Chapter Text
“Try this on.”
The shirt Reed held out was grey, lumpy and slippery at the same time, and it had a really horrible neckline. Johnny looked at it, then back up at Reed and said, “How about you try it on?”
“He already did,” Sue said, fading into sight just behind him. She was wearing her own lumpy, slippery, ugly grey sweatshirt. “Put the shirt on, Johnny. We need to see how it holds up to your powers.”
Reluctantly, Johnny took the shirt. It had a weird texture, a little like tiny scales. He wrinkled his nose.
“Does it come in any other colors?” he asked.
Sue crossed her arms. “Do you want to be stuck wearing that suit for the rest of your life? Or keep having to replace all your clothes all the time because you turn them to ash whenever you light up?”
“It’s just the first step,” Reed said, looking at Johnny with his big earnest eyes. Let me fix it, Reed’s face was always saying. Let me try. “I promise, if it works, I can make it in colors.”
“And actual fabric, please?” Johnny said, working off the top half of his suit. “Not whatever the fuck this is.”
“It’s knitwear,” Reed said, and then just when things were sounding normal, “treated with a solution of unstable molecules I’m experimenting with.”
Unstable molecules. Yeah, that sounded real safe.
Johnny sucked in a breath; keeping things under control without the suit was still a little shaky, but he was getting there. One step at a time. At least he wasn’t walking around with the fingers of one arm trailing all over the floor like Reed, and at least here, in their fun and sterile new mountain hideout, the risk of him hurting anyone was low.
“We can learn to control our powers,” Reed kept saying, but the worst thing that would happen if he lost control was looking like the flying spaghetti monster. Johnny was a Smoky the Bear ad waiting to happen.
Half out of his c-suit, though, and no flames. No sparks. Johnny let out one long, slow breath, and shimmied into the shirt.
It felt like what he thought the inside of an eel must feel like. “Eeeugh.”
Sue snickered, ducking her head.
“This isn’t funny,” Johnny said to her, tugging the shirt down around his waist.
“I beg to differ,” she said, snorting a little around the words.
“Okay, Johnny,” Reed said, that light in his eyes again. “I need you to flame on, hold it for twenty seconds, and then turn your powers off.”
Johnny could do that. “Okay. Flame on.”
Intellectually, Johnny knew that when he burned, he burned hot - inferno hot, burning building hot, habanero hot. Exploding star hot, potentially, or that’s what the men in the white coats had said. But to him, flaming on just felt warm. Like getting into a hot bath, pleasant heat all over. It was the only way he really felt temperature anymore. Cold felt muted, a thought more than a feeling, and he’d been tested and tested against normal fire: no matter how high the lab coats had cranked it up, it just tickled. It didn’t burn. The men in full military dress had said things like “very impressive” and that Johnny “had a lot of potential.”
First time anyone had ever said, except for his dad.
He counted to twenty, then snuffed his flames. The shirt was intact, not even scorched. He breathed out and Reed smiled, a little too wide for his face but no less bright for it.
“Fantastic,” he breathed, his new favorite word since Ben had said it their first day at Central City.
“It’s a really good start,” Sue said, taking the shirt when Johnny pulled it off over his head. He pulled his suit back up, thinking suddenly, longingly, of actual clothes in actual colors, jeans and real shoes and things that wouldn’t melt straight off him for the first time in a year. All his old clothes, wherever they were – as if he’d ever get them back.
Johnny let out a long slow breath and collapsed backward into a chair.
“That mean you’re finally gonna get Rocky some pants?” he said.
Ben, leaning up against the wall and watching the whole show, snorted. “What, you don’t like what you see?”
Johnny let his eyes rake slowly over Ben’s huge form, lingering a little. Ben shifted awkwardly; if rocks could blush, he would’ve been bright red.
“Not exactly sure what I’m seeing,” he smirked, spinning his chair around. Ben made an annoyed noise deep in his chest.
Reed and Sue were off in their own little world, two big brains poking at a lumpy piece of cloth like it was the most interesting thing they’d ever seen. Johnny shifted so he was straddling the chair backwards, arms crossed and chin resting on top of them.
There was a TV in the corner of the lab and the news was on, showing a bird’s eye view of a New York City street at a standstill. Johnny grabbed the remote and turned it up just as the picture zoomed in.
There was some kind of giant metal rhino in the middle of the street.
“Hey, look,” he said as Ben came up behind him. “We found you a prom date.”
Ben gave a great shuddering sigh of annoyance. “World’s gettin’ too weird.”
