DISCLAIMER: F4 and all its characters belong to Marvel. No money is made from this. This is done all for the greater glory of Reedness! .

December 5, 2007
Perfectly Normal
Chapter One: In which a new young mother struggles with apparent normality
By Ina-chan

"From the moment he is born, a child is always perfect to every mother no matter the circumstance."

At least that was what Mother always told me. And at least that was what I always believed. So when I, Evelyn Richards, held my firstborn and only child for the first time… why was it that I felt nothing else but on overwhelming sense of inexplicable guilt. For the longest time, I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why.

My baby. My little boy was perfect in every way. From his perfect ten little fingers to his perfect ten little toes. When I was a child, I remembered silently thinking when my newborn cousins and when my little brother were born… how my mother and aunts cooed and fussed at how beautiful they were. But in reality, they were really these bald ugly wrinkled little alien-looking pink things that screamed at the top of their lungs.

My Reed was nothing like that.

Reed had thick silken tufts of dark hair and his nose already hinted the dignified aquiline features that nearly all the men in his father's family possessed. In fact, on Reed's first Christmas, one of the rare times where all the Richards men gathered in one room willingly (more or less)… with Dad playing with his new grandson on his knee and Nate arguing over whatever activist Teddy was involved with at the moment, it was as if seeing a single person at different stages of his life all at once.

My baby had the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen. I knew that they would most likely darken into Nate's warm whiskey eyes when he grew older, but there was something in Reed's eyes that caught your attention. People often stopped, do a double take, and gave my beautiful boy a second look. There was just something fascinating with how my baby seemed to watch the world around him with almost adult-like wonder… as if he kept a secret that nobody else knew.

Unlike the babies I've gotten accustomed to in my youth, my little boy rarely cried. Of course, he used cry out of discomfort and hunger as all babies did, but he never wailed or fussed or screamed. Even that soon came to a minimum when we fell into a familiar routine.

My little boy was never a problem baby. In every sense, he was perfect. He was beautiful, healthy, and even made an effort of keeping the pains of being a new mother relatively easy. That was why I couldn't help feeling this overwhelming sense of utmost guilt. Instead of counting my blessings, my thoughts always went back to the incomprehensible feeling that something was very wrong. At least… something was wrong with me for feeling this way.

I tried to tell Nate once. About how I felt, that is. But Nate, as sweet and loving as my husband was and despite having the intelligence to mathematically split an atom in his head while reciting Shakespeare, could be thoughtlessly obtuse when it came to things that didn't need anything else other brain function than using common sense. He simply dismissed my fears to normal anxieties that all new mothers have.

So I forced myself to think nothing of it. Despite Nate's momentary lapses of idiocy (which I often blamed to the nature of him being male), he was still, after all, one of the leading intellectuals of our generation. The world holds Nathaniel Richards' opinion with high regard, so why couldn't I?

Teddy was more sympathetic. Theodore Richards…my wonderful best friend turned brother-in-law. I still wonder sometimes why I fell for Nate. Teddy and I were a lot closer to each other's ages and definitely had a lot more common. Then again, Teddy, with his big heart, his intellectual writing, his book tours, his philanthropic causes, his activist movements, his eccentricities, and his cyclic rollercoaster episodes between mania and depression was as dependable as an igloo in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

Yet still… that uncomfortable nagging feeling continued to gnaw at the edge of my mind as I watched Reed quickly grow from infancy to childhood. I devoured every book I could get my hand on until Nate forbade me to read anymore (he claimed that it just fed my paranoia). Nonetheless, as each stage of my child's development progressed, it was starting to become difficult to ignore the persistent nagging from the back of my mind.

Reed was still struggling to sit up and crawl at an age when I should be up my wits end in trying to keep up with him. During family gatherings, Reed tended to shrink away from the festivities and appeared content to play by himself, treating people around him as one treats furniture. Worst of all was when Reed reached the age when children normally babbled childish sentences. My son simply continued to answer with silent inquiring looks, and I noticed that even that was starting to become a rarity.

"He'll talk when he's good and ready."

Dad reassured me with a hearty chuckle. With the exception of Teddy (of course, Teddy's eccentricities has made him an exception to most things), it appeared that being the strong and silent type was also a Richards Family trait. It seemed rather ironic that I somewhat found reassurances from Dad more comforting than my own husband's… even though essentially they were both saying the same thing.

Like his son, Maj. John Richards was a decorated man of his right. He enlisted serve our country two weeks short of his twentieth birthday, became a paratrooper and was part of the 101st Airborne Division that historic day in Normandy two decades ago, left the army after the war to become founder of the Richards family business empire essentially with nothing but optimism and the clothes of his back, and kept that same youthful optimistic attitude despite watching his wife waste away from cancer and die in his arms. There was no question that Dad was the rock of the family. I've grown to love and respect him as much as I love and respect my own father. But this time even Dad's reassuring words couldn't quiet the nagging voice in the back of my mind.

