Ophelia (10 page)

“You are not actually going to
comply
,
are you?”

“I have failed in my duties,” he parroted robotically.

“Harry, stop.”
Ophelia put her hands
on his shoulders.
“
Athair
is dead because he went for
that which is near and dear to Peter Parker’s heart. You would be an
amadán
to try the same thing!”

Her brother seemed to snap out of whatever was holding him
entranced. “What other option do I
have
? Pete isn’t normal…he can take
anything I dole out!”

“What about using your influence to purchase
and demolish that rotten building of his?”

“He’d move in with his Aunt May.”

“What if we sat down with Jameson, found a
way to oust him from
The Daily Bugle
?”

“There are other papers in town,” Harry pointed out. “By
getting the staff position—no matter how short his tenure—Peter will prove that
he is capable of moving up in the world.”

Ophelia made a gesture of defeat.
“Peter
Parker is your filial duty, first and foremost. It is not my problem, unless
you should die in the attempt.”

Late Spring 2007

Peter
climbed the stairs to his apartment, nearly dragging with weariness. There was
a place in the back of his mind that suspected that he’d left his best friend
seriously injured…yet he couldn’t seem to care. Peter merely longed to
barricade himself in his apartment and sleep until it appeared that gravity was
no longer conspiring to give his face a meeting with the ground. The fury that
had given Harry second-degree burns a few hours before had subsided to a
glimmer in Peter’s mind…until he found the note tacked to his door.

Except it wasn’t a note, but an eviction notice. Mr.
Ditkovitch had given him thirty days to get out. But upon closer inspection,
Peter wasn’t even sure that that was Mr. Ditkovitch’s signature. Flabbergasted,
he wheeled around and pounded on his landlord’s door.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah!” Peter shoved the noticed in Ditkovitch’s face. “What
the hell is this?”

“It looks like an eviction notice.”

“I
know
that!” Peter made a derogatory noise and
shredded the paper.

“Just because you tore it up, does not mean you are not
evicted.”

“Then
un
-evict me!”

“I am sorry. I cannot do that.”

Before Peter could react, Ditkovitch reached into his
apartment and fumbled around a bit. A moment later, his landlord handed him a
stack of papers.

“I am being evicted, too. Bought out.”

Peter’s face fell. He shoved what appeared to be a contract
back at Ditkovitch. “Sorry to bother you.”

The young man slouched back to his own apartment. When he
finally managed the right number of tugs and pushes to open the door, Peter
discovered that the lights wouldn’t turn on. There was a loose sheet stuck in
amongst the mail.

Mr. Parker,

A representative
of OSI Acquisitions has informed us that you have vacated your apartment. After
reaching an agreement with OSI Acquisitions and your previous landlord, Mr. I.
Ditkovitch, we have discontinued your service.

If you have any
questions, please contact us at (212) 555-0715.

It
was signed by the head of the billing department at Empire State Electricity.

Peter sighed and was about to head back to his landlord’s
apartment when he was startled by a knock at the door.

“Phone for you!” Ursula called. “It’s Mary Jane!”

He was tempted to mention that he hadn’t heard the phone
ring, but thought better of it as he thanked his neighbor and stepped into the
hall.

The
next several days were the roughest Peter had experienced since the death of
Uncle Ben.

He had spoken to everyone in the building at least twice, but
they all agreed that Mr. Ditkovitch hadn’t been joking—every last stick of
furniture and stitch of clothing had to be out by ten on the morning of June
fifteenth. No exceptions. Peter tried to find a different apartment, but
everything in his price range had been snatched up—it seemed as if Mr.
Ditkovitch’s tenants weren’t the only ones facing eviction.

It had taken Peter five days to get his power
restored—between bureaucratic red tape and running out of quarters for the
phone, the whole thing had been a nightmare. Only when he agreed to have dinner
with Aunt May did Peter realize that he should have called Empire State
Electricity from her apartment in the first place. May forbore scolding Peter
for his forgetfulness, instead occupying herself with the insistence that he
move in with her until something opened up elsewhere in the building.

