1 | Almost Happy ▷ Sam Wilson | ✓

3 - SIDE QUEST

NICKY WOKE TO THE SOUND OF SOMETHING HITTING THE GROUND. He groaned as he was shocked out of his dream—what it was, he couldn't remember—catching wind of the muffled sounds coming from Rhett's room. He sighed, shaking his head as he crawled out of bed, unable to go back to sleep.

Opening his door, he found that the noise was even louder. He felt his face grow warm as he neared the man's door, raising his hand, ready to knock and ask them to keep it down. Of course, just as he was about to, a feeling of guilt washed over him, causing him to drop his hand.

Rhett was finally happy now. For the longest time, the man had been just making his way through a world that hadn't remembered him in a life that wasn't what he had ever planned for himself. Steve was good for him. Steve was amazing for him, and he didn't want to take any part of that away.

So, despite the noise, Nicky headed back into his room. He had work to do anyways, and the hum of his computer fans would be more than enough to distract him from whatever it was Steve and Rhett got up to in the other man's room.

He sighed as he sat down at his desk, pulling out another roll of his graph paper. While it has been brought to his attention that he could get much more done with a drawing tablet and his computer screens than laboring over physical paper, he was much too sentimental and paranoid to change his ways and run the risk of getting hacked.

After the close call with Adrian Toomes, he didn't want anyone to ever catch wind of his side business ever again.

Speaking of business partners, before he was able to get started brainstorming—that was done in notebooks, but it was nice to have the paper out in front of him, it gave him motivation—he received a call from one of his burner cells.

"Hello," he greeted, immediately smiling despite no one being able to see him on the other end; people could always hear smiles.

"Green? It's Richards. You wanna drop by, we could use your help."

He grinned at the sound of the ever tired, but driven Reed Richards, a man whom he had befriended by accident. Their accounts on how they met were very different from each other's, so they've given up trying to get it right, but one thing they knew for certain was that Reed could not handle his alcohol and Nicky was most likely a thief in another life.

After affirming that he would be right there, he hung up, jumping to his feet and changing into more socially acceptable clothes. Meaning he threw on a maroon button up and a leather jacket Steve had given him on the grounds that he promise not to tell Rhett that he did, only remembering pants when he was just about to exit the loft.

"Where you going?" Rhett asked, peering out of his room, hiding the rest of his room from Nicky's gaze, not that he was even looking in the man's general direction.

"Manhattan. Baxter Building. How's Steve?" Nicky asked, jumping into the jeans which were, unfortunately, one of his tighter ones.

Rhett pulled back for a moment before reappearing. "I think I wore him out. Or he's just faking and I'm totally in for it once I close this door."

"Don't close it 'til I leave," Nicky commanded, "My virgin ears don't need that."

"I still don't get how you're a virgin—" Rhett began, and Nicky practically ran away, bolting out of the loft, stopping just to check that he had all his things and respond to Rhett's hurried 'stay safe!'

He loved Rhett, he really did, but sometimes the man wasn't as aware as he thought he was, which was no fault of his own; Nicky would talk to him about it someday, but not that day.

º º º

"Yo, Reed, why's there a cute guy asking for you?"

Nicky couldn't take his eyes off Johnny Storm. In all the years he had been working with the Fantastic Four, he'd never had the pleasure of meeting the boy in person, always handing over the weapons he made for him to Reed, going through the middle man to avoid being too connected and run the risk of making himself a target. So being in the teenager's presence was something of a pleasant surprise.