JMJ

FOURTEEN

"NO!" snarled Doctor Octopus throwing off the front plate of the harness around his limp future self. "NO! NO! It can't end this way! I won't let it! I won't!"

He had never revived anyone before, but he understood it enough to attempt it. He also understood the low likelihood of CPR actually working, especially in this environment and with the condition 2014 Otto Octavius had been in. And if even the life support pack was unable to revive him, this certainly would not. But he was frantic. Beyond reason. He threw off the life support system—at least the life support system that was not the tubes jutting into his chest—and did what he could. He pumped and blew, but nothing happened. He fumbled with the life support system again with shaking fingers numb with cold. Reattaching it to the harness he tried to get it to work again. It hummed on, but there was no life in the future of Doctor Octopus. As he pressed his ear to his chest both heart and lungs sounded as if the machine was trying to blow air through a straw plugged with wet sand.

Behind him, Otto was only able to stand with the support of the stone brace into which he was pressed in the side of a towering cliff. He closed his eyes with head bowed, and he cringed as he pressed himself harder against the stone. The sight of Doctor Octopus' madness was almost worse than the dead monster on the ground.

"Grrr!" growled Doctor Octopus, and he threw his head towards his younger self suddenly. "HELP ME!"

Staggered, Otto popped his eyes open in alarm, but he quickly shook his head. "There's nothing that can be done!" he squeaked and almost choked.

Doctor Octopus returned his gaze to the dead Doctor Octopus in front of him and he shook his head too. For a few moments more he stared at the ragged face. Behind the gaunt and twisted mask he recognized all the features as his own. The nausea in his stomach grew to such an extent that he felt as though he would throw up. Squeezing his eyes shut, at last he could look no more.

"D—doctor…? Dr. Octavius?" shivered Otto in a quiet little voice.

A moment longer, Doctor Octopus lingered, and then with a heavy sigh, he lifted himself to his feet without the use of his damaged arms.

"We have to get him out of here," he said in a hollow tone as he stared into the empty snow across from him, and he wiped his mouth, finding that he was bleeding in the jaw. He glowered at the blood now on his hand.

Otto winced. "What?"

"He can't stay here for some brainless future archeologist to find," Doctor Octopus clarified, and after taking back his battery, he wrapped up the broken body and lifeless arms in two of his severed arms. "We must take him to his own time. It's time for all Otto Octavius to return…it's over."

Otto nodded solemnly.

#

It took a bit of creative thinking and a couple stops to get both pods to appear after the events of his 2014's initial decision for self-destruction and his disappearance into time, but they managed it well enough. Doctor Octopus thought that the best place to leave his dead future self was in his own lab. Here he laid him in the middle of the floor with the utmost respect. For a long time both he and Otto stood in that lab as though at a funeral service in all reverent silence that in time was interrupted by the return of Tinkerer. 2008 and 2009 Octavius took his leave…

"I'll stop this," said Otto in a calm voice as they stood in the unopened pod at their next destination.

Doctor Octopus made a face and wrinkled his nose.

"I promise," Otto continued as though he thought Doctor Octopus did not believe him. "I—I'll make sure the accident doesn't happen. I have no feeling but loathing for them now—those arms. I'll give them up. I'll go someplace far away. Leave New York. Start over somewhere else. London, Paris, or Tokyo."

"Disney Land," muttered Doctor Octopus dryly. "Indeed."

"Well, surely you don't intend to go on with this cycle of madness!" exclaimed Otto.

With a roll of his eyes Doctor Octopus opened the hatch and glared impatiently at Otto. Otto raised a brow. After a moment he complied with his older self's desire to take up the rear, but as Otto stepped out he jumped in surprise to see that they were not at his apartment or anywhere else that he recognized.

Holding his breath briefly he turned around in an attempt to return inside the pod.

With the remaining claw Doctor Octopus pressured him forward nonetheless out onto the tiled floor in the midst of the tomb of forgotten machinery. A second time machine stood across from them. The only light came from the pod itself until Doctor Octopus found a light switch for his little underground closet of the future.

"Where are we?" gasped Otto.

"I can't afford to rely on you to determine the fate of Otto Octavius," retorted Doctor Octopus calmly shutting the pod behind him. "All that's happened does not change the fact of who and what you are."

"B—but—!" cried Otto backing away from his future self uneasily. "After all that's happened, I—what do you intend to do?"

"You're weak, Dr. Octavius," said Doctor Octopus staring down at the cowering mass as though he was already making his point. "A spineless worm. When you go back do you honestly think you will make the life of Dr. Octavius better? Mr. Osborn is a crony for a crime lord. You've figured that out by now. You'll be dead if you leave the country or any such absurd thing that makes paranoid overlords squirm. At least on the day to which you are about to return, anyway. And even if they did leave you to go on your merry way, I don't want to know what sort of miserable situation you will get yourself into next."

"I—" Otto tried to say, but Doctor Octopus would not allow him.

"Weak! Miserable! Worthless thing that you are! No different from your father who could not handle life so much that he killed himself by drink and took it out on his family! Worthless like your mother who was so lonely she would grab onto any man that stepped into her life next such as that insufferable Mr. Hoffman!"

