Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Pete? Pete? Peter?” The following sound of a snap of fingers finally shocked Peter out of whatever fugue state he was in, eyes refocusing onto the figure of his Aunt May ahead of him, her hand outstretched. “God, I don’t even know if that's insensitive now or something…” May remarked with a forced chuckle as she stepped back to lean against a stack of chairs.

That’s right, Peter thought, we’re in a store room in the back of the F.E.A.S.T. Center.

“Oh, uh- god, that was- that was bad,” Peter sighed, trying as well to fit in some sort of diffusing laugh, but only mustering a faint huff. He rubbed his eyes, tiredly. “Sorry.” May rested her head against her hand, and thought for a second.

“Um, was that a… another dissociation of some sort, or a result of incessant Spider-Man-ing.” She asked, trying to choose her words carefully. Peter took a deep breath, running a hand through his currently untamed hair and sitting up. He held his gaze onto the wall beside May, seriously considering her question. The sad and unfortunate reality is that Peter isn’t entirely sure anymore, a general post-blip depression and his currently not quite healthy patrol habits could very well both be the cause of his infrequent presence. Or neither even.

“I don’t know May, I just… I don’t really know.” Peter replied, shifting his gaze to the floor. May sighed and looked around contemplatively for a spell.

“Okay, well, I’m not going to be broken record woman and harp on the patrolling, you know my feelings on that by now I'm sure. But,” May hesitates before continuing, “have you taken what I said before into consideration? Going to visit him?” Peter put his head in his hands

“May, I sai-“

“I know, I know… I know that you don’t like hearing it but Peter, if something does end up happening, and he doesn’t pull through…” Peter could feel his face getting red, “it’s just not gonna feel great that you never went to see him. Believe me, I understand the fear here, I do. But because of that I can say that you should go see him. At least soon.”

Peter turned his head, still facing away from May, his eyes red and puffy as they lazily wander through the large plastic tubs and boxes of random supplies that sit in the corner and the shelf against the wall with spools of wiring, assorted tools, and first aid items. There is a small part of him that blames himself in some way, for not being strong enough, or smart enough, or whatever, but for once in his career as Spider-Man, the general consensus of his brain seems to be in favor of it actually not being his fault. There were dozens of other super powered individuals and whole armies that day and yet this still just… happened.

It’s been three months and Tony Stark has still not woken up.

Pepper had told him that they believe the Arc Reactor somehow absorbed a great deal of the gamma radiation expelled when Tony used the stones, but the act still took a devastating toll on his body. The arm that held them had to be amputated and Peter shudders as he remembers the sound of the heart monitor flatlining, at which point Sam Wilson and Happy dragged the fully despondent teenager out of the operation room of Avengers Tower, where Tony and all the others injured had been rapidly relocated to. Normally Peter probably would have struggled against them- try and get back in to be by Tony’s side.

But something about seeing Tony Stark, Iron Man, the man he always looked up to, the man who took a chance with him and changed his life forever, look the way he did on that bed… Peter just couldn't move. Even before the flatlining, he looked dead.

Peter sits up again, reorienting himself, and finally looks at May directly. He hates that he did. He’s immediately reminded of the looks she gave him before she found out he was Spider-Man; The looks she’d give when she knew something was wrong, but couldn’t figure out what or how to fix it. Peter looks away again, this time at the closed door, behind it undoubtedly are countless people who are in even greater distress than he is and need him and his aunt. Yet here is wallowing with his aunt giving all of her attention to him. Okay there’s the self-blame, I was wondering where it went.

“I’m sorry I think I just need- need to sleep? And I know I said I’d help out here today but my brain is just not on earth with the rest of me right now.” Peter said, rubbing his arms. May looks for a moment like she wants to continue whatever it was she was talking to him about, but holds her tongue, instead throwing her hands up.

“Okay well there’s a plan I can get behind.” She says. Peter puts on a small smile as he stands up, but May shoots up with a wide grin ahead of him. “In fact-“ she pulls her phone out of her pocket and taps through to her contacts and calls someone, putting it on speaker. A moment passes as the call picks up.

“Uhhh, hey Miss Parker, what’s up?” Peter’s eyes widen in recognition at the voice of Ned Leeds on the phone.

“Hey Ned, me and Peter are just down at F.E.A.S.T. today, but Pete isn’t really feeling all that well. Do you think you can swing by and walk him home? I have to stay, today’s lunch rush is looking to be heavy.” May asks, smiling, and glaring pointedly at Peter. The tired teen holds back an exasperated sigh as he shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Oh uh, yeah sure, lemme tell my Lola and I’ll meet you there.” Ned agreed from the other end of the line.

“Thank you so much Ned, oh and tell her I said ‘Hi’!”

“Will do Miss P!” Ned said, May then hung up and smiled at an unamused Peter Parker. “While I don’t mistrust your intentions, I'm making the conscious decision to not give you the chance to run off and patrol yourself to exhaustion- oh, further exhaustion, that is.” She says, patting him on the shoulder. “Now c’mon, use that weird bug strength of yours to help me carry out some of these chairs.” Peter finally smiles a true smile and complies.

Peter continued to help out May a bit more while he waited for Ned to arrive. Setting up dozens of more chairs in preparation for lunchtime and making some simple sandwiches. He really did enjoy volunteering with F.E.A.S.T.. Almost immediately after being brought back, May began working tirelessly with the organization to help those displaced by the blip. The sheer amount of people whose lives were completely upended, on either end of the event, was unheard of. Having to deal with both the folks left behind who had to move on these past five years, and the ones like himself and May who had to adjust to a world that now felt like it had left them behind.

Due to the sheer lack of populace to take residence in them, many apartment buildings and houses were torn down or turned into something else, leaving millions unhoused. That’s not even touching all the people who’s old homes had simply been sold to someone else, or were still standing but they no longer had the money to live in them because they didn’t exist for 5 years.

Peter had the complicated pleasure of discovering he and May’s apartment building was not only fully intact, but also that their apartment was virtually untouched. Not long after the battle did Peter ask Pepper Potts if she had any idea why their home, of all peoples, looked the same as the day they left it. Pepper took in a deep breath and a long pause before revealing to him that, in his heart, Tony always held hope that the ones who disappeared would somehow return. So, under Stark Industries, he took over rent of their apartment and had staff keep it clean and dusted. Each year Tony would let out a long sigh and rub the back of his neck while he tells Pepper that it’s “been too long” and he’s just “gonna let it go, end the lease and let someone else take up residence there so he can just move on,” but he never did.

On the one hand, Peter is incredibly grateful that he and May were thought of and cared for even when they weren’t here. That they really didn’t have to struggle to start their lives again.

But Peter was too empathetic for his own good. How come he got to have it so easy while three billion and more people didn’t? Just because he had some filthy rich boss who happened to both care about him and wasn’t blipped? How is that fair?

Peter had just finished assembling one last sandwich when he was pulled out of his self pity by his strange sixth sense alerting him to his best friend's presence outside of the community center. As if on cue after he went over to look out the kitchen window, Peter sees Ned walk through the front doors.

“Ned’s here!” Peter calls out to May, pulling his jacket back on and grabbing his phone from where it was charging. Before he can exit the kitchen May catches him by the arm and looks him in the eye.

“At least 10 hours. I know there’s been all these studies recently like ‘oh, teenagers actually only need 5-6 hours of sleep’ and god forbid however long spiders sleep but I don’t care! 10 Hours.” May tells him. Peter smiles warmly and hugs her.

“Thank you.” He says quietly, and kisses May’s forehead.

“Love you.” May says as they pull apart, Peter turning to leave, “See you in the morning!” She makes sure to enunciate. Peter rolls his eyes as he leaves. His smile thankfully persists as he walks up to his waiting friend, Ned thumbing through his phone.

“Hey Ned.” The boy in question looks up from his phone and returns Peter’s smile.

“Hey dude! What’s up? May said you’re sick or something? Is it contagious?” Ned asks, concerned. Peter’s eyes widen, a bit taken aback, but laughs.

“What? No, I’m- I'm just really tired. Woulda slowed everybody in there today.” Peter assures him. Ned nods in understanding as the two walk out of the F.E.A.S.T. Building and down the steps to the sidewalk.

“Is it ‘cause you’ve been Spidey-ing so much?” Ned whispers. Peter looks out across the sea of people and then down at his feet. He’s starting to get tired of all this sighing he’s been doing.

“No, I mean- Yes, but… have I really been going out that much?” Peter asks exasperatedly. The pair turn and start down the crosswalk as Ned answers.

“Kinda… dude, you know I love that my best friend is a superhero, it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me!” Peter makes a face at that, “but ever since, y’know, the blip, it feels like the only times we ever hang out are at school or when i’m being your guy in the chair for your patrols. Which again, I do love doing, but… I don’t know… I miss just hangin’ out. Playing games and building lego sets together. I have so many new sets I've been dying to open but didn’t wanna do without you.” Ned explains. Peter continues watching his own feet walk as he absorbs Ned’s words.

Peter knows he’s been going out a lot.

He knows.

He didn’t realize it was happening at first but he definitely did notice as it went on. But what else is he supposed to do? The entire Infinity Stone ordeal cost the world so many heroes- two thirds of the Avengers are gone, and the Guardians, along with Thor, have returned to the cosmos. Even that new group that showed up during the blip, The Fantastic Four, are off in space with Captain Marvel helping other planets affected by everything. There is so much that needs to be done, there’s just never enough time.

“So what should I be doing, Ned? You saw how many people were at the community center, and it wasn’t even the lunch rush yet. I have to do something, especially now more than ever.” Peter insisted with a huff.

“No offense dude, but you could maybe leave all that to like, the people who aren’t also living a Hannah Montana style double life?” Ned offered cautiously. Peter clenched his jaw in frustration.

You just can’t understand, Ned… You don’t have the same responsibility I do…

But Peter didn’t say that, he couldn’t. Even in his frustration, he knew that’d just hurt his friend’s feelings. He chose to let the topic fall for now.

“D’you wanna just do some regular friend stuff today then? I mean, it’s still early, I don’t need to go to sleep right now.” Peter said. Ned’s face lit up at the suggestion, seemingly forgetting the conversation they were just having, before dropping again.

“Oh shit, okay I hope you don’t actually want to build any of those lego sets today because I may or may not have actually already built them without you because I have poor self control-“

“Oh, wha- dude, seriously?”

“-and I really apologize-“ Ned was again unable to finish, cut off by an all too familiar booming voice coming from one of the nearby jumbotrons.

Oh here we go…

“IS SPIDER-MAN HARASSING THE HOMELESS?! YOU MIGHT NOT BE SHOCKED TO FIND THAT OUR REPORTERS CAUGHT FOOTAGE OF THE WEB-SLINGING WAR CRIMINAL STALKING AROUND THE LOCAL F.E.A.S.T. COMMUNITY CENTER!” Belted out J. Jonah Jameson, his raving so aggressive Peter could see dribble flying out of his mouth and getting caught in his mustache.

The screen transitioned from his constipated, red face to show shaky footage of Spider-Man jumping across lamp posts on a street adjacent to the Community Center, making motions to the crowd below. Peter remembers this, it was a few days ago now: he had made his rounds around common gathering places for unhoused people early in the morning to direct them to the F.E.A.S.T. Building so they could have breakfast. Even for the folks who already know the way, Peter usually likes to watch over the streets around the building during that time of day to make sure no violence starts up.

The one thing this country hates more than homeless people is giving its citizens money. Peter thought, his brow drawing in as Jameson’s enraged slandering continued.

“EYEWITNESS REPORTS CORROBORATED HEARING THE MASKED MENACE SCREAMING AT A GROUP OF HOMELESS PEOPLE, PEACEFULLY ON THEIR WAY TO F.E.A.S.T. FOR A NICE BREAKFAST. COULD THIS VILE VIGILANTE BE ANYMORE DESPICABLE? FIRST HE HAS TO MAKE OUR LIVES MISERABLE, NOW HE’S VERBALLY ASSAULTING THE LOWEST RUNGS OF OUR SOCIETY TOO? HAVE THEY NOT BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH?”

Part of what they’re going through is your fault Jameson.

Peter remembers the shit Jameson’s podcast was peddling right after everyone returned. Saying things like “They shouldn’t be receiving handouts”, “we’re the ones who’ve had to keep working”, “they should have to earn a place in this new world just like we did”.

The only people in New York who, at large, have never once been unkind to him, or reacted in fear to Spider-Man, are its unhoused population. They don’t have the luxury to pay Jameson’s ramblings any mind. They aren’t sitting comfortably in a home with food and a stable income, with their most exposure to Spider-Man being the propaganda pumped out by the bugle.

The footage eventually ended, a notecard appearing, saying that the Daily Bugle had reached out to F.E.A.S.T.’s founder, Martin Li, about making a statement on the supposed harassment of his community center’s patrons by the ‘wall-crawling menace’. Li has yet to respond to them.

“What. A. Tool.” Ned stated, never not dumbfounded by Jameson and the Daily Bugle’s ability to contort every minor thing Spider-Man does into some grand conspiracy.

That was all another thing that’s different now.

Peter Parker is by no means unfamiliar with J. Jonah Jameson, ever since he first started out as Spider-Man, back with his homemade suit- before Tony Stark found him- coverage on his endeavors by the Daily Bugle were for whatever reason more ambiguous, more skeptical of his true intentions. Jameson was always the spearhead of this as well, the odd time Spider-Man would make it beyond a headline into the Daily Bugle’s video reports, it would be J. Jonah Jameson covering it. Very loudly, at that.

But during the blip, from what Peter could gather, the Bugle and Jameson especially, were radicalized into full blown moon man talk and daily conspiratorial ramblings Peter wasn’t shocked to find were often sourced from QAnon and its contemporaries. And after the Avengers returned everyone and defeated Thanos for good, the second Peter started up as Spider-Man again, so did the Daily Bugle’s antics, somehow even worse than it already was. They took advantage of the widespread panic and uncertainty and managed to start making New York think twice about Spider-Man. Peter’s noticed it the more he’s gone out. More and more inane stories, and more and more civilians he’d hear scream expletives at him or react to his presence with fear.

Because that’s exactly what people need right now, more things to fear…

“Don’t let him get into your head dude, he’s literally crazy and like, probably a republican.” Ned reassures, though Peter still can’t help but feel like his new found status as public enemy number one is just another weight that’s been tied to his wrists.

“Everything’s awful. Everything’s awful!” Peter exclaims, throwing up his hands. He slumps against the wall of the storefront beside them and pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyebrows scrunched together. Peter could sense Ned as his friend walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Dude… I know we can’t build any Legos, but we could play the new Lego Star Wars game?” Peter perked up slightly at the suggestion.

“You- you got it already?” Peter asked. He then glanced to the side of Ned to see a physical copy of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga appearing from inside his jacket. Peter’s overcast expression turned into a giddy grin as Ned wiggled the case around. “You know you really are the best best friend in the world, right?”

“Oh I know, but I could stand to hear it more.” Ned said with an eyebrow quirked and his other hand over his chest dramatically. Peter grabbed the case from him and looked it over excitedly as the two continued their walk back to the Parker apartment.

Once there, the two spent the rest of the day playing the game on Peter’s Switch, only breaking eventually for a quick dinner- Peter having gotten a message from May that she won’t be home for another few hours. As Peter was putting their dishes away in the washing machine, and rather hastily at that, he heard a loud gasp release behind him. Peter, having been spooked, slammed the washing machine door shut and twisted around rapidly to see Ned staring wide eyed and slack-jawed at his phone screen.

“Jesus Christ Ned, what the hell?” Ned remained unmoving for a moment before scrambling over to the kitchen island, where he promptly shoved his phone into Peter’s bemused face.

“Dude! Dude!” Ned spittered as Peter made a small sound of agitation and pushed the phone out of his face enough to actually be able to view it, and he quickly realized what had made Ned so excited.

As read the New York Times headline: “BREAKING NEWS: BREAKOUT SUPERHERO TEAM THE FANTASTIC FOUR HAVE MADE THEIR GRAND RETURN TO EARTH; AND WITH EXCITING NEWS!”

“Keep reading! Keep reading!” Ned insisted. Peter took the phone out of his hand and kept scrolling.

“Popular social media stars and rising superhero squad The Fantastic Four have finally made their long awaited return to earth after spending 6 months traveling through space with fellow hero Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers). The team, consisting of Mister Fantastic (Dr. Reed Richards), The Invisible Woman (Sue Storm), The Thing (Ben Grimm), and The Human Torch (Johnny Storm), made their landing in current base of operation Central City, California only a few hours ago now, and addressed the public with a short press conference about their time off planet.

During this conference, they highlighted the sheer amount of other planets and alien species that are going through all of the same struggles we are currently facing on earth post-Blip, and how this fact has given them hope for the future, and comfort that no peoples are truly alone. They then shared that following the news of the tragic losses faced by the Avengers during their fierce battle against intergalactic warlord Thanos and his armies, and many long discussions amongst their group, they have decided to officially make the move from California to New York City.”

Peter would be lying if he said his mouth didn’t fall a bit open in surprise. His eyes skimmed the rest of the article, something about the team having already made purchase of the Baxter Building in Manhattan to make their new homebase, but his excitement over this news quickly began inhibiting his ability to read.

Peter had already been a big fan of both Dr. Richards and Dr. Storm for their papers and contributions to aerospace engineering and astrophysics, but discovering on his return that they had tried effortlessly to reverse the effects of the blip all on their own and eventually gained powers and became successful superheroes out of it, only fanned his fervent fanboy flames. It helped that they had both been documenting much of their intergalactic travels on their social media pages, making it their mission to inform the people of earth about the struggles faced on other planets in hope of creating sympathy for the lifeforms out there.

They were right up there alongside Tony in his greatest inspirations, and now he might have the chance to work closely with them as fellow defenders of earth.

Peter frantically shoved Ned’s phone back into his hands, half-listening to the teen’s rambles, as he pulled out his own phone to check The Fantastic Four’s Instagram page where, shocker, there was a brand new post announcing their big move, with the attached photo being one taken of the team from the press conference. Even with two of his idols standing front and center at the podium, and the striking, mountainous appearance of The Thing behind them, Peter couldn’t help but have his eyes drift to the popular fourth member of the team: Johnny Storm. His quiffed, light blonde hair windswept as he held his hand out in a wave, a curt smile on his now beloved face.

In all honesty, when Peter saw that one of this new hero team’s members was not only the sibling of one of his favorite people, but also the same age as him, he was immediately overcome with mildly embarrassing glee at the idea of another young superhero. Though that glee did grow a tad conflicted when Peter soon found that, aside from the occasional repost of his teammates' content, 90% of Johnny Storms’ social media presence was best described as one big “thirst trap”. Videos of him working out, shirtless pictures, shirtless TikTok dances, interviews where plays with adorable puppies, sponsored posts dripped out in Gen Z-focused fashion Items, even more shirtless selfies… you get the picture. Somewhat eyebrow raising considering he’s only recently turned 17, but Peter supposes it was helpful in making The Fantastic Four popular with the average member of his generation. However, there was a clear disconnect in personality between the two.

But now knowing that Johnny, along with the rest of his team will be making New York their new home, that previous concern was suppressed by renewed excitement over the potential of friendship.

Even in spite of their differing personalities, Peter could finally have someone that understands his situation better than anyone else. Another person that knows the struggle and anxieties that come with being a teenage superhero.

For the first time in a few months, Peter could feel his body flush with hope.

Chapter Text

Johnny Storm wanted absolutely nothing to do with anyone or anything in New York City.

It’s not like he hates the place or anything- although he might have to now, purely out of spite- he just doesn’t want to leave California.

Johnny glared at the encroaching form of the Earth as the Marvel-II neared its destination, leaning against one of the few windows in the ship’s cargo deck, brooding over the news his sister and her husband left him with. Were there any rocks in there he’d have kicked them.

“Hey kid… you okay?” Carol Danvers asked tentatively, descending the stairs to the deck. Johnny looked over to her- Captain Marvel herself- and couldn’t decide whether to try and mask the anger on his face or not. He just shifts his gaze back to the cosmos outside and asks a question.

“Did you know?”

Carol shifts uncomfortably and takes a seat on a large container, filled with weird alien specimens Sue and Reed will undoubtedly spend hours geeking out over in their lab, and thinks of how to respond.

“I… knew, yes, I knew. I made some calls to help them out with it. I’m sorry Johnny, your sister said it’d be better if it were a… surprise.” Carol explains apologetically.

