FATR: Insert a disclaimer here. Let's see… I guess the only other comment I have is related to Scorpion's tail. In case it's not clear in this chip chip, I see it as functioning rather like Otto's actuators, with the needles in the spine and such. I don't know if that's really how Mac controls it, but it's the most sense I can make out of what the cartoon and what I've read on the subject have given me. So, I'm going to go finish nailing this crate shut /ignores the thumping inside the crate/ while you enjoy this fine chip chip.

X)O(X

The wind raked its fingers through Stephanie's hair. There was something truly invigorating about being up this high without anything under her feet. It was easier to think up there, away from the noise of civilization. As soon as she'd left the lab, she'd started towards the recreation room, but had flown right on past the door at the last minute. There were a number of confused reasons why she lost her nerve at the last instant. One reason was, even though it would have been the most powerful energy boost, she wasn't ready to dive head first into a splatter-fest. She really had been at least half kidding when she'd been speaking to Otto earlier. Now that she saw what that girl was really capable of… Even though part of her brain was screaming at her to just kill, the part of her brain that was still human had reservations. That's why she was up here, hovering over the roof in her makeshift costume; she had a lot of thinking to do, and she didn't think the time frame Otto had given her was fair. Being a supervillain was harder than she'd thought. It was preferable, for the moment, to hover up here in the soft rays of the sun and contemplate the bright sparkles that were the grounds' ponds and fountains.

Mac sat on the roof behind one of the fancy tower-ish things. He was pretty sure there was a proper, architectural term for them, but he didn't know or care about the name. Quinton and Max's teasing had eventually driven him up here. His tail thumped on the roof next to him, twitching like an angry cat's tail. Those two dumb asses... They could take their bug jokes and shove them. Besides, maybe now that Stephanie was part bug as well, she'd finally start to come around. Mac didn't have Max's self esteem issues, nothing close, but he was aware that most civilian girls would be disinclined to get involved with a criminal who could climb walls. All of these thoughts were all well and good, but even if he did ask her out, what could he say? Hey, Steph, yah wanna go knock over a bank together or somethin? Oh, yeah, tha'd be jus' so smooth… Or maybe we could go buildin hoppin together? Jus' wha' kinda powers does she have now?

The wind changed and a whirring sound pulled him out of his thoughts. The scorpion moved into a crouch and slunk across the roof. There were plenty of things for him to hide behind as he approached the source of the sound. He peered around a decorative gargoyle and spotted Stephanie hovering mere feet from him. Her wings were rainbow streaks in the still climbing sun. The shear shirt shimmered like water, leaving one with the impression of a mirage or a ghost. Mac straightened up slowly, waiting to see if she'd notice him. If she knew he was there, she didn't say anything. He had so many questions and he didn't know what to say first. Instead he cleared his throat. Stephanie looked over her shoulder at him, highlighted angelically by the sun. "Hey…"

Stephanie eyed him and felt the hunger intensify again. She'd never noticed the muscles rippling over his body before, at least not consciously. The spandex highlighted them perfectly, and she found her attention beginning to wander curiously below his waist. With a mental blink, she tossed the thought away. She couldn't very well jump him on the roof, anyway, though that had potential to be exciting. "What are you doing up here?"

It wasn't the warm welcome he'd hoped for, but it wasn't a complete brush off. "Thinkin. Wha' 'bout' you?"

Stephanie turned her back to him again and shrugged, smirking to herself. "Just thinking…" She could almost actually sense him responding to the coy note in her voice.

"Wha'cha doin in yah costume?" Mac moved a little closer to the edge of the roof. If he reached out he could most likely touch her.

"Some ideas are best entertained in an alternate state of mind. Don't tell me you don't have similar feelings on some level…" Stephanie laughed and turned to face him. "You're wearing your costume, too, after all." She buzzed down closer and hovered directly in front of him with her hands clasped behind her back. Yes, she could definitely sense him responding, beyond merely seeing his respiration increase. She could feel the pulse of his heart fluttering in the air around them. Her new instincts were taking over quickly, her human hesitations no match for the starvation, and she found herself flittering closer still. This was closer than she'd ever dared to get on purpose, except for that time they wrestled. "Penny for your thoughts?" She tilted her head slightly and blinked once.

That one simple blink sent tingles down his spine. Her hair shifted softly against her shoulders and a few strands fell across her cheek. Mac swallowed hard. This apparent change of heart wasn't entirely out of the blue, but it was still pretty sudden. "I…" The head tilt had put her iridescent lips at a perfect angle for kissing. He gazed into those eyes and couldn't speak, so he showed her what he had been thinking about. Her lips were soft against his lips and he brought one gloved hand up to caress her cheek.

