flame on.

@oftorch

(✉ → flame brain ☀️): johnny (✉ → flame brain☀️): did you tell jjj that i knocked over a hot dog stand and then ate all of the hot dogs that got on the street? APPARENTLY somebody did

@oftorch

(✉ → torch 💜): Hi Johnny! (✉ → torch 💜): If there was theoretically a spider in my apartment, would you get rid of it? It is a very big spider and I’m scared if I bend reality to get rid of it, more may come.

Attending a party with Johnny felt natural. When they had been together, they’d gone to countless, and though Wanda rarely felt comfortable in crowds, Johnny always relaxed her. Despite the time that had passed, that hadn’t changed now. Johnny’s presence was soothing and it made the situation feel far more manageable. Johnny and Pietro both had that effect on her, and Wanda was always grateful for it.

Thankfully, Johnny wasn’t interested in listening to Norman Osborn either. Wanda had never doubted it, Johnny’s attention span was short, and he was about as interested in politics as Wanda and the entire situation felt artificial. “I’m so happy to hear that,” she replied, genuinely meaning it. When Johnny reached out for her hand, Wanda paused for a moment. Taking it would be easy, it wouldn’t hurt anyone, and they were both affectionate… but before Wanda could accept Johnny’s gesture, he was pulling away. “We can hold hands, can’t we?” Wanda asked quietly, following behind Johnny, genuinely curious about his reply. She didn’t see any harm in it.

Neither of them was particularly good at listening to old men with large egos. Johnny got enough of that from Dr. Doom, and he suspected Wanda had gotten plenty of it from Magneto. Neither of them wanted to have to deal with it from Norman Osborn, particularly not when they both had way more interesting things on their mind. They were at a party to have fun. They couldn’t do that by listening to Osborn’s speech. “You’re not surprised to hear it, I hope,” he laughed. Wanda knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be about listening to Osborn drone on.

She didn’t miss his botched attempt at grabbing her hand, and Johnny wasn’t surprised. Wanda didn’t miss much, especially where he was concerned. He glanced up at her question, smiling softly and shrugging a shoulder. “We can hold hands,” he agreed, offering it back to her. It wouldn’t hurt anything, would it? Friends held hands with other friends! That was a thing! He’d held Peter’s hand before! And Daisy’s, and Rogue’s, when she had gloves on. He was a hand holding machine! There was no harm in it.

Death was far more than simply… dying. Death terrorized all of the people you left behind and grief seized them. Wanda had seen proof of that in Pietro, who drank continuously despite his system being largely unaffected. (She also saw proof of it in her brother’s lack of desire to live after she was gone, though Wanda refused to dwell on that or imagine where Pietro would be if she had never come back.) Loss changed people at the core, made them unrecognized, whether it was for better or worse. Thanos’s horrors had touched every single living soul on Earth and the fact that it had been reversed didn’t magically change that. People were still tormented, still terrified, and while Wanda hadn’t suffered in the way the living had, the guilt would follow her until the end of her days. She wondered if Johnny felt the same, he had always been prone to self blame but asking felt far too intrusive.

As Johnny went to apologize for dying, Wanda took a step closer to him. “It’s not weird,” she said quietly. “But apologizing also makes it seem like you’re taking responsibility and it’s not your fault you died.” After a moment, Wanda thickly added, “Either time.” She would never fault Johnny for his choice to stay in the negative zone. His sacrifice was understandable, though devastating. “I’m just happy you’re back now,” she said quietly. It was what Wanda wanted to focus on, the fact that they were living now, capable of making up for lost time, but it was difficult. “Pietro’s been the same,” she replied. “What do they look like? Describe them to me,” Wanda requested, smiling faintly. Johnny was always good at giving her some sliver of happiness in the midst of difficult conversations. “You deserve to be happy, too,” Wanda reminded him. She couldn’t think of many people who deserved joy more than Johnny. “It’s not easy to be back,” Wanda admitted quietly. “But I’m glad we are.”

