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2025-07-31
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2025-08-04
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Twenty Six Between You and Me

Summary:

The battle is over, the dust has settled. The rhythms of life have settled back into place over the whole world, a story brought to it's close.

But for Johnny and Shalla, the story is just beginning. Love can grow in the strangest of places; in the quiet moments between saving the world and juggling family and friendship on the path to forgiveness and acceptance.

Notes:

Hi all!

I am still deeply unwell about Fantastic Four: First Steps and I don't see the pairing of Shalla-Bal/Johnny letting me go anytime, I am locked in a chokehold XD I REGRET NOTHING

I've had this idea of writing a fic like this for ages with each chapter corresponding to a different word to cover the entire alphabet, and no time like the present! Gonna be a fun adventure as these two incredible people fall in love across twenty six letters <3

I hope you enjoy, thanks for stopping by!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Apology

Chapter Text


Evenings were arguably the best time in Johnny's opinion. The Baxter building had been positioned at such an angle that when the sun set across the Hudson River, the fading light set the entire city completely ablaze in glorious golden hues. More often than not as the clock ticked it's way further into the day and he wasn't out patrolling the city, Johnny would migrate out of his room or the spacious living room and take up his usual position on the western corner of the terrace.

Tonight, however, it seemed he wasn't quite alone.

Shalla-Bal was still an enigma, months after reappearing back in Earth's orbit following Galactus' banishment. He'd kept all thoughts of her out of mind in the initial first days, ribs still smarting from the force of her board slamming him out of the way. If the other three realized how often the presence of the silver woman orbited the gravity of his thoughts, they never brought it up.

Johnny occasionally caught Ben watching him in the rare moments his gaze turned upward to the scarred but calm heavens, but Johnny never supplied any explanation and Ben never pried. Sue was a different story, broaching the subject of the strange alien woman and the circumstances surrounding the entire ordeal more than once. But it was easy enough to deflect her attentions elsewhere, mostly in Franklin's direction as the boy continued to change and adapt and grow.

Reed was the easiest to deflect; all Johnny had to do was point out something in the spheres of the hypothetical, and his brother in law would be lost for hours wandering the depths of his own thoughts.

And then she had reappeared one day without warning; Shalla-Bal descending from the heavens in between sunset and nightfall like a flare of the dying light, and Johnny had felt the axis of his world shift irrevocably.

They'd accepted her quietly into their midst, keeping her out of the public eye as much as possible. Her own nature often had her slipping away from the press of strangers- the Four as foreign to her as anyone else on the planet she'd chosen to return for reasons no one quite understood. On the few instances when he'd glimpsed her fleeing, lithe form rising upward above the city until she was nothing but a gleam of starlight in the sky, Johnny had merely watched.

Waited.

Hoped she would find her way back, even as he knew it was a selfish thought.

Tonight, it seemed Shalla was reenacting her glorious return on a smaller variety and with far less grandeur than was in her habit. Johnny couldn't help a brief smile as he nudged to glass door shut behind him, his gaze fixed entirely on the silver woman leaning casually against the terrace railing.

She didn't react as he approached, just the two of them and all of New York City in the pleasant evening air. Johnny braced both arms against the railing to mimic her poser, leaning forward and turning his gaze outward across the cityscape. The neon lights of the businesses were beginning to wink on while traffic dimmed along residential streets, picking up on the busier avenues.

“It never stops,” she murmured after a few moments without pulling her gaze from the array before them. “So much life, so much noise. No one stops for a moment to breathe.”

“They do,” Johnny said with a wry smile, glancing at her from the side. He didn't look too long or too close, seeing firsthand how she shied away from more direct study in the first days since Shalla too refuge on Earth. He kept his gaze focused forward, his posture open and relaxed even as he watched her from the corner of his eyes.

“...I don't understand.” Shalla dipped her head forward, eyes slipping shut. Her breath escaped in a soft sigh, hands tightening to fists. “I thought coming back here would make things easier. They would make sense again, and perhaps I wouldn't feel so alone.”

“...I get it.”

Johnny didn't miss the way she stiffened, spine straightening and head turning to regard him with the clinical stare he knew was anything but cold. There was so much about this planet, the people who lived here that still made little sense to her; so in moments like these when Shalla stared and Johnny felt like he was a pane of glass in the way of her journey to deciphering her own thoughts, he stayed still.

