Archive of Our Own

He should never have gone exploring on his own.

The day had started off so well. It had just been a little light extra-dimensional adventuring. He’d promised Franklin he’d be back before lunch, and that they could get the old anti-gravity baseball out of the closet and head down to the park to toss it around for a bit.

The multisect was a long way away from being perfected. He’d known that when he’d decided to test it out. He thought he’d mapped the risks, that he was prepared for anything.

He hadn’t been prepared for it to transport him straight into another Earth’s Castle Doom. Its Doctor Doom had reacted in a disappointingly predictable manner.

Reed had fought back, but he’d been stunned by his new destination, thrown off balance, and Doom had quickly gained the upper hand.

A blast of green energy sent him reeling to the floor, pinning him down against cold stone. Doom wrenched a sword from where it hung on display and approached, his footsteps loud and certain. He planted one of his boots on Reed’s chest, right over the Fantastic Four symbol, and pointed the sword at his throat. The metal seemed to sing.

He hadn’t told anyone where he was going. There would be no timely rescue, the sweep of one of Sue’s force fields and the rush of Johnny’s flames accompanied by a brash, “It’s clobbering time!”

How many times had he warned the others? How many lectures had he given Ben for going off half-cocked, or when he’d caught Johnny red-handed with the time machine? And now here he was, flat on his back on the cold stone floor with Doom’s heavy boot pressed to his chest, trapped in an energy field with a sword at his throat.

At least he could refuse Doom the satisfaction of begging.

“Well?” Reed said, tilting his head up defiantly. “What are you waiting for, Doom?”

Doom stared down at him, as imperious through the mask as any Doom Reed had ever seen before – and he’d seen, in his life, a great many of them. With a hiss, his mask unfolded and disappeared, revealing his face. This Doom, too, was scarred, but not in the same way as Reed’s. He had three thin scars over right eye, like someone had raked claws down his face. The eye itself, miraculously, seemed fine, as sharp and defiant as the other. For years, Doom’s eyes had been the only part of his face visible. Reed had become very familiar with them.

There was something strange about how this Doom was looking at him.

Then, in what was perhaps the most bizarre moment of Reed’s long, bizarre life, Doom began to laugh. It wasn’t, as Johnny or Ben would put it, a “mwa-ha-ha” evil sort of laugh. It was rich and deep, a throaty sort of laugh. There was no malice behind it. Doom was simply – laughing.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Richards,” he said, and that was when Reed realized Doom was laughing at him.

The energy field released. Doom tossed the sword to the side.

He swept away from Reed as though he expected him to get up and follow.

Reed had only been really, truly confused a handful of times in his life. This, he thought, might have ranked at top of the list.

“Really, Richards,” Doom said, sitting down and crossing one leg over the other. He propped an elbow up on his workbench and braced his chin against it, staring down at Reed with a regally arched eyebrow. “‘What are you waiting for?’ I know you’ve always accused me of being the more dramatic of the two of us, but don’t you think this is a bit much?”

Reed stayed there on the ground, shocked into stillness, his body and mind both still waiting for the blow to come.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?” he asked.

“The effort wouldn’t be worth the redundancy,” Doom said, waving a hand as if to vanquish the very notion. “You’re already dead.”

The here went unsaid, but understood.

Carefully, Reed got to his feet. Carelessly, Doom gestured to the other chair.

Reed weighed his options. Then he weighed his curiosity.

The curiosity won, of course. It always did. It was how he’d gotten himself into this situation in the first place. He sat down in the chair, feeling the green velvet upholstery give just slightly beneath him. Victor didn’t quite smile, but there was something pleased in his eyes.

“Very good,” he said. He raised his hand to shoulder height and snapped his fingers with a loud click. “Boris!”

A wizened man in an expensive suit shuffled in from the other room. If he’d been shaken by the battle noises of moments ago, he did nothing to show it.

“Yes, Master Doom?” he said.

“Some wine for myself and my guest,” Doom said.

“Of course, Master Doom.”

He shuffled back out, returning a moment later with a carafe of wine and two elegant glasses.

“Latverian crystal is the finest in the world,” Doom said as Boris poured the wine. Doom picked up a cup and made a show of taking a sip before he passed it to Reed. Part of Reed appreciated the gesture for what it was, and another part disliked being treated like an easily spooked horse by Victor Von Doom of all people. “And our wine is unparalleled. Have you had it before, back on your Earth?”

“A time or two,” Reed said. “My trips to Latveria have rarely been peaceful enough for me to appreciate the culture.”

“What a shame,” said Doom, raising his own glass. “Shall we toast?" He didn’t wait for Reed to answer before he clinked their glasses together. “To new discoveries.”

It was the kind of toast Reed might have made himself, right after “to family.” Doom raised his glass in his direction and, still not quite sure what game it was they were playing now, Reed followed suit. Doom smiled.

