"So, it must be here… 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, New York City." Johnny muttered to himself as he stepped out of the taxi, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. "I can't believe I came all the way to New York just to meet a guy who might help me. Maybe. If he even wants to."
He looked up.
And up.
And up.
The Baxter Building towered above the street like something out of a sci-fi movie dropped into the middle of Manhattan. Sleek panels of polarized glass ran up its sides, catching the reflection of the city and distorting it into sharp, shimmering fragments. Along the corners, vertical white steel beams curved elegantly inward as they rose, giving the skyscraper a futuristic, almost alien silhouette.
Near the middle of the façade, giant blue numerals—4 stylized into a circle—glowed faintly beneath the sun, pulsing like a slow heartbeat. A massive wind turbine structure spun near the roof, gathering energy. And at the highest point, Johnny could see what looked like… antennas? Sensors? Some kind of machinery wrapped around a rooftop platform that absolutely did not belong to an ordinary building.
The whole place radiated a strange mix of cutting-edge technology and impossible engineering.
It looked nothing like Oscorp. That was for sure.
Johnny swallowed, nerves crawling under his skin, and walked toward the main entrance doors. He was halfway across the chrome-and-marble lobby threshold when a sharp electronic chime echoed around him.
A light flickered on above the entry.
"IDENTIFY YOURSELF."
The voice was mechanical, crisp, and not remotely friendly.
Johnny froze. "Uh—hi?"
"THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY. IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND STATE YOUR INTENT." The electronic voice boomed again, louder, clearly ready to sound an alarm if he hesitated too long.
"Okay, okay!" Johnny lifted his hands. "My name is Johnny Storm!"
There was a small pause, the system was processing.
"NAME NOT RECOGNIZED. STATE YOUR INTENT."
Johnny glanced around—people on the busy sidewalks were already staring. Great. Just great.
"I'm here to see Reed Richards!" he said quickly. "Doctor Connors sent me! Curt Connors!"
The system paused longer this time. A faint humming sound vibrated through the metal frame of the door.
"Processing… verifying correspondence…"
Johnny waited, with his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. His heart hammered with anxiety and the remnants of yesterday's fear. He hated feeling this vulnerable.
"Come on… come on…" he muttered.
Finally, the automated system spoke again— its tone was slightly less hostile this time.
"Verification complete. Please wait. Dr. Richards will be notified."
Johnny exhaled heavily, tension draining from his shoulders.
"Great," he mumbled. "Now all I need is for him not to throw me out."
He stood there, staring up at the massive illuminated "4" on the building.
Why does the building have so many number four? Maybe he has some kind of weird obssession with the number? Thought Johnny confused.
Suddenly, the door clicked.
And the metal locks of it rotated, one after another, and the entrance slid open with a low hydraulic hiss. Johnny straightened instinctively—then froze.
A massive man filled the doorway.
Not just tall. Not just muscular. The guy looked like he could bench-press a fire truck without breaking a sweat. He had broad shoulders, huge arms, and a chest built like a brick wall. He wore a simple white T-shirt stretched tight across his frame, and his auburn hair was buzzed short. Freckles dotted his pale skin, and a square jaw made him look like a walking mountain.
And he was staring straight at Johnny with a serious, unimpressed expression.
Johnny's throat tightened a bit.
Great. Exactly the kind of guy you don't want glaring at you.
"You the kid who's lookin' for Reed?" the man asked, his voice was gravelly, blunt, and carrying that unmistakable New York accent.
Johnny swallowed. "Uh—yeah. Johnny. Johnny Storm."
The man didn't blink. He just kept studying him, with his eyes scanning him up and down like he was trying to decide whether Johnny was a threat or just an idiot.
Johnny forced a smile. "So… are you Reed?"
That got a reaction—one loud snort.
"Kid, if I was Reed, you wouldn't be standin' here five seconds without gettin' a lecture on quantum somethin'-or-other." The man shook his head. "Name's Ben Grimm. I'm a friend of Richards. And currently babysittin' the front door."
