The heavy tires of the armored NYPD transport hummed a monotonous rhythm against the rain-slicked asphalt of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Inside the reinforced steel containment cell, Otto Octavius sat completely immobilized. Heavy magnetic clamps secured his wrists and ankles to a bolted chair. Without his four titanium tentacles—severed cleanly by Spider-Man just an hour ago—Otto looked profoundly small, his posture slumped under the harsh glare of the halogen security light.
He wasn't going to the Raft. The Avengers hadn't bought a single word of his rambling, anti-Osborn manifesto. Instead, the transport was heading upstate toward Westchester. They were taking him to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Specifically, they were handing him over to Emma Frost so the White Queen could surgically extract the unvarnished truth directly from his cerebral cortex.
Otto stared at the steel floor, waiting with cynical detachment for the inevitable telepathic interrogation.
The heavy metallic clack of the plexiglass partition sliding open broke the silence.
Otto looked up just as one of the armed guards in the front cab reached through the gap. The cop didn't say a word. He simply tossed a cheap, plastic burner phone through the slot. It clattered onto Otto's lap. The call was already connected, the speakerphone glowing a harsh, bright green.
"Otto Octavius, my oldest, dearest friend."
The smooth, perfectly engineered warmth of that voice hit Otto like a physical blow. The remaining color drained from his face. His jaw locked, the tendons in his neck straining against the magnetic collar.
"Norman Osborn," Otto snarled, his voice a gravelly rasp of pure hatred.
"You've been making quite a few new friends lately, haven't you?" Norman's voice drifted through the tinny speaker, completely unbothered by Otto's rage. "I have to admit, your plan was ambitious. You hack into Oscorp's mainframe. You fabricate a flawless digital paper trail pinning everything on me. No glitches, no obvious splices. A masterpiece of framing."
Norman paused, the sound of a heavy crystal glass clinking lightly in the background. "And the endgame? The Military, already heavily invested in Oscorp, sees the scandal. They exert federal pressure, seize the Savage Force project out from under me, and hand the reins directly to the whistle-blower. You take over. A brilliant little revenge drama, Otto."
Otto strained against his restraints, his chest heaving. "I didn't account for Spider-Man. I didn't expect him to grow so powerful, so fast. But that was just a variable! If it hadn't been for the spider, you would be a ruined, pathetic pariah by tomorrow morning, Norman."
A low, dry chuckle echoed from the phone. "Fascinating theory. Except for the part where I have a high-definition video sitting on my private server right now. A video of you explicitly detailing your entire revenge plot to one of my employees right before you manually altered the data logs."
Otto froze. The air in the transport suddenly felt freezing cold. He opened his mouth, but his throat felt lined with sandpaper. He let out a hollow, broken laugh. "Really... I should have expected nothing less from you, Norman."
"Did you honestly think I was stupid, Otto?" Norman's voice dropped its mock-warmth, sharpening into a cold, corporate blade. "Did you really believe Oscorp's central computer was just running on outdated, low-level programming? That my security grid was just incompetent? You waltzed into my headquarters and casually scooped up a treasure trove to fund your little project? The Scorpion, the Rhino, Mysterio, even Dr Connor."
Norman sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed. "I left the door wide open for you, Otto. I packed all the most dangerous toys into one centralized lab just so you wouldn't get lost looking for them."
Otto sat in absolute silence for ten seconds. The only sound was the rhythmic thumping of the windshield wipers from the front cab. "Were you waiting for me?"
"I don't have time to wait for you," Norman scoffed. "I'm waiting for the Military. Let me give you a history lesson, Otto. Years ago, Nathaniel Essex abandoned his genetic research. Richard Parker and Herbert Edgar Wyndham took Essex's failed framework and completely inverted it. Wyndham wanted to create 'super animal soldiers.' Richard used his genius to create a 'super-soldier animal serum'."
Norman's tone took on a chilling, reverent edge. "Richard did all of this inside Oscorp's walls and when he left, he left his research at Oscorp.
But he wasn't just trying to build a better soldier. Richard Parker wanted the ultimate biological achievement. He wanted to play God."
"To become God..." Otto murmured, the scientist in him instantly understanding the psychological draw.
