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"Norman..." he whispers, staring amazed, shocked. Painfully watching through the pane of glass-like nothing. A phase of magics he has never seen. A mode of light and intricate detailed swirls and science that make no sense. But somehow. Somehow this makes sense. Seeing his... his partner? His friend? His rival in many ways. A man with a stare that stretched miles yet went nowhere. His Norman. With a gaze only inward. A man he...
"I don't believe it. How can you be here? How are any of us here? How can this be?" He asks, his voice strained and hopeful. Norman is shrinking away, swaddled in oversized clothes, dirty and with clear confusion to his eyes. What is it to be somewhere and nowhere? The question so obvious in his eyes that Otto has to glance away. He's asked himself that question since he wound up in this universe. No answer yet all answers at his fingertips. In the palm of his hand.
His friends confusion is palpable. Sour. A bitter memory of where they are. Where they've come from. How they got here.
But Otto hopes. He hopes his friend is there. No matter what. He hopes Norman is there. And in that hope- that instant. Dark eyes flicker and a wild smile spreads across the face of the brilliant scientist Otto knew so well.
"Its you- really you, isn't it? Long time no see." Norman speaks in a voice that sounds both weak and strong. Gravely and soft. A meek pleading for reality from his own cell of magic with a gaze that speaks volumes, levels, years of history. Their history. Norman gasps and Otto feels the metallic twitch of his arms with the revelation of a bond long shared.
"Or rather… longer than it seems. Hard to… to wake up like this, Otto. Hard to… to see." His eyes grow wider, a hand gesturing to his head. A wild mop of chocolate brown hair. Norman turns away and Otto's heart breaks. He takes a step towards him, stopping short as the magic buzzes with his closeness. "I died." Norman whispers as if saying it too loud will break him. And Otto notices the twitch. The slip of something important. Something Norman.
"Norman. Come back to me. Come back!" He begs. Demanding that the man remain. He's stepping forward before he realizes. Reaching to the barrier as his voice trembles. Grumbles with his eager heart. The arms whine in their suspended state. In his mind, they are screaming. Wanting badly to reach out but locked and unable. Otto looks away and Norman laughs dryly. His thoughts shifting. His attentions on a memory only he could see.
"You remember that day in your lab when… when the centrifuge exploded?" Norman asks with an uncaring lilt to his once, soft voice. Otto is a hopeful idiot. But he sighs quietly. And nods.
Otto takes a steadying breath. A second to remember. Then scoffs as his gaze lifts to his friend. His eyes a bit wetter than before. Otto paces in his cell while hiding the way his eyes burn.
"I remember you putting more in. Adding more and more and more weight to all sides even though I told you that I… that it couldn't sustain the speed." He accused, crossing his arms over his chest as the memory resurfaced. Shoulders raised with an ache in his throat as he remembered that day. As he remembered being young and naive.
"I remember… I remember telling you to not worry so much about it. About us. It was bound to break anyway." Norman bites back. "That the pretentious, pristine, pompous, priss of a lab we followed the rules in… It needed a little- a little chaos. All experimentation. All bonds. All partnerships bound to break... are chaos." Norman's voice wavers. Each word emphasized with a snap of teeth and hiss of oncoming danger. His breath hitches. There's fear in his eyes now. Eyes more honest than his mouth. A trait that was true when they were young men and even more so years later.
Otto sighs and smiles wryly. Remembering the moment they shared standing next to the smoldering mess of their centrifuge. Shuffling on broken glass. Within the smell of burning metal. Standing close- impossibly close to his lab partner as sprinklers came on and soaked through cheap lab coats in a space that needed chaos. The push that they needed. A tiny one in a flooding room. Within a memory that Otto and Norman both adored. All beginning with a spark. Just a touch of weight. Spinning towards one another until they clashed and became unable to seperate. And as the months, years, decades went on... Otto remembered how they just couldnt sustain that speed. Too old or too ambitous. Power was the goal. And they both knew it.
"Most things can do with a little disorder." Otto agrees. To Norman or to himself he does not know. Yet they smile at each other. Sharing a glance that explained so much. Decades of looks just the same. Electricity between them even through the barriers that keep them apart. In the quiet moments of a place they did not belong. In a world they couldn't escape. With the memory of what used to be on an existence that couldn't be. Across time and space and all logic and science. Otto grunts and shakes the memory away.
"Norman… within all things there must be balance. There must be a solution. The world and all its moving parts- all its order and structure. There is a math equation with only one answer. Only one reason!" He explains. Hands moving wildly, writing an invisible problem that Otto knew only Norman could answer- had answered. Could answer again.
The same one they had solved all those years ago. In a shared lab. A pristine white space for learning new things about life and of oneself. Burning what remains. In a chaotic bubble of energy that, like now, was a world of their own making. Of their own unmaking.
And Norman smirked. "Who's to say the answer isn't already here?" Wringing his hands together, Norman feels the itch of that chaos at his nape. The laughter of a man he didn't want to be. "Between us, Otto… the answer is simple."
"And what's that!?" He snaps. Frustrated and eager. Heart racing and pained in his chest with a feeling he thought drowned with his reactor. To feel pain so deeply. So fiercely. He must be alive and yet even now. Norman only sought to hurt them both.
"How simple is a problem that died, Osborn? Am I to believe you could possibly know what all this is-"
"Yes." Comes a quick reply. His shoulders square. His back straightening. His hands twitch with an oncoming shift. But Norman is there. For the moment. In his moment. "I know because you do. In a problem with no possible answer. A math equation where the components are either you," he points across the room, "or me." He points to himself with a shaky hand that almost sinks into a trembling chest.
"Norman." Otto gasps. Close to the wall between them. Hearing the loud buzzing of their new world. A blood racing chill of what's to come.
"We are only here to create…" his smile turns devious, his eyes go dark. His expression more wicked. "Chaos." Comes a voice that makes Otto falter. Shiver as Norman disappears beneath dark, bubbling hatred. Growling sickly, green, and uncaring.
And Otto finally takes a step back as a laugh filled with malice fills the room around them. A huff of defeat as the man he knew. The man he loved. Sinks into a cage of his own making. Behind the smiling, laughing, crooked smile. Of a monster.