As if his living situation wasn’t precarious enough, Peter
was nursing the suspicion that his job was on uneven ground. He was used to
Jonah Jameson yelling “You’re fired!” at anyone who displeased him, but the
words had taken on a new meaning for Peter these days; especially with the
other photographers “mysteriously” receiving most of the assignments. Deep
down, Peter was afraid that the phone would ring one morning and Robbie
Robertson would be on the other end, telling him that he was
really
fired.

Peter’s review of his problems left him unsettled enough that
he got up and began to pace. For the first time in nearly two weeks, his mind
drifted back to the Osborns.

“Why would
they
be the source of my problems?” he
wondered aloud.

His conscience reminded him that the name of the company on
the eviction letter had been OSI Acquisitions.

“But that could just as easily stand for ‘Outback Steakhouse,
Incorporated’!” Peter argued.

Or “Osborn Scientific, Incorporated
”, his conscience
replied.

“Harry’s sister is busy enough, already!” said Peter. “Why
would she buy my apartment building? Even if her husband got bored with
modeling and decided to invest in real estate, why wouldn’t he buy something
nicer, like Harry’s building?”

Who says it was Ophelia? Harry had no problem stealing
Mary Jane from you.

Peter’s heart gave a sickening lurch as he recalled the
meeting on the bridge with his former girlfriend…then shifted to a simmering
rage when he recalled Harry’s coffee shop confession.

“Why would Mary Jane go back to Harry after dumping him five
years ago?” he growled.

His father is dead
, Peter’s conscience said flatly.
Norman
Osborn is no longer around to insult her. Mrs. Osborn passed away before Harry
even met her. If her heart has mended and she doesn’t perceive Ophelia as a
threat, why not try again?

“That
still
makes no sense!”

His conscience didn’t press the point.

“Maybe I should have a discussion with Ophelia about the
pandering girlfriend thief she calls a brother!”

~*~

An
hour later, Peter found himself dismayed as an eighth motorcycle roared past
his scooter. Oddly enough, they all seemed to be racing style, once popularly
known as “crotch rockets”.

If I didn’t know better,
he thought.
I would think
this is Ho Chi Minh City!

His spider sense tingled and Peter looked around, but it was
too late—yet another motorcycle nearly nicked his front fender. He frowned. The
ninth motorcycle looked just like the others, yet it purred like a Harley and
the rider seemed determined to cause an accident. Just as Peter was growing
tired of the impatient revving around him, the light changed. The cars in the
outer lanes began to move through the intersection, but the motorcycles stayed
resolutely in place. He was ready to find an escape when his spider sense
tingled again.

A glance behind him afforded Peter a view of at least half a
dozen bikes roaring into the back of the group. Cars and other vehicles zoomed
by, heedless of the young man who had begun to look around frantically for a
place to merge. But it was too late—the motorcycles in the front of him had
begun to move, while those to the sides began to tighten ranks with those in
the rear. With a throaty roar from the lead cycle, the pack picked up speed,
Peter struggling to keep up on his little scooter. He had little doubt that if
he failed to stay in the center, all fifteen or so would instantly flatten him;
and a lone rider would be dispatched to circle back and peel him off the
pavement.

~*~

Ophelia
stayed motionless as the remaining bikes zoomed past the mouth of the alley.
When they were clear, she leaned against the wall and sighed.

“Parker is still acting like a civilian,”
she
muttered.
“Those louts need to get their arses into gear!”

A tone sounded in her helmet and Ophelia touched the activation
strip near her jaw.

“All accompaniment is off Parker,” said the tinny voice of
her lieutenant. “We left him on East Fifty-Ninth near Sutton. All eyes are
reporting.”

Ophelia gave a terse reply and terminated the connection. If
Parker was content to leave Spider-Man out of this, she could easily see her
way into intervening.

