Chapter Text
Peter Parker is eight years old when he notices the name, it happens on a Tuesday morning while he’s getting dressed for school.
There is nothing particularly special about the moment, Peter is just about to pull his shirt over his head when he glances towards the mirror on the back of his bedroom door and notices something strange near his shoulder. He stops what he is doing, dropping the shirt on the floor before moving closer to the mirror.
Peter freezes, his eyes locked on the letters that sit cleanly below his collar bone like they had been carefully written in black ink. He let his fingers brush over them like it might have been an accident, the ink doesn’t smear or fade it stays exactly as it is.
Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm
Soulmate names show up at random, they can appear at any age at anytime, sometimes on your wrist, sometimes on your ankle, sometimes somewhere weird like your back or your neck. Aunt May explained it to him when he was little in the same casual way she explains things like gravity or why you shouldn’t touch the stove.
One day you'll meet the person whose name is written on you.
Simple as that.
He leaned closer squinting slightly as he sounded it out under his breath.
“Jonathan… Lowell… Spencer… Storm.”
That was definitely not his name, his hand hovered near his shoulder again but this time he didn’t touch it. He already knew it wouldn’t come off.
“Oh my gosh.” The words slipped out quiet and awed.
Something bright and giddy bubbled up in his chest, quick and sudden, and Peter rocked back on his heels, staring at his reflection like it might suddenly explain everything.
“I have a soulmate,” he said.
Then, a second later, louder this time, “I have a soulmate.”
A grin broke across his face wide and a little disbelieving.
“Jonathan Storm,” he tried again, skipping over the rest, like he was testing how it sounded.
He paused, eyes lighting up. “…that’s a really cool name.”
Four names, Peter huffed, shaking his head. “Why does he have so many names?”
He glanced toward the door then back at the mirror one more time, like he needed to make sure it was still there.
It was.
That was enough.
Peter grabbed his shirt off the floor and yanked it on as quickly as he could, getting his arm stuck halfway through. He muttered something under his breath while he fixed it before darting into the hall.
“Aunt May! Uncle Ben!”
His feet pounded down the hallway, voice full of warmth and excitement.
“It showed up! It actually showed up! His name is really long and also really cool and his last name is Storm, like a real storm!”
He skidded into the room practically bouncing.
“I have a soulmate!” The words came out a little louder than he meant them to but Peter didn’t care, he was still grinning, shifting on his feet like he couldn’t quite stay still.
Aunt May turned from the stove, surprised but smiling.
“Well, let me see,” she said.
Peter immediately grabbed the collar of his shirt and tugged it down, turning a little so she could read it. He watched her face the whole time like her reaction was the most important part.
Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she took it in. “That’s quite a name,”
“I know,” Peter said quickly. “There are four.”
That got Uncle Ben to lower his newspaper.
“Four names, huh?” he said. “Must be someone important.”
Peter perked up at that, like it confirmed something he already suspected.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”
His thoughts jumped back to it immediately.
“Storm,” he repeated softly, it sounded… fancy.
“Like,” Peter hesitated, frowning a little. “Like a prince or something.”
He paused, thinking it through.
“…or an astronaut,” he decided, a little more certain.
Ben huffed a quiet laugh.
“Aiming high.”
“I mean,” Peter said, shrugging like it was obvious, “it’s a good name.”
Aunt May smiled as she gently let his shirt fall back into place, covering the letters again.
“Well,” she said softly, “whoever he is, I’m sure he’s a very nice person.”
Peter didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I think so too.”
Six years later, the world changes.
Peter Parker is fourteen when the Richards mission returns to Earth.
The launch had been big news weeks earlier. Reed Richards was already well known in scientific circles and an experimental spacecraft designed to study cosmic radiation had drawn attention far beyond the usual science channels.
Peter had followed it, sort of, he knew the basics; cosmic radiation, some sort of experimental shielding, and something about pushing further than anyone had before. It was the kind of thing that sounded important, even if most of the explanations went over his head when people started getting too technical about it.
