Peter's heart was pounding.
He felt like he was the one who had done something wrong, and the guilt was starting to eat at him.
Was he the real cause of all this?
Peter was the kind of kid who took responsibility seriously. He couldn't stand the thought that his accident might end up tearing apart his best friend's family.
"Harry..." Peter gripped his pants under the table, trying to work up the courage to say what he wanted to say.
"Actually... about the super-spider experiment..."
He wanted to tell Harry everything. He wanted to admit that he had been bitten, that he'd be willing to provide blood samples, anything, if it could help Mr. Osborn reconstruct the missing data.
"Actually..."
Just as Peter was about to say it, Clark's hand came down hard on his shoulder.
The pressure alone cut Peter off and shoved all that emotion back down.
Don't say something stupid.
Clark's eyes carried a warning.
Norman was a capitalist to the bone. If Peter handed himself over, he wouldn't be treated like a son's friend. He'd be treated like a lab rat.
Dissected. Drained for blood. Studied until there was nothing left. And the fallout wouldn't stop with him. Their family and friends would get dragged in too.
Peter was only fifteen. He didn't understand how ugly this kind of thing could get.
Clark had seen the guilt building in him from the start.
Keeping his hand on Peter's shoulder, Clark turned to Harry and picked up the conversation in a calm, steady tone.
"Harry, we're sorry you're going through this. What adults do to each other in the business world can be brutal."
"But you need to remember who your father is. Norman Osborn is the kind of man who clawed his way all the way to the top of Wall Street from nothing. He's survived storms bigger than anything we can imagine. The board turning on him may make him furious, but I'd bet on his intelligence before I'd bet on their deadline."
"As his son, the best thing you can do right now isn't panic. Go home. Stay with him. Family support might help him make the right choice."
Hearing that, and hearing it from Clark of all people, seemed to settle something in Harry immediately.
Clark always had this strange ability to make things feel less hopeless.
"You're right, Clark."
Harry grabbed the milk, drained it in one go, wiped his mouth, and looked like he'd just clawed his way back to life.
Full energy restored.
"My father won't go down that easily. I need to be there for him, even if all I can do is help organize his research notes. Thanks, guys. Really."
As Harry hurried off, Peter turned to his brother, still confused and still guilty.
"Why didn't you let me tell him the truth?" Peter asked. "Those spiders were lost because of us. Isn't that my fault?"
Clark looked at his self-blaming little brother.
Some of it was probably the old wound of losing his parents young. Some of it was just who Peter was. Sensitive. Kind. The kind of person who always tried to shoulder more than he should.
"No, Peter. It was an accident. It wasn't your fault."
Clark had already pieced together most of what had been happening inside Oscorp lately.
"You think Oscorp's crisis is just about a few missing spiders? It isn't. This is the result of illegal experiments, bad corporate decisions, and black-market weapons trafficking piling up for years. Norman Osborn has been playing with fire. What's happening now is just him getting burned."
At the same time, Clark quietly focused his hearing elsewhere.
He wanted to know what Norman was doing now.
And whether one of Spider-Man's most iconic enemies was about to be born.
It didn't take long to lock onto Norman in Oscorp Tower.
"They think they can take my company? Take everything from me?! Not a chance!"
"No spiders? Fine! The human-enhancement gas compound is already ninety-nine percent complete! I don't need those fools on the board to judge me! No one gets to judge me!"
"I will succeed! I'll show them all! I'll prove that Norman Osborn is the greatest scientific mind in the world!"
Listening to Norman rave, Clark already knew where this road ended.
Power and money had hollowed the man out. The brilliant scientist was losing his grip.
The Green Goblin was almost here.
Did Norman really think ninety-nine percent meant one hundred?
That final one percent was exactly where disaster lived.
He'd probably succeed in enhancing his body.
But his mind?
That last one percent was where the fracture would happen. Where another personality would be born.
"Peter," Clark said quietly, "get ready. Big things are coming."
The others all looked at him blankly.
Peter frowned first. "Could you stop talking like a cryptic old wizard for five minutes? Does that really fit your image, Clark?"
Clark clicked his tongue.
He'd been trying to sound cool for once, and Peter had ruined it instantly.
So, with Mary Jane sitting right there, he only said one thing.
"Be careful around Norman."
That only gave everyone more question marks than answers.
But that was the truth of it, plain and simple.
After school, Peter and the others went to visit Eddie, who by all rights should have been awake by now.
Sunlight streamed through the hospital window and fell across Eddie's body, which was still wrapped up like a mummy.
The heart monitor was gone now, replaced by the steady, harmless beep of a normal bedside setup.
Not because he was dead.
Because he'd improved enough that they didn't need to keep full monitoring on him anymore.
The group of childhood friends sat around his bed, watching Eddie slowly drink water.
Everyone was genuinely relieved.
None of them wanted to lose one of their own.
"Slow down, man," Peter said, fussing over him. "The doctors said your recovery speed is basically a medical miracle. Your ribs were broken, but somehow your organs avoided lethal damage, and your blood vessels sealed up on their own."
As he said it, Peter even tucked Eddie's blanket in more carefully around him.
Completely forgetting that it was nearly October, the room was warm, and Eddie was already wrapped in enough bandages to roast alive.
Eddie looked at the three idiots he'd grown up with and, despite the lingering pain, felt something close to happiness.
A crooked smile pulled at his mouth.
"I'm glad to see you morons too. Means I'm not in Hell meeting Satan. But if Peter keeps wrapping me up like this, I might get there after all..."
Mary Jane smacked Peter's hand away and made him stop hovering uselessly.
"This stubborn mule," Clark said, patting Eddie on the shoulder, "even Satan would send him back for having too much attitude."
Suddenly Eddie remembered something.
"The card... the SD card. Did it make it?" he asked, trying to sit up, only to tug at his wounds and hiss in pain.
"Lie down! Don't move!" Peter quickly pushed him back down. "Yeah, it made it! Uncle Ben got it! Didn't you see the paper this morning? You became New York's anonymous hero! The cops used your evidence to tear through Kingpin's weapons pipeline!"