Unreasonable Addiction
Chapter 8: Adaptation
By Yumegari and LRH, ed. Skylanth.
"We have absolutely no idea where they are."
Hanover tossed a printout onto the desk in disgust. All around him lay more of such printouts, along with newspaper clippings detailing the hostage situation. A computer monitor on his desk glowed, blue-white, showing a map of New York state, a small group of red dots glowing in a few points in and around the city. He glowered at the computer and then at the phone and then at the agent who walked in. "Tell me you have some news. Any news at all?"
Agent Johnson shook his head, handing him a file. "No one's seen them or the car since they left Seattle. Actually, we don't even know that they have left Seattle. I still think they're in the city, sir."
"We've gone through this city with a fine-tooth comb, Johnson," he replied. "If they were still here, we would have found them. Holmes is too recognizable right now." He blew a sigh, running a hand over his head and ruffling the ginger-ish hair. "No, I have a suspicion they've fled. Octavius'll want to go back to New York, that's for certain. The question is, how are they getting there?"
"We had road-blocks up on every east-bound route within the hour," Johnson pointed out. "If he did get out, he got out fast."
Hanover paced, his hands behind his back. "It would have taken too long to get out of the city the way they were driving all up and down, trying to lose us. They would have hit the blocks on any eastbound route..." he stopped, looking at Johnson. "Unless... they didn't go east."
Johnson thought about it. "It's possible. Just the fact that he came here in the first place puts him entirely out of his usual pattern."
Hanover scowled. "Exactly. He's banking on exploiting that unpredictability." He frowned. "We need to widen the search. Airports, train stations. We need to get a hold of border patrol as well, he may have fled north."
"How could he cross the border without attracting attention?" Johnson asked. "He's got an unwilling hostage, and he's not exactly anonymous himself."
"Probably the same way he got the flight to get here in the first place," Hanover grumbled. "Fake ID, probably. Those arms are his most recognizable feature, the goggles, too. Without 'em, he's just another big lump in a longcoat amid thousands."
"Did we find the flight he took in yet?" Johnson asked. "Airport security might have a picture we could post to help the search."
"SeaTac sent us security tapes for the last seven days. I've got people working on it right now."
Someone walked up behind Johnson and knocked on the doorframe. "Sir, I think we found him," she said, holding up a tape.
Hanover gestured her in. "Whatcha got?" he asked.
She placed the tape on his desk along with a slip of paper on which had been written a date and a flight number. "This is a tape from SeaTac's security system that has him disembarking flight 1066 out of LaGuardia. A check of the passenger manifest brought up two people who could possibly match his description. A Mark Taylor and a ..." she squinted at the printout. "Oliver Ostzynski. What the hell kind of name is 'Oliver Ostzynski?'"
"A fake one," Hanover replied. "We got a name for the APB now. Update the NYPD and the search parties."
Johnson nodded and copied the note. "I'll have it all over the country in five minutes. One step closer, sir."
Hanover dropped himself into his chair as they left on their errands and turned slowly to face the window, light glinting off his glasses. "Yes. One step closer. I'll have you yet, you bastard."
A sign passed by, reading Regina, 15 km. Octavius made a frustrated Mmmmh sound and rubbed his eyes. "Blasted sun," he growled, returning his hand to the wheel. "I think we'd best stop for a short while."
Clair looked up from her book, marking her page with her thumb. "I can drive, if you want to go in the back seat for a while."
A smirk crossed his features as he pulled onto an off-ramp to a rest area. "The back seat does sound like a good idea," he said with a flicker of his eyebrows. After pulling into the parking lot of the rest area and getting the SUV more or less between the lines of a parking space, he turned of the engine and sighed, rubbing his eyes again. He opened the driver's side door and climbed out, shutting it and opening the door behind it. He leaned against the side of the vehicle and took a deep breath, looking about. No-one was about, really. Just a few people so far away as to be easily disregarded.
She marked her page with a napkin from the glove compartment and got out, coming around to the driver's side. She looked at Otto, leaning there. "Are you going to get in?"
"Eventually," he said, slipping an arm around her and leaning in, his lips grazing her neck. "And I think I'll take you with me," he murmured against her skin, licking the underside of her earlobe.
"I thought we wanted to get to Manitoba by tonight," she said, not protesting, running her hands up his back, tipping her head to give him better access to her neck.
"We can still get there," he replied, his lips under the corner of her jaw, now, his arms pulling her close against him. One hand came up to twine his fingers in her hair. "There's time."
"Mmmm," she agreed, closing her eyes and turning her head to kiss him softly.
He returned that kiss, slowly, almost lazily, leaning into it. After an eternity, or maybe a moment, he detached and gazed at her for a moment through half-lidded eyes. Then he turned and, seizing her around the waist, lifted her into the backseat of the SUV, following her in.
She pulled him to her, kissing him more passionately, her hands on either side of his head, his hair falling like a curtain around their faces.
He returned the kiss, slowly, unhurriedly, sighing a long, contented sigh, his eyes closed. He felt strangely relaxed; there was no world outside this small place and the two of them.