He knew Dr. Richards was leading it but he didn’t really know who else was on board, there had been names, of course. Interviews, articles, clips on the news but Peter hadn’t paid much attention to those parts. The science had stuck but everything else seemed to fall to the wayside.
Still, he’d been watching.
And when the return date was announced, a Wednesday afternoon, Peter had circled it in his head immediately.
He hadn’t expected to actually see it.
Astronauts didn’t land like that, not usually, they splashed down somewhere in the ocean and then you saw them later waving, smiling, wrapped in blankets while reporters asked questions.
This was different.
This time, the ship was coming straight back down onto land.
That alone had been enough to keep Peter glued to every scrap of coverage he could find.
Uncle Ben had noticed, which was how Peter ended up standing in the living room on a Wednesday afternoon instead of sitting in algebra.
“You owe me for this,” Ben had said that morning, not sounding all that serious about it.
“I know,” Peter had replied immediately, already halfway into the room, eyes on the TV. “I’ll do something. Extra chores. Forever.”
Ben had snorted at that, wiping his glasses on a handkerchief as he sat down in his usual chair. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
The broadcast had been running for a while now, looping the same information in slightly different ways. Experts talking over each other in calm, steady voices, clean graphics of the spacecraft turning slowly against a backdrop of stars, replays of the launch from weeks ago.
A countdown at the bottom kept moving, adjusting occasionally as they got status updates from the ship.
He’d been watching long enough that most of it blurred together, he knew all the important parts, everything else was just filled the time while they waited.
Then the tone shifted.
The anchor straightened slightly, voice smoothing out like they were starting fresh.
“For those of you just joining us, the Richards mission has drawn global attention over the past several weeks. Leading the flight is Dr. Reed Richards, widely considered one of the most promising scientific minds of his generation-”
Peter leaned forward a little, elbows on his knees now as the anchor gets his full attention.
On screen, Richards appeared; lab footage, diagrams, headlines flashing briefly before cutting away.
“-alongside him is Susan Storm, a biologist specializing in the effects of space travel on living organisms, who has been closely involved in the mission’s research objectives-”
Peter tilted his head slightly as he realized this mission was more than about cosmic radiation. .
“-piloting the craft is Benjamin Grimm, an experienced test pilot selected for the unique demands of this flight-”
“Okay,” Peter murmured under his breath, everything was coming together, it would make sense that they had several scientists as well as an expert pilot since this was something that had not been done before.
The screen cut again.
A younger face this time.
“-and completing the crew is Jonathan Storm-”
Peter froze, the name hitting him square in the chest.
Jonathan.
Storm.
Everything else dulled for a second, the graphics, the scrolling text, the room around him. Nothing else seemed to matter but the name on the screen.
“-Susan Storm’s younger brother, who at just sixteen years old is the youngest person ever to travel into space-”
Sixteen.
Peter’s eyes went wide, he didn’t dare blink, worried if he did he might miss something.
“-Johnny is described as an exceptionally talented aircraft mechanic for his age and has been assisting with in-flight maintenance throughout the mission-”
Peter didn’t move, his hand came up without him thinking, pressing lightly against the spot beneath his collarbone, hidden under his shirt.
Jonathan.
Storm.
His stomach flipped, something uneasy mixing in with the sudden rush of excitement as he considered the fact that this might be his soulmate.
Across the room, Uncle Ben had gone quiet as his eyes flicked from the television to Peter, watching him carefully now.
Peter swallowed, still staring at the screen.
“…that’s weird,” he said quietly, there was no certainty there, he couldn’t claim it yet. He just had a feeling deep in his chest that something had shifted and he was fairly sure why but he worried if he spoke it out loud he would jinx it.
“-the Richards mission is now completing its return trajectory after several days in orbit-”
Peter glanced up.
Live footage filled the screen.
The spacecraft descended toward the landing platform while reporters narrated the moment calmly.
“Emergency crews are standing by as standard procedure while the crew prepares to exit the ship-”
The ship settled onto the platform.