“More like she didn’t want me to have any say in it… “ Johnny mutters, half heartedly kicking the wall. “I mean, it’s not like we’re the Fantastic Four, right? It’s the Terrific Trio and the annoying, flaming brat that follows them around sometimes.” Carol winces and Johnny immediately feels bad. He didn’t say anything about her of course, but he knows he’s being a dick right now. Not wanting to hurt the friendship he feels he’s formed with the other hero, Johnny switches up his demeanor and goes mask on. “But why are you, sparkling flying space lady, coming to earth with us?” Johnny questions, his voice now lighter in tone.

“Okay, you know I’m from earth right? I’m not a space lady, though I will not deny the allegations of both sparkling and flying.” Carol retorts. Johnny laughs, stuffing his hands into the pockets of the jacket he was wearing over his super suit.

“Oh yeah, because you famously love being on earth and don’t spend all of your time fighting and or helping aliens on far away planets- that’s some different Captain Marvel!” Johnny teases, Carol rolling her eyes and poorly concealing a grin.

“I’ll have you know I have some very important… business to attend to… on earth.” Carol says suspiciously. Johnny raises his eyebrow with a smirk.

“Uh huh… and this business is… what exactly?” Johnny asks.

“The business is none of your business.” Carol says, standing up from where she was sitting and walking past Johnny.

“Is it a top secret S.W.O.R.D. Mission from Nick Fury?” Johnny asks with a faux giddiness in his voice.

“No.”

“Is there a new world ending threat in that city which-shall-not-be-named?”

“No.”

“Do you have a super DL hot date?”

Carol spun around with a red tint on her cheeks. “What? No, that’s ridiculous.” Johnny’s eyes went wide and he broke out into a wide goofy grin.

“Oh, you so do! You have a terrestrial booty call waiting for you down there!” Johnny jeered. The uncharacteristic red in Carol’s face deepened as she made a shushing sound and held up her finger in front of the fiery teen.

“No date, and no booty call!” She said wide eyed, Johnny just laughing at her flustered behavior. Carol had begun to really feel like a second big sister, but without all the preexisting baggage that Johnny still wasn’t ready to unpack with his actual one. It was almost sad in a way, Johnny felt like he could do with Carol all the things he used to do with Sue but couldn’t anymore- all Sue even does now is just yell at him and then act like perfect siblings whenever they’re in front of a camera or in public.

Even if it’s mostly due to Carol not exactly being the most socially adept person ever, she’ll regardless listen silently to Johnny’s rambling complaints after he and Sue argue, and has been a huge help in teaching him how to use his powers. When he and the rest of the Four first started to train their new abilities, Sue and Reed kept trying to go at everything from such an overly clinical perspective- like full scientific method- it just made Johnny feel like even more of a freak.

Ben and Carol on the other hand were far more “just punch things really hard until you figure your shit out” in their training, which Johnny found spoke to him eloquently.

The Human Torch bounced on his feet a bit before talking again.

“You could totally talk to me about it though, definitely won’t make fun of you like I definitely wasn’t just now.” He offered, gesturing with his elbows since his hands were still pocketed.

“There’s nothing to talk about. And if there was you certainly wouldn’t get it out of me if you can’t even talk to your sister.” Carol responded with squinted eyes.

“No fair.” Johnny groaned.

“Too fair!” A low rumbling sound resounded throughout the ship as it entered the outermost layer of the earth’s atmosphere. “And here’s my stop. I already know the others scheduled the press to meet you guys when you land, and that’s not my jam.” Carol said, turning and starting up the stairs. “See me off?” Johnny smiled and followed the Captain up to the deck.

Ben and Reed were piloting the ship while Sue was sitting staring off into space. Carol and Johnny came through the automatic door, knocking Sue out of whatever fugue she was in, she hopped up and started walking towards Johnny.

“Hey-“ Johnny froze up, but Carol just kept walking and interrupted his sister.

“I’ll be getting off here guys,” Ben and Reed turned, Reed motioning to the rocky pilot to put the ship on autopilot. Sue looked at Johnny and then to Carol with her mouth open, trying to say something, but Reed comes up from behind and places an arm around her.

“What, not wanting to greet the masses with the rest of us?” Reed asks with a friendly smile, rubbing his wife’s shoulder, who clasped her hands together and put on a somewhat forced smile.

“No, thank you. They don’t even have to know I came back with you guys. I’ll meet up with you in New York, we can talk more than.” Carol said with her arms behind her back. Reed offered out a hand and Carol reciprocated with a hearty shake.

“I know this will be the upteenth time I've said this, but thank you again for working with us throughout this amazing experience. We won’t forget it.” Reed said warmly. The hulking form of The Thing approached and met the Captain with another handshake and a clap on the back.

“And if you ever wanna actually gimme the chance to try and whoop your ass, you know where to find me.” Ben joked, Carol laughing in return.

“Oh, you wish Rocks.” Sue appeared to be a bit conflicted, sparing glances between Carol and her brother. She ultimately just smiled and as well reached out a hand.

“Thank you, Captain Marvel.” Carol took her hand respectfully. Johnny was standing a bit away from the others, swaying his hips in place and looking at his shoes. Carol smiled and walked over to the teen hero, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re gonna be alright kid. You’ve already conquered the stars, how bad can the big apple be?” She said quietly. Johnny just smiled and nodded at her. Sue stared at the two of them as Carol crossed the deck to the door. Ben jogged over as gracefully as he could to the front control panel and pressed a few colored buttons and switches- Johnny had to admit that Ben’s ability to still masterfully man nearly any aircraft that’s put in front of him, even with his less than ideal physicality, is impressive. Johnny doubts he’d be able to keep that same level of precision.

“You’re good, Care!” Carol popped on her mohawked helmet and opened the door, Johnny immediately noticing the barely visible waves of the electromagnetic airlock that protected them from the void of space. With a final sign off to the Fantastic Four, Captain Marvel stepped backwards off the ship, falling almost in slow motion into the expanse of nothingness, and ignited her powers. Like a dead star suddenly erupting back into life, she shone amidst the inky black surroundings, and then shot off, a stream of light trailing behind her. Johnny looked over to the large window at the front of the ship and watched as Carol quickly disappeared from view, rocketing eastward from where the Marvel II was descending.

Reed walked over and shut the door, Ben powering off the airlock. Johnny stood awkwardly, hands still stuffed firmly into his jacket pockets, as he met his sister’s gaze. He rolled his eyes and turned to walk up to his bedchamber, Sue started after him.

“Johnny-“ Reed grabbed Sue’s hand.

“Hey, maybe it’s-“ Sue jerked away from him, and continued walking towards her stompy little brother.

“Johnny,” The boy in question stopped and spun around, humming in acknowledgment with a disinterested expression, “I know this was a lot to spring on you so suddenly, I get it, but we-… I made that decision because I know you. Nothing we could’ve said would have changed your mind so I made an executive call.” Johnny shifted his jaw and tried to look anywhere else as Sue explained herself to him. Once she seemed to be awaiting a response he glanced back to her and made direct eye contact.

“Reed.” Johnny called, the fantastic man perking his head up, likely a bit caught off guard.

“Ah- Uh, yeah?” Reed responded. Johnny clenched his jaw, never breaking eye contact with his sister.

“What’s our ETA?” Johnny asked. Reed twisted his head around to glance at Ben at the flight control board before turning around to answer the teen.

“About 50 minutes? We’re about to break into the thermosphere.”

Johnny kept his gaze on his stern looking older sister, who had her arms crossed.

“I’ll have my smile on.” He said turning and continuing up the tight stairwell to the ship’s small sleep chambers. He was no longer looking, but just from the huff he heard Sue let out after he turned, he just knew she was rubbing her temples in frustration now.

Johnny shut himself into his quarters, curled up on his bed, and scrolled mindlessly through his Twitter feed. He liked and retweeted some fanart and edits of himself, neither of whichs existence he can honestly say he’s used to yet. After 10 minutes of doom-scrolling and replying to fans he switched over to Instagram. He definitely prefers it to Twitter as a platform, but ever since the Fantastic Four joined Captain Marvel in the stars, Johnny feels a twinge of guilt and a healthy dose of FOMO when he sees all the new pictures his friends have posted. Swiping through stories he wasn’t a part of, thinking about all the jokes he won’t get because “you just had to be there”.

The blonde is perusing his search feed when he sees something from the Daily Bugle of all places. It’s some old, New York news place that reports on superhero activity in the city- among other things. Johnny has seen posts of theirs pop up on his various feeds before, he can only assume that happened initially because of himself being a superhero, so the all-seeing-algorithm suggested it to him. That was just at first though.

He clicks on the video and is met with obscenely blurry footage of a certain red and blue clad, arachnid themed superhero seemingly directing the busy New York sidewalk underneath where he was perched on a lamppost. Johnny’s ears were then nearly blown out by the screaming of the loud ass reporter giving “context” to the footage. With the volume now turned down, Johnny watched as the video cut to show Spider-Man leaping atop other lampposts and signs, anything he could reasonably balance on- which seemed to be most things- before transitioning to the same old mustachioed geezer who always reports on Spider-Man’s every move. A part of Johnny wanted to open the comments but he knew that’d just end up pissing him off.

Johnny Storm may or may not have been a secret Spider-Man fan.

He hadn’t actually heard about the hero until after he and his family got their powers a few years ago. He learned about him from his brief meeting with Captain America and Black Widow, he had apparently been one of the many victims of the blip but had helped the Avengers in their initial fight against Thanos. Johnny later googled him and found old videos and news reports about him, some just calling him a mysterious new vigilante, others calling him a masked menace. Despite his sister’s first impression of Spider-Man also being that he was trusted by the Avengers, Sue seemed to buy into the mistrust surrounding him, and told Johnny to look to other, more public heroes as inspiration.

After Spider-Man was brought back alongside everyone else, it seems like the second he got back to hero work the public’s ire for him shot up tenfold, but Johnny just didn’t understand any of it. He knew from Carol that Spider-Man helped the Avengers take down Thanos and save the universe, yet both Sue and the world considered him a problem.

Sue says it’s the fact that he hides his identity from the public, claiming that he shouldn’t expect anyone to trust him if can’t trust anyone himself. Johnny thinks that’s bull though; as fully on board with Sue and Reed’s idea to be celebrity superheroes- which he most certainly was- in moments like now when he sees his friends partying and having fun, just acting like normal teenagers, Johnny wishes the Four had never gone public with their identities.

If they hadn’t, he wouldn’t have to worry so damn much about every little step he takes or decision he makes, because everything he does reflects back on the image of his team. The teen knows that realistically, he’d probably still get yelled at by his sister for all the shit he pulls, but whenever he gets yelled at now it’s all “Think of the brand!” and not “What if you got hurt?”.

Johnny decides to scroll some through the Spider-Man tag, trying to live vicariously through the other hero’s life choices. He can tell when the Marvel-II starts to grumble and lurch that he’s successfully wasted all of his time and they’re nearing their base. He makes his way back down to the bridge, letting out annoyed mumbles whenever the ship jerks and makes him stumble.

“Johnny, buckle in.” The blonde hears his brother-in-law yell as he reaches the landing and jogs over to the nearest chair. Johnny fastens himself in as the Marvel-II officially begins its descent. The Richards Research Lab building coming into view amongst the rest of Central City. He can already make out the sight of a crowd of people waiting outside of the building.

Ben carefully pilots the ship down onto the landing zone behind the Lab. As Johnny stands back up his body does feel the briefest bit of vertigo, but he’s otherwise fine. God bless super scientists and their post-modern technology.

Johnny immediately notices a few large trucks, workers actively loading things into them, though it seems most of the stuff being carried out right now are just boxes and containers. All of the big machines, lab equipment, and volatile or delicate materials are probably on their way to NYC- or already there.

The usually bustling and busy Richards Labs was now hollowed out. There were some stacks of boxes and containers and a few benches that Johnny guessed weren’t worth taking still scattered throughout the halls, but the sheer lack of presence made the white walls look even barer and the ceilings even higher. Some nepo-baby with an architecture degree was going to have a field day with this place- if it doesn’t become an airport or a government building or something first.

At this point it looked like all of the researchers, scientists, and mathematicians and whatever that Reed and Sue typically have running back and forth have already been relieved of their duties, only the movers occupying the space right now. If he didn’t already know for sure that the Fantastic Four’s move was for real, seeing the lab so abandoned definitely sunk it all in.

This was all actually fucking happening.

As the Fantastic Four approached the front lobby, they were met with the loud noise of people waiting for them outside, and their usual retinue waiting to greet them by the receptionist’s desk.

“Well, if it isn’t the people who own this whole damn building. Just had to leave all the moving to us normies while you partied with tiny green men?” Remarked the voice of Alyssa Moy, the team’s manager, as she swished her wavy black hair and strut her way over to the group; and Johnny’s teen boy brain would be remiss not to pay at least a little mind to the bounce in her step. From her perpetually flawless skin to the high end fashion sense, she could easily pass for a model- or whatever the Kardashians are- but Reed first met her during his gauntlet of attaining 18 doctorates, so she can certainly slum it with the big wigs. And she got Johnny hooked on this startup skincare company called KaleKare that keeps his face as perfect as it was designed to be, so she stands fairly high in his graces.

“Oh, you personally helped move things out, Lys?” The Thing asked sardonically.

“Well I stood at a safe distance and ordered people to move things, just as important i’d say.” Alyssa responded in kind. She pulled Sue into a friendly hug only to recoil before the Invisible Woman could fully reciprocate. “Eugh- god, you all smell like burnt meat and sulfur, do you not have a shower on that thing? Okay, the rest of you just imagine I hugged you.” She said, unfolding her sunglasses and putting them on.

“Don’t worry, the love you feel for us is palpable.” Sue responded dryly.

“I’m not sure how we managed for so long without you.” Reed added. Alyssa snorted as she turned to lead the group outside.

“You can take turns praising my managerial skills later, you’re ten minutes late for the thirty minute announcement press conference.” Alyssa revealed, the eyes of all of the Fantastic Four going wide bar Johnny, who didn’t particularly care.

“We’re what?! Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Sue asked, a bit panicked.

“It’s not my damn conference, I only scheduled it. I’ll say you had intergalactic jet-lag.” Alyssa said with a huff, throwing her hands up. Sue, Reed, and Ben rolled their eyes nearly in sync and fastened their pace to match Alyssa’s power walk. Just outside the building awaited them their security detail, most already at their stations aside from a small few led by the Four’s main bodyguard, Officer Stuart, a dark skinned Scottish woman, who greets them. Johnny stares across the overwhelming crowd of people ahead of them. Loud reporters with big microphones and their pushy photographers up front, reticent journalists behind them, and a full armada of fans decked out in merch and holding up signs- Johnny spies at least two individuals holding up large boards with an image of his washboard abs encircled by glittery hearts and emoji stickers.

The Human Torch brightens his face with a warm smile the second he’s in direct view of the people. Waving, blowing flaming kisses to the diehard fans screaming at him, nodding and physically reacting whenever he should once Sue and Reed start their speech, all the things he knows to do to give the appearance that he wants to be there. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t do his damnedest to tune out the actual announcement from his family, not wanting it to jeopardize his sunny visage. Johnny just kept smiling and waited for the sweet release of his bed.

*

Johnny wishes he could say that the car ride back to the house was silent, but it wasn’t.

Reed received like three different calls, two from the moving company asking for additional clarifications about where he and Sue’s lab equipment is going, and one from a Doctor Hank Pym who asked about collaborating on some research- something that sounded like wrestlemania but stupid.

Then Sue got a call from Pepper Potts, current acting CEO of Stark Industries, who wanted to welcome back the team herself and talked about scheduling for some event she and Sue had begun planning together. Johnny was still too pissed, and tired, to pay that much attention to any of these conversations, but his interest had been piqued when he heard Mrs. Potts mention something about “Wilson being able to attend after all”. Not wanting to incur his sister’s wrath for interrupting her, he held off asking about the phone call until it was over.

“Well that’s pretty much everyone now, barring Bucky Barnes, but I had a feeling he wasn’t gonna show no matter what.” Sue said, smiling at her husband who was driving.

“What is this?” Johnny asked from where he was being uncomfortably pressed against the window by Ben in the backseat.

“Oh, um, do you remember Pepper Potts?” Sue asked, leaning to look behind her. She continued once Johnny nodded: “Well, since we’ll be working with the remaining Avengers and their associates we thought it might be a nice idea to have a little get together. Nothing too major, just invite them all over to our new HQ- have some drinks, food, that stuff. And before you ask, no, you don’t have to show if you don’t want to. I know we’ve just asked a lot of you with everything else so you can go out or just hide in your room if you want. Though I would really appreciate it if you did grace us with your ever enthusiastic presence.”

Johnny mulled the idea over in his head. As critically opposed to the whole idea of this move as he was, the only mildly intriguing aspect of it was the prospect of meeting the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Despite technically being one of those heroes now, he was still just a normal kid before that. He had action figures and comic books of Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, all those guys. Even Johnny’s broodiest of moods couldn’t quell the little kid in him, giddy at the idea of meeting any single one of the Avengers.

He had very briefly met both Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff when Carol had first brought the soon-to-be Fantastic Four back from nearly dying in space. The last thing Johnny could remember was Ben and his sister being gone, Reed looking like he got put through one of those Play-Doh spaghetti makers, and his own body engulfed in flame. The next thing was waking up in what looked like a high tech hospital room, with his sister, Reed, a big rocky thing, and Captain Motherfucking America watching over him. Needless to say his heart monitor started wilding as did his whole body.

A part of him felt embarrassed by the embers of excitement sparking up in his mind, another part liked that it almost made him feel like a little kid again.

“Sounds cool, I'll be there- I guess.” Johnny mumbled, his emotions still conflicted enough to not let his tone be too clear. His sister beamed at him regardless.

“Great! It won’t be until next week anyways, but you can help prep things day of.” Sue’s words almost immediately made Johnny regret agreeing.

The Fantastic Four arrived at their private estate, in all of its Mid-Century Modern glory. Johnny lingered in the van as the other three stepped out, staring at the place that had been his home for the past 7 years for what might be the last time. Well, maybe more like the second or third to last time.

“Kid! Come on!” Ben shouted, halfway to the front door.

“Yeah, yeah!” The teen called back. Johnny wasn’t sure if it was just his body having a bit of a delayed reaction to being back in this atmosphere, or if the fact that his actual bed is so close has made all of the alien beatings he took the past six months catch up to him. The beds on the Marvel-II really were not the greatest.

The blonde pout-walked his way to the front door just in time for Reed to unlock it.

Sure being back on earth felt great, but the feeling of walking back into your house after being away for so long was simply euphoric. Johnny took a deep breath in, appreciating the space. Ahead of him, Sue plopped herself down onto the couch with a loud groan.

“Aw fuck it is good to be back!” Ben said while loudly yawning. Sue made a noise of agreement from where she crashed on the couch.

“God, what time do we have to get up in the morning?” Sue asked aloud. Reed finished shucking his boots off and racked his brain for a moment.

“Uh, 11am if I recall?” Sue groaned in annoyance.

“That’s still too early.” She complained. Johnny snorted from the kitchen where he was grabbing a water from
The fridge.

“Says the one who decided that. We could sleep all day if you weren’t a total psycho.” He sneered, taking a swig from his water bottle. Sue pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a deep breath.

“Okay, I need to get this suit off and take a shower before I’m compelled to strangle you to death.” She stood up and faced her younger brother. “To death.” She repeated, holding out her hands to make a strangling motion for emphasis. Johnny just rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as his sister made her way up the stairs. Reed picked his backpack up and offered a sympathetic look to Johnny.

“Look… I’m not gonna wag my finger at you and tell you to just suck it up. You’re allowed to be upset by this decision- for what it’s worth I wasn’t 100% on board with the idea of not telling you until the last minute but,” Reed motioned up the stairs, “where she goes, so goes my nation.“

Johnny just looked away after his words, thinking on them. Did Reed really just tell on himself for being a spineless simp?

“Go take a cold shower or something, maybe it’ll help you cool off a bit.” Reed said, clapping Johnny on the shoulder supportively. Johnny nodded silently and started up the stairs ahead of his brother-in-law.

Fighting the urge to not just immediately jump in his bed and contaminate it with space stink, Johnny walked tiredly to his bathroom and peeled off his FF suit.

All things considered, the shower did do a good job at relaxing all the muscles in his body. Did fuck all for his emotional state though. Johnny pulled on an old graphic tee, some basketball shorts, and socks, and flopped down onto his bed dramatically.

“Oh how I missed you…” he muttered into his comforter. He laid face down for a few minutes before getting a ping on his phone. He rolled onto his side and checked it to see a notification from his friend’s groupchat. He held the notification down to see the full message; it was from his friend Doris, she @‘d him with a link to an article about the press conference earlier with a number of question marks after it. Johnny’s face crinkled in annoyance as he swiped the message and unlocked his phone to the chat. Other messages were already being sent before he could respond himself.

