American comic book: Absolute Spider-Man

Tony's expression changed from "panic" to "I'm going to kill someone".

The pants were finally pulled up, half-buttoned, and the shirt hem was tucked crookedly into the waistband.

He grabbed the sofa armrest: "You deleted it."

I won't delete it.

"Jarvis, hack into Peter's phone and delete my American-style curvy butt photo."

"Received, sir."

Peter watched helplessly as Jarvis deleted half of Tony's butt from his phone, unable to stop it, and gave Tony the middle finger.

Pepper sat up from the sofa, straightened her hair, and adjusted the collar that Tony had pulled askew.

Her movements were unhurried, as if nothing had happened. But the corners of her mouth were trembling—not from anger, but from suppressing a laugh.

Maya pulled her leg off Tony's knee and took a sip of her wine.

His gaze fell on Tony's buttocks, and he was also suppressing a laugh.

The United States has an open culture, and Tony's two girlfriends have a good relationship with Peter, so being caught being intimate with someone doesn't make them feel embarrassed or angry.

Tony finally buttoned up his pants and tucked in his shirt.

He took a deep breath and then smiled.

That smile seemed to say, "You just wait."

He walked over, put his arm around Peter's shoulder, and patted him hard on the back—right on the spot where Peter had been scraped by the asphalt. Peter hissed, and his smile turned into a grimace.

"Does it hurt?" Tony looked at Peter's shirt, which was stained with blood, asphalt, and black ash.

"If it were you, would you feel pain?"

"Serves you right." Tony patted her again, this time more gently. "Jarvis told me the Iron Spider was activated, but the data from inside the armor showed Gwen was just warming up, so I didn't pay much attention. Who knew you'd make such a mess of things?"

Gwen emerged from the still-open portal, carrying the Green Goblin.

"The man is here," Gwen said, placing the Green Goblin on the lab floor.

Tony looked down at the cocoon containing the Green Goblin and the head protruding from it, his brow furrowing.

"Norman Osborn?"

"Yes," Peter said.

Tony crouched down and moved closer.

The face peeking out from between the spiderwebs had an unhealthy green tinge, but the facial features were the same face Tony had seen countless times at business parties—the head of the Osborn Group.

"You captured him?" Tony turned to look at Gwen.

"He ran across the Washington Bridge, and I intercepted him on the New Jersey Riverbank," Gwen said. "He was pretty fast, but not as fast as the armor."

Peter leaned against the lab bench, gently brushed the asphalt off his shirt, and sighed.

"Gwen and I were at the Rockefeller Center observation deck tonight," he said. "Gwen's super hearing picked up screams from the top floor of the Osborne Tower, so I opened a portal and went there. Norman was in his office, and there were three people lying on the floor. He was holding one of them by the neck."

"Dead?"

"He didn't die, he was close," Peter said.

Tony paused for two seconds: "And then?"

"Then he recognized Gwen; he knew she was Spider-Woman," Peter said. "He threw a bomb and ran away in the chaos. Gwen, wearing her suit, chased him all the way from Manhattan to the Washington Bridge and caught him. But in the process, he threw a bomb at me."

"So the wound on your back was from a bomb?"

"The shockwave threw me off the bridge," Peter said. "I only survived by catching myself through a portal. But the explosion shook me, and I landed on the bridge, so I only sustained minor injuries."

Tony looked him up and down, his gaze lingering on the dried blood at the corner of his mouth, but he didn't ask any further questions.

"How did he become like this?" Tony asked.

"The Green Goblin serum that Osborn secretly developed," Peter said. "The physical modifications were very successful; his strength, speed, and endurance far surpassed those of Extremis soldiers, but he developed mental problems."

"How so?"

"He has a split personality. His behavior is now dominated by the extremely twisted personality 'Green Goblin,'" Peter said to Tony. "Help me cure him."

The Green Goblin's voice, twisted with a distorted rationality, rang out: "Let me go, Peter. I don't need treatment. You traitor, is this how you treat your Uncle Norman?"

Peter looked at the Green Goblin lying on the ground: "You're not Uncle Norman, you're just a parasite living inside him."

"Peter," Green Goblin's voice was hoarse, but each word was enunciated clearly, "You think healing me and putting me in jail is the end of it?"

Peter did not speak.

Norman shifted his gaze from Peter's face to the people in the lab—Tony, Pepper, Maya, Gwen—all righteous, intelligent, and conscientious individuals.

Then he looked back at Peter.

"You can heal me," he said. "The Green Goblin will die, but you can't kill Norman Osborn."

"You can't kill his cruelty." Norman's tone was as calm as if he were reading a financial statement. "You can't kill his cunning, you can't kill his selfishness, his greed, his 'belts are either meant to be worn down or to fall' values."

These things weren't given to me by the serum; the serum just amplified them. They've always been there. They were there when I was still that self-made entrepreneur, when I sat on the board laughing as I ousted my partners, when I drove my competitors to suicide—they were always there.

His lips twitched, and then he burst into arrogant laughter.

"You think Green Goblin is a bad guy? Green Goblin is just a tool, an extension of Norman Osborn's twisted mind. You save him, heal his body, restore his sanity—and then what? He'll still want to purge the board, no, everyone who stands in his way."

He'll still stop at nothing to achieve his goals. It's just that next time, he might use a smarter method so you can't find any fault with him.

"That's still better than now." Peter looked at the Green Goblin in the cocoon and laughed contemptuously. "Green Goblin, do you know what the biggest difference is between you and Norman Osborn?"

One is a self-made, ruthless, calm capitalist who kills without a knife; the other is a giant baby who relies on brute force, bombs, and super serum, believing that fists are everything.

Power is important, but it's not everything. Violence is a good way to shape the world to your liking, but unfortunately, your understanding of it is too superficial.

Your use of violence is as ridiculous as a primitive man using a smartphone to crack walnuts. Violence should be like an algorithm in a chip, precisely calculating the cost and benefit of each step, investing the least amount of force in the most appropriate place, and letting the walnut crack open on its own.

"Just wait, once you've cured Uncle Norman, you can disappear from this world with your ridiculous, childish understanding of power."