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Part of what makes something tragic is that, generally, no one sees it coming. Even reality-bending witches.
Danger is the last thing in the world that Billy Kaplan expects to find in his own kitchen, even on the worst of days. To him, it feels like a normal enough afternoon, coming home late from a college prep course, greeting his boyfriend in the hall near the bedrooms with a faint smile, a kiss, and a handful of small talk questions before heading further into the apartment to find his parents. His father is at the table, noting his arrival with a friendly “hmm” as he carries on with his newspaper-reading. His mother is getting ready to heat up some leftovers, a couple of pots and utensils briefly abandoned on he counter when she turns to give him a loving kiss on the cheek. Down the hall, he can hear the brats making some noise in their rooms, doing whatever it is that they do when they’re not trying to drive him crazy. It is the very picture of domestic normalcy.
“How was your class, dear?” Rebecca asks casually as she turns back to her work.
He shrugs off his backpack, setting it on one of the chairs and sifting through the papers he’d stuffed in before leaving the school and tugging out a few. “Pretty good, I guess. Mrs. Kell says I’ve got a good chance of being accepted wherever I’m thinking of applying if I keep things up. She gave me a few pamphlets, if you want to have a look. I read them on the subway on my way home, so-”
Still speaking, a small but pleased smile on his lips, he looks up just in time to see his mother swing a frying pan at his head.
It happens quickly – too quickly for him to really register what’s happening. Pain explodes across the side of his head, and he staggers, tripping over the leg of a chair that bowls him over, his temple clipping the counter as he drops to the floor. “Mom…?” he manages to gasp, mentally floundering, trying to regain clarity through the dizzying blur that is his vision. He can see a pair of heeled shoes approaching him, and he thinks, this is a mistake. This is wrong. This can’t be happening. “M-Mom, what are you-”
He doesn’t finish, because one of those heels is slamming into his gut, and he’s choking on his own words, curling up around himself and rolling away instinctively. He is reminded, painfully, terrifyingly, of years ago, ducking through hallways and hiding in janitor’s closets and just trying to get home, because home was safe and warm and loving and this can’t be happening.
“What were we thinking, letting a filthy mutant stay in our house?”
Billy goes still, trembling almost imperceptibly. Two pairs of feet approaching him now, two voices, two sources of terror and betrayed confusion. What?
“We should have thrown the trash out the door as soon as we found out what he was.”
“Thank god one of them already left. Once we get rid of him, our home can finally be safe.”
“And clean. Get the knife, dear, it’s faster-”
A strangled noise escapes his throat, and he forces himself to move when he hears the sharp, scraping sound of one of his father’s carving knives leaving the sharpener. There’s blood in his eyes as he moves, barely ducking under another swing of his mother’s pan, and when he lifts his hands to keep his father from cutting his throat, his only reward – beyond scarcely evading his own impending doom – is a sliced palm. Fleetingly he thinks to use magic, defend himself, but the thought of accidentally hurting or killing his own parents is as unthinkable as the idea that they’re trying to kill him, and between his lack of practice and the way his head is pounding in his skull, he doubts he could even muster a static shock. He somehow manages to shove the older man away, stumbling away half-blind and still wheezing from the kick.
He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know why they’re doing this. He’s barely come to terms with the fact that they are. All he knows is that he has to get away – he has to live, if they killed him now then they’d never forgive themselves once whatever’s doing this wears off – and that home is no longer safe.
And god, that realization hurts him almost as much as the pain his body is experiencing. There’s only one chance, one way that he can still get out of this. Teddy. Teddy’s home. Teddy’s safe.
Billy limps down the hall, his hand pressed against the wall for support, leaving a bloody trail for his would-be murderers to follow.
