Chapter 13

Reed stomped into the apartment he shared with his wife and her brother. "Johnny?"he demanded of his wife, a tight rein on the anger and frustration he was feeling. "Where's Johnny?"

Sue came out of the kitchen. "Reed? What's the matter? You're home early."

"Where's Johnny and what's he done now?"

"He went out, some teen project getting disillusioned youth involved in community projects or something. He's trying, Reed, so please, be a little patient."

Reed shook his head and stalked over to the couch, where he unceremoniously dropped down and let out a weary sigh. When Sue sat down beside him and slipped her hand into his hair, fingers scritching soothingly, he looked up and gave a tired smile. "I'm sorry, Sue. I've just had . . . a bad day. Finances, projects not going to plan and playing voicemail ping pong with Tony Stark about your brother."

"Tony Stark? Why? What does he want with Johnny?"

"A sample of his blood apparently. I'm sorry, Sue, but there's only really one reason I can think of why Tony would want a sample of Johnny's blood and that's if he wants to carry out some sort of paternity test, although he didn't admit that."

"Paternity? Johnny?" Sue gasped. "No! There's got to be some sort of mistake!"

"I don't know, Sue, I really don't. I'd like to think that Johnny had more sense than that, but then he goes and does something else reckless and stupid and I'm reminded just how reckless and stupid he can be and that perhaps this really is a possibility, however much I hope it isn't."

"Look, when he gets back, I'll talk to him and we'll find out. It might just be some girl wanting to make out she got pregnant by a superhero and maybe all we need to do is just get him to give a sample and then we can sweep it all under the carpet and forget about it because he hasn't been that stupid for once."

"I hope you're right."

# # #

Johnny let himself into the house quietly. He'd had a good day. He was surprised by how much he'd actually enjoyed working on the project to get groups of disillusioned youngsters involved in community programs to improve their areas and give them something less destructive to do. He'd finished up his work and then headed out to a club, which was always a good way to wind down and relax with a little attention and a few drinks. He'd had a few offers during the evening, but he'd decided that he wasn't really interested. He was growing up, just like Reed kept nagging him to do, and grown ups apparently didn't sleep with a new girl every night.

He wasn't sure that bit was really going to work out for him, but he could at least give it a try for a couple of days and see how it panned out. He figured that at that point he'd be able to at least reason with Reed and say that he'd tried it and it wasn't going to work for him long term and then maybe his sister's husband would finally give him a break. It wasn't like he wasn't doing something good with the rest of his time. Surely he didn't need to have a stick inserted up his ass and end up as a clone of Reed. Urgh! He couldn't think of anything worse.

He was closing and locking the door and simultaneously slipping off his shoes in the hope of sneaking through the house without waking anyone up to give him a hard time. He bent down to pick up his shoes and as he turned round he caught sight of the dim light shining beside the couch in the lounge. Someone was up.

He wondered whether he could sneak past without them noticing, although he figured that was pretty unlikely. He straightened up and pushing aside all earlier thoughts, began to saunter down towards the light.

"Johnny, hey," Sue greeted. "Will you come and sit down for a bit? I need to talk to you about something."

He nodded and went over to sit beside her, immediate concern for her well-being as he took in her unhappy, but not angry expression. As soon as he was sitting down, he dropped his shoes to the floor and pulled her closer to him. "What's wrong, Susie? Has something happened between you and Reed? Is he okay?"

She nodded, even as she returned his hug. "I know you're trying, Johnny. The projects, the not getting into trouble and drawing attention to yourself all the time. I know it's been hard adjusting and that . . . I need to ask you something though."

He looked at her, expression confused. "Trying what?"

"Trying to be responsible and good."

"Er, yeah. I am. That's where I was all day. I mean, not all day, but daytime day. I went for a few drinks with friends this evening."

"That's fine, Johnny. I don't expect you to never go out and nor does Reed. Look, there's been something . . ." she sighed.

He watched her, waiting for her to explain, figuring that at least if he kept quiet he wouldn't incriminate himself and get himself into trouble with something they didn't know about yet.

"Johnny . . . is there any chance that you could have got someone pregnant? A girl somewhere?"

Before he could stop himself, he said, "Well, it wouldn't be a boy I got pregnant now, would it?" then gulped, looked chastened and said much quieter, "I'm careful . . . I'm pretty sure the answer's no. Why is someone saying I have?"

