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foxtrology · 8 days ago

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isomer (3)

reed richards x reader

star sailor series | ao3 link

notes: iceland + the midnight sun. reed + reader, alone for the first time. bodies meet. hearts already had. consider this their beginning!!!

warning: age gap & smut!

word count: 10k

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The city was hot. The kind of heavy, cement-slick heat that turned the streets to soup and made even the clouds look tired. Midtown shimmered, yellow haze over the skyline, and the Baxter Building stood tall in it, crystalline and sharp-edged against the blur.

Inside, summer didn't feel quite as cruel. The labs were cold and humming and alive—always alive, even when it was just the two of them moving through the soft blue glow of control panels and the dull thrum of computers left idling. The Foundation hadn’t slowed down. If anything, July meant the arrival of new summer fellows—wide-eyed postgrads flitting nervously through corridors with notebooks and coffee they never finished.

Still, it had been a few months since the field trip. Since your ex showed up with his class, plastic smile and dull eyes, and Reed had placed one steady hand on the small of your back in a way that didn’t say jealousy, but I’m here. Since then, things had stretched into a rhythm. Less defined than a relationship, more intimate than friendship. Something that lived in the in-between.

Your drawer count in Reed's quarters had grown from one to three, plus a toothbrush, plus the oversized t-shirt you always reached for after long days. There were now a few of your trench coats—neutral toned, linen, sharp collars—hung neatly next to his in the closet. Reed never commented when you left more of yourself behind.

He simply made space. That was the kind of man he was...the kind who noticed and adjusted. Without ceremony. Without question.

His quarters at the top of the Baxter Building were like him—calm, spare, flooded with northern light. The walls were a soft dove grey. One wall was floor-to-ceiling books. Another, windows that looked out onto the city.

Sometimes, in the early morning, when the streets were still mostly empty and the sky had that electric cotton candy hue, you sat on the sofa together without speaking, coffee in hand, your bare legs drawn up under you, his hand resting on your ankle like he needed the contact to think straight.

You hadn’t gone home in weeks.

The summer was busy. Relentless. Experiments running hot. Interns needing approval. Theoretical models demanding refinement. Reed worked without ego, which only made the junior researchers more obsessed with him. You understood it. Reed wasn’t just smart; he was kind. Not performatively, not in a way that sought credit. He simply gave his attention where it was needed. Thoughtfully. Precisely.

But he always found you in the noise. Whether it was an arm brushing yours as you passed in the hall, or a shared look during a staff meeting that made your stomach tighten—he always noticed you first.

You’d been talking about Iceland for months. A midnight sun trip. Something you’d mentioned once, barely above a whisper, during a long conversation in the elevator after a sixteen-hour workday.

“There’s this town. Reykjavík,” you’d said, voice soft, unsure if he was even listening. “In the Westfjords. You can sit by the water and watch the sun just barely dip below the edge. It looks like the world’s holding its breath.”

Reed had nodded, quiet, like he was filing it away.

And now the trip was booked. Two weeks out.

The emails were confirmed, the car was reserved, and he had already packed an extra pair of thermal socks for you because you always forgot.

“You’ll need layers,” he said a few days ago, pouring you tea without asking how you liked it. “Even in July.”

You were already dreaming of the light—golden, perpetual, like being trapped in the last five minutes before dusk.

That night, the lab lights were off except for one desk lamp. Reed’s office, top floor, tucked just behind the solarium. You padded in silently, barefoot, his oversized T-shirt hanging low over your thighs. It was nearly two a.m. The city beyond the windows looked like it had been painted in watercolors—soft, bluish grey, dotted with amber.

Reed was hunched over his desk, hair mussed, still in a rumpled button-down from earlier. Glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. A stylus in one hand, the other resting on his jaw.

You watched him for a moment. The way he bit the inside of his cheek when he was stuck. The way he murmured the math under his breath like it was a language only he could hear.

Then, quietly, you moved.

You walked over without saying a word, sliding into his lap slowly, knees straddling him. His chair shifted with the weight, clicking softly against the tile. He didn’t startle. Just looked up, eyes immediately softening.

“You should come to bed,” you said, voice barely above a whisper, mouth close to his ear. “You’ve been at this for hours.”

His hands slid around your waist like it was muscle memory, warm against your bare skin under the hem of the shirt. He looked at you like he didn’t know how to say what he was feeling. Like it was too much.

“I wasn’t finished—” he started, but then you kissed him. Slow. Deep. Final.

And he was undone. That fast.

One hand came up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth like he was memorizing you.

When you pulled back, your nose nudging his, you whispered it again. “Bed.”

This time, he nodded.

“Okay,” he said, voice hoarse. “Yeah. Okay.”

He carried you there, almost unconsciously. You curled under the sheets while he changed out of his soft threadbare tee and climbed in behind you, shirtless. His arms slipped around your waist. Your back tucked into his chest. His face pressed against your neck, warm breath against your skin.

“I like this,” he said softly. “You, here.”

“I live here now,” you murmured, half-asleep. “You just haven’t realized.”

He chuckled, deep and quiet. “I’ve realized.”

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten again, streaks of rose gold brushing the edge of the horizon. Another New York morning blooming slow and silent.

In two weeks, you’d be under a foreign sun that never really set. But here, in the hush of his arms, in the warmth of shared breath and old sheets, it already felt like a kind of neverending light.

He didn’t say he loved you. Not yet.

But he held you like he did. And you stayed.

The morning light in the top floor quarters of the Baxter Building had a kind of reverent softness to it, like it respected the silence. It slipped in through the sheer curtains Reed had installed last month—not for style, but because you said the blackout ones made you go overboard with sleep.

At 6:42 a.m., the sunlight spilled over the low furniture and the pale wooden floors and caught in the dust motes just beginning to stir in the air.

Reed woke up before the alarm, his body trained by years of habit and scientific rigor, but for the first time in months, he didn’t move right away. Instead, he stayed curled around you, one arm across your waist, the other under the pillow.

You were still asleep, hair a tangled constellation of waves and sleep-creased skin, breathing slow and even. He watched you like he was studying a rare element—like if he looked too long you might change shape. The curve of your shoulder, your hands loosely balled beneath your chin. The way your lips moved slightly as you dreamed. He knew how fast your mind ran—calibrated, fast, sometimes far ahead of his own—and in your sleep, you looked so still it almost broke him.

Eventually, your eyes opened. Slowly. Sleepily.

Reed smiled. Just a little.

“Morning,” he said, voice already warm, already low.

“Morning,” you murmured, stretching beneath the covers, one leg brushing against his.

“You hungry?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Shower first.”

He leaned in and kissed your forehead. “Shower first,” he repeated, like a prayer.

The bathroom was sleek, all fogged glass and cool marble. You stepped in first, the water steaming fast against the tile, filling the room with the scent of eucalyptus and something faintly citrus. Reed followed a few seconds later, carefully adjusting the temperature like he always did, even though you both liked it warm.

The shower was spacious, designed for practicality, not intimacy—but intimacy bloomed there anyway.

You stood beneath the stream, eyes closed, water slicking your hair back, your fingers moving automatically to the shelves where your shampoo sat beside his. You felt Reed’s hands before you saw him—slow, firm, settling on your hips as he moved behind you, close but reverent.

He kissed your shoulder. Not hurried. Not sexual. Just—present.

“Turn around,” he said softly.

You did.

He poured shampoo into his palms and began washing your hair like it was a sacred task. Carefully working it through your strands, his fingers massaging your scalp, gentle, focused. His brow furrowed a little in concentration, eyes following the path of his hands like he didn’t want to miss a single detail.

You opened your eyes and just looked at him. The way his curls were already damp and sticking to his forehead. The way he smiled slightly every time your eyes caught his.

“You do this for everyone?” you asked, voice dry and teasing, but low.

He leaned in, pressed a kiss to your cheekbone, then your temple.

“No,” he said. “Just you.”

You switched, and he stood still while you lathered soap across his chest, your fingers moving with clinical precision. Reed watched you the entire time. Not with hunger, but with something quieter. Devotion. It was in the way his breath caught when you scrubbed behind his ears, or the way he steadied you by the waist when the floor got slippery.

You washed each other like ritual.

He tilted your chin up with one soapy hand and kissed you, slow and deep, the water streaming down your backs like silk. When you pulled away, your breathing was heavy, but not because of desire. Because of the moment. Because of the closeness.

“Iceland’s going to feel like a dream,” you whispered, voice caught between thought and sensation.

He nodded. “So does this.”

You brushed your teeth side-by-side, sharing the sink, bumping elbows. You wore one of his old college tees—soft, faded blue cotton, the graphic peeling—and your lab coat over it, sleeves rolled to your elbows. He watched you pull your hair back in the mirror, twisting it up with one of the black clips you kept on the shelf next to his aftershave.

“You always look like you’re solving a crime in those coats,” he said.

“I am,” you replied. “The crime is your interns messing with my data.”

He grinned. “We’ll keep them in line.”

By 8:03 a.m, the new batch of interns had arrived.

They came in clusters, faces young and hungry, nerves tucked beneath too-earnest smiles. They wore sharp new badges and carried notebooks that still had that crisp spine crackle.

You stood next to Reed in the hallway outside Lab 3B as he gave the orientation spiel, his tone calm but clear, hands in his pockets, a pen spinning slowly between his fingers.

And then there was her.

Nina.

She was bright. You had no complaints about her academic work—top of her cohort at CalTech, efficient code, excellent recall.

But she hovered.

Always one step closer to Reed than necessary. Too many questions. Too many laughs at his dry jokes. You caught the way she tilted her head when he spoke, like she was storing the sound for later. She even stood straighter around him.

Reed didn’t notice. Of course he didn’t. He laughed with her, obliviously.

He only seemed to notice when you fell quiet.

Between presentations, he leaned over, hand grazing the small of your back.

“You okay?” he murmured, low enough that only you could hear.

You nodded. “Fine.”

But you weren’t. Not quite. Not when she looked at him like that.

But is she the one sleeping next to him at night?

No.

Is she the one wearing one of his old shirts under her lab coat?

No.

Is she the one he kissed in the shower this morning with steam curling around their bodies like smoke?

No.

You are.

Reed caught your hand under the desk when you moved to prep the next slide on the projector. Just gently held it, his thumb stroking the inside of your wrist like he could read your pulse.

“I see you,” he said, softly.

You turned, surprised.

He gave you a look. Steady. Private. Like he already knew what you were thinking before you’d even thought it.

“I always see you.”

By 10:27 a.m., the interns were in groups, prepping their first rotation. You and Reed moved between them—him listening closely, offering thoughtful feedback, you correcting a line of flawed logic in someone’s neural net projection with surgical precision.

“She’s kind of intimidating,” one intern muttered to another when you walked away.

Reed heard it. Turned slightly.

“She’s the smartest person I know,” he said, matter-of-fact. No irony. No flourish.

You didn’t look back. But you smiled.

At 10:48 a.m., the whole lab buzzed under the hum of conversation and code, the scent of burnt coffee and sterilized surfaces in the air. Reed stood beside you, shoulder brushing yours, and you looked out at the sea of eager faces.

“You were right,” he said, glancing sideways.

“About what?”

“You said they’d be chaos,” he deadpanned.

You let out a soft laugh.

“And you said they’d be charming.”

He tilted his head toward you. “Guess I'm not always right.”

You nodded.

Still standing there, arms crossed, lab coats brushing, his shirt beneath yours, your clip in his bathroom, your clothes in his closet, your hands still faintly smelling of his shampoo, the weight of his gaze never far.

It was 11 a.m.

And the day was just beginning.

By 11:30, the Baxter Building had begun to thrum—not just with the expected undercurrent of machinery and data pulses, but with the messier rhythm of young minds set loose. The interns were split into small groups now, each one given their own corner of the lab to explore.

Reed’s idea, of course.

“They need agency,” he said. “Boundaried chaos.”

You’d raised an eyebrow. “So, playpen chaos.”

He’d only smiled. “Guided chaos.”

Now, seated on a tall stool beside a rolling cart of ancient lenses and discarded microscope slides, you were watching as one group attempted to recalibrate a spectrometry analyzer...and another mixed two unidentified compounds without labeling the beaker.

You saw it the moment it started to go sideways.

A sharp pop. A fizz. Then a suspicious, upward flick of a paperclip that had been resting innocently near the console. It levitated. Wobbled midair like it had stage fright. Then dropped with a metallic sigh onto the floor.

Interns scattered like overcaffeinated birds.

“Oh my god,” one of them whispered. “Did I just open a wormhole?”

“No,” you said, moving toward the console in quick, certain steps. “You miscalibrated the EM field. And labeled nothing. Nothing. You’re lucky it was just a paperclip and not your teeth.”

Reed came up beside you, practically glowing.

His eyes were wide, pupils slightly dilated in that very specific way they got when something had just almost broken the rules of reality—but didn't. “That’s...fascinating,” he murmured, crouching near the dropped paperclip like it might still be humming with unseen energy.

“Fascinating,” you echoed dryly, kneeling down and brushing your fingers over the console’s dials. “They input the wrong voltage threshold. It rerouted through the auxiliary node and picked up residual magnetic current. Hence...floating junk.”

Reed turned his head, still crouched. “You’re brilliant.”

“You’re distracted.”

His smile was crooked. Warm. “Isn’t it nice when I’m both?”

Once the interns were settled again—hands trembling slightly but eyes wide with a newly learned respect for your authority—you and Reed ducked into one of the side rooms: Lab 4C. It was mostly storage, mostly forgotten, which made it perfect. The lighting was soft from a narrow strip window. A single desk sat in the corner, cluttered with old notebooks and a disconnected tablet.

He pulled you in without hesitation.

“You didn’t even lock the door,” you murmured as he turned you toward the wall, his hands already at your waist, lips skimming your neck.

“I did,” he said, breath against your skin. “With my ID.”

It was sudden, but not rushed. Intimate. Intentional.

His fingers splayed across your back like he was steadying himself more than you. His mouth on yours was slow, searching, like he needed to taste the way you’d spoken earlier—clinical, sharp, precise—and turn it into something warmer. Something only he got.

You melted into it, not because you were swept away, but because this was safe. Known. Your spine hit the cool tile and his body pressed into yours, not forceful, just firm—like he was anchoring himself to the present. To you.

You felt him exhale into your mouth like a sigh of relief.

When he pulled back, his forehead resting against yours, you could feel how fast his heart was beating. His eyes stayed closed.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I needed—”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean to derail—”

“You’re not.”

The silence stretched, soft.

Then he kissed your cheek. Then your jaw. Then your collarbone. Small, almost reverent.

“You always know how to hold the room together,” he murmured. “And me.”

Back in the main lab, the interns didn’t ask where you’d gone, but Nina—the one with the Reed fixation—looked at your slightly flushed face a little too long.

You ignored her. Reed did too, in his own way.

He brought you a fresh bottle of water from the breakroom fridge without asking. He knew you’d forgotten to drink anything since the shower. He also handed you a napkin with the muffin you liked from the cart downstairs. Blueberry with the sugar crust top. The one you never asked for but always finished.

His love language was acts of service—small, routine, deeply considered.

He didn’t need to announce them.

You caught his eye from across the lab as you took the first bite. He just smiled, slight tilt of his head, like Of course I remembered.

