There's this episode of Fantastic Four, World's Greatest Heroes where Doom's changed bodies with Reed, so Reed gets a look at his face without the mask, and then afterward says he feels only pity for him after seeing how ugly he is ...something like that, I'm not going to go back and double-check the quote. Anyhow, that pisses Doom off way worse than anything else he could have done, and he's all, "DOOM WILL NOT BE PITIED, CURSE YOU RICHARDS, I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THIS!"
So I was talking with my co-writer friend about it, and she said she was really amazed at what a dick Reed was being. And then I got to thinking about it, and this happened: It is the simple story of how Johnny finds something Reed's written about Doom, and he posts it without his permission on , and then some stuff happens.
The Fantastic Four, and The Avengers, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.
"Hmm, what's this? What're these?" How annoying can one guy be, bobbing around the room and getting into everything? "Ooh, what's this? Eh, just more of Reed's equations." That would be pretty damn annoying, when it's Johnny Storm and he's been drinking Red Bull all morning.
"Thought you just burned off the caffeine in your system. Your flame-y nature and whatnot. – Can ya sit still for a minute, Firefly?"
"Caffeine? Nooo." There he goes digging again. He's making a goddamn mess of Reed's desk. Susan's going to give him hell when she sees it (Reed probably won't even notice). "That's alcohol," he says brightly. "Say Benjy, there's supposed to be a plan here for an Interdimensional Molecular Something-Or-Other, Reed said could I go get it for him. You seen it?"
"No. Stop goddamn digging around over there."
"I think I..." Dig, dig, flutter-flutter of papers going everywhere. "No, maybe this... – WAIT, WHAT'S THIS?"
Johnny turns around, clutching a wad of papers. "Ben, did you know about this?"
"I won't now, unless you tell me what it is."
"Some kind of a story. – Reed writes stories? – Let me see..." Flip-flip of pages. Johnny reads. "'Young Victor clutched his head. "Motheeeerrrr!" His cries of agony echoed through the gypsy camp.' Huh? Victor? Victor who?"
Okay yeah, Ben knows what it is now. "It was an assignment," he says. "You remember that Relationship-Building thing Susie made him go to last year? Reed told me about it: He was supposed to write about someone he had conflict with..."
DOOM?" Johnny leers. "This is about Doom?"
"Put it back."
Johnny snerks. He reads. "'The young genius stared, horror-stricken, into the mirror the doctor gave him. His heart literally felt like it would burst.' – Boy, Reed can't write worth squat, can he? – '"My fa-aaa-aaace," he cried, feeling abject horror.' – Way to work the adjectives there, Reed! And nothing says feelings like repeating letters over and over again."
Ben swipes. "That's Reed's."
Johnny dodges. "I just want to read it." He ducks another grab. "I'll put it back. Just let me..." A page drops onto the floor. "'What was the young man to do? So intelligent, and yet forever overshadowed by the intellectual superior who lived just down the hall?' – Oh my god, if Doom saw this..." He flips. More pages fall. "Or this..."
A grab from Ben. "Give it back!"
"I will. Just a sec." A dodge from Johnny. "Just hope I don't burn It..." He flares and the corner of a page chars. "Hate to lose this piece of amazing writing. The world needs to see it. Just hope I don't..." He flares again, bigger this time. "Uh-oh." Little bits of ash fly away as the rest of the pages blacken in his hand.
Reed is gonna be pissed. "You realize I hafta clobber you for this?"
"No, it'll be okay." Johnny bops across the room again, over to the computer on the desk. "He saved it as a Word document, right?" Tappity-tappity go his fingers on the keyboard. "I'll just print out another... Or wait..." An evil sound comes into his voice. He looks at Ben. "Y'know this isreally a great piece of writing. We shouldn't keep it all to ourselves." He turns back to the keyboard and taps some more.
Yeah, Reed's gonna be pissed. "What're you doing?" Ben goes over to see.
"The Tragic ...Uh, make that the Angsty Adventures of Doom... Characters: Richards, R., Doom, Dr. Fandom: Fantastic... – Hey Ben, did'ja know we have our own fandom?"
"No seriously..." He's getting nervous now. "What're you doin', Matchstick?"
"Author Name: Anonymous Friend. And post." Johnny hits a key. "There, Ben, check it out." He looks at the screen. "It's already getting hits!"
There're these things called Tumblrs, apparently. - Technology, go fig, huh? Always coming up with something new. – They're like message boards, or like chat rooms maybe, only with more pictures, and a whole lot more porn. It was the day he he found the one with the Reed-and-Doom pictures on it, that Doom kidnapped Reed. ...Okay scratch that. It was the day he kidnapped him in March. In 2013. The time on the 31st doesn't really count, not coming as close to midnight as it did.
He was just looking at the Tumblr and his eyes were bugging out. "Hey Alicia," he was saying, "you think that's even possible? I mean I know he's stretchy, but..."
"Blind honey, remember?" His girlfriend rolls her eyes. "Why don't you show Johnny?"
Only he never did because that's when they found out about the kidnapping. And it was a good thing The Avengers were as close to the Embassy as they were, because he and Johnny couldn't go. They were way too busy disabling the anthrax-bomb in the air ducts, and then that was when the lady from downstairs got nabbed by the Doom-bots. They didn't get the whole thing cleared up until way past dark, and then all the Avengers stayed to have dinner.
"It was weird, you know?" Iron Man's almost as bad as Johnny, when it comes to never sitting still, but at least he brings food. That shwarma stuff he and Reed picked up on the way home's pretty good, and he's real generous with the beer he brought to go with it. "He had him hanging upside-down, and he had all these knives out. He kept talking about fangirls, and how he wasn't emo. – Stuff that made no frikken sense. And then Reed kept saying, 'I have no idea what you're talking about, Victor.'"
"Turned out Bruce had read the fanfic," Natasha says. -
Everyone looks, and Banner turns some kind of shade in between pink and green. "Not my fault. Hulk likes 'em." –
"He showed him this place in Chapter 5, where Victor goes on and on right after his mother died, and then Doom said he'd only been a baby so how could he have said anything. And then he laughed, and said that obviously proved he was smarter than Reed, because at least he didn't make obvious errors with canon. And then he untied him and said he could go home. He said he pitied anyone who couldn't write better than that. – He also mentioned death rays and fangirls. I've got SHIELD on that."
Johnny grabs another beer. "So how'd he know we posted it? IP address?"
"He's got a camera in here." Stark points to the spice rack next to the microwave. "You want me to disable it?"
"Wait, not yet." Johnny goes in the room. He comes back lugging something green and soft-looking. "Plushie. I got it off Etsy." He holds it up with its round-eyed, armored little face pointed at the camera.
Stark laughs. "That'll piss him off."
"Oh this is nothing." Johnny snerks. "I just wish I could be there when he gets the Reed Richards body pillow I ordered him."
