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::
As it always does, it goes like this:
Billy spends about a week in a constant state of how is this my life. It’s like it’s stuck on repeat in his brain, over and over, every possible inflection and meaning get a turn until his whole body is vibrating with it. He alternates between giddy and sick and completely distracted; the grin won’t come off his face and an anxious fidget seems to have taken up permanent residence in his left knee. He’s terrified down to his fucking bones and so exhilarated that he doesn’t even yell at Charlie when he catches him raiding his comics and gives Jake an impromptu piggy-back ride around the living room until Dad comes out of the kitchen, hands on his hips, and says that Mrs. Schumann next door has called to ask if they have a wounded animal in the apartment. Mrs. Schumann is about ninety-seven, deaf as a post, and makes the best damn challah Billy’s ever had, so that makes Billy rein it in a little for fear of never getting any more.
In that week, he gets a grand total of maybe fourteen hours of sleep (which results in no less than three broken coffee mugs and one accidental bowl of Cheerios and orange juice), but even the exhaustion and the newly intensified caffeine addiction (complete with subsequent crash) aren’t enough to make his brain stop racing every time he lies down. He has powers now. He. Has powers. Powers that, true, he almost kind of killed someone with, or at least gave him a month-long case of the worst static electricity known to man, but actual, honest to god, powers.
And he’s been invited to be on a team. An actual team. Sort of. The offer’s there, at least...given by a complete stranger. Billy really should have asked his name, not that it would mean anything because, stranger, and this guy could wind up being the next Magneto or Dr. Doom or some horrible Magneto/Doom hybrid that will one day turn half the population of Earth into killbots and and there Billy will be, at his left hand, directing the killbots because he was too elated at the prospect of powers and team to ask the guy’s name, and Billy, you need to think these things through better. Or he could use his powers to stop the dreaded Dr. Magoom and— and— And everything cycles back around into powers, his new powers. Powers that, by the feel of it, Billy’s really only scratched the surface of. But powers that he thinks could really do some actual good, on the right team. Maybe even the team he’ll be meeting in just a few days time. Assuming he doesn’t blow anything up with his mind by then.
He decides the six lightbulbs over the next two days don’t count, and he sneaks out in the middle of the night to replace his parents’ stock, because how is this his life.
::
They’re meeting in a park, near some of those chess table things that Billy is always surprised that anyone actually uses. At first he thinks he’s the first one there, because the only other people around are a surly-looking guy with a bald head that makes him look older than he is, playing chess against an even surlier looking, actually old man. Billy doesn’t pay them too much attention; he’s too distracted, too on edge. Still, he jerks when the old guy tips his king over with a disgusted snort and stands. The bald guy, who looks closer to Billy’s own age when he grins, says, “Next week?" and the old guy just waves a hand at him and says “Yeah, yeah," before leaving.
The bald guy scoops up a heavy looking backpack and starts packing away the pieces, shooting more and more frequent looks in Billy’s direction. The silence goes on for a long time, and the guy shows no indication of leaving, and no indication of actually saying anything, so Billy takes a deep breath, You are about to be a superhero, Kaplan, and crosses over to him.
He gets as far as, “Are you—" before the bald guy stands and interrupts with, “Meeting a mysterious, iron-clad stranger?" and a scowl.
Billy can’t think of why anyone would show up to potentially join a superhero team and at the same time seem so phenomenally unhappy about it. Still. He rolls his shoulders back and says, “Same boat, huh?" hoping the words come out as sarcastic as he wants them too.
He’s met with a curt nod, and the tiniest hint of a shrug.
“So, um," he tries again, “should we like, introduce ourselves or something? Is telling each other our real names bad? I don’t really know how this works, and it’s not exactly like I’ve picked out a codename or anything." This is not a lie, okay; sure, maybe there is a notebook stuffed full of codenames at the back of his closet, but in all fairness, he started that notebook when he was seven. Also, they’re all rejected superhero names anyway. “Is there protocol for this? We can’t exactly ask Miss Manners." Good job, Kaplan.
A flicker of something like uncertainty passes over the other guy’s face. “First names should be fine. I guess. For now," he says finally. “I’m Eli."
“Billy," Billy says, and fights the urge to offer to shake hands. This guy doesn’t look like the hand-shaking type, no matter how much Bubbe Kaplan is yelling at him in his head for being rude.
The silence draws out between between them again and Billy starts bouncing his knee. His left knee, and damn, he thought that fidget had passed.
“Do you know how many others are coming?" he says, and the bald guy — Eli — just shrugs.
Billy has no idea what kind of small talk they’re supposed to be making. Because it’s him, and this is his life, the only things currently coming to mind are Wow, you are really bald and How long does it take you to shave all that and Isn’t that hard to do without cutting yourself, and holy fuck are those inappropriate topics to bring up with someone you’ve known for all of two minutes. He doesn’t know how other teams do this. Everything he’s ever seen indicates that superheroes tend to sort of skip the small talk thing and go straight to the fighting each other, but a) that can’t possibly be true for all of them everywhere, two) he really can’t be thinking of them as superheroes, not yet, and finally) even if Eli’s power is something totally stupid, like growing grass really fast, Billy’s comprehension of his own powers is just above zilch and from the look of him, Eli could probably take him down — without powers — in under thirty seconds just by getting him in a headlock.
At least it gives him an idea, however ill-thought-out. “So yeah, what’s your power set? Or are you like, a Badass Normal?" he says, hoping he doesn’t sound like the world’s biggest video game nerd, or that Eli’s powers aren’t anything deeply embarrassing.
Eli shifts his eyes away, a muscle in his jaw jumps, and oh shit, his powers really must be horrible or something, like maybe he sweats poison or has explosive farts. Though really, why would anyone agree to meet with a team if that was the case, unless that’s why Eli looked so annoyed by the whole thing.
Eli clears his throat. “Um, kind of standard stuff. Strength, endurance, invulnerability." Which, hooray, no exploding poisonous farts, but it still makes Billy a little hesitant. That stuff’s pretty much a fucking classic, and Billy’s stuck at ‘Sometimes I accidentally zap things with my weird lightning, but only if people piss me off enough.’
So when Eli meets his eyes again and says, “What about you?" Billy stammers for a second before finally coming out with, “Sometimes I accidentally zap people with my weird magic lightning, so long as they piss me off enough."
Eli snorts, but kind of smiles a bit too. “Okay, so, lightning Hulk. We can work with that. You’ll have to give us a list of things that make you angry though, just in case."
“Well you can start with people who stand on the left sides of escalators, and work up from there," Billy says, which is why they’re both laughing when the ‘mysterious, iron-clad stranger’ finally joins them.
“So you’ve met then," the iron-clad stranger says after a pause, his body stiff and hesitant, hands not quite knowing where to settle. Also, he’s not actually iron-clad this time, and it’s actually kind of amazing how much he looks exactly the same, out of costume/uniform/armor, while at the same time looking nothing like it at all.
“Yeah, we did," Eli says, almost immediately defensive again. “Introduced ourselves and everything. I don’t suppose you could finally get to that?" Billy feels immediate and misplaced relief hearing that, because at least he’s not the only idiot that didn’t get a name.
At Eli’s raised eyebrow, Iron-Clad Guy says calmly, “You can call me Nathaniel for now." Billy recognizes that tone as the kind used by someone trying to act like they are in any kind of control of any situation. (Not that he knows from personal experience or anything, uh.) He finds this bizarrely reassuring for reasons his mom would probably have a field day with, but that he’s less than inclined to examine. At least nerves sort of point to Not A Future Supervillian. Kind of.
“Are we it, then?" Eli asks.
“We should have one more," Nathaniel says, and Billy can hear the unspoken assuming they show up in his voice. “Actually, I think that’s him now," Nathaniel continues, and Billy turns to see their (presumably) fourth member coming up the path.
So of course, because this is Billy Kaplan’s Utterly Predictable Life, that’s when everything goes to shit.
::
His name is Teddy, and he is infuriating. He is calm, cool, collected, and sure. Not defensive like Eli, not nervous like Nathaniel, not flaily and prone to panicked sarcasm like Billy. He has a placid smile (which never quite seems to reach his eyes) and in just their first few tentative meetings has apparently charmed the pants off of both Nathaniel and Eli with his measured responses to the increasingly defiant-of-all-reason things that they do. He seems to refuse to put a single toe out of line and it drives Billy nuts. There’s like this wall of robotic perfection that surrounds him that Billy has no idea how to relate to, so he keeps running smack into it.
