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Johnny had been fine. The afternoon had been peaceful. There were no great disasters, no Doombot swarms, no revolts from Subterranea. The world had been peaceful and the Fantastic Four were not needed. Johnny was nothing less than thrilled. It had been a while, too long really, since he’d been able to just kick back and relax. Really relax. The way it feels when there’s no deadlines or pressures, and his muscles finally untense.
Scooby-Doo cackled in the background as he and Shaggy gave the villain the runaround, the pages of the magazine were smooth under his fingers as he skimmed articles about motorbikes Sue would never let him buy. His mind drifted in the liminal space between the two.
It felt like before.
When life was simple, and they were all normal.
Then the sound cut.
Johnny looked up. Blinked at the screen. The bright colours were gone, swapped for subdued greens and browns. The Mystery Machine gave way to chaffinches and their migratory pathways. The animated voices were replaced by a monotone narration.
A small knot was forming behind his ribs. Heat prickled across his shoulders. It wasn’t a big deal, not really, but the abruptness of it, the casualness, set something off inside him, pulse already ticking faster than it should, irritation crawling up his spine.
“I was watching that.” He looked over and found Reed, remote in hand, biting into an apple. Johnny winced at the squelching sound it made.
“You were reading,” Reed stated matter-of-factly.
“I was multitasking.”
Reed scoffed, a short laugh slipping out. “When was the last time you successfully multitasked?”
He wasn’t known for it, that was true. Only last week he was trying to make coffee and talk to Ben at the same time. Milk went everywhere but his mug. Sometimes, when neither thing required all that much concentration, he could though.
“That’s beside the point.”
“Not really.”
Johnny blinked. Seriously? “Reed you can’t just come in and change the channel without asking.” His voice came out sharper than he meant it to.
“I didn’t think you were watching it.” Reed shrugged, “It’s a kids show, so between that and you having your head in a book I thought the tv had just ran onto the next show.”
Johnny’s jaw clenched, his pulse thudded in his ears. “It’s not a kids show.”
“Well… it is. If you still want to watch it then that’s your choice, but factually-”
“It’s not.”
Reed sighed exasperatedly. “Johnny if it’s that much of an issue I can change the channel back.”
Johnny spluttered. ‘If it’s that much of an issue’? Like Reed hadn’t just walked in, done something that was conventionally rude, and was now acting like he was being put-upon. The volume of his voice raised a fraction. “What, like you’re doing me some big favour?”
“What?” Reed seemed confused. Johnny wasn’t buying it.
“You,” he jabbed at the air between them, “shouldn’t have changed the channel in the first place. It’s impolite.”
“And I’m offering to turn it back.” Reed casually waved the remote.
He wouldn’t be able to relax again, not now, he could feel it in his body. His shoulders were tense, his brain was spinning at tenfold the speed it had been, relaxation was long gone, buried under the upwelling dust. There was no point. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“God, you are such a child Johnny.”
Reed’s words hit like a slap to his face. Something hot twisted in Johnny’s gut. Anger sparked in his veins. Hotter than any fire he’d produced. “I am not.”
“You are. It’s the TV for Christ’s sake, and you’re throwing a strop.”
“And not knowing simple manners isn’t childish?” He sniped.
“Maybe kids’ shows are perfect for you” Reed muttered, already turning away, remote abandoned on the arm of the sofa.
Johnny shot to his feet before he’d even decided to move. His pulse thundered. Every muscle screamed for release.
“Say that again.” His voice came low, dangerous, as he stepped up into Reed’s space.
Reed blinked, like he honestly didn’t get it. “Johnny I’m not interested in fighting”
“Say. That. Again.” Each word forced its way through gritted teeth, his jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
Reed rolled his eyes, the motion small but sharp enough to slice through what was left of Johnny’s restraint.
Johnny shoved him in the chest.
Reed stumbled back, eyes meeting his in surprise. “Are you really trying to start a fight?” the disbelief in his tone was worse than mockery. Flat, derisive, like Johnny wasn’t even a threat.
Something short-circuited in his brain. His vision narrowed, breath coming hard and fast. Before he’d even registered moving, his fist was already swinging.
It stopped centimetres from Reed’s nose, frozen mid-motion.