By noon, the interns had recovered enough to start asking the more advanced questions—quantum behavior, molecular stability at impossible scales, synthetics integration in post organic structures. You listened. You corrected. You encouraged. Reed watched you the way some people watched the sunrise—quiet, steady awe.

He didn’t interrupt.

Just occasionally added something, soft and thoughtful, reinforcing your points.

At one point, an intern asked a question you’d already answered twice, and your answer came fast, clipped.

Reed stepped in, gently—“What she’s saying is—” and then broke it down without erasing your authority. Just translating, like he knew your language was ahead of everyone else's. Like it was his privilege to act as the bridge.

You glanced at him. He didn’t need to explain himself.

That was the thing about Reed, he was smart enough to know you were smarter. And never once had it made him insecure. In fact, he loved you for it.

Loved the way your mind worked sideways. Loved the way your voice didn’t rise to compete, just cut through the air like a scalpel.

By 12:40, the groups were reorganizing again. The interns still a little frazzled, a little too caffeinated, still riding the edge of nerves—but they were learning. And they were looking at you differently now. Not just the younger co-lead. Not just the woman beside Reed Richards.

You were a force. And Reed? He never looked prouder.

Back in your shared office, he followed you in like a shadow. Carried your backup notes without asking. Refilled the ink in your favorite pen. Rearranged your stack of journals just how you liked—by subject, then alphabetically.

“You’re over-functioning,” you murmured, sitting down, noticing the fresh coffee already steaming on your desk.

“I like keeping your world intact,” he said simply.

You looked up. He was standing by the doorframe now, leaning on it, watching you like he always did after long mornings.

“You don’t have to fix everything for me.”

“I know,” he said. “But I want to. Even if it’s just your pen.”

You blinked. A beat passed. Then another.

“Come here,” you said.

He did. Immediately. And kissed you on the forehead.

“You’re soft today,” you whispered.

“I’m always soft with you,” he replied.

It was the truth.

The interns didn’t see that part.

They saw the sharp edges of you.

The calm hands. The slicing precision.

But Reed saw it all.

And he loved every piece.

By the time the digital clocks scattered across the Baxter Building blinked 1:15, the labs had begun to thin out, slowly—like a tide pulling back, a quiet retreat. Half-open notebooks were abandoned mid-sentence. Screens left glowing with lines of code and paused simulations. The whir of air filtration systems remained, but the human noise softened.

Scientists and interns began shuffling toward the elevators, ID badges swinging, murmuring about cafeteria lines and protein bowls and who was on dish duty this week.

Ben Grimm stuck around just long enough to uncap a bottle of lukewarm cola with the edge of a wrench before walking over to where you and Reed were both finishing a systems overview at a terminal.

Ben had that permanent scruffy look about him, like every day started with a shrug and maybe a third of a plan. But he was good—steady, unpretentious, sharp when it counted. Today he wore a faded Queens College shirt and a scowl that didn’t mean much.

“They’re driving me nuts,” he announced, arms crossed.

You didn’t look up from the terminal, still correcting a miskeyed entry in the software diagnostics. “The interns?”

“No, the espresso machine on Level 5,” he deadpanned. “Yes, the interns.”

Reed chuckled softly, standing beside you with his arms loosely folded. “What happened?”

“One of ‘em tried to explain entropy to me. Like it was brand new information.”

“That’s because you threatened to rip his holographic display off the console.”

Ben shrugged. “It was glitching. I did him a favor.”

“He cried,” you murmured.

“He did,” Reed echoed gently.

“Yeah, well, he’ll learn,” Ben said, already backing toward the elevator. “Next time he tries to run interference algorithms without grounding the data tree, I won’t just yell.”

“You’ll throw his laptop out the window?” you asked without missing a beat.

“No. I’ll let you do it,” he said, pointing a finger at you as the elevator doors opened. “You’ve got the bite now.”

Then he disappeared behind the doors, muttering something about falafel.

“I’m hungry,” you said a minute later, straightening from your seat and pulling your lab coat tighter. “I want to eat in your quarters. The cafeteria’s too noisy. Too…alive.”

Reed nodded, already collecting his things, like he’d been waiting for you to suggest it. “We’ll take the private lift.”

“I figured,” you said, walking beside him toward the elevator bay. “The interns stare when we take the main one. I think they think we exist on opposite floors. Like you’re too professional to share oxygen.”

Reed glanced sideways, that familiar crease at the corner of his mouth deepening. “You know they’re just intimidated of you.”

“They should be.”

He laughed, quietly. Then leaned in. “You’ll always be scarier than me.”

The elevator ride was silent, as it often was. Not awkward—just full of unspoken things. Reed stood behind you, one hand resting on your hip lightly, your head tilted toward the cool metal of the wall. The elevator ascended with a soft hum, numbers glowing above the door, ticking slowly toward the top floor.

Once inside his quarters, the air shifted.

It always did.

Brighter. Quieter. Cooler. Your shoes clicked across the wooden floors as you slipped your lab coat off and laid it neatly across the arm of the couch. Reed moved toward the kitchen like he was on autopilot—rolling up his sleeves and opening the fridge with his usual caution, like it might have changed on him overnight.

“I’m making you a sandwich,” he called over his shoulder.

“Of course you are,” you replied, settling down at the breakfast bar.

“It’s all I know how to do.”

“That’s not true,” you said, crossing your arms on the counter. “You’ve made pasta before.”

He turned, thoughtful. “I used the wrong salt.”

“Stop beating yourself up about it,” you said, biting a smile.

“I was emotionally overwhelmed,” he countered.

You watched him from your seat. The way his shoulders curved, the quiet clink of glass jars being moved aside. He was focused, humming softly under his breath—something barely melodic, a loop of thought set to rhythm.

His hands moved carefully...thick cut bread, turkey, tomato, a whisper of olive oil because he remembered you didn’t like mayonnaise. He pressed it together and cut it diagonally, setting it on a white plate beside a neatly peeled clementine.

He slid the plate in front of you like he was offering a peace treaty.

“It’s good,” you said after the first bite. “Better than yesterday’s.”

“That one had too much mustard.”

“You’re learning.”

“I want to feed you well,” he said, and didn’t say anything else for a while.

After lunch, you kicked off your ballet flats—black leather, worn-in, no embellishments—and sank into the couch like your bones had finally gone soft.

“Wake me in thirty,” you said, tucking your legs beneath you. “If I sleep longer than that, I’ll be useless in the afternoon rotation.”

Reed was at the sink, rinsing the plate. He didn’t turn around. “You’ve been pushing yourself.”

“Not really.”

“You haven’t missed a single 7 a.m. lab since May.”

“That’s normal.”

He dried his hands on a tea towel. “You’re pressuring yourself. Ever since I gave you more oversight.”

“I like having control.”

“I know. But I don’t want it to burn you out.”

You looked over the back of the couch at him. “You’re soft today,” you said again.

He smiled. “I’m always soft with you.”

Then you closed your eyes.

Reed didn’t wake you in thirty minutes.

He let the minutes stretch. Sat at the edge of the couch for a while, notebook open, scribbling theoretical models and quietly watching the way your brow relaxed in sleep. Then he set his notes aside.

Gently, without a sound, he slid your ID off your neck. Set it neatly beside the couch. Your feet twitched slightly. He smiled at that.

He retrieved the pale grey blanket you kept folded over the back of the armchair and spread it over you, smoothing it once, twice, over your shoulders.

You didn’t stir.

You’d been sleeping with tension lately. Not today.

He didn’t sit back down. He just stayed close, sitting on the floor now, his notebook in his lap, but only half-filled. His hand rested near your ankle, not touching, just there, anchoring.

Outside, the city moved on without him.

Inside, the whole world was here.

Time peeled forward like a sheet being pulled gently across a bed. Unhurried, but inevitable.

Two weeks dissolved into a series of softly blurred days, filled with too many voices, too many pens running out, too many versions of the same flawed hypothesis.

And yet, it never felt like drudgery.

Not when you had Reed beside you. Not when your mornings began with him pressing a mug of coffee into your hand without a word, and your evenings ended with his voice—low and quiet and a little hoarse from too much explaining—saying You did well today before you kissed him goodnight.

This was your life. This was yours.

The interns were relentless—half brilliant, half dangerous, all deeply caffeinated. They argued with you too confidently, misread data too casually, forgot to double-check variables because they thought the simulation would just “sort itself out.”

You didn’t coddle them. Maybe if they had met you months back. But now you didn’t need to. You were the constant. The spine. The clean lines between chaos and consequence. Reed didn’t protect you from that role—he watched you own it. Admired it, deeply.

And you?

You were happy.

Genuinely, quietly, breathtakingly happy to do this with him. Your days side by side in labs, your nights in his apartment where you left more of yourself each day...a scarf on a chair, a tube of lip balm on the nightstand, three new books you hadn't started yet stacked beside his, your bras in his laundry.

Your toothbrush had been moved into the holder next to his without fanfare. Your trench coat hung beside his in the entryway now, like it belonged there. Like you did.

This trip to Iceland…it felt like something. A new page, a soft admission.

It was your first vacation together. As…what? A couple?

Could you say that?

Reed hadn’t called it anything. Not out loud. But he’d told you he wasn’t seeing anyone else. That he didn’t want to. That he didn’t have the bandwidth, emotionally, for casualness.

“I don’t want to dilute this,” he’d said once, after you’d spent a full Sunday reading on opposite ends of the couch, touching only at the ankles. “Whatever this is.”

So maybe it wasn’t labeled. Maybe it didn’t need to be.

Still, the word couple felt tender in your mouth. Like biting into a peach that had been sitting in the sun.

The day of the trip came fast.

Too fast, if you were being honest.

The Baxter Building was unusually quiet for a weekday morning, as if the walls themselves understood something was about to shift. Your suitcase sat by the elevator in Reed’s apartment, carefully packed—books tucked in at a diagonal, your scarf folded between sweaters to stop them from smelling like the rest of the world.

Reed walked out of the bedroom wearing a black t-shirt and that slate-colored jacket you liked. The one with the collar that made you stare. He had your smaller bag slung over his shoulder, your suitcase already rolling behind him.

“You didn’t have to carry it,” you said, already slipping your shoes on.

“I wanted to.”

He didn’t say it like it was performative. He never did. Reed’s affection was never loud—it was physical, practical. A hand to steady you when the subway jerked. An extra charger in his pocket. A new set of pens in your favorite ink color without a word.

You followed him into the elevator, watching the muscles in his forearm shift as he adjusted the suitcase handle.

“I’m really glad we’re doing this,” you said, not looking at him.

He turned to face you, soft brown eyes framed by the morning light spilling through the narrow window.

“So am I.”

At the airport, you didn’t wait in line.

First class swept you into a world where everyone whispered and moved like ballet. Reed didn’t quite fit—he was a little too crumpled, a little too sincere—but somehow that made him more charming, not less.

You stood beside him at check-in, adjusting the sleeve of your sweater while the clerk scanned your passports. Reed glanced over at you, leaned in, and said, “Your shoelace is undone.”

You looked down. It wasn’t.

He smirked.

“You’re annoying.”

“And you love it,” he said, brushing your arm lightly.

Maybe you did.

The first-class cabin was quiet luxury. Cream-toned seats, soft linen pillows, lighting that dimmed like a dusk sky. You settled in beside Reed, your legs folded under you, his jacket slung over the divider so you could both see out the window.

He was reading something on his phone, one hand resting on the armrest between you. You reached over, linking your pinky with his.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up.

Just smiled.

You didn’t need a label.

Not when he carried your suitcase.

Not when he brought you your favorite sandwich without asking.

Not when he watched you fall asleep on the couch and covered you with a blanket like you were something fragile he’d been trusted with.

You were going to see the midnight sun together.

The dream you’d spoken of in a half-sentence, months ago.

And he remembered.

Of course he remembered.

Reed didn’t forget the things you whispered when you thought no one was listening.

Not the little ones.

Not the quiet dreams.

Not you.

You were 38,000 feet above the Atlantic, somewhere between Greenland’s edge and the far northern tail of Iceland, when the cabin lights dimmed again, mimicking a slow, Nordic dusk.

Outside the window, the sky was that surreal mid-summer lavender, edged with burnished gold. You’d seen that color before��in Reed’s place, in his eyes when he was half-asleep and asking if you were still working. But never this bright. Never this real.

Reed had nodded off maybe thirty minutes into the flight.

He had tried to read. He had tried to annotate a printout with a black pen, glasses slipping slightly down his nose, but you had watched the ink trail off, letters slouching, until finally he sighed, pushed the page aside, and leaned his seat back.

He'd dozed in a clean, quiet way. No dramatic snoring or twitching. Just...folded in. Relaxed. The world tugged softly out of focus around him, and eventually, he'd leaned in your direction, cheek against your shoulder, his hand grazing your forearm, even in sleep.

You didn’t move.

You liked the weight of him there. Trusted. Close.

You glanced down at him—his dark long lashes, the subtle furrow in his brow that even unconsciousness hadn’t entirely erased. He always looked like he was trying to solve something, even in his dreams.

You loved him. You did. It wasn't a question. It wasn’t even a declaration. Just a presence. Like air. Like atmosphere.

You'd never had something this solid before. This consistent. And still, so soft.

Your laptop glowed faintly in the darkened cabin. You weren’t working—you weren’t. You were just checking things.

Just a quick peek at your calendar to make sure no meetings had somehow sneaked into your vacation week. Just a glance at your inbox to confirm you’d actually set your auto-response and no one was dying in your absence.

You weren’t allowed to touch a screen for the next ten days. That was the deal. The pact. You and Reed had both agreed—no devices. No distractions. Iceland was for the two of you.

You’d pinky promised, which was about as serious as it got between you.

And then the notification slid in.

Ping.

Future Foundation [Group Thread] — “FYI: Admin Shuffle / Lab 6C”

That was fine. You were on a dozen internal threads. Admin stuff. Scheduling. Policy updates.

You went to close it.

Another message slid in.

Nina [Private Lab Chat] — Lol did you SEE the way Reed looked at her in the lab last week??

Your stomach twisted. That wasn't an admin thread.

It wasn’t even one you were supposed to be on.

They must’ve added you by accident.

Janelle — He’s clearly into her. But is that, like…allowed? I thought dating someone in the Foundation while working with them was, like, frowned on.

Nina — It’s not dating if she’s just sleeping with him. Which, let’s be real. Come on. She practically lives in his office. Did you SEE her last Thursday?? She looked like she was wearing his shirt under her lab coat.

You were.

You still were.

Beneath your black knit cardigan and red scarf, tucked into your body like a secret, was one of Reed’s worn-soft button-ups. The blue one with the pale white pinstripes and the frayed collar. He liked it on you. Said it made him want to pull you onto his lap and never get back to work.

Your throat tightened.

Lani — Okay but she's kind of intense. Like scary intense. She always makes us redo our models and doesn’t explain why.

Nina — Because she thinks she’s smarter than everyone. Especially him. But she’s just good at acting like she is. You don’t think he’s noticed?

Your vision blurred, then cleared. Not yet.

Nina — I bet she keeps him around for the résumé bump. Who wouldn’t want to be linked to Reed Richards? She's basically just attaching herself to him like a barnacle. Sorry, but.

Your cursor hovered.

Leave group.

But still, one more message slid in.

Nina — Honestly? She’s probably obsessed with him. Like. You don’t work next to someone that long without catching feelings. But that doesn’t mean he has. Just saying.