Teddy is also completely gorgeous, gorgeous is a way that no actual person could ever actually be. Of course, Billy isn’t entirely sure he is a person, because perfect, and also, actual people do not act like that. Not that the gorgeousness abates the frustration, not really; it just means Billy spends an equal amount of time wanting to shake him and yell Have a reaction to something as he does wanting to lick his neck.
Teddy’s also really nice, so not only does he irritate Billy to a ridiculous degree, he also makes Billy feel like shit for every glower, drawn eyebrow, or snide remark that Billy makes. And not even because he reacts with hurt to these things, or anything else that Billy might consider a normal human response — he just smiles that same smile and adjusts his behavior — but because it feels cruel to pick at someone who won’t even pick back. No matter how much he hates it, he hates himself more because what kind of person hates someone who keeps managing to smile.
Maybe Billy is just making up the hurt in his own head, some sort of stupid displacement response.
All in all, it’s wrecking whatever sort of team dynamic — like, the type of thing where they need to trust each other and understand each other implicitly in order to potentially not die at some point — he and Teddy should probably be developing. So, you know, par for Billy’s course.
Anyway, Billy feels like he’s about two seconds away from getting kicked off the team (because he refuses to delude himself about the fact that, if it came down to it, there’s no way anyone wouldn’t choose the nice guy everyone gets along with over the grouchy guy with the caffeine dependency who hasn’t done a single useful thing with his powers yet), so he needs to sort his shit out. Also, he needs to stop being partnered off with Teddy. Eli, apparently, has some sort of pathological need to butt heads with someone, constantly. Billy, so far, has rarely felt any reason to butt heads with him; the few times he’s tried he’d just wound up saying something that made Eli roll his eyes and bury his face in his hands and have to walk away. Teddy seems constitutionally incapable of butting heads with anyone, ever, because that might involve expressing a feeling. Which leaves Nathaniel, who is luckily always willing and able, and more often than not is the one doing the thing that provokes the head-butting in the first place. At least he gives as good as he gets.
Unfortunately, this means Billy and Teddy get paired up together by default more often than not. Whenever Nathaniel and Eli go off to yell or paw the ground or throw repulsor rays and ninja stars at each other until they reach some kind of consensus, Billy and Teddy are left alone in increasingly awkward silence while Billy runs through his mental list of Things To Not Talk About. They apparently don’t have any common ground, not that he would know, because Teddy is also incredibly reluctant to talk about himself. This leaves Billy with the options of babbling incessantly — which, fair enough, he can be pretty good at — or practicing his powers while attempting to ignore his disgustingly hot, disturbingly guarded teammate.
Incidentally, Billy’s discovered that he can make things happen with his mind, not just zap them, and he’s getting better at flying every day.
::
None of them has any idea what it means to be a team. Nathaniel has said that Kang of all people is coming — Kang — and well, that’s just great, isn’t it? As far as Billy can tell, all that getting the four of them together is going to do is make it that much more convenient for Kang to kill them all in one place before he sets off to do whatever it is he wants to do in this part of the timestream. See, apparently just figuring out that you’ve got powers, even learning to use them a little on your own, doesn’t mean you know anything about how to fight or how to fight alongside other people. Hell, right now it’s not even clear that any of them even has any idea how to just be around other people.
Nathaniel and Eli keep trying to find a balance, some way to bring everything together, a formula for Eli and Teddy’s strength, Nathaniel’s knowledge and statistics, and Billy’s whatever the hell it is he’s supposed to be able to do. But Billy’s never thrown a punch that wasn’t aimed at a brother, and for all Eli’s talk of strategies and planning, he’s still more inclined to charge into their mock-fights head first without waiting to see if anyone’s behind him. Nathaniel is getting more and more frustrated every day. He brings in complicated maneuvers he’s pulled from his armor and expects them all to just know how to do them, when the best Billy can manage most days is just trying not to die. They’re all fighting from their own individual corners, and Billy’s not sure there even is a middle ground.
Eli broaches it first, not even bothering to attempt tact. “This isn’t working," he says, interrupting Nathaniel’s most recent strategy.
“Eli, if you’d just—" Nathaniel tries.
“If I’d just what, Nathaniel?" Eli says. “Magically make everyone here instantly good at fighting? I’m not sure Billy could knock out a six year old with that punch, and Teddy keeps pulling his."
Billy calls out, “Hey, I resemble that remark!" like it’s reflex, turning away the sting.
Teddy, on the other hand, says, “Do you want me to hit harder? I wasn’t sure if I should..."
Billy snorts, loudly and obviously, and he can feel Teddy’s eyes on him.
Eli ignores them both. “Nathaniel," he tries again, “you can’t read people strategies out of a book and expect them to go off perfectly."
“You also can’t crash course people into being warriors!" Nathaniel says. “But it’s not exactly like we have a lot of options here."
Billy wants nothing more at that moment than to have someone else on the team, someone whose eyes he could catch, who could understand the complicated mess that is Billy’s reaction to all this. But Teddy’s just looking like he doesn’t know whose side he should be taking.
“Do you have any suggestions then, Eli," Nathaniel is saying.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Nathaniel," Eli throws back. “I think we need to work on integrating our powers. It’s the only thing that any of us have any kind of experience with. And eventually we’re going to have to figure out how not to hit each other anyway."
It sounds like a terrible, terrible idea, the kind of idea that is going to lead to Billy accidentally frying everyone and having to flee to Brazil. So of course, that’s the one the group decides to go with.
Yet. Against all odds, Billy is saved from abject humiliation slash life as a fugitive, at least for the moment. All of Nathaniel and Eli’s focus is taken up by Teddy. Teddy, who has stepped into the middle of their argument and volunteered all of the shapeshifting he’s ever done. As it turns out, Teddy has a huge repertoire of celebrities — superheroes and socialites alike — that he can already duplicate. Eli’s beside himself with the possibilities for infiltration and misdirection, and it doesn’t take long before he and Nathaniel are coming up with more and more people for Teddy to be.
Teddy dutifully complies with all of their suggestions. Billy manages to keep his scowl from overwhelming his face.
Because it’s just. It’s so— Augh. How easy this is for him, how quickly he’s got them pleased by doing what they want, how there’s nothing that anyone could point to that even comes close to resembling a fault. And Billy feels smaller and smaller for it with each new face Teddy puts on.
Eventually, all three of them turn to look at him expectantly. He doesn’t even bother to hide the darkness of his expression.
“What," he says, and at least it doesn’t come out petulant.
“Do you have anyone you want me to try?" Teddy says, bland smile firmly in place.
“No, I don’t," Billy bites out. Yourself, yourself, yourself, he thinks. A human being, he thinks.
“Billy..." Teddy says.
“You seem like you’ve got it totally under control," Billy says. “Must have a lot of practice with that, huh?"
And Teddy actually recoils a bit at that. He’s back to ‘normal’ almost immediately; Billy’s not even sure anyone else caught it, but it was definitely there.
Once it’s passed, Teddy just stares at Billy, like he’s waiting for something. Billy glares back, a thin current of magic making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Nathaniel looks back and forth between them — his armor actually springs out of nothing like he might need it — and Eli barks out, “Guys!"
Billy breaks his glare away and looks at his hands instead. He’s not quite ashamed of himself, not yet, but he thinks he might be soon.
Eli stares them both down. “This has got to stop."
::
They’re at the ruins of Avenger’s Mansion for yet another frustrating practice session. For once Nathaniel and Eli aren’t arguing, instead working fairly smoothly with each other to try to patch up some sort of holographic villain creation machine. It involves a lot of wires and cursing, and, whatever, technology is not Billy’s friend. He can work his iPod and has mostly stopped accidentally pocket-dialling people, and contents himself with that.
Eli has summarily sent Billy and Teddy off to practice with each other, again. For all their conflict, apparently Eli and Nathaniel work together very well — have even approached a rapport bordering on “best friends, ish" territory — and they are of one mind on one particular issue. Namely, that Billy and Teddy need to work together better. They reached this decision without ever bothering to consult either Billy or Teddy about it, and when Eli informed them of it earlier, he did so in the not up for discussion tone of voice that he has.
Teddy agreed with him, because Teddy always agrees, and quite frankly Billy is feeling a bit railroaded.
At first they run through some moves Teddy’s dredged up from the karate class he apparently took when he was eight.
“I also watched a bunch of Bruce Lee videos on Youtube," he says, with something that might almost become a real smile if he let it, and Billy manages to keep his groan on this inside.
Because Teddy keeps doing this. As their practices have gone on, he has from time to time let little things slip — little details or almost smiles or aborted hand gestures — that make Billy think he’s more than the inoffensive robot he presents himself as. But every single time, every one, Teddy retreats back behind the inexplicable mask he wears before it can go anywhere, and Billy wants to tear his own hair out. Why would anyone do that? Why?
