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“Hey, kiddo,” Ben grumbles with his casually low timbre echoing from Johnny’s doorway.
“Hey is for horses,” Johnny says without even a fraction of his usual enthusiasm. It falls flat without the signature dastardly grin and twinkle in his eyes.
“Sure is, matchstick,” Ben says, sighing as he stares at Johnny lying on the bed. The boy is angled away from him, staring out through the window at the sky as if he doesn’t quite believe it’s real. If even half of what Reed thinks went down is true, Ben can’t find it within him to judge Johnny for it.
See, Ben had died once. It was damn nice, or it would’ve been if any of his family had let him move on to the afterlife. Who’s he kidding? Ben hadn’t even let himself go up without saying goodbye.
Point being, Johnny had stared at Ben with a fiery determination afterward telling him he wasn’t allowed to go damn near anywhere unless Johnny said so. Ben had raised an eyebrow at the outburst, finding Johnny to be a bit selfish for not wanting Ben to experience the great beyond for himself. Back then, Ben saw it as a sign of his youth, a lack of understanding Johnny had regarding the weight of their circumstances.
And then Johnny had stared down waves of enemies who'd never stop, he'd been pulled apart and killed right before Ben's eyes, and Ben can't ever believe he'd been as selfish as to think that Johnny didn't understand the weight of the world they walked in.
Sue had transitioned into the world of fame and infamy so easily, and Reed hadn't been far behind. It'd almost felt like Sue was born for the spotlight, always the level-headed diplomat.
On one of those nights where they'd shared a bottle of beers around the TV during the game, Sue out of earshot, Johnny had smiled wistfully while reflecting on the shared childhood that neither Johnny or Sue ever really spoke about. Johnny had been thrumming his fingers against the leather of the couch, waiting for the ads to pass them by when he'd glanced over at a young blonde actress with bouncing waves in her hair.
Ben had anticipated comments on her appearance when Johnny had opened his mouth, but certainly not this. "She looks a bit like Sue, doesn't she?"
"Yer losin' it," Ben scoffed. “Can you imagine Sue in a stuffy get up like that?”
Johnny laughs. "Oh, she’ll kill you if she hears that. She used to want to be an actress, like those girls on TV. She would do her hair all nice like that and hog the bathroom all day practicing in the mirror."
"I'll be," Ben blinked, never having imagined Sue as the kind of girl to have dreamed of Hollywood fame.
"She was gonna be in a play," Johnny's voice goes quiet with nostalgia. "When she was in high school, she got the lead."
"She didn’t do it?" Ben couldn't stop the words before they left his mouth.
"Never got the chance," Johnny's lips quirked up self-deprecatingly. "She found out some kids at school were picking on me during aftercare so she pulled me out and decided to come home early to take care of me instead. No time for rehearsal after that."
Ben grimaced. There was a reason that neither of the Storm siblings tended to speak about their childhoods, and he should've known to let things lie by now. Johnny's always worn his heart on his sleeve, and it was practically bleeding out the wazoo at this point.
Reed had taken to it with a charm as well. It'd been as if he was made to bend into any shape he was required to (ha, ha). Whether he was running PR stunts for the media, creating yet another genius invention to have them all be set for life, or saving the world, Reed managed to pull it off as if it were effortless. He was the brain after all. He was the genius the Fantastic Four was founded around.
Even if Reed couldn't cook, clean, drive, or any other notable life skill, he could invent. And that tended to be more important than anything else.
No, it'd been Johnny and Ben who'd struggled most after coming into their powers. Given a year or two, Sue and Reed were operating like the well-oiled machine they knew themselves to be. The fantastic power couple themselves, blessed with powers beyond comprehension — everyone wanted to be them.
Ben had struggled with his appearance. Who was he if not a monster? How was he to live with what he became? He felt horrific, cruel and monstrous, and capable of unthinkable destruction if he didn't concentrate on not hurting the people he loved.
He'd written off Johnny's showboating antics at first, but eventually, he'd realized they were more similar than Ben dared to think.
Ben's primary difficulty had been that he had an identity before everything. He'd been someone with a worthy life, a story, and a dream. He knew what he wanted to be, and he had been damn near close to achieving it before everything he knew had been taken from him with one blast of those damned cosmic rays.
