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[b]Baxter Building, New York[/b]

Reed Richards rubbed at his tired eyes as he stared at several screens on the desk in front of him. On them was footage of Reed working with SHIELD scientists on the shuttle that would carry Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny into outer space. Nick Fury swaggered into sight, a thick cigar between his thin white lips, and stood beside Reed as he slaved over the shuttle. Before then-Reed opened his mouth, now-Reed mouthed the words that were due to come out of them. “It’s going to work,” he mouthed. “It’s [i]really[/i] going to work, Nick.” There was no way Reed could have known then how wrong he would be. Somewhere along the line Reed had made a mistake and the shuttle had been incapable of weathering the radiation it had been exposed to. It had cost Fury his Directorship of SHIELD and Reed, Johnny, and Sue the chance at a normal life. For Ben, it had come at an even greater cost. Though he was blessed with incredible strength, Grimm’s body had been transmuted into living rock.

The guilt Reed felt kept him up most nights. He would review footage he’d reviewed a thousand times before, run endless tests on material from the shuttle, and try to use fragments of Ben’s rock skin to reverse engineer a cure. As of yet nothing had proven successful. It was ironic then that it most often fell to Ben himself to massage Reed’s guilt. Tonight was one of those nights. His broad, craggy silhouette loomed over Reed from the laboratory’s doorway and he smiled at Richards sympathetically upon noticing what was on the screens.

[b][color=darkorange]“I think I’m going to turn in for the night, Stretch. You ought to think about doing the same soon. Staring at those screens all day long is likely ta turn your brains into mush.”[/color][/b]

Reed was so focused on reviewing the footage that he barely reacted to the sound of Ben’s voice.

[b][color=darkorange]“Stretch?”[/color][/b]

On the second time of trying Reed jolted into attention. He turned to face Ben and gave him a tired smile.

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“I’ll try not to be too long. If you see Sue on your way to bed, would you tell her not to wait up for me? I want to watch through this again and make sure I haven’t missed anything.”[/color][/b]

Ben sighed and walked closer to the screens.

[b][color=darkorange]“What is it that you’re hoping to find? You know those videos well enough to recite them word for word, Reed. If you were going to find something in there, I reckon you woulda found it.”[/color][/b]

Reed shook his head.

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“There has to be [i]something[/i] in here that I’ve missed, Ben. I’ve checked over my calculations a dozen times, two dozens perhaps, and they aren’t a single digit out. The shuttle should have been able to withstand the radiation. There has to be some other explanation and this footage is all I have to go on.”[/color][/b]

One of Ben’s rocky hands reached for one of his shoulder blades. He rubbed it as gently as he could muster and the sound of his fingers scraping against his shoulders screeched through the lab. On his face was a pensive look and as he moved to speak his voice was tentative. There was a vulnerability to it that Grimm rarely often allowed out.

[b][color=darkorange]“You ever think that maybe what happened to us happened for a reason?”[/color][/b]

Reed furrowed his brow a little as he looked at Ben.

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“What do you mean?”[/color][/b]

Ben shrugged his shoulders.

[b][color=darkorange]“You’re saying to me there ain’t no way that radiation should have turned us… turned me into this Thing. Yet here I am, ugly as the day is long and as strong as the Hulk. Maybe that happened for a reason, Reed. Maybe it was meant to happen to us. Maybe the world [i]needed[/i] heroes like you, me, Johnny, and Suzie to stop the Dooms of the world?”[/color][/b]

Reed considered the thought for a moment. How comforting it might be to believe that they were all moving parts in some galactic concert – that some all-knowing being had deigned that the universe needed the Fantastic Four to set right the world’s wrongs. He could see the tenderness on Ben’s face, that Grimm was half-willing for his theory to be true, but Reed couldn’t bring himself to lie to his old friend. God knows he had caused Benjamin Grimm enough pain already [i]without[/i] lying to him.

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“I… I don’t believe in predestination.”[/color][/b]

A little grumble passed through Ben’s lips.

[b][color=darkorange]“Well, it’s either that or it was some kinda freak accident. I don’t want to believe I ended up like [i]this[/i] because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, Stretch.”[/color][/b]

Reed sank his head into his hands out of tiredness. He had been burning the candle from both ends ever since they had arrived back from Metropolis. Seeing what Luthor built there, what LexCorp was capable of doing, had lit a fire under Reed. He still couldn’t understand how Lex had extracted energy from the rock where he had failed to do so. There was no safe way of doing so, of that he was certain, but he had seen with his own eyes that Lex had managed it. Reed sighed and shared his doubts with Ben.

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“The meteor rock, the reason that Fury sent us out into space in the first place, Lex Luthor has found a way to harness its power to create a nearly endless power source, Ben.”[/color][/b]

Again Ben shrugged.

[b][color=darkorange]“Isn’t that a good thing?”[/color][/b]

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“I thought so at first but something Sue said stuck with me. There’s something… something not right about it all. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I think she was onto something. That rock is [i]dangerous[/i] but for the life of me I can’t prove it.”[/color][/b]

Ben placed a sympathetic hand on Reed’s back.

[b][color=darkorange]"If anyone can, it’s you, Stretch. You’ve got the biggest brain this Earth has to offer – Stark, Luthor, Kord, and all the rest can’t hold a candle to you and you know that. You hafta know that."[/color][/b]

Reed shook his head. This time it was Reed’s secret thoughts that crept to the forefront of his mind. The meteor rock, the shuttle, what had happened with Ben, it was [i]all[/i] linked in Reed’s mind. He had been dubbed the world’s smartest man before he turned sixteen and had carried with him the weight of that responsibility ever since. Reed Richards was going to save the world, cure all its diseases, and put an end to war and hunger before the twenty-first century was out. It was all he had heard for as long as he could remember – but the more he aged, the more Reed seemed to encounter problems he couldn’t solve.

[b][color=cornflowerblue]“If I can’t even explain what happened to us or why it happened, what chance do I have of figuring out the meteor rock? What chance do I have of curing you, Ben?”[/color][/b]

Ben sighed and crossed his arms. His big blue eyes looked away from Reed’s and instead he stared down at the ground.

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[b][color=darkorange]“I was a nobody before what happened to us, Reed. The only reason SHIELD took me on that damn expedition was because you [i]insisted[/i] I pilot the shuttle. If not for you, I’d still be serving drinks down on Yancy Street. I’m not gonna pretend waking up each morning to this mug doesn’t… upset me a little, but… I can help people in ways I never could before. If you think I’d trade all that in just to see my own face again you’ve got another thing coming.”[/color][/b]

He looked towards Reed and smiled at him gently – the kind of smile that only Benjamin Grimm could smile. It was encouraging and heartening in equal measure. Coupled with his words, he saw a weight lifted off of Reed’s shoulders, if only momentarily, and the super genius smiled back at his old friend. For as much as Ben needed Reed, Reed needed Ben every bit as much. Grimm kept Reed’s feet on the ground, he kept him grounded and confident, and without him, Sue, and Johnny around he wondered whether Richards might have crumbled under the pressure. Luckily for the both of them they would [i]never[/i] have to find out. Ben was going to be with Reed until the end of the road. He knew that much already.

He patted him on the back gently and gestured towards the laboratory door that he’d entered through.

[b][color=darkorange]“So how about you quit beating yourself up and get some sleep?”[/color][/b]

Reed nodded in agreement, shut off the screens in front of him, and made his way out of the room. In the black screens Ben saw his reflection and grimaced at the sight of his own face before following after him.