“Very good,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “Now tell me, Reed Richards – what brings you to this universe?”

He was looking at him, sharp-eyed and analytical, but his posture was relaxed and almost sprawling. Up close Reed could see that he looked younger than his Doom, maybe by five or so years, perhaps even ten. There was something of a youthful arrogance about him, with his broad shoulders and predator’s smile. Reed had rarely known Dooms to be mellow in their younger days.

“What else? New discoveries,” he said, parroting Doom’s toast.

The corner of Doom’s mouth curved upwards.

“Well,” he said. “I certainly hope you find them.”

“So,” Reed said, leaning forward with his hands clasped. “What about your initial murder of me was so unsatisfactory that you don’t wish to repeat the experience?”

Something shuttered behind Doom’s eyes, going hard and cold. He drew himself up, his back straight and regal, his jaw set. Now, he looked like Reed’s Victor.

“You purport yourself to be an intelligent man, Richards,” he said. “Don’t speak of things you don’t know. Such is the behavior of fools and simpletons.”

“Which am I being, Victor?” Reed asked.

“Oh,” Doom said, picking up his wine goblet. “The fool, always.”

He should have stayed away. Counted it as a one off. An anomaly – a Victor Von Doom who didn’t want to destroy him and his family. An interesting discovery, but one it was best to leave under the glass. He didn’t need to poke it again to see if it would bite, or spontaneously develop the urge to crush him and all he held dear.

The problem, of course, was that this strange new Doom was interesting and Reed had never been good at resisting an intellectual temptation.

“You’re back,” Doom said when his servant led Reed into his throne room. He was sprawled out on the throne, in full Doom regalia, and when he rose his green cape spilled to the stone floor. “How unexpected.”

“Was it?” Reed asked, keeping his voice light. “I have questions.”

“And you’ve come to me for answers?” Doom asked. “I expect I’m supposed to be flattered.”

“You already bested me in actual combat, Victor. There’s no need to try and win an argument where there isn’t one,” Reed said. “I’d like to talk. I think you might want that, too.”

Victor’s mask retracted. He considered Reed for a long moment with his sharp, dark eyes, one hand cupped to his chin.

“Very well,” he said. “Come. We’ll go to the library. You can make yourself comfortable.”

This library looked nothing like the one Reed had once been imprisoned in within Castle Doom. The walls were lined with high shelves piled with books upon books, heavy leather bound imposing tomes and other slimmer, delicate artifacts, but the room itself was almost cozy, far smaller than the dungeon library had been, with an ornate fire place. It was, like everything else, very green – woven Latverian rugs that must have cost more than entire halls of museums were strewn the floors and there were highbacked green velvet chairs, just waiting for readers.

This, Reed realized, was Victor’s private library.

Doom snapped his fingers and a fire sprang up in the fire place, roaring as if it had been lit for hours.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to one of the chairs.

“Thank you,” Reed said, folding himself into one of the chairs. Victor took the one opposite of him, leaning forward intently.

“Let me look at you a moment,” he said, his sharp gaze fixed on Reed’s face. It made him feel like something under a microscope, not entirely in an unpleasant way. “Uncanny.”

“Do you think?” Reed asked. Doom nodded.

“The resemblance is incredible,” he said. “Of course, my Reed Richards wasn’t yet going grey when we worked together. It rather suits you.”

“I’m glad you approve of how I’ve aged,” Reed said dryly.

“You could return the favor,” Victor said, gesturing at himself. “How do I stack up, I wonder?”

Reed hesitated a moment too long. Doom raised an eyebrow.

“Ah,” he said, bringing a hand up to his face. “The scar. You think it unsightly.”

“No,” Reed said. “No, not at all. I – it’s been a long time since I saw your face, that’s all.”

Doom made a considering noise, leaning back in his chair. He seemed oddly content just to gaze at Reed’s face.

“How did it happen?” Reed asked, after a moment.

“There was an accident,” Doom said. “An explosion. This world’s you perished in it.”

“What kind of accident?” Reed asked, prodding gently, well aware that this was a dangerous game. “You mentioned we worked together?”

“We did,” Doom confirmed. “We conducted a great many experiments together, in those days. I found him quite – stimulating.” He cleared his throat. “Intellectually.”

“Of course,” Reed said, frowning. It was a little difficult to imagine for him; in college Victor had been nothing less than prickly, cold to the idea of collaborating. But Reed had recognized his brilliance even then, and he knew that if Victor had been open to the idea then he would have jumped at it. Something still nagged at him, though. A memory, the touch of his fingers to paper, the elegant scrawl of numbers that didn’t add up. A correction that could have averted disaster, if it hadn’t been rebuffed.

“What went wrong that day? When he died?” he asked. “If there was an accident, maybe someone –” he was careful here not to say you, prepared in a way he hadn’t been as a young man, then ignorant of the terrible weight of Victor’s pride “– got the math wrong. Maybe they made a mistake.”

