Rude and Not Ginger (Reed/Sue/10)

[Reed Richards]

Location: The Baxter Building
Date: 7/27/2012
Time: Afternoon

"Susan! Susan are you in the building?"

Reed Richards was an easily excitable man, especially when it came to science. He was studying the Negative Zone today, actually physically reaching into the zone, with gloves on of course.

Without gloves would just be unsafe!

Regardless, Reed was calling to Sue over the intercom, trying to get a hold of the Invisible Woman. He wanted her to see what he was up to. This was absolutely fascinating stuff!

"Sue, you have to come down here right away-"

That's when the explosion went off and the intercom shut. An explosion in Reed's lab wasn't exactly rare, but it was rarely the intended effect.

[Susan Storm]

While she hadn't answered, Sue had heard her boyfriend's calls over the intercom. As soon as she had set down the paperwork he'd needed looked over, Sue had headed towards the lab. A quick pace, just in case, but she figured Reed was just being overenthusiastic.

Until there was the unmistakable sound of an explosion.

"Reed!"

Racing now, Susan had to fight with the doors to let her even close to the laboratory. Logic could have told her that Reed had survived worse things than a messed up experiment before, but she had no idea what he was working with. What had happened. And just because he'd always made it before did NOT mean she was any less frantic now.

"For God's sake, let me in, you stupid, stupid door," she growled, finally just blasting it with a wave of energy.

At first, all she could see was smoke everywhere, but then she could just make out his outline. All in one piece, that had to be a good sign.

Running to his side, she settled on simply hugging him since she couldn't make out very much other than his trademark blue.

Hold on... was that a suit?

What on Earth had he been planning on showing her before?

"I thought we'd agreed to do our best not to explode the lab?" she asked quietly. "I'm just glad you're okay."

[Reed Richards]

"I thought we'd agreed to do our best not to explode the lab?" she asked quietly. "I'm just glad you're okay."

What?

What?

What?

Lab? Where was he now?

The Doctor's eyes shot open, he sat up and looked around. Was that blonde hair? Oh good, she was alright.

"Ro- Wait a minute, you're not Rose. Who are you?" He tilted his head, "Where am I? And what is that?" He was looking at a big door with a vortex spinning in the middle, was that an Untempered schism? Sure looked like one, even if it was artificial. Getting to his feet, he continued to talk to himself.

"I was in the TARDIS, its completely impossible for me to just show up at the other end of a vortex without-" He stopped, "Of course! Someone at the other end of the vortex grabbed me. Probably by accident, given how dangerous this machine was, with the way its just, out like this." He looked to the woman and asked, "Are you the one who's been playing with time vortex manipulations? That's very dangerous you know."

[Susan Storm]

Oh, dear. Reed might be in one piece, but while it wasn't highly unusual for him to explode something (especially when he got excited, and he had definitely sounded it before), Reed didn't usually show signs of amnesia afterwards. Not even when his landing should have given him a concussion. Susan had started to take it for granted. As if his flexibility meant there was no way his skull could be hurt.

"Alright, breathe sweetheart. Look at me, please?"

Susan pulled out a mini flashlight from her keychain, checking his eyes for any signs of dilation.

"Doesn't look like you have a concussion...." came out as a mumble. Might be more specific to his experiment then.

"No, I'm not Rose," whoever that was, "It's Susan. You've known me for years, remember? Since you ended up boarding at my aunt's, and then you took forever to realize that age difference or not we work quite well together and finally ask me out. Well, no, alright, I asked you out. Couldn't wait for your super brain to ever pause working long enough to do it yourself."

Then Reed was babbling incomprehensibly - which was actually reassuring, if he could babble his brain wasn't entirely wiped - about a TARDIS and vortex manipulations.

"Sweetheart, I might have spent years earning degrees to work alongside you, but sometimes the technobabble just comes out as babble."

Shaking her head in amusement, Susan kissed his forehead before standing.

"What we could really use right now is one of your... ah yes!"

Susan moved over to the back wall, turning on a vent to filter out some of the smoke and picking up one of Reed's oxygen masks. Who knew what breathing all this could have done to his mind?

Turning back around, Sue tossed it easily in her boyfriend's direction before pausing midstep.

