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The door banged open in the middle of the fifth repeat of “How Soon Is Now?” Well, the first individual repeat; Billy had listened to the entirety of Meat Is Murder twice before he’d just put the most relevant track on loop. It made it easier to lie on the couch staring at the ceiling and thinking about how miserable he was, which was really the only thing he wanted to do.
There was some thumping and banging from the apartment kitchen, and then Kate loomed over him, her sweat-soaked braid dropping down to almost hit him in the nose. “Billy.”
He sighed heavily. “Yes, Kate?”
“Billy, you hate the Smiths.”
“I don’t hate them, I just think Morrissey sounds like a frog who’s taken opera lessons. I listen to them sometimes.”
“I’ve literally never even seen you touch this CD. I thought it was in your collection by accident.”
“Is there a question here?”
“Why are you listening to the Smiths?”
“Nate broke up with me.”
She blinked. “He did not.”
“Tell that to him, he was pretty clear on it. ‘I’m breaking up with you,’ he said to me. ‘I don’t want to worry about a relationship while I’m in Germany,’ he said.” Bill rolled over onto his face. “Which I’m pretty sure is code for ‘I want to sleep with hot German dudes without having to worry about making up a lie to tell my boyfriend.’”
“Oh, Bill.” Kate dropped down onto the couch arm next to his head and reached down to stroke his hair. “Don’t think like that. He might want to sleep with hot German chicks.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I might’ve fallen on my head once or twice during class, Sensei was playing rough.”
“You might’ve gotten dropped on your head as a baby, too.”
“Now you’re just being rude.” She stood up again, but not before running her fingers through his hair one last time. “Anyway Nate’s kind of an asshole, you’re better off without him. I’m gonna go take a shower.”
“You’re not helping at all.”
“That’s because I’m covered in sweat, once I’m clean I’ll have ice cream delivered and we’ll watch Velvet Goldmine and talk about Ewan McGregor’s dick and you’ll feel a lot better.”
“My boyfriend of three years breaks up with me and you want to solve it with ice cream and Ewan McGregor’s dick?”
“I want to solve it with talking about Ewan McGregor’s dick,” Kate yelled from the bathroom. “If I had access to actual Ewan McGregor and his dick I think I’d have your problem solved way quicker.”
“I hate you.”
“Love you too, Billy-boy!”
"Haaaaate.”
Later that night, with half a pint of Phish Food in his stomach and Ewan McGregor’s bare ass on the television screen, Bill had to admit that he did feel a little bit better. The pit of misery in his stomach was still pretty dark, but it didn’t seem quite as deep.
He sighed, almost cheerfully.
“You’re way too good for him, anyway,” said Kate around her spoon. “You deserve someone who’ll pay at least as much attention to you as to his science projects.”
“Mom likes him.”
“Your mom likes that he’s an engineering major and might someday make enough money to support both himself and a dweeby high-school English teacher.” She ducked his swat. “I don’t think she ever liked him much.”
Bill wanted to argue, but found that he actually couldn’t come up with any solid examples of his mother actually liking his (ex) boyfriend. “Well…I like him.”
“You’ll find someone else you like better. And he’ll get herpes from some rando in Germany and regret ever breaking your heart.” She ate another spoonful of ice cream. “Besides, you’ve always got your comic-book hunk to fall back on, right?”
He snorted. “Shut up.”
When they finally had to crash for the night, though, Bill found himself thinking about what Kate had said. His “comic-book hunk.” She was being a pain in the ass, she was always a pain in the ass, but he lay in bed and stared at the poster on the wall and he did wish that he could find a boyfriend as good as Ted Altman.
Ted Altman! Mild-mannered comic book artist by day, superhero by…well, frequently also day, but sometimes night too. Marvel Man, the flagship character of Fawcett Comics. Billy’s parents hated him (“he looks like a propaganda poster, sweetie”) and had spent years tried getting him to read Superman comics instead, but no. Never. It was Marvel Man all the way, and his super-genius best friend David, and his occasional partner Miss America (who had her own comic), and Noh-Varr the Accuser, the finest arch-nemesis in superhero comics.
Billy sighed. Ted Altman would be the perfect boyfriend, if he were real. And into guys, which was pretty doubtful outside of Fanfiction.net.
(How much time he’d spent on Fanfiction.net looking up stories about Ted Altman was something Billy would never admit to.)