You closed the laptop slowly. Deliberately.

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t shift under Reed’s sleeping weight.

You sat there, back straight, hands cold in your lap, breathing like it was a test you didn’t want to fail.

He stirred against you—his cheek nudging your shoulder, his brow brushing your collarbone as he shifted slightly, settling even closer. His fingers curled loosely against your wrist.

You looked down at him.

And all at once, Nina’s voice—her needling insecurity, her bitter little projections—evaporated. Just… vanished.

Because she didn’t know him.

Not really.

She didn’t know the way he kept your favorite tea in a separate tin so no one else in the lab touched it.

She didn’t know the way he kissed your wrist before presentations because you always forgot to breathe.

She didn’t know how he pressed your trench coat to his face when he thought you weren’t looking.

She didn’t know how he built you a private corner in Lab 5B because he knew you needed silence sometimes, real silence.

She didn’t know any of that.

But you did.

You slid the laptop back into your bag. Carefully. Quietly. Like it wasn’t worth letting the noise of it touch him. Then you adjusted the thin airline blanket so it reached over both your knees. You slipped a hand beneath it, let your fingers find his, curling there.

He didn’t wake up.

But he tightened his hand around yours like he knew you needed it. Like he always did.

And in that moment—hurt or not, bruised or not—you felt more chosen than you ever had.

You rested your head against the top of his.

Closed your eyes.

And in Iceland, the sun was waiting.

Just below the horizon.

Like something holy.

Like something only you two could reach.

You drift off slowly but not all the way. You weren't thinking about the interns thinking they had a chance with Reed, which was laughable.

You were thinking of the time you will have with Reed. Here. Alone.

"Miss? We’ll begin our descent into Reykjavík shortly."

The voice of the flight attendant was polite, filtered through the hushed lighting of the cabin and softened by the way she leaned in, respectful of the man sleeping against your shoulder.

You nodded, offered a small smile. “Thank you.”

Reed’s breathing was still steady, his face tilted into your collarbone, a crease of warmth pressed into your skin. You hated to wake him, but the plane had already begun its slow descent—less turbulence than anticipation. The air itself seemed charged, as if Iceland knew you were coming.

You turned your head slightly, cheek brushing against his curls.

“Reed,” you said softly, the syllable tasting like a secret. “Hey.”

He stirred.

Slow at first. A soft exhale, a blink. Then a furrowed brow and a small smile as his eyes fluttered open. He blinked again, adjusting to the cabin light, the shifting sky outside.

“Are we—?”

“Landing,” you nodded, fingers brushing through his hair as he sat up straighter. “We’re here.”

Reed rubbed his eyes like a child would—inefficient, endearing—and let out a breath that sounded almost like disbelief.

“I feel like we just boarded.”

You smiled. “You fell asleep on me.”

“Was I heavy?”

“Not even a little.”

He looked over at you, and something settled in the air between you—something slow and golden and private. His eyes softened.

“You didn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t need to.”

Disembarking was a blur of sleek terminals and the scent of clean air that only Nordic countries seem to have mastered.

The airport was bright, modern, and quiet—like the whole country had agreed not to be loud.

Reed insisted on carrying your suitcase, of course. Slung your carry-on over his shoulder, adjusted the strap like it was second nature.

You let him. You always did. Not because you weren’t capable, but because this—his need to care for you in tangible ways—was how he loved.

Outside, Reykjavík’s early afternoon light stretched long and low across the sky, the sun never quite rising, never quite setting. It hovered. Dreamlike. Timeless.

And so did you.

You should’ve been thinking about your luggage tag, or which car rental company had the keys. But all you could think about was him. And the way you wanted him.

Not in passing. Not in the clumsy, rushed kind of way that dulled everything. No—you wanted him like a story unfolding. You wanted him carefully. Thoroughly. Like the ache had been curated.

For weeks, you’d had to stop yourself. Unclasped your hands from his hair, slid your legs off his lap, stepped back from him with a kind of regret that almost bordered on grief.

You hadn’t wanted the first time to be some frenzied moment in between answering interns’ questions and half-cold sandwiches. You wanted it to be like this. Like now.

Here.

No interruptions. No colleagues. No digital residue.

Just Icelandic air and a private cabin and the vast, uninterrupted stillness of a country that felt older than memory.

You wanted him.

Badly.

In the quiet hours, in the folds of those late-night moments where your hips had pressed against his by accident, and his breath had caught, and you’d had to move away—because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have.

You could still feel the tremble in your thighs from the last time you pulled yourself off his lap, mouth wet from kissing, shirt half-off, your hand cupping the back of his neck like it belonged there.

You remembered how he’d looked at you then—like he ached. Like if you’d said the word, he would’ve followed you to the edge of the world.

Now you were at the edge of the world.

And he was here.

Carrying your bag.

Looking at you like you were the only true constant in his life.

As the driver loaded your bags into the back of the rented SUV, Reed stood beside you on the curb, one hand resting lightly on your lower back, thumb brushing your sweater.

You looked up at the sky—wide and endless and lit. The sun was still up, too bright for this hour, too soft to feel real. You felt his gaze before you turned to him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

“I’m just...really glad we’re here.”

His fingers tightened slightly on your back. “Me too.”

You leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Just barely. Just enough.

He exhaled. “You’re different already.”

You blinked. “Different how?”

“Lighter,” he said. “And also…heavier. In my head.”

You swallowed. “Yeah?”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we boarded the plane.”

“Even while you were asleep on my shoulder?”

“Especially then.”

As the car pulled away from the airport, your head rested on his shoulder again—this time by choice, this time without fear of turbulence or prying eyes. Outside the window, the Icelandic countryside opened itself to you in silence...mossy fields, black lava rock, fjords in the distance like torn pages from a forgotten myth.

Your hand slipped into his again.

He kissed your knuckles, slowly. And whispered, “We don’t have to do anything except exist.”

You turned your head, looked at him—really looked.

“Do you think existing will include you being inside me?”

Reed’s breath caught.

The air shifted.

He didn’t answer with a joke. He didn’t rush in with lust. He looked at you like you’d offered him something sacred.

And then he leaned in, brushed his nose against yours, and whispered, “Only if you want.”

You smiled.

“I’ve wanted.”

And in the back seat of that slow-moving, whisper-quiet car—surrounded by silence, by glaciers, by dreams—you let yourself feel the full gravity of the moment.

Not just the wanting.

But the fact that for once—you wouldn’t have to stop yourself.

Not here.

Not with him.

Not now.

The road thinned out as the car curved inland, the terrain turning stranger, more ancient. Endless fields of moss stretched out like velvet, rippling green-gray under the soft, continuous half-light.

You’d never seen a place that looked so untouched, like it had slipped through the cracks of history and stayed still on purpose.

There were no signs. No gas stations. No power lines threading the sky.

Just silence. And sky. And each other.

Reed sat quietly beside you in the back seat, his hand resting on your knee, thumb moving in small, slow circles. He hadn’t spoken much since leaving the airport—not from discomfort, but from reverence, as if the landscape itself had demanded a quieter kind of awe.

You glanced sideways at him. He looked soft in this light. Older, but not tired. Steady. Like he belonged here, far from server noise and fluorescent lab lights, far from interns and miscalculated data models.

Just here. With you.

You reached over and rested your hand on top of his. He smiled, without looking. His fingers curled around yours.

The car slowed.

And then—there it was.

The cabin.

It wasn’t grand. That’s what you liked about it.

Two stories of dark, weather-worn wood. Big picture windows. A narrow chimney with smoke already curling lazily from it. You could see the steam on the glass from inside, a soft blur. The front steps creaked when the driver stepped out to open the trunk. You could hear the ocean in the far distance—faint, like someone humming in another room.

No neighbors.

No cell reception.

No Wi-Fi.

Just you. And him.

Reed climbed out first, stretched slightly, the shoulder of his jacket slipping as he reached for your suitcase. He didn’t ask. He never did. Your bag was already in his hand before you even unbuckled your seatbelt.

“I’ve got it,” he said, turning to look at you with that half-smile he only gave you when no one else was around.

You followed him up the stone path, gravel crunching beneath your boots, scarf tight around your neck. It was colder than you expected, but not painfully so. Just fresh. Like the air here was untouched, too.

Inside, the warmth hit immediately. Dry heat, soft floors. A fire in the living room already flickering low in the stone hearth.

Reed stepped in first, carrying your bags with one arm, his own slung over his back like he was a man in an old novel. He looked like someone who didn’t know what to do with stillness—but was trying, for you.

The entryway was small and clean. Hooks for coats. A bench with wool slippers. Reed set the bags down and looked around, then back at you. His expression shifted—something between quiet disbelief and contentment.

“You okay?” you asked, unwinding your scarf.

“I can hear myself think,” he said softly.

You laughed. “Is that a good thing?”

“With you here?” he said. “Yeah.”

The upstairs loft was small but beautiful—narrow wood paneling, slanted ceilings, a bed tucked into the far corner under a sloping window that opened out toward the horizon. You could see the sky from the pillows. Pale and endless.

Reed carried both your suitcases up without complaint. When you reached the top, he was already unpacking one of your sweaters, folding it over the end of the bed like it belonged there.

“You don’t have to—” you began.

“I know,” he said.

You didn’t stop him.

Instead, you padded back downstairs, socks sliding slightly on the wooden floor. The kettle in the kitchen was old-fashioned—stove-top, enamel. Reed found it before you did.

He’d taken off his jacket, rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. His forearms were tan from the last few weeks in the lab's sunlit annex. You could see a small bruise blooming beneath one wrist from where he’d knocked it against a microscope.

You leaned against the doorway and watched him.

“You look domestic.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Do I?”

“Dangerously so.”

“Iceland suits me,” he said, turning back to fill the kettle with filtered water. “But you knew that already.”

You didn’t answer. Just walked over and stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder. You reached out, adjusted the flame slightly under the kettle. He didn’t flinch when your fingers grazed his.

“I like that you’re here,” you said.

“I’m always here.”

“No,” you said. “You’re usually in your head. This is different.”

He didn’t argue.

Instead, he stepped behind you, wrapped his arms around your waist from behind. His chin rested lightly on your shoulder, his breath warm against your neck.

You didn’t move.

Neither did he.

The kettle clicked.

He moved first—slowly, without rushing. Pulled away just enough to pour the water. You watched as he steeped two mugs of tea. Yours with chamomile. His with a splash of cinnamon, no sweetener.

He handed you yours without a word.

You held it, warm between your palms, and looked around the cabin.

No science except the chemistry happening between your bodies as you stood in that little kitchen, tired and full and utterly alone in the world.

Reed looked at you over the rim of his mug. Eyes soft. Steady.

This was a beginning.

A real one.

And outside, the sun refused to set.

The silence here felt designed.

There’s no cell reception. No street lights. No hum of traffic, or chatter, or anything human outside of you and him. Just the quiet hush of wind against the side of the cabin, the smell of pine, and that endless milkglass sun bleeding through the clouds at midnight like God forgot to turn off the sky.

The cabin is made of dark wood. Sharp lines. Cold floors. You’ve only just arrived, your bag unpacked halfway, your boots still drying from the moss.

But inside, Reed’s already warming the space—tea already poured, sleeves pushed up, murmuring softly about how they engineered insulation into the triple-pane windows.

You sit cross-legged on the bed, legs bare, a sweater falling off one shoulder. He’s sitting in the little armchair across from you, the one he already claimed as his. He’s watching you the way a scientist watches something precious under glass.

Then you say it.

Quiet. Careful.

“Reed…will you sleep with me?”

He freezes.

You don’t mean just sleep, and he knows that. He’s too goddamn smart not to.

But he doesn’t rush. Doesn’t pounce.

He crosses the room in two long strides and sinks to his knees in front of you, like a man about to take communion. His hands settle on your thighs.

“Are you asking because you want me?” he says, voice low, “Or because you feel like you should?”

You look down at him. Your heart’s going so fast you can feel it in your teeth. “I want you.”

That’s all he needs.

He kisses you like the world’s ending. Not sloppy. Not greedy.

But like he’s been holding this in so long it’s killing him. His hands slide up your thighs, under the hem of the sweater, thumbs brushing your hips.

“I’ve thought about this,” he mutters into your skin. “Too many times.”

Your body responds like it’s been waiting for this moment your whole life. You lean back on your elbows as he slides the sweater up and over your head, eyes never leaving yours.

When he sees your bare chest, he lets out a breath like a curse.

“Jesus Christ.”

You nod, quiet. Reed already knows—you're not very vocal when things overwhelm you. Not at first. You watch everything. You feel everything. You respond in detail.

And he knows how to read you.

He cups your breasts gently, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they harden under his touch. “So beautiful,” he says, then leans in and sucks one into his mouth, slow and deliberate. Your fingers twist in his hair and you gasp—just once—and his groan vibrates through your ribs.

You don’t move much. You don’t need to.

You lie back fully on the bed, legs parting as you look up at him. Reed stares down like you’ve just opened a portal to some other plane of reality. He strips off his own shirt and you stare at his chest—lightly hairy, scars from the past, lean and broad and real.

“Can I take care of you?” he asks, breathless.

You nod again. That’s all he needs.

He pulls your underwear off and kisses the inside of your knee, then your thigh, then higher, until his mouth is on your pussy like he was born there.

He groans, deep in his chest, like the taste of you is something holy.

His tongue moves slow and firm—circling, licking, teasing. No pattern, no rush. He’s just learning you. Reading your every breath, every tremble, every quiet gasp.

“Baby,” he mutters, “You’re so wet for me. I haven’t even—Jesus.”

Your legs fall open further and you let him have you.

“Don’t stop,” you manage, voice small, breathless.

He adds two fingers, sliding into you slow. Your walls flutter around him and he groans into your cunt.

“That’s it, good girl,” he whispers. “Let go. I’ve got you.”

And you do.

You come suddenly, mouth falling open, legs shaking around his head. He doesn’t stop. He rides it out, licking you through it until your thighs are trembling.

“Can I fuck you?” he asks, eyes wild, voice wrecked. “I need to be inside you. I need it.”

You look at him, half-lidded and blissed out, and just whisper, “Yes.”

He stands, unbuckling his belt with shaking fingers. His cock springs free—thick, flushed, leaking—and you swear under your breath.

He strokes it once, twice, watching your face.

Then he climbs over you, not rushing, his body heavy and warm and there. He lines himself up and pushes in slowly, inch by inch, watching your face the whole time.

“Fucking hell,” he breathes. “You feel like—fuck—so tight. So warm.”

You whimper under him, legs wrapping around his waist.

You don’t move. You just feel. Reed cradles your face in his palm and starts to move—deep, steady thrusts, slow enough to feel everything.

“Taking me so good,” he groans. “Letting me fuck you like this. God, I love you.”

He kisses your lips, your cheek, your jaw.

He murmurs things into your skin—good girl, mine, so perfect, I’ve got you—until you’re close again, crying out softly as your body clamps down around him.

Your orgasm hits like a wave.

Reed feels it, gasping as he fucks you through it, and with a strangled sound, he pulls out just in time, spilling hot cum across your belly with a guttural moan.

You’re both panting. Sweating. Trembling.

He collapses beside you, immediately pulling you into his arms. He kisses your temple, your shoulder, your cheek, your hairline.

“You okay?” he whispers.

You nod. Your brain is somewhere underwater.

