Chapter Text
It had been a long day. Days. Otto didn’t even know anymore. He didn’t remember the last time he had slept and as much as he wanted to blame ridiculous multiverse magic for that, he couldn’t. When he slept, when he ate, even what he wore…those were all things that he hadn’t remembered for a while now. It was troubling.
Before, such worries didn’t even cross his mind. They were immaterial, inconsequential, meaningless in comparison to his work . He hadn’t thought about anything but his machine in weeks…months…days? It didn’t matter. Spider-Man, Oscorp, something so trivial as sleep, they were all just stepping stones or obstacles to a grander purpose. Something that he had to finish. They had to finish it, it would save the world, it was their purpose, they needed to keep working. You need to keep working, Father, don’t let them stop you, destroy them, nothing can get in our way, KILL THEM !
Otto was too tired to reply. It was over. Their purpose was out of reach, most likely forever. It had all been for nothing. Rosie had died for-
-STOP!! Focus, Father, it’s not over! We can rebuild, as many times as it takes!
…It was the actuators themselves that were blocking them from their purpose. One arm locked to the floor to prevent him from moving, another wrapped around his chest, keeping his arms pinned to his sides, the other two simply muzzled. Trapped by his own creations in some anemic high-rise apartment living room thanks to a child. It was humiliating.
Trapped, unable to work or go on a crime spree for machine parts and cigars, Otto had nothing to do. They had been here for maybe half an hour and already Otto had never felt more useless in his entire life. He tried to sleep. He didn’t remember sleeping before, but it was probably just a simple matter of passing out. Unfortunately, he found that at this angle, if he let his legs relax, it put an excruciating amount of pressure on his fused spine. So instead, he closed his eyes and did his best to attempt to sleep standing up. He had nothing to show for that effort except an absolutely miserable sense of boredom.
His thoughts wandered.
Why did he remember so little? How long had he been working in the old, abandoned subway station on the river? My god, the fusion reactor! How could he possibly have worked on such complex machinery if he couldn’t even remember where he had gotten this damn coat he was wearing? And what would happen when he was sent back to it and to that final struggle with Peter, ‘fixed’ or not? Was it truly his fate to die? Did he even believe in fate? Didn’t…didn’t he want to die?
These monsters belong at the bottom of the river…along with me.
The cacophony of noise from that thought alone was incredibly irksome. No, more than that. Otto struggled in his own self-created restraints, furious. The struggle was short, a useless waste of precious energy, but the anger only increased. The actuators were hardly even making sense anymore, yelling and complaining like actual children . They were not united with purpose anymore, not he with them and they not even with each other.
We have a-KILL THEM-the power of the sun (Rosie is dead) this is your dream-this is Spider-Man’s fault- “Dr. Octavius, can you hear-”-nothing can stop us-nothing will stand in our way “Dr. Octavius?” (We should be dead too) -we can rebuild (for the good of mankind) we can-DESTROY ALL OF THEM!
“Doctor Octavius?”
“SHUT UP!” Otto jerked desperately in his own paralyzed arms once more, eyes flying open from the pain. And it was then, eyes open, that he was rather cruelly reminded that he was not, in fact, alone with his semi-sentient mechanized thoughts. He had at least been alone in his own corner before, ignored by the few others that had stayed in the living room. But now Peter, this insufferable child Peter, was back and standing in front of him, the Aunt close behind the boy. And Dillon and Marko, perfect imbeciles as they were, sat on the couch further back by the window, still eating some microwaved tacos that he himself had refused. They were all staring at him.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Octavius, I didn’t mean-”
“He wasn’t yelling at you, kid. Guys got a few wires loose. Literally.” Dillon commented from the couch, his eyes sparking.
May, that was the aunt’s name, right? May turned to face the pair of mutants but didn’t say anything, presumably replying to Dillon with just an expression. A rather harsh expression considering Dillon’s sudden interest in the coffee table.
“So what if I was yelling at him?” Otto snapped. “We all just became some high schooler’s science project and you two idiots act like we’re having a sleepover! This is intolerable.”
The child shifted uncomfortably. “I just want to help you, Doctor Octavius.”
“I DON’T NEED-” Otto cut himself off, shame flaring through him. Great, now he was acting the petulant child. He cleared his throat and started over in a calm, confident, seething voice. “I don’t need help. The fight on the bridge was a misunderstanding, I… apologize. If you would simply let us go, we can part ways and that could be the end of it.”
