Sorry I haven't updated the last few weeks, I have been sick and now just feeling well enough to post, I am going on vacation in a few days so I most likely will miss updating another week so because of that I am giving you a bonus chapter this week!
The Bridge Rescue
Last night Reed called Debbie to ask if Ben was with her, she very bitterly said she saw him for a seconds but haven't seen him since. We have been looking for him all morning, we are all piled up in a taxi not knowing where else to look and we're all getting very worried. As we are crossing the bridge we see there's a big traffic jam. We all get out to see what's going on.
"Ben's here, I know it." Reed assures us.
"Can you see anything?" I ask him.
"No, we're not going to be able to get in there through all this...but you could." He points to Sue.
"Fine," She reluctantly responds as she starts to turn invisible. Everyone begins to stare at her since she's going invisible but not her clothes, everyone is confused and can't believe their eyes.
"Sue, your clothes...lose them." Reed whispers.
She immediately starts stripping off her clothes, "this is so wrong." Johnny mouths looking away in pure disgust.
Out of nowhere Sue becomes visible again but is only in her bra and panties, she quickly covers herself. I am trying to find something to help cover her up. "Wow, you've been working out." Reed spoke, I swatted Reeds arm.
"Shut up," She said with anger, "Anymore bright ideas? Why don't you strip down and have 100 people staring at you." While she's going off on Reed she turns invisible again.
"Sue, if I were you I would finish what you were doing." I quietly tell her as I don't want anyone else looking at her, "Oh, right." She continues to take off her bra and underwear.
"I'm going to need therapy." Johnny whispers to me.
"Johnny you've needed therapy for a long time, now come on." I say as Johnny grabs Sue's clothes and we follow them. After Johnny gave Sue back her clothes we quickly lost track of her and Reed, I am staying right with Johnny so I don't lose him too.
As Johnny and I are trying to find them we hear a little faint voice. We turn around and see a young girl calling for her mom and out of nowhere a huge explosion happens, Johnny quickly jumps on a car to get to her and covers her entire body, "Johnny!" I shout. For a slight second I forgot he had fire powers because by reflex I bring my hand out reacting to it, thinking he was hurt and when I did ice came shooting out of my hand and froze the fire that Johnny was in. I look at my hands not realizing I could shoot ice out of them, Johnny looks at me in shock too.
"Get back alright." Johnny tells the girl and moves her to a safer spot where she could find her parents and walks up to me, almost his entire back is exposed from his clothes burning from the fire. "Wow, I didn't know you could do that."
"Me either." I could only say, "Where's the others?" I ask but soon my question is answered when we see the fire truck starting to fall off the bridge and some firemen about to fall off but Reed stretches his arms, catches them and brings them back safely. We see that not only can Sue turn invisible but she can create force fields. We can't tell whose doing it but someone is pulling the fire truck back up the bridge so it doesn't continue to fall, Johnny and I both exhale in relief when it comes back up safely. We finally see what caused the fire truck to come back up...it was Ben. We are all just stunned and can't believe our eyes, he doesn't look like Ben... he's huge, orange and looks like a rock or a brick! We start to walk to him until the police start aiming their guns at him but very quickly the big crowd comes to his defense and tells them that he and us are heroes.
As everyone is clapping for us out from the crowd is Ben's fiance Debbie, she doesn't look happy, she takes her ring off and just puts it on the ground! What a bitch! My heart is broken for him, I had never met her but Ben could never stop talking about her, he loved her so much and for her to leave just like that was so cold and heartbreaking! I mean did she ever even really love him if she was going to leave just like that? My heart breaks even more when he tries to pick up the ring off the ground but he can't from how large his fingers are, Reed gently picks it up for him and puts it his hand. "I swear to you, I'm going to do everything in my power to fix this until there's not a breath in me." Reed assures Ben.
We are under a tent being checked, making sure we are okay and of course we all are, we're also just trying to wait for the crowd to die down. Ben is just sitting there, he's barely said a word.
"Where are your ears?" Johnny asked, Ben just glares at him.
"Was that necessary?" I whisper to him.
"I'm just trying to lighten up the mood, it was getting to intense back there." He whispers back to me.
"Well you failed miserably."
The fire chief comes into our little tent, "There's some folks outside that wants to talk to you." He tells us.
"We're not going public...we're scientist not celebrities," Reed informs him.
"It's too late son, you already are." He says as he shows us the t.v "that's what they are calling you, The fantastic 5."
"Cool." Johnny blurts out very excited as he starts to head out of the tent.
"Wait, what are you going to do?" Sue asks him.
"I'm going to go talk to them."
"We should think this through." Reed responds.
"Great, you guys brainstorm, I'm going out there." Johnny doesn't listen, Sue is really annoyed and is trying to get him to come back.
"We might as well, we're going to have to talk to them eventually." I shrug as I follow him, I didn't like the idea either but it was inevitable.
The crowd gives us a little room so we can stand next to each other, "Whose the leader?" Someone asked, "I am." Johnny very confidently proclaimed but no one bought it, I couldn't help but chuckle. We all look at Reed knowing full well that he was, everyone is waiting for Reed to speak.
"Uh, during our mission to the Von Doom station we were exposed to unidentified radioactive energy." He calmly explained.
"What happened out there? How far can you stretch? Could you freeze a whole building? Can you fly?" Everyone was asking a million questions.
"Yeah, I'm working on it... it's actually pretty difficult." Johnny answered the flying question.
