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He gasped.
Peter slipped out of unconscious, startling himself into a sitting position with a gasp of air.
It was bright— which was strange. Last he remembered, he was sleeping in his shabby, curtained apartment in pitch dark.
Now, he raised his hand to cover his eyes at the unfiltered sunlight. This wasn’t his apartment.
Rather, this was Midtown High’s roof. The roof was dirty and torn, but recognizable.
He hadn’t been here it a long time. Of course, he wasn’t remembered, therefore unwelcome. He’d forgotten about college too. He’d given up, Spiderman his only way to keep going. But why was he here?
A metal scraping was heard, scraping the edges of the bricks.
“..Peter?”
He froze.
He hadn’t heard anybody say his name in weeks, months—? But there it was. A gruff, questioning voice with puzzlement laced in its tone behind him.
He slowly got up, turning himself around in the process.
“D— Doc?”
The older hovered less than a foot off the ground, his tentacles holding him in place. He wore a similar outfit from when he last saw him, but dawned a new, confused expression.
Doc’s deep-set eyes fluttered, blinking as if to confirm his authenticity. Sure enough, Peter was here— they were both here.
The Doc Ock that he’d met so long ago (it was only a few months, Peter.) was right here. But he shouldn’t be, he reasoned to himself. Doc should be in his own universe.
Peter glanced around. The outside was empty. Nobody walked around, not a single car motor heard driving throughout the roads of the town. No kids sifting in and out of the school doors. It was just him and Octavius.
“D— Am— Am I dreaming?” Peter muttered the words both to himself and the other, Doc Ock cocking his head. Unless Strange cast another spell, this wasn’t possible. He had to be.
“Mm.. I suppose.” The other male agreed, lowering himself to the ground. Once so, the tentacles rose up to look at Peter with curiosity. Some stayed far, the rest coming close to inspect him. “That’d be the only feasible explanation, assuming you didn’t make another deal with that wizard. I’ve been here for a while. Nobody else is here.”
“So, then, are we, like— both.. dreaming? Together? From a different universe?” Peter rambled a bit, the words coming out nearly nonsensical without context. Octavius simply blinked, ghost of amusement passing through his facial features.
“That does sound rather complicated, and impossible.” He turned, tentacles eventually following suit, and looked down at the town below. “But perhaps.”
“How do I know you aren’t just a figment of my imagination?” Peter suggested, following Doc Ock to the ledge and squinting. Doc looked down at him.
“How do I know you aren’t a figment of mine?”
A tentacle made its way to Peter, hesitantly nearing, before giving him a soft poke. Peter looked at it with cluelessness, and back to Doc. Doc returned a thoughtful expression.
Octavius shifted in his space, tentacles bracing on the roof’s ground and he moved to sit. Peter stared at him. Doc Ock stared back, expectantly. “Well?”
Peter parted his lips in confusion. Doc Ock shook his head with a sigh, a tentacle wrapping around the teen and forcing him to sit on the ledge with him. Doc didn’t seem to mind his puppy-like cluelessness, though.
“..Do we just, wait until we wake up..?”
“Unless you want to pinch yourself awake, I was going to. I find it rather.. enjoyable, here.
And, we can just chat, if you’d like.”
The boy’s eyes surely fixated on the elder. He handled him with such familiarity, such friendliness. Otto was no stranger. Peter smiled.
The man noticed the stare, turning to him with slightly raised brows.
“You remember me.” Peter said. It was nearly a whisper, but Doc Ock caught the words anyway.
“Of course I do.” He said slowly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He noticed that Peter’s eyes seemed to unfocus then, his smile disappearing back into a thin line. Peter turned, looking ahead.
“The wizard, the one that helped us.” He started carefully. “The spell started to get out of control. He couldn’t keep the other people from entering our— my, universe anymore. So, I had to make a deal.”
Doc stayed silent, listening with keen ears.
“If he just made everyone forget about me— about Peter Parker, then the problem would be gone.”
Peter laughed, though empty, and Octavius furrowed his eyebrows. “You mean.. nobody remembers who you are?”
“Well, except for you.” Peter tilted his head. The Doc’s lips parted, his eyes wider than usual, but no words came out. Peter didn’t expect any nonetheless, and he moved on. “How is it in your world now?”
His gaze lingered on the boy for a few moments longer, but he tore away to answer him. “I.. it’s been better. Me and Peter— my world’s Peter, made amends. I’m working.. on myself.”
