Doctor, I Can't Tell if I'm Not Me

To: Otto Octavius, +11 others

Henry Balkan

Notice - Board Meeting

Notice is hereby given that a meeting of the Board of Directors of Oscorp Industries will be held on Tuesday, the 24th day of May, 2002 at 2:30 PM at the registered office of the company.

The agenda with the list of items of business to be transacted at the meeting and notes thereto is enclosed herewith for your kind perusal.

You are requested to make it convenient to attend the meeting.

For Oscorp Industries

Henry Balkan, Chairman of Board Committee

Otto squinted, looking the email up and down.

He usually wasn’t invited to board meetings, on account of not being on the board, of course. He was only a worker bee scientist, not low ranking per-se but certainly not at the top. He hadn’t been since his own resignation. But seemingly despite his self-removal from the position, the board still insisted on calling upon the co-founder every so often.

At least it was always something important being discussed. He didn’t have to sit through the droning fluff deemed too irrelevant to contact him for, unlike his former partner. 

Speak of the devil, Otto grumbled in his thoughts as he saw the CEO himself briskly on pace to the elevator. It wasn’t uncommon to see the man mingling around the company building, after all. Osborn’s sharp posture and gait would have fooled the rest of the staff as professional, surely, but Otto could tell the man was irritated as he passed under a sign plastered with ‘Advancing the future’. Likely about the board email he had received too. Back when the two men were still on good terms, Norman would oft complain to Otto about how he hated those meetings in a search for comfort.

But it was always cumbersome when the two interacted nowadays, so Otto kept his head down and focused on his screen as the CEO stormed past. There were mawkish times when he wished they would make amends and piece back together the friendship they once held, but that nostalgia was reeled back in once Otto sullenly reminded himself that it was Norman who betrayed him, Norman who had spat in his face.

There is no need to dig up that memory now, Otto scolded himself before the reminiscence turned too sour. It was a miracle they were even able to maintain a working relationship- that miracle being held up by Otto’s need to support himself and his wife, as well as the two men only interacting once in a blue moon, of course. If not for Rosie and the mortgage he had to worry about, Otto would have left this company long ago.

Instead he pulled up the agenda attached at the bottom of the email, met with about what he was expecting for a typical board meeting’s contents. Discussion of stocks, current grant status, progress reports, etc. Nothing stuck out as notable enough to herald his invitation. Great, I get dragged into the filler meetings anyways.

But Otto could grouse about the assembly when he got to it. For now, he had paperwork to fill out and a boss to avoid.

If you had asked him back in college, Otto Octavius would have said that Norman Osborn was perhaps the greatest man he’d ever known. Charismatic, ambitious, a brilliant mind. He was a starry-eyed hotshot with big dreams, and had intended to reach the top with a sort of fiery stubbornness. It had been admirable to Otto, who was nothing but meek. How a man could be such an incredible scientist and such a passionate go-getter at once was an enigma to him, and it was an attractive quality, so the two became fast and close friends. They even founded the very company building they now stood in together, built on those lofty dreams and striving for the unknowable.

If you had asked him now, Otto Octavius would have said that Norman Osborn was nothing more than a cold-hearted and ruthless businessman with purely emptiness beneath the shell. There wasn’t anything there, not anymore, not while they stood in the tower of the dreams he had lost to what Otto could only assume to be contorted jealousy.

“You stole my designs, Osborn!” He shouted, his cheeks heating up into an enraged red, throwing down a paper blueprint like bloody evidence. “You’ve taken my life’s work and twisted it into a weapon!”

“You signed the papers, Octavius, I can do what I please.” Norman was intently observing his nails, ignoring the fuming man before him. “Any work done while a subsidiary of Oscorp is at our discretion. Do you need to see your own agreement in ink again?” His voice sounded bored, the droning tone of repeated legal jargon. Otto only felt his face grow hotter. The businessman wasn’t taking this seriously- wasn’t taking him seriously.

“Damn if it’s legal or not! It’s a matter of morals!” Otto slammed his hands down on the table between them, reveling in the startle he provoked from Osborn’s chilled demeanor. “We started this company together, Norman! How could you just rob my life’s work behind my back?!”

Norman cleared his throat once sure the other man had finished, clearly trying to brush off the rattle from the screams. “…This very same stipulation applies to me, Octavius. This is just how the game works.”

The statement was demeaning. Like Otto was a child who didn’t know the rules to the business he was knee-deep in. “You don’t have the right to treat me like an ignorant fool just because I never sold my heart away, Norman.” He stood up to his full height, glaring down at the businessman with pure rancor.

He could have sworn that Osborn was shaking, but it was negated by the glower of ice that did much more damage to Otto than his own eyes could have ever hoped to inflict. The smaller man mimicked the motions, his back straight as a pin as he leveled their eyeline, stone-faced.

“You were always weak. So I had to take the initiative.” Osborn spat out, his features not breaking from his armor of hostility.

That remark was all Otto could take. This man was unrecognizable. “Fine. Use the reactor documents for your savage purposes. I’m stepping down.”

With a tinge of smugness, he watched as a minuscule crack in Osborn’s veneer showed, knowing full well that the potential of his machine was something only its designer could bring out. But the businessman made no remark of sentiment or longing to keep such an ingenious mind as his own, so with nothing more than a frigid “Fine” the partnership between the two splintered apart, scattered across the ground they built up together like porcelain.

“You’ll be better suited with the bottom feeders anyway,” Osborn muttered as he watched Otto storm out the room as co-CEO for the last time.

When Otto came into the office for work on the appointed Tuesday, he had expected to see Norman sulking around before the impending board meeting. But when the scientist settled into his usual nook, the CEO had yet to show his face among the active workers. 

2:00 came and went regardless. Once the clock hit 2:15 Otto slid his white mock off his shoulders, smoothed out his dress shirt, and headed for the elevator. Osborn or not, he sure was irritated.

But once Otto pressed the up button and saw the elevator doors sliding open, he also saw that his irritation was not alone, just as he had suspected. Norman himself was standing inside, hands in his pockets, a look of disgruntlement upon his face. He must have come from the level below- which would explain why Otto hadn’t seen the man cross by above.

Well, this will be a lovely ride.

Otto settled in beside the businessman, hands plunged in his pockets, staring at the metallic wall as the doors slid shut and the lift lurched into movement. The stagnant air between the two was starting to stale into discomfort the longer the ride progressed; he could feel it prickling by the second with the constant hum of the elevator. This moment alone made him wish that the company would repair the musical intercom already.

Otto cleared his throat, hoping to dispel the pregnant silence. It didn’t help. Norman still had the disgruntled scowl on his face, but somewhat to Otto’s relief he could tell it wasn’t aimed at his person. Whatever the man had been doing on the lower level must have gone awry.

After what felt like a perpetually stalled purgatory in the elevator, the ding finally sounded and the doors slid open to the board room’s level. Otto wasn’t sure how much more he could have taken before suffocating as the open floor’s fresh air filled his lungs. It wasn’t as if he and Osborn hadn’t spoken to each other since he stepped down a year ago, just that the two never discussed anything beyond curt working terms, and even then they only conversed when necessary.

The CEO kept his brisk pace, and Otto jogged to keep up from behind as they entered the meeting room, the rest of the members already assembled. There was an unusual attendee, a man in a military uniform, although that wasn’t any cause for alarm. It was not unheard of for funders to attend these meetings.

“Ah! Osborn, Octavius, a pleasure to see you both could make it,” the pepper-haired man with glasses at one end of the table politely nodded in acknowledgment. It wasn’t as if they were late- early, actually, as Otto’s watch only read 2:21- but something about the man’s inflection compelled him to stammer out excuses, an urge he had to fight back against.

“Balkan,” Norman’s face of annoyance had smoothed into that of a facade of pleasantness, taking his seat at the end of the table, right below the wall’s giant Oscorp logo. If there was anything consistent with the man’s college psyche, Norman had always had an ego, and Otto had humored him back when they first created the company. “The pleasure is all ours.”

Otto took his seat, one on the left beside a bald man. He knew from previous meetings that all these businessmen would exchange faux suck-up pleasantries before getting into the meat, for whatever reason.

The discussion began with stocks- the current value, the shareholders, the projected values- Otto zoned out; he didn’t get a business degree for a reason.. The expected monetary pontification was threatening to put him to sleep, so much so that it took him a moment to notice that the assembly’s discussion had ceased and their eyes had all turned to him.

A slight bit of panic- had I actually nodded off?- before Balkan prompted him (for what must have been the second time). “Doctor Octavius, the report?”

“Hm, yes? Oh, the reactor’s progress?” He tested the waters, and was relieved to see the slight nod of the man next to him. “The developments have been slow, but steady. The trial running the battery was successful.”

Otto, of course, had been put on the team developing his (stolen) nuclear designs. He had to perform a delicate balancing act of returning enough results to keep the project going on his quest for sustainable energy, yet staying unremarkable enough to prevent military interest in tandem. Even if Osborn wanted to turn a weapon’s profit from his work, he would be hard-pressed to let it fly. Luckily, the report seemed to strike the balance, as the general in attendance nodded with insignificance and Balkan turned to address the CEO.

“And your projects, Osborn?”

A forced smile appeared on Norman’s face, and Otto was reminded of his chagrin in the elevator. “The glider’s neural link trials have been a success, and-”

“No, not the glider. I’ve has already expressed my disinterest there.” The general- badge denoting him with the name Slocum- waved his hand, and Otto could tell the CEO was biting back a scowl. “We mean the performance enhancers.”