"Tony Stark called Reed. He wanted a sample of your blood. It's the only reason we can think of for him to want that."

"Tony? Why would they go to him? I don't exactly have anything to do with him that often."

"Unless they thought he'd have the money to take care of a baby that . . . had some of your powers."

Johnny looked horrified. "My powers? A baby that sets itself and everything around it on fire. Shit! There's no way that can end well. If - if it is mine, I'll look after it, I'll figure something out, Susie, I promise."

She smiled at him sadly and said softly, "And I'm here with you, Johnny."

# # #

Johnny hadn't really slept at all and was up and in the kitchen making coffee and breakfast and looking repeatedly at his watch, wondering how early was too early to call Tony Stark. Sue came out of her room, wrapped in a robe and made her way across to him. She frowned as she asked, "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Not so much that you'd notice," he said. "Breakfast? I cooked."

She squeezed his arm affectionately as he served her a plate of eggs and bacon and pancakes and let her take them over to the breakfast bar, where he joined her a few moments later with his own plate. "There's enough for Reed too," he said, before beginning to eat. When it looked like her attention was completely on her food, he said, "So I was thinking of maybe going to see Tony today . . . you know, see if he'll shed some light on who it is. I might be able to quash this before - well, before anything really."

She looked up, "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, I'm a big boy now," he smirked. "If I'm big enough to . . . what's that saying about being big enough to cause the trouble I'm big enough to face it?"

"No idea, but there's facing it and facing it with someone at your back. I've got your back in this, Johnny."

"Do you want to see Pepper then? We could . . . I've been thinking all night, Sue and I wish I knew what was going on. Hell, at three this morning I nearly phoned Tony to find out. I just didn't think that would really help my case any. I mean if she's gone to him, how big an asshole must she think I am?"

"We don't know, Johnny. We don't know. We'll finish up and then I'll call Pepper and check that Tony is going to be in the office today and then we'll head straight round there. When we come back, you can chill out in front of the TV with some popcorn. How does that sound?"

"Like I'm fourteen again and you're trying to cheer me up." The two of them shared a fond grin and as the bedroom door opened and Johnny stood up and moved back into the kitchen to begin work on a third breakfast. As soon as it was ready he took it back over to the table and sat down alongside Reed with a good morning and an apology for the previous day. Reed sighed and carried on eating his breakfast. "I'm sorry, Reed, this really isn't anything I expected."

"That's kind of the problem isn't it, Johnny?" Reed sighed in frustration. "You never expect anything. You never think things through. What would it take for you to actually think about the consequences of what you do? We'd all be better off if you could be sensible and actually pay attention to the right thing and not just let stuff happen because it looked fun and then we all have to pick up the pieces to deal with the consequences of your . . ."

Sue sat down on his other side, looking grim. "That's not fair, Reed. Johnny takes precautions when it comes to his partners and you know he's been making a huge effort to be more cautious. Not everyone can go through life with a huge stick up their ass, maybe you need to let loose a little every now and then, give some attention to your family and not just all of the gadgets in your lab!"

"Susie, don't," Johnny hushed. "Reed's right, I don't always think everything through and you guys have had to help clear up my messes for too long. I'll deal with this one on my own. I'll find myself an apartment and I'll –"

Sue glared at her husband and then at her brother, "No, you will not find an apartment. You think I want to miss out on the chance to spend time with my nephew or niece. Well, you're wrong. Anyway, Johnny, a few sleepless nights and you'll need someone to give you a hand. I can be that someone. Reed!" she snapped at her husband as if expecting him to back up what she'd just said.

Johnny shook his head and pushed back from the table, standing up ready to leave. "It'll be okay, Susie, I promise." He gave a shaky smile as he stepped away.

Sue was out of her seat and round to stand in front of him. "You're not going anywhere on your own! You think I've raised you this long and looked out for you to let you walk away and make me miss out on the good bits! Well," she poked him in the chest, "You'd better think again, Jonathon Storm! You have no right to be so selfish!"

Johnny's eyes flicked to Reed, who was still munching quietly on his breakfast ignoring them both.

Sue huffed and kicked out at Reed's chair leg, jerking him from his stupor before saying, "Maybe WE will get an apartment together then, because I don't want to be here."

Reed's face snapped round in horror, "What? Why? No!"

