Marvel Loops
Doctor Doom 1.2

Doom lay unconscious in his holding cell, muttering to himself. Every awake Looper stood in the holding area, staring at him worriedly.

Spider-Man and Squirrel Girl stood off to one side, chatting softly, casting worried glances at the unconscious warlord. All four Hulks clustered together, looking ready to fight at a moment's notice. Professor X, Cyclops, and Phoenix stood together, looking nervous, while Thor stood alongside the Invisible Woman, staring into the cell fiercely. Hawkeye nervously played with an arrow, while Ms. Marvel and Wasp hovered in midair, ready to attack at a moment's notice. Iron Man, War Machine, and Rescue stood off to one side, worriedly talking under their breath, while Maria Hill and Nick Fury just glared at the unconscious warlord.

And sitting down on a folding chair in front of the cell was Captain America, his mask off, sighing wearily.

"Okay..." he said. "Like I said, I was Awake for Doom's Awakening loop. And while I was on ice at the time, a VERY uncomfortable place to wake up in, what I do know is how the story started. Much the same as Reed and Doom's rivalry did in the baseline, but with... a small difference..."

The previous loop...

"Reed, I can't thank you enough for helping me design the device to help me interpret my strange dreams," Victor Richards, son of a gypsy, said to his comrade.

Reed Von Doom, European aristocrat come to study in the states, just nodded as he fiddled with the wiring on his dream viewing device. "Of course. It's only natural to seek out the help of your betters. And the chance to contact the contact the realm of dreams, the realm of the psyche... why, what man of science would pass that up?" he chuckled.

Victor nodded, looking over the blackboards lining one corner of the room. "Yes. It should be amazing... but Reed, I think you got some of your math wrong here."

Reed froze. "...What," he said.

Victor nodded. "Yeah. There's a miscarried number or two here, and..."

Reed cut him off. "Victor..." he said, scowling, "I appreciate that the dreams we're looking at are yours. But this is MY device. MY genius on display. Do you really think that I wouldn't check my math?"

Victor raised up his hands defensively. "I'm just trying to help," he said.

"Maybe I do not wish for help, hm?" Reed said, glowering at him. "Now shoo. I had thought to get your observations on this, but you are clearly not of an intellectual level capable of understanding it. I have your dreams recorded, I will work from those."

"Reed..." Victor protested.

"SHOO," Reed said, scowling. "I will bring you my results when my experiment inevitably succeeds."

"Okay, okay..." Victor said, heading out.

Current loop...

"Oh hell..." Invisible Woman shuddered, the story WAY too familiar. "Let me guess. It didn't go too well for Reed?"

Cap nodded. "The 'dreams' were, from what I gathered, Doom's baseline memories. The machine blew up in his face after Nightmare discovered him, but not before he caught a glimpse of a very familiar armor..."

"God help us if he's Dreaming and Awake..." Nick Fury muttered.

"Jesus..." Hawkeye said softly.

Cap nodded. "After that, Reed disappeared, and Doom eventually went on a trip into space, testing a new cosmic energy shielding, with his best friend Benjamin J. Grimm, the love of his life, Susan Storm, and her kid brother, Johnny Storm... Four guesses what happened then..."

"DOOM became Mr. Fantastic?!" War Machine said, startled.

Cap sighed. "When I met him, he preferred to be called Elastiman. But everyone kept calling him that because..." he looked over at Invisible Woman, who was looking more and more ill. "...because the news media heard Sue calling him that as a pet name. He eventually gave up and went with Mr. Fantastic full time."

"Oh God..." Invisible Woman muttered, going over to a wall and leaning against it. "Please tell me that..."

"You had children with him, Sue," Cap said, the gathered heroes giving him a startled look. "Three of them."

THAT made Sue turn around, staring at Cap in shock. She fully remembered her miscarriage, still had nightmares about the child that never was. "Th-three?" she stammered.

Cap nodded, closing his eyes. "Franklin and Valeria lived. The third, Kristoff... was killed by Squirrel Girl."

"Wait. WHAT?!" Squirrel Girl shouted, shocked. "I would NEVER...!"

"You would in that reality, Doreen," Cap said softly. "Because in that reality, you had the personality of Cletus Kassady. Of Carnage."

Squirrel Girl staggered, falling to her knees. Everyone was left in shock by this, save for Nick Fury, who was also Awake in that loop. The veteran agent just sighed, closing his eyes.

Cap started to speak again, only for another voice to interrupt.

"I believe, Captain, that I can take over the story from here," Doom said. The other heroes turned, startled. Doom was now standing up, staring at them, his face barely visible through his hood. He slowly removed his mask, revealing his face, everyone there taken aback by the sadness in his eyes. "My... I suppose they are my 'real' memories... have returned..." he said, grimacing at his next words. "So... so I understand if you want to take precautions to make sure I'm not lying to you..."

The heroes stared at each other uncomfortably for a long moment, before Iron Man pulled something out of his subspace pocket. It was a small device, the shape of an apple. He pressed a button on it, and it glowed with an orange light.

"Element of Honesty," Iron Man explained. "Or at least a replica of it. During one of my Equestrian loops I figured out how to mechanically reproduce the effects of the Elements of Harmony, up to and including the big rainbow redemption laser of doom." He gestured to the apple. "While this thing is active, anyone who is in its presence is completely incapable of lying."

Doom nodded. "I suppose that will have to suffice..." he said. "I will tell you the story of the... Loop, you called it?"

Nick Fury nodded. "Short version is this: the multiverse is broken. Yggdrasil extends farther than even the Asgardians knew, and works more like a big computer than anything else. To keep the multiverse from collapsing in on itself, every reality has been set on an endless time loop by the Admins, who are essentially the Gods, but at a power level that outclasses even biggies like Galactus and the Tribunal. There's always at least one person 'Awake' and aware of the time loops, that person being called an Anchor. Others can Awaken as well, as all of us and now yourself prove. Sometimes people from other realities either drop in or switch places with someone, and sometimes..."

"...sometimes realities will rearrange themselves, creating a variation like the one I lived through," Doom said, nodding. "Who is this world's Anchor?"

"Classified," Nick Fury said, staring at him.

Doom stared back a moment, and nodded. "...Fair enough," he said. "At any rate, the previous Loop. Our adventures as the Fantastic Four proceeded much as they did with Reed in charge in normal reality, with Susan and I becoming ever closer..."

Invisible Woman suddenly shook her head. "I can't... I can't listen to this..." she said, disappearing. The door opened on its own, the sound of Invisible Woman's footsteps going down the hall.

Cap and Iron Man quickly glanced back at Doom, not missing the pain in Doom's expression as Invisible Woman left. "A-Anyway," Doom said, continuing. "Things proceeded as they did normally, up until the first confrontation with... with Reed. He had... a different style than... that I do..."

None of them could miss the pain in Doom's voice as he compared his own villainous acts to Reed's in the previous Loop. What had happened to him, anyway?