"We don't know much of anything by this point, not much more then you." Sue chimes in, "We'll be going directly to the lab to diagnose our symptoms."
"Symptoms? Is this some kind of disease?" Someone asked.
"No, it's not a disease but if having powers is a disease then yeah we have it bad." Johnny is trying to keep things light.
"Excuse me but what is that? He doesn't look fantastic." Someone coldly blurts out.
"This is Ben Grimm, he is an American hero." Reed confidently says as he pats Ben on the shoulder.
"What he means is everyone needs a mascot." Johnny says as I roll my eyes, "A new day is dawning, the day of the fantastic 5." He finishes saying as he puts an arm around me and Sue.
We are able to get out of the crowd and the police are willing to escort us to the Baxter building where Reed works and lives. The ride is very quiet but before we go there Johnny, Sue and I were able to go to our respective homes and get things we will need since we're going to have to stay at Reeds for who knows how long. When we get out of the car there are hundreds of people taking pictures of us, Johnny is the only one that's embracing it, I would love to be that confident. The rest of us go quickly inside, we walk into the elevator but as we do it stops to indicate that there is too much weight, "Either the elevator is going really slow or we're not moving at all." Johnny spoke.
"I'll take the stairs." Ben sadly said, I give him a pat on the shoulder before he steps completely out.
"How come Ben can't turn it off and on like we can?" Johnny asked as the elevator began to move.
"That's what we're here to find out." Reed mentions.
"If it could happen to Ben..." Sue starts to worry.
"What? We won't be able to either." Johnny answers her, "That would save time," He gives a little chuckle.
"Please take this seriously Johnny," I tell him.
"She's right, you don't want to walk around being on fire for the rest of your life, do you?" Sue asked him.
"Is that a trick question?"
"Grow up," Sue was very annoyed with her brother.
"What? Come on, I can't be the only one that thinks this is cool. Via?"
I would never admit it but it was pretty cool but I couldn't let him know that, "Of course not." He does look at me like he knows I'm full of shit.
Reed's place didn't even look like a home, just a huge big lab with several rooms, it was pretty cool actually. Johnny is carrying my bags, he wouldn't let me carry them myself. He sets them down in my room by my bed and starts walking out, I stop him at the door frame.
"Okay, now that I've got you alone...we need to talk about what happened at that so called conference." I start to say, "that was not right what you said about Ben."
"Oh come on Via, it's Ben, that's what we do we take digs at each other, it's all harmless fun."
"Yeah but Johnny things are different now...he's different now. I know you didn't mean to hurt his feelings but you did and you need to be careful, he literally just lost the love of his life and none of us can understand what he's going through...Just promise you won't take any hard digs at him, at least until he feels a little better and is back to his old self."
"I promise...I didn't realize..." He starts to say.
"I know." I give him a little smile. I know he didn't truly mean to hurt his feelings, he never intends to really hurt Ben's feelings, he just doesn't think sometimes and his mouth goes off before he can comprehend what he's saying, I do see true regret on his face. "And you better apologize."
"...I will..." He gave a little sigh as I smiled at him. "So, it looks like we're neighbors for a while." He leans against my door frame.
"...Yeah..." I can only get out, "well, goodnight." I say as I begin to close my door.
"...Via, can I ask you something?" He stopped me from closing my door any further.
"Sure," I reply.
"...Why did we stop hanging out?" Him asking this takes me off guard, "I mean, we use to be pretty close...or at least I thought we were."
"We were...we are." I softly correct myself.
"Then why haven't I seen or heard from you since college? I kept getting this feeling you were avoiding me."
"I wasn't avoiding you." I quickly lied.
"But you just left right out of the blue...I thought maybe I did something to piss you off."
He wasn't being paranoid, I used every excuse in the book to avoid seeing him after that night and I knew I couldn't avoid him forever living so close to him so I left. "No you didn't...just at the time I got really busy with school and then I got that job offer which meant I didn't need to live at the dorm anymore and got my own place...then I moved after I graduated." I spoke quickly.
"Yeah but...you didn't even say goodbye...one day you were just...gone." He sincerely said.
"I'm sorry...I guess I didn't realize you noticed."
"Of course I noticed...you were my friend," he has sadness in his eyes. I had no idea he took me leaving so hard.
"...I'm sorry..." I could only say. Shit, now I feel really guilty.
He gives me a little grin before he steps closer to me, he reaches up and very gently puts a piece of my dark red hair behind my ear. "...I missed you," He softly says as he gently caresses my cheek with the back of his knuckles.
"...I missed you too." I honestly repeat as I lean my face into his hand, his touch is so tender and gentle, it's almost more then I can take! He cups my face and begins to guide me to his lips, I completely let him and lean in but before our lips can fully touch I pull back, "tomorrow is going to be busy...we should get some rest." I quickly come up with.
"Right...goodnight..." he steps back.
"Night..." I want so badly to tell him to come back, I feel it in my throat but I don't, instead I shut my door.
I lay on the bed, "Johnny, what are you doing to me?" I think to myself before I touch my lips, then the cheek that he caressed and shed some tears. How am I going to get through this?
I don't write action scenes very well so hopefully you enjoyed that! Look at Olivia being able to bring out Johnny's soft side! And I do believe that the real Johnny from the movie wasn't intentionally trying to be mean either, just wasn't thinking about what he was saying or realized how much his words hurt.