"Oh." Johnny nodded quickly. "Nice to meet you."
Ben's expression didn't soften. "You said Connors sent you? Curt Connors?"
"Yeah," Johnny replied, trying not to fidget. "He, uh… said Reed might be able to help me. With something. Something important."
Ben raised a brow, clearly interested but too disciplined to ask for details. Instead, he stepped aside, motioning him in.
"Well, Reed's busy. He's always busy." Ben said, letting the door seal behind them with a thunk. "But if Connors vouched for you, I'll take you to him. Just don't touch anything unless you got a death wish. Reed's labs ain't exactly OSHA-approved."
Johnny blinked. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Nope," Ben said flatly, already walking. "Not my job."
Ben led Johnny through a maze of gleaming hallways, each lined with reinforced glass panels revealing labs full of strange machinery—floating platforms, holographic displays, coils humming with blue energy, even something that looked suspiciously like a miniature portal tearing open empty air.
Johnny kept his hands firmly at his sides.
No touching.
He wanted to live long enough to meet Reed, after all.
Ben didn't slow down until they reached a pair of heavy blast-proof doors marked:
LAB 3A – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
⚠ ACTIVE EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS ⚠
Ben slammed his palm onto the biometric reader.
"Grimm, Benjamin Jacob," the system announced. "Clearance accepted."
The doors slid open with a hydraulic groan.
Inside, the lab was chaos—but organized chaos. Coils crackled, transparent monitors floated mid-air with diagrams rotating on them. A mechanical arm was carefully holding a sphere of orange plasma, while several cables fed power into a device covered in equations scribbled in blue marker.
And in the center of it all, hunched over a console, stood a tall, thin man wearing goggles and a lab coat two sizes too big.
Reed Richards.
His brown hair was slightly messy, streaked with chalk dust, and he was muttering to himself while typing at impossible speed.
"--No, no, the harmonic instability is still off by point zero five… unless the quantum filament is—wait, that shouldn't even be possible—"
Ben cleared his throat.
"Hey, Stretch."
No response.
Ben tried again, louder. "Reed. You got a visitor."
Still nothing.
Ben rolled his eyes, walked up behind him… and flicked him on the back of the head.
"OW—Ben!" Reed yanked his goggles up, half-annoyed, half-dazed. "I told you to not do that while I'm running simulations—"
He froze once his eyes landed on Johnny.
And in an instant, Reed Richards went completely still.
"…You," Reed said quietly, stepping closer with an expression of pure scientific recognition. "You're the combustion anomaly."
Johnny blinked. "…what?"
Reed kept talking, already circling him like he was examining a rare meteorite.
"The spontaneous thermal cascade… the cellular ignition cycle… the fluctuating energy field you emit—yes, yes, the readings match perfectly—"
Ben crossed his arms. "Or—and hear me out—he's a person, Stretch. A kid."
Reed snapped out of it like he'd been shaken awake.
"Oh! Right. Yes. Yes, of course." He cleared his throat, then extended a hand with a much softer expression. "Johnny Storm, correct? Curt Connors sent you?"
Johnny nodded, still a bit overwhelmed. "Yeah. He said you—uh—worked on some of my test results."
Reed smiled faintly. "Worked on them? Johnny, your data was one of the most fascinating sequences I've ever seen. A human generating controlled thermonuclear output without external catalysts—astonishing."
Johnny gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah, well… it's killing me."
Reed stopped talking, and it was like if it his eyes had sharpened.
Like a camera lens locking onto its subject.
"…I was afraid of that," Reed said quietly. "Connors and I suspected a degenerative effect. But we didn't have enough data before Oscorp shut everything down."
Johnny swallowed hard. "So… you can help me, right?"
Reed didn't answer immediately.
He glanced at the plasma sphere, then at the floating monitors—then at Johnny again, in a way that made Johnny feel both exposed and… hopeful.