~*~

When
he was sure no one was watching, Peter stowed his scooter in an alley and began
to strip out of his street clothes. His intuition told him that the bikers
hadn’t led him almost all the way to the Queensboro Bridge only to vanish three
minutes later. It would probably be better for Peter to invite Spider-Man to
“hang out for a bit” than to immediately jump back on his scooter and head back
to his apartment—the trip to Carnegie Hill could wait.

Peter had begun to pull on his hood when something whizzed
past his ear. He jumped to the left just in time to avoid the next object.

“Shall we finish this where it all began?”
A voice rang from every corner of the corridor, causing him to cover his ears.
“I will
happily
give you a ride to Roosevelt Island!”

Startled, Peter leapt onto a nearby wall and craned his neck.
A lithe figure fired yet another arrow as he scuttled aside…if he didn’t know
better, he would think he was talking to…

“Ophelia! It doesn’t have to be like this!”

“How would you
rather
see this end,
Parker?”

She put away her bow and a familiar whirring sound filled the
air. When the woman cleared the roof, Peter could see that she was riding
something that appeared to be a cross between her father’s glider and her
brother’s SkyStick.

“I suppose you would rather see me scurry
home, my tail between my legs?

“Ah, I know!”
Ophelia’s voice took on
a mock heartiness.
“You would prefer to see me flee for
Australia and become…what do you Americans call it? A soccer mom? You want me
to give up my duty to my father and to House Osborn, so I can stay ‘barefoot
and pregnant’ and fulfil your chauvinistic fantasies?”

Peter gave her an odd look. “I just want to end this fight
before it begins!”

“Then you should have never involved
yourself with House Osborn!”

Ophelia swooped lower and her opponent heard a hydraulic
hiss.

“I believe I have an old friend of yours.”

Peter cursed as the razor bats unfolded their wings. He made
a neat flip to avoid them, but also made the error of spinning directly into
Ophelia’s zipline.

“Come, Parker!”
she said, leaning
into the wind.
“We have only just begun!”

After
more than an hour of fighting, Peter was worse for wear. He noted with some
interest, however, that Ophelia’s super armor appeared to repel more than
bullets—with the exception of blood spatter, the woman was spotless.

“Please…let’s end this…” Peter sank against one of the walls
of the hospital that had survived the fight with her father. “You have the
wrong idea!”

Ophelia unsheathed her sword.
“I have no
desire to hear a sob story of my father’s death…some fairytale to placate me,
though everyone who bears the noble blood of the House of Osborn knows of his
true end!”

Peter was too weak to laugh at her regal exclamation. “It was
an accident. Your father was trying to kill me…he was pretending to have a
lucid moment so that I would agree to end the fight. Still in the grip of the
Green Goblin, your father attempted to impale me with his glider—I moved just
in time.”

A scolding sound came from a wall behind Ophelia.

“He’s still alive?” Harry asked as he swept into view.

“Parker has been distracting me with
mealy-mouthed excuses,” his sister snapped. “But you may keep him occupied
while I finish the job.”

“The duty is mine, the kill is mine.”

“As the matriarch of the Osborn line, I am
responsible for annihilating our enemies!”

Peter watched the Osborns, utterly bewildered. Were they so
at odds that they could not commit a single murder? When the first pumpkin bomb
flew, Peter disappeared.

David
had been lurking in the library for nearly half an hour when a window
shattered. A black-clad figure tumbled into the room and David found himself
sprinting to catch the intruder.

“Stop struggling!”

He tried to grab the figure in a bear hug, but the intruder
did its best to break free, causing the two of them to topple back to the
floor. David quickly grew frustrated with his inability to gain the upper hand,
which caused the fight to become more violent. They wrestled for what seemed to
be an eternity, only pausing long enough for David to discover that his
assailant appeared to be unarmed. After taking a roundhouse to the left cheek,
the bodyguard managed to strip the intruder of its helmet.