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thehefnerOk, you know what I just learned? That rich text mode is a cruel and hideous bitch goddess. Praise be to the wonderful and kind ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kmousie for editing, commenting, and doing the HTML cuts while I was pissed off. My apologies to anyone who got stuck with a freaky huge LJ entry from me a second ago.
So, for a change of pace and a bit of a writing experiment, I decided to do something totally different and write... a Spider-Man Christmas fan fiction. And here I have it, just in time (even if most of you even interested in such things won't read it till after Christmas)!
This was actually fun and a neat little writing exercise. I don't know how interesting this will be for folks who don't know the characters of Spider-Man and New Avengers (or, less importantly, the current goings-on in "Civil War"), but hopefully some of you like it.
The working title is "Civil Christmas." If anyone thinks of something better, by all means, let me hear it.
Note: This story is set after Peter Parker comes out as Spider-Man to the world and before he defects. And even then, I’m kinda fudging it. In time, I hope to rewrite it to be set in a less dated period and have it more universal, but for now, I work with what I got. Also, much of this story in inspired by, among other things, this somewhat obscure story.
Doctor Otto Octavius, known as “Doctor Octopus” to the world at large (and as “Doc Ock” to a certain meddling, web-headed pest) has never been one for Christmastime. After all, Christmas is a time for family, and that is a luxury not afforded to Otto for many, many winters now. And even then, they were rarely anything to… well, to write home about, you might say.
Certainly, his drunken, sweaty lout of a father was never the type for family gatherings and Yuletide celebration. He’d sooner eat a dripping cheesesteak and suck back a case of watery swill disguised as beer than sit down for a meal with his family. This suited Otto just fine even then, who always suspected that if he were not adopted, then it was only by a genetic miracle (to use such an ignorant term) that he came from the seed of such a oafish brute.
True, Otto’s mother was kind in those days. She did love to sing Christmas carols and bake cookies, which Otto loved. The aroma of mother’s baked goods (apple pies, cookies, old country favorites like strudel) were some of his only truly happy memories of childhood. Or perhaps ever. But such memories were stained ever since Otto saw his mother for the cloying, nagging, smothering woman she was. She held him back, just as they all held him back. They were all either jealous or afraid. As right they should have been. As right they are to fear him now.
But now, save for a brief period or two when a kind hand dared to reach out to him, Otto Octavius is alone. And Otto Octavius would have it no other way.
Sentimental fools, he thinks, with a bitterness only matched by the cold. He trudges through the snow on the downtown Manhattan sidewalk, passing giggling children, scrambling shoppers, and bundled-up lovers walking arm in arm. Blind, ignorant, materialistic ants. All of them.
He shivers, despite himself. The hat and trench coat barely give him sufficient warmth in the wet chill of the Christmas Eve night, but at least they obscure the metal harness and retracted arms around his waist. Even fused to his flesh, the metal is damnedly cold.
But at least I have my hate, he thinks. My hate will keep me warm.
Because Otto Octavius has no use for Christmas. All he has to live for now is revenge. Revenge against the man who has taunted, thwarted, and humiliated Otto since the man was a boy (a mere boy of fifteen, fifteen!). A boy, now a man, who recently revealed himself to the world as Spider-Man.
And Otto looks up at the black spires rising from the skyscraper before him and says, a mirthless smile on his face, “And I know where you live. Parker.”
“I swear, I still can’t find the angel we used to put on top of the tree every year,” May Parker laments as she gently hangs tinsel on a pine branch. “Did you see it when we packed up?”
“We might have lost it with the rest of the house,” Peter says, standing twenty feet above her near the top of the den wall. After an afternoon of swinging from wall to wall of the Avengers Headquarters at the top of Stark Tower, he is relieved to know that the last of the decorations are nearly finally done. Of course, it might be getting done more quickly if the damn sweater didn’t weigh him down. Aunt May it herself, replete with felt reindeer and the words “Ho! Ho! Ho!” sewn on.
Plus it itches worse than the last time I fought Sandman, he thinks. No matter how I try, I always end up taking a little bit of that guy with me. And in the worst places, too.
“I certainly hope not,” May says, almost too quietly for her nephew to hear. “I’ve had that since Ben and I moved into that house. This will be our first Christmas without it.”
“I’ll keep looking, Aunt May. Maybe it’ll turn up.”
“Well, it’s a silly old thing, I suppose. All that matters is that we’re here as a family, safe and sound.”
“Hear, hear,” Mary Jane says, carrying in the presents. When normal people go last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve, they usually get stuck in long, tedious, soul-draining lines. When you’re a world-famous actress/model and the wife of the most talked about superhero in the city, it’s getting out that’s the problem. People are all to happy to get you whatever you want, just be prepared for the throngs waiting for you to sign DVDs and posters for loved one’s presents.
She drops the stack of gifts under the tree and brushes the snow off her festive green coat. With a touch of sadness, MJ says, “Still, it won’t be quite the same without everyone here. Luke, Jessica, Steve… I wonder how they’re celebrating Christmas.”
“Even Tony’s in DC,” Peter says. Of all people, he’d have thought Tony would be here. He left them each presents, including the requisite fruitcake. Peter made a mental note to leave a nasty little surprise in Iron Man’s helmet some morning.
“I am certain they shall persevere,” Jarvis says, carrying in a tray of eggnog, each glass sprinkled with freshly ground nutmeg. He maintains the stiff upper lip and unflappable dignity as always, but there’s no mistaking the tone in the butler’s voice. For the first time since he began serving the various teams to call themselves the Avengers, there’s no real team to speak of anymore. But he too shall persevere, this he knows for certain. Especially if he has people like May Parker by his side. “I know them. They shall find a way, I promise you. In the meantime, we have each other, do we not?”
A hairy arm reaches up to the plate and snatches one of the glasses. Wolverine brings the eggnog to his nose and sniffs the concoction with a look of animalistic distrust.
“No rum?”
With a raised eyebrow, Jarvis says, “Logan, you’re already drinking a beer.”
He looks at the can in his hand, considers, and chugs the rest. He tosses the drained aluminum container aside, letting it bounce on the floor, much to Jarvis’ chagrin. The grizzled X-Man and Avenger grunts and stands, the tips of his wild hair barely reaching up to the level of Jarvis’ neck.
“Fine. I’ll get it myself. In fact, to hell with the eggnog.”
MJ frowns at his direction. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? The School, maybe?”
“Whoop-dee-do, nothing quite like the Scott Summers X-Mas Spectacular,” he grumbles, then turns a lascivious eye to her. “Besides, why should I go anywhere else? Things around here ain’t bad to look at. Especially when they’re green and red.”
MJ crosses her arms and glares at him, which finally brings a smile to Wolverine’s lips. Turning back to the cupboard, he says, “Damn healing factor’s sobering me up too quickly. Where the hell’s the damn rum?”
“Top shelf,” MJ says. “Need me to get you a stool?”
“Now, now, Mary Jane,” May gently scolds, barely suppressing a smile. “It’s Christmas, after all.”
From up on the ceiling, Peter launches a string of webbing with a thwip!toward Wolverine’s discarded beer can on the floor and yanks it towards him. He catches it and a nanosecond later flings it toward Wolverine, a direct hit as it bounces off his head.
“Watch it, Pete,” he warns, with a snarl. “Or you won’t be able to climb high enough to get away from me.”
“C’mon, Frodo, where’s your Christmas spirit?”
“Bah goddamn humbug, bub.”
“How are the garlands coming, Peter?” May asks.
“Done!” he says, leaping off the wall with a somersault and landing with an Olympic level dismount. The grace is immediately broken when the sweater bounces and he frantically scratches his neck and back.
May beams at the sight. Garlands hang from the walls, the doorways and windows covered in blinking lights. The tree, a massive pine bought and flown in by Iron Man himself, is covered from top to bottom with Parker family ornaments and tinsel. The tree is easily twice as big as any May had back in their old home and she needed Peter to decorate the parts she couldn’t reach. This accounted for why the ornaments on the bottom half are neatly and carefully arranged, while the top half, May thinks, looks rather like someone dumped a box or ornaments on it to see which would stick. Off to the corner is the plastic light-up manger scene, with baby Jesus at the center, of course.
Angel or no angel, it’s a sight to behold. Everyone, even Wolverine, takes a second or two of silence to take in the moment.
The moment lasts precisely three seconds.
The entire building trembles under their feet as the sound of a massive explosion rips through the room, drowning out the chiming of shivering ornaments. The alarms go off with blasting howls, emergency lights flashing, and there’s another explosion, this one louder and closer than the first. Layers upon layers of titanium walls come sliding down from all sides, blackening out the windows and turning the den into a metal prison.
May stumbles and falls, but Peter is fast enough to sweep under and catch her. He turns to Wolverine, whose claws are already popped. They don’t need to exchange a word.
With a thought, the red and gold spider-armor wraps around Peter’s body (thank you, Tony Stark) and in seconds, the amazing Spider-Man is poised and ready.
“Jarvis, take Aunt May and MJ to safety!”