The hatch opened.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then Reed Richards stepped out.
He looked exhausted.
Not triumphant.
Not relieved.
Just deeply, painfully tired.
Susan Storm appeared behind him in the doorway.
They exchanged a quick look before stepping down the ramp.
The reporters kept talking.
“-Dr. Richards and Susan Storm are now exiting the craft-”
Then the third crew member appeared.
The reaction was immediate, there were audible gasps from the crowd and the reporter hesitated before he could speak again.
The camera zoomed in violently.
The man walking down the ramp was enormous, it appeared his body was entirely made out of rock, a living being made of orange stone.
Ben Grimm stopped halfway down the ramp, he stared at his hands before looking to Reed.
Security started moving forward as the crowd surged backward.
Reed raised a hand immediately. “Stay back!” he shouted.
The reporters fell quiet.
Then Johnny Storm started down the ramp, he moved slowly like he was worried if he took a wrong step something terrible would happen, his eyes finally flick up to the crowd scanning how many people had gathered to see them and for a moment he just stared.
And then without warning his whole body combusted into flames, Johnny jerked backward with a shout as fire raced across his arms and shoulders like he had not been expecting that to happen.
The camera man zoomed in on Johnny just as his eyes shifted to a blank glowing white between the flames, his skin appeared to be some kind of plasma, the expression on his face was now an unmistakable panic.
“I can’t stop it!” Johnny yelled after a moment, his breathing becoming unsteady.
Emergency responders hesitated, unsure how to approach someone who had seemingly spontaneously burst into flame.
Johnny swatted at his arms desperately, with each ragged breath the flames blazed brighter and hotter.
Reed stepped towards him immediately, “Johnny, hold still!”
Johnny looked at him, wide-eyed like he hadn’t really processed what he had said.
“Stop moving,” Reed said firmly. “Take a slow breath.” he was still approaching holding his hands up like he was trying to calm a scared animal.
Johnny was still panicking, the fire around him surged even more the flames licking further up into the air.
Reed turned when he heard the emergency responders finally moving in, “Everyone back!” he shouted again. “He can’t control it yet!”
The emergency crews stopped several yards away.
“Johnny,” Reed said sharply, forcing his attention off the crowd.
Johnny looked at him.
“Focus,” Reed said. “You’re feeding it. Slow down.”
Johnny squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, taking a slow even breath, the fire flickered. It wasn’t gone but it was smaller.
Behind them, Sue suddenly vanished.
Someone near the camera gasped.
She reappeared beside Reed seconds later, looking just as startled.
Ben was still staring at his stone hands, like he couldn’t believe this was the reality he was living in.
Reed gripped the railing beside the ramp, his arm stretched, farther than it should be able to.
The reporters had stopped speaking entirely, everyone just watched, unable to understand what they were witnessing. On the screen, four people stood on the landing platform.
Every one of them had changed.
Peter slowly rubbed the spot under his collarbone where the name Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm stained his skin, never once taking his eyes off the screen.
Johnny Storm was still surrounded by cautious emergency crews.
Flames flickered across his skin as he tried to breathe slowly like Reed told him.
He presses his hand over the name. “…oh no.”
The world does not calm down after the landing.
If anything, it gets worse.
For the first several days every news station in the country replays the same shaky footage of the Richards crew exiting their spacecraft.
Ben Grimm stepping into view.
The horrified shouting.
Johnny bursting into flames.
Reed yelling for everyone to stay back.
Peter sees it so many times he starts recognizing the exact moment each reporter loses their composure.
He tries not to watch it.
But it’s everywhere, it was impossible to escape.
The words Richards Mission, Cosmic Radiation, and What Happened in Space appear in headlines constantly.
Peter stops clicking the articles after the first day, not because he isn’t curious but because he’s already figured out the one piece of information that matters to him.
Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm.
Sixteen years old.
Member of the Richards mission.
Now apparently capable of turning into a human torch.
Peter had learned that part very quickly, the full name had come up in one of the early reports, it was buried in a longer article, easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it.
