Chapter Three
Nine months later…
"Parker!" yelled an obnoxious man smoking on a cigar.
"Yes Mr. Jamerson?" Peter asked running into the small newspaper office overlooking the city. He held his camera in his hands ready to take a snapshot of whatever his boss ordered.
"I just got a call that Marylyn Mottelson, the wife of that globe-trekking humanitarian, is on her way to the hospital as we speak, ready to have their first child. I don't know how many other newspapers've gotten wind of it, so I want you to get over there and snag the first picture of the new baby and its happy parents. First, Parker. Not second, or third." Jamerson knocked the used up end of his cigar into his ashtray. "It's bound to be sensitive, touching or whatever, and the Bugle needs sensitivity. People like that kind of junk."
Peter frowned. "Last week you wouldn't take my pictures of the park because you said action is the kind of junk people like."
"Did anybody ask you? Huh?" Mr. Jamerson snapped.
"No."
"Then no one wants your opinion. Ok? Ok. Get outta here."
As Peter was on his way out, Jamerson spoke again. "Tastes change, kid. And it's the Bugle's job to flex."
Peter was fine with that. Especially if they were changing away from "villainous" Spiderman, but he wasn't naïve enough to hope for that. At least it didn't hinder his ability to help New York's citizens.
By the time he arrived at the hospital – delayed by a "disturbance" – the Mottelsons were already in the midst of labor in a secret room by themselves with the doctor and nurse. So Peter sat in the waiting room, his camera ready, eyeing the doors to make sure no photographers from other papers would get the jump on him. His leg bounced as he listened to the classic rock music playing softly through the ceiling speakers and studied the copies of Norman Rockwell paintings framed on the walls.
It felt weird sitting in the waiting room for someone else's wife, so he imagined he was waiting for Mary-Jane. They had just gotten married the week before and Peter was still drunk with love for the redheaded spitfire. He didn't imagine he would ever sober. While they dated, in the depths of two hour conversations after the waiter had long ago brought their check, Mary-Jane had confessed how she wanted to nurture children the way her father never did with her. As she elaborated, Peter had realized she was talking about children of her own… their own. A week after marriage was a little early to be thinking about such things, but Peter knew the topic would surface again sometime in the near future. Peter envisioned Mary-Jane coming through the white wooden door cuddling the new edition to their family and grinned broadly. He realized he wanted kids too.
The white door opened in a flurry. "I-I'm just stepping out for a moment," a frazzled man in a long, baggy coat called over his shoulder as he entered the waiting room.
He glanced at Peter; surprise flashed across his face and then was gone. He took a seat on the far side of the room where the cheerful light didn't reach. He wore his felt hat so low on his forehead that it covered his eyes, though something was terribly familiar about him. Peter picked the magazine on top of the stack by the lamp and opened it on his lap to provide a base for his eyes to return to if the stranger got suspicious.
The man bowed his head, fidgeting with a buttonhole and mumbling to himself. If Peter didn't know better, he would have thought the man was praying. Hey, maybe he was. Peter would probably be praying, too, when Mary-Jane's turn came. But the man's prayers were strange: amongst the smooth mumblings, they would spatter with hushed defiance and then drop back down. Very peculiar. The man patted his pockets and then glanced on the kids table beside him. Taking up a crayon and coloring book, he began scribbling madly.
Peter couldn't stand the curiosity, so stealthily he set the magazine he hadn't been reading back on the end table, stood up and walked casually towards the man, seeming to search for a more interesting magazine. The man glanced up at him with a frown and then curved the coloring book privately and continued his writing, but not before Peter had seen what was written across the black and white kittens playing with yarn: advanced mathematical and chemical equations, more letters than numbers, stretched the length of the page. The man turned to the next and continued writing. Bending over a table to rummage through magazines, Peter looked at the face hidden beneath the man's hat.
Doctor Octopus.
What the heck was Doc Ock doing in the maternity ward? The unfortunate doctor had slipped far beyond the noble man who had willingly sacrificed himself for the city. Peter hadn't seen him around lately: maybe that was a good sign. However, the few times he did run into Ock, the doctor seemed lost in his own head… a bad place to be, since his was ruled by his tentacles.
Peter sat innocently beside him and began reading the magazine he had chosen. Sitting in a maternity ward, quietly, by himself, was odd beyond reason, yet Peter couldn't reconcile that thought with the fact that if the tentacles were in charge, the doctor would be out building the fusion reactor again. Maybe this was a sign that Otto was returning, odd surroundings aside. Peter hoped he was right.
"I know it's you, Doctor Octavius," Peter said under his breath, eyeing the receptionist in the window on the other side of the room.
"So do I," the man replied. "I'm not doing anything, Parker, so leave me alone, will you?" He wrote the numbers with more ferocity.
"What are you working on?" Peter asked.
Peter saw a glimpse of the old Dr. Octavius, who had enjoyed Peter's questions. "Just a theory," he replied, stopping writing for a moment to read over the first page again. "But I'd rather not get into it. I can hardly concentrate as it is."