“Already upon it, Peter!” he says, escorting the women to the other room.
“Think we should go down and see what the trouble is?” he asks Wolverine.
“Nah. It’ll get here soon enough.”
Fulfilling that promise, it takes no less than two minutes for Dr. Octopus to claw his way up Stark Tower, past and through the most sophisticated security this side of the Pentagon, into the belly of the most powerful superhuman team on the planet. A metal arm tears through the doors, clamping onto one wall, followed by another of the robotic pincers, while the other two carry their hunched-over, vengeful master.
“PARKER!”
Without missing a beat, Spider-Man says, “I was expecting a big ol’ fatso coming in here, but you ain’t Santa!”
“Always with the jokes, Parker,” Ock says, the flashing lights reflecting off his midnight-black sunglasses. He wrenches his shoulder forward with a snap, sending an arm bolting towards his longtime enemy in the space of a nanosecond. It’s barely enough time to dodge, but for Spider-Man, that’s time enough. The arm slams into and tears right through the wall as if it were paper.
“You picked the wrong party to crash, Ock!” Wolverine snarls, leaping forward with claws extended. An arm smacks him aside, but Wolverine rebounds off the wall, back towards the man in the dirty fedora and battered trench coat, only to be knocked down again. Wolverine slashes at the arms, but to no avail. The robot arms, he had forgotten, had been forged from adamantium.
“C’mon, Otto,” Spider-Man says, back up on the wall where he’d been hanging garlands mere minutes ago, “let’s take this outside. We can make snow angels! Er, well, you could make a snow Cthulthu.”
“Laughing at me the entire time, weren’t you?” he says, his manner dead except for the fire behind those sunglasses. When Spider-Man fights a villain, he uses his jokes to piss off his opponents until they become careless. And it usually works, but not with him. Never with Doctor Octopus. “Keep laughing, Parker. I am through playing games with you.”
The arms whip and twist around Spider-Man, who dodges and flips and dances around them with what appears to be effortless grace. It is anything but, despite his jokes.
“That’s too bad, Ock!” he says, jumping on top of the Christmas tree, taking the absent angel’s position. “We were just about to sit down to a round of ‘Apples to Apples.’”
A second later, a tentacle smashes into the tree, knocking it down with a flurry of shattered ornaments, tinsel, and pine needles.
The central monitor behind them morays and the image of Tony Stark appears. From inside his armor in Washington DC, the billionaire industrialist and US Secretary of Defense witnesses one of their oldest and deadliest enemies in the center of his own building, wildly attacking one of his teammates with two arms and holding off the other with his remaining two.
“Heya, Tony!” Peter says. “How’s DC? Can you get me a Washington Monument paperweight?”
“Dr. Octavius!” Stark says, his voice calm but commanding. “Cease and desist immediately or I will notify S.H.I.E.L.D. officers.”
“Be my guest,” Octavius says, looking right at the screen while his arms carry on their work. Wolverine snarls in frustration but gets no closer, while every swipe comes closer and closer to ripping off Spider-Man’s head. “I’ve manipulated the security system to go into full lockdown mode. Nothing can get in or out. Or by the time they do, it will already be too late. And don’t bother activating your second or third emergency protocols either.”
Frowning, Stark goes ahead anyway. Nothing.
“Impossible,” he says. “I designed those systems myself!”
“Yes, I’m afraid it shows,” Octavius says, and smashes the monitor with a tentacle. Turning back to his enemies, he smiles and says, “Now, where were—ARGH!” as something that feels like a brick bashes him in the head.
“FRUITCAKE!” Spider-Man shouts. Furious, Ock lashes out, one arm going for Spider-Man, the other slamming into the top of the wall, ripping the garland off its tacks, ting-ting-ting-ting-ting.
Jumping off another arm, onto the ceiling, then onto the wall, Spider-Man says, “See, I was thinkingabout saying ‘A fruitcake for a fruitcake,’ but I thought that’d be too obvious. I figure by just yelling ‘FRUITCAKE!’ it’s actually a bit subtler. But really, when you…” Another claw grabs the end of the garland, turning the former decoration into the world’s most festive garrote.
I cannot be overconfident again, Ock thinks as Spider-Man rambles on, trying to get him angry. Anger is for lesser men. Don’t hope for the luxury of taking your time. Finish this. Finish this, and it will be a Merry Christmas indeed…
Still in mid-quip, Spider-Man flips backwards as an arm sweeps to knock him down. He leaps onto the wall and shoots his webbing, which Ock’s arm deflects and sloughs off like dead skin. Spider-Man swings into the mess of arms, letting go in mid-air to land on one arm, and jump off like a frog on a lily pad. He swings in and lands a perfect hit in Ock’s gut, slamming him backwards right into the manger scene. The arms grab and fling the statues at Spider-Man, who catches what he can and dodges the rest.
“I got you, baby Jesus!” Spider-Man says triumphantly just before a tentacle slams into his face, sending him tumbling to the ground, and baby Jesus goes off flying.
Wolverine snarls, “You’re calamari, Doc!” and is actually now gaining ground, now three mere feet from the madman. Spider-Man, getting back to his feet, shoots the webbing again. Ock again blocks the webbing with a tentacle, and, like snot on a finger, flicks the off the glob and sends it right smack into Wolverine’s face.
Logan tumbles backwards with a muffled curse. He’ll be out of the gunk soon, but that’s enough time for Ock to turn his attention to Parker. But now Spider-Man’s inside the protective circle, forcing the arms inward, wrapping around his own four limbs. Wolverine meanwhile only has sound to go on, and that’s enough for him. Even blind, claws drawn, he reenters the fray as deadly and vicious as ever. One of the arms clamps around Wolverine’s throat, and in quick desperation, Spider-Man grabs at the lapel of Octavius’ jacket, a futile gesture, as the tentacles wrap the garland around his throat and begin to pull at both ends. Spider-Man chokes, refusing to give up, and he already has his leg loose when—
“STOP this!” May shouts, standing at the end of the den with Jarvis and MJ behind her. The three, miraculously (if you believe in such things), do stop, and stare at her in stunned silence. Except for Wolverine, who is hanging from mid-air by his throat, with webbing in his face.
“Aunt May!” Spider-Man cries, the humor replaced by sudden terror. On any other occasion, Dr. Octopus would have noted this change in tone with malicious glee. “What are you and MJ still doing here?! Run!”
“We’re trapped in here,” she says simple, her arms crossed and her manner altogether displeased. Jarvis comes up behind her, armed with trophy buckshot rifle of Mr. Stark’s. He knows it’s probably only for show, but damned if he isn’t about to do anything he can to protect May and her family.
Octavius looks at May Parker and his arms begin to sag ever so slightly. Spider-Man realizes he could slip free quite easily, but decides to stay put for the time being.
“May,” Octavius says quietly, almost whispers. “I… I did not expect to see you here.”
“Put him down, Otto,” she says sternly. Jarvis eyes her with growing bewilderment. “Now.”
“May, I…” his fury begins to flare once again, “But this—this insect must be—”
“Otto Octavius!” she commands. “Put my Peter down this instant!”
“I…” he says, looking at his captured prey, then back at her, then back at him again, and finally down at the floor at nothing in particular. Gently, his arms sag and loosen around his oldest of enemies. For a second, Spider-Man’s arm tenses (now, while I have the chance).
“Peter,” May says. It’s all she has to say. Peter holds off.
May releases a tense, weary sigh. “Jarvis, would you please make us some tea?”
Ever more befuddled, Jarvis asks, “Er, for… everyone present?”
“Where are my manners,” May says distantly, then asks Octavius, “Would you care for some tea, Dr. Octavius?”
He opens his mouth to protest or object, then shuts it with a sigh of his own. “Yes, please, Mrs. Parker.”
She nods and says, “MJ? Peter? Would either of you care for any tea?”
“Uh, thanks, but I don’t think I need the caffeine,” MJ says.
“Milk with two sugars, Jarvis,” Spider-Man says. Octavius’ stunned manner is shaken at hearing this, and he turns to give his enemy a disapproving look. Defensively, Spider-Man shrugs and complains, “What? I like it the English way!”
“And what about, er, Mister Logan?” Jarvis says. The group watches as Wolverine, blinded and gagged, is suspended mid-air by his throat, helplessly thrashing and hacking at the equally-unbreakable arm. He flails in vain, mumbling a never-ending stream of muffled curses.
May says, “Leave him be for now. He’ll only disturb us.”
“Very well, May. Tea all around it is, then.”
“Dr. Octavius,” she says, getting his attention at once. “I do not care to have my tea in a gulag. Kindly take down the fortified walls if you please.”
“Mrs. Parker,” he says, testily, “Doctor Otto Octavius does not take orders, not even from you.”
“It was merely a request,” she says. “No one’s tying to escape and no one will come and disturb us. You have my word.”
“It is not necessarily your word I distrust,” he says coldly.
“Well, even if someone does come here, you don’t honestly think they will be able to stop you… do you?”
Ock considers this. Without another word, a tentacle extends toward the console keyboard and begins to type. Inside Spider-Man’s modified mask, he hears the transmitted voice of Tony Stark.