"Reed? What were you working on, and when did you start dying your hair?"

Probably not the best time to ask, but what the hell.

[Reed Richards]

"Alright, breathe sweetheart. Look at me, please?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, this lady was a bit of a loon, "I am breathing, if I wasn't breathing, I'd have regenerated already. I don't want to do that, I still have things to do."

"Doesn't look like you have a concussion...."

"Well, you can't see a concussion, unless your brain is on the outside. That would be awfully inconvienent, could you imagine that? Brains, on the outside," he had a laugh.

Then she mentioned his babbling. Okay, who was this woman and how did she know him so well?

He was about to ask, when she kissed his forehead. Slowly, The Doctor smiled.

When she was close enough, asking about his hair or something like that, The Doctor moved in, "Is that how we greet each other on this planet, well, when in Rome." He grabbed the woman by the waist and pulled her close, closing the gap as he stole her lips for a full kiss. Desire to find out where he was and where Rose was could wait, he certainly couldn't continue being rude! He had to follow the planetary customs.

[Susan Storm]

Susan grimaced a little at the image of someone with their brain on the outside of their skulls.

"That's a horrible thought. I wonder if anyone born that way would survive. Children born with other internal organs external don't typically make it longer than ten hours... I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar fatality trend... oh, enough distracting me from the point! When did you..."

Only, she wasn't about to complain when he stopped talking about Rome and planets (however he got on that topic) and pulled her close. Sue might have still been tense, but this... physical affection from Reed was still rare enough that she decided... just for now... he could distract her all he wanted. Returning his kiss, Susan calmed enough to remember to be more rational about all this. Letting her emotions get the best of her just led to them talking over one another.

This close though, Susan couldn't help but notice a few other differences. Imperfections that had never been, the difference in the way he was holding himself, and...

Shakily placing a hand on his chest, Sue wondered just how likely it was she was imagining a... well, it felt like a double heart beat.

"What mess have you gotten yourself into this time?"

It could still be Reed. Their mutant abilities were enough proof he could change the human body and if he had any sort of mental trauma maybe that accounted for it, but a seed of doubt was most definitely thriving now.

[Reed Richards]

"What mess have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Well," The Doctor started as he let the woman go to explain himself, "I actually don't know this time. See, I was in the TARDIS, that's my home by the way, and the last thing I remember doing was peeling a banana before heading towards the console room. I was thinking about going to take Rose, that's Rose Tyler, lovely girl, to the Olympics. I was about to have a bite of my banana and poof, here I am."

He returned to his former line of questioning, "Which brings us up to speed. Let's try again, hello, I'm The Doctor. Where am I? Who's lab is this and who, my dear lady, are you?"

The Doctor had just kissed her after all, it would be awfully poor form if he didn't at least ask what her name was. He patted his jacket over the chest, there it was. Reaching in, The Doctor retrieved his Sonic Screwdriver and shook it lightly, "You don't mind if I have a peek, do you?"

With that, he turned and walked over to one of the large computers, "Well then, this is Earth, well, that's good. 2012, oh, I'm even on target, a day early though, that happens now and then. Oh, look at that, New York City. I haven't been to New York in, a week? Two? Hard to tell." He spun towards the woman again and then asked, "But, if you don't mind my asking, who, or what, is an Iron Man?"

[Susan Storm]

She listened as patiently as she could, and anyone who dated Reed Richards needed a good amount of patience.

There was something called a TARDIS that he lived in that might also have been related to whatever vortex thing he was blabbering about earlier. Someone named Rose Tyler, and the Olympics which were definitively in London, not New York.

Susan took a step back, trying to make it look like she was giving him space to do... whatever it was that tiny cylindrical object did.

If it actually did anything other than whine, she knew Reed would love to get a chance to study it, but seeing as the man wasn't saying anything she didn't personally already know from his readings... well, she was a bit wary.

More than wary, actually. Susan was a few degrees cooler than furious, her temper having simmered throughout this display of the bizarre.

If he wasn't Reed, then that meant her boyfriend was still unaccounted for after the explosion. And while it seemed stupid to put a look a like with a separate identity than the person he was obviously meant to mimic, Sue wasn't going to angst over this man's mistake.