There’s nothing more menial and uninspiring than checking one’s e-mail when one is expecting nothing but spam, Teddy decides, clicking his way down the list of irritating advertisements his spam filter hadn’t managed to catch. The pointless hilarity of a shapeshifter getting penile enhancement offers had gotten old ages ago, so all he really feels is boredom as he rids his inbox of the mess, trying not to tick off the minutes – hours – he has left to wait before he can don his costume and sneak out again. What he’s doing is wrong, he knows (not the crime fighting, obviously – nothing in his life has ever felt so right) but he just can’t bring himself to tell Billy. No matter how much he wants to.
He needs this. Needs it like air. Needs it like-
-like the boyfriend he sometimes feels like he’s still losing, even with their sort-of-engagement, even with him having left the window sill and carrying on with his life. It’s a feeling he can’t shake, but he’s not sure if it’s because of Billy’s behaviour, or the fact that with this new secret he’s keeping, they no longer share everything, and that almost feels like another death that neither of them can deal with properly.
It’s probably both. And that hurts.
“And now that I’ve managed to depress myself,” he murmurs under his breath, hand lifting to shut the laptop with a sigh. He and Billy really need to talk, and soon.
He’s a breath away from actually considering doing it now – which is a terrible idea, when he’s still feeling this way – when a sudden commotion in the kitchen catches his ear. Something else is niggling at him, a thought in his head that is both unbidden and unwelcome: a level of bitterness aimed towards Billy that he has never felt before. Not just bitterness- anger. At how selfish he can be, how self-centered and utterly blind to how much he has in his life, how lucky he is to still have so much and just not see it, that stupid-
He stops, hands clenching into fists as he stands up, allowing the second clatter in the direction of the hallway forces him to move, stepping out of his room and abruptly facing down Billy himself, roughly five feet away from him, shuffling weakly in his direction step by struggling step.
And his first thought, unwilling, unbidden, is that he can identify by sight alone that Billy Kaplan is a mutant. His second thought, equally unwanted, is selfish mutant freak, always coming to me for help, can’t even protect himself from-
Something in his thoughts must be visible on his face in that moment – the rage, or the bitterness, or the discomfort, or all of the above – because what snaps him out of his thoughts is the despair that flashes across Billy’s features. Features that, he realizes belatedly and with no shortage of horror, are covered in blood. As is the wall, a hideous, smeared trail of it leading a path towards the kitchen, the obvious cause of the noise he’d heard. And coming up behind him, brandishing a frying pan and a bloody knife, respectively, are Rebecca and Jeff Kaplan, hatred and bloodlust twisting their expressions so severely that he can barely recognize them.
In that instant, before they even speak, he knows what’s going on, and at the same time his next thought is what is going on, because he can’t believe his own eyes.
“Why are you just standing there, you idiot mutant,” he hears himself say, before he can bite back the words. He regrets them even before he sees Billy’s reaction – the way he goes stark still, his face paling between smears of fresh blood, utterly betrayed.
“Teddy, grab him!” Jeff shouts, picking up the pace to take advantage of Billy’s frozen terror. “We’ll finish him off.”
Finish him off, he has time to think, going numb, as Billy sets free a strangled cry, making a desperate lunge away from his parents, away from Teddy, towards the front door. Kill him, get rid of him, disgusting mutant trash-
Billy-
And then he’s moving, at a speed that would have impressed anyone but Tommy. In one swift motion he grabs Billy, winding one broad arm around the brunette’s shoulders and pulling him up against his own body, ignoring the startled, terrified gasp he hears beneath him. Billy thrashes against his grip, but there’s no time to explain, no time to reassure him. Instead he shifts his free arm into a claw, maneuvering them both to place himself between Billy and his parents.
“Stay back,” he snarls, stepping away from them, his arm outstretched defensively, and Billy goes still against him, holding his breath. He can feel the other boy trembling, smell the blood and sweat on his skin. He can hear his heart pounding, and he clings to that, letting it fuel his determination, keep him focused. Billy is alive. Billy needs to stay alive.
“Teddy, what are you doing?” Rebecca takes a step forward, lifting the pan, and he steps back to keep the distance between them. “This is for the greater good. You want to protect the world, don’t you? Be a hero?”
