The Four were coming in under the white flag of truce this time; not only had they radioed it in, but the monitor showed Mr. Fantastic's silly-putty arm stretched out to about three meters, waving what looked like a tablecloth.
Everyone looked to Doom, who tapped the communicator key, and said, "It would be churlish to deny them entry under the circumstances. This is a day of celebration. Let it not be said that Doom cannot be gracious, even to an enemy."
Uh-oh. He was talking about himself in third person.
Most of the world believes that Doom wants Reed Richards dead. That is where they are mistaken. Subjugated, defeated, ground down into the dirt, made to grovel, yes, but dead, no. Ever see a pair of cats fighting? They don't fight to kill each other. They fight to win. And that is how it is between the two of them.
Doom hates Richards with such intensity that it is part of his very being, and if Richards were to be killed, it would leave an abyssal void, not merely in his life, but in his very psyche. If Reed Richards dies—permanently, that is—I can only hope that Doom isn't anywhere near something irreplaceable, because he will undoubtedly go on a destructive rampage, before falling into a depression so profound that no pharmaceutical could possibly lessen it.
Hating Richards is part of what makes him who he is. He needs Reed Richards—and, although I doubt Richards knows it—he needs Doom as well. They were created to oppose each other—the two smartest men in the world, the most alpha of alpha males in the scientific community…
I waited, slightly worried (on account of the third person usage), with everyone else as the Fantastic Four were granted entry, directed to a landing area for their 'Fantasticar', scanned, and escorted to the smaller dining room —smaller in that it can only seat a hundred comfortably—where we had been having lunch. Finally, they reached us, and as the Invisible Woman was part of the party, all the men rose at her entry.
The Thing looked truculent, the Human Torch looked sulky, Sue Storm Richards looked embarrassed, and Mr. Fantastic looked suspicious, as well he might, since Doom has not mounted a direct attack against them in years.
"Ah. Richards. You are come upon us in a happy hour. In one week, all of Latveria will be celebrating my marriage." He turned to me. "My dear, I don't believe you have ever actually met Dr. Richards. Richards—my bride, Joviana Florescu. And—in token of this occasion—." Doom removed his right gauntlet "I offer you my hand. 'By heaven, my soul is purged from grudging hate.'" he quoted, lightly.
I don't know if Richards is a literary sort of man. If he were acquainted with Shakespeare's Richard III, he would have recognized that line. It's from a scene in which a dying king tries to get all his warring factions to patch up their feuds before he dies. Deep insincerity is the order of the day, and everyone swears forgiveness and eternal love and friendship, which lasts exactly as long as it takes for the king to breathe his last. Most of them end up murdering each other. The look of suspicion on Richards' face did intensify, but that might not have been due to any familiarity with the play.
Doom stood there, his hand extended, and waited. The silence in the room seemed to become an entity unto itself, something enormous that squatted on the table between them and prevented them from reaching each other. Someone coughed, and I saw the Invisible Woman draw her foot back and kick her spouse sharply in the ankle.
"Ah!" he uttered, and, prompted, reached out and took his long-time rival's hand. The tension in the room evaporated. Smiles and nods broke out around the table.
"What brings you here today?" inquired my lord. "Come to offer your congratulations?"
"Yes!" Sue seized on that. "And our best wishes to you, of course." she said to me. "We hope that you will both be very happy. In fact—"she said to Doom, "Can you spare her for a while? I was hoping to have a chance to talk with her, woman to woman."
"I have no objections whatsoever." he demurred. "Unless you do not care to, my dear?"
"I was about to excuse my mother and myself soon in any event." I stood, and so did my mother, and all the men bobbed up as well. "We have an appointment down in the city. Would you care to come along?"
"Sure—that sounds like fun." she smiled brightly, if somewhat insincerely.
As soon as we got out of the room, and the door was shut behind us, Sue turned to me and said. "I'm so sorry about this. Believe me, it wasn't my idea, but Reed insisted."
"For the last three years," I commented. "I have assumed that everything I say will be overheard and recorded, and I've spoken accordingly—at least while I'm indoors." She got the hint, rolled her eyes, and nodded.
