Susan Richards also known as the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four sat on a metalic chair and gently tapped her white gloved hands against her knees. The golden blond haired and blue eyed superheroine was worried, worried in a way that she hadn't felt for a very long time indeed. It was normal enough for her to be afraid when she was in the middle of a pitched battle against some dangerous supervillain, but at the moment she was having to deal with a sort of helples general "worry" that she felt completely powerless to fight back against.
It had all started an hour ago when she'd brought breakfast into her the labratory of her husband Reed Richards, also known as Mr. Fantastic, the leader of the Fantastic Four. It was far from unusual for Reed to end up missing the meal after he got involved with one of his many different inventions and so the Invisible Woman considered it her solem duty to make sure that her brilliant husband didn't end up getting so involved in whatever he was working on that he ended up half starving himself to death. This time however instead of simply finding Reed intently bent over some doodad or other device, there had only been a note that he'd left behind for her.
It said that his studies last night had detected some unsual behavior in the Negative Zone that he couldn't fully examine without going in and exploring it personally, so that was exactly what he had decided to do. He'd gone in late last night and he said that he'd set up an emergency transporation beacon that should open up a portral for him to return through by 10:00 AM today if he hadn't been able to figure out exactly what was going on wrong and return sooner.
It was 9:55 right now and there was still no sign of her husband.
So Susan sat there and tapped one hand against her knee while running the other through her hair, and took deep breaths. She fixed her eyes intently on the flickering lights of her digital watch, counting each and every single second that ticked past, wondering if somehow something had gone so horribly wrong for her husband that this time she and the rest of the Fantastic Four wouldn't beat the odds, wouldn't come home safe and sound?
How would she explain that to Franklin and Valeria, especially given that she had no idea at all what exactly it had been that had gotten Reed's attention in the first place, and if whatever had ended up claiming his life had even been connected to the unexpected events that had drawn him to the Negative Zone in the first place. She wished that he would have waited and brought the rest of the team with him, or at the very least brought her along. It was selfish, especially in light of what it might have meant for her children if they lost both of their parrents in one fell swoop, but she wished she could be there, she wished she could be doing something to help him, to protect him.
Blinking a few tears from her eyes Susan saw that it was now 5:58... and that was when Mr. Fantastic's lab suddenly began to fill with strange crackling sounds. His Negative Zone portal device began to flicker and glow with multicolored lights and a brilliant white portal began to slowly start to pull itself into existence. Susan tried to look into the portal to see what exactly had caused it or who or what might be comming through it but it was too bright for her to be sure at first.
Only after ten seconds that seemed to feel more like ten hours did the glow start to diminish and Susan was able to see what was going on....