Swelling With Love

Swelling with Love: In which an alternate universe's Susan Storm shows her team and Reed Richards in particular just how much an elastic body can be good for.

Chapter one: Hooking up.  In which “Big Brain” Reed Richards rediscovers the problems and pleasures of having a physical body.

AN: This story takes place in the continuity of What If Vol 1 #6  (for the most part at least if you’re gonna step outside regular continuity to start with you might as well keep doing it when you find it appropriate) in which the Fantastic Four end up gaining different powers.  Ben gains a pair of dragon like wings and the ability to fly and calls himself the Dragonfly.  Johnny gains the ability to transform his body into a living metal version of itself that in addition to being super strong and super tough can also interface and control electronic equipment and calls himself the Mandriod.  Susan gains an elastic body, which might as well be the exactly the same as what Reed gained in the canon Marvel universe and called herself Ultra Woman.  Reed became a psychic bodiless brain known as Big Brain that acted as adviser to the other three.  Victor Von Doom captures Reed with the intention of using him to power a time machine, and the other three race off to rescue him.  In the end Reed manages to send his mind into Victor’s body, and send Victor’s mind into his brain right before it’s destroyed, leaving nothing of Victor Von Doom behind, and Reed now having his incredible intelligence, psychic powers, Victor Von Doom’s body, armor, and finally an elastic Susan Storm who all of a sudden he can now once again have physical contact with.  If all of that seemed like too much to handle, don't worry, I've written a prequel to this story called Original Twist that can be found here (www.fanfiction.net/u/1546375/I…) and reading it should not only help you understand this one, but be a good read all on its own...  Or if you insist on sticking to deviant art, then go to iwfan53.deviantart.com/art/Ori… to find the start of the first chapter of Original Twist and iwfan53.deviantart.com/art/Ori… to find the end of it (the first chapter).

  Sorry in advance for any errors that remain, I’m more of an idea man then an editor, but I tried my best so it should be pretty understandable.




Reed Richards swivelled his wheeled chair around as he heard the familiar sound, it was a combination between the slithering of a snake, and rubbing a ones palms against a balloon filled with air.  No it wasn’t a familiar ‘sound’, not really.  The accident  their attempted flight into space had turned into ended up granting himself, Susan Storm, her brother Jonathan, and Benjamin Grimm incredible powers and thus allowed them to become the Fantastic Four, had also left him unable to ‘hear’ anything for a very long time.

Like the other three, he had gained quite a lot, but unlike with the other three, his powers had come at a steep price.  His already impressive mental abilities had been multiplied many times over and expanded past the realms of simple genius into the near impossible, allowing him to preform psychic feats that he would have considered impossible if he hadn’t been actively responsible for them.  But, he had also lost everything except his brain.  The rest of his body, even his skull, had been destroyed in the accident, leaving behind as a brain that was capable of surviving without any sort of external protection.

He had thought he’d be stuck that way forever, even going so far as to design an intricate system of pneumatic tubes that had allowed his mind to move about the Fantastic Four’s headquarters at will.  But then his old college rival Victor Von Doom had come back into the picture, offering Reed a chance to once again have a body, and despite his scepticism Reed had eventually agreed to the idea.

Victor however had betrayed him, and almost killed not only Reed, but the three people he cared most about in the world, the sight of Ben, Johnny, and most of all Susan laying helpless before Victor had raised such emotion within his mind that even if only for a few moments had increased his psychic powers beyond their normal limits, and when the dust had cleared Reed had ended up with a body, Victor’s ironically enough.

So while previous he had simply ‘comprehended’ the things going on around himself, or anyone he knew well enough and cared to focus intently on, that was no longer the case.  Now once again he also possessed the rudimentary five senses of smell, sight, taste, touch, and hearing.  This, like his powers seemed to be equal parts (no not equal parts, though it did have portion of both doubtlessly) blessing and curse.  It hadn’t taken him long to notice that having a human body’s needs and abilities seemed to diminish his psychic abilities.  Granted, since he’d only had this body for a few hours, the decrease in his powers might turn out to be nothing more then his mind needing time to properly recalibrate itself to its new situation.

