The phone call that changed everything came at 6 AM, two days after Harry's confrontation with Menken. He'd barely slept, spending the night poring over Oscorp's financial records, trying to understand the scope of his father's criminal enterprise. When his phone buzzed, he answered without checking the caller ID.
"Is this Harry Osborn?" The voice was elderly, shaky. Female.
"Yes, this is Harry."
"My name is Maria Santos. Your father killed my grandson."
Harry's blood turned to ice. "I... what?"
"During the attack. My Luis, he was only sixteen. He was helping people evacuate from a subway station when that monster came down and..." Her voice broke. "I saw the news about your father's death. I know who he was. What he was. And I wanted you to know what he took from us."
Harry found himself gripping the phone so hard his knuckles went white. "Mrs. Santos, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I'm so deeply sorry for your loss."
"Sorry doesn't bring back my boy." Her voice turned harder. "But maybe you can do something your father never would. M-Maybe you can make it right."
After she hung up, Harry sat in his father's office chair and stared at the phone for twenty minutes. Then he started making a list.
The memory came unbidden as Harry walked through Central Park the next morning, heading to meet the first family on his list. He was seven years old, standing in this same park with Norman, feeding ducks at the pond. It was one of the few times he could remember his father seeming genuinely relaxed, not thinking about work or deals or whatever usually consumed his attention.
...
....
...
"You know what I like about ducks, Harry?" Norman had said, tossing breadcrumbs into the water.
"What, Dad?"
"They're survivors. They adapt to whatever environment they're in. City park, wilderness lake, doesn't matter. They find a way to thrive." Norman had put his hand on Harry's shoulder, a rare gesture of affection. "That's what Osborns do. We adapt. We survive. We make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in."
Harry had felt so proud in that moment, like he was part of something special. Like he and his father shared a secret understanding about how the world worked.
Now, walking past that same pond twenty-three years later, Harry wondered if Norman had been teaching him about adaptation or justification. About survival or about convincing yourself that anything was acceptable if it served your purposes.
The Santos family lived in a small apartment in Queens, the kind of place where three generations shared two bedrooms and everyone worked to keep the lights on. Maria Santos answered the door herself, a tiny woman in her seventies with eyes that had seen too much grief.
"You came," she said, surprise evident in her voice.
"You asked me to. Mrs. Santos, I know this doesn't change anything, but I need you to know how sorry I am. For Luis, for what my father did, for all of it."
She studied his face for a long moment, then stepped aside to let him enter. The apartment was cramped but spotless, filled with family photos and the smell of cooking rice. In the living room, Luis's high school graduation photo sat on a makeshift shrine, surrounded by candles and flowers.
"He wanted to be a teacher," Maria said, noticing Harry's gaze. "Said he was going to help kids in the neighborhood get to college. Smart boy. Good boy." She sat heavily in a worn armchair. "Your father took all that away in thirty seconds."
Harry sat across from her, feeling like an intruder in this family's grief. "What can I do? How can I make this better?"
"You can't." Her words were simple, devastating. "But maybe you can stop it from happening again.
She told him about Luis then. About a kid who tutored younger students for free, who worked weekends at a bodega to help pay for his grandmother's medication, who'd been accepted to three colleges but was planning to start at community college to save money. About a boy who'd died trying to help strangers escape from falling debris, killed by a madman in a metal suit who thought civilian casualties were acceptable losses.
When Harry left the Santos apartment two hours later, he had Luis's photo in his wallet and a promise burning in his chest. This wouldn't happen again. Not while he controlled Oscorp.
The second family was harder.
Jennifer Mitchell was thirty-four, a single mother working two jobs to support her eight-year-old daughter. She'd been walking home from her night shift at a diner when the Green Goblin's pumpkin bomb had destroyed the bus stop where she was waiting. She'd lost her left leg below the knee and spent three months in the hospital. Her daughter had spent those months in foster care because there was no one else to take her.
"I don't want your money," Jennifer said when Harry tried to offer assistance. They were sitting in a coffee shop near the hospital where she was still doing physical therapy. "Money doesn't give me my leg back. Money doesn't erase the nightmares my daughter has about her mommy disappearing."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want to know why." She leaned forward, her prosthetic leg visible beneath her jeans. "I want to know what your father was thinking when he decided my life was worth less than whatever he was trying to accomplish."
Harry stared into his untouched coffee. "I don't think he was thinking about you at all. I think that was the problem."
"Yeah, well, that's not good enough."
She was right, and Harry knew it. Being forgotten, being treated as collateral damage, was almost worse than being deliberately targeted. At least hatred acknowledged your existence. Norman had destroyed Jennifer's life without even noticing she was there.
"I'm shutting down the weapons division," Harry said quietly. "All the military contracts, all the enhancement research, everything that enabled what he did. I can't undo the past, but I can make sure Oscorp never produces another weapon."
Jennifer studied him for a long moment. "You really mean that?"
"Yes."
"Good. Because if you don't, if you turn out to be just another rich kid playing at being decent until it gets inconvenient, I'll make sure everyone knows exactly what the Osborn name really means."
