After Mexico City

Reed has been sitting and watching his best friend (his only friend, the guy who saved him from countless beatings in school) sleep for nearly an hour now. He knows he needs to wake Ben up, face up to what he has done to him but he just can't. How do you tell the one friend you've ever had that you've ruined his life? That he's a monster because of you? But he owes it to Ben.

"Hi, Ben," he croaks out finally before he can think better of it.

Ben starts awake and blinks a few times before he sees his hands. "Aw, man...it did happen."

"Yeah," Reed says wishing he could turn invisible or something else useful.

"It wasn't a dream." Wakanda scholarship...gone. Football star...gone. Babes...gone.

"No."

"What happened to me, Reed?"

Reed looks away but forces himself to look back. "I don't know yet."

Ben looks around at the fake red leather furniture and the blue and yellow checkered floor. There's not much else to look at. "Where am I?"

"New York City. We're...we're back at the Baxter Building."

"How did I get here?" Football...gone.

"You passed out in Mexico."

"I was in Mexico?"

Reed swallows the lump in his throat. "You were in Mexico. The Army found you and...and they transported you here."

Ben forces himself to look down, to face what he's become. All gone...poof. "What am I wearing?"

"It's an impact suit." Reed says brightening a bit at a chance to talk about the suit's technology before the reality of the situation hits him. "It...it absorbs the extra impact you are putting on yourself and...you know, the world. What does it feel like? How do you feel?"

Ben glares at Reed. "Angry."

Reed shrinks into his chair.

"How did this happen?" Ben closes his eyes not really wanting to know. Babes...gone.

"There..." Reed says before clearing his throat. "There was an accident..."

His eyes crack open and through clenched teeth he asks, "This is your fault?"

Reed feels as if the ground has fallen away beneath him. "Yes."

Ben is moving before he is even aware of any choice he's made. He's just filled with so much anger. The couch he was sitting on flies across the room as he leaps at Reed, one hand already coming down to lay into Reed. For a moment Reed just sits there in the shadow of Ben before his body twists like a snake, dodging Ben's blow which destroys the chair he had been sitting on.

"My life is...!!!" Ben manages to say through his fury.

"Ben please!!" Reed says freaking out as his mind works out the forces Ben is putting on the building.

"YOU!!!"

"You'll crash the entire building!! You have to...you'll hurt people." Reed says as he wraps his elastic body around Ben hoping to reduce Ben's rampage.

"What you've done to me and my..."

"Stop it!"

Ben struggles against Reed but can't really get any good leverage. Then his mind catches up to what Reed is doing. Startled from his fury he says, "Wait...what are you doing?!"

"I don't know!! I just need you to calm down."

"What the hell happened to you?" Despite himself Ben can't help but feel worried for his friend.

"I'll stop it if you will."

Ben takes a calming breath. "'Kay."

Slowly, as if not quite sure if he can believe Ben, Reed uncoils and pulls himself to a more human shape. "We have to, listen, we have to find Sue and Victor. They are still out there and every minute that passes..." Reed stops as he catches Ben's eye. "Ben, I promise. I will fix this. Please, please trust me. I will fix this."

Ben looks away, still too angry to offer any sort of absolution. "Well, let's see...Took you a good fourteen years to find a way to mess my life up this bad. Guess I can wait around another fourteen...see if you ever figure out if you can fix it." Ben spots a door and he suddenly can't be in the same room with Reed anymore. "Like I got another choice." He opens the door and steps through only to hit his head before he ducks and slams the door. Damn it Reed.