Beyond Their Petty Grasp
By Lejindarybunny
A/N: Ockfic. Not movie-verse, comic-verse...but not quite. AKA the Doc's tentacles are Not sentient, and he never met anyone named Rosie. Doctor Octopus is experimenting in dimensional transportation, when he finds himself in possession of an odd young woman he has no idea what to do with. Written for my amusement, yours is incidental. Hope you enjoy.
The first chapter is as long as it became. I have no idea whether future chapters will be of similar length. Also a word of warning BTPG contains an original character some would say is a Mary-Sue. I say judge for yourself, and not in the first chapter.
The rating is due to occasional strong language, future violence, and adult themes.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel Comics. ....well, I own a goodly number of marvel comics, but certainly not the company, or the rights to the characters. I am also not making any money from this endeavor, but if anyone from the aforementioned company reads this and sees fit to offer me a writing position, I would certainly not be opposed.
Chapter One: Midnight Premiere
After several months of extensive tinkering the dimensional transporter was finally finished. Or so Otto Octavius had decided. The only way for to tell for certain of course, was to test it. The Doctor was anxious as another of his magnificent projects neared completion.
Alright, so it hadn't technically been his experiment to begin with. History was full of scientists, er, adding to, their colleagues work, Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards seemed to have permanently scrapped the project. Well, Richards could sue him, if it took his fancy. Which, if he could find anyway to drag him into court, Otto was sure the notoriously litigious "hero" would do.
Besides, Octavius had been in the throes of scientific fervor when he had borrowed Fantastic's documents. A few months ago, after a short stint of jail time (before he'd bothered to break out) during which he'd rediscovered his Heinlein collection, a science-fiction series of novel's he'd not read since his boyhood. One of the books in particular had stood out to him, a novel in which the main characters build a machine to cross the dimensional barriers, only to discover when he did so that a number of these dimensions were places that were "fictional" in that world. The characters, for instance, had visited Oz. Otto had suddenly found himself with the burning desire to test the writer's supposition.
He stood back to admire his handiwork. "Very nice," he congratulated himself smugly, "if a bit unoriginal in design."
The transporter was roughly the size and shape of a freestanding shower, with a mounted control panel, and a lighted square one would stand on. Perhaps it was his inner Trekkie expressing it's horrid little self.
Otto smirked.
The device was really a sort of launch-pad, and he had to wear a small return device on his wrist. The device, which was disguised as an ordinary digital watch was preset to pull him
back here at in four hours, just in case anything went poorly.
Not that it would. Doctor Octopus was very confident about his latest project.
Yes, everything was in order. It was time to get started. In the name of scientific curiosity.
"Right then," he muttered to himself. making a few last minute checks on the control panel. He stepped onto the lighted square of the dimesional transporter.
He flicked the lever into the 'on' position with one of his metal tentacles.
As the machine came to life the stocky man was bathed in an eerie blue light that glinted off his metal arms, which he quickly hid beneath his lab coat, and shimmered on his sandy brown hair.
And then the lab was empty.
When Octavius appeared on a city street corner in the middle of a cloudy night, slightly dazed, and thankfully unnoticed, the first thing he did was adjust his large rectangular glasses, so that he could take a look at where he'd ended up properly.
"What's this?" he murmured, taken aback. The surroundings were distinctly familiar. He was in Rochester, upstate New York near his home town of Schenectady. It was a very technologically oriented city; in fact, he had visited it several weeks ago in order to acquire certain equipment necessary for his experiment from the very fine (now slightly less fine) science department of the U of R.
Well, the machine had evidently done something as he was no longer standing in his laboratory. The question now was whether he had merely been moved several hundred miles north in distance, and not in dimensional space at all.
A closer look at the dark skyline quelled this notion. While the Kodak and Xerox buildings still stood, the mighty Stark Industries branch tower was missing. So he might very well be in an alternate dimension. Equally possible was that he had been displaced somewhat in time, into the future to be exact. Not too far, as the cars he saw looked relatively normal and familiar, though distinctly more refined...
