You Get What You Pay For (Norman Osborn)

[MacDonald "Mac" Gargan]

OsCorp Industries, now headed and owned by one Norman Osborn. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Osborn would go on to major in chemisty and engineering, suffer through the loss of his wife and accuse his partner, Dr. Mendel Stromm, of embezzlement.

On the outside, the facility looks like any other weapons manufacturer, but really its a dark, shifty place that cuts deals with all sorts of...unsavory figures. Like Mac Gargan.

His PI coat pulled tightly about his hulking frame, Mac punched the numbers he'd been given rather roughly into the keyboard and, after a few metallic beeps, the door opened and he ducked inside...

The insides of OsCorp screamed at him as he entered and it took most of his willpower to simply follow the directions he had been given, still following the simple directions that had been given him; oh, what would people trade for a few of the innermost secrets of OsCorp? What would people trade for a few of Osborn's skeletons? Getting a little too giddy for his comfort, Gargan quickly shifted his thoughts to a different subject; who was his employer?

Sure he was meeting him/her in an OsCorp weapons testing facility, but that didn't necessarily mean he was being hired by the big man, the big cheese, Norman himself. It could be some wealthy underling or even another person with enough reach and pocket change to arrange meetings wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Gargan took a deep, slow breath, you had to admit it was all kind of exhilarating!

Coming up to a unmarked steel door, the PI finished the last direction he had been told and let his large hand close around the handle; this was it, no turning back now, once he was through this door and negotiating, Gargan had a rule about not letting clients go.

The door gave a light click as he turned the handle and, cautiously at first, he began to push the thing open...

[Norman Osborn]

Norman was definitely spazzing out. The testing had gone completely awry, and Cletus Kasady had ended up escaping, slaughtering a good portion of the OsCorp staff. This would be nearly impossible to cover up, but even worse, he lost Kasady, who represented an enormous financial investment. Enormous. He needed to make some kind of good off of this deal. So, he made some calls, and hired some kind of PI named Gargan to recover Kasady, who had proved too much for dozens of guards. Of course, he could just go after him as the Goblin, but he didn't want to keep connecting his maniacal alter-ego to OsCorp happenings.

However, he would be meeting Gargan as Gobby, only to seperate himself from OsCorp. In retrospect, it may've been a good idea to arrange the meeting somewhere else. However, what's done is done and he waited in the appointed room for Gargan to arrive. Eventually someone did and he could only assume it was Gargan, since virtually nobody outside of himself knew this location existed.

"Hey, there, buddy! Are you Gargan?" The room was large and bare, one of the rooms he had first used to test his glider, and the Goblin stood in the center. He made no movement, however, to go towards Gargan.

[MacDonald "Mac" Gargan]

"Hey, there, buddy! Are you Gargan?"

The masked behemoth gave a slight nod of his head, his PI eyes scanned the figure before him quickly and efficiently. Bit scrawny, but looks were deceiving. Looked like he was wearing some armor, doubtful it could hold up to a superpowered punch. After those initial observations, it hit Gargan; he was staring at the face of the Green Goblin.

This green, disfigured soul arrived on the streets of New York shortly after the ownership of OsCorp shifted over to Norman Osborn, not that it really meant anything of course, it was just an odd coincidence. Still, the villain, for that is an appropriate name for him, had made a name for himself as a mass, maniacal murderer; he was a figure after Gargan's own twisted, distorted mind.

His mood lightening, he took a cautious step forward, his body leaning forward as a few excited words flitted out of his mouth, "I was promised new weaponry if I were to agree to take this job... do you have it?" A rough, sand-paperish tongue darted out of Mac's mouth and ran itself over his masked lips; from what he knew about the Green Goblin, the man had a fair amount of "toys" himself (a flying glider, pumpkin bombs, bat razors, etc) and the PI looked forward to any sort of instrument he would be receiving from him.

[Norman Osborn]

This guy didn't beat around the bush, Norman quickly noted. He dispensed with formalities and went straight to the heart of the matter, which was just fine with Norman.

"I was promised new weaponry if I were to agree to take this job... do you have it?"

