At the appointed time, Gwen was already on the roof of the building next to Oscorp. From here, she had a perfect view of the balcony where the top brass had gathered to celebrate the successful completion of the most important deal in the company's history. After all, after this, Oscorp, as an independent entity, would cease to exist. A merger of multi-billion-dollar corporations was far from an ordinary event. Such deals always had countless consequences and, quite predictably, resistance in one form or another. Not everyone at Oscorp was happy with this turn of events. Specifically, the former company president, Norma Osborn, was categorically against it. Which was why she'd been pushed out.
And that gave her a very solid reason not to attend the celebration. Which was, of course, convenient: skipping an event that, according to Peter, was about to be hit by a terrorist attack. Not to mention that, per Parker's assumptions, Norma's opponents would be the first victims of the attackers.
And how the hell did he know all this in such detail? Gwen couldn't help asking herself that question. Plus the warning about the symbiote appearing. How many secrets was this boy hiding? The girl's gaze fell on her own wrists, where the most useful and valuable acquisition for her as a superheroine was situated. It was only after putting on the web-shooters that she'd truly felt... the girl could barely find the words to describe her feelings, but she understood one thing for sure. Her life had once again been divided into before and after. And this new milestone, gaining the webbing, had turned out to be even more significant than the previous one: the bite itself.
'These web-shooters were designed specifically for me!' Gwen thought, looking at Parker's invention. Could a complete stranger have created something so perfectly suited for her? Who else but her, Spider-Woman, would have even considered the idea of swinging through the city on webs? Questions without answers.
Her musings were cut short as her spider-sense prickled again, reminding her of its presence. Gwen jolted, scanning for a potential threat. But at first glance, everything was the same. Down below, on the open-air stage, a black singer was still belting out her god-awful pop songs. The adults were mingling, letting their kids bounce on trampolines and race around giant, colorful inflatable figures. In the VIP lounge, hushed debates were being held, temporary alliances were being forged, sealed with fake smiles. Nothing had changed.
"What if Peter was wrong, and the attackers just planted a bomb under the lounge?" the anxious thought pounded in her temples. That was the terrorists' favorite method, after all.
Then, her heightened hearing caught a strange sound, alien to this time and place: the distant roar of a jet engine. No part of the city's infrastructure used jet engines. Too dangerous, too expensive, not to mention the excessive power.
Soon, the source of the sound appeared: a green dot in the sky, trailing a plume of smoke. With her sharp vision, the girl could make out, before anyone else, that the dot was nothing other than a person, flying on a strange device. A wiry woman, clad in a high-tech suit done in green tones. An ugly helmet-mask crowned the unknown's head. She was snarling like a monster from a nightmare, come into this world to reap a bloody harvest.
And it was obvious that this woman was no ordinary human. Because no human body could balance on such an awkward flying machine like that.
The gathered crowd, however, had no idea. Mistaking the new arrival for part of the show, they greeted her with ovations and welcoming shouts, anticipating a spectacular demonstration of new technology. It never crossed anyone's mind that the unknown flyer would attack people.
Already savoring her triumph, the woman flew up to the balcony where her former colleagues were gathered and tossed several pumpkin-shaped grenades in their direction.
"Now who's out of the picture?" she cackled viciously, believing nothing could save her offenders now.
But Spider-Woman had other plans. To intervene in time, Gwen had to leap toward the danger and catch both bombs in mid-flight with two precise web shots.
"It's way too early for Halloween!" she shouted, flinging the explosive devices upward so they'd explode as far from the crowd as possible. Luckily for her, this particular modification of pumpkin bombs had no fragmentation effect and an extremely small blast radius. When triggered, they didn't explode like regular grenades, but instantly incinerated all organic matter within a few meters.
"Who the hell are you?" the Goblin roared, seeing her attack fail.
"You know who I am!" Showing incredible agility, Gwen managed to shoot another web, attaching herself to the glider and using it as an anchor point to arrest her fall.
"What the..." the jolt nearly threw Norma off her flying device.
As the villain was processing what had happened, Spider-Woman, having gained momentum on her web, tried to knock her off the glider with a double-footed kick.
"Get off me!" the Goblin, who'd managed to stay on her glider thanks to the powerful bindings on her boots, roared, desperately fending off the nimble and shockingly strong opponent.
Gwen had a clear advantage in freedom of movement, since the Goblin had practically welded her feet to the glider to avoid falling during the fight. And Gwen exploited it fully, using the glider as an anchor for her webbing and pummeling the villain from all sides. After taking a very hard hit to the stomach, the Goblin suddenly saw a tightly stretched web right in front of her face.
"Take this!" she roared, slashing through the web with the blade built into her suit's vambraces.
