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"When I was little, he would tell me stories."

"And they all lived happily ever after?"

"More or less, yeah."

Franklin couldn't say quite what it was in his uncle's eyes that made him doubt the ending, doubt that entire bedtime story, but he knew better than to accuse anyone in his family of being a liar. "You're a terrible story-teller, Uncle Johnny."

"Hey!" The man settled beside him huffed and shoved him playfully. "Back down under the covers with you. Head on the pillows. See if I let you stay up and pretend I didn't see you sneak one of your dad's gadgets to play with under your pillow." Franklin  Richards, after all, was, his mother and father's son. That made him inquisitive as anything but most importantly, he was his uncle's nephew and with his parents' shouting, his father in the lab, his father always failing to remember him until something particularly shiny or valuable (or dangerous) had already been busted…. Well, he  was  his uncle's nephew, which made mischievous as anything. Mercy on the Baxter Building when he hit puberty and his mutations really came into fruition.

"Ah!" Franklin caught himself before his hand slid back to make sure the tinkering robot was still there. "How did you know? Mom didn't notice when came in to say goodnight…."

"Your mother," Uncle Johnny began, looking ready for a rant. His eyes had fallen back into a darker place, that place they go to when adults talk about things they don't like where much. Somehow, he caught himself and took a small breath before ruffling Franklin's mop of messy curls. "How's about another story, kiddo?"

"Okay! Tell me – "

"Woah, now. Who said you get to pick it?"

"Please, Uncle Johnny? Please, please?" Franklin can't be older than four years old and even as the son of Reed Richards, it shows in his speech. Uncle still  comes out more like 'unca', but at least he only occasionally slips up and says 'pwease'. Regardless, he knew his uncle well enough for proper manipulation and rolled over onto the young man's chest. As he snuggled into his uncle, he couldn't help but let out a happy giggle, "You're  warm!"

"Heh. Yeah? No kidding."

"I like it~." Another giggle, followed by a squeal when Johnny Storm wrapped an arm around his nephew, all to pull him closer.  "I don't need my blankie when I'm with you!"

"His smile… something no one could ever ignore. It – isn't that right, Uncle Peter?"

Franklin is young, so he doesn't notice it, but Uncle Johnny had a special kind of smile reserved just for people like him. In fact, Uncle Johnny had different smiles for everyone and every kind of occasion. That  young Franklin did notice when his uncle made it to the front page of The Bugle,   beating their usual Spider-Man bashing because of saving a driver from a race he had attended. The smile his uncle had in the paper was calculated – that's one of Daddy's words – and his uncle had his face tilted down slightly, eyes open and trustworthy.

"Are you a movie star?" Franklin gasped foolishly, recognizing that kind of smile from Mommy's magazines of people on a silly looking red carpet.

"I sort of was."  Uncle Johnny scooped him up, threw him over one shoulder and snatched up the newspaper.  There was nothing threatening about the gesture, except the fact that the world had suddenly been flipped upside down for poor Franklin, but he still squirmed and flailed. Uncle Johnny ignored him and held him in place with one hand while he flipped through the headlines in the other.

"Put me down, put me down – down, down!"

"What do you think you're doing?"

"D-Daddy!"

"Jonathon Storm!"

"Sue, I – "

"…people like that don't need to grow up to be perfect…"

"Hee, hee. I didn't know grown-ups could get grounded…"

"…always there to catch me, like he had a sixth sense."

Noise in New York City is something Uncle Ben says he'll eventually learn to ignore in not to hear at all. Until then, the thunder storm jerked him not only out of his sleep but straight up as well. His little heart pounded and he couldn't remember if was in the middle of a good dream or a bad. At the next crack of thunder, unaccompanied by lightning, Franklin realized that it echoes like a Titan sized garbage truck plowing through the streets even all the way up here.  "M-Mommy?"

Someone was walking around the hallway. Someone whose footsteps he did not recognize. Clickety, clickety, tap, clickety, tap, tap. He froze, the footsteps froze. Oh goodness… a burglar? Was that even possible? "S-shit…" A man's voice then, followed by a woman's and some … whining sound, whispers that Franklin couldn't understand. The blonde boy slipped back under his covers and held his breath.

Go away, go away.

He could get something to defend himself with. He was little but a baseball bat would do. He saw it in a movie once. … No, no. He should scream. If he screamed, his whole family would hear, wouldn't they? Uncle Johnny, Uncle Ben, Mommy and Daddy… they would all be here and rescue him because that was what families –

"Frankie?"

"Uncle Johnny?" He peeked out from under the sheet. "Is – is that you?"

"Sure thing, Tattletale. What are you doing up so late?" The bedroom door creaked open, lightless. Still no lightning either, just buckets and buckets of rain and thunder. "I – argh!" Something crashed and what Franklin guessed was supposed to be a graceful slip into his bed ended in his uncle on his back, on the floor. "Jesus Christ!" Uncle Johnny hissed. "Didn't your mom have you pick up your floor with her today?"

"Y-yes? You're not hurt, are you? Uncle Johnny?"

"Fine, fine. I just… tripped." In the dark, Franklin couldn't make out on what his uncle propped against the closet before he crawled in beside him and held out his arms. Quick to accept the invitation, the boy scrambled into the familiar heated embrace. "On your baseball ba - … since when do you own a baseball bat?"

"Oh. Since a minute ago. I made it. … I think." A silent smile. Uncle Johnny never sucked his teeth in disapproval or scowled like his parents did. Instead, Uncle Johnny just chuckled. "Those restraints Reed made didn't do too well, huh?"

"Nope," Franklin sighed happily. "Tell me a story so I can fall back asleep?"
"If I'm a brat, blame him, ha. He spoiled me rotten."

Every Saturday, they would go out for ice cream. Mommy scolded Uncle Johnny and warned that they'd each get fat but Uncle Johnny insisted they'd take the stairs on the way back. (They never do.) Every Saturday, they walked their way to the ice cream parlor. They walked through Central Park, to the West Side, they got their ice cream and then they ate in the empty stretch by the concert hall where the activities during the annual Easter Egg Hunt are held.

(Uncle Johnny takes him to those too.)

But today, when they reached the park, Uncle Johnny jerked back on his hand suddenly. "What's wrong?"

"Forgot my wallet. Let's head back home."

No child his age was well behaved enough to keep from starting up a temper tantrum. Ordinarily, Uncle Johnny would have just ignored him and gave him the cold shoulder until decided to behave but today his grip on Franklin's wrist tightened. "S-stop it!"   Uncle Johnny wasn't even looking at him, but rather over his shoulder, toward the people they never passed and the papers stapled to the trees Franklin never got close enough to look at. "Frankie! Be quiet or I'll never take you out for ice cream ever again!"

They turned. "How could you have forgotten," he wailed, sniffling. Tug, tug, tugging on Uncle Johnny who in turn pull, pull, pulled him along, faster than his little legs could keep up. As if he wants to run but couldn't. As if he wants to run but forgot how. As if he needed to run but couldn't pick up his nephew. Uncle Johnny hailed them a cab quick as he can and practically throws Franklin in.

"He always looked out for me, even when I didn't know I needed him too."

By the time they got home again, Uncle Johnny's hand was almost too hot to touch but he looked so mad, Franklin said nothing. No one else is home so Uncle Johnny tells him to turn on the TV and watch whatever he wants. "But keep it quiet. I need to make a phone call." With a turn, Franklin had the first piece of evidence to ever believe his uncle is a liar.

Johnny Storm's wallet sat in the back pocket of his slacks, just like always as he dialed the phone. "Bobby? Bobby? Put on that Professor of yours…."