No, she'd just take steps to ensure she got Reed back.

Holding out her hands, the force fields came easily with her anger and desperation, slamming this Doctor up against the nearest wall and holding him there.

"You did a pretty good job mimicking Reed, I'll give you that. Obvious flubs with the hair and the suit, but I thought, wait. Maybe there was something important I'm missing. Not that I can ever imagine him being vain enough to dye the white streaks back to his original brown, but the man's a genius. I can't ever fully follow him. Same with the suit. And the accent, come to think of it. I thought I was mishearing you at first.

"Now, I'm going to be very generous and assume that you aren't a willing part of this based on your complete and obvious confusion more than your obvious mutation. But don't expect me to think that with your high level of technobabble and...whatever a TARDIS is.. that you've been living under a rock long enough to have not heard of Iron Man or any of the other Avengers," she told him point blank, threats thick underneath her tone.

"Everyone knows him, even in Britain. Just like people know about us. So. 'The Doctor'. You've got questions, and so do I. Iron Man is Tony Stark. Now where the hell is Reed Richards, why do you look like him, and what happened to my boyfriend?"

Releasing the field holding him up against the wall abruptly, Susan folded her arms.

"Well? I'm waiting."

[Reed Richards]

The Doctor certainly had found himself in a new situation today. Pushed up against the wall by an invisible force, generated by the woman who he'd gone from kissing, to now being a prisoner of her's. Well, she was something, that was for sure.

Then, she let him go. He rubbed his neck before saying, "Um, ow! That hurts!" He looked at her for a moment before asking, "How did you do that?" Without waiting for an answer, he gave her the ones she'd been looking for, starting by pointing at the large machine with the purple vortex in the middle.

"I believe you'll find the answer is right in front of you," The Doctor started, "Look at that. It's basically a giant Vortex Manipulator. You could, in theory, refine it to travel through time and space. But right now, it's not quite prepared for that. And because of that, it's messy. Your boyfriend, this, Reed Richards, must've been playing with it, and it zapped us both. Which tells me, I'm in his universe, and he's in mine. Furthermore, it also tells me, that in this Universe, I'm a human."

He paused, then looked disgusted, "Oh and not just a human, an American. Named Reed, that's horrible. Can you believe that? Me, The Doctor, a Time Lord, in another Universe, as some, Yank named Reed. Just the worst."

[Susan Storm]

His cooperation went a long way into cooling Susan's temper. She wasn't the type to be riled very easily, or at least, not for very long.

Still, that didn't mean his explanation made much sense. The 'vortex' he pointed to was... "But that's... the Negative Zone...."

Her shoulders slumped.

"It's reversible though, right?"

Furthermore, it tells me, that in this Universe, I'm a human.

This Doctor character then started to ramble about how awful it was to be an American human named Reed, and Sue couldn't help it. She started laughing.

"Time Lord, eh? That's new, the only gods I know have visited here are Norse."

But that wasn't the funny part to her really.

"Reed isn't just some human, Doctor. He's a mutate. Mr. Fantastic. And he is, you know. Completely amazing."

Feeling a little silly but in the moment, Sue curtseyed. "I'm Susan Storm, also known as the Invisible Woman. If you want to only use your title, that's fine. I apologize for losing my temper."

[Reed Richards]

Well, this universe certainly was a lively one. Mutates, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, how interesting! The Doctor grinned widely, "This universe sounds fascinating."

He waved off her apology, "No need. Definitely understand, it's not every day the stuff of legend poofs in, replacing your boyfriend." He looked up to Susan and then quipped, "Even though it's not the first time I've done it."

He moved back toward the machine before saying, "Now, let's see what we can do about putting me back into my universe, and your boyfriend into this one."

Sonic Screwdriver at hand, The Doctor pointed it at the computer nearest the machine that led to the supposed 'Negative Zone', "Apparently, whatever tinkering Reed has done to the machine, it doesn't just lead to one universe, it leads to multiple different ones at a time. Amazing. He's rather clever, this Reed, isn't he Susan? I like that name, Susan. I have a granddaughter named Susan, oh, she was really wonderful."

Shaking that off before he got emotional, The Doctor refocused, "So, we'll need to lock onto the Arton Energy signal of my TARDIS, and keep it steady so Reed and I can switch places again. No need to drag other Doctors and Reeds from the multiverse into this."