Clair put her head back down on Otto's chest, listening to his heart beat. It was a comforting sound, and an enduring one. Its steady rhythm was intoxicating her when a sharp "rattattat" at the window brought her head up sharply. A man was silhouetted there, his hand raised.
Almost instantly, Octavius was upright, warily eyeing the man on the other side of the window. He squinted at him. "Who's there?" he growled.
"This is a public place," snapped the man angrily. "You want to mess around like that, find a hotel!"
There was a pause as Octavius blinked, then a growl started in his throat, his fists balling.
His message delivered, the man turned and strode away towards a mini-van parked a distance away. Clair took a deep, slightly unsteady breath and put her hand on Otto's shoulder. "Maybe we should get going again. I can't believe he just looked in here," she said, her face red.
"That's what I'm talking about," he growled. "The unmitigated gall..." he spluttered for a moment.
"Let's just go," she said, crawling into the front seat. "We've still got a long way to go today."
He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair, and looked at her. There would be time later to enjoy that strange, peaceful feeling. He leaned forward, into the passenger seat, and kissed her neck, his eyes closed, savouring that last moment of peace before they would continue on. But as he looked up, the light hit him. "This isn't the only reason I'd stopped," he reminded her, one hand rubbing his eyes behind the shades.
"I know," she said moving into the driver's seat. "I'm going to drive for a while. You stay back there." She started the engine and started to pull out, but the mini-van cut them off before she could get moving. The intrusive man glared at them from the driver's seat as it went past. Clair scowled. "It's almost a shame he doesn't know who you are."
"Oh?" Octavius asked, settling himself in the back seat and closing his eyes.
"Well, he'd be running for his life if he did," she pointed out, following him onto the freeway. Traffic was running smoothly around them. Idly, she stayed behind the minivan, never more than a car away.
He snickered. "Mmmm, true, that, true, that." He opened one eye, looking at the minivan. "There's something to be said for those who drive minivans. It has to be said, because no-one will print it." He closed the eye again, his hands laced over his middle, and looked very content. It was unavoidable, really. The inside of the vehicle was warm and quiet. It was darker in the backseat and he still floated in the afterglow despite the rude interruption.
She tailed the minivan for miles, changing lanes when he did, speeding up or dropping back against the flow of traffic, but when he took a south-bound exit, she didn't follow. Instead, she turned on the radio.
Rather dull seventies' music filled the cabin, doing nothing for Octavius' state of wakefulness. He drifted off and dreamed pointless, shiftless dreams for a tiny while until she felt him gently shaking his knee. He slitted an eye open, seeing they'd exited once again and parked in front of what looked like a bar. "Mmmff?" he said.
"I'm hungry," she said. "It's the first place I passed that looked okay." It was snowing and beginning to get dark as they got out into the slush-coated parking lot, which was mostly occupied by semis, skirting the half-frozen puddles as they went into the bar. It was a dim, smoky place, crowded with noisy men and very few women. The only space was at a table near the bar.
Octavius harrumphed quietly, ducking his head lower into his collar. "Charming," he drawled.
Clair nodded agreement, but claimed the table anyway, placing an order with the bartender for whatever food she was least likely to regret and a cup of coffee. "I think we can go maybe another hundred miles tonight before we need to find a place to stop," she began to say, but then she looked past Octavius' shoulder, to a large tv mounted on the wall. She couldn't hear the broadcaster, but the picture in the corner of the screen was Octavius, in his glasses and trenchcoat, vivid against the sterility of an airport lounge. The picture changed to her, a brief clip of the news report that had led him to her in the first place.
"Hmm?" he said, leaning forward to sit down, and caught her gaze. Turning, he caught the hospital news clip, then turned back to look at her. "What is it?"
"They had a picture of you like this," she whispered, indicating the way he looked now. "It looked like they got it from the airport."
He grew very still. "Perhaps they didn't notice it," he said, sitting, though she could tell his face had lost some of its colour.
Clair looked around the bar as unobtrusively as she could. Most of the people weren't paying attention to the television at all, but a number of people at the counter were staring fixedly at the screen. They were probably the ones near enough to hear it. As she watched, they showed a shot of the border station that they had gone through, and another clip, this one of the sleepy customs agent who had let them through. Some of the watchers straightened up, and one looked around randomly. He looked past them at first, but she could tell the moment his mind made the connection. "Too late for that," she murmured.
Octavius glanced in the direction she was looking, seeing the staring man. He grew still again. "We should leave," he muttered so that only she could hear.
"Right now," she agreed, standing up as casually as she could and beginning to thread her way through the crowded room. The man elbowed his neighbor and pointed, and then stood up.
"That's him," she heard him exclaim. "It's that Doc Ock guy!"
Octavius froze. "What?" he said, only mostly convincingly. "Honestly, what're the odds?" He resumed walking to the door.
More people were looking by now, and Clair kept her face down, but someone grabbed her by the shoulder when she was about ten feet from the door. "You're that doctor, aren't you?" a huge man with a braided beard asked excited. He pulled her roughly away from Otto, pushing her behind him and his buddies.
