Chapter Text
It rained in New York for three days before anyone realized there was something wrong.
Johnny had spent the first few days inside, puttering around the Baxter building, bothering his sister and Reed and Ben. He worked on his car and spent as much time as humanly possible avoiding the homework Sue tried to make him do now that he was being homeschooled. The wind and the rain shook the windows, lightning flashing across what he could see of the sky.
Johnny had never liked the rain, and he’d hated it since he’d gotten his powers, but a day of rain was just life. Two wouldn’t kill him. Three still didn’t ring any alarm bells, until Spider-Man was banging on the windows of the 31st floor.
Johnny, who had slid half off the couch in an attempt to reach his phone charger and was now too lazy to get back up, startled at the noise and fell off the remainder of the couch. He sat up, his head whipping around to look at the window. Spider-Man stared back, the big, white, bug-eyed lenses on his mask looking oddly frightening cast against the dark, stormy sky. A streak of lightning illuminated his silhouette against the window, and a crack of thunder shook the building. Spider-Man began hammering his fist on the window again.
Johnny groaned and hauled himself to his feet. “God, just come in already, I know you know how to open them from the outside!” He shuffled over to the windows and cracked one open. Spider-Man wedged himself in between the panes of glass, showcasing his incredibly distracting flexibility that Johnny certainly did not think about in his free time, and hopped onto the floor.
It took Johnny a moment to realize something was off. Spider-Man hadn’t said anything and instead stood silently in a rapidly growing puddle. Johnny frowned and inched towards him. “Hey, you good?”
“F-f-fine,” Spider-Man stuttered, teeth chattering behind the mask. He was shaking. “Couldn’t get the-the latch,” he said, attempting to flex his fingers while he held his arms close to his chest.
“What are you doing in the rain?” Johnny sighed, heating up his hands and rubbing them on Spider-Man’s arms, making him groan. “Jesus, you’re cold,” he hissed, ducking his head to hide the flush he could feel flooding his face. “No, oh my God, you’re all wet, stop!” Johnny shouted as Spider-Man bullied his way into his arms. Johnny didn’t even put up a fight, though, holding Spider-Man in his wet, clingy spandex.
Johnny sighed loudly, pretending he was deeply inconvenienced to try to cover up the fact that he felt like his skin was buzzing. “I have dry clothes in my room,” Johnny said, ushering Spider-Man forward but keeping the vigilante tucked under his arm and pulled close. “Come on, before Sue catches us and yells at me,” he muttered.
“Why w-would S-s-“
“Hurry, hurry, you’re dripping all over the floor,” Johnny said, hustling Spider-Man along down the hall. Why had he said that?
Sue had warmed up to Spider-Man. She had! She no longer thought he was a danger to them, or to Johnny more specifically. She recognized his fight for the little guy, and she respected it, even if she usually preferred to only interfere when asked. She didn’t seem worried about Spider-Man around Johnny anymore. She did, however, seem worried about Johnny around Spider-Man.
You’re 18, Johnny! She had hissed to him after their last team-up, pulling on his upper arm to get him to look at her. You don’t know how old he is, what he looks like, or why he’s doing any of this. You don’t know him.
First of all, I have no idea what you're talking about, Johnny had whisper-yelled back, trying to avoid Reed’s curious stare. And second of all, I do know him! He’s a good person, and he’s my friend. Johnny stared at Sue, yanking his arm away from her. She had deflated, looking more worried than before.
Please be smart, Johnny.
Johnny was smart. Sure, he wasn’t Reed, but he was smart in other ways. He steered Spider-Man towards the bathroom in his room to drip onto the tile instead of the rug and started to gather dry clothes.
Johnny liked Spider-Man. And he wouldn’t lie, it was more than as just a friend. He liked the way he laughed, and how he always had a retort to whatever Johnny could manage to come up with, and watching him move in a fight. No one could get close enough to Johnny to land a punch, but Spider-Man could take a thousand and still get up. He made fighting look like an art.
But Spider-Man was his friend. His best friend, probably. His mysterious, strong, heroic, very physically fit best friend, who happened to wear a skin-tight costume everywhere. He could be smart about it.
Johnny shoved an arm full of dry clothes into Spider-Man’s arms and yanked his hands away to avoid petting along the spandex of his suit. Be smart.
“Change, no more wet suit.”