@kenkenken: Bro wtf

@kenkenken: Wtf

@kenkenken: Wtf

@kenkenken: Wtf

@darladeary_2007: huh???????

@darladeary_2007: is that real?

@dorrie.evans: Sure fucking is.

@dorrie.evans: @therealjohnnystorm explain yourself

Johnny winced, not entirely sure of how to deal with this right now. So he won’t.

@therealjohnnystorm: fyi I didn’t know until this morning.

@therealjohnnystorm: i’ll tell y’all about it in person tomorrow.

@darladeary_2007: wah???

@dorrie.evans: So help me jesus christ Jonathan if you mute this fucking chat

Johnny would not know what Dorrie would threaten him with as he already had the chat muted and his phone clicked off before she could continue.

This whole situation was a load of bull.

Johnny was being torn away from his friends and home just because the superhero capital of the frickin’ world lost a few of its ranks and a global catastrophe happened. Big whoop. Johnny’s life already dramatically changed three times in the past five years: the first blip took a few of his good friends who then didn’t want anything to do with him after they came back, then he and his whole family got evaporated by cosmic nonsense that gave him superpowers he both didn’t ask for and can still barely control, and then he got dragged into space again for half a year.

Even the warm feeling of being back in his own bed after so long couldn’t extinguish the rage he felt building up and searing his bones.

Johnny pushed himself up from his bed, fists clenched, and stormed- no pun intended- into his sister and Reed’s room. He threw the door open, startling Sue who was standing over an open suitcase on her bed, now dressed in a silky, light pink pajama set.

“Okay, I tried my best to keep it all in today but what the actual fuck?” Johnny shouted.

“Excuse me?” Sue questioned with her eyebrows raised. Johnny could hear the shower was running, probably Reed. He continued his rant that had undoubtedly been stewing all day.

“It is only just now hitting me that you really are fucking doing this to me.”

“I’m sorry, doing huh to who?” Sue asked incredulously.

“Oh, what else, the public execution you scheduled for me tomorrow- the fucking move, sister!” Johnny yelled, his frustration and anger evident even in his sarcasm. Sue’s head fell back with a sigh.

“Good lord Johnny, I’m sorry okay? But what other option did we have? We tried to bring up the idea to you earlier but you were always a total jerk about it, you didn’t give us much of a choice.” She responded, beginning to match her brother’s energy.

“Oh but you did have a choice though: the choice to just not fucking move! You’re tearing me away from my life here!” Sue scoffed and turned back to her packing.

“I mean, what the hell am I even supposed to do over there?! Visit ye olde timey Plymouth Rock, or-er, go get HIV from stepping on a used needle on Jersey Beach?!” Johnny questioned irately, his hands flapping around frantically for emphasis.

“Oh my god!” Sue yelled, whirling around to again face her petulant little brother.

“Do you want me to run up from the subway station with my rolling suitcases and go ‘Wow! We ain’t got buildings that tall this side of the Mississippi!’” Johnny mocked, using a confused country accent. Sue let out a groan of agonizing frustration as she slammed another folded dress into her vintage designer suitcase.

“God, why are you so perturbed by this? Isn’t it most people’s dream to move to New York?” Sue questioned. Johnny scoffed.

“Yeah, old people and people who watched Glee. Both of which happen to be you!” He countered with a point, making Sue gasp and clutch her nonexistent pearls. “Visit New York? Sure, whatever, that could be a fun trip. But move?! What about all my friends? The parties?! Think of the parties Sue! You haven’t thought of the parties! Central City is so close to LA and what are you doing if you aren’t in LA right now as an influencer?” Sue was utterly bewildered at this point, her hands held up in front of her in shock.

“Are you seriously using the parties I tell you not to go to that you sneak out to and get drunk and start fights at- which we then have to do damage control for- as a reason why you need to stay here?!” Sue’s face was getting red at this point. “And what do you mean ‘What about all my friends’, you have 5 different social media accounts that i’m aware of. If you can’t figure out a way to keep in contact with them, that is the fault of no one but your own incompetence.” Johnny let out a sound of frustration, embers crackling on his head as he whips around to pace angrily. Sue continues, “Ooh, and what about the whacky notion of: just make new friends!”

“It’s not fair!” Johnny spat out.

“What’s not fair? Literally, what about any of the past 2 years has not been fair for you? Quickly.” Sue said sternly. Johnny stopped pacing, turned away from his sister with his jaw clenched, silent. “The 2 million followers on Instagram who you show off your flashy superpowers to? Your legion of fans all over the world that adore and obsess over your abs? All the useless expensive crap you get given for free just for being well known and doing 10 second dances on the internet?” Johnny’s eyes began to get red as his whole body was shaking with rage at this point. “I don’t know what you think you should be doing, but what you need to be doing is thinking about your responsibility to protect the people. And the people who need you most right now, are in New York. End of discussion.”

Sue began to turn back around to resume her packing but was interrupted by Johnny letting out a garbled yell and kicking a small, red leather ottoman into the wall, his hair fully catching fire. All things considered, if it did leave a dent it’s too subtle to notice.

“Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm!” Sue shouted, “Go to your room!”

Johnny happily obliged her demand, flinging open her door and stomping all the way to his room, where he very maturely slammed the door. Johnny tried to take a second to breath and calm the flame growing on his head but was cut off by a stinging pain in his foot.

“Agh… ow-“ he groaned, hunching against his door with his right foot held up. Johnny hopped over to sit on the edge of his bed and ripped his slipper off, blood staining through his sock. He winced as he pulled the sock off to examine the wound: his middle three toe knuckles busted and bloodied up from kicking the ottoman. Johnny wiggled his toes to make sure it wasn’t broken, and when they moved fine, albeit painfully, he grunted in anger and threw his slipper into his closet.

The flames that were burning on Johnny’s head finally extinguished as he curled into himself and began sobbing quietly.

“It’s not fair… It’s not fair…”

Johnny’s tears nearly distracted him from the sharp pain still pulsating through his foot, but only nearly. He shifts it so that there’s not any pressure being put on it, more garbled cries escaping his lips. Johnny holds his head in his hand while starting some deep breaths, trying to calm himself enough to go bandage his foot and take some ibuprofen. Long, slow breaths that are at first shaky and pained, but gradually become more steady and clear.

After allowing out a few more sniffles, Johnny slowly rises, making sure to step carefully, and limps to his bathroom using his dresser and the wall as support when necessary.

Once inside he hops all the way to the edge of his bathtub and drops himself back down on it. Blessing the long limbs he grew naturally, unlike certain other people, and rummages through the counter drawers under his sink where he eventually grasps some gauze and a hand rag. Johnny spins himself around and carefully places his injured foot in the tub. He turns the water on only slightly, wincing as the cold water washes over the wound before shutting it off. Johnny presses the rag to the wound, dabbing at it a bit, and then wraps his foot snugly with the gauze. He rubs his eyes and groans tiredly.

Johnny never really had a say in all this.

Reed said at the press conference that the team discussed amongst themselves and all came to the conclusion of moving to New York City. But what he actually meant was Reed, Sue, and Ben had discussions about moving to New York City. Johnny remembers them floating the idea to him right after the Avengers defeated Thanos’ armies and Captain Marvel called to update them. He didn’t really take them all too seriously and even laughed at the idea once or twice.

Now his whole life is being upended and he has no say in it. Again.

Before he can even really stop himself, Johnny feels his hair start to crackle again as gets upset. He stands up, not noticing that when he limped in he must have made the bath mat slide a bit and bunch up, and trips on it. Johnny’s fast reflexes allow him to catch himself, but not before awkwardly twisting his injured foot, a shot of pain striking through it. Johnny grunts at the pain, his anger once again only worsening.

In a moment of impulse, Johnny’s fist and forearm ignite in searing flame as he punches down onto the bathroom‘s marble countertop, a cracking noise at the impact.

The flames gone in a flash, Johnny rears back in pain clutching his fist, and checks the countertop fearing damage, only to see some minor scorching and some smudged blood from Johnny’s now bleeding hand. He releases a quiet yet pained cry as he stares in shame at his crimson knuckles. Johnny’s eyes well up with tears and he slides down to the floor into another fit of tears- this time, not near as quiet. His eyes are puffy and red and stinging.

Johnny chokes out garbled sobs, coughing out sniffles. He feels like a child- a dumb, child.

Once he’s composed enough to stand Johnny washes his hand and wraps it like he did his foot, content to just let Sue, Reed, and Ben assume he snuck out and got into a fight, just like every other time. Johnny looks into the mirror at his unkempt hair, bloodshot eyes, and tear stained cheeks and swallows painfully. He pulls off the shirt he was wearing and shucks off the other slipper and sock he had forgotten was still on, returning to his bedroom to crumple into his bed, hoping his comforter would do what it was named for.

It may have just been the plush embrace of his blanket or the sobering nature of staring blankly at your bedroom ceiling in the dark, but Johnny was beginning to come to terms with his fate. Not passively of course, he didn’t have that in him. If Sue saw Johnny as just a spoiled, bratty jackass, he was going to be a spoiled, bratty jackass.

What was that old saying? When life gives you lemons?

Johnny was going to make some fucking sour ass lemonade.

Chapter Text

“You kicked her ottoman into the wall?!” Doris Evans yelled incredulously, standing up and leaning forward in her chair. Johnny winced at her outburst.

“Okay shit, yeah, it wasn’t my best moment…” He said nervously while taking a sip of his diet coke.

Johnny had woken himself up early so he could meet with his friends. Currently he was sitting at a table outside of a Panera, he had thought a nice, neutral, public location would be the best place to talk with them about this. Dorrie was less likely to flay him alive with innocent bystanders around, and food is always a good way to soften the blow of bad news. Though in hindsight, the Human Torch should’ve left out a few details, as he now realizes.

Dorrie sat back down with her arms crossed, her auburn curls bouncing. “I love you babe, and I fully sympathize with the frustration over the move, but that’s just borderline drywall punching territory,” She said, shaking her head and cringing slightly, “nobody needs all that!” Johnny rolled his eyes and chewed on the inside of his lip.

Darla piped up from her mac n’ cheese: “Um, I know you said before that you would rather walk into a gas station with your flames on then go to counseling, but maybe now would like, be a good time or something?” She offered cautiously, tucking a strand of her shoulder length pink hair behind her ear. Johnny groaned loudly, head fallen back with his eyes squinted shut and all.

“Ugh, I don’t need that shit. I know it works for some people, but I am not some people.” Johnny answered, gesticulating frustratedly. “I handle my shit just fucking fine. And I have you assholes whenever I do need help, at least whenever you aren’t trying to shirk best friend responsibilities onto some under qualified internet shrink- no, i’m still not over that!” he whisper-yelled. Kenny, having just sat in silence, eating his sandwich this entire time, cringed at that pull, Dorrie throwing up her hands in defeat.

“Boys will literally do anything but go to therapy.” She said dryly.

“They weren’t a licensed therapist!” Johnny clapped back.

“Okay, okay…” Darla began, holding their hands out to motion for everyone to calm down. “We all love Johnny and want him to be the best that he can be, all the time every day… but maybe we table that for when it isn’t the last time we’ll see him in person for who knows how long?” There was rarely ever a time where Johnny was not fully willing to keep arguing with someone, but Darla and their big dough eyes were convincing. He didn’t want the last memory of him and his friends together in California to be a bad one. Dorrie huffed from across the table.

“I concede. For now. Do you have anything in mind?” She asks. Johnny stares at her blankly.

“… In mind for what-“

“Oh my god, Johnny, for us to do together!” Dorrie yelled, exasperated. She somewhat frantically opened her purse to find her strawberry lip balm to apply, something she does when she’s stressed.

“Oh, I- uh…” Johnny tried to think of something but kept drawing a blank. He, Dorrie, Darla, and Kenny mostly just partied these days, or went out to eat, and they’re already doing that now. It was so early, he really had just wanted to see them all in person and didn’t think much else of it. He grew frustrated with himself and felt the urge to kick something again, but considering Dorrie’s concern for the poor ottoman, he opted to just lay his head in his hands and sigh. “God I’m a dumbass…”

“No, you’re not.” Kenny said, reaching out a hand to Johnny’s shoulder in comfort.

“You’re just overwhelmed buddy, we get it.” Darla assured with a smile.

“You’re a little dumb.” Dorrie said while looking at her nails, Darla whipping her head around.

“Dorrie!” The pink haired starlet yelped, and made a fast zipping motion over her mouth. Johnny pulled his head up to glare half lidded at his friends, but more pointedly at Dorrie. She met his gaze and sighed.

“Alright- it’s basic, but why don’t we just visit all of your favorite places? You said the others aren’t even waking up until what, 11?” Dorrie offered, continuing once Johnny nodded to confirm the time. “That gives us like 3 hours- 4 if we hurry- so it’ll have to be a top five but, I’m down to try.” Darla beamed and clapped their hands together excitedly.

”Oh, that sounds great! Whaddya think?” She asked Johnny. He interlaced his fingers and stared intently at the crumpled napkins and empty wrappers from their breakfast. Central City was his whole damn life. He had no idea where to even start on his list of favorite places, or how many of them were even cool and not just favorites for sentimental reasons. He did however, not have any sort of better idea.

“Yeah. Let’s do it.” He said, not appreciating the way his voice broke slightly.

The group made action to head out, Johnny collecting all of their food debris and tossing it out. While Darla was hurriedly using the bathroom, Johnny saw Kenny make a face out of the corner of his eye and start rummaging through his coat. Kenny yanked out a flattened black baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses.

“Ahh.” Johnny acknowledged. Kenny handed him the sunglasses which he dutifully put on, and then popped the baseball cap back into shape and placed it on Johnny’s head, yanking it further down to a snug fit. Kenny’s hands returned to his pockets, a fond grin on his face which Johnny returned. Darla finally returned from the Panera bathroom, now adorned with sunglasses of their own and their short hair tied up.

“Aw, totally inconspicuous sunglasses man!” She cooed, beaming at Johnny. Dorrie also put a pair on while scrolling on her phone.

“C’mon you dorks.” Dorrie ordered, waving the others to follow. Darla cheerfully skipped along after her, Kenny waiting for Johnny to go on before him so he could hold up the rear.

Johnny was gonna miss these guys.

————————————————————————

Peter would just have to beg for Aunt May’s forgiveness later, because an eight foot tall, bipedal, mechanical rhinoceros was currently barreling down Church Street.

He had gone to sleep at about 10 after Ned had confirmed he made it back home safely, and was jerked awake the next morning by the bass-boosted remix of the Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated jingle he had set as Yuri Watanabe’s ringtone. Following the news of the Fantastic Four coming to New York, Peter had been on a bit of an emotional high that actually made him consider taking a break the next day. Any hope of that was dispelled upon registering the ringtone.

As such, Peter now found himself swinging in circles around the rejected Power Rangers zord that had been flipping cars and ramming into storefronts, trying to keep it centered in the street and away from any residential buildings while Karen ran her scans. He had shot a few cursory electro webs at the robo-beast yet it seemed to have little effect. I guess it’s well insulated.

“You know guy,” Spider-Man shouted, deftly swinging out of the way of the beast’s swings, “all that smoke you’re puffing and how much red you’re seeing? A bull mecha probably would’ve been a better fit!” When the metal monster stumbled into a parked car, its slow yet frantic swipings at the small red and blue bug pestering it nearly caused it to topple over. Oh, but that would be far too easy… Peter thought as the hulking machine then gripped the roof of the car with one hand, partially crushing it, and then chucked it like a baseball at Spider-Man with a loud roar. “Oh shit!”

Spider-Man yanked himself upwards on his web to dodge the car. “Shit, shit-“ Peter yelled in a panic, landing atop the careening car, spinning midair straight towards the Domino’s on the other side of the road.

Peter zipped himself ahead of where the car was flying and shot out support webs from either hand, and kicked downwards with all his strength, knocking the crumpled vehicle back down to the road where it bounced on impact. Spider-Man landed out of a back flip onto the top of another parked car, now noticing the Rhino was not quite exactly where he left him. With as big and loud as the thing is, it wasn’t hard to see that it had continued its rampage about 2 miles down the street. Okay how the hell did you get that far?

“Scanning complete,” Peter suddenly heard inside his mask as a lept to swing after the baddie, “your initial assumption was correct: the unidentified mechanical object is in fact some manner of suit being controlled by a roughly 6 foot tall human male.” Karen stated flatly.

“Hah! I knew it. I really should trust my instincts more…” Peter thought aloud, swinging in an arc around the front of the giant mecha Rhino, distracting the big lug before he could ram through the police blockade he was nearing. “Stop running would ya?” He called out, “We were having such a nice conversation!” Spidey remarked as he zipped himself just past the Rhino’s horns right as the villain was attempting to throw a punch, webbing up the fist and letting his momentum pull it right into the bastard’s own face. The impact was heavy, the sound of metals bashing against each other as the Rhino laid himself out- right onto a newspaper stand. No one reads those anyways.

Peter jumped onto the Rhino, which was currently flailing its arms and legs, pistons and hydraulic components trying desperately to get itself back on its feet. “Now you look like a turtle!” Spider-Man mocked.

“The suit is covered in tungsten plating,” That would explain all the nothing my electro webs did, “but my scans pinpointed latches which indicate the stomach can open up, that appears to be where the pilot is located.” Karen finished. Peter crawled down to the beast’s metallic belly and jokingly knocked three times.

“Pizza delivery!” Clicking and sliding noises rang out from beneath the stomach plating as it swung open, Peter’s tingle notifying him to hop off just before. “Wow, that actually worked?” Spidey quipped, dodging a punch from the dude inside the Rhino.

“Странный жук!” The guy yelled, attempting to pull himself out of the suit’s cockpit (bellypit?), but was halted by his hands being webbed up. He was remarkably beefy, had a scarred up face and gray buzzcut, and was decked out in what looked like military grade body armor. His wild eyes and flared nostrils made him look like a wild animal. Befitting of his chosen mechsuit I suppose, Peter thought.

“You know, no offense man, but I really don’t think you made this thing yourself-“ Spider-Man questioned, patting the suit, before the russian man growled and ripped one arm free and swung at Spidey. The hero dodged the strike but wasn’t as lucky with the next, the big guy’s other hand tearing free and uppercutting the wallcrawler.

Screaming curses in Russian, the man grabbed Peter’s ankle and yanked him off his feet, tossing him off the Rhino suit. Spider-Man managed to turn himself midair and landed on the road in a recovery roll. The man hopped down from the machine and stomped like an angry beast towards the teenage hero. Peter rose to a crouch and quickly studied the man now charging towards him. He held out his wrist and made some speedy adjustments, before standing up and leaping over and out of the way of the raging man’s attack, and firing a single electro web at his back, all in one swift motion.

The man seized in place and fell to the ground as electricity briefly danced across his body. He convulsed a bit more before going unconscious- Peter had lowered the voltage on the webs enough last minute to not cause any serious damage.

“Probably shouldn’t have left the safety of the tungsten plating my guy.” Spider-Man remarked.

“All clear, all clear!” Peter heard one of the swat team shout from where they were stationed in front of the police officers at the blockade. The boys in blue began moving forward towards the Rhino and its unconscious pilot, signalling Spider-Man to make his swift exit. His eyes danced across the encroaching forces and landed on the familiar face of one Lieutenant Yuri Watanabe, his woman on the inside, her short black hair tied back into a ponytail and a perpetually stern look on her face. Spider-Man met her not long after he returned to his work after the blip. He had saved her squad from the Shocker who had somehow managed to break himself out of Rykers during the blip. She met with him one on one and offered to form a secret partnership: give Peter intel that only the police have access to, and alert him directly whenever the cops are about to get themselves into a situation they won’t be able to get out of on their own.

Peter holds little to no love for the NYPD, but he couldn’t deny the help that Yuri could give; as much as Peter loves having Ned as his guy in the chair, and has full faith in his abilities, it would certainly be safer for his sake if they no longer had to hack into Police databases when necessary.

He saw Yuri catch his gaze and offered her a small salute before swinging off into the city.

About ten minutes later, Peter had plopped himself onto the railing of a fire escape he had hidden his backpack on when the ever mind-numbing ringtone of Yuri Watanabe started blowing his eardrums out from inside of it.

“Ough, god- okay, I really need to change that to something less ear bleed-y.” Peter cringed, grabbing his phone out and accepting the call. “More trouble?”

“Potentially,” answered Yuri, “I’m guessing you figured the same thing after dealing with this… meathead… for more than a minute, yeah?” Peter let out something halfway between a sigh and a laugh and responded.

