Sitting down at the dining table the next morning, I opened the morning paper to find that almost on every second page there was something on the Fantastic Five. Pictures littered the newspaper of snapshots of us on the bridge. I couldn't believe how fast news had spread throughout the city. I had even heard rumour that there was radio stations and fanclubs about us. I wonder what our fangirls and fanboys were called. Reed and Ben sat at the heads of the table while Sue sat facing towards the kitchen, they were all quiet just eating their breakfast or in Ben's case trying to. He grabbed a whole bag of oranges and began squeezing the juice of them all into a glass bowl.
I chucked the paper aside not wanting to keep looking at the awful pictures the press had gotten of me. I got up to get a glass of orange juice just as Johnny came strutting into the kitchen looking like he was in a hurry.
'Alright guys lets make this quick, I've got a lot of places to go today...oh wait I don't go anywhere' he rambled on snatching the glass bowl from Ben's grasp. I hopped up onto the bench and dangled my legs over the side and gave Johnny a smile.
'Johnny its imperative that we stay inside for the foreseeable future' Reed spoke up, clearly irritated.
'I know, I know Reed but when you said that last time, my brain heard a little wee'
'Johnny it's too dangerous for you to be out in public' Sue stepped in.
'You've been saying that for years' Johnny remarked. I gave a very unattractive snort of laughter.
'Reed?' I asked him.
'Mmm?'
'How foreseeable? I don't really want to be cooped up like a mutant for experimentation'
'No one's going to experiment on you Maxine' he assured me, 'what worries me is that our powers are evolving'
'Tell me about it, I can have a shower in under two seconds' I added. I slowed down time till everyone seemed unmoving and snatched Johnny's wallet from his pocket. Time continued at normal rate.
'And it takes me less than half a second to steal wallets' I grinned as I waved it up in the air. I chucked it back to Johnny with a triumphant grin.
'I know I know, but guys I'm so close to flying, I can taste it' Johnny remarked, scrunched up a napkin and threw it onto the counter only for it to ignite on fire right by the cereal box.
Sue gave a laugh,
'You can't fly' she snickered.
'Yet'
'Johnny can you put that napkin out' she said gesturing to the extending fire.
'Oh Jesus' Johnny tried to put it out with his hands only to spread it even more till I swear he was going to burn the whole counter. I grabbed my orange juice glass and chucked it over the fire, the flames gave a loud sizzle and died out. I lifted my eyebrows at Johnny as though to say "don't make it complicated".
'So what's going on Reed?' Ben grumbled, 'How are you gonna cure us?'
'I'm going to build-'
'Ahem' I interrupted, 'we, we are gonna build' I pointed out.
'Sorry, we're gonna build a machine to recreate the storm, the cosmic rays will travel from this generator into this chamber'
'What no pop-ups?' Johnny interjected.
'Oh genius' I frowned at him and took a seat next to him. Reed just ignored him and continued,
'If I can reverse the wave signal-'
'It'll return us back to normal' Ben finished for him.
'Right, but what are the risks?' Sue posed. At her question Reed's expression turned down,
'Even a small miscalculation could increase our symptoms expedientially or even kill us'
'Now dying that's bad right? I say we just sleeping dogs lie guys'
'Girls actually' I pointed out me and Sue.
'Hilarious Max' Johnny deadpanned and kissed my cheek out of the blue. I imagine I was blushing because my cheeks felt really hot. Sue grinned at me but gave her brother a death stare.
'So how long till this contraptions up and running?' Ben asked Reed,
'I don't know it's hard to say' Reed replied nervously.
'How long Reed?!' Ben shouted. I clenched my jaw and almost jumped, I didn't like it when he was angry.
'I don't know-'
'You don't know!' Ben's mouth fell open, his rocky brow furrowed.
'We don't want this is get worse' Reed added.
'Huh worse than that?'
'Johnny' I snarled at him.
'Guys looks, we're gonna be stuck here for a while so lets just try and get along' Sue ordered.
***
(3rd Person)
The next few days passed in a flurry of accidents, pranks, experimentations of limits and working on the cosmic storm generator. Reed was focussed solely on getting the generator up and running, he brought in every able bodied grad student to get the generator built. Max was at first helping him work on it by writing up the blueprints and equations needed to calculate the cosmic storm's capacity and energy levels. However after two days she left the job to Reed and set out to test her powers.
She visited the library and found herself reading the entire Harry Potter series under five minutes. She read all of Reed's published works in less than three minutes and in that time even managed to bake a cake from scratch. She could shower in less than a minute and was pick-pocketing everyone's belongings and putting them in different places just for kicks. From the items that she took, she could tell that Reed never kept coins in his wallet, Uncle Ben missed Debbie, Sue had the business cards of three co-workers from Doom Enterprises not including Victor's and that Johnny hadn't replied to any of the calls from the dozens of women who'd try to call him over the past week.