When Spider-Man emerged from the en-suite a few minutes later, he was swimming in Johnny’s clothes. He was only a few inches shorter, but Johnny had built most of his bulk in a gym. Fighting off Doom bots was a workout, but he didn’t have super strength. Spider-Man’s body looked more like the impossible middle ground between a gymnast and an endurance athlete. Either way, it was enough to have his sweatpants pooling on the ground. The t-shirt swung loose on Spider-Man, a distorted picture of Ben on the front with the words “It is time to smash it!” in big letters. Johnny would never be caught dead in public in the thing, but it was too funny to get rid of. The bare skin of Spider-Man’s arms startled him, pale and creamy looking with a smattering of moles like constellations. His glove-less hands were fisted uncomfortably at his side, the square jut of his thumb grabbing Johnny’s attention. Who knew hands could be beautiful? Spider-Man unfisted his hands and rubbed at his forearms.
“Someone’s m-messing with the weather,” Spider-Man chattered, walking into Johnny’s room from where he stood in the doorway. Johnny heated up, then started taking off his sweatshirt and met Spider-Man in the middle, shoving it over his head. Spider-Man let out a startled yelp and then wiggled into it, sighing happily as he hugged himself. “You really lucked out in the accidental superpower department; this is amazing. It’s like having a personal sun.”
“Want me to do your mask?”
Spider-Man stared at him, and Johnny wondered if he had crossed a line. But after a few beats, his hands reached up to pull at the edges of the mask.
“Don’t look,” he said quietly. Johnny turned his eyes to the floor, but Spider-Man didn’t turn around. Johnny could hear the rustling of the mask coming off, and he had to close his eyes to fight the urge to look. Spider-Man trusted him not to. After a moment, he felt a hand lightly brush against his own. He felt fabric push into his palm, and fingers closed his hand gently to hold it before letting go. Johnny could feel the ridges of the webbing, the convex shape of the lenses. He brushed his thumb over them, wishing he could do the same to the hand that had been in his a moment before. He raised his other hand to hold the mask and focused on heating the fabric just enough to evaporate the water without melting anything.
“All done,” Johnny said, hushed. The air felt charged between him and Spider-Man, and he refused to be the one to disturb it.
“Thanks,” Spider-Man whispered, taking back his mask, his hand brushing Johnny’s again. He listened for the rustle of the mask being put on, and waited. “You can look.”
Johnny lifted his head, opening his eyes. White lenses stared back. He didn’t know how to look away.
“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Johnny said quietly.
“I know,” Spider-Man said quietly. But the spell had broken, and Spider-Man took a step back. “We have to talk about the rain, though.”
Johnny heaved out a sigh, walked backwards to his bed, and flung himself onto it. “What about the rain?”
“I think we should talk to Reed. This ‘freak hurricane’ isn’t dissipating. If you look at radar imaging, it should have broken apart, but it’s just….hovering. It’s not getting bigger or smaller.” Spider-Man walked closer to his bed, knocking his knees into the edge, his hands resting on his hips as he looked down at Johnny. “The subways are flooding, roads are blocked off. Whatever is going on is just going to get worse.”
“I hate to say this, but bad weather seems a bit below our pay grade.”
Spider-Man didn’t say anything, but when Johnny lifted his head, he could see Spider-Man glaring at him. His mask looked the same, but Johnny could tell.
Johnny slapped his hands on his legs and sat back up. “Okay! Let’s go get Reed, I guess, to talk about the weather! There’s nothing better to do.” Johnny stood up and followed Spider-Man out the door and down the hall, padding quietly to the elevator in his borrowed Fantastic 4 branded socks. The blue and white pattern made Johnny smirk, but not as much as the fabric of his own sweatpants getting caught beneath Spider-Man’s heels.
“Watch where you're walking, Flame Face,” Spider-Man said, catching Johnny with his eyes cast down. Johnny grinned and lit his face on fire, laughing in delight when his friend let out a brief shriek of terror.
“Don’t do that,” Spider-Man yelled as Johnny flamed off, shoving him playfully with a begrudging laugh. “It looks so freaky when it’s just your face.”
Johnny snickered, mimed the horrified face he imagined Spider-Man made, gave a shrill scream, and tripped over himself laughing. He pawed at the button for the elevator, struggling to catch his breath, to stop smiling at his webhead.
“I,” Spider-Man started, but he looked away, his breath stuttering from trying not to laugh. He tried again, “I did not look like that. I looked incredibly stoic and manly.” Johnny smiled and leaned against the wall, watching him. “And also I didn’t scream, I shouted. I hollered in surprise.”
“You have a very high-pitched holler, Spider-Man.”
“I do not,” he replied, an entire octave lower. Johnny’s face hurt from grinning.