'I must find a newspaper,' he thought to himself. 'That way I can find out what the date is without sounding like an utter fool or a "loony".' He walked down the street past shops that he could not place as existing in his own time/dimension or not, until he came to a plastic newspaper dispenser. Which took quarters. Which he didn't have.
"Blast," he grumbled, as he patted down the pockets of his lab coat to no avail The only thing he had on him was a half-empty pack of cigarettes. He glared at the box, as it sat there. Taunting him. He glanced over both shoulders, then, when he was certain no one was watching him, quickly snaked a metal arm from his thick white coat, and with it, grabbed the door to the dispenser and discreetly ripped it from it's hinges. He then casually dropped the offending chunk of plastic grabbed a newspaper and walked along his merry way. Only by whistling a jaunty tune could he have perfected the image of false innocence.
Shaking the newspaper out deftly he harrumphed and adjusted his spectacles again, to peer more closely at the document in the poor light. He was rather more surprised than he had guessed he would be. The date on the paper was June 28, 2004.
He he had left he lab on August 3, 1998.
Six years was a plausible amount of time for the wealthy Stark Industries to go bankrupt, or simply pull out of the city, but unlikely. Also, why would the building be knocked down, rather than rented to the next entrepreneur?
He was just beginning to congratulate his own genius, (so what if Reed Richards had done the initial research?) when he was accosted by a rather ghastly sight. He rounded on a multiplex cinema, with a large banner proclaiming "Spiderman 2 Midnight Premiere".
Otto was monetarily stunned, and more than a bit annoyed. Someone had made a movie, no, two movies, about that wall crawling pest?!
But the more he thought about it the more it intrigued him, even though it seemed to point that he had merely (merely?) been thrown into the future. What if six years from his time Spiderman's identity was common knowledge?
Brown eyes glinted behind his spectacles in the neon darkness, and he strolled forward into the theatre.
Inside it was a teeming mass of humanity of every sort, from men his own age and older, to little girls no more than 13, to boys ages six and up. Quite a few of them were clad in read and blue pajamas and the like, jolting Otto into recognizing this as some sort of fan phenomena, on the order of a science-fiction convention.
Which made him realize he might be a little late to get tickets.
But, he stubbornly waded through the throng and approached the ticket teller.
"One for, er, Spiderman 2," he said, looking her in the eye.
"I'm sorry sir," she replied boredly, "We've been sold out for a week."
He glared at her. "Insignificant twit," he muttered, annoyed, as he turned to leave.
"Spent all your money on the costume and forgot to get the tickets?" said a rather mocking voice. "Silly rabbit."
Ock raised a heavy eyebrow and turned to find the owner of the voice. "Excuse me?"
The speaker was a girl, of perhaps eighteen or twenty, leaning, arms crossed, against the wall near the ticket booth. She was of middling height, and perhaps slightly pudgier than was 'trendy' these days (but who was he to be judging that?), had wavy black hair flowing a little further past her shoulders, and angular glasses were perched on her nose in front of grey-violet eyes. She was wearing a heavy, forest green duster coat, open, beneath which was a violet tank top, and black jeans. He hands were covered by violet gloves with yellow edging, and, in addition to her glasses, had a pair of large, violet lensed goggles on her forehead. It was rather odd attire, so Otto decided she too must be mimicking someone, though he had no idea whom.
"I just mean," she replied, "that it's a true and crying shame for such an obviously dedicated Ock fan to be left out in the cold on his big premier. A crime almost"
The eyebrow only went higher. "Excuse me?" he repeated. Ock...fan? Was that what she said?
"Well don't try to deny it in that get up!" she said with a grin. "Any comic fan would recognize you, I mean, your accent's not bad, if a little understated, and the bowl cut, whew, more daring than I've got in me, even if you didn't go all the way with the green spandex."
Comics...movie...fan...in his dimension, Otto Octavius did not have a lot of fans. Which meant that he was not in his dimension, but in one where it seemed that his life, or rather Spiderman's life, was... a comic book. The great doctor wasn't sure how to react to that just yet. Luckily, the girl kept talking.
