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2025-08-04
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A Simple Solution

Summary:

Johnny has the tendency to lay his life down on the line first, the team notices.

Or: I just wanted to write about Johnny's oxygen tank running low, and Reed's response.

Notes:

Someone on tumblr sent, "When I was watching the movie I thought the whole "don't burn within your space suit for more than ten minutes" premise had sooo much potential but then the movie kinda glossed over it maybe some gen friendship/family angst based on that??" and my brain kind of ran with that.

Work Text:

The thing is, Reed knew even as he said it that the warning would fall on deaf ears. He knew by the way Johnny was only half listening, more enthralled with the space suits, his immanent return to the stars, than the dangers that they held. He knew from the eager, hungry look that lacked all of the apprehension that Reed himself felt. It was the same expression Johnny had worn four years ago, during that first fated trip out of the atmosphere, all blonde ambition and a blasé way of approaching their training that irked Reed beyond belief. He’d assumed Johnny wasn’t taking the mission seriously, had confronted him about it when he’d made one too many jokes during a briefing. Only Johnny had shot back with a near perfect recitation of what Reed had said, and he’d learned fairly quickly that the kid had far more brains than he let on.

So, he knows Johnny hears him when he gives the warning about limited oxygen supply. But he also knows, by the way that Johnny only vaguely nods in recognition, that it ranks at the bottom of his list of concerns, as his own safety so often does. Sue, the baby, they rank at the top. Johnny leaves little regard for himself, leaves his own life at the bottom like the last dregs of a particularly strong cup of coffee.

Reed is worried it’s becoming a problem, Johnny’s tendency to lay himself down as the sacrificial lamb. Sue tells him to let it be.

“That’s just Johnny,” she insists, “he’s always been that way.”  

She’s not happy when she says it, made apparent in the downward twitch of her lips. Instead, she has settled more into the camp of tired acceptance. Reed pieces that it is a conversation she has tried to broach with her brother many times, not yet finding success. Johnny is Johnny, hard to persuade and even harder to control. It is easier to let sleeping dogs lie, to let sacrificial little brothers be, for the sake of the greater threat they face.  

He’s an adult, Reed tells himself as he’s clicking himself into the seat of the rocket, he can make his own decisions. Reed may not understand the decisions, the impulsivity of them, how they are driven by action rather than thought, but he has learned to trust that Johnny’s instincts are intrinsically tied to his knowledge. He has learned to trust, though it has taken more restraint on his part than he had originally been prepared for.

He is smart, he tells himself as he watches Johnny trail off after the herald aboard Galactus’ ship. The fiery path he leaves is depleting his oxygen supply at a rapid rate, but it is their only way of gaining the intel they so desperately need. Johnny leveraging his connection with the woman to work out an answer – at least he hopes that is the intent, assumes it is more than Johnny simply flirting with the being who has foretold their demise. Even as he gets the alert that his suit is low, the same beeping that indicates to Johnny also wired to alert Reed, he leaves it be. Because they are on the spaceship of an inter-terrestrial world eater, and there are bigger things than Johnny’s oxygen supply at play.

In the grand scheme of things, it is so small, so small that Reed forgets. He forgets until Johnny is falling down before them, flames extinguishing as his tank hits empty. And then he forgets because he is calculating the time warp of a black hole, nursing his wife through the birth of their cosmically powered son, and trying to solve a million equations, that all point towards bad, in the span of a millisecond.

Johnny’s actions seems so small then, so forgettable, so…stupid.

It is not until the dust settles that Reed lets himself remember. Not until the rebuilding of the city has begun, not until he has held Sue enough times to ensure that the steady rise and fall of her chest will remain, not until he has hovered over Franklin’s crib countless nights to watch the boy sleep, that he lets his thoughts turn to his brother-in-law. He is beginning to wonder if self-sacrifice is a Storm family trait, or a result of their shared trauma – the nature vs nurture of it all could keep Reed in his lab for hours. Whatever drives it, Reed knows that it cannot be left to fester.