Quiet.

And when Shalla had turned away again, her gaze drawn back to the city lights glowing bright as a beacon, Johnny continued.

“When my family and I- Sue, Reed, and Ben- were on that rocket years ago, I had no idea our lives were about to change. It was the wildest time, really. One day we were just normal humans doing normal human things. Sue and Reed were solving the world's problems one math equation at a time, Ben told me once he had dreams of opening a restaurant. And me... Well, after we came back, it was different. We were different.”

Johnny broke off with a quiet huff of laughter, keeping his gaze forward when he felt the weight of Shalla's gaze on him. Her face scrunched, the most evidence he'd ever seen of her inner thoughts, and he hid a smile before she could see it.

“But you are Earth's heroes. You defend them from all manner of things. I do not think they would...”

He swallowed lightly, shaking his head. “You'd be surprised. We came back changed, something other than human. And yeah, everyone accepts us now cause we're icons. Heroes, like you said. But the things we can do, Shalla? The changes we went through? We weren't exactly World's Most Popular Four, you know.”

Shalla was quiet, minutes slipping by as the sky above them darkened to true night and the first stars peeked out from the celestial curtain they hid behind during the day.

“What did you do?” Her question nearly slipped by unheard, a night breeze pulling her words away. Johnny smiled and turned to face her, one arm braced on the railing.

“Earth is our home, so we settled in. Regained the public's trust. Worked with them to be understood on both sides. And when the time came, when they needed help beyond their capabilities, we were there.”

He resisted the urge to reach for her, fingers aching for the feel of her cheek beneath gentle touch. Shalla watched him in earnest then, silver eyes fixed on him with far more openness than he was used to seeing in the depths of her gaze. It was a moment he knew to be rare and he be damned before he squandered the rare opportunity gifted to him.

“Point is, give them time. They're still getting used to you after everything, but that doesn't mean they don't accept you. And give yourself time, too. Stuff like this doesn't happen overnight.”

Shalla closed her eyes and breathed out, relaxing in increments before she looked at him again. “I am open to trying, Johnny Storm. Though I fear...”

“Hey.” Johnny reached for her hand, keeping his smile earnest. “Whatever happens next, you're not alone anymore, Shalla-Bal. You've got us right here with you; we'll figure it out together.”

He paused and leaned forward slightly, voice dropping to a whisper. “It's the least we can do after firing plasma cannons at you. Sorry about that, by the way.”

Shalla stared at him and for a moment, her mouth twitched as if she meant to smile. Her gaze dropped to their joined hands and Johnny winced, pulling his hand away. Her grip tightened for a moment and he froze, gaze snapping up to hers and searching the silvery depths of her eyes for...something he wasn't sure he was ready to name.

Smiling, Shalla let him go and turned back toward the city view. “I think we're even, Johnny Storm. You don't have to earn my forgiveness, it is I who still have many amends to make.”

“Maybe,” Johnny shrugged, hands slipping his pockets. He held her gaze, two people worlds apart as one stood in a puddle of lamplight while the other remained in the velvety embrace of the dark, as different as day and night. “Or maybe the path to real change starts with forgiving yourself. Trust me, Shalla, none of us here are keeping score.”

Smiling at her surprised expression, Johnny turned on his heel back into the warmth and light of the place he called home, a living room filled with the warm laughter of his sister, his brother-in-law, his best friend. But behind him, he felt the weighted stare of someone he desperately wanted to include in that group, so with barely a thought behind it, Johnny left the terrace door open a fraction.

An invitation to Shalla-Bal as much as it was a token of peace, forgiveness.

He just had to wait for her to be willing to take it.

Chapter 2: Break

Notes:

I am back again with more brainrot for this pairing, as I've now seen Fantastic Four: First Steps a second time in theater and oh my god it was just as good as the first time <3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Shalla-Bal had considered herself a great many things in the years she'd spent beyond her natural lifespan. When she'd been alive, she had been called a great many titles under the gentle sun of her far distant home, words strung together in the lyrical voices of her people that were ultimately meaningless now. Their voices had long since faded from her memory alongside the blurring of their faces, snatches of their existences coming back to her in the deepest hours of the night in her dreams.