"…but I don't think I realized…"

The first time Franklin saw a fight, a real fight, that the Four are involved in, it made him sick to his stomach. He always knew what his family was doing, for the most part, even if he didn't understand why Uncle Johnny came home with red smears on his lips or clothes at odd hours of the night or why Daddy locked himself in the lab for hours upon hours, but he didn't understand just how bad it got. "You're hurt." There is blood. "H-he – it – it broke you…" Buildings lay in shambles. "P-Please don't die!"

His family huddled around him. Mommy scooped him up in her arms and kissed his forehead.  "Shh, don't cry. It's alright, it's alright. We're all okay."

"You're bleeding!"   But Daddy assured that he could patch Mommy right up.

His father, behind Uncle Johnny, easily slipped his way into a family hug – Franklin, Susan and Reed Richards. They all missed the hurt look on Johnny's face when he's denied contact with his nephew, even as Ben is allowed to ruffle the boy's hair. "Don't talk like that," Uncle Ben shushed from beside his mother. Uncle Johnny inched closer, reached a hand that may as well have been invisible but dropped it with a sigh when he realized entry to the sobbing child was impossible.

"Don't worry, Frankie, we're not going anywhere." He says the words Franklin really wants to hears, the promise that the rest of his family should have made. "None of us are going to die."

"…just how much that meant or just what the significance of any of that was."

More papers were sprouting over the city. "Sorry kiddo." Uncle Johnny did not smell like soot, he did not smell like cigarettes and he didn't smell like campfires burning either. Franklin could never pin the smell but he thought it had something to do with all the girly things Uncle Johnny put into his hair to style it that must burn off when he flies. "Not until things cool down."

"But you burn! You don't ever cool down! That's not fair!" But it's a family decision, he is informed, one that 'your mother and father agree with'. "Liar." He wouldn't believe that. Not when his uncle was constantly bending the rules just a little for him, when his uncle was the one always hoisting him high onto his shoulders or taking him out flying and not his father. Not when his uncle was the one who promise to take him to the Yankees game as soon as he could sit still long enough without trying to use his powers to make a snack appear in his lap out of nowhere. ("You used to think it was cool….")  That will apparently be that in the matter. Uncle Johnny left quietly for once, instead of murmuring softly on the phone to someone on the phone, head dropped low with eyes that had refused to meet Franklin's as he spoke. At first his gaze skirted around the mess on the floor but then it drifted back outside, toward the window and just below the skyline. He was too far away to see the sidewalk but Franklin was Franklin Richards  after all, he could tell what his uncle was doing.

When Uncle Johnny had closed the door and left, Franklin made his way to the window. He shoved it upon and leaned out, careful to grip onto the edges so he wouldn't fall. Cars could still be heard honking, people looked like miniature Barbies and Kens, Central Park stretched out like a green cloud while the reflection of the Baxter Building was caught in the windows of a neighbor. Long white papers littered the streets. He had never seen these papers, these posters that first turned Uncle Johnny away from getting him ice cream. He is no longer allowed to watch TV without someone sitting beside him – usually Uncle Ben – and the adults hastily changed the channel from the news whenever he walked into the roomed. Something is wrong.

The adults were liars.

"…went south. Kids always notice that kind of stuff. Don't think that they don't."

Uncle Johnny tucked him into bed every night but leaves long before Franklin could ever hope to fall asleep. He ran to the phone and in a hushed voice, Franklin can make nothing out other than his tone; desperate, worried and angry. Sometimes he forgot not shout. ("I know you've been going through this for longer but – god damn it, will you just listen to me? I need - … you know what? Fuck that. Fuck you, you sonuva –")   Franklin would ask him the next day if everything was okay. "A-Okay, Frankie. Why?"

Uncle Johnny was a horrible story-teller.

He didn't know why, but the adults were lying to him and it all had something to do with that stupid white poster. With his left hand outstretched as far as it can go, Franklin closed his eyes and he wished. He wanted and he demanded. Sure enough when his eyes opened again, the white poster was sitting on his bed, tattered but still legible.

"Uncle Johnny, you wanted to make sure my block stayed only one block wide…"

Soon enough, he understood why Uncle Johnny had always burned down those awful white posters whenever he saw them.  They had his picture on them, you see… his picture and it said…

"I'm sorry I let you down."

"They didn't live happily ever after, did they?"

"What makes you say that? Just because I didn't say it, doesn't mean they didn't."

"You're lying, Uncle Johnny." Franklin hugged his knees. Slumped against his uncle, he tried to ignore the shouts from the common room. His parents again, only this time, he thought it was his uncle's fault. Something about an institute set them both off. Before Uncle Johnny could protest, he dropped a quick and troubled question on him. "Promise not to tell Mommy? Promise not to hate me?"

"…Why would I ever hate you? Frankie… what's wrong?"

"I – I don't know…." Breathe in and … "What does  M – U – T – I – E spell?"

"…so, he had these two numbskull friends of his that would come over and he'd sucker them into babysitting duty with him. Lord only knows how the Baxter Building made it out in one piece…"

"How did you get that one?" Franklin hung in the doorway of his uncle's room, half noticing a bruise in the mirror as his uncle changed shirts. It wasn't one of the bruises or lip stick marks over Uncle Johnny's neck or wrists that left Mom  or Dad telling him off, but a bruise over Uncle Johnny's ribs.

"This? Ah. I … Nothing. Felt like reliving the early days with that Webhead of mine."

"Kingpin?"

"Can you tell?"

"Couldn't you have just torched the jerk?"

Uncle Johnny shook his head. "Long story short, Arachnerd got in the way. He still  can't keep his mouth shut for the life of him. For either of our lives. Jesus."   Despite the bruise, he laughed. It isn't a wonder to Franklin, who was starting to pay more attention to the world and starting to notice all the things his family tried to hide, why his uncle his such a charmer. (He calls him a charmer because that's the nicer version of the words he's heard whispered about his uncle, words he won't use or believe. Uncle Johnny is much more of a parent to him than his actual father is – not that he doesn't love Dad – so he has to believe the best in the man.) "That friggin' dummy." By now, he hardly noticed the way his nephew laughed at him when he talked like this, when he toned himself down.

"You can curse, you know. I'm not a baby anymore. It isn't like I haven't heard it before."

"Not from me you won't ever."

"…my hero. So much more of a father to me than – ah, sorry Dad…"

The first time Franklin runs away is after the separation. It is also after his father has kicked Uncle Johnny out of housing complex. For what reason, Franklin cannot say. All he knows is that his parents gave him a very specific new set of rules. "Stay away from Johnny for awhile. He's… sick." Mom looked down. Sick? Why would you leave someone who was sick all alone to themselves? "Not… like that. Just…"

"We can take care of you fine by ourselves," his father cut in. Reed Richards had never been a loud man – except for when he was shouting at Uncle Johnny for something he had caught on the video tapes of the lab, something that made Uncle Johnny's friend, Mr. Parker stay away for a fairly long time – but now his voice had rang out with clear authority. Naturally, Franklin had one choice now. In the pouring rain on the roof of the Baxter Building, blonde hair longer and slicked to his skin by the icy cold, he focused on his favorite safe haven. He focused on the scent opposite to Uncle Ben's leftover cigars. His chest heaved, desperate for air. All he could focus on was the tearing sound as a portal tore open; not on where it was, not that it was just over the ledge.

He fell.

"My entire life, I've been protected, so maybe I don't have a right to ask for this..."

"Senator Kelly? Darling…" Mrs. Powers shifted her weight back and forth. It was a simple question. All he wanted to know was a little more about the man. It only seemed fair. "Why don't the three of you go play outside again? I'm sure – "

"I want to go home."