Because he is already consumed with the thought of Franklin’s cries, the fear of what his son might become, with the stillness of Sue’s sprawled body on the cracked pavement, of his whole world gone in an instant, and he cannot have Johnny’s labored breathing echoing in the cacophonic chorus as well. He cannot not think of the way Johnny had coughed, ragged and gagging and fighting for air that would not come – how his body had contorted on the floor as he searched for it anyway. He cannot, because there is enough keeping Reed up at night, and he will not have the image of his brother-in-law, dead beside his wife and child, added to the list.

At the time, it seems like the smallest problem to solve: instill a sense of self-preservation into Johnny Storm, insist upon it. It seems like such a small task in the grand scheme, that it is the first he plans to tackle. Only, he forgets to factor the one denominator that would break the whole formula – nothing with Johnny is ever simple.

It’s how he finds himself standing here now, awkwardly placed in Johnny’s doorframe while the man looks up at him questioningly from his place sprawled out on the floor of his bedroom.

“Hi,” Reed says, fiddling with a button at the cuff of his dress shirt.

“Hi?” Johnny says, fingers fidgeting with the strands of the shag rug he’s star-fished out on.

The records are gone, the ones housing recordings from other worlds. Reed had almost grown so accustomed to seeing them spread half-hazardly across the floor and furniture, that their absence seems foreign. The clutter had once sparked annoyance, now it only ignites worry. Johnny only cleans when there’s something worth forgetting, packing and shoving it far away so it can’t make an unwelcome return. Reed understands that, as he is often prone to doing the same.

“Can we…talk?” he asks, toeing the line between stepping into Johnny’s room and staying in the hall with a pointed end of his brown dress shoes.

Johnny rolls onto his stomach, then pushes himself to his feet. There’s something so intrinsically youthful in the movement that Reed is reminded for a moment of the boy he first met so many years ago. The one who’d practically begged for his chance to go to space, spoken about the stars with such fervor that Reed could see the light of them shining inside him.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Johnny asks, all bounce and effortless energy – despite the dark circles that have taken up a visible residence under his eyes in the past weeks.

Ben says he isn’t sleeping, says he can hear Johnny gasping awake at night from his own room down the hall. They leave the question of why Ben is awake himself at the late hour open-ended, another tick on Reed’s list of problems to solve.

Reed takes the invitation, steps further into the room and pauses again. He’s never been very good at this, broaching topics he’d rather leave to resolve themselves. He’s never been very good with Johnny. But he looks at him now, afternoon sunlight washing out his blonde hair, casting shadows across his face, turning sunken features darker, and he sees a corpse that he cannot bear the weight of anymore. It is partly for selfish reasons that he finds himself blurting out:

“You nearly died.”

Johnny half laughs, uncomfortably despite the easy demeanor he projects,  “Yeah.”

Reed doesn’t laugh, keeps his features the neutral expression of seriousness.

“So did you.”

“Not intentionally,” Reed counters, crossing his arms. It pulls at the fabric of his button-up, makes it tight across his shoulders, the feeling making him tense further.

Johnny matches his stance, points his chin up and narrows his eyes in a way that Reed knows means he’s preparing for a fight. He’s gotten into enough of them with Johnny to spot the signs, though they had decreased substantially in recent years, limited only to the times Reed confronted him about his cereal intake as of late.

“Not intentionally?” he asks, defensive, guarded, probing with open hostility.

Reed flounders, because he had not meant for this to be a fight. He had not meant to put himself as the opposition at all. He closes his eyes in an attempt to collect himself, draws in a breath, and is reminded of the way Johnny hadn’t been able to.

“That’s not what I meant.”

He tries not to, but his mind brings forth the sound of Johnny’s panicked inhales that had made their way over the comm, the fear that had laced through the alarm of the moment. Johnny coughing, gagging, clawing. Johnny limp as Ben carried him, wrapped in the suit meant to keep him safe, in the suit that had nearly become his tomb.

