Work Text:
12:51 a.m.
Teddy: come over tomorrow?
Me: for?
Teddy: movies, cuddling, and however else you want to spend the last day of summer
Me: well in that case . . .
8:54 a.m.
“Sorry,” Teddy murmurs as Billy steps into the foyer, and Billy raises an eyebrow.
“I’m not saying you’re maritally obligated to do my laundry,” Tony says, his voice carrying down the stairwell. “That’s actually pretty ridiculous, if you think about it.”
Bruce rolls his eyes as he steps off the bottom stair. “Because that’s the ridiculous part.”
“Okay, maybe that part is ridiculous adjacent,” Tony concedes as he appears. He actually pauses to wave at Billy, but his attention is clearly focused on his husband. “But I think it’s important to note that after a week of shorts, t-shirts, jeans, more t-shirts, striped dresses—”
“And polka-dot dresses!” Amy calls from the kitchen.
“—and, yes, even polka-dot dresses,” he amends, “you forgot some of the most important laundry in this household. Namely, our u-n-d—”
“Everyone knows you’re talking about your underwear,” Miles complains as he hops down the last two stairs. He’s still sleep-creased, wearing his plaid pajama pants and a wrinkled tank, but he casts Billy a long look, anyway. “My dads are out of underwear,” he explains.
Billy’s eyes, uh, wander. Teddy follows his gaze and immediately shakes his head. “Dark path,” he mutters, and Billy snaps his gaze back up to Tony’s face.
Tony flashes him a knowing grin. Somewhere, in another universe, his less-discreet doppelgänger cracks a joke about my eyes are up here. In this one, though, he just adds, “And socks.”
“Are you planning on telling everyone about our wardrobe issues?” Bruce demands. When he whirls on his heel, Billy discovers that his top two shirt buttons are open. He immediately decides his boyfriend needs uglier foster parents.
Tony shrugs as he reaches for Bruce’s shirt. “You know, I take it on good authority that Wade Wilson never—”
Bruce steps back like Tony’s slapped him, a hand in the air. “No.”
“It’s not like I know this from practical experience, big guy. I just—”
“Stop speaking immediately,” Bruce instructs, and he keeps his hand raised until Tony rolls his lips together and mimes locking them.
Miles holds out his palm and accepts the invisible mouth-key before wandering into the kitchen.
Billy glances at Teddy. “Code Red?” he asks quietly.
“Code Double Red,” Teddy replies gravely, and Billy nods.
10:13 a.m.
When Teddy had first moved in with Tony and Bruce, he and Billy had sat across a table in their high school lunch room with a tattered Five Star notebook and an eight-pack of Crayola markers. “We need a system,” Teddy had said seriously. “Better than the one we had with Ed and Sylvia.”
Billy had sighed. “Just because Tristan decoded it—”
“Tristan,” Teddy had cut in, “is—was, I guess—an evil genius. Tony and Bruce are more . . . ”
He had waved his hand helplessly, and Billy had cocked his head to one side. “Nosy?” he had suggested after a few seconds.
Teddy had snorted. “Nosy is an understatement. And with Amy there, plus my new foster brother—”
“We need a system,” Billy had agreed.
Now, lying sideways on Teddy’s bed with his head hanging off the edge, Billy wonders if they somehow created a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“You’re not bleeding,” Teddy repeats for the fifth time, his voice sounding extra-distant as it echoes off the bathroom tile. “You slid on the rug. It’s just rug burn.”
“But it hurts.” Amy hiccups pathetically. “And Dot said—”
“Oh good,” Billy mutters to himself, “Dot said.”
“—that if you don’t put the Neaspirin on bloody cuts, your fingers’ll fall off and you’ll die.”
“True story,” Miles comments.
Teddy releases a low growling noise. “You are not helping.”
Billy counts to three before he sighs and rolls off the bed, not that he expects to discover anything new or exciting over in the nearest bathroom. No, the scene is exactly how he had left it when Amy had first burst into tears: a little girl with a raw, red knee sitting on the edge of the tub, a snide teenager leaning against the doorjamb, and Teddy looking about ready to throttle them both. He stops digging through the first aid kit to gaze hopefully up at Billy.
Billy smiles. “Here, look at this,” he says as he walks into the bathroom and pulls up his pant leg. By the time he plants his bare foot next to Amy, both she and Miles are gaping at the long scar that trails down his calf. “Gashed it on a rock at the park when I was nine. No Neosporin or anything.”
