amiya

[luveline]

𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

you’re a single mom living three trailers down. eddie thinks you’re the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. fem!reader

part one [15k]

part two [15k]

part three [9k]

part four [10k]

part five [8k]

part six [23k]

[culturedrose]

unironically one of the best pieces of fiction

[inknopewetrust]

𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 [𝐀 𝐆𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐔𝐬]

Summary: Years after Hawkins was saved, Nancy and Steve’s wedding draws everyone back together and with it, you are reminded of the love you lost at the price of fame.

[Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader; WC: 17.4k]

Warnings: language, exes to lovers, mutual pining/yearning, frightened lil beans in love, heavy angst.

Quick Links: Masterlist | Stranger Things Masterlist

What is it like to be loved?

There was something in that room that made you question it. The palpable, sudden feeling that permeated around it like a fog; a special dance that so many would be able to feel, yet it seemingly evaded you.

Her dress was beautiful. An ivory lace with sleeves that covered her soft skin. The brown of her hair so vibrant against the spring flowers she held as the chapel’s old stones warmed with the feeling reverberated with the words of the priest.

He was tall and stoic; filled with a slight fear that his true colors would show in his dark suit and dotted tie. He was joyous; he was a radiant boy filling his father’s suit and marrying the girl of his dreams.

Nancy and Steve.

For a moment, while the priest held everyone’s attention in a moment of prayer, it was quiet enough to imagine love physically filled the space before you. Head lightly dipped, the bouquet in your hand distracting you from the eyes of every person in the chapel.

A silence was asked for and responded to with grace. The silence of baseless words washing over the room in a wave of down-turned heads and folded hands. However quiet, however peaceful the room had become, that floating feeling hung from the rafters. You felt your heart sink. That heaviness of sorrow that plagued beautiful moments from a pain buried in your bones that you weren’t even sure really existed. Love. A tragic thing.

All you could ask was:

What is it liked to be loved?

Maybe it was the wedding that made you teary-eyed and soft hearted. You weren’t a hopeless romantic. You weren’t searching constantly for Mr. Right because he didn’t exist. They had shown you that, he had shown you that. Not some Marilyn Monroe waiting for the next man to sweep you off your feet and carry you into a raging bloody sunset in Los Angeles. No. The cards were dealt with precision and meaning; each turned over when the time allowed and burned when the bells tolled.

Love brewed and bubbled; love ached and pained; love existed and diminished; love stood in front of you screaming to break free but the cries fell silent—dead on the cold, stone floor.

Steve’s eyes called to Nancy like a ship lost at sea. The tears that brimmed at the corners whispered to fall after years of trauma and resolution. But they were relieved and elated and somehow, Nancy returned the sentiments with eyes elated. And it hurt to see your closest friends happy when you couldn’t be.

‘And from this day forward they would walk hand and hand into everything that You have destined them to be.’

The words echoed and echoed. The priest as happy to say them as Ted and Karen Wheeler nodded as if it were true from the pews. Steve’s parents had actually shown up too, along with hundreds of other people. Friends, coworkers, and the guests each of them brought.

‘We give our hearts and beings to You now in adoration.’

People like you didn’t give their hearts willingly. Not like Robin, not like Nancy. You weren’t sure about Max or Eleven, but perhaps they gave theirs willingly enough too as they stood beside you up on the alter. And you wanted that. You wanted to give it willingly. As their heads hung and their eyes diverted from above, there was a calling. Probably not from some higher God you weren’t sure even existed, but something—a gut feeling. One that simmered and bristled against negativity and anxiety; the same one that painfully squeezed that arduous organ in your chest. That feeling told you not to bow your head. It told you not to close your eyes and whatever it did, it made you shift your head in the slightest.

The groomsmen were just across the way beside Steve. Dustin helmed them, walking you down the aisle and reminding you that as they embraced adulthood, you were also getting older. Over one age milestone of established adulthood and half of the kids you babysat as a teenager were closer to marriage than you.

Angled perfectly with your shoulder—bare from the design of your green gown. The shape of your nose and chin and the style of your hair falling sleekly into a perfectly haloed outline as though a magician had cast their greatest spell. And when it turned just enough, where the platform was illuminated by the rays of the sun, one other head remained as perfectly crafted as yours, looking back as though the universe said: here it is.

This is what it feels like. 

Those butterflies? Love. The heart bursting panic that set off inside you? Love. The painful realization that you could have it and you could nurture it with passion? Love.

It existed. 

And it did so in the cruelest of forms. 

Because the sheen of your eyes from the beautiful wedding and the widely spoken words of the priest meant more when staring back at the one thing you had always wanted. It was one feeling, one person, and that’s what you swore you couldn’t have.

He had chosen that for you. Six years ago in a tiny apartment on the west side of Chicago, he decided his career was more important.

He was him. He was a brilliant, foul-mouthed metal rock star with impeccable hair and sense of style that made your heart leap for quiet bursts of love. He was complicated and corny and filled with a truth you hadn’t been able to recognize because everyone else clouded life. What life could be and what it could hold.

Eddie Munson was a rock star. Eddie Munson was one of the most famous musicians in the world. Eddie Munson was a friend, a hero, and Eddie Munson was the man who broke your heart and it could never heal itself.

And yet love remained deep down.

It’s regretful nature resurfacing because love was tangible in the chapel in Nantucket.

It was love. It existed. It was real. It was palpable in that room, in his eyes, against the prayer, across the aisle and in all of the pews.

‘And we welcome Your Holy Spirit amongst us. Amen.’

And the chorus filled the room. The pews creaked and heads returned upright. You lost the sight as Steve and the others lifted their heads, but the feeling remained. It sunk to the pit of your stomach where the realization remained.

“Hey,” a hushed whisper sounded near your right ear as your body jolted minutely from the call. Robin’s head tried to follow your direction but couldn’t find the destination. There were hundreds of people in that room. But she should have known. She should have known. 

“Everything alright?”

Her concern was evident. Had you been that rigid the entire time? Was the look of love one of fear? Were the tears in your eyes truly that clear?

“I’m fine, Rob. Really.”

It hadn’t convinced her but you returned your attention to the ceremony instead. Robin waited, glancing over your shoulder again and again to try to find her answer. The sentiment of conflict appearing much faster in times of clear disruption than she remembered. The feeling of the world tilting on its axis for something you couldn’t control.

Her eyes looked for the answer. Searching the crowd with an unfathomable hardened gaze until it landed back to the groomsmen and she felt everything click back into place. You had reassured Nancy and Robin that everything was fine; that you were friends. That there was no animosity nor tension remaining over the years but it had. They just wanted to believe the best, yet all the signs were there. 

The way you stood so still; scared of yourself as emotions took their hold.

Six years of separation meant nothing. Its degrees scorching the earth every moment not together, bound by the universe yet torn apart by wants, not needs.

They had all believed you. They believed Eddie’s lies that he had moved on—the woman looking straight out of a Vanity Fair magazine in the fifth row the one he brought to prove such a tale.

No.

They had all been wrong.

The two of you had imploded the meaning of love because if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, it couldn’t exist at all.

Steve and Nancy wed on a Saturday in March. 

The morning had greeted everyone with golden rays. Sunlight streaming in from the curtains of the Wauwinet’s rooms waking its patron’s with a sprinkle of joy. Early morning glow; warm and intoxicating on a day such as that. 

You couldn’t see the beach from where you laid; the white comforter covering your shoulders high, eyes peeking out from the space between the blankets and your pillow. High above on the second floor, the sky reflected its yellow and pink hues until they faded to blue. Not a cloud in the sky. 

The two days you had spent on the tiny island thus far had been a reflection of that sunrise. An excitable shimmer of beauty and grace only to fade into a familiar blue–a melancholy gloom that you hadn’t expected to feel. You stepped off the plane only to be greeted with every feeling that ran in its opposite direction; Robin and Nancy clung to you with joy, Steve and the boys, who you should probably call young men now, hugged you tightly. 

And then a cloud formed. 

The cloud was ugly, gray, and filled with matter you had buried deep. Years of pretending everything in your life was going smoothly–that you were exactly where you wanted to be–lingering above you like a joke. Laughing, jesting you with the past as happiness was rubbed into a wound like salt. 

He had a smile plastered onto his face the first time you saw him that weekend–the night before the ‘I do’s.’ He was sitting in the wine cellar with Steve, reminiscing about the past as the future was gently placed on Nancy’s finger; sparkling against the shine of the hotel’s lighting as night had long fallen on a Friday evening. 

As the thoughts lingered in your mind as the sun began to rise, it hadn’t been seeing Eddie for the first time in years that had thrown your world off its axis. The woman, clad in the most casual New England fashions, who sat beside him with her arm resting on his, did. 

A petty, jealous feeling at the sight rose within you rapidly. 

You felt there was no right for you to feel that way. 

Six years. Six years had left an open season for both he and you to find new people to love, hate, and screw, but the idea that there was a reality that existed where Eddie no longer loved you was jarring. 

The fear of it became engrained in your bones. Tattooed onto skin that was untouched and permanently stained with words that hurt and stung and ultimately resulted in the reason you had come to that wedding alone.  

Eddie had scarred you–in a beautifully tragic way that you’d never be the person you were at seventeen when he asked you to go see Temple of Doom at a theater two towns over. It was a shame you’d always tie him to that film… because you really fucking liked the movie but all you could think about was how Indy left Marion in the dust and hell, you felt like Marion sometimes. 

He just sat there. A gorgeous woman on his arm and smiling at Steve as though not a day had gone by. He looked older, more sure of himself, and dare you think it, had a bit more style than he did before. Nice, in a ‘formal but not too formal’ kind of way. 

They were all sipping on some hundred-dollar wine. He could afford it now. Red-soled shoes, a jacket with no fringe, and a bottle of wine that cost as much as your monthly rent. 

Nancy had been perched on a stool at the high-top beside Steve. The two had been going over the rehearsal that Eddie conveniently missed as well as the dinner from hours before. From what Robin had divulged, he had a show in Boston and would make his way out to Nantucket after it was over. 

You didn’t think Nancy ringing your suite for drinks would mean he’d be there too. 

The thunder from the cloud above you rumbled when Nancy caught your eye in the entryway. 

Everything, from the clothes you wore to the company of the room, felt out of place. Like you were looking from the outside and into a world that was completely yours but never one you recalled. The people in it–sparingly familiar but strangers all the same. 

Nancy had taken a sip of her wine, swallowing quickly as she perked up and waved at you. The attention drawing each eye away from Steve and to you, unwelcome and afraid of familiarity. Two looked happy, one looked curious, and the other looked like the whole world had stopped. 

A moment in time paused. No calm waiters tending to guests, no heads turning toward him because he was identifiable; it was blank. Two worlds gone completely still because for the first time in six years, you and Eddie had finally converged to one place. 

Some expensive hotel on Nantucket Island for a wedding between two people you both held near and dear to your hearts. It took nothing to imagine that if things had gone right, perhaps it would not be Steve and Nancy meeting at the alter tomorrow afternoon. 

In the stillness, a reunion is not bound by the trivial “it’s good to see you” or “its been too long.” A mind playing funny tricks and sending you back to years before–the way his entire person disappeared beyond the bedroom door only to be followed by the slamming of the front one. An apology sputtered at the end of a fight that had been brewing for weeks. 

The last time you saw Eddie Munson he had come home from a tour with no direction but up. Up to a new place, to a new life, and one that kept the past behind. Questions of love, home, and loyalty tested two people who were holding onto a fine thread before it snapped. 

Now, its lingering shreds brushed together with an easterly wind. 

You don’t know what he was thinking when the words stopped fumbling from his lips. 

“Hey!” Steve cheered happily from his spot as Eddie went quiet. “Come on, join us!” 

You felt like a fool standing there idle. Feet glued to the floor, eyes trained on Eddie a moment too long because as soon as the fifth second passed, the woman by his side asked: 

“Who’s that?” 

Steve said your name, waving at you the same way Nancy had, “She’s Ed–“ 

“My Maid of Honor!” Nancy cut in, giving the woman a smile in reassurance that it was the description most accurate to who you were. Nancy didn’t know why she cut Steve off like that; the side-eyed glance she received from him as Eddie stared back at you should have told her everything. 

Not friend, not best friend, not former classmate, but Eddie’s ex-girlfriend. What a label to have. 

Your planted feet begged you to move. The awkwardness of standing still for lingering seconds in time drawing eye after eye, raising questions as to whether or not you were having a medical emergency or just plain stupid. Your feet took those commands and walked, before your mind could even process that the night had continued to move forward without being truly ready to interact. 

“I told you she’d join us,” Nancy hit Steve’s shoulder lightly with the back of her hand, “Can’t spend the last few hours of us together as an unmarried couple without those who brought us back together.” 

Steve gave her a smile, hand squeezing her kneecap under the table because in reality, there wasn’t an ounce of a lie there. Not that any regular person would understand, but Steve had always dreamed of this moment: the night before he went to sleep one last time as an unmarried man, sipping chilled wine in an expensive hotel with his bride-to-be, his closest friends, and the reason he and Nance were at this stage. 

One piece of that puzzle had gone mute, silent as though they never heard him talk. As you approached the high top that was tucked into a corner by the windows that looked out to the Atlantic Ocean, Eddie couldn’t form words. He had prepared himself for this moment for years and yet his mind had gone blank. Emotions barren from his chest like he was an empty, cavernous being and not a person. He felt nothing–like the world had been obliterated and there was only him in space; alone and helpless to save his sanity. 

And if it hadn’t been so long since he last laid eyes on you, perhaps he could have recognized the same emotions bleeding out of you. That the wound had never truly closed and there was much unsaid floating around the two of you that the air was hard to breathe. 

But against it all, it was you who offered the closed smile and a small: 

“Hi.”

Eddie’s relief that the first words weren’t “fuck you,” or “I still hate you.” Just a simple “hi” that replayed in his mind as the seconds transpired and the ball had fallen into his court. 

But those words were hard for you to even muster. 

“It’s good to see you,” he settled on, not leaving his chair to wrap his arms around you or whisk you away to hear how your life has been since he left. He sat there, as still as you had in the entryway, and let you take the spot beside Nancy because it was the furthest away from his own that you could take. 

Eddie had completely forgotten about the woman to his right. 

No one had thought anything of the interaction. In two minds, it played out differently because the truth existed somewhere between two people unwilling to face it. For people like Nancy and Steve, there had been one story that had been told yet no one questioned the absence of the other on specific holidays, birthdays, or more. 

“We broke up,” that was what you had told Nancy and he had told Steve. Word for word, the same story. “Distance was getting too hard and we thought we’d take a break. It’s better this way and we’re still friends–we we’re friends before everything so…” 

For every truth, there were two lies. 

Nancy flagged down the waiter, tapping on her glass and holding up two fingers. You shifted in your seat as one leg crossed over the other and glanced at the woman to Eddie’s right. 

She wasn’t familiar at all. Still hanging on Eddie’s arm and fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. In all of your years together, you had never seen Eddie wear a dinner jacket. 

And against your feelings, you extended your hand over the table toward her. Eddie didn’t know what to think of that. You introduced yourself. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he knew the voice. It was the kind someone would use on the telephone if they were talking to a co-worker or boss, not a friend. 

“Veronica,” she lifted her hand from Eddie’s arm and graciously shook yours over the wine glasses; a tiny set of flickering candles beside a small relish tray beneath it. “I hear you’re the Maid of Honor?” 

“As much as one can be,” you told her, eyes looking over her face and form. Eddie could see it now that you were comparing yourself to her, an unfortunate circumstance of choice. “The other bridesmaids have helped a bit with planning and what not… it’s not easy work,” you scoffed, tipping your head at Nancy and the bride shook her head with a grin. 

“I promise I’m not one of those crazy brides,” Nancy jokingly defended herself to Veronica who admired the friendship before her. She knew you all of two seconds and could see how comfortable the two of you were. 

“Yeah, sure…” you trailed off as the waiter returned with two new glasses of wine. You thanked him and took a long, needed sip as the white wine’s bubbles barely had time to settle. 

Steve cleared his throat as you drank, glancing at Eddie before turning to you. “We were just catching him up on what went down at the rehearsal. Told ‘em that Robin tripped down the aisle so he’s gotta hold onto her tightly.” 

You snickered at the memory. Robin Buckley couldn’t walk in heels even if she tried to. Nodding your head, you didn’t make eye contact with Eddie to reiterate the sentiment. 

“She’ll topple over if you don’t.” 

“Will do,” Eddie replied quietly, differently than he normally would have and Veronica put her hand on his arm again, rubbing it up and down as if she knew. For once, he just wished she would stop. 

“We’re going to–“ Steve’s voice drowned itself out as he rattled on about the plans of tomorrows festivities. 

Every now and again when you’d catch a word of Steve’s, you couldn’t help but look at Eddie. Those eyes still telling of his emotions rather than the words he spoke; wide and pupils blown from both the environment and alcohol. 

You weren’t shameless about it when he caught you looking. He couldn’t help it either; it was as though he was drawn to a magnet that kept pulling him in. Just as you had observed him, everything was familiar yet strangely different. The way you held yourself, the clothes you wore, makeup and hair just enough having changed to make him notice that he didn’t know you now as he had then. 

However, he still felt that hand on his jacket. 

Yet he was looking at you. And he felt like a coward for thinking he’d rather have you cling to him like that then her. She, Veronica, didn’t deserve to have a man think that of her. 

“Are you still in Chicago?” He blurted out over Steve’s talking. Like walking in a path of quicksand, Eddie did not want to drown before his life truly began. Steve stopped and glanced at Eddie as though his friend had a stroke. 

“Mhm,” you murmured over the lip of the glass Nancy had secured for you. “Still in California?” 

“Yeah, near Bell Canyon.” 

“Is that…” Of course you wouldn’t have known exactly where that was. It wasn’t like you had a map inside of your brain or tracked his every movement. Based on the question on whether or not he still lived in California, he wondered if you read anything about him at all. 

“It’s near Los Angeles… like suburbs of it.” 

“Ah, alright,” you met his eyes briefly before taking another long sip of your wine. He could see the way you practically folded in on yourself; anxiety and fears bubbling within you the same way they used to. 

“And you still live…” he trailed off in a veiled hope that the implication went unspoken. ‘At the apartment, our apartment.’

“No,” you shook your head, “I moved a few years ago… have a nice view of the lake,” the thought of it brought a small smile to your face. It was nice. It was nearly perfect. 

“No more of the ‘L’ ruining your sleep?” 

He saw the hint of smile play on your lips. 

“It’s pretty quiet now,” for a multitude of reasons he could think of. 

“That’s good,” Eddie nodded, glancing at Steve and Nancy who provided no support to make the situation any less awkward. 

“So,” Veronica began with a perky voice for eleven-thirty at night, “Eddie said you all went to high school together?” 

The model wore these big, curious eyes. She was kind, in a doxy kind of way but her sentiment’s with her words transcended through each of you. This woman, a date, hadn’t been a steady, familiar thing to Eddie. Anyone who knew him as close as a formal, long-term partner did, would have known about the crew from Hawkins. 

“Yeah,” Steve answered as a savior, “But we weren’t all friends then… that took some time. We were all pretty different.” 

Nancy hit his arm playfully, giving a scowl as Steve quirked his eyes at Eddie. The latter had simply taken the labels he was given and ran with them–a transformative play for the man with a lengthy petty crimes list and could out smoke Pablo Escobar. 

“It doesn’t matter what we were like! We’re all friends now and those three–“ Nancy gestured her hand over Steve, Eddie, and yourself, “were in the same class.” 

“Oh!” She beamed. “How cool! I don’t really talk to anyone from my class so it’s nice to see it works for some people.” 

Everyone just gave her tight smiles. Having friends from childhood didn’t make you less of a person. It meant stronger connections and the fact that no one could say why you were all bonded so closely made things more difficult. 

“And the rest of your friends?” Veronica turned her face toward Eddie who shrugged. 

“In their rooms, I’m guessing. I think we got here a little late,” he chuckled. 

“They know you had a commitment,” Nancy reassured him. “Besides, Dustin and the others will be just as thrilled to see you in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “After the bachelor party, I didn’t think half of us would even make it here so it’ll be a nice surprise.” 

Thank God for Steve and his stupid jokes. It broke some tension, a smile actually cracking Eddie’s face again and one that reached his eyes. The brown, doe-eyed ones that Robin once said made her sad were recalling that party like it was the funniest thing he had ever experienced. 

‘It probably was’, you thought, ‘Steve Harrington always knew how to party.’ 

“So,” Veronica interjected, pointing a finger between you and Nancy, “the bachelorette party wasn’t anything to write home about?” Quick judgement.

“We went wine tasting in the Valley,” Nancy’s eyes lit up at the memory, “and then we went hiking… which in retrospect wasn’t something any of us liked.” 

It was the end of summer when everyone could get together and the heat ate at each of you as the sun rose higher, the drinks flowed more, and the guides took in their amusement of each woman. 

“Went to some museums, ate too much food…” you said additionally. 

“El learned she was allergic to pears and Max got stung by a bee,” Nancy interjected, “and our heroes Lucas and Mike came to save the day when we got stranded in the middle of lake because the engine died on the boat we rented.” 

“I think we’ll stick to spa days and cooking classes next time,” you picked up your glass, a side-eye to Nancy as she quickly agreed. Veronica perked up, still clutching Eddie’s arm. 

“Who’s getting married next? You?” 

She meant nothing by it. Her eyes were friendly and voice high pitched, interested in the conversation to just be a part of something more than a two-person bubble. You choked on the wine, the question startled you because it hadn’t been something you thought of in a long time. 

You put the glass down as your hand went to your mouth, wiping it dry and you, unintentionally, looked from her to Eddie. Steve noticed, Nancy didn’t. 

“No!” You replied a bit too loudly. “Sorry,” shaking the embarrassment from you, “I just–no. Not me. I would put money on Dustin and Suzie once they’re done at MIT… He’s loved her since he was in middle school.” 

She smiled at the idea of everlasting young love. “That’s cute! Sometimes, if you know, you know, right?” And she squeezed Eddie’s arm the same way her hand squeezed your heart at the sight. 

Eddie dropped his arm into his lap after her grip loosened. Her hand fell onto the table and whether she realized it or not, the rejection she felt showed on her face. 

“How did you two meet?” Nancy picked an olive with a toothpick from the small dish on the table. Veronica peered at Eddie to answer but he wasn’t going to. 

“At an event for our agency a couple…three? months back.” 

Three months.

“Cool,” Steve mumbled as he followed Nancy’s lead and took one of the pickles from the tray. “So what are you? An agent? Model...?” 

“I model for magazines, yeah,” she nodded and focused her hands at the base of her wine glass. You watched Veronica tap her white nails on the table cloth before bringing them back to the foot. “Sometimes do commercials or videos and stuff.”

Steve sat back in his chair; a thought pondered in his mind as he watched your eyes divert from the table and out the window to your left. It was dark, you couldn’t see anything beyond ten feet. The arm that had been taken off the table now sat at Eddie’s side with his hand in his lap. He had taken his thumb and twisted at the ring that rested on his ring finger–the one with a dark stone he had worn since forever. 

The groom reflected back to his bachelor party, three weeks ago, and how Eddie made no mention of Veronica but very drunkenly admitted something he didn’t want to see the light of day. 

Buried; six feet deep with the memories he had locked away in Pandora’s box. There was key to unlock them, let them fly away and spread like stars in the sky but it was booze and a little bit of weed that truly let them sing. 

Steve wasn’t sure if Eddie realized what he had told him that night. 

The way he was twisting his rings made him think that if he didn’t, Eddie was at least thinking the same thing now. 

“You know,” Steve crossed his arms as he leaned back, glancing at Veronica first before allowing his eyes to wander to you, then Eddie. “If you asked me a few years ago if I thought that Eddie, Eddie Munson, would be dating a supermodel… I would have laughed.” 

Veronica chuckled, a light blush forming on the balls of her cheeks as Eddie shook his head. It was Steve’s tone that made you turn to him. 

“Not really your type, dude,” Steve said and the woman’s face went flat. The chuckle cease and Nancy forgot how to breathe for a second. Maybe Steve had too much to drink, maybe he was done for the night, and if she whisked him away now, he wouldn’t be hung over for the wedding. 

“Come on, man…” Eddie shifted his head to the side, glaring at Steve to knock-it-off before things crossed a line he wasn’t prepared for. Eddie thought himself a jackass sometimes but he never wanted others to feel uncomfortable. 

“No offense, Veronica,” Steve held out his hand as if saying ‘I don’t mean anything by it.’ “It’s just…” He clicked his tongue, “you want the best for your friends, right? And for the last decade or more I’ve never seen you fawn over the looks of a model.” 

“Steve,” you interjected, providing the same look Eddie had given him because he was trying to open that box. “Stop being an asshole.” 

You turned to Veronica, “he’s just a little drunk, that’s all.” Nancy supported it with a smile and put her hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve laughed at your words like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “That’s kind of rich coming from you.” 

“I think we should–“ Nancy began but Steve leaned forward on his elbows. 

“You like Lord of the Rings, Veronica? Or ever go to a thrift store and absolutely wreck the clothes you bought? Play D and D?” She looked confused so Steve stopped, “Dungeons and Dragons? Like the game? No? How about drugs? Do you do those?” 

“Steve! Fuck man…” Eddie hit Steve’s shoulder, “I think we’re a little past a buzz, huh?” 

“Tell me, Eddie,” Steve took the whack to his shoulder in stride, “You’re not thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” 

“I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ about.” 

“Okay,” Steve drug the ‘a’ out of the word, “fine!” He looked to you, “are you thinking what I’m thinking then? And when I said it’s funny, I meant in you defending her when–“ 

“Jesus Christ, Steve!” Eddie said loudly, “would you just shut the fuck up for once! I was so worried about us getting into it,” he threw a hand up and motioned between the two of you, “but you took that and ran right the fuck away with it!” 

As Eddie argued with Steve, you turned to Nancy. 

“I think you better take him to his room,” you saw how mortified she was, “or I can call up Lucas and Dustin to come get him too?” 

“I’ve got him,” she took your hand and held it tightly. “He’s just up-“ 

“—OH!” Steve’s voice cut through hers, “like you’re not giving ‘fuck me eyes’ to each other! Goddammit! It’s like living with divorced parents! No wonder you switch off holidays!” Steve pointed at you, “was that your idea? I bet it was.”

“Wait,” Veronica cut in after Steve’s ‘divorced parents’ comment, “did you two date?” her eyes flicking between Eddie and yourself. Her question went unanswered as Steve continued his tirade. 

“And Dustin reassured me there wouldn’t be an issue!” 

“There wasn’t an issue until you brought it up!” Eddie said pointedly. You downed the rest of your wine in one gulp and Nancy hopped off her chair as people started to go quiet at the surrounding tables. 

“Please!” Steve lamented, “you got fuckin’ plastered in Miami and told me and the boys that you wished it was you gettin’ married not me!” 

“When the hell did I say that?” Eddie furrowed his brows, voice still loud and defensive. Nancy shrugged on her cardigan that was on the back of her chair, Veronica looked befuddled, and you felt like you blanched. Even if they couldn’t see it, you felt it. 

“At the shitty strip club!” Not something he should have shouted in a place like this. “You got all weird and drank yourself to pieces because, and I quote,” Steve said crazed, “the wedding makes you fucking sad and you didn’t know how to handle it.” 

“Oh fuck you, man,” Eddie soured, rolling his eyes at Steve as Nancy grabbed his arm gently.

“Steve, come on,” she coaxed him, “we better get going.” 

“If you want to convince people you don’t still love each other,” Steve chided, “then maybe stop acting like the world will fall apart the moment you walk into a room.” 

“Wait,” Veronica added again, shaking her head in misunderstanding, “still love each other? When did this happen?” 

“We don’t love each other,” Eddie answered for both of you without a second to spare. “And it won’t fall apart! Look! We’re here now!” He motioned his hand between the two of you across the table again but didn’t look at the way you listened to every word like you had when you fought in the kitchen that horrible evening.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded as if he didn’t believe Eddie in the slightest, “Swear on Dustin? On your… shit… I don’t know, guitar!? Say that to her face and tell her like you didn’t just tell me you make a fucking mistake years ago.” 

Mistake. 

There were two paths of a mistake. 

One, where his choice to follow his career without you was a mistake because it wasn’t as it seemed or it wasn’t complete without you; or two, that being with you entirely was a mistake because it clouded his wants for his future. 

Eddie sighed, head bowing as he ran a hand over his face and through his hair before coming up again. 

“Do you really want this to be how you remember the night before you get married?” Eddie asked Steve as the groom sat there with his bride clutching his arm in a pleading motion to exit the wine cellar. 

“Do you want this to be how you remember the day you chickened out on being a man for once?” 

Steve knew it cut deep. The wound open and bleeding for all to see as Eddie’s face scoured into the in-between of pissed off and irate. 

“Go, Steve,” Eddie said flatly, “Big day tomorrow. Don’t want to be late.” 

Nancy gave you a supportive, closed lip smile as Steve finally got off his chair and walked to the door. She let him leave first. 

“I’m sorry about him…” She laughed with embarrassment, “He’s just overwhelmed with everything.” And Nancy wasn’t telling you or Eddie that, but Veronica. 

“It’s alright,” she told her kindly in reply, “wedding’s aren’t wedding’s without a little drama, right?” 

For that, Nancy was grateful. She looked between you and Eddie–still separated by the table yet the string still bristled. 

“Be in the bridal suite by nine, okay?” She told you, “and I think the guys are getting ready at like ten so, don’t sleep in.” 

“Got it,” from Eddie and a “yeah, okay,” from you. 

“Sorry again,” Nancy apologized, leaving to go scold Steve as the table now sat quiet and awkward.

The flames flickered as the noises from other tables now filled the void of conversation at your own. Veronica tapped her glass, yours sat empty, and Eddie was still facing the empty seat where Steve had been. 

“So,” Veronica pursed her lips, “you two dated then?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek. It provided her the answers of why Eddie had been acting the way he had and the conciseness of dialogue that existed amongst you. The way he gazed, the way you diverted it; his own curiosity and knowledge of the sound of the elevated train that impacted your sleeping and the way the admittance that Eddie now lived in a suburb sent you the wrong way. 

Even then, you glanced at Eddie to see if he’d answer. She was his guest, after all. He turned back around in his seat–back flush against the chair, shoulders slouched. 

“Yes,” he treaded carefully, “we did.” 

“For how long?” It may have been worse that she said none of it with malice. 

Eddie flicked his eyes from where they were trained on the table top to you. And fuck, they sucked you right back in and spit you right back out. 

“About eight years…” You told her, ready to flee. 

“That’s a long time,” she nodded to reaffirm her words. “And you lived together?” 

“Mhm,” Eddie hummed as if he didn’t want her to know every detail of his life. He looked down at the table. “For four years of it.” 

“More like three,” you mumbled passively, pushing your wine glass forward on the table. 

“Four,” Eddie said firmly and his eyes shot back up to you. Sensitive subject, you suppose. He remembered every word you had said to him that evening and the comments about his time spent at home stuck. “Four,” he reiterated. 

“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?” 

You didn’t forget your words either. 

Your expression pinched; eyebrows shooting up for a brief second before your head cocked to the side with silent words. You weren’t going to embarrass yourself or this table any further by getting into a spat with Eddie over something as trivial as years spent in a shabby apartment in Chicago. 

The wine glass was already pushed; two chairs empty as bed appeared to be the best option to end the night. A soft, hotel pillow to help you replay every image your mind could remember from what you had, what you lost, and what had just happened. 

You hated that. But it was better than arguing with someone you didn’t want to argue with. 

Breathing in a deep, sharp breath, you retracted your gaze from Eddie and gave Veronica the softest one you could muster. 

“It was good to meet you,” you told her. It wasn’t her fault Eddie took your heart and ran away with it. “I hope Steve’s little scene didn’t scare you off. He can be a drama queen when he drinks.” 

“All good,” she gave a tight smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Happens to the best of us.” 

“So it does,” you replied, giving her a nod before sliding off your chair and letting the space return to two. Eddie’s sigh was loud; the way he closed his eyes in frustration hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

As you passed on her side exiting the corner table, you put a hand on the table when your feet came to a stop. Veronica looked at you curiously and waited for another ball to drop on her toes but it didn’t. 

“Don’t let him smoke a whole pack, alright? Won’t do any of us good if he does.” 

And then you walked away. 

Veronica had only been romantically linked to Eddie for three months. She hadn’t seen any side of him that resembled the man sat beside her before and from what she knew, Eddie was not a smoker. The only comment that had surprised her more than the outburst from the groom was when Steve admitted Eddie had become hammered from the booze and weed at his bachelor party. 

But before you could escape the wine cellar fully, Eddie turned around in his seat and shouted your name across the restaurant. 

In a full, obnoxious manner that reminded you of the boy you had fallen in love with in high school. 

“I quit. Six years ago.” 

When the sun rose to its blue hue and the reminder of the night before replayed in your mind like a fresh, unadulterated film, there was a conflict brewing within you. 

The idea of love. 

Love was precious; an almost a forgettable thing when the daily grind became too much for simplistic thought yet it was what people craved the most. To love, to be loved. On a day like that–where there was not a raincloud in sight and when two people were joining each other in matrimony bound by the tethers of love–it was hard not to think about how the feeling evaded you. 

It touched you once. 

It gripped its claws into your flesh and left fatal wounds in its wake, yet you desired it so. Love, the splendid little thing that meant mountains but fell to cavernous trenches. 

You don’t know which part of Eddie you had fallen in love with first. Juvenile, childish love was innocent at seventeen. As you grew older and the complications of adulthood and circumstance of living in Hawkins transformed life, the reasons for loving him changed too. 

It wasn’t always about how he could make you laugh or the way his eyes were so expressive; the comfort he brought or the way he helped you love yourself through him loving you in return. 

It was doing the dishes together at the end of a long night. Falling asleep on the couch because making it to the bed after one of his gigs was too exhausting, but he’d wake up in the early hours of the morning and make sure you’d both end up there anyway. How Eddie made time for everyone and everything until life stopped allowing him to do so. 

It was moments where you and Eddie would be waiting for the train at Clinton station and he’d link his finger with yours because winter gloves constricted full hand movements. 

Those times made you hate what love often resolved itself with: pain and bitter resentment that life was cruel. 

And the clock ticked away as you thought of it. 

When Nancy put her veil on, Robin was the first to cry. Then Max, then Eleven, and Karen was close behind them all. You stayed for a few minutes before excusing yourself to the hallway because the sight painted you blue. 

You felt horrid for feeling bitter when Nancy’s fairytale was not an hour away. 

In the hallway, there was a series of doors that led to varying rooms. Ones that held the groomsmen and Steve, one for the flower girl and ring bearer’s families. It was decorated with seaside decor of light yellows, blues, and whites. A table down ten feet and across the way had a mirror hung above it cased in gold. 

The woman in the reflection was one you neglected to see for a long while. The apparent dissatisfaction of your own circumstance on a day filled with joy riddled on every feature. A necklace clutched in your palm feeling the brunt of sweat and aggravation as Eddie filled your thoughts again. 

You wanted to love him, to be loved by him. You tried to hook the clasp. Missed. 

Why couldn’t you just move on and be happy with someone else? Again, the clasp dug into your finger. Missed. 

Could you even remember what it truly felt like to be loved? 

The clasp evaded you. It was mocking, laughing as you struggled in the hallway mirror and began to sweat the idea that you’d never be able to secure it. Heaving a deep sigh in the mirror, you clutched the necklace in your hand and leaned against the table with two fists. 

“Get it fucking together,” you told yourself quietly. 

Regaining your posture, you tried again, ignoring the sounds of a hall door opening and closing down the way. Your fingers trembled as the clasp caught air once more. 

“You need help with that?” 

You stared at your reflection and pretended not to see where he had stopped. Jaw tense, you shook your head and attempted the connection for the tenth time. 

When you missed again, he scoffed. 

“Give it to me,” he held out his hand palm up, ready to take it from your timid fingers and do it for you. “Come on,” Eddie egged on.

“I don’t need help,” you told him.

“Yes, you do,” he said pointedly. He could see the indentations of the small lever on your index finger. “Just let me help you.”

He wasn’t going to leave. Your eyes met in the mirror and he rose his brows expectantly. More hesitantly than he wished, you held out the necklace and let it ring into his palm. A nod from your head gave him the assent he needed.

In the silence of the hallway, you felt squeezed—both your mind and heart. Eddie moved to stand behind you and you could barely breathe; the simple gesture of helping you put on a necklace far more harrowing than previously realized. He was so close. So close. His fingers trailed to the back of your neck, brushing away the hair with his fingertips and letting it fall where it would not infringe the task.

You couldn’t bear to look at him. Focused on the sconces beside the mirror, you tried not to enjoy the feeling of his hands on you for the first time in half a decade. You tried not to remember the way his touch intoxicated you; every stroke and graze intentional as his eyes watched you struggle.

Eddie lifted his arms above your head and let the jewelry fall onto your collarbone. You wondered if his heart was beating as fast as yours.

“How does she look?” Nancy. His voice was low, quiet in the hall to not disturb the others getting ready. You hadn’t even taken him in yet.

The suits Steve chose were all black, form-fitting with ties instead of bow ties. The pocket squares were filled with a white handkerchief, and the shoes were a clean, shiny black. On his lapel, a single rose was pinned.

“She looks beautiful,” you replied but still wouldn’t look at him. You heard the clasp make it. The necklace sat firm but his hands did not move. They lingered, tracing the line of the back of your neck to the tops of your shoulders.

“You look beautiful.”

You didn’t want him to say that.

“Don’t say that,” you replied morosely. 

“Why?” Eddie’s fingers brushed the necklace’s golden chain. “It’s true.”

The bottom of your lip trembled dangerously.

“Because you can’t say that.” 

“But I did,” he sounded hopeful which dug into that wound a bit further. 

“You brought a date.”

“Why won’t you look at me?” He whispered, fingers still gliding. He said your name softly, “look at me, please. Talk to me.”

You felt your heart constrict, sending a shuttered breath through you and your eyes blinked rapidly. There was no way in Hell you would let Eddie see you cry. He had moved on. He brought a date. A goddamn runway model that, in your opinion, ran circles around you in every way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

“I need to go,” you stepped away from him, shaking your head and jetting off down the hall. “I’m sorry.”

He called your name once, twice, but you ignored him. You grasped the golden handle with a heavy hand, breathing unsteady as he stood in the distance in your peripheral. As though the world stood still again, Eddie felt that he had broken through. You would turn, talk to him, and let him relish in the company of you. 

Yet, you grasped that handle tighter. 

But, you did turn. 

And when you opened the door back to the dressing room, it wasn’t only you whose memories transported you back to the night in Chicago that plagued your mind, but Eddie too. Straight back as he made his way to the men’s dressing room in the opposite direction. 

“Stop being such an asshole!” You stood in the kitchen, hands clutching the sink as the anger seethed out of you. Eddie paced in the living space just beyond the island to your right. 

“What do you want me to say, huh?” He threw his arms up in defeat. “For once in my life things are finally looking up and people just don’t get signed to a label and expected not to do—” he fumbled his words, “everything that comes with it!”

“I’m not asking you to give up music, Eddie!“ 

“Then what are you asking me?” He craned his head to the side, hands on his hips and breathing hard. “I can’t work from here. I have to go there and the least you could do is come with me.” 

The least you could do. The least you could do. 

You tossed the dish rag that had been strangled in your grip into the sink, focusing on the window positioned across from it and scoffed. A view of the goddamn ‘L’ train tracks you despised.

“Well I can’t just get up and move,” you said as calmly as you could. “Why is it so easy for you to ask that of me but when I bring up what I want, it becomes a problem for you?” 

Eddie shook his head, hair mused as he ran a hand over it. “I don’t make it a problem, baby.” 

“Yes, you do!” You laughed exasperatedly. “You just fucking said—“ a frustrated groan left your lips and you bounded off the sink and faced him from behind the counter. “It’s not like this is Hawkins; it’s goddamn Chicago and I’ll be dammed if there isn’t a music producer in one of those skyscrapers.” 

“They’re not like they are out there. If we want any chance to make music–actually make music of our own that sells platinum records and wins awards–those producers are out there,” he pointed to the door as if it signified a world beyond this one. 

“What? So, it’s all about money?” 

“No! But hell, if that isn’t a major part of it I’d be lying!” 

“And what about our home here?” You put your hands on the counters ledge and the nails on your fingertips motioned against it with rhythmic clicks. “Everything we’ve built here goes to shit because of one possible record deal?” 

“It’s not just one deal,” Eddie groaned your name in frustration, “It’s the only deal and this… this here,” he motioned around the apartment, “was only ever temporary.” 

News to you. 

“Like Hawkins was. This isn’t really home.” 

“Not home?” You furrowed your brows at him. “Then where the hell do you think it is? You bolted from Hawkins the second you got the chance and as far as I am concerned, this is my home. You see those pictures on the wall?” 

You tipped your head in the direction of the wall that the couch sat up against. Above it was a collage of frames that held so many memories. From Nancy to Max, from Steve to Mike, everyone was on that wall. 

“Those people helped us find this one.” 

“Well,” he shook his head, “they can help us find another in California. There are people out there, baby. Real goddamn people that know just what we need.” 

Not you, Corroded Coffin. What they needed. 

“It’s not going to find us all the way out here.” 

“Tell me, when was the last time you were excited to come home?” 

He had been traveling the world with Corroded Coffin for a year and a half. In all of that time, he had come home for approximately two months. Eight weeks out of seventy-eight. This wasn’t the first fight about it; he had changed. The stronghold fame was suffocating him and was the very thing drawing you apart. 

“Hm?” You hummed as he diverted his eyes to the apartment door. 

“I’m here now.” 

“That wasn’t my question, Eddie,” the ground rumbled beneath you. The way his eyes darted to the door as if it were calling him to leave. Foundation cracked and crumbled, fragmenting as the words threatened to tumble out. “Do you even want to be here?” 

“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here, yeah?” He looked annoyed, lips nearly flattened. That’s how you knew he was angry. Angry at life, at you, at the world. 

“Eddie,” you pleaded softly in one last attempt to salvage the broken platform, “stop lying to me.” 

“I’m not lying.” 

“Yes, you are!” You breathed in deeply, thinking of the unthinkable questions that pondered in your mind. “I’m not asking you to stay because I don’t want you to follow your dreams—you twisted my words—but why can’t I be the selfish one and want to stay here? You’ll have more money, you can visit and we— “ 

Can work it out. It was already over when he said he had been signed that godforsaken deal. 

He said your name dejectedly. It hung there in the air as if saying ‘stop trying.’ You felt a lump form in your throat as you looked him, already decided in what he wanted because he was going after his dream. Halfway there, this was his out. 

The tears gathered at the sides of your eyes, “you don’t even try.” 

Eddie always had something to say but he couldn’t form words in that moment. 

“What?” You steeled your wet eyes on him, “can’t even say that you had? Or that you were? Eddie, I’ve been doing this alone for so long that I don’t even remember the last time you told me you loved me and you meant it.” 

That set him off. He pointed a bitter finger at you. “I always mean it when I say it. Don’t play that card.” 

“Card!?” You cried, “I’m not trying to guilt trip you into staying but you don’t mean it! Eight weeks! Eight weeks in a fucking year and a half and you expect me to get up and throw my life away for you?” 

“I was on tour! Halfway across the goddamn world!” 

“Exactly!” You exclaimed, turning away from him and trying to escape to the bedroom but you could hear his heavy feet following. 

“Stop it,” he said your name over and over as you gripped the door and tried to close it. He pressed his palm against it with a hard slap and pushed it against the wall with a deafening thud. “Would you just stop!” 

“For Fuck’s Sake!” You yelled, “I can’t move! I don’t want to move! I have a lease, a good job, and I want to stay here and build my future!” 

“You can have that in California!” He yelled back. 

His eyes were wide, trying to pretend the antithesis of the fracture was anything less than his career. 

“No, I can’t!” 

“Why not!?” 

“Because of you! You don’t want what I do!” You screamed at him, voice breaking as you cried and realized that this was the end. Eddie would move out to California and you’d be left in a tiny apartment in Chicago alone. 

“I want a family, Eddie. I want to raise kids here or in the stupid suburbs, and grow old here. You want to be a—” you swallowed hard, cheeks wet and eyes getting puffy, “—rock star and those lives don’t mix. They just don’t.” 

He was only twenty-five. He didn’t really know what he wanted from life. 

“You don’t want to be here. That’s why you haven’t come home and I get it, I do. The band is growing, you’re popular, you have a million women to choose from, but I can’t keep pretending that my wants have to be ignored for you to succeed.” 

“Are you saying I’ve ignored you?” 

“You tell me, Eddie,” you shrugged, “how would you feel if the person you loved most was gone for months only to be reassured that everything was fine by a phone call every few days?” 

He let his head tip to the floor, eyes closed because although many of the cracks stemmed from his choices, this wasn’t what he wanted. Eddie wanted to be happy, to be in love and be loved. But he was at the precipice of being what he always wanted and decisions had to be made. 

Callous and resentful decisions. 

“Do you hate me?” Eddie’s eyes spurred something in him. A hatred for himself, a despised feeling growing that a part of him that had always been missing—family—was being ripped away for a dream. 

“I don’t hate— “ 

“Yes, you do,” he looked up, giving you a knowing look as his bottom lip trembled. 

“No, I don’t. But I’m hurt and I don’t think you see that.” 

“So,” he cleared his throat, breath hitching in his chest, “this is it then? We’re just going to give up?” 

“I didn’t give up, Eddie,” you needn’t say the rest to indicate that he had. “We just want different things.” 

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” you shook your head, sitting down on the edge of the bed with your face turned away from him. “Right now we do and it’s not doing anything for either of us.” 

It was quiet for a few minutes. Minutes. A thick fog fell over the room; marinating in every picture, the clothes folded away in the dresser, the shampoo in the shower, the two dinner plates half-cleaned in the sink. Domesticity wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough.

You weren’t sure how long it had been, but Eddie’s socked feet moved from the spot he stood in and approached the bed—carefully and freely. He knelt down, hands on the outsides of both your thighs and his thumbs rubbed the tops of them gently, the pressure soothing when it shouldn’t have been through your jeans. 

“I want you to be happy…” he swallowed thickly as he chose his words gently. There was no point in trying to stop you from crying when he couldn’t do so himself. “I want you to have what you want, sweetheart… and if I can do that… someday… we’ll find each other again.” 

“Eddie…” Your heart ached as you shook your head. Hope was the killer of it all. 

Hope that perhaps one day you’ll find each other again; that you’d both be free to choose the paths that crossed while maintaining your own personalities and careers without giving one up. Hope that a future existed when the flame was extinguished on a cold evening in Chicago. 

“I’m sorry,” he rubbed your thighs tenderly. 

“Me too.” 

“I love you,” he said softly as if were one last confession. The tears were quietly flowing when you leaned forward, cupping the back of his head with your hands and resting your forehead on his own. 

Just to hold him one last time. 

“I love you too.” He left the apartment an hour later and it was the last time you had seen him. No contact, no cards, and no one, in the group of friends you shared, brought up the other on purpose.

The reception was noisy. 

Like a zoo full of animals that were awakened by a whistle only they could hear; sounds of song’s you hadn’t heard since high school played from the small band the Wheeler’s had insisted on just beyond the designated space for dancing. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will were losing it on the floor since the second a Michael Jackson song emitted its first few strings. 

Steve and Nancy were hand in hand greeting guests at their tables as others made their way to the bar, dessert table, or chatted with drinks in their hands. 

At the head table, El and Max were positioned at the end talking in whispers about the people in the room and you sat like a lone duck near the center of it. An abundance of flowers in white and yellow flanked the table before you, empty dishes and scattered bags and goods littered its table top. Mike left a pack of cigarettes in his spot while Dustin’s best man speech was crumbled in a quarter-fold beside his sweating glass of coke. 

Time had left you behind; sitting solemn at your best friend’s wedding while everyone else put on their best smiles and grinned their way through the evening. And maybe that’s what observation had led you to believe, that you looked as though you were wallowing in self-pity for an absence of love in your life. Loveless at an event so full of it. 

You fiddled with the necklace absent mindedly. 

The room of excitable tunes slowed. 

Couples–married and not, grabbed their partners for a dance. Robin and Eddie were standing near the center of the room beside the table that all the parents were at when Veronica slid next to Eddie, her hand slinking down his arm and into his palm as she nodded to the growing group on the dance floor. 

Hours ago, you had looked back at him when he pleaded with you to stay. Now, as his hand was gripped by a woman he wasn’t sure why he had even invited, Eddie looked back from the center of the room and to the head table where you sat. 

Veronica pulled him away before he could make a choice. 

Robin leaned against one of the chairs, watching as Eddie trailed behind the woman in orange. She did not realize Joyce and Hopper were still sitting at the table she rested against. 

“What the hell was that?” Hopper voiced, hand pointing in Eddie’s direction like a finger gun. He had a mustache that was perfectly trimmed and highlighted his frown well. Joyce crossed her arms with scrutiny.  

Robin shrugged, sighing as she turned around and pulled out a chair to sit at the table. “Two idiots in love, I think.” 

“Jesus,” Hopper scratched his forehead, “I knew it was a bad idea…” he mumbled as he watched Eddie pretend to be interest in what the woman was telling him as they danced. 

“What?” Robin shook her head, “What was a bad idea?” 

“Them breaking up!” He said as if it were obvious. “I got a call from one of the bartenders at The Hideout that there was a scuffle goin’ on one Friday night a few years ago and when I got there, Eddie was there just fuckin’ bombed on the sidewalk.” 

Joyce nodded along to his words because she had heard the story before. Robin listened intently as Hopper continued. 

“I couldn’t understand a word he was sayin’ so I put him in the truck and offered to drive him to her parents’ house because that’s where they always stayed when they came to town and he just… cried. Drunk and sobbing his goddamn eyes out in the front of my truck.” 

“Was this recent or…?” Robin pondered. 

“No,” Hopper shook his head, “years back but he was goin’ on about how he was a bad boyfriend and they broke up and he was moving to California in a few days… I just thought to myself ‘shit, man, I have never seen someone so bent out of shape from a breakup.’ Those two… If it weren’t Steve and Nancy gettin’ hitched, I would have bet money on it that it was them instead.” 

“Every Tuesday he’d pick her up from Melvald’s and take her out. He had flowers for her every time,” Joyce recalled. “I asked her about it once,” she nodded and looked at how you watched Eddie with the other woman, “she said that he never had a good example of what it meant to be a good boyfriend. I guess his dad was a piece of shit,” Hopper hummed a knowledgeable assurance that she was right. “And he wanted to be the only example he could think of–be that good guy that she deserved.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Robin said quietly. 

“I told him he needed to fly back to Chicago and fix things,” Hopper added, “but I guess he was too beaten up about it; probably thought she’d slam the door in his face.” 

“Doubt it,” Robin snorted, “I don’t think they’re idiots,” she corrected herself, “I think they know exactly what the other one is thinking but are too scared to get hurt again if it doesn’t work out.” 

Hopper scooted his chair back, adjusting his pants and jacket as he stood from the table. “Well, then we’ll just have to make it happen–or,” he clarified, “get them in the same spot.” 

Robin swiveled in her chair as Hopper rubbed Joyce’s shoulder as he passed behind her, heading straight for the head table and directly to you. 

Jim Hopper wasn’t a man that could be missed in a crowd of hundreds. His bulky frame that towered over guests and moved about the room like a boulder in grass drew your eyes to the movement immediately. He passed by Max and Eleven at the end of the table, never missing the opportunity to pat the girl he raised into a wonderful young lady on the head. 

It was a nice distraction from Eddie and Veronica swaying to a melodic tune. 

“Hey kid,” Hopper pulled out the chair beside you labeled with a table marker for ‘Robin Buckley.’ 

You gave him a closed smile. “Hi Chief.” 

“I guess I can’t really call you ‘kid’ anymore,” he groaned, chuckling as he sat down with an ache all older men his age did. “I blink and you all grow up… makes me feel like a real old man,” and then he gave you that sly, side grin that made you wish Hopper was your dad instead of the one you had. 

“You’re not old, Hopper,” he managed to pull a small laugh from your lips. The dejected film washing away for a brief second in time. 

“Well,” he cleared his throat as he put an elbow on the table and adjusted himself in the seat to face you, “that makes me feel a little better about my age. So,” Hopper gave a pointed look that answered the hundreds of questions as to what Robin was chatting to him and Joyce about, “what are you sitting all the way over here for? Don’t want to chat or dance?” 

“Just tired,” you told him, “Nance didn’t pick the most sensible shoes.” 

“Robin took hers off; I’m sure you can do the same.” 

“And walk barefoot on this floor?” You snorted. “Never.” 

He shared the amusement before turning his gaze to the groups of people beyond the tables as they danced. A goddamn direct view. ‘Cruel,’ he thought. And surpassing the stone of the church from hours before, the beach where it trickled rain as photos were snapped for scrapbooks forever, and the smells of delicious food filled his belly before reaching his mouth, Jim Hopper felt the love that filled the room. 

It touched him, as it had you and everyone else on the wedding weekend of Steve and Nancy Harrington. 

Joyce was attempting to occupy Robin in conversation but every time Jim’s eyes met hers, he knew they were both far too curious and nosey to not be gossiping about longstanding drama that befuddled even the most romantically inclined. 

The woman that restored his faith in the prospect of love and devotion had witnessed the earliest of your own. Tuesday’s at the local mart, the way Eddie would hold the door for you and attempt to steal magazine’s off the rack just to get your attention. How Eddie drove you around when your car was in the shop and eventually, would take the little rascals of Hellfire with for soda and snacks before their campaigns began–but also because he wanted to see you if even for a minute. 

Although people often judged the idea of love at a young age, Jim and Joyce both recognized its honesty between Eddie and yourself. It was pure, unadulterated, and basked in a light that only belonged to the longevity of companionship. 

“You know, the moment I knew I loved Joyce, I thought I’d never get her.” 

Hopper could see Eddie and his date having their own conversation, whatever it may have been, because a blank face melted from one of an increasing lack of emotion, to one of strife. 

“And when I did, I thought she’d see a different man than the one I believed I was.”

“She would have been blind not to see the real you, Hopper,” Joyce smiled at you as you caught her eyes. “You always tried to help us be the best versions of ourselves and she did too. If that’s not a perfect match, I don’t know what is.” 

“Are you the best version of yourself now?” He questioned, tapping his finger onto the white tablecloth of the table. “Weddings can be… sobering… but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person look as distant as you.” 

“Flattery never was your strong suit, Hopper,” you grimaced, “and I’m fine,” you weren’t fine. “You didn’t have to come save me from myself.” 

“So, there aren’t a million thoughts swimming around in that mind of yours? I know I’m not the most intuitive dad there is but believe me when I say I’ve been trained to know when somethin’ just quite ain’t right.” 

“I have hundreds of thoughts racing through my brain. ‘Why is the cake so far away?’ ‘Rob and Joyce can stop staring at me any second now,’ and perhaps my favorite thought, ‘why does Jim Hopper care about my state of mind?” Combative. He knew the signs. 

“Maybe Jim Hopper knowns that the girl deep down inside of you just needs to heal,” he said honestly. “But there is only one way to heal what’s been lost and let me tell you, it’s not going to come waltzing on down here as you sit and mope.” 

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” You scoffed at yourself, “that this wedding has only made me jealous about what I don’t have.” 

“I don’t think you’re jealous, kid,” Hopper deflated, “I think you’re realizing a mistake was made somewhere along the lines of your own life.” 

Mistake. It was that goddamn word again. 

“There’s been no mistake,” you shook your head at him, “everything has played out the way it was meant to.” 

“And you really believe that?” 

“There had been nothing in my life to prove me otherwise.” 

“And lying was never your strong suit, kid,” he put on his ‘dad’ face. “You don’t have to talk to me, fine, but if I asked to be the first person to ask for a dance tonight, would you say no?”

How could you deny Jim Hopper, Police Chief and hero of Hawkins, Indiana? You couldn’t. Even if you were flailing for support in an ocean of heartache, sparing one dance for the man was cinch. He rose from the chair, holding out his arm in hopes that you would link yours through his and entertain him one dance as Steve and Nancy added themselves to the pairs on the dance floor and swayed gently to a new song. 

His stature would block a view you’d rather not see. 

“You may be the only person to ask me to dance,” you joined him on your feet. “I can’t say no to you, Chief.” 

“That’s the spirit, kid.”

“Why did you bring me here?” 

Veronica’s voice cut through the music as couples and pairs settled onto the dance floor with the melodic hum of a song playing through sets of speakers. Instead of dancing like an adult, she had flung both her arms over Eddie’s shoulders and linked her hands behind his head. He had no choice other than to put his hand at her waist; the fabric of her orange dress was coarse under his fingertips. 

“I asked you to come,” Eddie replied. “I thought I told you that last night.” 

Ah, yes. Last night; where Steve made a scene about Eddie’s lingering feelings of letting another woman go while she sat beside him with the best intentions.

Veronica did not know Eddie Munson–the guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks by fate, the one who had a strange group of friends that shared varying interests and ran in different social circles, or someone who threw everything he had into a career he realized wasn’t as glamorous as the cameras and magazines made it out to be. 

He cursed those Rolling Stone magazines he scoured when he was a bit too early for closing time of Melvald’s. 

“Yeah,” Veronica said as if that hadn’t mattered in the slightest, “and here you are, barely even touching me or sparring me a second look. You know I had to sit by some stoner guy for dinner and they didn’t believe you could bring someone like me.” 

Eddie narrowed his eyes, taken aback by her comment. “What’s that supposed to mean? Those are good people. And I was a huge fuckin’ stoner once too.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” she shook her head, “I mean, they didn’t see me with you. Not because of who I am or who you are, but because it wasn’t right.” 

“You know,” Eddie lowered his voice when he caught the eye of Dustin dancing with Suzie not two feet away from him, “you’re sounding an awful lot like someone who’s about to dump someone else.” 

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Her eyebrows quirked as she tipped her head to the side. “Why waste more time on me?” 

Even if his heart raced in another direction, the sound of someone saying that to Eddie was bothersome. 

“Please don’t say that,” he said, “you’re not a waste of time.” 

“But for someone else’s love, I am,” Veronica’s lips extended into a thin line. “That’s not a bad thing, Eddie… It just means I’m not the one for you.” 

The chords of the music sobered him. 

Across the room, sitting desolate at the dinner table, his heart called. 

“Afford me this dance,” Veronica continued, “and when the time comes, do what makes you happy, however difficult that may be. She may not run into your arms as she once did,” as the motions swayed the pair, she faced the table as Jim Hopper approached. “That doesn’t mean love doesn’t exist.” 

She felt Eddie’s shoulder’s deflate from the tension he had been holding in the entire day–nay, two days–since the prospect of you had become a reality. 

“I abandoned her,” Eddie admitted quietly to her, “like a fucking ragdoll for some dream that really isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” 

Veronica did not know every detail. She did not know the exact history, nor did she fully grasp the levity of a near decade of love being tossed to the side for a pipedream. But she did know what it was like to leave an abundance of life behind to chase a want. 

Yet the model had never seen a group so peculiar as the one he belonged to. The tightknit communal that leaned on each other like family even though many were from different corners. She had seen the binds of friendship like never before. She had seen a broken love bonded by pain from across a candlelight tabletop and wondered why she had ever been invited if that would always have been the outcome. It was as though two ships hadn’t sailed passed one another but docked; lengths of a life finally running out of individual ink before relying on two for competition. 

“You both hurt each other,” she settled, “that is what separation does. But…” she chuckled, “I have been in love before and I’ve never witnessed such a feeling when being in the presence of the two of you–and I don’t even know her…” 

“She won’t talk to me,” Eddie confided. “I tried, earlier today because she was on the verge of a breakdown over a necklace and she could barely look at me.” 

“Don’t you think it may be because if she did, she’d fall all over again?” 

The song was coming to a close. 

“There is nothing wrong with pain, Eddie. Feeling pain, wanting to be healed, and being scared of that healing… and maybe she’ll need time. She loves you. I know she does because when women know, they know.” 

Jim Hopper stood from the chair. 

There was a comradery he felt in Veronica. Romance beside itself, the woman was a chakra. She had looked into a future he could barely imagine himself and pulled the heroic card before it was dealt. These cards overturned like quicksand settling between his toes. 

“You know,” Eddie gave her a sly, friendly grin, “you sound an awful lot like those odd fortune tellers that sell their services on the strip.” 

Veronica laughed; whole-heartedly, warmly. “Maybe in a previous life I was,” she played, “but in yours, there has always been one path and I guarantee you, from one romantic to another, loneliness was never an option for you. It’s what kids dream about–that ‘fairytale…’ Even if it is a little bit messy.” 

You linked your arm with Jim’s. 

“I’ve always been a little too messy,” Eddie said sheepishly. 

“I can tell,” Veronica groaned, “You don’t have to be perfect for her. Imperfection seizes our hearts faster than perfection… it’s enough to haunt us when perfection tears that apart.” 

“El isn’t dancing with anyone.” 

Jim Hopper held one hand in his and the other on the upper half of your back. It was as though he was dancing at an elementary father-daughter dance than anything else, stiff in his hulking frame. The music did nothing to silence your rapidly forming thoughts that Eddie and Veronica were feet away; Eddie’s eyes caught yours as Jim helped you to the floor, an anguish in them acted as a puzzle waiting to be pulled apart. 

In the eyes that watched Veronica rip the persona he had gathered for himself in the years past, Eddie could only imagine you. He waited for them to turn into your own, for her laugh to morph into yours, for her hands to run through his hair as yours once did, and the comfort of her presence to become you. Looking for that glimpse, Eddie found it inside of his imagination; searching every corner of it to find a home for his torment–self-inflicted and its mortal consequences bleeding life from him like a sieve. 

“It’s those sensible shoes…” Hopper joked. “Her feet are killing her. A couple blisters later, she’s sworn them off forever.” 

“I don’t blame her,” Lucas and Max joined the pairs beside you. The red-headed girl rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed in the utmost content state she could be in. True love. 

“How many dances do you have in your feet?” 

“Why?” You questioned. “Am I a better partner than Joyce? She was always rather clumsy.” 

“No,” he laughed but could not disagree, “I just think those boys won’t end the evening without asking you. I think Dustin’s always had a little crush on his former babysitter.” 

“I don’t think,” you tipped your head at him, “I know he’s always had a crush on me.” 

Dustin Henderson had always been a cute boy. His pure child-like imagination and motivation had inspired you to explore your own interests without fear. You had watched him from five until his mother decided he didn’t need you anymore, but you were lucky to call him a friend now. 

“But he’s got Suzie,” you could see the two giggling as everyone danced around them. “And I can’t think of a more natural person for him. I think they’re next,” your eyes moved themselves around the room, “to get married.” 

“Too many childhood sweethearts in my opinion,” Hopper’s gruff voice was certain in that. “Not everyone is meant to be with their first loves.” 

“I think they are… just like Steve and Nancy, just like Max and Lucas.” 

“And you and Eddie.” Not a question, a statement. 

It was the scoff that left your lips that made his hopes for you feel weak. “That chapter ended, Chief. He’s moved on, so have I.” 

“No,” he clarified, “you haven’t. You wouldn’t have been moping around your best friend’s wedding if you were.” 

“I wasn’t moping,” you defended, “Jonathan was moping. I’m pretty sure he cried and had decent reason to but I was just… people watching.” 

“Person watching. You were watching Eddie and there’s nothing wrong with it,” he asserted. “You love him. There is no shame in it.” 

“Why is everyone so interested in how I feel?” Your face put on the mask of a scorned lover. Eyes drawn narrow and brows forming a crease in its center. “This is Nance and Steve’s wedding, their only wedding if they’re lucky, and I’ve had person after person question how I feel about something I no longer have.” 

“Maybe it’s because for once we all see the truth of it all…” He had seen the truth as a washed-up Eddie cried in his truck. “That the pain of the past isn’t worth the loneliness of the future.” 

“A true poet,” you mumbled, “but I’m fine. I promise you, I’m fine.” 

“I’ve said it before,” Hopper chuckled, “and I will always say it to you, but you’re a terrible liar.” 

“Lies be lies, Chief. But there’s no point in trying to make me feel better about feelings I can’t control.” 

“No one is asking you to control them,” you turned your head away from Jim’s and clocked Lucas eavesdropping. He gave a strained, tight smile before resting his cheek onto Max’s head. “That isn’t what we’re trying to do… I want the kids I watched grow up to be happy and you’re not happy, he’s not happy. I don’t know if the answer to that equation is the two of you finding each other again but I’ve never been a man capable of understanding the love you had. And that sound ridiculous coming from someone as old as your old man.” 

“I can’t even be in the same room as him without feeling like breaking down,” your voice was quiet, a mere whisper of what it was because the prospect of Eddie still having feelings for you was frightening. You didn’t want to end up becoming a ghost again. 

“It’s like I’m a nobody in a room full of somebody’s and they can’t see me.” 

“Someone will always see you,” his eyes were gentle. “He saw you when he couldn’t see himself.” 

“Then why did he leave?” 

And the way Hopper’s body stood taller, his gaze no longer meeting yours, and turning you cold told you the world was ending. This love, imploded if it couldn’t exist between the two of you, was bubbling to the surface like a volcano. Here, on the island of Nantucket, a tsunami couldn’t save you from emotional ruin. 

“I think that’s a question you’ll have to ask him.” 

Veronica’s hand extended into your peripheral vision. She held it out to Jim like a lifeline. 

“Do you mind if I steal him?” Her body came into view and you needn’t know the conversation the two had to know she had led Eddie back to you. “I need to hear all about this ‘hero of Hawkins!’”

“I’m not the hero,” Jim said rather sheepishly. “That’s all him.” 

You could feel Eddie’s presence in a room of hundreds of a room of one. It enveloped you into a cocoon against your fighting mind. 

“Those are strong words coming from you, Chief.” His voice rung out against the music. Eddie had been on the poor graces of Chief Jim Hopper for many a year before the man had seen Eddie for what he was: a good, kind man with a fierce complex.

Jim looked to you. “You got this, kid. I’ve got another partner now, so do you.” 

He took Veronica’s arm and linked it through his arm like an elderly man who needed help walking. He wasn’t that old. She took him away without a glance back at the one who had asked her to come. 

“Now,” Eddie cleared his throat from behind you, “I could ask you to dance or,” he had put on that voice like there were more options than he had, “we can go outside, sit down, and maybe you’ll talk to me.” 

‘Look at me. Why won’t you look at me,’ his words echoed in your mind. 

When you turned around to face him, he got his wish. 

Eddie looked hopeful, as if it were the permanent face he wore. His eyes were the smallest bit glassy, hands stuffed into his pockets, and the shine of his shoes to the wear of his tie was different than he had ever worn before. He was still him, yet so different all the same. 

“If we talk,” you felt like you swallowed a frog, “no lies. I don’t want to hear any lies.” 

“Wouldn’t think of it.” 

The night was cold. 

Springtime enfolded the shores of Nantucket; cattails and tall grasses billowing, soft sounds of ocean waves lapping muted the music from inside. Adirondack chairs lay vacant, pillows dewed and their wood smooth. 

You couldn’t bear to sit down. 

Allowing the night air to take you, Eddie shut the door behind him and felt the scene before him play at the edge of a cliff; every piece of you blowing away against a yearning to stay. He began shrugging his jacket off and you held out a hand in front of you. 

“I’m fine,” the frost bit at your voice. “Keep it.” 

“You’re freezing,” Eddie continued to remove his piece. “I’m not going to be an asshole and let you freeze to death because you’re stubborn.” 

You scoffed. “I am not stubborn. I don’t need it, end of story.” 

He tugged it off, folding it in his hands before tossing it on one of the chairs that separated the distance between you. His tie was long undone, the two buttons at the top of his shirt undone but the cufflinks remained. You wanted to take the jacket. You wanted to recall his scent and warmth but your stubbornness in protection vexed you. 

“Fine,” he huffed. 

“Fine,” You replied in kind. 

Only the note of waves filled the stillness. You both looked at one another as though a million years had gone by in the blink of an eye. Not unlike the seconds passed in the wine cellar the night before, the world seemed to dissipate to a single existence of two former lovers. Two people, in spite of themselves, who haven’t felt whole since a single moment six years before. 

Goosebumps raised on your skin, the jacket appeared delectable yet an item of fear as it sat, calling to say ‘put it on,’ only to be followed by a whisper of ‘forgive me.’ 

“I can’t imagine that small talk is what you wanted to discuss,” you started. 

“I don’t believe it’s what you would want either,” he countered, “and we both know that would get us nowhere.” 

“So, what?” You lightly shook your head. “You want me to ask how your life has been and catch up on all I’ve missed? There’s a reason I don’t read gossip magazines anymore… I don’t need to see beautiful women rubbed in my face or success showing me that my pain was worth something more.” 

“A lot of those things are lies,” Eddie walked his icy path with steady feet. “You don’t need to read them, no. But I would hope you still cared enough to ask about me when you visit Rob and Nance, not to mention Steve never brings you up to me.” 

“Oh, you mean the literal effort they all put in to never mention you around me?” You gazed at him as though the reason you never asked about him, or they never spoke about him, was obvious. It hurt too much. “It’s not exactly a cake walk, Eddie, to hear about your fantastic life when I could barely hold my own together.” 

“It’s not fantastic and if you asked, you would have known that.” 

“And it’s my responsibility to learn that? Did you want me to reach out, ask how you’ve been, and get lunch like you didn’t fucking break my heart?” You gawked. Eddie took his hands from his pockets and put them on his hips–a Steve move he had taken upon after establishing their friendship. “If I couldn’t talk about you, I don’t know how the hell I would have talked to you.”  

“Then maybe I should have called,” like an easy solution, “and maybe instead of… what was it Steve said? Trading holidays liked a divorced couple, we could have been civil and spent time with our friends together.” 

“Was that when you were traveling the world or recording records?” You pursed. “Or when you moved out to California and visited once a year? Tell me, Eddie, is a hypothetically cordial relationship something you really want with me? I can barely feel the world turn as it is when I’m in your presence, I doubt I would be able to have a good time with our friends.” 

Eddie laughed savagely. “I didn’t know all the fun had been sucked out of you.” 

You took a step back, careening your head out toward the ocean as you bit your cheek. He had gall. He was bold and unflinching, but his eyes told the truth. His own pain and suffering at the consequences of his actions had let the light leave him for so long. When pain overtook a person’s being, anger and callous language followed. 

“If you’re going to be an ass,” you looked back to him, “I don’t want to talk to you.” 

“It isn’t the truth, though? I’ve at least tried to have a halfway, goddamn decent time at this wedding and every time I looked at you, you’ve been nothing but bitter.” 

“No one asked you to look at me, Eddie. You brought a date. You should focus on her.” 

“How could I!?” A dam had broken inside of him. He couldn’t not look at you. “Every time I think I’ll give someone else a chance, it’s like seeing a fucking ghost in my mirror! I have to look at you. I need to look for you.” 

“No, you don’t!” You exclaimed with as much passion. “You lost that when you walked out! I am sorry that I am so shitty for being sad at a beautiful wedding. I am sorry for wishing that this time, maybe it was me walking down that goddamn aisle. And for fuck’s sake, I am so sorry that I am fearful that you’ll finally move on and want to marry someone else! Jesus fuck! It’s been six goddamn years and I still think that you’ll come walking through the door and say you made a mistake but I don’t want to hear that tumbling out of Steve’s mouth. I don’t want it to be based in lies because you feel bad I am sad at my best friend’s wedding.” 

“I love you,” he blurted out without reason. 

“Don’t say that!”

“Why!?”

“Because it isn’t true! IF I was, you never would have left! You wouldn’t have asked me to throw my life away and follow you to the ends of the fucking earth! If I wasn’t just some body, maybe somebody would love me enough to stay,” You argued loudly. 

“I do love you,” He argued back with the same ferocity. 

“You did. You don’t anymore.” 

“I do love you. I do. I haven’t fucking stopped loving you since I was seventeen and I don’t think I ever will stop. I will always love you, I have always loved you, and I know that when I am dying, I will die loving you,” he was breathless. Angered and pent up with emotions he had buried deep where his eyes were fiery and his tone was firm. 

“You can’t say things like that…” Fuck the tears that loved to threaten to fall.

“Why!? Tell me why I can’t tell the truth. You asked me not to lie and I wouldn’t do that to you!”

“Becau–” you stammered the word as your mind racked itself for answers, “because it’s not fair to me! I can’t live another day knowing that someone else out there loves you in a way that I do. I can’t keep waiting around in my shitty, fucking life for someone who walked out of it for something bigger than me.”

“And it was a mistake! I will never forgive myself for it but please, even if it’s the last thing you do, please believe that it was. I never should have asked that of you, I was selfish. I knew what I wanted in life then because it hasn’t changed. It existed deep down but was scared to come to the surface and I needed to be pulled under to see that. I love you. I love you so goddamn much that every day without you has been the most unbearable few years of my life. I want you, and only you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” your lip trembled, face hot. 

“I’m not lying,” his own eyes watery. “Please, I am not lying to you.”

“I don’t think you know how much you hurt me, Eddie,” you shook your head at him. “There are times when I don’t feel like myself because you took that away from me. I don’t depend on anyone; I’d never say that I lost everything when you left but you cracked me open, slaughtered me in the place we shared because of a dream. And believe me, really, that I am so happy you found that life but how can I know that my suffering was worth it? 

“You don’t think I suffered too?” He exclaimed loudly at the sky. “I went to Hawkins, you know, after everything because I didn’t have anywhere to go.” You didn’t know.

“I got so fucking drunk at a bar that Hopper had to come scrape me off the sidewalk and from what I remember, I exploded in the truck when he tried to take me to your parent’s place. Do you know what he did? Let me sleep on the couch and when Eleven got up the next day, she held my hand and told me that I’d be okay and I haven’t been okay. I’ve never been okay without you and I’m not scared to admit that. You are my lifeline, sweetheart. I have tried to replace that feeling but I can’t.”

“Do you know how long I wished for you to walk through that door?” You pointed to the door you walked through as if it could transform itself into the one of the apartment you shared. “I sat there, waiting for you because I barely remembered a life where you weren’t part of it and that was hard enough to imagine when it slammed in my goddamn ears,” you huffed, eyes nearly ablaze as his committed declarations of love echoed through every vacant place inside of you and right back to the moment he left. 

“There is not a day that goes by where I don’t question why you let it go so easily.” 

“It wasn’t easy,” Eddie stressed your name exasperatedly, “nothing about that choice was easy.” 

“You made it seem like it was.” 

Eddie felt the grounding he had built in his mind with his vow of love was strong. He felt the ghosts of the past begin to grip his feet; haunting and pulling him to the depths of his former despair to face a choice chastened by ambition. On the cold, concrete sidewalk and the airy Nantucket patio, it ruptured in spouts. 

Pain, longing, abjection tied to every word; you had tried in obstinate strength to keep the fortress from becoming invaded. That somewhere in your heart there was a knowledge it was stronger than the force of the man that had left you to bleed but it wasn’t. It felt his bullets like bandages. They neither wounded nor massacred its path forward, binding the holes left behind with attestation.

“When I said we wanted different things, why didn’t you tell me what you wanted?” You asked in a voice wavering. “I thought you wanted this life,” a hand painted his figure against the night, “he one with the glitz and glamor and women like Veronica. If you wanted what I did, why toss it to the side?

Eddie shook his head, backing away from you and throwing his hands on top of his head in a connected grasp. He looked out to the water so dark he couldn’t see yet heard. “You remember what I told you about my parents?”

After a second, he returned his gaze to you and in return, you nodded. 

Eddie’s perception of self was deeply rooted in the disjointed childhood he had been forced to experience. Every feeling, every action questioned by himself as to whether the receiving party had viewed it as strange, difficult, or simply heartless. He kept his heart on his sleeve, however, he kept it tethered there. When someone tried to hold it in their own palms, Eddie pulled away. 

It had taken years for him to be comfortable enough with himself to be willing to be someone he liked. 

“It doesn’t just go away with time,” he sighed. “I will always doubt myself. I always fear that I’m one step away from becoming him even if I know I’m nothing like him.” 

For a child of a loveless marriage, a brutal life, the most fearful thing they could imagine was not whether or not they could be loved later in life, it was turning into the people they hated most. 

“It’s not every day that someone comes to your concert and wants to sign you without so much as a demo session… and that overtook me. I know that now, and I knew that the second I walked out the goddamn door. I will apologize for the rest of my life if it means you know how I feel.”

Eddie let that sit. 

“You can hate me forever, I don’t mind. But don’t convince yourself I never cared enough about you.”

“I don’t hate you. I never hated you. And I’m sorry if I made it seem that way.”

Perhaps he would have to convince himself that you never hated him just as you would that he loved you.

“Even when I left?”

“There was not a piece of my body strong enough to feel anything more than empty when that happened.”

“I felt it too, you know,” his eyes shimmered in the lamplight. No joy, no hilarity–just hope that you knew the truth. 

“I do now,” you told him. 

“I’m not asking you to give me a second chance,” Eddie shrugged his shoulders lowly. In a nearly defeated sigh, he took the words he replayed in his mind for two thousand, one hundred and ninety days, “but fuck… I told you I’d find you again if the time was right and the minute I saw you in the archway I knew that was my shot… you’re the same but different… I loved you then and I love the you that you are now. And I’m sorry that it took me that long to realize it.” 

“What did you feel in that church today?” 

A cosmic connection, a fleeting moment he wished to hold onto forever. 

“Eddie,” you took a step forward, closing the distance, “tell me what you felt.” 

“I felt…” He paused. Breathing in deeply, it was not his admissions of love that proved to be most difficult. It was the regret of letting it go that scarred the deepest. “I felt… bitter.” 

“Bitter?”

“Because I don’t have what they do,” he threw a lazy arm toward the door. “Or I did have that and I let it go because of a silly dream.” 

“I don’t think your dream was silly,” you admitted, “it worked out of you in the end.” 

“But at what cost?” Eddie took a step closer to you; the chair with this tuxedo jacket the space that separated you. “Why do those dreams take everything away to make them happen? I didn’t want to do that, this, alone. Not without you.” 

“I felt helpless,” you disclosed. “In that church with the sun streaming in… like a fucking… higher power was saying to me that the way I loved you still existed inside of me. It hasn’t ever truly gone–as much as some moments I wish it was–yet it stays.” 

“Helpless because you love me?” 

“Helpless because I can’t have you.” 

“And why can’t you have me?” Another step closer. “Why do you, the only woman I have ever truly loved, feel you cannot have me?” 

“Because someone else does,” your eyes flashed toward the doors as if Eddie’s proximity and both of your vulnerabilities were forbidden. “Because someone else loves you.” 

“She doesn’t love me,” Eddie’s fingers eclipsed your own. Fanning in a light flutter, it was discovering touch again. “She isn’t mine and I am not hers.” 

He stepped closer again and every one of your senses went spiraling. Eddie leaned his head forward and rested his forehead on your own. Two sets of eyes closed at the sensation. 

“You have all of me. Every part of me since the moment I saw you.” 

“And what do you want?” 

‘I want you to have what you want, sweetheart,’ his words were distant from the past.

“What do you want now?” you asked him, breaking away as your eyes shone to his. His free hand cradled the back of your neck gently, he rubbed his thumb over your cheek. “I know what I want, but I need to hear it from you. No lies.”

“No lies,” he repeated, a quick glanced down at your lips had him soaring. “I want you, baby. I’ll only ever want you.” 

“Good,” you whispered, lips barely tracing his for the first time in six years. “Because we’re not letting this go this time.”

“Never.”

And he pulled your lips to his.

To answer the question the chapel had asked you, ‘what is it like to be loved?’, there is only one answer: 

This is what it feels like. Pain, beauty, and joy. There is no bind without strife, nor is there passion without sacrifice. 

And in the years in between said sacrifice, the tethers of a string brushed together until they found one another again on a little island off a blustery coast for the wedding of Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler.

A/N: As always, comments, reblogs are kindly encouraged. Thank you for reading!

P.S. from the future here! This is still one of my most favorite stories I’ve ever written. Thanks for showing it so much love over the last few years.

[holy-minseok]

It’s currently 2am. It’s taken me a whooping 2 hours to finish reading this because 1. I did not want to stop reading to fall asleep 2. I had to stop and wipe my tears (yes actual tears) multiple times 3. I had to keep taking laps around my to debrief every scene 4. I was rereading every flashback bc I just felt so deeply for both of the characters. I was doing everything I could to finish this because I DID NOT WANT TO STOP. Your writing had bewitched me mind body and SOUL. I love coming across just real and true angst and romance-that actually makes me FEEL. I physically felt how much they longed for each other in my chest. The chemistry between the main characters, especially during the argument scenes-MY GOD. This was so so so beautiful. It really moves me when I find writers that have the skill to touch people with their storytelling. I genuinely mean it when I say you have that ability and influence with your words. I’m sure you already know that, though! Im sure you’re tired of my paragraphs under your fics by now, but I can’t help but ramble when I am so impacted by a work! Thanks again for sharing. I’m so glad I got to come across this masterpiece!

[inknopewetrust]

Well now I am CRYING

I am absolutely not (and will never be) tired for reading your feedback. I was so excited to see a notification for this one because even if I wrote this a couple years ago, it remains one of my favorites—if not my guiding star of what I’ve written. This actually started out as a succession fanfic and I was losing steam with it and began to imagine it with stranger things.

And it just clicked for me. I’d written several pieces for Eddie at that point and really wanted to start exploring what it would be like to write long stories that felt absolutely real. Fanfiction is nice because we can live in a little fantasy but I always loved the fics that made me feel like I was walking into a world that was real and hurtful and filled with conflict because that’s what the real world is.

I’m writing a story character x oc based on a movie that’s very unforgiving and it’s reminding me of that intent. Reality isn’t easy, but the human side of it feels so natural.

Thank you so much!!

[scarletmika]

The Wonder of Him : ̗̀➛ Johnny Storm x Reader

READ PART 1: The Wonder of You : ̗̀➛ Johnny Storm x Reader

Pairing: Johnny Storm x Reader

Summary: Falling in love with Johnny Storm was easier than it should've been. Loving a superhero, though, is never easy. But he's worth it. He's always been worth it.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY MDNI, SMUT (making out, oral m. receiving, shower sex, unprotected p in v, creampie, hint of temperature play again), porn with a LOT of plot, sequel, slight hint of some angst, fluff, lovers who haven't put a label on it, Johnny is a massive flirt, hopelessly in love losers, SPOILERS! for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, female reader but no characteristics described, maybe some incorrect stuff regarding the 60s and how it worked but it's a fantasy world, VERY lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes (message me if you find some big ones)

Word Count: 18,781 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

One month.

One month without Johnny Storm and you were, slowly, going insane. Truthfully, you were going insane without the entirety of the Fantastic Four in your life while they were in space.

The Baxter Building lab was quiet. You had the entire, elongated room to yourself, from the workstations to the monitors. It felt like you had spent every waking moment since the Excelsior went up into space in that damn room. Every inch of Reed’s notes had been combed through, you’d made some minor adjustments to the bridge teleportation devices based on Reed’s notes, and had reached the point of rereading old notes and studies to try and fill the void.

Sue’s warm presence couldn’t be felt in every room of the building. She wasn’t sneaking into the kitchen to grab yet another craving during the day, even though she muttered to herself loud enough for you to hear that she was going to spoil her appetite. The scent of her perfume had slowly fallen from the air, it no longer clung to the cushions of the living room couch, could no longer be smelled simply from stepping past her bedroom door.

The kitchen felt lonely without Ben. There was no one to taste test your dishes, make recommendations of the perfect blend of spices to add to your sauces. Even picking up Maisie’s cookies felt sad, knowing you didn’t need to grab any of those delicious black and white ones for your friend to enjoy.

Even Herbie’s missing presence could be felt in every room. No little beeps down the hallway in the morning, his little arguments with Reed in the lab, or the little humming he would do when he’d help Ben in the kitchen.

The Baxter Building felt cold without Johnny Storm.

You felt cold without Johnny Storm.

Four years of working with Reed, of knowing this family, and it was after they’d been gone for three days that it finally hit you. Over the course of those four years, you had never been apart from any of them for more than a week. Every day of your life was spent in that building, working at Reed’s side, cooking with Ben, talking with Sue over the dinner table, or curled up beside Johnny on the couch for whatever movie Channel 2 was playing that night.

It took that long for you to realize that the line between your work and personal life, the one that you had been trying so hard not to muddle up, had blurred a long time ago.

At that realization, you hadn’t left the tower since. Your apartment was long forgotten. Instead, Johnny’s bed became yours.

His warmth didn’t flood the sheets anymore, not without him to lie in them. They were cold, the silk pillowcases cool to the touch every time you laid your head upon them. Fall was quickly winding down, though, winter on the horizon, and you craved the warmth your favorite flame boy gave off. One night to love him how you truly did wasn’t enough. His closet very quickly became your own, too.

Lynne hadn’t said anything the first time you met her in the boardroom for a meeting, but the glance she shot your way said it all. Heels, highwaisted black pants with a tucked in white blouse, but the oversized off-red jacket thrown over your shoulders was the dead give away. That, and what you knew was the faraway look in your eyes.

Reed had left you in charge to speak on his behalf, which prompted Lynne to drag you into any and all meetings for the Future Foundation. You attended, wore a smile, spoke when spoken to. Every other minute was spent staring out the windows, eyes on the skies, praying to see the Excelsior. All while the faint smell of Johnny’s jacket, whether it was his cologne or just simply him, reminded you that he wasn’t here with you.

One single night with Johnny Storm and you were a goner.

Today was no different than the last thirty days. An 8 a.m. meeting with Lynne and the Future Foundation, followed by hours holed up in the lab, trying not to let your brain wander.

The bridge teleportation device sat in front of you, the soldering fixed to strengthen the energy arms, while the other sat across the room at Reed’s workstation. The dress you had worn for the meeting was discarded, replaced instead with a pair of sleep pants you kept in the guest room and Johnny’s faded Elvis t-shirt he’d had as long as you had known him.

Johnny. What if he was dead? What if they all were-

A quick bang of your hand against the workstation was enough to break you from your thoughts, those terrible thoughts that you tried not to have. It was impossible to outrun them, though. A month of no contact from the Excelsior, no updates, no word from the four up there in space. Complete radio silence, and it only had your nerves growing by the minute.

There was a beeping across the room, the same beeping that had been occurring for the last 45 minutes. With one swift press of your keyboard, you silenced it, keeping your attention entirely on the device in front of you. It was just the alert for a message, most likely from Lynne trying to bring you into yet another meeting. You didn’t have the energy for that, not now.

Not when your mind was constantly repeating those final moments one month ago.

Johnny’s hands were warm, they were always warm. But with you, they were warm in a different way, a softer way. He cradled your cheeks in his hands, thumbs running a smooth line back and forth over your flushed skin. All you could do was press a small kiss to the part of his palm exposed, while your eyes stayed trained out the glass panels beside you leading up the walkway to the Excelsior. Reed, Sue and Ben stood with Lynne, the cheers of the city all lining the sidewalks booming through the walls.

“Can you look at me?”

You did, but it felt like a gut punch to do so. There he was, the man you loved, standing before you in that blue and white spacesuit. “J. Storm” embroidered over his right chest.

“It’s not fair,” you said after a moment, swallowing the lump that had formed in your throat. “I tell you I love you and now you’re just jet setting off to space.”

Johnny’s lips quirked up slightly at that, his fingers pinching at your cheek.

“I’ve got a reputation, baby, I can’t be falling in love. Have to run away before you suck me into your orbit,”

The swift punch you laid to his abdomen did nothing but force a laugh from his throat, the layers of the suit stopping the force of your outburst. His hands caught yours, still balled in a fist, as he laid a gentle kiss to each knuckle cradled in his hands. You did your best not to melt at the sight alone.

“I think we remember last night very differently, Johnny. You were the one who said I love you first,”

His lips hummed against your knuckles, and you could feel the smirk growing on his lips as those blue eyes darted back to you.

“Oh, believe me, I remember last night perfectly. Especially the moment I had my head buried between your le-”

He caught your other fist easily, laughter ringing through the air. Using the leverage of both of your hands in his, Johnny tugged you into his chest with ease, curling his arms around your back with a squeeze.

“Don’t go flirting with the herald while you’re in space,” you tried desperately to lighten the mood, chin resting on his chest to look up at him. Even as you tried to lighten the mood, you knew the tears forming behind your eyes were inevitable. “Don’t forget about me up there.”

One of his arms left its place around your waist in an instant, holding it up straight for you to see. The edge of his suit sleeve fell down just slightly, letting the overhead lights glint off that familiar silver bracelet around his wrist.

“You remember this? You got it for me for my birthday two years ago, and I haven’t taken it off since,” his arm fell back down, hand curling around the back of your head to press a kiss directly to your hairline. “You’re always with me, I couldn't forget you even if I tried.”

Fuck Johnny Storm and those stupid lines once again. Burying your head into his chest, wishing the suit wasn’t there so you could feel his heat, the smile that crawled onto your lips was inevitable as you hugged him tightly.

“Just come back to me,” your words were muttered out against his chest, silently willing your tears to stay at bay until he was gone. “If you die up there, I’m just going to regret ignoring this for four years even more.”

His body shook with laughter. Johnny’s glove-covered hand left the back of your neck and curled around your neck, just slightly tugging on your hair to pull your head back. He didn’t say a word, barely gave you a chance to think, before he tugged you up into a kiss–gentle, soft, but pressed to your lips with every ounce of love in his body. A love so overwhelming you were sure your knees would give out right then and there.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, baby,” his words were whispered against your lips like a promise. “You’re stuck with me now.”

But what if you’d already lost him? A month with no contact…there was no telling what could have occurred up there.

“Alright, bridge teleportation test six,” you muttered to yourself with a shake of your head, running a hand down your face and trying to rub the sleep from your under eyes and fight away the intrusive thoughts plaguing your mind. The switch was placed in front of you, a new egg balanced on the stand in the middle, and one of Reed’s many notebooks open beside you. Safety glasses on, you took a deep breath. “Let’s hope this data calibration doesn’t fry the entire eastern seaboard.”

A simple flip of the switch in your hand, and the pulsing white energy of the device was lit up. Three beams of energy, encasing the pearly white egg in a misty sphere of white energy, before it was gone in the blink of an eye. The energy dissipated as you threw your protective glasses down onto the table, whipping around just as the egg reappeared across the lab.

The power flickered off, but you didn’t flinch. Instead, you counted quietly to yourself: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven-

The power to the building flickered back on the second you got to seven. It was enough to bring a miniscule smile to your face, turning to jot that down in your notebook.

“Alright, power back on automatically at seven seconds, up from 15 seconds, which is up from manual breaker override,” your words were mumbled to yourself once again as you noted the new development in your notebook. “I’m pulling power from, at least, seven different boroughs, but at least it’s automatic-”

“Is talking to yourself a new development, or do I not come visit you enough to notice?”

That voice was enough to stop you dead in your tracks. Your body froze at the sound, the sound you knew well. For four years, you’d heard it every single day: moaning about something Reed had done, flirting up a storm with you around every corner, ranting on and on about space. You had heard it moan your name, whisper “I love you” into your skin in the dead of night like a sacred promise.

When you turned, there he was. Still in that blue and white spacesuit he donned the day he left, as if he’d just left yesterday. But that look, the one reserved only for you, was still soft on Johnny Storm’s face, even as his lips ticked up into that impeccable smile you knew so well.

It took a moment of silence, just staring, for your voice to finally find you again.

“Is this real, or am I sleep deprived?”

Johnny laughed, a sound that skipped your heart almost immediately. But that smile softened as your voice broke on every word, sobs already threatening to escape your throat.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m real, but how sleep deprived are you? Lynne said you’ve been sleeping in my bed, and as far as I know that’s a damn comfortable bed-”

“You’re actually here?” your voice cut through his words again, eyes wide as you took that most cautious of steps forward. “You’re…you’re alive?”

If it was even possible, Johnny’s smile softened even more at your words. His arms stretched out, an open invitation.

“I’m here, baby. I thought I told you already, you’re stuck with me,”

That was all you needed to hear before practically flying across the room, launching yourself into Johnny’s arms. He caught you, with ease. He’d always catch you, and you knew that.