"Come on. The appointment's with our dressmaker. Let's go pick me out a wedding dress."
"You mean this really is as last-minute as it seems?"
"Yes…" I introduced her to my mother as we left the castle and headed down the hill.
"Do you think the castle will still be standing when we get back?" asked my mother, frivolously. "After all…we don't know why you came." She let it trail off.
"Oh, I'm sure it will be!" said Sue, and cast a glance back over her shoulder. "We really did come in peace." She took a deep breath. "We're here to find out if you need rescuing, first off. You did look a little bemused on the broadcast."
"Need rescuing?" cried my mother. "Of all the things!"
"No, but thank you." I said. "I admit I really don't like all this sudden attention, and the grandeur makes me very uncomfortable, but it seems like I'm going to have to put up with it if I want to be with him."
"I am very glad to hear you say that, dear one." said my mother into the silence that followed. "I didn't think you would marry for the sake of fame or money, but it's good to hear it, all the same."
"You don't think you might have been indoctrinated or enchanted or anything like that?" Sue asked. We continued walking down the hill to the city.
"No—and I've encountered enough examples of that over the course of my career—the Puppet Master, Mesmero, people like that—to recognize the symptoms. My psyche would be rebelling subconsciously, and I'd be having screaming nightmares. My dreams are untroubled. There isn't any thing unnatural about this." Just phenomenal sex…
"You really mean it….That makes the next part of this much harder, then." said the Invisible Woman.
"What's the next part?" I asked.
"Well, the second reason we're here is to try to talk you out of it, for your own good. Reed says he knows things about Doom from back in college that would make it extremely unwise for any woman to marry him, but he won't tell me what they are, and Ben says he doesn't know. I think I've done my part by telling you that, and I'm not going to say anything more about it. You're a grown woman, you've known Doom for years now, and as far as I'm concerned, you're entitled to make your own decisions. Is this the place? "
"Yes." The walk down into Doomstadt is a short one. The city itself is best described as picturesque and full of old-world charm—of the genuine kind, not the tourist trap sort. The houses are half-timbered and white-washed, with window boxes full of flowers, and the streets are cobble stoned.
Bisitra's dressmaking studio had a midnight-blue evening gown in one display window, shimmering with palettes and dyed feathers that started out a moonlight silver at the top, shading deeper as they went down to the hem, where they matched the dress perfectly. The other window had a woman's suit in cream colored tropical-weight wool.
"Nice." commented Sue. "Does she get her stock sent in from Paris?"
"No, she does it all herself." answered my mother. "She's been making both our clothes for years now."
"Is she responsible for that suit you're wearing?" the Invisible Woman asked her, as we went up the steps and entered.
"Yes."
"It's very well-cut."
Bisitra was pacing the floor and wringing her hands. "I know why you're here, and I have to tell you that I can't do it. I just can't. I can't make a suitable wedding gown in one week's time. Go—take a plane, fly to Rome, or Paris, or—."
"It's okay, Mom. Calm down." said her daughter Kira. Kira is a professional translator and a good friend of mine. She had a whole stack of bridal magazines, each one the size and thickness of a telephone book. "Of course you can do it. Sit down and grab a book; I'm just going to put the 'Appointment Only' sign on the door, or we'll have half the country traipsing through."
As she passed me, Kira jerked her chin in the direction of Sue, and hissed, "What is she doing here?"
"Being nice, if kind of interfering. It's her husband's fault." I said, under my breath.
"It would be. She's not going to destroy the shop, is she?"
I think most costumed adventurers would be shocked if they knew what a lot ofpeople really think of them. It isn't 'Oh, here they come to save the day,' but 'Oh, no. How bad is the property damage going to be?' New York alone suffers several billion dollars a year in losses due to the activities of costumed adventurers every year, and that doesn't even begin to address the psychological effects.
That's the sort of thing people always say something should be done about, but they never do it.
Except for me, of course…
We began leafing through Kira's stack of magazines. I soon noticed a pattern to the conversation:
"I like this one. Look at those sleeves!" said Kira, and passed the publication around.
"Noooo." Sue looked at it. "She's so tall that dangling sleeves will make her look like she has arms down to her knees." She passed it on to me.