"But—!"

"No," came Doctor Octopus' firm reply. "There's no reason to debate over this. I've already consulted myself on the matter. There's only one thing that can be done, and that is to make myself go through everything until my time."

"But how can I possibly just go on like nothing's happened?" cried Otto throwing his hands imploringly out in front of himself. "I can't allow this cycle to go on! I can never be you! Calling myself 'Doctor Octopus' is bad enough. Yes! I'm a spineless worm, but you're no better! You're psychotic!"

"Oh," muttered Doctor Octopus who had by now spotted the old memory wiping machine tucked neatly away on a shelf. "You will have no choice in the matter, I'm afraid."

In a sudden movement he grabbed Otto then around the middle with one of the severed arms.

After a cry Otto tried again to protest and to plead, but Doctor Octopus had no intention of listening to him. Taking the band he placed it onto his head with his remaining claw. Then turning on the machine he flipped the switch.

"Please!" begged Otto, but the machine had done its work.

All memory of the time machine and everything that had happened had been erased, and Doctor Octopus stared down at his limp unconscious form in his arms with an almost emotionless expression. Then after a moment or so he administered also a sedative to Otto so that he would remain asleep for some time. It would not be as good as a true night's sleep, but it would do enough so that Otto was not completely exhausted when he would find himself waking suddenly on a bus to Oscorp.

In the most comfortable part of the closet, Doctor Octopus laid him, which unfortunately was not that comfortable. He applied, also while Otto was asleep, the false memory of waking up from Mr. Osborn's phone call with his memory machine; though he had never used that feature before and could not be certain it would work. The only thing that encouraged him about it was that he himself remembered waking from the phone call even if only vaguely. Therefore it must have been successful.

Later, in disguise, he helped a still groggy Otto onto a bus. He seated himself groggily on his own, and Doctor Octopus remembered also that the time between waking up by the phone call and arriving at Oscorp on a bus was a complete blur. Or rather the absence of the memory. At the time of the occurrence it had confused him a little, especially since he had arrived in a bus instead of a cab. But he had forgotten it all rather quickly once his job had been placed before him.

The time line was back to normal.

That was all the mattered.

And yet…

Somehow he could not bring himself to go back to his own time just yet. Back at the apartment after he was sure that the 2008 and 2009 Octavius' at the beginning of the time fiasco would be gone, he sat down at the table with a cup of coffee from the pot which still had a little coffee left. It had not yet lost all its warmth, but it would not be long, nor did he feel like reheating it. Taking a sip in an otherwise motionless manner he leered with a face to the wall through which he would break in early November of this year.

What a peculiar thing time is, he found himself thinking.

It was simple. An infant understood it well enough: first something is one way and then it is another. First a wall is clean and untouched save for the laughable photos hanging there of his intellectual achievements with Oscorp and Tricorp. Then it is demolished. Nothing could be simpler, but he found himself pondering over the concept as though it was a conundrum of the utmost complexity. But then were not usually the simplest things in life also the most complicated when one tried to break it down scientifically and analyze it from a close perspective. Though he revolved the concept, utterly churned it into mulch, he did not get anywhere with it until at last his mind wandered off and he did not know exactly what he was thinking.

In some ways he felt canceled out as though his mind had reached a certain impasse through which he could not go on, but he did not feel trapped. Lost, maybe—a thing wholly new to Otto Octavius as Doctor Octopus.

After all that had happened, and he had only had one sip of caffeine, after a few hours he found that he had been asleep, for he suddenly woke up with his head in his arms over the kitchen table.

The pain and aches from the fight in the ice age all fell upon him now, but his first thought was to look at the clock.

He relaxed.

Otto would not be back for a few more hours.

Closing his eyes then he sipped the last of his cold dark coffee, and he ate a slice of toast with a thick spread of butter that he quickly made in the toaster. Then, rising slowly, he cleaned up the mess that he and Otto had left behind however long ago that had been in their bodily forms rather than time.

Seating himself on the sofa now he took the time machine he had to shove inside with his arms for lack of the time machine working properly, and he began to work a little with the wires to make sure that he would get where he wanted to be when he arrived at his own time.

When that had been accomplished he paused once more, and then turned on the machine set for himself at the exact time he left. He put the time forward then for five minutes. Without hesitation he moved on. For the last time he awoke from time's slumber, and for the last time, he stepped out of the pod. He glared at the floor a few moments before looking around the empty command room from which he had first set out on his little adventure. The screens still showed him all that was happening outside of the walls. Near surreal did it feel to look upon his work he had left behind. Only five moments ago he had come up with the idea to find out if Doctor Octopus had succeeded.

No, he thought. Not with the decisions he made anyway …

But could he still fix this?

He thought over the plan and analyzed it for weaknesses, but he shook his head. The motivation to think about it was as thinking about a plan that had already failed, and it had in all sense to him. It would fail literally. It would fail in the long run. There was no reason to go on with it.

He turned around suddenly and regarded the time pod with some disdain as though it had just said something to him rather stupid. Then after a few moments more he closed his eyes as though it had been something so stupid that there would be no way to respond to it as one claiming that the grass was pink and purple rather than green.