Amy frowns. “Dot said—”
“Dot,” Teddy interrupts, “probably misunderstood something her dads said. Like when she told you the Easter Bunny poops jelly beans.” Miles snickers, and Billy wonders exactly how much that boy had involved himself in the “Easter poop” incident. “You won’t lose your leg from a little rug burn. Go back to playing.”
Amy considers them for a few seconds before she nods bravely and darts out of the room. Miles, on the other hand, lingers. “You needed more than Neosporin to fix that cut, didn’t you?”
Billy shrugs. “Fourteen stitches.”
“You lied to a seven-year-old.”
“And you lied to two forty-somethings about why the iPad browser history ‘disappeared’ last week,” Teddy reminds his foster brother. The color all drains from Miles’s face, but Teddy just raises his eyebrows. “We even?”
“Completely.”
He’s barely backed out of the room when Teddy groans and leans forward enough to rest his forehead on the inside of Billy’s raised thigh. Billy resolutely fights against the flush that creeps up his neck and cheeks as he runs his fingers through Teddy’s hair. “You ever think our system turned the universe against us?” he asks.
Teddy sighs. “Every day.”
12:47 p.m.
“Star Wars is not supposed to be a sexy movie,” Teddy pants when they pull apart to breathe. He looms over Billy, all broad chest and shoulders, and Billy stretches to crook his leg around the back of his thigh. Over on the television, lightsabers hum and clash.
Teddy bites his lower lip, clearly planning his next attack, and Billy rocks up against him. “You obviously never watched Han Solo close enough as a kid,” he says, and Teddy’s moan is broken by a laugh.
As Billy loops arms around his neck to drag him down—to kiss him again, into oblivion, before they sneak off to Teddy’s room for, uh, other activities—he thinks for a moment that the last day of summer is built for this: movies and making out, your boyfriend pinning you to his parents’ couch while Darth Vader monologues about the Dark Side.
“Hard to kiss when you’re smiling,” Teddy teases, and Billy grins into the kiss.
He barely manages to slip his hand up under Teddy’s t-shirt when the front door bangs open.
Teddy jerks away like Billy’s touch suddenly burns, but they’re tangled up enough that he drags Billy with him. He swears, Billy swears, and suddenly they’re tipping off the side of the couch. Billy grabs at the nearest couch cushion, misses, and collides with the coffee table on his way to the floor.
He loses most of his breath when he hits the ground, and the rest of it when Teddy lands on top of him.
“Butterfingers got loose!” Miles shouts, and despite the pain of his (possibly) crushed rib cage and (probably) broken elbow, Billy hears the desperation in his voice. Billy also feels a wet nose in his face, and he shoves Dummy away from him with his good arm. Miles, predictably, ignores all of this. “I told Amy to hold on to his leash better—”
“I was holding on!” Amy protests. She sounds tearful. Again.
“—but he spotted another dog and took off!” When Billy finally remembers how to move, he cranes his (surprisingly intact) neck to watch Miles clutch his head with both hands. “The dads are going to kill me!”
“We’ll find him,” Teddy says calmly. He reaches down to pull Billy to his feet, and Billy prides himself in not swooning against his boyfriend’s chest like the main character in a bodice-ripper. “Let me grab Billy’s car keys, we can—”
“Billy’s car keys are with Mom,” Billy says. Teddy blinks at him, and he lifts his hands helplessly. “My dad’s car broke down, remember? I texted you about this three times, how did you not—”
“The dog is missing!” Amy breaks in. She surges forward to grab Teddy’s rumpled t-shirt, and this time, she is definitely crying. “We need to find him! Dummy needs his brother, and I don’t want Daddy Tony and Daddy Bruce mad at me!”
She shoves her face into Teddy’s shirt, her shoulders shuddering, and Billy sighs. “Backup?”
Teddy nods. “Backup.”
1:50 p.m.
Kate Bishop peers at Billy over her sunglasses. “Am I still Code Purple?”
Billy glances over to where Teddy and Miles are coaxing a mud-covered Butterfingers out of Kate’s purple bug. “Forever and always,” he answers.
Kate grins.
2:17 p.m.
“And for Miss Hill’s class, I need the green notebooks,” Amy instructs.
“Green, right,” Billy mutters as he digs into the plastic shopping bag.
From across the living room, Teddy mouths, I owe you.
No kidding, Billy mouths back, and Teddy smirks slightly as he dips his head back to his phone.
Amy’s school supplies form an incomplete circle around her and Billy, and Billy hands over three green notebooks as cued. She nods, sorts them with her highlighters (all yellow) and her “Miss Hill crayons” (a pack of forty-eight, rather than the standard twenty-four), and leans back on her arms. “We still need tissues,” she says, “but Bruce promised to get them after work.”