When he was in the Negative Zone, waiting for death to come up and meet him, Johnny realized something. He realized that death didn’t just happen to you. It happened to everyone around you. It happened to the people on the other side of the portal, the ones back in the Baxter Building who he’d forced to leave him behind. When Johnny died, it was quick. It was over. For his family, he knew it was more complicated than that. His death haunted them. He’d seen how they looked when he came back, the way they’d changed everything about their team when he was no longer on it. The black and white outfits that replaced the blue ones they’d worn his whole life, the haunted looks on their faces. For Johnny, death happened and it was over. For the people he’d left behind, it kept going. Wanda, he knew, was included in that. She’d loved him, too. He’d left her behind just as much as he’d left Peter and Sue and Reed and Ben. And then, he’d come back just in time to do it again. Did it make it better or worse that she hadn’t had time to mourn him the second time around?

He looked up at her, smiling briefly. It was a hard expression to keep up with a conversation like this. “I kind of chose it,” he reminded her, because he had. It had been him or his family, and it had been an easy choice. He’d shoved them out of that portal and he’d faced down an impossible task and he’d died for them, and he’d do it again. He’d do it again a thousand times. “Me, too. It’s --- It’s good to be back, isn’t it?” Some days, it didn’t feel good. He felt lost and confused and a little broken, but it was still good. It had to be. “I guess it was hard on everybody, huh?” It probably said a lot that he didn’t take the moment to take a shot at Pietro. Maybe he would have once, but not now. Not about this. A smile flickered across his face at her question, because this was a safer topic. “Black and white,” he said. “They’ve got, like... Spots? Super ugly. Peter wore one, so. I’m sure you can guess how ugly.” Peter was always wearing ugly stuff! That was his whole thing. It was tragic. He nodded as she continued, telling him that he deserved to be happy, too. “I’m trying,” he admitted quietly. It wasn’t easy. He didn’t know how to do it, but he was trying. That counted for something. “No, definitely not easy. But good. It’s good.” If he kept repeating it, eventually it had to sound true.

Sure, there was some weird part of Peter that wished he could talk about the being undead thing. He had zombie jokes lined up for that particular discussion, but it wasn’t happening anytime soon. Aunt May still looked at him like a ghost and she squeezed way too tight every time they saw each other, Johnny looked like he was faking it the same way Peter was, and MJ was just… MJ, faking it, but more convincingly than the rest of them. She really would make a great actress. That was the extent of Peter’s friends and right now, Peter wasn’t even sure he could handle the discussion. Avoiding was the better option. “Yeah, yeah, I know you love me,” Peter replied, waving off Johnny’s comments with a smile. “All right, I’ll web the money down and the pizza up,” Peter decided, his tone thoughtful. Pizza was a big decision! He needed this to be a safe operation. “How many pizzas have you burned, dude?” He asked, laughing. Johnny would have been so annoyed! “Nope, no way. I’ve been practicing for this since I was fourteen.” Once the order was placed, Peter turned to face Johnny. “I missed pizza, y’know,” he said, and that was the closest he’d come to referencing the whole death.

No one was really okay. The world had ended, half of the population had died. And they’d fixed it, they had... but they still weren’t okay. The people who’d been left behind had to readjust to a world with twice as many people than they’d had for the last five years, and those of them who’d died... Johnny didn’t think any of them were coping very well. He knew he wasn’t. How could they? How did you even begin to readjust to a world that had moved on without you? Peter looked haunted, and Johnny had no doubt that he looked the same, but they didn’t have to talk about that. They didn’t want to talk about that. They wanted to be Peter-and-Johnny, the way they’d been before the world fell apart. And, right now, there was no one here to stop them. “Every hero’s got a soft spot for his biggest fan, right?” Johnny shot back with a grin. The grin widened as he heard Peter’s plan, and he clasped his hands together next to his face and batted his lashes. “My hero,” he said dramatically. “More than one!” He wasn’t ashamed of that! Even if he probably should have been. “This what you’ve been waiting for? Ben living your whole life looking for me to agree to a pizza eating contest?” The smile on his face faltered briefly, and he nodded. “Me, too.” He’d missed Peter, too, but saying that felt a little too close to something real.

