Disclaimer: All Spider-Man characters are property of Marvel. No profit is being made from their usage.

Author's Note: With this chapter, I finally began to bring in the Lizard elements of the story. I'm sure you were all impatient for them, right? I'm also debating the merits of starting Shedding Skin; I wanted to write it before starting the sequel to Moonlight Becomes You, but I'm wary of writing two Lizard fics at the same time. Three, if you count the other idea, The Wrong Chemistry, that I have on the burner. Three Lizard fics at once may be too much of a good thing. For some reason, this is both the easiest and hardest of my current ongoing fics to write – easiest because I want to get the story moving, and hard because I want it to be just right. Oi, I may be a biology major, but trying to write about something scientific that, as far as I know, isn't possible, is, well, impossible. I was desperately trying to remember an experiment I did a couple years ago involving the transferal of a gene from one strain of bacteria to a completely different strain to genetically alter that strain… It's a lot easier with a single-celled organism than with something like, say, a human. So, I hope that my pseudoscience has some basis in reality.

NOSCE TE IPSUM

Three – Voices Without Faces

Otto (as he had begun to think of himself, since any identity was better than no identity, and he figured he'd have to get used to it, anyway) had been lying awake for about half an hour or so, listening to the bustle of activity outside his private room, desperately trying to pull clues from what he overheard about his life – Fischer had proven to be very evasive when it came to answering Otto's questions, and the only other people Otto had spoken to had been more interested in asking questions than answering them. The snatches of conversation he heard weren't encouraging, and they painted a rather bleak picture. What kind of patient was he that he needed twenty-four-hour police supervision and the occasional interrogation? He couldn't imagine himself as a bad person, but, really, how would he know? And it wasn't just his morals that were dubious; from what he'd overheard - they never said it to his face, of course - his sanity was questionable, as well.

Worse still were the voices, the soft murmurings that seemed to be located not outside his hospital room, but centered somewhere at the base of his skull, muffled and inaudible for the most part, as though there was a solid wall between them. He'd thought at first it was just some sort of background noise in his mind, until he realized that, if he concentrated hard enough, he could make out words. He hoped it was just a side effect of the medication and his own illness, and not a result of the madness that the people around him seemed to believe that he possessed…

Footsteps, coming through the door, making a beeline towards his head, dragged him out of his gloomy thoughts. "Are you awake?" Dr. Fischer's familiar voice asked.

"Yes," Otto said. His voice was stronger than before, he noted with some pleasure. At least he'd be able to form complete sentences this time around.

"You're going to have a visitor in a few minutes," Dr. Fischer said. A visitor? Otto winced internally; his last visitors had been a lawyer and a police officer, whose uncomfortably penetrating questions had made Otto feel like an ignorant child. That he'd been barely conscious and not fully able to articulate had made it even worse. He hadn't even fully understood most of the questions, and could barely even remember them now. They'd been intentionally evasive, trying to see what he remembered without giving anything about him or what he'd done away. Waiting for him to make a slip-up, and reveal that, perhaps, he wasn't quite as amnesiac as he claimed. His head may have been clearer now, but he didn't want to face that endless torrent of questions again…

Otto felt hands at the back of his head. "I'm going to uncover your eyes now; I've dimmed the lights as much as I can, but you might want to keep them closed at first." The bandage began to unwind, and Otto squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the searing pain he'd felt upon his first awakening. The bandages fell away, and Otto slowly, hesitantly, cracked one eye. He shut it again quickly, then slowly opened both eyes, giving them the chance to adjust. A blurry shape, slowly coming into focus, dominated his vision. So, this late middle-aged man was Dr. Fischer… It comforted him to put a face to the voice… especially when other faceless voices kept haunting him… "Your pupils are hyperdilated, so they don't adjust to changes in light and darkness." Dr. Fischer held up a pair of sunglasses. "Hopefully, these will help when we have to turn up the lights for your examinations."

Otto tried reaching with his left hand, but it resisted his commands. He glanced over, saw that besides the IV shunt he'd expected, there was also another tube he couldn't identify sticking in his arm – and a strap around his wrist, keeping it pinned to the table. He looked at Dr. Fischer for explanation.

