Disclaimer: All Spider-Man characters are property of Marvel. Phantom themes are courtesy of LeRoux.
Author's Note: Some time-jumps here, but I don't think they'll be too hard to follow. I hope. It also seems a bit… I dunno, fast to me. This was a hard chapter to write; I couldn't decide whose POV to use for the end, and it didn't work when I tried it with just one person, so I used everyone. Sorry for the jumping around. Bring on the torch- and pitchfork-wielding angry mob…
Musique de la Nuit
Sixteen – Fire
For what must have been the thousandth time, Otto queried the actuators as to the time. They answered him irritably; only seconds had passed since he'd last asked, and even the machines had limits on their patience. Where is she? Otto thought desperately. Though he and Rosie hadn't set an exact time for a meeting, it had long since passed the timeframe in which his wife had expected to make her escape and cross the city to their rendezvous. Otto paced the abandoned warehouse nervously, keeping careful to stay within reach of the stolen vehicle; every moment, he expected the police or Spider-Man to descend upon him and lock him away from his Rosie forever. The actuators twisted through the air uneasily, straining to watch every direction. He knew constant questioning wasn't making sentry duty any easier.
But he couldn't help it; so much hinged on them making their escape tonight. The public now knew Otto still lived; worse, the arachnid knew, too, and he'd hound Otto until the scientist was in prison, or worse. They needed to get out of there before the police stirred from their somnambulance and made a concerted effort to bring him to justice. And Rosie's brother would hide her away from him, this time someplace where Otto would never find her. They needed to escape now, before they were separated forever…
He was desperately frightened that it was already too late. Rosie should have been here by now, even factoring in the possibility of her taxi being caught in traffic. No, something had gone wrong. Michael saw the Bugle, he thought with grim certainty. The photo of himself battling Spider-Man had been plastered across the front page – mercifully, Peter hadn't chosen the picture where Otto bared his face to the world, but the chosen shot had shown him fighting the vigilante. He cursed himself inwardly; he knew he shouldn't have attacked the youth, but he'd panicked. If he'd just spoken to Spider-Man reasonably, would he have held back on selling the photos? Too late to fret about that now, he thought. He'd give Rosie one more hour, and then he'd risk a jaunt across the city to find her.
He just prayed that he wouldn't be too late…
He lasted forty-five minutes. Nerves shot, Otto threw caution to the wind and exited the decrepit building, keeping to the shadows. If he'd stayed any longer, he knew he'd suffer an emotional breakdown. Fortunately, darkness had fallen, and with the assistance of night's concealing cloak, he made it across the city without drawing the attention of the police, or Spider-Man. Odd… I would have thought he'd be on the lookout for me after last night's performance. Am I so repulsive that he can't bring himself to be in my presence? Perhaps there's an upside to my disfigurement, after all. That brought a bitter laugh to his lips. But the grim humor didn't last as he advanced across the building tops; the situation was far too serious.
His head was throbbing by the time Michael's building loomed into sight, and Otto ducked into the deep shadow cast by a high cornice stone to fish out his container of pain reliever and swallow two dry. Using the camera's zoom function, he examined the penthouse, seeking any sign of increased activity. Nothing. His twisted frown deepened; he'd been expecting some sign that Michael was expecting him; maybe not something as bars on the windows, but he wouldn't put it past the man to hire bodyguards. Not that any bodyguard could stand against me, Otto thought with a flash of arrogance. But he didn't want trouble for Rosie's family… quite the opposite. He just wanted to take his wife and leave.
Wary of a trap, Otto crept towards Michael's building, going by way of the taller neighboring edifice as he had before, leaping to the rooftop garden below from its greater height. The transplanted grass cushioned his landing, muffling the sound of impact. Still, he tensed, waiting for unseen attackers, despite the assurances of the actuators that there were no heat signatures in the immediate vicinity. Otto wished their heat scanners were sensitive enough to pick up human heat signatures through the roof of the building, but the pipes running through it distorted the image. Otto crept to the edge of the building directly above Rosie's bedroom window and lowered himself down, still ready to take flight should her room contain armed guards.
But it was… empty. They moved her, Otto realized, mentally smacking himself. Of course; it was no secret that he could scale buildings as easily as Spider-Man, and leaving Rosie in a room with a window large enough for her to slip out of was like inviting him to come and steal her away.
