Chapter Six, Guests.

Exactly a week later, Alfred informed us that Nathalie Rushman was looking to meet the team. Nathalie Rushman was a cover for Nathasha Romanov, also known as Black Widow. That meant that training would be beginning for real. While it was sometimes hard training under Sue's regimen, this will be hell. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time, I'm really not.

"Hello, I'm Nathalie Rushman, I'm your new public relations assistant." she says, looking at every member of the team. Sue seems a bit put off, Ben doesn't seem to care and Johnny is ecstatic, but tries -and spectacularly fails- to hide it.

"I didn't know we hired anyone," replies Susan. "Did my dad asked for you?"

"No, in fact, it was Mr. Richards. He looked for me about a week ago, I was busy at that time, but as soon as I heard, I couldn't delay and rushed here." she smiles, looking at me. Damn, I feel Sue glaring at me, while Ben snickered.

"Ms. Rushman, or Ms. Romanov rather, please don't embarrass me like that. Johnny, Ben, Sue, this is our new fighting and spy trainer, infamously known as Black Widow. Fury agreed to send her as well as someone else, but it seems we won't be seeing him yet."

"Mr. Richards, please don't reveal a girl's secrets like that, it's unbecoming." She says, looking bashful. I sigh. Sue is still not entirely convinced. "Anyway," she continues, and her face becomes more serious. "All of you, except Ms. Storm, failed the first test. Mr. Richards is different, since he cheated. Only Susan was suspicious of my identity. Benjamin wasn't interested, and Johnny was too focused on something else. On two things in particular. You're going to have to learn some restrain, or you'll be eaten up and or manipulated very easily. Training starts tomorrow at 6 for everyone. I'm going to find myself a room, and check out the building security. Mr. Richards, if you could give me authority over the AIs." she says, and leaves the room. A small period of silence accompanies her exit.

"I want one." says Johnny.

"You didn't hear anything she just said, did you?" Ben snickered again.

"Alfred, approve her request. And Johnny, you can't handle her. No one can."

"And you would know, wouldn't you, Mr. Richards." she says, sarcastically imitating Black Widow's bashful tone. I can't help but sigh again.

"Sue, she's a superspy, her goal is to destroy and create tension. I've never seen her before, other than in my dream." as soon as I finished that sentence, I knew that I f*cked up.

"Oh, so you dream about the super-hot-spy, huh? Well, I think she found where to sleep. She can sleep with you tonight, on the couch." she shouts, and leaves before I have the time to say anything. Ben laughs, and Johnny snickers.

"Hey…" Johnny starts.

"Don't." I interrupt, leaving the room to find Sue and explain everything... After finding her, I explained myself, and apologized for everything (when in doubt, apologize), she finally started to accept the idea that I didn't betray her, and released me from her psychic bubble.

The next day, training started in full. Individual exercises dedicated to push each of us to our limits, while at the same time explaining theories concerning intelligence gathering, strategy, spywork, deceit, and a number of other subjects. She let us rest and do our own thing in the afternoons. This went on for three weeks, every day, even on weekends. She drilled us harder and harder.

She designed a special training for Johnny, in which she seduced him, and as soon as he reacted, tased him. It was enjoyable to watch him suffer a bit, until Sue pinched my sides. I don't know how it works, but even in my 'plastic' form, she still manages to hurt me with that pinch. And so, three weeks later, she called for us.

"Today is a special day, I have a guest to teach you in combat. You might know him from the stories and comics, Steeeeve Rogers! Come in, Captain America!" she shouts, clapping.

"Do you really have to do that every time?" the soldier from another time comes in. "It's really embarrassing, you know?" he says. "Hi everyone, I'm Steve. I'll be training you in combat, one on one and as a group." Johnny, Ben and Sue's mouths are wide open. Despite hearing about him from me, it's still another story when an actual legend is in front of him.

"Hi, I'm Reed Richards, this is Susan and Johnny Storm and Benjamin Grimm. It's an honor." I say, presenting the team and shaking his hand.

"Oh, wow, I'm such a fan! Sue and I have been reading comics about you since we learned how to read! Right, Sue?" Johnny says, shaking his hand for a while. Sue is still agape, and now blushing a little.

