Chapter 4: The Lizard.
(Peter's P.O.V)
I wasn't expecting to get called in.
Not after six sick days, two rescheduled reports, and the head of my department emailing me "?" with no subject line.
But the summons came anyway.
All staff. Mandatory meeting. Conference Hall A. 8:00 AM sharp.
I kissed Gwen and May goodbye, threw on a clean button-up, and rode the subway, like I wasn't capable of shooting out webs from my wrists.
Harry was waiting by the lobby turnstiles.
He spotted me before I could duck past him.
"Wow. Look who's alive."
I gave him a tired half-smile. "Rough week."
"No kidding. You ghosted everyone. Thought maybe you were off inventing teleporters without me."
I shrugged. "Just needed space."
He didn't push, but his face said he wanted to.
Instead, he walked with me toward the elevator.
"Dad's making a big announcement," he said. "Nobody knows what it is. Even the board's in the dark."
That… didn't sound good.
By the time we reached the upper level, the main conference hall was packed. Rows of Oscorp employees filing into chairs. Board members whispering behind clenched teeth. Half the room smelled like expensive cologne and silent panic.
The cologne would have been a nightmare to my senses if I hadn't learned to control them during my Junkyard outings.
Norman Osborn stood alone near the podium. Almost an older version of Harry.
Hands behind his back.
Expression unreadable.
At exactly 8:00 AM, he stepped up to the mic.
"Good morning," he said.
The room went still.
"I won't waste your time. Effective immediately, I've entered negotiations to sell Oscorp."
Silence.
Then—
"What?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're what?!"
Gasps from the crowd. Shouts from the board. Someone near the front actually dropped their tablet.
No one had been expecting this. Not even Harry, who clenched his fists so tight the knuckles turned white while glaring at his father.
Osborn held up one hand. Calm.
"This is not a retreat. It's an evolution. Oscorp's purpose is bigger than stock tickers and quarterly projections. The company must move forward. Whether or not we go with it."
That last statement was for Harry judging by the way Norman's eyes landed on him.
And yet he didn't elaborate.
Didn't take questions.
Just stepped away from the mic like he hadn't just lit a match and tossed it into a gas line.
"The old basta-" Harry's angry comment was cut off when the wall exploded.
I pulled Harry down to shield his body with mine.
The left side of the conference room—gone in an instant. Cement and glass rained down like confetti. Screams. Chairs flying. People diving for cover.
And through the smoke—
The Lizard.
Bigger. Meaner. Faster than I remembered.
He hit the floor with a growl, claws flexing, tail lashing.
Everyone ran, screams filling the air.
The Lizard moved fast.
Security didn't stand a chance.
The first guard barely raised his rifle before he was gutted—claws through his chest like paper. The second got his neck crushed against the wall. By the third, everyone not running had changed their minds.
Then came the canisters.
He threw two—metal, round, hissing with pressure. They rolled across the tile floor and burst open with a sharp pop.
Green gas spilled out, thick and fast. The nearest exec started choking, then screaming.
His skin melted off his face like wax.
People trampled over each other trying to escape. A few didn't make it out.
The Lizard didn't care. He walked straight through the chaos, grabbed Norman Osborn by the throat, and leapt back through the hole he made.
Gone.
I acted on instinct.
Grabbed Harry—he'd frozen, couldn't move—slung him over my shoulder, and carried him out into the hallway.
He started to come to, coughing.
"I'm going to call the cops," I told him. "And get help."
He nodded, dazed. "Yeah… yeah, okay."
"I'll get your Dad back. I promise."
I didn't wait for him to respond.
Around the corner, I ducked into a janitor's closet and closed the door.
I took a breath.
Then started spinning.
It took about a few seconds to weave a basic web mask—tight layers, light as gauze but firm enough to hold and breath through.
Not exactly heroic-looking.
But it would do.
I muttered to myself while hurrying out, mask covering my lower face."Really should've finished the suit…"
Ignoring Gwen's 'leave it to the professionals' I went back inside the gas filled conference room. Then I punched the wide window.
