Disclaimers: I do not own Ock, his tentacles, whatnot. I own Kat.
I know Ock's name is spelled wrong. Comment, and love comments.
Our Future
Kat wasn't much for athletics, but her body was wiry. And these doctors were no Olympic athletes. She managed to avoid their grasp easily as the second figure dropped down and broke the leather strap around Otto's body, then, with a huge grunt, tore the ring around the arms. Kat was about to jump onto the table and head back up the vent when a hand caught her ankle and she smacked her forehead clear on the side of the operating bench, giving her a nasty gash. Otto, now free from certain restraints, heard the thud and growled, his eyes widening in anger as three of the arm shot out and grabbed the other three doctors. The first one was still out cold, and the bumps the other two were getting would keep their lights out just as well. Octavius groaned at the remaining arm, which had a significant amount of damage done, and basically, it wasn't moving.
He hurt us! He nearly destroyed one of us! We should kill him! You should kill him! You should cause him pain, peel the flesh from his bones, drop him in salt vats....
Octavius gave a weak cry and fell to the ground, clutching his head. Kat and Spiderman both glanced at him, but the superhero shook his head, "I need to get out here."
As Otto fell, his arms froze somewhat strangely in place, as if they were lost. They would sink and open their claws, pinching and snapping, and then they would shut and sink close to the fallen Octavius, and then somewhere between those two. She wasn't quite sure why it was all happening, but her gut nagged at her. She glanced at the vent, then at the superhero (who was making his exit) and back to Oc, who was clenching his head so tightly she was afraid he'd puncture his own skull.
He jumped into the vent, leaving a line of web for them to leave by, and then was no more. Kat placed a hand on Otto's shoulder and gave him a squeeze of comfort. She did not know what was happening. She knew it was bad.
We must! We must kill them! We must kill them all! Give us control, Otto, they deserve it! One of us is weak and hurt, and that should be repaid in blood! This woman should get her hands OFF us! Off you! We should attack tha t monster who DARED take those sharp blades against us, that monster who put that electrcin ring around us and—
Otto painfully remembered once, probably on some sort of school trip, he had gone to the ocean and stood in shallow water. Once in a while a wave would lap against his ankles, not moving him. One of them however, had grown larger then the little waves and spashed his chest, sending him sprawling backwards and into the sand.
The arms were a wave. A gigantic wave of furious anger and rage and revenge. This one, however, he would not get thrown back into the sand, let the arms take the tentacles and mutilate the men how they pleased. No! Stop it! We will NOT harm him! Calm yourselves, now!
Against such a creature, Otto!? This creature tried to separate us from you! Why do you hold back on sucha foul devil?!
He's only following orders. His thoughts were strained. The tsunami of the arms' anger had caught him off guard, and he was now on the defensive. He dug his metaphorical feet into the mental sand and held out against the tentacle's AI. If the arms retained control over themselves, they'd mangle the doctor. He HAD to keep control. HAD to keep safe. Out! Take me out!
That creature must—"OUT! NOW!" He shouted vocally, startling Kat. It also brought her back to the present...which conveniently included painfully splitting headache. She blinked, and wiped her brow- coming away with blood. Cursing softly, she glanced at Otto and grabbed a piece of gauze from a nearby tray, pressing it to the wound.
Beads of sweat had appeared the forehead of the doctor as he struggled with the mind he lived with, "Listen! You will TAKE ME OUT OF HERE!" He growled, "You will NOT hurt him! Get OUT!" He clenched his eyes shut and dug his nails into his palms, his brow etched with concentration.
Kat took the hint and used the web line to crawl into the vent. After making her way outside, she saw the red and blue figure clinging to the wall oppisite here. That figure helped her out as she held on to some of the webbing, standing next to Spidey and across from the vent. He looked at her through the white eyeholes in the mask and asked, "What's going on?" The way he asked it, however, implied he already knew, "And what happened to your head?"
"The mind of the tentacles and the mind of Otto Octavius are fighting for control over the tentacles....the arms want to destroy the doctors who are unconscious....and Otto doesn't.....and I banged my head on the operating table," She pulled away the gauze and looked disgusted at it – she'd probably need stitches. But, considering what she'd just done, she had no idea where to go.
The clanking inside the building meant something to both of them, and a tired Doc Oc emerged. His face was sweaty and tired, but his claws were clean.
"did they...?"
Otto shook his head, then looked up at Spiderman and Kat, "I do not know how to thank you....both of you..."
"Consider it their debt," Spiderman pointed to the tentacles, which each gave him their own sort of mechanical nod. "Their debt to repay."
"As for me...keep doing my homework and I'll be happy. It's almost three and I want lunch," Kat grinned at Oc, "Let's just go back home."
"I'd like that." Oc agreed, "We can see what happened to my arm," He finally looked at her again, "What happened to your head?" at her shrug, he sighed, "Grab onto my back. "
"Your back?"