Sue glared at him, until he began to stutter an explanation, "I was thinking about an inflammable baby and the problems that would cause. I was trying to come up with a way to improve the absorbency of the material I made your suit out of, Johnny, to see if there was a way to make inflammable diapers, and onesies they shouldn't be too much of a problem, I mean it's basically just a smaller version of your suit. Then I was thinking about how I could install a GPS tracking system into all of its clothes because if it can fly as part of its skill sets, well we'd have a lot of trouble keeping it in one place and well if we were babysitting or someone else was babysitting, you know, while we were out fighting evil or whatever well then we'd need to be sure that either the baby couldn't get away or they could at least track where the baby was and go get it back!"

Johnny and Sue both stared aghast at Reed's suggestions.

"You want to put a GPS on my baby?" Johnny hissed.

"Well, no, but I wouldn't want to lose your baby and that seemed like the best way to make sure that didn't happen."

"You were trying to make plans for the baby? You weren't ignoring us?" Sue demanded.

"Ignoring you . . . no. Why? What did you say?"

"Johnny was going to move out with the baby."

"He was!" He turned to Johnny. "You were! Why would you do that? A baby is a lot of responsibility, a big job. You should have as much family around you as you can when you're having a baby to help deal with everything. I don't think that's a good idea, Johnny. Now is not the time to be spreading your wings and flying the nest so to speak. So I was thinking that maybe we could give Virginia Potts a call to arrange to meet up with Tony today and then we could all go down and find out what exactly is going on, whether there's any truth to the accusations. I mean this might just be a girl who's out to make a buck or two or it might be someone who's had a baby with powers that resemble Johnny's. This could just be a matter of eliminating the possibilities. So I think we should go round there as soon as we can so that everyone can figure out where they stand and the child can be looked after in the best way possible."

Johnny and Sue both stood in shocked silence, not quite sure what to do now after Reed's speech. "So I guess apartment hunting is crossed off the list of things to do today then," Johnny said, with a somewhat subdued measure of his usual flippancy. "So Tony Stark, huh?"

Now it was just a matter of waiting to see what happened.

# # #

Tony was in his workshop when his visitors arrived. Steve let them in and showed them down asking Jarvis to lower the music as they entered. Steve called out to Tony, who looked up and dropped what he'd been doing back to the workbench. "Guys! Hi!" he said, falsely bright. "You're all here, I see . . ."

"No, Ben's not here. We haven't mentioned the situation to him yet. Figured we'd see if we could get things ironed out before then," Reed said intently. Steve took in the serious frown and slight tilt forward as if he wanted to invade Tony's space to make his point more strongly. It was an almost aggressive move, yet Steve didn't think Reed intended it as such. Perhaps it was that rather than being defensive, he wanted to seem more confident and assertive than he actually felt. Steve wondered how much Tony had actually got around to explaining about what he was trying to figure out. It didn't look like it had been well-received anyway.

Steve shifted his attention, turning to look across at Sue and Johnny. Sue looked worried but not threatening. He could see the similarity that Alec had seen, face shape, build. She could have been Max's double were it not for the different coloring and the slight age difference. In a couple of years, hair color aside, Steve imagined Max would look very like this.

Johnny was drifting round the workshop, hands behind his back as he peered at one thing after another. He reminded Steve of a child in a shop full of trinkets who had been told to look with their eyes and not under any circumstance to touch anything on pain of some severe retribution. As the young man turned, Steve could see the shadows of a sleepless night under his eyes and a hint of worry that he was doing his best to hide.

It wasn't like looking in a mirror though. Johnny was younger, his hair short, buzzed close and it seemed darker than Steve's own. He was fit but not as muscular as Steve, lithe and leaner. Steve almost envied him the way his clothes fit loose and easy, a neat comfortable fit, rather than the way in which Steve found so many clothes now hugged his own body like a second skin. But there was a resemblance, the chin, the eyes . . . enough that perhaps you could mistake a family bond.

He sighed. He wasn't worried by the prospect of being related to Johnny as such; figured he could take the younger man under his wing, give him a little guidance. He'd read reports about him that Jarvis had managed to locate, had found out about his parents' death, something he himself could relate to. The difference seemed to be that Steve had used his parents' death to drive himself to achieve, Johnny in a different age and environment had gone a little 'off the rails'. Steve could see though that he wasn't a bad kid, didn't mean any harm at all. In actual fact he had a good heart and did seem to genuinely want to make other people happy.