His source had informed Norman that this guy had some kinda fancy robotic scorpion tail or something that he used. Therefore, Norman had whipped up a little something, stemming from the same technology in his gloves, that would help give the weapon a little extra punch. "Haha, I like you, right to the tasty part. I do, in fact, have that which I promised." The Goblin chuckled as he pulled a black case out of his satchel and held it out toward Gargan as if teasing a dog with a bone. "It's all in here, 'cept you'll have to let me take care of all the little details...HAHA!" He cooly deposited the case back into his bag. "I hear you have a tail or somethin', and I want to see it! HAHAHAHA!"

[MacDonald "Mac" Gargan]

A black satchel immerged from behind the goblin's back and Mac's excitement was betrayed by the widening of his eyes, the slight drop of his jaw; yes, yes, a new weapon, a stronger weapon was exactly what he needed. Hell, he'd admit it out right that the area of technology just wasn't his...thing. Ask him to demolish a building, Mac's on it. Ask him to snoop up some dirt on somebody, Mac's on it. Anything within the realm of science and engineering, forget about it, Mac'll find someone else to do it.

This time, that someone else happened to be the Green Goblin and, consequently, whomever he worked for. However, just as fast as the case had appeared, the creature had tucked back into his bag before Gargan could dart forward, could close his hands around the thing.

"I hear you have a tail or somethin', and I want to see it! HAHAHAHA!"

Gargan squinted, that was a reasonable enough request and as he shrugged off his PI coat, revealing the rest of his kevlar suit, the tail rose to life, extending out from it's 4' length to an incredible 10'. Whipping around casually, lazily, the tail appeared to have a life of its own, weaving back and forth like a waiting snake, it was a thing of death, of destruction, of terror.

Immensely proud of his weapon, Mac puffed out his chest as he spouted forth a few words, "Ye seen enough?" Not waiting for an answer, Gargan shot off in a menacing tone, "I hope you have, cause if you cross me, if you deceive me, if you try anything funny you'll be seeing a lot more of this tail... when it gives you a THUMPIN!"

His voice rising in a crescendo, he nearly shouted the last six words, his whole body heaving with the sudden burst of adrenaline, every muscle tensed and tightly wound like a tightly coiled spring; surely he must have looked a colossal sight, what with his veins bulging out from beneath his tight costume, muscles pumping up to their max and those eyes, those wretched eyes showing a disturbing amount of sincerity in his words. He wanted this Goblin, this jokester to know that he, Mac Gargan, was for real, was legit and that he could and would kill him.

[Norman Osborn]

Well, that was a bit unexpected. Gargan had revealed his tail, per the request of Norman, but then he seemed to go into some kind of rant, acting as if the Goblin had threatened him or something like that. He looked big and powerful, and this only cemented Norman's belief that this man would be able to get the job done. Looks may be decieving in some cases, but if he had to put money on it, Norman would say that this was not one of those cases.

"Excellent, excellent, every moment I spend with you, I only grow more confident of your, ha, competence!" He pulled the bag back out, holding it with one hand and waving Gargan forward with a solitary finger. "Now let's not waste anymore time. Come on over here so I can slap this bad boy on you! Well, on your tail, at least. Or, you know, whatever, HA, just get over here and lemme at your tail!" As long as this Gargan guy didn't go into another fit, everything should turn out fine and he could be out of here in five minutes. And then it should only be a matter of time before Gargan delivers. Things really couldn't get too much better.

[MacDonald "Mac" Gargan]

"Excellent, excellent, every moment I spend with you, I only grow more confident of your, ha, competence!"

Good, good, that's what Gargan had wanted; of course, he already knew he was competent, but their was something rather satisfying when others knew it as well...and respected it.

Still, even if the Goblin had considered him a joke, the PI wasn't about to let his pride stop him from getting a new weapon and for once, just this once, he was going to take on a job solely because of its reward WITHOUT knowing what he was supposed to do.

Normally, that wasn't the way he did things, but this was different, the tail, the new tail he had seen looked much stronger and would only serve to increase Gargan's power; he liked that.

So, as he strode forward and several machinized arms rose up to secure him in place, he immersed himself in his mind and let the tail release itself from his body, tiny metallic clinks being heard as it disconnected from Gargan's spine. Right before he blacked out to the drugs the Goblin had pumped into him, the PI's last and final thought was, "What had he gotten himself into?"

[Norman Osborn]

[Completed!]