Pushing aside as many of the recent events in his life as he could, Reed decided that he might as well vocalize his thoughts, since it would be easier then broadcasting them mind to mind at the moment.  “Hello Susan, something the matter?”  Susan Storm who now went by both her birth name and her superheroine identity of Ultra Woman stretched her pliable body across the room, then pulled it back into its normal form.  There she stood before Reed, looking more or less exactly like she had before they had gained their powers, a phrase that Reed knew for a fact would never be applied to him.

“Actually Reed, I came in here to see if you were getting along all right.  I know that as a brain you could just sort of, exist, but now that you’ve got a body again I was worried that you might be getting hungry or thirsty.”  Reed shook his head and returned his attention back to his work.  “No, I don’t need any particular physical nourishment at the moment.  Besides, I feel like I hardly have time for such things considering all the work I have to take care of at the moment.

It seems a shame to undo something that I spent so much time working on, but I’ll need to dismantle the transportation system I set so that I could move through the building.  It serves no useful purpose now, and though I can’t figure out how at the moment, there is always the off chance one our foes might be able to find a way to use it against us.  Not to mention I need to retool Victor’s armor, at the very least I’ll have to repair the damage it suffered when he used it to subdue the three of you.  After that, I probably should find a way to make its design somewhat less menacing, and then, well even though Victor was obviously a genius, there still exist several way I can improve upon his orrigional designs.”

Susan’s head stretched off her neck and lowered itself down across the back of his chair so that when she spoke it was directly into his ear.  “Reed, stick out your tongue so that I can see it.”  Reed turned around again to face Susan, someone unused to the way she could sculpt her body would have no doubt found the head connected to its body only by a neck stretched beyond all logical lengths disturbing, if not outright revolting.  Luckily Reed had spent a considerable amount of time watching Susan stretch her body, both in combat and for more mundane purposes, so he didn’t miss a beat.

“If I tried to it’d only end up pressed against the faceplate of this mask.  That problem aside, why would you ask me to do something so ridiculous?”  Susan stretched a gloved hand over, stuck out her own tongue for a moment pressing a finger to it, before snapping the hand back to her body, and pulling her tongue back behind her teeth.  “Simple, because if I could feel your tongue then I’d know how moist it is.  Reed, for all you know you are hungry and thirsty, but since your mind isn’t used to dealing with such trivial bodily concerns, it’s subconsciously ignoring them.”  

Reed was surprised in more ways then one by Susan’s words, both at the nature of her theory, and that she herself had come up with it.  He tired hard to make sure his voice was more intrigued then mocking, but unfortunately whatever his mind thought, the words were produced by the vocal chords that still belonged to Victor Von Doom and thus were much more suited for the latter purpose.  “What makes you so sure Susan?”

Her body casually walked over, the neck and head returning to their normal position, one being planted directly on top of the other.  “Because while I can’t speak explicitly for Ben or Johnny, I know for a fact that I had issues getting used to the gap between my brain and my new body.  The first couple of nights after we got our powers, I’d have nightmares, and I’d wake up my body strewn all over the room.  There wouldn’t be anything I could do about it either, I’d just lie their like limp spaghetti, until eventually I realized that to fully control my powers I had to think about not controlling them.

I couldn’t just order my limbs to pull themselves back together with firm direct orders, but when I started painting a mental pictures with soft smooth strokes, and then I’d get whatever I wanted.”  Underneath the metal mask Reed blushed.  “I’m sorry Susan, I don’t know how you having problems like that could have escaped my notice at the time...”

Susan just sighed and shook her head dismissively.  “Don’t worry about it Reed, those first few days put a lot of strain on all of us, between learning how to control our powers, figuring out how we would announce ourselves to the world, and designing the Baxter Building to serve as our headquarters, it would be easy to miss a couple little things.  It wasn’t like I was in any real danger, and now I’ve got using my powers down pat.  I was even able to slip into your lab through that supposedly ‘air tight’ door of your’s.”

One of the advantages to psychic communication was that you never said anything until you had time to think it through, simply vocalizing your “thoughts” could lead to saying things that you regretted even as they came out of your mouth.  What Reed found emerging from “his” lips was a more or less textbook example.  “I’ll have to fix that.”  Before Susan could mold her features into a disapproving stare Reed began to explain as quickly as possible.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that since most of the building and my lab equipment is designed to be accessed psychically rather then physically, there are a lot of parts of it that need to be redesigned for greater ease of use now that I can take part in more conventional interactions with my equipment.  As for the door, I wasn’t trying to keep you out in particular Susan, I just want to make sure that my lab is secure.  I keep many pieces of equipment in here that could prove extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, and for all we know there’s a supervillian or supervillianess who is able to shape and mold their body the same way you are, I want to make sure they wouldn’t be able easily bypass my security systems.”