"That's to keep you immobile while you were unconscious; if you had thrashed or turned, you could have injured your spine." Again, there was that impression that Fischer was holding something back. You're doing this because you think I'm dangerous, he thought, remembering one whispered exchange between an attending nurse and one of the unseen policemen outside his door. He wasn't restrained for his safety, but for theirs… The doctor unfastened the strap around his left wrist, then moved over to his right. "Don't make any movements that will jostle your spine," he warned. "Don't make any sudden movements. Don't try to sit up." He moved back, eying his patient as if assuring himself Otto was ready for human contact. He nodded to himself, then picked up the bandage he'd put aside. Clumps of dark brown hair stuck to the gauzy fabric, and Otto stared, his right hand automatically reaching towards his scalp to see what damage had been done. Fischer's eyes followed his movement. "You've had some hair loss from the radiation poisoning; nothing major, it's hardly noticeable," he quickly reassured Otto.

Minor hair loss was the least of his worries. But it did remind Otto of something that had been bothering him. "Can I have a mirror? Before I see my visitor?" he asked, a little shyly. He felt ashamed that he didn't even properly know what he looked like.

Dr. Fischer nodded. "I'll have one brought in," he said, as if there was nothing unusual about the request. "I'll also send in more pillows to prop you up, so you don't have to have a conversation with your visitor's feet." Otto appreciated that; holding his head up for more than a few minutes wore him out, and it caused twinges of pain to race along the base of his neck and down along his shoulders. The doctor left him alone for a few moments, returning with a nurse holding the promised pillow and a mirror, its reflective surface turned away. After setting the mirror on the stand beside his bed, the nurse positioned the pillow under Otto's chest, careful not to jostle his injuries. Then she backed quickly away, as though nervous to be in his presence for too long.

"Ready?" Dr. Fischer asked, picking up the mirror. Otto nodded, his gaze riveted. He had a general idea of what he'd see, having glimpsed himself in the puddle back on the river. Still, what he saw shocked him. It wasn't that his features were displeasing, though he knew he'd never be considered handsome, it was the look etched in to his face. Sad brown eyes set deeply into a pain-lined face gazed back at him. Confused. Hurt. Lost. Hopeless. Those were the emotions displayed by the face in the mirror. He wrenched his gaze away from those bleak eyes, forcing himself to take in the details, the faded-sunburn hue of his skin, the wavy dark brown hair that hung almost into his eyes, the gauze patch on his cheek covering a wound Otto didn't even feel, the bandages just visible along the back of his neck where the damage to his spine began… right over the spot where he thought he heard the voices!

Otto turned his head, and Dr. Fischer withdrew the mirror. "Ready to see your visitor now?" he asked. Otto just nodded. The doctor picked up the sunglasses from where he'd left them on the table and offered them to Otto, who accepted them. Despite the darkness of the lenses and the deep shadows in the room around him, he had no trouble seeing. Dr. Fischer turned up the lights as he left, giving Otto a few minutes to adjust to the brightness before another man entered the room. Otto eyed him curiously, wondering if this face went to any of the voices he'd heard since waking up. He didn't look how Otto would have imagined a lawyer or a police officer to look, and he couldn't have been one of the doctors; he had only his left arm.

When Otto met the other's eyes, the man smiled. But, unlike the false smiles Dr. Fischer favored, this man's expression was genuine. The man took a seat beside Otto's head and said, "Hello, Otto."

The warmth and familiarity with which he spoke caught Otto's attention. "Do we know each other?" he asked, trying not to sound hopeful. A friend was something he needed right now, but he had no way of knowing if this man was a friend or just someone taking advantage of Otto's memory loss.

The man's smile faltered slightly, but he quickly recovered. "I'm Dr. Curtis Connors," he said. "You can call me Curt. We've known each other since we attended Empire State University together. About twenty years," he added helpfully. Otto found himself appreciating this man – Curt's – openness. He was the first person Otto had met since awakening who wasn't evasive about Otto's past.

