Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rest of his family didn’t understand, but Johnny was okay with that. He said it himself. Johnny loves women, Johnny loves space. It made sense. His interest in women in the past had always been fleeting. They’d indulge him early on but had since learned to wave him off. It didn’t hurt, and he meant it when he told himself that.

Johnny knew he was smart. Not in the way Sue or Reed were, he was no scientist, but he and Sue came from the same blood. It’d be easier to let Reed make an algorithm to decode the Surfer’s messages, but there was something deeply personal about doing it himself. It was hard, and it took a while, but he got there. Decoding the messages was only the first step, but mankind had a history of using Rosetta Stones like this, and Johnny could learn from that history. But the next step? To actually learn the language? That was harder. Mankind was well-experienced with that, too, of course, but as far as he knew, no one had attempted it with an alien language before.

Johnny threw himself into it. It took months or years to truly learn a language, but Johnny didn’t have that. No time, no outside resources, no one to practice with. But, again, he knew he was smart. He could do this. Knowing what the words meant was one thing, but to understand them? To listen to the recordings, just listen without having to check his notes, and understand what she was saying? To be able to speak and respond in this alien language? All before the Surfer returned and Galactus came? It was a daunting challenge.

He was never one to back down from a challenge, though. And it paid off.

The Surfer buckled as her own words blared from every speaker lining the street. Johnny stood on the ground, looking up at her, soaking in the noise. He met her eyes, and there was something oddly intimate about it all. Not the eye contact, but standing here being the only people for light years and light years that could understand these messages. More than that, it was beyond intimate to hear what someone would say to a dying planet.

“Die with yours.”

“Hold your loved ones close.”

“Speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak.”

“Rejoice and celebrate.”

She’d said those things to Earth, but there were two dozen recordings for him to listen to. She said all those things and more. Apologies. Empathy. Efforts to comfort. To soothe. Before and after. She felt their pain. Every time. 

Sometimes she was less kind than others. Sometimes the planets fought back, or she avoided spending too much time near the surface. Sometimes she was… not apathetic. Callous? Watching planet after planet die took its toll. But she prayed for them every time. Always asked her victims to hold onto each other and die happy.

It was kind of fucked up, and Johnny wanted to hate her for it. This woman was going to take his world, his life, his family, his nephew, everything. But she’d traded her own life to avoid experiencing the same thing herself. He could understand that, respect it even.

“Take me instead,” Johnny asked. Begged, really. Reed wouldn’t beg, not to Galactus or Mole Man or anyone, no matter the stakes. Johnny wasn’t Reed, though. He wasn’t above begging. “Please, he’s just a baby. Take me instead. I’ll be Galactus’s herald.”

The Surfer shook her head. “You wouldn’t want this life.”

Johnny didn’t, not really, but he wasn’t asking because he wanted it. There was a curiosity, something appealing about it that he wanted to understand, but he knew he belonged on Earth. Then again, it wouldn’t be a sacrifice if he wasn’t losing something. “It can’t be worse than letting my planet die.”

“You’re right,” she conceded with the slightest tip of her head. “I still wouldn’t wish this upon someone else.”

“I don’t think that’s your choice,” Johnny responded, even though he wasn’t really sure that was true or not. She chose which worlds Galactus consumed. Why shouldn’t she choose who becomes his heralds?

“Galactus isn’t interested in you,” the Surfer told him evenly. “He doesn’t need another herald, especially when he could have an heir.”

Johnny opened his mouth to argue, then paused. He could feel the ideas clicking together in his mind, and a thought struck him. “If- Galactus wants Franklin to replace him. If he gets Franklin, Galactus wouldn’t have to consume planets anymore. He could- I don’t know, die? Or just be normal, or whatever. Would that mean you’d be free from being a herald?”

The Surfer barely moved, but her eyes widened marginally, and Johnny knew she hadn’t considered it. She didn’t answer. She looked like she wanted to, but she didn’t say anything. Johnny started to call out to her, to push her to speak, but then he blinked, and she was gone. Johnny felt himself deflate. He’d tried, but he wasn’t winning here. He lit himself up, letting the flames wash over him, and floated up and back toward the Baxter Building, ready to take on whatever plan his family had cooked up while he’d been talking to the Surfer.

The moment the Surfer shoved him out of his beeline for Galactus might’ve been the first time Johnny touched her. The thought was a speck in the whirlwind of everything else in his mind, but it was still there.

Johnny slammed into the concrete face first. It hurt like hell, but he’d been hit far worse many times. He forced himself up, craning his head up first before getting his arms under him. The Surfer was continuing his path toward Galactus. Gratitude swelled in Johnny’s chest, only for his stomach to plummet when he realized Galactus hadn’t fallen through the portal. 

The Surfer was pushing, but so was Galactus. Johnny was flying before he even realized he’d flamed on. He didn’t have as much momentum as he’d had before the Surfer knocked him to the ground, but it was enough. His head and forearms hurt as he rammed into Galactus, and he felt his metal body give way under the impact. Beside him, he felt the Surfer’s smooth body against his, her rib cage awkwardly pressed into his shoulder as they pushed. Johnny called on a little more flame, his fire surging for just a little extra juice, and he felt Galactus finally fall.

“Johnny!” he heard Reed scream, but the sound was faint against the noise of the portal closing. Johnny knew if he turned, he wouldn’t see Reed holding Franklin. In the same way, he knew his family was safe.

He wasn’t, though. The cold hit him at the same moment as the lack of oxygen. His eyes went wide, and they burned in a way he’d never quite felt before, but he refused to close them. He barely felt the Surfer’s hands on his arms through the sheer pain of the cold, but he could tell she was moving him. Something was happening, something his human mind didn’t have the capacity to comprehend, and then the cold was replaced by something far, far worse.

He screamed. He didn’t know he was screaming, but he thought he must have. This new feeling, it was intense. Intense in a way far deeper than the cold of space or even the heat of his flames could never compare to. The cold surrounded him, and his flames enveloped him. This was more than that. This utterly overwhelmed him, flooding and consuming him. It went deep inside him, touching him on a level his mind couldn’t comprehend.

When he’d flown through those cosmic waves, the ones who’d mutated him and the rest of his family, he imagined the silvery ribbons reaching into him, wrapping around all his molecules, and manipulating them, just a little bit, into something new. This, he could imagine sort of like that, only it was more like barbed wire snagging whatever made up the protons, neutrons, and electrons that made up the atoms that made up those molecules. The barbed wire got its hold on him and everything inside him that made him Johnny and tugged like a puppet master yanking on puppet strings, not to make his puppet dance but to make it twist and jerk wildly.

That was what was happening to his body, though. It was all-consuming, beyond anything Johnny thought was possible, but only for a few moments, not because it stopped as quickly as it began but because a new sensation wildly overpowered it. Whatever was happening to his body, it hardly compared to what was happening to his mind. It felt like a library had been stuffed into his mind, only the library was filled with a million different versions of Reed’s brain instead of books. Even that analogy barely managed to scratch the surface of what was happening in his mind.

He saw… things. Everything. Things he didn’t know what to call, things he couldn’t understand, yet he somehow did. Space… things. Structures, energies, forces. Powerful things, powerful beings. Impossibly far away, impossibly close. Saying he saw them wasn’t right. He didn’t truly see them. He wasn’t imagining what they looked like either. They were just in his head. They hadn’t wormed their way into the wrinkles of his brain. They’d just appeared, forcefully too, like the big bang had gone off in the crevices where human thought and knowledge existed, but the explosions had created this instead of the universe. Because this wasn’t the universe. It was something more than even that, and it was all right here.

It would be easy to get lost in it all. The whole universe, all here in his head, so big he couldn’t even pick out Earth among it all. He couldn’t let it get drowned out, though. He wouldn’t. Above all else, even with his mind and body changing in ways beyond his comprehension, he was still Johnny. 

That thought grounded him among it all. He held onto his name, something infinitesimally small among everything he’d just been exposed to. It was enough. He was Johnny. He just had to remember it. And like that, the overwhelming force that had overwhelmed, flooded, and swallowed him sank inward and suddenly became bearable.

Johnny gasped. No air filled his lungs, as there was no air out here to fill his lungs. But he became aware of his surroundings again. The cold was there, though a little distant. He could see the mass that was Galactus floating not all that far away. He could feel the Surfer still holding onto him. More importantly, an orange glow illuminated the corners of his vision, and a more intangible version of that glow danced at the corners of all his other senses. Fire. His flame was on, all the way here in space when there wasn’t oxygen to burn.

Like when the cosmic radiation had changed him on that first voyage in space, it’d changed him again. This wasn’t just cosmic radiation, though. That was nothing compared to this. This was the Power Cosmic.

“I told you I would never wish this upon anyone else,” the Surfer told him, and Johnny understood.

Chapter Text

Johnny wished he could have said something like gaining the Power Cosmic made him smart or find some magic inner peace, but that just wasn’t true. The next best thing would be that he struggled a bit on his own, then had some big, cosmic revelation, but that just wasn’t true either.

He felt mad. In the insane variety, not the angry way. His mind was not sound. The Power Cosmic was not just physical power. He could perceive and understand things that the human mind was not supposed to perceive or understand. It was just there now, and his mind just couldn’t get a grasp on it. He came in and out of periods of being absorbed in it, regaining awareness of his body’s surroundings, and becoming completely disconnected from either reality.

It was in his body and outside of it. Forces, power, and matter utterly unlike anything on Earth were spread impossibly far, and also were impossibly concentrated in and around him. Whether he was in his body or out of it, it was inescapable, but his consciousness still tried. Johnny didn’t know which one was worse. It didn’t hurt or make him upset. It was just so much, and some integral part of him that Galactus hadn’t changed was rejecting it.

The Surfer was there through it all, and so was Galactus. Johnny was always somewhat aware of this, sometimes more than others. It was grounding, in a way, but it was only when he was truly in his body that he knew the implications. Galactus had inflicted this upon him. The Surfer had this inflicted upon her. They knew what he was experiencing, yet they seemed stable. Would this pass? Or were they feeling like this all the time, and they just didn’t show it?

“I told you that I wouldn’t want anyone else to know what it was like to be a herald,” the Surfer told him in one of his rare moments of lucidity. “This is just the beginning of our curse.”

“The mortal mind isn’t meant to hold the Power Cosmic,” Galactus said, and Johnny wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. He didn’t think the guy really talked to them, or maybe he did, and Johnny just didn’t notice. Then again, it wasn’t like there was much else to do. Why wouldn’t Galactus talk to them? “You held onto your humanity, and it isn’t compatible with what you’ve become.”

That made sense. He was still Johnny. He’d thought the Surfer was still Shalla-Bal, but evidently, that wasn’t true. She was more Surfer than whoever the Zenn-Lavian she’d once been was. Had she lost herself like Johnny almost had? Johnny didn’t think so. There was some humanity in her still, or whatever the alien equivalent of humanity was. But she didn’t seem to be drowning in her power like Johnny was.

But the moments his mind was in his own body became more common, and the moments that it wasn’t became farther and fewer between. Moments of lucidity became minutes, and sooner than later, Johnny got enough of a grip on himself to really feel like Johnny again.

It got old fast, and there were times Johnny couldn’t help but let himself get lost in his mind, or let his mind get lost in the universe. He was only human, afterall. They were social creatures. He wasn’t meant to be floating in space like this. Because that’s what he was doing. That’s what they were doing. The Surfer was the only one with any control over where any of them went, and she wasn’t exactly pushing Galactus around or offering Johnny rides on her board.

Johnny had known Galactus was big that first time he’d seen him on his ship. He’d seemed a little smaller when he’d come to Earth, and Johnny was realizing he actually had been smaller. Probably so he wouldn’t be too big to grab Franklin, Johnny guessed. But out here in the endless void of nothing, Johnny realized Galactus at his biggest still wasn’t all that big in the grand scheme of things.

Galactus was the closest thing to a planet for as far as Johnny could see, with his physical eyes at least. He hadn’t gotten a surfboard when he transformed, not like the Surfer. He had some kind of staff, which was sort of cool, but it meant Johnny’s options were either standing on Galactus or floating. Floating got old fast, but standing on Galactus was barely better. Again, Galactus wasn’t actually that big in the grand scheme of things. His body was the closest thing Johnny had to a world right now, and he wasn’t a very big world.

The Surfer was there with him, at least, going through the same thing, and she was merciful if nothing else. She wouldn’t leave him. She flew around a bit, usually without Johnny, and it wasn’t until she let Johnny sit on her board that he understood why she never left.

“My Silver Surfer, my Firelord, do not leave me,” Galactus rumbled in their minds, making Johnny’s whole body flinch so hard it nearly sent him off the board. The Surfer barely reacted, though, just veering her course to keep from straying too far.

“You don’t have to listen to him, you know,” Johnny told her once he regained his balance a bit. Even with all his power, he had to straddle the board with his legs draped over the edges when the Surfer moved, or he’d cling to her in fear of falling. Even out here, even after the Surfer had seen him at his worst, Johnny thought he should still try to be a little classy. “We don’t have to listen to him, right?”

“No,” the Surfer assured him, speaking in Zenn-Lavian. Johnny had lost a bit of his grip on the language in his bout of… insanity, for lack of a better term, but the Surfer seemed to enjoy being able to speak her native tongue with him, so he’d regained what he’d lost quickly enough. 

“He’s probably strong enough to make you, right? Us, I mean.”

The Surfer made a noise. Johnny turned around to see if she’d nodded. She had. “You can fly on your own, you know. You could just fly off, and Galactus wouldn’t stop you.”

Johnny had some response about not wanting to leave her, and how flying in space was still too hard for him to feel confident trying, when he truly processed her words. He adjusted a bit so he was now sitting facing her, legs crossed. In Zenn-Lavian, he said, “You said wouldn’t, not couldn’t.”

“Our power is Galactus’s power. He could control us, if he wished. He doesn’t.”

“Why?”

The Surfer shrugged. “I don’t know. For all we’ve gained, our power is still nothing compared to his. Maybe he thinks it's beneath him, or he knows it’d be cruel to truly control us.”

The Surfer kept talking, explaining something about how their autonomy had changed with the transformation. Their bodies had changed, and so had their minds, but their will was still there. Galactus could snuff it out as easily as he’d changed their minds and bodies, but he hadn’t. She didn’t know why, if there was some moral reason, if it would make them less effective heralds, or if Galactus saw some value in them. She explained it all in a little more detail, but Johnny had a hard time keeping up.

“Shalla-Bal,” Johnny interrupted in English, keeping his voice light. He grinned up at her. “I’m sure it’s exciting to be able to talk in Zenn-Lavian again, I know I’d be excited to find someone who speaks English out here in space if we swapped places, but I don’t have whatever cosmic language learning thing you’ve got. I just have what I figured out from the recordings. We can keep talking in Zenn-Lavian, but if we’re going to talk about anything complicated, I don’t think I can follow unless you’re talking in English.”

The Surfer stopped, expression shifting and going silent. Johnny thought he’d said what he had pretty nicely. Not too serious, not condemning, and he’d explained himself. But the Surfer looked… Johnny didn’t know. Not angry. Not upset. But it was something. An emotion, not just a look of thought. He didn’t know what it was, though. Had he offended her, maybe?

“Shalla-Bal?”

“I’m not Shalla-Bal,” the Surfer said somewhat abruptly and stopped flying. She’d slowed since they started talking, but this was a true stop.

Johnny leaned back a bit so he was properly looking up at her. “What?”

“It was a translation error. You said yourself that you learned my language from what your friend had recorded from across space. You got that part wrong.”

“Um, okay.” Johnny was a little surprised, but it wasn’t a problem. He thought of his companion as the Surfer more than Shalla-Bal, so it wouldn’t be hard to make the mental switch. “I’d assumed Shalla-Bal was a name since… It doesn’t matter. Is Shalla-Bal like a title or something?”

The Surfer shook her head. “Shalla-Bal is my wife’s name.”

Okay, that was surprising. “You’re a lesbian?”

The Surfer tilted her head ever so slightly, almost like if she was peering at him. “I don’t know this word.”

“It’s, um, a woman who’s attracted to other women.”

The Surfer straightened, leaning back a bit. “I’m not a woman.”

What? Oh. “I never really thought about aliens having different genders. On Earth-”

“No, she interrupted sharply. “I’m a man. Like you are. I had a body like yours before Galactus gave me his power.”

…what.

Johnny’s mind went blank, not drifting off to get lost in the universe as it often did, but coming close. Thankfully, the Surfer kept talking. “I was born with a woman’s body, but my mind and soul were that of a man. Zenn-Lavian technology remedied this, and I lived as a man until Galactus came. His power reverted the changes I’d undergone.”

That was… “That’s fucked up.”

The Surfer blinked a few times, looking surprised, as if she’d—no, he’d—just remembered Johnny was there. The expression quickly shifted into amusement. “It was. I don’t know why. If there’s a metaphysical aspect to birth sex that Galactus’s power reached into, or if he thought a female herald would be more efficient. It doesn’t really matter.”

“No, it does,” Johnny argued, and he didn’t know why he was arguing. “You- He- We’ve got a word for people like you on Earth.”

“What is it?”

“Transgender. It means, um, your body’s one gender but your head’s another? I don’t know a lot about it. I mean, Sue’s a biologist, and I’ve seen stuff on TV about it, so I know a little bit. It’s, um- Gender’s identity, you know? And changing your body is, uh, making it so your identity is reflected on the outside. That’s who you are. Or part of it, I guess. And Galactus messed with that.”

