Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

Johnny looked over to him, both of their feet dangling over the edge of the Statue of Liberty’s torch as Johnny propped his hands against the railing. 

“You ever wonder what the point of all this is?”

“Damn Storm,” Peter says with a laugh, Johnny smiling despite the morbid question hanging between them in the air, “what’d Ben do this time?”

“Nothing, nerd. I’m being serious,” Johnny replies as he leans his head up and shoves at Peter, Peter just laughing at him as Johnny continues, “You remember that fire on 122nd and 7th?”

Peter sobers up at that, just as Johnny expected he would. This was the part of the job that neither of them liked to dwell on, Johnny even more so because of how infrequently this kind of thing happened to him. 

Johnny didn’t lose. He didn’t lose when he used to play ball with the neighborhood kids when he was young. He didn’t lose when he ran through flight drills despite Sue’s worry and Reed’s exasperation at looking like a show-off in front of SHIELD. He didn’t lose even when it came to their other world missions, pulling out a last minute save by the skin of his teeth.

Johnny didn’t lose. 

Which is why the loss of three civilians in a fire-- a family, people that Johnny desperately wanted to know nothing about and yet everything all at the same time-- grated on him, crawling up and down his skin like he would imagine fire should but didn’t anymore.

The fact that he was technically outside of his jurisdiction in helping the firefighters out didn’t matter, knowing that he would’ve been lauded as a hero had there been no casualties. He got out three floors of people before the building collapsed, saving more lives than the non-enhanced firefighters would’ve been able to based on the stability of the floors alone.

But he hadn’t saved them all, regret and guilt churning around in his gut just as much as the stories criticizing him and the Four and even superheroes in general rattled around in his brain. 

“I don’t know,” Johnny finally says, tapping his fingers against the railing as he stares out over the ocean. “I just wonder sometimes if maybe it’s all worth it.”

“It’s always worth it, J,” Peter says with a conviction that shouldn’t surprise Johnny but does, looking back to him and seeing the determined look on his face. “What you’re doing, what the Four does, it’s worth it, man. I mean it. It’s-- it’s not always easy when we lose people. It’s… it’s hard to live with that and I do every single day.” 

Peter’s expression grows cloudy but no less determined, as if he was reliving his own losses again in the moment before they fall away when he locks eyes with Johnny. 

“But that doesn’t mean we stop trying.” 

Johnny is staring out over the ocean, three drinks beyond the legal limit as he braces his hands against the railing of the Statue of Liberty’s torch.

He sniffles, the cold and the snow falling around him feeling meaningless not just for the natural heat that radiates from his body now but from how cavernous his insides feel. For a brief moment, a fleeting shameful moment-- Johnny looks down to the ocean below and wonders what it would be like to just let go. He’s loved flying for as long as he’s been the Human Torch but it’s the falling that thrills him just as much as it terrifies Sue. Not Reed or Ben or Ned or MJ. No one understood what it was like to launch yourself into the sky, the feeling of complete weightlessness that caused your stomach to flip when you were in total free-fall-- only for the last minute change of direction from flying in a different direction. 

Peter did. 

Johnny gasps, gripping the railing tighter and closing his eyes-- only to immediately regret it for what images his mind brings to the forefront. 

Images of Johnny flying across the city. Too far, too far, too far echoing in his mind now even if at the time all his energy had been focused on reaching Peter.

He knows now what he hadn’t then-- that it wouldn’t have mattered if he would’ve made it on time because Peter was dead before he even hit the ground. That even if by some miracle that he would’ve been there sooner, that Johnny himself wouldn’t have stood a chance-- that the last thing Peter saw wouldn’t have been the eyes of a man who hated him but rather of a man who loved him, only to watch as Johnny would’ve died right in front of him. 

It burns within Johnny more than anything ever has before— the regret, the grief, the guilt, the shame that there was nothing that he could’ve done to prevent the worst thing Johnny thinks he’s ever had to live with. The worst thing he will ever live with. 

Johnny didn’t lose. He didn’t lose when he used to play ball with the neighborhood kids when he was young. He didn’t lose when he ran through flight drills despite Sue’s worry and Reed’s exasperation at looking like a show-off in front of SHIELD. He didn’t lose even when it came to their other world missions, pulling out a last minute save by the skin of his teeth.

