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Reed wakes up with a splitting headache and a sharp stinging pain around the right side of his neck. His eyes take awhile to adjust to the light above him – he’s used to the darkness in his bunker by now – and when he finally gets his brain working he realises he doesn’t know where he is.
With that very worrying thought he shoots up into a sitting position and realises he was lying in a very large and very opulent bed. He blinks several time in surprise, running his hand along the silky sheets.
Think, Reed – what’s the last thing you remember?
He had been at work, though frankly he was always at work since he lived in a naukograd; a ‘science city’ void of civilians and populated instead by scientists and other officials. The one he worked at was in Siberia and was run by SHIELD though formerly it had been, of course, held by the Soviet Union.
He had been assigned there by SHIELD to carry out top-secret research and development related to nuclear and biological weapons. They had wanted him to work aboard one of their Helicarriers, but he had declined and instead asked for a very remote assignment. He needed to be alone after what happened – to dwell over his past mistakes and perhaps even atone for his sins in solitude.
I had been returning to my bunker, he thinks – his memories becoming clearer the longer he is awake – and I had heard someone come up behind me.
I’d turned, expecting to see one of the other scientists but instead it had been… children?
One of them had hit me over the head and I’d fallen to the ground and the other had kneeled down next to me and injected me with something.
Evidently he has been kidnapped. But as to how anyone – let alone two children – had broken into a secure and remote closed city was beyond him. It was virtually impossible to approach the ‘city’ unseen – the wastelands of Siberia do not exactly offer much cover.
I should probably get up and look around, he thinks, before my kidnappers come back.
*****
Once upon a time, Reed Richards had had a girlfriend and two close friends – one could even say the four of them were a family, of sorts.
The four of them did everything together; ironic how that was what tore them apart.
When Reed finally had the chance to explore the cosmos – as he had often dreamed of, as a scientist is want to – he decided to take his family with him. Before they were set to leave, though, the military pulled funding for his project to the stars. He had seen his dreams begin to slip through his fingers… so he made a reckless and stupid mistake, one that would cost him everything. He convinced the others to help him break in and steal the ship and go up with him into space. The ship was nowhere near ready – there were hours of safety tests it hadn’t passed yet – but he had pushed them into doing it by lying and convincing them it would be safe. His selfish desires had overridden what should have been most important: concern for his family’s safety.
As their ship passed through the Van Allen belt, it was bombarded with almost lethal doses of cosmic radiation causing them to crash-land on Earth. Miraculously the four of them survived, though they were… changed.
In the wreckage of the ship, Reed was the first to regain consciousness. As he looked around and saw what he had done, what his carelessness and ego had turned his family into, he fled.
He had never considered himself a coward before, until that moment.
He can only be grateful that Sue, Ben and Johnny managed to salvage something out of the wreckage he turned their lives into. They’re doing well for themselves. He sees them on the news when they manage to get a signal in the city. They dress in colourful costumes and protect the world… they’re heroes. Perhaps if he’d stayed he would be one too – he wouldn’t deserve it, though, not like they do. Heroes don’t do what he did. They don’t run and hide, and they don’t hurt their families the way he hurt his.
Before he joined SHIELD, they came looking for him. When they found him, they demanded to know why he had run away, and they begged him to come home with them. Even looking at them hurt – he didn’t want to be reminded of what he had done to them. So to make sure they left him alone, he lied. He told them that he had purposefully sent them into the Van Allen belt – that he had wanted to test the effects cosmic radiation would have on the body and so had used them all as test subjects. He doesn’t think they really believed what he told them, but it had been enough to infuriate them into leaving him be.
After that he decided he might as well do something useful in the world rather than stewing in his own bitterness so he joined SHIELD’s scientific division and requested an assignment that would keep him far away from his former family.
So that was how he ended up in Siberia. Now, of course, he needs to work out how he got from Siberia to wherever he is now.
*****
The first thing Reed does is pat himself down. He is wearing the same clothes he was in Siberia – a special thermal bodysuit designed by him – though he notices the tracker sewn into it has been cut out. His lab coat has been taken too – assumedly because of the contents of the pockets which had been full of random gadgets and scrap metal that could have aided him in escaping.