His friends pull at either of his arms. "I thought you liked sleepovers, Tattletale."

"I'm not stupid! I – I'm sick and tired of hiding!"

"..but if we could all, and I mean all of us, just for once, care for someone else…"

"It was an accident! I swear!"

When Alice tripped and tumbled down the rabbit hole, Franklin imagined she must have felt a lot like this. In fact, he was certain she must have. Especially now. Blood running cold in the humid, hostile invested room. No pleas worth anything. Nothing to save him – not even his family but they promised, they promised. They promised!

Adults are liars.

"Please… I – I didn't mean to hurt her! It was an accident! I was trying to save her, I didn't mean to crush – no! Stop, don't come any closer!" Hands darted out, grabbed, grabbed and god, how did it get so cold? Why was it so cold? "Uncle Johnny! Help me! Please! I – I was just trying to be more like you! I don't want to die. Don't let them take me away!" But the front row to the court room was shifting. The tallest of the blonde refused to meet his gaze, no matter how loud the scream, no matter how many tears, Johnny Storm still turned his back and walked way. "No… M-Mom, Mom! Don't let them take me! Dad? Dad! I'm sorry I broke into your lab for Val without your – don't go! Don't go! I'll be a better son!"

He promises, he swears but they are gone, gone, gone. "Uncle Ben!"

"… I don't like nightmares... Bad things happen. I don't expect them to stop anytime soon, but then I think to myself that I have this – this fantastic angel to keep me safe and his friends…"

"E-Easy! Frankie, watch it!"

Blinded and tangled, the young blonde boy panted softly. "Wha…what?" Even after an entire minute, nothing was familiar. Not the wide screen television, not the couch he had fallen asleep on and not the covers soaked in a cold sweat. Certainly the inter-dimensional portals with their violent whirling roars are just as terrifying. He couldn't help but scream when a hand suddenly touched his shoulder. "Get away from me!"   Metal crashes, a little girl screams. "Valerie?" Blankets tossed off and it's only then that he sees the bodies; massive, metal, flesh obscured. Not Skrulls, maybe some. He doesn't even know what but they're scattered across the floor and he slowly realized the tallest of them all.

In the dim moonlight, a lean body covered in blue and red fabric. A summoned helmet and shield over the man's back and a quivering, tiny girl shielded by his body. "You were having a nightmare."

Franklin has little concept of faith. Any more and such an act from him might constitute a sentence to hell."Spider-Man?"

"I do believe I have been changed for the better, because I knew you… because no matter what the tabloids – the gossip… my uncle … a good man, you believe me. You have to believe me."

Someday, he'll be as tall as Uncle Johnny. He won't fuss with his hair so much but he'll be as successful enough to sleep in until almost the afternoon like his uncle. He'll workout, he'll have cool cars and he'll know just what to say in front of the press. Someday, the press will even like him. That will be important. They won't hate him and they won't scrawl his picture and slurs across the city in anti-mutant propaganda. He'll show them. One day, everyone will know that when he's grown up, he's the good guy. Until then, he just has to take it one step at a time, take notes, have fun and keep his eyes open. Naturally, he had the best tutor.

"Even if you're not interested, always hold doors open for them, everyone really, but make a point for them. Give them a nice, smile, like this. Make a point of reminding her she's beautiful – not pretty. That's an important one and no, those jeans never make her look fat."

Weekly Sunday ice cream trips had been traded in for weekly Sunday joyrides around Manhattan. Or at least, that was what Uncle Johnny told his mother. If Valerie tagged along and Uncle Johnny did happen to be in possession of a car – imported, leather seats, Italian or other European namesakes – than they usually would keep within their borough. If it was just 'the men', however, Uncle Johnny would crossover to Queens. They would swing through the Asian neighborhoods where Uncle Johnny and Mr. Parker (now turned Uncle Peter, although out of awkward politeness, Franklin still sometimes made the mistake) would hang after school. On occasion, they would pass through Long Island but once, just once, the site of a new house made the youngest living Storm floor it so far, even he was shaking by the time he remembered where the brake was.

"… ashes to ashes. Nothing dusty about Johnny Storm."

"Fly safely!" His sister fit snuggly in his arms, whimpering worriedly as their family climbed into the jet.

"Yeah, yeah," Uncle Ben murmured. "We'll be fine. Uncle Johnny was dismissive as ever.

Franklin glared. "Don't die or we'll kill you!"

"I decided when I was seven years old, I knew just who I wanted as my best man."

Franklin Richards was blonde. When he was little, his hair was curly. Now it stuck and clung, a little straighter, to his neck. It wasn't nearly as straight as his mother's. It was messy. He had permanent bed-head. His hair wasn't black. It was yellow, it was gold, it shined, and it was blonde.

He was a Storm.   Not a Richards.

"…He saw me at my best and my worst. I don't know if I am honored…"

Franklin remembered Christmas when he was seven years old. He had snuck into Uncle Johnny's room, looking for his Christmas presents – what else. Knowing Uncle Johnny – he searched for something large and shiny. When that proved fruitless, he searched in every nook and cranny. What he found instead was a golden band. Script initials he could hardly make out were engraved on the inside.

A.M. & J.S.

"You're not gonna find it, kiddo. Besides, the rule is, if you do find it, you don't get to keep… it." From behind, his uncle's voice quavered. "Where did you find that?"

"In a box, under your stuff," Franklin answered. He looked up. Uncle Johnny's usual grin, lazy, proud and cheerful, held a tremble across his lips instead. Holding the tiny ring in his hand, cold against his palm, he flipped it back and forth, watching his uncle's unblinking gaze. "Uncle Johnny?"

"You shouldn't be playing with that." Jagged. Stiff. Clipped. Like an old man telling him to stay away, only Uncle Johnny wasn't shouting. Whispered. Quiet. Broken. Everything Uncle Johnny wasn't and should never be. Franklin didn't need to be told twice to hand it over when his uncle approached and knelt beside him with an outstretched hand. For a moment, his uncle's arm twitched as if he might throw the ring across the room or clear out the window. His lips twitched and Franklin thought he heard a half chuckle, "Forever hold your fucking peace." His arm cocks back, aimed at the window, but Franklin throws himself over the feverish limb. It's enough to make his uncle snap out of it.

He tried to distract the man. "You don't' wear rings." Silent, Uncle Johnny lowered his arm and stared down at the little band. It is if he is staring off into a far off land, a promised or lost land Franklin is too young to know the truth of yet but not young enough to know he cannot yet belong. Uncle Johnny slipped the ring onto one of his fingers, earned a gasped from his nephew. Gears clicked. A gold band rested on each of his parents' hands, a gold band that matched too. He stared up at his uncle, confused. "But… you're not married…"

"… or cursed to have seen him at some of the points same as well."

"Alright~, I need drinks and names, ladies." Uncle Johnny wasn't always  a ladies man. Franklin learnt the names that made his uncle drift off into that far off place. He learnt the places never to mention, the events that pushed his uncle into something… he didn't know what. It was an accident. He didn't mean to. He always knew his uncle drank – he had seen everyone in his family or extended family with alcohol at some point – but he had never seen anything quite this bad before. A path of bottle, alcohol and a different stench hung in the air and fire. Not the comforted burning, no warmth perfect to replace a blankie but terror. Torched grass and burnt tar, smoke wisps, gray haze – someone shouted, cackled and another shouted for them to get a hold of himself. Creeping closer, it takes a long time to realize that something has happened to Uncle Johnny. He doesn't understand why, he probably never will, but somehow, somewhere, his uncle broke.