He had been.
And that had been enough.
There wasn’t really any room left for doubt after that.
The name matched.
Exactly.
The boy on the screen, the one surrounded by flames, the one the news had already started calling something else entirely.
Was his.
Inside the Baxter Building, things were much quieter and much worse. The doors had to be widened; that was the first thing Reed had started on. Ben physically could not fit through several of the hallways anymore forcing him to stay in the living area unable to make it to his bedroom.
By the third day Reed had contractors working throughout the building, tearing out doorframes and reinforcing sections of flooring that were never meant to support someone as heavy as Ben had become.
The sound of drills and construction echoed through the lower floors almost constantly.
Ben hated it.
Johnny was forced to stay on a completely different floor, Reed had moved him to one of the laboratory chambers designed for high-temperature experiments. The walls were fireproof and the floor was a cold reinforced steel and it was the only place Reed could be reasonably sure Johnny wouldn’t burn the building down by accident.
The lab had a long metal worktable in the center that Johnny had commandeered as a bed, he had been sleeping on it for nearly a week now and the metal never seemed to get any more comfortable.
He didn’t sleep much anyway.
Every time he started to drift off, the fire would flare again.
Sometimes it crawled across the floor before Johnny could force it back down.
Reed had tried bringing in a mattress.
It lasted three minutes.
Clothes hadn’t fared any better.
Johnny had tried three separate times, stubborn enough to think maybe the next attempt would be different. Each time they had gone up in flames, sometimes he would be able to get dressed and stay that way for awhile before he lost control again but sometimes they just blackened before he could even get properly dressed.
He hadn’t tried again after that.
Now the only thing he had was the fire blanket Reed had dug out from somewhere in the back of the lab, thick wool and fiberglass meant to withstand high temperatures. Even that was already singed along the edges, stiff in places where the heat had eaten into it.
Small flames flickered across his fingers.
He squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could like if he ignored them hard enough it would all go away.
They went out.
For about five seconds.
Then they came back.
Johnny let out a shaky breath.
“I’m trying,” he muttered, the words echoed faintly off the lab walls.
Moments later, Reed had knocked on the door before stepping inside cautiously, he looked worse than he had during the landing, he had probably slept even less than Johnny had.
He was carrying a tablet filled with calculations.
Johnny looked up. “Did you figure it out?”
Reed hesitated.
“…not yet.”
Johnny looked back down at his hands as the fire crept along his knuckles again, the fire slowly consuming his hands.
Reed set the tablet down on the table bedside Johnny.
“We will,” he said quietly.
Johnny laughed once, t\it wasn’t a happy sound, it was cold and hopeless. “I almost burned through the floor yesterday.”
Reed didn’t answer.
Johnny rubbed his face with both hands, the flames licking harmlessly across his skin as he did so.
“I can’t turn it off,” Johnny said.
His voice cracked slightly.
“I keep trying and it works for a little while and then it just…”
He gestured helplessly as the fire flared again.
“You’re not going to hurt anyone here,” he said carefully, Reed stepped a little closer.
Johnny looked up at him.
“I could,” he said, shifting a little further away from him.
And that was a problem, they both knew it.
Johnny Storm was sixteen years old and right now he was basically a walking bomb, anyone who got too close could get burned, anyone who panicked around him could get hurt.
Johnny pressed his hands harder against the metal table.
“I can’t even sleep,” he muttered.
Reed didn’t say anything for a moment.
Then he said quietly, “This is all my fault.”
Johnny’s head snapped up. “Don’t do that.”
Reed looked down at the calculations on the tablet.
“The shielding should have been stronger.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “We were in space, Reed, we knew the risks.”
“Yes, but we didn’t expect this to be one of those risks.”
Johnny blew out a breath, a small flame escaped with it.
“Look,” Johnny said tiredly. “If you're gonna fix this, you should probably go do science instead of guilt.”
Reed didn’t smile but he did nod slightly. “Try to keep your temperature steady,” he said.