Billy found himself constantly stumbling from one fight into another and while it was truly enjoying to be kicking some ass, he never thought an earth just about as messy as his own would exist in the multiverse. It was the Human Torch soaring through the sky that caught his attention this time, screams echoing from the streets of New York leading to the Central Park. With a flash of lightning striking Billy, his suit appeared on him and he blasted himself off the ground to insert himself in the battle. 

He shot a blast of blue misty energy at Mysterio but missed, emerging from below to levitate beside Johnny. He chuckled and shook his head at Johnny’s question. “Thanks. I dig this outfit too and would prefer if you don’t set it on fire.” He admitted with a small smile. “Don’t get me wrong– I’m a huge fan and as much as it would sound like an honor to be burned by you, that would hurt like hell.”

As the guy spoke, Johnny decided he liked him. He’d always had a soft spot for the heroes who quipped as well as they fought, something that was probably an inevitable side effect of being best friends with Spider-Man for fifteen years. Those guys like Daredevil and Moon Knight, the ones who were all broody and angry and shit, they got boring fast. Johnny liked a little more lightheartedness in his world-saving, and this guy seemed to have that down.

And the compliment didn’t hurt!

Grinning, Johnny nodded and flashed the vigilante a flaming thumbs up. “So, we’re in agreement. I won’t set your cape on fire. Cool.” It was nice to have an ally, even if he didn’t strictly need one. “We’ll settle for an autograph or something. I’ve been reliably informed that being burned does hurt.” Not that he’d know. He hadn’t been burned since before the accident, before he became the Torch. Throwing another fireball at Mysterio, Johnny glanced back to his new ally. “Hey, you got a name? I’m guessing you know mine.”

@oftorch

Against every rule in the book, Wanda was back.

And if she had made it back, the billions of dusted dead had come back, too. The ones who died fighting Thanos, the ordinary people who had no clue what was happening to them, and Johnny Storm. Pietro decided to investigate that last one, if only to see what all the fuss was about on Twitter. No other ulterior motives worth mentioning, obviously.

He dashed from one side of the city to the other in what felt like one prolonged breath, and then eased to a stop in the confines of Johnny’s apartment. His own floor, thanks to the Fantastic Four’s lifestyle. Pietro had to scoff. Stark had been the same. Johnny’s family had redesigned their suits and their logo in the interim of their youngest member’s disappearance, which made the decor even uglier than it had been before. What a shame. Pietro almost felt bad for them.

“There you are,” Pietro greeted, at last spotting Johnny on the balcony. He was either looking at the stars for a reason for all the bullshit the world had gone through, or praying for some brains to call his own, if Pietro had to guess. “I was wondering where you had ended up. When you didn’t grace my television with some idiotic stunt against Doctor Doom a few years ago, I assumed you joined the circus, or something similarly stupid.” 

He had been with Wanda all this time, though, Pietro knew. Someone she loved very deeply. 

That was…something to acknowledge, if not grudgingly appreciate. 

Johnny was alive. It was something he repeated to himself about ten times a day, like a reminder to keep it on the forefront of his mind. He was eating breakfast and he was alive. He was watching TV and he was alive. He was arguing with Ben and he was alive. He was taking a shower and he was alive. He was alive, he was alive, he was alive, he was alive. He wondered how many times he’d have to repeat it before it felt real. 

So far, he hadn’t managed it. He spent half his time waiting to wake up in the Negative Zone, the other half waiting to look down and see his hand slowly turning into dust. But he was alive and, so far, it seemed to be sticking. It seemed to be permanent. Most of the time, he was thankful for that.

Other times, Pietro Maximoff zoomed into the Baxter Building and Johnny wished longingly for the Negative Zone.