At least tomorrow was Wednesday.
He drifted off to sleep on a wish.
His first thought upon waking up was, fuck yeah, new comics today. Then, of course, his second thought was, and Nate broke up with me. The initial excitement of New Comics Day was abruptly crushed under his wave of misery, and he sighed all through dressing, brushing his teeth, eating breakfast, and heading to class. For a moment he did consider skipping and going straight to the comics store, but that seemed too much like giving in to the desire to mope, and anyway if Kate caught him she’d just make fun of him and then try to drag him to something that would cheer him up. He didn’t feel like being cheered up.
So he dragged himself to Ed Psych and tried not to sleep through the lecture, ate a minimal lunch in the most secluded corner of the dining hall. It was tough to get through YA lit without talking much, but he managed it. At least the prospect of new comics could keep him going.
He saw Nate across the quad when he was leaving YA lit and almost went straight home. But no. New comics. New issue of Marvel Man, most importantly. Especially since the current writer was Grant Morrison and the story was super confusing and if he missed an issue he’d definitely lose the thread. And it had Ed Benes on art, so everyone had been looking particularly attractive.
Maybe Kate’s right, he thought as he picked up his pull. At least fictional guys can’t break up with me.
After some consideration, Bill decided that he also deserved a strawberry chai latte while he read his new comics. That’s what you did after a breakup, right? There were two big options, as far as he knew: get hammered and pick up a rando, or drown your sorrows in expensive drinks from Starbucks as you stared soulfully into the middle distance. Or read comics. Whatever, he was sad and he deserved a pink drink.
Teen Titans was pretty good. Huntress and Question was excellent, as always.
Best for last, though. And Marvel Man didn’t disappoint—the issue opened with a bang.
“As the representative of the Planet Earth you must answer for Earth’s sins, Marvel Man!” In this art style, the Accuser looked like he’d stepped out of some Italian porn comic; the recent costume redesigns had given him bare arms and sinfully tiny shorts, and Benes drew him looking like a very compact sex god. Somehow even the giant hammer looked hot. “And you are sentenced to the Hall of Mirrors to reflect upon them!” Marvel Man was falling into a wild Kirby-esque vortex. His new costume also had tiny shorts, but somehow still retained its military snap; it was very attractive.
Bill was immediately enthralled.
The two-page spread that followed was intentionally confusing—Ted was surrounded by his own reflection, thousands of them, every one slightly different. According to the bombastic narration, he was seeing his alternate selves, engaged in the many sins that the Accuser claimed Earth had committed. It was astonishingly beautiful, and Bill ached with sympathy at the confusion on his hero’s face in the inset panel.
The next two pages were a strict grid, and in the first panel Ted Altman was staring directly out at the reader.
Billy took a sip of his pink drink, breathless.
Ted Altman blinked at him.
He choked on his mouthful. Had he just seen the art move?
He looked closer, thrown, and on the page Ted’s eyes—widened. Perceptibly. His mouth moved, although there wasn’t any sound. And then, unbelievably, the paper seemed to move, to bulge and buckle upward and crack, and a hand reached out of the page towards him as if to ask for his help.
Bill took another sip of his drink, certain that he was hallucinating, and then reached for the hand emerging from his comic.
It was a real hand. It was warm and strong.
It was—pulling him. He got to his feet, startled, but the grip was too powerful and the comic seemed suddenly glued to the table, so instead of knocking it to the floor he lost his balance and fell forward and his head spun.
Thump. He landed on his ass on a stone floor, and a voice above him said, “Great lightning, are you all right?”
“Am I all right, my ass hurts and I’m probably going crazy and holy shit.” Bill stared at the man standing above him. “Holy shit. You’re Ted Altman.”
Ted Altman, Marvel Man, an actual alive superhero crouched and reached for him, patting his shoulder as if to see if he was real. “You know my secret identity? I don’t know you, though. Are you the custodian of the Hall of Mirrors?” His eyes were astonishingly blue, with the vivid brightness of fresh ink. In fact, everything looked strangely bright and flat, as though it was all made of glossy paper.
“No, I’m Bill Kaplan. I’m not even a senior in college yet. How did you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Ted shrugged. “I looked in the mirrors, and yours was the only one where I didn’t see my own face. So I touched it, and here you are. Did the Accuser send you?”
