Hours later, the lab looked completely different.
The lights were dimmer, and multiple machines were running at once, as holographic screens orbited around Reed like planets to the sun. Meanwhile, Johnny sat on a reinforced medical chair—tapping his foot nervously while trying not to freak out.
Reed had been working non-stop.
There was no breaks for him.
No pauses.
Not even a sip of water.
Ben occasionally checked in, mostly to make sure Reed didn't accidentally set something on fire, but Johnny had spent the last few hours watching the smartest man on Earth run from station to station with surgical efficiency.
Finally, Reed approached him with a small vial filled with a faint blue serum.
"This is it," Reed said, with his voice calm but his eyes tired. "The best countermeasure I can devise on such short notice."
Johnny sat straighter. "So… it'll fix it?"
Reed hesitated to answer.
"No," Reed admitted quietly. "Not fix. Not yet. What this serum does is slow the degeneration. It'll suppress the worst collapses in your cellular structure and give your body more time before the damage compounds."
Johnny swallowed. "How much time?"
Reed looked away briefly, choosing his words carefully.
"5-10 more years at least, if you don't overuse your abilities. It's a meaningful difference. But not a cure."
It wasn't the answer Johnny wanted. But it was something.
Reed stepped closer. "Johnny, your condition is… persistent. And very aggressive I say. Every time you ignite, the energy output strains your physiology to its limits. This serum creates a buffer—a kind of molecular shield inside your cells so the strain is a little more tolerable."
"Like an armor?" Johnny asked.
"A temporary one, yes," Reed clarified. "It'll defend your body against the combustion for a little while. But the damage can still accumulate. It's slower as I said… but it's still there."
Johnny exhaled shakily. "So I'm still dying."
Reed met his eyes, firm yet compassionate.
"You're still fighting. And now, you won't be fighting alone, you have me now."
Johnny nodded slowly.
Reed uncapped the vial and fitted it into an injector.
"You'll feel a sting," Reed warned. "And possibly warmth spreading through your torso. If any organ begins glowing, tell me immediately."
Johnny blinked. "Wait—what?"
Too late.
Click.
The needle entered his arm—on a clean, precise way.
The serum rushed in like liquid electricity.
And Johnny gasped.
It didn't hurt, but it wasn't pleasant either. A wave of heat spread from his arm to his chest, like his bloodstream had suddenly become carbonated. His heartbeat stuttered, then stabilized.
He sucked in a breath.
"…whoa."
Reed stepped back, monitoring the readings as dozens of graphs appeared overhead.
"Good," Reed murmured. "Cellular response is stabilizing. Internal temperature spike… manageable. Energy emission drop… excellent."
Johnny flexed his hand, surprised by how much… lighter he felt.
He wasn' cured yet. But he felt steadier. Like someone had taken a weight off his shoulders.
"How long will it last?" he asked quietly.
Reed typed rapidly. "A few days. Maybe a week, depending on how often you use your abilities."
Johnny nodded, absorbing the information.
"So I still gotta be careful."
"Yes," Reed said firmly. "Very careful. The serum buys time—but every flame you ignite still erodes your body. Just slower."
Johnny's chest tightened.
"You're going to make a real cure, right?"
Reed didn't look up as he answered—he didn't need to.
The certainty in his voice was enough.
"I will. But it won't be easy. Or fast. This is uncharted science, Johnny."
He finally looked at him, eyes resolute.
"But I promise you this—no matter how long it takes, I'm not giving up on you."
Johnny sat back in the chair, exhausted but strangely relieved.
However, while he sat, Reed didn't stop working even after injecting the serum. He kept moving between monitors and strange cylindrical devices filled with glowing blue liquid, checking readouts, typing furiously, muttering equations under his breath. Johnny sat on a metal examination bed nearby, flexing his fingers as the mild sting in his arm faded.
"So…" Johnny finally broke the silence, "are you ever gonna tell me about you and the big guy? Ben, I mean."
Reed paused mid-note, stylus hovering above a digital pad. Then he placed it down with a sigh—more tired than annoyed—and adjusted his glasses.
"Ben Grimm," he said, "is… well, he's the best friend a man could ask for. We grew up together in the Lower East Side. I was the scrawny kid buried in books. He was the tough kid who made sure no one stole those books."