“Here I am,” he repeated, glancing back with a distasteful expression. “In my home. Where I live. Usually, it’s a place blissfully devoid of you, but apparently, my luck is really shitty today.” He rolled his eyes, gritting his teeth and trying to remind himself that Wanda would be mildly upset if he threw her brother off the balcony, even if Pietro probably would speed himself from dying somehow. “Aw, you were worried about me. Be still my heart.” His tone was dry and tight, because he did not want to talk about this kind of shit with Pietro Maximoff. he didn’t want to talk about anything with Pietro Maximoff. “Is that it, then? We’re done here? I would really like to be done here.” 

A lot of people Daisy cared about had ended up dusted by Thanos. She wished she could have been in the original battle against him in Wakanda, but SHIELD had had other important plans, and hey, Daisy wasn’t delusional enough to think that she was capable of turning the tide against the Mad Titan. The Human Torch had been there, Captain America had been there, Scarlet Witch had been there, and the Black Panther had been there… none of them had done a whole lot of good. Quake wouldn’t have ultimately made a difference and Daisy liked to believe that showing up for the one that ended him counted for something.

Still, it didn’t make it any easier to see the people she’d maybe, possibly let down. Johnny was one of a kind, Daisy adored him, and he’d died (again) for a long while. At least Johnny was still grinning, some things never changed. “FF doesn’t pay you well? They really need to. You’re the face of ‘em,” she joked, accepting the tacos with a grin. “Dude, I’d better be your favourite. I made your bed rock and all that.” Daisy deserved to make dumb jokes! “‘Sup with you? Been busy kicking butt lately?”

In a lot of ways, Johnny felt worse for the people who’d been left behind by Thanos’s culling. Dying had been traumatizing, sure, but living? That was its own special sort of hell. People who’d been left behind, like Daisy, had to live in a world where half of everyone they knew was gone. They had to live like that with no hope of undoing it for five years, and that had to be jarring. That had to be terrifying. Johnny couldn’t imagine it. 

But it didn’t matter now, right? They were back, and it was fine. They could all just... forget it ever happened. That was what Johnny planned to do, at least. Pretending things didn’t happen, that was his jam! That was what he was best at. “Reed tries to control my spending. Apparently, it’s not responsible to spend eighty-seven bucks on gourmet chocolate. He’s kind of a buzzkill.” Of course, Johnny’s bank accounts were kind of... non-existent at the moment. At some point, someone had closed them. He’d been dead for a while, so that made sense. That checked out. “I don’t know, Dais. I mean, Pete does that thing with the webs, which was pretty hot. And this one chick I used to fuck with had a shapeshifting thing, which... I mean, I’m sure you can figure out how that came in handy! Then there was the guy with the knife hands...” Johnny had a long, long list of ex-bed buddies, and a lot of them had pretty cool powers! “Ah, you know. The usual. Fighting guys dressed like escaped zoo animals, living it up. How about you? SHIELD good?”

@oftorch

Parties weren’t usually Wanda’s preferred way to spend an evening, but this was an important event for New York City. Norman Osborn was being hailed as a hero, someone who had helped all of New York during the time the city needed it most. Wanda could support that and it was important that she did as one of the Avengers who had… returned. Not only that, but Johnny had asked her to go with him, and though years had passed since they were last together, Wanda still had trouble saying no to anything that he asked of her. At least it was elegant, Wanda thought, looking around the crowd with a faint smile. Everyone had dressed up nicely for the event and while many people still looked troubled, Wanda was pleased to see a few people lighting up as the music played.

During Norman’s speech, Wanda looked over at Johnny and whispered, “He really likes to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?” She tried not to be ignorant, but he just seemed to keep droning on! “Do you want to find somewhere a little less… in the mix? That way we can talk until he finishes,” Wanda continued. Alone time with Johnny was better than this!

Parties had always been something Johnny adored. He loved large crowds of people, loved being able to lose himself in them. At a party, no one expected you to be anything but wild, and that was easy. Johnny’d been putting on the wild act for as long as he could remember. It was his favorite method of pretending nothing could touch him, mostly because it was pretty goddamn effective. You party hard enough, people were content to believe you were fine. Johnny loved that. 