“The only one who brought me here is you.” Bill’s chest felt tight. “I didn’t think you were real.”
There was a booming in the distance, and a faint roar, and Ted looked up in alarm. “Then you’re a civilian, and I apologize. It’s not safe here for you. Honestly, I doubt it’s safe for me; I don’t know what powers the Accuser might have in this place. We need to find a place where you can hide. Are you hurt? Can you stand?”
“I…I think so.” Bill got up and brushed himself off. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good. May I pick you up? You may be uninjured, but I’m sure I can move faster than you.”
“I…ok? Yes please sure ok.”
He was being picked up by an actual superhero, who was wearing actual spandex and an actual cape, who had biceps the size of Bill’s thighs and who was saying, softly now, “Put your arms around my neck and tuck your head in. We’re going to move very fast.”
He did as he was told, and they were flying.
It didn’t take very long to find a relatively safe corner where they could catch their breath for a moment, and of course Ted wanted to know everything.
“A comic book character?”
“Yeah. Where I’m from…we don’t have superheroes where I’m from. Maybe it would be nicer if we did.”
“I don’t know about that, is your world regularly attacked by aliens?”
“…well, no.”
“Giant robots?”
“Nope.”
“Mole people from the center of the earth?”
“We don’t have those either.”
“That sounds incredibly relaxing.” Ted grinned at him. “Tell me a little bit about yourself?”
Bill blushed. “Why would you want to know about me?”
“Well, I figure fair’s fair. You’ve read all these stories about me, you know pretty much everything I’d have to tell, and it’s not like I regularly pull handsome strangers out of mirrors and then actually have a quiet moment to talk to them.”
“I mean, that sounds—wait. Handsome?” Bill’s cheeks were burning. “I mean aside from maybe you’re seeing someone who doesn’t look like me and not actual me, you like guys?”
Ted’s eyebrows wrinkled. “Does that not come up in your comics?”
“In the comics you…don’t really ever seem to date at all.” Which—that can not be the big reveal they were teasing in the solicits. Can it? Is Marvel Man gay? “Some people think you go out with Miss America.”
“Great lightning, they think I’ve dated Rica? Not that she isn’t a lovely lady, but she wouldn’t have me even if I was interested.” Ted coughed awkwardly. “She’s of more of a. Well. Sapphic disposition.”
“Holy shit.” It was all a little hard to take in. “Well…um. I’m Bill. I’m twenty. Junior year of college. Going to be a high school English teacher.”
“Teaching’s a noble profession.”
“Thank you. You’d be amazed how many people think I’m crazy. Um. I have a twin brother. I share an apartment with my best friend Kate—”
Ted’s face fell, slightly but perceptibly.
“—who actually used to date my twin brother, but they broke up. My boyfriend just dumped me so he can hit on German hotties while he’s doing study abroad.”
Ted brightened up again. “So perhaps when we’re both out of this I can buy you a coffee.”
Bill shifted and looked down at his feet. “Sure, that’d. Be nice.”
BOOM.
Bill jumped. Ted was on his feet in an instant.
The Accuser was coming in a shattering of glass, roaring, his hammer in hand. “You cannot escape this fate, Marvel Man! You must face the world you seek to save, or you must face me!”
Ted pulled Bill to his feet, eyes wide. “Get behind me.”
“What’s happening?”
“Bill. Trust me. You need to run.” He turned, searching desperately, and his gaze lit on something that Bill didn’t catch. “Here. That mirror. I can see it changing. Go through it.”
“But what about you?”
“I’ve survived worse.” Ted shoved him hard, sending him stumbling towards the mirror and through it. “If I can manage it I’ll find you. So you can know I’m all right.”
Darkness.
Bill landed on his ass on a hard floor, and there was a yell next to him. “Where the hell did you come from?”
He looked up a horrified barista. “Uh. It’s complicated. Why am I back here?”
“You tell me, buddy.” The barista was glaring, hand on a hip, as on the other side of the counter customers and other store employees started to crowd up to stare. “You’re the one who ducked out and left all your comics.”
“Shit. My comics. Where are they?”
“Probably under you, we had ‘em back here in case you came back for them.”
Bill scrabbled on the floor and found paper—his bag from the comic store, with all three singles inside. Marvel Man was on top.
He needed to get home and finish the comic. Maybe he could go back.
“…well?” The barista didn’t look happy.