Luckily even between the facemask and hood of Victor’s outfit, its wearer’s eyes were still visible, apparently Susan both saw and empathised with the look of abstract fear that resided within Reed’s at the moment.  “Tell you what, I won’t say anything about you double plating those doors with whatever special metal they’re made out of, if you’ll leave them open for the next minute or two.  At the very least I’m not leaving this place till I’ve seen you drink a cup of water.”

Reed looked around his lab and hopped that however late it was, Susan was still in the mood for levity.  “That’ll be a difficult trick to pull off, since there aren’t any sinks or other sources of water, let alone cups in here.”  Susan just smiled and waved a somewhat lengthened finger in Reed’s face.  “Okay fine, my legs aren’t leaving the room until I’ve seen you at least drink a cup of water.  Now then, would you mind opening the doors?  I can probably see myself out, but I can’t slide my way back in under the worlds lowest limbo pole with a cup of water in hand.”

Reed nodded, and focused mentally willing the doors open.  It took more effort then he remembered it used to, a hand operated system with passwords, finger prints, or any of the dozens of other ways (possibly all of those ways operating together just to be 100% sure) would probably prove a good idea in the future.  Just as she promised, Susan’s legs didn’t leave the room, only her upper torso did, stretching off on its merry way to one of the building’s many kitchens.

As Reed watched her (or at least a significant portion of her) leave, he took a moment to marvel at what was clearly a direct violation of everything he knew about physics.  Not just the elasticity of Susan’s body, but the fact that her legs could remain upright while her upper body was stretching its way halfway across the Baxter Building.  Even assuming her outstretched body was lighter then normal, the sheer amount there was of it should have made her legs topple over.  

That particular problem considered, he went back to his work, until a sound more or less just like the one that had heralded Susan’s arrival filled the lab.  As he turned around, once again Susan’s body snapped back to its normal proportions and she offered him a glass of water.  

Reed had taken some time to figure out exactly how to operate Victor’s armor before getting to work on anything else, (especially the weapons, it would hardly do for him to activate one of them accidentally) so he knew just how to deal with the problem of the facemask having no gap for him to drink through.  He tapped a small portion of it and a metal straw extended from the mask through which he was able to drink.

When he finally finished draining the cup, in the process his body reminding him of what the sensation of drinking water felt like, he looked for a place to put the empty cut down.  However since his lab had been designed back when he was just a brain, the place was extremely sparse when it came to niceties like tables and chairs.  Which brought another problem to mind, he was sitting in the only chair in the room.

“Not only do I have no idea where to put this, but I just realized that I can’t exactly offer you a seat either Susan...”  Susan just took the cup from his hands, then stretched her arm over and left it resting somewhat precariously on top of one of the many pieces of machinery that filled the lab.

“Don’t worry about it Reed.  Ever since I’ve gained these powers, it’s not exactly super strength or super endurance, but I can’t ever remember my legs getting tired once since I became Ultra Woman.”  Reed took a moment to closely examine the shapely legs in question.  “Well considering everything we’ve been through since we gained our powers, and the difficulty I would have had preforming any physical examination, it’s not as if I’ve really examined the exact nature of how any of us were changed.  For all we know, you might not actually have muscles or bones left in your body to get tired from standing around.  Your bodily structure might be closer to that of an amoeba, except your body finds its current shape a more natural form to assume when at rest then the usual amorphous blob.”

The look in Susan blue eyes told Reed that he had just gone and really put his foot in it, and to a much greater degree then when he had made comments about the impenetrability of the door.  “That’s all I am to you Reed, a lab experiment?  An amoeba that just happens to resemble the woman named Susan Storm?”

Reed tried desperately to make her understand.  “Not at all, I was just coming up with a theory that might explain your condition from a purely scientific point of view, you must know that there are other factors involved in how I really look at you.”  Susan sighed deeply, and her legs seemed to lengthen letting her truly tower over him.  “And what are those other factors?  I know that we’re teamates, but, do you still love me the way you said you did before we got our powers?”