“The math was flawless,” Doom said dismissively. He steepled his fingers in front of his face. “But the mistake was mine.”

Reed’s jaw didn’t exactly hit the floor, but it certainly dropped more than halfway down his chest. He had to fumble to retract it.

“I’m sorry?” he said, boggling at Doom.

Doom shot him an irritated glance. “What exactly do you find so shocking, Richards?”

“I – no. It’s nothing,” Reed said. “I’m sorry, Victor.”

“No need,” Doom said with a heavy sigh. “That day, he wanted to – assist me. In my experiments. In the experiment.” He glanced away, and added, quietly, “It was a very long time ago. We were young, then.”

“Your mother,” Reed said. Victor whipped around, his eyes wide. This was dangerous territory; Reed swallowed hard and continued. “You wanted to reach her. Yes, I remember.”

“Ah,” Victor said after a long moment. His shoulders relaxed as he leaned back, all the fight gone out of him as quickly as it had come. “I’m not so original as I like to think myself, I see.” He paused. “The Doom of your world, has he had any --?”

“No. I’m sorry,” Reed said, cutting him off. He stretched a hand out to touch Victor’s shoulder, hoping it would be taken as a comfort. “It’s an admirable goal.”

“He – you are an entirely scientific creature, Reed Richards,” Doom said. He drew himself back up, his regal posture restored. Reed’s hand left his shoulder. “He wasn’t prepared for the forces that were conjured up on that day. He – he misread a situation. I had it well in hand, but he – worried for me.” An odd sort of smile graced his face, and then fell away. “He interfered when I needed him to hold the line, and the spell misfired.” He sighed heavily. “He perished.”

Reed had never thought he’d see Victor Von Doom – any Victor Von Doom – look so sad upon hearing those words. He found himself reaching out to touch his arm, laying his hand over that cold metal gauntlet. He tilted his head to meet Doom’s eyes and he saw genuine sorrow there. Sorrow, and pain, and something that almost seemed like it could be guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Victor. I am sorry.”

Doom nodded, a terse gesture. After a moment, he raised his other hand to cover Reed’s. His thumb stroked across Reed’s knuckles.

“All I had to do that day was tell him no,” Doom said, “and it could have all been avoided. But I was terrible, you see. Terrible at telling him no.”

“Even if you had sent him away, it might still have ended in tragedy. You might have been killed,” Reed suggested gently.

Doom shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Not me. Doom perseveres.”

There would be no changing his mind, Reed knew. But he also knew himself, and he knew that if the other him had intervened, it was because he’d believed, wholeheartedly and with every bit of his intelligence, that in doing so he was saving Victor.

He believed he had been right.

He knew Victor would never accept that.

“I used magic once,” Reed said after a long pause. “Quite successfully, in fact.”

“Oh?” Doom said, quirking an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“Well,” Reed said. “I’m afraid at the time I was battling you.”

Doom’s eyes glimmered with amusement.

“Now, Richards,” he said. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Visiting Victor became something of a habit. Or maybe, if Reed was being honest, it was more of a guilty pleasure. Either way, he couldn’t seem to stay away. Here was this fascinating discovery – a Victor Von Doom who didn’t hate him, who, instead, seemed to relish his company, a Victor who cared, who looked at the world with curiosity and verve, a Victor with, if not a complete lack of bitterness, then a far lesser amount of it. And he was out there, for Reed to examine, to get to know. Who wanted to get to know him, too.

They fit together, he found. The way he always thought he and his own Victor could, if only his own Victor could have let go of that bitterness, that resentment, and instead learned to embrace the wonder. If only, if only, if only.

But here was a world – here was a whole universe – where a Doom who defied those traits he’d long thought of as quintessentially Doom, as cold and hard as the armor that encased him, existed. Here was a Doom that was proving him wrong, in the best ways possible.

On his fifth trip, Victor – and he was Victor now, and never Doom – showed him his greenhouse. Within it there were plants of all sorts, trailing vines as green as Victor’s velvet cloak, and lush ferns. Reed stopped to examine a large bell-like plant with waxy leaves and Victor proudly informed him that it was carnivorous and advised him to watch his fingers.

Victor was especially eager to show him the night blooming Latverian orchids.

“Of Latveria’s many treasures,” he said, “they are by far one of the most beautiful.”

When the blossoms opened, delicate and pale yellow, Reed glanced over and found that Victor was smiling. There was no malice behind it, no superiority. He was simply smiling over something as small as the beauty of newly bloomed flowers.

The blossoms themselves smelled divine. Reed remembered the crate of them that had arrived from Doom, a wedding gift for Johnny. They were far more beautiful uncut – or maybe they were more beautiful because this time he got to experience them with Victor, standing together in companionable silence.

He stayed longer than he should have, watching the flowers.

