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You’re not sure how it happened. One moment, you were swinging through the city and fighting crime (albeit in your civilian clothes); the next, you’re wobbly and disoriented as a stranger tries to drag you off into his car.
Just an average day in the life of Spider-Man, right?
Well. Not average, necessarily. Sure, you’ve had your powers for a while now—long enough to have seen a lot of shit. You’ve stopped kidnappings, abductions, attempted terrorist attacks by supervillains… You’ve taken on search and rescue in natural disasters, you’ve talked people down from the ledges of buildings.
You know how to save people. It’s what you do. But saving yourself? Apparently, you need a lot of practice. You’d been so busy in your last fight, ensuring the safety of a few bystanders, that you hadn’t bothered to take a better look at your surroundings. You brushed off the sharp sting of something at your neck, and now that you think about it, you’re starting to realize that it must’ve been planned. The criminals from earlier were just supposed to distract you long enough to slip past your defenses and incapacitate you. And sure, it sounds like something you should’ve been prepared for. But you had been taking on at least eight guys at once, and your powers aren’t exactly suited for drawn-out close combat while you’re outnumbered. (Hell, you don’t even have your suit on; it’s a good thing you produce your own webs.)
So now here you are, practically limp at this criminal’s side as he drags you off into a dark van and carts you off to your likely death. You’ve thought about your death before. It’s impossible not to—you’re Spider-Man. You’re constantly in danger. You had expected your demise to be at the hands of a supervillain or in the middle of a conflict. But being drugged and pulled off the street, only to be killed at some inconspicuous abandoned building and dumped into the ocean? That isn’t how you pictured things going.
Just as your assailant is about to open the door of the van and shove you in, there’s the sound of footsteps behind you. He turns on his heel and glares at the new presence, while you pray to the gods you don’t believe in that this passerby will notice something wrong.
“Let go of him.”
Your heart stutters at the familiar voice, and you manage to squint through blurred vision to find the last person you want to see: Otto Octavius (or, as the public knows him, Doc Ock). Dark brown messy hair, broad shoulders, sharp lines. That’s him, alright. He doesn’t seem to recognize you, thankfully. You weren’t planning on patrolling today, so you’re only wearing a simple sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. Nothing that would give away your secret identity. Thank the universe for small mercies.
“Relax, he’s my friend,” your assailant says somewhat impatiently, before continuing to pull you along. “Come on, buddy.” You stumble a bit as the guy sends your momentum forward.
“Prove it,” Octavius says calmly. It’s clear he isn’t convinced, and you’re strangely grateful. Many would blink and walk by. But not him, it seems. The villain looks at your assailant pointedly, evidently waiting for him to pull out his phone and provide proof that you’re friends. (Which, obviously, doesn’t exist, because you are not.)
Several things happen at once. Your assailant promptly yanks you to your feet, suddenly in a rush as he realizes he’s been found out. You try to shove him off, but your body doesn’t cooperate. He opens the car door, you’re unceremoniously pushed into the vehicle—
And your enemy’s actuators shoot out of his back, latching onto the guy and throwing him into the distance.
“He’ll live,” Octavius says dismissively, staring at the horizon before looking back to you. For a second, you almost want to laugh. The completely blasé tone of his remark, the way he just threw the guy as if he weighed nothing at all… It would be funny, in a different situation. If the world wasn’t spiraling around you.
The villain looks down at you. “Are you all right?” he asks, starting to come closer. His silhouette looms large behind him. You’re on the ground now, for some reason. You don’t remember how that happened. As he approaches, you choke on a whimper—that’s how you know you must be really out of it—and try to shrink away. Octavius frowns. (It’s funny, you think. If you were anyone else, you would almost believe his concern was genuine.)
“I’m not going to harm you,” he says placatingly. “You need to go to the hospital.”
Honestly, those words barely register over the ringing in your ears. All you know is that Otto Octavius is reaching for you, and your mind is screaming at you to escape, fight him off, run. Your resistance only seems to irritate him.