The elevator sounded its arrival, but when the doors opened, they weren’t empty. Ben was taking up about half of the space, his head nearly grazing the ceiling.
“Oh, good, I was just comin’ to grab you. Susie wants us in the lab…” Ben trailed off, looking at Spider-Man, who looked distinctly less relaxed than he had before the elevator doors opened.
“Hello,” Spider-Man said, giving a stiff wave.
“Hi,” Ben said, looking from Spider-Man sans costume to Johnny, with one rocky eyebrow raised. Johnny’s face wasn’t actually on fire anymore, but it certainly felt like it was. Ben looked back at Spider-Man and made room in the elevator so the two could squeeze on. “Not gonna ask. But you should come too, Reed’ll wanna—Is that supposed to be me?” Ben shouted, one of his giant fingers pointing at Spider-Man’s shirt.
Spider-Man looked down in confusion, while Johnny struggled not to smile as they began their descent. “Where did you even get that Spidey?” Johnny looked at the shirt like he’d never seen it. “Seems a bit rude, really.”
Ben turned to Johnny, knowing exactly where the shirt came from, while Spider-Man pulled on the fabric to get a good look at the picture, sputtering intelligent stuff like “huh” and “what” and “why.”
Ben chased Johnny off the elevator into the lab, followed by Spider-Man struggling to walk while simultaneously taking his arms out of the shirt to wear it backwards.
“Please don’t break anything, you two,” Reed said as Johnny dodged an open-handed swipe from Ben, looking as close to disapproving as he could really get. His eyes slid off the two of them and landed on Spider-Man in his backwards shirt. He straightened up from his spot leaning over the long holographic map and offered a polite but curious hello.
Johnny stopped his pretend tussling with Ben and hurried back over to Spider-Man. While Ben had always thought Spider-Man was funny and fairly helpful, and Sue had started to come around to him (if not Johnny’s gigantic visible-from-outer-space crush), Reed was still hesitant. He’d never outright disapproved of Spider-Man, but he tended to watch him much closer than the rest of the family did when he was around.
All Johnny could think was if Spider-Man found out, he’d be crushed.
“Dr. Richards! Hi,” Spider-Man stood at full attention, like he was about to salute or bow. Johnny wanted to laugh, but he knew Spider-Man was being entirely serious. “I know you’re about to have a meeting, but I needed to ask your opinion on the severe weather and if you think it’s anything more than…severe weather.”
Reed nodded and moved down the hologram, which Johnny noticed was a radar map of eastern New York, and began pointing and lecturing, his version of an invitation. “I think that is precisely the question of the hour. The storm patterns have held for nearly 72 hours and show no indication of dissipating, building, or moving. I’ve asked everyone here to discuss it, as I believe we may be called in to assist soon,” Reed said, Spider-Man nodding next to him, entranced.
Johnny scowled, wondering if Sue was better off worrying about Spider-Man around Reed. Just as he thought it, his sister strode into the lab, her boots clicking loud enough to make everyone turn. She seemed to anticipate this reaction, aside from one of those turning heads being masked. “Spider-Man! What a surprise, I didn’t realize you were here,” she said, a polite but confused smile on her face. Her eyes darted over her brother’s clothes on not-her-brother, and then her eyes found Johnny. Johnny did not get a polite but confused smile. He got a we-are-talking-about-this-later strained grimace. Johnny shrugged.
“Dr. Storm!” Spider-Man said, sounding pleased to see her. She held up her hand. “Please, Spider-Man, we’ve been over this before. You can call me Sue.”
Johnny had told Spider-Man once over pizza that sometimes he thought his sister wasn’t recognized as a scientist the same way Reed was. Ever since Spider-Man made sure to use her title at least once when he saw her. Sue insisted he call her by her first name, but he could tell she thought it was charming, and her smile always looked a little brighter.
Reed reached his arm out for Sue, who came to stand by his side and study the holographic map. He brought them up to speed on what he had heard from colleagues, his own findings, and expected meteorological patterns. Johnny tried his best to focus, but half of the words Reed used sounded made up.
Johnny's eyes shifted between his family and Spider-Man. He’d have to ask someone if he’d gotten it all right after Reed finished his debrief. He loved everyone in this room, but in situations like these, it was hard not to feel small. Sure, Reed was a certifiable genius, but Sue had graduated Summa Cum Laude from college and passed with distinction, whatever that meant, for her PhD program. Ben had gone to school with Reed and even gotten a Master’s. Johnny didn’t know much about Spider-Man, but if he knew one thing, it was that he was smart. Spider-Man would joke around and laugh with Johnny, but he hung on Reed’s every word. He’d even been able to dumb down something Reed had said enough for Johnny to wrap his head around, and it was at that moment he realized pretty much everyone he knew had been gifted with superior intellect. Johnny, meanwhile, was struggling through remedial math.
