Author: Dark-Angels-Tears

Title: Darkfire

Rating: T for Violence, Language, Graphic content... All that good stuff.

Genre: Angst/Action/Adventure. In that order.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it isn't ours. If you don't, total legal-glomp.

Summary: AU. To go back in time and change the past, in order to save the future. This is the mission of one Johnny Storm. However, his family doesn't understand this new, ruthless, darker Johnny. None have them have ever seen this side before... except Sue.

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Sarah: Yay! I'm not dead!

Jackie: -mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like 'darnit'-

Sarah: Ignoring you! Anyways, thanks everyone for their good wishes and luffly reviews. Enjoy the chappie!

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Chapter Four

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When all you got to keep is strong,
Move along, move along like I know you do.
And even when your hope is gone,
Move along, move along - just to make it through!

-All-American Rejects, Move Along

The days passed more slowly than any of them would have liked. Johnny's doctor, a lean, wheezing old man, informed them that he had broken three ribs, fractured two, and bruised one. He'd also nearly fractured his left ankle, but fortunately he only had a severe sprain ("Because that's so much better." Johnny had sniped when informed of this).

He spent three days recovering from the surgery he had undergone, as when he fell down the stairs his broken ribs were pushed into his lung and punctured it in "only one place, lucky boy." ("Thanking my stars over here, doc.") Johnny was held for one more day for observation before being grudgingly released into Sue's care, under strict orders for bed rest and certainly no reckless activities ("Who, me? Reckless?") for at least a few weeks.

Sue took these orders very seriously and once they got home immediately made the couch into a bed for Johnny, made sure that he was comfortable, and steeled him for questioning.

When his teammates were gathered around uncomfortably closely, Johnny sighed and began. "Alright. So, I got a buddy named Eli. He's into extreme snowboarding and does lots of tours and stuff around Europe." He said measuredly, choosing his words, including slang, with care. The blond had had plenty of time to think of a cover story, but out of respect to his friends he wanted to keep it as close to the truth as possible. "Eli was working the slopes near the southern Hungary-Romania border and heard some people talking. They didn't say too much, but they said enough that he sent me word, friend-to-friend."

"He told me that according to them, Doom's planning something. Something big, big enough that he's willing to wait as long as it takes and try as many times it needs in order to get it done." Johnny paused. He knew that he had their full attention and that anything he said would be the basis of all action over the next few days, possibly weeks. He continued, "I knew that if I told you guys, you'd want to mount a full-on operation to get to the bottom of this, and since everything we think about doing is national media, I decided to go it alone. I'd been waiting for the right time to go, and I just decided last week that then was as good a time as any."

Anticipating the question, he took a deep breath. "I didn't find out as much as I'd like. Doom's been doing a lot of trading with companies in North Korea, Russia, and Cuba. He's also been kidnapping top scientists in the fields of chemistry, biology, and genetic engineering from every major country in the world. And this isn't something that was cooked up overnight; it's been going on for years."

"Why haven't we heard about this before?" Reed asked with a frown; Johnny could almost see the gears turning in his head.

Luckily, he knew the answer to this all too well. "Because, this is one of Doom's personal pet projects. Been keeping it secret for a long time; the two guys Eli overheard were probably killed for letting valuable information slip." Sue's face took on a horrified expression and Johnny mentally cursed himself. He couldn't mention death so casually while around her; at least not yet. "All week I snuck around Doom's complexes trying to find out anything I could, but before I could get anything really good, I got caught." The blond allowed his right hand to pat his heavily bandaged chest and snickered. "I tell you, the guy sure can pack a punch he's mad."

Sue squeaked. "You mean-" She gasped, hands flying to cover her mouth.

"Yup. Dearest Doomsie gave me a little souvenir- a chest full of broken ribs and a foot to match." He said in a falsely sweet voice, rolling his eyes. In reality, he was barely keeping his anger contained. Johnny was fairly certain that no one in the history of the universe hated anyone else as much as he hated Doom.

In a flash of movement, his sister launched herself forwards into his arms, pounding her fist down onto his shoulder repeatedly, sobbing something incomprehensible.

