Determined to prevent Norman Osborn from transforming into a grotesque monster like himself, Dr. Connors used Oscorp's internal AI to track down the executive who had confiscated the serum.
Realizing the executive was already en route to the Osborn estate, Dr. Connors immediately rushed downstairs, desperately trying to hail a cab to intercept the delivery.
Shortly after, Tobey, who was sitting in the living room watching the news with his parents, saw the breaking news broadcast.
EXPLOSIVE REPORT: DINOSAUR ATTACKS WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE!
"A dinosaur?"
Looking at the blurry helicopter footage of a massive, humanoid reptilian figure tearing through traffic on the bridge, Tobey immediately knew exactly what was going on.
It seemed that even without Peter's canon involvement, Dr. Connors couldn't escape his tragic fate of mutating into the Lizard.
At that exact moment, frantic footsteps echoed from the second floor. A second later, Peter poked his head over the staircase railing.
"Hey, Tobey!"
Between brothers, very little needed to be said.
Although Peter only called his name, Tobey instantly understood the desperate urgency in his cousin's voice.
Tobey nodded to Ben and May, who had also turned to look at the stairs.
"I'm going to go play some games with Peter. You guys keep watching the news."
Noticing that Peter had been deeply depressed for nearly a week, Ben and May naturally wouldn't object to Tobey trying to cheer him up.
May even quietly urged Tobey to ask if Peter was going through a bad breakup at school, insisting he do his best to comfort him.
Tobey felt a momentary wave of speechlessness—The kid is a literal virgin who hasn't even held a girl's hand yet—but he verbally agreed to comfort his cousin anyway.
When Tobey walked into Peter's room, he found that the teenager, who had been isolating himself for days, had finally emerged from his depressive slump. While he hadn't fully resolved the dilemma of whether or not to avenge his parents, his mental state was vastly improved.
At the very least, he had the emotional bandwidth to care about someone else's crisis again.
The moment Tobey closed the door, Peter shoved his phone screen in Tobey's face, pointing frantically at the blurry image of the Lizard.
"Tobey, look at this! You don't think the monster on the bridge is Dr. Connors, do you?"
Peter wasn't an idiot. Just a few days ago, he had finalized the cross-species decay rate algorithm for Dr. Connors. Today, a giant reptilian monster was tearing through New York.
Considering his father's super-spiders had granted him and Tobey miraculous arachnid abilities, it was entirely logical that Dr. Connors's lizard regeneration serum had mutated the doctor, granting him the abilities of a reptile!
Tobey nodded, confirming Peter's terrifying deduction.
"You're right. It looks like Dr. Connors successfully synthesized the lizard regeneration serum on his own. But without the stable genetic foundation of your father's super-spiders, the serum triggered a severe, uncontrolled genetic mutation."
Hearing his father's name from Tobey's mouth again, Peter fell silent for a few seconds.
When he looked up, his eyes were burning with absolute determination.
"Tobey... I have to go stop him!"
"I remember what you said! With great power comes great responsibility!"
"That phrase finally makes sense to me!"
"Before, I didn't have any power. So I couldn't possibly be responsible for things outside my control..."
"But now, because of the super-spider my father left behind, I have power! And because I have power, I must shoulder the responsibility that comes with it!"
"I have to save those people!"
Hearing Peter passionately quote his plagiarized "With great power comes great responsibility" line gave Tobey a mild sense of impending dread.
Despite that, Tobey felt a genuine sense of warmth seeing Peter's pure, untainted sense of morality.
Tobey's own hands were already stained black. He was soaked in the blood of criminals and villains. But just because he operated in the dark didn't mean he couldn't appreciate someone walking in the light.
One ruthless, anti-heroic Spider-Man was more than enough for the Parker family. There was no need to corrupt Peter too.
Peter was perfectly suited to be the cheerful, beloved, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Tobey clapped Peter heavily on the shoulder, offering his absolute support.
"Then you should also remember the other thing I told you. I will always stand by your side."
"If this is what your heart is telling you to do, then go do it, Peter!"
"Right!"
Receiving Tobey's blessing erased the last of Peter's hesitation.
He leaped out of the second-story window, scaling down the wall to the sub-basement entrance. Moments later, he strapped on the high-tech, red and blue Spider-Suit Tobey had commissioned for him.
This time, Peter wasn't just trying it on for cosplay.
This time, he put on the mask as a true hero.
Peter Parker had officially debuted as Spider-Man, swinging out to stop the Lizard.
Meanwhile, Tobey didn't stay home playing video games.
Just one minute after Peter leaped into the city skyline, Tobey suited up and left the house as well.
But while Peter went out to save lives, Tobey went out to take one.
If Dr. Connors had mutated into the Lizard, it meant a functional dose of the cross-species regeneration serum existed.
The only reason the Lizard was tearing apart the Williamsburg Bridge was to intercept the Oscorp executive delivering that exact serum to Norman Osborn.
Tobey's goal was simple: hijack the serum!
While the serum clearly possessed horrifying, monster-inducing side effects, the core biological results were undeniably miraculous.
The ability to instantly regenerate severed limbs and heal catastrophic tissue damage was a power that even the legendary super-spiders couldn't grant!
Tobey was incredibly interested in that level of cellular regeneration.
He planned to steal the serum, bring it back to his lab, and see if he could isolate and stabilize the healing factor while purging the reptilian mutation side effects.
Even though Tobey left a minute after Peter, his vastly superior base stats and web-swinging proficiency allowed him to easily catch up to his cousin.
He didn't reveal himself. He simply tailed Peter from the shadows.
Tobey watched silently as Peter arrived at the Williamsburg Bridge, intercepted the Lizard before it could slaughter the Oscorp executive, and engaged the massive beast in brutal hand-to-hand combat.
For this mission, Tobey hadn't worn his flashy, black-and-crimson Mark III armor.
He had equipped his Mark II suit—the pure, matte-black stealth suit.
In the chaotic shadows of the bridge at night, the pitch-black material acted as natural camouflage. Crouched high atop the suspension cables, neither Peter, the Lizard, nor the circling news helicopters ever noticed he was there.
Tobey waited patiently until the Oscorp executive, clutching the silver briefcase containing the serum, finally managed to flee the carnage of the bridge.
Only then did Tobey make his move, silently swinging after his true target.
As for the battle on the bridge? Tobey fully trusted Peter to handle it.
Even in the canon timeline, a completely untrained, rookie Peter Parker had fought the Lizard to a standstill. Now, armed with Tobey's brutal combat training and a multi-million-dollar tactical suit, Peter was in no real danger of dying.
A few miles away, having successfully escaped the bridge, the terrified Oscorp executive hailed a passing taxi, desperately hoping to deliver the serum to the Osborn estate and save his own life.