To avoid falling, Gwen had to latch onto the building's wall, and Osborn used the bought time to do what she'd come for. This time, she decided not to waste effort on small fry and fired at the panicking crowd on the balcony from the rocket launchers hidden in her glider.
"No!" Gwen screamed, but it was too late.
She couldn't stop the catastrophe. Not all of Osborn's former colleagues had managed to flee the balcony. Some, who'd hesitated too long, were instantly killed by the powerful warheads' blast. But the disaster didn't end there. The decorative structure, never meant for such loads, couldn't take it. The stone bas-reliefs collapsed down onto the crowd of spectators who hadn't yet managed to take cover.
Ignoring the villain, who was hastily fleeing the scene, Gwen rushed to save people. She managed to catch one of the largest chunks with her webbing and suspend it, but she couldn't intercept them all. Just when she thought it was all over, a whole swarm of dark, bluish-tinted tentacles shot up from the ground to meet the debris. In a single instant, the symbiote, acting on its host's will, expended a good half of its energy reserves to explosively increase its mass and shield the civilians caught directly beneath the collapse.
Thanks to the coordinated actions of Gwen and Bobbi, there were no fatalities among the injured, though many sustained varying degrees of injury. But here, too, the superheroines proved themselves. Using webbing, medical knowledge, and Venom's abilities, they administered first aid to the wounded until the ambulances arrived.
"Phew, that was exhausting," Bobbi breathed a sigh of relief once the immediate threat to life was over.
The symbiote sat down on a chunk of debris, fighting the urge to cancel its covering so it could talk to its sudden partner. Gwen, however, seemed to see nothing around her. When the last critically wounded person was in the doctors' care, she just froze, staring blankly at the blood that had stained her white costume in a sickeningly bright patch.
"Hey, you okay, partner?" Bobbi tried to get her attention.
Gwen shifted her gaze to Venom.
"I... I couldn't do it," she said, her voice breaking. "I knew there'd be an attack, but I still couldn't stop it. All those people, they're dead..."
"Hey! It's not your fault!" The symbiote jumped up and approached Spider-Woman, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It's that psycho who caused all this, not you!"
"But I knew," Gwen insisted. "I knew it would happen, and I still... couldn't save them."
"And what could you have done?" Venom countered. "I knew, too. Peter told me as well! I did what I could. Saved who I could save, and I don't regret a thing."
"Peter?" Gwen asked, surprised. "Peter Parker? You know him... right, he did say Venom had a new host."
"Yeah, the kid helped me out a lot. Don't know how, but he knew this festival would end in disaster. I'm here because of..."
"Hey, you two!" a loud shout suddenly cut Bobbi off. "Freeze! You're under arrest!"
Two policewomen were pushing through the wreckage toward the scene, hurrying past the debris of abandoned belongings, half-deflated trampolines, and building fragments. Looking in the direction they'd come from, Gwen saw her mother's squad car. Jane Stacy was just getting out, surveying the crime scene.
"I think it's time we got out of here," Bobbi noted, reasonably. "At least, I definitely should."
"Yeah, probably," Gwen decided she had no desire whatsoever to deal with the police's prejudice against her right now, especially her own mother.
* * *
Furious beyond all measure, the Green Goblin returned to her secret lair in the Osborn mansion. Despite having partially achieved her goal, the villain was infuriated by the mere fact of having to flee from that upstart.
"Spider-Woman," she hissed venomously, ripping the helmet off her head. "You'll regret getting in my way."
She tossed the helmet aside with irritation, wincing at the pain from fresh scrapes on her face. "Need to improve the helmet so it doesn't dig into my cheekbones on impact," she thought, touching her face with her fingers.
Just then, her sharp hearing caught an extraneous noise, something that had no business being in her house, and especially in her secret lair. It was the already familiar sound of Spider-Woman's webbing.
But Norma was too late to react. Two branching webs shot out, snaring her arms and freezing her movements. Before she could attempt to free herself, the unseen enemy fired several more shots, pinning the bound villain to the walls of the lair.
"Spider-Woman!" Osborn hissed. "You're making a big mistake coming here..."
She cut herself off mid-sentence, realizing her new opponent wasn't the fledgling superheroine, nor even a woman.
"Wrong guess," Peter said, stepping out of the shadows. "But closer than you think."
"How did you get here?" Norma was momentarily surprised, but quickly gathered herself. "Never mind, you shouldn't have come. If that pathetic webbing is all you've got, you're in big trouble."
The woman activated the hidden blades in her suit again and began to cut herself free. She couldn't slice through all the strands, and some were beyond the blades' reach, but with sheer muscle power, she almost managed to tear the rest.