“How much stuff is on your school supply list, anyway?” Billy wonders. “Does all this even fit in your backpack?”
Amy grins. “You take an extra bag on the first day of school,” she answers sagely. Over on the couch, Teddy shrugs noncommittally. “Bruce said that the school asks for extra supplies because the teachers don’t get enough to last them all year.” She pauses, her brow furrowing. “Then, Tony said he should buy a whole school and give all the teachers ‘the ultimate budget,’ and Bruce said something about robot nuts.”
Billy chokes on air as Miles—sprawled out across an armchair—rolls his eyes. “Robotics,” he corrects. “My dad thinks Tony would build a school just to create a giant robotics lab.”
“With robots that fight each other,” Amy adds.
“That sounds like Tony,” Billy admits, and Amy beams at him.
He helps her load all her supplies into her backpack—or at least, the vast majority of them—and the very second they finish, she plops down in front of Billy’s crossed legs. “Braid my hair,” she instructs.
Teddy’s head snaps up. “Amy—”
“Please?” She flashes huge brown eyes up at Billy, and Billy’s heart almost melts. He thinks about the tears from the skinned knee the lost dog, the recovered dog, and that same very muddy dog’s banishment to the back yard—and then, on the way Teddy keeps watching him, his face warm and sweet.
He sighs. “I want to spend time with my boyfriend before the end of the day,” he reminds her.
She grins. “After you braid my hair,” she says, and hands him a hair tie over her shoulder.
2:39 p.m.
Teddy surveys the muddy trail that snakes across the carpeting before glaring at Miles, but Miles just throws up his hands. “He’s a greyhound!” he defends. “He ran in too fast for me to catch him!”
Somewhere upstairs, a mud-covered dog jumps onto a squeaky bed and barks.
Billy stops smoothing down his messy hair to glance at Teddy. “I’ll get the hose,” he says.
Teddy nods. “I’ll get the dog.”
3:18 p.m.
“At least my pajama pants fit?” Miles asks hopefully.
Billy casts a forlorn glance down at the Angry Bird hovering near his crotch. “I want a do-over,” he decides, and throws his dog-bath sodden jeans in the dryer.
3:32 p.m.
“Somewhere,” Billy says as he dunks the scrub brush back into the bucket, “there is a universe where we are pretty much independent and make out all the time.” Teddy snickers as he scrapes mud off the bottom of the sliding door, but Billy jabs a finger at him. “I’m not joking. We go on road trips with Kate, America, Eli, and David, and nobody’s foster brother releases a muddy dog into a living room on our watch.”
Miles hands Teddy a bottle of Windex. “I said I’m sorry.”
“We know,” Teddy says, and Billy nearly hates his soothing smile. “Now, tell me more about this other universe.”
4:48 p.m.
“You know, I like the Angry Birds,” Teddy decides, and Billy laughs as he slaps his hand away.
Teddy grins, his eyes full of promise, and when he palms a red bird instead of a yellow one, Billy draws in a sharp breath. The opening music from The Emperor’s New Groove drifts in from the living room, a hazy backing track to the whisper of fingers on fabric and lips against Billy’s pulse point.
“You sure Miles is calling his crush of the week?” Billy asks when his fingers slide through Teddy’s hair.
“Yeah.”
“And Amy really likes—”
“If you want to kill the mood, then please, keep talking about my siblings.” Billy tugs Teddy’s hair, resulting in a little gasp of his own, and when their eyes find each other, Billy swears an electric current runs through his whole body.
“You know what?” he decides. “I don’t care about your siblings at all.”
Teddy laughs and kisses him hard.
Time with Teddy always bobs and weaves like a prize fighter or a professional dancer, languid one minute and frantic the next, and Billy loses himself in that wobbly, lost-world feeling. He hisses at Teddy’s blunt fingernails against his sides, whimpers at the graze of teeth against his neck, and almost ruins Miles’s pajama pants when Teddy cups the most conspicuous bird (the one with the fly-button eye). The mattress protests as Billy bucks up into his touch and again when he shoves at Teddy’s shoulders until Teddy’s the one on his back, and when he finally straddles those familiar, wide hips, the friction nearly lights him on fire.
Teddy rolls his head back against the pillows and sucks in a hard breath through his nose. “If you want this to last until we get our pants off—”
“Yeah,” Billy agrees, and he reaches for Teddy’s bedside table just as the garage door rattles.