“Peter, is everything OK there? Do you want me to send backup?”
“It’s fine,” Peter whispers. “We have it all under control. I think.”
The titanium layers slide up, letting back in the city lights and a wide-open view of a gentle snowfall over New York City. For a second, the two men in the center of the den stand uncertainly, eyeing one another.
“Let’s have a seat, shall we?” May says (she doesn’t ask). She sits on the sofa across from Otto, who sits what Spider-Man knows as Luke Cage’s favorite seat. If only he were here now, Peter thinks, then wonders if he really means it.
“You…” Octavius shifts, uncomfortable. Spider-Man watches him with strange wonder. He clears his throat and crosses his arms, his real arms, while the metal ones settle but do not go completely limp. “You look well, May,” he says. “The new hairstyle… works very well for you.”
“Thank you, Otto,” she says, genuinely accepting the compliment. “I wish I could say the same for you. Oh, my dear Dr. Octavius, what has happened to you?”
His manner is one of restrained dignity underneath his humorless frigidity, but Spider-Man thinks (can’t be, impossible) that he sees the faintest trace of warmth in his old enemy.
“It has been… hard, May. Very hard indeed.”
Returning with the steeping tea and more than a little trepidation, Jarvis asks, “May, do you know this monster?”
“Monster?” Octavius repeats the word, flaring up again. “Typical ignorant thinking. You cannot even comprehend…”
“Otto,” May warns. To Jarvis, she says, “Dr. Octavius and I have a… history, you might say. When Peter went away to college, I rented out his room and Otto here responded to my ad. Naturally, I had no idea about his… ‘reputation’ when I took him in. With both Peter and Ben gone, I was rather lonely. Otto soon proved to be more than a tenant. We became friends, of sorts. And I…”
“You almost married this psycho!” shouts Spider-Man. The metal arms stiffen and rise like angry cobras, save for the one holding Wolverine, still thrashing and cursing in mid-air. “Oh god, to think you two almost made the beast with twelve limbs! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!”
“Peter, shush!” she snaps, “And take that mask off! Be yourself, for goodness sake! You’re only agitating us both.”
With a stubborn grumble, the mask unravels, revealing the face of Peter Parker. Actually watching it happen fills Otto Octavius with that same ugly humiliation once again, reminding him why he came in the first place.
“It was… rash, I admit,” says May. “I wasn’t thinking that one through, yes. But we all made mistakes in those days, didn’t we, Peter?”
Jarvis hands May her tea and says, “You mean to say… he’s your ex-boyfriend?”
The realization slowly sinks in for Octavius as well. “You mean… he’s…”
“Awkward,” says MJ.
“Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!” says Peter.
“Mhrrrfuhhrrrsunnuhhchh!” says Wolverine.
“Really, May,” Octavius chides. “A butler? What, was the janitor taken?”
“I’d say butler is a fine step up from mass-murdering megalomaniac,” Jarvis says, handing the Doctor a steaming mug. “And by the way, I was seriously pondering spitting in your tea.”
A metal pincer accepts the tea and brings it to his lips. It’s good, much better than the swill you usually get in this cultureless country, but he dares not admit it to the manservant.
Wolverine’s curses only intensify, his efforts increasing with even greater animalistic fury. Octavius says, “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, you’re such a nuisance,” and flings him through the glass and out the skyscraper window, sending the mutant tumbling down, his curses fading in an instant.
“Otto!” May cries, appalled. “Look what you’ve done! Now we’re going to have a draft!”
“Blast it, May,” Octavius says impatiently, “What is it you think you’re doing here?”
“Otto, you came in here with one purpose and one purpose only. You came to kill my nephew. Is that true?”
“I… yes. No point in denying it.”
“Just as you’ve been trying to kill him for years now.”
“Yes!”
“And the only reason, the single reason I don’t tell you to get the hell out of my sight is because I know that you’d fail. Just like you always fail.”
“That is it,” he says quietly. He stands, his arms rising up all around him, and louder, “That is IT! Who are you to speak to me this way?!”
“Who am I?!” she says, standing to face him. “I am the one person who has ever bothered to show you kindness, you cruel, petty little man!” she yells back fearlessly, snatching the sunglasses off his face.
The light hits his eyes, sensitive ever since the explosion, and he recoils with a howl of pain. Out of instinct, a tentacle wraps around May like a constrictor, another going right after Peter, whose spider-sense went off like crazy an instant before.
“Aunt May!” he cries out, but he cannot get any closer.
“Peter, stay… back!” she says, struggling as the arm tightens.
For a second in his furious blindness, Octavius actually considers squeezing the life out of her. But only for the briefest of seconds. He releases her and sinks back in the chair, rubbing his eyes. She coughs once, then walks over to him. She takes his hand, his human hand, and gives him back his glasses.
“There we are,” she says simply.
“You are right,” he says, the bitterness of having to utter those words to anyone heavy on his tongue. “Very well. I shall leave you in peace. And your nephew… for now.”
“Nonsense. It’s Christmas.”
“Aunt May!” Peter yells. “Uh, hello! Crazy psycho here!”
“Really, May, much as I hate to agree with your nephew, this can only end badly.”
“Otto,” she asks, studying him with kind, patient eyes, “do you have anywhere else to go?”
“Why, I… I…” he stammers. Otto Octavius is not often at a loss for words and doesn’t care for it one bit.
“Well, it’s settled then. Now, this place is a mess. Peter, Otto, please clean up around here and re-hang the decorations, if you’d be so kind?”
Now Peter joins in the stammering. “But…! But he… but I… but we…!”
“Come now,” she says, “With Otto’s help, it will take no time at all. I’ll be right back with wheat cakes for everybody,” she says, heading towards the kitchen. “I trust you two will behave yourselves.”
The two men stand dumbfounded, looking at the wreck they created and then at each other. After a moment, Otto asks, “Parker… what the devil are wheat cakes?”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up and eat ‘em.”
Never once betraying his dignified and controlled look, Jarvis gives Otto and Peter some cleaning supplies. And so they get to work, Spider-Man swinging from wall to wall, hanging lights and garlands, Otto cleaning up and salvaging the tree.
“That’s it,” Peter says. “She’s gone senile.”
“Nonsense, Parker,” Octavius says, with quiet, stunned admiration. “That woman could face down Galactus himself.”
“Oh come off it, Otto,” Peter says, replacing a broken bulb. “You only to marry her to swindle a sweet little old lady out of her money.”
“How dare…! What do you take me for?!”
“Dude. You threw a manger scene at me!”
“… Point. Nevertheless, whatever… intentions I may have had when I moved into your room (and by the way, neither of us was able to get the stink out, thank you very much)… I admit, I was… touched… by her basic humanity. I suspected that even if she were to know my true nature, she would never judge me, never shun me. Perhaps I was a fool. Perhaps not. Assist me with the tree, Parker.”
“Are you asking me for help?” Peter asks, with a smirk.
“Don’t push it.”
Peter uses his webbing to pull the tree up while Otto, with two tentacles, guides it back into the stand.
Peter says, “I used to think she was so frail. I thought if she ever found out I was Spider-Man, she’d keel over from shock.”
Octavius hits him with a look.
“Dear lord, Parker, but you are an idiot.”
“Yeah, well… at least I don’t look like Elton John.”
Octavius glares at him.
“Seriously, Ock, what the hell happened to you? I remember a time when you were totally Hannibal-Lecter-y badass! You were trim, you had better hair, you were sporting that that Wonderful-Ice-Cream-Suit white tux… but ever since, you’ve gone right back to being that ugly, whiny, multi-chinned freak with a Moe haircut and the goggles that do nothing! And don’t get me started on the green and orange spandex. You are the last person who should be wearing…”
“Whatever you say, Iron Spider…” Otto says absently, his arms replacing the ornaments and tinsel with swift precision.
“And don’t get me started on that, what was it, ‘mullet Matrix’ crap you were trying not too long ago. That collar made you look like you were being eaten by a leather turtleneck sweater!”
Otto groans, rubbing his temples. “My mind has been a mess of confusion ever since I saw your little ‘coming out’ on television. I thought I was a fool for having unmasked you once when you were fifteen, a fool for thinking it was impossible and not believing it. But the truth of the matter, Parker… is that is not what’s truly bothering me. Ever since, a flood of strange thoughts and memories have been flowing back, memories I don’t remember… having…”
“Ohhh,” Peter says, the realization hitting him. “Yeah, that’s probably because you died.”
“I… what?! ”
“Yeah, croaked. Went to the big aquarium in the sky.”
Otto lowers his head, absorbing the shock. But more than that, reconciling the reality of everything he’s suspected but dared not believe. As a man of science, how…?
Peter says, “Hey, look, don’t sweat it. So you died. Whatever. I died. Hell, even Aunt May died! Happens all the time. And seriously, be thankful you died when you did! You didn’t want to be around for what happened after that.”
“I… died. But… but how…?”
“Ninjas.”
“… What?”
“Ninjas. Magic ninjas brought you back.”
“Oh stop it.”