This question at the very least was easy, in fact it couldn’t have been more easy if he’d been asked what two plus two was.  “Of course I do Susan, do you still love me?”  Susan hung her head in a gesture of defeat which was strangely at odds with her words.  “Yes.  I figured that if there are women out there who still love their husbands even when they’re in comas, even though we aren’t married, I figured it would have been improper of me to let what happened to you come between us.  If there are people out there who manage to keep on loving someone even when they only have a body without a mind to love, I should be able to make do with a love that was a mind without a body.  Does that make you happy?”  The last sentence sounded almost accusing.

“Of course it does Susan, I already told you, I still love you.  But I don’t understand why we’re practically shouting at each other if we’re both supposedly in love with the other.”  The first response that Reed got was Susan suddenly stretching her body out, and wrapping her chest around Reed’s midsection pinning his arms to his sides, and his back to the chair.  “Because it isn’t easy to be in love with someone, and yet not be able to express it.  I think that’s been problem we’ve both had to deal with for quite a while now, and the fact that we’ve been working together on the Fantastic Four, that I’ve felt your mind mentally rubbing up against mine countless times has only made it worse.  We couldn’t actually get any physical sense of intimacy, and yet we were always hanging around each other, until now at least, can I touch you Reed?”

There was something incredibly wistful in Susan’s voice that Reed couldn’t quite put a name on, it was blend of too many things.  He decided to simply give the most obvious answers he had on hand.  “If you hadn’t noticed Susan, you’re already touching me...”

Susan’s head, which was once again residing right next to Reed’s sighed deeply.  “No, not just like this Reed.  I mean yes, at the very least it is nice to actually have a you I can physically I touch without fear of harming, but I want to be able to press my bare hand against yours, if nothing else.”

Reed’s left hand was currently covered by Doom’s remaining gauntlet, and since the right gauntlet had been destroyed, he had simply wrapped it up in cloth after getting back to the Baxter Building.  “Of course you can Susan, but it’s not really my hand.  Not to mention it’d be easier for me to untie that bandage it if you’ll let me move my arms.”  Susan loosened her grip, Reed had seen Doom’s armor defeat all three of the other members of the Fantastic Four in combat simultaneously, but that was a memory.  The feeling of Susan’s body coiled around his, how easily it had held his limbs immobile, that was in there hear and now.  Susan might not have problems controlling her powers any more, but he doubted she had reached the full extent of what they were capable of.  

Susan watched with a slightly bemused look on his face as he began to undo the cloth wrapping which was more for simple convenience then any real need.  “Reed, is Victor ever going to come back?”  Reed shook his head as he paused in his work momentarily.  “Not a chance, I can’t feel anything left of his mind, even his memories, and if there was anyone who would be able to feel something like that, given my psychic powers and that I currently occupy his body it probably would be me.”  Susan just nodded having already heard this from him before.

“All right then.  Since even with our luck, weather it is astoundingly good or bad I can’t quite tell at the moment, odds are you’re going to be spending the rest of your life in this body right?”  Reed nodded and Susan repeated the gesture as if to simply confirm her own thoughts.  “Then seeing how you’re going to be stuck in it, and it’s original owner isn’t going to back looking for it, I think by the time tested principle of ‘finder’s keepers, loser’s wheepers’ that I can refer to it as your body.  For simplicities sake if nothing else.

If I was able to keep on loving you when you were just a brain in a jar, even if this entire several story building was the jar in question, then I think I’ll be able to bring myself to love you in this body every bit as much as I loved you in your last one.  Though I suppose we should both be counting our blessings that you had a rival in college named Victor Von Doom, instead of having a relationship that ended extremely badly with a girlfriend named Victoria Von Doom.  Wouldn’t that be one more lovely twist we have to worry about dealing with in already knotty lives?”

Reed agreed as he silently counted his blessings, not only did he once again have a body, but it was one of the same gender and age as his old one had been.  Not to forget just how useful Victor’s armor would prove to be, now he’d be able to lead the Fantastic Four into battle both mentally and physically.  With those gifts under his belt, however badly today had started out, it was obviously coming to a very happy ending indeed.

As Reed tossed aside the strips of cloth Susan much more easily removed the blue glove she had been wearing on her own right hand, and then slowly stretched it forward.  Reed took it, and for a few moments the two just sat their, for the first time in months actually touching skin to skin.  “Your right, ‘Victor Von Doom’s’ hands are a lot larger then Reed Richards’ were.  Also your grips a little firmer.”