Peter paused for a moment, flipping through his own magazine, before he spoke again.
"Why are you here, of all places?" he asked.
The old Octavius was gone; Peter was no longer welcome. "It's none of your business," he replied harshly, looking up at Peter, though he wasn't looking at Peter so much as he was looking through him. He looked away quickly. "I'm not… in the best of conditions for patience, Parker. I'd suggest not testing us."
The white door opened again, this time to a medical doctor.
"Sir," she said passionately. "you should come in, now. Like, right now."
Octavius hopped up from his chair and hurried to the doctor, taking the coloring book with him.
"What's going on?" Peter asked, following him.
"Not today, Parker!" Octavius warned, slamming the door before Peter could slip through.
XXX
Otto followed the doctor quickly down the hall.
"Rosie is nearing the end of her contractions," the doctor explained as they reached Rosie's room.
Rosie was bathed in sweat, but managed a sweet smile at her husband.
"Did you miss me?" he asked softly.
"Very much so," she replied pleasantly, despite her obvious pain.
Otto hurried to her side and held her hand, sickened at having to watch his wife suffer. He squeezed her hand in both of his and massaged the back of it. His anxiety fed into the actuators.
There is pain here, they noted, shuffling.
He told them sternly to quit moving, and they stopped. However, they were nearly as uncomfortable as Otto, feeling fear, stress, and danger, yet not knowing what was causing it or how to relieve it. They wanted to systematically destroy stimuli until the danger was removed. It was this heavy desire of theirs that had driven Otto into the waiting room to get a hold of himself. He couldn't duck out again.
That doctor. Her voice. She is threatening.
No, she isn't. Trust me, will you? There is no danger.
The ceiling lights, the tentacles reasoned. Their frequency is bothering us.
We must destroy them.
No, Otto told them, frantically grasping for control. Rosie noticed.
"You're looking a little pale," she commented. Code: Actuator Battle. "I'll be alright if you need to go into the hall for a bit."
Otto massaged her hand with more intensity. "I'm alright, Rosie. I can… I can handle this."
The nurse, that scratching of the pencil on her clipboard. It is irritating. Take it. You can even use your own hands.
A simple solution to a grave problem.
Take it! they pleaded.
Otto found himself loosening his grip on Rosie's hand and floating ever so slightly towards the nurse. He caught himself and held Rosie's hand tighter.
"Please," Rosie said before another pang hit her. "Go and clear your head. I wouldn't want you fainting." Code: Tentacles on the Loose.
Otto nodded an apology to her. "You're right," he admitted and shuffled past the medical staff, past the nurse and the pencil, towards the doorway. "I'll be right outside the hall. I'm just all excited."
"I'll be here," Rosie assured him with a smile.
Otto was preoccupied as he hurried into the hallway and leaned against the wall.
"There is no danger," he hissed under his breath at his smart arms.
You do not believe your own words.
There is danger. We must alleviate the threat.
"The 'threat' cannot be alleviated the way you think," Otto explained.
He knew it was dangerous to be seen in public, even though Rosie was doing a good job of covering for him, saying he was a good friend from upstate. Rosie had pleaded with him not to come, appealing to his sense of reason. One slip up and all could be lost. Otto agreed with her, and yet he would not let her go to the hospital by herself to deliver their child. He could not.
The threat remains.
You are doing nothing about it, so we must.
"Quiet, quiet," he hushed them. "Stay low. Do not attack. I'll handle it."
"Get ready to push," the doctor said.
"No," Otto heard Rosie gasp. "I need to wait for Michael." Michael was the name Rosie had introduced Otto the doctors as.
The nurse poked her head around the doorframe and Otto looked up.
"It's time," she announced and Otto all but ran into the room. He took his place by her side and held her hand tight.
"I'm here, Rosie," he said, his voice tight and uncomfortable.
The doctor instructed Rosie to push and she did, with a painful cry. Adrenaline pulsed through Otto and he rubbed her hand.
You are in fight or flight mode.
The Rosie woman is causing this distress, the tentacles concluded.
We must remove this pain.
"No!" Otto demanded, out loud. The medical staff looked at him strangely, then went back to work. "No," he apologized. "I'm sorry. It's not… I was… It's… something else."
It was not a long labor, according to the doctor, though Otto had to retreat to the chair at the back of the room once or twice to reign in the actuators. Just when he feared he would have to escape to the hallway again, his daughter came into the world. Otto, feeling as exhausted as Rosie looked, stepped closer to his daughter and with the doctor's go ahead, clipped the umbilical cord. Long after the baby was wrapped tightly in a pink blanket with a soft hat on her precious little head and handed to Rosie, and the medical staff was gone, Otto stood over Rosie, gazing into their child's face with a wide, dreamy grin. He floated back to earth when he realized Rosie was laughing at him. He grabbed the chair in the corner, pulled it up to Rosie's bedside and sat down in it quickly, hearing it groan under his weight.
"Do you still want to name her Annabelle?" Otto asked his wife. She nodded.
