MAGPIE
PART I
We are the future and we're here to stay...
Susan Richards nee Storm, also known as the Invisible Woman, also known as Mrs Fantastic sometimes now, shook her head at her brother. She'd always hoped that this day would come. She just hadn't expected to feel sorry for Johnny when it did.
"How did this happen, Johnny?"
Johnny Storm, also known as the Human Torch, fidgeted in his seat. "I was at this club -"
"Here we go," Ben - the Thing - interrupted, chuckling to himself at the lack of originality to Johnny's introduction. Of course he'd been in a club, where else? He stopped chuckling when flames suddenly shot into his face. "Hey!"
"Johnny!" Sue berated her brother. The younger Storm always liked getting on Ben's rock-hard yet sensitive nerves, but this was different. He was actually irritated himself.
Johnny sighed, and started again. "I was at this club, with these girls..."
A place called Inferno was always going to get his attention. To Johnny's pleasure, the place lived up to its name: there were flames everywhere, at the doors, at the bar, licking at the dance floor. Everyone recognised him immediately - of course, how could they not? - and he was home from home. Hell, they had flaming Sambucas on offer. And, even better than that, the girls were hot.
The music was just getting going, relying on popular tunes dominating the charts in the US, and he had three girls - one blonde, one brunette, one redhead - swooning around him, in the tiniest dresses to be given the name hugging every curve, and every curve was swaying just for him -
"Alright, Johnny, we got the picture," his sister interrupted, arching an eyebrow. She didn't want to know about him grinding away with a bunch of bimboes. "They were hot. Get on with it."
Then the golden lights of the flames started turning blue. Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny saw the DJ high-five an approaching girl, let her plug her headphones into the bank of equipment set above the crowd, and started bouncing to the beat with her.
And then she faced them, faced him, and all he could think of was magpies. Of jet black and inky, turquoise blue, and the shiny things they steal.
He didn't think, until he retold the story now, how unlucky magpies were meant to be.
Either it was the gas-blue flames, but her black hair was streaked blue. Or, perhaps more accurately, her blue hair was streaked black, and danced around her headphones as her head tossed with the bass. Tiny hands fiddled with the settings before her, and sharp eyes surveyed the room, simultaneously claiming it as her new turf for the next hour, and judging whether they were warmed up enough. The previous DJ clapped her on the back as he stepped down, leaving her to wind down his tune.
She flexed her shoulders, adjusted the straps of her black vest top, shook her silver necklace and beads out of her cleavage. Compared to her predecessor, who'd been a quite tall, quite big guy, she was tiny, probably just under five and a half feet. Her bare forearm sported a tattoo of a phoenix aflame in flight. She was wearing jeans and sneakers, and when she danced, she danced with seemingly every inch of her body, not just her ass.
It was like gazing at a siren on the rocks, and Johnny was frozen at the sight of her.
"I remember that feeling," Johnny's brother-in-law, Mr Fantastic, pipped up, kissing his wife on her cheek as he handed over her morning coffee. She glowed with the compliment and the memory. Ben nodded his enormous head in blissful agreement.
Johnny glared at them all.
"Johnny?"
He blinked, bewildered, at his companions. They were staring at him incredulously, the only ones not dancing on a dance-floor of people on tenterhooks waiting for the next tune. Except him.
Press play, fast forward
Non-stop, we have a beaten path before us
It was all there, in plain sight
Come on people, we have all seen the sights
And his hands were starting to glow.
Startled by his own lack of control, Johnny fled like a frightened deer, leaving the girls behind to carry on once the shock had worn off.
His skin hissed under the cold tap in the mens', and as it returned to its normal pale complexion he splashed water on his face, slapping his cheeks, feeling the heat too much. He was Johnny Storm. Not some geek like Reed Richards, struck insensible when even a moderately attractive girl turned her gaze on him -
"Hey!" Reed protested. "I'm not that bad!"
Johnny just gave him a look as Ben started choking on his own laugh. Sue just kept quiet, a bemused expression on her face.
"Anyway," Johnny continued pointedly, not needing to refute Reed's objection.
By the time he'd gotten a grip of himself, the club was throbbing, the dance floor moving as one to the beat, like a heart thumping. Johnny got a drink, and watched from the edge.
DJ Magpie was good. Dipping and diving into tunes straight out of Ibiza, bringing out the beat and rhythm to get everyone moving, bringing out lyrics to be shouted back at her. All with a big grin, singing along too, bouncing in her sneakers with the rest of them, pounding out the bass as though she were conducting the orchestra of dancers below her podium, the blue flames pulsing behind her.
It was sexier than anything he'd ever seen. Sexier than the girls he'd been dancing with earlier with glistening cleavage threatening to pop out of their dresses, false eyelashes batting, unhealthy volumised or straightened or curled hair, and ridiculous heels pretending to make legs stretch forever.
So we will never get back to
To the old school
To the old grounds, it's all about the newfound
We are the newborn, the world knew all about us
We are the future and we're here to stay...
And then she caught him staring. Slowed to catch her breath, caught off guard. He held her stare for a second, and then looked away, to his drink. When he looked back up she'd turned back to her music, but her grin had diminished, been discomforted. He watched as she kicked in a new tune, tried to get caught up with it, but kept trying not to glance back at him to see if he was still staring.
Slowly she was back in her element. The dance floor was loving it, to the point where a couple of people were looking up, noticing her, cheering and clapping to her next choices, making her grin all the more. And then she started to round out her set by returning to the start.
We've come a long way since that day
And we will never look back at the faded silhouette
We've come a long way since that day
And we will never look back, look back at the faded silhouette
As the next DJ took over from her and she unplugged herself, letting her headphones rest around her neck like a bulky piece of jewellery, she looked out over the crowd, looked for him. Couldn't see him.
He didn't miss the flash of disappointment that swept over her face in full view of the club.