"There is no stronger bond than that of a mother and a child."

Yet, another one of Mother's wise sayings that I always believed... Or at least I did until I grew up. I stopped believing in a lot of things. I even secretly stopped believing in God. Traumatizing events in one's childhood can do that… loss of innocence and all that jazz. Like realizing one day that the woman I adored as a child was nothing more than a manipulative whore who drank herself stupid rather than face her problems with my father… and later on with her second husband… as well as the anonymous boy-toy of the month that she hid in the closet even long before her first husband made her an unfashionable divorcee, and her second a widow.

Say one thing, do another… that was how I remembered Mother. There was no doubt that I resented her for breaking up our family because of her selfishness. I resented her for hurting Daddy. Yet, as much as I hated her, she did shape me into what I am today. And she strongly instilled in me the determination to be her complete opposite when I had children of my own.

"You'll know what its like once you become a parent yourself."

That one was Mother's favourite. She screamed it every chance she got, to make Joe or myself, feel guilty over something when we didn't do what she wanted. How dare us insolent ungrateful brats victimize poor little her. It was effective too. Until now, I still couldn't stop feeling guilty over everything I did. It didn't matter what it was, I just felt guilty.

Then again, it was really my fault. I was the one who slammed the door on her face when I was fourteen. When I decided to turn around and walk away with Joe in tow, hopped into Daddy's car and vowed to never see her again. Looking back and knowing what I know now… I've started to think that perhaps, her words were more like a curse than a warning.

When Reed was born, I always thought that some instinctive light bulb would turn on and the mothering insight and skills passed on from mother to child and innately locked somewhere inside me would open up like a great revelation. But none of that happened. When Reed was born, when Reed started crawling, when Reed turned two… that warm fuzzy feeling that those baby formula and diaper commercials capitalized to sell their products never materialized. I've been a mother for two years, and I still didn't know what the hell I was doing.

It didn't help that Reed wasn't doing any of the things the books said he was supposed to be doing either…

He was two years old, and he was yet to utter his first word. Not even one little made up baby-speak babble. I never heard him laugh or even recall the last time I saw him smile. He has never turned to look at me whenever I called his name. My hugs and cuddles were often met with his little body struggling and squirming away from my grasp.

An awful thought often crossed my mind. That this was Mother's prophetic guilt-ridden screams coming to fruition. That this was some kind of divine karmic punishment for how I treated Mother.

"There might be something wrong with his hearing. Maybe we should get Edwin's opinion."

You had no idea how I felt when Nate suggested that one evening. I suppose Reed's unusual behaviour was finally getting through Nate's thick head. Reed would often fall into these trancelike lapses, like he was concentrating his attention on something very intently. That evening, Reed had an intense fascination on the patterns of shadows on the family room's walls from the light of the crackling fireplace. The Commies could drop a bomb in the room and not even that would prevent my little boy from peeling his attention from the shapes on the walls. It was rather unnerving.

"But I'm sure he'll say it's just a regular case of Reed being a late bloomer."

Nate quickly added more cheerfully, possibly from seeing what he perceived as anxiety crossing on my features.

Of course, the truth was it was really more to do with him not wanting to accept that there was possibly something wrong with our perfect son than upsetting me. Nate had already been upsetting me more and more recently since Reed was born… and he never really noticed. Mind you, Nate was an excellent problem solver. Present him with a problem and he will instantly give you a hundred different solutions. He got that from Dad.

But unlike Dad, Nate doesn't do very well with emotional confrontations. He prefers to utilize the "withdraw and avoid" method when it comes to problems that talk back to him. Not that it really mattered. It didn't. Not really. At least it didn't matter to me anymore.

I was too busy trying to drive away my feelings of guilt… guilt for allowing relief to well up inside me at the expense of my son's well being. It was the first time Nate finally took my concerns seriously. I'm such an awful person! Most mothers would be behind themselves with anxiety and worry whenever her child was brought to the doctor's office. But sitting in Edwin Jenkins' waiting room only gives me a sense of relief and a tiny ray of hope.

It was ironic how quickly and easily that tiny hope could be crushed.

"Evie, Reed's hearing is perfectly normal."

Perfect. Normal. Just as expected.

Nate was so sure of the results that he didn't even bother to come with us. Nate was rarely wrong anyway. With the exception of Dad, and a few of his trusted friends and colleagues, there were only a handful of people in the face of the Earth who would be successful in swaying Nate's opinions. And a fewer still who even bothered challenging Nate's stubbornness in the first place.

