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"A friend from your bookclub?" Ben asks from where he's poised at the corner with a magazine. He's framed in a rather picturesque manner at the wall-length window. Beyond him, there's a dashing view of the New York skyline draped with a thick layer of snow. Sue gives him a dubious look, her voice wry as she speaks.
"Are you more surprised at the fact that I read," she asks primly, "Or that I have a friend?"
"Can't it be both?" He asks with a good-natured grin that make his face look more craggily-detailed in the suffused kitchen lighting. He flips a page with a practiced ease in his rather blocky fingers, something that he's taken great deliberation to learn how to do so. Sue makes a semi-insulted chuckle as she walks over to the island to confirm the contents of her purse.
"If you can have poker nights here every Wednesday," Sue returns, "I can have a friend come and meet me at the Baxter Building."
"Some friend," Ben jokes back as he looks up from the page, "Makin' em climb all those stairs."
"Elevators exist for people who don't exceed the 800 pound limit." Sue returns back with practiced ease. Ben shrugs as though he's not miffed at the prospect of the daily thirty-floor climb.
"Gotta keep my girlish physique," Ben snipes back. "They some kind of superhero too?"
"I have non-superhero friends," Sue grins, "They happen to be a civilian."
"They gonna pass out if they see me?" Ben asks with a joking slant to his voice, but it's not entirely a joke. There's something that's caught in his vulnerable gaze as she looks up from the abyss of her pocket, up to those blue eyes that are shining through.
"No," Sue reassures him in a manner that makes it clear that she's speaking the truth, "I don't think they will. They like us."
There's something in Sue's voice that seems a little layered but she doesn't quite say it—Ben can read between the lines.
"Oh," Ben says, "They a cape chaser?"
"I wouldn't say that," Sue returns in a more sing-song voice.
"Is it Johnny?" Ben cracks back. Sue laughs as though this is a very amusing concept.
"Is it Reed?" Ben ventures again. Sue gives him a warning glare as she walks in the opposite direction of the penthouse.
"They're going to be here any minute, but I have to get something from the bathroom." Sue says, fixing a coiffed lock of hair over her shoulder. "Can you let them in if they get here before I'm back?"
"Sure," Ben returns cavalierly, and aims at Sue's back, "Is it Parker?"
"Just get the door," Sue laughs, and then she's gone. Ben obliges and returns back to reading about good housekeeping in the magazine. He makes it to an obituary about a famous artist and almost forgets about the favor he promised when there's the melodic chime of the doorbell. He looks up with his eyes to the door that awaits his responsibility.
"Here goes nothing," He mutters under his breath, and makes those deliberate, plodding steps to the door. Ben's taken care for years now to walk with a particular gait that doesn't make all the fine china tremble when he walks, so it's almost like he's light on his feet. Almost.
He's certain that Sue's friend can hear the jolting tremors from the other side of the door as he swallows up the distance in easy strides. As he turns the doorknob that disappears entirely in his hand with a jerk of the wrist.
He decides it's of the better offensive maneuever to announce himself as he opens the door, so that her friend isn't alarmed or taken aback.
He begins with what he thinks is a good introduction. "So, you're Sue's friend?"
Well, he would if he was able to completely articulate the sentence. But, in later recollection, he thinks that he made it to 'you're' and then something in the transmission from firing neuron to vocal chord must have died, because all he does is stare.
"Hi," You look up at Ben with a sweet smile, a slight chatter to your voice that must be from the chill outside, "You must be Ben."
He stares a tad longer than he should, looking you up and down in the layers of jackets and coats that do nothing to disguise the shape of your figure, the shape of your face as you smile up at him. It's warm in the hall, and perhaps this is what wafts over the scent that you're wearing to him from the small distance elapsed between you—he likes it. He thinks it suits you quite well.
He realizes that he's ogling you, and perhaps a giant rocky behemoth filling up the massive doorway, eyes boring into you, is setting a terrible impression. He supposes he should speak.
"Uh," He begins, and wishes he was wearing more than just his alma mater's sweatshirt and 10XXXXL sweatpants, "I am. You—wanna come in?"
"Sure do," You respond cheerily. "Sue waiting in there for me?"
Speaking words difficult. Saying thing hard. Ben Grimm, for all of his vaunted abilities, manages.
"Yeah. She said she was grabbin' somethin' from the back. Said she'd—"—He thinks about what sounds roguishly charismatic and settles upon—"—Be back soon."
Nailed the landing, he thinks. You grin up at him. "That's fine. I don't mind waiting for her."
He realizes he's yet to let you in, and moves back in a slow manner that he hopes won't scare you—usually, most people get frightened when the landslide tends to move with more alacrity than they expected. "Come on in, make yourself at home."