“Ah! Of course, of course.” Norman flashed a smile, almost looking like he was baring his teeth. “Trials through vapor inhalation using rodents have returned a 91% success rate, and almost all of my scientists have approved human testing.”

“Almost all?” Slocum raised an eyebrow, hands folded before his face.

“Yes, Dr. Stromm is against the idea. But I assure you-”

“And why does Dr. Stromm oppose the idea?” Norman was cut off again, this time by the bald man- Maximillian Fargas, his tag read- and Otto could see the CEO fight back aggravation once more.

“One trial of the eleven produced undesirable side effects. But it was an aberration; all other faculty approves of the project’s natural progression to human trials.” Norman’s words were strained, hidden in a way that would fool most, but noticeable once you picked up on the notes his voice played.

There was a murmur among the board members, and for once at one of these meetings Otto felt attentive, interested in seeing how this played out.

The murmur died down, and Balkan turned to address Norman with a stone-set face. “You will continue these rodent trials until the chance of aberration is completely gone, Osborn. Completely, understand? If you haven’t produced the results we want in 30 days, your project is going to be cut.”

“And that includes the funding,” Slocum added in a gravelly voice.

Norman didn’t respond, not at first. His teeth were gritted, and for a second Otto thought he was going to scream in the faces of the two men. But instead he just hissed out a “very well.”

“You’re dismissed, Norman.” Balkan nodded, the board members’ eyes now all turned to the CEO, Otto’s included.

His fake smile had been washed away, unable to hide the flare of his nostrils as the businessman curtly stood from his position, the clicking of his shoes the only farewell he gave. Slocum stood after him, apparently done with his input, and tentatively Otto followed suit.

He felt a hand on his arm, and he looked down to see Fargas shaking his head. “Just a moment, Dr. Octavius. We still need to discuss something with you.”

Otto sat back down, a little perplexed, as the door shut behind the two men who left. Balkan shot a polite smile, the same kind Norman was skilled at flashing, across from the table. It only made the scientist feel uneasy.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why you were called to this meeting, Octavius,” the glasses-adorned man addressed him. Otto nodded in confirmation; this had seemed pretty standard so far. “The truth is, Norman doesn’t have 30 days. Slocum wants results now.”

“Alright,” Otto cautiously ventured out. The atmosphere of the room felt prickly on his skin.

“General Slocum has been holding conference with Tricorp in addition to our labs,” Balkan continued. “The scientists there have already developed an alternative performance-enhancing formula, one with no abnormal trials. He’s going to drop Oscorp’s project within the week.”

“Our biogenetical division has already set its sights on an alternative project, one that is both lucrative and without competitors.” Fargas picked up the stream of information before it could settle and permeate fully through the air. “But Osborn is stubborn, as you surely know, and he refuses to give up on this enhancer project.”

That was easily believable, Otto let himself process. Norman is competitive to a fault.

“The truth is, Norman has been a liability to this company for quite some time. He won’t let it reach its full potential. That’s why you stepped down, correct? Norman was too difficult to work with?”

“You could say that.” Otto folded his hands. He needed to hear all of this spiel before he let his mind fully opine its own conclusions.

“Well, the board has come to an unanimous decision. Without Stromm’s approval, Osborn won’t have enough time to find a viable test subject, and we’ll blow the funding that starting up a different project would secure in the time he’d waste trying.” The room’s eyes were all on Otto again, the discomfort beginning to close in. “So we’ve decided to elect Norman himself as the subject. He’s confident that the human trial will be a success, after all.”

The briefing slowed, Balkan resting his weight on his hands and allowing Otto to process the information. His immediate thought was using the company’s CEO as a lab rat, are you insane? But when he allowed himself to consider it more carefully, he mused that Norman was rather confident in his serum, and that the man likely would have done the trial on himself regardless. He was always reckless and willing to do the dirty work himself, a rare quality he hadn’t lost in the time Otto has known him. “Honestly, he would likely agree to do that himself. Why didn’t you ask him?”

“We can’t risk discompliance. It’s already been decided, so whether or not he would agree himself is irrelevant.” Balkan’s voice was calm, tapping his fingers along the table. “We’re telling you in case the serum performs differently on humans, to prevent a power struggle.”

“Hold on. Are you implying the test will be fatal?” Otto frowned, glancing around at the rest of the board. Fargas shrugged, almost apologetically.

“No, of course not. Just that any unforeseen side effects might compromise his ability to perform as the company’s CEO.” Balkan smiled, the same polite courtesy as before. “It’s just a precaution, but we felt you should know that you would inherit the position in the case of that happening.”

Otto nodded, slowly. It did make sense, after all. There was always a danger with human testing that one could not mitigate, and having a backup plan was always a good preparation. He did hope that Norman wouldn’t be hospitalized, of course. They may not have the most pleasant relationship at the moment, but Norman was still a person, and one he’d known for a long time. “I understand.”

“Wonderful. If the serum is as competent as he claims, Osborn should be fine. The test will take place tomorrow, no time to waste. You are dismissed, Otto.” The polite smile appeared again, across the faces of the rest of them as Otto stood up from his seat. He noticed, though, glancing back as he exited through the door, that Maximillian Fargas was lacking the pleasantry, his face instead set with a grim countenance.

The next day, when Otto took the elevator to the lower level, he found that the chamber for the serum’s testing was already assembled. Norman had likely been preparing for human trials for a while. He instinctively glanced around for the CEO- there, buzzing around the stations attended by fellow workers, dressed in a lab coat and goggles.

Otto walked up to the man, who currently had his brow furrowed over a sequence displayed on a screen. At the sound of someone approaching, he turned from his vexation and looked like he was about to speak an acknowledgment to Octavius. Normally Otto wouldn’t voluntarily initiate a conversation, but he felt like he owed Norman an interaction, given his new intel. I wonder if they’ve told him yet.

Otto got his answer when he heard a ding and saw four figures exiting the elevator, stealing Norman’s attention away from greeting him. Fargas and Balkan, that was a given, accompanied by General Slocum and an anxious man he recognized as Mendel Stromm. 

Norman raised his goggles, pacing over to meet them with a forced smile. Otto trailed behind.

“Ah, hello, General.” The CEO nodded tersely in acknowledgment of the others. “What brings you gentlemen here?”

“Hello, Osborn.” General Slocum’s voice was steeped in some form of distaste. Otto watched as Balkan went to usher the current team of scientists in the direction of the stairwell- is this happening *right now?* “We need to have a talk about your little enhancer project.”

“Yes, I assure you, we are doing our best to find a viable subject and-“ Norman held up a finger at the face of protest Dr. Stromm made at the mention of testing the serum on humans- “Completely eliminate the chance of faulty trials.”

“You’re going to be the subject, Norman.” Fargas’ voice had that same almost-apologetic tone to it that it had yesterday. “General Slocum wants to see results now.”

Norman’s teeth gritted, smile straining. “Alright, then. I’m confident enough in my formula.”

Otto’s guess had been correct, then. Dr. Stromm, on the other hand, looked like he was going to explode with anxiety at the casual response. “But sir-”

This time it was Slocum that held up a hand to cut him off. “We’re not going to be testing your formula, Osborn.”

The strained smile on Norman’s face completely dropped, facade fallen. “What?”

“What?” The word echoed in Otto’s mind and slipped out of his mouth alongside his former partner’s.

“You see, Tricorp has also been developing a performance enhancer for military usage. And unlike yours, their formula’s trials have been completely fault-free.”

“I told you we should have gone back to formula,” Dr. Stromm squeaked out under his breath. The glare Norman shot at the man looked like it could tear through flesh.

“So you’re going to use some other company’s product on me?” Norman’s voice had lost its professional cadence. One look at his face, and Otto could tell there was umbrage bubbling beneath the surface. He had a suspicion he wasn’t the only one who could see it this time.

He had another worry on his mind, though. He hadn’t been informed that the trial Norman would run wouldn’t be using his own formula. Had they changed their plan last-minute?

“No, of course not. Tricorp has already run successful human trials.”

The ire hiding beneath Norman’s face had ruptured through, engulfing the grooves of his face. “Ah. So, what then?” The words hissed out between his teeth. Otto’s eyes darted between the seething scientist and the four men, a sinking feeling settling uncomfortably in his stomach like sand.

“Your project is obsolete, Norman. We had gotten a proposal from your division to switch to a more promising avenue, but instead you blew it.” Fargas watched the man’s face splinter further, before offering out a continuation. “However, Dr. Stromm has created a strain of your serum more component than both the original and Tricorp’s- the ability to rapidly regenerate cells, on top of the general performance enhancement.”

“Max, it’s hardly developed!” Stromm stammered out, catching the attention of the group. “We haven’t even run tests on mice, it is certainly not ready for-“

“We talked about this, Mendel.” Balkan calmly cut off the man’s jitters, and nodded to the general. The discomfort settled within Otto’s stomach was beginning to stir again, like silt muddying the stream of his perception.

“Norman, I’ve made a decision.” Slocum’s voice was rough. “You’re an arrogant man, and I’d love to put you out of business. But this company has incredible potential for the military,” he nodded towards Otto, “so that would pain me. Instead I’ve told the board my conditions: either I take my funding and hand it all to Tricorp, or they get rid of you.”

This was not the stipulation. Otto’s eyes were flung wide open, staring at the general. Fargas’ apologetic tone clicked into sense. They had lied to him to preserve any good will left with Osborn.

“What?” The word slipped from Norman’s mouth again, this time dripping with a tone Octavius immediately recognized. “You can’t do this to me. Max-“ He turned to look at the board member, who only shook his head.

