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“Oh shit,” Bruce says, and entirely forgetting he’s over six foot and green, throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t have any money.”
Otto stares at him, and wonders how in the hell someone so huge and intimidating-looking is afraid of him . Sure, he cuts a striking figure with the extra arms, the trench coat, and the flair for the dramatic, but Dr. Banner looks like he could crush Otto’s skull with one hand. “I’m not robbing you, Doctor,” he says awkwardly. “My apologies if I scared you. I actually came to speak to you, as I was reliably informed you might be able to help me.”
“Oh!” Bruce says, and lowers his hands. “Sorry, sorry. People keep sending me death threats, and they kinda get to you after a while, even if you’re… hm.” He gestures to himself, and then pushes his goggles up onto the top of his head. “How can I help you? Actually, who are you? Wait, no, what’s the story with those arms? Those are…” He looks at them a little longer, and his eyes twinkle in the way that only a scientist’s can. “They’re beautiful . Wow. Incredible design.”
“Thank you,” Otto says, flattered. “My name is Otto Octavius. Do forgive my presumptuousness, but I was told you’d understand what I meant if I said that I’m from another timeline?” Bruce nods. “Yes, well. Some higher and rather more mystical forces told me to remain here, and so here I am; but unfortunately without a job or a reputation. I’m looking for employment, you see. I can’t evidence my qualifications, but in my timeline, I…”
“Don’t worry about your qualifications,” Bruce says. “I mean, I’m sure you’re highly qualified. But I can see for myself that your work is outstanding. Seriously, I’m… Can I look a little closer?”
Otto acquiesces, and shrugs off his trench coat, turning to show Bruce the attachment to his spine. Bruce steps forward, plucking a pair of glasses from his pocket and placing them on his face to get a better look. “So it’s fused,” he says with a hum. “Interesting. What kind of motor function do those arms have?”
“They’re completely adaptable. I can light a cigar with them or use them to scale walls.”
“Just incredible,” Bruce breathes. “Okay. Yeah. Are you sure you want a job with me , Dr. Octavius? I’m sure they would kill for you over at Stark Industries.”
“Do correct me if I’m wrong, but I did some research at the library, and I don’t appreciate the militarisation of Stark Industries. That’s not what my work is about. My interest is primarily in finding means of sustainable energy production, not in more ways to commit violence against others. Which makes it difficult to find employment, but I’ve deviated from my morals enough for a lifetime, I should think.”
“No, you’re right,” Bruce says, wringing his hands. He’s a relentless fidget, Otto has noticed. “Tony started as an arms dealer, and I don’t think you could ever really take the arms out of his solutions. And maybe that’s the right kind of method for this new world – but I’m not so sure about it, either. You have the time to think about it when your body is a weapon.” He pauses. “Your research… it included me, I take it.”
“I don’t hold your condition against you,” Otto says. “The inhibitor chip on my spine was fried in an accident, and I did despicable things. I killed people. I hurt people. I’m in no place to make judgements.”
“Thanks, Octavius. Not everybody thinks like that.”
***
Otto hangs his coat on the back of the door of their shitty New York apartment, and runs a hand through his hair. He rather likes Bruce. Media headlines had been peculiarly scaremongering about him, but he’s shockingly mild in person. Otto senses a particular journalistic grudge – on behalf of a certain J. Jonah Jameson – over Bruce’s entire existence, from his scientific mistakes to his queerness, but in Otto’s opinion, it’s none of Jameson’s (or his) business. “Norman?” he calls. “Are you home?”
Norman took a job in Stark Industries. It was easy. They practically fell over him. Otto doesn’t hold it against him at all; it was the sensible thing to do, and the reason that their lights are on at all.
“In the kitchen,” Norman calls.
Otto pinches his arms together to squeeze through the doorframe and into their kitchen, barely the size of a cupboard. They don’t quite both fit at the same time, but Norman has brought home take-out, so they’re set into the motion of an elegant dance as they split the food and find cutlery and plates. “How did it go?” Norman asks. “Is this a celebration or commiseration meal?”
“He’s very happy to employ me,” Otto says, unable to hide the smile from his face. “God, I was nervous.”
