Mr. Fantastic

Carol smiled softly, she wasn’t the best gift wrapper herself and the whole thing screamed of effort. The effort was what she cared about. “That’s so sweet Reed, thank you, really.”  She carefully unwrapped the box, trying not to tear the paper too much, but with the tape haphazardly wrapped around the whole thing she ended up just having to rip through it all to open the box.  Inside was a collar, obviously the right size for a cat, that had a blinking light on it like she’d seen on various types of space helmets. “So Goose can fly with me! Reed that’s absolutely amazing!” 

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        “Anytime.” Reed replied with a smile. He was glad that she liked it and hopefully would get a lot of use out of the gift. It was all he really wanted from the little tinker project. “Hopefully Goose’s head fits in it. I didn’t have his measurements so I-” He stopped himself from going on a tangent about researching average cat neck and head sizes. Carol didn’t care about any of that. “Let me know if it needs adjustment.” 

“Yes well we’d hate to make anything inconvenient to those you care for” Victor replied setting down the plate on the counter before moving to make a couple of cups of coffee one for Reed and himself. “How sweet to even think of giving someone burnt cookies, I suppose the thought that counts and all” He replied before moving towards his fridge “Cream or sugar?”

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      "I'm glad that you can agree." Reed knew that Victor was being sarcastic, but it didn't change his agreement to the statement. Walking into the other man's home, he kept his guard up. Doom was unpredictable. "I didn't think about it." He replied bluntly. "Cream, no sugar."

Sue felt a little pang in her chest when Reed mentioned Ben. Whenever any one of them was missing, things just didn’t feel right for her, and she worried about them – not just Ben, while he was gone, but Reed and Johnny, too. They were always stronger together. “I wish he was here,” she said, nibbling on the inside of her lip. “Have you heard from him?” She gave a little yawn as he spoke and nodded, not entirely sure she’d be awake by the time the pizza got here. “Absolutely,” she said, with a little smile as she looked up at him. “The WiFi is set up. Do you want to watch a movie?”

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       "I do too." Reed told her honestly. It was strange to be apart from Ben for so long. They were pretty much inseparable, especially after the accident. No one except Sue and Johnny could understand what they had gone through - not truly. "No," he shook his head, trying not to let his frown touch the corner of his lips. "That sounds perfect. What’s that movie you've been wanting me to watch? We could watch that one." Normally, Reed didn't enjoy sitting in front of a tv, but for Sue he would do anything.

Carol walked into the lab and stopped dead in her tracks. It wasn’t that she’d never been on a top scientist’s lab before but this was on a whole other level. She stumbled for a moment, “You…you,” she cleared her throat, “ahem…you said you had something to show me.”  Carol walked further into the lab, surveying the various projects in different levels of experimentation. “From the looks of it you have a lot of somethings.” 

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      “Oh Carol.” Reed jumped out of his stool, pulling his face away from the microscope he had been using to observe the behavior of a microorganism for a different project. He had fallen behind on that, working on something for Carol instead. The idea had struck him and he couldn’t stop thinking about it until it was done. Now that it was, he asked her to come see it. “Perfect timing.” Looking around the lab, he shrugged before his eyes met hers once again. “This something is for you though.” Walking to the other side of the lab, he grabbed an object wrapped in the best gift wrapping he had ever done (meaning it looked like it was in shambles, the wrapping barely covering the gift). “This is for you.” Reed set it down on the table next to her, watching expectedly as he waited for her to open it. 

Sue nibbled on her lip thoughtfully, thinking of what her husband and her brother would like. She would happily eat whatever they wanted. “Half pepperoni, half sausage,” she said after a moment. She smiled as Reed put his arm around her, wrapping hers around his waist and happily burying her face against his chest. “Good, good,” she murmured, looking up at him. “I know how particular you are about your lab. It’ll get there though.” She lifted her face up to Reed as he spoke, smiling again. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ve been unpacking all day. If I see another cardboard box right now I might scream.”

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      “Half pepperoni, half sausage.” he confirmed out loud as he added the pizza to their cart. After paying and receiving a confirmation notice, he put the phone back in his pocket. Holding Sue in his arms, he relaxed for the first time all day. “I need Ben to come help me with it.” Ben had always been able to see what Reed missed. When something felt off, it was him that could fix whatever it was bothering Reed. He let out a soft laugh, leaning down to kiss his wife. “All that work paid off. I think it’s time to relax. What do you say?”

“Huh? Oh, nah, I wasn’t taste testing it. I was hungry.” Gosh, all he had to do was be honest, and it was so much funnier to watch the other’s expression. The amusement wasn’t enough to make his slight nervousness go away though. He sighed, rolling his eyes and quickly grabbing a tablet to look through some notes someone had left there. They made no sense to him, but at least he didn’t have to look Reed in the eye. “Nothing! I just… made a joke that wasn’t so well received I guess. Not everyone has the same humor as you and I.” He glanced up, wanting to check Reed’s expression again, but regretting it immediately. He should’ve known it wasn’t the time to be funny.

