so i actually wrote the first draft of this in the hour before my chemistry mock gcse exam in february (i got a 9 tho its chill!) after finishing my hive reread. anyway in light of miss c. orona cancelling everything and putting me in sexy, sexy quarantine, i've finally had the time to clean this up and edit it to publishing standards. i've entertained the idea of writing a book 9 for hive for a long time, and while i dont think i'll ever have the stamina to undertake a project like that, i'm open to posting more later-year vignettes like this one to give these characters the dev they so desperately need if any of yall would b interested. also, walden's timeline is DESPERATELY screwy, so i've taken artistic liberties and this has been written as though the events of the series occurred in the gang's first 3-4 years at hive. ok? ok.
"Mr Malpense," Nero calls out, and Otto turns, catches himself, flounders in half-realised sentimentality like a fly trapped in a spider's web. There's a sense of finality, bitter-tasting and tangible; it fits like a too-tight second skin, and he waves off Laura and Wing and Shelby, tells them not to bother waiting. In six hours the first Shroud will arrive to drop off the first batch of their year's H.I.V.E graduates, after all, and that's time that shouldn't be wasted. Otto follows Nero alone.
He'll admit that he's probably spent more time in Nero's office than the rest of the Alpha stream put together, and that's including those lost in his particular year's disastrous Hunt; while his later years at H.I.V.E were calmer than the first three, he's always been one to push his luck, and Nero treats academic dishonesty as severely as he does general treachery and/or threats to H.I.V.E's continued existence. It's not like the frequency of these visits aids his recollection at all (Otto's photographic memory comes in clutch every time, irregardless if it's helpful or not), but it adds to the sombreness, the sense of nostalgia. Before H.I.V.E, Otto thinks briefly, everything was rendered black and white. School, in the short time in which he attended, was useless, and the orphans at St Sebastians mere tools at his disposal. The way Otto sees the world now is in vivid technicolour: the idea of returning to a monochromatic world seems too much to bear.
When Nero looks at him, or Otto looks at Nero - he doesn't know which comes first; there's symbolism in that somewhere, if Otto was the type of person predisposed to such literary analysis - it is absolute.
"I'd be lying," Nero says finally, "if I claimed not to be relieved that this day has come."
"If you're relieved then H.I. must be thrilled that there's no longer going to be me or Laura to poke around in his network," Otto grins, though his smile feels a little plastered on. The jest is only for show. H.I.V.E has molded Otto from a child into something like a young man, possibly even a decent one. St Sebastian's had never been a home in the way that H.I.V.E is - was, he corrects himself, he's technically a former student now, has been since this morning - and it isn't like there was ever anywhere else. The multiple near-death experiences just add a little pizazz. He says, "Thank you, sir. For everything."
Here's the thing: Shelby says that Otto has daddy issues, and Wing says he considers him and Otto to be like brothers, and sometimes Otto does not know how to deal with this. He can be told that he's human enough until the cows come home, but then Laura is proof that blood family is important, that there's something that ties you to people outside of, well, collective trauma and camaraderie. And yet despite all that, Nero is the closest thing that Otto has ever had to a father, as much as Otto is loath to admit it. He knows that if he were anyone else, he probably would've been expelled before now. He knows that if he were anywhere else, he probably would've ended up dead. 'Thank you' does not seem enough. How do you thank someone for saving you from the terrible person you might've become?
"It's quite alright," Nero says. At first glance, he is as inscrutable as ever, but Otto has always prided himself on being able to read people, and there is an aura of sadness around him that Otto can neither pinpoint nor describe. Nero hesitates - a rarity - and says, "Your time here was the exception, not the rule. I have always aimed for H.I.V.E to be a safe space for my students. I know I have failed in recent years. Primarily in matters concerning you."
Otto has been the exception to many rules in his life. Something about this one makes his heart ache.
"Most of it was my own fault, sir," Otto says with a frown. "Or Overlord's. Being a student here is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. The various life-threatening extracurriculars that came with it were just part of the fun. Call it life experience."
"Otto," Nero begins, and then cuts himself off. When he smiles, it is not threatening, or proud, or disarming. It is filled with pathos from start to end, a curve of tragedy. Otto knows that he put some of it there. For a brief, stuttering moment, he hates himself. "One of the rules of G.L.O.V.E was that no member was to use child soldiers. That was why the Furans were expelled in disgrace in the first place, not that it was of any use. Hearing that being called life experience-" he shakes his head, lips tightening. "H.I.V.E was founded to prevent exactly what happened during your time here. And I don't think I'll ever be able to impress on you enough how sorry I am."