"I mean, I have the general theme going on, but I didn't have the time or the resources to pull off something on that scale. I can almost believe you're hiding four metal tentacles under there. I mean, you look like you were ripped right off a panel Mr...?"
"Octavius," he replied automatically.
She giggled. "Yeah, sure, and I'm Carolyn Trainer. Anyway listen, "Otto" would you a like a ticket to tonight's big premiere?"
He crossed his arms. She didn't believe him, he thought amusedly. "And how would you propose to obtain such a thing?"
She grinned. "Boy you're really in character," she said admiringly, reaching in her pocket. "Simple, I bought a spare in case I got mugged on the way here." She shrugged, proffering the slip of paper to him. "I like to be prepared."
He took it from her asking, "You planned on still attending even if you were mugged?"
"Hey, I wouldn't have missed this if my parents had been killed in a train wreck this evening. Now come on, they're about to start letting people it. I'm Langley, by the way." She grabbed him by the collar of his coat and dragged him to the front of the line. Several people glared at them for cutting, but the ushers weren't paying attention, and the other movie goers were silenced when both Octavius and Langley both gave them (independently of one another) "I'm dangerous don't mess with me" glares.
The ticket taker let them in, ripping the pieces of paper apart, and once again Langley grabbed his coat.
"Come on, run! We have to be the first inside!"
Otto pondered the girl's enthusiasm, but followed her lead anyway. After all, he was elated from the knowledge that his experiment had worked, and also that he might finally learn Spiderman's identity. It was a rather infectious enthusiasm, besides, and he grinned to himself.
The girl threw them down dead center in the theatre, as she had promised, before anyone else was in the doors. The commercials had just begun, not even the previews, just still projected ads.
"Er, how long will we be waiting before the film begins?"
She gave him a look. "Well, if it's," she checked her watch, "11:23 and the movie starts at midnight, I'd say 'duh'."
Otto frowned, "Are you making fun of me?" he demanded, indignant.
She shrugged. "A little. So?"
"I don't much enjoy being mocked," he said, crossing his arms. "And I am beginning to grow irritated of your manner."
"Oh yeah, well who got you into this movie-" she began defensively, but then held up her hands in a submissive gesture. "Hold it, hold it! We are really getting off on the wrong foot here." She stuck her arm out for a hand shake. "Langley Tobias."
He briefly considered not taking it. But she seemed rather intelligent, if a bit over stimulated this evening, and she had relented. So he shook it. "Doctor Otto Octavius. Pleasure to meet you,"
Langley shook her head. "Why do you keep saying that? I mean, I'm probably the biggest fan of the illustrious doctor in the world, and I don't go around saying we're married...often."
This statement made Ock peer even harder at the girl. "Tell me, Miss Tobias, why on earth would you consider yourself a fan of...his? After all, isn't Spiderman the hero of the tale?"
She looked back at him like he was a little crazy. Which, he supposed wasn't altogether unreasonable, given whom it seemed to her that the question was coming from. A smirk played on the corner of his lips, wondering how she would react if he were to prove his identity beyond a doubt?
He had expected her to answer quickly, instead, she actually seemed to consider her words.
"I admire him, first off, for his genius, I feel for him, for the many wrongs and tragedies he has suffered. I think his exploits are cool, and find his disregard for the law, coupled with his personal morality intriguing. He's a complex character. I'm a lot like him, I think. There are other reasons, of course, but if I keep going I'll just wax fangirl."
"Interesting," he considered. "Very interesting. Tell, my, hypothetically you understand, if I were to prove to you beyond a doubt that I was indeed who I claim to be, how would you react?"
"Hmmm," she put a finger to her lips in thought. "Well, aside from fainting dead away, which is a distinct possibility, I would most likely be more attentive of your personal space, and afford you more courtesy... which, actually, I should be doing anyway. Forgive me please, I'm extremely exited tonight, I've been waiting months, and it doesn't occur to my geek mind that everyone isn't as excited as I am. So I'll try to be more polite...But back to the question...I don't know exactly. I would probably treat you mostly the same way, since you do seem a lot like him.