Stephanie touched his hand and closed her eyes. Heat surged through her veins as her heart pounded harder and she had to breathe through her mouth when he pulled away. This was so easy, and so perfect. Her fingers played over his mask while her eyes searched what she could see of his face. "You want to do this out here or go inside?"

Mac's heart leaped. "Wha'?"

Stephanie—Dragonfly—let her hands trace over his broad shoulders and drift down his chest. "You know what. Don't tell me you've lost interest," she pouted flirtatiously. His arm slid around her waist, pulling her against him, and she knew she'd won. Then again, it hadn't been much of a fight. Two leaps and they were on the other side of the roof, Dragonfly giggling with exhilaration as she clung to the arachnid's neck. He swung off the edge of the roof, through an open window, and into his room. Dragonfly jumped on Scorpion and wrapped her legs around his waist. His solid arms squeezed her as she probed his mouth with her tongue. The taste of his breath consumed her and before she knew it she was on her back with his weight pressing her into the mattress.

Mac had dreamed of this moment for months. Both of them were rapidly losing their clothing and he touched her face again with his bare hand. Her golden skin was like silk under his finger tips and her hair was surprisingly cool to the touch. He traced kisses down her throat and started to take off the harness that held the tail on his back. Dragonfly took his wrists and shook her head. Mac hesitated then closed his eyes and kissed her again. It was strange to him, but he didn't want to question this sudden turn of luck with her.

X)O(X

Otto lingered at the door to the stairwell for some time after Stephanie had disappeared into some recess of the house. He knew what he had to do, but some part of him couldn't help being afraid. Ana had told him to kill Fisk as though Otto could just waltz right into Fisk's room and stab Fisk through the chest. Fisk had armed body guards, though, and who knew what other sources on call. Otto highly doubted Max would take Fisk's side over Otto's, but what about Mac and Quinton? Of course, if Stephanie lost her nerve to kill, Mac would probably be a little busy… Otto shuddered at the thought and quickly brushed it aside. Quinton didn't even have any real powers that Otto knew of, so Quinton wasn't a threat.

That left at least five men with guns, and Fisk who was much stronger than he looked. Not all of his bulk was fat (quite the opposite, actually). Otto figured it would take at the very least two tentacles to finish the job, but he'd rather do it with three. That left one to deal with anyone else that attacked, and, though he hated to think of it, Otto was still decidedly susceptible to bullets. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. Since when had his life become so incredibly and utterly sucky? He looked at his pets. Oh, yeah, right…

His tentacles hissed at him and writhed indignantly, protesting that it was the fusion reactor and not them that had screwed up his life. They insisted they were his best and only friends and that the five of them combined were certainly enough to dispose of Fisk. His pets had never liked the way Otto cringed and bowed to Fisk's whims and they couldn't understand why there was even any question about whether or not to kill the oversized crime lord.

I'm not questioning whether or not to kill him; I merely believe we shouldn't be rash about it. This is a very delicate operation. I feel my… caution is justified. He wanted to hit himself, though, because he was being cowardly. This had to be done, and he was going to do it. Once Fisk was out of his way, Otto could go about getting the stone back unencumbered, via any means necessary. Just as he steeled himself for the task and completely left the stairwell, Nathan intercepted him. The man looked nervous and twitchy, but Otto wasn't surprised.

"Master Fisk wants to see you right now." Nathan tried to keep his voice commanding but there was a terrifying grimace on Doc Ock's face. That man seemed to have been going through a lot of mood swings lately, which only made Nathan even more skittish about interacting with him. The grimace was replaced by a darkly amused grin.

"Fisk wants to see me?" Otto burst out laughing at the irony of it all. He was too worn out to be afraid of what the Kingpin might want with him. After all, even if Fisk chose to kill him, it couldn't be much worse than being ripped apart by those demonic things. In response to the alarm on Nathan's face, Otto explained, "You see," chuckle, "I was just about to go looking for him."

Nathan cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. "Yes, well, this way, then…"

Otto followed Nathan, trying to keep from cracking on the spot. His mind was teetering on the edge of an awfully dark abyss, and he couldn't decide if Fisk calling him was a good omen or a bad omen. He opened the link to his actuators and cast nervous glances in every direction at once as they approached the heavy oak door. There were two guards, men in black suits with serious looking guns, posted at the door. Otto figured he could handle two, and the operation would go smoothly as long as there were no more inside. The scientist held his breath as he stepped through the door. Nathan didn't follow. In fact, he was alone with the Kingpin. The large man was nothing more than a dark blob silhouetted against the large window on the left wall. Otto was incredibly tempted to ram two actuators through the man's back and be done with it. Even as the bottom two tensed to follow this command, Fisk turned around and Otto was forced to call off the attack.

