Arc Nine. Chapter Two-Hundred Forty-Seven. Second Best Day

They say the best day of your life is the birth of your first child. For Peter, at age eight. It was soccer.

His mom and dad had taken him, and they were on the sidelines cheering when he scored the goal that won them the cup, and as promised, they would be taking him out for pizza afterwards. As they approached the car, they saw the scruffy man, holding a gun in one shaking hand, but as he moved, A giant black and green Doombot descended, and he was captured in its thick tentacles and vanished into the night. Peter fell in love with robots at that very moment, but for now, pizza was more important.

As part of the Doom-Minion, his parents arranged for him to be taken around one of the facilities, where he asked awkward questions well above his age, and his parents beamed as the technicians failed to answer. With hushed whispers and quiet nods, Peters future was decided, as was the fate of any incompetent technicians unlucky enough to cross their paths.

From that day forth, Peter's life changed. With a Doom scholarship, even at eight he was enrolled in the best Technical Information Camp and began to build, improve, and love his new life. Even as a child, he was given dangerous and wonderful technology to work with, and for him, it wasn’t studying, it was playing.

It was a wonder he couldn’t explain, and even the Doom assigned playmates he was given to learn to socialise were given a better life because of him. He failed to notice the fear, and sometimes hesitant reluctance to engage him. They were his friends and that was all that mattered, even if a few of them did get hurt as he showed off his new toys.

Some came and went, it was only Mary that stayed by his side, and she awkwardly smiled at him as he worked. A tiny pink tongue sticking out as whatever he had been given was disassembled and reassembled, repaired or better.

Even as they grew together, Mary was always by his side and as they hit puberty, he began to change, and as he paid more attention to her, so did she. When their Information Camp finally separated the boys from the girls, and their educational paths changed, she was still there. Unknown to him she had been assigned as his ‘designated partner’ and he never saw the small tears in her eyes as she was taken to his room each day.

Life began a glorious event for Peter. Mary had finally come to his bed, and graduating to manhood he graduated from the Junior Information Camp. Mary’s education would stop there. She would be expected to manage his home while he worked, and had been taken for Feminine Educational Training. Peter didn’t question what that was, but as the smile on her face grew brighter each day he figured that it must be a good thing. He never saw the pills she took each morning, or the injection she was given once a month.

He had even been given a small staff, and each day more tech was brought in, and each day he laboured hard for DoomTech. Life was amazing, and Peter loved it. He had friends, a loving girlfriend, and above all a job he loved.

He only had one problem. His family.

His ‘Uncle’ Ben had been bad-mouthing President Doom and had been taken to a re-education centre. Peter wasn’t worried. He’d worked on the helmets they used to make sure everyone was compliant and while crude, the technology only altered certain synaptic pathways slightly. A small dose of chemical here, and voila, you had one happy citizen. As long as the dissidents were kept re-educated then things were perfect. Peter didn't care though, as he barely saw his uncle, he did have a passing fascination for his aunt though. She was young and slim, and the guilt of Peter's adolescent thoughts about her faded when he found out she wasn't his real aunt. She had married into the family.

His parents had sat him down. He had failed re-education. An underlying heart condition, missing on his annual medical had proven fatal during a session. He had been buried, and Aunt May reassigned. Peter sighed and spent the night taking comfort from Mary. He didn't mind as she swallowed a few pills first, a lot of his co-workers used them. Pills weren’t his thing and so they weren’t important. Only his work and Mary were.

Even the persistent cough he developed was ignored. The doctor told him he had a small benign tumour in the centre of his chest, but as it hadn’t grown and didn’t match any of the known cancers he opted to keep it. The painful recovery from an unnecessary surgery would only cost him time in his lab, and a cough was only an irritation and nothing to be worried about.

Things were looking great for Peter Parker which was why when the Doom Patrol knocked on his door and dragged a handcuffed and very angry-looking woman into his home, he was suddenly having a bad day.

“Gwendoline Stacy, Second Grade Doom Patroller, sir. I retrieved your subject. I won’t report this, as we both know I’d get a reprimand, but please Sir, take better care of her, oh and maybe get her replacement papers,” and as she turned the confused Peter raised a hand and as he looked over at the very attractive redhead, she put a hand on him and he smiled at her and changed his mind.

He frowned, why did he do that, he had no idea who this woman was, but as she touched his face, he suddenly felt very calm and realised he didn’t care. 

“Oh Peter, what have they done to you?” she asked him and he shrugged. Nobody had done anything, he was great.

“Sit with me, and tell me everything,” and as he felt the compulsion to move they sat on the couch.

“Who is it, Peter?” Mary asked from the bedroom. When she had seen the Patrolwoman she had hidden, afraid Peter had decided to replace her. As she saw the redhead, the stunning redhead with a fair complexion and much larger chest than hers she burst into tears,

“Please, no. Please?” she begged and the woman looked at him quizzically,

“MJ?” and Mary felt a warmth envelope her and she moved over and sat next to the pair on the couch. “I won’t hurt you, I promise,” and the pair nodded.