Johnny surprised himself by arguing with him. If the Surfer didn’t care, why should he? His interest in the Surfer began, in part, because he thought he was a woman, though the fact he was married maybe threw a wrench in things. But he’d been dealing with the changes Galactus forced upon him for a bit now, and he’d be pretty pissed if Galactus had taken his masculinity, too.

“It doesn’t really matter,” the Surfer repeated. “Other than Galactus, I only ever see other people for a few moments. Then they die, and whatever they perceived me as, man or woman, dies with them.”

Morbid. True, but morbid. Still… “Nuh-uh. I’m here now.”

“You’re here now,” the Surfer conceded. He kept looking down at him. “Does it make a difference?”

“I don’t know. I guess? I’ll call you he, I guess. If you care about that sort of thing. And-”

“I do,” the Surfer interrupted a little too quickly. Johnny didn’t mind, though.

“Okay, I’ll call you he. And not call you Shalla-Bal. Whatever your actual name is, I can call you that.”

The Surfer shook his head. “I’m the Silver Surfer now. I left who I was, and that included my name.”

“I’d still like to know,” Johnny told him. He didn’t really need to know, but maybe he’d help him stop thinking of him as Shalla-Bal.

“My name was Norrin Radd. It wasn’t the name given to me, but it was mine,” the Surfer said quietly, almost softly. His tone didn’t change often, not like that. It wasn’t emotionless, but it was usually a little distant. Johnny guessed it was something about the Power Cosmic, like how his head got lost in the expanse of the universe, only more constant and spread out, instead of all or nothing like Johnny experienced it. Maybe it wasn’t that, and his distance was just his way of coping with it all.

“Norrin Radd,” Johnny repeated, seeing how the name felt in his mouth.

“I’m not him anymore,” the Surfer reminded him, still looking down at him. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“I know,” Johnny told him, swinging his legs around to sit back facing outward on the board so the Surfer could resume flying. He meant it, too. It didn’t really change anything. He didn’t even think about the implications that the woman he’d been interested in was actually a man until much later, and by that point, his mind had been grounded in his body long enough that he couldn’t stave off his regularly-scheduled dissociation for much longer, any thoughts he might’ve had about attraction for a man getting as lost as the rest of him.

Chapter Text

“My Firelord, don’t leave me.”

Galctus’s voice in his mind was, like many things in space, a paradox. It was loud, yet quiet. It was distant, yet it echoed in every fiber of his being. Powerful yet weak at the same time. A warning, but one Johnny knew he could ignore. 

He thought about yelling something back. That he wasn’t Galactus’s “Firelord.” That Galactus was evil. That he’d stayed here for too long. His heart wasn’t in any of it, though. He just kept flying forward.

Johnny didn’t have any real way to know how much time had passed since he’d arrived here, but he did know it took an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to fly. The Surfer could move without his board, but it looked ridiculous, and it was far from fast. Johnny had a little bit of an advantage, having years of experience flying with just his fire before, but it still should’ve been obvious he had to use his staff to actually fly around.

Johnny didn’t know where he was going. He just knew he needed to be away from here, away from Galactus. The Power Cosmic filled his head with so many images of places and things that weren’t here, fleeting images he could hardly grasp but wanted desperately to reach for. Johnny loved space, he’d joked, and it was true. He did. Those years after that first mission, after the team had gained their powers, he longed to get back out there and get back to exploring. He had the chance now, finally, and he wasn’t going to keep waiting around, not knowing what he was waiting for.

He wasn’t as fast as the Surfer, and his flight path was a little rocky, but it was still exhilarating. He was constantly covered in flames in this form, and it took no effort to maintain it, so encouraging extra propulsion in his feet was easy as pie. He had to channel his fire through his staff to put real power behind it, though, and he had to rely on the staff to turn and keep his balance. Pretty easy to learn. It felt almost like flying over New York, only the view was that much more spectacular. 

They weren’t near anything. Reed had intentionally sent Galactus to the farthest corner of the universe, if such a thing even existed. There were no planets, stars, moons, nebulas, or anything like that. There were rocks here and there, asteroids and such, but there was still nothing really there. Johnny still loved it. Most of space was nothing, and it was beautiful. All the nothingness around him made it easier to see that nothing did eventually become something.

Twinkling stars and smears of color were all around him, just very, very far. With his Power Cosmic, Johnny still got some idea of what they were, like he was looking through some kind of psychic binoculars. He’d make it close to them to see them up close with his eyes, eventually, but this was still loads better than just floating near Galactus, letting the universe show him things that weren’t really there. They were there, he could see, even if he couldn’t really make out any details of what he was looking at.

Johnny kept flying, getting better looks at all the celestial bodies the universe had to show him, but looking at them just reminded him that there was even more out there. His cosmic sense showed him more and more of what lay just beyond what he could see, and then it just kept doing it until it was all Johnny could see. A familiar feeling, and not an unwelcome one, but not the most convenient at the moment. He still didn’t really know what he was experiencing, episodes of dissociation while he adjusted to his powers, probably, but Johnny had kind of been hoping they’d stop once he went and actually looked at the things his power was showing him.

Of course, he didn’t really know he was lost in the Power Cosmic until he was free of it. Until then, he soaked in the apparitions of colorful, whirling clusters of gases and debris bound by inexplicable forces that made up the most beautiful things he could ever imagine. But when he awoke, when the visions left him, and he realized he’d just been floating in the middle of nothing for an amount of time he could never know, space lost some of its magic.

Johnny made a beeline back for Galactus, hating the comfort he found in the sheer presence of there just being something there. He’d never been afraid in the sky, whether flying or taking off in a spaceship, but this wasn’t anything like that. He’d never been, truly been, in just… open space. No spaceship to return to, no friends or family nearby, no ground to land on, nothing. Just him, sensory input he didn’t understand, and the universe.

There was something beautiful about it, and maybe Johnny would be able to appreciate it when it stopped being so terrifying. His body had just been… out there. His mind not really present, not even a wall or rock to protect him. There was no one out here, no one that would hurt him, he knew, but his human instincts remained, as irrational as they could be. The idea of being so vulnerable freaked him out. There was no other way to put it.

Galactus didn’t say anything as Johnny flew back and tucked himself in the shelter under his arm. He didn’t have to say anything, though Johnny could sense that Galctus was aware of his presence. It was that same extra sense that let him know what lay just out of his field of vision, that there were planets and stars impossibly far away, and that there was something powerful holding it all together, only more localized. It was a little bit of a comfort, like being able to hide behind Galactus’s bulk was. Johnny still sort of hated Galactus, but his presence had become sort of a home, and it made him feel a little safer to know Galactus liked having him around.

The Surfer had been off on his own when Johnny left, not all that far, but far enough that it felt like he was returning from somewhere when he approached Johnny. He didn’t say anything at first, but Johnny felt some sort of sympathy coming off him. 

“Firelord,” the Surfer started, but Johnny interrupted him quickly.

“Johnny. I’m Johnny. Or the Human Torch. Whatever. Not Firelord.”

The Surfer tilted his head to one side ever so slightly and stared at him for a bit before talking again. “Johnny.”

“Yeah?”

The Surfer kept staring at him. He floated down a bit, and it felt like the space equivalent of him crouching down so he was on eye level with him. Johnny hated it. It made him feel like a kid. A little one. One who was crying over something that only kids cried over.

Johnny got a really good look at the Surfer like this. He hadn’t really looked at him since they’d been stranded out here, he realized. He looked the same as he had that moment he’d flown up out of Earth’s atmosphere to grab the edge of his board. He looked- Well, Johnny knew he was a man now, but he looked like a naked woman wrapped in chrome. His body, while it had all the feminine features in all the places and shapes Johnny expected a woman to have, lacked detail. His face, on the other hand, was remarkably intricate. Not necessarily in the same way as a human face, the metallic sheen was still overwhelmingly present, but it was still undeniably a face.

Like a hyperrealistic statue? Like one of those ones that looked so real that you couldn’t believe it wasn’t. Only, it was. It was alive, and it moved. His face had all those minuscule little micro-movements that showed what someone was thinking, what they were feeling. Johnny had seen it when he’d had that moment in Earth’s atmosphere with the Surfer all that time ago. He’d said the Surfer looked warm then. That hadn’t changed. The only difference between now and then was that Johnny had more than a few moments to study his face. 

The Surfer’s eyes were intense. They were moving, flicking over Johnny’s body like he was studying him. Johnny wasn’t quite sure what he looked like since transforming, but he imagined, like the Surfer, he was a little harder to read but still pretty emotive. Johnny kept staring at him, taking in the details of his face. He had nice eyebrows. Nice lips, too. And cheekbones. The kinds that women back on Earth would kill for. But Johnny’s mind kept drifting back to his eyes.

The warmth was there. It was in the mouth and the cheeks, too, but mostly the eyes. The eyes told Johnny the Surfer cared, not in the way Johnny cared, but still a form of care. His gaze was curious, and it was warm. He wanted to know why Johnny was hiding under Galactus’s arm. But there was something else in his gaze, Johnny realized. Something that was always sort of there, something he’d just never had time to pinpoint.

Pity was his first thought, and Johnny didn’t like that. Johnny didn’t want the Surfer to pity him. He wasn’t- Well, he was kind of a measly little human that got caught up in something beyond him. He didn’t feel like he deserved to be looked down upon for it, though! But that wasn’t really what pity was, was it? Johnny wished he had a way to look up the word, and he felt a flash of sorrow when he realized he couldn’t and never would be able to.

Sorrow. That was it. That was part of pity, too, wasn’t it? Pity was sort of a… sorrowful warmth. But empathetic too. Acknowledgement for someone’s hardships, recognizing that pain, and meeting it with kindness. When Johnny thought about it like that, he couldn’t really be upset.

The Surfer had gone through what he had, Johnny reminded himself, and it’d probably been harder for him. He’d gone through it alone, he’d lost his wife, and his body had changed in more ways than Johnny’s had. And he’d come back from it. Not necessarily stronger but…

Broken? Maybe that was a better way to describe that look in the Surfer’s eyes. There was pity, yes, but Johnny would probably say it was more sympathy for what Johnny was going through than actual pity. It was that sorrow aspect that made him think it was pity. The Surfer had been broken and rebuilt, and Johnny thought that rebuilt version was pretty amazing, but there was still a lingering hollowness. The Surfer could stomach leading Galactus to new worlds, but it still hurt him. He knew he’d saved his home, but he’d still left it behind. He’d accepted his new life, but he’d still lost his old one. It was still hard.

The Surfer had told him that he didn’t want anyone else to become a herald, to know what it was like. Johnny thought he was getting it. Maybe he hadn’t destroyed any worlds, but he’d seen how big the universe was. “Big” didn’t even begin to cover it. His human mind couldn’t even begin to comprehend how truly massive it was or attempt to understand how complex its contents were, to the point that Johnny’s mind frequently splintered trying to contain it all. And despite that cosmic perception, he was still just Johnny. He was so small compared to it all, floating out in the nothingness. The Surfer was here, and so was Galactus, but it was still impossibly, crushingly lonely.

Maybe that was what the Surfer had warned him about. That space wasn’t everything Johnny hoped and wanted it to be. On Earth, space had been something to explore. An adventure. But to the Surfer, it was, in a way, his prison. Anything he could imagine was at his fingertips. And he just had to fly through it on his own, and bring Galactus to destroy the inhabited plants he did manage to find.

Johnny hoped he wouldn’t come to think of space like that. Despite his scare, however spooked he was feeling right now, he still loved space. He wanted to go back out there. He just- He just needed a minute.

The Surfer’s hand was moving. Johnny didn’t notice until it was touching Johnny’s shoulder. He flinched, just a bit, and the Surfer started to withdraw his hand, but Johnny reached up and caught his wrist. They stayed like that for a moment, eyes locked, Johnny’s fingers around his wrist, before Johnny tugged gently, twisting the Surfer around him, so he was positioned next to him. Johnny reached up, using a grip on the underside of Galactus’s arm to pull himself up, or what felt like up, a bit, so he could sit beside the Surfer on his board.

Their shoulders were touching, which was closer than Johnny ever dared sit with the Surfer on his board. Hell, had they ever even sat together? The Surfer usually stood, and Johnny usually sat on the edge when the Surfer let him on the board. This was uncharted territory. The thought didn’t make Johnny nervous, though. It was new, but it didn’t feel like it.

“It’s like…” Johnny started, then trailed off. The Surfer hadn’t asked, but he thought he might’ve been waiting for him to talk on his own. “It’s like reverse claustrophobia, if that makes sense? Does your space language thing make that make sense?”

Johnny felt the Surfer move ever so slightly against him. When he spoke, Johnny thought he sounded amused. “It does. I know your language as well as you do, Johnny.”

“Ben says I’m not all that good at English,” Johnny joked, feeling a pang of homesickness. Ben always said things like that, teasing him, but would then turn around and tell anyone who’d listen how smart Johnny was. Like the black-and-white cookies Ben liked so much, crazy smart and crazy dumb at the same time. Oh, what Johnny would give to hear Ben teasing him again. 

Johnny got so caught up in the thought that he went longer than he meant to without thinking. He forced his thoughts back to the present, hoping this wasn’t a sign his mind was about to get lost again. Now wouldn’t be the worst time, on the Surfer’s board in the safety of Galactus’s shadow, but the Surfer was being pretty patient with him right now, and Johnny hated to make him wait.

“I’ve never thought about it, but I’ve been in a container all my life. Like, I’ve been outside, obviously, but when you get on a bigger and bigger scale, outside on Earth is still kind of inside. I couldn’t fly outside of Earth’s atmosphere. When we went to space, I was always on the ship or in a suit,” Johnny explained. He didn’t turn to face the Surfer, keeping his gaze on the stars in the distance. “It’s freaky just being out there. It feels… I don’t know. Naked. Vulnerable. I’m just… there. And there’s nothing else there. I’m just all exposed. There’s stuff out there, I know, but this whole cosmic thing also makes sure I know that a lot of it is really far. And even if I go close to it, if I keep going, I just end up in nothing again. Something about my brain just doesn’t like that. Or, um, it didn’t. Really suddenly. I didn’t have a problem with it until I was out there.”

“It was probably a lot at once,” the Surfer told him. He spoke a little flatly, but Johnny knew there was recognition in there. The Surfer understood what Johnny was feeling. “I had Galactus’s ship to start on. You don’t.”

Johnny reached up to pat Galactus’s arm above him for emphasis. “I just have him. It’s weird. I mean, you know what he did, and what he does. But right now, he’s the closest thing to a home we’ve got.”

The Surfer hummed in acknowledgement. “Does contact help your… reverse claustrophobia?”

“I think so.” Johnny nodded, feeling a little sheepish, but refusing to let it show. The Surfer wouldn’t care, he thought. He didn’t think he wanted to totally let everything he thought made him charming go, but the Surfer had just found him hiding in Galactus’s armpit, so he knew he wasn’t going to be bouncing back to him right now, if there was even anything to bounce back to. “You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to. I think I’ll be okay soon.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t have anywhere else to be,” the Surfer told him. Through his peripheral vision, Johnny could tell the Surfer had turned to look at him. Not totally facing him, just looking at him through one eye, but it still felt nice. He didn’t know why. Just… contact with someone else. The physical kind, of course, but also beyond physical. To be seen in a literal sense, to be seen on an emotional level, it made being stuck in the depths of space a little less lonely.

Johnny felt himself hesitate for a moment before giving in and resting his head on the Surfer’s shoulder, keeping his eyes on the imaginary horizon. When the Surfer didn’t move or pull away, Johnny let himself relax and soak in his presence.

The next time the Surfer went off on his own, he asked Johnny to come along, and they ignored Galactus’s calls and flew off to explore the universe together.

Chapter Text

“My Silver Surfer, my Firelord, don’t leave me.”

Johnny and the Surfer, of course, ignored Galactus’s call. It was sort of thrilling, even though Johnny had flown past Galactus’s invisible border before. He’d just never done it with the Surfer. Hell, he didn’t know if the Surfer had ever left on his own without him either. Exciting stuff.

The Surfer showed Johnny all the things he wanted to see but couldn’t reach himself. Celestial bodies, of course, were what caught his attention first. The maneuverability that came with becoming a cosmic being let him explore planets and stars in a way no human spacecraft ever could. But that was just the start. He’d seen nebulas and galaxies as pictures on Earth and flashes from his cosmic sense in his mind, but actually flying through them? Crouching on the Surfer’s board as he surfed on trails of cloud and dust? Using his staff to pull himself out of pockets of weird gravity? Even flying far enough to see a galaxy from a different angle was something utterly unimaginable on Earth.

It was loads of fun, but the Surfer quickly showed him that interest in such things was human thinking. The fabrics of time itself, the tethers of reality, and the spectrum of radiation were things they could practically touch, something Johnny never thought was possible. Things Johnny never could’ve imagined existed, from feeling a Watcher’s gaze to the flickering presence of the Phoenix Force, were almost easy to pick out among it all. He literally had a whole new sense to “look” at things with. 

Before, when he’d dissociated from his body and gotten “lost,” it was his inability to comprehend these things that triggered it. And he still lost himself sometimes, his mind getting swept up in the grandness of it all, overwhelmed by it all, or just his human side not ready to perceive something or another, but Johnny didn’t mind it all that much. It was a small price to pay for the opportunity to see it all. Besides, the Surfer was there to protect his body when his mind wasn’t there to do it. He was safe with him.