The warmth. It was the first thing you felt. His warmth enveloped you in its own separate hug, seeping into your skin and bones. A choked sob fell from your lips before you could stop it, arms curled around his broad shoulders and one hand desperately clinging into the short strands of Johnny’s blonde hair. The wet trail of tears that soaked your cheeks was inevitable, soaking the skin of Johnny’s neck as you buried your head into the crook of it, sobbing through each inhale of that familiar smell of just him.

A month of no little touches. No hugs, no hands brushing your lower back, no thumb dancing over the apple of your cheek. Johnny’s arms felt like home, and god, you never wanted to leave them.

Johnny’s voice was soft as he wrapped your body just as tightly into his own arms. One of those gloveless hands found its home right at the small of your back, while the other cradled the back of your head like something precious. Little whispers of “shhh” accented every phrase muttered directly into your hairline, with every little kiss peppered to your skin: I’m here. We’re okay. I love you.

When the tears subsided, when the worst of the sobs left you, you finally managed to pull back from the now soaked crook of Johnny’s neck. Hands resting on his chest, one over his heart and one over that embroidered “J. Storm”, you finally got a good look at those blue eyes prettier than the sea itself.

Then, you shoved him.

“Whoa–okay, what the hell?” clearly caught off guard, Johnny stumbled back just slightly, eyes wide as he looked at you.

“A month!” you practically shrieked, hands quickly shoving at his chest again. Johnny was slightly more prepared for it this time, but still stumbled back slightly. “A fucking month!”

“Whoa-! Okay, okay, I know, I know!”

“No contact for a fucking month, Jonathan!”

“To be fair, we were literally lightyears away-”

“You could’ve been dead!”

“As you can see, I’m very much not dead,” his hands were ready this time, catching yours as you moved to shove him again. He clutched them in his, holding them tightly against his chest as he shot you an unimpressed look. “If you could stop shoving me for two seconds, that would be really helpful.”

“I won’t stop, because I’m fucking pissed at you-”

It was Johnny’s turn to cut you off with a single tug on your hands. Stumbling into his chest, you didn’t get another word out before he surged forward, connecting his lips with yours.

Your brain didn’t want to give in, but it very quickly lost that battle to both your heart and your body. The air knocked straight from your lungs didn’t matter the second you both collided, the feeling of Johnny’s lips on yours better than oxygen itself. You tore your hands from his, curling them up around his neck in a desperate attempt to hold him as close as possible. Your body curved, molding itself into every part of him.

Johnny was no better. The desperation, the longing in each of his movements was prevalent. His hands grasped at every part of you they could: your arms, your waist, your hips, your thighs. No piece of you seemed good enough for him, no way to hold you close enough, as those heated and slightly chapped lips moved against yours as if devouring you whole. A meal he couldn’t get enough of.

With every semblance of willpower left in your body, your fingers tugged on his hair slightly, separating you for even just a moment. Panting heavily, in sync with one another, you didn’t want to know what you looked like to anyone else. Flushed skin, t-shirt falling off of one shoulder, eyes blown so wide the color almost couldn’t be seen. Johnny was no better.

“Y-You can’t just keep kissing me every time I’m pissed at you, Johnny,”

“It’s such an effective way at shutting you up, though,” he quipped, the stupidly handsome smirk back for just a moment as he dove back in for another kiss before you could retort. When he pulled away, the smirk was gone though, replaced with a face full of guilt as his lips pressed a featherlight mark to the tip of your nose, your forehead, and then to your cheek. “I’m sorry. We made the jump, shit went south, and we lost the FTL engine in the process. Ben had to slingshot us around a neutron star–a literal neutron star–just so we could jump again. We didn’t have comms until just a bit ago.”

“Someone could’ve at least told me you were back,” you weakly tried to argue back, but all the fight had left you now that your brain had finally caught up with the present and accepted that Johnny was here. He was alive, he was okay, and he was with you.

His little smirk was back in seconds at your words, his glance turning to look back toward your workstation.

“Honey, I was standing right outside of that elevator watching you ignore Lynne’s hundredth call of the last hour. She’s been trying to tell you since we made contact with the Foundation that we were landing soon,”

You froze, cursing yourself in your head for ignoring that incessant alert, giving the man before you a sheepish smile in return.

“Well…oops?”

He laughed again, the sound like music to your ears. Johnny took one of your hands in his, bringing it to his lips as he ghosted small kisses over every knuckle of your hand. You just wanted to melt at the sight, a new round of tears threatening to fall as his gaze stayed locked with yours.

“I’m here, you’re okay,”

“I was so scared,” your admittance came out in a hush, sucking in a deep breath to try and stave off the tears again. “I was so scared you guys weren’t coming back.”

“No way I wasn’t coming back to you, not when I’ve finally got you,” his words came easily, like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to say. With a single flick, he uncurled your fingers from your palm, placing a kiss there instead as his next words were mumbled straight into your skin, into your very being. “I wouldn’t leave you. I promise.”

The way he said it, the conviction in his tone, you knew he meant it. A promise he couldn’t keep, one he wouldn’t know he could break until it happened, but a promise he’d fight tooth and nail to keep. For you.

“I’m amending my no flirting in the lab policy. I’m adding in no public displays of affection,”

If your heart had broken to see Johnny in front of you again, it shattered once more when you turned to see Reed and Ben standing outside the elevator doors. Both still clad in their own blue and white space suits as well.

“Come on, we’ve been waiting for these two to figure it out for ages,” Ben tried to reason with his best friend, the semblance of a smile pulling at his rocky lips for just a moment. “He only talked about her every day for a month straight. Give them some leeway, Stretch.”

“Maybe,” Reed commented after a moment after humming in thought. “It is quite nice to see Johnny so soft with someone-”

You hadn’t let your mentor get another word out, crossing the room in seconds to tug him into a tight hug just like you had with Johnny.

The laughter of the boys in the room could be heard as Reed definitely froze in your arms, giving you a light hug back with a short pat against your shoulder blades. Deciding not to torture the man too much, you pulled away after a moment, before quickly slotting yourself into the hold of Ben’s rocky form.

“God, you guys can’t do that to me again,” you muttered just loud enough for them all to hear, rubbing frantically at your face to try and keep another round of tears at bay. “I thought I was going insane.”

Ben shook his head, throwing a pointed look over your shoulder in Johnny’s direction. “You thought you were going insane? That one wouldn’t shut up about you for a month. Love you, kid, but my God I was ready to toss him into space.”

“Uh, given the way she just beat me up for almost not coming home, she probably would’ve found a way to turn you from rock into dust if you did that, buddy,”

The noise of the two’s playful argument was nothing to you as you locked eyes with the one last person you’d yet to see. Blonde hair pulled back, clad in the jumpsuit you knew she always wore under her flight suit, cradling something to her chest as she stood quietly behind the boys.

“Sue,” her name fell from your lips in a breathless huff as you ducked under Ben’s arm, walking quickly toward the woman. Sue smiled in your direction, turning just slightly to the side as she unwrapped the emergency thermal blanket bundled up against her chest.

“Before you get ahead of yourself, there’s someone you should meet,”

And God, was he beautiful. The most perfect little baby cradled right up against Sue’s chest. Wide little eyes like a doe’s, as blue as the ones you had fallen in love with years ago, taking in every little detail of the room. Little tufts of hair matted down to his forehead, body still cradled in the confines of the thermal blanket tucked around him.

Just before Sue, you came to a stop, resting a single hand on her arm. Eyes full of wonder, you couldn’t take your eyes off the little baby now looking up at you.

“Sue…oh my god, you gave birth in space,”

There was a short echo of laughter through the room. Sue joined in, before quickly maneuvering the little baby into her hands, passing him off into your own without warning.

“This is Franklin. Franklin, this is your aunt,”

Holding little Franklin Richards in your arms was surreal. Cuddled into your chest, as if seeking out your warmth, those little blue eyes looked up at you like you were the greatest thing he’d ever seen. It was impossible not to let a little laugh slip past your lips, a tear leaving its trail down your cheek. 

With just a single finger, you brushed the little hairs on his forehead back, trailing it down the side of his face. His little hand came up, tiny fingers wrapping just barely around your finger, holding it in his grasp as he babbled in your arms.

A hand wound its way around your hip, your body tugged back into the warmth of the one you’d come to recognize so easily. Your tear gaze met Johnny’s. The softest smile you’d ever seen was on his face, an emotion swirling in his eyes, as he looked down on your and his nephew, that you’d only come to put a label on a month ago: love.

He pressed a kiss to the side of your head, fingers flexing against your hip, before he placed another kiss to the same spot: firmer, longer.

That was the moment you looked up to the rest of the team, your family, as they stood in front of you now. Behind the tiredness in their eyes, the bags under Reed and Sue’s eyes, you could finally see it written across their features. The notes of terror in Sue’s eyes as she looked down at her son in your arms. The way that Ben looked as if he’d aged a thousand years, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders suddenly. The guilt that racked each of Reed’s features, followed by a quiet determination you’d come to know so well.

That’s when the pieces of the puzzle finally snapped together in your head.

“Oh god…you couldn’t stop him, could you?”

❤︎

If you had thought that Reed was obsessive over scanning Sue repeatedly while she was pregnant, you had yet to see this side of Reed Richards.

The side that came out when a being predating the universe itself, who hailed himself as the Devourer of Worlds, was threatening to destroy the Earth in what could only be mapped out as a matter of weeks, or even days. Top that off with that same being wanting little baby Franklin Richards for himself, to use him as some kind of successor to his power…yeah, maybe you could slightly understand Reed’s obsessive nature in this sense.

Reed hadn’t let you leave the lab in a matter of three days since they had returned from space. Not that you tried to, wanting just as badly to find a solution that didn’t involve having to give up a child to some kind of space god. Every night you’d passed out on the couches in front of the chalkboards, long after you had forced Reed to retire for the night and go see his wife and son, promising yourself that you’d scan every note, every equation of his, in hopes of seeing something the smartest man in the world couldn’t see.

Every morning, you’d awoken on the lab couch instead of the floor, draped in the blanket that you knew usually sat folded at the end of Johnny’s bed. Even his scent clung to the fireproof fabric, invading your senses, your body begging you to simply go upstairs to him.

You had just gotten him back and now you’d been without him again for three days. It was worth it, though. You had to help Reed find an answer, something that would protect this little family you had found. Your DNA was as normal as it could be, untouched by cosmic rays. You couldn’t help protect them in the way they could protect you, protect the world, but you could do this: help them find a solution. Comb every ounce of data available to you, find something, anything, that could point them in the direction of a solution.

“And you see that building over there? That’s the Empire State Building. Almost 1,500 feet to the very tippy top, and I once watched your uncle fly circles around the top of it,”

Little Franklin Richards babbled some kind of nonsense in your arms, tapping his tiny hand against the glass overlooking the skyline of New York from the living room.

Sue had practically dragged you out of the lab somewhere around 8 at night, telling you to get proper rest somewhere that wasn’t the floor or couch of the lab. You chose to ignore her side remark about how she assumed that wasn’t going to be in the guest room. Reed had gotten a scolding next, a promise from his wife that if he wasn’t upstairs by 9:30 she was coming back for him, too. And the beautiful, innocent sight that was little Franklin in your arms was enough for your break from the lab to be worth it.

“Central Park is that way,” you guided the little baby’s gaze to the right of the darkened skyline, smiling as he followed your gaze. Sue was in the kitchen just feet away, preparing something for Reed to eat when she inevitably dragged him out of the lab. “Way over there, streets and streets away. One time, I watched your uncles throw hot dogs at each other on Bethesda Terrace for ten minutes. They just kept buying them to throw them at each other, your mommy was really over it.”

The cutest of noises left the little baby. That grabby hand came back to you, clutching to the edges of your blouse as those blue eyes looked up at you, wide and beautiful. The sight alone stretched your smile even wider, reaching up a single finger to swipe against the edge of his nose.

“Don’t worry, your uncles are trouble makers when they’re together. You’ll get to see all their shenanigans for the rest of your life,”

If we live that long.

“Seeing you holding a baby is invoking some feelings I didn’t know I had. Is this, like, a secret kink or something?”

The thought that infiltrated your head was gone in seconds, replaced with a playful eyeroll as Johnny stepped up to your side. He leaned over your side, pinching at his nephew’s cheek, before meeting your waiting gaze.

“Really? Can you not be inappropriate around your nephew for, maybe, three seconds?”

The second the words left your lips, you regretted them. Johnny dramatically began to count to three as she shoved your hip as hard as you could into his. It only drew a laugh from him, his hands coming to curl around your hip with a squeeze.

“He can’t understand it, there’s no harm! See, watch: Franklin, do you care that I’m trying to explain to your aunt how incredibly sexy I find her at all times?” even your eyeroll was accented with a grin you desperately tried to bite back. Franklin simply blinked up at Johnny, who threw his hand out to the side in a shrug. “See? No harm, no foul. He’s none the wiser.”

“Doesn’t mean you should talk like that in front of him,”

“Sweetheart,” god, you hated how easily he could make your heart skip a beat. “He’s, like, a month old. He’s not going to remember this conversation in the slightest, until I inevitably repeat it for the rest of my life.”

That drew a laugh out of you. His hand never strayed from its place against your hip as you turned in his hold, now facing him head on so you could fully see that shit-eating smirk on his lips.

“You’re lucky I love you, Johnny Storm,” that simple statement was enough to turn that smirk into a softened smile, reserved just for you. It didn’t stop the pointed look you shot him, though, as you adjusted your hold on baby Franklin. “But get those thoughts out of your head. We said I love you, that doesn’t mean I’m having a baby with you.”

“Right, right, makes sense. I’m thinking we revisit that conversation in about a year,”

“Johnny-”

“You’re so right. God, you’re just a genius, baby,” he cut in again, snapping his fingers as that smile shifted back to that playful smirk. “It's too soon, I have to put a ring on it and keep you all to myself for a bit first. I’ll have to ask Sue where mom’s ring is, though, she always said mom wanted me to give it to someone someday. We’ll put the baby conversation on track for the year and a half to two year range.”

As absurd as a conversation it was, it was enough to draw short laughter from you once again.

He was so good at doing that, so good as simply shifting your train of thought, of making you laugh and smile until your cheeks hurt. He’d always been good at it, and you were ready to forever curse yourself for being so scared that you deprived the both of you of this for four years.

“I…really do love you. So much, it’s kind of concerning,”

“And I’ve missed the hell out of you these past few nights,” Johnny turned to Franklin quickly, whispering a quick ‘sorry’ for his swearing as he dropped a kiss to his little forehead, before one of his hands cupped your cheek. You leaned into the feeling as if it was second nature already. “I finally come home and my girl locks herself away in the lab with my brother-in-law? Sleeps there, too, to the point where I have to carry her to the couch every night. You’re killing me, baby, my entire room smells like you but you aren’t in it!”

“Well, someone has to try and keep Reed in line while he’s trying to decipher the composition of Galactus and find a way to stop him from devouring the world…” 

You hated talking about it. Knowing he was out there somewhere in the universe, slowly moving his ship toward Earth on his conquest to destroy the world you knew. To take the innocent child in your arms away.

“Hey, we’re all helping,” Johnny cut in, fingers squeezing at your jawline just slightly as you brought your attention back to him. “I’m trying to find him some kind of a crank-shaft thing to solve the problem.”

“A lever, Johnny,” laughter bubbled out of your as you shook your head at him. “The law of levers. We talked about this.”

“Yeah, law of levers. From that Achilles guy-”

“It’s Archimedes-”

“It started with an A, I was close enough. Point is, we’ll find a way to solve the problem, just like we always do,” your chin was pinched between Johnny’s thumb and forefinger as he dipped his head closer to yours, breath fanning out over your lips. “Doesn’t mean you can hide from me for days, baby. You’re like a drug, and I’m having some serious withdrawals.”

When he stole a kiss from you then, silencing the laughter that once again tumbled from your lips, you didn’t hesitate to melt into him. The warmth of his hand as it cradled your jawline, thumb rubbing the most gentle circles against your cheek. The soft touch of his lips as they slanted over yours, pressing into you with every ounce of love he could convey in a single touch.

It was enough to hate yourself for locking yourself away for three days, trying to solve a problem larger than life itself. Because if the world was going to end, you wanted to know every spare moment you had was spent in his arms, with his kiss searing itself into your skin.

The kiss was over much sooner than you ever would’ve liked it to be, Johnny’s lips practically torn from yours. Your eyes popped open just in time to see Johnny now just two feet away, pressed against the windows of the living room, that familiar rainbow shimmer hovering in the air in front of him to hold him in place.

When little baby Franklin clapped his hands, you had to cover your mouth with the one hand not holding him to conceal your laughter.

“Absolutely not,” Sue’s voice cut in, now just a few feet away from you both. Her hand was stretched toward her brother, still holding him in place against the window, with her eyes narrowed. “No funny business in front of my son, Johnny.”

“Sue, he was literally made with funny business,” the unimpressed look that you and Sue both shot at him was practically identical. “What is life without funny business? Speaking of–Reed can stretch…everything, can’t he? When you guys were making Franklin, did he-”

“Jonathan, I advise you don’t finish your sentence,”

You laughed at the antics of the Storm siblings, joining Sue at her side to hand her back her wiggling son. It was then that she finally dropped her hand, letting Johnny off of the window to take Franklin into her arms again. The way his little smile seemed to brighten just from being in his mother’s arms was unmistakable.

“Thanks for finally figuring out whatever is going on between you two,” Sue nodded her head toward Johnny with a soft smile to you. “I’ve been rooting for it. Plus, maybe you’ll be able to actually keep him in line.”

“Come on, now, she always has!” Johnny called after his sister, who was stalking back across the room to grab the food she’d made for Reed, no doubt to take it down to him in the lab. The warmth of Johnny’s hand rested against your lower back as he found his way to your side once more.

Left alone in the living room with just the man behind you now, you didn’t hesitate to lean back into his touch. You could feel the rumble in his chest from his laughter, a gentle kiss placed to the side of your head,before suddenly you were swept straight off your feet.

A yelp escaped your throat as Johnny threw you over his shoulder like it was nothing. Arms locked around your thighs to hold you in place, Johnny didn’t say a word and simply stalked across the room toward the stairs

“Johnny!” you exclaimed, bracing yourself against his back and shoulders so that you didn’t slip out of his hold. “I should get back to Reed, you can’t just kidnap me!”

“Uh, I can, and I did,” was his simple response as he began the trek up the staircase toward the bedrooms. “He’s gotten enough of your time, it’s my turn with the pretty assistant.”

You couldn’t argue with him. Truthfully, you didn’t want to argue with him. You missed him, and if this was the end of the world, right here in his arms was exactly where you wanted to be. It’s where you needed to be.

It was impossible to decipher the look on Ben’s face when you both passed him in the hallway, fresh out of the bathroom. Johnny gave him a simple greeting, walking past him as if there was nothing unusual about the sight before him. When you were face to face with him, you could only offer the rocky man a sheepish smile.

Ben only shook his head, mumbling something about “keeping the noise down”, before he disappeared to his own bedroom.

Johnny dropped you at the foot of his bed, grinning down at you as your back jumped against the mattress below you. With one hand on his hip in a mocking stance of authority,  he pointed down at you.

“You make yourself comfortable. You basically made my bedroom yours while I was gone, so just pretend it is yours anyways,” you could only roll your eyes fondly in response. “I’m about to take the world’s quickest shower, and if your adorable ass isn’t in this room when I get back I’m going to burn Reed’s lab to the ground.”

You didn’t have the heart to argue that burning Reed’s lab was impossible, given that Reed had custom designed everything in this building to be fireproof in the last 4 years. Instead, you only gave him a mock salute, one that seemed to satisfy him, before he practically ran back into the hallway with a slam of the bathroom door.

The only thing saving your mind from wandering was the linens beneath your skin, still teeming with the unmistakable scent of Johnny that lingered everywhere in the room.

With your blouse and pants discarded into a pile on the opposite end of the room, you didn’t hesitate to slip into one of Johnny’s grey sweaters that he typically wore in the winter. It hung loosely around your shoulders, the one side almost slipping off your arm, and hung low enough to just barely cover your panties-clad bottom half.

One glance around the room was enough to calm your mind for a moment, too. You’d stayed there for the month without him because it was the only place in the entire building where you could just be surrounded by him. The shelving by his closet, decorated with memorabilia and the framed photo of him taken before their first launch into space. The bookshelf of records, with The Wonder of You perched right on top. The record itself had been played almost on a loop some days when you missed him the most, one phrase of his stuck on an endless repeat in your head.

I don’t ever think I’ll get over the miracle that is you…loving me.

There was also the obnoxious painting of him on the wall opposite of the bed. A pretentious gesture to have a painting of your own face hung on your bedroom wall, but such a Johnny move that deep down inside you found it endearing.

The moon hung high in the sky over New York as you stepped up to the window of the darkened room, letting its light bathe over you. It hung just behind the Excelsior, highlighting the damage across the ship in its light. A frown crawled its way to your lips at the sight: the siding torn, the windows cracked, the hull misshapen from the pull of lightspeed space travel. A reminder that they barely escaped, that they barely came back to you.

Your eyes flickered down to the streets, so far below. Even from the high vantage point in the building, you could still make out the people below. The mobs that had begun to form since they had returned, demanding Sue and Reed give up their son in exchange for the planet. The talk shows that called them selfish, the radio hosts who spoke as if they knew what had happened in space, the impossible position your family had been put in. The people who would never understand your family, who would never understand the lives they’ve sacrificed in order to protect them these last four years. What they’ve given up to become the world’s protectors.

These people didn’t know shit, and they’d been pissing you off since they’d begun to form outside on the streets below.

It was the papers hanging on the far window that caught your eye, dragging it away from the ship and the people below. You took a step over to stand before them, flicking on the lamp sitting just beside the window to get a better view.

Johnny’s handwriting had never been the neatest, but you knew it well. The alphabet was strewn across multiple pages, lines connecting certain letters to a phrase written in a language you had never seen before. Taking a glance around all of the pages, that alien language seemed common among every page, as if Johnny had been building new words the more he connected that one phrase to certain letters.

As if a lightbulb went off in your head, you turned on your heel quickly to step up to the record player behind you. Thankfully, under a few other records, lied the one you had handed Johnny that day in the lab a month ago. The second you dropped the needle down onto it, as it slid into the grooves etched into the record, that same alien language sounded through the room: the same thing written across the papers in front of you.

Her language. The Herald’s. Johnny had said something about it on some trip into the lab the day before, before Reed had gathered everyone to explain the little information the two of you were able to gather from Herbie’s samples from their trip to converse with Galactus. She’d said something to him…now, he was reconstructing her entire language from a single phrase.

“You genius, genius boy,” you couldn’t help but mutter to yourself, overwhelming love and pride blooming deep within your chest, before you turned on your heel to stalk back into the hallway.

You didn’t bother knocking on the bathroom door. Shutting it quietly behind you, a soft smile overtook your face at the sound of Johnny humming to himself from behind the curtain.

Whatever was driving you right now, you didn’t even know. Whether it was seeing the lengths that he’d go to in order to protect the people he loved, like reconstructing an entire alien language, or the threat of the world ending in a matter of days, all you wanted was him in the end of it all.

Sweater and panties discarded into a heap with Johnny’s own clothing by the sink, your fingers curled around the edge of the bathroom curtain, pulling it back just slightly. The humming ceased as Johnny looked up, startled for just a moment before his gaze landed on you. His gaze trailed down the length of your body, and you could almost see his pupils dilate in real time. That handsome, heartbreaking smile of his returned as he held out a soapy hand in your direction. You took it without hesitation.

The water was hot, almost on the verge of scalding since Johnny didn’t understand the concept of what was truly hot or not anymore. The water temperature didn’t matter to you, not in the slightest. Johnny only watched quietly as you curled yourself around his bare body, hands sliding up into his wet strands of hair. His own hands curled around your waist, tugging you under the stream of water with him.

“This is a bit of a surprise appearance,” his voice was quiet in the intimate moment under the pouring water from the shower head. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your gorgeous company?”

“Just wanted to be with you,” was all you could manage to say. You were too wrapped up in those blue eyes, the gaze that was entirely fixed on you since the moment you appeared around the curtain. “And…wanted to tell you that you’re a genius. I saw the papers on your window.”

The smile on his face immediately turned sheepish. It always had over the years whenever you complimented him like that. Johnny Storm was used to being complimented on the way he looked, but when it came to someone complimenting him on that genius brain of his, he never did quite know how to take it.

“I-It’s probably stupid and won’t help-”

You surged forward, slotting your lips against his in a passionate kiss. Your fingers tugged just so on the strands of his wet hair threaded between them. His chest rumbled with a groan at the feeling, his grip against your hips tightening as he pulled you until every inch of your bare skin was pressed to his. You didn’t miss the twitch of him pressed against your abdomen.

“It’s not stupid,” your words were mumbled against his lips, stealing another breathtaking kiss from him before you fully pulled away to look up at him. If his eyes were dilated before, then you hadn’t seen them after a kiss.

Johnny stood silently for a second, mouth dropped open just slightly in shock.

“Did…did you just kiss me to shut me up? I thought that was my thing?”

“No, you keep kissing me when I’m mad at you. I kissed you to stop whatever self-deprecating thing you were about to say,” one of your hands slid back down the side of his neck, over his collarbone, and came to rest right over his heart. The thump against his chest was comforting to hear, even as it beat slightly faster than it ever would normally. “It’s a genius idea. To know what it is she might be saying, especially when her language is all over those deep space transmissions we’ve been receiving, you could be well on your way to figuring out the exact piece we didn’t even know we needed to figure out a solution.”

That smile, full of wonder, quickly shifted up into a smirk for just a moment. Your eyes were already prepared to roll, even though your smile was still bright across your lips.

“So, what you’re saying is…I found the lever?”

You laughed: lighthearted, free, full of the most joy you had felt in weeks. You swore you could feel Johnny’s heart skip a beat under your hand.

“Yes, Johnny. I think you may have just found us a lever of some sorts,”

His laughter mixed with your own as he pulled you back into him, peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin in his reach. Your cheek, to your neck, right over your pulse point, and down to your collarbones and across your bare shoulders. The water from the showerhead still beat down on your both as you curled your hand further into his hair, nails trailing over his scalp.

“You're one of the only people who has ever believed in me like that,” his words were soft as they were mumbled into your shoulder, almost drowned out by the water. “Sue always has, but not the way you believe in me. You have since the day you walked in, and always made sure to remind me around every corner.”

With a little tug to his blonde hair, you brought Johnny’s face back to yours. He didn’t seem sad, per say, but there was the slightest hint of melancholy throughout those handsome features you adored so much. Like he was thinking back on all the times he was belittled by someone, the times when the press reduced him to nothing but a playboy.

“Because you deserve to hear how brilliant you are. You don’t have the absurd amount of degrees that Reed has, but you are one of the brightest people that I’ve ever met,” the tip of your nose just barely brushed against his as you leaned in, beads of water trailing down the side of your face and dripping from your chin. “It also didn’t help that I was quite taken with you from the get go.”

“You did a semi-decent job of hiding it for four years,”

“Did I, though?”

“Yeah, or else I would’ve fucked you years ago,”

“Well-”

Any retort that could’ve possibly fell from your lips was swallowed by Johnny’s heated kiss.

As long as he always kissed you like this, you’d happily let him shut you up mid sentence forever.

Johnny’s hands were greedy, trailing over every inch of your skin that they could. His tongue dipped just past your lips, mingling with yours as his hands made their way up your sides. Even in the heat of the shower, those heated hands of his still left goosebumps along your skin as they traveled up.

It didn’t take long for one hand to cup your breast fully. His thumb flicked over your already hardened nipple as his fingers squeezed into the plump flesh around it. The moan that cascaded from your lips was swallowed by his own groan of pleasure, and hopefully drowned out by the water itself. His lips found your jawline, nipping at your skin before they trailed a heavenly heat down your neck. His teeth sunk in gently, but firmly, leaving a mark right where the last had just finally fully healed over.

“Missed this. Missed you,” he practically groaned the words into your neck. Johnny’s free hand quickly found its way lower, taking hold of the back of your thigh in order to hike it up around his waist, giving himself the perfect opportunity to ground himself up and into your core. Already soaked, already desperate for him, your head fell back with a moan, thankful for his hold on you keeping you upright in the midst of the water beating down on you both. “Thought about you every day up there, just you. Holding you, kissing you, telling you how much I love you.”

God, you loved this man. More than anything. You weren’t sure words could accurately explain it anymore, so instead you chose the Johnny route: show him.

Dropping your leg from his hold, you were just barely able to find the leverage to spin the two of you out from under the showerhead. The cold never hit your skin, too warmed up from the heat that radiated from Johnny himself. With a gentle push, his back met with the shower wall.

His wide blue eyes never left you as you slowly sank to your knees between his legs. You didn’t miss the twitch in his cock either the second you were level with it.

“Baby, what are you doing?”

“What you did to me before you left: showing you how much I love you,” one palm splayed across his thigh for leverage, your free hand came up to hold his length. A shudder visibly ran through his body the second your skin touched the sensitive skin of his pulsing cock, your gaze locked onto his. “You told me to save this for when you came back. A “saving the world” gift, I think is how you described it?”

His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, laughing lightly to himself.

“Yeah, but Galactus kind of told us to fuck off. Also, he kind of induced Sue into labor and tried to steal my nephew, so I’m not sure I’ve really earned this-”

Johnny cut his own words off the second you gave a single squeeze to the length still resting in your hand. Leaning in, you rested your cheek directly against it, lips so tantalizingly close, eyes still innocently trained up on him, even if every thought in your head was far from innocent anymore.

“Do you want me to get off my knees, or do you want the blowjob, Jonathan?”

He huffed out another laugh. His one hand came to cup your cheek for just a moment, fingers pressing firmly into your skin.

“Baby, if I ever say no to you on your knees, I want you to douse me with a fire extinguisher"

You buried your laughter in the kiss you placed right along his v-line. The tufts of blonde hair that trailed down the pronounced lines tickled at your skin as you lavished kiss after kiss into his skin, desperate to show him your love just like he had to you that night.

The hand that was on your cheek left, finding its place instead against the back of your head as he let out a sharp intake of breath as your lips glided over every inch of his skin along his lower abdomen. Johnny fingers didn’t curl into your hair, didn’t tug, his hand simply sat there and caressed you. Still holding you as if you were the most precious thing in the world to him. It lied in wait for you to give him the okay.

Johnny’s moans mixed with the beating of the water against the floor of the shower, half of your body still positioned under the stream of water. That cock, hot with need and throbbing in your hand, twitched the second you gave him a single tug along his entire length. You swiped your thumb gently–but firmly–over the tip, spreading the beads of precum that had collected there across the sensitive, flushed deep pink head.

“I-I don’t remember teasing you like this,” he stuttered over his words, something Johnny didn’t do often. It brought a smirk to your lips in seconds.

“You didn’t,” was your simple answer. Your gaze met his through hooded eyelids, thumb still rubbing just perfectly against the head of his cock, allowing you the perfect sight of his mouth dropping open in another low moan. “Consider this retribution for disappearing into space for a month.”

“I thought we talked about that-”

Johnny's own words were cut off by his own loud, uncontrolled moan the second your tongue darted out to lick a stripe straight up the head of his cock. Sweet, smooth, and addicting the second you had a single taste.

Whatever quip dared to fall from Johnny’s lips ended the second your lips closed around the tip, his cock laid flat against your tongue as you took as much as you could in a single go. It wasn’t enough–it would never be enough–you wanted more. You needed more.

“Fucking hell, baby,” he rasps out, breath hitching the second your tongue reaches further down his length, swiping along every inch of him you can take into your mouth. His hand still lies on the back of your head, still hesitating there, still hovering. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

You want to argue back, about how that’s the exact opposite of what you wanted. What you wanted was him alive, for a very long time, so you could spend the rest of your life showering him in praise and love.

Saying any of that would mean removing him from your mouth, though, and you were already too lost in a sea of pleasure to let go. Not until he was bursting with pleasure at the seams, until you’d shown him how much you loved him.  How much you adored him.

Johnny was big, you’d known it the moment he’d entered you and filled you in a way that surely ruined you for anyone else on this earth. In the entire galaxy. You’d never be able to take every inch of him,  as much as you wanted to. Even though you wanted to devour him whole, to have him writhing in ecstasy in the palms of your hands.

Instead, you let your hand work over the rest of his length–twisting, caressing every part that you couldn’t sloppily take within the warmth of your mouth. Your tongue salved over every stretch of skin it could reach, gliding down the prominent vein throbbing along the side of his length as your head bobbed back and forth along his shaft.

“Baby–Jesus fucking Christ–I think you’re actually trying to kill me,” he groaned out, words lost in the sound of rushing water and the sound of your head bobbing back and forth.

His fingers curled again, before unfurling, still not crossing that line. The hand you were using for leverage against his thigh came up to grasp his hand in your own, forcing his fingers to curl into the soaking wet strands of your hair without ever removing yourself from his twitching, aching shaft.

For just a moment, you stopped, the groan he let out indicating just how badly he didn’t want you to. Johnny hips canted forward just slightly, as if he was still restraining himself.

Your eyes glanced up at him, his cock still enveloped in the warmth of your mouth and resting against your flattened tongue. You didn’t need to have a mirror to know how much of a mess you were in the moment–remnants of makeup strewn across your cheeks from the water and steam, skin flushed red from the heat, spit dribbling out of your mouth and down your chin.

Johnny was no better. He was unraveling, and it was clear in his eyes. They were blown wide, hiding any semblance of the blue you loved so much. His mouth hung open in bliss, chest heaving with pants. His fingers flexed into your hair just slightly.

You forced him to grip them tighter, and he finally seemed to get the hint–you trusted him completely. There was no one else you’d rather be at the mercy of.

His fingers curled, tugging on the strands. For a moment it stung, but that pain soon gave way to pleasure. The moan that fell from your lips vibrated around his shaft, causing his fingers to flex once more against your scalp, dragging you even closer, forcing himself just slightly deeper within your mouth and profanities to fall from his lips like a song.

“Fuck–shit–fuck baby,” Johnny threw his head back against the tile of the shower, hand against your head guiding you back and forth, keeping the rhythm you had already set the pace for. “If this is what I get for not saving the world, I kind of want to find out what happens when I do.”

You wanted to roll your eyes at his antics. Instead, you pressed yourself forward further, inviting him deeper into your mouth until he filled every crevice of you that existed. That was enough to shut him up for the moment, as his moans grew louder.

Letting go of control, you let him guide the pace. Everything about it was sloppy–obscene–the way your head bobbed back and forth along his shaft, slick with your spit. Your lips were swollen, puckered around him as you sucked in your cheeks just a tad, feeling the twitch of his cock within your mouth once again at your sudden change in pressure.

“Sweetheart–oh my god–I’m not going to last like this,”

It only spurred you on. Taking back just a bit of the control from the hand gripping your hair, you bobbed your head up and down along his length as quickly as you could.

The furthest parts of him were still enveloped in your hands, still being twisted and tugged and now slick with your spit as well. You lost yourself in the pleasure, tongue gliding up and down every ridge and vein of his throbbing cock. Your chest heaved with a gag, the head of his cock reaching as far back as your body could possibly allow him to. All it did was spur you on, another moan falling from your lips, gargled by the sound you made as you dragged yourself back and forth across him.

Another moan fell from Johnny’s lips–your name. It was sinful, the way your name sounded on his lips in this moment of pleasure. The coil of heat within you that had been winding itself up since you’d dropped to your knees tightened, and you knew without ever touching yourself that you were completely soaked, aching for this man you loved more than anything.

“Fuck–baby–I can’t. I can’t, I’m going–I’m going to-”

Pushing yourself to your absolute limit, you took him as far back as you could, forcing back that gag that your body tried to heave from you. Hands taking hold of his thighs, nails digging into his skin, both of his hands found your hair in an instant as the downright delicious moan was practically choked out of him. His cock twitched, his hands gripping to your hair as tightly as possible, before he finally spilled every drop held within him into your awaiting mouth.

Slightly saltier than the precum you had licked straight off of him, but still with a hint of sweetness to it. Still just as addicting to you–the proof of how good you could make him feel, of how good you had made him feel. And, eagerly, you swallowed every drop that he gave you.

Johnny’s hands within your hair tugged you back gently, letting his cock slide back down your tongue before it fell past your lips with a slight pop. Your body heaved, taking in a deep breath of air once again, trying to catch your breath. Johnny heaved above you, too, the sound of your heavy breathing mixing with the shower, the temperature of the water having dropped slightly now with how long you’d been under the running water.

“Come here,”

In contrast to everything else he’d said in the heat of the moment–so raspy, so riddled with pleasure and desire and lust–his words were soft. That coil of heat in you was still wound tight, but that familiar sound of his softened voice had your heart skipping a beat. Something he could so easily do.

His hands grasped yours as Johnny tugged you slowly back up to your feet. Your knees buckled just slightly on the way up, but Johnny’s arm was quick to wrap around your waist, molding you to him to hold you upright.

“Was that good?” your question left your lips quietly, his lips pressing a series of kisses to your temple.

“Better than every dream I’ve ever had about it,” was Johnny's quick response. Hand cradling your cheek, his thumb drawing over the outline of your lips as soft laughter bubbled up from you at his comment. “God, I love you so much.”

Both of your lips found one another, searching blindly with eyes already closed as the constant stream of water beat down over you both. Johnny’s teeth dragged over your bottom lip, taking the skin of your lip between his teeth in a quick bite, his kiss there to soothe the sting before you could utter a single groan.

Johnny’s lips never left yours as he spun you, pressing your back up against the cool shower wall this time where he’d just been. A shiver ran straight up your spine from the coolness of the tiles against your skin, before those heated hands trailed up and down your sides. Around your hips, to your lower back, filling you with warmth  as his lips greedily moved against yours still slick with your own spit.

The heat that spread through your body was unbearable. It was driven by lust, by love, by the pure need to feel him in every sense of the world. To have Johnny Storm as close to you as humanly possible. You hike one leg up around his hip, ankle pressing into his lower back, as you ground yourself into him. 

An almost primal growl seemed to emit from somewhere within Johnny at the sound, a warning as his hands flexed against your hips to lock you in place against the tile wall. His mouth found your jawline, nipping just barely at your skin.

“You’re going to have to give me a minute to recover here, baby. Think you sucked my soul straight out of me,” your chest rumbled with another round of laughter as he nipped at the skin right beneath your jawline again. You could feel his smile against your skin. “You did! If you don’t give me a minute, I won’t be able to ravish you the way I want to.”

A retort died on your lips as his own moved down, laying kisses against your neck. Soft, gentle, filled with love and passion in every single press of his lips to your skin. You let your hand curl into his wet hair, to glide through the strands and let you nails scratch against his scalp, immersing yourself in the feeling of simply being held by Johnny Storm. Being loved by Johnny Storm.

Then, it happened again: he hummed. You heard it, you felt it right against your neck, and it was impossible not to let tears prick your eyes as you recognized the song once again. That same song–your song.

I guess I'll never know the reason why you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

“Did I ever tell you?” Johnny's voice cut through his own humming, head still buried into the crook of your neck. “Did I tell you when I knew I was in love with you?”

You willed the tears away as they threatened to fall, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of love you felt in your heart. All you could manage was a shake of your head, answered with another kiss to the column of your throat.

“I thought you were the prettiest thing in the world those first few months you worked for Reed. Turned on the charm, pulled out every trick in the book, and none of it worked,” another open-mouthed kiss was pressed to your neck. “Then, I came into the lab one day. I had an idea for the suits before we went up that first time. Drew up some shitty looking plans for my idea, too, was just some extra strapping around the legs to give us more mobility. I thought the current ones wouldn’t let us move our legs much. Reed dismissed me, telling me nothing else needed added to the suits. Then, I came back down for a fitting one day, just to see those exact straps I designed added to each of the suits, and none other than you shuffling your papers at your workstation to cover up my designs that I’d left down there.”

You remembered it well, as if it had happened yesterday. The look of dejection on Johnny’s face was clear as day as Reed dismissed him, already happy with the design of the suits as is. That look was burned into your brain as you stayed the night that night in the lab, looking over every aspect of Johnny’s terribly drawn plans to execute them perfectly on the suits.

Reed had come down that following morning and seen the changes. He’d said nothing at first, just examined them, before he gave a little nod of his head and approved of your changes. You’d been quick to tell him they were Johnny’s changes, the ones he had dismissed.

That was the same day you were sure Reed’s opinion on you changed as well, that maybe he didn’t resent the idea of having an assistant anymore. Not when you went out of your way to do something like that for his family.

“That’s when I knew,” Johnny continued, lips following his same trail back up to your jawline before ghosting over your cheek. Still cradling you as if you were the most precious treasure the earth had ever seen. “I took one look at you, hiding those papers, and my heart skipped a beat. And suddenly I was just thinking to myself…shit, I’m about to fall in love with this girl.”

You took a deep breath, letting his words settle within you, before you spoke.

“It started a long time ago, but…I admitted it after the funeral,” his eyes came back to yours as he pulled his head back to look down on you now. You let your hand stray from his hair, fingertips ghosting over every feature on his face–from the curve of his brow to the outline of his lips, memorizing every single piece of him. You weren’t sure if it was a tear that fell down your cheek, or another droplet of water. “I admitted it to myself, and then I locked it away. It terrified me.”

“It terrified you to love me?”

“Yes, because I knew you could break me,” a short laugh left your lips, accenting your words. “The names the media always called you weren’t who you were, but you did always have a reputation. I knew that. Johnny loves space, Johnny loves women…how could Johnny ever love me? If you didn’t, I knew it would break me, shatter me like I was a fragile pane of glass.”

Those blue eyes trailed down to your lips, his thumb tracing your lips, fingers holding your chin within their grasp.

“What changed?”

“The end of the world. It made me realize…I’d let you break my heart if it meant I got to love you, even if it was only for a moment,”

Johnny’s lips found yours without another word, slotting them right where they belonged. Where you never wanted them to leave.

His hand curled around your neck, the other your hip to mold your body to the tiled wall, his own fitting perfectly into the space against yours. One leg still hiked over his hip, his length pressed into your core with a single roll of his hips–hard, hot, and throbbing once more.

Your mouth opened on instinct, inviting him in. Johnny took the invitation in seconds, letting his tongue delve in to mix with yours, to taste every inch of you available. The moan that tumbled from your lips swallowed by his own, drowned out by his own deep groan.

The hand cradling your neck trailed down your body: from your neck, to your chest, along your hardened nipple, and down your abdomen until it curled around your thigh. The heat trail left along your skin bloomed, goosebumps traveling up and down your arms. His hand splayed across your thigh, fingers finding purchase in your skin as he hiked your leg around his waist, allowing your ankles to cross behind his back. Suspended, pressed against every inch of him, at his mercy.

“I won’t break it. I’d never break it,” his words were moaned against your lips, his cock dragging through your soaked folds with every drag of his hips against yours. You desperately tried to conceal the mewls that fell from your lips with every delicious drag of him against you, every catch of his head against your opening. “Not sure if I made this clear yet, but you’re it for me, sweetheart.”

“That’s a bold statement to make,” you whispered, breath fanning out over his lips as your eyes locked with his.

Johnny smirked, eyes never leaving yours, as the head of his cock caught along your opening with another roll of his hips.

“I know, you make me do some crazy things. There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for you,”

Your brain couldn’t even reflect, to think back on that night in the kitchen weeks ago when he’d said those words to you the first time, before he sunk into you with one single push of his hips.

There was no adjustment needed. No sting. No need to prepare. Your body welcomed every inch of him with a single stroke, like your walls were already carved for him and him alone.  Cried left your lips in seconds, hands curling into his hair once again for something to hold onto as you messily slammed your lips back to his, melting into the feel of him as his hands dug marks into the skin of your hips.

“Please–please, please please,” were the only words you were able to cry out, babbling them over and over as you clawed at him, trying to bring him even closer, as if it was possible. It was your teeth that then took his bottom lip between them, biting down just hard enough to bring a groan from his mouth. “Please, Johnny, please, please-”

He pulled his hips back without warning, just the tip barely lodged within your walls, before he drove back in. Hilt buried as deep as your body would allow, his hips pressed to yours, grounding up against you as you threw your head back against the tiled wall. Johnny’s heated lips trailed back down to your neck, a place you were sure he’d live if he could.

“I got you, baby,” he muttered through gritted teeth, another mark placed upon your neck by his mouth. His hips snapped back again, driving along the heat of your walls, star forming in the corners of your vision once more. “Fuck, baby, I got you.”

Your hands never left his hair, curled around the dampened strands. Tugging in time with every gasp of pleasure that tumbled from your lips, with every cry of his name like a prayer into the streaming water over your bodies.

His hips drove into you at a maddening pace. Pulling himself almost the entire way back before driving to the deepest depths that he could reach. A chorus of profanities tumbled from his lips into your neck, littering your skin with calls of pure pleasure and ecstasy. Johnny hands heated themselves just a hint, enough to draw another gasp from your lips, as they curled around each cheek of your ass, gripping the flesh beneath his palms like it was the only thing keeping him going. His handprints surely seared into your skin, marking every piece of you as his.

Body pressed back against the tiles so tightly they were sure to leave indents along your skin, his rhythm never faltered. His throbbing cock, twitching with need, dragged along the warmth of your walls with every bruising thrust into you. The ache was already prevalent in your bones, in your hips, from the snapping of his body into yours without care. You didn’t care, though, not when the pain felt this good.

“Fucking perfect,” his lips found yours again, cutting himself off to lay another open-mouthed, heated kiss to your lips. It was sloppy, filled with the shared moans that dripped from both of your lips, a string of saliva hanging between your mouths when he pulled back by just a hair. “Made for–fuck–made for me, baby. Made just for me.”

“A-All yours. Only yours. Just for you,” you repeated his words, crying out between them, choking on them through mewls of pleasure. 

Locking your ankles tighter, dragging him just a tad closer to your body, Johnny’s thrusts changed. Shorter, deeper, but still driving in just as quickly, just as frantically as before. The choked gasps that escaped your throat only increased in volume, tears pooling at the corners of your eyes as you shut them. Head thrown back in ecstasy, you weren’t sure if you were even in the room anymore. Too lost, too deeply buried in your own pleasure to care.

That coil of heat burned deep within you, tightening, threatening to snap at any moment. One of Johnny’s hands made its way back up your body, fingers tweaking at your nipple as you groaned at the sensation into his mouth. A smirk crossed his lips, pressed into yours as he licked his way inside once more, still toying with the sensitive bud rolled between his fingers.

You retaliated, pushing yourself off the wall to drive your hips into his, meeting his thrusts. His fingers dug into the flesh of your ass, lips finding your ear as his teeth tugged down on the earlobe. The profanities that fell from his lips sounded like pure sin, mixed with the huskiness and raspiness of his voice, sending another shot of pure heat straight to your core, soaking you more than you already were.

“I-I’m not going to last,” he stuttered out, hot breath fanning over your ear as he rutted into you, pace still brutal and addicting. “Not when you’re so warm, when you feel this good.”

“I’m n-not going to last either,” you barely got the words out, tugging on his hair as you buried your own head into the crook of his shoulder, crying out as another pang of pleasure shot through you with another drag of his cock against your walls. Another press of his hips to yours.

With the end in sight, creeping up on both of you, Johnny renewed his efforts.

One hand grasped onto your ankles behind him, hiking your legs up higher. The angle of his thrusts shifted, somehow burying him deeper within your walls, hitting a part of you he hadn’t yet touched. A sob of pure pleasure tore through your lips, the sound only growing louder when one of Johnny’s hands snaked its way down your front, thumb rubbing little circles directly to your sensitive clit as your body was thrown into overdrive.

You keened at the feel of him, at every snap of his hips as he drove himself into you. Every sink of his cock, every time it nestled deep within your walls. You met his thrusts back with as much force as you could, throwing your hips off the tiled wall and into his, slamming yourself onto him with every ounce of strength you could muster.

That coil of heat only got tighter, threatening to snap with every throb and twitch of him inside of you. Every little circle that his thumb made around that bundle of nerves, every firm press he gave to it. The squelch of your arousal around the place in which you were joined together was loud, louder than the running water still beating down on you both.

The waves of pleasure were threatening to crest over you, and you knew Johnny was right there with you. His hips were faltering, his rhythm shaky, barely able to maintain himself as he still fucked into your with reckless abandon, chasing his own high.

Fingers curled into his hair still, you tore your head from his neck, surging forward to connect your lips with his. Messy, a clatter of teeth together as he tried to pull at your bottom lip and vice versa.

“Johnny–Johnny, I can’t,” was all you could manage to mumble against his lips through your high pitched squeals, his rhythm faltering and his thrusts growing shorter, but still just as deep. “I can’t, I can’t I’m–I’m going to–I’m so close-”

“Me too, sweetheart,” his own words were clipped, mumbled through his fervent attempt to place a thousand kisses to your lips, digging in his hips as deep as they could go. “Let me feel you. Please–please, let me feel it, baby.”

The crest of your orgasm hit like a shockwave, like a rippling wave of pure pleasure moving through your body.

Every cry that left your lips was his name, just his name falling from your lips like a mantra you wanted to repeat for the rest of your life. Your thighs shook, muscles tightening as every ounce of your own pleasure gushed out of you, practically dripping from you, pooling into a ring around his cock as it still drove frantically into you, chasing his own release.

Your name fell from Johnny’s lips, too, as they pressed to yours. His hips dragged in short, deep thrusts before they still, buried to the hilt inside of you. He twitched within your walls–once, twice–before that familiar warmth pooled within you again, every drop of him collecting deep inside of you.

Quiet filled the bathroom once more. Just the sound of your heavy breathing mixing together, accented by the shower. Water still rained down, your skin surely beginning to prune after all this time, the water having turned cold.

You never dropped your ankles, nor tore your fingers from his hair, or let your forehead stop resting against his. Johnny never moved either, not from within you, not even an inch back to fully look at you. He simply leaned in, stealing a kiss from your lips with all the gentleness in the world, reminding you that you were still the most important thing in the world to him.

“Have I mentioned that I love you?” you managed to speak after a few moments, as the charged energy within the room finally dissipated. He laughed, pressing his lips back into yours.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it again-”

A loud bang sounded through the bathroom, coming from the doorway into the hallway. Both of you jumped just slightly at the unexpected noise booming through the walls.

“Look, I’m all for young love, and I’m glad you two are done with your back and forth game that’s been going on for years,” Ben Grimm’s voice carried through the walls, muffled only slightly by the door. “But I’m about ready to tell Reed to put saving the world on hold so he can sound proof every wall in this building. Come on, kid, Johnny can’t be that good.”

Ben muttered something else from beyond the door, something about his earlier comment about keeping the noise down and how he meant it. When you and Johnny locked eyes again, though, all either of you could do was laugh.

“Sound proofing the building,” Johnny managed to say within laughs, pressing a featherlight kiss to your cheek as he shot you a cheeky smirk. “Not a bad idea. Gives me plenty of other places I could ruin you.”

“You’re impossible, Johnny Storm,” was all you said, even as you tugged him back into another kiss. A feeling you were certain you would never get enough of.

❤︎

Reed Richards was insane, that was something you knew long before you began working for him. Just how insane, though?

Well, he’d never attempted to teleport a planet to a different point within the universe, that’s for sure.

The idea was crazy, certifiably insane…but just insane enough that it could work. The same teleportation bridge you’d worked on together, able to teleport an egg just across the lab, was about to be applied on the largest scale possible in order to teleport the world to another point in the galaxy. The only idea just crazy enough to maybe save the Earth from the impending doom that was Galactus.

Somehow, in just 36 hours, this crazy group you were lucky enough to call your family was able to mobilize the world, teleportation bridges built in every major city across the entire world. The power consumption was another problem, but one that Reed’s brilliant mind had been able to solve. He’d praised your work, shortening the length of the power outage from bridge usage to just seven seconds. That mind of his made it smaller, sending the world into a worldwide energy curfew, enough to conserve enough power to move the world without a hitch.

In that dark of that night, you had laid with Johnny in the bed you were slowly calling your own. Those usual plaid pajama bottoms, white t-shirt with that bright blue 4 over his chest. One of his sweaters covering your body, which was curled into his arms.

“Galactus had been reported by the team at the Future Foundation to have passed Mars just hours ago,” the radio across the room, sitting on a bookshelf, sounded through the quiet of the room. “The window of time to save the earth is slowly closing in, as we await the hail mary of Dr. Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four.”

“This is going to work, right?” you had whispered out into the quiet of the night the second the radio had stopped, eyes trained across the room on the sliver of Excelsior you could see through the windows across the room. Most of them were covered by sheets upon sheets of papers, scribbled in an alien language by Johnny’s handwriting.

His grip around you had tightened, a kiss pressed to your forehead.

“We’re going to make it work,”

You hoped that Johnny was right. You needed him to be right.

Nerves wracked your entire body, the sound of Reed, Sue and Ben moving through the lab sounding through your ears. You felt far away, though, like you weren’t truly in the room as you looked up at the giant lab screen before you.

A map of the entire world, markers one by one flickering on as bridges went live across the world. And you? Stationed at the main panel, overlooking the four workstations in which the Fantastic Four would ready the world in, preparing to make the final call. Your hands, shaking, tugged on the oversized sweater you’d stolen from Johnny’s closet, fiddling with the ends of it that rested against the top of your black slacks, trying to find a way to ground yourself in the unfamiliar territory.

“Nervous?”

Sue’s voice cut through the haze in your mind, pulling your gaze to her. Her smile was easy, like this wasn’t the most nerve wracking moment of her entire life, as she slid a coffee onto the table in front of you, her other hand holding the portable baby monitor that looked down on sleeping Franklin Richards upstairs. You took it without hesitation, giving her the tiniest grin you could muster as you took a sip.

“Oh, you know, just the end of the world and whatnot,”

“Take a deep breath, kid,” Ben appeared at your other side, sliding a little paper bag your way: one of Maisie’s snickerdoodle cookies sitting wrapped inside of it. He shot you a large grin as he moved past toward his workstation. “I want it on the record that one is from me, not Johnny!”

“He’s right, though,” Sue chimed in, bringing your attention back to her as your laughter subsided at Ben’s little comment. Her hand came up to your upper arm, resting there in comfort, her thumb sliding back and forth over the fabric of the sweater. “This is going to work.”

“I know. It has to,” you said back with a nod. “Doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying. I haven’t felt this terrified since you four went into space the first time.”

Sue laughed, a sound that somehow managed to instantly bring peace to you. Like a sense of comfort that only she was ever able to bring. Her smile was still soft as her hand squeezed your upper arm gently.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever properly thanked you for everything you’ve ever done for us. None of this is possible without you, you’ve been with us every step of the way,” she gestured around the room as she spoke, to the operation you were about to attempt. “Plus, I think I have to thank you for loving Johnny. Lord knows he was pining for you long enough, I’m the one that always had to hear about it.”

You laughed, bringing over your hand to rest over her hand, squeezing it back.

“Johnny, somehow, might be the easiest part of it. But all of this…I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’d do anything for you guys, you’re my family,” you glanced down at the monitor in her hands, at the sleeping form of Franklin. “I’d do anything to protect him, too. That’s your firstborn, Sue. I…I’d do anything to make sure you never lose him.”

Reed called something out through the lab, something about multiple calls rolling in at once from cities across the globe. Sue turned for just a moment, before she glanced back, squeezing your hand once last time.

“You’re wrong, honey. He’s not my firstborn,” her hand left yours, gently caressing your cheek for a moment, just like a mother would, before her hand slipped away. “I had two kids before I ever had him.”

You wondered, then, how you ever could’ve doubted if these people around you considered you family.

Reed, Sue and Ben took their places at their workstations. Headphones on, microphones to their lips, you listened to their callouts through the room, confirming with multiple cities across the globe.

Copy Lima.

Copy Cape Town.

Copy Sydney.

Copy Tokyo.

With each city copied, you watched every red dot on your map turn green.

The elevator dinged open across the lab, footsteps practically running across the floor before they came to a stop right beside you.

“Guys, I am onto something!” Johnny called out to the room, hands thrown wide in celebration. Reed shot him an unimpressed look from his chair, turning back to the list on the screen before him.

“We’re moving a planet here, Johnny,”

“Yeah, Johnny, it’s 4. Fantastic 4,” Ben emphasized, holding out four fingers in his direction. His gaze shot to you quickly, as he put a fifth thumb up. “5 including you, of course. 6 if we want to count Herbie, and uh, 7 is old enough to be in the mix yet.”

You only shook your head, a smile stretching across your lips for a fleeting moment as Johnny swooped you into his arms. A rushed kiss was placed to your lips before his forehead rested against yours, blue eyes boring into yours.

“I figured it out, baby,”

“The whole thing?” you questioned, understanding exactly what he was talking about.

“Everything I need, completely reconstructed,”

Your smile returned for a moment as you cupped his cheeks, pulling him into another kiss, before planting them on his chest and gently shoving him away.

“Knew you could, genius. Now go get this planet ready,”

With your four favorite people placed before you now, more cities were called into the air: Delhi, Vienna, Rome, Chicago, and countless others.

It was the second every light on the screen before you flashed green that your stomach felt like it had shot into your throat.

Reed glanced back at you, catching your eye, waiting for your signal. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you gave him a nod.

“Earth go for countdown,”

With a single press of a button from Reed, the twenty second countdown began to play on the screen before you.

The hum in the air of electricity was prevalent immediately, along with the slight rumble in the ground as the device just blocks away in Times Square roared to life, along with every other device across the world.

Elbows resting against the table in front of you, your hands covered your mouth, foot tapping incessantly against the ground as you watched the countdown drop second by second: 16, 15, 14, 13, 12.

You spared a glance at Johnny. He was already looking back at you, smile as easy and comforting as he could make it, and he mouthed “it’s okay” to you over and over again.

11, 10, 9, 8, 7-

Maybe that comforting smile would’ve worked if the alarms hadn’t begun to blare, and if the green lights across your map didn’t slowly start to flicker back to red.

“What is that?” Sue called out in worry, lights beginning to flicker red faster and faster. Johnny shot from his chair toward the screen, throwing off his headset in the process.

“What’s happening?”

The quickest that your shaking fingers could, you tapped in a series of keys across the keyboard before you, pulling up the live newsfeeds from around the globe to the main screen of the room.

The Herald. Flying straight through every single bridge across the globe at a speed you couldn’t comprehend. Using whatever power was infused into her to shatter every bridge on impact.

Until every single green light on the map had faded back to red, all except New York.

“She’s coming for the bridge,” Reed called out to the room as everyone stood, staring up at the map displayed before them on the screen.

“No,” Sue cut in, glancing around the room with a look of pure horror. “She’s coming for Franklin.”

You’d never seen Reed Richards panic, not the way he did just then. He’d practically sprinted back to his workstation alongside Sue, just as Ben went back to his. Reed’s finger thrust back in your direction, his gaze turning to you–wide eyed and full of fear–as he shouted.

“Lock the building down!”

There was no hesitation on your part as you input the lockdown code, hand coming down to press the button for activation as Reed, Sue and Ben shouted things across the room at one another.

Johnny’s hand caught your wrist before you could press the button. You turned, catching his eyes as they pleaded with you.

“I have a plan,”

Truly, that’s all you needed to hear. You only nodded, hand not moving an inch.

“Okay,”

“I don’t know if it will work-”

“It will,” you cut him off, surging forward to press a kiss to his lips quickly, before stepping back with a small grin. “I trust you. Go.”

Johnny didn’t hesitate before he was out the windows across the lab, igniting and streaking through the air in moments. The second he was out the window, your hand slammed down on the lockdown button, shuttering every window in the building.

“Wait, where’s Johnny?”

When you spun back around on your heels, all three sets of eyes were trained on you as Ben asked the question. You simply switched the feed on the main screen over to the live feed from Times Square, nodding at the three in front of you.

“He has a plan…he’s got this,”

Moments later, moments that felt like ages, Johnny finally appeared on the screen. Landing directly between the arms of the bridge, on top of the platform, the fire that surrounded him dissipated. With a single flick of the device on his wrist, those same deep space recordings sounded off through every screen littering Times Square, every single recording in her language.

The herald came to a stop, feet in the air above him, the second she heard the recordings.

As if he was fluent, spoken it all of his life, Johnny spoke the language he’d spent days upon days deciphering, piecing together from a single phrase spoken to him. She spoke back, a language no-one else in the room could understand. You couldn’t help it that your nails found their way between your teeth, grinding back and forth against your nails in an attempt to calm the nerves that threatened to jump out of your throat.

“How is he doing this?” Ben called out to the room, glancing around in astonishment, before his gaze settled on you. “He barely had a grasp of the English language.”

“Because he’s a genius,” you simply said, a smile cracking through your anxiety for just a moment. “A genius, genius boy I love so god damn much.”

“23 transmissions, all in your language, traced back to the planet Zenn-La. Your home,” Johnny’s voice broke through on the screen again, speaking in English once more. “They were looking for you so that they could thank you. Once I translated one phrase, I pieced together enough language to understand a part of your history.”

As Johnny spoke, talking through her story to make sure he got it right, something in your heart broke for the woman who was shining in silver on your screen: Shalla-Bal. Just a scientist, desperate to save her own planet and to spare her family, choosing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to do so.

“Those were messages from the one planet Galactus spared–your planet. These other planets weren’t so lucky. How many do you remember, Shalla-Bal?” the recordings switched over, cries and desperate pleas in alien languages you’d never heard before. “They all begged for mercy. You brought Galactus to all of these planets, and now you’re bringing him to my home. To the woman I love, to my family!”

A scream cut through the recording, her scream, before it cut out. The lab was plunging back into silence, just the faint chatter on the other end of every headset sat across the room at each workstation, every city across the globe trying to piece together what had transpired.

It felt like hours, but it had barely been minutes later, when Johnny finally reappeared in the lab. You’d spun the second you heard him, colliding halfway with him to throw your arms around his shoulders, tugging him in for dear life to hold him. His lips instantly pressed to your temple, hand curling around your waist to hold you to him, as he turned to the others.

“Johnny, that was incredible,” Ben called out as you moved from Johnny’s arms, his hand shooting down to interlace his fingers with yours, tugging you to his side as he shook his head.

“Does it even matter?”

“You saved Franklin,” Sue told him matter-of-factly, leaning back against her workstation with her arms crossed. “Yes, it matters.”

“She told us to leave, to save ourselves. That..maybe we’d live long enough to forgive ourselves for it,” his eyes glanced down to your hands for a moment, before back to Reed. “We aren’t leaving, are we?”

“No,” his response was easy, quick, as he sat on the benches encircling the middle of the lab area. “No, we’re not leaving. We can’t.”

The direct line at every station began to ring, signaling incoming calls from each city across the globe. Reed stalked past all of you, picking up a piece of chalk along his way to his boards. You gave Johnny a small nod, sending him back to his desk as you approached yours, slipping on your own headset and transferring the incoming calls to Reed’s desks to yours.

The frantic voice of a man from Vienna sounded over the headset, desperate to find answers. Your hand ran down your face, trying to will yourself to handle what were sure to be hundreds of calls like this.

“We have multiple calls coming in at once, hold Vienna,” you told the man as easily as you could, holding the line with a single click. Another frantic voice came through on the next picked up call, this time a woman from Rome. “Please, hold for a moment, Rome-”

“We need to bring Galactus here,”

The sudden words from Reed Richards sounded through the room, and silenced everyone in seconds. You turned, headset slipping off your head to look at your mentor, head cocked to the side. There was only one word you could use to describe how he looked in that moment: defeated.

“We need him to come here?” Ben questioned as he and Johnny stepped up along one side of you. “I feel like we just spent a lot of time trying to prevent that from happening?”

“We need to get him away from his ship, and we need to bring him here,” Reed stepped up alongside you, reaching over you to hit a series of keys against your keyboard, pulling the live feed of Times Square back up on the main monitor. “To Times Square, to be exact. Then, instead of moving a planet away from one giant, we move one giant away from a planet.”

He was gone in seconds from your side, stalking back to his chalkboard across the room. Equations were written across the board in seconds, without a second thought, like it was built into Reed’s nature to do so.

You stepped up closer to him, watching him work, and Ben and Johnny hovered behind you.

“If we route every power grid on the Eastern seaboard through our one last bridges, charged back up, we can keep the portal open for…” the equation stretched across the length of the board, before he finally reached his answer, circling it in the white chalk as he dropped it down onto the ledge of the board. “37 seconds.”

“37 seconds?” you questioned, eyes feeling as if they were going to fall out of your head.

“Not a lot of time to throw a space god off a planet,” Johnny cut in as you shook your head.

“It’s not, and it’s insane,” you tacked on, shaking your head at Reed, voice rising in volume. “I follow you blindly into most things, Reed, but this is crazy. I mean, where would you even send him?”

“To the far edges of the universe, he’ll be stranded there without his ship,”

“And how are we supposed to lure him to Times Square?”

Reed grew quiet, a sign you always took as a bad omen. When Reed didn’t know what to say, or was struggling to find the way to say it, it almost never ended well.

“I haven’t figured that out yet-”

“You have,” Sue cut in, drawing the attention of every person in the room over to her. “We have to use the only thing Galactus wants. It’s the only way…we have to use Franklin.”

The room went still at her words, as if every ounce of oxygen was plucked straight from the room. Maybe it had been.

You turned, along with Johnny and Ben, to look at Reed. Hoping he’d argue.

“...yes,”

The scoff that fell from your lips was instant. You couldn’t even describe the emotions that curled within you, the pure anger and rage at the mere idea of using a poor, innocent child as bait for some devourer of worlds. Within a second, you stalked across the room, shoving past Reed on your way to the elevator.

“No, absolutely not,”

“Please, just wait-” Reed’s hand barely caught your upper arm before you ripped it out, turning with tears pooling in your eyes.

“No! I will, and always have, followed you everywhere Reed. I trust your judgement around every corner, because I know you’ll always find a way to fix a problem. Because I look up to you. But if this is what has to be done…I can’t. I can’t do it, I can’t be a part of it. I can’t do that to him, not even if it would save the world,”

No one tried to stop you from leaving the lab, not that you would have listened.

The cool night air couldn’t even calm your nerves, could satiate the anxiety coursing through your veins. It could’ve been minutes, or even hours you weren’t sure anymore, of standing on the balcony overlooking New York from the living room of the Baxter Building. Your hands were white knuckling the railing. Every so often, you attempted a deep breath to try and calm yourself, but nothing seemed to work.

Poor, innocent little Franklin Richards. To be used as bait. Of all the absurd ideas you had entertained from Reed over the years, the thought of having to use his child like that wasn’t something you could fathom. Even if you knew, as well as everyone in that room, that it was the only way.

“Are you accepting company on the balcony, or did you want to brood alone out here?”

You scoffed, casting a glance back at Johnny. He rested so casually against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he watched you. You didn’t turn him away, but flicked your head back to the skyline.

“How long have I been out here?”

Johnny slid into the open space beside you, the sleeve of his burnt orange jacket sliding along yours. 

“An hour. Enough time for Reed to talk to Sue, for them to hatch a plan, and for it to all come together,” he bumped his shoulder with yours, bringing your gaze to him. “Galactus’ ship is on pace to reach earth by late afternoon tomorrow. We’re going through with the plan.”

“I figured. It’s the only way,” with a soft groan, you let a hand run down your face, rubbing at the sides of your eyes. “I’m sorry, I freaked out. I shouldn’t have stormed out.”

Johnny’s hands took yours, tugging you into him. You turned without hesitation to face him, palms resting against his chest as he held both of your hands within his.

“Ben and I kind of screamed Reed’s head off for a hot moment afterward, so trust me, no one blamed you. I was seconds away from following you out,”

His head bent forward, leaving the lightest of kisses to your knuckles, eyes never leaving yours the entire time.

“What’s the plan for the city?”

“Sue is going to talk to Harvey Elder–yeah, I know, the nickname Moleman is funny–in the morning. He’s got a bit of a soft spot for her, so she’s pretty sure that he’s going to agree,” Johnny paused for a moment, thinking over his words, before he let out a deep breath. “We’re going to evacuate the city into Subterranea. When the buses come to shuttle everyone in…I want you on one of them.”

Immediately, you shook your head, mouth dropping open to argue.

“Johnny-”

“I can’t lose you,” he cut you off, blue eyes looking earnestly down on you, pleading with you to listen. “It’s bad enough that I’m going to have to worry about Franklin, and my sister, and Reed and Ben the entire time. I can’t worry about you, too, I’ll go out of my mind. Because if the girl that I cherish, that I treasure, that I love the most was in the line of fire too, then I can’t focus on anything else. I need to know you’re somewhere safe, where Galactus can’t hurt you, where he can’t take you from me. I…I need something to come back to. You’ve done your part, let us do ours.”

Every part of you wanted to argue, wanted to fight back. You’d been with them this long, been through every step of this process with them the whole way. You wanted to be with them, to help them, but what could you do?

You’d done your part, and now, you had to trust that they’d all come back to you in the end.

“Okay,” you agreed softly. The relief that flooded his face was instant the second those words had left your lips.

Johnny’s hands curled around your neck, tugging you up into a kiss that stole your breath away. A single tear slipped down your cheek as you felt every emotion that was poured into that kiss. Every ounce of love, every promise he’d made, every firm press of heated lips to yours that promised to engrave the feeling into your soul for the rest of your life.

A goodbye kiss. One in case it was the last you’d ever have.

“No matter what happens tomorrow,” Johnny whispered the words against your lips, cradling you within the palms of his hands, looking down on you as if you were the sun and he was a planet simply stuck in your orbit. “Just remember that I love you.”

You repeated the phrase like a mantra in your head. Every second, every minute, every hour that you were without him.

From the second you and Lynne stepped onto the bus to Subterranea, the last two employees of the Future Foundation to evacuate the city in the final moments of peace that Earth would know, you whispered it to yourself over and over again.

Remember that I love you.

Lynne never let go of your hand, gripping onto it like a lifeline.

That hand became your lifeline, every moment you were trapped in the cold depths of Subterranea, wishing you could just feel the sun for a moment, see the blue of the sky.

Every time the earth above you rattled, thundered, and bits of debris fell to the ground around you and coated you in dust, you knew it was the footsteps of Galactus marching across the city you loved. Toward your family. And every time, you repeated those words once more to yourself.

Remember that I love you.

And finally, after what felt like forever, the message was relayed through the radios from Reed himself: it was over. They’d won.

Every single citizen around you celebrated. They cried, they cheered, but you didn’t. You wouldn’t, not until you saw them with your own eyes. Not until you saw him.

The destruction of the city was evident. Building torn apart, debris littering the roads, various avenues torn to shreds by the sheer size of Galactus.

Citizens lined the streets as they poured back out into the city from Subterranea. You stood with Lynne at the doors of the Baxter Building, welcoming employees who met up with one another, reuniting on the front lawn and the sidewalks, cheering that, somehow, the world was saved.

A smile only crossed your face the second you laid eyes on them again.

Blue and white suits torn, covered in debris, hair a mess, but alive. Walking straight up to the building together, little Franklin cradled in the arms of his mother. Battered, maybe a little broken and bruised, but alive.

Lynne’s laughter rang through the air the second you broke into a sprint. Johnny met you halfway, ignoring the laughter of his own family, as you flew directly into his arms.

Arms wound tight around his neck, his around the backs of your thighs as he lifted you from the ground without a second thought, spinning you through the air. Your laughter rang out, even as tears slid down your cheeks.

Johnny’s hands slide from your thighs, to your hips, to cradling your waist, bringing you back down until your feet finally touched the ground again. He didn’t even give you a chance to speak before he leaned forward, capturing your lips in a kiss.

“There’s so much I have to tell you,” he murmured against your lips, never straying far enough that you weren’t touching. “You probably won’t believe me.”

“You came home from space with superpowers, Jonathan Storm, I think I’ll believe just about anything at this point,” giggles left your lips as you said it, pecking at his lips over and over again, never wanting to stop touching him.

“Good,” he spun your once more, a smile as bright as the sun stretching across his face as you laughed through your tears again. “As long as you always believe me when I tell you I love you.”

Johnny Storm loved you, now and forever, and you knew it was true. You would never fully understand the reason why, but maybe that was just the wonder of him.

[lovebugism]

✶ — LIFE ON MARS !

part one | part two

summary: johnny storm is on a mission to woo the newest addition to the space crew, who doesn't seem to like him very much. it almost works. almost. (10.8k words)

pairing: johnny storm / f!reader

contents: strangers to lovers, enemies to lovers, fluff, angst, grumpy x sunshine (grump!reader), johnny can't flirt to save his life, cw for very brief mentions of blood and gore, space sex, dry humping, smut 18+, mdni!!!

LISTEN TO THE PLAYLIST HERE!

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✶ — April, 1960 | ANSA Launch Facility — ✶

A long, long time ago, before bodies were ever invented, the atoms of all living things existed in the stars. Humans were, at their core, nothing more than an inherent act of defiant creation — just a bunch of tiny solar systems pretending to be people. At least, that’s what you preferred to believe anyway, ‘cause the comforting thought eases your worries about your own misgivings. Restless, removed, reclusive.

Because, of course, you can’t sleep when the stars are whispering your name. Of course, no one will ever know you quite as well as the moon, when it had known you long before man ever did. Of course, you’re so often filled with a celestial-like solitude when you were never meant to be in this world to begin with, and fell into it completely by happenstance.

The vast infiniteness of the universe reminds you, every day, of how small you are. And every day, it reduces you to a starry-night sort of silence.

Johnny Storm struggles to approach you accordingly. He knew you only distantly, like all heavenly bodies are meant to be known. All he knew of you was that you were a professor — the first of your kind, a colleague of Reed’s, and a scientist whose accolades had caught his sister’s attention. Such vague descriptions did little to capture your beauty, a youthful and quiet sort of charm. As lovely as the stars and perhaps as lonesome as them, too.

And how was he meant to talk to the girl with the galaxy in her eyes? It’s a question he hasn’t quite figured out the answer to yet. But he’s damn sure going to try.

“How well do you know him?” is the first thing Johnny thinks to ask, while the group of soon-to-be astronauts squeeze into their all-white ventilation garments.

You give him a deadpan look in return, clad only in a black tank top and a pair of spandex shorts, as you tug the skin-tight fabric up your legs.

You don’t know Johnny Storm all that well, just that he’s Sue’s younger brother and a pretty damn good engineer. But, in the few short days you’ve gotten to know him, you’ve noticed his strange penchant for covering his awkward tenderness with a feigned sort of arrogance. He’s obviously still getting used to this new world, and the subsequent attention that comes with being among the first people in space — aptly called the Saturn Five.

You figure he’s not yet accustomed to the sudden adoration from the public, and so he’s forced to improvise accordingly.

“How well do I know…?” you trail off.

“Oh, right. Yeah—” the blonde boy stammers, laughing softly at himself.

Your emotionless stare never wavers.

Johnny’s cheeks flare. “My— My brother-in-law, I mean. Reed.”

“Not well,” you answer in a detached monotone and drag the white sleeve up the length of your arm. “Mostly by reputation.”

Johnny scoffs and drags his garment over his freckled shoulders, lean torso straining against the fabric of his thin t-shirt. “And you still decided to show up?” he quips.

You don’t share his amused smile. You rarely ever do. Never, actually. Most of the time, Johnny can’t tell if you realize he’s joking or if you just don’t care.

Now, you just nod in response and answer his rhetorical question in a single word. “Yes.”

Johnny nods to himself, too, and pulls the silver zipper of his suit up his chest. “Yeah, no. I get it. Reed’s a pretty good guy, I guess— But I’m just here to make sure my sister doesn’t do anything, honestly,” he confesses in a breathy chuckle. “…What about you?”

“What about me?” you repeat with pinched brows, tugging on the other sleeve.

“What are you in for?” Johnny wonders with a playful squint in his light blue eyes — the exact color of the sky at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, or the color of the ocean at exactly 33 meters deep. “‘Cause I know it’s not just because you like my company, Doc.”

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “To change the world, I guess.”

“That’s all, huh?” he laughs.

You nod once. The zipper whizzes quietly as you drag it up to your neck. “That’s all,” you answer in a monotone before turning on your heel and walking away.

Johnny’s footsteps echo through the expansive launch facility as he rushes to catch up with you. He walks a little too close for your liking, enough for you to feel the warmth radiating from his pale skin and to smell the vanilla-tobacco cologne on his long neck.

His broad shoulder brushes yours with every quick stride down the white brick corridor, moving in extra close every time you pass by bustling scientists in lab coats or clunking machines that didn’t exist to the world a year or more ago.

“I wasn’t— I wasn’t prying too much back there, was I?” he frets with furrowed brows, ocean eyes swimming with concern as he ducks to look at you.

You don’t share his gaze as you hum in a detached tone of voice, “I don’t know. Were you?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Johnny sighs with a shrug. “Half-and-half, I guess— Prying and, for selfish reasons, genuinely concerned for your wellbeing.”

You stop suddenly in the middle of the narrow hallway. Johnny stumbles on his feet beside you. A group of doctors walk down the corridor, then — a gaggle of men with heavy glasses on their noses and clipboards in their weathered hands. He has to take an extra step closer to you to let them pass by.

His chest brushes yours at the dwindling proximity, which seems to affect him far more than it does you. The scent of your perfume makes him dizzy; something fruity, like a raspberry, maybe. Far sweeter than the way you glare at him now.

“Concerned about what?”

“Well, I just mean it’s— It’s one thing for Reed to rope all of us idiots into his crazy plan, you know? We’ve all known him for years, we already know he’s crazy,” Johnny laughs, only partly joking. “But you’re…”

“What? A stranger?”

“Normal,” Johnny corrects before shrugging. “Well, actually, pretty would’ve been my first choice, but… tomato, tom-ah-to, right?”

He flashes you a crooked pink smile then, which would’ve made any other girl swoon at his feet — a proven theory he’s tested at several bars since he became known as Johnny Storm, faithful member of the heroic Saturn Five. But you don’t even blink, totally unmoved by his charm (or lack thereof).

Johnny sighs and drops his head. He finally lets go of all the boyish theatrics he thinks for some reason he needs, which you’re grateful for.

“Look… If something were to happen to us up there, I think I could stomach that, you know— It’d be awful, obviously, but we’d handle it. Like we always do…” He trails off, button eyes round and full of a distant worry that sends him rambling before he can stop it. “But this… This is dangerous stuff, Doc. And Reed knows it. And he shouldn’t have recruited anybody else, but he did, and if something happened to you… I don’t think I’d forgive myself.”

You’re slightly moved by his admission, though you don’t show it on your face.

“Well, I guess, it’s a good thing nothing’s gonna happen up there.”

You turn to walk away again, and Johnny nearly trips over his own feet to stay in stride with you. “Hold on. Just— Just one more question, alright?”

“I’m going on this mission, Johnny Storm.”

“It’s not that—” he insists, voice breaking slightly at the use of his full name.

Even despite your not-so-subtle bitterness towards him, he thinks he hears something strikingly soft in your voice. It’s something almost tender, and perhaps only in his head, which gives his name a brand new meaning. You make it sound like everyone else has been saying his name wrong his whole life.

“I was just going to ask if you wanted to maybe hang out later, by the way, hypothetically,” Johnny rambles, talking wildly with his hands.

You notice his panicked gesturing from the corner of your eye, and how quickly he tucks his anxious fingers underneath his strong arms when he crosses them over his chest. He thinks he almost catches you smiling before you swallow it back down again a second later.

“I’m a little tied up here, actually,” you tell him, though it comes out too monotoned to sound like the half-joke you meant it as.

“Oh. Right. Yeah, me too…” Johnny nods, trying to play it cool despite his stammering.

You enter the main lab side-by-side for your daily check-ups. The rest of the Saturn Five are already waiting for you there. Ben, Reed, and Sue all sit next to each other on their exam tables, hooked to a series of buzzing machines which draw their blood into crimson tubes hanging at their side.

Johnny trails like a puppy behind you, brows raised and eyes glittering in a sheepish sort of look. “So, what about tomorrow, then?”

“Leave her alone, Johnny,” Sue calls across the room with a knowing smile on her face, always inherently gentle in her way, but still teasing like all older sisters are entitled to be.

The blonde boy gapes in response as he stammers, “I’m— I’m not even doing anything!”

“You’re bothering her.”

“I am not!” he argues instinctively, then flashes you a worried ocean-eyed look. “Am I?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” you shrug, as unenthusiastic as ever.

Johnny smacks his lips against his teeth. “Yeah, that’s not helpful—”

“She’s our lead astrophysicist, Johnny—” Reed reminds playfully from his wife’s side, olive skin growing sticky and pale as the nurse takes his blood. (He’s more frightened by needles than the unknown emptiness of outer space. It’s weird.) “—Which is code for: she’s way too busy for you.”

“Too pretty, more like,” Ben scoffs from beside the older man.

Johnny’s face screws in offense, which only makes them laugh harder at the stupid joke — even if it is sort of true. When you part from him to head to your own station, Johnny thinks he hears you laughing at it, too. A quiet, breathy sound that’s more of an exhaled breath than anything, but still a laugh nonetheless.

“Oh, really?” he huffs dramatically, ‘cause he’s been trying to get you to smile for three whole days now. “That’s what gets you?”

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✶ — April, 1961 | New York — ✶

Your last night on planet Earth is spent talking to the moon, crescent-shaped and gleaming. It tells you not to worry, though not exactly with words. It just holds you in its gentle glow and reminds you that you aren’t leaving anything behind, that there isn’t anything new you could possibly discover in the vast infiniteness of space. Because the universe was your first ever home in truth, billions and billions of years ago, and now it’s calling you back.

Like a childhood room you only see on holidays, frozen in time like you never even left it.

That’s how Johnny finds you — at an ungodly hour of the early morning, standing in the center of the worn sidewalk, bathed in the neon hues of the bright city square that never sleeps. You drown in your cable-knit sweater, arms crossed over your chest and fingers tucked away in a feeble attempt to hide from the early spring chill. You keep your chin tilted towards the sky, and your eyes trained on something far away.

He wonders if there’s something up there only you can see. That’s how you tend to look at the world, anyway, like you’re keeping all of its secrets.

“Where do you think it ends?” Johnny blurts, always so wrapped up in his own head that he tends to continue inward conversations rather than start brand new ones.

You’re unstartled by the suddenness of his arrival, ‘cause you felt him behind you long before he ever had to announce it — consumed immediately by his palpable body heat, along with the minty aftershave and sea-salt bodywash on his skin from a fresh shower.

“Why do you ask such vague questions?” you snap in return, as harsh as the late winter chill.

It’s your basic primal instinct to be annoyed by his presence, like the rage is hardwired into you. The simmering embers of misplaced anger in your chest are quickly snuffed out by the rolling breeze of a lingering winter, which bites mercilessly at your cheeks and the tip of your nose. Something primitive in the back of your mind subconsciously wishes he’d come closer then.

When you turn to glare at the blonde boy over your shoulder, you find him donned in a fitting long-sleeve tee and a baggier pair of plaid pajama pants. His strong, shaven chin is tilted upward, and his sleep-swollen gaze is pointed to the sky like yours once, only it’s a lot more annoying when he does it.

Johnny laughs on a quiet, exhaled breath. “I mean, where do you think the sky ends and eternity begins?” he repeats, a question that has plagued him for some days now.

He’s tormented by the thought of a thin, black veil — one which separates the only home humans have ever known from an emptiness that goes on endlessly in every direction. Is space just dark and dead and doomed? his mind rages. Is everything worth marvelling at just here on Earth?

“100 kilometers above sea level,” you answer instantaneously. “Approximately, anyway.”

Johnny’s head snaps in your direction. “What?”

“100 kilometers above sea level,” you repeat like it’s obvious. “That’s where the Earth’s atmosphere separates from outer space—”

A laugh sputters suddenly past Johnny’s pink mouth. The boyish sound echoes through the empty city square, which is only filled now by your bodies and flashing neon signs.

A deep frown settles between your brows in return. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not,” he insists despite his chuckling. “I swear, I’m not—”

Your eyes narrow at him while his lighter ones glimmer with a newfound life. His cheeks flare a faint pink color from his poorly held-back laughter and the unforgiving late-night chill. He balls a pale fist in front of his mouth to hide how wide he’s smiling.

“It’s a fact—”

“No. I know, I just… I needed that, I think…” Johnny confesses before dragging in a much-needed breath; his first good one all night, maybe. “I’ve just been so in my own head lately, you know? With a bunch of existential stuff from the launch, I guess. I think I just needed to get out of my head for a second, so… Thanks—”

“I didn’t say it to make you feel better,” you snap.

Johnny smiles in the face of your glowering. “Yeah, I know that, too… I’m pretty sure you’re physically incapable of lying.”

“Okay, well, that’s just not true,” you scoff. Not because he’s totally wrong, but because you don’t need him thinking he knows a single thing about you — even if you have spent every day of the past year together.

“Really? Johnny hums with a knowing smile, crossing his arms over his toned chest as he takes a daring step closer. “Then tell me something nice.”

You swallow hard at the dwindling proximity between you. His body heat is all-consuming, swaddling you in a blanket of warmth and tenderness without trying. Whatever the sun is made out of, I think your soul might be made of it, too — those are the first words that rise like bile in your throat. Or your heart, maybe, and you’ve just got sunlight running like fire through your veins.

“Your eyes are very blue,” you observe in a monotone instead. “Like, the kind of blue where it starts to get a little scary if I look at you too long.”

Johnny’s plush grin widens. A big, boyish smile that moves everything inside of you — a flame that melts your body and turns your bones to ash, lighting up all the dark corners.

“And how long did you have to stare at me to figure that one out, Doc?”

“Why does everything have to be some kinda flirtatious remark with you?”

“Because sometimes I can’t tell if you’re flirting with me or starting a fight, so I just assume it’s both.”

“Well, I’m definitely not flirting with you, Johnny Storm—”

“Oh, definitely not…”

“—Flirting is for children. We have a job to do.”

“Right,” he nods in a playfully solemn voice, with a wide smile and a sparkling look in his button eyes. “It’s very serious.”

You shake your head and turn away, headed back towards the towering skyscraper that overlooks the entire city — where you’ll spend your very last night on Earth before you’re seeing it from a space shuttle.

“I hate you,” you grumble as you go.

Johnny’s shoes scuff the pavement as he trails slowly behind you. “No, you don’t…” he lilts under his breath as he follows you inside, blanketed immediately by the warmth of the Baxter Building.

The boy spends his last few hours on the planet pondering not what separates his world from the immeasurable cosmic, but rather how disturbingly thin the veil is between hating someone and loving them.

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✶ — April, 1961 | ANSA Hangar — ✶

Nylon for the base. Spandex for mobility. Urethane for the pressure. Nomex for high temperatures. Mylar for the heat loss.

As Johnny helps dress you in the clunky blue and white space suit, you imagine each differing chemical coming together, resulting in a unique mixture that will (hopefully) prevent you from dying the moment you break through the atmosphere. All per Johnny Storms’ blueprint.

“How’s it fit?” the blonde boy wonders aloud from where he stands behind you, latching the last buckle around your back. He gives it one sharp tug just to make sure it stays in place, and you sway softly on your feet to keep your balance.

You nod once. “Good.”

“Better than the last one?” he asks with a smile evident in his voice, knowing that his first trial of spacewear was a complete and utter nightmare. It was too tight in some places, too loose in others, and failed not just one but two fire safety tests. That was about a year ago now. You’d like to think you have a little bit more faith in him these days.

“Anything would be better than the last one,” you scoff.

“Rude,” Johnny frowns.

You spin on the heel of your boot to face him and momentarily falter at how close he is to you. You take a sudden step back from him, like someone jerking away from an open flame. You turn away from his prying gaze and motion to his personalized suit still hanging on the display.

“Do you want help?” you offer unenthusiastically despite yourself.

“Nah,” Johnny declines, shaking his head and crossing his strong arms over his chest. His biceps strain against the tight fabric of his ventilation garment. “I got it. You go ahead.”

Your eyes narrow in a challenging squint. “You said it was a two-person job.”

“Because I wanted to help you,” he shrugs with his cheek tilted to his shoulder. “And I knew you wouldn’t have let me otherwise—”

“So you lied?”

“No, I… slightly misrepresented the truth in order to spend a little extra time with you…” Johnny corrects, blue eyes squinted as he carefully chooses each word. He smiles at the scowl you give him, “…Shoot me.”

“I’ve been meaning to, actually,” you deadpan and turn away.

You hear Johnny snickering behind you as you leave, like he finds something strangely sweet in the empty threat.

He likes it best when you’re mean — he thinks you’re gentlest that way, tender like a green and yellow bruise that’s still healing. The kind you dig your thumb into and revel in the pleasurable soreness you find below the skin. You’re like that, in a way. A delicate lover somewhere deep down in the bruising enemy you’ve decided to be.

Down the windowless corridor and through a set of heavy metal doors, you find the hangar bustling with unfamiliar faces and bulky cameras. The muffled chatter erupts into a thousand droning voices as you enter the room. A visibly anxious and already suited-up Reed Richards stands at the head of it, at the very center of the hounding press.

You freeze in place as the door clicks shut behind you. Your presence gains the attention of the media personnel across the hangar. You cower under their prying eyes and flashing cameras.

“What is this?” you wonder aloud, to no one in particular.

Reed hesitates for a moment, mouth agape and dark eyes wide, as his brain tries to figure out how to answer your question and the hundred others shouted his way. So, he just walks to your side instead, and the gaggle of journalists and photographers follow like so many ducklings behind him.

“This is Doc— Our in-house cosmologist and astrophysicist,” the older man announces as he stands at your side. He puts a gloved hand on your shoulder, almost apologetically so, like he’s trying to silently convey that he hates all this just as much as you do. His fake smile wavers slightly after having been plastered on his face for so long. “If anyone knows what’s waiting for us up there, it’ll be her.”

“I didn’t consent to this—” you deadpan, flinching at the blinding camera flashes.

Your protest gets buried under a barrage of questions shouted at you from every direction. Each member of the press is trying to be heard over the person standing next to them, who is trying to be heard over the person standing next to them. It’s an unforgiving cycle that fills the expansive room with chaos.

“How did the two of you meet?!” a newswoman questions into a bulky microphone from where she stands before a large news camera.

“At Colombia—” Reed answers, faltering briefly when the rest of the Saturn Five walk into the room behind him. Sue, Johnny, and Ben enter wearing their own customized spacesuits. The older man locks eyes with his wife almost immediately, who flashes him a sympathetic smile in return.

Johnny waits for you to look at him, too. He thinks he’s spent the better part of the past year just waiting for you to look at him. Because, most times, he sees you before he’s seen anything else in any given room.

Reed, realizing his sudden silence, stumbles over himself to continue. “Uh, Doc was giving a lecture on black holes, I believe it was, and I—”

“Cosmic radiation,” you correct bluntly.

“…What?”

“I wrote a book on the Black Hole Paradox, but I never taught the Black Hole Paradox,” you ramble in a detached monotone. “We met after a lecture I gave on cosmic radiation— specifically the idea that cosmic rays can penetrate the body and alter its molecules, leading to extreme genetic mutations, which can be passed down for generations.”

For perhaps the first time since security allowed the press into the hangar, silence fills the all-white room. You tend to have that effect on people. On everybody, it seems, except for—

“See what I mean?” Johnny says with a wide grin, relatively unfazed by the hundreds of cameras pointed his way. The lenses follow his every move as he walks to stand beside you, throwing a heavy arm around your shoulder. “Best damn cosmetologist I ever met,” he blunders unknowingly, but with a crooked pink smile that’s hard to say no to.

“Cosmologist,” you correct without taking your emotionless stare off the camera zoomed into your face.

You duck from beneath Johnny’s arm and shove through the crowd of media personnel, heading for the doctors waiting on the other side. The blonde boy takes the sudden attention with ease — he’s gotten all too used to it over the past year.

“She’s the prettiest one, too,” he jokes into the news camera, with a gloved hand cupping the side of his mouth like he’s telling some sort of secret. “But don’t tell her I told you.”

The fiberglass helmets are made of a thick polycarbonate, which Reed’s spent several years perfecting for this very mission. One of the many nurses slides it over your head and locks it into place. The amber-tinted visor, designed to reflect thermal radiation, paints the white building in so many shades of flaxen gold.