"Too Galadriel." I said. "I'm getting married in a castle, to a man who will probably be kitted up in full armor. I don't want people to mistake the wedding photos for the ads from a Renaissance Faire."
"I couldn't possibly do anything like that in a week, anyway." pronounced Bisitra.
"Oh, this one's beautiful!" said my mother. "I like that full skirt, and the cathedral train."
"It's a little fussy looking for my taste." said Kira, looking at it in turn.
"It is beautiful." I said, tactfully, "but I don't think a ball gown is going to work."
"Why not?" asked my mother.
"Well, think about the size of the balcony we'll be standing on for the ceremony. It's not that big, and there'll be five of us. The bishop is obese, my fiancé isn't fat, but he is a very large man, especially in armor, and if I'm going to wear a skirt with that kind of volume, you and Boris won't have anywhere to stand."
"Oh—I hadn't thought of that." She frowned at the magazine.
"I couldn't make anything like that in a week, either." added Bisitra.
"What about a slip dress?" Sue suggested. "They're quite fashionable."
"NO!" I protested. "Nothing against your suggestion, but I hate slip dresses. I refuse to get married in a night-gown, even a silk one. Plus, they emphasize all the wrong parts of me."
"Okay, no slip dresses. Next!" said Kira.
"That's a shame. I could make a dozen slip dresses in a week." Bisitra shook her head.
"I think we're going at this the wrong way around." said my mother. "Bisitra, what if you go through these first and mark the ones you could do in a week or less, and then Jovia can pick the one she likes from those, rather than the other way around."
Mother's suggestion worked very well.
A couple of hours later, Bisitra was still protesting, but not very strongly. "I still wish you'd go to Paris or London, to one of the fashion houses there."
"No." I said. "I'm marrying a head of state. If I went out of the country for my wedding dress, at best it would be unpatriotic and at worst, treasonous. Besides, if I go to one of those designers at this late date, they'll just sell me something off the rack, and next month there'll be magazines showing that exact dress, with an article saying that was the dress Joviana Von Doom..."
I paused, and thought that over for a moment. I was soon going to be going through life with the name of Von Doom. Clearly I had to hang on to my sense of humor. "That Joviana Von Doom wore that same style to her wedding, and it normally retails for two thousand Euros. That's just so vulgar!"
"Better watch it, Mom," teased Kira. "Or she'll have you thrown in the dungeons!"
We laughed; the Invisible Woman stiffened up for a moment, and then joined in.
The gown selection was done—gowns, I should say, because my mother needed a proper dress for the occasion, too, and then I had been talked into getting a reception gown as well. Bisitra had special-ordered the fabric, which would be overnighted from France, as Latveria has no silk mills.
Now we were relaxing and having what would have been a tea party, if there had been any tea. We had finger sandwiches and petit fours, sent over from the café, but for a beverage, we had champagne. We weren't drunk—just relaxed. Some of us more so than others.
"Why is the ceremony being held on a balcony?" wondered Sue. "Don't castles usually have chapels?"
"It used to, before the Soviets gutted the place. Now it's the genetics lab." I said. "Anyway, it would never hold all two hundred invited guests."
"Four hundred." put in Kira. "That's what it says on Latveria-net."
"Four hundred? Did I hear wrong or did he double the guest list? Mother, you were there." I looked to her.
"It was four hundred. I remember it very clearly." she replied. "I'm afraid you must have heard wrong."
"Four hundred? I think I need to sit down."
"Don't faint." advised Bisitra. "There isn't enough room."
Sue sat forward. "I really ought to be thinking of ways to disrupt the ceremony, after what Doom did to my wedding. He got all the super-villains in the world, almost, to assault the church, one after another, at something like five minute intervals. The day started off so beautifully! Reed, Johnny, even Ben, all of them in their tuxedos—I wore a gorgeous Carolina Herrera gown—and then, wham! Mind you, I didn't join in the fighting that day. I didn't want to ruin my dress. Just that one day, I wanted to be a woman and not a superhero….So I waited at the altar, and since half the guests were other superheroes, they took care of it. Reed's tuxedo was shredded by the time we actually said our vows, so he had to say them in his Fantastic Four uniform. I was furious at the time, but it's funny now."
