Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
020. the green goblin
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐍𝐎 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐓 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. Ingrid knew it would be suspicious to leave her father in the dark, so she crafted what she hoped was a believable excuse, texting Bruce to say she’d be spending the night at Evelyn’s.
It wasn’t a complete lie — not really, her friends were with her. But as she hit send, the knot of guilt in her chest tightened. Lying to her dad never sat well with her, especially after all they’d been through. They had survived too much together for deceit to feel right. But this? This was different. If they managed to fix the multiversal chaos unraveling around them, then the lie wouldn’t matter. That’s what she told herself, over and over again, hoping it would numb the guilt. It didn’t.
The undercroft was cold and dimly lit, the faint hum of magical energy from the cells a constant reminder of the danger lurking just meters away. Ingrid couldn’t sleep. She tried, slumping into the creaky chair she’d claimed as her own, but her mind refused to quiet. Every noise — a shuffle, a crackle of energy from the cells — had her eyes darting to the shadows. She glanced at her phone every few minutes, waiting for a message from Peter.
He texted her sporadically: brief updates that said little but reassured her enough to keep going. Still alive. Got it handled. The words were clinical, devoid of warmth, but they carried the weight of his exhaustion. She knew he wasn’t sleeping either.
The city outside pulsed with life, as it always did. New York never slept, and these nights, neither did Ingrid. She envied Evelyn and MJ, who were curled up together on the musty old couch, sleeping soundly despite the chaos. Lucas, Dylan, and Ned had made a makeshift bed out of jackets on the dusty floor, sprawled out in a heap of tangled limbs and light snores.
Ingrid tried to will herself to lie down, but every time she closed her eyes, her mind betrayed her. She pictured the villains in their cells, the flicker of malevolence in their eyes. She imagined the spells holding them flickering, failing. And worst of all, she pictured Peter — out there, alone, wearing himself thin to save everyone else. It was unbearable.
The night stretched on, agonizingly slow. She sat in silence, listening to the sounds of her friends breathing, the faint hum of the cells, and the occasional rumble of distant traffic. When the first faint streaks of sunlight broke through the narrow, grimy window, she was still awake. Her head felt heavy, her limbs sluggish, but her mind was as restless as ever.
By morning, the others stirred. MJ, Evelyn and Lucas were the first to rise, and they wasted no time rousing Ned and Dylan, who protested with groans and half-hearted attempts to pull jackets over their heads. “Nope,” Evelyn said cheerfully, yanking a jacket away from Dylan. “If we’re awake, so are you.”
