When Sabretooth had fallen in with Doctor Octopus it had been one of those times when the universe was wrong; reality had twisted up and reordered itself into a bizarre new format. Victor had been in the body of a young woman, and had his--or her memories completely scrambled and rewritten. Otto’s mind had fared better, but he had been disembodied completely, existing for some reason only the gods knew, as a voice and presence inside girl-Victor’s head.
The combination of transformation, intimacy and amnesia, alone together in the cosmic restructuring, had been the perfect environment for a strange and intense bond to develop between the two. As an angry and lonely young woman, Victor had latched onto Otto both romantically, and as a surrogate father figure, looking to the voice in her head for the kind of warmth and affection that was absent from his-her life in the reordered universe. Otto, in kind, had felt a doting and nurturing care for the fierce and clever young woman who he was suddenly reliant on.
But now the true reality was beginning to reassert itself; Victor’s memories began to return, and untwist. And that relationship between them-- forged over seeming-years of cosmically shifted time-- was starting to unravel. It was like a gulf had opened up between the two of them. She--no-- he-- Sabretooth-- could see the way that Otto looked at him in their shared mental space as his true form became apparent.
“Gonna cut me loose, doc?” Sabretooth asked, finally, after what seemed like days or weeks of silence had passed between the two of them.
Sabretooth was used to Otto’s occasionally terse and prickly irritation, but usually directed at some mutual minor foe, or even on her-his- behalf. Sensing it directed at himself hurt more than he wanted to admit, and the sting of perceived rejection gave rise to his own anger.
Otto looked at him, and then away, his glasses glinting and obscuring his eyes.
“Whatever,” Sabretooth growled, throwing his back against the wall, and crossing his big arms over his chest, closing himself off. “Ain’t like it's gonna matter. Ain’t like we got much to offer one another once we get our bodies back, huh, doc?”
“I’m afraid--I’m not--” Doctor Octavius stumbled and started again, looking away. “Oh this situation is preposterous!”
Sabretooth laughed-- a short, sharp bark without any mirth in it.
“You’re telling me, doc,” he snorted. He uncrossed his arms, looking down at his hands. Here in the mental space, where reality didn’t lie, they were large, thick knuckled, and clawed. The broken, twisted physical world lied and said that his hands were small, soft and delicate. Those hands were the ones that the doctor had put his own warmly against in their shared-mind when the changed-world had been against them both. “Ain’t always agreed with what’s in the mirror in this girl-body life, but-- guess this is a bit more of a change than….”
Victor broke off. He didn’t know how to finish it. He felt a surge of anger and disgust at himself. Why should he care? Why did it matter that the doc had seen him as something beautiful, and now the lie was revealed? Why should Victor give one single rat's ass about the opinion of this weak, arrogant man? Maybe he ought to just--
A blood red haze of anger started to fill Victor’s mind, leaking out into their shared space, when suddenly one of Otto’s metallic arms shot out and pinned Victor by the shoulder.
“Do not mistake your newfound strength for my weakness,” he hissed. He’d heard the thought. It was sometimes hard to keep them private in their mental world.
Victor’s surge of anger flared as he felt the cold metal claw pin him, and then drained. He slumped against the wall again.
“I don’t…” he growled. “I didn’t mean….”
“Well, child?” Otto demanded. “Huh. Hardly a fitting thing to call you any longer.”
“Yeah. I fuckin; know,” he breathed, looking away. “I-- I’m confused, doc. You get it? I’m as fucked up over this as you are! I always knew I wasn’t really-- wasn’t really just some pathetic girl listening to voices in her head. But now I don’t-- it's all different and I don’t know what to do about it!”
The sharp pinch of Otto’s tendril loosened, and became something more like the familiar gesture that had supported Victor through so much of the wrong-world, though now Victor could feel the weary hesitation.
“No,” Otto agreed, heaving a sigh. “No, I suspect that you don’t… I suppose you didn’t intend to lie about it all...”