"Kind of you to offer," You reply jauntily, and walk in through the doorway, past him. You're much smaller than him—well, everyone is, but you don't hug the other side of the wall to get past him. He thinks that your sleeve actually brushes past him and he has to fight a shiver, barely cognizant of the door he's closing. All he's doing is watching the way that you raise your arms above your head to unwind the red scarf around your neck, staring at the crook of your arms as you do so.
"Wow," You declare breathlessly, "That's a beautiful sight."
You're looking in the direction of the skyline, something admirative and soft on your face—he has to swallow as he takes a step closer to you. Something feels odd in the depths of his stomach—he realizes that he's still holding the magazine, as he looks down to see it crumple in his fist. He makes way to hastily stuff it in his pocket as you turn back to him, that bright look in your eyes. You're actually looking at him, engaging in conversation—most people tend to avert their eyes to the ground or keep a healthy distance.
But you're pretty close. Close enough that he can take the time to look at your cute face and once again, find himself stymied for words.
"Yeah, it is." He says as he stares down at you, and then realizes he's lost the plot. His voice is gruff as he says, "What is?"
You laugh—and something soars in him as you tilt your head back. "The skyline. You guys just get to enjoy it every day."
"Oh, that." Ben has the good grace to be a little sheepish, but he's on the recovery quick enough. "You get used to it eventually."
"I don't think I could," You say with a wistful sigh. "There's just something so far up and removed and beautiful about it."
"Gimme a floor view on Yancy Street with a window," Ben grouses back, letting some real quality leach into his voice at this.
"Oh, Yancy Street with Seigel's Delicatessen?" You ask him, and he finds himself in for another surprise.
"You know about that hole in the wall?" He asks with something curious and stunned in his voice—you chuckle knowingly.
"Hole in the wall with the best Reubens in the city," You reply back knowingly, "Also, I used to work there for a few years."
"When was that?" Ben asks coarsely, immediately, "Feel like I would've remembered a face like yours."
He realizes belatedly that this is something that should've remained an inside thought—there's no way that you'd be receptive to that compliment. But then, he finds to his surprise, that you laugh again, your smile growing wider, a hand going to press over your lips as you look pleased.
"That's sweet of you to say," You respond, "I think I would've remembered you, too."
"'Cause of the rocky demeanor?" He asks with a sarcastic tilt to his voice, never one to lose an opportunity for self-deprecation. "Or the stunning sense a'humor?"
"Mmmm," You say, tilting your head as you look at him, as if appraising something more than just the surface—he feels something thrill up his spine as you watch him, "Probably the jawline. Or the shoulders."
He barely has time to process this, or the way that it makes his heart race, as you add on for good measure, "Or maybe those eyes. Something nice about them."
"Uh," He says, because this is the very opposite of how he expected this interaction to go, "What's your name again?"
There's a gleam of something mischievous in your eyes as you open your mouth to answer—but your name is spoken on someone else's tongue. Ben has never been less appreciative of Sue emerging in the nick of time, making you turn away from him, to your book club friend who is interrupting this cozy moment.
"Sue!" You exclaim, going to her open arms for a warm embrace. "Good to see you."
"Good to see you too," Sue says, pulling back to give you an admiratory smile, "Has Ben been keeping you company?"
At this, you pause, looking back with a shy smile at him that makes his heart do a quadruple flip.
"Oh, yes," you smile, "He's an excellent conversationalist."
He thinks he's no such thing, especially with how much you've flummoxed him. But he'll take the compliment on the chin.
"You know me," Ben says, and Sue does know him—which is why she gives him a fleeting look over your shoulder, when you're not looking.
"Well," Sue says, ever the interloper in a conversation he desperately wants to keep going, "We should get going before our reservation goes to someone else."
"Oh, let's," You say with a grin. "I'm starving."
Ben realizes that he is, too, but not for food, as he watches with some forlorn degree of longing as the two of you get ready to leave. He steps back as the two of you walk past him, but then realizes that you're turning to him with something in your hand.
"Ben, this fell out of your magazine," You inform him, pressing a crumpled piece of paper into his large hand—your fingers are so tiny against his, so miniature. He wants to know what it's like to hold them in his. "Thought you might want it back."
"Thanks," He says, trying to memorize every part of you, his fingers closing around it. "Nice meetin' you."
"Nice meeting you too," You say, but Sue is calling your name. "Maybe I'll see you around."
"Yeah, I sure hope so," Ben says—you duck your face in pleasure, as he watches you go. It's not until he hears the door shut in the jamb, and stares at it for a long while, that he decides to open his palm up again. Then, he can finally take the time to look at the shred of paper you chose to gave him.
It's a number. And written next to it—your name, with a looping script that says Call me!
"Holy shit," Ben mutters, and doesn't realize until Sue gets back from lunch that he's had a dopey smile on his face for the longest time.