“Are you always this prepared?" Billy says, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. Teddy just shrugs one shoulder and Billy sighs in defeat. “Whatever, just, show me the move."
‘The move’ turns out to be something far beyond what any eight year old should have been learning; Billy’s attack turns into his arm pinned in a complicated way over his own shoulder, Teddy’s leg between his and Teddy’s hip wedged tight against his own. And whoa, okay, all of Billy’s irritation funnels straight into attraction overload.
“What. What the hell was that," he says, breath coming hard. At least he can blame it on the exertion, because in shape he is not.
“I’m not totally sure? I just kind of...watched it and figured it out," Teddy says, sounding a little out of breath himself.
“Want me to show you?" Teddy says after a moment. He still hasn’t released Billy from the hold, and Billy is feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
“No," he says, jaw clenched. “Let’s just practice our powers, okay?" He attempts to shove Teddy away, and it’s really more of an ungainly flail of arms that leaves Teddy a step away and Billy sprawled on his side on the floor, but hey, at least it worked.
“Oh. Yeah, powers. Cool," Teddy says, usual placating smile back on his face once Billy’s up off the floor. He reaches behind himself to pull off his t-shirt and Billy yanks his eyes away, because that is not helping one little bit. When the soft creaking noise that accompanies Teddy’s transformation is over, he looks back to find Teddy in the Hulk-Lite form that they’d all decided was probably the best.
(When that discussion had happened, Billy’d said Hey, the Hulk position is already taken, and conjured a tiny lightning bolt in his hand. Eli had snorted and said People who drive in the bike lane and Nathaniel had raised an eyebrow as Billy let the bolt grow in response. Teddy has simply stood there and ducked his head.)
“What do you want to do?" Teddy says. He laces his fingers together to give Billy a step up into the air. Billy is still having trouble with the ‘taking off’ part of flying, and after a second he decides that this is a more teamwork-buildy, slightly more dignified method than jumping wildly and crossing his fingers.
Once he’s steady in the air, Billy says, “Quick shifting and lightning?" because he should at least get to practice his own skills if this is how it’s going to be. Teddy mutters something under his breath and Billy wishes for it to be sarcasm, to be something, anything to build off of. But the moment passes too quickly, and fine, Billy is just done with this.
Everything goes okay for a while, the two of them in their separate corners. Billy even briefly tries to conjure a floating platform for Teddy to stand on, and it works too. Kind of. Enough that Billy files it away for future practice. So far he only really manages to surprise himself into other uses for his powers— conscious, deliberate intent mostly eludes him, because this is his life, but at least something’s there.
Then he loses his grip on the air. Only for a millisecond, he doesn’t go splatting to the ground twenty feet below him, he doesn’t, but he falters. Which, of course, makes him lose control of his lightning. Which, of course, gets away from him to zap Teddy squarely in the ass. It’s just a small bolt, luckily, but that is just so far beyond anything he’s done before, accidentally or on purpose.
“Oh shit!" he says, faltering in the air again. “Dude, I’m so sorry, I totally didn’t mean..."
He almost misses the way Teddy’s jaw clenches before he says, “No, no, it’s fine," like he always does when Billy pushes it. “It was an accident." He shifts back to human form as he speaks, wincing a little.
And that’s it. Billy’s had it. He’s done. Apparently he’s had a few too many ups and downs today, because he’s finally fucking sick of it. He drops to the ground, a little harder than normal; he stumbles when he lands but catches himself — his body — in time. Not so much his mouth.
“That’s it?" he says. “It’s fine?"
Teddy jerks his head up, takes a step back. “Yeah, it’s fine. It was just an accident."
Billy advances. “What if it wasn’t an accident?"
“Billy, I don’t—" Teddy starts, but Billy pokes him in the chest.
Billy pokes him again. “Why is it fine? God, Teddy, I just hit you in the ass with a lightning bolt. Even Nathaniel probably would have raised his voice, if that had been him," Billy says, stepping completely into Teddy’s space. Teddy’s face has gone red, finally, and he squares his shoulders. “What if I did it on purpose?" Billy repeats. “Would it still be fine?"
Teddy breathes. Then he shoves Billy backwards, arms shaking. “What the fuck do you want from me, Billy? Is it always like this with you? Because I am getting sick of guessing at it. What the hell do you want me to be?"
Billy notices that he said ‘to be’, not ‘to do’, but he’s too angry at all of the stupid shit and too relieved that Teddy isn’t just backing off to give it any thought right now. It rolls around free in his brain. He hopes it won’t become a cacophony.
“What I want is for you to get pissed off at me!" he says, pushing back. “I want you to let go of whatever it is you think you’re supposed to do, because oh my god, none of us have any idea what we’re doing, okay? I want you to fucking do something besides smile and go along with everything." Teddy flinches at that, but Billy is past the point of being able to stop himself. “Nothing here is going to blow up in your face," Mis-aimed lightning bolts to the contrary, Billy thinks, “if you don’t do exactly the right thing, so stop acting like it. You are allowed to express things! I don’t think you’re actually that fake person you pretend to be, and I want you to show me that!"
“What if I am?" Teddy all but yells. Then he’s barrelling into Billy, not with the force of a superhero wannabe, but just the force of a pissed off teenage boy. They both go down.
For a moment, it’s nothing but a chaotic pile of limbs, the two of them wrestling in the grass behind the wreckage of one of the greatest symbols in the world. Only elbows and knees and frustration and regret and relief and rocks digging into ribs and bruises that Billy will find an excuse for, because he always does. Teddy’s breath is hot on Billy’s skin and he’s muttering What if that’s all I am? over and over and the ‘be’ is echoing in Billy’s brain, searching for something to stick to. Billy doesn’t think about using his powers, he doesn’t thinking about Teddy’s warm weight over and around and below. He just keeps pushing at him until neither of them can breathe.
Finally they stop, exhausted, flopping out into the grass. Their bodies are at angles to each other, shoulders nearly touching. The ‘be’ hangs in the air above Billy and he thinks he might be starting to understand what it means as they catch their breath.
It’s Teddy who breaks the silence. “Ow," he says, shifting in the grass. “You know, your elbows are really pointy."
“I’ve heard that," Billy says. “Look, I’m sorry. I was way out of line."
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tackled you—" Teddy starts to say, but Billy leans up on his side and cuts him off.
“Trust me, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I mean, I shouldn’t— really, I’ve been a complete dick to you since like, Day One." Billy pauses to reconsider. “Okay, no, actually more like Day Two. Day One I was too anxious and excited to be capable of anything resembling thoughts, good or bad."
“I’m not entirely sure you’re ever capable of thoughts," Teddy says and Billy gapes at him for a second before bursting out laughing.
“Finally," he says, dropping down onto his back.
He can feel Teddy turn his head to look at him. “I really, truly, do not get you, Billy," Teddy says.
“Join the club," Billy mutters.
“Anyway, I was just going to say, I shouldn’t have tackled you because now I’ve got bruises in some places that are going to be really difficult to explain."
“Oh, that." Billy waves a hand. “I’ve got a million excuses for problematic bruises, all guaranteed to work at least once. I’ll make you a list."
This time it’s Teddy’s turn to lean up on an elbow and study Billy, his mouth open like whatever he was going to say got stuck. After a long time, he says, “Yeah, okay."
Billy pulls up a clump of grass and shreds it between his fingers. “Um, I know you don’t exactly owe me any explanations, and it’s really none of my business, and I crossed the line about fifteen miles back, but. If you wanted to talk, you know, about what was going on. Um. I’d listen. I mean, we could talk about why the hell I was acting like that, but I’m guessing it’s pretty obvious at this point." He exhales, short, and tries not to tense.
Teddy does tense, and Billy’s about to take it all back because, Way to put your foot in it again, Kaplan, but Teddy starts talking before he can.
“It was," he starts. “I did some stupid stuff not that long ago and—"
“What kind of stupid stuff?" Billy interrupts, because why listen when you can let your mouth run away from you? Goddammit, Kaplan.
Teddy picks up a rock and starts tossing it above his face, and Billy will not let Bubbe Kaplan get a word in about safety. “Um, completely abusing my powers sort of stuff," he says, all in a rush. “It was really messed up and I kind of let myself take a backseat to what other people wanted, and I thought I was over it, that being on this team would help me get over it, but I guess..."
“Not as over it as you thought?" Sometimes, Billy really hates having a psychologist as a mother.
“It’s an easy place to slip back to," Teddy says.