Otto's shoulders sagged. Either they'd moved her into the center of the penthouse, where there were no windows, or she was gone where he wouldn't be able to find her. His fists clenched. There is no such place; I would store Heaven itself to find her, he vowed. He was going to turn away, when something caught his attention. Her desk was beneath the window, and it was covered with jagged white shards and a fragile, twisted mechanism that he realized had once been part of a music box - the Phantom of the Opera music box he'd given her as an anniversary gift. Atop the gathered shards were two dried flowers; roses. From the twist of ribbon around one of the shrunken stems, he recognized them as the roses he'd given her before she'd discovered he'd lived.
And beneath that peculiar shrine was a corner of paper with the doodle of an eight-limbed figure on it.
It was obviously meant for him; he knew his Rosie, knew that she would do anything to contact him. The window was open a crack, enough for the actuators to slip a pincer claw beneath and force the window upward. The screen had been only loosely reset where he'd pushed it inward during his visit; the slightest pressure was enough to free a corner so an actuator could slip inside and pull the paper free. Clutching it in his hand, Otto sped down the building's face, half-fearing he'd sprung a trap and that its jaws were now closing in on him. He didn't stop until he was several rooftops away, beneath an antenna array. With shaking fingers, he infolded the paper, bringing it as close as possible to the camera in his mask to better see the words printed in Rosie's familiar, if hurried, hand.
It confirmed his worst fears, and his heart plunged to his feet. But then he read on, and felt a glimmer of hope. It contained a crude plan of escape, ending with the words: We'll be together again. I promise. We WILL be free…
XXX
Even though the men Michael had hired were currently out of her sight, Rosie could sense their presence. There were four of them at any given time, professional bodyguards more dangerous than any police officer, and certainly better armed. Two of them stayed within the penthouse, making routine circuits around the spacious domicile, while the other two were stationed atop the rooftop garden, to the annoyance of the building's other tenants who used the garden. Their job was to protect Rosie; should Otto show himself within a block of the building, their job was to bundle her up and get her out of there. Michael had hired them the morning after their argument, and they'd been here at all hours of the day ever since. They only let her out of their sight to use the bathroom; even now, ensconced in her room, she had to keep the door open so they could check in every five minutes or so to reassure themselves that she hadn't been abducted by her super-villain husband. The only positive side to their presence was that they kept away the reporters whose penetrating questions about her husband drove her to tears. And the guards satisfied the police, who had wanted to put her under their protection – in the hopes of using her as bait to lure her husband into the open. Better these silent, anonymous men than a police officer who didn't quite believe she didn't know where her husband was hiding…
At least it wouldn't be for too much longer, she thought dully, surveying the cardboard boxes scattered around the room. Tomorrow, the movers would come and take all her stuff, driving it to her new home, away from New York City. And three days after that, she was going to the airport, to catch a plane for California, so she could go live with her cousin Rebecca.
Or so they thought… Michael had made her flight plans immediately after storming out on her, and had told her about them immediately afterward, driving home that this was, in fact, reality. Even though Michael had moved her to one of the penthouse's inner bedrooms, one that didn't have a window, later that night, she'd still manage to write a quick letter to Otto, informing him of Michael's plans – and just when she'd be in transit to the airport. The letter had been gone when she'd checked the next morning, and her faith that Otto would act on it was unwavering. She wouldn't be going to California… she and Otto would be together again, and this time, nothing would stop them from spending the rest of their lives together.
The thought was the only thing that made her current situation bearable. Keeping her eagerness concealed from her family – and the damned bodyguards – when she was supposed to be depressed wasn't going to be easy, but she'd do it. Nothing was going to keep her from Otto again. Nothing.
XXX
Otto was glad he couldn't see the bare, empty rooms of the apartment portion of his lab, but he could feel it. The vast, open feel of an empty expanse could be sensed even by one who didn't have sight, and that emptiness seemed to press in on him. The past few days spent in the empty lab had been nerve-wracking, as if he were adrift in a vast sea of nothingness. Added to the constant fear that the police would perform another sweep of his safe haven, Otto found that he was on the verge of a breakdown. His limbs trembled, his head ached constantly, and his appetite dwindled to nothing.