“I promise I won’t hurt you,” he says tersely, before muttering something darkly about hero work being overrated. He crouches down, his hand finding the back of your knee. You know he’s probably just trying to carry you, but you panic.
With a flick of your wrist, you shoot a web at him.
Octavius couldn’t have been expecting it, but somehow he blocks it with his arm. The web clamps around his forearm, but his movements remain unhindered. And as he stares down at you, his eyes flash with recognition behind his sunglasses.
Fuck. You shouldn’t have done that.
He catches on quickly. “Spider-Man,” Octavius says, his lips quirking into a dangerous smile. Your heart thunders away in your chest. Your back is flattened against the car behind you. “How fortunate.”
You manage to drag yourself up to your feet again, grasping at the car’s side mirror as your legs wobble. Everything is spinning, your head hurts, your throat is dry, and you kind of want to throw up. Octavius’ actuators almost seem to shake and twitch in impatience. “Get away from me,” you try to say, the words jittering together and slurring as they leave your lips.
This situation really couldn’t be much worse. You’re drugged and entirely vulnerable in front of one of the city’s most dangerous supervillains. He could kill you right here, right now. You need to get away, you need to get away, you need to get away, you need to get away—
Instead, your knees crumple under you and you pass out.
From there, you drift in and out of consciousness. There’s a moment where you can feel a brisk wind against your skin, and you instinctively curl into the warm weight at your left. You swear you can feel your teeth rattling past your lips. There’s a mechanical whirring sound that you quickly recognize to be Doc Ock’s actuators, and that recognition alone prompts you to tear your eyes open and blink past the relentless fatigue.
Sure enough, Otto Octavius is standing over you, blanketed by the deep night sky. Your breath catches as you realize you aren’t stationary—he’s moving, and somehow, you are too. Panic makes a home in your chest and you’re quick to try to escape. A robotic appendage swiftly presses against your back, keeping you trapped in his arms.
“Stop squirming,” he orders, his eyes set ahead. You still find yourself moving anyways, if only because you’re confused and frightened and too disoriented to really understand what’s happening. But you’re freezing, and your enemy is like a furnace, and you’re suddenly very, very tired.
Despite your misgivings, despite your mistrust and wariness and knowledge that you need to keep your wits about you… your eyes slip shut.
The next time you wake, the world is blissfully still around you. You don’t really understand your surroundings, though—they aren’t immediately familiar, but you’re situated on a couch, and you’re not apprehended…
So, basically, things could be a lot worse. You haven’t been kidnapped, and you’re probably not going to die. Right?
Oh. Wait. Octavius found you. Earlier. After you had fought those criminals, you started to feel off. One of them reappeared, tried to pull you into his car. Octavius intervened. Hell, he saved you. That leaves you with one thought: Why? Why would he bother? Why would he bring you here—wherever here is—instead of killing you?
Maybe he’s in it for the long con. Maybe he’s just trying to get you to let your guard down, showing you kindness before swiftly lodging the knife of reality between your ribs. That has to be it. There’s no other rational explanation for how or why you find yourself here, in this nondescript apartment with papers and mechanical parts scattered just about everywhere.
You have to get out of here. You manage to push yourself up to a sitting position, though the movement immediately provokes a wave of dizziness. It feels like your head is weighted to one side, like the world is tilting on its axis.
And there it is. That tingle. The gut instinct that you’ve grown to associate with your spider sense. You sense Octavius approaching before he makes himself known, and you don’t hesitate to shoot a web at the door.
A few seconds pass until he clears his throat pointedly. You blink hard and rub your eyes roughly, turning to find him standing in the opposite doorway. That can’t be right. You swear he was just— Your spider sense told you he was in the hall behind you, but now here he is, standing off to the side silently. You don’t need to look at him to recognize his scrutiny—you can feel the weight of his gaze roving up and down your form, looking for something you’re not privy to. Weapons? Injuries? Who knows.
“Whatever you were given is altering your internal equilibrium,” Octavius explains matter-of-factly, sensing your distress, “and by extension, I assume, your powers.” You suppose that makes sense. It’s frightening, you have to admit: the idea that your powers, which you’ve always relied on to guide you, can be tampered with.