“I’ve never felt like that before,” you say quietly.

“Me neither,” he says. “You’re everything.”

The sun doesn’t set.

Neither do the feelings in your chest.

You fall asleep in his arms, the blankets kicked off, bodies still glowing, your mind soft and buzzing.

The Icelandic sky outside stays gold, and the only thing left in the world is his breath against your shoulder and the feeling of being completely held.

Reed holds you like he’s afraid the dream might dissolve if he shifts even slightly.

Your skin is warm against his, soft and real, and for the first time in years, his mind isn’t racing toward the next hypothesis—it’s still, anchored entirely in the rhythm of your breath.

He’s thinking that he’s never known peace like this, that he would rewrite the laws of physics if it meant being in this moment forever. You, asleep in his arms, under a sun that refuses to set—it feels like the closest thing to divinity he’s ever touched.

His fingers are still gently brushing the dip of your spine, memorizing it like a formula he never wants to solve. He watches the way your lips part in sleep, the way your eyelashes twitch, and thinks—how did someone like her choose me?There’s a kind of awe in it, a quiet disbelief that someone so brilliant, so unknowably deep, would let him see her like this.

He tucks his face into your hair, breathes you in—sweat, skin, and something only yours—and as sleep edges in, his last thought is simple and certain...I’m already hers. Entirely.

You had waken up to the sound of wind against the window, the sun still soft and hanging in the same place it was hours ago—a pale gold blur behind the white curtains. It could be 4 a.m. It could be noon. Iceland doesn’t tell you. The light here is feral and timeless, like it obeys its own rules.

Your body feels like it’s been rewritten.

Muscles loose. Skin warm. Between your thighs...a slick ache of being stretched and filled and seen.

And then—

You blink, breath catching, because Reed is between your legs.

You’re on your back, naked beneath the linen sheets. One of his hands is resting on your stomach. The other is cradling your thigh, gently spreading you open.

His mouth is on you.

Soft at first. Careful. Like he didn’t want to wake you, just wanted to be therewhen you did.

He’s licking slow, tongue dipping through your folds like he’s savoring each pass. Like you’re something he’s missed.

He looks up.

“Hi,” he whispers, voice wrecked and low and stupidly fond.

“Reed,” you breathe, blinking. “What—what are you—”

“I woke up hard. And then I saw you,” he says, dragging his mouth across your inner thigh, “looking like this. And I needed to taste you again.”

You tremble under his touch. You don’t say anything. You can’t.

Because he’s already leaning back in, tongue circling your clit, slow and deliberate. You moan—soft, helpless—as your hips buck under the weight of his mouth.

“Shh,” he murmurs, rubbing slow circles into your hip bone. “Let me take care of you, baby. Just lie there and let me.”

Your head falls back. Your fingers twist in the sheet.

He devours you.

Not like last night—not desperate. This is slow. Intimate. Unhurried. He eats your pussy like he has nowhere else in the world to be. Like the only thing that matters is making you come apart in his mouth.

“Fucking perfect,” he whispers between licks, like he’s talking to himself. “Tastes like heaven. Like you were made for me.”

You’re already close, embarrassingly fast. Your body remembers him. Your legs tremble around his shoulders and your chest rises with quick, shallow breaths.

“Reed—” you whisper. “It’s too much—”

But he doesn’t stop.

He slides two fingers into you again, curling them just right as his tongue circles your clit in tight, relentless strokes. Your eyes flutter shut, your jaw slackens.

“That’s it,” he says. “Let me feel you fall apart.”

You do.

It crashes over you like a storm—wet, loud, uncontrollable. You cry out, clenching around his fingers as your back arches off the bed. You’ve never come like this. Not like this. Not from someone else. Not from someone who knows your silence and reads it like scripture.

But he still doesn’t stop.

He slows down—gentle now—just licking and teasing while you twitch through the aftershocks. His fingers pull out carefully, replaced by his warm hands, rubbing soft circles into your thighs as you come down.

“I love how you sound when you come,” he says softly, kissing the inside of your knee. “Like it surprises you.”

“It does,” you murmur, voice cracked.

He kisses your stomach. Then your hip. Then curls into your side, his hand stroking your arm.

“You okay?” he asks.

You nod against his chest. “More than okay.”

He holds you for a while, fingers tracing shapes into your back, like he’s memorizing you all over again. You nuzzle into his neck and feel his cock still hard against your thigh.

“You didn’t—” you start, eyes flicking down.

“I didn’t need to,” he says, smiling.

You blink up at him. “That’s not fair.”

“You being in my mouth first thing in the morning was plenty,” he murmurs, “but if you want to repay the favor…”

You smirk.

But for now, you just curl into him, pressed skin-to-skin in the silence of nowhere, where the sun never sets and time doesn’t matter, and your body still sings from the way he cared for it—like it was holy.

“I love you,” he murmurs, voice barely above a breath. “Not just this—you. All of you.” He kisses your temple softly. “I needed you to know.”

“I know. I’ve known.” You reply, kissing his chest. “I'm forever yours.”

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229 notes · View notes

foxtrology · 9 days ago

Text

isomer (3)

reed richards x reader

star sailor series | ao3 link

notes: iceland + the midnight sun. reed + reader, alone for the first time. bodies meet. hearts already had. consider this their beginning!!!

warning: age gap & smut!

word count: 10k

─────

He simply made space. That was the kind of man he was...the kind who noticed and adjusted. Without ceremony. Without question.

You hadn’t gone home in weeks.

You’d been talking about Iceland for months. A midnight sun trip. Something you’d mentioned once, barely above a whisper, during a long conversation in the elevator after a sixteen-hour workday.

Reed had nodded, quiet, like he was filing it away.

And now the trip was booked. Two weeks out.

The emails were confirmed, the car was reserved, and he had already packed an extra pair of thermal socks for you because you always forgot.

“You’ll need layers,” he said a few days ago, pouring you tea without asking how you liked it. “Even in July.”

You were already dreaming of the light—golden, perpetual, like being trapped in the last five minutes before dusk.

Reed was hunched over his desk, hair mussed, still in a rumpled button-down from earlier. Glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. A stylus in one hand, the other resting on his jaw.

You watched him for a moment. The way he bit the inside of his cheek when he was stuck. The way he murmured the math under his breath like it was a language only he could hear.

Then, quietly, you moved.

“You should come to bed,” you said, voice barely above a whisper, mouth close to his ear. “You’ve been at this for hours.”

“I wasn’t finished—” he started, but then you kissed him. Slow. Deep. Final.

And he was undone. That fast.

One hand came up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth like he was memorizing you.

When you pulled back, your nose nudging his, you whispered it again. “Bed.”

This time, he nodded.

“Okay,” he said, voice hoarse. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I like this,” he said softly. “You, here.”

“I live here now,” you murmured, half-asleep. “You just haven’t realized.”

He chuckled, deep and quiet. “I’ve realized.”

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten again, streaks of rose gold brushing the edge of the horizon. Another New York morning blooming slow and silent.

In two weeks, you’d be under a foreign sun that never really set. But here, in the hush of his arms, in the warmth of shared breath and old sheets, it already felt like a kind of neverending light.

He didn’t say he loved you. Not yet.

But he held you like he did. And you stayed.

At 6:42 a.m., the sunlight spilled over the low furniture and the pale wooden floors and caught in the dust motes just beginning to stir in the air.

Eventually, your eyes opened. Slowly. Sleepily.

Reed smiled. Just a little.

“Morning,” he said, voice already warm, already low.

“Morning,” you murmured, stretching beneath the covers, one leg brushing against his.

“You hungry?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Shower first.”

He leaned in and kissed your forehead. “Shower first,” he repeated, like a prayer.

The shower was spacious, designed for practicality, not intimacy—but intimacy bloomed there anyway.

He kissed your shoulder. Not hurried. Not sexual. Just—present.

“Turn around,” he said softly.

You did.

You opened your eyes and just looked at him. The way his curls were already damp and sticking to his forehead. The way he smiled slightly every time your eyes caught his.

“You do this for everyone?” you asked, voice dry and teasing, but low.

He leaned in, pressed a kiss to your cheekbone, then your temple.

“No,” he said. “Just you.”

You washed each other like ritual.

“Iceland’s going to feel like a dream,” you whispered, voice caught between thought and sensation.

He nodded. “So does this.”

“You always look like you’re solving a crime in those coats,” he said.

“I am,” you replied. “The crime is your interns messing with my data.”

He grinned. “We’ll keep them in line.”

By 8:03 a.m, the new batch of interns had arrived.

They came in clusters, faces young and hungry, nerves tucked beneath too-earnest smiles. They wore sharp new badges and carried notebooks that still had that crisp spine crackle.

You stood next to Reed in the hallway outside Lab 3B as he gave the orientation spiel, his tone calm but clear, hands in his pockets, a pen spinning slowly between his fingers.

And then there was her.

Nina.

She was bright. You had no complaints about her academic work—top of her cohort at CalTech, efficient code, excellent recall.

But she hovered.

Reed didn’t notice. Of course he didn’t. He laughed with her, obliviously.

He only seemed to notice when you fell quiet.

Between presentations, he leaned over, hand grazing the small of your back.

“You okay?” he murmured, low enough that only you could hear.

You nodded. “Fine.”

But you weren’t. Not quite. Not when she looked at him like that.

But is she the one sleeping next to him at night?

No.

Is she the one wearing one of his old shirts under her lab coat?

No.

Is she the one he kissed in the shower this morning with steam curling around their bodies like smoke?

No.

You are.

Reed caught your hand under the desk when you moved to prep the next slide on the projector. Just gently held it, his thumb stroking the inside of your wrist like he could read your pulse.

“I see you,” he said, softly.

You turned, surprised.

He gave you a look. Steady. Private. Like he already knew what you were thinking before you’d even thought it.

“I always see you.”

“She’s kind of intimidating,” one intern muttered to another when you walked away.

Reed heard it. Turned slightly.

“She’s the smartest person I know,” he said, matter-of-fact. No irony. No flourish.

You didn’t look back. But you smiled.

“You were right,” he said, glancing sideways.

“About what?”

“You said they’d be chaos,” he deadpanned.

You let out a soft laugh.

“And you said they’d be charming.”

He tilted his head toward you. “Guess I'm not always right.”

You nodded.

It was 11 a.m.

And the day was just beginning.

Reed’s idea, of course.

“They need agency,” he said. “Boundaried chaos.”

You’d raised an eyebrow. “So, playpen chaos.”

He’d only smiled. “Guided chaos.”

You saw it the moment it started to go sideways.

Interns scattered like overcaffeinated birds.

“Oh my god,” one of them whispered. “Did I just open a wormhole?”

“No,” you said, moving toward the console in quick, certain steps. “You miscalibrated the EM field. And labeled nothing. Nothing. You’re lucky it was just a paperclip and not your teeth.”

Reed came up beside you, practically glowing.

Reed turned his head, still crouched. “You’re brilliant.”

“You’re distracted.”

His smile was crooked. Warm. “Isn’t it nice when I’m both?”

He pulled you in without hesitation.

“You didn’t even lock the door,” you murmured as he turned you toward the wall, his hands already at your waist, lips skimming your neck.

“I did,” he said, breath against your skin. “With my ID.”

It was sudden, but not rushed. Intimate. Intentional.

You felt him exhale into your mouth like a sigh of relief.

When he pulled back, his forehead resting against yours, you could feel how fast his heart was beating. His eyes stayed closed.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I needed—”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean to derail—”

“You’re not.”

The silence stretched, soft.

Then he kissed your cheek. Then your jaw. Then your collarbone. Small, almost reverent.

“You always know how to hold the room together,” he murmured. “And me.”

Back in the main lab, the interns didn’t ask where you’d gone, but Nina—the one with the Reed fixation—looked at your slightly flushed face a little too long.

You ignored her. Reed did too, in his own way.

His love language was acts of service—small, routine, deeply considered.

He didn’t need to announce them.

You caught his eye from across the lab as you took the first bite. He just smiled, slight tilt of his head, like Of course I remembered.

He didn’t interrupt.

Just occasionally added something, soft and thoughtful, reinforcing your points.

At one point, an intern asked a question you’d already answered twice, and your answer came fast, clipped.

You glanced at him. He didn’t need to explain himself.

That was the thing about Reed, he was smart enough to know you were smarter. And never once had it made him insecure. In fact, he loved you for it.

Loved the way your mind worked sideways. Loved the way your voice didn’t rise to compete, just cut through the air like a scalpel.

You were a force. And Reed? He never looked prouder.

“You’re over-functioning,” you murmured, sitting down, noticing the fresh coffee already steaming on your desk.

“I like keeping your world intact,” he said simply.

You looked up. He was standing by the doorframe now, leaning on it, watching you like he always did after long mornings.

“You don’t have to fix everything for me.”

“I know,” he said. “But I want to. Even if it’s just your pen.”

You blinked. A beat passed. Then another.

“Come here,” you said.

He did. Immediately. And kissed you on the forehead.

“You’re soft today,” you whispered.

“I’m always soft with you,” he replied.

It was the truth.

The interns didn’t see that part.

They saw the sharp edges of you.

The calm hands. The slicing precision.

But Reed saw it all.

And he loved every piece.

Scientists and interns began shuffling toward the elevators, ID badges swinging, murmuring about cafeteria lines and protein bowls and who was on dish duty this week.

Ben Grimm stuck around just long enough to uncap a bottle of lukewarm cola with the edge of a wrench before walking over to where you and Reed were both finishing a systems overview at a terminal.

“They’re driving me nuts,” he announced, arms crossed.

You didn’t look up from the terminal, still correcting a miskeyed entry in the software diagnostics. “The interns?”

“No, the espresso machine on Level 5,” he deadpanned. “Yes, the interns.”

Reed chuckled softly, standing beside you with his arms loosely folded. “What happened?”

“One of ‘em tried to explain entropy to me. Like it was brand new information.”

“That’s because you threatened to rip his holographic display off the console.”

Ben shrugged. “It was glitching. I did him a favor.”

“He cried,” you murmured.

“He did,” Reed echoed gently.

“Yeah, well, he’ll learn,” Ben said, already backing toward the elevator. “Next time he tries to run interference algorithms without grounding the data tree, I won’t just yell.”

“You’ll throw his laptop out the window?” you asked without missing a beat.

“No. I’ll let you do it,” he said, pointing a finger at you as the elevator doors opened. “You’ve got the bite now.”

Then he disappeared behind the doors, muttering something about falafel.

“I’m hungry,” you said a minute later, straightening from your seat and pulling your lab coat tighter. “I want to eat in your quarters. The cafeteria’s too noisy. Too…alive.”

Reed nodded, already collecting his things, like he’d been waiting for you to suggest it. “We’ll take the private lift.”

Reed glanced sideways, that familiar crease at the corner of his mouth deepening. “You know they’re just intimidated of you.”

“They should be.”

He laughed, quietly. Then leaned in. “You’ll always be scarier than me.”

Once inside his quarters, the air shifted.

It always did.

“I’m making you a sandwich,” he called over his shoulder.

“Of course you are,” you replied, settling down at the breakfast bar.

“It’s all I know how to do.”

“That’s not true,” you said, crossing your arms on the counter. “You’ve made pasta before.”

He turned, thoughtful. “I used the wrong salt.”

“Stop beating yourself up about it,” you said, biting a smile.