Billy bites his lip. “Just. You know you don’t have to?"
“Knowing is a lot easier than doing," Teddy says, and catches the rock.
Billy doesn’t really know how to respond to that. He’s usually pretty terrible at this kind of thing, and what the hell does he know about apparently being taken advantage of until you lost your ability to define yourself without other people? Most people always took the easier route of just hitting Billy in the face, and that if anything just hardens his sense of self, makes him more intent on being defiant because fuck you. He can’t really tell Teddy it’ll be better from here on out. Argument aside, he still doesn’t really know Teddy, not yet. But now, at least, he thinks there might be a chance at it.
What Billy does say is about the only thing he has left, after everything. “Well, I did learn something today."
At Teddy’s questioning silence — at least, what he assumes is questioning silence with no evidence to the contrary — he says, “Why superheroes get into fist fights instead of conversations suddenly makes so much sense. You have to admit, it’s a pretty handy shortcut."
Teddy laughs at that, laughs long and hard, and when Eli finds them a short time later and starts yelling at Billy for breaking their shapeshifter, what the hell, Billy catches Teddy wiping a tear from his eye. And he thinks, maybe Nathaniel and Eli were on to something after all.
::
The ‘Serving The Good of The Team With Your Powers’ thing had been sidelined for a little while, mostly because of Nathaniel and Eli’s insistence that Billy and Teddy ‘work their shit out" (Resolve their conflicts in a mature manner using good communication skills, Billy’s mother says in his head. Shut it, Billy says back, then smacks his forehead for talking to himself), but now that they have — basically — all that talk comes roaring back with a vengeance. Billy wonders if he maybe should have quit the team earlier, before having the chance to do something mortifying.
Eli is standing in front of the group, hands on his hips, and Billy tries his best not to feel like he’s about to receive a lecture from a very determined kindergarten teacher. Him sitting cross-legged on the floor doesn’t really help. Teddy is perched on a nearby chunk of rubble in one of his affected ‘cool’ poses, and it looks pretty damn uncomfortable. (He catches Billy looking at him and kind of starts, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it.) Nathaniel takes up position near Eli.
“One thing I think we’ll definitely need before we actually go out and do anything for real," Eli says, like he’s planning a war, “are some exit strategies. Some quick means of escape if something goes bad." He doesn’t say as it almost certainly will, but Billy hears it just the same. Or maybe that’s just his life talking.
Nathaniel turns to Billy. “I thought it might be possible to use some of your magic, Billy," he says. “Maybe for some sort of large-scale distraction, or even a teleport."
Panic digs its claws right into Billy’s heart. The only distraction he can envision is accidentally setting himself on fire, and teleporting— There’s no way his magic is anywhere close to being able to do that; Billy wouldn’t even know where to start. Because he has read every Harry Potter, then sat through Jake’s audio books of the same, what he winds up blurting is, “Splinching!" instead of effectively articulating his utter terror.
Teddy catches a laugh behind his cupped hand and Eli rolls his eyes, but Nathaniel just stands there, nonplussed.
“I don’t— Splinching?" he says with a cock of his head.
Eli opens his mouth, but it’s Teddy who says, “Oh come on dude, how have you not read Harry Potter?" then looks surprised at himself for it.
Nathaniel still looks lost. So Billy and Teddy trade matching raised eyebrow looks when Eli launches into a detailed synopsis of all seven books, the cultural phenomenon, a footnote about the movies, then the specifics of moving instantaneously from one place to another and leaving a piece of yourself behind. Billy knows his mouth must be hanging open, but Eli just shrugs and says, “I like to read."
“Clearly," Billy says.
“Back to the point," Nathaniel says, showing no sign that he’s been overwhelmed by the info dump he was just subjected to. Maybe it’s the armor. “Billy, it’s not like your magic behaves the way magic does in fiction—"
Billy snorts. He doesn’t feel that he needs to verbalize the Obviously.
“But if you’re really worried about it," Nathaniel continues, cutting to the heart in that unnerving way he has sometimes, “maybe you could start on something inanimate."
“There are plenty of rocks," Teddy says and pats the one underneath him. “You can’t hurt rocks."
The first six rocks explode. The seventh winds up embedded, probably at the molecular level, in the outer wall of Avenger’s mansion. Eli winces when Billy’s attempt to dislodge it has it melting down the side of the wall like particularly viscous snot.
Teddy has remained silent throughout the entire process, like he isn’t sure how to comment, and the practiced smile is back on his face. Billy huffs a little, internally, and the eighth rock goes whizzing sideways through the air, narrowly missing Nathaniel’s head.
Billy looks at them all, as if to say See?.
Teddy’s stupid smile remains in place for a moment, but then it starts cracking around the edges and before Billy realizes it, Teddy is rolling his eyes with his mouth twisted into something sarcastic.
He says, “Yeah, awesome, if all else fails you can always just attempt to scare the bad guys off with the exploded, melting decor. That’s totally an excellent plan."
Eli and Nathaniel look up sharply, and they gape a little when Billy doesn’t reply with something designed to shut Teddy down. Instead, a laugh bubbles out of him before he even has a chance to think about it. It surprises him, but at the same time it doesn’t, not really, because it hasn’t stopped being a relief, Teddy giving back. Also, that was pretty good, if a little late.
“Point taken, Teddy," he says through the laugh, and he’s rewarded by Teddy smiling, huge and open and honest.
The ninth rock actually disappears, though they never do quite find where it ended up.
::
So yeah, Billy’s powers? Still kind of malfunctioning. All the excitement he felt when they first manifested has bubbled over and sort of fused with his standard low-level self-loathing, creating a vortex of frustration and annoyance that the few bright spots of exhilaration only manage to feed instead of halt. At least the process took a little longer than usual this time around, which is small comfort when no matter how he tries, he can’t make any of his magic fucking work. More than half the time, nothing even happens at all; like, he can feel the sparks behind his eyes but when he opens them, nothing is different. Half of the rest of the time, something goes wrong. Usually spectacularly. Like the time he’d tried to cast a simple disguise spell on everyone and Nathaniel had wound up with waist-long pink hair for more than four hours until it just sort of went away on its own.
(I’m not sure what that was supposed to accomplish, Nathaniel had said dryly as Teddy had prodded at the hair like he half expected it to come alive and Eli had gone cross-eyed trying to see the enormous — and thankfully more short-lived — handlebar mustache Billy’d managed to give him.)
“I think it’s because you can’t focus," Teddy says to him after he’s flopped to the ground in defeat for what seems like the zillionth time.
“Gee, I wonder what could possibly be keeping me from focusing. Surely not the threat of imminent death by Kang or the possibility of life as a frog when something backfires in my face," Billy says, throwing an arm over said face. Because really, it could be any one of a million things. Not the least of which is the fact that Teddy keeps taking his shirt off.
“Billy, your life is so tragic. My heart, it bleeds," Teddy says.
“I think I liked you better before you had a personality," Billy mumbles from underneath his arm.
Teddy doesn’t say anything; he just bends over and pulls Billy’s arm off his face so he can make the ‘world’s smallest violin’ motion under Billy’s nose. He’s smiling when he eventually hauls Billy back to his feet.
The next time they meet up, Teddy shows up with his satchel bulging with books. Billy goes over to peek and immediately regrets it when Teddy starts pulling the books out and he gets a glimpse of the titles.
“Oh hell no," he says, backing up with his hands raised in protest. “No no. Not no way, not no how."
“Come on, Cowardly Lion. It’s the only way to get to see the wizard." Teddy grins and pokes Billy in the chest like punctuation.
“You are an absolute laugh riot," Billy replies, because oh my god, worst joke.
Teddy hasn’t stopped grinning. “You know you want to," he says, holding up a book titled appropriately, How To Think What You Want.
“I really, really don’t. I still have some dignity left." Billy holds up his thumb and forefinger. “Some."
“You do? That’s news to me."
Billy’s about to reply with something scathing, a perfect barb’s sure to come to mind once he stops focusing on Teddy’s lips, but that’s when Nathaniel comes in. His eyes flick from Billy’s face to Teddy brandishing the book and stops short.
“I am not entirely sure I want to know," he says, just in time for Eli to follow him in and say, “Know what?"
Nathaniel points at them, open-palmed, as if to say Have at it.
Eli takes in the whole scene and comes out with, “You didn’t buy those, did you Teddy? Because you know, I work at a library." Of course that’s the reaction he has, because obviously out of a city of eight million weirdoes, Billy is going to wind up on a team with the weirdest of them all.