I didn't jump out.
Not yet.
The gas was still leaking from the room—thick and deadly.
I webbed two wide anchor points, then began layering thin sheets in a radial spread—crisscrossing in a fan pattern, letting the webs catch and redirect the vapor like a makeshift air filter.
The green mist started thinning.
Some of it was pushed outside.
Not enough to save everyone.
But enough to keep it from spreading further into the building.
I didn't wait for applause.
Didn't wait for police.
Just jumped through the hole on the wall and swung outside, following the Lizard's familiar scent from the hospital.
The Lizard reeked—sewage, blood, chemical rot. I trailed it out the side of the building, across rooftops, over fire escapes. Sometimes I stopped just to reorient, sniff the air, feel the humidity shift.
It led me downtown.
Then sharply right.
Toward the sewer system.
I landed hard on a manhole cover and crouched. My sudden arrival surprising a few people on the streets.
A car honked, missing me by some inches.
"Get a life loser!" The driver yelled but I was too preoccupied.
The scent was everywhere here.
Fresh.
I lifted the lid and dropped down into the dark.
The smell hit like a wall—wet concrete, rot, decay, and something else under it. Rage.
I didn't say a word.
Didn't hesitate.
Norman was down there.
And I'd made Harry a promise.
The tunnels were worse than I expected.
Dark. Humid. Echoing with every drop of water and distant rush of runoff. But I could see just fine. Not like before—this was clearer, sharper. Everything around me was outlined in shades of grey and green.
I could smell everything.
The waste. The rust. The oil slick on the surface of the water.
And something else.
The Lizard's scent—growing stronger—cut through all of it.
I followed it without hesitation.
It led deeper. Through service corridors and low arches. The trail got thicker with every step. Eventually, I reached a wide chamber. Bigger than the rest. A maintenance zone or overflow site, maybe.
All the tunnels fed into it—streams of foul water emptying into a massive drainage pool below.
And above that pool, hanging by chains—
Norman Osborn.
Unconscious.
Dangling.
Rust chewed into the metal that held him up. One wrong shift and he was going in.
I leaped onto the wall behind and crawled toward him.
Then everything inside me screamed.
It wasn't a sound.
It was a pulse in the back of my skull.
A flash of danger.
{UNLOCKED NEW TRAIT:- DANGER SENSE}
I jumped, swiping away the distracting notification.
Something swiped past my back—a blur of claws—as I landed hard on a dry patch of concrete just as one of the chains snapped.
Norman's body dipped lower. The other chain groaned.
The Lizard now occupied my spot on the wall, breathing slow and loud.
"I remember you," it said, green scales flashing in the dim light. Its deep voice rasped like a broken pipe. "From the hospital. The little rat with the babies."
I kept my eyes on the creature. "And I know of you, Dr. Curt Connors."
It didn't deny it.
"Let him go," I said. "Whatever this is about, it doesn't fix anything."
"No," the Lizard growled. "But it ends something."
I saw its eyes twitch. Not reptilian. Human, buried deep behind rage.
"He ruined me," it spat. "Norman Osborn. Years ago. Gave me a chance—then took it all back."
"What did he do?" I asked, thinking, 'Keep it talking and wait for an opening.'
"He put me in charge of a program. Told me I was a genius. Gave me funding, a lab, freedom. Then when it failed—when his OWN formula backfired—he blamed ME! MEE!! Discredited me. Blacklisted me."
Another chain link popped. Norman groaned in his sleep.
"I tried to expose him. Tried to go to the press. But every time I reached out, someone else lost their job instead. A scapegoat. A cover story. He buried the truth over and over again." It seethed.
I stepped closer, carefully.
"Why didn't you take what you knew and give it to the authorities?"
The Lizard laughed.
A low, wheezing sound that sounded more like hissing than humor.
"Naive little boy," he said. "You don't know how this city works."
"Corruption," I guessed. This IS new york after all.