Johnny stands beside you — because he’s always somehow right beside you — and turns his heavy head to look at you when the doctor locks his helmet into place. The tinted glass dullens his ocean-eyed gaze and muffles his voice when he asks you, “Remember that date I asked on?”

“Which one?” you deadpan.

“Any of ‘em?” he shrugs. “Is it too late to hash that out, you think?”

“Well, you can’t exactly take me out for coffee now, can you?”

A pink smile curls from behind his thick, glass visor. “Well, we get back in two weeks, Doc. I’ll have plenty of time to take you out for coffee then.”

“Trust me, Johnny Storm, you’ll be sick of me in two weeks.”

His laugh is muffled, but no less cherry-colored. “I’ve seen you every day for the past year, Doc,” he argues. “If I’m not sick of you by now, I don’t think I’m ever gonna be.”

It makes you frown. You don’t understand why he’s lying. ‘Cause you are, by nature, a rather demanding creature. You’re moody, cynical, and sometimes cruel. You’re at times totally untangible, and at others extremely unreasonable. You’ve intentionally made it very difficult to love you because you’ve spent many years not knowing men to be kind.

But Johnny — perhaps obliviously, and led only by his unbridled curiosity — longed to be close to you despite his inherent softness, and despite all your metaphorical barbs.

“Coffee, then?” you monotone without a glance his way, lest he see the vulnerability swimming in your gaze. “When we get back, I mean.”

Johnny glows at a moment’s notice. His button eyes widen in a not-so-subtle look of shock as his pink mouth falls softly agape. ‘Cause, sure, he’s been trying to get you to like him every day for the past three-hundred-sixty-five of them, but he didn’t expect it to happen so suddenly. Or at all, really.

He nods beneath his helmet, rapid and boyish, and smiles at you far wider than you think he realizes. “It’s a date, Doc—”

The comms built into your helmet hiss as they crackle to life. Johnny flinches as his sister’s voice comes through the faint static. “Comms check. Everybody sound off,” Sue instructs from his other side, flashing her baby brother a knowing look.

“Check,” Reed nods.

Ben salutes with two fingers pressed to his forehead, over his rounded glass helmet. “Check, check.”

A cameraman moves down the line as each of you speaks. The chunky gadget sits heavy on his broad shoulder as he squints into the rubber eyepiece of the viewfinder, zooming into each of your faces.

“Check,” Johnny says with a nod in his direction, always so painfully casual.

The cameraman settles finally on you. He looks at you through the lens as though it were a third eye, and your face screws with a subtle scowl. “Tell this man to get his camera out of my face,” you answer in a flat voice.

Sue’s pretty laugh sounds through the static. “Comms are live.”

The large hangar door whirs slowly open. Early morning daylight bathes the room in shades of orange-gold. The Excelsior towers before you, sleek and silver and shimmering in the soft sunlight. The five of you walk in a line up the steep tarmac, inching closer to what will become your new home for the next several days.

Reed reaches for Sue’s hand before they pass the threshold. “Good luck kiss?” he offers, already leaning in towards her.

“Maybe just one for the road,” the older woman grins.

Their lips pucker for a kiss, but their fiberglass helmets bump audibly together instead. They laugh about it, anyway, as the double doors to the shuttle part with a faint hiss.

Johnny turns expectantly to you then, eyes round and silently hopeful. Your scoff crackles through his comm. “In your dreams, space-boy,” you deadpan and walk on ahead of him.

“Ouch…” Ben winces playfully in response as he enters ahead of the blonde boy.

Johnny shrugs off the rejection with a slow nod. “Rain check, then.”

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✶ — April, 1961 | The Excelsior — ✶

You still remember that strange liminal space between high school and university, where they called you overtly ambitious like it were synonymous with the word bitch. No one had been to space before, let alone a woman, and very few of your kind were able to break into the astronomy field at all. Therefore, no one was quite inclined to believe that you’d be the first among them to be truly successful.

Why don’t you just settle down? they huffed impatiently, like your life wasn’t just beginning. The best way for your kind to contribute to society is to be a mother— Everyone knows that.

That was, of course, before you were pictured on the cover of the Times with the rest of the Saturn Five — wherein you were described in print as ‘perhaps the most eminent female astrophysicist of our time.’

You were among the first of women to earn a degree in the field, and the first ever to receive your doctorate from the same university. You were the first female faculty member of Columbia’s astrophysics program — an assistant professor for some excruciating months, until it became rather grating to take orders from men four times your age. Sometime thereafter, and despite all the odds, you were the first female full-time astrophysics professor.

Such accolades inevitably caught Sue Storm’s attention. She liked your persistence, and Reed Richards liked your mind. And somewhere between then and now, you were recruited to become one of the first ever humans to experience the uncharted terrain of outer space.

As you strap into your seat on the Excelsior, you can’t help but wonder about who you’re living behind, and what those who doubted you must think of you now — if they marvel at what you’ve accomplished, or if they pity you still for trying so hard to break the mold.

“Final check and check, please,” Sue instructs through comms, from where she navigates between the two pilots.

Each of your voices crackles through speakers in return, and only then does Ben initiate the ignition sequence. You watch from behind him as he presses a series of buttons on the light-up panel, a pattern you’re unfamiliar with that he knows all too well. His weathered fists push a weighted lever, and the shuttle roars to life.

You feel the floors trembling beneath your weighted boots. Your seat shakes with it, too. Your gloved hands clutch the straps of your buckles in an unforgiving grip while a funny feeling rolls over your stomach. Not with fear, or worry, or excitement exactly — but the distant acknowledgment that your life’s going to change forever.

“We’re go for launch,” Ben announces to his co-pilot, who presses his own series of blinking neon buttons.

The whirring engine jerks suddenly as it lifts from its place on the ground. Four million pounds of pure steel propel suddenly towards the heavens with the burst of a golden flame. There’s a harsh pull and then a numbness, which turns into a heavier, emptier feeling as you break through the atmosphere — roughly 100 kilometers above sea level.

“Woo-hoo!” Johnny exclaims boyishly into his comms, arms raised above his head as the shuttle pierces finally through the dreaded veil — as he witnesses, for the first time in human history, where the bright blue sky meets an all-black eternity.

The gravity is slow to dissipate. It makes everything feel suddenly lighter — the cool air running through your suit, the heavy boots on your feet; your stomach, your heart, your mind. The dizzying feeling must be to blame for the absent-minded smile on your face, you think, ‘cause you look at Johnny then like you’re watching the beginning of the whole world.

A giddy laugh sputters suddenly like magic from your lips. Johnny and the stars sigh in unison. He’s been wondering ever since he met you what the sound of your laughter must sound like. Your smile is the only thing he’s dreamt of for the past year, the only thing, and he mourns it all over again when you ultimately turn away.

The Earth grows more and more distant. What once seemed so limitless, now looks so tiny against the star-speckled void of outer space. Everyone you’ve ever known, everyone there ever was, lived their entire life on this indistinct orb of green and blue. Every saint and sinner, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization. Millions of years of joy and suffering are contained within this brief smudge, swimming in a sea of never-ending blackness. A fleck of dust lost inside a bright sunbeam.

“You seein’ that?” Johnny wonders into his comm, to no one in particular, though he still hasn’t quite taken his eyes off of you.

You nod wordlessly for a moment, ‘cause you can’t believe how blue the world is from here.

It’s a rich, vibrant color that humans couldn’t recreate if they tried, ‘cause such a cerulean-cobalt shade cannot travel the entire distance from the sun to the land. Its molecules, instead, get scattered in the wind and the water, before reflecting in the more observable lighter hue that paints the sky.

But this? This deeper, dreamier, more melancholy blue — this blue that does not reach the Earth, this blue that gets lost on the way to the humans down below — holds the beauty of the entire world in its hand.

“It’s beautiful…” you murmur into the crackling comm, more speechless than the rest of them have ever seen you before.

You turn to Johnny then, who sits across the aisle from you, and wear the orbital golden sunrise in your gaze. Inside his, you find the same dreamlike blue that paints the depths and edges of the faraway Earth. The lost, untouched ultramarine swims now in his round button eyes as he stares unblinkingly at you.

“Yeah…” he nods within a breathless sigh, overcome by the ethereal infinite surrounding him — and the one sitting just beside him in the shape of a girl. “Beautiful.”

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✶ — May, 1961 | The Excelsior — ✶

The routine you fall into in space is not quite unlike the one you had on Earth. You’re alone more often than not, hidden away in the observation room with your books and your journals, trying fruitlessly to make sense of the inherently nonsensical universe around you. It’s exactly how you’ve spent most of your life, really — the only difference now is you feel much more at home here, on the Excelsior and in the unpathed emptiness of outerspace, than you ever did on Earth.

Sue Storm is perhaps the only one of you who understands the importance of a real schedule. You and Reed, particularly, would work your circadian rhythms half to death if she let you. But, in an attempt to maintain a routine in an inherently timeless place, Sue insists on taking all of your meals at the same time every day, and in the same spot at the small kitchen table in the galley.

You sit between Johnny and Ben for at least an hour out of the day there, and catch up on plans or other miscellaneous discoveries found while on opposite sides of the shuttle.

The five of you exercise for one hour every day, before breakfast and after dinner, in order to keep the strength in your bones and muscles, which would otherwise be sucked out of you from the microgravity. The rest of the day is fair game and often spent with the five of you scattered about. Sue and Ben are usually navigating in the control room, Johnny and Reed are always finding something to do with their idle hands, and you can often be found on the observation deck looking for something new in the nothingness spanning before you.

And when the rest of the Saturn Five, at the end of a long day, return to their sleeping bags strapped to the wall — yours is the only one left empty. And Johnny knows immediately where to find you.

You drift like a dream in the dim cupola, a room made of so many fiberglass windows. The starry, black velvet universe sits just outside — an undreamt emptiness at your fingertips.

Your hair is tied back and out of your face. Your body is adorned in your nightclothes, a simple white tank top worn over a pair of red gingham pants. Your legs are crossed beneath you, as if you were sitting down, and you scribble something into a journal while a heavier textbook floats at your side. You’re a pretty girl dressed for a quiet night at home, observing Mars as casually as someone would watch their television.

Johnny knocks briefly on the ajar door before he enters. He’s already in his pajamas, too — an old t-shirt that clings to his lean torso and a pair of dark sweatpants that sit low on his hips.

“Sue wanted me to tell you it’s time for lights out, so… Lights out.”

You nod without looking his way, still slouched over the book in your lap. “Good night, Johnny Storm.”

His quiet laugh fills the silent room. “I think she meant she wants you in bed, too, Doc. You know how she is about the schedule.”

“Well, I’m busy, so…”

“You’re always busy,” Johnny scoffs, shutting the cupola door behind him as he maneuvers into the room with you.

The lack of gravity makes his bones feel lighter than air as it carries him towards you, cradling him in its cold and heavy hand. He lingers just behind you, warm with exhaustion and smelling of musky vanilla-berry shampoo as he peers over your shoulder. He can hardly make sense of your haphazard scribbles. Your pen whizzes across the page like something’s telling you’re about to run out of time.

“What are you writing about?”

You motion wordlessly to something at your side, as easily as a parent shrugging off a child. Johnny looks around until he finds a telescope — short, bulky, and likely worth far more than it looks. He plucks the weighty thing in his hands as it drifts by his feet. He falters with it for a moment, struggling briefly to determine which eye to close in order to see out of the damn thing.

With furrowed brows and a single squinted eye, he peers through the lens of the telescope. He doesn’t know how to focus it, or exactly where he should be looking, so instead he marvels at the big, blurry planet looming before him — looking much closer than it did just a moment ago.

“Planet,” he concludes with a slow nod, like it isn’t plain as day in front of you.

With a practiced and half-distracted hand, you contort your wrist slightly to focus the lens for him, all without looking up from your notebook. When Johnny peers through the telescope again, everything is more distinct — the blobs from before are now craters and rocks and ridges on the billion-year-old planet.

Within the shrouds of rust-colored dust and martian stars is something more distant but still well-defined — it’s rounded like a planet, but grayer and swathed in a heavy veil of ice.

“What is that?” Johnny murmurs incredulously. “Is it like a… A ghost planet or something?”

The words feel a bit silly as they spill from his mouth, but you nod in response anyway. “Most scientists would call that an exoplanet, but sure, yeah. A ghost planet.”

“I’m a scientist!” Johnny argues, boyish features screwed in offense — not because you’re wrong, but because he feels a bit like he’s earned the title after being in such close proximity to some of the brightest scientific minds known to man. You, for one. His sister, for another. And Reed, though he would never co-sign that out loud.

“You’re an engineer who plays dress-up in his sister’s lab coat—”

“That was one time!”

You look up and nod your chin towards the window. “Look at what’s around it.”

Johnny ducks his head and squints one eye to peer through the telescope once more. With untrained hands, he refocuses the lens to see a bit clearer — the indistinct clouds there turn into more defined specks, red and dull and dying.

“Uh… Rocks,” he confirms.

You bite back a grin and nod. “Sure. Rocks and stars and dark matter,” you explain further, growing increasingly giddy in a way that makes you already embarrassed at yourself. “It’s a planet— A fossil planet.”

“…Fossil?” Johnny echoes.

“You can tell by the colors of the stars around it that it hasn’t changed or merged with any other galaxies in at least a billion years,” you ramble, gesturing wildly with the pen in your right hand. You point out the window like the strange planet is right outside and not tens of millions of kilometers away. “Which means it’s essentially frozen in time.”

Johnny just nods along. He barely understands you if he’s being honest — ‘cause he’d much rather build things than observe them — but he likes hearing you speak, so he pretends you’re speaking the same language.

Until it’s his turn to talk, that is. Then his blonde brows pinch slowly together and his ocean eyes turn to sparkling buttons. “Wait, what’s so special about a dead planet?”

“Everything,” you answer like it’s obvious, hardened gaze glinting with a newfound life. “They’re like time capsules— They can tell us everything about what our early solar system looked like. How it changed over time, how after billions of years of inhability, Earth just happened to be perfect for human life, it’s—”

The dim lights above you click suddenly off, leaving just one row of amber auxiliary lights glowing overhead. A second later and the heat whirs slowly off, too.

The comfortable warmth gives way to a heavier cold. A shiver crawls up your spine almost instantly that you fight stubbornly away. It’s Reed’s way of conserving power, and Sue’s way of saying that everyone who isn’t in bed will freeze for the night.

Johnny deflates at the interruption.

He was just starting to get you to open up again, just like you did a week or more ago, when the Excelsior first launched and you looked at him like you were discovering something. Johnny wants you to find it again. Whatever it is.

“I hate when he does,” you scowl, dull eyes losing their previous spark.

“I guess it’s a good thing you have your very personal space heater to keep you company, then, huh?” Johnny croons with a lopsided grin. Your frown deepens, and he shrugs. “What? I run hot. I always have.”

“I’m busy. And it’s late,” you deadpan and turn away again. “Good night, Johnny Storm.”

You return to your work with an admirable ease, like Johnny isn’t there at all. Your pen darts across the page in a series of swirled and smudged cursive, sounding much louder in the sudden quiet. He lingers at your side anyway, inching closer despite himself, as though the microgravity were pulling him towards you. He doesn’t say a word; tries to move too much, tries not to breathe too hard, for fear of being noticed.

You do notice him, though. You can’t help but notice everything about him.

“You’re still here,” you observe distantly.

“Well, I don’t want you freezing to death out here, Doc,” Johnny scoffs like he’s doing you some sort of service. “Just let me stay— you know, for warmth. You won’t even realize I’m here, alright? Scouts honor.”

He holds up four fingers instead of three. You turn away again and say nothing. Johnny takes it as the invitation you mean it as, ‘cause you’re no stranger to telling him to fuck off when you really want him to.

You continue your scribbling while he lingers at your side, chest pressed against your arm as he peers over your shoulder. Through the messy cursive, he manages to make out, It’s possible this exoplanet once existed in our own solar system and was later ejected; check for any potential strange orbital movements—

Your hand freezes in place when Johnny’s warm breath fans over your bare shoulder. Each rhythmic exhale through his nose brushes your skin. It makes it hard for you to think, makes all the words in your head jumble suddenly together. You don’t know why.

“You’re breathing on me,” you blurt emotionlessly, neither angry nor pleased, just observant in a way he’s always known you to be.

“Sorry,” Johnny flinches back.

His round eyes swim with a darker shade of blue as they dart over your profile. He wants you to look back at him, even if it’s with malice. He just wants you to see him.

But you keep your eyes on the journal in your lap, even though you can’t figure out what to write anymore. The only thing in your head now is the sun in Johnny’s veins and the deep, Earthy blue in his eyes.

“It’s okay…” you mumble, still detached as ever, but with a white-knuckled grip on your pen. You swallow hard and wait for him to be close again, mourning when he keeps his distance. With a weary look over your shoulder, you repeat more firmly this time, “It’s okay.”

Johnny knows it’s an invitation, but for what, he doesn’t know. His unmanicured brows furrow as his tongue darts out to wet his pink mouth. “Do you want me to… to do it again or…?” he trails off.

The soft look in your eyes turns glacial in an instant. “Don’t say it!” you scold. “Do it, but don’t— don’t say it out loud. That makes it weird.”

You look away again, inwardly cursing yourself for being so vulnerable. Johnny purses a smile to the side of his mouth, lest he look too excited for your request to come closer. He curls his arm around you and keeps a softly calloused palm on the outside of your elbow, gently tethering himself to your side as you sway together in the zero-gravity.

You feel his warm fingers against your skin and flinch on instinct. You haven’t been touched with such gentleness since early childhood. You weren’t a stranger to man or their bodies, nor what their hands could do to yours, but something about Johnny made you feel different.

It was something about Johnny.

You hated that it was always about Johnny.

But you let him keep touching you, anyway — and, in his arms, you feel finally like you belong some place. His breath feels warm and familiar as it rolls across your skin. His chest feels solid and firm as it presses against your back. When he gets closer than he means to, and his chapped lips accidentally brush the curve of your soft shoulder, you tense like he’s burned you.

Johnny’s breath hitches, too. “Sorry,” he blurts again, wide-eyed and worried that he’s ruined something.

“I liked it,” you confess, as blunt with him as you’ve always been. “I think…”

“You think?” Johnny echoes, pink lips curling. “So, you’re not sure?”

“No,” you answer plainly and spare him only a brief glance from the corner of your eye. “So you should probably try again. Just in case.”

He doesn’t know how you do it — how you manage to torment him with your feigned ambivalence and reward him with your closeness at the same time. Johnny obeys you anyway, though, ‘cause it’s in his blood to bend to your every whim. He thinks if the two of you were sunflowers, he’d face you instead of the sun.

He smooths his plush lips slowly along the expanse of your exposed skin, from the edge of your shoulder to the junction of your neck — not quite kissing you, just caressing you with his mouth. His tongue darts out to wet dry lips, and the pink brushes just over your pulse.

You hum on an exhaled breath. And in the deathly quiet of outer space, it sounds almost like a moan.

Johnny falters briefly. “…More?” he whispers against your skin.

You nod wordlessly. You couldn’t get the words out if you tried. You just know you want him to kiss you. God, you don’t want him to stop kissing you.

The entire universe spins around you when his warm lips lock more intentionally on your neck. You go dizzy in an instant without the gravity to hold you down. It makes you feel like you’re going crazy — did love make people crazy? Did love turn people into unrecognizable versions of themselves?

You figure it must.

Because the girl who turns her head to catch Johnny’s lips with her own most certainly can’t be you. The girl who abandons her life’s work, who lets her pen and paper float aimlessly next to her, who turns away from the uncharted universe in front of her to hold desperately onto the blonde boy she couldn’t stand a year ago — whoever she is, is a stranger to you now.

Your fingers twist in his freshly cleaned hair, mussing recklessly at the satin blonde tendrils. Johnny’s hand trails down your body in the meanwhile. His warm, wide palms smooth over your bare arms and across your back. He cups the back of your thighs, urging them around his waist. You lick into his mouth and lock your ankles behind him, keeping yourself tethered to him as you float aimlessly in the heavy air.

“And to think…” Johnny pants when you part from him, smiling lips swollen and rosy. “You spent all this time pretending to hate me.”

“I wasn’t pretending,” you slur with his spit on your mouth.

“Really?” he hums. “‘Cause it kinda feels like you like me a lot, actually—”

His strong hands curl around the curve of your hips, pulling you impossibly closer. Your lap sits flush against his own. Something soft and firm presses along your inner thigh. “I could say the same about you, Johnny Storm.”

You shift slightly, and Johnny realizes how hard he is. His cock strains against his sweats and the tighter boxer-briefs he wears beneath them. Feeling distantly overwhelmed and half-embarrassed, his pale cheeks flare pink. “Sorry…” he grimaces.

“Don’t,” you squint, slightly demeaning but somehow still playful. “I like it… I think.”

You kiss him again, deep enough to steal the breath from his lungs, wet enough to feel your spit on his chin. You wrap your legs tighter around his lean waist until his stiffening cock is sandwiched between your bodies, pressed intently into your own warmth.

Johnny gasps through his nose. He almost thinks he can feel the lines of your clothed cunt against him, hidden folds embracing the most sensitive parts of him. It makes him wonder if you’re wearing anything under your thin pajama bottoms as your hips rock back and forth over his own.

Your mouth is equally as unforgiving. You kiss him like you’re searching for heaven in his mouth, like you can taste stars on his tongue. His lungs burn for air, but still he never parts from you. You’re killing him, with your mouth and with your hips, but Johnny throws himself deeper onto the blade, anyway. He pulls you that much closer, kisses you that much deeper — until he worries he might bleed out.

Your lips smack in protest when he parts from you. “We should stop,” he frets through panted breaths, eyes dilated and heavy-lidded.

“Please, don’t—” you beg and fall back into him again.

Johnny falters. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen you beg. He doesn’t think you’ve ever had to before. You never have to beg for anything; all you have to do is take.

A groan sounds deep in his throat when your hips grind over his own in a slow and practiced rhythm. “It’s gonna be too much,” he slurs against your mouth.

“What?”

“I’ll…” he sighs breathlessly and trails off. He can’t figure out the words to say without sounding like a total teenager; he only knows he should probably get them out before he bursts in his boxers and has to explain to Sue why he’s wasting water on a second shower.

“ I’ll cum,” he confesses finally, fingertips digging bruises onto your clothed thighs in a feeble attempt to stop your merciless movements.

Your lidded eyes dart over his form. His tousled blonde hair, his glazed-over ocean eyes, his flushed cheeks, his kiss-swollen mouth. He’s pretty and pathetic. You want to take care of him and ruin him all at once.

“I want you to cum,” you say. You plead. You command.

Johnny loses himself in your assurance. His slow and languid kisses turn sloppy — full of tongue and teeth and swapped spit. The fingers that once restricted you now fight to keep you close. His hands twist into the fabric of your pants as he guides your hips back and forth against him.

A pretty whimper sounds in your throat every time your clit catches the bulbous tip of his clothed cock, and the exhaled breath fans over his cupid’s bow.

His boxers dampen from his drooling pre-cum as he twitches in the confines of his underwear. He wonders if you feel it, too. He figures you must, if your erratic thrusts and choked back whines have anything to say about it.

“Johnny—” you whisper like a warning to him, voice breaking as your inevitable orgasm twists in your belly.

“I know,” he pants through rapid nods. “Fuck, baby— I know.”

He adjusts you on his waist with a pair of wide hands around your thighs. The harsh and sudden movement sends the two of you spiraling, spinning softly together in the open air like two orbiting planets. The new angle opens you wider for him, keeps your throbbing clit pressed intently to his aching cock.

Johnny feels the way your pussy pounds like a heartbeat for him as it rubs up and down his lap. A whine grumbles deep in his throat.

“I’m cumming,” you whimper against his mouth. Foreheads pressed together, eyes squeezed shut, nails digging crescent shapes into his shoulders. Your sensitive clit catches the ridge of his cock over his sweats, and you gasp. “Oh, fuck, Johnny— I’m cumming.”

The blonde boy holds you tighter. He curls one strong arm over your back and towards your shoulder; his other cradles the outside of your clothed thigh in a bruising grip. He keeps you spread open and pressed mercilessly against him while his hips rut with a sporadic sort of rhythm.

“C’mon,” he grunts in panted breaths against your chin. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon—”

You tense in his hold, trembling when you cum for him. Your thighs clench around his waist. Your fingers ball his thin shirt in your fists. Your face screws as you fight back a moan. A whimper rises and dies in your throat instead, as a warm feeling of honeyed release blooms in the pit of your stomach.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Johnny praises in vague mumbles while you twitch in his hold. His hips stutter as his boxers grow sticky with a premature release. “That’s it, baby… Shit. I’m cumming, too— Gonna cum so hard for you, baby. Fuck—”

His voice breaks with a pathetic whimper. He chokes back a louder groan and tilts his heavy head back towards the ceiling.

Through heavy eyes clouded with a lingering pleasure, you watch Johnny’s orgasm rack through his body. His chiseled jaw clenches. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. His skin flares a faint pink color.

Even through the layers of clothes separating you, you feel his cock twitching with each rope of cum it spits into his boxers. Johnny grunts through each one of them, hips stuttering against your own, slow to come back down again.

You just stay like that for a while — limbs entwined, twirling slowly, floating together in every sense of the word. Johnny buries his face in your neck. He presses wet kisses to your burning skin, while you keep your heavy eyes trained on the cupola. You blink slowly at the stars and distant planets there, forgetting until that moment that there’s a whole world out front of you.

An entire universe you spent your whole life dreaming about, gone momentarily forgotten in Johnny Storm’s arms.

“Do you think we’re the first astronauts to orgasm in space?” you wonder aloud in a distant whisper.

It makes Johnny laugh. The warm breath of it fans across your shoulder. His body trembles with it, too. “Yeah,” he scoffs. “You gonna write about me in that book of yours? See what other firsts we could do up here?”

He presses one last innocuous kiss to your neck before parting from you. He lifts his heavy head, lips curled into a crooked smile, and finds you scowling at him in return. “Don’t push it,” you deadpan.

“Sorry,” he grimaces, ‘cause he can never quite tell where the line is — how close you’ll let him get before you’re pulling away again. Apparently, cumming in his pants will only get him so far. “I still get to take you out for that coffee when we get back, though, right?”

“Yes,” you nod in your usual deadpan, though something about your detachment seems different now. Maybe because you’ve still got your thighs wrapped around his waist. “I plan on doing a lot with you when we get back.”

It sounds almost like a threat as it spills from your monotone mouth.

It finds Johnny like a promise, anyway.

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✶ — May, 1961 | Baxter Building Med Bay — ✶

How quickly a dream turns into a nightmare.

In a blink. In a flash of a bright light. In a searing storm of daunting blue and purple.

On the early morning of the dissent back home, you warned Reed of heightened solar activity. Johnny barely understood a word of it then, but he heard the distant worry in your voice when you told the older man about the strange eruptions of plasma pulsing from the sun, which you feared would disrupt the journey back to Earth.

“Our shielding isn’t strong enough, Reed— We can’t get caught in that flare.”

“We won’t,” he assured, voice strangely even for such an anxiety-riddled man. “You’ll keep an eye on that radar, and Ben will keep us outta the line of fire. We won’t get pulled into that magnetic field, Doc, I swear—”

“It’s not that I’m worried about.”

And you were right not to be.

It was strangely poetic, in a dark, sadistic way, how the thing you dedicated your whole life to learning about ended up killing you in the end.

You’d alerted Reed of the increasing cosmic rays coming in ripples from an aggravated magnetic field. And when Ben hit turbulence, worried that the ship wasn’t strong enough to take it on, the older man told the panicked pilot to push onward. Not because of his own hubris, but because there wasn’t any other choice. There was no going back then — either you laid there and took it, or you pushed the Excelsior to its limits and prayed you escaped unscathed.

Johnny only remembers darkness. And his sister’s screaming. And your strange silence. Then he remembers fire — a big burst of a bright orange flame that engulfed the shuttle as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, snapping in half just before plummeting into the Atlantic.

The Saturn Five did not return to the Earth the same way they had left it.

Ben’s lean, white body, for one, is now covered in bulky calluses that make him a hundred times stronger than the average man, totally unrecognizable from the human he was before. Reed reaches across the aisle for his slumped-over wife, and his arm stretches abnormally to fill the distance between them. Sue, seemingly subconsciously, disappears at random in a flicker of refracted light — as easily as someone turning off a light switch. Johnny burns from the inside out, glowing orange from the wildfire raging inside of him.

And you…

You didn’t return at all.

That’s all Johnny can think about when they’re air-lifted back to the Baxter Building. Press hound the halls outside while ANSA doctors scatter about, unsure of what to make of the suddenly superpowed Saturn Five. He paces back and forth all the while, clenched fists bursting into flame at random, ash burning on his tongue.

“We have to go back out there,” Johnny decides firmly, made stern with his sorrow.

He does not cry for you. His grief is made out of something much more discreet than that, as silent as blood spilling from a weeping wound. Your absence pierces him like a thread through a needle. The thought of finding you again is the only thing keeping him stitched together now.

“With what ship?” Ben calls to him.

“We can build another ship— We’ve done it before!”

Sue pushes through the doctors crowded around her, stumbling towards her baby brother despite the blood matted in her hair. “It wouldn’t do any good, Johnny,” she tries her best to calm him despite the tremor in her own voice.

“We can’t just leave her out there!” the blonde boy shouts, teary eyes wide and crazed. He gestures wildly with his hands, and Sue flinches at the flame he holds within them.

“Johnny—”

“We can’t!”

“Johnny, she’s gone!” Sue shouts over him.

She puts her pale hands to his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat beneath her palm. Her mouth opens to speak, but the words die on her tongue when her fingers start to disappear on their own accord. She balls the fabric of his shirt into her fists and tries to focus.

“If the fire didn’t kill her, being sucked into the atmosphere would’ve, and you know it! It would’ve crushed her, Johnny—”

The boy shakes his stubborn head. “You don’t know that, Sue,” he chokes.

“But she—” Sue pauses to swallow down her own sob, then flashes her brother a more assured, glassy-eyed look. “But she didn’t suffer, Johnny.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know it. I do. It was quick. It was over before she knew it was happening—”

“Not that,” Johnny snaps and stumbles back. His pale skin glows a faint orange color under the weight of his rage. He softens only at the fearful look in his sister’s eyes. “We don’t know if it killed her at all, Sue…”

The woman sighs, almost sympathetically so. “Johnny…”

“Look at us, Sue!” he shouts, voice ringing through the white and blue med bay.

He gestures around him with fiery hands — at the personified rock that used to be Ben Grimm, at the abnormally flexible limbs of Reed Richards, at the rainbow waves of light dancing around his sister and turning her invisible at whim.

“How do we know that something didn’t happen to her, too? Something that might be keeping her alive out there?”

“There wouldn’t be enough oxygen, Johnny,” Reed comments with an apologetic sigh from where he slouches on an exam table. His words are weighed down with an obvious regret that paints his weathered face. “Even if something did happen, we only had enough air supply for the trip. She’d be running out of oxygen—”

“Don’t!” Johnny snaps with an accusatory finger pointed his way. Reed cowers under the flame in his hand, and the red rage in his dark eyes. “You don’t get to speak right now, Reed— ‘Cause what happened to us out there? That’s on you.”

“It’s on all of us,” Ben says in a feeble attempt to quell the palpable tension.

“It’s on you!” Johnny repeats and storms out of the room, despite the distant calls of his name.

The muffled chatter outside the med bay doors bursts into a symphony of a thousand voices when Johnny rushes into the hallway. He pushes past the press waiting there, dodging questions and camera flashes, as he makes a beeline for the elevator.

“How’s it going in there, Johnny Storm?” he hears a deep-voiced reporter ask.

“How do you think?” the blonde boy bites in response.

His non-answer succeeds only in producing a hundred more questions in return. The choir of unfamiliar voices turns into a buzzing sort of drone as he steps into the lift. Johnny squints at the never-ending flashes and incessant yelling that pervades his inevitable migraine.

“Care to make a comment, Mr. Storm?”

“What happened to Ben?”

“Where’s the Doctor?”

“Are you okay, Johnny Storm?” a younger newswoman, no older than him, calls from the front of the crowd. The only difference in her prying is that it seems almost genuine, as her made-up face screws softly with concern.

“Yeah…” Johnny sighs and presses the button for the main floor. The elevator doors ding as they close ahead of him. “I just… I had a date.”

to the brave souls who made it this far: thank you and i love you and i'm sorry for making you read something so long hahah. but i hope you liked it!! just know i'm giving all of you a virtual kiss on the forehead right now ily!!! (▰˘◡˘▰)

[myladybelle]

good trouble

pairing: johnny storm x fem!reader summary: you’re trouble in the most irresistible form: brilliant, daring, and utterly captivating. simply put, you’re exactly the kind of woman who makes someone like johnny storm forget the world and fall in love without warning. tags: bombshell!reader, astrophysicist!reader, johnny is down bad bc obviously, slow burn mutual pining goodness warning(s): no spoilers for fantastic four: first steps, reader wears a dress, heels, and makeup, period accurate misogyny (boooo), academia-based sleep deprivation, making out/slightly suggestive content (no smut) word count: 13.6k (i really put the slow in slowburn) note: first johnny fic!! seeing joseph quinn on the big screen really made me go back to my roots and start writing for the mcu again... anyway, i hope everyone enjoys 🩷

masterlist

Johnny Storm probably fell for you the second he laid eyes on you. Not that he’d ever admit it.

Especially not with a crowd to charm and flashbulbs hunting for his best angle. But there you were, drawing eyes in a dress that seemed designed to ruin him, all soft shimmer and sharp silhouette, the kind of entrance that made the room hold its breath just long enough for him to notice.

You didn’t even glance his way as you entered. That was the maddening hook. 

The Future Foundation’s annual charity gala was an overengineered marvel in itself; crystal orbs floated mid-air like captive stars, a jazz band played from a suspended glass platform, and waiters balanced trays of molecular appetisers that emitted little clouds of lavender-scented vapour. Reed had designed the centrepiece: a rotating scale model of the solar system that actually adjusted to the planets’ real-time positions.

Johnny had been leaning on the bar, nodding politely through a monologue by some famous actress, when the atmosphere shifted. Heads turned. You glided through the crowd with a tilt of your chin that said the flashbulbs were just part of the décor. Diamonds at your ears caught the light; your lips a bold crimson promise; your gown shimmering in that dangerous shade neither silver nor gold, but a perfect champagne hue.

It wasn’t that you belonged here. You belonged everywhere, that was obvious. But you didn’t orbit anyone, and that was unusual in Johnny’s world. People clung to him, Reed, Sue, and Ben, for reflected light. You seemed perfectly content to generate your own.

“Who’s that?” Johnny asked Ben, who was already smirking like a man who’d just spotted trouble.

“You don’t want to know,” Ben grumbled, which of course only made Johnny want to find out more. 

Reed spotted you almost instantly—no surprise, given that the gala swarmed with senators and starship engineers alike, and you were one of the few who could pass in both circles. When he reached you, his handshake was warm, his smile almost paternal. Reed had been one of your PhD advisors at Caltech, someone you admired professionally and respected personally.

You hadn’t been able to keep in touch as much as either of you would have liked to—his time leading the Fantastic Four and saving the world monopolised most of his time—but seeing your old mentor again brought on a wave of homesickness.

“You look wonderful,” Reed said, a genuine warmth in his voice. “It’s great to see you!”

“You too, Dr Richards,” you replied with equal enthusiasm. 

“Reed,” he corrected with a chuckle. “I haven’t been your advisor in years. Listen, I know this is sudden, but I could really use your expertise. Would you consider consulting on a new project?” Reed leaned in, voice dropping so the jazz band couldn’t drown him out. “Astrophysics, of course. High-profile, a great deal of data to sift through. I could use your perspective—I’ve missed your mind in the lab.”

You grinned at that, the corners of your mouth tugging with real affection. “You always did know how to make an offer sound irresistible.”

“I mean it,” Reed said. His eyes twinkled with the faintest trace of amusement. “We’ve got some new readings from the Kepler Array that don’t quite add up. I thought of you immediately.”

“Well, I’m flattered,” you said, tilting your head. “And a little suspicious.”

“Suspicious?”

“You’ve just admitted the smartest man I know needs my help,” you teased. “Either the universe is in real trouble, or you’re buttering me up for a committee meeting from hell.”

He laughed, that rare warmth lighting his face. “It might be both.” Reed squeezed your arm reassuringly. “You’ve always had a knack for cutting through the noise. It would be great to work together again.”

The familiar spark of pride and challenge flared inside you. “Well, someone has to keep you out of trouble. And if it involves star charts and black holes, I’m your woman,” you agreed. 

Truthfully, Reed’s offer couldn’t have come at a better time. You were looking to get back into research, and you knew the Future Foundation had resources you could only imagine in your dizziest daydreams.

Reed chuckled quietly. “Speaking of trouble, this gala’s a world away from the lab. But it’s necessary; funding won’t flow otherwise.” He paused, eyes sharpening. “I know you don’t mind the magazine covers or tabloids, but this is another level of criticism. And it’s only going to get worse once you start working with us.” 

You shrugged, smirking. “I’m good with trouble,” you said lightly. “Comes with the territory when you’re as visible as I am. You don’t have to worry about me, Reed.”

Reed nodded, relief flickering in his eyes. “Good. You haven’t changed—you still have that same spark. It’s what made you my best student at Caltech.”

As you caught up, you glanced around. Flashes from photographers punctuating the air like tiny bursts of lightning, illuminating faces polished to perfection. The room thrummed with whispered conversations and clinking glasses.

You were accustomed to having eyes on you at public events like this, having been dubbed "Astrophysics Barbie" amongst other not-so-affectionate nicknames in the scientific community. 

Across the room, Sue appeared beside Johnny and Ben, arching an eyebrow at the look of awe plastered on her little brother’s face. “More distracted than usual, Johnny. Who’s the latest wildfire?” 

Ben snickered at her pun.

Johnny shrugged, trying to act casual but failing spectacularly. “Just someone who caught my eye when she walked in. She lit up the entire room without even trying.”

Ben snorted, shaking his head. “Careful, Johnny. You’re already playing with matches, and we all know how that ends.” 

Johnny shot him a mock glare and turned to Sue. “Do you know her? Ever seen her at these events before?”

Sue glanced over at you, her smile thoughtful. “Not personally, but she’s impossible to miss. Last I heard, she’s the face of astrophysics and a shoo-in for the Nobel one day. And, not that I trust tabloids, but I hear she’s a real firecracker. I think she used to work with Reed.”

Before Johnny could press for more, Reed called out, “Sue, come here! I want you to meet someone.”

Johnny watched as Sue approached you. The moment you started talking, her face lit up with genuine warmth. Johnny could tell that Sue immediately liked you, based on the way she embraced you and threw her head back laughing.

You looked untouchable, like you belonged to a world far above theirs.

Ben stood beside Johnny, arms crossed, smirking.

Johnny, painfully aware of his friend’s knowing grin, rolled his eyes. “Don’t you dare say a word,” he warned.

“There’s not much to say,” Ben said, eyes twinkling.

Johnny tried not to show it, but Ben saw right through him. You had him completely hooked. 

You were deep in conversation with Sue when you caught the unmistakable blur of Johnny Storm cutting through the crowd as if the gala was his personal runway. 

He arrived just close enough to interrupt, voice dripping with that cocky charm that usually made women melt like wax.

“Careful,” Johnny said, eyes twinkling with mischief as he leaned in, “that dress? Absolutely lethal. I’m surprised they let you into the Baxter Building looking like that.”

You met him with a slow smile, the kind that said you knew his game and weren’t impressed. “Lethal’s one word for it. I know you’re usually the one who brings the heat, so I figured I’d give you a break tonight.”

His grin twitched, unsure how to take your response. Johnny couldn’t tell if you were indulging him or mocking his flirtation. “And here I was, thinking I’m the only one who can handle the fire.”

You laughed, smooth and low. “Oh, Mr Storm. I’m no stranger to fire.” Your eyes flicked to the sharp line of his jaw, the bravado barely masking the nerves you caught so easily. Most people wouldn't have caught his tell, but you could see right through him. “I don’t think you’re ready for this level of trouble.”

Johnny took a step closer, undeterred. “Try me.”

“Please,” you said, voice dripping with mirth. “You’re going up against someone who’s been running circles around geniuses and politicians since before you could light up like a glowstick.”

He laughed, that confident burst you’d heard before, but now there was a crack. “You might be trouble, but I like trouble.”

“Careful what you wish for.” You tilted your head, letting the light catch in the sequinned edge of your gown, the picture of polite interest. “You’re used to people falling over themselves when you walk into a room, aren’t you?”

Reed and Sue watched, visibly amused as you dismantled Johnny’s bravado without breaking a sweat. Reed nodded approvingly—you were still the sharpest mind in the room.

After all, you were the only one who truly saw through Johnny. The rest of the world—helped along by his brother-in-law—was content to believe he was just a raucous playboy without the brains of his teammates. But anyone who really knew Johnny knew that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Johnny’s grin faltered briefly but came back full force. “Depends on the room, I suppose.”

Something softened in your voice. “You’ve got charm, I’ll give you that.”

Johnny’s gaze locked with yours, and for a breath, he thought you might be flirting back. The way your eyes lingered, the small dip in your smile. But then he caught himself and stepped back just enough to reset.

“You must be new to the gala this year,” Johnny said, struggling to regain his footing. Usually, women crumbled the moment he showed any interest in them. Your resistance was a new game, and it was throwing him off.

You smiled wider, a flash of something mischievous in your eyes. “You’re the one plastered on the front page of every tabloid in town. Maybe I’m just here to see if the legend lives up to the hype.”

Sue and Reed exchanged glances that communicated how much they were enjoying your showdown.

Johnny’s eyes flicked between you and them. Then, suddenly, “Dance with me,” he said, all charm and dare.

You tilted your head, running your eyes down the length of him in a lazy sweep. Johnny tried not to flush. Then, you shook your head. “Not tonight, hotshot. I have more important things to do than indulge your ego.” 

Turning to Reed and Sue, you hugged them tight and promised to see them soon.

“Well, it was interesting meeting you, Mr Storm,” you said, voice playfully formal. “I dare say this won’t be the last time.”

“It was my pleasure,” Johnny said, still watching you leave. 

Raising an eyebrow, your grin slipped into a smirk. “I’m sure it was.”

Winking at Sue, you slipped away, leaving Johnny with that half-charmed, half-frustrated look that said losing the last word was a challenge he intended to meet. 

When you glanced back, Johnny was still watching you go. He laughed, sharp and delighted, once you were out of sight. “Wow,” he muttered, reaching up to muss his perfectly styled hair.

Reed sipped his champagne with the faintest grin. “This ought to be interesting,” he murmured to no one in particular.

The elevator dinged and slid open onto the 33rd floor, the part of the Baxter Building where brilliance lived and breathed. Reed’s lab was the kind of organised chaos you had expected from your former mentor. 

A vast playground of polished metal surfaces, blinking consoles humming with quiet purpose, and holographic displays casting pale blue glows that danced in the curved white walls like ghosts of the future. It was part cathedral, part spaceship, part mad scientist’s dream. 

You stepped out, hips swaying just enough to remind the room that brains and beauty could live in delicious harmony. Your pencil skirt clung with precision, but it was the crisp white of your lab coat that told everyone you meant business. 

“Good morning, Reed,” you greeted, extending a take-away cup like a peace offering. The aroma promised the kind of caffeine salvation only a day in this lab could justify. “Hope your coffee order’s still the same as it was yesterday.”

He barely looked up, fingers dancing over a cluster of blinking controls. “Good morning,” he murmured, voice heavy with frustration. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m trying to recalibrate the Excelsior’s propulsion matrix. The harmonic oscillator’s behaving like it’s got a mind of its own.”

You took a step closer, eyes narrowing as you caught the cascade of floating schematics, the faint pulse of light tracing circuits in midair. “The resonant frequency isn’t syncing with the quantum dampers?” 

Reed’s eyes lifted, surprise flickering like a flare. “Exactly. Thought it was a software glitch at first, but—”

You cut him off, pointer finger floating over a bank of circuits. “You’re missing the feedback loop with the nano-turbines. It’s causing phase cancellation. If you adjust the pulse width modulation on the transistor array here, it should smooth out the interference.”

Reed’s lips twitched in a rare grin. “You always were the quickest in the room,” he recalled. 

You weren’t one of those scientists who spoke jargon to sound smart; you were succinct and clever. Reed was pleased that his star student still managed to outshine him after all these years.

“Honestly, I should have known you’d have a handle on this,” he commented. “Not just astrophysics but all the messy engineering that keeps a ship flying.”

You gave a mock innocent shrug, eyes sparkling. “What can I say? I like feeling intellectually superior to the poor souls I usually get stuck working with.”

Reed chuckled, shaking his head. He knew exactly the kind of misogynistic jerks you often had to work with, so he couldn’t blame you.

That glow of pride from impressing Reed warmed your chest, but before you could savour it, the elevator door opened and Johnny marched in, all swagger and smirk.

“Hey, mind if I hang around?” Johnny said, grinning like he knew the effect it usually had on women. “I’m sure this tech wizardry’s beyond me, but someone’s gotta keep you entertained.”

You caught the challenge in his eyes, that mix of admiration and amusement. You didn’t let him off easy.

“Johnny, save the show for later,” you said, voice laced with teasing authority. “We’re busy keeping the universe from collapsing.”

Johnny laughed, the sound easy and genuine. You caught Ben’s chuckle from the corner, the kind that said, Yep, you’ve got him wrapped around your finger.

H.E.R.B.I.E. glided by, wheels spinning silently as he delivered the latest Kepler Array readings. You nodded at the robot, offering him a genuine smile. “Thanks, H.E.R.B.I.E. Couldn’t do this without you.”

The robot beeped softly, an almost affectionate affirmation. 

Johnny took a tentative step closer, but you intercepted, your smirk widening. “If you want to learn, sit down and watch. No distractions. And keep your hands to yourself.”

He grinned like a kid caught sneaking cookies, but obeyed, sliding onto a nearby stool with eyes glued to you. You and Reed quickly leaned back into the tangle of tech and equations, and it was hard for Johnny to look away.

This was your domain, and nowhere felt more like home than when you were elbow-deep in problems with Reed. You thrived on puzzles that teased your mind, each anomaly a quiet dare to prove you were far more than just a pretty face. 

Nearly a month into your stint at the Baxter Building, you already knew you’d made the right call. It was far more satisfying than your old life as an assistant professor at Columbia. You weren’t cut out for lecturing; you’d earned your PhD to push boundaries, get hands-on, and chase the questions that kept your curiosity alive.

You’d learned fast that working for the Future Foundation wasn’t a solitary endeavour.

The moment you stepped into the lab, you became part of the Fantastic Four’s revolving door. Reed’s team dropped by as often as the blinking consoles refreshed—sometimes to check in, sometimes to offer unsolicited advice, and occasionally to steal a moment’s distraction from their own chaos. 

You had a standing invitation to dinner every night, and a guest room had been set up for you, waiting patiently for you to claim it while the project stretched on. But despite the warmth of the offer, you preferred a little more distance from work. Boundaries weren’t just professional necessities; you needed them to stay sharp.

Still, you were moved by the unexpected tenderness that came with belonging.

Sue had taken to swooping in like a guardian angel, fussing over you with insistence to take breaks. She often expressed how grateful she was for you—your presence in the lab meant that Reed’s workload had halved, and it gave him room to breathe.

Ben, with his soft gruffness, began appearing more often, armed with cookies from his favourite bakery. It was a simple gesture that made the lab smell sweeter and the days a little lighter, especially when you were seconds from a rage-filled doom spiral. 

Johnny had a vinyl collection like a personal DJ, always ready with exactly the record you wanted when it was your turn to pick the lab’s soundtrack. He’d even dash off mid-discussion to fetch whatever you wanted, his casual showmanship softening under the steady warmth of your easy camaraderie. 

Slowly but surely, you were finding your footing as a part of their little bubble.

You leaned over the glowing console, eyes scanning the latest Kepler Array data with practised precision. “These fluctuations here,” you said, tapping a cluster of irregular readings, “don’t match the typical cosmic background radiation levels. It’s like something’s interfering.”

Reed nodded, intrigued. “Could be a localised gravitational distortion,” he offered. “But nothing in the archives matches this.”

You smirked, a spark lighting your gaze. “My bet’s on a subtle quantum effect. Maybe linked to that glitch in the propulsion system that’s been giving us trouble.” You flicked a command with practised ease, shifting the holograms into tighter alignment. “If we adjust the dampening fields just right, it should stabilise the whole system.”

Johnny popped his head over Reed’s shoulder with a grin that promised nonsense. “So, basically, she’s saying it’s some kind of space magic and we should cross our fingers it works?”

You didn’t miss a beat, arching an eyebrow. “Johnny, if I wanted your opinion, I’d give you a chemistry set and tell you to build a rocket.”

He laughed, like he was painfully aware this wasn’t his most charming work. “Ouch. Okay, fair. I’ll stick to the fire, and leave the brains to you.”

Reed chuckled but didn’t interrupt, clearly enjoying the show.

Ben wandered over, cookie in hand. “You really think this’ll fix the Excelsior’s hiccup?” His voice was gravelly, but carried genuine respect.

You popped a cookie into your mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “More than think—I’m betting my reputation on it. It just needs the right tweak and a healthy dose of stubborn optimism.”

Johnny settled on a stool, eyes locked on you in a way that made his usual smirk falter into something softer, less sure. You caught the flicker of admiration, mixed with something almost like awe.

“You’re unbelievable,” Johnny muttered, half to himself, half to the room.

You caught it and teased, “Is that a compliment or are you just admitting defeat?”

Johnny ran a hand through his hair, conceding. “Maybe both. You’re not just a pretty face, are you? That’s… kind of disarming.”

You grinned, the corner of your mouth curving with triumph. “That’s the point, Mr Human Torch. I’m just here to keep you on your toes.”

Ben laughed, shaking his head. “You’re going to give him a heart attack.”

Johnny leveled Ben with an exaggerated scowl, but there was no heat behind it. 

The day stretched on, filled with the satisfying hum of tech and quiet bursts of laughter. Reed and you dove into the Kepler Array data, unravelling anomalies with a shared intensity that made for the perfect level of productivity. Johnny lingered nearby, occasionally shooting you a sideways glance, softened by genuine fascination.

That night, just as you began to pack up your notes, the elevator doors swung open and Sue appeared, hands on her hips, eyes bright with determination.

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly, stepping inside. “You’re not leaving without dinner. It’s been far too long since we had a proper meal together, and I’m not getting stuck with the boys tonight.”

You raised an amused eyebrow, caught by the sincerity in her tone.

“I mean it,” Sue added, her smile softening. “I need some girl time, not just science and sarcasm.”

Reed nodded in agreement, already pulling up a chair. “Sue’s right. It’s overdue.”

Johnny smirked, clearly amused. “Guess you’re stuck with us for the evening.”

You exchanged a look with Sue, and a quiet understanding blossomed between the two of you. In that moment, the Baxter Building wasn’t just a workplace. It was a home, and you were becoming a part of it.

“Alright,” you said, settling back with a smile. “Dinner it is. Let’s see if you can keep up with me outside the lab.”

Sue’s laughter filled the room, light and warm. “Challenge accepted.”

You settled into the Baxter Building’s living room like you owned the place. The floor-to-ceiling windows framed the city’s nightscape like a living painting, a deep blue velvet backdrop studded with a thousand lights. You sank into the soft embrace of the sofa set, your posture relaxed but every inch deliberate.

You were dressed for comfort, but the polished edge was undeniable. Relaxed trousers, a silk blouse cinched at the waist, hair pinned with effortless precision, and a smirk that suggested you were about to take no prisoners. You were about to make more than just conversation—you were here to win.

Glasses clinked, soda bubbles fizzing in crystal tumblers, popcorn steamed gently in bowls scattered across the low coffee table, buttery warmth mingling with the soft hum of blinking tech in the background. The room buzzed with the kind of electric banter that only family could make feel so effortless.

Ever since you stayed over for dinner for the first time a couple of weeks ago, you had become a family dinner regular. You were working later nights than you had at your old job, and you were running out of excuses to avoid family dinner.

Admittedly, it was nice to spend time with the Fantastic Four. They were warm and welcoming, and you never felt out of place among them. 

Tonight in particular, they were in their element: family fun, banter crackling like static electricity in the air.

Johnny’s grin was all reckless charm as he slid a deck of cards onto the table. “Alright, team,” he announced, voice dripping with that trademark confidence. “Let’s play a little poker. Low stakes, high fun. And maybe I’ll finally get to see if the famous astrophysicist can bluff as well as she dazzles.”

You lifted a perfectly shaped brow, exaggerating your cluelessness with a tilt of your head. “Poker? That’s the one where a flush beats a straight, right?” You paused, hiding a grin as you saw the corner of Johnny’s mouth twitch. “Or maybe it’s the other way around? Honestly, I’m a bit fuzzy on the rules, but I’m happy to learn.”

Johnny leaned forward, elbows on the table, his breath warm against your cheek. “Flush beats straight, love. And these chips?” He tapped the stack with mock solemnity. “Each one’s worth bragging rights and a whole lot of pride.” His voice dropped an octave, flirting effortlessly. “Think of me as your poker tutor tonight.”

You considered this with mock gravity, eyes dancing over your cards as if they held secrets you had yet to unlock. “Alright then. Teach me, Human Torch.”

Reed chuckled from his corner, watching the exchange with an amused gleam. You caught his eye and shared a quick wink—a silent nod to countless poker nights past, where you’d swindled him blind and made it look easy.

Sue settled in beside you, pretending to be the innocent newbie too. But you both knew better. You exchanged a glance, a subtle signal, and suddenly your confused questions became part of the ruse. “Wait, so if I raise here, does that mean I’m bluffing or...?” You let the question hang, voice teasingly innocent.

Johnny’s grin faltered just a touch, the kind of brief crack you delighted in exposing. “Careful, that’s how legends fall.” His eyes flicked to Sue, who raised her own brow with perfect poker-face poise.

Ben rumbled a laugh from the other side of the room, booming enough to rattle the glasses. “You two are just setting him up to crash and burn.” His grin was broad, but there was an unmistakable warmth in the way he regarded you both.

You deliberately mixed up chip values, asking, “So, does a red chip beat a blue one? Or am I already out of the game?” Your voice was the picture of confusion.

Johnny chuckled, leaning in with a genuine smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t lose on your first night.” His tone was kind, even as his eyes twinkled with challenge. “Besides, it’s about the fun, not the winnings.”

You threw him a sidelong glance, dropping a chip into the pot with exaggerated hesitation. “Good, because I’m here to win your respect, not your cash.”

The table erupted into laughter, Sue nodding conspiratorially beside you. Reed shook his head, amused, but his eyes gleamed with pride. “You two make this look too easy.”

As the game unfolded, you caught Johnny’s quick glances. He was genuinely rooting for you, even as you threw playful shade his way. When you called his bluff with a perfectly timed smirk, you could practically see the spark of admiration behind his feigned frustration.

The game was a dance of glances, bets, and raised eyebrows. You watched Johnny’s quick twitches—the way he glanced at you like he was trying to decipher a particularly cryptic puzzle, the sharp inhale when you matched his raises with a smirk.

You weren’t just playing poker; you were playing him, and the way his bravado slipped just enough for you to see the real man beneath the flame.

At one point, Johnny leaned over your shoulder, fingers ghosting dangerously close to your cards, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You sure you want to go all in? This could get… heated.” 

You suppressed a smile. “I run a little cold,” you shot back, voice low, eyes locked on Johnny. “So heat is very much welcome.”

The thrill of the game and the way Johnny was watching you sent a sweet, dizzy flutter through your chest. Your fingertips tingled with anticipation, heart steady but alive with electric possibility.

The room hummed with quiet laughter as Sue leaned forward, whispering to Reed, “She’s playing him like a fiddle.” 

Ben chuckled from his corner, having clocked your ruse from the beginning.

By the final hand, you settled back with effortless poise, your breath even, eyes calm and sparkling with a confidence that made Johnny’s grin falter for the briefest second.

He pushed a hefty pile of chips into the centre, but there was a flicker of hesitation.

You matched his bet, sliding your own chips forward as your heartbeat hummed a steady rhythm beneath your skin. Your mind worked the room like a well-oiled machine, calculating, predicting.

You knew Johnny thought he had the better hand, and that was why your bluff would work.

“Going all in, huh?” Johnny said, a slow smile tugging at his mouth, eyes narrowing with challenge. “Confident, aren’t you?”

You met his gaze without flinching, voice low and smooth as velvet. “Maybe the student is becoming the master,” you teased.

The tension stretched, thick and charged, the game slipping from cards into something much more electric. Johnny tossed his cards down first, flashing that arrogant grin like he’d already won. It was a solid hand: a full house, impressive enough to make anyone sit up and take notice.

You let your fingers linger over your cards a beat longer. Then, you laid down your cards with deliberate grace, a perfect bluff that told a story only you could sell.

A royal flush.

The room froze for a heartbeat, eyes darting between your hand and Johnny’s, before exploding into laughter and mock outrage. Johnny sat slack-jawed, eyes wide, caught off guard in a way that only made you more irresistible. Disbelief flickered in his gaze before it melted into admiration.

You leaned in, voice barely above a whisper, the heat between you both folding into the playful intimacy of the moment. “That’s the problem with fire,” you murmured, “it’s easy to read the smoke signals.”

The table erupted into raucous laughter. Johnny swore revenge, but you could hear the breathlessness in his laugh. His usual cocky armour slipped, revealing the genuine admiration and just a flicker of something softer.

Sue elbowed him lightly. “You’re losing your touch, Johnny.”

Ben grinned. “You got outplayed by the new girl.”

Johnny gave a playful cry of outrage, but the warmth in his eyes told the truth: he was pleased you won.

You felt it then. This was more than a game; this was the beginning of something electric, the kind of trouble you both lived for.

As the chips clattered and the night wore on, you knew one thing for sure. You weren’t just part of the Fantastic Four’s world. You were quickly becoming the centre of Johnny’s.

The mission was done. The adrenaline was finally ebbing, and Johnny found himself sinking into the comfort of his sanctuary: his bedroom in the Baxter Building.

It was more than just a place to sleep. Johnny’s room felt like a curated echo of his personality. It was bold, stylish, a little eccentric, and surprisingly layered beneath the surface.

A plush, round bed was tucked to the right, layered with patterned throws and an avalanche of pillows—currently occupied by both Sue and Ben, who had taken up casual residence the moment they stepped inside. Sue sat cross-legged, picking at one of Johnny’s knit cushions with idle fingers, while Ben lay back with his boots still on, arms crossed behind his head like he owned the place.

Books, gadgets, and half-burned candles cluttered sleek shelves along the walls. Johnny’s desk curved like a wave, covered in scribbled notes, retro record sleeves from albums he knew you loved, and a white mushroom lamp glowing beside a half-finished model of a jetbike.

Johnny dropped into the blue chair in the middle of the room, his posture half-slouched, one leg kicked up on the ottoman like he needed the chair to catch him before he unravelled completely.

The familiar thrum of his heart was slowing, but not yet steady.

The others had filtered in behind him after the mission. Reed, already scrolling through data on a slim tablet; Ben with that trademark easygoing grin; and Sue, ever the calming presence, watching him with a mix of amusement and quiet understanding.

“So,” Reed began, voice calm but laced with its usual edge of clinical scrutiny, “how’s my protégé fitting in? I think she’s doing a spectacular job.”

Johnny let out a short, breathy laugh, eyes flicking toward the window. “She’s… something. Not just another genius. She holds her own against you. And yeah, she let me think I was winning for a bit. I’m not used to that.” He ran a hand through his hair, and for a second, the flicker of uncertainty gave him away. “It’s kind of throwing me off.”

Sue arched a brow and leaned her elbow against one of Ben’s knees, smirking. “You seem to have met your match. You’re not exactly easy to beat, Johnny.”

Ben chuckled from the bed, folding his arms across his chest. “Kid, I’ve seen you fight monsters, fall outta the sky, and still land with a smile. But this? This right here?” He pointed lazily toward Johnny. “You’re like a lovesick puppy.”

Johnny shot him a glare, but it lacked real heat. “It’s not like that.”

“Sure it isn’t,” Ben teased. “That look on your face? You’re smitten. I’ve never seen you like this before.”

Johnny groaned, leaning his head back. The ceiling light caught the edges of his cheekbones. “I don’t know. Reed and Sue, you have this stable, solid relationship. Someone who gets you. I never thought I’d find that. And now, she’s here, and I’m trying to play it cool like always, but it’s not working. She sees right through me.”

Reed, still half-distracted by his data, looked up. His voice was softer now. “Love’s not easy for any of us. It’s a challenge, like any mission. But you don’t have to go at it alone.”

Sue stood up from the bed, her hand brushing Johnny’s arm. “And don’t waste time pretending you don’t care. Be honest with her, and with yourself. That’s the only way it works,” she advised.

Johnny exhaled slowly, the energy peeling off him like old paint. “She’s trouble,” he said quietly. “The kind that makes me want to be better. The kind that isn’t really troublesome at all, it’s just forcing me to face something I haven’t had to deal with before.”

Ben raised a bottle of soda he’d grabbed from the mini fridge under the bar. “To good trouble, then.”

Johnny let himself smile. His bedroom, the laughter of people who knew him too well, the messy desk, the rumpled bed, the hum of the city below—it all grounded him.

Reed’s tablet chimed softly, pulling him back to the present. He glanced up, a slight crease between his brows. “H.E.R.B.I.E. says our newest member is still logged into the system,” Reed glanced toward the window, “but she stepped out for some air. It’s quite late.”

Johnny’s chair creaked as he pushed himself upright, a sudden sharp edge cutting through his fatigue. “I’ll go find her,” he said. “Make sure she’s okay.”

Sue gave him a small, knowing smile. “She’s lucky to have you watching her back.”

Johnny slid his feet back into his boots, already moving toward the door. “Get some rest,” he ordered his family. “I’ll make sure she gets home safe.”

Johnny made his way down to the East River, the city’s noise a distant hum swallowed by the chill night air. The Baxter Building loomed behind him, a sentinel in the dark, its windows faintly glowing like stars trapped in glass.

Above the water, the Excelsior launch pad hovered silently, bathed in soft blue light that shimmered on the river’s surface like scattered stardust.

This was the quiet spot Johnny claimed when his head was too full for the humdrum of the Baxter Building’s walls. The wooden bench near the water’s edge, worn smooth by countless restless nights, waited patiently.

But tonight, when he arrived, you were already there.

You hadn’t expected company. The river’s cold breath curled around you, biting at your exposed wrists beneath the crisp cut of your coat. The night was so still, it felt as though even the stars were holding their breath, waiting.

You drew your knees tighter together, boot heels resting on the frost-slick planks, and kept your eyes on the water.

Its surface rippled in liquid silver, catching the moonlight like fragments of a shattered mirror. The Excelsior’s glow poured across the black water in long, unbroken ribbons, swaying gently with the current. You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, fingers trembling just enough for you to feel it. 

You told yourself it was the cold and had nothing to do with Johnny Storm. 

Beneath your polished exterior, the bombshell astrophysicist persona stood guard. It was the armour you’d learned to wear to survive boardrooms, press briefings, and laboratories full of men who thought they knew more than you before you’d spoken a word.

It was an image built from perfect hair, crisp lines, and a voice that never faltered. A necessity. 

Success in your world demanded a mask: an impeccable image, flawless intellect, steel resolve. But here, under the vast and indifferent sky, you could almost imagine taking it off.

That’s when Johnny’s shadow fell over the bench.

You didn’t turn right away, though the corners of your mouth betrayed you. “If you’re here to brood, the spot two feet to your left is open.” Your voice was steady, but inside, your heart was skipping beats you tried not to count.

The sound of Johnny’s chuckle warmed you more than you’d admit. He sat beside you, close enough that the cold no longer pressed quite so sharply against your side. You could feel the faint heat radiating from him, soft as a sunbeam through glass. 

“Let me guess,” you went on, finally glancing at him, “you’ve claimed this spot longer than me?”

“Long before you ever showed up,” he said, wearing that impossible grin. “Even before I was the Human Torch.”

“Impressive,” you said dryly. “So you were dramatic even before the powers?”

His grin widened. Johnny leaned back, stretching out his legs. “I prefer to think of it as memorable.”

You tilted your head. “You mean loud?”

“Strategically attention-grabbing.”

You huffed a laugh. “Sounds suspiciously like someone compensating for something.”

He placed a hand over his heart. “Ouch. That’s cold.”

The banter looped on, familiarly effortless. You volleyed jabs about Johnny’s sunglasses collection; he countered with digs about your “movie star walk” through the lab. Beneath it all, though, you felt an awareness in the way his eyes lingered a second too long when you smiled. He noticed the way your voice softened on certain words without meaning to.

“You’re one to talk. I’ve seen you walk into the lab like you’re about to be photographed for the cover of Astrophysics Monthly,” Johnny joked.

“That’s because I’m always ready,” you shot back, crossing one leg over the other in an exaggerated pose. “The camera could be anywhere.”

He chuckled, the sound warm enough to curl in your chest. For a while, the banter circled harmlessly, back and forth. Two well-defended citadels lobbing witty remarks across the river between them.

The easy banter felt like a shield against the silence, but beneath it, your mind was a storm. You thought about the endless hours you’d poured into your work, the lectures given with razor-sharp precision, the whispered doubts cast your way because of your gender, your youth, your brilliance.

Yet here, beside this man who could ignite cities with a glance, you felt the edges of that persona soften, even if just a fraction.

The wind picked up off the river, sharp enough to sting your cheeks. You shifted slightly, your shoulder brushing his. The heat that came off Johnny wasn’t metaphorical; it was bone-deep, a steady hum against your side. You found yourself leaning in, inching closer like he was gravity. 

His shoulder brushed yours, and the contact was startling in its simplicity. Not staged. Not part of the act. Just him: steady, warm, unguarded.

Johnny noticed you huddling closer for warmth. Of course he did. But he didn’t make a joke. He just stayed still, warm and solid beside you, letting the cold do the work of closing the distance.

For a while, you both watched the water in silence, listening to the quiet lap of waves against the pier. The night smelled faintly of salt and metal, the city’s energy reduced to a distant pulse. Your breath misted in the air, mingling with his.

After a moment, you tilted your head back toward the stars. “Do you ever look up and feel like the world’s too small? Like there’s more out there you’re not quite ready to reach?”

Johnny’s voice was lower now, without its earlier spark of mischief. “All the time. Sometimes I pretend I’m halfway to the moon and the rest of the world’s just trying to catch up.”

A smile pulled at you, smaller and quieter than the ones you usually let people see. “I wish I could be that untethered. Sometimes I think I get too caught up in the performance of it all. And I know I have to be, but it’s exhausting.”

Johnny looked at you fully then, and there was no teasing in his gaze. “You don’t have to pretend to be anything. You’re not just some bright star, you know. You’re the whole constellation.”

The words landed warm in your chest, and for a moment, you forgot about holding your posture. You let yourself lean just a little heavier against him. His shoulder pressed back, not shifting away.

“What if you could go anywhere right now?” you asked softly. “No responsibilities, no saving the world, no being the perfect eligible bachelor. Where would you fly?”

Johnny looked out at the river’s shimmering stretch and grinned. “It's not so bad here.”

Your laugh came easily, and the sound felt foreign in its honesty. For once, you didn’t have to worry about how it sounded. The night around you was cold, but with his heat at your side, you could have stayed there forever.

The wind skimmed off the river again, sharper now, and you instinctively tugged your coat tighter.

Johnny noticed. 

Without a word, he shrugged out of his leather coat and draped it over your shoulders before you could protest. The lining was still unnervingly warm from his body heat, like it had been sitting near a fire. His hands lingered a second too long at your shoulders, the weight of them grounding you in a way that made your pulse skip.

You swallowed hard.

“You’re freezing.” Johnny said it as though giving you his jacket was the only solution.

You opened your mouth to argue, but the scent of smoke and something faintly sweet hit you, and the words tangled in your throat. 

“I’m fine,” you countered, though you didn’t move to return the jacket. “You know I’m capable of basic thermoregulation.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said with a lazy half-smile, “but my way’s better.”

For a few beats, you both sat in comfortable quiet, the river whispering its endless, low song. 

Then his voice broke the stillness. “Do you ever think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t… this?”

“This?” you echoed.

“The science, the speeches, the whole bombshell astrophysicist thing the tabloids love?”

You tilted your head toward him, caught off guard. “That’s a big question for two in the morning.”

“I’m a big-questions kind of guy,” Johnny said, though his smirk didn’t quite hide the curiosity in his eyes.

You hesitated. For a second, you almost told him about the other paths you’d once imagined for yourself, the softer dreams you’d traded for the armour you wore now. 

But you caught yourself, retreating into a teasing smile. “What about you? Would you still be setting things on fire for a living?”

Johnny grinned, letting you dodge his question. “Maybe I’d be a chef. Same skill set, less collateral damage.”

You laughed, and the tension slipped back into its familiar dance. Light, teasing, safe. 

“Actually, I’d probably do something with cars,” Johnny admitted. “Racing them, fixing them—I don’t know, I always just liked taking things apart and putting them back together again.”

“Ah,” you hummed, grinning. “I’m familiar with that kind of curiosity. I don't know how many times I used to take apart our toaster and put it back together just waiting for my parents to get home after school.”

Johnny tried to picture a younger you waiting up for your parents and fiddling around with kitchen appliances. It was too adorable a thought to linger on—the last thing he wanted to do was blush in front of you. 

“You’ve got that look again,” he said.

“What look?”

Johnny’s expression softened. “The one where you’re thinking about something you’re not gonna tell me.”

You arched a brow. “You’ve known me for how long, and you still think I’m easy to read?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say you’re easy to read, but I’ve spent a lot of time trying to.”

That landed too close. You tipped your head back toward the skyline, letting the wind steal whatever reply you might have had. 

Your thigh brushed Johnny’s, and you felt him still, just slightly, as though deciding whether to close the gap or keep it where it was. Heat radiated through the denim, curling low in your stomach.

“Careful,” he murmured, voice low, “you might get addicted.”

You almost snorted. “To what?”

Johnny didn’t answer right away. His gaze found yours, steady, unreadable, but lit with something that made the air between you feel thinner, hotter. Finally, he said, “To the warmth.”

You swallowed hard, breaking eye contact first. Your heart thudded in your ears. It was almost too much—too close, too revealing.

“Y’know,” Johnny said after a beat, “I don’t think I’ve ever been up here this late. Or early, I guess. Feels like we’re not even in the same city anymore.”

“It’s like the rest of the world went to bed and forgot about us,” you agreed.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked, voice quieter now.

You could have told him it was dangerous. That being alone with him like this was already pushing the limits of what you could keep hidden. But you just said, “Ask me in the morning.”

His grin came slowly, curling at the edges, but he didn’t push.

The conversation circled again, back to safe territory. Johnny told a story about a botched mission in Madrid that involved three fire alarms and one very offended goat. You countered with the tale of the time you accidentally blew a circuit in Reed’s lab and invented a new chemical smell in the process.

Johnny watched you for a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice had that low, dangerous warmth again. “You’ve got frost on your hair.”

He reached up, brushing the strands lightly with his gloved fingers. The touch was barely there, but it sent a sharp little current down your spine.

“Better?” he asked.

You nodded, though you weren’t sure your voice would work if you tried it.

You were the one to speak this time, low and almost without thinking. “Maybe I already am.”

Johnny’s brows lifted just slightly. “Addicted?”

You didn’t answer.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The air held the shape of something that might have become a kiss. Then a distant siren wailed through the city, a reminder that the world was still turning, still watching.

Johnny leaned back slightly, letting the space between you expand just enough for you to breathe. But the warmth stayed, coiled under your skin.

You hadn’t expected Johnny to come see you. The two of you didn’t communicate much when you weren’t at the Baxter Building. He occasionally called your landline and chatted to you about his day or the record he just got. 

But tonight, there was a real knock on your apartment door. A gentleman’s knock, as if he’d been standing there rehearsing it.

When you opened it, you caught Johnny mid-grin, his shoulders hunched in the way people do when they’re pretending they’re not excited. The collar of his red jacket was turned up against the wind, his hair swept into soft disorder by the February chill.

“Thought I’d pick you up properly,” he said. His tone was light, but his eyes, quick and searching, made the air between you feel like a live wire.

You stared back at him. “How do you know where I live?” you wondered. 

Cheerfully, Johnny declared, “Reed told me! Now come on, these plans are non-optional and took several weeks of planning to ensure that every single member of the Fantastic Four will be available.” He winked. “Including our honorary member.”

Luckily, Sue had called a couple of days ago to let you know that you all had plans coming up. You doubted that she knew her little brother intended to pick you up from your apartment without warning, but at least it meant you were dressed for the cold and ready to go by the time he showed up. 

You stepped into the hallway and locked the door behind you, the scent of his cologne already catching in the wool of your coat. Johnny didn’t comment on your outfit, though you saw him notice, but he did take your gloves from you without asking, tucking them into his own pocket like you wouldn’t need them.

The Fantasticar was waiting at the curb, and the city beyond shimmered with the kind of cold that makes neon look sharper. You slid into the backseat, and the moment the doors sealed shut, the world went quiet. Just the muffled hum of the engine and Johnny’s knee brushing yours.

Reed turned from the front passenger seat with a polite nod. “Evening. Ben’s already out, said he’d meet us there.” 

Sue leaned over the seat to squeeze your arm warmly. “Glad you could make it. It’s been too long since we’ve had a proper night together.”

You smiled back, but your attention was snagged when Johnny’s hand settled over yours on the seat between you. The heat of his palm seeped through your skin in slow waves, curling up your arm and blooming in your chest. You didn’t pull away.

“You’re gonna like this,” Johnny said, watching you instead of the skyline. “We’re giving you a real night out tonight. No tourist stuff. No press-friendly stops. Just—” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “Us. What we’d always do if we were, you know, branded on fewer billboards.”

And there it was again. That gentle, careful crack in the Johnny Storm persona. The flicker of something that wasn’t all heat and showmanship. Something meant for you alone.

Outside, Manhattan’s glass edges blurred past, streetlamps streaking gold across the windows, but you didn’t look away from him until the car slowed at your first stop.

The car coasted to a smooth stop outside a modest diner tucked between a faded bookstore and a neon-lit laundromat. The sign flickered slightly, Dot’s Diner, casting a soft pink glow over the wet pavement.

Johnny slid the door open and held out a hand to you, his smile easy, the kind that made you forget everything for a moment. “Home turf,” he said, voice dipped in something almost nostalgic.

You stepped out into the crisp night air, the scent of frying bacon and fresh coffee curling up your nose. The chill nipped at your cheeks, but the warmth from Johnny’s hand still lingered as he guided you up the cracked sidewalk.

Reed and Sue were already inside, being led to a booth by the window. Reed’s fingers danced absently over the menu, his ever-present watch glinting under the flickering diner light. 

“Ben’s probably eyeing the pie counter,” Johnny murmured, leaning close enough that your shoulders brushed. The heat radiating off him was enough to make your cheeks warm.

You settled into the booth beside Sue, the vinyl seats creaking softly beneath you. Around you, the comforting clatter of dishes and low murmurs from other late-night patrons seemed to hum.

“You’ve got to try the coffee,” Sue said, passing you a menu. “There’s no reason it should be this good, but it’s magic.” She smiled and nudged Johnny lightly. “He’s been sneaking in here since he was about nine. After school then, and now, when he wants a break from Reed’s rambles.”

Johnny snorted, flashing that cocky grin. “Hey, Reed’s rambles are basically bedtime stories, that’s how quickly they put me to sleep.”

Reed glanced up from the menu, eyebrows raised. “I prefer to think of them as intellectual nourishment.”

You smirked, catching Johnny’s eye. “Sounds like someone needs to optimise his charisma settings.”

Reed ignored the jab, seriously folding his fingers. “I’m actually trying to optimise the diner coffee. I suspect Dot’s brew is less science, more nostalgia, and that’s what makes it so delicious.”

Ben slid into the booth beside Reed, his thick slice of pie almost too big to balance on the plate. He snorted loudly. “Optimal? It’s diner coffee, Reed. The only optimisation is how fast you can guzzle it before it turns into a sad lukewarm puddle.”

Johnny’s grin deepened. “Ben’s got a point, but Dot’s coffee is more than caffeine. It’s tradition. Like a warm hug you don’t have to pretend to enjoy.”

The diner’s middle-aged waitress, Dot herself, appeared like clockwork, ruffling Johnny’s hair with practised affection. “You haven’t changed a bit, kiddo. And you’ve got yourself a lovely friend here. Haven’t seen you around before, sugar.”

Johnny laughed, loud and genuine, like the sound had been bottled up for too long. “Don’t let her fool you, she’s tougher than she looks,” he insisted, nodding toward you.

Caught off guard by the warmth radiating from Dot’s eyes, you introduced yourself, your voice lighter than you felt. “Nice to meet you, Dot.”

Her smile deepened. “Johnny’s always been a charmer. But he’s got a good heart. You’re welcome here anytime.”

Johnny waved away the flirtation like a pro but kept that slow smile that said he’d already claimed this space for both of you. “Two coffees,” he ordered once introductions were done. “My usual, and one with cream and two sugars for her. And bring her a slice of your signature cake, no whipped cream.”

You blinked, caught off guard, your familiar order settling around you like a warm blanket. You hadn’t even said a word, but Johnny had it memorised. It was like your coffee order was just another little piece of you he’d tucked away.

Dot jotted it down and bustled off, humming a tune that sounded like a 50s record.

Johnny reached over, absentmindedly brushing a stray lock of hair from your face. You swallowed, breath catching just slightly, and said nothing.

The coffee arrived quickly, steaming and rich, exactly as you liked it. The cake was dense and buttery, the kind that melts slowly on your tongue, carrying a hint of sweetness that cut through the chill like a warm sigh.

Johnny took a slow sip of his black coffee. “You know, this place? It’s kind of my secret hideout. When I was a kid, I’d come here after getting grounded—”

Sue chuckled, eyes sparkling. “‘Grounded’ is putting it mildly. Remember the time you tried flying off the roof with a makeshift cape?”

Ben’s laugh was like thunder. “And nearly broke his neck. Again.”

Johnny shot him an offended look, but couldn’t suppress a grin. “Hey, you weren’t even there! And that was experimental flight testing, okay? You just don’t appreciate genius when it flies too close to the sun.”

You smiled, soaking in the rhythm of their family; the teasing, the history, the way they fit like pieces of a puzzle you didn’t even know you wanted to be part of.

Sue nudged you gently. “Johnny’s never really outgrown this place. It’s where he found his footing when everything else was spinning out of control.”

Johnny’s voice lowered, just a bit. “When we first came back from space, with powers I couldn’t handle yet, Dot’s was the only place I could go to shut out the noise, sit with my own head, and not feel like a freak.”

“And now?” you asked, leaning in, your tone soft but edged with playful challenge.

Johnny’s grin came back, slower, deeper, like he was carrying a secret just for you. “Now, it’s a place I want to share. With you.”

Ben raised his fork in mock salute. “Welcome to the family, kid.”

You caught Johnny’s gaze. There was a flicker, a quickening in his eyes that made your heart do that uneven skip. You threw him a teasing smile. “Guess that makes me officially part of the crazy, huh?”

Johnny’s laugh was low, and he leaned closer. “Crazy? Yeah. But you’re the kind we want to keep around.”

You smirked, letting your fingers trace idle patterns on your mug. “Careful, Johnny. That sounds dangerously close to commitment. I don’t think you’re ready for that level of chaos.”

He raised an eyebrow, mock offence lighting his features. “Please. I invented chaos.”

Before you could volley back, a young guy from the counter sidled up, flashing a grin that was way too practised for 2 AM. “Hey, I couldn’t help but notice you from over there. How about you let me buy you a drink sometime?”

You glanced over at Johnny, who was watching the exchange with a slow, amused smile, with the barest flicker of hesitation. 

Turning back to the guy, you gave him a once-over, your eyes sparkling. “Well, aren’t you a bold one to come say that around a table of superheroes?”

He laughed nervously, clearly thrown off but trying to keep his cool. “Hey, no pressure. Just figured I’d ask.”

You leaned forward, voice low and teasing. “Flattery will get you everywhere, but I don’t do casual dating. Not when the company is this dangerous.” You gave a slow, deliberate smile that said you knew exactly the effect you had, and weren’t sorry about it.

Johnny shifted in his seat, fingers tightening subtly around your hand. His smile was a little tighter now, as if the playful confidence he’d worn all night was faltering just a bit. The rare moment caught him off guard. 

Seeing you so desired, so magnetic, and being reminded that you weren’t his.

Sue caught the flicker in Johnny’s eyes and gave you a wink. “Trust me, you’re the most dangerous person here.”

The guy seemed to get the hint, nodding politely and retreating back toward the counter with a sheepish grin. You turned back to Johnny, brushing a stray lock of hair behind his ear—just like he had done for you earlier.

“Even at a late-night diner with superheroes, I’m still the centre of attention,” you joked, trying to cheer him up.

Johnny shook his head, chuckling. “Guess you really are the hottest thing to come out of astrophysics in the last fifty years, huh?”

You arched a brow, grinning widely. “Did you just quote The Daily Press headline about me from last month?”

Johnny shrugged, refusing to look abashed. “What can I say? I’m a big fan.”

​​You leaned closer, your voice dropping just enough to tease. “Well, big fan, if you’re gonna quote headlines, you might want to bring me more than coffee next time.”

After the night had worn on and the laughter and stories faded, the group slowly spilt out into the cold. Johnny was at your side as you stepped into the street, and the others headed toward the waiting Fantasticar.

You and Johnny lingered, falling a step behind the others. The world around you shrank, and sounds dimmed. Only the quiet hum of distant traffic and the soft scuff of your footsteps against the wet sidewalk filled the space between you. 

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. You could feel the weight of the night, heavier somehow now, like everything had pulled you closer to a line neither dared cross yet. 

Johnny’s voice was low, the usual swagger stripped away, fragile in the quiet. “This is my real New York. Figured you should see it.”

The words hit you like in a way you hadn’t expected, warm and heavy in the cold air. You swallowed hard, your breath visible in the frigid air, and you forced a lightness to your tone. “I loved it. The diner, Dot—everything was incredible. It felt like stepping into a scrapbook, if that makes any sense.”

Johnny gave you a slow, careful smile, blue eyes catching the glow of the streetlamp. “Makes perfect sense. Couldn’t have explained it better myself.”

You felt the charged silence coil tighter. Your fingers itched to reach for Johnny, to close the space, but your heart clenched at the thought of what would come next.

You stepped a fraction closer, your shoulder brushing his. Johnny’s gaze dropped—first to your lips, then darted up to your eyes, panic flickering there before he steadied himself. His hand came up, resting lightly on your upper arm, warm and steady, holding you in place without overstepping.

You leaned into the heat of his touch. You craved it like a shield against the night’s chill. But just as quickly, reality snapped back, and you pulled away so fast you almost stumbled. His hand was there in an instant, steadying you, his fingers curling around your wrist with a flicker of heat.

The tension twisted tighter between you; this desperate dance of wanting and restraint, of holding on and letting go.

Your heart pounded. “Johnny, I’ve always known you weren’t what the tabloids made you out to be. But tonight... I think I really saw you for the first time. And you’re great.”

His lips parted slightly, eyes searching yours. “Great? You really think that?”

You smiled softly, fierce with certainty. “You’re more than fire and headlines. You’re smart and kind. You don’t have to talk yourself down around me. No billboard or photoshoot is going to change that.”

A shadow crossed Johnny’s face, vulnerability slipping through the cracks of his usual bombast. “Sometimes, I’m scared that’s not enough. That people only see the show.”

You reached up, your fingers brushing lightly along his jaw, anchoring him. “They see you. The real you. At least, I do.”

Johnny exhaled slowly, releasing a held breath, then looked away for a moment, jaw tight. When he met your eyes again, there was something raw and desperate in his gaze. 

You both fought the pull to close the distance, to let everything spill out in a rush. Instead, you fell silent, the city’s muted glow wrapping around you like a fragile bubble.

Johnny’s hand lingered a moment longer before retreating slowly to his side. “Let’s get you inside,” he murmured, voice rough with restraint. “It’ll be warm in the Fantasticar.”

You nodded, but didn’t move away just yet. Instead, you let your head fall lightly against his shoulder, seeking warmth, safety, something steady amid the chaos.

The distant laughter of your friends faded behind you, but here, in this charged stillness, time seemed to slow to a whisper.

“A night like this...” Johnny breathed, voice nearly breaking. “Feels like the start of something.”

You closed your eyes against the sharp ache in your chest. “Yeah,” you whispered back. “Feels like it.”

For a breath, the world seemed to pause. Just the two of you suspended in the quiet glow of the streetlamp. Your hands lifted almost without thinking, fingers curling gently around Johnny’s jaw, tilting his face toward yours. His eyes fluttered shut, lashes brushing his cheeks, and you felt the rapid thump of his heartbeat through the fabric of your coat—fast, urgent, impossible to ignore.

Your lips hovered inches from his, every nerve on fire, every second stretching out like a held breath. You could feel the heat radiating from him, the desperate longing tangled with hesitation.

Then, just as your lips were about to meet, a distant shout—one of the others, calling your names—shattered the spell.

You both pulled back, breath hitching, eyes wide, searching each other’s faces for what neither dared say out loud yet.

Johnny’s smile was small, laced with both frustration and promise. “Not yet,” he murmured.

“No,” you agreed, voice soft but sure. “We’ll take our time.”

Side by side, you finally turned toward the others, the night suddenly feeling both too short and full of promise all at once.

The lab was a constellation of softly humming machines and glowing holograms, the gentle pulse of data streaming from the Kepler Array lighting your face in cool blues and greens. Reed’s notes were sprawled across the holo-display, a meticulous mess of edits and rewrites that blurred into the small hours of the morning. You rubbed a hand over your eyes, feeling the familiar ache of exhaustion settle like a weight in your bones.

Without thinking, you reached for the third cup of coffee beside you, but it was already gone. A soft knock on the counter behind you made you look up. Johnny holding a fresh cup of coffee, the warmth of it radiating even through the ceramic. You hadn’t even heard the elevator doors open. 

“Thought you could use this,” he said, voice low and steady, not a trace of the usual showmanship. His eyes flickered with something tender, a quiet encouragement that made your chest tighten.

You smiled, fingers brushing the rim of the cup. “You’re a lifesaver. Thank you.”

Johnny stepped closer, careful not to disturb the delicate web of papers and holograms. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled in behind him, carrying a tray with a carefully wrapped sandwich and a small container of fruit.

“Look at you,” he said, a teasing grin creeping back in. “You’re practically living here. Not to mention you’re officially H.E.R.B.I.E.’s favourite. He only makes us sandwiches when we ask for them, you get one just for being here.”

You laughed softly, the sound brittle but real. “I don’t have a choice. The paper’s due next week, and Reed won’t stop until it’s perfect.”

H.E.R.B.I.E. set the tray down gently and earned a pat on the head from Johnny, who sat on the edge of the workstation. He watched you with an intensity that made you feel seen beyond the lab coat and the academic pressures.

“Hey,” Johnny said, reaching out to squeeze your shoulder. “Don’t forget to breathe. I know I’m not the PhD here, but I hear that’s pretty important for staying alive.”

You looked up, meeting his gaze. There was no pretence there, just steady, unwavering support.

The hours slipped by, punctuated by quiet moments: Johnny handing you coffee refills, fetching things you forgot, H.E.R.B.I.E. putting on an Etta James record you loved based on Johnny’s recommendation. 

When your head finally lolled sideways against the table in a rare moment of surrender, Johnny caught you before you fell, the warmth of his arms a balm against the stress that threatened to overwhelm you.

The team filtered through occasionally. Sue dropped in for a quick word of encouragement, Ben’s booming laughter echoing from the hall, Reed’s approving nod as he reviewed another revised section.

And always Johnny, your constant anchor in the storm of brutal academia.

You leaned back in your chair, the exhaustion settling deep into your muscles, your eyes tracing the constellation of blinking lights and streaming data on the console. For a moment, you let yourself drift, thinking about how utterly unlike the glossy headlines and magazine covers this scene was.

No perfectly tailored dress, no flawless makeup, no rehearsed smiles for the cameras. Just coffee-stained notes, tired eyes, and a stubborn mind refusing to give up.

If those tabloid writers could see you now—unpolished, raw, hunched over a hologram with your hair a tangled mess and your fingers stained with ink and caffeine—they’d probably call it a meltdown or a bombshell burn-out. But you knew better.

This was your work. The real work.

The moments when you weren’t the image of effortless glamour, but the person who connected dots no one else could see, who stayed up past midnight chasing anomalies, who rewrote papers until every word carried the weight of truth.

You were always going to be the bombshell astrophysicist, but now you could prove that you had the brains to back it up, the talent to own it, and the experience to make your mark.

And this time, you weren’t alone.

Johnny’s quiet presence wasn’t just a comfort. It was the kind of support that turned chaos into something manageable, the kind of steady hand that let you finally believe you could thrive, not just survive.

The lab was quiet except for the soft hum of machines and the faint rustle of papers. Afternoon light spilt through the tall windows, pooling gold on the steel counters and screens cluttered with equations and data sets. You sat at the long table, fingers still tingling from hours of typing, your mind a swirl of corrections and rewrites, exhaustion and anticipation.

Reed’s presence was steady beside you as he set the final version of the paper down with a deliberate calm that made your heart race despite the fatigue. His eyes, the eyes of a man who rarely allowed himself to show vulnerability, were locked on you.

“This is... exceptional,” Reed said quietly, voice low but steady. “I’ve read every draft, every line. But this—this is something else. Your insight connected pieces of the puzzle no one else even noticed. You saw the anomalies not as isolated noise, but as a pattern. A map pointing to the unknown.”

You blinked, identifying his words as more than praise. It was recognition. The kind that whispered, You belong here.

Then Reed shifted, looking around to make sure no one else was listening. “I’m putting your name first on this paper.”

You caught your breath. The significance hit you like a jolt.

In the academic world—especially one as competitive and hierarchical as astrophysics—the lead author was sacred territory. Usually reserved for the most senior scientist, the one with the longest CV, the most grants, the most authority. To Reed, the titan of the field, to willingly hand over that spot was almost unheard of.

“I want this to be your moment,” Reed said, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “Not because I have to, but because you earned it. More than anyone on this team. Your work made this publication possible. And this is just the beginning. At the Future Foundation, we want to help you build your career. Not just in name, but in respect. In freedom. Right here at the Baxter Building.”

You exhaled shakily, feeling a fierce, unexpected surge of emotions. Pride, relief, and a deep sense of safety. Here was a place that saw you, really saw you. Not just the bombshell who turned heads in the tabloids, but the mind behind the equations, the relentless seeker of truth.

You thought of every late night spent battling doubt, every article that questioned your credibility, every sideways glance from peers who couldn’t reconcile your beauty with your brilliance. And now, here was Reed Richards—your mentor, your colleague, your champion—showing you that you belonged. That your voice mattered.

You smiled, that radiant, unstoppable smile that had carried you through more than you liked to admit. “Thank you so much.”

Reed’s eyes softened, a rare softness breaking through his usual measured composure. “You have no need to thank me. You’ve earned every bit of this, and more.” He paused, then leaned in slightly, his voice quiet but resolute. “It is my hope, and the Future Foundation’s, that you will continue to conduct your research here, with the full support of the team. We want you to have your own lab in the Baxter Building. Whatever you need to push this work further—funding, equipment, personnel—we will provide it, within reason. Consider it an investment in not just the future of astrophysics, but in you.”

You blinked, stunned. The sheer scope of the offer was borderline incomprehensible. This was more than a job or a title. It was a vote of confidence, a declaration of belonging. You were being given the keys to the city, scientifically speaking, and you had the freedom to do whatever your heart desired next. 

Reed smiled then, a real, open smile. “I want you to know it’s been an honour mentoring you. Not just because you’re the future of the field but because you’re the present. Your work is invaluable. Your mind is brilliant. I’m excited to see what you’ll do next.”

You felt your throat tighten. The weight of those words, after so many nights of doubt and struggle, was almost overwhelming. You hesitated a moment before standing, and Reed rose too, closing the distance between you. 

When you pulled back, Reed looked at you, eyes sharp and warm. “So, what do you want to do next?”