The metal rhino was waving his arms around like he thought he was some kind of big deal. Johnny felt angry-hot all over. Ben was the only one next to him, Sue and Reed still safely across the lab, and Johnny didn’t know if he could hurt Ben even if he tried, so he let a few sparks fly. Ben’s breath rumbled in his chest like he agreed.
“I could take him,” he said, cracking his huge stone knuckles. Johnny snorted.
“I could melt him,” he said. “Aim for the joints and immobilize him.”
“Heh,” Ben said. “I’d still hit him first.”
A flash of movement caught Johnny’s eye as the camera spun, and whatever he’d been about to snipe back at Ben died in his throat. A kid had climbed over the police line, into the middle of the road.
There was a little kid in the middle of the road, dressed in a Spider-Man Halloween costume, and he was about to be trampled by a giant rhino.
Johnny reached out without thinking and grabbed Ben’s huge arm.
“Get out of the road, you stupid kid,” Ben said to the screen. “Get out of the road. Why isn’t anybody doing something?” Then, he repeated: “I could take that guy.”
Johnny squeezed his arm until his fingers ached and said, numbly, “I could melt him.”
Ben’s exhale was shaky, but Johnny looked at him, at his big stern profile, and he knew they were thinking the same thing. It made him feel sick, sitting safe in the lab, watching some little kid about to be killed because no one was doing anything.
He looked back at the screen, full of dread, and instead his heart leapt up into his throat. Down on the ground in New York there was a familiar lanky figure in red and blue standing over the kid.
It was Spider-Man -- the first sighting of him in months, according to the internet. Johnny had been devastated when, after a year of no contact with the outside world, he’d finally gotten back online only find out Spider-Man had disappeared. He’d known he couldn’t be gone for good, though. He’d just known.
“Yes!” he said, his chair clattering to the ground as he jumped up. Ben shot him an alarmed look. “He’s back!”
On the news, the little boy was being handed off to his mother and Spider-Man was grabbing a megaphone. The news was only just barely picking up his voice: “-- put your mechanized paws in the air!”
Johnny let out a whoop, throwing hands in the air. Ben was looking at him like he was crazy, but he didn’t care. Spider-Man was back.
“You a fan of that schmuck?” Ben asked.
On the news Spider-Man swung a manhole cover like a discus. Johnny grinned and flipped Ben one flaming finger.
“What’s going on over here?” Sue asked. She caught sight of the TV and snorted, saying, “Oh,” like that explained everything.
“What?” Reed asked, stretching over to them. Johnny had been watching him contort himself up like a pretzel for weeks now, but it was still a weird sight. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Spider-Man,” Johnny said, beaming. He felt warm down to his toes. “He’s back.”
--
“So, Spider-Man, right?” Johnny said over dinner.
There was a cafeteria, technically, but it was awkward sitting with people three times their age, some of whom clearly resented their presence and new control -- and some who were just plain scared of them. Most of the time the four of them just grabbed whatever was microwavable and gathered around the nearest sanitized table down in the lab.
Someone, Johnny thought, poking at reheated chicken, was really going to have to learn how to cook soon. Reed couldn’t have found them an off the books government project next to a pizza place?
“Spider-Man,” Reed said slowly, catching on that Johnny was waiting for someone to speak. He was busy putting Ben’s twelfth serving of the meal into the microwave, his hand across the room and his body still at the table.
“Do not engage,” Sue told him without looking up. “He will never shut up about it, trust me.”
“So Spider-Man appears in New York a couple years back, right?” Johnny said, kicking Sue underneath the table. She shot him an exasperated look before she went back to staring at her plate like if she pushed her food around enough it might turn into something edible.
“Right,” Ben said slowly. “I remember that. With that lizard guy, whathisname, Connors.”
“Fighting the Lizard,” Johnny said. “Spider-Man fought the Lizard.”
“That’s not what the Bugle says,” Ben snorted.
“You read the Bugle?” Johnny said, lip curling in disgust.
“What’s wrong with the Bugle? My family’s got a subscription, okay?” Ben growled, even as Reed covered his hand with his own, mouthing, I know. “Besides, they’re the only ones who get decent pictures of the guy.”
“Still shit,” Johnny said, pointing with his fork. “The stuff they say about him -”
“Sorry,” Sue cut in. “I should have warned you guys up front - Johnny’s basically obsessed with Spider-Man.”
Johnny scowled at her. “Look, the guy, he has these powers somehow, and he goes out and he - he saves people. He uses them for something, instead of just sitting around in some lab!”
