The surveillance files filled thirty-seven banker's boxes stacked floor to ceiling in Norman's private study, each one labeled with dates spanning the last fifteen years. Harry had been living in this room for the past week, surviving on coffee and whatever Bernard brought him, systematically working through his father's digital legacy one encrypted drive at a time.
He'd found the first payment to Robert Cross on a Tuesday morning while rain hammered against the windows of the Oscorp Tower penthouse. Ten thousand dollars transferred to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands, dated three months after Cross joined the board. The memo line read "consultation fee" but the attached photos told a different story: Cross shaking hands with a man Harry recognized from FBI most-wanted posters as a high-ranking Ten Rings operative.
"Consultation fee, my ass," Harry muttered, adding Cross's file to the growing pile of evidence on his father's mahogany desk.
By Thursday, he'd uncovered Wilson Burke's connection to Advanced Idea Mechanics. Twenty-seven separate payments totaling 1.8 million dollars over four years, each one coinciding with classified Oscorp research that mysteriously disappeared from company servers. The surveillance photos showed Burke meeting with known AIM scientists in a parking garage near LaGuardia Airport, handing over briefcases full of stolen data like some kind of corporate spy thriller.
But it was Donald Menken's file that made Harry's blood run cold.
Menken hadn't just taken money from terrorists. He'd actively coordinated with them, using his position as Chief Technology Officer to identify which Oscorp weapons would be most effective for specific attacks. Harry stared at email chains where Menken discussed "optimal casualty scenarios" and "maximum psychological impact" like he was planning marketing campaigns instead of mass murder.
The worst part wasn't the evidence of corruption. The worst part was how much Harry enjoyed discovering it.
Every new revelation sent a thrill through his chest, the same rush he'd felt watching Hammerhead's warehouse burn. These men had enabled his father's atrocities for profit, had smiled at company picnics while children died from weapons they'd helped create. Now Harry held their futures in his hands, and the power felt intoxicating.
He'd always been good with numbers, with seeing patterns others missed. But this was different. This was hunting.
"Sir?" Bernard knocked softly on the study door. "The board meeting is scheduled for nine AM tomorrow. Are you certain you want to proceed with this?"
Harry looked up from the computer screen where Menken's bank records glowed like accusations. "They voted to remove me, Bernard. Eight votes out of eleven. They think I'm an unstable kid who'll destroy daddy's legacy."
"You are planning to destroy your father's legacy."
"No. I'm planning to destroy theirs."
The boardroom on the forty-second floor of Oscorp Tower had hosted hundreds of meetings over the years, but none quite like this one. Harry arrived fifteen minutes early, positioning himself at the head of the polished conference table with three thick folders and a tablet computer. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan spread out below like a circuit board, all glass and steel and electrical patterns.
The board members filed in with the careful confidence of people who thought they held all the cards. Robert Cross nodded politely, his silver hair perfectly styled, his suit probably worth more than most people's cars. Wilson Burke checked his phone constantly, the nervous energy of someone with too many secrets to keep track of. And Menken, smiling that cold smile Harry had grown to hate, settled into his chair like a spider in its web.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Harry said as the clock struck nine. "I hope you're all comfortable, because this is going to take a while."
He opened the first folder and began distributing photographs around the table. Bank statements. Surveillance photos. Recorded conversations transcribed with timestamps and locations. Each board member's face went pale as they recognized their own crimes laid out in black and white.
"Robert, let's start with you." Harry's voice stayed conversational, almost friendly. "Ten Rings. Lovely organization. I particularly enjoyed reading about their innovative approaches to urban terrorism. Tell me, when you handed over the schematics for our Mark VII explosive devices, did you know they were planning to use them in a school bombing? Or was that just a happy accident?"
Cross's mouth opened and closed like a fish drowning in air. "Harry, I don't know what you think you've found, but these documents could be fabricated by anyone with basic photo manipulation software..."
Harry pressed play on the tablet. Cross's own voice filled the room, crystal clear: "The payload specifications you requested are attached. For maximum structural damage, I recommend targeting load-bearing supports on floors three through five. The psychological impact will be enhanced if evacuation routes are compromised first."
The recording continued for another thirty seconds, detailing the best way to kill children with weapons bearing the Oscorp logo. Cross looked like he might vomit.
"Wilson," Harry continued, turning to Burke with the same pleasant tone. "AIM has always fascinated me. Advanced Idea Mechanics sounds so much more respectable than 'Guys Who Want to Take Over the World Through Mad Science,' don't you think? Though I have to admire the business model. Pay corporate executives to steal research, use that research to build better weapons, sell those weapons to the highest bidder. Very efficient."
Burke tried to stand, probably thinking he could bluster his way out of this the way he had so many times before. Harry simply pressed another button on the tablet, and Burke's voice joined Cross's in the digital choir of the damned: "The genetic modification protocols are more advanced than anything we've developed internally. If your organization can successfully weaponize the enhancement serums, we're looking at a paradigm shift in asymmetric warfare capabilities."
"Sit down, Wilson. We're not finished."
The room felt smaller now, the air thicker. The other board members who weren't being directly implicated looked around nervously, probably wondering if Harry had files on them too. He did, of course, but their crimes were smaller. Stock manipulation, tax evasion, the occasional bribe to a city planning commissioner. Nothing that couldn't be handled with resignations and anonymous tips to the appropriate authorities.