This wasn’t new to the Surfer, though. It was all shiny and exciting for Johnny, and he thought the Surfer liked showing it to him, but a question danced on Johnny’s mind through it all. It took him awhile to work up the nerve to ask it.

“Life,” Johnny started. “Planets with life, I mean. They exist?” 

“Zenn-La achieved space travel,” the Surfer told him, which Johnny found surprising. Then again, so had Earth. The way the Surfer said it, however, told Johnny he didn’t mean it in the same way. Humans just went to space. Four words, and Johnny knew the Surfer meant the Zenn-Lavians could truly travel through space. “Space explorers visited a thousand galaxies before we decided to remain on our homeworld.”

“Wow,” Johnny said, stunned. “See, I can’t imagine that.”

“What part? Exploring other galaxies or remaining on our homeworld?”

“Well, both. But I meant staying on your planet.”

The Surfer shrugged. “The decision was made a couple of centuries before I was born. A planet-bound Zenn-La was the only Zenn-La I ever knew. One of my old professors said it was because the galaxy didn’t have anything to offer us. Our world was a utopia. There wasn’t a reason to leave it.”

“One of my old professors said there’s no such thing as a utopia,” Johnny countered, and, to his surprise, the Surfer laughed.

“Your old professor was right. There isn’t. There were problems, of course, some that I didn’t know about until I gained my cosmic powers. Life was easy on Zenn-La, though, and I can understand the decision,” the Surfer told him. “There were a few Zenn-Lavians appointed to remain in contact with outsiders, but there was no real appeal to leave. The Kree, the Skrulls, the Shi’ar—We didn’t want to be like them.”

Johnny didn’t recognize those words, presumably names of alien species. Again, he couldn’t imagine it. Being able to communicate with alien life? And just choosing not to? To live an easy life on a single planet? That was incomprehensible in a totally different way from all the mysteries of the universe.

“We haven’t met any of them, right? Been near them, I mean,” Johnny asked, not really getting his point out. He tried again. “Are we avoiding them? Or are we still just really far away?”

“Far away,” the Surfer told him, “but it wouldn’t be too hard to approach them. I wasn’t planning to visit them.”

“Why not?”

The Surfer gave him a quizzical look. “They know who I am. I visited a lot more planets than the ones your friend recorded. There are many military worlds. They’d attack us if we came within range of their scanners.”

“Oh.” A new thought. “They can’t hurt us, can they?”

The Surfer shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’re not mortal. Being hit hurts, but their weapons can’t do any real damage. Even if it did, I don’t think we’d die.”

Johnny wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “You said Zenn-La could communicate with other worlds. Wouldn’t they tell them you became a herald to save them?”

“I’m still a herald. My reasons for becoming one don’t change the fact that I caused the destruction of countless planets. My presence meant the same thing whether I joind Galactus willingly or not,” the Surfer pointed out, and it sounded kind of obvious when he said it like that. It made Johnny go quiet for a while, but he’d already got the conversation going and he couldn’t quiet one last thought on his mind.

“Zenn-La still knows, though. Galactus isn’t really eating planets right now. Couldn’t you go back?”

“I could,” the Surfer responded, and the way he said it told Johnny that he’d thought about it before. “But…”

“But what?”

“I don’t want them to see me like this,” the Surfer said with a note of disgust in his voice.

Johnny let his eyes roam up and down his body for a moment. “...Silver?”

The Surfer’s head jerked, looking at Johnny with a look of surprise. “A woman.”

Oh. Right. Yeah. Johnny still found the Surfer’s body attractive, but it was pretty hard to care about things like femininity and masculinity when he was looking at the tendrils of reality and thinking about how many times the fabrics of time could be folded over on itself. Really, curves and long hair equating to femininity and sharper edges and broader shoulders equating to masculinity felt to meaningless compared to it all. Johnny hadn’t thought about those kinds of things in awhile, and he almost couldn’t believe stuff that small was still on the Surfer’s radar at all, let alone bothering him.

But Johnny wasn’t trans. He’d gotten enough attention to know he was attractive, and he was pretty sure that’d transferred over to his herald form. The Surfer couldn’t say the same. It wasn’t beyond Johnny, he was sure it was something he could understand, but the Surfer didn’t really talk about it, and the Power Cosmic was no help with things like this. Was that really something the Surfer cared about? After seeing the cosmos? After watching countless worlds get destroyed? After, in a way, sacrificing himself to save Johnny’s world?

The Surfer kept talking. “It’s not the only reason. It’s not a good one, I know. It’s just what my mind goes to when I imagine going back.”

“It’s not a bad reason,” Johnny told him, even though he didn’t really mean it. “It’s your life. Whatever your reasons are, however you feel, it’s still real.”

“I don’t know how long I’ve been away from Zenn-La,” the Surfer went on after a moment. “The people I left behind… They’ve got to be older. Lived their lives without me. Or maybe they’re not even there anymore.”

Oh. Oh, yeah. That, Johnny could understand. He still hadn’t really wrapped his head around this whole immortality thing, it hadn’t settled in at all, but he’d still thought about it. How he wouldn’t just be spending his whole life out here while his family spent theirs on Earth. He’d never get to watch Reed and Sue be parents. Never know if Ben got married. Never learn what sorts of things Franklin liked. Never get to watch him grow up. Worse, if this immortality thing was real, one day he’d know they all died. He’d just have to know, not know any of the details, or even have an idea of what happened. He’d just have to accept the reality of it. He could pretend, sure, but eventually, there would be no pretending.

“You should visit,” Johnny said suddenly. He turned, making sure to meet the Surfer’s eyes. They weren’t as sorrowful as they’d once been, but Johnny could still see how much this life had worn on him in just one look. “Isn’t it worse not knowing?”

The Surfer was silent for a little bit, and Johnny wondered if he’d overstepped, but then he seemed to deflate. “You’re right. It is worse not knowing.”

Johnny tried not to look too excited. “That’s great! I mean, I’d love to see Zenn-La, if you don’t mind me coming with you.”

The Surfer’s expression shifted, suddenly looking at him like he’d grown two heads. “Of course you’re coming. Why wouldn’t you come?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you wanted a private moment?” It was a genuine question. Johnny thought he was being respectful. The Surfer’s reaction was kind of rude, actually, if you thought about it. Still, it made Johnny feel gooey inside that his presence was taken for granted. They’d stuck together this long, so he supposed it was kind of a ridiculous idea to separate now of all times, but it was still nice to hear it voiced. He shook himself, refocusing his thoughts. “Is it far?”

The Surfer looked off in the distance. “As far as anything is. We’ve never really tried to travel fast before. Distance isn’t that big of a problem.”

They hadn’t? Johnny thought they’d gone pretty fast. The Surfer could move faster than the speed of light, as far as Johnny could tell at least. It wasn’t like he had any of Reed’s machines to measure something like that. The Surfer said Johnny should be able to travel just as fast as he could, but Johnny doubted that. A surfboard was built for travel, a staff wasn’t. He imagined he could go pretty fast, but nothing compared to the Surfer. And now he was saying that wasn’t even his top speed?

The Surfer explained it a bit as they flew. Something about hyperspace and manipulating space-time. If Johnny took the time, he thought he could understand it, but for now, it all went over his head. It was cool, and that was all that really mattered to him.

It still took awhile. Reed had sent Galactus really far, and the Surfer and Johnny apparently hadn’t traveled that far in their adventuring so far. It’d taken the Surfer a month to get out of that gravity trap, but it hadn’t taken him any time to catch up with the Fantastic Four once he’d escaped. More impressively, he didn’t have problems keeping up with the ship when it entered FTL. This knowledge didn’t help Johnny figure out how fast they were going any better, but it helped him conceptualize it, at least.

It didn’t feel like they were flying for a month, but Johnny’s sense of time was pretty skewed at this point, so it might’ve been. They dropped out of hyperspace, time and space returning to normal around them, and… Nothing. There was nothing. Maybe the Surfer had gotten cold feet?

“Um, Surfer?” Johnny asked when the Surfer didn’t move for awhile. “You good, buddy?”

“It’s supposed to be here,” the Surfer said slowly, voice low and hollow.

“What’s supposed to be here?” Johnny asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

“Zenn-La. It’s supposed to be here. It hasn’t…” The Surfer trailed off, floating forward. Johnny stepped off the board, letting himself hover under his own power, as the Surfer crept forward to investigate some of the space debris floating before them. “It hasn’t been long enough for Zenn-La to die naturally. Other races would’ve died too if that much time had passed.”

Johnny floated forward, his staff clutched at his side in one hand, and began looking at the debris. There were a few big chunks of earth, but most of them were smaller pieces, small enough to fit in his hands. The Fantastic Four had fled when they saw Galactus destroy a world, but they had seen the world burst apart. Johnny could imagine this was what the aftermath looked like, once Galactus had consumed all there was worth consuming. These were the crumbs. Galactus had eaten Zenn-La too, despite the Surfer’s sacrifice.

“Surfer,” Johnny started, but that didn’t sound right. “Norrin.”

The Surfer didn’t turn to face him. He kept staring at the place his homeworld had once been, and then, faster than Johnny could perceive even with his cosmic sense, he was gone, streaking in the direction they’d come from. Toward Galactus. 

Leaving Johnny with the remains of his homeworld. Alone.

Chapter Text

Johnny was just left… kind of swimming around.

He could fly pretty well now, but that didn’t change the fact that he had nowhere to go.

He was kind of mad about it. No, he was pretty mad about it. Johnny thought he and the Surfer were closer than that. He said- Well, he hadn’t said anything, exactly, but he’d implied it. When Johnny asked the Surfer if he could come with him to Zenn-La, it sounded like… He didn’t know. A promise? Commitment? Partnership, even. Not romantically, but still important. And the Surfer had just left him.

There was not much to do other than poke around the remains of Zenn-La, and the more he did it, the more Johnny got it. This wasn’t Johnny’s world, but stewing in what little was left of it was still hard. If this were Earth, he’d probably have a lot stronger reaction than the Surfer did. He’d probably be kicking and screaming, fire roaring and destroying what little remnants were left.

That being said, Johnny supposed he didn’t know how the Surfer was actually reacting. He assumed he’d flown back to where Galactus was awaiting to take out his anger on him. Johnny hoped he was just yelling and not trying to fight the cosmic being or anything. Galactus was fond of his heralds, as far as Johnny could tell, but Johnny didn’t think Galactus would take that from the Surfer. He’d be destroyed, and Johnny would be even more alone than he already was.

There were a lot of cosmic forces here where the planet once was. Johnny could sense them, but he couldn’t make much sense of them. The Surfer could’ve explained it, but he wasn’t here, so Johnny was going to figure it out. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He sat on one of the floating rocks, and let himself stew in the cosmic power.

Something had been here, and now it wasn’t. That was obvious, but Johnny could tell even with his eyes closed. There was an absence here that wasn’t in other places. Something to do with Galactus’s consumption, maybe? He doubted Galactus was literally eating the planets. Those machines did something to process it, and physical matter seemed so insignificant now that Johnny could sense so much more. Some kind of energy consumption? There was something intangible missing from here. It had to be some kind of energy.

Johnny sat on that rock for what felt like days, but didn’t make much progress before the Surfer returned. 

“You left me!” Johnny accused upon seeing him. Then, his eyes caught up with his brain, and Johnny froze. The Surfer looked different. “Surfer?”

The Surfer was bald now, that was the first thing Johnny noticed. His eyes roamed over his body, taking it all in. He’d totally changed. Well, he was still silvery, still had his board, and still had four limbs and a head, but within the boundaries of what made a humanoid, he’d changed. He was masculine now. There wasn’t a better way to say it. Flat chest, broader shoulders, narrower hips, sharper features, and muscle where there had once been none. Johnny knew he was a man, didn’t really think of him as a woman anymore, but seeing it was different than knowing. 

“I’m sorry,” the Surfer told him. His voice was even, but it did genuinely sound like he felt bad. “I shouldn’t have left you here. I didn’t even realize until after Galactus was done with me.”

“Dude, forget it. What happened?” Johnny demanded, straightening and floating toward his friend. “Galactus did this to you?”

The Surfer nodded. “I confronted him. I told him I’d found Zenn-La, and- I don’t remember exactly what I said. Talked about all the things I’d sacrificed for him, and how he couldn’t even honor that by leaving one planet alone. I wasn’t thinking, and I just said it all. He took my freedom, my body, my home, my wife, and all those things, he knew, but I also said he’d taken my gender. He just… looked at me. Like he was looking inside me. Then he grabbed me with his Power Cosmic, and my body changed so it looked like it used to before I became his herald.”

“You don’t seem happy about it,” Johnny said slowly. “Do you want to go back?”

The Surfer’s head snapped up. “No! Of course not. This- This was my body. I wanted to have it back. That doesn’t mean I wanted Galactus to change me again. Especially not without asking.”

Johnny didn’t really get it. He supposed he didn’t like the idea of Galactus doing things to his body, but he’d already changed him, so it didn’t really feel like that big of a deal to him. And the Surfer was happy with the changes. Maybe it felt like a rub in the face after finding out his planet was destroyed? A weak apology, perhaps. 

“You were gone awhile,” Johnny started, trying to figure out the best way to say what he wanted to say. “Did you- I don’t know, work things out with Galactus? Or were you just traveling all that time?”

“I want to go to the other planets Galactus and I visited,” the Surfer responded, somehow both answering and not answering his question at the same time. “You can come if you want, or I could bring you back to Galactus. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you wanted to return.”

Johnny shook his head. “No, I- I’m a little mad at you for leaving me here, but we’re in this together. But… You know they’re gone, right? It’s going to be more of this.”

“You made me listen to the prayers I gave twenty-four of the worlds I visited before Galactus destroyed them,” the Surfer reminded him. “You should know why I have to do this.”

Johnny sighed. He wanted to argue, but he also knew the Surfer was right. “Yeah. I know. I don’t think you have to, but I understand what you mean.”

The Surfer nodded once and offered Johnny a hand. Johnny took it, letting their hands touch longer than necessary to feel how the Surfer’s hands had changed. He took his spot behind him on the board, pawing a little awkwardly as he tried to figure out the best way to hold onto the Surfer with his new body. It all felt different. Not bad. Maybe even good? But still different. Just different. He was a little bigger, shoulders blocking some of Johnny’s view ahead, and the natural places to put his hands were gone. But he figured it out, and they were off.

It was more of the same, but Johnny wasn’t anywhere close to tired of it. Flying through space, watching the universe move around them, was as exciting as ever. They didn’t fly quite as fast or far as they once had, but Johnny still loved it. They spent weeks, or maybe months or even years, hopping from planet to planet, or former planet to former planet. All of the ruins looked like Zenn-La did, clusters of debris with that hollow feeling of absence occupying the space the planet once did. Some more than others.

The Surfer explained what Johnny was sensing here and there. Johnny’s theory about Galactus consuming energy was on the right track. It wasn’t necessarily life energy that he had to eat, but something that came before it. The potential for life, which Johnny had a hard time wrapping his head around. It was hard to imagine, but he could still sense it. The Surfer showed him a couple of planets that he’d thought about feeding to Galactus, but decided against because they would probably cost more energy to consume than they would give. That spark was there, that potential. Knowing what it felt like made it a little easier to understand what he was feeling when he felt the absence of it. Galactus truly sucked the planets he visited dry.

They encountered a few other life forms. Nova Corps scouts, mostly. Johnny wanted to investigate, but the Surfer always tried to steer clear of them. Some aliens were okay to talk with or fight, but they generally wanted to avoid ones that would lead to more trouble. The Surfer explained his reasoning for each decision he made, and Johnny wondered how he kept track of it all. The cosmic sense didn’t give them that kind of information. Did he remember from Zenn-La? Had he taken the time to learn it all? Was this just common knowledge in space?

There were a lot more than twenty-four worlds to visit. Not a countless number, the Surfer hadn’t been a herald that long in the grand scheme of things, but enough that Johnny lost count. He didn’t grow apathetic, but the sights and feelings grew familiar, and it was getting harder to pay his respects the way he thought he ought to. Johnny was just getting desensitized, he thought, but it wasn’t like he was looking at a particularly evocative sight. He could feel the loss of life and see that there wasn’t a planet there anymore, but Johnny had never actually seen an inhabited planet other than Earth. It was hard to grieve a hypothetical, dozens of times, especially.

He never said anything, though. Even when the Surfer stayed at one of these places longer than Johnny thought he needed to. The Surfer was working through this all in his own way. Johnny didn’t have to understand to respect that, as was the case with a lot of the things he didn’t get about the Surfer. 

Eventually, they reached a spot that Johnny recognized.

He didn’t recognize it at first. They were probably there for fifteen minutes before he realized. This was the planet they’d first encountered Galactus on. The one he’d been to with Sue, Reed, Ben, and Herbie. Light years from Earth, but still closer than they’d ever been.

This world hadn’t been inhabited, or at least Johnny didn’t think it was, but they still spent as much time here as they’d spent at the other planets. Johnny tried not to seem too impatient as the Surfer took his time. Earth was next. Were they going to Earth? It would make sense, but Earth hadn’t been destroyed. Johnny could see the Surfer not wanting to go back there. Still, Johnny silently hoped.

