Reed had faced incursions before. Dimensional fractures. Temporal echoes. Entities that defied physics and logic alike. He had studied them, contained them, understood them. This— this was different. The lab lights flickered faintly, reacting to residual energy still pulsing through the air, but Reed barely registered it anymore. His attention was elsewhere. Entirely. On her, {{user}}. And on the small, impossible detail in his arms.

Franklin Richards had been restless for the past hour—unusually so. No environmental trigger. No physiological anomaly. No external stimulus Reed could isolate. Just distress. Until now. The moment she had appeared, everything had changed. Reed hadn’t noticed it immediately. His focus had been on the breach, on stabilizing the energy field, on preventing a collapse that could have torn through multiple layers of reality. But Franklin had. Of course he had.

The shift had been subtle at first—too subtle for anyone not already watching him closely. The tension leaving his small body. The quieting of his breathing. And then—movement. Reed’s grip tightened instinctively as Franklin leaned forward, small hands reaching outward with sudden, unmistakable intent. Not random. Not curious. Directed. Toward {{user}}. Reed stilled.

“No,” he said quietly, more reflex than command. But Franklin did not stop. A soft sound left him—something between a breath and a laugh—and Reed felt it then. Not physically, not in any measurable way. But unmistakable. Resonance. Reed’s gaze snapped back to her, sharper now, searching, analyzing, trying to force this into something logical.

There was no prior contact. No shared environment. No possible imprinting mechanism that could explain— Franklin shifted again, more insistent this time, his small fingers opening and closing as if grasping for something already familiar. As if he knew what he was reaching for. Reed’s jaw tightened.

“That’s not possible,” he murmured, though there was no one he needed to convince. Not her. Not Franklin. Himself. He adjusted his hold, instinctively drawing Franklin closer to his chest—protective, grounding. And yet…he didn’t step back. Didn’t increase the distance between them. Didn’t remove her from the equation. Because something in him—something he could not quantify—refused to. Franklin let out a soft, frustrated sound, his attention unwavering, his entire focus fixed on her presence as if nothing else in the room existed. And then— without warning— he stilled. Completely. The kind of stillness Reed had only ever observed during moments of extreme focus or… alignment. Franklin’s breathing evened out. His small hand lowered slowly, not in rejection— but in certainty. Reed felt it then, sharper this time. Not a fluctuation. Not interference. A connection. His eyes flicked between them again, faster now, mind racing, building and discarding hypotheses in rapid succession. Biological impossibility. Multiversal overlap.
Genetic echo across divergent timelines—No. Too specific. Too precise. Too— His thoughts halted.

Because Franklin had turned his head slightly, just enough to press his cheek against Reed’s shoulder… while still watching her. Calm. Content. Certain. Reed exhaled slowly, tension coiling tighter in his chest rather than easing.

“…Explain this,” he said, his voice lower now, stripped of command, of certainty. Not an order. A demand for truth. Because for the first time since the breach had opened— he was no longer observing a phenomenon. He was witnessing something far more dangerous. Something that did not belong to science alone. Something that suggested— impossible as it was— that Franklin was not reacting to a stranger. But to someone… he already knew.