She went to the bar, waited patiently as the bartender ogled the view a trio of girls were giving him as they pressed up against the bar to order their drinks. Once done the bartender spotted her, and before she could make an order he clicked his fingers at someone else and shook out a cocktail, and placed a blue martini in front of her.
"From the Torch," the bartender told her with a sly grin, pointing down the bar. She blinked, startled again, when she saw Johnny grin back at her. She smiled back after a moment, uncertainly, but stayed where she was as he approached.
"Nice set," Johnny complimented, grinning cockily.
She raised an eyebrow. His reputation preceded him. So, was the compliment for her mixing, or her bust under her vest top? "Thanks," she replied, apprehensively. She didn't touch her drink.
He extended his hand courteously. "Johnny Storm," he introduced. "And you are?"
She smiled despite herself and shook his hand. "Azura Braith." His eyebrows raised at her exotic first name, and she chuckled to herself familiarly. "Just call me 'Zura, everyone does." She eyed his drink. "What are you drinking, Johnny?"
He raised his glass up against the light, shrugging. "Vodka on the rocks." He glanced at her untouched drink.
She suddenly grinned impulsively, and picked up her cocktail glass, took his glass out of his hand, placed hers in his hand instead, and downed his drink. She winced at the strength of it, and then tried not to laugh at his expression. "Never been a fan of Curaçao. Thanks for the drink."
And she left.
"Wise decision," Ben commented. "I like this girl already. Argh!" Flames licked at his chin again.
"So..." Reed drew out, his mug of coffee in his hands untouched this entire time. "Was that it?"
He watched as she walked away, cool as, and laughed, impressed. He downed her drink, grimacing at the Curaçao sweetness, left the glass and a tip on the bar, and followed her out, just in time to see her climb into a cab. So, before he thought of how it would seem, or how crazy it was, he darted forward and climbed in after her before the cab could pull away.
"You know, I think I've been dealt short," he began, as she shuffled as far away from him as she could.
"What the hell are you doing?!" She exclaimed, looking at him like he was mad.
"Normally when a guy gets a girl a drink they stand around and talk for a bit until either you get some more drinks or the guy realises the girl's not interested. All I got was a name, and that was it."
She frowned at him. "Err... okay..."
He studied her for a moment. "You don't get hit on very much, do you?"
Her face struggled not to change. "What makes you think that?"
"Because you clearly think that every word coming out of my mouth is a line."
She raised an eyebrow. "Isn't it?"
He shrugged playfully. "Might not be."
The eyebrow stayed raised. "You know that no girl has ever recounted that a single word that you have said to another woman wasn't a line to get her clothes off, right?"
He looked at her faux-aghast. Of course he knew his own reputation. It did him a great deal of favours. "Well, that's just...!" He composed himself, rising to the challenge. "I don't talk like that to every woman I come across -"
"Got some exceptions then?"
Then he struggled. He racked his brains for an example that wouldn't sound offensive. "Well, my sister for a start..."
Zura burst out laughing. "I hope so," she said, still laughing.
She had a great laugh. It just exploded out of her, simple and honest. Slowly she calmed down, but carried on grinning, forgetting for a moment that she thought he was just another player not worth her time or laughter. "Okay, okay." She smiled patiently, playing along. "Why did you jump in the cab?"
He shrugged honestly. "Like I said, when a guy buys a girl a drink -"
"- He wants a little more than just a name, yeah, I know." She shook her head, bemused at the inference.
"Something like that," Johnny didn't refute. Actually, for once he didn't care what happened, whether he got laid or not. He just really wanted to know why she'd dyed her hair blue, why she had a phoenix tattoo.
"Okay," she agreed. "Where do you want to go? And no," she started before he could smirk, "I'm not going back to yours, and you're not coming back to mine."
"Promise?" He teased.
She looked at him bluntly. "Yes."
He cocked his head to the side. "Okay, it's a deal." He thought for a moment, and then rerouted the cab driver. She suddenly grinned at some fleeting thought. "What?"
She chuckled gently. "It's a good thing you're a super-hero. Otherwise I'd be doing what Mom told me to do when a stranger gets into your cab."
He chuckled nervously. "What's that?"
"'Once in the nose, once in the nuts'..."
"Yep," Ben added to his earlier comments, "I definitely like this girl."
The side of Johnny's mouth twitched up. Yeah, so did he.
"So, where did you go?" Sue prompted, grinning. Her coffee was growing cold too.
"I think I'm going to have to tell you something."
Johnny waited, handed over her drink. This time something not blue, but red instead.
"If you try anything really cliché, like trying to teach me how to golf, Mom's rule about strangers in cabs applies then too." Johnny laughed, genuinely laughed. "Except I'm now armed with a golf club."
"Okay, sounds like a fair deal. As long as I get fair warning."
Technically, Pier 25's Miniature Golf Course was closed, given that it was past midnight, but... well... he was a member of the Fantastic Four. Naturally the security guard had opened up the course for him. All it cost was twenty bucks, and another twenty bucks for turning a blind eye to the bottles of beer and strawberry cider they'd snuck in.
"Well, I just told you something about me -"
"You've already told me about your Mom's rule," Johnny pointed out.
"No, that I don't like clichés," she corrected, grinning. "Tell me something."
"Like what?"
She looked around them and shrugged. "Why mini golf?"
"Good question," Reed pointed out, bemused.
Johnny shrugged defensively. "'Cos it's fun."
"Why, don't you like mini-golf?"
Zura grinned. "I have no strong feelings towards it, one way or another."
How cryptic. "Well, did you play mini golf as a kid?"
"Yeah, all the time, my big brother would take me."
"Did you have fun?"
She chuckled. "Every time."
"See, so did I. So..." Johnny gestured around them; 'hence, why we're here'. "My turn: why the blue hair?"
Zura ran her fingers through it self-consciously, shrugged. "'Cos I felt like it." She suddenly smirked. "I didn't feel like being a fake blonde, brunette or redhead... like those girls you were dancing with before."