Johnny stared at him. “I’m literally on fire.”
“Yes,” Reed said. “But based on my research, there is a non-zero probability that you could generate temperatures sufficient to induce atmospheric ignition, so I would strongly advise you to remain within conventional combustion thresholds.”
“…I could what?”
Reed didn’t react to the tone, or the way Johnny’s voice had gone tight around the edges. “Under the right conditions, yes,” he said, like he was discussing weather patterns. “It would require a significant increase in thermal output but it is theoretically possible.”
Johnny made a small terrified sound at the back of his throat, the flames spreading up his arms now. “Okay- no, that’s- you’re telling me I could accidentally set the sky on fire and you’re saying it like that?”
“There’s no need for dramatics,” Reed replied evenly. “The situation is already sufficiently unstable.”
Johnny just stared at him, something small and unsettled tightening in his chest, watching as Reed gives him a small nod before exiting the room.
The door sealed shut behind Reed with a heavy metallic click.
For a moment Johnny just sat there, he could still see Reed through the wall.
Not with his eyes but with the strange new sense that had started before things had really started, before the flames, back on the third day in space, when everything had first begun to feel… wrong. Anything that emitted heat nearby glowed faintly in his awareness, heat signatures moving through the building like drifting ghosts.
Reed was easy to track.
His body heat moved slowly down the hallway outside the lab.
Johnny watched it retreat.
Step by step.
The glow faded the further away he got before he disappeared entirely around a corner.
He drew his knees up onto the metal table and wrapped his arms around them, pressing his forehead down hard against his legs, squeezing his eyes tight trying to force the thermal sight to stop.
“Stop,” he muttered under his breath.
It didn’t..
He just stayed there, curled in on himself on the cold metal table, wrapped in something already starting to fail, trying to make himself smaller, trying to ignore the heat crawling under his skin and the strange, constant awareness pressing in from every direction.
Alone.
Burning.
And trying not to fall apart.
Peter didn’t realize right away that Aunt May and Uncle Ben had noticed. The television was on in the living room again, the volume turned low. The same landing footage had been playing all week.
Ben Grimm stepped down the ramp.
The reporters started shouting.
Peter sat on the couch with one knee tucked up, staring at the screen.
Johnny Storm walked down the ramp, following the others.
Peter looked away before the flames started, he already knew what happends next.
In the kitchen doorway, Aunt May glanced over at Uncle Ben.
Ben was holding the newspaper, but he hadn’t turned the page in a while.
“Storm,” May said quietly.
Ben nodded once. “Yeah.”
They didn’t need to say the rest.
They both remembered the day Peter had run into the kitchen and pulled down his shirt collar so proudly.
I have a soulmate!
May folded the dish towel in her hands.
“Poor boys,” she murmured.
Ben wasn’t sure if she meant Johnny or Peter, he realized eventually that she probably meant both of them.
On the couch, Peter shifted and absently hooked a finger on the collar of his shirt for a second before letting it drop again.
Ben cleared his throat softly. “Hey, Pete.”
“Yeah?” Peter looked over.
Ben nodded toward the TV. “You doing alright watching all this?”
Peter glanced back at the screen.
The footage was looping again.
Johnny looking down at his hands.
“I mean… yeah.” Peter shrugged.
Ben studied him for a second. “You sure?”
Peter looked genuinely confused. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Ben gestured vaguely at the television. “Well. You know.”
Peter followed the gesture.
The flames started in the footage again.
Peter grimaced a little. “That part sucked.”
May came and sat on the arm of the couch.
“You’re not… worried?” she asked gently.
Peter shook his head.
“No.”
Then he paused.
“Well.”
He leaned forward, a little, his brows knitting together as he tried to figure out how to say what he was feeling.
“I mean, I’m not worried about the soulmate thing.”
May and Ben exchanged a quick look.
Peter kept watching the screen.
“He just looked really scared,” Peter said quietly.
The flames surged again in the footage, Johnny was spinning in place, trying to put them out, frantically calling out to his family for help.