The villain takes a few relaxed steps into the living room of the space, and a hiss crawls out of the back of your throat before you can stop it. You immediately click your mouth shut, but it’s too late. He’s noticed.
“Did you just hiss?” Octavius asks.
“……No,” you say unconvincingly.
He gives you a long look. You stare back, feeling the hairs on your arms bristle. Octavius takes a step closer. Every muscle in your body is coiled tightly; you want to run, even though you know you probably wouldn’t get very far away from him.
“Did you hit your head?” he then asks. The question is so unexpected that it actually distracts you from his continuous approach, and before long he’s standing before you. After a breath, he presses a hand to your head and runs his fingers along your scalp. You blink languidly, surprised by how nice the gesture feels.
For a while, you watch him do this—unable to shake the strange conviction that he’s… petting you. You immediately chide yourself for the thought. Your thoughts are murky and muddled right now. It’s hard to make sense of what’s happening.
“You’re really out of it, spider,” Octavius says, confirming your suspicions. It’s hard to tell if he’s talking to you or just uttering his thoughts aloud. You suppose it doesn’t really matter. His hand grazes a tender spot near your temple and you flinch.
When he prods at it experimentally, you try to hiss again, but you only manage to make a weak chittering sound. Immediately you want to die of embarrassment—or, you would, if you weren’t preoccupied with trying to keep your wits about you. Your eyes have been incessantly burning since you first woke.
Before long, you find yourself staring at your enemy.
He stares back.
This continues for what feels like years. It must only be a few minutes, but it’s more than long enough to make things incredibly awkward.
“You’re not usually this quiet,” the villain eventually notes, considering you for a moment. “Though I suppose this is a deviation from our normal routine.”
Finally, you decide to break your silence. “...Why did you save me?” you ask hesitantly.
“I didn’t know it was you,” Octavius responds. That’s true, you suppose. You weren’t in your suit, and he’s never seen you unmasked.
“I know,” you acknowledge. “I mean… you could’ve finished the job.” You still don’t feel quite right—talking seems more difficult than normal. The words bounce around in your mouth clumsily. Your hands jitter at your sides. A persistent shiver settles in your spine. You’re freezing. You’ve always run cold, on account of your powers; whatever drug you were given doesn’t seem to be helping. You tuck your hands into your sides in an unsuccessful attempt to stay warm.
“You’re vibrating,” Octavius notes instead. An attempt at distraction. Your drug-addled mind falls for it immediately.
“No, I’m not,” you argue, a futile attempt at preserving what little remains of your dignity.
Octavius lets out an impatient sound, before shrugging his jacket off and practically throwing it at you. It pelts you in the face and you startle a bit, before managing to untangle yourself and shrug it on. It has the faint scent of cigarette smoke and motor oil, but somehow it isn’t unpleasant. You take a slow breath and wrap it around yourself tighter, burying your hands in the pockets.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Octavius says with narrowed eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s only wearing a thin long-sleeved shirt now. “I want that back.”
“Aren’t you cold?” you realize aloud, attempting to redirect his attention. It doesn’t work.
“Most humans have homeostasis,” he says dryly.
“I know that,” you snap immediately.
“Then logic follows that I am not cold,” Octavius responds.
You glare at him harder. This must make you look particularly pathetic, because he takes one look at you and chuckles. It’s a quiet, restrained sound. Almost dignified, if a laugh could ever be dignified. And now that you think about it, you can’t say you’ve ever heard him express amusement before. But here he is, finding joy in your misfortune. Though, when you try to see the situation through his eyes: Spider-Man on your couch in your home, shaking like a leaf, exhausted and blinking stars out of his eyes but still glaring at you, while wearing your jacket—
Okay. Maybe it’s kind of funny.
“Don’t you tire of it all?” Octavius muses, breaking you out of your thoughts. You’re grateful for the change in subject, looking up at him from your seated position. He’s lingering at the edge of the couch now, almost standing over you. “Fighting to protect the same people who do this to you?”