Johnny didn’t lose. 

But then he lost Peter.

Johnny wasn’t sure how he was ever going to be able to recover from that. 

“Hey man,” Ned says carefully when Johnny stumbles in, just barely catching how his nose wrinkles as he Johnny closes the window behind him. 

He knows he likely smells like a brewery or worse, stripping himself of his suit as he walks to the room without even acknowledging Ned. 

“Johnny--”

“I’m fine,” Johnny slurs, any part of him that cared that he slurred gone just like his sense of self-- nearly tripping over himself as he walks to the bathroom.

Johnny knows that Ned before would’ve been more insistent. It was something that Peter had always loved about Ned, the fact that he never gave up and was just as tenacious in checking up on his friends as much as he checked up on their superhero counterparts. 

There’s a reason he moved in with him, a reason that he still lived with him-- his alcohol-addled brain still sending him the signal that he was being an asshole to someone who deserved better. 

But Johnny can’t look at Ned now, just as he can barely look at himself -- closing the door of his bedroom behind him and flopping down onto his bed, still smelling of sweat and city grime and not caring in the slightest.

If Sue could see him, something that Johnny was damned and determined that she didn’t anytime soon -- she’d be concerned. And when she was concerned, Reed was concerned and when Reed was concerned-- it was an ordeal.

Reed would say he isn’t functioning which would be the obvious statement of the century, any semblance of him having a handle on his world having died right along with Peter.

The worst part Johnny thinks as he curls into himself, shivering despite the cold outside having little effect on his body temperature as he wraps a sheet around his shoulders, is that lately he thought he’d been doing better at this living thing. 

He’d gone over to May’s during the third night of Hanukkah, crashed the Avengers holiday party with MJ and now a few days before New Years, had dozens of invitations that he could choose from. 

It wasn’t fair that it was a year after Peter died and the guilt and the grief and the weight of it all still felt like it could consume him, swallow him whole and fall back into an abyss of emptiness that he hadn’t felt since he was in the Negative Zone. 

He should be better at this now—living and laughing and enjoying the seconds of a life he has that Peter doesn’t anymore. But he can’t, not for long anyway— not before it all comes crumbling down and Johnny begins to feel as if he’s an imposter, a failure that’s inserted himself into the lives of who Peter loved in a way that felt less like acceptance and more like penance. 

Johnny laughs, wet and strangled as it turns into a sob, letting the cold seep over his skin and sink down to his pores as he tries -- and fails -- to find a sleep he knows will never come for him.

“Johnny—”

“I’m fine, MJ,” Johnny says, downing another drink as he plasters on the best smile that he can. She can see right through it, she always could-- taking the drink away from him and setting it down on the table of the party they’re at. 

Neither of them had wanted to go to this but Ned had seemingly won out, pushing them to go out and do something to bring in the New Year beyond getting drunk on Ned and Johnny’s ratty old couch.

Just cause he couldn’t get drunk on the couch didn’t mean he couldn’t get drunk at a party full of strangers, waving flirtatiously towards a group of guys at the bar before MJ scoffs.

“Johnny, you’re not fine. Stop saying you’re fine when you’re--” she cuts herself off, sharply inhaling and her voice unsteady in a way that Johnny’s wholly unused to - only for his heart to clench and his bravado to fall aside when he sees how close to tears MJ looks. 

It’s not a sight he hasn’t seen before, not for the past year at least-- but it bowls him over just the same, feeling like he has something in his throat as MJ glares at him.

“ Please ,” she half-whispers and half-pleads, the look on her face striking him when he realizes it’s the same expression she used to level at Peter.

“Okay,” Johnny muttered, feeling more like shit than he already did for making MJ have to relive something she probably thought she buried months ago-- concern and love he didn’t deserve from a woman who had already lived through watching someone she loved destroy themselves over and over again.

At least with Peter it was for a good cause, for a good person -- not the sad excuse of a superhero that Johnny had become. 

MJ takes his admission at least, nodding once before quickly swiping a tear from her eye and excusing herself.

As she walks away, Johnny can’t help but think that he should go after her. He should apologize for how he’s being, how he’s been for months and be the best friend that Peter would’ve wanted him to be -- to find Ned and for the three of them to make their New Year’s special.

