Sue Storm Went Cold Turkey After University

The Invisible Woman paused. These were painful memories. Ones she had tried to bury, the not-so-nice past of the oh-so-squeaky-clean Susan Storm-Richards, heroine, mother, and icon to millions. Who had, for a brief period, been a ****-addicted bisexual slut. As she stared at the photographs, Sue Storm relived that time. She thought back to what she had done, and it was clearer now in hindsight that Mae had been leading her on, using the **** to keep Sue close to her.

A part of her wondered what drove Mae to do that. Was it just the sex? Or some deeper loneliness? She had never asked enough questions about Mae's past, her life before university. It hadn't seemed important at the time, but now that Sue replayed those conversations in her head, she realized how little Mae had revealed about herself. How much of her own life she had kept private, despite the time that Mae and Sue had shared together.

SSR: I had a choice to make, after graduation. I could see the path Mae was headed on. I was going with Reed then, and I knew he loved me. Talked about our future together. His plans. The space flight. There was no way I could pass the pre-flight medical checks if I kept using so...I quit. Cold turkey. A long, terrible weekend locked in a hotel room, sweating it out.

JVD: And how did Mae take that?

SSR: Not well.

After graduation, Sue Storm moved out of the dorms. Reed was staying in a boarding house off-campus, with Ben, and Sue got herself and Johnny rooms there too. It was the summer before everything changed, and Sue had cut ties with Mae completely. She didn't answer phone calls or emails, deliberately avoided the old spots where she knew Mae would hang out.

Mae had found her anyway.

"Babe."

The word had sent a shiver down Sue's spine. A voice from the past she was trying to run away from. She was coming out of the campus library, where she'd been reading a doctoral thesis by Bruce Banner on the effects of radiation on human tissue, when Mae stepped out of the darkness. She looked somehow older than the last time Sue had seen her. Thinner. Almost fragile. Hair dyed bottle blonde. Leather jacket and jeans. Sue couldn't even see if she was wearing a shirt underneath it.

Sue's lips drew tight. No smile.

"Been a little while," Mae offered. "Bet you're clucking right now. I got you a taste..."

"I'm clean," Sue told her. Voice calm. "I'm going to stay clean."

Mae's face was a poker mask, but the eyes were vivid. Anger, hurt, calculation. Sue suddenly wondered what she would do if Mae attacked her.

"So that's the way it is?" Mae said softly. "We had our fun, didn't we?"

Sue let out a breath.

"It was a mistake, Mae. The ****. I should never have started using them. Neither should you," she said, her voice soft. There were six steps between them now, and Sue knew if Mae reached for her, she'd leap back. Yet a part of her felt obligated. For the hot kisses they had shared. The tender, intimate moments. "If you want, I can help you get clean, too. There's the future to think of."

Now Mae's face split into a terrible grin, and her eyes were like twin wounds into a tainted soul.

"The future. Yes. One day, you'll come back to me. Crawling on your hands and fucking knees, begging for a hit!" Mae said. "And I'll give it to you. Oh, I'll give you all the pills and powder you need. After you kiss my cunt!"

Mae had stormed off then, and Sue felt an ache in her heart. She had lost a friend...or dodged a bullet...and Sue wasn't sure which.

*PING*PING*PING*PING*...

"Temporal focus of the changes is shifting," Reed said as he traced the readings. "Initially, it looked like it was centered around our time at the university, but now it's moving."

"So what's that mean?" Ben Grimm said. He was partially disassembling and reassembling the Fantasticar to prepare it for time travel.

"It means Doom is trying to alter the timeline of an individual," Reed said grimly. "And what four individuals is he most likely to focus on?"

"Oh crap," the Thing grumbled.

JVD: So that was the end of it? No more ****?

SSR: I was clean for a while. Then...well, I had a relapse.