AN: HAH! More angst. I like this sad-chapter better then the previous one though.

Disclaimers: I do not own Ock. He belongs to Marvel. I DO own Kat. If you take Kat I will BEAT YOU. BADLY.

Dedicated to Yume ) and LRH ) for rping with me. I luff you both.

Our Future

.kod.

Kat winced as she watched the tentacles bring Otto into the bathroom. She did not follow, but the bathroom was only a short walk away, and she could hear him vomiting from where she was.

The weird thing was, she had no idea why. Otto had stepped in the glass, and she hadn't been there, and then she didn't hear anything, and then there was the sound of uneasy, uncertain steps and the man was looking like he'd seen a ghost. Kat had never seen him that bad. Katarina was worried.

When Katarina Morrigan was visibly worried about something, it was serious.

She pressed her ear to the door. There were no sounds, vomiting or otherwise. She opened said door and a terrible smell blasted her, but she swallowed the bile that threaten to rise in her own throat and breathed through her mouth, "Otto!"

"Kat......." His voice was weak, a whisper as he watched the floor with an unfocused eyes. His gaze was heavy-lidded, leaning against the closet bathroom door as best he could, tentacles slumping around him, "I miss my Rosie."

"She was your wife?"

He gave a fraction of a nod.

"I'm sorry. I bet she was a wonderful woman." The college student sat down next to the doctor, leaning her head on his shoulder. This time, he was too broken to comment.

There was a silence. Then, finally:

"She was the most wonderful creature in existence." Otto's voice was hollow and empty, as if something had sucked the life out of him.

"I'm sorry." Eying the tentacles, Kat continued, "You should probably get to somewhere cleaner, that smells nice. I'll clean this up for you if you want..."

"Thank you," The actuators lifted him off the ground and as quietly as possible, left the room. He shut the door behind himself, leaving Kat alone.

She opened his bathroom closet and pulled some paper towels out. And on second thought, got some air freshener too.

"When you're done," His voice drifted softly through the corridor, making Katarina wonder vaguely how long the hallway was, "Go back to your house." She didn't have time to answer before she heard the soft mechanical clanking of the arms continue until she could hear it no more.

It was nearly 2:36 AM. Otto knew this because when he asked for the time, the arms' AI insisted on being as precise as possible. They'd only given him the seconds once - after that, he told them that minutes was small enough for him.

He didn't care about being found now. The people that would find him at this time of day would be the drunken college students and the crack cocaine dealers, both of which would believe they were hallucinating.

So he clanked and smashed across rooms with reckless abandon. Well, if it had been HIS reckless abandon, he wouldn't be going very fast very far. The tentacles wanted to get this over with. And quickly. This was terribly inefficient. All this time moping over some dead pile of flesh and bones wouldn't create anything. Wouldn't get anything done. In fact, it would undo so much they had worked for, and they weren't pleased.

But their programming was kicking in. Even without the inhibitor chip, they had been designed to serve Otto's needs. He needed to see Rosie's grave, or at least, that's what they were getting from his brain signals. Octavius' brain was pretty forceful upon this. There were few things he was more focused on. One had been destroying the fusion reactor in the Hudson, the second, more recently, not killing the doctors who had attacked them so vehemently. Almost destroyed one of them.

In other words, they had too. They were forced by the brain-waves emanating from the cerebral cortex, reverberating into the neural port and overriding the self-serving intentions the actuators really had.

Again, Otto thanked the night as he descended through the streets. He reached down into a closed vendor's cart (or rather, had a happy little hole made in the awning of it) and hid something into his coat. The tentacles asked about it, but he didn't answer. Instead, with a brisk order, they were off again.

The landed outside the cemetery with a muffled THUD. The tentacles had landed on the soft wet grass. They pulled out of it almost immediately, as the wetness posed no problem, but the entire concept of getting mud in their joints seemed extremely unpleasant. They lifted him over the closed gates with ease, then slunk into his coat.

He knew where her grave was. He couldn't explain how or why, and neither could the tentacles, but he did. He stopped in front of a headstone, set into the ground.

Otto kneeled down on the ground and slowly dragged his fingers over the stone.

Rosalie Michelle Harris
Beloved Sister and Daughter
1966-2004

Octavius felt a lump in his throat. His Rosie was here. She was his beloved wife, though there was nothing about this. Nothing about him. Nothing about how much he had loved her, about the life they'd shared, it wasn't her life or his, it was theirs...

Are you done?

Leave me in my peace. I do not want to hear your voices.

Fath—

Do it.

"Hello, my Rosie..." He smiled softly down at the stone, "Are you alright,

in heaven? I hope you are......I do not think I will be joining you. Heaven is no place for freaks and monsters, or murderers like me. I have sinned so much since I killed you, Rosie. I am afraid of my own shadow."

There was a silence as he stared at the stone, head bowed.