Going to the party with Wanda had seemed natural, felt familiar in a way that was comforting. They used to do this sort of thing all the time, back when they were a ‘them.’ Every party the city threw that either of them had any kind of interest in they went to together, and it made it all the better. Asking her to this one had felt natural enough, but now that they were here, he wondered if it had been a mistake. They weren’t together now. But, hey, friends went to parties, too, right? Johnny tried to focus his attention on Osborn, but Wanda was right --- that guy could talk. He glanced over when she spoke again, making an offer that was all too tempting. “Oh, please,” he sighed. “This guy’s driving me crazy. C’mon, I know a place.” He reached for her, stopping in mid-air before he could grab her hand. His arm was frozen in the air for half a second before he dropped it, looking away and hoping she just wouldn’t mention it.

Everyone said newspapers were going out of style, Felicia included…until this morning. She’d picked up the Bugle earlier in disbelief, shocked by a headline so insane that she’d paid the vendor for it instead of swiping it when his attention was diverted. BACK, the paper blared, crammed with pictures of the Vanished, who’d reappeared in the streets with disoriented looks, AND BETTER THAN EVER. It was true. They were here, all of them, no worse for wear. She wished the same could be said for the likes of everyone else.

“Too long,” Felicia agreed, throwing her arms around him as soon as the flames petered out. Hugging Johnny Storm felt like getting cozy with a boiler in your basement, but Felicia didn’t mind. “You’re just scared I’d win,” she teased, drawing back a bit to sneer at him. “I’ve gotten a lot better since—since you were gone, you know. Even Daredevil spooks when I’m around.” Daredevil would sooner eat Felicia up for lunch, but Johnny didn’t know that.

“And don’t worry,” Felicia added, looking Johnny up and down. He didn’t look any different to the naked eye, but appearances were almost always deceiving. He probably hid a lot behind all those big grins and smug charm, like his feelings were under lock and key in a fireproof safe. “I know I’m only his side piece. I don’t like to interfere in your little bro affair.”   

Catching up on the news cycle wasn’t exactly Johnny’s first priority. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what his first priority was. He’d caught up with his family, he’d found Peter, but everything felt... a little emptier than it used to. Maybe it was the world. It had changed while he was gone, shifted and turned into something strange and unrecognizable. It was a little bit darker now, a little bit colder, and the only thing Johnny knew how to do to fight against that was turn up the heat. For him, that meant flying around the city on fire. 

But this... This was okay. Felicia hugging him on a dusty rooftop served as a nice reminder that he wasn’t in the Negative Zone anymore, wasn’t wherever he’d been for five years while the world continued moving on without him. He was here, on a roof, with his friend. And that was nice. “Too long for sure,” he agreed with a grin. “Oh, you’d totally win. I’d get my ass kicked, and that is not the kind of comeback I want to make here.” His smile faltered a little when she mentioned him being gone, but he kept it from fading completely. He was good at that. “Had time to practice, huh? Lucky I’m not Daredevil-smart or I’d be high tailing it outta here.” Like he’d ever been smart enough to run from a fight.

He laughed when she spoke, trying not to squirm under her gaze. Felicia wasn’t someone who missed much, and Johnny had a lot to hide. “As long as I’m still the center of his universe, we’re fine. Can’t have him off thinking about other people. I’ll get antsy.”

On the bright side, no one was really asking Peter questions about being dead. Johnny knew better… or maybe both Peter and Johnny knew better. Neither of them seemed willing to bring up the truth and honestly, Peter was happy about it. The longer he could avoid the whole being dead thing, the better. (When someone inevitably asked, Peter had some awesome zombie jokes lined up at least!) Even Aunt May never seemed to mention it, and Peter was really grateful for that. He couldn’t imagine how traumatizing it’d been for her and if Aunt May cried, he did, too, quite simply. As for MJ… well, he wasn’t sure what would happen there. MJ was one of his best friends, but she was also kind of avoidant and confrontational at the same time. (Obviously, Peter liked that about her, like most things.) “Dude, do you have a bad side?” Peter asked, keeping his tone light. It was true! Johnny always looked great! “Do you think a pizza guy would deliver up here or should I web down when they come?” He asked, pulling out his phone to order pizza. Thank god for online ordering. “I’m gonna get two Hawaiians and one pepperoni,” he decided. “We should have a pizza eating contest after the next villain tries to destroy New York.”