For a second, Johnny didn’t understand why it wasn’t moving. Why his arm wouldn’t finish what his brain had already started. Shaking and straining against something. Then he heard her.
“Both of you stop.”
Sue’s voice wasn’t loud, but it cut clean through the static in his head. The air seemed to thicken, shimmering around his arm where her force field held it in place.
Johnny blinked, chest heaving. The anger still buzzed in his bloodstream, desperate for release.
Sue stepped into the room, calm as ever, eyes flicking between the two of them. “Reed, can you give us a minute. I need to talk to Johnny.”
Reed hesitated, just long enough for Johnny to catch the wary glance, before leaving with a stiff nod and without a single word. The door clicked shut behind him, and the silence that followed was deafening.
Johnny tried to move, but Sue’s invisible grip didn’t budge. “Sue, let me go.”
“Only if-”
“Sue.” His voice cracked, equal parts anger and desperation.
“Johnny.” She waited until he met her eyes. Her tone softened. “Only if you don’t go on a rampage.”
He didn’t answer. His heart was hammering too loud for words
“I need you to breathe,” she said quietly. “Nice and slow. C’mon, with me.”
He tried. Air shuddered into his lungs, shaky and uneven, but it was something. The tightness in his chest eased a fraction. The anger still simmered, but beneath there was something smaller, quieter.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“I know,” Sue said.
His whole body was trembling, even more adrenaline flooding his veins. God, he’d messed up bad. Again. He was becoming like-
“Hey,” Sue interrupted his thoughts, “keep breathing with me.”
He takes another shaky breath. When had he lost control over his body?
“That’s it,” she murmured, lowering her hand. The invisible barrier gave way, his arm falling heavy to his side. “Let’s sit down, yeah?”
Sue reached for his hand, guiding him back toward the sofa. The cartoon was long gone, the nature documentary still murmuring from the TV. Johnny didn’t look at it. Couldn’t. Sue seemed to notice – the Johnny whisperer that she is – and turned the channel over. The drabble of the 24-hour news replaced some of the buzzing in his head.
“Right, we’re gonna get that prefrontal cortex back online.”
“Sue, I’m fine,” Johnny groused.
She curved an eyebrow. “Which part of you even looks remotely fine right now, let alone feels it?”
That’s when Johnny noticed how tight his jaw was clenched, his nails digging into his palms, his foot tapping out a beat at one hundred miles per hour. The speed of his heart, his short breaths, the way his stomach felt tight.
Sue was right, as always.
She softened her tone. “Hey, look at me for a sec.”
He did, reluctantly.
“Good. Now, humour me. Name three things in here that are yellow.”
“What?”
“Three things. Yellow. Go on.”
He rolled his eyes, but his brain still started scanning the room. “Blue would’ve been easier.”
She flicked his head.
Johnny flinched a little too hard.
Sue squeezed his hand. “I didn’t think, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he brushed her concern off, even though his heart had taken up lodgings in his throat. Fuck’s sake, he needed to get a grip. He squeezed his eyes shut. Took a breath. “Uh… yellow? The spine of that book. Ben’s mug. And-” he hesitated, gaze flicking around, “does a stipe on a pencil count?”
“Yep. Now red.”
She kept him moving through it, gentle as a current pulling him back to shore. When he faltered, she nudged him; naming colours, smaller things, anything to get his attention away from the roaring in his chest.
By the time they’d gone through the entire rainbow and then some, Johnny’s breaths had slowed. The tension in his jaw was still there, but dulled now, the sharp edges fading to a hum.
Sue leaned back slightly, watching him with that maddening calm of hers. “Little less walking, talking inferno now?”
Johnny huffed a laugh, quiet and tired. “Didn’t mean to…” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just lost it, I guess.”
“Yeah,” she said simply. “You did. But you also stopped. That’s what matters.”
He nodded, eyes fixed on a scuff on the floor. “Still shouldn’t’ve let it get that far.”
“Maybe,” she said, gentle but firm. “But you caught yourself, you accepted help. That’s progress, Johnny. In the past you would have gone on a rampage or shot off flying. I’m proud of you.”
