Imminent domain...

“I find this most concerning…” sighed Reed, standing outside the door of his home with Johnny and Ben as they watched SHIELD haul away the multiversal portal with the same care and attention as U-Haul staff trying to put a television stand into the back of a van.

SHIELD had arrived with a transport very quickly and had moved the device out of his lab and were trying to strap it in to be moved to the Helicarrier outside of the city for its own safety. Watching the SHIELD staff hauling the large device, Johnny and Ben sat at the steps of 4 Yancy street, drinking from colas with hotdogs in their hands watching the men work.

“Don’t worry Reed, its just until dem Suzies get found…. HEY bozos! You gotta lift with yer knees!” Laughed Ben, elbowing johnny who chuckled when the crew slipped, making Reed wince.

“I do hope they’d be more careful, that VERY sensitive equipment.”

“Oh yeah?” Asked Johnny, biting into his hotdog. “What’s the worse that can happen?”

“A cascading effect where the portal loses focus and becomes a compressed reality marble, not unlike a black hole pulling in all matter in the vicinity until the Earth is crushed into the size of a walnut.”

Dry swallowing his bite of hotdog, Johnny and Ben traded looks and back to the SHIELD transport where the crew finally set the portal down with a heavy thud, making Ben spit out his drink.

“Whatcha bozos doing?!”

“Yeah! That’s sensitive equipment there!” Stood up Johnny, his arms out wide before clutching at his hair in panic. “You want to take the world with you while you’re scratching your ass?”

Leaving the two to chew out the SHIELD crew as they just stood there stunned at the venomous jabs the Human Torch and Thing gave them. Reed found his wife with her other versions still sitting in the living room sipping coffee and trading notes about each other’s lives. There he found Franklin and Valaria sitting with them next to their mother while Jo-Venn and N'Kalla watched television from the couch.

Spotting Reed come up to the table, Susan smiled when she felt him rest a hand over her shoulder, reaching out to rest her own hand over his.

“So, Reed, are they gone with the portal?”

“Yes… Johnny and Ben are giving them a tongue lashing out there over how its being shipped. Until then we’re going to have to wait until our unwanted visitors are found and dealt with if we want it back.” Looking to everyone else at the table, Reed’s demeanor changed to something more pleasant. “How are things here?”

Pulling up a seat, it didn’t go unnoticed by the man to find the robed version of his wife sit closer to him.

“Well Suzie here’s been telling us about how she never went into space travel like we did.”

“Really?” He asked.

“Surprised?” Asked Suzie, sipping from her drink with both hands. Shimmying her shoulders playfully while she did so.

“Not really, we’ve met quite a few Susans in the multiverse that didn’t go up into space with us.”

Staring off in front of her, Suzie sipped at her drink before leaning back. “Hmm, you’re not lying. Then again, a me with a family, and a me with living goop over her body, I guess the multi-verse is weirder than I thought.”

Reed and Susan traded looks as they murmured a response to that, leaving Suzie to continue her story.

“So yeah, I was a model for a good while until I was in an accident. Toxic waste from a truck took my eyes but made everything else hypersensitive…. Right now, I can hear Ben outside arguing with the SHIELD agent about wrapping pillows around the portal device for shipping.”

“Yes, I did say it’s a sensitive piece of equipment.”

“Well anyway I lost my job as a model, when the fashion designers found it offensive that I couldn’t see what they put on me… Plus they were worried of me falling off the runway and causing a lawsuit... Which got me thinking.”

“Law school?” Asked the Susan with living clothing, garnering a snapped finger back from Suzie.

“Bingo sister. Four years and a court case later I took those grabby little buggers for every nickel they had. Now they’re designing jumpsuits in minimum security penitentiary.”

Getting a collecting chuckle from the table, the Susan with a symbiote for clothing raised her hand to get everyone else’s attention. “Well, this world’s pretty close to mine, did you all go through a were-spider plague like mine did?”

“The hell?” Wondered the robed susan out loud, even the blind one was confused with that.

“Yeah, we had that a while back, used the anti-venom symbiote to create a cure and dispersed it across the city.”

Smiling at that answer, Susan rested her chin between her hands and allowed the symbiote to envelop her, her blue business suit changing colour and texture until it looked like a second skin forming over her body. Taking on the visage of her costume, it was stark white save for the emblem of a black spider over her chest with eight thin legs branching out to go down her arms, shoulders, and legging.

“A drop survived, say hello to Lady Anti-Venom… Though JJ. Jameson has another name for me.”

“Really? What’s that?” Asked Franklin. Seeing the variant of his mother take a sip of her drink and mumble something inaudible under her breath. Something no one at the table heard save for the blind woman who snorted into her drink.

“MOMMY LONG-LEGS?!”

The table cracked up into complete laughter, with Franklin dropping to the table’s surface and Valaria clutched at her sides, red faced from laughing. Even Jo-Venn and N'Kalla began to crack up, kicking their legs out from the couch while Susan crossed her arms and harrumphed.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up… Sigh… He even had it patented.”

