Chapter Text
You were exhausted. Mere weeks ago, you were on top of the world, yet now, fatigue washed over you like an anchor, weighed down with your own guilt. Collapsed on your bed, face buried in your pillows, eyes drowning in tears. Every time they slipped shut, the images returned. The images that were tormenting you. The images that haunted your every moment. The flashes of light, the flying glass, the person who mattered to you most collapsing to his knees...
"Shut it off Otto!" came Harry's frantic cry, barely audible over the roar of machine.
"It'll stabilise, it's under control!" replied Otto, his commanding tone doing absolutely nothing to reassure Harry, or you.
You dug your face deeper in the pillow trying to push the unwelcome memory away.
Your fingers frantically flew across the keyboard, trying to diagnose the issue and correct it, although in all honesty you had no clue what was going on. The calamity that was unfolding was doing nothing to aid your concentration. Somewhere, somehow, someone had made a mistake. Otto, clearly, was not ready to admit that. Glancing over at him, his concentration was evident. Forehead beaded with sweat, face flushed, yet hands unwaiveringly steady as they danced intimately with the controls. Ordinarily, you would kill to get a glimpse of the doctor at work, his dedication to his projects was the stuff of legend. But not this time.
Contrary to his words, the damn thing was not stabilising. There was only one thing for it, the emergency stop button. It was located on a panel to his left, long neglected, and apparently far from the mind of the over confident scientist. Deciding to take matters into your own hands, you broke into a sprint, shoes making loud noises on the floor, drowned out by the harsh cry of the reactor. Reaching his side, you were mere inches from the button. He turned slightly, barely registering your presence as your fingers grazed the edge of your target.
The button remained neglected however, as you were dragged away, attention caught by the almighty crash that had broken out from behind you. Spinning quickly on your heels, nearly falling, you saw the window. In pieces. Flying towards you. A deadly rain, sure to take your life. Time had seemed to slow down as you froze, a whole lifetime of memories coming to you. All the moments of joy and sorrow, captured in a mere moment. An early birthday, your graduation, the first time you met Doctor Octavius. Every sleepless night spent with him, every sleepless night spent without him. Every comfortable silence, every missed opportunity, every single time you wished you had the courage to tell him how much he meant to you. Fact and fiction began to blur as every dream was recounted where unsaid words were spoken for the first time, always the first time. All those silly little daydreams, as you sat and doodled him on the corner of your notes, making sure to cover them if he so much as moved an inch. The dreams of you and Otto becoming one, a unified force the likes the world had never seen, blazing with the power of a thousand suns, unsure where one ended and the other began. The dreams of rejection. The dreams of the harsh reality. The dreams that held you back. All the doubts and worries, always telling you that you weren't good enough for him, the cowardice and the fear.
All of it seemed so trivial now.
You barely registered the sudden movement behind you, or the chilling howl that resembled your name.
You recall the undoubtedly real warmth around your waist, being encircled by a twisted cage of metal, the harsh, panicked breathing in your ear...
Your head jolted off the pillow. Blinking for a moment, you realised the sun had set long ago. The world seemed so quiet. Still. The only audible sounds being your haggard breaths and the steady drip of tears onto your drenched pillow. How long had you been out? An hour? A day? Time had blurred. Your brain had this magic ability to make that moment, which by itself happened in mere seconds, stretch out into hours and hours of despair. Every moment you sat to rest, the nightmare clawed its way back. At first you tried to fight it. A visit to the doctor's had determined it as 'psycological', like you hadn't figured that out already. You had stopped trying to fight it, any remaining energy had been depleted. You were done, deciding to just let it happen, instead of wasting time trying to free yourself from this curse.
The news had tried to insist he was alive. 'HORROR HOSPITAL - OTTO OCTAVIUS AT LARGE', screamed the headline. You knew this was a lie. Otto Octavius died in that lab. That creature The Bugle was calling 'Doc Ock' was not your Otto. Your Otto was a kind, gentle soul with dreams of helping the world, not this monstrosity formed of flesh and metal, a once great mind twisted by the parasitic equipment on his back, a symbiotic relationship that could never be severed.
You threw the pillow across the room, where it hit the wall with a wet thud. Rage and sorrow bubbled inside you, like a violent cocktail, ready to be unleashed. How did this happen? That program should have been double checked a thousand times, how? Did you miss something? Had you been so distracted by your feelings for the doctor that your own work went neglected? Stolen glances in moments of quiet, had they caused his end? Was his blood on your hands?
Glancing down to them, you saw that it was not blood, just your own sweat and tears. You dared not look in a mirror. The room felt impossibly hot, a common result of these horrific outbursts. A deep sigh escaped your throat as you rose to your feet, stumbling from lack of use. You dragged yourself to the window, carefully tossing your poor pillow back to the bed as you passed. The uncovered window allowed the moonlight to shine through, illuminating a photo of the two of you perched on the bedside table. It was your favourite, taken not long before your feelings for him had fully developed. He sat beside you at a workbench, one of the actuators disassembled in front of the two of you, his arm carefully draped across you, pulling you closer. You both looked so happy, so content. Two friends, changing the world together.
A sad smile stretched on your face as you turned away from the photo to crack open the window. The latch was slightly stiff, but after a strong push, it swang open, hinges creaking loudly. Locking it in position, you made your way back to bed, flipping your pillow to the dry side, hopefully being able to score at least a few hours of peaceful sleep.
You soon dozed off, the echoes of Harry's voice once again starting to ring in your ears. You failed to notice the red light shining through the window as you succumbed to the torture once again.