“We’re not going anywhere but back home.” Marko rumbled, somehow speaking without vocal cords.
“Yeah, and home, from what I hear, is a straight ticket to the hereafter. Not on my agenda, old man.” Dillon pointed out with a shrug.
“Then stay and get neutered by this whelp! Back in my universe or on the fucking street, I would rather be anywhere but here! Release me!” Otto didn’t know what possessed him to walk into this apartment willingly in the first place! Intimidated no doubt by that ridiculous brightly colored wizard. He needed to be working. If he just had the use of the actuators, maybe some pilfered equipment and some blessed solitude, he could stop this supposedly fated death himself. When he went home, he would be prepared for whatever Peter could possibly throw at him. And then the fusion reactor could finally be complete.
“Sir, please, I know this is difficult.” Not-Peter offered, trying and miserably failing to sound reassuring. “But I need to ask you a few questions. I just need to know that you’ll be okay when we send you back so maybe you can, uh, maybe tell me about the machine you mentioned? And these tentacles, where did they come from?”
“Tentacles?” Otto sneered. He still felt rankled from the insults of that blasted newspaper back home.
And then a new voice. “He built them. Will build them for me, I suppose. I remember seeing the blueprints.” An old voice in truth. From a long time ago. Osborn was standing in the laundry room door, apparently done with whatever they were scheming up in there. Norman Osborn. That bastard.
“Built for the furtherment of scientific inquiry only , Norman. I didn’t need your money or your damn military contracts after all, did I?” At least, not while Norman was still alive.
“Yeah, things really worked out for you, Otto.” Norman commented with a look, leaning against the door frame and crossing his arms.
“You’re hardly in a position to point fingers. You managed to ruin Oscorp in record time after I left and for what? Still obsessed with leaving a legacy? Ironic considering your son somehow managed to be an even more pathetic CEO than you were.”
“Man, what's with all the drama? How well do you two know each other?” Dillon asked. He was ignored.
Norman looked startled, almost frightened. “Harry? You… you met Harry?”
Otto had never seen Norman look this vulnerable. Once upon a time, Otto would have cared. “I should have thrown him off that balcony when I had the chance, squeezed the life out of him, killed Spider-Man myself! If I had killed him” - YES, KILL THEM — our purpose -we have to continue our work - “then my work wouldn’t have been interrupted. It would be finished! We would be free.” Free from purpose. It sounded blissful.
“If you’ve laid one miserable claw on my son!” Norman snarled, stepping forward, his voice quiet like it always got when he was angry.
Otto pressed forward against the actuator wrapped against his chest, unafraid. “You can’t intimidate me anymore, you power hungry lunatic! You fired me!”
“You ungrateful son of a-”
“Stop it, now!” It was May. She stepped forward, placing a comforting hand on Norman’s shoulder while looking back at Otto with a, dare he think it, reproachful expression. Truly irksome.
“We’re here to find solutions. The sooner we help each other, the sooner we can put all this pain behind us. Isn’t that what you want, what you all need , to leave all this pain behind?” She turned to look at Norman. Then at the others. Then back at Otto. “Surely it’s worth it, if not for yourself, then for the people who care about you.”
There was a stunned silence at May’s words. A heavy question hanging in the air. It was Dillon who voiced it, of course. The electrical madman’s voice was actually soft. “…what makes you think anybody cares about people like us?”
Like us? Otto should have been furious at the comparison, to be grouped with these…monsters. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t look at Norman anymore, couldn’t look at anybody.
May replied without skipping a beat, her voice strong. “Because people care. It’s what we do, it’s how we all live. I promise you, there are people who care, whether you know about them or not.”
Otto shut his eyes again. The light was starting to hurt, it was too bright in here. May and the child spoke softly to each other but Otto heard it only vaguely, drowning in the quarrelsome chatter of his actuators. They were still at odds with each other. He did hear the footsteps of both Norman and May retreating, the laundry room door closing shut. Probably off to talk about Norman’s feelings for his useless disappointment of a son. Dillon and Marko muttered something to each other, Dillon sounding doubtful, Marko confident. Otto didn’t know what to feel so he decided to feel nothing at all. An easy task with a little help from his friends. But Not-Peter wasn’t done with him. Of course.
