a girl is the word

Title: Epiphany
Rating: 13+ (mild language)
Setting: Marvel, 616 universe
Timeline: Post-Fantastic Four #516
Synopsis: Johnny has a revelation about his love life.


( Story )

( Story is here )

This.

Is wrong.

Very, very wrong.

I feel sorriest for the poor kids. Their minds have been twisted their whole lives by their parents, who should know better by now.

When I hear fourteen-year-old kids spouting lines like ""We want our people to stay white...We don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race," my heart cries.

The rest of me wants to go out and shake the parents until their teeth rattle.

This is the first update I've made from my cell phone, so I hope it actually registers on my LJ. Here's hoping.

I guess I shouldn't have been so nervous about Johnny finding out my Big Huge Super Secret™. He's being so totally cool about it (which can't be easy for somebody whose superhero code name is the Human Torch). I'm really sorry I scared him the way I did. I guess I should have told him weeks ago the truth about myself, but I really didn't think it would come into play.

I mean, I try so hard just to be...normal. Not boring normal, but normal normal. Not ordinary--I want to be anything but ordinary. But can't I just be a teenage girl in love with a world-saving superhero and not be...well, weird?

I guess not.

Damn, I just reread what I wrote up there. Yeah, I guess I am in love with Johnny, even if it is too soon. From what I heard him say when he thought I'd been killed, he feels the same way about me. Not that I meant to eavesdrop or anything. And I could kick all five of those guys' asses just for putting Johnny through all that.

Of course, I had to pull this major-league freak-out in front of the guy who runs security at the BB. So I spent most of the afternoon yesterday in Sue's bioscanner. I didn't think Sue liked me much at first, but she was really patient with me and she sounded like she really wanted to help me out. I guess maybe she's okay after all.

She helped me find out something really neat about my abilities, too. Not only do I cancel out kinetic energy from anything that strikes me, but I actually absorb it, and it boosts my strength! She has this automatic ball launcher and she shot about twenty tennis balls at me at the maximum velocity setting. I was able to lift a 500-pound weight! (The only bad side effect is that when I absorb that much kinetic energy, I glow. Pink. And sparkly. Ugh.)

Doctor Storm is going to see about getting me special clearance as an intern at the Baxter Building so I can spend more time here. There's a lot of neat stuff I can learn, I can do some of the grunt-work calculus which will free Reed up for the really important projects, and I'll get to see a lot more of Johnny.

Speaking of my red-hot hunk of burning lurve, he's all about me being a superhero now. I keep trying to tell him uh-uh, no way Jose, but he's not having any of it. I don't care how much he wheedles, I'm not about to put on spandex and go out looking for trouble.

Especially not pink spandex.

Most especially not skintight pink peek-a-boo spandex.

That sparkles.

( Force of Contact, an Ultimate Fantastic Four fanfiction )

I haven't touched this thing for a month because I've been too busy with work and whenever I wasn't working I was hanging out with Johnny.

He's so much fun to be with. I mean, okay, his idea of picking me up for a date is actually picking me up and flying up into the sky with me. I guess I can see where that might freak some girls out but I think it's the best thing ever. I wish I could fly. Well, with Johnny I can anyway.

He hasn't asked me about my hair. He doesn't ask a lot of personal questions, and I like that just fine. He knows about my folks in Atlanta and that my mom and I aren't on the best of terms. His mom is some kind of hotshot scientist who let him and his sister believe she was dead for fifteen years (which is most of Johnny's life so far). I can't imagine anyone being so cruel as to simply abandon their kids to go chasing off on some long-term archaeological dig.

Then again, I kind of wish my mom would do that, too. Not die or anything, just go find something else to do so she wouldn't be around to mess up our lives. I'm better off up here hundreds of miles away from her, but she's still got Sonny under her thumb. Then again, she loves Sonny. Her golden child. She doesn't have any use for me and hasn't since I got hit by that bus when I was twelve and my hair turned pink.

But I'm not going to get all maudlin about my mom and dad. Johnny and I have been going out for a month and it's beginning to look like it might be--gasp--serious. I mean serious. He's a really great guy and the only time he's ever stood me up for a date was when the Mole Man attacked some think tank in Oregon and they got back later than they expected because they had to fight some kind of big freaky subterranean monsters.

Our one-month anniversary is this Saturday. Johnny has some kind of surprise for me and he won't tell me what it is. It has to have something to do with why he asked me to write down my name three times on a napkin for him--once in Korean, once in hanja, and once in the official transliteration. He said it was for the FF's Christmas card list.

