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And here they were, an impossible distance from where they started, yet unchanged in their places. The two of them, disheveled piles of papers, and a Stark Industries fabricator are what sit in the room off of the den of some dead hero’s best friend, as the rest lay sprawled out asleep throughout the penthouse or sit in the silence of their mind and graphite scratching paper a room over from the two doctors. There is always cosmos when chaos is afoot.
Norman looks down at his watch, the face is shattered but the microscopic second ticker still turns with the rest of the hands. One forty-seven is what the face reads, and Norman wants to laugh at himself because his eyelids are getting heavy and his posture has slowly but surely caved in on itself, I guess that’s what being dead for years does to you. Or getting old. He really wasn’t sure which one.
Do you know what is a great way to keep yourself awake? Intellectual conversation of course, and what a better time to have one, as Norman was sure his fellow doctor at the table parallel to his own self-proclaimed workspace always had something keeping his mind busy.
“What’s it like, Otto?” Norman looked over to his partner, but he saw that little bit of confusion, and clarified, “Your newly found silence and all.”
“Exactly what it was like five seconds ago, Norman,” He answered dryly, looking back down at his rather rabid-looking doodles and sloppy handwriting-filled pages. The little voice that growls in Norman’s own mind told him that he should pick up the little exacto blade he had been flicking around and stab it through the back of the good doctor’s throat, though Norman argued that was rather extreme.
So instead, Norman just rolled his eyes and solidified his question, “That was a genuine question. But if you don’t want to discuss that, there’s plenty to catch up on my dear friend.”
Otto didn’t seem like he wanted to catch up on too much, so he answered the first question instead, “It’s a relief, I’ll be honest,” Norman enjoyed the sincerity of his tone, quite reassuring, “I really had forgotten what it was like, true silence. No little voices intruding on my every move, my every thought.”
They fell into silence again because Norman knew what he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to give Otto a reason not to trust him. But as they always say, curiosity might have killed the cat, but satisfaction can bring him back, “Do you not miss it at all?”
Otto was quick to shake his head, “It’s a beautiful thing, silence. While to some degree, they were my friends, they were also cruel and loud. I’m finally myself again Norman, just me.”
Norman was so close to asking him where he thought their thoughts and urges sprung up from, where their consciousness was rooted, because while he spoke of them as separate entities, they simply were not, that was just some coping mechanism the doctor had come up with it seems. There was no outer force trying to break him down, nothing using him as a vessel, nothing to inspire such cruelty outside of himself, so to Norman the only logical answer was that those urges were underlying, just maybe more refined than they usually could be, more clear. But he stopped himself, he did not ask as and he figured that Otto had probably long ago figured that out. Plus Norman figured it sounded rather Freudian of him.
So instead, Norman just took to his place over Otto’s shoulder, watching the doctor fiddle around with the mess of papers in front of him. How he worked always fascinated Norman, the epitome of method in the madness. Looking back over to where he was working, even as he found himself getting tired and tireder, his papers were still organized into neat stacks, sketches here, relevant concepts there, and excess concepts beside that, and his pens and pencils separated onto each side like utensils at a dinner table. But Otto’s space was nothing like that, half of his work was written in graphite, the other half in ink, half of that blue and the other half black but with no meaning behind any of it, then as he finished up one piece of paper, one robotic arm took it and the other places the new sheet in front of him.
Seamless chaos, Norman could describe it. The cybernetic arms perfectly moved out of the way of Otto’s true arms as they scrambled around for something else. For how much strife his attentions caused the doctor, they were certainly an impeccable team. “They feel things, don’t they?” Norman remembered seeing some messy sketches of the arms when the duo first met, they really were Octavius’s beloved brainchild. Norman vaguely remembers the mention of adding receptors, but of course, he died before anything came to fruition.
“Yes, all of that ended up coming together,” Otto responded, pulling himself away from his work and turning towards Norman.
“But how much? How detailed is it?” Norman pressed on, reaching up towards the ‘face’ of one of them, trying to grab it, but it pulled away before Norman was even able to lay a finger on it, “And did you do that? Does it do that itself?”