“However, we managed to reach a compromise, Osborn. Your position is safe.” Balkan’s voice was kept calm, but there was an undercurrent of the same apologetic tone Fargas had to the flavor. “All you need to do is test the advanced serum.”

“Are you insane?” Norman’s mouth quirked up, like he was about to laugh, but the atmosphere was devoid of humor. His eyes flicked to Otto’s, and that same emotion that now embodied his anger filled his irises.

“It’s a modification of your original formula, combined with the research on cell regeneration by our former Dr. Curt Connors, stabilized by-” Stromm stammered out, as if explaining the modifications would ease all the concerns that he most certainly had himself.

“Connors? You are insane! Connors was a madman!” Norman was shouting now, face flushed. His eyes turned to Octavius again, this time pleading. “-Otto, you can’t actually be serious here.”

“Sorry, Norman. You’re out.” Balkan shook his head, Stromm shuffling across the room.

Norman’s body was shaking, the anger and betrayal filling him almost as much as it had to Otto that day. “You can’t let this happen. We started this company. You can’t let them do this, Otto.” He held his quivering hands out, as if to plead himself as innocent.

Otto himself was being flooded by conflicting emotions. He had thought they were going to do a simple trial of a product on-track, but this? He had known Connors, and he racked his brain trying to remember what the man had developed. But his time at Oscorp had been so short that there was too shallow a scraping to piece together.

Slocum was leaving the room now, as he had at the board meeting. Otto glanced over to the chamber to see Stromm preparing the ventilation systems on the computer Norman had been looking over, muttering under his breath.

This was happening.

Balkan walked over to where Otto was standing, staring at the unfolding scene, offering an insincere hand of consolidation on his shoulder. “The serum is most likely going to fail,” he admitted. “We should leave.”

“You’re killing him?” Otto felt a little dumbstruck, watching as Max manhandled a dazed Norman, who must have been hit by a stun from his current situation, muttering a soft ‘Am I?’.

“Of course not! He’ll likely be paralyzed, or otherwise medically incapacitated, but not dead,” Balkan assured. “I know it appears horrible, but don’t you think Norman had this coming?”

Otto’s mouth pulled into a firm grimace. It was horrible, but he couldn’t help but agree. The taste of karma, seeing Norman upset and betrayed just as he had been, it wasn’t quite sweet… yet it wasn’t quite sour, either. Still, he didn’t want to watch the man become paralyzed, or put in an even worse medically compromised state.

Fargas had budged Norman, who was starting to snap from his daze, into the glass chamber. The bald man quickly hurried himself aside, sealing the entrance, glancing over at the viridian serum that Dr. Stromm had plugged in.

This really was happening.

The hand on his shoulder guided Octavius away from the room, towards the elevator. He heard the hiss of the ventilation activating behind him, accompanied by Norman banging on the glass with his fists and shouts.

Balkan and Otto had stepped into the elevator when he stole a look back, the sickly hued gas billowing into the chamber and beginning to obscure Osborn’s form.

The doors were sliding shut when he heard the shouts morph into screams, a terrible cracking sound breaking through the sibilation of the mist.

A calming tune played over the elevator’s intercom. They must have fixed it.

Balkan’s voice broke the monotony. “So, how would you feel about being promoted to CEO?”

‘DOC OCK STILL AT LARGE’

Otto could hear the actuators’ chitter of amusement in his mind as he scanned the newspaper article. They had even included an artist’s sketch of him on the front page. ‘Police Expand Manhunt,’ the caption says. Rather ironically, the next article in the paper was a slanderous piece on Spider-man and how the menace was also hiding from the law.

“Idiots,” Otto muttered. The force was incompetent, the bug was inexperienced. Neither could stop him on their own, and they were too busy tussling with each other to consider the logical option of combining strength.

Even then they could not stop us, an actuator reminded him.

Of course not. But still, they couldn’t even manage to try.

Otto tossed aside the paper. Enough entertainment. He spread out the blueprint, singes and scorch marks tinging the edges. He was lucky it hadn’t perished in the explosion. Unlike my beloved Rosalie…

An actuator- Flo, he could instinctively tell- gently pushed him away from that path. It was right, now was no time to wallow in grief.

He pored over the blueprint, examining every mark he made on the design. The actuators were feeding on the data, running their programmed simulations. Why hadn’t it stabilized? Every simulation was returning positive. Had the actuators inherited this error as well, unable to detect the issue?

We’re sorry, father, the voices whined in his skull. Otto assured them that it was not their fault. It was his, a human error he must have made, something that skewed it all off-track.

Perhaps when copying down his original plans, he had missed something. Written the wrong variable, used the wrong operation. He cursed, wishing he had those originals at his disposal; it was perhaps the only thing that made him regret his departure from Oscorp.

Otto was a brilliant scientist and physicist, there was no denying it. Perhaps one of the greatest to ever live- you are, the actuators assured- but if there was one thing he absolutely was not, it was a businessman. He simply could not see himself the lone CEO of a corporation.

After Norman Osborn’s unfortunate death by a faulty product, that spot was instead filled by Henry Balkan, temporarily, until the Osborn heir Harry was old enough to inherit the position. Sweet Harry, who had sponsored his project, who had supplied him with the tritium. Who had refused to give him the original reactor plans on account of being ‘confidential Oscorp property.’ Harry was a fool. Still, he felt bad for the boy, orphaned as a teenager and left to run a company he had no preparation for.

At first, Otto had stayed, his nuclear project given more attention once the first Osborn’s pet project and failed serum were both quietly brushed away. He and his team made great progress; he almost missed having a full team of scientists to assist with his work.

You do not need any scientists, you have us, an actuator reasserted. Of course, that was the purpose of the mechanical arms and their AI. Still, he doubted he would have completed his design without the resources at the company.

But then there was the other side to the coin. Oscorp was a military supplier, and even if Otto insisted the reactor was only to be used as a source of clean energy, the profit from destruction was always too tender an offer. He knew if he finished his machine under employment, it would be ripped from his hands.

Rosalie, his darling Rosalie, was supportive when he chose to leave. If he continued his work outside of Oscorp, he could guarantee his reactor be used for its intended purpose alone. He didn’t realize until it was too late that they wouldn’t allow him to take his original blueprint with him.

That blueprint must still be kept in the company’s building, stowed away somewhere. That was the next step he would need to take. He’d already robbed a bank, after all. What more was a single corporation?

Otto didn’t exactly have the luxury of sneaking around, on account of the four giant tentacles fused to his back. Best he could do was hide them under a sweeping trench coat and only catch attention the old-fashioned way.

The receptionist at the Oscorp desk was obviously wary when he strolled up. She likely didn’t see men that dressed as shadily as possible and who looked suspiciously like the criminal on the paper’s front page every day.

“Can I help you?” She asked, flashing a smile. She is uncomfortable, the actuators deduced. Otto mentally thanked them, even though it was incredibly obvious.

“Yes. I am here to see Dr. Stromm,” Otto flashed a pleasant smile back. He wasn’t sure if the man still worked here, but it was worth a shot.

“Dr. Mendel Stromm… and do you have an appointment?” She asked dubiously, eyeing Otto’s sunglasses.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” He held his smile, twiddling his thumbs as the receptionist typed something into her computer without breaking eye contact.

“Then I can’t let you see him,” she looked down at her computer.

An actuator snaked out from beneath his coat, glinting under the fluorescent lights as it opened its claw. The blade installed beneath the scope slid out with a click. “Oh, I think you can.”

The girl’s eyes widened, and she lifted her hands from the keyboard with a swallow. “…H- He’s Floor 0, down the hallway, room G016.” She pointed out a shaky finger to the direction of the stairwell.

The actuator sheathed the blade and slithered back into hiding again. Otto flashed another smile. “Much appreciated.”

Oscorp had a lot of stairs, so he allowed the actuators to descend down the walls for him. He arrived at the lower floor much quicker that way. Otto surveyed the floor’s laboratory, ignoring the employees that saw him and more importantly his giant metal arms, beginning to run around in a panic like ants. For one, the venting chamber had been dismantled sometime in the two years following Norman’s incident, replaced by what appeared to be a horned combat mech. Not what he was here for, he let the actuators lift him over the flurry of scientists and across to the hallway.

Dr. Stromm’s office was rather quaint, and Octavius was sure the man hadn’t been expecting any visitors. He was just as flighty as Otto remembered, cowering behind his desk when the 8-legged man loomed over him.

“Mendel.”

“D- Doctor Octavius…” Stromm’s face was pallid.

“Where are the plans for my machine?” He let an actuator dart out, clamping the wall behind Dr. Stromm’s head. The scare tactic worked, the man flinching in fear as a spiderweb of cracks in the plaster spread out from the impact.

“I- I don’t know, I- they never told me!” Stromm stammered out.

Otto felt his lips turn down in annoyance. Another actuator shot out, wrapping around the doctor’s body- ultimately harmless, but meant for intimidation, constricting his abdomen.

“Alright, alright!!” Dr. Stromm squirmed under the tight grip of the metal vice, face slick with sweat. “They’re in the basement vault! They don’t let a lot of employees in- most people don’t even know there’s anything down there, not- not even the new CEO-”

At the answer, Otto released the man, leaving him collapsed and gasping to refill his lungs. He had never heard of a vault on the basement level; it must have been instated sometime after he stepped down.

The basement stairway was a rarely traversed one, so Otto didn’t have to deal with any stray employees as his actuators lifted him down the shaft’s walls. Indeed, by the end of the small pickings of familiar bulk supply closets, a thick steel door Otto didn’t recognize was set into the wall. He examined the lock mechanism- a keycard scan. He recalled what Stromm said about limited access, only a select few people likely had clearance.