“No, seriously! They’re a real pain in the ass. They brought you back and ever since your memory’s been all screwy.”
“You… you did something to me, didn’t you? You… you neutered me!”
“Ugh! I don’t want to even think about… look, weren’t you just listening, you paranoid nutball? Ninjas!”
“So… it’s because of… I can’t even bring myself to say it…”
“Ninjas, ninjas, ninjas!”
“… that I’ve been so confused. I kept shifting from persona to persona, much the way you are now, trying to find what I’d lost. In a world of psychotic businessmen and drooling doppelgangers, I became a joke of my former self. They all laugh at me. You all laugh at me.”
Putting up the last of the garland, Peter says, “Maybe they do, Otto, but not me.”
“You?” he scoffs bitterly. “Of all people! Don’t insult me!”
“I’m serious! When I was in high school… before I became Spider-Man… I knew all about you, star scientist and theorist at M.I.T. I admired you, really. I read your essay on nuclear power versus cold fusion. I thought it was brilliant.”
“It was. And… you understood it?”
Peter shrugs. “Pretty well, yeah. I was a bright kid. Not that it made me popular.”
With some reflection, Otto says, “No. It never does.”
For the first time, Peter Parker and Otto Octavius look at each other not as enemies, not as the costumed characters given colorful names by the media, but as men.
Turning back to Peter, Otto Octavius turns cold again and says, “This changes nothing, you know.”
“I didn’t think it would,” he says, with some regret.
Otto nods, the light of wonder dawning on his face as he hangs the last of the ornaments.
“It’s all… coming together now. Everything is clicking into place. I remember… yes… the Vulture had poisoned you. You were dying. Your usual carefree self turned into a scared, embittered vigilante. And I… I saved your miserable life. Because you provided a certain… continuity in my life. A certain challenge. A certain… inspiration. Yes.”
Mere minutes before, Otto Octavius would not have dared even think such things, but now the words come out as naturally as breathing.
“I needed you. I needed the man who’s danced with me on the edge of a precipice down the long and eventful years. And I think… I still do.”
“Why, it’s a Christmas miracle!” Peter says, throwing his arms in the air. “Just don’t try to get me under the mistletoe, Doc.”
Much to Peter’s surprise and discomfort, Otto chuckles darkly.
“Make no mistake, Parker. I did not save you to become your bosom buddy. I have long admired you for your wit, your self-sacrificing heroism, your humanity. Clearly, you take after your Aunt. You have always been the worthiest of foes… and I personally ensured that you would be again! And now the knowledge of how you are in my debt will only make my inevitable victory all the sweeter!
“Yes, I was confused for a time there, lost, adrift… but now thanks to your unmasking, everything has come back to me. Thanks to you, I remember who I am. Who I once was and will be again.”
The tentacles rise and twist slowly, the clamps opening like flytraps, and one of the arms slides under the tree to find the cord for the lights.
“I am master of the atom. I am the bringer of nuclear fire. Though others fear radiation, I alone am able to make it my servant. I have single-handedly taken on the gods that walk this earth and looked them right in the eye! I am not that weakling mortal Otto Octavius. No…” and the tentacle plugs the lights into the wall socket.
“I… AM DOCTOR OCTOPUS!” he shouts triumphantly as the tree erupts with colored lights and the chirping electronic chorus of “Joy to the World.” In the corner, a little dancing Santa shakes his booty to “Jingle Bell Rock.”
“And when next we meet, I promise you, Parker…” he says, a metal claw coming right up to Peter’s face and clamping down with deadly speed, “I will destroy you.”
“You’ll certainly try,” May Parker says, carrying in a tray of wheat cakes and eggnog.
“Do not try to talk me out of it, May,” he warns. “I shall always respect you and remember your kindness, but I have a calling, and—”
“Oh, goodness, no, Doctor,” May says, waving her hand away. “I’d no sooner try than try to talk Peter out of being Spider-Man. If I know how he operates, the same certainly goes for you. But not tonight.”
“Really, May,” Ock says, snobbily, “this is just another day like any other. A manufactured celebration of greed and materialism forged from the oppression of ignorant religions co-opting a mishmash of pagan symbols. We might as well be having an orgy to celebrate a reindeer deity with his magnificent phallus!”
“Twenty four limbs,” mutters Peter with disgust. “Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!”
“Oh, Otto,” May says with a kindly smile, “You may fool others, you may even fool yourself, but you can’t fool me.”
“I am a man of science, my dear. I am the only one who is not deluded!”
Picking up a stray pine needle, Jarvis pipes in, “If I may, sir, December 25th is Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday.”
Otto’s face hardens in consideration.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes, perhaps that shall do quite nicely.”
May walks around behind the sofa and crouches to gently retrieve a misplaced object. Gently picking up the bundled object, she says, “It’s someone else’s birthday too.”
Holding out the baby Jesus, she says, “Otto, would you be so kind?”
He looks at the plastic figure as if someone just farted.
“You do realize that realistically speaking Jesus was not born on the 25th of December, and that…” She does not waver, patiently holding the figure. Otto sighs. A pair of tentacles picks up the figure and gently lowers it into the crib in the manger scene. May smiles warmly and overlooks the den with pleasure, and that’s when she sees it.
“Peter, look!” she says, pointing to the top of the tree with astonishment. And there, at the top of the tree, is the angel.
“Huh,” Peter says, dumbfounded but smiling. “Now how do you suppose that…?”
But before he can ask, the oven’s alarm goes off with a ding! May excitedly runs over to the kitchen, “They’re done!”
“Oh, they’re ready!” she says, excitedly heading toward the kitchen.
“Not more wheat cakes!” Peter cries.
Ock sniffs the air and says quietly, with shocked humility, “No. Not wheat cakes.”
“Whoooooo wants cookies?” May says, pulling the freshly baked batch out of the oven. Otto’s eyes go wide and his mouth opens in touched astonishment.
“Put down a plate for Tubby over here!” he yells to May.
And so they sit to cookies and eggnog and wheat cakes and hot cocoa, sharing stories and opening presents. All, of course, except Otto, much to May’s lament.
“It is fine, May,” he says, with stiff pride. “Doctor Octopus has no need for material goods!” And then, despite himself, he shivers. It shall be most unpleasant, he thinks, when the time comes for him to go back out into the cold. Perhaps he can rob a clothing store, or…
“Uh, hey, you know what?” Peter says, taking off the sweater, still itching all over. He bundles it up quickly and hands it to Otto. “If it’s ok with Aunt May… y’know… uh… well…”
Hesitantly, Otto says, “Er… well, I… erm…”
“It’s all right, Otto,” May says. “Merry Christmas.”
Otto nods and silently takes it. May adds, “I’ll even cut some holes in the back for you.” Pleased, she says, “This is the way Christmas should be. Peace on Earth and good will towards men!”
“Except Peter Parker,” Ock speedily mutters, at the exact same time Peter does the same with, “Except Fatty McBowlcut.” “AMEN!”
“Ah, perhaps this isn’t so bad. Even I can appreciate the deliciousness of this moment…” Dr. Octopus says, grinning, as a tentacle slides around Peter’s shoulder. “… eh, Parker?”
“Ok, creepy,” Peter says, uncomfortable.
“Hands off,” MJ says, sitting in Peter’s lap. Leaning in to kiss him, she says, “All of them.”
“Ah, Mrs. Parker, I’ve been meaning to say that I adored your Lady Macbeth.”
“You saw it?”
“But of course!” he says, laying on the charm. The finger of a tentacle places itself under her chin. The metal is cold on her flesh, but she doesn’t flinch. “I never miss the classics. If I may say, you positively exuded crimson radiance from the stage.”
Slapping himself on the head, Peter says, “Great, as if Wolverine weren’t bad enough. Hey, that reminds me…!”
“YOU!” Wolverine snarls, standing in the doorway. His jeans torn to ribbons, the sleeve ripped off his leather jacket, spattered all over with blood from his now-healed wounds and dripping from his claws, he advances on the group with murderous rage.
“Now you’ve done it! Now I am pissed! Ohh, I’m dreamin’ of a red Christmas! I am gonna—”
Still rambling, Ock turns to Peter, MJ, Jarvis, and May and asks, “Would any of you mind?”
May says, “Well, we’re having such a lovely time.”
“Yeah,” Peter says, “He’ll get over it.”
“Cuz I’m the best at what I do, Bub, and what I do isn’t verAHHHH!” is the last thing they hear as a tentacle snags Wolverine like a vending machine claw and tosses him back out the window.
“Merry Christmas, Doctor Octavius,” May says.
“And…” he hesitates, then smiles. “The same to you, my dear.”
Some time later, Spider-Man would encounter Doctor Octopus in a fierce battle over the Brooklyn Bridge after Otto held the city ransom with a stolen nuclear warhead. By the end, Peter would be bruised and bloody and Otto would be in a stretcher on his way to the infirmary on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
And so life would return to normal as always, and for Peter Parker and Otto Octavius, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Oh, and Wolverine later got his revenge by peeing in Otto’s eggnog.