Octavius stopped and it almost seemed as though sound left the bar entirely. With his health returned, his old presence had returned as well. Actuators or no actuators, even though he was shorter than some of the patrons, he appeared to tower over everyone. "Release her," he growled.
Clair struggled to get back to him, but the patrons had closed ranks between them. She could hardly even see him.
Braid-beard scowled down at Octavius, rolling his hands ostentatiously into fists. "We don't look kindly on monsters like you. Big mistake, coming here un-armed like this." He guffawed at his own pun, raising his fists.
"Oh, please," Octavius replied. "What possesses people like you to wave about your bravado in the face of certain death, and with such puerile attempts at humour to go with it?" He scowled blackly. "You are in my way," he said simply, and backhanded the man with a loud crack.
The crowd around them drew back, leaving them an arena. Wiping blood away from a split-lip, Braid-beard glared and threw a wild, round-house punch. Octavius dodged it easily, but failed to do anything for a split second before hissing in anger. I'm far too accustomed to fighting with the arms, he realized, angrily. He stepped behind the other and grabbed him, pivoted, and threw him over his shoulder and against the floor. Winded, Braid-Beard reached out to grab his ankle and yanked on it.
Clair kept trying to push through, but someone grabbed her from behind and picked her up, pulling her back from the fight. "Don't worry, miss," said the bartender kindly. "Ralph and the boys can keep him busy until the police can get here. You're safe now."
The ankle grab nearly upended Octavius, but he shifted his balance, pivoted again, and kicked the other in the kidneys, stepping backward a pace, longcoat still swirling. Ralph groaned explosively, curling in on himself and clutching his stomach for a moment before struggling to his feet and charging, his face red. Hands reached out from the crowd to grab Octavius, hold him there. Ralph's first two punches landed, one bloodying Octavius' nose, the other nearly relieving him of his sunglasses. He thrashed his way free as Ralph's fist slammed into his middle, dodged the fourth punch, and struck the other with a sound backhand, then a left hook. Ralph's head snapped back and he staggered a moment, but he recovered mostly and came at him again, bellowing hoarsely and grabbing Octavius, trying to bear him to the ground. Octavius threw himself to one side as he was grabbed, turning them so that Ralph hit the floor first, and immediately his hands went to the other's neck, gripping it. Ralph's hands gripped Octavius's, trying to pry them away from his throat. He kicked futilely at him, struggling. Octavius tightened his grip, his other hand coming up to grip Ralph's head. With a sudden shift, his lower hand went to the other man's chin and he pulled sharply in opposite directions, snapping his neck.
The crowd had frozen for a moment at the horrible sound as Octavius dropped the body andstood, surveying the room. Ralph's buddies were the first to move again, rushing Octavius as a group, one drawing a gun from under his jacket as he came. Octavius threw the first one, then slammed his shoulder against the one carrying the gun, tearing it from his grasp. He backpedaled, his aim darting about the room. "Give me the girl," he grated, "Or another one of you will die. And another, and another, until she is returned to me!"
The human shield tightened in front of Clair, despite her increasingly vocal protests. She kicked the barkeeper, who was still holding her. "Let me go! Do you want more people to die?"
Octavius cocked the gun and fired. The bullet exploded another man's throat and he fell, already dead. "Must I ask again!" he demanded, selecting another target.
A man who was standing protectively in front of his vastly-pregnant girlfriend reached back and yanked Clair from the bartender's nerveless grip, all but throwing her forward at Octavius. "Take her and get out," he said over the muted protests of the others. "I don't want my girl dying over someone I don't even know." A few men shouted imprecations at him, but no one moved.
Octavius grabbed Clair from behind, his arm around her throat, the gun to her head, and backed out. "Yessss," he hissed. "Protect your own... When it comes down to it, it's what you monkeys are best at!" He kicked the door open and backed out of the building, his grip on Clair still rough, the gun still at her temple.
She twisted in his grip as soon as the door swung shut, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his coat. He could feel her shaking. He pulled her to the SUV, opened the door, and carefully pushed her in. Crossing round to the driver's side, he started the vehicle, peeled out of the parking lot, and sped onto the highway, quickly burying them in the evening traffic before finally easing up on the gas, breathing hard. He looked at her.
She stared out the windshield, her glasses blank ovals of reflected light. Huddled in her seat, she looked even smaller than usual. "I've never seen someone killed before," she said hollowly, not looking at him.
"It's something you'll need to grow accustomed to," he said quietly. "I'd told you that life with me would not be pretty."
She nodded. "I know, I knew it would happen, at some point. I'm just... Give me a little time."
He reached out one hand to stroke it over her hair. "You'll get used to it," he murmured.
After a moment, she leaned into the touch, scooting over in her seat so she could lean against him as he drove. She didn't say anything, but her shaking lessened and stopped eventually. Occasionally, his hand would leave the wheel and rub her hair, warm against her scalp and neck. Lost in thought, she didn't even notice when she fell asleep.
Eventually Octavius found a small town that boasted a nature preserve, and pulled over there, hiding the SUV among the trees. He looked down at Clair, then carefully shook her awake, leaning down to press his lips against her hair.