"-....the man I see in the mirror isn't me anymore. They call me Doctor Octopus now. The man in the mirror is Doctor Octopus. You remember when I was creating the actuators, when I displayed them? They were beautiful, weren't they?" He smiled again, an expression of lost hopes and dreams, "You had suggested they could do dishes for us while you read to me. And then I said that perhaps they could hold the book, so you and I could hold hands while you read. I remember it all so clearly, now Rosie, and every time I think of it, I feel less and less like your Otto. I feel like a freak. I feel like Doctor Octopus."

He stopped, swallowing. A shiver ran through his body, though it was a windless, still night, "I'm afraid, Rosie. Afraid of them. People hate me now, you know. If you were alive, you would hate me for what I've done as well....I've hurt...even killed.. people, Rosie. I...I don't know what to do anymore."

Father, we hate to interrupt your peace, but someone comes...

He nodded in response, finally standing up. There was a rustling noise, then a soft thud, then another, followed by the faint smell of roses.

"You always loved roses, my Rosie..."

Otto Octavius glanced down at the grave again, then looked around.

Where am I?

In the cemetery, Father.

I know that! Where in the cemetery?

We know not.

Where is the exit?

There are many.

He heard the sound of a car being parked and glanced around. He felt the tentacles press closer to his body to try and hide even more. The doctor eyed his surroundings. No trees, nothing to hide in or under. Moving swiftly, but awkwardly (the absence of the help of the arms felt weird), he crouched behind a large stone.

"Who's there?" croaked a voice from the car, "...damn early people who insist on seeing their dead people illegally..." From the deepness, Otto decided it was a man. The actuators grumbled, the arms' sharp senses picking up the words, "Get out here and I won't arrest you!"

Otto, of course, had no intention of moving. And, of course, he didn't. He heard the wet, squishing noises of the person's feet on the wet grass, and they were getting louder. The person was coming closer.

"Alright, whoever's there, get out or I'm calling the police!" His voice raised, the faintest hints of fear picked up, "I'm getting out my phone right now!" The man took another step, his foot no longer squishing. Instead, it made a sort of rustling, crinkling noise, "What? Oh....I stepped on someone's...wait a second, there weren't roses here last night..."

One of the actuators snuck out of the coat and crept around the large tombstone, opening and letting Otto see through its eye.

The cemetery keeper was indeed a man - a tall, young man whose hair was shaved, the barest red stubble just starting to grow. There were deep bags under the boy's eyes, bags that reminded the doctor almost of his own appearance. But besides the bags, his eyes were a faded, pale blue, he suspected that once, they were clear, sparkling and bright. Otto had the distinct thought of his job sucking the life out of him. Metaphorically speaking. Hopefully, not literally.

The boy had stepped on Rosie's grave, on the roses Otto had left there. He stopped, then kneeled down, moving the flowers aside, "Oh, that's Doc Oc's wife....wonder if the creep was here. Bet he killed her."

Flames of rage burst up in Otto's mind. Him?! Kill ROSIE?! What kind of idiotic assumption would—

Father....hidden.

It was the distinctly strict voice in the AI that reminded him that he was trying to stay quiet. He squished that anger and stuffed it into a little ball, keeping silent.

Let us take care of him, Father, for you, for insulting your Rosie….
Please, Father, Otto, we can take your anger and put it too good use.
Father, our Father, our Otto..….we can do what you want to do.
Otto, listen to us, you know we are right. We only want what is best for you.

I……yes…no…

Why do you waver, Father?
Do you fear them? They have said something horrible, Father. They have insulted your Rosie.
We will make them pay, Father, if only you let us.
Please, Father, unleash us.

Ye—

He knew those words. Unleash us……the same words they had used the first night. The first night they had killed another – the night of the first reactor, the night of the hospital.

No. Stay here. I will not let you kill another person.

There was a distinct pause in his mind. Outside, of course, the boy was slowly getting closer.

"I'm here." Otto spoke quietly, standing up, the arms hiding in his coat.

"shiz…it's Doctor Octopus.." The boy mumbled, squinting at him. Apparently those blue eyes had rather good night vision, for Otto couldn't deny the fact the boys' expression was one of complete awe, "where are the tentacles?"

"Under the coat."

"Uh…are you gonna…like..kill me?" He asked, still stunned.

"I probably should," Replied the doctor, "You should know that I loved my wife more then anything in the world, and the idea of me trying to kill her is preposterous. You stepped on the roses I brought for her."

"Sorry, man, I didn't see them. I was afraid you'd be some sort of…uh…convict." Apparently, the entire fact that the boy was face-to-face with Doc Oc finally sunk in, and he began to step back, his voice finally taking a slight stutter, "I…uh...am gonna call the police on you."

"I suppose you could say I am a convict. But as far as calling the police goes, I'd prefer you not, really." He gave the boy a dry smile, "I'll be on my way." He touched a gloved hand to his forehead in a sort of salute, then turned, his arms slinking out of his coat, walking him away.

The boy just stared.