"Impossible!"
The word tore from Norman Osborn's throat, raw and ragged. He was a cornered animal, but one that still believed its cage was made of gold.
"Oscorp is the legacy of my family! It's my son's birthright! I won't hand it over to some… intruder! And I don't need your solution! The serum—my serum—is on the cusp of perfection! Once I stabilize it, I'll have power that will make Captain America look like a historical footnote! Even you…" His eyes, bloodshot with sleepless nights and manic obsession, locked onto Aaron. "…will be obsolete."
Aaron stared at him for a long, silent moment. Then, he began to laugh. It wasn't a cruel sound, but one of genuine, incredulous amusement that filled the sterile lab with an unsettling warmth. He shook his head, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye.
"Forgive me. I truly couldn't help it." He finally managed, his mirth subsiding into a wry, pitying smile. "Norman, your confidence is… admirable. But it's about to cost you everything."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, chillingly factual tone.
"That solution in your vials? Its side effects are far more profound and insidious than 'violence.' It doesn't just enhance the body; it catalyzes the mind. It will excavate the darkest, most repressed corners of your psyche, amalgamate every fear, every resentment, every shred of paranoia, and give it a voice.
A separate voice.
It will create a second consciousness—a psychotic, amoral alter-ego that delights in chaos. It will whisper to you, encourage you, and when you are utterly mired in the consequences of its counsel, it will seize the reins entirely. You will become a passenger in your own body, watching a monster wearing your face burn your legacy, your relationships, and your son's future to the ground."
He paused, letting the horrific portrait sink in. Norman's defiant posture had frozen, his breath coming in shallow hitches.
"Think about it," Aaron pressed, his gaze unflinching. "You solve the physical instability. You inject yourself, triumphant. For a week, a month, it's glorious. Then the headaches start. The whispers. The 'brilliant' ideas that seem so logical in the dark. And one day, you wake up to find the city in flames, your son terrified of you, and a cackling demon in the mirror wearing your skin. That is the future you are so desperately trying to build. Not a super-soldier. A super-villain. A… Green Goblin."
The name landed with the weight of a prophecy. Norman flinched as if struck. "That's… conjecture! Lies to manipulate me!"
"Is it?" Aaron's tone was flat. "You integrated fragments of Erskine's original Super-Soldier formula, didn't you? Salvaged from O.S.S. archives or Hydra remnants. But Erskine's genius wasn't just biochemistry; it was a moral filter. He knew the serum amplified everything—the good and the bad. Your formula lacks that safeguard. It doesn't seek a 'good man.' It seeks a powerful one, and it doesn't care what that power is used for. You think you're creating Captain America? You're creating the Red Skull with better gadgets."
He let the comparison hang. "Imagine that personality… giving a refined version to Harry. Passing on the family 'legacy.' The Osborn name becoming synonymous not with innovation, but with madness and murder. The Goblin Dynasty. Has a nice, tragic ring to it, doesn't it?"
"Stop…" Norman whispered, his face ashen. The vivid, awful logic of it was unraveling a lifetime of self-justification. The fear for Harry was a spear through his defenses.
"Oscorp…" Norman began again, the words hollow. "It's not just a company. It's…"
Aaron raised a hand, cutting him off. He stood and walked to a secondary bench, picking up a standard glass test tube. Inside swirled a luminescent, cobalt-blue liquid.
"Do you recognize this?" Aaron asked.
Norman frowned, squinting. The tube was generic, but the liquid… it emitted a faint, soothing bioluminescence. "It's… one of my earlier stabilizer bases? From the Mark VII series?"
"In a sense. I repurposed the base compound." Aaron held it up. "This is a regenerative accelerant. In layman's terms, a healing potion. It stimulates cellular mitosis, replenishes lost bio-energy, and coordinates systemic trauma response. A severed femoral artery becomes a manageable laceration. Third-degree burns revert to first-degree within hours. It doesn't grant super-strength or longevity. It simply… tells the body to heal, now, and gives it the raw fuel to do so."
He placed the vial on the desk between them with a soft click. "In your professional estimation, Doctor. What is the market value of a reliable, mass-producible universal healing agent?"
Norman's scientific mind, ever calculating, momentarily overrode his despair. His eyes glazed as he ran projections. "It would revolutionize emergency medicine, battlefield triage, surgery, recovery… The pharmaceutical industry is worth over a trillion globally. A patent-protected monopoly on this…" He looked up, awe and avarice warring in his gaze. "Hundreds of billions. Easily. It's not a product; it's a new foundation for human medicine."
"Precisely," Aaron said. "And this is just the first sample. The equivalent of a 'minor health potion.' I have conceptual blueprints for others. A dermal restructurer that reverses photo-aging. A telomere-support compound that decelerates cellular senescence. A targeted cytotoxin that discriminates between malignant and healthy tissue. A neural graft stimulant that could regenerate spinal cord injuries."
He listed them off like items on a menu. "The point, Norman, is this: I am not here to plunder your crumbling empire. I am here to offer you a new one. A real one. One built on miracles, not monsters. One that saves lives and builds fortunes, rather than creating them to be destroyed later."
He leaned back, folding his arms. "My condition is non-negotiable. Oscorp, its assets, its infrastructure, its name—they become the vehicle for this. You will retain operational control. You will be the public face, the brilliant CEO who shepherds in a new era of medicine. You will be richer and more powerful than you ever dreamed. And Harry will inherit a kingdom of life, not a curse of death and madness. But the ultimate authority… the final say on direction, on what we research and what we sell… that belongs to me."
He fell silent, watching the internal war play out across Norman's face. The pride, the fear, the ambition, the paternal love. It was the offer of a lifetime wrapped in the demand of a century. Aaron had given him the stick—the horrifying truth of his own path. Now he had presented the carrot—a future so bright it was blinding.
Norman's gaze dropped to the glowing blue vial. A simple test tube holding the power to redeem his name, secure his son's future, and fulfill his hunger for legacy in a way the unstable serum never could. He thought of Harry's smile, so unaware of the genetic sword hanging over him. He thought of the cackling, green phantom Aaron had described, a ghost of a possible future that now filled him with dread.
The silence stretched, thick with the weight of a dynasty's fate.
Finally, Norman Osborn's shoulders, which had carried the weight of expectation and failure for decades, slumped not in defeat, but in a profound, weary relinquishment. He looked up, his eyes clear for the first time that evening, stripped of manic obsession and replaced with a grim, calculating resolve.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, the air hissing between his teeth.
"I… agree."