"Well, aren't you a sorry sight, Otto?"
Otto Octavius, the man who had once terrorized the world as Dr Octopus, now consigned to a living hell inside a ruined body barely kept alive by the grudging charity of the New York penal system, startled out of his half-slumber, back into the miserable state that was to be his lot until his inevitable ignoble death. He blinked, his already poor vision hadn't handled his deteriorating state any better than the rest of him, and it took him a few moments to focus on the large figure sitting by the side of the machines keeping him alive.
"W-ho..?" he rasped out with a dry breath.
The man by his bedside chuckled "I'm guessing you don't get a lot of news in here? Pleased to meet you, the name is Ginnungagap."
Despite his near-total isolation from the world outside, even here in the depths of The Raft Otto couldn't have avoided hearing that name, usually in panicked, frantic whispers by the guards passing his cell, talking about the latest mutant boogeyman riling up the mindless fools outside his prison. Otto blinked again, trying to get a better look at the man who apparently had the entire world in a grip of terror. He wasn't impressed. Tall certainly, but rather heavyset, and with a scraggly beard and an unkempt mohawk. Not that Otto could exactly point fingers in the looks department, even in his prime.
"You... the mutant..." he wheezed out "the... mutant messiah..? Or anti-christ... depending on who's talking..."
The mutant actually cringed "Hey, I told them I wasn't any kind of messiah-"
Otto cackled, which quickly deteriorated into a cough "You're... a fool... if you think you can... change what people see... they will only ever see what they want to..." he paused a moment, catching his breath "Why... are you here? I've never... victimized mutants... not more than anyone else..."
The mutant nodded "No, surprisingly, anti-mutant racism was never one of your vices. Sure, you were a sociopathic, murderous, self-absorbed, and at the end there, genocidal lunatic, but you never hated specific people as far as I could tell, it was always you and pretty much the entire rest of the world, but especially Spiderman." He leaned back in the soft arm chair that Otto knew for a fact hadn't been in his cell before he fell asleep "Was it worth it? All the people you hurt or killed? All just to prove how smart you were? And all of it just bought you this cell and a body that looks like a chewed-up cabbage patch doll?"
Otto gritted his teeth, even that minor exertion sending pain jolting through him "Never... apologized for who I was... not going to start with you..." he licked his cracked lips "Must want something... otherwise why be here?"
"Sharp as ever, Otto. Atleast Spiderman was never able to punch that brain of yours into jello, not more than you did yourself anyway" the mutant reached inside his vest, pulling out a phone "I don't know if you bother keeping track of the time in here, but if you haven't, it's almost Christmas."
"Haven't... had any... reason to celebrate... foolish holiday anyway..." he rasped.
"Well, that's what happens when you spend your entire adult life trying to murder everyone, BUT!" the mutant cut off Otto's reply "regardless of what a terrible person you've been, I decided to use this holiday to spread a bit of cheer among shitty people who I think might have some potential for good in them, and guess what, Otto old boy?" The mutant stood up from his chair and leaned down over him, giving him a condescending pat on his cheek "You just about made the cut. Merry christmas! Or happy holidays, whichever you prefer!"
As his world went black, Otto could have sworn he heard an obnoxious rendition of "A Holly Jolly Christmas" echo through his head.
...
Otto Octavius sat up with a gasp on the small bed, and it took him a moment to realize what was off. The pain was gone.
The second surprise was when he instinctively reached up to touch his face, and his limbs moved without problem. His fingers felt nothing except normal, healthy skin. His scars were gone, even his hair had grown back! Looking down on his body, Otto saw that he was dressed in his familiar green bodysuit, but more importantly, it was his body just as he remembered it! No broken bones, no numb, dead skin, he felt decades younger, like he had once been before that fatal accident!
A voice brought him out of his shock "Have you ever read the book Gnomes, Otto?"
Otto turned around, spotting the mutant sitting in that same chair he had been in back at The Raft, except now it was wedged in the corner of an unfamiliar room, the walls made from rough-hewn logs, and a fireplace at the opposite wall with a fire crackling inside. Otto shook his head in confusion "I...what?"