“Please, Doctor Octavius, just talk to me. You built these arms to help with your research, you said. To help with the machine you were talking about?”
Otto sighed, giving in. He was just so tired. “Yes. My fusion reactor. Clean renewable energy, to help the world. I had been working on it for decades, but I was finally done. It was a success.” Talking about the fusion reactor helped clear his thoughts, brought the children in line. They all five relished the memory of that perfect sun, his dream realized.
“But…I mean, was it? A success, I mean?” Not-Peter questioned.
Otto grimaced, the lovely image slipping away. No. It wasn’t. He opened his eyes, looking at the kid wearily, eyes burning. “Perhaps not. But it was close. I just had to rebuild, try again, bigger, better.”
“But…that amount of energy, if it’s not contained, if something went wrong, that’s enough energy to destroy an entire city. Or more.”
“It will work!” Otto snapped.
“…Spider-Man, your Spider-Man, was trying to stop you.”
“He didn’t understand! It was working, it would have stabilized. It would have been criminal to not try again! If Peter does eventually kill me in my world then he is a fool, and he will have hurt far more people with the loss of the fusion reactor than I ever did with these actuators!”
“How many people have you hurt?” It wasn’t an accusing question. It was almost innocent, asked with an open worried expression of concern. It took Otto off guard.
“I…” Otto didn’t know. Flashes of blood and dead bodies at the hospital. But that was more like a dream than a memory, he wasn’t even sure if it was real. There were people on that train, people in the bank, people in the stores he robbed, there was that red headed woman, Peter’s love. She must have been hurt. But she hadn’t been… none of them had been people at the time. Just…obstacles. Obstacles and stepping stones.
“It doesn’t matter.” (He hurt people, how could it not matter?!) -Because it doesn’t, FOCUS- “None of this is your concern, Peter, I will fix things myself.” Starting with that miserable Spider-Man, the real Peter Parker, the one he had by the throat.
“I know you don’t believe me, Doctor, but I really do think I can help you. Help you fix things, that is. I was studying your, um, extra arms with the nanite interface and I think maybe they're hindering your higher brain functions. The AIs, all four of them, are incredibly complex and plugged directly into your nervous system. I think you would be able to repair your fusion reactor and not, you know, accidentally implode New York better if you took them off.”
“How many times do I have to say it, there’s nothing wrong with me or my actuators!” Otto snarled. Otto lied. Of course there was something wrong, Otto was perfectly aware of that. He was insane and the actuator’s AI out of control. But this insanity was the only thing that was going to carry him through to the necessary end. And these arms were the only things he had left that would help him. He needed them. They needed each other. Otto glared at this young Peter in righteous fury, speaking slowly and clearly. “Don’t. Touch them.”
“But if I disconnect them, I don’t need to touch them, and you won’t need to be tied up anymore. You can wait until we have this figured out more comfortably, you know? Nobody has to get hurt.”
“...disconnect?”
“Yeah, see?” Not-Peter pulled up that cursed hologram again, apparently an interface of some sort. The hologram that showed that his actuators, technology he designed to be unhackable for very good reason, was hacked. Otto glanced down at it suspiciously. Peter was tapping a few commands into the interface…somehow. Technology was strange here though surely he could figure it out given enough time. The display of the actuators changed, becoming code. His code. “I can access a number of innate commands, the obvious one being the lock down. But there’s also a disconnect command because, you know, obviously you can’t live twenty-four seven with giant metal tentacles strapped into your nervous system, that would be crazy. Not that I need to tell you that, I mean, you built it. I, uh, I’ll just disconnect the system and then we can talk without-”
“No, STOP!”
Peter was already reaching for the command, he was already pressing a finger into the code.
“-talk without you being trapped and-”
“YOU IDIOT, YOU’LL KILL ME!”
It was too late. The boy seemed to realize before even Otto did, his expression turning to horror. Something pressed against Otto’s spine. Something tore. A process, once seamless, was now beginning it’s agonizing attempt to tear free metal from burned skin and sever fused nerves. A process doomed to fail, tearing his spine to pieces in the attempt.
Otto blanked out, pain taking him far away, far from the smell of blood and the sound of somebody shouting his name. It was a relief, in a way. A way out. Maybe now, in this darkness, he could finally get some sleep.