[Susan Storm]

"I hate to disappoint you, but we don't have any legends about you, Doctor," Susan actually found the idea amusing. "There's enough mystery in our current history to not be bothered with wondering about Lords of Time with two hearts from alternate universes."

On the up side, he was most certainly mobilizing his efforts on the 'switching back to proper universes' front.

"What is that tool of yours called? I can't tell if you use it to allow yourself time to think or if it just has numerous different settings you can apply to different situations."

True, she might not understand half of his answer, but Reed would, and she could let him now.

I like that name, Susan. I have a granddaughter named Susan, oh, she was really wonderful.

Were Time Lords forever young as well? He certainly didn't look old enough to be a grandfather.

Deciding that question was too personal, she focused on the idea of Reed.

"Your poor girlfriend is going to have had her ears talked off by now," Sue mumbled, remembering his mention of 'Rose'.

"How are we going to lock on that?" she asked, picking up Reed's clipboard of notes. Well... the notes that had survived the blast.

[Reed Richards]

The Doctor was observing some data when Susan asked about the tool in his hand. He looked back to her, grinning ear to ear, "Oh, this? This is a Sonic Screwdriver. It's a wonderful little device that does all sorts of things."

She mentioned his 'poor girlfriend' and The Doctor started with excuses, "Rose isn't my, well, no, she isn't, we're not. It's complicated."

Relationships with another race of people often were, The Doctor wasn't quite sure how to classify himself and Rose, so he didn't bother. It was rare enough that he was asked, so he'd never seen a reason to go so far as to label things of that sort.

"Does he talk a lot? Reed? I bet he does, I know I do. And if he's me of this universe, then he's got to talk an awful lot. Oh, look at that." He dropped everything he was doing and walked to another computer, starting it up to go over other bits of data.

"Stretchy body? Well, that's useful, wish I could do that."

Susan asked how he was going to track the TARDIS and The Doctor looked at her with a confused shrug, "I figured I would just sonic a few things. That works most of the time."

[Susan Storm]

A sonic screwdriver... interesting.

His denial only roused a smirk though before Susan simply repeated, "You're poor girlfriend."

Feeling a rush of compassion for this Rose, whoever she was, who she could only imagine stood in similar shoes to hers.

"Complicated or not. Don't leave her feeling invisible, Doctor. Whatever it is between you, the fact she's a normal human and you aren't, the fact you're a genius and she doesn't always understand, age difference, whatever it is... take a chance.

"I don't know where 'I' am in your universe, or even if I exist. Honestly, it doesn't bother me one way or the other, because I have my Reed, but all it takes is one mistake, Doctor. One mistake and you could be separated forever. Reed and I got lucky. His didn't kill us, it just changed us. His body is like rubber, I can manipulate energy and the light spectrum, Johnny's a human torch... poor Ben though..

"The point is... if you're together, then you're together. You don't need to make it complicated at all, and you don't need to waste any time. Even if you ARE a Lord of it."

Lecture over, she laughed again when the Doctor asked if Reed talked a lot.

"You've both got a gob on you."

Just 'sonicing' a few things didn't sound like the most reliable method ever, but she didn't voice her hesitation. The Negative Zone was definitely not one of her areas of expertise.

[Reed Richards]

The Doctor was rather fascinated by what he was learning of this world. So much so that he hadn't even put much thought until she started talking about her friends. She was giving him advice, about Rose. He rubbed the back of his head.

"It's not exactly easy though. I, told her I'm 906. I was 906 a couple centuries ago. She's, oh I think she's about 20 now."

He smiled a bit, "But, maybe you've got a point. I mean, it's just been me and her for awhile now. She's, done a lot for me. Again, hard to explain." He wasn't going to tell a total stranger about the Time War, no way he would, even if wouldn't effect her in any way.

When she made a joke, The Doctor laughed, "Oh? That we do then. I rather like this Reed fellow, pretty clever." He hit a few keys on Reed's computer before saying, "Well, let's have ourselves a test run. I need some paper, and a marker, and a bottle."

The Doctor seriously intended on sending a message in a bottle through the multiverse.