[A/N]: New week, new goal! Let's aim for 200 Power Stones and unlock TWO bonus chapters. You know the drill! Let's get this done quick and keep the streak going! đ„
Ben forced his characteristic grin back into place and lumbered out, and Domino followed.
As the door closed, Jay approached Sue's bedside. His hand began to glow with soft green light as he placed it on her belly. The healing aura spread through her system.
Sue's face relaxed slightly. She watched Jay's face, reading his micro-expressions. Her hand moved protectively over her belly.
"Well, Doc?" she asked. "How bad is it?"
Jay's healing aura pulsed. "Fetal heart rate is strong at 145. Amniotic fluid levels normal. You're at about four centimeters dilation, sixty percent effaced. Based on your contractions, I'd estimate active labor within a few hours." He paused. "But we need to talk about the cosmic radiation signature."
Reed's entire body went rigid. "Talk? What does 'talk' mean? Talk implies discussion. Discussion implies options. Options mean variables. How many variables? What did you detect about our son?"
Sue's free hand moved to her belly, rubbing slow circles even as another contraction built. "Reed," She gritted her teeth, breathing through the wave of pain. Her force fields flared, then settled. When she could speak again, her voice was firm but exhausted. "Calm. Down. Let Jay speak."
Jay pulled up a chair. "So, you guys already know the gender?"
Sue managed a laugh. "After seeing you surprise Scott and Jean mid-delivery, we figured it was wise to know beforehand."
"Yeah, that was probably smart." Jay scratched his head. "I kind of blurted that one out."
Jay leaned forward. "You know I know things, right?"
Sue's eyes narrowed sarcastically. "Oh, we haven't noticed at all. Not like you've been mysteriously knowledgeable about every major crisis before it happens."
"Point taken." Jay's expression grew grave. "What I'm about to tell you concerns your son."
The temperature dropped. Reed and Sue exchanged glances. Sue's hand pressed harder against her belly. She whispered to her stomach. "Mommy's here, baby. We're going to keep you safe."
Jay's next words came slowly, each one weighted with significance.
"Your son will be born a mutant. The cosmic radiation altered your genetics in ways that express differently in offspring. His powers won't be like yours. They won't be contained, controllable, or limited by the same physics that govern your abilities."
Silence stretched. Sue's breathing was the only sound that remained.
Reed's hands began to tremble. "Jay, what exactly are you saying?"
Jay met his eyes. "Your son will be one of the most powerful beings ever born on this planet. Possibly in this universe."
The words hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
Reed's scientific mind latched onto specifics. "How powerful are we talking?"
"A full-blown Reality-warper. I'm talking about the real thing. Not tricks or wistles, but the power to change everything. He can bend the world, rewrite it if he wants. It's unreal to think someone that small could hold something so impossible."
Silence crashed down as Sue's breath caught audibly.
Her hand stilled on her belly, then resumed its protective circles with renewed intensity. "My baby," she whispered. Reed's face cycled through expressions. Disbelief, calculation, fear, wonder, pride, and back to fear.
"That's not possible," Reed finally managed. "The cosmic rays altered our genetic structure, yes, but reality manipulation's still out of the scope that..."
He stopped. His hands began moving, fingers tracing calculations in the air as mathematical formulae spilled from his lips and formed on the pop-up holograms.
"Unless the cosmic radiation didn't just alter our genetics but fundamentally rewrote the base quantum interaction matrices in our reproductive cells, creating a cascade amplification effect, which would mean each successive generation compounds the power exponentially rather than diluting it, and if the baby's cells never had a human baseline, were always cosmically charged from conception, then the energy potential would be... oh God."
He continued for ten minutes. Equations poured out and his hands traced complex diagrams. Jay watched with something between amusement and respect. Even with Sage's enhanced processing and Taskmaster's ability to absorb information, keeping pace with Reed Richards in full genius mode was like drinking from a fire hose.
Reed's hands stopped mid-equation as they shook.
"I'm an idiot," Reed whispered. "The smartest man alive, and I'm a complete idiot. The signs were all there. Every reading and anomaly I dismissed as background noise. I told myself it was residual radiation, that it would normalize after birth. I wanted it to be normal so badly..." His body started stretching involuntarily. "I convinced myself everything was fine because I couldn't face the alternative. I failed you both before our son even took his first breath."
"You're right," he whispered. "Of course you're right. How could I miss it? The cosmic radiation signature I've been detecting for months, I thought it was just residual energy, background radiation that would dissipate after birth, but it's not residual, it's generative. Our son isn't just carrying cosmic energy, he's producing it. Actively. Right now. And once he's born, without Sue's body as a dampening field..."
"He'll flood the area with cosmic radiation." Jay's voice was quiet and clinical. "We're talking 500 to 800 rem within three meters. We know, 400 rem is enough to kill half of all exposed humans within thirty days. 600 rem is universally fatal without immediate treatment. Not immediately lethal to adults in short bursts, but during a prolonged delivery...Sue's force fields will protect her instinctively, but the stress of delivery combined with her powers trying to protect both her and the baby from his own emanations..."
"Could kill them both," Reed whispered.