"Sue- ouch, that hurts!" He exclaimed, awkwardly grabbing her wrists and doing his best to immobilize her.

"You stupid- you idiot!" She exclaimed, tears welling up in her eyes. "You could have d-died over there, and we wouldn't even have known!"

Johnny blinked. That was rather unexpected. "Uhh... I'm sorry?"

She was not finished. Large, pearly tears spilled over and slid down her face as she sobbed, "You r-risked your neck just on a whim- Johnny that was t-totally irresponsible! We searched everywhere, day and night, not even kn-knowing if you were alive or d-dead!"

He gave her an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Susie, but it's okay now! I'm here!" With his thumb he brushed away one of her tears and tried to look reassuring. Johnny was rather out of practice trying to comfort others and hoped he was doing alright.

Suddenly she pulled away, wiping at her face embarrassedly. "I'm fine. I'm okay." Sue sniffed loudly and turned her back to him. "You want some pancakes? I'm gonna make you some pancakes." She disappeared off into the kitchen, nevermind the fact that it was approaching three in the afternoon.

The men in the room looked at each other exasperatedly. Ben disappeared after mumbling something about going to see Alicia and Reed retreated to his lab, leaving Johnny pretty much alone in the building with a temperamental Sue.

After a while she came back with the promised baked goods and turned the TV on to some show he didn't care about, affectionately saying she knew how much he loved these and leaving the bewildered man with a pat to his blond head.

Johnny ate slowly, recalling with a snort what a terrible cook Sue was. His thoughts lingered on her, however, and the man wondered for a moment if his sister had always been this moody. Was it simply 'that time of the month,' or was she...

He counted the months in his head, and suddenly his mouth opened in a wide 'ahh' of understanding.

The man simply could not wait until the next time she went invisible.

Finished the awful pancakes and utterly couch-bound -at least, for now- Johnny turned his attention to the TV and attempted to find out what show had been put on. And after a legion of commercials went by, he found out.

It was a dirt bike race.

He slammed his palm into his forehead and groaned aloud. True, he had been into this type of thing... about fifteen years ago! It was like taking himself at the age he was feigning and forcing him to play hopscotch or some such nonsense. And yet, if he changed the channel, he would be even more suspect then he already was.

Johnny sighed and laid back, draping his arm over his face and falling back on an old habit he had developed as a boy in order to pass the time without having to dwell on anything potentially painful. Counting.

Breathing in and out slowly, he started to count each passing second while at the same time growing remarkably aware of his surroundings. He lay there, unmoving, as the rest of the Fantastic Four went about their normal routine.

Time passed. A lot of time passed. 28,799, 28,800, 28,801 seconds passed. The effects of his pain pills wore off rather quickly, causing a dull, constant throb every time his heart beat. But Johnny had undergone far worse many times over the years, and it was of little concern to him.

Meanwhile, the sky outside had darkened and the sun set, casting most of his face into moody darkness. Sue, apparently assuming that he was dozing, was tiptoeing about. The door to the stairwell had recently been opened and shut, and since the footsteps were weighty and the only one who ever used the stairs was Ben, Johnny knew that he was back.

28,863 seconds passed and the hulking orange man walked into the living room. His footsteps paused, then more softly, he stepped around Johnny's couch and took a seat in his chair. A great sigh. A not-so-gentle scraping sound as Ben picked up the remote and changed the channel from Xtreme Sports to the local news network.

Ah. That was something he could watch. In fact, watching the news could help to properly ground him in the current time line. Figuring he should not waste this oppourtunity, he shifted quietly on the couch to face the TV and watch the world pass by. Stories of famous murders and trials, schemes and scandals slowly pulled him back to the mindset of the current year. Johnny thought he was almost catching up and when a story came on about Pakistan again postponing their general election came on, he decided he knew enough to comment.

However, he merely proved his ignorance.

Johnny snorted at the news anchor as they elaborated and said lightly, "Well, that's MEFA for you."

Ben started, having apparently not noticed he was awake. But at these words, he furrowed his great brow. "Me-wha? What're you on about, Matchstick?"