Wanda sighed and took a deep breath. So far this had gone horribly wrong. Gwen was a jackboot nazi, and Peter seemed to be an ordinary guy with some kind of government connections. MJ was a wreck and Wanda could feel the waves of panic rolling off of her, and she felt the fear that she was being replaced and would be ‘repurposed’ and reassigned to another man. Wanda clenched her fist in anger,

What the hell is going on here? She thought to herself but when she tried to connect to Peter, to get a straight answer she felt the Mind Stone resist her powers. Shit she thought, I need to remove it.

“MJ, can you go into the bedroom, please. I am not here to replace you,” and as she cupped MJ’s cheek with her hand she nodded and moved away. “Peter, do you have the Mind Stone?” and he shook his head. Damn, without powers he doesn’t know about it.

“Right. This, well, this might hurt.” and as she felt for the Stone within his body she found it, dammit she swore again, Peter kept the stone within his chest and without his powers, it had calcified into a tumour, so close to his heart that any attempt to remove it would probably kill the powerless man. Then a thought struck her. She remembered Stephen telling her that anyone could become a sorcerer if they practised and studied, that he was once a surgeon before he became Sorcerer Supreme. I wonder if he could remove it, or at least help. Wanda really didn’t want to kill him, even if this was not her Peter.

Well, at least I don’t have to walk back, and as she fished the sling ring out of her pocket, “MJ?” and a tear-streaked face of the distraught MJ peered around the door. “Come here.” and she nodded and obeyed the mental commands of Wanda. She hated using her powers on the people she cared about, but this world was too different. “Do not panic, and follow once I say so,” and the pair nodded.

Swirling her hands the portal to Bleecker Street opened at the top of the stairs. Stephen warned her a long time ago that trying to pass through a warded area would be painful, if not fatal, and so she hoped that even if the crowds saw the portal, they wouldn’t fall in panic.

As the trio stepped through, and Wanda hurriedly pushed them into the Sanctum, she was unaware of the Doombot patrolling the area.

“Unknown Runic formation detected. Initiating Magical Countermeasures.”

As the Doombot’s front lit up and a runic circle appeared, it fizzled after a few moments and the Doombot hovered in place.

“Magical Countermeasure failure. Contacting Sorcerer Supreme.”

As Victor watched the recording, of the current Doombot and of the one earlier he clenched an armoured fist. They had finally made a move, and it seemed that New Doomsberg would be the battleground.

“Stark, prepare my private Jet. Assemble the Doom-Minions. The resistance has finally made its move.”

As a seemingly harmless suit of armour in the corner eyes lit up, the suit moved off and into the corridor of the White House. Stark knew if Doom was mobilising not just himself but the rest of the Doom-Minions, then the danger was real, and the fight would be intense. 

A cruel smirk crossed his bearded face. Good, the last resistance member he caught, Carter, hadn’t lasted more than a few days under his care, and he was looking forward to getting another test subject for Project Ultron. Trying to stick a human brain in a robot body was not as easy as it sounded.

As he pressed a panel, he called the rest of Dooms personal guards, 

Wrath, the meek and docile Banner who made the mistake of ingesting a formula that mutated him into a giant green brute, with no brain and a lot of muscle. Doom personally took down the monster and with his advanced synaptic collar, made him controllable. Banner was gone though, Doom had injected him with something that made his change controllable but made the man an imbecile, uncaring that the once brilliant scientist was now nothing more than an animal.

Warhawk, a tactical and weapons specialist, who once Doom had granted him a special formula became even deadlier. Stark heard he once tore off his own fingernails and killed 5 enemy activists with them. He revelled in cruelty and had gone through six wives already. His latest, Laura, was only spared as she had gotten pregnant.

Strike Force, one of the original members of Steve Rogers team, replaced him after a mission went wrong and he fell from a train. Stark knew the truth though, after one of his father’s drunken ramblings. Bucky Barnes had been brought to Dooms side and given the order to kill him. A patriot like Rogers would have fought Doom’s take over of the US, and after liberating Latveria, Doom had no use for him.

And finally, himself, Ironmonger, with his own specially designed armour, almost as perfect as Dooms design. As Viktor and Tony grew up together, and their fathers worked together on the original Doombots it was only natural their armour was the same. Doom had access to certain tech that Tony just refused though. His mystical elements were beyond what Tony would accept, and he simply refused to have anything non-scientific in his armour. He had even helped Viktor kill his father to claim his ancient armour for himself. He had no clue though his own father would be caught in the explosion that took their lives.

Tony watched as Viktor strode down the corridor in his resplendent matt black armour with a green flowing cape covering it. With a sneer, Tony followed him, 

one day, one day I’ll get revenge.