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Nate is… odd. Just odd. There aren’t many other words that come up to try and describe him. He wears Iron Lad’s metallic skin easier than his own, and he moves around like he feels the weight of being young and the need to be older, and Billy just looks at him and thinks (and not even in a particularly bad way) odd.
Eli strikes Billy as the kind of guy that would glare at him for pulling his phone out at the library, but other than that (and the fact that Nate and him can’t seem to see eye to eye about anything at all), he looks pretty cool. Like the kind of guy he’d want to be superhero buddies with.
Oh Jeez, ‘superhero buddies’, he’s so lame. God, everyone’s gonna notice him being an absolute dork. He’s gonna get kicked off the team for being a total nerd.
Or for almost frying someone up with his powers.
He feels himself wince, and brings his thumb up to his lips to bite at his cuticles.
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Eli almost yells, then. And Billy thinks if they ever stop arguing long enough for even that.
Eli looks away from Nate, lips curled into a sneer. Billy’s seen them do this dance and song for about an hour now, arguing about apparently everything and nothing, and getting riled up at each other and then just deflating like punctured balloons, like they don’t know another outlet for all the pent up something between them.
Nate is furrowing his brow, looking at Eli like he can’t decide whether he wants to punch him, or something else entirely and Eli is sighing and rubbing his temple, muttering something under his breath that Billy’s pretty sure would make his mom purse her lips and give him a Parental Look of Disapproval when Billy catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, thumb still firmly between his lips, the skin next to his nail tender and about to tear. He turns toward it, the pissy part of him thinking finally, and the overexcited one quivering in anticipation, chanting i’mgonnabeaheroi’mgonnabeaheroi’mgonnabeahero endlessly and against all his darker thoughts ( ialmostkilledsomeoneialmostkilledsomeoneialmostkilledsomeone ).
He almost chokes on his own thumb.
The guy walking towards them is blond and tall and broad and just all kinds of gorgeous, and he’s already smiling at them shyly, giving Billy (the only one who’s even looked at him yet, because Nate and Eli are still fuming at each other) a tiny handwave that looks ridiculous and so freaking endearing that it makes him swallow around his thumb, tongue lapping at the pad for a second before he notices he’s just there, casually sucking his thumb in front of the hottest guy he’s ever seen out of porn.
He looks down and almost loses his nail in his haste to get his hand away from his face, and the slurping noise he makes is embarrassing enough he can practically envision dying of mortification right there, in the Avengers Mansion.
When he chances a look up at Teddy, the guy is looking slightly flushed, gaze on the spot of Billy’s jeans where he wiped his hand.
The sight makes something coil tight and hot inside of him, even as Eli and Nate finally seem to notice the guy’s presence.
“Oh, Theodore! Great.” Nate greets him, a little too rigid.
Theodore, Billy thinks, and the guy looks up at Nate, flashes him a smile, and then looks back at Billy lightning quick and shoots out a rough sounding hi.
Great.