"It sounds as though it was memorable, however." commented my mother, and ate a miniature éclair.
"Oh, it was!" Sue took a sip of champagne, and said, with dawning surprise, "You know, I really am enjoying this. I can't remember the last time I hung out with some girl friends and just did—well, just did chick things. My life is awash with testosterone—I'm surrounded by men all the time. It's not that I don't love them, it's that I'm so outnumbered."
"That's right—even your child is a boy." my mother remembered. "But children of either gender are wonderful. I only had the one," she smiled at me. "Now she's getting married. I have these terrible dreams sometimes, dreams in which she's dead and I'm all alone. I nearly lost her, you know."
This was cutting a little too close to home. "Momma, I don't know that they'd be interested—," I began.
But Bisitra was already saying, "No, I didn't know. What happened?"
"She had leukemia as a child. When she was twelve, she nearly died of it. That's what I dream about—that she died back then, and I'm alone. I wake up crying, and then I remember she's all right. The relief is so great, I start crying all over again."
"I suppose it might be symbolic." Sue's forehead creased. "All children die, because they grow up and cease to be children. Your son or daughter is still there, but the child is gone."
Suddenly, there came an angry banging at the door. Kira got up a bit carefully, on account of the champagne, and went to the window. "It's your husband," she told Sue.
"Uh-oh." said the Invisible Woman, and stood.
"I think the party's over." My mother stood up as well, and I followed suit.
As I followed Susan Storm Richards out the door, I could see the Fantasticar sitting in the road. The Human Torch and the Thing were inside it, looking bored.
Mr. Fantastic was standing in the street. "What on earth were you doing?" he asked his wife, in a state of high annoyance. "We've been waiting for you for nearly three hours!"
"Didn't bother us any." rumbled the Thing.
"That's because you and Johnny escaped after only twenty minutes and have spent your time in the tavern putting back beers!"
"Hey, you're the designated driver." Johnny pointed out, as Reed continued talking.
"I think the only thing worse than Doom when he's trying to kill me is Doom when he's being affable! He insisted on taking me around, and didn't even show me anything interesting, like his laboratories. No, he had to take me around his art gallery and talk about it. In detail." Richards complained.
"Dr. Richards?" I asked.
"Yes—Ms. Florescu?"
"Don't you want to take me aside and tell me something?" I inquired.
"Such as?"
"Such as why I shouldn't marry him. You came all this way, after all."
He fell silent. "I—no. Please—you'll have to take my word for it. You'll regret it."
"I'm sorry, but that's not enough."
His face flushed. "Let's go!" he told his wife.
Before she got into the Fantasticar and flew off, Sue turned to me and said, "This is the first that we've ever spent any time together. I don't know if we can be friends—but I think we should try. Leaving the men in our lives out of it—except when we need to commiserate about them, that is."
"The fate of the world might depend on it." I agreed. "But what are you talking about, if we can be friends? You helped me pick out my wedding dress. We are friends."
"I guess that's right." she considered. "Bye!" She climbed in, and was gone.
"I was pleasantly surprised." My mother said. "She's really a lovely person. Such a shame she's married to him."
I had the feeling that people outside of Latveria were going to be saying things like that about me.
"Well—what now?" I asked her.
"I think I'll go on home. I'm sure the messages will have been piling up while I'm gone—everyone's going to want to know what I knew and when I knew it. And you should get back up to the castle—you have a wedding to plan." She winked at me.
"It seems to me most of the planning is already done."
"Ah, but you're the lady of the castle now. The staff is going to be looking to you for directions. There's the wedding cake, the flowers, the menu. You can call me if you get swamped—but I know you're capable of handling it yourself."
"Momma—I love you." I said.
"I know, dear one. Come here." We hugged good bye, and we parted, she to go down the hill to her home, and I to go up the hill to mine.
The castle stood above me, its gates open to welcome me in like a pair of arms. If Doom was watching from one of its windows, I could not see him. But I knew he was there, all the same.
A/N: Well, I can tell from the hits that there are people reading this story. I don't know who's been spreading the rumor that I hate reviews, but it isn't true.