in technicolor

“Mahoney?”

Brett wrenched his face off his desk and, after briefly being surprised at the fact that he was sitting at said desk, squinted up into Ellen’s eyes.

“Sup?” he slurred.

“Maynard,” she said simply.

“You’ve been here for going on sixty hours,” Maynard rattled off from behind the wall of binders stacked up on the intersections of their desk dividers. “You’re done, man. Go home. Captain’s orders.”

Bullshit. Brett could do this all day.

Ellen started to say something but a sudden bluster of whispering and rustling dragged her and Brett’s and Maynard’s attention away from each other and back towards the station door. A flurry of activity kicked up, and Brett’s fuzzy brain had just activated the muscles to make him frown when the Captain strode out from behind his office door.

Brett snapped up in his seat then.

“Hush,” the Captain ordered everyone. “Stand back, what does this look like, the zoo?”

The flurry by the door settled down and recoiled. Bodies returned to desk clusters; asses replanted themselves were they’d been before, and Brett died a little inside at what stood before him.

“Please tell me this is a dream,” he begged Maynard out of the corner of his mouth.

“You’re off the clock,” Maynard mumbled back. “Go. Go, while you still can, Simba.”

Fuck.

Okay, easy now. Maybe they were like pigeons—if Brett just moved slowly enough, he’d be invisible.

“You got this, Mahoney,” Ellen whispered.

Thanks, girl; also shut up, pigeons aren’t deaf.

He made it nearly to the door. So close. So, so close. But then the little one—it was always the goddamn little one—noticed him.

Brett nearly slammed his back into a cabinet, but it was too late. The damage had been done.

The little one’s eyes popped open and a finger came up, but, to Brett’s shock, just as the kid made the start of a vowel-sound, his sister reached back and wrapped a whole hand over his face. She jerked it forward.

Johnny Storm wriggled in her grip.

Brett felt so strongly for him in that moment, it was like he had heartburn.

Sisters, man. Brutal in every possible way.

“We came as soon as we heard there’d been another one,” Doctor Reed Richard’s rich baritone said at the front of the F4’s little formation. Susan Storm tipped her head in acknowledgement towards the Captain. Johnny Storm broke free of her grip just in time for it to be replaced by Ben Grimm’s.

Grimm’s hands were a restraint ten times more effective than Susan Storm’s sisterly gaze. Johnny Storm became immediately immobilized and pissed right off about it.

“Thank you for taking the time,” The Captain said as though no one was witnessing a child in distress before them. “I’m sure you have more important things to do.”

“No one is too big or small if they need help,” Reed Richards said.

Johnny Storm stomped on Ben Grimm’s foot and then went completely still.

The tension in Brett’s back was replace by a wave of pity. This poor little gremlin. Hadn’t thought that one through, had he?

“Come into my office,” the Captain said. “I’ll give you what we know. Mahoney, I see you. You’re out of here for the next eight hours minimum.”

Copy that, Captain.

“Get out.”

Brett was already gone.

Eight hours of sleep did wonders for a guy’s state of mind. The world was no longer vibrating when Brett returned to the station.

The hallucinations, unfortunately, were still present.

There was a little blue man sitting in his chair, violently spinning from side to side.

“Brett,” Maynard greeted.

The little blue man jerked to a halt.

Brett stared.

“This isn’t happening,” he said.

“Brett, be nice,” Ellen warned.

Hell no. Brett knew what was coming and he wanted at least time and a half for it.

“You’re Brett Mahoney,” the little blue man said. “I’ve heard about you.”

Johnny Storm. The Human Torch--more like matchstick, but okay sure, torch. Whatever they wanted.

He was real. Brett hadn’t dreamt him up yesterday.

“That’s my seat,” Brett said. “Did you need a coloring book or something?”

Johnny Storm cocked his head at him.

“Sue said to stay here,” he said like that was the end all be all of this discussion.

Brett deferred to Maynard.

“Johnny’s sixteen,” Maynard said.

Ah.

“But not very kidnappable,” Johnny told her in a tone that clarified for Brett everything happening at the moment.

There were ten kids now, all vanished. The breadcrumbs suggested that they were stolen. They ranged from age 12 to 19. Johnny Storm, bless this boy’s fiery heart, had been benched.

Not tall enough to ride this ride, huh, slugger?