It was the wrong thing to say. Ben’s gaze fell to the table top, stony mouth set tight, and Reed stopped scribbling in the notebook he had open next to his plate. Sue’s mouth twisted to the side, her fork scraping noisily against her plate. The microwave dinged.
Johnny clenched his jaw against the sudden rush of angry heat that spread through his chest and down his arms. Sue was watching, though, and he thought she noticed, because all of a sudden she spoke.
“He used to swing by Baxter,” she said. “The north side of the building. I saw him a couple of times.”
“What?” Johnny said, leaning forward. “How come you never told me?”
“You weren’t there,” she said, shrugging.
“Aw, man,” Johnny said, collapsing back in his seat.
“I think Baxter was on his way home. He always swung by at night.” Sue glanced at Johnny, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards. “He’s got a cute butt.”
“Thanks,” Johnny snorted. “Thanks a lot.”
--
Spider-Man’s return wasn’t a one-off. All of a sudden he was everywhere in Manhattan, like he was trying to make up for all his missing months in one go. It made Johnny wonder where he’d been and what he’d been doing, and if he’d been stuck in some big concrete compound like Johnny.
Probably not, but still, Johnny couldn’t help but think about it.
Seeing Spider-Man on the news made Johnny think about a lot of things, actually. Miss a lot of things, too – miss New York. Miss things Johnny had never actually done – helping people, using his powers to do something meaningful. You’re going to do great things, son, they’d told him. Now Johnny wasn’t doing anything at all, feeling stifled by Central City and frustrated at the others for letting him be the only one who seemed to realize how alone they were.
Spider-Man was strong, maybe as strong as Ben, and he was fast, and he swung around New York on some kind of spider’s web.
“It’s a kind of biodegradable cable,” Sue said when he brought it up. “Not organic. One of the chemistry kids scraped it off the side of a building when he first appeared. Its makeup is really similar to something Oscorp patented. Like, basically the same thing similar.”
She sounded unimpressed, almost bored, her tone flat as she worked on something else. Johnny, perched on the countertop next to her, rolled his eyes. Like Spider-Man was going to be any less cool if he stole from Oscorp.
“One, I don’t care,” Johnny said. “Two, how are you not getting how cool that is?”
Sue looked up. “Maybe because I can manifest an invisible hamster ball and fly myself around in it.”
“Sue,” he whined, throwing himself down in the chair next to hers. He planted his foot against her chair and pushed, sending them both spinning in opposite directions. She stopped herself with a force field, scowling.
“Johnny,” she said.
“What are we doing here, Sue?” he asked, gesturing at Reed’s work station with its piles of notes and half-built gadgets, at Sue’s with her mp3 player lying abandoned and her laptop still open. “I mean, what are we really doing? What am I supposed to do here?”
“You can build things, Johnny, you’ve got a workshop,” she said, but he was shaking his head.
“I’m supposed to, what, just sit down here in the middle of nowhere and build cars while you and Reed work on ripping a way back through space so you can fix us, like there’s something wrong? I don’t want that.” Johnny put his hand flat to his chest. “I don’t belong here, Sue.”
“You’re just getting distracted - you have to apply yourself,” Sue said, taking a step forward. “Dad always said -”
“Dad’s dead!” Johnny shouted, and Sue froze, her eyes wide. For a split second, she flickered out of sight. “Dad’s dead, Sue, and we’re just – we’re stuck here.”
Sue was very still.
“We chose to be here,” she said. “It was our choice.”
“No, they gave us this,” Johnny said, gesturing around the room again. “They gave you and Reed a bunch of shiny toys and they stuck us in here.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Sue said. “We can leave, if we choose to.”
“So choose to!” Johnny said, flinging his arms out. “You’re a superhero, Sue!” She flinched and frowned, shaking her head. “We’re superheroes! We should be out there, doing things with these powers!”
“You want to be Spider-Man, is that it?” Sue asked. “Flying around New York, like him –”
“At least Spider-Man helps people!” Johnny said. “Who are we helping? Nobody. We can’t even help ourselves.”
“We’re a danger,” Sue said. “To other people. Normal people.”
“I know you think we’re freaks,” Johnny said. “But Reed says we can learn to control it. I have been controlling it. I want to go home, Sue. I want to be with people again.”
“I…” Sue said, trailing off. She’d never needed it the way he did, the presence of other people. But she knew. She knew how much he wanted that.
“Sue, please,” he said, voice breaking. “I want us to go home.”