It had been so easy once upon a time for her to push away all thoughts of the person she'd once been, drown them in the same silver that had smothered everything she used to be.

At least, she'd been able to once but then a man who burned like the sun she could no longer feel had spoken to her in a language she'd resigned herself to never hear again, and something in her chest had unspooled to leave her drifting, untethered from everything she'd ever known.

She thought of how it had felt for the beams of a foreign sun to touch her skin when she could feel nothing. The spray of the ocean as she pushed herself faster to race across it's surface even when destruction had been her goal. The shattering of their hope, she hadn't even blinked at the idea as she broke through their atmosphere to destroy bridge after bridge.

Even then, it didn't stop the four heroes. They pushed back just as hard, their ferocity unmatched as they fought for the sake of something greater than them. A son born in the midst of violence, the countless lives of a world counting on them. Against all odds, they had won.

Against all odds, they had stayed together.

She drifted, movements slow in the deep grasp of the void. Shalla turned her sight inward, grasping at the unbreakable surface that had become her body. She dug her fingers in between her ribs, snapping past the cage of bone until she could reach the calcified state of her heart deep within the monster she'd become, and Shalla screamed her rage and grief out toward the heavens.

Coming back to the world she'd very nearly doomed to extinction hadn't been her first choice, but after drifting aimlessly through the void she'd cast herself into with nothing but ghosts for company, Shalla had turned her board and her sights back.

Back, back.

Back to a world she'd condemned, back to a world she had hurt deep. The gouges of her misdeeds still marred the surface and she wondered as the depths of the void sped past in blurs of neon light and supernovas, a kind of beauty Shalla wouldn't let herself look too closely at, undeserving of it as she was.

She spent weeks lingering on the fringes of their atmosphere beyond the reach of their scopes and satellites. Out of sight, endlessly watching the flickers of light and life crossing the surface of their planet that had survived. When watching proved to be not enough, her mind itching and rebelling with a seedling sprout of something she wasn't ready to name, Shalla descended down past the point where the deep grasp of the darkness eased away for brushstrokes of endless blue.

She had expected to be turned away, banished back to the cold grasp of eternity beyond the reach of spoken word or warmth, or light. It was the ending she was expecting, the ending she deserved after all she'd said and done.

But they had looked up at the sky to her approach, arms open and welcoming this time. They asked little of her, giving her space to adjust to a life in the grasp of the Earth. Hours became days which turned to weeks, and Shalla had felt the dead heart in her chest crack to begin beating again.

Though her desire to keep her distance often held her back, Shall found herself drifting downward to the building where the heroes lived, searching for the one who had become a beacon in the lonely depths of her own existence.

Drifting down to the terrace where only a night ago, the offer of redemption had been left at her feet in the chilled night air, Shalla hesitated. She'd watched the car usually parked at the front of the building rumble away minutes earlier, the couple with their son nestled inside and dressed in plain clothes rather than the blue and white clothing setting them apart as heroes of their world. Within the building, without being able to explain it, she knew the man she sought was there.

She paused in the doorway to the terrace, left open to invite the heady gusts of wind picking up through the city, and watched surprise flash lightning quick across Johnny Storm's face. He was slouched across three cushions of the modular sofa taking up a wide swath of the room, a magazine in his hand with the glossy cover bent backward as he read it.

Johnny immediately shot to his feet, magazine cast to the side as if it meant nothing. His gaze was entirely fixed on her, as blue as the sky she had crossed to get here to him, as deep as the waters of a world she'd left far behind. His gaze pinned her in place and Shalla didn't even dare breathe, silver weighed down in the oceans in his eyes.

“Hey,” Johnny said softly, more an exhale than a proper word. He started toward her, mouth wobbling between a smile and slack jawed surprise, like he couldn't quite make up his mind on how he was feeling. It was a surprising fact, one that buoyed against her existence to send her off kilter; she had been certain for so long that the only emotion anyone was capable of was disdain at her presence, and yet here was this man torn between shock and awe and relief at seeing her.

On the heels of that realization came the jolt of surprise that they weren't as alone in the Baxter Building as Shalla had at first assumed.