“Yup, he 100% got that suit from some other party. Never seen anything like it though, aside maybe from Iron Man’s Hulkbuster suit .” Yuri clicked her tongue on the other end of the call.

“Dammit… First people mass distribute refurbished Chitari weapons on the black market, now we may have someone creating giant walking tanks. We’re lucky this guy wasn’t the brightest, but this doesn’t bode well. With the quality of that thing, I doubt it’s a one-time passion project.” Yuri said. Peter’s eyes narrowed at the idea of suits like these, bordering on the level of Stark tech, being put in the hands of actually competent criminals. Now that I think about it… it really was similar to what I’ve seen of the Hulkbuster, huh? Peter considered, a chill going down his spine at the thought of this potentially having been made using stolen Stark tech. Pepper or Happy or, hell, even FRIDAY would’ve told him if anything had happened… right?

“I’m gonna make some calls and see if I can glean anything.” Peter stated.

“Alright. I’ll do the same on my end.” Yuri assured. They shared a goodbye and ended the call. Peter turned his phone over in his hands, staring at it. He hadn’t spoken with Pepper since school started back up two weeks ago, and hadn’t seen her in person since…

Peter slipped on his backpack and swung out into the city, he wanted to find somewhere private to make the call.

“Peter?” The teen in question heard a familiar voice ask from the communicator in his mask.

“Ned?”

“Dude, I thought you said you weren’t going to go out today?” Peter’s face scrunched with a twinge of shame.

“Okay, yeah- in my defense: giant mecha rhino destroying the city.” He explained. “But he’s been dealt with, and I haven’t seen any other weird shit or petty crimes or anything happening, so now I can actually start my day off.” Peter then heard Ned make a noise that sounded like it was about to lead into an “about that”. “… Ned?”

“About that….”

“Ughhh-“ Peter groaned, hanging his head back as he changed direction midair to start swing towards where Karen’s GPS systems were now directing him.

“My lola made me wake up crazy early ‘cause she got logged out of the Hulu account and needed me to log her back in so she could keep watching Law and Order-“

“Ned!”

“Right, sorry, um- I saw you were fighting the Rhino- that’s it’s name now, i’ve decided- and I checked the Police scanners and I noticed that a silent alarm went off at some private auction house in Hell’s Kitchen, and like five minutes later an officer called in to say it was just a mistake!” Ned exclaimed, Peter’s confusion visible even through his mask.

“Ah- um, okay? A false silent alarm went off, what’s that gotta do with-“ Ned cut him off.

“Because the police never actually went there! First of all, I checked and there were no squads or officers that would’ve been within five minutes of the auction house to check it out.” Peter still wasn’t getting it, letting go of his webbing to land perched on the corner of a roof.

“The auction house people could’ve called and been like ‘oh, sorry, just a butt dial, oopsy!’” He countered. Peter heard Ned stutter a bit before continuing.

“But that’s the thing- not long after the silent alarm went off, someone called 911 saying they heard gunshots coming from inside the auction house! And after the police went and ‘checked’, the same number called 911 again saying they never saw any cops pull up, and the 911 operator just said that the caller was mistaken and the gunshots were just from a drug deal that was happening near the auction house.” Ned finally finished, sounding pleased with himself for his findings. The synapses in Peter’s brain finally flared up enough for him to piece together his friend’s thought process.

“So you think there was an attack, or something, at this auction house and the police are covering it up?” He asked carefully.

“Yes!” Ned nearly shouted. “Oop, sorry, that was loud- but something feels really off about all that, I really think it’s worth checking out!”

“Ned, I don’t-“

“It’s my tingle!” Ned said excitedly. Peter froze in place.

“I’m… I'm sorry?” Peter asked incredulously.

“My tingle! It’s like your Peter Tingle, my Ned Tingle! My Ned Tingle is telling me some sus shit went down at this auction house.” Peter could vividly picture the unironic stars in his friend’s eyes as he spoke. Cringing so hard it showed through his mask, Peter pushed off the roof into a swing.

“Okay, if I go investigate this will you please never again talk about your tingle- if I weren’t swinging right now I would be on my hands and knees asking this of you Ned.” Peter begged, eliciting a hum of contemplation from Ned.

“Hmmm… I will make no such promises…”

“Oh-jesus-christ- Alright, whatever; to Hell’s Kitchen.”

————————————————————————

Johnny was having a good morning. Bittersweet, but good.

His first stop down memory lane with his friends was visiting an old arcade in downtown Central City that Johnny’s dad would take him to after school every Friday. The superpowered teen was shocked the place was even still open, he hadn’t been since his mom died. A few of the games he remembered had been removed but they miraculously still had Punch-Out!! which was the one he remembered playing the most. The machine was already pretty beat up when he was a kid but it somehow got even older and crustier looking.

He spent most of his time playing it, while the others explored and tested out various different games. Darla kicked both Dorrie and Kenny’s asses at Mario Kart, Dorrie got extremely invested in one of those Dinosaur themed hunting games, and Kenny spent a self proclaimed ‘embarrassing’ amount of time on Skee-Ball. Eventually, Dorrie dragged Johnny off of Punch-Out!! to help her defeat Darla and Kenny in DDR.

When he finally checked the time after surrendering the title of Dancing King to Kenny, Johnny expected to find that they had wasted all of their time here, but was shocked to learn they’d only been there for a little over an hour and a half.

“Maybe this place is just magic!” Darla told him.

Darla begged the group to stop by the Prize counter before they left, since she and Kenny had actually managed to score quite a few tickets from their games.

It wasn’t exactly his most badass moment, and Johnny would rather forget it ever happened, but seeing the prizes on display, Johnny’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull and he squeaked. He squeaked. Among the usual generic, bargain bin kid toys was a bushel of Superhero plushies. The whole Fantastic Four were of course there, barring The Thing, which made sense considering he was popular with young kids; Assorted Avengers including Iron Man, The Hulk, Black Widow, Black Panther, and The Falcon; and then something Johnny had never once before in the wild. As though the universe was giving him an open arms apology for his family’s actions, or even perhaps just a sign of good fortune in his future. Pressed right up against the only remaining Human Torch plush, was a big-headed, squishy Spider-Man.

Darla gasped and scrambled to grab Johnny’s hand and pointed at the plush.

“Ohmygod, Johnny, Johnny!” They exclaimed, frantically hitting Johnny on the arm as though he still hadn’t noticed. He had seen Spider-Man merchandise before, but only ever self made ones online. Considering the hero’s controversial status, he wasn’t something companies were fighting tooth and nail over to capitalize on, unlike the Avengers or the Fantastic Four.

But here one was, sitting right next to a plush of Johnny’s own likeness. Now that he was looking at them, he didn’t recognize the plushies themselves, and he liked to think he paid fairly close attention to all of his team’s officially licensed merch, so these were probably all unlicensed. The closet Spider-Man fanboy inside of Johnny had always wanted to buy something in support of his favorite hero, but Sue always vetoed that.

Johnny was broken out of his Spidey-induced trance by Kenny dumping all of his prize tickets into his hands and clapping him on the back. Uncharacteristically flustered, the flaming teen made his way to the prize counter with Darla.

Needless to say, Johnny Storm walked out of the arcade with a big, doofy grin on his face, hugging his new prized possession close to his chest. Darla had gotten the last Human Torch plush, “something to hug whenever she misses Johnny” she explained, and stuffed its body into her purse so its bigass head would stick out.

The group’s journey next led them to a Go Karts track Johnny and Sue’s parents would bring them to. Sue hated it but it was one of Johnny’s favorite things in the world, and he loved riding with his big sister so she put up with it for him. The memory tugged tight at Johnny’s heart.

Realistically, the four teenagers were probably a little old for it, but they all made the activity more fun than it likely actually was. Dorrie would later clarify that she had no part in the ‘added fun’ after it got them kicked out. Apparently it’s unsafe to play bumper cars with Go Karts.

Johnny was then treated to birthday cake ice cream at the ice cream cart in International Park his mom used to take him to. They all walked and talked through the park, eating their respective frozen treats while making their way to the plaza. There, Kenny and Dorrie waited in line at a food truck to get the group some lunch, while Johnny and Darla got their faces painted at a nearby stand; Johnny being transformed into a rather handsome tiger, and Darla getting a rainbow on one cheek, a cartoon unicorn on their forehead, and a heart with the non-binary flag colors on the other cheek.

By this point in the day, Johnny and Darla had both started to be recognized. Johnny a bit moreso, considering a lot of the people at the park at this hour were families with superhero obsessed kids, but Darla’s status as a rising teen pop sensation did garner a handful of people coming up and asking for pictures.

As Johnny was in the middle of scarfing down the hot dog he instructed to have topped with a lot of everything, his phone started ringing. Dorrie, Darla, and Kenny all turned their heads to his phone. Johnny sighed, picking it up and checking the ID: Susie.

“Ughhh… the fun police are here.” He groaned, setting down his hot dog to go take the call.

“H-“ Sue barely started before Johnny cut her off.

“I woke up early. Packed all my clothes and shit, like everything except for some stuff like the sheets and comforters ‘cause I wasn’t sure what you wanted us to do with those. I’m fine, I just went to hang out with Dorrie, Darla, and Kenny some. We’re at the park right now having lunch.” He spoke, a defensive twinge to his tone. Sue chuckled a bit.

“Okay, I figured. And yeah, i’m going to go through and pack up all of the pillows and blankets we wanna take with us so i’ll just grab your bed things too. We’re leaving most of the furniture aside from a few lamps I wanna take and all of Ben’s specially built stuff. I just wanted to call and ask if you wanted me to save some bacon and eggs for you when you get home, but I guess you were ahead of the game on that front.” She said, Johnny making out the faint sound of something sizzling in a pan. He wasn’t really sure how to respond

“Yeah.” The teen said plainly.

“Y’know, if you wanted to spend the day with your friends, you could’ve just asked. I would be more than willing to make Reed pack your room for you.” Sue said, softness in her voice. Johnny felt a pang in his gut.

“Gee, would've liked to know that before I dragged myself out of bed at 5 in the morning.” He said, with maybe a little too much actual annoyance in his voice.

“Okay, yeah, I deserve that.” Sue said, Johnny finding himself a little shocked she didn’t bite back.

“Who are you and what have you done to my sister?” He asked jokingly, Sue laughing lightly in response.

“Uh huh, so how has your morning been? Been having fun?”

“Yeah it’s been fun.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Darla hop out of her chair suddenly with her phone pressed to her ear and walk off, “I uh, we went to that old arcade- Sherman’s? Spent a while there, got my ass handed to me at DDR. Went Go Karting, got some ice cream, walked around the park, y’know, good stuff.” Johnny shared.

“Well that’s wonderful, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. Our flight isn’t until 6, you can stay out if you want to.” Sue offered. Johnny swayed his hips awkwardly, still not sure how to react to his sister being so accommodating. Where the hell is he supposed to direct all his anger at if she suddenly starts acting all chill?

“Uh, alright. I’ll tell the others.” He replied, Sue humming in return.

“Alright, see you later- love you!”

“Love you.”

Johnny really should be happy that he has more time to spend with his friends than he thought, so he’s not entirely sure why he feels like crap now. He walks back to his friends’ table and sits down, Darla still on her phone in the distance.

“I guess Sue forgot to take her bitch pills this morning, she said I can stay out so long as I get back in time for our flight at 6.” He told Dorrie and Kenny.

“Nice.” Dorrie replied, before tossing a french fry into her mouth.

“What’s up with Darla?” Johnny asked, both Dorrie and Kenny shrugging.

“Their manager called,” Kenny stated, “‘dunno why.” As if on cue, Darla returned to the table, their usually bubbly expression seemingly soured a bit.

“That was Trevor, apparently the Colorado venue for the tour cancelled on us. They’re upset we haven’t publicly announced the tour yet.” Darla explained leaning on the back of her chair.

“Were they, like, not aware of the whole saving-the-announcement-for-the-two-year-anniversary-of-your-first-album thing?” Dorrie asked. Darla sighed and threw her hands in the air.

“Wha-uh yeah! They were! I dunno, I guess they just got impatient. Anyway… Trev wants me up at the studio ASAP so we can look up backup options.” She said solemnly, and gave an apologetic look towards Johnny. “I’m sorry buddy…”

“No, no, you’re fine. Your stuff is important too- I guess.” He replied with a smirk, Darla smiling back warmly. Dorrie rested her head on her hand and looked to the starlet.

“I have a hair appointment at 1 that I should get ready for. I could Uber you home with me and you can head to your studio from there?” Dorrie asked.

“Ooh, that sounds lovely!” Darla said, picking up their things. “Come on boys, we can have a dramatic goodbye at the curbside.”

Johnny and Kenny gathered all of the group’s trash and disposed of it, and then followed the girls out of the park to the sidewalk. As their ride pulled up, Darla wrapped Johnny in a tearful embrace and reminded him to call her when they land and to text everyday. Dorrie’s goodbye was much quicker; no less genuine but she was always a fair bit more guarded with showing her true emotions off to others, even those who she’s close with. Darla waved bye to Johnny from the car’s window as it drove away, leaving the blonde now alone with Kenny Krane, who he turned to.

“I don’t suppose you’re also going to abandon me now?” Johnny asked, Kenny smiling and glancing down at his feet and then back up.

“Nah, not unless you want me to, tiger.” The raven haired boy remarked. Johnny was confused at first until he touched his face and snorted, remembering the face paint.

”Well, that’s comforting at least.” The two stood in a comfortable silence for a spell, watching cars zoom by and people walk up and down the sidewalks, before Kenny turned to Johnny.

“I uh… was gonna ask earlier but wasn’t sure.” He began, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you uh, wanna go visit her before you leave?” Kenny asked quietly. Johnny felt himself tense up.

He was kind of trying to avoid even thinking about that.

He thought to himself some, ran a hand through his hair, and coughed. He really does want to go see her. Really, really bad, but he also knows it’s gonna hurt.

“Yeah… yeah, uh, I think I do.” Johnny finally mustered. “Will you go with me?”

“‘Course man. C’mon.” Kenny answered softly, motioning for the duo to head on down that way. Johnny loves Dorrie and Darla, but he’s thankful that he’s doing this with just Kenny- Kenny’s been his friend the longest out of the group.

He was actually at Kenny’s house when it happened. They were playing Forza Horizon 2 on Kenny’s Xbox when Kenny’s mom came downstairs from her office and called Johnny’s name. He remembers answering nonchalantly only for her to repeat his name until he turned his attention away from the TV to face her. Even at seven years old, Johnny in that instance, just from seeing Mrs. Krane’s face knew that something was wrong. She made Kenny pause the game and go to his room and asked Johnny to sit down on the couch with her for a minute. That whole conversation is seared in aggravating detail into Johnny’s brain; he screamed that she was lying to him and started sobbing uncontrollably almost immediately, flailing his tiny balled up fists at her as she tried to do the unimaginable task of calming a seven year old down after telling them their mom just died.

It only got worse when the door opened a few minutes later to a red-faced teenage Susan, rushing to Johnny with her backpack still on and crumbling to her knees, gripping him into a fierce hug. His dad just stood there like an asshole, no clue what to do.

All those emotions, and all of that pain… They burn brightly everytime Johnny finds himself back here. Standing before his mother’s grave.

He stares at the slate stone from afar, grief burgeoning within him. He’s caught off guard by Kenny placing a comforting hand on the small of his back, the faintest hint of red crawling up Johnny’s neck and to his cheeks that he will explain away as surely just being his nerves.

“You got this man.” Kenny assured him.

Johnny nodded and walked forward, crouching down onto his knees. He can do this.

“Hey mom…”

————————————————————————

So Ned was maybe right.

Peter crawled along the ceiling of the shadowy auction house, surveying the displayed items and scanning for any signs of life. Shockingly, the place was completely empty- not even a security guard or anything from what he could tell. Spider-Man dropped down from the ceiling and crept through the lobby.

The first thing that caught Peter’s eyes was the light from the skylight. The sun was positioned conveniently to cast light far enough that it reached into the lobby, where a few feet away from the front desk was some very faint, strange patterning on the tile floor. Peter walked over and crouched down.

I… I think I know what this is but just to be sure… “Karen, can you scan this… residue on the ground.” He asked.

“Of course, Peter. Please wait a moment.” The AI responded. Only a few seconds passed before her voice returned, “Scanning complete. This appears to be gunpowder. Its spread suggests it was rapid fire, likely from some sort of assault rifle. The direction indicates it was fired into the doors ahead of you.” Karen finished. Peter looked up to roped off the double doors she meant. They were next to the front desk and each door had a sign that read ‘Employees Only’ on them.

So the gunshots were from inside here! Peter thought, but there are no bullet holes on those doors so…

Spider-Man continued forward, carefully moving the red ropes out of the way and opening the doors just enough to slip through. Unfortunate bingo.

It’s only barely visible but there are 4 tiny holes on two of the far corner walls. Even more obvious is a large, square indent on the velvety red carpet indicating something heavy had been moved. Peter first ran up to the corner to investigate the bullet holes, moving the decor blocking the lower portion of the wall to check for left behind bullets but found nothing.

He tore apart the room with his eyes to look for anything that might reveal what was once kept in this backroom, and eventually they landed on a pamphlet for the upcoming auction. Right on the front cover was a large statue with a big square base; even just eyeballing it, it looks like a perfect fit. Peter pulled his phone out and took a picture of the pamphlet cover. He was going to start photographing every page before he realized that a digital copy probably exists somewhere. He spun around in place and had Karen do a quick scan to just again make sure that the place was empty.

“Ned? You still there?” Peter asked, pressing on the side of his mask that housed his communicator. After a few seconds he got a response.

“Yeah?”

“I need you to check if this auction house has a website.”

“On it.” Ned’s keyboard was so loud Peter could hear it through the comm-link. “Yep, it does.”

“Okay, look and see if it has a digital showcase or preview or anything about the current or upcoming auction.” Ned again took no time at all to respond.

“Uhhh, yeah I think so, something about a big showcase of genuine Chinese artifacts, mostly stuff from the Tang Dynasty.” Second bingo, we’re on a roll today.

“Featuring a rare articulated statue of the… Bodhisattva Guanyin?” Ned hummed in agreement from the other end of the call. “Perfect… alright uh-“ Peter swiftly exited the backroom, returning the red ropes back to their place in front of the double doors and now back in the lobby. “I’m gonna connect you to a pc here so you can break in, I’m gonna do a once over of the showroom- at least one of these auction items are missing, that Guanyin statue.” He pulled out a flashdrive from his backpack and stuck it into the computer at the front desk so Ned could get an entry point, before slinking through the rest of the building.

The rest of the merchandise and or display pieces seemed to still all be in their places. Ned was able to find the full catalog and that most of these items including the Bodhisattva statue were apparently shipped straight to here from Shanghai, and only that statue was out of place.

While the auction items looked untouched, not all was normal. Peter quickly noticed once he entered the second showroom, this one featuring a large stage, the strong smell of bleach; and once again, the natural tool of sunlight came in handy. Peter could see not only more barely visible gunpowder residue, but also the light glaring on the tile in a way that made it look like a specific spot had been wiped clean. The red and blue clad teen once again called for Karen’s aid.

“Scanning complete. The angling and direction of the residue spread suggests a single shot aimed downward at the floor.” But no bullet hole was left behind in the tile.

“Shit.” Peter swore quietly. He shuffled backwards and felt something press into the underside of his suit's boot. He lifted his foot to reveal a small wood chip that had been pressed into the carpet. Spider-Man picked it up to inspect further, a speck of bluish-green paint on one side, eliciting a flash of partial recognition in Peter’s mind. He dropped the chip into the smallest zipper pocket on his backpack and jogged into the lobby to retrieve his flash drive.

As quietly as he entered, he left. Crawling back through the vents and swinging home. On the way there he decided to call Yuri.

“Spider-Man? What is it? Do you already have a lead on the Rhino guy?” She asked.

“Not yet, but I may have something else. I heard from a little birdie about a silent alarm from the Lancaster Auction House in Hell’s Kitchen, and a 911 call about gunshots coming from said building, that your little blue friends wrote off as a false alarm suspiciously fast. Checked it out myself and found one big ol‘ missing chinese artifact along with gunpowder residue and the strong scent of bleach wafting into my lungs. Consider this an anonymous tip.” Spider-Man shared.

“Wait, what?” Yuri responded, taken aback. After a moment or two of silence she continued, “I’ll call you back.” She said simply, hanging up the call.

C’mon Yuri, be one of the good ones…

Peter landed atop the roof of his apartment building and crawled down to his window, sliding it open and tossing his backpack in first before awkwardly stumbling in himself.

“Okay, not my best dismount…” he mumbled to himself.

“Peter?” He heard Aunt May call out. Shit.

