After Hours - The Weeknd

"Remember, those of you going to Europe at the end of next month need to have their final payments brought to me by Fri - you guys aren't even listening." The bell had rung and everyone had already packed up their bags. Mr. Harrington was essentially speaking to their backs as all the kids filed out of his classroom and got ready for their next period.

Lila stayed behind, digging her payment envelope out of her backpack before walking up to her teacher and handing it to him. An excited smile broke across his face, and he told her he was looking forward to having her on the trip. She gave Mr. Harrington a shy grin of her own before turning around and nearly bumping into Brad, who also had an envelope clutched in his hand. He cracked a grin at Lila before reaching around her to give their teacher the envelope.

Mr. Harrington's thanks fell on deaf ears as Brad started talking to Lila. "I didn't know you were going on the trip too, that's awesome!"

"Yeah," Lila nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. "It e-ends in Paris, so I was going to st-stay and visit some family."

"That's so cool, it's gonna be so fun!" Brad was exceptionally lively. Lila hadn't met someone as optimistic as Brad, whose chipper outlook despite half of his classmates disappearing for five years left others inspired. And when he came to Lila asking for some help in biology, she was entirely willing to put forth the effort. Ever since, he was always a pleasant person to have light conversation with. "Listen, I've gotta run but I was wondering if we could go over cellular respiration next Tuesday instead of Wednesday? I've got a quiz I want to nail."

Lila, having spotted Peter, nodded distractedly. "Sure, Tuesday works."

"You're the best, Lila, see you later!"

"See you," She muttered to nobody, as Brad had disappeared. Not that Lila paid any mind, she was focused on the fact that Peter and Ned were talking quietly to themselves, trying their best not to look suspicious but failing. And one word Lila happened to overhear gave her the exact context of their conversation.

Hovercraft.

The events at Meryl Streep's fundraiser were all over social media. A few articles had also popped up, but gave away very little information in regards to what had happened. One of the only few facts that had been given to the public was that the assailant was flying on a hovercraft, he managed to escape, and that he hadn't been found by the police. Suffice it to say, the would-be-murderer was front and center to the attention of Twitter.

Surprisingly, no one had put together that Jason Macendale was the man on the hovercraft. His name hadn't even touched the articles regarding the fundraiser, and that piqued Lila's interest more so than the shoddy videos captured that night. She shared this concern with Peter, who also thought it was a strange coincidence that his name wasn't mentioned at all. They both figured it had something to do with Norman Osborn, and how it was most likely he didn't want anyone thinking people were out to kill him.

Ned was immediately in on what really happened after Peter divulged it to him the following day. He was partly awestruck that the assailant was so original as to use a hoverboard as his getaway vehicle, but that was where the admiration ended. He'd read to both Peter and Lila that some news outlets were placing the blame on Tony Stark, which bewildered them all. Apparently, because Tony used to turn to technology to solve his problems, a growing number of bad people were doing the same; and thus making technology like Iron Man's now the new weapons race, circling back to why Stark had created Iron Man in the first place. Frustrated, Peter demanded Ned tell him what news source wrote it. Sheepishly, Ned admitted it was The Daily Bugle blog. No one gave that article a second thought.

"What's going on?" Lila asked as she walked up to them.

Peter, who was wearing one of Lila's favorite science pun t-shirts ("If You Believe in Telekinesis, Raise My Hand"), smiled before quietly answering her question. "Last night I asked Karen to look into Jason Macendale."

She glanced around to make sure people weren't eavesdropping before leaning in closer, "Wh-What did you find?"

"The dude is super suspicious," Ned nodded sagely.

Lila tilted her head in a teasing manner, "Funnily enough, I - I worked that m-much out." She turned back to Peter. "What did she say?"

"He wasn't just CIA and former paramilitary, he was a mercenary. Karen said he was let go because he was a liability."

"A liability?" Lila's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "How?"

Peter waited until an unusually loud group of people passed before shifting the straps of his backpack around on his shoulders and leaning in closer to Lila. "According to his records, he had what they described as an 'amoral personality and a violent nature'."

Ned commented, "He was considered too violent for the CIA, that can't be a good sign."

Lila thought about it for a moment. "How long ago was that?"

"He was let go from them two months before he was hired by Osborn."