He didn’t answer right away, just exhaled through his nose, the last of the adrenaline bleeding out with it. The room felt quieter now, like the static had finally drained away.
“Is Reed mad?”
“Confused, I think. I’ll talk to him later. He just didn’t realise what was happening.”
Johnny nodded, shame heating his cheeks a little. For all his smarts, all his degrees, they could all agree that Reed wasn’t the most emotionally in-tune person to walk this earth: Johnny should have cut him the slack earlier.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Settled on the sofa, Johnny’s feet up on the coffee table – something he totally wouldn’t usually get away with – and Sue’s head resting on his shoulder, helping the remaining tension in his muscles ease off. The TV was just background noise again; for the first time since the sound first cut, the world felt like it fitted around him instead of pressing in.
They sat there for a while. Johnny didn’t know how long for, before Sue sat back. She watched him for a moment, her content smile fading.
“I should have brought you with me,” she said, voice low. It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d say unless it had been turning over in her head. They didn’t talk about it. Never brought it up. What happened had happened; neither of them could change the past, as much as they both wanted to.
“It’s fine, Sue,” Johnny said, too quickly.
“No. It isn’t.” She folded her hands together, eyes on the tartan of her skirt. “When you’re furious, and every second thing is trying to trigger you, I always feel so guilty. I could have talked to the admin team. At least tried. But I left, and now you’re—”
“I’m what?” A small edge crept into his voice. The words the voice in his head supplied – a dysregulated, anxious mess with anger issues – hovered like a bitter aftertaste. He didn’t offer it out loud.
“Johnny, that’s not what I meant.” Sue’s hand found his, gave it a brief squeeze. Her thumb rubbed soft circles on the inside of his wrist.
Johnny sighed. “Yeah. I know. Sorry.”
“I should’ve done more.”
“You’ve done plenty for me, Sue. You don’t need to keep blaming yourself. He was a bastard, neither of us could have known.”
He can still remember the day she left. Vivid like it was yesterday. How he stood at the door, anxiety pooling in his stomach, as he waved her goodbye, Sue waving back from the car as she pulled away. He’d told himself that she had to go; that she had to have her life.
He’d been left with their father for six years. When Sue visited, he’d always pretend everything was fine. She was out, enjoying her life. And he was happy for her. He didn’t want to be the reason she gave up on her dreams.
It wasn’t until he was 14 that she’d dropped in as a surprise. And it was a surprise. For everyone. Johnny was sporting a shiner so big he couldn’t even get his right eye to open.
That was the day she’d told him to pack his bags.
That was the day he moved in with her and Reed, into their small one bed apartment two states away from everyone and everything he knew.
That was the last time he’d seen or even heard from their father.
“I still feel bad,” Sue said now, quick and raw.
“It’s not your fault, Sue. It never was, and it never will be.” He meant it. Then added, softer, “I hid it from you.”
“I should have been able to see through a kid lying to me,” she whispered. “He was always grumpy, but-” her voice broke. “I should have known he had it in him.”
“I was a good liar.” He shrugged. He got that from his dad, but he didn’t say that part: Sue was hurting enough. “And I didn’t know until he swung the first punch.”
Sue’s face crumpled. “You were only eight.”
Johnny was sure she was thinking about Franklin. How anyone could look at someone so small and decide they hated them just for existing, breathing, getting in the way. It didn’t have a logic to it. It didn’t need a logic to it.
“He’s got what he deserves now. That’s all that matters.”
“What he did to you is still important,” Sue said, steady and blunt. “And that man he killed, that could have been you.”
Johnny swallowed. He hadn’t told her how close it had been on several occasions. How many times the line between surviving and not had thinned to a hair. He was never going to.
“He’s in prison now,” he said instead.
Silence pooled between them. It wasn’t the loud, rattling silence of conflict; it was the soft kind that followed something difficult said and accepted. He nudged her shoulder with his own, “C’mon,” he said. “I’m going to make some cookies to apologise to Reed. You should help for the sake of his digestive system.”
“Ben’s better at baking than me,” Sue protested.
“Yeah, but you look like you need to beat up some dough.” He grinned; she rolled her eyes. They stood together, the weight of the conversation settling somewhere quieter behind them, and padded into the kitchen.