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s, like… barely older than me,” he said.
Ben nodded slowly.
Peter glanced down at the collar of his shirt for a second, then back at the TV.
“That’s gotta be awful,” he muttered.
May reached over and gently squeezed his shoulder.
For a moment none of them said anything.
On the screen, Reed was holding his arms out, telling everyone to stay back while Johnny tried to calm down.
Peter watched it one more time.
Then he grabbed the remote and turned it off before the news could start analyzing the footage again.
The room went quiet.
After a moment Peter said, a little awkwardly, “I hope he’s okay.”
“Me too, kid.” Ben leaned back in his chair, watching as May settled in next to Peter pulling him into a soft hug.
Later that week, Reed finally solved one problem.
Not the big one, Reed’s calculations still refused to produce a reliable way to reverse the changes the cosmic radiation had caused.
But this one problem, at least, Reed managed to solve.
He watched the test strip carefully as Johnny’s fingers ignited around the small swatch of fabric in his hand, the flames flared bright across Johnny’s palm, light and heat filling the small space instantly.
The cloth didn’t even char.
Johnny blinked down at it. “wait.”
Reed exhaled slowly, the relief was visible as his stance relaxed. “Unstable molecular structure,” he said, pushing his glasses up slightly. “The polymer dynamically reconfigures at the molecular level in response to external energy input. In this case, thermal.”
Johnny stared.
“You made fireproof clothes.”
Reed couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips. “This is not limited to clothing,” he said. “The same principle can be applied to structural materials, furnishings, environmental containment, virtually anything, given sufficient time and resources.”
“So…you made fireproof stuff.”
Reed paused.
“Yes.”
Johnny let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Thank god.”
Reed adjusted his sleeve absently, already moving past the moment.
“I will begin retrofitting your living space immediately,” he added. “Your current containment is… inefficient. Your bedroom can be made safe within a few days. The main living areas will take longer.”
Johnny stared at him.
“You’re- wait, like, my actual room?”
“Yes.” Reed replied as he crossed his arms over his chest.
The flames burst to life across his skin in a sudden flare, rushing up his arms and across his shoulders, bright enough to throw shadows across the walls.
“Oh, come on!” he breathed, half-laughing, half-frustrated.
Reed stepped back immediately, precise and practiced, giving him space without hesitation.
Johnny squeezed his eyes shut, dragging in a breath and holding it, forcing himself to stay still and relax.
The flames surged once, twice, then they settled, shrinking down until they disappeared completely, leaving only a faint shimmer in the air.
“…okay,” Johnny muttered, running a hand through his hair which was still smoking slightly. “Still doing that.”
Reed nodded once, as if that had simply confirmed a variable.
“In the interim, H.E.R.B.I.E. is assisting in fabricating additional garments using the same polymer base. Your current supply is insufficient.”
Johnny sucked in another calming breath as he felt the heat rising again.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’d be nice.” Right now all he had were the fire blankets, one wrapped around him, another folded nearby on the table and even those were definitely on their way out.
Two hours later, the lab looked different.
Reed had stripped most of the ruined furniture out entirely to make space, removing the metal table and leaving the room mostly bare. In its place, he’d installed an actual bed, reinforced frame, mattress, blankets, pillows, everything designed to withstand the heat. On the far side of the room, he’d added a single steel chair, set at a careful distance. He’d told Johnny he could use it but if his temperature spiked, it would melt since it wasn’t actually made of unstable molecules like everything else.
It was the first time the room had felt even remotely livable.
Johnny pulled the shirt Reed gave him over his head carefully, slower than necessary like he didn’t quite trust it yet.
It didn’t burn.
The fabric warmed slightly as a faint flicker of heat moved across his skin but it didn’t catch even as the flames flickered to life for a second before dying out again. He ran his hand down the sleeve, testing it, feeling the way it responded to the heat.
“This is… weird,” he said.
Reed nodded. “Adaptation often is.”
Johnny flopped backward onto the bed.
For the first time in a week, nothing ignited.
