***Happy New Year! There will be a surprise in the comments.***
The Oscorp tower still shimmered behind him, all glass and arrogance under the moonlight.
Ethan adjusted his bag, keeping his pace even. The night air tasted like ozone and adrenaline.
He'd expected the hard part to be breaking in—not the part where he had to walk away like he belonged.
Before, still inside the building, Oscorp's internal systems still hummed, unaware that the boy in a maintenance uniform had just rewritten a chunk of their history. Ethan stood in a side corridor near a junction box, laptop balanced against his knee, fingers flying over the keys.
He rerouted one final command: a mirrored proxy chain that made it look like his remote access came from Norman's personal terminal. The instant he sent it, alarms began to whisper across the grid—low tones, followed by a sharper digital ping.
'Perfect.'
He heard the voice over his borrowed walkie-talkie: "Possible intrusion in the executive office—units move, now."
"Right on cue," he murmured, unplugging the cable. He put the device back into the bag along with the package and slung it over his arm. He'd wanted this—noise and panic were the best camouflage in a building obsessed with figuring out what was going on.
He ducked into a side office, picked up the desk phone, and flipped open his voice modulator. Norman Osborn's clipped voice came out when he spoke.
"—This is Norman Osborn. I need an emergency response at Oscorp Tower. We're under attack. I repeat—we're under attack. They have guns."
He hung up.
Within ten minutes, the outer chaos bloomed: sirens, distant shouts, the staccato of orders bouncing through radio channels. Oscorp security scrambled—half the guards headed to the top floor to find the 'intruder', the rest to the lobby to deal with the police and media trying to breach the cordon.
Exactly what Ethan needed.
He crossed the hall, slipped through a door marked Maintenance Personnel Only, and keyed in his override. The motion sensors blinked once, then died. A hiss of hydraulic pressure followed, and the door opened to the night.
Ethan stepped into the alley, exhaled, and finally let the tension shake loose from his hands. The cold wind bit his face. His phone vibrated violently—dozens of missed calls, all from home.
"Damn it."
He rubbed his eyes, thumb hovering over call back. Then an idea came to him—reckless, but plausible.
He dialed Amy.
"Ethan?" Her voice was sleepy, confused.
"Hey," he said quickly, layering fatigue into his tone. "Can you meet me at my hotel? I need your help with something—now."
There was a pause. "What do you mean by 'meet you at your hotel'? Are you crazy?"
"Not—God, no." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I helped Peter with something, forgot to call and tell my parents, and now they're probably about ready to file a missing person's report. I just—need an alibi. So, what do you say, want to help out a friend?"
"You want me to lie to your parents?"
"Temporarily," he said. "Say we were on a date. They know you from before… y'know, before my 'memory loss.' It's the fastest way out of this mess. Please?"
He could hear her sigh, long and frustrated. "You owe me, Ethan."
"I'll pay for the cab," he said, relief softening his tone. "And—uh, wear something nice? Just in case my mom goes full romantic comedy on us."
"You're unbelievable."
"Yeah," Ethan muttered, "believe me, I know."
Twenty minutes later, Amy stood outside the hotel, her red dress catching the glow of the lobby lights. When she saw him approach in his suit, her mouth fell open.
"Wow," she said. "You clean up terrifyingly well."
"You too," he said, voice clipped. Compliments weren't really his language.
As they took the elevator up, she crossed her arms. "So what were you and Peter doing?"
"I'll tell you Monday," he said. "Promise."
"Ethan—"
"It's better if you don't know yet."
The elevator dinged. Ethan opened the suite door—and immediately got hit by a wall of sound.
"ETHAN KANE! What time do you think it is!? Do you have any idea how worried we—"
His mother's tirade faltered mid-sentence. She blinked, taking in Amy's dress, Ethan's suit, the awkward gap between them. Her expression morphed from fury to delighted shock.
"Oh my God," she breathed. "You were on a date?"
Ethan nodded solemnly. "My phone died. When I got it back on, I saw all the missed calls, so Amy came to help me explain."
Amy gave a small, practiced smile. "Sorry for worrying you, Mrs. Kane. I would have called, but I also left my phone at home."
The tension evaporated. His mother squealed, her excitement bouncing between them like static. "A date! Why didn't you say so? When did this start? You two—"
"—should probably get going," Ethan cut in, yawning theatrically. "It's late after all."
His father chuckled. "I'll drive Amy home. You're coming along."
Ethan froze. "Uh—no, that's fine, I—"
The look his father gave him ended the protest. "Okay," he said weakly.
The car ride was quiet, the city rolling past in muted colors. When they reached Amy's building, she leaned over and whispered, "You're buying me dinner for this. At least a week's worth."
"Deal," Ethan whispered back, managing a faint grin. "See you Monday."
Back in his room, the world shrank to the blue glow of his monitor.
He unwrapped the parcel, fingers steady now that the adrenaline had finally cooled. One by one, he decrypted the drives: Oscorp ledgers, property lists—both hidden and public—blackmail dossiers, prototype schematics, old and new projects, and foreign sale contracts. Each folder felt like peeling back a layer of a god's mask.
Norman Osborn wasn't just insane and corrupt—he was quite methodical and surgical about it.
By dawn, Ethan had half the city's filth on-screen, a digital mosaic of rot.
He categorized what he'd keep for himself—financial data, property lists, half of the blackmail dossiers, proprietary tech and projects—and what would feed the fire come Monday morning in the Insight exposé.
Across the city, Peter and Felicia sat in Peter's office at Insight, the fluorescent lights too bright for how little sleep either of them had gotten. Peter then took out the comm and said, "Looks like Ethan made it out safely."
Felicia kicked her heels up on the desk, twirling a pen. "That's good. You know, tiger, you clean up nicely even when you're panicking."
Peter shot her a look. "Please don't call me that right now."
"Why not?" she teased. "You seemed to like it earlier."
"Felicia—"
She smirked, leaning close enough that her perfume hit him like static. "You should probably head home to your wife, tiger."
The humor drained from his face. He turned back to his computer, pretending to read. "Yeah," he said quietly. "You're right."
In his suite, Ethan triggered the final sequence: a remote upload to the Daily bugle's private whistleblower channel under the alias Dr. Anthony Kelso.
"Phase Three," he murmured.
The files began to move—Oscorp's secrets streaming toward their public death sentence.
And on a separate terminal, Ethan set the timer for the second act: a global watchdog dump scheduled for Tuesday morning, precisely twenty hours after the Insight article went live.
By the time anyone connected the dots, Norman Osborn would already be drowning in his own lies.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, watching the progress bar crawl upward.
"Goodnight, Norman," he whispered. "You earned this little gift from me."