She was almost free when a new opponent interfered.
"He's got me, too," a voice sounded behind Norma.
Deadpool swept the villain's legs from under her, forcing her to her knees, then twisted her arms behind her back, binding her wrists with wire far more reliable than webbing. Vanda pressed one of her swords to the villain's throat with completely unambiguous intentions.
Catching her partner's eye, Wilson drew her thumb across her throat, suggesting they solve the problem the radical way. But the boy just shook his head, and Deadpool rolled her eyes theatrically.
"Oh, come on, it always comes down to this. You didn't want to kill Stens either, remember? Don't expect me to console you when she breaks free and offs someone." Meanwhile, Vanda was disarming the prisoner, destroying the built-in remote systems for the glider and weapons in the most barbaric fashion.
"You won't have to," Parker promised darkly, measuring Norma with a surprisingly cruel look while Wilson was distracted and couldn't see his expression. His voice sounded as if he'd already decided something regarding the captured villain.
"Besides," Peter continued, sharply changing his tone, "if Norma Osborn disappears now, there's nothing to stop HammerTech from swallowing her company. And while Oscorp's no prize, if their secret projects, like this weapon and the serum she injected herself with, end up in that idiot's hands... I think he'd just sell them to the highest bidder."
His musings on the fate of a multi-billion-dollar company didn't stop Parker from making himself at home on Osborn's computer.
"Oscorp's got such powerful security," Peter told his audience. "But Norma left herself backdoors, just in case she needed to act without anyone knowing. How ironic, her paranoia's going to work in our favor. I couldn't have cracked Oscorp's defenses on my own. So, got the password, hmm, dual biometric authentication... I'll need her fingers and retinas. No, not separately. Enough clowning around, Wilson."
"Oh, please," Deadpool snorted. "Finger more, finger less, who's counting? Definitely not me."
Nevertheless, the mercenary abandoned her bloodthirsty intentions and dragged the suspiciously silent Osborn to the desk, forcing her to unlock the system.
"What the... what's going on here?" Norma suddenly spoke up, after Wilson started pulling her back. Peter and Vanda immediately noticed that Osborn's voice and manner had completely changed, as if she was an entirely different woman, looking utterly bewildered. "You... you're my son's classmate: Peter Parker, I remember you! What are you doing in my office? And why am I tied up? What's happening?"
Her confused tone shifted to a demanding one, the way she was used to addressing those around her.
"Too many nutjobs per square meter," Deadpool noted self-critically.
Peter also realized Norma wasn't acting. No, she seemed to have suddenly forgotten the events of the last few hours and become again not the super-suited villain but Norma Osborn: workaholic, businesswoman, and loving, if in her own particular way, mother.
The Green Goblin, realizing she couldn't handle the situation, had thrust forward the other personality to save the situation. "We know this one," the boy smirked to himself.
"In the meantime, you can admire your handiwork," Parker said to Norma, turning on a second screen showing a news report about today's incident.
At first, Norma stared at the screen in bewilderment, but soon signs of recognition dawned on her face. She examined what she was wearing as best she could.
"No! It can't be! It wasn't me!" she struggled in her bonds, nearly slitting her own throat on the mercenary's sword.
"Well, in a way, you're right. The drug you used on yourself clearly affected your brain," Peter answered, not looking at Norma, as he'd just reached the files on the serum on her computer. "Yeah, just as I thought: another attempt to recreate the super-soldier formula. Pretty shoddy, I'd say."
"But you've already fixed this once, right?" Wilson asked in a bored tone, starting to choke the prisoner. "You saved that professor lady."
"I don't know," Peter admitted, as Osborn lost consciousness under Deadpool's efforts. "Connors used a formula based on the eternity serum as a foundation for hers, which inherently allowed for a reversal. Here, it's different."
While Parker explained the nuances, Deadpool trussed Norma up hand and foot, so that even if she found new surprises in her armor, using them would be impossible.
"Then we'll have to off her! We already talked about this," Vanda declared, sitting on the desk and dusting off her hands. "She's seen your face, she hates your girlfriend Spider-Woman. Obviously, she's even more dangerous to you than Fisk."
"No, we can't kill her. I already said: she's the head of Oscorp, plus she's my friend's mother. She was a decent person her whole life. There's a huge difference between her and Fisk. Vilma Fisk is a criminal, while Osborn was changed by this," Parker entered some commands, opening a secret door in the room. "If we can't return Norma Osborn to her previous state, then we just need to take control... what should we call her evil alter ego?"
He asked, turning to Deadpool.
"The Green Gobliness?" Parker proposed.
"Lame," the mercenary dismissed his suggestion and headed into the secret room.