"Dr. Octavius…" Fisk scrutinized the other man. "I'm a man who prefers to protect his investments, and I'm not a man to beat around the bush. You've been summoned here to continue our business from yesterday."

Otto smiled bitterly. "I take it you found the payoff insufficient then." Of course Otto had known that no matter what he brought back Fisk wouldn't have let this matter drop.

"I've heard some very unsettling rumors today, involving you and one of my household staff. A girl named Stephanie?" Fisk lumbered across the room and stood behind his desk. "As I told you before, I prefer to protect my investments. Therefore, my first impulse on this matter is to talk it out civilly, man to man, and perhaps reach a mutually beneficial conclusion. I hope you agree."

"And if I don't?" Otto's tone wasn't defiant or fearful. It was a genuine question, designed to gather as much information as possible about the situation. How much did Fisk really know? And just what did he intend to do about it?

"Despite your recent acts of deception, you've been a valuable contributor during your time of employment. Personally, I'd hate to lose you."

Otto stared at Fisk in silence. The larger man didn't know anything, beyond hearing some rumors about Stephanie's transformation. He was absolutely oblivious to the fact that Otto might try to kill him. That was how confident the Kingpin was of his power over the four supervillains living under his roof. Fortunately, this gave Otto the element of surprise. Now if only he could find the right opening. Behind his glasses, his eyes wandered the room, and eventually landed on the snarling thing perched on the back of Fisk's tall backed chair. Otto gulped.

"Are you listening to me, Octavius?"

Otto blinked and the creature was gone. "Uh…" He looked down and ran his hand through his hair. The headache had returned. It wasn't a full-fledged migraine yet, just a dull pounding in the back of his head that could escalate at any moment. "I… Yes…" He cleared his throat. "What, um, exactly is it you want from me?"

Fisk leaned across the desk and glared at Otto with icy blue eyes. "Is it or isn't it true that Stephanie has undergone some unnatural changes of late?"

The headache was spreading through Otto's brain like a sunrise sweeping across the land. His tentacles began undulating and shifting more restlessly than usual. "I… couldn't say…"

"But you were seen with her this morning, and reliable sources inform me there was a scuffle in the kitchen earlier."

"You don't know that we were the one's fighting," Otto growled, slightly more sharply than intended.

"But you admit there was a fight."

Otto's fists clenched at his sides as he fought the budding headache and the growing ringing in his ears. "The other three bicker all the time." The bottom right tentacle curled under the desk and tensed to strike. He would have to kill Fisk in has few blows as possible, and with as little warning as possible.

Fisk slammed a meaty fist on the table, cracking the wood. "God damn it, Octavius, you tell me what you've been up to!"

"No!" Otto screamed and launched the tentacle up and into the round, white stomach. He'd misjudged the force needed to puncture through to the vital organs, however, as Fisk was much more solidly built than he appeared.

Hot pain spread from the point of penetration. At first the crime lord was confused, too shocked to think that anyone would dare to attack him. He gripped the skeletal arm as it struggled to dive deeper but only barely held it at bay. "Guards…" He choked out weakly. A second tentacle flew at him with the aim of smashing his skull and Fisk caught it with one hand. "Guards!" Two more tentacles grasped his wrists as the doors smashed open.

Otto froze at the sound of guns being cocked. It sounded like there were about five of them. The odds that he could do away with them all before he was shot were slim. There was no choice but to try, though. A bullet through his brain would be preferable to being torn apart by hell beasts. He spun to face the men in black suits and lashed out with all of his tentacles at once, leaving Fisk to bleed on the floor. Three's speed was impeded by first having to withdraw from Fisk's flesh.

Gunshots echoed through the room as two of the men were sideswiped into the man between them. Three skulls cracked together and they crumpled to the floor. The bullets from the other two guns whizzed around him but one of his pets deflected the lethal ones while the other took out the gunmen. One of the bullets, however, slid through and grazed his cheek. The biting agony was disturbingly similar to the feeling of the fiends' claws. Otto braced himself on this lower left actuator as he turned to finish off Fisk. Before he could even get half way around, fire ripped through the artificial spine and the tentacle he was leaning on gave him out from under him.