"Which makes a bit of s-sense," Lila conjectured. "Maybe -  Maybe Osborn firing h-him was just the tip of the iceberg. And if - if he doesn't see st-stealing from him as w-wrong, it might've only fueled his anger."

"But Osborn's got an intense security detail," Ned argued. "Why would all of this matter?"

"You mean aside from the hoverboard?" Peter asked.

"It matters, Ned," Lila answered, "Because e-even if he didn't have the h-hoverboard, he has CIA and mercenary training. There's not - There's not a lot that could stand between h-him and Osborn."

"But, nobody's seen him since the fundraiser," Ned argued. "Who's to say he didn't just skip town?"

"Either that or he's just biding his time," Peter said.  "Plus no one besides whoever Osborn's got looking for him would be on the lookout, the press hasn't mentioned him once." He had a look in his eye that filled Lila with questions.

"Wh-What are you going to do?" She practically whispered. The hallways were emptying out as people headed to their classes.

Peter's eyes stared into her own, and it was there that he seemed to find his answer. "I'm going to swing around Manhattan tonight, see if I can't find him."

"You're going to go looking for that guy? On purpose?" Ned asked.

Peter almost seemed offended. "I could take him."

"Maybe," Ned scoffed, loyalty in the wind.

"Dude," Peter's eyes widened.

"Ned m-might be right," Lila said thoughtfully, and Peter whipped around to face her, mouth open about to protest. She beat him to it. "You sh-shouldn't go looking for a confrontation, you don't know what all he's - he's capable of."

"Karen said-"

"It's different o-on paper, you know?" Lila shrugged. "I'm not s-saying don't go, I'm just saying be careful."

                                 *****

"Aster! There you are, what's taking so long?" Completely ignoring the scowl on Lila's face, Harry's eyes slid to the man who sat behind the desk Lila was standing by, and watched as his impatient expression died in favor of bewilderment. "What are you looking at?"

"Mr. Osborn, I-I-"

"Ew, Mr. Osborn is my dad," Harry's voice was the only thing betraying disgust as his face still looked accusatory at the man.

He fumbled over his words, "I'm sorry, Harry, I just-"

A twitch of the lip silenced the secretary, and Harry held up his hand. "I didn't say you could call me Harry. Now, why does my friend look like that?" He pointed to Lila, who tried her best to mask the frustration that had mounted. "And answer today, please."

The man stuttered profusely, apologizing over and over again citing that he didn't know Lila was Harry's friend. What he failed to mention was how he had talked down to her when she asked to see Harry. She was starting to get frustrated at not being able to get past the front desk of places she was allowed to be in.

Harry made a slicing motion with his hand to cut him off. "Whatever. Bee Balm?" Lila's scowl reluctantly replaced itself with a smile at the name. "Why did your face look angry? Is that even possible? Do you have an evil twin?" He gasped, "Why haven't we met yet?"

"Harry, it's f-fine," Lila answered, and after a beat, she replied, "And n-no, I don't have an evil twin."

With one last nasty look at the secretary, Harry led her down the hallways of Oscorp and into an elevator. "What did he say to you?"

Lila paused, "What?"

"I don't think I've ever seen you angry," Harry elaborated, "I've seen you annoyed, sure, but never angry. What did he say?"

She shook her head, "It wasn't - wasn't anything he s-said, really, it was more of..." she sighed.

"More what?"

"Well, I don't want to get him in trouble-"

"Cut the crap, Landry, what did he say?"

"Harry-"

"Tell me." That resonating aura of control over every situation came through, and made Harry seem so much more like his father. He wasn't asking Lila, he was demanding an answer.

And Lila felt compelled to give him one. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "He just - he m-made fun of my stutter. Not in as many words," Lila was quick to add that last sentence as Harry's head whipped around to stare at her. She shrugged, "I don't know, it's - it's 2023, I thought w-we were past stuff like that."

"Oh," Harry said in a controlled tone. The elevator doors finally opened. "We don't have to talk about it." The look in Harry's eyes begged to differ and Lila could tell he was angrier than he let on. He started walking quickly to a lobby area. "Besides, I brought you here for a reason. Shelly," A forty-something woman snapped her gaze away from the computer, eyes gazing intently. "We have a 'Code-31' at the front. Black hair, red tie," Lila's eyes widened at Harry's description of the downstairs secretary.