“I-I’m here!” He answered back, pulling his mask off and running to leave his room, where May stood waiting for him in her usual home attire of a tank top and sweatpants. She looked exasperated. Peter started rambling almost instantly, “Okay, okay, I know you said ten hours but I only got nine; a giant rhinoceros robot was attacking Manhattan, i had to go do something, and the nine hours I got were actually super refreshing- I mean not like super, super refreshing- really just better than what I was getting before which was basically nothing, so it isn’t really saying much really if you think about it but it’s better than nothing, and I swear to you tha-“ May finally held her hand up signaling for Peter to shut it. He tried to squeak out the rest of his statement but she whipped her hand across her mouth; zip it. She took a deep breath before she spoke.

“I get it.” May said. “I get it, I don’t love it, but I get it.” She walked over to her nephew and cupped his face, “You’re a big damn hero. Me telling you to get at least ten hours, as much as it may have sounded like it to your over-dramatic teenage brain, was not an order, but a strong suggestion.” Peter looked down as she let go of his face.

“Y’know, if you had actually had half a non exhausted mind you maybe could’ve used your Peter Tingle to see the big stinking asterisk next to my suggestion that said ‘unless there is a city or worldwide threat occurring, in which case go do what must be done’.” May said, making Peter smile. She walked back into the kitchen to continue pulling out ingredients for whatever she was making. “And I did see the Rhino guy, but he honestly gave off more bull vibes-“ Peter’s eyes went wide and he shot up a finger to Aunt May

“I know right?! And like every time he saw me in my predominantly red suit, he got completely distracted and chased after me. I’m pretty sure his horns were too far back on his head too- and a little crooked!” He exclaimed jovially, May laughing in tune.

“I honestly can’t even judge you much right now, I am way too tired to make any actual food; want a grilled cheese? I’m making myself one.” She said, her voice definitely sounding sleepy.

“Two please, I may or may not have not eaten all day. What with the Rhino making Church Street its china shop.” Peter asked, clasping his hands together, May sending him a wink and a thumbs up. Peter returned to his room and shut the door so he could change into something more comfortable. Grabbing his phone out of his pack, he suddenly remembered the wood chip he found and pulled it out too. Peter opened his desk drawer to find exactly what he was looking for- the painted wooden Yaksha mask he stole off one of those Demon Gang goons he’s been running into. Lo and behold, when holding the wooden chip to the mask, the color of the paint matches exactly. He placed the mask and the chip next to each other on his desk and stared intently at them, trying to figure out what exactly this gang is up to.

One thing’s for sure, Peter thought, they’ve got people on the force covering things up for them.

He first saw these creepy masked gang members only after the Blip. He, Ned, and Yuri were never able to find anything out about where they came from, who they take orders from, or what their overall goal is… only that they were one of many to pop up during the blip, and for the most part they’ve been doing petty drug dealing. Maybe it’s his Peter Tingle signaling him, but he feels like there’s something deeper going on. Just a hunch.

Regardless of whatever this Demon Gang as he’s been calling them are up to, it wasn’t going to stop Peter from enjoying the rest of the day with his aunt- and all of tomorrow. He was going to have a nice, fun, productive, and peaceful day…

Unless of course the world started ending, but that’s included under the asterisk!

————————————————————————

“KID! IT’S TIME TO GO!” Ben hollered, Johnny so used to the man’s booming yet gravelly voice that it no longer startled him, even if unexpected. Although it really wasn’t unexpected either, Johnny was on his phone, he knew what the damn time was.

He was laying on the stripped clean mattress in what was no longer going to be his bedroom, partaking in his favorite pastime of mindlessly scrolling through social media while listening to Spotify. He swapped over to Instagram and opened his friend’s groupchat.

@therealjohnnystorm: The nightmare begins

@therealjohnnystorm: See you all in hell

@kenkenken: you’ll be arlight man

@darladeary_2007: don’t be so dramatic!!!

@darladeary_2007: love you!!!

@dorrie.evans: You say that like your life isn’t already a nightmare.

@kenkenken: *arlighy

@kenkenken: *arlighy

@therealjohnnystorm: @dorrie.evans fuck you

@therealjohnnystorm: Also good job Kenny, you’re almost there buddy

@kenkenken: *aarlight

@dorrie.evans: @therealjohnnystorm Love you too bbygrl

@dorrie.evans: @kenkenken Jesus fucking christ.

@kenkenken: *alright

@therealjohnnystorm: @kenkenken i’m gonna miss you most of all my sweet boy

@kenkenken: awww

@dorrie.evans: (Low quality image of Terri Joe squinting knowingly at a blatant homasecksha)

“That’s enough of that.” Johnny said aloud, shutting off his phone, his cheeks tinted pink.

“JOHNNY!!” Ben yelled once again, this time actually hurting Johnny’s ears a bit.

“COMING! Jesus…” He answered, sitting up and running downstairs, where his family and luggage awaited. They had way too much shit to fit into one car plus a Thing, so Reed had gone and borrowed one of the company vans for extra space, as well as phoning Alyssa to bring her car. Reed ruffled his hair once he joined the group and his sister smiled at him.

“Everyone ready?” She asked, more pointedly at Johnny.

“Yup” Johnny replied, popping the p.

“You betcha Suzie Q.” Ben answered with an uncomfortably audible wink. Reed just nodded and snuck a stretchy arm around his wife’s waist.

“Perfect!” Sue said energetically, turning to exit the house only to spin back to face her family in an instant. “Oop- I almost forgot,” she stuck a hand in her pocket and fished out her car keys. She rested her purse on top of her suitcase and unhooked what Johnny recognized as his sister’s house key. “We won’t be needing these anymore. Ben? Johnny?” The boys in question fished out their own house keys, Johnny having to also unhook his while Ben’s was loose. Ben placed his in Sue’s open hand; Johnny tried to do the same but bumped into Sue’s hand as she was moving towards his own. He looked up at her confused.

“You should do the honors little brother.” She said dropping the two keys into his hand. It took him a second, but It clicked.

“Oh, uh, right- hang on.” He stuttered, squeezing past his sister and opening the front door, the cool breeze of twilight sweeping through his blonde curls. He turned to face his Sue, Reed, and Ben, and stared somberly at the keys to a time that’d soon no longer exist, and ignited his palm.

The fire was burning so hot it would’ve incinerated any normal person. Thankfully Johnny wasn’t normal, he was inhumanly hot. The flame flickered and danced between a deep crimson and a bright white, as the brass melted into each other, becoming a useless amalgam of metal. Once the keys were thoroughly immolated, Johnny extinguished the flame, flipping his hand over and shaking it, the keys falling to the ground almost immediately cooled back to solid form by the chilly desert air. Johnny bent down and plucked it off the pavement, handing it back to his sister. Sue took it with just her index finger and her thumb, glanced across the whole family, and smiled.

“To a new beginning.” She mused, dropping the mangled keys into her purse. Johnny hopped forward and pressed his back flush to the open door, allowing his family to walk past him to the car.

“Okay, haha; ’yay happy family moment’!” Alyssa Moy yelled from the rolled down window of her car. “Very cute, but Taylor missed this week's episode of SVU and is going to be live tweeting it with her cats in T-minus four hours, so i’m gonna need you all to start moving it like Thanos came back with a bloody vengeance- c’mon people, andalé! Andalé!” She hurried, motioning emphatically.

“Oh good lord…” Johnny heard Reed mutter under his breath, making the teen giggle. The Fantastic Four packed themselves into their respective cars, Johnny and Sue in the family’s minivan, Reed and Ben in the company van, and Alyssa following behind- undoubtedly prepared to honk her horn if people start deciding to drive like the elderly. Johnny also noticed a black car parked ahead of them and two behind; Miss Stuart and the rest of their security detail no doubt.

Johnny settled into the passenger seat, a place he finds himself rarely, while the Fantastic caravan journeyed to the Central City International Airport.

Sitting back, Johnny instinctively pulled out his phone, his usual passenger princess fare, but was immediately reminded of the last message Dorrie had sent in the group chat. He felt a blush crawl its way up to his cheeks and furrowed his brow opening Dorrie’s DM’s.

@therealjohnnystorm: I know it’s just a joke but please stop sending that meme

@dorrie.evans: He doesn’t even know what it means.

@therealjohnnystorm: I know but still.

@dorrie.evans: Fine, whatever.

@therealjohnnystorm: Also it’s not even accurate so like what

@dorrie.evans: Wow, that was delayed.

@therealjohnnystorm: Shut up.

@therealjohnnystorm: Bitch.

@dorrie.evans: (Cropped image of yassified Darwin Waterson from the Amazing World of Gumball; A/N it’s my profile icon fyi)

Johnny huffed at Dorrie’s palpable attitude.

“What’s that about?” Johnny jerked in his seat, somehow forgetting his sister was there despite her staying visible the whole time. His face only reddened further.

“It’s- It’s nothing. Dorrie just sent me a stupid meme.“ Johnny spat out. Hoping the poor lighting inside the car meant Sue couldn’t see his flushed face, but the smirk she wore told him otherwise.

“Mhm.” She simply replied. “Anyways, you’ve seemed better today. Less, grr.” She said, briefly lifting her hands off the wheel to make monster claws to enunciate the growl. Johnny shuffled in his seat and sat up, the red leaving his face and a mischievous grin forming in its stead.

“Oh, trust me Suzie, I am still burning with anger inside.” Sue’s face fell some, “I’ve just decided to put it towards something better. Starting now, I’m gonna be a new man-“

“Boy.” His sister corrected.

“-Man, and I’m gonna live my life a little differently. You wanna know why?” Sue glanced at him with a questioning look.

“Probably not?“

“Because you, big sister, are a lemon.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re a big, fat, sour ass lemon.” Johnny claimed, Sue simply staring forward at the road with squinted eyes. “And Reed is a lemon, and Ben is a lemon- a real ugly one at that- and New York City is one great big rat-infested lemon tree. And you know what I'm going to do with all of it?” Sue stared at him blankly.

“Make a really boring ass analogy-“

“Make lemonade.”

“-Make lemonade, yeah, that’s what I said.”

Johnny cocked his head and gave his sister a wide, smug grin, Sue returning with a bemused one. Sue quickly returned her attention to the road, no longer in the mood to deal with her brother’s antics, Johnny feeling satisfied with himself.

About two hours later they finally arrived at Central City International; although, their destination would be just out behind it, at the Fantastic Four’s own private FBO. The Richards-Storm private jet was certainly a sight to behold, Johnny had to admit.

He watched as the flight staff worked effortlessly to transfer their copious luggage onto the plane, like ants carrying food to their colony. He tried to stifle a snort when as soon as the last suitcase left her car, Alyssa shut her trunk from the inside and sped off without a word to the four.

Johnny found a seat that wasn’t too close to the others, but was still next to a window, and kicked off his shoes. The fiery teen shoved his headphones in ASAP so no one would try and make small talk with him and leaned his head against the wall. It took damn near thirty minutes but the plane finally started to take off. By the time it did, Johnny came to the painful realization that because of where they were flying to, he wouldn’t be able to see the sunset.

His last sunset in California and he won’t even be able to see it. His face contorted with indignance.

Fucking yee yee ass New York.

Chapter Text

“Rise and shine!” SMACK! “Bright eyes and bushy tails!” THWACK!

Peter was again awoken by violent means. Whereas yesterday morning it was an assault on his ears, today he was being physically assaulted- and with his own pillow no less- by his Aunt May.

“Jesus- ah, shit, god- I’m up, i’m up!” Peter cried out, the walloping ceasing as May smiled at him mischievously. Peter sat up in his bed rubbing his eyes, “What happened to that ‘ten hours’ thing, huh?” He asked, his eyes adjusting to the waking world. May scoffed at his question.

“Well clearly you missed the asterisk that addressed this: ‘does not include off days that are to be spent with your loving and beautiful aunt’. You really need to pay better attention to those pesky things.” She answered, a stern look on her face- though Peter knew well enough to spot the hidden, shit eating grin threatening to hike up the corner of her mouth.

“But last night you said the asterisk was for out-of-our-control world threaten-y situations!” Peter countered, May holding up her finger.

“Oh that was just the first asterisk; clearly your Peter Tingle must be broken, there were at least 5 asterisks you just completely missed.” May insisted, turning to leave his room.

“Ha, ha, funny Peter Tingle, I get it- Ack!” Peter yelped, being struck by a pillowy sneak attack. Why must this not set off my tingle? He pleaded to his mind, desperate for an answer. May just dropped the pillow like she had done nothing at all, an innocent look on her face.

“Just making extra sure you’re awake. I’ll go get breakfast ready!” She said cheerily, sauntering out of Peter’s room, pulling the door closed behind her. He smiled after her and flopped back down on his bed for a moment, grabbing his phone.

Two missed calls from Yuri Watanabe along with a text reading: Call me as soon as you can.

Peter’s lips pursed as he contemplated whether or not to heed her words and call right now, but doing so- especially only a room away from Aunt May- felt disrespectful. If it was that important she would’ve tried calling three times, right? Peter thought.

He simply continued scrolling and only saw some YouTube notifications and Daily Bugle articles, one in particular that did catch his eye, which he decided to swipe on: “THE FANTASTIC FOUR OFFICIALLY LAND IN NEW YORK CITY!” The article itself wasn’t the most dense but it was nonetheless successful in alighting little eight-legged butterflies in Peter’s stomach. That same feeling he recalls from that fateful day he returned home from school to see one Tony Stark sat on his couch, mingling with his aunt, or when he first donned his shiny new Stark suit and stood side by side with the Avengers.

Should I go meet them, like, explicitly? Or would that be weird? Like too forward? Peter contemplated. Should I just very casually swing in and assist them during a fight; impress them with my witty remarks and snappy comebacks? I’m pretty sure that worked on the Avengers…

Regardless of whatever the wall-crawling vigilante may do then, he reminds himself that today will be a day off. Not just any day off either, a day he’ll spend entirely with his Aunt May- a May Day if you would. Although typically Mayday is used to signal distress and or a life threatening situation so maybe no, let’s not call it that.

Peter released a low, tired grumble as he dragged himself out of bed and onto two wobbly bed-legs; He really should sleep more, huh.

He awkwardly stumbled out of his Santa Chewbacca pajama bottoms from a few Christmases ago (shocked they still fit fine) and put on some khakis, a Twenty One Pilots shirt he found at a thrift store, and a blue flannel button up. He didn’t bother with any hair gel like he’d typically wear when going to school, opting just to wet his hair a bit and comb it back.

Shooting off a quick text to Ned, Peter then put his phone into sleep mode, and left his room to join May for breakfast.

——————————————————————————

Johnny was pissed off. Angry even.

And typically, he’s pretty good at finding something specific to direct his anger towards, but right now he’s finding that task more challenging than usual.

This has been happening quite a bit recently, Johnny knows he’s angry at something but he just can’t parse what it exactly is. He’s just pissed.

The Fantastic Four had arrived at JFK International late last night and weren’t too eager to do much other than sleep upon making it to the Baxter Building. Johnny can’t speak much to the rest of his family, but the second he got into his brand new room he did an abridged version of his night time routine and promptly collapsed into sleep. Sue admonished him over his priorities come morning for not bothering to put the sheets on his bed, and made him help move furniture throughout the living room. Once he was relieved of those duties he took pictures of his room and its stellar view to send to his friends.

@therealjohnnystorm: (7 images of his room/attached bathroom/walk-in closet)

@darladeary_2007: woooowowowow!!!!

@darladeary_2007: it’s so crazy! That view 🤩 that CLOSET SPACE!!

@dorie.evans: Damn, you rich-rich.

@therealjohnnystorm: You been knew, what about it

@therealjohnnystorm: What the fuck am I even supposed to do with all of this space tho dude

@dorie.evans: Weren’t you literally complaining just before you left for space that you wanted a bigger room like Ben?

@darladeary_2007: you could section a space off for like your own little work out space?

@darladeary_2007: oh yeah…

@therealjohnnystorm: Yeah but that was just me being a jackass

@dorrie.evans: That’s what you’re always doing.

@therealjohnnystorm: @darladeary_2007 We have a big gym/training room already in the new building but I guess

He continued chatting with Dorrie, Darla, and later Kenny, asking for advice on where to put his things as he unpacked his room. Darla clearly had the best eye for interior design and helped greatly.

He now found himself sitting on his bed staring at his mostly decorated room on the upper floor of the Baxter Building. Dorrie was right. He had wanted a bigger room for a long while. Consider it entitled, but he couldn’t have helped but feel a little jealous over Ben getting the whole goddamn garage of the Richards Estate to himself after he changed. Johnny knew the man needed the extra space; but why couldn’t he get a bigger room too? Hell, Ben’s old room that was turned into a guest bedroom was bigger than Johnny’s, yet no one even offered it to him.

In spite of this, Johnny was still upset. He couldn’t quite place why he was upset about the room itself, but he knew damn well he was pissed about the fact that he was upset about the room.

The blonde looked down at his hand where a few sparks ignited into a flame that rose and circled his palm. He urged the flame to veer off course and bounced it along each of his fingers, his mind replaying that fateful moment on the Marvel two years ago.

Johnny remembered the way he started screaming as he started struggling to breath. He shouted for his big sister in a panic, barely able to even register what was happening- he saw her, for a split second she was there, then almost the same way he had seen people get blipped on the news and in internet videos- he saw his sister, Reed, and Ben fade away before his own vision was obscured by a searing white flash.

Then he felt himself fall hard against the back of one of the ship’s chairs and he could breathe again; but he still couldn’t see. The only thing in Johnny’s sight was bright, warm colors dancing around him. His ears were ringing, the most he could make out were maybe some distant crashing noises.

In a desperate effort to see anything, he whipped his head around frantically, which managed to work- if only somewhat. Brief cracks in the dancing colors allows Johnny to make out what looked like a shifting pile of rust-colored boulders, and his sister’s fiancé… expanding… for lack of better terms. No matter how hard his eyes searched, Johnny couldn’t see his sister. Things got blurrier both figuratively and literally as he started crying out in terror, begging for his sister, wherever she was. His vision only got worse as he could tell everything around him began catching fire and he didn’t know why. Johnny knew he was crying but he couldn’t feel any tears ever reach his cheeks.

His own terrified screams barely reaching his ears were the last thing he remembers before waking up to his family and an Avenger standing over where he was laid in a rather uncomfortable bed.

Johnny’s brow furrowed as he replayed that day in his head. He likes to call it ‘The Day Johnny Storm Died’, because that’s exactly what it was.

That theory or whatever about molecular teleportation? The one where, if the teleporter completely deconstructs you to reconstruct you somewhere else, does that technically mean you’re a different you now and the original you died?

It probably isn’t the peak of healthy thinking to dwell on thoughts like that, but Johnny couldn’t help himself.

He felt different. Too different.

Not just traumatized or anything, he felt like he completely lost any control he had over his own body and mind- things that were always easy suddenly became hard, he had feelings and emotions he’d never had before, even the world around him felt harsher.

There was a knock on his door, averting his attention away from his spiraling. “Yeah?” The teen called out in response, the face of Johnny’s older sister then peeking out from behind the door before fully swinging it open. Sue gazed around the teenager’s room with supposed interest, crossing her arms.

“Someone got to work fast. It looks good!” She said, studying the space. “Oh, for once if only everyone in this household made decisions this quickly.” She remarked with a small smirk, looking over at Johnny who just stared back at her half lidded. Sue sucked in a breath and looked down her feet.

“Ah- um, Reed has been extraordinarily picky about the exact locations of all the equipment. I was over it after moving the same molecular destabilizer 7 times.“ She explained. Johnny just kinda hummed in acknowledgment of her words and rubbed the back of his neck, causing his sister’s face to briefly contort with frustration before she composed herself and reoriented.

“Okay, well, come on- I want to talk and show you something.” She said, looking at Johnny expectantly. Her little brother stared back at her with a blank expression for just a beat long enough to make the interaction a little bit awkward before sighing dramatically and standing up and giving an exasperated nod.

Sue led the flaming grouch to the elevator and rode it down to the floor below them. She brought up a finger to her lips as the doors slid apart, and grabbed Johnny’s wrist leading him down the hall past the lab. He could tell from the subtle shift in the air and wisps of energy surrounding them you can only see if you squint that Sue had put up an invisibility field around the both of them. The lab is fairly open and is only separated from the hallway by a few concrete pillars and metal lined glass paneling. Johnny could see Reed still instructing both Ben and a few of their scientists about where to place all of the equipment. Judging by everyone’s faces, no one involved was enjoying the experience.

Johnny understands now why Sue went the extra mile to sneak them both past.

