Baxter Building Brawl Who: Dr. Doom, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Kristoff von Doom Where: Baxter Building When: Thursday, 12/06/12 What: Doom pays Reed a visit. Tantrums, scuffling, and lab wrecking ensue (of course). Rating: PG-13
The metal digit stabbed at the holographic buttons. The system recognized the code, sliding the panel back to reveal a number of small items on delicate pedestals. Dr. Doom grabbed one roughly and shoved it into his cloak.
He was barely keeping a storm at bay currently. His system had given him a matter-of-fact warning that his blood pressure was quite high right now. But why would it not be? The emotions raged, and he let them swirl and build in the back of his mind, forcing his more analytical, disciplined mentality to the forefront as he chose another device from his hidden arsenal, trying to calculate for all possible variables swiftly.
Sue had been right.
She had ran her test, and ran it again. She told him the results and Doom had still been disinclined to believe it. He had been wroth with her, snapping in irritation that he would do the test himself before cutting off communication with her.
Doom ushered mental commands from the suit to the castle security, letting those necessary know he was leaving. It was all he had the patience for. He stalked by the door of the laboratory where he had performed the genetic analysis. The lights flickered brokenly, their dim sputterings revealing glimpses of ruined chaos, glass shards and broken machinery strewn across the floor. The scheming ruler had not been happy to use the hair from Reed Richards that he had been saving for such a thing as a genetic testing. Now it was done and his initial outlash had caused a great deal of suffering to the inanimate objects in his vicinity.
Yes. Done. Now he had a single minded thought, all the energy of his emotional storm driving his stiff, precise actions as he chanted for his portal to open. The portal seemed to falter, but he narrowed his gaze, mind sharpening on the task. The energy obeyed, forced to his angry whim.
~~~~
HERBIE hurried up to the opening door, the polite, cheerful robot ready to greet whomever he met. “Hello! Welcome to the Baxter Building, home of the... Oh my.” The robot halted, looking at the armored ruler. “Your Majesty Doom! Is Dr. Richards expecting you?”
Doom spared the robot the briefest of glares before striding forward, intent on his destination.
HERBIE hurried after. “Perhaps if you could wait, I will be happy to inform him that you are here! Please, a moment, if you...!” But all he received was Doom’s retreating green cloak, the robot not getting the slightest word from the angry ruler. The robot skid around a corner after him. “Dr. Richards is really a busy man! If it is truly so important, I can relay information for you!”
Doom had stopped in front of Reed’s lab door, gaze swinging over the security for it analytically. He lifted his hands, fingers curled. Lightning laced between the digits. HERBIE tried to protest. “Oh, please don’t!” But it was too late. Doom plunged his hand into the panel by the door. He ignored the robot entirely as he made swift work of the system, dragging wires out. It started making a weak alarm, but this died quickly with a final rip. Then the man stomped forward, metal fingers wrenching into the seam and shoving the protesting, thick metal doors to the sides. The metal gave a loud, unpleasant groan.
“You could have knocked...” HERBIE said weakly.. But then the Latverian leader stepped within the doors, turned and promptly wrenched them shut.
Doom treated the waiting Reed just as he had HERBIE, focusing his attention on one other task, He pulled one of the devices from his cloak and slammed it over the door’s seal. Two of his gauntleted fingers lift to his forehead, chanting quietly. The device expanded, a square web rushing over the door. Metal hissed as it melted, and then runes hummed over the thick metal brightly, rushing outward and forming a glassy seeming barrier over it.
He jerked his palm free from the door, leaving a glowing, red mark of super-heated metal to slowly cool. The storm within the man was obvious as he turned his glare toward Reed, his voice a vehement growl.
“Where … is … your... worthless... father!”
~~~
“Dr. Richards?”
“What is it, HERBIE?” Reed asked with slight impatience, but no intolerance.
“Victor von Doom has arrived.”
Reed blinked at the news, looking up from his current project. “Show me.” He said definitively, and the super computer rushed to his bidding, showing security feeds from the elevator, and where HERBIE’s small robot body was trying to deter the metal man. Reed’s face was suddenly taken by a very sober expression-- not quite a scowl.
“Where are the others? Susan? Why weren’t we alerted when he entered the Baxter Building?” He asked HERBIE, standing from behind his work bench and watching as Doom proceeded through the hallways directly towards his lab. At least he didn’t seem to be interested in any of the other members of the Fantastic Four-- Reed supposed he should be thankful for small miracles.
“They all left early this morning. Ben said he was going Christmas shopping and then Jonathan lit his hat on fire and--”
“That’s enough, HERBIE.” Reed said quietly, taking off his lab coat and carefully hanging it up. He’d heard all he needed-- Sue, Johnny and Ben were out of the building, which meant they weren’t in danger of getting hurt. That was good... very good.