His expression suddenly snaps back to normal - for Nero, at least - and he reaches for something in his desk. It's a package, wrapped in plain brown paper with Otto's name written on it in block capitals; the handwriting seems vaguely familiar, though that's about all Otto can say. "Don't open it in front of anyone," Nero says. "That is not an order, it is a request, but I would much rather you honour it."
"I don't suppose you'll tell me what's in it?" Otto asks doubtfully.
"Oh, but that would ruin the surprise," Nero says airily. "Consider it a token of goodwill, Mr Malpense."
So they're back to Mr Malpense. Otto almost prefers it this way. Nero addressing him on first-name terms makes him feel equal parts vulnerable and too grown-up; things are less complicated like this.
"OK," Otto nods. "Though I never thought you'd willingly describe something as good, sir."
"Hilarious," Nero rolls his eyes. "Get out of here, Malpense, before I put you and the rest of your friends in one last detention. For old time's sake, of course."
"Of course sir," Otto grins, and it's only when he's left the office in its entirety that he realises: that was it. He's never going to be summoned to Nero's office again. A rite of passage he's always taken for granted is over.
When he returns to Accommodation Block Seven, package in hand, Shelby eyes it warily. "I think it's a bomb," she announces.
"Why would Nero give him a bomb?" Laura questions scaldingly, flopping down on Otto's bed beside him. It's not even really his bed anymore; in a couple of weeks, some snotty first years will move in and take over the place with no idea of the inhabitants before them. "What did he say to you, anyway?"
"Before he gave you the bomb," Shelby pitches in, and Laura throws a pillow at her to the sound of a muffled squeal.
Otto sighs, feels childhood slip away through his fingers as he stares at a mark of blu-tac on the wall; they'd ripped down all their homemade posters and decorations the night before and burned them while Nero pretended to turn a blind eye, and the impermanence of it all makes him nauseous. He's nineteen and thirteen and sixteen all at the same time, memory indistinguishable from fact, time as elusive and precious as gold. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"Nero," Shelby reminds him, throwing the pillow back at Laura. "Did he catch onto our whole forbidden bonfire thing?"
"Oh," Otto says, shakes his head, puts one foot back into the present. "No, he wanted to apologise. It was weird."
"Nero apologised?" Shelby's eyes bug, vowels elongate and trail the American way. "What for?
"Everything, I suppose," Otto says. "Again, it was weird. Then he gave me this package, and told me not to open it in front of anyone."
"Mega weird," Laura agrees, knitting her brow together. "He makes a terrible villain, you know. Even worse than Wing, maybe."
"Hey," Wing says, in his typical emotionless manner. He doesn't seem upset in the slightest, because of course he doesn't; Otto still has no idea as to how Wing even got into H.I.V.E in the first place. Otto has met more villainous charity workers. "I could be an excellent villain-"
"If it weren't for your morals, yeah, whatever, big guy," Shelby cuts him off with a wave of her hand. "It's the daddy issues, Malpense."
"Did you just imply that Nero has daddy issues?" Laura asks dryly. "I have to admit, that's a new one even for you, Shel."
"It's true," she says. "Nero and Otto are basically the same person. Conspiracy theory of the week."
Laura shudders. "Aye, what does that say about my taste in boys, then?"
"Horrific," Otto says, slinging an arm around her shoulder and listening to her laugh. "Do you think he meant it?"
"Nero doesn't strike me as the type to say such things insincerely," Wing frowns, ever-serious. Wing has been a fully-formed adult since the age of thirteen, complete with more emotional gravity than Jupiter. Otto, for his part, is pretty sure he's on par with the moon, though perhaps acknowledging one's lack of self-reflective ability counts for something at least. "Although I suppose he never struck me as the type to apologise, either."
"He struck me, alright," Shelby says. "From the moment he didn't beat us for trying to sneak out through the laundry hatch. Pussy. The Contessa always scared me more."
"Not Raven?" Wing queries, his eyebrows puckered. Shelby rolls her eyes so dramatically that, for a split-second, the blue of her iris is entirely obscured by white.
"You've gotta be kidding," she says. "Raven's almost as soft as Nero. She says hi to me in corridors. Mother Theresa wants her sainthood back, or whatever."
Laura howls with laughter, throws her head back and stretches out her legs over the gap between Otto's bed and Wing's. Her socked feet just about reach, until Shelby grabs her ankle and drags her to the floor with a cackle; Laura laughs and laughs and laughs with her hair spilling out behind her in one coppery wave and Otto thinks, yeah, we'll be alright. The future is a delicate and unpredictable thing, but then so is the core that controls H.I.V.E's geothermal energy derived from an active volcano, and that hasn't failed yet. The package from Nero is still on his bed, but he's no longer dying to open it. It can wait.
Otto, at risk of jinxing the whole thing, has a future. He has time.