He ordered Moe to take care of the locking panel, a task the actuator proudly made quick work of. The door itself was heavy, as if meant for a bunker, something Otto strained to shove open.

The interior of the vault itself wasn’t what he was expecting. Instead of being met with a sprawling repository of company valuables, Otto stepped into a darkened hallway, the door naturally falling shut behind him. Dim fluorescent lights scored the high ceiling, but most of the corridor’s harsh blue lighting instead spilled from what appeared to be cells lining the walls.

Most of the cells were empty, but an actuator’s scope quickly snagged on a cubicle that was occupied. Otto approached the cell to properly observe the inhabitant, a creature that appeared to be a massive monitor lizard. It was collared by a thick ring of metal, which upon closer inspection looked like a device of some kind.

He suddenly felt the actuators swerve in alarm when he realized the creature was awake and watching him, a set of slitted eyes tracking the veers of the tentacles.

Once the chirps of alarm signaling to his mind slowed, Otto turned his attention instead to the plate embedded on the wall next to the cell’s glass window.

Subject Information

Subject name: CURTIS CONNORS

Subject alias: THE LIZARD

Date of confinement: 7/13/00

Method of acquisition: INTERNAL

Otto furrowed his brow, leaning closer to the panel to make sure he hadn’t misread. Connors? He turned to look back at the creature, a hulking scaled organism that certainly wasn’t the mild-mannered amputee he remembered. The actuators observed the reptile in curiosity while he let himself instead cerebrate the existence of this holding facility in the first place. Otto had been working under Oscorp in 2000, the year this creature was supposedly confined, yet to his knowledge Dr. Connors had moved out of state and the basement only housed dusty equipment. Although, the scientist had practically fallen off the face of the Earth after he left the company, and Osborn had a record of instating decisions behind his back…

He treaded along the hall to the next occupied cell, this one housing what appeared to be an ordinary man in a sweat-stained hoodie and similar metal collar, unceremoniously slouched against the wall and snoring. He turned to read the data plaque, Flo twitching its head and trying to scope out any anomalies in the prisoner.

Subject Information

Subject name: EDDIE BROCK

Subject alias: VENOM

Date of confinement: 4/21/04

Method of acquisition: EXTERNAL

The plate didn’t provide any particularly interesting or useful insight, so Otto continued his surveying of the menagerie. His eyes were scanning over the plethora of null data plates, before suddenly snagging on something that caught his heart in his throat.

Subject Information

Subject name: NORMAN OSBORN

Subject alias: GREEN GOBLIN

Date of confinement: 5/25/02

Method of acquisition: INTERNAL

His head whipped up to the cell, the occupant curled over in the center. He leaned closer to the glass, the top two actuators open and trying to get a clear focus.

He certainly wasn’t anticipating the creature’s head to lift, just enough for one chatoyant amber eye to make contact with Otto’s sightline, then flick over to his actuators.

“What happened to you?” The question was dry, the voice course yet unmistakable.

“Osborn..? I- what happened to you?!” Otto hissed, the actuators receiving and mimicking his alarm. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“Surprise.” He slumped back over. Otto was trying to process the man’s form; he appeared draped in a hospital gown, with something akin to a purple nightcap haloed around his arced back. Something was clearly wrong with his skin, but he was too far away for Otto to properly make it out. “You finally decided to come and see the damage you’ve done?”

The voice was undoubtedly Osborn’s, but the inflection was alien, raspy and weak.

“The damage I’ve done? I didn’t even know you were alive, or that this-” Otto made a gesture at the surrounding cells- “place even existed!“

Norman let out a hoarse chuckle. “Sure. They didn’t bother telling the CEO about the vault.” He was still faced away from the other man, and to Otto’s alarm, something at the base of his spine moved.

Danger? The actuators responded to the reaction, flaring up, but he quickly tampered them down. No, it appeared from what he could make out in the dim light, that Osborn had a tail.

“I’m not the CEO, Norman. I left the company.” Otto squinted, but his eyesight post-reactor incident was failing him, as it often did. “…What did they do to you?”

The figure sighed, his body shaking with the exhale, before pushing himself up from the curled position. There was a soft metal jingle that accompanied the movement. When he walked closer towards the cell’s glass window, the first thing Otto registered was just how frail he was, the hospital gown hanging off his thin frame. Surely they feed him down here... but it couldn’t be much, and two years living in darkness must have taken its toll on Osborn’s body.

The second thing he registered, once he was able to process it, was just what that body was. The actuators all fed into his alert, clicking open and swiveling back. The man’s skin appeared squamous, patches of scaling blanketing the surface. But more importantly, it was green. His mind jumped to the data plate and Osborn’s assigned alias, the context clicking together.

Otto supposed that the man lived up to the latter half of the sobriquet, too. His verdant fingers were clawed, and now that the actuators were scrutinizing every facet, their scopes picked out that the joints of his knees didn’t quite look human. His face was more impish, ears overgrown into sharp points; a more acuminate nose accompanying arylide eyes that were much more unsettling than their former glaucous color.

“Are you just going to gawk at me like some sort of circus freak?” Norman scowled, hunching his shoulders and glaring up at the actuators’ flickering scarlet scopes.

Otto supposed he wasn’t in a place to gape at the man’s appearance, considering his own rather alarming outgrowths…

We aren’t nearly as strange, an actuator chimed almost dejectedly. It had a point, as the other three eagerly conceded. Instead Otto turned his eyes to the odd choice of apparel, considering that the other humanoid inmate was donning a relatively ordinary outfit (one that he was currently drooling over in his sleep).

“What’s with the hat?” He vaguely motioned with a gloved hand.

“This ridiculous thing?” Norman snatched the end of the nightcap, holding it up. A tiny golden bell was sewn to the end- that must have been the sound I heard when he stood up. “They belled me like a cat. In case I tried to escape, I assume…” He scowled again, baring fanged canines as he tapped on the metal collar that matched with the other two inmates. Instead of fitting along the brow-line as it it should, the back edges of the nightcap fed into the rim. “I can’t take it off. It’s humiliating.”

The collars must be some kind of security system, then. Otto had a hunch before, he wasn’t stupid, but the additional evidence was welcomed. Whoever locked Norman down here must have been exceptionally worried about him escaping, if they had put an additional measure into place for him. I suppose he is one of their founders, and in… quite a state….

“Why do they keep you locked up like this in the first place?” Otto knew better than to think that Oscorp would let a giant lizard waltz out into the world, but the measures taken for Norman and the other man’s imprisonment seemed a little extreme.

“We’re too dangerous to be let out.” Norman turned away from the cell’s window, apparently content to stay huddled farther away. His eyes flicked back to Connors. “Unduly savage…” they roved over to the sleeping man, “…cannibalistic…”

His head tilted down, scowling. “…Insane.”

“You seem perfectly sane to me,” Otto countered.

“That says more about you than me,” Norman took his position curled on the floor again, flicking an ear. “You just haven’t met him yet.”

Otto frowned, arms crossed at the dismal response. There was another inmate here, apparently. He was about to ask who, when-

Father! The plans. An actuator, Flo, sharply broke his train of thought. Of course, he was getting off track. He needed to rebuild his machine, not get caught up in whatever this Oscorp web was.

“My reactor designs should be somewhere in this vault, Osborn. Where?” Otto let the actuators guide his words again- he hadn’t realized just how exhausting it felt to hold that conversation with Norman until he stopped blocking their gentle pushes out.

For a moment, Otto thought the man was ignoring him, and was about to let the actuators make a firmer demand when the rasping voice spoke out again.

“End of the hall. To the left.”

Otto nodded, though he supposed that Norman wouldn’t see the acknowledgment. No matter. Come, this way, the actuators were signaling commands into his brain now that they knew their next step to their goal. But Otto hesitated, quelling the instructions.

“I’m going to let you out.” He called out, making sure that Osborn heard him.

“Don’t.”

The response sounding so weak and flat almost balanced out the incredulity Otto felt at the word itself. “You don’t have to leave, but I’m still opening the door.”

He scowled. Why was he doing this? He supposed he felt some sort of pity for Osborn, or perhaps guilt, something that he tried to poke at in his mind. But there was a block, an inscrutable wall, the same kind damming his grief for Rosalie. The reactor, first we finish the reactor, all four voices chittered in unison, so Otto simply ordered Moe to make work of the cell’s keycard lock without pondering further.

Norman watched as the steel door swung open, a weariness upon his gaunt face.

Otto turned from the cell’s facade, ignoring the reaction. The actuators were tugging him the most they could without physical action, but Otto looked back once more, if not just to see what Osborn would do.

A second longer of contact between their eyes, and Norman practically shot out of the cell, fleeing down the hallway and tearing through the door before Otto could properly register any movement.

Father, the reactor.

He couldn’t fight against the actuators’ pull any longer, ignoring the creak of the now-vacant cell’s door and the faraway echo of an alarm blaring above, likely from whatever security system the collars housed. Instead he let them regain the control they needed, even if there was no real choice on his end, striding down the hallway of empty cells with his trench coat billowing out behind him as he felt his active will wash out in sedative waves.

Octavius’ new workshop wasn’t exactly pretty. The old dock warehouse, it was practically the only permissible location he could find. So the creaking rafters rife with cobwebs and the rotten floorboards dampened by brackish water would have to do.