“I told you it would go well,” Norman says. Otto had been nervous, keeping an eye on him for weeks, not quite certain that Norman’s alter ego was gone: but there’s been no sign of it at all for the past month, and so he’s loosened up a little. (Maybe a lot. But he has extra defenses, and Norman is now nothing more than a man.) “Oh ye of little faith, hmm?”
“I wasn’t sure he even had the money to employ me.”
“A man with seven doctorates knows how to find money,” Norman says.
“A man with seven doctorates is insane ,” Otto chuckles. “One was quite enough , thank you. You know he thought I was trying to rob him?”
“Have you seen yourself, Otto?” Norman teases. And oh , this is the kind of thing he’ll say that’ll have Otto’s heart begin to beat in triple-time. Every time Norman jokes or smiles, he feels those butterflies in his chest; he’s terribly and completely smitten. These feelings have been lurking for a long time, he thinks, maybe unacknowledged in the grand scheme of everything else; but now they have nowhere else to go.
He hasn’t said anything, despite his prevailing belief that honesty is the best policy in matters of the heart, because he’s still mourning Rosie. It’s harder still, being this whole world away from where they once lived together. But he can’t quite deny these new feelings, and the sense that Rosie would have been encouraging of this. She had always been supportive in matters of the heart, and in his interest towards men. (She was always teasing him to kiss one and join the illustrious legacy of history’s queer men. He’d always loved her too much to ever even entertain the thought.)
He resolves that he ought to bring it up soon. When he feels ready. He’s still uncertain – of everything : his living situation, his employment, his place within this new world. Things are the same but also different, and he has to speak carefully.
(He’s never been more vindicated than seeing The Daily Bugle reduced to online chicanery, at least. Though Good Lord, the Internet has a steep learning curve, and their apartment is still full of online skills for seniors books.)
“Norman?” he says, and his colleague – roommate – partner? – looks up. “Thank you for your faith in me. I appreciate it. This is an intimidating new world.”
“Oh, if anyone can find his way around, I think it’s you,” Norman assures him. “We’re getting there, I think.”
***
Bruce frequently takes his lunches in a café a few blocks away from the lab, and invites Norman to join him one day. “I should’ve invited you sooner,” he says, as if admonishing himself. “I’ve been so scatter-brained lately. It’s hard to keep up. My anniversary is coming up and I’ve been trying to balance preparing for my flights with everything else… ugh.” He chuckles. “My glamorous Avenger life.”
“Which anniversary?” Otto asks as they enter the café, a nice upmarket place full of surprisingly well-maintained plants and uncomfortable secondhand chairs. Still, it has a good atmosphere, quiet jazz music playing over the speakers.
“A year with my husband. We… we panic married,” Bruce says, laughing at himself as he says it. “And then he shot off into space, so I haven’t actually seen him since. What was I saying about my glamorous life?”
Otto frowns a little. He knows, of course, that Bruce’s private life is none of his business, but– “Isn’t that terribly lonely?” he asks, concern touching his voice. Bruce looks up, as if surprised to hear anyone worried about him.
“I’ve been on my own for a long time,” he says. “It’s nothing new.”
“Surely that doesn’t mean you have to stay on your own,” Otto says, and then catches himself. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t be telling you what to do with your marriage. That is very presumptuous of me.” He chuckles, and is thankfully interrupted by Bruce pushing over a copy of the (particularly weather-beaten) menu. He orders a particularly extravagant-sounding sandwich, still baffled by some of the ingredients on the menu. He time travelled as well as through space, and so there’s a whole strange world of veganism and plant-based ingredients now. It’s certainly made it easier to be a vegetarian. He’d lean vegan, but there’s no way he could ever convince Norman to drink oat milk.
“Did you have a partner, back home?” Bruce asks. Otto nods.
“My wife, Rosie,” he says. “Unfortunately, she… died, recently. It was my fault. I was so obsessed with the pursuit of my ambition that I put her life at risk.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. So you’re living on your own?”
“No, no. I came into this timeline along with several other individuals, one of whom was an old work colleague. We live together to cut costs. Though he’s also been the breadwinner thus far.” Otto smiles, pouring out his tea. “It does help, being with someone equally as baffled by this new world as I am.”