“I was emotionally overwhelmed,” he countered.

He slid the plate in front of you like he was offering a peace treaty.

“It’s good,” you said after the first bite. “Better than yesterday’s.”

“That one had too much mustard.”

“You’re learning.”

“I want to feed you well,” he said, and didn’t say anything else for a while.

After lunch, you kicked off your ballet flats—black leather, worn-in, no embellishments—and sank into the couch like your bones had finally gone soft.

“Wake me in thirty,” you said, tucking your legs beneath you. “If I sleep longer than that, I’ll be useless in the afternoon rotation.”

Reed was at the sink, rinsing the plate. He didn’t turn around. “You’ve been pushing yourself.”

“Not really.”

“You haven’t missed a single 7 a.m. lab since May.”

“That’s normal.”

He dried his hands on a tea towel. “You’re pressuring yourself. Ever since I gave you more oversight.”

“I like having control.”

“I know. But I don’t want it to burn you out.”

You looked over the back of the couch at him. “You’re soft today,” you said again.

He smiled. “I’m always soft with you.”

Then you closed your eyes.

Reed didn’t wake you in thirty minutes.

Gently, without a sound, he slid your ID off your neck. Set it neatly beside the couch. Your feet twitched slightly. He smiled at that.

He retrieved the pale grey blanket you kept folded over the back of the armchair and spread it over you, smoothing it once, twice, over your shoulders.

You didn’t stir.

You’d been sleeping with tension lately. Not today.

He didn’t sit back down. He just stayed close, sitting on the floor now, his notebook in his lap, but only half-filled. His hand rested near your ankle, not touching, just there, anchoring.

Outside, the city moved on without him.

Inside, the whole world was here.

Time peeled forward like a sheet being pulled gently across a bed. Unhurried, but inevitable.

Two weeks dissolved into a series of softly blurred days, filled with too many voices, too many pens running out, too many versions of the same flawed hypothesis.

And yet, it never felt like drudgery.

This was your life. This was yours.

And you?

You were happy.

Your toothbrush had been moved into the holder next to his without fanfare. Your trench coat hung beside his in the entryway now, like it belonged there. Like you did.

This trip to Iceland…it felt like something. A new page, a soft admission.

It was your first vacation together. As…what? A couple?

Could you say that?

Reed hadn’t called it anything. Not out loud. But he’d told you he wasn’t seeing anyone else. That he didn’t want to. That he didn’t have the bandwidth, emotionally, for casualness.

“I don’t want to dilute this,” he’d said once, after you’d spent a full Sunday reading on opposite ends of the couch, touching only at the ankles. “Whatever this is.”

So maybe it wasn’t labeled. Maybe it didn’t need to be.

Still, the word couple felt tender in your mouth. Like biting into a peach that had been sitting in the sun.

The day of the trip came fast.

Too fast, if you were being honest.

“You didn’t have to carry it,” you said, already slipping your shoes on.

“I wanted to.”

You followed him into the elevator, watching the muscles in his forearm shift as he adjusted the suitcase handle.

“I’m really glad we’re doing this,” you said, not looking at him.

He turned to face you, soft brown eyes framed by the morning light spilling through the narrow window.

“So am I.”

At the airport, you didn’t wait in line.

You stood beside him at check-in, adjusting the sleeve of your sweater while the clerk scanned your passports. Reed glanced over at you, leaned in, and said, “Your shoelace is undone.”

You looked down. It wasn’t.

He smirked.

“You’re annoying.”

“And you love it,” he said, brushing your arm lightly.

Maybe you did.

He was reading something on his phone, one hand resting on the armrest between you. You reached over, linking your pinky with his.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up.

Just smiled.

You didn’t need a label.

Not when he carried your suitcase.

Not when he brought you your favorite sandwich without asking.

Not when he watched you fall asleep on the couch and covered you with a blanket like you were something fragile he’d been trusted with.

You were going to see the midnight sun together.

The dream you’d spoken of in a half-sentence, months ago.

And he remembered.

Of course he remembered.

Reed didn’t forget the things you whispered when you thought no one was listening.

Not the little ones.

Not the quiet dreams.

Not you.

You were 38,000 feet above the Atlantic, somewhere between Greenland’s edge and the far northern tail of Iceland, when the cabin lights dimmed again, mimicking a slow, Nordic dusk.

Outside the window, the sky was that surreal mid-summer lavender, edged with burnished gold. You’d seen that color before—in Reed’s place, in his eyes when he was half-asleep and asking if you were still working. But never this bright. Never this real.

Reed had nodded off maybe thirty minutes into the flight.

You didn’t move.

You liked the weight of him there. Trusted. Close.

You loved him. You did. It wasn't a question. It wasn’t even a declaration. Just a presence. Like air. Like atmosphere.

You'd never had something this solid before. This consistent. And still, so soft.

Your laptop glowed faintly in the darkened cabin. You weren’t working—you weren’t. You were just checking things.

You weren’t allowed to touch a screen for the next ten days. That was the deal. The pact. You and Reed had both agreed—no devices. No distractions. Iceland was for the two of you.

You’d pinky promised, which was about as serious as it got between you.

And then the notification slid in.

Ping.

Future Foundation [Group Thread] — “FYI: Admin Shuffle / Lab 6C”

That was fine. You were on a dozen internal threads. Admin stuff. Scheduling. Policy updates.

You went to close it.

Another message slid in.

Nina [Private Lab Chat] — Lol did you SEE the way Reed looked at her in the lab last week??

Your stomach twisted. That wasn't an admin thread.

It wasn’t even one you were supposed to be on.

They must’ve added you by accident.

Janelle — He’s clearly into her. But is that, like…allowed? I thought dating someone in the Foundation while working with them was, like, frowned on.

You were.

You still were.

Your throat tightened.

Lani — Okay but she's kind of intense. Like scary intense. She always makes us redo our models and doesn’t explain why.

Nina — Because she thinks she’s smarter than everyone. Especially him. But she’s just good at acting like she is. You don’t think he’s noticed?

Your vision blurred, then cleared. Not yet.

Nina — I bet she keeps him around for the résumé bump. Who wouldn’t want to be linked to Reed Richards? She's basically just attaching herself to him like a barnacle. Sorry, but.

Your cursor hovered.

Leave group.

But still, one more message slid in.

Nina — Honestly? She’s probably obsessed with him. Like. You don’t work next to someone that long without catching feelings. But that doesn’t mean he has. Just saying.

You closed the laptop slowly. Deliberately.

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t shift under Reed’s sleeping weight.

You sat there, back straight, hands cold in your lap, breathing like it was a test you didn’t want to fail.

He stirred against you—his cheek nudging your shoulder, his brow brushing your collarbone as he shifted slightly, settling even closer. His fingers curled loosely against your wrist.

You looked down at him.

And all at once, Nina’s voice—her needling insecurity, her bitter little projections—evaporated. Just… vanished.

Because she didn’t know him.

Not really.

She didn’t know the way he kept your favorite tea in a separate tin so no one else in the lab touched it.

She didn’t know the way he kissed your wrist before presentations because you always forgot to breathe.

She didn’t know how he pressed your trench coat to his face when he thought you weren’t looking.

She didn’t know how he built you a private corner in Lab 5B because he knew you needed silence sometimes, real silence.

She didn’t know any of that.

But you did.

He didn’t wake up.

But he tightened his hand around yours like he knew you needed it. Like he always did.

And in that moment—hurt or not, bruised or not—you felt more chosen than you ever had.

You rested your head against the top of his.

Closed your eyes.

And in Iceland, the sun was waiting.

Just below the horizon.

Like something holy.

Like something only you two could reach.

You drift off slowly but not all the way. You weren't thinking about the interns thinking they had a chance with Reed, which was laughable.

You were thinking of the time you will have with Reed. Here. Alone.

"Miss? We’ll begin our descent into Reykjavík shortly."

The voice of the flight attendant was polite, filtered through the hushed lighting of the cabin and softened by the way she leaned in, respectful of the man sleeping against your shoulder.

You nodded, offered a small smile. “Thank you.”

You turned your head slightly, cheek brushing against his curls.

“Reed,” you said softly, the syllable tasting like a secret. “Hey.”

He stirred.

Slow at first. A soft exhale, a blink. Then a furrowed brow and a small smile as his eyes fluttered open. He blinked again, adjusting to the cabin light, the shifting sky outside.

“Are we—?”

“Landing,” you nodded, fingers brushing through his hair as he sat up straighter. “We’re here.”

Reed rubbed his eyes like a child would—inefficient, endearing—and let out a breath that sounded almost like disbelief.

“I feel like we just boarded.”

You smiled. “You fell asleep on me.”

“Was I heavy?”

“Not even a little.”

He looked over at you, and something settled in the air between you—something slow and golden and private. His eyes softened.

“You didn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t need to.”

Disembarking was a blur of sleek terminals and the scent of clean air that only Nordic countries seem to have mastered.

The airport was bright, modern, and quiet—like the whole country had agreed not to be loud.

Reed insisted on carrying your suitcase, of course. Slung your carry-on over his shoulder, adjusted the strap like it was second nature.

You let him. You always did. Not because you weren’t capable, but because this—his need to care for you in tangible ways—was how he loved.

Outside, Reykjavík’s early afternoon light stretched long and low across the sky, the sun never quite rising, never quite setting. It hovered. Dreamlike. Timeless.

And so did you.

You should’ve been thinking about your luggage tag, or which car rental company had the keys. But all you could think about was him. And the way you wanted him.

Not in passing. Not in the clumsy, rushed kind of way that dulled everything. No—you wanted him like a story unfolding. You wanted him carefully. Thoroughly. Like the ache had been curated.

For weeks, you’d had to stop yourself. Unclasped your hands from his hair, slid your legs off his lap, stepped back from him with a kind of regret that almost bordered on grief.

You hadn’t wanted the first time to be some frenzied moment in between answering interns’ questions and half-cold sandwiches. You wanted it to be like this. Like now.

Here.

No interruptions. No colleagues. No digital residue.

Just Icelandic air and a private cabin and the vast, uninterrupted stillness of a country that felt older than memory.

You wanted him.

Badly.

You remembered how he’d looked at you then—like he ached. Like if you’d said the word, he would’ve followed you to the edge of the world.

Now you were at the edge of the world.

And he was here.

Carrying your bag.

Looking at you like you were the only true constant in his life.

As the driver loaded your bags into the back of the rented SUV, Reed stood beside you on the curb, one hand resting lightly on your lower back, thumb brushing your sweater.

You looked up at the sky—wide and endless and lit. The sun was still up, too bright for this hour, too soft to feel real. You felt his gaze before you turned to him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

“I’m just...really glad we’re here.”

His fingers tightened slightly on your back. “Me too.”

You leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Just barely. Just enough.

He exhaled. “You’re different already.”

You blinked. “Different how?”

“Lighter,” he said. “And also…heavier. In my head.”

You swallowed. “Yeah?”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we boarded the plane.”

“Even while you were asleep on my shoulder?”

“Especially then.”

Your hand slipped into his again.

He kissed your knuckles, slowly. And whispered, “We don’t have to do anything except exist.”

You turned your head, looked at him—really looked.

“Do you think existing will include you being inside me?”

Reed’s breath caught.

The air shifted.

He didn’t answer with a joke. He didn’t rush in with lust. He looked at you like you’d offered him something sacred.

And then he leaned in, brushed his nose against yours, and whispered, “Only if you want.”

You smiled.

“I’ve wanted.”

And in the back seat of that slow-moving, whisper-quiet car—surrounded by silence, by glaciers, by dreams—you let yourself feel the full gravity of the moment.

Not just the wanting.

But the fact that for once—you wouldn’t have to stop yourself.

Not here.

Not with him.

Not now.

The road thinned out as the car curved inland, the terrain turning stranger, more ancient. Endless fields of moss stretched out like velvet, rippling green-gray under the soft, continuous half-light.

You’d never seen a place that looked so untouched, like it had slipped through the cracks of history and stayed still on purpose.

There were no signs. No gas stations. No power lines threading the sky.

Just silence. And sky. And each other.

Just here. With you.

You reached over and rested your hand on top of his. He smiled, without looking. His fingers curled around yours.

The car slowed.

And then—there it was.

The cabin.

It wasn’t grand. That’s what you liked about it.

No neighbors.

No cell reception.

No Wi-Fi.

Just you. And him.

“I’ve got it,” he said, turning to look at you with that half-smile he only gave you when no one else was around.

Inside, the warmth hit immediately. Dry heat, soft floors. A fire in the living room already flickering low in the stone hearth.

“You okay?” you asked, unwinding your scarf.

“I can hear myself think,” he said softly.

You laughed. “Is that a good thing?”

“With you here?” he said. “Yeah.”

Reed carried both your suitcases up without complaint. When you reached the top, he was already unpacking one of your sweaters, folding it over the end of the bed like it belonged there.

“You don’t have to—” you began.

“I know,” he said.

You didn’t stop him.

Instead, you padded back downstairs, socks sliding slightly on the wooden floor. The kettle in the kitchen was old-fashioned—stove-top, enamel. Reed found it before you did.

You leaned against the doorway and watched him.

“You look domestic.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Do I?”

“Dangerously so.”

“Iceland suits me,” he said, turning back to fill the kettle with filtered water. “But you knew that already.”

You didn’t answer. Just walked over and stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder. You reached out, adjusted the flame slightly under the kettle. He didn’t flinch when your fingers grazed his.

“I like that you’re here,” you said.

“I’m always here.”

“No,” you said. “You’re usually in your head. This is different.”

He didn’t argue.

Instead, he stepped behind you, wrapped his arms around your waist from behind. His chin rested lightly on your shoulder, his breath warm against your neck.

You didn’t move.

Neither did he.

The kettle clicked.

He moved first—slowly, without rushing. Pulled away just enough to pour the water. You watched as he steeped two mugs of tea. Yours with chamomile. His with a splash of cinnamon, no sweetener.

He handed you yours without a word.

You held it, warm between your palms, and looked around the cabin.

No science except the chemistry happening between your bodies as you stood in that little kitchen, tired and full and utterly alone in the world.

Reed looked at you over the rim of his mug. Eyes soft. Steady.

This was a beginning.

A real one.

And outside, the sun refused to set.

The silence here felt designed.

The cabin is made of dark wood. Sharp lines. Cold floors. You’ve only just arrived, your bag unpacked halfway, your boots still drying from the moss.

But inside, Reed’s already warming the space—tea already poured, sleeves pushed up, murmuring softly about how they engineered insulation into the triple-pane windows.

Then you say it.

Quiet. Careful.

“Reed…will you sleep with me?”

He freezes.

You don’t mean just sleep, and he knows that. He’s too goddamn smart not to.

But he doesn’t rush. Doesn’t pounce.

He crosses the room in two long strides and sinks to his knees in front of you, like a man about to take communion. His hands settle on your thighs.

“Are you asking because you want me?” he says, voice low, “Or because you feel like you should?”

You look down at him. Your heart’s going so fast you can feel it in your teeth. “I want you.”

That’s all he needs.

He kisses you like the world’s ending. Not sloppy. Not greedy.

But like he’s been holding this in so long it’s killing him. His hands slide up your thighs, under the hem of the sweater, thumbs brushing your hips.

“I’ve thought about this,” he mutters into your skin. “Too many times.”