He had to stoop nearly double to press his forehead against her shoulder. He suddenly missed when he was little and able to hide behind her - smart, fearless Sue. Before she got quiet and he got angry.
One of Sue’s hands was on his back, the other curling around his neck.
“I want to go home,” he told her.
“I know,” she said. She pulled back, blinking hard. Johnny scrubbed his wrist across his eyes. “I know. Okay. Me too.”
--
They took it to Reed. Or Sue took it to Reed, anyway, and Johnny hung back with his arms crossed, trying not to be too hopeful. It felt a whole lot like the time he’d tried to convince his dad to let him leave Baxter and go to public school, except now he was just trying to get back to Baxter.
Go figure.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Reed said.
“Why?” Johnny burst out before Sue could say anything.
“We’re a danger to other people,” Reed said, cold. He twisted his head away from them, further than the average man could manage.
“You’re the one who keeps saying we can learn to control it!” Johnny said, flinging his arms out. “You two walk around with these storm clouds over your heads, but did you ever think that this doesn’t have to be a bad thing? That we can – we can do good things with these powers.” He breathed out, willing himself to keep his temperature even, not to let his body heat spike and his shoulders start to smoke. He swallowed back sparks before they could reach his lips. “I can do good things.”
Sue’s hand slid up to cup his shoulder, grounding.
“That’s fine for us, maybe,” Reed said, gesturing between the three of them, “but what about Ben?”
Johnny swallowed hard. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Reed said. “Oh.”
Johnny bit his lip, thinking of Ben – a literal brick wall of a man. What were they supposed to do, wrap a giant trench coat around him and pull a hat down over his eyes? He’d still tower far above the rest of the populace. Even his voice rumbled like a landslide. With their powers mastered, Sue and Johnny could move around a city like anyone else. Reed already had. But for Ben, there could be no hiding in plain sight.
“Reed,” Sue said, soft, the way she rarely was with anyone anymore. “Don’t.”
“I did this to him,” Reed said. “And I’m not going anywhere he can’t. Not until I fix it.”
He scrubbed at his face with both hands, his shoulders bowed. He looked tired, and older - Johnny noticed, not for the first time, how he was starting to go grey at the temples. He was barely twenty, only a year older than Johnny.
“I’m not leaving him,” Reed said. “Not again.”
“What, I don’t get anything to say about that?”
Ben was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.
“Ben, I didn’t -- ” Reed started, but Ben cut him off with a hard look.
“For the record, I’m with the flame brain,” he said. He jerked his chin his way. “You think you’re bored here? Try being a Thing, lumbering around all this delicate equipment. Can’t even breathe without being afraid I’m about to ruin a billion dollar piece of junk. I don’t belong here, Reed. None of us do.”
Reed, for once, didn’t seem to have an answer to that.
“Alright,” Ben sighed after a long minute spent just watching Reed. He thrust his hand out in front of him. “Come on, all of you. Put your hands in the circle.”
“Are you serious?” Johnny said. Ben took a deep breath before he glared at him.
“Don’t make me step on you,” he said. “Hand in the circle. Now.”
Johnny put his hand in the circle. After one moment of Ben’s long hard stare Sue followed suit. That just left Reed, standing a little ways away like he wasn’t sure he was invited.
“Come on,” Ben said to him. “We don’t go without you.”
Reed’s hand snaked out to rest, feather light, over the rest of theirs.
“One for all and all that crap,” Ben said. “We go together.”
Johnny grinned, throwing his hand up. Reed did the same, then Sue, looking a little embarrassed and a little happy at the same time. Ben huffed like he was sick of all of them before he wrapped his arm around Reed’s shoulders.
“Why you gotta be so stupid all the time?” he asked him.
“It’s probably the company I keep,” Reed mumbled like it was an old joke, turning to press his forehead briefly against Ben’s rocky skin. “Okay. Okay. I’ll figure something out. We’ll go home.”
--
They figured it out: Sue perfected their unstable molecules, and she and Reed went head-to-head with the people running Central City, saying that Central City needed them more than they needed it, and Ben acted like eight-foot-tall back-up, one rocky fist resting menacingly on one rocky palm. The four of them, Reed said, carefully avoiding the word ‘fantastic’, needed to branch out. This, he said, could benefit everyone.
Johnny – Johnny daydreamed, about New York, about a new life outside Central City’s sterile white walls. It had been so long since he had been back in the real world. He and Sue flew first class back to New York and the whole time he could hardly believe it. He laughed out loud at the first sight of the city’s lights, crowding up against Sue to better see out the window.
