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It was a busy time for The Fantastic Four. It seemed that the villains of the city had all collectively decided to attack at once. Mole Man, Mad Thinker, Red Ghost and Puppet Master all tried their shot at beating The Fantastic Four (and failed, of course). On top of all that, the interviews and the endorsements never stopped throughout all of this.
Needless to say, the four of them were exhausted. That's why they were beyond relieved that a free day finally made an appearance. No interviews, no adverts to shoot and no villains to defeat. A day all to themselves. They couldn't wait.
All four of them had a lazy morning. They had HERBIE bring them breakfast in bed to try and get the most out of their only free day in a while. At around about 11 o'clock, Sue came out of her room. A few minutes later, her husband trailed after her.
At around noon Ben came out of his room. After him, the other three expected Johnny to follow quickly after. However, after an hour of waiting, he had still not made an appearance. This wasn't like him at all so Sue decided to check on her little brother.
She walked over to his door and knocked, "Johnny, are you alright in there?"
Silence.
She let slip an old nickname in her worry, "Bud, are you awake?"
Still nothing.
She was tempted to go inside but refrained because of the sign on the door. The four of them had created a system of 'Do Not Disturb' signs since most of them didn't know what the word 'privacy' meant.
The sign on his door was flipped to signify that Johnny didn't want anyone entering his room. She would respect his privacy and leave, even if she was still worried.
However, she didn't want him starving so Sue walked back to the kitchen to get him something to eat for his lunch.
"HERBIE, did you give Johnny breakfast?" She asked as she passed him in the kitchen.
HERBIE gave a negative as he shook his head. Somehow he managed to look worried despite being a robot.
This made her even more worried, "Thanks, HERBIE."
The Invisible Woman walked back to her brother's room with a club sandwich with extra bacon. She placed in front of the door before saying, "I brought you lunch. I'll leave it outside."
No reply, again.
With a disappointed sigh, Sue walked away from the door. However, she felt slightly better when she heard the door open and close behind her. At least her baby brother wasn't going hungry.
The next two hours were excruciating for Sue. She kept looking at the corridor as if she was expecting her brother to walk through with his usual amount of swagger. It got so bad that even Reed noticed something was wrong.
"Are you okay, dear?"
"Hmm?" Sue was slightly caught off guard as she had zoned out, "Oh yeah. Fine. Just peachy."
The twin disappointed looks from both Reed and Ben made her wilt.
"Alright, alright. I'm just worried about Johnny. I haven't seen him all day."
"He's nineteen - a teenager. He's probably just experiencing hormones or something," Ben attempted to comfort.
Sue laughed to herself, "Do you remember what you were doing at that age?"
It was Reed who answered this time, "I was working on my fifth doctorate."
Sue and Ben immediately broke out into a fit of laughter at Reed's words and the way he said it. He was just so serious, despite the insane words. They were both about to calm down before seeing Reed's baffled face. It sent them into yet another bout of laughter.
It took them a few minutes to calm down after that. Sue reflected that it was nice to just have a moment to relax with her family. But, of course, something (or someone) was missing. Without Johnny there with them, it was kind of quiet. And not the good kind.
This made Sue make up her mind. She was going to get Johnny to come out of his room today - one way or another.
Without another word, Sue stood up from the couch and marched towards her brother's room. She ignored the confused calls of her husband and his best friend from the living room.
She knocked on his door again, a bit harder than last time. When again she got no answer she called out to him, "I'm coming in. You've been in there far too long. It's family time."
Without listening for a reply, she barged into his room.
"Oh, Johnny."
She could feel her heart break at the sight of her brother and his room. Every mirror in his room had been covered by a white sheet. On top of that, every picture of himself in his room had also been taken down and placed face down.
The only picture Sue could see was the one of all four of them right before the space journey. That photo was one of her favourites. It went from left to right: Ben, herself, Reed and then Johnny. Reed was sat down and Johnny held two fingers above his head in an attempt to do bunny ears. As always, her husband was completely oblivious.
The worst part of the room, however, was her little brother himself. He was curled up on his bed under the covers with the uneaten sandwich on his bedside table. He was facing away from her so she couldn't even tell if he was awake or not.
She decided to sit down on the bed next to him.
"Hey bud," she started, "Why are you staying cooped up in here?"
No response - not even any movement from him.
"Johnny, I know you're awake."
That seemed to catch him off guard. His eyes popped open in surprise only to make eye contact with Sue. His guilty expression made her smile slightly in fondness.
He shuffled guilty around to face her.
"Why are all the mirrors covered, hun? And don't lie. I'll know."