"Mmm?" she said, waking up slowly. She looked up at him. "Where are we?"
"We're in Riding Mountain," he said softly, his hands on either side of her face, warm and steady. "In the forest. I don't think they'll find us here." He kissed her head again. "We need to sleep." He released her and climbed out of the vehicle, climbing back in and stretching out along the backseat, unbuttoning his coat. He gestured with one hand for her to join him. Rubbing her eyes, she climbed back with him, fitting into the narrow space between his body and the back of the seat, her head pillowed on his shoulder. She tipped it up to kiss him once, her eyes half-shut again already.
He curled his arms around her, fingers stroking her hair. "I'll keep you safe," he murmured. He felt her breathing grow slow, felt her fall asleep again. He lay for while, staring into the trees, his fingers twining gently in her hair until he fell asleep himself, and wondered if he'd be able to keep that promise as his eyes slipped shut.
Johnson ran into Hanover's office. "Pick up your phone," he said, pointing at the object in question just as it began to ring. "It's a Captain Morgan of the Canadian Police, from a little town called Lort, in Saskatchewan. They've got a positive on Ock, less than three hours ago. Killed two guys in a bar, then disappeared."
Coffee nearly splurted onto the computer monitor that Hanover had been staring at. He swallowed laboriously and looked up at Johnson, then grabbed the phone, hitting the blinking line button. "Hanover," he said.
"Agent Hanover?" said an older voice from the other end. "I'm Captain Morgan, Lort Police. We've got two dead bodies here, and it's your guy. Thirty-odd witnesses saw him."
Hanover stood, crossing to a map and picking up a red thumbtack. "Lort, Saskatchewan," he muttered. "When was he there?"
"Two and a half hours ago. He broke one man's neck, shot another, and split. By all accounts, it looks like it wouldn't have happened if a patron hadn't recognized him and called him out."
"Guess it goes to show there are idiots everywhere," Hanover muttered, pushing the pin into the map. "If some moron thinks he can take on Doctor Octopus even if he is unarmed..." He eyed the map. "Lort. That's just off the TransCan, isn't it?" He returned to his desk. "We need co-operation on this search. I'll need that whole highway combed up and down. Put up roadblocks if you have to, checkpoints! This is the closest we'll get to catching that bastard!"
"We're already on it, Agent," said Morgan firmly. "We've got roadblocks set up at the province border, and in a perimeter around Lort. If we were fast enough off the mark, we'll have him."
"Let me know when you catch him, Captain," Hanover said, and hung up. He grinned at the map and its location point.
Clair woke up in the soft light of early morning, with a cold winter sunlight filtering through the trees into the car. She lay still for a while, getting her bearings, and watching Otto sleep. One of his hands lay on his chest, and she watched it, thinking. That hand had killed someone last night. And then it had run through her hair, comforting her. And the latter meant more to her than the former. She would get used to it, he had said.
She sat up, looking out of the car at the woods surrounding them. Finding her shoes and kissing Otto without waking him, she slipped quietly out of the car. They were parked at a trail head in an old-growth forest, open and airy beneath huge conifers. She went just a little way down the trail, out of sight of the car, and sat on a flat-toped stump, staring down the valley sightlessly, her mind occupied by the sudden shift in her priorities.
Octavius felt a little colder upon waking up, and forced his eyes open, noticing that Clair wasn't there. He sat up, looking about. Maybe she was outside the vehiclebut she wasn't any where to be seen. His blood ran cold for just an instant. Had she wandered off and gotten "rescued?" He scrambled off the seat and out the door. She wasn't behind the trees. He stopped, his breath fast. Stop, he told himself. Think. There are a lot of trees here. He walked around the vehicle, the circuit widening, his eyes scanning the trees.
There. He saw her, the grey-blue sweater she wore standing out against the greens and browns of the forest. She sat on a stump, staring out into the distance over the valley. He sighed forcefully.
Moving silently, he walked up behind her. His hand came down on her shoulder and he turned her round to face him.
She jumped a little, startled. The smile that appeared on her face didn't quite reach her eyes. "Oh. Good morning. Did you sleep well? My neck can't take much more of sleeping in the back seat. But we're more than halfway there, so it won't have to."
"Why did you just wander off!" he demanded, hands gripping her shoulders, now. "You could have been seen and that could have led them back to me! Any manner of things could have happened!"
She pulled back against his grip, staring at him, the smile gone. "There's no one here to see me!"
"You don't know that! You can't know that!" He gripped harder. "You've got to be more careful! This isn't a vacation, we are on the run! This is a dangerous thing we're doing, and if you wander off like this, I cannot keep my promise to protect you!"
She froze, a number of emotions warring in her face. He could feel the bones of her arms under his hands, fragile and light. "I don't need protecting," she said carefully. "I'm not a child, Otto."
He glowered down at her, his breath loud in his nose. After a moment, his hands released her shoulders. "No, you're not a child. But ... you're ... precious to me..." He looked away.
A warm feeling grew in her chest at his words, and she bent her head, studying her hands. "Then... I'll be more careful in the future." She looked up at him, reaching out and taking one of his hands.