"That's what I said," Octavius said, a bit irritated. He wasn't fond of repeating himself, "Quickly."
So she did. Quickly. The arachnid hero took off with a shot of webbing, as Ock slowly began to climb up the wall, the sawed tentacle falling dead at his side, the other three trying to be as quiet as possible. By now, all three minds knew that the hospital staff would know – Otto's struggle with the arms in the air vent and the operating room had not exactly kept it very secretive. The staff would tell the police, and unless they got out of there quickly, the police would be back with those goddamned EMPs.
Once they were on top of the building, the three arms covered quite some ground. Leaving marks and chisels in the roof as they moved large distances in a single movement, the arms knew they had to get out of there. Otto's words only spurred on their motivation, even though, they knew, that doctor that had taken the saw to one of them would die. Die a horrible, painful death.
And their human companion was well aware that they would do this no matter WHAT he thought of it.
Otto shivered a little. He wasn't sure whether it was from the cold or the though of more blood on his hands. He tried to suppress it, without having much luck. Kat glanced at him, "Are you alright?"
"Fine," He grunted, walking on his true feet over the rooftop.
"You're not fine, are you?" She pressed, her voice tickling his ear in a rather obnoxious sort of way, "You're worried."
"I'm FINE." He insisted, the tentacles leaping out and snagging the next building over.
"We're not going to my apartment are we?" Kat finally voiced her concern as the three arms quickly scaled the building.
"What took you so long to notice?" Otto replied, a bit nastily.
"I noticed to begin with, but didn't want to say anything about it till now. Where exactly ARE we going?"
"To my lab."
"Your lab?"
"Your apartment does not have the tools necessary to fix my broken tentacle." He said flatly, "My lab does."
"Isn't that where you first....." She let the subject drop as she saw the lines on the sides of Octavius' face twitch. He was either grimacing or frowning, but she couldn't tell without seeing his face. At the dropped question, Oc gave a little nod. His arms creeped down as quietly as possible the building, going through a broken window.
"There is glass all over the floor. I suggest you remain on my back."
The arms took several steps in, Octavius' feeti hovering over the ground by a foot or so. He glanced around. It seemed that only parts of it had been inspected in refrence to Rosie's death and his own failures.
But were they failures? This was why Otto did not like to come here. He'd been here once, after his second fusion mess-up. This place had too many questions about it, similar to a haunted house suddenly gone quiet. This place made him doubt himself, and at the same time, filled him with an incredible confidence that almost made him want to create another fusion machine. Wanting to get ou tof here as quickly as possible, the doctor swiftly pressed into the next and the next room, until finally he came across one that was laden with tools.
Kat dropped from his back as she looked around, "Homely setup you've got here. You're the most outward genius I've ever seen."
Oc merely lifted an eyebrow and turned to the desk. He slid open one of the draws and pulled out cables of all sorts, as well as several different pieces of sheet metal. His three remaining arms grabbed tools from the room.
The college student leaned in the corner of the room. Her eyes darted around, boredom etching into her features. Happily discovering a roll of paper towels and a garbage can, she tossed away the bloodied gauze and pulled a piece of paper tower to hold over the not-so-nice gash in her forehead. It gave her an abominable migraine, making her head throb painfully. With the new bandage over it, she sat back down and gazed at Otto. She struggled with her courage for a moment before striding over to Octavius and lifting up his weakened tentacle. The damage was pretty bad... the arm itself had lost a chunk that was similar in shape to pac-man's mouth.
"....does it hurt?" she asked, setting the broken arm down.
"It feels like someone is holding a lightest match too close to my skin," He said, staring out into the distance, "To them, it feels like someone has taken a chunk of out one of their arms...similar to what you would feel like if someone took a hacksaw to YOUR arm." He replied without looking back. After taking down all the crap he needed, the arms grabbed the pieces and immediately began to work on the fourth one.
Kat blinked, "They do all it themselves?"
Oc sat down in a chair, watching the arms work, "Yes."
The woman took a place on top of the desk, pushing more of the tools aside to make a spot for her butt, "So, um, how long do you think that will take?"
Oc closed his eyes, then opened them again, "Probably a few hours. Seven or eight, they say."
"Seven or eight is not 'a few'." She grumbled in reply, "Seven or eight makes me miss my psychology classes. All of them. Kat missing her psych classes is not a happy Kat."
"Kat could go outside and get arrested if she pleased," Otto gave her a sardonic smile, "Or, she could ask Otto to give her a ride, and HE could get arrested instead. Or, even, she could jump out the window and fall to her death."
The college student narrowed her eyes at the doctor and sighed, "You're making me miss my classes!?"
"Yes, I am." He gave her that same smile, and one of the tentacles placed down it's soldering iron and snapped at her threateningly.