Johnny sat up to better talk with his sister, "I - I don't know. I didn't want to see myself... We've just been so busy and then I had to do that horrible endorsement. It didn't make me feel good."
Sure knew immediately which one he was on about. They didn't know what it entailed until it was too late to back out. They had Johnny wearing very little to advertise their new cologne. It had made her blood boil but Johnny had told her to leave it. It seems that it had affected him more than he let on.
"Johnny I'm so sorry that I ever let you do that."
"It's not your fault," mumbled Johnny.
Sue moved her so that her hand was holding Johnny's on the bed, "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I didn't think it was important," Johnny looked away in embarrassment.
"Of course it was important. Why would it not be?"
"You're all so busy... You have the Future Foundation and Reed has his big brain and his big projects and Ben's never here."
"Bud. Look at me." her little brother slowly moved his head to face her again, "We always have time for you."
"I'm not so sure Reed and Ben would agree."
At that exact moment, as if to prove his words wrong, Reed and Ben burst through the door. It caught both siblings off guard as the two best friends entered with a crash.
"We got worried - we hadn't seen Johnny all day and then you left and didn't come back for so long," rambled Reed, a little guilty.
Sue shot a pointed look in Johnny's direction. It seemed to say 'see, they're idiots about it but they care'. However, he was distracted from sending an answering glare back when Ben piped up, "Aw matchstick, I didn't realise that you left a sandwich for me."
Ben made a motion to grab the plate with the sandwich on it. Johnny yelped in panic as he moved to defend his sandwich from the attacker. He lit every part of his body except from his hands on fire to grab and defend the sandwich at the same time.
He proceeded to munch obnoxiously on the sandwich in front of Ben. He did this to purposefully annoy Ben, and it seemed to work as the rocky man lunged towards The Human Torch. He managed to barely dodge by flying out of the way.
This spurred a chase around the room that ended with both of them sprawled on the bed. Sue was about to lecture Ben before seeing the expression on his face. He'd done it on purpose to get Johnny to eat.
Huh. She was glad that at least someone else on this team had emotional maturity. At that thought, she looked at her husband beside her. He was looking thoughtfully at Ben and Johnny.
"What's going on inside that head of yours, baby?" She asked gently.
Reed heaved a big sigh, "Was this my fault as well? I had the whole idea to go famous and now... now I don't know if it was a good idea or not."
The Invisible Woman moved in front of her husband so he could no longer avoid eye contact with her, "We all agreed to do this. Besides, it's helped us all."
At this point, she gestured to the two brawling on the bed (it was a testament to how well made the bad was that it hadn't broken or burst into flames yet), "Johnny loves the fame and the attention normally and Ben can live his life as normal.
"And the funding has given us both a chance to pursue our passions. So dear, I'd say it was worth it."
Reed looked very lost at all the feelings he was experiencing. To solve this, Sue lent up for a quick kiss. This seemed to work as her husband no longer looked as baffled.
Sue realised that she had been doing a lot of comforting today. Well, at least her family was feeling better because of it. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
"Well, should we go join them?" Asked Sue, looking at her husband.
"We shall," Rees led her by her hand to break up the friendly brawl between the two other members of The Fantastic Four.
The four of them spent the rest of the day in Johnny's room, just enjoying the company of each other. At some point, the record player had been turned on by somebody (probably Johnny) so Sue led Reed to dance in the middle of the room together.
The couple danced the day away while Ben and Johnny shouted encouragements. While Reed and Sue tried to convince the others to join them, their efforts were wasted as both men vehemently opposed going dancing.
The four of them ordered takeaway pizza for dinner and ate it on the floor. It felt good to forget all the worries about saving the world for just one day.
They finished the day all curled up on Johnny's bed. The only reason none of them managed to fall off is because of Reed stretching his hands around the four of them. It was cozy and warm and just what Johnny needed to feel better.
Ben and Reed had fallen asleep when Johnny, half-asleep himself, said something to his sister.
"Thank you-" he was interrupted by a yawn, "-for helping me. I know what all of you were doing."
"Of course. We just want to help," Sue replied.
"Just no more of those types of ads."
Sue soundly agreed with that, "Hell no. We can stop all ads if you need."
"No, no. People would miss me - I'm too flamin' hot to leave the ladies hanging like that," he sleepily smirked at his sister.
Sue laughed at his joke and was about to answer him before she heard his little snores. She felt a surge of fondness for her little brother. Despite his annoying tendencies sometimes, he was still just a child at heart.
After that day, all endorsements and ads had to be thoroughly checked before any of The Fantastic Four agreed to it. It worked for a while, and for that Sue was glad.