The good doctor was rather amused by Norman’s questions, “As quizzical as ever I see,” Otto signaled for one of the arms to lay itself out between the two men. “Of course, it’s not as intricate as touching something with your hands, rather like how you feel something when you rub your fingernail over it. Your fingernails don’t actually feel anything of course, but the nerves behind them feel the pressure, that’s the best way I can describe it to you,” This time when Norman reached out, the arm didn't move away, “Yeah, so I can feel that, but it's not like if you were just touching my normal arm.”
Fascinating! A marvel of technology, Norman couldn’t deny that. “And what about their consciousness? How does that work? Is it all you now?” Otto pulled himself up out of his chair and offered Norman up too.
“Here, I want something to drink, let’s walk and talk,” Otto said quickly, walking back out towards the main room with Norman trailing him. Peter, the Peter they’ve known, is the only one awake in the room. He looks up from his own work and gives them a little nod and wave. Otto nods back and walks over to the refrigerator to get himself something to drink.
“They really are almost separate from me, kind of like four bloodthirsty dogs who, while they do love me, also believe they know exactly what is best, and that usually involving bloodshed,” Otto described, “They still ‘think’ for themselves, I guess, but I just don’t hear it now, and my command overwrites anything their own command is telling them to do.”
“So was it those equations? Because if it was I’ll not let you forget it, doctor,” Their Peter piped in, leaving Norman rather confused. Was Spider-Man involved in the creation of the arms?
Otto sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Yes, it probably was,” Peter looked like he was going to laugh at the doctor, so he instead just shook his head and looked back down to his own work.
“Hold onto that conversation now, what?” Norman asked, looking between the two, “You helped?” He asked, pointing to Peter.
Peter shrugged, “A little, here and there I guess.”
“You always under-appreciate yourself, Parker, you helped out a lot with the project, probably saved me a fair few months worth of work,” Otto reassured, then looked back at the obviously stumped Norman, “Your son introduced us, Norman. Peter ended up mentoring under me for a little and helped me and Rosie out until it… well you know, got out of hand,” As he spoke back on the incident, he clicked his cybernetic hands open and closed.
“Oh, I see,” Norman nodded, still getting his head all around it, “How is Rosie?”
Ah, a sore spot. Octavious and Parker looked between one another, both with a rather guilty, sullen look. “She… passed. You know, she helped me out a lot with it all, but… well- she was there with me when my demonstration went wrong and-”
Norman didn't look the doctor in the eyes but he placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and nodded, no need to bring up the worst of it if it’s still sour. “I understand you loved her, Otto, I’m sorry about that,” He offered, then quickly changed the topic, “So my son, eh? Whatever happened with him?” He asked, looking over to Peter.
“Well, he took over Oscorp after you died, Norman,” Peter explained, “Or at least the scientific divisions.”
Norman shuffled around a little, “Eh, did he ever, you know, find out?”
Peter shook his head, “Not while you were alive, and I swore to you, well before you died, that I wouldn’t be the one to tell him,” He confirmed, “But he found out later anyways.”
“Well? What happened after that? You can’t just stop there he’s my son, Parker-'' Ah, there's the Norman they’re all more familiar with, the doctor behind him placed a cool metallic hand onto his shoulder to keep him at bay.
“I guess he found out, and he found all of your old stuff that went along with it. It took him over and then it, you know, took him down with it.”
Oh, Norman’s shoulders fell from their overly tense position, he just nodded. Oh. “That's it, huh?” Peter nodded, not even looking over at Norman. Honestly, Norman didn’t really want to know anything else about it. “Did he have anyone else?”
“Uh, well he was with MJ for a while you know, and away from all of the Spider-Man stuff, we were pretty close too, I guess,” Peter told him. Norman just nodded and ran over his words. He guesses he really did leave him alone, just a kid.
Though it’s funny that Peter mentioned his date and himself in the same sentence, “Pretty close, eh?” At least there's that, “You fucked my son, didn’t you, Parker.”
He made a little clicking sound and bit into the side of his lip, “Well, I mean I really wasn’t going to mention that to you but, you know…”
Norman honestly laughed at that, “You know what, I guess we’re even. After all, I fucked your temporary father figure here, so,” He said, giving Otto a heavy pat on his shoulder, though to his credit, he just took another sip of his ice water, “Fare and square, I’d say.”
Peter sat there, unsure of how exactly to react to that, “I really didn’t need to know that, Norman.”
He laughed again, and shrugged, “All is fair in love and war, Peter Parker,” and poor Otto, who just wanted a glass of ice water.