JMJ

Odds & Ends

PROLOGUE

Liz knew that Mark would have had no reason to trust him. If she had known about the proposal ahead of time she would not have trusted him either. It was not the fact alone that Dr. Austin Octavius was known to be related to an infamous criminal mastermind. After all she was related to a super villain herself, but she would not have trusted anyone. How he had at last talked Mark into it, she could not fathom, nor had Mark explained. She had been too thrilled to care when she got to visit him in person. Having done nothing criminal that was of his own free will since a juvenile Mark was even going to be released from confinement. All the experts had proven him to be as biologically clean as the first man to walk the earth. Of course she had come fearing the worst anyway. She had come almost angry, but when she saw him, how happy her brother was, and the proofs upon proofs of his cure, she almost fell to the floor.

She was still wiping tears from her eyes as she left him.

So many people had abused her brother's condition so long. Certainly Mark had done plenty of things in his youth that one cannot be proud of with his own consent, but no one deserved what had befallen poor Mark. To have one's entire biological makeup disrupted by a transformation at the will of any creep or loon with the controls!

But the nightmare was over.

Before she left the building her cell rang.

Startled from thought, she reached for it from her purse and found that it was her daughter asking how things were going. Also to ask something about supper. The fourteen-year-old girl had never made supper herself before, and her two older brothers were not exactly being helpful. In such a good mood as she was, Liz laughed before explaining.

"I'll tell you all about Uncle Mark though, when I come back," said Liz and she was hanging up when she just about ran smack dab into him, the doctor himself. Though, she did not know it was Dr. Octavius until she turned around and he began to apologize for not looking where he was going.

He was a funny little man, dark hair in his face and a pair of round glasses that made his eyes look like great blue marbles. Stocky in build, but not exactly fat, he had the look of a fuzzy little marmot without the teeth. His red tie was loose; his white coat a tad too long, the light blue shirt underneath seemed not quite pressed. He did not seem like anything but a little scatterbrained worker fresh out of college at a weather institute or some such place, but hardly the genius to cure a condition that no one before him had even tried to think to cure. But it was he. It was no psychological or psychic intuition or anything like that which told her. She would have thought nothing of him save for the nametag dangling clumsily on his coat.

"Dr. Octavius!" she exclaimed before the little man had quite finished his apology.

"Yes?" said the little man.

With tears again welling, she felt an overwhelming feeling to hug the blank-eyed scientist. Throwing out her arms she clasped him around the shoulders in a tight embrace.

Staggered Austin had to rebalance himself, but he tried to smile gently as he patting the crying woman's arm a little awkwardly.

"Thank you!" Liz sobbed and she kissed him on the cheek before stepping back from him.

Austin looked down at the floor looking all around rather embarrassed.

Liz shook her head and smiled. He was just a silly little nerdy boy. That's all. She laughed through her tears and touched his shoulder once more as she said, "Thank you for everything. I don't know how or why! But you don't know what you've done."

Of course the little science geek did not know what to say. They never did. But she would not embarrass him anymore. With one last smile she parted with a whisper, "Bless you."

Adjusting her purse then and wiping the tears out of the already smudged makeup around her eyes, she headed for the door.

#

Austin lowered his head thoughtfully as he left the building that evening, leaving Mark Allen, the now former Molten Man, to live the rest of his life as normal as could be had at this point. He was older now than when Doctor Octopus had disappeared, but there was still a life ahead of him especially with such a caring family as the sister from which Austin had parted a few hours ago.

you don't know what you've done …

Liz's words brought to mind his father's words before Austin had left for New York City. Although he had said them many times before, the last time he said them was the most profound: "You don't know what you're doing." It was not in exasperation or anger as he had used in the past to try to dissuade him. (Honestly, Austin himself could not rightly explain why he could not listen to his father). At the airport after his mother's embrace and his own sister's tears, his father left the greater impression. It was stated calmly and darkly in that manner that he had only ever known his father able to use though certainly not abuse. Austin recalled his grim face and steady grey eyes staring straight into his, and he heard in that tone the words which his father meant to say, "If you do not heed this last warning you will not return. Not with what you intend to do. And who you are isn't exactly advantageous either."

It sobered the mood of his feeling of success with Mark Allen.

But it was not as if any person cared about poor Mr. Allen anymore except for his family.

Mr. Allen had been locked away for years without any criminal paws grasping for his power. There were new super villains, monsters, and deadly toys running around the city enough to occupy the power hungry. Austin would surely go unnoticed in the forgotten recesses of the city for the time being. Picking up what others tossed aside, surely no one would care. He could not count on that forever; he was not naïve enough to think that, but as long as he could.

Shutting down his laptop and zipping it back into its case, he headed for the nearest street corner to hail a cab.

The evening was rather quiet, or at least ordinary. Just people moving about to go to their destinations in the sea of rumbling vehicles and waves of lapping voices.

Since his arrival a few months ago he had seen a glimpse of Spidergirl once catching a pair of thieves in a getaway car, and he had been thrilled to say the least. Thinking of it now as he looked up at a rooftop a block down, he smiled a tad wryly about how much of fish-gaping outsider he must have looked standing on the crosswalk staring down about a block away at the swinging girl with her high pitched "Yahoo!" before descending upon the helpless criminals. What could he say but that it was true he was a geek?

Superhero action in the flesh! What could be better?

He relaxed comfortably in the backseat of the cab with his laptop case on his lap. A little swing livened his short legs as he leaned back like a child happily off in his own fancy.

With a late supper of Chinese takeout and a nice warm bed afterwards, he felt rather good about himself overall. He thought again of Mark and his family. That was why he was doing this. Not for a front row seat of heroic action but because it was the only thing in life which to Austin felt worth doing. It was right and in a manner that could not be explained as if the very cells of his body knew it to be true. Perhaps Spidergirl felt quite the same way.

Setting his glasses onto his nightstand and turning out the light in his tiny but cozy apartment he fell asleep shortly afterwards. The sound of soft snoring soon followed, harmonious with the central air blowing gently from the floor.

The blinds were closed to block out the flashing neon lights right across the street. The sound of music faintly penetrated the walls, but Austin hardly heard it when awake anymore much less in his sleep. He was soon so sound asleep in fact that he did not hear a couple other noises far nearer than the nocturnal activity outside.

The first of these series of sounds came across as a queer sort of buzz somewhere else in the apartment. The second was a padded thump followed by what might be described as a wet sizzling sporadically sounding on and off before it stopped before the bedroom door.

One could almost feel rather than hear the pair of eyes peeking through the crack of the already open door to see what went on inside. The door pushed open. It did not squeak and did not quite touch the wall before stopping, but it was at this time that Austin began to slowly rouse. He would have likely woken on his own within a moment or so, but before he could so much as open his eyes he felt a rough kick on the side of his bed at which he immediately jumped upright in alarm with a gasp.