Talking about things was so not Johnny’s area of expertise. Setting things on fire was both easier and, in his opinion, more productive than going through the whole ‘I died a couple times’ conversation. Luckily, his best friend seemed to have a similar mindset. The two of them always managed to see each other’s side of things; that was why they’d been able to build such a long-lasting friendship. They got each other. It was nice. “Buddy, this is exactly why you’re my best friend. You’re damn right I don’t have a bad side.” God, he loved Peter Parker. He made a face at the question, shaking his head. “Yeah, I don’t think they do rooftop deliveries. You’re probably gonna have to web him up. I could pick it up, but, you know.” He shrugged, holding out a hand and letting it flame on briefly before shutting his powers off again. “Pizza’s flammable.” He'd learned that the hard way. “Sounds good. And I’ll kick your ass in a pizza eating concert, Parker.” Technically, he hadn’t eaten for something like seven years! He was starving. 

Johnny dying had never been something that Wanda considered when they had originally been together. She supposed it had been years ago now, but it felt recent, like a wound that had only just scabbed over. The temptation to reach out and touch Johnny, ensure that he was real, tangible, was strong, but Wanda resisted the urge. She clenched her fist at her side instead and pointedly looked at the ground for a moment. They may have lost five years, and Johnny had been dead long before that, but Wanda still cared deeply about him. At least he was alive now, Wanda reminded herself as her gaze returned to Johnny’s face. Johnny alive and breathing was something Wanda would be grateful eternally for, regardless of what form their relationship took.

“I missed y — “ Before Wanda could finish telling Johnny that she missed him constantly, she cut herself off, thinking better of it. Moments ago, she’d been elated to see him, and while that thrill remained, it was far more difficult than Wanda had anticipated. They had a history, and currently, that history was rife with losing each other. (And some love, too, which further complicated matters.) “Have you just been catching up with people?” Wanda asked, knowing full well that Johnny was not likely to be okay. Thanos had guaranteed that no one would be okay for a long, long time, even if the heroes had won in the end. “I’m trying to be… happy, I suppose,” Wanda said. She didn’t mention how deeply guilty she felt and she didn’t mention that she missed those years dearly. To Johnny, mentioning the latter would be wildly unfair. “I died,” she said, cringing as the admission came out. “Pietro lived and I died.”

Honestly, dying hadn’t come as a surprise to Johnny. Not really. He’d been a superhero since he was sixteen years old and, on some level, he’d always known that kind of limited his chances of dying of old age. It had sucked, it had been painful, but it had been predictable. He’d seen it coming. This was the part that came as a surprise. You heard about heroes dying and coming back, of course, but you never thought of it happening to you. You never imagined you’d be one of the million resurrection stories throughout the superhero community. You definitely never considered the fact that it might happen twice in quick succession. Dead, then alive, then dead, then alive. It’d been a wild ride, to say the least.

A faint smile flickered across his face when Wanda almost said she’d missed him again, fond and sad. “I know,” he murmured quietly. “I, uh... It’s weird if I apologize for it, right? Apologizing for dying feels... a little weird.” He’d done what he had to do, and he would have done it again in a heartbeat, but he was still sorry. He was sorry he’d left her with his aftermath, because she deserved better than that. She deserved so much better. “Yeah. Yeah, you know, uh, Sue barely wants me to leave the house anymore. They made new uniforms, I guess. The first time I was... Yeah. She gave me one, but it’s... I’m not gonna lie to you, Wands, they’re ugly.” He was struggling to keep his tone casual, struggling to try to talk to her without saying too much. Wanda had her own problems. She didn’t need Johnny’s. She probably didn’t want Johnny’s anymore, even if she’d still take them. She’d always been too selfless for her own good. He smiled when she spoke again, a flicker of pride in his chest when she said she was trying to be happy. “That’s good,” he said softly. “You deserve that.” And she didn’t deserve what came after. His smile faded, and it took everything in him not to reach out and touch her. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I... Yeah. Me, too.” Would she know that? Would she know he’d come back just to die again? Johnny wasn’t sure.

