The Amazing Spider-Man 3

Chapter 28

Peter landed gently on the ground a few feet from the door of the building. Stepping lightly, he walked up to it, waiting for his spider-sense to go crazy at any moment. However, he felt no such sensation, so he grabbed the handle and twisted, partially surprised when the door actually opened. If this really was some hideout for a bunch of supervillains, he would've expected at least the most fundamental security measures to be taken, if not more than that.

Stepping inside, Peter surveyed the initial scene, finding nothing too impressive really. The place was old and run down, clearly having not been maintained for some time. He closed the door behind him and gingerly stepped around, trying to find anything that looked unusual or out of place. There was no way that this place was it just by itself; for one, while one of the larger buildings on the pier, it still would've been way too small for the kind of operation that Ock seemed to be running.

The other thing that tipped him off was that none of the technology that had been stolen was present on the scene. It had been so long that, by now, if this were the good doctor's primary base of operations, at least some of it would've been assembled. Instead, there didn't appear to be hardly any technology in the place, outside of some old scales that had been used back in the day to see which lucky fisherman had brought in the biggest catch. Other than that, the place was just old wood, tile and other traditional building materials.

It didn't exactly smell the best either.

Fiddling around, Peter tried any little trick he could think of, moving around sold old books that were there, pressing random areas of the wall, stepping on different floorboards, or anything else that might reveal the presence of a secret door or passageway of some kind. He went about this for at least ten minutes, covering just about every area he could of the inside of the building, but it proved fruitless. However, just as he was on the verge of either tearing the place apart piece by piece or interrogating Harry further, Peter noticed a picture along the wall that seemed slightly crooked compared to the others. It could've just been that it had gotten bumped or something, but he still went over to check it out just to be sure.

Plus, it was a picture of an octopus. Surely the doctor wouldn't be THAT on the nose, would he?

Reaching up, Peter grabbed the picture, gently removing it from the wall to reveal a surprise hidden underneath: a small digital screen embedded directly into the wall. He tapped it, and the screen came to life, appearing to ask for a number combination of some kind, bringing up an onscreen keypad to enter it with. Realizing he was going to have to make a guess, Peter ran through every hacker's trick he had ever learned, trying to think of what the combination could be. He needed to be smart about this; after all, if he entered the wrong number sequence, he might blow himself up or something, and that definitely wasn't what he wanted.

Peter thought hard, wracking his brain on what he remembered about Octavius, both before and after his transformation into Doctor Octopus. His research was into different kinds of technology, mainly the mechanical appendages that would end up being fused to his spine, so it likely wasn't any kind of mathematical equation. The doc likely knew some, but it wasn't his focus. Could it be just the number eight, since he now possessed eight limbs? No, that was just dumb, and way too easy.

After all, Ock had never made it easy on him before, and Peter certainly didn't expect him to start now.

"Think Parker, think," Peter muttered to himself. Could the answer be a date that meant something to the doctor? He had a hard time believing that the man cared about anyone other than himself, at least in his current state, nor anyone's goals or ideas except his own. There was ONE possibility that came to Peter's mind though: the day that the doctor had gone insane.

It was impossible for Peter to forget that day, because it was the day that he had taken on Harry as the Goblin with his assembled team and finally defeated them. His former best friend and his mind-controlled minions all fought with him as Peter had struggled to keep the fight contained and protect the surrounding civilians. It was only through using their zealous natures and egos against each other that he had come out on top, but in the process, Otto Octavius had been electrocuted, frying both his mind and the harness his arms were attached to, molding them to his spine permanently.