Sue was in the kitchen when he left the lab, safely returned back to his own universe. The world outside the windows of the Baxter Building was dark, and Sue was wearing a robe, her back turned towards him, as she made herself a late night cup of tea. He’d stayed away too long again, and accidentally missed dinner.

He cleared his throat. “Hello, Susan.”

“Hello, Reed,” she said, glancing at him. Her smile was genuine – a little tired, maybe, but not annoyed. He didn’t deserve her. “Invent anything world shattering today?”

“Nothing too fantastic,” he said, approaching her.

“You missed meatloaf night,” she said, turning back to her tea. “Ben was practically up in arms.”

“Well, Ben’s meatloaf can do that to a man. Did I keep you up?” he asked, wrapping his arms triple looped around Sue’s waist. She shot him a faintly amused looked over her shoulder.

“Hardly,” she said. “If I waited for you to come to bed, I’d never get any rest. Val’s not in her room.”

“Ah,” Reed said, sagely. “Go to bed, Susan. I’ll round up our errant spawn.”

“God, I love it when you talk dirty,” she teased, taking his chin in her hand and smacking a kiss against his lips. There was a sway in her hips as she walked down the hall that told him to hurry up.

He headed back to the lab, first, wondering if he’d been so distracted so as not to notice Valeria sneaking in after bedtime, and wondering, a little guiltily, if she’d seen anything about his multiversal comings and goings. But the lab was empty, and the security system confirmed that no one but him had entered – or left -- it that night.

He found Valeria instead in Johnny’s garage, asleep on a work bench using part of an engine as a pillow. She was clutching something that looked halfway between a wrench and a Sonic Screwdriver like a security blanket. Reed laughed softly, just looking at her.

“Alright, Val,” he said, scooping her up. “It’s well after bedtime for all junior scientists. Does your uncle know you were down here?”

She mumbled a negative, still half asleep as he hit the button for the elevator. He just held her on the way up, his nose pressed to her her hair, smelling of bubblegum shampoo and engine grease.

“Dad,” Valeria said sleepily, her arms wrapped around his neck. She yawned, sticking her face against his throat. “Why do you smell like Latverian orchids?”

“And how, young lady,” Reed asked, opening the door to her room and laying her down on the bed, “do you know what Latverian orchids smell like?”

“Uncle Doom keeps them,” Valeria said, rolling over onto her side. Reed pulled the blankets up over her. “He loves his orchids.”

She said it with a note of scorn. Reed huffed softly.

“Well,” he said, running a hand over her blonde hair. It always struck him, how much she looked like Sue. He remembered the first time he’d seen her – not this her, but the soul that Franklin had tucked away in that alternative universe, to keep safe and grow. Valeria Von Doom, the Marvel Girl. “Everyone has to love something, don’t they?”

“Even Uncle Doom?” Valeria asked, teasing.

“Even Uncle Doom,” Reed replied, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Sweet dreams, Val.”

“Reed!” Doom said, bounding down the castle steps to meet him, his cape billowing impressively in the wind. Reed wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to any Victor Von Doom smiling at him like that, let alone being so exuberantly happy to see him. “You’re late, you devil!”

“Apologies, old friend,” Reed said. It was something that had slipped out on one trip, accidentally, and then become a verbal habit. Even if he hadn’t known this Victor very long, it felt like he did. It was easy to imagine this Victor and his Victor combined into one, the arrogant boy he’d met in college growing into this man, so brilliant and full of life. “I’m afraid I got caught up in an experiment and I lost track of time.”

“No matter,” Victor declared, bringing a companionable arm around Reed’s shoulders and drawing him towards Castle Doom. “I figured as much. Come inside. I have something I want to show you.”

“A new discovery?” Reed asked, already feeling his curiosity begin to grow, excitement sparking deep within him.

“Reed Richards,” Victor said, spreading his hands wide as they entered the castle’s grand hall, “there are always new discoveries.”

Reed felt himself start to smile.

It was unfair of him, he knew. He loved his family more than he’d ever thought it was possible to love, on a scale he hadn’t known existed until the four of them had come together. A love that had only, seemingly impossibly, grown more with the birth of his and Sue’s children.

But he could talk to Victor, talk to him in a way he couldn’t with anyone else. He suspected the same must be true for Victor.

“No, what I’ve brought you today is a gift,” he said. He glanced at Reed with something almost like awkwardness on his face, but it must have been a trick of the light. No Doom was ever anything less than completely sure of themselves. “You might find it trivial, or sentimental, but when you described to me the members of your Fantastic Four, one name was familiar even to Doom’s ears.”

He produced from the folds of his cloak a slim movie case. There was a handsome blond man on the cover, posed so it looked like he was leaning against the title – Sparks Fly – and Reed recognized the face underneath his jauntily tipped pilot’s hat.

“It’s Johnny,” he said, delighted, taking the case carefully from Doom’s hands. “Oh, Victor – you got me one of Johnny’s movies.”

