Doctor Doom Is Watching

The optical camouflage in Doctor Doom's cloak was not the exact equivalent of Sue Storm's invisibility. Yet it let him move largely unseen in the dark Manhattan streets. As Ben Grimm's plodding steps took him miles away from home, the stony hide not feeling the cold, the efficient muscles not experiencing the least exertion. The Thing could walk for days if he had to, unrelenting and unstoppable.

Following behind, Doom subtly adjusted his path. Traffic lights turned at the Latverian's whim; his on-board computer tracking and manipulating the flow of things. He did not want Ben Grimm's slow steps to carry him to Avengers Tower or Bleeker Street. This was the dark night of Ben Grimm's soul, and it was Doom's intent that he would be the instrument of fracture.

All he had to do was tell Reed Richards what he had discovered.

That Sue Storm would eventually grow careless, Doom had long ago discerned. Like a chessmaster assessing a problem, he had looked into all the paths of the future that Moonstone had constructed. Ben Grimm was too late in his discovery to halt Sue's affair, yet he could still interfere with the pattern that was unfolding.

So Doom followed in his footsteps. Guiding him away from any of the street-level heroes to whom the lumbering Thing might go for advice. Throughtout Manhattan, agents of Doom's made sure the heroes were occupied. Spider-Man dealt with a sudden symbiote outbreak. Daredevil found himself assaulted by a cybernetically-enhanced faction of the Hand. The Punisher had stumbled upon evidence of a human trafficking ring.

No, Ben Grimm was isolated. In his isolation, the tender heart of the stony-skinned Thing suffered. Yet Doom had little doubt as to what conclusion he would come to. Heroes were pathetically predictable. He would not be able to stay silent while this violation of morality was occurring.

This close, Doom could weave spells to let even the Orb of Agamotto's gaze slip past the Thing. The psychic sight of Madame Web would not see his steps shake the web of fate. Mutant telepaths would not pick up the despair he radiated. It was a risk, a gamble, to follow in the Thing's footsteps, yet a calculated one.

Ben Grimm's steps found himself at last among the neon lights of seedy massage parlors, promising happy endings. Doctor Doom had planned this as the catalyst to reaffirm Ben Grimm's determination to tell Richards, and in so giving the news, break his foe's heart and his marriage. For a long moment, Ben stood outside one particular establishment, no doubt thinking of the face of Sue Storm, buried in the crotch of another woman, her tongue lashing a clit in violation of her wedding vows.

Doom was not prepared for when Ben Grimm stepped inside.