[Third Person Pov]
"How is it that you came across that name?" Reed asked, looking between Peter and everyone gathered in the room. His expression became more serious as he noticed the intensity on their faces even through their masks. "And what did Victor do this time that warranted an entire assembly of people hunting him down?"
"We had a run-in with him last night," Peter explained. He proceeded to recount everything that had happened, from their meeting with Thor to their confrontation with Doom and, ultimately, the loss of Mjolnir.
Reed listened without interrupting, his expression growing increasingly thoughtful as Peter filled him in on the details. Once Peter finished, Reed folded his arms and shifted his stance slightly.
"And since it seems like you've had a history with him, I was hoping you could tell us more about him," Peter said. "Anything you know could be valuable."
"I see." Reed rubbed his beard thoughtfully, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. "The thing is, I don't know if I can tell you as much as you'd like. I knew Victor, yes, but I wouldn't say we were friends. Not really. We were classmates, colleagues to an extent, and we spent enough time around each other that I got to know the kind of man he was. But Victor was never particularly interested in letting people get close to him. He was a man of few words, and he preferred keeping to himself."
"He's an arrogant prick, that's what he is!" Ben finally snapped, his expression becoming noticeably more irritated at the mere mention of Victor's name.
Gwen raised an eyebrow and looked toward him. "So you knew him too?"
"Knew him?" Reed repeated with a weary grin. "Those two couldn't be in the same room together without finding something to argue about."
"Yeah, arguments which he would start," Ben grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. "I was just always the one who finished them."
"You mean you always made them worse," Reed corrected with a faint smile.
Ben scoffed. "Same difference."
MJ glanced between them, beginning to understand just how much history there was between the two men. "You really don't like him very much, do you?"
"I think that's putting it mildly," Reed said.
"Victor was..." Reed paused, his expression becoming more contemplative as he searched for the right words. "Victor is a prideful man. Extremely prideful. He valued intellect above almost everything else, particularly his own. He was brilliant, there's no denying that. Even back then, he was one of the smartest people I'd ever met. But that intelligence came with an enormous amount of confidence, and sometimes that confidence crossed the line into outright arrogance. He was the kind of person to walk into any room and knew with absolute certainty that he was the smartest person there"
Reed glanced toward Ben, "Ben, on the other hand, got into ESU on a sports scholarship. Victor saw that and immediately made assumptions about him. To Victor, anyone who didn't approach the world through intellect was beneath him. He saw Ben as little more than a muscle-bound idiot."
Ben's eye twitched. "My blood still boils just thinking about that jackass," he muttered. "Makes me wanna clobber him right in his keister."
Peter reached over and gave Ben a reassuring pat on the arm before he could get any more worked up.
"But as much as Victor and Ben hated each other," Reed continued, "that wasn't really what concerned me about Victor. His arrogance was obvious, but it wasn't what made him stand out."
The lightheartedness faded from Reed's expression. He went and sat down, leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees.
"Victor was a man of focus. More than that, he was a man of purpose. Everything he did had a reason behind it. He was always working toward something, always moving toward whatever goal he'd set for himself. Nothing seemed capable of pulling him away from that path."
Peter frowned. "What kind of goal?"
"I only know bits and pieces" Reed shook his head. "And that's the part that makes it difficult to tell you anything useful. Victor never told me his whole story. Whatever drove him, he kept it close to his chest."
Reed's gaze lowered for a moment, his thoughts drifting back to their university days.
"But even then, there was something behind his eyes. Something bitter. I noticed it whenever certain subjects came up, or whenever something challenged his sense of control. It wasn't ordinary anger. It felt deeper than that. Resentment, perhaps. Maybe even something resembling regret."
He sighed quietly. "I never knew what happened to him before we met, and I never pressed him about it. Victor wasn't the sort of person you could simply sit down with and ask to open up about his past. Whatever happened to him, whatever he lost or endured, he carried it with him everywhere he went."
Reed looked back at Peter, "And if what you're telling me is anything to go by, whatever that past was, it hasn't stopped driving him."
Peter's expression hardened. "So you think what happened to him is connected to what he's doing now?"
"I think it's possible," Reed answered carefully. "But I wouldn't pretend to know Victor's motivations. I knew the man he was when we were younger. I don't know the man he's become."
He paused, his expression turning grim.
"But if there's one thing I remember about Victor von Doom, it's that he never did anything without believing there was a purpose behind it. If he's going after Thor, Mjolnir, or whatever else he's planning, then I doubt any of it is random."
Reed leaned back, his eyes narrowing with concern, "Whatever Victor wants, he's been working toward it for a very long time."
"There was an accident in the past," Aria interjected. "An experiment gone wrong. Can you tell us more about that?"
"Hm? Oh, right. I tried to warn him that his calculations were wrong, but he wouldn't listen—" Reed suddenly stopped, his eyes widening as a realization struck him. His expression drained of color. "Oh dear…"
"What?" Susan asked, immediately noticing the change in his demeanor. She had seen Reed surprised, excited, even terrified before, but rarely had she seen him react with such sudden and profound alarm. Not even when they had been struck by cosmic energy had she seen that look on his face.
"I know what Victor is after," Reed said grimly. He rose from his seat with such suddenness that everyone else immediately became alert.
"Well, old man," Johnny said, draping an arm over Peter's shoulders and leaning casually against him, "you want to fill us in and let the rest of us know?"
"I saw his notes once, quite by accident," Reed began. "The door to his dorm room was open, and I happened to catch a glimpse of what he was working on. Naturally, I became curious. What I found inside was extraordinary. Victor had been developing an interdimensional communicator, something capable of observing and establishing contact with other dimensions. It wasn't merely theoretical, either. He was actually building the device. I was fascinated. It was a remarkable piece of work, and that's when I realized Victor and I shared an interest in studying extradimensional spaces. If things had been different, perhaps he and I could have learned a great deal from each other. We could have—"
"I don't want to be rude, but can you get to the point, please?" Harry interrupted with a weary, apologetic grin. Reed had begun rambling, his thoughts racing faster than his mouth could keep up with.
"Yeah, Reed," Susan added with an exasperated but fond smile. "You're doing that thing again. Whenever your mind starts going in two different directions at once, your thoughts and your words start getting tangled together."
Reed blinked, realizing what he had been doing. He straightened himself and cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed.
"Right. Sorry. The point is, Victor wasn't trying to communicate with just any random dimension." His expression grew noticeably darker. "He was trying to establish contact with Hell."
"Hell?" several of them repeated at once, their faces filled with confusion and surprise.
Reed nodded solemnly.
"Yes. Hell."
The room fell silent.
"He took Thor's hammer," Reed continued, his voice becoming more cautious as he considered the implications. "And given what I know about the device he was building, he may be intending to use it for something far more significant than simply communicating with whatever lies on the other side."
Ben frowned. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that this is only an assumption based on what I know about Victor and what you've told me about the events of last night" Reed's eyes shifted uneasily toward the wall behind them. "But if I'm right—and for perhaps the first time in my life, I'm desperately hoping I'm wrong—then Victor may be attempting to open a gateway to Hell."
His gaze remained fixed on the wall. Beyond it was the portal leading to the Negative Dimension, a constant reminder that other worlds and dimensions were far more accessible than most people realized.
"And I don't think I need to explain just how bad that could be. Especially since he wouldn't just be traveling over to it but bringing Hell right at our doorsteps"
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