His best friend, Uncle Peter, chased and shouted but nothing could keep his uncle from stumbling onward and, from the looks of it, trying to set himself ablaze in some awful way. When nothing worked, Uncle Peter's last shout made no sense. "Franklin! Franklin Storm, look at what you're doing to yourself!"   Uncle Johnny stops instantly.

"I – I don't know…"

His safe haven holds him close, kisses his temple and rocks the nightmares away
like any real father would. "They're wrong," he whispered, "Jesus, don't you dare believe them, Frankie, don't you dare. You're amazing, you hear? The best – the…" He was shaking around the sobbing child, terrified by old nightmares of the civil war. "We were pardoned. We're safe and you… If  I could have a son, I wouldn't want him to come out like you – I would want him to be you. Sue makes me so jealous sometimes, her and Reed."

Superheroes weren't supposed to have voices that shook.

"I love you. I love you so damn much. Please don't ever give into their bullshit, please don't ever let them hurt you or think you have to do anything you don't want to. Fuck them. Fuck the world. You don't need anyone but yourself and you'll always have me. Okay? I've got your back, just like you had mine every time I ran."

"I'm sorry!"

Black suits. Black dresses.

("That's quite enough, Franklin.")

"Oh god…" A hand lifted to cover his eyes. He isn't even remotely aware of what drops. He doesn't care. The tears he suspects have been present for quite some time, half way between the guilt of calling his uncle a liar and old snuggle times he could have sworn he promised himself never to remember.

"Why would you do something like that?"

"What?" He doesn't understand but he dares not look up. He only scrubs at the tears and pinches his eyes tightly shut. He hasn't cried since then. He doesn't intend to start now.

"You shouldn't deny your heart so much, Franklin. A good cry now and again can be very … beneficial for the healing process."

It isn't until he catches a sniffle that isn't his that Franklin looks up. "Pro…fessor?"  Embarrassed to be caught crying in front of a man he respects so much, a man he owes so much to, that he is so grateful to, he hastily blinks the last of the tears away. "Are you – why are…" Like himself, just a moment ago, Professor Xavier has a matching stream of tears sliding down his cheeks. Instead of matching embarrassment, Franklin finds a reassuring smile.

("My gift," the professor echoes in his mind, just as another reminder to what that truly means.)

"Those words you spoke them at his funeral, did you not? They were the same ones you told me when we first arrived here years ago..."

"Yes sir."

"You were very close to your uncle. Why deny yourself such wonderful memories?"

Lying to the man he has eaten breakfast beside so many times would leave a sour taste in his mouth. Not to mention, Professor Xavier would likely know in an instant. "It hurts." Franklin's voice cracked, tears swelling up again while the professor's stopped and the older man was able to wipe his own away. "I… I can't, I just…" The air in his throat spoils. He can't breathe, he can't see. He is at the top of the Baxter Building, mentally screaming for his uncle while his parents below scream back and forth over things he cannot begin to comprehend at all. A gateway opens and he leaps, his feet hit the ledge and he is falling, falling to his death. Life steals the breath from his lungs and he screams louder for his uncle, he prays and begs and pleas but Uncle Johnny is gone. It won't be like then. He won't find Uncle Johnny in a mass of flashing lights, surrounded by women…

"You miss him, of course you do." Franklin nods and tries to keep himself with the professor. He tries to remember he's a teenager, he tries to remember where and when  he is. He tries to forget his least favorite number is three and he tries to remember what it's like to be so warm, he doesn't have to sleep with a blanket. The professor is telling him something about life, no doubt about how people come and go and that age old talk about how precious life is, how this is the reason why they must help to fight to protect life and –

"Never forget," Franklin interrupts. The phrase shuts his mentor up and draws a slow breath. With his eyes closed, Franklin misses Charles Xavier shift and run his fingers over his left forearm, tracing numbers that aren't really there. "I… want to thank you, Professor," came a whisper, as if afraid to admit it. "I didn't … I thought… I thought I had forgotten all of that." He keeps his gaze down, not that it's hard. Some time in his little breakdown, he sunk to his knees. He collapsed into a little mess and he wouldn't know how to pick up the pieces for many years to come. He knows this. Xavier knows this. So they sit in silence for the better part of the next hour.

Franklin is unsure if his mind is being read or not but if it is, he wouldn't be bother. He finds the act to be a familiar gesture and a comfort, like a safety net. Nothing needs to be explained or hidden. Everything is laid out, bare and raw and he can curl up and hide from it all while someone else dealt with it. "That's a coward's route," Xavier clucks. At some point, humming with a nostalgic and pained smile, "You remind me of an old friend of mine," but the two thoughts are disconnected. Looking up, Franklin finds his mentor lost in that far off place of despair and wonder his uncle found when he stared at his old wedding band. Xavier must have taken notice too because he suddenly cleared his throat.  "You're late for Calculus, Franklin."

He grimaced. "With all due respect, sir, I'm skipping. I'd rather tell that to your face than have you find out the… other way. I'd – I just…" He stopped to composed himself, pushed himself off the ground and pulled his sweat soaked shirt up to wipe his face clean. "Besides the fact that Kitty will pitch a fit if she sees me sweating like a pig like this while I'm on my way… Mr. Drake… isn't someone I think I can handle so soon."

"I see." Maybe Kurt would provide some sort of stress relief. The older mutant was always good for a laugh. "Because that's worth the loss of an education for a day?" Telepaths. Damn. He grinned at Professor Xavier.

Or more training,   he thought, particularly loud. It wasn't quite a lie. Avoiding mental breakdowns was good training. One thing is for certain. When Franklin goes to bed tonight, he thinks he will understand the world a little more like his mother did when that awful word  stillborn  came into reality.

"And that's it."

Trying to be normal, of course, never last for long with them, not even when they were snowed-in. Stuck in the middle of Connecticut, in an old house Franklin remembered from when they had been in hiding – which was not the first time for him at all – he was surprised at the lack of Cabin Fever. No one complained about the cold, no one had a reason to with Uncle Johnny around. Even Uncle Ben smiled about that. (At least, he thought  it was a smile. You could never really tell with those chunky lips.) Valerie was busy climbing over their uncle, while alternatively getting thrown up into their air and caught, just a toddler and all giggles. Their mother watched from a few feet away from over the pages of a book and Dad was stretched out over the couch, exhausted from trying to dig them out when even Uncle Ben insisted it was a lost cause. Uncle Ben sat by the open window, down to his last cigar and Franklin looked up from the expensive building set that he brought along (an old birthday present).

"Hey… Uncle Johnny?"

"Mhm?"

"What do you want for Christmas?"

He expected a laugh. He expected to be told that a gift was impossible at this rate if it hadn't been purchased already because at this rate, they would be stuck here for a long, long while. Instead, his uncle made sure his sister was safely caught and set her down careful. "C'mere." He beckoned, fingers making a playful show of a blaze while his eyes shone so brightly, so happily, Franklin was terrified of not being able to find such a gift. He teetered towards his uncle, settled on his lap even though he wasn't the one asking for a gift and Uncle Johnny looked around. "What do I want for Christmas?" He leaned in to whisper, all smiles.

(Uncle Johnny had a special smile, many kinds of smiles. One of Franklin, one for when he was in trouble, one for girls, one for cameras, one for when he looked at a golden ring that now made even Franklin want to cry, one for Uncle Peter, a smirk and a different kind for his friend Bobby that usually came with a wink or nudge. This smile was closer to the Franklin smile, but better. This smile made his heart swell.)

"Nothing. I have everything I could possibly want."