He stared at her for a moment, amazed, and then burst out laughing. She had a sharper tongue than he'd expected. He also didn't expect her to own up that she'd noticed him too.
"Okay. Looks cool."
She turned to him, studied his expression for some sign that he was lying, that it was just a line. She found nothing of the sort, and so turned back to the game, took her shot. The ball wound through the circuit and circled the hole at the end, missed falling in. "Can I ask you about your powers?"
"Sure." He lined up his shot. "What do you wanna know?"
"How come you can fly too?"
The shot went wide. Very wide.
Zura blinked at his off aim. "Umm... was that the wrong question to ask?"
"No, just..." He scratched his head. Normally when people asked about his powers he got to show off. Not actually explain anything about them. "I err..." He shrugged at her. "I don't know." He then frowned. "I'm not exactly sure what you're asking."
She picked up his ball, handed it back to him so he could retake his shot, looking sheepish. "I mean... your friends, their powers make a kind of sense. Mr Fantastic is completely flexible, and so can fit into any nook and cranny he can find. The Thing is solid rock and so as strong as one. Your sister's powers mean she can both hide from and protect people. So what exactly is it about pyrotechnics than lends to aerodynamics?"
Johnny took his shot, this time not missing wildly, or missing at all, and just watched as the ball traversed the course. "I don't know." He told her honestly.
She nodded up at him, trying not to grin too much. "You don't care why either, do you?"
"Not much," he agreed, smiling innocently.
She chuckled. And shrugged. "Still pretty cool." And she went ahead to take her shot, leaving him to watch her from his frozen spot. He definitely couldn't disagree.
"Johnny," Ben butted in, chewing is toast, spraying crumbs across the breakfast table. He was the only one eating. "This is taking a bit long. What happened?" Johnny looked down at his own coffee, swirled the contents of his mug thoughtfully. "I mean, you guys didn't just play golf, right?"
Sue and Reed, who'd looked at Ben a bit wide-eyed when he tried to fast forward through Johnny's recounting, turned back to Johnny, also wanting to find out.
Johnny smiled. "No, no we didn't." He gave up on the coffee. He was wide-awake anyway. "So, I was drinking beer, she was drinking girly strawberry cider. Turned out she's a bit of lightweight, so -"
"Please tell me you didn't take adva -" Sue began, suddenly horrified that her brother might have done something she really wasn't going to approve of.
"- so I suggested we get food to sober up. We got pizza..."
"Feel better?"
Zura moaned gently, picked up another margarita slice from the box and started chewing. Johnny, sober thanks to his own core heat burning off the alcohol in his body at a considerably faster rate than hers, thought it was actually alright pizza, for four AM in a tiny joint tucked away in Tribeca. The linoleum table needed a wipe down, after plenty of other drunk couples eating at it to sober up enough to go home, and he'd rather have gone home with the pizza, but... that seemed a bit forward, and wrong, given that Zura couldn't walk in a straight line anymore.
She peered at him grumpily. "How is it that you're fine?"
He smiled patiently. "Human Torch, remember? I'm hot, so the alcohol just burns up."
She glared at him. "Cheat."
He chuckled. "You didn't have to drink at my pace."
She grimaced. He had her there. "I was having fun..." she tried to explain.
He smiled genuinely. "That's good to know."
She smiled back at that. Then she groaned, clutching her head. "It's going to take forever to get back..."
"Back where?"
"I was meant to be staying with my Mom for a couple of nights, give her hand around the house now that Dad's gone, it was my brother's turn last week..."
"In Queens?" He had actually been paying attention during their Quid Pro Quo over Mini Golf. She knew that Sue had brought him up after his mother's accident and his father's unfortunate fate, he knew that her parents lived in Queens, but had actually brought her and her brother up in Lower Manhattan.
She nodded, groaned again. "Gonna fall asleep on the bus..."
It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "Stay at mine, I'll sleep on the couch."
"Don't look at me like that, Sue."
"Okay."
He had to take a moment to realise that she'd actually said yes, and then he sealed up the pizza box - still half full - and lead her gently out, thanking the Korean pizza chef, hailed another cab and made sure she didn't feel sick from the short journey to the Baxter Building. Oddly she looked better by the time she got out of the cab, having had the wind in her face from the open window, though the elevator ride turned her a little pale again. The whole time Johnny had either held her hand, or had his arm round her. He felt like a love-sick kid from school with his first crush, and, as pathetic as it was, he didn't care.
He led her to the kitchen, grinning at the wide-eyed look of awe on her face as he led her through the famous Fantastic Four headquarters. He poured her a glass of water, perched her up on one of the bar stools, played with the fingers of her free hand. On her last gulp, a drop dribbled down from the corner of her mouth, and he smiled and reached up to wipe it from her chin before she could. Stroked a stray hair back behind her ear. She leaned into his hand; it was warm, and caressing... it felt nice...
So he leant forward and kissed her.
"Oh Johnny..." Sue berated him, half endeared and half disappointed that he had taken advantage after all. The other two men at the breakfast table tried not to grin.
Johnny just smiled, in his own little world of remembrance.
She kissed him back. It was welcoming, un-intrusive, a moment just on its own. Just his and her lips pressed together solidly, her free hand in his hair, his hand still on her cheek.
He didn't remember a time when he'd kissed anyone like that. Kissing was for foreplay. So when they parted to breathe, though he didn't back away, just rested his forehead against hers, he didn't kiss her again.
"Johnny?"
"Hmm?"
Zura chewed her lip, uncertain. And then said it anyway. "You don't need to sleep on the couch." He pulled back enough to read her expression, but her head just fell on to his shoulder, her body becoming more and more limp. "But, not for... I'm too tired."
He smiled, nodded against the side of her head, pressed a kiss into her blue hair, and gently wrapped his arms round her middle to pick her up, letting her legs dangle like a rag doll, the floor still a distance from her feet, and lead the way slowly to his bedroom. He tucked one arm under her knees to lift her horizontally on to his bed, pulled her sneakers off, carefully took her jewelry off and placed it all on his bedside table, and slid under the sheets next to her, expecting her to roll away from his heat to the cool untouched feel of the mattress. But she didn't. She was already fast asleep.