“I asked if you wanted the window seat,” she said, attempting to shove him back. She was staring, too, and Johnny ended up with his chin hooked over her shoulder, watching the familiar landmarks grow larger.
“Look,” he said. “There’s the Statue of Liberty.”
It dampened his mood a little, as the plane landed, thinking about Reed and Ben making the same flight in a military carrier. Ben couldn’t stroll through JFK the way he and Sue could. They couldn’t stay in a four star hotel the way he and Sue could, and when they met up to make arrangements about the Baxter Building, it felt like everyone’s eyes were on Ben.
Johnny didn’t know how he could stand it.
The Baxter Building had been evacuated the night of the accident. It had been abandoned ever since.
“What do you mean, abandoned?” Johnny said. “It’s a huge ass building in the middle of New York City!”
“It’s haunted,” the real estate agent they spoke to said, completely straight-faced.
There was a long moment of silence before Reed said, “Haunted,” very slowly, like he was trying not to laugh. He glanced at Ben, then at Sue and Johnny. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for us.”
Haunted or not -- “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Reed said decisively while Ben snorted and rolled his eyes --, the building was unsettling. Johnny had never seen it completely empty before, and the halls that had seemed too narrow were now cavernous. Their footsteps echoed with every step - Ben’s, admittedly, louder than the rest of theirs.
It was like everyone had dropped everything the moment of the accident. Doors hung half-open, and someone’s bag lay open and abandoned on the floor, highlighters and pens spilling out. It needed a few flickering lights and some creaking floorboards, but Johnny could get why people thought the place was haunted. It was already a ghost town.
Reed promptly went to explore, and Ben followed after him. Johnny didn’t particularly feel like revisiting the sight of the accident, so he kicked around in the old dorms for a while, feeling aimless, before he headed towards the elevator.
The door to their dad’s old office hung open. Through it Johnny could see Sue, sitting in their dad’s chair at their dad’s desk. There were papers scattered everywhere, and suddenly Johnny could see it -- the accident, the blackout. Dad would’ve dropped the papers in his rush back to the lab. He wouldn’t have been allowed back in to get them. He wouldn’t have tried - he’d have been too busy trying to find out what had happened to them.
”Promise me. Look after each other.”
Sue was picking the papers up and putting them in neat little piles. There was a picture of the three them sitting on the desk, their father in the middle with his arms around them both. Johnny didn’t remember when it had been taken, but they were all smiling in it, so it must have been a while ago. The glass was cracked; Sue had clearly picked it up off the floor and set it back where their dad had put it.
“Hey,” Johnny said, knocking at the door frame.
“Hey,” Sue said after a beat. She took a deep breath, reaching back to tie up her hair.
“It’s weird, right?” Johnny said and Sue nodded jerkily. “We should do something.”
“Like what?” Sue asked. Johnny didn’t know. He leaned against the doorway, arms folded, as Sue spun her chair in lazy circles, both of them staring out at the office that still felt so much like their dad Johnny half-expected a hand to come down on his shoulder, a voice to tell him to stop slouching.
“Do you think Spider-Man still swings by here?” he asked after a minute.
They took the elevator up to the 50th floor, where the windows were floor-to-ceiling.
“He usually swung by at night,” Sue said, hunkering down on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest. “But I saw him a few times in the morning on weekends.”
“Okay, you made a schedule, and I’m the obsessed one?” he said. Sue snorted, setting her chin on her knees, then fell quiet.
Johnny wondered when he’d stopped knowing how to talk to his sister.
He stretched his long legs out in front of him and looked out over the Manhattan skyline, unchanged in the year they’d been away. The night sky beyond the compound had always been pitch black, just stars in the sky and the building’s own floodlights.
New York City was beautiful at night. It made him want to flame on and soar in between all of the lights, just for the sake of burning that bright. All his life he felt like he’d been burning; it was just that now he could finally shed some light.
“Do you think it was a mistake, coming back?” Johnny asked.
Sue just stared straight ahead. “Do you?”
Johnny shrugged. It felt better than being bored down at the lab, but it was early days and the restlessness he felt had barely subsided. He wanted to flame on. He wanted to fly. He wondered if Spider-Man ever got like that, the itch underneath his skin. “I thought it would be different. Being here is weird.”
Sue nodded, tucking her chin in behind her knees. “Everything’s weird now. I don’t think it makes a difference where we are.”
A noise like a snap made Johnny look up, and his jaw dropped open.