The Surfer reached out for him, and Johnny took his hand like he had what must’ve been hundreds of times by now. It was an easy motion, the Surfer pulling Johnny onto the board. Johnny didn’t let go for a bit, he usually didn’t these days, as he settled into his spot standing behind the Surfer, wrapping his arms around his lean body for support and resting his face on his shoulder almost gently. It was all so familiar that Johnny could almost ignore the thrumming feeling of anticipation lighting up his chest. Would they or would they not return to Earth?

Johnny had a vague mental map of the universe in his mind. In one direction, Earth. In the other, Galactus. There were other points, of course. Zenn-La, inhabited planets they’d visited, things like that. But Johnny knew they weren’t going to either of them. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew it was either Earth or Galactus.

He tried not to feel too disappointed when the Surfer flew back toward Galactus.

Chapter Text

“My Silver Surfer, my Firelord, you’ve returned.”

Galactus was roughly where Johnny and the Surfer had left him. Johnny didn’t know how long they’d been gone, but it wasn’t long enough for Galactus to drift any significant amount. The Surfer approached him slowly, letting Johnny remove himself from his board. The Surfer faced him for a few moments before holding up a hand, letting it softly grow with his power.

“It’s not much, but I collected some energy for you,” the Surfer told him before moving forward. Johnny moved too to watch the Surfer circle around behind Galactus to the ports on his back, opening one of them up just a fraction and letting the power flow from his hand into it.

Galactus seemed to groan, more in the way a house groaned than a person did. Little technological parts on his body moved as he inflated, almost like he was taking a deep breath, and then relaxed again. “I thank you, my Silver Surfer.”

“When did you do that?” Johnny asked as the Surfer backed away. The Surfer met his gaze and shrugged.

“I did a little bit at the time. Life-sustaining planets hold the energy best, but it’s all over the universe. I just absorbed a little anytime I noticed it.” He paused, then added, “We should work on controlling your powers. You should be able to do everything I can.”

Johnny didn’t think that was true—his transformation was pretty different than the Surfer’s—but he let the Surfer try to teach him. It gave them something to do, which was a valuable thing out here. They could talk with each other, experiment with Johnny’s powers, wander off to explore some of the nearby space, try to get Galactus to talk, meditate on their own thoughts, sit on the Surfer’s board, and that was about it. Oh, and Johnny still disassociated a lot, less than he had before, but still a notable amount, but he didn’t have control over that, and it wasn’t what he’d call an enjoyable pastime. 

“Why did you bring energy back for Galactus?” Johnny asked some time after their return when the Surfer was trying to teach him how to absorb energy. Johnny didn’t see much point in the lesson, not when he could generate a near-infinite amount of energy himself. It was still sort of neat to feel energy outside his body react to him, but not enough for Johnny to feel particularly enthusiastic about practicing. It was sort of like when he played with candles or siphoned heat off burning buildings on Earth.

“I have… complicated feelings about Galactus,” the Surfer told him, pulling back a bit, signaling to Johnny that they were going to take a break to talk about this. “I’m sure you do too.”

Johnny nodded, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. It was hard to put his thoughts into words. When he’d first become a herald, he’d often thought about how Galactus was the closest thing he had to a planet. He was his world, in more than one way. He was the one who made life in space possible, for better or for worse, and he was physically at the center of Johnny’s whole existence out here. Until he figured out how to fly around on his own, that is. Then he became a point to return to, and Johnny hated that he was. He shouldn’t matter to Johnny. Sure, he’d given him this power, but he’d also taken him from his home, tried to kidnap his nephew, and destroyed countless worlds. But just something about his presence felt like a home out here.

The Surfer described something totally different. “He’s inexplicably powerful, older than anything in the universe we’ve seen, but that’s more of a curse than a blessing. His hunger is so intense. You’ve never tried to link your cosmic sense to Galactus, have you?”

Johnny shook his head. “Should I?”

The Surfer grimaced, his expression telling Johnny all he needed to know. “No. It’s… You think your cosmic sense is overwhelming.”

“I don’t think it’s overwhelming. It is overwhelming. You see what it does to me.”

“I didn’t mean to diminish it,” the Surfer apologized with a tip of his head. Johnny wasn’t actually offended, he knew the Surfer understood, but it still surprised him when the Surfer walked right back over his words. “The magnitude of the universe almost feels weak compared to Galactus’s hunger.”

“Really? There are so many things out there more powerful than Galactus, though.”

The Surfer nodded. “It’s spread out, though. Galactus’s hunger is more concentrated. It’s more than any being should suffer. It- It doesn’t justify what he does. But it makes the positive moments more meaningful.”

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked. Positive moments? He couldn’t think of a single positive memory with Galactus, save perhaps for when he used his body for shelter, but a big rock would have equally sufficed.

“He cares, in his own way. He shared a part of himself with us, named us, and feels comfort in our presence,” the Surfer explained, and Johny found himself nodding along. It was true. Johnny didn’t just have the Power Cosmic inside him. He was of the Power Cosmic, and that power was of Galactus. He didn’t particularly like the name Firelord, but it didn’t bother him when Galactus or some alien called him that. He knew Galactus didn’t like it when Johnny or the Surfer left him, and there was something sweet about that, he supposed.

“He’s terrible. He took everything from us, and even more from so many planets,” Johnny said instead. “You know that.”

“He’s immortal. He’s so powerful that such things don’t register to him in the same way. And that doesn’t make it okay. Part of me hates him for it. But,” the Surfer went on, “it does make it more special that he cares. About us, and he cares for the planets he destroys more than another being on his level would. I know- I know I keep saying it doesn’t excuse what he does, and it doesn’t, but I want to have peace with it. With him.”

Johnny didn’t get it, but he did. “We’re going to be around forever, and so is he. It’s better to get along than hate each other.”

“That’s one way of thinking about it. I don’t want him eating more planets, but…”

“It’s complicated,” Johnny finished, repeating the Surfer’s phrasing from earlier. He couldn’t think of a word that summed it up any better.

“It’s complicated,” the Surfer agreed, “but isn’t everything?”

“I guess,” Johnny said, frowning ever so slightly. He felt the thought form, then quickly said it before he could let himself chicken out. “Things on Earth that I thought were complicated don’t feel that complicated anymore.”

“You miss it,” the Surfer concluded, saying it like it was both a question and a statement.

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you go home?”

“You know why,” Johnny said, and he was pretty certain the Surfer did, even if he’d never said it aloud. It was the same reason the Surfer didn’t leave Galactus, not exactly the same reason, but close enough. “I know you have more stuff to figure out in space. I can wait.”

“But Earth can’t,” the Surfer responded, gaze dropping. “I lost my chance to go back to Zenn-La. It’s unfair to make you do the same with Earth.”

Hope flashed in Johnny’s chest. Still, “Are you sure? If you still need to-”

“You followed me across hundreds of galaxies,” the Surfer interrupted him. He was smiling, warm in a way so much deeper than he was when Johnny had first met him. “I’m always going to be reconciling my feelings about being a herald. That doesn’t mean you have to wait forever. The least I can do is go to your home planet.”

Johnny broke into a grin and shot forward, making the Surfer’s face melt with surprise. Johnny threw his arms around him, pulling him close. “Thank you. You’re going to love it. I promise.”

Johnny couldn’t see the Surfer’s face where he was, but he could imagine his expression softening as he put his hands on Johnny’s back, returning the embrace. They would stay together for a while yet. 

Chapter Text

They left lightspeed somewhere between Earth and Mars. Johnny could hardly contain his excitement as the Surfer lowered them into Earth’s atmosphere. 

“There,” Johnny told him, putting half his weight on the Surfer’s torso as he leaned over to point down at North America. It was odd how exciting just recognizing a continent was. He could imagine the invisible lines of a map below, separating the United States from its neighboring countries, and then separating New York from its neighboring states. He couldn’t quite pinpoint New York yet, but he had an idea of where it was, and that was enough.

The Surfer could probably remember where New York was, or sense it in some way that Johnny hadn’t mastered yet. He still didn’t say anything as Johnny directed him down to Manhattan, nor did he say anything when they reached the city, and Johnny went quiet, too caught up in it all to say anything. These streets, these buildings, all the people on the sidewalks below… This was New York. This was Johnny’s home.

Johnny let go of the Surfer and began flying under his own power. The Surfer had slowed down a lot, about as fast as a car rolled without any gas, when they got closer to the city, so Johnny was able to keep pace with him. The Surfer wasn’t really looking around, but that was okay because Johnny was definitely showing him everything again later. He couldn’t believe he was finally here, after all this time!

Johnny heard a strange noise and saw the Surfer move out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see the Surfer trying to pull some white stuff off his face. He thought maybe a pigeon shit on him at first, but the substance was too big, too stringy. It almost looked like a spiderweb, only they were far too high to be flying through any spiderwebs.

“Hey, chrome dome! Human Torch knock off!” a voice called, and Johnny looked down to see a figure in a red and blue costume clinging to the side of a building. “We’ve been through this before. Tell your boss that Earth is off limits!”

The man spoke in English, which shouldn’t have been surprising, but Johnny had been speaking near-exclusively in Zenn-Lavian since he’d been away. He hadn’t forgotten English, didn’t think he could, but it was a little jarring to suddenly be hearing it again.

“What is that?” the Surfer asked in Zenn-Lavian, giving up on pulling that white stuff off of him to look over at Johnny. He seemed pretty unfazed, more curious about the newcomer than anything.

“I don’t know,” Johnny told him. Louder, he called, switching to English, “Hey, who are you?”

“Spider-Man!” the man called back. “Seriously, man, we don’t want you here. Get out of here!”

“That’s rude,” Johnny grumbled the same moment that the Surfer turned to blast something out of the air. Johnny hadn’t seen the attacker coming, not until he heard something hit the concrete.

“Kree,” the Surfer said simply, pointing at the man he’d just knocked down.

“He doesn’t look Kree.” Johnny hadn’t seen many Kree, but he knew they were blue. This guy was white. Or, Caucasian, rather. Broad-shouldered, yellow-haired, and pretty human-looking. Plus, the red costume. He didn’t look Kree at all.

“The bands on his wrists are Kree technology,” the Surfer told him, now speaking in English too. He looked troubled. “There shouldn’t be any Kree in your solar system.”

Johnny thought the same. That was weird. And concerning. Had Earth been invaded by aliens in his absence? Probably not, but it would be pretty messed up if it had.

Spider-Man threw more of that white stuff at them. Webs, Johnny realized. It’d seemed ridiculous earlier, but the guy’s name was Spider-Man. Johnny flew forward a bit, blocking the Surfer with his body, and turned up his flames, the webs melting right off. Johnny turned to face the guy, ready to tell him his webs wouldn’t be able to stop him, when red cloth filled his vision, and a fist slammed into his jaw.

Johnny hit the ground surprisingly hard, not dazed but a little disoriented. Had that guy just jumped off the wall and punched him? What the fuck? He flailed one hand for his staff, having lost it when he fell, only for the Surfer to fall into the ground right next to him a moment later. Had Spider-Man hit him, too? No, there was something on top of him. A hammer?

Alarm jolted Johnny into action. With one hand, he recalled his staff. With the other, he clasped the hammer’s handle and pulled up on it, trying to toss it aside. Only, it didn’t move. Johnny tried again. Again, nothing. He prepared to try for a third time when the hammer moved all on its own, shooting through the air somewhere behind Johnny. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing a group of people approaching, and quickly refocused on the Surfer, offering a hand to help him up.

“Are you okay?” Johnny asked as he pulled the Surfer up. The Surfer summoned his board, and it was back under his feet in a heartbeat.

“Yes,” the Surfer told him, absently rubbing his chest where the hammer had hit him with one hand. “The Kree shouldn’t have technology like that.”

“Something weird’s happening,” Johnny responded as he flew back into the air. “We can figure out what’s going on after we beat these guys!”

Johnny hadn’t been in a real fight for awhile, but this fight was a lot harder than he thought it should’ve been. These guys were strong. A man in flying armor, a Viking with a crazy strong hammer, a man in red who could grow a few dozen feet tall, a tiny woman with insect wings, a man with arrows that actually kind of hurt when they struck, a man who could launch projectiles from his wings, and- wait.

“Holy fuck, is that Captain America?” Johnny asked seconds before getting hit in the face with a red, white, and blue shield. He caught it before it fell, pausing to take a look at it. Yup, that was Captain America’s shield. Johnny hadn’t taken a history class since he was in high school, and he hadn’t been the best at it, but every teenage boy paid attention in class when the teacher started talking about Captain America, Johnny included. The details of the lessons had faded, but he was pretty certain Captain America was dead.

“You know this one?” the Surfer asked as he shot the man with wings out of the air with a well-placed blast of cosmic energy. The Surfer was doing pretty good in this fight, actually, taking down most of the flyers fairly easily. It was just that Viking who kept giving him trouble.

“Yeah,” Johnny responded, raising the shield to block a flurry of arrows. He held it up, ready to throw it at the guy, before thinking better of it and throwing his staff instead. His staff came back. The shield would not, and he really wanted to play with this thing a bit after the fight was over. It looked so much like the one in the pictures! “He’s, like, a historical figure. Died forever ago. Real freaky that he’s here.”

“Hey, Cap,” the tiny woman with insect wings said, “hear that? You’re space famous!”

“Maybe they’re some kind of illusion?” the Surfer suggested, but he didn’t sound convinced. “The Kree and the Asgardian are the real threats. Take out the rest of them, so we can focus on those two.”

Asgardian? What in the world was that? The one with the hammer, Johnny assumed, but he still didn’t recognize the word. Another race of aliens, probably, but not one that the Surfer had ever told him about. Regardless, Johnny saw the Surfer’s point. Most of these guys were getting pretty annoying. Setting the shield down, Johnny called upon his flames, getting brighter and floating up into the air.

“What’s he doing?”

“Look out!”

“Get to cover!”

“Flame on!” Johnny cried for old time’s sake, and his flames surged. The whole area lit up, enveloping half a city block in orange. Once he knew all his foes were in his flames, Johnny turned up the heat, feeling the asphalt under his feet start to melt as he blasted the whole area. He shifted a bit, not liking the feeling, and shut his power off. He didn’t want to kill these guys, just take them out long enough so he and the Surfer could figure out what was going on.

Only, they didn’t go down? Maybe they were illusions, like the Surfer suggested. Then Johnny noticed the rippling effect surrounding his foes. It was barely visible, but Johnny was long since used to identifying it. A force field. One he knew.

He heard the sound of an engine, and his head snapped up to see a familiar blue car overhead, pulling up just on the edge of the battlefield. An orange figure leapt out of it, rearing for a fight, only to be smacked out of the air by the Surfer’s board a split second later. Johnny winced and then, fight forgotten, started flying toward the car. “Ben! Sue! Reed!”

“Um, what?” one of the people he’d been fighting said aloud, and Johnny sensed a hesitance wash over the battlefield, but he didn’t care. His family! They were here!

Ben hit the ground somewhere nearby, but the Fantasticar was a lot closer, so Johnny went there first. He flew right up to it, practically climbing into it, when the Surfer called out a warning to him. “Careful! Don’t touch anyone. You might burn them.”

Probably worse than burn them, considering his “fire” wasn’t really fire anymore. It might be fine, though? Johnny waved the thought away. Better safe than sorry. He followed the Surfer’s instructions, stopping himself from reaching forward, but that didn’t change the fact that Sue was right in front of him. Sue! After all this time! “Sue!”

“Johnny?” Her face was about a foot away from his, expression slack with shock. “Johnny, is that you?”

“Yeah, Sue. It’s me.” Johnny could feel his throat going a little tight. “Hold on, lemme- Surfer, can I turn my fire off?”

The Surfer didn’t respond. He either shrugged or was fighting their attackers again. Whatever. Johnny could figure this out himself. He sort of remembered how to turn his flame off from before he became a herald, only his body was a lot different. The Power Cosmic didn’t just go away. His fire was his skin now, like how the Surfer’s metallic sheen was a part of him. Johnny’s transformation wasn’t the same, though. Like Galactus said, Johnny had held onto his humanity in a way he wasn’t supposed to. Surely that wasn’t just limited to his mind, right?

“Give me a minute,” Johnny said, curling his fingers around the edge of the Fantasticar door. “I’ve got this.”

“Johnny-” Sue started as Johnny strained, trying to turn his fire off. “Johnny, it’s okay.”

“No, I want to hug you! Give me a minute!”

“Maybe try moving it away from your face and arms?” Reed suggested, and Johnny couldn’t believe that was the first thing he said to him since he’d returned. No hello? Just- well, it wasn’t quite science stuff, but close enough. It was a good suggestion, though. Johnny used to do stuff like that before he was a herald. He pushed on the layer of fire around his body, and he could feel it moving, but it would just flow back into the spots he moved it from any time he tried, almost like wet sand. Maybe if he tried putting it on the inside? That was where his Power Cosmic lay. Maybe-

Johnny’s fire cut off abruptly, and he yelped as he suddenly fell. His fire roared back on a second later, and he flew himself back up. He pushed himself forward, shoving half his body over the edge of the Fantasticar door and shutting off his flames, throwing himself at his sister. She wrapped his arms around him, pulling him farther into the Fantasticar and into a tight hug. It was awkward with half Johnny’s body out of the car, but he hardly noticed. He was finally with his sister again!

Johnny sensed movement behind him, and then he felt another pair of arms on him. Reed was stretching over from his own seat to join the hug. Johnny shifted a little bit to welcome him. Reed was never a big hugger, but he held onto Johnny just as tightly as Sue did, like Johnny would disappear if any of them let go.

