Chapter 75: Doc Ock Joins the Team
The Goblin's mounted gun hammered away, trying to swat the Vulture out of the sky — but Toomes was too good for that. His technique was precise, his reactions fast, and he kept slipping the fire, even landing a few counterstrikes of his own.
The glider couldn't match the Vulture's altitude ceiling. Shooting upward was costing the Goblin.
Toomes saw the opening. He folded into a dive, laser cannon angled down, and blew the Goblin's gun apart in one clean shot. The Goblin's face twisted — he knew he was dealing with somebody real.
Toomes pressed the advantage, diving straight for the kill. Almost had him — but the Goblin vanished mid-air, and the Vulture punched through empty space.
When the Goblin reappeared, there was a knife in his hand. He closed the distance in a blink. The blade came in fast, trailing cold light.
Toomes broke into a cold sweat.
Then the Goblin stopped.
He looked at the Vulture — actually looked at him — and something between surprise and respect crossed his face. Toomes had used some trick built into the flight suit to dodge the killing blow at the last possible second.
The Goblin put the knife away.
"You're not bad." He studied Toomes for a moment. "Fine. You've earned a chance. Follow me."
The glider banked and shot away without waiting for an answer.
Toomes exhaled long and hard and fell in behind him.
He knew what had almost happened. Another thirty seconds and his power cells would have been dry. Getting the alliance now, on these terms — that was good enough. Phase one, complete.
Ethan had brought Doc Ock to a small house on the edge of the city — a place that had previously belonged to a pair of men running an illegal operation out of it. Ethan had dealt with them. Public service.
After a quick cleanup, the place was livable.
He set Doc Ock down in a spare room and leaned against the far wall, eyes closed, thinking.
In the two days he'd been here, Ethan had already confirmed that Doc Ock was from another universe. His Observation Haki had picked up four or five similar signatures scattered across the city — other arrivals. Other displaced people.
The setup was starting to feel like a riff on No Way Home. Villains from different Spider-Man timelines, pulled through the cracks, converging on a world that wasn't theirs.
The difference was that this world's Peter Parker didn't even have a suit yet.
Uncle Ben was still alive. Nobody had delivered the "with great power comes great responsibility" speech.
As Peter stood right now, he couldn't beat Doc Ock on his best day — let alone the rest of whatever had come through.
Without Ethan, this universe had no hero at all. Spider-Man would die before he even started. The villains would run free, and the whole place would go dark.
Priority one: identify the remaining arrivals. Neutralize them. That should close the mission.
And some of them, Ethan thought, might actually be recruitable.
Honestly, every time he thought about Spider-Man's rogues gallery, he wanted to laugh. They were almost all brilliant scientists who had, for one reason or another, decided to test their own inventions on themselves. Then they got controlled by the invention, or turned into a lizard, or just generally lost it.
Geniuses, every one of them. Exactly the kind of talent Hell's Kitchen was starving for. And Ethan wasn't worried about them going rogue — whatever they invented, whatever went wrong, he had the power to shut it down before it spiraled.
Two hours later.
Doc Ock stirred, groaned, and sat up on the bed.
The first thing he noticed: the arms were gone.
He reached behind his neck, incredulous. Ran his fingers along the skin. Smooth. No scarring. No ports. No trace of the neural interface that had been fused to his spine.
He stared at his hand. Then slapped himself across the face. It stung.
"Was it... a dream? All of it? Was I never controlled at all?"
"You weren't dreaming." A voice from the corner of the room. "And for the record — you're a professor with a doctorate who let himself get mind-controlled by his own arms. That's embarrassing."
Doc Ock turned. Ethan was leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
"Name's Ethan Cross. And unless I'm wrong, you're not from this universe."
"As for how I freed you from the arms — you probably can't understand the method. But trust me, it wasn't hard."
Doc Ock's eyes went wide. This stranger knew he was from another universe. And he'd undone the neural link like it was nothing.
"You're not from this universe either!" The questions poured out. "Where is this? Why am I here? I'm supposed to be dead!"
"Correct. Difference is, I came here on purpose. You got pulled in. As for why you're here — it might have something to do with the fact that all of you share a common enemy." Ethan let the pause hang.
"Who?!" Doc Ock was on his feet.
"Spider-Man. Peter Parker."
"Peter?!" The color drained from his face.
"The same Peter you know. Think of it this way — you traveled back in time." Ethan kept his voice level.
Doc Ock stood up so fast the bed frame rattled. His eyes were bright, tense, desperate.
"So — are you saying — in this world — there's another me? And my wife?"
The complexity of what he was feeling hit all at once. If this universe had its own Otto and its own Rosie, they were still heading for the same tragedy. He had to stop it. He had to get to them before it was too late.
"Easy. This universe's Spider-Man just got bitten yesterday. Your experiment — the one that went wrong — is still years away. You've got time." Ethan talked him down.
Then Ethan walked him through the rest. Parallel universes. The tears in spacetime. Why Ethan had saved him instead of leaving him for the cops.
Doc Ock listened. Absorbed it. The picture formed: Peter Parker was the lynchpin. This universe needed Spider-Man to survive. And Doc Ock — in his own timeline — had been nothing more than a stepping stone on Peter's road to becoming a hero.
That landed hard. But he took it.
"Thank you for saving me." Doc Ock's voice was quiet, steady. "When this is over, I'll come back with you. To your universe. I don't have much left to lose — only this universe's version of myself and my wife. If I can save them from the path I walked, that's enough."
"After that... my life is yours."
There was a smaller, private thought behind the words. If he stayed with Ethan — a man who could cross between universes — there might be other versions of himself out there. Other versions of Rosie. Maybe he could save them too.
For a physicist, the idea of freely traversing parallel dimensions was almost too beautiful to resist.
Ethan felt something shift in his chest. There was real sincerity in what Doc Ock had just said.
He nodded. "Deal."
The System lit up.
「DING!」
「Congratulations, Host! Otto Gunther Octavius has been added as a friend!」
「...」
「Congratulations, Host! Otto Gunther Octavius's Friendship Level is now MAX!」
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