You grinned, heart pounding in your chest. “Right now? All I want is to go tell Johnny.”

You paused in the hall outside Johnny’s door, taking a deep breath as your fingers brushed the cool wood. You hadn’t had the time to rehearse this moment, and now, standing here, you felt your heart hammering. Nerves twisted in ways both familiar and new. 

Tentatively, you knocked.

“Uh—come in!” came his voice, higher-pitched than usual, carrying that unmistakable mix of surprise and delight.

You opened the door, and the sight that greeted you made your chest stutter. Johnny was halfway between tidying and abandoning the task altogether: pillows scattered across the floor, vinyl records perched precariously on his bed, a half-empty mug teetering on the edge of his nightstand. He froze the moment he saw you, blue eyes wide and golden with shock, then smiled so broadly it nearly made you stumble forward.

“You—what—how—” Johnny stammered, flinging a pillow onto the bed with too much force. “You’re here! I—wait, hold on, don’t just—oh man, it’s a mess.” His usual grin faltered into a panicked, adorable frown. He ducked to snag another pillow off the floor, knocking a stack of records onto the carpet. “Okay, fine. This is fine. Totally fine. You’re here. And I’m— I was just cleaning.”

You laughed softly, letting the nerves of the hallway slip away. Stepping closer, you brushed the hair from Johnny’s forehead. “I’ve always assumed your room would be a little chaotic. But,” You paused, smiling softly, “it’s kind of charming.”

Johnny’s eyes softened, and he wasn’t fumbling anymore. “Charming? That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my room. But now I’m blushing, and it’s— look, I’m a disaster right now, but you’re here.”

You tilted your head, heart thudding. “I come bearing news.”

“Oh?” His voice was teasing now, but his pulse betrayed him. “You’re going to make me proud, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” you said, breath catching. “The paper’s ready for peer review. Reed is putting my name first. And…” Johnny nodded encouragingly, like he couldn’t believe there was even more good news. “He wants me to stay. The Future Foundation is giving me my own lab, full funding and everything.”

Johnny’s jaw dropped. “That’s huge. That’s amazing. You’ve earned it. You’ve always been this brilliant, unstoppable—no, scratch that—you’ve always been…” He stopped, flustered, eyes darting to yours and then down to your lips and back up again. “…everything anyone could hope for. I’m just— I don’t even know what to say.”

You laughed, feeling that fond happiness building up in your chest. “You’re cute when you’re panicking,” you mused.

He grabbed your hands, holding them tight. “Cute doesn’t cover it. You’re just extraordinary, and I’m a complete mess and I wasn’t expecting you, and I… I just—” Johnny’s eyes flicked to your lips again, then back to your eyes, panic and desire tangled in equal parts.

You took a deep breath, leaning forward just slightly. “I’ve wanted to tell you… I’ve wanted to be with you for a while now.”

Johnny’s lips parted, a shiver running through him. “I’ve been waiting to hear that. And to say it back.”

Your hands lifted, trembling slightly, and cupped his jaw, thumbs brushing lightly against the warm planes of his cheeks. Johnny’s eyes flicked to yours, dark and wide, and for a heartbeat the world shrank to nothing but the two of you. Slowly, painfully, and deliberately, you tilted his face down toward yours, every movement weighted with the things neither of you had dared to say.

Johnny didn’t pull away. His lips parted just a fraction, and you caught a soft hitch in his breath, tiny and raw, that sent your pulse spiking. Every nerve in your body screamed at you to close the distance.

Your foreheads brushed first, soft, almost trembling contact, and his eyes fluttered shut. Heat pooled low in your chest, a slow burn that throbbed through your arms, your stomach, every inch of you. His lips hovered against yours, so close it was dizzying—so close it was painful.

Then, almost without thinking, your hands slid higher, fingers threading through his hair, cupping the back of his neck as you tilted your head, brushing your lips against his. The contact was feather-light, barely there, yet it sent shivers racing across your spine. Johnny’s hands lifted instinctively, one pressing to your waist, the other along your back, grounding him as much as grounding you.

It started slow, tentative, but the heat that radiated from him pulled you in inexorably. Every brush of his lips against yours, every shared, shallow breath, made your knees weaken. You pressed closer, hands moving as if they had a life of their own, memorising the planes of his body, the soft warmth of his chest, the quick, staccato beat of his heart that thundered so loudly you could feel it through your lab coat.

Johnny groaned, low and urgent, and your heart ached with need. You pulled back just a fraction to catch your breath, only to feel him close the distance immediately, impossibly fast, as if any space between you was unbearable. His hands slid higher, one cupping your neck, the other tracing your spine, and you shivered, pressed flush against him, losing the fight to hold yourself apart.

“You’re incredible,” he murmured against your lips, his voice rough with want, and it was all the permission your racing heart needed.

You tilted your head, letting your lips brush his once more, softly, teasingly, before pressing harder, letting every ounce of longing, every second of frustration, pour into the kiss.

Your hands tangled in his hair, fingers threading through soft strands, while his hands roamed your sides, over your back, up to your shoulders, anchoring you to him. You moved together like two halves rediscovering a whole, slow, staggered steps across the floor as if navigating both desire and the fragile, electric tension of finally being together.

A sigh escaped you when your lips parted for air, and his forehead rested against yours, pulses wild. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he confessed, voice rough, vulnerable, trembling with every beat of his heart.

“You have no idea,” you whispered, your hands lingering on his jaw, tilting his face down to yours again. You kissed him again, deeper, fiercer, letting months of slow-burning longing and the playful banter break through the surface.

Between kisses, you laughed breathlessly. “I can’t believe we’re finally doing this.”

Johnny grinned against your lips. “I’ve imagined it a thousand times, and it’s even better than I ever dreamed.”

His hands gripped your sides as you pressed against him, and yours tightened in his hair, pulling him impossibly closer. Every soft moan, every whispered gasp, every racing heartbeat proved you’d both held back for too long. The kiss was messy, greedy, desperate, and perfect all at once.

Finally, you broke apart, foreheads pressed together, breaths ragged, lips swollen and tingling. “Better than you ever dreamed, huh?” you teased softly, voice breathless but triumphant.

“Definitely,” Johnny admitted, shaking his head in disbelief, a slow, radiant grin spreading across his face. “Can you blame a guy? God forbid he dreams about his girlfriend before he gets a chance to tell her.”

You laughed softly, heart soaring. “Girlfriend,” you murmured, letting the word taste on your tongue, letting it sink in. “I like the sound of that.”

He kissed you again, slow this time, deliberate, savouring every inch of you, letting the fire settle into a warm, unshakable rhythm. The world outside his room, the stress of work, all fell away. Only this, only you, only him.

“You’re incredible,” Johnny whispered once more, and this time it felt like a vow, a promise, a beginning. You pressed your lips to his again, slower, deeper, letting your sighs mingle in the warm glow, finally free to show the love that had been simmering beneath months of longing.

You finally pulled back, breathing ragged but steadying as the heat of the kiss lingered on your lips. Johnny’s arms wrapped around you, strong and protective, pressing you flush against him as if he never wanted to let go.

“You’re really here,” Johnny murmured, voice low, roughened by the mix of laughter and longing. His lips brushed against your temple as he pressed a gentle kiss there. 

You tilted your head up to look at him, eyes glittering with the same mix of disbelief and joy. “I know,” you whispered, tracing a line along his jaw. “It’s finally real. No holding back.”

He smiled, and it was a slow, soft thing that made your chest swell. “I’ve been waiting for this,” Johnny admitted. 

“So have I,” you replied, voice trembling with the same mixture of awe and relief. “I… I have so much I want to tell you. About the paper, about Reed putting me first, about having my own lab. You were the first person I wanted to tell.”

His hands slid down to cup your waist again, pulling you impossibly closer. “I’m listening, trouble,” he said, leading you to a chair. You laughed at the nickname. “Tell me everything.”

And as you began to recount Reed’s offer, the paper being ready for peer review, and your new lab above his, his smile never wavered, never faltered. Johnny was there, entirely present, sharing in your triumph, sharing in your life.

You stayed entwined like that until the soft crackle of the record reached its final notes. Johnny, ever thoughtful, lifted the needle and gently put on a new record. The familiar warmth of the music filled the space around you both. Eventually, the music played on quietly in the background as exhaustion and contentment tugged at your eyelids, and you both drifted off in the first real sleep you’d had in weeks.

[scarletmika]

The Wonder of You : ̗̀➛ Johnny Storm x Reader

Pairing: Johnny Storm x Reader

Summary: Over your four years working for Reed Richards, you'd given yourself one job: you can be his friend, but don't fall for Johnny Storm's charms. Too bad you had already failed that mission before it could even begin.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY MDNI, SMUT (making out, unprotected sex, p in v, nipple play, oral f. receiving, temperature play, creampie, aftercare), porn with a LOT of plot, slight hint of some angst, fluff, friends to lovers, Johnny is a massive flirt, mutual pining, SPOILERS! for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, female reader but no characteristics described, mentions of parental loss, maybe some incorrect stuff regarding the 60s and how it worked but it's a fantasy world, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes

Word Count: 17,433 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

“We need to adjust the parameters for this. There’s a few more levels that I want to adjust, to ensure that we’ve scanned the baby for all possible anomalies,”

Years ago, when you had miraculously been offered the position as Dr. Reed Richards assistant, it was a dream come true. The smartest man alive, holding 18 Doctorate degrees himself, choosing you out of the thousands of applicants to be his assistant was a ‘pinch me’ moment. Of course, he didn’t want an assistant, it was thrust upon him by his wife, but you liked to think after all this time you’d wormed your way into his heart.

Working with Reed…was something else entirely. It was a learning curve, understanding just how the man’s brain worked. Even to this day, you weren’t sure you understood it. Even when things went perfectly, when test runs on prototypes worked out better than you could’ve ever imagined, Reed was never satisfied. Something could always be better, be improved, as if his brain was factoring in the hundreds of thousands of possibilities that could occur and alter your data. You made it work, though–with patience and understanding–you managed to find the best way to work around Reed’s faults and work with him, to support him.

What was supposed to be just a job in the Baxter Building became so much more. Through it, you gained a family you never thought quite possible.

Reed’s wife, Susan Storm, was another one of the brightest minds that you had ever encountered. Kind, compassionate, but fiercely loyal and unafraid to step up to the plate when a challenge arrived, when the people she loved were threatened. You admired her and everything she stood for, the way she carried herself day in and day out. And since the day you had arrived at the Baxter Building, she welcomed you with open arms, as if you had always been part of the family.

Ben Grimm was the most talented pilot you’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. The perfect counter to Reed and his panicky mind at times, having known the man long enough to understand his quirks in a way you could only hope to. Ben was always kind, always open, always ready to lend a hand or be a shoulder for anyone that needed to listen.

Johnny Storm…was the bane of your existence, in the best way.

“Wrong address, sweetheart. The modeling agency is two blocks down. I could escort you over there, if you’d like?”

Those were the first words the hot-headed younger brother of Sue Storm had said to you, passing by you in the lobby of the building on your first day, a wink thrown in for good measure when he’d spoken.

Having followed Dr. Richards' work long enough, which meant knowing bits about his personal life, you were well aware of the reputation that Johnny Storm carried. The papers and magazines, talk shows and gossip blogs, all called him a playboy simply because he’d never been in a long-term relationship but was still a ladies man. You never saw him like that, though. All you saw was a brilliant guy, a lover of space, even if that passion of his was sometimes overlooked because of his ‘love for women’.

And, oh, how you wished his empty, blatant flirting with you didn’t bring a blush to your cheeks every time, or make your heart skip a beat, but it did. Every single time, it did. You weren’t blind: Johnny Storm was objectively handsome and much too charming for his own good, and you decided right then and there that you would use every ounce of your willpower to ignore his empty flirts. You didn’t need to become another girl hopelessly in love with the heartthrob of the Fantastic Four, even if your heart ached when you saw him with anyone else.

Those four had become important to you in ways that you would never be able to describe, but Sue always described it best: a family. 

That’s why when four of the closest people to you in life went up into space for Reed’s exploration mission, and came back cosmically changed forever, you never left their sides. They were your family, and family stuck together, no matter what.

“Reed,” your comment was cautious, hands stilling at your work station in the lab of the Baxter Building. Glancing over your shoulder, Reed was hunched over the machine he’d built in just a day, specifically to monitor the health of the baby growing inside of Sue’s stomach, as Herbie rocked back and forth beside him. “You’ve scanned Sue a thousand times at this point-”

“That’s an exaggeration. I’ve scanned her 123 times-”

“That’s not the point,” he glanced over at you then, looking away the second he saw the pointed look you were throwing at him. With a sigh, you abandoned your work, leaning back against the table behind you to watch him fret over the device. “We have run every test possible, scanned for every data point that links back to the fluctuations in your DNA from the cosmic rays we noted years ago, and we’ve gotten nothing. Your baby is okay.”

“There are still more tests to run,”

Another sigh escaped past your lips, and you allowed yourself to hang your head with a shake.

Since the moment Sue had announced her pregnancy, he’d been like this: even more on edge than usual. Baby-proofing the kitchen, smoke detectors in every single room and hallway, baby gates around every corner, it was getting insufferable. A sweet gesture, overall, and a testament to how much he loved and adored Sue, but exhausting to everyone else that had to be in his presence.

“Fine, but I’m not breaking the news to Sue that you want to scan her…again,”

“I already told her to meet me down here before dinner for another scan. We can adjust the parameters tomorrow. I want another data set from today’s scan at the current parameters to compare the changes with,” Reed never looked in your direction, still fiddling with the machine in front of him. “You’re staying for dinner, yes?”

“I’m making it,” was the response you shot back to him, powering down your workstation in the lab and rising from your chair, crossing the room to stand in front of him. “Apparently Sue has been craving spaghetti, and requested my family recipe.”

“You can’t argue with a pregnant woman,” Reed muttered, just loud enough for you to hear, but he still never looked up. “I’ll see you up there for dinner, then. There’s a few more tests that I want to run.”

“You also have a meeting at 5:45 and one at 6:15,” you shot back to him as you turned to leave the lab, checking the desk calendar lying beside your work station. There was a hum from the man, the smallest acknowledgement you were going to get, so you set your sights on Herbie and waved him forward. “Come on, Herb. An extra hand in the kitchen is always nice.”

As much as you thought of the Fantastic Four as your family, you never stayed for dinner often. You always tried your hardest to uphold the lines between your work life and personal life, not wanting to blur them completely (though, you were sure you had already blurred them enough for it to be too late). There had been plenty of times over the years where you’d stayed for dinner, usually once a month at this rate.

Sue always invited you, and you never wanted to disappoint her, and you gave in often. Ben had a way of wrangling you into saying yes before you were ever given the chance to speak at all. Reed had only asked once, asking you to stay back for the dinner months ago in which they announced to you that Sue was pregnant.

Johnny asked every day. You said no, most of the time, but when you did stay for dinner it was usually because those captivating, bright blue eyes were staring into your soul and pleading with you to stay.

Speak of the devil: there he sat at the dining room table. Clad in a white t-shirt with their logo resting over the pocket and the blue pants of his suit, a weird sight given that you had been in the lab with Reed all day and didn’t think any of them had left to attend to any ‘hero’ work.

You didn’t say a word as you strolled past him into the kitchen with Herbie on your heels, simply plucking the box of Lucky Charms from his hands as you swooped past. It was impossible not to smile to yourself at the scoff of indignation he let out at your actions.

“Hey-!”

“You’re going to spoil your appetite,” you shot back at him, throwing him a smirk over your shoulder before slotting the now closed cereal box into the cupboard where it usually sat.

Herbie beeped out a set of beeps that, over the years, you had come to understand. This time, he was agreeing with you, pointing out some facts about how eating out of the box lacked moderation, and would in turn actually spoil his appetite. You gave the little robot a fist bump for that, something that Johnny shot the little helper a glare for.

“Come on, Herbert, you’re supposed to take my side on these things!” There was no real malice in his words as he got up from the dining room table, rounding into the kitchen as you took the pots and pans that Herbie had gathered for you, setting them out along the counter where you needed them. “Baby, you didn’t tell me you were staying for dinner.”

When you told yourself that you weren’t going to fall into the trap that was the charming and charismatic Johnny Storm, you weren’t prepared for two things.

One: when he got comfortable around someone, he could be an even bigger flirt. Pet names were constant. Baby, sweetheart, honey, doll, love…you name it, Johnny called you it. Constantly. So constantly you were sure the blush on your cheeks was a permanent staple. He’d even once called you his little flame–that had been met with the tip of your heel being dug into his foot.

The second thing you weren’t prepared for: touch. Johnny Storm didn’t understand personal space, not when he was comfortable around you. If you were in the room with him, he was standing less than a foot from you, and you always knew because you could feel the warmth that radiated off his unusually hot skin. His hands would always rest on your arm, your elbow, right at the bottom of your lower back.

Moments like this in the kitchen were normal, and yet they still fried your brain. That simply little pet name, and Johnny’s warm hand ghosting over your lower back, before coming to rest on your hip. Clearing your throat, you gently pried his hand from your body, shooting him a look as you moved around to get the ingredients for dinner, hoping your flushed cheeks didn’t give you away.

“When your pregnant sister has cravings for my personal family recipe spaghetti, I’m required to oblige her,”

“I asked you to make this for me two weeks ago and you refused,”

Johnny followed close behind you, like a little puppy following its owner. You tried, and failed, to contain your smile at his actions. The media might paint him as some sex god (you weren’t going to lie…if he wanted to be, he could be) but you saw him for what he was: the epitome of a little golden retriever at times.

“Well you aren’t a hormonal pregnant woman with super powers,” you shot back at him, taking the opened jar of spaghetti sauce from Herbie’s hand and dumping it into the pot on the stove top, turning up the heat on the boiling pot of water for the noodles Herbie had laid out for you.

“No, but Johnny is a hormonal guy with super powers, who adores your cooking,” bumping his hip with yours, Johnny stole the wooden spoon from your hand with ease, dipping it into the simmering sauce to stir. With that same ease, he leaned down just slightly, leaving a kiss to your bare shoulder that felt as if it had left a brand into your skin. “Johnny also happens to just adore you, and loves when you stay for dinner.”

You had given up on the blush by now. He’d surely seen it enough over the years with his incessant flirting, there was no use in hiding it. Bumping your hip back with him, biting into your bottom lip in a failed attempt to conceal the smile spreading across your lips, you stole the wooden spoon back from him.

“Johnny also talks in the third person too much, and is an insufferable flirt half the time,” he dipped his hand into the sauce, coating his fingers in red as you whacked lightly at his hand, forcing him to withdraw as quickly as he’d dipped in. “What have I told you about doing that!”

He’d laughed, one of your favorite sounds, as you glanced over at him with a bright smile, unable to truly stay mad at him…ever.

That was, until he dipped his sauce-covered ring finger and middle finger into his mouth to lick the sauce clean off, eyes never leaving yours and a smirk curling up on his lips. It forced you to swallow the lump that had formed in your throat and look away as quickly as you could, feeling a different kind of heat swelling in your body: yeah, Johnny knew exactly what he was doing.

“Not sure, baby, that look you’re giving me right now doesn’t scream that I’m insufferable-”

“Oh, that’s exactly what it’s screaming,” you shot back, even with the ghost of a smile pulling at your lips as Herbie readied the garlic bread on the counter behind you. “If you’re not going to help, you can leave this kitchen. I don’t care if you live here.”

Johnny rolled his eyes in response, hopping up onto the counter next to the stove where you worked. You caught the box of noodles he knocked over before they could fall to the ground, shooting him a look as he held his hands up innocently, dumping them into the boiling water pot.

“You basically live here, too,”

“I don’t-”

“Yeah, because you keep refusing the room that Sue prepared for you,”

He…wasn’t wrong. Two years ago, Sue had transformed what was previously the guest room into a room that looked like it had been built just for you. Your favorite color on the walls, a matching quilt set on the bed, and she’d offered it to you. A place to stay, to live, given that Reed sometimes had you in the Baxter Building until the oddest hours of the morning.

You declined, still desperate to keep that line between your work life and your personal life separate, as tempting of an offer as it was. Sue wasn’t slighted by your decision at all, instead offering it to you to use whenever you needed to. There had been times in which you had taken up that offer, a few changes of clothes tucked away in the room on the odd chance that you’d need them.

“This place is your home, not mine,” you didn’t look at Johnny as you spoke, simply shaking your head as you stirred both the sauce and the noodles in their respective pots. “I’m Reed’s assistant, I’m not family-”

“Stop it,”

Even with the heat that rolled off Johnny Storm, every time his bare skin touched your own it sent a shiver straight down the length of your spine. His hand curled around your jawline, thumb and index finger pinching at your chin to force you to look up at him, to gaze into those intense blue eyes and the look on his face that had morphed so quickly from playful to serious.

“Johnny-”

“You are family, whether you like it or not,” the statement didn’t surprise you, it wasn’t the first time in your four years of knowing him that Johnny had said something like this to you, or anyone on the team for that matter. It always made you feel warm inside, though, to hear him say it, to see that loyalty and love for the people he cared about shine through in his words, such a stark contrast to the way the media sometimes portrayed him. “There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for you.”

That was new. He hadn’t made a declaration like that to you before.

It was something about the look in his eyes as he said it–so genuine, so soft–that had you melting into his touch. His hand curled back up to your cheek, thumb just barely caressing the apple of your cheek, leaving a trail of heat with every swipe of his finger against your skin. Your heart betrayed you, fluttering in that moment like it always did.

These moments used to be few and far between. You didn’t know how else to describe them besides just calling them moments. Over the first few years of knowing Johnny Storm, there were small moments where that empty flirts verged on the edge of something different, something raw and real. But in the last year, they happened more often than they didn’t. Johnny wasn’t pictured out with as many women anymore, wasn’t brazenly caught flirting with anyone with legs and a pulse at events. And in moments like this, even in front of his family, he’d touch you, caress you, speak to you in a way that felt so genuine, that felt like it was real. Like the flirting was no longer just empty, meaningless fun.

That line between your work and personal life might have been a muddled mess, but the line between being Johnny Storm’s friend and something entirely more was practically non-existent now.

“You say that to all your women?” you quipped back, trying to hold your own, even as you were melting inside and your voice came out as a whisper. The playful look on Johnny’s face returned in a second, his fingers instead pinching the cheek he’d just been so softly caressing.

“Never, honey. Those words are reserved for my brother-in-law’s pretty little assistant,”

In typical Johnny fashion, he was able to dissolve and ruin whatever the moment was in an instant with his usual ‘charm’. Swatting his hand away, you returned your attention to the food on the stove in front of you, smiling to yourself as Herbie beeped out a popular song you’d heard on the radio behind you.

“You always have a line, don’t you?”

“Hey, you know what you signed up for, being friends with all this,” he jokingly motioned to his body, and you caught sight of the smile lighting up his face again as you laughed incredulously at his actions. “As part of the package deal, being friends with me, you are legally required to attend movie night in the living room with me after dinner.”

You hummed in response, even if you were smiling the entire time just from listening to him talk.

“This sounds like an impromptu movie night-”

“All of our movie nights are impromptu, babe-”

“I saw earlier that channel 2 is playing The Sound of Music tonight,” you shot back at him, finally looking up at him with an expectant look on your face. “That’s what I want to watch.”

Johnny groaned, throwing his head back and knocking it against the cupboards with a wince on his face. You couldn’t help but chuckle at his overdramatic antics, as usual.

“But channel 3 is showing Psycho!”

“And you dipped your hand–which, god knows where that thing might have been–into my sauce for dinner,”

Johnny opened his mouth to speak, before mulling over your words, and effectively shutting it with a nod.

“You know what, if it gets you to have a movie night with me, then I’ll take it,”

God, you adored this man, more than you should. More than you wanted to. In his presence, especially now, you were pretty sure the smile on your face was a constant, that it would never leave, as you laughed at him once more. 

Finishing off the special blend of additions to your sauce, giving it another swirl with the wooden spoon, you brought it up to your lips for a quick taste. Satisfied, you held one hand under the spoon to keep it from dripping, holding it up toward Johnny.

“Alright, give it a taste,”

His eyes stayed locked on yours, that familiar intensity and warmth in them keeping you locked in place, holding your breath, as he took a quick slurp from the spoon. Smacking his lips together, running his tongue out along his lips, he gave a definitive nod.

“As always…perfection. Though, I expect nothing less from you,”

Before you could retort to his cheesy comment, his hand reached out, eyes still locked on yours, as he cupped your chin once more and ran his finger over your lips. With the slightest of glances down, you saw the small spot of red on his finger, the remnants of the sauce he’d so gently just wiped from your lips.

Glancing back up to those blue eyes you loved more than you cared to admit, you caught the way they finally glanced down at your lips, before looking away as if to not get caught.

“...am I interrupting something?”

As if Johnny had burst into flames and burned you, you jumped away from him immediately the second you heard the voice of Sue Storm across the room. You never even looked back up at Johnny, or turned around to look at the woman by the dining room table, just stared down into the sauce pot as you continued to stir it and the noodles.

“Actually, sis, you very much are interrupting something here,” Johnny called out across the room, and you could see him gesturing with his hands between you both from the corners of your vision.

“Johnny,” you rolled your eyes, glancing over at him with flushed red cheeks from what had just transpired. “Sue isn’t interrupting anything.”

“She kind of is. We were kind of having a moment here-”

“Johnny, we were not having a moment,”

You very much were having a moment, but you weren’t admitting that to him. His ego burned hot enough, no need to stroke the fire.

Sue laughed, rounding into the kitchen as she stopped by Herbie, thanking him and taking the garlic bread tray from him to pop into the oven he had preheated.

“Johnny, why don’t you go get cleaned up for dinner and stop bothering the poor girl. Bad enough I’m making her cook for me, she doesn’t need you hovering,”

The man let out a sigh, muttering something mocking toward his sister, as he threw himself off the counter with dramatic flair. He wasn’t done making your heart race, though, his hand curling around the back of your head as he planted a kiss directly to your hairline, before he disappeared from the kitchen with a pat to Herbie’s head.

The pots on the stove were forgotten as you turned around, simply watching him disappear with an incredulous look on your face. Quickly, your eyes shot to Sue, who was watching you with a smirk as she leaned against the island counter.

“There was nothing happening there,”

“I didn’t say there was,”

“But you’re giving me that look,”

“I’m not giving you any kind of look,” the blonde laughed, stepping up beside you to take the wooden spoon from your hand, tasting the sauce herself with a happy little sigh. “Just…enjoying watching the show from the sidelines, waiting for one of you to make a move.”

“Sue, there’s no move to make. He’s just…he’s Johnny,”

“And Johnny is my brother,” she shot back with a grin. “And Johnny has never been like that with someone, just with you.”

You didn’t get to respond, before Herbie cut in with another series of beeps. Your eyes shot wide as you listened to what he was saying, cheeks flaring an even brighter shade of red as Sue choked on air, laughing to herself at your side.

“HERBIE! THAT’S SO INAPPROPRIATE!”

❤︎

It had been two weeks, and Reed had somehow managed to scan Sue a total of 142 times, now. Sometimes, you wondered how she was able to put up with his hovering, the hovering that had gotten exponentially worse since she announced she was pregnant.

“I’m not getting clear imaging,” Reed called out from the other side of the lab, the only sound in the room being the incessant beeping of the machine he’d built to monitor the baby, and the solder iron in your hand as it worked away on the small device in front of you. You shook your head at his comments once more, adjusting the eye protectors resting on the bridge of your nose as little sparks jumped up as the last piece of the triangular device was finally attached. “I’m going to have Herbie recalibrate this, I don’t like the data output I’m getting, I want a clear image on the next scan. Is the second bridge device ready?”

“Just finished fixing the soldering on the stand, so it should be good to go,” you shot back, tossing your eye protectors down at your workstation, lifting the device carefully and carrying it over to Reed’s station, setting it down with the matching device. “And, once again, you really don’t need to scan the baby again.”

You were met with silence, unsurprisingly. Until, the workstation down the room set off its alarm bell, a familiar tone that had you stand up straighter where you stood.

“New deep space transmission,” there was a hint of elation in Reed’s tone as he said it, quickening his pace across the room with Herbie hot on his trail. “Let’s identify the origin, then record it for further analysis.”

Quickly walking back over to your workstation, your eyes drifted to that desk calendar sitting next to you, and to today’s date: a poorly drawn flame, and the time “2:15” scribbled in a barely legible handwriting that you recognized instantly. Even if you hadn’t, the terribly drawn heart with your initials in it scribbled in the corner would’ve given it away.

“Your analysis is going to have to wait, Reed,” you called out with a sigh, knowing you weren’t the one who put this meeting on the calendar, but you sure knew who had. “You have a 2:15 incoming.”

“2:15? What 2:15?” Reed never even looked in your direction, focused on the new transmission. “You didn’t tell me there was anything on my calendar.”

“Well, I didn’t put this one on the calendar myself, but you must have cleared it at some point…”

Just then, the elevator doors to the lab popped open with a familiar ding sound.

“Ah–Reed!”

Good god, Johnny Storm was trying to kill you. You weren’t even sure if that was an exaggeration at this point, because you wouldn’t put it past him.

Blue looked good on him, it always had, but the navy blue button up he was wearing was doing nothing for your mind that was screaming at you to “keep it professional.” It didn’t help that the first few buttons were already undone, giving a slight peak to his chest. The white chinos–those were the nail in your metaphorical coffin. They had no right to be that tight, and he had no right to look so damn good in them.

“Ah…that 2:15,” you tried your best to conceal your laugh at Reed’s comment across the lab. “Johnny, do we have to today?”

“Johnny, do we have to today? As if I didn’t ask to put it on the schedule,” the blonde man in question mumbled mockingly to himself as he slid up to your side at your workstation as you laughed at his antics. One of his hands grabbed the back of your neck, tugging you closer before you could even think about it, pressing another kiss to your hairline. Suddenly, you felt like you were back in the kitchen weeks ago. “Darling, have I ever told you how breathtaking you look in your lab coat?”

“It’s a white coat, Johnny, it’s nothing special,” you deflected, taking just a short glance up at him before you had to look away, already knowing you were as red as the table beneath your hands.

“But the girl wearing it is-”

“Johnny, do you want to have this meeting or do you want to flirt with my assistant?”

You hung your head with a groan, even as Johnny laughed at the comment from his brother-in-law. His arm slung around your waist, hand settling on your hip as the heat that rolled off his body enveloped you for a moment, letting yourself lean into the side hug he gave you and the squeeze to your hip, before he was gone.

“There’s enough time in the day to do both! No, I had some thoughts about the new suit designs,”

“There are no new space suit designs-”

You glanced over at the pair as they met face-to-face in the middle of the lab, Johnny holding up the sheet he was concealing behind his back.

“You finished them years ago…they have dust on them,” Johnny deadpanned, letting out a sigh as Reed took the design sheet from him. “Look, I get it. You’re going to be a father soon, you’re scared-”

“I’m not-I’m not scared,” Reed cut in immediately, and you could hear the anxious undertone that overtook him immediately at Johnny’s words. Without even having to be summoned, knowing how his brain worked after all this time, you simply shrugged off your lab coat and stalked over to the pair, taking the design sheet from Reed’s hands without a word and placing it on his chalkboard full of equations. “I’m-I’m busy, Johnny. I’m busy. I’m busy, there’s a difference.”

“He means busy on his pace to scan Sue at least 200 times before she gives birth,” you shot back, sending Reed a bright smile that he frowned at, clearly seeing that you were siding with Johnny here. “Not terrified of becoming a father at all, those two things definitely don’t correlate.”

Johnny laughed, smile bright, and it only brightened the one on your face, a tug somewhere deep in your chest pulling on you when he locked eyes with you. Reed snapped your attention back to him in an instant, running a hand down his face as he gestured in Herbie’s direction.

“Just handle the new deep space transmission, please, instead of ganging up on me with Johnny,”

You laughed, heels clicking against the floors of the lab as you joined Herbie’s side as he waited for the transmission to be scratched into the record. There was a woosh of air, the air beside you heating up instantly as a hand found its way to rest on your lower back.

“Have you listened to it yet?”

The smile on your face softened as you glanced over at Johnny, who was staring down at the record in front of you both with pure excitement in his eyes. Beyond the physical moments, his flirtatious moments, these were the moments that had your plan to not fall for Johnny Storm splitting at the seams, if it hadn’t already.

“Seems to be a lot more of the same, just another complex signal,” Johnny left your side, the heat going with him, as he leaned against the blue table behind him. Herbie took the record from its place, rolling over to Johnny to hand it directly to him. “You’re more than welcome to take it with you, give it a listen.”

He twirled the record in his hands with a grin, absentmindedly reaching out to scratch the top of Herbie’s head. That simple little action elicited a giggle, hand coming up to cover your mouth as Johnny glanced up at you with a smirk.

“What’s so funny?”

“Herbie isn’t a dog, and yet you treat him like one,” you explained, stepping up just in front of him and grabbing his hand lightly, stopping the twirling of the record in his hands. “Also, you do know you aren’t supposed to get your fingerprints all over these, right?”

It was Johnny’s turn to laugh as he spun his hand, catching it in his palm and bringing it up to his lips, leaving a scorching hot, but gentle, kiss to your knuckles, sending a shiver straight through your bones. He didn’t even have a retort to your comment, just simply held your hand in his, thumb stroking along your skin, while your entire body flushed with a feeling you wanted to ignore.

“Johnny, what have I told you about flirting in my lab? I need my assistant, we’re trying to run a test,”

The moment was gone in seconds, your hand dropped from Johnny’s as he raced to the other side of the lab, following closely behind Reed and tossing the record onto the closest table.

You could only shake your head with a laugh, walking beside Herbie to join them, knowing Reed would be mumbling to himself the rest of the week about this moment and how much Johnny liked pissing him off.

“Cool! I got time,”

Reed didn’t roll his eyes as you and Herbie joined them back at your workstations, but you could see how much he wanted to. Holding the device you’d just finished off in his hand, you watched in the same awe you had for four years as his arm stretched across the length of the lab, placing it right back beside your own workstation.

“Bridge teleportation test one,” grabbing the notebook lying beside the device that contained your notes on the project, you flipped to a new page, prepared to note down any disparities that occurred during the test, as Reed placed an egg on the newly soldered stand. “Movement of organic matter six meters.”

Johnny grabbed the protective glasses beside the work desk, about to slip them on, before Reed took them with no hesitation and slipped them on himself. The blonde turned to you with an incredulous look that simply drew a laugh from you.

“Those are his pair, you can’t touch his pair,” you teased the man, who simply shot you a wink in return, as you both took the pairs that Herbie was holding out to you both. Johnny gave the little robot a quick fist bump.

Such a simple action that still had you grinning in childlike adoration at the side of his face.

Reed gave you a simple look, confirming you were ready. You gave him a nod, as he took hold of the switch to activate the device.

“Let’s run it,”

The whirring of the machine sounded, three silver beams of energy emitting from the device and encasing the egg within a sphere of energy. There was a shift in the room as that energy grew, as the hum of the machine filled the air, before there was a simple POP–and the egg was gone.

One glance from each of you over your shoulders was enough to confirm that the egg was, in fact, sitting on the opposite platform. Completely untouched and intact.

“It worked!” Johnny exclaimed, gesturing toward the egg.

That’s when the power to the building cut out.

It wasn’t surprising, given the notes you both had taken. The amount of energy that needed to be funneled through the device in order to channel enough energy to actually move organic matter without hurting it was sure to be beyond the energy limits of the Baxter Building. A full power outage…not what you were expecting. Not that you could write that note down in the pitch black of the room.

“Johnny,” Reed’s voice called out in the dark, steady with no hint of any emotion you could decipher in it. The man in question came to life beside you, body engulfed in flames, the flame resistant fabric of his specially tailored clothing working overtime to keep him from being stark naked. He stood with his hands on his hips, and even from the side you could see the smirk curling up on his lips. “Could you reset the breaker?”

You’d known Johnny long enough now, been his friend for enough years, to know him. Know him better than a colleague should. The instant dip in his smirk to a frown was clear, the tension in his broad shoulders, as he tossed his glasses down onto the table. He didn’t spare either of you another look, crossing the room to grab the record.

“Other way-”

“I know,” Johnny snapped, beside his flame engulfed body was on the other side of the lab, flipping the breaker as the electricity of the building roared to life again. The second it did, he was in the elevator, doors shutting without another word.

Neither you nor Reed spoke for a moment, simply looking down at the bridge teleportation device on the table in front of him.

“I’ve upset him,”

Reed didn’t phrase it like a question, he said it like a statement. Both were true, though. Reed always knew when he had upset Johnny, but never how he had really upset him.

You took a deep breath, nodding, as you scribbled a note in your notebook before turning on your heels, stalking back to your own workstation.

“Well, he went out of his way to put time on your calendar just to talk to you about the suits, and you did dismiss him…” you trailed off as you reached your station, eyes flickering back down to that desk calendar beside you. You couldn’t help it, letting your fingers lightly trail over that little heart with your initials, smiling to yourself, wishing it meant more than what it did mean: nothing. “Johnny loves space, he only got to go up once before…this all happened. You can’t blame him for wanting to go back.”

It was quiet for another moment in the lab, before Reed spoke up again.

“You know him well…better than I think I do,”

The flush in your cheeks was inevitable at that, embarrassment flooding you as it was easy for you to read between the lines of what Reed was trying to insinuate.

“I-I just listen to him. I always listen,”

It was quiet again.

“Go check on him,” was all Reed said. “If there’s anyone he’d want to talk to right now, it’s you.”

You wanted to argue, to save the crumbling bits of that wall between work and personal, but even you knew it was too late for that.

Johnny’s bedroom door was just two down from the guest room Sue had offered you years ago, a bathroom being the only thing that separated them. Ben’s room was at the other end of the hallway, along with the nursery where the soon to be baby Richards would sleep.

You may not have stayed in that guest room often, but you’d been in these hallways enough to know it like the back of your hand. To know it like it was your own home. 

There were countless nights, before you’d make the short walk back to your apartment, where Johnny had coerced you into movie nights in his room. He’d never try anything, never push you into something, always leaving the door open to make sure you knew he wasn’t bringing you upstairs for some alternative reason. His room was just quieter, and felt more private. It gave you the chance to see the side of Johnny that the world didn’t get to see.

The space lover, who spent his life dreaming of being an astronaut, of going into space and seeing the stars. He was a thrill-seeker, always wanting to live his life on the edge, to find joy in those rushes of adrenaline. But beyond it all, just a good man. A man who had an entire collection of records lining one wall of his room, organized from his favorite records to his least favorite, even though he claimed there wasn’t really a least favorite. The world got to know the Human Torch, but in  the confines of those four walls, you got to know Johnny Storm. The second you did, you knew your heart was fucked.

You found him in a spot you’d found him in before: leaning against the floor to ceiling windows of his room, staring out at the spaceship he hadn’t stepped foot in for four years. Your heart broke slightly from where you stood in the doorway, able to see the longing that was woven into his frown, that shone through his eyes that never strayed far from the Excelsior.

“You know,” with a few steps into the room, standing beside the record player, you lifted the needle to stop the replay of the foreign language from the deep space transmission that played on a loop. Johnny looked over, a soft smile overtaking his frown at the sight of you, as you kept your own voice soft and light. “I don’t think deep space transmissions are the right background music if you’re going to stare longingly out your window.”

Johnny laughed in a huff, turning on his heel to flick through his record collection.

“And suggestions then for a melancholic moment such as this?”

“Elvis typically has some hits that can set that mood,”

You watched him, the slight shake in his body that hinted he was laughing again, before he plucked a record from the shelves and rose back to his feed. Standing beside the record player with you, he slid it into your hands without another word and plopped into the chair just across from the player.

With care, like you’d done it a hundred times before (you had, right here in this room), you slipped the record onto the player, dropping the needle down as it coasted along the grooves etched into the record.

When no-one else can understand me, when everything I do is wrong…you give me hope and consolation. You give me strength to carry on.

The lyrics settled in you heavily, but it made your body feel lighter. It was impossible not to read into them, to not think too hard about the deliberate music choice that Johnny had made. You couldn’t help that, somewhere deep in your heart where you had buried your feelings for the flaming man years ago, you were hoping these lyrics were a personal message to you.

“Reed send you to check on me?” Johnny asked after a moment, leaning back in his chair, arms folded over his chest as he watched you. Composing yourself for a moment, shoving the flurry of butterflies beating against your chest down, you turned to face him and his blue eyes with a shrug.

“Technically, but I would’ve come on my own,” Johnny hummed, the ghost of a smile on his lips, as his gaze found its way back to the spaceship taunting him just beyond the window. “Come on, matchstick, talk to me.”

He huffed out another laugh, stretching his arms above his head as you tried your best to keep your eyes trained on his face and not drift down his torso. Eventually, his arms settled back across his chest, his gaze still stuck out the window.

“I don’t know…it’s stupid. Last time we went up, we came back with superpowers, trust me, I get that. Now, he’s got a kid on the way. But I know–I know–that he knows how much space means to me. So, when he just dismisses me like that-”

“It makes you feel inadequate? Like you’re a child?” Johnny’s gaze found you again as you shrugged with a light smile. “I’ve worked in an enclosed space with him almost every day for four years, Johnny. He used to make me feel that way all the time, until I realized that Reed’s never trying to make me feel like that.”

“I know he’s not doing it on purpose…doesn’t mean I’m not going to shit talk him in the confines of these walls,” he gestured around the room as you laughed, coming to stand beside his chair, looking down on him as he sighed once more. His hands fell, gripping his knees, as he rubbed them back and forth against the fabric of his pants. “I love space. Simple as that.”

You hummed, bending down beside the chair Johnny sat in so that you were essentially squatting before him, having to look up at him. Hesitation caught you for just a second, your brain actively fighting a war with your heart as you raised your hands, but you ultimately took his hands in yours. 

All it took was a second for your eyes to drift over to the table beside him. One lamp, a stack of books, and the flash of a polaroid photo leaning against those books: a photo of you. Taken at some point in the lab, laughter written across your face, your hand almost blocking a portion of the lens as you tried to stop him from taking the photo. You didn’t even remember it being taken in the first place.

Good god, he was really going to be the death of you.

Eyes quickly back on him, with a little squeeze to his hands, you gave Johnny the most comforting smile you could, even as your heart did somersaults in your chest.

“I know you do. You’ll go back to space, Johnny, I promise,”

His eyes watched your hands, and you could see it on his face: that hint of adoration, that hint of something genuine that suggested it wasn’t all just a game, that you weren’t imaging moments for more than they were.

“What if I don’t?”

“You’re Johnny Storm, I’ve never seen you not get something you wanted before. Especially not something you want this bad,”

His mouth parted just slightly as he hesitated. You watched as his tongue darted out, just barely grazing over the edge of his bottom lip, before you flicked your eyes back to his.

“You’re wrong…I think there’s something I want more. Been trying to get it for awhile, but…she just keeps slipping through my fingers somehow,”

That tug on your heart was back. Your heart was surely beating so fast that it could be heard, hammering against your ribcage, as his thumbs glided back and forth across your skin. You could barely think of a response, too stuck on his words: the closest thing to a confession of any kind you’d heard in four years. Raw, real, genuine.

Johnny stood quickly, barely giving you a chance to potentially think of a response as he tugged you back to your feet. His arm enveloped your waist, your hand falling to his bicep as he still held your other hand in the air beside you both. You weren’t sure now if the flush crawling up your neck into your cheeks was from the moment, or from the heat radiating off of him.

“W-What are you doing?”

“We’re dancing,” he said it as if it was the most casual thing in the world, that usual smirk of his back on his face. Whatever had happened moments before, whatever confession may or may not have been said, was brushed away in an instant, that charming, flirty personality of his back in full force. “Can’t turn on Elvis and not dance, I think that’s a literal crime.”

“I didn’t know you even knew how to dance,”

“Oh, I don’t, Sue’s been telling me for years that I have two left feet,” Johnny shot back, shooting a wink down at you as his hand readjusted its grip along your waist. “Can’t be that hard with the prettiest girl in the building in my arms, right?”

Swaying back and forth, wrapped up in the heat of his body, in the faint smell of the cologne that coated his clothing, you were very certain that Johnny Storm was going to be the death of you.

And when you smile the world is brighter. You touch my hand and I'm a king. Your kiss to me is worth a fortune, your love for me is everything.

Johnny tilted his head back from you by just a hair, and you followed suit. Deep blue eyes, as captivating to you as they were the first time you ever saw them, shone with an emotion you couldn’t quite decipher. If you could, you weren’t sure you would survive knowing. 

Faces just an inch away, the closest and most intimate moment you’d ever shared with the man you knew in your heart was never going to be just your friend, your colleague, you were verging on the edge of making a terrible choice. Of opening the floodgates, of unlocking the feelings you’d buried away so long ago and letting them flow.

“This is an interesting little relationship you and I have, you know,”

Johnny always found a way to ruin these moments, and this was just another example. Lips tugged up into a smirk, mischief swarming his eyes as he teased you, that fleeting moment of raw vulnerability was gone.

Hand slipped from his, body pulled back from his and a roll of your eyes, you turned on your heel within seconds.

“So typical of you, Storm,”

“What-? What did I do!”

You huffed out a laugh, a smile creeping onto your lips even as you tried to keep it at bay, as you threw your comment over your shoulder as you walked toward the door.

“You went and killed the moment, Johnny, as per usual,”

“...so you admit it, we WERE having a moment!”

You barked out a laugh, shaking your head as you crossed through the doorframe. You could never stay mad at him, not when your heart yearned for him in a way you wish it didn’t.

“Come on! At least let me make it up to you. Will you stay for dinner?”

With a final glance cast over your shoulder toward him, you shot him a bright smile.

“If you’re lucky, flame boy!”

❤︎

Yeah, you really couldn’t say no to Johnny Storm.

Not when he’d spoken so sweetly to you, held you so tenderly, and all around just invaded every part of your brain and your heart. To be fair, he barely had to try honestly to do that.

It wasn’t shocking to see Ben in the kitchen, it seemed to be one of his happy places. You weren’t complaining: on the nights you did stay for dinner, and Ben was cooking, you knew you were going home with the best leftovers the city of New York had ever seen.

“Decided to stay for dinner again?” Sue called out toward you with a smile, giving Herbie a pat on the head as he worked away at carving a pumpkin. You shot her a smile in return, pouring yourself a quick glass of water before making your way toward Ben.

“Johnny asked…and I decided to be nice and oblige him,” you didn’t miss the teasing hum that Ben let out, lightly whacking him on his rocky shoulder. Not that it did you any good, hurting your hand more than it would ever hurt him. His laughter was ignored as your eyes lit up, catching sight of the familiar black and white cookies he was dumping onto a plate. “Oh my god, did you go grab these from Maisie’s?”

“Yes,” Ben waved your hand away when you went to reach for the cookies, producing another paper bag and sliding it your way. “These ones are yours.”

The smell that wafted from the bag was enough to have you almost moaning in the middle of the kitchen, eagerly digging one of the cookies out. Maisie’s famous snickerdoodle cookies, the perfect blend of cinnamon and sugar that you had adored since you were a little girl. One bite of the cookie had you in absolute heaven.

“Oh my god, I haven’t had these in ages!” Ben and Sue both laughed at your excitement as you took another bite of the warm cookie in your hand. “How did you know these were my favorites?”

Ben’s smirk wasn’t hard to miss at all.

“Oh, I didn’t. Johnny asked me to pick those up for you,”

It was probably time to accept that blushing around this family was the only thing you were capable of.

Sue’s laughter rang loudest as she rounded the island counter, high fiving Ben as she shot you a pointed look.

“You really have my brother wrapped around your finger without even trying, huh? You know, before I went to get scanned–again–in the lab, I stopped by the nursery to check out the crib progress. Heard a little The Wonder of You from down the hall, thought I’d peek in…”

The groan you emitted could probably be heard from the other side of the country, leaning down to barely bang your head against the countertop. Ben and Sue’s laughter rang through the air again as you looked up, desperately waving your hands.

“I swear, it wasn’t what it looked like-”

“What wasn’t what it looked like?”

Of course, Johnny chose to make his grand entrance at that moment. Thankfully for you, he’d changed out of that ridiculously hot button up. Unfortunately for you, he was still wearing those god forsaken white chinos.

“Your little dance Sue was telling me about earlier,” Ben teased, easily catching your hand as it came up to whack him again in his rough, oversized one. “What’s with the long face?”

“Oh that dance was exactly what it looked like. Thanks for coming to dinner though, sweetheart, glad you like the cookies,” Johnny tacked on a wink in your direction, one you affectionately rolled your eyes over, before his smile was back to a frown. “And what of it, Ben?”

“Sounds like your 2:15 with Reed didn’t go well. I’m sorry, pal,”

From across the room, you could see Johnny’s shoulders move in a huff of laughter as he clapped, bringing down the cabinet shelf that held the same box of cereal you had taken from him two weeks ago. You moved around the island counter, filming your cup with more water before standing opposite of Ben while Johnny made his way back over.

“Hey, I’m fine,” he spoke, though the edge in his words was clear as he did, coming to stand directly at your side. “I don’t mind or anything, it’s just, uh-”

“I hear you, pal. We’ll go to space again,”

“That’s what I was trying to tell him earlier,” you tacked on, bumping your hip with Johnny’s, who quickly did the same back to you.

That smile you adored was back in moments, though, as he dug his hand into the box and produced the action figure waiting inside: a miniature Johnny Storm. His bright grin was turned in your direction as he waved the toy toward you, his signature catchphrase from the cartoon–flame on–ringing through the air as Reed entered the room, greeting his wife by the dining room table.

“They captured my likeness so perfectly, don’t you think?” he quipped, activating the catchphrase once again as you rolled your eyes. “Do you still have the one I gave you a few months ago?”

“Yeah, buried in the junk drawer of my kitchen,”

Johnny feigned shock, pinching your side quickly as you squirmed away with a laugh.

“At least upgrade me to your bedside table so I can be with you while you sleep,” that stupid line was accented with another wink before Johnny thrust the toy in Ben’s face. “Come on, admit it’s cool.”

That catchphrase just kept repeating.

I’m Johnny Storm! Flame On!

Flame On!

Flame On!

Ben grabbed the toy from Johnny’s hand in seconds, crushing it to nothing but dust and blowing it back in Johnny’s face with a smirk. You tried everything to conceal your laughter, but it was inevitable.

“Flame off!”

Sirens rang outside the balcony of the building’s living room. The flying cars of the police force raced past, bathing the room in red and blue lights. The second they disappeared, another squadron flew past in the other direction, the sirens all intermixing in the air.

These were the moments you never got to see often, when the team sprung into action. It was clear in Johnny and Ben alone, how their silly little moment was forgotten as they thrust into action, prepared to go running out of the building into danger. Reed simply held up a hand, shaking his head at the group.

“No, no, it’s alright. This is me,”

Ben and Sue followed Reed out onto the balcony, but Johnny hung back, his gaze stuck on you as you hadn’t moved from the kitchen. He simply tilted his head toward his family, holding his hand out for you. Such a simple move that shouldn’t have kickstarted your heart into what was surely an irregular rhythm, but it did.

The second you were at his side, Johnny’s hand rested at the small of your back, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt just so to tug you slightly closer to his side. Together, you stepped out onto the balcony of the Baxter Building beside Ben, overlooking New York as it was bathed in every corner in red and blue.

“For the past few months, I’ve been tracking a small number of criminal organizations throughout the city,”

You shot a look down at your boss, eyebrow raised.

“That’s what you’ve been doing in that notebook by your desk?” Reed simply waved your comment off, pointing just down the block, fairly close to the area in which your apartment resided.

“47 of them, to be exact. Including the Puppet Master in the Bowery, the Wizard in Gramercy Park, and Diablo in Washington Heights,”

Everyone on the balcony went quiet for a moment.

“You…baby-proofed the world,” Ben finally spoke. Sue’s sigh could be heard from the other end of the balcony as she tried to defend her husband.

“It’s a sweet gesture,”

“It’s a little insane,” you mumbled to yourself, just loud enough for you and Johnny to hear. The blonde at your side simply shrugged, glancing down at you and catching your gaze.

“It’s not totally crazy. He’s trying to protect the things he loves, what’s most precious to him…” Johnny’s lips quirked up just slightly. “I’d do it too…I’d do it for you.”

He said it so…so earnestly. With so much conviction in his tone, as if this was a certainty to him. That protecting not just his family, but you, was something he needed to do. That if it came down to it, he’d do it without a second thought.

“You…you have to stop saying things like that to me, Johnny,” you hated how breathless your voice came out, how wrecked you sounded as you whispered your response back to him, the conversation still droning on in the background between the other three.

The smile on Johnny’s face only widened, his hand slipping around from your lower back to your waist, as he gave you a light squeeze.

“Stop saying what, the truth?”

No, you need to stop saying things that are making me fall in love with you.

Love. That was a word that had only crossed your mind once when it came to Johnny Storm. 

It was two years ago, a week to the day that you had lost your mother, your biggest supporter in life. You stood at that funeral, surrounded by estranged family members you hadn’t spoken to in years, and family friends who wept for your loss. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny had come, offered their condolences, paid their respects.

When the others left, Johnny stayed. He stood by your side through the first viewing, never left it during the second viewing, and stood with you in the pouring rain an hour after they’d put her in the ground. You had cried, he held you, and he’d simply never left you alone that day. The colleague that had quickly become a friend, who flirted with you every chance he got, never uttered a single flirtatious comment that day. He’d simply been there, been the shoulder you needed.

That was the day you realized you may have fallen in love with the one man you told yourself not to fall in love with, and you buried those feelings in your heart for what you thought would be forever.

“Stuck in your head over there? Come on, it’s dinner time,”

Ben’s voice broke you from your stupor. The team had all started to make their way inside while you were left at the balcony railing, hands white knuckled on top of the rail. 

Johnny’s hand was held out toward you, and you ignored every part of your brain that told you not to and slipped your hand into his, letting him pull you back in toward the living room.

That’s what their watches all went off, alerts blaring in sync with one another.

It was like a firework went off, a boom shattering the night air of the city. The clouds, the sky, were painted in gold, streaks of meteors and debris crossing the sky as they fell to the earth. The sound that emitted from the golden cloud that stretched across the sky, bathing the city in its light, felt…otherwordly. Like a scream, like a warning.

A warm hand enveloped your face, turning your wide eyes away from the scene.

There were very few times you saw Johnny as serious as he was now. Jaw locked, eyes narrowed but still soft as they looked at you, the cascades of gold shone over his face, highlighting his features as another boom sounded off in the distance.

“Go inside, don’t come out,”

Words were caught in your throat. All you could manage was a nod, his thumb doing a single swipe over your cheek, before he patted Reed on the shoulder and launched himself over the railing and into the air, igniting himself as he went.

If not for the moment, you would have stopped to admire him as he flew, bathed in the reds and oranges of his fire. You were awestruck every time you got to witness those cosmic powers firsthand.

Reed, Sue, and Ben had followed not long after, as you could hear the familiar whirled of their car through the air, chasing after Johnny through the city, following whatever had just appeared from the sky.

You? You sat on the living room couch, wringing your hands together to keep them from shaking. You’d been there as they had dealt with Red Ghost, or even Moleman, but this? 

This was different. This was otherworldly. This was terrifying. And when Herbie flipped the switch of the television, rolling to your side, you were greeted with the sight of the silver alien woman hovering in Times Square for the first time.

“Your planet is now marked for death. Your world will be consumed by the devourer,” 

Her voice sent a single chill down the column of your spine. Herbie’s robotic hand reached out for yours, ceasing the endless wringing of your hands together. You took it without hesitation, though you wished in your heart it was someone else’s hand holding yours in this moment.

“Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak. Use this time to rejoice, and celebrate, for your time is short. I herald his beginning…I herald your end…I herald, Galactus.”

And thus began the longest night of your life since the day your colleagues went into space and came back forever changed.

Sending the team into space was the only option, to confront this mystery at its source. Reed had given you the basics in passing: the threat was real, there was documentation of plants across the universe disappearing entirely, the chrome woman’s signature left on each of them. He’d tasked you to the launch team, to prepare Excelsior for launch in T-16 hours.

Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.

Those words rattled around your brain the entire night, into the wee hours of the morning. Even as you helped Lynn set up the press conference, as you conferred with the launch team to ensure that the Excelsior was prepared in every conceivable way, as you checked and double-checked every data point throughout the entire ship, her words never left you.

Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.

The anxiety was clawing at you, even as you threw yourself into work. The notion of what her words meant, of what could happen, of how close the end could be.

The clock read sometime around 2 a.m. when you had finally stepped foot in that guest room made for you. There was no way you were walking home tonight. Besides, come morning, there would still be too much to do, too many data points that needed to be checked, too many scenarios that would need to be run through to make sure your team came back to you.

You knew sleep wasn’t coming to you, though, not when that metallic voice was rattling around your head. Not when an alien threat was upending your life. Not when, two doors away, there was a man that you did, in fact, want to hold close…in case you never got the chance to again.

You loved him. All it took was the end of the world to admit it.

Clad in nothing but an old t-shirt with the 4 logo on the front, one you were sure was Johnny’s, and a pair of shorts, you didn’t care what you looked like as you tore out of the room and into the hallway. Not now, not when your world was being threatened, not when your entire life could be ripped from you in a matter of seconds.

Johnny was awake, just as you knew he would be. White shirt, plaid blue pants you’d seen him sleep in so many times, he stood in his dark room by the windows once more, watching the crews rush around on the ground as they prepared the ship for launch in just a few hours. That same record from earlier in the day was still playing.

I guess I'll never know the reason why you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

With a step into the room, shutting the door behind you and flicking on the lamp just beside the door, Johnny finally met your eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” was the only thing you could manage to say. Johnny tilted his head, studying you silently, before he held out his hand just as he had done hours before.

“Come here,”

Crossing the room in a matter of moments, you all but fell into his arms. His outstretched hand ignored, he was frozen in place for just a moment as you curled your arms around his neck, throwing yourself into his arms. The faint smell of his cologne lingered, as did his bodywash, and the sigh you let out the second the smell hit you was in comfort.

It didn’t take Johnny long to unfreeze, his arms finding their place around your waist. One hand rested on your upper back, one pressing into your lower back. A faint kiss was placed to the side of your head, heat lingering for a second. Heat lingered in your entire body, radiating off of him in waves.

“You have to talk to me, baby,”

Talk? The truth was, you didn’t know where to start. How were you supposed to explain that, since the moment you had met Johnny Storm, your heart was already his. That in all your moments over the years, you’d fallen for the man you told yourself not to fall for. And as the threat from the metallic woman loomed over the world, as he prepared to try and save life as you knew it, the only thing you wanted was to be held by him. To know he was here, that he was okay, that he was with you.

“I-I’m scared,”

Those were the only words you could settle on. Johnny pulled back, his hands sliding gently around the fabric of the shirt hanging loosely from your body until they reached your face. He cradled you, so softly and gently in his hands, it was almost involuntary the way you closed your eyes and leaned into his touch, his warmth, chasing the feeling of security it brought you.

“It’s okay to be,” the gentle tone in his voice washed over you, covering you like a blanket. It’s exactly how he had spoken to you that day, standing in the rain when you refused to leave your mother’s side, reassuring you he was there. “I don’t care what the herald said, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You know that, right?”

Of course you knew that. If there was anything you knew for certain in this world, it was that when Johnny Storm said he’d protect you, he meant it. He’d spent long enough proving that to you.

There was no hesitation on your part when you laid your own hands overtop of his. Fingers curling around them, tugging his right hand just barely from your cheek, you turned and pressed the lightest of kisses to the palm of his hand.

Johnny froze. You could feel it. The slight tilt of his head, the questioning look that flickered across his face in the moonlight that shone through the windows. It was all fair. You were never the one to cross the boundary like this, to make a move such as this.

“I can’t stop thinking about what she said,” was how you tried to explain yourself, stopping and starting your sentence over and over as you tried to find the right way to explain yourself, the walls crumbling and the floodgates bursting wide open. “Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak…it’s why I came to you.”

A single emotion crossed Johnny’s face in seconds: understanding.

That signature smirk of his was back in moments, even if it was twinged with a softness reserved only for you. The heat left your cheeks, but found your hands as Johnny’s fingers intertwined with yours, hanging your joined hands down between you both. There was a bright light that passed over the window for just a moment, bathing the two of you in bright light, before you were plunged back into the darkness of his room yet again.

“You did come to me…why’s that?”

“You know why-”

“I do,” he said it so matter-of-factly, that smirk growing just a tad as he leaned into your personal bubble by just a hair. “This push and pull, four years of ‘will they’ or ‘won’t they.’ I want to hear you say it, baby.”

“It’s not that easy,” you immediately shook your head, teeth gnawing at your bottom lip as Johnny simply watched you. “Saying it…makes it real.”

He scoffed, the sound mixed with laughter, as his head cocked slightly more to the side.

“You came into my bedroom at 2 in the morning–wearing my shirt, might I add–is that not real enough?”

“When you’ve spent years trying to ignore how you feel and refusing to say it, it’s not that easy to say,” you desperately tried to explain. “If I say it…then everything changes.”

Johnny took barely another step forward, and you almost wanted to step back, to bring back the space between you and preserve the small, crumbling wall that still stood between you both.

“A sexy, naked alien woman came to earth and basically prophesied our demise, darling. If there was ever a time to ‘change everything’ and lay it all on the line, I think it’s now,”

Your heart wanted to hang onto the word darling, but your brain was too stuck on the ‘sexy, naked alien woman’ part of his sentence. The sigh that escaped you was instantaneous, as well as the frown, as you shot the blonde man a pointed look.

“Sexy, naked alien woman, Johnny? Seriously?”

“Come on! She was–objectively–attractive. You can’t deny that!”

It was your turn to scoff, tearing your hands from his in a heartbeat, before spinning on your heel. You felt like an idiot–on the precipice of finally confessing your deepest, darkest secret you’d kept locked away for years, and this is what you got.

“I try to be serious with you, Johnny, and you turn it into a joke once again-”

You didn’t get far from him. A hand enveloped your upper arm mid sentence, tugging and spinning your back around. A gasp fell from your lips as you collided with the chest of the man before you.

Whatever you were going to say never saw the light of day. Not when Johnny Storm gripped at your hips, tugged you as impossibly close as he could, and finally–finally–kissed you.

The kiss you’d dreamed about for four years, finally yours.

Johnny’s lips were soft as they slanted against your own, enveloping you in his warmth. They moved against you in a steady rhythm, passionate but still gentle, still testing the waters of the line you had never crossed before. 

His hands curled into the fabric of the t-shirt clinging to your body, pushing it up just enough so that his hands could dip underneath. Your breath caught, even as his lips continued to move against yours, as his heated skin made contact with yours, and any part of your brain begging you to stop this was silenced as you melted into him.

Hands landed on his broad chest, gripping the fabric as you let him mold your body to his, the scent of his bodywash enveloping you as your body almost became one with him. In the pits of your stomach, as those heated hands trailed up your waist and ghosted over your ribcage, another flurry of butterflies erupted as a moan slipped past your lips, swallowed by his mouth.

A moan left Johnny’s lips at the sound of your own, one hand leaving your waist to curl around the back of your neck. Those slender fingers buried themselves into your hair, gripping just enough to have another groan of pleasure tumbling from your lips, as he guided your mouth against his own.

“You can’t keep making little noises like that,” his mouth barely left yours as he spoke, lips moving against yours, as he dove back in for another kiss the second he was done speaking.

“Your fault,” was all you could manage out, trying to back away just enough to speak, but Johnny never let your lips go far. Your hands glided up his chest, his neck, curling into his short hair as your thumb crested the ridge of his ear. “I’m trying to be mad at you.”

“Be mad at me later,” was his immediate response, his lips leaving yours just to find their place along your jawline and slide down into the hollow of your neck. His tongue danced its way across your skin, leaving tingles of electricity everywhere he touched you, his words murmured into your neck as he buried himself there. “I’m trying to kiss you.”

There was some part of you that wanted to protest him–over what, you weren’t even sure at this point–but you couldn’t. Not when his teeth dug just so into the side of your neck, leaving his mark on your skin as if he was claiming you as his.

You were always his.

“You c-called–oh god–you called the alien sexy while I was trying to confess,” you just barely managed to get the words out through your moans. Johnny was slowly walking you backward, straight in the direction of his bed while his lips never left the side of your neck, leaving his mark on every inch of skin he could see.

Your foot caught on the raised edge of the platform his seating area sat on, your feet stumbling backward. Johnny was there–he was always there–and tugged you back into him. And god, if you loved those blue eyes before, you loved them even more now: pupils blown wide, Johnny Storm looked about as wrecked as you felt.

“Your confession was four years late, and I’m impatient,” he stole another kiss from you, his teeth sinking just barely into your bottom lip, tugging gently. He let go, pressing a messy kiss to your lips to soothe the pain of his bite, words fanning out over your lips. “I’ve been trying to tell you I’m in love with you for four years now, so please just shut up and let me show you instead. Now–jump.”

At this point, you’d do just about anything he asked of you.

Johnny caught you with ease, both of his hands splayed out across the bare skin of your thighs, locking your legs around his hips. A choked moan fell from your lips the second your core was dragged against the painfully hard length bulging against his own pants, hands curling into his hair as you, this time, desperately pulled him into a kiss.

I’m in love with you. Those words repeated like a mantra in your head. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, the world’s fire boy and hero that they painted like a sex symbol. The ‘playboy’ with a new girl all the time, never able to hold down a girl…was in love with you.

Your back hit the bed, body bouncing just slightly before settling. His eyes never left you as you crawled back just slightly, propping yourself up on your elbows to look up at him in the dark of the room, lit only by sky and the lamp by the door. The music played faintly in the background, but at this moment, it meant nothing to you.

Johnny’s hands gently touched your knees from where they dangled off the edge of the bed, parting them just so in order to step between them. You watched, entranced by every move he made, body flushed from the heat that coursed through your bare skin at the slightest of touches from him. With a practiced ease, his hand took hold of the back of his shirt, yanking it over his head without hesitation. It found a place to lay somewhere across the room, discarded until the following morning.

It was impossible not to stare. His broad chest, those biceps that always threatened to bulge out of every shirt he wore. His toned abdomen and the trail of hair that led straight to the waistband of his pants, the outline of him still prevalent and straining against the fabric.

“I need to know that you’re sure…about this,” you weren’t used to it, the vulnerability in Johnny’s tone. He leaned over you now, hands splayed across the bed on either side of you, barely a few inches from your face. Those blue eyes flickered down to your lips time and time again. “Because if I kiss you again, I’m not stopping until you’re mine.”

There was no hesitation on your part. Just a single movement of your arms, tossing the old shirt hanging from your upper body across the room to join his. As simple as that, you sat bare before him, chest heaving with every deep breath you took in.

“I was already yours. I always have been,” there was only certainty in your tone as you held his gaze. “Speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak…that’s why I came to you. Because if this is the end of the world, I needed you to know that I love-”

He didn’t let you finish your words. His next kiss was anything but gentle.

Messy, spit coating your lips as Johnny’s tongue seemed to invade your mouth and every one of your senses, his lips devoured yours as if you were his first meal in decades. He kissed with the hunger of a starved man, his hands grasping at every part of your skin they could–your waist, your hip, before finally your ass. The squeeze he gave to your skin, the uptick in heat you felt as if he was burning himself just slightly hotter on purpose, had another moan tumbling from your lips and into his mouth.

The hand still gripping your ass tugged you upward on the bed until your head fell against the silk pillows at the headboard. Your hands never left Johnny’s hair, carding through the strands as you frantically kissed him back, addicted to the feeling, as his hips ground into yours. That bulge in his pants pressed heavenly into your core, the friction rolling your eyes into the back of your head as you let your head fall to the pillows with a moan.

Johnny’s lips were everywhere. From your jawline, to your neck, until they finally reached your collarbone. He lavished you with his lips, tongue running over your skin as his hands trailed up the sides of your lower abdomen, stopping just as they reached the swell of your breasts.

“Since the day you walked in, I’ve thought about this,” his voice was raspy, the words barely understood as they were spoken against your skin. “Since the moment Reed introduced you to us.”

“I-I was wearing a lab coat,” you choked on your words as Johnny’s lips reached your sternum, trailing kissing down your chest, but never where you wanted him. “Hardly sexy, I’d argue.”

“It is when I’m picturing you in that coat and your heels, and nothing else,” he tacked on, before his lips wrapped around your nipple without warning.

You mewled at the sudden contact, one hand returning to his hair on instinct as your back arched off the bed and into him. Johnny’s hand on your abdomen was quick to push you back down, holding you down against the bedding beneath you.

God, with the fire that felt like it was burning through your body, you could’ve sworn that Johnny had caught you on fire. His teeth just barely grazed the sensitive bud in his mouth, a sharp intake of breath leaving your lips on instinct. He was quick to soothe you, tongue swirling around the erect and sensitive bud with rapt attention. A moan slipped through him, felt through your entire body, as your other hand tore into the bedding. Desperate for something to hold onto. Something to ground you in your pleasure.

“I’ve dreamed about you under me. Kissing you, tasting you, loving you,” his practically purred out every single word, tongue flicking back and forth over your sensitive nipple. He moved to the other one easily, delivering the same rapt attention to it.

“I’ve thought about you, too,” you relented, divulging every secret you held dear to the man who lavished every inch of you in love and adoration. “In the kitchen, the lab, in that stupid button up from earlier-”

“I knew you liked that shirt. Wore it just for you,” his husky tone sent another shot of pleasure through you, heat curling through every inch of your body.

The tips of his fingers trailed lightly down your stomach. When Johnny’s head lifted for just a moment to lock his eyes with yours, that familiar smirk on his face, you weren’t given a second to react before heat poured through his touch.

Gasps mixed with moans of pleasure fell from your lips on instinct, that unnatural heat of his pouring through his touch and into your skin. Every movement of his fingers over your ribcage and down your abdomen felt as if it was leaving your skin on fire, branding his touch into your skin so that you would never forget the feeling. Burning him into your memory so that you would always feel the phantom sensations of his touch on your skin.

“You’re absolute perfection, you always have been,” Johnny moaned into your skin, lips trailing over the mounds of your breasts with another series of a thousand kisses. Those heated fingers dipped past the waistband of your shorts, pressing directly against your clothed clit without a warning. The moan you let escape mixed in the air with the moan that tumbled from Johnny’s lips against your skin. “Jesus Christ, baby, you’re so soaked.”

The heat was still there in his fingers, setting off every little nerve ending in you even through the soaked fabric of your panties that you desperately wanted gone. Your hips ground up into his hand, whimpers falling from your lips as you chased after the feeling of him, desperate for friction.

“All for you,” even this hint of pleasure had you stumbling toward the edge, babbling almost incoherently. With a tug to his hair, you were quick to bring Johnny’s lips back to yours, arms wound around his neck. He gave into your needs immediately, devouring you in a kiss as heated as his touch was, fingers rubbing slow circles over where you needed him so desperately. “Please–Johnny, please! Please, I need you. Need you–need you so bad.”

“I got you, baby. I got you. Keep moaning my name like that, and I’ll give you the world”

Those whispered words stayed on your lips, lingering, as Johnny left you. His touch wasn’t gone long. Fingers curling into your shorts, they were discarded across the room in a flash, panties gone with them as well.

For the first time, you laid completely bare in front of the man you loved–the man you denied loving for so long. And Johnny Storm was a mess. His hair stuck up in multiple directions, skin flushed, but he was still beautiful. The most beautiful man you’d ever met, inside and out.

Johnny didn’t give you a second to truly breathe once he was done admiring you. He sprawled out along the end of the bed, head dipping between your thighs, as he licked a single stripe with his flattened tongue directly up your center.

“Fucking beautiful, and all mine,” his words were growled into your core, two fingers lazily moving between your folds and spreading every ounce of wetness around, holding you open so he could see every inch of you. “Sweeter than I ever dreamed you could be.”

He dove into you like you were the only thing that mattered. Fingers spreading you open, giving him access to every square inch, his mouth devoured you. A cool drink of water for a starving man in the middle of the desert. Johnny moved his tongue with precise expertise, as if he knew exactly what your body craved.

Delving into you, flicking back and forth as he drank in every secretion of arousal that dripped from you. That same tongue dragged its way up to your clit, swirling around in figure eights, flicking back and forth.

Cries fell from your lips wantonly, hands digging into his hair. Eyes fluttered shut, head tilted back to the ceiling, there was only one word you could repeat over and over again: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. 

His name was all you knew anymore, too lost in your own bliss and pleasure.

In one fell swoop, your thighs were settled over his shoulders, before his head was back where you wanted it more than anything. His lips and tongue focused on your clit, still swirling back and forth, as his fingers dipped slightly lower, dancing right across your opening.

It started with one long, slender finger sliding into you. One of your hands was forced to leave Johnny’s hair, falling over your own mouth to try and conceal the cry that threatened to burst from you, afraid that the others would hear you.

“Let me hear you, baby,” he laughed against your core, his finger curling just perfectly against your walls as they clenched around him every time he dragged his finger back and forth. “Want to hear you.”

“Don’t want to–fucking hell, Johnny–let the others hear,” 

“Let them. Let them hear me love you,”

Fuck Johnny Storm and his stupid lines. His stupid dirty talk that had your walls clenching around him again and again.

Another finger joined the first, followed by another, before you were stretched as wide as you could be around Johnny. The squelch of your juices rung through the air with every move of his fingers–dragging so deliciously into you, curling up, before dragging out just to the edge of your opening. His mouth–god, his mouth–never let up, lapping away at your core like it was his job, what he was meant to do.

That coil of pleasure deep within your lower body came out of nowhere, sneaking up on you just like your love for this man had.

“Johnny–baby–I can’t. I can’t–I’m gonna-”

“Let go, darling,” came that growl in his voice again, the speed of his fingers increasing. “I got you baby, let go.”

That coil snapped in seconds after he spoke. The precipice of your orgasm was earth-shattering, like you’d never felt before. Like trails of fire through your veins, the pleasure coursing through you had your head buried into the pillow behind your head, desperately trying to conceal the wails of pleasure that tumbled from your lips. Your thighs snapped shut around Johnny’s head, but his ministrations never let up as he eagerly drank up every bit of your arousal that leaked from you.

The come down was slow, like waking up. Your breath was uneven, heart beating erratically when you finally pulled your head from the pillow. Eyes bleary, it took a moment to blink them back to life.

Johnny stood at the edge of the bed, discarding his pants and boxers to the pile of clothing littering the other side of the room. And even in your fucked-out, blissful state, one look at him for the first time had that burning desire coursing back through your veins.

He was big. There was no way around it, no denying it, no other way to put it. Flushed, hanging with that beautiful reddened tip, one large and prominent vein throbbing along the edge of it. Beads of precum collected at the tip, his hand smearing it down along his length as he gave himself one single pump before he was crawling back onto the bed.

Johnny knelt between your legs again. Even with limbs that felt like Jell-O, you met him halfway, dragging yourself into a seated position. It was the smile on his face right now, the one erupting those butterflies once more, that you decided was your favorite: soft, adoring, loving.

It was your hands that cupped his cheeks, bringing him into a soft kiss. The taste of you lingered on his lips, sweet just like he said. You poured every ounce of emotion into your kiss, trying to convey to him the years you’d spent loving him so quietly that you couldn’t admit it.

“I might be addicted to you, Johnny Storm,” your words were mumbled into his lips. He laughed so gently, stealing another peck.

“Glad you finally caught up with me, princess, I’ve been addicted since day one,”

Pressed to him, his lips stealing a thousand pecks from yours, the lust in your bones was back in full force. All you could do was hum in response, one of your hands trailing down his chest, nails dragging slowly over his abdomen, before you finally took his throbbing cock in your hand.

He felt even bigger than he looked, which didn’t even make sense in your mind. But he was hot, the skin searing into your hand in the best way. You gave him one squeeze, one tug, and you smiled at the hitch in his breath. The twitch of his cock in your hold.

Johnny’s hand quickly grabbed yours, though, unlatching it from him. All you could do was shake your head, practically whining as you tried to take your hand back.

“Johnny-”

“God, it’s so hot how eager you are to touch me,” he laughed again, tilting his head to leave a single kiss to the column of your throat. “This is about you, doll. Save that for next time. It can be a ‘welcome home from space’ gift for me. A ‘thanks for saving the world’ gift, if you will.”

Space. 

That word was enough to have your next words caught in your throat as the weight of everything came crashing back down on you. The threat, the herald, the space launch commencing in a matter of hours now, the events that brought you here in the first place.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, when a single tear slipped down your cheek, but Johnny caught it. Eyes full of concern, but understanding, he simply wiped the tears from your cheek, laying a kiss to the wet splotch of your skin.

“No crying, none of that. Just lay back, baby,”

You listened, letting his hands guide you gently to rest back against the pillows once more. Parting your legs, Johnny placed himself between them, holding himself up over your body on his forearms. Right where he belonged.

Your hands rested on his chest, sliding up so gently to his neck. His eyes never left yours, his length sitting right against your soaked and sensitive core, gliding back and forth with each gentle twitch of his hips.

“You didn’t let me say it earlier. So let me say it, for the first time outloud,” you gave him a watery smile, lips quivering as you looked up at him. “I love you, Johnny Storm. I’ve loved you for so long. I’m sorry it took the world maybe ending for this, that I didn’t let myself be yours sooner.

He smiled, that same charming smile he always did, as he rolled his hips once more. His cock caught just along the edge of your opening as Johnny dipped down, breath fanning over your lips.

“Like you said: you’ve always been mine,”

The first press of his length into your core stung. As wet as you were, as prepared as you were for him, it had been so long. He stretched your walls little by little, taking his time as your body adjusted to him. Then, inch by inch, he sunk within your walls that clung to him tightly.

His cock bottomed out, sunk fully within you, bare hips pressed to bare hips as you both let out shaky breaths. Your nails dug into the hair at the nape of his neck while his hands trailed up your ribcage, squeezing every moment or so as choked out moans fell from his lips.

“God–so tight for me, baby–you feel like heaven,”

His name was the only thing you could manage to choke out between your moans as he dragged himself back to the tip, before burying himself again to the hilt. Your moans, your cries and the way your hands threaded into his hair only spurred him on more, Johnny’s hips snapping into yours again and again and again.

His lips found yours amidst every snap of his hips, every drag of his cock against your walls. Every moan that slipped through your lips was drowned out by him, by the feverish movements of his lips against yours. They trailed away, back to your neck, leaving a trail of saliva connecting you together as he bit another love bite into the side of your neck. It didn’t matter to you how this would look to others, how scandalous you might look in the light of day to others.

All that mattered was Johnny Storm.

“Oh god, Johnny!” your head fell to his shoulder, teeth sinking into his skin as his hips snapped against yours over and over, driving him deeper with every thrust into you. “Holy fuck, w-why weren’t we doing this for years?”

“Because you’ve been a stubborn–fuck–little tease all these years,” his tongue dragged up the column of your throat, peppering kissing up and down your skin as his cock dragged against your walls. “Bent over your workstation in the lab–oh god–you don’t know how many times I’ve thought about it. Thought about walking in and taking you right there, making a mess right at your desk.”

“R-Reed would walk in and you’d scar him for life,”

“Sounds like a win-win to me,” there was shared laughter, punctuated with a shared moan as his cock dragged right against that spot nestled within you. “And try not to talk about my brother-in-law when I’m fucking you.”

There was no time to reply as Johnny scooped up your wrists in his hand in a single motion, pinning them down above your head. He adjusted your waist, suddenly driving into you at a new angle that had you mewling his name all over again.

Johnny whispered your name into your skin with every kiss, timed just so with every snap of his hips against yours. That coil of heat was burning, wounding itself tighter and tighter for the second time that night. All you could feel was him, was Johnny.

His warmth, the heat that burned off of him. It warmed your skin, it had beads of sweat dripping down your forehead. It was uncomfortable in the best way. His one hand still trailed up and down your ribcage, every so often tweaking your sensitive nipple between his thumb and index finger and coaxing another moan of pleasure from you.

He worshiped you, every inch of you, like you were the greatest thing to ever grace the earth. To him, you might have been

“Fucking perfect, baby. Fucking made for me,” his lips found yours again, slick with spit as his tongue dipped into your mouth to taste every inch of you possible.

His stroke faltered, the rhythm uneven, and you knew he was close. That coil of heat in your stomach was threatening to snap any second every time his cock pulsed and throbbed within your walls. His grip on your wrists was tight, even as you struggled against him, desperate to just hold him.

“Johnny–baby–please I-I’m so close-”

You choked on your words once more, the hand still trailing across your stomach heating up again, leaving a burning trail of heat in your skin. Those heated fingers found your clit like it was second nature, a cry of pure pleasure leaving your lips as they circle that bundle of a thousand nerves over and over again, hips still snapping into you as quickly and desperately as they can.

“Let go,” his voice was husky, eyes blown wide as he looked down at you. Your wrists were finally let go, your hands immediately finding their place in the strands of his hair again as his free hand cups the back of your neck, smashing your lips into his in a flurry of moans. “Let go, baby, let go.”

Your second climax burned hotter than the first.

The pleasure burned so hot, so bright, you were practically sobbing, every cry and moan of pure bliss muffled by his kiss. Your legs locked around Johnny’s waist–tightly–so tight he could barely move away from you. It was overwhelming, the shockwaves of bliss that ran through your veins, the shaking of your thighs as you held onto his hair like it’s a lifeline.

He ground himself into you over and over, rhythm so far gone he was struggling. But all it took was your lips lazily finding his neck, teeth sinking in to leave your matching mark to his, for his hips to still as he spilt into you.

Johnny breathed out every moan into the side of your head, your name tumbling from his lips along with a flurry of swears. The grip he had on your hip was bruising, so tight you think he could snap the damn bone if he held any tighter. And his cock? Seated so deeply inside of you it’s as if you are one, heat pooled within your lower abdomen with every wave of cum that filled you to the brim.

On the other side of the room, the record was still playing softly. Bright lights still flashed by the windows every so often, crews still at work on the spaceship set for launch by mid-morning.

None of it mattered in the silence of the bed.

You aren’t sure how long either of you laid there. Your heartbeat, eventually, returned to normal, even as your chest still heaved to take in every breath that it could. Johnny still laid half on top of you, pressing repeated kisses to the side of your head, but said nothing. Your hand stayed in his hair, carding through it, as your core pulsed. It would ache come morning–hell, it already did–but it was worth it. It was so worth it.

Neither of you were quite sure when he pulled out of you, or how long you simply laid there and basked in the afterglow of a moment that should’ve happened years ago.

Eventually, Johnny shifted down. His lips trailed down your body in worship, like they’d done already that night. From your cheek, to your neck, your collarbone, the swell of your breasts, and down your lower abdomen.

“Careful…not sure I’d survive a round three,” your voice was hoarse, mouth dry. Johnny laughed against your skin, still kissing every inch he could see.

“I don’t think I would, either,”

His hands were heated once more, but not for the same purpose as moments before. Now, his touch was gentle, massaging every piece of you that he could get his hands on. His thumbs rubbed into your wrists, your waist, and your hips, digging into the muscles. A sigh escaped you at the comforting feeling, taut muscles loosening at the feeling of the heat and the movement of his hands.

With every kiss pressed to your skin, you could feel it: Johnny was humming. It didn’t take long to know which song he was humming, which lyrics: that same song once again.

I guess I'll never know the reason why, you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

“Is that our song now?” you laughed, even if your heart was clenching at the mere thought. The mere idea of that song belonging to the two of you–the idea that Johnny Storm belonged to you.

You could feel his smile against your abdomen as he spoke. “It should be. It’s accurate. Because I don’t ever think I’ll get over the miracle that is you…loving me.”

It’s not a miracle. What you really want to tell him is that falling in love with him was so easy, you barely realized you had done it. It might be the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

Johnny crawled back up your body, slotting himself onto the bed beside you, before tugging you in. There’s no hesitation on your part, simply curling into his side with your head over his chest and arm slung around his waist. Words aren’t needed in the silence, not when you’ve both clearly laid everything out on the table now. Instead, you just listened to the beat of his heart, the natural rhythm that lulls you into a state of peacefulness.

He’s yours. Johnny Storm is yours. He’s always been yours, you just didn’t know it.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, hand cradling the back of your head as he said his next words confidently.

“We’re going to go up there tomorrow, and we’re going to stop this guy. We’re going to protect this Earth, like we’ve sworn to do. But me? I’m going to do it so I can come home to you, and love you for the rest of my life. I promise,”

He can’t promise that, you knew he couldn’t. There was no telling what might happen when that ship took off tomorrow, what they might encounter, or who this Galactus really was.

But Johnny Storm loved you. For now, in the quiet of the night, just between the two of you, that’s enough.

[keeryhours]

the calm before the storm - johnny storm

Johnny Storm x pregnant!gf!reader

Masterlist Tag Lists

Summary:

You have some news for Johnny, but the last thing you expect is for Sue to beat you to it. However, it turns out becoming parents isn’t even the biggest thing the family has to worry about - there are much bigger forces at work. Follows the timeline of about the first half of the movie

Warnings:

Smut (18+), unprotected p in v, oral (m receiving), creampie, movie spoilers, pregnancy, birth, fluff, angst, dangerous situations

Word Count: 19.2k

A/N:

I’m so beyond happy to have this completed and posted for y’all! This fic follows the timeline of the first half of the movie and contains spoilers, and is left open for more. I’m sorry if there’s anything in here that doesn’t make sense or isn’t canon compliant, I know nothing besides this one movie 😅 Much more can be written in the world of this fic - let me know if you want to see it! Big giant thanks to @punkrockmlchael for my banner, @writhingg for always being the best beta reader, @glassbxttless and @getaapologist for being the most helpful ever for this girl who knows nothing about marvel, and to @feral4youu and @sudsys for reading literally every scene the second i finish it (you’re both real ones ilysm)

“Oh, sweetheart…”

Johnny was a panting mess above you, leaning up on his elbows on the bed and watching your every move as you took his cock deeper and deeper down your throat. You looked up at him through your long eyelashes, taking in the fucked-out look on his face.

He was looking down at you with his face screwed up in pleasure. His toned chest heaved with his breaths, a whining moan at the end of each one.

His cock was hot and heavy in your mouth, throbbing between your swollen lips. Precum leaked from his tip, the heady taste on your tongue every time you swiped over his slit, which drove him crazy. His head would loll back on his shoulders as a low groan tore its way out of his chest.

You splayed your hands across his thick thighs, bobbing your head a little faster, making sure to give every part of him plenty of attention. He loved when you were sloppy on it like this. Johnny raked his hand through your hair, pushing you down all the way and holding you there until you couldn’t breathe.

“God-“ he choked, his eyes falling closed. “Oh, jesus baby, that’s- h-oh- oh, god-“

He let go and you pulled off of him, gasping for air. You took only a moment to compose yourself before you were sinking back onto him, sending Johnny flopping back onto the pillows with a groan.

You cradled his balls in your right hand, gently massaging them as you took him down slowly, focusing your tongue along the underside of his cock. His thighs trembled, muscles clenching.

“Fuck,” he whined. “Sweetheart, I- I’m so close, I’m so close. Wanna be inside you. Please.”

You lifted off of him with a pop, his cock twitching weakly as it was left wanting. Your lips were shining, wet with saliva. “Well, since you asked so nicely…”

Johnny laughed breathlessly and reached for you, pulling you on top of him and drawing a giggle from your lips. Your naked body landed on top of his, your chests pressed together as he tangled his hand in the back of your hair and dragged you down into a playful kiss.

Your lips moved together like they had always known one another. You straddled Johnny’s waist, legs on either side of his hips as you kissed him. His free hand rubbed down the smooth skin of your back and gripped your ass, making you gasp into the kiss. He chuckled.

“You’re perfect, y’know that?” he said quietly against your lips. He licked into your mouth, tasting a hint of the wine you’d had together, now forgotten across the room. A moan rumbled from his chest and against yours as your tongues rolled together, his cock pressed right up against what he wanted more than anything.

“You’re too sweet, Johnny,” you said as you broke the kiss and sat up. You rolled your hips experimentally, his cock dragging through your soaked folds. Johnny gasped, his hands flying to grip your hips tightly.

“Shit,” he hissed. “I can’t take it anymore. I need to fuck you right now.”

You moaned, you could feel his impressive length pressing insistently against you. He needed it bad tonight - you loved it when he got like this. Sometimes he was so needy and desperate, sometimes he was dominant and in control. Tonight was the former, and you weren’t complaining. “D’you want me to ride you, baby?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Fuck yeah.”

You lifted yourself up on your knees and Johnny reached beneath you to line his cock up with your hole. His thick tip was pressed tight against you, his blue eyes looking up into yours with so much fiery lust behind them it took your breath away.

You mentally prepared yourself, then lowered, sinking down onto Johnny’s thick cock slowly. His head dropped back and he let out a loud groan - you wouldn’t be surprised if the whole Baxter Building could hear him. Johnny was never shy about letting you know how good you felt.

He rocked his hips up into you right away, feet planted on the bed and his thigh muscles working as he pumped up into you. He was so deep already, your head tossed back as you cried out.

“Johnny! Oh my god-“

He was fucking you so hard from beneath you, you forgot you were supposed to be doing the work, too lost in your own pleasure. Eventually Johnny tugged on your hips, encouraging you to move. “Ride me, sweetheart. Please.”

You rocked your hips slowly at first, grinding down against him. You rested your hands on Johnny’s chest, rolling against him, the hair at the base of his cock rubbing against your clit just right. It felt incredible for you, but he needed more. He grabbed your ass in each of his large hands and started guiding you up and down, lifting you before letting you fall back down onto him.

The first drop back down onto him made Johnny’s back arch, a loud moan filling the air. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were straining, his pink, kiss swollen lips parted in a pretty O. Oh, he was needy.

You set a steady pace bouncing on his cock, Johnny watching your every move with intense focus. Your tits bounced with your movements - he couldn’t decide whether he’d rather look at that or the way his cock was disappearing inside you.

“Jesus,” Johnny groaned. “God, yes, keep riding me like that. You’re so tight around me, so fucking hot and wet- oh-“

“Feels so good, Johnny,” you cried, your voice higher than usual. He guided you a little faster, needing more, needing to fuck you deeper and harder. His cock felt so good with you wrapped around him - he’d never felt anything so good. He thought he could stay there indefinitely.

He sat up, burying his face in your bouncing tits and groaning as he groped them with his large, warm hands. His thumb swiped over the nipple of one while his hot mouth wrapped around the other, making you gasp. He moaned unabashedly, deep and low and drawn out, loud enough for the whole city to hear.

He fell back against the pillows and grabbed onto your hips again, guiding you faster. He was getting close, you could tell by the way his muscles were clenching, the way he needed more more more, the way he started whining and babbling and praising you like you were some deity bestowing upon him pleasures like he’d never before experienced.

“That’s it, that’s it sweetheart, keep riding me like that, keep- keep- fuuuuck- oh god-“ He was gasping, whimpering, losing control as his orgasm crept up his spine like electricity. “Need you to cum, baby, because I’m not far off.”

“‘m close, Johnny,” you whined, falling down onto his cock over and over, your head tilted back, his tip pressing so deep inside you - it was sending you reeling. When he moved a hand from your hip to rub quick, small circles on your clit with his thumb, it nearly made you scream. The coil in your belly tightened and tightened and tightened-

Your pussy clenched around Johnny again and again as you came, which was almost his undoing. You were screaming and moaning his name and Johnny was trying to hold it together just a little bit longer, just a little more, he didn’t want it to be over yet but-

Flames crackled on his skin as he let out a roar of a moan, planting his feet and thrusting his hips up into you as hard as he could. You gasped, surprised by the actual fire flickering along his arched body - but you were too fucked out with his cockhead currently buried as deep in you as possible while he held you there, his cum dripping out of you and down the sides of his shaft.

You were both shaking hard as you came down. The flames disappeared and you were left with your normal not-flaming boyfriend, still holding onto your hips while he tried to catch his breath, his chest shining with sweat.

“Jesus,” you finally said, laughing lightly. Johnny joined you, breathless but chuckling at the situation. He helped you carefully pull off of him, more of the cum he’d given you dripping from your hole. His eyes zeroed in on it, and you thought you heard him whimper.

“That was incredible,” Johnny said. He reached for his bedside table and grabbed a water bottle sitting there, opening it and taking a long drink.

