Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Val found Johnny on the roof, dozing off while sunbathing. He didn’t really need to be there, but lately it was like he couldn’t get warm, not the way he’d used to be able to. And he didn’t need a doctor – or a shrink – to tell him that it was mostly in his head.

“Uncle Johnny?” she said, poking her head up to stare at him.

Johnny mumbled something in return, shaking himself a little to properly wake up. “Val! Favourite niece! Come join me – though you’ll probably need sunscreen. And a hat.”

“I have sunscreen. And a hat.”

Johnny opened his eyes properly, wishing he’d brought sunglasses, because the glare of the sun up here was truly intense. “Ah,” he said. “You came prepared. I can grab you your own chair, or you can join mine – you’re pretty tiny, so we’ll fit—”

“We’re gardening,” Val interrupted him, probably realising that he wasn’t going to pause anytime soon. “Franklin and Bentley and the Moloids. And me. Do you want to join us?”

“Gardening, huh,” Johnny said. “In the greenhouse near your dad’s lab?”

Val nodded, and took his questions as a ‘yes’. She grabbed him by the hand and tugged a little, and then started walking. Johnny scrambled up and grabbed his phone from where it’d slid under him, and hurried after her, bending over just a little so Val could still hold his hand.

They took the elevator downstairs, and Johnny shivered a little at the cold, and almost ran face first into one of the pillars before Val was yanking him in the other direction. The shivering was another psychological thing, he knew, because there was nothing wrong with his powers. In fact, just the previous night, they’d worked perfectly fine and allowed him to go super nova, something he hadn’t really done since he’d been back.

Maybe that was why he was feeling weird – he still hadn’t fully recovered from it. Laying around in the sun didn’t really help him recharge, but it helped his body feel tired and warm and like it was safe, helped him distinguish between then and now. Waking up in his dark room, even in his comfy, plushy bed, didn’t stop him from panicking for the first few moments before he got his bearings.

“Your hand isn’t sweaty,” Val commented. “Which is nice. I thought it’d be all sticky and gross, since you were up there for hours. Though if you weren’t superpowered that might mean you’re just really dehydrated.”

Johnny found himself unconsciously running his thumb over her small hand. In his mind, Val had shot up to Franklin’s height in the time he’d been away, but in reality, not enough time had passed for that to have happened. Val was taller, yes, coming up to about mid-thigh height now when she’d been about up to his knees when he’d last seen her before, but… it was weird, to try and fit in his passage of time versus the reality of it.

Val peered up at him, and furrowed her brow at what she found. “I believe Franklin wants to grow fruits on his side,” she told him. “I want to fix up the veggie patch—” Johnny hadn’t even realised they had a veggie patch— “and I left to get you before I heard what the others were doing.”

The Moloids were good with earth. They kept the greenhouse mostly in shape. That much Johnny remembered, though he’d also been under the impression that they had a few herbs and things in there, probably a few vegetables and things. He hadn’t expected to see a greenhouse the size of his entire living space.

“Have we always had this?” he asked, frowning a little. Surely he would’ve remembered if they did.

Val cocked her head to the side. “Not as big,” she said. “We expanded it. Mom really got into gardening after you… um, disappeared.”

Johnny nodded, trying not to let it show how weird it felt whenever he ran into yet another coping mechanism with what had clearly been assumed to be his demise, his sacrifice, his martyrdom. The Johnny from before would’ve loved to have had a giant statue, complete with a flame that was always lit; now, he found it… embarrassing, to be honest. Not to mention a reminder of it all.

Johnny would do a lot to escape the reminders, including coming down here to garden with the kids.

“This is… a job,” Johnny said, already overwhelmed by just how much stuff there probably was to do in a garden this big. “What did you want me to help with?”

“Moving heavy things,” Val told him.

“I see how it is,” Johnny said dramatically. “I’m the grunt, the lifter—"

“This one first, please,” Val said, with a smile that told him she knew exactly what she was doing.

Johnny blinked at the massive pot. “How’d you even get it in here? Why is it here? Also, why didn’t you guys just get Ben?”

“‘Cause Uncle Ben told us he was going out with Aunt Alicia and to bother you,” Franklin said, walking over to them.

“Of course he did,” Johnny sighed, though they all knew he’d never minded spending time with the kids. “Okay, where do you need it?”

“Over there.” Franklin pointed over to where one of the Moloids was waving his arms.

Johnny threw his head back. “That’s the other side of the greenhouse!”

“Think of it as going to the gym,” Bentley told him, in all seriousness, “but for practical matters. Such as world domination.”

“And what gym equipment is world domination supposed to replace,” Johnny said, words getting strangled as he hefted up the giant flower pot. “Sue is a menace. I can already see her force field fingerprints all over this pot.”

Time passed by quickly: one of the Moloids needed Johnny to pour exactly twenty three millilitres of water into a can every time they watered… whatever it was they were growing. The chilli and tomatoes needed picking, and there was practically a shopping cart that they could use for this purpose. Johnny was the only one who could fly, though he was warned by Bentley’s glare that if he burned any leaves there’d be a dead animal in his bed.

Val finally called him back over. “Last thing for today,” she said. “It’s getting late and Dad’s called us up for dinner in about half an hour.”

Dinner? Johnny glanced at his phone and blinked to see that five hours had passed. “Huh,” he said. “Wait, who’s cooking if I was here all day—”

“I think Uncle Ben brought takeout,” Val said. “C’mon. We have a hundred and fifteen holes to make and bulbs to plant.”

“Got it, boss.”

The soil was… warm. There was no light right now, but where Johnny’s hands touched the soil, it was warm in a sunshine way. He absentmindedly dug the holes and patted the soil in around each bulb, and the Moloids went around watering each of them perfectly.

Franklin was wrapping up with cutting stems off the rosebushes that stood to one side; Johnny wondered if they were also supplying to a flowery. Bentley was… doing something behind a giant bush that Johnny couldn’t quite see, so he ignored it. If the kids had survived this long in the garden mostly unsupervised then—

Something slithered onto his skin, wriggling and slimy and cold cold cold and Johnny—

Johnny flamed on without thinking, jumping back away from the flower bed and tripping over the wheelbarrow behind him. His heart pounded in his chest and his ears were roaring but he couldn’t hear a single thing except the way he was trying to draw in breaths even as he drew them in much too fast, trying in vain to calm down.

Flaming on so rapidly in a greenhouse, especially one with this much foliage, was a bad idea. The small part of Johnny that could still think, the part of him that was whacking him over the head with a shovel, was trying in vain to stifle his flames. There was yellow all around him, flames dancing and the stench of burning greenery.

The fire alarm went off, and sprinklers turned on.

And then Johnny couldn’t breathe. He clutched his throat, already half curled up on the ground but now trying in vain to crawl to his feet, to stand and look around.

His hands touched nothing, and that was when he knew he was inside one of Sue’s force fields. His eyes made contact with hers just as the world around him went dark.