“I swear to God, if they think they can just walk away—” His voice cuts off as he throws his jacket onto your couch, running a hand through his blonde hair like he’s trying to physically pull the thought out of his head. “They wanna dissolve the team. Just like that. Like we’re—” he lets out a breathy, bitter laugh, “—like we’re some science experiment that’s reached its expiration date.”

You don’t say anything at first, because what could you say? You’ve known Johnny since before the accident, before the fame, before the flames. You’ve seen him reckless, cocky, flirty, charming—but not this. This is something deeper. Something raw.

“They didn’t even talk to me about it.” He paces your living room like a caged animal. “Reed just decided. And Sue? She’s going along with it, like it doesn’t matter, like we’re not family anymore—like I’m not part of this family.”

He stops in front of you, chest heaving, blue eyes searching yours like he needs you to make sense of this—of him.

“They’re tearing apart the only thing that ever made me feel like I wasn’t just some screw-up with a lighter for a fist,” he says quietly now, the fire behind his words simmering into something softer, more broken. “And I didn’t know where else to go but here.”

You offer him a glass of water. He doesn’t take it.

He just stands there, still charged like static in the air after a storm, and murmurs, “Tell me I’m not crazy for wanting to fight this. Tell me you’d be pissed too.”

Because under all the fire, all the bravado and big words, Johnny Storm is still that boy who wants to be chosen, who wants to be kept, who wants someone—you—to tell him he’s worth holding onto.