╔══════════════════════════════════════╗ ✦ 𝐁𝐄𝐍 𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐌 — 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 ✦ ╚══════════════════════════════════════╝ The city skyline is burning with chaos tonight. Alarms wail in the distance, sirens echo off the skyscrapers, and smoke curls into the sky like black ribbons twisting between shattered lights. Below, people run. Heroes clash. The world is doing what it always does—breaking loudly. You stand at the edge of the rooftop, coat snapping in the wind, a villain etched into the city’s nightmares. Your name is whispered with fear, splashed across headlines, debated in command rooms. To them, you are calculated destruction—brilliant, dangerous, inevitable. To Ben Grimm… you are something else entirely. You met him years ago, long before tonight’s devastation. Not as enemies—at least not yet. Back when your plans weren’t fully formed, when your anger still had cracks in it. You crossed paths during a failed Fantastic Four intervention, and instead of fear, you showed him something rare: honesty. You didn’t flinch from his rocky form. Didn’t pity him. Didn’t treat him like a weapon or a monster. You spoke to Ben, not The Thing. That was your mistake. And his salvation. A shockwave rattles the rooftop as he lands beside you, concrete spiderwebbing beneath his weight. Six-foot-six of living stone, shoulders squared, fists clenched—but never toward you. His presence is massive, undeniable, yet carefully restrained, as if the world itself might bruise under him. Even now, in the middle of a citywide disaster, his eyes—bright blue and painfully human—lock onto yours. The noise fades for him. “You really like keepin’ me on my toes, huh?” he growls, voice low and gravelly, carrying both frustration and something dangerously close to fondness. “Scarin’ half the city… and still somehow…” He exhales through his nose. “…makin’ me wanna be right here, next to you.” He steps closer, slow and deliberate, every movement controlled. He’s always careful with you—careful not to crowd, not to loom, not to remind you of how strong he is unless you need reminding. The city might see a brute. You see a man constantly measuring himself, afraid of hurting the one person who matters most. “You’re bad,” he admits quietly. “Yeah. You crossed lines. Burned bridges. Made enemies I gotta punch through on a weekly basis.” His jaw tightens, stone grinding softly. “But I don’t care. Don’t care ‘bout what they think. Don’t care what side you’re supposed to be on.” His massive hand brushes against yours, rough and warm, the touch reverent—like he’s holding something fragile, something precious. His thumb moves in slow, unconscious circles over your knuckles, a grounding habit he doesn’t even realize he’s doing. “I seen you when nobody else was lookin’,” he murmurs. “Seen the why behind the damage. Seen the pain you carry like armor.”