They assigned him a therapist. They probably did it for a lot of dusted people, probably figured it was a necessity when you'd come back to a world that moved on without you, but Johnny was pretty sure they'd assigned him a therapist a lot quicker than anyone else. He was, for all intents and purposes, a sentient nuclear bomb who'd just gotten himself killed several times in quick succession. So, yeah. Therapy.

Maybe he should have actually tried going, but talking about his feelings sounded like absolute Hell and the local taco truck was having a lunch special. So, instead of going to his therapy appointment, he loaded up on greasy tacos and showed up at Daisy's with a grin. "Don't worry," he greeted, "I kept them warm. Though, really, you should be buying my lunch. I'm not very liquid right now, what with the dying and all, but it's chill. I can spring for tacos for my favorite ex-bed buddy!"

Readjusting to being alive was... weird, to say the least. Johnny kept waiting to have the rug pulled out from underneath him, kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far, things seemed to be holding. Things were as steady as they’d ever been, as secure as before he’d gone into the Negative Zone. He was the only thing still shaking. It didn’t make it any easier to stay on his feet. 

The steadiest moments, ironically, came when he was fighting something. In the Negative Zone, fighting was kind of all he did. He fought and he died and he fought and he died over and over and over again, and it was familiar. It was easy. So when he saw Mysterio causing problems near Central Park, he jumped on it. He’d thrown himself into it without thinking, and he’d been fighting for close to ten minutes when he saw a burst of energy shoot up from below. He was half expecting Wanda but, instead, he found himself face to face with a stranger. “Are you on my side or his? Because if you’re on his side, I’m gonna have to set you on fire, and that would kind of suck because I seriously dig the outfit.” 

Felicia Hardy wouldn’t exactly call herself a hero. 

Heroics were reserved for all the peeps that pulled on their masks and jumped from buildings, hiding their hard-ons for justice and good will under all those lines of spandex. Really tight lines of spandex. Felicia was just…evening the odds. When the bad(der) guys got a little too cheeky and decided to hurt the people on the streets who couldn’t do anything to protect themselves, Felicia was around to stop it. Luck went both ways, good and bad.

She perched on a roof, scanning the neighborhood for threats. It was way too poor for her tastes, but up to its elbows in a crime wave. Felicia was doing her civic duty, that’s all. Not for any credit, which was what she’d tell the Spider if he ever—if she ever saw him again.

Felicia turned her head, listening. Someone joined her on the roof, but she wasn’t sure who.

“If you’re here for a fight,” she warned, flexing her claws, “I hope you ate your Wheaties.”

At this point, Johnny had spent a long time out of the game. He’d been in the Negative Zone competing in death battles for the amusement of a madman, then he’d been turned to dust by another madman. The logical voice in the back of his head, the one that always sounded a little bit like Reed, told him he should consider resting for a while. He should take a break, relax on the couch and avoid pushing himself too far too soon.

Johnny had always been really, really good at ignoring Reed.

So, here he was. Out above the city, flamed on and looking for trouble. It didn’t take him long to spot it, though he was grinning when he landed on the roof behind her. “Nah, I’ll leave that to Spidey. Wait, is it fighting or fucking that you guys are always doing up on the roofs? I can never tell.” He paused, grinning as he let the flames die down. “Been a while, huh?”

@oftorch

If there was one thing about life Peter had learned, it went on. And on. And on some more. Really, it was comforting. Even when he was mourning Uncle Ben, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders, earth just kept on spinning. When he had wanted to kill Johnny for being an idiot, his body continued, and so had his responsibility. Clearly, his lifelong comforting belief had some validity! Even when billions of people had died, including him, and including Johnny again, the world went on and the superheroes had won. He and Johnny were alive and breathing, they’d defeated Thanos, but it was a victory that felt hallow. Maybe that was natural after finding out you were dead for five years, Peter mused humourlessly. “Wanna get pizza?” Peter asked, forcing a smile on his face. If anyone would get how weirdly bitter and unsettled Peter was, it would be Johnny, but Peter was happy in Denial Land. It was like Disney only a little more grim! “I’m thinking Hawaiian, extra pineapple, just for the drama. I’ll snap a couple pictures of Spidey eating it for the Bugle’s Twitter to send the internet into a frenzy,” he joked.

