[Otto's POV]
When the light of the teleportation dimmed, the first thing Otto saw was Mar, Alex's dad, who had picked up the Book Of The Dead. But he wasn't looking at the book, he was looking at them, and rather flabbergasted at that. Or more specific, he was looking at Alex rather flabbergasted. But once he was over his initial shock, he breathed a sigh of relief and said: "Welcome back."
Next to her, Alex snorted in a rather sarcastic kind of way.
"Glad that your precious lab-rat returned home, huh?" he said with a mean bite to his words. Otto looked up at him in surprise, but then his words registered and she slowly looked back over to Mar. Alex's dad looked startled, surprised, proud and cautious all at once.
"I-" he started, but Alex cut him short.
"Before you ask any questions, you might want to answer that phone call," he said instead. And right on queue, the phone in Mar's pocket started ringing. Mar frowned as he fished the device from his pocket, looked at the caller ID and frowned even more.
"Erika? Can I call you back?" he asked as he answered the incoming call, but instead of killing the line, he listened to the excited-sounding voice on the other side of the line.
"What do you mean, through the roof? I already knew that, didn't I? It were the last results I saw before I left the research facility," Mar said and fell silent for an instant as he listened to his phone again. "Even more? Can you send me the results?"
Mar fished an earpiece out of one of his pockets, put it into his ear and looked at the screen, before his eyes widened. Otto could vaguely hear the excited, non-stop chattering from the person on the other side of the line, until it suddenly was cut off and the familiar beeping of a disconnected call could be heard. It made Otto's hackles stand on end.
"Now that you know that I am not bluffing," Alex said slowly as he magicked their Field-of-Reeds clothes into the exact same ones they had worn before they accidentally got teleported. Otto was about to complain that she liked that dress, when it suddenly materialized right in front of her, and all she had to do was catch the neatly folded bundle in her arms.
She knew that Alex was displaying his power and she knew he was doing it to bedazzle his dad. She felt kind of disappointed that he'd resorted to such cheap tricks.
"We're going to set some new rules," Alex continued in such a serious and business like-tone, that she felt the urge to double check if it was -in fact- Alex standing next to her. "No more tracker in my phone. No more measuring equipment and no more eavesdropping on my conversations. And no, you do not have a choice, I already removed all of them, as your colleague is trying to tell you right now, but she will just have to wait."
Mar looked extremely startled, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He almost looked afraid. Almost, though. Mar's facial expression didn't quite fit that of an "what the hell is happening?"-expression and when she looked over to Alex, she knew why. Alex was looking at his father with so much betrayal in his eyes, so much anger, that Otto almost felt sorry for Mar.
Yeah, that's right, she felt sorry for the man that had looked her up and down like a piece of meat at the butcher's shop the first time he'd seen her. She felt sorry, because she had recognized Mar's expression: He was afraid to lose his son.
"Alex, … I- I'm sorry. I can explain all of this," Mar tried to reason with Alex, but you didn't need to be a genius to figure out that Alex wasn't in the mood to talk.
"Ah, yes. Of course, you can explain. But I'm not quite sure that I'll believe you after everything I've discovered so far. You know what? If I wasn't such a little carbon copy of you, I would have asked you if you even were my fa-" Alex said, his words aimed to hurt and inflict deep wounds on the precious person that had betrayed him so painfully, but Otto stopped him before the damage became irreversible.
"Shh! Shh! Just stop," she shushed him as she put a hand on either side of his face and pulled his forehead against hers.
"Why are you deliberately ripping your heart out?" she whisper-asked him once she knew that she had his attention. Alex gritted his teeth.
"It's him who ripped my heart out!" Alex whispered back angrily. She'd never seen him so hurt before.
"Yeah, I know. He betrayed your trust. But Alex? He wants to explain," Otto tried to reason with him. "He used to be your hero. The least you can do is hear him out. Maybe he had a reason for doing what things he did…"
Otto could feel Alex's frown deepen against her forehead and saw him clench his jaw. He didn't argue, but then he glanced towards where his father was standing and pulled his face from hers.
"That book is mine," he suddenly called out, as he held out a hand for Mar to return the Book of the Dead. "And for your information, it is not a toy you should have given to a clueless thirteen year old child."
"Do-…. Do you know what it is then?" Mar asked doubtfully, but obediently placed the book in Alex's hand. To Otto, it looked like he was trying to pacify Alex by complying to his wishes.
"You mean you don't?" Alex asked, unable to hide the confused note from his voice.
"No, I don't," Mar said. He looked awkward, but hopeful that Alex might be willing to talk after all. "It's an item your mother found in an old book store and barely paid a dollar for. She said she could feel the power radiating from it from three blocks away."
When Otto looked up to Alex, she noticed he was barely coping. The new information overloaded his system to a point where he was blinking stupidly at his father.
"My- my mother?" he finally asked when Otto touched his elbow lightly. The moment was crudely interrupted by a ringtone, which sounded exaggeratedly happy for some reason.
"My phone?" Otto asked confused as she fished it from her pocket. "But I thought the battery was-"
She instantly stopped talking when she saw the word "Daddy" light up the screen.
"My parents?!" Otto said. How could she forget her parents?! What time was it?! They must have been worried sick.
"Hello?" she asked, as she looked up at Alex.
"There you are," her dad answered. The sweet, familiar and warm tone of his voice made her eyes instantly mist over. "Otto, we've been worried sick! Why didn't you answer your phone? Are you alright? We missed you at dinner."
"I-" she said as she looked up at Alex through her tears. And that's when she realized she didn't know what to say. She wanted to go with Alex as moral support, but she'd missed her parents more than she'd thought. But Alex smiled at her gently.
"Tell them we'll deliver you home in five minutes," he said.
"Are you sure?" Otto asked as she covered the microphone of her phone. She sounded worried, even to her own ears.
"Well, it will be one sleepless night, since you won't be sleeping in my arms. But apart from that? I'll be fine," Alex joked.
"You know that that is not what I'm asking!" she huffed in annoyance. "Seriously! Don't change the subject by laughing my worries away and answer me. Will it be OK to be alone with your dad?"
He searched Otto's face for a full three seconds and then sighed.
"Otto, at this very moment I am one of the most powerful beings in the universe. My dad can't harm me," Alex said sincerely.
"Yes he can. And it is precisely because you are so powerful that I am worried," Otto said. She suddenly felt as if she was talking to a clueless child. "Promise me that you'll come to me when you feel like you can't handle things alone?"
"I promise that I'll come running to you when I can't handle things alone," Alex repeated after her so that she could be sure that he'd understood what she'd said, all the while looking her in the eyes intently and taking her hand to place a soft kiss on top of her fingers.
Otto sighed, returned her attention to her phone and said to her father: "Alex and his father will deliver me home in five minutes."