"Well grr to you, tentacle." She replied, flicking her fingers in it's direction.
The arm grabbed the soldering iron and went back to fixing the broken arm.
Otto winced. Kat glanced over in the silence that followed, "Cut yourself?"
"Does it hurt if someone gave you stitches without novacaine?"
She nodded, "well, that would hurt like shit. I mean...like....a lot."
"That's what it feels like."
"Are you serious? I mean you're doing a pretty damn good job facing that sort of pain, I mean I wouldn't think so by the way your expression doesn't change, because.."
"Why are you stumbling?" Oc looked up at her from watching his tentacles, wincing slightly again as one of them pulled the wires to connect, "You normally do not stumble over your words, like you're doing right now. Is something wrong?" His deep set brow wrinkled, "Are you truly that concerned over missing your classes?"
She shook her head to both, "No, I was just thinking about your connection to them..." She tapped her chin thoughtfully, "And how and to what extent."
"We are the same person, save that we have two minds. Think of it in that aspect." He went back to watching the arms work.
"Do you want to play poker?"
Octavius growled, "Would you stop interrupting me?"
"You're not doing anything," she pointed out smugly.
"Why poker?"
"Because I like playing cards. And I'm bored. And it's REALLY not a good thing when I'm bored. I have a tendency to mess things up when I'm bored. And I don't think I need any help with messing things up. Especially when it comes to a certain scientists who fused a certain set of mechanical arms to his back." She jumped down from the table with a THUD as her feet landed on the floor. Walking over to Octavius, she placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled the cloth off and flipped it over, "This is a nice coat."
"Thank you." He said grudgingly, swatting her hand away.
"Where'd you get it?"
"We stole it a long time ago." He commented flatly, "And fine....I'll play poker with you."
"Awesome!" She pulled a crate over and sat down on it, then another for the table. The loud crashing that emitted when she dropped one on top to make the table higher made Otto wince, and he shook his head with a sigh
Time began to pass. They played hand after hand, both of them winning and losing equally. However, it didn't seem to matter. Kat was focused on the arms' psychology. Their aims in life, if any. Their personality, but, the one that interested us was her relation to Otto.
She' considered calling them symbiotes. Otto Octavius and his mechanical arms. They'd fit the description, surely, but there was something about them that seemed to nullify the sheer idea of thinking of the arms as depending on anyone. They were so....so self-aware, so confident and arrogant and smooth that it was almost they like they could live alone if they so tried. And the control issue between Otto and the arms.....it was mind blowing. She knew that the arms were destructive, while, as far as she knew, Octavius was a fairly peaceful, extremely focused, loner. She could only imagine what Otto went through went through with the AI.
The AI. The sheer brilliance of it was extraordinary. She couldn't fathom the intelligence of the doctor. But, even so, she knew it had not been Octavius' intention to create something so.....remarkable. They had evolved. The idea of a machine's evolution scared her, deep in her subconscious. They were performing on the same level as the human brain.
Extraordinary.
Meanwhile, the movements of the doctor were distracted, his eyes on the cards but his gaze seemingly unfocused. The current conversation on the damage taken to the fourth arm kept him occupied. The man with the saw had apparently sliced straight through both the main cord that sent Octavius' thoughts so he could move the arm, and the cord that send the arm power. The three working compared it to shooting someone in the head and breaking their spine – everything else was perfectly intact. At this point, the arms were explaining how to fix it, and unfrounately, all three of the arms were needed fo the actual fixing, so it was Otto who had to retreieve the parts.
Otto, pass us the tweezers.
Otto reached up and grabbed the tweezers, placing them on the table as he glanced back at his cards, "Tweezers." Kat glanced up at him as he spoke, and she looked down at her own cards and they played.
Solder.
"Solder." It was passed as well. Kat glanced up again, and he motioned to the arm with his empty hand. She nodded in the silence.
Wire cutter.
"Wire cutter." Passed.
Wire.
"Wire." Passed.
Chainsaw.
"Chainsaw," Otto's hand began to grope for the object on the table as he looked at the cards in his hand.
"Chainsaw?" Kat echoed, setting down her own hand, "Why the HELL do they need a chainsaw?
Oc blinked. He had been so focused on the game and his arms that he'd actually lost focus of what he was really doing. He had set himself on automatic mode on the orders the tentacles were giving him he wasn't actually paying attention to what they actually were. His focus snapped back, he blinked and shook his head, "I don't want to play anymore." He told her, pushing the cards back and looking up at her, "Let's do something about that gash on your forehead."
"It's fine, Otto, really."
"No, it's not," Octavius replied, the arms mentally noting this was the time she'd called him Otto, "You're bleeding and you need stitches. I have thread. Come over here and I'll stitch your head up."
"My head is fine," She said poutily, still trying to staunch the bleeding, "Really."