“All the mutants have to die,” Jeff adds, his grip tightening around the knife. “We can’t make exceptions, even for family.”
“He’s not really our family, anyway. Isn’t that what you all proved last year? He’s the son of that mutant witch-”
They won’t stop, Teddy realizes, breathing hard; the realization comes with Billy’s muffled whine of pain, making the blond notice his arm had shifted and tightened around his boyfriend’s neck. He hadn’t even thought-
We need to get out of here. We need to get away -
“He’s my family,” he whispers, half to himself. Remember that. Remember it. Keep him alive.
He’s all you have.
Decision made, he twists around, wings tearing through the back of his shirt as he moves, stretching and knocking both of the Kaplan parents away. He retracts the wings just as quickly, lashing out with a foot to effortlessly kick down the front door, and then scoops Billy up in his arms and rushes out into the hall.
It doesn’t take him long to realize he’s made a terrible mistake. Once-sweet and friendly neighbours are suddenly brandishing clubs, knives, and household objects as weapons. The superintendent chases them down the hall with a bloody hammer. In the stairwell they barely dodge what could only be called a gang of local amateur baseball players carrying bats and heading for the back alley. They pass a corpse just outside the elevator, beaten to a bloody pulp, and it takes one lingering, horrified stare too long to recognize it as the single mom who lives under their unit. He thinks of the super, of his bloodstained hammer, and he wants to vomit.
The streets are no better than inside the building; if anything, it’s worse. Mutant slurs and hateful insults fill the air of the city around them, accented by the startled, frightened screams of people – the mutants, presumably – being identified and attacked for reasons that no one seems to know or question. It’s like the whole world has gone insane and everyone’s just fine with it.
There’s a police car nearby, an officer climbing out of the driver’s seat and headed their way. Teddy starts towards him, mouth open to ask what’s going on, when the man abruptly whips out his gun, snarling, “Die, mutant trash!” as he sets his aim on Billy’s head. Teddy twists his body immediately to protect Billy, the first bullet catching him clean through the shoulder before he manages to shift his body to its armored, Hulkling state, deflecting the rest. Through the sudden haze of red-hot agony as his arm works to heal itself, he realizes that he’d been a split second away from just standing there and letting the bullet hit its target. He’s still affected, and the longer he’s around these people, the more he wants to just let them take the mu- Billy’s life, or worse, do it himself.
They’re still not safe. He wants to help, wants to protect people, but if it takes every ounce of effort to keep himself from attacking the one he loves more than any other in the world, how can he possibly protect a stranger in this situation?
“Billy, can you teleport us out of-?” The question dies on Teddy’s lips as he looks down at the young man in his arms; his eyes are hazy, unfocused, and too jittery to concentrate properly. Whether it’s his lingering hesitance since quitting the Young Avengers, or the still-bleeding head injury, or a combination of the two, it’s immediately apparent that they won’t be using magic to escape any time soon. He feels a flare of irritation at the sight of him like that – useless again, of course – and he has to force himself to look away, ashamed of his own feelings, hating whatever is doing this to him to make him think such awful things.
The police officer is still approaching, switching his weapon clip to keep trying to perform the brutal murder all of the minds of the non-mutant citizens are telling them to, so Teddy releases his wings once more and shoots off into the sky, flying faster than he can ever remember doing before, Billy’s shaking form cradled close to his chest. He can’t look down again, can’t check on him, not when every time he gets so much as a glance he feels the temptation to tighten his grip, flex his claws, sink them deeply into unresisting flesh, watch the blood-
“Teddy,” Billy whispers, fist tightening in the tattered material of Teddy’s shirt, and he forces himself to loosen his grasp a little, holding his boyfriend securely rather than painfully, letting the thoughts melt away as he uses Billy’s voice as an anchor point. He’s alive. He’s alive and he needs to stay alive because Teddy’s going to protect him and they’ll be fine…
“Sorry,” he mutters, his voice nearly lost to the wind, and Billy doesn’t respond. He clings to the shapeshifter as they fly, murmuring quietly when he holds too tightly, shaking his head at each apology, growing gradually more quiet the less often that it happens. It’s been ages since they last flew together, longer still since it was during a crisis, and this is the first time Billy has ever felt so small and vulnerable in his arms. What just happened has obviously left him shaken, and Teddy doesn’t like it one bit.