“Nah, I just borrowed ‘em off my mom," Teddy says, putting the book down on the top of the stack. “These are just the ones she’s already read."
Billy looks at the stack of books and thinks that Teddy’s mother must be keeping the entire self-help industry afloat all by herself. He might possibly say something along those lines out loud, because it’s not like he’s ever going to learn to keep his mouth shut.
“The point is," Nathaniel interrupts before any of them can pick that up and run with it, “why are they here, Teddy?"
“They’re for Billy," he says simply, and goddammit, they all turn to look at him as one.
“Oh hey, no, not my idea," he says, hands up again. “Actually, I haven’t even heard an idea yet. Teddy."
Eli holds up a hand. “Look, whatever. As thrilled as I am that you two have worked out whatever the hell it was that you needed to work out, now is not the time. Nathaniel thinks he’s finally got the simulator working, and we all need to start using it. As a team."
Teddy’s fingers curl around the topmost book. “Eli, this is actually kind of more important than that," he says in what Billy recognizes as a version of the Halt Evil-Doers! voice Teddy’s been practicing for Hulk-Lite.
See, ever since their ‘breakthrough’, or whatever you want to call it, Teddy has actually started to not just trade banter with Billy but also disagree with Nathaniel and indulge Eli’s head-butting inclinations. Billy was worried for minute that this might screw up the whole team dynamic even more, given that Eli and Nathaniel actually seemed to like that Teddy deferred to them, but Eli apparently will take resistance wherever he can get it, and the last of the tension has gone out of Nathaniel’s shoulders, so Billy figures they’re all alright.
Not that he thinks this is the time for it. He’s torn between feeling touched (and incredibly confused) that Teddy is looking out for him, and horrified that they’re about to butt heads over his useless, shitty powers. And Eli doesn’t even know that that’s what it’s about yet.
“Explain," Eli says, gearing up, relishing it.
“I think all this can help Billy get a better handle on his powers," Teddy says, and he sounds so damn proud of himself in spite of Eli’s dangerously raised eyebrow.
Billy’s not sure what’s a worse prospect— never mastering his powers and going down in history as the most inept superhero ever, or only managing to get control of through a completely unnecessary amount of self-help books.
“He can work on them when we all practice," Eli says. “Simulations that shoot back have a remarkable way of focusing the mind."
“Yeah?" Teddy says, swelling a bit. “Maybe you like being hit in the ass with lightning bolts, but I can tell you from experience that it’s not actually all that great, and I doubt you have the healing factor to recover from it."
Billy says “Hey!" then, “Wait, you have a healing factor?" at the same time Nathaniel says, “You zapped him in the ass?" and chokes on a laugh.
In an eerie mind-sync moment, both Teddy and Eli wave a shushing hand at Billy and Nathaniel respectively. That they do it at the exact same time is probably the least creepy thing about it.
For a moment, Eli looks like he’s going to keep pushing it, but instead he nods his head. “Okay, I see your point. But you guys should really do that on your own time."
Billy waves his hands in front of him, Danger! Danger!. “I didn’t even agree to this!"
Teddy talks right over him. “That’s fair."
“I’m not doing this," Billy tries again.
Teddy holds his hand out to Billy, palm up, and for an absurd second Billy isn’t sure if he wants him to shake on it or spit in it or seal the deal in blood or, wildly, if Teddy wants to hold hands and present a united front. In the end, all Teddy says is, “Phone."
“Um, what?" is about all Billy can manage, even as he automatically hands it over. To think he started this day expecting to blow up a few more rocks and maybe up his take-off rate to 90%.
Teddy bends his head over the keypad and expertly navigates through to Billy’s contacts, typing in a number in a few short seconds. He hits send, and his own phone rings from the flap of his satchel.
“There. Now I have your number and you have mine," Teddy says, handing the phone back.
“Not doing it," Billy tries one last time, trying for forceful but ending up feeble with the phone still warm from Teddy’s hands.
Teddy claps a hand on his shoulder and grins at him, a touch evilly, until Nathaniel coughs and Eli barks out, “Guys!"
And just. Goddammit.
::
That night, his phone bleeps just as he’s falling asleep. He manages to fumble it to the floor with his blind groping, and by the time he’s got it to his face he has to turn the screen on again to see what it wants.
You will come around to my Very Excellent Plan kaplan.
Just you wait
blinks at him in the dark, and he doesn’t even stop to think before thumbing back
definitely liked you better w/o personality
Just you wait
is what blinks at him a second later.
Yeah, he’s really pretty doomed.
::
Billy is starting to think Teddy isn’t actually over the whole ‘lightning-ed ass leading to screaming match leading to awkward wrestling match leading to peace’ thing, and is actually engaged in a fiendishly clever and involved revenge plot to kill him by degrees.
See, those brief late night texts apparently opened a floodgate Billy didn’t even know was present. Now he and Teddy are texting each other multiple rounds a day, over inane shit like where would different superheroes go on vacation or whether Playstation’s ice cream cone-thing actually manages to improve on the Wiimote (it doesn’t). Sometimes Teddy texts him in the middle of the day, in class, which makes Billy jump and drop his calculator or scrawl black ink across his textbooks, and once Teddy even texted him in the middle of a terrifying incident where Billy’s mother was brandishing the extra charges on his cell bill and Billy thought the whole thing was going to come spilling out of him.
Mom is really good at making people talk.
And the Great Self-Help Experiment (as Billy has taken to calling it) is actually working, shockingly. But most of those sessions devolve pretty quickly into discussions of comic books and favorite movies and what do do in case of zombie apocalypse. Billy is discovering that they have a truly absurd amount of stuff in common, though it’s still grounds for an instant Halo match to the death if either of them ever tries to assert that either the Scarlet Witch or the Wasp is better than the other. (Billy loses most of these matches, but still believes he wins the moral victory.)
In short, they’re actually becoming real friends. Which, honestly, is pretty awesome and Billy would be content with just that, really, except.
Except for the main reason Billy is sure Teddy is masterminding some plot involving Billy’s slow, tortuous death: the touching.
It's just. Now they’ve passed their crossroads, and that’s great — really — except for how the other side of that street is apparently that Teddy is an incredibly tactile person. Billy can excuse the shoulder gripping, the friendly shoves, even the occasional arm slung around his neck — after all, even Eli and Nathaniel do that, though not as much as Teddy — but that’s far from all of it. Teddy touches him when there’s no excuse for it and when there is, brushing lint off him and fidgeting with him while they wait for Eli to get to the point and sitting way way too close.
Billy can’t figure out what it all means, what he’s supposed to get from it. Maybe it’s just the ordinary friend stuff, the stuff Billy only was just beginning to discover way back when before every touch became suspect. Before whatever friendships he might have carried with him from childhood became afraid that oh no, the gay will come off. Before everything that everyone else got to have just stopped. So maybe it’s normal, this easiness with another person’s space that Billy never quite managed to learn. Maybe that’s all it is.
Except. Except that time right after Kessler had apparently decided it was safe to start hitting Billy in the face again — provided he did it with objects that were not his fist, thrown from quite a large distance away — that time Teddy had stared at him like he’d never seen a facial injury before, then reached out and run his thumb over Billy’s split lip for a little too long before coughing and stepping away.
And that’s just— it’s not normal friend stuff. Is it?
It’s just not something Billy knows how to parse. Like, at all. Hell, he hadn’t had a clue Jimmy Stidham was flirting until Jimmy stuck his tongue down Billy’s throat in Health class during that CPR unit. Generally speaking, Billy’s inclined to err on the side of caution, especially because he can’t quite imagine anyone, let alone Teddy doing it on purpose. And in this, it is most definitely better to be safe than wrong.
::
It is way too early for human contact when Billy’s phone bleeps at him. He manages to grab it without knocking it to the floor and is utterly unsurprised to see a text from Teddy.
Come over
is all it says.
t its to early for selfhelp carp
he manages to type through his pre-coffee fog.
Not that. Just come over
Also, carp?
comes back after a minute.
need coffee
Billy sends, scowling.
I will buy you a coffee billy
Hang on
Billy’s phone goes off unexpectedly in his hand, and he may or may not let out a shocked little yelp.
“Come over, Billy," Teddy says when he gets the phone open, all pleading and cheerful because he is a vile morning person and should not be allowed.
“Coffee," Billy grumbles. “Also, you are evil."
“Please, Billy?" Teddy says, and Billy can practically see the puppy dogs eyes that Teddy is unfairly good at. “I found a place to get my ears pierced, and I want you to come."
Fuck. “A large coffee," Billy says in the most intimidating voice he can muster.
“Anything."
“With extra espresso," he says.