“Lie?” Victor demanded, straightening suddenly at the gall of it, like he’d been slapped. “Lie? Otto, you were in my fucking mind. We’re still in my fucking mind! I wasn’t trying to trick you into thinking I was some pretty little frail who needed your help you know!”
“Frail. Ha.” he snorted. “The way you talk has been changing, you know.”
“It slipped out,” Victor murmured, looking at the non-existent floor again. “Its a stupid word; picked it up in the 30s or something and it just stuck around.”
“The 30s….” Otto sighed. “You’re older than me you know. And here I always felt like I was robbing the cradle. What a joke.”
“Joke that’s been played on both of us, Doc,” he growled. “Can’t blame you for feeling tricked. You’re not the only one. This whole thing… what the hell! When I find out who decided it’d be funny to put me in some little-girl body and wipe my brain, they’re gonna have hell to pay.”
“Yes I expect they are,” Otto agreed. “You’ve certainly gotten your wish for power, haven’t you?”
“Guess so,” he growled. “I’m not sorry, either. Just wish it hadn’t fucked shit up between us.”
The doctor sighed.
“I would like to reassure you that it hasn’t, but I’m not certain how our relationship can continue unchanged, if at all.’
“Yeah,” Victor sighed. “Be pretty fuckin’ funny if anybody found out nasty old Sabretooth was sittin’ on Doc Ock’s lap lookin for approval.”
Otto pushed up his glasses. In their shared mindspace, Otto couldn’t hide the involuntary way he puffed up a little at the idea of anyone looking for his approval. Even if things had changed. “I’m not certain funny’s the word I’d use, but, yes.”
“Yeah,” Victor snorted. “‘Course if anybody said shit, I could pop ‘em good, huh, Otto?”
“Yes I’d wager you could silence them quite quickly,” the doctor agreed with a trace of humor.
“Can I ask ya a question, doc?” Sabretooth asked after a moment of quiet.
“I’ve never said no to you on that before.”
“Yeah… heh. What uh… what bothers you more about all this? Me turning out to be a near-immortal brain-damaged serial-killer… or me turning out to be a big muscly guy covered in hair and side burns?”
Otto took a breath through his nose.
“You know, I really can’t tell if you mean that genuinely or if you’re trying to shame me. Either way, I think we both know the answer.”
“Yeah,” Victor growled a sigh. He finally moved to sit down in the space beside Otto, and a couch materialized beneath him. “You were never real squeamish about killin’ people.”
“No, I suppose I never was.” Otto too allowed himself to sit down beside him, though a space remained between their mental bodies.
There was a silence between them again for just a moment.
“I’m not stupid,” Victor said. “You know I’m not stupid.”
“You never have been.”
“And I’m not blind either,” he continued. “It's weird for me too, you know. Our relationship always had a certain kinda…. Dynamic about it. Mentor-ish. Maybe even a little….”
Victor couldn’t say the thought, but Otto heard it anyway. Paternal.
They could both feel the awkward tension between one another. Not really wanting to admit to each other that shallow bodies might change the way they felt about one another, but unable entirely to deny it either. There was just something different about a relationship between a middle aged scientist man and a lovely young apprentice, and one where the lovely young apprentice had been changed into a great big monster man.
It's like the polar opposite of beauty and the beast… It was unclear which of them the thought belonged to. Maybe both of them.
Their thoughts got tangled up for a moment, Otto wondering if or why someone like Sabretooth would even want to continue a relationship like the one they had had, and Sabretooth thinking about how unfair it was that he’d had a shit father both in his own life and this re-ordered one; and also about how the things he’d remembered being done to him complicated his feelings toward scientists in general. Neither one tried to stop the other from listening in.
Otto was the one to speak first.
“It seems like parental abuse is a doom that we’re destined to share no matter the circumstances,” he mused. He hesitated, but put his soft, chubby hand on top of Victor’s big clawed one. Victor’s fingers twitched gently in response and he drew a breath.
