The story broke before sunrise.
The Osborn Illusion: Insight into the Lies of Oscorp.
A single headline that detonated like a bomb.
By 6:00 a.m., the front pages were gone from most newsstands. Commuters clutched them like scandalous relics; tabloids reprinted the headline across every social feed and morning broadcast. Some even went to the website to read the story. The Insight servers crashed twice before breakfast.
The exposé wasn't just being read — it was being consumed.
Peter Parker sat in the Insight newsroom, hunched over his desk as the chaos unfolded around him. Phones rang nonstop. The team barked updates, quotes, and follow-up leads. Clara was shouting across the room, "SHIELD just confirmed they've opened an inquiry!" while Danny scribbled a headline about SEC violations and foreign trade crimes.
Peter's hands shook as he held a copy of the paper. His own edits stared back at him — every line of Norman Osborn's deception, every shell company, every human cost of Oscorp's greed.
Norman Osborn had been taken down.
He'd done it.
Ethan had done it.
They'd done it.
And yet…
On the nearby monitor, live footage rolled. Oscorp employees standing outside the glass building, denied entry, security guards escorting executives to waiting police vans. One woman clutched a cardboard box of her things, crying into her phone.
Peter's stomach turned.
He'd wanted justice — but this? The panic, the collateral fallout, the look in those people's eyes?
He rubbed his face, muttering, "God, what have we done…"
A voice behind him — Mark, half-grinning, adrenaline-drunk. "We made history, Parker. You can't second-guess history. There was a story that needed to be told, and we told it. As for the aftermath, that's not something we can control."
Peter forced a weak smile. "Yeah, you're right. History."
But when he turned back to the screen, all he saw was smoke.
Across the city, Norman Osborn was already fighting for air.
His home office looked like a war room. TVs on every wall — CNBC, Daily Globe, NY1, even Bugle TV — all looping the same footage. His face. His name. His empire.
He'd aged ten years in three hours.
A makeup artist dabbed powder on his temple as the broadcast countdown started. He could hear the producer in his earpiece, "Mr. Osborn, thirty seconds. Just breathe. Deny everything."
He smiled thinly into the mirror. "Breathe," he repeated under his breath. "Easy advice from people who don't have a knife in their throat."
The red light came on.
"Mr. Osborn," the anchor began, "how do you respond to allegations of corporate espionage, illegal weapons trading, and foreign collusion as reported this morning?"
Norman's jaw clenched. "These allegations are fabrications," he said, voice measured but trembling under strain. "A coordinated cyberattack designed to manipulate public perception and destabilize Oscorp's market position. We are the victims of a sophisticated smear campaign. My company has served this city with integrity—"
"Mr. Osborn," the anchor interrupted, "A few documents were leaked on various sources. The evidence includes authenticated ledgers and server records. Are you suggesting they were falsified?"
"I'm suggesting," Norman said, eyes narrowing, "that the people responsible will be found — and punished."
The interview ended in a smoldering silence.
By noon, Oscorp stock had fallen 40%. By one, investors had frozen every subsidiary account.
But Norman wasn't finished.
He turned to his IT chief. "Get into the backups. Every hidden account, every private file. If someone touched my system, you'll find them."
"Yes, sir," the man hesitated, noticing Norman's shaking hands.
"Move!" Norman roared, slamming his fist on the desk.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
In a small hotel room overlooking Midtown, Ethan watched it all unfold from the glow of his screens. His breakfast sat untouched beside his laptop — a bowl of cereal going soggy under the weight of world-changing news.
Oscorp's homepage was now redirected to a government seizure notice. The FBI logo blinked like a quiet, digital crown.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable.
He'd done this.
The data he'd fabricated, the leaks he'd shaped, the false trails he'd left in Oscorp's system — all of it had worked flawlessly. Norman Osborn was finished.
And yet, Ethan's room stayed silent. Curious as to what two choices Osborn would make. Die with grace or flail until he dies.
He minimized the news feed, opening a different window — the one that mattered most. Hidden among thousands of lines of Oscorp data, a single folder blinked:
Project GOBLIN_SERUM / Status: Suspended.
He skimmed the files, decrypting fragments of formulas and research logs. Unstable compounds. Regeneration trials. Genetic mutation sequences.
It was exactly what he'd been searching for — the project that had created the monster called the Green Goblin and nearly destroyed Spider-Man.
The Goblin Serum was a powerful experimental formula that attempted to recreate the serum used on Steve Rogers, making him Captain America. It granted superhuman strength, speed, intelligence, and rapid healing to those who took it. However, it came at a terrible cost — it caused severe mental instability, including paranoia, aggression, and in many cases, a full-blown split personality. Most famously, it turned Norman Osborn into the Green Goblin, a brilliant but psychotic villain obsessed with power and Spider-Man's destruction. Each person reacts slightly differently to the serum, with some mutating physically into monstrous forms. Though it was meant to create a super-soldier, it ultimately unleashes madness and villainy in anyone who dares to take it.
Ethan's eyes tracked every line, committing it to memory. He wasn't smiling. He was calculating.
Could he complete the original serum using this as a basis?
Then — a ping.
His laptop chimed once, soft but distinct.
A notification.
He opened the tab.
Norman's accounts — the offshore vaults, the shell companies Ethan had re-routed — were coming alive. One by one, wire transfers initiated.
Ethan's secondary algorithm triggered automatically.
A single progress bar slid across the screen.
From zero…
to ten percent.
Thirty.
Fifty.
Eighty.
Done.
He exhaled as the number blinked into existence:
$15,459,506,900.
Fifteen billion.
Every cent was separately rerouted into Ethan's hidden web of proxies — disguised as forgotten subsidiaries and ghost accounts that no audit would ever find.
He leaned back, staring at the number for a long moment. Then, softly, to himself, "This means it's done. I got the money, data, and Peter's trust. All in all, I think this deserves at least an A+."
Norman's IT chief runs a trace on the transfers after Norman doesn't receive a notification that some of the funds were in escrow. Soon they found a dead end — a digital labyrinth looping back into Oscorp's own systems.
"Sir," he stammers, "it's… it's coming from inside."
Norman's face goes pale. "Inside what?"
"Inside Oscorp. The money trail leads back here, but there are no records after that. I'm sorry, sir, it seems the money is gone for good."