"Oh...god," Harry gently sighed as his eyes slowly opened, he blinked repeatedly as the events of last night came back to him. He let out a small groan as he leaned his head back onto the pillow, only to stop when he realised that there was something on top of him. He looked down and saw a blonde-haired head resting on his naked chest, he slowly became aware of the fact that the body connected to that head was being pressed against him, one slender arm wrapped around his torso and hugging him to her while one of her legs draped over one of his own. "Umm...Gwen, Gwen, Gwendolyn, wake up please." Harry whispered, gently shaking her.
"Hmm?" She let out a small yawn as she woke up, she took a moment to blink the sleep out of her eyes before she looked up at him. "Oh, hi Harry," She said in a sleepy voice.
"Why are we both in your bed?" Harry asked bluntly.
"You were injured so I wasn't going to make you sleep on the floor, and I'm not sleeping on the floor in my own room, so this is the next logical step." She yawned into his chest, sending shivers down Harry's body.
"Oh...so we didn't..."
"No," She said, cutting him off and giving him a teasing grin. "You're not that lucky."
"Shame," He grinned back. "Could I perhaps tell people at school? If anyone knew I shared a bed with one of the best-looking girls in school then..."
"No," Gwen cut him off once more. "I don't need that sort of reputation. I think that..."
"Gwen," Her father's voice cut her off. "What's going on in there?" His voice called from outside her door.
"Crap baskets." Gwen and Harry muttered at the same time.
"Is someone in here with you?" Her father demanded as he opened the door and walked in to find Gwen in the bed, covering up her body with her duvet.
"Dad!" She shrieked, acting as if she was not just wearing a pair of pink pyjamas. "I had just started getting changed!"
"Who were you talking to?" He frowned as he walked to her cupboard and opened it, once he found nobody in there he walked over to her bed and started looking under it.
"I wasn't talking to anybody," Gwen said irritably. "I was watching a video on my phone." She added whilst gesturing to the phone next to the bed.
"Alright," He said after several more moments of looking around. "I believe you, but remember, I don't ever want to catch you alone with a boy in this room, trust that I will find out if that ever does happen. Now, your mother is making breakfast, be quick before it gets cold." He told her before he turned and walked out, closing the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Harry gently and quietly dropped down from the ceiling.
"Well, that was close," He whispered, standing in her room half naked with only his lower half being covered by his costume. The only other thing covering his body was the bandages that Gwen had placed around his ribs.
"How's the pain?" She asked as he started covering up the rest of his body.
"Honestly, a lot better," Harry answered. "I feel like I'm three-quarters healed."
"Really?" Gwen asked, suddenly looking a lot less sleepy. "Hmm, maybe you heal faster than we thought you could. We hypothesised that you'd have an increased healing factor but this is even better than expected."
"Let's not make a habit of testing it out, eh?" Harry lightly chuckled. "Anyone, I'm going to go now, got to get home before my parents go spare. Do me a favour, please, and tell Peter to cover for me. If anyone asks then I'll just say I stayed at his house for the night."
"No problem" Gwen nodded. "What are you planning to do now?"
"Well, once I've dealt with the parental interrogation, I plan to go talk to Dr Connors." He admitted as he started putting on his mask.
"Why him?" Gwen asked curiously.
"He's an expert in reptiles, and that thing yesterday seems to fall under the same category." He shrugged slightly. "If I'm lucky, he might end up giving me an idea on how to beat it."
"Alright, in the meantime, I'll look up reports on the news and see if I can narrow down its location for you," Gwen said with a small frown on her face.
"You're the best, Gwen," He told her happily before he opened her window. "Good luck." He added before leaping out of it.
"You too." She smiled.
*LINE BREAK*
"And that had better arrive on time," Norman said, walking into his home office with Menken walking right behind him with a table in his hands.
"Yes, Mr Osborn," Menken said dutifully as he made a note on his tablet.
"And I expect the engineering team to finish before next week," Norman added before pausing when he saw Harry standing behind his desk and staring at a document that one of his scientists had sent him. "Son? Where were you? You didn't come home last night."
"I was staying at Pete's house," Harry answered absently. "Before you say anything, Mother already gave me a lecture about not calling."
"Fair enough," Norman simply nodded at that. "And how did your date go?"
"It was a double date with two idiots," Harry rolled his eyes. "I remained polite, though the breaking point was when they tried to get me to pay for all of their dinners."
