if only you had known me

[doctopoda]

Who: Otto Octavius doctopoda and you!
What: Otto's off on a trip to Excelsior City!
When: mid-March
Where: Excelsior City
Content Warnings: none



i. for with that grand collision

[Excelsior City! It would probably be great, if there hadn't been a Confluence-fueled metahuman fight here not that long ago!

Otto and Norman are in town for a few days to tour the housing facilities. As prospective neighbors? Yes, obviously! Probably. Anyway! As long as they're in town, Otto has a bit of unfinished business from his arrival: heading back to repay that shop he low-key looted when he first arrived here. 

Is that entirely necessary? Probably not. Nearly everyone has told him that it isn't, and technically he's sure they're right; they've probably got insurance to cover that sort of thing. But Otto can't...let it go. He can't. There's nothing he can do to make amends to any of the people he hurt back home. Even if he weren't stuck in another dimension entirely, there still wouldn't be much he could do. How do you begin to just make up for such a casual disregard for so many lives? He doesn't even know for certain how many people might have been hurt or killed - they'd been nothing more than collateral.

Paying for a broken window is something he can do. It's small and achievable. Come hell or high water, he is going to do it.

It's not hard to find the place again. He's got a good memory, and the actuators have better ones. When he gets there, the little hardware store is in much worse shape than he left it - part of the roof was smashed in by something or other, and water is still somehow dripping from the shattered beams down into the sodden remains of the place's inventory. It's sort of a mess.

Fortunately, Otto still has that unlimited credit card. He's more than happy to give a larger chunk of that (frankly sort of suspicious) unlimited money to someone else! After their talk, the shopkeeper looks him up and down.]

You're another mad scientist type, huh?

Unfortunately.

You above using those things to do some work?

[He arches an eyebrow, surveying the damage again.] ...no, not at all.

[And this is how Otto ends up low-key conscripted into repair and recovery efforts for most of the day! He doesn't mind. He's always found a certain satisfaction to working with his hands, building and creating. Generally that hasn't involved actual manual labor - god, it reminds him of his father - but...well, at least here, there's nothing to worry about. He won't build something dangerous or make some hideous mistake. All he has to do is spend a few hours focusing on clearing debris or nailing boards, and at the end of the day there's a cleaner interior or a repaired roof to show for it. It's...actually sort of nice.

Most of that day is spent on the roof of the hardware store. He's easily visible there, reared up on the lower actuators to tear out broken, rotting beams. On later days, you might also see him swept up with some random recovery crew elsewhere in the city. Whether it's clearing debris or getting started on repairs, there's always a need for strong arms, and he’s got those in spades!]

ii. came a grave consequence

[Honestly, it's been a pleasant few days away from the Diadem Hotel. Otto's starting to get used to going out in public as a terrifying tentacle monster! Things like that seem to be a little more expected here - apparently it's a city of mad scientists. Unfortunate for them, but there it is. More than that, even, is the fact that there aren't quite as many extradimensional transplants here. Otto doesn't know most of them. A fair amount of them, however, seem to know him. It's stressful. Every time he leaves the hotel room and sees the other strangers living there, he can't stop wondering if they've been hurt by some variation of him. If they're waiting for him to do something again. At least the natives of this world don't have any secret history with him.

But then again, it's not as though they don't have their own interests.

Today, Otto's had to dodge a few scientists on the street. That's simple, a smile and a request that they email him their questions. He's had plenty of encounters like that before, in another life.

His patience starts to fray when one man reaches out to touch him, grabbing an actuator without so much as a by-your-leave. Only a sharp mental effort stops it from flinging him across the street in retaliation. His temples start to pound, but no one is hurt, so it's...fine. He escapes the conversation with no harm done, and quickly begins to backtrack towards the hotel. 

Then, for the first time, a reporter notices him.

Norman would have known how to handle the press, he thinks wearily, but Otto himself has never received such attention. Even the most prominent of physicists don't exactly warrant paparazzi, and crazed supervillains don't get approached by them.

He tries to be polite. He tries to just get away. But the guy's persistent, and eventually Otto snaps:]

For the last time, I don't want to talk!

[That might not have been so bad on its own, had his two lower actuators not punctuated it by slamming hard into the ground. Otto flinches back a second later, an unintentional mirror of the reporter.]

Sorry. I - I'm sorry, I - 

[And then he appears to just vanish entirely!

The reporter and his cameraperson look around for a moment before wandering away, muttering about teleportation or something. Only once they're gone does Otto - who is totally still there - mutter to himself:]

What on earth...?

[He was completely unaware that he's sprouted superpowers until this exact moment!]

iii. wildcard

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