The conference room in the Osborn Industries Building was silent except for the hum of climate control and the rustle of expensive paper.
A dozen directors in tailored suits sat around a vast oval table, their faces carved from marble—cold, polished, and utterly devoid of empathy.
At the head of the table, Norman Osborn slumped in the chairman's seat. The man who once graced the covers of Fortune and Forbes—whose sharp eyes and sharper mind had built an empire—now looked gaunt, his skin sallow, his hands trembling just slightly beneath the table.
He felt like a condemned man awaiting the final sentence… and the jury was made up of the very men he'd handpicked.
"Norman," Lead Director Stone began, voice like dry ice, "Dr. Connors' project has been a catastrophic failure."
He tapped a thick financial report. The numbers glared off the page in brutal red ink.
"Three hundred and seventy million dollars. Gone. Not a penny to show for it. The military consortium is furious—they want answers."
Norman's chest hitched. He forced air into his lungs, clinging to the last shreds of his dignity.
"That was an accident—a controllable one! Connors' research was sound. We were one step away from a breakthrough!"
"An accident?" Stone snapped, leaning forward. Spittle glistened on his lip. "A three-meter-tall lizard monster tore through Midtown High like it was made of cardboard! The building's half-destroyed—news crews are calling it a 'bioweapon incident'! And you call that controllable?"
"Our stock dropped thirty percent in twenty-four hours," another director added—Robert, portly and perpetually smirking. "And let's not forget: several of our investors' kids go to that school. Hell, your son, Harry, is in that building every day. What kind of father risks his own child for a pipe dream?"
Norman's fingers whitened around the edge of the table.
"I built this company from nothing!" he growled, voice cracking with fury. "Osborn Industries didn't exist until I willed it into being! You wouldn't be sitting in these chairs if it weren't for me!"
"That was the past," Stone cut in, cold amusement curling his lips. "The board has already voted on your future."
He slid a single sheet of paper across the polished mahogany.
"Twelve to one. You're out."
Stone folded his hands. "Effective tomorrow, you're no longer CEO. A professional management team will take over—people who understand shareholder value, not science fiction."
Norman stared at the termination letter. The words blurred. His blood felt like slush in his veins.
"You ungrateful vultures!" he snarled. "Without me, this company is nothing!"
"No," Stone said quietly, slipping the file into his briefcase. "You're nothing, Norman. You've been chasing fairy tales—super-soldiers, genetic perfection—while dragging us into regulatory hell. The Lizard wasn't a setback. It was your epitaph."
He stood. "Clear your office by nine a.m. Don't make us send security. It'd be… undignified."
The door clicked shut behind them.
Silence.
Norman sat alone in the cavernous room, the weight of thirty years pressing down like a collapsing star. He'd poured everything—his mind, his fortune, his soul—into this empire.
And now the men he'd elevated were discarding him over a single misstep.
With a guttural cry, he seized the crystal ashtray and hurled it at the floor-to-ceiling window.
Crack!
A spiderweb of white fissures bloomed across the reinforced glass—but it held. Unbroken.
Just like his rage.
"Damn you…" he whispered, then louder, voice raw with fury. "Damn you all!"
His roar echoed through the empty chamber—a king dethroned, not by war, but by paperwork.
...
Underground Laboratory
Norman Osborn staggered as he shoved open the heavy door—and froze.
The sight before him ignited a white-hot fury.
Connors's gene lab—once his pride—was being gutted. Every bench was stripped, sealed under plastic sheeting. Workers in hazmat-style coveralls carefully packed up multimillion-dollar precision equipment, loading it onto wheeled carts.
"Stop!"
Norman lunged forward and shoved aside a technician disassembling an electron microscope.
"This is my lab! Who the hell gave you permission to touch my things?!"
"Mr. Osborne," the site supervisor said coolly, stepping forward. He held out a crisp legal document. "We have authorization from the Osborn Industries Board of Directors. All assets tied to high-risk, non-compliant projects are to be impounded pending review."
Norman snatched the paper—and tore it in half, then again, and again—until nothing remained but confetti.
The scraps fluttered to the floor like poisoned snow.
"Get out!" he roared. "All of you—get out!"
The workers exchanged uneasy glances. After a tense pause, they chose retreat over confrontation.
Alone in the echoing silence, Norman stood amidst the ruins of his legacy. His chest heaved, breath ragged.
His eyes swept over overturned workstations, gutted analyzers, dismantled centrifuges. Thirty years. Thirty years of vision, sacrifice… and now this.
"Connors…" he spat, voice trembling with venom. "That spineless worm. That meddling Spider-Man. And you boardroom leeches—sucking Osborn dry while hiding behind paperwork!"
He seized a beaker from the nearest bench and hurled it against the wall.
Smash!
Glass exploded outward, glittering like betrayal.
He kicked over another microscope. Then a spectrometer. Then a cryogenic storage unit. One by one, instruments that once charted the future of human evolution were reduced to twisted metal and shattered glass.
Sweat stung his eyes. His knuckles bled.
Then—stillness.
At the far end of the lab, half-hidden behind a false panel, stood a reinforced biometric safe.
His last hope.
Inside: the Human Enhancement Project—his answer to Captain America. A next-generation Super Soldier Serum, refined in secrecy. Preclinical models showed subjects gaining several times the strength, speed, and regenerative capacity of a normal human.
It also carried a 40% fatality rate.
But right now? Death didn't frighten him.
What terrified Norman Osborn was powerlessness. Humiliation. Being cast aside like obsolete tech.
Hands shaking, he entered the override code—his own DNA key, his last act of control.
The safe hissed open.
Inside, cradled in foam, sat a single vial of luminous green liquid. It pulsed faintly under the sterile lights, as if alive.
"There's… one last way," he whispered, voice raw—like something clawing its way out of a grave.
"If I can't control Osborn Industries…" He lifted the vial. "…then I'll control everything else."
He moved to the auto-injection rig—a prototype designed for rapid intravenous delivery. With ritualistic precision, he loaded the serum into the syringe. The green fluid glowed, hypnotic and venomous.
"To succeed…" He bared his arm, veins stark against pallid skin. "…or die trying."
The needle hissed as it pierced his flesh.
For three heartbeats—nothing.
Then—agony.
It wasn't pain. It was unmaking. A million razors shredding through his nerves. His blood boiled, turned emerald, coursed like liquid fire beneath his skin.
"Aaahh—!"
He collapsed, writhing. Muscles bulged, tendons snapped and reknit. His skin darkened, then greened, mottled like oxidized copper. Veins stood out, glowing faintly.
His eyes—once sharp, calculating—rolled back. The sclera clouded, then flooded with that same sickly green. Pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Consciousness fractured.
In the void, a voice laughed—his voice, but not. Deeper. Hungrier. Unhinged.
"Finally… free."
When Norman opened his eyes again, the man was gone.
A predator stood in his place.
He rose slowly, flexing fingers now corded with inhuman strength. A grin split his face—too wide, too sharp.
"Poor Norman," he crooned, voice layered with mockery and glee. "Always so weak."
He stretched, joints popping like gunshots.
"But now?" His green eyes gleamed with mad triumph. "Now… it's my turn."
The Green Goblin had been born.
Visit patreon.com/ShiroTL for more chapters.