What he likes even less is the part he played in it- and is still playing, fighting each and every moment the recognition of how terribly easy to would be to snap the mage’s neck.
Focus-
He ducks his head and whispers reassurances close to Billy’s ear, which works for a little while until he feels the dark-haired boy flinch abruptly, and he realizes he’d said something along the lines of, “I’ve got you, mutie,” and forces himself to stop.
Focus, focus. Just a little longer.
The feelings begin to fade the higher up and further away from home they go, which at least gives him an idea of how far this goes. It isn’t until they reach the other side of Williamsburg Bridge that he finally feels like himself again, slowing down and gliding to land on the top of one of the towers. An odd place to hide, perhaps, but his wings are growing tired after such a long flight, and he needs to check on Billy now that the danger has, for the moment, passed.
He carefully sets his boyfriend down, wings folding into his back, and drops down to his knees with the other boy as he falls, his heart aching at what he sees even as he feels a wave of relief that he can finally look at him without forced anger or hatred. He lifts a clawed hand to gently brush back Billy’s wind-tousled hair, examining the purpling bruise on his cheek, the bloody wound at his forehead, the sliced palm. Compared to what they’d seen on the street, he’d gotten off relatively easy… but it isn’t the physical trauma that worries him as much as the fact that it wasn’t strangers who’d done this to him.
“Billy?” he murmurs, cautiously tilting the mage’s chin up to look him in the eye. All it takes is one glance at the heartsick expression on Billy’s face for Teddy to give in to his urge to drag his lover into a hug, eclipsing his small body in that of his Hulkling form, larger than usual, fiercely protective and trembling in relief. “Billy… oh god… thank god…”
It takes a moment for it to sink in – that they’re safe, that they’re alive, that Teddy isn’t going to crush the life out of him – but finally Billy slumps against him, his body limp, shoulders shaking as he finally lets go of the choked breath he’d been holding. It isn’t long after that Teddy feels tears soaking into his shirt, and it strengthens his resolve, makes him hold the other teen closer to him.
“I thought-” Teddy can barely make out the muffled gasps, black hair tickling against tattered cloth and exposed armored skin as he shakes his head over and over. “They were going to- I thought you were going to-”
Teddy closes his eyes, one hand sliding up to card through his hair, stroke his back, touch anywhere he can, if only to remind himself that Billy’s okay. “I know. I… me too. I-I could feel it- like something in me was all twisted up, like I had to. I’m so sorry…”
Billy just shakes his head again, nails scraping against unyielding armor as his hands tighten into fists at Teddy’s chest. They both know how close it all came to ending much, much worse – death at the hands of his parents, or Teddy, which would have been so easy – but that doesn’t make what did happen hurt any less. Before long he slumps wearily against the shapeshifter, curling up in his lap, his gaze fixated on his own lap to avoid meeting Teddy’s gaze. It hurts a little, but Teddy doesn’t try to force him to look up. He doesn’t know what he’d looked like back in the city, but he had seen the expressions Jeff and Rebecca had worn, and they had been terrible enough to let his imagination make assumptions about his own.
He’d never imagined himself to be capable of such hatred, and it terrifies him. Even feeling so certain that something was affecting his mind – for it to cause Billy’s family to do that, for it to be so widespread, it’s obviously not natural – it still burns in him, to know that he’s even capable of being forced to feel that way.