Langley, in her movie theatre seat regarded the man carefully as she answered his last question. She was becoming painfully embarrassed at how she'd been acting in the last few minutes. She should try to keep her little manias in better control.
It couldn't really be him, could it? Her common sense told her no. But her fangirl senses were tingling, so to speak. He looked so much like him. Not so much like the handsome Mediterranean actor they had cast for the movie, though he did share the nose, and the big, expressive brown eyes. His face was rounder, much more like the comics, (though not the original 60s comics either) his sandy brown hair was cut in a definite bowl shape around his head, and he was several inches shorter than the actor, Molina. By several she guessed roughly five, and, as Molina was 6'2 according to his bio, that made this man, whoever he was, a dead ringer for Ock, who's bio set him for 5'9.
No, this was just some paunchy aging fanboy. Granted one that was really attractive to her- no stop it, brain! There is a difference between fiction and reality, and you can't just go around hitting on men ten years older than you. What would mother say?
"But you can't be him," she mumbled almost to herself. "You're too young."
This seemed to surprise "Octavius", she wished he'd tell her his real name, as it would help her keep them separate in her head. He raised an eyebrow, and frowned, creating the beginnings of small lines beside his mouth.
"Oh? How old do you think I am?" he smirked.
"Well, you can't be more than 33, not possible," she decided
The theatre, she noticed, had filled up quickly, both she and the mysterious stranger had people sitting beside them.
He seemed even more taken aback. Had she guessed his age exactly, she wondered?
"How does being thirty-three exclude me from being Doctor Octopus?" he asked, seeming puzzled.
Damn, she thought. He had that accent nailed. Absolutely nailed. No. No stop it. This is not a fanfiction, this is your life. Do not even think about wanting to melt hearing his accent.
But, it's exactly like he's sitting right here beside me.
He is not.
He can't be.
"Well," she answered, "Ock is like forty-something in the comics."
He mulled this over. The expressions on his face went from surprise, to puzzlement, to calculation, exactly like a marvel character sheet.
Stop it! She warned herself.
"I see," he said, and then switched gears completely. "So, you obviously know what Spiderman's secret identity is." He seemed to be trying, and failing, to sound matter of fact.
Well, if he wanted to play it like he was really Doctor Octavius...
"Yes," she said. "Indeed I do. As does everyone in this theatre, and most people on the north American continent. Do you?"
"Er...why don't you, refresh my memory." His eyes glinted behind his spectacles.
She almost told him. It almost passed between her lips. But then, she thought, let's see how good a role player he is. Let's see how he reacts when he "finds out".
She grinned evilly as she was provided was a suitable excuse. "Can't," she said maliciously. "Previews are starting."
"Wretched girl," he said, pursing his lips. But he didn't seem really angry. Langley could tell with ease when Doctor Octavius was getting angry. This was just pouting.
Of course, it wasn't really the great maimed mad scientist she was sitting beside in the darkening movie theatre, as the previews began.
But maybe, just while they were in the movie, just while he stayed in character, she could let herself pretend.
Doctor Octavius regarded the screen with amusement as the previews began. They were mostly completely inane looking, one of the worst was actually for something he recognized.
"A Catwoman movie?" he questioned quietly.
"Doesn't it look awful?" she replied with distaste. "Other people shouldn't try to capitalize on the comic book industry, just because things like Spiderman and X-Men are really good."
"There is a movie about the X-Men, too?" he asked in disbelief. Was everything from his world reflected in the media of this one? He should have known better than to go looking for fictional worlds, it was the law of irony that he would stumble upon a place where it was his own life that was a fiction.
"Yes, two of them," she said, rolling her eyes. "And they're making a third. I hope Magneto's still going to be in the new one."
"Oh?" though he didn't follow it closely, Otto did have some grounding in the mutant phenomenon, and new that Magneto was a sort of rebel leader or something. "You admire him as well?"
She shrugged. "His ideas are better than Xavier's, but I'm not particularly militant. Besides, I don't think I'd be a mutant anyway, even if I were born in the marvel universe."