“You’re pleased,” Victor noted. There was a smug note in his voice but Reed felt himself more charmed by it than anything else.

“Extremely,” he said, flipping the case over to read the back copy. A romantic comedy about a pilot who keeps bumping – literally – into the same woman at different airports – well, it certainly seemed like a film his own Johnny would enjoy, no matter how much Sue and Ben made fun of him. “It’s a wonderful present, Victor. Thank you.”

“I thought that we could watch it together,” Victor said, clearing his throat.

Reed looked up to find Victor intently studying the grandfather clock. Reed wondered if he was keeping him from something, but he knew Victor well enough by now to know that he wouldn’t have made the offer if he didn’t mean it.

“I’d like that very much,” he said.

Doom’s castle was massive, with twisting hallways and more than a few secret passageways. Reed had had the opportunity to explore it back on his own world, when he’d seized it for himself, but he’d been lost in his own anger then, cold to anything but the technical details. In this castle, he could see the beauty of the woodwork, the intricacy of Victor’s security systems, the personal touches – several portraits of Victor’s mother hung in prominence throughout the castle.

He noted, also, how still this Castle Doom felt. It had slipped his notice during his first few visits, so overwhelmed by Victor himself, the way his presence seemed to turn the castle from mere stone into an extension of himself – the sheer force of Victor Von Doom refusing to be contained within just himself. But now, as Victor led him, straight-backed and proud, through the halls of Castle Doom, it struck Reed just how lonely it was.

Victor had his few servants. Probably he had far more than Reed had seen, but if so they lurked in the shadows. The staff deferred to Victor completely, and what conversations he had with them were short. Reed wondered if he received other visitors aside from himself, and felt fairly confident in his assessment that he did not. Even for a solitary man like Victor, the silence must have been crushing.

Was that why Victor had welcomed him so readily into his life? Was he simply lonely?

“Through here,” Victor said, ushering Reed through a pair of heavy oak doors.

The room he stepped into was more auditorium than den. It was a massive circular space, filled with plush green velvet seats. Two towering statues of Doom lined either side of a stage, and though a screen had been hung – presumably for the afternoon’s entertainment – it was immediately clear that this room was more used to hosting live performances.

“I’m very fond of opera,” Doom said, taking a seat. “It made sense to have my own theater built.”

“Of course it did,” Reed said, laughing, as he joined him. “Doesn’t everyone need their own opera theater?”

Victor lifted one regal eyebrow, even as the corner of his mouth twitched. “You dare mock Doom’s opera theater?”

“I would never, old friend,” Reed said, trying to school his features into a serious expression. “The marble statues of you are a very humble touch.”

Victor laughed, then, a real laugh, his head thrown back with it.

“I’m glad you like them,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll have a set made for you, for your own opera house.”

He extended one hand above his head and snapped his fingers. Instantly darkness fell, alleviated only by small green flames, each no bigger than a candle’s light, that hung an inch above the floor, illuminating the aisles the way a strip of lights in a movie theater might. Curious, Reed reached out a hand to cup one, then passed his hand harmlessly through it.

“Light without heat,” he observed.

“This is a place for creation, my dear friend,” Victor said, sounding almost offended at Reed’s surprise. “Here, Doom does not destroy.”

Reed looked at him, the proud of line of his profile as the screen lit up, and a smile stretched itself wide across his own face. He leaned back, settling into his seat, as he prepared to watch the movie.

At around the ten minute mark, Victor leaned in close, even though they were the only two people in the theater. He smelled of fine wood and spices, with something dark and flinty underneath, sharp and intoxicating.

“Is your Jonathan a better actor?” he asked, arching his eyebrows.

“Oh, no,” Reed said, laughing. “No, no. I’m afraid he’s even more atrocious.”

“That is unfortunate,” Victor said.

Slowly, like he was trying not to be noticed, his arm came up, settling along the back of Reed’s chair. He left it there, so close, but not actually touching, and there it remained for the rest of the movie.

He visited Victor in the days after he first learned of the incursions. It weighed heavy on him – heavier, perhaps, than anything had since the accident that had gifted and cursed his family with their fantastic destinies – and he could admit, at least to himself, that he was seeking comfort. It was a temporary respite, but he longed for it, and so he went.

He should have known better than to think Victor wouldn’t notice something was amiss.

“You’re distracted,” Victor said, gracefully lifting Reed’s knight from the chessboard.

“I’m just engaged in the game,” Reed demurred.

“No, it’s more than that – you’re agitated,” Victor said, staring at him with those sharp eyes. “Something’s not right. Tell me what troubles you, my friend. Perhaps Doom can be of assistance.”

He leaned away from the chessboard, his hands clasped together, waiting to hear Reed’s explanation. Reed, though, could only think about the blue tinged light that had been cast over his own Latveria, of Kristoff fighting, of another barren earth, of the very nature of the incursions themselves and what they meant for himself and this Victor.