Desperately seeking some kind of distraction, once Billy calms down enough that Teddy thinks he can make use of one of his hands, he fishes his cell phone out of his pocket, his hand shifting to human form to allow him to do a quick search for any live news reports that might provide them with some answers. Most of the sources he finds offer little more than a whole new wave of questions as even the news are focusing on the annihilation of the mutant population, glorifying the slaughter and praising the people for their wanton murder, encouraging citizens to continue with their insane lynching until all of the mutants are dead. The longer the reports go on, the more Billy seems to shrink in his arms, and Teddy is about to turn it off when one reporter announces that a group of Avengers, led by a mutant himself, are battling to stop the killing.
Teddy’s eyes narrow, his hand tensing on Billy’s shoulder. “Billy… we have to help them. There’s way too many people out there, we-“
“No,” Billy gasps, eyes snapping wide, and he finally looks up at Teddy, his gaze desperate and half-panicked. “Teddy, you can’t! You can’t go out there, you could get hurt, you’re already-” His hand drifts to Teddy’s shoulder, where the blood from his already-healed wound is still drying. Feeling the armor there, and the undamaged flesh, Billy seems to wilt again. “You can’t…”
“They need me,” Teddy says quietly, reaching up to cover Billy’s hand with one huge paw, looking worried- about him, about the city, about the Kaplans- about everything. He needs to tell him. He needs to tell Billy he’s been out on the streets again, saving people in secret. It’s not the best timing, he knows, but he can’t just sit here and do nothing… “I have to-”
“No you don’t,” Billy mutters stubbornly, trying to withdraw, but Teddy holds fast to his hand. “You don’t have to go. You’re not Hulkling anymore. We’re not a part of this fight.”
“I can still help,” Teddy argues, giving Billy’s hand a light squeeze. “I can carry people to safety, round up people who are hurting the mutants and knock them out. If my going back could save someone-”
“You’ll kill someone!” Billy snaps suddenly, swatting his hand away and jerking back, and Teddy flinches. “You could barely stop yourself from killing me, and I’m-” He forces himself to stop – or the sudden choking in his throat stops him, anyway, scuffing a hand across his eyes. “…It’s too much of a risk.”
He almost responds to that, but when the mage lifts his head, the expression on his face – frightened, worried, desperate and half-broken, streaks of tears still prominent on his bruising cheeks – knocks any protests right out of him. There’s dark red claw marks on his arms that Teddy hadn’t noticed before, the result of their frantic escape in the air, evidence of just how close he’d come to doing exactly what Billy is predicting. He’s right, Teddy realizes, shoulders slumping, letting his phone drop uselessly to the ground from his limp fingers. If I go back, someone will die.
There’s a quiet buzz at Billy’s hip, breaking the tension for a moment, and Billy hesitantly pulls out his own phone to find it ringing. He stares at the screen for a long moment, frozen – a screen that Teddy can see even at his angle says, “Home”. His parents are calling. Teddy almost reaches for it, morbidly curious and hopeful that maybe, just maybe, it’s over, but before he can even move Billy sets free a choked sound and flings it away, unanswered. It falls silent as the impact knocks the battery out, and Billy slumps against Teddy once more, looking defeated.
“Billy,” he starts, leaning forward, but Billy shakes his head, his eyes dropping to where the phone had fallen. He lifts his hands, half-reaching, hesitating, and then finally completing the motion, pressing them against the shapeshifter’s chest.
“…Don’t leave me,” Billy whispers, resting his forehead against Teddy’s neck, and the pure, unfettered need in his tone has Teddy helpless against his desire to wrap the other boy up in his body and keep him close, keep him safe. He winds both arms around Billy, his wings creating a protective blanket against the wind and the terrible, war-torn noises of the city not far in the distance, and he presses his lips to his boyfriend’s hair, eyes clenching shut.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly, even though it isn’t, even though he doesn’t sound very sure at all. Because really, what else do you say? “We’ll be okay.”
Billy doesn’t respond this time, merely trembles quietly in his arms as they wait out the chaos of the night, hoping for a safer world to greet them in the morning.