Double Date

"Peter! MJ!" Sue Storm waved.

Reed Richards wore a blue suit, and to match him, Sue had worn a short blue dress and blue heels. Mary Jane had gotten Peter Parker into a black sports coat and slacks, and wore a form-fitting sleeveless black pantsuit that bared her flat midriff and an expanse of cleavage, the flared bottoms almost hiding her heels. Between the two of them, Sue and Mary Jane had arranged everything; once Sue had proposed the double date, the only difficulty had been corralling their husbands.

"I've never had Wakandan cuisine before," MJ said, her arm slipped into Peter's as though afraid he might go swinging off at any moment.

"Waka-Waka's is a new place," Sue said. "Supposedly it's cultural outreach, but I think T'Challa missed the barbecued antelope."

The decor was what most Americans would call tribal, although somehow "off." Susan knew it was because Wakanda's culture was a strange hybrid of influences: bits of ancient Egypt, Indian traders, local Bantu tribal groups, ancient Ethiopia, all mingled together into something that reflected them all but was its own unique thing.

The menus were holographic; the waiters and waitresses in traditional Wakandan fashions, elegant and simple. On the walls, screens showing some of the natural and architectural wonders of that strange land.

Yet what Sue Storm was studying wasn't the decor. It was Mary Jane herself.

Reed was reacting to her. He could see it the way his gaze slipped from his menu to gave at that exposed bit of bosom. How he hung on her word as she asked questions, made jokes, a social dove who did her best to engage everyone at the table without seeming like she was guiding the situation. Sue smiled, laughed, joked, and admired the easy poise and confidence of this woman. It was easy to see how the redhead might steal any man's heart. Probably a fair number of women, too.

The waiter took brought the appetizer plates—a sample of lab-grown meats on skewers, which was the only ethical way of tasting lion, elephant, and several other species. Sue had politely declined the chilled monkey brains, which Reed had assured everyone that it was actually cloned monkey cells in a matrix shaped like a head, and that even then Wakandan scientists had screened it to avoid prion disease—

Peter, interested, asked a question about recombinant DNA infusions and the two men were soon deep into a conversation neither of the women could follow.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Mary Jane whispered as her husband rambled on.

"Just wondering how many women you've made fall in love with you," Sue whispered back, like a naughty schoolgirl sharing a secret. Sue hadn't meant to say that, but she had blurted it out. Mary Jane's return smile was conspiratorial.

"I could say the same. You look amazing! I would never have guessed you'd had two children."

Mary Jane had recovered so instantly that Sue Storm was instantly charmed. She could definitely see what Reed saw in her. But how to make that her own?

Then the band began to play. Not Wakandan music, but jazz. Mary Jane's smile grew wider, and she touched Peter's arm.

"Oh, let's dance! I haven't been dancing in ages!"