He looked up at Tony and wondered what the man would find with his tests, how he'd even begin to explain it to them. It seemed so ridiculous but then so much had changed, why not this? Asked all those years ago if he'd have believed in the possibility of what they'd seen on the TV about Manticore, he'd never have guessed. Maybe it was easier for people today to accept this kind of thing.

He forced himself out of his own thoughts, determinedly fixing on the conversation before him. He needed to pay attention or he was going to miss something important, something that might begin to answer some of the many questions they all had.

# # #

There was an awkward silence in the room as everybody stood waiting for someone else to break the silence. Tony fidgeted, wanting to stop Johnny poking into his projects, but as the younger man kept his hands clasped behind his back, he managed to restrain himself from dragging him away.

"So . . ." Tony said eventually. "This is awkward." He caught Steve's eyes, saw the other man grimace and just shrugged in return. "I didn't think you'd all come."

"I've already told you it's just the three of us," Reed said peremptorily, cutting himself off when Sue put a hand on his arm and gave him a look. "Sorry," he apologized half-heartedly. "Can we get on with this?"

"Er, yeah, I guess so." Tony looked across at Johnny, who was now circling Dummy and his ever-present fire-extinguisher.

"Is that deliberate? Some kind of joke?" Johnny asked, unsure.

"Huh? What? Oh, Dummy, you mean? No, well, yes, no. Yes, it's deliberate; no, it's not a joke and nothing to do with you. . . It's just Dummy being cautious in case I set something on fire. Sorry." Tony turned to the robot and said, "Dummy, put it down and go away. I'm not working, nothing is going to combust. Shoo!"

Dummy spun on the spot, let out a puff of the extinguisher in Tony's direction and then rolled away. Tony coughed, brushed the powdery foam off and frowned, shouting after the robot, "I can dismantle you and use you for spare parts and don't you forget that!"

There was another puff of extinguisher foam into the air above the robot's head as it continued its journey to the far side of the workshop.

Tony shrugged and looked at Johnny. Johnny shuffled in his place, head down before mumbling, "Where is she?"

"She who?"

"The girl who came to you. Why'd she come to you? Where's the baby?"

Tony frowned, seemingly at a loss, looked across at Steve who just shrugged. "No idea what you're talking about."

"You called Reed. You said you needed a blood sample to prove paternity, so who says I got them pregnant? Stop acting like you don't know why we're here." Johnny's voice was sharp, his posture tense.

Tony's eyes went wide with shock, "Pregnant? Shit! Fuck! No! No, that's not what I meant! You told him I thought he'd got somebody pregnant? What would that have to do with me?"

"I don't know what it had to do with you, Tony. But you said you needed a blood sample to test paternity, what else was I supposed to get from that?"

"Fuck, no! Him? That is a terrifying thought. Almost as terrifying as someone claiming I'd got them pregnant. Can you imagine?"

Seeing her brother bristle angrily, Sue stepped forward, brushing her hand against him for an instant in the hope of reassuring him, before she put herself between him and Tony Stark and said, pointedly, "Then exactly what type of 'paternity' are you hoping to test, Tony?"

"His paternity and if you're up for it, yours too, I guess." Tony said it so simply as if there was nothing to it.

"We know who our father is," Sue's voice brooked no argument. "We have no need of a paternity test."

Tony flushed suddenly embarrassed as he realized just how big a mistake he'd made in what he'd said and done so far. Steve stepped forward to join the tightening circle and spoke calmly, "I know you had a father, but is there any chance he might not have been your biological father? Let us explain a little more. Can we all sit down?" He gestured to the stools and the couch in various locations around the workshop, gave everyone a minute to get themselves seated and then began to talk.

He explained the trip he and Tony had made to Seattle to meet the Transgenics, giving away no information about how they had got into Terminal City or what help they planned to give.

"Transgenics?" Reed said, eagerly. "Fascinating! I've always wanted to find out more about them. What exactly were the improvements that they made? How did they go about it? What science can achieve is remarkable!"

Steve moved closer to Tony as he recognized the anger growing in the other man. "Be that as it may," he said, cutting off Reed's thoughts. "We met and talked with some of them and they happened to point out certain similarities between certain individuals who had been in the news of late. Among them were myself and Johnny. Now obviously, we don't share a father, nor am I Johnny's father, but it may be that we have . . . something . . . some bond."

