Tarantula (Spider-Man)

Norman Osborn

“Oh…” she’d already planned on staying in a hotel with the rest of her team until they could all find a place to stay. Guess she doesn’t need to. “Alright then, thank you Mr. Osborn.”

“No need. Now, get to work!” he commands jokingly, giving a thumbs up.

Felicia and Valerie exit the office, and Felicia has her register her voice on the elevator’s AI system,

“Say, I think that went well. Mr. Osborn likes you.” Felicia comments.

“Thanks, I didn’t expect Mr. Osborn’s condition to be that...severe. He’s still running the company like that? It must be incredibly difficult.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t want to let go I guess, and no way does he want Menken to take over. I have a feeling he’s going to keep going till the bitter end.”

Valerie pauses, “Why not Menken? Isn’t that the point of a Vice President?”

Felicia stares off to the side, twirling her dark brown hair, “Its complicated, business stuff. To be honest, I don’t understand most of it.”

She nods slowly, “Uhuh.”

This time, the elevator goes down to one of the regular Oscorp floors. Valerie follows Felicia through the narrow hallway, where they pass various laboratories and workshops, completely visible through the glass walls. Most of the employees wear white lab coats and goggles, and their expressions are blank and orderly.

“Right over here.” Felicia points to a glass door with metal handles.

They enter to see that the SapphireTech team is already hard at work moving in and setting up, already in the standard Oscorp work gear. Hayden sees them, and rushes over,

“Hey Valerie, Ms. Hardy.”

Felicia giggles sweetly, “Please, call me Felicia.”

He smirks mischievously, “Alright then, Felicia. Call me Hayden.”

Hayden looks over at Valerie, who is clearly a little more than uncomfortable, her eyes wide and scanning around endlessly.

“Welp, thank you for bringing Valerie here. I’ll...catch you later.” Hayden smiles at her, while patting Valerie on the back, “So, how did the meeting go?”

“Well, Mr. Osborn seems pleased in having us join his corporation. He sent me the schematics for the project he wants us working on. Shall we look at them together?” Valerie offers.

“Alright.” he agrees.

“Also, could you have one of the guys transport my stuff? Apparently, Mr. Osborn has arranged for my own private apartment.”

Hayden arches his eyebrow in surprise, “Seriously? Is that...legal?”

“Mr. Gull, if you’re flirting with someone the same age as me, I don’t think the legality of  living on my own should be your number one concern.”

“Wait, she’s your age?!” Hayden realizes, “Oh god...I feel like a pedo.”

“Its technically okay now that we’re in New York.” one of the engineers shouts out, “Age of consent is seventeen, not eighteen.”

“Well, you learn something new everyday, thank you Brandon.” Hayden smiles, double-pointing at him, “Hey Valerie, you know what that means?”

“I don’t care.” she snaps bluntly, “We’re here to work, if you really want to discuss such matters with me, they should be after business hours.”

“I know, I know, but this is...kind of, sort of business related. You do know that Norman Osborn has a son, just about your age?” he asks, as they begin to walk towards the small office separate from the SapphireTech workshop.

“No, I wasn’t aware.”

“Well, I was thinking, what if you two met...because, you know, I think you’d get along with him really well...and well, you know where I’m going with this.”

“She can do way better.” another engineer shouts out.

“Wow, for glass walls, sound bounces off of them really well.” Hayden realizes, “Lets talk more in your office, shall we?”

Valerie pushes open the wooden door with her name plaqued on it. Inside is a small, but very neat office, not unlike the one she had back in Silicon Valley. She slips into the office chair and turns on the holographic computer at her desk.

“Wow, hey, none of us have one of those. And that’s surprising, considering that Oscorp is obsessed with holographic technology.”

She pulls up the project that Mr. Osborn sent her, and opens it up, “Wow, check this out.”

Hayden puts on his reading glasses and peeks over, “Hey...this is kind of similar to the power suit idea we were working on.”

“Yeah…guess this is why Oscorp brought us on board. But something’s different about it…” Valerie zooms in on the suit, “Its primary purpose is to stabilize retroviral hyperplasia.”

“That’s the disease Norman Osborn has, the suit must be for him.” Hayden realizes.

“There’s also some extra documents with the suit design.” Valerie swipes the hologram to access them, and begins reading bits of them aloud, “Since retroviral hyperplasia needs a stabilizing agent...testing every substance possible...most successful agent...cross species genetics?” she turns her chair around, “Oscorp researches cross species genetics?”

Hayden chuckles, “Its Oscorp, of course they’re researching cross species genetics, their specialty is biological technology, right?”

“Well, I guess if we’re going to be building this suit, we might as well look into their cross species genetics research.” Valerie suggests, “Perhaps we can speak to the scientists in charge and get some samples to use for testing.”

“Alright, weird gene altering research, here we come!” Hayden declares, doing a fist pump.