Cause and Effect (Fantastic Four, M)

[groundcontrol]

Hello!  

Ten guesses what brought me to write this fic? If you guessed a certain Welsh actor and the recommendation of the lovely Wig_Powder, you're correct on both counts. Thanks, Wig! The Fantastic Four movie was a lot of fun, and so was writing this little one-shot about it. Hope someone out there enjoys!

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Reed Richards couldn't sleep, and whenever he couldn't sleep, he worked. Lucky for him he had things to work on, such as his data from his newest experiments on how different types of materials could best withstand cold temperatures. His encounter at Von Doom’s hands had already done enough damage, nearly causing the deaths of his teammates and leaving him with what was shaping up to be a spectacular head cold. He could not afford any more weaknesses like this, and so the moment he'd gotten home he'd started to work. 

Sue had found him in his lab the morning after. Everyone besides Reed had collapsed into bed upon arriving at the Baxter Building, and so Reed had been left to his own devices. He couldn't say he hadn't thought about joining them, but he had work to do, things to fix that wouldn't be fixed on their own. Sue had taken one look at the shadows beneath his eyes and dragged him to bed, and Reed had been much too tired to protest. But he had only slept for an hour or two before he was forced awake by nightmares of Von Doom, the chair, Sue’s strangled gasps as Victor took hold of her…

And so Reed had crept out of his bedroom, and gone to the place that always offered him solace: his laboratory. He dove so deeply into his work that any unpleasant thoughts or memories couldn't swim enough to find him. He set up monitors to record the acceleration of various particles of material when exposed to different temperatures and transmit it to his computers to graph the data. He had been working on the experiment for the whole day; it was past midnight already, but he had so far yet to go. 

“Heh’tchoo!” While work kept his mind off troubling matters, his cold wouldn't be kept at bay. When his shivering had caused his hands to tremble and break a flask, he had gone to his room and pulled comforter from his bed, wrapping it around himself like a cocoon. He hadn't been feeling right since he'd been frozen, but as of now he felt downright awful, head pounding, throat more raw with each swallow. 

“Heh’eh’eshoo!” And the sneezing. His attention was being drawn away from the task at hand with more and more frequency by these inconvenient expulsions, and with this in mind he decided it would be best to leave further hands-on experimentation for a time when his hands were less occupied tending to his drippy nose. 

Reed sat down to his computer to go over the graphs he had been able to create. Acceleration vs. time, even intervals, he scribbled down in his notebook. He had taken to keeping the hand that was not occupied with a pen stuffed full of tissues. He brought that hand to his face and smothered a few sneezes into it. He sniffed miserably but looked up quickly; he had to keep writing straightaway or he'd lose his train of thought. Now the data points gathered from the acceleration tests graphed to be a smooth function over the interval of time he was concerned about, so using Simpson’s rule would provide a good estimate of the velocity, and perhaps then he could come up with an equation...

“Reed?”

He looked up at the sound of his name, finding that Ben was behind him. Right behind him. Reed was slightly disconcerted that he hadn't heard his approach. It was one thing to be startled by Sue’s gentle footsteps, but to be caught off guard by Ben was another matter entirely. 

“Finally, I was afraid you'd gone deaf,” Ben said. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I thought you were too.”

“Went to get a glass of water and I thought I heard something in here.” He squinted as he looked at Reed. “You don't look so good.”

“Ahh’ksshh!” Reed sneezed and rubbed his nose with the tissues, giving a rueful laugh and admitting, “I’m not feeling very well either.”

“Then why are you working?”

“It's just a cold.” He broke off to cough and sniffle. Ben glared at him. “A miserable one, I grant you, but I've had worse, and there's work to be done. You know, when I was seventeen I gave a presentation on the effects of acid rain on ant colonies to a committee while I had pneumonia, and I turned out fine.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ben grumbled under his breath, but the glare Reed shot him showed he had heard. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Reed sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll come, just let me finish up here--”

Ben snatched the paper from under Reed’s nose. “Oh no you don't. I've known you all my life, Reed. You never finish, you just start something else.”

Reed blinked, his sluggish mind taking a few moments to process what had happened. “My notes!”

“Don't worry, they'll be safe on this shelf until your cold’s gone.”

“But I'll have forgotten all my ideas by then! I need--eehh’TSCH!” Reed buried his nose in his tissues, groaning ever so slightly and closing his eyes against his mounting headache.  

“Trust me, you won't forget. I don't think you're physically able.”

“Ben, please, just let me finish my notes.”

Ben tried a different tactic. “Sue’s exhausted, but I have no problem waking her up right now if that's what it's gonna take to get you to take care of yourself.”

Reed held up his palms in surrender, owing much to the fact that he was too spent to keep fighting any longer. “Fine, fine, just don't wake her. She deserves a good sleep.”

“As do you. We need to take your temperature first of all, and don't say you're fine or I'll waltz on down to Susie's, capisce?"

Reed sighed. “Alright.”

“Where are you going?” Ben growled, irritated that Reed had managed to brush past him and was now heading deeper into the lab. 

“To get a thermometer.” He pulled one from his station with the flasks. 

“That's for chemicals, Reed.”

“It should do the purpose.” Reed blushed slightly. “I--I don't have any others.”

“I'm going out today to buy you a good, honest-to-God thermometer. Happy early birthday. In the meantime, use that I guess.”