Johnny snorted. "Yeah, he looks like the type who'd break a guy's arms for touching someone's homework."
Reed gave a small smile. "He might've done that once. Or twice." Then he turned back toward the console. "But he's loyal. He keeps me grounded at the real world. At least, most of the time."
Johnny let that settle, watching Reed carefully calibrate a machine with needle-thin precision. For someone so utterly lost in math, Reed actually sounded… human.
"And what about you?" Johnny asked. "Connors told me you're like some kind of super-genius physicist guy."
"That's… accurate." Reed rubbed the back of his neck. "I specialize in applied physics, theoretical biology, astroengineering, and a few other disciplines. But none of that is particularly interesting."
"Reed," Johnny said flatly, "you literally just listed like five fields nobody understands on Earth. That's very interesting."
Reed blinked, as if surprised anyone would think so, then returned to scribbling formulas.
Johnny looked around the lab again—at the towering steel pillars, the bright holographic screens filled with diagrams, the strange rotating construct in the center of the room that looked like it came out of a sci-fi movie.
And then something else caught his eye.
"…Okay, so this might be a dumb question," Johnny said, pointing at one of the large blue insignias painted on the wall. "But why are there so many number fours everywhere? I counted like, what, twelve from the elevator to here?"
Reed stopped. Turned. And for the first time since Johnny had met him… he looked almost shy.
"Oh. That." He cleared his throat. "It's for good luck."
Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Good luck?"
"Yes." Reed nodded once, stiffly. "Four has always been a lucky number for me. When I was seven, my mother gave me a four-leaf clover before a science fair. I won first place. After that, I… may have incorporated the number into several aspects of my work."
Johnny looked around again. "Several? Dude, the whole building looks like you married the number four."
"It's efficient branding!" Reed corrected—too quickly.
Johnny laughed, unable to help himself. Reed rolled his eyes but there was a tiny, embarrassed curve to his mouth.
"So you and Ben built this place together?" Johnny asked, still amused.
"Hardly." Reed shook his head. "I designed it. Ben made sure I didn't accidentally build something unsafe. Though that is… debatable." He gestured at a sparking coil in the corner, which Ben had earlier warned Johnny not to touch "unless you want your skeleton on the outside."
Johnny swung his legs idly, thinking. "You guys sound like an odd pair."
"We are," Reed admitted. "But sometimes the world needs odd pairs."
Johnny leaned back on the lab table, curiosity bubbling up again. "So… what about MIT? You mentioned getting research funding from them. What was that like? Being, you know…" He gestured vaguely. "A mini Einstein at fourteen."
Reed paused mid-typing, his fingers stopped hovering over the holographic keyboard. For a moment, he looked like he was trying to decide how much to divulge.
Then he sighed. "MIT was… complicated."
Johnny blinked. "Complicated how?"
"I was extremely young," Reed said plainly. "I entered at fourteen, graduated with my first doctorate at eighteen, and pursued further research immediately after. Academically, it was exhilarating. Socially…" He winced slightly. "Not so much. Most students were adults. Many professors did not appreciate being corrected by someone who was barely tall enough to reach the chalkboard."
Johnny snorted. "Let me guess: you corrected them anyway."
"I had an obligation to accuracy," Reed insisted.
From across the room, Ben muttered, "Translation: he couldn't keep his mouth shut even if you bribed him with a lifetime supply of calculators."
Reed ignored him.
"But no, Ben and I did not attend the same college," Reed continued. "He went to State University at eighteen. Normal age. Normal life. Friends. Football games. Social activities." He said the last part with a faint, almost wistful tone he probably didn't realize he was revealing.
Johnny tilted his head. "And you two weren't in touch then?"
"Not much," Reed admitted. "I was fully immersed in my research. Ben was busy surviving the East Side and earning a football scholarship. Our paths diverged for several years."
Ben walked by with a stack of metal components under one arm, shaking his head. "Reed says 'diverged,' but what he means is he forgot regular human beings existed for half a decade."
"I did not forget," Reed said, indignant. "I simply prioritized my studies."
Johnny raised a brow. "Which is Reed-language for 'totally forgot.'"
Ben smirked. "Kid gets it."