The Reed Richards of this world was dead. He did not know if the versions of the others on this world had formed the same secret group without him. Perhaps they were working on their own solution as he and Victor spoke.

He had waited too long to come up with an excuse. Victor face grew cold.

“Something’s wrong,” he decided, voice sharp. “There’s something you don’t want to tell me.”

“A great deal many things,” Reed said. Frazzled, his nerves stretched too thin, he added, “Are we pretending now that you have been completely honest with me, Victor?”

It was a step too far. He knew that as soon as he said it. Something green and terrible flashed in Victor's eyes and his jaw tightened as he drew himself up, his chin tipped up regally.

“You dare cast aspersions?” he said. “Here, on my world? In my home? You are a fool. You think me so different from your native Doom. You treat me like some tamed pet. You think me defanged. You’re mistaken – I am still Doom, and my word is still law.”

The heavy gauntlet came down, hard, and the antique chessboard – beautiful and intricate, made of dark and pale wood so cared for over the years -- shattered beneath it. Reed didn’t flinch.

“Happy now, Victor?” he asked, staring up at him.

Victor took a deep breath, visibly composing himself. He turned away, shaking his head.

“I told myself when you first arrived that I wouldn’t let your presence affect me in this way,” he said. “You make me lose myself, you see.”

Reed got up from his seat, moving to stand behind him. He put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re assigning me too much power, I think,” he said. “Does Doom not belong to Doom alone?”

Victor moved like a flash. The next thing Reed knew he’d been slammed back against the wall, Victor’s arms on either side of him. There was an angry flush on his face, his eyes trained on Reed’s face.

“No,” he said, hoarsely. “Doom does not.”

Victor raised a hand to his cheek. The metal of his glove was cold as ice, just like always, but Reed didn’t flinch away. Reed didn’t move a single muscle. Time seemed to freeze for a moment, as Victor stared deep into his eyes, like he was searching for something, or like he was taking in the night sky.

His gaze fell to Reed’s lips. He leaned in.

“Victor,” Reed said, quietly. His lips brushed against Victor’s, not quite a kiss.

To his credit, Victor stopped. After a long moment, he even stepped back.

“As you wish,” he said, and his voice was thick with some unknown emotion.

He turned away from Reed, and the light from outside the castle struck his profile – the high forehead, the prominent nose and strong jaw. Victor had always had a noble sort of pull about him, a way of carrying himself that demanded respect.

He had always been handsome. Now he looked weary. He threw himself down onto the green velvet settee, his face turned away from Reed, every line of him radiating unhappiness, dark and heavy as a storm cloud.

“I apologize,” he said, terse. “That was – wrong of me.”

“Well,” Reed said, coming to sit beside him. “There’s another thing I thought I would never hear. Victor Von Doom, apologizing.”

Victor laughed a little, shaking his head. “I really must be a beast where you’re from.”

“Not a beast,” Reed said. “Not all the time.”

He reached over and settled his hand on Victor’s knee.

“It’s not that I’m not flattered,” he said. “You’re – you’re a very attractive man.”

“Richards,” Victor said wearily, “if you have any notion of ‘sparing my feelings’, I will tie your malleable body into knots and throw you to wild dogs.”

“Now you sound like my Victor,” Reed said. “I’m married.”

“I know,” Victor ground out. “Hence, the apology.”

“I love my wife very much,” Reed said.

“Oh, for God’s sake, of course you do,” Victor snapped. He got up from the settee and stalked to the windows, his hands clasped behind his back. “I’m sure you’re a perfectly wonderful husband and father and you do dreadfully pedestrian things like bring her flowers and never miss dinner and drive your children to their softball games in your flying car. I am aware, Richards, that you are married.”

I’m missing dinner right now, Reed thought, to be here with you.

“Well,” he said, after a long moment of heavy silence. “You got one thing right. My son does play softball, and I’ve been known to drop him off in the Fantasticar.”

Victor made a noise that might’ve been a snort, if such things weren’t beneath Doom.

“What?” Reed asked. “Was the Fantasticar too much?”

“Impossible,” Victor murmured, shaking his head. He turned to face Reed again, his face pensive. “Forgive me. Sometimes… Sometimes it is too easy to imagine that you’re him. I look at you and I see the man he might have become.”

“I see the same,” Reed said.

Victor hesitated a moment and then, with a sigh, he said, “Come with me. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

He held out one armored hand, his palm up. After a second, Reed placed his own in it. Those cold metal fingers closed around his hand almost tenderly.

Victor led him down a dark hallway, holding a lit candelabra before them. It cast eerie shadows along the wall, strange and elongated, seeming to mimic Reed’s powers. He had never seen this part of the castle. Victor had never brought him this way before.

He stopped so suddenly that Reed almost ran into his back.

“Victor?” he said, raising a hand to touch the space between his shoulder blades.

“What I am about to show you,” Victor said, glancing over his shoulder, “is something no one has seen for many, many years.”