The night he realized he wouldn't be leaving with Rosie, Otto had fled back to his lab, hoping the police hadn't yet staked it out. He'd swiped several cardboard boxes from a recycle bin behind a McDonalds on the way back, and after making certain the police hadn't yet checked the lab, he'd packed everything he owned that he wanted to keep and hadn't been ruined in the reactor disaster, and shifted it all to another location, then set about making the lab look as if it hadn't been lived in since the disaster, with the possible exception of an opportunistic homeless person. He'd then mapped out an escape plan, should the police come and he needed to bolt. He'd barely managed this before the police finally came – Otto was surprised they hadn't come sooner, but the lab seemed almost too obvious a place for him to hide, and had probably figured that he wouldn't conceal himself somewhere so easily connected to him. Still, they'd checked the place over two more times during the week he'd waited to make his rendezvous with Rosie. He knew he should move, but he couldn't do it. It had been his home for too long; he knew it well, even without sight to guide him. He didn't want to learn a new place, not when he wouldn't be staying there long.
It didn't matter now. In an hour, Michael's car would take Rosie to the airport – but they'd never get there. Otto had planned the ambush carefully, going over it in his head several times before finally accepting that it would work. He needed to ensure that the police could do nothing to stop him – and that Spider-Man wouldn't be on the scene. Otto pulled his coat on, then fitted the mask to his face, opening the link between his mind and the camera eye. He needed to leave now, if he was to make his way stealthily across the city without attracting attention.
He left the lab through an upper window and launched himself to the closest building as quickly as possible, aware that there could be police keeping an eye on the supposedly empty laboratory. Making his way across the city in broad daylight was more difficult in the day, and Otto was sometimes forced to find a new way around when obstacles presented themselves. But he made it to his destination at least ten minutes before Rosie was scheduled to leave for the airport; he had about twenty minutes before Michael's car appeared on the road below.
His perch was a massive building with stone facing and gargoyles; one of the older skyscrapers, before the glass-and-metal design became common. Otto lay flat atop a gargoyle situated on the building's corner, in the blind spot of the windows, some ten floors above the ground. An actuator, viewing the road with the camera's zoom function, would have been the only part of him visible to bystanders below. And as for Spider-Man… he wouldn't interfere. There'd been an anonymous tip to the police that Doctor Octopus had been sighted heading in the direction of the East River, where several abandoned buildings barely stood, supported only by rotting timbers. Any one of them could hold his hideout, and hopefully, the police would search them all. With Spider-Man's assistance…
Further helping him was the traffic congestion below; at all hours between dawn and dusk, this particular road had traffic snarls that weren't easy to navigate. It would slow Rosie's car – and any police aid her bodyguards called in.
Through the actuators, he watched the vehicles pass beneath him. Finally, he spotted the elegant vehicle that was Rosie's conveyance; not a limo, but with its size and elegance – and no doubt enormous price tag, it may as well have been. Otto rolled off the gargoyle, freefalling for sixty feet before two actuators snatched the fourth floor ledge and slowed his plunge, and he came to rest on the second floor. From there, Otto leapt atop the roof of a taxi, which sagged inward under his weight. He then launched himself to a silver Impala, which groaned with the impact, and from there to a sleek black Hummer, which didn't so much as shudder when he alighted. This brought him within range of Rosie's car, and he double-checked the license plate to ascertain he had the right car before making the final leap.
The impact jarred him, but he acted quickly; the serrated blade ejected from the lower left actuator and carved a hole in the roof. He could hear activity below, the sounds of a scuffle: Rosie was trying to incapacitate her bodyguards. While she didn't have the strength to bring down trained professionals, even if she did have the advantage of surprise, she did manage to keep them from firing their weapons. The upper right actuator slipped into the hole and wrapped its smaller inner tentacle around Rosie's waist and lifted her up. Her face was flushed and her hair was a mess, but she gave him a wide grin when she saw him. "Brace yourself; it's a wild ride," was all he said, though he wanted to say so much more to her. The three actuators launched him over to an SUV, then to another taxi before they reached the road's edge and Otto was able to transport himself via the buildings.
They'd gone four blocks before Otto set Rosie down to better adjust his grip on her, and to make certain she was unharmed from their rapid flight. But before he could ask, Rosie removed his mask, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.
XXX
The police called Michael at his office, and his secretary was present to see him drop the phone with limp fingers as he received the news. But he recovered surprisingly quickly, picking up the phone and pressing it back to his ear just as the police sergeant was saying that a helicopter had spotted them traveling across rooftops. He'd tried to shake them, but they had driven him relentlessly, until he'd gone to ground in an abandoned cluster of warehouses along the Hudson River – not the East River, as they had expected and were currently searching, meaning they would have to wait for their scattered forces to cross the city before they made a move.