Spider-Man turned his head just a few inches towards Johnny. He couldn’t tell if he was just studying the map more or looking at Johnny. He willed his own eyes to refocus on the holographic pattern swirling over New York City and tried to tune back into what Reed was saying.
“—expect word from NOAA and possibly SHIELD if things progress.” Who was Noah? “As it stands, there are going to be significant infrastructure and general health crises, especially among the unhoused populations. Spider-Man, do you have any comments regarding your work at the ground level? How is this affecting people?”
Spider-Man scratched his jaw through his mask. “It’s already pretty bad, but it really depends on where you are. Some places, it’s not affecting things more than your typical rainy day, but in others, entire streets and subway stations are flooding. One of the guys I know who gets me info on the Maggia sounds like he’s literally getting trench foot.” Spider-Man ran his hand down his neck and slumped in defeat. “Anyone living on the street right now is in a bad way. I don’t know where they’re going to go if it continues like this. People are already getting hurt.”
Ben nodded from the other side of Spider-Man, like he was expecting as much. Sue was the one who spoke up, though. “How can we help?”
“I’m doing what I can to get people into safe housing, and you know, stopping hydroplaning cars and the like, but there’s too much. I think the best way to help is just figuring out what’s causing this and stopping it.”
“I have a colleague at the University of Oklahoma who may be of some help,” Reed said, mostly to himself, but Ben clapped his hands together, loud and jarring for what it was, and pointed at them all.
“Already on it,” he said, walking away, but Reed continued on like that was what he had wanted Ben to do.
“We can contact NOAA instead of waiting for them to reach out, and I can build a UAV to give us a better idea of what’s going on in the atmosphere. In the meantime, if you need any help on the ground, let us know,” Reed said, causing Johnny to startle. The Fantastic Four didn’t really do “on the ground.” Johnny did, when he went out to hang with Spider-Man, and helped the guy catch purse snatchers and rescue kittens and fend off would-be deli robbers. But it was sort of an I-don’t-mention-it-you-don’t-mention-it situation amongst the Four. Sue had never liked it, always said they shouldn’t step on the toes of police, but who was she to fault someone for walking old people across a busy street or rescuing babies out of burning buildings the way Spider-Man did? Yeah, maybe he stepped on a few toes, but what were a few stinky NYPD toes compared to entire lives?
“You let me know,” Johnny said, turning to look at Spider-Man. “I’ve got your back on this one.”
“You always do,” Spider-Man said, clapping Johnny on the shoulder. Johnny smiled, looked at Spider-Man’s bug-eyes for a few seconds too long, and turned back to his future brother-in-law. Neither Reed nor Sue looked worried about the two of them teaming up. In fact, Sue looked, strangely enough, a little pleased. Reed just looked like he was thinking about numbers.
“Sue and I will get started on the UAV,” Reed started, but Sue patted his arm and looked at him fondly.
“How about I contact NOAA and see what I can figure out while you build the UAV,” Sue said pragmatically.
Reed gave her a Sue Smile, which is what Johnny called all the smiles Reed gave Sue, where his face got all warm and gooey. It gave the impression that he was just a normal man in love with his fiancé, and not a super-powered genius sponsored by the government to fight aliens.
“Ugh, Reed, put that away.” Johnny covered his eyes, and Sue laughed.
Reed leaned over to give her a quick kiss and then said, “Sounds like a plan, but call from here in the lab.”
“Why?” Sue asked.
And Reed just gave her his Sue Eyes, and Johnny turned around, pushing Spider-Man in front of him towards the elevator. “Let’s go, Spidey, before they start cooing at each other. We are LEAVING,” he announced over his shoulder.
Reed made his sister so, so happy with his big brain and his yammering about science and his need to create things to keep her safe. And Reed making Sue happy made Johnny happy. But he did not need a front row seat.
When the two were once more safely inside the elevator, Spider-Man turned to him.
“What now?”
“Let’s go see what we can do to help with all the flooding,” Johnny said, thinking about what Spider-Man said he’d been seeing on patrol. Just as they arrived on the 31st floor and walked out of the elevator, a flash of light illuminated the room, followed by a resounding boom of thunder that shook the building. The power flickered for just a moment before Reed’s fancy backup generators kicked in. Johnny started towards his room, Spider-Man close on his heels. “I’ve always hated the rain.”