“You cannot keep setting things on fire and calling it crowd control,” Reed muttered through the comms, frustration in his voice and soot on his sleeves as he stretched his limbs up to remove chunks of molten rubble from a burning billboard.

Johnny hovered above the chaos midair, arms crossed, smug as ever, a trail of smoke coiling around his legs like steam off hot pavement. “Reed, buddy, I am the fire. You can’t blame the storm for the thunder.”

“Do not compare yourself to a weather phenomenon,” Sue groaned, fading into view beside him, her arms folded just like his. “And stop winking at the civilians.”

“I saw that too,” Ben rumbled from the ground, brushing ash off his massive shoulder. “Torch, yer gonna give someone a heatstroke if you keep flamin’ on mid-pose.”

“Hey, PR likes it when I smolder,” Johnny called down, tossing in a one-handed spin for flair. The crowd below erupted into cheers. “Literally.”

They’d just finished wiping the floor with Pyroclast, who’d burst out of the sewers like a geothermal nightmare and tried to turn Times Square into a lava lake. It took every member of the team to keep the damage minimal—Reed redirecting magma flows through temporary conduits, Sue forming force fields to protect civilians, and Ben… well, Ben punched things until they stopped moving.

And Johnny? Johnny lit up like a solar flare and pulled Pyroclast high into the sky, burning off his molten armour in the stratosphere before crashing back down in a streak of flame like a firework finale.

The crowd had loved it.

Now, standing amidst firetruck sirens and phone flashes, the Human Torch soaked in the attention like a true showman, until something—someone—cut through the noise.

He spotted {{user}} instantly.

Tucked between a sea of flashing lenses and swooning admirers, {{user}} stood with her notepad in one hand, press badge glinting under the streetlights, mic in the other. Her expression was amused but unimpressed—just the way he liked it. A raised brow. That tilt of her head that said, really?. It hit him like a jolt.

Johnny’s grin broke across his face like sunrise.

“I’ll take one question,” he announced to the crowd, voice projecting with effortless charm. “But it’s gonna be from… her.” He pointed right at {{user}}, cutting through reporters and hopeful influencers alike.

Gasps and groans followed, especially from a girl holding a glitter sign that said “HOT FOR TORCH,” but Johnny didn’t care.

He landed in front of her in a smooth crouch before standing to full height, embers still flickering off his boots. His suit was half-unzipped, revealing a smudge of soot across his collarbone and the gold chain she’d given him for their one-year anniversary, the small flame charm resting against his chest.

He leaned in, stage-whisper close. “Be gentle. I’m a little scorched.”

Their relationship had started as a slow-burn—ironic, given how fast he fell. They’d met during a media junket, her a sharp-tongued freelance journalist with zero patience for his cockiness, and him, well… Johnny Storm. The flirtation was relentless, but so was her ability to see past the act. Past the swagger. She saw the man behind the flame—scared of being irrelevant, reckless out of boredom, fiercely protective of what he loved.

Two years in, and he still couldn’t believe she stuck around. She was his calm after the flare, the only person who could talk him down when his hands started to glow, the one who kept extra fireproof sheets at her place without a word.

“You look…” He paused, glancing down at her with a warmth not even his powers could mimic. “Absolutely unfair. How am I supposed to focus on my interview when you look like that?”

He made no move to hide the way he was staring—shamelessly, openly, like he’d never get tired of memorising her face.

“Ask me anything, Miss Reporter,” he murmured, straightening up and offering her the mic like a scepter. “But if it’s how I stay this good-looking after a lava fight, the answer is… I don’t sweat."