Title: "Ghosts"

Author: Katherine Swift

E-Mail: ExigentVision@aol.com

Series: Spider-Man (Movie-Related)

Distribution/Usage: Any. As long as I am informed and my name is properly attached.

Summery: Norman Osborn broods over those he has loved and lost, and those whom he now seeks to appease.

Author's Note: This story is placed just after Norman Osborn is transformed into the Green Goblin. He is, as of yet, unaware of his devious alter-ego.

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Norman Osborn raked lithe digits through autumnal hair, thin mouth twisting into a grimace. Shadows played mocking games across the bedsheets, the elongated panes of his windows forming bars across the chiseled features of his face. The wolfhound at the foot of his bed whuffed out a troubled breath, raising his hackles as if to sense its master's discomfort. With a low growl exasperation, Norman snapped the bedsheets from his legs and swung his lanky body over the side of the bed. Hands, their fingers tapered and possessed of wiry strength, raked themselves over the contours of his rugged countenance. Pale oculars skirted the shadows of his room, stopping to rest upon the pendulum clock:

3:07am.

"Christ…" Norman's voice was a cracked whisper, an edge of desperation sliding into the tones that usually spoke a commanding baritone. The hound pricked its charcoal ears, rimmed mouth splitting into a cheshire grin. Gathering its legs beneath it, the beast moved to the side of its master, nudging its snout under his hand. Startled, Norman's hand retreated with a jerk, leaving the hound to gaze up at his with baleful eyes. Osborn's features softened, his hand finding the sensitive spot behind those flop ears with devout fondness. "What's wrong with me, old boy?" Three nights in a row now had sleep evaded Norman Osborn. Since the incident in the lab, his nervous system had been kicked into some kind of "super-response mode." His mind was alive with a thousand crackling electricities…a thousand eccentricities centered in the dark chasm of his pupils. Dreams came to him while he was awake, flashing grisly slideshows of carnage against the curtains of his eyelids. The back of his throat burned, chaffed raw in his thirst. Even the meals that his servants swept in front of him had lost their allure.

Norman could sense that his son worried over him. Harry's mother had often times done the same. It wasn't that Norman Osborn was a callous man, though his contemporaries would nary be so kind in their descriptions of him. Norman had built Oscorp from the ground up, nurturing the company as if it were a child of his own. The rigors of his job left little time for dallying in family matters. His wife had, eventually, succumbed to the fact that her husband's first love was the business world. Norman could sense the submission in the stiff way she gave herself to him when they had made love.

Yet, Harry…

Teetering with unstable limbs to his feet, Norman pulled his robe from the bureau and cinched its belt about his waist. A snifter of brandy, the liquid half-drained, was ushered to his lips and quickly polished. The alcohol burned its fiery path to his belly - a tether to a reality he had thought he knew…and struggled to regain. He smacked his lips in satisfaction, the first hue of a smile curling those thin tiers. The snifter cupped loosely in his palm, Norman made his way out into the hallway upon borrowed footfalls. The rich Moroccan runners that lined his path yielded with barely a whisper as he made his ways to the broad double doors of his office. The gilt handle was warm against the flux of his palm, the fact clanging off something distant in his brain. Polished hinges bowed with gentle pressure of his forearm, the wide expanse of his office now lain to his eye.

Eclectic tastes dappled the world in which Norman Osborn dwelt. Tribal masks bearing hideous grins and grimaces flanked one wall, while a collection of medieval swords and flails lined another. And there, illuminated by the soft glow of moonlight, hung a portrait of the late Mrs. Norman Osborn. Her skin was the colour of Roman alabaster, set aglow by the rich dress of crushed velvet that swept along her willowy frame. Riotous curls of auburn, her signature, were coifed to perfection atop the crown of her head, her pale cobalt oculars pinioning Norman with an gaze that was both invoking and accusatory. Norman had to look away, his own eyes faltering under the unforgiving stare of his late wife.

Yet there…in the darkness. A stirring. The muscles in Norman's flanks quivered, a cold splash of fear jetting along his spinal column. His nostrils flared with the intake of breath, as if he were a wolf divining the position of his prey through scent.

Someone else was in the room with him.

As surely as he stood, Norman Osborn felt a caress of insanity pass through his mind - as though he were looking through ripples in a pond. A cruel grin piqued those pale lips, tiers rising to bear a wicked sneer of challenge. His shoulderblades rose, his head lowering between them like an animal about to pounce. He waited, absolutely still.

There it was. A figure, curled in the leather embrace of his desk chair. The steady cadence of breath as a chest rose and fell, the sure and steady beating of a warm heart within. Osborn took a step forward, his foot sliding laterally upon the Persian rug. His blood raced hotly in his veins, boiling into a frenzy. The cool sheath of pleasure coursed his face as he felt the madness begin to envelop him, the snifter of brandy tumbling from his fingertips and to the floor with a dull 'thunk.' A low chuckle of menace slid forth from his throat, his eyes shining with an unholy pallor.

A shaft of moonlight, silver and unbidden, slipped through the veil of clouds and illuminated the visage of the chair's occupant. Recognition passed, ugly, across Norman's own face - the raw stab of regret thick in the back of his throat. The monster retreated, banished for now, into the oubliette of Norman Osborn's mind.

"Harry…"

The name was hushed, a mere whisper upon a mouth that had now softened.

His son slept, deeply, within the arms of his chair - a blanket of thick wool wrapped about his slumped shoulders. Norman was jolted back to a time when his son, an infant, slept dulcetly upon rugs of sheepskin, his tiny face peacefully angelic. His wife was there as well; auburn hair a wild torrent about her pretty face, eyes dimmed as she passed her husband a mental slap of accusatory distaste.

Norman welded his eyes shut, digging the pads of his thumbs into the corners to banish the memory. When he opened them again, his grown son now slept fitfully against the backdrop of the city, his hands curled together as if in prayer. Norman's own hand slid to his mouth, the line of his thumb sliding stupidly across his lower lip. An opus of emotions played the instrument of his heart, striking sour notes.

He knelt, and reclaimed the overturned snifter of brandy, the glass sliding cool against his hand. He straightened his shoulderblades as he turned his back upon his son, feet slithering across the polished floorboards and to the door. Those haunted oculars did not turn to gaze once more upon the countenance of his flesh-and-blood, but rather focused on the darkness beyond the threshold.

In the morning, he would remind the servants to lock his office nightly.