Johnny looked up at him sharply, eyes narrowing. "Why? What purpose do you have to finding out about a bond? How would it have happened?"

"Johnny!" Sue hushed him, then turned back to Tony and Steve, "What if we say no?"

"Then we forget about it, leave it be and ignore it," Steve said calmly, tone conciliatory. "We're not -"

He was cut short as Tony interrupted, "Why wouldn't you agree to it? Unless you already know something?" Sue turned away, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Sue?" Reed said. "Do you know something?"

She stood up angrily, glaring at her husband. "We're through here! Johnny, come on, we're leaving!"

Johnny stood up, moving to his sister's side. "Susie?"

"We're going!" she insisted, clutching at his arm and beginning to pull him towards the door.

Johnny looked back at the others, sharing his bafflement with them, but he didn't stop, just accompanied his sister as she left the room, leaving the other men behind as none of them tried to stop her.

# # #

Johnny followed his sister, concerned by what he'd heard so far, but still willing to listen. Whatever it was, he was sure, was going to shatter some of his 'happy family' illusions about his life before his mother died, but one thing didn't change, Susie had loved him and always looked out for him, so even if he didn't like whatever she was about to say, he couldn't hold it against her.

Sue hurried through the corridors of the Stark Tower when a voice suddenly stopped them in their tracks. "Ms. Storm, or is it Mrs Reed now? I am sorry to interrupt and I know that you and your brother are leaving but I just thought that perhaps if I could offer you a room in which to discuss matters privately before you leave that would give you the option of returning if you wished later. There is no obligation and I assure you that I would give you the utmost privacy in this matter. I intend no deception."

"Jarvis!" Sue said as she registered the voice. "Jarvis, thank you, but no. No, this is something that . . ."

"Susie, wait! Please," Johnny interrupted her. "Jarvis, do you guarantee that no recording, no relay of any conversation between myself and Susie will happen? Will you ensure that there is absolutely no way of anyone finding out what was discussed between me and my sister, unless we decide to share that information?"

"Absolutely, sir. I offer my personal guarantee that no one will be allowed to discover in any form the content of your discussion and no recording of any kind will be made. Absolute privacy and discretion. I will not even inform Mr Stark that you are still on the premises and the door shall remain locked until you open it."

"Susie," he took her hands in his and looked at her. "You need to tell me what's going on. If we take Jarvis' offer, you can tell me what it is you're thinking, we can talk about it and decide what to do next. If we go home, we're on Reed's ground and he will demand to know and then he gets to choose what he wants to do with that information."

"He'll . . . he'll find out eventually because if I don't tell him -"

"Let's take Jarvis' offer," Johnny said, wiping his thumb below her eye as a tear began to run down her cheek. "Let's talk now, just you and me," he said, taking her in his arms.

She hugged him back and then nodded. "Okay. Okay. Jarvis, thank you, we will take your offer."

A door opened automatically a little further down the corridor and Jarvis said, "If you'd just make your way to the room on the right." Once they were inside, Jarvis spoke again, "Please make yourselves at home. I am about to engage full privacy mode, however, should you require my assistance with anything or need anything further if you pick up the telephone on the side dresser, I shall reactivate the room and be at your disposal immediately."

The door closed and the lock clicked isolating them from the rest of the house. They waited for a minute or two, then Johnny said, "Jarvis?" but there was no response.

Sue paced the length of the room, but Johnny just felt tired. The room they were in was clearly a little used guest bedroom. It was clean, ready for guests but had an air of loneliness to it. It was spartan by comparison with what they had seen of the rest of the Tower's living areas, a large dark wood bed frame with stark, crisp white bedding. A dark dresser along one wall, with a telephone, flat screen TV and a lamp. There was a small desk and comfortable office chair in the same dark wood with an antique looking lamp that seemed to fit with the decor. A small closet was the final piece of furniture. Sue walked across to the door beside the closet and opened it to reveal a bathroom. She closed the door firmly and walked back to sit alongside Johnny on the end of the bed.

"Oh, Johnny," she sighed, leaning in to his side as he put his arm around her shoulders.

"I wasn't his then," Johnny said, simply.

"Neither of us was," she said. "I don't know everything, but I do know that Mom and he couldn't . . . it didn't work, she never got pregnant or carried to term or . . . something . . . She had treatment . . . That's how she got us, both of us, not just you."

