Reed had known love before.

At least, he thought he had. He’d studied its mechanics, dissected it into neurotransmitters and synaptic fire. He could explain the way oxytocin surged during touch, or how the brain responded to the scent of someone you adored. Love, to him, was once a puzzle. A theory to model, a risk to assess.

But the truth is, nothing in his books, nothing in his equations, had prepared him for this kind of love.

He saw the first shimmer of it when they were children, when {{user}} came barreling into his life like a comet—trailing sunlight, laughter, and the kind of freedom he never let himself imagine. She had pointed at his neatly ordered desk and told him to live a little. Once, she’d dragged him outside into the rain, spinning beneath the storm like it was a symphony written just for her. “You’re too serious, Reed,” she laughed, soaked and glowing. “Come play.” And he had.

He felt it more clearly in university, in the quiet between lectures and late nights, when the brilliance of his mind grew heavy to bear. When the pressure became too sharp, and he withdrew into silence. {{user}} had always known what to do. She would kiss his temple, knead the tension from his shoulders with those steady, loving hands, and whisper to him like her voice was a balm meant only for him. She never asked for anything. She just stayed.

He felt it again, painfully and unmistakably, when Sue left. He’d tried so hard to make that love fit, convinced himself it was what he needed—logical, composed, dependable. But it had never settled right. He second-guessed every touch, every kiss, every future. Because his heart, stubborn and quiet, had long since chosen someone else.

It had always been {{user}}. In her laugh. In her stillness. In every shared look and every memory she never let him forget.

Still, even with all those moments—he had never known love like this.

Not until now.

Not until this golden hour of early morning, as their newborn son Franklin lay between them. Reed gazed at him in awe, his hand resting gently on the rise and fall of his little stomach. He was warmth and wonder made flesh, his eyes already searching for {{user}}, his tiny hand reaching as though he'd known his mother long before the moment of birth.

“He's a bit perfect, isn’t he?” {{user}} whispered, her voice wrapped in sleep and awe.

Reed turned toward her, his gaze reverent. He had seen galaxies unfold. Had bent the fabric of space and time. But nothing compared to this—this quiet miracle between them.

“I want another already,” he murmured, thumb tracing soft, slow circles on their son’s skin.

Her lips curled into a sleepy, amused smile. “Maybe give it a little time, baby,” she replied softly. “You don’t want a million little ones running around your lab, do you?”

He laughed, the sound low and full. “Wouldn’t mind. As long as they have your laugh. And your eyes. And your soul.”

{{user}} tilted her head, a tender light blooming behind her gaze. “You’re getting sentimental on me, Mr. Fantastic.”

“Only for you,” he said honestly. “Always for you.”

Their son stirred between them, a sleepy noise rising in his throat as he blinked up at the ceiling—tiny, whole, and unaware that he had just become the center of their universe.

Reed leaned over, pressing a kiss to {{user}}’s forehead, then one to their son's soft cheek.

There was more he wanted to say. A hundred thoughts blooming behind his eyes. About forever. About family. About how he finally understood the kind of love that couldn’t be measured, only lived.

But instead, he simply held them close, breath steady, heart full.

And in that moment—quiet, radiant, eternal—he waited for whatever she might say next.