Ben Grimm prided himself on keeping things simple. He had to. Reed never used a word that was less than three syllables long, Johnny—John now—was caught up in interplanetary diplomacy, and Sue was, well, a woman.

And so Ben Grimm's list of the most important things in the world now contained, and always would contain, only three things.

First: family. Right now, that was Yancy, his baby girl at age thirteen, and the most beautiful little orange rock monster ever to grace the halls of the Baxter Building.

Second: fighting. Okay, maybe not fighting right now. Make that the absence of fighting. He was supposed to be running an errand. Incidentally, the errand would give him some precious time with Yancy, in between the hectic events of a superhero's life. Which brought him right back to number one on the list.

Third and last on the list: food. Lots and lots and lots of food.

Right now, he was leaving the McDonald's with a colorful paper bag of food under each arm. For whatever reason, the drive-through window was too small for such large bags to fit through. Who designs these buildings, anyway?

Each bag contained a sea of French fries and three of the largest hamburgers he could order.

"Listen," he'd told the clerk. "This is a special order. I need you to stack as many burgers onto the bun as you can, until they start tipping off. Then you tape them down. Then you add some more burgers."

Why did waiters always look so nervous when he walked into a restaurant?

He had also bought two icy-cold Pepsis, and a Happy Meal toy for Yancy.

As he reached the van, he paused and listened. He'd left Yancy the car keys so that she could listen to the radio.

Black-eyed Peas was on, the volume cranked all the way up, and Yancy was leaning back to listen with a content smile on her orange face. Her hands were tapping on the dashboard, and doubtlessly her feet were tapping too.

She was beautiful.

The music, not so much.

He wondered—what was the fastest speed anyone had ever lunged for the off button?

Yancy, glancing in the rear view mirror, noticed him and sat up quickly. She reached over and turned the volume down from "brain hemorrhage" to "mild bleeding from the ears."

"Here's lunch," Ben said, walking around to the passenger's side and unloading the bags.

"Oh, good!" She started pawing through them. "You remembered to get normal hamburgers, not cheeseburgers, right? I don't like cheese."

"Yeah, I remembered." He lumbered around the trunk to reach the driver's door, and swung into his seat with a grunt.

He liked this car. It was the only one big enough for him to fit inside.

Glancing back, he saw Alicia's sculpture looming in the very back, covered in draperies and blankets.

Mission one: Get the sculpture to the gallery.

Mission two: Spend father-daughter time with Yancy.

"Dad?" Yancy said incredulously. He glanced up at her and saw that she was holding the Happy Meal—a little plastic bag containing a green plastic pony.

"Dad, you got me a My Little Pony?" Her face was disbelieving.

"Yeah." He started to feel worried. "You used to like those, right?"

"When I was, like, three." She set it on the dashboard and bit into her hamburger.

Ben took a deep breath and pulled out of the parking space, heading back into traffic. He immediately remembered why it was, exactly, that he liked to use the Fantasticar for errands. The cars on the street were barely moving.

But hey—this meant more time to bond.

"So . . ." He cleared his throat. "Seen any good movies lately?"

"No. They're still rebuilding the theater that's nearest to the Baxter Building, remember?"

Dang it. What had he talked about with Alyce, when she was this age?

Of course it had been his firstborn and his youngest who were girls. (And three boys—Jacob, Daniel, and Jeremy—in between.) Just as Yancy was beginning to grow up, Alyce had left home to start a career, and Ben had forgotten completely what it was like to have your daughter be thirteen.

What had Alyce been like, when she was thirteen? Oh . . . that had been when she wanted to go goth, hadn't it? She started wearing black, and threw a tantrum when she couldn't pierce her nose.

By the time she was fourteen, she was well into her superhero phase, and refused to wear anything that wasn't blue with the number 4 on it.

And now she went in for neat, professional-looking clothes. Skirts and nice jackets.

Alice was volatile, temperamental, prone to exploding. (Literally.) Yancy was different. She was cheerful, sunny, bouncing, and absolutely sure that grownups were incompetent bumblers.

Ben's head was beginning to hurt. As soon as he could, he steered out of the main flow of traffic.

"Hey, where we going?" Already done with her hamburgers and well through her French fries, Yancy knelt in her seat to look around.

"Sit down! We're takin' a shortcut."

"Okay, okay." She slid back down into the seat with a jolt that rattled the van. "Can I have your burger?"

Next chapter: Ben's trip gets sidetracked by two of your friendly neighborhood hitchhikers. Let me know what you think.