Chapter 28: Birth of Black - part 1

After slitting the Green Goblin’s throat, I ignored Peter, who hung his head lifelessly, and returned to our base.

…Carrying the now-cold belongings, chilled by the night air in the underground tunnels of New York.

The cute skirt. The swimsuit we picked out together.

Everything reminded me of Gwen, and each memory made my chest ache.

And at the same time, I found peace in the fact that I’d killed Norman. I could accept that this was for the best.

Gwen’s a good person.

An utterly faultless one.

Hurting someone like her without any reason… he deserved to die.

I wanted to go see her—right now, in that hospital.

But Spider-Man—Peter—never told me where she’d been admitted.

If I didn’t know the place, I couldn’t go.

There was this tug of worry inside me, but I also believed that if it was Peter watching over her, she’d be fine. Both feelings coexisted in my chest.

I picked up the phone lying at my feet.

There were several notifications.

…They were from Gwen’s father, George Stacy.

He was probably worried since I’d cut off our call partway through.

I called George back… and told him I’d fainted from the shock. That’s why the call ended like that.

Honestly, I could’ve come up with a better excuse, but nothing came to mind.

Anyway, I managed to get a few key details—like the fact that Gwen had been seriously injured.

That she was alive.

And which hospital she’d been taken to.

After that, I ended the call.

He said it was already late and Gwen was asleep, so they preferred visits after noon.

—

The next day, after school.

I went to the hospital with Peter and Ned.

It was called NY Metropolitan Hospital—a big facility located in Manhattan.

Seeing the tall, white exterior, Ned faltered.

Peter and I already knew how badly Gwen had been hurt—both as Redcap and Spider-Man.

So we weren’t surprised that she’d been brought to a hospital this large.

But Ned was different.

George had only told him Gwen was injured in an incident. He didn’t even know the details of that incident.

So when he realized things were much worse than he’d imagined, he started to panic.

At reception, I wrote my name on the visitor log.

While we waited, Ned kept nervously talking to Peter, fidgeting the whole time.

As I glanced sideways at them, my eyes fell on a newspaper placed nearby in the hospital lobby.

…Green Goblin.

The death of Norman Osborn.

His face filled the front page, along with an article analyzing his legacy—his merits, and his sins.

Why would a man so seemingly virtuous…?

That was the theme of the special coverage.

The corpse of the man I killed last night—Norman—I’d left it at the abandoned station.

Unless Spider-Man had gone back and cleaned up, it would’ve still been there.

In the end, some troublemaker kids who snuck into the place found it and reported it.

Apparently, they’d come with an uncle and wanted to spray graffiti on the walls.

Street art is one thing, but trespassing and vandalism? Really?

…Well, I trespassed too. And committed murder. And left a body behind.

—

Anyway, back on topic.

—

Gwen was awake, so we were allowed into her hospital room.

It seemed the surgery had been completed just a few hours after she was admitted, and now she was recovering in her room.

We walked through the hospital corridor of NY Metropolitan.

The pale green floor stretched ahead of us, softly lit by overhead lights.

“Room 121… 122. Here.”

Eventually, we reached her room.

I stood at the door for a second, hesitating. Then Peter reached for the doorknob and opened it.

…There she was, sitting up in bed.

The moment she saw us—

She smiled.

Even though her whole body must’ve been in pain.

Even if they’d given her sedatives, she had to be feeling miserable.

Still, she smiled—so bravely.

“Well, look who it is. Michelle… and the other two.”

She kept her voice as bright as she could, but it was still noticeably weaker—down by thirty percent, maybe.

Of course it was. She—

“Oh, this? I got a head injury, see…”

She gestured to her forehead.

Right near her hairline, there was a visible stitched scar.

It was a fairly large wound.

…It might leave a mark.

I held my breath.

She’s just an ordinary girl.

Unlike me, she doesn’t have any healing factor.

The scar might stay on her face.

And she’s a girl.

My chest tightened with guilt.

But I couldn’t say anything.

Because Gwen didn’t want me to.

There was a wheelchair next to her bed.

When I looked at it, she noticed and opened her mouth.

“Ah, ahhh—this? This, yeah…”

She trailed off awkwardly, so Ned asked her.

“You hurt your legs too? A fracture… or something?”

I already knew the answer was no.

She’d been slammed hard into a concrete wall—upper body only. Her lower half had no injuries.

So then, why the wheelchair?

Because—

“I… It looks like I’ll never be able to walk again.”

