Otto's Tragic Life
Inside Doctor Strange's base, Otto Parker and Doctor Octopus spent quite a while staring each other down from inside their containers. In the end, Doctor Octopus could not help turning to Peter and asking,
"When you people get serious, do you even arrest yourselves?!"
If Spider-Man captured a supervillain, he could understand that.
But Spider-Man arresting Spider-Man?
That was something else entirely.
And from this man's presence, he could sense something familiar, but it felt completely different from Peter Parker.
Which made it even stranger.
"What if I told you... this is you?"
"No way!"
"He's right! Otto Gunther Octavius! I am you!"
Even though Otto Parker was just as surprised to see another version of himself in this universe, he still answered calmly.
He had not expected another him from a different universe to look nothing like his old self. Back then, he had been short, thickset, and wearing a ridiculous bowl cut. But the version of him standing here now had that rough middle-aged charisma. A little soft around the middle, maybe, but he did not seem nearly as twisted.
"I still can't believe it..."
For so long, he had thought of Spider-Man as his student and his rival.
And now another version of himself had appeared in front of him as Spider-Man.
That was not the kind of thing anyone accepted easily.
"You still don't believe me?"
"We were a physicist. During an experiment involving our mechanical arms, a ruptured conduit caused radiation leakage and triggered a major explosion. That incident altered our brain and created a new neural interface, which is why we can control four mechanical arms with our minds alone!"
"Was any of that wrong?"
"That's not exactly secret information. Saying all that doesn't prove anything."
That much was true.
A fair number of people knew his identity, and Peter was one of them. In fact, he was pretty sure that most versions of Peter across the multiverse knew who Doctor Octopus was.
After learning about the multiverse theory, Otto had even wondered whether Peter Parker's rival in most universes might always be Doctor Octopus.
"We were born in Schenectady, New York. Our childhood was miserable, so miserable it planted something extreme inside us. Our father, Torbert Taddeus Octavius, worked in a factory and had a habit of drinking and becoming violent. He beat our mother and beat us too, often for no reason at all..."
"After that, I swore I would never be a useless failure like him, a man who could only lash out at his own family. That belief pushed me to study harder and harder. I had to become successful. Only then could I save myself and my mother."
As Otto Parker spoke, his tone shifted.
There was anger in it now.
It was as if he had been dragged back into the memories of being abused as a child.
His mother clutching at his father's legs and begging him to stop.
His drunken father grabbing her by the hair and smashing her head into the floor.
His younger self trying to fight back, only to be slapped across the face and then whipped with a belt over and over.
But his mother never lived to see the day he could save her.
Her body had already been destroyed by years of abuse and beatings, and when he was fourteen, she died.
When she died, she did not even get a grave.
Her body stayed in a morgue for twelve full years.
Later, after he specialized in physics and became the youngest and most brilliant nuclear physicist of his generation, he finally moved his mother's remains out of the morgue and buried her in the finest cemetery he could afford. And afterward, he used a few tricks to make sure his rotten father died from radiation exposure.
Then he buried himself in research.
His focus became atomic energy physics. He had always been the top student, which made him look down on the idea of assistants. In his mind, he could handle everything himself. Over time, his personality became more withdrawn, his emotions more unstable, and his obsession only grew stronger.
He hated how weak he had once been.
He hated that he had not been able to save his mother.
That guilt turned into something close to madness. He shut himself away in his tiny laboratory for years, becoming overweight and deeply nearsighted, until he finally created mechanical arms controlled by his mind. Then the savage part of him broke free, and once the chip took hold completely, he became the super-criminal New York feared most.
"Too bad... she never got to see the day I could save her."
Doctor Octopus fell silent.
Now he fully believed that the Spider-Man in front of him really was another version of himself.
Because that childhood belonged to no one else.
No one else should have known it.
But unlike this version of him, he had chosen a different path. He had not continued down that obsessive spiral into madness. Instead, he had focused on refining his inventions, because his mother had once told him he was good with his hands and would one day become a brilliant scientist.
That was the person he wanted to become.
"Yeah... she never got to see the day I could save her either."
"You've both had miserable lives, sure, but this isn't the time for story hour."
Doctor Strange cut them off mercilessly. Then, with a flick of magic, he conjured two devices into existence. They looked like wristbands, except they were engraved with strange magical patterns and pulsed with his energy. He handed one to Peter and one to the Dutch kid.
"Other Peter, thank you for helping keep this universe from slipping closer to collapse. But your hunting speed is terrible. With these, you can send defeated enemies here immediately."
Peter took the magical wristband and looked pleased.
"Yeah, this little thing's pretty nice. But don't forget, you promised to teach me portal magic."
Peter was selfish like that.
Did they really think he had shown up out of nowhere and fought Otto Parker just to be helpful?
If someone wanted something done, then there ought to be a price.
And learning portal magic was part of the price.
Of course, Peter had already told Strange that he made no guarantees about whether he could actually learn it. Strange only had to teach. Whether Peter mastered it or not was Peter's problem.
"I haven't forgotten. There's tremendous energy inside your body. You're more than a simple mutate. You're naturally suited for magic."
Doctor Strange nodded.
When he had examined Peter earlier, he had already discovered the magical energy hidden within him. The Dutch kid had some too, but nowhere near as strong.
It almost made it seem like Spider-Man was naturally built to be good at magic.
Doctor Strange was honestly relieved he was older than both of them. If they had been his age, then he probably would not have become Sorcerer Supreme at all.
"Hey, Mr. Strange, why don't you teach me portal magic too? Swinging on webs gets exhausting sometimes..."
The Dutch kid took the magical wristband, put it on, and immediately started admiring it with excitement.
Young people always had a huge interest in magic.
He wanted to learn it too.
Doctor Strange looked at him, expressionless.
"I've got one word for you."
"Get lost."
(End of Chapter)
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