"Humm… I…. Hi, I'm… Captain America…. I mean, you're Captain America… I'm Susan-Sue, I'm Sue…" she says, stuttering and blushing hard. Ben comes up, Steves prepares to shake his hand, but Ben transforms back to stone.

"Are you okay?" Steve says, concerned. "Does that happen often?" he asks.

"Sorry, I… I thought I had it handled…" Ben says, recoiling in fear.

"Don't worry, son, if you're okay, that's all that matters." Steve presses forward, and shakes Ben's hand. "I'm sure you'll get it under control in no time."

"I knew it…" Natasha whispers, snickering on the side. "Okay people, Steve will be here three times a week until he says you're ready. I have a thing starting this evening which will take me about a month, so you're on your own starting tonight. To celebrate, you're going to show Steve what you can do. All day long. Aren't you happy? Where's my 'thank you Aunt Nat'?" All our faces turn to despair. She approaches Johnny, takes him by the neck. "I said: Where's my thank you?"

"Ow, ow, ow… Thank you Aunt Nat, we love you Aunt Nat!!!"

"You're welcome Johnny. Ben, Sue, Mr. Richards?" she asks, looking at each of us with fire in her eyes

""Thank You Aunt Nat! We Love You Aunt Nat!!!"" we all said at the same time, shouting our hearts out.

"That's better," she smiles. "Let's go." with that, we follow after her, Steve Rogers in tow. We get to the floor dedicated to group fighting, basically a blank room with reinforced tiles on every surface. Each of us show what we're capable of. First just hand-to-hand combat without any powers against Natasha, then a basic demonstration of our powers, before associating the two and fighting against each other.

Natasha asked Johnny to go first, and to his credit, he lasted way longer than usual before wiping the floor with his face. He then showed his degree of control over his flames, being able to light every part of his body individually, from his tiny toe to his entire body. Johnny "flamed on" and did a short flight demonstration around the room. He also started turning Super-Nova, until Alfred said the temperature was affecting the room's

structural integrity, which forced him to power down a bit. He showed off his fireball throwing ability, the fact that he could control their directions after being launched a slight bit, and a sort of flamethrower for a good twenty seconds straight. He then got to the side to recover.

Sue went second, fighting for a slightly shorter time before being thrown away by a well-placed Judo throw. The oldest Storm sibling then displayed her ability to turn any part of herself invisible or transparent at will, before becoming completely invisible. For the rest of the exercise, she demonstrated a few ways her psionic skills had developed, levitating herself and flying around the room. She lifted everyone at the same time, and threw Ben around in his rock form a bit. She put up a shield, which was tested by a laser turret for thirty seconds before the turret overheated. Sue also created a number of force fields, all being different shapes and sizes. Normal shapes like flat squares or circles, three-dimensional structures as well as a few imitations of objects such as a simple knife or a couple of escrima sticks. Natasha smiled at that, as Susan was the only one of us that really stuck to a weapon of some sort.

For Ben's turn, he decided to reverse the order, so he demonstrated his strength and abilities first before fighting Natasha. His durability was tested by a couple of laser turrets firing at him until they inevitably overheated as well. Ben went on to show his superior strength, by opening the elevator doors and lifting the elevator by pulling on its cable, with what seemed like barely any effort. He came back, stood at the opposite end of the room and clapped his hands with force, creating a small shockwave around him. To return towards us, he did a large jump, crossing the room in a flash, and making the floor quake a bit when touching down. Ben then focused, transforming back into himself, to fight against Black Widow. Even in normal form, his punch packed a lot, and despite the force behind his hits, Natasha put an end to the fight pretty quickly, coiling around him and throwing him to the floor while still holding his arm with her infamous scissor takedown.

Finally, it was my turn. The fight against Natasha lasted about as long as Sue's, but instead of being thrown, taken down or wiping the floor, I ended up being sucker-punched almost unconscious while wrestling her. After catching my breath for a few seconds, I demonstrated my flexibility, turning parts and my entire body to an almost fluid-like state, filling and sliding around in a container that Sue created. The container was composed of tubes in different orientations and 'boxes' of weird shapes. After getting out, I pulled my right arm a bit, turning it around and around, before 'throwing' a punch across the room. I also twisted my body around on itself, before letting it spin back around with my arms out, like a human-shaped top. The last two things I did was a couple of sling-shots, first solo, before I asked Ben a hand, and finally I modified my body and face a bit, to try and look like Steve. The overall result was there, but the details were lacking quite a lot.

