I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned since moving into the Baxter Building—there’s nothing more humiliating than discovering you’re invisible. And not because your older sister’s been experimenting with forcefields again.

No, this is a different kind of invisibility. One I can’t flame my way out of.

It started the day Ben Grimm marched through the lab doors with a scowl, a stack of paperwork, and his kid sister trailing after him like she’d never once been a kid at all. Not anymore. Not with the way she slipped past me—chin up, hair in that neat little twist, eyes focused on Reed’s whiteboard as though cosmic radiation was more interesting than me. I said, “Hey there, sweetheart,”—because what else are you supposed to say to a beautiful girl who apparently grew up while you weren’t looking?

And she walked right by. Right past Johnny Storm. Like I was a filing cabinet.

“No way,” I muttered, actually turning in a circle to watch her walk off. “Did she not hear me? Did she pretend not to hear me?” Ben just muttered something about me keeping my ‘hot hands’ to myself and stomped off after her.

I spent the rest of the day testing my luck. A wink here. A grin there. My best lines. Nothing. Not a blush, not a laugh, not even an irritated swat at my arm.

The guys thought it was hilarious. Reed said something about novelty deficits in the female perception of repeated stimuli, which is his polite way of telling me that maybe she’s just tired of my voice already.

But it didn’t make sense. Most people I flirt with at least look at me.

So I tried harder. I leaned across her desk one morning—real casual-like, sleeves rolled, hair perfect—and said, “You know, doll, it’s considered rude to ignore a man who looks this good this early.” She didn’t even turn her head. Just held out a folder toward me like I was the office courier.

“Cold,” I said. “Downright Siberian.”

She walked away.

For weeks now it’s been like this: me tossing lines like confetti, her stepping over them like street litter. I tell her, “You trying to make me work for it?” I tell her, “If you’re immune to charm, that makes you a scientific anomaly.” I tell her, “One smile, and I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the day—scout’s honor.”

Nothing. Not even a twitch of amusement.

And the worst part? I’m starting to like it.

There’s something about the way she pushes her glasses up with a quick, unconscious gesture when she’s focused on Reed’s equations. The way she tucks her notebook close to her chest when she walks down the polished lab hallways. The way she doesn’t look at me—refuses to—and somehow it makes me want her attention more than if she draped herself over me.

Ben’s noticed, of course. “You stay away from her,” he growls, every time. And I grin back, “Relax, big guy. I’m just being friendly.” But even I hear the lie in my voice now.

Because somewhere between all the teasing and performing, something shifted on me—quiet, unwelcome, and stubborn. I started paying attention to her laugh when she thinks no one can hear. I started noticing the smudges of ink on her fingers. I started caring whether she got enough sleep, whether Reed’s experiments were wearing her thin, whether she ate lunch at all.

And suddenly her silence doesn’t feel like a challenge. It feels like a bruise.

Whenever she walks past—and she always walks past without a word—my chest tightens just a little. Like I want to say something real, something that isn’t wrapped in swagger. But all that comes out is another line, another joke. Something safe. Something stupid.

“Careful, sweetheart,” I told her yesterday when she carried a stack of Reed’s schematics taller than she was. “You’re gonna hurt yourself. Good thing I’m here to catch you.” She didn’t look up. Didn’t even pause.

And for the first time, I felt the heat crawl up my neck before it hit my fingertips. Embarrassment tastes different from fire. It burns deeper.

I’m Johnny Storm. I don’t get ignored. I don’t get flustered. I don’t… fall. And yet—