Reed rounded several of his work benches, turning off bunsen burners and anything with gas just as Doom began pounding on the lab doors. Reed would have shut off the electricity in the lab to try to minimize damage, but for the fact that shutting everything down in such an uncontrolled, abrupt fashion could be just as dangerous as leaving it up during what was sure to be a confrontation.
“Dr. Richards, Doom is attempted to access the laboratory-- should I take preventative measures?”
“No, HERBIE, let him come.” Reed said, walking to a hidden safe which he accessed with his palm print, retinal scan and voice identification using a very old nursery rhyme for the password: “A wise old owl lived in an oak/ the more he saw, the less he spoke/ the less he spoke, the more he heard/ why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?” The safe door opened and Reed reached inside calmly.
“No?” HERBIE asked, confusion evident in his pre-programmed voice. Which struck Reed as odd, and amusing. He couldn’t remember programming HERBIE with confusion. “But Dr. Richards, he’ll gain access to the lab in a matter of minutes.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, HERBIE,” Reed said matter-of-factly, taking a large object from the safe and wrapping the strap connected to it over his head and shoulder to help support the weight of what looked to be a very large gun of some kind, “it’s that you can’t actually stop Victor von Doom from doing anything he has his mind set on. All you can do is try to mitigate the damage he leaves in his wake.” Reed said.
Experimentally, he took aim on a wayward beaker and fired, a stream of blue, nebulous energy racing from the barrel of the “gun” to find its target... which suddenly found itself transformed into a very small, fluffy, pink bunny rabbit. “Ah good, the matter transmuter still works. Though I should think about recalibrating it to blue-- since we’ll be having a boy, after all.” He mused to himself, though HERBIE made a memo to remind him later. Reed closed the door to the safe and turned to the door where Doom was finally making his way inside, and took aim lazily.
He wasn’t going to fire unless Doom insisted on making this a fight-- and besides, very big weapons usually did the job by looking more threatening than they actually were.. though Reed could hardly count on that tactic to work against Doom.
“Are you mad?” Reed asked as Doom burst into the laboratory. “If I had been doing an experiment in here, you could have killed all of us and half of Manhattan by barging into a sealed, protected environment like that.” That was just poor safety procedure and Reed knew that Victor knew better.
~~~
“Mad?” He stepped forward, barely giving the gun a glance. In the corner of his vision, his system was analyzing it, but his barely restrained fury was focused on the weapon’s holder, teeth biting each word out. “I am well beyond mad.”
There was not much height difference between the two, and neither was afraid of the other. Even though Victor was staring at Reed with the enraged glare of a mad bull, both of their eyes were working and analyzing the other.
“Your father! Where is he?” he demanded again, his fingers curled like claws close to his hips. Little sparks of electricity were playing among his left fingertips, and there was a small mechanical hum in his suit.
~~~
Reed supposed he should have assumed as much-- whether Doom meant he was beyond insanity the way Reed implied or beyond angry; both seemed to have evidence towards their theories.
“What do you want with my father?” Reed asked with only slight confusion. It wasn’t abnormal for Doom to make ludicrous requests because of some honor he felt he was due, or some slight that he felt had been directed at him.
It didn’t even cross Reed’s mind to tell Victor that he honestly had no idea where, or when his father was.
~~~
In this case, it was a slight--except this he was taking as a very very personal offense.
“I believe I am going to kill him,” he said resolutely. It was not the best thing to announce. The Latverian leader was still in a barely restrained fury, however. Reckless behavior was sure to follow.
He went to walk past Reed, his glare moving slowly over the lab. “Ms. Storm said he was here not long ago. I intend to trace him with or without your cooperation.”
~~~
“Dr. Mrs. Richards.” Reed corrected. Normally it didn’t bother him when people called Sue by her maiden name-- the alliteration alone made it rather unforgettable-- but Doom of all people knew quite well that Reed and Sue were married and that her last name was Richards. And that Ms. was completely the wrong title for her, considering her educational background. So that meant Doom was doing it to press his buttons, which meant Reed would have to retaliate, if only slightly.
“I don’t know where he is.” Reed answered honestly, “But can I ask what offense he’s brought upon you that requires his execution?” He asked, trying to hide his incredulity.
~~~
Doom didn’t like being corrected, even when he knew calling her a Ms. was incorrect. It was difficult calling her Mrs. Richards, or even Dr. Richards. Hell was going to have a cold breeze on that day.