But he doesn’t, another failure to notch on his belt as he backs away -- the pull to leave stronger than ever before. 

Johnny’s not quite drunk but a little beyond tipsy, still knowing that if anyone were to find him that he’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble for flying around.

He does a couple of sloppy barrel rolls in the air, already taking a risk not just because of how much he’s had to drink but because of the fireworks going off-- knowing they’re only going to ratchet up in intensity the closer and closer it gets to midnight. 

Johnny’s beyond caring, turning off the comms to his suit and going dark-- as dark as anyone who lit up into a fireball that registered nearly 3,000 degrees fahrenheit as he flew through the night sky, fireworks sparking off that he just barely misses.

Johnny’s not drunk enough to not feel the danger that’s around him, for his stomach to seize in surprise anytime he flies a little too close and to wonder for a half-beat that if he’d even get hurt if a firework hit him. 

It’s not as if anyone would notice if it did, Johnny thinks grimly to himself-- knowing the public has had a less than stellar view of the Human Torch the past few months. 

That’s not true , Johnny thinks with a sigh as he flies aimlessly throughout the air -- knowing for certain that either Ned, MJ or both had to be worried about having ditched them from the party, especially when Ned would be able to hack into the suit and find that it was “offline”. 

Pending Sue and Reed keeping up with the news while they were on vacation or Ben actually turning on his cell phone, the rest of the Four wouldn’t be looking for him, Johnny feeling more and more sorry for himself as he continues to fly.

It’s likely a combination of the alcohol and his own self-loathing that makes him miss it, a flash of light coming straight at him that he doesn’t even think to dodge. A firework goes off right next to him, Johnny just closing his eyes and waiting to see if it even had an effect on him only to throw his eyes open at impact-- the weight of metal against him that it throws him completely off balance.

“What the--”

“Flame off, torchy. Suit’s good but I’d rather not put the resistance to the test,” the tinny voice of Iron Man says, Johnny so surprised that he actually listens-- allowing Iron Man to carry him out of the sky and letting the heat fade away.

It’s not till they’re safely on a rooftop, Johnny feeling awkward and a little angry that he’s been taken out of the sky like he was Peter -- remembering all those stories of Tony Stark doing just that to him coming back to him like the bad memory it is, exacerbating the anguish that he’s feeling about still living in a world where Peter doesn’t. 

“What’s your deal?” Johnny says, feeling the anger bubble up in his chest as Iron Man lands across from him.

“I know you’re still new around here but I’m the one who asks the questions here,” the man across from him says, only for Johnny to be surprised to see that it’s Tony Stark himself underneath it as the mask of the suit dematerializes. 

“And I know you’re still new to all of this but I don’t answer to you , Stark,” Johnny spits back, grinding his teeth together before he swallows. “You’re not my keeper and I’m sure as hell not an Avenger so--”

“What is it with you and Richards? The Avengers aren’t perfect sure, but we have--”

“Not perfect ?” Johnny snorts, scoffing as Tony’s eyes just narrow at him. “That’s one way to put it.” 

“And the Four are so much better?”

“The Four have accountability, better than you and disaster of the Accords. Tell me, how is Captain America doing these days?”

Tony presses his lips together, looking like he was going to snap at him only to surprise Johnny when he doesn’t-- taking a deep breath and saying, “That’s not what I came here to do.”

“Why did you come here?” Johnny says, his voice a little unsteady in a way that has less to do with the alcohol and a little too much with the guilt of being in front of the man he’s very much avoided. 

It was torture to be around May in the past year, knowing every single time that he saw her that he’d done too little too late to save Peter. 

But with May, Johnny couldn’t bear to not be around her for the sake of having known her for so long -- a warmth that reminded him of his own mother and a sense of acceptance he desperately craved from someone he feel he didn’t deserve it from.

Tony Stark was someone else entirely-- someone that he hadn’t gotten along with even when Peter was alive. Now that Peter was gone, it didn’t make sense for either of them to interact beyond anytime they had to. 

The fact that he’s here now, on a cold New Year’s Eve night, bothers and intrigues Johnny all at the same time.

Tony looks weary at his question, a sadness that’s all too familiar to him when Tony finally says, “MJ called me.”