Captain America was satisfied with what he saw. "Great! With this, I know what I'm going to work with individually. Your abilities are all very varied and different, it's amazing. I'm sorry, but I'm going to ask you to fight a bit against each other. First one on one, two on two, and then you'll end the fight with a bit of a showcase of things you can do as a team." Instead of actual fights, what we did was a number of exchanges with our powers, with one of us defending and the other attacking, before switching around the roles and later the partners. It was to show how we could handle each other's powers, as well as our understanding of them. With that part done, we went on with the two on two 'fights'. Sue and Johnny's affinity was the best, with Sue and mine being second. Johnny and Ben's affinity was the worst, but even then, they worked pretty well together. Not excellently but sufficiently.

For the final showcase, Sue levitated us into the air, I stretched to a sling-shot like form which Ben pulled back, and Johnny settled as the projectile, turning to flames when Ben launched him by letting me go. His blow on the ground made the floor quake, while a couple of tiles around him had singed. Steve applauded, while Natasha nodded slightly. "Alright, thank you very much. You guys have all the basics covered, which is great. You can work in pairs and as a team pretty well, and your individual strength is nothing to scoff at either. I'll be working individually with each of you, to try and find fighting styles that correspond with your abilities and skills. We'll see about group fighting a bit later. For now, I think it's almost time to eat, so if you want you can rush to the showers and we'll take a few pizzas together once you're done. Sounds good?" The four of us, tired and sweating, nodded excitedly… Eating pizzas with The Super Soldier!

After a quick shower and an undisclosed number of pizzas (No. Don't ask. It's better for everyone if you don't), we ended up talking about ourselves, but mostly listening to war stories from Steve. Inspiring us to do the right thing rather than mindlessly acting, to think about strategy instead of just punching our way through. Most of us knew that, but it still made Johnny a bit reflective. We heard the whole Captain America origin story, with the Tesseract part left out. It's still considered a SHIELD secret after all, and it didn't affect the story much anyway. His story captivated all of us, and certain elements really got us invested in it.

Sue was interested in the super serum and vita rays. Ben and Johnny wanted more details about Steve's bike and the bomber plane, but for the latter they restrained from asking as Steve looked unsettled while narrating that part of his story. I was really impressed by the extent to which Cap and his team planned their attacks on the Hydra strongholds. Natasha seemed bored, like she heard it all a hundred times before. At some points, she even mimicked him and 'lip-synced' along a few times.

"Alright children, Mr. Richards, Steve and I are going, so go to bed early and don't do what I would do, which is sneak out past your bedtime to go to clubs. I would be very proud if you did, but I can't tell you that. That would be very bad if I did tell you that SHIELD had prepared fake IDs and that I forgot to keep them in a safe box and instead just put them on my bedside table. Very bad indeed." Steve sighed.

"Natasha…" he said.

"What?" she asked. "I haven't even told them about the underground special party three buildings down the lane, I'm that good at keeping secrets." she smiled. Steve sighed again.

"I'll be seeing you three days later, keep up the training. I'm taking her with me, so she doesn't 'not' tell you anything else. Have a good night." After the two left, Ben was the first to talk.

"You do you, guys, parties are not really my thing. I'll be working on stuff upstairs."

"I call shotgun on the fake IDs," said Johnny, already moving towards the elevator.

"You know, there's a good chance she said that to mess with us and that her room is probably booby-trapped, right?" Sue answered.

"I'll be taking one for the team, then. Sacrificing myself so the rest of you can live, just like Captain America would have done!" he shouted.

"That's not…. He didn't… Um…" I said, looking for a counterargument.

"Don't worry, I'll pick up his corpse once he's out cold. Just in case, though, would you like to go to a party?" she asked me.

"I mean, I'm fine with being here with you, but if you want to, why not." she smiled and got ready to answer when Alfred interrupted.

"Excuse me, Sir. Miss. Mr. Storm was electrocuted outside of Ms. Romanov's room. He is presently unconscious." Sue sighed.

"Got it, Alfred." She looks at me. "I called it. But thank you, Reed, I appreciate it. I'll take my brother to his room, and you can put on a movie, I'm feeling like cosying up a bit tonight. Sounds good?"