They both freeze, suspended in terrified lust (or lust-filled terror), and for one shameful second, Billy wishes with all his heart that they’re hearing an earthquake rather than the sound of parents pulling in. But then, the barking starts, followed immediately by the thumping of Amy running down the hallway, and Billy’s dreams shatter across the floor.
He groans and tips forward to hide his face in Teddy’s shoulder. Teddy wraps arms around his back.
“I love your family, but I also hate them,” Billy decides.
“Preaching to the choir,” Teddy agrees, and kisses his temple.
6:02 p.m.
“Code Double Red?” Bruce asks, and Billy freezes.
He and Bruce stand alone in the kitchen, hovering ominously between the island and the refrigerator as the three Banner-and-Stark children explain why one of the dogs smells vaguely of detangling shampoo to Tony. Tony, of course, wheezes with laughter the whole time, his hands on his knees. Billy suspects he’s crying.
He also feels Bruce’s eyes boring a hole in the back of his head. He fights against the blush that creeps up his neck and swallows. “I don’t know—”
“Teddy muttered it under his breath when you slunk out of his bedroom,” Bruce explains mildly, and heat flashes across Billy’s whole face. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard him say it.”
Billy closes his eyes and wishes, just for a second, to disappear. “Would you believe me if I said it’s not a thing?”
“No.”
He exhales. “Yeah, me neither,” he admits, and opens his eyes.
Bruce raises both his eyebrows, his face patient and expectant like Billy’s own dad, and Billy rakes his fingers through his hair. Over in the living room, Tony’s laughs morph into guffaws, and Bruce’s mouth twitches into a tiny smile. Bruce loves Tony, Billy realizes in that moment. Lumps and all, he adores his husband.
Like Billy adores Teddy, he thinks to himself, and his blush spreads to his ears.
“We developed this, uh, system,” he says after a couple more seconds, his hand massaging the back of his own neck. “A way to sort of rank how much alone time we’ll get when we’re together. Code Green’s the best. Code Double Red—”
“Is the worst?” Bruce guesses.
“Is battle-stations bad,” Billy replies. Bruce huffs out a tiny almost-laugh, and Billy flinches. “We can be at Code Double Red and still have a good time,” he stresses, “but it just means we’re busy with messes. Like helping my brothers with an art project all day or refinishing a curio cabinet with my dad.”
“Or babysitting siblings who skin their knees and lose greyhounds on walks.” Billy nods uncertainly, but Bruce just smiles. “Privacy systems have evolved a long way from a sock on the doorknob, I guess.”
Billy snorts. “Like Amy and Miles would respect a sock,” he retorts without thinking, and he wallows in a pool of his own horror until Bruce laughs.
6:17 p.m.
“Funniest thing just happened,” Tony says, planting his hands on his hips.
He looms in front of the couch, his eyebrows raised, and for a second, Billy stops breathing. Next to him, Teddy mutes the television. He tosses a glance in Billy’s direction, and Billy shrugs.
Tony, however, just stares them down, his eyes flicking between the two of them like the world’s weirdest-ever game of chicken.
Finally, though, he crosses his arms. “My husband just suggested that we invite our adorable and never-at-all devious children to a delicious back-to-school dinner out at the restaurant of their choice,” he says, his tone slightly accusatory. “And when I suggested we ask the oldest child’s boyfriend to come along, he said, ‘Oh, I think they might want to stay at home.’”
Billy’s stomach flutters hard enough that he sits up straight. Teddy squares his shoulders and swallows audibly. “He said that?” he asks carefully.
“Yes.”
“And you’re—”
“Leaving money on the counter for take-out? As it happens, also yes.”
Billy exhales for the first time all day, relief washing over him like a wave. He grins, Teddy grins twice as brightly, and they spend a shameful amount of time staring at one another while Teddy squeezes Billy’s knee. Billy almost kisses him, too, until Tony clears his throat.
They blush in the sort of unison that always fills Billy with hope—the couple that flushes together stays together, right?—but Tony just points a finger at them. “Three hours,” he instructs. “Including dinner. And starting any laundry that results from us leaving two seventeen-year-old boys to their own devices. Understood?”
Teddy nods. “Absolutely.”
“And, more important than that, be safe.”
Billy’s face burns, but he grins anyway. “We will,” Teddy promises, and Tony smiles back at them.
8:22 p.m.
“I take back every mean thing I’ve ever thought about your family,” Billy says, and stretches across his boyfriend’s bare chest for a chunk of broccoli beef.
Teddy smacks his wrist with the back of his chopsticks. “Until tomorrow, maybe,” he replies, and Billy laughs.