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      "Oh, okay." He nodded. This was normal - an almost daily, more likely weekly occurrence with Johnny around. Who needed kids when you had a brother-in-law who could eat you out of house and home? "What was the joke?" Reed needed to think of something to rectify the situation so that they didn't lose the funding they needed, and the only way he could do that was by knowing what Johnny had said.

Sue looked around as she heard Reed’s voice, a smile touching her lips. “Pizza sounds good,” she said, wiping her hands on the dishtowel she had slung over her shoulder. With everything unpacked in the living room, she’d been dusting off the mantel so she could put up pictures. “Don’t forget the garlic knots. Johnny really loves those.” The assumption being that Johnny would be eating out of their kitchen some point in the near future. She smiled up at him, reaching up to put her hands on his shoulders. “How’s the lab looking? Everything ready?”

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       "Pepperoni or something else?" He asked, pulling his phone from his back pocket so he could order for them. "Garlic knots." He said out loud, adding them to his cart. Wrapping his free arm around Sue's waist, he placed a kiss on the top of her head. "It's coming along. It looks great in here, though." Reed said, picking his head up to look around.

Victor eyed the other for a moment “Both Johnny and Sue hold my number you could’ve asked them. But then again I doubt we could’ve gotten through a conversation without you throwing your phone at the wall.” He replied looking at the plate of cookies sure they haven’t fought in a long time given Victor had much better things to do than play villain to his little rag tag group. “From Sue I’m sure?” he mused taking the plate it was actually quite kind to even have been thought of. “Did you want to stay for a cup of coffee or something? In honor of peace and such.”

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       "I could have, but that would have been an inconvenience to people I love," Reed said, not bothering to address the second part. Victor was trying to antagonize him - something he was used to by now. "From the team, but she baked them otherwise they'd be burnt." Reed didn't want to stay any longer than he had to, but he had promised Sue he would try before he left. "Why not."

“Hey! I wasn’t going to pull it apart.” Pym said pouting immediately like he used to when he was much younger. “Programmed my biometrics into the system…Wait I wasn’t supposed to say that, but honestly I just kind of walked in.”

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        "No, you were just going to knock it over and break it," Reed replied, not falling for the pout. "Of course you did." There had to be a better way to secure the floor. There were too many generally dangerous experiments and chemicals for people to be able to walk in when they felt like it. "When did you do that?"

Reed Richards there was no greater hatred than what he felt for this man but alas they’d grown in their time apart, Victor went to rule and had other things to bid his attention outside of the male before him. “You know its proper manners to call ahead before just dropping by someone’s house unannounced. But then again I’m sure hanging out with people like Ben Grim something is bound to rub off on you.”  He replied, sighing letting the other in “To what do I owe the displeasure Richards?”

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      “I would have been able to if I actually had your phone number, but I must have lost it in the mood? Don’t talk about Ben like you know him.” Coming here had been a bad idea, one made clearer by Victor’s poor attitude. “Sure asked me to drop this off. It’s a peace offering I think.” He pushed the plate of covered cookies forward, offering them to the man he had once considered a friend.

“Hey! So I was thinking–” Johnny pushed some of the paperwork to the side on one of the desks so he could set the plate of sandwich down. Well… three quarters of a sandwich. He got hungry on the way. “My sister sent this, by the way. So, I got a question.” Johnny finally swallowed that bite of the sandwich he took before, then started poking around with some of the stuff on the desk. “Hypothetically… If I accidentally offended someone pretty important and they were threatening to cut some of our funding what uhh… like, would we still be fine, orrr…?”

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      Reed peered down at the sandwich Johnny placed near him, a suspicious brow raised. “And you decide to taste test it for me?” He asked, reaching for the plate. Inspecting the sandwich, he took his own bite out of the opposite end. “What did you hypothetically do to accidentally offended someone important enough to threaten to cut some of our funding?”

       Reed walked into the living area on the 31st floor, looking for Sue who had been unpacking boxes for their living area when he had seen her last. Most of his day had been spent unpacking the 33rd floor where his laboratory was. “How does pizza sound?” He offered, not wanting either of them to have to cook tonight.

        “Yes?” Reed asked, turning around when he heard someone walk into his lab. Making eye contact with Johnny, he turned his stool so that his body was facing his brother-in-law. “What can I do for you?”

       “Be careful.” Reed said turning around to see the young kid in his lab. “Don’t touch that.” His arm stretched, reaching out to grab the beaker out from in front of him. Pulling his arm back, he placed it beside himself on the counter. “How did you get in here?”