“So they left him for me?” Brett asked exhaustedly.

“This is your desk,” Johnny informed him. “I found your business cards. I fixed ‘em for you.”

Brett turned his gaze back upon him.

“Did you now?” he deadpanned.

They were blue, weren’t they?

Johnny held up a fanned array of them. Each had ‘detective’ scratched out and ‘vampire hunter’ written on top in bubbly handwriting.

Ellen made a soft keening noise into her file folder that ended with a choking sound.

Brett took the cards.

“That’s very helpful,” he said. “You’re fired.”

The Captain was not sympathetic.

“Brett, you work with vigilantes day in and day out,” he said.

“This is not a vigilante, sir. This is a state-sanctioned superhero,” Brett said. “Look what he’s done to my cards.”

The Captain took them and worked his jaw.

He was making fun of Brett now, was he? Was everyone?

“Mahoney, it’s not a slight against you,” the Captain tried to say. “You’re great with kids. Spidey loves you. Johnny is just Spidey with an official seal on him.”

Oh really? Because Brett had known Peter for a minute now and not once had the kid vandalized his personal property.

“He’s a sweet boy,” the Captain said. “And for his own safety, he’s been excluded from a family affair. Try to sympathize a bit.”

“There are ten children missing, sir,” Brett said. “This is my case.”

“Well, right now, it’s the Fantastic Four’s case. And until they are done, your case is making sure Torchy doesn’t go put himself out in a fountain. Whatever it takes, Brett. Take him for a walk. Take him for a ride. Just don’t let him out of your sight.”

Brett felt his teeth threatening to crack in his jaw.

Ellen was showing Johnny how to make a swan out of a napkin when Brett emerged from the Captain’s office with the man’s booming laughter plastered against his shoulders.

“You,” he said. “Up. I’ve got a job for you.”

Johnny launched himself out of Brett’s desk chair like an excited retriever puppy.

“Is it catching the bad guys?” he asked. “Because I’m amazing at catching the bad guys. They see me comin’, but I leave ‘em no chance, Mr. Vamp.”

Mr…

No. Hell no. Fuck no. Brett wasn’t putting up with this for a second longer.

“Detective,” he corrected forcefully. “My name is Brett Mahoney. To you that is Detective Mahoney. And no, your job is not to go catch anyone. You’re four years old and prime real estate for this serial kidnapper. No, your job, Mr. Storm, is right here. You see these?” Brett held up a stack of paper thicker than 80% of his college textbooks.

Johnny blinked at him.

“Yes?” he said.

“Good. You’re gonna go through these and take out all the staples,” Brett told him. “And when you’re done with that, you’re going to get that shredder over there and shred each and every one of these papers. And then you’re going to take the pile you end up with and you’re gonna put it in the bin at the end of the hall. And when you’re done with that, we can maybe think about branching out. Any questions?”

Johnny’s lips sulked more with every word.

“Yeah, one,” he said.

“Go on,” Brett allowed.

“What crawled up your ass and died?”

Children were a scourge on humanity, Brett decided. They should be raised underground until they passed all their exams and then, and only then, should they be allowed up onto the surface to roll around on the grass or whatever it was that pretty athletic white boys did with their time.

Johnny Storm wasn’t ripe yet. Brett was sure of it.

He tried to set the whole pile of papers alight the second Brett took his eyes off him. Then he upended the shredder and stuck his fingers into the teeth. Then he tried to take the whole thing apart with a pair of scissors.

It was worse than watching a newborn.

“No,” Brett said for what felt like the thousandth time. “Teeth under. Twist. Pull. Staple goes here. In this cup.”

Johnny lifted big boo-boo eyes up to him like Brett had slapped him and put him in a corner for an hour.

“I don’t want to,” he whined.

Brett could not emphasize how little he cared.

“Why can’t I go with the others?” Johnny asked him for the billionth time.

“Because you’re four,” Brett told him for the equally billionth time.

“I’m sixteen.”

Four.

“Sixteen isn’t four. It’s four squared.”

Four.

“Spidey’s allowed to do this kind of thing.”

Brett’s neck stiffened and he caught himself without a response for that. Johnny glared at him.

“If I was a vigilante, I wouldn’t even be here,” he argued. “I’d be out there with the others.”

