They also decide things under the guise of being "for his own good", but he determined a long time ago - when his mother enrolled him in accordion lessons, to be precise - that anything done "for his own good" was never, ever good for him.

In any way.

That, more than anything else, is why Reed went into mathematics and the sciences. There was never a hidden agenda there, never a personal motive. There was never an integer with a vendetta, never a quadratic with emotional instability.

And even the things that aren't so cut and dried - isotopes and unbalanced chemicals - can be defined by numbers. Negative and positive, ions and protons. A periodic table with less twists, turns and variations than its counterpart, the alphabet. Straightforward rules that don't change on a whim.

Ammonium hydroxide and sodium bicarbonate react the same, no matter what, and if they don't, there's a missing piece of your equation, easy to decipher once you took out the known quantities. One plus one equals two.

Every time.

His mother had ostensibly wanted Reed to take up the accordion for his own good - Meet people, she'd said, Make friends. But it was apparent soon enough that she'd simply had no idea what to do with a genius.

As it was, he'd only ever met the instructor, Madama Zinn, and the only friend he'd made had been the older boy next door to her, who wasn't so much a friend as the guy who beat him up if Reed didn't hand over his allowance.

He also hated the accordion.

**

So when Sue suggests he get out more, take a walk with her, he knows it's going to be a disaster, long before she says "we can talk" and "we'll strengthen our relationship" and "Really, Reed, a little fresh air will be good for you."

A walk outside - in the park, along the water, anywhere - isn't likely to be good for him. It's likely going to be filled with some random idiot in a spandex suit deciding that things like spring and coffee and living are a little more than Reed, Sue or anyone in the Fantastic Four, or humanity, deserves.

The problem is, of course, that Sue always follows such suggestions with a look that's equal parts pleading, demanding and dangerous.

So he goes because even if fresh air isn't for his own good, staying home and getting blasted unconscious by Sue's force field definitely isn't for his own good or the good of their relationship or for the relative stability of the aging Baxter Building.

So he goes and he wears his suit under his clothes, and he walks beside her, drinking coffee, waiting for disaster.