After taking stock of himself, he takes measure of the room. It’s a fairly large and luxurious looking room – the sort of room that might belong in a fancy hotel like the Ritz. Along the wall to his left is an arched window with long sweeping velvet curtains. He makes his way over to it and leans close to the glass, looking out.
He realises that the room he is in is actually quite high up – the town he can see outside is relatively obscured by how low down it is. He also works out that he is in a… Castle? That revelation has him pause because that most likely means he isn’t in Russia anymore. Russia does not boast many castles – palaces, yes – but not the sort of medieval castles that this one seems to be.
I must be in Eastern Europe, he thinks, I definitely wasn’t unconscious long enough for them to take me all the way into the west… though I suppose I could be in Scandinavia although–
The sound of the door being unlocked cuts through his hypothesising, and he rushes to sit back on the bed.
He watches cautiously as the door opens and two figures step inside. Though perhaps step is the wrong word, as it seems to him that one shoved the other in.
As they stand facing him, he recognises them as his captors back in Siberia.
His original remembrance was correct, they were children. A younger boy and an elder girl. Both of them dressed in an oddly formal way.
And both of them he recognises… and not just as the people who kidnapped him.
Oh God, he thinks – these are Victor’s kids.
*****
Before Reed messed up and ran away from his mistakes instead of facing them – causing his family irreparable emotional damage – someone else did the same to him first.
Back when he was a college student – before he met Sue or Johnny – he had a boyfriend. His name was Victor Von Doom and he was a fellow student at Empire State University. He and Victor were immediately drawn to each other – they were both geniuses who recognised for the first time in their lives an equal in the other. They were fascinated with each other and quickly their comradery evolved into something more.
Victor was an exchange student from Latveria, and often Reed worried what would happen when their college days were finished, and the man had to return home. When he inquired about it, Victor always reassured him he would be staying in America. “There is nothing left for me in that infernal country,” he had said, “and although the United States is a cesspit of corruption and despair worse than Latveria, at least you are here.”
So Reed had been lulled into a false sense of security. He had worked hard in his studies and even assisted Victor in some of the man’s experiments (even though he did not quite understand them) and he was happy… they were happy.
And then the accident happened.
Reed had been away when the explosion rocked the college. He’d been in California with his father when he received a call from Ben (who had been his friend even back then) to tell him that there had been an explosion in Victor’s laboratory and that he was badly injured. Of course, he had hopped right onto a plane back to New York in a complete panic only to arrive to Victor having already left. The man had been expelled, he found out later, and had retaliated by blowing up his laboratory which had all his research he had been doing for the military. Then he had simply vanished – back to Latveria, assumedly.
It’s not like Reed would have cared that Victor had been expelled – he would have even forgiven the destruction he caused at the university – but he did care that his boyfriend of almost four years had simply abandoned him and ran off when he had expressly reassured Reed that that would never happen. Worse, he had run off and not left a single clue to his whereabouts and condition… the man could have been dead for all Reed knew.
Now, though? He thinks he understands.
When he’d been lying there in the wreckage of their ship, surrounded by the result of his ego, he had understood how easy it had been for Victor to just run away and hide. It had been so easy, even, that he had done it himself.
Unfortunately, whilst Reed had ran away and decided to live in the shadows for the rest of his life, Victor hadn’t resigned himself to that existence so easily. After the man disappeared off the face of the Earth for a while, he resurfaced in Latveria where he led a violent revolution against the King – going as far as killing the man and usurping the throne for himself. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Victor decided to start moonlighting as a supervillain which caught SHIELD’s attention which in turn caught Reed’s attention.
He had been so thankful, at the time, that he was stationed in Siberia and that he barely saw anyone else on a day-to-day basis because he can’t even begin to imagine how awkward it would have been for him to explain to everyone that yes, he did know Doctor Doom and actually they were boyfriends back in college.
Luckily, in recent years, Victor seems to have toned down the whole supervillain act – no doubt in part because he adopted two Latverian orphans: Kristoff Vernard and Zora Vukovic. Reed had been somewhat surprised – when he’d found that out – because Victor had never come across as a particularly nurturing figure, but he supposed he hadn’t seen the man for years by that point so didn’t really have the evidence to make a proper judgment.
Sometimes, when he sees Victor and his family on TV or in the newspapers, he muses – in a sardonic way – how funny it is that he and Victor seem to have completely swapped lives since they last saw each other. Reed used to be the family man with huge ambitions whilst Victor was the lonely man who dedicated himself to science and solitude. Nowadays, of course, it’s the other way around.