“Do you usually catch on fire when you have sex?” you teased.

“Only when it’s fucking incredible,” he said, giving you that charming Johnny Storm smirk. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to your lips. “You’re incredible. I love you.”

“I love you too, Johnny.” You kissed him again. You cuddled up to his side on the bed. “Is it okay that you…y’know…” Johnny had never cum inside of you like that before. Usually you used condoms, or he pulled out. 

“I can get you a morning after pill if you’re nervous,” he said quietly. “But with my powers, my DNA mutation - I’m not even sure if I can have kids. Reed and Sue have wanted them for ages and it never happened.” He shrugged sadly, still a hint of a smile on his face. “Kinda sucks, because I really wanted kids one day.”

The idea of never being able to have children with Johnny made you sad. It made your heart ache. You knew any child would be the luckiest in the world to have Johnny as their father.

“You don’t have to,” you said. “I know it's unlikely.”

Johnny kissed your temple. He knew how badly you wanted children, and he felt terrible he couldn’t give them to you. “I love you, sweetheart,” he said simply again. “I’m always gonna take care of you.”

“I love you too, Johnny.” You nuzzled into his neck, slumber catching up to your aching body. “I’m gonna take care of you, too.”

He chuckled, his chest vibrating beneath your head. He stroked your hair as you laid together and held you close.

“You are everything to me.”

“I can’t believe she’s having a baby,” Johnny laughed as you closed the door to your bedroom, still wrapping his mind around the news of his sister being pregnant. He was thrilled, that much was clear. Sue was happy, he was happy - he knew Reed would take good care of both of them. That wasn’t even a concern. They’d wanted a baby for so long. He shook his head with a smile, running a hand through his blonde hair.

“Yeah,” you said, trying to muster up as much enthusiasm in your voice as you could. “It’s really exciting!”

The truth was, your stomach was buzzing with nerves. You were beyond happy for her, but Sue announcing a pregnancy was the last thing you expected tonight - 

You had been planning an announcement for Johnny yourself.

Now, you weren’t sure what to do. You didn’t want to take over Sue and Reed’s baby news, especially with how long they’d been waiting for this. And sure, Johnny was over the moon about becoming an uncle - but how would he feel about becoming a dad? Right now?

Johnny gave you a strange look as he sat on the end of the bed, removing his shoes. “You okay? You seem…weird.”

“I’m fine!” you exclaimed, maybe with a little too much energy. “Seriously, I’m fine. It was just…a big evening.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But…something’s off. Are you not happy?”

“No!” you blurted too quickly. “I mean, yes, I am. It’s not that, I swear.”

You had begun to pace, fingers tangled together. Johnny was properly concerned now, leaning on his knees as he watched you. When he couldn’t take it anymore he reached out, grabbing your hand and stopping you. “Sweetheart. What’s bothering you? You know you can tell me anything.”

Unable to keep pacing with your hand in his, you felt like the news was going to burst out without your permission. “It’s nothing, Johnny, I promise.”

He pulled you down onto his lap, his arms wrapping around your waist. “What, do you want a baby now that it’s on the table?” he asked, his tone teasing. Your stomach clenched in a knot, your skin like ice.

“What?” you asked, your laugh too high, too awkward to be casual. “What are you talking about?”

“Did my sister’s announcement give you baby fever?” he teased you even more, oblivious to your internal panic. “We’ll have one one day, baby. I wanna get married first, wait until things feel…right.”

That made you feel even worse. Would he not want the baby now? The way he’s talking now makes it sound like he doesn’t want one. But you were pregnant. It was happening whether it was the right time or not.

You felt tears brimming in your eyes. Your gaze was locked on the floor, avoiding Johnny entirely. When you didn’t laugh or joke back, he moved to look at your face better, seeing your wet eyes and trembling lower lip.

“Jesus, baby, what’s going on?” he asked, placing his hands on either side of your face. “I was just messing around. What’s bothering you so much?”

Your hormones were really getting to you. You weren’t much of a crier, not usually, which was what had Johnny extra freaked out as you sobbed in his lap. He rubbed your arms up and down soothingly, his warmth transferring to you. “Baby, please. Just tell me what’s wrong so I can help. I hate seeing you like this and feeling helpless.”

You shook your head. “I can’t. I…I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” The longer you went without just telling Johnny what was wrong, the worse his panic got. “Sweetheart, please. Just tell me, you- you can tell me anything, you know that.”

“I just…” you sniffled, wiping at your eyes. Johnny wiped a stray tear away with his thumb. “This isn’t how I wanted this to go.”

“How you wanted what to go?” He was so lost. “Baby, please, just tell me. I’m so confused. You know I’m not good at…figuring feelings out. If I did something wrong, please just tell me.”

You shook your head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Johnny.” You met his blue eyes, your own red and puffy. It broke his heart. “I just…I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot going on.”

“Like what?” he asked. “Let me help. Please. You don’t have to do anything alone.” He squeezed your hip. “I’m your family. We’re your family now.”

A deep breath. You had to tell him. And he knew enough now to be scared - it had to be now. “Johnny…”

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he said. He was looking right into your eyes, you were surprised he couldn’t read your thoughts straight out of your head. Those eyes were so intense, they could have fooled you. “Let me in.”

“I…” He squeezed your hands in his. You took comfort in his touch. “Johnny, I’m pregnant.”

It was like time stopped. Neither of you moved an inch - or even breathed. Johnny just kept staring at you as if you hadn’t said anything. Then, finally - “Are you serious?”

You nodded. You were terrified as you watched him, waiting for his reaction. He looked like he was processing the words, like they hadn’t fully set in yet. Then-

“Really? A little Storm baby? Right now?” he grinned - but his mouth dropped when something else occurred to him. “And they’ll have a built-in best friend!”

“You’re happy?” you asked. Relief flooded your veins, but you were still shaking from the anxiety. “You want this?”

“What do you- of course I want this,” he said, laughing like he couldn’t believe what you’d said. He rubbed your upper arms, warming your entire body. “Who cares if we’re not married yet? This is the best news. We’ve gotta tell everyone right now.”

“Hold on,” you said, laughing lightly. Johnny had surprised you - he looked ecstatic. You had been worried for nothing. “Sue just announced, I don’t want to take away from her moment. They tried for a long time.”

Johnny considered your words. “She’s going to be happy for us,” he said.

“I know she will be.” His blue eyes were shining, the excitement physically visible in them. “But this is her moment. I don’t want to take that away from her and Reed.”

Despite your words, he still couldn’t wipe the huge grin off his face - he was happy enough at the idea of becoming an uncle, but a father too? This was one of the best days of his life. “Okay. We’ll wait. But this is the best. Who could have predicted me and my sister having babies at the exact same time?”

“It is pretty crazy,” you said, your voice nervous. You were still wrapping your mind around the situation yourself. You’d only known for two days, and had spent those worrying yourself sick over Johnny’s reaction. You had finally worked up the courage, but the news of Sue’s pregnancy coming out at Sunday dinner was the last thing you expected.

You knew that, eventually, this would be amazing. Two cousins so close to the same age were bound to be close. But you worried about how Sue and Reed would feel. Would they be hurt? Would they resent you and Johnny for getting pregnant so easily? By accident?

The anxiety made you sick. Even when you changed into your pajamas and climbed into bed with Johnny, your boyfriend spooning against your back with his hand already resting protectively on your stomach - you worried. Johnny snored softly in your ear and you thought about how you might have just ruined everything in your new family.

It was two weeks after telling Johnny about the pregnancy, and Sunday dinner had once again rolled around. You were content to keep the secret for a while longer still, but Johnny was driving you crazy about it. Every day he asked when you could announce, every day he begged you to say yes.

You’d finally agreed. Now Johnny was practically bouncing off the walls, excited for dinner. He was dressed handsomely, a button down shirt with dark blue pants. You had been suffering from the worst morning sickness the past week, and only had the energy to dress in an oversized t-shirt and leggings.

He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as you ate, and the others definitely noticed, looking at him strangely. Finally, as dinner was wrapping up, Sue spoke up.

“What’s got you smiling like that?” she asked her younger brother as she helped gather dirty plates, Johnny trailing behind her with more dishes. “You look like you have some good news.”

Johnny beamed at you - you mustered up a half hearted smile in return, but in reality your heart was beating out of your chest, your throat felt like it was closing. You’d hardly said a word all evening and didn’t have much of an appetite, most of your plate untouched. With the moment now here, you thought the little you had eaten might make a reappearance.

“I do, actually,” Johnny said, grabbing the box of Lucky Charms off the counter despite having just eaten. He grabbed some and popped them in his mouth.

Sue, Reed, and Ben looked at him with more concern than anything, exchanging a look with their eyebrows drawn together. That made you even more sick.

“What is it?” Reed asked. Johnny had everyone’s full attention now.

“Well,” he said, trying somewhat to contain his face-splitting smile. He sat the box down and walked back to where you sat, standing behind you. He placed his hands on the back of your chair. “We have something exciting to tell you guys.” He glanced down at you, then back at his family. “We’re having a baby.”

It was so silent, only the soft whirrs of Herbie as he bustled around filled the air. Reed and Ben looked at Sue - it was tense. Johnny’s smile began to falter.

“Wow,” she finally said, and it was obvious that was the last thing they expected Johnny to say. Her face was stone, and you felt your heart actually crack when you noticed her eyes becoming glassy. “That’s…wow.”

Reed reached over and took his wife’s hand, looking at her like he wanted to read her mind. She was unreadable, however.

You looked up at Johnny. He looked back down at you, the sudden understanding of your concerns now all over his face. He looked back at his sister, eyes darting to Ben and Reed before meeting hers again. “Are you…upset?”

“No!” she said quickly. “No. I’m not upset. It’s just…you know, it’s a lot.” She smiled, although it seemed a little forced. She let go of Reed’s hand and stood, approaching her brother and wrapping him in a tight hug.

Johnny glanced at you, but hugged her back. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked her quietly.

“Of course I’m okay,” she said. “I just…Johnny, I can’t believe it.” They parted and she looked at each person in the room. “What are the odds, huh?”

“A little reckless maybe, don’t you think?” 

You all looked at Reed. He wasn’t smiling. The look on his face was completely unamused, serious. “Was it an accident?”

No one said anything. The question hung in the air, although each person there already knew the answer.

“Why does that matter?” Johnny finally asked.

“Have you even thought of the repercussions? The potential consequences? Dangers?” Reed asked. He gestured to you, towards your belly, and you covered it with your arms. “The child’s father has cosmically compromised DNA. You have powers, and she doesn’t. Have you thought of what might happen to her carrying your child?”

Silence. Neither you nor Johnny had even considered that. Johnny looked down at you with something a little like panic in his eyes.

“That- what do you mean?” he stuttered. “Could something happen to her?”

“We don’t know what could happen,” Reed said. “That’s why you were reckless.”

“We just don’t know if we’re going to have a fire baby to worry about,” Ben said lightly. The idea made you cringe.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen with two parents with powers, either,” Johnny said. “This is new territory for all of us.”

“I know,” Reed said. “I’ve been developing a device to scan the baby and check for abnormalities.” He nodded to Sue, then you. “I can check them both.”

Johnny looked at you. The sweat on your brow and the trembling in your hands were immediately noticeable - you were scared shitless. He crouched down next to your chair, speaking quietly for you only. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Could something really happen?” you asked him. “To the baby? To me?”

His mouth opened to tell you no, of course not. You’re safe. I would never let anything happen to either of you. But the truth was that he had no idea - no one did. And if something bad did happen, he thought, it would be his fault. He did this to you.

“I don’t know, baby,” he said. “But I can promise you I will do everything in my power to keep you both safe. And Reed is gonna make sure there’s nothing going on while that little Storm’s brewing.” A goofy grin took over his face as he placed a hand on your belly.

“Oh, come on,” Ben groaned, unamused by the pun.

Johnny stood. “Whatever you have to do to make sure she’s going to be okay,” he said to Reed, “that they’re both going to be okay- do it. I can’t lose-“ He stopped, taking a deep breath. “I can’t let anything happen to her.”

“Getting this machine built is my top priority,” Reed said. “I promise you, I’m going to do everything I can for both of them.”

You were relieved when everyone started returning to their rooms. You were exhausted, still felt sick, and were now stressed beyond belief. Johnny gave Herbie a scratch on the head - “Night, Herbert.” - to which he beeped contentedly.

As you were about to leave with Johnny, Sue stopped you. She hurried over, but once she reached you, she wasn’t sure what to say. Eventually, she smiled at you apologetically, grabbing your upper arms and running her hands down until they rested on your elbows.

She said your name, then looked at Johnny, giving him a look that said Some privacy, please? Johnny held his hands up, backing away.

Sue’s attention now fully on you, you felt nervous once again. You’d always liked Sue - you and Johnny had been dating a year now, and she had been nothing but kind to you since you’d known her. But this was a different circumstance entirely.

“I wanted to tell you congratulations,” she said. “And apologize for the way I reacted when you told us the news. It just- it shocked me. It was a shock. Reed and I- well, you know.” She smiled softly. “But I really am happy for you and Johnny. He’s going to be a great dad. I should have told him so.”

Warmth spread through your veins, comfort - like a hug from Johnny himself. Relief. “You don’t have to apologize,” you assured her. “I understand how you felt. I’m sorry we kind of…made you share the most important event of your life.” You grimaced - you felt horrible about it, even though you hadn’t in any way meant to get pregnant.

“I don’t mind sharing with you and my baby brother,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ve shared a lot with him over the years.”

You laughed lightly. “Thank you, Sue. And I am really, really happy for you. I know you’ve wanted a baby for a long time.”

“Thank you.” She pulled you into a tight hug. “You’re going to be an incredible mother.”

With the news out amongst the family and your bumps becoming increasingly difficult to hide, it was time to come out and tell the press. You announced with a spread on a magazine cover, the Four with two empty baby seats.

The public debated whether you and Sue would have boys or girls. Most seemed to think you were both having boys, but whatever the stance, everyone was passionate about theirs. There were articles, polls, bets being exchanged.

“The countdown continues as the Fantastic Four prepare to welcome two new members to the family,” the reporters were saying. “Preparations inside the Baxter Building are well underway!”

And they were. Herbie was busy baby proofing the entire building, flitting around and making sure everything was safe for the new arrivals. He was just as excited as the rest of you. He put plug covers in all the sockets, moved sharp objects out of the way, installed locks on the cabinets, placed baby gates - much to Ben’s annoyance.

“The question on everyone’s mind is - will the babies be born with superpowers?” 

It was true - everyone wondered. Even you. Even Johnny.

You thought back to Ben’s joke. What if you really did have a little fire baby to worry about? The idea of your child bursting into flames terrified you - it was still weird enough when Johnny did it.

The public wasn’t quite as nice to you as they were to Sue and Reed. Between a married couple who had been hoping for a baby for years, and a couple who had been dating for a year and got pregnant by accident - yeah, it wasn’t hard to imagine who they favored. As if it were a competition and not your family.

Gossip magazines had a lot to say about you in particular. Johnny was beloved, but you? You were just some girl who came out of nowhere, took the world’s most eligible bachelor off the market, then overshadowed the pregnancy of everyone’s favorite family.

There was a lot said about your intentions, like that you were only with Johnny for money and fame. They speculated that Sue secretly hated you. They implied you had trapped him with this pregnancy. How could the public be so happy for Johnny while being so cruel to you?

Johnny always told you to ignore it, that it wasn’t worth even keeping up with what those people were saying. But that was impossible for you - it’s like you had to know. Every time you passed a gossip mag at the store, you had to read the cover. You couldn’t help it.

“Those people don’t know anything,” Johnny would say. “Seriously. They have nothing better to do but make up fake drama. It’s sad. Please don’t pay attention to them, sweetheart.” A lopsided grin. “You’re my future wife. The love of my life. The mother of my child. No one is going to change that.”

You got to where you didn’t even want to leave the building anymore because you’d be followed by reporters. You were already struggling enough with the way your body was beginning to change, the last thing you needed was an unflattering photo of yourself ending up on the cover of another magazine, speculating if you’re having twins based on the size of your bump.

Johnny hated to see you isolate yourself. He was constantly trying to convince you to leave the building, to at least go on a walk with him. You’d agree some of the time, but not as often as he’d like.

“You and the baby need fresh air,” he’d plead. “It’s not good to stay cooped up in here all day.”

You would be cuddled in bed like a burrito at 2pm. “I just don’t feel up to it, Johnny.”

Johnny frowned. “It hurts to see you like this,” he said softly. “You’re depressed, sweetheart. I hate that these people are getting to you. It makes me so…” He looked away from you, flames combusting on his skin. You jumped - it was still so strange.

“Sorry,” he said, the flames disappearing. He smiled sheepishly at you. “It’s just…I wish I could do something. I wish I could do more. I’m not used to feeling helpless.” He rubbed his hand over your back, and you let out a deep sigh. “Just want my girl to be happy and safe.”

The gossip slowed down eventually as your pregnancy progressed, much to your relief. Despite the way they’d treated you, the public was absolutely beside themselves at the thought of Johnny and Sue both having babies. You were even asked to do a photo shoot with her for a magazine - that was completely out of your depth, but you’d done it.

You felt so small standing next to Sue Storm. Like, who cares about me?

Your family did, and they showed you that every day. Before long, you were feeling more like yourself again, walking around in public with your bump proudly visible, hand on it protectively. The public warmed up to you. You were really becoming a part of the family - in everyone’s eyes.

“Can I carry that for you, sweetheart?”

You turned, seeing Johnny jogging up to you. He reached for the laundry basket in your hands.

“Oh, sure,” you said, handing it off to him. He grinned - he always did have the most charming smile. It made your stomach fill with butterflies, just like the first time you’d seen him in person.

He followed you back to the bedroom with the basket, placing it down on the bed. He lifted a shirt from the top of the pile and began folding it.

“Babe, you don’t have to do that,” you said, placing your hand on his arm. He turned to look at you, those blue eyes so close to your own, it nearly took your breath away.

“I don’t mind,” he said. “I don’t want you to have to do it. You should rest. You’ve still been so sick.”

“That’s sweet, Johnny, but no, seriously. Herbie usually does it.”

Johnny stopped, his cheeks tinged pink. “Oh. Yeah. That’s right, isn’t it?”

You giggled. “What’s gotten into you?”

Johnny sat on the bed, reaching for your hand and pulling you down to sit on his lap. His hand settled on your four months pregnant belly. “Nothing,” he said. “I just wanna take good care of my girl. You know there’s two things I love-“

“Yeah, yeah, Johnny loves space, Johnny loves women,” you teased. Johnny chuckled.

“Johnny loves you,” he said. “He loves his girl,” he rubbed his hand across your small bump, “and he loves whoever this one is going to grow to be.”

“Will this tell us if everything’s okay?” you asked, standing nervously in Reed’s lab. Sue stood to the side, there for moral support - they were all concerned about you especially.

“It should,” Reed said. “I’ve developed and tested it extensively, and ran some tests on Sue just this morning.” He looked at his wife. “It did not detect any anomalies.”

That was a relief - but it didn’t mean you would have the same result.

You wished Johnny was there. But he was busy, and he had been bugging Reed about the new space suits so relentlessly, you know he certainly didn’t miss him.

“Everything is going to be fine,” Sue said softly, sitting her hand on your shoulder. “It’s quick and painless.”

You nodded. You were scared, but you would also do absolutely anything this baby needed. You laid down on the cool table. There was nothing visibly interesting about it - it was a flat white table with a piece that arced over your stomach.

Sue stood by as Reed worked the machine. It emitted a bright light, scanning over your stomach. The machine began printing all kinds of…graphs and measurements. You had no idea what you were looking at. You often felt a little inadequate in a family full of geniuses. You were just…you. No powers, no fancy degree. Never been to space. Just a girl who’s boyfriend/baby daddy flies and occasionally combusts.

Reed and Sue both examined the results that were printing rapidly. Reed wrote some things down, while Sue pointed over his shoulder, saying some things too quietly for you to hear. It made you nervous.

They still hadn’t told you anything when Reed shut the machine off. You looked at both of them. “So? Is the baby…is everything okay?”

They exchanged a look. “There’s…some kind of anomaly,” Reed said carefully. Your body went cold. “I don’t know what it is. I’m going to have to do more tests, but for now, I need you to relax. I don’t see anything that has me immediately concerned.”

“But you just said-“

“I know.” He looked at you seriously, Sue hovering behind him. “Just because there’s some kind of anomaly doesn’t mean it’s necessarily…bad. The baby’s father is an anomaly himself.” He smiled in a way that felt like he was trying to comfort you. “I don’t want you to worry. I’m going to keep running tests.”

Your mind was spinning for the rest of the day. When you saw Johnny that evening, his brow immediately creased, knowing something was on your mind right away. “What’s going on? You look…bothered,” he asked as he ate Lucky Charms straight from the box. You hadn’t even had dinner yet.

“It’s just…” you sighed. “Reed said he found some kind of anomaly on the test.”

His concern visibly deepened. “What kind of anomaly?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “That’s all he said. That there was an anomaly but not to worry about it because he’s going to run more tests.”

Johnny looked lost deep in his own head. His brow was furrowed as his mind filled with a million thoughts you’d never understand. Suddenly, he stood. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” you asked him - he was already at the door.

“To the lab,” he said simply.

And he was gone.

“What do you mean there are anomalies?” Johnny asked his brother in law as he stormed into the lab. Reed turned from the chalkboard, only mildly surprised. “What does that mean? What kind of anomalies?”

Reed sat his chalk down. “Hi, Johnny. Good to see you.”

Johnny looked at the machine as he passed it, his hand rubbing over the top of it. He picked up a long strip of paper with your results on it, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking at. He looked back at Reed. “What kind of anomalies?” he asked again. “Reed, be straight with me.”

Reed sighed. “I don’t think it’s anything too serious. I want to start with that,” he said. “But there’s something…off. I need to do more tests, that’s the truth. I don’t have any concrete answers for you. I’m sorry.”

Johnny shook his head. “What about Sue?”

“I haven’t detected anything from Sue.”

“So it’s just my child,” he said bitterly. “Two parents with two different powers are fine, but my powers alone are enough to mess things up?”

“We don’t know that anything’s messed up,” Reed explained patiently. “I need you to calm down, Johnny. There’s no reason to panic right now.”

“Right now?” he said. “So I panic later?”

“That’s usually how it goes,” Reed joked - but Johnny was unamused. “Look. If I find something that seriously concerns me, you two will be the first to hear it. I promise. For now, I need you to trust me.”

Johnny hated feeling helpless. Even now, he wasn’t angry - he was scared. Terrified. But what could he do besides trust his brother?

“Okay,” he conceded. “I’ll try.”

Reed clapped him on the shoulder. “Fatherhood is terrifying,” he said. “Super powers or not. You’re right where you’re supposed to be. Worrying about your family is normal. I know you love them both.”

“More than anything,” Johnny said quietly. “I love them so much it…” He rubbed his chest. “God, it hurts.”

A knowing smile crossed Reed’s face - because he knew the exact feeling.

“Shit,” Johnny hissed, sucking his pinched finger into his mouth. “Baby, can you hand me the screwdriver?”

You leaned over, hand on your swollen belly as you grabbed the screwdriver from the floor with great effort. You were huffing by the time you handed the tool to your boyfriend, and he turned around, giving you a winning smile.

“We could have let Herbie do this, you know,” you said. “That’s what Reed did.”

Johnny waved you off. “I’m going to put my own child’s crib together myself.” He nodded towards the rocking chair in the corner. “You should sit down.”

He didn’t have to tell you twice. Your feet were killing you. You waddled over to the glider, sitting down carefully. Your feet up on the foot stool, you watched Johnny building the baby furniture.

“Only a couple months left,” Johnny mused. “Getting close.”

“Yep,” you agreed. You looked down at your round bump as you rubbed your hand over it affectionately. “Are you coming with me to the lab after this for Reed’s test?”

“Of course,” he said instantly. “I feel bad I haven’t made the others.”

The thought filled you with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. It was still such an abstract thought, the baby in your belly. You knew they were real, and they were growing and healthy - you could feel them most of the time, sticking an arm against your spine or kicking you so hard in the bladder you had to run - it was a comfort, although uncomfortable.

“Are you nervous?” you asked him. He screwed in the leg of the crib and turned back to face you.

“To have the baby?” he questioned. “Honestly? Yeah. I’m scared out of my mind. But I’m excited.” His blue eyes glittered with it. He was practically buzzing out of his skin - you were surprised his hair wasn’t on fire.

“I hope they look like you,” you said lightly, your fingers dancing over the bump ever so gently, lost in the cloud of your thoughts.

“Me?” He gave the railing of the crib a shake, making sure the finished thing was sturdy before he looked at you again. “Why?”

You looked at him like he was dumb. “Have you seen yourself?”

Johnny’s cheeks tinted pink. “Okay, Ms. Flaming Hearts Club,” he teased. “Were you the one who kept sending me those filthy love poems with the lipstick prints?”

“You caught me,” you grinned.

Johnny shook his head, laughing. Unfortunately, you remembered those poems from his mystery admirer vividly. They were far from family friendly.

He stood, moving to a box next to the completed crib. He opened it and started pulling out space themed decorations - a mobile of the planets, glow in the dark stars, a blanket printed with constellations. You stood with some effort and joined Johnny by the side of the crib.

He lifted the mobile, installing it above the crib. You watched him work quietly - he was careful and precise. When it was hung perfectly, he smiled down at you.

“It’s coming together,” you said. Almost all the baby prep tasks had been completed - the Baxter Building was completely prepared for the two newest members.

Johnny looked a little pale. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Almost time.” He was quiet. He rested both hands on your bump, now large and very much in the way. His thumbs rubbed over it while he looked down with all the affection in the world on his face.

“I hope they don’t have powers.”

The statement caught you off guard. Johnny had never said anything like that before, and you had just assumed he’d want the baby to be like him. But now his words told a different story, one coming from a place of love - and anxiety.

“Why?” you asked softly. You got the vibe it was a sensitive subject for him.

“I just…” he sighed. “I want them to have a normal life. Having powers…it comes with an expectation, a responsibility. I didn’t ask to have powers. It just happened to me.” You were quiet. You hadn’t known Johnny before the accident, and he had never talked about it. You let him continue.

“I don’t want their life decided for them like that,” he went on. “I want them to be able to do and be whatever they want to be. Not born in a Fantastic Four suit.” He smiled crookedly. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“I can understand that,” you said. The baby moved beneath Johnny’s hand, giving him a strong kick. He smiled. “I just want them to be healthy and happy. And if you think having powers would prevent that, then I agree with you.”

“I do think that,” he said, quiet. You wondered if he had thoughts about his own powers he’d never spoken aloud. “I want them to have a good life. An easy life.”

He gazed into your eyes, like he was reading you from the inside. His hand came to rest on your cheek. “You’re going to be the best mom, you know,” he said, so quietly. “I know we didn’t mean for this to happen right now…” He traced his thumb over your bottom lip, and you let out a short gasp. “But there is no one I’d rather be having a baby with. This baby is going to be so lucky to have you.” 

Herbie hurried in at that moment with a basket of freshly washed and folded baby clothes, saying a little “Hello,” as he sat the basket down and began putting the clothes away. Johnny scratched the robot on the top of the head.

“Thanks, Herbert, you’re a lifesaver,” he said. Herbie happily beeped in response.

“Ready?” Johnny asked you as Herbie continued his work, hand on your lower back. “Let’s go check on this baby.”

Laying on the table in Reed’s lab once again, the machine doing its job, you watched Johnny’s anxiety manifest by being as annoying to Reed as possible.

“So is this test gonna give us answers this time or what?” he asked, pacing next to where you laid. He was giving you anxiety with the way he wouldn’t stay still. Reed was trying to ignore him, Sue standing and reading the results over her husband’s shoulder.

“It should tell us more, yes,” Reed said, distracted, but he’d already been over this. He was being remarkably patient with him. But the longer he focused on the endless graphs and lines, the more nervous you and Johnny became.

Reed gripped the paper in his hands, staring at it intently. He was reading quickly, clearly thinking a thousand miles a minute. The look on his face made you nauseous - he was concentrating, and if something was going on to make Reed act like this, it was something.

“…What is it?” Johnny asked, his heart beating uncomfortably hard. “Just tell me. Is something wrong?”

“It…” Reed stopped himself, looking back over the paper. Johnny stopped next to you, and you reached for each others’ hand. “It appears as if their DNA has also been…altered,” Reed mumbled.

Quiet. “What do you mean?” Johnny asked, his voice dead serious. Not a hint of his usual goofy personality.

Reed looked up at Johnny - then at Sue, back to his paper, to you, and finally Johnny again, who was waiting. “They’ve inherited the father’s mutated DNA. They have the X-gene.”

Johnny’s eyes went wide. You looked at everyone, but no one was explaining anything. “What does that mean?” you asked, anxiety rising in your voice. Reed was about to answer, but Johnny wasn’t even looking at you. 

“So - a mutant,” Johnny said.

Another exchange of looks between Reed and Sue. “By definition…yes.”

“A mutant?” you asked, sitting up on your elbows. “What does that mean? Will they be-“ You didn’t even know what you were asking. You didn’t know what any of this meant, if it was bad news or not.

“It means they will develop powers at some point in their life,” Sue explained. “They have the X-gene exclusive to mutants.”

The information sent your head spinning. Your child would have powers after all. You hadn’t thought news like that would have upset you, but after your conversation with Johnny, you saw things a different way.

Speaking of Johnny, you looked up at your boyfriend, who was still staring at Reed, his face hard as stone. “They have powers.”

“They will,” Reed confirmed. “I don’t know when they’ll appear, or what they’ll be, but…”

Johnny abruptly pulled a chair out, sinking into it. You didn’t notice how he was shaking until he was sitting next to you, his hands intertwined in front of his mouth. He was thinking.

“It’s nothing to panic about,” Reed said. “We’ve been living with these powers for years now, and I will be performing further testing-“

“I just didn’t want this,” Johnny said simply. His words echoed through the room in the silence.

Reed closed his mouth, going back to the results, giving Johnny time. You didn’t know what to say either - was there anything you could say to make anything better? You didn’t think so. Not right now.

It was Sue who stepped forward, her left hand resting on her baby brother’s back and her right on her stomach. Johnny looked at her, and it was like they were communicating something to each other by nothing but their eyes.

“Would it make you feel better if you could see the baby?” she asked him gently.

Your lips parted in surprise - she could make that happen? - but Johnny looked up at his sister like she’d just uttered the secret to the universe. “You’ll do that for us?”

“Of course I will,” she said. She was looking at Johnny with so much love, it made your chest feel warm. They both turned to look at you. “Would you want that?”

It took you a minute to catch up to the conversation. “What? To…see the baby?”

Sue and Johnny nodded.

“Will it…hurt?”

Johnny chuckled. “No, sweetheart. I promise it won’t.”

You laid back down on the table, your head slightly inclined. Reed and Sue moved in close on your left side, while Johnny was on your right. You didn’t know what to expect.

Carefully, Sue laid her hand against the bottom of your belly, yours resting on top. It was just a minute of anticipatory silence, and then - your body, your stomach, became invisible, revealing the baby curled snugly inside.

“Oh my god-“

The choked words, like holding back a sob, were the first thing you heard. Johnny had covered his mouth with his hand, his blue eyes wet and shining in the light of the lab. His forehead was creased, and his eyes were locked on your stomach - at the baby inside. He looked like he was about 2 seconds away from losing it.

You were right there with him. There really was a baby in there - the thoughts you’d had the past months about not being able to wrap your mind around it were out the window with the vision in front of you. That was your child. The baby’s head was pressed right against where your hand rested. They were curled up in a little ball, eyes closed. Their nose reminded you of Johnny’s. Your heart was beating out of control, and you hadn’t even noticed the tears that had spilled down your face.

Reed and Sue let the two of you take your time. Sue cradled your belly like it was the most precious thing as she used her powers on you for the first time. She was the baby’s aunt, and she had so much love for them already, it was clear in her expression.

You looked at Johnny again. He was looking at your stomach with absolute awe - you wished you could hear what he was thinking. Slowly, like he was scared, he reached out and gently laid his palm on your stomach.

“See?” Sue said “There’s nothing wrong. Nothing to worry about.” She rubbed your stomach affectionately. “She’s perfect.”

“She,” Johnny repeated, his voice a mere whisper. You hadn’t even caught that yourself, hadn’t been able to think any deeper than seeing your child finally in front of your eyes. “She.”

It hadn’t even occurred to you that with seeing your baby, you’d be finding out what you were having. That wasn’t just the baby - that was your daughter. You were lost in your own thoughts when you heard a voice next to you that surprised you.

“Hey,” Johnny said quietly. He and his daughter might as well have been the only ones in the room. “Hey, baby girl. It’s your daddy.”

Reed and a teary-eyed Sue exchanged a look.

“I can’t wait to meet you,” Johnny continued. “You have the coolest family ever. You’re going to be the coolest person ever. And…” he was quiet for a moment. “And I’m going to teach you everything I know. One day, you’ll see space, too.”

Before you could completely burst into tears, Johnny turned to look you in the eyes. There was so much unspoken between you, it felt like something tangible taking up space and air. He surged forwards and kissed you, then pressed your foreheads together.

“I love you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love the both of you.”

At eight months pregnant now, you were starting to really be over the whole thing. You were aching, swollen, tired, and irritable, and it felt like Sue was handling pregnancy with a lot more grace than you were.

Not only did she come across as significantly less miserable - usually dressed nicely with her hair and makeup done while you could barely handle getting out of bed and throwing some sweatpants on - she was also just lucky. She didn’t have the crippling morning (all day) sickness like you did, and her bump was small and cute, nothing like how huge you were. You knew every pregnancy was different, but it seemed a little unfair.

Johnny had been doing everything in his power to cheer you up. He took care of you, rubbed your back and feet, put lotion on your belly, and kept you company when you were too miserable to leave the building. However your pregnancy hormones were raging, and he often got snapped at - followed by a tearful apology.

He never minded.

You were looking for him now, waddling throughout the house with a hand on your stomach for support. Something you hadn’t been prepared for was your sense of gravity being thrown off - that was strange.

He wasn’t in the kitchen, and you had just left Reed’s lab after another scan - nothing new to report. Baby girl was totally healthy and not throwing you any more shocks. She was getting so big - she’d be there before you knew it.

You huffed as you dragged yourself up the stairs, getting plenty of use out of the handrail. By the time you reached the top you were breathing heavily, having to take a minute to lean against the wall at the top and catch your breath. Finally, you made your way to the bedroom.

There he was.

Johnny stood across the room at the window. His back was to you, so you didn’t even know if he knew you were there. He was staring out, the longing nearly radiating off his body. He was looking at the spaceship.

You walked up behind him, your feet sliding against the plush carpet. He didn’t turn, which was odd - you weren’t trying to be quiet. He only got like this when he had a lot on his mind.

And he did have a lot on his mind. Now that the due date was getting closer and closer, he knew he was running out of time to be ready to be a father. This baby girl was coming whether he liked it or not. The Baxter Building would be a much different place when the babies arrived.

He thought to his own parents. After the death of his mother, his dad had tried his best with Sue and Johnny, but he saw how hard it was for him. Being a parent isn’t easy at all, and now he was about to become one. Very soon.

The thought of the baby being here filled him with an overwhelming anxiety. What if he didn’t know the first thing about being a dad? What if he was an awful one? What if he screwed his kid up? What if he got killed on a mission and left you both on your own? What if-

“Do you miss it?” you asked.

Johnny startled, snapped out of his spiraling thoughts, but he smiled when his eyes landed on you. “Space?” he asked, looking back out the window. “God, yes.”

He gestured you over, putting an arm around you. You looked out the window with him - the ship was a sight. It was massive, and it was in your backyard. Johnny looked at it often. It was his favorite part of this room.

“I always loved space,” he said. “It’s like nothing else. The most beautiful thing you’ll ever see in your life.” He looked back down at you, giving you a wink. “Well, one of them.”

You scoffed a laugh, and Johnny squeezed your shoulder. “Do you think you’ll go back one day?”

“Absolutely,” Johnny answered right away. “If I thought I would never see space again…I don’t know what I’d do.”

Space had been his first love. You had to respect it.

“Are you okay?” you asked him. “You just seem like you have a lot on your mind.”

Johnny didn’t say anything at first. You weren’t sure if he was going to answer you, but finally he sighed deeply and his lips parted, as if he was about to speak but lost the words.

“I’m okay,” he said. “We’re just, y’know, about to take a big step together. We’re about to be thrown into something we know absolutely nothing about. And it’s scary.” He chuckled lightly. “It scares me.”

“It scares me too,” you admitted. “But I know you’re going to be the greatest dad. Do you know how cool she’s going to be at school? Her dad is the Human Torch.”

Johnny laughed at that. The thing is, you weren’t wrong. These babies were being born into a family of celebrities - being born into celebrities themselves. His smile faded a little as he thought of that.

“I just…” He sighed as he thought. “I wanted her to be her own person.”

You leaned your head on his shoulder. “She will be,” you promised him. “Her life isn’t over just because she’s going to have powers. And who’s to say if she didn’t have them, she wouldn’t wish she did?” 

Johnny hasn’t considered that. “I guess that’s true.”

“The point is,” you said, “everything about parenthood is…uncertain. We don’t know who she’ll be or what she’ll be like or who she’ll grow into. But I know she’s going to love her daddy with her whole heart.” Johnny’s cheeks flushed at the title - he still wasn’t used to it yet. “She’s going to be strong and, more than anything, loved.”

He nodded, and you thought you saw him sneakily wiping his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m doing what I said I didn’t want to happen. I’m deciding what she wants for her.” He scoffed lightly. “Is it always going to be this hard?”

“Harder, I think,” you said jokingly - but it was the truth. Parenthood would only get more and more challenging. “Who knows. Maybe one day she’ll be on that ship with you.”

Another thought that Johnny hadn’t even allowed himself to consider. But with the idea in his head, he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his lips. “That would be…”

“Your dream?” you teased. “She’ll probably end up a genius like the rest of her family and leave me the only normal boring human.”

Johnny turned to you swiftly, placing his hands on either side of your face. “Don’t talk about yourself like you’re nothing special,” he said firmly. “Because that’s not true. You are smart. You don’t have to be a damn scientist or astronaut for me to think you’re one of the smartest people I’ve met.”

You looked at him skeptically, your eyebrows raised. “You know how many scientists, engineers, and physicists you know?”

He smiled. “That doesn’t mean anything. Doesn’t mean they’re smart.”

“Kinda does.”

“You’re missing the point.” He kissed your forehead. “I don’t want to hear you talking like you’re nobody. That couldn’t be less true. You’re everything.”

You looked down. “It’s just hard not to feel useless in a house full of superheroes and a very productive and cute robot.”

“Well, I can say for certain that you’re cuter,” he said. You giggled as he leaned in abruptly and kissed your cheek, his fingers tickling your sides. You laughed, fighting him off, pushing him away as he only pulled you closer. He covered your face in kisses when he finally caught you.

“I love you,” he said. “God, I love you. You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. I can’t believe you’re mine.”

Later that day, you were in the kitchen with the family. Herbie carved a pumpkin, Ben was working on a meringue, and you were helping Sue set the table.

You looked up as Johnny stormed in, grabbing a box of Lucky Charms. He was clearly in a bad mood.

“Hey,” Ben greeted him, before noticing his demeanor. “Why the long face? Your 2:15 with Reed didn’t go well?” Johnny said nothing, which was answer enough. “I’m sorry, pal.”

“Hey, I’m fine, you know, I don’t mind. It’s just that-“

“We’ll go to space again,” Ben said.

“Yeah, we will.” Johnny said it with confidence. He pulled the toy out of the box of cereal. “Oh! Nice!”

He pointed the little figure at Ben, pressing the button - “Flame on! Flame on!” Ben took the toy and crushed it in his hand, blowing the dust back in Johnny’s face. You shook your head, but stifled a laugh.

After messing with Ben a little longer, Johnny made his way over to where you stood. He placed his hand on your belly and leaned in for a kiss.

“You sure you’re okay, honey?” you asked him quietly. You knew he’d been looking forward to this meeting with Reed for a while - he had really been hoping.

“I’m okay,” he said, smiling at you like he wanted you to believe it. “Ben’s right. We’ll go back. I just…need to wait.”

The last person to arrive to Sunday dinner, Reed walked in and straight to his wife. As he spoke to her and Johnny stood with you, hand caressing the bump, sirens went by outside - that was unusual.

Reed motioned you all out to the balcony. Johnny led you out, hand on your lower back as you all walked out the glass doors.

“For the last few months,” Reed said, “I’ve been tracking a small number of criminal organizations.”

You peeked over the balcony - there was a police presence all over the city. Your eyes widened in shock.

“A small number, huh?” Ben said.

“47,” Reed said. He pointed out some specific organizations, pointing at different spots in the city. Often left in the dark about these things, you didn’t even realize there were that many in the city.

“You baby proofed the world,” Ben said.

“It’s a sweet gesture,” Sue grabbed Reed’s hand. You agreed - you wouldn’t complain about the city being safer for the babies.

“It’s a thorough gesture,” Ben continued. “But, uh, I like punching.”

“You mean clobbering?” Johnny goaded him.

“No, I mean punching.”

“Hey, what time is it?” he asked as Ben turned to go back inside the house.

“It’s dinner time.”

“You sure it’s not clobbering time?”

“Stop it.”

At that moment, as the five of you were turning to leave, the Four’s alarms began going off. You all turned to see some kind of explosion in the sky - fire and flashing lights. Johnny placed a hand on your shoulder, a silent You better be in this exact spot when I get back, and then he was gone - a creature of flame, taking off into the sky and directly into the heart of the danger.

You grabbed Sue’s hand as he went. “What’s going on?” you asked her weakly, hand protectively over your stomach. She placed a comforting hand on your back, but didn’t turn away from the sky.

“I don’t know,” she said. She turned to you. “But we’ve got to go. I need you to stay here.”

Once again reminded of your uselessness - you could do nothing but nod. What else could you do? Get in the way? Put yourself and your child in danger when there was nothing you could do to help?

You watched on with worry as Reed, Sue, and Ben left the building as quickly as possible, leaving you with Herbie. When they were gone, you watched the commotion through the window - until you ran to the TV and turned it on, wondering if anyone was reporting. You didn’t have to look far.

“Breaking news from Times Square.”

You watched on as a woman - an alien? - stood before the city. You clutched your chest with one hand and protectively held your bump with the other. You could see the Four standing, watching. Seeing Johnny safe sent relief flooding your veins.

“Are you the protectors of this world?”

“Yes, we are,” Sue said, standing with confidence.

“Your planet has been marked for death.”

You barely even processed anything she was saying after that. Marked for death? Fear struck into your very soul.

“I herald your end.”

When Johnny and the others returned, you ran into his arms. He held you tightly - this was his first time facing galactic danger while having a child and you to worry about. He found it made him feel sick, an unfamiliar kind of worry and uncertainty he wasn’t used to.

They all went straight to the lab upon return to the Baxter building - there was no time to waste. The fate of everyone was quite literally in their hands. You joined them, despite feeling like you had nothing to contribute.

Reed was tracking where the herald had been. He found at least five planets, destroyed - and she was at every one. Galactus could and would do exactly what she said.

The herald had spoken to everyone, but she had spoken only to Johnny directly. He was hung up on it - what had she said to him? It was in her native language, but, he thought, there had to be some way to decode it.

After the herald, Johnny became obsessed with solving the message. He was making progress, too - he discovered transmission recordings that were the same language. Whenever Johnny got like this, it was cute. You loved seeing him in his element, even if it meant he had less time for you. The baby prep was done, there was nothing more to do but wait for her to arrive. 

You were relaxing in the bathtub, the hot water soothing your aching muscles, while Johnny was in the bedroom, listening to the recordings. You gave him his space.

Sue walked in as he was working. “Okay. So she spoke to you, yeah? And?”

Johnny played her the recordings. “I don’t know who they are or what they’re saying, but this? This is the same. This is her language.”

Sue looked at her younger brother, impressed. “Okay. Maybe that is something.”

He held up his hand for a high five. “Reed wants to see you in the lab,” she said before slapping his hand.

She didn’t have to tell Johnny twice. He hurried straight there. “You summoned me?”

“I finally knocked it off the list,” Reed said.

Johnny furrowed his brow. “What?”

“The new space suits.”

He turned to see four brand new space suits, all set up and ready to be worn. Johnny was barely even listening to Reed as he examined the suits, then he pulled his brother into a hug. “I take back every single bad thing I’ve been saying about you. To myself. In private.”

Reed didn’t acknowledge the comment. “Are you ready to go back?” he asked.

“Of course,” Johnny said immediately. “I’ve missed it every day.”

“Even if it means leaving your family behind?”

Johnny hesitated. That was true. He thought of you, and your baby girl who would be here so soon - what if he missed the birth entirely? What if you needed him and he wasn’t even on the planet? What if something happened and he wasn’t here to protect you?

“I can see you thinking,” Reed said. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. You’ve been excited to go back, but things are…different now.”

Johnny nodded. Reed was exactly right. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him, to have something here that made Earth a place that was more like a true home. “Can I ask you a question?”

Reed was slightly taken aback. “Of course.”

Johnny sat the suit down and sunk into one of the chairs sitting around the lab. Reed sat across from him - he could tell Johnny had a lot on his mind.

“How are you so calm?” he finally asked his brother in law.

Reed shook his head with a light laugh. “I’m glad you think so, but I certainly don’t feel calm.”

That surprised Johnny. “You don’t?”

“No, of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you kidding? I’ve been panicking for eight months.”

“Seriously?” Johnny asked with a laugh. “You could have fooled me. I’ve been wondering what the hell I’m doing wrong compared to you.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Reed assured him. “You’re going great. I can already see it in you - you’re a dad now.”

That hit Johnny like a shot to the chest. He jerked back in surprise. “What? You think so?”

“I can see it in you clearly,” Reed continued. “You’ve been making the transition since you found out. You take care of both your girls like there’s nothing more precious in the world. You put the crib together yourself - I can’t say I did the same,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, but you were in here building that,” Johnny motioned towards the table you’d laid on countless times by now. “You made that to make sure the babies are safe.”

“I did,” Reed agrees. “Sue would have liked me to build the crib.”

Johnny laughed. He was feeling looser, the longer he sat and talked to Reed. Two soon-to-be fathers. The only other man who knew what Johnny was going through right now.

The atmosphere turned quiet. There was something in the air just waiting to be spoken.

“I’m terrified to leave her,” Johnny finally says. “Both of them. I’m scared out of my mind. What if she goes into labor without me?” The thought made his chest hurt. “You know, I’ve waited so long to go back to space, and now I’m going - have to go back - and here I am, wondering if I really want to.”

“You’ve never had something you cared about like this here.”

That was true, Johnny realized. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t…I don’t know how to handle it.”

“There’s no easy way,” Reed said - that wasn’t exactly what Johnny had been hoping to hear. “Being in love is irrational and all consuming.”

Being in love.

It hit him like a ton of bricks. He was in love with you. Yeah, he knew that - but did he know it? You hadn’t been together that long, hadn’t even known each other that long before you got pregnant, all things considered. Now, for the first time, he was struck with the uncontrollable urge to run out and buy a ring, to make you his wife, Mrs. Storm.

He had never had those thoughts about anyone before.

“Johnny?” Reed asked, sensing the emotional turmoil in the other man’s head. “You alright?”

Johnny nodded, distracted. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.”

“What’s going on in there?”

Johnny thought for a moment. Then - “Do you want to go on an errand with me?”

You weren’t completely surprised when you got out of the bath and Johnny was gone. There was a mess around the bedroom, all the transmissions Johnny was going through scattered around the turntable. You didn’t touch them - there was usually a method to his madness.

You went through your post-shower routine, doing your hair and putting lotion on your skin - and Johnny still wasn’t back. That was a little strange. It was late.

You were in your pajamas (an oversized shirt and panties), about to go to bed without Johnny at all, when he came abruptly through the bedroom door. The nervous energy was coming off of him in waves - it was clear there was something going on.

“Baby,” he said, moving straight to sit next to you on the bed. He was dressed in his F4 t-shirt and pants from earlier.

“Johnny?” you said, confused and bleary eyed. You waited for him for so long, you were about ready to pass out for the night. “Where were you?”

He held your hands, his thumb rubbing the back of one of them. “Reed wanted to see me,” he said. “He finished the new suits. We’re going to space, to try to negotiate with Galactus.”

The news both did and didn’t come as a shock. You’d known this was inevitable from the night the herald came, but it hadn’t been set until now. “When?”

“Soon,” he said. “I don’t know. Very soon.”

“I can’t go to space with you?” you asked, only half-joking and looking at him with big sad eyes. “Both of us?” You took his hand and laid it over the bump.

Johnny chuckled, looking affectionately down at where his hand rested. He rubbed circles against your belly. “I wish you could,” he said.

You sat in a comfortable silence for a minute.

“Do you think it’s going to work?” you asked him nervously. “Do you think there’s hope of getting through to this…Galactus? Of saving Earth?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to anyone,” Johnny said firmly. He looked you directly in the face when he said it, flames flickering in his blue eyes.

You trusted him with your whole heart. You knew if Johnny said he was going to make something happen - or keep it from happening - he was going to keep his word.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” you said.

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“You don’t know what’s gonna happen,” you reminded him gently. His hand stayed protectively where it sat, while your hand rested on the side of his face. He tilted his head, leaning into your touch, letting you cradle his handsome face.

“I just want to know if the surfboard is part of her body,” he said like he was dead serious, and you burst into laughter.

“Johnny Storm, do you ever take anything seriously?” you teased. 

He smiled, turning his head to place a kiss on your palm. “Just you.”

Your chest felt warm. You could feel your love for Johnny spreading through your body like the very flames that lived within him.

“There was…” Johnny began, but stopped himself. You didn’t interrupt, wanting to know where he was going. “There was something I wanted to say. Or…ask you?”

Your brows furrowed. “What?”

He gave your belly one last caress before he let go. He stood, pulling your weary body to sit on the edge of the bed in front of him. You were confused, but watched him with an anxious excitement anyway.

Johnny looked nervous. You waited as he stood there, gathering his thoughts - you could practically see the steam coming off his head.

Finally, he said your name. “I just…had something to say.”

“Say it,” you encouraged, laughing lightly - nervous.

He smiled softly at you. “Do you know how much I love you?”

The question caught you off guard. “I think so?” you said - because what kind of question was that really?

“I’m in love with you,” Johnny said, looking at you so intensely it nearly took your breath away. “Completely, wholeheartedly, in love with you. I’ve known for a long time, but it didn’t hit me until today, not- not like this. It’s been there, I just never saw it for what it was.”

“Johnny…” you whispered. “What-“

“I needed to say it,” he said. “I know we haven’t been together that long, all things considered - and I knew I love you, I know we’ve been saying it for a while - but it hit me today, hard, like Ben punched me in the chest or something. Like I’d never known anything, nothing has ever made more sense, than how much I love you. Both of you.”

You were in shock, tears welling up in your eyes. The things he was saying were overwhelming, and completely out of nowhere.

“I just had to do this before we leave.”

“Do what-“

You cut yourself off with a gasp as Johnny dropped to his knee in front of you. He reached his right hand into his pocket and pulled out a small black velvet box.

“Johnny-“ you gasped, your hands flying up to cover your mouth, your eyes wide.

“Marry me,” he said, flipping the box open to reveal a beautiful (way too expensive looking) diamond ring. His deep eyes bore into yours, and it’s like he was communicating every ounce of love in his body to you. It left you shaking. “Be my wife. Spend the rest of forever with me- as a family. My family.”

You were so stunned, the words didn’t come right away. Johnny reached forward with his free hand and wiped the tears you hadn’t noticed off your cheeks with his thumb. “Will you marry me?” he asked, softer this time, his eyes almost pleading.

You nodded. Slowly at first, then faster as more tears spilled down your face. You were pretty sure you would be sobbing even without the extra hormones. “Yes. Oh my god. Are you serious? Yes.”

Johnny’s face broke into a huge grin. He took your shaking left hand in his and slid the ring on your finger - a perfect fit. How did he know?

“You have made me,” he began, “the happiest man in the universe.”

You laughed through the tears, wrapping your arms around Johnny and pulling him into you. He hugged you back with just as much love, lifting you with little effort and spinning you in a circle. You couldn’t stop giggling, the joy overflowing from within you.

He wrapped his arm around your lower back and dipped you backwards as he kissed you passionately, something like from one of those romantic movies you used to watch. You cradled his face with both hands while he held you, communicating just how happy you’d made him by the way he kissed you breathless.

When he stood you back up, his arms still wrapped around you, you laid your foreheads together, just looking into each other’s eyes. You could have gotten lost in that sea of blue.

Mrs. Storm had a ring to it.

You couldn’t wipe the smile off your face after the proposal. The ring glittered on your hand like a star plucked directly from the sky, just for you. You knew that’s exactly what Johnny would have done if it were possible.

You waddled out into the kitchen, the pancake craving striking once again. It was a good day - you felt light as air, metaphorically at least. It was a low pain day, the baby didn’t have a foot shoved into your spine, and you had an appetite.

Too busy mixing the batter together, you didn’t hear Sue come in. She startled you a little when she came up next to you, and you both laughed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s not your fault,” you said. “I was too preoccupied by the pancakes.”

“Craving?”

“Oh yeah.”

Sue smiled. “It’s been pretzel sticks for me, can you believe that? I probably eat a bag myself every couple of days.”

You laughed - it was relatable. “Sounds like Johnny with his Lucky Charms.”

“That’s what I said!” she smiled. She moved around you, grabbing a couple of plates. “Make me some too, would you?”

“Yeah, of course.” You made a little extra batter, mixing it up well before dumping the first pancakes into the pan.

A few minutes later, you and Sue were both leaning against the counter holding a plate of steaming pancakes doused in syrup. You took the first bite and closed your eyes, an unintentional moan escaping your lips. “God. So good.”

“They are,” Sue said after swallowing her first bite. “You make a mean pancake.”

You chatted lightly with Sue until you’d both finished your plates. She helped you wash them up, then leaned back against the counter. She smoothed  her hand over her belly as she looked at some papers she had brought with her before putting them away.

“Where’s Reed?” you asked, just wanting to break the silence again.

“Lab,” she said. “Working on things for the mission. I was just about to head down to join him.”

You nodded. “Johnny wanted to work on his cars today. I told him go - it’s not like he’ll have much time for them for a little while.”

Sue smiled at you. “You’re really good to him, you know that?”

You were surprised, both by the randomness of the comment and the sentimentality of it. She had never said anything like that to you before.

“You- you think so?” you asked, unsure of what else to say. You certainly weren’t close with Sue - she was older than Johnny, and was usually too busy to sit and chat with you outside of group settings.

“I can see it,” she said. She sighed. “You know, Johnny…after our mother died, I helped raise him. He’s my closest family - he’s important to me. I always wanted to see him find a girl to settle down with, to be happy with…I’m glad he found you. I’m glad it’s you.”

Utterly speechless, you gaped at her, your eyes teary. Hadn’t you done enough crying? When you finally picked your jaw up off the floor and shook yourself out of it, you spoke. “I- thank you. Johnny means everything to me, I- I want to make him happy.”

Sue reached forward and took your hand in hers. She held it under the light, the ring shining, and smiled. “He loves you,” she said. “I know you know this, but…I don’t know if you understand how much without knowing him the way I do.”

Your heart thudded. You thought of Johnny - and how you loved him, too. How he had told you just how much he loved you last night - and showed you after. “I love him too,” you said. “More than anything. Him and the baby.”

“He’s going to be the best dad, you know,” she smiled, dropping your hand. She looked down at your stomach now - you were standing practically bump to bump. 

You felt a strong kick at that moment. You gasped, placing your hand over the spot where you’d felt it - and noticed Sue had done the same thing to her own belly.

“You felt that too?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

You still felt it. It’s like she was trying to get comfortable in one specific position. You took Sue’s hand in yours and placed it where the movement was for her to feel.

She looked up at you, her expression unreadable. Leaving her hand on your belly, she took your hand with her free one, and pressed it against the same exact spot on her own body. There was nothing from either of you, and then-

A kick. Two kicks. One from each side at the exact same time. Your wide eyes met Sue’s own.

“How interesting…” she finally said as you parted, as if in total awe.

“The cousins are excited to meet each other, it looks like,” you said lightly with an awkward laugh, but even you knew that was bizarre.

“Yeah, must be,” she said - but it was clear her mind was working. A moment later, she seemingly shook it off. “Anyway…that’s what I wanted to say, because I haven’t said it enough. You’re my sister. You’re good for my brother. You make him happy- he loves you, and I love you.”

She pulled you into a hug. “Welcome to the family, officially.”

The day of the launch came upon you faster than you expected. You woke up that morning sick to your stomach, and it had nothing to do with the baby. But you knew this had to be done - they were saving the world.

You had spent the night before wrapped in Johnny’s arms. He’d wanted to make love to you, as he put it, wanted to be as close to you as possible before he left. He didn’t get as much sleep as you would have liked him to before the launch.

Johnny held you on the bottom floor of the Baxter Building, dressed in his spacesuit already with the helmet sitting by his feet. He kissed you with every bit of passion in his body - which was a lot. You were going to miss your fiancè so badly, you didn’t care what anyone thought about the two of you practically making out in front of everyone.

Reed walked by, tapping Johnny on the shoulder to let him know it was time to go. He pulled back, his lips kiss swollen and pink. He grinned at you, but there was sadness behind his eyes. You couldn’t muster up as enthusiastic of a smile.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Johnny said. “You’re going to be fine. Herbie is going to take care of you, you have a whole team-“

“I’m not worried about me,” you cut him off. “I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he said. “We can take care of ourselves, I promise you. We’re going to go fix this mess.” He pulled you back into another lingering kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Johnny,” you said. You rested your hands on his cheeks, the diamond on your finger flashing. Reporters ran over to start taking photos - you knew that would be in the magazines tomorrow. You didn’t pay them any mind. You and Johnny might as well have been the only people in the room.

He placed both hands on your 8 months pregnant stomach, looking down at it. “Please take care of yourself. If anything is weird, tell Herbie and he’ll call your doctors.”

“I got it, Johnny,” you said. You’d been over this countless times in the days leading up to this. “I’ll be careful. I’ll be alright.”

Johnny nodded. Then he knelt down on the ground, surprising you. The camera flashes kept going off as he kissed your bump, still holding it with so much affection it nearly took your breath away - and completely distracted you from how much attention was on the two of you.

“I love you, baby girl,” he said to your belly. “You better stay cookin’ in there for me. Don’t come out until Daddy gets back from space, okay?” She kicked his hand and he smiled.

You giggled. “I think she hears you.”

Johnny stood and wrapped his arms around you again. He pulled you into one final kiss, full of emotion and want. “I’ve gotta go,” he said, once he’d reluctantly parted from you. “Please be safe. I love you. Both of you. I’ll be back as soon as we can manage.”

You nodded, tears brimming in your eyes. “I love you too, Johnny.”

He kissed you on the forehead and then he was picking up his helmet, walking backwards for a little while to look at you as long as he could. He smiled, waved, then turned and joined the others, leaving you alone.

Well, ‘alone’. You were surrounded by people. You joined the crowd, carefully making your way to somewhere you could have a good view.

Johnny, Sue, Reed, and Ben walked the walkway to the spaceship. This was your first time seeing Johnny go to space since you’d been together, and as much as you missed him and didn’t want him to go, it filled you with pride. Your Johnny really was incredible, super powers or not. You held your bump protectively as you watched.

They were being filmed as they made their way onto the elevator. At the top, they walked onto the ship. Johnny paused right before boarding - he looked around until he found a camera. He stared directly into the camera and mouthed your name, with a blown kiss and an emphatic I love you.

The crowd awwed, and you could hardly see Johnny disappearing onto the ship through the tears in your eyes. You rubbed your belly - You see that, little one? Your daddy loves us more than anything.

The countdown began, and your stomach tightened in knots. You knew how dangerous launches and landings could be.

“3…2…1.”

The ship took off, rising into the air. Your heart ached as you watched them go, knowing it would be a long time before you saw Johnny again. You would see him again - you weren’t entertaining any other possibilities.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a successful launch.”

You couldn’t believe he was gone, they were really gone. Before you could dwell too much on their absence and how much you would miss every one of them, you turned and let Herbie lead you out of the crowd and back upstairs.

It wasn’t hard to find Galactus, not really. They were able to track the herald straight to him.

Upon arrival, she greeted them on their ship.

“Galactus will see you. All of you…you should not have come.”

Now, standing before Galactus - a giant, possessing more power than they had even pictured - they attempted to negotiate. But some prices are too high to pay.

“I will spare your world,” Galactus said with finality, “in exchange for both the boy and the girl.”

“What?” Sue said, incredulous. “No.”

“Absolutely not,” Johnny said, looking around at the others for validation that they agreed. “No. No way.”

“They are connected. They both possess the power of cosmic, and they together will inherit this cursed throne.”

What?

“They’re just- they’re normal,” Reed lied nervously. “We would know. I tested them myself.”

Galactus leaned in, eyes glowing purple. Sue grabbed her stomach at that moment, groaning in pain. She looked around at the others in a panic - and for once, Johnny’s blood went cold with fear.

“What are you doing to her??” he yelled.

“You won’t have our planet,” Reed said, “and you will never have our children!”

But it was happening. Whatever Galactus had done - Sue was in labor.

The pain came when you were home alone. You’d been in the kitchen, mixing up the batter to make your biggest craving - a chocolate cake. You felt fine, good even - but then a horrible pain stretched across your stomach.

You wrapped your hand around it, holding onto the counter for support as you cried out. Herbie sped into the room, making what you could best describe as concerned beeps.

“Herbie,” you said, your voice strained. “I think- I think something’s wrong. I think we need to call somebody.”

Herbie beeped again, then took off - contacting your medical team, you hoped. The pain was getting worse, coming in fast. You figured you had to be having contractions at least once every two minutes - this was the real deal. And Johnny was gone.

You couldn’t help it - you panicked. You lowered yourself to the floor amidst the pain of another contraction, and you sobbed. You were terrified. Of all the scenarios you’d come up with, doing this alone hadn’t been one of them.

It was only minutes later when a team of medical professionals came bursting into the room - Johnny and Reed had left you with a team ready at a moment’s notice in case of emergencies. It was a coveted position - every medical professional in the city wanted to be involved in the birth of the two newest Fantastic Four members. You didn’t like your child being seen as a spectacle.

You were screaming through another contraction, a white knuckled grip on the side of the counter as it passed through you. The doctors and nurses got to work fast. It was humiliating having a stranger up your skirt, but you had to have a cervical check.

It hurt, but the pain was already everywhere. It was the look on the nurse’s face after she checked you that scared you, though.

“The baby is coming right now,” she said. “We have to do it here.”

Back on the ship, things were progressing. Sue was in the back, laboring in zero gravity. Ben was steering the ship while Johnny and Reed helped.

“Do you think-“ Johnny asked Reed quietly, but he didn’t even have to finish his question.

“She might be,” Reed said seriously. Johnny felt like he might throw up. 

“We need to strap her down,” Reed said, back into action, moving through the ship towards his wife.

“Strapping her down,” Johnny moved to help.

“Do not strap me down!” she yelled, pushing Johnny away - who quickly backed off.

“You need gravity to push,” Reed told her, helping her lay back on the table.

“This is not how it’s supposed to be,” she said, breathing through the pain. Sue was remarkably brave, but right now, she had to admit she was scared.

“I know, but we’re gonna make it work.” Reed helped to hold her down, multitasking while he helped Ben and Johnny, concerned they didn’t have enough fuel to make it home. Their only option was a slingshot maneuver - which they put into action. 

“He’s coming,” Sue announced. “He’s coming.”

Her pants kicked off, it was time to start pushing. She pushed and pushed as the ship made its journey.

Sue became invisible. Reed held her - it was silent. She reappeared, and-

A cry sounded through the air. A tiny little hand raising high - and a beautiful baby boy curled in Ben’s hand. He held him out to Reed, who took the precious little guy in his arms - bringing him to his mother. Sue held her baby boy in her arms, Reed cradled around them both.

Johnny came floating back from the front of the ship. His blue eyes were wide as he saw his nephew for the first time - a perfect baby.

He thought of you. He thought of his daughter. And he prayed you were both okay, that he hadn’t missed the birth. That Galactus didn’t want his daughter or his nephew. That he’d get home and you’d run into his arms, healthy and still pregnant.

But for now, he caressed the chubby cheek of the baby with his index finger, and looked into the exhausted eyes of his sister - one of the strongest women he’d ever known.

Franklin Richards was here.

The only coherent thought you could muster was I wish Johnny was here. It repeated through your head, like a prayer, like the ship might descend that very second and he’d come running to your side if you wished for it hard enough.

But you were on your own, about to give birth on the living room floor without your boyfriend. In a room full of strangers looking at your most intimate parts, Herbie was your only friend. He stood nearby, attempting to be a comfort. It worked somewhat.

“It’s time to push,” the doctor said between your legs. “I need you to push hard on every contraction.”

You nodded. You could do this. You may not have been a superhero, or a genius, but you were strong and you could get through this, with or without Johnny. You felt angry in that moment, angry at Johnny for not being here, angry at him for leaving you, angry at him for getting you pregnant in the first place. It wasn’t rational, but it was there.

At the start of the next contraction, you gritted your teeth and pushed. You pushed with everything you had, the pain shooting through your body like electricity. When you couldn’t take it anymore you let go, falling back against the pillows they had put behind you and breathing heavily.

You’d heard pushing could last for an hour or more sometimes - but that wasn’t the case here. This baby was coming now. Another contraction flared and you pushed down again, screaming though the pain and the pressure.

Three pushes later, and the doctor spoke up excitedly from below. “She’s crowning,” she said. “Just one more good push for me, you’ve got this.”

The next contraction crashed into you and you mustered up every bit of energy in your exhausted, sore body to push as hard as you could. You screamed through it, a deep, primal scream.

The pain was gone. An immense relief left behind, you fell back against the makeshift bed and breathed. You opened your teary eyes, a nurse using a cloth to wipe the sweat off your brow.

Then you heard it. A cry. Your heart stopped in your chest as the doctor handed the bundle to you.

You took it, pushing the blanket down below her little chin to see her full face. She was gorgeous. Johnny’s little twin for sure. She opened her blue eyes and looked up at you - you swore you had never felt love in your life like you did in that moment.

Celeste Storm was here.

Early days with Celeste were difficult, yet blissful. You only wished for Johnny, that he could be there to experience it with you (and help a bit). Herbie was a great help, essentially waiting on you hand and foot while you recovered.

It has been a month since the births when the ship descended back home.

Johnny had been in a perpetual state of anxiety since Galactus. He was worried sick about you, to the point that Reed, Sue, and Ben were worried about him.

His stomach was in knots as they descended, and not just from the motion of the spacecraft. As they landed, he could see the crowd running to greet them, and he wondered where you were amongst it. You had to be here, right?

People were running from all over the city to see their return. There was no way you weren’t part of it. His eyes scanned the crowd who still looked like ants, as if he could see you from this distance.

“She’s okay,” Sue assured Johnny, placing her hand on his arm while the other cradled baby Franklin. “She’s a strong girl. She’s okay.”

Johnny just nodded. He wanted to believe his sister, because he wanted that to be true more than anything.

They rode the elevator down together. He had never been so quiet before - his mind was running too quickly to speak. Reed patted him on the back from behind him.

When the elevator landed, they could hear the deafening cheers. Ben walked off first, then Johnny, who scanned the crowd immediately. He didn’t see you - but maybe you were waiting inside where they would stop to speak? Yeah, that made sense.

Reed and Sue were behind him with Franklin, and the crowd went crazy the second they saw them. They smiled politely at the crowd, Sue holding the baby close to her chest while Reed had his arm around her.

They were led into the Baxter Building where the press were waiting. They mobbed them, and Johnny was so overwhelmed by the flashing lights, yelling voices, and no sight of you even in here, that he started to feel panicked.

“Give them space!”

“They’re ready for you,” Reed was told, with a gesture towards the podium. None of them wanted to speak. There was no good news to share. All Johnny wanted to do was see his fiancée.

Reed took the podium, glancing back over his shoulder at the rest of the team. Johnny continued scanning the crowd, not seeing a single sight of you. He was feeling more sick by the second. Where were you? It wasn’t like you to miss this. What if something had happened to you while he was gone and no one told him?

Something was wrong.

“I’m sorry we don’t have a prepared statement,” Reed said, sparking unrest in the crowd. Everyone raised their hand for a question.

“Welcome back,” one of the reporters said. “Can you walk us through how you defeated Galactus?”

It was silent.

“Um…” Reed said, looking back to Johnny and Ben for some kind of help.

“We didn’t,” Ben said simply.

“Not…yet!” Johnny said, with little enthusiasm. “Not yet, we didn’t.”

The crowd murmured. This wasn’t going well.

“What do you mean you didn’t?”

“We attempted to negotiate,” Reed said. “But Galactus…he asked too high a price.”

“Well, what does he want?” “What did he ask?”

Reed felt sick. Johnny really thought he might be. They exchanged a look - fear, in both of their eyes. Would this put a target on their backs? On their children’s backs? Reed looked back out into the crowd.

“He asked for our children,” he said, gesturing to Sue and Johnny. Sue stood behind, holding Franklin protectively as more worry spread through the crowd. “He said give us both children, and I will spare the Earth.” A murmur rose in the crowd. “We said no, obviously. We said no.”

Everyone started speaking at once.

“You said no?”

“Would giving Galactus the children save us?”

Done with this and with fire burning beneath Johnny’s skin, the four turned to leave.

“Wait, just answer this, answer this!” someone called. They stopped and turned. “Are we safe?”

“Are we safe?” Reed repeated. “I don’t know.”

The crowd began speaking at once again, upset. Ben waved Reed off and they left the room, the reporters yelling after them.

“She wasn’t there,” Johnny said to the others once they were safely on the elevator. “She wasn’t…there.”

“She’s probably in the house,” Sue said gently. “Maybe she isn’t feeling well, or couldn’t come down in time. Herbie has her.”

Johnny nodded, but he didn’t feel much better. 

With the spacesuit stripped off, he was left in his F4 t-shirt and sweatpants. When the elevator doors opened to the house, Johnny rushed in, looking for any sign of you.

It didn’t take him long.

You sat on the couch, a blanket wrapped around your lap. The TV was on to the news broadcast of the landing. You looked up at him and the others as they entered, a teary smile on your face.

“Johnny,” you said, your voice thick with emotion.

But it was the bundle in your arms that stopped him short. Slowly, cautiously, almost like he was scared, he approached you.

And he fell to his knees.

The baby girl in your arms opened her blue eyes and peered over at him. She was beautiful - more beautiful than he ever could have pictured. Perfection. He reached out a shaking hand and laid it on her, like he couldn’t believe she was real.

“…Oh my god,” he said.

Totally forgotten by him, Reed, Sue, and Ben stood behind, watching the moment. Johnny leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the baby’s head, before looking up at you with wonder in his eyes.

“She’s here,” he said, like he was trying to wrap his mind around it. Saying it didn’t make it feel any more real - he felt like he was dreaming.

“She was born about a month ago,” you said gently, softly running your fingers over the baby’s fine hair. “Shortly after you left.”

“A month?” Johnny asked. He turned to look at the others - who seemed to be thinking the same thing he was. Galactus.

Turning back to you, Johnny rested a hand on the side of your face and pulled you into a gentle kiss. Then he was focused on the child again, his child, his baby girl. He was in awe.

“She’s beautiful,” he said, his fingertips just barely trailing over her smooth skin. She shifted, reached a little hand up, and wrapped her fingers around one of Johnny’s. His heart stuttered, and he choked out the quietest sob.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking up at you. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, I- if I had known this would happen I wouldn’t have left you, I swear.”

“It’s okay, Johnny,” you said softly. You ran your fingers through his blonde hair. “You couldn’t have known.”

He laid his head against you, gazing down at his daughter. She really was incredible - he’d gotten to see her the one time, but it was nothing like this. It was nothing like seeing his child, here, earthside.

“Do you want to hold her?” you asked him. It seemed like he was too stunned to ask himself.

He looked at you with his blue eyes wide. “Really?”

You laughed. “Johnny, she’s your daughter.”

He nodded. Yeah, she was. And he could do this. You lifted her towards him and he slowly reached out, taking the bundle from your arms. The transfer was so slow and careful, and once he had her he cradled her close to his chest. Johnny held her, his strong arms now so delicate with his baby girl. A single tear trailed down his cheek.

They gazed at each other, both mesmerized by the other. Celeste cooed softly, making her little baby noises, and Johnny’s heart cracked. Oh, she had him wrapped around her little finger from day one.

“Hi, baby girl,” he said quietly, only for her. “I’m…I’m your daddy. I can’t believe you’re here. I’ve been so excited to meet you.”

Celeste cooed again, her little arms moving jerkily, still not used to moving her own body. She looked all around, but kept returning to Johnny’s face. She reached up and touched his nose, and he chuckled.

He was a natural with her. He looked back over his shoulder at the others finally, who all looked like they might also cry. He waved them over. They approached the three of you, peering down at the baby.

“Oh, she’s perfect,” Sue said.

“Nice job,” Reed said, patting Johnny on the shoulder with a brotherly smile.

“Hi there,” Ben said, looking down at her. She gave him the biggest smile that he couldn’t help but return.

But baby Franklin was watching her closely. Johnny turned her so she could see her cousin, and the babies reached for one another. Sue and Johnny held them closer as they reached for each other, fingers brushing together. Like they had a connection of some kind, drawn together.

“Interesting,” Reed mumbled. He would need to run some tests - there was a link here, and he needed to find out what it was.

After the tearful reunion, everyone returned to their own quarters. They were all exhausted and relieved to be back home. Johnny sat on the bed, holding baby Celeste while she slept. You moved throughout the room, gathering pajamas and a clean diaper.

“The surfboard is not part of her body, by the way,” Johnny said randomly.

You laughed - “What?”

“I just needed to know! I was curious.”

You smiled as you moved back over to the bed. “Well, I’m glad you found out,” you said. Johnny chuckled.

He told you all about their trip while he helped you change Celeste and put her to bed. He told you everything - the flight, seeing Galactus, chasing the herald and running away. Galactus wanting the babies - which you’d heard on the broadcast. It worried you sick, but he promised there was nothing to worry about.

He wouldn’t let anyone touch a single hair on Celeste or Franklin’s heads, that was for sure.

In the days after their return, everyone was hard at work trying to figure out what was to be done about Galactus. Johnny didn’t want you and Celeste out of his sight, so you spent a lot of time sitting in Reed’s lab with the baby girl on your lap, or doing tummy time on the floor with Franklin.

The truth was, they didn’t know what to do. Giving the children to Galactus was completely off the table, obviously, but so was putting Earth in danger. They suggested blowing the ship up, and running, but neither would work. There had to be something to be figured out. You just wished you could be more help.

“Reed, you wanna take us through what you have?” Sue asked.

“What I have?” he turned. “What I have is nothing.”

“Nothing? Did you say nothing?” Johnny asked. He glanced at you where you sat feeding Celeste.

“I have the samples from Galactus’ ship,” Reed said, handing out some papers for you all to see. “All evidence suggests he predates our universe, our reality. You could take 10 years to understand his composition, let alone his existence.”

“So you’re talking about a god?” Sue asked.

“I’m talking about something beyond our experience. An unknowable life, who imagines Franklin and Celeste as his successors in possessing some kind of cosmic power.”

“That can’t be true, right?” Ben asked, looking at the others. “You ran all those tests.”

“I have, but I don’t know what can or can not be. I’m not sure of anything.” He was getting frustrated. “Celeste has the X-gene, Franklin does not - at least, not that I saw.” He turned, walking back to the chalkboard. “I have nothing. I have nothing!”

You had never known Reed to have nothing. The idea scared you more than you wanted to admit. No one had anything, no one knew how to keep the babies and Earth safe.

Since the trip, Johnny had spent every moment he wasn’t with Celeste hard at work trying to decode the herald’s language. He knew that could give them answers, and that’s what they needed more than anything.

You spent your days caring for Celeste while the Four were hard at work. Johnny spent as much time as he could with the two of you, and it killed him to be away from her, but you both knew the fate of the world hung in the balance.

Reed ran seemingly endless tests on both Franklin and Celeste. No new answers were coming forth.

“It’s getting bad out there,” Ben said one night as the family was in the living room together. Johnny held Celeste, who was wearing a little Flame on! onesie. Ben turned the TV on.

“It seems to me they have no plan for Galactus,” some idiot on a talk show was saying. “We as a society have to reckon with the idea that the Fantastic Four could save us today, but they choose not to. The idea is simple - Reed Richards and Sue Storm, and Johnny Storm and that girl of his, hand over their babies and we all live.”

Sue blew the TV up. No one had a problem with that. Out on the balcony, there was a mob visible right outside the front doors.

“Give us the babies!”

“They’re scared,” Reed said.

“Who isn’t scared?” Johnny asked. He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder as he patted a sleeping Celeste on his chest. “That…is scary.”

Everyone was stressed. The discussion was constantly going in circles, no one coming up with anything new.

“Right now we don’t have a workable plan, and the clock is ticking. So their plan looks good. It’s…available,” Reed said.

“What are you saying?” Sue asked.

“I’m not…saying anything.”

The baby monitor lit up as Franklin started crying. Sue left to go attend to him, Reed following behind her. You were left at the table sitting silently with Johnny and Ben.

“Let me take her,” you said gently, taking Celeste from Johnny’s arms. He let you take her, although he was reluctant to let her go. He never felt like she was properly safe unless she was in his arms.

You were in the kitchen, making yourself busy, when Sue approached you with Franklin in her arms. 

“Come with me,” she said.

The mob outside was angry. They held anti-F4 signs, yelled horrible things, demanding the babies. 

And you followed Sue through the crowd, Celeste clutched tightly to your chest and Franklin to hers. You knew Sue wouldn’t let anything happen to any of you. Everyone stared as you walked through, making it to the middle where you stood together.

The crowd looked at the two of you expectantly. You weren’t sure where Sue was going with this, but you trusted her.

“I wanted to introduce you to someone,” she began. “This is our son, Franklin. And this is his cousin, Celeste. There’s been a lot of talk about both of them.” She stopped to compose herself. “Most of you know me. You know my story. When Johnny and I were kids, our parents were in a car crash. Our dad was driving, and he lived, but our mom didn’t. I know what it’s like to be a part of a family that was torn apart. Our dad wasn’t always a great father, but he wanted to be. He did his best. He wanted us to be together because that’s what a family is. It’s about fighting for something bigger than yourself. It’s about connecting to something bigger than yourself.”

Celeste wiggled in your arms. You and Sue both turned, seeing Johnny, Reed, and Ben coming out behind you. You smiled tearfully at Johnny - and he looked at you like he was proud.

“It’s about having something bigger than yourself,” Sue continued. “And the four of us already do because we have you. You know, our mom always used to say, Susie, for you, I would move heaven and earth. And we would do that for you. We will not sacrifice our children for this world. But we will not sacrifice this world for our children. We will face this together. We will fight this together. And we will defeat this together. As a family.”

The crowd clapped, and you wiped a tear away. Sue’s speech had been beautiful, and it seemed to have gotten through to everyone. You were filled with relief for Celeste - you’d barely slept an hour since the public turned on you all, terrified someone would manage to break in.

As soon as he could, Johnny had his arms back on you, leading you back inside. 

“That was amazing,” he said, “and so, so reckless.”

“But it worked?” you offered. He smiled at you, leaning down and kissing you.

“Yeah. Looks like it did.”

You were walking back to the elevator as a family when Reed spoke up.

“Archimedes,” he said. You all turned. “The law of levers. Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth. We are going to move heaven and earth.”

That was something. You took a step closer to him.

“Well, just earth,” he continued. “Sue…you solved it. We are going to move earth to a place that Galactus will never find us.”

With an idea, plans were underway. It would take the cooperation of the entire globe to pull off - but they thought it could work.

You spent as much time with Johnny and Celeste as you could. He was an incredible dad, truly. He spent most of his time preparing to put the plan into action, but his favorite time of the day was when he could relax in bed with you.

He laid back, Celeste sleeping on his shirtless chest. He was drowsy himself, his eyes half lidded as he slowly rubbed her back. Fresh out of your shower, you joined him on the bed.

“Ready for me to put her in bed?” you asked him gently.

He cracked an eye open to look at you. “Not just yet. I wanna hold her a little longer.”

You smiled. “Okay.” You laid down on the bed next to him. You looked at the clock just in time to see it strike 8pm, and all the power went out. The global power curfew was in effect to conserve what the bridges would require.

In the dark, you laid your tired head on Johnny’s shoulder. He felt content for the first time in a long time - his family together, a plan in motion. Hope for the future.

He may not know how things were going to turn out, or who Celeste would grow up to be. But he knew as long as he was with his family - they would be okay.

He would make sure of it.

reblogs and comments are so so appreciated!!

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[ssweeterthanfiction]

Blabbermouth

johnny storm x fem!reader content warnings: none! all fluff! summary: on a mission, Johnny gets sprayed with something that makes him way too honest. you try to keep him quiet, but he blurts out all the things he’s been holding back, especially how long he’s been in love with you. wc: 2k

masterlist.

It was supposed to be a standard sweep.

Alien bunker. Low threat. Weird tech, strange symbols, and enough glowing crystals to make Reed’s voice crack with excitement. Johnny had been bored from the start—hovering in the back of the group, tossing a ball of flame between his fingers while Ben kicked open doors and Sue cleared the path.

“I could be on a beach right now,” Johnny muttered, singeing the edge of a scorched blueprint with his pinky. “I deserve to be on a beach.”

“You got terrible sunburn last time,” Sue reminded him without looking back.

“It was a controlled burn.”

The air in the corridor felt stale, like something hadn’t breathed in there for centuries. They moved cautiously through the underground chamber, scanning for trip wires or pressure plates. Nothing. Just strange writing etched into the walls, humming with quiet energy.

That was the first sign something was off.

The second?

The pod.

It sat in the corner of the room. Dull silver, cracked slightly open, leaking a strange violet mist that curled and floated like it had a mind of its own.

Johnny, naturally, poked it.

“Johnny.” Ben snapped, too late.

The mist shot upward in a perfect puff—like a firework in reverse—right into Johnny’s face.

He blinked. Coughed once. Waved the smoke away.

“What the hell was that?” Sue asked, backing up with her arm half-raised for a shield.

“I’m fine,” Johnny said, squinting. “That was barely a breath. Not even spicy. Smelled kind of like lavender.”

Reed was already scanning him with some handheld monitor, muttering calculations under his breath.

Johnny grinned. “Relax, I’m fine. I feel great, actually.”

Then he looked at Sue and said, completely deadpan:

“By the way, your meatloaf sucks.”

A beat of silence.

“Excuse me?” she said, affronted.

“I’ve been pretending for years. I’m sorry. It’s bad. It’s like sadness in a pan.”

And that was when Reed declared the mission over.

The Baxter Building lobby smelled like smoke.

Not the scary kind. No alarms, no shouting, no flaming holes in the ceiling. Just a lingering warmth in the air, like someone had lit a match and forgot to put it out. You looked up from your notebook as the elevator doors slid open and the Fantastic Four filed in, one by one.

Reed had a sample tube in his hand. Sue was wiping green goo off her shoulder with a sigh. Ben was muttering something about “next time, I swear I’m bringing a flamethrower.”

And Johnny…

Johnny was beaming.

“Hey, guys!” he said way too brightly, his eyes going wide when he spotted you. “Look who it is! It’s the prettiest person in the tri-state area. No, the planet. Actually, the universe. Easy.”

You blinked. “Johnny?”

He marched right up to you with zero hesitation and zero regard for personal space.

“Hi,” he said, grin full blast, cheeks flushed. “You look amazing. I love that shirt on you. And your hair? Perfect. Is that a new lipstick? It’s making me go crazy. In a good way.”

“…Are you okay?”

“Me? Never better,” he said, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Got sprayed with a weird puff of alien gas in a tunnel, but I feel fantastic. And also, I’ve been thinking about how your laugh sounds like windchimes, and how it makes my chest all floaty and-”

“Johnny,” Reed interrupted from across the room, brows furrowed behind his glasses. “I need you to sit down.”

“I am sitting down,” Johnny replied.

“You’re standing.”

“Well, emotionally I’m sitting. Emotionally I am in a beanbag chair. Staring at-” he turned back to you, “a literal work of art.”

Sue groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Reed, tell me he didn’t breathe that stuff in.”

“He did,” Reed said grimly. “And based on his current behavior, I’m hypothesizing a psychochemical compound similar to a truth serum. But stronger. Less filtered. More impulsive.”

“Sweet,” Ben said. “So he’s just gonna be running his mouth until it wears off?”

“Correct.”

“Oh, this is gonna be good.”

You turned back to Johnny, whose attention hadn’t wavered once. He looked like a golden retriever that had just discovered affection. His smile was stupid. His eyes were shining. His hair was a little windblown and he had a small scratch on his cheek, but he looked annoyingly good.

“I am so sorry,” you whispered, placing a gentle hand on his arm. “You probably don’t feel like yourself right now.”

“I feel great,” he replied. “Your hand is soft. Did you know that? Have I told you that before?”

“Johnny-”

“And I love that perfume. It’s not too much. It’s, like, subtle but deadly. I would let it kill me.”

“Okay-”

“I’m in love with you, by the way.”

Silence.

Your mouth dropped open.

Sue choked on her coffee.

Ben muttered, “Aw, hell.”

Johnny blinked. “Oh. Should I not have said that?”

The words just…hung there.

Like a balloon popped in the middle of a silent room. Time slowed. You felt your ears go hot, your heart skip. Johnny stood there, blinking at you like he didn’t just say that, like he hadn’t just detonated the emotional equivalent of a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Baxter Building.

“Okay,” you said, voice tight. “Okay. So you’re, uh. You’re drugged. That’s cool. That’s fine. Everything’s cool-”

“I’m not drugged,” Johnny said proudly. “I’m just finally free.”

Sue set down her coffee with a loud clunk. “Johnny, shut up.”

“I won’t!” he declared, like he was giving a toast. “I have been in love with her for, like, six months- maybe more, who’s counting, not me, except that I definitely wrote it in my notebook at one poin=t”

“Oh my God,” you whispered.

“And I didn’t say anything because I thought, hey, you’re normal, right? And I’m me. Human torch. Fire boy. Disaster man. I figured if I told you, you’d run for the hills or laugh or worse. But I think about you all the time.”

“Johnny-”

“Like, all the time. Like, embarrassing amounts. Like I have quotes you’ve said stuck in my head like song lyrics.”

"Johnny can you-"

“I memorized the way you say my name,” Johnny added, eyes wide, honest to God sincere. “You say it different than everyone else. It’s like…softer. Like you’re letting me be someone else when you say it.”

You wanted to disappear.

No. You wanted to melt into the floor.

Or maybe fly into the sun.

But instead you stood there, frozen, while Johnny kept going, still not done.

“One time I flew over your apartment window to make sure you got home okay after that dinner with that guy you didn’t like. And I pretended it was a patrol run, but really I just wanted to make sure your lights turned on. And I saw them. And I smiled for, like, an hour.”

“Oh my God,” Sue muttered into her hands.

“Also!” he added brightly. “I have a collection of vinyls in a box labelled ‘If She Ever Lets Me Kiss Her’ and I will be playing it in full if that moment ever comes."

Ben was red in the face now, shaking with laughter. Reed just looked concerned.

You finally grabbed Johnny’s arm and pulled him into the hallway with a rushed, “I just need to talk to him, excuse us.."

Once the door clicked shut behind you, Johnny looked up at you with a dreamy smile.

“You’re holding my arm,” he said, like it was the best part of his whole day.

You stared at him. “Johnny.”

“Yes?”

“You are not in your right mind.”

“I’m in love.”

“No, you’re chemically compromised.”

He grinned wider. “Wow. That’s my favorite way someone’s ever said that.”

You ran a hand down your face, trying not to laugh. Trying not to feel the way your heart was pounding.

“You can’t just…say all that to me,” you whispered. “You can’t say things like that and not mean them.”

Johnny paused.

The smile softened. For the first time all afternoon, he looked a little serious. A little still.

“I do mean them,” he said quietly. “Every single word.”

You stared.

He wasn’t grinning now. He wasn’t performing. He was just looking at you like you were the only real thing in the room. No sparks. No flash.

Honest.

Open.

Yours, if you wanted.

“But,” he added, blinking slow. “If you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. I can…walk that back. Just, like, tell me, and I’ll make myself forget. Or I’ll pretend this never happened. I’ll do whatever you want. Just…don’t stop being in my life. I need you. Even if I don’t get to have you.”

You didn’t realize you’d moved until your hand was on his face, fingers cradling his jaw, thumb brushing the side of his cheek.

He leaned into it instantly, heat curling off his skin like instinct.

“You didn’t even ask if I feel the same,” you said softly.

“Do you?”

You nodded. Barely.

He didn’t say anything.

He just kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t fiery.

It was warm. Solid. Real.

He tasted like cinnamon gum and something a little electric. He sighed into it like it was the one thing he’d been holding his breath for all this time.

When you pulled back, he looked dazed.

“You taste like strawberry chapstick,” he whispered. “I knew it.”

You laughed, breathless, forehead pressed to his.

“What happens when the serum wears off?”

“I panic. Sue makes fun of me. Reed writes a report. I pretend I don’t remember any of this.”

“And then?”

He looked at you again.

“Then I kiss you again,” he said. “But on purpose this time.”

By the time Johnny woke up the next morning, the serum had long worn off, and the crippling realization of everything he’d said had kicked in.

He lay on his back in his bed, arm over his face, replaying it all in horror:

“I think about kissing you, like, constantly.” “I flew past your window to make sure you were safe.”

He groaned. Out loud. Into the void. Into his pillow.

“Oh my god.”

There was a knock at the door.

He flinched. “Go away.”

The door opened anyway.

“Morning, lover boy,” Ben said, way too cheerfully.

“I said go away.”

“Too bad. I brought company.”

Sue followed behind, sipping her coffee. “How’s our little truth bomb?”

Johnny rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. “Dead. Gone. I’m quitting the team.”

“Aw, come on,” Ben said. “You were adorable. Real rom-com material.”

“Kill me.”

“I didn’t know your middle name was ‘romance’” Sue added.

“I swear to God-”

“And Reed says he’s almost done charting your ‘emotional spike timeline,’” Ben said. “Apparently you got more honest every time she smiled at you.”

“I will burn this entire building down.”

A soft knock interrupted his growing spiral of despair.

You stepped into the doorway, holding two mugs of coffee. One of them had little flame doodles on the side. Johnny peeked over his pillow, eyes wide like a scared cat.

You gave him a slow smile. “You, uh…remember yesterday?”

He groaned. Again. “Please say it was all a dream.”

“Nope.”

You walked over and handed him the flame mug.

“But it was a very good dream for me.”

His ears turned red. Bright red. Like the serum had activated all over again.

You sat gently beside him on the edge of the bed.

“I liked hearing the things you said,” you added. “Even if they were…sudden. And chaotic. And a little concerning.”

“So…you’re not never speaking to me again?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“Definitely not.”

You leaned in, brushed your hand across his cheek, and kissed the corner of his mouth, warm and quick and real.

“I kind of want to hear more of the truth,” you murmured. “This time without the alien chemicals.”

His eyes widened. “You do?”

“Only if you promise to show me that collection of records.”

Johnny grinned, wide and stunned, like he couldn’t believe his luck.

“I’ll even throw in choreography,” he said. “But I’m warning you—it’s a lot of finger guns and dramatic pointing.”

“Perfect.”

And for the first time in twenty-four hours, Johnny Storm thought:

"Yeah. That wasn’t so bad after all."

[inknopewetrust]

Flaming Hearts Fan Club

summary: you, a shit-out of luck reporter, are stuck following around the world’s most self-centered superhero for his fan club’s magazine.

OR

Johnny Storm sees a challenge… and you just can’t help but resist him, right? You’d never kiss and tell.

[Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader] [WC: 12.3k]

Warnings: SMUT! MDNI! 18+ hesitant lovers, love at first sight, both have preconceived notions of one another, fluff, flirtation, Johnny is more than a flirt people! explicit language, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), a lil bit of edging.