The retrieved blueprint was pinned to an atrophied wall, a detailed set of instructions already written out for rebuilding the reactor. Currently the man was soldering retrieved scraps from the first machine, the actuators in a constant whir around him retrieving tools and shrapnel. Flo dipped near to sedulously light his cigar. The puff of sweet smoke was a habit he found himself falling back into, dopamine a welcome reaction to the actuators’ network within his nervous system.

Of course, Otto couldn’t rebuild his machine using only stuck-together parts from the already failed original. He had found a way to get additional equipment from his bank stealings through a skeevy connection, but because of that annoying Spider pest he had only taken away with a fraction of what he needed.

Another robbery, the actuators completed before he could even finish his train of thought. He immediately jumped to considering the options- that bank would likely be on high alert, and it’d be a fool’s move to try and rob it again. No, he’d go directly to the source. He could deal with wrangling the tritium from Oscorp, but for the rest of the necessities, he’d likely have better luck with ‘borrowing’ from their competitor.

He could sense the actuators recalculating their plan of action. Otto’s body ached from the laborious repairs he had been toiling over for what had been much too long for a man of his age, but the AIs could sense the very budding of the thought, nipping it out as they overrode his nerves. It was easy to forget that they were fully capable of making him into a puppet of meat should they see it fit in their- his- plans.

Harry was already snaking out to the leather coat he had hung on a haphazard hook. His body flushed off the dull ache of his spine, the sag at his mind from tire as the voices near singsonged their bidding.

He had a robbery to commit.

While Oscorp was once the prime supplier of all the city’s scientific curios, in the two years since their successful serum Tricorp had rapidly become a weighty competitor, one that happened to carry every last one of the supplies Otto needed. He’d be hard-pressed to break into Oscorp again so recently anyways. For now he was donning his hefty coat and keeping his head down the best he was able.

Luckily for his purposes, Tricorp didn’t store its material in a high-security basement (at least not the material Otto was after). He didn’t have to deal with the meticulous charade of extracting the location from whatever secretary sat at this one’s desk, this time he was free to storm directly to his loot.

Once he was inside the warehouse emblazoned by the company’s logo, met with next to no resistance, the actuators immediately began cataloging what was necessary. Carrying the amount of alloys and steel beams he’d surely need to burgle would do a number on his spine, but at least the metal arms would deal with most of the heavy lifting.

Another cigar? Flo offered up as the other appendages began to busy themselves with picking out the supplies. Otto hoisted a beam under his arm, latently smiling to himself at the neat stacks of industrial metal they were amassing before him.

“I’ll pass. I’m plenty satisfied just by the material you’ve gathered.” Otto gave the head of the actuator a rub, its self-rewarding mimicking in his own nerves.

“It’d be nice if you could pass on that too!”

Otto immediately snapped up from his pleased indulgence, eyes darting to the corners of the warehouse as the actuators jolted wildly with their scopes. That voice, that awkward inflection that was stuck halfway between confident and nasally… he didn’t need to spot the figure crouched on the rafters to know who it was.

Spider-man sprung down from his position, landing somewhat-gracefully on the ground before Octavius. He held his chin up, bold. “Really, Doctor? You’re committing robbery again so soon?”

Otto scowled, the actuators turning their focus from the metal and onto the little pest. Someone must have seen Otto out- something he couldn’t avoid any longer- and tipped him off. The doctor’s mind slipped back to their last encounter at the bank; the masked hero may be inexperienced with fighting a threat beyond petty crime, but it had been a fatal mistake to underestimate his abilities.

We will not make that fallacy again, father. He will be crushed.

Stealing away with the material would be difficult while Spider-man was still in play, so he needed to be taken off the board. But Otto, through the throbbing familiarity of the arachnid’s meek voice, held on the kernel of pity that sorely glowed between the clamor of the actuator’s bloodthirsty goading.

“I’m warning you, boy. Walk away now.” Restraining the actuators’ urge to rend the spider limb from limb took the effort of holding back against a pack of rabid dogs.

Kill him, before he can get in the way

Rip and tear!

He means to stop our inevitable glory

RIP AND TEAR!

The fanatical screeches of the AI in his brain were overpowering his eardrums, but he held them back through gritted teeth, glowering at the figure.

“Sorry, Doc. I’m afraid I can’t just stand by.” The firm words had hardly left Spider-man’s mouth when he had flipped out his forearm, flicking down his fingers, letting the webbed attack fly true to its aim.

The actuators, hissing as they were, shot out and shredded the fibers before Otto could register the projectile at all. He is an impediment, dangerous, they shrieked. The harsh signals of binary were proving too much for his own willpower, and he could feel his volition slipping away as the rage-filled voices claimed control of his body.

Show him what happens when you get in the way of Doctor Octopus, Flo’s voice imparted clear through the metallic screeching.

Otto truly would have loved to. He had let the wrathful tentacles draw him up, towering like an obelisk of glowering metal, prepared to put an end to any obstacle between him and his machine. It was rather unfortunate, then, that at that exact moment the warehouse exploded.

The thick smell of smoke burned inside Otto’s nostrils as the actuators instinctively clamored to shield him from the shrapnel. The familiarity of the billowing smolder would have sent him down a spiral if not for the actuators’ blockage… and the growing distraction of what sounded like laughter.

That laughter, too, was familiar. It was an unhinged cackle, but the notes it hit were ones he’d heard before. He turned over from his guard to see Spider-man’s attention now on a figure that was emerging from the sickly smoke.

No.

Before either of them could get a good look, the culprit whizzed forward, leaving a broken trail through the sickly smog that it cut through. The actuators swiveled around wildly, clicking open as the masked boy showed just as much alarm in his movements. It was the Oscorp glider, no doubt. Osborn’s pet project that was quietly swept under the rug along with his falsified death. A swell piece of technology, but impractical for widespread use.

Perhaps it was only ever intended for one pilot, perched atop it like a reaper.

“Osborn?” Otto felt himself ask, trying to get a good look at the man.

His quiet questioning word was drowned out by Spider-man’s assertive, yet shaky, voice.

“Who are you?” He straightened his back up, attention fully drawn away from Otto. 

He desperately wanted to see where this was going- it couldn’t be Osborn, and yet it had to be- but the voices of the actuators cried out to silence the wondering.

Father, our chance!

His body was being pulled along before he could properly process any of the unfolding scene, the arms roaring at the opportunity to steal away. He admitted, it was perfect.

The four split off, diligently seizing the material they had already gathered. Otto picked up the steel beam he had dropped in the confrontation with the spider, throwing a look back at the happening behind him.

He still couldn’t get a clear look at the figure- he was 90% sure it was Osborn, but the bilious smoke was preventing the odds from reaching certainty. It was currently circling around Spider-man on the glider like a hawk to its prey.

“Oh, was I interrupting something?” The figure taunted, a voice that while foreign from both the CEO’s brisk cadence and the prisoner’s weak dialogue, was unquestionably Osborn’s. He snickered, brandishing a spherical object within his hand- damn my eyesight, Otto cursed, unable to make it out.

“I’m afraid you are. What do you want?” Spider-man kept his stance bold, but the boy hadn’t quite gotten the hang of masking the scent of fear in his voice.

“What do I want?” Osborn mocked, breaking off into that strangely manic laughter in place of an answer. He held up the object in his hand, laying it flat on his palm, then gently tossing it up in the air-

A bomb.

It’s a bomb.

The actuators’ voices were screeching again, dragging Otto’s stolen attention away from the sight and back to their in-progress robbery, and more importantly, getting the fuck out of there. Harry and Larry dropped their loot, self-preservation winning out from their driven goal as they clawed out at the newly torn-open wall, an impromptu exit-point.

The explosion erupted out behind him, a hot gush of fresh smoke and ember sending the ends of his coat flapping wildly. This encounter meant he hadn’t needed to deal with the spider, but as the lower two actuators maneuvered his body down from the jagged entry-way, it also meant he hadn’t stocked on all the material he needed. Material that was being blown to hell, by the sounds behind him.

We’re sorry, the lower two’s binary voices apologetically whined. No, it wasn’t their fault, Otto assured. It never was their fault. But this time, it wasn’t his either.

Why the hell had Norman, presumably haven stolen his glider in his escape, decided to blow up a Tricorp warehouse? Sure, he had always hated the company’s competition, but even for him this destruction was too extreme. Otto had expected the man to flee the city, hell, even the state; Oscorp was most certainly looking for their runaway experiment.

Father

Father

He was sharply pulled from his mulling by the harmony of the AI’s alarm.

“What?” He grumbled aloud, pulling his attention to the turned scopes of the two freed claws.

Shooting up from the fresh smoke was unmistakably the sharp wings of the glider. Osborn was chasing him.

Oh, fuck. Otto scowled, the alarming chitters the actuators were sending up his spine already overbearing. He didn’t know why Norman would feel any desire to harm him- well, perhaps there were a few reasons he could think of, but the damage Norman dished out was usually more… psychological, not with goddamn explosives. But the alerts of danger were overpowering his system, and before he could properly register, the AI had flooded him out.

He never turned back to look if he was actually being followed; he didn’t have enough control over his body, simply fleeing the emptiest route the actuators could scout in their hissing state. This override is powerful, he had the thought, free-floating drowsy and fuzz taking the crevices usually occupied by his waking will. I can hardly even…

Through the wordless buzz of alarm signaling onto his brain, Flo gave out a clear whisper. Let go, father. We will take care of this now.

Otto let it kill his conscious will with the muffled sounds of metal against metal, as if he even had a choice.