*****
“I suppose I can safely conclude that I am in Latveria, then?” Reed says to the children when they simultaneously decide not to speak first.
The boy and girl – Kristoff and Zora, he reminds himself – exchange a cautious glance. Kristoff elbows his older sister and she glares at him in turn. Oddly, he is reminded of Sue and Johnny’s sibling antics and a wave of longing passes through him.
“Doctor Richards,” Zora starts, seemingly nervous when she is not out to kidnap him, “my brother and I mean you no harm.”
He raises his eyebrows at her. “You kidnapped me,” he points out, lest they forget.
“Well, we had to get you here somehow,” Kristoff tells him as if that should be obvious – as if kidnapping was his usual go-to-method of communication with others; though for all Reed knows it might be, considering their father’s activities.
Speaking of…
“Where is your father?” he asks them both in a stern manner as if he is their parent.
The children look surprised. “You know who we are?” Zora asks, seemingly caught off guard.
Reed huffs, slightly impatient, “Of course I do; though why Victor sent his two children to do his dirty work is beyond me.” And why Victor has chosen to make contact with him now after all these years is also beyond him – perhaps the man wants Reed to build him some devastating weapon he can unleash on humanity for no other reason than to boost Victor’s ego.
Again, the children exchange a look between them – clearly they know each other very well, to be able to communicate silently so efficiently. However, they are still children, and Reed has had hundreds of hours of training in interrogation techniques, hostage situations and kidnappings so he thinks it is safe to say that no matter how well they communicate without words he will be able to see through them.
“Victor doesn’t know you’ve taken me,” he surmises from their silence, “where is he, then, if not here with you?”
Please don’t say he’s off causing more trouble in the world – that’s the absolute last thing I need today.
“Father is in Symkaria today,” Kristoff tells him without any further prompt. “That’s why we took you – because he wouldn’t be home watching us.”
For some reason, that amuses him. “Yes, I imagine he is a bit of a helicopter parent,” he says.
Confused, the children stare back at him blankly. “I don’t know what that means,” Zora says, and Kristoff nods in agreement beside her.
“It’s a term people use to describe parents who keep a very strict eye on their children and everything they do,” he explains. “They’re called helicopter parents because they ‘hover overhead’ of their children like a helicopter.”
Reed isn’t quite sure how his life worked out to produce this moment – he doesn’t know why he’s sitting on the edge of a bed in Latveria and explaining to Victor’s children the naming conventions of parenting styles. And yet… it feels nice. He’s missed Victor all these years and talking to the man’s children is the closest he’s felt to him in years.
There was a time, he thinks, when I thought that if Victor ever had any children it would be with me. But I suppose life has other plans.
“Children,” he starts, standing up, “I hope you don’t think me rude for asking, but why am I here?”
That seems to brighten them both up and they suddenly look quite excited. “We wanted to meet you, Doctor Richards.” Zora tells him with wide eyes, and Kristoff nods enthusiastically next to her. “Father speaks very highly of you–”
“And he doesn’t speak highly of anyone,” Kristoff adds.
Zora nods. “Yes, exactly!”
Reed hates to admit that hearing that sends such a fond feeling through him that he almost stumbles from the weight of it in his chest. “What… what does he say about me?”
“Oh, lots of things,” Zora chirps happily, “he says that you’re his only intellectual equal–”
“That you are the only American person he likes–” adds Kristoff.
“That you have superpowers, and that he loved you very much!” Zora finishes and then she and Kristoff look up at him excitedly. “Doctor Richards can we see your superpowers?”
Reed, unfortunately, is still stuck on the “he loved you very much” part of her sentence to process the latter part. He has missed Sue, Ben and Johnny all these years, of course, but Victor… he had always missed Victor most of all. They just so effortlessly understood each other – it was like they’d been two halves of a whole. And as a result their separation made him feel like he was missing something fundamentally important to his being.
“Doctor Richards?” Kristoff echoes his sister. “Could we see you use your powers?”
“Hmm?” he’s startled out of his thoughts. “Oh… yes, I suppose if you want to.” He’s starting to get the impression that this is less of a kidnapping and more the result of two excited children left to their own devices which is arguably more terrifying considering these are Victor’s children.
