Author's Note: Well, well, Chapter 9, WOO!! Here we go! I must apologize for this chapter, there will be no breaks to tell where the story switches from on character to the next like in my other chapters, some kind of stupid error!! oh well, I hope you can follow it.

Chapter 9: "It can be done"

The next morning, Otto walked into the kitchen and found Aunt May cooking breakfast. She turned and gave him a sweet smile.

"Oh, good morning, everything go alright last night?" She asked turning her attention back to the eggs that were cooking on the stovetop.

Otto yawned and smiled at her, "Yeah, it was…okay," he said uneasily as he tried to pull down the sleeve of his shirt down over his arm to conceal his shiny, red burn. He opened the refrigerator and took out a small tube of Neosporin, then disappeared down the hall to his room. He sat down on the bed and began applying the Neosporin painfully to his arm. A knock on the door startled him. The door opened to reveal Peter. He had a large black eye and a burn across his cheekbone.

Peter winced at seeing the raw flesh on Otto's arm. "Jeez, you okay? You look like crap," he said pointing out Otto's tired look.

"Well, mighty one… you don't necessarily look like a basket of fruit yourself," Otto said tossing the tube to him.

Peter put some on his cheek as MJ came in and hugged Peter. "Breakfast is almost ready if you guys want to come eat." Otto followed Peter out of the room and shut the door.

"Hey, aren't you gonna wrap that?" Peter implied about Otto's arm.

"No, it heals better if I let it get some air. After all, I am a doctor, I know what I'm doing," Otto said picking up a copy of today's paper from the couch. In large bold letters across the headlines, it read: SPIDERMAN, OCK, GREEN GOBLIN, AND VENOM DESTROY PLANETARIUM!!

"Damn that ass Jameson," Otto cursed under his breath as he sat down.

As Otto unfolded the paper, Aunt May saw the headlines then saw Peter's black eye.

"Peter, where did you get that?" She asked turning Peter's face to hers, "I heard that the building exploded."

"Well, I was his by some debris, hence the black eye and I was hit in the cheek by a burning piece of wood," Peter said in an unsuccessful attempt at calming Aunt May down. She looked at the burn on Otto's arm. Otto drew the paper closer to his face to conceal his guilty look. "It's a good thing Spiderman was there or all of those people would have died…Otto? What exactly were you doing, because the paper also said that you were there…" Her voice trailed off as she turned her gaze back to his burned arm.

"Well… I decided that the best way to redeem myself would probably be to help Spiderman," Otto said lowering the paper and taking a bite of breakfast.

MJ looked to Peter then to Otto and back at Peter. She looked into Peter's soft, brown eyes, tears welling in her own. With Peter being Spiderman, she thought that he was invincible and unable to be defeated. At least until Otto came along. Both men, she respected for their talents, but never thought that they could be injured.

"MJ its okay," Peter whispered softly in her ear.

Otto looked past the paper at the two young lovers. MJ was frightened, but at least she had someone who loved her. As Otto turned his attention to an article in the paper, a knot appeared in his throat. He swallowed and sighed, closing his eyes to rid himself of the accumulating tears. Aunt May watched him out of the corner of her eye, "Is something wrong?" She asked.

Otto had a hurt look on his face as he swallowed again, "I uh… I'm not that hungry…I'm, I've got things I… need to do," He said disappearing from the room and down the stairs.

Aunt May stared at the stairwell then back to breakfast. She glanced to Peter whose brow was furrowed in thought.

"That poor man," She sighed. She remembered how she used to be that way with Uncle Ben.

"Aunt May-" Peter started.

"I know what you're going to ask, Peter, and yes, I still do miss Uncle Ben very badly, more than you think I do." Aunt May spoke in a low, soothing voice.

Peter stared at his Aunt before she continued.

"You must understand something Peter… wounds inflicted to passionate emotions are extremely painful for a long time, and when they heal, they leave very deep scars. I was the same way with your Uncle for a time. Otto is suffering from Nostalgia…A longing for his loved one, a loved one he knows he can never see…But, absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. I hate to see anyone suffer, so hopefully, he will move on like I did," Aunt May finished looking back on fond memories with her late husband.

"Right," Peter said hugging MJ close.

Otto flew outside in the cold air for a time, sling shooting himself forward every couple of minutes. He had been in his workroom for a while pouring over old notes and printouts. He had come across something that looked quite interesting

They had been notes about the actuators saying each one's functions and abilities then it showed the tentacle attributes. One particular passage caught his attention, it read: "The tentacles have amazing flexibility properties. Speed, at which they travel, is near 90 feet per second. Proportion in the ability to stretch is dependant solely on the conductor's telepathic will. Farthest distance stretchable: "Undetermined!!"