Quick Links: Masterlist

“No.”

“Come on,” she begged. Her puppy eyes were glinting in the office lights. “Please. Pretty please? I’ll even say it with a cherry on top.”

“No!” You laughed at her absurdity. You interviewing Johnny Storm on behalf of that magazine? Non-heroic immolation sounded more grand at that very moment.

“What if I tell you I’ll throw in a bonus?”

Swiveling around in your chair, you looked at Lucy’s comically large black cat-eyed glasses and blinked once.

“Nothing on planet Earth could get me to step foot in the Baxter building. The goddamn sky could be falling and I would rather be crushed by the weight of gravity than spend ten minutes in heatwave’s presence.”

“He’s called The Human Torch.”

You nodded unenthused. “Wonderful.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. She laid herself dramatically atop your desk’s perched edge. Her frown deepened; eyes wallowing in self-destruction at your refusal.

“What about a big bonus?”

“Fifty dollars isn’t a “big bonus” no matter how many times you emphasize that it will cover my groceries for a month. I’d rather starve.”

“Good grief,” she wailed. “You’re a lost cause!”

“I’m the lost cause?” You feigned offense. “You are all in love with the same womanizing astronaut who spontaneously bursts into flames and cries hero when he destroys ten apartment buildings with a shallow “sorry!” You are lost causes.”

“Maybe you actually have a giant crush on him and you just don’t want all us girls to know about it.”

“Mhm,” you feigned and turned back to your work.

Materials laid askew before you in the most unorganized manner. Articles half edited remained inked in red while photographs of worthy news were plagued by post-it notes with reminders of what, where, and why.

Lucy walked around your desk. Her fingers gliding along the top of it before stretching out in observation.

“I think you actually like him,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is it the eyes? They’re so blue that they just swallow you whole like the sea. Or! Or is it that he’s a funny guy? I love men who can make me laugh.”

“Yeah, well,” you scoffed, “you laugh at everyone’s jokes so it’s not that impressive.”

“But he’s a hero! And a rich one—you see the tower? And the car… don’t even get me started on the car.”

You hummed. “Every girl just wants to be picked up in an invisible floating object.”

She narrowed her eyes accusingly. “Do you just hate fun or what?”

Shrugging, you picked up a photo and held it to the light. Lucy took you in as you distracted yourself from answering her accusatory question.

By all standards of the word, Lucy thought you fit the definition of “beautiful woman” but your beauty stumped her with your lack of social life. You had no husband, no boyfriend, no guys circling on the side. You lived alone in a decent apartment where your late nights in the office were more important than getting home at a reasonable hour to someone willing to treat you right.

You were good at your job—great, even. But you were lonely and even a single star in the farthest galaxy could see it.

Lucy wasn’t implying that Johnny Storm was going to sweep you off your feet or ride in on a golden carriage to save you from a desolate nature. You weren’t going to fall in love with him after one interview. She took your vocal objection to as a win, however. Getting you out of your comfort zone, exploring something new, and hell, he just happened to be the attractive guy at the subject of your piece.

It was different, new, and it was perfect for you.

“$300.”

You kept your eyes glued to the photograph.

“$350,” Lucy propositioned instead.

“$400?”

Your face curled up in polite decline. “I mean, I’d go through so much trouble. Not to mention the traffic and then the extra fare for the train ride home… I’m losing free time and precious seconds I could be completing other articles for Friday’s edition…”

“$500 extra, final offer.”

Dropping the photograph, you folded your arms in front of you seriously.

“There are twenty other girls who would love to be an inch away from his breathing space. Why are you asking me?”

Lucy gawked, looking around the cubicles for other reporters to share an incredulous look but no one dared look at their boundary-crossing boss. Her curly black hair whipped back around to you in seriousness.

“They don’t have a spect of talent that you do. And besides, what story is going to benefit from a fan writing about their idol or someone they wish to become their husband?”

“You think the other girls would try to… you know, sleep with him?”

“I think every person who had a mutual attraction with Johnny Storm would try and fuck him.”

“Jesus,” you muttered. “We’re at work you know.”

“I know you won’t though,” she smiled mischievously. “Even though you won’t admit he’s cute.”

“Lucy,” you sighed heavily. You put a hand to your forehead as if she was stressing you out.

“But I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I mean get it where you can.”

“I’m a professional,” you reminded her.

“Exactly.” Her eyes told you a million reasons to take the job against your better judgement.

Do it: there was plenty of money involved. Do it: imagine the publicity your writing would gain if you did. Do it: it may be published in a fan club publication but it will fly off the shelves and will bring money into the organization.

Do it: it’s only one, fifteen-hour session following around Johnny Storm for a “Day in the Life” feature that would be the first of its kind for any of the Fantastic Four.

Why couldn’t it have been Ben? Or Reed? You thought. At least with them you fathomed you’d be treated like an actual reporter, not just a set of eyes, boobs, and ass with two legs and a mouth that smiled pretty.

“$800.”

Shit.

Your eyes flicked up immediately, locking onto Lucy’s with a determination you didn’t have ten minutes ago. Now that was a bonus.

“Alright,” you sighed and nodded your head in agreement. “You’ve got a deal.”

The Baxter Building was a towering shadow in the center of the city. Scaling into the sky with reflective glass, the world bounced back from it like a mirror. Anyone could spot it from the edge of the river—the spaceship docked in its back lawn didn’t help hide it from view.

The four residents were something of a spectacle. In your opinion, they were the center of the universe when it came to politics, space exploration, and the general news. They brokered deals and were looked to by actual leaders to just about anything regarding the world’s most serious problems.

And they were handed that because they once rode through a cosmic storm and were transformed with abilities that brought forth a more dangerous era of life on Earth. You didn’t know how to reconcile the fame they achieved when dangers now lurked everywhere. You wished Earth would go back to the way it was. Boring news stories, a few interesting STEM articles, and an entertainment section that didn’t make the front page everyday.

It was easier. Simpler.

But there you were: standing anxiously outside of the Fantastic Four’s home to write an entertainment feature for the front page.

You adjusted your bag’s strap on your shoulder, straightening your spine and titling your chin higher in faux confidence. Finger lifting to the call button, you breathed out, breathed in, and pressed.

“This is the Baxter Building. Please state your name and matter of business at the tone,” a robotic voice responded.

As instructed, you relayed the information necessary. You tried to focus in on the glass before you but nothing of its contents inside appeared. Just you, your reflection, and the city still bustling behind you. The faint whizz of a police ship passed by above.

“Mr. Storm has been informed. Please wait patiently at door number 2.”

You stepped back to eye the numbers above the doors. You were at door number six and in your purview, another police ship flew by in the sky. Was it always this noisy for them?

Nevertheless, you positioned yourself outside of door two with space left for it to swing open and not hit your toes. Your heels were shiny, catching the light of day in polish while the woolen fabric of your dress beneath your coat caught the February chill.

How long would he make you wait? You fathomed he would take his time. Slowly descending from his golden palace, swiping at his hair to land in a perfect Ivy League wave, he’d wink at the few building employees he’d cross paths with along the way and send their body’s into nothing but a puddle of wooed soup to step over.

He was a hothead—that much you knew, or heard, rather. Boisterous, self-centered, and expectant. It was the why of Lucy’s ask of you. You wouldn’t melt into a puddle. Johnny would surely sense your displeasure of being there and give an honest, professional interview… at least, you imagined that was her “why.”

A minute ticked by and then two. You shifted again on your feet before giving up at standing straight and relaxing with a slouched hip. Three. Four. Five. A third police vehicle soared by and in a flash, a searing heat erupted from the middle of the building and poured down onto the street below. Your head whipped up so fast it gave you whiplash as the brightness of Johnny Storm’s body consumed by a fiery blaze flew off the side of the building.

You’d never been in the presence of any of the Four in their element, but it was magnificent, if not inconvenient. The heat melted snow around you and you realized that no one ever talked about it. He couldn’t touch anyone with the flames even if he wanted to. There was no way he wouldn’t seriously injury someone while fully lit.

However, for as quickly as he followed after the police, you knew the clock was ticking again. Service over duty, a little reporter isn’t going to halt the saving of those in danger. You looked around the courtyard and set at its center was an art piece depicting the powers of the family. It sat elevated enough for you to sit and you did: for fifty-three minutes while Johnny Storm saved the city.

Goodness was it cold outside.

Your feet had lost feeling long ago and your hands were locked together frozen. Your shoulder’s shook, legs bouncing to keep the blood flow alive.

At fifty-five minutes, the door to the Baxter Building opened with a start.

And by the heavens were you irritated by the tiny sliver of relief the intrusion offered. A small white and blue robot with eyes made of film reels appeared in the doorway.

It beeped at you from afar. You looked around. You were alone and the sole focus of the robot. With a finger, you pointed to yourself.

It sounded a robotic cheer and pointed a metal finger back.

“Hello,” it said loudly.

Alright then.

The robot had a four at the center of its chest and as you approached another decal became clear. In zigzagged letters it spelled out H.E.R.B.I.E.—its name.

“H.E.R.B.I.E.?” You inquired. It beeped. You were familiar with its design and its features. H.E.R.B.I.E. had been featured in a recent edition of Good Housekeeping and the “Four Favorite Meals” of the team were entombed into the social strata.

“I’m here to interview Mr. Storm. It was supposed to have begun an hour ago but—“

H.E.R.B.I.E. sounded again in acknowledgement.

“Johnny,” it said clearly. “Follow.”

H.E.R.B.I.E. led you through the doorway and into the spacious lobby you recognized from press conferences aired on the nightly news. The room was empty sans another lone robot watering a potted tree near a set of steps.

H.E.R.B.I.E led you to a bank of elevators and pressed the button labeled “up”.

“Upstairs,” H.E.R.B.I.E.’s static voice relayed.

“Upstairs,” you repeated. “Is Mr. Storm in now? I would rather wait—“

“Saving people,” H.E.R.B.I.E. answered. “Helping people.”

You nodded and it must have registered it as the end of the conversation because the bot wheeled itself to the panel, stuck its hand in a slot, and pressed floor twenty.

When the doors reopened, they opened up to a home.

The floor was magnificently built with floor to ceiling windows stealing the most treasured views of New York City. It was furnished and colored in aesthetic perfection. A central television, a sunken living space, the art of science hanging on the walls. It was gorgeous.

You logged a mental note at the lived-in nature of the vicinity. It didn’t feel unapproachable. This space and the rooms that flocked it were a true home. It wasn’t flaunting wealth or power, just a space to live and build the strange life they walked.

And it wasn’t what you had expected.

As someone without pomp and circumstance or a penny to spread far, you’d only seen the Fantastic Four as “heroes” and not “people.” That was a hard admission to swallow when the familiar heat met the side of your face again and the man of the hour landed softly on the balcony just outside of the tall living room windows.

When his flames extinguished, your breath caught in your throat.

Johnny Storm was handsome. He was the kind of handsome that the word seemed too light to apply—beautiful was more apt. His blond hair was perfectly molded in a suave, stylistic groom that left his face framed for viewing. Beneath the high swoop of his gelled bangs, his blue eyes shined brightly. The winter did nothing to dull them. The flames only ignited them to glow orange until he showed his true self and back to blue they went.

They seemed to go right through your skin and into your bones. Blue meeting the red blood inside of you only to make your heart jolt and pick up its pace.

As your eyes trailed his figure now landed and walking inside, his lips curled into a small, barely there smirk before attempting to play at professionalism. His tongue wet his lips; catching your eyes and pinpointing exactly what shape they took when pulled back and forming into soft curves again.

My. Your palms grew sweaty, back taut in sudden speechlessness. Johnny entered the living room and jogged up the small set of stairs to meet you. Jogged. He rushed up knowing his duty prevented you from doing your job.

“Hi,” his voice was out of breath.

Johnny held out his hand for you to shake. You glanced down at it, registering its purpose before wiping your palm on your coat discretely and filling the space between you.

A singe of heat lingered from his power.

“Hello,” you introduced yourself. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“It’s not a problem,” he waved off but his eyes, God… his eyes… they seemed to keep your feet planted to the floor. They gleamed further, crinkling at the sides. “I wanted to apologize for… that,” he jabbed his thumb toward the window. “We never know what it is they need us for.”

“I see.”

“You’ve met H.E.R.B.I.E. I take it?”

Johnny motioned to the robot beside you and put his hands on his hips. H.E.R.B.I.E.’s head looked from Johnny, to you, and back to Johnny.

“I think he saw me freezing to death outside and felt a little bad about it,” you admitted and bristled at the thought of being left outside for so long. “Are any other members of the team around today?”

Johnny gave a click of his tongue and walked around you to the kitchen just off the living room. H.E.R.B.I.E. followed after him obediently with a whirl.

“Reed’s in his lab today and Sue and Ben are off… somewhere. I’m afraid it’s just you and me today, sweetheart.” He shrugged in normalcy.

He didn’t comment on leaving you outside for an hour in the cold. You didn’t want to make it a problem but your toes were icicles even inside and your coat still burrowed the chill.

And sweetheart. He didn’t even know you! You were there for work and only work. Even if addressing your question, sweetheart wasn’t going to cut it.

You repeated your name. “It’s not sweetheart.”

Johnny pulled a box of cereal from a shelf and turned back around. “Force of habit. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” It wasn’t. But you wondered, unprofessionally, if you’d be alright with him saying that off the clock.

“What paper do you write for?”

“For the New York Chronicle,” you replied and putzed with the strap of your bag to keep your hands busy. “We own the Flaming Hearts magazine.”

“I was expecting…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“An adoring fan?”

He nodded and pulled a bowl out from a top shelf. As he reached, his shirt pulled on the muscles of his arms and your eyes attached to them like magnets.

Get a grip, you thought.

Johnny was handsome, you knew it—you got it. You weren’t blind and your body registered it in the way that the world already knew, you were just catching up. It just took you until this very moment to admit that Johnny Storm was perhaps the most beautiful man you’d ever laid eyes on.

That realization was distracting.

It didn’t stop you from thinking of your purpose here or the fact that superheroes weren’t really your trademark of writing, however.

“I’m here to write about you truthfully. My editor didn’t think a fan could write without bias.”

“That’s nice,” he said sarcastically while pouring himself a bowl. Did you sour it? By not admitting you’re a fan of his? “I guess you’ve got a list of questions for me then?”

“I do,” you joined him the counter with ease as he settled on the other side by the sink.

His eyes tracked you like a foreign object. A woman, a pretty woman, here for him with a very different intent than he was familiar with. You hadn’t even bothered to take off your coat as you sat on a stool and unearthed a pad of paper and a pen from your bag.

The muted colors of your clothes differed from the space around you. You looked like a journalist, he thought. Yet you were pretty and the way you straightened out your back and brushed at your forehead with a manicured nail captured his attention more than he was expecting.

Gorgeous. He wasn’t sure of any other word.

“My editor said that this is supposed to be a… informal, formal interview. I will ask you questions that are casual and people want to know, make you seem like an everyday guy, and then write it as a feature piece of the magazine.”

“I think I’m an everyday guy,” he quirked his head to the side.

You looked up from your paper and gazed at him seriously. Johnny was eating a bowl of cereal after igniting into flames and saving a small part of the city. That was not normal. It didn’t make him an “everyday guy” and maybe he, like you, also has some grappling to do.

“Yeah,” you lightly snickered. “I think we have different ideas of what makes someone normal.”

You didn’t mean to call him abnormal. But it came out and he took it that way.

Shit.

“What I meant was—“ you attempted to clarify yet his face already merged into one of abject offense. The interview hadn’t even started, you only met not five minutes ago, and you already know your name was at the bottom of the Do Not Let These Reporters In List.

“I know what you meant,” Johnny said chewing. “I’ve heard it before just not from someone cute.”

“Mr. Storm—“

“Johnny,” he clarified.

“Mr. Storm,” you insisted, “I didn’t mean offense. I think it’s clear that we lead two very different lives and I am just here to get a story.”

It didn’t even register to you that he called you cute.

His spoon clattered to the edge of the bowl. You wanted to do nothing more than climb into Sub-Terrania and hide forever. Why did you take this job? Why did Lucy have to offer that much money?

“You’d think a reporter from my own magazine would at least like me a little bit,” he said and you furrowed your brows.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you don’t exactly look like you want to be here right now.” He gestured to your coat and rigid body.

“I told you,” you reminded him, “I work for the Chronicle, not your magazine. And it’s not yours, per se. It’s just about you. And what does my dress have anything to do about wanting to be here? I am here, aren’t I? I waited outside in the cold for an hour just to do this job.”

“Take off your coat,” he ordered passively and walked back around the corner. From your sitting position, he leaned up against the chair beside you. He was so close now.

His body heat radiated. It was natural now, the warmth he gave off absentmindedly.

“I like my coat,” you answered as the frigidness melted away.

“You’re going to be here all day and I would rather you not snag it on any of our projects while we take a tour.”

“A tour?” He was being considerate—not something you considered about him at all.

“What better way to figure out who I am?” He looked down at you. He wasn’t towering as he stood beside you but he wasn’t short either.

Your eyes met. Both meeting a challenge of what this day was going to be like.

A girl who doesn’t like heroes or abnormal attractive guys with flirtatious banter battling a boy who doesn’t like being underestimated and thinks said girl is the most attractive reporter he’s ever seen.

“All the secrets that make Johnny Storm brilliant are hidden here,” his gave small smile and leaned in close. “Aren’t you the least bit curious how the magic happens?”

“I’m a bit afraid of what magic you’re implying.”

His mouth shifted into a truthful grin. It was the kind that pulled at the edges of a person and cracked them open wide for the world to see.

“And I thought I was the one with the dirty mind. I guess trait belongs to you, sweetheart.”

That name again. You sucked in a fast breath.

“That’s not my name.”

Johnny tapped the back of the stool he stood at in a melodic pattern. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled up beside him like a dog beside its owner.

“I know.” He tilted his head toward the staircase to the left. “Come on. Leave the coat. I promise it’s warmer here.”

The only thing you knew for certain was the warmth didn’t spread from the outside in. It was felt in your cheeks and your face, burning at his comfortable commands that would certainly be replayed in a different manner once this interview was done.

You had to keep reminding yourself that Johnny Storm was not a man who you wanted to woo you. This was all work and no play. None.

You just had to promise yourself that this was it all it was going to be.

“Out of all of the rooms in the building, this one is my least favorite.”

Johnny paused before a door labeled “Do Not Enter” about an hour into the tour.

Every room that you had passed thus far had been accompanied by a lengthy description of what was beyond the door and if you were lucky, Johnny would open it for a tiny peak. You were informed that three weeks ago, the apartment had been deep cleaned for an interview that Reed and Sue had done which featured the home.

It seemed everyone and their mother wanted to know where the family ate, slept, and spent all their free time.

You’d asked how he felt about being at the center of the universe but he just smiled at you and neglected to answer—only leaving the door open for you to follow through to the gym on the seventh floor.

Reed’s office was closed off when you went by but you could hear the static going off behind the door.

“Any reason why?”

Johnny wiggled the handle. It didn’t budge.

“My brother-in-law loves to keep me out when the experiments get too… involved.”

“Aren’t you a scientist too?” You asked and he turned his head with a surprised amusement.

“Scientist?”

“Well you did go to space so I assumed.”

“Mechanic,” he clarified. “Or I guess an engineer of sorts. I shoot pretty good too. And I can fly a spacecraft, if asked.”

You wrote down his reply and he waited silently as you carefully worded the response. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled up to his legs, knocking into him slightly with the loud beep.

“I swore I read you have a degree somewhere,” you mumbled.

“I do,” Johnny’s eyes widened in surprise. “A couple years back, before… you know, everything, I studied in California.”

“Stanford.”

“That’s the school,” he replied lightly. He was impressed to say the least. You knew something about him and remembered it enough to bring it up.

“Question,” H.E.R.B.I.E. output to Johnny.

H.E.R.B.I.E. was the most intelligent of robots but neglected to understand that this was an interview. H.E.R.B.I.E. nudged Johnny again expecting him to ask you questions in return.

“What about you?” Johnny asked uncertainly as he looked down at the robot and motioned in confusion at the question he posed.

“What about me?” You replied still writing.

“Are… you? A…” again, he looked down at H.E.R.B.I.E., “scientist?”

H.E.R.B.I.E. groaned and you laughed. You laughed. For the entirety of the interview he’d come to expect you to never give in to his jokes and while his question was worded poorly and he didn’t actually mean to say scientist, he felt his world relax at the sound.

The melody of your laughter laid softly inside of his mind like a lullaby. It was natural and free and completely you—something you’d yet to show him during the short time you’ve spent together.

You’d been professional and kept your kindness at an arms length. You were curt and serious, not playful nor buying into his comments that bordered on suggestive.

“If you consider writing a science, sure. Most people would consider it an art. So, I’m an artist.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat and patted H.E.R.B.I.E.’s head as he stepped past.

“But about the mechanic thing,” you looked up from your paper and Johnny forgot what he said before.

Every time you looked at him, he felt himself grow fonder of the way it made him feel. The silly feeling of love at first sight being marred as ridiculous in his perspective yet he swore that’s what it was.

He could listen to you talk all day.

“Do you have a shop or anything here? Or is it more isolated to here,” you motioned to the lab door. “Does he let you in to work?”

“I have a room,” Johnny said quickly. His excitement poured through his speech. “It’s not here. It’s a shop just off 4th and Wash Square—“

“I know of it.” Your eyes lit up in recognition. “I take the train from there to work everyday.”

Small world.

“Really?” He said honestly.

“That’s a far way from here,” you added. “Any reason why?”

“I guess because it’s my own little place.” He put his hand on the door handle again casually. His grip was strong.

Your eyes caught sight of his hand as it strained on the handle nervously, like he was admitting something for the first time. Had he never talked about this before? You knew he had talked about vehicles and that he’d love to race cars one day but that was Q & A session on the back of an entertainment rag at the grocery store.

“There’s nothing but me and the car and it’s kind of peaceful. It’s peaceful here but it’s a fishbowl, you know? Everyone feels like they know us when we are here but when I go there, it makes me feel like they don’t really know me. They just know The Human Torch, not Johnny. The shop makes me feel like me.”

“I’m not going to write that.”

His face dropped.

“Why? Didn’t you say you wanted this to be human? Or that you’re trying to make me sound more personable?” Johnny grew defensive.

“I’m not going to write that because once they,” you tipped your head to the windows, “know about that little shop, you won’t have one day of peace for the rest of your life.”

Oh. Oh. He hadn’t thought about that.

“That’s…” he tried to find the words.

The shop was his little slice of paradise. He could tinker away and no one would come looking because they knew that not only was he safe, he was alone.

Sue let him have his space there because it made him happy. It was the most happy she’d seen him since they were kids and while you might not have known that, it meant more to him that your integrity wasn’t going to jeopardize his peace.

He’d given you a part of his humanity and you’d shown him mercy. A trade off of the hour.

“That’s real nice of you.”

“It’s what a decent person would do,” you brushed it off casually and held the pad of paper to your chest.

“You’d be surprised by how few of those exist.”

You smiled at him softly. A blush bloomed on his cheeks and he looked off towards the city outside his home. H.E.R.B.I.E. whirled by toward the direction you were heading next.

Breathing in deep, you took the first step and barely brushed Johnny’s shoulder as you walked by.

“Can’t keep H.E.R.B.I.E. waiting, can we?”

Johnny shook his head and bit back his smile, peaking down at his shoes to hold it in. He played with the handle of Reed’s lab once more before turning on his heel and walking a step behind you.

“Did you always want to be a reporter?” He felt his confidence return in bounds.

You hummed. “Since I was a little kid.”

“Why the news and not books?”

“I’m not that creative,” you admitted. “And aren’t I supposed to be asking you these questions?”

“Just curious.” Johnny pulled his hands together behind his back. “Besides, this isn’t going to be fun if I don’t learn about you too.”

“But that’s not the purpose of this.”

“Are you always a rule follower or only when interviewing superheroes?”

You stopped walking and turned around. He caught himself before crashing into you.

“I’m not a rule follower,” you told him. Johnny wasn’t convinced. “I’m on the clock.”

“I’m always on the clock but I have a good time too,” he skirted around you and began his walk backwards.

You huffed and followed.

“It’s inappropriate.”

“It’s prudish,” he countered, hands still bound behind his back.

“It’s a boundary,” you challenged.

“It’s an imprisonment.”

“That’s a strong word.”

It was Johnny’s turn to shrug. “I don’t take it back, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“I didn’t ask you to take it back. That’s your opinion, not mine.”

“So you’re making this a challenge for me?”

“A challenge?” Your brows shot up and then came together.

“For you to admit you had a good time hanging out with the one and only Johnny Storm by the end of the today.” He referred to himself in third person and you weren’t sure if that was inducing a wince in response or a short track to the answer.

You already knew what your response would be.

Your heart hadn’t stopped thumping, hands still sweaty. Your stomach grew with butterflies every time he looked in your direction and no matter if you sat in silence the rest of the day, today would be the most entertaining experience you’d ever had.

But Johnny didn’t need an ego boost right now.

“We are already a couple hours in,” you checked the small golden watch at your wrist. “You have twelve hours to change my mind it appears.”

“I could have sworn I had gotten a smile out of you earlier.” Johnny’s teeth grazed over his bottom lip. “And maybe even a laugh too. Those are pretty good signs to me that I’m winning this.”

“I don’t recall—“

“Yes you do.” His voice grew louder in amusement. You peered away from him, not willing to gaze into those blue beacons because you knew that he’d see a liar.

You did smile and laugh with him. That was a sign of enjoyment if there ever was one.

“You smiled and laughed and you don’t want to admit it because it means you’ve already lost and I’ve won.”

“You didn’t win anything. I don’t even know what we’re playing for!”

“To prove that you—“

“No,” you let a breathless chuckle escape your lips as his misunderstanding and his eyes pinned you in the hallway laughing again.

Point: Johnny.

“I meant the prize. What’s the prize if you win or if I win?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I didn’t think that far out yet.”

“Oh,” you played disappointment. “So, I guess that means the smarts only extend to engineering then?”

Johnny’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Did you just make an attempt at a borderline offensive joke that he would totally love to hear?

You did.

“You’re going to wish you never said that,” he teased.

Were you really doing this?

“Well you didn’t name your price, Mr. Storm.”

“Mr. Storm,” he muttered like he’d never been called that before. “You’re obedient, you know that?”

“Like a dog.”

“Fine,” he put his hands on his hips. “You wanna know my price?”

“Name it.”

“If you enjoyed yourself by the end of today—really, truly enjoyed yourself—you gotta let me take you out on a date.”

“A date?” You confirmed.

Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d have the gall to banter with Johnny. If Lucy could see you now she’d be asking to collect her winnings in the office betting pool. You were emotionally weak to Johnny’s charm and you hadn’t expected that.

“That’s all? Just a date?”

Both of your minds raced to that appetizing place. It stirred with from within, billowing into full blown fantasies of the dark. Imaginations painted a lustful affair; the tugging of lips and the grasping of skin. Polished nails digging into heated flesh and the sounds of two bodies combining rung deeply in echos of the hallway.

“I mean,” his face turned pink and his right hand rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Too late.

There was far more interest in the fantasy than either of you let on. You let the blushes fall apart and dared your minds to venture into that place again.

“Fine,” you agreed. “But if I have a terrible time… a really, horribly agonizing time, you have to… be my assistant for a day. Like come to the office and everything. Get my coffee, make my copies, all of it.”

Amused, Johnny dropped his hand. “That’s it?”

“What?”

“Your assistant? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“Well… yeah,” you replied. “I don’t have time to think of something worse.”

“Either way I think I win, though,” Johnny stepped forward again but this time with his hand extended similar to how he had greet you two hours before.

Yet his hand was offered with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. Every time he reached for it, the purpose was different.

“And why’s that?” You accepted his hand and relished the way it perfectly encapsulated your own. His hand was soft and cooler than it was prior.

You wondered if he could still feel the sweat the settled in your palm.

“Because no matter what I get to spend more time with you and I think that’s a win.”

You didn’t know what to say to that but your heart surely responded with a thump.

Johnny’s bedroom is not where you thought you’d end up after imagining what it would be like to fuck him.

He had lingered by the door at the end of the hall with his own curiosity threatening to change the atmosphere. It wasn’t like being in his bedroom was automatically leading you to a rumble in the sheets.

His room was the essence of him. If Johnny really wanted the world to see a normal guy, his bedroom is where he surely showed it.

It was clean and shared the same views overlooking the city as the rest of the apartment. Amidst the wooden paneling and the filled shelves, a round bed sat centered and an elevated seating area with the nicest record player you’d ever seen was placed adjacent.

It was well used based on Johnny’s collection of vinyls that bathed the room on either side.

He offered you the chair overlooking the city and made himself comfortable on the floor across from you. Having taken off his shoes, his socked white feet were constantly moving from side to side like he couldn’t sit still with every question you asked.

The clock ticked away.

“Sports team?”

“I’d say the Mets but I don’t want to make anyone mad, so Yankees.”

“If you could have any other job in the world, what would it be?”

“Race—“

“—car driver,” you finished his words for him. “I should have known that one.”

“Yes.” Johnny’s fingers traced the edges of his lips as he fought a grin. “You know me so well.”

His lips pulled and you thought about how nice they’d be to kiss. They appeared soft and pink, just plush enough to leave a lingering tingle in the spots he’d lay delicate memories to your skin.

Someone once said that the beauty marks on a person’s body were the remnants of places their lovers had once kissed.

Maybe in another lifetime the ones on your own were lives lived with Johnny. You shook away the thought when reality snapped back in. You were rushing and only fools did that.

You read through question after question to get a full extent of who Johnny was. These questions, the mediocre ones, were the kind that people wanted to read about.

“First love?”

“Oh.” His tone dropped an octave. “Look who’s trying to learn about my exes now.”

“It’s not me,” you reminded him, again. “It’s the readers, remember?”

“I don’t think they’re the ones coming up with them.”

“Then it’s my editor. She’s obsessed, move along. First love?” You asked again.

“Ramona Mitchell—second grade. She shared her animals crackers with me and broke up with me at the water fountain.”

“Tragic,” you fought the indulgence chuckle.

“Favorite food?”

“Anything Ben makes.”

“That’s not a food,” you countered.

“He makes a mean pasta,” he thought on it. “But I’m from Long Island and you can’t beat some restaurants there.”

“I’ve never been to Long Island.”

You said it passively. Solely focused on writing his response down, your face inclined toward the paper and not to him. Watching him sit there casually was making this feel more and more like a choice rather than a job.

He sat up straighter on the floor.

“What do you mean you’ve never been to Long Island? It’s like… right there!?”

You put the pad of paper down on the table beside you. Crossing your legs, Johnny’s eyes followed them as you settled into the new position.

“I’ve been to Brooklyn before.”

“That’s not Long Island,” he said as if he was a geography expert.

“It’s on Long Island so maybe it counts a little.”

You leaned back into the chair and folded your arms across your chest. This was comfortable. Johnny was surprisingly easy to talk to and you’d be remiss if you said you weren’t loose to the idea of someone to talk to. He listened, he asked, and he looked like he was interested in anything and everything you had to say.

“But you wouldn’t say that Manhattan is the same as Brooklyn as to Queens or as to the Bronx.”

“No,” you agreed. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“And I’m talkin’ deep Long Island,” he emphasized his words with an extension of his hand. “Like the kind where your favorite deli is owned by the cousin of the ex-boyfriend of your mother’s best friend and they know you by name kind of deep.”

“That sounds like it’s from experience, not a universal trait.”

“I guess we’ll have to go see and ask them then,” he smirked as though he knew he’d prove you right.

“Time isn’t on our side today.” You glanced down at the watch on your wrist. You’d been talking in his room for nearly five hours—seven hours to go.

“Another day then.” Johnny crossed his feet at his ankles. “I’ll show you our old stomping ground and take you to one of those delis.”

You laughed not out of amusement but out of nerves. It sounded a hell of a lot like a date.

“Is this the part where I ask you what you think is the perfect date? According to the survey, our readers really want to know how Johnny Storm would make them fall in love.”

“What’s your ideal perfect date?”

“I’m not the one being interviewed here.”

“Amuse me,” Johnny bartered. “And then I’ll ask H.E.R.B.I.E. to make us some lunch.”

You sighed, gazing out the window in thought at the question. What constituted the “perfect date?” You weren’t entirely sure there was one concrete answer because everyone had a different opinion.

However, if Johnny could be open and honest for the sake of a magazine, you could be honest for him.

“I guess it would be doing something that interested me.”

“Go on,” he urged. Those interested blue eyes bore into you.

“I don’t know… I would hope that before I am asked out on a date that a guy would listen to me. Ask me about my interests and discover things I like so that when we go, they choose a place that I would like to go to. Someone says they like art and they go to a museum; someone likes music, they go to a show—that kind of stuff.”

“But what about you? Not someone else, you.”

“I like going to the pictures. Museums and the city zoo is nice too. But sometimes I don’t want to make a big fuss about it all and a diner is nice. Just a little hole-in-the-wall place where the coffee is stale but the food is good and the company doesn’t care that it’s not a five star establishment.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he nodded his head in agreement.

“Dating doesn’t have to be flashy. I see the kinds of things that are written about your sister and her husband. I couldn’t imagine being under that microscope.”

“It’s a choice they made—to be open about everything. I’m not sure they like the constant guessing of what the baby is going to be, but they don’t mind the interest in their lives.”

“What about you?” You asked him. “The perfect date? Being in the public eye?”

“I don’t mind it,” Johnny said with little thought. “It’s just part of the job and people have been pretty nice about it all. It’s not everyday you have to trust someone like me to help out.”

“So you admit it,” a small, rewarding grin played at your lips. You saw his gaze flick to them and back to your eyes. “You’re not normal then?”

His eyes narrowed playfully. “Was that a trick question?”

“No. Just an honest one. Date?”

He sat with his response for a minute, falling back against the record player’s built-in. Johnny liked having you here. It felt normal and easy and not like anyone else he’d ever known.

“Mr. Storm?” You pressed.

“You don’t give a guy any time to think, do you, sweetheart? And it’s Johnny.”

“I don’t have forever,” you reminded him. He wished you did.

“What you said.”

“Excuse me?”

Johnny’s smug face was rewarded with your surprise. His head tilted up as he rephrased, “you described my perfect date.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes,” he dug in further, “you did.”

“But that’s my perfect date. We are two very different people.”

“Opposites attract and all,” he commented. “I want her to feel comfortable and safe. If I take her race car driving on the first date, she might never speak to me again or if she’s someone I really, really like, then I want her to feel like I’m making an effort to get to know her. Getting to know me can come later. Preferably here, in this room, with a record on and very little taking.”

You felt that warmth invade your body once more.

Your band of resistance was starting to snap.

“Mr. Storm,” you started.

“Johnny.”

“You know I can’t write that down.”

“It wasn’t for you to write down,” he said seriously. “It was for you to know.”

“Why would I need to know that?”

The space inside of his room shrunk. The only thing that existed was the small, elevated section you both sat upon: you in the chair, he on the floor.

Your comment sat heavy in the hair. Hanging there above your heads, it twirled into a storm of those savory thoughts from a few hours ago. Neither of you had forgotten about it—how your minds automatically raced to imagine what it would be like to sit just a little closer, inch your hands toward the other.

He knew what your palm felt like in his and it was perfect. Slotted to a perfect puzzle piece and he knew this feeling was the ultimate one that Sue told him about. It was the universe opening portals to emotions he didn’t know existed and stretching him in directions he didn’t anticipate going.

“I know we don’t know each other well,” Johnny started slowly as he broached the topic.

“We don’t know each other at all,” you clarified.

“People have done a lot more knowing a lot less.”

“I feel like I’ve had to remind you that I’m working several times,” you uncrossed your legs and moved to stand.

Johnny scrambled to his feet and that line had been crossed. He didn’t know how to return to the other side and wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

All that talk of a perfect date and he just wished someone would give him a real chance to show off. You listened and maybe right that second you didn’t feel like you knew him, but you did.

Johnny had given you more answers in seven entire hours than he’d allowed anyone else to hear in his life besides his family. You cracked a part of him open without waving the slightest finger in attempting to do so.

“I’m sorry if I gave you an impression that it wasn’t professional.” You gathered your paper and pen from the table and aimed for the door.

He rushed toward you frantically. Johnny cut off the path to the door by standing in front of it. The look on your face immediately sent him into orbit. He was spiraling.

“Sorry!” He said quickly. “I’m sorry if I crossed a line. I just… I just thought that, well, I don’t know! I felt something, okay?”

“Mr. Storm, please—“

“You gotta stop with that Mr. Storm shit.” He let out a stressed groan, a hand wiping over his face in duress. “You’re tellin’ me that you haven’t felt it too?”

God did you feel it. You felt the pull so strong that it was sending your own synapses into overdrive. You couldn’t be here any longer. He pushed open the flood gates and allowed those feelings to spur deeper, rising into that forbidden territory you couldn’t come back from.

This was what all those other reporters wanted and the one thing that you weren’t expecting. You were attracted to Johnny. Immensely. He was charming and sweet—far more interesting and curious than you realized. He was the one guy that was as engaged with your own answers as he was with his own and it was a drug. A highly addictive drug that wouldn’t last because he was a hero and you were a journalist.

Those two things didn’t mix.

They couldn’t mix.

It was wrong. It was inappropriate. But fuck, did it sound so, so good.

“It’s not appropriate. I don’t sleep with my clients.”

“Then end the interview,” he said like it was easy. “I’m not a client anymore.”

“Is this just for you to get your rocks off?” Your eyes narrowed and he held up his hands defensively.

“No! No!” He exclaimed. Maybe you were being too harsh. “If you want to leave, go ahead.” Johnny backed away from the door and settled at its side.

There was a pathway out now.

“I’m not trying to make you break any rules,” he said softly. “That wasn’t my intention. But tell me you don’t feel it too. It feels like you stuck dynamite in my chest and it’s ready to explode.”

You knew the sentiment well. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t be what Lucy and all the rest of them wanted to be.

“I can’t, Johnny.” He melted at the sound of his name falling from your lips. “I’m not trying to be like those other girls.”

“So you’re not like the rest of them, huh?” He joked.

“No,” you replied painfully. “Unfortunately I’m just like them it seems because I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss you.”

You threw your hands up in defeat and paced around his room in circles. He just stood by the door and watched amused as you worked through what he already figured out.

“I guess that means you won, right? It’s not even the goddamn end of the day and I’m already throwing in the towel because I don’t have a little more self control.” You let out a rueful snicker. “And to think I was so certain that I could do this!? I mean, it’s not like you’re my type or anything.”

“And that is…?”

“Nice!” You answered loudly. “And not one to say crude things all the time.”

“They weren’t crude, they were suggestive. For a writer I would hope you would know the difference.”

You stopped pacing and looked at him with your mouth agape. “Why you—“

“Careful,” he held up a finger, “your name calling game isn’t that strong. Might I suggest ‘most handsome man on the planet’ or ‘hero of my heart’ instead?”

“Oh my god,” you wailed. “I can’t believe I am even the slightest bit attracted to you!”

“I think it’s a little more than slight, sweetheart. You were ready to burn this building to the ground at the mere thought of sleeping with me and I think that means you’ve at least thought about it before.”

“I have not!”

“You’ve thought about kissing me.”

“That’s different,” you emphasized. Of course you thought about fucking him too. He’s Johnny fucking Storm and he’s been giving you “fuck me” eyes for the last five hours.

“It all leads to somewhere else in the end.”

“So you were implying that. I’m not crazy.” Your eyes widened like you were.

“I didn’t say you were. And you’re not, by the way.”

Johnny just settled against the wall and crossed his arms against his chest. The muscles of his biceps strained at the short sleeves of his white tee and invited you in.

“Having a little bit of fun doesn’t make you less of a journalist,” he said your name for the first time. Not sweetheart or any other pet name.

Johnny. You. It was personal now.

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not that kind of guy and I hope you didn’t get the idea that I would be that kind of guy. You’re nice, real nice, and I really enjoy talking to you. There aren’t many people who are willing to listen and take things with an open mind.”

God. He needed to stop talking.

“Plus I think H.E.R.B.I.E likes you. He felt real bad about leaving you out in the cold like that.”

Stop talking, Johnny.

“And I do too. Sorry about that, by the way,” he laughed slightly at the predicament. “I’m not used to putting people that aren’t my family first but I’m open to the idea…”

His blue eyes beat you down. Stop fucking talking.

“If we had more time I would have—“

You couldn’t take it anymore. Dropping your pad of paper and pen to the ground, you closed the distance between the two of you in a few long strides and grasped his face between your hands, planting your lips onto his in a heartbeat.

His words halted.

Fusing together like atoms, the electricity of your mouths falling into sync quieted both minds. It was tranquil. His face cupped between your hands tilted, angling to the side and opening up further. Johnny’s tongue begged for mercy between your lips, melding together with yours in tune to the beating of your hearts.

Something sprouted inside of you. Building from your toes to your mind, it tingled your limbs into numbness where nothing else but Johnny’s hands weaving around your waist and cradling the back of your head mattered.

This is what it felt like—attraction.

It was all consuming and all knowing. It recognized parts of you that had been sleeping and awoken to a giant tower ready to climb. His smooth face fell from your hands as they dropped to his neck; trailing the edges of the scoop of his shirt and feeling the molds of his chest before settling there. One hand turned into a fist to gather his shirt with a tug, drawing him closer and leaving no space between you.

His lips were as you imagined: soft and inviting. There were no words needed to accept the fact that you were holding everything back for nothing. This was as it should be. He was kind. He was considerate.

He was charming, funny, nervous, clumsy, confident, handsome, smart, entertaining, and didn’t force you into this.

It fell into place. As two objects in motion collided, the motions continued on.

Johnny’s hands groped you tightly, barely allowing you time to breathe as your lips parted. His hands paved a path down your body and tested the waters with bated breath. You didn’t stop him. You craved the feeling of his hands on your body.

You pulled back from his lips but he chased after them, drunk on the feeling. You knocked your nose gently into his as you breathed in deep breaths.

“You can touch me,” you reassured him. His eyes stayed focused on your mouth.

“As long as you’re sure.”

“More than sure.”

Johnny’s hands slid down to your ass and cupped you roughly. His grip pulled you flush against him and with a groan, your lips caught his chin and dotted kisses along the column of his neck.

He thought he was dreaming. Five minutes ago he was certain you were going to flee the apartment and speak his name into forbidden existence because of his brash assessment. Here you were, kissing him mad and he was imprinting a picture of your body forever in his mind. You were luxurious and finite. There was only ever going to be one of you and he was never going to forget what this moment caused.

The rapture within him was cemented.

“You know,” he murmured against your kisses when your lips returned to his. “I did really want to take you out on a date before all this.”

“I told you that I don’t follow the rules,” you nipped at his chin playfully.

“You surprise me.”

“Good,” you smiled. You backed away from him and his hands fell to his sides loosely. “And I’m not going to write an article about you anymore either.”

“No?”

You hummed and shook your head. “Can’t now. I’m too biased in my storytelling to be truthful.”

Johnny took a step forward and you took one back.

“And the honest truth is what, sweetheart?”

“That Johnny Storm isn’t the man everyone thinks he is.” Another step forward, another back. “He’s a good man with a good family and similar morals. He likes to have a fun time but within the bounds of his duty and he’s a romantic at heart—not a womanizer.”

“I would really like to womanize you, however.”

Johnny bit down on his bottom lip. You extended your hand and he gladly took it, leaping into your space again and tumbling with you onto his bed at the center of the room. You fell back with a thud and his body weighed heavy on top of yours.

“Johnny Storm defies the expectations we have of him,” you continued on.

The hand not entwined with his own came back to his face and brushed stray blond bangs from his forehead.

“And the lucky few who get to know the real Johnny will always know his true heroism lies within.”

Johnny’s smile widened. “That’s real cheesy—you know that, right?”

You grinned back and returned your hand to the back of his head where the shortened hairs weaved between your fingertips. Johnny pulled your intertwined hands up above your head.

“I think it’s a perfect story.”

His story or this one playing out now, he wasn’t sure which was better.

“Yeah,” he placed a soft kiss on your lips. “Me too.”

“You’d sacrifice the world for your family and I admire that.”

“Now you’re getting sappy on me,” he laughed. He laid a peck beside your ear. “You don’t need to butter me up to make something happen.”

“I’m not buttering you up.”

You titled your head to the side to give him access to the side of your face, neck, and when his hand tugged at the top of your dress, the bit of clavicle he was able to reach.

His touch set you ablaze. Burning from the sensations his gentle lips left behind, Johnny knew how to touch a woman and make her feel good. It was something he’d perfected in his thirty years on Earth.

“You remember what I said about my perfect date?” His voice was muffled by the wool of your dress.

“Oh,” you gave an awe inspired sigh. “Was that you buttering me up? How you got me here?”

“You did that all on your own.”

Johnny’s head turned back up to face you and he rested his chin at the curve of your breasts. You hadn’t realized he had moved down that far on your body. He slowly slipped his lean frame to the edge of the bed, kneeling at its base and letting his hands fall to the backs of your knees. They glided down your calves and to your ankles, playing with the straps of your shoes.

“Tell me that you don’t want this and I’ll stop.”

You sat up on your elbows. His hands grasped your right foot. Slowly pulling at the buckle of your heel and undoing the strap to where you shoe fell off your foot with a small clunk when it hit the floor.

Johnny’s gaze didn’t escape yours. He waited for you to change your mind. The anticipation of your soft rejection pounding at his ribcage.

His hands moved to your left leg and when the second shoe dropped, Johnny’s hands caressed the skin of your shin.

“I wouldn’t have let you do that if I didn’t,” you told him.

“When I said that your perfect date is how I see my perfect date, I also should have said that I want her to be satisfied when it’s all over.”

You swallowed a lump that had formed in your through from the promise. God. You couldn’t believe you ended up here.

“I’m not asking you to give out to me,” he nodded at you. Johnny asked you to give him the confirmation he needed. “So if it’s not today, it will be another time.”

The ghosting of his fingertips on the backs of your knees sent a chill up your body.

“Don’t you think that’s a little presumptuous?”

“I mean…” he smirked, lips placing peppered kissed along your kneecap. “I think I may have won the bet.”

He did. He knows he fucking did.

Johnny’s hands roamed to the end of your dress. His thumbs pushed the fabric that had grown far too warm on your body upwards, watching you in permission that every inch higher was not crossing the boundary of what you were willing to give to him.

His position between your legs prevented them from closing in bashfulness. His tongue wet his lips as the curve of your hips forced his hands harder to give him access. Johnny paused again.

“You’re sure?” He asked quietly.

You nodded, running a hand through his short hair. The hesitancy you had yesterday seemed like a distant memory. Johnny enraptured you and while you were breaking every rule in the book, you couldn’t stop here. Not when he was kneeling for you. Not when he wanted to taste you.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Putting your free hand atop his, you guided it to the top of your panties in invitation.

“Lay down,” he ordered and you complied. Obedient. “Relax.” Came next and in a mere whisper as the fabric slipped from your body and the cool air now exposed to your body made you aware of how wet you were.

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

Kissing the inside of your thigh, you stared at the ceiling in disbelief. You felt his piercing gaze upon you; he measured your body in the way it folded and it heaved.

And he kept a promise of taking care of you—not himself. As much as the sight of you, bare and wanting before him made his soul burn, he knew this wouldn’t be your last meeting.

His kisses drew closer. Johnny’s hot breath met the crux between your legs before any other part of him did. His lips barely grazed you and your thighs trembled with his head stuck between them.

Johnny didn’t miss the sharp intake of your breath when he finally lowered his mouth to you. And my, he had never tasted someone as sweet as you. His tongue glided along the wetness that had already gathered and focused his attention to your clit. He gave in to a merciless pace; circling and sucking—your toes curled to hold you back.

Your hand wrapped into his hair and tugged at the strands. His arms held onto your sides and tracked the curve of your body as he pulled you closer. The response he was receiving was Pavlovian. Forever he’d bend at the sounds of your sighs, of the feel of your nails raking against the base of his skull. He’d dream of the flesh he devoured and sing songs of the pleasures he took.

Johnny Storm hadn’t believed in love at first sight until today.

And you hadn’t imagined giving him a chance until he had greeted you that morning.

His tongue increased its pressure on your bud. Pressing down as he lapped the wetness of his saliva and your arousal into his method and used it to lower himself smoothly.

A whine escaped your lips when his fingers left your side and helped open you up to him. Splitting you open and allowing his tongue to pin you to the bed. Your knees shook, legs coming to bend beside his head as his shoulders lurched to catch them. Johnny’s opposite hand held you down, settling at the base of your stomach.

“Holy mother of—“

He hummed and it sent a vibration through you.

As he had kissed you before, his tongue flicked inside of you in a passionate rhythm. His eyes closed to relish in the sounds of your neediness. Johnny didn’t tell you to be quiet because he didn’t want you to be. You could shout, scream, or cry out and he’d ask you for more. Give him everything, he wanted to imply, but he couldn’t ask for everything at that very moment.

You were taking everything he was giving like it was made for you. Hell, maybe he was.

The fingers he had used to help open you up remained rubbing up and down the sides of your pussy while his tongue explored the horizons beyond it. You felt one move, his middle finger, and it joined his tongue, curling into you gently.

“Oh god,” you groaned. His mouth curved into a smirk, backing away centimeters.

“Johnny is fine,” his voice had turned gravely. “But I’ll take being a god any day.”

And that laughter. It filled him so deeply that not even the strain in his jeans could distract him from the innate pleasure of hearing you respond to him. He continued on, letting his finger work against your plush walls and master the craft of you.

His mouth refocused to your clit which he did not abandon on purpose. Johnny quickened his pace, unrelenting and fixed on assisting you to the end. It built, like a flame kindling from a spark and tingling every cell in your body.

Your shoulders tensed, anticipating a release but infatuated with the way his ministrations only pulled back when he knew you were getting too close. He was keeping you on your toes. Johnny let you feel and experience the pleasure outside of simply working toward an orgasm.

Earn it. You had to earn it.

“You gonna keep teasing me like that or what?” You whined.

“I’m just not done with you yet.” His finger left you empty before coming back with its neighbor. “We’ve got time.”

“I don’t think we have time today,” you seemed to always remind him that you had a deadline. “Maybe another day.”

“Now who’s asking for a second date?”

“This isn’t a date.” His fingers reached lengths you were unable to do yourself. Your back arched in his grasp and his grasp tightened.

“Then our first date will be amazing.” Cocky son-of-a-bitch.

“Jesus,” you couldn’t help the spattering of words that flew from your lips as the precipice gained on you again.

“Johnny,” he repeated.

“Johnny,” you cried back. “I—“

“I can feel you, sweetheart.”

The familiarity of your orgasm climbed the mountain of your thrill rapidly approached. Recalling the minutes he spent prior being agonizingly slow, then picking up his pace, your ears captured the most bawdy sounds of excitement. His fingers were coated in your slick, chin glistening in the slightest with remnants of what he’d take as a prize.

You turned your head to watch his fingers disappear inside of you and your chest nearly caved.

“Come here,” you breathed in heavy. Johnny’s brow furrowed.

“Wha—“

“Just kiss me.”

With his fingers still pumping frantically inside of you, Johnny pushed up from the ground and let your hands pull his face toward yours. You had never tasted yourself on the lips of a lover before and you cherished the intimacy of the notion.

He felt your shoulders stutter, your body shaking in need. His mouth opened to allow you in.

One. Two. Three additional thrusts of his fingers and he felt you tighten around him. A wave of immense pleasure washed over your body in bliss. Arching into him, Johnny held onto you tightly, never once letting you fall apart without him.

You could hear him whisper words of praise in your ear except nothing but a kaleidoscope of colors seemed to match the tremors of your lower body. Legs shaking, toes curled as one leg wrapped around his own waist and laid lax once the shaking subsided.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. He retracted the two fingers. Resting them on your thigh, he patted the skin there. “You’re fine, sweetheart.”

Johnny laid his forehead against yours and let you breathe before his mouth couldn’t help but run again.

“I would have called you a good girl but I think sweetheart is the only nickname you can take right now.”

You opened your eyes and met his glinting with amusement. Did you want to take back everything u out said? Pretend this never happened and go find someone who can keep a moment serious for longer than a minute?

“You are—“ the words couldn’t form. There were too many words to describe Johnny Storm and even a journalist as great as yourself couldn’t come up with one.

The next morning you were at the office bright and early. No article had been prepared, no pictures of Johnny in his space, and nothing to report to Lucy.

Your mind was racing, however.

When you unlocked the door to your apartment later that night, you did so with a smile plastered to your face. You felt like a school girl with her first crush. Johnny enamored you and left you feeling like jell-o and your limbs acting on their own accord was proof of it.

But you had to keep a lid on it. So, when you sat down at your desk and flipped on the light to wait for the inevitable, you pretended you weren’t hopelessly crushing on the hot-headed hero.

An hour after you settled in, Lucy rushed to your desk to gossip. Her eyes were wide, expectant for you to spill all of the details of what makes Johnny tick. Every secret you gathered from the contents of his bathroom cabinet to the food he liked to eat, she wanted to know.

“So?” She said incredibly fast. “How was it? Where is it?” The draft.

“I don’t have it.” You preoccupied yourself by typing out a different article. The keys on your typewriter filled the space of her mouth hanging wide open in confusion.

“What do you mean you don’t have it?”

“I didn’t it write it,” you clarified. “It’s not happening.”

“We—“ she started and stopped in a stutter. “What, well… what happened? Did you even go??”

“Of course I went.” The page reached its end with a ring and you shot it back to the opposite side. “I just don’t have the story for you. I’m not going to write it so ask someone else.”

Lucy watched you carefully. “Please tell me you didn’t make our paper look bad.”

“Oh just awful,” you drawled. “I think we’re banned from ever covering them.”

She didn’t catch the tone. Lucy had been so preoccupied with wanting a big, newsworthy feature that she didn’t think of anything else. She joked about you falling into bed with him but figured you were too much of a straightened arrow to try it.

You didn’t have a hickey, you weren’t sweating at the temple, or drinking the largest coffee. In fact, you didn’t even have a coffee.

“Did you…” she trailed off, neck jutting out in curiosity.

Before you could look her in the eyes and lie, a delivery man with a bouquet of flowers was making a b-line to your desk caught your eye.

Shit. So much for discreet.

He said your name aloud and held up the flowers as if you didn’t see them. They were magnificent. A collection of winter favorites perfectly curated in a massive bouquet.

“I have a delivery.”

“From?” Lucy asked bewildered.

“There’s a card,” he informed. The man set the flowers on your desk and you stood, straightening out your blouse as you plucked the card from the small spokes elevating it above the petals.

“Who’s it from?” Lucy pressed.

“Geez,” you mumbled. “Care to give me a minute or would you rather just read it yourself?”

“Go ahead,” she motioned.

You slipped the card from the envelope and slid it out. In personal handwriting, a short message relayed a simple message without a signature.

You couldn’t fight the grin this time. It filled your face with a joyous, girlish glow and Lucy smacked her hand on the surface of the desk.

“Holy shit!”

And holy, flaming fucking shit indeed.

Saturday, 9 AM. My shop. Wear something nice, it’s a date.

And you knew right where to go.

A/N: a Joe Quinn character breaking me out of a writing slump? 2022 me is not surprised. His Johnny is *chef’s kiss* and I love him, your honor.

P.S. all writers love to hear from readers and it’s the one thing I love more than anything. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

[magnetaur]

HOLYYYYSHIT

[musingsofheaven]

THREE THINGS

summary: You hate three things: Johnny Storm, Lucky Charms’ Human Torch Special Edition Cereal, and motion sickness. Unfortunately, you’re stuck in space with the three so try your best not to puke, not to punch him, and definitely not to fuck him. You’re failing at all three.

pairings: johnny storm x engineer!reader

warning: 8.3k words. mature themes. unprotected p-in-v. internal ejaculation. dry humping. d/s dynamic. (light) claustrophobic space. space sex. exhibitionism implication. power imbalance. read responsibly.

note: this one’s for my friends… ! @burymenot and @coffinkissd who helped me build the plot because we are thirsting over johnny. i fear we ate. <3 hope you enjoyed it and reblog if you so !

Johnny Storm loves three things in this world. Women. Space. Sex.

It is not always in that order, but it is close enough. People can always catch him flirting with women, it’s like he’s not picking a date and time. As long as you got his attention? He will charm you. And space, yeah, he loves it for a thrill. Maybe for attention too. He likes the way his stomach flips. He also likes the adrenaline in his system when he’s in the air. Oh, don’t forget when people cheer for him because his grin is so big when he’s witnessing that. And sex? Well, that’s his favorite hobby, if you can call it a hobby when he makes it sound like a public service.

Meanwhile, you hate three things. For starters, Johnny himself, with his cocky grin and the way he tips his head when he thinks he’s charming. Then there’s his cereal. The kind of cereal with marshmallows shaped like little fireballs and his face plastered across the box. He always leaves sugary crumbs all over the counters in the lab. You hate how he always leaves the box open, like it’s waiting for him to come back for another handful. And third, motion sickness. The kind that churns in your gut and makes you want to vomit or shake.

They picked you as a trainee engineer for this mission. A fresh assistant for the Fantastic Four. Reed said you were the top candidate. Sue was excited to have another woman on board. Ben just gave you a gruff nod of approval. Johnny? Johnny has the biggest smile like he won the lottery while leaning against the doorway in his suit. His hair is brushed clean and his eyes are glinting like he knows something you don’t. He must think he’s smooth when he gazes down at your body slowly and lazily sweeps before he throws a wink in your way.

You wanted to throw your knuckles in his face and it also didn’t help that you caught him laughing with other assistant candidates in the hall. It’s always the same grin he throws at women and he has that plastered to his face right now while giving them false promises about taking them to fly sometime. The thing is, it’s also the same shit he told you about you days ago in the cafeteria when you spilled your coffee on your shirt. The way he looks at you during training didn’t also help. It’s like he was waiting for you to mess up so he could enter and make a joke out of it.

What's way worse is when your little overthinking brain starts to wonder if he is only annoying… or noticing you because you were the one who got picked for this mission. Because it’s you who are standing next to him now. You are the one who is strapping yourself into the seat next to him. The one who is holding your breath while the engine is ready for its function and you can feel it under your boots. You feel you’re in some kind of game you didn’t agree to play because of the way he looks, how his fingers brush against you, or the way he says his stupid joke that makes your lips curl up even if you don’t want to.

You hated that too because it’s one thing to stand next to Johnny Storm on Earth while fighting the urge to roll your eyes every time he winks. It’s another to sit shoulder to shoulder when the shuttle left the earth. You can already feel your stomach crawling from there up to your throat. The warmth that sneaking around your neck and sweat beads are already forming under your collar. It’s sticking to the fabric while you are clamping the straps so hard that you feel your knuckles shaking. His low hum of excitement doesn’t help, fingers drumming a beat only he hears.

The shuttle tilts into that first dizzy climb, and a hot and sour wave rolls in your gut. Closing your eyes doesn’t help. The air is thick with plastic and metal. A small groan slips before you can swallow it back. “Aw, don’t puke yet,” Johnny says, leaning closer. His warm breath ghosts across your cheek. “We’re barely at the fun part.” Your glare snaps toward him, but your stomach flips again while forcing your mouth shut as you swallow hard.

When the engines ease, your forehead presses to the cool seat. Breathing slowly helps, but nausea still hangs heavy that pulling another groan from your lips. A rustle drags your eyes open, and Johnny’s smirk greets you like the world’s worst sunrise. “Got you something,” he says, tone bright with that fake sweetness he uses when he’s about to be annoying. A cereal box drops in your lap. Not just any box, but one with his face printed beside a cartoon of him flying with texts saying ‘Get your free Johnny Storm figure inside!’

You can see the bright letters label of Lucky Charms Cereal. There’s also a cheap figurine picture placed on top, its head too big, hair bright yellow and spiky in a tiny blue uniform. He presses the figurine he’s already holding, and a tinny voice echoes, “FLAME ON!” You blink. The figurine’s grin matches his. “Bitchass,” you mutter, pushing the box back toward him with a shaky hand. “What is this?” Johnny waves the cereal closer, ignoring your glare. “A welcome gift,” he says with eyes wide, and a grin stretching. “I heard sugar helps with motion sickness.”

A hand slaps over your face as another groan pushes out as you feel half nausea, and half exasperation. You peek through your fingers just to see if he’s already walked away but you catch him hovering and shaking the box so marshmallows rattle. “You’re unbelievable,” you said while your voice clearly sounded annoyed. He just shrugged lazily and brought the figurine into your face before tilting it so you could see it more. Once he makes sure it’s close enough, he presses the button so it yells “FLAME ON!” in your ear. You nearly choke on a laugh, pressing your lips tight, but they curl up anyway.

Your stomach flips for a different reason when you catch him watching with a grin softening before snapping back bright and smug. “Eat your cereal, rookie,” he says, dropping it back into your lap. “Captain’s orders.” When the cereal stops rattling, you think the worst is over. You survived launch without puking on his boots, and he leaves you alone while Reed walks you through cabin checks. Sugar sits heavy in your stomach, at least giving you something to focus on besides the engine hum.

A small hope sparks that you’ll get a moment to breathe without Johnny in your space. That hope dies fast when Sue finishes crew assignments, tapping her tablet with a small, apologetic smile. “Unfortunately, we’re tight on sleeping quarters for this mission,” she says, and unfortunately already sounds like a death sentence. Tension curls in your shoulders as your gaze skips over the narrow bunks. A tiny piece of you praying Johnny’s is on the other side of the shuttle.

Sue’s finger slides down the screen, eyes flicking to Johnny, who’s lounging near the wall, arms crossed, grin lazy, boots kicked out like he owns the air. “You’ll be bunking with Johnny,” she says. Silence slams so hard your brain takes a second to catch up. Johnny’s eyebrows shoot up, that grin widening like someone handed him a medal. “Hell no,” you blurt. Sue’s smile tightens. “Space limitations. We need you in Engineering and him in Pilot standby. It’s easier if you two are near each other.”

Your jaw hangs open, but Johnny beats you to a response, pushing off the wall with a clap of his hands that makes you flinch. “Sweet. I don’t snore.” You hate the way he says it like it’s going to fix everything. You hate the way his eyes glint while looking at you. “Usually.” Heat travels up to your neck and the irritation prickles under your skin. A small sputter leaves your lips, but you clamp them shut before saying something that’ll get you launched back to Earth without a parachute. He leans to you so close that you can smell the faint scent of his soap before he throws a wink at you. “Guess we’re roommates now, rookie.”

The rooms are small. Maybe it’s just two outstretched arms wide and two narrow bunks are touching the walls. A very tiny round window to see the view and enough floor for you to stand. The ceiling is low enough for you but not tall enough for Johnny so he has to duck. Of course, he already does it. He’s even laughing as he drops his duffel on the lower bunk… Asshole. Claiming it without talking to you, but you can’t fight much about it because what if he toasts you? Or your things. No, thanks. Your stomach sinks while the cereal box is tucked under your arm as you hover in the doorway. You look like you’re praying for Sue to come back and tell you it’s a mistake.

Reed’s voice echoed over the comms and Reed being Reed, he’s listing the safety protocols while Sue’s laughter can be heard in the background. Johnny peeks to look at you with his brow arching as he sprawls across the lower bunk. It looks small to him because it takes every inch of the space with his legs being long and his shoulders just fitting right in. His hand is patting the mattress beside him if he wants you to lie down and cuddle him. “This is the worst,” you say with a voice that sounds annoyed, and stepping inside so the door slides shut. His grin spreads slowly, pushing into that dimple as he props an arm behind his head. “Aw, come on. It’s not like we haven’t been close before.”

Your jaw clenches while you set the cereal on the shelf while ignoring the figurine beside it that he gave you. The room smells like metal and the hint of the shampoo he used before the launch. Also, the sweet smell of sugar is clinging to his clothes because his clumsy ass spilled half of the cereal on his body earlier. By just looking at the bunk above him already earned a groan. It’s narrow and cramped. The ladder wobbles a little when you test it. The launch still feels heavy in your body, and nausea curls in your gut while the world spins a little.

“Why can’t I be with Sue?” you mutter, hauling yourself up onto the top bunk with a thump that rattles the thin mattress. Johnny’s laugh follows, warm and smug, as you flop down and stare at the metal ceiling. Below, boots scrape the floor while the mattress creaks as he unpacks, humming under his breath. “Because, rookie,” he says, voice drifting up, “you’re lucky enough to get the Johnny Storm experience.” The urge to throw the cereal box at his head is strong, but your arm feels too heavy, your stomach uneasy, and your eyes slipping shut as you press your hand over your mouth.

Rustling sounds below. It’s probably him grinning while waiting for you to lean over and glare. “Don’t worry,” he says, softer, words pulling your eyes open as the shuttle hums, “You won’t even realize I’m here.” Another groan crawls out as your arm drops over your eyes. You’re swallowing down a roll of nausea while his laughter drifts up, the cereal box rattling on the shelf, and that stupid figurine’s head that makes you pissed. And just that’s the start because you don’t know how funny a routine builds in space. Mornings mean protein bars and Johnny bragging about only needing five hours of sleep. Afternoons pass with you elbow-deep in wires while he hovers, tossing marshmallows in his mouth, talking too much while you work. Nights end with him flopping onto his bunk, smirking up at you while you pretend he’s not there.

After dinner, Reed reads updates while Sue flicks peas across the table at Johnny, who pretends to catch them in his mouth, while Ben rumbles about wasting food. Zero gravity training comes up again and Johnny swears he can handle it. He even calls himself the “human torch and human rocket” so floating should be easy. He says it with a grin that makes you want to call him an idiot with your foot knocking your boot under the table. Sue rolls her eyes, telling Reed to let everyone have one night of fun. Ben mutters that if you want a good way to bruise a rib then zero gravity sounds fun, but he doesn’t say no. Although you can tell he’s not loving the idea very much. Reed sighs because Johnny won’t stop listing reasons why it should be turned off. You’re sure that Reed only flipped the switch off for Johnny to shut up. Gravity slips out like someone pulls the floor away from you.

The air changes and whooshes in your ear while your body drifts and floats. Your hair is messy, and some of it is going in front of your face while your stomach churns. It feels fizzy in a way that makes you giggle before you catch yourself you just did that. Johnny whoops funnily and pushes off the wall with one foot like he’s in a game. His arms spread while he spins around as if he’s a kid. One of Johnny’s open cereals is now scattered around, and a marshmallow drifts near your face before you swat it away. You grab the rail as your feet lift while knees curl as you tumble softly. At first, it feels like a dream because you are just floating around and fulfilling some kid’s dream and you move like you’re swimming in the air. You push off one wall to drift toward the opposite you. Carelessly bumping into Johnny’s shoulder when he cuts across your path. His laugh vibrates in your ear as he grabs a cabinet edge, curls floating around his head. “Watch it, rookie,” he says. He’s smirking widely as his legs tangling with yours before you both push off, spinning in opposite directions.

“You’re the one in the way,” you fire back, flipping before your elbow thumps against the wall that sends you drifting. Hours pass while you float, push off walls, and try to drink water from a bubble that nearly ends up in Johnny’s nose because he won’t stop making you laugh. Your stomach finally settles. Your body feels light. Air tasted faintly of metal and the sweet scent of cereal stuck in Johnny’s pocket. Floating is fun for exactly twenty minutes. But when it’s time to sleep, the fun dies fast. Your bunk is useless without gravity, the mattress doing nothing but thankfully it’s strapped there so it’s not floating around as your body hovers. You’re drifting the second you exhale too hard. Knees bump the frame while your arms wave, fingers curling around the rail before your legs float up again. You flip until your face nearly plants into the ceiling.

Johnny’s behind you, and trying to get into his bunk. He’s laughing too hard because he’s failing so his feet are kicking while he spins like a slow top. “Get your foot out of my face,” you snap before batting his ankle away when it drifts near your nose. “Stop hogging the air, then,” he fires back, snorting when you shove at his thigh. It sent him drifting in a slow spin. Both of you should have gotten the sleeping bag ready so that you both know how to strap in the railings so you can sleep when the idea of turning off the gravity for the whole night is laid on the table. Now both of you try to hold the rails, but every small movement sends you floating again. You are trying your best to ignore him when an elbow knocks your ribs and his knee bumps your hip. But when it comes to him, you have no patience, so your hand catches his arm to stop him, but you two just spin together slowly. It’s ridiculous and the two of you are now tangled clumsily. Hair drifts across your eyes that tickling your cheek, and you blow it away. You catch a glimpse of Johnny’s face inches from yours and he’s upside down while grinning like an idiot. His laugh is low and breath warm when it puffs across your lips.

“This sucks,” you mutter, trying to untangle your arm from where it’s pinned. “It’s awesome,” he says, spinning you until your head bumps softly against the bunk frame, making you hiss. His calf brushes against your thigh when your legs tangle again with his. Breath caught in your chest while your bodies are hovering over each other. Are you ignoring now how you bump into him with every shift because it’s really not spacious here. There’s the grin you hate but it quickly dies down and is replaced by something soft that also didn’t last long. His throat bobs while he gets closer to you. Noses almost brushing to each other while warm breath grazes your cheek. “Can’t sleep like this,” you whisper. “Yeah,” Johnny says and voice lower, “I know.” Neither of you moves. The ship hums, vibrations running through the metal while your arms and legs drift, tangled around him, floating above the bunk in the tiny room you hate sharing but suddenly don’t hate as much.

No one speaks after that, and for a moment, it almost feels like you could fall asleep. Yeah, you are delusional like that and ignoring the fact that you are floating. Your eyes drift shut, and your hair fanned around your face in the cold air while you let yourself sink into the smallest drowsiness you feel. The soft bump of your knee against the bunk frame barely even registers. Limbs float, legs drifting out, toes brushing the ceiling as you chase the edges of sleep. Your last clear thought being that maybe, just maybe, zero gravity isn’t the worst thing in the universe.

Then the heater dies. There’s the loud sound of a click rattling in the pipes and it is followed by silence. It feels too empty, and the quietness feels too loud, even though you can’t hear anything besides the breathing of you and Johnny. The heat is slowly exiting out of the air like someone banging the window open in space. The coldness slapping on your skin, especially on your stomach, because your shirt is riding up with zero gravity. That leaves goosebumps in its wake. Oxygen from your body puffs into tiny white smoke in front of your face, and you wrap your arms around your body. You try to tuck your knees in but couldn’t hold it because it’s floating back out uselessly.

Johnny’s voice was sliding through the muffled coldness somewhere in the darkness. “Don’t tell me you’re cold already,” he says teasing but it disappears the moment he hears the soft clatter of your teeth grinding together. You sniff before you can stop it, and the environment is too quiet to hide it. Lips pressed together and shivers crept into your system so hard that your body spins a little in the air. Your hands are holding tightly against the rail of the bunk like you are trying to fight the zero gravity but your arms feel wobbly and like a noodle. Especially in the cold so you just end up floating sideways again.

Johnny sighs exaggeratedly, but you can feel the faint concern and softness there while he comes closer to you. He’s drifting until his feet bump your hip. “Come on, you’ll freeze,” he says. The warmth of his body reaches you even in the freezing air, and it’s infuriating how much you want to cling to it. “Don’t you dare,” you mutter, voice shaking, but another shiver cuts through your ribs. It makes your arms fly up as your body twirls again. Your eyes closed when you feel the coldness in your fingertips. But honestly, you just refuse to look at him. “Seriously, rookie,” Johnny says, closer now, breathing warm for half a second as it ghosts across your cheek. “You’re shivering like a Chihuahua.”

The retort dies on your tongue when another shiver runs through your spine. Your body curls instinctively toward the nearest heat source, which happens to be him. Fingers press into the soft fabric of his shirt as you catch yourself steady. Legs bumping his thighs, and your forehead landing against his shoulder. A muffled curse leaves your mouth. Voice low and defeated. “Just for heat,” you grumble. “Sure, just heat,” Johnny says, but his voice dips. It’s teasing in that way that makes you want to smack him, except your hands are too busy clutching his sides to keep from floating away.

Both of you drift in the middle of the tiny room while tangled together, and spinning slowly as your legs bump into his hips. Your arms are hooking around his shoulder tightly. Each tiny movement sends you rotating again and your hair brushing across his face. You can feel his breath fanning over your temple. It’s cold, which is ironic because his power is flame, and he could easily heat up the room, but he doesn’t. He chooses to offer this way. You can feel the heat from his chest that soothes you when you press closer, and it’s enough to ease the coldness for a moment.

The quiet and uneven breathing fills the space. You can hear his heartbeat thudding under the ear that’s pressed to his chest. It’s steady and grounding, even the zero gravity makes you rock in gentle, slow circles. Fingers curl into his shirt, holding tight, and your eyes slip shut against the cold. “This is so stupid,” you whisper. “Yeah,” Johnny says, a grin in his voice as he shifts. He’s pulling you closer until your legs hook around his waist, keeping you steady. “Best stupid idea ever.”

You don’t answer because it’s easier to focus on the heat spreading in your chest. It’s easier to focus on the vibration of his stupid laugh when your bodies bump against the wall. It’s easier to listen to the quiet whooshing of the breaths in the dark. See? You can focus, even every few seconds, there’s a gentle spin that moves your hair across his jaw, and his hand settles at the small of your back. He’s keeping you from drifting too far each time you shift. The heater might be dead, but at least you’re not freezing alone and you’re with this stupid guy.

Floating around him in half-sleep almost works. Your eyes slip closed, warmth pressing against your front, and the sound of the ship mixes with Johnny’s soft breathing near your ear. Every so often your bodies drift in a slow spin with limbs shifting as you try to settle in the cold that is kept away only by the heat trapped between you. For a moment it feels like you could actually rest. Then a small bump jolts through your hips. A warm and solid pressure that drags right between your thighs. It’s sliding over your clit through the thin layers of your sleep shorts. It forces a gasp out of your mouth before you can swallow it down.

“Shit- sorry.” He apologizes quickly like it’s an accident. His voice sounds low and muffled near your neck. The words brushed warm against your skin. The feeling you can’t explain is collecting in your cheeks as your legs tighten around his hips. You try to keep steady so it doesn’t happen again. Breath is choked and stuck in your chest. Your heart is beating so fast, like you are having hypertension, while you wait for the moment for it to disappear. It does, eventually, leaving a silence so heavy you can almost taste it. A few minutes later, the slow spin of your bodies brings you back into alignment. Another shift pushes your hips against his. It’s the same heat and pressure catching you off guard again. Your breath leaves in a shaky puff, and your thighs clench before you can stop them.

“Fuck- okay, that was me this time,” Johnny mutters, a strained laugh rumbling under your palms where they rest on his shoulders. “Sorry. Really.” It’s impossible to answer, your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth while you try to pretend you don’t feel how hard he is, and how your pussy throbs at the drag of fabric over your clit. The heat spreads low in your belly. Silence wraps around both of you. It’s only broken by the soft rattle of something shifting on the wall as you spin. Your bodies pressing together again in a way that makes your head spin.

It happens again. For the third time, there’s no apology. You initiate after he does that, and you start chasing the friction before you can even stop yourself. There’s a quiet whimper slipping past your lips. His breath catches, and his arms tighten around your waist to pull you closer. The movement is slow, but bodies glide in the cold air while warmth builds where you press together. “What are we doing?” Your whisper hangs between you, breathless. Your forehead pressing to his as you try to keep your eyes open, try to ignore the way your hips keep moving to chase another drag of the pleasurable friction.

“Fuck if I know,” Johnny says, his voice rough, hand sliding down to your lower back to hold you there. “Feels good, though.” Legs tangling around his waist as your hips roll again while the spinning of your bodies slows down. The movements are not hurried. Fabric dragging against fabric with the heat spreading in your body every time you both repeat the motion. The shape of his cock is grinding right exactly at your clothed clit. The friction makes your breath catch and your fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt. Every small drag goes straight through your nerves, which makes your thighs twitch while you fight the noise boiling in your throat. Head dropping to your shoulder when a groan slips from his mouth. Every exhale is warm against your neck. “Fuck- sorry, I can’t-”

“Shut up,” you manage to say despite your voice breaking on a gasp. But it’s endearing how he can’t hold himself back. Hips continue to grind down and contact remains. Your clit catching on the hard ridge of his cock again makes your eyes flutter. When you make another roll of your hips, it pulls a needy sound from his throat. His hands grip your waist tighter while returning the movements and rocking up to meet you. It’s slow and shaky. Pressing closer while floating in the cold and chasing every spark both of you can find. The quietness of the environment feels too loud around the two of you, which mixes with the sounds from your mouths. Everything is narrowing down to the way the bodies rub, slide, and catch together again and again. The head builds until it’s too much to ignore. Hands clutch fabric, hips rolling as another breathless whimper slips free, your forehead pressed to his shoulder while you grind again, chasing another slow drag of pressure that makes your clit throb.

A soft curse vibrates in his chest. His breath is hot against your neck while he tries to stay still. It doesn’t work for either of you. The small shift sends your bodies apart, and it’s enough for the cold to get in between you. It makes your skin crawl while your fingers clutch his shirt before it slips away from his body after he removes it. The fabric is floating in the air and twisting in the low light. His chest comes into view, and warm skin catches the dim glow while his hands hover near your waist. Touch feels unsure like he doesn’t know if he’s doing anything right. Your breath comes out in a shaky laugh. “How the fuck does sex even work up here?”

A crooked grin lifts his lips, eyes flicking down between your bodies before coming back to yours. “Wanna find out?” He asks like it’s already decided. You float backwards and your hair lifts around your face while you try to keep your knees pulled up. Thighs pressing together as a tingly feeling is buzzing heavily in you. All you can give him is a nod with your teeth caging your bottom lip when your eyes drop to his chest. You watch how it rises and falls while he breathes.

Johnny’s hand touches the hem of your sleep shirt, and his fingertips brush against your chest when he pulls it up. The shirt slipping over your head and drifting in the air to join his that’s already somewhere settling in the air. You don’t even realize that your bra is also off now on how his hand moves fast. Just realized it when goosebumps scatter across your skin. Your nipples harden when they come into contact with the cold air while your arm floats upwards. Hands are trying to push your hair back from your face. His eyes catch on your tits, pupils darkening before he drags them back up to meet yours. Lips parted as he breathed out a soft, “Fuck.”

Shorts come next, your fingers sliding with the waistband while your body spins gently in the air. The fabric of your shorts and panties slides down to your thighs. He just throws it somewhere that joins the clothes above your eyes. Your cunt is exposed now. It’s wet and warm in the cold at the same time. His gaze drops again and the muscles in his jaw flex as he swallows. “Come here.” His voice has a glint of a perfect mix of roughness and softness that pulls your organs tangled deep in your stomach. A hand lands on your waist to guide you closer to him. His knee makes your thigh drift apart to open.

Your hands are shaking with the waistband of his sweats before you tug it down along with his boxers inside. It’s enough for his cock to spring free. He removes the rest, and your eyes lock at his flushed tip. There’s a bead of precum glistening on the head. It doesn’t stay in his body for too long because it drifts away in a tiny droplet. After all, there’s no gravity right now. “Johnny,” you whisper. Voice sounds broken already. Forehead pressing to his and your body shivering as your cunt clenches around nothing. It’s desperate for friction.

“Yeah.” His breath mixes with yours warmly and softly, while his hands slide down to your ass to pull you closer until your hips align. “Hold on to me.” Fingers clutch his shoulders as your legs wrap around his waist. Your body presses closer as the head of his cock brushes through your folds. It catches on your clit in a way that sends a whimper from your lips. A shiver runs down your spine before your hips tilt to chase the feeling again. Forehead bumps against his white hair floating between your faces.

“Fuck, wait- shit- Johnny,” you stammer as you try to keep your body steady while you adjust. The slide of his cock against your pussy makes your thighs twitch. “I’m trying,” he mutters with a breathless laugh leaving him. His hand slides up your spine to steady you and presses you back against the nearest wall panel. “Just- here, like this.” You could feel the cold metal when your back meets it. The feeling sends electricity to your spine, but it gives you enough leverage to change the position of your hips and tilt them. You start grinding his cock between your folds with your clit catching on the thick ridge as your body rocks. It chases the growing forest in your belly that, at this point, it’s not just butterflies or fluttering you feel right now. His forehead drops to your shoulder as a low groan vibrates against your skin. His hips roll in a slow and shaky motion.

“Fuck, you feel- hnngh- good,” he breathes out, his cock gliding through your slick, and dragging over your clit with each slow thrust. “Don’t stop,” you whisper. Your voice breaks on a gasp as your legs tighten around his waist to pull him close. Hips moving to grind your pussy against his cock while your body starts to tremble. “Not gonna,” Johnny says, his hand slipping under your thigh to hold you in place. The other is bracing against the wall near your head as he thrusts again in slow and careful motion. His cockhead slides against your clit in a way that will make it pulse.

Both of you are floating in the cold with bodies pressed together. The warmth you feel is getting worse with every grind especially how your cunt gets more slicked and needy. Clit throbbing each time the tip drags over it. Every breath he makes comes out shaky. Every small movement you both made sends sparks in your skin. It feels awkward how things are floating around you like it’s some kind of silent witness. It’s also forgotten in the low gravity while your hips roll again, desperate for more. The burn builds the moment his cock slides in slowly. It’s thick and long and it’s splitting you open until your walks flutter around him. It snatches a rough sound from his throat.

Head falling back against the wall while you try to anchor yourself. Knees tight and legs wrapped around his hips while your nails scratch the muscles in his back. Nails digging and clearly will draw red lines that you’ll see tomorrow. The stretch of his cock makes your cunt pulse and clench. There’s a soft gasp that catches in your throat while your toes curl. The small shifts send your body floating a few inches from the wall and the gravity. A small shift sends your bodies floating a few inches from the wall. The gravity is nonexistent in the cold air while your hair drifts around your face. His hands grab your waist to pull you down on his cock again, but the movement only sends you both drifting. A laugh slips from your lips. It’s breathless but it turns into a whimper when his cock nudges deeper.

“Hold on,” Johnny grits out, trying to push you back toward the wall again. His hips roll, pressing you against the cold metal as your thighs tighten around him, ankles locking behind his back to keep yourself close. “Trying,” you manage to say while your fingers are gripping his shoulders. Nails dig into his skin and will create moon shapes when you pull them away. It makes you press them harder when he thrusts again. It’s slow but deep. You can feel all of him. Cunt so slick, so you can hear how it moves, especially since it’s so quiet right now. He drags against your walls and his tip kisses your cervix, which makes your stomach turn upside down.

Your back arches when his hand slips between your bodies and fingers brushing over your clit. The touch is light, teasing, making your hips jerk forward as you chase the pressure. A soft “fuck” leaves your lips when he circles it again, slow and steady, matching the slow thrust of his cock as he fills you. “D-don’t stop,” you whine out. Breathing hitch as your nipples brush against his chest. The friction makes your pussy clench more around him. He managed to drop his mouth to your neck and teeth grazing over your pulse point before his tongue licks it. Doesn’t take long before he bites it like he wants to taste more of you. It pulls another shaky moan from your throat.

When he thrusts, it sends you both to drift upward again. Bodies are moving away from the wall. It made you clutch into him tighter just to try to pull him back down. The movement just makes him press deeper inside of you. Angle hitting it perfectly as your head drops forward to rest against his shoulder. It makes you wetter as the warmth spreads in your stomach. Feels heavy and sweet when your hips roll and trying to keep the pace slow. “Fuck, you feel so good,” Johnny mutters against your skin, breath warm on your neck while his hand keeps working your clit. His other hand grips your ass, pulling you closer as he thrusts again, the slide messy and perfect, your cunt squeezing around him with every slow drag.

“Johnny,” you whimper. Voice breaking when his cock pushes in deep, hips grinding as you feel the ridge of his cockhead catch on your spot. The drag is so good it sends your legs shaking, thighs trembling around him while your toes curl. “Yeah, baby, just like that,” he mutters before groaning. He presses you against the wall again, and it makes a soft thud when your back touches it. The coldness is fighting the heat burning in your body while he’s thrusting in slow and deep motion. Each roll of his hips sends green lights of pleasure through your body while your nails scratch down his back. It leaves faint red lines on his skin. Your body starts to float again with each slow grind, and. your hair drifts while your cunt clenches around him.

It feels wet and tight for him when his cock slides in and out. The pace is impossible to keep steady in zero gravity, but it doesn’t matter when every push sends you both one step closer to finishing. His head dropped down to the ground, and you can feel his hot breath on you. “This is so fucking hot,” he whispers, voice rough, before his mouth catches yours in a messy kiss, teeth clacking softly as your bodies float and bump in the air. Your hips roll again, clit grinding against his hand, heat building and building without letting you fall over the edge. The drag of his cock inside you is too good to stop, each slow thrust making your cunt clench tighter, slick dripping down your thighs while you both breathe each other in, your legs wrapped around his hips like you’ll never let go.

Floating bodies knock together as Johnny tries to thrust, hands braced on your hips while the two of you spin lazily in the room’s low light. A soft laugh breaks from your lips when your back bumps against a panel. The impact made you shove your body to him and you felt him slide deeper. Arms tangled around his shoulder like you are locking him in place. Nails are marking him up on his back muscles. Legs wrap tighter around his waist like you are scared he will go. “Fuck, hold on,” Johnny mutters, shifting to press you back against the nearest wall.

His palm slides between your thighs, fingers slipping down to find your clit. The touch sparks, making your head tip back while a breathy, “nhh- Johnny,” falls from your mouth. A rough moan vibrates in his chest as he continues to thrust into you again. “Yeah, that’s it,” he says with his lips brushing against your jaw. Freehand squeezing your thigh hard, enlistment to make it bruise if you don't remove it from there. He’s trying to keep the angle where he can slide deeper as he thrusts into you. Each movement is messy. It’s pushing you both off the wall a little before he drags you back while his forehead pressed against yours.

Pussy clenching around him when he thumbs your clit. It pulsed underneath his thumb while your hips rocked forward to welcome his movements. The weather smells like sweat, sex, and metal and it hangs in the air. When your chest slides against him it feels a little cold because the sweat is cold in your body. The soft, needy moan leaves your mouth while your toes curl in the air. Heels brushing along the hard muscle of his lower back. His lips find yours in a sloppy kiss, all wet heat and breath, muffling your broken sounds as he keeps moving inside you. Hips jerk upward, bumping you both away from the wall, forcing his hand to grab a rail to pull you back into place.

The moment you settle, he thrusts again. It’s harder and makes you gasp. “Johnny, oh- shit, Johnny-” Your voice breaks as your head tips forward with eyes squeezing shut while his cock drags against your walls. He hits the spot that makes your thighs tremble around him. “Can’t- can’t keep us steady,” he pants, but his hand doesn’t stop on your clit, rubbing tight circles as your body tenses. A small laugh breaks between your moans, but it’s cut off by a gasp when he thrusts again. “Feels good,” you whisper, breathless, forehead pressing to him as your hips push back against him, wanting more.

He grins, but it’s strained, his eyes dark as he looks down between your bodies. “Yeah? You like this, baby?” His voice drops, rough, while his thumb presses down, making you jerk. Hands sliding and caressing his shoulders. Nails continue to draw red lines on his skin just to make him closer if that’s even possible. You just want him to fill you again despite him being inside you already. The sound of the skin slapping and wetness fills the space, mixed with his heavy breathing and your shaky moans. Johnny, on the other hand, tries to keep the pace, but every thrust pushes you both away. He just keeps dragging you back and forcing your back to scrape against the wall before he ruts forward again.

The constant push and pull turns everything sloppy, his cock slipping deeper with each grind while your walls flutter, getting close. “Fuck- fuck, Johnny, wait-” Your voice breaks when his hips roll again, cock pressing inside so deep your toes curl. “Not yet,” he mutters, forehead pressed to yours as he slows, but his thumb keeps working your clit. “Just a little longer.” Legs starting to shake and knees knocking on the sides of his ribs while you cling to him like a koala. Your mouth falls open, but there's no sound when he thrusts up again into your pussy. His lips catch yours. He’s swallowing your soft and broken moans as you float together in the cold cabin. The heat between your bodies is the only thing keeping you balanced.

Each breath you release feels tight inside your chest. Your body is straining toward him and needing to let go, but trying to hold on just a little longer. The sounds from the ship got silenced by the sounds you are making. The quiet whimpers, the slick slide of your bodies, and Johnny’s rough groans as he tries not to lose it. Your pussy is squeezing around him again and again while you hover on the edge and are almost there. You don’t care if it’s hard to move or when you move around. Or when your back makes a noise against the wall again. A curse leaves your lips when you tighten around him. The stretch has you panting. Nails digging into his shoulders while your legs squeeze tighter around his waist to keep him close.

You try to muffle a moan but each thrust makes out a needy and breathy moan for you. The way your clit has been getting a lot of affection from him. It is catching that spot that makes your hips jerk against him. A soft whimper was made by you when he thrusts again. It’s deeper this time. His cockhead nudging your sweet spot so good it steals your breath. The slide of his skin against yours feels hot, sweat sticking where your chests touch, and the air cold on your skin in the small cabin. His mouth finds your neck, teeth catching your skin in a way that makes your eyes flutter shut while your thighs shake around him.

“Shit- Johnny, please-” The words come out broken as your cunt tightens again, squeezing around him as you chase the edge. His hand doesn’t stop, thumb rubbing fast circles over your clit while his cock keeps pressing deep, making you gasp, “ngh- fuck, Johnny- !” His low groan vibrates against your skin when your pussy finally gives out, fluttering around him as your orgasm hits, sharp and sweet, pulling a cry from your throat. Legs spasm around his waist, body arching into him as your hands claw at his back, leaving red lines down to his hips while you whimper, “oh- oh god- Johnny, Johnny-”

“Fuck, that’s it, baby,” he pants, voice rough in your ear. His thrusts get sloppy as your cunt keeps squeezing around him, wetness dripping down your thighs in the low gravity while you feel him swell inside you. Another thrust pushes you up the wall before he drags you back down, his hips stuttering as he buries himself deep, cock throbbing. A grunt leaves his chest, head dropping to your shoulder as he mutters, “Gonna- fuck, gonna cum-” before his hips snap once, twice, pressing all the way in as warmth fills you, thick and heavy.

His arms locked around your waist like he’s caging you with the way he holds you tight as his cock twitches inside. Your cunt pulsing around him while you both float around and panting into each other’s neck. He can’t feel you clenching from time to time and it’s actually impressive how he doesn't cum yet straight inside your pussy. Your arms loosen so your hand can brush through his hair while your legs stay hooked around him. You're keeping him inside as your pussy throbs with the aftershocks. A small laugh bubbles out of you, breathless and shaky, and Johnny lifts his head, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead while he grins.

His breathing slows down while both of you float in the air and tangle with each other. Legs still clinging tight around him while his cock is softening inside you. Your forehead rests on his chest as you try to catch your breath. Lips brushing against his skin while the sweat cools on your body. The room feels too quiet, your ears ringing from how hard you came, from how loud your moans must have been in the thin metal walls.

Something small bumps against your ankle. Plastic scrapes against the floor before a loud, cheery voice blares into the silence. “FLAME ON!” Your eyes fly open in horror. A groan leaves your mouth, head tipping back as you cover your face with your hand. The stupid Johnny Storm figurine floats near your foot, the one he gave you just to annoy you, its speaker crackling in the quiet.

“Johnny.” Your voice sounds tired, deadpan, while your pussy still clenches weakly around him. “I hate that thing. I hate you for giving me that thing.” A snort breaks out of him, bright and sharp, his chest shaking against yours while his laugh bounces off the metal walls. “It’s my biggest fan,” he says, wheezing through the giggles while his hand slides down to your hip to keep you steady. You glare at him, fingers smacking lightly at his shoulder. “It’s fucking creepy. Turn it off.” The figurine keeps spinning near your feet, repeating in that stupid tinny voice, “FLAME ON! FLAME ON! FLAME ON!”

“Johnny, if you don’t turn it off, I swear-” Your threat dies off when he shifts to stomp it with his heel, but the zero gravity just sends it floating away, still yelling. You burst out laughing, your head dropping onto his shoulder while your body shakes against him. He wheezes, snorts again, and tries to kick it into the corner, but it bounces off the wall, shouting, “FLAME ON!” in a muffled echo. “God, I hate you.” You choke on another laugh, legs still wrapped around his waist, trying not to slip off his cock while you both float.