"We're friends?" His voice was more eager than he'd intended. Even though he didn't know this man, having someone with a friendly demeanor around him would make thing easier on him. Too many of the people around him regarded him only with clinical interest – or utter disgust. It would be nice not to be alone in the world anymore…

"We're friends," Curt confirmed. He stared down into his lap, as though uncertain what to say. And why would he know what to say? Otto thought despairingly. "I… I'm not permitted to say much more," he said, his tone regretful. "Your lawyer only gave me permission to speak with you as long as I don't tell you the major details of your life. I just wanted to see for myself that you're alive and…" he trailed off, but Otto could guess what he'd been about to say. And see for myself that you've forgotten me. "I also wanted you to… to get to know me better before you're released." Sensing the man was going to say more, Otto didn't reply, though he wondered why it was important for him to get to know Curt.

Fortunately, Curt didn't leave him in the dark for long. "The hospital is going to discharge you in a week, once they're certain you're stable. After that, you're going to come and live with me and my family – assuming I get the approval, of course. They're going to put you in my care because…" here, Curt faltered, and he couldn't look Otto in the eye. "Well, you can't live alone, because…"

"Because I'm a criminal and they can't just put me in jail, since I have no memories," Otto stated matter-of-factly. That was his assumption, anyway; he seemed to have some knowledge of the American criminal justice system, and he was certain this violated it.

Curt looked startled. "What makes you say that?" he asked. Otto couldn't help but notice the man's lack of denial.

Otto would have shrugged, if his back hadn't been so stiff. "There are police guarding my door, I'm kept in restraints, I have a lawyer… and people are afraid of me. You're not, and Dr. Fischer isn't, but whenever the nurses are near me, they tremble. I don't know what I did, but it must have been awful." He remembered the coiled, serpentine machines that had thrust out of his back – there was nothing normal about those… "Monstrous."

From the look on his face, Curt was on the verge of protesting… but then he swallowed and said nothing, as if he couldn't bring himself to lie to someone he had called 'friend.' There didn't seem to be anything more to say after that.

XXX

The iguana in the cage seemed to stare reproachfully at Curt as the scientist reached for it, intending to draw another blood sample. He'd poked and prodded the reptile often enough that it seemed to recognize when another such session was impending. Its whip-thin tail lashed angrily as Curt caught it in his grip and carried it over to the table, where one of his assistants helped hold it down by pinning the lizard behind the neck with his left hand. With his right, he picked up the syringe and inserted it between two of the reptile's scales. "Not too much," Curt warned. He didn't want to hurt the lizard, just get a large enough sample to work with. The assistant nodded, working the plunger with expert fingers and extracting a small quantity of blood. The lizard's tail lashed Curt's arm with angry thwacks and it scrabbled at the metal table with its curved ebony talons, but its show of resistance was ineffective. It never ceased to amaze Curt what a fierce fight the little lizard always put up; its dinosaur ancestors would have been proud.

As Curt replaced the lizard, his assistant, Robert, took care of the sample, beginning the process of extracting the DNA from the blood. He was a good assistant, with steady hands and the ability to understand Curt's orders and to follow them to the letter without requiring supervision. Best of all, he never came to the lab late, like a certain brilliant but lazy student who had worked for Curt two years previous. Curt usually hated having to rely on others to do the work for him, but today, it gave him the opportunity to think back on his meeting with Otto, and his own rash decision to take the amnesiac criminal into his home. He worried most about how Martha would react. Otto was an old friend of the family, and yet, he was no longer the man that they'd shared meals with, or spent long nights discussing scientific theory with him, their differences in their fields of study giving them unique insights into each others' projects that they would have missed on their own. Martha's first instinct would be to protect their son, and having a dangerous criminal living in their home would trigger that instinct – even if the criminal had once been a close friend. Martha would be more willing to see Otto as a criminal than Curt… She'd be furious when he told her, and would probably take Billy over to her mother's. Or, at the very least, he could expect the next couple of weeks to be sleeping on the couch. He knew she'd come around eventually, especially when she spent time with Otto and realized he presented no threat.