“Obviously," Teddy says with a clear smile in his voice, and hangs up.
Billy doesn’t trust himself to fly over this early in the morning or — god forbid — try to teleport again, not after what happened the last time, so he yells, “Going to Teddy’s, Mom," throws the Transformer he trips over in the general direction of Jake’s room, and heads for the train.
The whole ride he deliberately doesn’t think of when Teddy got this idea in his head, because Teddy has proven himself full of ridiculous ideas, and because those are really not pre-coffee thoughts.
(What happened was: Teddy had looked up from digging through the pictures on Billy’s computer and said, I think I’m going to get my ears pierced.
Billy had raised his eyebrows and said, Um, okay, because really.
I mean, like, a lot of them, Teddy had gone on, tugging at the curve of his ear. It’s something I always really wanted, but I could never quite— before, I—
Billy had nodded, because he got that even if the concept of caring like that was still kind of foreign to him.
Anyway, you should come with me, Teddy had said, and he’d reached over and traced along the cartilage of Billy’s ear. You could get something too.
Billy had fought against the triple coronary his heart was engaged in having to say, Pretty sure my parents would freak.
Teddy had said, Well then, maybe a tattoo, and switched his grip to Billy’s wrist, tracing complicated and nonsensical patterns against the skin of his inner forearm.
And really, what the hell is Billy even supposed to do with that?)
Teddy’s waiting outside of his building when Billy comes off the subway, holding out a large coffee that Billy lunges at before even saying hello.
Teddy laughs and says, “I would have gotten you an IV drip, but I don’t think those are commercially available yet."
Billy is too lost in the sweet sweet bliss of caffeine to even bother replying with a sarcastic remark.
Once they’re up in Teddy’s room and Billy’s internalized about half the cup of coffee (and thoroughly scalded his esophagus in the process) he finally says, “Okay, tell me about this place."
Teddy hands him a square card from an irregular stack on his desk. All the cards and fliers look pretty similar from what Billy can see, so he’s not sure what it is about this one that’s got Teddy decided.
“They’ve got a bunch of good reviews online," Teddy says, shrugging. “And um, I. I like the name." He blushes a little bit and rubs the back on his neck.
Ah. Blank Slate Tattoos. “Hey, I’m in no position to judge you," Billy says. “Well, except for your taste in movies, but that’s just par for the course," he continues, and Teddy hits him with a pillow. Billy topples over dramatically but manages to save the coffee at the last minute with some tricky spell work. Teddy whistles appreciatively.
“So are you coming with?" Teddy says after a minute.
Billy sips on his coffee to collect his thoughts. “Look," he says, “if you want me to come, I’ll come, but... And I don’t mean to be a wet blanket or anything but..."
“But?" Teddy prompts.
Billy tugs his shoulders in a little, holds his coffee in front of him. “It’s not like I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I mean, obviously," he gestures to his piercing-less face, “but, are you sure you want to get pierced at a shop that would pierce you?" He stops, thinks about the Groucho Marx-esque structure of that sentence, and attempts to rephrase. “What I mean is, any shop that’s going to illegally pierce a sixteen year old probably isn’t the cleanest or safest place to go, you know?"
Teddy looks down and away. “Um, I was actually sort of. Uh. Planning to age myself up a little?"
Billy gapes at him for a minute. “You are ridiculous," he says, flat. “They are still going to check your ID. In fact, I think they’re legally required to. Hand it over."
“Billy, what?"
“Your ID, give it," Billy says again.
Teddy wordlessly digs it out of his wallet and passes it over. Billy turns it over in his hands a few times, then cups it between his palms and focuses. Repeat to yourself what you want, one of those stupid books had said. Make it happen by believing it will happen. So Billy thinks about what he wants, how he wants Teddy’s birth date to change, how the ink will rearrange itself. He feels the magic flicker behind his eyes and feels the pleasurable spark of rebellion in his gut.
When he’s done, the small piece of plastic now assures that world that Theodore Altman is in fact nineteen years of age.
Teddy takes it back from him with his eyebrows drawn in tight and his mouth hard. He doesn’t say a word for a long time, just runs his fingers over the numbers beneath the laminate.
“You didn’t have to do that," he says quietly. “I didn’t mean you to— that’s not why I—"
Billy has steadily been learning more and more about Teddy. By now he’s heard — admittedly in bits and pieces, broken up and grudging over time — most of Teddy’s history with his former “friend" Greg, about Teddy’s powers, about what Teddy used to do. He’s not always sure he totally gets it — isn’t sure he ever will totally get it, because he’s never known how to be anything other than exactly what he is, for better or worse — but at least knowing means he sort of understands what Teddy’s trying to say.
“Relax, dude," he says, trying to play it off. “You didn’t trick me into horrible powers abuse. Sorry, but you are just not that good at manipulation." Which isn’t strictly true, but it’s not like any of it’s deliberate and Teddy isn’t really responsible for Billy’s own neurotic responses anyway.
When Teddy still doesn’t say anything, Billy takes a deep breath, hopes he doesn’t blow it, and reaches over to touch Teddy gently on the knee.
“I wanted to do it, okay?" he says. Teddy looks up at him then, smiling a little, and Billy grins. “Besides, now we’re both complicit, so neither of us can rat the other out to the Feds."
Teddy puts on a mock serious face. “Thus begins our sad descent into the world of supervillainy."
“Fear us," says Billy, and Teddy makes the appropriate spooky fingers.
(They duck into an alley on the way out so Teddy can give himself a few inches and rough shadowing of stubble without his mom seeing, and damn, if that’s really what Teddy’s going to look like when he’s older, then...yeah, okay, Billy was done for a long time ago anyway.)
Blank Slate Tattoos is unassuming. Billy’s pretty sure you’d miss it completely if you weren’t looking for it, and he kind of likes that. It also seems really clean, which he likes even more, because Teddy might have a healing factor but that’s no reason to be plain stupid.
The guy at the counter has his head buried in a book and doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings that Billy can see (which seems a little unusual until it occurs to him that there are plenty of places that could be tattooed and/or pierced that Billy just isn’t privy to. He kind of wants to smack himself in the head). Despite his surly expression, he doesn’t blink twice at Teddy’s cheerful, “I’d like to get my ears pierced, please", just takes his ID (Billy holds his breath) and hands him a form. He sticks the ID on a photocopier then hands it back, and Teddy forks over enough cash for four holes in each ear.
“Reno’ll be out in a sec," he says, and sticks his nose back in his book.
Teddy drifts away from the counter to where Billy is flipping through some of the portfolio books without really looking at them.
“You know," he says, pitching his voice low, “it’s not too late for you to still get something done."
Billy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think my parents are any less inclined to freak than they were a week ago, T," he whispers.
“Think about it though," Teddy says and bumps their shoulders together.
“When I’m ready to be murdered, sure," says Billy, and Teddy laughs.
“You Theodore?" comes a voice from behind the counter.
“Teddy," he says, turning.
“Hi, Teddy. I’m Reno, and I’ll be your piercer today," the woman says in an amused sort of voice. She’s kind of impossibly tiny — she looks even younger than them — but she’s got metal poked through various points on her face and tattoos covering both arms and her entire neck and a complicated twist of dreads pinned up behind her head. For the first time in his life, Billy is feeling the overwhelming urge to get tattoos up and down both of his arms, because she’s making it look, simply, awesome. “You ready to come on back?"
“Absolutely," Teddy says with a grin. He goes around behind the counter in the direction she’s pointing, but when Billy moves to follow, the guy at the counter glares at him.
“Oh um," Teddy says, “can my friend not come in with me?"
“No, sorry," Reno says. She flashes Billy a sympathetic smile. “It’s not allowed; he’ll have to wait up here. Shouldn’t take long, though."
“It’s cool, T," Billy says at Teddy’s disappointed face. “I’ll bury my deep and ever-lasting sadness at being left behind in a tattoo magazine. “
“Don’t decide on one without me," Teddy warns.
“I’m not getting one," Billy says.
“Just you wait," Teddy says before heading back to the piercing room. Reno winks at Billy and he responds with an exaggerated shrug of despair before she goes to follow.
He does not not not think about a tattoo on his ribs, and Teddy bending to follow the lines with his tongue.
::
When Nathaniel tells them all he’s actually Kang, everything kind of blows up for a little while. Eli shouts at Nathaniel for a long time, which leads to Billy shouting at Eli, which leads straight into Eli shouting at Billy into Teddy shouting at Eli into Nathaniel shouting at Teddy into Billy shouting at Nathaniel until none of them can shout anymore, and they all stalk off in different directions.