"I sincerely hope you didn't," Norman said with narrowed eyes.
"Of course not," Harry snorted. "I just paid for my own and left."
"Excuse me," Donald spoke up. "You shouldn't be looking at those documents, I think that..."
"Do you see the mistake made here?" Harry asked Norman whilst gesturing to the documents, ignoring Menken. "The protective shields need to be adjusted for an increase in size and weight, not to mention the other three mistakes I've spotted." He added after placing a paper on Norman's desk. "I wrote the mistakes down for you," He added before walking past his father's desk. "Oh, by the way, I'm going to go to Oscorp and talk to Dr Connors, I have a paper I need to write for school and I'm hoping to get his opinion on it.
"Of course," Norman said warmly. "Have fun."
"Thanks, Dad." Harry grinned at him before exiting the office and closing the door behind him.
Donald let out a small huff and shook his head before looking down at his tablet, he looked up and was about to speak again when he saw his boss glaring at him.
"Sir?" He asked hesitantly.
"Let's make one thing clear," Norman said in a severe tone. "You do not ever tell my son what he can or cannot do, there are only two people in the world allowed to do that and you are not one of them, understood?"
"Y...yes, sir." He stuttered before looking down, neither of them knowing that Harry had heard the entire thing thanks to his enhanced hearing.
*LINE BREAK*
"Excuse me," Harry said, walking up to one of the lab assistants that knew who he was. "Where's Dr Connors?" He asked politely.
"Oh, he didn't come in today," She told him. "We don't really know where he is." She added, causing Harry to frown, Dr Connors never missed a day off work unless something very serious happened.
"Oh, okay, thanks," He gave her a small nod before he walked to where he knew the man's office was. "Hey, Doc," Harry gently knocked on the door, only to blink when it opened, letting him know that the good doctor hadn't even locked his office, another out of character move from him. "Doc? You in here?" He asked gently as he walked in and closed the door behind him. "Doc?"
Harry paused and looked around, he couldn't hear or see anything, except for the squeaks that he knew were coming from the mice that Dr Connors kept in his lab. Harry stopped when he came across the glass cage that the mouses were in. His eyes widened as he saw the horrifying sight inside the cage. One of the mice was now undoubtedly dead.
It lay there lifelessly with its eyes still open, its jaw slightly open as well while its body was covered in blood that was most likely its own. The entire underbelly of the mouse was missing, a puddle of blood and a few remaining organs lay in front of it. A short distance away from it was another mouse, except it was not an ordinary one.
It stood on its back legs, looking much larger than the other mouse. The mouse also noticeably was eating something that looked a lot like the dead mouse's intestines. And if that wasn't horrifying enough then this mouth had enlarged canine teeth and was covered in green scales.
"Shit!" Harry cursed, it hadn't taken him long to put two and two together, he quickly rushed over to Dr Connor's computer. "Damn it, damn it, damn it." He cursed as he started looking through the computer files while pulling out his phone and calling Peter. "Pete, shut your mouth," He said as soon as Peter answered the phone. "Get Gwen, meet me in your basement, I'm going to send you some files. I found out what that lizard thing is, it's Dr Connors."
"Wait! What?!" Peter blurted out.
"I'll tell you all when I get there, just read the files." Harry cut him off before he ended the call. "Damn it, Doc."
*LINE BREAK*
"So, Doctor Connors experimented on himself," Gwen frowned, as the trio gathered around Peter's computer.
"That's my best guess," Harry nodded. "He was trying to regrow his arm and ended up turning himself into a bloody lizard."
"You should have seen the Daily Bugle reports," Peter told him. "They've labelled him as 'The Lizard'."
"Creative," Harry said in a dry voice.
"That's nothing, you should see some of the things they're saying about you."
"What are they saying about me?" Harry blinked.
"They've basically gotten it into their heads that you're a masked menace," Gwen answered for Peter.
"Listen, I may be masked and I may be a bit of a menace but..." Harry paused and trailed off. "Let's focus on Doc."
"It looks like the majority of his focus was on lizards, but I've noticed that some other reptiles are included like snakes and..."
"Did you just say snakes?" Harry asked suddenly, cutting Peter off.
"Yeah, why?" Peter asked curiously.
"So, part of the doc's formula involved snakes? Meaning that the thing is at least somewhat like a snake? Right?" Harry asked with narrowed eyes.
"Um...I'm guessing so, yeah, why?"
"I have a plan," Harry said with a deep sigh.