Johnny’s head tilts back, mouth open with laughter, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. “You don’t,” he teases you before reaching to grab the figurine and shove it into a drawer. It muffles the voice at last. Moment of peace for you. Silence falls again. It’s broken only by your soft panting. Your pussy flutters once more around him and making you both flinch with a small gasp. The last bit of warmth drips down your thigh, floating away in tiny drops before sticking to the wall.

“Do you think the others heard us?” You ask him even though you know they heard both of you. Your voice comes out small, embarrassed, and shy. All three, while your cunt clenches around him one last time, and makes you both flinch. Johnny’s grin widens as he leans in. He presses a quick kiss to your lips while he’s still buried deep. “Nah,” he says but it’s clear he’s just trying to reassure you by saying that, “but if they did, I’m never gonna let you live it down.” You groan, letting your head fall against the wall while he laughs, holding you tight in zero gravity ,your bodies sticking together, your legs wrapped around him, the two of you still floating and warm, close in the cold dark of the cabin.

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⠀⠀⠀twenty-twenty-five © addie / musingsofheaven.

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[fireinmoonshot]

rule breaker | johnny storm x fem!reader

Pairing: Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader Summary: When you and Johnny Storm started fooling around, he made sure to tell you that it was going to be nothing serious. Well, at least until he broke his own rule and fell in love with you. Warnings: Mention of food, a make-out session and references to sex (but nothing explicit), no spoilers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps! Word Count: 2.9k A/N: I literally haven't written in like a month and a half, even though I have been trying. I've been in a massive slump. I assumed Pedro Pascal would help me out of it when I saw Fantastic Four this morning, only for me to come out of the film entirely in love with Johnny Storm (and Sue... I really want to write for her too). And then I ended up writing almost 3k for Johnny, so... me writing for Joaquín, Bob and now Johnny is so telling. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. Johnny is fun to write for and I look forward to exploring his character more if people want me to write more for him! Requests are always open 😊

When you first started seeing Johnny Storm, he had only one condition: that nothing between the two of you was to be serious. It was a fling, nothing more. You were fooling around and having fun. Johnny had a reputation to uphold – one that he took great pride in, being known as a ‘womaniser’ across the city and the world.

He was the first one to bend his own rule, though, when he saw you the second time… and then the third, the fourth and so on. He never thought too much of it. The two of you always had a great time and you worked well together in more ways than one. What was the problem with that? Johnny wasn’t planning on settling down (he’d seen enough of his sister and brother-in-law’s life to know that wasn’t in the cards for him yet). But he liked you, he liked spending time with you… and so what if the worst part of his day was when he had to say goodbye to you? 

It was one day when he watched you walking away and hailing a cab to head back to your own apartment that he realised that he hadn’t just bent his rule, he’d broken it completely. 

Johnny Storm was, against his will, in love. 

As he walked back towards the Baxter Building, his eyebrows furrowed, he knew that somewhere along the way things had gone terribly wrong. Johnny Storm didn’t fall in love. He was a womaniser! He loved women, he loved spending time with women, he loved falling into bed with women and not having to think about having a relationship with them. 

But then you came along and changed him before he knew what was happening.

The next morning, he was sitting in the kitchen, a box of Lucky Charms in his hands, though he hadn’t eaten any since he’d sat down. All he was doing was staring across the room, frowning at the wall. Ben, mid-way through making breakfast, was concerned.

“Are you sick?” He asked, trying to break Johnny’s focus.

Johnny blinked and sat the box of Lucky Charms on the table, glancing over at Ben. “No.”

“You haven’t even opened the cereal.”

He looked down at the box, noticing for the first time that it was still sealed. When was the last time he’d gotten a box of Lucky Charms out of the cupboard and not broken straight into them? Ben hadn’t even had to berate him about him ruining his appetite this morning.

Oh, he was so done for.

Johnny let out a groan and threw his head backwards, leaning over the back of the chair.

“You sure you’re okay?” Ben asked as he flipped a pancake.

“No,” Johnny groaned again. He looked over at Ben as he put the pancake on the top of an already very tall stack. “Have you ever been in love, Ben?”

Ben stared at him, almost burning another pancake in the process. “Why are you asking?”

“Just… that’s not important!”

“Sure, kid…” Ben shook his head and flipped another pancake. 

“Are you gonna answer my question?” Johnny pressed.

“No.”

Johnny groaned again and pulled himself up from the seat. There was no way he was going to discuss this with Sue or Reed, so Ben was his best bet… but actually saying the words out loud were so much more difficult than he’d expected, especially since Ben didn’t seem to be particularly open to the conversation either.

“I give up,” he huffed, starting to walk from the room. Breakfast could wait. He could reheat the pancakes later. Since he hadn’t touched the Lucky Charms, he supposed he didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. The only thing he could think about was you.

The way you’d felt in his arms the night before, the feeling of your lips on his, the way your hair looked, spread out over his pillow, the way you smiled at him when he made cheesy jokes, especially in moments when he shouldn’t be making cheesy jokes. 

“Johnny,” Ben called out, just as Johnny was about to leave the room. He turned around, looking over at where Ben was still standing behind the stove. “Just be honest with yourself. No ones reputation is more important than their feelings.”

For a moment, Johnny only stared at Ben. Had he somehow understood everything Johnny had been feeling without him having to say a word? Did he know that Johnny was stressed over his reputation undoubtedly about to come crashing down because he’d fallen in love? He couldn’t… none of his family had even met you. He was always careful about sneaking you in and out so that no one could ask questions. 

But then again, you were the only girl he’d brought back to their home. With every other girl he’d seen before you, he’d gone to them. But somewhere along the way with you, he’d started bringing you home instead. And it had been a long time since he’d been with anyone but you.

Back in his room, he found himself staring at his calendar, trying to figure out if he could move things around so he could see you again sooner. Ben’s words were on repeat in his mind. No ones reputation is more important than their feelings. Maybe he was right. Johnny had briefly considered ending things with you after he realised he loved you. But then he thought about it more and decided that never seeing you again would hurt more. That even the idea of being with someone that wasn’t you felt like a betrayal to both you and himself.

It was a few hours later, the sun just starting to set over New York, when he decided he had to do something about all of this sooner rather than later. He should have been getting ready to have dinner with Ben, Reed and Sue, but instead he was getting dressed to leave the Baxter Building and go to you. He’d been to your apartment before, back when you’d first started fooling around a few months ago. 

Still, as he stood in front of your door, his hand raised to knock on it, he was terrified. What if you turned him away? What if you were busy? What if there was someone else inside your apartment? You two had made it clear from the start that you weren’t exclusive. There was nothing stopping you from seeing other people. It was Johnny who, somewhere along the way, had decided to focus only on being with you. 

His hand was still raised, about to knock, when the door swung open and his eyes fell on you. The way your hair framed your face, the outfit you were wearing and the way it hugged every part of your body perfectly, the colour of your eyes and the look in them – surprise at seeing Johnny Storm standing in the hallway, but also… relief? Was that what that was?

“Johnny,” you said, eyes wide.

“Hi,” he replied. As if that one word said everything.

“Hi.”

For a moment, there was just silence as the two of you looked at each other. One of your neighbours exited the elevator and walked to their apartment, watching you the entire way. Once their door was closed, you finally broke the silence. 

“What are you doing here?” You asked, glancing at his hand which was still in mid air, hovering like he’d been about to knock on your door. “We saw each other just last night.” As if you weren’t quietly thrilled to see him again. As if you hadn’t been daydreaming every moment you weren’t with Johnny about a moment just like this. 

He noticed the way you looked at his hand and immediately dropped it, wiping his sweaty palm on his trousers. Why was he nervous all of a sudden? Johnny was never nervous when it came to you. He certainly hadn’t been nervous last night when he’d had you in his bed. 

“Can we talk inside?” He finally asked, managing something other than hi. He didn’t want to have this conversation in the middle of the hallway. “Unless you have plans.” You were going out by the looks of it. 

You nodded, stepping back to let Johnny into your apartment. Your ‘plans’ had only involved leaving your apartment to get some fresh air and maybe some alcohol at the bar on the corner. Anything to try and get your mind off of Johnny Storm and the night you’d had with him last night. Anything to try and get the fact that you were falling in love with possibly the most unavailable man on the planet.

You closed the door behind Johnny after he was inside your apartment and insisted that he make himself comfortable. Following him into your living room, you sat down on the couch beside him, folding your hands together in your lap. This conversation clearly wasn’t going to be anything good, judging by the look on his face. 

Perhaps he’d gotten an inkling of a feeling about the way you’d been feeling for him. Maybe last night, you’d said something in the heat of the moment that you didn’t remember – something that made him want to end things with you. Maybe, after being with you for so long now, he was ready for a change. He’d probably had many conversations like this in the past with various other women. You weren’t special.

“Whatever it is you’re here to say,” you began, “just say it. No hard feelings.”

Johnny was having trouble making his thoughts coherent, though. You were in front of him again, your knees almost touching his, and his eyes kept flickering to your mouth without them meaning to. He was having to use all his self control not to lean over and kiss you. That wasn’t why he was here, even though he was secretly hoping that would occur at some point in the night, if you didn’t tell him to get out and banish him from your apartment after he said what he had come here to say.

You watched him, noticing the way his gaze was flickering and the way one of his knees had started to bounce up and down – something he tended to do when he was worried. Unable to stop yourself, you reached over and put a hand on his knee. He looked down at your hand immediately, eyes narrowing in on it, on the feeling of the warmth of your hand through the thin material of his trousers.

Something came over him at that small act of touch and before he knew it, he was acting on instinct. He leant towards you, his hands moving to cup your face as he pressed his lips to yours. The pressure had you leaning back against the pillows of the couch as he kissed you. You groaned a little into his mouth, one of your hands moving to fist in the material of his sweater as his lips moved against yours.

Even though you’d kissed less than 24 hours ago, the feeling was unlike anything. There was nothing in life that you could have ever compared it to. The way his lips felt against yours made you feel like you were on fire – which was amusing considering his super powers. Maybe it was even some kind of effect from his powers. You didn’t really care. 

Johnny pulled back from the kiss, breathless, and squeezed his eyes shut, his forehead falling against yours. This was not the plan. He wasn’t coming here to kiss you. He was coming here to confess to you. To ask you to be in a proper relationship with him, not to just fool around with him whenever you both desired that. 

“Johnny,” you muttered, one of your hands moving to cup his cheek. You could see that whatever was going on inside his brain was troubling him. You’d thought he was coming here to break things off with you, but judging by that kiss you’d been very wrong. “What’s going on?” 

Briefly, he captured your lips in his again, his teeth pulling a little on your bottom lip before he pulled away again. One of his hands had moved down to grip your waist during the kiss and the heat coming from it felt almost dangerous. 

“I broke my own rule,” he murmured, lips only inches away from yours.

“What rule?” You breathed, desperately trying not to get your hopes up. There was only one rule that you knew of when it came to your relationship with Johnny Storm: nothing is to be serious. It’s all just for fun.

“This isn’t just a fling anymore,” Johnny admitted, eyes still shut tight. He couldn’t bring himself to open them because if he did, yours would be the first thing he’d see and they’d tell him everything. If you were hurt by his words, he knew he’d never forget the look in your eyes and he wasn’t sure he could live with himself if you were. There was every chance that you only wanted this to be a fling, too. That you wanted nothing serious from Johnny, just like you’d agreed on the first time you slept together.

“What?” You were barely able to get the word out. It was nothing more than a breath and if Johnny wasn’t hovering so close to your face, you’re certain he wouldn’t have even heard you.

Johnny took a breath. “I don’t want to only see you when we fool around,” he started. “I know we agreed on this not being serious at the start. But if you’re open to it, I want to try this for real. An actual relationship.”

He said the words quickly, like he was worried that if he stopped, he wouldn’t be able to keep going. He needed to get them all out before he could chicken out or before you could interrupt him and break his heart, something he believed was a real possibility.

Because his eyes were still closed, he didn’t see the smile appearing on your face. You reached up and ran your thumb along his cheek gently. “Johnny, open your eyes.” 

He opened one eye slowly, still worried, and then the second one. His gaze instantly went to your lips, his heart beating faster as he looked at your smile. “You’re smiling,” he murmured. “Does that mean–”

“Yes, Johnny. It does,” you confirmed, stroking his cheek again softly, just happy that he’d finally opened his eyes and therefore opened himself up to you. He hadn’t been afraid to end things with you at all. He’d just been afraid of what you were going to say to him.

“Oh, man,” Johnny laughed, pressing his lips to yours again briefly before pulling away from you properly and standing to his feet. He threw his hands in the air and cheered loudly.

Laughing, you sat up. “Johnny, I have neighbours!” 

“I don’t care,” he shook his head, reaching down and wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you up into his arms. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, still laughing as he spun you around in a circle. “I’m the happiest man alive right now!”

“I can see that,” you replied, amused. 

Johnny put you back down on solid ground and couldn’t help but kiss you again, dipping you in the process and making sure to hold the back of your head so you didn’t hit it on the coffee table. He loved kissing you before, but now he was going to have a hard time stopping.

“I was concerned,” you said once Johnny had stood you up again and finally detached his lips from yours. “I thought you were coming over here to break things off with me. That you had started to suspect I had feelings for you that were too serious for just a fling.”

He shook his head, arms still around your waist, hands splayed across your back as he held you pressed against his body. “If I’d suspected that, it would have made things a lot easier for me,” he admitted. “I was terrified you were going to end things with me if I confessed. We agreed that this wasn’t going to be anything serious when we started this.”

“Are you sure you want something serious?” You had to ask. Johnny Storm was notorious for not having anything serious with the women of New York City.

“Every time I thought about anyone but you these last few months, it felt like I was cheating on you. My reputation doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as you do.”

A smile came to your face again. “That has to be one of the most attractive things you’ve ever said, Johnny Storm.”

“Oh, yeah?” A cocky smile appeared on his own face. “Gonna do anything about that?”

You rolled your eyes before kissing him. You could feel his smile against your lips as he tightened his grip on you, hands warm against your back. He was completely yours to kiss now – even though he had been for months without you realising it.

“So, I was thinking,” Johnny muttered in-between quick kisses, “we should just stay in tonight… maybe on this couch… maybe we don’t leave it for a couple hours…” 

“Aren’t you meant to be having dinner with your family tonight?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll make it up to them. Tonight, I just want you.”

[bodhiscurls]

mine next, please. ( johnny storm )

it starts when johnny sees you hold his nephew for the first time and all he can think about is how incredible life could be if you were holding his.

human torch! johnny storm x fem! reader

themes: fluff, fluff, fluff, talks of having children and marriage, obsessed johnny- if you would like a follow up, then find girl dad! johnny here!

masterlist.

"well fuck me," johnny breathes as he blatantly stares across the room.

"hard pass," ben immediately replies, shovelling a forkful of steak into his mouth. he groans in delight at the taste, sending compliments to the cook mentally- himself, duh.

"yeah, hard because you're a fucking rock, pal," and at the insult, reed immediately shoots his brother in law a look of disapproval, not that johnny even bothers to notice. how could he, because across the room at approximately fifteen feet away stands you.

"well you're clearly not fucking this rock, pal," ben slides back, but johnny doesn't even have it in him to hit him right back because again, your entire existence has him haulted.

and you're fucking starstruck stunning as it is, that's not an unusual sight for johnny to stare at you, mouth open gaping at the woman who makes him feel as invincible as when he's flaming pure fire at impossible altitudes. but when there's a baby- his sister's beautiful baby boy, attached at your hip, boy johnny storm is a goner.

the baby gurgles and the noise must alarm you because he watches as your brows narrow dangerously low and close in concentration and you gently pat the infant's back, cooing words of adoration in their ear at a high pitch that sends johnny flying right back into outer space.

he sees you, a home forever, a little army of kids that share your kind eyes and johnny's blonde hair, maybe a fusion if your smiles- though he hopes they mainly take after you. he sees sunday mornings in bed, playdates with his little girls with matching tiaras and teacups, he sees movie night with four instead of two, he sees the whole damn world where you stand at the very centre of it.

"you're such a natural, look reed," sue calls her husband over with excitement. reed abandons his male counterparts and comes to her side immediately, as she leans into his hold and sighs out in relief, "she's a baby whisperer," sue whispers in awe, slight fear of ruining her child's rare moment of peace lingering in the air. the world spins lightly but johnny is still heaven struck in his spot opposite you.

"literally an angel, heaven sent above," reed commends and you flush under their praise. being liked by johnny's family was something you took so seriously and you took pride in the efforts its taken for you to feel like one of them. "you know, if you ever want to watch him, please do," reed asks slyly and sue elbows him in return, shooting you a look of apology then leaning in close and murmuring.

"no seriously, please do. lord knows i haven't had some time to even sleep lately," she rubs at her temples and you smile in understanding.

"if you guys ever need help, i'm here," you offer, "honestly, whenever, such a cute little guy, how could anyone ever say no?" you gush, tickling his nose and your lover arrives at your side in an instant.

"you better be talking about me," he scoffs but abandons his persona once he sets eyes on his nephew, coo'ing and booping his nose gently. he comes from behind you, wrapping his arms around your middle, mindful of the baby at your side and rests his head on your opposite shoulder.

"johnny boy has competition," ben teases and johnny flips him off away from the baby's line of view.

there's an overlap of johnny's confident "please, you think i can't take him?" and your high pitched baby voice tickling their soft skin with a "there's no competition, this little fella takes it all, don't you? aw" and johnny pulls back in feign outrage, gasping at your so obvious favouritism.

"what?" you smile at him and its enough to heat his blood and melt him to liquid jelly, he's momentarily stunned by your beauty that you bite back the growing laughter, "johnny?" and you wave your free hand in his face.

"mine next please," is all he mumbles, it's half coherent through his drooling mouth and fixed intensity on you that when you hand susan back her child and turn to your boyfriend you place your hands on his heart; searching for his soft thuddering chest and bringing him back to planet earth.

"what?" you stutter, and he has the gall to look confused.

"what?" he echoes.

"what do you mean what?" you press urgently, sure of what you're heard but maybe it's the delusion talking. it very much well could be-

"what do you mean what?"

"oh my god, john- do you know what you just said?" your heart pounds in your chest. each vessel begs for attention, for blood flow to your muscles, pumping all around you and it roars in your ears. you've talked about marriage, you've just about moved in together but kids? kids is a whole different ballpark.

"i want your children- or ours? they'd be ours right?" he asks and you let out a low breath.

"yes johnny, my love but," you pause, bringing your hands to his shoulders and grounding him. "children are little humans, they're not toys-"

"i'm not stupid," he rolls his eyes, "i know you'd look hot pregnant babe, and pregnant with my kid?" he exclaims excitedly and you stare at him. "honey, at some point we are going to have some right?" he meets your patient gaze, as your thoughts try to catch up and align with what you're hearing.

"you've never asked me!" you almost shout.

"i thought it was a given!" he returns, "do you not want my kids-"

"of course i do!" the words leave you quickly with a strong confidence to them, "you just don't mean right now right?" you double check. he sticks his tongue in his cheek in thought, tapping his feet to the ground and hums. its torturous and he does it just to rile you up as you wait patiently. he leans in close, lips brushing the shell of your ear and you close your eyes, soaking in the nearness of him

"i mean if you want to leave early, go home, we could start putting in the work today," its a dangerous tease and when you start to think about it, he knows he has you trapped. you bite your lip and he watches how it drags between your teeth in slow motion and a glint of mischief shines in those beautiful blue eyes of his. he presses a soft touch of a kiss in the corner where your jaw meets your ear, then one lower and catches the bottom of your lobe between his teeth.

"johnny," you mumble, "your family are here," you warn.

"so we leave," he shrugs, "we make one of our own," and the words slip so easily from his lips.

"we're doing things in the wrong order," you break apart and face him. he scoffs,

"fuck the order- i'll marry you and make love to you tonight- two for the price of one," he nods determined and a laughter so loud and bright as the universe bubbles out of you and johnny's world slows to a stop.

"i'm serious sweetheart," he presses your forehead to yours, "i'm all fucking in, and we only do this if you want it," he swears.

"i do want this, but maybe not a child tonight johnny," you admit, "one day, just not today," and he hums in agreement.

"as long as i still get laid tonight," he grins cheekily and its your turn to elbow your lover. he grabs your elbow immediately, lifts you from the ground and twirls you around before wrapping you in a hug where he rests his head in the space above your shoulder- a perfect fit.

"they're good for each other," sue stares fondly at her brother and you, estatic that he's been able to find someone who grounds him, drives him insane and keeps him happy. it's all she's ever wanted; she found her reed and johnny had found you. reed kisses his wife's cheek and murmurs in agreement, family really is what you make it.

riya saying hi: ugh domesticated johnny storm sign me tf UP ‼️‼️‼️ working on a longer fic which i hopefully might get out in the next few days but other than that, i hope you like, hope you love ( i have still not seen the movie yet LOL but i am obsessed w joseph quinn so i feel like that makes up for it ) love u, have a great one wherever this finds you <3

likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated! 💘

[shortnspidey]

DUMB & POETIC

Johnny Storm X Female!reader || WC: 6.1K

SUMMARY: Johnny Storm flirted like it was a reflex, so when he starts showing up at work with that grin and some line about taking you out, you didn’t flinch. You want to believe him, want to think there’s something real under all that fire and flair, but it’s hard when every time you look, some starry-eyed fan is hanging on his arm.

WARNINGS: Fantastic Four: First Steps minor Spoilers! Typical Marvel themes, angst, fluff, steamy kiss (no pun intended), cursing, Sue being Johnny’s defender yet still humbles him, self-deprecating thoughts, Ben and Johnny banter, lots of pet names, lovesick!Johnny

A/N: As soon as I saw the first trailer for this movie, and saw Joe Quinn as Johnny I knew he would do the role justice! I’m just sad now we have to wait until next year for the next set of Marvel movies! 😩 Divider by @saradika-graphics <3

➩ main masterlist

➩ johnny storm masterlist

Weekends at Maisie’s Delicatessen were a whirlwind of clinking dishes, muffled jazz from the radio behind the counter, and the sweet, yeasty warmth of the oven creeping into every corner of the narrow shop. Nestled on a street corner in Manhattan, its red neon sign buzzed softly beneath the fire escape, a beacon for locals and regulars alike. Inside, mismatched chairs and linoleum floors bore the scuffs of a hundred hurried mornings.

Your hair had been shoved into a bun since dawn, already loosened by the heat radiating off the pastry case. You moved nonstop, dodging customers and slinging paper bags filled with brownies, marble loaves, and chocolate croissants to neighborhood regulars. The cookies, especially the chocolate chip, were gone before noon, and you'd slipped a few warm ones to the kids who lived across the street, ignoring their mother's frazzled protests. Kids needed sweetness in a city like this.

You leaned against the counter for the first time in hours, arms dusted with flour and sugar, the faint hum of a delivery truck idling outside. You took a quick sip of water, your lips still tasting faintly of cinnamon. Then came the bell, ding-a-ling, that delicate sound above the door. You glanced up and froze in amused recognition. Ben Grimm stood in the doorway, trying (and failing) to disguise his massive, craggy frame beneath a trench coat that strained at the seams.

His fedora sat low, shadowing his unmistakable orange brow, but you’d recognize that stance anywhere. A few folks glanced up, but New Yorkers were practiced in the art of pretending not to notice things that didn’t concern them. “There’s my favorite customer!” You grinned, the weariness melting from your voice as you waved him in. Ben chuckled low in his throat, the sound gravelly and warm. “The usual, a dozen black and white cookies, fresh outta the oven.”

You beamed, already holding out the brown paper bag before he could part his lips. Ben’s rocky features relaxed into a rare, boyish grin. The warmth in his eyes was unmistakable, even beneath the shadow of his hat. “You spoil us way too much, Y/N.” He murmured, reaching into the inner pocket of his coat with those thick, stone-like fingers. Before he could fish out his wallet, you gently laid your hand against his arm. “Nah,” You whispered, your eyes crinkling. “It’s the least I can do. You keep our city from crumbling, literally.”

He hesitated, then chuckled softly, the corners of his mouth pulling into something half-sheepish, half-grateful. The coat shifted slightly as he straightened up, careful not to knock over the tiny table near the window. Outside, the city kept humming, taxis honking, a dog barking somewhere down the block, steam curling from a grate on the corner like clockwork. Ever since that mission to space, the one that turned the four of them into something the world had never seen, they'd been more than just heroes.

Earth-828 called them protectors. Some folks whispered “miracles,” others muttered “monsters,” but to you, they were still people. People who liked black and white cookies warm and still a little gooey in the middle. Ben tucked the bag under one arm with reverence, like he was holding something precious instead of simply just cookies. “Reed says carbs’ll slow me down,” He grunted, already lifting one to his mouth. “But he doesn’t know what he’s missin’.”

You laughed, the sound light above the soft vinyl music playing from the back. The overhead light flickered briefly, a flaw in the old wiring you never bothered fixing, casting a golden glow across the glass counter and catching the powdered sugar still clinging to your forearms. “Anything else I can get for you?” You asked, tilting your head as Ben scanned the pastry display. “Will you let me pay for it this time?” You shrugged with a playful glint in your eye watching as he shook his head in disapproval.

“Just the cookies today. I’ll take the offer next time, though.” Ben grunted, approval or defeat, it was hard to tell, and adjusted his coat. “Fair enough,” You smiled, raising your hands in mock surrender. “Tell everyone their favorite baker said hello.” You added, wiping your hands on your apron. As if summoned, the front door jingled again, and in blew a gust of hot air and unmistakable cologne. “Ben! What a coincidence!” Johnny Storm strolled in like he owned the block, hair windswept, a grin already loaded and ready to fire.

He clapped a hand on Ben’s shoulder, more for show than anything, before swiveling toward you like a sunflower toward the sun. “Why hello, gorgeous.” He purred, leaning casually against the counter, elbows propped like it was a bar and not a bakery. His blue eyes flicked over you, every detail catalogued in a glance that burned hotter than anything the ovens could crank out. You didn’t flinch. You’d seen this act before. “Johnny.” You replied, arms crossed more for protection than posture.

It didn’t stop your heart from racing, not with him standing there, all charm and endearing smile. He’d been flirting ever since the first time Ben sent him to pick up cookies, weeks ago now, throwing one-liners your way. It had become routine, really. Every day around noon, Johnny would stroll through the doors of Maisie’s Delicatessen, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in civilian charm, like clockwork.

He’d order the same cherry danish or lemon tart he never finished, pick at a croissant he claimed was “too flaky,” or simply ask for something sweet and then spend twenty minutes leaning on the counter and making small talk. You’d never seen him eat more than a bite. The truth? He didn’t like pastries. You knew. You noticed the way he’d discreetly leave half of them on the plate, or slide one into a napkin and “forget” it on the windowsill. But he came back anyway.

Every. Single. Day.

Only unlike all the women in New York City, you’d brushed him off. You always did. The whole city knew Johnny Storm’s reputation. He was the Human Torch, flashy, unpredictable, and impossible not to look at. Blonde hair like sunlight, eyes blue enough to drown in. You weren’t naive. You just weren’t stupid enough to fall for him and get your heart broken. At first, you assumed it was just Johnny being Johnny, chasing a pretty face with his signature swagger and a smirk that could melt through steel.

His flirtation had seemed harmless. But lately… something about him felt different. He asked questions that had nothing to do with your looks. Asked about your favorite books, your childhood dog, whether you liked jazz or doo-wop better. He once brought you a bouquet of tiger lillies because “you looked like someone who deserved a Wednesday pick-me up.” He listened. Really listened. And yet, you still didn’t let yourself believe it. Because he was Johnny Storm.

Famous. Reckless. Traveled to space. And you? You baked cookies on 3rd and Grand and slipped extras to neighborhood kids. So when he leaned in across the counter today, eyes locked on yours like you were the only person in Manhattan, it made your stomach twist. Because you couldn’t tell if it was all just part of the game, or if maybe, just maybe, he meant it. Still, you reminded yourself to breathe, burying the stupid crush on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed heartbreaker as far down as it would go.

You’d dug that hole weeks ago, right around the time he started showing up for pastries he didn’t eat, and you’d kept digging ever since. “Surprised you’re not at the Baxter Building,” You teased, grabbing a nearby rag to wipe a nonexistent smudge on the counter. “Don’t you have a world to save?” He grinned, eyes glinting. “Figured I’d start with yours.” You almost choked on your own breath. Ben rolled his eyes so hard you could almost hear them click.

“Flamebrain, pick up your danish and let the woman work.” But Johnny didn’t move. He leaned in further, elbow resting against the counter like he had all the time in the world. “Aw, come on, Y/N.” He drawled with a smirk so effortless it should’ve been criminal. That wink, practiced, perfect, probably had women lining up around the block. You huffed a laugh despite yourself, because dammit, he was impossible not to smile at. Shaking your head, you turned your back to him, pretending to be very, very busy with the new tray of croissants still warm from the oven.

You didn’t need to see his face to know he was still watching you, you could feel it. You grabbed the pineapple danish, the one he always claimed was his favorite, though you were 99% sure he hated pineapple, and placed it gently on the counter between you. “Have a nice day, Johnny.” It was meant to be the end of it. A line drawn in powdered sugar. But the way he lit up when you said his name made your chest tighten in a way that was wildly inconvenient.

His whole face softened, the cocky veneer still there, but something genuine flickering behind it. The corners of his mouth curved, his blue eyes twinkling like he'd just won something. He pulled out his wallet, soft leather, edges worn, and slid a crisp $10 bill across the counter without breaking eye contact. “See you next time, beautiful.” That should’ve been it. Any normal person would’ve taken their pastry and left. But Johnny Storm wasn’t normal. Before you could even blink, he leaned in again, this time reaching for you.

Reflex made you freeze, lips parting on instinct as his hand came up to your face. His thumb brushed lightly against your cheek, slow and deliberate. Your breath hitched. Your skin went electric beneath his touch. “Gotcha.” He whispered with a smug grin, dusting flour off your cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world. And then, like some cinematic fever dream, he tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear, slow, gentle, and let his fingers linger just a second too long.

You couldn’t even look at him. Not directly. Not with that smile. Not with the way his cologne curled through the air, something warm, woodsy, and undeniably him. Not with his broad shoulders in your peripheral, framed by the soft golden light of the storefront window. Your heart was pounding like the city outside, and you hated how easily he could turn you to absolute mush. With one last cheeky wink, he straightened up and strolled past Ben toward the exit like he hadn’t just short-circuited your brain.

You stood frozen, still gripping the edge of the counter as the bell above the door chimed again. Ben lingered for just a second longer, eyeing you with something between amusement and pity. “He’s trouble, kid.” You managed a breathless laugh, cheeks still burning. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He gave you one last tip of his hat before he was out the door. Through the foggy window, you watched Ben shove Johnny as they walked down the street, his expression deadpan as Johnny laughed, head tilted back, beaming.

You rolled your eyes, but couldn’t stop the stupid smile tugging at your lips. The rest of the evening passed like a worn-out record, quiet, predictable, and just a little too slow. No more superhero drop-ins, no flirtatious banter, just the comforting rhythm of clinking coffee cups, parents herding sugar-hyped kids, and the usual faces grabbing day-old rye for half price. You moved on autopilot, smiling when necessary, nodding when expected, but your thoughts weren’t behind the counter anymore.

They were still caught somewhere between Johnny Storm’s hand brushing your cheek and the lingering scent of him that had somehow stuck to the sleeves of your apron. At four o’clock sharp, you finally peeled off the fabric, folding it with practiced hands. You greeted your coworker with a tired wave, slung your bag over one shoulder, and grabbed the small box of pastries you’d stashed for yourself, your ritual comfort after long shifts. With a practiced motion, you nudged open the back door and stepped into the fading amber of early evening.

It was cooler now, a soft breeze threading through your sleeves, but it didn’t soothe the heat still smoldering beneath your skin. You leaned against the brick wall beside the shop, juggling the box and your bag awkwardly as you searched for your keys. Of course, they’d sunken to the bottom. Because today was that kind of day. “Geez, Y/N! Don’t you know it’s not safe out here?” You jumped slightly, box nearly tipping. But then the voice registered, cocky and warm like always, laced with amusement.

You glanced up, and there he was. Johnny Storm, leaning casually against the wall beside you, hands in the pockets of his jeans, wearing a fitted maroon tee that left nothing to the imagination. His eyes sparkled under the streetlamp like he knew exactly the effect he was having on you. You didn’t even bother hiding your eye-roll this time. “Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on a woman when it’s nearly dark?” He laughed, that rich, golden sound that always felt like it was meant just for you.

“Walking a beautiful girl to her car after a long shift? That’s not rude, sweetheart. That’s practically chivalry.” You hated the way your heart fluttered. “I might even ask her out to dinner, if she doesn’t already have plans.” He added, stepping a little closer. “You never quit, do you?” Your voice was breathier than you intended, your composure already fraying. The city seemed to fall away, no cars, no lights, no sound, just the heavy press of his presence and the impossible closeness of him.

He took one more step, caging you. His arms bracketed the space like a promise. His eyes were softer now, but blazing all the same. “When it comes to you? I don’t.” You looked up at him, and you felt it, that dangerous pull. Like you were standing on the edge of something steep, and he was gravity. For one brief, selfish second, you wanted to fall. His gaze searched yours, blue eyes impossibly sincere, and you felt your whole body lock up. You didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or lean in.

It was too much, all at once, the heat, the closeness, the way his words curled inside your chest and ignited everything you’d been trying to bury. “Johnny—” You started, just as quick reality struck. “Johnny! Johnny! Can we get a picture?” A chorus of high-pitched voices broke through the quiet. You both turned. Across the street, three girls, all wide smiles, glossy hair, and miniskirts, were waving excitedly. “Please! We love you!” His shoulders stiffened. For once, he was speechless, gaze flickering between you and them.

And that’s when it hit you.

Of course girls like that followed him. Of course they screamed his name and got his smile and maybe more. Girls who were everything you weren’t, glamorous, shiny, effortless. You felt plain in comparison, dusty from work, apron-wrinkled, flour on your jeans, your lipstick smudged from hours behind the counter and sneaking coffee during your breaks. You felt your throat tighten, breath catching behind clenched teeth.

He looked at you, torn, visibly. You saw the guilt, the hesitation. But you couldn’t handle it. Not the look. Not the choice. You beat him to it. “Go,” You whispered, voice thick. “Take pictures. Sign autographs. Don't let me stop you.” His head whipped back to you. “Y/N—” But you were already slipping. Already falling back into the walls you had spent so long building. Don’t get attached. Don’t believe him. Don’t be a fool. “I’ll see you around, Johnny.” Your smile was brittle.

A cracked-glass version of the one you used to give him. You turned before he could speak, before he could reach for you, because you knew, if he said the right thing, if he looked at you that way again, you’d stay. And you couldn’t. You clutched the pastry box like it was armor and speed-walked to your car, fumbling with the keys as your eyes blurred. You slammed the door shut behind you, hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to make your knuckles pale.

You let out one shaky breath, but it didn’t help, your chest still felt like it was caving in. The first tear slipped down your cheek, and you swiped at it with the back of your hand. You blinked hard, biting down on the inside of your cheek to keep from sobbing, swallowing the thick lump that refused to go away. Through the windshield, you could still see him, standing there, not moving. Not chasing after you. Of course not. He was Johnny Storm. And you? You were just the girl who made the cookies.

It had been two days. Two painfully long, quiet days. Ben had still come in like clockwork, trench coat tight around his frame, tipping his hat with a low grunt and walking out with his usual dozen black and white cookies. Business carried on, regulars filtered in and out, the register chimed, the espresso hissed, and the world, somehow, didn’t stop turning just because Johnny Storm hadn’t walked through your door. But you noticed.

You hated how your heart leapt every time the bell over the door jingled, hated how your eyes darted up from the pastry case expecting him, golden hair tousled like he’d just stepped off a beach, sunglasses halfway down his nose, wearing that crooked grin that always seemed a little too proud to be real. But it was never him. An old man wanting lemon bars. A tired mother with her toddler. A delivery guy. Anyone but Johnny.

By the second afternoon, you were scolding yourself. You’re fine. You don’t care. It didn’t mean anything. It never meant anything. But even that was starting to ring hollow. So when the bell chimed again near closing and your head shot up on instinct, eyes connecting with familiar blue ones. Only it wasn’t Johnny. “Sue?” You breathed out, heart stumbling in your chest at the familiar face, equal parts relief and renewed confusion bubbling up behind your smile. “Hi.”

Her face lit up, warm and elegant as always, framed by a neat headband and soft waves, dressed in a powder blue coat that fell just past her knees. You rounded the counter before she could say a word, pulling her into a gentle hug. “Congratulations, you and Reed, you’re both going to be such amazing parents.” Susan laughed softly, pulling back, her hand instinctively resting over the small swell at her abdomen.

“Thank you, darling.” She whispered, her smile tender, eyes softening at your touch as you caressed the curve just barely beginning to show. Susan glanced around the shop, the quiet obvious now that the last customers had filtered out. She must have seen something flicker across your face, something you didn’t mean to let show, because her gaze settled on you a little too knowingly. "Johnny and Ben didn't tell me you were stopping by."

You hoped it sounded casual, but your voice betrayed you, just a little. She tilted her head, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, Ben's been busy helping Reed with all the baby stuff,” She replied gently. “And, I don’t think Johnny's mentioned anything the last day or two, actually. He’s... been a little off.” Off? Your chest tightened. You didn’t ask why. You didn’t have the right to. You weren’t his girlfriend. You weren’t even sure you were a friend.

You were just the girl who made the pastries he didn’t eat, the one he flirted with until fans screamed his name and you reminded yourself to be practical. Still, it gnawed at you. The absence. The silence. The ache that felt like a bruise just beneath the surface of your ribs. You forced a smile. “I’ve got some brioche cooling in the back. Want to take some home?” Susan smiled and nodded, but her eyes lingered on you for a beat longer than necessary.

And you wondered, how much did she know? Because if anyone could see through the armor, it was the Invisible Woman. You wrapped the warm loaf in parchment, the buttery scent of brioche rising with the steam as you folded the edges with careful precision, anything to keep your hands busy while your mind threatened to spiral. Susan lingered just past the counter, fingertips brushing along the glass display case, watching you with an unreadable expression.

Her silence wasn’t uncomfortable, just... weighty. Like she was debating whether or not to cross a line. The silence stretched a few beats longer before she finally broke it. “You know,” She began, almost too casually. “Johnny’s a lot of things. Loud. Reckless. Infuriating.” A wry smile tugged at her lips. “A complete pain in the ass, honestly.” You snorted quietly, folding the twine over the loaf and tying it into a neat bow. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Her gaze sharpened at that, the playful warmth in her voice dipping into something more sincere. “But he’s also been completely, hopelessly hung up on you.” You froze, not dramatically, but just enough that your fingers faltered mid-knot. Susan leaned in slightly, voice softening. “I mean it. Ever since he met you, it’s been nonstop. You’d think Reed and I were hosting a teenage girl in love. Every dinner, it’s always ‘Y/N made me try this pastry’ or ‘You should’ve seen the way her eyes lit up when I told her a dumb joke.’”

You swallowed, throat suddenly dry as your heart pounded loud enough to rival the ticking bakery clock. “I thought it was just another Johnny phase,” Susan continued, her eyes kind now, but serious. “He’s... well. He’s had his share of admirers. Most of them louder. But none of them stuck. None of them made him show up every morning like he forgot how to sleep or act like a lovesick teenager.” Your lips parted, but no words made it out.

Susan gave you a long look, stepping closer until her voice dropped again, almost conspiratorial. “You know what really got me? He started asking me about baking.” You blinked. “He what?” She nodded, confirming that you in fact had heard her correctly. “Wanted to know how long croissants proof. What makes a good butter ratio. If semi-sweet chocolate was the same as milk chocolate, I nearly dropped a plate.”

She gave a quiet laugh, brushing her coat sleeve with her thumb. “He burns toast, Y/N. He once tried to boil eggs in the microwave.” That startled a weak laugh out of you, but the ache behind it remained. “I’m not trying to play matchmaker,” Susan added, gentler now. “And I know he’s a mess, God, he really is, but... this isn’t a game to him. Not this time.” You stared down at the loaf in your hands, chest tightening under the weight of everything she wasn’t saying outright.

You could still feel the ghost of Johnny’s hand on your cheek from two days ago. The way his voice had softened when it was just the two of you. How his grin faltered when he thought you weren’t looking. The worst part? You wanted to believe her. You really did. Yet, that quiet voice in the back of your head, the one that always whispered your insecurities when the lights dimmed and the bakery closed, wasn’t so easily silenced, no matter how hard you tried to ignore it.

Why would someone like him want someone like you, when he could have models, actresses, girls with legs for days and zero baggage?

You pushed the thought down, deep, wrapping the last piece of tape around the box like it could hold you together too. Susan’s hand landed lightly on your arm, anchoring you for a moment. “Whatever you decide, just don’t let the noise drown out what’s real.” You met her eyes. And in them, you saw none of the pity you were bracing for, just quiet encouragement. Understanding. You gave a faint nod and offered the brioche across the counter.

She took it gently, her smile warm as she tucked it into her bag. “Take care of yourself, Y/N.” And then she was gone, the bell jingling softly behind her as she disappeared into the golden spill of the afternoon light. You exhaled slowly, and for the first time in two days, you didn’t flinch at the thought of Johnny Storm. You just ached. The door had barely swung closed behind Susan when you stood there, motionless, loaf of brioche crumbs still scattered across the counter like the remains of a decision just made.

Your heart pounded so loudly you swore the walls could hear it. The hum of the bakery lights, the tick of the clock over the register, the faint laughter of kids down the block, it all faded beneath the sudden, sharp thrum of possibility. What if she was right? What if he wasn’t just another cocky grin in a fireproof suit? What if, under all the swagger and fanfare, Johnny Storm had been waiting, hoping, for you to see him the way he saw you?

Your hands moved before your fear could stop them. You ripped off your apron, tossing it onto the hook so fast it spun, grabbed your purse and keys, and locked the till with barely a glance. You rushed around the counter, fumbled with the light switches, not bothering to sweep the back or double-check the signage. The “Closed” sign swung crooked in the door’s window as you burst out into the late afternoon sun, scanning the sidewalk like a woman on a mission.

There she was. Susan, a block away, was sliding her sunglasses on as she reached the driver's side of a navy blue Fantasticar. You called out her name, your voice cracked with urgency and nerves. She turned, brows lifted in surprise, then slowly tilted her sunglasses down as you approached, breathless and wide-eyed. “I need a ride,” You exhaled, planting your feet like you might change your mind if you moved again. “To the Baxter Building.”

A slow, knowing smirk curled on her lips, like she’d known this would happen all along. Like she had simply laid out the breadcrumbs and waited for you to follow them. Without a word, she unlocked the car with a flick of her wrist and gestured to the passenger side. You slid in, heart hammering, palms damp, and stared out the window as the city blurred by. Your mind ran faster than the wheels on the pavement. What would you say when you saw him? What if he laughed? What if you were wrong?

But then you remembered the way he looked at you. Not like you were an option. Like you were it. The crack in his cocky demeanor when he thought nobody was looking. Susan glanced at you from the corner of her eye, her voice casual as she merged into traffic. “Took you long enough.” You glanced down, flushed and nervous, but a small smile crept across your lips. “Yeah, I guess it really did.” And for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel afraid of what came next.

The drive to the Baxter Building felt endless, not because of traffic, but because of what waited at the end of it. Every red light was another second for doubt to crawl back in. Every street corner flashed with reminders: his face on magazines in bodega windows, girls with teased hair giggling over autographed photos, memories of your own reflection feeling small in comparison. Still, you didn’t ask Susan to turn around.

The building rose ahead like a monument, sleek steel and glass stretching toward a stormy Manhattan sky. As you stepped through the lobby, nerves clamped around your lungs, but Susan’s hand on your arm kept you grounded. “Just breathe,” Her eyes told you without a word. The elevator ride was silent, the kind that buzzes with everything unspoken. When the doors opened, both Reed and Ben turned like they’d sensed a bomb ticking.

Ben looked you up and down like you’d grown an extra head, half a cookie still in his massive hand. Reed’s brows lifted, already calculating variables. But before either of them could utter a syllable, Susan threw them a look sharp enough to slice concrete, one perfectly arched brow raised, hand on her hip. You chuckled inwardly, thinking she had definitely mastered the 'mom look'. Ben grunted, glanced between the two of you, then quietly retreated toward the kitchen, muttering something about minding his own damn business.

Reed blinked a few times and gave a tiny, approving nod before following suit. You turned to Susan, your pulse thudding like it might give up entirely. She only smiled, placed a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Third door on the left. Go.” You didn't need to be told twice. Your heels clicked softly against the polished floor as you approached the door, H.E.R.B.I.E chirped a happy greeting in your direction. You waved, resting a hand on the smooth top of the robot’s head with an affectionate pat.

As you eyes locked on the door just past him, you could have sworn your heart lurched. You didn’t bother knocking. Your hand turned the knob, and the door flung open with all the force of your barely-contained storm. There he was. Johnny Storm, sprawled across his navy couch in a gray NASA tee and sweatpants, wearing a full space suit helmet. His posture screamed boredom, limbs flung over the cushions, one leg lazily propped up on the coffee table, until he saw you.

His eyes widened, nearly cartoonish behind the visor, and he jolted upright with such force the helmet slipped sideways on his head. “Y/N!” The name flew from him like he’d been holding it in for days. His voice cracked with disbelief as he scrambled to yank the helmet off, his hair sticking up wildly from the static. “Uh, hi! I mean—hey, you’re here. You’re… in my room.” You stood just inside the doorway, hands curled into your coat pockets to keep from fidgeting.

He blinked at you, breath shallow, eyes flicking from your coat to your flushed cheeks to the tense set of your jaw. “You okay? Did something happen? Are you—?” You didn’t even let him finish. Five steps, that’s all it took. You crossed the room with a force you didn’t know you had, your palms gripping the soft cotton of his white t-shirt, knuckles white with all the tension and longing that had been brewing for weeks, and tugged him down to your level.

Then you crashed your lips into his like it was the only way to keep from falling apart. Johnny’s breath stuttered, caught completely off guard, but only for a second. One of them slid up your spine, fingers splayed wide, pulling you impossibly closer until there was no space left between your bodies. He groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your lips as he tilted his head, deepening the kiss like he’d been starving for it.

Your tongue brushed his, tentative at first, but then his low, guttural moan vibrated through your chest and your grip tightened in his shirt, knuckles aching. You kissed him deeper, mouths moving in perfect sync, hot and messy, with the urgency of two people who had waited too long and couldn’t wait a second more. Johnny broke the kiss just long enough to gasp your name against your jaw, voice rough and reverent.

He ducked his head, lips dragging down your neck in soft, open-mouthed kisses that made your breath catch. When his teeth grazed just beneath your ear, a sharp whimper escaped you, unfiltered and raw. “God, do you have any idea what you do to me?” His voice was hoarse, like the words had clawed their way out of him. You didn’t answer, you couldn’t. Not with your pulse pounding in your ears.

Not with the way he was looking at you like you were something sacred. Instead, you kissed him again, harder this time. The scent of him, smoke and whatever cologne he wore that made your knees weak, clouded your senses as his tongue swept across your bottom lip. Your teeth knocked, breath mingled, and his hand slipped down to the back of your thigh. Without breaking contact, Johnny bent slightly, hooking his arms under your legs and lifting you as if you weighed nothing.

You gasped into his mouth as your back met the cool plaster of his bedroom wall, the contrast making you shiver, but Johnny’s body was all heat, all fire pressed flush against you. Your legs wrapped instinctively around his hips, and the sound he made in response, part growl, part groan, was nearly enough to undo you right then and there. He kissed you like a man possessed, like he’d held back every second since the first time you handed him a croissant and smiled in his direction.

His fingers flexed at your hips, anchoring you, grounding you, while his mouth explored yours with a tenderness that burned hotter than anything reckless. You broke apart only when your lungs screamed for air, panting, foreheads pressed together. His hands trembled slightly where they gripped you, and your own were buried in his hair, fingers tangled and unwilling to let go. Your gaze met his, blue eyes wide, wild, soft, and for once, all the noise in your head quieted.

You could feel it in the space between heartbeats, in the way his thumb brushed over the back of your knee, in the breath he stole and gave back with each kiss. This wasn’t just a crush. It wasn’t a game. “Now, can I take you to dinner?” He murmured, lips brushing yours. You let out a breathy laugh, stealing one more chaste kiss that left both of you grinning like fools. “I think we might've missed a couple steps.” You teased, hands absentmindedly playing with the soft hairs at the nape of his neck.

The same ones you’d always dreamed of running your fingers through but never dared to. His eyes softened, that usual cocky glint melting into something heartbreakingly earnest. “I don’t care in what order it happened,” He whispered, blue eyes tracing every line of your face like he was trying to burn it into memory. “As long as it’s you.” Your chest tightened, the words wrapping around something fragile and long-buried in you. He leaned in, nudging his nose gently against yours, and the breath that left him was barely a whisper.

“I should’ve stayed with you that night. I should’ve kissed you the second I saw you leaning against that wall. I should’ve never let you walk away. God, I’ve been such an idiot.” You drew in a shaky breath, heart swelling in your chest. Lifting your hands from his neck, you cupped his face in your palms, thumbs brushing across the faint hint of stubble along his jaw. “Hey,” You coaxed, voice soft but firm, grounding him before his thoughts could wonder. “I’m not going anywhere anymore.”

He closed his eyes like he didn’t trust himself to believe it until you said it again, so you kissed the tip of his nose. Then the corner of his mouth. Then fully on his lips, almost as if sealing the promise between you. A knock sounded faintly, followed by Reed’s voice muffled through the door. “Johnny! Is your friend staying for dinner?” You paused, eyes meeting his. There it was again, that flicker of vulnerability, like the part of him that still feared you’d run if given the chance.

But you didn’t even need to speak. Your smile answered for you. Johnny turned toward the door, cocky grin returning with full force. “Yes she is!” He called out, eyes never leaving yours. “Tell Herbert to set another plate at the table because—” He leaned closer, pressing a final lingering kiss to your flushed cheek. “My gorgeous girlfriend is staying over for dinner.” You couldn’t help it. You beamed. That word, girlfriend, made your skin tingle.

It felt impossibly good. Honest. Earned. You tugged him back down for one more kiss, slow and sure and full of everything you’d both kept buried for far too long. And for the first time in what felt like forever, you weren’t second-guessing it. You were exactly where you wanted to be. Where he wanted you to be. Wrapped in the arms of a man who once flirted like it was a reflex, and now held you like you were the only thing in the world that ever made him feel real.

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[shortnspidey]

NONSENSE

Johnny Storm X Female!reader || WC: 5.6K

SUMMARY: Being best friends with Johnny Storm had always come naturally, maybe a little too naturally. Somewhere between late-night movies and whispered secrets, your feelings began to shift. But you kept them to yourself, tucking the crush away and convincing yourself that friendship was more than enough. So when Susan and Reed ask you to help Johnny watch Franklin, you agree without hesitation. What could go wrong?

WARNINGS: Contains minor Fantastic Four: First Steps Spoilers! Established friendship, eventual friends to lovers, cursing, oblivious idiots in love, fluff galore, flirty banter, Reed and Susan are unintentional matchmakers, domestic uncle!Johnny, slight angst, suggestiveness but no smut!

A/N: The way Johnny acted whenever he interacted with Franklin had to be one of my favorite parts of the entire movie! Men that are good with kids are just INCREDIBLY attractive. So this one-shot is purely self-indulgent! Hope we get more of them in the future!! Divider by @saradika-graphics <3

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The Baxter Building had practically become your second home. Between late-night movie marathons, joining impromptu family dinners, and Susan’s gentle insistence that you never needed an invitation. It's safe to say you’d spent more time there than in your own apartment lately. The elevator doors gave a gentle chime before gliding open, revealing the sleek, interior of the Fantastic Four’s private floor.

H.E.R.B.I.E. zipped into view the moment you stepped out, whirring cheerfully with blinking lights and enthusiastic beeps that filled the hallway like confetti. You laughed and crouched down slightly, holding out your hand as the robot spun in a delighted little circle. “Hello, H.E.R.B.I.E., you miss me already?” You grinned, giving the top of his head an affectionate tap.

Before you could ask about the others, a familiar figure emerged from around the corner in a whirlwind of motion. Reed Richards looked like he'd just walked out of a scientific hurricane, shirt slightly wrinkled, tie askew, and hair in the kind of tousled state only existential stress could cause. “Oh, thank goodness.” He breathed, already halfway across the hall and closing the distance with long, purposeful strides.

In a rare show of affection, he wrapped you into a brief but firm hug, clinging like a man about to board a rocket. “Jeez, Reed,” You chuckled, stepping back as he released you. “Don’t you look thrilled for date night.” His expression twisted with half a smile and half a wince as he ran a hand down his face, fingers tugging at the collar of his shirt like it was suffocating him. Behind him, H.E.R.B.I.E. let out a low, sympathetic beep.

Reed pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something that sounded a lot like a plea to the universe. “Johnny.” That was all you needed. One name, and the entire situation became crystal clear. Your best friend was a whirlwind of chaotic energy, and wherever he went, trouble wasn’t far behind, usually smiling, charming, and completely unapologetic.

Almost as if summoned by name, or more likely because he had been eavesdropping, Johnny Storm burst into the room like a one-man parade. “There’s my favorite girl!” He announced, arms already open wide. Before you could react, he was scooping you up in a familiar, dizzying spin, his laughter rumbling against your ear. You couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped you, the sound bubbling up like it always did around him, effortless, easy.

Only when he seemed satisfied with the display of affection did he finally set you back down, but even then, his hands lingered on your waist like he hadn’t quite decided to let you go. You didn't exactly mind. When the room stopped spinning, you looked up, and instantly regretted it. God, he looked good. Too good. A maroon bomber jacket was thrown over a white tee, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows with casual flair, displaying his veiny forearms that never failed to make your mouth water.

His blonde hair, annoyingly perfect as always, caught the light just enough to look sun-kissed, and those blue eyes sparkled with mischief, like he was already planning his next stunt. Behind him, Reed cleared his throat meaningfully. Johnny glanced over his shoulder with a grin that was all innocence and zero guilt, as if he hadn’t just been encouraging a toddler to weaponize household objects moments prior.

“Causing trouble already?” You asked, folding your arms with mock sternness and one raised brow. “Me? Never.” He winked, oozing charm, though the mischief in his eyes betrayed him completely. At last, his hands dropped from your waist, and even that small absence left your skin tingling. You tried to focus as he dashed off, already on a mission to corral the minefield of toys strewn across the living room floor.

You watched as he picked up a stuffed alien by one leg, then a miniature drum, and then immediately dropped both to make a siren noise with a plastic fire truck. Unsurprisingly, the room was destined to be chaos again the moment Franklin reentered it, but Johnny was at least pretending to tidy up, which was worth something. “How do you deal with him?” Reed asked, sounding as exhausted as he looked.

He stood there taking in the sight of his brother-in-law playing with his son's toys, rubbing at his temple with the air of a man who knew he’d never truly be free of the chaos. You offered a shrug, casual but fond. “Years of practice. He grows on you, eventually.” You didn’t even have to look to know Johnny had heard you. A dramatic gasp echoed behind you, followed by the sound of him stumbling backward as if wounded.

“Hey! I can hear you!” He cried, one hand over his heart like you’d mortally offended him. Grinning, you stuck your tongue out at him like the mature adult that you were. Before Johnny could retaliate, probably with a pillow launched in your direction or another lecture about how everyone secretly loved him, a small blur shot around the corner like a pint-sized comet.

“Y/N!” You turned just in time, crouching down with open arms as Franklin launched himself at you. His tiny body slammed into your chest, and you caught him easily, steadying the both of you with a laugh. “Whoa, careful there, sweetheart.” You chuckled, pulling him in tight. His little hands curled around your neck as if he hadn't seen you in years, and you pressed your face into his soft hair.

“My goodness,” You whispered, leaning back to take a better look at him. “You have got to stop growing.” You showered his chubby cheeks in kisses, laughing as he giggled uncontrollably, little legs kicking in excitement. The sound lit something up in you, pure, uncomplicated joy, and for a moment, the rest of the world faded out. All that mattered was the warmth of Franklin’s hug and the sound of his happiness echoing off the walls.

Which is why, you didn’t notice Johnny had stopped moving. Across the room, he stood frozen mid-step, a toy truck dangling forgotten from one hand. His usual smirk had softened into something quieter, eyes fixed on you and Franklin like he was watching a dream he hadn’t dared name. There was something in his expression, something fond, unguarded, maybe even a little stunned. For once, Johnny Storm was speechless.

“Y/N, hello darling.” Susan’s voice broke through the chorus of giggles still echoing in the room. You glanced up to find her walking in with effortless grace, powder blue dress nipped at the waist, pearl earrings, blonde hair pinned up in soft curls. Even when wrangling genius husbands and precocious toddlers, Susan Storm somehow made it look easy. You shifted Franklin on your hip, his arms still looped loosely around your neck as you rose to greet her.

“Hi, Sue, you look gorgeous.” You grinned, wrapping one arm around her in a warm hug. “Thank you.” She returned the smile, her eyes softening as she squeezed your hand with that calm, nurturing energy only she could exude. Her gaze drifted to Franklin, then flicked briefly toward Johnny, who was now pretending to inspect the bookshelf but had clearly not stopped watching you since you walked in.

A knowing glimmer sparkled in her eyes, but she let it pass with only a subtle lift of her brow. “Are you sure this isn’t an inconvenience?” She asked gently, though the hesitation in her voice told you she already felt guilty. “I know watching a toddler on a Friday night isn’t exactly ideal.” You scoffed before she could finish the thought, pulling Franklin a little closer. His sleepy weight pressed against you like he belonged there.

“He’s my godson, there’s really nowhere else I’d rather be.” You replied easily, brushing a bit of hair from Franklin’s forehead before placing a loving kiss on his forehead. “Get outta here, lovebirds.” Johnny chimed in, slipping an arm over your shoulders with the casual ease of someone who’d been doing it since childhood. His other hand waved dramatically toward the door. “Franklin’s in fantastic hands.”

You rolled your eyes, snorting at the awful pun. “Really?” You muttered under your breath, elbowing him lightly in the ribs. He grinned, utterly unapologetic, and leaned a little more of his weight against you like he had no intention of moving anytime soon. “Both children will be in one piece when you two come back.” You promised, giving Johnny a pointed side glance.

Susan let out a quiet chuckle, her eyes flicking toward her brother, clearly amused. “We won’t be out too late,” She assured again, though her tone had softened, more relaxed now. “If he gets fussy, there are snacks in the kitchen, and his bedtime is around eight.” Reed reappeared from the hallway, his composure mostly restored, tie straightened, coat neatly draped over one arm.

With his usual efficiency, he helped Susan into her coat, adjusting the shoulders with a care that made you momentarily forget he was the world’s most distracted genius. Before leaving, Susan turned one last time, her gaze resting on you and Franklin, and just briefly, on the way Johnny’s arm still lingered around you, fingers absentmindedly tracing idle patterns against your upper arm.

She mouthed one final thank you, before slipping through the front door with Reed in tow. The soft click of the latch left behind a hush that settled over the room, which left just you, Franklin, and Johnny. “So,” He drawled, quirking a brow, blue eyes fixed on you. “You, me, and one dangerously powerful toddler. What could possibly go wrong?” You smirked. “Everything.” And somehow, you were looking forward to every second of it.

As predicted, the moment you set Franklin down, he making a beeline straight for the living room. Without hesitation, he scooped up as many toy cars as his tiny arms could manage, cradling them to his chest like precious cargo. He dropped to his knees with all the focused determination of a world-class engineer, lining up the miniature vehicles in a meticulous row alongside the winding, high-tech racetrack Reed had crafted in the lab.

Johnny wasted no time. He vaulted over the back of the couch like a kid on Christmas morning, skidding into place beside Franklin on the rug. Within seconds, he was deep in the throes of an imaginary race, arms outstretched, making high-pitched engine noises, mimicking tight turns, screeching tires, and dramatic crashes. At one point, he even narrated the race in a terrible British accent, which made Franklin laugh so hard he rolled backward into a pile of pillows.

You leaned against the doorway, arms folded, unable to wipe the smile off your face. Watching Johnny with Franklin was unfair in every way. He looked too good like this, lit up from the inside out, eyes crinkled with laughter, hair slightly mussed from all the movement. Your ovaries were overwhelmed with joy, hormones, and entirely inappropriate thoughts that you had absolutely no business entertaining while a two-year-old was in the room.

To distract yourself, you busied yourself in the kitchen. The warm light over the counter glowed like amber as you set out apple slices, crackers, and a juice box, arranging them on a plate shaped like a cartoon spaceship. But, toddlers are nothing if not delightfully unpredictable. “Uncle Johnny’s loud.” Franklin announced from the floor before trotting over to you, toy car still clutched in one hand. “Book now, pwease.”

With zero resistance, you scooped him up and headed for the couch, already grabbing the well-worn copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar from where it laid on the coffee table. Franklin nestled into your side like he belonged there, head on your shoulder, thumb in his mouth. You flipped open the book, voice gentle as you began to read. Or at least, you tried to read.

You stumbled over words you’d read a hundred times before, tongue tripping more than you’d like to admit, not because of Franklin, who was happily turning pages too soon, but because Johnny was watching you. His gaze hadn’t left you since you sat down, blue eyes softened with something too warm, too intense for casual friendship. You refused to meet his eyes, cheeks burning hotter than any of his fire tricks.

After dinner, Franklin was back to racing around with his cars. Only now, he wanted you and Johnny to play too. Which is how you ended up cross-legged on the living room floor again, mid-race chaos, with Franklin assigning you very serious car duties, like “crash dis one” and “make dis one fly.” Johnny, of course, took it way too far.

He zoomed his car off the edge of the coffee table with a dramatic explosion noise, tossed Franklin gently in the air, which earned him a fierce scolding glare from you, and then proudly unveiled a mini Johnny Storm action figure from one of the toy bins. You groaned, the moment it crackled to life with a mechanical, over-enthusiastic: 'FLAME ON!'

“Bet you didn’t think I’d let this masterpiece go out of production.” Johnny puffed his chest out like he’d won a Nobel Prize. “It talks? “Why on Earth does it talk?” You deadpanned. “Because it's genius,” He stated matter-of-factly, holding the tiny figure like it was sacred. “And because the world needs more me.” You opened your mouth to disagree, but Franklin grabbed the figure from his hand and hugged it to his chest like it was made of gold.

"Uncle Johnny, cool!" Johnny beamed, smiling from ear to ear. “See? The people agree.” You rolled your eyes so hard you nearly saw another dimension. You wanted to argue, saying Franklin was clearly biased, but the truth was, watching him, with Franklin curled up against you and laughter echoing around the room, you couldn’t remember the last time your heart had felt this full.

Seeing as Johnny had playtime thoroughly covered, complete with dramatic reenactments and the occasional sound barrier being broken, you took the opportunity to slip away and handle the aftermath of dinner. The dishes weren’t going to wash themselves, and frankly, you needed a few minutes to cool down. Watching Johnny be good with Franklin, be soft, had your heart doing things that felt mildly illegal.

You stepped into the kitchen just as H.E.R.B.I.E. glided up beside you, silently offering the now-empty plate Franklin had used for his macaroni masterpiece. With a fond smile and a quiet thank you, you reached for it, and that’s when all hell decided to break loose. “OW! Buddy, not the hair!” Johnny’s voice cut through the room, followed by a shrill, high-pitched wail that had every maternal instinct in your body firing at once.

You sprinted the short distance from the kitchen to the living room, nearly slipping on one of Franklin’s rogue race cars. The scene that met you was peak disaster, Johnny was crouched on the floor, a frazzled mess with a toy still in one hand and Franklin squirming in his arms, red-faced and wailing. Johnny’s blue eyes snapped up the moment he heard your footsteps. His expression was a mix of panic and guilt.

“Give him to me.” Your voice was calm, instinctive, even as your arms reached out without hesitation. The moment Franklin caught sight of you, he lunged like a rocket, practically leaping into your embrace. You caught him easily, cradling his small frame against your chest. His sobs were still jagged and hiccupy, but they began to slow as you rocked him gently from side to side, your fingers drawing soft, rhythmic circles against his back.

His little fists clung to your shirt like lifelines, breath hitching in that pitiful post-cry rhythm that tugged at every heartstring you had. You murmured soft nonsense into his hair, words that didn’t matter so much as the tone, reassuring, steady, warm. Gradually, the tension left his body, replaced by that heavy-limbed drowsiness that always followed a toddler meltdown.

Over Franklin’s head, your gaze drifted to the wall clock, it read 7:58 PM. Of course, his body knew. Right on cue, the crash before bedtime. “Can you finish cleaning up?” You murmured, glancing over to Johnny, who was still sitting there, looking like he’d just been emotionally sideswiped. “I’m going to try and get him settled for bed.” Johnny nodded, standing quickly, carefully. As he stepped closer, he placed a gentle kiss on Franklin’s tousled head.

Then, his hand came to rest on your shoulder, warm and grounding, fingers giving the faintest squeeze as he brushed past you and disappeared into the kitchen. The touch lingered even after he was gone. And for a second, just a second, you let yourself close your eyes and breathe in the moment, Franklin's weight against you, the quiet settling over the room, and the echo of Johnny's tenderness still trailing behind him.

As you disappeared down the hallway, cradling a drowsy Franklin against your chest, Johnny let out the breath he hadn't realized he’d been holding. It left him in a slow, uneven exhale, chest rising and falling like he’d just run a marathon, not because of exhaustion, but because watching you like that wrecked him in ways he couldn’t begin to explain. The sight of you, arms wrapped protectively around Franklin, murmuring in that soft voice that made even the toddler’s screams quiet down.

He dropped into a chair at the kitchen island, elbows on the counter, scrubbing a hand over his face as if it might shake off the feeling tightening in his ribcage. God, he was so screwed. It wasn’t just the way you looked tonight, though, yeah, that was enough to short-circuit him on a good day. The soft, lived-in familiarity of your smile, the way you rolled your eyes when he got too cocky, the gentle way you brushed Franklin’s hair back like you’d done it a thousand times before.

It wasn’t new. The feelings had been there for a while now, growing in quiet corners between inside jokes and late-night calls, rooted in the unshakable way you just got him. But this? Tonight? Watching you soothe his nephew like it was the most natural thing in the world, while he just stood there helpless, hair askew, ego bruised by a toddler? Yeah. That cracked something open.

Johnny leaned back, staring at the ceiling like maybe the answer to his emotional ineptitude was hidden in the plaster. He wasn’t good at this part, the messy, vulnerable, heart-in-his-throat stuff. Flirting, he could do blindfolded. Grand gestures? Easy. But feelings that mattered? Feelings that made his pulse stutter and his brain go fuzzy and his mouth forget how to be clever? That was harder.

But no matter how loud his heart got, there was one thing louder: the fear of ruining everything. You were his best friend. The constant in his chaos. You just got him, ego, flaws, fire and all. And the thought of letting these feelings consume him, of risking what you already had for something that might never work out? That terrified him more than anything.

Because what if he said something, did something, and it changed the way you looked at him? What if the easy laughter and casual touches turned awkward? What if he lost you? He looked toward the hallway where you'd disappeared, the quiet hum of your footsteps still echoing faintly in his ears. You’d taken Franklin like he was yours. Like you belonged here, in the middle of this family chaos, perfectly slotted into a space you hadn’t even asked to fill.

And somehow, everything felt quieter with you in it. He glanced toward the sink, eyes landing on the half-finished dishes, but his mind was still on you. Your hand on his shoulder. The way you didn’t flinch when things got messy. The way Franklin launched himself into your arms like it was instinct. Johnny rested his chin in his palm, staring at nothing in particular, lips curving just a little despite himself.

He was in love with you. Completely, stupidly, irrevocably in love with you. And the most ridiculous part? You probably had no idea. So he did what he always did. He swallowed it. Pushed it down, tucked it behind a grin and a joke and a wink. He’d take the way you looked at him now, fond and familiar, over losing you entirely. Even if it meant sitting here in the quiet, heart full of things he didn’t know how to say.

“Finally got him down.” You sighed, stepping back into the kitchen with your shoulders drooping slightly, weariness and warmth both lingering in your expression. You set the baby monitor on the kitchen island with a quiet clink, the soft static crackle filling the space just enough to remind you he was still only a room away. Johnny blinked, snapping out of whatever tangled thoughts he’d been drowning in.

“Sit.” His voice was gentle, coaxing, already rising from his chair. One hand brushed the small of your back, a fleeting touch, but enough to make your breath catch. He pulled out the chair next to his, guiding you into it with a casual attentiveness that never failed to send a zoo of butterflies stampeding through your stomach. You dropped into the seat with a sigh that was part exhaustion, part resignation. “But the dishes—”

“Herbert and I got it.” He interrupted smoothly, shooting a smirk toward H.E.R.B.I.E., who rolled up at just the right moment with mechanical precision. Johnny bumped fists with the robot, taking a bowl from his outstretched arm. You raised your hands in mock surrender, lips curling into a tired smile as you leaned back against the chair. Your eyes followed Johnny as he casually peeled off his bomber jacket and tossed it over the back of the chair.

Without it, he was all forearms and muscle, the short sleeves of his t-shirt hugging the defined curve of his biceps and the broad stretch of his chest like it had been designed with malicious intent. You glanced away quickly before your gaze betrayed you, but not fast enough to stop your face from flushing. You could feel the warmth blooming at your cheeks and cursed him, silently, lovingly, for existing so effortlessly.

The room fell into a quiet rhythm: H.E.R.B.I.E.'s faint whirring, the occasional clink of dishes, the lullaby-soft hush of a house winding down for the night. Then Johnny’s voice broke through, soft and unguarded. “You know…” He began, fingers still lingering on the edge of the countertop, but his eyes now fully on you. “You’re going to make an amazing mom one day.” The words landed with more weight than you expected. Not just because of what he said, but how he said it.

Not as a joke. Not as some offhand compliment. It came out quiet, earnest, a whisper of a truth he couldn’t stop himself from saying aloud. Your lips parted, but nothing came out at first. For a beat too long, you stared at him, trying to read what was hidden behind the usual mischief. There was no mask this time. No smirk. Just Johnny, bare and sincere in a way he rarely let himself be. You smiled, small and surprised, a flutter stirring in your chest. “You think?”

He shrugged, but the smile he wore was warm enough to melt through any doubt. “I know.” You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, heart full and aching in a way you hadn’t expected. That look in his eyes, bright, a little reverent, maybe even something closer to love, it made the air feel too thick, too still. You wondered if he felt it too. That quiet hum between you, the one that had been there for years but now felt impossible to ignore.

And then, without even trying, the words fell from his mouth as if he’d been fed a truth serum. “I think about it a lot, honestly. More specifically, you being the mother of my children." Your breath hitched. Time slowed. Even H.E.R.B.I.E., bless him, seemed to sense the gravity of what had just been released into the room and rolled discreetly out of the kitchen. Johnny stood frozen, one hand clenched around the dishcloth, knuckles white, eyes wide.

Like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but now that it was out, he couldn’t take it back. And frankly, he didn’t want to. A nervous laugh escaped him, breathless and uneven. “Shit, that sounds way more intense when it’s not just in my head.” You turned to face him fully, your heart beating so fast you were sure he could hear it echoing in the silence. “I mean it.” He added quickly, voice dropping, sincerity bleeding through every word.

“It’s not just some passing thought I get when I see you with Franklin, or when you laugh, or when you fall asleep during movie nights and drool on my shoulder.” You made a quiet noise of protest, heat blooming across your cheeks. He grinned softly at that, but it faltered just as quickly, replaced by something more hesitant. “I try to ignore it, y'know?” His fingers fidgeted with the hem of the dish towel, eyes focused on the counter like it might help him stay grounded.

“Because I didn’t want to mess this up. You and me... we’re good. We work. And I kept thinking, if I opened my mouth, I’d ruin it all. That I’d lose you.” His eyes finally met yours again, open, uncertain, completely unguarded. “But lately? It’s like... I can’t not feel it anymore. It’s everywhere. You're everywhere. Every time I look at you, I think about what it’d be like to wake up next to you. To build something real. I think about how natural it feels when you're here, like you're already part of the family.”

His hand hovered near yours on the counter, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the heat between your fingers. “I’m tired of pretending it’s not there. Tired of pretending I don’t—” The words caught on his tongue. “Tired of pretending that I don’t love you, Y/N.” And there it was. Simple. Raw. Undeniably real. The air between you felt electric, charged with everything that had been buried under years of stolen glances, long talks, missed chances, and the quiet kind of love that grows too strong to ignore.

"Oh, fuck it." Before you could react and before he could talk himself out of it, Johnny rounded the kitchen island with a kind of reckless purpose, his restraint unraveling in real time. And then, he was there. He surged forward, big hands finding your waist, as his lips crashed against yours. Your eyes flew open, shocked by the force of it, by the sheer heat, but your body answered before your brain could catch up, instinct overriding reason.

Your fingers twisted in the fabric of his t-shirt as you kissed him back, years of pent-up tension igniting like gasoline meeting flame. His hands gripped your waist tighter, dragging you flush against him as his mouth moved hungrily against yours. When his tongue pushed past your lips and brushed against yours, a soft moan slipped out of you before you could stop it, swallowed by his mouth like it was the very thing he’d been starving for.

You felt him groan low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your lips and sending another wave of heat straight down your spine. His hands roamed, one sliding up your back, the other briefly gripping your hip before pulling you impossibly closer, like he needed to feel every inch of you to believe this was really happening. Your hands had a mind of their own, smoothing up the planes of his chest, over his shoulders, fingertips trailing across the warm skin of his neck and into his hair.

He shuddered beneath your touch, deepening the kiss like he never wanted to come up for air. It was messy. Intense. Every press of his mouth against yours was filled with every stolen glance, every suppressed feeling, every unsaid word that had sat between you like a live wire for years. When he finally did pull back, breathless and wide-eyed, your lips were swollen, your chest heaving, and so was his.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” He breathed out, voice low and wrecked with emotion, his forehead pressing gently to yours. His thumbs stroked your hips, like he couldn’t stop touching you now that he’d started. You nodded, still catching your breath, eyes searching his face for anything, regret, hesitation, but there was none. “I thought I was dreaming,” You whispered. “I’ve been in love with you since I can remember.”

The words, settled over your skin like a warm blanket, uncomplicated, long-overdue, and unmistakably true. “Say it again.” He begged, voice hoarse, like he needed the sound of it more than air. Like your confession might be the only thing tethering him to reality. “I love you, Johnny.” That did it. He surged forward again, but this time there was no urgency, no crashing wave of desperation, just reverence.

His lips met yours with a gentleness that threatened to undo you entirely. No rush, only the kind of kiss that felt like a promise. One hand cupped your cheek, thumb brushing lightly over your cheekbone as his mouth moved against yours, patient and aching, as though he was trying to memorize the shape of your lips and the rhythm of your sighs. Your hands curled around his wrists, anchoring yourself to him as he kissed you like it was sacred.

His breath hitched slightly when your fingers threaded back through his hair, but he didn't press further, didn’t deepen the kiss like before. This was about worship. Like he'd spent years imagining this, and now that he had it, he wanted to slow time down and savor every second. When he pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, his eyes remained closed, like he was afraid they’d snap open and find it had all vanished.

You couldn't stop the airy laugh that left you lips. "You've seriously thought about me as the mother of your children?" You raised a brow, hand absentmindedly tracing the veins of his forearm you ogled more than you'd like to admit. "Baby, seeing the way you act with Franklin always gets me all hot and bothered. Anything you do really." He stated matter-of-factly, smirk breaking out onto his face. You rolled your eyes, but the heat crawling up your neck betrayed you.

"Why do you ask, want to practice?" Johnny huskily murmured in your ear, his breath hot and intoxicating as it fanned across your skin. The low rasp of his voice sent a shiver down your spine, awakening something dormant and long-suppressed. He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against the sensitive curve of your neck before pressing a deliberately slow, kiss just beneath your jaw. The heat of it bloomed across your skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake, and your breath hitched involuntarily.

Years of unspoken desire and stolen glances rushed to the surface, threatening to unravel your composure. As much as you wanted to surrender, to drown in the fantasy you had nursed for so long, a quiet voice inside pulled you back. You placed a gentle but firm hand on his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your palm. The tension between you crackled, heavy with want, but you pushed him back, just enough to create distance, not rejection.

"Not with the two-year-old were supposed to be watching less than ten feet away." Johnny pulled back with a dramatic groan, his expression pure betrayal. You watched as his eyes had darkened considerably, but they still sparkled as he opened his mouth to throw out another flirty one-liner your way, only to be cut off by a familiar, high-pitched wail echoing from the baby monitor that made both of you freeze.

“Traitor.” He muttered, narrowing his eyes at the tiny screen like it had done it on purpose. You placed one more chaste kiss to his heated cheek, patting his chest sympathetically, before you were already on your feet, chuckling as you padded toward the hallway. He followed with reluctant steps, grumbling under his breath but unable to stop glancing at you with that soft, besotted look he probably didn’t even realize he was wearing.

Later that night, when Susan and Reed returned to the Baxter Building, they were met with an unfamiliar but very welcome sound: silence. Brows furrowed, Susan kicked off her heels and made a beeline toward Franklin’s room, her mom instincts already stirring. Her heart skipped as she peeked into the dimly lit nursery, only to find the crib empty. “Reed?” Her voice was barely a whisper, nerves creeping up her spine.

“Hold on.” Reed called quietly from down the hall, standing in front of Johnny’s bedroom with the door slightly ajar, light from the hallway spilling just enough to illuminate what was inside. Susan joined him, brows raised in silent question. He merely tilted his head toward the crack in the door. Inside, Franklin lay curled on your chest, tiny hand fisted in your shirt, lips slightly parted in sleep. Your head rested against Johnny’s shoulder, your breathing steady and deep.

Johnny’s arms wrapped around both of you, one across your waist, the other lightly covering Franklin’s back in a protective cocoon. Susan exhaled slowly, something warm blooming in her chest. “Looks like you were right.” Susan’s smile was nothing short of smug as she crossed her arms. “I’m always right.” She quipped, fully planning to tease both of you relentlessly at breakfast. But for now, she simply stood there, soaking in the quiet proof of what she’d suspected all along.

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[scarletmika]

The Wonder of You : ̗̀➛ Johnny Storm x Reader

Pairing: Johnny Storm x Reader

Summary: Over your four years working for Reed Richards, you'd given yourself one job: you can be his friend, but don't fall for Johnny Storm's charms. Too bad you had already failed that mission before it could even begin.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY MDNI, SMUT (making out, unprotected sex, p in v, nipple play, oral f. receiving, temperature play, creampie, aftercare), porn with a LOT of plot, slight hint of some angst, fluff, friends to lovers, Johnny is a massive flirt, mutual pining, SPOILERS! for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, female reader but no characteristics described, mentions of parental loss, maybe some incorrect stuff regarding the 60s and how it worked but it's a fantasy world, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes

Word Count: 17,433 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

“We need to adjust the parameters for this. There’s a few more levels that I want to adjust, to ensure that we’ve scanned the baby for all possible anomalies,”

Years ago, when you had miraculously been offered the position as Dr. Reed Richards assistant, it was a dream come true. The smartest man alive, holding 18 Doctorate degrees himself, choosing you out of the thousands of applicants to be his assistant was a ‘pinch me’ moment. Of course, he didn’t want an assistant, it was thrust upon him by his wife, but you liked to think after all this time you’d wormed your way into his heart.

Working with Reed…was something else entirely. It was a learning curve, understanding just how the man’s brain worked. Even to this day, you weren’t sure you understood it. Even when things went perfectly, when test runs on prototypes worked out better than you could’ve ever imagined, Reed was never satisfied. Something could always be better, be improved, as if his brain was factoring in the hundreds of thousands of possibilities that could occur and alter your data. You made it work, though–with patience and understanding–you managed to find the best way to work around Reed’s faults and work with him, to support him.

What was supposed to be just a job in the Baxter Building became so much more. Through it, you gained a family you never thought quite possible.

Reed’s wife, Susan Storm, was another one of the brightest minds that you had ever encountered. Kind, compassionate, but fiercely loyal and unafraid to step up to the plate when a challenge arrived, when the people she loved were threatened. You admired her and everything she stood for, the way she carried herself day in and day out. And since the day you had arrived at the Baxter Building, she welcomed you with open arms, as if you had always been part of the family.

Ben Grimm was the most talented pilot you’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. The perfect counter to Reed and his panicky mind at times, having known the man long enough to understand his quirks in a way you could only hope to. Ben was always kind, always open, always ready to lend a hand or be a shoulder for anyone that needed to listen.

Johnny Storm…was the bane of your existence, in the best way.

“Wrong address, sweetheart. The modeling agency is two blocks down. I could escort you over there, if you’d like?”

Those were the first words the hot-headed younger brother of Sue Storm had said to you, passing by you in the lobby of the building on your first day, a wink thrown in for good measure when he’d spoken.

Having followed Dr. Richards' work long enough, which meant knowing bits about his personal life, you were well aware of the reputation that Johnny Storm carried. The papers and magazines, talk shows and gossip blogs, all called him a playboy simply because he’d never been in a long-term relationship but was still a ladies man. You never saw him like that, though. All you saw was a brilliant guy, a lover of space, even if that passion of his was sometimes overlooked because of his ‘love for women’.

And, oh, how you wished his empty, blatant flirting with you didn’t bring a blush to your cheeks every time, or make your heart skip a beat, but it did. Every single time, it did. You weren’t blind: Johnny Storm was objectively handsome and much too charming for his own good, and you decided right then and there that you would use every ounce of your willpower to ignore his empty flirts. You didn’t need to become another girl hopelessly in love with the heartthrob of the Fantastic Four, even if your heart ached when you saw him with anyone else.

Those four had become important to you in ways that you would never be able to describe, but Sue always described it best: a family. 

That’s why when four of the closest people to you in life went up into space for Reed’s exploration mission, and came back cosmically changed forever, you never left their sides. They were your family, and family stuck together, no matter what.

“Reed,” your comment was cautious, hands stilling at your work station in the lab of the Baxter Building. Glancing over your shoulder, Reed was hunched over the machine he’d built in just a day, specifically to monitor the health of the baby growing inside of Sue’s stomach, as Herbie rocked back and forth beside him. “You’ve scanned Sue a thousand times at this point-”

“That’s an exaggeration. I’ve scanned her 123 times-”

“That’s not the point,” he glanced over at you then, looking away the second he saw the pointed look you were throwing at him. With a sigh, you abandoned your work, leaning back against the table behind you to watch him fret over the device. “We have run every test possible, scanned for every data point that links back to the fluctuations in your DNA from the cosmic rays we noted years ago, and we’ve gotten nothing. Your baby is okay.”

“There are still more tests to run,”

Another sigh escaped past your lips, and you allowed yourself to hang your head with a shake.

Since the moment Sue had announced her pregnancy, he’d been like this: even more on edge than usual. Baby-proofing the kitchen, smoke detectors in every single room and hallway, baby gates around every corner, it was getting insufferable. A sweet gesture, overall, and a testament to how much he loved and adored Sue, but exhausting to everyone else that had to be in his presence.

“Fine, but I’m not breaking the news to Sue that you want to scan her…again,”

“I already told her to meet me down here before dinner for another scan. We can adjust the parameters tomorrow. I want another data set from today’s scan at the current parameters to compare the changes with,” Reed never looked in your direction, still fiddling with the machine in front of him. “You’re staying for dinner, yes?”

“I’m making it,” was the response you shot back to him, powering down your workstation in the lab and rising from your chair, crossing the room to stand in front of him. “Apparently Sue has been craving spaghetti, and requested my family recipe.”

“You can’t argue with a pregnant woman,” Reed muttered, just loud enough for you to hear, but he still never looked up. “I’ll see you up there for dinner, then. There’s a few more tests that I want to run.”

“You also have a meeting at 5:45 and one at 6:15,” you shot back to him as you turned to leave the lab, checking the desk calendar lying beside your work station. There was a hum from the man, the smallest acknowledgement you were going to get, so you set your sights on Herbie and waved him forward. “Come on, Herb. An extra hand in the kitchen is always nice.”

As much as you thought of the Fantastic Four as your family, you never stayed for dinner often. You always tried your hardest to uphold the lines between your work life and personal life, not wanting to blur them completely (though, you were sure you had already blurred them enough for it to be too late). There had been plenty of times over the years where you’d stayed for dinner, usually once a month at this rate.

Sue always invited you, and you never wanted to disappoint her, and you gave in often. Ben had a way of wrangling you into saying yes before you were ever given the chance to speak at all. Reed had only asked once, asking you to stay back for the dinner months ago in which they announced to you that Sue was pregnant.

Johnny asked every day. You said no, most of the time, but when you did stay for dinner it was usually because those captivating, bright blue eyes were staring into your soul and pleading with you to stay.

Speak of the devil: there he sat at the dining room table. Clad in a white t-shirt with their logo resting over the pocket and the blue pants of his suit, a weird sight given that you had been in the lab with Reed all day and didn’t think any of them had left to attend to any ‘hero’ work.

You didn’t say a word as you strolled past him into the kitchen with Herbie on your heels, simply plucking the box of Lucky Charms from his hands as you swooped past. It was impossible not to smile to yourself at the scoff of indignation he let out at your actions.

“Hey-!”

“You’re going to spoil your appetite,” you shot back at him, throwing him a smirk over your shoulder before slotting the now closed cereal box into the cupboard where it usually sat.

Herbie beeped out a set of beeps that, over the years, you had come to understand. This time, he was agreeing with you, pointing out some facts about how eating out of the box lacked moderation, and would in turn actually spoil his appetite. You gave the little robot a fist bump for that, something that Johnny shot the little helper a glare for.

“Come on, Herbert, you’re supposed to take my side on these things!” There was no real malice in his words as he got up from the dining room table, rounding into the kitchen as you took the pots and pans that Herbie had gathered for you, setting them out along the counter where you needed them. “Baby, you didn’t tell me you were staying for dinner.”

When you told yourself that you weren’t going to fall into the trap that was the charming and charismatic Johnny Storm, you weren’t prepared for two things.

One: when he got comfortable around someone, he could be an even bigger flirt. Pet names were constant. Baby, sweetheart, honey, doll, love…you name it, Johnny called you it. Constantly. So constantly you were sure the blush on your cheeks was a permanent staple. He’d even once called you his little flame–that had been met with the tip of your heel being dug into his foot.

The second thing you weren’t prepared for: touch. Johnny Storm didn’t understand personal space, not when he was comfortable around you. If you were in the room with him, he was standing less than a foot from you, and you always knew because you could feel the warmth that radiated off his unusually hot skin. His hands would always rest on your arm, your elbow, right at the bottom of your lower back.

Moments like this in the kitchen were normal, and yet they still fried your brain. That simply little pet name, and Johnny’s warm hand ghosting over your lower back, before coming to rest on your hip. Clearing your throat, you gently pried his hand from your body, shooting him a look as you moved around to get the ingredients for dinner, hoping your flushed cheeks didn’t give you away.

“When your pregnant sister has cravings for my personal family recipe spaghetti, I’m required to oblige her,”

“I asked you to make this for me two weeks ago and you refused,”

Johnny followed close behind you, like a little puppy following its owner. You tried, and failed, to contain your smile at his actions. The media might paint him as some sex god (you weren’t going to lie…if he wanted to be, he could be) but you saw him for what he was: the epitome of a little golden retriever at times.

“Well you aren’t a hormonal pregnant woman with super powers,” you shot back at him, taking the opened jar of spaghetti sauce from Herbie’s hand and dumping it into the pot on the stove top, turning up the heat on the boiling pot of water for the noodles Herbie had laid out for you.

“No, but Johnny is a hormonal guy with super powers, who adores your cooking,” bumping his hip with yours, Johnny stole the wooden spoon from your hand with ease, dipping it into the simmering sauce to stir. With that same ease, he leaned down just slightly, leaving a kiss to your bare shoulder that felt as if it had left a brand into your skin. “Johnny also happens to just adore you, and loves when you stay for dinner.”

You had given up on the blush by now. He’d surely seen it enough over the years with his incessant flirting, there was no use in hiding it. Bumping your hip back with him, biting into your bottom lip in a failed attempt to conceal the smile spreading across your lips, you stole the wooden spoon back from him.

“Johnny also talks in the third person too much, and is an insufferable flirt half the time,” he dipped his hand into the sauce, coating his fingers in red as you whacked lightly at his hand, forcing him to withdraw as quickly as he’d dipped in. “What have I told you about doing that!”

He’d laughed, one of your favorite sounds, as you glanced over at him with a bright smile, unable to truly stay mad at him…ever.

That was, until he dipped his sauce-covered ring finger and middle finger into his mouth to lick the sauce clean off, eyes never leaving yours and a smirk curling up on his lips. It forced you to swallow the lump that had formed in your throat and look away as quickly as you could, feeling a different kind of heat swelling in your body: yeah, Johnny knew exactly what he was doing.

“Not sure, baby, that look you’re giving me right now doesn’t scream that I’m insufferable-”

“Oh, that’s exactly what it’s screaming,” you shot back, even with the ghost of a smile pulling at your lips as Herbie readied the garlic bread on the counter behind you. “If you’re not going to help, you can leave this kitchen. I don’t care if you live here.”

Johnny rolled his eyes in response, hopping up onto the counter next to the stove where you worked. You caught the box of noodles he knocked over before they could fall to the ground, shooting him a look as he held his hands up innocently, dumping them into the boiling water pot.

“You basically live here, too,”

“I don’t-”

“Yeah, because you keep refusing the room that Sue prepared for you,”

He…wasn’t wrong. Two years ago, Sue had transformed what was previously the guest room into a room that looked like it had been built just for you. Your favorite color on the walls, a matching quilt set on the bed, and she’d offered it to you. A place to stay, to live, given that Reed sometimes had you in the Baxter Building until the oddest hours of the morning.

You declined, still desperate to keep that line between your work life and your personal life separate, as tempting of an offer as it was. Sue wasn’t slighted by your decision at all, instead offering it to you to use whenever you needed to. There had been times in which you had taken up that offer, a few changes of clothes tucked away in the room on the odd chance that you’d need them.

“This place is your home, not mine,” you didn’t look at Johnny as you spoke, simply shaking your head as you stirred both the sauce and the noodles in their respective pots. “I’m Reed’s assistant, I’m not family-”

“Stop it,”

Even with the heat that rolled off Johnny Storm, every time his bare skin touched your own it sent a shiver straight down the length of your spine. His hand curled around your jawline, thumb and index finger pinching at your chin to force you to look up at him, to gaze into those intense blue eyes and the look on his face that had morphed so quickly from playful to serious.

“Johnny-”

“You are family, whether you like it or not,” the statement didn’t surprise you, it wasn’t the first time in your four years of knowing him that Johnny had said something like this to you, or anyone on the team for that matter. It always made you feel warm inside, though, to hear him say it, to see that loyalty and love for the people he cared about shine through in his words, such a stark contrast to the way the media sometimes portrayed him. “There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for you.”

That was new. He hadn’t made a declaration like that to you before.

It was something about the look in his eyes as he said it–so genuine, so soft–that had you melting into his touch. His hand curled back up to your cheek, thumb just barely caressing the apple of your cheek, leaving a trail of heat with every swipe of his finger against your skin. Your heart betrayed you, fluttering in that moment like it always did.

These moments used to be few and far between. You didn’t know how else to describe them besides just calling them moments. Over the first few years of knowing Johnny Storm, there were small moments where that empty flirts verged on the edge of something different, something raw and real. But in the last year, they happened more often than they didn’t. Johnny wasn’t pictured out with as many women anymore, wasn’t brazenly caught flirting with anyone with legs and a pulse at events. And in moments like this, even in front of his family, he’d touch you, caress you, speak to you in a way that felt so genuine, that felt like it was real. Like the flirting was no longer just empty, meaningless fun.

That line between your work and personal life might have been a muddled mess, but the line between being Johnny Storm’s friend and something entirely more was practically non-existent now.