Description
"When I was little, he would tell me stories."

"And they all lived happily ever after?"

"More or less, yeah."

Franklin couldn't say quite what it was in his uncle's eyes that made him doubt the ending, doubt that entire bedtime story, but he knew better than to accuse anyone in his family of being a liar. "You're a terrible story-teller, Uncle Johnny."

"Hey!" The man settled beside him huffed and shoved him playfully. "Back down under the covers with you. Head on the pillows. See if I let you stay up and pretend I didn't see you sneak one of your dad's gadgets to play with under your pillow." Franklin  Richards, after all, was, his mother and father's son. That made him inquisitive as anything but most importantly, he was his uncle's nephew and with his parents' shouting, his father in the lab, his father always failing to remember him until something particularly shiny or valuable (or dangerous) had already been busted…. Well, he  was  his uncle's nephew, which made mischievous as anything. Mercy on the Baxter Building when he hit puberty and his mutations really came into fruition.

"Ah!" Franklin caught himself before his hand slid back to make sure the tinkering robot was still there. "How did you know? Mom didn't notice when came in to say goodnight…."

"Your mother," Uncle Johnny began, looking ready for a rant. His eyes had fallen back into a darker place, that place they go to when adults talk about things they don't like where much. Somehow, he caught himself and took a small breath before ruffling Franklin's mop of messy curls. "How's about another story, kiddo?"

"Okay! Tell me – "

"Woah, now. Who said you get to pick it?"

"Please, Uncle Johnny? Please, please?" Franklin can't be older than four years old and even as the son of Reed Richards, it shows in his speech. Uncle still  comes out more like 'unca', but at least he only occasionally slips up and says 'pwease'. Regardless, he knew his uncle well enough for proper manipulation and rolled over onto the young man's chest. As he snuggled into his uncle, he couldn't help but let out a happy giggle, "You're  warm!"

"Heh. Yeah? No kidding."

"I like it~." Another giggle, followed by a squeal when Johnny Storm wrapped an arm around his nephew, all to pull him closer.  "I don't need my blankie when I'm with you!"

"His smile… something no one could ever ignore. It – isn't that right, Uncle Peter?"

Franklin is young, so he doesn't notice it, but Uncle Johnny had a special kind of smile reserved just for people like him. In fact, Uncle Johnny had different smiles for everyone and every kind of occasion. That  young Franklin did notice when his uncle made it to the front page of The Bugle,   beating their usual Spider-Man bashing because of saving a driver from a race he had attended. The smile his uncle had in the paper was calculated – that's one of Daddy's words – and his uncle had his face tilted down slightly, eyes open and trustworthy.

"Are you a movie star?" Franklin gasped foolishly, recognizing that kind of smile from Mommy's magazines of people on a silly looking red carpet.

"I sort of was."  Uncle Johnny scooped him up, threw him over one shoulder and snatched up the newspaper.  There was nothing threatening about the gesture, except the fact that the world had suddenly been flipped upside down for poor Franklin, but he still squirmed and flailed. Uncle Johnny ignored him and held him in place with one hand while he flipped through the headlines in the other.

"Put me down, put me down – down, down!"

"What do you think you're doing?"

"D-Daddy!"

"Jonathon Storm!"

"Sue, I – "

"…people like that don't need to grow up to be perfect…"

"Hee, hee. I didn't know grown-ups could get grounded…"

"…always there to catch me, like he had a sixth sense."

Noise in New York City is something Uncle Ben says he'll eventually learn to ignore in not to hear at all. Until then, the thunder storm jerked him not only out of his sleep but straight up as well. His little heart pounded and he couldn't remember if was in the middle of a good dream or a bad. At the next crack of thunder, unaccompanied by lightning, Franklin realized that it echoes like a Titan sized garbage truck plowing through the streets even all the way up here.  "M-Mommy?"

Someone was walking around the hallway. Someone whose footsteps he did not recognize. Clickety, clickety, tap, clickety, tap, tap. He froze, the footsteps froze. Oh goodness… a burglar? Was that even possible? "S-shit…" A man's voice then, followed by a woman's and some … whining sound, whispers that Franklin couldn't understand. The blonde boy slipped back under his covers and held his breath.

Go away, go away.

He could get something to defend himself with. He was little but a baseball bat would do. He saw it in a movie once. … No, no. He should scream. If he screamed, his whole family would hear, wouldn't they? Uncle Johnny, Uncle Ben, Mommy and Daddy… they would all be here and rescue him because that was what families –

"Frankie?"

"Uncle Johnny?" He peeked out from under the sheet. "Is – is that you?"

"Sure thing, Tattletale. What are you doing up so late?" The bedroom door creaked open, lightless. Still no lightning either, just buckets and buckets of rain and thunder. "I – argh!" Something crashed and what Franklin guessed was supposed to be a graceful slip into his bed ended in his uncle on his back, on the floor. "Jesus Christ!" Uncle Johnny hissed. "Didn't your mom have you pick up your floor with her today?"

"Y-yes? You're not hurt, are you? Uncle Johnny?"

"Fine, fine. I just… tripped." In the dark, Franklin couldn't make out on what his uncle propped against the closet before he crawled in beside him and held out his arms. Quick to accept the invitation, the boy scrambled into the familiar heated embrace. "On your baseball ba - … since when do you own a baseball bat?"

"Oh. Since a minute ago. I made it. … I think." A silent smile. Uncle Johnny never sucked his teeth in disapproval or scowled like his parents did. Instead, Uncle Johnny just chuckled. "Those restraints Reed made didn't do too well, huh?"

"Nope," Franklin sighed happily. "Tell me a story so I can fall back asleep?"
"If I'm a brat, blame him, ha. He spoiled me rotten."

Every Saturday, they would go out for ice cream. Mommy scolded Uncle Johnny and warned that they'd each get fat but Uncle Johnny insisted they'd take the stairs on the way back. (They never do.) Every Saturday, they walked their way to the ice cream parlor. They walked through Central Park, to the West Side, they got their ice cream and then they ate in the empty stretch by the concert hall where the activities during the annual Easter Egg Hunt are held.

(Uncle Johnny takes him to those too.)

But today, when they reached the park, Uncle Johnny jerked back on his hand suddenly. "What's wrong?"

"Forgot my wallet. Let's head back home."

No child his age was well behaved enough to keep from starting up a temper tantrum. Ordinarily, Uncle Johnny would have just ignored him and gave him the cold shoulder until decided to behave but today his grip on Franklin's wrist tightened. "S-stop it!"   Uncle Johnny wasn't even looking at him, but rather over his shoulder, toward the people they never passed and the papers stapled to the trees Franklin never got close enough to look at. "Frankie! Be quiet or I'll never take you out for ice cream ever again!"

They turned. "How could you have forgotten," he wailed, sniffling. Tug, tug, tugging on Uncle Johnny who in turn pull, pull, pulled him along, faster than his little legs could keep up. As if he wants to run but couldn't. As if he wants to run but forgot how. As if he needed to run but couldn't pick up his nephew. Uncle Johnny hailed them a cab quick as he can and practically throws Franklin in.

"He always looked out for me, even when I didn't know I needed him too."

By the time they got home again, Uncle Johnny's hand was almost too hot to touch but he looked so mad, Franklin said nothing. No one else is home so Uncle Johnny tells him to turn on the TV and watch whatever he wants. "But keep it quiet. I need to make a phone call." With a turn, Franklin had the first piece of evidence to ever believe his uncle is a liar.

Johnny Storm's wallet sat in the back pocket of his slacks, just like always as he dialed the phone. "Bobby? Bobby? Put on that Professor of yours…."