"Ah, I gather that in this world there are no super powered individuals?" he asked.
Her eyes narrowed briefly at him as he asked. Was she beginning to believe him? But then she
smirked and said, "Nope, not a one. Be pretty damned easy for you to run amok in a world like that, huh Doctor?"
Her voice was jibing, but her words were...true. If he stayed here he would have significantly more relative power.... "Well, what do you think you would be, in the...marvel universe, did you call it? And ordinary person?"
"Certainly not!" she protested. "Although I'd start out that way...I'd be myself, only with more power. The Marvel universe always gives wronged people powers, so that they can seek justice or vengeance."
"You consider yourself a scientist?"
"Don't give me that patronizing smirk, I am a scientist. I attend the U of R, physics major, tinker in my basement and I have an IQ that's probably higher than everyone else in this room."
He held his hands up. "Now now, no need to be offended. I was merely asking."
"Okay, I'm sorry. No one ever believes me. All anyone ever sees is a geeky girl who reads all the time and can't get a boyfriend."
Suddenly Otto felt entirely more sympathetic to her. "A familiar story for many, it seems. Er, if I might be so rude to ask, what is your IQ?"
"One hundred eighty six," she said, very, very quietly. As though it embarrassed her.
It made him furious that intelligent people were made to feel that way, apparently no matter what dimension you were in. "That is extremely impressive, Miss Tobias. It means that you are superior to many, many people." Though not him of course, his IQ was rather high than that. In the low two-hundreds.
"Not the way most people see it," she grumbled.
"Most people are exceedingly stupid."
"I'd noticed that. Can we talk about something- The movie's starting!" she gasped, a thrill of the same excitement she'd held earlier going through her.
Octavius' watched the beginning credits, and as he did, began to piece together what he was seeing. He turned to the young girl and hissed. "Peter Parker is Spiderman??"
"Yep," she nodded, a giggle in her whispered voice.
"You, you're joking..." his eyes were glued to the screen, and he was speechless as the beginning minutes of the movie dragged on.
How could Peter be Spiderman, how could he not know? Could it possibly be true? Watching as Peter, played rather poorly by an actor who looked little like the boy, changed into Spiderman, he thought to his own world. They were the same height...and build, and Parker always got those blasted Bugle pictures when he never seemed to be there...
Otto startled the first time he heard his name mentioned. Langley didn't seem to notice as she was absorbed in the movie. 'Doctor Octavius is a friend of mine'. Yes, before the accident Otto had been friends, or at least acquainted with, Dr. Conners. A chill went down his spine, and he involuntarily flexed his tentacles a bit. He was beginning to grow uncomfortable, pressing to his body so closely. But he didn't notice so much. The movie was downright eerie.
And then suddenly, as Otto was beginning to thin Parker's teenage angst would never end, it was his turn on screen. Or rather, someone who looked as much like him as any actor might. He was taller, and the voice was all wrong...
The girl seemed to be comparing him to the man in the movie, as she kept glancing over at him, and then at the screen.
And then, a few moment's they both whispered at the same time.
"Rosie, who's that?"
And then Langley continued in muted anger. "God damn it. I heard rumors about this. He was never married in the comics."
"I almost was," he muttered to himself, "But not to anyone named Rosie."
Otto watched the tragic story of a scientist's fall from grace. But it wasn't his own story. He'd never been really admired in his field, nor respected. Everyone had hated him, the worthless nitwits, only keeping him around because he was vital to their work. His work. But no one had ever gotten close to him, ever seen his brilliance. No one except Mary-Alice. He banished the thought bitterly from his mind.
The two glaring errors were that his tentacles were not artificially intelligent, certainly they didn't whisper things in his mind....though that might be a convenient excuse...he should try it some time... And also that he died in the end. Lovely villain redemption, very literate. They made him out to be quite the dashing Byronic hero, didn't they?
Those, and the fact that none of the things in the movie had ever happened to him, were all that was wrong with it. It was a very good movie besides.