When Sue had said Spider-Man swung by the building, she hadn’t been kidding. He was right on the other side of the glass, lithe and long-limbed. He flipped and spun and then he was gone. Johnny jumped to his feet, pressing his face up against the glass to try and get one last look.
“You’re sparking,” Sue said, but when Johnny glanced over his shoulder at her she was smiling. He smiled back.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “You were right. He’s got a really cute butt.”
--
The walls kept making noises. Johnny hadn’t slept soundly for months after the accident, and then again after his dad’s death, but this was a whole new level. He turned onto his side, breathing out, and told himself he was just imagining things. Big, empty building, with only four people in it - of course it felt weird.
The floor shook with a sound like a long, low keening wail and Johnny sat straight up.
Sue was out in the hall in her pajamas and a hoodie. The tips of her fingers faded in and out of sight with every creak and groan of the building.
“I’m not imagining that?” Johnny said, and she shook her head. “Can we get Reed?”
Reed was up and out of bed, the blankets in a pile on the floor like he’d accidentally rolled over the edge. He was running too-long fingers along the wall and frowning.
“The building’s not haunted,” he said, before they could say anything.
There was a thump from somewhere far, far below them. Johnny grabbed Sue’s shoulder to steady himself, and for absolutely no other reason.
“Nobody’s suggesting that it is,” Sue said, elbowing Johnny in the ribs. “But the last time anyone was in this building, you ripped a hole through the fabric of space, and we ended up…” she hesitated, pressing her lips tight together. “We ended up the way we are.”
Reed took a long, shaky breath, and said, “Okay. We should wake up Ben - he sleeps like a log.”
True to his word, it took him ten minutes before he returned with Ben. Ben’s presence complicated things a little – his rumbling footsteps were louder than the noises in the walls, drowning out the sound.
“Maybe we were just hearing Ben snore,” Johnny suggested, and got a loud grunt in reply along with a nasty look from his sister.
Reed didn’t even look like he’d heard Johnny speak.
“It’s coming from beneath us,” Reed said. It took Johnny a second to notice that one of his ears had stretched down the hall, disappearing around a corner.
“Gross,” Johnny said. An invisible force field shoved him slightly to the side. He rubbed at his shoulder, leaning in closer to Ben’s bulk as the noise started again. “At least now we know it isn’t your snoring.”
Ben snorted. One giant hand nudged Johnny forward.
“Light it up, sparkles,” he said.
“Hey,” Reed hissed at them. “Now is not the time.”
“Reed, you and Ben go that way,” Sue said, nodding down the hall. “Johnny and I’ll take the basement. It’s a maze down there if you don’t know where you’re going.”
Johnny had never liked Baxter’s basements. Sue had used to make him play hide and seek down there, when they were both young and their dad had meetings all day, before Sue had been fast-tracked and Johnny had been left behind. She’d always get distracted by something old and abandoned and forget to look for him, and he’d be stuck down there, waiting in the dark.
Without realizing it, he reached for her hand.
“Scared?” Sue asked, tangling her fingers with his.
“Shut up,” he said.
At first, the lowest level of Baxter’s massive basement complex looked unchanged. It was likely no one had been in it at the time of the accident, and so, unlike the chaos of the upper floors, everything was in order. Abandoned projects sat covered in cloths, and filing cabinets gathered dust in the corners. Pet projects and dreams, abandoned because it had been decided that funding was better spent elsewhere.
Sue held an ancient flashlight that, against all odds, still worked. Johnny held one hand in front of them, all lit up. That was more for Sue’s benefit than his own – Johnny, when he let his powers wander just a little out of his stranglehold, could feel heat.
He felt it now.
“I don’t think we’re alone,” he said.
“Dun, dun, dun,” Sue muttered, deadpan. “What are you so afraid of, Burning Man?”
Don’t be a baby, Sue had used to say, when they were just little kids. It wasn’t that Sue was fearless, but she was endlessly curious, and always had been. Their dad had always had to keep a close eye on her; if he looked away for a second, Sue would have slipped like a shadow into some lab, poking at something she wasn’t supposed to. Sue was always looking for a mystery, because if there was a mystery then there was something for her to solve.
Johnny wasn’t like that. He liked buildings things, and cars, and he liked speed; he didn’t like strange glowing green energy in other dimensions or things that went bump in dark, deserted basements.
“I can feel it,” Johnny said, finally. “It’s like -- body heat, I think. But it’s deeper than this. I think, whoever it is, they’re underground.”
Sue glanced up at him, sharp-eyed. “Does Reed know you can do that?”
Johnny shrugged. “Does he have to?”