Sue's face had gone pale as she looked down at her belly, at the life growing inside her. Her hand trembled slightly, but her voice was steady. "Then we find a solution. That's what we do. We're the Fantastic Four. We solve impossible problems before breakfast."
Sue's next contraction hit harder than before. She curled forward with a low, guttural sound. Her force fields expanded violently, nearly reaching the walls before she wrestled them back. The medical equipment shrieked alarms, and Reed's hands were on her immediately, one supporting her back, another checking monitors.
When she could speak again, her voice came out fierce despite the pain. "Our son is not going to die because we gave up. Do you hear me, Reed? We don't give up."
Reed turned to Jay. "How? How do you know all this?" His voice broke. "I've never asked, not once, not even after Doom accused you of being alien, not even when it became clear you knew things you shouldn't. But please, Jay, you must have a way to fix this. Please. Our son... we can't lose him before we even meet him."
A tear escaped down Sue's cheek. "Please. He's our baby. Our little boy. We've already picked out his room, painted it blue with little stars, bought him stuffed animals and books. Reed reads to him every night. He knows his father's voice. He kicks when Reed does the funny voices for Dr. Seuss. He's already a person, already our son, and I can't... I won't..." Her voice dissolved.
The raw desperation in the room was palpable. These weren't the Fantastic Four, heroes who'd saved the people countless times. These were just parents, terrified and helpless, facing the impossible.
Jay stood and moved to the room's console. "First, I need to tell you something. What I'm about to share must remain secret. Not SHIELD, not other heroes, no one. Understood?"
They nodded desperately.
Blue circuits rippled across Jay's hands. Recording devices shut down. Communication arrays went dark. Every electronic surveillance device in the room simply stopped functioning.
Reed's phone, buzzing incessantly, suddenly went silent. The SHIELD emergency message cut out mid-sentence: "...all available enhanced individuals report toâ"
Silence was all that remained.
"The reason I didn't have any documentation proving my existence less than a year ago, even after Doom publicly accused me of being an alien..." Jay turned to face them. "It's because I'm not from this universe."
The words hung in the air.
Sue's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Her mind raced through connections, impossibilities that suddenly made sense. "You're from another Earth? Another reality?"
"Yes."
"How many other Earths are there?"
"Infinite. More than infinite. Realities branch with every decision. Universes where Hitler won. Where humans never evolved. Where Reed became Doctor Doom instead of Victor."
Sue's eyes widened. Her mind raced backward through every interaction. Every knowing smile. Every mysterious appearance at exactly the right moment. "Oh my God. Of course. How did I not see it? It explains everything! The way you always seem three steps ahead, the knowledge of threats before they happen, the understanding of powers you should have no way of knowing..."
"The multiverse," Reed breathed. The elasticity of his body stabilized, his form solidifying as his mind found something concrete to grasp. "Multiversal travel. Actual physical, conscious transit between dimensional barriers." Questions poured out. "How did you achieve it? Quantum tunneling? Dimensional folding? The energy requirements alone would be..." He stopped. "Our son. You said you've seen this exact situation before."
"In another universe, yes. Different Earth, same problem." Jay continued. "In that reality, you solved this issue by traveling to the Negative Zone."
Reed's entire body went rigid. "The Negative Zone. You're serious? It actually exists?"
"A parallel dimension with inverted physical laws. Matter becomes antimatter and positive becomes negative." Jay manipulated the display. "In that universe, you retrieved something called a Cosmic Control Rod. The rod acts as a regulator, absorbing excess cosmic energy and redistributing it in controlled bursts."
Reed's hands were already moving, tracing calculations. "A dimension where positive and negative charges are reversed, which would create a natural energy sink, and if I could establish a stable portal using quantum tunneling mechanics, reinforce it with a Möbius strip configuration to prevent dimensional collapse, navigate through unknown spatial barriers without getting lost in infinite parallel realities..."
His voice climbed higher. "I'd need to build a portal generator from scratch, establish transit protocols, map the dimensional boundaries, account for potential hostile entities, develop protective equipment, and that's assuming I could even locate the Negative Zone among infinite possible dimensions, which would take months of calculations, possibly years of testing, and we have hours! HOURS before the baby is born and Sue..."
He broke as he collapsed to his knees.
Sue slid out of bed, ignoring the monitors that beeped in alarm. She was slower now, heavy with pregnancy and exhaustion, but determined. Amniotic fluid and sweat soaked through Reed's shirt as she wrapped her arms around him. She didn't care.
"Hey, it's okay. We'll figure this out. We always do."
"We don't have time! I failed you, Sue. I failed both of you."
"Reed," Jay said firmly. "I'm not suggesting that solution."
Reed's head snapped up, eyes red-rimmed. "Then what? WHAT?"
Another contraction seized Sue. This one was different and stronger.
"Whatever you're going to say," Sue gritted out, both hands now clutching her belly, her entire body tensed, "say it fast because he is coming whether we're ready or not!"
Jay took a breath. The weight of what he was about to offer settled over him like a physical thing.
The room held its breath.
Reed and Sue looked at him with desperate hope.
Jay's voice, when he finally spoke, was quiet but clear.
"I could just take away his powers."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Sue's face went white. "What?"
Reed's body went completely rigid. "Take away... you can't mean..."
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