Reed opened his mouth to protest again… then shut it, realizing he was outnumbered.
"But," he continued, clearing his throat, "when I returned to New York after my doctoral work, I needed someone I could trust to help manage the logistics of establishing a research facility. I needed someone grounded and esponsible. But also someone who could lift heavy machinery without damaging it—or themselves."
Johnny grinned. "So you went looking for Ben?"
"No," Ben said, setting the parts down with a clang. "The thing went like this—he showed up at my door at seven in the morning with blueprints taller than he was back then, asking if I wanted to help him build a 'scientific headquarters.'"
Johnny looked between them, amused. "So you built the Baxter Building lab together… even though you went to different colleges, lived different lives, and didn't talk for years?"
Reed nodded. "Correct. Some partnerships resume naturally—even after time apart."
Ben crossed his arms but nodded once, it was as if a quiet agreement passed between them.
Johnny watched the exchange in silence, with a faint warmth blooming in his chest. Reed and Ben weren't just coworkers—they were family, even if they'd taken wildly different roads to get there. Two lives that had split, wandered, grown apart… and still managed to reconnect like it was always meant to be.
It made Johnny think.
Not about Reed and Ben—but about Chicago.
About his driends.
Mark was probably doing fine—he was pretty strong. And his mom, Debbie, would keep him grounded, plus, he knew Cecil had clearly started sniffing around him as the "next big thing." Mark could handle himself.
But Eve…
His chest tightened.
Eve was different.
She had left the Teen Team HQ with tears on her eyes when she found Rex and Dupli-Kate together—three Kates, for god's sake—and Johnny had been right there when her whole world snapped.
He hadn't heard from her since. Not a call. Not a text. Nothing yet.
And now he was in New York, in a gleaming futuristic lab, talking about four-leaf clovers and childhood friendships… while Eve was probably feeling alone back home.
A knot formed at the pit of his stomach.
"...Johnny?" Reed's voice broke through gently. "You look distracted."
Johnny blinked and sat up. "Huh? No, sorry—just thinking."
"Dangerous habit for a teenager," Ben muttered without looking up.
Johnny forced a small laugh, but his mind drifted again—back to a redheaded superhero girl.
And he wondered if she was doing okay.
Johnny stared at the floor for a long moment, the weight in his chest refusing to go away. So finally, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
Reed raised a brow. "Is everything all right?"
"I… need to check on someone," Johnny murmured.
Ben didn't comment; he just kept tightening bolts on a massive cylindrical machine, but Johnny caught the brief, understanding glance he shot his way.
He stepped a few paces aside, near a quiet corner of the lab, and pressed Eve's contact.
For a second, he thought about hanging up.
She hadn't answered in over a day. Maybe she didn't want to talk. Maybe she—
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Then he heard a soft click at the other line.
"…Johnny?"
His heart jumped. "Eve? You picked up!"
There was a small pause, her voice seemed tired. "Yeah. Sorry. It just…all of what happened was… a lot."
"No, don't apologize." Johnny ran a hand through his hair, relief washing over him. "I'm just glad you're okay. I was worried. Like—really worried. Where have you been?"
"At my parents' house," she said. "I needed to get away from Teen Team right now and I didn't had any other place so..."
Johnny nodded even though she couldn't see him. "Makes sense. And I'm sorry I tried to reach you sooner but you weren't answering. So I stopped trying as I just—I didn't want to bother you."
"You're not bothering me," Eve said quickly. "Actually… it's nice to hear your voice."
Johnny's chest tightened again, for a very different reason this time.
They talked quietly for a minute—about nothing important. Weather. School. How weird funerals are. How messed up Rex was.
Then Eve hesitated.
"Hey… Johnny?"
"Yeah?"
"You're still in Chicago… right?"
Johnny glanced at Reed calibrating something that looked like a portable particle reactor and winced. "Technically? No. I'm in New York. It's a long story."
Another pause.
"Oh. Well…" Her voice softened. "If you get back in town today… would you maybe want to come over? My parents are out tonight. It'd be nice to… not be alone."
Johnny froze.
His brain stalled. But his heart didn't.
"You… want me to come to your house?" he asked, stunned.
"Yeah," Eve said, almost whispering. "I do."
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