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<span class="mu-b">“It’s nearly finished, but I can have Valeria help me with the finishing touches.”</span>
Reed gestured to the little blonde girl, who you assumed to be his daughter. He showed no shame in accepted help from someone so young, and the girl didn’t so much as blink at the implication of such a thing. In fact, the confident look in her eye led you to believe that she thought the task to be beneath her.
You gave them a thumbs up.
<span class="mu-r">“Great. I was thinking we could just teleport in, get the drop on Doom, disable his magic, disable his bots, have Sandman hit him, and defeat him as quickly as possible. Does that sound too optimistic?”</span>
Sue seemed impressed by your willingness to try and “get the drop” on someone like Doctor Doom. Ben was looking at you as if he was trying to figure out whether you were genuinely stupid or not, and Johnny just started laughing to himself.
To your surprise, the kids looked downright offended by your assertion that they would hold any of the adults back in a fight. The alien kids in particular seemed to carry themselves differently than the other two. While Valeria had confidence in her intelligence, the Skrull girl and the Kree boy gave you the vague impression that it would be a mistake to overlook them entirely if push came to shove. It was worth noting that both races had enhanced physiques, and could perform far better than any human child.
Van was glancing at them every now and again with a considering expression on her face. You suspected that she was thinking something along the same lines.
Reed was the first to speak up.
<span class="mu-b">“I’m afraid that it won’t be that easy.”</span>
<span class="mu-r">“If it means anything, we also have access to an information network made up almost entirely of squirrels.”</span>
<span class="mu-b">“That won’t be enough to-”</span>
Reed paused.
<span class="mu-b">“I’m sorry. Did you just say that you had an information network composed almost entirely of squirrels?”</span>
You nodded.
<span class="mu-r">“And a few birds. There are some people managing it too, but it’s mostly the squirrels doing the heavy lifting.”</span>
Gwen placed her head in her hands and whined as if you proceeded to go into detail about your squirrel connections.
Strangely enough, though, Reed didn’t seem the least bit put out by your claim. If anything, he actually looked interested in hearing more.
<span class="mu-b">“Fascinating…”</span>
That actually took some of the fun out of it.
<span class="mu-b">“How exactly are you-”</span>
<span class="mu-s">“Reed, honey.”</span>
Reed paused mid-sentence and glanced over at his wife. The beautiful blonde woman was giving him a sympathetic, patient smile that said: <span class="mu-s">“Honey, I love you, but you need to stop getting distracted.”</span>
Mr. Fantastic read her expression perfectly and shook himself out of his earlier fascination.
<span class="mu-b">“Like I was saying before, you won’t find it so easy to catch Doom off guard. He’ll likely sense us coming before we were able to close in on him.”</span>
Johnny nodded his agreement.
(Cont.)