“I don’t protect people like him,” you frown.
“No?” he muses. He glances at you over the frames of his glasses. “If someone threw your attacker off of a building, would you save him?”
“...Probably,” you admit reluctantly. It would be instinctual.
“Your heroism doesn’t discriminate,” Octavius observes. He raises an eyebrow. “Maybe it should.”
You frown again. “That’s not how this works,” you argue. It takes you longer than normal to organize your thoughts. You’re experiencing some brain fog for sure. You rub at your temples and convince yourself it alleviates the pain. “Yeah, I save people, like you said. I don’t protect them from punishment or prosecution.”
“No?” he questions. Amused. “You assume most of them make it that far. That they’re caught.”
“I’m aware of the many moral and legal failings of our justice system, thank you very much,” you scoff. “I’m a mutant, not a prosecutor.” This conversation isn’t helping your headache—you’re definitely concussed. Your head feels like it’s stuffed full with cotton.
“A hero,” Octavius corrects you. “And can’t you be both?”
“I think you’re overestimating my impact,” you say dryly. “I’d love to enact genuine systemic change, but that can’t be accomplished in a skin-tight suit with webs.”
“And there’s the truth,” Otto says. And how did he suddenly become ‘Otto’ in your head? You’re not sure you want to think about that for too long. “To this city, you are a myth, Spider-Man. A legend, a folk tale. Someone who swoops in to save the day when it needs saving.”
“You are not a true changemaker,” he confirms. “Not yet.”
“Bold of you to talk,” you respond with a scowl, feeling defensive. Whatever’s in your system is loosening your tongue. You probably shouldn’t be speaking so freely to the guy who could tear you apart in the blink of an eye, but… oh well. “You could’ve used that scientific knowledge of yours to develop far better prosthetics, instead of robotic tentacles.”
It’s quiet for a long moment. The villain stares down at you. You meet his gaze, despite wanting to shrink under it. You’re not sure how long that time stretches; you just know that Octavius seems to revel in the uncomfortable tension. Just as you’re about to say something, anything to break through the silence—
“Fair enough,” he relents begrudgingly. You blink at him in poorly-concealed surprise, not expecting him to concede the point. “We all have our priorities, it seems.”
He’s even closer than before. Before you can react, Otto’s hand rises and cradles your cheek, directing you to look up at him. His eyes flit about your face, his thumb grazing a scrape on your cheekbone. “Don’t forget yours,” he says. It takes you a moment to remember what he’s talking about: purpose. “Even if it feels insufficient.”
You don’t know what to say to that, so you keep quiet instead. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like he was expecting a response. Otto’s hand slips to grasp your shoulder, exerting enough pressure to push you back slightly. You blink and go along with the movement.
“Rest,” he instructs you, “before you lose any more brain cells.”
“Fuck off,” you mutter darkly.
There’s a whisper of a laugh.
You take a shuddering breath and lie back on the couch, still struggling to process the situation. As antagonistic and criminal as Octavius is, he still saved you. There’s no telling what kind of fate you would’ve been met with, had that assailant succeeded. And here you are, debating heroism with your enemy without even bothering to thank him. Yeah, you probably have a concussion—but that shouldn’t have knocked all your manners out of you. He’s a villain, but he still ensured that you’ll live to see another day.
You swallow hard and look over at Otto. His back is already turned and he’s walking away.
“Hey,” you say, the rest of the words catching in your throat.
“Yes?” the man says guardedly, his shoulders drawn tight across his frame. He still hasn’t turned around to face you, but you can tell he’s listening with rapt attention.
“Thank you,” you remark, pushing yourself up a bit to level him with a sincere expression. You’re not sure why you bother, because Octavius still hasn’t bothered to meet your eyes or even show he’s listening. But somehow, you know he is. “For… you know.”
“Rest,” Otto repeats, not bothering to acknowledge your gratitude. And you’ll never see it, but there’s something close to a smile at the edge of his lips. He walks away without further elaboration.
Left with no other practical option, you rest.