As the lights came back on to a whiney teenage rock ballad, Langley stood up, looking largely dissatisfied.
"They ruined you!" she exclaimed, sounding disgusted. "I mean, him. It's almost like they never even read the comics."
"Come, come, it wasn't that bad," he mused, "They got the gist of it right, even if artificially intelligent tentacles are a bit far fetched..."
"But that's just it, change the motivation, and you change the character completely."
"True."
"I'll admit it was a good movie," she said. "I liked it."
"It was certainly very flattering," he said.
Okay, so it had been a good movie. She'd liked it. Molina was very handsome. But it just didn't ring true to her, because she had been raised on the comics, and the extremely faithful nineties cartoons. Why, the random Ock fan she had picked up that night was portraying him more faithfully...
She took a deep breath.
"Look, it's 2:10 am. I need coffee," she said, and then surprised herself by asking, "Would you like to come."
He checked his watch, (even though she'd just told him the time) and then said, "Very well. Coffee sounds...delightful, actually."
"Okay then, my car's in the parking lot..."
She led him outside to her little green Jetta, and opened the passenger door for him, thinking. 'I'm taking a complete stranger, one who claims to be a supervillain aka wanted criminal, out for coffee at two in the morning. Mom would have a fit.'
"Pardon the mess," she said jokingly as they got in. The car was spotless, with a lemony air freshener hanging on the rearview mirror.
"Yes, I see you are a complete slob," he replied wryly.
"The car's my Mom's blame her," she turned the key in the ignition.
"Ah."
Otto wondered why he was allowing himself to be driven out for coffee at two in the morning, in a strange dimension where his life was apparently detailed most accurately in a comic book, by a young lady who professed to be his biggest fan.
Not that coffee wouldn't be quite pleasant, and perhaps a smoke as well. He'd have had one right then actually, except that he didn't think the girl's mother would take kindly to anyone smoking in her car. Of course he guessed that Langley's mother would not approve of her driving strangers around in the middle of the night. His own certainly wouldn't have.
Which made him wonder, why on earth would a young lady feel comfortable driving a stranger around in the darkness?
He decided to ask. "Ehrm, Miss Tobias, you realize we've only just met, don't you?"
"Yes," she said, not taking her eyes off the road. "What about it."
"You are not at all concerned that I might be some sort of er, 'whacko with an axe' or something?"
She laughed a bit ruefully. "I can see the headline now "Comic Fan Slain by Supervillain Wannabe" I'd kill to go out with that sort of bang."
She was, suicidal?
Pulling into the near empty parking lot of the all night diner 'The White Knight' Langley seemed to be reading his thoughts. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not suicidal. I just...wish I was somewhere that mattered, I guess." She turned off the car, and opened her door. "Still in the mood for coffee?"
Suddenly he realized. "I'm afraid I don't have any money with me..."
Standing in a pool of streetlight, she laughed again. "And you were still trying to buy movie tickets?"
"Er, I suppose I wasn't thinking..." he admitted.
She moved to pat him on the back, but he caught her wrist. "Please do not do that."
She looked up at him questioningly. "Why- never mind." She shook her head.
"You do think I'm a 'whacko' don't you?" he asked in a pleasant, conversational tone as they entered the fluorescently lit establishment.
She replied in kind. "Insofar as all fans and role-players are nuts I suppose. And that leaves me in the same nut house they'd but you in, likely a few wards deeper."
Otto chuckled as they were seated.
"Two coffee, Tiffany," Langley said to the waitress.
"Do you come here often in the middle of the night?"
"Actually, yes," she said with a grin. "I'm a bit of a night owl. Or rather, I'm a bit of an insomniac."
"Indeed?"
"I get some of my best, and worst, ideas in the middle of the night, sitting here with a cup of coffee and a notepad.
The waitress, Tiffany, set down two mugs and a pot of coffee. Evidently, Langley was liked here.
"Haven't you bring a friend before, Lang," the black woman winked. "What's his name?"
"Uh, this is Otto, Tiffany, and we actually just met."
"Well, have fun." She sauntered off back into the kitchen.