He consciously forced his body to drop temperature, listened to the sound of her breathing steadily, peacefully. He didn't remember when he fell asleep, only that her face was the last thing he saw before he did.
"Wait a minute..." Ben's orange juice, freshly squeezed by literally squeezing some oranges, sat untouched, settled, the pulp floating at the top. "You mean to say you didn't... y'know... bang her?" Johnny shook his head. "Not even when you both woke up and she was sober? Nothing?"
Johnny blinked, flexed his jaw. "No, when I woke up she was gone already."
Understanding dawned on the three other members of the Fantastic Four. Then, more confusion. "Did she... leave a note?" Reed asked.
Johnny shook his head.
"Have you got her number?" Sue asked.
No.
"How do you not have her number?" Ben asked gruffly. "Sounds like you were pretty keen on her from the start, didn't you ask for it?" Again, no. "Why not?"
Johnny took a testy breath. "Because I've never asked a girl for her number with the actual intention of calling her. Numbers tend to come up as they're leaving, and I pretend to write them down so I don't look rude, okay?" He sighed, ignoring the looks on their faces. "I figured I'd ask to see her again in the morning, and swap numbers then, but she left without waking me up, so..." he trailed off, angry. "I thought she'd at least leave a note saying...I dunno, something."
"Something?" Sue gently prodded.
He shrugged. "I dunno, like, 'I had a nice time, call me' or something, I don't know."
Reed frowned. "You sure she didn't leave a note?"
Johnny glared at him. "This was two days ago. That morning I searched the whole building for something from her, and all I found was this..." He gently took her silver necklace out of his pocket, placed it out on the table. Hanging from the long chain was a tiny silver bird with victoria stone wings. "It fell off the table during the night, it was on the floor." He took a deep, impatient breath. "Yesterday I went back to Inferno to see if she was DJ-ing again, or if I could get her number from the club, but the manager was a dick. Today I was going to go to Queens, see how many blue-haired girls there are, but..."
Silence fell over the table. "But... but what?" Ben voiced.
Johnny struggled with himself for a moment. "She thought I was a douche at first." The others frowned at him, lost. "I was just an asshole with cliché lines, not worth bothering to get to know until I dove into her cab, and even then she still thought that was all I was." He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. "Sneaking out without a word is what I do when I don't want to see them again."
Again silence fell, again broken by Ben's shrewdness. "Why are you so hung up on this chick anyway?" Johnny looked up at him, his face tight. "You went on... well, essentially, one date in the middle of the night, she drank a bit too much, and you didn't sleep with her. You know, that way. It's not like you know her -"
The force of Johnny's fire-shot was so brutal it knocked Ben off his chair, cracking the floor tiles as he landed roughly. "Johnny!" Sue exclaimed, shocked. She hadn't seen her brother this angry in a long while.
But she didn't need to hold him back. He collapsed back on to his chair. "I know more about her than I've ever known about the girls I've hooked up with." Ben picked himself up, seemingly to launch right back, but he was transfixed with the look on Johnny's face. "Her parents brought her up in Manhattan hoping she'd get into one of the private schools, which she did, but she didn't like the people, so she switched to be with her friends in Williamsburg. She works as a supervisor at a Barnes and Noble store somewhere in Manhattan, but she wouldn't tell me which one, so I couldn't surprise her at work..." He smiled weakly at that thought. That would have been nice. "She goes to street-dancing classes to keep fit. She got into DJ-ing after she and her friends started going out to Ibiza every summer; she made friends with a local DJ out there, and he taught her how to mix. Her parents divorced a few years ago, and she doesn't really see her Dad anymore. And she has a phoenix tattoo because her first and only boyfriend was a shit that didn't deserve her, and she got it done when he finally disappeared from her life... said she felt reborn, so it's there to remind her that if anything bad happens again, she'll rise from the ashes like she did before."
Sue placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed. This girl really had got to him.
"It wasn't just that," he continued helplessly. "She asked me stuff too. I told her I'm more a Foo Fighters fan, not that I mind her stuff. I told her about growing up with you, Sue, about Mom, and Dad. I told her all the worst lines I have ever used that actually worked, and she found them all funny. Kinda more funny at me than funny with me, but whatever. I told her how cool it was to find out about our powers, and all the crazy shit we've done since. How much you hated your power, and then how you met Alicia," he gestured to Ben, "how your power is... well, it's just gross sometimes, the whole squished limbs thing," he made a face at Reed, who sighed stoically. "And how you stripped off on Brooklyn Bridge... no brother should have to pick up his sister's clothing - all of her clothing - off the floor... just... no." He shuddered, unable to look at Sue now, visibly fully-clothed.
Awkward silence lingered a bit too long.
"And the magpies?" Ben asked, purely curious. Sue and Reed looked at him like an idiot; not the most important question. Johnny however laughed. "Oh, she just likes the colour of them, has since she was a kid. Said more often than not she'd see them in pairs." He smiled at the simplicity of her answer. "She's just... she's just really cool. She's shy, you have to draw her out, but she knows what she likes, and she does the things she likes doing like she has every right to do them, every right to like them. She's just cool."
He suddenly frowned, like something very simple had suddenly dawned upon him, and he stood up. "Reed, do me a favour, would ya? Could you get me the quickest flight path for all the Barnes and Nobles stores in Manhattan? Would appreciate it, man." And, without waiting for a reply, marched out of the kitchen towards his room.
"Of course," Reed called out to him. The remaining three all glanced at each other, and then stared as Johnny walked out in his Fantastic Four suit. "I'll be in Queens if you need me." And then he flamed up, and shot through the open balcony doors.
Silence again. Then...
"He's gone and singed the carpet again."
