Sue Storm Tries To Reform A Young Criminal

There was an oyster bar, not far from the fish market. One of those places in New York where there might have been an oyster bar for any time in the last two hundred years. Sue Storm was incognito, grey hoodie and sunglasses over her Fantastic Four costume, enjoying a dozen on the half shell when she heard the roar.

Out on the street, she saw a tall, apparently naked figure picking up a police car and shake the uniformed NYPD out of it. It was male, but not entirely human; the skin was striped white and blue, with a fin on the head in place of hair, a thick neck but no gills, nails like claws on each finger, and sharp, triangular teeth in its mouth. Something in the defined musculature reminded Sue of Atlantean; the lean, compact muscle that could withstand the changing pressures of the deeps. She hurriedly slurped down the last oyster and ran outside before he killed somebody.

"Fucking cops! Now you will feel the wrath...of Mako!" the villain yelled, as the cops hung on for dear life. Thankfully, they had their safety belts on.

With a thought, Sue formed an invisible platform underneath the car and lifted it out of the villain's arms.

"Language," she said, unzipping her hoodie to reveal the white 4 on her breast. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to swear?"

Mako's black eyes looked suddenly wet.

"Mako...Mako does not have a mother," he said. "Mako grown in a tube from the combined genetics of the greatest Atlanteans."

Sue cocked her head. The way he said it sounded rehearsed.

"You don't look like Namor," she said.

"Not Namor!" Mako's broad shoulders sagged. "Attuma, Orka, Tyrak, U-Man..."

"U-Man!?" The Invisible Woman said, remembering Captain America's tales about an Atlantean renegade who had hooked up with the Nazis. "Oh, baby. How old are you?"

"I was decanted eighteen years ago," Mako said. "Raised in a science lab."

Then his stomach rumbled. It triggered every mom instinct Sue Storm had.

Sue sighed and gently set the cop car down.

"Look, big guy. You can't just beat up police officers. But if you promise to behave yourself, I'll treat you to an oyster dinner. All you can eat."

Which is how Sue Storm ran up two thousand dollars on her credit card. And Mako told her his whole life story. Including the part where his clone-brother, also named Mako, got his head cut off by Lady Bullseye. As he devoured approximately a barrel of oysters, she could see the arc of his life. Without help, Mako was going to be goon material. Maybe some future villain to endanger Atlantis.

Or dead like the other Mako.

"What you need," Sue Storm said, as Mako's hands rested on a distended stomach, stuffed full of oysters. "Is a role model. An opportunity."

Two hours later, Sue Storm had found Mako a pair of swim trunks and introduced him to the rest of the Fantastic Four.

"This is Mako," she said. "Our new intern."