THE END!
kmousie for editing, commenting, and doing the HTML cuts while I was pissed off. My apologies to anyone who got stuck with a freaky huge LJ entry from me a second ago. So, for a change of pace and a bit of a writing experiment, I decided to do something totally different and write... a Spider-Man Christmas fan fiction. And here I have it, just in time (even if most of you even interested in such things won't read it till after Christmas)!
This was actually fun and a neat little writing exercise. I don't know how interesting this will be for folks who don't know the characters of Spider-Man and New Avengers (or, less importantly, the current goings-on in "Civil War"), but hopefully some of you like it.
The working title is "Civil Christmas." If anyone thinks of something better, by all means, let me hear it.
Note: This story is set after Peter Parker comes out as Spider-Man to the world and before he defects. And even then, I’m kinda fudging it. In time, I hope to rewrite it to be set in a less dated period and have it more universal, but for now, I work with what I got. Also, much of this story in inspired by, among other things, this somewhat obscure story.
Doctor Otto Octavius, known as “Doctor Octopus” to the world at large (and as “Doc Ock” to a certain meddling, web-headed pest) has never been one for Christmastime. After all, Christmas is a time for family, and that is a luxury not afforded to Otto for many, many winters now. And even then, they were rarely anything to… well, to write home about, you might say.
Certainly, his drunken, sweaty lout of a father was never the type for family gatherings and Yuletide celebration. He’d sooner eat a dripping cheesesteak and suck back a case of watery swill disguised as beer than sit down for a meal with his family. This suited Otto just fine even then, who always suspected that if he were not adopted, then it was only by a genetic miracle (to use such an ignorant term) that he came from the seed of such a oafish brute.
True, Otto’s mother was kind in those days. She did love to sing Christmas carols and bake cookies, which Otto loved. The aroma of mother’s baked goods (apple pies, cookies, old country favorites like strudel) were some of his only truly happy memories of childhood. Or perhaps ever. But such memories were stained ever since Otto saw his mother for the cloying, nagging, smothering woman she was. She held him back, just as they all held him back. They were all either jealous or afraid. As right they should have been. As right they are to fear him now.
But now, save for a brief period or two when a kind hand dared to reach out to him, Otto Octavius is alone. And Otto Octavius would have it no other way.
Sentimental fools, he thinks, with a bitterness only matched by the cold. He trudges through the snow on the downtown Manhattan sidewalk, passing giggling children, scrambling shoppers, and bundled-up lovers walking arm in arm. Blind, ignorant, materialistic ants. All of them.
He shivers, despite himself. The hat and trench coat barely give him sufficient warmth in the wet chill of the Christmas Eve night, but at least they obscure the metal harness and retracted arms around his waist. Even fused to his flesh, the metal is damnedly cold.
But at least I have my hate, he thinks. My hate will keep me warm.
Because Otto Octavius has no use for Christmas. All he has to live for now is revenge. Revenge against the man who has taunted, thwarted, and humiliated Otto since the man was a boy (a mere boy of fifteen, fifteen!). A boy, now a man, who recently revealed himself to the world as Spider-Man.
And Otto looks up at the black spires rising from the skyscraper before him and says, a mirthless smile on his face, “And I know where you live. Parker.”
“I swear, I still can’t find the angel we used to put on top of the tree every year,” May Parker laments as she gently hangs tinsel on a pine branch. “Did you see it when we packed up?”
“We might have lost it with the rest of the house,” Peter says, standing twenty feet above her near the top of the den wall. After an afternoon of swinging from wall to wall of the Avengers Headquarters at the top of Stark Tower, he is relieved to know that the last of the decorations are nearly finally done. Of course, it might be getting done more quickly if the damn sweater didn’t weigh him down. Aunt May it herself, replete with felt reindeer and the words “Ho! Ho! Ho!” sewn on.
Plus it itches worse than the last time I fought Sandman, he thinks. No matter how I try, I always end up taking a little bit of that guy with me. And in the worst places, too.
“I certainly hope not,” May says, almost too quietly for her nephew to hear. “I’ve had that since Ben and I moved into that house. This will be our first Christmas without it.”
“I’ll keep looking, Aunt May. Maybe it’ll turn up.”
“Well, it’s a silly old thing, I suppose. All that matters is that we’re here as a family, safe and sound.”
“Hear, hear,” Mary Jane says, carrying in the presents. When normal people go last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve, they usually get stuck in long, tedious, soul-draining lines. When you’re a world-famous actress/model and the wife of the most talked about superhero in the city, it’s getting out that’s the problem. People are all to happy to get you whatever you want, just be prepared for the throngs waiting for you to sign DVDs and posters for loved one’s presents.
She drops the stack of gifts under the tree and brushes the snow off her festive green coat. With a touch of sadness, MJ says, “Still, it won’t be quite the same without everyone here. Luke, Jessica, Steve… I wonder how they’re celebrating Christmas.”
“Even Tony’s in DC,” Peter says. Of all people, he’d have thought Tony would be here. He left them each presents, including the requisite fruitcake. Peter made a mental note to leave a nasty little surprise in Iron Man’s helmet some morning.
“I am certain they shall persevere,” Jarvis says, carrying in a tray of eggnog, each glass sprinkled with freshly ground nutmeg. He maintains the stiff upper lip and unflappable dignity as always, but there’s no mistaking the tone in the butler’s voice. For the first time since he began serving the various teams to call themselves the Avengers, there’s no real team to speak of anymore. But he too shall persevere, this he knows for certain. Especially if he has people like May Parker by his side. “I know them. They shall find a way, I promise you. In the meantime, we have each other, do we not?”
A hairy arm reaches up to the plate and snatches one of the glasses. Wolverine brings the eggnog to his nose and sniffs the concoction with a look of animalistic distrust.
“No rum?”
With a raised eyebrow, Jarvis says, “Logan, you’re already drinking a beer.”
He looks at the can in his hand, considers, and chugs the rest. He tosses the drained aluminum container aside, letting it bounce on the floor, much to Jarvis’ chagrin. The grizzled X-Man and Avenger grunts and stands, the tips of his wild hair barely reaching up to the level of Jarvis’ neck.
“Fine. I’ll get it myself. In fact, to hell with the eggnog.”
MJ frowns at his direction. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? The School, maybe?”
“Whoop-dee-do, nothing quite like the Scott Summers X-Mas Spectacular,” he grumbles, then turns a lascivious eye to her. “Besides, why should I go anywhere else? Things around here ain’t bad to look at. Especially when they’re green and red.”
MJ crosses her arms and glares at him, which finally brings a smile to Wolverine’s lips. Turning back to the cupboard, he says, “Damn healing factor’s sobering me up too quickly. Where the hell’s the damn rum?”
“Top shelf,” MJ says. “Need me to get you a stool?”
“Now, now, Mary Jane,” May gently scolds, barely suppressing a smile. “It’s Christmas, after all.”
From up on the ceiling, Peter launches a string of webbing with a thwip!toward Wolverine’s discarded beer can on the floor and yanks it towards him. He catches it and a nanosecond later flings it toward Wolverine, a direct hit as it bounces off his head.
“Watch it, Pete,” he warns, with a snarl. “Or you won’t be able to climb high enough to get away from me.”
“C’mon, Frodo, where’s your Christmas spirit?”
“Bah goddamn humbug, bub.”
“How are the garlands coming, Peter?” May asks.
“Done!” he says, leaping off the wall with a somersault and landing with an Olympic level dismount. The grace is immediately broken when the sweater bounces and he frantically scratches his neck and back.
May beams at the sight. Garlands hang from the walls, the doorways and windows covered in blinking lights. The tree, a massive pine bought and flown in by Iron Man himself, is covered from top to bottom with Parker family ornaments and tinsel. The tree is easily twice as big as any May had back in their old home and she needed Peter to decorate the parts she couldn’t reach. This accounted for why the ornaments on the bottom half are neatly and carefully arranged, while the top half, May thinks, looks rather like someone dumped a box or ornaments on it to see which would stick. Off to the corner is the plastic light-up manger scene, with baby Jesus at the center, of course.
Angel or no angel, it’s a sight to behold. Everyone, even Wolverine, takes a second or two of silence to take in the moment.
The moment lasts precisely three seconds.
The entire building trembles under their feet as the sound of a massive explosion rips through the room, drowning out the chiming of shivering ornaments. The alarms go off with blasting howls, emergency lights flashing, and there’s another explosion, this one louder and closer than the first. Layers upon layers of titanium walls come sliding down from all sides, blackening out the windows and turning the den into a metal prison.
May stumbles and falls, but Peter is fast enough to sweep under and catch her. He turns to Wolverine, whose claws are already popped. They don’t need to exchange a word.
With a thought, the red and gold spider-armor wraps around Peter’s body (thank you, Tony Stark) and in seconds, the amazing Spider-Man is poised and ready.
“Jarvis, take Aunt May and MJ to safety!”
“Already upon it, Peter!” he says, escorting the women to the other room.
“Think we should go down and see what the trouble is?” he asks Wolverine.
“Nah. It’ll get here soon enough.”