He produced from the folds of his cloak a key, an intricate wrought iron creation that looked like something out of one of Reed’s children’s storybooks. It fit into the lock of a beautifully carved wooden door, as imposing as everything else in Victor’s castle, and with a click and creak the door swung open.

The room behind it was dark for a moment, and then every light in the place sprang up, a fire crackling in the hearth.

It, too, looked like something out of a fairy tale. The room was perfect, with dark wooden floors and antique furniture, a four poster bed hung with deep green velvet in the middle of it. It was clear, though, that what Victor said was true, and that nobody had been inside it for a long time. A loneliness hung over it, so deep with was almost tangible.

“Victor,” he said, turning in a slow circle, and that was when he saw the portrait.

It hung over the fireplace in great prominence. It was the picture of a young man, smiling both bright and somewhat awkward, arranged haphazardly on the very couch that lay before the fire. Reed recognized the face in the portrait; it was his own. A younger him, far more carefree – but still him.

“He stayed here one summer, in these rooms,” Victor said, staring up at the portrait. “I had this painted then. He was terribly embarrassed by it, of course. It meant nothing to him and I knew that, but I thought… I wanted…”

He trailed off, voice thick.

Reed stared up at the painting of his other self, the curl of his brown hair – his temples not yet gone grey – over his forehead, the somewhat self-conscious, silly grin on his face. He was seated on a green sofa, skinny and coltish with his long limbs, but Victor’s painter had made his own teenage awkwardness look endearing, somehow. There was a light shining in his eyes. It looked very different from the austere portraits of Victor that hung in the castle.

“No,” Reed said, reaching to take Victor’s hand again. “No, embarrassed, he might have been, but – Victor, look at his eyes. He was happy. It meant something.”

“I miss him,” Victor said, turning to look at Reed. “I miss him terribly, all the time.”

“Even when I’m here?” Reed asked.

“Especially when you’re here,” Victor said.

Reed leaned forward, his forehead resting against Victor’s.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes closed.

“So am I,” said Victor.

They stood there for a long moment, just the two of them before the fire. Then eventually Reed sighed and took a step back.

“I have to go,” he said. He didn’t apologize for not being able to stay longer. He knew Victor wouldn’t want it.

“I’ll escort you out,” Victor said.

“No,” Reed said, settling a hand at his elbow. “I can find my own way out. You should stay here for a while.” He glanced up at the portrait. “Stay with him.”

“Reed,” Victor called, right before Reed slipped out the door. He was still standing before the roaring fire, staring into its depths with his hands clasped behind his back. The sparks threw odd, haunting shadows across his face. His mouth was turned down in a frown. “The Doom on your Earth. Does he – would you -- could you…?”

Reed hesitated a long moment, waiting for him to finish, but he didn’t. He thought about answering anyway, for a brief moment. He glanced up at the painting one last time, meeting his own eyes, looking at the happy light shining in them, the bright smile. He would have been looking, he knew, at an imposing figure standing just behind the artist, one who would have been looking back at him with pride.

“Goodnight, Victor,” he said instead.

At the end, he visited Victor, one last time. The weather in Latveria fit his mood: the skies were dark with storm clouds, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

Victor, too, was in a dark mood. He was short with Reed, his answers clipped, and every so often he would rise from his chair to prowl around the room like a predator in a cage.

It was not how Reed had wanted this last visit to go.

“Your tea is getting cold,” he said.

“Let it,” Victor said.

“Don’t be in a mood,” Reed said.

“Do not order Doom around,” Victor said, but it lacked his usual bite. He turned towards Reed. “You think I do not know that you intend for this visit to be your last.”

Reed sighed and put down his teacup.

“I thought,” he said, “I would like to avoid any unpleasantness.”

“Unpleasantness,” Victor repeated scornfully.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Reed said.

“You wanted to spare yourself. You didn’t want to force yourself to explain,” Victor said, “but your guilt hangs around you like a shroud. I can see it as plain as your face. You and your secrets…”

“I’m sorry,” Reed said. There was little else to say. “Believe me, please, Victor, that if I thought there was any way you knowing would help my situation, I would tell you in an instant.”

Victor rested one arm against the banister, regarding Reed with his calculating gaze.

“I could pry your secrets from you,” Victor said idly. “Chain you up in my dungeon and torture you until you were so desperate for release you’d tell me anything I wanted.”

“Victor,” Reed chided. “Don’t you think I’ve figured out by now when you’re flirting with me?”

That earned him a shadow of a smile. It quickly fled.

“Tell me one thing, Reed,” Victor said. “Just one thing, and I’ll ask nothing more.”

“Alright,” Reed said, after one moment. Alone with Victor and facing the end – what could one secret cost him? “One thing.”

“Will I see you again?” Victor asked.