"Where are you?" Michael demanded. "I want to be there."
"Mr. Stanton, I wouldn't recommend-" the sergeant began.
"She's my sister! I might be able to talk her out of this madness. Just give me the opportunity; I don't want to see her hurt."
"All right," the sergeant said, though Michael could hear his reluctance. "But at the first sign of danger, we're pulling you to safety." He told Michael that there was a plainclothesman with a car in the vicinity, and that the man would meet him in front of Michael's office building and take him to the site. Michael appreciated that; from what the sergeant had told him, his chauffered car was a mess, and his driver was badly shaken.
The car was waiting for him by the time Michael exited through the building's main lobby, and the plainclothes cop beckoned him into the front seat of his car, a nondescript vehicle with a flashing light on its roof as the only indication of the man's real occupation. The man drove as though he were on a NASCAR track, and Michael clung, white-knuckled, to the door handle. They crossed the city in record time, and skidded to a halt in front of a police barricade. The policeman escorted Michael through the barrier and left him with a man who introduced himself as Sergeant Lu. "We believe he's holed up with your sister in that warehouse over there," Lu pointed at a dilapidated structure that looked as if the slightest wind would knock it over. "We're sending the SWAT team in now."
XXX
The air of the abandoned warehouse circulated sluggishly in the wind leaking through the cracked window panes, sending dust motes swirling through the air. Rosie sneezed, and Otto fished out a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to her. She flashed him a grateful smile before it was obscured by the cloth as she held it to her nose. They were crouched behind a stack of rotted crates, with one of the actuators acting as sentry. It would only be a matter of time before the police finally dared to enter.
The helicopter that had spotted them had clung to their trail tenaciously, and Otto, laden with Rosie, couldn't maneuver as quickly or acrobatically as normal. The helicopter had dogged his tracks and called in backup, leaving him with three copters to evade instead of one. He'd finally made it to the abandoned warehouse where he'd stashed the stolen vehicle, but there was no way they could make an escape; the police had the place surrounded, and Otto's sensitive hearing could pick out the sound of the helicopters still circling the warehouse. If he ventured out, he'd be shot down. Worse, a stray bullet could hit Rosie, and he refused to risk her.
"Here they come," Otto said softly. Rosie nodded, ducking to make herself as small a target as possible. With precision that spoke of hours of drilling, the Kevlar-armored SWAT team members filed through the main door and took up positions along the walls nearest the door. There was no cover for them – all the crates and corroded metal canisters that had been left within the building were on Otto's side of the warehouse. They compensated by carrying heavy shields… but these shields weren't designed to withstand the impact of the heavy crates flung like missiles towards them. Otto threw two of them, scattering the SWAT team, who were still holding their fire so as not to harm Rosie. When Otto's actuators picked up a metal canister clearly labeled with several 'hazardous waste' and 'flammable' symbols, the SWAT team pulled back before the rusted metal hit the ground and the fragile metal shattered, leaving a spreading, noxious pool.
They were gone for now… but they wouldn't be gone for long… Otto knew, with grim certainty, that they wouldn't leave him alone until he was in custody… or dead.
XXX
Everything had taken on a dreamlike quality to Michael. Sergeant Lu led him as far into the warehouse as he dared, behind the line the SWAT team had staked out. He was handed a megaphone, and he made an impassioned plea to his sister to come back. Later, he wouldn't recall what he said, but the tears streaming down his face were testament to the emotion with which he'd spoken. He hadn't expected his words to sway his sister, barely visible crouched behind a crate, and they hadn't. Sergeant Lu assured him they'd find another way to extract Rosie from Octavius's possession. Difficult to believe, since the SWAT team couldn't even get near him, and they didn't seem to be in any rush. What were they waiting for?
His answer came in the form of the shattering of one of the windows, shards of glass trailing a blue and red missile that hit the floor, redirecting his flight towards the masked, tentacled figure. They began to grapple, a battle consisting of breathtaking acrobatics and the flinging of heavy objects. A police officer grabbed Michael's arm and tried to pull him away as one moldy wooden plank hit the ground less than a foot away from him, but he was riveted to the spot.
