A/N: Long time Doomfans will recognize that the story of Doom's mother and her rescue from Hell was paraphrased from Stern and Mignola's excellent graphic novel Doctor Doom and Doctor Strange: Triumph and Torment. New Doomfans should seek out that work and read it.
It isn't just my eyes that swell and turn red when I cry; it's my nose too. And I wasn't even crying yet, not really. Ulrike, my wardrobe and image assistant, took one look at me when I entered the room, and got an ice pack.I was afraid of motherhood, terribly afraid.But this was not the time to confront those fears. I calmed myself down. It would be all right, it would be all right.
Then we began the process of readying me for the cameras. I changed my clothes, into an outfit with a traditional peasant blouse— a style which was very fashionable now in America, but which conveyed a distinct touch of Latverian nationalism as well. I drew the line at a ruffled skirt, and wore dark trousers. I did not want to look like I escaped from a production of The Sound of Music, after all.
"Thank you for coming over on such short notice." I told Ulrike as I fastened a chain around my neck. "I know it must have been a lot of trouble to you, and I do appreciate it. I would be a nervous wreck otherwise."
"It's no trouble to me—it's my job! Besides, my daughters are so jealous, it's wonderful. Both of them would give up a year of their lives to get visit America. They're at that age when they think they know everything…" She stuck a pin in my hair, and surveyed the result. "There."
The interview with Sixty Minutes was not really a problem. I had been on their show before, when they had done a segment on Latveria, as they often do on other countries. I just hoped it was the right thing to do. I was not very worried about the interview with the Daily Bugle, as my birth mother lived well out of its circulation range, but she did own a TV. The last time I had appeared on national television, I was just one of four examples of the generation that had been born under the Soviets, spent our childhoods under the Ceausescus and the Haasens, and matured in Doom's Latveria. I had said perhaps six sentences and appeared for less than four minutes. This time I would be on stage for fifteen minutes.
There was, briefly, a show on American TV called Wonderfalls. It was—wonderful. I was in America for the three episodes they showed before it was canceled, and I loved it. The main character got messages, delivered through toy animals, from some benevolent power in the universe about what she should be doing to make people's lives, including, sometimes, her own, better. As most of us stumble through life in confusion, who wouldn't love to get messages from the universe telling us what was the right course of action? I know I would love some back-up reassurance.
Then again, maybe I had got my message from the universe, when I pulled over and visited that moving sale in front of that house, and paid five dollars for that box that was under the card table. What was in it sent me down the path I was now taking. It inspired me to try and change the world.
If I ever needed it back again, I was in trouble, because I hid it in the attic of my grandmother's house. I snuck back in when my mother was out, using my key, and hid it between the insulation strips. My grandmother had left her house to me when she died, and my mother had promptly moved us in. She probably lived there still. That's one thing I don't regret about abandoning my old life—abandoning her, really. I didn't leave her with nothing. I gave her the house.
Anyhow, with Malice on the loose, if my mother didn't discover my whereabouts on her own, the mutant parasite would be sure to let her know.
The interview was not really a problem. Sixty Minutes is dignified and traditional. I smiled brightly and warmly at the interviewer and the camera, and talked. The fictional story of how Victor and I met had the desired effect—I could see how the camera crew reacted, and the embassy staff that were watching, as well as the interviewer. When they asked me if I was in love, I said, "Yes. Very much." When they asked me if he was in love, I said, "You would have to ask him." And I smiled. He had never yet said so, but—did he really have to? The things he did and how he acted were more eloquent than those three overused, unoriginal words.
It wasn't a live broadcast—it would appear on Sunday evening, after the Daily Bugle interview appeared in that paper's glossy feature magazine that morning, so New York, if not all of America, would be well informed and primed for more of me. Whoop-te-do!
The things I was prepared to do for love…
Only one trouble spot—when the reporter asked, "And what of your plans for the future? Are children on the agenda?" I felt a pang, but I smiled, my best Mona Lisa smile—and said, simply, "That remains to be seen."
Afterwards, when I went back upstairs to wash off the strange, heavy television make-up in the bathroom sink, Victor entered and stood watching as I spread cream over my eyes.
"Well done." he stated.
"Thank you." I soaked a washcloth and swabbed off the cream.
He was silent as I rinsed and splashed and wiped some more.
"Have your fears of motherhood anything to do with me?" he queried, speaking low.
"No." I told him, and looked him in the eyes.
"Have they to do with your mother?"
"Yes. I can't—I can't talk about this now, not with dinner in less than half an hour and our guest arriving any moment."
"I curse that I ever invited him—."
"No. Don't. Later, when you are out of your armor, when I can lie there in the dark with your arm over me, as we were the other night, afterwards…Then the words will come. I can cry then. Right now, though—tell me about Dr. Strange. I heard a little about him from Boris, but I've never met him."
"He aided me in rescuing my mother's soul from Hell…"
Victor was little more than an infant when Cynthia Von Doom died—when she was murdered. I had gone out among the Rom to aid in the education program—I had seen her people, some of whom were Victor's kin, distant cousins. Gypsies are possibly the most stereotyped of all minority groups. The image of the exotic, erotic dancing girls…the old women with only two teeth gazing into a crystal ball…swarthy men with head scarves knotted to the side and gold earrings—all the stuff of old movies. The reality was a lot sadder—and growing more tragic every day, for the Rom were being left further and further behind by the modern world.