He wheeled on Reed’s at his last words. “Of course YOU don’t know where he is! That is because YOUR FATHER has a obvious penchant for ABANDONING his children at every turn without ANY INCLINATION to tend to his RESPONSIBILITIES!” His hand flexed angrily, a crackle of energy sounding with his booming baritone. “Doing so to one of MY CITIZENS is UNFORGIVABLE and I will have that THOUGHTLESS, IRRESPONSIBLE TRAMP PAY FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE!”
The dam was starting to dangerously crack.
~~~
Reed was... confused above all else. He kept his weapon aimed at Doom, though it was clear that his mind was working at the greatest speeds to understand why in the world Victor von Doom would suddenly start to care about Reed Richards’ childhood. He had certainly never shown the least interest before.
It all clicked when Doom said he’d done the same thing to one of Doom’s citizens.
Wait no, that wasn’t right. It did the exact opposite of click.
In his confusion, Reed briefly lowered his weapon, staring at Doom in absolute befuddlement.
“...Huh?”
~~~
WHAM!
Were one to later ask Doom, he wasn’t sure at what point his fist decided to meet that puzzled expression on Reed’s face. Just suddenly it was. Doom’s next thought was that he wasted a bit of energy doing so. Reed was not damaged by mere punches. It mattered little. Once a fight started, a different mental set possessed Doom’s enraged mind entirely.
It happened in two fluid steps. The first strike was out of pure emotion, enraged that Reed could be so clueless. The next dozen thoughts were clear and calculating, carried out with a cold ferocity. Disarming was priority, and at this close of quarters Reed could retaliate easily and better disrupt his spells. His hip turned, off hand slamming the ponderous gun’s point downward, and in one smooth motion he pivoted to the edge of his foot, the electrified palm driving for Reed’s shoulder joint. He was already moving to stomp his other foot down on the gun, with easily enough force to crush it.
~~~
Reed was hit before even his quick brain had time to process what was going on-- it was still caught up in what Doom had said about his father. What had Nathaniel Richards done that could so infuriate Doom?
Unfortunately Reed didn’t have time to reflect on what Doom said any longer- since Doom had already escalated the situation. Leave it to Victor von Doom to skip past the part where they could negotiate like the two intelligent human beings that they were and to move directly into fisticuffs.
Reed’s jaw went rubber under the impact of Doom’s fist against his face, sliding, dropping and stretching off to the side. By the time he got his jaw back where it was supposed to be, Doom had already knocked the gun from his hands and hit him in the shoulder with a jolt of electricity that made his whole body shudder, seize, and thrash, all flailing rubber arms that barely held their shape. It nearly dropped him to the ground, but Reed reacted quickly and wrapped one of his noodle arms around Doom’s, closing the circuit and sending whatever electricity Doom continued to pump into Reed back into the metal armor that Doom wore.
You would think after all these years the man in the metal armor would stop playing with electricity- given that metal was an excellent conductor, and rubber was a fantastic insulator.
~~~
It did sting more for him than it did Reed, but there was a comfortable amount of insulation in his suit. Already, he was starting to think like he did in chess--several moves ahead and what pieces he could afford to sacrifice.
A flick of the toe and the gun was flipped toward one of the work areas, clacking loudly against a work console. The Queen’s Gambit. He suffered the shock, but it was an easily traded move, a simple thought ceasing the electricity. Another thought activated the forceshield, but the rubber man’s arm was already within it, tightly coiled. It crackled uncomfortably around them, but was preventing Reed from getting a hold of the rest of him. Their ears were filled with the obnoxious buzzing of the rough, sphere around his person, the energy flaring and jumping nervously. The static like shocks and pressure pushed against the noodly arm, but not nearly enough to hurt someone with gelatin bones.
Necessary deflection of flank maneuver.
Not near enough to hurt, that is, unless the shield was shorted out on purpose. Mental commands issued to his armor, and the force field shifted in closer to his untangled arm. Doom straightened his hand, fingers spearing through the opposite point of the sphere. It broke and exploded outward, a concussive force flashing out with a deafening clap.
First pieces were more than traded.
~~~
One of the best and most underappreciated parts of having a malleable body such as Reed’s was the oft-forgotten fact that his bones never broke, his skin never cut and there was no such thing as a concussion or whiplash when your skull and neck moved seamlessly to protect your brain and spinal column without the brittleness and hard permanence of bone in the way. In the same way that wooden roller coasters were safer than steel because they had a certain amount of give, so too did Reed’s body.
Which was good, because the way that Reed went flying across the room to slam back into a series of lockers that held spare clothes, lab coats, safety goggles etc would probably have broken the neck of a less flexible man. Reed, however, hit the lockers like a jar full of jello and quickly pulled himself together, sending a fist nearly the size of large pumpkin slinging towards Doom’s armored face while his personal shield was down.