Fulfilling that promise, it takes no less than two minutes for Dr. Octopus to claw his way up Stark Tower, past and through the most sophisticated security this side of the Pentagon, into the belly of the most powerful superhuman team on the planet. A metal arm tears through the doors, clamping onto one wall, followed by another of the robotic pincers, while the other two carry their hunched-over, vengeful master.
“PARKER!”
Without missing a beat, Spider-Man says, “I was expecting a big ol’ fatso coming in here, but you ain’t Santa!”
“Always with the jokes, Parker,” Ock says, the flashing lights reflecting off his midnight-black sunglasses. He wrenches his shoulder forward with a snap, sending an arm bolting towards his longtime enemy in the space of a nanosecond. It’s barely enough time to dodge, but for Spider-Man, that’s time enough. The arm slams into and tears right through the wall as if it were paper.
“You picked the wrong party to crash, Ock!” Wolverine snarls, leaping forward with claws extended. An arm smacks him aside, but Wolverine rebounds off the wall, back towards the man in the dirty fedora and battered trench coat, only to be knocked down again. Wolverine slashes at the arms, but to no avail. The robot arms, he had forgotten, had been forged from adamantium.
“C’mon, Otto,” Spider-Man says, back up on the wall where he’d been hanging garlands mere minutes ago, “let’s take this outside. We can make snow angels! Er, well, you could make a snow Cthulthu.”
“Laughing at me the entire time, weren’t you?” he says, his manner dead except for the fire behind those sunglasses. When Spider-Man fights a villain, he uses his jokes to piss off his opponents until they become careless. And it usually works, but not with him. Never with Doctor Octopus. “Keep laughing, Parker. I am through playing games with you.”
The arms whip and twist around Spider-Man, who dodges and flips and dances around them with what appears to be effortless grace. It is anything but, despite his jokes.
“That’s too bad, Ock!” he says, jumping on top of the Christmas tree, taking the absent angel’s position. “We were just about to sit down to a round of ‘Apples to Apples.’”
A second later, a tentacle smashes into the tree, knocking it down with a flurry of shattered ornaments, tinsel, and pine needles.
The central monitor behind them morays and the image of Tony Stark appears. From inside his armor in Washington DC, the billionaire industrialist and US Secretary of Defense witnesses one of their oldest and deadliest enemies in the center of his own building, wildly attacking one of his teammates with two arms and holding off the other with his remaining two.
“Heya, Tony!” Peter says. “How’s DC? Can you get me a Washington Monument paperweight?”
“Dr. Octavius!” Stark says, his voice calm but commanding. “Cease and desist immediately or I will notify S.H.I.E.L.D. officers.”
“Be my guest,” Octavius says, looking right at the screen while his arms carry on their work. Wolverine snarls in frustration but gets no closer, while every swipe comes closer and closer to ripping off Spider-Man’s head. “I’ve manipulated the security system to go into full lockdown mode. Nothing can get in or out. Or by the time they do, it will already be too late. And don’t bother activating your second or third emergency protocols either.”
Frowning, Stark goes ahead anyway. Nothing.
“Impossible,” he says. “I designed those systems myself!”
“Yes, I’m afraid it shows,” Octavius says, and smashes the monitor with a tentacle. Turning back to his enemies, he smiles and says, “Now, where were—ARGH!” as something that feels like a brick bashes him in the head.
“FRUITCAKE!” Spider-Man shouts. Furious, Ock lashes out, one arm going for Spider-Man, the other slamming into the top of the wall, ripping the garland off its tacks, ting-ting-ting-ting-ting.
Jumping off another arm, onto the ceiling, then onto the wall, Spider-Man says, “See, I was thinkingabout saying ‘A fruitcake for a fruitcake,’ but I thought that’d be too obvious. I figure by just yelling ‘FRUITCAKE!’ it’s actually a bit subtler. But really, when you…” Another claw grabs the end of the garland, turning the former decoration into the world’s most festive garrote.
I cannot be overconfident again, Ock thinks as Spider-Man rambles on, trying to get him angry. Anger is for lesser men. Don’t hope for the luxury of taking your time. Finish this. Finish this, and it will be a Merry Christmas indeed…
Still in mid-quip, Spider-Man flips backwards as an arm sweeps to knock him down. He leaps onto the wall and shoots his webbing, which Ock’s arm deflects and sloughs off like dead skin. Spider-Man swings into the mess of arms, letting go in mid-air to land on one arm, and jump off like a frog on a lily pad. He swings in and lands a perfect hit in Ock’s gut, slamming him backwards right into the manger scene. The arms grab and fling the statues at Spider-Man, who catches what he can and dodges the rest.
“I got you, baby Jesus!” Spider-Man says triumphantly just before a tentacle slams into his face, sending him tumbling to the ground, and baby Jesus goes off flying.
Wolverine snarls, “You’re calamari, Doc!” and is actually now gaining ground, now three mere feet from the madman. Spider-Man, getting back to his feet, shoots the webbing again. Ock again blocks the webbing with a tentacle, and, like snot on a finger, flicks the off the glob and sends it right smack into Wolverine’s face.
Logan tumbles backwards with a muffled curse. He’ll be out of the gunk soon, but that’s enough time for Ock to turn his attention to Parker. But now Spider-Man’s inside the protective circle, forcing the arms inward, wrapping around his own four limbs. Wolverine meanwhile only has sound to go on, and that’s enough for him. Even blind, claws drawn, he reenters the fray as deadly and vicious as ever. One of the arms clamps around Wolverine’s throat, and in quick desperation, Spider-Man grabs at the lapel of Octavius’ jacket, a futile gesture, as the tentacles wrap the garland around his throat and begin to pull at both ends. Spider-Man chokes, refusing to give up, and he already has his leg loose when—
“STOP this!” May shouts, standing at the end of the den with Jarvis and MJ behind her. The three, miraculously (if you believe in such things), do stop, and stare at her in stunned silence. Except for Wolverine, who is hanging from mid-air by his throat, with webbing in his face.
“Aunt May!” Spider-Man cries, the humor replaced by sudden terror. On any other occasion, Dr. Octopus would have noted this change in tone with malicious glee. “What are you and MJ still doing here?! Run!”
“We’re trapped in here,” she says simple, her arms crossed and her manner altogether displeased. Jarvis comes up behind her, armed with trophy buckshot rifle of Mr. Stark’s. He knows it’s probably only for show, but damned if he isn’t about to do anything he can to protect May and her family.
Octavius looks at May Parker and his arms begin to sag ever so slightly. Spider-Man realizes he could slip free quite easily, but decides to stay put for the time being.
“May,” Octavius says quietly, almost whispers. “I… I did not expect to see you here.”
“Put him down, Otto,” she says sternly. Jarvis eyes her with growing bewilderment. “Now.”
“May, I…” his fury begins to flare once again, “But this—this insect must be—”
“Otto Octavius!” she commands. “Put my Peter down this instant!”
“I…” he says, looking at his captured prey, then back at her, then back at him again, and finally down at the floor at nothing in particular. Gently, his arms sag and loosen around his oldest of enemies. For a second, Spider-Man’s arm tenses (now, while I have the chance).
“Peter,” May says. It’s all she has to say. Peter holds off.
May releases a tense, weary sigh. “Jarvis, would you please make us some tea?”
Ever more befuddled, Jarvis asks, “Er, for… everyone present?”
“Where are my manners,” May says distantly, then asks Octavius, “Would you care for some tea, Dr. Octavius?”
He opens his mouth to protest or object, then shuts it with a sigh of his own. “Yes, please, Mrs. Parker.”
She nods and says, “MJ? Peter? Would either of you care for any tea?”
“Uh, thanks, but I don’t think I need the caffeine,” MJ says.
“Milk with two sugars, Jarvis,” Spider-Man says. Octavius’ stunned manner is shaken at hearing this, and he turns to give his enemy a disapproving look. Defensively, Spider-Man shrugs and complains, “What? I like it the English way!”
“And what about, er, Mister Logan?” Jarvis says. The group watches as Wolverine, blinded and gagged, is suspended mid-air by his throat, helplessly thrashing and hacking at the equally-unbreakable arm. He flails in vain, mumbling a never-ending stream of muffled curses.
May says, “Leave him be for now. He’ll only disturb us.”
“Very well, May. Tea all around it is, then.”
“Dr. Octavius,” she says, getting his attention at once. “I do not care to have my tea in a gulag. Kindly take down the fortified walls if you please.”
“Mrs. Parker,” he says, testily, “Doctor Otto Octavius does not take orders, not even from you.”
“It was merely a request,” she says. “No one’s tying to escape and no one will come and disturb us. You have my word.”
“It is not necessarily your word I distrust,” he says coldly.
“Well, even if someone does come here, you don’t honestly think they will be able to stop you… do you?”
Ock considers this. Without another word, a tentacle extends toward the console keyboard and begins to type. Inside Spider-Man’s modified mask, he hears the transmitted voice of Tony Stark.
“Peter, is everything OK there? Do you want me to send backup?”
