“No!
If you throw me into a courtroom, all anyone will see is just another freak show!” the Green Goblin screamed.
“I refuse to spend the rest of my life as a joke for other people’s amusement!
Never again!” The Goblin twisted his body, trying to find a way to wriggle free.
—Perhaps this was also partly due to the fact that the webbing Peter shot earlier hadn’t completely bound him up.
Peter simply fired off another strand of webbing with a casual flick of his hand, anchoring the Goblin’s body firmly to the wall.
“Nobody’s ever putting me in a cage again!” The Goblin was completely beside himself with rage.
His emotional state had become drastically unstable, his tragic past constantly invading his mind and assaulting his nerves.
Peter just stood there watching him.
Although he no longer intended to kill the Green Goblin himself—choosing instead to drag him into court so he could engage in a dog-eat-dog struggle with those people, ultimately be killed by others, and suffer intense pain before he died—watching him squirm on the brink of agony right now still brought a wave of deep satisfaction to Peter’s heart.
Or rather…
perhaps that was the emotion transmitted from the Spider-Man Noir side of him?
*Thud!* Not far away, the sound of a heavy object crashing to the ground echoed out.
A figure stumbled slowly toward the Green Goblin.
It was none other than Kraven the Hunter, his entire body swarming with venomous spiders!
He staggered toward the Goblin: “Osborn, save me…
save me…” “No!
Stay away from me, you ugly freak of a monster!” the Goblin shrieked in horror.
Bound to the wall by webbing, however, his hands couldn’t break free in time.
And just like that, Kraven the Hunter crashed into the Goblin’s chest, taking a full body’s worth of spiders with him.
Like an infectious disease, those venomous spiders rapidly spread from Kraven’s body onto the Goblin’s torso and into his mouth, completely submerging him.
“AAAHHH—” The underground tunnel filled with cries of pure desperation.
With a light leap, Peter bounded up to the ceiling of the underground passage.
Sticking to the ceiling with both hands and feet, he turned his head to look at the ground.
It was as if these spiders were the restless spirit of a certain newspaper reporter whose codename in life was “Spider,” having finally found the targets of his revenge, tearing off large chunks of flesh from Kraven the Hunter and the Green Goblin.
Before long, the two of them were completely reduced to a pair of bare white skeletons.
Once everything was done, the venomous spiders scattered in all directions, vanishing into the underground passage.
Peter stared blankly at the scene, talking to himself.
“Was I right to do this?
Just standing by and watching him get consumed by spiders?” “You’re still a kid, aren’t you?” “…Yeah.” “A few years back, when I was still a kid myself—about your age, I reckon—Uncle Ben took me to see Frankenstein.
It gave me nightmares.
When I woke up, Uncle Ben held me in his arms.” “I wanted Uncle Ben to tell me there were no monsters in the world, but Uncle Ben thought I was old enough to understand the ‘monsters’ of this world.
Uncle Ben told me that all he could do was protect me from those monsters.” “Monsters?
You don’t just mean literal monsters, do you?” “Yeah.
Sometimes people hide monsters inside their hearts—monsters far worse than any real beast.
Watch out for human nature, Peter.” “Thanks, Peter.” Peter slowly closed his eyes.
A moment later, when he opened them again, his gaze had turned sharp and somber.
He thought for a brief moment, a smile touching the corners of his lips: “I should thank you too, Young Peter…
for standing by me through my absolute worst.” Then, taking one last look at the two white skeletons on the ground, he nimbly scrambled out of the underground passage.
He still had one final thing to do to draw a perfect end to all of this.
…
New York, Queens.
Peter opened his eyes and bolted upright in bed.
He checked his body first.
He was wearing his own pajamas, and his physical frame had reverted to his somewhat “slender” build.
‘Well, I haven’t finished growing yet.
Give me a few years and I’ll be just as tall and broad as him.’ ‘And way more handsome!’ Peter pumped himself up.
It was then that he realized something seemed to have shifted in his body.
It felt like…
his spider powers had become much more natural and effortless to use?
Was it because he had personally experienced them firsthand in a Spider-Man Noir whose powers were already almost fully developed?
Or was there some deeper reason behind it?
Peter grew thoughtful.
He checked the time; without realizing it, it was already nearly six in the morning.
It turned out that when he traveled to Spider-Man Noir’s world, the flow of time between both worlds really was synchronized.
He had stayed in that world for nearly three hours, and nearly three hours had passed over here as well!
In just a few more hours, that famous Mr.
Iron Man would be visiting his home.
Peter thought about it for a moment and decided to skip sleeping altogether.
If the man showed up while he was still fast asleep, it would be terribly impolite and leave a terrible impression.
Then again, Mr.
Iron Man is a capitalist too, right?
Stark Industries isn’t small by any means.
Does he exploit his employees?
Is Stark Industries a sweatshop?
‘Should I secretly gather some relevant info on him just in case…?’ Peter shook his head vigorously, rendered momentarily speechless.
“Is this the hangover from briefly merging with a bitter, gritty private-eye version of Spider-Man?
Good thing it was only three hours…
If it were three days, three months, or three years…” At the same time, however, Peter realized that setting aside this knee-jerk impulse to reject capitalists, his current condition was actually one of the benefits gained from the fusion.
His ability to observe and analyze things had gotten significantly stronger.
In the past, he was merely quick-witted, but he had never formally studied anything in that realm.
Yet Spider-Man Noir, acting as a newspaper reporter with a private detective edge, had been trained thoroughly in these skills by Urich, allowing Peter to pick up quite a lot as well.
To give a simple example: Take a shoe.
Someone without relevant training would only recognize it as a shoe upon seeing it—at most noting its style, like a sneaker or slipper, and its color.
The current Peter, however, could estimate the owner’s approximate height from the shoe’s length, deduce their walking posture from the wear pattern on the inner and outer soles, and even discern their likely occupation, preferences, and personality from the style and color.
Finally, by combining all these factors, he could narrow down the owner to a specific range, and with further detailed filtering, pinpoint the actual person!
For his vision of becoming a superhero, this ability was undoubtedly a fantastic upgrade.
He had a faint feeling that there was more to it than just this, but since he hadn’t discovered anything else yet, he decided to leave it for later!
Peter closed his eyes once more to “look” at the web inside his mind, discovering that the glowing point representing Spider-Man Noir was no longer lit up.
Perhaps the next time it glowed, he would be able to cross over again!
And as for all those other nodes on the web…
did every single node mean a Spider-Man from a completely different world?