“Johnny,” she admonished. “If we don’t understand our powers, it’s not safe for us to – whoa!”
She nearly tripped over her own feet as she backed up, one arm stuck out to stop Johnny in his tracks.
There was a pit in the ground, jagged at the edges, like something had torn straight through the floor. Johnny held out a flaming arm, but even with the light he couldn’t see how far down it went. It was pitch dark, a yawning chasm.
Johnny felt the same apprehension he’d felt on Planet Zero, staring down those cliffs at the swirling neon green below. He hadn’t gone down that time, not that it had mattered at the end – but this time he didn’t think he was getting the choice.
“How far down do you think it goes?” he asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Sue said, taking one step out into the hole. Johnny lunged for her, but Sue wasn’t falling. She smirked at him.
“Don’t do that,” he said, scowling.
“Invisible platform,” Sue said, still standing out there seemingly on thin air. “Scared, baby bro?”
“Shut up,” he said, lighting up.
They descended together, Sue matching her speed to his. The tunnel wasn’t a straight drop down, twisting and turning, leading them away from the building. Johnny’s flames lit the way.
“It looks like something burrowed down,” she commented as they flew. “Look at the walls.”
Johnny wasn’t going to look at the walls. He focused on the freedom of flying, even down here, deep underground where the air was stale and heavy. He landed first, down on one knee, snuffing his flames before Sue’s feet touched the ground.
There was a tunnel before them, and at the end of it there was a light.
“I can feel him,” Johnny said. The words left his lips before he even knew what he was saying.
Sue started walking. She was his big sister; he had to follow.
There was a small, hunched figure up ahead, lit dimly in the light of half a dozen buzzing consoles.
“This is the part of the horror movie where the coeds get murdered,” Johnny whispered to Sue.
“It’s funny that you’re the one who wanted to be a superhero,” she said, flat. She stepped forward, away from him. “Hello?”
“Hello, Susan,” a familiar voice said.
“Dr. Molekevic?” Sue said.
“The Mole Man?” Johnny said before he could stop himself. Sue shushed him.
“Oh, Jonathan as well,” Molekevic said in that reedy little voice that had always made Johnny want to squirm. He’d always hated Molekevic’s classes, and he’d never been able explain to his dad why, but he’d begged and he’d whined and finally he’d been allowed to leave Baxter and transfer to a public school out in Leonia, where their house was, instead.
It had been a relief when Molekevic had been fired – something about continuing condemned projects on the government’s dime. Johnny hadn’t really paid attention, just liked knowing that he was gone.
“Arthur, is that you?” Sue asked. “What are you doing down here?”
Dr. Molekevic was quiet for a long moment. “They took my work away. But I know this building like the back of my hand… I came back to retrieve it. Then there was the light!” His voice fell. “And then the darkness.”
“He must have been in the building during the accident,” Sue said. Johnny couldn’t tell whether she was speaking to him or to herself. She moved as if to step forward, and Johnny’s grip tightened on her hand. “Arthur, have you been down here all this time?”
“For a long, long time, yes. Step into the light, children,” Molekevic said. “Let me look at you.”
Johnny didn’t want to. He wanted to leave, just turn and run, back up to the surface. The darkness felt oppressive, the air thick and dank and rancid. Johnny felt like he was choking on it.
“Sue,” he said, hanging onto her hand. “He’s nuts, okay? Leave him. Let’s just go.”
Sue didn’t listen. Her hand left his, and she stepped into the dim green low of Molekevic’s workstation.
Reluctantly, Johnny followed her. He stood very still while Molekevic circled them, leaning in close and almost sniffing. The underground hadn’t treated Molekevic well; he was more hunched over than ever before, and Johnny suspected he hadn’t seen a shower since he’d slunk under the city. His hair hung limply around his face in clumps of tangles and he had a pair of blocky dark glasses perched on his face, like the kind people wore during an eclipse. Molekevic rubbed his gnarled hands together as he rocked back on his heels, radiating glee.
“You’re both still so beautiful,” he said, sighing. Johnny shuddered.
“Dr. Molekevic,” Sue said, leaning around him. “What’s over there? I thought I saw something move…”
Dr. Molekevic clapped his hands together. The sound echoed in the dark lab.
“Susan!” he said, bearing his teeth in a grin. “Always so observant! Come, come…”
He beckoned them forward, into the dark. Johnny didn’t want to go, but Sue forged on, fearless in the face of some new discovery. He had to go after her. Someone had to watch her back. Look after each other, his dad had said.