“Oh, that’s him! That’s him to a tee!” Snarked Ben Grimm as he and Johnny came back inside. “Well the guys with badges flew off with the portal thingy, I’m headin back home with the kids.”

“Okay Ben, safe trip.”

“Awww, must we leave?” Pouted N’Kalla.

“We keep stayin here and yer mother will get jealous of Suzie’s cookin. Come on kids, your mom’s makin your favorite.”

Getting a more perked up response from the two, Ben waved back to Susan and Reed as he guided his kids out the door. Johnny took their place at the couch and changed the channel to something else.

Getting up from their chairs to wish them a safe trip home, Reed and Susan turned back to their guests sitting with their kids and sheepishly smiled.

“Well, if you three are going to stay here, I think we may need to find some rooms for you until we can get you back home.”

“Right… Not as many as last time, that’s a bit more refreshing.” Smiled Susan as she nodded to her two kids. “Franky? Val? We’ll probably be a few minutes, why don’t you show… Mes some of the toys you’ve made on your own.”

Watching the couple leave the living room, the three Susans looked to the two children sitting with them. “Toys?” Hearing the word, Valaria piped up with her hand up.

“I made a device that let’s you peer into the deep past in correlation to your current place in time when you peer through it.”

Seeing their confusion save from Lady Anti-Venom, Franklin translated.

“She’s got an iPad that shows you dinosaurs. Wanna see?”

*

Somewhere at Governor’s Island…

They had arrived late onto the night after their stint at the bar with no name. No one saw or heard them arrive on the island or make their way through the mass graveyard until they got into the storage building at the island’s center. The moment the door closed behind them, Mysterio undid the illusion she had conjured to hide them from the eye.

Stepping forward with her hands behind her back, Dr. Octopus smiled as she eyed the space around her, her tentacles snaking out from behind her back and hoisting her off the ground to get a better vantage while the rest of her crew took the time to see the place on foot.

“Yes… This will do. Away from prying eyes, plenty of room to work with, the only thing we don’t have for now are the tools and the supplies.”

“Those we can get easily.” Stated Kraven, leaning against the wall and unsheathe a knife to pick her fingernails with. “The REAL question is how do we get our ticket punched to leave this place?”

“Yes… I’m wondering that too.” Hissed the elderly one of the groups, her mechanical wings bristling behind her as she stood poised, her chin high and eyes narrowed back at Dr. Octopus. “You said you had a plan; I’d hoped you would have shared it by now.”

“Quit preening you old buzzard.” Chuckled the Blue Goblin as she hovered overhead, sitting on her glider and playfully kicking her legs out. “Honestly you should be having the time of your life… Or how much you still have anyway. This whole reality is just one big gingerbread house you can take a bite out of.”

Looking back at the goblin with thinly veiled disgust, she looked up at the woman who cradled her smiling face in her hands like a child. But her face seemed different. Her skin was not as dry and grey as before, her teeth less sharp and her chin and nose less pronounced. Raising her own chin and pointing at her own nose, the Condor smirked. “Your mascara is running sister.”

Leaning back and checking herself in a pocket mirror, the goblin pulled her hood back to show her chalk white hair regaining its blonde colour, her skin smoother and her ears rounding out whereas before they were pointed.

“Ooops, time to take my medication, can’t have sweet lil Susan rear her pretty head now, can we?”

Pulling out a syringe from the satchel hanging to her side, she immediately jabbed herself in the leg, her face twitching as her hair turned stark white, her skin greying as more goblin-like features developed over her grinning face. Stroking a finger down her split smile, her elongated chin and pointed nose before tracing up her long, pointed ears, she pulled the hood back over her head and smiled with sharp glowing blue eyes.

“Aaaaah… Nothing like a little goblin formula to cure what ails you, you should try it sometime Condor, maybe help give you a sense of humour.”

“And be as stark raving mad like you? No thank you.”

“You’re missing ooooout.” Cackled the Blue Goblin, rolling onto her back as her glider flew higher.

“Honestly, what is taking her so long?”

Turning to address the others, Dr. Octopus hovered a foot off the ground thanks to her tentacles, her hands at her sides imperiously as she smiled back at her crew. “I’d say our little spy should be back, right about…”

An arc of electricity spat out from a wall mounted outlet, the electricity burning a spot on the floor as the arc began to take form, substance, and shape. In the span of just three seconds, a woman in a black body suit and charged with electric static from her hair and between her fingers stood, the air filled with a charged ozone as she blinked her eyes and looked up to Dr. Octopus.

“…Now. Welcome back Electro, what did you find out?”

“The local authorities of this house of mirrors took the portal device and sent it to some flying fleet carrier in the sky outside the city. I couldn’t follow it.”

Crossing her arms and raising a tentacle to tap her lip with a mechanical finger, Dr. Octopus thought on that. “So, its no longer in the possession of that group? It’s in the hands of some para-military group?”

There was a pregnant pause for almost a second before all six of them broke out into laughter.

“Sigh… They’re making it too easy for us.”