Magical Spider chapter 59

Chapter 59 -

"So...a group of enhanced individuals who have been trained by the greatest organisation in the world and you all failed...spectacularly."

Rick winced at the cold tone of Nick Fury who was currently pacing in front of the group. It was the day after Harry Osborn had escaped and the team had been gathered up into this Shield conference room since Director Fury's office was still undergoing repairs. The group had been instructed to sit down at a table while Fury paced in front of them, leaving them to all feel like little children. Standing a short distance behind Fury was Maria Hill who had her arms crossed and somehow looked more disapproving and irritated than usual and there was Coulson whose face was blank. Rick exchanged looks with the others, all of them had known exactly why they were brought here even before Fury had started speaking. It was time for them to be grilled about letting a non-powered individual escape. Eventually, Fury stopped pacing and stared at them with his arms behind his back.

"Mr Harry Osborn was and is an exceptionally dangerous individual," Fury said, staring at all of them. "Not only was he a very noticeable physical danger when he had his powers, but he is also a highly advanced genius who will most likely be the one to inherit one of the most advanced and richest companies in the modern day."

"But Sir, I...why can't we just go after him?" Rick asked hesitantly. "I mean...you guys know where he is,"

"We are not going after Mr Osborn for many, many reasons. The simplest one that I will inform you of is the fact that his father is capable of causing just as much, if not more problems for Shield." Fury said while glaring at Rick for interrupting, Rick wilted in his seat. A satisfied Fury continued. "Now, we will discuss what you all did wrong. Starting with the two of you," He pointed to Jimmy and Evans.

"Me?!" Jimmy gaped at him. "That's bull! I had him! I would have caught him and dragged him back to you if not for your 'mutant-hating' dickheads stopping me!"

"You're right, it was completely unreasonable for trained agents to react when they see someone in a fellow Shield uniform running from an individual with razor-sharp claws." Maria Hill drawled in an unimpressed voice.

"They didn't even give me a chance to explain!" Jimmy protested. "They wouldn't hear a word I said!"

"And those agents have been reprimanded," Coulson spoke up. "But this meeting is not about what they did wrong."

"You were the first one to leave your team," Fury spoke up. "I'll be the first to admit that in normal circumstances, splitting up is a viable option. But you are supposed to be in a team for a reason, I recall that several of my agents have been trying to drill teamwork into you for the longest time and yet you separate from the team as soon as you can. If you had taken Daniel or Bishop with you then you could have tracked Osborn down and taken him out from a distance before he would have even realised. As for you, Daniels, I found the footage and you let yourself get caught far too easily. I've never seen someone jump so easily into a trap since that one time Coulson caught a blind man with a net." Everyone looked at Coulson who shrugged his shoulders.

"It was a hectic time," Was all Coulson said.

"Look," Evans spoke up. "I know I didn't handle it great but -"

"You didn't handle it at all," Maria cut him off.

"We've been trying to drill into you for a long time now that you need to be focused and to take the time to think," Fury glared at Evans. "But you didn't do that because you thought it was all a game. I've not said anything about this little rivalry you and Savage have going on since I hoped that it would inspire the two of you to push yourselves to greater heights, but instead, you were both focused on proving yourselves better than the other instead of the objective. Why am I wasting taxpayer money and my resources hand-gifted to me by my superiors on the pair of you if neither of you is willing to improve the slightest bit?" Fury asked, staring hard at both boys who looked down. "That's what I thought. Bishop," He said suddenly. "You did far better than the others but don't think for a moment that you do not have room for improvement. Agent Barton wants to discuss what happened with you, personally."

Kate grimaced at that, she would have much preferred being berated by Fury than to see the disappointed look on Hawkeye's face.

"White Tiger," Fury continued, the girl in question straightened in her seat. "You did very well, but you're not quite at the level I want from you. You can do better, you will do better. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Director Fury," She nodded quickly.

"Good," He hummed, deciding not to waste too much time on her. He knew that, unlike the others, she'd be trying to improve with or without his input. "Rick," He said suddenly. "You charged in at Osborn without a plan and ended up on your backside multiple times. You were superior to Osborn and you let him get the better of you because you underestimated him."

"Sorry, Sir." Rick winced.

"You're 'sorry' huh?" Fury asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are all of you? Are all of you sorry?"

"Yes, Sir." They all said at once with various degrees of enthusiasm.

"Sorry does not repair my window, sorry does not change the fact that Harry Osborn has had the chance to get in contact with my personal computer, nor does it change the fact that the team that I've been rooting for and supporting since day one had just royally fucked up," Fury said bluntly. "It's going to take me a lot of work to stop the people who want to get rid of you all from disbanding this team and sending you all to labs, kicking you straight back to your lives of mediocrity or worse. Now, you tell me right now, are any of you willing to prove to me that you're worth it? Are you all worth the effort, the money, the time and the passion that I am investing in you?"

"Yes, Sir!" They all said, this time with equal enthusiasm.

"Get out of my sight," Fury said softly, pointing to the door. "You all will show up ten minutes early at least to your first class or so help me, there will be trouble." He kept pointing, watching as they all practically ran out of the door, once they were all gone, Fury sighed and relaxed, turning around to face the other two.

"I think it's fair to say that they weren't the only ones to underestimate Osborn," Maria said before Fury could speak. "You made the same mistake and you know it,"

"Perhaps," Fury said while sending a mild glare to Maria. "But I learn from my mistakes, I will not be doing that again."