Your body responds like it’s been waiting for this moment your whole life. You lean back on your elbows as he slides the sweater up and over your head, eyes never leaving yours.

When he sees your bare chest, he lets out a breath like a curse.

“Jesus Christ.”

You nod, quiet. Reed already knows—you're not very vocal when things overwhelm you. Not at first. You watch everything. You feel everything. You respond in detail.

And he knows how to read you.

You don’t move much. You don’t need to.

“Can I take care of you?” he asks, breathless.

You nod again. That’s all he needs.

He pulls your underwear off and kisses the inside of your knee, then your thigh, then higher, until his mouth is on your pussy like he was born there.

He groans, deep in his chest, like the taste of you is something holy.

His tongue moves slow and firm—circling, licking, teasing. No pattern, no rush. He’s just learning you. Reading your every breath, every tremble, every quiet gasp.

“Baby,” he mutters, “You’re so wet for me. I haven’t even—Jesus.”

Your legs fall open further and you let him have you.

“Don’t stop,” you manage, voice small, breathless.

He adds two fingers, sliding into you slow. Your walls flutter around him and he groans into your cunt.

“That’s it, good girl,” he whispers. “Let go. I’ve got you.”

And you do.

You come suddenly, mouth falling open, legs shaking around his head. He doesn’t stop. He rides it out, licking you through it until your thighs are trembling.

“Can I fuck you?” he asks, eyes wild, voice wrecked. “I need to be inside you. I need it.”

You look at him, half-lidded and blissed out, and just whisper, “Yes.”

He stands, unbuckling his belt with shaking fingers. His cock springs free—thick, flushed, leaking—and you swear under your breath.

He strokes it once, twice, watching your face.

Then he climbs over you, not rushing, his body heavy and warm and there. He lines himself up and pushes in slowly, inch by inch, watching your face the whole time.

“Fucking hell,” he breathes. “You feel like—fuck—so tight. So warm.”

You whimper under him, legs wrapping around his waist.

You don’t move. You just feel. Reed cradles your face in his palm and starts to move—deep, steady thrusts, slow enough to feel everything.

“Taking me so good,” he groans. “Letting me fuck you like this. God, I love you.”

He kisses your lips, your cheek, your jaw.

He murmurs things into your skin—good girl, mine, so perfect, I’ve got you—until you’re close again, crying out softly as your body clamps down around him.

Your orgasm hits like a wave.

Reed feels it, gasping as he fucks you through it, and with a strangled sound, he pulls out just in time, spilling hot cum across your belly with a guttural moan.

You’re both panting. Sweating. Trembling.

He collapses beside you, immediately pulling you into his arms. He kisses your temple, your shoulder, your cheek, your hairline.

“You okay?” he whispers.

You nod. Your brain is somewhere underwater.

“I’ve never felt like that before,” you say quietly.

“Me neither,” he says. “You’re everything.”

The sun doesn’t set.

Neither do the feelings in your chest.

You fall asleep in his arms, the blankets kicked off, bodies still glowing, your mind soft and buzzing.

The Icelandic sky outside stays gold, and the only thing left in the world is his breath against your shoulder and the feeling of being completely held.

Reed holds you like he’s afraid the dream might dissolve if he shifts even slightly.

Your skin is warm against his, soft and real, and for the first time in years, his mind isn’t racing toward the next hypothesis—it’s still, anchored entirely in the rhythm of your breath.

He tucks his face into your hair, breathes you in—sweat, skin, and something only yours—and as sleep edges in, his last thought is simple and certain...I’m already hers. Entirely.

Your body feels like it’s been rewritten.

Muscles loose. Skin warm. Between your thighs...a slick ache of being stretched and filled and seen.

And then—

You blink, breath catching, because Reed is between your legs.

You’re on your back, naked beneath the linen sheets. One of his hands is resting on your stomach. The other is cradling your thigh, gently spreading you open.

His mouth is on you.

Soft at first. Careful. Like he didn’t want to wake you, just wanted to be therewhen you did.

He’s licking slow, tongue dipping through your folds like he’s savoring each pass. Like you’re something he’s missed.

He looks up.

“Hi,” he whispers, voice wrecked and low and stupidly fond.

“Reed,” you breathe, blinking. “What—what are you—”

“I woke up hard. And then I saw you,” he says, dragging his mouth across your inner thigh, “looking like this. And I needed to taste you again.”

You tremble under his touch. You don’t say anything. You can’t.

Because he’s already leaning back in, tongue circling your clit, slow and deliberate. You moan—soft, helpless—as your hips buck under the weight of his mouth.

“Shh,” he murmurs, rubbing slow circles into your hip bone. “Let me take care of you, baby. Just lie there and let me.”

Your head falls back. Your fingers twist in the sheet.

He devours you.

“Fucking perfect,” he whispers between licks, like he’s talking to himself. “Tastes like heaven. Like you were made for me.”

You’re already close, embarrassingly fast. Your body remembers him. Your legs tremble around his shoulders and your chest rises with quick, shallow breaths.

“Reed—” you whisper. “It’s too much—”

But he doesn’t stop.

He slides two fingers into you again, curling them just right as his tongue circles your clit in tight, relentless strokes. Your eyes flutter shut, your jaw slackens.

“That’s it,” he says. “Let me feel you fall apart.”

You do.

But he still doesn’t stop.

“I love how you sound when you come,” he says softly, kissing the inside of your knee. “Like it surprises you.”

“It does,” you murmur, voice cracked.

He kisses your stomach. Then your hip. Then curls into your side, his hand stroking your arm.

“You okay?” he asks.

You nod against his chest. “More than okay.”

He holds you for a while, fingers tracing shapes into your back, like he’s memorizing you all over again. You nuzzle into his neck and feel his cock still hard against your thigh.

“You didn’t—” you start, eyes flicking down.

“I didn’t need to,” he says, smiling.

You blink up at him. “That’s not fair.”

“You being in my mouth first thing in the morning was plenty,” he murmurs, “but if you want to repay the favor…”

You smirk.

“I love you,” he murmurs, voice barely above a breath. “Not just this—you. All of you.” He kisses your temple softly. “I needed you to know.”

“I know. I’ve known.” You reply, kissing his chest. “I'm forever yours.”

229 notes · View notes

foxtrology · 12 days ago

Text

updating star sailor—chapter three is dropping this tuesday!

sorry i’ve been a little inactive lately, life’s been picking up (i’m starting law school in a few weeks 🫣), but thank you for being patient with me. excited to share what’s next.

#alana talks #star sailor replies

13 notes · View notes

foxtrology · 18 days ago

Note

PLEASE ALANA I NEED YOUR DAD!REED RICHARDS TERRIBLY!!!!!!!!

baby blue

reed richards x reader

notes: reader has psychic powers (basically a human lie detector), and is a doctor/scientist. reader and reed protect the world and their baby. no fantastic four sorryyyy

summary: on the top floor of the baxter building, you and reed richards—world’s smartest man, doting husband, and newly minted father—live quietly in the afterglow of a decade long love. between early morning baby feedings, late night bioluminescent garden naps, and the occasional battle with mole man’s latest tantrum, the two of you protect the city with precision, power, and a shared tenderness no villain can disrupt.

you're a mind-reader, he's made of stretch and stardust, and together you're building something softer than heroism: a family.

ao3 link

─────

The alarm doesn’t go off because you told it not to last night. You were too tired, and Reed was already asleep on your shoulder, curled inward with the sort of unconscious vulnerability only a genius lets slip when utterly worn out. His limbs had gone soft and pliable—stretching just barely as he reached for you in his sleep—and you let the soft hum of the lab below lull you both into a gentle, shared quiet.

Now it’s morning, and the Baxter Building is sunk in golden haze.

You open your eyes and he’s already awake.

Sort of.

Reed is standing in the middle of the wide glass-walled living room, shirtless, half in pajama pants, half in yesterday’s lab coat. His hair is a dark mess of coils, the left side crushed from your pillow. He’s holding the baby monitor in one hand and a beaker in the other, squinting at it like he’s trying to remember if it’s supposed to be bubbling like that.

You sit up in bed and stretch, bones cracking in that satisfying, very human way. Your body still feels like it belongs to someone else a little—postpartum has been kind to you, all things considered, but there’s still that phantom echo of weight, of someone else inside. It’s only been a few weeks since your daughter was born, and some days your ribs still ache from how tightly you’d held her there, like your body knew before your mind how much she’d matter.

Reed turns at the sound of the bedsheets shifting.

“You’re up,” he says, voice still caught in the middle of his throat. “She cried. Only a little. I didn’t want to wake you.”

You smile, already pulling your robe around your shoulders. “You couldn’t have woken me if you tried, Doctor Richards. I was gone.”

He crosses the room in three long, elastic strides and kisses the side of your head. His lips are warm, familiar, entirely too soft for someone with hands that have built machines that float in orbit.

“How’s her breathing?” you murmur.

“Even. Like yours.” He looks slightly dazed when he says it, like he still can’t believe that both of you are real and here and his. “I recorded it. Compared the patterns. They match. Thought it might mean something.”

“Probably that she likes me best,” you say with a grin, and you can feel the smile in his brain before it breaks across his face.

The lab smells like metal and lavender—the latter thanks to the diffuser you insisted on adding last year, which Reed has fully embraced with obsessive precision, programming a different essential oil profile for every day of the week.

You trail behind him with a cup of coffee, watching as he tweaks the sensor settings on the atmospheric probe he's building. He’s explaining it all to you, but not really for you to understand. It’s more like he’s telling the air around him what he thinks it needs to hear. You love it when he does that—how he paces and mutters and forgets his body, except for the parts of it that get carried away, stretching as he reaches three different monitors at once.

He stops mid-sentence and turns.

“You know I’m in love with you,” he says, like it’s a question he needs to confirm even after all this time.

You take a sip of your coffee. “You say that like it’s new information.”

“No. No—it’s not. But sometimes I say it and it still feels new.”

You set the mug down and cross the lab to him, placing your hand on the small of his back. “That’s because you’re not used to having everything you want.”

He looks at you with the sort of awe that hasn’t dulled since the first time he met you—ten years ago now, but it’s burned itself into both of you with a clarity that doesn’t fade.

You were twenty-four, fresh from a bioengineering residency, newly cleared for field classification because of your abilities. You’d been able to tell Reed was lying before he even finished his first sentence in that awkward introduction in the science wing of the United Nations R&D symposium. Not maliciously lying—just hiding. You knew immediately that he was afraid of being seen, truly seen, and you saw him anyway. That was the thing.

“You read minds,” he’d said to you, after watching you dismantle a lobbyist’s entire argument with a single glance and a half-smile.

You tilted your head. “Sometimes.”

He’d gone quiet. It wasn’t often someone made him feel quiet. He liked it.

You fell in love not all at once, but slowly, meticulously—like building a machine with someone else’s hands in yours. Over cold coffees and debates and nights in the lab where he couldn’t bring himself to leave the math, and you stayed because you knew it would undo him to be alone with it.

You married in a garden on the rooftop of his building. It was spring, and you wore white with your hands in his, bare-faced except for the flush that rose up when he whispered that he wanted forever. Your vows were short. He cried anyway.

Your daughter woke up at 9:43 AM. You know this because Reed has been tracking her REM cycles.

He hands her off to you with this reverent gentleness that always makes your heart stutter. He’s so careful with her, like every inch of her is cosmic—like he can’t believe anything so perfect came from anything as human as you both.

She makes a noise like a sleepy complaint, then sighs. You rub her back and lean into Reed’s chest as he wraps his arms around both of you.

“I made her some socks,” he says. “They regulate temperature based on her skin’s electrochemical activity. Want to see?”

You press your face into his shoulder to muffle your laugh. “Sure, Doctor. Show me the wonder socks.”

By noon, you’re working again. You’re logged into your secure neural interface, sorting through a new case report on suspected anomalies in memory transference fields. Reed is at the far end of the lab, but every time you look up, he’s looking at you.

He doesn’t always realize he’s doing it. His eyes just wander, always toward you. Sometimes he catches himself and blushes. Other times he doesn’t bother to look away. He doesn’t see a point in pretending anymore.

You test his theory, half-distracted by your own data.

“I’m thinking about you naked,” you murmur, just loud enough.

He short-circuits so spectacularly that he knocks over a circuit stabilizer with his elbow. You grin, sipping coffee like you didn’t just detonate his train of thought. He narrows his eyes at you but his mouth is twitching. He walks over, kisses your temple, and whispers, “Liar.”

You glance up. “I’m not lying. You just weren’t ready.”

He gives this tiny huff of air, forehead pressed to yours. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“You say that every week.”

The sun is setting when the world decides to catch on fire—metaphorically, of course. A breach in the lower city district. Something dimensional. Something dangerous. Reed’s already halfway into his blue suit when you pull your hair back and check the baby monitor.

The nanny unit is stable. No interruptions. Your daughter’s heart rate is steady. You can do this.

You take Reed’s hand, and he squeezes it. Just once.

He doesn’t tell you to be careful—he never has. He knows you’re lethal when you need to be, knows your powers make you a psychic force the world still hasn’t figured out how to name.

Together you two leap off the balcony, you in his arms, the city sprawling beneath you like an old promise.

Later, you’re back. Tired. Scraped. Alive.

Reed stitches the cut on your arm himself, eyes narrowed in focus, muttering things to keep his hands steady. You don’t need anesthesia—your pain threshold is sky high—but you like the way he gets when he takes care of you. Like he’s safeguarding something sacred.

Your daughter is asleep again. Her tiny chest rises and falls, steady as the pulse beneath your palm.

Reed curls into you in bed, one arm around your waist, the other stretched just far enough to flip a switch on the bedside lamp.

“I’ll love you even if the stars forget our names,” he says, quietly, as the room fades to soft electric dark.

You kiss his forehead, your fingers threading through the hair at his temple.

“I’d remind them.”

And you would. Every time. Every day.

Always.

The room goes quiet again, except for the low hum of something running beneath the floorboards—probably one of Reed’s subterranean temperature regulators. You’ve long stopped trying to catalog what’s running where. It’s part of the comfort now. The soft, white noise of genius echoing through the infrastructure.

His body folds around yours like it was always supposed to. His skin is warm, always warmer than yours, and it smelled like cedarwood soap—the one you picked out for him three years ago and had to reorder in bulk because he claims it “smells like the way you look at me.” Which doesn’t mean anything, not logically, but then again, neither does the way his breath steadies when he feels your hand on his back, even in sleep.

Your daughter lets out a sigh through the monitor, a small huff of air like a punctuation mark in the night. You both freeze, instinctively. And then…nothing. Just that same slow, fluttery breathing.

“She’s dreaming,” Reed whispers, and you can hear the awe in his voice again.

“Of what?”

He pauses. “Us.”

You turn to look at him, cheek brushing the pillow. “You always say that.”

He nods against the sheets. “Because I always hope it’s true.”

You don’t sleep late anymore. She won’t let you.

By 6:13 AM, the apartment is glowing with a muted pink sunrise, bouncing off the silver trim of the walls and the polished glass surfaces Reed insists are better for light reflection. He’s not wrong, but the tile is always cold.

You walk barefoot into the nursery.

She’s awake already, blinking slowly at the mobile Reed built the week she was born. It floats. Not because it’s suspended from the ceiling, but because he added a minor anti-gravity field in the base. You didn’t even know he was working on it until you walked in and saw a cluster of tiny moons and stars orbiting lazily above her crib like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Her eyes find you.