Biologists had chased that high for a century. Cloning, in vitro fertilization, gene splicing—humanity was constantly trying to strip the privilege of creation away from the divine. To create a completely new, independent species from scratch was the holy grail.
"Oscorp discovered Richard's hidden connection to Essex's old Savage Force files," Norman continued. "I invested heavily. I negotiated the development rights directly with the Military, securing massive federal funding. But do you really think the Military lets a super-soldier program operate outside their direct control for long?"
Norman let the question hang. He didn't wait for an answer.
"The creation of Peter Parker was never an accident, Otto. Richard Parker was a madman, but he was meticulous. When he mapped out the cross-species genetic sequence, he didn't make a universal formula. He tailored it to a single, specific human genome. He designed the radioactive spider to perfectly synchronize with his own DNA."
Otto's eyes widened behind his thick lenses. "Which means the perfect host..."
"Was Richard Parker himself," Norman finished. "But Richard is dead. The only compatible genetic match left walking the earth was his son. The Spider-Man Jonathan Drew currently trying to replicate is just a cheap copy of the original masterpiece."
Norman shifted in his leather chair, the leather creaking slightly over the phone line. "I needed a functional super-soldier to prove the project's viability. So, I sent a team of lobbyists to Peter Parker's middle school. I heavily incentivized the administration to book their science field trip to the Osborn Tech Expo. I wanted to cultivate a corporate-owned superhero, driven by vanity and youth. Unfortunately, the boy has a far stronger moral compass than I anticipated. He became a nuisance."
"And the girl?" Otto asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Cindy Moon? A pure statistical anomaly," Norman said dismissively. "A stray variable. Though S.H.I.E.L.D. certainly did me a favor by sweeping her off the board and covering it up."
"So..." Otto swallowed hard. "When Spider-Man went public, you knew the Military would realize you actually cracked the super-soldier formula. You knew they'd try to forcibly annex the project."
"They couldn't just confiscate it. They know the value is in the scientists, not the freaks in tights," Norman corrected. "They had to secure control legitimately. Hostile takeovers, stock manipulation, planting board members. Which brings us back to you, Otto."
"You used me," Otto hissed. "You let me steal your weapons to create a localized warzone. You used me to prove to the Military exactly how dangerous this tech is if it falls into the wrong hands. You did all this to fight off a federal takeover?"
"Fight them off?" Norman laughed, a bright, genuinely amused sound. "Otto, why on earth would I go to war with the highest authority in the United States? I just refused to accept a lowball offer on my stock. I simply needed the leverage to demand a better price."
The line went quiet for a moment. The gentle click of a button being pressed echoed through the speaker.
"I just finalized the deal with the Military this morning," Norman said, his voice dropping to a final, cold whisper. "Thank you for providing me with such a spectacular bargaining chip, old friend. Goodbye, Otto."
Click.
Less than a second later, the reinforced window of the armored transport shattered inward.
A supersonic, armor-piercing round tore through the heavy glass, crossing the interior of the cell in a microsecond. The bullet entered the right side of Otto Octavius's skull and exited the left.
Otto's head snapped back against the metal chair. His body went entirely limp, the phone slipping from his lap and clattering onto the steel floor.
The transport slammed on its brakes, tires squealing violently as the vehicle skidded to a halt in the middle of the highway. The armed guards kicked the front doors open, drawing their sidearms and screaming into their radios, desperately scanning the dark skyline for a shooter.
Three thousand yards away, perched on the rain-slicked gargoyle of a Gothic high-rise, a man in a dark trench coat slowly lowered his customized sniper rifle.
He didn't rush. He smoothly ejected the spent brass casing, watching it tumble over the edge of the roof. He reached up, adjusting the stark white bullseye emblem painted onto his forehead.
Lester flexed his shoulders, relishing the smooth, heavy mechanical whine of his newly bonded skeleton. Daredevil had dropped him off a building. The fall had shattered every natural bone in his body. But he hadn't died. He had been rebuilt. His entire skeletal structure was now laced with unbreakable adamantium. He was faster, stronger, and completely lethal.
Bullseye smiled in the dark, packing up his rifle. Doctor Octopus was just the first job. It was good to be back at work.