Disclaimers: I don't own Ock or Harry.
This is the Harry Osbourn Abuse Chapter. If you like Harry, you should probably stay away from this chapter.
Our Future
By KoD.
Harry Osborn's voice, of course. He could barely detect a slur – the boy had been drinking again. Again. T'was a bad habit.
"Just come to the door," He replied, not raising his tone to match the boy's.
Otto could almost envision Harry paling. Could almost see him stand from his desk and slowly rest a shaking hand on the telephone.
"I'm sure you recognize my voice, Harry. In which case, I will continue speaking. I know how protective you are of money. Therefore, my options will be based on it. If you do not open your door, I will tear it off the hinges, and send it flying into your luxurious home. I will make sure it hits many, many of your precious things. I will also do this if you call the police. And I will know if do. I can hear your little heart beating from out here." A little lie, but he knew that Osborn would believe him, "Or. You can open the door, and we can have an intelligent conversation between two perfectly sensible human beings. Both of which have lost something precious to them, and gained a few more enemies."
Just as he'd expected, the door opened. Standing in the doorstep was Harry Osborn, looking worse for the wear. His eyes were bloodshot, and his breath reeked of alcohol. He stared at Otto, who graciously invited himself in.
"You don't mind if I sit on your couch, do you?" Octavius motioned to the leather couch behind him, and Harry shook his head wordlessly. Oc sat down, setting his hat and sunglasses aside, "I hope you don't mind if I don't remove my coat. I find it hides a multitude of sins. And arms."
"What do you want?" croaked Osborn, "What do you want from me? You've taken my money and my company, you've destroyed my name and taken things that had innumerable value.....I don't have anything left for you to take, except my life."
"I wanted to have a sensible conversation with you, just as I said."
"You're not a sensible man."
"And you have been drinking an obscene amount. Scotch is strong, you know. You shouldn't gulp it down the way you have been recently. You could die from liver damage sooner then you want."
"Not like anyone would mourn me."
For such a spineless, cowardly whelp, he's surprisingly correct.
"You know, Harry, you didn't use to be like this. Even when I saw you on our previous encounter. You were not nearly as bad. Has something happened?"
"Why would you CARE?" The younger Osborn sat down in a plush leather chair, staring to the side.
"Why, after everything I've gone through, I am still quite human. I have thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams, weaknesses and strengths......" Octavius glanced thoughtfully to where Harry's gaze sat, a spot where a white tarp covered a section of the wall.
"Get out of my house." He spat, looking directly at the doctor, "Get out of my house now before he—"
The doorbell rang.
Harry stopped in midsentence, and Otto glanced thoughtfully over, "Who's that?"
"It's Peter," again, the boy's voice had taken on a wasted croak, "I have to...talk to him and I don't want him..."
"Parker? Knowing I'm here? It's quite fine. We have a certain...pact. I'll go open if you want."
"No, that's fine." He shakily got up and opened the door.
"Harry?" Peter asked, his brow wrinkling in concern, "Harry, what's wro...." At this point in time, the superhero's eyes finally met with the doctor's, and he didn't need to finish the sentence, "Doctor Octavius?"
"Hello, Peter." He gave the boy a somewhat courteous smile, "Harry and I were exchanging in...well, trying to exchange in pleasant conversation, but it was not working too well, I am afraid."
"What are you doing here?"
"Getting more tritium," He replied with a little smirk. At the look of concern that settled on Parker's face, Oc shook his head, "No, not really. Besides, I took everything he had last time. As for what I'm doing here...I really have no other place to be and.. what was that, Harry?"
"Nothing." The Osborn sat back down in his chair, gripping the armrest so tightly that his knuckled were whitening, "Nothing at all. Would you mind," His voice grated against gritted teeth, "Leaving?"
"Why would I?"
An uncomfortable silence settled over the too-big room. Peter sat down in a desk chair that he pulled over, but the feet of the chair made no noise against the floor. None of them moved, either, and the squeaking of the leather went unheard as Harry shifted, cleared his throat, and finally spoke again, "Well?"
"Well what?" Otto glanced to Peter and then to Harry, lifting a bushy eyebrow.
"Leave."
"Oh! You misunderstood me." He chuckled softly, "I meant, 'why would I leave?' rather then 'Why would I mind?'. In other words, yes, I do mind. I have no intention of leaving your luxurious apartment. I find it to be rather comfortable."
"Doctor...."
Otto shook his head. He stood up and walked to the balcony, and both Peter and Harry followed him.
"...there are four holes in your coat," the former pointed out, not quite sure how to break the silence that hung over them.
Otto rolled his eyes, leaning on the balcony railing, "Yes, that's where the arms go," He said a bit dryly, both him and the tentacles noting the sheer obviousness of this, "Right now they're being courteous and remaining behind my coat. Unless you wouldn't care, of course."
A little taken aback by the strange courtesy that Octavius was displaying, Peter glanced to Harry, who glanced back. They both nodded.
"Why, you are both so kind."
"What's the occasion, Otto?" Osborn asked, a sneer finally curling into his lip. Otto turned and grinned, the arms fanning out behind him, thought his coat. Specifically, the four holes which had been pointed out earlier.
"Finally I see some of the real Harry Osborn making an entrance. Not the drunk sniveling wretch," His tone was condescending, "that I saw earlier. There is no occasion. I just wanted to see if you were dead yet," Special emphasis on the 'yet' part, "Or mad. I'd say you looked rather maniacal last time I saw you."