When Otto regained consciousness from the neural override, he reckoned it had only been a few minutes. No longer than 15, the AI sent confirming signals to his brain. They were still moving when he came to, currently at the shipyard he was currently making his home in and en route to his makeshift workshop. He took a minute to consider the metal that was in the grasp of Flo and Moe’s pronged claws, then under his own flesh arm. Even if he hadn’t stolen away with everything he would inevitably need, this was a fairly good supply.

Relief washed over his body as he dumped the metal into the pile of scraps he already had stored. God, it was heavy. He stretched, supposing that he’d get some more work in for the day, even if his body screamed for rest.

It was at that moment Otto realized that he had a knack for being in exploding warehouses.

Okay, well, it didn’t exactly explode. The rotted wood was soft, and it easily gave way when an object suddenly careened through the northern face. Otto felt himself scream- or perhaps it was the actuators- he couldn’t have this place destroyed, he couldn’t.

A beat passed. No smoke came billowing forth from the newly-formed window. Instead, Otto observed as he broke away from the actuator’s instinctual brace, it seemed the object had simply crashed.

The glider. Of course. He treaded over, slowly, his boots heavy on the waterlogged floorboards. All four tentacles were at attention, snapped open with their scopes gleaming. There, he’s fallen off.

Osborn groaned, pushing himself up. He stumbled as a foothold made a slight, bracing against his forehead. It must have been a rough crash.

But Otto immediately pulled himself away from the mild concern to instead get a proper look at the man, something he hadn’t gotten a chance to do with the previous smokescreen. He was still small and lithe, but less infirm than he had appeared in the cell, if only by a little. The green scales and tapered ears remained intact; no, the most distinctly perplexing thing was now his outfit. He was still donning the strange purple nightcap, freed from its bell, but in place of the hospital gown was some sort of purple… leotard? Matched with magenta boots, it was a baffling ensemble, to say the least.

“Osborn?” Otto cautiously ventured out, the manic arson the imp had just committed fresh on the front of his mind.

Norman looked up, a dull confusion upon his pointed facial features. “…Octavius.”

He must have been disoriented by the crash, trying to get his bearings on the steady ground. Semi-steady, at least, considering its disrepair. Otto decided then, as much as he’d like to, that yelling at the man wouldn’t be productive. Instead he figured he’d clear at least one thing up.

“What on Earth are you wearing?” He motioned at the eccentric outfit.

Norman’s eyes followed the gesture, before quickly darting away with a scowl. “…He likes purple.”

Otto felt himself mimic the expression, one of the actuators snaking to get a closer look. “Who? I thought you said the hat was humiliating.”

Osborn was turned away from him now, grumbling at the glider’s current status of being stuck halfway through the floor’s planks. “I told you not to let him out,” he ignored the question.

“He? Who is ‘he?’” Otto was growing from annoyed to tempered; the goblin had a lot of gall to be acting so vague after the attack on both the Tricorp warehouse and his own. “You aren’t talking in the third person, are you?”

“No! I’m-” A wince hissed out between Norman’s teeth as he took a step towards the glider, the next foot forward sending him stumbling to the floor with a cry of pain. Otto shifted his eyes in concern; the hind leg he had last stepped forth on had a nasty gash in the thigh.

He’s hurt, badly, the realization broke through the agitation previously burning through his veins. He was struck by the same formless pity he had felt in the vault, kneeling down to inspect the wound.

“Don’t touch me!” Norman snarled, batting away the leather-clad hand Otto had subconsciously extended and cradling his injured leg between sharp hisses of pain.

“Snap out of it!” Otto retorted, pinning down the clawed hand that tried to resist his inspection again with an actuator. “I’m only assessing the wound. Be grateful that I even feel the sympathy to do so.”

Norman’s citrine eyes glared at him with vitriol, but he didn’t resist as the doctor began to poke around the laceration. Each point of pressure on the wound provoked a hiss between fangs, but it didn’t seem like anything too critical.

“Alright. It doesn’t look like any debris got in.” Otto let up from the inspection, holding his hands up in an effort to slow the unease. “I’ll need to tend to the wound, but you should be fine.”

“What?” Norman cried out, pulling his injured leg closer- now that he had properly examined it, Otto could pin the uncanniness of the joints on a shift to digitigrade. “No, I can’t stay here!”

“Calm down. Nobody but myself even checks up on this place.” Otto considered that he would need sterile water- well, relatively sterile, at least- to wash the laceration, the closest source of which would be the single bathroom’s sink. And he already had gauze stored from his hospital escape, a miracle considering that he’d be best off laying low for now…

“No! I have to leave, or he’s going to- to do something to you!” Norman snarled, attempting to stand up but keeling in pain at the newfound pressure.

“Again, who is he? Are you threatening me, Osborn?” Otto’s scowl returned, the resistance to his very generous hospitality flaring his temper up again. “Because I assure you, injured or not, you would have no chance of even touching me before I rip you to shreds.”

The actuators haled to the wrath in those words, biting at the thought of tearing apart the man that had ruined their supply run. They were looming further, the irradiant scarlet lights of their scopes all focused on him in a definite threat. Fear flickered in the aureolin eyes, the AI’s satisfaction at which infected Otto’s own mind.

“I’m not, I’m-” Norman’s raspy words faded into a groan, tugging at the temple flaps of his kitschy nightcap. “-I’m not myself, sometimes. Not anymore. Okay? I can’t let him get out while I’m not-”

Otto stepped forward, standing over the crumpled goblin alongside the leering tentacles. A terrible lie, father. He’s manipulating you, Flo whispered to him with chitters of agreement from the others. He was inclined to believe them, but the same pith of pity as before compelled him towards giving the benefit of the doubt.

“I’ll say it again, Osborn. No matter what pilots that body of yours, it would be no match for me, especially when you can hardly even stand.” He reached out a hand, gripping Norman’s underarm and earning an animalistic yelp, pulling him up from his shivering immobilization. “You are staying until you can at least walk again, and I am not giving you a choice.”

“What?” Norman’s voice lashed out, too weakened to physically struggle much as Otto tossed his body over a broad shoulder.

What?! The actuators mimicked the cry, turning their hostility at the imp into incredulity at their host. He is getting in the way, a distraction!

Otto strained himself to ignore them. The warehouse, having been chosen exclusively on the conditions of cobbling together a workshop, didn’t have much place for leisure. But there was an old leather couch he had stolen from a dump, something he used to sleep on comfortably enough. He laid Norman down, gently, keeping the injured thigh exposed.

As he retrieved a bucket and began to fill it up with cool water at the sink, the voices of the AI flared up again.

Father, what are you doing? He wants to stop us from completing your machine! They were hostile, grating against his mind. Otto groaned against the tinnitus that was breaking out in his ears, straining to silence their clamor.

The sooner he is healed up, the sooner he will get out, he reminded them. That’s the reason he was bothering in the first place, beyond the amorphous pity, of course. This twisted-up creature was still the man that stabbed him in the back, and Otto did not want to stare at it any longer than need be.

He returned to the couch with the bucket, a bundle of gauze, and a rag with soap. Norman was flopped over unceremoniously, his face knitted in pain. Otto ordered the actuators to restrain him, in case the cleaning got messy, and after a taut second of seething they complied. 

At the sensation of the cool metal snaking around his limbs, Norman jolted, eyes flying open and fangs bared.

“Relax, Osborn. I’m cleaning the wound now.” Otto knelt down, level with the sofa. “No need to keep glaring at me as if I intend to kill you.”

To his slight surprise, the goblin’s sharp eyes actually softened, if only a little. But the edge returned as soon as Otto touched the damp cloth to the laceration, taking the form of a yowl and struggle against the actuator’s grip.

It only took a moment, and as soon as Otto was sure it was sufficiently clean, he backed away and set the cloth down. Norman was hissing through his teeth, eyes screwed in pain and pointed ears pinned to the side, but otherwise looked like he had stopped writhing about. The actuators freed him from their grasp with a little reluctance.

“There you are. Much better,” Otto mused aloud. Norman’s breaths were slowing, his features relaxing. “Just need to bandage it.”

Wrapping the gauze around the thigh proved to have much less struggle, Norman instead staring at Otto the whole time with his rather unsettling eyes. After a moment of the air being filled with nothing but the sound of the gauze stretching, he finally spoke.

“So… you never told me. What happened to you?” He motioned to the tentacles, still towering over him with the harsh light of their scopes fixated on every movement.

Otto couldn’t help but chuckle at the awe in his voice. “Actuators, machines I created to help complete my reactor after I left Oscorp.” His face fell into its recently donned scowl. “…Irrevocably part of my body.”

Signals of comfort from the AI bloomed across his nerves. Otto knew the four had no choice in the matter, they wouldn’t have wished this upon their creator. Yet it was nevertheless his new existence.

Norman reached out a hand, a keratin claw brushing against one of the slender limbs of steel. “…They’re beautiful.”

Otto huffed at the notion of wonder. “You would have loved to steal away their designs too, I reckon.”

The goblin fell quiet, retracting his hand and tilting his eyes away. The verbal blow felt gratifying, the actuators only encouraging the smugness. He deserved it, regardless, especially since Otto was extending such care to him over nothing but a vague emotion, one that the actuators were blocking from emerging out of his peripheral. Osborn was lucky that the small twinge through the obscurity was even perceivable.

Flo slithered down with its blade jutting forth, sawing through the gauze as Otto patted it flush. “Alright. That’s as far as your care is going.” He stood from his kneeled position, dusting off his pants, though it did nothing to remedy the damp stains of bay-water on the knees. He pointed behind him. “The bathroom is the door to the left, if you find yourself in walking form and needing it. I am going to work, and you are not going to bother me, understood?”