“Fuck us I guess,” he growled. He glanced over at Otto, and smiled very slightly, the points of his fangs showing.
“Indeed,” Otto agreed.
Victor let himself sag slightly against the other man, their shoulders touching. This was the first time they’d been so close since they’d learned the truth.
Victor looked over at him.
“You’re not sure why I’d wanna keep our thing together going….doc… don’t tell nobody but I’m not invincible. I still need somebody to lean on. Somebody to help me put my shit straight when I’m so fucking mad I can’t breath. I haven’t…. I haven’t really changed, Otto, I’m just more me. You know I never really saw myself as a girl….”
“So you didn’t,” he admitted with a sigh. “And far be it from me to be…. Phobic, of that sort of thing. But I never….”
“Never saw yourself with a big handsome guy like me?” Victor teased with a gentle growling chuckle. At least they were talking now. At least Otto wasn’t afraid to touch him.
“Certainly not.” Otto pushed up his glasses, a flush coming to his pale face.
“Yeah… didn’t think so,” Victor gave a wan smile. “Wanna know something funny? With my memories comin’ back, I realized you ain’t even the only man with big metal tentacles I’ve been with.”
“You have to be joking,” Otto said, peering at him with astonishment.
“Nope. Scout’s honor. Partnered up with this guy Frank--Constrictor-- back in my days as a hired gun.”
The doctor raised his eyebrow at him, and Victor sensed just a trace of sly irony from the man as he asked, “Is this some kind of fetish for you?”
Victor burst out laughing. “Don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, the tentacles are great but I wouldn’t necessarily put in a request.”
“You’re right, Victor, that is funny,” Otto agreed with a low, dry chuckle. “What an odd coincidence.”
He called me by my name...The thought, which echoed between them, embarrassed them both. But not enough for them to move apart, or feel any real discomfort.
“This is a damned odd situation, Victor,” Otto said, looking at him now, his glasses slipping down his nose. “One I certainly never expected to be in.”
“Yeah, me neither, doc,” he agreed. “But I never expected to be living as a girl with you sharin’ my brain, either. Did you expect that?”
“No indeed,” he admitted. “I doubt that anyone could have anticipated it.”
“Yeah… So I guess we gotta roll with the punches, huh?”
“As ever.” Otto leaned back against the couch, still shoulder-to-arm Victor. It was strange indeed for Victor to be the taller of them. “I’m not, as a rule, attracted to men, Victor.”
“I get it,” he shrugged against him. “If it's over, it's over. I’m just glad you’re still talkin’ to me, doc. Hurt when you weren’t…”
I should apologize, Otto didn’t say. Victor mentally shook his head. He didn’t have to. It's was alright.
‘We both needed some time,” Victor growled. “Fuck knows its not like we could get some space.”
“No, we’re still joined at the hip, as it were. I wonder how long this state of affairs will last.”
“Fuck if I know. Until some hero comes and puts the world back in order I guess. Might be tomorrow. Might be when we’re old and grey.”
“I suppose we just have to deal with each day as it comes,” Otto said. “And each new challenge.”
“As ever, doc,” Victor echoed.
There was a moment of silence between them. The kind of old, comfortable silence that they’d shared for what seemed like a long time. They’d both missed it.
Eventually, Victor stumbled over his own thoughts, and was embarrassed when he knew Otto could hear them before he began to speak.
So, you said as a general rule…
“--I could perhaps be persuaded to….” Otto trailed off.
“Experiment?” Victor grinned a nasty, fang toothed grin at the joke. Otto couldn’t hide that he found it comforting-- and perhaps a little charming-- that it was the same grin that his mental partner had always had before the strange revelation of identity.
He pushed up his glasses and coughed.
“Hmm. Yes. Experiment. In the name of science.”
“I’m into it,” Sabretooth growled, still grinning. “Sight better than a lot of experiments been run on me.”
“Poor beast,” Otto comforted him wryly, snaking a hesitant tendril around the man’s big shoulders.
“That makes you beauty, doc.”
“So it does.”