"Yes," Rosie replied, stroking the sleeping baby's forehead with her finger. "I think it's perfect."
"Annabelle it is. Annabelle Rose," Otto said looking into the baby's bright brown eyes when they opened for a moment to look up at the strange man above her. She had his eyes.
"Look at her cute little nose," Rosie marveled, touching it gently. The then reached over and touched Otto's nose. "It looks just like yours."
"But her lips are yours," Otto replied happily. "Thank goodness."
"Oh Otto," Rosie chided peacefully. "you're too hard on yourself."
Otto stood and leaned carefully over Annabelle to tenderly brush his lips against Rosie's.
"I can see it now: Anna Octavius, greatest scientist in the United States!" Otto said passing his hand in front of him through the air.
"Or there is a bunch of other things that she could become," Rosie stated, eyes brimming with joy.
"Well, yes, of course! She could be anything she put her mind to!" Otto said reaching in and tickling Anna's stomach softly with his finger. He smiled warmly at the sleeping baby. "See, Rosie? Nothing happened," Otto said.
"You proved me wrong," Rosie admitted with a smile, but then sighed. "Still, I'd like to go home as soon as possible."
Otto was about to protest, bringing up the advantages of staying in the hospital longer, but knew it would do no good. "Okay," he said, lovingly brushing the hair from her forehead. "And I worked out all of the problems on paper and the actuators won't affect her. Even though they're in my head, they haven't changed my DNA."
Rosie sighed in relief: clearly that had been on her mind. "Thank goodness." After a moment of peaceful silence, she continued, "Do you think that they'll be able to handle her?"
"They?" Otto asked.
"They...them." Rosie pointed around his back towards the tentacles hidden under his coat.
"Oh, them! Yes, they'll be able to handle her. Won't you?" Otto passed a commanding glance towards the tentacles. The tentacles inched out from under his coat.
"Stay in there," he commanded.
They stopped but lifted the edge of his coat with their heads and peered at Rosie and Annabelle through their nearly closed pinchers. Rosie looked nervously at Otto, who looked sternly at the actuators.
The threat is gone.
"They're fine," he assured her.
Look at it! It's so small!
Interesting.
"She isn't an 'it'. Her name is Annabelle," Otto corrected the inaudible voices smiling with a shrug at Rosie.
Hm...Annabelle. We guess it's ok...for a human name.
I think it should be named a sweeter name.
Like A-37.
No, are you crazy? Like S-23! How could you come up with such a stupid name? A-37...it doesn't even sound like her.
I like human names. Anna fits her.
She should have a name that sounds intelligent.
Because she is a little Otto. She is ours.
"No she isn't. She's mine and Rosie's," Otto warned with a dangerous tone that worried Rosie. He could feel them pushing against his will, but he held strong. "And if you do anything to her, I'll saw you off myself," he added under his breath.
There was an awkward silence from the tentacles and he felt them surrender. …Well, mostly surrender. Something of them seemed to still press.
You would not saw us off.
Nonetheless, we will not hurt her.
"I'll keep you to that," Otto said, relieved that his actuators did not seem threatened by Annabelle.
XXX
Seven months later…
Mary-Jane entered the apartment and locked the door. She pulled a small box from the plastic pharmacy sack and held it out skeptically.
"Are you going to cooperate?" she asked, eyeing it, as if expecting it to answer. The unoffending white and blue box made no promises either way. She took it into the bathroom.
She and Peter had been trying to get pregnant with little success. The first month, Peter was present for every anxious take-home pregnancy test, but as test after test showed negative, the disappointment each time lessened, yet an overall sense of worry increased. It had been four months, but they hadn't given up hope.
Mary-Jane half-heartedly opened the box but then hesitated, setting it on the bathroom counter and looking at herself in the mirror. A battle against despair was fought along every line in her forehead. The apartment was especially vacant that day since Peter was at the Bugle or at least on his way, since he probably had been caught up in Spiderman business. She hardly even mentioned the pregnancy tests she went through anymore, except a passing "Nothing yet," at the end of the day. She wanted children. So badly.
After another round of the discouraging routine, Mary-Jane sighed as she waited for the results. When they came, she nearly dropped the wand down the sink.
"Pregnant," it read.
Mary-Jane squealed and jumped up and down on the linoleum. She ran out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, fumbling to dial from the sticky note with Betty Brant's work phone number stuck to the cabinet above the telephone. She twirled her hair and scratched the back of her leg with her foot as she listened to it ring. Finally, the secretary picked up the phone.
"Hi Miss Brant, this is Mary-Jane," Mary-Jane said quickly. "Is Pete there?"
"No," Betty replied. "He hasn't shown up today yet."
Of course he hasn't, Mary-Jane thought, but her joy quickly overcame her frustration.
"Okay," she hurried. "Well, would you tell him to call me as soon as he arrives?"
"Sure thing."
"Thanks." Mary-Jane hung up the receiver and leaned against the counter, taking in the atmosphere of their apartment and trying to imagine the floor littered with baby toys.