6 Years, 6 Months, 18 Days...on Franklin's 18th Birthday

At the Jean Grey Academy, a Franklin Richards celebrated his 18th birthday alone, putting the finishing touches on an essay for Prof. McCoy's biochemistry class. On the television in the small dorm, the news wsa playing, muted. He caught sight of his mother. She and Porkum were in the Mediterranean, on a cruise. The blonde woman, once one of the world's greatest heroines, was topless, her stomach swollen with yet another bastard. The blurred mosaic concealed the action, though he was old enough now to know exactly what she was doing. All of his classmates knew, too. Had seen the videos leaked onto the internet.

He shook his head in disgust. After the last couple of brief visits home, Franklin had made arrangements to live here permanently. The trust with his share of his father's money—what was left of it—wouldn't come to him until he hit majority at 21. Yet there was enough in his college fund to assure him a life away from his whore of a mother and the literal pig she had taken up with.

Franklin's hands clenched into fists. Years of resentment had congealed into a psychic spark of terrifying intensity. Yet the instructors at the Academy had taught him self-control. Elizabeth Braddock, Emma Frost, the Cuckoos, Rachel Summers—they had all helped him channel his psychic potential into something other than rewriting reality according to his psychic desires.

Except when he slept.

In his dreams, Franklin's powers were much more difficult to control. Even the normal microaggressions of high school life could be magnified into waking nightmares that threatened the life and sanity of anyone around him.

So he was the rare student with a dorm to himself, in a remote part of the school complex, with psi-dampening shielding all around. It cost him every potential friend he might have made here, but at least it kept everyone else safe.

Franklin didn't want to hurt anyone.

Well, that wasn't quite true. He had a list of people he wanted to hurt. Porkum was near the top. But the first topmost name...

The spark of raw reality-altering psychic power within him flared at the thought of the man he held truly responsible for his exile. For his separation from his sister and his mother's descent into being a breeding sow for that monster-cocked pigman.

Reed Richards. The father who had abandoned them all.

Sparks burst as psi-dampners in the walls failed. Rage rose in Franklin ashis full adult power was made accessible to him for the first time. Above the lawn outside, a rift opened in space...and craft, much damaged and repaired, collapsed through it. Franklin rushed from the room. With his momentary lapse of concentration, the interdimensional rift closed. A hatch on the craft opened. He stepped forward warily...shaking with emotions he could not process.

A stony orange hand, cracked and rough, grabbed hold and hauled itself out.

Ben Grimm appeared to be an almost skeletal version of himself. Long years of exposure to exotic energies had caused his stony epidermis to develop odd, spiky growths. The blue eyes winced beneath a yellow sun. Then he saw a young man standing there. Medium height. Blond. Blue eyes. With a long face from his father, but his mother's ears and nose.

"Franklin?" The Thing gasped, as he hauled himself up and out.

"Unca Ben?" Franklin gasped.

Behind him, a fiery figure shot into the sky. Wreathed in blue-white flames, unable to control himself with the mass of free oxygen to burn.

Franklin ran forward and wrapped his arms around the Thing's chest. The older hero put a hand on his back, careful not to crush him.

The final figure stretched forth.

Years of interdimensional wandering had been harder on Reed Richards than the other. His hair was white with brown streaks, his beard reached down his chest, and there were dark bags and wrinkles around his eyes; he looked decades older than his actual age. Yet when Franklin saw him, the young man's face hardened with rage and resentment.

"Father," he said. "About damn time."