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Sue knew that there was a problem when she saw Reed’s arm.
It wasn’t his whole arm. It looked like a section from about his upper wrist to just below his bicep. That wasn’t the problem. The fact that said arm was currently stretched along the bottom of the aisle was the issue. She stared at where it emerged from beneath the canned drinks shelf and followed it to where it disappeared below racks of chips. He was lucky that woman with the overloaded shopping cart was still a few rows away.
“Darling,” she called out, “your arm’s in aisle seven!” She used a near shout because experience had taught her not to assume where his ears might be.
Reed’s reply, when it came, was surprisingly close. “No need to yell. I’m on the other side.” There was a quiet, resigned sound to his voice. Sue quickly made her way around.
Her husband, the self-proclaimed “Mr. Fantastic,” was in an ugly sprawl on the floor of aisle six. He wasn’t quite a puddle, but his body had that loose taffy-like quality that he sometimes got when he was intent on using a specific limb. She smirked.
“Clean-up on aisle six.”
Reed looked up at her, with his patented “stern” look, and she enjoyed the answering flutter in her belly. She would never tell him, but she thought of it as his “hot professor” stare.
“This isn’t funny,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows as if to disagree, but only said, “What happened?”
“Margarita mix,” he said grimly, saying it the same way he might have said “Doombot attack” or “negative wave portal collapse.” Sue placed her hands on her hips and waited for the full explanation. He sighed. “It’s that stuff in the yellow packet that you like. There was only one left. I…sorta fumbled it underneath the shelf. I thought it would be easy to reach, but there were unforeseen obstacles under there and then I sorta got turned around…” He trailed off, looking chagrined.
“You’re clear across the far aisle,” Sue replied, only partially succeeding in suppressing her smile.
He sighed. “So much for our romantic shopping trip.”
“I don’t know,” she said, letting her half-smile acquire a wicked edge, “I think this has some possibilities.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I know that look. Don’t get any ideas. I’m not trapped, I just overextended a bit. Extricating myself could damage the shelving. Use a force field to lift this up?” He tilted his head and gave her a stare that he probably thought was boyishly appealing. Conceited man. Boyishly appealing conceited man.
She tilted her head right back. “What do I get if I do?”
He blinked in surprise, and then the tension went out of him with a quiet breath of laughter. She liked that she could have that effect on him. “A kiss,” he said.
“Just a kiss?” Sue asked teasingly.
“Very well,” he replied in a mock huff, “I will give you an exceptional kiss.”
“I like those terms, not gonna lie, but this arrangement is kinda sketchy. I’m doing all the work up front. How do I know you’ll deliver payment?”
Reed’s smile grew into a full grin. With a gleam in his eye he lifted his head up, and up, and up, until it was eye level with her, his neck a silly-putty column stretching back to his body. She laughed as he moved in closer, but the laugh died as his lips brushed up against hers.
He kissed her with deceptive tenderness. An onlooker wouldn’t understand how he did it with such devastating focus, as if for that instant his titanic mind was turned entirely towards solving the equation that was Sue Richards.
This was hers, and hers alone. He was hers. The passionate man that lurked deep beneath the facade of the super scientist and world-class hero. The real Reed. He was a secret she intended to hold on to forever. She didn’t want to share it, even if she had to deal with the frustration of knowing how much the world got wrong about her husband.
He broke the kiss and searched her face with hooded eyes. “Did I fulfill my end of the bargain?”
“You did,” she whispered, not surprised to hear the husky edge in her voice. Forcing herself to look away from her fantastic spouse, Sue studied the giant shelving unit stretching in both directions. Not more than a few tons. Shouldn’t be too tough. The real test of skill was if she could do it without spilling any of the stocked items.
Reed had pulled his head back into its regular position. He rested it against the hand of his non-trapped arm, fixing her with a look of mild challenge. “So far all the help I’ve received has been…invisible.”
Sue rolled her eyes and then turned to face the wall of stocked goods. She spread her hands away from her body and summoned the power within her, a gift of the cosmic rays that had bound all of the Fantastic Four into an unbreakable family. She sent out a massive wave of pure force, but slowly, taking care to shape it with vague hand movements into one massive sheet spreading underneath the shelving unit.