He looked at her when she took his hand. There was a pause, and he pulled her fiercely into his arms, holding her tightly enough to squeeze some of the breath from her, his face buried against her hair. She could feel him shaking slightly. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere," she murmured. "But I can't stay in sight all the time."
"Only until we're somewhere safer," he told her softly. "Only until I have my bearings. Until I have my footing and then... then I can stop watching so closely." His fingers twined in her hair.
"Alright," she said, smiling. She pulled back slightly to look at him, her fingers interlaced behind his waist. "You be careful too, okay?"
He looked down at her, his expression unreadable.
"When you can," she conceded.
He slipped his fingers through her hair. "I have a reason to, now," he murmured. "So... I think I will."
They got off the TransCan at Toronto, heading south along the coast of Lake Ontario. Clair was planning aloud. "So, they obviously know we're in Canada know. And they probably still know that we're aiming to get back to New York, so they'll be watching the borders. Especially the borders on our projected route, like Niagra. We might have better luck making the crossing near Detroit, even though it means a long detour."
"How long?" he asked, looking up from a road map they'd acquired along the way.
"Eeh," she said, doing the math. "Another day."
"The route gets more complicated and brings us through more heavily-populated areas," he said, finger tracing different routes from Michigan to New York.
"If we don't make any more stops other than what we need, it should be alright," she pointed out. "If we take turns and drive non-stop, we'll be in New York in two days." She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Maybe we should get rid of this car, find another one."
"It would probably be for the best," Octavius replied, giving up on the map. He looked back at the books and the containers and the cat. "We'll have to transfer these things."
She watched the road, squinting through the rain that lashed the windshield. "Should we do that on this side of the border, or that side?"
"We'll want to steal it on the other side," Octavius replied, gazing out the window. "We can find a parking lot that isn't close to a building and see what we can find there."
"I think I still have enough cash for gas the rest of the way there," she said, counting in her head. She was distracted by misgivings, even though she knew it was too late, far too late at this point to give into them.
"You look distracted," Octavius observed, looking at her sidelong. "What are you thinking?"
She glanced at him, her face blank. "I'm just thinking about things. Priorities, things like that. My conscience is giving me some trouble."
He almost smirked at that, but instead watched her closely. "What is it telling you?" he asked, after a moment.
"That two men are dead," she said softly. "Last week, I was a doctor. I saved people's lives. That's what I did, that's why I was there. 'I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm.' It was the core of my life. And it's been completely replaced."
"Are you having second thoughts?" he asked, an edge to his voice, now.
"It's too late for that, isn't it?" She laughed, a little bitterly. "No, I've chosen this. I've chosen you. I'm already forsworn. But it leaves me wondering, who am I now?"
"Is that regret I hear in your tone?" he asked, his voice growing harder. "Did you honestly think you could start on this path and then leave it any time you felt misgivings?"
"I didn't say I was changing my mind, did I?" she answered. "I'm just trying to get used to it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, I knew what this would mean going in. I know what you do." Her hands clenched on the steering while. "I've felt your hands around my throat, and I know that I could be just as dead as that guy in the bar. That's not the problem. I was a doctor, dammit. No two ways about it. My name was Dr. Clair Holmes. No, Dr. Clair Watson! And I've willfully betrayed what that means, left it behind. And I feel like I left most of myself behind with it." One hand crept to her chest, a loose fist pressed against her breastbone. "And I don't know who I am now."
"You don't know what it is to lose an identity until you've had it forcefully taken!" He shouted in reply. "You went into this willingly, you begged me to take you with me! The past cannot figure into it now! None of us know who we are!"
"I did!" she shouted back. Her driving got a little jerky, and she brought it back under control. "I knew exactly who I was! And then you showed up again, and suddenly none of that mattered anymore! I'm trying to figure out what's left of me, and all I can find is you!"
"Don't blame me for your sudden identity crisis!" he spat. "All you have, now, is me, and you'd best get used to that, as well!"
She glared at him. "And what? Just live as your pet for the rest of my life? Define myself by you?"
"Yes!" he hissed. "You are mine, now!"
She grew very still. With rigid, controlled movements, she pulled the car over to the shoulder, put it in park, and continued looking straight ahead. "Get out, Otto."
"It isn't that easy," he replied, "To be rid of me."
She brought up a hand to rub the bridge of her nose, and her voice was cold. "Get out now. I cannot live as some man's pet, even yours."
"Your feminism is charming," he replied, equally as coldly, "However, you should have considered that I was not simply going to be some attentive lover out of a romance-novel fantasy who would come to take you away from all of this. Association with me comes at a price. I do not brook rebelliousness." He leaned closer. "And I do not take orders. You will not be rid of me until I decide you will be rid of me."
"Fine," she said shortly, and opened the driver's side door and got out herself, and started walking down the road the way they had come. There was a town they had passed, maybe two miles back.