"…but I don't think I realized…"

The first time Franklin saw a fight, a real fight, that the Four are involved in, it made him sick to his stomach. He always knew what his family was doing, for the most part, even if he didn't understand why Uncle Johnny came home with red smears on his lips or clothes at odd hours of the night or why Daddy locked himself in the lab for hours upon hours, but he didn't understand just how bad it got. "You're hurt." There is blood. "H-he – it – it broke you…" Buildings lay in shambles. "P-Please don't die!"

His family huddled around him. Mommy scooped him up in her arms and kissed his forehead.  "Shh, don't cry. It's alright, it's alright. We're all okay."

"You're bleeding!"   But Daddy assured that he could patch Mommy right up.

His father, behind Uncle Johnny, easily slipped his way into a family hug – Franklin, Susan and Reed Richards. They all missed the hurt look on Johnny's face when he's denied contact with his nephew, even as Ben is allowed to ruffle the boy's hair. "Don't talk like that," Uncle Ben shushed from beside his mother. Uncle Johnny inched closer, reached a hand that may as well have been invisible but dropped it with a sigh when he realized entry to the sobbing child was impossible.

"Don't worry, Frankie, we're not going anywhere." He says the words Franklin really wants to hears, the promise that the rest of his family should have made. "None of us are going to die."

"…just how much that meant or just what the significance of any of that was."

More papers were sprouting over the city. "Sorry kiddo." Uncle Johnny did not smell like soot, he did not smell like cigarettes and he didn't smell like campfires burning either. Franklin could never pin the smell but he thought it had something to do with all the girly things Uncle Johnny put into his hair to style it that must burn off when he flies. "Not until things cool down."

"But you burn! You don't ever cool down! That's not fair!" But it's a family decision, he is informed, one that 'your mother and father agree with'. "Liar." He wouldn't believe that. Not when his uncle was constantly bending the rules just a little for him, when his uncle was the one always hoisting him high onto his shoulders or taking him out flying and not his father. Not when his uncle was the one who promise to take him to the Yankees game as soon as he could sit still long enough without trying to use his powers to make a snack appear in his lap out of nowhere. ("You used to think it was cool….")  That will apparently be that in the matter. Uncle Johnny left quietly for once, instead of murmuring softly on the phone to someone on the phone, head dropped low with eyes that had refused to meet Franklin's as he spoke. At first his gaze skirted around the mess on the floor but then it drifted back outside, toward the window and just below the skyline. He was too far away to see the sidewalk but Franklin was Franklin Richards  after all, he could tell what his uncle was doing.

When Uncle Johnny had closed the door and left, Franklin made his way to the window. He shoved it upon and leaned out, careful to grip onto the edges so he wouldn't fall. Cars could still be heard honking, people looked like miniature Barbies and Kens, Central Park stretched out like a green cloud while the reflection of the Baxter Building was caught in the windows of a neighbor. Long white papers littered the streets. He had never seen these papers, these posters that first turned Uncle Johnny away from getting him ice cream. He is no longer allowed to watch TV without someone sitting beside him – usually Uncle Ben – and the adults hastily changed the channel from the news whenever he walked into the roomed. Something is wrong.

The adults were liars.

"…went south. Kids always notice that kind of stuff. Don't think that they don't."

Uncle Johnny tucked him into bed every night but leaves long before Franklin could ever hope to fall asleep. He ran to the phone and in a hushed voice, Franklin can make nothing out other than his tone; desperate, worried and angry. Sometimes he forgot not shout. ("I know you've been going through this for longer but – god damn it, will you just listen to me? I need - … you know what? Fuck that. Fuck you, you sonuva –")   Franklin would ask him the next day if everything was okay. "A-Okay, Frankie. Why?"

Uncle Johnny was a horrible story-teller.

He didn't know why, but the adults were lying to him and it all had something to do with that stupid white poster. With his left hand outstretched as far as it can go, Franklin closed his eyes and he wished. He wanted and he demanded. Sure enough when his eyes opened again, the white poster was sitting on his bed, tattered but still legible.

"Uncle Johnny, you wanted to make sure my block stayed only one block wide…"

Soon enough, he understood why Uncle Johnny had always burned down those awful white posters whenever he saw them.  They had his picture on them, you see… his picture and it said…

"I'm sorry I let you down."

"They didn't live happily ever after, did they?"

"What makes you say that? Just because I didn't say it, doesn't mean they didn't."

"You're lying, Uncle Johnny." Franklin hugged his knees. Slumped against his uncle, he tried to ignore the shouts from the common room. His parents again, only this time, he thought it was his uncle's fault. Something about an institute set them both off. Before Uncle Johnny could protest, he dropped a quick and troubled question on him. "Promise not to tell Mommy? Promise not to hate me?"

"…Why would I ever hate you? Frankie… what's wrong?"

"I – I don't know…." Breathe in and … "What does  M – U – T – I – E spell?"

"…so, he had these two numbskull friends of his that would come over and he'd sucker them into babysitting duty with him. Lord only knows how the Baxter Building made it out in one piece…"

"How did you get that one?" Franklin hung in the doorway of his uncle's room, half noticing a bruise in the mirror as his uncle changed shirts. It wasn't one of the bruises or lip stick marks over Uncle Johnny's neck or wrists that left Mom  or Dad telling him off, but a bruise over Uncle Johnny's ribs.

"This? Ah. I … Nothing. Felt like reliving the early days with that Webhead of mine."

"Kingpin?"

"Can you tell?"

"Couldn't you have just torched the jerk?"

Uncle Johnny shook his head. "Long story short, Arachnerd got in the way. He still  can't keep his mouth shut for the life of him. For either of our lives. Jesus."   Despite the bruise, he laughed. It isn't a wonder to Franklin, who was starting to pay more attention to the world and starting to notice all the things his family tried to hide, why his uncle his such a charmer. (He calls him a charmer because that's the nicer version of the words he's heard whispered about his uncle, words he won't use or believe. Uncle Johnny is much more of a parent to him than his actual father is – not that he doesn't love Dad – so he has to believe the best in the man.) "That friggin' dummy." By now, he hardly noticed the way his nephew laughed at him when he talked like this, when he toned himself down.

"You can curse, you know. I'm not a baby anymore. It isn't like I haven't heard it before."

"Not from me you won't ever."

"…my hero. So much more of a father to me than – ah, sorry Dad…"

The first time Franklin runs away is after the separation. It is also after his father has kicked Uncle Johnny out of housing complex. For what reason, Franklin cannot say. All he knows is that his parents gave him a very specific new set of rules. "Stay away from Johnny for awhile. He's… sick." Mom looked down. Sick? Why would you leave someone who was sick all alone to themselves? "Not… like that. Just…"

"We can take care of you fine by ourselves," his father cut in. Reed Richards had never been a loud man – except for when he was shouting at Uncle Johnny for something he had caught on the video tapes of the lab, something that made Uncle Johnny's friend, Mr. Parker stay away for a fairly long time – but now his voice had rang out with clear authority. Naturally, Franklin had one choice now. In the pouring rain on the roof of the Baxter Building, blonde hair longer and slicked to his skin by the icy cold, he focused on his favorite safe haven. He focused on the scent opposite to Uncle Ben's leftover cigars. His chest heaved, desperate for air. All he could focus on was the tearing sound as a portal tore open; not on where it was, not that it was just over the ledge.

He fell.

"My entire life, I've been protected, so maybe I don't have a right to ask for this..."

"Senator Kelly? Darling…" Mrs. Powers shifted her weight back and forth. It was a simple question. All he wanted to know was a little more about the man. It only seemed fair. "Why don't the three of you go play outside again? I'm sure – "

"I want to go home."