They were now far down the hall and past a right turn, out of sight of the lab. They came to a stop in front of two double doors, Sue letting go of Johnny’s wrist to reach into her pocket where she fished out a silver Baxter Building key card which she handed to Johnny, who was taken aback.

“What is this?” He asked. Sue giggled and stepped to the side of the door, motioning towards a scanner on the wall.

“Why don’t you open the doors and find out?” She answered, visibly trying to contain her excitement. Johnny gave his sister a look but nonetheless did as she said, walking up to the scanner and tapping the key card on it. The dim red lights on the scanner flashed green and the machine beeped, signaling the successful reading of the card’s RFID chip. The blonde teen could hear the double doors loudly unlock and shifted to look at his sister, who just nodded her head toward the doors.

Johnny was pissed off again. Or at least he likely will be in a few hours or so after the initial rush of emotions wears off.

Through the doors was a large, brightly lit space populated mainly with massive concrete support pillars placed evenly throughout the center of the room; on the left and right sides stood tall partitions and some heavy machinery, and in the corner to his left he saw a windowed room with a few pieces of generic office furniture in it. Most notably was the far end of the room, directly across from where Johnny and Sue had entered, were two huge rectangular doors, and in the center of the room were none other than Johnny’s three children.

The probably-too-expensive-for-a-sixteen-year-old red Jaguar that Reed had gotten him for his birthday, an old sky blue BMW that Johnny had fixed on his own, and then his favorite child: the white and blue sports car he built entirely himself out of scrap metal he upcycled and other random pieces he found and refurbished. This was a fucking car garage.

“There were two big ol’ storage spaces in the building that had these huge support elevators- that’s them over there,” Sue spoke, pointing to the massive doors at the end of the room Johnny had noticed,”to transport down stock to the lower levels and the roof. Reed suggested we could use them to store and construct our heavier machinery, the Marvel-II as well, and I suggested that we could turn one of them into a nice private garage for your cars and all your engineering escapades.” She finished, beaming at her younger brother who wore a stupefied expression. Johnny’s brain struggled to comprehend what was happening at this very moment.

“Wha… why?” He asked breathlessly, his sister failing to hold in another excited giggle.

“Because you deserve it? Reed and I have our own lab separate from all the others our employees use, why can’t you have your own car garage where you can twiddle away at whatever new engineering project you want!” She explained excitedly. “Besides, I know you were bummed when we had to turn the garage at the house into a bedroom for Ben-“

“Bummed is a bit of an understatement.” Johnny interjected wryly.

“-so, we thought it would be good to give you a space like this.” Sue finished, opting to ignore her brother's comment. She gave him a look he quickly recognized as ‘i’m being nice right now, don’t push it’, so he bit back one of his signature shit eating grins so as not to immediately lose privileges to this space. He couldn’t help but poke a little though…

He wishes he hadn’t.

“This is… awesome, and thanks or whatever… but this lowkey feels like some sort of strategy move.” Johnny said, really hoping Sue actually had just been replaced with a skrull that was the best sister in the world; but he knew it was too good to be true when he saw Sue bite her lips and awkwardly clasp her hands together. This was a fucking bribe garage.

“I swear to god if we’re going back into space right after we already fucking moved-“

Sue’s head jerked back in confusion, “What? No- no. Not at all.”

“But there is something?” Johnny asked, frustration starting to boil under the surface of his skin. Sue looked away for a moment before she continued.

“Well… considering the move, the team as a whole, but particularly Reed and I, are going to be a lot busier. I’ve already been pretty stressed by this whole thing-“

“Then why fucking do it?” Johnny muttered.

“Jonathan-“ Sue huffed, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, “We realized that it would probably be most productive to cut down on some of our less necessary responsibilities; things we’ve been doing that we don’t necessarily have to be doing ourselves. Reed, after much deliberation, handed off some of his projects to some of our trusted senior staff, I've been letting Alyssa take care of more of our financials, and…” Johnny’s eyes lit up in realization.

“No.” He said firmly.

“We’ve decided it’s best to cease your homeschooling.” Sue stated.

“No! I am not going back to school, you can’t make me!” Johnny yelled, throwing his arms out dramatically.

“Yes, I can. Because I am your legal guardian.” Sue said, quickly irritated. “And for some fucked up reason, if you still some how dodge an education enough, it’ll be Reed and I who get punished instead of you!”

“I’m failing to see how that’s a deterrent…” Johnny spat, Sue’s face contorting with disbelief over Johnny’s attitude. “What? We’re rich! Alyssa would bail you out way before either of you ever even step foot in an actual prison- that’s if it’d even be taken that far, god if only I were that lucky!” Johnny continued, enunciating his words with emphatic hand waving. Sue groaned and moved to turn away from him, his outburst almost making her forget what she was originally going to say.

“Oh my god, Johnny, I wasn’t even going to say you had to go to school! We were just planning on hiring a tutor for you.”

Johnny felt the fire he always feels inside when he gets angry start to falter as he blinked at his sister, processing her words.

“Well I-… w-well what the fuck else was I supposed to think?” He sputters out- this is definitely the best option, keeps the tone of the conversation combative and spurs it on further so he can just stay angry.

“That we knew it would be way too much to ask of you to go back to school after being homeschooled for so long? That it would maybe be unproductive for your emotional state with the move? Because we care about you and think about those things?” Johnny just stared at her red faced, as she continued, “But now that you mention it, maybe school is the best option for you. Maybe that is what you need right now.”

Johnny knew exactly what to say to that.

“What? So you can get rid of me for most of the week? Get rid of all your goddamn stress?” What would be called venom laced words for any other were perhaps more accurately described as napalm soaked for Johnny in this moment; sparkling embers leaving his lips as he spoke. Sue just stared at him with a visibly conflicted expression.

“Well I'm failing to see how that’s a deterrent…” She said, turning and walking with a brisk pace out of the garage. Johnny glared wide-eyed at the closing doors and then back down at the space his sister had left behind in front of him. His blood was boiling.

“Grr-AGH!” He shouted, kicking the air and holding his hands partially curled into fists over his head. He poorly held in more shouts as he paced angrily in a circle trying and failing to calm himself down with deep breaths.

“It’s fine! Fucking whatever!” Johnny mutters to himself. Looking around for the nearest surface to bash his head against when his eyes pass over the elevators at the back of the garage. Sue said that the elevators are connected to the roof right? And that the second storage space is where the Marvel-II is currently at?

Johnny walks fervently to the elevators and finds the right button, down to the room right below.

The Marvel-II, in all her shiny, chrome glory; and also the current holder of their suits. Johnny opened up the ship and grabbed his suit out of the hanger.

Riding the elevator up to the ceiling, the Human Torch took in a deep breath as he stepped across the roof looking out across the New York City skyline. Obviously he had been in big cities before, but there was still a specific sensation of awe at seeing New York from this perspective. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler building, the world trade center, Avengers tower… other… places…

Johnny may not be the most familiar with New York City landmarks but he was certainly about to be. No better way to work out his frustration than to acquaint himself with the criminal underbelly of his new residence. The blonde began running to the edge of the Baxter Building’s roof, his pace picking up as he neared it. He lept off, letting himself feel the air whip at his face before he shouted.

“Flame on!”

——————————————————————————

“I swear to god, if that tv breaks again i’m throwing it out a window.” Peter complained, entering the kitchen and pointing in the direction of the tv out in the FEAST Center’s common area. May laughed from where she was packaging some sandwiches for the night shift workers.

“I have half the mind to think Miss Nguyen somehow breaks it on purpose so she can call the strapping young FEAST volunteer to fix it for her.” May said, placing the last sandwich into the tupperware container and carrying it over to the fridge.

“I sure hope not, it’s not exactly a comfort for my only game to be with old ladies!” Peter responded with faux annoyance. May chuckled again.

“Hey, what about that nice Liz girl? I mean, obviously it didn’t end up going anywhere but she did still agree to go to Homecoming with you and last I checked, wasn’t an old lady.” Peter felt himself blush a little at that, mostly from embarrassment from how that entire situation panned out.

Yeah, and I ghosted her at the dance to go beat up her evil dad- not exactly prime romance, Peter thought.

“Do you gotta bring that up?” Peter said wincing, now remembering the brief talk with Liz at school the day after when she told him she was moving. May shut the refrigerator door and threw her hands up in defeat.

“I yield… Anyway, I think we’re all done here for today. Go grab your stuff from the back and we’ll be right off to Micks!” May said excitedly, tapping her nails on the metal kitchen counter as she leaned against it. Peter went to open the doors to the back hallway but was beat to the punch by the doors swinging open from the other side, a tall, older, blonde woman Peter recognized as Mrs. Goodwin, one of the other FEAST workers. Mrs. Goodwin bounced back in surprise but then smiled when she noticed Peter and eventually May.

“O-oh, good! You’re still here, May!” She exclaimed. May walked over to her, perplexed.

“Yeah, we were just about to head out for the night, is something wrong Martha?” She asked. The woman in question quickly shook her head.

“Oh no, no, no, dear. Mr. Li just got back in! He was wondering if you were still here.” Mrs. Goodwin revealed. May’s eyes went wide.

“Oh- oh, that’s great! Where is he?”

“Just up in his office, dear. That busybee just got off of two back to back flights and is already working.” Mrs. Goodwin answered with a fond expression. May smiled back in kind and thanked her before heading towards Mr. Li’s office, Peter choosing to follow along behind her.

The pair made it up to Martin Li’s office on the second floor, where sure enough just from a quick glance through the windows it looked like he had thrown his belongings onto his futon and was sitting at his desk on the computer. May knocked on the glass door and Peter could see Mr. Li look up from his computer screen and break out into a grin upon seeing May. Mr. Li welcomed them in, standing up from his desk to greet the two as they entered.

“May Parker, it is so good to see you.” He said, shaking her hand. “It’s great to see you again too, Peter.” He added, shaking the teen’s hand as well

“Always an honor, Mr. Li!” Peter replied. May readjusted her glasses and spoke up with a question.”

“How did your talks with the investors go?”

Mr. Li’s eyebrows shot up and he broke out into a wide smile.

“Well, what do you think about six new FEAST centers opening up across not only New York state, but New Jersey and Pennsylvania?” He asked. May letting out a smile gasp as she laid a hand over her chest.

“Oh my god, that’s amazing!” May exclaimed.

“I would lay up at night at the hotel thinking ‘where would we even be without the Parkers?’” Mr. Li said pridefully, even May looking a tad bashful at his words.

“Well I know I certainly couldn’t picture working anywhere else- least of all right now, with how the world is.” She responded kindly. Peter couldn’t help but feel pride for his aunt too, she really is an amazing woman.

“And that’s exactly why you’re so indispensable to our cause.” Mr. Li pointed his finger at her. “I see big things for you with us, Miss Parker.” He paused and looked at the time on his clock, “Oh, and I believe it is well past your working hours. I apologize for keeping you.”

“Oh- no, don’t worry at all, we’re in no rush. We were just planning on having dinner at our favorite little diner in Queens and then head home.” May assured with a warm smile.

“Well, I hope you two have a lovely night- and stay safe!” Mr. Li said, waving the pair off.

“You as well!” May replied, both her and Peter waving at FEAST’s CEO as they exited his office.

——————————————————————————

Johnny blazed through the New York City skies like a comet.

He just knew every pair of eyes down below him turned up to stare in awe at his flaming form- he just had a sixth sense for that kinda thing.

Glancing around at the streets running like rivers on the ground underneath him, he searched for any sign of civil disturbances. As he flew down a little closer over central park he saw exactly what he was looking for.

On a secluded park walkway, a young brunette girl was struggling against two larger attackers wearing ski masks and trying to steal her purse.

“You know, you guys really aren’t very subtle!” Johnny quipped, the mugger actively fighting over the girl’s purse barely even had enough time to look up before being body slammed by a flaming seventeen year old and knocked at least fifteen feet away.

Johnny rolled and landed in a classic superhero pose and faced the second mugger, who very suddenly pulled out a gun much to the terror of the victim. Johnny furrowed his brow as the terror quickly shifted to the mugger, as the gun in his hand burst into flames, making him shout in pain and drop it to the ground. The man’s shock allowed the girl to escape his grasp, and Johnny to propel himself forward and lay the man clean out with a right hook straight to the face. Johnny could hear the other mugger start to run off, so he picked up the gun, and squandered the flames but still left the weapon hot to the touch and threw it like a baseball at the fleeing mugger’s head, also knocking him out. Johnny proudly dusted off his hands.

“Also not particularly tough.” The girl gathered her composure and ran up to Johnny, where he now stood with his hands on his hips.

“O-oh my god… you’re Johnny Storm! You’re the Human Torch!” She squealed. Johnny was in his element now.

“Yes, I happen to be that very person- but I don’t think I know your name? Which I have to say,” he put on his most charming smile, “is just a shame.”

Like clockwork the girl swooned. Johnny waited with her until the police showed up, which didn’t take too long. He spent the entire time partaking in numerous selfies, and even a short video for the girl’s friends where he kicked the schmoozing up to eleven by “casually” flexing his biceps and bouncing his pecs which made the girl devolve into a mess of flustered giggles. He bid farewell once the muggers were cuffed and he knew she’d be in good hands, flying off after a barrage of giggles and thank you’s.

Johnny pretty much spent the next hour or two doing similar activities. Intervening in one of New York’s many famous petty crimes, indulging in selfies and autographs, and even saving a cat that was stuck in a tree.

He eventually found himself taking a break, sat atop a building somewhere his map app identified as downtown Queens, with a hot dog he got for free from a food stand.

“On the house for bein’ a hero an’ all.”

Growing bored from scrolling on his phone, Johnny just gazed out across the city in front of him, taking in the sights as he finished his snack.

He once again felt proud of himself when, in the corner of his eye, he noticed a strange pulsating blue light coming from the windows of some storefront down on the street.

“I may be new here but that doesn’t exactly look normal…” he mumbled to himself. Swallowing the last bit of his hot dog, he hopped up to his feet, flew down just out of view of the windows, and peeked inside the store.

From all that he could tell: a masked guy in an impressively tailored suit was threatening the cashier, an old asian man, in korean or something with a big fuck off glowing blue sword in his face, while at least 3 other individuals that appeared to be civillians were standing throughout the store with their hands up.

Not exactly what Johnny was expecting, but alright.

In an attempt to make a purposefully flashy entrance. Johnny flamed on and flew around in an arc, aiming right for the centermost window of the shop.

The Human Torch smashed through the glass in a blaze of glory- the light of his flames bouncing off the small glass shards as they scattered through the air. Johnny landed again in a picture perfect hero pose. He stood up and sauntered forward.

“If I'm being quite honest, I kinda respect you dude. Most robbers these days just don’t have any respect for the classics.” Johnny quipped, signaling the attention of the robber, who kept his sword trained steady on the cashier, but turned his head to now face Johnny. Now having a better look at the mask, it looked like some sort of wooden monster face, painted blue and white.

“你不明白你在面对什么, 鬼佬.” The masked man stated simply.

“Hey now man, I don’t speak… chinese?” Johnny guessed, the frustrated huff from both the robber and the cashier leading him to assume he guessed correctly. “Really? I mean, I totally knew that the whole time.” He said, giving himself a small fist pump. He glanced to his right where there were still three civvies looking mortified with their hands raised.

“Now… There are some of us here, who really don’t need to be here for this.” He said, shifting his gaze pointedly to the three panicked shoppers and shaking his head towards the door. The three looked cautiously between the door, Johnny, and the robber, and upon seeing the latter make no sudden movements, all made a beeline for the door and successfully escaped. Johnny put his full attention back onto the masked man, holding his hands up in front of him and inching forward like he’d always see Sue do in hostage situations.

“Okay… now then Zuko, why don’t you put down your spooky Great Value lightsaber- which is super cool by the way- and we can all have a nice long discussion about the ethics of threatening elderly store owners at sword point.”

Much to Johnny’s legitimate shock, after a beat the masked robber did in fact slowly lower his sword and back away from the cashier, who looked equally caught off guard. Johnny smiled charmingly.

“See? Isn’t this much easier than- OOF!” The overconfident blonde teen certainly spoke too soon as the masked man growled and swiftly slashed his sword, sending out a glowing blue energy wave that hit Johnny right in the chest, sending him flying through the window next to the one he broke and skidding down the street on his back. “Okay, yeah I asked for that…” Johnny grunted, pulling himself back to his feet. He swung his leg over the wall and climbed through the newly broken window and walked towards the masked robber who brandished his sword and muttered something in chinese.

“Okay,” Johnny said, “Let’s try this again.”

The cashier ducked behind the glass counter as Johnny rushed toward the assailant, punching a fire blast at him that he ducked away from. Johnny dodged an upward slash as a table of old clothes caught on fire from Johnny’s attack.

“H-hey! Don’t damage my merchandise!” The old cashier guy yelled. Johnny struggled to dodge more sword swings, not being able to find any good openings.

“Not what’s important right now my guy!” Johnny shouted back. As he finally managed to land a sweep kick, knocking the dude off his feet and into another table of clothes. The blonde jumped up and tried to slam down a flaming fist to the guy's masked head but he came to his senses much too fast and rolled out of the way- already back on his feet and swinging his sword upwards in a counterattack which Johnny barely avoided, stumbling over himself.

The cashier’s cries for Johnny to stop fighting magical glowing sword with fire as more things in his shop started to light aflame.

“Okay dude, you-“ He started to try and respond to the old man after dodging another sword strike, but was surprised by a follow up fist to the stomach this time, packing enough force to send him hurling into the glass display of the front counter, eliciting a terrified scream from the cashier. Johnny caught his breath and looked over, exasperated, at the wide eyed old guy.

“You need to stop that.” Johnny breathed out. He purposefully stood up slowly, goading the swordsman into striking, this time stabbing forward in hopes of piercing Johnny’s sternum, but the fiery teen dropped back down, the sword instead being driven into the wall and getting stuck. Using this opportunity, grabbed the old cashier and rushed him to the front door and, in spite of his protests, shoved him outside.

Well- more like tossed, but he didn’t mean to. This robber is annoyingly skilled and had already pulled his sword from the wall and was back to attacking Johnny with expediency.

To Johnny’s benefit at least, it seemed as though the swordsman was getting frustrated, as he put a little too much force into his strike and got it once again lodged into the wall, enabling Johnny back hand the man, and get off two spin kicks in a row sending him flying into one of the metal clothing racks that weren’t yet on fire. The swordsman was on his feet as soon as Johnny closed the gap between them and thrust his swords forwards and upwards, Johnny stumbling back and over a wooden table to dodge it.

Once on the other side, he flipped the table up and punched it at his opponent, who sliced downwards, cutting it in half, but giving Johnny the perfect opportunity; the blonde leapt fully into the air and kicked both feet towards the swordsman, shooting out a powerful and combustive blast of flame that not only threw the masked man into far wall- which he dented upon impact- but also disarmed him, his Party City lightsaber clattering on the floor somewhere to the left of them.

Johnny finally allowed himself to take a deep breath as the ex-swordsman crumpled to the ground, his suit singed.

“Had enough yet, asshole?” Johnny questioned, exhaustion growing evident in his voice. The masked man was on his knees, clearly well and truly beat up but still conscious.

The man mumbled something inaudible to himself and punched his fists together. Blue energy crackled at the point where his fists met before they two were engulfed in a similar magical blue energy to the sword.

“Fuckin’ seriously guy?”

The Dragon Warrior or whatever this asshole was must’ve gotten his second wind, because he effortlessly dodged Johnny’s fireball and landed an uppercut, and apparently couldn’t leave it at that, so he did a whole pirouette and punched the flaming teen into the back of the store that was now strongly burning. Johnny struggled back to his feet as the masked fighter prepared another attack.

Now, whenever Johnny is to recount this surely epic battle that he’s definitely going to win, he would love to say that chinese Mike Tyson over here just dodged this next attack of his in some elaborate, skilled way; but the truth is that, in his growing fatigue, Johnny completely whiffed it. The man had yet to even move and Johnny’s blast went far past the side of his head shot right through one of the windows he shattered.

He didn’t think too much about this mishap, until the masked fighter launched his next attack. For whatever reason, Johnny’s brain made him remember in that moment, the surrounding buildings he saw on this street before he entered this whole fray. Specifically, the building directly opposite this one that his stray fire attack was now hurtling towards.

He must be remembering wrong. It couldn’t have been a gas station… right?

Johnny’s split-second, rhetorical brain question was quickly answered by a loud, thundering boom that seemed to shake the whole building and came from across the street.

“Oh shi-“ SMACK!

——————————————————————————

Mid-conversation with his Aunt May, Peter felt an all too familiar sensation, his tingle. It wasn’t that strong, just a small chill down the back of his neck, maybe a few hairs standing up, but nothing any normal person wouldn’t thoughtlessly attribute to a brief gust of cold wind. But Peter knew better at this point.