“Or maybe your hand is just a little softer since the last time we did this.”  “There might be something to that.”  Against his initial instincts Reed found that he couldn’t stop himself as he slowly began to apply a little more pressure then necessary to Susan’s hand.  Carefully feeling out  the way that instead of staying firm, it just molded itself around whatever pressure he put on it.

“So this really doesn’t hurt?”  Susan shook her head and smiled.  “I’ve broken nails, before I got my powers of course, that were more painful then this.”  At the moment Reed happened to have been absent mindedly transforming Susan’s hand from an appendage with digits to a pink sphere.  He released it and watched as it quickly reverted back to its normal shape.  “Amazing, simply amazing.”

Susan nodded.  “I’m not super tough the way that Johnny is, but once I got a good handle on my powers, I don’t think I’ve really felt anything hurt me a long while.  I mean there have been impacts, things that have put so much stress on my body that I blacked out or at least went a little loopy, but nothing that actually hurt.  It’s half, no make that three quarters really fun and one quarter a bit unnerving.  I mean I bet I could jump of the top of the Baxter Building, scream all the way down, and then even though I’d splatter across the concrete like a bug on a windshield when I landed, afterward that I could just pull myself back together and walk it off without so much as a scratch.”

As Reed took Susan’s hand once again it turned into a pink sphere, though this time it did so by stretching itself over Reed’s hand and entrapping it within her ‘palm’, instead of the other way around.  “I’d prefer you don’t test that theory, just on the off chance it doesn’t work.”  To his surprise Susan delivered a small kiss to the portion of his mask that covered his cheek.  “That’s a sweet thing to say, but don’t worry about it.  Even if I do find myself bungie jumping without a chord, or sky diving without a parachute, all I have to do is make my body as wide across and thin as possible.  That way the first updraft I hit turns me into literal a human parachute.  You might not have ‘seen’ it at the time, but I managed to make sure even Johnny in his Mandroid form had a soft landing that way when we were entering Doom’s castle.

If I could slow the descent of that couple hundred pounds of metal which I care about, I could probably do the same thing for you in you in that suit of armor.”  Susan released Reed’s hand and beneath the faceplate he smiled.  “That’s a kind offer, but I think I’ll wait till I’ve got rockets powerful enough to keep me airborne or at least slow my descent installed somewhere on this armor before I try it.  There’s nothing like having your first body more or less shot out from under them so to speak, to make sure that you want to take good care of your second.”

Susan began to wrap herself a little tighter around Reed’s chest, not enough to make it hard for him to breath, just making sure he was doubtlessly aware of her presence.  “You do that, and I’ll help you do it to, and after the new Fantastic Four takes the field against a couple of supervillians you’ll get the hang of it in no time.”

Reed’s arms were still free and he placed his gauntleted left one along the strands of Susan holding him to the chair.  “Firstly Susan we’re hardly a new version of the Fantastic Four, it’s still you me, Ben and Johnny.  Secondly, you’ll help me do it?  I’m not going to make a very good husband if I not only can’t take care of my wife, but need her to take care of me.”

In response Susan just began to loop her neck around Reed’s about half a dozen times before finally deciding to speak up.  “Reed you’ve always looked after me, and you kept doing it for me and all of the Fantastic Four even when you were Big Brain.  I’m just offering to do what I can to return the favor.  Remember, I’ve got the body that seems like it sprang out of a cartoon and keeps bouncing back whatever happens to it, you’re just a man in a suit of armor.  Someone could drop the proverbial fifty ton anvil on me and not only would I be unhurt, but I could probably squeeze my body out from underneath it without much trouble.   It only takes one can opener to leave you vulnerable.”

Reed firmly placed a finger to his forehead and hoped some of his smile was visible through his eyes, however little logical sense that made.  “It’s going to have to be one very high tech can opener by the time I’m done retooling this suit of armor.  In addition to the shields I’m also planning on adding in a self contained magnetic field generator that should make cause any conventional metal bullet to take the path of least resistance around my body.”