"What plan?" Peter and Gwen asked at the same time.
"I'm going to try and talk to him," Harry answered after some slight hesitation.
"Talk to him?" Gwen repeated with disbelief. "Harry, he's turned into a crazy, rampaging lizard."
"I can talk to snakes, I can talk to him."
"What do you mean you can talk to snakes?" Peter blinked. "Like how you can control spiders?"
"No, it's slightly different," Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I'll explain everything later, but for now we need to focus. Can we cook up an antidote for him?" He asked. Gwen and Peter both gave him looks that expressed quite clearly that this conversation was not anywhere near done.
"It's possible," Gwen said after a few moments. "But I doubt that we can do it in Peter's basement."
"You really need to talk to your dad about setting us up with a lab," Peter told Harry.
"Probably should," Harry agreed, seeing the usefulness in that. "Either way, I got us into Oscorp once, I can do it again. For now, we need to work on finding and capturing him before he can cause any more harm. Luckily nobody's been reported to have been attacked so far."
"We can find him," Gwen said confidently. "But how sure are you that you can stop him?"
"Honestly, if it comes to a fight, fifty-fifty. If you're asking about the probability of my plan working then I'd say about seventy-thirty."
"That's fairly good odds," Peter commented.
"Seventy is how likely it is to fail," Harry informed him.
*LINE BREAK*
"Are you sure this will work?" Spiderman asked as he landed in the city's biggest and main zoo, it was night time and the zoo appeared to be closed. The animals had all been herded back into their cages and enclosures. This place might have looked warm and friendly during the day but it looked anything but that at night when there was nobody else around.
"I'm like eighty percent sure," Peter told him via the communication device that was fitted inside of his mask. "His latest reported sighting was near here and this does seem like a likely place for him to go, lots of animals for him to eat and some of the enclosures would be comfortable for him given his lizard-ness."
"Fair enough," Spiderman nodded, knowing that it couldn't hurt to take a look around.
He walked around the Zoo for several minutes in eerie silence until he was able to locate the section of the zoo where they kept reptiles. He was nearing the area where the crocodiles were kept, he looked down over the railing and saw a couple of crocodiles lazily floating at the top of their little pond of water. He was ready to move on when he suddenly noticed the crocodiles shake before they started moving to the edges of the lake. The water in the centre began moving rapidly, Harry spotted a shade of green in it just seconds before 'The Lizard' shot out of it and towards him.
Spiderman stuck his feet to the ground before bending backwards from the knees, leaving his back parallel to the ground as Lizard went over his body and landed a short distance away whilst Spiderman stood back up and turned to face him.
"Evening," He said as casually as he could manage before Lizard started charging at him. $Doc! Stop!$ He hissed in parseltongue, he was very thankful when the Lizard suddenly stopped and was now staring at him with a confused expression. $Doc, I know you're in there, it's me, Harry, Harry Osborn. I'm your friend,$ He continued, the Lizard started shaking its head slightly as if struggling to move. $Doc, calm down. Stay calm, it's me, Harry, I'm your friend. I'm going to help you, I'm going to get you plenty of nice food and I'll get you to safety. I'll keep you safe, I'll get you to your family, that's what you want, isn't it? Stay calm, and listen to me.$ He moved forwards, only to pause when Lizard started looking more agitated, it growled loudly and looked like it was going to start charging at him. $Stop, stop,$ He said, it continued growling and he realised that being overly nice wasn't seeming to help the situation. $I said STOP!$ He yelled, magic lacing his voice.
As if a switch was pressed, Lizard suddenly stopped, not so much as even twitching. Spiderman let out a sigh of relief before he called it over to him, it obediently crawled over to him before stopping in front of him. Spiderman hesitantly reached a hand out and stroked its head.
$Good boy,$ He hissed in a happy voice. $Now, go to sleep.$ He ordered and it obeyed. Dropping its head down along with its body before it lay down on the floor.
"Guys," Spiderman said into his comms. "It worked, I've got him sleeping."
"That's amazing!" Gwen exclaimed. "You've seriously got to tell us how you did it when you get back."
"I will, now I just need to work out what to do with and..." He trailed off when Lizard's body started shaking, slowly and slowly its body started changing and changing until there was no longer a giant lizard in front of him, a few moments later Dr Connor's sweating and heaving body was lying on the cold harsh floor, covered only in a pair of wet and large brown shorts and a wet lab coat. "Well, that solves one problem at least."