keep my gloves dirty but my hands clean

It’s been difficult, proceeding with his plan with Harry’s childhood friend as the guinea pig. Difficult, but not impossible, because Norman had long ago promised himself–and promised a vulnerable, comatose Harry–that he would do anything to save him. Anything; and he’d meant it. Turns out that includes subjecting Peter Parker to his torturous experimentation.

But still, when he hears the young man–barely beyond his boyhood, much like Harold–cry out in agony, he doesn’t have to fake his concern. Dropping his clipboard and letting it clatter to the linoleum floor, Osborn rushes to Parker’s side, slowing the formula’s intravenous drip and upping the percentage of the saline buffer. The IV is a hazard, but one he’s been unable to avoid. With Peter’s tolerance to the drug increasing daily, there’s no other way to keep him anywhere near stable. If he could just figure out the proper dosage curve, factoring in all of the Spider’s enhanced attributes, this would be a breeze.

But with the formula changing him further, there’s no real way to map that exponential growth.

“Is that better?” Norman asks after a few moments, giving the newly adjusted ratio of saline-to-drug enter the young man’s system, watching him with a sharp eye for any change.

For a moment, he loses himself in the intensity of his stare, and when he looks down at Peter in the hospital bed, he sees Harry staring back up at him. Moisture wells at his waterline quite suddenly, and Norman ghosts the backs of his curled knuckles from the young man’s temples down past the hollows of his cheeks.

“No.” Norman’s posture stiffens as he draws his arms behind his back, clasping a wrist in the opposite hand. His thumb works circles on the fleshy heel of his palm, restless. “We’re not.”

Not now; not anymore. Too man things had gotten in the way of their friendship, with Norman himself--and his ambitions--being one of those things. Every bump in the road, every stumbling block has pushed them further and further apart, with Norman typically being the one to veer off into dangerous, morally bankrupt territory. But that’s not what happened this last time. 

Octavius is the one with blood on his hands now, and far higher a bodycount than the dozen or so Osborn had amassed in his search for a cure for Emily, and when that failed, Harry. It’s jarring to see the man who’d once been his moral compass nosedive from the position he’d been in to the one he’s in now. 

This prison... As his eyes flicker from Otto’s face behind the glass to the corridor of cells beyond, his heart sinks steadily. Up until the man’s violence began in earnest, Osborn had harbored no ill-will toward the man; not for years. He’d wanted to see him succeed, offering him grants and a new position at Oscorp multiple times, all to no avail. But it seems Octavius had let his hatred fester; he’d let it become this ugly, putrid thing, powerful enough to crumble the good man in whom it had spawned.

It’s truly one of the sadder things the ex-mayor has seen, and he’s seen a great deal of pain, and of suffering.

Shortly after the incident with the Marine, Osborn had separated the last of the four surviving test subjects: a Mr. Rafael Becerra and a Miss Gabriela Delmar. “For Miss Delmar’s protection,” he’d cooed as he’d watched the post-combustion--and notably uncooperative--veteran be wheeled to another room. One unlikely to catch fire, should the man combust again.

When the commotion of the move dies down, Norman is left alone with the young woman. She’s close to Harry’s age--closer than any of the others--so he has an especially heightened interest in what happens to her next.

“Miss Delmar,” Norman begins, his voice taking on a quiet, fatherly tone as he brings a chair to sit near the edge of her hospital bed. “I know what you’ve just seen was frightening. But I assure you that you and that brave young man are our top priorities.”

It’s not a lie, but it’s not a comforting truth either. The mayor has a great deal riding on those two; the fact that they’ve survived this long is exciting news, even given that unexpected--and thoroughly fascinating--spontaneous combustion.

“My doctors have told me that your vitals have recently undergone a spike similar to the one Mr. Becerra experienced in the hour or so before his-- incident. So I would like very much for your cooperation. Let’s see if we can prevent this from happening to you, shall we?”

That, though... That is a lie. Norman Osborn wants to witness this girl burning; he wants to see it up close and study the lead up, the event itself, and the aftermath. And he won’t leave until that sick curiosity is satisfied.

“Parker.” Norman’s voice booms across the room upon spotting the boy. “What luck.”

It can hardly be called luck when he’d called all over the city, looking to pinpoint his son’s best friend, but he does so anyway. He just wishes he weren’t here, at the FEAST center, as his aunt had said. Martin Li likely wouldn’t be thrilled to see him here, even it had been decades since their last face-to-face.

With long strides and a confident gait, Osborn meanders through the room, pausing to shake hands with a few of the homeless men and women who’d gathered at the sound of his familiar voice. But when he gets closer, his mind locks onto Peter, putting everyone and everything else on the backburner. From a pocket in the silk lining of his suit jacket, Osborn pulls a sealed envelope with Peter scrawled on the front of it in Harry’s handwriting--though it’s far messier than his usual script. Not that Norman had noticed.

"One of Harry’s assistants brought this back for you. He wanted it hand-delivered, so. Here I am.” 

The mayor chuckles, briefly eyeing the shelter and patting himself on the back. He had, after all, saved Li’s life; if it weren’t for him there’d be no FEAST. His methods may have been messy and rushed, but they’d been successful. 

“But I have to admit,” he says, moving to wrap an arm around the brunet’s shoulders so they can stand as one, side to side. “I’m not just here as my son’s messenger boy.” Another laugh, full-bodied and loud, as though the thought is utterly ridiculous. “There’re are a couple of jobs opening up in our biomedical engineering department, and it pays more than double what you’re making now.”

A politician’s smile--sickly sweet and precise--paints over his expression of singel-minded determination.