Jay felt every eye in the room on him. His stomach twisted, but there was no backing down now. Not after coming this far.
"Alright, you want to know how my powers really work?" He gestured at the depowered heroes around him. "I absorb abilities from people. Permanently. But I'm not some endless black hole... there's a limit to what I can hold. I gotta choose what I take because once it's mine?" He shrugged helplessly. "It's gone from you forever."
The silence that followed was deafening. Ben's partially rocky face gave nothing away, those familiar orange eyes unreadable as his powers flickered weakly under Jay's suppression.
Jay pressed on, knowing he had to get this all out. "Look, I wanted to help Ben get back to normal. But I couldn't just walk up and ask to borrow his powers so I could turn into the Thing myself. What do you think would've happened?"
"I would've decked ya before you finished talkin'," Ben growled, his voice carrying that familiar gravelly rumble even in his weakened state.
"Exactly." Jay nodded. "So I had to take the long way around. Get stronger first, upgrade what I could do, then use everything I learned to give you something better than what you lost."
That's when Sue completely lost it.
"Why didn't you just ASK us?" The words came out strangled with hurt, rage and trust crumbling in real time. "We would've helped! We trusted you, Jay! We brought you into our home, treated you like..." She paused, the word catching in her throat. "Like family."
Past tense. The way she said it hit Jay harder than any physical blow could have. He could see it in all their faces now... whatever bond he'd built with the Fantastic Four was gone, snuffed out like Johnny's flames.
"Sue, I..." Jay started, then stopped. What could he possibly say? "I'm sorry. I know that doesn't mean much now, but I am. I can't explain this in a way that'll make it right, but I can still keep my promise to Ben."
"Don't." Sue's voice was ice cold. "Don't you dare try to make this about helping Ben when you've been lying to us this whole time."
But Jay was already moving toward Ben, who immediately coiled like a spring ready to snap. The big guy might be weakened, but he was still dangerous.
"Back off, kid!" Ben's Brooklyn accent got thicker the way it always did when his emotions ran high. "I don't need your pity, and I sure as hell don't need your help!"
When Jay didn't stop, Ben swung at him with everything he had left. Without his full strength, the movement was clumsy, almost pathetic. But the fury behind it was real enough.
"I ain't your charity case!" Ben snarled as Jay easily caught his fist.
"I know you're not," Jay said quietly, feeling the tremor in Ben's weakened hand. "But I can't let your pride stand between you and the life you really want. Not when I can actually do something about it."
"What life?" Ben's orange eyes blazed with humiliation and rage. "What are you talkin' about?"
"The life with Alicia." Jay's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Come on, Ben. What happens when you two want to get married? When you want kids someday? What about holding her hand without worrying you'll crush every delicate bone in her fingers?"
Ben went completely rigid. The anger drained from his face, replaced by something raw and desperate.
"Shut your mouth!" The words came out choked, and Ben lunged forward.
Jay was ready for him. He caught Ben's head gently in both hands before the charge could connect, stopping the big guy's momentum without hurting him.
Reed started forward instinctively, but Sue grabbed his arm. Whatever anger she felt toward Jay, she wasn't about to stop him from helping Ben.
Ben struggled weakly in Jay's grip, but there was no real fight left in him. "What are ya gonna do to me, kid?" he whispered, his voice shaking as he felt something starting to shift inside him.
"I'm giving you back your choices, Ben," Jay said softly, his own voice thick with the weight of what he was about to attempt. "This might feel strange, but I promise you... it won't hurt."
Jay's power went deeper than simple suppression this time. Way deeper than he'd ever gone before. Using every technique he'd absorbed from Sage, he reached into Ben's cosmic radiation-twisted DNA and began the most delicate work of his life. Instead of stealing the mutation like he normally would, he did something far more complex. He rewrote the genetic triggers themselves, carefully installing mental switches that would let Ben control his transformations at will.
It was like performing microsurgery on the building blocks of life itself. Jay poured every ounce of his concentration into it, sweat beading on his forehead from the sheer effort.
"Kid... what are you doing to me?" Ben's voice was barely a whisper now, filled with wonder and fear as he felt something fundamental shifting deep inside his cells.
"I'm giving you a choice, Ben. Your choice, always. "Jay admitted.