Reed knows his voice sounds off, heavy with the memory of Johnny’s anguish, when he says, “I told you to limit the flames. I warned you, I built in an alarm. I told you to be careful.”

Johnny’s expression furrows, the guarded front stuttering as he racks his memory to pinpoint what Reed is referencing. Reed supposes there’s a lot to sort through when you’re prone to laying yourself upon the alter. He can almost see the blood, the wide-eyed look in Johnny’s eyes that would slowly fade to nothing, the way he would go unnaturally still. And then he has to shake his head to clear it of the thought because the thought of one Storm gone is already enough to haunt him.

“Are you- you’re talking about the ship? Reed, that was months ago, and I was trying to get us out of there alive.”

"You depleted the tank,” Reed says, letting the frustration creep into his voice when he says it, enough for Johnny to hear the hurt. “You nearly died.”

“And Sue did die!” Johnny snaps, voice wavering, “what’s your point? You want me to apologize? For what? Saving you?”

Again, all wrong, all anger.

“No- Johnny, look- just, it wasn’t- you’re- you’ve- you’re getting dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Impulsive! Reactive! You didn’t think-“

“Oh,” Johnny spits, “I’m sorry I didn’t pause to run through the calculations while a giant alien was trying to steal my nephew!”

“It wasn’t the first time, Johnny!” Reed yells, throwing his arms wide. Thinking of, 'tell Franklin Uncle Johnny loves him', of a fiery streak in the sky aimed right at Galactus and a black hole that had nearly claimed him. Of, time and time again, Johnny laying his life on the line when there were other solutions.

Johnny has inched backwards into the room, retreating while Reed has followed, leaving him standing with his back to the wall and a caged look in his eyes. Reed hadn’t meant to corner him, hadn’t realized he had until Johnny bristles like a trapped animal. His shoulders tense under the jean jacket hiding them.

Reed holds his hands out, just barely, palms facing Johnny in an attempt to soothe something that has already been frenzied.

“Johnny-“

“I was trying to help!”

“I know, Johnny, I know. You did. This isn’t only about that-“

“Then what!? What are you asking!?.”

The last rays of sunlight catch the sheen of unshed tears, the watery look in Johnny’s eyes, the exhaustion that is turning them bloodshot. Reed feels suddenly out of his depth, like he’s tred too deep into something that he wasn’t equipped to handle. Like fatherhood, or cooking, or a driver’s test where the instructions are a wrong. He isn’t good with languages he doesn’t speak, minds he can’t read, people he can’t solve – that’s more Johnny’s specialty.

“It wasn’t the first time, we’re just worried, kid,” Reed tries instead, forgoes the attack and reroutes to the soothing nature that works best with Franklin. Johnny hates when he calls him that, when he uses age as a way to gain ground, but Reed can only see the boy Sue had helped raise – the scared kid who had cried for a mother who couldn’t come. He only hears Johnny gasping for the air that could not fill his lungs.

Johnny hitting the ground, hard, flames extinguishing, body convulsing.

Johnny coughing, violent, desperate, decreasing until he could only manage the quieting wheezing. All of it loud in Reed’s helmet as it mixed with Sue’s pained screams.

“I’m worried,” he states simply.

“I’m fine.” Johnny tries, but his bravado doesn’t hold and ends up crumbling at his feet, where his gaze quickly follows.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“Neither are you.”

Reed spends his time over Franklin’s crib most nights, finds Johnny already waiting there on some of them, curled up in the rocking chair and wrapped in a blanket embroidered with fiery 4’s. It was meant to be for Franklin, a gift from the uncle intent on being his favorite, but Johnny has gotten more use from it so far. There is a shared understanding in their silence on those nights that they do not speak of it in the morning.

Reed wonders if Johnny is finding his way to Franklin’s side before or after the nightmares that are ripping him awake. He wonders what it is that’s pulling him from his sleep, gasping loud enough for Ben to hear. He wonders if Franklin is the only one sleeping through the night now.