"I don't know yet," Reed admitted, without hesitation. "But I do know this: your condition isn't unsolvable. Just… extremely complex."
Ben placed a reassuring hand on Johnny's shoulder.
"In Stretch-speak," Ben said, "that means he's gonna try his damndest."
Reed nodded firmly.
"Johnny Storm," he said, his voice determined, "if there is a way to stabilize your powers and stop the cellular decay… I will find it."
Johnny let out a shaky breath.
Reed blinked suddenly, as if some internal alarm went off in his head.
"Oh—good grief, where are my manners?" he said, straightening his lab coat. "I launched directly into metabolic combustion patterns without even giving a proper introduction."
Ben sighed. "Happens every time."
Reed extended his hand again, this time in an actual polite, human gesture instead of excited-scientist-mode.
"I'm Dr. Reed Richards. Researcher, physicist, engineer… and apparently the only person in this building who remembers to label their food in the fridge. It's a pleasure to meet you properly, Johnny."
Johnny shook his hand. "Uh… yeah. Nice to meet you too. For real this time."
Reed gave a quick nod, then gestured grandly toward the rest of the lab.
"Well then! If you're going to trust me with your medical future, you deserve to know where you're standing. Allow me to give you a short tour."
Ben muttered, "Short, he says," but Reed was already moving.
Johnny followed—mostly because Reed walked fast, talked fast, and pointed at everything with the enthusiasm of a kid at a science fair.
"Over here," Reed said, gesturing to a cluster of floating metallic rings connected by humming cables, "is a prototype molecular rearranger. Once complete, it should allow controlled restructuring of material at the atomic level. Ideally for medical healing applications—though right now it only melts shoes."
Johnny blinked. "Uh-huh."
Reed didn't notice his confusion at all.
He moved on.
"This station," he continued, pointing at a wall of shifting holographic screens displaying formulas that looked like alien scripture, "is where I run my quantum simulations. Right now I'm testing a theory involving higher-dimensional gravitational bleed. Fascinating stuff—unless the entire system crashes, which it usually does."
Johnny nodded slowly. "Yeah. Totally fascinating. Bleeding gravity. Super, uh… relatable."
Reed pivoted again, now pointing at a large cylindrical chamber glowing from inside.
"And THIS," he said with too much excitement for something that buzzed ominously, "is my plasma confinement pod. Controlled star-level temperatures for microseconds at a time. Very useful for studying high-energy matter—though not yet stable enough to stand near without hazard gear."
Johnny instinctively stepped back.
Ben smirked. "Smart kid."
Reed continued unfazed, waving toward a mechanical arm rotating a sphere of light.
"That's my photonic capture array. It analyzes exotic energy signatures by measuring spectrum distortion across—well, the explanation would take too long. But! That's the device I'll likely use to map your combustion field."
Johnny stared hard at the glowing machinery, as the thing hummed and sparked.
The thing looked like it wanted to explode.
He smiled weakly. "Yeah. Great. Sounds totally safe."
Reed stopped walking, finally noticing Johnny's expression.
"Oh! Don't worry. Only three things have exploded this week. None of them were important. Mostly."
"That is not comforting, Reed," Johnny said.
Ben smacked Reed lightly on the shoulder. "Stretch, ease up before you give the kid a heart attack."
Reed blinked, then offered a sheepish smile. "Ah. Right. Sorry."
Johnny exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck.
He didn't understand anything Reed had explained.
Atoms, plasma, quantum-whatever… None of it made any sense.
But one thing did:
Reed Richards was smart.
Scary smart.
Smart enough that if anyone could figure out how to stop his powers from killing him…
It would be this guy.
"Thanks for the tour," Johnny said honestly. "Most of it went over my head, but… thanks."
Reed's expression softened genuinely.
"You're welcome. And don't worry—explanations don't matter yet. What matters is that you're here. We can start analyzing your condition whenever you're ready."
"Then, let's start now." Answered Johnny.
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