They nod eagerly and he shows off his powers by stretching his neck and arms. The children watch him with wide eyes and make slightly awed noises – he isn’t too sure why because his powers aren’t particularly interesting; perhaps they have never met anyone with powers before.
“How are you able to stretch without ripping your clothes?” Kristoff asks him curiously. “Has it something to do with the unstable molecules you designed?”
He’s surprised that the young boy has heard of his creation but perhaps it was one of the many things their father seemingly told them about him. “Yes… did your father teach you about them?”
“Oh, yes,” Kristoff says, happily, and goes on to explain in great detail Reed’s own invention in a way that has him quite impressed. As the boy talks, he finds himself smiling. He can’t quite remember the last time he smiled.
“Kristoff,” the girl says with a sigh – clearly she is used to hearing her younger brother go on random tirades. “Don’t get distracted from the plan!”
“Plan?” Reed echoes, slightly concerned. He still has no idea why they have kidnapped him though admittedly he is more reassured than he was when he woke up. Kristoff and Zora are clearly sweet children who value their father’s opinion… even if they do take that value too far and end up kidnapping a man they once heard their father say in passing he admired.
“Don’t worry, Doctor Richards,” Kristoff reassures him, perhaps noticing his wariness. “It’s not an evil plan – father says we’re not allowed to make those yet.”
He smiles weakly. “How reassuring.”
Victor returns to the Castle early in the morning hours. He is drained and exhausted and so very tired – not just physically but mentally, too.
How have I gained such power and yet I am still unable to best the demon Mephisto? I have everything I ever wanted in this life save my mother’s freedom – I have succeeded at everything and still I fail her.
Boris meets him at the back entrance of the Castle. The man does not ask how the battle went – he knows Victor inside and out; he knows when not to push. Instead he says, “Master, the children have insisted on staying up and waiting for your arrival home – I tried to dissuade them otherwise but unfortunately they can be as stubborn as their father.”
He smiles weakly under the mask. Kristoff and Zora do not know of his battle for Cynthia Von Doom’s soul every year, it is something he has kept from them. They are too young to worry over their father and he does not want them to live every day with the knowledge that their grandmother’s soul is trapped in hell. He can barely live with the knowledge himself.
“Very well,” he says, “take me to them.”
Boris leads him through the Castle to the children’s rooms and along the way Victor makes sure to remove his mask. The mask is for others to fear, not for his family.
“Master,” Boris says, as they navigate the darkened corridors, “I fear that perhaps the children have been up to some unseemly business in your absence.”
“Why ever would you think that?”
Boris levels him a look that suggests he wishes to say “because they are your children” but instead the man replies honestly. “My daughter tells me they skipped their lessons, and that they have been running through the secret passages all day.”
Hmm. Curious behaviour, but not exactly out of character for either of them. His children are often prone to skipping lessons and running around wildly which is why he has told them to use the secret passages, so they are at least not bothering others with their rambunctious behaviour. He says as much to Boris, but the man does not seem very convinced.
“I am sure if they have been up to trouble it will have been nothing serious,” he tells the man to reassure him. “Zora can usually curb her brother’s wilder impulses.”
Boris purses his lips. “We can only hope so.”
As they enter the wing of the Castle where the children’s rooms are, Boris turns to him suddenly. “Victor,” the man says, seriously, and even he is caught off guard by the depth of feeling in the elder’s voice. Boris so strictly sticks to protocol – insisting on calling him Master – that the use of his given name throws him slightly. “I hope you know how proud I am of you… how proud your parents would be of you.”
He scowls. “Proud of what? Of failing to save my mother yet again?”
Boris sighs, reaching out and placing a hand on Victor’s shoulder. “No matter the fate of your mother’s soul, they would be proud of what you have done for our country. But more than that they would be proud that you have not hidden yourself away from the world – that you have not let your pain and trauma take over your life. They would be proud that you are allowing yourself to heal.”
Unconsciously his hand drifts to his face.
Boris removes his own hand from Victor’s shoulder and reaches out to move Victor’s hand away from his face. “Your physical scars mean nothing, Victor. The fact that you show them to us is only a testament to how much you have healed.”
“I–” the words stick in his throat slightly. “I – thank you, Boris. But it is you and the children who have allowed me to heal – my… family.”