Norman wearily nodded, tail curling around his ankles and shoulders hunching over. He had rather heavy eyebags, something that Otto hadn’t noticed in the vault.

The doctor scowled to himself. “…And get some rest. It’s the most that’ll do you good now.” Turning away from the huddled figure on the couch gave his nerves a flood of relief, pent up from the actuators itching to begin their stalled-off work. His own body was aching from tire, and he would have loved to accompany his unwanted guest in rest, but he didn’t get the luxury of choice.

It is for the best, father. It is for the machine. It is for your sacrifice. Flo’s voice was gentle, gentle in the way an adult speaks to a naive child. Omniscient and beckoning him away from his own foolishness. It was right, they were all right and always were. Let us take over. You can rest.

Otto never liked these neural overrides, not since he first learned they were capable. It frightened him, even if the actuators had only his own ambitions in mind, losing complete control of his body and being ushered into complete mental darkness. He had already gone through one that day, and it was something he did not want to become a daily occurrence. But the wear on his mind, the ration that the actuators would perform much cleaner without his human tire, he knew that it would be arrogant to deny.

You’re correct, the binary harmony lulled to him, giving him the illusion of choice. We will let you wake when your body demands.

The promise of some sliver of control swayed him- or perhaps the actuators were already enacting the override regardless, as unconsciousness engulfed his mind whole.

It was much like waking up, emerging from the neural override, simply without the sensation of recharge. As would have happened had he merely been sleeping, Otto found himself jostled into the waking world by a shrill shriek permeating through the silence of the night.

His head snapped up, a partially welded portion of the new reactor present before him, wildly looking around for the source of the noise. It took him a second to realize it was coming from the couch- and a second further to remember that he wasn’t currently alone.

He threw himself up, the actuator’s alarms of Danger at the sound flooding him as he ran to the sofa. Osborn was thrashing in his sleep, screaming bloody murder, the leather of the couch being shredded under his flailing claws.

Otto reached out and grabbed the goblin’s shoulders, firmly pressing down as his arm was caught by a wild rake, cringing at the sound of his coat’s leather ripping apart. The actuators shot out in an effort to restrain the still-sleeping form, a spike of annoyance sounding through Larry as it was struck by the lashing tail in the attempt.

“Norman!” He roared over the scream, shaking the man’s frail shoulders. “Norman, wake up!”

Otto could feel the clawed hand still caught in his coat’s arm shudder and slow, the writhing giving way to trembling as Osborn’s eyes opened with the filminess of bestirring. They blinked, twice, rolling over to the man standing above him as his body was wracked by shallow breathing. The arylide was flecked by a breed of primal terror.

Otto allowed him a few seconds of air flow before squeezing his shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Norman opened his mouth to respond, nothing but the hot air of his rapid breath escaping. He quickly adverted his eyes, swallowing thickly.

“That’s okay. Give yourself a moment to breathe.” Otto kept his hands firm, the feverish quivering still wracking the goblin’s body. “What happened?”

“I- he’s going to-” The words were choked out, failing to reach completion before Norman’s chest was shuddering again, much too quickly as it began another wave of hyperventilation.

“Norman!” Otto squeezed his shoulders again, trying to keep him from slipping into hysterics. “Calm down, take deep breaths. Is there anything I can do right now?”

“I- get these things off of me!” Norman wailed, squeezing his eyes shut, pawing at the collar of his violet leotard and gasping between his shallow breaths.

“Alright, alright, calm down! I’ll get you different clothes. Just stay here, okay?” Otto kept his voice firm, letting Flo’s own soothing cadence guide the flow of his words. If the tone worked for him, surely it would do something for Osborn. The actuators themselves were all buzzing with the adrenaline and alarm warranted for the situation, thankfully not snapping at the bit to return to their work. Carefully, Otto lifted his hands, making sure the imp wasn’t about to wildly flail again. He began to consider the clothes he had on hand; hardly anything, for his coats had served him just fine. But there had to be a spare shirt of some kind somewhere, from when he had first hunted for new clothing….

“I’ll be right back,” he assured, nodding his head. Norman couldn’t see the gesture, eyes still screwed shut between his rapid heaving, but Otto hoped the vocal troth would be enough of an assurance. Osborn might be a ruthless backstabber, but Otto couldn’t in good conscience watch him in this pained state without helping.

He briskly departed to the small area where he kept his spare coats stored, rummaging through the rejected articles of fabric next to them. One of his old sweaters, something too sentimental to rip up for the actuators… a spare pair of boxers… but most of the scraps were just that, clothing that hadn’t held up against the accommodations made for the tentacles- there was a reason of practicality behind his shirtless outfits.

Finally he found something, a t-shirt that hadn’t been cut up in the back. It was sized for him, so it wouldn't be the best fit on Norman, but it was better than nothing.

He grabbed the shirt and the spare boxers, Flo following his subconscious and reaching down with its blade to cut a hole in the back for the man’s tail. Shame he had to ruin the pair… but a shriek from behind him quickly washed that notion away.

When he hurriedly returned to the couch, Osborn had gone lax, the only motion now his eyes tracking Otto’s movements.

He slowed his rushed pace, locking eyes with the goblin. Something behind that yellow felt off, like a predator tracking its prey just before pouncing, the actuators’ imminent reaction of Danger pulsing up his spine.

“Norman? Are you alright?” The actuators’ alarm was mounting, there was something incredibly wrong that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Osborn’s lips pulled up into a fanged sneer, his lidded pupils betraying a flash of mania. “Norman’s on sabbatical, honey.”

Before Otto could realize what was happening, the actuators shot out, coiling around the goblin who was currently falling into a fit of humorless and cruel laughter. DANGER, the binary screamed. The inflection of his words had shifted again, back to the frenzied and ruthless cadence from his warehouse attack, as if in oscillation.

Either Norman was a world-class actor, or his pleas of alter ego had manifested into reality. But why-

Oh. The aberration.

Insanity.

“It took you long enough!” ‘Norman’ snickered, watching Otto’s face shift upon the revelation. “Osborn wouldn’t fucking shut up, so I’m a little surprised you were this dense!”

“Who are you?” Otto demanded, the actuators tightening their constriction as the white-hot alarm coursed along his spine, growing in intensity under that grin.

“Oh, I’m the part of Osborn that he so desperately needs. Normie’s gotten all soft and pathetic, you know. Still sniveling over you after all his effort. Even after you made him into me.” The Goblin’s eyes shifted down to the actuators coiling him, an ear flicking in annoyance. “I suggest you let me go, honey, before you crush your little lapdog to death.”

Otto scowled, the actuators tightening their grip in response. He could see the air flow siphoning from the Goblin’s face, still bearing that grin of fangs. Stop, release him, he ordered the AI. Danger, the resistance flooded back, a unison. His brow furrowed further, the Goblin clearly drinking in the sight of his anguish. I cannot have him dead, he fought against their defiance, only winning out when the urgency of the viridian face draining into pale grey overwhelmed his systems.

The tentacles slithered back, leaving the Goblin gasping for breath. Unlike Norman’s hyperventilation, he seemed comfortable. Much too comfortable.

“Ah, that’s a good Octopus,” he jeered as sufficient oxygen returned. “I knew you couldn’t watch your poor little Norman die.”

“Silence!” Otto shouted, glowering at the smirking imp. This thing, in its slitted eyes and grin of serrated incisors, was much too comfortable in its own skin to ever be recognized as formerly human. The actuators were still screaming in his brain, Flo’s blade unsheathing itself before he even had the thought. “I would have no qualms slitting your throat right this moment!”

“Maybe you wouldn’t.” The Goblin tossed his head to the side, nightcap flopping behind his shoulders. “But it’s gonna kill Norman, seeing his own hands throttle your neck.”

!!!

There was no word assigned, no alarm of ‘danger,’ simply pure binary screeching as the actuators perceived the threat before Otto could even register the claws lunging for his throat.

He was handicapped, he shouldn’t be able to-

Rapid cell regeneration.

He was so, so stupid. Even with their immediate perception, his actuators were too slow to physically react. And he was going to die for it.

He felt the keratin nails rake against his neck, the single moment of surface tension before the skin would be punctured. But the Goblin’s lunge slowed, then stilled, hind legs still squarely on the floor.

The confusion that washed out Otto’s adrenaline only mounted when the creature’s head lolled back, eyes turning glassy. His body went limp, sagging forward as Otto struggled to hold him up.

For a terse moment he thought the man had dropped dead, the adrenaline still in his veins. But the goblin’s eyes fluttered open, filmy and lost.

He groaned, looking up at the man he was slouching against. “Otto..?”

“Norman?” Otto’s face was etched with concern. “Is that you?”

At those words Norman blinked, rapidly, trying to prop himself up. His body had begun trembling at some point in his awakening. “…Otto, what did he- did he hurt you? Did he- he-”

Norman blinked again, his elvish face contorting in pain. “…Oh, God, no…”

“Hey, it’s alright. He tried to kill me, but I’m alright.” Otto held the quivering goblin up, wondering how this body was the same lithe creature that attacked him mere moments ago. Norman looked so frail.

“Otto, I-” His raspy voice broke off in a hiccup for air, no reprieve from his panic. “I’m sorry, I’m-”

“That wasn’t you, Osborn. I don’t blame you.” Otto squeezed his shoulders, trying to ground the man or at least comfort him a little. The actuators were peeking out from behind his own broad frame, more curious now that their self-preservation had passed.

“I’m- I’m just so weak...” The goblin hung his head, ears drooped and tail deadweight as he shuddered. The sight was pitiful. How on Earth was this man once Norman Osborn, CEO?