Reed put the thermometer beneath his tongue, feeling spectacularly awkward and useless standing there while Ben looked on. Noting the scientist’s unease, he gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. 

When the time was up, Reed removed the thermometer with a chuckle. “100.9, that's hardly--”

“A healthy temperature.”
Reed sighed. “I’ve had worse. When I was doing research on the effects of a new synthetic form of aspirin on mice in college, I performed a biopsy on a baby mouse--”

“Let me guess, with a 103 degree fever,” Ben grumbled.

Reed blushed. “104 actually.”

“Jesus, Reed.” Ben shook his head. “Well, now that you have people surrounding you at all times who actually care about your wellbeing, you’re not gonna be pulling a stunt like that any time soon, you hear? Now, go change into something more comfortable than that lab coat and go to bed.”

Reed nodded, and headed toward the bathroom to get his robe, as he didn’t think his pajamas alone would be warm enough to chase away his chills.

“You don’t have to follow me,” he told Ben, feeling embarrassed.

“Your stories of all the times you nearly worked yourself to death didn’t exactly give me a boost of confidence that you weren’t gonna turn around and go right back to the lab as soon as I left.”

Reed colored again, but dodged the truth lurking in the statement. “Almost worked myself to death? If you really want to know--”

“You know what?” Ben cut him off. “I don’t think I do.”

Reed had to stop halfway through putting on the bathrobe. “Heh’issh! Heh’TSCHH!” He sneezed into the arm that was in the robe sleeve. “Oh no.” He sniffed hard. “I left the tissues in the lab.” He sniffed again, his blush growing deeper in horror as his nose ran freely in front of Ben.

“I’ll get some for you,” Ben said, patting Reed on the shoulder. “In the meantime, hop into bed.”

Reed climbed into bed and let out a small groan of relief as his body reclined into the softness of the mattress. He pulled the covers around him, still sniffling, and hoped that Ben would come back soon. He wasn’t sure he could stay awake much longer.

Thankfully, Ben appeared before Reed could shut his eyes. Reed made good use of the tissues and Ben set the box on his nightstand. “Need anything else?”

Reed made a sound, halfway between ‘no’ and a grunt. Ben seemed to understand, and headed for the doorway.

“Thank you, Ben,” Reed murmured drowsily.

“Anytime, Reed,” Ben said. “Anytime.”

Ben was halfway down the hallway to his own room when he ran into something. Sue appeared in front of him after a moment, hair mussed and eyes sleepy. 

“Didn’t see you there,” he said, and she half-yawned, half-chuckled. “What are you doing up?”

“Were you talking out here? I thought I heard something.”

“Yeah, it’s…” Ben briefly contemplated lying, knowing Sue would get worked up at the briefest mention of Reed, but he decided that she would be even more worked up if she found out he knew something and didn’t tell her. “I was convincing Reed to stop experimenting and go to bed. He’s sick.”

As predicted, Sue’s eyes widened. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just a cold, but you know him. He’d work until he keeled over dead, and then he’d probably sit right back up and pick up where he left off.”

Sue laughed at that, but her eyes still held concern. “You’re right. Has he told you about the time he had food poisoning and still insisted on being at a product expo for one of his artificial intelligence machines?”

“No,” Ben said, thinking it prudent not to mention the other times he knew of in which Reed had made questionable choices regarding his health. That was a matter best suited to another time, when Reed was up to having a bit of sense knocked into him.

Sue laughed again, and shook her head. “It was when we were dating the-the first time. I was at work when I got a call from someone at the expo saying that Reed had fainted and I needed to pick him up.”

Ben shared his own smile at this. “Seems like a typical Reed thing to do, huh?”

Sue looked in the direction of Reed’s bedroom. “Is he still awake?”

“I don’t know. He was pretty wiped out by the time I got him in there.”

“I’m going to go check on him,” Sue said. “Go ahead and go to bed. There’s no sense in all of us being up.”

Ben nodded, but stayed where he was until Sue had tiptoed into Reed’s bedroom. The sound of coughing assured him that Reed was in fact awake, but the sound of Sue’s loving whispers immediately afterward assured him that Reed was in good hands. Ben turned in the direction of his own room, nodding to himself. Reed wouldn’t be going near his lab equipment anytime soon, now that Sue was onto him, and it was high time Ben got some sleep himself. 

 

[Wig_Powder]

I'm such an enabler...I'm both sorry and not sorry for this.

This is really sweet! Ben's concern and tough love strategy feels just right for the character, and Reed's ignoring his health for the sake of science feels right too. Or maybe that's just because I feel like that's what Horatio Hornblower would do, and since they're both played by the same actor...?

At any rate, lovely ficlet! Poor Reed needs all the TLC he can get.

[AngelEyes]

Love this. Love all the stories of Reed ignoring his health in order to work to try and justify that he's really not that bad right now. LOL

[snowshie]

I'm a sucker for idiot characters who never practice self-care - it creates a perfect scenario for others to do it for them! Haha. This is so lovely. I adore Ben strong-arming Reed into going to bed, and Reed just geeking out over previous fails. Too sweet. 😍

[groundcontrol]

@Wig_Powder Don't be sorry! It was fun to write. I'm glad the characters feel right to you. Reed and Horatio are quite similar in some ways, not just because of the actor, right? Maybe that's why I like them both...

@AngelEyes Thank you! Glad you enjoyed. I feel like Reed would pull these kinds of stunts haha.

@snowshie Couldn't have said it better myself! Thanks for reading!