SMASH!

In a sudden violent motion in which his body did not move, the remaining claw grabbed the side of the pod and crashed it into the security screens. He smashed it a second time against the tiled floor, and again and again. He took a wrench into his hands and began to smack it. He gutted the inside then with his claw, trashed the machinery aside far more easily than its outer casing. There was soon nothing left of it but chunks of metal and wires inside a dented pod.

Again he paused, staring with grim satisfaction down at his work. Reaching into his little side closet from which the pod had been originally taken he found also the blue print and plans for the machine. These he threw into a crate and most of the time machine minus the pod with it. He took his leave of the command room without anyone suspecting there to be anything wrong for he had made it soundproof as well. He walked silently through the halls with the finesse of a cat.

Out into the streets he took his crate wrapped in one severed arm. He could not rightly use his arms to walk with very well having only one claw, but he did manage to slowly climb his way over to the dockyards where he came to the top of an abandoned building overlooking the bay. With his claw then he plunged a hole in the ice and broke a big enough gap into the sea to throw away his damaged wares. Opening the crate he reached out the papers and then tossed the damaged pieces of time machine into the water. The crate he threw in after it. Then taking the papers he ripped it up into tiny pieces and tossed them into the wind.

Well.

That was done.

But what was he to do now?

His future self no longer had a time machine. That in itself was a good thing unless he figured out a way to remake it, but time machine or not, there was still the looming future. The next time he was caught they would remove his harness with or without his consent. In order to continue Doctor Octopus he would have to attach the harness back into his spine. The same one. A new harness may not have the same link that this one had. It was a part of his mind now because of the radiation of the exploded sun. There seemed to be no escape, but there was another thought pressing upon his mind as he stared at the ripping hole in the bay.

His desire to be Doctor Octopus had been greatly severed. If he returned now there would be little joy in it. It would be a fight. A fight that would never end until he died, and he had no doubt that it would be in his own explosion now without him to stop himself. He would become that irrational creature that tried to kill him.

Though he tried to avoid it, there was only one answer that was pressing in his mind like the squeaky little voice of pre-Octopus Dr. Octavius that was still alive in him no matter what he thought. One could not escape oneself after all. It was that same miserable weakness that eventually caused his downfall. Doctor Octopus was a failure!

He growled.

A failed experiment!

He sighed.

The only way to escape would be to allow them to remove his arms and not put them back on again.

Now he could, of course, make the most of the time he had left before that happened. He could try one last attempt to kill Spiderman or make one last impact on the city, but he couldn't. He lost the motivation. Yes, even the motivation to destroy Spiderman. For the first time since that fateful explosion truly he saw the wrong in killing him. Whatever had happened, it was out of Spiderman's character to have tried to purposely kill him, a weak little scientist wormy and revolting or not. String him up like a part of a mobile, certainly, but not kill him. Any fool with half his sanity could see that.

A sorrow he hated to feel swelled up inside, the sorrow of a child who could no longer go on with his tantrum. He was tired. Tired like an old man. That baby in Schenectady had been one Octavius too many! He felt utterly ancient. He had been alive during the ice age for all that was worth.

He was sick of thinking about and analyzing in any time or form Otto Gunther Octavius. Someone else could think about him for a while.

#

"Doctor Octopus," came a voice on the communicator in the broken command room locked from the outside so that no one could enter without the use of a specialized claw. The voice was that of the Vulture and he sounded concerned if not incredibly impatient. "Doctor Octopus, do you read me? Has something happened? It's long past overdue. Otto! Are you there? The Six have assembled for hours! They're getting restless! What's happening? Otto!"

"Isn't that him on the TV?" muttered a deep confused voice muffled further back.

"What are you talking about, Rhino?" Vulture demanded.

"That's him alright," said the annoyed voice of Sandman. "Right there. He's in police custody!"

"What!" Vulture snapped.

The line went dead.

#

"After managing to sneak to the window of Captain George Stacy's office, Doctor Octopus claimed to want to turn himself in," said the newswoman, "and that he was allowing Captain Stacy to take him in personally. As the criminal dryly calls it, he is giving himself up as a Christmas present. Although the notorious criminal mastermind is now behind bars, police remain on alert for anything suspicious. This is not the first time that he has claimed reform, but so far he seems to be giving away a plot that had been timed to go off at midnight Christmas Eve. The conspirators in the plot, the Sinister Six among others, are thought to be all arrested at this time, captured with the helped of the Spiderman. All except for a certain Carolyn Trainer who has not been yet found. The hideout has been searched, and the entire area has been put under police surveillance. It is being considered that former scientist Dr. Otto Octavius be readmitted into Ravencroft in the hope of his rehabilitation; though he is still being questioned about his attack on Pr. Chet Boraas at this time. Only time will tell if this is indeed all a sign of Doctor Octopus' truly putting up his tentacles for good or if this is yet another elaborate scheme of the self-proclaimed Master Planner."

END

NOTE: My sis and I would like to dedicate this fic to our good friend DryBonesReborn who I always considered the Doc Ock girl and who supported this project from the beginning. ^-^