Harry met her eyes. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."
By the time Harry had met with six families, he was emotionally drained and physically sick. Each story was worse than the last. A father who'd died shielding his children from debris. A police officer who'd been vaporized trying to evacuate civilians. A paramedic who'd lost both arms pulling people from a collapsed building.
All of them killed or maimed by Norman Osborn. All of them forgotten in the official reports that focused on the Avengers' heroic victory.
Harry was sitting on a bench outside his seventh appointment, trying to find the strength to go inside and hear another story of his father's casual brutality, when his phone rang.
"Mr. Osborn? This is Captain George Stacy, NYPD. I was wondering if we could talk."
Harry knew the name. Stacy had been mentioned in several of Norman's journal entries, usually in the context of investigations that needed to be "redirected" or evidence that had to disappear. If George Stacy wanted to talk, it probably wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation.
They met at a diner in Midtown, the kind of place where cops gathered to complain about their cases and drink coffee that could strip paint. Stacy was exactly what Harry expected: graying hair, tired eyes, the bearing of a man who'd seen too much but kept doing the job anyway. He wasn't alone.
"This is my daughter, Gwen," Stacy said as a blonde woman in her early twenties slid into the booth beside him. "She's been helping me research your father's activities."
Gwen Stacy had intelligent eyes and the kind of focused intensity that reminded Harry uncomfortably of Norman. But where Norman's focus had been predatory, hers felt protective. Like she was studying Harry to determine whether he was a threat to be neutralized or a resource to be utilized.
"Mr. Osborn," she said, shaking his hand. "I'm sorry for your loss."
The words sounded genuine, which surprised him. Most people either avoided mentioning Norman's death entirely or offered condolences that felt like accusations.
"Thank you. Though I'm not sure loss is the right word anymore."
Captain Stacy leaned forward. "We know about the journals. We know you've been meeting with victims' families. Question is, what are you planning to do with what you've learned?"
Harry looked between father and daughter, trying to read their intentions. "You're investigating me?"
"We're investigating Oscorp," Gwen said. "Your father's death doesn't make the company's crimes disappear. There are still people out there who enabled him, who profited from his work, who might try to continue it."
"Like Menken."
"Among others." Captain Stacy pulled out a tablet and showed Harry a series of photographs. Corporate executives, government officials, military contractors. "Your father didn't work alone. He had partners, investors, people who provided resources and protection. Some of them are still active."
Harry studied the faces, recognizing several from Oscorp board meetings and company functions. "What do you want from me?"
"Help," Gwen said simply. "You have access to Oscorp's internal records, financial data, research files. Things that would take us years to get through legal channels, if we could get them at all."
"You want me to spy on my own company?"
"We want you to do the right thing," Captain Stacy said. "The question is whether you're capable of that."
Harry thought about Maria Santos, about Luis who'd wanted to be a teacher. About Jennifer Mitchell and her daughter's nightmares. About all the families he'd met today, all the lives Norman had destroyed in pursuit of his vision of human evolution.
"What would you need?"
Gwen pulled out a list, handwritten and detailed. "Financial records for the weapons division. Personnel files for anyone with access to enhancement research. Communications between Oscorp and government agencies. And any information you can find about something called 'Project Green.'"
Harry's blood went cold. "Project Green?"
"Your father's personal research initiative," Captain Stacy explained. "We know it existed, but all the official records have been scrubbed. If there are any copies..."
"There are." Harry thought about the sealed section of Norman's lab, the area he hadn't been able to bring himself to explore yet. "But getting them might take some time."
"We've got time," Gwen said. "What we don't have is someone on the inside willing to help us. Are you that someone, Mr. Osborn?"
Harry looked at their expectant faces and thought about the choice he'd made in Norman's laboratory. The promise to be different, to make the Osborn name mean something other than terror and death.
"Yes," he said. "I am."
That evening, Harry stood in his father's office and stared at the contracts that would make him rich beyond imagination. Weapons deals with foreign governments, enhancement research for military applications, biological agents that could "pacify hostile populations." All of it legal, technically. All of it profitable, certainly.
All of it obscene.
Harry picked up his phone and called Oscorp's legal department.
"This is Harry Osborn. I need you to cancel every weapons contract currently in development. All of them. Immediately."
"Sir, those contracts are worth billions. The cancellation penalties alone—"
"I don't care about the penalties. Cancel them."
"Mr. Osborn, perhaps you should discuss this with the board before making such a significant decision."
Harry thought about Menken's cold smile, about the board members who'd stood behind him in Norman's lab, about all the people who'd enabled his father's crimes because it was profitable.
"No," he said. "This is my decision. Cancel the contracts."
After he hung up, Harry opened his laptop and began typing an email to every major news outlet in the city. By morning, the world would know that Oscorp was officially out of the weapons business. The board would be furious, the shareholders would revolt, and Menken would probably try to have him removed.
But somewhere in Queens, Maria Santos would read the news and know that her grandson's death had meant something. That someone had heard her story and chosen to be better.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was a start.
Harry Osborn was no longer his father's son. Now he had to figure out who he was going to be instead.