“It’s fine,” Peter whispers. “We have it all under control. I think.”
The titanium layers slide up, letting back in the city lights and a wide-open view of a gentle snowfall over New York City. For a second, the two men in the center of the den stand uncertainly, eyeing one another.
“Let’s have a seat, shall we?” May says (she doesn’t ask). She sits on the sofa across from Otto, who sits what Spider-Man knows as Luke Cage’s favorite seat. If only he were here now, Peter thinks, then wonders if he really means it.
“You…” Octavius shifts, uncomfortable. Spider-Man watches him with strange wonder. He clears his throat and crosses his arms, his real arms, while the metal ones settle but do not go completely limp. “You look well, May,” he says. “The new hairstyle… works very well for you.”
“Thank you, Otto,” she says, genuinely accepting the compliment. “I wish I could say the same for you. Oh, my dear Dr. Octavius, what has happened to you?”
His manner is one of restrained dignity underneath his humorless frigidity, but Spider-Man thinks (can’t be, impossible) that he sees the faintest trace of warmth in his old enemy.
“It has been… hard, May. Very hard indeed.”
Returning with the steeping tea and more than a little trepidation, Jarvis asks, “May, do you know this monster?”
“Monster?” Octavius repeats the word, flaring up again. “Typical ignorant thinking. You cannot even comprehend…”
“Otto,” May warns. To Jarvis, she says, “Dr. Octavius and I have a… history, you might say. When Peter went away to college, I rented out his room and Otto here responded to my ad. Naturally, I had no idea about his… ‘reputation’ when I took him in. With both Peter and Ben gone, I was rather lonely. Otto soon proved to be more than a tenant. We became friends, of sorts. And I…”
“You almost married this psycho!” shouts Spider-Man. The metal arms stiffen and rise like angry cobras, save for the one holding Wolverine, still thrashing and cursing in mid-air. “Oh god, to think you two almost made the beast with twelve limbs! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!”
“Peter, shush!” she snaps, “And take that mask off! Be yourself, for goodness sake! You’re only agitating us both.”
With a stubborn grumble, the mask unravels, revealing the face of Peter Parker. Actually watching it happen fills Otto Octavius with that same ugly humiliation once again, reminding him why he came in the first place.
“It was… rash, I admit,” says May. “I wasn’t thinking that one through, yes. But we all made mistakes in those days, didn’t we, Peter?”
Jarvis hands May her tea and says, “You mean to say… he’s your ex-boyfriend?”
The realization slowly sinks in for Octavius as well. “You mean… he’s…”
“Awkward,” says MJ.
“Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!” says Peter.
“Mhrrrfuhhrrrsunnuhhchh!” says Wolverine.
“Really, May,” Octavius chides. “A butler? What, was the janitor taken?”
“I’d say butler is a fine step up from mass-murdering megalomaniac,” Jarvis says, handing the Doctor a steaming mug. “And by the way, I was seriously pondering spitting in your tea.”
A metal pincer accepts the tea and brings it to his lips. It’s good, much better than the swill you usually get in this cultureless country, but he dares not admit it to the manservant.
Wolverine’s curses only intensify, his efforts increasing with even greater animalistic fury. Octavius says, “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, you’re such a nuisance,” and flings him through the glass and out the skyscraper window, sending the mutant tumbling down, his curses fading in an instant.
“Otto!” May cries, appalled. “Look what you’ve done! Now we’re going to have a draft!”
“Blast it, May,” Octavius says impatiently, “What is it you think you’re doing here?”
“Otto, you came in here with one purpose and one purpose only. You came to kill my nephew. Is that true?”
“I… yes. No point in denying it.”
“Just as you’ve been trying to kill him for years now.”
“Yes!”
“And the only reason, the single reason I don’t tell you to get the hell out of my sight is because I know that you’d fail. Just like you always fail.”
“That is it,” he says quietly. He stands, his arms rising up all around him, and louder, “That is IT! Who are you to speak to me this way?!”
“Who am I?!” she says, standing to face him. “I am the one person who has ever bothered to show you kindness, you cruel, petty little man!” she yells back fearlessly, snatching the sunglasses off his face.
The light hits his eyes, sensitive ever since the explosion, and he recoils with a howl of pain. Out of instinct, a tentacle wraps around May like a constrictor, another going right after Peter, whose spider-sense went off like crazy an instant before.
“Aunt May!” he cries out, but he cannot get any closer.
“Peter, stay… back!” she says, struggling as the arm tightens.
For a second in his furious blindness, Octavius actually considers squeezing the life out of her. But only for the briefest of seconds. He releases her and sinks back in the chair, rubbing his eyes. She coughs once, then walks over to him. She takes his hand, his human hand, and gives him back his glasses.
“There we are,” she says simply.
“You are right,” he says, the bitterness of having to utter those words to anyone heavy on his tongue. “Very well. I shall leave you in peace. And your nephew… for now.”
“Nonsense. It’s Christmas.”
“Aunt May!” Peter yells. “Uh, hello! Crazy psycho here!”
“Really, May, much as I hate to agree with your nephew, this can only end badly.”
“Otto,” she asks, studying him with kind, patient eyes, “do you have anywhere else to go?”
“Why, I… I…” he stammers. Otto Octavius is not often at a loss for words and doesn’t care for it one bit.
“Well, it’s settled then. Now, this place is a mess. Peter, Otto, please clean up around here and re-hang the decorations, if you’d be so kind?”
Now Peter joins in the stammering. “But…! But he… but I… but we…!”
“Come now,” she says, “With Otto’s help, it will take no time at all. I’ll be right back with wheat cakes for everybody,” she says, heading towards the kitchen. “I trust you two will behave yourselves.”
The two men stand dumbfounded, looking at the wreck they created and then at each other. After a moment, Otto asks, “Parker… what the devil are wheat cakes?”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up and eat ‘em.”
Never once betraying his dignified and controlled look, Jarvis gives Otto and Peter some cleaning supplies. And so they get to work, Spider-Man swinging from wall to wall, hanging lights and garlands, Otto cleaning up and salvaging the tree.
“That’s it,” Peter says. “She’s gone senile.”
“Nonsense, Parker,” Octavius says, with quiet, stunned admiration. “That woman could face down Galactus himself.”
“Oh come off it, Otto,” Peter says, replacing a broken bulb. “You only to marry her to swindle a sweet little old lady out of her money.”
“How dare…! What do you take me for?!”
“Dude. You threw a manger scene at me!”
“… Point. Nevertheless, whatever… intentions I may have had when I moved into your room (and by the way, neither of us was able to get the stink out, thank you very much)… I admit, I was… touched… by her basic humanity. I suspected that even if she were to know my true nature, she would never judge me, never shun me. Perhaps I was a fool. Perhaps not. Assist me with the tree, Parker.”
“Are you asking me for help?” Peter asks, with a smirk.
“Don’t push it.”
Peter uses his webbing to pull the tree up while Otto, with two tentacles, guides it back into the stand.
Peter says, “I used to think she was so frail. I thought if she ever found out I was Spider-Man, she’d keel over from shock.”
Octavius hits him with a look.
“Dear lord, Parker, but you are an idiot.”
“Yeah, well… at least I don’t look like Elton John.”
Octavius glares at him.
“Seriously, Ock, what the hell happened to you? I remember a time when you were totally Hannibal-Lecter-y badass! You were trim, you had better hair, you were sporting that that Wonderful-Ice-Cream-Suit white tux… but ever since, you’ve gone right back to being that ugly, whiny, multi-chinned freak with a Moe haircut and the goggles that do nothing! And don’t get me started on the green and orange spandex. You are the last person who should be wearing…”
“Whatever you say, Iron Spider…” Otto says absently, his arms replacing the ornaments and tinsel with swift precision.
“And don’t get me started on that, what was it, ‘mullet Matrix’ crap you were trying not too long ago. That collar made you look like you were being eaten by a leather turtleneck sweater!”
Otto groans, rubbing his temples. “My mind has been a mess of confusion ever since I saw your little ‘coming out’ on television. I thought I was a fool for having unmasked you once when you were fifteen, a fool for thinking it was impossible and not believing it. But the truth of the matter, Parker… is that is not what’s truly bothering me. Ever since, a flood of strange thoughts and memories have been flowing back, memories I don’t remember… having…”
“Ohhh,” Peter says, the realization hitting him. “Yeah, that’s probably because you died.”
“I… what?! ”
“Yeah, croaked. Went to the big aquarium in the sky.”
Otto lowers his head, absorbing the shock. But more than that, reconciling the reality of everything he’s suspected but dared not believe. As a man of science, how…?
Peter says, “Hey, look, don’t sweat it. So you died. Whatever. I died. Hell, even Aunt May died! Happens all the time. And seriously, be thankful you died when you did! You didn’t want to be around for what happened after that.”
“I… died. But… but how…?”
“Ninjas.”
“… What?”
“Ninjas. Magic ninjas brought you back.”
“Oh stop it.”
“No, seriously! They’re a real pain in the ass. They brought you back and ever since your memory’s been all screwy.”