“Oh, Victor,” Reed said. He cupped Victor’s face and leaned in, until their foreheads were pressed together. He took a breath, steadying himself, before he said the three words he disliked saying the most. “I don’t know.”

Everything ended. And then, everything began again.

The final confrontation with his own Doom was hard. The decisions Reed made afterwards were harder, but necessary. The multiverse needed to rebuild, and Reed was tired. He needed to rebuild, too.

It was flawed, perhaps, to believe that sending his own Doom back to their own Earth believing that Reed was dead would produce similar results in him as had occurred on Earth P-1837, but Reed had to hope.

At the very least, he hoped Doom would consider the restored face a gift.

It was healing, at first, to travel the worlds as Franklin and Owen crafted them. Here there was no discord, no destruction. Nothing to fight. There was only discovery, unfurling all around them. Just discovery, and his family. Reed was content with it.

So much had happened lately. It was nice, to have some quiet. At night he slept next to Sue, and most of his dreams were peaceful.

It was on one of the newly created worlds, after months of exploring, when something happened that reminded him of Victor.

Franklin had insisted as the afternoon worn on that the Future Foundation camp out in one specific valley. It hadn’t, at first, looked like much, no different than the other planes and valleys they had explored that day, and certainly not as picturesque as one particular babbling brook, but as Franklin had created the world, it was voted that he should get to choose where they camped.

Vil and Wu were still sulking.

As night fell, the reason behind Franklin’s insistence became clear. The moon rose over the valley and one by one, a hundred thousand delicate yellow flowers began to bloom. The children all reacted immediately; Tong and Onome shrieked and laughed in delight and Val put her hand to her chin and said, “Interesting,” while Bentley declared flowers “boring” and “gross.”

“Ta da!” Franklin proclaimed, sweeping his arms out towards them.

“Oh, baby, they’re beautiful,” Sue said, hugging Franklin as he beamed with pride.

Reed ended up walking deep into the valley while the children played and Sue helped Dragon Man set up their camp for the night. Memories seemed to play among the flowers like music. He remembered that night so vividly when Victor had wanted to show him his prized night blooming Latverian orchids. He’d been aware that he missed Victor. He missed a great deal many people, though. Suddenly his loss stood starkly out among the rest.

Reed turned in a slow circle. He took in their fragrance, so subtly different than the blossoms in Victor’s greenhouse.

“Franklin, where did you get the idea for these flowers?” Reed asked, approaching him. He was sitting on the ground with Onome, who was helping him to make flower crowns.

“I saw them once in a book Val had,” Franklin said. “I thought they were pretty. The book said they only bloomed at night, though. Do you like ‘em?”

“Yes, I like them very much,” Reed said.

Franklin grinned at him. He draped the flower crown he’d made over the top of Turg’s capsule and then started to make another one, his fingers quickly weaving flowers together – one after the other, links in a chain. Reed reached up to rub at his chin.

“Franklin?” he asked, getting down on his knees in front of his son. “Do you think you could recreate a specific universe for me?”

“Sure, Dad,” Franklin said. He reached up and put his crown of yellow orchids on Reed’s head. “I could give it a try. What do you want in it? Flying sea turtles? Giant robots? Godzilla?”

Reed laughed and shook his head. “No, I think we’ve had far too many Godzilla worlds already. How about this? I’ll give you the multiversal coordinates where it used to reside.”

“Boring,” Franklin mumbled under his breath.

They’d discovered early on that, gifted with the coordinates of an old universe, Franklin’s powers could tap into the memory of what a universe had been and restore it. Franklin didn’t enjoy it as much as creating whole new universes – he compared it to the multiverse repairing version of doing homework – but it was a useful thing, especially when armed with Reed’s mental map of the multiverse.

It was certainly easier than telling his young son that he wanted him to restore the universe where the good Doctor Doom who was his friend kept a locked room with a portrait of Reed in it.

“Do you want me to go with you, Dad?” Franklin asked, after the universe had been restored.

Reed reached out to ruffle his hair, smiling wryly.

“Not this time, son,” he said. “But thank you for the offer.”

He tried to tamp down the well of anxiety he felt as he set out for Victor’s newly recreated world. The problem, of course, was that recreating universes wasn’t an exact science. Even with all of Franklin’s power, there was only so much he could control. Nature could only be pushed and prodded so much.

He had no idea if Victor would remember him. He had no idea if Victor would be the same. Perhaps, in recreating the universe, they’d broken the fragile spell that made this Doom somehow different.

The castle looked the same, tall and imposing. Reed made a show of landing the ship, hopefully alerting the dwellers within to his presence.

The castle doors opened and there, at the top of them, stood Victor. The mask unfolded from his face, revealing the claw mark scars across his eye. His gaze was flinty and regal, and his mouth was set in a frown.

“Well, old friend,” he said, and then the corner of his mouth twitched, belying his stern expression. “Don’t you think you have some explaining to do?”

Reed found himself smiling.

“Let me in,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”