Chapter 91

[Third Person's PoV]

Peter and Gwen listened with serious expressions as Harry played back the audio he recorded.

After it finished, Peter inwardly cursed, 'It hasn't even been that long since I started being Spider-Man, and now I have to deal with Hydra. This isn't going to be pretty.'

"Well, we can already deduce something from this," Peter said before summoning a holographic keyboard.

"They're likely to be the real deal, no doubt about it," Peter continued, surprising them as he started typing.

"Aria, can you run a vocal recognition software and try to see if anyone matches? Start by looking for any public figures," Peter instructed as he typed.

"How can you guess that?" Gwen, who was on his lap, looked at him in surprise at how unexpectedly serious he became.

"Two reasons. Firstly, Norman isn't a dumbass. One doesn't start a company from scratch and build it to the level it is now by making dumb decisions. His reputation is very important to him. He wouldn't have joined if it was fake, where they could easily be caught and he could be implicated. And secondly, can either of you recite their sayings if you remember them?"

Gwen and Harry looked at each other for a moment in shock, then both said it at the same time,

"Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place."

"So are you saying Captain America didn't manage to actually destroy Hydra during the war?" Harry asked in surprise.

"I'm sure Captain America did some significant damage to their organization, but I don't think it was enough if they're still up and running. They might have been slowly rebuilding themselves back up in the shadows," Peter answered, looking at the large monitor as images appeared with a voice note underneath, next to a gray box with a question mark in the middle, with a voice note of the man speaking.

After a few scans, the images received a red X mark across their picture before moving to the next one.

"Aria, honey, I'm sorry for asking a lot from you today, but can you pull up footage from Oscorp of Norman going into Conner's office and taking the Lizard Serum recipe?"

After a few seconds, an image appeared: Norman walking towards Connor's destroyed and messy office.

"Why did you pull this up?" Harry asked in confusion.

"If Hydra really is out there, which again I'm going to say that it is, then Norman is planning to supply them with the Lizard Serum. Who knows what they could do with it? They could create an army of Lizards or something even more nefarious. Who knows who they have on their side? They could even upgrade it, making it much more deadly.

So I'm trying to see if I have a way to recover it. If Norman has a physical copy of it, then I need to go there and recover it. If it's digital, I could have Aria go into his computer and destroy it. Or, in the worst-case scenario…"

"In the worst-case scenario?" Gwen asked in anticipation.

"In the worst-case scenario, we're too late, and Norman has already sent the serum, and we can't do anything about it. An army of Lizards comes and invades the city, where Hydra would then come out of hiding, take them down, appear as heroes, and then slowly take over the world, starting with the populace's opinion of them first."

"What type of scenario is that!?" Harry asked, equally confused.

"Like I said, the worst one… Now, Aria, play the video," Peter said as he watched with a serious expression, with the others doing the same.

The video showed Norman walking inside Conner's office with a USB in his hand, making Peter let out a sigh of relief.

"Good, it looks like it's a physical copy. It can still be taken back," Peter muttered as he watched Norman plug the USB into the computer and start typing away for a few minutes before unplugging it and walking away, stuffing the USB in his pocket.

"Now for the difficult part," Peter muttered. "Aria, check throughout the surveillance throughout the entire day. See if at any point in time Norman has handed anyone something." Peter instructed with a sigh.

The video then started to speed up, following Norman's day. He went to his office, met a couple of people wearing FBI jackets, led them back towards Connor's office before leaving them be and going back towards his own office. He spent the rest of the day there typing away at his computer before leaving for the day.

"Well, that was uneventful… I'm sorry to say this, Harry, but it looks like your dad doesn't have a life," Peter teased, while Harry gave him a deadpan look.

"Really? At a time like this?" Harry asked with the same look.

"I can't help it, it's how I cope," Peter responded with an awkward smile. "You should know that by now."

"Unfortunately, I do," Harry retorted, shaking his head.

The video continued, showing Norman getting into a car with a chauffeur driving him back to his mansion, with the camera switching every time he passed a corner.

As Norman entered his mansion a few minutes later, Harry appeared before walking out. The camera continued to skip along until it is currently live. "I see, it's good he hasn't sent anything," Peter muttered.

"Match found…" Aria announced, switching back to the vocal recognition software and showing a picture before playing the two voice notes side by side.

Gwen and Harry had their mouths wide open upon seeing who the man was.

"Are you serious? How deep has Hydra infiltrated themselves into the government? This Stern guy is a senator for crying out loud," Gwen asked in shock, seeing the information on the screen.

Harry then started to breathe heavily, looking like he was about to have a panic attack.

"Harry!" Peter and Gwen both went to support him.

"What's wrong? Are you alright?" Gwen asked worriedly.

Harry took a big gulp as he tried to calm himself down. "S-Sorry… it's just… seeing that all this time the guy on the phone he was talking to was a senator, it all became too real for me."

Harry took hold of Peter's arms tightly and looked at him with panic in his eyes. "Peter… I don't know… I don't know what to do… please… please help me." Harry started to then breathe heavily again, so Peter started to panic and not knowing what to do, all he did was hug Harry, which started to make him feel better after a few long seconds, and his breathing started to slow down.