The mattress held.
The fabric didn’t even react.
He stared at the ceiling; it was just bare metal, faint reflections of light shifting across it as flames rolled across his body again and let out a short, tired laugh.
“Best invention ever.”
Reed allowed himself the faintest hint of a smile before stepping out into the hallway, already moving on to the next problem.
A few minutes later, Sue had appeared in the doorway, she paused when she saw Johnny stretched across the bed, eyes closed breathing evenly as he enjoyed it.
“You look comfortable,” she said.
Johnny turned his head, blinking slowly, letting out a long yawn before responding.
“Reed made science clothes.”
Sue smiled faintly. “I heard.”
She stepped a little farther into the room, stopping well before the edge of the bed, she had to be sure not to get too close.
They had all learned that distance mattered now.
Johnny noticed the hesitation immediately but he pretended not to.
“Check it out,” he said, tugging at his sleeve slightly. “It doesn’t burn!” he sucked in a deep breath, focusing for a moment before his whole body ignited. The flames came fast, bright enough to reflect off the metal of the flooring, light catching in sharp shifting patterns across the room.
Sue flinched before she could stop herself. Her breath caught, shoulders tightening as the fire rushed up around him and for a second she looked like she was about to move like instinct had already decided for her. Her hand lifted slightly, reaching without thinking.
Then she stopped.
Her fingers curled back in the movement cut off halfway like she’d physically had to force herself back.
“That’s amazing,” she said, softer now but her eyes were still tight.
“Yeah.” Johnny shrugged.
A faint pulse of heat moved through him as he attempted to quell the flames, the air around him shifting with the heat.
Sue didn’t step any closer.
The space between them stayed exactly the same.
A week ago she would have crossed the room without thinking, hands already reaching for him. She would have hugged him, pulled him in close, checked his face, his arms, made sure he was okay before he even had time to say anything. She would have fixed it, whatever it was, because she always did. She was always the strong one.
Now she stood still, careful and measured as she watched Johnny on the bed. He could tell she was fighting hard to keep her face neutral, her smile never reached her eyes anymore, it wasn’t fear of Johnny but rather fear about how her choice in allowing him to join them on the mission may affect the rest of his life.
Johnny watched the way she stood two steps into the room, far enough away she probably only felt the heat that rolled off of him a little. Something about seeing that look on his sisters face stung badly, it was more painful than he expected to read her expression and see fear in her eyes. He would give anything in the world for her to wrap her arms around him and hold him like she used to do when he was small until she made everything better, but that isn’t the reality they live in. They live in the world where if she hugged him she is statistically likely to die, where a hug wouldn’t fix the problem anymore.
He swallowed, something tight settling in his chest, but he pushed it down before it could show on his face.
Sue shifted then, carefully like every step had to be thought through before she took it. She stayed close to the wall as she moved, keeping the distance between them as consistent as possible, never letting herself drift any closer than she meant to.
The metal chair scraped softly against the floor as she sat down. She wasn’t perched on the edge like she was ready to bolt out of the room she had a chance too, she actually settled in like she had plans to be here for awhile.
That was new, well new since the accident. Most days she hovered in the doorway, said what she needed to say and left before it got too hard, before they had to talk about what they were now.
Johnny noticed that too but despite everything he couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his mouth, she was trying, she was still his sister. He shifted slightly on the bed, the movement easy now, less careful than it had been earlier.
“This is way better than the table,” he said, like it was nothing, like this was a normal thing people say. His flames flickered and died, the air settled around him, the heat dropping back down to something manageable.
Johnny didn’t even acknowledge it, he just leaned back slightly glancing over at her waiting for her to answer like this was how it was supposed to be.
“I’m really glad you’re comfortable,” she said, the smile on her face was small and tight like it was hard for her to hold it.
“Reed’s already started on your room,” she added after a moment. “He’s,” she paused slightly, searching for the word, “optimistic.”
Johnny snorted, letting his head tip back against the pillow.