“You… you did something to me, didn’t you? You… you neutered me!”
“Ugh! I don’t want to even think about… look, weren’t you just listening, you paranoid nutball? Ninjas!”
“So… it’s because of… I can’t even bring myself to say it…”
“Ninjas, ninjas, ninjas!”
“… that I’ve been so confused. I kept shifting from persona to persona, much the way you are now, trying to find what I’d lost. In a world of psychotic businessmen and drooling doppelgangers, I became a joke of my former self. They all laugh at me. You all laugh at me.”
Putting up the last of the garland, Peter says, “Maybe they do, Otto, but not me.”
“You?” he scoffs bitterly. “Of all people! Don’t insult me!”
“I’m serious! When I was in high school… before I became Spider-Man… I knew all about you, star scientist and theorist at M.I.T. I admired you, really. I read your essay on nuclear power versus cold fusion. I thought it was brilliant.”
“It was. And… you understood it?”
Peter shrugs. “Pretty well, yeah. I was a bright kid. Not that it made me popular.”
With some reflection, Otto says, “No. It never does.”
For the first time, Peter Parker and Otto Octavius look at each other not as enemies, not as the costumed characters given colorful names by the media, but as men.
Turning back to Peter, Otto Octavius turns cold again and says, “This changes nothing, you know.”
“I didn’t think it would,” he says, with some regret.
Otto nods, the light of wonder dawning on his face as he hangs the last of the ornaments.
“It’s all… coming together now. Everything is clicking into place. I remember… yes… the Vulture had poisoned you. You were dying. Your usual carefree self turned into a scared, embittered vigilante. And I… I saved your miserable life. Because you provided a certain… continuity in my life. A certain challenge. A certain… inspiration. Yes.”
Mere minutes before, Otto Octavius would not have dared even think such things, but now the words come out as naturally as breathing.
“I needed you. I needed the man who’s danced with me on the edge of a precipice down the long and eventful years. And I think… I still do.”
“Why, it’s a Christmas miracle!” Peter says, throwing his arms in the air. “Just don’t try to get me under the mistletoe, Doc.”
Much to Peter’s surprise and discomfort, Otto chuckles darkly.
“Make no mistake, Parker. I did not save you to become your bosom buddy. I have long admired you for your wit, your self-sacrificing heroism, your humanity. Clearly, you take after your Aunt. You have always been the worthiest of foes… and I personally ensured that you would be again! And now the knowledge of how you are in my debt will only make my inevitable victory all the sweeter!
“Yes, I was confused for a time there, lost, adrift… but now thanks to your unmasking, everything has come back to me. Thanks to you, I remember who I am. Who I once was and will be again.”
The tentacles rise and twist slowly, the clamps opening like flytraps, and one of the arms slides under the tree to find the cord for the lights.
“I am master of the atom. I am the bringer of nuclear fire. Though others fear radiation, I alone am able to make it my servant. I have single-handedly taken on the gods that walk this earth and looked them right in the eye! I am not that weakling mortal Otto Octavius. No…” and the tentacle plugs the lights into the wall socket.
“I… AM DOCTOR OCTOPUS!” he shouts triumphantly as the tree erupts with colored lights and the chirping electronic chorus of “Joy to the World.” In the corner, a little dancing Santa shakes his booty to “Jingle Bell Rock.”
“And when next we meet, I promise you, Parker…” he says, a metal claw coming right up to Peter’s face and clamping down with deadly speed, “I will destroy you.”
“You’ll certainly try,” May Parker says, carrying in a tray of wheat cakes and eggnog.
“Do not try to talk me out of it, May,” he warns. “I shall always respect you and remember your kindness, but I have a calling, and—”
“Oh, goodness, no, Doctor,” May says, waving her hand away. “I’d no sooner try than try to talk Peter out of being Spider-Man. If I know how he operates, the same certainly goes for you. But not tonight.”
“Really, May,” Ock says, snobbily, “this is just another day like any other. A manufactured celebration of greed and materialism forged from the oppression of ignorant religions co-opting a mishmash of pagan symbols. We might as well be having an orgy to celebrate a reindeer deity with his magnificent phallus!”
“Twenty four limbs,” mutters Peter with disgust. “Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!”
“Oh, Otto,” May says with a kindly smile, “You may fool others, you may even fool yourself, but you can’t fool me.”
“I am a man of science, my dear. I am the only one who is not deluded!”
Picking up a stray pine needle, Jarvis pipes in, “If I may, sir, December 25th is Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday.”
Otto’s face hardens in consideration.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes, perhaps that shall do quite nicely.”
May walks around behind the sofa and crouches to gently retrieve a misplaced object. Gently picking up the bundled object, she says, “It’s someone else’s birthday too.”
Holding out the baby Jesus, she says, “Otto, would you be so kind?”
He looks at the plastic figure as if someone just farted.
“You do realize that realistically speaking Jesus was not born on the 25th of December, and that…” She does not waver, patiently holding the figure. Otto sighs. A pair of tentacles picks up the figure and gently lowers it into the crib in the manger scene. May smiles warmly and overlooks the den with pleasure, and that’s when she sees it.
“Peter, look!” she says, pointing to the top of the tree with astonishment. And there, at the top of the tree, is the angel.
“Huh,” Peter says, dumbfounded but smiling. “Now how do you suppose that…?”
But before he can ask, the oven’s alarm goes off with a ding! May excitedly runs over to the kitchen, “They’re done!”
“Oh, they’re ready!” she says, excitedly heading toward the kitchen.
“Not more wheat cakes!” Peter cries.
Ock sniffs the air and says quietly, with shocked humility, “No. Not wheat cakes.”
“Whoooooo wants cookies?” May says, pulling the freshly baked batch out of the oven. Otto’s eyes go wide and his mouth opens in touched astonishment.
“Put down a plate for Tubby over here!” he yells to May.
And so they sit to cookies and eggnog and wheat cakes and hot cocoa, sharing stories and opening presents. All, of course, except Otto, much to May’s lament.
“It is fine, May,” he says, with stiff pride. “Doctor Octopus has no need for material goods!” And then, despite himself, he shivers. It shall be most unpleasant, he thinks, when the time comes for him to go back out into the cold. Perhaps he can rob a clothing store, or…
“Uh, hey, you know what?” Peter says, taking off the sweater, still itching all over. He bundles it up quickly and hands it to Otto. “If it’s ok with Aunt May… y’know… uh… well…”
Hesitantly, Otto says, “Er… well, I… erm…”
“It’s all right, Otto,” May says. “Merry Christmas.”
Otto nods and silently takes it. May adds, “I’ll even cut some holes in the back for you.” Pleased, she says, “This is the way Christmas should be. Peace on Earth and good will towards men!”
“Except Peter Parker,” Ock speedily mutters, at the exact same time Peter does the same with, “Except Fatty McBowlcut.” “AMEN!”
“Ah, perhaps this isn’t so bad. Even I can appreciate the deliciousness of this moment…” Dr. Octopus says, grinning, as a tentacle slides around Peter’s shoulder. “… eh, Parker?”
“Ok, creepy,” Peter says, uncomfortable.
“Hands off,” MJ says, sitting in Peter’s lap. Leaning in to kiss him, she says, “All of them.”
“Ah, Mrs. Parker, I’ve been meaning to say that I adored your Lady Macbeth.”
“You saw it?”
“But of course!” he says, laying on the charm. The finger of a tentacle places itself under her chin. The metal is cold on her flesh, but she doesn’t flinch. “I never miss the classics. If I may say, you positively exuded crimson radiance from the stage.”
Slapping himself on the head, Peter says, “Great, as if Wolverine weren’t bad enough. Hey, that reminds me…!”
“YOU!” Wolverine snarls, standing in the doorway. His jeans torn to ribbons, the sleeve ripped off his leather jacket, spattered all over with blood from his now-healed wounds and dripping from his claws, he advances on the group with murderous rage.
“Now you’ve done it! Now I am pissed! Ohh, I’m dreamin’ of a red Christmas! I am gonna—”
Still rambling, Ock turns to Peter, MJ, Jarvis, and May and asks, “Would any of you mind?”
May says, “Well, we’re having such a lovely time.”
“Yeah,” Peter says, “He’ll get over it.”
“Cuz I’m the best at what I do, Bub, and what I do isn’t verAHHHH!” is the last thing they hear as a tentacle snags Wolverine like a vending machine claw and tosses him back out the window.
“Merry Christmas, Doctor Octavius,” May says.
“And…” he hesitates, then smiles. “The same to you, my dear.”
Some time later, Spider-Man would encounter Doctor Octopus in a fierce battle over the Brooklyn Bridge after Otto held the city ransom with a stolen nuclear warhead. By the end, Peter would be bruised and bloody and Otto would be in a stretcher on his way to the infirmary on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
And so life would return to normal as always, and for Peter Parker and Otto Octavius, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Oh, and Wolverine later got his revenge by peeing in Otto’s eggnog.
THE END!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-12-28 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-28 11:17 pm (UTC)Because that would be the best show ever.
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Date: 2006-12-28 11:50 pm (UTC)