"Sir, after reviewing the footage, I can't help but feel that Osborn has more powers than we know of," Coulson spoke up. "Either that or more tech,"

"It can't be powers," Fury frowned deeply.

"Yes," Maria agreed. "Exposure to our gas should have made him nothing more than your average human, it has a one-hundred success rate."

"Powers or not, I think we can all agree that Mr Osborn is not your average human," Coulson said, Maria gave a reluctant nod to that. "If we're ruling out powers then we're establishing that he has more technology than we originally thought."

"He also hacked our systems, I want to know exactly how he did that," Fury said, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to relieve some stress.

"Our people's best guess is a remote hacking device that he could have activated once he was onboard,"

"I don't want guesses," Fury sighed. "We need rock-hard information. Osborn is turning out to be a far bigger headache than I anticipated."

(.)

Harry let out a deep sigh as he got near his home, he had to go to school as he couldn't really make the excuse of taking a day off because he pissed off a powerful international agency and lost his powers. At least that was what Felicia and Gwen said, so he had reluctantly gone to school which hadn't been fun. Another day of listening to teachers talking about subjects that he could teach was not fun, nor was the typical student drama that he had to deal with and he had nearly ended up decking Flash when he had tried to trip Peter. And then, as if to rub dirt into his face, a speeding car that had been running from the police had ended up nearly hitting a group of kids while he couldn't swing after it and stop it. The worst part of the day was looking over his shoulder constantly in case Fury decided to send agents after him while he was in class.

Once outside his building he hopped off his skateboard and picked it up, ready to go inside when he suddenly heard a loud squeal from behind him. He turned around in time to receive a bright flash in his eyes, he blinked and half-wondered if Colin had somehow managed to travel to this world as well when a girl slid up to him. She wore bright, glittery pink shoes with bedazzled blue jeans, an expensive-looking purple blouse and a jacket with so many buttons and accessories attached to it that he could barely see the colour of the actual jacket. The girl wore a collective crap-ton of make-up and had bright purple hair along with five piercings in each ear plus she had drawn the letters 'SB' on one side of her face in a gold colour that matched the same colour as her phone's case.

"Harry Osborn!" She grinned brightly as she stopped next to him. "How are you doing today?!"

"Do I know you?" He had barely managed to get the question out before she had managed to take a selfie with him.

"Probably," She laughed, flicking some hair over her shoulder. "I know all about you and so do many of my fans!" She grinned as she started filming on her phone, Harry stared at the phone and realised she was making a live video. "What up, people?!" She said enthusiastically into the phone. "It's your girl, 'Screwball' and I'm here today with one Harry Osborn! The richest kid in the city and the most handsome!" She looked over her shoulder and winked at Harry while he stared dumbfounded at her. "So, in case you haven't worked it out, Harry, I am Screwball, the biggest name on the internet."

"Never heard of you," Harry said bluntly, wiping the smile off of her face in record time.

"You...you've never heard of me?" She stared at him as if he had just declared that he was the emperor of Saturn.

"I don't spend much time on social media," He said apologetically. "I'm too busy for that,"

"You poor soul," She said, sounding genuinely hurt on his behalf. "Anyway, I'm basically the biggest name on the internet. Aren't I, everyone?" She asked the phone before turning back to Harry. "So, I was wondering, what would really get the people talking? And I thought of something, you and me."

"'You and me' what?" Harry asked dumbly.

"You and me," She repeated with a giggle. "The two of us together would make the ultimate power couple, don't you think?! You're rich and famous, you and I getting together could probably make international news! Plus, I did tell my followers I'd have a surprise for reaching my latest subscription milestone, and what better than seeing a new couple fall in love? So, what do you say?"

"I have a girlfriend," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, but you can break up with her, it'll make our relationship all the more interesting for our fans," She suggested with an over-the-top wink.

"Uh...yeah...no, no I'm not doing that," He said, backing off. "Look, I'm sure you're a nice girl and all but I'm not really interested and I'm kind of going through my own stuff right now so I'm just going to leave, thank you." He said before walking away.

"What?! Are you kidding me?!" He heard her shout from behind but ignored her and kept walking.

A couple of minutes later he got into his apartment and let out a deep sigh before walking in, noticing that his mother wasn't anywhere in sight. He frowned when he saw that his father had once again left a folder on the sofa, with a small roll of his eyes, Harry picked up the folder and made his way to his father's office where he opened the door.

"Hey-o, Daddy-o, you left this on the sofa..." Harry trailed off when he realised that his father wasn't alone, "...Oh." He finished weakly when he saw just who exactly was in the room. Sitting opposite his father, dressed in an all-black suit was none other than Wilson Fisk himself, accompanied by Wesley who was standing next to him.

"Harry," Norman stared at him with a blank face. "Thank you, but as you can see I'm in a meeting. If you wouldn't mind leaving and -"

"A moment, please," Fisk spoke as he stood up and walked over to Harry, eyeing him with thinly disguised interest. "Harry Osborn," Fisk said softly as he stopped in front of Harry. "The heir to the Osborn fortune, and from what I hear, a rather remarkable young man. A pleasure to meet you," He said, extending one meaty hand out to Harry. Harry took in a small breath before shaking hands with Fisk.

"A pleasure, Mr Fisk," Harry said, managing to sound somewhat genuine.

"You know of me," Fisk stated once the two let go.

"You were in the news recently," Harry pointed out lightly. "Now, if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing here?"