Susan kissed his other cheek, or at least tried to, but only ended up with a mouthful of metal once again.  “That’s the Reed Richards I remember, it doesn’t matter what the problem is, he’ll come up with a technological solution for it.  By the way, do you think that you could take off the mask?  I’m worried that if my lips aren’t warm enough I’ll end up getting them stuck to that thing the way Johnny once did when he was six years old and licked a frozen flag pole.”

Susan chuckled at her own joke, but her request was more serious then she realized.  “If you really want me to.  But Victor’s oversized ego alone wasn’t the only reason he decided to wear a mask, what’s under here isn’t pretty to say the least.”  Susan just sighed once again, bobbing her extended neck up and down.  “If you want to make the mask part of your uniform then I won’t complain, but your going to have to take it off sooner or later, to eat if nothing else.  The sooner I see what’s under it, the sooner I can start getting used to it, and eventually start loving it.”

Reed sighed, faced with Susan’s determination he could make no reasonable counter argument.  So he activated the hidden button that he’d found would loosen his mask enough that it could be removed by hand.  As he did so he also pulled back the hem of the green cloak.  He’d seen what was underneath in a mirror beforehand, and indeed it wasn’t pleasant.  The worst part of it was that doubtlessly most of the damage had been self inflicted.

Well technically all of it had been, if Victor had listened to him then he never would have suffered that original face scarring that evidently drove him to madness.  But that one smallish scar on the left side of his face was nothing compared to the rest of it.  The only explanation that Reed could find for it was that Doom must have pressed the mask to his face the moment it was forged without giving it time to cool.

Which was why most of the face that Reed’s mind now resided behind was burnt a leathery black, which was made even more repulsive by the few patches of still pale unburnt skin around the eyes.  At first Susan was understandably shocked into silence at the sight of it, though she managed to put on a brave face when she finally did speak up. “So for starters, instead of brown hair and eyes you’ve now got black hair and blue eyes.”

If nothing else, the fact that Susan had at least tried to find a silver lining to this particular cloud was rather reassuring.  Granted if being disembodied brain hadn’t been a deal breaker, then a visage that would have done the Phantom of the Opera proud probably shouldn’t have even registered, but he couldn’t have known for sure until he actually saw Susan’s reaction with “his own” eyes.  “Thank you for saying that Sue, but why don’t you just get it out of your system and react the way you really want to.”

She did, and it was not at all how Reed thought she would.  Susan elongated her neck a little more, and planted a long passionate kiss right on Reed’s lips with such force that the pressure she put on his burnt skin actually hurt a little.  After what seemed like the most wonderful hour (but was probably only the most wonderful minute) of his life Susan finally pulled back.  “There, aren’t you glad I got that out of my system?”

Reed himself sobbing slightly.  “I’m sorry Susan.”  Susan leaned in her neck a little closer then she had before the kiss, but they were hardly lip to lip.  “For what?”  Reed sighed as he pointed at his now charcoal colored lips.  “Because Victor lost most of the nerve endings in his face when he did, whatever he did to it, so I could barely feel just how much you love me.”

Susan’s own blue eyes began to glisten slightly.  “Really?  You know what that sounds like to me?  A challenge, and if there’s one thing that being Ultra Woman has taught me, it’s how to rise to a challenge.  So with that in mind, I bet you’ll feel this.”  She opened her mouth and her tongue shot out like a reddish pink serpent.  It easily slipped into Reed’s mouth, past his teeth, and wrapped itself around his toung like that same serpent capturing a slow witted field mouse.  

Reed certainly couldn’t help but feel like prey as Susan’s tongue mercilessly (but at same time gently) jerked his own back and fourth in what had to be if not the worlds best French kiss.  Finally it ended, and Susan yanked her tongue back into her own mouth, leaving Reed panting in surprise for a few seconds before he finally spoke up.  “I felt that, I felt every bit of that, but what about Ben?”

Susan pulled back slightly and wiggled her neck in some kind of zig zag pattern that Reed guessed was her attempt to shrug without shoulders that he could see at the moment.  “What about him dear?”  Reed sighed deeply.  “It’s not as if I went poking around in your head for kicks, or for any other reason, but I couldn’t help but notice that after the accident the two of you started to grow a little closer, won’t he be somewhat upset by this?”

Susan smiled imperiously, her face perfectly summing up the expression about the cat who had just swallowed the canary.  “Reed, Ben is smarter and more sensitive then a lot of people give him credit for, that’s something that caused me to be interested in him, because he reminded me of you.  But he was never anything more then a, well safety boyfriend, if you’ll accept the expression.