"Doesn't change anything important. You're still my sister," he said bluntly.

She smiled, despite the tears in her eyes, "No, you're right. It doesn't change anything important."

"So you think maybe I'm related to Rogers then? Do you think he's my father? Am I going to grow up big and strong like him? With all those over-developed muscles and the floppy hair and that appalling dress sense?"

She laughed a little, wiping the tears away and gave him an affectionate shove, "Stupid is what you are growing up to be!" She looked at him seriously, "I don't see how he could be your father though. He was in the ice for seventy years."

"Frozen sperm. That's what they do, right? In all of those labs, they freeze sperm and store it."

"Yeah, but not with its owner!" she teased. "Anyway, he'd have gone under too early and they didn't find him again until too late to make him your father, but that doesn't mean he couldn't be related, I guess."

"What about you? Do you think you're related to him as well?"

"I don't know. I really don't."

Their conversation drifted on to what they were going to do next, the reality that they weren't going to be able to hide the truth from the men down in the workshop and that once Reed knew, he would be too intrigued to let the matter drop. They tried to imagine what the different possibilities of going through with the tests would be, deciding that at the end of the day what difference did it make to either of them. If Steve was related, he was related, it didn't mean they were looking for anything from him and it wouldn't change what they were to each other. If he wasn't, then nothing had changed at all.

"Simple then, we let Tony do the tests, it tells us whether Steve is some kind of distant relation and then we just go back to our lives with nothing changed and nothing hanging over us," Johnny said, pushing himself up and beginning to head for the door.

Sue didn't move, her eyes still on the floor. Johnny stopped, looked at her and said, "What? What more is there?"

She bit her lip, eyes on the floor, unwilling to voice her fears. He crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of her and said, "What, Susie? What is it?"

"What if," she whispered, "What if it shows that we aren't brother and sister?" Her hand clasped tight around his.

"Then, I guess, it would give you the right to get rid of me for all the stupid shit I put you through." He looked up into her eyes and added, "But I won't go easily, after all, there is no one else who has ever been willing to put up with all my stupid shit!"

She breathed a sigh of relief, leaning in and pulling him closer. "You're my brother. You ARE my brother," she said determined.

He beamed at her, then climbed to his feet and pulled her up, holding her hand as they made their way back through the Tower to the workshop.

# # #

Reed leaned forward eagerly as the door swung shut behind his wife and brother in law. "So," he said earnestly, "What are they like? The Transgenics? It must be fascinating to see how those scientists developed super soldiers, amazing work. The potential, the sheer wealth of possibilities in a project like that. . ."

Steve glared and Tony bristled angrily, but Reed carried on blindly. "I'd have loved to be involved with something that had that kind of potential. To imagine something so huge and to have the money and the backing and the resources to truly -"

He cut short when Tony dropped a wrench, loudly onto the floor, the sound of the metal clanging off the bare concrete. He looked up at Tony and Steve and registered the two menacing glares he was receiving. "Er..." he said, uncertainly. "Did I miss something?"

"Miss something! MISS something? Did he miss something?" Tony repeated, gesticulating wildly.

"I would have thought it was something that interested you in particular, Steve. After all, isn't it just the same kind of thing that happened to you?"

"No," Steve replied curtly. "Not at all and Dr Erskine would be horrified by it, I'm sure."

Reed's expression made his lack of understanding clear. Tony didn't hesitate to set him straight. "Would you want a child of yours to grow up in a barracks? Never having a childhood? Bred to kill and be a soldier without thought to the child's humanity? Would you want a child of yours to be brainwashed? Because the people involved in the development had no qualms about any of that!"

"Well, obviously that's not -" Reed flustered. "I mean, a child of mine I'd want -"

"So you'd be happy for someone else's child to go through that?" Tony twirled another wrench round in his hand as if considering using it as a weapon to reinforce his point.

Steve stepped closer to Tony and Reed didn't calm any, as the dark glower on Steve's face didn't really offer any comfort. He thought Steve probably intended to prevent Tony from doing him any harm, but he couldn't be absolutely certain that that was his intention.

"No," he said weakly, "I don't really want any child to . . . I was just considering the potential. I mean, Steve, you must understand the potential."