“That’s nice. My husband still doesn’t have a phone.” Bruce laughs. “He sends birds. It’s ridiculous .”
“Oh, but that’s very romantic, surely.”
“It’s romantic until a bird knocks itself out flying into your window. More than once. I think my house is a bird sanctuary now.”
“Ah. I would tell you to leave the windows open, but I suppose it’s not exactly the season for it, is it?” Otto muses. “I used to have my lab on a pier. It was quite magical, and certainly a magnificent view, but I could never escape the winter chill. Or the risk of a flood, no matter how carefully I engineered it. The other side of romanticism is being very cold. Perhaps why I’ve always been a better scientist than an artist.”
The food is good. Otto enjoys it. It’s too much, so he takes some home to share with Norman. He wonders how lonely it must be, Bruce, living in a house on his own in the middle of the city, his partner worlds away. It’s lonely to be lost, and he’s glad he has Norman. United by purpose, their differences don’t seem to matter much anymore. Differences that maybe kept them at an arm’s length a long time ago.
“I brought leftovers,” Otto announces at home. He always seems to arrive home later than Norman, now, side-tracked by visits to the library or to bookshops or just in search of a good cup of coffee. The city twinkles as the sun begins to set in the horizon.
“That looks delicious,” Norman says as Otto opens the box. “You went out for lunch today?”
“Yes, Dr. Banner invited me. He strikes me as quite a lonely fellow. Rather a shame, really. I hope that you ate lunch today, Norman.”
Norman pulls the kind of face that immediately says no . Otto suspected as much. He gets too drawn into his work. “They’re almost ready to trial my glider in the field,” he says. Otto hums. Military again? Why does everything have to resort to violence? “I thought it might be obsolete since everyone seems to be able to fly now, but they like the gimmick of it. What I wouldn’t do to get to poke around Captain America’s wings someday.”
“Quite impressive, aren’t they? The prowess – in the past twenty years – astonishing. And the potential has expanded so greatly. It feels as if… my project could actually work this time. And Banner’s ideas are invaluable.”
“Hm,” Norman says, and Otto looks up.
“What?” he asks, taken a little off guard.
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed if it doesn’t work again,” Norman says, though Otto has the strangest feeling that it isn’t purely out of concern for potential disappointment. But he can’t put a finger on it.
“I know it’s a possibility, but I owe it to this world to keep trying,” Otto says. “Don’t you think?”
Norman’s answer doesn’t feel so genuine.
***
Time passes, and Otto is hesitant on telling Norman his feelings. Love should not be a secret, but he’s not so sure. He still feels as if there’s something about Norman that he’s missing. But nothing changes, really: they both go to work, and Bruce disappears on holiday for two weeks, returning in good spirits. Subsequently, ravens keep assailing their windows.
“He still doesn’t have a phone?” Otto chuckles.
“He’s stubborn,” Bruce says with a shake of his head, but he’s smiling as he reads the message, and scribbles one in response. “You were right, you know. I think this is a little romantic, even if we have to be the leading cause of avian concussions.”
“Oh, Banner. I had a question for you, if you don’t mind something a little more personal.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m rather uncertain about my flatmate’s feelings toward me. He works at Stark Industries, developing technology for military utilisation. New suits, that sort of thing. I think – I always thought that he was a supporter of my work, but I have the impression that he doubts me. As if this is a foolish dalliance.” The hurt seems to pour unfiltered into Otto’s voice, more than he’d intended.
“Military science makes you feel powerful,” Bruce says. “And you seek that power and ends that can take you there, too, not just the subjects of your work. And suddenly everything else seems insignificant. And then either you’re dead or your genius is slaughtering people, and only one of those things can stop you.” His voice is detached, bleak. “My work killed me. A fatal overdose of gamma radiation. I was unlucky enough to live to regret it, and I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make up for it. Maybe you can understand that.”
Otto sighs. “He was the same. Impaled by his own technology as he tried to murder someone. I thought he, too, understood the costs we paid.”
“Power is addictive,” Bruce suggests. “I would ignore what your flatmate thinks of your work. Remember what you’re doing this for; whatever inspired you and whatever keeps you going. Being good sometimes feels like a thankless job, but it’s worth it every day when the sun rises and when I hear the birds sing and hit the glass again.”