“You guys can stop fighting. She’s with Johnny, I think,” Johnny heard Ben say outside, and Johnny turned to look out the windshield toward the battlefield. He was talking about the Surfer, he realized after a moment. The Surfer didn’t correct him when he called him a “she,” so Johnny didn’t immediately speak up either, but it sort of rubbed him the wrong way. The Surfer didn’t look like a woman. He hadn’t in what must’ve been years. He’d sort of forgotten the Surfer looked like a woman when they’d first met, but it seemed Ben hadn’t. The rest of the world, too, probably. They remembered the Surfer who’d announced they would all die, not the Surfer that Johnny had known and loved these past few years in space. That was kind of an unfortunate way to start off, wasn’t it?

“He’s with me,” Johnny called, untangling himself from Reed and Sue, even as they clung to him, and turned his flames back on. They came back quickly, like they didn’t like that he’d repressed them. They were meant to keep him alive, in a way, out in the depths of space. The forces of the universe were fluid and adaptable, but it wasn’t in his flames’ nature to leave him, apparently. “He’s cool. Sorry, we didn’t know these guys were friendly.”

“There’s a Kree,” the Surfer said unhelpfully, pointing at the man who’d arrived when Johnny was talking to Spider-Man.

“We’ll figure it out later,” Johnny promised as Ben pulled him into a hug once he was within reach, not bothering to let Johnny turn his flames off. His rocky skin felt like coming home, and Johnny didn’t resist in the slightest. “Hi, Ben.”

“Hi, Johnny,” Ben responded, still clinging to him like a child clung to a teddy bear. “Welcome home.”

Chapter Text

Johnny knew exactly how long he’d been gone when he laid eyes on his nephew.

Okay, not exactly. Johnny wasn’t great at telling how old kids were. Sue and Ben were pretty good at it, and Reed was fine at it, but Johnny felt like he was taking wild shots in the dark every time he had to guess a kid’s age. Numbers didn’t really matter here, though. Franklin had grown . He was at least a few times bigger than he had been when Johnny had last seen him. He was standing. Could probably walk and talk. Was he smart like Reed and Sue? Did Ben make sure he still remembered how to be a kid? Had his family ever told him about Johnny?

Johnny froze, not sure how to approach him.

Sue didn’t have that problem. Crouching down, she reached one arm out for her son and called out, “Franklin, come here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Franklin had been looking up at Johnny. He hadn’t realized until Franklin had looked away, focused on walking up to his mom. It was a toddler walk, one Johnny never noticed when he was at that age, but always noticed after he hit puberty. Franklin walked right up to Sue, letting his mom put an arm around him, and went back to looking up at Johnny. “You’re Uncle Johnny.”

Johnny was a little surprised that he was able to recognize that on his own. Slowly, he lowered to his knees so he was on eye level with the kid. “Yup. That’s me.”

“You look like the pictures, but you’re on fire.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m on fire.” Johnny couldn’t help but crack a smile. He’d wondered if he should try turning his flame off, but Franklin didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. Then again, his mother could go invisible, his father could unnaturally stretch his limbs, and his uncle was made of rocks. Was seeing someone on fire that much different? “I bet I was on fire in some of the pictures, too.”

“Yeah, but it was different,” Franklin responded and didn’t elaborate. He turned, a little uncoordinated, and pointed a pudgy little kid finger up at the Surfer. “Who’s that?”

“That’s- uh.” He hadn’t talked with the Surfer about being around a kid. The Surfer probably didn’t know a thing about being around human kids. When Johnny was that age, he called all his parents’ friends and all his friends’ parents mister or miss, but it felt weird to ask Franklin to call the Surfer something like that. It… diminished what he was. To Johnny, at least. That sounded right, even if Johnny didn’t know what it meant. “He can be your uncle, too, if you want. Uncle Surfer. Or Uncle Silver. What sounds better?”

“Or Uncle Norrin,” the Surfer offered. He didn’t raise his voice to make himself be heard better, but the fact that he’d spoken up at all made it sound much louder than it was.

“Or Uncle Norrin,” Johnny repeated, glancing at the Surfer, then back at Franklin. The offer was a little surprising, but Johnny wasn’t going to question it. It’d been a bit of a swing to offer for the Surfer to be part of his family in this way, and the Surfer had responded positively. He just hoped Ben, Reed, and Sue didn’t take that as an invitation to start calling him Norrin. Johnny did sometimes, and the Surfer didn’t hate it, but he always seemed to prefer to be called the Surfer.

Herbie beeped loudly, catching Johnny’s attention, and scooted forward, practically ramming himself into Johnny’s hip. He bounced off, then looked up at Johnny, whirring expectantly. Johnny couldn’t help but grin at that.

“Sorry, buddy. Didn’t mean to ignore you.” Johnny scratched Herbie on the head on that spot he knew Herbie liked, even though Reed insisted he couldn’t feel it. “I missed you!”

Herbie beeped a few times in a way that Johnny knew meant he missed him, too. And with that, Johnny knew he was back.

Most of the day was spent catching up. A lot had happened on Earth in the four years since Johnny had left. Mainly, there were other superheroes now. The Avengers were the group he and the Surfer had encountered earlier, though Spider-Man and Captain Marvel were independent. The Surfer had a lot of questions about Captain Marvel, or “the Kree” as he insisted on calling him, that Reed couldn’t answer, but definitely caught his interest. Johnny hoped Reed wasn’t about to hunt the poor guy down to ask if he had any connection to an alien empire in deep space just because the Surfer said he did.

The team wanted to know what Johnny had been up to, too, but Johnny thought his side was a lot less interesting. Galactus gave him powers, he figured out how they worked, the Surfer and Johnny explored space a bit, he saw some cool stuff, and now he was here. If he’d been able to tell one day apart from the other, he’d say his days had all been pretty similar. It’d only really gotten exciting when the aliens realized the Surfer wasn’t heralding Galactus anymore, and even then, they weren’t exactly friendly.

Reed wanted to hear about everything Johnny encountered, and his excitement let Johnny put it all in perspective for a bit. It was all normal to him now, but even a fraction of it all was something he’d lived for once. But even having seen it, Johnny couldn’t do much more than describe it. The Surfer was a lot better at explaining it, so with him talking to Reed and Ben keeping an eye on Franklin, Johnny was finally able to get a moment alone with Sue.

“We thought you’d died,” Sue told him simply, and Johnny didn’t like the way those words made him feel. It wasn’t his fault, but he still hated that he’d made his family go through that. “We’d hoped, of course, but Reed knew where that portal was going, and… It was hard to hope. The world grieved you, Johnny.”

“That’s weird to think about,” he said, because it was, but also because he didn’t really know how else to respond to that. Even with all the time in the universe to think, Johnny hadn’t really considered what kind of impact his departure would have on the general population. “Did they make, like, statues and stuff? TV specials?”

Sue laughed, and it was a nice thing to hear. “They put up a statue for you near the old Captain America one by the Statue of Liberty. I thought it was distasteful, but Ben said I should just let them have it. Then Captain America came back, maybe a year later, and he got all confused by it. Apparently, he fought alongside another Human Torch back in the war. He wanted to know why the two of them got statues, but none of the rest of them did.”

“So that’s the real Captain America?”

Sue nodded. “They made a documentary about him coming back a couple years ago. If you have time to watch it between looking at all your memorial specials.”

Johnny wanted to laugh, to be his old self, and go along with Sue’s teasing, but his heart wasn’t in it. “I don’t… I mean, I want to see it. What they said about me. But it’s not like… It was fun when it was, like, gossip mags, or pieces on the news about something we’d done. But this isn’t really the good kind of attention. I mean, I died. Not really, but basically. I don’t really want to see what people had to say about me.”

“It’s all good. I promise.”

Johnny shook his head. “I’m sure it is. But it’d still be weird. I can imagine it. Probably says I was the greatest hero who ever lived, that I sacrificed myself to save the whole world, but I’m not. I didn’t. It was- It wasn’t a split-second decision. I knew what I was doing, and the Surfer knew what I was doing, and he tried to stop me more than once, but it had to be done. But I wasn’t doing it for the world. I was doing it for Franklin.”

“I know. The world knows, too, deep down. That doesn’t make you less heroic.”

“But that’s it, isn’t it? I’m a hero. To the world, I mean. I already was, I guess, but there’s a difference between just being out there fighting and being remembered. The way people talk about you changes after you die. I mean, I assume so. I guess I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out. Does that make sense?”

Sue nodded, and Johnny wasn’t sure if she actually did. He should be able to tell, but he couldn’t. “It’s your choice. You’ve thought about this.”

She said it like a statement, not a question. Johnny shook his head. “Not really. I thought about, like, you guys when I was out there. All the time. But other than that, I mostly just thought about space stuff. The Surfer- How much did I tell you about him? I don’t remember.”

“Not much,” Sue answered. “You told me you were trying to decode her language and that was about it.”

“His language,” Johnny corrected a little absently. “What did I tell you about the recordings? Actually, it doesn’t matter. Basically, I found out that the Surfer offered himself to Galactus in place of his planet. He’d become his herald, find him planets and everything, and Galactus would leave his planet alone.”

“Huh,” Sue said, leaning back a little. This was all new to her, he realized. He should’ve said something back then. He hated the thought that the whole world still saw the Surfer as just some extension of Galactus’s promise of destruction. “That’s… noble. I guess I can respect it.”

Johnny nodded. “I- Well, obviously I never had to actually do herald stuff. Galactus is still just kind of floating around in space. But I’d been ready to. I asked Galactus to take me instead of Franklin.”

“Oh, Johnny-”

Johnny shook his head, interrupting whatever she was going to say. He didn’t want to hear it. “That’s not my point here. The Surfer, he sacrificed himself, and Galactus ate his planet anyway.”

“God. And- and he didn’t know, I assume?”

Johnny shook his head. “No. We didn’t- We didn’t go back to Zenn-La at first. The Surfer said he’d made his peace with not returning. Like, he knew all the people he left behind would keep going on with their lives, and they’d eventually die without him ever knowing. I thought about that kind of stuff. Your lives and all the stuff I was missing, I mean. And then the Surfer found out his people died, and… I don’t know.”

“It changed things?” Sue suggested, but Johnny knew she wasn’t really getting it. She empathized, but this was all so much more than she could wrap her head around, no matter how smart she was. It felt like too much even for Johnny to think about, and that was his daily life for four years. “I’m glad you came back.”

“It took four years,” Johnny said, not knowing where he was going with that thought. Something about not wanting to see what the public had made his memory in that time, but all his real thoughts and feelings were centered around his family. He didn’t regret coming back, certainly not, but he knew they’d all moved on. They were happy to have him back, but he knew it wasn’t a relief like it might’ve been if he’d come back sooner.

“I don’t care. You did your best, and you’re back now.”

He hadn’t done his best. He’d been far, but not that far. The Surfer could fly really fast. He’d dilly-dallied for four years, basically. But he didn’t tell Sue that, and just dimmed his flames enough that he wouldn’t hurt her when she reached out to hug him again.

Chapter Text

Night came, and Johnny hadn’t really thought about what they would mean.

Franklin was put to bed, and the grown-ups stayed up a bit more, but soon came the time for the rest of them to turn in. There was just one problem with that.

“What are you doing?” the Surfer asked, and Johnny opened his eyes to see him standing over him. “We don’t need to sleep.”

“I know,” Johnny responded, shifting a little bit so he was half propped up, most of his body still lying flat under his covers, but craning his neck up so it felt a little more like he was having a proper conversation. “I haven’t been in a bed in four years, though. I wanted to try it.”

Plus, just wandering around the apartment at night on his own felt weird. He’d lasted maybe half an hour after Reed, Sue, and Ben had gone to bed before retreating to his room. He’d never noticed it before, but their Baxter Building apartment was kind of spooky when it was empty, which was saying something considering Johnny had been living in space until a few hours ago.

The Surfer looked down, inspecting the bed for a moment, before his eyes met Johnny’s again. “I don’t see the appeal.”

“What, you didn’t have beds on Zenn-La?” Johnny asked, half-joking, but the Surfer’s expression remained serious. “What? Seriously?”

“We are- were, we were a very advanced society,” the Surfer told him. He stumbled over his words a bit, but Johnny didn’t comment. “We slept in pods. Most advanced civilizations do.”

“So you’ve never been in a bed?”

“There was one in the history museum,” the Surfer responded, and if Johnny didn’t know better, he’d say he sounded defensive. “I went as a child.”

“Nuh-uh. Doesn’t count.” Johnny shifted a bit, kicking the covers to keep them from getting tangled up in his legs while he moved. “Come on, get in.”

“What? We don’t need to-”

“I know, I know. We don’t need to sleep. But we still probably can if we wanted to, right? And if we can’t, lying in bed is just kind of nice,” Johnny told him, and the Surfer didn’t look very convinced. Johnny knew he would give him, though. “Come on, just try it.”

The Surfer looked a little awkward as he stepped forward. He left his board floating beside the bed, and carefully lifted one leg to get his knee on the mattress. He paused to look up at Johnny, and Johnny did his best to look encouraging. The Surfer dropped his gaze, refocusing on his endeavors, and got his other leg into bed, using his arms to balance as he slid his hips back and his body into a horizontal position. “I still don’t see the appeal.”

“You’re barely lying down. The thing about beds is that they’re supposed to be comfortable.” Johnny shifted a bit, twisting around so he was lying facing the Surfer. “That’s why we’ve got all these pillows and blankets.”

“What are those for?” the Surfer asked, craning around a bit to point at the row of colorful stuffed animals lined up on the bedside table. Johnny felt a flash of embarrassment that the Surfer had noticed them. He’d taken them out of his bed for a reason, but he was still a little too attached to them to move them far.

“Stuffed animals. Toys. Kids sleep with them. You just kind of wrap your arms around them and hold them against your chest. They’re supposed to be comforting or something.”

The Surfer stared at Johnny for a moment like Johnny had just said the strangest thing in the universe. He then flickered his eyes down and hooked one of his arms under Johnny’s, scooting over a bit so his chest was pressed against his shoulder. “This is weird.”

“Cuddling with a human is different than cuddling with a stuffed animal,” Johnny told him, and flailed with his free arm in the direction of the bedside table on the other side of the bed. “Pass them over. Let me show you.”

The Surfer leaned over, uncurling himself from Johnny, and grabbed the toys. “What are they supposed to be?”

“This pink one’s a pig. It’s a farm animal. Only, they don’t really look like this. This one’s supposed to be some kind of human pig, I think. The, um, that one’s a shark, but it’s supposed to be like a dog too,” Johnny explained, taking the two stuffed animals from the Surfer. Ham and Jeff, two of his favorites from when he was a kid that he couldn’t quite convince himself to part with. “That one you're holding is Fin Fang Foom. He’s a dragon. They’re not real, but he’s cool. Sue got him for me when I went off for college. Kept him in my dorm and stuff.”

The Surfer placed the dragon on his chest and stared at it for a bit before saying, “I prefer your arm.”

Johnny laughed a bit, putting Ham and Jeff to the side. He turned, looping his arm around the Surfer’s like his friend had before. “I think stuffed animals are better for kids since they’re smaller. Fin Fang Foom’s designed for adults, I think, so he’s more us-sized, but he’s shaped kind of weird, so it’s really not all that comfortable. You don’t have to hold him if you don’t want to.”

The Surfer reached up and plucked Fing Fang Foom off of him, but he didn’t put the stuffed animal back on the bedside table. Instead, he reached blindly above his head and put Fin Fang Foom near the pillows. He wiggled a bit, finding his place in the indents in the mattress and pillows. “I guess it's comfortable. But there is nothing to inflict sleep.”

“What?”

“Pods inflict sleep,” the Surfer explained as if it were obvious. “With technology. There is no technology here.”

Technology that could cause sleep? That sounded nice. Johnny didn’t think he had any more trouble sleeping than any other given person, but he’d still had his fair share of sleepless nights. “I think the idea is that if you feel sleep and comfortable, you just kind of get lulled to sleep naturally.”

“That seems like poor design.”

“Well, it’s the best we got.” Johnny moved a little bit, getting more comfortable against the Surfer. He didn’t think he’d ever brought a girl back to the Baxter Building, always hooking up at her place if they’d gotten that far, so this was the first time Johnny had someone else in his bed, save a handful of times in that month between returning to Earth after encountering Galactus and Galactus’s return when he’d watched Franklin a few times. 

This was the first time he’d had an adult in his bed, then. Or, well, adult human. He’d wrestled Herbie up here to keep him company often enough, if Herbie counted as an adult. He’d always sort of imagined it’d be his wife or long-term girlfriend when it actually happened, not some random weekday night when he just wanted to show his friend what a bed was. It didn’t feel like a loss, though. The Surfer, despite his lack of fleshiness, was actually kind of comfortable. 

“Are you trying to sleep?” the Surfer asked without looking over. Johnny could imagine him just staring at the ceiling.

Johnny started to shrug, then realized that he’d have to get comfortable all over again. “I wasn’t planning on it. But it’s not like we have anything better to do. May as well just zen out for a bit until everyone else wakes up.”

The Surfer didn’t protest, and he and Johnny kept lying there like that until sunlight came through the windows, and they heard someone walking through the apartment. Johnny hadn’t ended up sleeping, but he wasn’t complaining. It’d been kind of nice to just be close with someone for awhile.

Chapter Text

“The Avengers are coming over tonight.”

“Who?”