You pick her up, kiss her warm cheek. “Good morning, moonflower.”

She smells like baby lotion and sleep. You press your forehead to hers and she flails her hand in what you’re choosing to interpret as affection.

By 6:32, you’re in the kitchen, her head tucked against your chest in her carrier, your fingers moving with muscle memory alone as you start the kettle. Reed comes in a few minutes later, tugging a soft gray sweater over his head, collar sticking out crookedly beneath it.

“You slept?” you ask, watching him blink toward the espresso machine.

He makes a so-so motion with his hand, and you click your tongue. “What time?”

“Two-ish. Slipped out when you fell asleep,” He stretches slightly, his shoulder blades pressing against the thin cotton of his shirt. “The garden room’s done. I wanted it perfect before you saw it.”

Your heart stutters. You’ve been watching him sketch it in his notebook for months now—on napkins, on receipts, in the margins of baby book pages. A space for the three of you to breathe, he’d said. A room that would feel like safety.

You pass him the espresso shot you pulled the moment he walked in. He takes it with both hands, eyes a little too grateful.

“She’s very alert this morning,” he murmurs, kissing the top of the baby’s head. She makes a pleased sound and grips his finger in her impossibly small hand. “That’s new. Do you think she’s developing early?”

You lean against the counter. “Are you asking as a scientist or a father?”

He looks up at you. “Both.”

You give him a long look. “Then yes. But mostly because her father is unbearable about milestone charts.”

He smiles, the real kind, and sets his cup down to rub your back slowly with the heel of his palm.

“I want to show you,” he says softly. “The garden.”

You follow him through the east wing, down a hallway you haven’t used in months. It was under construction for so long you started ignoring it entirely—Reed had asked you not to peek, and even though you could’ve read it from him if you tried, you didn’t. You know how much he loves the surprise of something given.

He stops in front of the door. Touches the panel. The lights shift.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

You obey.

The doors slide open with a gentle whoosh, and he guides you forward with a hand on the small of your back.

The smell hits you first. Like dusk in a meadow, sweet and warm and slightly electric. Then the sound—soft hums, like a living lullaby, low-frequency music programmed to your vitals.

“Now,” he whispers.

You open your eyes.

It is—

Impossible.

Beautiful.

Everything.

A circular chamber, glowing faintly with shades of indigo and pale cobalt. Bioluminescent plants curl along the walls and ceiling, casting a soft halo around everything they touch. The light pulses slowly, like breath. In the center, a cradle. Not a baby’s, but a nest of sorts—a round velvet-lined platform surrounded by flowering vines that sway gently despite the absence of wind.

You step in, breath caught in your throat. The baby shifts against your chest. Reed moves beside you, silent, reverent.

“They release serotonin,” he says finally. “Gradually. In sync with your circadian rhythms. I programmed the sensors to adjust to your neural output. If you’re anxious, the plants emit a calming agent through their leaves. If you’re exhausted, they respond with a tailored scent profile.”

You blink, and your eyes sting.

“Reed…”

He steps forward, hands in the pockets of his sweater now, like he’s nervous you won’t like it. “It’s for sleep. For peace. I wanted you to have something that couldn’t be weaponized. That doesn’t require you to do or fix or save.”

You turn and kiss him without thinking. Just press your lips to his and breathe him in until you feel him soften against you, arms wrapping around both you and the baby.

“She’ll grow up in this room,” you whisper. “And she’ll know that her father made it bloom.”

He exhales shakily. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“No—I really love you.”

You smile, eyes still wet. “I know, Reed.”

You stay there until 10 AM.

You both lie down in the nest, your daughter between you, her tiny fists relaxed in sleep. Reed reads aloud from a journal article he wrote years ago but never published—something about dream mapping and the neurological basis of emotional inheritance. His voice is low and even, like water against stone.

You close your eyes and let your thoughts go quiet. It’s not often your mind empties—it’s always buzzing, always catching static from the thoughts of others. But in here, in this room he made for you, it’s silent.

Just him.

Just her.

Just you.

And when she stirs again, tiny fists stretching toward the glowing blue canopy above, you smile.

Because morning is still happening.

And it’s perfect.

The room is still the color of a dream when she begins to stir again. You feel it before it starts—something shifts in the air, like a new current pulsing from her tiny chest. Her mouth searches, her body curling inward, the smallest of sounds escaping her, soft and imploring.

“She’s hungry,” you murmur.

Reed lifts his head from the nest’s edge where he’d moved to study one of the glowing vines, watching its petals respond to changes in temperature with silent curiosity. He’d touched them like someone handling museum glass. “Already?”

You shift her gently, cradling her in your arms. “It’s been two hours. She’s on her own schedule, remember?”

“She’s early,” he murmurs, gaze fixed on her again, as though trying to memorize the way she opens her mouth and her fists clench with want. “But I suppose at that age, I used to ignore hunger for the sake of continuity.”

You laugh softly, untying the wrap of your robe. “That is, quite possibly, the most Reed thing I’ve ever heard.”

He doesn’t argue. He’s too focused on the curve of your body as you settle into the cushions, letting your daughter latch with a soft sound that cuts right through the quiet. Reed breathes in deeply, almost as if the moment itself is something he can inhale.

You rock her gently, your fingers brushing over the soft fuzz of her hair. “She’s getting better at this.”

“She’s perfect at it,” Reed replies automatically, reverent as a prayer.

You give him a look—one of those narrowed, half-laughing glances that says, you’re biased and ridiculous, but I love you for it. And he just nods, because you’re right. And he is.

A few minutes pass. The only sounds are the occasional contented sighs from the baby and the low, affectionate thrum of the plants around you, adjusting their glow ever so slightly.

“She’s calming,” he notes. “Her cortisol’s dropping.”

“You can tell that just by watching her?”

“No. I added biosensors to the lining of your robe.”

You blink at him. “Reed.”

He shrugs. “Just to be sure.”

You close your eyes and smile, tired and full and impossibly in love with the absurdity of him.

“You’re not allowed to invent any more things for at least twelve hours.”

“But—”

“Reed.”

He sighs dramatically. “Fine. I’ll make breakfast instead.”

You open one eye. “Just toast the bagels.”

“I could attempt something new,” he offers, already standing, limbs unfolding in long, practiced movements. He’s got that faraway look again, the one he gets when an idea begins sketching itself behind his eyes. “I was reading about eggs last week—there’s this folding method, thermodynamically counterintuitive, but—”

“Just toast the bagels.”

He deflates with comedic precision. “You don’t trust me in the kitchen.”

“I trust you with everything,” you reply honestly. “Except scrambled eggs.”

He disappears toward the kitchen, and you stay nestled in the garden room with your daughter. Her eyelids have started to flutter closed again, her lips slackening as she finishes. You press a kiss to her temple, re-wrapping your robe and holding her against your chest.

“Your father thinks you’re the moon,” you whisper to your baby. “I can feel it. He looks at you and everything lights up.”

The plants around you flicker a little, as if agreeing.

The kitchen smells like slightly burnt bagels.

Reed has pulled his sleeves up, hair slightly wild in the front like he’d run his hand through it in frustration. The toaster glows faintly on the counter, one of his own designs—it’s smarter than it needs to be, with heat settings controlled by micro-gestures.

There’s a plate already waiting when you walk in, the baby still tucked into your arms, her body heavy with post-feeding sleep.

“Bagels. Toasted. Slightly,” he says, proudly, and presents them like they’re part of a scientific exhibit.

You blink. “Is that cream cheese and honey?”

He hesitates. “You like sweet and savory?”

You grin. “That’s...actually perfect.”

He beams, which is still your favorite expression on him.

You sit at the little round table by the window, the one he built himself out of old alloy and wood, and you shift the baby into the bassinet nearby, watching her chest rise and fall. Reed makes a sound—small, fond, slightly awed.

“She breathes like you.”

You take a bite of your bagel and hum. “She’s breathing like someone who drank her weight in milk and is about to sleep through the world ending.”

“That... will never happen,” he says, chewing.

“It’s parenting,” you reply, mouth full.

Reed eats slowly, as always—every bite deliberate, like he’s still not used to the routine of eating as an act of care. You always have to remind him that food is part of survival. He’ll ignore it if you don’t. But this—bagels at 10:30, baby curled up beside you, sun streaming in through the upper glass, your husband across from you looking like a disheveled dream—this feels like the closest thing to permanence you’ve ever tasted.

You reach across the table and brush his hand with your fingers. He looks up instantly.

“You’re really proud of yourself for the garden, aren’t you?” you tease.

“I want you to sleep.” His voice is soft. “You haven’t really slept. Not since—well. Not deeply.”

You nod. “I know.”

“I’ve been watching. The twitching in your left eye. Your breathing patterns. You clench your jaw in sleep, sometimes. And it breaks my heart a little.”

Your throat tightens. He doesn’t say things like this unless he’s certain. It takes him a long time to process emotion, to translate it into language. So when he does, it’s a seismic event.

You squeeze his hand. “It’s getting better. Because of you.”

He doesn’t respond right away. Just watches you eat, his eyes tracing the line of your cheek, the slope of your nose, the curve of your mouth as you chew.

Then, suddenly... “I want to build her something.”

You blink. “She’s five weeks old.”

“I know. But something she’ll have for later. When she’s older. A kind of learning environment. Simulated language exposure. Maybe a kinetic chamber. Something tactile.”

You laugh softly. “You can’t help yourself.”

“I can,” he insists. “I just don’t want to.”

You rest your chin on your hand and look at him, really look. His eyes are still tired but burning. Always burning. He’s lit from within in a way that doesn’t exhaust you. It groundsyou.

“I love you,” you say.

His face goes soft, like clay warming in the sun. “You always say that at breakfast.”

“Because I always mean it.”

He leans over the table, stretching just a little too far for normal arms, and kisses you.

Then he settles back, cheeks faintly pink.

The baby coos.

And your day begins again.

Just like that.

Together.

The moment you lean back in your chair, bagel half-eaten in your hand and your eyes flickering toward the light-dappled bassinet where your daughter dreams of stars, your wrist buzzes. Soft but sharp.

It’s the kind of alert that isn’t allowed to be decorative. No chimes, no pretty colors. Just red. Blinking. The kind of alert that lives in the space between routine and crisis.

You glance at Reed. He’s already checking his watch, jaw twitching slightly as he reads through the emergency codes.

“It’s him again,” he says flatly.

You don’t have to ask who.

“Mole Man.”

You sigh. “You’re kidding.”

He looks up at you, lips pressed into a thin line. “I never joke about Mole Man.”

It’s funny how domesticity doesn't dull your instincts. Not really. Not after everything you and Reed have been through in the last decade. It might be easier now—gentler around the edges, softened by parenthood and morning coffee and domestic habit—but the moment something shifts in the city’s undercurrent, you feel it like electricity under your skin.

You glance down at your daughter, still sleeping. Oblivious to the way the ground is probably already groaning somewhere beneath midtown.

Reed moves fast. Controlled, clinical, like the chaos is just an extension of the morning chores.

He pulls out his communicator and taps into the Baxter Building’s private channel. “Esmé? We need you up here.”

You smile at the sound of her sleepy voice on the other end. “Already halfway up the elevator. You think I didn’t feel the tremor, Doctor?”

“I didn’t want you to feel it,” he mutters.

“She’s fine,” you call over your shoulder. “Just tell her.”

“She’s fine,” Reed says into the mic. “Sleeping. Fed. I’ll transmit her current vitals.”

You stand and scoop up your daughter, pressing a kiss to her soft forehead before transferring her gently to her carrier—one of Reed’s newer models, layered with protective monitors and lined with memory foam that adjusts to her sleeping posture.

Reed watches you secure her, hands flexing at his sides. “I hate leaving her.”

“I know,” you say quietly.

“I really hate it.”

You reach out and touch his cheek, grounding him. “Then we finish this fast.”

Esmé arrives just as you’re lacing up your boots. She’s in a coat and her favorite slippers, gray hair wrapped in a scarf, a thermos of black coffee in one hand and a biometric reader in the other.

“You didn’t even wait for me to clock in,” she says dryly, peering into the carrier with a warm smile. “Hi, baby bird. Your mom and dad are going to go clobber the little troll now, okay?”

“She’s asleep, Esmé.”

“Babies understand tone, sweetheart.”

Reed shuffles toward the hallway, fingers already stretching ahead of him to reach the containment gear.

“He’s in the central borough again,” he says. “Coming up through the theater district. Seismic spikes suggest he’s using the same diggers as last week, just… deeper. Angled toward the subway lines this time.”

You click the buckle on your tactical belt. “I thought you neutralized those.”

“I did. He built new ones. Or scavenged them. His tech is primitive, but he’s resourceful. And stubborn. And lonely.”

Esmé rolls her eyes. “He’s a man in a cape with a mole army and an inferiority complex. You’ve given him too much screen time.”

Reed frowns. “He also has a quantum destabilizer now.”

You pause. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

You nod slowly, flexing your fingers. You’ve felt the ripple already, like a sour note on the edge of a chord. Something about the city’s mindscape is off. People are scared, but underneath that—distorted wavelengths. Interference. The kind you feel when someone is broadcasting fear in organized bursts. Controlled panic.

“He’s trying to cause chaos deliberately this time,” you say, sliding your commlink into your ear. “Not just a tantrum.”

“I thought the same thing,” Reed replies. “He’s planning something bigger.”

“Then let’s make it small again.”

The sky is bright and quiet when you step out onto the hoverpad balcony, Reed already adjusting his kinetic shielding glove as the wind pulls at his sweater.

You wear the same blue suit Reed made for you years ago—sleek, simple.

You let the world underestimate you until it’s too late.

The city glimmers in the distance, unaware of the war happening under its skin. You exchange a look with Reed—one of those shared glances that doesn’t need words. It’s not romantic. It’s not even about love.

It’s about knowing someone’s rhythm so well you can anticipate the beat before it drops.

You leap first.

He follows, catching you.

You both land in the middle of a collapsed street corner, the air thick with dust and the scent of melted cement. Reed’s arm stretches mid-air, snapping into a support column to soften your descent.

You hit the ground, already scanning.

You close your eyes for half a second.

You listen.

Not with your ears. With your mind.

Voices. Hundreds. Fear, confusion, the flicker of what the hell is happening mixed with the pulse of commuter urgency.

And under it—grit. Gravel. Intent.

You lock on.

“East quadrant,” you mutter. “There’s a pressure tunnel extending toward 43rd.”

Reed’s already reaching for the seismic map on his belt. “Mole Man’s heading toward the Civic Tower. There’s a reactor below it. Old. He could destabilize half the grid if he gets access.”

You don’t answer.

You’re already running.

The thing about Mole Man is that he’s not trying to destroy the world. He just wants it beneath him. He wants to carve out some craggy kingdom and force the city to kneel. He’s a tyrant without a country.

But you’ve met his mind before.

You know what to expect.

“Split left,” you tell Reed as the tunnel forks. “I’ll draw him out.”

He pauses. “You’re still—”

“I’m fine.”

He looks at you. Really looks.

Then he nods. “Don’t get cocky.”

You smirk. “Don’t get dramatic.”

The fight, when it comes, is sharp and strange.

The Mole Man bursts out from under a steel grate like some deranged opera villain, goggles askew, shouting about injustice and surface scum and revolution.