Otto thinks on it, and he’s quite sure that Bruce is right. He just wishes that Norman could understand. That there’s more to their gift, to their intellect, to the hard work and endeavour that they’ve put it to, than power.
***
They go out for drinks together to celebrate the launch of Norman’s new tech, and so Otto is a little tipsy – maybe more – when they return home and open another bottle of wine. Here they are, two silly old men, pretending to be classy while they’re getting drunk on the weekend because the alcohol is more expensive now.
Otto is trying to explain the person from Porlock to Norman, the mystery that permanently stunted Kubla Khan .
“What, and so he published the poem unfinished?” Norman asks. “That’s ridiculous!”
“And yet it’s one of the most famous poems in the English language and considered one of the greats!” Otto says with a laugh. “I can’t understand it. The poem or its popularity. Completely baffling. Maybe it’s just me, but I much prefer it when I can understand things.”
“Being a scientist is just answering questions for years because you can’t stand a mystery,” Norman proposes. “And then you never find the answers you really want anyway!”
“Oh, amen to that.” Otto goes silent for a moment, swirling the wine in his glass and realising how drunk he is when the sight makes him peculiarly dizzy, as if he’s swirling the whole world with it. He blinks a few times. “Speaking of… questions, answers, perhaps… there’s something I’d like to tell you, Norman, that I’ve been putting off for far too long.” Norman quirks his brow. “I rather apologise for dropping it on you so suddenly, but there’s never an ideal time to tell someone you have feelings for them, is there?”
“Drunk is the best time, isn’t it?”
“Well, I should’ve had the courage while sober, surely. But you see, Norman, I feel as if you pity me, as if my work is not as important just because I work on a smaller scale. But these feelings are uncertain and intangible, and that’s why I had to get drunk.”
“Speaking of uncertainty, that’s what worries me about your work, Otto. Uncertainty of employment, uncertainty of results. You’re an excellent scientist. I can’t help feeling that you deserve better.”
“Certainty isn’t guaranteed and I don’t mind that. I’m not afraid to wait and work for the results. You needn’t worry about me.”
“But I do,” Norman says with a small smile. “My darling.”
“Ooh. I like that.”
“I didn’t know if you were, ah, ready. So I elected not to say anything.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready, but I don’t know that I’ll ever feel ready.”
“That’s poetic nonsense,” Norman says, and interrupts it by leaning down to kiss Otto, who’s reclining leisurely on their glorious secondhand couch, glass still in hand. He uses his free hand to touch Norman’s cheek. It’s – this is long-awaited, he supposes, but these kisses are as if they’ve loved each other forever, soft and gentle. Maybe they’re a little too old and drunk to just ravish each other. They’re taking it slow.
They have two separate bedrooms, but tonight they share, Norman tucked into Otto’s chest, arms holding him close.
***
It’s only a few months later when Otto has the epiphany; in the middle of the night, of course, as all great epiphanies come. He darts out of bed, tells Norman he needs to go to the lab, and practically crashes through the city, almost setting off the lab’s security alarms in his haste to get inside.
He arrives breathless, shrugging off his coat. An arm switches off the smoke alarm so that he can covertly light a cigar, and he works, and he works, a spill of thoughts into action. Fuck concern. Otto will do what’s right and it’ll take however long it takes. (Of course, he still loves Norman; he just doesn’t care for Norman’s concern. Otto is not glasswork or fine china; he won’t break so easily.)
The sun has risen by the time he’s finished, run out of steam, his brain back to its usual flow. He’s tired. When Bruce comes back in, he asks for the day off, and Bruce just waves a hand. “Of course, don’t worry about it.”
He calls Norman and asks if they could have breakfast together. Norman, unfazed, agrees.
“I cracked it,” Otto says when they meet in the street. “I know what went wrong the first time. I know how to fix things. It was complicated, but – I think this really, truly, might be it.”
And this time he’s a little desperate when he kisses Norman, enveloping him in hands, human and machine, pressing them together. This is what he’s been working for. He lost everything for this. And now–
Now, something. Something out of all this pain. Hope.