If Johnny didn’t already feel like shit tonight, he’d willingly bury himself six feet under -- cursing the fact that he’d let her down again for the second time in a row and already struggling to think of ways that he could possibly make up for this. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh ,” Tony says, wiping a hand over his face and exhaling loudly out of his mouth.

Johnny stares at him for a beat, really looking at him maybe for the first time. He knows what everyone does of Tony Stark, maybe a little more than the public considering the times he’s gotten bored and hacked into SHIELD’s personnel files.

Tony Stark the legend didn’t quite match up to Tony Stark the man, hair greying around his temple and a bone-weary sadness that Johnny instinctually understands emanating off of him. Johnny feels a pang of guilt not just for MJ having to have called him but the remembrance that Tony Stark wasn’t the same man he had been from Johnny’s childhood -- a husband and a father and likely having much better things to do than fly around and look for Johnny to cap off a shitty year. 

“I’ll uh, I’ll head back,” Johnny says, shaking out his dreads before nodding once to Tony. “Thanks.”

Johnny goes to flame on, about to lift off the roof when Tony speaks. 

“I know we’ve never gotten along but--” Tony clears his throat, his voice sounding thick and filled with the kind of care that Johnny is unused to from him as he looks down, “if you ever need someone to talk to…”

He trails off, letting out a huff of air as Tony continues, “I know you have plenty of people.”

Johnny doesn’t deny it -- just because he hadn’t taken advantage of the support system he has doesn’t mean he didn’t currently have one, only for Tony to say, “But its-- it’s what he would’ve wanted.”

Johnny doesn’t trust himself to answer, not for the lump building in his throat and his nerves feeling just as raw and as on fire as the fireworks sparkling throughout the sky. 

Tony looks back up to his eyes, grinding his teeth together before saying, “I’m here.”

Johnny nods once, Tony taking the affirmation and seemingly ready to fly back to wherever it is billionaires and their families spent the holidays-- only for Johnny to say, “Same goes for you.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, Johnny huffing out a laugh as he says, “Not that I think you’ll come to me but you know, Pete--” Tony winces at hearing his name, “he used to talk a lot about your unhealthy coping mechanisms. Like a lot . He was worried about you.”

“Could say the same for you, kid ,” Tony says, wincing again belatedly before pursing his lips together. “Never shut up about the shit you two got into.”

Fireworks are still going off into the sky, ramping up now in a way that makes Johnny think it’s closer than not to New Years. But there’s a sense of peace between the two of them, an understanding that only just now clicks for Johnny that of everyone in his life who was struggling with the loss of Peter -- Tony fucking Stark might be the one who uniquely understands it the most.

Peter had told him a near endless amount of stories of Tony panicking when Peter had gotten into something that Tony thought he couldn’t handle, even sometimes when that had been true and Tony had come in with a last-minute save or assist.

The guilt that Johnny hadn’t been able to save Peter must weigh even more on the man in front of him, knowing now what he didn’t then that Tony had been in the city when Peter died but hadn’t been aware of the suit -- turning off those alerts only a week before after an agreement between the two of them to let Peter handle things without Tony as a fail-safe.

An agreement Johnny can see in Tony’s eyes, that he regrets. 

“Happy New Year, Stark.”

Tony laughs, the mask of the suit materializing over his face before the tinny Iron Man voice replies, “Happy New Year, Storm.”

Johnny flies off into the sky before they say anything else — still feeling a little too drunk to truly grapple with what the conversation he just had but having a different feeling flow through him as he changes his trajectory back to the party and the friends that he left behind. 

The guilt was still there, just as the grief was— only for it to settle somewhere differently than it had been.

He’d been so wrapped up in his own regret and his own grief, waffling from painfully self-aware to completely self-absorbed that it wasn’t till tonight - with the dawn of a brand new year just within his reach - that it struck him that maybe he’d been going about this all wrong.

Fireworks start popping off into the sky, Johnny now intentionally trying to avoid them as he thinks.

Johnny didn’t lose. 

But he lost Peter. A loss that he won’t be able to recover from. A loss that maybe, he was foolish to think he ever would.

A loss, that as he could easily see on Tony’s face much less on the faces of every single person who had loved Peter just as much if not more than he did, was something he didn’t have to be alone with. A loss that shouldn’t have him give up. 

That maybe, he should follow Peter’s advice, and keep on trying anyway.