"Told you I was here a lot," Langley said, blushing a bit.
"You also said you get a lot of ideas, what sort, if I could ask?" he found himself vaguely curious about the girl who's world he would be leaving in, he checked the return device, fifteen minutes. Where had the time gone?
"Oh, a bit of everything," she shrugged. "Essays, theories, poetry, sketching. Sometimes short fiction. Nothing remotely interesting to anyone but me."
"You shouldn't degrade yourself that way," he chided her as he poured thick black coffee into his cup. "If your IQ is as high as you say it is, I'm sure many of your ideas are nothing short of brilliant, and many of them are nothing short of disastrous as well."
She laughed, taking the pot from him. "You forgot illegal, as well. If anyone found my notes they'd think I was either a terrorist or a war-games fanatic."
"Are you?"
"Which?"
"Either."
"Not at the moment. Not really." she smirked, dumping an inordinate amount of sugar into her coffee.
He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's entirely good for you?"
"I'm positive that it's not, but no one's going to make me stop." She took a sip of the syrupy mixture. "Mmmmm, insomnia in a cup."
Otto chuckled. "Speaking of self-destructive habits, why isn't there an ashtray on the table?"
For the second time that night, a narrow, calculating look came into Langley's eyes.
"Um. because it's illegal to smoke in restaurants in New York State?"
This shocked and horrified Otto far more than anything he'd seen in the movie. "What? Since when?"
"I donno, like two years ago," she shrugged, still watching him, however.
"I see..."
"Tiff won't care if you do though."
"Will you?"
"Nope. I like smoking."
"Ah," he fished his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket, pulled two of the them out of the pack, and offered the first one to her.
To his surprise, she laughed. "Let me rephrase that. I like people who smoke. I don't smoke myself."
"Oh, why?" he was fairly sure he'd never mey anyone with that particular opinion before.
"Both my parents and all my relatives have smoked my whole life, so smelling the smoke is a comfort sense for me."
"Interesting."
Indeed."
She watched the stout man press the cigarette between his lips and inhale, then blow the smoke carefully out of his mouth.
"You smoke cigars too," she observed.
"Yes, how did you know?" he inquired.
"The way you exhale."
"You're very observant."
"When I want to be," she took a drink of coffee. That was a complement, wasn't it? She wanted it to be, didn't she? What was he letting himself think? "So what do you do?"
"I'm a scientist, my dear girl."
Langley tried very hard not to be ticked off. "Look, I'd really be more comfortable if you told me your real name at least. Thinking of you as Otto is really fucking up my fangirl senses, okay?"
First he seemed startled. Then he chuckled. Then he checked his watch. And he seemed to come to some decision. He put his coffee down.
"What if I told you my name really was Otto Octavius, could you accept that?"
There was the possibility that he could have had it legally changed so, "I guess so..."
"And what if I said I really was a scientist?"
Again, "I could accept that I suppose."
"Have you read any Heinlein?"
She was taken aback by the seemingly out of the blue question. "Yes."
"Number of the Beast?"
"What's that got to do with..." she set down her coffee. "You are not saying, what I think you are saying."
"Everything has to happen somewhere my dear. It was a pleasure meeting you." He stood up quickly from the table, and gave a sweeping court bow. As he did so, from beneath his coat a long, gleaming metal arm darted out, and pulled the coat from his back.
It was happening in slow motion, Langley would later swear to herself, or adrenaline had given her a crazy amount of speed. At almost the exact instant her brain registered the tentacle as it flashed in the fluorescent light, she darted over the table, knocking over the pot of hot coffee, but she didn't see it spread across the table.
He was turning around, and he was fading out of her reality, but not before she grabbed his shoulder with a cry of, "No, wait, Otto!!""
Octavius didn't really like being electrically shocked, even a little bit, which was what greeted him as he phased back into the reality of his laboratory. It was his dimensional transporter's circuitry frying. But why...?
He looked down.
Sprawled on the clean white floor of his lab was the young lady from the powerless dimension, clearly unconscious.
To be Continued...