His friends pull at either of his arms. "I thought you liked sleepovers, Tattletale."

"I'm not stupid! I – I'm sick and tired of hiding!"

"..but if we could all, and I mean all of us, just for once, care for someone else…"

"It was an accident! I swear!"

When Alice tripped and tumbled down the rabbit hole, Franklin imagined she must have felt a lot like this. In fact, he was certain she must have. Especially now. Blood running cold in the humid, hostile invested room. No pleas worth anything. Nothing to save him – not even his family but they promised, they promised. They promised!

Adults are liars.

"Please… I – I didn't mean to hurt her! It was an accident! I was trying to save her, I didn't mean to crush – no! Stop, don't come any closer!" Hands darted out, grabbed, grabbed and god, how did it get so cold? Why was it so cold? "Uncle Johnny! Help me! Please! I – I was just trying to be more like you! I don't want to die. Don't let them take me away!" But the front row to the court room was shifting. The tallest of the blonde refused to meet his gaze, no matter how loud the scream, no matter how many tears, Johnny Storm still turned his back and walked way. "No… M-Mom, Mom! Don't let them take me! Dad? Dad! I'm sorry I broke into your lab for Val without your – don't go! Don't go! I'll be a better son!"

He promises, he swears but they are gone, gone, gone. "Uncle Ben!"

"… I don't like nightmares... Bad things happen. I don't expect them to stop anytime soon, but then I think to myself that I have this – this fantastic angel to keep me safe and his friends…"

"E-Easy! Frankie, watch it!"

Blinded and tangled, the young blonde boy panted softly. "Wha…what?" Even after an entire minute, nothing was familiar. Not the wide screen television, not the couch he had fallen asleep on and not the covers soaked in a cold sweat. Certainly the inter-dimensional portals with their violent whirling roars are just as terrifying. He couldn't help but scream when a hand suddenly touched his shoulder. "Get away from me!"   Metal crashes, a little girl screams. "Valerie?" Blankets tossed off and it's only then that he sees the bodies; massive, metal, flesh obscured. Not Skrulls, maybe some. He doesn't even know what but they're scattered across the floor and he slowly realized the tallest of them all.

In the dim moonlight, a lean body covered in blue and red fabric. A summoned helmet and shield over the man's back and a quivering, tiny girl shielded by his body. "You were having a nightmare."

Franklin has little concept of faith. Any more and such an act from him might constitute a sentence to hell."Spider-Man?"

"I do believe I have been changed for the better, because I knew you… because no matter what the tabloids – the gossip… my uncle … a good man, you believe me. You have to believe me."

Someday, he'll be as tall as Uncle Johnny. He won't fuss with his hair so much but he'll be as successful enough to sleep in until almost the afternoon like his uncle. He'll workout, he'll have cool cars and he'll know just what to say in front of the press. Someday, the press will even like him. That will be important. They won't hate him and they won't scrawl his picture and slurs across the city in anti-mutant propaganda. He'll show them. One day, everyone will know that when he's grown up, he's the good guy. Until then, he just has to take it one step at a time, take notes, have fun and keep his eyes open. Naturally, he had the best tutor.

"Even if you're not interested, always hold doors open for them, everyone really, but make a point for them. Give them a nice, smile, like this. Make a point of reminding her she's beautiful – not pretty. That's an important one and no, those jeans never make her look fat."

Weekly Sunday ice cream trips had been traded in for weekly Sunday joyrides around Manhattan. Or at least, that was what Uncle Johnny told his mother. If Valerie tagged along and Uncle Johnny did happen to be in possession of a car – imported, leather seats, Italian or other European namesakes – than they usually would keep within their borough. If it was just 'the men', however, Uncle Johnny would crossover to Queens. They would swing through the Asian neighborhoods where Uncle Johnny and Mr. Parker (now turned Uncle Peter, although out of awkward politeness, Franklin still sometimes made the mistake) would hang after school. On occasion, they would pass through Long Island but once, just once, the site of a new house made the youngest living Storm floor it so far, even he was shaking by the time he remembered where the brake was.

"… ashes to ashes. Nothing dusty about Johnny Storm."

"Fly safely!" His sister fit snuggly in his arms, whimpering worriedly as their family climbed into the jet.

"Yeah, yeah," Uncle Ben murmured. "We'll be fine. Uncle Johnny was dismissive as ever.

Franklin glared. "Don't die or we'll kill you!"

"I decided when I was seven years old, I knew just who I wanted as my best man."

Franklin Richards was blonde. When he was little, his hair was curly. Now it stuck and clung, a little straighter, to his neck. It wasn't nearly as straight as his mother's. It was messy. He had permanent bed-head. His hair wasn't black. It was yellow, it was gold, it shined, and it was blonde.

He was a Storm.   Not a Richards.

"…He saw me at my best and my worst. I don't know if I am honored…"

Franklin remembered Christmas when he was seven years old. He had snuck into Uncle Johnny's room, looking for his Christmas presents – what else. Knowing Uncle Johnny – he searched for something large and shiny. When that proved fruitless, he searched in every nook and cranny. What he found instead was a golden band. Script initials he could hardly make out were engraved on the inside.

A.M. & J.S.

"You're not gonna find it, kiddo. Besides, the rule is, if you do find it, you don't get to keep… it." From behind, his uncle's voice quavered. "Where did you find that?"

"In a box, under your stuff," Franklin answered. He looked up. Uncle Johnny's usual grin, lazy, proud and cheerful, held a tremble across his lips instead. Holding the tiny ring in his hand, cold against his palm, he flipped it back and forth, watching his uncle's unblinking gaze. "Uncle Johnny?"

"You shouldn't be playing with that." Jagged. Stiff. Clipped. Like an old man telling him to stay away, only Uncle Johnny wasn't shouting. Whispered. Quiet. Broken. Everything Uncle Johnny wasn't and should never be. Franklin didn't need to be told twice to hand it over when his uncle approached and knelt beside him with an outstretched hand. For a moment, his uncle's arm twitched as if he might throw the ring across the room or clear out the window. His lips twitched and Franklin thought he heard a half chuckle, "Forever hold your fucking peace." His arm cocks back, aimed at the window, but Franklin throws himself over the feverish limb. It's enough to make his uncle snap out of it.

He tried to distract the man. "You don't' wear rings." Silent, Uncle Johnny lowered his arm and stared down at the little band. It is if he is staring off into a far off land, a promised or lost land Franklin is too young to know the truth of yet but not young enough to know he cannot yet belong. Uncle Johnny slipped the ring onto one of his fingers, earned a gasped from his nephew. Gears clicked. A gold band rested on each of his parents' hands, a gold band that matched too. He stared up at his uncle, confused. "But… you're not married…"

"… or cursed to have seen him at some of the points same as well."

"Alright~, I need drinks and names, ladies." Uncle Johnny wasn't always  a ladies man. Franklin learnt the names that made his uncle drift off into that far off place. He learnt the places never to mention, the events that pushed his uncle into something… he didn't know what. It was an accident. He didn't mean to. He always knew his uncle drank – he had seen everyone in his family or extended family with alcohol at some point – but he had never seen anything quite this bad before. A path of bottle, alcohol and a different stench hung in the air and fire. Not the comforted burning, no warmth perfect to replace a blankie but terror. Torched grass and burnt tar, smoke wisps, gray haze – someone shouted, cackled and another shouted for them to get a hold of himself. Creeping closer, it takes a long time to realize that something has happened to Uncle Johnny. He doesn't understand why, he probably never will, but somehow, somewhere, his uncle broke.

