As soon as he felt the electricity course through his body, he knew that he couldn’t stay. He wanted to help, truly. He knew he had a responsibility. When Rosie was still alive, she’d always say that whenever you saw the opportunity to do good, and you had the means to, it was your job to take it. Not to do so was a coward’s way out. This world’s Peter and May had been kind to him, and Otto knew he owed them his help. But he couldn’t stay. He was tired. His inhibitor chip had fried once, and there was no telling what would happen if it was subjected to any more of Electro’s powers. If he lost control again. Perhaps he was a coward after all.
It wasn’t easy to find his way through the city after leaving Hogan’s apartment. His actuators clumsily hidden underneath his coat, it was a marvel that news outlets weren’t at his back within minutes. While New York City was much the same as it had been in his universe – all the landmarks were there, because what was the Big Apple without the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, the Empire State Building? – he found himself missing what had made the city his home. Rosie’s favourite bookshop didn’t exist. Neither did the little café where they used to join each other for lunch on slow days, when she had a break between classes and he could take the time away from Oscorp. Their steady tradition had declined in frequency over the years, of course. His current research had allowed few breaks, and Rosie’s tenure track at university was time-consuming as well. Still, she had dragged him there every now and then, if only to enforce a break from the equations. Without these places, without Rosie, New York seemed to him like an empty shell of what it once had been. Not unlike his life.
All the larger was his surprise when his house did seem to exist in this universe. Norman’s monstrosity of a house didn’t – he’d checked on impulse, if only to see whether an incarnation of the man or his son might exist in this universe. It appeared he didn’t. Otto’s own house, however, stood tall where it always had, even if there were strangers living in it. He didn’t want to linger, but he longed to see who the inhabitants were – the people who were existing in his bare carcass of a life. He wondered whether they owned his same timeworn copies of Richard Rhodes bibliography, or any of Rosie’s dogeared poetry collections, notes overflowing in the margins. They probably didn’t.
He sat on a bench on the bank of the Hudson for a while, occasionally kicking a stone into its icy waters. He found himself sagging as he sat down, the actuators uncomfortably positioned against wood of the seat. He couldn’t remember when he had last slept, or when he had last eaten. When the actuators in control, none of that mattered. All that mattered was his machine, and the work to be completed. Otto wished he could sleep now. He was cold, exhausted, hungry – and yet he couldn’t help but remember what he had run away from. Peter, the boy who had repaired his chip and restored his control over the AI, even when Otto had protested that he didn’t need his help. May, who had almost moved him to tears by offering him a glass of water. Even Harold Hogan, whom he had never met, but whose living room had made all of that possible. If anything happened to them, he wasn’t sure if he could ever forgive himself.
The cold wind slammed against Otto’s frame. It was a dark night, with few starts visible in the polluted night sky, and the waves of the river were barely visible. If Marko’s story was to be believed, this was the place where he would meet his demise. Would have met. He had quietly wondered what had happened exactly. Drowned with his machine. He was glad his Peter had managed to stop him, of course, but he found it hard to imagine the boy pushing the machine in the river, and ever harder to believe that Peter might have killed him. Now his mind was his own again, he realised that Peter must have been pulling his punches when he fought him. While Otto had his actuators, Spider-Man had his superstrength, and there was no way he would be as unscathed as he was if Peter had truly tried to hurt him. So he wondered how he had died. He wondered too at how much would actually be different, how much really had been changed. There was no telling now if he would ever return to his own universe. He was untethered, uprooted. A voice inside his head was telling him that this was exactly what he deserved. And for once, his metal limbs weren’t to blame.
In the end, Otto wound up wandering through Times Square again. The technological advances of this timeline were a wonder, and he met them the appropriate derision of an old man facing modernity, if only because the bright, flickering lights pained his damaged eyes. Then, a familiar face appeared on one of the large screens – or at least, a face that seemed familiar. This universe’s Jameson was clearly older and definitely balder than the Daily Bugle editor from his world.
When will people wake up and realise that everywhere Spider-Man goes, chaos and calamity ensue. Everything Spider-Man touches comes to ruin.
There was camera footage too. The apartment – the entire complex – was destroyed. Someone had died. The poor boy. Otto was flooded with guilt. Peter – this universe’s Peter – was only a high school student, and he had had to deal with the destruction, the death – please don’t let it be any of them – all on his own. The boy had treated him with kindness when hadn’t given him a single reason to trust him, had not done a single thing to deserve it, and he had left him. What kind of man did that make him? Drowning out the frantic noises of the actuators trying to spur him into action – they, too, had grown fond of the Parkers – he could hear Rosie’s voice in his head. The means. The opportunity. He had to return, despite of what it might cost. The most he stood to lose was his life, his sanity. He had lost both already, and more. If he could right those wrongs, he would. But there was nothing he could do about that now. He had failed Peter before, and he had a chance to make it right, do some good. It was his responsibility. That was worth any risk.