“Here, I got you new clothes. I’ll help you change,” Otto offered out. Norman was refusing to meet his eyes, instead simply pulling off the damned nightcap. His hair was tangled and overgrown, streaked by discoloration and split by two budded horns, but it was something human.

Otto allowed the actuators to take care of the assistance, worrying that it wouldn’t be appropriate to do with his own two hands. He politely looked to the other direction as they unzipped the leotard, only directing them to tuck away the discarded clothing once Norman had pulled the tee over his head and boxers to his waist. The shirt was one size too big, making the man’s gaunt frame appear even thinner that it should, but a sort of relief eased his features now that he was out of the violet ensemble.

“Sit down, you look like you’re going to faint.” Otto gently led him to sit on the couch again, a guidance that was abided numbly. The actuators were snooping around the area, abating the remainder of their current edge, before returning confident that there was nothing else amiss. Time to get back to work, they melodically reported.

As Otto turned to follow along their directive, he felt a tug on the sleeve of his now-ripped coat. He turned back expectantly for whatever it was Osborn still wanted, only to be met with misty eyes.

To the actuators’ chagrin, he took a seat next to the man. “What is it?”

Norman held his knees up to his chest, a finger running along their scales in idle distraction. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t follow, Osborn.” Otto leaned his head to the side, resting it on his knuckles. He has a point, we should be doing work, a stray binary voice muttered.

“I mean, why-” The man sniffled, ears sagging further in shame at the sound. “-Why are you taking care of me?”

Otto gave himself a moment to consider. “Well, I’m not a monster, Norman. I suppose you would have reservations had I been the one in distress here, but I couldn’t just stand by and idly watch you bleed and caterwaul.” Otto took off his glasses, supposing it was dark enough now for him to bear natural light. “I don’t hate you. I never hated you…” He shook his head, closing his eyes with a frown. “…Well, perhaps I had the day you stabbed my back, but I’ve learned that’s just how you are. You were- well, are- an important person in my life, for better or for worse.”

He sighed, rubbing his eyelids before opening them again, only to find that the sight in front of him had changed from the mere trembling dejection. No, to his surprise, honest-to-God tears were rolling down Osborn’s flushed celadon cheeks.

Otto blinked, but it wasn’t a trick of light he was imagining. “…Norman, are you alright?”

The man’s dewy eyes met with his, a burning second before he lunged for Otto’s neck.

A scream tangled in his throat, forced out by the actuator’s unsuspecting rush over his heedless thoughts, aware that this was how it would have ended regardless.

…

Ah. I’m not dead.

Otto blinked, the roar of the instinctual reaction flushing out, finding his neck free from claws. Instead, with arms wrapped around his torso was a weeping Norman, desperately hugging onto his body.

“Otto, I- I’m so sorry, he was right- I’m just so fucking weak-” Norman choked out between sobs, shivering. “I’ve always been weak and you- you-”

Otto forced the shock from his body, reaching up a hand to steady the goblin’s head against his shoulder. The actuators curled inward in similar reassurances. “It’s okay. What you’ve done to me is neither here nor there, not while you’re so volatile.”

Another sob wracked his gangly body, claws digging through the leather of Otto’s coat in his grip. “I never meant to, I- I was just so scared and weak, Otto-”

The doctor shushed him, patting his shoulder and ignoring the twinge of pain that came with the nails reaching skin.

“-No!” Norman wailed back against the assurance. “I was too weak and I- I still am, I’m still so scared, Otto, I’m a fucking monster-”

“Stop, you’re only making yourself more upset,” Otto soothed, carding a hand through the goblin’s hair as he devolved into blubbering sobs. ‘Insanity’ came with its caveats beyond the villainous lunacy, the doctor supposed, Osborn’s mind unraveling beneath his fingertips.

They stayed like that for a moment, Otto silently stroking his hair as he felt the elfin man’s tachycardia begin to slow into normalcy against his chest. He heard a small sniffle, then the tickle of Norman’s pointed nose nuzzling against his neck, the warm tears trickling onto his skin now a quiet fallout.

“…I don’t know what to do, Otto. He’s already taken away my body, and I- I think he’s already gotten to my mind.” A pause, then trembling laughter. “Oh, who am I kidding? He’s just me. What I really am…”

“Don’t say that.” Otto slipped his work gloves off, an actuator gently setting them aside as he rubbed soothing circles into the man’s shoulder. The slight texture of patchy scales was perceptible through the cotton and beneath his calloused fingertips.

“You’d know better than anyone that it’s true, Otto. You- you know that I’ve always been a monster.” Norman buried his hooked nose further against the crook of the other man’s neck, keeling into the touch. The laminae of his cheeks pressed saline moisture against Otto’s skin.

“The fact you’re acknowledging this in the first place disproves that notion, Norman.” This was much too vulnerable and unstable a man to be the Osborn from his college days, but Otto couldn’t help but feel a rawness to him that was absent from the former cold businessman.

“I- I ruined you, Otto. Your life’s work. I don’t know why you’re trying to defend me, when I…” The frail body underneath Octavius’s fingertips tensed up, compact muscle shifting. “I… I deserved what you did.”

This brought a slight frown to Otto’s face. “What I did?”

A wet laugh came from Norman’s throat. “…You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m-” He sniffled, head lifting from its rest against Otto’s skin, looking down at his clawed hands clutching against the other man’s back. “I used to blame you for it, but all you did was give me the body of what I always was.”

His head fell, limply, deadweight against Otto’s shoulder. “A goblin.”

“Norman…” Otto held a hand up to the green creature’s neck, a shiver rippling underneath his fingers at the contact. “I never knew this is what the serum would do to you. The board had told me they were going to use your original formula. I hadn’t known they were going to do… this.” He sighed, the exhale course against his throat. “I never would have done this. Not even to you.”

He closed his eyes, the college-aged faces of his late love and his old friend swimming beneath the lids. A small pang of dismay from the voice of Flo. Father….

“…Especially not to you.”

“…What?”

The word escaped Norman’s throat, tangled and marred by constricting muscles. A breathy laugh wheezed out, then another, before the sound was tripping over itself, a cackle devoid of neither humor nor the mania of the Goblin. The sound was like that of a pained animal.

“After two years of thinking you had finally bit the bullet and hurt me back… After all the horrible things I’ve done, I thought you finally hated me-” His words choked out through the gasping cachinnation, claws digging deeper against Otto’s skin with a wince.

“I’ll say it again, I don’t hate you. I-” Otto’s words broke away with a hiss of pain as he felt the claws break skin in their grip. The actuators, running on instinct, snatched away Norman’s arms from the clasp.

The forceful movement and the flitting contortion of pain across the other man’s face cut off Norman’s humorless laughter with a whine. The tips of his fingers had droplets of red staining the keratin, a sight that made him flinch away.

“Fuck, Otto, I- I never meant to push you away. I just- God, I’m a sniveling worm, aren’t I?” He groaned, hands rubbing at his temples in an effort to evade the sight before him. “All that talk of power, all the cheating and lying I did to myself for that company, and I’m back right where I started.” His palms pressed against his eyes, drowning out the sight of his former friend through the bumpy texture of his own monstrosity. “-Pathetic.”

“Norman.” Cut the pity party, the thought flitted through Otto’s mind, but he shot away the cruel urge for karma. This remorse seemed utterly genuine, after all. “Maybe you are pathetic. But honestly, I prefer this version of you to how you were with that power.” He tucked a frizzy strand of loose hair behind one of the man’s tapered ears, the shiver beneath the touch of his fingertips a scintilla. “It’s quite like the Osborn I used to know.”

“I- I don’t deserve you, Otto.” Norman’s raspy voice betrayed a hint of some kind of hilarity, the words tearing through the remaining ice of his heart.

Octavius chuckled. “That much is true.” The actuators pulled the goblin close again, tight against his chest with no resistance. He leaned back, letting the smaller man curl up as he pleased.

Osborn seemed limp, at first, as if afraid to put his hands on the other after the drops of blood had colored his claws. But that apprehension collapsed in on itself when one of Otto’s hands cradled his nape, the touch sending a quiver through his frail body as he instinctively nuzzled against the doctor’s chest.

The scales of his face were cold against Otto’s skin, pressing into his pectoral as if he was now afraid of being ripped away. Otto shook his head with a breathy laugh at that thought; the selfish nature of Osborn was a thoroughly persistent one.

The actuators had tucked away their grievances for the moment, letting Otto curl them snugly inward, lounging across the sofa’s backboard or draped over the two’s cuddled forms. His single free hand was idly stroking Norman’s hair again, gently carding through the tangles. Whenever his fingers bumped against the paltry twin horns, a shiver wracked the man’s body, a slight flutter unlike the hysteria of his prior trembling. As if every time he felt skin against his, it was a fresh sensation. I suppose he hasn’t felt another person’s touch since he was first locked away 2 years ago.

The quiet ambience of bay-water sloshing against the dock outside washed over them in gentle waves, the rapid thrum of Norman’s heartbeat puttering out into relaxation against Otto’s torso. The man’s tail was lazily swaying from left to right in some sort of sluggish wagging. He seemed… contented, almost, a low purr emitting from his throat and vibrating throughout his chest. Otto was so caught up in the tire of his own body that he nearly missed the mumbling words.

“I love you, Octavius.”

Otto blinked, and when no elaboration came from the nestled goblin, he shook his head with an exhale and a soft smile. Insanity, huh?

Through his own confused fragments of thought and the distant voices of the actuators’ opposition swirling in the background, he pressed a kiss against the top of Norman’s head. He’d let the monster have this.