Johnny had been sixteen and knew nothing about the world, and suddenly his entire life had been reversed and he'd been thrown into the spotlight with powers that could destroy everything he loved.
And Ben's change had ruined him for so long. It'd changed so much about how he viewed himself, how he understood his worth, how he comprehended his existence. It had changed him beyond repair, but he had grown alongside his changes over the years. He'd met a woman who loved him not in spite of what he was, but for it. He found value in what he could be through finding himself alongside someone he loved, and that meant more than the world.
Johnny on the other hand had always seemed to have some real bang up luck when it came to love. He'd been flailing in ice cold waters for a hot minute now, and Ben hadn't done a damn thing to step in. It was real messed up when Ben thought about it. He still remembered that wide eyed kid from way back when Johnny was just Sue's little brother who followed right behind her without fail. Back before they'd been changed forever.
Ben had been so endeared by him back then. The way his eyes would go wide with glee every time Reed let him go ham on the engines, the way he would practically glow when Ben offered him words of approval. He'd been so young then, full of the enthusiasm that can only come with childhood. Sometimes, it's like the last traces of that child died in the Negative Zone.
See, there’s a lot to be said about Johnny Storm. He’s quick to burn and quick to rise, a brat in damn near every way possible, and a real thorn in Ben’s side. But Ben knows he wouldn’t have it any other way.
When Johnny’d died, they’d been destroyed. Who was the Fantastic Four without Johnny Storm? Their days were painfully quiet without him, but their nights didn’t share the same luxury.
Ben had forgotten what it was like to have a peaceful night’s sleep. He’d close his eyes and all that would sit behind his eyes was a wide-eyed, gap-toothed kid. One with a smile so bright it could light every candle on a birthday cake and blow them all out in the same breath. Every night instead of falling asleep, Ben would walk around the Baxter Building, the place they called home feeling more and more like a prison every day. And every night, without fail, he’d hear Susie-Q whisper in her sleep completely and utterly devastated, asking a higher power none of them could reach why her brother was taken from her
And every night it would ram him through like an anvil how it should've been him. How Johnny still had so much life to live. Hell, Johnny was a kid, always would be to them. For all that Ben and Johnny would rag each other, at the end of the day Ben would give his life for the kid in a heartbeat. Without a single blink, Ben would do it again and again.
Blinking a phantom wetness from his eyes, Ben finally speaks again. "Are you feelin' up to dinner, matchstick?"
"Nah," Johnny says absently, mind clearly elsewhere. "I'm fine."
Ben opens his mouth to protest, but Johnny darts his eyes over in Ben's direction, flighty and rooted with a deep-seated terror. "It's not you guys. I'm just..."
...Hurting, lost, exhausted, different. Ben can't stop his mind from completing Johnny's sentence. Johnny trails off, as if unsure where to go from there. Ben's heart shatters with his uncertainty.
"We'll always be here, kid," Ben's voice is gruff, and he hopes it's even a fraction more secure than he feels.
Johnny’s answering nod doesn’t have his heart in it, it doesn’t take a genius to see that. Yet Ben can’t find it in him to push Johnny. Ben’s guilt for leaving Johnny in there never quite left him, just remolded into a cage clenching his heart every time he sees what the Negative Zone did to Johnny.
It should have been Ben. They all knew it, and yet here Ben was, staring down the undefeatable Johnny Storm, resoundingly defeated. It’s painful to witness, unnatural and wounding.”
“Do ya want me to leave?” Ben asks, partly to fill the silence but meaning every word of it despite that.
“Shouldn’t you be eating dinner with everyone else?” Johnny responds.
“Think I’d rather be up here,” Ben shrugs in feigned nonchalance. “If you’ll have me, at least. Susie-Q cooked today.”
A telltale wince climbs up Johnny’s features, and it’s enough to break the tension, so Ben laughs.
“You can stay,” Johnny says, subdued. “But I’m not great company right now.”
“Well great news for you,” Ben smiles widely. “You never were good company.”
Johnny smiles absentmindedly at that, like his mind is elsewhere. It’s not what Ben’s used to, but he can be plenty adaptable. For all that rock is known for being eternally stagnant, it weathers and erodes over the years, ever changing.
It's Ben's job to meet Johnny where he’s at now. And he’ll keep doing that until the bitter end, because that’s what family is for.