But Menken? Menken was special.
"Donald," Harry said, savoring the moment. "Where do I even begin? Three years of coordination with international terrorist organizations. Seventeen separate weapons transactions that resulted in civilian casualties. And my personal favorite..." He pulled out a printed email with Menken's corporate signature. "Your detailed analysis of which Oscorp biotechnology would be most effective for creating biological weapons."
Menken's facade finally cracked. The cold smile vanished, replaced by something desperate and dangerous. "You arrogant little bastard. Do you have any idea what you're playing with? The people I work with don't accept resignations. They don't negotiate. If you think you can threaten me..."
"I'm not threatening you, Donald. I'm destroying you."
Harry stood and walked to the wall-mounted display screen, connecting his tablet with practiced efficiency. Financial records filled the massive screen: numbered accounts, wire transfers, payments to shell companies that led back to known terrorist organizations. Every transaction meticulously documented, every crime exposed in high-definition detail.
"Forty-seven million dollars over eight years," Harry announced to the room. "That's what it cost to buy a Chief Technology Officer. Not bad, considering how much damage he helped you do. But here's the thing about my father's surveillance network." He smiled, and it felt like Norman's expression on his own face. "He documented everything. Every meeting, every phone call, every time one of you sold out innocent people for money."
The silence stretched until it became uncomfortable. Then terrifying. Then inevitable.
"So here's what's going to happen," Harry continued, returning to his seat with the calm confidence of someone holding a royal flush. "Robert, Wilson, Donald, and anyone else whose crimes extend beyond basic corporate corruption will submit written resignations citing personal conflicts of interest. You'll recommend replacement candidates from the list I'm about to provide. You'll transfer any Oscorp property currently in your possession back to company control. And then you'll disappear from my sight forever."
"And if we refuse?" Menken asked, though his voice suggested he already knew the answer.
"Then copies of everything you've seen today get delivered to the FBI, the SEC, the IRS, the New York District Attorney's office, and every major news outlet in the country. Your careers will be over, your assets will be frozen, and you'll spend the next twenty years explaining to federal prosecutors exactly how you thought selling weapons to terrorists qualified as fiduciary responsibility."
Harry opened the second folder and began distributing resignation letters, already prepared with the appropriate corporate language and legal terminology. "I've taken the liberty of drafting these for you. Sign them, and we can all pretend this conversation never happened."
One by one, hands reached for pens. One by one, signatures appeared on legal documents that would reshape Oscorp's leadership structure. The only sound in the room was the scratching of expensive ballpoints on corporate letterhead.
When the last signature dried, Harry collected the papers with methodical precision. "Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen. Bernard will see you out."
As the disgraced board members filed from the room like condemned prisoners, Harry remained seated at the head of the table, staring out at the city his father had tried to destroy. The view looked different now. Not like a target or a territory to be conquered, but like something that could be protected.
Bernard lingered after the others left, his expression mixing admiration with concern. "That was efficiently done, sir. Though I suspect you've made some powerful enemies today."
"Good." Harry stood and straightened his tie, the same gesture he'd seen Norman make a thousand times. "I'd rather have honest enemies than corrupt allies."
"And the replacement candidates?"
Harry smiled, pulling out the third folder. Inside were personnel files for scientists who'd been blacklisted, researchers who'd been destroyed for having consciences, engineers who'd blown the whistle on safety violations only to find themselves unemployable. Dr. Maya Hansen, fired from AIM for refusing to weaponize her Extremis research. Dr. Helen Cho, blacklisted after questioning the ethics of human enhancement experiments. Dr. Erik Selvig, forced to resign after expressing concerns about dimensional research applications.
"I'm hiring back everyone my father screwed over for having principles. The people corporate America calls unemployable." He handed the files to Bernard. "I call them the only scientists in the world I can trust."
Bernard reviewed the names with growing understanding. "An interesting collection of misfits, sir. Scientists with ethical objections to military applications, researchers who've been blacklisted by the defense industry, whistle-blowers who've been destroyed by the very system they tried to reform."
"My father called them weak. I call them people who chose to do the right thing even when it cost them everything." Harry walked to the window, looking down at the city spread below. "They're going to help me turn Oscorp into something Norman never imagined. A company that actually gives a damn about the people it serves."
"And your role in all this?"
Harry thought about the surveillance files, about the power he'd felt destroying the board members' careers, about the intoxicating rush of using fear as a weapon for justice. "Someone needs to make sure the bad guys stay scared. Someone needs to be the consequences that the system can't provide."
"That's a dangerous path, sir. Your father believed he was dispensing justice too."
"The difference is, my father enjoyed hurting innocent people. I'm going to enjoy hurting the people who hurt them."
As Bernard left to begin the transition process, Harry remained alone in the boardroom, surrounded by the evidence of his victory. He'd just dismantled his father's criminal network with the same ruthless efficiency Norman would have admired. The thought should have disturbed him.
Instead, it felt like coming home.
Outside, Manhattan hummed with eight million lives, most of them unaware that the heir to a corporate empire had just chosen to become something else entirely. Something that would hunt in the darkness for people who preyed on the innocent.
Something his father would have recognized, even if he wouldn't have approved of the target selection.
Harry Osborn was learning to use Norman's methods for righteous purposes, and the transformation felt as natural as breathing.
Some tools were just waiting for the right hands to wield them.