He would leave without her. He had a vehicle, a means of returning to his base of operations in New York. He even had all of the notes and materials needed to create and administer himself more of the neural restorative serum. He didn't need her at all. She would have simply gotten in the way. He didn't need her. He slid into the driver's seat, fuming, and reached out to turn the key in the ignition again. "I don't need her," he growled to himself. He adjusted the rearview and caught her reflection as she walked away.
He did need her.
Damnit, he didn't know what he would do without simply having her there. Her voice, her presence, her scent. Something had been made whole with her around that was now incomplete again. He couldn't let her leave him. Not now. Not ever. He needed her.
He burst out of the vehicle, leaving the door open, and ran after her, longcoat flapping, feet crunching against the gravel on the side of the road.
She looked over his shoulder at the sound, and took off running, sprinting down the gravel shoulder. The rain lashed down, and she was already soaked, but she barely felt it.
His legs were longer and he closed the distance between them, grabbing hold of her, his momentum pivoting them both around. His arms were wrapped around her torso and he lifted her, obviously intending to carry her back to the car.
"No!" she screamed, kicking at him and struggling to break free. "I will not be kept!"
His grip was tight, very tight, but he struggled to drag her back and eventually her kicking caused him to overbalance. They fell and he rolled on top of her, grabbing her wrists. Only now that she was facing him did she see the desperation written on his face, between the soaked strands of midnight hair that fell about his head and shoulders in strings.
"What's it to be, Otto?" she snarled, still furious. "Am I the idiot here? Have I really been your prisoner all along and no one told me?"
His grip tightened momentarily on her wrists. His breath came in loud, heavy gasps, his chest heaving so hard that he shifted slightly with each breath. He glared down at her. "No," he grated after a moment. "You're not a prisoner. But I can't let you leave!"
She pulled futilely at her trapped hands as the gravel dug into her back. "Why not?"
"Because I need you!" he suddenly howled over a crack of thunder. "Because when I look, all I find is you! You've made your way so thoroughly into my life that I cannot imagine it without you!"
She stopped pulling, looking up at him. Framed against the dark grey sky, his face was a study in black and white. "Let me up," she said at last, softly.
"You'll run," he panted.
"No," she said earnestly, her own breath still coming hard.
Slowly, he released her hands, sitting back on his feet, his head turned away.
She sat up, rubbing her wrists. "I need you too," she said slowly, as if only just truly realizing what this meant. She looked at him. "I need you too. And maybe, that's enough for both of us."
He looked at her again, still breathing hard, the rain rolling down his face and plastering his hair to his head. He blinked as the water rolled over his eyes and noticed that she was shivering, her sweater a more or less useless, soaked lump around her. He stood, peeled off his longcoat, and draped it over her.
She pulled it tight around her shoulders and climbed to her feet, then, wordlessly, wrapped her arms around him.
Again, he noticed acutely how small and delicate she was. Running warm fingers over her hair, he curled an arm around her and started walking, leading her back to the car, which still stood running, its driver's side door still open. He led her to the passenger side, opened the door, and bundled her in, carefully, his eyes not even tracking to her face.
"Thank you," she said quietly before he could close her door, looking up at his face. "You kept me from doing something very stupid."
There was a long pause in which he finally looked at her, After a moment, though, he said, only, "Oh?" hands pointlessly busying themselves; pulling his longcoat more snugly around her, smoothing its folds, adjusting her seatbelt.
"Leaving," she said, watching his hands, her expression mild. "I would have let my pride get in the way of something much more.. more. More important."
A rueful smile flickered briefly across his features, and he seemed to focus on her hands. "You aren't the only one," he murmured quietly, almost inaudibly, resting his head against hers.
She sniffed, smiling. "Sorry for being an idiot. Now we're both soaked."
A hand cupped her face and he kissed her head, lips pressing briefly against her hairline. "I've been through worse," he said, "And you'll dry soon enough."
She nodded. "We should get going. We've still got a long way to go."
"Hnnn," he replied, and withdrew, shutting the door and crossing round to the driver's side. He climbed in and shut the door and instantly it felt warmer in there. Once they were on the road again, he turned up the heater. It grew comfortably silent, no sound but the rain, the squeak of the windshield wipers, and the quiet whoosh of the heater.
Sleep was tempting, but instead she curled up in her seat, watching him drive. The coat was huge around her, a great sea of black, and she could still feel his heat in it. "Tell me about what you do," she asked.
He blinked, glanced at her, and another smile flickered briefly across his features. "That's a rather broad question," he replied. "What do you want to know?"
"All I really know about your past is what I've read in the newspapers." She glanced down. "After the first time, I searched for everything I could, but it's all the Bugle, and you know how reliable that is. Tell me something, anything about your life."
"Hnnn..." he rumbled, thinking. "I'm not often asked to tell the story of any part of my life..." He trailed off, still thinking.
She rested her head on her hand, her elbow braced on her knee. "Tell me about the mess with Brigham Fontaine. The papers were incredibly vague about that."