His admittance seemed to cause him discomfort, but at the same time, relief at the confession. He smiled gently. “Me and Peter are finally spending time together, again.”
“Again?”
Octavius nodded, a nostalgic feeling settling on him. “I used to be his mentor.”
Peter attempted hiding his surprised at the remark, but his eyebrows shot up. Octavius gazed at the expected shock with amusement. “Really??”
“A long time ago, yes..” Doc Ock sighed quietly, slipping back into his mind. Peter already occupied with his own head, the elder took time to think. He suddenly questioned Peter, gazing back ahead. “I don’t exist in your universe, right?”
Peter blinked, shaking his head with confirmation. Otto nodded wordlessly.
“..I don’t mean to pry, boy, but,” He paused, searching for his words. “I taught my Peter a lot of things he knows now. I was his guide, and I— I see myself in him. And so I wonder, who am I supposed to see in you?”
Peter’s eyes glistened at the Doctor, and the Doctor scrambled for more words. “What I mean is, would you tell me about them? Who was your mentor?”
Peter’s jaw nearly went slack, if he weren’t conscious enough to stop it.
Tony Stark.
Memories flashed in his eyes. His first suit, their first meeting, the first fight. Thanos..
It was bittersweet, and Peter felt a longing. Doc smiled softly, the edges of his lips quirking up at the boy’s face.
“Tony.” Peter whispered. Doc kept his eyes on the teen. “His name was Tony Stark. A genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist— he called himself.”
Octavius couldn’t help but make a face at that, muttered lighthearted about an ego. Peter laughed. “He did have an ego, yea. A lot of people told him he wouldn’t be a good mentor, ‘cause of that, but..”
Doc’s head tilted, his tentacles as well looking to Peter with interest.
“He was the best mentor I’d.. I’d ever had.” Peter sighed quietly. He cursed the past tense, and Otto noticed his turmoil. “He was like— He—“
“He was like the dad I never had.”
Otto’s eyes softened. It made him remember the hero he was talking to, the infamous Spiderman— he was just a boy. The other didn’t prod him to continue. He just held his eyes on Peter with an unusual patience.
“I— I was so happ-py, and then—“ His voice broke. He cleared his throat to brush it off, but a tentacle felt around to rest itself on Peter’s shoulder. “An idiot decided to try and wipe half of the people out of the universe. We had no choice but to try and stop them, and To—he, he sacrificed himself to save us.”
Hot water dripped from Peter’s tear ducts, not yet having the guts to look back at his company. There was silence on Doc’s end.
Until, a firm hand wrapped itself around Peter. Peter stared, and Doc put his other hand in his hair, pulling him in for a hug.
Peter was still, a tense moment in time, before the dams broke. He sobbed into the Doctor’s sweater. Tentacles wrapped around the child, Otto only soothed him.
“I can’t pretend to know how you feel, my boy.” Octavius spoke into his hair. “But I am truly sorry.”
Peter finally found it within himself to wrapped his arms around the man in return, crying harder.
“It’s okay, Peter.” Otto stroked his brown locks. “It’s alright.”
Doc Ock closed his eyes, sympathy flowing inside him. This was stranger to him. Holding someone like this, comforting them with his words. He felt like he could make an exception for this boy.
He held him until the tears ran out, and it was Peter who was the one to pull back. “I’m sorry, I— I messed up y-our sweater, sir.”
Otto shook his head, patting his shoulder. “I don’t care, boy.”
“And, u-uh, yeah, sorry for, uh, breaking down on you like that..”
“Everybody in this entire universe has forgotten who you are.” He half-interrupted. “I wouldn’t be holding up well either, if I were you.”
Peter looked at him, eyes shifting in contemplation before settling on a quiet, “Yeah.. yeah.”
Otto didn’t have anything else to say, and neither did Peter, and an understanding came between them.
They settled into a tranquil quiet. It seemed to be late evening, where they were, the sun close to setting- but not entirely there yet. The sky was still a pale blue, a few wispy clouds scattering about.
“If we are dreaming, I don’t want to wake up.” Peter said, a simple sentence. Doc’s eyes hooded questioningly. He wanted to ask why, what reason he just wanted to stay here. But deep down, he knew.
“I understand.” He replied. He looked down at his gloved hands. The material was average quality, strings straying from their original spot in a few places. A tentacle half-wrapped itself around the Spider again, and it pulled him just a little closer. It didn’t let go.
“Maybe we’ll meet each other again.”