Tobey's two fingers struck Peter's head with the ruthless efficiency of Gin executing a traitor in Detective Conan, instantly shattering Peter's dramatic detective fantasy!
The first half of Peter's deduction had been perfectly logical. How did he suddenly jump to framing Tobey as some grand, evil mastermind in the second half?
Tobey hadn't even considered half the things Peter just accused him of. And framing Gwen as his accomplice?
Tobey admitted to the parts Peter got right: yes, Richard Parker had created the super-spiders, and yes, Tobey had deliberately dropped one down Peter's shirt yesterday.
However, he flatly denied the rest of Peter's wild conspiracy theories, supplementing his denial with two critical pieces of information.
First, he claimed he had secretly deduced the truth about the spiders after examining Richard's old briefcase with Peter years ago. (This was a lie).
Second, he revealed that Richard and Mary Parker had not died in an accident. They were assassinated by Norman Osborn. Richard had refused to let Osborn weaponize the super-spiders for military applications, so Osborn had them silenced. Tobey explained that this was exactly why he had stolen a few spiders and burned the rest—destroying the genetic legacy that rightfully belonged to the Parker family so Osborn could never exploit it. (This was the truth).
Listening to Tobey's mix of half-truths and harsh realities, Peter was forced to swallow the crushing weight of his parents' true fate.
Tobey then presented Peter with two choices.
Option One: Assassinate Norman Osborn and avenge his parents. Peter could do it himself, or Tobey could do it for him.
Option Two: Let the past die. Accept the powers his father had inadvertently left him as a gift, bury the pain, and start a new life.
Faced with this monumental crossroad, Peter chose… to be alone.
He didn't make a decision. Without saying a word, he slowly peeled off the Spider-Suit, walked out of the basement like a wandering ghost, and locked himself in his room.
Tobey didn't go upstairs to comfort him.
He had done everything he could for Peter, and he had said everything that needed to be said.
The rest was entirely up to Peter.
Whether he chose the path of a demon or a saint, Peter had to walk it himself.
In truth, regardless of which option Peter ultimately chose, Norman Osborn's fate in this universe was already sealed.
Even if Norman didn't succumb to his terminal genetic disease first, Tobey had no intention of letting Spider-Man's greatest nemesis live.
Tobey absolutely refused to leave a brilliant, psychotic billionaire lurking in the shadows, constantly threatening his family.
In the grand hierarchy of the Marvel Universe, the Green Goblin might not be a cosmic-level threat, but when it came to inflicting devastating psychological and physical damage on the Spider-Family, he was undeniably top-tier.
However, Tobey wanted to give Peter the chance to make his own choice before he personally disposed of Osborn.
He didn't want the kid to live the rest of his life harboring regrets.
Besides, Norman Osborn hadn't transformed into the Green Goblin yet. There was no immediate rush.
But Tobey had clearly underestimated the sheer destructive power of his own butterfly effect.
Every time he flapped his wings, the ripples affected far more than just one person.
This time, his actions hadn't just catalyzed Peter's origin; they had completely destabilized Oscorp.
The catastrophic fire had incinerated every remaining super-spider, violently extinguishing the last glimmer of hope for the terminally ill Norman Osborn.
Driven mad by his impending death, Osborn redirected all of his terror and fury directly onto the employees of Oscorp.
Specifically, onto Richard Parker's former colleague, Dr. Curt Connors.
Osborn issued Dr. Connors a brutal ultimatum: he had exactly one week to finalize the cross-species reptilian regeneration serum. If he failed, he was fired.
For Dr. Connors, this was catastrophic news.
It wasn't that he was afraid of losing his job.
As a world-renowned authority in cross-species genetics, even if Oscorp fired him, dozens of top-tier biotech firms would eagerly line up to hire him.
He was in the same high-demand tier as Tobey had been upon graduating from MIT.
What truly terrified Dr. Connors was the intellectual property clause in his contract. If Oscorp fired him, all of his life's work belonged to the company.
Not only would he lose access to his previous breakthroughs, but he would be legally barred from continuing his work on the lizard regeneration serum!
This crossed Dr. Connors's absolute bottom line.
Regrowing his missing right arm and becoming physically 'whole' again had been his lifelong obsession.
Thanks to the decay rate algorithm Peter had provided, the finish line was finally in sight.
To have that hope brutally ripped away the moment it appeared was something Dr. Connors simply could not accept.
Over the next few days, Peter remained entirely absent from the lab, too traumatized by the truth of his parents' murder to focus on biology.
Gwen was also unavailable, forced to balance her high school classes during the week instead of assisting the doctor.
Left completely alone, Dr. Connors pushed himself to the absolute brink. He accelerated his timeline drastically, working day and night to run the final biological trials for the serum.
His relentless desperation paid off. Just one day before Norman Osborn's deadline, the experiment succeeded.
A three-legged white mouse successfully regenerated a brand-new limb under the effects of the serum!
News of the breakthrough instantly reached Norman Osborn's medical bed.
Desperate to stall the effects of his terminal Retroviral Hypodysplasia, Osborn completely ignored Dr. Connors's frantic warnings. He ordered his men to forcibly seize the serum before any human trials could be conducted.
Watching Osborn's thugs march into his lab, Dr. Connors finally understood why Richard Parker had been so desperate to smuggle his research out of Oscorp all those years ago.
Norman Osborn had completely lost his mind!
Driven by his inherent morality, Dr. Connors knew he couldn't let an untested, highly volatile cross-species mutagen be injected into the CEO of a global conglomerate. The resulting biological fallout could be catastrophic.
Gritting his teeth, Dr. Connors extracted a dose of the serum and injected himself.
He would act as the first human trial.
If the serum worked perfectly without side effects, everyone won.
If there were horrific side effects, he would use his own mutating body as undeniable proof to force Osborn to abandon the drug.
Naturally, when dealing with experimental Marvel science, the worst-case scenario occurred almost instantly.
Shortly after the injection, Dr. Connors's missing right arm did indeed begin to rapidly regenerate.
However, the new limb looked a little... different from the original.
For starters, it was completely green.
Not only was the skin green, but it was covered in thick, reptilian scales!
And the mutation didn't stop at his arm. Like a hyper-aggressive virus, the green scales began violently spreading from his shoulder, rapidly consuming his entire body.
Watching the horrific transformation overtake him, Dr. Connors realized the devastating truth.
His lizard regeneration serum was a catastrophic failure!