"Nnnnh," he growled softly. "Fontaine. It was a while ago." He thought on it for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, contemplative. "Brigham Fontaine had boasted of developing a security system that was, in his words, 'Doctor Octopus-proof.' As you can probably surmise, I wasn't going to take a challenge like that lying down. I don't recall what I did with his security system, probably something that disputed the veracity of his claim, and I had him in my custody for a short while, until he was rescued by the arachnid. Later, however, the boy managed to find me, I still don't know how. He tried to form a partnership with me, probably as a way to advance the development of his own projects. Many things were ... procured, a great deal of money, that sort of thing. He tried to figure out a way to further integrate my consciousness with the actuators, but it didn't work very well as I recall. He'd built his own sort of device that apparently granted him some kind of control over electricity, a useful thing in this sort of business. It was that device that nearly killed him. Had Spider-man not convinced me, in a moment of indecision, to halt Fontaine's project, any manner of things may have happened to the boy. But he'd stopped breathing." A pause, and his voice grew even quieter. "I'd resuscitated him. And yet when the boy awoke, he attributed his continued life to Spider-man, painting me as nothing more than his kidnapper. And that damned arachnid never stepped forward to refute that claim..." He growled in his throat, hands gripping the steering wheel.
She laid her hand over one of his. "That's awful. Credit should always be given where it's due."
He sighed. "You'll find, in a world such as mine, that that's rarely the case," he said, softly.
She sat back in her seat. "It's kind of surprising that Spider-Man would let them say something untrue like that. He's supposed to be the hero, isn't he?" There was a trace of scorn in the word. "Unimpeachable, a good role model and all that. Easily confused, though," she mused.
"Hah..." Octavius laughed. "Hehhhh ha hah a role model... I suppose, in a truly black and white sense, you could say that. He fights people like me, after all. But not much beyond that..."
"You tried to get him to expose his identity, right?" she asked. She'd been deep in the research of the ZJ at that point, and largely insensible of the outside world, but some news had managed to seep into the lab from time to time. "Something about a foreign diplomat...?"
"Heh," he said. "Yes, I'd tried to employ the Foreign Minister from Palestine as a bargaining chip. That was spoilt rather impertinently by Spider-man and some ... slob he'd run up onto a lammpost with a camera. I still have no idea how he did it, but the plan was foiled nonetheless. I recall having been furious at that time. Spider-man was... is ... my greatest obstruction. If I'm rid of him, things will run so much more smoothly. This was simply another attempt to rid myself of him since I obviously can't kill him. But all I can remember of that time is anger. Desire for revenge in whatever form."
"I've felt some of that," she said, drawing in on herself slightly. "When they took the research away from me. I wanted revenge on whoever convinced the police that I wasn't safe where I was. Because, you know, the research was more important than my safety, even if I didn't believe that you wouldn't go back on your word not to hurt me."
"Hnn," he said. "You can still have your revenge. If you want it," this last he said with a slight smile. "I'm sure I can locate Osborn easily enough."
She smiled wolfishly, a new expression for her. "It is tempting."
"You're learning quickly," he said, raising his eyebrows at that smile.
"Adaptation," she said glibly. "When I'm not being an idiot, I am smart enough to adapt to new conditions. Wouldn't be much of a scientist if I couldn't, would I?"
He laughed outright at that. "Well-put!"
"Thank you." She sniffled again, and dug a tissue out of the glove box to wipe her nose. "I owe Osborn a great deal of frustration."
"We both do," Octavius mused, nodding. "We both do."
She unbuckled her seatbelt and slipped into the backseat, reaching over for her notebooks. "He wanted to sabotage my research. I'll complete it. How hard would it be to... procure the needed supplies? Biological chemicals, viral forms, and the like."
Octavius smirked. "Not hard at all, if you know where to look."
"I should have written this all down immediately," she said, sprawling across the back seat with the notebook open across her knees, chewing on the end of her pen. "Did I use the rice or the kelp protein to seal the acid-complex?" she asked, her eyes unfocused. But she remembered before he could answer, bending back over the page and taking more notes. "Unacceptable effects," she murmured aloud, sketching an illustration of the modified viral cells. "Sensory overstimulation, delirium, disorientation. What else?" She glanced up, looking at him through the rear-view mirror, and then sneezed violently. "Excuse me."
"Seizures," he supplied, handing a tissue back to her.
"Thank you," she said, taking it. She stared up at the ceiling, tapping the pen against her lip, then she shook her head. "It's no good. I'll need a proper lab to go any farther. And test subjects." She chewed her lip. "Maybe I can find volunteers, under the table, so to speak."
"Volunteers?" Octavius echoed, chuckling.
"If I can find them," she qualified. "But if I can't, the science is the important thing, isn't it?"
"Oh, I"m sure I can find you some volunteers," Octavius replied vaguely.
"I'd rather not know where you... find them," she said. Absently, she peeled off the bandage over her ear and wadded it up, stuffing it in a litter bag. "It'll be a while yet before I'm that far again, I think."
"Fair enough," Octavius replied. "I didn't think you would want to know, honestly." He looked back at her through the rear-view mirror and stopped. "Your eyes are all red. Are you all right?"
She wiped her nose again. "Just chilled. Shouldn't have gone out and gotten myself soaked. Could you turn up the heat?"