This had truly sparked Otto's interest. So far as he traveled through the city, he found the tentacles stretched way over 200 feet. They launched him into the air one more time, and, in a bold attempt, he tried to latch it onto a building more than five hundred feet above his current position. He watched as the actuators shot high into the air before he felt the effects of g-force. The tentacles didn't make it to the building and he was falling straight towards a rooftop beneath him.

"Come on, Come ON!!!" He shouted to the actuators as they struggled to get a hold of something. The ground flew up too quickly. He landed on the ventilation pipes on top of the roof and bounced off from the force of the impact. He flew over the edge of the building, crashed through a few lofts of an old, rusty fire-escape and slammed into the walls of the alleyway back and forth as he plummeted to the ground. He landed with a WHUMP

"Ungh," He groaned laying his head down on the concrete.

Ack, what happened?

Oof, ow that hurt!

WTF? What was that?

Why did that happen?

The actuators jabbered in his head as he tried to sit up. He was surprised to find that he had full range of movement, despite the fact that if he had been a normal person, that would have snapped his spine in several places. Luckily, he owed his life to the metal casing over it. Otto reached back and felt the metal that ran down the length of his back gingerly. "Well, I guess that's one good thing about being abnormal," He said with a pained laugh.

Ughhh

Hoof, that was some ride

Ouch, uh let's not try that again

Yes, I'm afraid I must agree with my ditz of a sibling, let's not do that again

Otto nodded before leaping up to the top of the roof. The tallest skyscraper was right in front of him; the Empire State Building. The two bottom actuators securely grasped the building as Otto braced himself for what he was about to do. He cleared his mind and focused on the tentacles. With a jolt, he threw the upper two forward. The muscles in his back twitched as the tentacles stretched farther and farther.

For what seemed like an eternity, Otto forced the tentacles to go farther and farther. Sweat beaded on his brow and it felt as if his back would be ripped in two. He finally felt the stretching stop and opened his eyes wearily. Each segment on the tentacles themselves was each stretched over two feet away from each other. He let them come back. As they came closer to him again, he regained feeling in his back, but that feeling was soon numbed by weariness. He sat on the rooftop against a large pipe as the actuators drooped tiredly. He had come out here for a reason, but that reason had left his memory the way sand slips through fingers.

One actuator reminded him and he was standing in a split second. How could he have forgotten?

Eddie lay on a couch in Harry's large penthouse. He had bandages around his arms and torso and he had acquired multiple burns from that flaming rubble pile. He held an ice pack up to his forehead as he grimaced. The symbiote hissed painfully inside of his mind.

Ahhh, the pain isss excruciating, how could he have defeated usss? It grumbled angrily.

Eddie wasn't listening, he was fiercely thinking about when and where he would pay Otto back, "Eight-legged Freak!" He whispered harshly.

"I'd suggest that you calm yourself," a voice said behind him. Harry had appeared and had a small bandage over a place on his forehead. "Otto will not come to us… we'll have to draw him out someway… but how?" He angrily muttered to Eddie, "And obviously, you are in no position to go and fight him again! No going out until you have healed completely… what use is an injured warrior to me?"

Eddie nodded and mumbled, "Okay." He became lost in thought about how to pull him out of his 'hidey-hole.' From as much Eddie knew, he knew that Otto had no weaknesses now that Rosie was dead, originally, his Rosie. He knew that this would happen; she would lose her life to one of his careless mistakes. He had warned her about the exact thing he expected Otto would do, and still, she turned him away. This posed as a problem… Otto with no weaknesses would be virtually undefeatable, whatever he did. This dilemma troubled him greatly.

The weeks passed slowly to Peter. Otto consistently holed himself up in his workroom, coming out for a while every day to get some air and break up a few gang wars or robberies with Peter. Christmas and New-years passed and now it was near midway through January.

In the snowy afternoon one day, Peter stood next to Aunt May and MJ in front of Uncle Ben's gravestone. "Dearly beloved husband and Uncle." Is what the stone read. A dark figure in the corner of Peter's eye made him turned his head. "Otto? What could he be doing he- ah, okay," Peter whispered to himself in the realization of why he was here.

Otto stood in front of a gravestone. His trenchcoat billowed around him as a wind picked up. He delicately brushed the snow and accumulating frost off of the marble stone and gazed into it, pain rising in his heart. "In beloved memory of Rosalie Octavius." The engraved words on the stone cut him like a knife to read. He sank to his knees in misery and leaned against it, running his hand down the icy, white marble. The cold pressure of the stone against his face felt unreal. Like the icy chill of death. "I will bring you back… somehow," he whispered. His watery eyes turned to the bunch of dead roses in the flower vase next to her grave. He pulled those out delicately and placed a bunch of fiery red roses in their place. The black, dry roses crinkled in his hand. What they reminded him of was his dearly beloved, lost to him… dead.