Were he on his own walking through Queens at sunset at this moment, he may not have paid much mind to it, but considering he was with May his anxiety went on immediate alert. A quick glance behind and around him turned up nothing.

All things considered, there weren’t that many people out at the moment; a guy a few paces behind them on his phone wearing a backpack, but he didn’t set off any signals in Peter’s mind; and a woman walking her dog on the opposite side of the street where there were a few other individuals walking and talking with each other casually. May seemed to pick up on the shift in her nephews demeanor as her words trailed off and she pointed her gaze at him with concern clear on her face.

“Peter-“ May began, but was cut off by the sudden boom of a distant explosion- followed almost immediately by a second, louder one- probably a few streets across from them. Close enough at least for the sound to be audible, and for everyone on the street to clearly see smoke rising in the sky.

All of the folks on the street, including the small dog, were all clearly experienced New Yorkers, and made haste to get inside the nearest open building, the folks on the street closer to the explosion even running to the other side with no hesitation.

The one goddamn day… Peter thought, cringing. He looked to May whose eyes had gone wide.

“Maybe someone’s car just exploded and emergency responders are gonna handle it just fine and-“ Peter started, trying to come up with any excuse to both quell his innate urge to jump into action and help, and to stay with his Aunt May and just go have a nice dinner. May stopped him.

“Go, Peter.” She said firmly, and hand tight on his shoulder. Peter tried to formulate some other excuse or reason but May knew him too well. “Go.”

Peter gave his aunt an apologetic look, which she returned with a painfully understanding one, before ushering him forward and into a nearby alleyway, making sure his escape was unnoticed.

I really, truly, do not deserve you, May.

Peter shucked his backpack off his shoulders, and within a minute Spider-Man swung out from behind the old dingy apartment building Peter and May had just been in front of on their walk to Mick’s.

Peter’s guestimate on the distance proved to be true, the source of the explosion was three streets away from them, and Peter’s heart sank a bit when he realized he recognized the street.

Sure enough, he sighted the gas station he and Ned would hit up for snacks and sometimes even groceries, which appeared to be where the first explosion occurred, as the building was wrecked and engulfed in fire, which was spreading. Peter’s tingle was steady now, and he shifted his gaze across the street.

D’aw, shit! He thought.

At the base of an four story building, was Old Essentials, the thrift store Peter buys most of his wardrobe from, and where he had come to know the owners of; an older couple of Chinese immigrants who lived in an apartment just above the shop. The shop that was now almost fully eclipsed by flames.

Spider-Man thwipped his webs out to the building’s wall and yanked himself toward it, hurling his body at the windows that lined most of the bottom floor. He braced himself for an impact of glass shards that never came, the window having already been shattered. What Peter didn’t quite expect, was his body impacting another body. Mostly because all he could see from above was fire.

He and this other person hit the ground and tumbled together across the floor until Peter was able to catch himself, stopping the both of them. Peter caught his breath and blinked his eyes, god bless Tony and this Iron Spider suit, he thought, realizing he wasn’t inhaling any of the smoke that was making it hard to see.

“Mr. Huang?” He shouted, trying his best to carry his voice over the loud beeping of the fire alarm and the crackling of embers.

“Who!?” The person shouted back, causing Peter to wince. He didn’t recognize this voice. He tried to focus his eyes but the smoke was becoming too thick. He was however, able to make out the sounds of a voice he did recognize shouting his name from outside the burning building. Acting as quickly as he could, he got onto his feet.

“Karen, is there anywhere- any walls or windows I could get through with being turned into a delicious Spider-Roast?” Spider-Man asked, then sensing the figure he had slammed into jerk up.

“Spider- Spider-Man?!” The person gasped. Karen responded fast.

“You should be able to make it through the side door next to the checkout counter with minimal damage to your person.” She responded.

Not needing anything else, he grabbed the figure, ignoring the strangled yelp they let out, and slung them over his shoulder with ease. He darted through the flames, and located the door per Karen’s indicators in his suit’s eyes. He used his unoccupied shoulder to burst through the door into a hallway, and then through a second where he took an instinctive deep breath now back outside and sat down the person who- holy fucking shit.

Now sitting up on the ground of this alleyway, with his short, curly blonde hair, light dusting a freckles barely noticeable on his flustered face, and staring at Peter, eyes the size of saucers and the same sky blue color of his suit, was the Human Torch: Johnny Storm.

Peter’s world froze as his gaze stayed locked with this admittedly very pretty teen superhero- one he had hoped to meet and maybe even become friends with- but he was alerted back to reality by the yelling of Mr. Huang, who rounded the corner into the alley.

“Spider-Man! Spider-Man!” Mr. Huang shouted, running towards the hero. Peter stuttered as he broke his gaze away from the Human Torch and directed it to Mr. Huang who, thankfully, seemed relatively unharmed. The old man caught his breath before continuing.

“Spider-Man, my wife, she is up there, she is in our apartment!” He moved his gaze to the other superhero still sitting on the ground, “We- we were getting robbed a-and then this loony man-“

“Don’t worry Mr. Huang, I've got her! You need to clear away from the building.” Peter cut in before jumping onto the wall, whispering a ‘finally’ under his breath as he heard sirens nearing. He crawled up to the second story and broke into one of the windows. Landing on plush carpet, he found himself in what appeared to be the Huang’s bedroom. Unfortunately, he could see smoke was already starting to creep into the apartment, nowhere near as thick as downstairs however.

“Mrs. Huang? Mrs. Huang are you alright?” Spider-Man shouted out.

“Who are you?!” A shrill voice responded from elsewhere in the apartment. Peter rushed through the bedroom door into the living are where he saw the small Mrs. Huang crouched on the floor of the kitchen, clutching a very fluffy cat to her chest. She gasped when she saw him and coughed. “Mr. Spider! I couldn’t open any of the windows-”

“It’s okay, I'm gonna get you both out of here, the fire department is already here!” He helped the old woman and her cat up and into his arms and made his way back into their bedroom where he had busted open the window and did his best to crawl out while keeping Mrs. Huang tight to his chest.

Once fully out, Spider-Man dropped the rest of the way down and released Mrs. Huang onto her feet.

The hero led her onto the street where she clasped a hand to her mouth at the sight of the ruined gas station across the street that was now being attended to by fire trucks. A handful of firefighters that had been surveying the thrift store quickly noticed Spider-Man and rushed over to him, taking Mrs. Huang's hand and guiding her over to the EMTs where her husband was now shouting for her, one of the firefighters offering a quick “thank you” to the wall crawling menace before returning to their job.

Peter’s eyes darted across the damage. What the hell had the Human Torch been- he thought before it hit him. The Human Torch.

Feeling anger boil up in his gut, Peter turned on his heel to look around where no doubt, standing a ways away from the whole ordeal was one Johnny Storm looking like a dog with its tail stuck between its legs. Peter marched over to him.

“You!” Spider-Man growled, stomping his way towards the Human Torch, who whipped his head away from all the sizzling destruction he caused to meet the death stare of the approaching web-slinging menace.

“I- I- uh-“ The blonde started sputtering and backing away, his face growing flushed again.

“I was gonna ask all measured and patiently what exactly caused all of this, hoping to give you the benefit of the doubt- maybe some crazy alien was trying to steal some weird old cat vases from the house of someone’s dead grandma, or some old baby clothes it desperately need for it’s four armed alien toddler- anything that warranted any of this!” Peter shouted, every word hitting Johnny like a bullet. The teen in question tried to start explaining himself but Spider-Man continued without letting him.

“But this wasn’t necessary, was it jackass? I can tell from that guilty ass look on your face and the way you-“ Johnny’s body seemed to predict what Peter was going to say by trying to back away from the other man, but Peter grabbed his forearm tightly and held him in place, “the way you’re trying run the fuck away like a sniveling little corward, proves you’re just a reckless idiot.”

“B-but- there was this guy-“ Johnny tried to explain, but Peter just laughed harshly in his face.

“Oh, oh, there was a guy. That’s real fucking scary.” Peter deadpanned. “I don’t give a shit how many guys there were, we don’t do this shit!” Peter motioned with his other hand out to the fires still being put out, I-I don’t know what kind of different rules you had in Central City, o-or up in space or whatever, but we’re supposed to protect people- stop people from losing things. Not cause the loss.”

“I-I didn’t think-“

“No, you didn’t think. You’re Johnny fucking Storm. World famous teen influencer, heartthrob, and supposed-superhero. You don’t have to think, because you just throw fire and money at all your problems and they magically disappear. There are probably hundred of people who relied on both of these places to food, and water, and clothes, but fuck all of them because there was one fuckin guy that scared you.” Peter ranted. The red, and really all color, had at this point drained from Johnny’s face.

“Do you know how hard Mr. And Mrs. Huang had to work to get to the country? Much less make a living in it? And now you just throw all that work on the burning pile-“ Peter then got up close to Johnny’s face, twisting his arm maybe a little too hard making the boy wince and let out a startled gasp, and pointing the finger of his free hand right at the stylized four on Johnny’s chest. “You are lucky these firefighters got here- you’re lucky I got here in time, and that fire didn’t spread into their apartment and burn away anything irreplaceable. Very, very, lucky.” Spider-Man continued staring down the Human Torch as he finally backed off some, a bit of clarity washing through his mind as though his anger had entered him into a fugue state.

Peter realized he was still gripping Johnny Storm’s wrist and let go, stepping back further. Fully back to his senses, his Peter tingle kicked in at about the same time he noticed Johnny’s eyes somehow grow wider as the blonde looked over head of him and squeaked.

“We can handle it from here, Spider-Man.” A cold, feminine voice spoke from behind him. Peter spun around and then looked up in surprise to see Doctors Susan Storm and Reed Richards, along with The Thing, all levitating down on one of Dr. Storm’s energy barriers, adorned in their Fantastic Four suits.

“Ye- uh, yeah.” Spider-Man stuttered out, taking his turn to be shell shocked. Dr. Storm- no, the Invisible Woman nodded at him and then turned her attention to Johnny.

“Johnny.” Just saying his name with the calm rage of a thousand suns, was enough for the flaming teen to sulk quietly over to the hovering platform and climb on, his head hanging down and his eyes never meeting any of his teammates, nor Spider-Man.

Without further words, The Fantastic Four turned and flew off, presumably back to the Baxter Building.

Spider-Man was left there in the street staring off after them.

“Nice to meet you…” He whispered to himself.

Peter swung back to where he had left Aunt May and quick-changed. He fished his phone out of his backpack and read thankfully his lock screen had him covered, displaying a text from May saying she had gone the rest of the way to Mick’s and hunkered down there. He texted her back that he’s on his way now, which she ‘hearted’ without delay.

Even though there wasn’t any legitimate rush, Peter ran all the way to Mick’s Diner, where he was met with a hug from May who was waiting outside for him.

The place was fairly busy considering it was a Sunday night, but the two were able to find a booth in the back corner away from too many other patrons.

Peter gave a brief explanation as to what had happened which May was shocked by, surprised that a member of the Fantastic Four would act so carelessly. Peter was quiet while they waited for their food, checking his phone to see that not only had the Four’s publicists already released a statement claiming that the Human Torch apprehended an unidentified individual with alien technology that caused the gas station explosion. What was that I said about ‘throwing money at all of your problems so they go away?’ Fucking whatever… Peter thought.

His sullen demeanor was made even more obvious when they got their food and he just picked at it. May questioned him.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” She asked. Peter didn’t respond. “Peter?” She asked again. After a pause, Peter finally replied.

“I’m sorry…”

May blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”

“… I’m sorry.” He repeated.

“Sorry for what?” She pressed. Peter sighed and dropped his fork onto the plate.

“For running off on our day…” He admitted guiltily. May sighed herself.

“Oh, Peter…”

“I know I said I wasn’t gonna go off and Spider-Man today, I know I said today was just gonna be helping out at the shelter or us hanging out and I did shut off my phone even though Yuri maybe had some intel on those masked demon guys and not responding was kind stressing me out, but I know how much you just hate all of this stuff- hate my life so I-“

“Peter!” She interrupted, stopping the teen’s words, and reaching out to clasp one of his hands in hers.

“Back when I was working at the hospital and had my off days- hell, even now at FEAST- I still had my phone on. All the time! In case someone has a question or if there’s an emergency. I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to make you stop being Spider-Man or something, as much as it does stress me out, I just want you to slow down… because I can tell better than anyone that you aren’t allowing yourself time.” May spoke, Peter staring back at her, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. “If you keep going this hard- this… non-stop- at anything it’ll only cause you to grow to resent that thing. And the work you do is far too important, too good for that to ever be allowed to happen.” May finished, holding Peter’s hand tightly.

Peter reached his other hand up to wipe his eyes and gave a small laugh.

“You’re kinda like, the best person in the world, May.” Peter said genuinely. May smiled at him fondly.

“Hm… you know I've often thought that myself. I could stand to hear it more though.” She said, her smile turning into a smirk. The two broke out into giggles and continued chatting and enjoying their dinner.

Perhaps it were too petty, but Peter couldn’t help but wonder how Johnny Storm’s family dinner was going at this very moment.

——————————————————————————

Johnny stewed for a spell in self pity, his wrist still stinging from where his former hero had nearly ripped his damn arm off. He stared up at Sue, Reed, and Ben, all glowering at him with various shades of disappointment and anger on their faces. He sighed.

“What’s the damn school?” He asks, defeated. Reed turns and uses his nasty stretchy arms to grab some papers off the kitchen island that he drops on the dining table in front of Johnny. The blonde looks up at Reed before shifting his gaze down to read what appeared to be an introductory pamphlet for the school.

‘Midtown High School’.

“Okay it literally has ‘mid’ in its name.” Johnny remarked snidely, Sue bringing her hands to her temples and cursing under her breath.

Chapter Text

The groan Peter let out when he woke up the next morning was probably the loudest and most droning one he’s made yet.

The cognitive cocktail of spider sense, anxiety, stress, and depression, pretty much caused his body to always be a little tensed up somewhere. Tack on actually going out and patrolling the streets and skies of New York every night, and it's effectively become the ‘norm’ for Peter to wake up with his whole body aching. Dump in whatever the fuck happened with the Human Grenade the previous night, and Peter’s goddamn knees are popping.

He rose out of bed, his back making noises he’s way too young to be hearing already, and started reluctantly getting ready for school.

He’s already shrugged on a green sweater and khakis when he realizes he forgot to shower last night. After a few minutes of battling with his better judgement, Peter decided to let the depression hygiene win and shower later, opting instead to just douse himself in an amount of spray deodorant and cologne that’s probably not healthy for his lungs. He has super healing (or something), he’ll be fine (probably).

Peter knew the moment he exited his apartment building that today was just gonna be one of those days. Everything around him just felt louder, and brighter. He popped his earbuds in with haste, pulling up some white noise in the place of music, knowing that would only make the overstimulation worse.

Somehow the hustle and bustle of Midtown High was even more overwhelming than that of the early morning streets of New York City. So overwhelming Peter’s earbuds were beginning to lose their effectiveness.

“Hey loser.”

“Je-esus Christ!" Peter jumped as his friend, Michelle Jones, practically spawned beside him. He sighed, “Hey MJ…”

“Jeez, you’re jumpier than usual.” She observed flatly, giving Peter a once over with calculating eyes.

“Yeah, well, chronic stress will do that to people.” Peter remarked. Shutting his locker, he looked around and noticed MJ was alone. “Hey, where’s-“

“HERE! I’m here!” Ned’s voice shouted out from behind Peter, out of breath.

“Great, you both look terrible.” MJ deadpanned. Peter rolled his eyes and went to check on Ned.

“You good? You were almost late.” He asked. Ned finally caught his breath and began explaining.

“Okay, first of all, there was this crazy lady at the subway station that was holding everyone up, she kept ranting about these crazy conspiracy theories and someone called the police and they dragged her away- it was wild!” Peter’s eyes widened, and he mouthed ‘wow’.

“Second of all, you met the freaking Fantastic Fo-“ Ned started to yell before Peter rushed forward and clamped a hand across his mouth.

“D-dude! Quiet!” Peter whisper-yelled in a panic. He heard MJ whistle.

“Well I wasn’t gonna bring it up…” She trailed off. Peter released his clasp on Ned’s face and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. The three fell into formation as they walked down the halls, Peter tried his best to keep his voice hushed while still audible.

“So I assume you both know already… yes, I did meet the Fantastic Four yesterday- and no, it was not Fantastic.” Peter admitted.

“Yikes… yeah, I may have seen a video someone took of you chewing out Johnny Storm- the video couldn’t pick up anything you were saying, just caught all the pointing and enraged, emphatic motioning.” MJ shared. “If I had to make a guess based on the patterns of the rich and stupid, those reports about the Human Torch ‘stopping a criminal with alien technology who blew up the street’ was just a coverup by the Four, right?”

“Bingo.” Peter replied, shooting her a tired finger gun. Ned’s face fell in disbelief.

“What?! Are you saying- are you saying Johnny did all of that?” He asked, quietly bewildered. Peter nodded.

“Hard time believing otherwise… he tried explaining himself but failed miserably. A single mugger and he completely overreacted and almost blew up the whole block- I mean what was he thinking?!” Peter asked, his voice getting a little too loud. MJ just snorted.

“He’s a rich, white influencer from LA, he probably wasn’t thinking at all.” She offered. Peter just hummed in solemn agreement.

Sure he’s maybe being a little conclusion jumpy, but he was really excited to meet Johnny. The thought of finally having another person who could truly relate to his particular lifestyle was really giving him some much needed motivation, but after last night he feels like he’s almost deflated again.

I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, Peter thought, that isn’t something that ever ends well.

Ned offered his support by way of getting rid of his Fantastic Four merchandise which Peter found sweet, but ultimately not helpful (Ned was thankful for this as he really didn’t want to have to throw anything away). MJ split off to head to her first class of the day and Peter and Ned make their way to Chemistry. The stressed out brunette mostly just coasts through the rest of his morning classes, just trying to power through his migraine.

“Oh yeah, Peter, have you seen the new Screwball stream?” Ned asks, looking a little apprehensive, as he and Peter sat down in the cafeteria where MJ was already waiting for them.

“The new Screw-whosit stream?” Peter asked back, confused. Ned pulled out his laptop from his backpack and started logging in with lightspeed. He clicked through some tabs till Twitch opened on the screen.

“She’e this like, crazy supervillain themed Vtuber. She only plays games and stuff where she can be the ‘bad guy’ and says a lot of weird edgy stuff- she’s been cancelled on Twitter like 5 times, i’m shocked you haven’t heard of her before.” Ned explained, Peter’s eyes scanned through her Twitch profile as he tried to decipher anything beyond meaningless buzzwords and weird thirst traps of her avatar- a purple haired anime girl with orange goggles in a skintight white and purple sports jumpsuit with her own S logo on it.

“You know I've kept off of Social Media ever since those… disturbing… posts on the OkSpiderman subreddit.”

“You mean the thirst trap edits and the overly-detailed text posts from horny, terminally online weirdos detailing how they want you to bone them?” MJ chimed in, her wry tone laced with amusement. Peter shuddered in remembrance.

“Yes… didn’t have to remind me about it… but yes- but why does this matter? This Screwball lady?”

“Because she made a whole stream last night about you…” Ned said, clicking on a clip from her most recent stream. The video started on Screwball viewing what appeared to be a new Daily Bugle article that Peter hadn’t even seen yet. Her voice immediately grated on Peter’s senses as she read the article aloud, so clearly someone putting on a fake high-pitched anime girl voice.

“‘Spider-Man was then confronted by the Human Torch and the rest of the Fantastic Four after no doubt aiding in the destruction of the Old Essentials thrift store and the 7-Eleven across the street, before he fled in cowardice, leaving the Four to pick up the wreckage he and his accomplice left behind.’ Wow, chat, is it crazy to say that I'm, like, more scared of Spider-Man than I am of like, Thanos or Loki?” Screwball posited, Peter cringing almost immediately. Screwball looked through her chat and read one aloud.

“‘No, Thanos and Loki were at least universal threats that all the superheroes were trying to stop together, meanwhile it seems like all of them just let Spider-Man do whatever he wants with no consequences-‘ Yeah that’s what I’m saying! Like he obviously hasn’t done anything as bad as, y’know, erasing half of the universe, but it seems like no one does anything about him. He keeps acting like a crazy like, vigilante gangster guy, and just no one stops him. The Avengers don’t do anything!” She read from more of her simp-filled chats responses.

“‘He could easily become worse than all those other criminals if no one intervenes’ Yeah, like that’s so true- like, talking OOC here, it’s so~ scary living in the same city as this guy… “ Her Vtuber model made an exaggerated scared expression leading to her army of simps to immediately jump to her defense in the chat.