“What do you want me to say, Reed?” Johnny asks, tired.

“I just want to what’s going on. You knew the suit couldn’t sustain your power. What if it hadn’t worked, what if you hadn’t made it back to us?”

“Then at least you guys would have made it out.”

Reed tries not to let the simplicity of the statement rock him, finds himself hit by it anyway. It isn’t a surprise, the actions Johnny had taken had spoken for themselves. But a small part of him had wanted Johnny to admit it was an accident, had wanted him to confess that he hadn’t been paying attention, that he hadn’t realized how low the tank had gotten. But Johnny is not dumb, he is not stupid, he is not what Reed had first mistaken him for all those years ago.

Johnny loves, cares so deeply that it is the root of him. Reed knows the odds of his heart being his downfall, he’s run the calculations. It doesn’t make it any easier to hear coming from Johnny’s own mouth. He understands why Sue has let this problem lie, why she’s had to, because it hurts to look at Johnny and see the unaffected nature he has toward his own life. To face the truth that they’ve all been skirting since he was twenty-three and strapped himself into a rocket for the first time, so eager to do it again, even after the near death of the first trip.

Reed backs away, gives Johnny and himself the space they both need. He finds himself perching on the end of Johnny’s bed, the silence stretching between them while he puzzles out how best to handle this truth.

“You know we wouldn’t have left without you, right?” he finally settles on. Despite the truth that if it had come down to it, if they’d truly lost him, they might have had to.

Johnny leans on the shelves containing his expansive correction of records, regular music, not disembodied voices from planets he cannot reach, and the movement eases some of the tension from his body, “I know. You didn’t.”

Ben had scooped him up with ease, Johnny had ensured he’d landed somewhere in their general path, it had all worked out. But there a million scenarios where it might not have, Reed can see the probability of all of them. He can see the worst outcome, as much as he doesn’t want to.

“It’s not just on you to protect us Johnny. We’re a team. Your life, our lives, it’s all equal. You understand that right?”

“Sue was going into labor, Franklin needed to be kept safe-“

“That doesn’t negate your life, Johnny. That’s not how it works out.”

Johnny shrugs, “it’s simple math, Reed. Franklin needs both of you. The world needs both of you-“

“More than we need you?”

Johnny shrugs again, “Well, yeah. I don’t say that to worry you guys, it’s just the truth.”

Reed knows the difference between self-truths and reality. He knows the near impossibility of shifting a fiction that has been a person’s life for so long. He knows this is not a fight he can win in one conversation. So instead he takes a page from Sue’s book, he lets the sleeping dogs lie. They are, all of them, exhausted. Johnny has nightmares, Sue is afraid to sleep for fear she won’t wake up, Ben is either awake or ripped from his own dreams alongside Johnny, and Reed watches Franklin take the rest that none of them can seem to find, thankful that he is able to do so.

In the end, Reed has never been very good at speaking to Johnny, and it holds true as he leaves the room then. Johnny watches him go, stays perched from his spot against his shelves. Reed can feel the weight of his gaze as he goes, the strain of words that lie left unsaid, scattered across the shag carpet like the records Johnny had hidden.

When they find each other at their shared point in Franklin’s room later that night, they do not speak about the conversation that has been left unfinished. Instead, Reed watches Franklin, Johnny watches Reed, and in the morning Sue finds them both sleeping alongside the baby who’s side they cannot leave.

“He’s always been that way,” Sue tells him when Reed recounts their conversation. Her words are heavy, weighed down by the concern Reed knows she feels, by the reality she too cannot fix. He hates seeing his wife upset, hurting, especially when it's caused by her family - who she loves with the same fervor Johnny does. Nature vs Nurture, what created the Storm's and sewed them into the same cloth?

That is problem he cannot answer definitively, but there is one he can solve.

So Reed clears a section of blackboard in his lab, wipes it slate clean, and begins to work at an equation to extend the supply of oxygen to their suits - namely Johnny's. Because he is bad with people, but good with numbers, and this is a problem he can solve.