“Um. Sorry about the confusion. Thanks for not throwing away my comics.” He pulled himself up and bolted for the door. “Bye!”
Kate looked up from her book as Bill burst into the apartment. “What the hell happened to you? You’ve got kind of a thousand-yard stare going on.”
“Long day. Real long day.” He hurried back to his bedroom.
Bill couldn’t bring himself to finish reading the comic. He could pick it up, stare at it, run his fingers over the cover, but somehow he wasn’t brave enough to open it up and see what happened. The thought of turning a page and seeing Marvel Man beaten and broken was awful now, in a way it had never been before—not that he’d ever enjoyed seeing his favorite superhero lose, but it was sort of different having met the guy.
He had such a beautiful smile.
Plus there was the itch that said, what if none of that was real? It may have felt real, but that doesn’t mean much. You could’ve been hallucinating. You know about Wanda, would that be so strange?
It was only when Kate hammered on his bedroom door and shouted that she’d ordered pizzas and he’d better come eat that Bill realized that he’d been sitting with the single in his lap for an hour and a half.
“So what the hell happened today that’s got you in knots?” Kate was serving herself another slice of pizza, her eyes intent on him over the box lid. “I know Nate just dumped you yesterday, but you blew in looking like you’d seen a fucking ghost. Not normal breakup behavior.”
“Um.” Bill swallowed. “I think I had a hallucination.”
She dropped her slice of pizza—luckily, over her plate. “What? When? Of what? Why would you be hallucinating?”
“I mean, I do have a family history…”
“Since when—oh. Yeah. Bio-mom.”
“At Starbucks. I was reading my pull and I…I thought I met Marvel Man.”
“What, like, he came over and sat down with you?”
“No, like he pulled me into the comic book and I was there with him for half an hour.” Billy glanced away. “And he was sort of flirting with me?”
“Oh, Bill. That’s…not great.”
“I know it’s probably just. Fuck. It’s probably just…genetic issues. But it felt so real. He picked me up. I remember how everything smelled.”
She got up and moved around the coffee table to sit down next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Well, you’ve been under a lot of stress. It was probably a one-time thing.”
“And…if it’s not? If I just hallucinate now?”
“…we’ll figure something out.”
Since it was obviously another comfort-movie night, they put on Galaxy Quest, and by the halfway point Kate was asleep on Bill’s shoulder and Bill was himself dreamily reciting every line in time with the actors. Even if he was actually going crazy, he still had that.
There was a crash from the hallway. Kate woke up with a yell, on her feet in seconds. “What the hell was that?”
“It sounded like someone falling.” Bill paused the movie and got up himself. “I’m taking a look, someone might be hurt.”
“Look, gimme a second.” Kate disappeared into her bedroom and came back with a baseball bat. At his look she scowled. “You wanna check, I’m not going to argue with you, but I’m not letting you get mugged in your own goddamn apartment building. And I’m getting the door.”
Bill waited behind her as she looked through the spyhole, saw the corners of her mouth turn down as she fumbled with the deadbolt one-handed and pulled the door open.
And she froze and said, “Bill, I think you want to see this.”
His heartbeat sped up. He pushed past her.
There was a man leaning against the wall a bit down the hallway, breathing heavily. He was blond and dressed all in red, and he was…flickering. One moment he’d look like a regular person; the next moment he was flat and vivid, a drawing given life.
Bill stared. “You…are you…”
The flickering man twitched and looked over at him, blue eyes flashing with an unnatural flat brightness over his bloody mouth. “Beat him. Left him there.” He straightened and staggered, running into the opposite wall before stumbling towards Bill and Kate. “He won’t be bothering anyone anymore.”
Bill could hardly breathe. “That’s what you say every time you beat him.”
Ted Altman grinned at him and flickered one final time before all the strange flatness left him. “Well, this time I really mean it.” And he collapsed on the threshold of Bill’s apartment.
Kate only went bug-eyed for a moment before dropping her baseball bat into the umbrella stand. “Well, fuck, Kaplan, let’s get the Last Action Hero inside before someone calls the cops.”
They wrestled Ted onto the couch, and when they’d gotten him settled he cracked an eye and flashed them another bloody grin. “Told you I’d find you, right?”
“Yeah,” Bill said, thunderstruck. “Yeah, you did.”
Kate punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Well, now I guess we know you weren’t hallucinating.”