“Yeah,” he said, dragging the word out a little. “Give it, like, a week and he’s gonna be insufferable about it.”
Sue huffed a quiet breath that was almost a laugh, her shoulders loosening.
“He’s already halfway there,” Johnny continued, glancing over at her with a faint grin. “Once he figures it all out, I’m gonna be a walking science project for the rest of my life.”
He shifted slightly, shrugging one shoulder. “‘Johnny, hold still.’ ‘Johnny, don’t ignite indoors.’ ‘Johnny, I need another sample’” he mimicked lightly, rolling his eyes. “He’s gonna love this.”
Sue shook her head slightly, her smile growning. “He’s not going to treat you like an experiment.”
Johnny didn’t even answer that he just looked at her, a flat skeptical expression on his face.
Sue’s smile faltered just a little. “…okay,” she admitted quietly. “Maybe a little.”
“Yeah,” he said.
The room settled again, the steady hum of the building fills the silence between them. Sue shifted slightly in the chair her hands folding together in her lap like she was turning her attention to something else.
“There’s… a lot going on out there,” she said after a moment.
Johnny tilted his head toward her, still half-smiling. “Yeah?”
She nodded, exhaling quietly as she switched gears.
“There’s still coverage about us, it’s constant and on every channel.”
Johnny shifted on the bed, rolling onto his side so he could see her better, one arm tucked under his head.
“Some of it’s… not bad,” she added. “Depends where you look.”
Johnny shrugged, one shoulder lifting slightly. “People love a disaster,” he said. “We’re just the new one.”
Sue made a small face at that but didn’t argue before she moved onto what else she had seen on the news last night, this had become a little ritual for them. Usually Sue would deliver the news to him from the doorway, so this was a nice change of pace, but without his phone alone in this empty room things got boring very fast.
“There was a tornado yesterday,” Sue added. “Somewhere in the middle of the country. It almost wiped out a whole town.”
Johnny blinked at her.
“Seriously?”
“Yep,” she crossed her legs as she leaned back. “And it just showed up out of nowhere, one moment they had blue skies and the next there was a tornado with absolutely no warning.”
Johnny frowned, brows pulling together. “That’s not how that works,” he said, more to himself than her.
“I know.” Sue gave a small shrug. “They’re still trying to figure it out.”
“How bad was it?” He asked.
Sue exhaled softly.
“Pretty bad honestly, a few blocks completely leveled and they’re still doing search and rescue.”
Johnny winced a little at that, his expression tightening. “People okay?”
“Most of them,” Sue said. “From what I saw, it seems like a lot of injuries.”
She exhaled quietly. “There was a mutant rights protest at city hall yesterday, It got… bad.” she hesitated before adding, “A lot of people were arrested.”
Johnny nodded a little, like he was filing it away somewhere.
“Okay,” he said after a moment.
Sue watched him carefully, like she was trying to read something in his expression, Johnny had always been really into the Mutant Rights movement and sometimes it upset him more than he let on.
“Hey,” he said, tone lighter now as he changed the subject. “Did you hear back from Doreen yet?”
Sue blinked, caught slightly off guard, and then she laughed softly, “Yeah,” she said. “I did.”
Johnny perked up a little, sitting up just enough to look at her properly.
“And?”
Sue smiled, and this time it reached her eyes even if just a little.
“She’s very enthusiastic about you learning how to use your powers.”
Johnny grinned immediately. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds like her.”
The moment settled around them, quieter now, easier.
Johnny’s gaze drifted down to his wrist.
The name was still there.
Peter Benjamin Parker.
He ran his thumb over the letters absentmindedly, tracing them like he had a hundred times before, happy that even though it seems like everything about him and his life had changed this one thing had remained. He was alive, his soulmate was alive and one day they would get to meet and hopefully he wouldn’t like him on fire.
“Thinking about your soulmate?”
Johnny shrugged. “Yeah.”
“What about him?”
Johnny leaned back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling again.
“Well,” he said. “If he ever meets me now, he’s gonna have a pretty weird first impression.”