The change started small. Tiny hairline fractures appeared in Ben's rocky exterior, spreading like spider webs across his orange skin. Then it picked up speed, the cracks widening and spreading in waves across his massive frame.
But the orange stone didn't crumble or shatter like everyone expected. Instead, it seemed to dissolve, melting away like ice under a warm sun to reveal the flesh underneath. Ben's hulking proportions gradually shrank back to normal human size, muscle and bone restructuring themselves in real time.
"Oh my God," Reed breathed, his scientific mind struggling to process the impossibility unfolding before him.
Johnny moved closer, his usual wisecracks nowhere to be found. "Is it really working?"
"Look at him," Sue whispered, her anger temporarily forgotten in the face of this miracle.
For the first time in nearly a year, Benjamin Grimm stood before them as just Ben. Regular, flesh-and-blood Ben.
He stared down at his hands like they belonged to someone else, turning them over and over with growing wonder.
"I can see them," he said, his voice filled with amazement. "The lines in my palms, the creases, the fingerprints... Jesus, I forgot I had fingerprints."
His voice was different too. Still gravelly from decades of cigars and Brooklyn streets, but human. Completely, impossibly human. Ben touched his own face with trembling fingers, feeling warm skin instead of cold, hard stone.
"It's really me," he whispered. "Sweet Mary and Joseph... it's really me."
That's when the toughest guy from Yancy Street, the man who'd faced down Gamma monsters and cosmic storms without flinching, completely broke down.
Ben's legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees as if his strings had been cut, his whole body shaking as months of suppressed grief and longing poured out like a dam bursting. The raw emotion was so intense it made everyone step back, giving him space to fall apart.
"I can feel the floor," he gasped between sobs, pressing his palms against the cold metal decking. "Actually, feel how cold it is against my skin. It's been so long since I could feel temperature through my hands."
He touched his wet cheeks in wonder. "And when I cry, the tears are warm. God, I forgot they were supposed to be warm."
Ben kept flexing his fingers, marveling at the simple movement without the grinding sound of stone against stone that had become the soundtrack of his existence.
The Fantastic Four immediately surrounded their friend. Reed dropped to one knee beside him, his scientific mind warring with his heart. Sue knelt on Ben's other side, tears streaming down her face. Johnny crouched nearby, his usual wisecracks nowhere to be found as his own eyes grew wet with tears.
"Human," Ben repeated the word like he was tasting something precious he'd thought was lost forever. "Yeah, Reed. For the first time in almost a year... I'm human again."
Jay's suppression field flickered once and died completely as he exhausted himself. Around the room, everyone else's powers slowly began trickling back online. The familiar hum of energy filled the air, but nobody seemed to care about their returning abilities. All eyes remained on Ben.
Through his tears, Ben looked up at Jay with an expression that mixed gratitude with crushing betrayal. The kid had lied to them, manipulated them, put them all through hell... and then handed Ben back his entire life.
"You son of a bitch," Ben said quietly, his voice rough with conflicting emotions. "I don't get you, kid. I really don't. You lie to us for months, trick us, make us think you're gonna die on us... and then you turn around and give me back everything I thought I'd lost forever."
Ben wiped his eyes with the back of a normal, flesh-and-blood hand, still marveling at the simple gesture.
"How am I supposed to hate you now?" he asked, his voice breaking slightly. "How can I feel anything but grateful when you just handed me my whole damn life back? When you gave me the chance to hold Alicia properly again?"
Jay had no answer for that. What could anyone possibly say? Some gifts were too big for words, too important for explanations or apologies.
Bobby moved closer to Jay's side, the old soldier's weathered face showing deep respect. "You did good, son," he said quietly, his own voice rough with emotion.
The room fell quiet except for Ben's gradually subsiding sobs and the soft murmur of family coming back together. Everyone was still trying to process what they'd witnessed. Jay had given Ben something beyond price, beyond measure... something that couldn't be bought or earned or stolen.
He'd given him hope. He'd given him a choice. Most importantly, he'd given him back his humanity without taking away his ability to be the hero people needed him to be.
It was, perhaps, the most perfect gift anyone had ever received.
[A/N]: I write across multiple fandoms. Support my writing and get early access to 45+ chapters, exclusive content, and bonus material at my P@treon - Max_Striker.