"No, it's not, really fine. It's as bad as our broken tentacle. You banged yourself badly on the operating table and you need to stitch that up otherwise you'll bleed to death."
"Pleasant," With that comment, she scooted closer to Oc, "Fine, fine, if it makes you happy."
One of the arms placed down the metal it was working and handed Otto a needle and some thread. The man took both, carefully threading the needle, "This will hurt."
"I could guess. Your comparison to cutting tentacles and stitching wounds comes painfully back to me."
Chuckling, he shook his head, "No, I actually had stitches without novacine not too long ago." He pushed his hair back to show the wound on the side of his head, the stitches previously cameouflagued with his hair, the wound hidden, "When you were out partying." He dropped his hair back and shook his head, hiding the wound completey from view, "Now....."
"Now....?" She looked more then a little nervous, holding the blood soaked towel above her eye to make sure blood didn't leak into it, "Hey....Otto...what now?"
She glanced at Oc. His eyes were unfocused, glazed over. His features, besides his eyes, were twisted into an expression that Kat couldn't recognize. Carefully, cautiously, she gave Octavius' shoulder a little shake.
The glazed look in his eyes didn't change, but his hand shot up and grabbed Kat's, squeezing painfully, "Otto, let go!" When he didn't, she tried to pull her hand out, but the older man's grip was much stronger then her own. She winced a little at the grip and reached out, grabbing a fistful of his hair, and pulling as hard as he could. Otto's mind may have been hazed, but the pain was real enough, and he dropped Kat's limb. She held it close to her body, ignoring the blood (very, VERY slowly stopping) on her face. Her face wrinkled in concern and she smacked the doctor on the side of the head, hard enough.
Finally, Otto's eyes refocused. He looked up at Kat, confusion in his irises, and shook his head, "What?"
"Ow! That hurt!" She said, her hand not the only thing hurt, "That REALLY hurt, Otto! What the hell?! You got this glazed look in your eye, like you were some psycho, and then I shook your shoulder to try and snap you out of it, and you grabbed my hand in this vicegrip!" she displayed her hand, which was now all red, "And it HURT! Like, seriously, painful!" She glared at him from the non-bloody side of her face, "And I pulled your hair to wake you up and now you're like 'what' and that, seriously HURT!"
She gave him a little hurt glare, and Otto was clearly confused, "Let me sew up your head.....then, can you reexplain?"
Kat gave a little nod. Otto carefully threaded the needle, then places it down and grabbed a piece of paper towels, handing it to the girl. She cocked an eyebrow, to which he responded, "Bite down on that. I don't need you screaming in my ear while I'm trying to stitch up your head."
Not quite sure whether to narrow her eyes at his cold tone or thank him for the advice, she bit down on the towels and closed her eyes. Oc picked up the threaded needle and wiped away the blood with his other hand.
Dropping what they were doing, the three working arms zoned in on Kat's injury. Two miniscule pincers slid out of one of the arms, and with almost majestic grace, they took the needle from Otto's hand and moved very, very close to the cut. The human of the pair was grateful that Kat's eyes were closed, because he had freaked out when he'd seen those red glowing lights (or were they eyes? They seemed far too expressive to be just lights) of the claws so close, and he was connected to them – he had no idea how she'd react.
The needle pierced her skin, and Kat's face twisted in pain. The tentacles continued their work ruthlessly and simply. Otto admired them in one aspect – they just kept going, and going, and going on what they were doing, but yet, thought it absolutely repulsive how they did it without a care for anyone or anything else.
Otto, tie a knot here.
Octavius glanced at the stitching in the girl's head. It was inhumanely precise...which, on second thought, seemed natural, given the fact it had been done by a machine. Although his fingers weren't exactly thin and nimble, with help from the tentacles (it seemed most things he needed help from the tentacles, nowadays), the knot was tied. The paper tower in Kat's mouth had just about been grinded to shreds.
"You can open your eyes now," He responded softly, "it's done."
She opened her eyes and glanced around – the lack of red anywhere in her vision was a new thing, "Thanks."
"They did it, not me," He cocked his head towards the arms, which were now going diligently back to their work on the last arm.
"Thank you all, then," She nodded to them, though they did not acknowledge her. Kat gingerly felt the wound above her eye, the rough but even stitches. It still hurt, and she still had a painful migraine. The thread felt oddly intrusive, thought it was much less then the time she'd broken her wrist and had a pin inserted into it, "Hey..um...Otto?"
"Yes?" His head was bowed a little bit, though Kat couldn't fathom why. He didn't turn as he answered, seemingly focused on the tentacles' work.
"Do you have, like, a bathroom?"
The question was clearly an innocent, normal question. The blood from the wound had dried around her forehead and eye, making it sticky and uncomfortable, not to mention crackly and gave a rather metallic smell. And Kat just wanted to clean it.
The question infuriated Octavius, and he didn't know why.