His best friend, Uncle Peter, chased and shouted but nothing could keep his uncle from stumbling onward and, from the looks of it, trying to set himself ablaze in some awful way. When nothing worked, Uncle Peter's last shout made no sense. "Franklin! Franklin Storm, look at what you're doing to yourself!"   Uncle Johnny stops instantly.

"I – I don't know…"

His safe haven holds him close, kisses his temple and rocks the nightmares away
like any real father would. "They're wrong," he whispered, "Jesus, don't you dare believe them, Frankie, don't you dare. You're amazing, you hear? The best – the…" He was shaking around the sobbing child, terrified by old nightmares of the civil war. "We were pardoned. We're safe and you… If  I could have a son, I wouldn't want him to come out like you – I would want him to be you. Sue makes me so jealous sometimes, her and Reed."

Superheroes weren't supposed to have voices that shook.

"I love you. I love you so damn much. Please don't ever give into their bullshit, please don't ever let them hurt you or think you have to do anything you don't want to. Fuck them. Fuck the world. You don't need anyone but yourself and you'll always have me. Okay? I've got your back, just like you had mine every time I ran."

"I'm sorry!"

Black suits. Black dresses.

("That's quite enough, Franklin.")

"Oh god…" A hand lifted to cover his eyes. He isn't even remotely aware of what drops. He doesn't care. The tears he suspects have been present for quite some time, half way between the guilt of calling his uncle a liar and old snuggle times he could have sworn he promised himself never to remember.

"Why would you do something like that?"

"What?" He doesn't understand but he dares not look up. He only scrubs at the tears and pinches his eyes tightly shut. He hasn't cried since then. He doesn't intend to start now.

"You shouldn't deny your heart so much, Franklin. A good cry now and again can be very … beneficial for the healing process."

It isn't until he catches a sniffle that isn't his that Franklin looks up. "Pro…fessor?"  Embarrassed to be caught crying in front of a man he respects so much, a man he owes so much to, that he is so grateful to, he hastily blinks the last of the tears away. "Are you – why are…" Like himself, just a moment ago, Professor Xavier has a matching stream of tears sliding down his cheeks. Instead of matching embarrassment, Franklin finds a reassuring smile.

("My gift," the professor echoes in his mind, just as another reminder to what that truly means.)

"Those words you spoke them at his funeral, did you not? They were the same ones you told me when we first arrived here years ago..."

"Yes sir."

"You were very close to your uncle. Why deny yourself such wonderful memories?"

Lying to the man he has eaten breakfast beside so many times would leave a sour taste in his mouth. Not to mention, Professor Xavier would likely know in an instant. "It hurts." Franklin's voice cracked, tears swelling up again while the professor's stopped and the older man was able to wipe his own away. "I… I can't, I just…" The air in his throat spoils. He can't breathe, he can't see. He is at the top of the Baxter Building, mentally screaming for his uncle while his parents below scream back and forth over things he cannot begin to comprehend at all. A gateway opens and he leaps, his feet hit the ledge and he is falling, falling to his death. Life steals the breath from his lungs and he screams louder for his uncle, he prays and begs and pleas but Uncle Johnny is gone. It won't be like then. He won't find Uncle Johnny in a mass of flashing lights, surrounded by women…

"You miss him, of course you do." Franklin nods and tries to keep himself with the professor. He tries to remember he's a teenager, he tries to remember where and when  he is. He tries to forget his least favorite number is three and he tries to remember what it's like to be so warm, he doesn't have to sleep with a blanket. The professor is telling him something about life, no doubt about how people come and go and that age old talk about how precious life is, how this is the reason why they must help to fight to protect life and –

"Never forget," Franklin interrupts. The phrase shuts his mentor up and draws a slow breath. With his eyes closed, Franklin misses Charles Xavier shift and run his fingers over his left forearm, tracing numbers that aren't really there. "I… want to thank you, Professor," came a whisper, as if afraid to admit it. "I didn't … I thought… I thought I had forgotten all of that." He keeps his gaze down, not that it's hard. Some time in his little breakdown, he sunk to his knees. He collapsed into a little mess and he wouldn't know how to pick up the pieces for many years to come. He knows this. Xavier knows this. So they sit in silence for the better part of the next hour.

Franklin is unsure if his mind is being read or not but if it is, he wouldn't be bother. He finds the act to be a familiar gesture and a comfort, like a safety net. Nothing needs to be explained or hidden. Everything is laid out, bare and raw and he can curl up and hide from it all while someone else dealt with it. "That's a coward's route," Xavier clucks. At some point, humming with a nostalgic and pained smile, "You remind me of an old friend of mine," but the two thoughts are disconnected. Looking up, Franklin finds his mentor lost in that far off place of despair and wonder his uncle found when he stared at his old wedding band. Xavier must have taken notice too because he suddenly cleared his throat.  "You're late for Calculus, Franklin."

He grimaced. "With all due respect, sir, I'm skipping. I'd rather tell that to your face than have you find out the… other way. I'd – I just…" He stopped to composed himself, pushed himself off the ground and pulled his sweat soaked shirt up to wipe his face clean. "Besides the fact that Kitty will pitch a fit if she sees me sweating like a pig like this while I'm on my way… Mr. Drake… isn't someone I think I can handle so soon."

"I see." Maybe Kurt would provide some sort of stress relief. The older mutant was always good for a laugh. "Because that's worth the loss of an education for a day?" Telepaths. Damn. He grinned at Professor Xavier.

Or more training,   he thought, particularly loud. It wasn't quite a lie. Avoiding mental breakdowns was good training. One thing is for certain. When Franklin goes to bed tonight, he thinks he will understand the world a little more like his mother did when that awful word  stillborn  came into reality.

"And that's it."

Trying to be normal, of course, never last for long with them, not even when they were snowed-in. Stuck in the middle of Connecticut, in an old house Franklin remembered from when they had been in hiding – which was not the first time for him at all – he was surprised at the lack of Cabin Fever. No one complained about the cold, no one had a reason to with Uncle Johnny around. Even Uncle Ben smiled about that. (At least, he thought  it was a smile. You could never really tell with those chunky lips.) Valerie was busy climbing over their uncle, while alternatively getting thrown up into their air and caught, just a toddler and all giggles. Their mother watched from a few feet away from over the pages of a book and Dad was stretched out over the couch, exhausted from trying to dig them out when even Uncle Ben insisted it was a lost cause. Uncle Ben sat by the open window, down to his last cigar and Franklin looked up from the expensive building set that he brought along (an old birthday present).

"Hey… Uncle Johnny?"

"Mhm?"

"What do you want for Christmas?"

He expected a laugh. He expected to be told that a gift was impossible at this rate if it hadn't been purchased already because at this rate, they would be stuck here for a long, long while. Instead, his uncle made sure his sister was safely caught and set her down careful. "C'mere." He beckoned, fingers making a playful show of a blaze while his eyes shone so brightly, so happily, Franklin was terrified of not being able to find such a gift. He teetered towards his uncle, settled on his lap even though he wasn't the one asking for a gift and Uncle Johnny looked around. "What do I want for Christmas?" He leaned in to whisper, all smiles.

(Uncle Johnny had a special smile, many kinds of smiles. One of Franklin, one for when he was in trouble, one for girls, one for cameras, one for when he looked at a golden ring that now made even Franklin want to cry, one for Uncle Peter, a smirk and a different kind for his friend Bobby that usually came with a wink or nudge. This smile was closer to the Franklin smile, but better. This smile made his heart swell.)

"Nothing. I have everything I could possibly want."