient temperature in the sky skyrocketed. A blinding wave of scorching, yellow-orange heat swept across the clouds, illuminating the darkness like a second sunrise.
A figure composed entirely of roaring fire streaked through the air, pulling up alongside them with a cocky, fiery grin.
"Here's Johnny!"