Peter watched him. He looked to Uncle Ben's gravestone then back to Otto. Peter now realized exactly how much he and the scientist had in common. It was truly phenomenal. Peter watched as Otto got to his feet.

Lilia's words reverberated against the walls of his mind, "I know with your intellect, you can find a way, it can be done." The words echoed a few times, transfixing Otto. Peter walked up the hill to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It can be done," he mumbled. He still stood staring into nothing.

"What?" Peter asked at his random quote. Otto's brain flew faster than a supercomputer flying through equations, schematics, theories and figures until he found what he was looking for. "Yes," He whispered, the familiar smirk of the genius that he used to be returned to his face.

"Sorry Pete, I've got to go," He said running away from Peter. Peter stood scratching his head at his friend's sudden disappearance and strange behavior. "What in the world… is he up to?" He asked himself. His spider-senses were driving him crazy as he walked back down to Aunt May and MJ. "Hey, guys sorry, but I won't be able to come back with you. I just got a call from Mr. Jameson and I need to be at the Bugle in a few minutes so I'll see ya'," He said kissing Aunt May and MJ on the cheek. He ran all the way across the grave yard to the nearest alley way and changed into Spiderman. He swung out of the Alley way and into the Street.

"Honestly, I don't know what's come over that boy. I could have just driven him," Aunt May said to MJ in bewilderment.

"Well, he tells me that He's trying to get more exercise," MJ said trying to make sure that she didn't become suspicious that Spiderman was Peter.

Peter swung to the top of the Empire State Building. He really had gotten a call from Robbie this morning about some high shots of the city. He pulled off his camera from around his neck and began taking pictures to the South, East, and West. He turned north and saw below him, a green-roofed apartment on the left side of central park. He raised the camera and shot a few pictures with loud clicks before swinging to the bugle office.

Peter dived in through the ventilation shaft a few minutes later and into the men's bathroom. "Well, no one's around, I guess I'd better change," he said pulling on his regular clothes and taking off his mask and gloves. He stuffed them into his vest pocket before running into the office up to Robbie's desk. "Here ya' go Robbie," Peter chirped handing the photos to him.

"Awww, these are great pics Pete! Take em' to Jonah, I'll call you whenever I need some high quality work," He gave Peter a great big smile before returning to typing on his computer.

Peter walked up to Betty's desk, "Hey Betty," He said cheerfully.

"Hey, Pete, you're looking better today," She said returning his happy smile.

"Yeah, well, I feel good today," He said.

"Jonah was just yelling for you, you better go in," She said, silently mouthing the words 'Good Luck!'

"Hey JJ," Peter said walking into the editor's office. He handed Jonah the pictures before asking, "You hollered, sir?"

Robbie came in, "Five minutes to deadline Jonah!!"

"All right, all right!!" Jonah hollered to his executive. "Parker, you'd better have some good Spiderman pictures for me or you're fired!"

Peter pulled from his coat pocket, a picture of Spiderman and Ock and handed it to Jonah.

"Ahh, the eight legged freak as well!! I'm probably only gonna tell you this once, Parker, you're good!" Jonah said putting his cigar back in his mouth. "Robbie!! Here's page one, NEW YORK HAS A NEW MENACE!!"

"I keep trying to tell you Jonah, Ock is trying to help Spiderman and Spiderman is NOT a menace!!" Robbie hollered over the commotion.

"And I told you-" Jameson started before handing Peter a check.

"I'm on it, I'm on it!" Robbie retorted.

"Keep up the good work Parker!!" Jameson yelled as Peter left the room. Peter looked at the check. Jameson had given him close to 600 dollars for the lot. "Wow!" Peter exclaimed handing it to Betty.

"Well, Pete, looks like you're all paid up," Betty said handing him 500 dollars. "That covered the advance!" She chucked him on the chin before walking into JJ's office. "See ya' Pete!"

Peter walked back to the bathrooms, changed back to Spiderman and Headed south to Oscorp again.

Close to five minutes later, He peered into the window looking into Harry's apartment. Eddie was sitting on the couch tending a few of his burns. He sensed Peter and whipped around. Peter had already y gone back to central park. "Well, looks like ol' lobster head won't be going any where for a few weeks!" He said happily to himself. It was noticeable, no corpses had been found recently since Eddie had gone into resting. He went back to the Apartment to meet up with Otto, MJ and Aunt May to discuss some things.