Dr. Stone Is Sue Storm's Assistant Throughout The Pregnancy

Reed Richards set up a cot in the lab. He took his wardrobe with him. The master bedroom felt very empty, without him or his things there. Fortunately, thanks to the Baxter Building's modular construction, Karla's new suite had been set up right next to Sue's, with a door connecting the two rooms.

"Are you ready?" Karla asked gently.

Sue was in her bathrobe, seated on the bed. The children were out with Ben and Johnny. Reed was in his lab. They had set things up at the first aid station, which, despite the name, could handle anything short of major surgery.

"I'm nervous," Sue admitted.

Karla, dressed in simply black leggings beneath a long black tunic, placed her hands on Sue Storm's shoulders. The Invisible Woman leaned back into the impromptu massage. She did not see the glow in Karla's eyes, the golden halo that formed about the psychiatrist's head as she used her powers to push the Invisible Woman back into that familiar suggestive state.

"You're ready," Karla told her. "Ready to be a mother again. To quit looking over your shoulder and worrying what Doctor Doom will do to your family and children. This is for their sakes, as well as your own. Doom will never be a threat to you again. That's worth the price, isn't it?"

"Yes," Sue said softly.

"And if your husband can't see that...well, to hell with him," Karla continued.

"To hell with him," Sue repeated, deep into the kind of easy, agree-with-everything mode that normally took the better part of two magnums of champagne to achieve.

"And I'll be here with you," Karla promised, as the implants buzzed maddeningly in her head. "All throughout your pregnancy. Whatever you need. Every step of the way. To make sure it happens."

The glow faded from Moonstone's eyes. Forty weeks, assuming today's session worked well. And why wouldn't it?

Sue smiled as she stood. Something like her old confidence came back into her smile. She led the way, Karla following behind.

An armored figure stood in the medical lab. He had cast aside his cloak and tunic, in exchange for medical whites. He needed no mask, but his armored gauntlets rested on a chair, and latex gloves replaced them.

"Victor," Sue said.

"Susan," Doom replied.

He gestured at a table.

"No stirrups?" Sue asked.

"A patriarchal convention, intended to emphasize a woman's helplessness," Doom dismissed. "You know what must be done, Susan. There will be no force utilized in this procedure. You do not even need to fully disrobe. I have set up a curtain, if you'd like—"

The blonde heroine shook her head firmly.

"No," she said. "I want to watch."

She did not take off her robe. Yet the Invisible Woman lay on the table and spread her thighs, and the robe disappeared. Her labia were fully exposed, and as Karla moved to her side to hold Sue's hand, the outer skin of Sue's abdomen became transparent. Then layers of muscle tissue and integument, veins and arteries, until Sue's womb and ovaries lay exposed, and the vaginal canal appeared like a cut-out diagram in a medical textbook.

Doom readied the syringe. He had carefully lubricated a long, hollow probe. Sue Storm did not grimace as he slowly inserted it in.

"You will feel a small prick," he said as he pushed it up against the tightly closed cervix. "This drug will loosen the muscle slightly, to allow easier penetration. You have been taking the fertility drugs I prescribed?"

"You know I have," Sue said, her voice calm but her grip on Karla's hand tight. Sue's regular reports on her reproductive health had been part of the compact. Reed Richards, despite his coldness, had double-checked all of the drugs. There had been no foul play.

For a few minutes, they waited. Karla actually saw the cervix relax a little Doom moved to adjust the probe, but Sue, seated half-up, shook her head.

"Let me," she said.

An invisible force gripped and guided he end of the hollow tube straight into her cervix. It ran all the way outside of her labia.

Karla felt a thrill of exultation run through her as Doom withdrew the syringe and substituted another. One with a thick, white liquid load. He attached it and depressed the stud. Swiftly, a line of white shot out into the tube. In less time than it seemed possible, it was past the barrier of Sue's cervix, the seed of Victor von Doom spraying unprotected into her fertile uterus.

The act of insemination was so plain and medical, yet to Karla, a deeply erotic act. This was it. Sue Storm's betrayal, in her husband's eyes, would be complete. While conception might take hours or days, Karla had no doubt that Sue Storm was now pregnant with the child of her greatest enemy.

"There is a possibility," Doom said. "That this will not take. You have a history of miscarriage after all. And the sperm, of course, is not as fresh as that ejaculated during the moment of orgasm."

Slowly, he withdrew the probe. A white drop remained at the mouth of the cervix.

"What do we do if it fails?" Sue asked.

"We try again," Doctor Doom said.