XXX
Rosie fell to the floorboards with a yelp as Otto pushed her out of the way of the flailing actuators and the red-clad fists and feet that moved with inhuman speed and accuracy. She backed out of range, but stayed close enough to watch as her husband defended himself from Spider-Man. Her heart pounded as she tried to follow a battle that happened faster than the eye could see; she'd never seen her husband fight before, and it stole her breath away. He was so powerful…
Hands closed around her shoulders, and she gasped. She thrashed, struggling to break free of the iron grip, but the man who held her wasn't going to be shaken off. He began to pull her back, away from her Otto. She wanted to scream out to him, but her captor had put a hand over her mouth. Otto hadn't even noticed; all his attention was focused on Spider-Man, who had landed a hard kick on his jaw. The actuators twisted around, attempting to grab the vigilante in their pincers, but he slithered out of their coils and sprang out of their reach.
The SWAT team member who had taken the initiative and retrieved her while her husband was distracted hauled her halfway back, then was joined by his teammates, who fell in around her, 'protecting' her. Rosie's heart sank as every step took her further and further from her husband…
XXX
Michael was stunned to see the sight of his sister in the arms of the police officer, fighting like a wildcat. Her hair was wild and her eyes were strangely bright, and she had curled her fingers into claws. The SWAT man held on to her as though he feared letting her go. He gave Michael a better-you-than-me look as he passed her over. She went limp in his grasp, but her eyes never left the battle between her husband and the arachnid, which had moved out of sight behind several of the large chemical canisters. Fingers tensed on triggers, but no one fired – no one wanted to risk hitting the canisters.
Spider-Man ricocheted off the wall, planting a kick on Octavius's chest. The man staggered backward, and the tentacles thrashed as if they'd suddenly lost control. One of them hit three of the canisters, which rocked dangerously, lost their balance, and fell. The corroded metal broke on impact with the floor, and the liquid spread in a puddle around them. Octavius slowly picked himself up, then unsteadily lunged towards Spider-Man, the tentacles preceeding him. Spider-Man sprang, and the tentacle struck the floor where he had been, and sparks flew from where it scraped a metal rivet.
The fire roared into existence, fueled by the old warehouse's dry timbers and the volatile chemicals which were still spreading across the floor, lapping against other canisters which also went up in flames as soon as the line of fire hit them. There was an urgent tug on Michael's jacket as the police tried to drag him and his sister out of there, but neither of them could pull their eyes away from the drama unfolding before them.
The fire spread rapidly, and was soon climbing the walls behind Octavius and Spider-Man, backlighting their heated battle and giving them a sinister glow. "We need to get out of here!" Lu shouted into his ear, and this time, slowly, Michael began to follow the evacuating police, with Rosie dragging her feet behind him. A gasp made Michael look back; a huge timber had fallen, pinning the tentacles beneath it. Octavius was struggling to pull loose, but it proved too heavy to move. Spider-Man was backing away as the fire devoured every safe perch, and every line of web he shot out was quickly consumed by the fire. There was no way he'd be able to help the scientist…
Then Rosie looked up at Michael, her eyes dark with sadness. "I love you, Michael," she said, with an air of finality. And then, Rosie pulled back her fist, putting her weight behind a punch to Michael's gut. With a whuff of expelled air, Michael doubled over, losing his grip on Rosie's arm. By the time he'd recovered enough to straighten, Rosie had sprinted across the floor, skirting around the burning timbers, charging through the blazing ring surrounding her husband and making it to Octavius's side, with smoke gently curling up from her singed clothing and hair.
Michael's last glimpse of his sister was to see her bending over her trapped husband in a futile attempt to pry him free, completely oblivious of the huge, fiery beam that had torn itself loose from the roof overhead and was plunging straight towards them.
XXX
The inferno blazed for nearly two hours, the chemical flames defying the streams of water jetting from the hoses wielded by the firemen. Finally, they'd been forced to back off and let it burn itself out, only acting to keep the fire from spreading. Once the final flames guttered out and died, the firemen entered, but with no hope of finding survivors. After sorting through the charred timbers and scorched metal littering the unstable floor, they finally found human remains – two skeletons, the bones so fragile that they crumbled to ash the moment they were touched. Scattered around the skeletons were several dozen blackened, curved metal links, loosely held together by melted wires in colorful puddles that had been their plastic coating. There was nothing left of the actuators that could be salvaged and put to use.
An extensive search yielded only one thing that had survived the fire relatively unscathed, found nestled beneath a cracked timber that had protected it from the worst of the flame, and passed to Michael Stanton to identify: a simple oblong mask, blackened by the heat and with cracks radiating from the left eyehole. Michael stared at those blank eye sockets for a long time, and then let the mask fall from nerveless fingers to shatter on the pavement.