"I understand that the Transgenics have had a poor excuse for a life through no fault of their own and now they've been abandoned to live in a toxic dump without supplies and that no one seems to be in the least bit interested in considering their needs but rather in hunting them down and either killing them or recapturing them and forcing them back into captivity and servitude. It rather smacks of something the Nazis and Hydra might have done back in the War."

"Oh!" Reed said, clearly deflated. "I - ummm - yes, when you put it like that it kind of does, doesn't it? I suppose when you look at it that way, it's not quite the magnificent scientific achievement it seems to be at first glance."

"Yes and the first atomic bomb was a fantastic idea too," Tony said bitterly, "Along with concentration camps, weapons of mass destruction, suicide bombers and the Pulse."

Reed looked chastened.

All three men turned as the door opened and Johnny and Sue walked back in. "We'll give you the blood samples," Sue said bluntly. "How long will it take?"

"Ummm, not sure . . ." Tony mumbled. "Do you have anything from your parents that we might be able to . . .?"

"You don't need anything from our father," she said calmly, the only sign of her real emotions shown in the way she clasped her brother's hand. Johnny was standing protectively, the glare on his face daring anyone to say anything that might upset her.

"Right . . . okay . . . So I guess some of yours then and some of Steve's and we make comparisons . . ." Tony looked nervously between them and Steve when he said, "Would it be okay to get Bruce involved? This is more his line of expertise than mine . . . not really mechanical enough for me . . . I mean I could read up on it, learn what I needed to, I guess."

"I have no objection to Bruce being involved," Steve said quietly, "However, the choice needs to be in the hands of Johnny and Sue and if they need time to consider it, I think that's only fair. It's a lot to take in and have to make a decision on all at once."

Reed stood up and crossed to join the group, edging slightly nervously round Tony and Steve to his wife's side. "Sue, what do you mean you don't need to give anything of your father's?"

Johnny bristled. "I'd have thought that was fairly obvious to anyone."

Sue took a steadying breath then began to speak, "My parents had difficulty conceiving. They had to use alternate methods. I know that Dad was involved in some sort of breakthrough fertility project." Tony and Steve shared a startled look but didn't say a word. "I know that in Johnny's case it took a few times before the treatment worked and that in the end, Dad wasn't the male donor. I know they were involved in the same program when they conceived me and I assume the same would stand that he wasn't my father." Johnny put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer.

"I could figure it out," Reed said. "It would be really quite interesting to follow the links and -"

"Actually, Reed," Sue's voice was barely more than a whisper, "I'd really prefer if it wasn't you. I know you could, but you're my husband and somehow . . ." She looked at her brother for support.

"It would just be better if it was someone else," Johnny agreed. "No offense or anything."

Reed looked a little perturbed but rallied himself and said, "Oh, okay, sure. If that's what you want."

"I'm sorry," Sue said softly, tears welling in her eyes. "I just . . . this is not really something I wanted to talk about . . . Look, can we just give you the samples now and . . . and then you do what's necessary and you let us know. I know that's not very helpful of me but. . ."

"No, no, that's fine," Tony stammered the words out. "Whatever, no pressure or anything. Whatever you want."

Steve stepped closer, taking her hands in his. "Susan, we don't have to do this, not if you don't want to. We can still be friends or if you wanted family, we can be that. We don't need a test for that to happen for either of you," he glanced across to include Johnny in his offer.

"No, do it. Please," she said. "And let us know what you find out." She pulled away from Steve's hands with a softly spoken, 'Sorry' and turned to Tony, "Can you take the blood or will we need to wait?"

"Ummm, it doesn't have to be blood - just a cheek swab would do. . . I've got some in case you said yes," Tony headed over to a secured cupboard on the far side of the workshop, opened the door and then said, "Do you want to help yourself?"

Sue followed him, took out two of the kits and passed one to her brother before breaking open the second and proceeding to follow the instructions to obtain her own sample. She slipped it into the secure packaging and sealed it up, waiting for Johnny to do the same. "Done?" she asked quietly. Tony nodded and she said, "In that case, I'm going now. We'll hear from you when you have something to tell us." She turned and headed straight for the door with her brother hurrying to keep up with her.

Reed looked awkward for a moment, then said, "Sorry, I - I need to go with them. You'll be in touch as soon as you know something though. Anything?"

"We will," Tony agreed and with that Reed rushed from the room in pursuit of the others.