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Otto Octavius doesn’t know what traitorous thought prompts him to open the brown paper shopping bag he’d thrown into the back of the closet several months ago. He’d wanted nothing to do with it, nor with the man who had left it to him.
But, now, that man is dead.
Norman Osborn is dead.
And Otto has decided to open the bag.
The top of it is neatly folded over, as if to protect or hide whatever may be inside. The handwriting bearing his name is all too familiar after years of working alongside and under the man who had set it among his possessions in his private lab. He despises how neat and fancy it looks- the bag and the handwriting, both. Norman Osborn had done him wrong.
But Otto cannot fight his curiosity, even while knowing that a man as wicked as his old friend could hurt him from beyond the grave.
Rosie is out shopping, probably for more poetry books. She doesn’t know of the bag. Now is as good a time as ever to open it.
Either way, as overdue as this is, there is a small dread settling down in Otto’s belly. Norman Osborn hadn’t entirely been himself in his last months. He’d been cold, harsh, unforgiving. It hadn’t been him. He’d been struggling with something, and part of Otto feels that the answer of what is in the bag that sits on his bed.
If Norman hadn’t died, Otto would have torn the bag open without thought. But, now, something whispers to his hands, orders his fingers to be gentle as he unfolds it and pries it open. So, delicate he is. Gentle, like how he had unfolded his Massachusetts Institute of Technology acceptance letter so long ago.
He should be horrified by what he finds inside. He should be disgusted, flooded with hatred. He should be afraid. Disappointed. He should throw it out. He should burn it. He should report it to the police.
The mask of the Green Goblin.
Instead, Otto feels numb. Resigned. His shoulders slump as his eyes hover over the yellow lenses of the mask. He can see a letter tucked into the bag next to it, but he doesn’t need the letter to know why the mask is here, what the truth is.
The Green Goblin, it had been Norman Osborn.
It would be a lie to say that Otto had never had his suspicions. The details added up too nicely, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Norman had been struggling because he had turned into a terrorist. Only the letter holds the answer as to why.
The Norman Osborn that Otto had once been friends with would never have done such a thing.
He doesn’t touch the mask. The mask isn’t important. He can deal with it later. The tri-folded page beside it will explain everything. And it does.
Otto,
I don’t expect you to open this, not after what I've done, but I need your help.
You’re a smart man, and you’ve probably put it together by now, but I need to say it myself:
It’s me.
I am the Green Goblin.
I killed Doctor Stromm.
I blew up Quest’s project.
I killed the Board Directors at the fair.
I’m a terrorist.
But I want you to know that I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t have a choice, I swear. The performance enhancers I told you about, I performed the experiment on myself. I’m that one psycho rat. I can’t control myself. There’s someone else inside of my head, and he makes me do horrible things. I can’t stop him.
I need your help. He fired you, not me. I didn’t want him to. I don’t expect you to help me, and I don’t expect it to be for me if you do. But, please, Otto.
He won’t let me work on an antidote. But, I think you can make one if you get into Oscorp. You could reverse engineer the original formula. I never did take your keys back. Use them for this.
Because this path, Otto, it’s going to get a lot of people killed. It’s going to get me killed.
I really am sorry.
Norman Osborn.
The letter had been a cry for help.
And Otto is too late.