“One of the other superhero teams,” Sue explained patiently as Herbie and Ben put breakfast on the table. Herbie even put the box of Johnny’s favorite cereal in front of him, which was so sweet that Johnny just had to pour a bowl even though he didn’t really feel like eating. Johnny thought he’d miss food a lot more than he actually did. Four years was a long time.

“It’s good to have a sense of community,” Ben added, sitting down between the Surfer and Reed. He paused. “We should introduce you to the X-Men. They don’t like coming over much, but it’s fun when they do. Let me tell you, that Gambit can really shake up a game of cards.”

Johnny glanced at Reed and Sue. He couldn’t imagine either of them sitting around playing cards with a bunch of guys in colorful costumes. Reed must’ve picked up what Johnny was thinking because he told him, “There are a lot more Avengers than us. We usually split up. The scientists go to the lab, the girls spend time with Sue, and the boys play cards with Ben.”

“The three genders,” the Surfer said, speaking up for the first time that morning beyond polite greetings to the rest of the family. 

Johnny let out a snort of laughter at the joke, but he was the only one. “Come on, that was funny. But seriously, do I have to go? That sounds really boring, and I don’t know these people.”

“That’s the point. They wanna get to know you. You’re practically a legend to ‘em, Johnny,” Ben told him, and Johnny’s thoughts drifted back to his conversation with Sue the day he’d arrived back on Earth. He wasn’t exactly afraid of that reality, but the thought of Captain America looking at him like a legend made him uncomfortable. Ben, apparently, was on a different train of thought, though. Grinning, he went on, “We gotta let you have the chance to ruin that.”

That got Johnny to laugh again, so abruptly he nearly spat out his cereal. “Okay, okay. I’ll come. Can’t be that bad.”

It kind of was. The Avengers came by before dinner, and Reed disappeared with Giant-Man, the Vision, and Iron Man almost immediately, though Johnny had no clue who any of them were upon their arrival. They were all out of costume, which was going to make it that much harder for Johnny to remember them all. Well, he recognized Tony Stark out of costume, at least. Why the hell was that guy flying around in a bucket of metal? 

Everyone else hung around long enough to eat a couple rounds of pizza, but Sue was off with the Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, and the Wasp before long. Too bad, because Johnny was pretty sure She-Hulk was making eyes at him. Johnny liked interesting more than anything else, and giant and green was definitely interesting. He tried meeting her gaze a couple times, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he wasn’t all that sad to see her go.

Johnny ended up sitting next to the Surfer on his board, shoulders and knees knocking against each other, as the boys assembled in a loose circle around the living room. Between Ben, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Captain America, the Falcon, and Thor, they would be low on seats on a regular day, and the addition of Johnny and the Surfer offset the little balance they had. Johnny made a little show of the fact that the Surfer came with his own seating. That got a few laughs, and they were set.

Only, they weren’t. Johnny couldn’t remember any of the rules to the games. Simple ones, sure. No matter how much time he spent in space, he didn’t think he could forget the rules to Go Fish. But the kinds of games Ben liked to play? Ones where he had to remember card combinations and which card meant what? Absolutely not. Even before he’d gone to space, he could probably remember something like that for about a week before needing a reminder. He was totally lost, and even then, he was doing better than the Surfer. He looked at Ben like he’d handed him a dead animal when he started dealing the cards.

“Let’s team up,” Johnny suggested almost immediately. “Not like we could hide our hands sitting next to each other like this.”

“Why would we hide our hands? We’re holding the game pieces.”

Oh, they had a lot of work to do. But the Surfer seemed to pick up the rules of the game pretty quickly, once they got past the concept of a card game. Thor apparently had the same troubles. The Surfer was a little sharper than a Norse god, though it seemed. Johnny didn’t exactly forget how smart the Surfer was, but he realized he’d never actually seen the Surfer in any situation where intelligence was applicable. The Surfer had shown he knew a lot, sure, but they hadn’t been in a lot of problem-solving situations when it was just the two of them and the vastness of the universe. 

“So, space,” the Falcon started, his tone betraying that he was just trying to be polite and make small talk. “What kinds of stuff did you do for fun?”

The Surfer gave a half-shrug. “Serving as a herald of Galactus did not leave much time for fun between all the planet-destroying.”

“Oh.”

At least the Surfer could be… Johnny didn’t even know. Was it a good or bad thing that he was being flippant? Johnny knew the Surfer cared. They wouldn’t have visited all those former planets if he didn’t. Was he just trying to avoid talking about it?

“Most of space is pretty empty,” the Surfer said, giving in a bit. “I spent most of my time just flying.”

“Flying’s pretty fun here on Earth. Not in space?”

The Surfer shrugged again. “Not in a straight line. Once Johnny joined me, we’d play with the gravity around black holes, surf on cosmic rays, try disrupting nebulas, and things like that sometimes.”

The Surfer just got a series of stares at that. Johnny glanced at him, then at the group, not really sure what about what he’d said would earn a reaction like that. He tried to salvage it. “Very different kind of fun than here on Earth, but we had some good times.”

“Playing with black holes,” Cap said, shaking his head, and Johnny got it. Right. This kind of stuff was normal to Johnny and the Surfer, but light-years ahead of what was considered normal on Earth. “Back in my day, we’d call something like that lunacy.”

“We’d still call it that today,” Hawkeye responded, grinning, and Johnny felt some of his nerves wash away. He still felt utterly alien, but the Avengers were just curious more than anything. “You ever do anything like that, Thor?”

Thor shook his head. “Asgardians are more planet-bound than a herald of Galactus. As dreadful as he is, Galactus’s power is truly something to behold.”

“Did Galactus become something well-known after I went in the ice?” Cap asked, glancing around the group.

“No,” Quicksilver responded, fidgeting with his cards. He didn’t seem all that interested in the game. A man after Johnny’s heart. He’d suggest breaking off to do something else on their own, but this Quicksilver guy seemed like kind of a bummer. He jabbed a thumb in the Surfer’s direction. “The Surfer’s appearance in New York was the first time any of us had heard anything about him.”

Cap nodded along. “I saw the video. I… I don’t know how to ask this.”

“Shoot.”

Cap’s eyes flickered from Johnny to the Surfer. “I seem to recall it was a woman who came to Earth?”

Shoot. Johnny felt the Surfer tense beside him. Johnny glanced at the Surfer, wondering if he wanted to take this, but the Surfer had turned to look at him too, only his gaze was more desperate, whereas Johnny’s had just been curious. Johnny would take this one, or at least start them off. Johnny looked back in Cap’s direction and offered a shrug. It wasn’t all that complicated. “He’s a man.”

“Is he not the same Silver Surfer then?” Thor asked. “The stories I heard on Asgard were about a silver woman.”

“That was me,” the Surfer said a little quietly.

“So… Why are you playing cards with us instead of gossiping with Jen, Sue, and Janet?” Hawkeye asked, and Johnny was pretty sure he meant that more as a metaphor than actually suggesting the Surfer go join the girls, but Johnny wasn’t certain, and that made him like the guy a little less.

“Because he’s a man,” Johnny repeated, trying to sound firm. Really, it wasn’t that complicated.

“But he used to be a woman?” 

“There were people like that back in my day,” Cap spoke up, which was a little surprising. Johnny knew the man fought the Nazis, but there was a difference between fighting the Nazis and real open-mindedness. “Most of the ones I knew went the other way, though.”

“It was uncommon on Zenn-La but not unheard of,” the Surfer told them, voice still a little low. “Galactus doesn’t have a clear concept of gender, and I was feeling pretty bad when he transformed me, so things got a little muddled up.”

“Okay, I kind of got Steve’s thing, but that made me confused again,” Hawkeye said, shifting to rest his forearms on his knees.

“He’s a man now,” Johnny insisted. Why weren’t they getting it? It really wasn’t that complicated. “That’s what matters. He’s a man.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Ben asked, speaking up for the first time since they got on this topic. That had a weight to it that Johnny hadn’t expected to hit him.

“Why would it?”

“Johnny loves space, Johnny loves women?” Ben parroted, and it wouldn’t mean anything to the Avengers, but it hit Johnny like a stack of bricks. Shit. He’d said that as a joke all that time ago, but it’d come from somewhere. He’d been attracted to the Surfer right off the bat. He– She, back then, was interesting. And Johnny only got more interested in him after he got to know him. That initial attraction never faded, not even when the Surfer’s body changed to reflect his masculinity.

Maybe… maybe his attraction grew when the Surfer started looking like a man. It felt like Johnny hardly noticed when the Surfer’s body changed, but that’d been around a sort of natural point in their relationship where they’d been more comfortable with each other. They did touch each other a lot, didn’t they? Johnny holding onto the Surfer as they flew through space, weaving around each other when they played in nebulas, holding the Surfer close as he tried to show him how comfortable an Earth bed was…

He did like the masculinity, maybe even more than the femininity. The Surfer was bigger than him like this, but not in a gross way. When the Surfer had been feminine, his body had been easy to hold onto, Johnny’s arms slotting over his hips when he had to hold onto him. But like this? It wasn’t as easy, but it felt just as natural. No, more so. With a woman’s body, there was always so much thinking involved. But with the Surfer, everything just felt- felt… Right? Normal? What felt normal had changed over these past few years, but the way he felt around the Surfer had felt normal even before that.

And it wasn’t just physical. It never could be. Johnny and the Surfer had been at each other’s side for four years. The Surfer waited until Johnny was ready to leave Galactus, and then Johnny waited until the Surfer had visited all the worlds he’d seen destroyed, and then they’d gone back to Earth together. The Surfer was always there when Johnny’s mind got lost in his powers, save for that one time he’d flown off on his own. They held each other as they streaked through space. They spent countless hours sitting side by side on the Surfer’s board, equally comfortable talking or silently soaking in each other’s presence. They were the only ones who had any hope of understanding what the other had gone through. 

How could he not love someone after going through all that together?

“Johnny?” Ben asked, snapping Johnny out of his thoughts before the realization could really settle in.

“Yeah, yeah. Johnny loves space, Johnny loves women. Laugh it up,” Johnny responded, hoping his voice didn’t sound forced. Johnny loves the Silver Surfer danced on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it to keep it from joining his spoken words. He was going to be thinking about this for awhile, wasn’t he?

Chapter Text

Johnny had never doubted his heterosexuality before. He had a whole box full of clippings from gossip mags about him sleeping with some girl or another. Johnny even got the box out to remind himself of this fact.

Except, once he’d started leafing through the box, he hadn’t actually slept with half of these girls. Hell, half would still be pretty far from the actual number. He couldn’t say what that number was, but it was more than zero and less than all. The fact that it wasn’t zero didn’t actually help much either.

Johnny flipped through the papers, pausing to look at some of the pictures. Some of these people he definitely hadn’t even gone on a date with, and some of them he probably had and just couldn’t remember. Johnny loves women . Right. He’d been a bit of a womanizer, and it’d been fun, but thinking about it, that’s all it’d been. He’d just been having fun, and these girls probably knew that too.

A few of these had been real relationships. Relationships that lasted more than a few nights of hitting the town. Ones with real feelings involved. But when Johnny tried remembering those feelings, his thought every time was that they paled in comparison to how he felt about the Surfer.

It was a little validating, in a way. Johnny hadn’t pulled out this box wanting to prove his homosexuality, or bisexuality if it turned out to be that, but it still felt kind of good to know his feelings were real, even if he didn’t like those feelings or really want to like them. But he just kept thinking about the Surfer as he looked through the box, and he didn’t want that. This was about Johnny and whether he liked men or not, not whether he liked the Surfer or not.

Still… liking the Surfer meant liking men. Johnny certainly didn’t see him as a woman, despite the history there. He’d known the Surfer as a woman for about a month, and he’d barely seen him at all during that time. He’d had a woman’s body for maybe twice that time before Galactus changed him again, and that felt like forever ago. No, the version of the Surfer he knew now had existed a lot longer than the version he’d met, and the current version was the one he liked. That had to mean something, right?

Johnny was starting to work up the courage to use the computer to look up pictures of attractive men and see if they got any reaction out of him when the Surfer entered the room. Johnny felt his head snap up like he’d been caught looking at something he shouldn’t, and the Surfer just raised a brow at him. “What are you doing?’

“I-” Johnny’s first instinct was to lie, but that instinct was almost instantly washed away with the greater power of what he knew to be the truth. He’d have to talk to someone about this sooner or later, and he knew the Surfer was the only one he’d want to talk with. The thought was super uncomfortable, considering this was all about the Surfer himself, but who else was he supposed to talk to? Sue? Ben? Reed? Well, Sue would probably be able to help, but Johnny was pretty sure she’d be weird about it in a supportive sister way, and that’d make it all so much worse.

“Johnny?”

“I was looking at some old press about me,” he told him, answering the question rather than just jumping right into it. He’d say what he wanted to say. Johnny wasn’t the type to chicken out. He just had to work up the nerve.

“Why?” The Surfer walked toward him. Johnny was sitting on the edge of the bed—their bed, he realized— with the box in his lap. The Surfer sat next to him. “I thought you didn’t want to know what the humans said about you after you left.”

“Not that kind of press. Press from before I left. Gossip mags.”

“Why?” the Surfer asked again. “Your sister says they’re sensationalist.”

Johnny was a little surprised the Surfer knew the word. Did they have news on Zenn-La? They must’ve. “I’m looking at the pictures, mostly. I’m, um, thinking about my past relationships.”

“Why?” the Surfer asked yet again, but he didn’t sound like a child when he kept asking the same question over and over. He seemed to genuinely not be getting it in a way that was just so Surfer of him.

“I…” Johnny swallowed. “I think I might be gay.”

“That’s good?” What? “Wasn’t that the whole point of us coming back to Earth?”

Oh. Right. English. Or, not English, but colloquialisms or whatever. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, like, homosexual.”

“Yes? I would hope so.” The Surfer stared at him, still seeming confused, but it was in a totally different way now. The Surfer’s expression relaxed, like he was sighing with his whole body, and asked, “Johnny, what do you think we’ve been doing?”

What? Oh. Oh . “We’ve been in a relationship this whole time, haven’t we?”

“We are partners, yes,” the Surfer said, sounding a little amused. “I have said it many times. You have said it many times.”

“I thought you meant it in, like, a cosmic way!”

“I did,” the Surfer told him, and Johnny felt his heart plummet. Had he misread the conversation so far? But the Surfer kept talking before Johnny could get too far down that train of thought. “And in every other way. We’re partners romantically, as friends, as cosmic beings, as two life forms wandering the universe together. A true partnership blurs the lines of all types of relationships, does it not?”

Did it? Johnny had never had a thought remotely like that. Maybe there was an expression about that on Zenn-La or something. “I guess?”

The Surfer’s expression shifted again. “Do you… not reciprocate?”

He didn’t sound doubtful, but Johnny answered as quickly as he could just in case he was. “I do! I feel the same way, I mean. I just didn’t realize it. I just thought I was straight. Or, um, heterosexual.”

“There is nothing heterosexual about us.”

“Gee, thanks,” Johnny snorted, then went quiet. He looked down at his hands, his fiery ones just a few inches away from the Surfer’s silver ones. “Did… How long have we…?”

“Since you transformed,” the Surfer answered, and that wasn’t what Johnny wanted to hear.

“Is it some kind of cosmic thing then? Galatus changing us to… I don’t know. I mean, I know I’m Johnny. And the Human Torch, and Firelord, and whatever. And you’re the Surfer, and you’re Norrin Radd, even if you say you aren’t and I don’t really call you that…”

“We are partners in more than one way. Many types of relationships can coexist,” the Surfer said, repeating the sentiment from earlier. “We were first partners as the only two of our kind, bound by our cosmic powers. Then we became everything else. Over time.”

Johnny didn’t know if this was an alien disconnect, a cosmic disconnect, or just a Surfer disconnect. “I mean romantically. When did we get romantic?”

The Surfer shrugged. “I don’t know. We aren’t traditionally romantic by Earth standards, but you fulfill that role in my life. Do you want that to be a more explicit part of our relationship?”

“I think so. I mean, not immediately. I’m still processing liking a guy. I’m not even on the part about me being in a relationship this whole time.” Only he wasn’t? The Surfer more said that’s who they were to each other, except they weren’t actually romantic, though the Surfer apparently had romantic feelings for him. Ugh, he didn’t like that word. Romantic. It felt like something out of a trashy book. Johnny was used to saying things like dating, or boyfriend, or hooking up. There had to be a better word. 

The Surfer nodded easily. “I am happy with our partnership, but I imagine Earth has its own, um, courtship rituals. If you want to try them.”

“I mean, yeah.” It all still felt like it was going really fast, but the idea of kissing the Surfer was a pleasant one. “We can talk about it, though. I imagine Zenn-La’s pretty different.”

The Surfer shrugged. “There’s less importance placed on the distinction between romance and other things. There’s someone who’s the most significant person in your life, and the feelings follow.”

Had what he’d done with the Surfer been the Zenn-Lavian version of dating then? And the Surfer had assumed Johnny was on the same page? Johnny had no idea. He’d have to ask him to explain it later.

“We still had romantic relationships. Whirlwind romances, marriage, monogamy,” the Surfer went on, and Johnny remembered he’d been married. Would it be a mood killer to bring that up right now? But the Surfer had said he’d accepted he wasn’t going back to Zenn-La awhile ago, that he’d moved on from everyone he’d left behind. One look at the Surfer’s eyes told Johnny that was true. Johnny was the Surfer’s focus now. “I want that with you.”

