Orphic | Spider-Man

TWENTY-SIX

SO, YOUR BOYFRIEND didn't want to come?" Otto asked Octavia as she walked beside him. Well, as she dangled a few inches off the ground while the bottom actuators walked her. Octavia felt bad that Beth and Amy did all the walking for her, but they didn't complain. They couldn't really, as Octavia was in control, but as she learned, the microchip allowed her inner thoughts to be heard by her conscience. It was why the actuators went through with cutting her hair--she wanted to do it, they just pulled the trigger. They also acted like Octavia was thinking her thoughts aloud, but now in conversation. She liked it, actually, as before she was alone, but now she had robots that went off her emotions. Four friends who all agreed with her. She decided to keep this to herself after partly telling her father about it, which made Otto fearful about 'voices in her head.'
She remembered him asking about voices before, but Octavia was truly fine and wondered where he got that idea from in the first place if she was in control.

Octavia playfully rolled her eyes. Ever since she had told Otto that she and Peter were finally in a relationship, he didn't quit adding boyfriend to everything he said to her, and emphasizing the word as well.
"He has school." Octavia replied.
"Well, a good boyfriend should be here to watch his girlfriend walk again." Otto chuckled.
That phrase made Octavia tense up, shoulders scrunched tightly. "Dad," she said. "I'm only going to check it out first, I'll decide if I want to even try it after I look at it."
Otto didn't skip a beat in replying, "You'll want to try it, Octavia, you'll be fine."
Octavia made a face. "I didn't get to try the actuators now, did I?"
Otto gave her a look with his eyes, something that mixed in the glare of a father, but it didn't truly look like a parental glare. It seemed like a shut up and do it, thing. Which, may have been a little too specific, but Octavia had never been pressured by Otto like this. He never told her how to feel before her accident, and now that she was herself again, she wasn't going to let anyone tell her how to feel, not even her own father.
"Also," Octavia added just to piss him off. "The last time Peter took off school was to watch me try your new invention. And that was days before yesterday when we got together."
Otto didn't respond with a glare or a mutter of anything as he and Octavia entered one of the labs.

There, in the middle of a circular lab table littered with scrap metals and tools, was a scientist talking to another, but when Octavia and Otto walked in, the two immediately stopped and faced them.
"Dr. Octavius," the scientist on the left greeted.
"Dr. McCaine," Otto nodded, then looked to the scientist on the right. "Doctor--"
"Hi Dr. Connors!" Octavia smiled, approaching the table, the actuators balancing her feet on the ground. "Dr. Connors, do you have any new lizards in the lab? Any spiders you birthed through the cross-genetics womb?"
Dr. Connors and Dr. McCaine both looked surprised for a moment at Octavia's choice of words before they laughed.
Dr. Connors waved his one good hand--the only hand he had, really, since losing most of his right arm many years ago. "I'm seeking for a little more funding on my cross-genetics species project, Octavia,"
She could hear the tension in his voice, even through his small smile and chuckle. Oscorp had nearly had it with Connors' project, seeing as his work was going nowhere. Connors concluded that with just a little more funding from Oscorp, he could then be able to secure one last machine that would guarantee a longer life for his cross-genetic species. Otto had told Octavia that he suspected that Connors was up to something else when it came to his cross-genetics species project, and that the funding was for something bigger than what Connors had wanted to begin with.
Octavia didn't think Dr. Connors wanted anything more than for his project to win a Nobel Prize, though, Connors does mention his missing arm a lot. . .

"However," Dr. Connors continued, "I am more than happy to aid in securing your regained mobility to walk again."
There it was again. No one knew that this machine was going to work, but everyone had their minds set that it was going to help Octavia walk again.
"Would you like to see it?" Dr. McCaine asked.
Octavia nodded, because she was curious, but with all this hope that it would help her walk again made her doubt that she would want it.
"Over here," Dr. McCaine gestured to him and Octavia, leaving the circular lab table with Dr. Connors.
Octavia and Otto followed the two across the lab towards a rectangular lab table, with an invention on top. It looked tall, maybe just a bit under four feet, but it didn't necessarily have some sort of body or shape. It looked skeletal, with some sort of vertebrae that Octavia realized would attach to her spinal track on her back. The whole invention looked spindly, with a waistband hook that would replace the waistband for her actuators, and where her hips were, down the back the invention split into two skeletal-looking legs. It was like a robot's spinal system was torn out from its back.