This was not an untrue statement, and Brett got the feeling from the set of those pale eyebrows that it was an argument had many a time in the Fantastic Four’s household. He didn’t really know what to say to it, except that it he could not be forced by any god to wade into the F4’s personal affairs. A man had to have his limits.

“Are you a vigilante?” he asked instead.

“I could be,” Johnny told him.

“But are you?” Brett asked.

“No.”

“Wow, really? Great. Then I don’t have to barter with you. Sit. Staples.”

Johnny took the staple remover from Brett’s hand and proceeded immediately to jab its teeth into his arm.

“Brett,” the Captain said. “I realize that you have a method of working with the vigilantes. But it’s not working here.”

Clearly not.

That little shit was bleeding like a stuck pig that was furious about still getting called in for jury duty the next day.

“Perhaps try being nice,” the Captain said. “Johnny’s not like Spidey. He’s mainstream. He’ll respond to positive reinforcement.”

Bribes.

“No, not bribes.”

Fine, Brett would bribe him.

“Mahoney, you’re not listening. It’s about tone. The less included he feels, the more likely he is to make a break for it.”

If the Captain knew teenagers so well, what on earth was stopping him from taking charge of this one to begin with?

“I’m leaving. If he gets unruly, have Ellen handle it.”

Sure, whatever.

“And be nice. I know you’re capable of it.”

Brett wouldn’t make any promises.

Johnny made it 4 hours and 21 minutes before his attention span found its end and he tried to run out into traffic. The only thing that saved Brett’s sanity in that moment was the knowledge that Matt’s sixth sense for official superbodies in his territory would get ahold of the kid if nothing else did.

Still, it took Brett, Ellen, Maynard, and Willows to coax Johnny out of the dumpster he’d jumped into and to afterwards drag him back to the station. They tossed him in the back room for a shower that he violently refused to endure.

He said he wanted to go home.

Home was within sight, he argued. And again—he wasn’t wrong. If Brett went up four stories and squinted, he could see the Baxter Building’s outline in the distance. But it was the principle of the thing.

The Captain’s orders were to keep the minor in the building. That was the principle.

The common sense that wafted breezily around that principle also helpfully reminded Brett that there was absolutely nothing at the Baxter Building that would keep this dwarf star from tearing out of the place to follow his sister the moment someone blinked for too long.

But with all that said, Brett managed to calm the rage in his mind. He decided to, for just a moment, put himself in Johnny’s shoes.

This was a kid, he told himself through deep breathing, who’s daily grind consisted of regularly and professionally being slammed into asphalt and glass windows. This wasn’t Spidey or DD or Ironman or whoever, who had a life outside of getting the stuffing beaten out of them. Johnny’s whole existence revolved around being a hero, and sitting in a police station while everyone else ran off to do the work that he was normally allowed and encouraged to do probably felt like warming the bench at a highschool basketball game.

Brett could not blame this child for his ire and frustration.

The Captain was right. There had to be another way to come at this situation.

“Alright,” he said to Johnny’s bare back at the foot of the work showers. “Alright, let’s start over.”

Johnny turned back to him with suddenly bright eyes. He didn’t stop evaporating the water droplets around him before they even hit him. The sudden twist also brought Brett face to face with something that launched every red flag in his brain.

Johnny Storm’s chest was covered in scars.

He had a thick piece of gauze stuffed into the tendon between his right pec and shoulder. It was pink and darkened around the edges.

He wasn’t just benched for being sixteen. He was injured.

That changed everything. Brett’s mind threw all previous ideas up into the air as brain-confetti and then scrambled all over the floor, lifting tiles in desperation of finding something under there that he could apply to this situation.

He cleared his throat.

“You eaten lunch yet?” he asked.

Ellen lifted an eyebrow and then side-eyed Brett. Brett could not for the life of him help her here.

“Do you not like cilantro?” he eventually found it in his soul to say.

Johnny’s head snapped up to him from his intense burrito-dissection.

“It’s Satan’s vegetable,” he said without missing a beat.

Right.

“You could have asked for a different salsa?” Brett offered him.

“No. I like the tomatoes.”

Of course. Just not the onions. Or the cilantro. Or any other part of the salsa.

“I like tomatoes,” Johnny said firmly.

Brett was at a loss. This whole thing felt eerily familiar.

“You know who does the exact same thing that you’re doing right now?” Brett asked.

“Ben,” Johnny said without looking up. “He doesn’t like cucumbers. He says that they should be banned in raw form in every country.”