“I want that with you, too,” Johnny said softly. He held the Surfer’s gaze for a few moments. Were they going to kiss? No, wait, kissing was a human thing. Probably. Johnny’d have to ask later. But Johnny didn’t even want to be kissing the Surfer right now. Or, well, he did in that part of him that just enjoyed kissing people he liked, but Johnny knew it wasn’t really the time. He let himself flop back on the bed. “I- I just need some time to, I don’t know, meditate on my feelings for a bit. I just went from wondering if I’m gay to finding out I’ve had a boyfriend this whole time.”

“Of course,” the Surfer said, and Johnny felt the mattress move as the Surfer began getting up. “Take all the time you need.”

“No, wait.” Johnny reached for him, fingers grabbing at him, but his hands didn’t actually touch him. Still, the Surfer stopped and turned back to look at him. “I didn’t say you had to go.”

The Surfer’s expression softened into a lopsided sort of smile, and he climbed up onto the bed to join Johnny like he had every day since they’d come to Earth. Johnny reached for him, confident in a way that he never had been, and let himself just enjoy the Surfer’s presence like he had countless times before. The only difference was that Johnny hadn’t known he loved him then. They had a lot of time to make up for, and an eternity to do it.

Chapter Text

Four years, and Ben and Rachel were going steady. It was weird to think she didn't really know Johnny all that well. 

“There's a difference between being intelligent and smart, and there's a difference between being stupid and dumb,” Ben told her as they walked arm in arm along the coast. “See, I'm stupid, but I'm plenty smart enough to get around it.” 

“You know I don't like it when you say things like that,” Rachel told him because she'd heard this a thousand times. 

“You know it's true, though,” Ben told her and kept talking before she could argue. “Reed’s the opposite, genius intelligence, but dumb as a rock when it comes to certain things.” 

“Sue.”

“Sue,” he agreed. “He loves her, though, so I can't criticize him too much. Johnny, though? Opposite extreme. Intelligent as hell, great with his hands, but dumber than Reed could ever be. You should have seen what the paper said about him back in the day.”

“I remember a bit,” she told him. “Didn't believe even half of it.” 

 “You'd better start because half of it was true, probably more, and it’s probably not the half you think.” Ben shook his head. “Johnny always had this dumb grin whenever we asked, said we should believe every word of those mags said about him. I think he knew we didn't believe that for a second, but it made it easier to hide what he really did if he pretended he did it all. 

“He seemed to mellow out toward…” Rachel trailed off. The end, Ben knew she was going to say. Except it hadn't been the end. 

“He's real mellow now, even compared to them.” Ben paused a moment, thinking about the best way to say what he was thinking. “I'd say he settled down, but the Surfer he came back with ain't the same as the one he left with, so that can’t be it.”

Ben hadn’t said it outright, but he knew Rachel knew what he meant. The Surfer had been a woman when Johnny first started trailing after him, but Johnny was pretty insistent the Surfer was a man now. Ben didn’t have a problem with that, but he was a little surprised Johnny didn’t either.

“Maybe he realized some things about himself?” Rachel suggested.

“Maybe, Ben said with a shrug. He paused again. “I ain't got no problem with it if he is, yknow. I just know him, and Johnny don't swing that way.”

“You think something's going on?” 

“Maybe,” Ben responded and gently tugged Rachel to the side of the path. There were some people walking toward them, and Ben would block their way if they kept going. “Galactus changed him. He ain't human anymore. I mean, arguably, he wasn't already, but I don't think he's shut off his flame for more than 2 minutes since he came back.”

“You think Galactus is tricking him somehow?” 

“Not really,” Ben responded, and he realized it was true. It was weird that Johnny was friends with the Surfer, but was it nefarious? Ben couldn't see it. 

“Ben Grimm!”

 “Grimm!”

“Say it! Stay the line!”

Ben had been ready to voice his thoughts when the group of surfers, dripping after their afternoon in the sea, finally passed, cheering and clapping at the sight of him. Ben cleared his throat and waved them off half-heartedly. “Yeah, yeah. You know I ain't saying it.”

The group booed and jeered, but didn't actually seem all that insistent, barely pausing as they walked past the pair. One of them clapped his shoulder as he passed, which quickly turned into drumming Ben didn't love it, but he did his best to take it in stride. They were just kids. Or, young adults, but they felt like kids to him. Was he getting old?

“Waves good today?” Ben asked one of the ones trailing behind. “You having fun? 

 “Oh yeah,” one of them answered. “Saw your friend out there! Forget what people say about him. He’s all right.”

“Friend?” Ben echoed, but the surfers had already passed him. He looked to Rachel instead. “You know who they're talking about?” 

 She shook her head. “We can take a look down the beach. We're going to pass it anyway.”

In hindsight, it was obvious. Who would a group of surfers be talking about other than the Silver Surfer?

The beach stretched pretty far with plenty of accessible points to the waterline, but surfers tended to congregate at the points below cliffsides. There was a sharp drop from the path Ben and Rachel were walking along to a section of sand. There were a few people milling about there, but most of them were in the water.

Ben didn’t have a great view of what was going on, more able to tell that there were people surfing than actually being able to pick out the details, but after a few seconds of staring, it became obvious that one of the surfers wasn’t like the rest.

The sun hit the Surfer’s bald head in a way that made him both stand out and hard to see against the water. The waves weren’t all that high, but there was a good one going right at that moment, and the Surfer was leading the charge. He was gliding over the water with an ease the rest of the surfers lacked, and Ben knew he could go a lot faster than that, but he wasn’t. He kept looking back over his shoulder, like he was making sure, they were still behind him, and when they began to tumble off their boards, the Surfer did too.

Ben didn’t say anything as the Surfer pulled himself out of the water, arms draped over his board with the rest of his body in the water. With one hand, he steadied the board of the surfer beside him, and another hollered something in the Surfer’s direction that Ben couldn’t quite make out. It sounded positive, though. Friendly. There was a moment of what Ben thought might’ve been conversation before they started swimming, resetting their positions to get ready for another wave.

It was… earnest. The Surfer, that is. He was making friends? Trying to be human? Ben didn’t know, but he did know the Surfer didn’t need to be doing whatever this was. He could fly faster than light through space. Water was no obstacle for him, and it was definitely not enough to make him fall off his board. But the Surfer was watching these surfers, mimicking the way they moved, and they seemed to enjoy his presence, if what that passerby who’d spoken to Ben could be trusted to speak for the rest of group.

The most notable part was, in Ben’s mind, that Johnny wasn’t around. The Surfer was just doing this because he wanted to.

Johnny talked a little bit about what he and the Surfer had done in space. He’d said they played with black holes and danced on cosmic waves. Ben thought he was being metaphorical, and he probably was, but he could see where it was coming from now. He didn’t know what to think of it, but Ben got it. He understood something about the Surfer now, even if he didn’t quite know how to put it into words.

Ben thought about calling out to the Surfer. That was the kind of guy Ben was. He knew people all over New York, and he always gave them some friendly words when he ran into them. The same went for superheroes and superpowered beings. He remained quiet this time, though. Part of him felt like he’d be intruding on the moment, but Ben knew that wasn’t it. He didn’t know what it was, but he kept his mouth shut and just watched.

“It’s kind of sweet,” Rachel said after a bit, drawing Ben out of his thoughts. He’d kind of forgotten he’d been on a walk.

“Yeah,” Ben said and patted the hand that she still had looped around his elbow. “You want to keep watching, or you want to get going?”

“We can keep walking,” she told him, and that’s what they did. A quiet afternoon with the woman he loved, and Ben forgot all about seeing the Surfer in the water. But when he saw Johnny trying to convince the Surfer to sit on the couch instead of his board that night, Ben let them be instead of teasing Johnny like he normally would. Whatever was going on with Johnny and the Surfer, it seemed to be good for Johnny, so Ben let it be.

Herbie knew he was a robot, but he was a little more than that, too. He had his patterns and routines, but it wasn’t all he was. He could deviate from them. Above all, Herbie existed to just try his very best.

That didn’t mean he liked it when his routines were disrupted, though.

Franklin joining the family was one disruption he liked. Johnny’s disappearance was one he hadn’t. Johnny coming back was definitely good, though. But the Surfer? Herbie wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

His main issue was that the dining table wasn’t big enough for five adults and a toddler. It was only designed to have four seats. Herbie would make do, though.

“I don’t need a plate,” the Surfer told him as Herbie put an extra setting down in front of him. Herbie paused and looked up at him. The Surfer’s expression remained neutral. “I don’t eat.”

Herbie responded by splattering a scoop of spaghetti on his plate. What did he mean he didn’t eat? He wasn’t a robot. Of course, he ate. He turned to Johnny to chirp and buzz his displeasure.

“I don’t know. Dinner’s family time, so I thought he should be here,” Johnny answered with a shrug. Herbie gave him a flat look. Johnny grinned a little sheepishly. “I don’t have to eat either, but I like it. Come on, Surfer, I bet Herbie would love it if you tried some of his cooking.”

Herbie chirped and buzzed in confirmation. He would like that!

The Surfer eyed Herbie for a moment, then dropped his gaze down to his plate. He glanced around a bit, eyes flickering between the Four and his plate. Slowly, he lifted his fork and began gathering strands of pasta. 

Herbie slid forward, visibly eager, and watched the Surfer closely as he brought the fork to his mouth. 

The Surfer’s eyes widened when the food entered his mouth. He looked down at his plate again, then back at Herbie. Covering his mouth with one hand, he said, “It’s good.”

Herbie mrrped and clapped his little hands together. He liked it!

“Good job covering your mouth,” Johnny told the Surfer, smiling softly at him.

“Yeah. Been on Earth for five minutes and ya’ve already got better manners than Johnny,” Ben added, shaking a thumb over his shoulder at Johnny. Johnny spluttered in response, and Ben and Johnny started squabbling. Sue and Reed didn’t seem all that worried, but they still made an effort to get them to stop. Franklin took advantage of their distraction to grab his cut-up spaghetti with his hands.

All normal stuff. It was nice, but Herbie was used to it. He remained focused on the Surfer. He was chewing slowly, like he was being careful not to choke, with a thoughtful expression on his face, like he was really trying to savor the flavor. That made Herbie feel even better. The family was always sure to compliment Herbie on his work in the kitchen, but this felt totally different. He beeped a few times happily and rolled under the table so he could show the Surfer his appreciation with a couple excited taps on his hips.

The Surfer looked down at him, and Herbie stared back up at him. The Surfer’s gaze flickered around a bit, but Herbie stayed where he was seated by his feet. The Surfer finished chewing and swallowed. Still slowly, he put his fork down and began reaching for Herbie. Herbie wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he remained where he was. He was a little surprised to feel the Surfer’s fingertips find purchase on his head, scratching him on that spot Johnny knew he liked. 

“Thank you,” the Surfer said quietly, so quietly that Herbie thought he was probably the only one who could hear him. “I haven’t eaten anything in a long time. It makes me feel… Not human, but you know what I mean.”

Herbie didn’t know what he meant, but he didn’t really care. The Surfer was one of his humans, no matter what he or anyone else said.

Chapter Text

Sue could tell Johnny was a little uncomfortable, and she hated that he was. Then again, she did have a bit of an ulterior motive in asking him to spend some time with her, just the two of them. They’d done it before since he came back, and Johnny hadn’t been uncomfortable then. Maybe he knew what she was going to say.

“The Surfer,” she started, and she saw Johnny struggling to keep her gaze.

“Yesss?” Johnny stretched out the word. He smiled, but it was weak. “What do you want to know about him?”

“You seem close,” she said carefully, wondering if she should be blunt and just say it or be more tactful and let Johnny offer it up on his own.

Johnny shrugged, then he seemed to think about it. He nodded, looking a little sheepish. “Four years with no one but each other does that to people.”

Sue felt the corners of her mouth tug into a frown and tried to stop it.

“Think about whenever we were on a ship,” Johnny went on like he hadn’t noticed, “but cranked up until the dial breaks.”

Sue could understand that. To someone else, that might’ve sounded like a bad thing, but Sue knew that wasn’t what Johnny meant. Their time in space made the Fantastic Four a family. Or rather, it reinforced what was already there. They’d loved each other before it all, but their time and experiences in those ships only made them stronger. Was that what Johnny was getting at with him and the Surfer? Or was he just referring to how much time they’d spent together in close proximity? Maybe both?

“You know… You know he’s not a woman, right?” Sue asked because she had to think about the Surfer, too. If Johnny was serious about this, it wouldn’t be fair to him if Johnny was coming at it wrong.

“Yes…?” Johnny looked a bit confused. “Obviously, I know that, Sue.”

“I know, I know,” she assured him, trying to soften her expression. “I just want you to be happy.”

Johnny’s face slackened like he’d figured out what she was getting at, then tightened again as he made a face at her. Groaning playfully, he told her, “Knock it off, Sue. I’m an adult. I don’t need you meddling.”

“I know, I know,” she repeated, leaning back in her seat a bit. “I just need you to know.”

Johnny glanced at her, eyes a little more serious, before sighing. “Yeah, I know. I’m happy, I promise.”

“Good,” Sue told him, and even though Johnny never said it explicitly, she knew he was saying it was the Surfer who made him happy.

Reed had a lot of machines for reading cosmic energy leftover from when Franklin was been born. It’d been in storage for a long time, and he was more than a little excited to get it out and use it again.

There was so much to be learned by having two heralds at arm's reach. Sure, it might be kind of niche, knowledge limited to Galactus and his power, but Reed was sure he could extrapolate more from it. Cosmic power was still cosmic power, and the Surfer and Johnny had two types between them. This was incredibly beyond anything Reed had to study on Earth. Even if there weren’t larger patterns he could pick up on from studying these two, there was still so much to gain from just them.

He was so excited he didn’t notice the Surfer squirming under his gaze until Johnny spoke up.

“It’s not really invasive,” Johnny told the Surfer, patting his shoulder and messing up Reed’s scan. It took Reed a lot of willpower not to say anything.

“That’s because you can’t understand it,” the Surfer responded easily. Teasing? Reed couldn’t tell, or he wouldn’t if he’d been paying attention. He was more focused on resetting the scan. But then the words clicked.

Reed looked up from the machine. “And you can?”

The Surfer nodded, and Reed’s mind brimmed with possibilities. “Galactus imbued us with cosmic knowledge. It’s part of gaining the Power Cosmic.”

Should Reed become a herald? No, absolutely not. He had a family. The temptation was there, though, to gain that much knowledge in an instant.

Almost as if Johnny knew what Reed was thinking, he added, “I didn’t really get it. Or, like, kind of, but not like the Surfer. I’m more mortal-minded. I just kind of block it out.”

Reed reeled back a fraction. Block it out? “You would choose not to have that kind of knowledge? To understand the universe on a cosmic level?”

Johnny shrugged. “You’ll get it.”

Reed didn’t know what he meant by that in that moment, but he did eventually. Watching Johnny get lost in his head was a scary thing.

It was going to happen sooner or later. Honestly, it was a wonder it took this long.

It was a little worse when Johnny was thinking a lot. Getting caught up in his head made it a little easier for his mind to wander from his body, and for his cosmic senses to snatch him up and suck him off into the universe. There was a familiarity in it, a comfort, and Johnny let himself soak in the feeling.

Vaguely, he was aware of people around him.

“Johnny? Johnny!”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He just does that sometimes.” The Surfer? Yeah, that was the Surfer. He was close. That was good. That meant Johnny was safe to disassociate. No floating alone in space like that first time.

“What do you mean, he just does that sometimes?”

“It’s the price for keeping his mortal mind.”

It was a little less overwhelming after four years of not only having these episodes, but also getting to fly out and explore the things his mind showed him during them. Many of the places he recognized, celestial bodies and the like, but it was always the more intangible things that caught him up. A Watcher was watching Earth at the moment, that was a little weird. A concentration of the Phoenix Force was close, too. An infinity stone was in New York. None of those things was all that concerning compared to the vastness Johnny was getting pulled into, though.

What had he been thinking about? Right, the Surfer. What he was always thinking about. His anchor in this boundless universe they lived in, another speck of cosmic power always at his side. Something about that just felt so right. Had he been thinking it was wrong?

Right, his family. They were around him, Johnny realized, but it didn’t draw him back into his body any. They had cosmic power, too, but barely more than regular humans, at least on the scale Johnny was looking at it. They felt impossibly insignificant.

No, that was mean. His cosmic power talking? If it were Johnny fully at the wheel of his own mind, he’d know that absolutely wasn’t true. They weren’t the center of his universe, not anymore, but they were pretty close. They did matter. That was why Johnny’s mind was drifting.

Still, telling them he was gay seemed really insignificant when the universe was this big, this full and empty at the same time. Whether he was gay or straight seemed infinitesimal when everything the universe had to offer was at his fingertips.

He felt his body twitch, and someone’s hands were on him. He didn’t love it. It still felt distant, but it was something to remind him where his body was. He felt his body jerk a couple times, and then he was blinking. He was back.

“Oh, Johnny.” Sue’s arms were around him. Johnny was lying in his bed, he realized. That wasn’t where he’d been when he slipped away. Who’d moved him? “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry,” Johnny told her, and he didn’t feel as bad as he thought he should have. “I didn’t mean to. That just happens sometimes.”

“Yeah. That’s what the Surfer said,” Sue responded, and turned to look at the Surfer. Johnny was pretty sure she was glaring, but he was too tired to sit up to look.

“Don’t fight,” Johnny responded, surprising himself a little, and closed his eyes. 