“You say that to all your women?” you quipped back, trying to hold your own, even as you were melting inside and your voice came out as a whisper. The playful look on Johnny’s face returned in a second, his fingers instead pinching the cheek he’d just been so softly caressing.

“Never, honey. Those words are reserved for my brother-in-law’s pretty little assistant,”

In typical Johnny fashion, he was able to dissolve and ruin whatever the moment was in an instant with his usual ‘charm’. Swatting his hand away, you returned your attention to the food on the stove in front of you, smiling to yourself as Herbie beeped out a popular song you’d heard on the radio behind you.

“You always have a line, don’t you?”

“Hey, you know what you signed up for, being friends with all this,” he jokingly motioned to his body, and you caught sight of the smile lighting up his face again as you laughed incredulously at his actions. “As part of the package deal, being friends with me, you are legally required to attend movie night in the living room with me after dinner.”

You hummed in response, even if you were smiling the entire time just from listening to him talk.

“This sounds like an impromptu movie night-”

“All of our movie nights are impromptu, babe-”

“I saw earlier that channel 2 is playing The Sound of Music tonight,” you shot back at him, finally looking up at him with an expectant look on your face. “That’s what I want to watch.”

Johnny groaned, throwing his head back and knocking it against the cupboards with a wince on his face. You couldn’t help but chuckle at his overdramatic antics, as usual.

“But channel 3 is showing Psycho!”

“And you dipped your hand–which, god knows where that thing might have been–into my sauce for dinner,”

Johnny opened his mouth to speak, before mulling over your words, and effectively shutting it with a nod.

“You know what, if it gets you to have a movie night with me, then I’ll take it,”

God, you adored this man, more than you should. More than you wanted to. In his presence, especially now, you were pretty sure the smile on your face was a constant, that it would never leave, as you laughed at him once more. 

Finishing off the special blend of additions to your sauce, giving it another swirl with the wooden spoon, you brought it up to your lips for a quick taste. Satisfied, you held one hand under the spoon to keep it from dripping, holding it up toward Johnny.

“Alright, give it a taste,”

His eyes stayed locked on yours, that familiar intensity and warmth in them keeping you locked in place, holding your breath, as he took a quick slurp from the spoon. Smacking his lips together, running his tongue out along his lips, he gave a definitive nod.

“As always…perfection. Though, I expect nothing less from you,”

Before you could retort to his cheesy comment, his hand reached out, eyes still locked on yours, as he cupped your chin once more and ran his finger over your lips. With the slightest of glances down, you saw the small spot of red on his finger, the remnants of the sauce he’d so gently just wiped from your lips.

Glancing back up to those blue eyes you loved more than you cared to admit, you caught the way they finally glanced down at your lips, before looking away as if to not get caught.

“...am I interrupting something?”

As if Johnny had burst into flames and burned you, you jumped away from him immediately the second you heard the voice of Sue Storm across the room. You never even looked back up at Johnny, or turned around to look at the woman by the dining room table, just stared down into the sauce pot as you continued to stir it and the noodles.

“Actually, sis, you very much are interrupting something here,” Johnny called out across the room, and you could see him gesturing with his hands between you both from the corners of your vision.

“Johnny,” you rolled your eyes, glancing over at him with flushed red cheeks from what had just transpired. “Sue isn’t interrupting anything.”

“She kind of is. We were kind of having a moment here-”

“Johnny, we were not having a moment,”

You very much were having a moment, but you weren’t admitting that to him. His ego burned hot enough, no need to stroke the fire.

Sue laughed, rounding into the kitchen as she stopped by Herbie, thanking him and taking the garlic bread tray from him to pop into the oven he had preheated.

“Johnny, why don’t you go get cleaned up for dinner and stop bothering the poor girl. Bad enough I’m making her cook for me, she doesn’t need you hovering,”

The man let out a sigh, muttering something mocking toward his sister, as he threw himself off the counter with dramatic flair. He wasn’t done making your heart race, though, his hand curling around the back of your head as he planted a kiss directly to your hairline, before he disappeared from the kitchen with a pat to Herbie’s head.

The pots on the stove were forgotten as you turned around, simply watching him disappear with an incredulous look on your face. Quickly, your eyes shot to Sue, who was watching you with a smirk as she leaned against the island counter.

“There was nothing happening there,”

“I didn’t say there was,”

“But you’re giving me that look,”

“I’m not giving you any kind of look,” the blonde laughed, stepping up beside you to take the wooden spoon from your hand, tasting the sauce herself with a happy little sigh. “Just…enjoying watching the show from the sidelines, waiting for one of you to make a move.”

“Sue, there’s no move to make. He’s just…he’s Johnny,”

“And Johnny is my brother,” she shot back with a grin. “And Johnny has never been like that with someone, just with you.”

You didn’t get to respond, before Herbie cut in with another series of beeps. Your eyes shot wide as you listened to what he was saying, cheeks flaring an even brighter shade of red as Sue choked on air, laughing to herself at your side.

“HERBIE! THAT’S SO INAPPROPRIATE!”

❤︎

It had been two weeks, and Reed had somehow managed to scan Sue a total of 142 times, now. Sometimes, you wondered how she was able to put up with his hovering, the hovering that had gotten exponentially worse since she announced she was pregnant.

“I’m not getting clear imaging,” Reed called out from the other side of the lab, the only sound in the room being the incessant beeping of the machine he’d built to monitor the baby, and the solder iron in your hand as it worked away on the small device in front of you. You shook your head at his comments once more, adjusting the eye protectors resting on the bridge of your nose as little sparks jumped up as the last piece of the triangular device was finally attached. “I’m going to have Herbie recalibrate this, I don’t like the data output I’m getting, I want a clear image on the next scan. Is the second bridge device ready?”

“Just finished fixing the soldering on the stand, so it should be good to go,” you shot back, tossing your eye protectors down at your workstation, lifting the device carefully and carrying it over to Reed’s station, setting it down with the matching device. “And, once again, you really don’t need to scan the baby again.”

You were met with silence, unsurprisingly. Until, the workstation down the room set off its alarm bell, a familiar tone that had you stand up straighter where you stood.

“New deep space transmission,” there was a hint of elation in Reed’s tone as he said it, quickening his pace across the room with Herbie hot on his trail. “Let’s identify the origin, then record it for further analysis.”

Quickly walking back over to your workstation, your eyes drifted to that desk calendar sitting next to you, and to today’s date: a poorly drawn flame, and the time “2:15” scribbled in a barely legible handwriting that you recognized instantly. Even if you hadn’t, the terribly drawn heart with your initials in it scribbled in the corner would’ve given it away.

“Your analysis is going to have to wait, Reed,” you called out with a sigh, knowing you weren’t the one who put this meeting on the calendar, but you sure knew who had. “You have a 2:15 incoming.”

“2:15? What 2:15?” Reed never even looked in your direction, focused on the new transmission. “You didn’t tell me there was anything on my calendar.”

“Well, I didn’t put this one on the calendar myself, but you must have cleared it at some point…”

Just then, the elevator doors to the lab popped open with a familiar ding sound.

“Ah–Reed!”

Good god, Johnny Storm was trying to kill you. You weren’t even sure if that was an exaggeration at this point, because you wouldn’t put it past him.

Blue looked good on him, it always had, but the navy blue button up he was wearing was doing nothing for your mind that was screaming at you to “keep it professional.” It didn’t help that the first few buttons were already undone, giving a slight peak to his chest. The white chinos–those were the nail in your metaphorical coffin. They had no right to be that tight, and he had no right to look so damn good in them.

“Ah…that 2:15,” you tried your best to conceal your laugh at Reed’s comment across the lab. “Johnny, do we have to today?”

“Johnny, do we have to today? As if I didn’t ask to put it on the schedule,” the blonde man in question mumbled mockingly to himself as he slid up to your side at your workstation as you laughed at his antics. One of his hands grabbed the back of your neck, tugging you closer before you could even think about it, pressing another kiss to your hairline. Suddenly, you felt like you were back in the kitchen weeks ago. “Darling, have I ever told you how breathtaking you look in your lab coat?”

“It’s a white coat, Johnny, it’s nothing special,” you deflected, taking just a short glance up at him before you had to look away, already knowing you were as red as the table beneath your hands.

“But the girl wearing it is-”

“Johnny, do you want to have this meeting or do you want to flirt with my assistant?”

You hung your head with a groan, even as Johnny laughed at the comment from his brother-in-law. His arm slung around your waist, hand settling on your hip as the heat that rolled off his body enveloped you for a moment, letting yourself lean into the side hug he gave you and the squeeze to your hip, before he was gone.

“There’s enough time in the day to do both! No, I had some thoughts about the new suit designs,”

“There are no new space suit designs-”

You glanced over at the pair as they met face-to-face in the middle of the lab, Johnny holding up the sheet he was concealing behind his back.

“You finished them years ago…they have dust on them,” Johnny deadpanned, letting out a sigh as Reed took the design sheet from him. “Look, I get it. You’re going to be a father soon, you’re scared-”

“I’m not-I’m not scared,” Reed cut in immediately, and you could hear the anxious undertone that overtook him immediately at Johnny’s words. Without even having to be summoned, knowing how his brain worked after all this time, you simply shrugged off your lab coat and stalked over to the pair, taking the design sheet from Reed’s hands without a word and placing it on his chalkboard full of equations. “I’m-I’m busy, Johnny. I’m busy. I’m busy, there’s a difference.”

“He means busy on his pace to scan Sue at least 200 times before she gives birth,” you shot back, sending Reed a bright smile that he frowned at, clearly seeing that you were siding with Johnny here. “Not terrified of becoming a father at all, those two things definitely don’t correlate.”

Johnny laughed, smile bright, and it only brightened the one on your face, a tug somewhere deep in your chest pulling on you when he locked eyes with you. Reed snapped your attention back to him in an instant, running a hand down his face as he gestured in Herbie’s direction.

“Just handle the new deep space transmission, please, instead of ganging up on me with Johnny,”

You laughed, heels clicking against the floors of the lab as you joined Herbie’s side as he waited for the transmission to be scratched into the record. There was a woosh of air, the air beside you heating up instantly as a hand found its way to rest on your lower back.

“Have you listened to it yet?”

The smile on your face softened as you glanced over at Johnny, who was staring down at the record in front of you both with pure excitement in his eyes. Beyond the physical moments, his flirtatious moments, these were the moments that had your plan to not fall for Johnny Storm splitting at the seams, if it hadn’t already.

“Seems to be a lot more of the same, just another complex signal,” Johnny left your side, the heat going with him, as he leaned against the blue table behind him. Herbie took the record from its place, rolling over to Johnny to hand it directly to him. “You’re more than welcome to take it with you, give it a listen.”

He twirled the record in his hands with a grin, absentmindedly reaching out to scratch the top of Herbie’s head. That simple little action elicited a giggle, hand coming up to cover your mouth as Johnny glanced up at you with a smirk.

“What’s so funny?”

“Herbie isn’t a dog, and yet you treat him like one,” you explained, stepping up just in front of him and grabbing his hand lightly, stopping the twirling of the record in his hands. “Also, you do know you aren’t supposed to get your fingerprints all over these, right?”

It was Johnny’s turn to laugh as he spun his hand, catching it in his palm and bringing it up to his lips, leaving a scorching hot, but gentle, kiss to your knuckles, sending a shiver straight through your bones. He didn’t even have a retort to your comment, just simply held your hand in his, thumb stroking along your skin, while your entire body flushed with a feeling you wanted to ignore.

“Johnny, what have I told you about flirting in my lab? I need my assistant, we’re trying to run a test,”

The moment was gone in seconds, your hand dropped from Johnny’s as he raced to the other side of the lab, following closely behind Reed and tossing the record onto the closest table.

You could only shake your head with a laugh, walking beside Herbie to join them, knowing Reed would be mumbling to himself the rest of the week about this moment and how much Johnny liked pissing him off.

“Cool! I got time,”

Reed didn’t roll his eyes as you and Herbie joined them back at your workstations, but you could see how much he wanted to. Holding the device you’d just finished off in his hand, you watched in the same awe you had for four years as his arm stretched across the length of the lab, placing it right back beside your own workstation.

“Bridge teleportation test one,” grabbing the notebook lying beside the device that contained your notes on the project, you flipped to a new page, prepared to note down any disparities that occurred during the test, as Reed placed an egg on the newly soldered stand. “Movement of organic matter six meters.”

Johnny grabbed the protective glasses beside the work desk, about to slip them on, before Reed took them with no hesitation and slipped them on himself. The blonde turned to you with an incredulous look that simply drew a laugh from you.

“Those are his pair, you can’t touch his pair,” you teased the man, who simply shot you a wink in return, as you both took the pairs that Herbie was holding out to you both. Johnny gave the little robot a quick fist bump.

Such a simple action that still had you grinning in childlike adoration at the side of his face.

Reed gave you a simple look, confirming you were ready. You gave him a nod, as he took hold of the switch to activate the device.

“Let’s run it,”

The whirring of the machine sounded, three silver beams of energy emitting from the device and encasing the egg within a sphere of energy. There was a shift in the room as that energy grew, as the hum of the machine filled the air, before there was a simple POP–and the egg was gone.

One glance from each of you over your shoulders was enough to confirm that the egg was, in fact, sitting on the opposite platform. Completely untouched and intact.

“It worked!” Johnny exclaimed, gesturing toward the egg.

That’s when the power to the building cut out.

It wasn’t surprising, given the notes you both had taken. The amount of energy that needed to be funneled through the device in order to channel enough energy to actually move organic matter without hurting it was sure to be beyond the energy limits of the Baxter Building. A full power outage…not what you were expecting. Not that you could write that note down in the pitch black of the room.

“Johnny,” Reed’s voice called out in the dark, steady with no hint of any emotion you could decipher in it. The man in question came to life beside you, body engulfed in flames, the flame resistant fabric of his specially tailored clothing working overtime to keep him from being stark naked. He stood with his hands on his hips, and even from the side you could see the smirk curling up on his lips. “Could you reset the breaker?”

You’d known Johnny long enough now, been his friend for enough years, to know him. Know him better than a colleague should. The instant dip in his smirk to a frown was clear, the tension in his broad shoulders, as he tossed his glasses down onto the table. He didn’t spare either of you another look, crossing the room to grab the record.

“Other way-”

“I know,” Johnny snapped, beside his flame engulfed body was on the other side of the lab, flipping the breaker as the electricity of the building roared to life again. The second it did, he was in the elevator, doors shutting without another word.

Neither you nor Reed spoke for a moment, simply looking down at the bridge teleportation device on the table in front of him.

“I’ve upset him,”

Reed didn’t phrase it like a question, he said it like a statement. Both were true, though. Reed always knew when he had upset Johnny, but never how he had really upset him.

You took a deep breath, nodding, as you scribbled a note in your notebook before turning on your heels, stalking back to your own workstation.

“Well, he went out of his way to put time on your calendar just to talk to you about the suits, and you did dismiss him…” you trailed off as you reached your station, eyes flickering back down to that desk calendar beside you. You couldn’t help it, letting your fingers lightly trail over that little heart with your initials, smiling to yourself, wishing it meant more than what it did mean: nothing. “Johnny loves space, he only got to go up once before…this all happened. You can’t blame him for wanting to go back.”

It was quiet for another moment in the lab, before Reed spoke up again.

“You know him well…better than I think I do,”

The flush in your cheeks was inevitable at that, embarrassment flooding you as it was easy for you to read between the lines of what Reed was trying to insinuate.

“I-I just listen to him. I always listen,”

It was quiet again.

“Go check on him,” was all Reed said. “If there’s anyone he’d want to talk to right now, it’s you.”

You wanted to argue, to save the crumbling bits of that wall between work and personal, but even you knew it was too late for that.

Johnny’s bedroom door was just two down from the guest room Sue had offered you years ago, a bathroom being the only thing that separated them. Ben’s room was at the other end of the hallway, along with the nursery where the soon to be baby Richards would sleep.

You may not have stayed in that guest room often, but you’d been in these hallways enough to know it like the back of your hand. To know it like it was your own home. 

There were countless nights, before you’d make the short walk back to your apartment, where Johnny had coerced you into movie nights in his room. He’d never try anything, never push you into something, always leaving the door open to make sure you knew he wasn’t bringing you upstairs for some alternative reason. His room was just quieter, and felt more private. It gave you the chance to see the side of Johnny that the world didn’t get to see.

The space lover, who spent his life dreaming of being an astronaut, of going into space and seeing the stars. He was a thrill-seeker, always wanting to live his life on the edge, to find joy in those rushes of adrenaline. But beyond it all, just a good man. A man who had an entire collection of records lining one wall of his room, organized from his favorite records to his least favorite, even though he claimed there wasn’t really a least favorite. The world got to know the Human Torch, but in  the confines of those four walls, you got to know Johnny Storm. The second you did, you knew your heart was fucked.

You found him in a spot you’d found him in before: leaning against the floor to ceiling windows of his room, staring out at the spaceship he hadn’t stepped foot in for four years. Your heart broke slightly from where you stood in the doorway, able to see the longing that was woven into his frown, that shone through his eyes that never strayed far from the Excelsior.

“You know,” with a few steps into the room, standing beside the record player, you lifted the needle to stop the replay of the foreign language from the deep space transmission that played on a loop. Johnny looked over, a soft smile overtaking his frown at the sight of you, as you kept your own voice soft and light. “I don’t think deep space transmissions are the right background music if you’re going to stare longingly out your window.”

Johnny laughed in a huff, turning on his heel to flick through his record collection.

“And suggestions then for a melancholic moment such as this?”

“Elvis typically has some hits that can set that mood,”

You watched him, the slight shake in his body that hinted he was laughing again, before he plucked a record from the shelves and rose back to his feed. Standing beside the record player with you, he slid it into your hands without another word and plopped into the chair just across from the player.

With care, like you’d done it a hundred times before (you had, right here in this room), you slipped the record onto the player, dropping the needle down as it coasted along the grooves etched into the record.

When no-one else can understand me, when everything I do is wrong…you give me hope and consolation. You give me strength to carry on.

The lyrics settled in you heavily, but it made your body feel lighter. It was impossible not to read into them, to not think too hard about the deliberate music choice that Johnny had made. You couldn’t help that, somewhere deep in your heart where you had buried your feelings for the flaming man years ago, you were hoping these lyrics were a personal message to you.

“Reed send you to check on me?” Johnny asked after a moment, leaning back in his chair, arms folded over his chest as he watched you. Composing yourself for a moment, shoving the flurry of butterflies beating against your chest down, you turned to face him and his blue eyes with a shrug.

“Technically, but I would’ve come on my own,” Johnny hummed, the ghost of a smile on his lips, as his gaze found its way back to the spaceship taunting him just beyond the window. “Come on, matchstick, talk to me.”

He huffed out another laugh, stretching his arms above his head as you tried your best to keep your eyes trained on his face and not drift down his torso. Eventually, his arms settled back across his chest, his gaze still stuck out the window.

“I don’t know…it’s stupid. Last time we went up, we came back with superpowers, trust me, I get that. Now, he’s got a kid on the way. But I know–I know–that he knows how much space means to me. So, when he just dismisses me like that-”

“It makes you feel inadequate? Like you’re a child?” Johnny’s gaze found you again as you shrugged with a light smile. “I’ve worked in an enclosed space with him almost every day for four years, Johnny. He used to make me feel that way all the time, until I realized that Reed’s never trying to make me feel like that.”

“I know he’s not doing it on purpose…doesn’t mean I’m not going to shit talk him in the confines of these walls,” he gestured around the room as you laughed, coming to stand beside his chair, looking down on him as he sighed once more. His hands fell, gripping his knees, as he rubbed them back and forth against the fabric of his pants. “I love space. Simple as that.”

You hummed, bending down beside the chair Johnny sat in so that you were essentially squatting before him, having to look up at him. Hesitation caught you for just a second, your brain actively fighting a war with your heart as you raised your hands, but you ultimately took his hands in yours. 

All it took was a second for your eyes to drift over to the table beside him. One lamp, a stack of books, and the flash of a polaroid photo leaning against those books: a photo of you. Taken at some point in the lab, laughter written across your face, your hand almost blocking a portion of the lens as you tried to stop him from taking the photo. You didn’t even remember it being taken in the first place.

Good god, he was really going to be the death of you.

Eyes quickly back on him, with a little squeeze to his hands, you gave Johnny the most comforting smile you could, even as your heart did somersaults in your chest.

“I know you do. You’ll go back to space, Johnny, I promise,”

His eyes watched your hands, and you could see it on his face: that hint of adoration, that hint of something genuine that suggested it wasn’t all just a game, that you weren’t imaging moments for more than they were.

“What if I don’t?”

“You’re Johnny Storm, I’ve never seen you not get something you wanted before. Especially not something you want this bad,”

His mouth parted just slightly as he hesitated. You watched as his tongue darted out, just barely grazing over the edge of his bottom lip, before you flicked your eyes back to his.

“You’re wrong…I think there’s something I want more. Been trying to get it for awhile, but…she just keeps slipping through my fingers somehow,”

That tug on your heart was back. Your heart was surely beating so fast that it could be heard, hammering against your ribcage, as his thumbs glided back and forth across your skin. You could barely think of a response, too stuck on his words: the closest thing to a confession of any kind you’d heard in four years. Raw, real, genuine.

Johnny stood quickly, barely giving you a chance to potentially think of a response as he tugged you back to your feet. His arm enveloped your waist, your hand falling to his bicep as he still held your other hand in the air beside you both. You weren’t sure now if the flush crawling up your neck into your cheeks was from the moment, or from the heat radiating off of him.

“W-What are you doing?”

“We’re dancing,” he said it as if it was the most casual thing in the world, that usual smirk of his back on his face. Whatever had happened moments before, whatever confession may or may not have been said, was brushed away in an instant, that charming, flirty personality of his back in full force. “Can’t turn on Elvis and not dance, I think that’s a literal crime.”

“I didn’t know you even knew how to dance,”

“Oh, I don’t, Sue’s been telling me for years that I have two left feet,” Johnny shot back, shooting a wink down at you as his hand readjusted its grip along your waist. “Can’t be that hard with the prettiest girl in the building in my arms, right?”

Swaying back and forth, wrapped up in the heat of his body, in the faint smell of the cologne that coated his clothing, you were very certain that Johnny Storm was going to be the death of you.

And when you smile the world is brighter. You touch my hand and I'm a king. Your kiss to me is worth a fortune, your love for me is everything.

Johnny tilted his head back from you by just a hair, and you followed suit. Deep blue eyes, as captivating to you as they were the first time you ever saw them, shone with an emotion you couldn’t quite decipher. If you could, you weren’t sure you would survive knowing. 

Faces just an inch away, the closest and most intimate moment you’d ever shared with the man you knew in your heart was never going to be just your friend, your colleague, you were verging on the edge of making a terrible choice. Of opening the floodgates, of unlocking the feelings you’d buried away so long ago and letting them flow.

“This is an interesting little relationship you and I have, you know,”

Johnny always found a way to ruin these moments, and this was just another example. Lips tugged up into a smirk, mischief swarming his eyes as he teased you, that fleeting moment of raw vulnerability was gone.

Hand slipped from his, body pulled back from his and a roll of your eyes, you turned on your heel within seconds.

“So typical of you, Storm,”

“What-? What did I do!”

You huffed out a laugh, a smile creeping onto your lips even as you tried to keep it at bay, as you threw your comment over your shoulder as you walked toward the door.

“You went and killed the moment, Johnny, as per usual,”

“...so you admit it, we WERE having a moment!”

You barked out a laugh, shaking your head as you crossed through the doorframe. You could never stay mad at him, not when your heart yearned for him in a way you wish it didn’t.

“Come on! At least let me make it up to you. Will you stay for dinner?”

With a final glance cast over your shoulder toward him, you shot him a bright smile.

“If you’re lucky, flame boy!”

❤︎

Yeah, you really couldn’t say no to Johnny Storm.

Not when he’d spoken so sweetly to you, held you so tenderly, and all around just invaded every part of your brain and your heart. To be fair, he barely had to try honestly to do that.

It wasn’t shocking to see Ben in the kitchen, it seemed to be one of his happy places. You weren’t complaining: on the nights you did stay for dinner, and Ben was cooking, you knew you were going home with the best leftovers the city of New York had ever seen.

“Decided to stay for dinner again?” Sue called out toward you with a smile, giving Herbie a pat on the head as he worked away at carving a pumpkin. You shot her a smile in return, pouring yourself a quick glass of water before making your way toward Ben.

“Johnny asked…and I decided to be nice and oblige him,” you didn’t miss the teasing hum that Ben let out, lightly whacking him on his rocky shoulder. Not that it did you any good, hurting your hand more than it would ever hurt him. His laughter was ignored as your eyes lit up, catching sight of the familiar black and white cookies he was dumping onto a plate. “Oh my god, did you go grab these from Maisie’s?”

“Yes,” Ben waved your hand away when you went to reach for the cookies, producing another paper bag and sliding it your way. “These ones are yours.”

The smell that wafted from the bag was enough to have you almost moaning in the middle of the kitchen, eagerly digging one of the cookies out. Maisie’s famous snickerdoodle cookies, the perfect blend of cinnamon and sugar that you had adored since you were a little girl. One bite of the cookie had you in absolute heaven.

“Oh my god, I haven’t had these in ages!” Ben and Sue both laughed at your excitement as you took another bite of the warm cookie in your hand. “How did you know these were my favorites?”

Ben’s smirk wasn’t hard to miss at all.

“Oh, I didn’t. Johnny asked me to pick those up for you,”

It was probably time to accept that blushing around this family was the only thing you were capable of.

Sue’s laughter rang loudest as she rounded the island counter, high fiving Ben as she shot you a pointed look.

“You really have my brother wrapped around your finger without even trying, huh? You know, before I went to get scanned–again–in the lab, I stopped by the nursery to check out the crib progress. Heard a little The Wonder of You from down the hall, thought I’d peek in…”

The groan you emitted could probably be heard from the other side of the country, leaning down to barely bang your head against the countertop. Ben and Sue’s laughter rang through the air again as you looked up, desperately waving your hands.

“I swear, it wasn’t what it looked like-”

“What wasn’t what it looked like?”

Of course, Johnny chose to make his grand entrance at that moment. Thankfully for you, he’d changed out of that ridiculously hot button up. Unfortunately for you, he was still wearing those god forsaken white chinos.

“Your little dance Sue was telling me about earlier,” Ben teased, easily catching your hand as it came up to whack him again in his rough, oversized one. “What’s with the long face?”

“Oh that dance was exactly what it looked like. Thanks for coming to dinner though, sweetheart, glad you like the cookies,” Johnny tacked on a wink in your direction, one you affectionately rolled your eyes over, before his smile was back to a frown. “And what of it, Ben?”

“Sounds like your 2:15 with Reed didn’t go well. I’m sorry, pal,”

From across the room, you could see Johnny’s shoulders move in a huff of laughter as he clapped, bringing down the cabinet shelf that held the same box of cereal you had taken from him two weeks ago. You moved around the island counter, filming your cup with more water before standing opposite of Ben while Johnny made his way back over.

“Hey, I’m fine,” he spoke, though the edge in his words was clear as he did, coming to stand directly at your side. “I don’t mind or anything, it’s just, uh-”

“I hear you, pal. We’ll go to space again,”

“That’s what I was trying to tell him earlier,” you tacked on, bumping your hip with Johnny’s, who quickly did the same back to you.

That smile you adored was back in moments, though, as he dug his hand into the box and produced the action figure waiting inside: a miniature Johnny Storm. His bright grin was turned in your direction as he waved the toy toward you, his signature catchphrase from the cartoon–flame on–ringing through the air as Reed entered the room, greeting his wife by the dining room table.

“They captured my likeness so perfectly, don’t you think?” he quipped, activating the catchphrase once again as you rolled your eyes. “Do you still have the one I gave you a few months ago?”

“Yeah, buried in the junk drawer of my kitchen,”

Johnny feigned shock, pinching your side quickly as you squirmed away with a laugh.

“At least upgrade me to your bedside table so I can be with you while you sleep,” that stupid line was accented with another wink before Johnny thrust the toy in Ben’s face. “Come on, admit it’s cool.”

That catchphrase just kept repeating.

I’m Johnny Storm! Flame On!

Flame On!

Flame On!

Ben grabbed the toy from Johnny’s hand in seconds, crushing it to nothing but dust and blowing it back in Johnny’s face with a smirk. You tried everything to conceal your laughter, but it was inevitable.

“Flame off!”

Sirens rang outside the balcony of the building’s living room. The flying cars of the police force raced past, bathing the room in red and blue lights. The second they disappeared, another squadron flew past in the other direction, the sirens all intermixing in the air.

These were the moments you never got to see often, when the team sprung into action. It was clear in Johnny and Ben alone, how their silly little moment was forgotten as they thrust into action, prepared to go running out of the building into danger. Reed simply held up a hand, shaking his head at the group.

“No, no, it’s alright. This is me,”

Ben and Sue followed Reed out onto the balcony, but Johnny hung back, his gaze stuck on you as you hadn’t moved from the kitchen. He simply tilted his head toward his family, holding his hand out for you. Such a simple move that shouldn’t have kickstarted your heart into what was surely an irregular rhythm, but it did.

The second you were at his side, Johnny’s hand rested at the small of your back, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt just so to tug you slightly closer to his side. Together, you stepped out onto the balcony of the Baxter Building beside Ben, overlooking New York as it was bathed in every corner in red and blue.

“For the past few months, I’ve been tracking a small number of criminal organizations throughout the city,”

You shot a look down at your boss, eyebrow raised.

“That’s what you’ve been doing in that notebook by your desk?” Reed simply waved your comment off, pointing just down the block, fairly close to the area in which your apartment resided.

“47 of them, to be exact. Including the Puppet Master in the Bowery, the Wizard in Gramercy Park, and Diablo in Washington Heights,”

Everyone on the balcony went quiet for a moment.

“You…baby-proofed the world,” Ben finally spoke. Sue’s sigh could be heard from the other end of the balcony as she tried to defend her husband.

“It’s a sweet gesture,”

“It’s a little insane,” you mumbled to yourself, just loud enough for you and Johnny to hear. The blonde at your side simply shrugged, glancing down at you and catching your gaze.

“It’s not totally crazy. He’s trying to protect the things he loves, what’s most precious to him…” Johnny’s lips quirked up just slightly. “I’d do it too…I’d do it for you.”

He said it so…so earnestly. With so much conviction in his tone, as if this was a certainty to him. That protecting not just his family, but you, was something he needed to do. That if it came down to it, he’d do it without a second thought.

“You…you have to stop saying things like that to me, Johnny,” you hated how breathless your voice came out, how wrecked you sounded as you whispered your response back to him, the conversation still droning on in the background between the other three.

The smile on Johnny’s face only widened, his hand slipping around from your lower back to your waist, as he gave you a light squeeze.

“Stop saying what, the truth?”

No, you need to stop saying things that are making me fall in love with you.

Love. That was a word that had only crossed your mind once when it came to Johnny Storm. 

It was two years ago, a week to the day that you had lost your mother, your biggest supporter in life. You stood at that funeral, surrounded by estranged family members you hadn’t spoken to in years, and family friends who wept for your loss. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny had come, offered their condolences, paid their respects.

When the others left, Johnny stayed. He stood by your side through the first viewing, never left it during the second viewing, and stood with you in the pouring rain an hour after they’d put her in the ground. You had cried, he held you, and he’d simply never left you alone that day. The colleague that had quickly become a friend, who flirted with you every chance he got, never uttered a single flirtatious comment that day. He’d simply been there, been the shoulder you needed.

That was the day you realized you may have fallen in love with the one man you told yourself not to fall in love with, and you buried those feelings in your heart for what you thought would be forever.

“Stuck in your head over there? Come on, it’s dinner time,”

Ben’s voice broke you from your stupor. The team had all started to make their way inside while you were left at the balcony railing, hands white knuckled on top of the rail. 

Johnny’s hand was held out toward you, and you ignored every part of your brain that told you not to and slipped your hand into his, letting him pull you back in toward the living room.

That’s what their watches all went off, alerts blaring in sync with one another.

It was like a firework went off, a boom shattering the night air of the city. The clouds, the sky, were painted in gold, streaks of meteors and debris crossing the sky as they fell to the earth. The sound that emitted from the golden cloud that stretched across the sky, bathing the city in its light, felt…otherwordly. Like a scream, like a warning.

A warm hand enveloped your face, turning your wide eyes away from the scene.

There were very few times you saw Johnny as serious as he was now. Jaw locked, eyes narrowed but still soft as they looked at you, the cascades of gold shone over his face, highlighting his features as another boom sounded off in the distance.

“Go inside, don’t come out,”

Words were caught in your throat. All you could manage was a nod, his thumb doing a single swipe over your cheek, before he patted Reed on the shoulder and launched himself over the railing and into the air, igniting himself as he went.

If not for the moment, you would have stopped to admire him as he flew, bathed in the reds and oranges of his fire. You were awestruck every time you got to witness those cosmic powers firsthand.

Reed, Sue, and Ben had followed not long after, as you could hear the familiar whirled of their car through the air, chasing after Johnny through the city, following whatever had just appeared from the sky.

You? You sat on the living room couch, wringing your hands together to keep them from shaking. You’d been there as they had dealt with Red Ghost, or even Moleman, but this? 

This was different. This was otherworldly. This was terrifying. And when Herbie flipped the switch of the television, rolling to your side, you were greeted with the sight of the silver alien woman hovering in Times Square for the first time.

“Your planet is now marked for death. Your world will be consumed by the devourer,” 

Her voice sent a single chill down the column of your spine. Herbie’s robotic hand reached out for yours, ceasing the endless wringing of your hands together. You took it without hesitation, though you wished in your heart it was someone else’s hand holding yours in this moment.

“Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak. Use this time to rejoice, and celebrate, for your time is short. I herald his beginning…I herald your end…I herald, Galactus.”

And thus began the longest night of your life since the day your colleagues went into space and came back forever changed.

Sending the team into space was the only option, to confront this mystery at its source. Reed had given you the basics in passing: the threat was real, there was documentation of plants across the universe disappearing entirely, the chrome woman’s signature left on each of them. He’d tasked you to the launch team, to prepare Excelsior for launch in T-16 hours.

Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.

Those words rattled around your brain the entire night, into the wee hours of the morning. Even as you helped Lynn set up the press conference, as you conferred with the launch team to ensure that the Excelsior was prepared in every conceivable way, as you checked and double-checked every data point throughout the entire ship, her words never left you.

Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.

The anxiety was clawing at you, even as you threw yourself into work. The notion of what her words meant, of what could happen, of how close the end could be.

The clock read sometime around 2 a.m. when you had finally stepped foot in that guest room made for you. There was no way you were walking home tonight. Besides, come morning, there would still be too much to do, too many data points that needed to be checked, too many scenarios that would need to be run through to make sure your team came back to you.

You knew sleep wasn’t coming to you, though, not when that metallic voice was rattling around your head. Not when an alien threat was upending your life. Not when, two doors away, there was a man that you did, in fact, want to hold close…in case you never got the chance to again.

You loved him. All it took was the end of the world to admit it.

Clad in nothing but an old t-shirt with the 4 logo on the front, one you were sure was Johnny’s, and a pair of shorts, you didn’t care what you looked like as you tore out of the room and into the hallway. Not now, not when your world was being threatened, not when your entire life could be ripped from you in a matter of seconds.

Johnny was awake, just as you knew he would be. White shirt, plaid blue pants you’d seen him sleep in so many times, he stood in his dark room by the windows once more, watching the crews rush around on the ground as they prepared the ship for launch in just a few hours. That same record from earlier in the day was still playing.

I guess I'll never know the reason why you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

With a step into the room, shutting the door behind you and flicking on the lamp just beside the door, Johnny finally met your eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” was the only thing you could manage to say. Johnny tilted his head, studying you silently, before he held out his hand just as he had done hours before.

“Come here,”

Crossing the room in a matter of moments, you all but fell into his arms. His outstretched hand ignored, he was frozen in place for just a moment as you curled your arms around his neck, throwing yourself into his arms. The faint smell of his cologne lingered, as did his bodywash, and the sigh you let out the second the smell hit you was in comfort.

It didn’t take Johnny long to unfreeze, his arms finding their place around your waist. One hand rested on your upper back, one pressing into your lower back. A faint kiss was placed to the side of your head, heat lingering for a second. Heat lingered in your entire body, radiating off of him in waves.

“You have to talk to me, baby,”

Talk? The truth was, you didn’t know where to start. How were you supposed to explain that, since the moment you had met Johnny Storm, your heart was already his. That in all your moments over the years, you’d fallen for the man you told yourself not to fall for. And as the threat from the metallic woman loomed over the world, as he prepared to try and save life as you knew it, the only thing you wanted was to be held by him. To know he was here, that he was okay, that he was with you.

“I-I’m scared,”

Those were the only words you could settle on. Johnny pulled back, his hands sliding gently around the fabric of the shirt hanging loosely from your body until they reached your face. He cradled you, so softly and gently in his hands, it was almost involuntary the way you closed your eyes and leaned into his touch, his warmth, chasing the feeling of security it brought you.

“It’s okay to be,” the gentle tone in his voice washed over you, covering you like a blanket. It’s exactly how he had spoken to you that day, standing in the rain when you refused to leave your mother’s side, reassuring you he was there. “I don’t care what the herald said, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You know that, right?”

Of course you knew that. If there was anything you knew for certain in this world, it was that when Johnny Storm said he’d protect you, he meant it. He’d spent long enough proving that to you.

There was no hesitation on your part when you laid your own hands overtop of his. Fingers curling around them, tugging his right hand just barely from your cheek, you turned and pressed the lightest of kisses to the palm of his hand.

Johnny froze. You could feel it. The slight tilt of his head, the questioning look that flickered across his face in the moonlight that shone through the windows. It was all fair. You were never the one to cross the boundary like this, to make a move such as this.

“I can’t stop thinking about what she said,” was how you tried to explain yourself, stopping and starting your sentence over and over as you tried to find the right way to explain yourself, the walls crumbling and the floodgates bursting wide open. “Hold your loved ones close, and speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak…it’s why I came to you.”

A single emotion crossed Johnny’s face in seconds: understanding.

That signature smirk of his was back in moments, even if it was twinged with a softness reserved only for you. The heat left your cheeks, but found your hands as Johnny’s fingers intertwined with yours, hanging your joined hands down between you both. There was a bright light that passed over the window for just a moment, bathing the two of you in bright light, before you were plunged back into the darkness of his room yet again.

“You did come to me…why’s that?”

“You know why-”

“I do,” he said it so matter-of-factly, that smirk growing just a tad as he leaned into your personal bubble by just a hair. “This push and pull, four years of ‘will they’ or ‘won’t they.’ I want to hear you say it, baby.”

“It’s not that easy,” you immediately shook your head, teeth gnawing at your bottom lip as Johnny simply watched you. “Saying it…makes it real.”

He scoffed, the sound mixed with laughter, as his head cocked slightly more to the side.

“You came into my bedroom at 2 in the morning–wearing my shirt, might I add–is that not real enough?”

“When you’ve spent years trying to ignore how you feel and refusing to say it, it’s not that easy to say,” you desperately tried to explain. “If I say it…then everything changes.”

Johnny took barely another step forward, and you almost wanted to step back, to bring back the space between you and preserve the small, crumbling wall that still stood between you both.

“A sexy, naked alien woman came to earth and basically prophesied our demise, darling. If there was ever a time to ‘change everything’ and lay it all on the line, I think it’s now,”

Your heart wanted to hang onto the word darling, but your brain was too stuck on the ‘sexy, naked alien woman’ part of his sentence. The sigh that escaped you was instantaneous, as well as the frown, as you shot the blonde man a pointed look.

“Sexy, naked alien woman, Johnny? Seriously?”

“Come on! She was–objectively–attractive. You can’t deny that!”

It was your turn to scoff, tearing your hands from his in a heartbeat, before spinning on your heel. You felt like an idiot–on the precipice of finally confessing your deepest, darkest secret you’d kept locked away for years, and this is what you got.

“I try to be serious with you, Johnny, and you turn it into a joke once again-”

You didn’t get far from him. A hand enveloped your upper arm mid sentence, tugging and spinning your back around. A gasp fell from your lips as you collided with the chest of the man before you.

Whatever you were going to say never saw the light of day. Not when Johnny Storm gripped at your hips, tugged you as impossibly close as he could, and finally–finally–kissed you.

The kiss you’d dreamed about for four years, finally yours.

Johnny’s lips were soft as they slanted against your own, enveloping you in his warmth. They moved against you in a steady rhythm, passionate but still gentle, still testing the waters of the line you had never crossed before. 

His hands curled into the fabric of the t-shirt clinging to your body, pushing it up just enough so that his hands could dip underneath. Your breath caught, even as his lips continued to move against yours, as his heated skin made contact with yours, and any part of your brain begging you to stop this was silenced as you melted into him.

Hands landed on his broad chest, gripping the fabric as you let him mold your body to his, the scent of his bodywash enveloping you as your body almost became one with him. In the pits of your stomach, as those heated hands trailed up your waist and ghosted over your ribcage, another flurry of butterflies erupted as a moan slipped past your lips, swallowed by his mouth.

A moan left Johnny’s lips at the sound of your own, one hand leaving your waist to curl around the back of your neck. Those slender fingers buried themselves into your hair, gripping just enough to have another groan of pleasure tumbling from your lips, as he guided your mouth against his own.

“You can’t keep making little noises like that,” his mouth barely left yours as he spoke, lips moving against yours, as he dove back in for another kiss the second he was done speaking.

“Your fault,” was all you could manage out, trying to back away just enough to speak, but Johnny never let your lips go far. Your hands glided up his chest, his neck, curling into his short hair as your thumb crested the ridge of his ear. “I’m trying to be mad at you.”

“Be mad at me later,” was his immediate response, his lips leaving yours just to find their place along your jawline and slide down into the hollow of your neck. His tongue danced its way across your skin, leaving tingles of electricity everywhere he touched you, his words murmured into your neck as he buried himself there. “I’m trying to kiss you.”

There was some part of you that wanted to protest him–over what, you weren’t even sure at this point–but you couldn’t. Not when his teeth dug just so into the side of your neck, leaving his mark on your skin as if he was claiming you as his.

You were always his.

“You c-called–oh god–you called the alien sexy while I was trying to confess,” you just barely managed to get the words out through your moans. Johnny was slowly walking you backward, straight in the direction of his bed while his lips never left the side of your neck, leaving his mark on every inch of skin he could see.

Your foot caught on the raised edge of the platform his seating area sat on, your feet stumbling backward. Johnny was there–he was always there–and tugged you back into him. And god, if you loved those blue eyes before, you loved them even more now: pupils blown wide, Johnny Storm looked about as wrecked as you felt.

“Your confession was four years late, and I’m impatient,” he stole another kiss from you, his teeth sinking just barely into your bottom lip, tugging gently. He let go, pressing a messy kiss to your lips to soothe the pain of his bite, words fanning out over your lips. “I’ve been trying to tell you I’m in love with you for four years now, so please just shut up and let me show you instead. Now–jump.”

At this point, you’d do just about anything he asked of you.

Johnny caught you with ease, both of his hands splayed out across the bare skin of your thighs, locking your legs around his hips. A choked moan fell from your lips the second your core was dragged against the painfully hard length bulging against his own pants, hands curling into his hair as you, this time, desperately pulled him into a kiss.

I’m in love with you. Those words repeated like a mantra in your head. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, the world’s fire boy and hero that they painted like a sex symbol. The ‘playboy’ with a new girl all the time, never able to hold down a girl…was in love with you.

Your back hit the bed, body bouncing just slightly before settling. His eyes never left you as you crawled back just slightly, propping yourself up on your elbows to look up at him in the dark of the room, lit only by sky and the lamp by the door. The music played faintly in the background, but at this moment, it meant nothing to you.

Johnny’s hands gently touched your knees from where they dangled off the edge of the bed, parting them just so in order to step between them. You watched, entranced by every move he made, body flushed from the heat that coursed through your bare skin at the slightest of touches from him. With a practiced ease, his hand took hold of the back of his shirt, yanking it over his head without hesitation. It found a place to lay somewhere across the room, discarded until the following morning.

It was impossible not to stare. His broad chest, those biceps that always threatened to bulge out of every shirt he wore. His toned abdomen and the trail of hair that led straight to the waistband of his pants, the outline of him still prevalent and straining against the fabric.

“I need to know that you’re sure…about this,” you weren’t used to it, the vulnerability in Johnny’s tone. He leaned over you now, hands splayed across the bed on either side of you, barely a few inches from your face. Those blue eyes flickered down to your lips time and time again. “Because if I kiss you again, I’m not stopping until you’re mine.”

There was no hesitation on your part. Just a single movement of your arms, tossing the old shirt hanging from your upper body across the room to join his. As simple as that, you sat bare before him, chest heaving with every deep breath you took in.

“I was already yours. I always have been,” there was only certainty in your tone as you held his gaze. “Speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak…that’s why I came to you. Because if this is the end of the world, I needed you to know that I love-”

He didn’t let you finish your words. His next kiss was anything but gentle.

Messy, spit coating your lips as Johnny’s tongue seemed to invade your mouth and every one of your senses, his lips devoured yours as if you were his first meal in decades. He kissed with the hunger of a starved man, his hands grasping at every part of your skin they could–your waist, your hip, before finally your ass. The squeeze he gave to your skin, the uptick in heat you felt as if he was burning himself just slightly hotter on purpose, had another moan tumbling from your lips and into his mouth.

The hand still gripping your ass tugged you upward on the bed until your head fell against the silk pillows at the headboard. Your hands never left Johnny’s hair, carding through the strands as you frantically kissed him back, addicted to the feeling, as his hips ground into yours. That bulge in his pants pressed heavenly into your core, the friction rolling your eyes into the back of your head as you let your head fall to the pillows with a moan.

Johnny’s lips were everywhere. From your jawline, to your neck, until they finally reached your collarbone. He lavished you with his lips, tongue running over your skin as his hands trailed up the sides of your lower abdomen, stopping just as they reached the swell of your breasts.

“Since the day you walked in, I’ve thought about this,” his voice was raspy, the words barely understood as they were spoken against your skin. “Since the moment Reed introduced you to us.”

“I-I was wearing a lab coat,” you choked on your words as Johnny’s lips reached your sternum, trailing kissing down your chest, but never where you wanted him. “Hardly sexy, I’d argue.”

“It is when I’m picturing you in that coat and your heels, and nothing else,” he tacked on, before his lips wrapped around your nipple without warning.

You mewled at the sudden contact, one hand returning to his hair on instinct as your back arched off the bed and into him. Johnny’s hand on your abdomen was quick to push you back down, holding you down against the bedding beneath you.

God, with the fire that felt like it was burning through your body, you could’ve sworn that Johnny had caught you on fire. His teeth just barely grazed the sensitive bud in his mouth, a sharp intake of breath leaving your lips on instinct. He was quick to soothe you, tongue swirling around the erect and sensitive bud with rapt attention. A moan slipped through him, felt through your entire body, as your other hand tore into the bedding. Desperate for something to hold onto. Something to ground you in your pleasure.

“I’ve dreamed about you under me. Kissing you, tasting you, loving you,” his practically purred out every single word, tongue flicking back and forth over your sensitive nipple. He moved to the other one easily, delivering the same rapt attention to it.

“I’ve thought about you, too,” you relented, divulging every secret you held dear to the man who lavished every inch of you in love and adoration. “In the kitchen, the lab, in that stupid button up from earlier-”

“I knew you liked that shirt. Wore it just for you,” his husky tone sent another shot of pleasure through you, heat curling through every inch of your body.

The tips of his fingers trailed lightly down your stomach. When Johnny’s head lifted for just a moment to lock his eyes with yours, that familiar smirk on his face, you weren’t given a second to react before heat poured through his touch.

Gasps mixed with moans of pleasure fell from your lips on instinct, that unnatural heat of his pouring through his touch and into your skin. Every movement of his fingers over your ribcage and down your abdomen felt as if it was leaving your skin on fire, branding his touch into your skin so that you would never forget the feeling. Burning him into your memory so that you would always feel the phantom sensations of his touch on your skin.

“You’re absolute perfection, you always have been,” Johnny moaned into your skin, lips trailing over the mounds of your breasts with another series of a thousand kisses. Those heated fingers dipped past the waistband of your shorts, pressing directly against your clothed clit without a warning. The moan you let escape mixed in the air with the moan that tumbled from Johnny’s lips against your skin. “Jesus Christ, baby, you’re so soaked.”

The heat was still there in his fingers, setting off every little nerve ending in you even through the soaked fabric of your panties that you desperately wanted gone. Your hips ground up into his hand, whimpers falling from your lips as you chased after the feeling of him, desperate for friction.

“All for you,” even this hint of pleasure had you stumbling toward the edge, babbling almost incoherently. With a tug to his hair, you were quick to bring Johnny’s lips back to yours, arms wound around his neck. He gave into your needs immediately, devouring you in a kiss as heated as his touch was, fingers rubbing slow circles over where you needed him so desperately. “Please–Johnny, please! Please, I need you. Need you–need you so bad.”

“I got you, baby. I got you. Keep moaning my name like that, and I’ll give you the world”

Those whispered words stayed on your lips, lingering, as Johnny left you. His touch wasn’t gone long. Fingers curling into your shorts, they were discarded across the room in a flash, panties gone with them as well.

For the first time, you laid completely bare in front of the man you loved–the man you denied loving for so long. And Johnny Storm was a mess. His hair stuck up in multiple directions, skin flushed, but he was still beautiful. The most beautiful man you’d ever met, inside and out.

Johnny didn’t give you a second to truly breathe once he was done admiring you. He sprawled out along the end of the bed, head dipping between your thighs, as he licked a single stripe with his flattened tongue directly up your center.

“Fucking beautiful, and all mine,” his words were growled into your core, two fingers lazily moving between your folds and spreading every ounce of wetness around, holding you open so he could see every inch of you. “Sweeter than I ever dreamed you could be.”

He dove into you like you were the only thing that mattered. Fingers spreading you open, giving him access to every square inch, his mouth devoured you. A cool drink of water for a starving man in the middle of the desert. Johnny moved his tongue with precise expertise, as if he knew exactly what your body craved.

Delving into you, flicking back and forth as he drank in every secretion of arousal that dripped from you. That same tongue dragged its way up to your clit, swirling around in figure eights, flicking back and forth.

Cries fell from your lips wantonly, hands digging into his hair. Eyes fluttered shut, head tilted back to the ceiling, there was only one word you could repeat over and over again: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. 

His name was all you knew anymore, too lost in your own bliss and pleasure.

In one fell swoop, your thighs were settled over his shoulders, before his head was back where you wanted it more than anything. His lips and tongue focused on your clit, still swirling back and forth, as his fingers dipped slightly lower, dancing right across your opening.

It started with one long, slender finger sliding into you. One of your hands was forced to leave Johnny’s hair, falling over your own mouth to try and conceal the cry that threatened to burst from you, afraid that the others would hear you.

“Let me hear you, baby,” he laughed against your core, his finger curling just perfectly against your walls as they clenched around him every time he dragged his finger back and forth. “Want to hear you.”

“Don’t want to–fucking hell, Johnny–let the others hear,” 

“Let them. Let them hear me love you,”

Fuck Johnny Storm and his stupid lines. His stupid dirty talk that had your walls clenching around him again and again.

Another finger joined the first, followed by another, before you were stretched as wide as you could be around Johnny. The squelch of your juices rung through the air with every move of his fingers–dragging so deliciously into you, curling up, before dragging out just to the edge of your opening. His mouth–god, his mouth–never let up, lapping away at your core like it was his job, what he was meant to do.

That coil of pleasure deep within your lower body came out of nowhere, sneaking up on you just like your love for this man had.

“Johnny–baby–I can’t. I can’t–I’m gonna-”

“Let go, darling,” came that growl in his voice again, the speed of his fingers increasing. “I got you baby, let go.”

That coil snapped in seconds after he spoke. The precipice of your orgasm was earth-shattering, like you’d never felt before. Like trails of fire through your veins, the pleasure coursing through you had your head buried into the pillow behind your head, desperately trying to conceal the wails of pleasure that tumbled from your lips. Your thighs snapped shut around Johnny’s head, but his ministrations never let up as he eagerly drank up every bit of your arousal that leaked from you.

The come down was slow, like waking up. Your breath was uneven, heart beating erratically when you finally pulled your head from the pillow. Eyes bleary, it took a moment to blink them back to life.

Johnny stood at the edge of the bed, discarding his pants and boxers to the pile of clothing littering the other side of the room. And even in your fucked-out, blissful state, one look at him for the first time had that burning desire coursing back through your veins.

He was big. There was no way around it, no denying it, no other way to put it. Flushed, hanging with that beautiful reddened tip, one large and prominent vein throbbing along the edge of it. Beads of precum collected at the tip, his hand smearing it down along his length as he gave himself one single pump before he was crawling back onto the bed.

Johnny knelt between your legs again. Even with limbs that felt like Jell-O, you met him halfway, dragging yourself into a seated position. It was the smile on his face right now, the one erupting those butterflies once more, that you decided was your favorite: soft, adoring, loving.

It was your hands that cupped his cheeks, bringing him into a soft kiss. The taste of you lingered on his lips, sweet just like he said. You poured every ounce of emotion into your kiss, trying to convey to him the years you’d spent loving him so quietly that you couldn’t admit it.

“I might be addicted to you, Johnny Storm,” your words were mumbled into his lips. He laughed so gently, stealing another peck.

“Glad you finally caught up with me, princess, I’ve been addicted since day one,”

Pressed to him, his lips stealing a thousand pecks from yours, the lust in your bones was back in full force. All you could do was hum in response, one of your hands trailing down his chest, nails dragging slowly over his abdomen, before you finally took his throbbing cock in your hand.

He felt even bigger than he looked, which didn’t even make sense in your mind. But he was hot, the skin searing into your hand in the best way. You gave him one squeeze, one tug, and you smiled at the hitch in his breath. The twitch of his cock in your hold.

Johnny’s hand quickly grabbed yours, though, unlatching it from him. All you could do was shake your head, practically whining as you tried to take your hand back.

“Johnny-”

“God, it’s so hot how eager you are to touch me,” he laughed again, tilting his head to leave a single kiss to the column of your throat. “This is about you, doll. Save that for next time. It can be a ‘welcome home from space’ gift for me. A ‘thanks for saving the world’ gift, if you will.”

Space. 

That word was enough to have your next words caught in your throat as the weight of everything came crashing back down on you. The threat, the herald, the space launch commencing in a matter of hours now, the events that brought you here in the first place.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, when a single tear slipped down your cheek, but Johnny caught it. Eyes full of concern, but understanding, he simply wiped the tears from your cheek, laying a kiss to the wet splotch of your skin.

“No crying, none of that. Just lay back, baby,”

You listened, letting his hands guide you gently to rest back against the pillows once more. Parting your legs, Johnny placed himself between them, holding himself up over your body on his forearms. Right where he belonged.

Your hands rested on his chest, sliding up so gently to his neck. His eyes never left yours, his length sitting right against your soaked and sensitive core, gliding back and forth with each gentle twitch of his hips.

“You didn’t let me say it earlier. So let me say it, for the first time outloud,” you gave him a watery smile, lips quivering as you looked up at him. “I love you, Johnny Storm. I’ve loved you for so long. I’m sorry it took the world maybe ending for this, that I didn’t let myself be yours sooner.

He smiled, that same charming smile he always did, as he rolled his hips once more. His cock caught just along the edge of your opening as Johnny dipped down, breath fanning over your lips.

“Like you said: you’ve always been mine,”

The first press of his length into your core stung. As wet as you were, as prepared as you were for him, it had been so long. He stretched your walls little by little, taking his time as your body adjusted to him. Then, inch by inch, he sunk within your walls that clung to him tightly.

His cock bottomed out, sunk fully within you, bare hips pressed to bare hips as you both let out shaky breaths. Your nails dug into the hair at the nape of his neck while his hands trailed up your ribcage, squeezing every moment or so as choked out moans fell from his lips.

“God–so tight for me, baby–you feel like heaven,”

His name was the only thing you could manage to choke out between your moans as he dragged himself back to the tip, before burying himself again to the hilt. Your moans, your cries and the way your hands threaded into his hair only spurred him on more, Johnny’s hips snapping into yours again and again and again.

His lips found yours amidst every snap of his hips, every drag of his cock against your walls. Every moan that slipped through your lips was drowned out by him, by the feverish movements of his lips against yours. They trailed away, back to your neck, leaving a trail of saliva connecting you together as he bit another love bite into the side of your neck. It didn’t matter to you how this would look to others, how scandalous you might look in the light of day to others.

All that mattered was Johnny Storm.

“Oh god, Johnny!” your head fell to his shoulder, teeth sinking into his skin as his hips snapped against yours over and over, driving him deeper with every thrust into you. “Holy fuck, w-why weren’t we doing this for years?”

“Because you’ve been a stubborn–fuck–little tease all these years,” his tongue dragged up the column of your throat, peppering kissing up and down your skin as his cock dragged against your walls. “Bent over your workstation in the lab–oh god–you don’t know how many times I’ve thought about it. Thought about walking in and taking you right there, making a mess right at your desk.”

“R-Reed would walk in and you’d scar him for life,”

“Sounds like a win-win to me,” there was shared laughter, punctuated with a shared moan as his cock dragged right against that spot nestled within you. “And try not to talk about my brother-in-law when I’m fucking you.”

There was no time to reply as Johnny scooped up your wrists in his hand in a single motion, pinning them down above your head. He adjusted your waist, suddenly driving into you at a new angle that had you mewling his name all over again.

Johnny whispered your name into your skin with every kiss, timed just so with every snap of his hips against yours. That coil of heat was burning, wounding itself tighter and tighter for the second time that night. All you could feel was him, was Johnny.

His warmth, the heat that burned off of him. It warmed your skin, it had beads of sweat dripping down your forehead. It was uncomfortable in the best way. His one hand still trailed up and down your ribcage, every so often tweaking your sensitive nipple between his thumb and index finger and coaxing another moan of pleasure from you.

He worshiped you, every inch of you, like you were the greatest thing to ever grace the earth. To him, you might have been

“Fucking perfect, baby. Fucking made for me,” his lips found yours again, slick with spit as his tongue dipped into your mouth to taste every inch of you possible.

His stroke faltered, the rhythm uneven, and you knew he was close. That coil of heat in your stomach was threatening to snap any second every time his cock pulsed and throbbed within your walls. His grip on your wrists was tight, even as you struggled against him, desperate to just hold him.

“Johnny–baby–please I-I’m so close-”

You choked on your words once more, the hand still trailing across your stomach heating up again, leaving a burning trail of heat in your skin. Those heated fingers found your clit like it was second nature, a cry of pure pleasure leaving your lips as they circle that bundle of a thousand nerves over and over again, hips still snapping into you as quickly and desperately as they can.

“Let go,” his voice was husky, eyes blown wide as he looked down at you. Your wrists were finally let go, your hands immediately finding their place in the strands of his hair again as his free hand cups the back of your neck, smashing your lips into his in a flurry of moans. “Let go, baby, let go.”

Your second climax burned hotter than the first.

The pleasure burned so hot, so bright, you were practically sobbing, every cry and moan of pure bliss muffled by his kiss. Your legs locked around Johnny’s waist–tightly–so tight he could barely move away from you. It was overwhelming, the shockwaves of bliss that ran through your veins, the shaking of your thighs as you held onto his hair like it’s a lifeline.

He ground himself into you over and over, rhythm so far gone he was struggling. But all it took was your lips lazily finding his neck, teeth sinking in to leave your matching mark to his, for his hips to still as he spilt into you.

Johnny breathed out every moan into the side of your head, your name tumbling from his lips along with a flurry of swears. The grip he had on your hip was bruising, so tight you think he could snap the damn bone if he held any tighter. And his cock? Seated so deeply inside of you it’s as if you are one, heat pooled within your lower abdomen with every wave of cum that filled you to the brim.

On the other side of the room, the record was still playing softly. Bright lights still flashed by the windows every so often, crews still at work on the spaceship set for launch by mid-morning.

None of it mattered in the silence of the bed.

You aren’t sure how long either of you laid there. Your heartbeat, eventually, returned to normal, even as your chest still heaved to take in every breath that it could. Johnny still laid half on top of you, pressing repeated kisses to the side of your head, but said nothing. Your hand stayed in his hair, carding through it, as your core pulsed. It would ache come morning–hell, it already did–but it was worth it. It was so worth it.

Neither of you were quite sure when he pulled out of you, or how long you simply laid there and basked in the afterglow of a moment that should’ve happened years ago.

Eventually, Johnny shifted down. His lips trailed down your body in worship, like they’d done already that night. From your cheek, to your neck, your collarbone, the swell of your breasts, and down your lower abdomen.

“Careful…not sure I’d survive a round three,” your voice was hoarse, mouth dry. Johnny laughed against your skin, still kissing every inch he could see.

“I don’t think I would, either,”

His hands were heated once more, but not for the same purpose as moments before. Now, his touch was gentle, massaging every piece of you that he could get his hands on. His thumbs rubbed into your wrists, your waist, and your hips, digging into the muscles. A sigh escaped you at the comforting feeling, taut muscles loosening at the feeling of the heat and the movement of his hands.

With every kiss pressed to your skin, you could feel it: Johnny was humming. It didn’t take long to know which song he was humming, which lyrics: that same song once again.

I guess I'll never know the reason why, you love me as you do. That's the wonder, the wonder of you.

“Is that our song now?” you laughed, even if your heart was clenching at the mere thought. The mere idea of that song belonging to the two of you–the idea that Johnny Storm belonged to you.

You could feel his smile against your abdomen as he spoke. “It should be. It’s accurate. Because I don’t ever think I’ll get over the miracle that is you…loving me.”

It’s not a miracle. What you really want to tell him is that falling in love with him was so easy, you barely realized you had done it. It might be the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

Johnny crawled back up your body, slotting himself onto the bed beside you, before tugging you in. There’s no hesitation on your part, simply curling into his side with your head over his chest and arm slung around his waist. Words aren’t needed in the silence, not when you’ve both clearly laid everything out on the table now. Instead, you just listened to the beat of his heart, the natural rhythm that lulls you into a state of peacefulness.

He’s yours. Johnny Storm is yours. He’s always been yours, you just didn’t know it.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, hand cradling the back of your head as he said his next words confidently.

“We’re going to go up there tomorrow, and we’re going to stop this guy. We’re going to protect this Earth, like we’ve sworn to do. But me? I’m going to do it so I can come home to you, and love you for the rest of my life. I promise,”

He can’t promise that, you knew he couldn’t. There was no telling what might happen when that ship took off tomorrow, what they might encounter, or who this Galactus really was.

But Johnny Storm loved you. For now, in the quiet of the night, just between the two of you, that’s enough.

[endofthelinegang]

“how don’t you know the difference between your left and right?” with Walker please, where reader and him have a sibling dynamic (both in the Thunderbolts, I love this team so much. Now I think I understand how fans felt about the Avengers, which I wasn’t into the MCU at the time)

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ john walker x fem! platonic! reader

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ the f word

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ wait stop because even if you fucking hate john walker this is funny shit. (2.1k words)

The mission brief was simple.

Sneak in. Secure the drive. Sneak out.

It was a three-step process, like a microwave meal or an Instagram tutorial on microwave desserts, and somehow—somehow—you were still managing to screw it up by step two.

“Left,” John growled through your comms. “Take a left at the fork.”

Naturally, you put up your fingers but then quickly decided that would get you bullied so you took a guess and ended up going right.

“...That’s your other left,” came the follow-up, clipped and already filled with the bitter disappointment of a man who knows better than to expect anything else from you.

You stopped mid-step. The hallway lights overhead were flickering dramatically—broken bulbs, unstable wiring—and in any other context, this might’ve been a suspenseful moment. Tactical. High-stakes. Because it was clear whatever danger was dangering had just been through here or was still right in that general area.

Instead, you blinked. “There’s no such thing as ‘other left.’” you scoffed and stood rolling your eyes. 

“Yes there is,” John hissed. “It’s called right.” The mission had only started moments ago and he was ready to come down there and shoot you himself.

You tilted your head, hand on your hip. “That’s a label society assigned. Much like gender and sporks. Though the idea of a spork is a lot more useful than the other labels, it’s a really fun word to say too.” Before you could repeat the word spork and somehow mindlessly start walking down the trail that screamed danger John made a comment,

“God, I knew I should’ve left you in the van.” 

“Joke’s on you,” you replied cheerfully. “I hotwired the van. You couldn’t leave me even if you wanted to.” There was a reason he kept you around, all of your illegal knowledge that you felt overly confident doing and sharing. In fact you would even show John Tiktoks and Reels of all the people your age putting it all over their public social media platforms. To which he was not surprised that half of the New York population happened to be these people.

A pause. A deep, deep inhale on his end.

And then, voice flat: “Turn. The hell. Around.” You sighed dramatically, like this was somehow his fault, and began rotating yourself in slow, half-conscious steps like a Sims character that couldn’t find a free tile.

And, because you knew it would drive him completely feral, you whispered into the mic: “...Which one’s left again?” You smiled at yourself turning back around and jogging out of the area he specifically kept telling you to get out of and stay out of.

You could feel the eye twitch through the comms. 

“Left is the side with your watch on it,” John said, enunciating each word like you were a foreign dignitary he hated but had to be polite to. “The same watch you said made you ‘feel like a spy, but slutty.’ Remember that?”

“I do. I also stand by that.” As much as he pretended to ignore you all the time he did recall everything you said. In all fairness the watch was completely blacked out with a leather band. 

“Great. So use your slutty spy watch to figure out which direction to go before I come down there and push you out a window.” John would’ve said something more violent but that would have started an actual argument. 

You gasped. “You said you weren’t gonna use your military strength on me!” You continued to walk back where you had started, you also realized John was kind of a total dumbass because there was like one window and it had bars over it. 

“I lied.” And with that, you finally—finally—pivoted the correct direction and continued down the left hallway like a reluctant Sims character with one trait point in Navigation and zero in Listening.

—

You met up with him two corridors later. You were lightly jogging, in fact almost skipping, and you might be wondering where this good mood was coming from. Nothing was better than a mission with just John because at the end of the day you could save your own ass you did not need him there. But messing with him, yeah, you needed that.  He was already standing by the server room door, arms crossed, jaw tight, the image of Grumpy Soldier Barbie—but in your defense, he looked like that all the time.

“You’re late,” he sassed looking you up and down. 

You rolled your eyes. “Relax. I was out here doing recon.”

“You got lost.” He whisper-yelled, not appreciating the very idea that you thought anything you had done was recon.

“Reconnaissance of the floor plan,” you said smoothly, brushing past him with your hand on the panel. “Maybe if your directions were better—”

“They were good directions. They were literally left. That’s it. That’s not even complicated. It’s not like I said ‘head northwest by the air shaft and look for the door with the red laser grid.’” He repeated real instructions from a previous mission he had gone on with Yelena. Instructions she also chose to ignore. 

“That sounds kinda fun actually.” You had no idea what he was talking about. 

“You are not allowed to speak anymore.”

He had the two of you on the move. The server room opened with a quiet click. You ducked in, he followed close behind, and for about thirty blessed seconds, things were normal. Professional. Efficient. Until you spotted the wires. John of course had you closest to the wires so that if you pulled the wrong one it would be your fuck up and not his. 

“Uhhh…” you said, hands hovering over the motherboard. “Which cord do I pull?” The board was a mess, yes there was green but all of the wires were so small.

John looked up from the small device he was planting in the far corner. “Green.”

You stared at the wires even closer, there were three different greens. There were different shades of every color and all of the greens were super far apart from each other which meant that they all probably did different things. 

“...Green which?” you asked, hands hovering over top of the crazy mess in front of you.

He looked over. Blinked. And then, with the slow patience of a father of four who just caught one of his kids trying to microwave foil, he moved you over, pointed directly at the correct green wire, and said—

“This green. Right here. Not seafoam. Not olive. Green.”

You nodded solemnly. “Got it.”

And then, because apparently you were put on this earth to test his willpower, you reached for the wrong one. Not slowly either you grabbed that motherfucker like you were really going to pull it up and out. 

“Nope!” he barked, grabbing your wrist before you could trigger an accidental building-wide meltdown. “Do you have some kind of death wish, or are you just genetically incapable of behaving?”

“I don’t respond well to being micromanaged,” you sniffed and pouted. He gave you the look—that devastating combo of older-brother exhaustion and someone who once had dreams before you happened to him.

“You know,” he said, voice low and tight, “I’ve had missions go off the rails before. I’ve had teammates flake. I’ve had intel turn out bad. But nothing—nothing—has ever compared to trying to get you to do something simple.”

You tilted your head sweetly. “That’s just because you’re not used to working with people as unique as me.” You held his hands and swung them back and forth before getting up as he watched you in plain horror. 

“Unique,” he repeated, dead-eyed. “Is that what we’re calling this now?”

You grinned. “You love me.” 

“I’d trade you for a ham sandwich.” He scoffed and started walking away from you to which you got right behind him and yelled in his ear, 

“A ham sandwich?” you repeated, mock-offended. “That’s so basic. At least make it like… a fancy club sandwich or something.”

He gave a long sigh, eyes skyward like he was praying for strength. “Do the job, dumbass.”

—

The escape route—because of course—was also somehow your fault. It started fine. Quiet hallway, clear egress, no hostiles in sight. The corridors were low-lit, industrial concrete with buzzing fluorescent lights overhead and peeling paint on the corners. You could hear the hum of distant generators, the faint tick of your watch, and the crunch of your boots on loose debris.

John’s plan had been tight. Simple extraction. The van was parked in an alley on the north side, GPS-tracked and synced to the route in your earpiece. Cameras had been looped, alarms temporarily frozen, and all you had to do—all you had to do—was follow him and not get distracted.

Until you stopped at the final turn and muttered, “Wait, I thought the exit was that way,” and pointed the wrong direction again.

He didn’t even look. He just kept walking. “Don’t you start.”

“No, but I really thought it was—”

“Left. I said left again. For the third time.”

“And again, I ask: my left, or yours?”

“HOW IS THAT A REAL QUESTION.”

“BECAUSE I’M WALKING BEHIND YOU. PERSPECTIVES CHANGE.”

He whipped around to face you mid-step, face flushed, hair slightly mussed, entire being radiating the energy of a babysitter who was about ten seconds from calling your mom.

“I’m going to ask you one time,” he said, slowly. “And I want you to really think about this before you answer.”

You saluted. “Aye aye, Captain America-lite.”

He visibly had to restrain himself from launching you into orbit.

“How—don’t—you know—the difference—between your left—and your right?”

You opened your mouth. Closed it.

Thought for a second.

And then said, earnestly:

“It’s conceptual.”

John looked like he aged four years in real time.

“...Conceptual.”

“Yeah. Like, I get it in theory. But in practice? I just vibe.”

“You just vibe? This is tactical infiltration, not yoga.”

“Exactly. You gotta feel the space.”

“I swear to God,” he muttered, turning back toward the exit, “if you make me do paperwork on your death certificate I’m writing vibes as the cause of death.”

—

You made it back to the van, somehow.

Your boots hit pavement with a final, glorious crunch, and the cold night air slapped your face like a wake-up call from God Himself. The alley was still empty, shadows long and stretched under the flickering glow of a busted streetlamp that buzzed like it was shorting out on its final life. The mission had drained just enough energy from you that you were too tired to celebrate but not too tired to be smug. That perfect, post-chaos middle ground.

You both clambered into the van—the familiar creak of the door, the satisfying thunk as it shut behind you. John wordlessly dropped into the driver's seat, hands on the wheel but not starting it yet, like he needed a minute to recover from whatever the hell just happened.

There was a brief moment of quiet where you both sat there, the adrenaline fading, the mission technically complete. The drive buzzed in your pack. The radio hummed.

A random pop station played something way too upbeat for the mood. A pigeon flew overhead and nearly dive-bombed the van’s windshield for no reason except to keep you humble.

And then—

“So…” you said, angling toward him with a smug smile. “We gonna talk about the fact that despite all my ‘distractions,’ we still got out clean?”

He didn’t even look up. “Luck.”

“Skill.”

“Luck.”

You poked his bicep, still smug. “Admit it. You like having me around.”

He gave you a long, baleful stare. “You make my blood pressure rise like a balloon animal in a microwave.”

“But a fun balloon animal,” you said brightly. “Like, the dog kind.”

He closed his eyes. Whispered a quiet, resigned, “Why me.”

You beamed, settling back into your seat, feet up on the dash.

He didn’t make you move them.

And later, when you both walked into the safehouse and he saw you take the couch first, he didn’t say anything. He tossed you a water bottle. Turned on the shitty hotel TV. Sat down next to you like it was nothing.

The safehouse smelled like dusty air filters and microwave popcorn someone had definitely burned earlier in the week. The couch was too firm, the lighting was too yellow, and the remote had teeth marks in it—unclear if human. It was perfect. It was home—for now.

But when you turned the wrong direction again—again—to hand him the remote?

He just caught it mid-air, muttering, “Still your wrong left, dumbass.”

You grinned. “Still made the shot though.”

“Unfortunately.”

And that was it.

That was how John Walker—ex-Captain America, Thunderbolt, grumpy golden retriever in combat boots—ended another day stuck with you. His teammate. His human migraine.

His family.

Even if it killed him slowly.

Even if you never learned your left from your right.

Even if you made “conceptual directions” your new excuse for everything.

You, him, and the mission.

That was the job. That was the team. And, God help him, he wouldn’t change it for the world.

[endofthelinegang]

thunder rolls (pt. 1)

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠ˏˋ°•*⁀➷  john walker x fem!reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ this is part one of a series where you are bucky barnes little sister who has managed to make it this far with him, one little snafu has happened, you happen to have feelings for another super soldier one that your brother does not particularly like.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬ˏˋ°•*⁀➷  cursing.

The rain was the only constant lately. It had fallen in fits all day, soaking the moss-laced walls of the compound, slicking the outer courtyard in a quiet sheen. Now it dripped from the rafters like a metronome—slow and deliberate, echoing down the old ventilation shafts and across the steel-lined halls. The kitchen was dim, the overhead light flickering in that annoying way that meant no one had gotten around to fixing it. You didn’t care. You liked it this way. Quiet. Muted. Just you, the hum of old appliances, and the soft rattle of a cracked window frame near the back wall. You sat curled up on the kitchen counter, hoodie sleeves dragged past your knuckles, knees drawn up to your chest. A mug of green tea that was practically hummingbird water from all the sugar sat cooling beside you, forgotten—its scent barely rising now, the heat long surrendered to the chill that crept into every corner of this place. You didn’t even remember how long you’d been sitting there. The storm outside blurred time, and your mind… Well, your mind wasn’t anywhere near the kitchen.

It was with him. John Walker. And it pissed you off. It had started small—his glances during team debriefs, the way he always managed to end up walking beside you during recon, the casual jokes he threw your way that always made you press your lips together just to hide the smile. The way he had gradually started becoming physically closer to you whenever he could. The way he made sure that if he was up first your water jug was cleaned out and ready to go for the day and the way he didn't deny a damn thing he was doing. But it wasn’t just a charm. It was focused. Respect. Interest—real and raw and hard to ignore. 

And Bucky saw every second of it. He hadn’t said anything at first. Just watched. Stared, actually—like he could will it out of existence. He had taken to standing close to you in silence and even not letting you separate off from him in missions or game night. But when that hadn’t worked, the warnings came.

“He’s not like us.”“He makes fast choices. Big ones. Loud ones. That kind of instinct—it gets people hurt.”“He’s not gonna look out for you like I do.”

You’d listened. You always did when Bucky dropped his voice like that—the gravelly edge that only came out when he was really scared. It wasn’t controlling. It was protective. Fierce. Wounded. Because Bucky knew loss like no one else. And you were the one thing he still had that felt safe. You always had each other, and your relationship was finally back where it started what felt like a million years ago. The two of you were like teens the way you fought, talked, and spent time doing stupid shit together. Bucky gave you what you missed out on with him all those years ago, and you gave that right back to him. But John Walker made you feel seen. And maybe that was just as dangerous. The memory of last night crept in uninvited.

John had offered to walk you back to your quarters—nothing loaded, nothing flirty. He’d just lingered a little longer in the common room after training, towel slung over one shoulder, damp hair curling at the ends, that stupidly earnest expression on his face when he said your name.  And you had hesitated. Just long enough for Bucky to step into the hallway behind you and watch it happen. He hadn’t said anything then. But later, in the shadows outside your room—arms folded, expression carved from granite—he’d looked at you like you’d already done something wrong.

“I’m not saying don’t talk to him. I’m saying don’t trust him with your heart.”

And damn it, he meant it. You scrubbed a hand over your face and sighed, breathing deep. You told yourself this would pass. That the tension, the flutters, the heat in your stomach when John. looked at you would fade if you just ignored it long enough. But then you heard him. 

Boots. Familiar. Unhurried. You didn’t even look up at first. You just let yourself feel it—the way the air shifted when he was close. The heat he carried, the quiet weight of his gaze. He stood proud, not because he really was but because that was one of his many learned behaviors over the years. Same thing with the arms crossed at his chest looking at you confused. 

“Didn’t peg you for the insomniac type,” John said softly. His voice was low, smoother than usual, like he hadn’t spoken in hours. It scraped down your spine in the most inconvenient way.

You turned slightly, eyes catching his silhouette in the doorway. Dark sweats. Fitted black tee. Hair still damp from a shower, pushed back haphazardly. He looked like the kind of tired that still buzzed with energy—body restless, mind quieter. 

“You’re not sleeping either,” you replied, your voice a notch rougher than you intended. You looked back to your tea, the sugar was floating around making little swirly spots but it was definitely freezing cold by now. You couldn’t believe how he was making you feel, you really felt bad about sounding a bit rough towards him, you were judging everything you were doing in his direction like you were in high school and it was embarrassing. 

John stepped into the kitchen walking right behind where you sat on the counter, opened the fridge, and grabbed a water bottle. The soft crack of the cap breaking the silence made you flinch inside, the quick little breath you took in went unnoticed as he cracked open the bottle and took a sip.

“Nope,” he said, leaning against the counter, watching you from the side, “Too much in my head.”

You hummed in agreement, sipping from your now-cold mug. It was so gross but there was no way you were going to spit it back in your cup, you had not even thought about what you had done until the sugar particles were curling around your tongue, “Seems to be going around.”

He didn’t speak for a few seconds. The pause was heavy, weighted with something unsaid. You could feel it on your skin. Truly John would like to have just straight up lied to you to get you off his trail. Maybe even make some comments he could never take back so that he would never have to be in this situation again, luckily you couldn’t read minds. But he had promised to himself before this that he was not going to try and use his usual ways as a means to escape this. 

“He’s got his eye on me,” John said, finally setting his water bottle down between the two of you. “Your brother.” 

You blinked, unsure of what to say, you couldn’t deny the obvious but you also really didn’t wanna talk about what your brother had said about him either,  “He always has his eye on people he doesn’t know that well.”

John tilted his head, while he did not wanna fight with you he knew this was one of the only moments he would get to discuss anything like this with you where the space would not be overly intimate and immediately change the discourse,  “That’s the thing though. I think he knows I’m not trying to screw with you. I think that’s what makes it worse.”

Your chest tightened and your brain became completely fogged. “Because he knows what it looks like when people get close to me.”

“Or what happens when someone like me does.” John really didn’t think before saying that, out of everyone he was the worst sharer, not only that but he was not that seemed to be overly introspective. 

The rain ticked louder. You stared down and to the right where he was not standing, you studied the spots that formed to make the marble pattern on the counter, “So… are you?”

“Getting close?” His voice was quiet. Honest. In fact he pivoted slightly towards you but not enough for you to sense it,  “I’m trying not to.”

Your heart skipped and your stomach felt sick, there was nowhere for this conversation to go but down the rabbit hole that would change a lot at once. “Why?”

John met your eyes, and there was no joke there now, you spun around almost kicking the mug off the counter to do so as he turned and leaned against the opposing counter now directly facing you. “Because I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t want to be the reason your brother looks at you like he doesn’t recognize you anymore.”

You swallowed hard, this was exactly what you didn’t want to happen. He was being a human, not a soldier, just a human. Walker was looking at you like you were two friends, not two Avengers, not two Thunderbolts* in a kitchen about to admit feelings or do something even dumber. The part of you that wanted to protect Bucky ached. But the part of you that had felt lonely for too long—the part that wanted to be wanted for yourself, not your bloodline, not your past—leaned forward. 

“John…” You breathed out, it was the final breath you would take, the one that was supposed to be deep and unforgiving. You slid down from the counter, bare feet touching cold concrete. He stepped forward, slow. One hand found your jaw, fingers brushing your cheek—so careful, like he expected you to break. You stayed like that for just a second. Now both of your heads were in a fog, there were no more words to be said, anything else would just cause tears. You knew you didn’t have time for that in fact you barely had time for this knowing how everyone in this house was an insomniac. 

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since day two,” he said, barely more than a breath. “Day one I figured you’d punch me.”

You didn’t flinch. You leaned in and covered his hand with yours making sure he was not going to take it away from you.

“Still might,” you whispered.

And then you kissed him. It was everything you’d held back for weeks. His mouth on yours, urgent but reverent, like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you. His hands kept hold of your face, little pieces of your hair were so soft against his hands. Your fingers twisted in the hem of his shirt, tugging him closer until your back bumped the counter and you didn’t care anymore. His breath hitched when your lips parted for him. Yours did the same when his fingers suddenly ran through your hair, holding you like you might disappear.

You didn’t know how long it lasted. When you pulled away, your forehead rested against his, both of you breathing hard. Your stomach was no longer in knots and for just a second you didn’t think about where you were or why you were awake. In fact you were sleepy, you had just all of a sudden felt calm.

“That,” he whispered, your lips still practically touching, “was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

You smiled, shaky and just closed your eyes to feel the heat of his hands, the softness of his shirt, and the smell of dryer sheets that radiated off of his clean pajamas. “Then we’re both idiots.”

He brushed his thumb across your cheek, gently. “Still worth it.”

You could’ve stayed like that for a while, in fact you were about to offer to take him to your room and lock the door so that this moment could be better cherished. Then—footsteps. Down the hall. Boots. Heavier. Getting faster. Familiar in a very different way. You both froze. Your heart jumped into your throat and you held onto John just a little tighter. John’s eyes flicked toward the hallway, jaw clenching. You didn’t turn. You didn’t have to. You knew it was Bucky. And you knew that everything had just changed and that you would have to let go for now. That your brother was going to need to have some sense of leadership over the situation.

 A low voice detonated from the shadows behind you:

“Am I interrupting your mid-level decision-making, or is this some kind of science experiment?”

You jumped like you'd been caught stealing national secrets and let go of John’s shirt, my god you did not want to. John took one slow step back, his hands dropped to his sides as he now looked to see him. There, leaning against the doorframe with murder in his eyes and disappointment in his soul, was James Buchanan Barnes.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered, arms crossed, eyes fixed on Walker like he was deciding whether to kill him with a punch or a piece of furniture. His jaw was so tightly clenched he looked like he had a sour candy in the side of his mouth. 

“Bucky—” you started, you couldn’t let John talk to him first, in fact it probably was not a good idea to have them talk at all knowing that only one fighter would make it out of that ring. 

He raised a finger without breaking eye contact with John. “Not now.”

“Look, man—” John tried, he really did see your attempt the way you intended and did not wanna fight with him for once. Well he did. He just knew you wouldn’t want them to. 

“Oh, we’re on nickname basis now?” Bucky snapped, sneering as hard and as menacingly  as he could manage. “Man? Are we sharing hoodies too? Braiding friendship bracelets in our downtime?”

John blinked, you were two consenting adults and after all. “It was just a kiss.”

“Cool. Do you want a medal, or should I just go find a shovel now?” Bucky was now quickly advancing towards the two of you.

“I’ll go,” John muttered, giving your forearm a squeeze and walking away not wanting to cause a scene that would hurt you.

“You better go,” Bucky said. “Because I’m at about seven right now, and ten is when I start throwing people.” The second Walker was out of sight, Bucky turned on you with the speed and energy of a very tired dad who just found weed in your sock drawer.

“Outside. Now.” You followed slowly behind him, he yanked the car keys off the ring so harsh that the entire contraption almost came off the wall. The two of you made your way into the garage and sat in his SUV. Bucky drove like the steering wheel had offended him personally—knuckles white, jaw clenched, the occasional mutter under his breath that sounded suspiciously like,

“John Walker… lip-having… Peacemaker body double…”

You were trying so hard not to laugh, you wanted to give your brother some cool off time away from John, but you also knew that he needed to get his feelings out now while they were fresh or he was going to be hell to deal with over the course of the next few days.

“I’m just saying,” you offered, voice innocent and quiet, “you could’ve knocked.”

“It’s the kitchen,” Bucky snapped, his voice booming in the small space. “Not a motel room. Why would I knock?”

You had to fuck with him, you could not resist, if he was going to yell and have a fit you were going to give him something to do it for, “Why would you barge in at the exact moment I was about to climb him like—”

“NOPE.” He slapped the steering wheel, when his metal hand hit it cracked the plastic cover,  “Stop. Talking. Now.”

You leaned your head back against the seat and reached your hand down to pull the lever that reclined it slightly, grinning. “What? You don’t think I have needs, James?”

He groaned and side eyed you with his mouth twisted in disgust. “Don’t say my name like that while we’re talking about your… whatever that was.”

“Kissing. That was kissing.” You looked over and gave him a quick little smile.

“You had your hands wrapped in the bottom of his shirt. That’s not kissing. That’s… premeditated.” He honestly wished at that moment he had just dragged John with him, at least he could dump that body and not feel bad but he could barely even get after you.

You shrugged, letting the silence stretch. Then, a beat later:

“I mean, to be fair, it wasn’t like I was about to drop to my knees or anythi—”

“JESUS CHRIST!” Bucky slammed the brakes, just enough to jolt the car, his hands came up off the steering wheel and over his face not paying any mind to the fact that he had just slammed himself with vibranium. 

You burst out laughing and facing the window. “Bucky! Chill!”

He looked at you like you’d just confessed to a murder, “Don’t say things like that. Don’t think things like that. You are not allowed to say things like that.”

“What, you think I’m still a virgin or something?” You poked his arm and he did not smile, nor did he say a damn word. 

Bucky blinked.

You stared.

His silence was louder than words.

“…You do, don’t you.” You smiled huge and started laughing hysterically. 

“I—I didn’t say that—” Bucky was not happy that you were slowly gaining the upper hand in this conversation that was supposed to be a confrontation. 

“You think I’m still a virgin.” You now had your hands over your stomach gently placed as you settled down your laughter. 

“I didn’t say it!” He scooted his seat back just a bit to stare at your completely, this was a serious conversation to him and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

“But you were thinking it.” You grinned.

“I was hoping it.” He scowled. 

You blinked. “Oh my God.”

He rubbed his temples like he was trying to massage the truth out of his brain. “What do you want from me?! You were just a kid like five minutes ago.”

“I’m literally older than Peter Parker.” You referenced the young man who ran around with the group and who had trapped your brother in a web when he was still in high school. 

“Yeah, but Peter still makes Lego sets and watches cartoons. You’re not supposed to be…” He made a vague, distressed hand gesture. “Dropping. On. Your. Knees.”

You blinked innocently. “So you do think I’m not a virgin.”

He froze, betrayed by his own logic he was now looking you up and down searching for any signs of a lie.

“…Wait. You are, right?”

You hesitated for a single millisecond. It was all he needed.His mouth dropped open like you’d just announced your new career in adult film.

“YOU AREN’T?”

Your eyes went wide. “NO—I MEAN YES—I MEAN—I AM!”

He recoiled, clutching the wheel like it could save him, he was hurled over like he was going to start gagging at any second. “Oh my God.”

“I’m totally a virgin! Super virgin! Never even thought about sex, honestly.” You were talking as fast as you could trying to keep him from thinking about all of the lies you had told him over the years that he obviously believed.

“You’re lying.” He didn’t move, he couldn’t. 

“I’m not. I’m, like, the Virgin Mary if she also had a security clearance.” You tried to joke but he was not finding it funny, his head slowly rose up. 

He squinted. “You are lying so hard right now. Your voice goes up an octave when you lie. I used to babysit you. You told me you didn’t break the glass door with a tennis racket while actively holding a tennis racket.”

“I WAS NINE.”

He pointed dramatically. “And you’re still lying!”

You threw your hands up. “What do you want me to say?!”

He jabbed a finger toward the windshield. “You are a virgin until I die. That’s the new rule. Write it down. Tattoo it on your forehead. Until I take my final breath, you are a sweet, innocent, book-reading virgin.”

You nodded, very solemn. “Of course. I’ve never even said the word ‘moan.’ In fact, I’m not sure what it means.” You picked the cleanest word out of all the sex vocabulary you knew.

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t push it.”

“I don’t know anything. I’m basically a nun. But hotter.” You grabbed onto his arm and shook him a little. 

He groaned. “I need therapy.”

“You tried that, remember the notebook.” You jested letting go of him and looking at your phone as he started the vehicle up again.

“I’m gonna call Sam. I need backup.” He hadn’t spoken to his friends since the Avengers fiasco but this took precedent. 

“He’ll laugh at you.” You scoffed thinking about how badly Sam wanted to kill Bucky for being such a flirt all the time.

“He’ll kill Walker.” Meanwhile Buck was thinking about all of the conversations where he had to talk Sam down from losing his entire shit on Walker. 

You rolled your eyes, still smiling. “Bucky. Relax. It’s just one kiss.”

His mouth pressed into a line so thin it almost disappeared. “One kiss,” he repeated flatly.

“One.” You held up a single finger and waved it at him. 

He stared out the windshield, grim. “I should’ve jumped in front of that train instead of falling off of it.”

You let him have his moment as you played on your phone, at some point the radio had even gotten turned on. The car had almost settled into a fragile peace.

Bucky was still brooding, knuckles tight on the steering wheel, muttering the occasional "Disrespectful jawline-having—,” but he hadn’t threatened to kill anyone in at least five minutes.

That was progress. The tension was still thick, though, buzzing just beneath the surface like a live wire. And then—your phone buzzed. Bucky didn’t look. But you did. And the moment a banner fell from the top of your screen, a grin pulled across your lips like the sun rising on pure chaos.

J. Walker:miss you already, sweetheart.next time I’m pulling you into my lap.let your brother walk in on that.

You snorted—snorted. You couldn’t help it. Bucky’s head snapped toward you so fast it was a miracle his neck didn’t crack.

“...What.”

You bit your lip, trying to hold it in. You failed. “Nothing.”

“Don’t say ‘nothing’ like that.” He was offended all over again.

“Like what?” You groaned there was no way he could sense what had just happened, he learned how to use a phone correctly like a year ago.

“Like you just read a text that ruined my life.” That son of a bitch knew how notifications worked and that was enough to make you wanna roll the window down and launch it out. 

You stayed silent, shoulders already shaking.

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Who texted you?”

You didn’t answer.

His voice dropped an octave. “Was it him?”

You looked out the window, still grinning. “Who?”

He slammed the heel of his palm against the horn—just a quick angry blare. “DO NOT ‘WHO’ ME. I SWEAR TO GOD—”

You turned the screen toward him, just enough for him to see the contact name.

He read it.

Then blinked.

Then turned toward you like the world had betrayed him.

“NO. FUCKING. WAY. IS THAT JOHN WALKER. RIGHT NOW.”

You burst out laughing.

“Oh my God,” he muttered. “He’s texting you while you’re in the car with me. While I’m still actively furious. He has a death wish.”

You opened the message again, reading it aloud with flair. If he was going to be a giant baby some more about this he was going to need a reason. 

“‘Next time I’m pulling you into my lap.’” “Let your brother walk in on that,” you added for dramatic effect.

Bucky let out a sound like a dying lawn mower. “WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS.”

“Probably something in 1943,” you said cheerfully thinking about all the girls he ran around with and all the times you had caught him on top of one or kissing it. 

“THIS IS KARMA. THIS IS COSMIC PUNISHMENT. THIS IS—”

“He called me sweetheart,” you said quietly, meaningfully, it really was sweet, “I will throw up in this car and make you clean it.” You giggled and leaned into the window clicking your phone shut, this was going to be too much fun.