Reaching the end of the blackboard was no problem for Reed or switching the light off on the other side of the room, nor was getting a snack from the fridge. Sue grew accustom to turning invisible very quickly if anyone walked in on her in the shower. Ben continued to struggle to eat, biting off the ends of knifes and forks and always having to eat ten times more than everyone else, which caused a big ass grocery bill. Johnny bathed in the limelight of fame as fangirls screamed over him and begged for his autograph. Max didn't want to admit it but she grew jealous when he gave another girl his charming smile her way. She didn't want to admit it, but she missed the playboy.
After about five days of tedious working, solving math equations, listening to the high pitched squeals of fans, Max decided she needed she shake things up a little bit. She did prank calls to Victor Von Doom via Sue's phone, dunked a bucket of water onto Johnny's head when he was signing autographs by the front of the BaxterBuilding. Boredom had finally taken over the fiery red head, but there was no way anyone could stop her, she was too fast. She had managed to perfect her powers till it didn't take any thinking power to adjust to the alternate time frame, it didn't take effort to run to the Grand Canyon and back just for a looky-see in under twenty seconds.
Taunting Johnny was the most fun however. He reacted the best and it was funny making him look like an idiot in front of his fangirls. The possibilities seemed endless until one night they managed to catch her. They sat her down on the couch blocking the entrances for any escape plan of hers.
'Maxine' Uncle Ben began lowly, 'whatever happened to getting along with everyone?'
'I'm dandy, I don't know what you guys are complaining about' she waved them off with clear arrogance.
'Max, you need to stop fooling around and help us with this cure.' Reed added. Max sighed deeply and gave a guilty expression.
'Sorry everyone' she said sincerely, 'I don't really want to find a cure. It's just been fun not having to be worried about anything for a change.'
'But there is something to worry about Max' Reed interjected.
'I know, I know the cure.'
'The machine is so close to completion, but I need you to draw up those equations for me otherwise we'll be off schedule like we've been all week' Reed explained. Max gave a nod and got up to walk out, and just walk.
'Hey what about all of those pranks she's been doing' Johnny piped up, clearly annoyed.
'What about them playboy?' Max grinned, 'its not like you can talk. What ever happened to "I haven't been able to think about anyone but you Max, all of these years"' she snapped.
Johnny was quiet for a moment, 'those girls mean nothing to me'
'Prove it Mr Storm, prove it' she said and sashayed out of the room.
***
That night I didn't want to do anything but crash out on my bed and sleep till noon. I had spent the afternoon working on missed work that I had purposely skipped out on. But I managed to get everything back on track. Reed was happy with my work and now we finally had a generator that we could start testing the flowers in. I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling of my room when I heard a huge voice boom through the house.
'No! No freakin' way!' it was Uncle Ben.
I raced down stairs, was something wrong? Ben was standing up in the living room looking in anger at the TV. Sue and Reed were already in the room when I finally came down.
'Uncle Ben?' I asked, wondering what on earth he was getting so upset about.
'Ben, what going on?' Reed asked, still wearing his white lab coat. Ben pointed his hand towards the TV and began pacing. I looked to the screen and saw Johnny in the middle of an interview at a motorcross dirt track. The lights overhead suggested it was at stadium, blonde cheerleaders were standing to Johnny's right the commentator his left, with some of the other BMX riders and supporters.
'Oh no he didn't' Sue said angrily.
'Oh yes he did' Ben shouted, 'flame boy never listens'
'What did he do to his uniform?' Sue asked staring at the number 5 sewn onto his uniform. Reed hid his modified uniform and so did I as I was there helping them change it.
'Johnny I've got to ask about this outfit' the interviewer asked Johnny who was on cloud 9.
'Yeah its sorta Armani meet astronaut' he stared right down at the camera. I unclenched my fists, not even noticing that I had balled them up in the first place.
'So what are your superhero names?'
'They call me the Human Torch' Johnny grinned, 'ladies call me Torch'
I gave a cold hearted laugh,
'Not every lady' I seethed.
'And what about the rest of the team?'
A picture flashed up on the huge projector of Sue on the bridge with a very flustered look.
'That's the Invisible Girl' Johnny shot out randomly.
'Girl?' Sue snapped beside me.
Next the picture changed to me, my red hair wispy and splayed out like I had been running, damn why did my fringe always look like that?
'Who's that fiery red head?' the interviewer asked clearly laughing at the natural colour of my hair.
'that's my girl, Red Fury'
'Fury? Fury!' I almost screamed, where was he coming up with these names!
'What about your leader Reed Richards I hear you call him Mr Fantastic'
Ben shrugged and looked to Reed,
'Could be worse' he mumbled.
'Is it true he can expand any part of his anatomy?' the interviewer added. I widened my eyes and my mouth fell open. Seriously? The crowd gave a wave of chuckles.
'Well I've always found him to be a little limp' Johnny commented. My eyebrows rose, and to think I let this guy kiss me, to think I let him deceive me into thinking he could change.
'And that' the next image of Ben came up, 'what do you call that thing?'
'That's it' Johnny put his hands up for emphasise, 'The Thing...yeah you think this is bad you should have seen him before...'
Ben's face contorted into a look of rage. My eyes narrowed into slits, I swear I was going to rip him limp from limp.
'Okay now I'm going to kill him' Uncle Ben promised.
'Not before I do' I added lividly.
AN
Sorry for the short chapter everyone :/