"Or you can leave him in the hallway and we get even more time just the two of us," she stares at me blankly. "Yeah no, let's do as you said first..."

The next day, at noon, Alfred turned on the news, as Tony Stark was on, after he had last appeared in the news announcing that he would be shutting down his weapons manufacturing division at Stark International after returning from his captivity.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Hello. Hi. Nice to meet you. I am… You know who I am, I don't need to be redundant," Pepper murmured to his ear. "Oh, yeah, focusing. Alright. This is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors. In the company's public offering, I decided to take part in creating a better future, and I believe electric vehicles are a key element of this. This is why I participated in this offering last month. Recently, a new company came into our radars, with a product that is said could revolutionize how we see transportation, and Elon and I decided that we wanted to get in on this. We are here today to officially announce our participation in the coming auction for the critically acclaimed Fantasti-Car. My assistant and lawyers advised me to do this conference to make it known that I will be participating in this auction with Tesla Motors as an individual, and not as a member of Stark Industries, since some of the-" Pepper gently nudged him. "Some of the 'delightful' members of the board decided to put me to the side temporarily. Anyway, I for one am excited to participate in this auction. I will be…"

"Guys! Tony Stark wants to take it! Freaking Stark wants our baby!!! This is amazing!!!" Johnny shouted.

"Johnny, keep it down, it's not over yet!" Sue shouted.

"But I'm so pumped right now!!!"

"Be pumped in silence, matchstick." Ben replied.

"He-Hello," Elon Musk took the microphone. "The goal of Tesla Motors when it announced the Model S two years ago was to show the world that the world was ready for electric cars, and in turn make other car manufacturing companies turn their production towards electric vehicles. Seeing an electric v-vehicle in action with such a spec sheet is amazing, and Tesla, myself, and I believe Mr. Stark are thrilled to see such a thing possible, which is why we are announcing our decision to participate in the auction. We want to see such a car made and not be buried under hundreds of unimportant projects by fossil energy lobby companies. This is why we are going public." Elon Musk said.

"Know that I'll probably be renaming the car in the future, though, because what kind of name is 'Fantasti-Car' anyway?..." Stark says, stealing the microphone back for a second.

"How dare you!?" Johnny exclaims, furious at Stark's comment. "This is a great name! I have a superb naming sense, right guys?" he asked, turning to us for validation.

"Sure thing, Human Torch…" replies Ben, trying to hold his laughter in.

"Sue, Reed? Is that what you think as well?" he looks sad.

"I mean, I like 'Mr. Fantastic', but I just don't know why you went with that…" I reply.

"Well… Surely you could have done a little better than 'Invisible Woman' I think. I'm not just invisible Johnny."

"And why the hell would you call me 'The Thing'? I know you're jealous of my rocky charm, but come on man…" Ben finishes him, effectively killing almost all of the names he had come up with.

"At least 'Fantastic Four' is a good name, but then again, what do you have with naming everything 'Fantastic'?" I ask, trying to console him a bit.

"I just find it cool…" he says, pouting.

"Alright, anyway. With Stark, Tesla and Toyota, we should see our car in the streets in less than three years. That is great news."

"What's this with Toyota?"

"Oh, it's just, Toyota was also a part of the public offering of Tesla last month. So I figured they would be in on the project if the group wins the auction. Which, unless multiple car companies decide to unite, they'll most likely win."

"It's still more than a week away, so we have some time till then. I'm going back to training, Johnny, want to come?" Susan says, trying to cheer him up a bit. "I'll go hit on stuff with my powers, how about we try some things together?" she asks, putting her arm around his shoulder and taking him to the training room.

"I'm going to meditate a bit, want to join me?" Ben asks. Apparently, meditation helped him keep 'the thing' under wraps more easily, and calmed his nerves as well.

"I'm good, I'll finish up some work on unstable molecules so that when the auction passes, I'll be able to work on it quickly. But thank you. I may take you up on that some other time." I went to my lab and pulled up my work on the unstable molecules. The theory had been completed a few weeks ago, and I was putting the finishing touches on my thesis. I contacted my university, Hegeman SU, and they said that I was still registered as a student there, so I could post it as my Doctorate thesis. Once the auction passes and the money from it comes down, I'll be able to experiment on it and put up the patent. Until then, we'll keep training and working.