“Johnny, go see if H.E.R.B.I.E needs help downstairs.” Ben didn't pull his gaze away from her though he addressed his younger counterpart. Shalla stared back while Johnny sighed heavily, turning to face the taller, broader man.

“Ben-”

“Now, Johnny.”

He cast an apologetic look at Shalla in passing, words like water slipping from his lips in a murmur, a promise to come find her later, a request to wait for him. She nodded once, not trusting herself to speak as she was left alone with the one member of the Four she'd not spoken to at all before now.

“You came back for him,” Ben said, watching her with the safety of the kitchen island between them. His large hands were braced on the sleek marble surface, though it did not bend or crumple under the weight he pressed on it.

“I did, though I didn't think he would accept me so openly.”

“Johnny's a stand up guy, he has no issue getting the attention of most women. And you look at him like he hung the stars in the skies, but maybe with a little more skepticism.”
Ben shrugged, rumbling steps bringing him around the counter. He gestured toward the orange draped sofa where Johnny had been reclining previously, the color the same hue as the deepest flickers of his flames. Shalla sank down onto the edge of the seat, palms pressed to her knees.

“Point is, you're intrigued by him. And he's more than intrigued for the both of you, which isn't a bad thing. But he's also young. Prone to irrational thinking sometimes.”

She met Ben's gaze, nothing but sincerity in the deep earthen hue of them, the silence stretching out between them until she dared to ask, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because like it or not, he admires you. Trusts you, even. And Johnny's good word goes a long way in this house, but I know Johnny. I care about him, he's family. The last thing I want is to see him get hurt.”

It was the cold grasp of deep space again, a fist around her lungs to squeeze until there was no room left for a single breath, the kiss of air she craved more than anything. Shalla stared at Ben who stared back, nothing but time and space between them.

“I am not trying to hurt him,” she finally managed to say, words squeezed out between the spasms of her chest trying to take in air that wouldn't come.

“If you were, we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation.” Ben smiled, his tone light, and then he chuckled. “I know you don't have much reason to trust any of us while we're all caught up in this dance of getting to know each other, but you're here. That's a huge first step.”

Shalla swallowed, eyes closing briefly while her fingers curled against her palms, that elusive prick of pain she chased endlessly to ground her. She didn't even realize he had moved until Ben's hand was closing gently around hers, his touch impossibly gentle.

“I think you're a good person, Shalla-Bal. Maybe a little broken, but that doesn't make you bad.” He smiled at her and unlike Johnny's exuberance, the way his smile lit up the room like the brightest of the stars, Ben's smile was like the gentle warmth of a well loved home. It made her throat tighten with the silently offered promise there, and that thing in her chest she had thought long dead and buried under the molten weight of her sins began to beat again.

They didn't move from that position until a distant clatter announced the return of the younger man, his steps accompanied by a series of melodic whistles. Ben got up with a final pat to her hand, the force of her metallic skin absorbing the impact of his touch.

Johnny bounded up the steps toward them, his expression a mix of delicate hope and relief to see her still sitting there on the sofa, taking up as little space in this place not built for her, but they'd made space for her even so. Small moments; Johnny leaving the terrace door open to her, Ben's hand on hers. Inconsequential in the moment and yet she could feel the ripples of them as they crashed endlessly against the shores of her own existence.

“You ever hear of Kintsugi?”

Shalla pulled her gaze away from Johnny in favor of Ben standing back by the counter, large hands resuming the act of cooking from the ingredients spread out before him. She shook her head slightly, and Ben chuckled as he neatly sidestepped Johnny pulling a box of cereal from one of the cupboards.

“It's an old art; putting broken pottery and ceramic together with gold. Restoring what once was there with something new and beautiful, making it stronger than it ever was before. Kind of like you.”

Ben held her gaze, his voice as gentle as the earth that cradled these people so different and foreign than her own, and yet somehow Shalla felt more at home here than ever before. Perhaps she was broken, but maybe, just maybe, she could piece herself back together.

Stronger than she'd been before.

Notes:

I absolutely fully intended for this chapter to be another Johnny/Shalla conversation but Ben swiped my keyboard and demanded to have a say XD

Let me know what you think! <3

Notes:

Comments and kudos give me life! <3