You throw him against a wall with a thought.

His little mole creatures hiss, scrabbling toward you with metal drills grafted onto their arms. Reed knocks three of them out with a single elastic punch, his body snapping into impossible angles with methodical precision.

“Did he upgrade them?” you call out, ducking under a burst of energy.

“I think he taught them,” Reed answers grimly, slamming another against the wall. “They’re coordinating.”

“Adorable,” you mutter. “We should send him a parenting book.”

It takes seventeen minutes to subdue them.

Nine for you to breach his mental field and dismantle his panic broadcast.

Six for Reed to destroy the destabilizer with a containment pulse.

Two to tie Mole Man up with what looks suspiciously like fiber optic cable Reed had in his belt “just in case.”

You’re both breathing hard. Sweaty. Dust-covered.

And victorious.

Reed’s communicator buzzes.

Esmé’s voice is bright: “She just made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. She’s fine.”

You exhale slowly. Smile. “Let’s go home.”

He looks at you—your hair a mess, your face streaked with concrete, eyes shining with adrenaline.

He falls in love with you again. Just like that.

Like it’s brand new.

Like it’s always.

409 notes · View notes

foxtrology · 19 days ago

Note

PLEASE ALANA I NEED YOUR DAD!REED RICHARDS TERRIBLY!!!!!!!!

baby blue

reed richards x reader

notes: reader has psychic powers (basically a human lie detector), and is a doctor/scientist. reader and reed protect the world and their baby. no fantastic four sorryyyy

you're a mind-reader, he's made of stretch and stardust, and together you're building something softer than heroism: a family.

ao3 link

─────

Now it’s morning, and the Baxter Building is sunk in golden haze.

You open your eyes and he’s already awake.

Sort of.

Reed turns at the sound of the bedsheets shifting.

“You’re up,” he says, voice still caught in the middle of his throat. “She cried. Only a little. I didn’t want to wake you.”

You smile, already pulling your robe around your shoulders. “You couldn’t have woken me if you tried, Doctor Richards. I was gone.”

“How’s her breathing?” you murmur.

“Probably that she likes me best,” you say with a grin, and you can feel the smile in his brain before it breaks across his face.

He stops mid-sentence and turns.

“You know I’m in love with you,” he says, like it’s a question he needs to confirm even after all this time.

You take a sip of your coffee. “You say that like it’s new information.”

“No. No—it’s not. But sometimes I say it and it still feels new.”

You set the mug down and cross the lab to him, placing your hand on the small of his back. “That’s because you’re not used to having everything you want.”

He looks at you with the sort of awe that hasn’t dulled since the first time he met you—ten years ago now, but it’s burned itself into both of you with a clarity that doesn’t fade.

“You read minds,” he’d said to you, after watching you dismantle a lobbyist’s entire argument with a single glance and a half-smile.

You tilted your head. “Sometimes.”

He’d gone quiet. It wasn’t often someone made him feel quiet. He liked it.

Your daughter woke up at 9:43 AM. You know this because Reed has been tracking her REM cycles.

She makes a noise like a sleepy complaint, then sighs. You rub her back and lean into Reed’s chest as he wraps his arms around both of you.

“I made her some socks,” he says. “They regulate temperature based on her skin’s electrochemical activity. Want to see?”

You press your face into his shoulder to muffle your laugh. “Sure, Doctor. Show me the wonder socks.”

You test his theory, half-distracted by your own data.

“I’m thinking about you naked,” you murmur, just loud enough.

You glance up. “I’m not lying. You just weren’t ready.”

He gives this tiny huff of air, forehead pressed to yours. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“You say that every week.”

The nanny unit is stable. No interruptions. Your daughter’s heart rate is steady. You can do this.

You take Reed’s hand, and he squeezes it. Just once.

He doesn’t tell you to be careful—he never has. He knows you’re lethal when you need to be, knows your powers make you a psychic force the world still hasn’t figured out how to name.

Together you two leap off the balcony, you in his arms, the city sprawling beneath you like an old promise.

Later, you’re back. Tired. Scraped. Alive.

Your daughter is asleep again. Her tiny chest rises and falls, steady as the pulse beneath your palm.

Reed curls into you in bed, one arm around your waist, the other stretched just far enough to flip a switch on the bedside lamp.

“I’ll love you even if the stars forget our names,” he says, quietly, as the room fades to soft electric dark.

You kiss his forehead, your fingers threading through the hair at his temple.

“I’d remind them.”

And you would. Every time. Every day.

Always.

Your daughter lets out a sigh through the monitor, a small huff of air like a punctuation mark in the night. You both freeze, instinctively. And then…nothing. Just that same slow, fluttery breathing.

“She’s dreaming,” Reed whispers, and you can hear the awe in his voice again.

“Of what?”

He pauses. “Us.”

You turn to look at him, cheek brushing the pillow. “You always say that.”

He nods against the sheets. “Because I always hope it’s true.”

You don’t sleep late anymore. She won’t let you.

You walk barefoot into the nursery.

Her eyes find you.

You pick her up, kiss her warm cheek. “Good morning, moonflower.”

She smells like baby lotion and sleep. You press your forehead to hers and she flails her hand in what you’re choosing to interpret as affection.

“You slept?” you ask, watching him blink toward the espresso machine.

He makes a so-so motion with his hand, and you click your tongue. “What time?”

You pass him the espresso shot you pulled the moment he walked in. He takes it with both hands, eyes a little too grateful.

You lean against the counter. “Are you asking as a scientist or a father?”

He looks up at you. “Both.”

You give him a long look. “Then yes. But mostly because her father is unbearable about milestone charts.”

He smiles, the real kind, and sets his cup down to rub your back slowly with the heel of his palm.

“I want to show you,” he says softly. “The garden.”

He stops in front of the door. Touches the panel. The lights shift.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

You obey.

The doors slide open with a gentle whoosh, and he guides you forward with a hand on the small of your back.

The smell hits you first. Like dusk in a meadow, sweet and warm and slightly electric. Then the sound—soft hums, like a living lullaby, low-frequency music programmed to your vitals.

“Now,” he whispers.

You open your eyes.

It is—

Impossible.

Beautiful.

Everything.

You step in, breath caught in your throat. The baby shifts against your chest. Reed moves beside you, silent, reverent.

You blink, and your eyes sting.

“Reed…”

You turn and kiss him without thinking. Just press your lips to his and breathe him in until you feel him soften against you, arms wrapping around both you and the baby.

“She’ll grow up in this room,” you whisper. “And she’ll know that her father made it bloom.”

He exhales shakily. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“No—I really love you.”

You smile, eyes still wet. “I know, Reed.”

You stay there until 10 AM.

Just him.

Just her.

Just you.

And when she stirs again, tiny fists stretching toward the glowing blue canopy above, you smile.

Because morning is still happening.

And it’s perfect.

“She’s hungry,” you murmur.

You shift her gently, cradling her in your arms. “It’s been two hours. She’s on her own schedule, remember?”

You laugh softly, untying the wrap of your robe. “That is, quite possibly, the most Reed thing I’ve ever heard.”

You rock her gently, your fingers brushing over the soft fuzz of her hair. “She’s getting better at this.”

“She’s perfect at it,” Reed replies automatically, reverent as a prayer.

You give him a look—one of those narrowed, half-laughing glances that says, you’re biased and ridiculous, but I love you for it. And he just nods, because you’re right. And he is.

A few minutes pass. The only sounds are the occasional contented sighs from the baby and the low, affectionate thrum of the plants around you, adjusting their glow ever so slightly.

“She’s calming,” he notes. “Her cortisol’s dropping.”

“You can tell that just by watching her?”

“No. I added biosensors to the lining of your robe.”

You blink at him. “Reed.”

He shrugs. “Just to be sure.”

You close your eyes and smile, tired and full and impossibly in love with the absurdity of him.

“You’re not allowed to invent any more things for at least twelve hours.”

“But—”

“Reed.”

He sighs dramatically. “Fine. I’ll make breakfast instead.”

You open one eye. “Just toast the bagels.”

“Just toast the bagels.”

He deflates with comedic precision. “You don’t trust me in the kitchen.”

“I trust you with everything,” you reply honestly. “Except scrambled eggs.”

“Your father thinks you’re the moon,” you whisper to your baby. “I can feel it. He looks at you and everything lights up.”

The plants around you flicker a little, as if agreeing.

The kitchen smells like slightly burnt bagels.

There’s a plate already waiting when you walk in, the baby still tucked into your arms, her body heavy with post-feeding sleep.

“Bagels. Toasted. Slightly,” he says, proudly, and presents them like they’re part of a scientific exhibit.

You blink. “Is that cream cheese and honey?”

He hesitates. “You like sweet and savory?”

You grin. “That’s...actually perfect.”

He beams, which is still your favorite expression on him.

“She breathes like you.”

You take a bite of your bagel and hum. “She’s breathing like someone who drank her weight in milk and is about to sleep through the world ending.”

“That... will never happen,” he says, chewing.

“It’s parenting,” you reply, mouth full.

You reach across the table and brush his hand with your fingers. He looks up instantly.

“You’re really proud of yourself for the garden, aren’t you?” you tease.

“I want you to sleep.” His voice is soft. “You haven’t really slept. Not since—well. Not deeply.”

You nod. “I know.”

“I’ve been watching. The twitching in your left eye. Your breathing patterns. You clench your jaw in sleep, sometimes. And it breaks my heart a little.”

Your throat tightens. He doesn’t say things like this unless he’s certain. It takes him a long time to process emotion, to translate it into language. So when he does, it’s a seismic event.

You squeeze his hand. “It’s getting better. Because of you.”

He doesn’t respond right away. Just watches you eat, his eyes tracing the line of your cheek, the slope of your nose, the curve of your mouth as you chew.

Then, suddenly... “I want to build her something.”

You blink. “She’s five weeks old.”

“I know. But something she’ll have for later. When she’s older. A kind of learning environment. Simulated language exposure. Maybe a kinetic chamber. Something tactile.”

You laugh softly. “You can’t help yourself.”

“I can,” he insists. “I just don’t want to.”

You rest your chin on your hand and look at him, really look. His eyes are still tired but burning. Always burning. He’s lit from within in a way that doesn’t exhaust you. It groundsyou.

“I love you,” you say.

His face goes soft, like clay warming in the sun. “You always say that at breakfast.”

“Because I always mean it.”

He leans over the table, stretching just a little too far for normal arms, and kisses you.

Then he settles back, cheeks faintly pink.

The baby coos.

And your day begins again.

Just like that.

Together.

It’s the kind of alert that isn’t allowed to be decorative. No chimes, no pretty colors. Just red. Blinking. The kind of alert that lives in the space between routine and crisis.

You glance at Reed. He’s already checking his watch, jaw twitching slightly as he reads through the emergency codes.

“It’s him again,” he says flatly.

You don’t have to ask who.

“Mole Man.”

You sigh. “You’re kidding.”

He looks up at you, lips pressed into a thin line. “I never joke about Mole Man.”

You glance down at your daughter, still sleeping. Oblivious to the way the ground is probably already groaning somewhere beneath midtown.

Reed moves fast. Controlled, clinical, like the chaos is just an extension of the morning chores.

He pulls out his communicator and taps into the Baxter Building’s private channel. “Esmé? We need you up here.”

You smile at the sound of her sleepy voice on the other end. “Already halfway up the elevator. You think I didn’t feel the tremor, Doctor?”

“I didn’t want you to feel it,” he mutters.

“She’s fine,” you call over your shoulder. “Just tell her.”

“She’s fine,” Reed says into the mic. “Sleeping. Fed. I’ll transmit her current vitals.”

Reed watches you secure her, hands flexing at his sides. “I hate leaving her.”

“I know,” you say quietly.

“I really hate it.”

You reach out and touch his cheek, grounding him. “Then we finish this fast.”

“You didn’t even wait for me to clock in,” she says dryly, peering into the carrier with a warm smile. “Hi, baby bird. Your mom and dad are going to go clobber the little troll now, okay?”

“She’s asleep, Esmé.”

“Babies understand tone, sweetheart.”

Reed shuffles toward the hallway, fingers already stretching ahead of him to reach the containment gear.

You click the buckle on your tactical belt. “I thought you neutralized those.”

“I did. He built new ones. Or scavenged them. His tech is primitive, but he’s resourceful. And stubborn. And lonely.”

Esmé rolls her eyes. “He’s a man in a cape with a mole army and an inferiority complex. You’ve given him too much screen time.”

Reed frowns. “He also has a quantum destabilizer now.”

You pause. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s trying to cause chaos deliberately this time,” you say, sliding your commlink into your ear. “Not just a tantrum.”

“I thought the same thing,” Reed replies. “He’s planning something bigger.”

“Then let’s make it small again.”

The sky is bright and quiet when you step out onto the hoverpad balcony, Reed already adjusting his kinetic shielding glove as the wind pulls at his sweater.

You wear the same blue suit Reed made for you years ago—sleek, simple.

You let the world underestimate you until it’s too late.

It’s about knowing someone’s rhythm so well you can anticipate the beat before it drops.

You leap first.

He follows, catching you.

You hit the ground, already scanning.

You close your eyes for half a second.

You listen.

Not with your ears. With your mind.

Voices. Hundreds. Fear, confusion, the flicker of what the hell is happening mixed with the pulse of commuter urgency.

And under it—grit. Gravel. Intent.

You lock on.

“East quadrant,” you mutter. “There’s a pressure tunnel extending toward 43rd.”

Reed’s already reaching for the seismic map on his belt. “Mole Man’s heading toward the Civic Tower. There’s a reactor below it. Old. He could destabilize half the grid if he gets access.”

You don’t answer.

You’re already running.

But you’ve met his mind before.

You know what to expect.

“Split left,” you tell Reed as the tunnel forks. “I’ll draw him out.”

He pauses. “You’re still—”

“I’m fine.”

He looks at you. Really looks.

Then he nods. “Don’t get cocky.”

You smirk. “Don’t get dramatic.”

The fight, when it comes, is sharp and strange.

The Mole Man bursts out from under a steel grate like some deranged opera villain, goggles askew, shouting about injustice and surface scum and revolution.

You throw him against a wall with a thought.

“Did he upgrade them?” you call out, ducking under a burst of energy.

“I think he taught them,” Reed answers grimly, slamming another against the wall. “They’re coordinating.”

“Adorable,” you mutter. “We should send him a parenting book.”

It takes seventeen minutes to subdue them.

Nine for you to breach his mental field and dismantle his panic broadcast.

Six for Reed to destroy the destabilizer with a containment pulse.

Two to tie Mole Man up with what looks suspiciously like fiber optic cable Reed had in his belt “just in case.”

You’re both breathing hard. Sweaty. Dust-covered.

And victorious.

Reed’s communicator buzzes.

Esmé’s voice is bright: “She just made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. She’s fine.”

You exhale slowly. Smile. “Let’s go home.”

He looks at you—your hair a mess, your face streaked with concrete, eyes shining with adrenaline.

He falls in love with you again. Just like that.

Like it’s brand new.

Like it’s always.

#reed richards x reader #reed richards fantastic four #reed richards fanfic #reed richards fanfiction #reed richards fic #reed richards #reed richards x you #dad!reed richards #the fantastic 4 #fantastic four fanfiction #mister fantastic #fantastic 4 #fantastic four #fantastic four first steps #the fantastic four

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