"It was a fictional encyclopedia by a Dutch author named Will Huygen about the gnomes and other magical races of Scandinavia, total nonsense of course, but it was a fun series, written like an encyclopedia and everything. My aunt had two of the books, used to read them all the time. I think they made a cartoon about it, but I never saw it as a kid." he shook his head "Well, that's not the important part. One of the chapters in the book was about a man named Sigurd Larsson, you with me so far?" He didn't wait for Otto to answer "Terrible man, just an awful, godforsaken piece of shit, who used his wealth and resources to make everybody miserable rather than help, which he could easily have done if he wanted to, but no, no, because he was full of hate and misery, the whole world had to suffer. So one day, Sigurd, he goes too far, and pisses off the gnomes too, and trust me, I grew up with stories about what those little bastards would do to you if they got mad." The mutant held out his hand and a bottle of beer appeared in it. "Drink? No? Hmm, maybe too soon, yes? Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, so Sigurd does the dumbest thing possible and pisses off the gnomes, who are already sick of his bullshit, so you know what they do? They give him a magical sickness that slowly saps away his strength, eventually leaving him a bedridden husk of a man. You see where I'm going with this, Otto?"
Otto tried to answer, but he felt the words stop inside his throat, instead just nodding numbly. The mutant smiled and continued "Good, glad to hear we're on the same page. So anyway, Sigurd just gets sicker and sicker, to the point that finally, he died. So his family, happy to finally be rid of the sack of shit, buries him with more ceremony than he probably deserved, and move on with their lives. Problem is, Sigurd wasn't actually dead yet, the magic sickness just made it look like he was, so now, he's stuck in a coffin six feet under, fully conscious, but unable to move or even speak or scream. Finally, the gnomes dig him out, give him some magic potion, and he wakes up, almost as good as new. They tell him he's officially on probation, his old life is gone, and now he'll have to make a new one from scratch and not be such a fucking piece of shit this time, because he'll require medicine from the gnomes for the rest of his life, and if he relapses one bit, they'll cut him off and he's right back underground. You getting the moral there, Otto?"
"I... I take it you've made me your Sigurd Larsson?" Otto shook his head, still trying to wrap his head around it "What do you want from me? Why have you even done this?!"
The mutants sighed and hoisted himself out of the chair "Because, brainiac, you have by far one of the most brilliant minds I've ever seen, and having it waste away in that rotting meat heap... well, that just wasn't happening. I think you have a lot to offer the world, and it'd be a shame for it all to just go to waste because you wouldn't stop playing supervillain!"
Otto scowled, feeling his frustration build "Playing?! Is that what you think of me? Nothing but a child throwing a tantrum?!"
The mutant turned around, looking just as angry "Yes, that's exactly what I think, OCTAVIUS! I think you're a grown man who never got past his shitty childhood, and yes, I'm guessing having those arms welded to your spine didn't do you any favors, but guess what? A lot of people have terrible childhoods, and they don't waste their whole lives trying to kill one guy in spider-themed pajamas because of it!" He held up a hand "Don't bother, I don't care about your excuses. Here's the reality. I've given you back your body, I've rewound it to the age of 25, I even fixed your eyesight so you won't need glasses anymore. I put up a perception filter so people won't recognize you as Otto Octavius, international supervillain, you're just another slightly doughy white guy with a bad haircut as far as they're concerned. You can go out into that big world with a clean slate, but keep in mind; I'll be watching! And if I catch you so much as looking at Spiderman the wrong way, the time you spent in that prison hospital will look like A GODDAMN VACATION BEFORE I'M DONE WITH YOU!!"
The mutant took a deep breath, the sudden anger vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. "But yeah, other than that, hope you enjoy your gift, Otto! Merry Christmas!"
And then, he was gone. On the spot where he had stood just moments ago, a pathetic looking christmas tree, consisting of little more than a few twigs, stood hunched over, weighed down by a single ornament. Otto sighed.
"Good grief..."