Billy spends a few days morosely texting Teddy and getting equally morose texts back from Teddy and wishing he had gotten that piercing after all. He and Teddy meet up once and spend an afternoon watching appallingly terrible movies on tv, but neither of them is capable of coming up with snarky commentary or an absurd alternate plotline for even Sharktopus.
“I guess he was a future supervillain after all," Billy says as something on tv that should not really be able to explode does.
“Hmmm?" Teddy says from where he’s hugging his knees.
“Nothing," Billy says.
In the end it’s Eli who calls them all back to the mansion. At seeing Nathaniel — who’s returned to original flavor Nathaniel, all tension and holding on by his fingernails — Eli says, “We’re still behind you."
Billy thinks that maybe that’s not exactly it, but at least it’s sort of in the right vicinity. Like, they aren’t going to leave Nathaniel, because he needs them — that’s written all over his face every minute of every day — but. ‘Behind’ ignores the part where they need him too. Billy gets it, and Teddy does too, judging from the hesitant smile on his face. Billy’s pretty sure Eli gets that part of it too, but just doesn’t know how to say it.
Because it’s not behind, they aren’t behind Nathaniel, following his lead and propping him up. It’s beside, alongside, four abreast and all of them keeping each other in line.
From the way Nathaniel grips Eli’s forearm, it looks like he does understand.
It’s just when things are maybe starting to get back to ‘normal’ — whatever the hell that is anyway — when Nathaniel throws them another loop. Billy’s in the middle of carting Eli through the air, frantically trying to dodge the projectiles Teddy is lobbing at them both, when Nathaniel abruptly calls them down, saying that they’re ending practice early today.
Billy drops Eli lightly down and lands without stumbling even a little, which earns him a blinding smile from Teddy. He scoffs and makes a rude gesture in response, what with the alternative being spontaneous combustion. Teddy rolls his eyes and brushes the rubble crumbs off his hands.
“Any particular reason, Nathaniel?" Teddy says and grabs Billy by the arms when he goes to make another gesture.
Billy responds by sticking out his tongue, and Teddy grabs him again, and Eli barks out, “Guys," snapping his fingers.
Nathaniel stands up straight in his thirtieth century posture and clears his throat with twenty first century awkwardness. “I—" he starts. “I thought that maybe we could all go out to dinner."
Eli starts to get into his argument stance — he even pulls his new mask off for maximum glare — and Billy just rolls his eyes because the day they go without this sort of ridiculousness is the day all the villains rise up as one, admit that they’ve all done the world wrong, and announce that they are collectively moving to Pluto in order to find the better person inside themselves.
“Don’t you think we might have better things to do with our time?" Eli is asking pointedly. Nathaniel side-steps and rubs the back of his neck.
“Oh shut up, Eli," Billy says. “You’re screwing up his attempt at ‘team bonding’ or whatever." It comes out as sarcastic as usual, but Billy tries to inject some fondness into it. Everything’s still a little raw.
It’s not until Nathaniel reactivates his full armor and retreats back to his thirtieth century posture that Billy realises, oh shit, that’s exactly what Nathaniel was trying to do. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering with all this magic stuff when clearly his superpower is being the champion foot-in-it-sticker.
Billy catches Teddy’s eyes, and from the look of it, he’s recognized the exact same thing Billy has. Billy tries to send Fix it fix it fix it to him through sheer willpower alone. It kind of seems to work.
“Yeah, Nathaniel, that sounds great," Teddy says, possibly a little too loudly, and lets go of Billy to lay a hand on Eli’s shoulder before he can protest. “I think we could all use a little downtime."
“Definitely," Billy says quickly and stares hard at Eli, willing him to get it.
Eli waits a second then throws his hands up in the air dramatically. “Fine! Just anywhere but Chili’s," he says, and Nathaniel laughs.
It’s later, after they’ve changed back into street clothes, after they’ve settled into a restaurant that is decidedly not Chili’s, Billy starts to think that maybe he gets it the rest of it. Why they're all still here. That maybe Nathaniel had the right thought in the broad strokes but was still wrong at all the details. Somewhere in between Teddy piling much closer than he needs to in the booth (the thrill of him pressed all along Billy’s side mitigated somewhat by the constant elbow whacks in the ribs) and Nathaniel ordering a virgin Daquiri and making a hilarious face at the first sip, and Eli automatically scraping all the onions from his burger onto Billy’s, Billy realises that they don’t need enforced team bonding exercises. They are all already bonded, a thousand tiny stupid threads tying them all together into a unit that Billy can’t quite imagine having ever being without. From Nathaniel always starting the simulator on Swarm because he knows Billy finds him ridiculous, to Teddy being able to let Eli vent when he needs to and shutting him down deftly when he doesn’t, to Eli coming back every time, even though he says every day that their antics are going to make him prematurely grey, it all adds up to something that—
And you know what, fuck that it feels cliche to even think it, because it’s true. Together they are better than the sum of their parts, and no matter what might happen after this, coming together was right. That maybe they’ve already done good.
::
Because this is Billy’s life, everything comes complete with catastrophe.
A freak thunderstorm comes up when they’re still a few blocks away, and by the time they make it to the sanctuary of Billy’s building, both he and Teddy are completely soaked. Billy’s mood is also completely soaked, as it were, because he had tried — had wanted — to do something to keep them both dry, or hell, even just to conjure up an umbrella, and he’d totally failed. Not even the thought of an afternoon of zombie movies perks him up as they squelch their way across the lobby, nor do Teddy’s hesitant, wet smiles.
They drip puddles in the carpet of the elevator on the way up and Billy tells Bubbe-Kaplan-in-his-head to shove her protests.
He sends Teddy into his room once they get into the apartment and makes a beeline for the bathroom to get some towels. He doesn’t pay attention to the quantity of water that he is dripping fucking everywhere, because he really just does not care. Predictably, when he turns to leave, his foot skids on the newly slick tiles and he goes down, cracking his head against the towel rack before he catches himself. Dammit, Kaplan, every time, he curses himself as he sits on the floor, waiting for his vision to clear. At least his pants can’t get any wetter.
When Billy finally gets back to his room, he tosses Teddy a towel with the hand not currently engaged in clutching at the burgeoning headache in his temple. Teddy pauses with the towel halfway to his hair and narrows his eyes.
“Jesus, Billy, what did you do?" he says, dropping his towel and crossing to where Billy is sort of leaning against the closed door.
“Oh you know," Billy says, wincing, “just pondering my apparent lack of ability to walk upright without falling down."
“Did you hit your head?" says Teddy, and Billy just sort of looks at him until Teddy huffs and pulls Billy’s hands away. “Let me see it, dweeb."
He steers Billy over to the bed and Billy half-sits, half-falls onto the edge. Teddy leans over into his space and stares at his forehead, hands just grazing Billy’s edges in the way that would ordinarily make Billy’s whole body lock up. His hair drips into Billy’s face.
“It doesn’t look like you’re bleeding," Teddy says, his voice unusually rough. “You do have one hell of a lump, though."
“Is any brain leaking out?" Billy says.
“Not that I can see," Teddy says. “But wait, there is something..." Teddy’s fingers are suddenly right in Billy’s face, a soft pressure against his cheekbone that startles him into jerking backwards and almost giving Teddy a lump to match the one he’s sporting.
“What," he says eloquently. Knocks to the head and proximity are apparently excellent for his reasoning capabilities.
“Eyelash," Teddy says, pulling back to grin. He moves the tip of his finger back into Billy’s eye line and, sure enough, there’s the dark curl of an eyelash on the pad.
“Wonderful. I might have brain damage and you’re concerning yourself with the various bits I shed," Billy says. Then he wishes for a rewind button because that was kind of an unfortunate way to put that.
Luckily, Teddy seems unfazed. “I think you’re going to live," he says in a voice like he’s rolling his eyes, and kind of waggles his finger under Billy’s nose. “Anyway, go on."
“Go on what?" Billy says. Isn’t he the one with the cracked skull?
“Go on," Teddy says, waggling his finger more as if that will make what he’s saying make any more sense. “You know, blow it and make a wish."
And wow, that actually kind of tops Billy’s own unfortunate phrasing. Especially because, “Really," he deadpans.
Teddy just sort of looks at him expectantly. Also like he has no intention of moving until Billy does what he wants.
“Teddy," Billy finally says, going a little cross-eyed staring at Teddy’s finger, “you do realize that I am basically my own wish granter. Magic?" He makes the appropriate hands for emphasis. “No genies, no birthday candles, no eyelashes necessary."
“No sense of fun necessary either," Teddy says.