He looked at the heater. "Hnn. All right," he said, adjusting the controls. "It's at maximum, now, though." He peered through the rearview again. "Are you still wet, maybe?"
"Yeah," she said, plucking at her sweater. "I'll change." Setting her notebook aside, she stripped off her sweater and the equally-wet t-shirt under it, pulling on the other sweater that she'd brought, but she didn't pick up the notebook again after. Instead, she crawled back into the front seat and curled up again in Otto's coat, putting her hands over the heater vent.
The slushy scenery continued to speed by. After a small while of this, he unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his eyes. "Mmhhh," he said. "How close to the border are we, now?" he asked, peering at the rainy scenery before them.
"Hmm," she said, considering. "Four hours, maybe? We just keep following this freeway, it'll take us straight there." She looked at him. "Are you getting tired?"
"Hmm? No," he shook his head. "Don't worry about me. You need to recover. You'll need your wits about you."
"I'm fine," she insisted. "I don't have a plan for getting past this border, though. They'll be watching for us, now."
"Hnnn," he said, thinking. "Are there any small, less-noticeable roads we can take?"
"Not across the border. There are just the three crossings; Niagra, Detroit, and Port St. Huron," she said, checking the map. "Maybe a distraction... No, wait." She tapped the map, where a tiny road curled alongside the border through one of the green shapes that indicated a wilderness area. "We're going to leave the car anyway, right? If we leave it on this side of the border, we can climb the fence here and walk to this town, here." She indicated a small town on the US side of the border, maybe three miles in. "There will be a car there that we can borrow."
"Mmm," he said, nodding. "It sounds like a sound plan." He rubbed his neck, then returned his hand to the wheel, peering intently out the windscreen.
She twisted to look into the back seat. "I can leave most of this behind," she said reluctantly of the stacks of books. "I just need to take the notebooks, the serum and its modified version, and Frank." The cat in question lifted his head from where he'd been sleeping under the back seat, acknowledging her with a sleepy brrt. "I need a backpack." She coughed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Excuse me. Maybe we can find one at a gas station or something."
"Probably a good idea," he replied a little vaguely. "We can always procure more than one. We could carry more that way."
She wrapped herself up more tightly in the coat, cold despite the heater's blasting. "You sure the heater's all the way up?"
"Yes," he replied with a slight sigh. "It's all the way up..." He blinked slowly and shifted in the driver's seat, trying to push his feet out a little further.
"You okay?" she said, looking at him. "You look like you're about to fall asleep."
"Hn? No, I told you, I'm fine," he said, rubbing his face. He yawned, and almost seemed surprised at such a thing, blinking. He shook his head. "No, I"m fine."
"I think the heat's making you drowsy," she said apologetically. "I just can't get warm."
He shook his head again. "The last thing you need right now is to take ill."
"No," she said, reaching out of the coat and turning down the heat. "The last thing we need is for you to fall asleep at the wheel."
"I told you, I'm ... fine," he mumbled, head nodding forward. It snapped up again. "Mmmhhh..." he rubbed his eyes and they stayed only half open. "'S just warm in here, is all..." Nod, nod, snap.
She reached out and shook his shoulder. "Come on, pull over. I'm going to drive for a while. You're not safe."
"Mmmmhhh?" He blinked owlishly at her and they nearly ran off the road as it was. He blinked at the road. "Maybe you're right," he mumbled. He pulled over to the side and pushed the gearshift into park, yawning again.
She unwound herself from his coat and scooted over, reaching past him to open his door. "Come on, go around to the passenger side. I'm more awake than you."
He smiled a brief, sleepy smile, and rested his hand on her back for a moment. It was burning hot, far hotter than usual. Then he slid out of the seat and wobbled out of the vehicle entirely. As soon as he left its stifling confines, the cold air hit him, flecked with little spotty raindrops. It felt inordinately good. He tilted his head back a little, letting the air cool his neck, and walked round to the other side. Opening the door and climbing in, he pushed the coat toward her. "You'll need it," he said, at her quizzical look. "I'll be too warm in here for me to wear it, after all." He settled himself in and looked at her through half-open eyes.
She nodded, and shifted enough to put it on, rolling the sleeves up so she could use her hands. She had to shift the seat all the way forward to reach the pedals. ""Maybe we should stop before the border and both of us get some sleep."
"Mmmh," he mumbled. "D'you think that's wise? They're on a closer lookout, now."
"You're probably right," she agreed ruefully. "Okay. Four hours to the border." She eased back onto the road, and her heart nearly skipped a beat when a police car passed them, but it continued on without stopping. "You're definitely right. No more stopping."
"Mmmhmm," he mumbled. "Give me a couple hours and then I'll take over again." His eyes were nearly closed, and he blinked slowly and continuously. He reached out and turned the heat back up. "Y'don't need to take any more chill than you have" here he yawned again"already." He settled back with a sigh and closed his eyes, head already rolling to the side. "Mmmmhh," he said again. He made himself comfortable, hands folded over his middle, and soon she could hear snoring again. Outside the car, the wilderness flowed by, though Clair hardly saw it. The yellow stripe in the road drew them onwards, towards the border.