"Yes," Connors snapped. "Judges. Cops. Lawyers. All of them in Norman's pocket. I tried to play by the rules."
He pointed a claw toward the cameras mounted on the ceiling.
"Now everyone will see the truth. I'll kill him where they can all watch."
My stomach turned.
That might've been the real reason Norman wanted to sell Oscorp. To jump ship before this came to light.
"You're right," I said. "He's a monster. Maybe worse than you. But I made a promise."
Connors narrowed his eyes.
"A promise to who?"
"His son."
That made him pause.
"I get where you're coming from," I continued, positioning myself for a web shot. "But I'm not letting you kill him."
The Lizard stared at me for a long moment. The water below bubbled. Norman's body sagged lower.
"You sound young," he said finally leaping off the wall and dropping before me in a crouch.
"It'll be a shame to kill you."
And then he leapt. Fast.
I moved before I even thought. Faster.
My body twisted sideways midair, just clearing the Lizard's claws. They sliced through the air where my face had been a second ago.
That buzzing in my skull—it screamed right before he moved.
My first real warning.
The Spider Sense. That's what I decided to call it. Sounded better than Danger sense.
It wasn't just a feeling. It was a pulse behind my eyes. It built like static and spiked the closer danger in the form of sharp claws or fangs came.
And every time I trusted it, I stayed alive.
The Lizard swiped again. I ducked under his arm, rolled between his legs, and launched off the side of the chamber wall.
He was strong. Fast. But I was faster now. I let him chase me, circle me, try to corner me—until the Spider Sense gave me just enough of a head start to escape every time.
Claws missed my chest by an inch.
Tail whipped past my face so close I could feel the air split.
It should've been terrifying.
But I started learning. Adapting.
He roared and grabbed a cart of lab equipment—scrapped prototypes, smashed monitors, a metal tank—and hurled it all at me in one heavy sweep.
I flipped high. Spun sideways midair.
The fragments sailed beneath me and crashed against the wall. Sparks. Screams of bending metal. But I landed clean.
My legs bent. My balance perfect.
That part felt almost fun. Scratch that. It was.
The Lizard growled in frustration and turned back to Norman.
He raised a claw and stepped toward the chains.
"No," I said.
He didn't stop.
"I'm new to this," I called out, going on the offensive. "Never been in a real fight before."
He paused just long enough to glance back at me.
"So if I mess this up…"
I fired a web at his tail.
"…forgive me."
I yanked with everything I had.
He stumbled. Lost balance.
And then I pulled again—spun.
The Lizard's massive frame arced through the air in a full body swing. His back slammed into the far chamber wall, stone cracking on impact.
Then his head hit.
A sharp, wet pop followed by a deep crunch.
He slid down the wall.
Didn't move.
I didn't either.
For a second, everything went still.
The sound replayed in my head. Over and over.
The crack of bone.
The way his neck twisted just wrong.
My stomach turned.
I stepped forward slowly, half-expecting him to get back up.
He didn't.
My Spider Sense flared again—harder than before.
No enemy this time. Just a pulse of dread.
A deep rumble echoed through the tunnels behind me.
The pipes on the wall hissed and burst with steam.
The tremors came from all over, followed by the sound of waves of water rushing at us.
Explosives. It had to be. The Lizard must have set them up all through the tunnel systems and set to his Heartbeat. Now that he was...dead, they'd triggered.
I didn't wait to find out.
I ran.
Webbed Norman's chains and yanked.
Caught his body before it dropped.
Threw him over my shoulder and fired a webline at the ceiling.
We were gone in seconds, shooting through the tunnels as the rumbling grew louder behind us.
We broke daylight just as the explosions hit.
The tunnels behind us collapsed in a roar of dust and flame.
I didn't stop swinging until we were on a rooftop four blocks clear.
Only then did I let myself look back. The explosions had blown off all the manhole lids and flooded the street in waste water.
Norman groaned, still alive. All I could really hear though, was the sound of the Lizard's skull shattering.
With great power comes great responsibility yes. And I just killed someone.