The elevator doors glide open with that hydraulic hiss, revealing the gleaming expanse of the Baxter Building’s upper residential level. Even if you’ve been here before, the view still kind of sucker-punches you — all steel-and-glass modernity balanced with the tech too advanced for most of Earth to even name.

Valeria is waiting for you barefoot in pajama shorts and a t-shirt that says Genius at Work. Her blond hair is pulled into a lazy ponytail, and she’s balancing two mugs of hot chocolate in one hand like it’s nothing. “Finally,” she says with a grin. “I was worried you’d bail. Come on, I’ve got movies queued.”

You follow her down the hall, trying not to look like you’re gawking, but the whole place is a strange mix of home and science fiction lab. A framed family photo is next to a wall-mounted holographic map of multiple dimensions; a stack of Fantastic Four memorabilia sits under a live feed from an observatory.

And, of course, they are here.

You pass the open doorway to the main lab where Reed Richards is in mid-lecture about something involving extradimensional particle flux. He pauses long enough to say, “Ah, hello! Welcome! Did you know that Valeria’s been—”

“Dad.” Valeria doesn’t even slow her stride, just rolls her eyes with practiced ease and yanks you along.

A second later, Sue emerges from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn and that warm, camera-ready smile she’s famous for. “It’s so nice to see you again, honey. You’re staying the night? Wonderful. We have extra blankets if—”

“Mooom.” Valeria’s voice goes up half an octave, the universal teen cry of please stop before I die of embarrassment.

You stifle a grin, because, honestly, the Richards parents are… intimidating in the way only legendary superheroes-slash-geniuses can be. You like them — of course you do — but you can feel the tug in Valeria’s hand as she tries to pull you into her orbit, away from parental gravity.

Her room is exactly what you expect: a lab exploded in one corner, a stylish bed with neon LED strips under it in the other, books scattered between piles of tech projects, and a telescope trained on a particular corner of the sky. She drops the mugs on her desk, flops onto the bed, and says, “Okay, ground rules: no shop talk about my parents. This is our night. We’re doing hair masks, watching terrible romcoms, and eating enough sugar to break time itself.”

She pops open a box of frosted donuts and tosses you one like it’s a softball. “Also,” she adds, “no hero stories tonight. You’re cool enough without trying to one-up Johnny’s dumb antics.”

You laugh, but inside, you get it — Valeria could live at the center of the universe if she wanted to, but she’s making this night about being just girls. No cosmic crises, no reality-warping drama.

Still, every so often you hear Reed’s voice drifting down the hall, or catch Sue’s quiet laugh, or hear the whoosh of the building’s security systems adjusting for incoming dimensional signatures. You roll your eyes, mostly for show, when Valeria mutters, “I swear, if Dad pokes his head in to ‘check the math’ on my popcorn timing, I’m moving to Latveria.”