abigail

He’ll be back any minute. You know this was a bad idea, he’s a super villain after all. Maybe he will just toss you into the river and be done with you. Or maybe he will do something worse.

You suppress a shiver, but your body still shudders slightly, enough to make your clothes rustle just the tiniest bit. A board creaks nearby, and you almost gasp out loud. Fear is thick in your lungs, in your throat. Why did you even come here?

Red light. A point of red light registers in your blurry vision. You barely have a moment to react before something hard grabs you by the arm and hauls you out from under the desk. A frantic, pained yelp escapes between your clenched teeth. The claw has closed right around one of your bruises. Another grabs your other arm and holds you up.

“And what do we have here,” a voice drawls. Cold terror siezes you. It’s him. He’s found you, and now your fate is in his hands— or his claws.

You lift your head, trying to focus your blurred and swimming vision, but all you can make out is a dark shape, the sparkle of light reflecting off metal. Wetness drips down your face. You can’t tell if it’s blood or tears at this point.

“…I recognize you. You’re a superhero,” the voice says suddenly. “Why would a superhero willingly come to my hideout?”

You gasp in pain as the claws shift their hold on you, bringing you closer to their master.

“I— I didn’t know where else to go,” you rasp. You can sort of make out the man’s face at this close range, at least enough to see his dark brows rise at your words.

“That seems like a grave miscalculation on your part, sweetheart,” Otto Octavius says. “You’ve just willingly handed yourself over to me.”

The statement is far from amusing, but you can’t help but let out a dry laugh. The sound is cracked, and it makes your head spin.

“I clearly wasn’t thinking,” you reply bitterly. “Do whatever you want, just make it quick, will you?”

He seems to pause, to lean in and get a better look at you. You turn your head away, screwing your eyes shut, not wanting him to see the mess that they’d made of your face.

Fingers grip your chin and urge you to turn your face toward him again with a surprisingly gentle yet persistent touch.

“You’re concussed,” Otto says suddenly. He tips your head back. “Concussed, bruised, bleeding, and crying. Why on earth would you come here in this state?”

So the wetness had been tears. Great. You try to meet his eyes, but yours still aren’t working properly. Eye contact be damned, then.

“A superhero broke into my apartment and did this,” you tell him, baring your teeth in pain and anger as you speak. “I must have pissed them off last time we were forced to work together, so they wanted to get me back for it. No one will believe my account over theirs, since they’re of high standing and I’m practically… practically nobody. I guess— I guess I thought that a supervillain is the opposite of a superhero, so maybe…”

Otto is oddly silent. He stares at you, expressionless, for a very long moment.

“You came to me for… help?” he finally asks.

It even sounds stupid when he says it. You groan and close your eyes again. The darkness is much more comfortable.

With your eyes closed, you can’t tell what face he’s making now, but you can hear him shift.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters after another long pause. Ground meets your feet, and the claws release your arms. Something bumps into the backs of your knees and you sit without thinking.

“Keep your eyes closed,” he says. Your swaying mind can’t quite keep up with the abrupt turn of events, so you just follow the instruction.

The fingers return to your chin and lift your head, carefully turning it back and forth. Hands lift your arms, gently pull back your sleeves, then probe one of the more painful bruises. You hiss, and the fingers pull back. They return after a pause, lifting your legs and poking gently through the rips in your pants. Finally, they brush over your head, apparently looking for more injuries. A twinge of pain alerts you to the knot on the back of your skull.

Otto grunts in apparent displeasure, and you hear his footsteps retreating. A few minutes later, the footsteps are back. Something cold and hard is pressed into one of your hands, and two small rounds and a hard rectangle are dropped into the other.

“Take those, and here—” something cold and squishy is dropped onto your knee— “Put this on the back of your head. I’m afraid I don’t have anything else, though.”

You open your eyes and stare down at the glass of water, granola bar, and painkillers sitting in your open palms. This is not at all what you had been expecting.

“I— um, thank you,” you say. The water is a blessed relief, and the painkillers go down smoothly. You squint down at the granola bar long enough to open it, then close your eyes again and begin to munch on one of the pieces.

The ice lifts from your knee, then something presses it against the sore spot on your skull. You crack one eye enough to see that Otto is sitting in a chair in front of you, leaning his elbows on his thighs and his chin on his hands, and watching you. It’s one of the actuators that is now holding the ice to your head.

“You’re the one that people call ‘Sunlight,’ aren’t you?”

You nod carefully, trying not to lose the blissful coolness of the ice pack.

“So all you do is produce light? No super strength, no super speed? No fancy invincibility?”

You nod again.

“And you were just in your own place when this all happened, not out on duty?”

“Yes.”

There is another long silence.

“…I’m willing to put up with you until you can leave safely,” Otto says slowly. “But I’d like to know the full story, if you wouldn’t mind. From the beginning.”

You tell him between bites of granola bar and sips of water. He is quiet, listening intently, and only interrupts to ask a few clarifying questions. When you’re finished, he gets to his feet. The ice pack drops back onto your knee.

“Alright, I have business to attend to. Don’t make any noise, I don’t need anyone finding out that I’m allowing you to stay here for any length of time.”

You hear him turn to leave, but then he pauses.

“I know it’s a strange request,” he says, sounding almost awkward, “but may I see you use your power? Non-aggressively, of course.”

Something about way he asks makes you smile slightly, a sort of softness registering under your ribs, then, keeping your eyes tightly closed, you reach for the glow that hides beneath your skin. Since there’s no need for full radiance, you coax it to life with gentle urging until you can feel the warmth of the power moving through your whole body.