Gwen spoke, slowly… one word at a time.

She explained how her spine had been damaged.

How the bone had fractured in a complicated way, and shards had pierced her nerves.

And how—there wasn’t a single doctor who could treat it.

“There was, like, this world-renowned surgeon at this hospital, apparently… but a few years ago, he got into a car accident and injured the nerves in his hand, so he can’t operate anymore… haha, talk about bad luck, right?”

She laughed at herself as she said it.

And seeing her like that—I…

“…Michelle?”

…I was crying.

Tears fell, one after another, and just wouldn’t stop.

“…Michelle, come here.”

Gwen beckoned me over, and I stepped up to her bedside.

But the tears wouldn’t stop flowing.

I wiped them with the sleeve of my shirt…

“Ah, jeez, Michelle. You’ll get your sleeve all dirty.”

She reached over and wiped my tears with a tissue from the side of her pillow.

Then, without a word, she wrapped her arms around me.

“G-Gwen…”

But she didn’t smell the same as usual.

Not that soft, flowery perfume she always wore… Instead, it was a sterile, medical smell.

And yet, mixed in there, was something calming—maybe Gwen’s real scent.

“Michelle. Honestly, it makes me happy that you’re crying for me. It really does. But… seeing you cry like this makes me a little sad, too.”

She gently pulled away and reached up to pinch my cheek, softly.

“See? You’re way cuter when you smile.”

My chest tightened.

It hurt.

“…Anyway, you two back there. Why are you just standing there like statues?”

Gwen pointed toward the two behind me—Ned and Peter.

Ned… he’d gone vacant the moment she said she’d never walk again.

His brain must’ve completely frozen from the shock.

Peter… he looked like he was hurting just like I was.

But he wasn’t crying.

Not because he was heartless—nothing like that.

It was because he was stronger than me.

Even while being crushed by guilt, he was holding himself back—trying not to be a burden to anyone.

“Haaah, unbelievable. When you see a girl crying, the least you can do is comfort her, you know? Geez, it’s guys like you who stay vir—”

Gwen caught herself mid-sentence and looked at me with an awkward little “ah” expression.

“Well, whatever. I know you two are worried about me. And I might be a bit of a pain going forward, but when that time comes—”

“You’re not a pain.”

That was Ned.

“I’ll step up. So… y’know, you don’t have to worry—uh, I mean, I don’t want you to worry.”

He said it shyly, fidgeting a little.

And when Gwen heard that, she just stared at him with this dumbfounded look for a second… and then started laughing.

But it wasn’t a little chuckle.

She was laughing—full-on.

“F-Fufu… Ned, seriously… pfft, haha…”

“W-What? Why are you laughing?”

Gwen just couldn’t hold it in. Ned had been so unusually serious, and it caught her off guard.

But it wasn’t a mean laugh.

Not at all.

“Fufu… thanks, Ned. When the time comes, I’m gonna be such a pain, okay?”

“…Fine.”

Ned pouted as he nodded.

Gwen teased him, but her face… looked genuinely happy.

After leaving the hospital room, we returned to the waiting area.

A nurse had reminded us not to overstay our visit.

You’re not supposed to keep an injured patient awake for too long.

They need rest.

…Even so.

Almost everyone in the waiting room wore a somber expression.

Maybe it was because this was one of the major hospitals in New York, a city with abysmal public safety.

I often forget, but the New York of this world is far worse than the one in my previous life.

It’s not even an exaggeration to say there are robberies happening every single day.

In a place like that, where the injured keep pouring in, the people here must all be victims of crime—or the family, friends, or partners of those victims.

We were here for a friend too, after all.

Among the many pained, weary faces…

I spotted someone I recognized.

“Ah.”

“Michelle? What’s up?”

Peter reacted to the sound that slipped from my lips.

Ned turned to me too, puzzled.

“…I just saw someone I know. I’m going to go say something. You two go on ahead.”

They looked surprised.

…Wait, why are you both so shocked?

Do they think I only have, like, three friends or something?

I mean—they wouldn’t be wrong.

Anyway, I left the two of them behind and walked over to the familiar face… calling out softly.

“…What are you doing here?”

He was sitting there, head bowed, holding a small bouquet in his hands.

Dressed in a suit that felt too formal for just visiting a hospital.

“…Michelle…?”

He looked up—and even more so than the last time I saw him, he seemed drained.

There was a shadow over his usually composed features.

Sitting there was Harry Osborn.