“We can talk about what happened later,” Reed told him, and Johnny opened his eyes again to see who was in the room. Sue, the Surfer, Ben, and Reed. About who he’d expect, now that he knew they were there. He closed his eyes again.

“Yeah,” Ben agreed and patted his shoulder. It was gentle for Ben, but it still jostled Johnny. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. “Rest up. Tell us about it later.”

Johnny heard footsteps as his family left the room. He didn’t need cosmic senses to know someone had remained.

He opened one eye to look at the Surfer. He was just sort of standing there. Johnny shifted a bit, then moved one arm, leaving an open space beneath it. “What? Are you waiting for an invitation?”

The Surfer smiled and crawled over the covers, settling in the crook under Johnny’s arm.

Chapter Text

“We’re invited to the Avengers anniversary bash at the end of the month,” Sue said as she moved a magnet on the fridge to stick the invitation up there with all of Franklin’s drawings. It was a ritual the Surfer didn’t understand, but he could see the value in it. The refrigerator was the place where food was kept, and food was vital for life, so important things were placed in the same place. 

“Like the anniversary for when they became a team?” Johnny clarified. He was eating his cereal, which the Surfer didn’t think was very good, but Johnny didn’t try to make him or the other members of the Four eat it, so he never said anything. “How old are they turning?”

“Four,” Sue told him. “They formed not that long after we fought Galactus.”

“Avengers parties are the best parties,” Ben added. He was in the kitchen, putzing around with Herbie, working on something other than cereal for breakfast. It smelled good, whatever it was. The Surfer still didn’t really like eating, but Ben and Herbie were good at what they did. “Anyone who’s anyone’s there, great drinks, and as much food as a blue-eyed boy like yours truly could ask for.”

“It’s mostly a social opportunity,” Reed added, stretching himself into a chair at the dinner table. “New York’s superheroes see each other often enough, but we’re usually not all in one place.”

“By the way, you get unlimited plus ones,” Sue said as she walked away from the fridge to join them at the table. She rested her forearms on the back of a chair, leaning forward as she glanced between Johnny and the Surfer. “Like Reed said, this is mostly a social opportunity, so if you run into any independent heroes or make any new hero friends, make sure to let them know they’re invited.” 

“Non-heroes are invited too,” Ben said without looking up from whatever he and Herbie were working on, “just don’t overdo it.”

Johnny asked a few more questions, but the Surfer didn’t really listen, too caught up in his thoughts. He remained caught up in his thoughts through breakfast and afterward as he flew out of the Baxter Building for a day on his board.

He should probably invite someone, right? He didn’t want to seem antisocial. He was trying to have a life on Earth outside of Johnny and the Four, and he thought he was doing alright, all things considered. He didn’t think the Avengers would appreciate it all that much if he invited his surfer friends to their mansion, no matter how much the surfers would enjoy it.

Lucky for him, there was an invasion from dimension-hopping demons that day, giving the Surfer the chance to talk to his other friends.

“Do any of you want to go to a party?” the Surfer asked as the Hulk tore through a cluster of demons flooding out of a portal atop the Sanctum Sanctorum. The Sub-Mariner and the Surfer were not far behind, flanking him as they flew through the mass.

“Party?” Valkyrie asked, cleaving through a demon with her sword. “What party? Who’s having a party?”

“The Avengers. It’s their anniversary,” the Surfer answered. The Hulk made a displeased noise. The Surfer ignored him and kept talking. “Reed said it is a time for New York’s superheroes to socialize.”

“It would be good to establish better relations with other teams,” Strange jumped in. He’d been silent until now, focused on some kind of spell. Since he was talking, the Surfer assumed he’d finished and the fight would be over soon. Or maybe it was just beginning. “When is it?”

The Surfer rattled off the details. “Ben said the Avengers, X-Men, and Heroes for Hire are going to be there, and the Fantastic Four, of course. Ben and Sue are going to help some of the Avengers track down some of the independent heroes like Spider-Man and Captain Marvel.”

“I care more about the Fantastic Four,” Valkyrie said, still cutting through demons with her sword. “I feel like you’ve been here forever, and we’ve never met your family!”

“They’re not really my family,” the Surfer said, trying not to sound uncomfortable. The Four had accepted him, sure, but he didn’t think they liked him all that much. They didn’t dislike him, or at least the Surfer didn’t think they did, and they included him in things, but he still didn’t think they particularly liked him. Except Franklin, but he was a toddler, so the Surfer wasn’t sure if his opinion counted. He still appreciated it, though.

“Your boyfriend, then,” Valkyrie corrected easily. “You talk about him all the time! I feel like I already know him, but I’ve only seen pictures from before he became a herald.”

The Surfer paused a moment to look at her, trusting Namor and the Hulk to keep up the onslaught against the demons. “Do I talk about him a lot?”

“Not nearly as much as Namor talks about Lady Dorma,” Strange muttered, quietly enough that the given person probably wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the sounds of battle, but just loud enough that the Surfer was able to pick up on it. The Sub-Mariner wouldn’t appreciate the comment, but the Surfer did.

“So you’re coming?”

“Definitely!” Valkyrie answered.

“I will be there,” Namor responded with an air of disinterest, but once glance and the Surfer could see a gleam of something in his eye. “It would be nice to see your Fantastic Four friends off the battlefield.”

Right. They had a history. The Surfer was looking forward to learning more about that.

The Hulk grunted, and Strange answered for him. “I’ll make sure the Hulk comes, if he’s not too fussy that day.”

“Don’t like the Avengers,” Hulk growled as he kept knocking the demons around. He was quiet for a moment before asking, “Will Rick be there?”

“I don’t know who that is,” the Surfer replied honestly. “Ben said anyone who’s anyone will be there, so maybe.”

“Focus on the fight,” Strange said, and the Surfer looked over to see the light of another spell dancing around his fingertips. “I’ve been keeping the big ones from coming through the portal, but I think one’s about to slip through.”

The Surfer flew up a bit as the Hulk clapped, the shockwave forcing most of the demons to the edges of the battlefield and off the roof of the Sanctum Sancotrum. “Finally! Time to smash!”

The Surfer didn’t particularly like fighting, but he agreed with the sentiment. The little demons were no challenge. This was an opportunity for him and his friends to really let loose.

The Fantastic Four, plus the Surfer, Franklin, and Herbie, arrived early because Sue was enlisting the boys to help the Avengers set up and needed time to help Herbie settle Franklin in before the party started. There were enough Avengers that the Surfer really did think that his, Johnny’s, Ben’s, and Reed’s help was needed, but the Avengers were friendly enough that the Surfer didn’t mind that much.

The Surfer was paired up with Reed to put up decorations under the Wasp’s guidance. The Surfer didn’t really understand their purpose, but the Wasp seemed happy to answer his questions, even if her answers made no sense to him. He followed Reed’s lead and put them up without complaint. 

When they returned to the main area, Johnny and Ben were helping the other Avengers put out food, which the Surfer thought was a lot more interesting than putting up decorations. Ben seemed into it, but Johnny seemed a little bored. 

“This seems like a lot of food for three teams and some change,” Johnny commented as Iron Man corrected his bowl placement. Who knew putting out food was such a science?

“Those three teams and change include a Thing, a Thor, a She-Hulk, and a Wolverine,” Hawkeye said, counting off on his fingers. Ben made an offended sound, but Hawkeye pretended not to notice. “Just one of them could eat Stark out of house and home.”

Iron Man—or was it Stark?—just grinned at that. “Hey, why be a billionaire if you can’t feed people? Infinite invites means you’ve gotta have enough food to feed anyone who comes in. Speaking of which, did any of you manage to track down those of us not fortunate enough to have mailing addresses?” 

“They’re not unfortunate,” Sue responded, but she didn’t sound upset. “I invited Medusa. She’ll probably bring Lockjaw and some other Inhumans.”

“Daredevil, Captain Marvel, Ghost Rider, and Moon Knight,” Ben listed off. “Invited Rachel too.”

“I got Spider-Man,” Johnny added.

“Doctor Strange is bringing some of our allies,” the Surfer added, and the room went silent. Everyone was staring at him. Did he say something wrong? “Are… Are you not on good terms with him?”

“We like Strange just fine,” Iron Man responded before anyone else could talk. His expression was a little slack, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. “He’s kind of anti-social, though. Kind of surprised you of all people managed to get him to come.”

“You of all people?” Johnny echoed, offended on the Surfer’s behalf, before looking back at the Surfer. “He’s kind of right, though.”

The Surfer shrugged, not liking all the eyes on him, and the conversation drifted as they finished the preparations. Within the hour, the first guests started to arrive. The Heroes of Hire were a little early, and Ben seemed happy to see them. Some kid named Rick Jones was next, and the Surfer wondered if he was the Hulk’s Rick, but he didn’t ask. He seemed friendly with the Avengers, Captain America in particular, so the Surfer didn’t want to intrude.

The X-Men arrived with a little more commotion.

“That is the Phoenix Force,” the Surfer announced before the greetings could get too far along. He looked at Johnny. “The Phoenix Force should not be here.”

“Excuse me?” a man with red glasses asked, stepping forward. Cyclops, the Surfer would later learn his name was.

“He’s from space, he has no manners,” Johnny apologized, even though that was wildly untrue. The Surfer had manners, and he was ready to tell him such before Johnny kept talking. “He’s right, though. You’ve got the primordial cosmic entity of creation and rebirth… in there. You might want to get that checked out, miss.”

The Surfer wanted to keep pressing about it, to tell these humans that such a massive concentration of a cosmic presence should not exist within one of them, but Johnny told him he was being rude and weird, so the Surfer backed off. The X-Men weren’t very interested in talking to him after that, but that was okay because the Surfer knew his own friends were coming sooner or later.

“Hello, land heroes,” Namor said loudly, stopping in the doorway. It was a bold move, but it was quickly undermined by the Hulk shoving his way past him, making a beeline for the boy the Surfer had thought might be the Hulk’s friend.

“Rick!”

“Hulk?” The boy seemed surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Doctor Strange looked like he wanted to sink into the ground. Valkyrie seemed to be handling Namor and the Hulk’s behavior with grace, at least.

“I’m sorry for them,” Strange said when the Surfer floated over on his board to greet him. The Surfer didn’t know why he was apologizing, so he ignored it and waved the Four over. Some of the Avengers were gaping at them, which the Surfer thought was rude considering Johnny had scolded him for drawing attention to the Phoenix Force.

“You- you invited the Sub-Mariner?” Reed stuttered out, tearing his eyes away from Namor to stare at the Surfer.

“Yes?” the Surfer answered, not seeing the problem. “We’re friends.”

“Aww, babe,” Johnny cooed. “Look at you making superhero friends. One of them’s even bigger and meaner than Ben!”

“Johnny, that’s the Hulk,” Ben hissed, sounding vaguely alarmed, but Johnny didn’t seem to pick up on it.

“Like the She-Hulk?”

“You must be Johnny,” Valkyrie said, interrupting them. She didn’t even flinch at the fire, taking his hands and smiling at her. “The Surfer’s told us a lot about you. You’re a lucky guy.”

“Babe?” Reed echoed like his brain had caught up with the conversation. He glanced between Johnny and the Surfer. “You two are dating?”

“Um, surprise?” Johnny raised his shoulders in a stiff half-shrug. “Turns out Johnny likes space but not women.”

Ben made a sound that sounded like a bark of laughter. He clapped a rocky paw on Johnny’s shoulder and shook him a couple times. “Didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that. You dating the Surfer aint’t surprising, though.”

“You’re not subtle,” Sue agreed, and Johnny smiled sheepishly.

“Did they not know?” Valkyrie asked, looking up at the Surfer. “Weren’t you two in space together for like four years? Feels like would be kind of obvious.”

“It’s okay. Humans are kind of slow,” the Surfer told her, and Johnny squawked. “Johnny didn’t know either until a few months ago, and he was there the whole time.”

“Surfer!” Johnny cried, somewhere between a whine and something scolding. He shook himself and looked back at his family. “I hope you guys aren’t upset that the Surfer’s friends knew before you guys did.”

“Like Ben said, it’s not really a surprise. We knew.” Sue paused, then looked over at Reed. “Well, Ben and I knew. Reed might need a minute.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Reed said a little absently. He waved a hand. “Old news. I’m more caught up over the fact that the Surfer’s friends with the Sorcerer Supreme, the king of Atlantis, and the Hulk.”

“And an Asgardian,” the Surfer said helpfully. He didn’t know why everyone was having such strong reactions to his friends, but Valkyrie didn’t deserve to be left out of whatever it was.

“And an Asgardian.”

“Eh, not as impressive. We’re friends with an Asgardian, too. No offense,” Ben said, tipping his head in Valkyrie’s direction.

“None taken.”

“I tire of this,” Namor declared, throwing his arms over Strange and Valkyrie’s shoulders, making Strange cringe a bit. “Silver one, guide us to the refreshments. It is time to feast.”

That seemed to break whatever tension had taken hold of them, and the party went on. The Surfer’s friends still got some looks, but the other heroes were apparently familiar with them, so it wasn’t really a problem. The Surfer chatted with Strange, watched Valkyrie and She-Hulk arm wrestle, tried some new foods, got dragged away from trying to tell Jean Grey about the Phoenix Force again, lost a couple card games he didn’t understand to Ben and Gambit, raced Quicksilver in the yard, and got introduced to some of the young heroes that Johnny had been spending time with. All in all, a good night.

Still, the Surfer’s favorite part was when Johnny spotted an opportunity to slip away, and the two of them flew up to sit on the roof.

“That went well,” Johnny said, leaning back so his neck was resting on the slope of the Surfer’s shoulder.

“The party?”

“Coming out. Telling Reed, Ben, and Sue about our relationship, I mean,” Johnny answered. He was quiet for a moment, and the Surfer couldn’t see his face from this angle to know if he was looking at him or not. “I guess that wasn’t something you were super concerned with.”

The Surfer would have shrugged if the motion wouldn’t have jostled Johnny. “On Zenn-La, I would have done something similar. I did do something similar. It feels inconsequential now. Not that I think it’s unimportant. I understand it’s important to you.”

“It’s just not important to you,” Johnny finished, not sounding bothered at all. “You already did it before, and you’re a little more tapped into the whole cosmic awareness thing than I am. Human stuff is kind of whatever. I get it, don’t worry. I’m still glad my family didn’t freak out or anything.”

“I don’t think they would have,” the Surfer told him. “They love you very much.”

“I know,” Johnny responded and then went quiet again. The Surfer knew he was thinking, though, so he waited for him to keep talking. “I’m glad you’re making friends here on Earth. I was a little worried you didn’t like it here.”

“It’s good to be around other life forms again,” the Surfer agreed easily. He shifted a bit, draping one arm over Johnny’s stomach and moving his board behind him so he could lean back a bit. Like this, the two were angled back so they could look up at the night sky. “If I wasn’t happy, I could just fly up into space when you were busy and come back when you weren’t.”

“That’s no way to live,” Johnny responded, and the Surfer had to agree, even if he knew he’d do it in a heartbeat. “I mean, I like having you around, obviously, but I’m glad you’re trying to have a life outside of me and the Baxter Building.”

They’d talked about such things before, how it was important for social creatures to have more than one person in their life. It was why the Surfer befriended those he had, even though he was perfectly happy when it’d just been him and Johnny. That wasn’t what the Surfer said, though.

“Some day, this is all going to be gone, and it’s just going to be us again,” the Surfer responded, eyes still trained on the night sky. It wasn’t a great view, not with all of New York’s air and light pollution, but it was still nice. “This is your home, and you should enjoy it while you can.”

“Morbid,” Johnny snorted, but the Surfer knew he didn’t really mind. He’d voiced thoughts about such things, but immortality was still something Johnny couldn’t quite wrap his head around. They had some time before such thoughts became a problem. It was all very abstract now, even to the Surfer.

“I lost my home,” the Surfer went on. He felt Johnny swallow. “I know you’ll remember yours, but I want to remember it too.”

Johnny was quiet again, and the Surfer couldn’t blame him. The reality of their existence wasn’t an easy topic. “I liked it when it was just the two of us, and I’m kind of looking forward to it again, but yeah. Weird to think about how we’re going to lose all this.”

“We will still live a typical human’s lifespan,” the Surfer pointed out, “so we don’t have to change anything now. Immortality is just a reminder to cherish each other and those around us while we can.”

“Yeah.” Johnny leaned over and twisted around to plant a kiss on the Surfer’s jawline. “Ready to head back in and cherish our friends?”

The Surfer made a face. “It sounds weird when you say it.”

“And it doesn’t when you do?” Johnny teased and then kissed him again. He flipped over, getting his knees under him and then rising to his feet. He offered the Surfer a hand and then pulled him to his feet. He kept his hand on him, holding onto him as the Surfer stepped onto his board and lowered them to the ground. He didn’t let go when they stepped back into the mansion.

It was as lively in there as when they’d left, dozens of heroes and their civilian partners and friends having a night to remember. The Surfer didn’t really know most of these people, but like he’d told Johnny, he knew there would be a time when they were only memories. These were people worth remembering, he thought. 

Johnny said that when he was dissociating, he and the Surfer felt like two little specks in a full, vast universe. The Surfer didn’t really feel like that, but in this moment, he could understand what he meant. Just the two of them in this full world that neither of them knew much about, but were ready to join.

It wasn’t the Surfer’s world, and it wasn’t really Johnny’s anymore, but it would become theirs, and the Surfer couldn’t be happier.