Harry took her expression for confusion and explained as they kept walking. "My dad created a system of codes that would be understood by employees but not by his guests and clients."

"Then wh-what's a 'Code-31'?" Lila asked, turning back to see Shelly on the phone.

"Don't worry about it," Harry brushed it off. "Onto why I brought you here-"

"The cellular regeneration experiments?" Lila grinned excitedly. "The trials spearheaded by p-plants?"

Harry turned to her, perplexed. Though Lila could've sworn she'd seen just a hint of fondness. "Why do you know more about this corporation than I do? It has my name on it." He opened a door to a colossal office and hanging just behind the desk was a large portrait of Norman Osborn.

Lila's excitement turned to confusion. "Harry, why are we in your dad's office?"

"Hang on," Harry replies, "What makes you think we're in my dad's office?" He watched as Lila's pointed gaze flickered to the giant painting of his father before settling back on him. "How do you know we're not in the cellular whatever division? Maybe my dad's picture hangs in every room."

Lila rolled her eyes. "And d-does every room have a - a sign that says: 'Norman Osborn, CEO' on the window?" She pointed a thumb over her shoulder to the door, where sure enough the floor-to-ceiling window had those exact words written on them in a neat font. Harry's posture deflated.

"Okay, you win. I need your help."

"Why didn't you just - just ask me?" Lila watched as Harry walked to the side of the room, pressing a button she wouldn't have seen if Harry didn't uncover it.

He shrugged and turned around. "Something tells me if I'd asked you outright, you would've said no." A door that would've otherwise remained completely invisible to the untrained eye opened in the wall behind Harry, and he beckoned Lila forward as he stepped inside the small room.

Smirking, he looked at Lila's open-mouthed expression as she quietly stepped inside and waited for the door to close. A keypad of sorts was embedded next to the wall, and Harry took his gaze off of his friend in lieu of looking at the smudged writing on his hand. Lila peered over at the decently long code he'd managed to scribble into his palm and narrowed her eyes in confusion. "Is that-? Is that eyeliner?"

"Yeah, I had to borrow it from Shelly, she doesn't let anyone touch her hands." Harry typed in what was on his hand and soon the room they were in jolted as they started to descend. The room they were in wasn't a room at all, it was an elevator.

"Do you have a Wet Wipe or something? I just bought this shirt, I don't want to smear anything on it." Lila complied with Harry's request and dug into her backpack to grab a makeup wipe (Burt's Bees, naturally) before handing it over to Harry.

"Something tells me I-I really shouldn't be in here," Lila whispered as the elevator came to a halt before opening into the room before them.

She wasn't sure what she'd even expected on the quick ride down. Maybe just another floor where people were working and Osborn just happened to frequent. Or maybe a security elevator in the event of an imminent threat he could just escape. It was neither of the two.

Lila initially thought she stepped out of the elevator and into a warehouse. The entire stretch of the floor was stocked with things she couldn't make out. Rows of items were neatly organized and tucked away in proper shelving. At the end of each row hung a clipboard no doubt categorizing the mass amounts of objects. The itch of curiosity that ran through Lila had her yearning to look at every single thing that sat on the shelves, but the sound of Harry's footsteps echoing through the space brought her back to reality. She hastily followed behind him as he walked to what she could only assume was the center of the space.

"Pretty cool, right?" Harry mentioned, correctly taking Lila's silence as awe. "I honestly don't know how exactly they managed to dig deeper than the parking garage, but..."

"I'm getting a lot of - of Lucius Fox vibes from this place," Lila whispered, her eyes not even on Harry. She imagined this type of room being under the Avengers compound, not in the middle of Manhattan under the Osborn building.

Harry scoffed, "My dad wishes he could be as cool as Morgan Freeman. Come with me, the computer's this way."

That snapped Lila out of her reverie. "Harry," She scurried after him, trying (and failing) to keep up with his swift steps. "Harry, I r-really don't think I should be in here."

"Yeah, right. You're here with me, that's clearance enough."

"But Harry-"

Harry turned around, and Lila nearly ran into him. Just over his shoulder, Lila could see a set of computer monitors at a desk. She glanced up at Harry, whose façade cracked. Exhaustion lined his face and aged him. He didn't look so jubilant, and Lila felt a swell of pity settle in her stomach. Clearly Norman Osborn didn't manage stress as well as he thought. That stress was passed down to his son. "Look, Gardenia, my dad asked me to look into this, and I'll be honest just the once, here: I need someone smarter than me to help me with this. So, are you in or not?"