The couch-ridden man carefully masked an eyetwitch. Crap. Apparently the Middle Eastern Federation of Allies had not been formed yet. Well, that was probably a good thing. The Arabian version of the USSR had done just as poorly as its predecessor. "Nevermind. Bein' stupid." Johnny waved this off.

As the rest of the actual news stories passed, they watched in silence broken only by the occasional laugh or comment.

And after a brief section on sports -Johnny's eyes had glazed over and he counted his way through it- the entertainment stories came on. This was a great source of amusement to him. It was very entertaining to learn that Michelle Jackson had not yet had her sex change, nor Paris whoever-she-was been convicted for the murder of that Britney girl.

But what was the most amusing was the updated story on his eloping to South America with Jennifer Lopez. He let out a loud bark of laughter.

Again, Ben started. Apparently he had not been expecting that, either.

"South America, huh? Would've at least been warmer. Better company, too." He laughed harshly again, but if you looked closely, when Johnny laughed it was merely the sound. There was no sign of his amusement written on his face, no familiar upward curve of the lips. Perhaps this was what had startled his orange friend.

Well, amusement aside, the only important thing that Johnny learned from all of this was that it was February second. He was a week and a half away from the Day; there was only a little while longer to hold on before he could...

Blink. Ben was saying something.

"Sorry, what was that?" He asked, looking over at the other man.

"I said, I can't believe yer takin' this so well." Ben rumbled, giving Johnny that strange look that told him he'd done something out of character.

"Well, the way I see it, they're just trying to sell a story to people who have nothing better to do with their lives but follow these things. It'll be a big scandal for about a week, then people will figure out the truth, get bored, and move on to the next scandal." His blue eyes suddenly twinkled. "Besides, while I was trying to be sneaky in Latveria, I definitely would rather he think that I was off with J-Lo in Rio de Janeiro."

Ben chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you gotta point."

Johnny shook his head in slight disbelief. "Sooner or later, you people will figure out that I always do."

Shortly after, Ben and Sue turned in for the night, leaving Johnny in his couch-bed and Reed in his… well, lab (where he was presumably trying to figure out what Doom was up to). Johnny waited until he could hear their breathing even out until he set to work.

Closing his eyes, he withdrew all of his own heat energy into his core and marked where he felt his own heat signature emanate from- the couch in the living room. He could 'feel' the large mass of well-contained heat that was Ben, seeming to float horizontally in the air as he lay in his bed asleep. Johnny marked his friend's place, and moved on.

Further away a smaller, yet brighter heat signature, Sue, was entirely still on the low bed she shared with Reed. He marked his sister's place, and moved on.

Still further away, Reed's heat signature was the most noticeable of the Fantastic Four (now that Johnny had withdrawn himself) as he was pacing back and forth erratically in his lab. Johnny marked his brother-in-law's place, and moved beyond.

He reached out further with his senses and felt for the small, barely noticeable heat signals given off by the running appliances as electricity coursed through their wires at a steady pace. The larger ones like the air conditioning and elevators, because they drew more power, shone like fiery beacons in a dark night. But Johnny was looking for flickering embers, not roaring flames.

He searched until he found and mentally marked each and every one of the identical signatures, at least one in every room in their part of the building.

And then, Johnny called to them.

As a pyrokinetic, Johnny had the ability to create and control flame. Creating it was a fairly simple task, but it had taken him years of training to master control. However, this training had paid off in the end, and now the blond put it to good use.

He called to the heat, urging it to increase in temperature slowly, very slightly, until in one specific place in each of them the heat would melt through the protective rubber coating on the wires. Over a period of five minutes, one by one the spying video cameras overheated and sputtered out as their interior became a glob of melted rubber and fused wiring.

The one overlooking him was the last to go. With a faint flicker of light and the brief odor of burning plastic, the camera stopped transmitting and died.

Johnny could have smiled. He'd blown too hard, and the fire was put out.

He could have smiled, but he did not.

Now, now it was time for work.

Johnny moved swiftly to his feet, swooning slightly for a moment and reflecting as he regained his balance that he really must have ticked Doom off. Like a cat -a cat with a sprained paw- he silently and quickly made his way to the lab after a brief stop at the closet where their uniforms were kept.