“Nope, born without one." Maybe this isn’t really happening, maybe he hit his head harder than he thought, maybe he’s lying passed out on the bathroom floor.
“Just humor me. Dork," Teddy says, and Billy gives in. He’s got nothing left. It’s been a day that’s gone, as per usual, from bad to worse, filling itself with storms and confusion and blows to his equilibrium, and somehow adding eyelashes on top of everything else is the thing that finally exhausts his reserves. He leans forward and blows the eyelash away and doesn’t wish for anything at all because there doesn’t seem to be much point.
Then he pulls back, and Teddy is still just as close, hand still hovering in mid-air. “See, that wasn’t so bad," he says, lips quirking at the side and water from the rain dripping from his hair. There's a little bit of a flush across his nose as he looks down at Billy.
Billy rolls his eyes away from Teddy's expression, because what else is there? That's all there ever is, no matter how many eyelashes there are or how much Teddy blushes or how close he leans. Billy kind of wants to cover his face with his hands but Teddy still hasn't moved away. “Teddy, I don’t—"
Whatever that sentence was supposed to be gets lost because that's when Teddy surges forward and crushes his mouth to Billy’s.
And. And Billy did not see this one coming. There’s a split second where he feels like his heart is going to pound its way out of his chest; he can feel the tremble in Teddy’s body and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Oh fuck," he breathes against Teddy’s lips and opens his mouth into it.
Teddy responds eagerly, oh, so eagerly, biting at Billy’s upper lip in his haste and making a small, desperate noise like he can’t believe Billy didn’t shove him off or hit him in the face. Like he never expected it to work. Not that Billy has any idea what that feeling’s like, nope, and he does his best to push it away by sucking on Teddy’s bottom lip.
Teddy’s hand works its way around to grip the back of Billy’s head and he leans into Billy hungrily. Billy is unprepared for it, which, wow understatement, and he has to grasp at the wet sides of Teddy’s t-shirt to pull him into his lap before there’s a second round of blows to the head and they spend the rest of the afternoon unconscious.
Teddy makes a noise that’s probably assent, given how he’s still kissing Billy like he has no need for breath and how his knees tighten on Billy’s hips when Billy licks his way into his mouth. And god, it’s actually happening, it’s not— he has his hands under the back of Teddy’s shirt and he’s pulling him in closer and there’s no way this could be happening because this is just not how things work for him.
Billy pulls back to speak but Teddy follows. He tries to speak anyway. “Is this really—" he mumbles into the space between them, and Teddy’s teeth clack against his as if to say Yes, yes it is really.
It’s unreal and kind of dizzying and his body shakes with it as every single nerve ending fires all at once. He nips at Teddy’s lips, channeling all that frantic energy into pushing at Teddy, pulling, trying to find the place he fits against him, but Teddy nuzzles that away, turns it into Teddy stroking his tongue along Billy’s bottom lip until Billy gives over to it. He lets Teddy in as much as Teddy lets him do the same until neither one is giving any ground and they’re meeting together somewhere new.
Billy’s skin feels on fire with it inside his clammy clothes, so he smooths his hands over Teddy’s belly, his chest, his neck to try and soothe it, but Teddy makes the desperate noise again and all it does is make Billy ache. He tries to ease it by mouthing at Teddy’s neck, feeling Teddy pull at his shoulders as Billy works to mark him.
“Never thought—" Teddy mutters, tries to find Billy’s skin. “I’ve wanted this— Never thought I’d be able to—", breaking off to push Billy back enough to suck his earlobe into his mouth. Billy gasps and re-angles himself, always re-angling, to find Teddy’s collarbone with his tongue.
For once, Billy can’t find any words. He thinks of their first fight, the similar tangle of limbs, the cracks that started there to finally split all the way open now. How Teddy couldn’t start things then and Billy couldn’t not and maybe they’ve both been changing this whole time without even realizing it. How maybe they were always going to end up here.
But that’s much too big of an idea for this moment, not when there are better things to be putting his mind to, better uses for his mouth than talking, and Billy doesn’t mind his lack of words. Instead, he stretches up to fit them together again, kissing Teddy and being kissed by Teddy until his lips are numb and his jaw aches and Teddy is rocking against him.
It takes a long time for Billy to make himself break away from Teddy — every time he tries some new patch of skin or curve of lips exerts a fresh pull over him and he’s right back where he started in the best possible way. When does manage it, he feels what has to be the dopiest grin in three states spread across his face and has no inclination to stop it or cover it with something cutting. Teddy brings their foreheads together, noses brushing, breathing hard. Billy can see every fleck in his eyes, which is kind of unbelievable.
Teddy winds his fingers through Billy’s hair and leans every millimeter closer he’s able to get. So many things rise in Billy’s head to say, from God, Teddy, do you even know how much I— to Why did this take us so long? to If we didn’t need food to stay alive, I’m not sure I’d ever want to stop doing this. In the end though, there’s really just one thing.
“Just to be sure," he says against Teddy’s lips, “you’re not just doing this because I have a head injury, right?"
Billy can feel Teddy smile as he says it, but he also hopes that Teddy knows what he means. He’s close enough to feel how Teddy’s heart picks up a little, even through the muddle of all the other things coursing through him. He runs the bridge of his nose along Teddy’s and tries not to tense, tries not to expect anything.
Teddy squeezes him with his knees, uses the hand in his hair to tug Billy’s head up until they can see each other properly. “It’s what I want," he says simply. “You—"
Billy rolls his eyes exaggeratedly to fight off the blush he can feel threatening. “Oh. Good," he says. “As long as we’ve got that straight then, because I’m not sure the towel rack could survive the punishment if I had to do this every time." He turns into the laugh that rises from Teddy’s chest and kisses him down onto the bed.
This is still Billy’s life, so it’s not long after that that Billy’s parents get home and Charlie comes stomping down the hall, yelling for Billy to come clean up all this water he dripped everywhere. But now his life also contains a blushing Teddy who’s struggling to get his wet shirt back on and giggling against Billy’s shoulder blade as he attempts to do the same. He catches sight of the hickey underneath Teddy’s jaw and his spine goes warm and tingly and he thinks that, if this is his life, maybe it’s not such a bad one after all.
::
So the days go like this:
Billy spends about a week alternating between giddy and nervous and so fucking excited that sometimes he can barely even look at Teddy from across the room without his stomach flip-flopping to the point of queasiness. He doesn’t know how to do this, but keeps stumbling along trying to figure it out. Sometimes Teddy will squeeze his hand like he’s feeling the same thing.
They keep practicing together. Eli and Nate still switch between biting each other’s heads off one minute to being best friends the next. Sometimes Nathaniel goes stiff and worried and sometimes Eli gets mad all over again about the Kang thing. Sometimes Teddy still retreats behind his robotic wall and at times Billy can’t stop the cutting things that rise to his lips. Sometimes Eli laughs or Nathaniel tries to crack a joke or Billy actually listens and Teddy’s support runs, warm and tangible, through them all. Eli runs and Nathaniel shoots and Teddy gets big enough to break things and Billy’s magic gets a little bit better every day (even if he does still have to repeat those stupid self-help maxims at least half the time). Sometimes everything goes okay.
One day Billy’s practicing teleporting, practicing it over and over, from the rocks in the garden to just himself to the remains of the machinery scattered around, and when he finally manages to teleport all four of them across the length of the hall, he slumps, weary, against the wall. Nathaniel is checking the readings from his armor and Eli is trying to stick his nose in the process, so it’s just Billy, and Teddy, leaning a little to close.
“You know, you’re kind of amazing," Teddy says, low, pitched into Billy’s ear with his hand in the small of Billy’s back.
Billy starts at that, because he has no idea how he could ever amaze anyone. He’s just him, awkward Billy Kaplan who wears clothes that don’t fit properly, who weaves sarcasm around himself like a shield and aims it like a weapon, who it sometimes feels like is made of a million elbows. He’s all points, none of them going the way they should.
Teddy’s the one who’s amazing, who takes Billy’s breath away, whose confidence shines now that he can finally let it be real. Teddy was the key, not just to Billy but to all of them. Billy doesn’t know how to say any of that, how to show how much everything’s changed on him, so he pinches Teddy’s side and maybe lets out something of a yelp when Teddy’s hand moves lower to cover his ass.
Nathaniel and Eli look up at the sound. Nathaniel smothers a smile and Eli barks, “Guys!" because he’s always going to be the team mom.
And it goes, because Billy is always going to occasionally blow things up with his mind, and none of them have the slightest clue what they’re doing, and maybe this excitement will never truly go away, and yeah. This is his life.
::fin::