He was more blunt than usual. It was important, and that wiped out Lila's hesitation. "Yeah, okay."

"Great." The relief was visible in Harry's eyes for only a moment before he snapped back to normal. "Grab a chair, we might be here for a while."

"W-What are we doing?" Lila did as he asked and pulled up a chair next to Harry at the computer desk.

"Let me just log on, here," Harry rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal more writing along his forearm. His eyes glanced up at Lila, who was unimpressed. "Again, didn't have a pen." He typed in the password that was copied on his arm onto the computer, and was faced with a clean screen that only had a single file cabinet icon labeled: "Projects".

"Are these - is this - is th-this your dad's personal collection?" Lila's head whipped back to look over the items she was surrounded by.

Harry just resumed typing. "Yep. And these are his records. He wants me to find and flag anything that we might've seen at the dinner the other night."

Lila stared at the screen in curiosity. The file was comprehensive. It seemed to be a backup of the public research conducted in Oscorp as well as top-secret projects that were labeled in all caps. She had to bite back a smile as she saw the file name "TOP-SECRET: RADIOACTIVITY AND MUTAGENESIS IN ARACHNIDS" scroll past, thinking of her friend swinging around the city upstairs.

Harry finally came across the file he was looking for ("Norman Osborn Personal") and click on it. A smaller, but still comprehensive, list of items appeared, and one in particular caught the attention of Lila.

"Hovercraft, 2.1." She looked at Harry. "That's what we saw, right?"

"Yep, but that can't be the only thing he stole." Harry flagged the file and kept scrolling. "What else could he have possibly taken?"

As the list continued down, and Lila and Harry read out each invention, the pit in Lila's stomach grew heavier with fear. If Macendale had taken any of what she was looking at, then he was a formidable threat to Harry's dad.

                                   *****

Jason Macendale sat hunched over his workbench, grunting in frustration. The webbing had dissolved days ago, but apparently it hit the right spot. One of the small engines on the hovercraft had short-circuited as a result of Spider-Man's webs.

He was simmering with rage just under the surface. How could he have been so stupid? He should've accounted for Spider-Man's presence, even if it didn't seem likely. Jason knew better now, he knew next time he'd have to use Osborn's other toys to distract the menace from him. The only thing keeping him together was his purpose.

His back had started to find it's familiar aches in sitting hunched over, but Macendale had been through far worse. He'd slept on the desert floor, sitting in a chair for too long was nothing compared to the hell he'd already visited. It didn't help, though, that this stupid short-circuit was proving to be more difficult to fix than he thought. He'd been working at it for hours, and his desperation bled into his temper.

This had to be fixed. He needed the hovercraft to complete his mission, his vendetta. Jason would not fail in killing Norman Osborn, he would get another chance. That chance was Saturday, and he would be damned if he couldn't take it because of this ridiculous oversight.

But he couldn't seem to get it right. Macendale was at his wit's end trying to figure out how to fix the hovercraft. Banging his fist harshly on the workbench, his fit of rage grew. Before he knew it, the space next to him had been cleared, for he'd knocked all items to the floor.

Staring around, Macendale saw several books scattered around. In his unemployment, Jason hadn't found time to read, but a former coworker had given them to him a month prior. And for an unknown reason, he couldn't tear his eyes off of them. They were beckoning him.

The titles were unexceptional, and not worth his time. They were books on plants and religion, tied in with the Ball's theme. But a small, battered book caught his attention: N'astirh and the Demons of the Otherplace.

Jason shook his head and turned back to the hovercraft. But as he worked on the hovercraft and thought about Saturday, he could have sworn he'd heard a faint whispering come from that book.

I'm really sorry. This time in between chapters (as you can imagine) has sucked. Royally. But never fear, I haven't given up on this story. Quick little positive update: I took up painting and puzzles in this quarantine. But I'm still working so that's why this didn't come out sooner.

Any Peaky Focking Blinders up in here? Because yeah, me too. I missed you guys, you've always been a constant to me. Can't wait to keep this story up.

Please feel free to comment or message me if you need to vent. I check my notifications every day, so I will see it (especially if you comment). We're in this together, apart, but never alone.

Unedited. Xx.