Reed had once confided in him that it was so much easier to work in the depths of night because of the still, creeping cold the wee small hours brought. Blood rushed to his head and made it easier to think. The sinking, lingering chill in his limbs kept him working, kept him moving, kept him awake. It was because he was cold that he was able to stay up.

Standing unnoticed in the doorway to the lab as Reed frustratedly scribbled something on his chalkboard, Johnny was about to mess with this whole system.

He called to the fire in the air, a slumbering dragon at his command. He whispered to her, spoke to her, coaxed her to awake.

Slowly she arose, tail waving back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm. She prowled about before curling gently around Reed, pressing into him, whispering to him, and in sing-song melody asking, how nice would it be to sit down?

The man was asleep as soon as his seat hit the chair.

With a contented nod, Johnny lowered the temperature back to its previous chill and stepped into the lab, walked over to the counter and withdrew from his pocket what he had stopped for.

A small vial of a very thin, greenish liquid. Sleeping serum.

From a drawer he knew all too well, Johnny took two hypodermic syringes. With one he took up some of the liquid into the needles and walked over to Reed. Carefully, carefully, with the skilled hand of one who had done this a thousand times, he injected the man with enough serum to keep him out for around seven hours or so. With the other, he took a very small blood sample.

And then Johnny set to work. For a little more than an hour he scoured the sample over and over, searching for traces of the poison. He knew for a fact that currently, one of the Fantastic Four other then himself had the toxin dormant in their system, but in the future they had never known precisely when the others had been poisoned. Johnny wanted to act on it shortly after they were infected (or better still, prevent it in the first place- stop this bloody mess from happening in the first place), but if they already carried it, well, he would burn that bridge when he came to it.

After he finally finished, checked, and rechecked again to be sure, he leant back and sighed in relief. Reed, for now, did not carry the poison in his system.

Moving on.

He disposed of the used syringes and obtained two new ones; then took the same amount of serum from the vial, noting to himself to synthesize some more when he had the time and opportunity. He turned, exited the lab, and began to limp down the hall. Managing to keep most of his weight off his bad ankle by pushing against the wall as he walked, Johnny stopped in the correct doorway and gently, gently pushed it open.

After all, Sue was a light sleeper.

Luck seemed to favor him this night, though, and she seemed to be sleeping rather deeply at the moment. Johnny entered the room very quietly. He moved around the bed to her side, pressed the needle to the skin on her upper arm, and pierced it. With utmost care, he injected the entire load into her system. Sue frowned and twitched slightly, (nearly giving Johnny a heart attack in the process), but relaxed in a second.

However, as his hand moved to steady her arm so he could take the sample, she looked towards him and mumbled sleepily, "Johnny..."

Johnny froze, the needle an inch from the crook of her elbow, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. Was it all over now? Had he just blown his cover wide open?

An eternity passed. Then, finally, he realized that Sue was still unconscious; she had just been talking in her sleep. He let out a long, slow breath and took the sample as quickly as possible, then limped as fast as he could out of that room.

Back in the lab Johnny scanned her sample with obsessive precision. He checked it over and over, making for dead certain that he hadn't missed it or that it was not simply lying dormant. At last, at long last, he closed his eyes and sighed in relief; a heavy burden falling from his shoulders.

Sue was also free of the poison.

Johnny cleaned up the materials he had used and put everything back in its proper place, then turned his attention to his remaining problem.

Ben.

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Sarah: Dun dun dun!

Jackie: This chapter is notably longer then our previous ones. There actually was a heckuva lot more we wanted to add to this one, but if we tried to fit it all in, well, this update would have come out sometime around Wednesday or Thursday, and since we try to update weekly (posting Saturday or Sunday), well, that just wouldn't do.

Sarah: So, sorry folks, but this is all you get for now!

Jackie: What do you think of this chapter? The big reveal of who's got what, including some not-so-subtle hints about the poison's effects. Plus, a little bit about how Johnny uses his powers. As usual, news questions come up as well. What is the Day? What all was Johnny really doing in Latveria?

Sarah: We've got a lot of fun things planned, so stay tuned to Darkfire!