Yesterday it was comforting to know that if I ever woke up, and just couldn’t deal with the gap you being nothing more then a brain had put on our relationship, I could always count on him being there for me in several different ways.  It was only really a ‘relationship’ in the sense of the fact that we saw a lot of each other and he was the only male body who I was spending a lot of time around who wasn’t related to me by blood.  After we got back from Doom’s castle I was going to go to him and tell him that I still loved you, except that I ended up running into him on his way to tell me that he already knew how I felt first.

So here we are once again, just two concenting adults in love with each other.  I for whatever reason am not as creped out by your new face as you expected to me, are you creped out any by me?”  Reed’s eyebrows went up in surprise.  “Why would I be creped out?”  Susan stretched out her arms placing them on the arms of the chair, then resting her neck on them.  “Well how about because I’m not the woman I used to be.”

Reed mentally braced himself for the sense of pain brushing his charred lips up against Susan’s was going to bring with it, then leaned as far forward as he could, planting his own passionate kiss on her lips.  She returned his passion, and they were both smiling once again after he pulled away.  “Of course not, your even better.”  Susan slowly unwound herself from around Reed, her entire body practically humming with delight.  “Really, the entire less of a woman more of an amoeba thing doesn’t freak you out?”

Reed just kept right on smiling.  “Well as I already said, from a purely scientific point of view it deeply intrigues me.”  Susan’s went form simply standing their to stretching out her upper body, letting it drift back and forth slightly, like the proverbial snake before is charmer.  “And from the point of view of Reed Richards looking at Susan Storm, the woman who he claims to love?”

Reed stood up, suddenly feeling much more confident then he had in a long time.  Ever since he had lost his body, even though he had been nothing more then a brain, he had still needed to sleep, he had still dreamed, and how many dreams had he gone through when he had somehow gotten his body back?  It felt like more then even he could count.  For all he knew, this was another one of them, but he didn’t think it was.

All of the others had been too perfect, too easy, too fractured, he’d simply woken up, sometimes with his powers, sometimes without them in his old body.  Sometimes it meant that they had never gone on that flight, sometimes it meant that they’d never gained powers.  But in one and all, he’d once again woken up, found himself a man with a body, and he’d gone and confessed his love to Susan.

But it was because today didn’t feel that right that it also felt so much better, so much more real.  He wasn’t sure how ending up inside the body of his old college rival seemed more believable then any of those dreams, but it did.  He didn’t profess his love for her on some balcony overlooking a beautiful full moon and the ocean with the words wrapped up in a beautiful poem this time.  He had done it in his lab, and it had been wrapped up in an argument, but there was some wonderful believability to it.  One way or another, the only way to tell if it was a dream or not was to pursue it to the end.

If it was a dream, then Reed would just have to make due when he woke up a brain in a tank tomorrow morning, and if it wasn’t, if this was real, then he had damn sure better make use of it for all he was worth.  “From the view point of Reed Richards, a man in love with you, it makes me want to do whatever the hell I can to please you, to treat you the way you’ve disserved to be treated for so long, to give what you wanted so badly, and I so badly wanted to give you in turn.  Now then, why don’t we head for your room, you’re right, I’ve done enough thinking about technical matters for one day.”

Susan used her temporarily greater height to easily overshadow Reed as she looked down at him.  “Why bother going to my room?  Why don’t you just close that door, after all your lab is everything we’ll need: clean, familiar to both of us, even if you a bit more then me, and it certainly is private.”  

Reed couldn’t help but think of one obvious flaw with that plan, however appealing it was on the whole.  “While my lab may be all those things, it is also manifestly lacking when it comes to one important feature, a bed.  However delightfully spontaneous tonight is turning out to be, I can’t imagine either of us would much enjoy the prospect of doing it on the floor.”

Susan pulled her body back to normal, her eyes sparkling with barley suppressed lust.  “Well, how do you feel about the prospect of us doing it on me?”  “On you?”  Susan evidently decided that Reed might understand her suggestion a little better if she provided him with a vissual aid.  She sighed, and then spread out her arms and fell backwards.  As she did, her body from her hips to a couple inches below her breasts lengthened and stretched out, until it had become fairly decent facsimile of a bed.  

“On me.”