Boris smiles at him. “Go,” he says, patting him paternally on the cheek. “See what those grandchildren of mine have been getting up to in your absence.”
*****
As soon as Victor sees his children he knows that Boris was right and that they have been up to some nefarious business or other.
“Hello, father – how was Symkaria?” Zora greets him politely, an innocuous look plastered across her face as if she could never do any wrong.
“It was fine,” he replies vaguely – keeping with the lie he told them because obviously he was not really visiting their neighbouring country, but the children have no idea of that. “Why are the two of you not both in bed? It is the early morning.”
“We wanted to wait for you, father,” Kristoff says, excitedly. “We have a surprise for you!”
“Oh?” he says, brow furrowed, “and why is that?”
His children exchange a look. “You have been sad recently,” Zora tells him. “So Kristoff and I wanted to find a way to make you happy again.”
He closes his eyes briefly. “Oh my children,” he sighs, after a moment. “You make me happy – I do not need anything else.” He did not realise that he had let slip his emotions leading up to his battle with Mephisto – his sadness a product of his inevitable failure against the demon.
“Wait till you see our surprise, father!” Kristoff tells him, confidently, pulling his arm and leading him into their room where he sees that the secret passageway is open.
Almost unwillingly he is dragged through the passageway by his son with Zora following them. He is a stern parent, but Victor will be the first to admit that he is weak when it comes to telling them no. He is very tired and wishes to retire to bed but instead is being led through the labyrinth of secret passageways that exists in the Castle because he cannot muster the energy to deny his children his attention.
Kristoff makes a sudden turn and exists the passageway into one of the Castle’s empty guest rooms.
Except it’s not empty. Not today.
For the second time in barely half an hour, Victor is caught off guard.
“Reed?”
The man – Reed Richards – looks up at him in surprise from the book he has open on his lap. “Hello, Victor.”
“I–” he’s speechless.
He has no idea why Reed is here or how he got here. Well… he supposes he can make an educated guess to how Reed got here – evidently it was the work of his children – but the last he checked Reed was in Siberia.
“Your children are quite colourful characters, Victor,” Reed notes, seemingly quite casual at the prospect of being face-to-face with the man who walked out on him before turning into a so-called supervillain. “They take after their father, I suppose.”
“Reed,” he finally chokes out. “What… how did you get here?”
“Oh, your children kidnapped me,” Reed hums, unconcerned. “Like I said, they’re colourful characters.”
Victor rounds on his children. “Kristoff! Zora!” he snaps at them. “Explain yourselves!”
It says a lot about his children that they are not at all phased at his reaction and still retain their original excitement. “We wanted to surprise you!” Kristoff repeats the same words as earlier.
“We knew you liked Doctor Richards,” Zora explains, helpfully, “because you have told us many times and we have seen the room with all the surveillance in it so we thought we would bring him to you!”
He closes his eyes, exasperated and not even really sure where to begin with that.
“Don’t worry yourself, Victor,” Reed tells him from across the room. “I’m fine albeit as confused as you are.” Then he looks Victor over properly for the first time and his eyes catch his face and he seems surprised; Victor flinches. That seems to harden Reed’s expression and the man says, “Oh for the love of God, Victor – please tell me that those scars are not the reason you ran off and abandoned me!”
“I–” he can’t exactly deny it.
Reed sighs loudly. “Of course.” The man stands up, “well – this has been enlightening but now that you are back and can wrangle your children I would have to ask you to return me to Siberia.”
For some reason, this saddens him. He does not wish to admit to weakness – other than his family – but he has missed Reed very much in their years apart and he isn’t sure that he wants the man to leave just yet.
“Reed,” he says, almost softly, “I… it is good to see you after so long. Perhaps you would do me the honour of staying for a day or two – we have a lot of catching up to do, after all.”
Reed studies him for a couple of seconds, as if he thinks this is all part of some larger evil plan which he supposes he can’t blame the man for considering his reputation.
Finally, he says, “I suppose that would be acceptable. You may have to send my excuses to SHIELD, though – perhaps you can tell them you’ve kidnapped me and won’t give me back until they give me my own lab; I would be quite in your debt if you did that, I’ve been asking for years.”
Despite his tiredness, he grins widely; how he has missed Reed. “I’m sure Doctor Doom could arrange something.”