Poor Otto… His conversation with the amnesiac earlier that day had left him feeling numb inside. The person he'd spoken to had some of Otto's characteristics… but he wasn't the Otto Curt knew. He wasn't completely blank, as Curt had initially feared from Dr. Fischer's description of Otto as a 'blank slate'; basic concepts pounded into Otto from youth were still there. But anything connected to Otto's identity was completely gone… as if he'd attempted to erase himself from existence, leaving behind the barest shadow of the man he'd been. There'd been an almost childlike innocence in Otto's manner as he'd questioned Curt; he'd been reminded of his son's barrage of "Why?" questions when Billy was younger. But coupled with that curiosity was a desperation that no child had, stemming from the knowledge that he should know the answers. His frustration at not getting those answers matched Curt's own at being unable to give them. Matt Murdock had warned him against telling Otto too much; the authorities didn't trust that Otto wasn't feigning amnesia, and were waiting for the slightest slip-up to catch him in a lie. If Curt said too much, Otto might refer to something Curt had told him while being questioned, and the interrogator might see that knowledge as proof that Otto was lying about his condition. Still, he'd hated keeping so much from his friend, hating seeing that look of utter hopelessness on Otto's face. He felt as if he'd betrayed Otto by not saying more…

And then there had been his strange reluctance to reassure Otto that he wasn't a monster, after all. If that wasn't a betrayal, he didn't know what was. He'd wanted to tell Otto it wasn't his fault, but then he'd remembered the first hospital room and the bodies on the floor, some of them torn to shreds… He hadn't been able to force the words past the lump in his throat. And this is what you're taking in to your home… he'd thought. He didn't believe Otto would hurt his family, he honestly didn't… He just hadn't expected the sight of Otto to evoke those vivid, gruesome memories. But at least he seemed to have gotten it out of his system, and he was once again certain he was doing the right thing.

Curt sighed heavily, drawing the attention of his assistant. "Is everything all right, Dr. Connors?" Robert asked, his brow furrowed in concern. He knew that Robert had been worried about his employer's frequent absences from class; Curt hadn't seen fit to explain the purpose of those absences to his students or faculty. And that was another consequence he hadn't fully considered: the reactions of his peers to his agreement to take a criminal into his home. ESU's board claimed not to care what a professor did with his personal life, so long as the university's reputation wasn't tarnished. But what they claimed and what was reality was very different… Curt didn't think he could lose his job over this, but there could be repercussions of another sort.

"I'm fine, Robert," Curt said, his strained voice making the lie obvious. "It's nothing," he added quickly, before Robert could press the issue. Determined to distract himself, he turned his attention to the last of the cages that lined the lab, this one unique in that its occupant wasn't scaled. The albino rabbit had been rescued from one of the other biology labs; the TA had been ready to put it down after it had gotten its front paw stuck in the cage bars and the limb had needed to be amputated. It was an ideal test subject, and it saved Curt from having to amputate an animal's limbs solely for the purpose of experimentation. Even when, if the experiment was a success, those limbs would be replaced…

He smiled, his worries momentarily forgotten, as he contemplated the experiment that had driven his research for years, an experiment that had nearly reached fruition. After losing his arm in the Gulf War and ending his career as a surgeon, Curt had turned his attention to herpetology, the study of reptiles. It wasn't out of a love of the creatures, though he lacked most peoples' atavistic dislike of anything scaly, but because of an ability that some reptiles had: to regenerate lost limbs. It was mostly tails that were regrown, but Curt hoped to isolate the gene responsible and tailor it to fit mammalian DNA, and use it to regenerate other limbs, such as, say, arms.

And now, after years of research, Curt's dream had nearly come true. Curt, Robert, and the two other assistants who worked with him had nearly completed a serum designed for rabbit DNA. They'd already extracted a sample of the rabbit's DNA and broken it down to its most basic components, so they could introduce the new gene. Once injected into the rabbit, the DNA would replicate, spreading through the rabbit and, hopefully, trigger the regeneration of the rabbit's front leg. It would be slow going, assuming the altered DNA strand didn't die out. But, theoretically, it could work…

And then… then he could be whole again. Curt's left hand strayed to the empty right sleeve of his lab coat, which dangled at his side. It was no secret to his assistants why Curt wanted so fervently for this to work, though there were obviously less selfish applications of the serum.