…close but not quite.

“Try Spiderman,” Brett said. “He doesn’t like cilantro either.”

Johnny huffed.

“I know,” he said. “But he’s a jerk and we aren’t talking.”

Say what now?

“You two know each other?” Ellen asked. Maynard moved her soda away from the edge of the table and her elbow and Brett subconsciously did the same thing for Johnny’s Sprite.

“Sort of,” Johnny said irritably. “I tried to make friends with him a while back and he just hissed at me and told me to get outta his city.”

Peter, no.

“It’s not even his city. Manhattan’s a whole borough.”

Peter, you are not Matt, you little shit. Stop being a sponge.

“I barely even said anything to him and he decided that he hates me,” Johnny said, gradually ceasing his picking. His shoulders looked a little defeated, even the swollen one.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Maynard said diplomatically.

Brett thought that that was very optimistic of her, since Peter had recently watched a pack of feral raccoons duke it out on a fence and had decided to take notes. Brett had watched him sink his teeth into Wade Wilson’s fingers and nearly get suffocated in a truly toxic armpit for his trouble.

“I tried talking to Hawkeye the Younger, too,” Johnny said, “But she called me a ‘pretty boy amateur.’ And like, what am I supposed to say to that? ‘No, see, ma’am, you’re confused, I’m actually a pretty boy professional?’”

Bless. Brett would drink to that.

“They’re all wet blankets,” Johnny huffed. “No one wants to make a group chat or have memes with me.”

Aww.

Well, if that was what he wanted, then Brett had just the thing.

Sasha needed to calm down before she had an aneurysm and before Brett had one on her deathbed.

“You’re my favorite cousin the world,” Sasha told him seriously. “I would murder a thousand hens for you.”

Brett didn’t know what that meant.

“I tried to fight a goose once,” Johnny said brightly. “I lost.”

“ME TOO,” Sasha told him. “God, it’s like we’re twins.”

“We can be twins. I’ve always wanted a twin,” Johnny said.

Mom gave Brett eyebrows reaching for Daddy in Heaven. Her amusement was badly hidden.

Brett got a text from the Captain at 11 o’clock at night asking him where the actual fuck he had put Johnny Storm. His family was freaking out at the station.

Brett fired back a text explaining that the Captain hadn’t given him someone to hand the kid off to and, as a result, he was now eternally bonded with Brett’s cousin—separating them was going to be an extremely delicate and expensive operation that would require the expertise of at least four world-renowned specialists.

The Captain was not amused.

He said to bring Johnny back to the station now. Or else.

Sasha clung to her new-found brother when Brett relayed this news and Johnny clung right back to her. Amos adopted the role of ‘cherry on top’ when he sleepily scrambled into Johnny’s lap and said that Torchy couldn’t leave. He’d just gotten there.

Brett had to be the bad guy, but thankfully, Johnny didn’t seem to translate him as the party at fault here.

He put full and complete blame on his big sister, in true younger brother fashion.

“You’ve got my number,” he told Sasha at the door. “We can watch Titanic this weekend on stream. I think I’ve got Sunday off.”

“At 3?” Sasha nearly wept.

“On my life,” Johnny said.

Brett presented the youth to his family back at the station. Said family looked much less stiff and mechanical with a good layer of worry on top of them. Sue Storm’s hip jutted out dangerously enough to be a weapon.

“I asked for him to stay here,” she said tensely.

Brett shrugged.

“Kids are kids,” he said. “This one needs socializing.”

“I need socializing, Sue,” Johnny jabbed at her. “I found my twin.”

“You don’t have a twin. I ate him when you were two,” Sue Storm snapped.

“I knew it, you monster,” Johnny lamented.

“Thank you,” Reed Richards said to Brett sincerely. “Apologies for the brief panic. Last time we lost track of him, he, uh—”

“He buried himself,” Ben Grimm said, unbothered. “It was pretty good.”

“Bad,” Reed Richards correctly lightly.

“Dug a grave and everything,” Grimm hummed.

“Which was bad,” Richards reminded him.

“It was great,” Johnny chimed in. “Sue cried.”

He almost escaped the incoming face-grab. Almost.

Brett considered the group as a whole and nodded to himself.

Yeah. This was definitely a family. And he hoped that for their sake, Johnny grew up fast.