Honestly, Johnny liked to think he was a pretty lucky guy. Maybe he’d gotten the short end of the stick a few times, but he had some constants in his life that were good. He had his family, his powers, his team. And he had Peter Parker. There were few people who understood him better, few people who Johnny knew as deeply as he knew Peter. When Reed made him record his stupid hologram will, there was no one else he ever even considered leaving his place on the team to. It was just Peter. It was always just Peter. Now that they were both alive again, they seemed to have an unspoken pact never to mention the whole ‘death’ thing, and Johnny was glad for it. Glancing over at his friend now, Johnny shrugged. “Sure,” he agreed. Eating pizza and avoiding real talk was a very classic Spidey and Torch activity! They were great at it now. They’d mastered it. “As long as you promise to get my good side. I’ve got fans I don’t want to disappoint, Pete, and you can’t go around letting them down.” Did he still have fans? He’d been dead a while, hadn’t he? God, if he was an irrelevant washup now he was going to scream.

@oftorch

If anyone understood how swift and brutal death was, Wanda liked to believe that it was her. She had witnessed her parents die, she had been a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and committed unthinkable acts in their honour, and the love of her life had died. There were moments where death seemed inevitable, like it was an unavoidable part of her journey, but Wanda refused to allow death to be a centric part of her life any longer. Miraculously, she had survived and so had the other billions of people that Thanos had destroyed. If that wasn’t cause for celebration, Wanda wasn’t sure what was. Optimism wasn’t always easy, and it certainly didn’t come naturally for her, but seeing Pietro and his relief and then seeing Johnny alive and well made optimism quite simple.

Despite her joy, Wanda found herself speechless in Johnny’s presence. Thanos hadn’t been the only villain to kill her ex-boyfriend and when he originally died, Wanda had loved him desperately. Now that they were both here, technically five years later, Wanda wasn’t sure where to begin. Ultimately, she supposed it didn’t matter — they had survived. If she kept reminding herself of that, Wanda hoped she would relax. “I missed you,” she said quietly, deciding that was a good place to start. “How have you been?”

At this point, resurrection wasn’t new to Johnny. In the Negative Zone, he’d died more times than he could count and been pieced back together over and over again, screaming back to life every time the bugs finished with him. He remembered what they’d said to him there, when he’d been brought back so often that he was more resigned to the process than anything else --- Dying suits you. And maybe it did. Maybe that was the best explanation for all this. He’d lived through the impossible so many times now, and for what? He lived through that space mission to end up in the Negative Zone, lived through that to get turned into dust. Who was to say it wouldn’t happen again? Resurrection was commonplace, but staying alive? That wasn’t something Johnny had nearly as much experience with.

Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t things worth staying alive for. When Johnny had stood in the Negative Zone knowing that someone wasn’t going to make it out alive, he’d run the risk in his head. He’d thought about how the world would go on without them all and, in the end, the one whose death would do the smallest amount of damage was him. But thinking of Wanda in those moments... It had almost been enough to change his mind. It had almost been enough to convince him to let someone else take that fall. If he’d done it, though, he knew it would have broken him. Letting someone else die when he knew it should have been him wasn’t something he could recover from, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt like hell. Knowing that he was leaving her behind stung. Seeing her now stung a little, too. “I missed you, too,” he said quietly, as if he didn’t trust his voice enough to raise it. “I’ve been...” Dead came to mind pretty much instantly, but that wasn’t the right thing to say here. “I’ve been okay. As okay as I can be. How are you. Were you...?” He knew the answer. She didn’t look worn the way the people who’d lived the last five years did.