"You didn't look particularly in your right mind either. "
"That's because I wasn't." He smiled a strange smile, "But you are clearly back to normal. The..."
Sniveling, spineless, cowardly, idiotic, gluttonous...
Otto chuckled in the middle of the sentence, grinning at one of the arms, "That's not polite."
"What?" Peter lifted an eyebrow, glancing to the arm, which looked at him.
"They called you," He looked over at Harry, "Sniveling, spineless, cowardly, idiotic, gluttonous......greedy.....foolish.....alright that's enough."
Harry said nothing. He snarled, in rather animalistic fashion , and walked back into his penthouse-esque-apartment, "At least I'm human."
"Says whom?" Otto's voice trailed behind Harry like the tentacles that trailed behind the doctor himself. Oc hadn't moved from his spot on the balcony, Peter quietly standing near.
Harry reached down to his desk and picked up the glass, gripping it tighter then he should have. His knuckled were white again, as he turned and flung the glass toward Octavius. One of the arms caught it in mid air, not even breaking it, and set it down on the balcony. Otto hadn't even blinked. Harry just glared, his face filled with rage at this man, this doctor, dare he call himself, had pushed his buttons so badly.
"I'm not a freak who had mechanical tentacles attached to his back." Harry said, glancing back to Otto again, his face covered with a maniacal smirk.
Otto's expression flickered between three or four expressions in the space of a second. Finally, it settled on a cold glare, "I've got more of a life then you do."
"Is that so, Tentacle-boy?"
"Don't call me that. That nickname is reserved for someone who you don't have enough class to lick the dirt from her boots."
"So the mighty Doctor Octopus has a girlfriend, doesn't he." Harry smiled dryly, then took a drink from the scotch, watching Otto's face contort in rage, "Careful, don't lose her like you did the first woman in your life, you didn't even deserve that skank, that bag of flesh and bones, no brains at all and –ulp!"
Otto Octavius' face was contorted in sheer fury, the tentacles not particularly pleased either, all four lashing out, one of them grasping Harry Osborn none too lightly around his neck, lifting the boy of the ground and pulling him close enough so that Octavius could smell alcohol on Osborn's breath and Harry could feel the anger emanating off Otto in waves. The other three arms glared at the boy, and Otto leaned in close, hissing in Harry's ear, "If you ever, ever, ever say anything like that about Kat or Rosie, I will filet you. Filet. Do you know what that means, Harry Osborn? I will use these tentacles," Two of them snapped for effect, the third revealing a serrated spike and holding it next to Otto's head to complete the effect, "And peel the flesh off your bones. I will take your skinned body, and dip you in the Atlantic Ocean, so that you burn in hell from the salty water, and just as you are about to pass out, I will drop you in the middle of the city, so that the pigeons can pick at your eyes, and the carrion birds can eat out your intestines while you still live. And I will cause you pain, Harry Osborn. Pain that you can not even imagine. You have no idea what they can do, Harry. What we can do. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" Octavius pulled back from the boy's ear and glared at him, teeth gritted. The three tentacles opened correctly and watched Harry from behind the doctor.
"Over. My. Dead. Ass." Sputtered the boy, trying to struggle out of the tentacle's grip.
"That can be arranged." Octavius hissed, "You seem to think you are invincible. That the press, the law, everything, will immortalize you. You are wrong, Harry. You are painfully, horrifically, wrong. You will die, and you will be buried, and your name will be nothing but the failed creature, the wretch that tried to be his father's successor, and failed."
Harry's struggled renewed with greater effort as the other three tentacles lifted from behind Otto. They snaked around Osborn.
Sensing something bad, the other college student backed up, "Doctor, no!" Peter shouted, getting a running head start and aiming to knock Harry's body out of the grasp of the metal arm. However, the three arms that weren't occupied were very much aware that Parker was going to do this, and they were prepared. One of them lashed out and caught Peter in the gut with the flat side of the closed claw, the other two grapping the boy's wrists and tossing him aside, the boy skidding onto the balcony, his wrists bruised but intact. With this done, the three actuators returned to their spots around Harry.
"Break his arms," Otto Octavius, also known as Doctor Octopus, snarled to his mechanical tentacles.
They were more then happy to comply.
Oc dropped the writhing figure of Harry Osborn. Blood and bone fragments fell onto the expensive wooden floors along with the man.
"I deeply apologize that we were not able to have an intelligent conversation, Harry. Perhaps we should start learning other peoples' boundaries." He sneered at the fallen form, then whisked over to pick up his hat and sunglasses, "I also apologize to you, Peter, that you had to see that." With a bow, he opened the door and stepped out of it, the arms slinking back into the holes in his coat.
Peter was stunned. He wasn't sure what had just happened. That couldn't have been Otto that just did that, it had to have been the arms, but yet, Octavius looked as in control and as sane as any man, if not more so. The reasoning for the action – insulting the two women in the man's life, one of which he had indirectly killed, the other the only person to accept him – was understood. But the action itself, the sheer thought of the man shattering Harry's forearms, was beyond him.
He glanced toward the writhing figure. Harry was moaning in pain, trying weakly to hold his arms, bone and blood showing.
Peter blinked back to reality and picked up the phone, dialing 911.
"Hello? 911? Yes, I'm calling to report a man who was attacked by Doctor Octopus," He bit his lip even saying it, "His arm bones are broken.....forearms......uh...28th and 51st West.....Thank you." He set down the receiver and kneeled down near his friend, whose face was twisted in agony.
"911 is coming, Harry. Just hang on a little longer."