At the end of the day Johnny came back from his search in Queens bearing no fruit. A lot of fans had come out and shook his hand, or lost their cool and screamed a lot, but no one seemed to know of Azura Braith. Not even having magpie blue hair helped; they just asked if she was Asian. Finally he found someone who seemed to know her mother, Ceará Braith, but unfortunately that someone was an old lady with dementia, and couldn't tell him where he'd find the Braiths.
Next day, using Reed's directions, he visited every Barnes and Noble store in Manhattan, and asked whether she worked there. Except each store took hours to get through, as customers and staff alike started asking for him to sign copies of the Fantastic Four biography that had come out recently. Naturally, the very last store, about to close, turned out to be the one.
"But I'm afraid she's on vacation."
And no amount of pleading, or promising to do an official book signing with all members of the Fantastic Four, would get what he needed: any contact details.
"I'm sorry, but we can't give out information like that, company policy, I'm really sorry..."
He was at a dead-end again.
He walked back from Barnes and Noble rather than fly, just to clear his head. After a while it started to rain, like a cliché from a movie. He was about to change his mind, but it meant it would be even more of a hassle to fly; wouldn't be able to see for the steam.
As he came in the lobby, drenched, steaming anyway from drying so quickly, he literally bumped into Willie Lumpkin, so in his own little world was he.
"Oh dear, you alright, Johnny boy? Yeah, you're alright, big lad like you isn't hurt by much, eh? Was just coming up to your floor to deliver, seems like a long time since you all just got bills and bad news. Now here, some of it's been sitting for a little while, fan mail and such - there's another dozen sacks out back too, but this stuff has 'urgent' on it - oh and there's some spam stuff there, if you don't want it, just chuck it; just a flyer for a night club tomorrow, figured you in particular might be interested anyway... everything alright?"
Saturday Night at Bar With No Name
Introduces
DJ Crazy Eight
Enclave
DJ Yssa
DJ Magpie
...
Scrawled along the side of the flyer, where it could come out as clearly as possible, was a cellphone number.
Willie Lumpkin's tidy parcel of mail went flying into the air as Johnny hugged him.
"So, did you call her?" Sue asked, grinning at her brother. He shook his head. Taken aback, she wasn't sure whether she wasn't seeing things. "You haven't?" He nodded. "Why not?"
He avoided meeting her eye. "It's been six days. Three day rule has passed."
There had been many occasions during their adult - if Johnny could really be described as adult, even today - lives when Sue just really wanted to slap him silly. This was one of those times.
"Are you going to go to this place then?" Reed asked, his eyes flickering up from whatever gizmo he was working on.
Johnny looked away from his own work - a new design for the Fantasticar; as good as Reed had built it, driving the damn thing was a chore not a pleasure, that was Johnny's area of expertise - and avoided looking at the others. "I don't know yet."
Ben looked at the others and then back at Johnny. "What do you mean, you don't know yet? You've spent most of the last week moping about this girl -"
"I haven't been moping!" Johnny objected.
"As good as!" Ben sustained. "You scoured Queens, went to every Barnes and Noble and signed autographs to try to get her number, and now that you have that number, now that it turns out she did leave a message of sorts, you don't want to see her?" Johnny had nothing to say. "No, you know what? You're a coward -"
Johnny whirled around, his hands overheating noisily, his sister stepping in between them in case Johnny lit up the lab.
Reed put his screwdriver down, about to earn his 'grandfather streaks'. "Ben, what's the most romantic thing you've ever done?"
The rock-man started, distracted, looked over at his friend. "Eh?"
"What's the most romantic thing you've ever done? Doesn't matter who it was for."
Ben thought for a second. "Well, I took Alicia to the zoo once, got her to pet lion cubs for an hour with a vet. I've already got her engagement ring on order, no stones or anything 'cos she can't see them. It's got our names in Braille on both sides, so she can feel them. And I got you to check that everything... err... well, you know."
Johnny's eyebrows disappeared up his forehead, putting two and two together; the uncomfortable looks on both men's faces said it all. Then it was Reed's turn to confess.
"Well, I'm not very good in that department, but... we both bribed the projectionist at the Hayden Planetarium to keep the stars above our heads, because we didn't want our date to end. We planned five weddings, because we were so determined to get married. One is stressful enough to try to organise. And... what was it that I said at the airport?" Reed turned to his wife, less asking for her to remember for him, but for just the sight of her to remind him. "I told you, 'this is going to be wedding you always dreamed about, and I'm not going to let anything get in the way of that. Not even the mysterious transformation of matter at the subatomic level'."
Sue smiled, remembering it only too fondly. "And I told you it was the most romantic thing you'd ever said to me."
Johnny frowned. "Okay, I get his point," he gestured to Ben, "but I recall saying how pathetic that was..." he gestured back to his sister and brother-in-law.
Reed visibly swallowed his pride, and continued. "Well, you were right." They all cast confused looks at him. "I should have done more romantic stuff, said more romantic stuff than that. More than just persevering with the bumps along the road. I haven't gotten you sunflowers in... I can't remember how long." Sue approached her husband, trying to find the words to say that she didn't really need flowers... but she couldn't disagree that it would have been nice. Would be nice. "And I figured that out from you!" Reed pointed right at Johnny, even extended his arm so his finger was only a few inches away from Johnny's chest. "You searched an entire New York City borough for a girl that you took out on - what can only be described as - a first date within an hour of meeting her."
"You out-romantiked the both of us," Ben concluded, sounding both proud and amused.
Johnny looked at the two men, looked at his sister, and felt even more sick to the stomach. They all looked so encouraging, so proud that he was doing the grown-up thing and naturally succumbing to monogamy. They also seemed to think it was really funny. He couldn't have thought of anything less funny right now. This just... well, it hurt. Put simply.
"I need to think," he excused, and disappeared. A few moments later they heard the roar of the flames as he lit up and flew as fast away from his thoughts and feelings as he could.
Which of course, was never going to be fast enough.