The serum had to work. If not for his sake, then for the hundreds of amputees like him who struggled with tasks that had once been easy for them. And we'll know soon enough, Curt thought with a thrill of excitement. The first batch of the serum was nearly ready; they needed only to tailor it for the rabbit.

Curt glanced over at Robert, who had gone back to observing the DNA separation. With a half-smile, he said the words that Robert and his other assistants had been waiting for. "I think we're about ready to test the serum," he said off-handedly, barely able to conceal the excitement that brimmed up within him. The exuberant dance around the lab he longed to do was just too undignified for an ESU professor. "I'll have Shireena modify the rabbit carrier cells this week, and Friday, we'll inject it."

Robert's eyes lit up. This was it; the culmination of all their studies. "It'll work," he said with the enthusiasm and confidence that Curt wouldn't allow himself to express. Curt didn't have the heart to tell the younger man that the chances of it being totally successful were slim; after all, he'd been young once and certain that everything would go as planned. Curt would be satisfied with even a slight regrowth, because it would mean they were on the right track.

Curt glanced over at the clock and felt his excitement wane. He needed to get home to his family and break the news of Otto's coming to Martha.

It was going to be a long, sleepless night on the couch.

XXX

Night had fallen. The lack of windows in Otto's hospital room would have made the time of day indeterminable, but the change in the hospital's atmosphere clued him in when he woke again. The steady hum was still there, but it was quieter now. And the hall outside his room was darker, creating an illusion of night for the other patients ensconced in the rooms around him.

Assuming that he actually had neighbors. What if they thought he was too dangerous for anyone to even be in the same hospital wing with? He smiled humorlessly. While he couldn't imagine himself being dangerous, Curt's visitor had confirmed it. The man had called himself Otto's friend, yet he hadn't risen to Otto's defense when he'd guessed that he had been monstrous in his previous life. I'm glad, in a way, that it's all been stripped from me. I don't think I could bear the truth.

Otto shifted, scowling when he realized he'd been restrained again. While it was true that normal tossing and turning could reinjure his spine, was this really necessary? He was too stiff to move, even unconsciously! He was growing weary of this confinement; he longed for freedom of movement, to get up and walk around, even if his body currently felt too weak to support him. I'll be out of here soon, he told himself, attempting to soothe his impatience. In a week… a week which seemed far too short a span of time. He'd had spinal surgery, radiation sickness, burns… If he'd once known more about medical care, he didn't remember it any more, but something about the suddenness sat wrong with him. They were eager to get rid of him, even if it cost him his health!

He settled his face back on the donut-shaped facial resting pad, staring downward at the small expanse of floor that he was coming to know quite well. He knew every crack, ever scuff, every groove, every mark in the marbled pattern. He'd made the whorls of black and white into his own personal Rorschach test – to his left, he saw a rabbit with six legs, and on the right the random pattern formed a screaming face, framed by a swirl of dark hair. He wondered what this said about his psyche.

And then, below him, he saw a pair of feet, encased in heavy boots. That alone was enough to arrest his attention; none of the doctors or nurses wore footwear like this. Otto slowly lifted his head, meeting the eyes of The Woman, the one that he had seen before the bandages had been taken from his eyes. Red flitted in the fathomless depths of her eyes, drawing him inward. "Who are you?" Otto asked, yanking his eyes away to study the woman's face. The smooth, expressionless face may have been marble for all the emotion it showed. Dark, straight brown hair fell to her shoulders. She was dressed in a metal-grey body suit, revealing a slim figure that was barely feminine. Where the sleeve revealed her right arm, he could see a peculiar tattoo starting from her fingers and disappearing back under the sleeve. Her lips moved, but no sound came.

At least, nothing audible to his ears. The background hum centered at the base of his skull suddenly intensified, filling his head until he couldn't hear anything else. He could almost make out the murmuring underlying the static. Otto gritted his teeth, willing them go to away – even he knew that hearing voices in one's head wasn't healthy.

Then, a voice broke through the static, soft, but still clear and distinct. Father! Help- A burst of white noise obliterated the rest. The woman abruptly vanished, as if she'd never existed.

To Be Continued…

Things start picking up next chapter. Really. Otto's going to get out of the hospital!