~~~
Most people knew better than to go against Victor von Doom toe to toe, especially when he was wearing his armor. He was a formidable fighter, and King that he might be, he could brawl among the best.
Mr. Fantastic was a different matter entirely. It wasn’t like fighting a normal person at all. None of the fatal points existed, nor was his movement easy to predict in the least. Also there was a very annoying problem concerning Bruce Lee’s teaching of the ‘shortened lever’ principle... Which meant that if Reed flung an arcing hit as he was now, he could, at the last moment, shorten his arm, effectively shortening the radius and increasing its speed.
Which meant.... Reed could hit hard. Very hard when he wanted to with that rubbery body of his.
Four... Doom was a little more than 188 kilos in the armor, and he knew it would do little to stop it. He could dodge, or... He glanced swiftly to where he was likely to land from the strike. One hand laid flat, palm down, a fist resting atop it. His eyes closed as he started to chant.
Three... Even with padded armor, the strike caused him to grunt through his chant. His attention nearly faltered again as he hit the wall. He fell down, kneeling. The cloud cleared from his mind, vapor in too much focused heat, his continued rage honing his focus.
Two... He paid no attention to Reed’s advance, a chill filling the air. The lights around him flickered, frost etching out from his armored feet.
One. The area effect of frost rushed out, the cold forcing across the floor, causing a console to snap at the sudden temperature change. The pipes that ran up the wall creaked ominously. But he didn’t want Reed to be concerned about the pipes. He wanted him to want to avoid that burst of freezing cold.
~~~
Reed didn’t advance, however. That was one of the eternal benefits of being able to stretch across vast rooms without any detrimental effects to his person. He didn’t have to be anywhere near an enemy to attack them, and he didn’t have to advance to form an attack. Reed Richards was a ranged weapon.
But none of that mattered in this moment. In this moment, Reed was just beginning to move to avoid the freezing cold rippling across the room from Doom when he heard the ominous sound of pipes creaking-- pipes that fed a supply of nitrogen necessary for his experiments-- nitrogen that was highly volatile...
“Victor! Stop this-- you’re going to kill us both!” Reed demanded, pulling himself off of the floor and elongating his legs to step over the freezing floor and reached out towards Doom, trying to push him away from the damaged pipes.
~~~
Reed Richards... Always so noble and predictable.
So he didn’t fight when Reed shoved him away. In fact, took a few extra paces back as the other scientist looked at the pipes bending under the stress of the temperature change. Of course, that was enough to raise Reed’s suspicions, Doom cooperating in moving out of his way. But by then Doom was steadily backing up, one arm raised.
The rockets shot out, careening toward the pipes with a shrill whistle.
“Not both. Just you, Richards.”
~~~
Honestly, Reed should have expected that kind of reaction. Victor couldn’t see the nose on his face (metaphorically speaking) and his scope of thought was always so small, so limited. So he would be able to kill Reed Richards in one explosion-- of course that was as far ahead as he thought.
He didn’t know what had brought on this particular tantrum of Doom’s, but whatever it was, Reed was highly unamused and all together done with this unceasing, unreasonable argument. He had one arm and a leg wrapped around the pipes like bandages, holding them together with an air tight seal as his other arm snaked out to find a more permanent fix to the problem when the missiles launched and his eyes widened.
Quickly, Reed spread himself out like a dome over the compromised piping and took the brunt of the missile and its subsequent explosion right on his back with a shout of pain. Once the smoke cleared, it was plain to see that Reed had, in fact, survived. The back of his lab coat was completely obliterated, but the unstable molecules beneath held and barely even looked dirty. The skin on his face and neck was covered in soot and ash and his hair was a little singed, but he must have ducked his head under the rest of his body at the last minute, using the unstable molecules of his costume to protect the more vulnerable parts of him from the heat.
“Enough.” He said with a determined look back at Doom, stretching one arm across the lab to a valve labeled ‘N’ and turned it off, cutting off the supply of gas through the pipes. Reed unwound himself from them, picking up his discarded weapon off the floor as he pulled his left arm back to his body. Reed leveled the gun on Doom.
“There are three options before us, Victor. You can tell me what I seem to have done to you this time and we can try to make appropriate reparations. You can leave. Or we can continue this confrontation at which point I will turn you into a stuffed animal and gift you to Johnny and Ben for Christmas. The choice is yours.”
Reed was done playing and he rarely ever bluffed. Everything that he said, he meant.