"I'm not sure that this is such a good idea, after all."
"Sue, you're the only one of us that can do it."
"That doesn't mean it's a good idea! Just a better idea than sending you or Ben!"
The Bar With No Name turned out to be, to Sue's surprise, a party in a giant warehouse. Everything was metal and the speakers around the warehouse were enormous, which meant the bass was incredible. Her heart was pounding in her chest with it, and she wasn't intoxicated - one way or another - like the rest of the crowd. Their intoxication was helping her though; no one had seemed to notice the gap among the jostlers, where she stood in her skin-suit, unseen. Then again, in the near pitch-black of the warehouse, she could barely see the people around her, let alone herself if she became visible again. She was tempted to create a force field around herself, just to stave off the claustrophobia of it.
And she was at the back.
She was struggling to see each DJ, raised on a platform several feet above the crowd, accessible via a dodgy-looking, rusty bridge. But, so far, no girl with blue hair. Though again, whether Sue would notice her hair colour was another matter.
If her brother was here, she had barely any way of telling, being too short to see over the crowd. Hence, why she didn't think that this was such a good idea. In fact, maybe Reed and Ben would have had better luck. Reed could have stretched to see over the crowd, fitted through any gaps between people. Ben could have just barged through.
Except, if Johnny was here, then they'd all be in trouble. At least he wouldn't see Sue.
Someone barged into her, pushed by an over-zealous raver, and she grunted her frustration at the situation she'd found herself caught up in. She projected out a field, pushing through just enough space to get through to one of the shorter 'VIP' podiums, and climbed up the rigging. Finally, a view. Even a seat of sorts, albeit a narrow and rusty one.
Goodness knows why she wanted to come in the first place. Whilst she drowned out what she could only describe as 'noise', she played with the laser lights scissoring through the warehouse, distorting the straight lines. This type of music really wasn't for her; she preferred music that didn't feel like it was physically jumbling your innards.
She swore she saw something...
She looked upwards, towards the ceiling, where the skylights for cranes once upon a time ago let the night sky twinkle invitingly above. Oh to be outside, away from the coffin of bass and out in the air. But it wasn't stars she'd seen twinkling. More like a fiery shooting star.
He still wasn't sure whether this was a good idea. But it was the only idea that was going through his head. In the absence of other ideas, do.
Unlike his sister, Johnny did know what The Bar With No Name was, that it wasn't a bar in the slightest, which made the name all the more meaningless. It was one of the largest raver locations in New York City. To DJ here was an honour; it meant hardcore party fans were listening. The organisers had one rule: no original work, just remixes. It wasn't particularly obscure, or experimental, or 'out there'. It prided itself on being the biggest underground party in the state. Everyone here liked tunes, and wanted to move to them. Most likely in a state as far away from sobriety as could be achieved within the individual's own limits. Some of course, sadly, would go beyond that. Pity, what a waste of good music. What was the point of being unable to hear what you were meant to listen to?
Whatever Johnny's thoughts on the limits of hedonism in its chemical forms, they were just distraction to the rest of his thoughts. Much needed distraction, in his opinion, but distraction nonetheless.
Then it rang straight through those distractions.
Press play, fast forward
Non-stop, we have a beaten path before us
It was all there, in plain sight
Come on people, we have all seen the sights
There was his magpie.
He shook his head of the thought. His magpie? He gripped the edges of the skylight tighter, felt the throb of the last tune die away in the metal, until all there was was Zura's fine-tuned Avicii.
Some people just have a tune. They identify with it, the lyrics and the sound together, put a stamp of ownership on it that has nothing to do with copyright. This was Zura's. When the cider had pushed her into the realms of tipsy, and they were on their third game of Mini Golf, pretending to care who won two-to-one to the point they were full-out cheating, she'd gotten her iPod out, put it on full blast - which for an iPod on its own isn't that loud - but loud enough that they'd been able to laugh and dance, badly, as only a Mini Golf course can demand. But this same song had come on, and she'd sung to the lyrics, quietly at first, and then as if she was the only one there. It had pulled out a tiny glimmer of extraversion in her, that small thread of her that liked to be as loud and as brass as he was.
With her bright hair flying, cheeks pinked with the night chill and the cider, on the verge of being described as wobbly with the same, she'd looked... there wasn't a word that Johnny knew of to properly describe her. Somewhere between extraordinary and ordinary, between cool and geeky. 'Alive' was as close a word as he could think of. Something told him he'd be disappointed if he could come up with a single word that encapsulated everything he liked about Zura in the few hours he'd met her. Having a single word, or even a collection of words, would make it all sound mediocre. He liked not being able to put his thumb on it.
So we will never get back to
To the old school
To the old grounds, it's all about the newfound
We are the newborn, the world knew all about us
We are the future and we're here to stay...
She stretched out the instrumental before the chorus, echoing the last lyrics through the warehouse, raised her arms as though to feel the music vibrate through the air above her, lifted her head skyward...
And froze.
We are the future and we're here to stay...
Sue couldn't help but be surprised by her brother. He'd shown both unusual and exceedingly good taste simultaneously. Normally he showed neither.
If the DJ raising her arms to the sky as though she were lifting sound itself was Azura, DJ Magpie herself, Sue couldn't help but approve, if with a little surprise. The hair knocked her off-kilter with convention completely, as did the tattoo, which, for a tattoo, was relatively conservative in its size and design. Sue had pictured something enormous and gothic, or the reverse, tiny and cute. There was a light gothic element to the girl, from her casual black denim shorts, sneakers and lace white top, silver and beads entangled in her bracelets, neck almost pointedly undecorated, missing her necklace. And she was tiny in that she was short, but she was curvy, her bones concealed, but clearly kept in shape from the street-dancing classes she'd told Johnny about. It made her curves look more in proportion, like she was meant to be the shape she was, and when she'd bounced to the music it had been lightly, with no excess weighing or slowing her down.