Unfortunately, I belong to the normal population group who found that challenging Nate on matters that you could not back up with scientific proof was usually more trouble than it's worth. Fortunately, Edwin Jenkins was one of the former. Nate valued Ed's advice as if he was Moses listening to God's voice from the burning bush. Not only was Ed a close childhood friend, Ed's father took care of the Richards brothers from the moment they popped unto the Earth. Now, Edwin took over his father's task of looking after my son.

I've grown fond of Ed since I discovered that he was one of the privileged few who had the ability to stand up against Nate's overbearing… Nate-ness. I also appreciated the silent sympathy he gave me each time I appeared with Reed in tow and my husband nary in sight.

Then again, this visit, save for Nate's temporary admission that there might be something amiss with our child, was just as expected. Me coming in, voicing out concerns about Reed not meeting what was expected for him to do based on the books, Ed listening patiently before giving a reassuring smile and launching with his lecture about how children develop in their own pace. Then declaring that Reed, as usual, was perfectly normal.

Only Ed wasn't smiling after he patiently listened to what bothered me about Reed this time. He wasn't smiling when he said that Reed was perfectly normal either.

"But…"

He also never added "But" right after stating Reed was perfectly normal.

"I think it's a good idea for Jim Grieves to have a look at him too for an expert opinion. He owes me a favour so he'll probably see you this very afternoon as soon as make the phone call. You better give Nate a call as well."

And Ed never used that tone either. That tone that the doctors in General Hospital would use just before they made a grim announcement to the family.

"Be careful what you wish for."

A stupid saying that I never paid any attention to. Until now… Isn't this completely ironic? After hoping and wishing for an explanation on why I was convinced that there was something wrong with my son despite what everyone says… and when my doubts were suddenly justified…

For the first time, I was really afraid.

"Why does Reed need an expert opinion? Didn't you say that his hearing was perfectly normal?"

"Evie, Jim's not an audiologist. He's a neuropsychologist, specializing on developmental disorders."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Evie. All this time, you instinctively knew and none of us listened. But you might have been right all along."

It was one thing to know that you were right all along… it was another when the implications behind knowing that you were right all along finally hit you. And you silently ask yourself and you silently plead with God even though you haven't prayed since you were ten years old after loosing faith when he didn't answer your prayers about making your mother stop drinking and keeping your family together.

"Ed… what's wrong with Reed?"

"You have to understand, Evie, that this is just speculation. Jim would have a better…"

"Edwin, tell me what it is!"

Dear God in heaven, was it too late to go back? I promise to turn away from the vanity of self-righteousness. I promise to partake in the virtue of your humility. I promise to be content with all the blessings you have granted me. I promise to undertake the journey of forgiveness so that Mother could finally rest in peace. I promise to go to Church every single Sunday if you would grant one simple prayer.

"Reed may have Autism."

Please let me go back to that moment when my beautiful little boy was just simply 'perfectly normal'?

Author's squawk:

There were two reasons to why I wanted to do this fic:

1. I've been playing with this idea for the longest time, since I read "Marvel Knights 1234". Mind you, everyone was being manipulated by Dr. Doom's machine, thus the reason why everyone thought what they thought and behaved how they behaved. But Sue's annoyed analysis that her husband might actually have Asperger's Syndrome to explain his anti-social behaviour stayed in my mind and fascinated me a bit. Well, famous real-life geniuses were believed to exhibit Asperger's Syndrome symptom like Albert Einstein & Isaac Newton.

2. While Byrne mentioned her in his 80's run and Aguirre-Sacasa briefly showed her in a few panels in "Marvel Knights 4", Evelyn Richards remains a blank slate in the Marvel Universe. And she's also quite sparse in the fanficdom. I wanted an Evelyn Richards story, dammit! Seeing how Nate treats his own son… er children… (dunno what happened to the kid Cassandra bore him… plus and other illegitimate children he may have spawned as he travelled through parallel universes) and given the crappy behaviour Reed obviously learned from his father, Evelyn must have had a handful dealing with Nathaniel's dickery. More will follow later.

Anywayz, the setting in this fic will follow the darker path of what "Marvel Knights 4" established. I particularly loved the Reed's backstory with his grandfather. John Richards sounds like a really interesting character. I'm sorta skirting around the whole "Communist Registration Act" backstory re: Reed's Uncle Ted (that was highlighted in Civil War) back in the 50's, but it was intentionally vague in the comic book chronology re: Reed's memories about his Uncle's involvement in the hearings so we could be looking at Reed's "hearsay" memories. Then again, it's not really central in this story so that doesn't matter.

Oh yes… the setting of this fic is in the 1960's. Like the Marvel Universe, I'll try to keep pop cultural references vague, but I want to at least reflect some of the attitudes during the era for the sake of the story. This is actually my struggle. How to authentically portray 60's attitudes towards autism and mental health, that is. So if anyone sees any inconsistencies, please feel free to let me know.

Ja!
Ina-chan