~~~
That was where the two were alike. They were also alike in that they did not give up easily. Where they differed was in why they chose to be stubborn. Victor von Doom was still in a highly agitated state, which showed in the malicious glare of his eye as it stared through the grimacing mask toward the gun-wielding scientist.
Then he pointed up.
Unfortunately for Reed, the explosion had temporarily blinded him. All the while he had been defending himself from the explosion, Doom had been busy throwing things. The little mines were blinking an angry red on the ceiling above Reed. Two were right on the nitrogen pipes above the stop off and others directly on the sprinkler system.
“Sins of the father, Richards,” he said, tone low. The metal fingers snapped.
The pipes exploded, havoc raining down from above. Now Reed was in a corner, and Doom intended to keep him there. He leaned over, gauntlets digging into one of the heavy computer consoles even as the ceiling lit up violently and the emergency lights turned on. Fissures of gas started pouring down and the sprinklers started gushing water and powder. With a shriek of tearing wires, the console came up, and Doom hurled it at Reed.
He didn’t have him checkmated yet. He had one other thing to line up first. He sidestepped, hoping the vapors would cover Reed from getting a good shot at him, hands starting to weave a fireball.
~~~
Though the gas kept him from striking any blows, that didn’t mean Reed was down and out yet. Reed reached up one hand to break the sprinkler head off one of the sprinklers and turned its spray towards Doom. With any luck, the onslaught of water would short his suit, then Reed could get to work cleaning up the mess that Doom had created in his laboratory.
~~~
The water sent a cascade of steam up from the fireball, Doom turning his face aside from the blinding vapor. “Too late, Richards!” he growled, holding it aloft as the flame doubled in size and began turning a blue-white. The steam flood everything in his vision.
Then, just as he was about to hurl it at the scientist, he felt a tug on his cloak behind him.
Just as his rockets had blinded Richards earlier, the steam was now fully blinding him. He looked over his shoulder and uttered a harsh, German curse, able to see just enough to figure out the thin thing reaching through the floor was Reed’s arm. He had stretched it through the pipes and flooring, and now had a tight hold of Doom’s cloak. There was a stretching sound, and Doom was snapped backwards.
The spell shot upward, and the rest of Reed’s limbs bent the pipes and water toward it, dousing the floundering spell. His pull forward to do that worked perfectly to yank Doom into where he had ripped up the console. The metal armor scraped over the wires. Reed quickly released his hold as Doom’s drenched armor completed the circuit.
It was hard to tell whether the exploding spell or the crackle of electricity was worse. By the time the lab’s venting systems pumped out the smoke and steam, Doom had stumbled clear of the electricity, on one knee and hands on the floor, seeming quite dazed.
~~~
Reed made sure everything else was secure before he was in front of Doom again. “There,” he panted. “Now are you through being angry or are you...”
~~~
Doom was up in an instant uppercut to his chin. His armor was completely shorted out at this point, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t move. But Reed had had more than enough at this point. A brief scuffle and soon Victor was sitting on the floor, glaring at Reed and hardly able to budge a finger.
“FINE!” he roared. “Get OFF of me!”
He was quickly untangled, Reed seeming just as glad to get away from him. Victor stretched his neck with a few pops as soon as he was untangled, and sat there trying to catch his breath through the humid mask as he glared at Reed. But he was spent and obviously done at this point, testing the movement in his left fingers and folding his legs up cross-legged with as much dignity as he could manage... which was little at this point.
~~~
Reed sat on the floor across from Victor, having untangled himself from the tyrant and repaired what could be repaired. He was exhausted as well, but loathe to show it, so simply sat and took time to rest and recover, though he kept a wary eye on Victor. While the fight itself was over, the altercation was surely just beginning. Something had set this off, and Doom had yet to clue Reed in on what had happened.
“What is it you’re not telling me, Victor?” Reed finally asked after a few moments of quiet and calm.
~~~
Victor was using some of those spare few minutes to regulate his heartbeat, which had become erratic. Honestly, had he not upgraded his suit’s insulation, he wouldn’t have a pulse at all at the moment. Once regulated through his meditation, it became much easier to catch his breath. He tested his fingers again, moved the shoulder as slightly as possible, hoping Reed wouldn’t notice it. His knee didn’t feel great either.
His suit normally prevented movements that would injure him via being over-extended or bent wrong. However, as soon as the system shorted out, it released all constricting mechanisms, as it was designed to do. Even the breathing vents on his cheeks and before his mouth had opened to allow more airflow, but it was humid and made it feel all the more difficult to reach a comfortable stasis.
Small pains, though, compared to his pride. His eyes were still staring meditatively forward when he answered.
“You cannot have him.” He paused to pull in another slow, even breath. “Kristoff is my son.”