She looked like she was having fun. She had a nice, happy smile. She also looked - and Sue did find this important - sober. In control entirely of her body and its movements. Every sway of her hips was intended, a natural response of her brain enjoying what it was listening to.
Sue looked skyward as DJ Magpie stopped moving entirely, seemingly shocked still by the stars. Remembering the flaming streak, Sue had a very good idea what it was, and smiled.
"He's here! I think she's seen him!" She yelled over the music into her mic.
"What's happening?"
"Is she hot?"
"He hasn't messed up by doing pyro-tricks yet, has he?"
"Is she hot?"
Sue rolled her eyes. Two grown men, reduced to middle school girls peeping round a fence during recess. "Nothing, she'd doing her... she's DJ-ing. He's on the roof. Just wait..."
"Sue?"
"Yes, Ben?"
"Is she hot, or has Johnny lost his sense of taste along with his sense period?"
Sue rolled her eyes again. "She's hot, Ben."
That silenced the boys. For a moment. "We should have given you a camera."
We've come a long way since that day
And we will never look back at the faded silhouette
We've come a long way since that day
And we will never look back, look back at the faded silhouette
The sound dropped out before the chorus, and blasted out again, bass rewarding those who'd fallen with the drop, the piano belting it out to equalise. The crowd cheered and bounced as one, like an actual sea of heads, waves crashing in all directions, spray from the odd head falling out of sync. Zura missed seeing all of it, still staring above.
The star and moonlight lit up her face perfectly, concealing no secrets with shadows. Johnny, looking down, could see every second of shock, every moment of joy, every minute of trepidation. Against the dark of the night, she couldn't see his face, which seemed unfair, but she did see what he did.
He raised his hand, clicked his fingers, and waved the tiny flame that sprung from his thumb, no different from a candle-light, expanded it and controlled it to keep its shape. Waved it like a Zippo lighter at a concert.
She grinned at the flame, looked back down at the crowd, and led them into the next tune, bounced along with them, put weight on, lightened the sound, stretched out one melody and then the next. Sections would curl up, ready to pounce, until the warehouse would explode with bass, then explode again with silence, start again. Zura had the prize view to see the heaviness weigh on the mass, then rise with lightness, tremble with anticipation, but Johnny had maybe an even more incredible view: he got to see her too, all sense of self-consciousness gone, just another exposed nerve of the creature called an audience in front of her. It was almost immediately addictive, at a primal level, to melt into it. He could see why she loved it, but from her podium.
Her set was only an hour, and Johnny couldn't believe it when that hour started to wind up. She checked her watch, and got ready to loop up her circle.
Straight ahead on the path we have before us
Day by day, soon the change will come
Don't you know we took a big step forward
Just lead the way and we pull the trigger
She started removing her additional elements, bringing it back to the original, to the familiar, strengthening the piano and the echo of the drums until it was almost acoustical. The next DJ scrambled across the bridge to take over, and was met with a serener girl than had cross the bridge herself.
Now we will never get back to
To the old school
To the old grounds, it's all about the newfound
We are the newborn, the world knew all about us
We are the future and we're here to stay...
By the time she started crossing the bridge back, the mass was yelling every word back, louder than the speakers themselves could have handled. Like the mass had finally found a voice of mass-expression.
We've come a long way since that day
And we will never look back at the faded silhouette
We've come a long way since that day... that day... that day... that day...
The Torch stood from his perch up high, lit up, and circled slowly round the building, landing at the side exit. He stared at his hands, still aflame, for a moment, wondering whether to stay as he was. Then he shook his head. If he wanted to show off to her, then this wouldn't work. This was the girl who asked why he could fly, not one of the many girls who'd just gone 'wow'.
"Hey, Johnny."
He turned, and realised that he was still on fire. Cursing under his breath, he extinguished himself, stood feeling sheepish in front of Zura. She was clutching herself, trembling a bit, eyes wide and bright.
"Are you okay?"
She chuckled, still running on adrenaline. "Yeah, just... still buzzing from it." She took a deep breath. "That was my biggest gig ever. I can't believe it went that well..." But she was grinning too much.
"Yeah you do," he teased, smiling. She laughed, not going to refute him. In this, there was no question of doubt or even confidence. She'd go out and enjoy it anyway. The upside was if the rest enjoyed it too.
He handed her back her necklace, the magpie at the end of the chain spinning. "I think this belongs to you."
She took it, her fingers brushing his. "Thanks..." She fiddled with the silver and blue bird in her hand, didn't put it back on. "Thank you for coming." She toed a piece of scrap metal on the ground with her sneakered foot. "I didn't know if you'd come, whether you got my flyer."
"Yeah..." Well, this was awkward. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't -"
"I'm sorry I ran out on you." She got in first, adrenaline fuelling past her nervousness whilst it was still pumping round her veins. "I tried to leave a note, but the only paper I could find was Dr Richard's notes and stuff, and I couldn't figure out what was important or not. Mom called while you were asleep. I had to pretend I was at home, she wanted to know what I wanted for breakfast." She smiled awkwardly. "Figured I'd save telling her that I slept at the Human Torch's apartment for another time, when I wasn't hungover. Can't say I knew what to write anyway, it would have just sounded... I don't know, weird I guess. Notes on pillows are always too soppy or full of white lies, I didn't want either. Then when I finally got hold of my spare flyer, I still didn't know what to write... and I was too shy to just deliver it in person, so I stuck it in your post box."
"When was that?"
She shrugged, embarrassed. "The same day, after I'd got back to mine and was on my way to Mom's. Why?"
He started laughing. "I only got it yesterday." Her eyes widened. "We get a lot of mail, our post guy thought it was spam." She stared at him for a second, and then started laughing too, with relief, biting her lip as she calmed, realising how close they had come to not meeting here. And started shivering properly. "Cold?"
She nodded reluctantly, and was at a loss of how to react as he stepped closer, till he was an arm's width away, and turned up the heat through his skin-tight suit. She felt it instantly, like a radiator suddenly become far more efficient, and smiled. "Thanks."