He's such a terrible liar. Cute, but terrible.

I think maybe he's going to try to get me clearance into the Baxter Building. That would be so incredibly amazing. And amazingly sweet of him to even try.

I think I love him.

I just came back from the best. Date. EVER. I have to go to work in the morning but I'm way too keyed up to sleep.

Okay, so let me start at the beginning. I was working the Saturday rush at the coffee shop, and Alicia brought in her new boyfriend, who just happens to be Ben Grimm from the Fantastic Four. He's a little scary-looking, but he's really super nice. I helped Bojee put some cinder blocks under his chair so he could sit down properly and not have it collapse under him. He had the double mocha latte, which is really good, by the way.

No sooner did I get them settled than this REALLY SUPER HOT guy came strolling in. He looked really familiar--I guess my brain was already sort of figuring out who he was because his teammate was already there--but I couldn't quite place him. Then he started talking to Ben and it clicked. Oh my God it was Johnny Storm, who has to be the hottest guy in New York in more ways than one. I found a convenient excuse to go to their table, and he flashed that smile at me, and I was just GONE. But I was cool. I did my little wipe-the-spots-off-the-table thing and headed back for the counter, and can you believe it? He followed me. We talked for a while and then he asked me out. Of course I said yes.

He took me to an early dinner at CBGB's, and then we went to see a movie. Don't ask me which one, I couldn't tell you anything about it. He kept whispering color commentary through the whole thing and by the time it was over I was laughing so hard I was almost crying. He's really a lot of fun to listen to.

After the movie we just sort of went cruising. He has this really gorgeous red car. I was half expecting him to take me somewhere and try to start something, but he didn't. He was so cool about everything. He asked me how long I'd been in NYC and if I'd been this or that place or seen this or that. We're supposed to be going to see the Statue of Liberty on Tuesday (he says it's less crowded on Tuesdays for some reason). I've never been there and Johnny told me it was practically a requirement.

We must have talked for hours while he just drove around the city. He obviously loves driving, though the traffic was what traffic always is in Manhattan. He told me about how they all became the Fantastic Four and how he found out about his own powers. He had me laughing again by the time we finally pulled up in front of the bookstore. Monee was waiting for me, of course, but Johnny charmed her so completely she wasn't mad a bit even though I was in an hour past curfew.

He's supposed to call me tomorrow. Yeah, I know, guys never call. But maybe he will.

Maybe he will.

Woohoo!!

Monee and Bojee did their best to make my birthday special. They had everybody at the coffee shop sing "Happy Birthday" and they got one of those giant cookie things for me, and we all went out to lunch.

One of our regular customers at Beans is Alicia. She's going to college, studying Visual Arts, which is kind of ironic, since she's blind. She's a great sculptor--she brought in this little piece she did of a beckoning cat. Monee has it on the counter beside the register now. Alicia likes the jasmine tea we serve here. She's really smart and funny, but she seems a little lonely, to which I can relate. But I've only been here a week; there has to be at least one eligible guy in the city.

So here I am, sitting in my new room on the floor above my grandfolks' bookstore/coffee shop in Chelsea. Books & Beans, it's called; if you're ever on Eighth, stop on in. I'm going to be working here too, until I decide whether I actually want to go to college or not. I figure I've got plenty of time to decide; I'm not even supposed to be out of high school yet, though I did get my GED before leaving Atlanta.

I never want to go back to high school again.

I still can't believe what they did to Brian. He should be getting out of the hospital in about a week, but of course I won't be there. His parents don't want him to have anything to do with me anyway. The whole mess is a huge shit-storm and I'm glad I'm out of it.

I really miss my dad and Sonny. I don't miss Mom screaming at me, though. That's one good thing.

My grandparents are being so cool about everything. Monee is the one who suggested I work part time in the bookstore, but she said I didn't have to if I didn't want to. Right, like I really want to sit around being miserable 24/7.

I feel like shit about what happened to Deke. But damn, he and his buddies shouldn't have been throwing down on Bri like that. Not that I didn't see it coming. I knew at some point that whole Crying Game act of Bri's was going to backfire on him when he came on to the wrong guy. He shouldn't have been dirty dancing with the biggest homophobe in Atlanta. Even so, he didn't deserve what happened.

But neither did Deke. I ruined his football career.

And here I am going over and over it again. I need to get out of here and go for a walk or something.

Gacked from songs_of_siren.

( All about Cherry )