It's not wrong, Sue thinks, her fingers curled around her cold soda. To want.

Even as she rationalizes with herself, her body and mind resist accepting these words as truth. Her senses remain attuned to you, her eyes tracing the grain of the white table.

Reed wouldn't hold it against her—relationship or not, they're family. But the thought of him doesn’t help.

She had been fine waiting for his proposal, knowing it might never come. Not happy, but fine. Marriage seemed like a piddling desire, a trivial event in the grand scope of Reed's genius. Where does it fit in his life of work, developing a cure for Ben, work, exploring new dimensions he's already discovered, and work?

It feels wrong to fantasize about you when they’re so close—Reed in one of the labs, Ben in the fitness room, and Johnny greasing himself up working on the Fantasticar. So close it's nearly illicit, even though Sue is decidedly unattached. Emotionally, it's harder to reconcile. Reed was the only man she wanted for a long time, and while Sue was not blind to other attractive individuals, she was so sure her heart would only ever want Reed Richards.

It only took a few months after the cosmic storm reshaped their lives for them to separate. For a while, her partner felt like an entirely different man to her, a stranger. "Separate" is an odd term when they continue to live together, work together, when Reed still is one of the people Sue feels closest to.

It's this very love—the one the FF has cultivated, the one between Sue and Reed—that lets her know Reed wouldn't bereave her the opportunity of you, the friend who has been there throughout their entire relationship.

"You don't need to leave soon?" Sue’s finger follows the rim of her glass, forcing her eyes to meet yours as she steels her resolve. It’s not wrong to want, though acknowledging it feels non licet, transgressive. "Do you?"