He shrugged. It wasn't that big a deal. "I was going to say I'm sorry I didn't call."
She looked surprised, touched even. "That's okay. You didn't have my number."
"Yeah, but I didn't call when I did." He fidgeted uncomfortably. "I actually tried to get it, without going as far as asking Reed to hack your phone or something..."
Zura frowned. "Can he do that?"
Johnny froze for a second, considered. "Good question, I have no idea actually." She smiled, bemused. "But I went back to Inferno and asked the manager. He's an ass, by the way." She nodded, patiently, then nodded honestly, in agreement. "And then I flew to Queens to see if I could find you, or someone who knew you, or where your Mom lives."
She stared at him, shocked. "But... Queens isn't a small place..."
"Yeah, I know," he agreed. "Guess I looked in all the wrong places though, 'cos there was just this old lady who knew your Mom, but she wasn't all there... she was wearing a tea cosy for a hat; not a hat that looks like a tea cosy, an actual tea cosy."
"Oh, Mrs Lee..." Zura said, recognising her. Then something occurred to her. "Oh... she did say someone came and asked for Mom... said he looked like a Devil's angel... Mom did wonder what she was talking about..."
Johnny chuckled with her. "And then I tried every Barnes and Noble in Manhattan, but your boss said you were on vacation, and she wouldn't give me your number either." He took a deep breath. Oh God, he sounded like a stalker. "Honestly, what did she think I was going to do with it? I'm in the Fantastic Four."
Zura pulled a face. "Umm... no offence, but you're the Human Torch. And she reads People magazine religiously. She probably thought she was protecting me from being in next week's issue."
And the weight returned. And made him say stupid things. "Well, doesn't matter, 'cos I still didn't call when I did get your nu -"
She stepped forward and silenced him with a finger over his lips. "Quit while you're ahead," she advised quietly. She removed her finger from his lips, let her hand drop to her side. "You really searched Queens, and asked at every Barnes and Noble for me?" He nodded sheepishly. She grinned, shrugging. "I'll take you being here to tell me that over you calling me."
He smiled back her, ran the tips of his fingers down her arm. Her skin felt like she'd been wrapped in a warm towel, soft and comforting.
He hadn't felt soft and comforting since he was kid, when Mom was alive, when he and his sister were still young enough to be comforted so easily. And it read all over his face.
"You really are nervous, aren't you?" Zura said gently, and her hand grabbed his before he could retract it from her arm, before he could back away. "Always far too many steps ahead." He frowned at her, not understanding. "Look, I had a really great time with you, so this is what I want to do: I want to swap numbers, go back to Manhattan with you, do something fun, go to a party or something. If it sucks, then that's too bad. But I don't think it will, and I don't think that you think it will either. And then we can figure out if we want to meet up again. That's it. Wanna do that?"
He stared at her, disbelieving. Surely dating wasn't that simple... was it? Then he started chuckling to himself. Why couldn't it be? Wasn't that what he wanted anyway, to just carry on having a great time with her? "Yeah, okay, we can do that."
She smiled, happy. Then she started chuckling teasingly. "You're actually alright, y'know that?"
He raised an eyebrow, and stared at exactly what he wanted right now. "Quit while you're ahead," and leaned down as she leaned up.
It had never felt this good, kissing a girl.
Sue resisted the urge to pump the area and go 'WOO' at the top of her voice. Finally, her brother actually looked genuinely happy.
She watched the two for a moment, and turned away to give Johnny some privacy. The tension that had built in his body for the last week was gone, his arms round her waist, practically lifting her off her toes, as she held on to his shoulders. Both their faces looked serene, their kiss building the way good kisses do, when one takes the hint from the other to use less tongue, to stop nibbling, to stop being so passive. She and Reed kissed like that, except when she was invisible and he got her nose instead.
After a minute, the two drew apart, grinned at something he said, and he lead the way past Sue, brushing dangerously close to where she was hiding. After they were gone, the radio crackled.
"So, what's happening?" Two twelve-year old girls asked from the Baxter Building.
Sue grinned. "He did it!"
The two grown men both cheered like their favourite football team had just won the season, making Sue laugh. "Alright, I'm coming home, will fill you in on what little I saw and heard. Think you can last until then?" She got no more response out of them, both still cheering over the fact that they didn't need to put up with moody, love-sick Johnny.
She headed back to the Fantasticar, jumped in. And realised what was wrong. The front section - with its gleaming, slick nose that Johnny had redesigned to be a two-seater - was missing.
Sue sighed, looked up as she heard her brother whoop from the glide and speed of his acquired ride, heard Zura scream and laugh with the thrill of flying. When she imagined her younger brother finally dating, she hadn't imagined that he'd steal half the car to impress his girlfriend.
We've come a long way since that day
And we'll never look back at the faded silhouette
We've come a long way since that day
And we'll never look back, look back at the faded silhouette.
AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER: Firstly, the Fantastic Four belong to Marvel and 20th Century Fox, so the only payment I get for writing this is merely the enjoyment of doing so, which will do just fine.
Secondly, the lyrics of Silhouette are by and belong to Avicii, featuring Salem Al Fakir. At first, the lyrics didn't mean too much to the story, I just put it on as background to write to, and then after repeated listenings, they became more and more pertinent. I've found that I interpret them in different ways within the context of the story; as a promise of their happy ending beyond the story ('We've come a long way since that day'), or as a remark over how these two characters have changed before they get to this point (Johnny takes on more responsibility in the sequel, and slowly begins to understand the value of having a partner to take comfort from, and Azura's deliberately only mentioned past that inspired her to get a phoenix tattoo). Either way, it became nicely fitting.
This is only the first of two parts. I don't like leaving the proverbial 'and then they lived happily ever after', I prefer trying to describe exactly what that entails, so that's what you're getting in Part II.
Anyway, hope you've enjoyed reading this, please review! Take care all x