There was a sort of pen set up in the corner of the lab, constructed from plywood and chicken wire, and inside there were things moving slowly, aimlessly milling around. Johnny couldn’t see them clearly in the gloom, but he could smell them. He cupped a hand over his mouth and nose.
“Here, Susan,” Dr. Molekevic said, extending a cordial hand. “Come meet my work.”
“Sue,” Johnny said from behind his hand but, just like always where Baxter was concerned, it was like she couldn’t hear him. Like he didn’t exist.
“What are they?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly.
Molekevic opened the pen and gestured inside, beckoning.
“Come, my pets. Don’t be afraid. Into the light, now, it won’t hurt…” Molekevic cooed and then, from one second to the next, his voice dropped to a snarl, and his hand darted into the pen, dragging out a small, bedraggled creature by the back of its neck. “Get out here, you miserable worm!”
He dumped the thing in front of Sue, and it took Johnny a moment to make sense of it, gnarled and distorted as it was. It was small, about the size of a medium-sized dog, but it stood upright on two legs, and it was mottled green, and all of a sudden Johnny realized why it reminded him of something he’d find at back of the fridge.
Dr. Molekevic had used to work with mold.
“The energy from Planet Zero,” Sue said, getting down on one knee. The thing cringed back, away from her. “It must have affected your work somehow…”
She reached out with one hand, that single-minded curiosity on her face.
“Sue, don’t touch it!” Johnny hissed, grabbing her by the shoulder.
Molekevic bristled.
“Ohh, yes, Johnny Storm,” he said, suddenly right in Johnny’s face. Johnny stumbled back, tripping over himself and landing in a sprawl on the ground. Molekevic was on him in an instant, gripping Johnny’s chin with one grubby hand. The stench of him nearly made Johnny gag. “Always thought you were so above us, hmm? Not one of the freaks in their lab coats. But I heard about what happened to you, boy, back when the men in suits were whispering up above – who is the freak now?”
Johnny shoved him off, scrambling back and lighting up on instinct. At the same time, an invisible force shoved Molekevic back, sending him stumbling back into his computers.
“Sue,” Johnny said, gasping for breath.
“Dr. Molekevic,” Sue said, one hand held up in front of her. “Don’t touch my brother again.”
“Susan,” Molekevic said, sounding shocked.
“Arthur,” Sue countered. “I said, don’t touch him again. Are we clear?”
Molekevic didn’t answer. He didn’t have to; the creatures in the pen had gotten restless, and now they were all crawling out, into the open, towards Sue and Johnny.
“Arthur?” Susan said.
“You weren’t like the others,” Molekevic told her. “Always laughing, making jokes. Calling me the mole man. Simple little minds, lashing out at my brilliance. No, Susan, you – you recognized me for my mind. That’s why I’m offering you a choice. Stay down here with me, Susan. With someone who understands you. We could rule the underworld together! You could be a queen.”
He made a move as if to touch her. Force field or no, Johnny yanked her back, away from him. Dr. Molekevic sneered.
“I’ll even let Jonathan live,” he said. “As a favor to you, my dear. I’m sure I could find some use for him and his… fire.”
“Back off, creep!” Johnny shot back, letting a few sparks fly. Molekevic seemed to shrink from their glow, but the rustling of the creatures behind him grew more frenzied. There were dozens and dozens of them, advancing like a wave. Even Sue took a step back.
“Arthur,” she said, her voice calm and measured, but Johnny knew her too well. He could hear the note of fear in her voice. “Come with us. You’ve been down here too long. We can help you –”
There was a cracking, snapping sound, and a split-second later Johnny realized that the pen holding the mole creatures had broken.
“Don’t let them leave!” Molekevic commanded.
“Sue!” Johnny shouted, flaming off and reaching for her. She was quicker on her feet, though, and he felt the air shift as an invisible wall slammed into the oncoming horde. She caught his hand in hers. “The tunnel –”
“One step ahead of you,” she said, and together they ran for it. The ground rumbled under their feet.
“You can run, my beauties!” Molekevic shouted after them. “But you can’t hide! My creatures and I aren’t alone down here!”
Johnny felt it coming, surging up from underneath, so massive he didn’t know how he could have missed it before. He let go of Sue’s hand as they reached the end of the tunnel, his flames springing to life.
“Sue!” he shouted, shooting straight up. “We have to go!”
The rumbling ground split; Sue, caught off guard, gasped as she threw up a force field bubble. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure she was following him, and had to bite back on a panicked yelp.
Sue was following him. The problem was what was following her.