I would not be deterred.
During the second intermission, I drifted by Reed Richards, and asked "Would you care to walk with me for a few minutes?"
"Certainly," he replied. We headed up the hill.
We climbed in silence for a few minutes. I made sure we stayed in full view -- no need to incite any rumors -- but we were removed enough to speak privately when he said, wryly, "This has been a day full of surprises."
"You never said anything truer." I looked at him. He looked ten years older than he had we toasted as at lunch. "What will you do?" I asked. We both knew what I was referring to.
"Do?" He snorted. "I don't know. Cope." He added. "All that work -- all the good I told myself I was doing -- sitting in a filing cabinet."
I coughed. "Speaking of surprises," I used as a segue, which was none too subtle of me , but we didn't have long before the play would begin again," I was quite surprised by your toast. That was quite an about-face on your part."
"You want to know why I changed my mind."
"Yes -- but I'm more interested to learn why you said I shouldn't marry him in the first place." I looked at him.
He grimaced. "Fair enough." He raised his head, and looked at the horizon. "Back in college, Victor didn't date a whole lot -- he didn't socialize very much at all. I doubt that surprises you."
"It doesn't." I assured him.
"I didn't think so. He didn't chase girls; girls chased him. It wasn't that he basked in it, because he didn't. He tried to avoid them -- he made a lot of crushing putdowns, glared at them, and kept his nose in a book. I think he was put off by how forward they were, how free --."
I could imagine that. I had been anything but forward.
"Not until one night, when he got very drunk, did I see him any different." Richards continued.
Uh-oh, I thought. Here comes. Victor made a pass at him or something.
"This was at a homecoming party, outdoors, at night. One girl got him to take a walk with her, in the woods. Not long after, she came running back to the party, saying that he had tried to strangle her. They had been, well, been making out, and he put his hands to her neck and tightened them. She said that for a moment, she was sure he was going to kill her, but then his face changed. He had changed his mind. She showed us her throat. He had left marks on it. They weren't hickey marks -- they were finger marks. They weren't quite serious enough to be bruises, but they came close to it.
"She reported it to the campus police, to her student advisor, to the counselors -- anybody who would listen. He was never arrested. I don't think he was even disciplined for it. It was hushed up, because the program through which he and I were attending college was government-funded, and they knew he was valuable. Soon after, she left the school, and never came back." He fell silent.
When it became clear he wasn't going to say anything more, I asked. "That's it?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever go out with another girl, that you knew of?" I prodded.
"No."
"Were there any unsolved strangulation murders of young women in the area at the time?"
"No!" Richards at looked me as if he thought he smelled something bad.
"He didn't rape her, did he?" I had to ask -- I had to know.
"No. She said they weren't having sex -- just making out." He looked quite serious and humorless.
"Did she lose consciousness?"
"No."
I took a deep breath. "So. They were making out, and things got a little rough. He scared her, but she wasn't hurt badly or permanently. Nobody witnessed it, he was never arrested, let alone tried, so it's her word against his -- unless he confessed?"
"He never said a word about it." Richards replied.
"So what you're telling me is nothing but hearsay and circumstantial evidence left over from nearly twenty years ago. Forgive me, Dr. Richards, but that is not a strong case against marrying him."
"I know. That wasn't why I objected." A ghost of a smile hung around Richards' lips for a moment, and then vanished.
"No? Then -- why?"
"Sue told me she thinks this marriage is the best thing possible to have happen -- that it will change everything, because if Victor's life wasn't ruined, then he won't hate me as passionately anymore. She wants to know why I couldn't see that -- but of course you knew that already." That last piece of information hit me where I lived.
"Of course. You have cameras and microphones around the Baxter Building, don't you?" It was the only explanation.
"Yes. The truth is, I saw that at once -- but I also saw it all depended on what sort of person you were. I was pretty sure from the broadcast that you didn't drip venom from every talon, but you didn't look as if you were up to the life you were getting into by marrying him. I had to find out if you were sincere -- and if you would survive. First I tried to scare you off -- and then I got some inside information on you." He gave me a look that was really rather approving.
"Dr. Strange?" I guessed.
"Got it in one. He said he thought you were equal to anything. He also said that if any woman had ever looked at Victor in the way that you looked at him before he became what he is, it was certain that no other woman would ever look at him in that way again. He thinks that whether Victor knows it or not, he Is trying, and succeeding, to live up to your image of him."
"I'm not sure how to reply to that. I'm going to have to think it over." I frowned.
"That's all right. Anyway, what better way could I make sure Victor went through with it, than to be against the match?" He smiled when he said it.
I had to laugh. "Dr. Richards, thank you. I'm so glad that you told me. My imagination was running wild."
"How so?" He inquired.
"Because I was beginning to think Victor must have made a pass at you." I told him.
His jaw dropped -- I mean it really dropped. It hit the ground. He sputtered incoherently. For the first time, I could see the appeal he must have for Sue. Living with him must be like living with a living Tex Avery cartoon.
"Made a pass at me?" he asked, utterly dumbfounded and utterly convincing. "I hope you didn't share that with him!"
"Oh, no -- I know better than to do a thing like that! However, I was considering running the idea past Sue..."
That made him laugh. "You're quite a remarkable person, Lady Doom."
"Thank you. You're a good man, Dr. Richards, and I wish you all the best. But I don't like you. I can't like you." I said, doing my best to convey with tone and inflection what it was I truly meant -- which was that it was the circumstances alone that made me say such a thing. Mr. Fantastic and the wife of Doctor Doom could not be friends.
"I believe I catch your meaning, and I understand. In fact," he looked around, "What would you say to slapping me across the face, hard, before we go back? It won't hurt me, I'll stretch with it."
"For Victor's benefit?" I chortled. "What a lovely idea. Sure." I suddenly contorted my face with fury, drew back my arm, and let him have it. Then I turned on my heel, and stormed back down the hillside.