“Careful…” Reed cautioned, a mild frown forming on his face, “getting a bit squished here.”
“Let me work,” Sue answered. It really was quite tricky. Not the lifting, but keeping everything…absolutely…balanced. She slowly raised the force field, pouring her inner strength into the effort. With a barely detectable groan, the entire shelving unit slowly heaved itself up. One foot…two feet…four feet.
Reed pulled in his arm and quickly rolled up onto one knee. He flexed his shoulder a few times to loosen it before turning to regard her with a look of such pure admiration that it threatened her concentration. “Perfectly level,” he marveled. “Well done, darling.”
“And it’s not easy to keep doing.”
“Oh! Sorry.” Reed bent down, his head scanning left and right. “Aha! Wow, I was way off.” His arm shot out 10 feet to grab a familiar-looking yellow packet. It was her preferred margarita mix—whenever they went to the trouble of making margaritas. The last time had been months ago. She felt a thrill of warmth knowing he had recalled such a small detail. “Sue?”
“Huh, what?”
“I said we’re good. You can lower it down.”
Responding to a sudden impulse, Sue cocked her hip and gave him a smirk. “Great. Then I’ll just get back to my shopping.” She sashayed underneath the hovering shelving unit—the floor really did need cleaning—and then gently lowered it between them, grinning at her husband’s protested “Hey!”
She chuckled, and went back to scanning the shelves for the tostada chips they both liked.
“Not so fast, young lady!”
Reed’s upper body suddenly appeared over the top of the shelf, stretching up until his head almost brushed the twenty-foot ceiling. When he was tall enough, two looong legs stepped easily over the entire shelf. He shrunk quickly back down, timing it so that his arms were around her when he resumed his normal proportions, a height that was just as perfect as the rest of him.
“What, did you need something else?” She asked, raising her eyebrows.
“You forgot your tip.” His head descended to hers, and this time the kiss was…mmm…less gentle. It went on until her arms had wrapped around him and his had wrapped around them both several times. It went on until attraction crackled between them like a dangerous electrical charge. It went on.
“Attention aisle six…” A different crackle, that of the overworked store-wide intercom, slowly broke into their world of two. “Aisle six—that is, Mr. and Mrs. Richards…” There was an awkward throat-clearing. "Please don’t make me remind you of this store’s policy in regards to…public displays. Again.”
They broke the kiss and stared at each other for a few seconds, and then broke into an infectious round of muted laughter. He unwrapped himself, taking somewhat more time on her contours than was strictly necessary.
“You’d better grab the chips, Mrs. Richards, before we make any more of a scene.” Reed’s eyes swept over her, his face still wearing a somewhat feral smile. Another thing that only belonged to her.
She walked away, any memories of a specific brand tumbling out of her mind. Hard to concentrate when all her thoughts were increasingly focused on one thing. She spotted the first remotely acceptable bag and walked over, giving the natural sway of her hips a little more oomph. That should give his mind an equal challenge to deal—
A sharp palm-squeeze on her rear made Sue stumble to a halt. She whipped around to see her husband standing halfway down the aisle, arms behind his back, an angelic expression on his face. His look turned mildly inquisitive, as if to ask “what?”
She slitted her eyes. “Go to check out. You lead the way.”
“Happy to, darling.” He set the pace and she followed behind him, fully enjoying the view as she made plans for her revenge. Reed was amazing thinking on his feet, but she was the team’s strategic mastermind.
So let him think he won all through check-out and into the parking lot. They would load up the groceries and climb into the old MK 1 Fantasticar that they used for errands, and she would let Mr. Fantastic keep wearing the annoying “winner” smile she found so endearing.
Then she would strike.
They would still have their romantic dinner, but some needs were more…pressing. Once in the air, she would put in a command override and take the craft to ten-thousand feet. Then she would lock-out the controls for an hour. And finally, when she had him where she wanted him, Sue Richards would do something that was his secret to keep, a trick that involved making her uniform invisible while she slowly removed it, piece by piece. She had no doubt his uniform would quickly follow.
And then they would both claim final victory. Over and over.