Victor continued. "My mother was a drabarni, a witch. With her magics, she sought power—not for herself, but for her people, to end the attempts made by those in power to wipe them off the face of the earth. What the Nazis began, the Soviets continued. After I was born, her efforts redoubled, for now she had a vested interest in the future, and she was determined to make the world a safer place, for my sake. One dark night, her efforts were repaid, and she summoned Mephisto."
I could almost see the scene—the young mother, crouching naked in her protective circle, in a tent made hot with the fires of hell, fumes of incense fighting with the stink of brimstone, the sweat pouring down her skin, as she looked up into the pupil-less eyes of the Devil, suddenly aware that she had succeeded all too well.
"He offered her enough power to achieve what she wanted—but at a price. You have studied thaumaturgy. You know what payment he would have demanded."
"Her soul."
"Yes, her soul. She accepted—but she forgot one rule, one fact. Can you tell me what that is?"
"Demons always cheat." Demons are worse than lawyers when it comes to loopholes and tricky language. A magician might ask, in exchange for his soul, more money than he would ever be able to spend—and wind up with five bucks, because he was fated to be hit by a bus and killed twenty minutes later. Or a woman might ask for ever-lasting youth and beauty, only to be walled up alive in a tower cell, and the tower then destroyed, leaving an immortal trapped in the airless dark, where she could not be seen or heard.
"She was given power—but neither the strength to control it nor the knowledge of how to use it. It was akin to giving a seven year old child a machine gun with a hair trigger. She unleashed death upon every human being in an entire town—but as he died, one of the victims stabbed her…She enjoyed—if that is the proper word—her power for a scant two hours, before her soul was forfeit.
"My father took me and fled, before the world outside that town awoke to what had happened. That might have been the end of it—except for her legacy. She had a trunk full of books, magical artifacts, objects of arcane significance. He tried to leave it behind—only to find it back on our wagon the next morning. He tried to chop it into pieces, set fire to it, throw it down a well, bury it in the woods, sell it, give it away, throw it off a cliff, and feed it to goats, and it obediently splintered into kindling, burned up, sank, was covered up with dirt, was sold or given away, plummeted into the depths of a crevasse, and was devoured, but the next morning, it was always back, looking as fresh and new as the day she got it.
"That trunk was her legacy to me. Once I was old enough to read, I taught myself to use it—and once I believed myself capable of it, I began to try to free her soul from its torment—but to no avail. Until the aged Genghis, earthly avatar of the Vishanti, called an assembly of such magicians, sorcerers, conjurors and wizards as were adept enough to hear his call. It was to test all of the living users of magic to see which among them was truly the Sorcerer Supreme, the most powerful, skilled, and wise magician in the world.
"I was one of them." Victor said, proudly.
"Of course." I added. "But Dr. Strange was, too."
"Yes. He was already called the Sorcerer Supreme—the test merely confirmed it. I—came in second. As I had planned. For the Sorcerer Supreme was bound by duty and honor to grant a boon to those who passed the first part of the test—and I was the only other one who had achieved as much."
"You chose that he should help you rescue your mother."
"That was indeed my choice. He thought it odd that I should not seek to use him in my plans of conquest, but he accepted it. We trained and prepared for months, the process a long and grueling one. The battle was even more so, but ultimately, my mother's soul found its way to Heaven—redeemed."
"You're leaving out quite a lot of the story," I said, after a moment. I found his story incredibly affecting—not merely what he said, but the way in which he said it, the passion in his voice.
"We are rather pressed for time." He pointed out. "The good doctor is likely to be awaiting us in the drawing room."
"Did you have a particular reason for inviting him tonight?" I asked. "Or was it just out of a wish to see him again."
"I had a very particular reason." Victor said, a trace of humor in his voice again. "I want his professional opinion of your potential as a sorcerer."
A/N: For any of my readers for whom English may not be their first language, 'whoop-te-do' is a string of nonsense syllables that means, roughly, 'This is making a lot out of something trivial.'
Hi, Madripoor Rose! It's always seemed to me that the accident that disfigured Victor (the comic book origin for any movie fans reading) has been a 'his word against mine' at best, because A: Who knows what touching a magical object might do to it? B: Who says Reed knew what the calculations meant in a partially magical useage? and finally, C: What was Reed doing in Victor's dorm room anyway? If I werelooking for somebody and I knocked on their door and they didn't answer, I'd go away. I wouldn't go in to see for myself, and I wouldn't start looking at their personal papers.
That having been said, you'll have to wait and see--but your reading on why Joviana is upset about the idea of being a mother was good.
Hello, Julietsdaughter! Yes, Victor does want children. It's Joviana who has doubts about her ability to be a good parent. It will be a few chapters before they will get a chance to talk about it, however.
GothikStrawberry, hi! Joviana is upset, not because she might be infertile, but because her experiences with her birthmother cause her to question whether she can be a good mother herself. I hope you enjoy this chapter: we are going into an arc with a lot of action to come.