“‘Don’t worry, we would never let anything happen to you-‘ Aw chat you guys are SO sweet! What would I do without all my mischievous little minions~!” She said, her model blushing dramatically as stream notifications started going off of people donating. Peter scoffed at the absurdity of it all, his head falling into his hands. Ned grimaced in solidarity.

“After that stream, her fans started flooding all of the Spiderman subreddits and Tumblr communities with really inflammatory and kinda gross posts-“ he switched over to a different tab, one in the r/OkSpiderman subreddit. The post shared that same article Screwball covered in her stream, here talking about how the poster hopes that the Fantastic Four, coming to New York ‘valiantly promoting traditional family values’, will finally put Spider-Man in his place and save the streets of New York from his ‘reign of vigilante degeneracy’.

“‘Degeneracy’? ‘Traditional family values’?!” Peter exclaimed.

“Yeah, Screwball also makes a bunch of anti-woke grifter content. And that crowd really still hates you for protecting NYC Pride last year.” MJ explained. Peter’s eyes searched the screen of Ned’s laptop as he scrolled through the subreddit’s ‘Popular’ feed. Overpowering the usual shitposts and weird thirstposting were titles like “Spider-Man is a part of MS-13 (EVIDENCE!)” and “Is Spider-Man an Agent of the Left trying to radicalize American Youths against their own country?”. Peter was at a loss for words.

“I also may have seen a Twitter thread arguing you’re some Russian Spy/Hydra Experiment all because spiders and octopuses both have eight legs…”

“Oh my god-“ Peter groaned as he dropped his head on the lunch table, hoping and praying it’d give him brain damage so he can forget he ever heard any of this. Across the table from him, MJ started sniffing the air and then leaned forward over to Peter.

“Okay, so did you just bathe in chemicals this morning?”

-

“Why’d you skip out on one of your ‘low-profile’ disguises, Matchstick?” Ben Grimm asked, as a young, flushed girl ran back to her mom after getting a selfie with The Human Torch.

“Oh, yeah, because a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap are gonna hide my identity when I’m walking next to your big fat orange ass.” Johnny scoffed.

“Hey, you know I got a lower bodyfat percentage than you.” Ben laughed.

“That’s because you don’t have a bodyfat percentage- you have a bodyrock percentage!” Johnny countered.

Ben had taken Johnny back-to-school shopping at the behest of Sue, all of the good stuff unfortunately being unavailable since Johnny is enrolling out of season. Ben was incredibly tickled when they got to the backpack section and saw that all of the Thing themed backpacks were sold out while there was a plentiful number of Human Torch backpacks leftover (“My target demographics just aren’t into graphic bookbags!”). If he weren’t so cumbersome, Ben might have actually been successful in sneaking one into the cart.

The pair were now walking down the office supplies aisle searching for a suitable binder when Ben clears his throat.

“So how are you feelin’ kid?” He asked, his voice still rather gravely. Johnny rolled his eyes and huffed.

“Gee, I wonder? Let’s review, I got into a fight with some weirdo who beat my ass, I blew up a gas station and the livelihood of a poor immigrant family, my favorite superhero- other than myself- yelled at me and called me a spoiled brat, and now I’m being forced to go to public school. I’m feeling just peachy.” Johnny complained, each word tinged with annoyance. Ben just sighed as he picked up a red and blue binder and showed it to Johnny, who glanced at it and grunted- enough of a signal for Ben to just drop it in the shopping cart.

“I honestly always thought you’d thrive in that kinda environment, matchstick. A bunch of other kids your age fawning all over you an’ givin’ you nonstop attention?” Ben said, pushing the cart out of the aisle and heading towards the checkout. Johnny followed along kicking his feet and staring off.

“Well you’re right, I do love attention… but I want attention in Central City! And LA! I don’t wanna make new friends here, I want to hang out with my actual friends at my home.” Johnny answered, making sure to enunciate ‘home’ especially.

“And all of us understand that, kid. Don’t you think your sister an’ Reed had things they’ve left behind too?” Ben offered, but Johnny shot back with a sudden fervor.

“Yeah, I do understand, because Sue left behind our family!” Johnny stopped in his tracks, his fists balled. Ben halted the cart and looked back at him, Johnny’s fists unfurling. “She-… she didn’t even ask to go see mom together… I had to go by myself…” Ben winced at the mention, and rubbed the back of stony neck.

“Aw kid… look, I don’t fully understand all this junk either. I had no real opinion where we should go or be, but I follow what Reed and Susie do because I trust them with my life, we’re family. A-and I know this won’t give you any sorta peace of mind, but Susie has been extra stressed lately and I'm not sure even Reed knows why. So just… give her a bit of grace is all I'm sayin’. I’m sure she has her reasons- she always does.” Ben explained. Johnny met his eyes only briefly before returning his gaze to the ground. The teen just hummed in acknowledgement and continued to checkout.

Ben sighed and followed after the teen to pay for their items. Not shockingly, the pair were surrounded by other shoppers trying to get a picture taken or an autograph with one or both of the Fantastic Four members- Johnny putting on his award winning smile like nothing was wrong.

-

Peter shut off the water of the shower he had been overdue for, and started toweling himself off. He slipped on some pajama pants and checked his phone as he brushed his teeth. Scrolling through his notification center, he nearly scrolled right past the missed call and text from Yuri the previous day.

Fuck, I forgot about Yuri, Peter panicked mentally. He quickly finished brushing his teeth and crossed the hallway into his bedroom where he shut the door and called Yuri.

After a few rings she picked up.

“Oh look, he deigned to call me back.” Yuri deadpanned.

“Okay, okay, yeah- I deserve that. I-I got busy, I’m sorry.” Peter surrendered, rubbing his forehead.

“I heard. Seems like the Fantastic Four are already making their mark on this city, for better or worse…” Yuri spoke. “But that’s besides the point now; about what I found- or rather, what I didn’t find.”

“What do you mean?”

“I looked through all of that day's reports and noticed the same discrepancies you did. I tried asking the officer who made the report about the silent alarm being a false one, and he just laughed it off and told me to mind my own business. Later in the day I got called in to meet with my Sergeant who asked me in a much less kind way to back off.” Yuri revealed. Peter dragged his hand across his face, somewhat distressed by this information. He paced back and forth a bit, fearing his own memory, as Yuri spoke back up, “What are you thinking?” Peter shook his head, his eyes shifting over to his desk. He walked over and opened the innermost drawer where he put the wooden demon mask he stole off that gang member a few months ago, and the wood chip he found at the art gallery.

“Hm… I can’t help but feel like this all ties back to those guys in the demon masks we’ve been encountering since the Blip. And I'm worried they might be a full blown mafia gang considering how the police are acting…” And Peter has not had good experiences with the mafia. Back before even Tony found him, he had a run in with none other than Kingpin, who beat him within an inch of his life, and would have killed him had Hell’s Kitchen’s resident Devil not intervened. That is not something Peter is clambering to go through again. He heard Yuri sigh over the phone.

“Spider-Man, considering the extremity of that assessment, I think it’s important to run through the countless other explanations first. Hell, this could all just be regular old police corruption, and not mafia corruption.” Yuri rationalized. Peter quickly realizes that he never told her about the wood chip he found matching the demon mask.

Would it be helpful to tell her? Or would it only encourage her to try and get closer to this case and endanger herself… Peter thought.

“Yeah… yeah you’re right.” He decides to say.

After a moment of slightly awkward silence, Yuri asked a question, “Are you going out on patrol tonight?” And Peter thought about it for a moment.

“Yeah I am.”

“Good. I’m going to keep my head low and my ears open, I’d suggest you do the same.” Yuri said. Peter agreed and the two said goodbye. Peter flopped back onto his bed, exasperated. He found himself scrolling mindlessly through his YouTube feed and seeing plenty of videos but none particularly interesting enough to actually watch, so he just kept scrolling and scrolling.

Peter’s not quite sure how long it’s been when he started getting a call from Ned. He shut his eyes and massaged his brow as he answered the call.

“Hey Ned, what’s u-“

“Big robot! Big robot blasting things in Union Square!” Ned shouted through Peter’s phone. The brunette shot up from his bed, ducking out from underneath the top bunk with ease.

“On it!” Peter yelled back before hanging up, thwipping his closet open and grabbing his backpack. Having all these down to a science, Peter was thwipping his way out the window within minutes.

Spider-Man swung through the Lower East Side and into East Village, already able to hear the sounds of chaos and battle. As he hit the side of a building to get a quick read of the situation, the wall crawler saw something he should have expected but really truly didn’t. The fairly large multiarmed robot was already being confronted. Peter could make out the wiry forms of Mr. Fantastic stretching his way about the square, trying to crowd the machine.

Mr. Fantastic managed to stretch his limbs around the robot, imprisoning it for The Thing to leap up and start pummeling its round, flat ‘head’. Peter could see the machine start vibrating, and his Spidey Sense started going off- on instinct he kicked off the building and swung out in an arc.

As he neared the conflict, he shouted out, “GET OFF IT!” And both Mr. Fantastic and The Thing looked up at the vigilante arachnid hurtling towards them. The rubber-armed man unwrapped himself from the machine and The Thing hopped off of it as Spider-Man plummeted into it with a powerful kick, sending it flying out of the center square and into the street where it started fidgeting before it separated into spinning sections and started rapid firing purple lasers all around it, which would have cleanly sliced through Mr. Fantastic’s arms had Peter’s tingle not rang.

The lasers carved into the concrete ground surrounding it as well as drawing strings of explosions across the nearby buildings before they ceased. Peter finally caught sight of the Invisible Woman, appearing out of thin air, rushing out and throwing her hands up to create barriers to stop rubble from falling from the laser attack.

“Thank you for the warning, Spider-Man, but we have this situation under control.” Mr. Fantastic said.

“You’re welcome, but last time I fought a big weird robot like this? Had a dude inside of it.” Spider-Man shared.

“A dude?” Mr. Fantastic started to ask, as out in the street, the robot shot up on four long, cable-like legs, and started galloping towards Spider-Man, Mr. Fantastic, and The Thing.

The Invisible Woman started sprinting after it and slung a thin barrier like a discus at the robot’s feet. The disc slid right underneath its big claw feet and successfully tripped it up; however, suddenly, its torso extended slightly, two extra arms extending out between the original limbs. The robot caught itself and continued running at the other three heroes. It now looked almost like a big purple beetle with elongated legs.

The Thing and Mr. Fantastic started charging the mechanical beast themselves, Spider-Man following suit. The Thing leapt off the ground with force at the robot which effortlessly shot out a hand to swat the stony hero away. Mr. Fantastic then met the machine extend-y arm to extend-y arm, but the robot expertly weaved through the hero’s winding limbs and grappled the man’s torso, tossing him off as well.

The machine zeroed in on its target, its center section spinning to allow its middle arms to change position and shoot out and grab Peter, slamming him down onto the ground. The robot’s flat head split apart grossly revealing a spinning gun shaft, likely another laser. Peter’s tingle was going haywire.

Mr. Fantastic managed to catch himself back on the machine’s wrist and flung himself back at it, kicking the head away from Spider-Man, its laser attack straying. Mr. Fantastic stretched himself around the machine again, now opting to try and entangle the mechanical insectoids' four main arms. The machine’s top-center arm started spinning its claw hand like a saw to cut itself free, but The Thing shot through the air grappling it, slamming the arm down to the ground.

“Sue!” Mr. Fantastic yelled. The Invisible Woman caught up to the group as the machine started vibrating to prepare its spinny laser ability, and slid underneath it, summoned forth two thin barriers and shot them into the beast's underbelly. With a grunt of effort, The Invisible Woman forced apart the two barriers, forcing open the machine’s undercarriage.

Suddenly, the robot stopped vibrating, and shifted a bit. The Invisible Woman gasped at the machine’s interior: a cramped, horizontal control pod with a spindly, barebones android controlling things. The android’s arms stopped piloting, and its head jerked down to look at the heroine. Its eyes started flashing red and its metal jaw dropped as it let out an ear piercing, high pitched scream. With a terrifying quickness, it propelled itself out of the machine to seemingly attack the Invisible Woman, who put up a barrier to block it; but the android ignored her, simply using her barrier as support to launch itself at the still trapped Spider-Man.

Peter yelped, his arms clamped to his sides by the claws trapping him, as the android leapt on top of him and reared back its arm, its hand having transformed into a needle like blade. The wall crawler winced, preparing for an attack, but it never came. He heard the sound of crushing metal, and cautiously opened his eyes to see the rocky orange fist of The Thing encasing what was once the android's head.

He opened his hand letting the bits of crushed scrap metal fall apart on top of the pinned down Spider-Man. The Thing gripped the arm trapping Peter and huffed as he yanked it out off the ground and off the web-slinging hero. Mr. Fantastic returned his body to normal, releasing the machine’s arms. The big bad beetleborg, now without its pilot, creaked and teetered over- twitching on the ground. Spider-Man shook out his arms, now freed.

“Ugh, that thing did not seem to like me…” Peter huffed, getting back onto his feet, trying immediately to diffuse the tension. Mr. Fantastic walked over to him and picked up the defeated android by its torso, carefully studying it with his eyes.

“No… no it did not…” Mr. Fantastic murmured. He stepped over the machine’s arm and began surveying its broken open interior. Peter shuffled awkwardly in place as The Thing went to help the Invisible Woman up to her feet.

This was now the teen’s second run in with the Fantastic Four, although this encounter was much closer to what he’d imagined his first would be; and he can’t help but have noticed a serious lack of a certain annoyingly good-looking, flaming idiot.

The Invisible Woman brushed her suit off and glanced up, meeting Spider-Man's gaze, and made her way through the wreckage over to him.

Oh fuck, Peter panicked mentally, okay, okay, proper first impressions, you’ve done this before, you got this! Susan Storm stepped up to him.

“Hi-“ Susan started before Spider-Man cut her off”

“Hey~.” Peter greeted, firing twin finger guns to boot. Susan smiled awkwardly at him, unsure how to respond. Peter felt his mood quickly sour and he dropped his hands, crossing his arms to hide them. “I-I uh, nice to meet you…”

“Uh-huh,” Sue replied, her eyebrows raised, “um, thank you for your… assistance… with this battle Spider-Man. We really appreciate it.”

“Oh, no problem at all! Just doing my job, ma’am.” Spider-Man responded. Sue started to speak again but whipped her head around at the sound of tearing metal, seeing Reed Richards pulling off more metal plating to get a better look at the machine’s interior. She scoffed.

“Reed, stop it! We can take it apart at the lab!” Susan shouted at him, the other man raising his hand in acknowledgment.

“Spider-Man,” The Thing- or rather, or rather, Ben Grimm- now came over to Peter and Susan, “You said you encountered something like this before? With a guy piloting it?”

“Oh, yeah! A few days ago, this big mecha rhino just tore through the streets- opened up and there was some big, burly, russian guy piloting it.” Spider-Man explained. Ben Grimm’s eyes lit up.

“Oh yeah, yeah- I remember seein’ about that. Y’know he read more bull than rhino.” Ben said, Peter’s hands flying up to his head.

“I know, right?! He got super pissed too, when I pointed it out!” Peter excitedly told Ben, the craggy man chuckling in return.

“Well, I can assure you we will investigate this machine and its automated pilot.” Susan assured. “Do you happen to have any parts of the… mecha-rhino?”

“No, sorry, the police took all of that stuff- and the guy.” Spider-Man supplied. The Invisible Woman waved her hand.

“Well, we’ll see what we can do about that. Maybe.” She said, her demeanor changing to look apologetic, “and, I must formally apologize for my teammate the other day- my brother.” Spider-Man nodded his head, remembering all too well, “there is no excuse for his recklessness, but I can assure you we will be doing everything we can to assure nothing like it happens again. And I may have overheard a bit of what you said to him, and I must say… I might have misjudged you based only on secondhand information.” Peter waved her worry away.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I unfortunately get that all the time.” He said.

“Still, I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have let others form my opinion of you. Speaking of… we will actually be hosting a dinner with the currently active Avengers next week, and we would love it if you would come too.” Peter’s eyes went wide under his suit.

A superhero gathering? That am I invited to? Peter thought, bewildered.

“For real?” He asked, Susan Storm smiling and nodding, “Y-yeah! For sure, I'm in!” Peter then suddenly remembered himself and looked down at his Spider-Man suit, “I-is there like a dress code or-“

Susan put her hands out in a halting motion, “Don’t worry about that… you can come in whatever is most comfortable for you.” She said with a somewhat strained smile, but Peter didn’t really mind at the moment. The Avengers had all but stopped their fancy dinner parties by the time Peter started working with Tony, and they were something he had always wished he could’ve been a part of. Maybe it was a dumb way to look at it, but joining one would’ve really cemented him as a part of the team. An equal.

The mood somewhat shifted as it seems the police had removed some of their barriers, allowing reporters to begin rushing to the Fantastic Four for a scoop on not only this sudden robot attack, but also the group’s interaction with the wall-crawling menace. Susan and Ben’s heads turned to see the encroaching media, and Peter sighed.

“And that is my cue to leave…” Spider-Man said, saluting the Four (Three) as he swung off. He heard Susan Storm shout after him, but he just kept swinging, not wanting to get involved with the nightmare of the media storm.

Peter swung his way back through East Village on his way back home. He tried calling Ned through his mask but it just kept going to voicemail. He shook his head at his friend in exasperation as he stopped to perch on the railing of a water tower to leave a voicemail.

“Dude, you call me to the fight and I meet the Fantastic Four again, and you’re nowhere to be see- er, heard? Ridicu-… lus…” Peter trailed off as he noticed something on a building across from him. He actually remembered this building. The first June after Peter got his new Stark suit, Peter decided to show up to NYC Pride as Spider-Man. There were plenty of whispers at the time, as there always is, of planned attacks on the Pride parades. Peter being a superhero, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man no less- the one who looks out for the little guy- he felt like he had a responsibility to watch over the event.

He certainly wasn’t being stealthy about it, or trying to hide, he darted across rooftops and the sides of buildings the whole time, waving and doing tricks for people, and everything went smoothly. Whether or not his presence actually had any direct influence on nothing happening didn’t really matter, because people felt protected.

Peter was patrolling through Manhattan one day afterwards, and he noticed, on the side of an apartment building in East Village, someone had spray painted a big Pride flag, with the Spider-Man logo in the center, and the words ‘PROTECTOR’ painted underneath. It was just one of those small things that reminded him that what he does is important.

And now here is that same graffiti mural, defaced.

‘PROTECTOR’ was painted over in red, with the words ‘MENACE’ replacing it, and the Pride flag was messily crossed out with the even bigger word ‘TERRORIST’ written over.

Maybe it was dumb to be so bothered by this, it was a fairly low effort insult. But Peter couldn’t help but feel his stomach drop, the small high he had from being invited to the Fantastic Four’s dinner dissolved.

The low mood carried over to the next morning as he woke up.

His whole body, once again, ached. Trying his best to ignore the snap, crackle, pop of his joints as he stood up to get ready for school, he checked his phone and saw a voice note from Ned. He may have broken yesterday's record for ‘longest annoyed groan’.

“Dude, I am so sorry! I was caught between saving two worlds!” Ned once again frantically explained, as Peter shoved things in his locker.

“Yeah, the real world and a video game world.” MJ criticized.

“My company needed me! Bahamut was our most challenging foe yet- the raid lasted hours!” Ned further argued. Peter sighed into his locker as Ned and MJ began arguing about the former’s misplaced priorities.

The continued as Peter suddenly felt his tingle- his Spidey Sense start signaling him. Not in any major way, it didn’t even really feel like an immense danger alert. Just an alert.

He started looking around for what could be causing his senses to heighten like this, when someone shouted and charged past the trio, knocking into MJ in the process.

“Ugh, asshole!” She shouted after, rubbing her shoulder.

Other students began shouting things Peter could barely make out and rushing down the hall towards the school entrance, many taking their phones out.

“What is going on?!” MJ asked aloud incredulously. Peter tried his best to look past the sea of energized teenagers to see what the fuss was about.

His eyes widened.

If Peter didn’t already feel like shit, he certainly did now.

Having just sauntered through the front doors of the school, stood a boy about the same height as Peter himself, with short, curly blonde hair. He rolled his shoulders and adjusted the expensive looking golden jacket he wore and then removed his designer sunglasses to reveal brilliant, sky blue eyes.

None other than teen heartthrob and youngest member of the Fantastic Four, Johnny Storm, just walked into Peter’s school- Mr. Fantastic himself, Reed Richards, following close behind him.

Oh for fucks sake…