Everything was shrouded in a gray haze but Fisk stubbornly held out against death. While his would-be murderer was distracted, the crime lord snatched a decorative letter opener off his desk, leaving a streak of blood, and stabbed half-blindly for Otto's back. He heard the scrape of metal on metal and feared for a moment that the blow had only glanced off the harness, but the way Otto collapsed told him differently. Fisk's bloody fingers slid off the weapon when the scientist pitched forward, leaving the instrument lodged between two segments of the metal spine.

Otto twitched in agony and clawed at the thing in his back but couldn't muster the strength to remove it. His bottom two tentacles were useless, either because of severed wires or because the neural link was being blocked. There was no time to think about it, but he sincerely hoped it wasn't the former. He sent the top two to latch onto either side of Fisk's head and squeezed. The migraine pounded in his temples and pulsed in his eyes, but he focused on nothing outside of crushing the other man's skull. Fisk screamed and grasped wildly at the claws but there was nothing he could do about it. Otto squeezed harder and a loud CRACK abruptly ended the cries of anguish.

X)O(X

Soft moans and heavy breathing were the only sounds in the dimly lit room. Scorpion ran his hands down Dragonfly's sides and grabbed her hips. She arched her back and pressed her breasts against him. Heat prickled through his shoulder blades as her nails dug in and dragged down, leaving five red furrows on each side. His hands tightened their hold and the moaning and gasping escalated. They came at the same time and he collapsed on top of her, loving her soft warmth. It made him feel on top of the world. In fact, he couldn't recall feeling this great since… since a long time ago. "Steph…" He whispered and gave her a soft kiss on the neck.

Stephanie opened her eyes, startled by the tender tone of his voice. He raised himself on his hands and looked down at her, past the mask she still wore, and into her eyes. At that moment she didn't see Scorpion looking down at her, she saw Mac looking out at her through Scorpion's mask. Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn't move as they gazed into each other's eyes. He didn't lust after her, he… loved her. This was bad. This was a mistake! "I…" She jerked her eyes away and pushed him off. "I've gotta go." She found her clothing and tossed it on quickly.

"Wha's wrong?" Mac sat on the bed and watched her. This wasn't a good sign. He knew her sudden change of heart seemed too good to be true, but…

"Nothing, I just… I have to go, now…" Stephanie hopped up on the sill of the open window without looking back.

"Will I see yah later?" He watched her go perfectly still and gaze out across the garden. He would have given anything to know what she was thinking at that moment, but somehow he felt it wouldn't be comforting. The stillness seemed to last forever.

"I… I guess that's inevitable, huh?"

With those unpromising words, she disappeared over the edge. Mac listened to the whirring noise fade into the golden afternoon. What on earth had he done wrong? She had come on to him. Hadn't she? He ran the scenario through his head over and over again and still reached that same conclusion. So what on earth had he done wrong?

X)O(X

FATR: Just one /finishes nailing Otto's crate closed/ There, that's done… Oh, finished already, are we? Well, my muses appreciate the reviews, as do I. Why not go write another one, hm?

Ottea Octavius: Otto can't catch a break, can he? Ironic that you just happened to review the two stories my muses chose to update. I say my muses because hey, let's face it, they're the ones controlling the creativity gates /sigh/ Anyway, thanks for joining us and I hope to hear from you again.

talkstoangels: Thankies.

Phoenix Sheriden: See? It's not as simple as just walking in and killing Fisk. Nothing is ever simple, is it? And don't you just hate temperamental muses? It took them five months to get around to letting me update Cat and a Half. Anyway, don't worry about what type of sock, but I would prefer provolone cheese /knocks on crate/ Otto is on his way. Maybe he'll be helpful as a stand in muse for a while, hm? Oh, and when you're done, Lady Kayoss would like to borrow him too, okies? See you next chip chip.

Agent Silver: Hm… I can't predict how I'll react to things before hand. It all depends on previous events and the like. Anyway, yes, evil, and yes, fun. Guess what else? This chip chip was fun too! See you next time, perhaps?

LadyKayoss: I'm waiting for Phoenix Sheriden's reply /ignores Otto's protests that he's not an object to be bartered for and passed around/ so we'll just have to see. That totally sucks about the scanners, but I can be patient. Otto as the next Catwoman /snicker/ Am I the only one who thinks he'd look good in tight black leather? Especially Ultimate Otto /drool/ ANY- hoo… Thanks for the review and see you again, I hope.

Moonjava: Thank you as always.

Penguin Peace!