Space Oddity - Khirsah - Young Avengers [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

**

“I should know who I am by now.
I walk—the record stands somehow.
Thinking of winter;
Your name is the splinter inside me.”
—Winter, Joshua Radin

**

Now:

**

“You could have gotten people killed!” Billy snapped. There was something cold about the way he said it—something cold, and hard, and right. Inevitable, in its own way; they’d been barreling toward this moment for what felt like forever. “You could have killed people, Teddy, all because, because you want to be liked? Because some asshole will like you better?”

“You don’t know anything about it,” Teddy countered. He was still buzzing with adrenaline, and it felt like his thoughts were tripping over themselves as he fought to find the right explanation, the truth buried in the mess he’d made of his life. He dragged his fingers through his hair; just over ten blocks away, flames licked across the sky.

This wasn’t the time for this; this wasn’t the place. He opened his mouth to say as much, but the look Billy shot him froze him in his tracks.

“No,” Billy said. “No, you’re right, I don’t know anything about it. And I don’t want to.”

“Billy,” he began, stung.

“No. My dad was right. Being friends with you, having…having some kind of crush on you…it’s me saying I’m okay with who you are, what you do. And I’m not. It’s not okay. It’s not okay to use your mutant gift to trick people, and to put them in danger, and to pretend to be a hero when you’re not, you’re not at all. And I’m not going to—I’m not. I’m out. I’m done.”

“Billy.”

Billy took a step back, palms lifting. “Goodbye, Teddy,” he said.

Teddy watched in rapidly growing panic as Billy turned his face away. Anger and fear had burned away, leaving him shaken, shaking. Please, he wanted to beg. Let me explain. You’re right about me, I know you’re right, but you don’t understand.

Billy’s eyes were fixed on his battered sneakers, as if he couldn’t even look at him. That, more than anything, kept Teddy’s mouth shut. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into the meat of his palms when Billy turned and stumbled for the door. Even then, there was some small part of him that hoped…but no, Billy’s hand was on the doorknob, he was stepping through.

He was gone. Just like that, he was gone.

And Teddy…Teddy didn’t know what he was. Everything had been tilted on its axis, as if this latest shock had knocked something vital out of alignment. He thought maybe he wanted to cry. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to let himself.

“Jesus,” Teddy mumbled, dragging his fingers through his hair again. His hand was shaking. He’d been trembling for what felt like hours now, from that first moment the sky had exploded. And now what? Was he supposed to just go home? Wash the blood and ash away? Maybe pop in a TV dinner and check the DVR and f*ck, f*ck.

Oh, f*ck, Billy.

Teddy spun away from the door with a choked noise, eyes casting helplessly over the rooftop bar. Tables and chairs and huge, multi-striped umbrellas crowded around him. They loomed close in an Escher-like trick of the eye. It was too much. He needed space; he couldn’t breathe. He pushed blindly toward the ledge, ignoring the chairs that toppled in his wake. He just, he needed to—

Teddy slapped his palms against pitted brick-and-concrete and leaned forward to rest his full weight on shaky arms. His breath hitched painfully in his chest.

“Stop, stop it,” he snarled. There was blood all over his white T-shirt, and he still smelled like burning engine fuel, and Billy knew. Billy knew and Billy hated him for it.

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut and leaned to rest his forehead against the half-wall. Several stories below, cars fishtailed as pedestrians poured down the streets. Red emergency lights pulsed like a living thing. A heartbeat. He could practically hear the pounding.

Slowly, folding in on himself like origami, Teddy dropped into an unsteady crouch. He pressed his fists to the worn brick and ignored the grit and tiny shards of glass that dug between his knuckles. He’d been injured somewhere along the way, he thought. The blood. The blood had been his.

Teddy brushed shaking fingers over his brow. It felt smooth, slick. His fingers came away tacky with drying blood. He drew in a serrated breath and tipped his chin, blinking open his eyes to stare across the tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side. Billy’s house was down that way. And beyond it, beyond all those too-similar brownstones, near the southeastern corner of Central Park, the Avengers’ mansion was burning. It looked like sunrise.

“Jesus,” he said again. None of it felt real.

He didn’t feel real.

But he had to get out of here.

Teddy slowly straightened, swaying against conflicting pulses of shock and adrenaline. He would have to go the way he’d come—he didn’t have any other choice. It was either fly home or stay staring down Billy’s street and he just couldn’t…

Come on, focus. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing himself to picture him as he was now. Blond hair, piercings—tall, athletic, because that’s who he wanted to be. It wasn’t him; there was no him. There was just this. And he could change this, if he wanted to.

He imagined colors blending, shapes melting together. Twin spikes of bone ripped through the back of his shirt, lengthening and splitting into branching quarters. Thin membrane wove the hollow bones together. He pictured his new wings spreading, stretching out wide as they arced from his back, glistening and new and—please, God—strong enough to see him away from here.

The weight of them was strange, throwing off his balance, but that couldn’t matter now. Teddy wet his lips and clambered up onto the ledge. He widened his stance, balancing carefully as he stared at the crowd so far below. His laces had come untied again. Somehow, that, too, reminded him of Billy.

Stop. Stop it.

It would all come apart if he gave himself time to think. He would come apart. A faint tremor rocked the building, the echo of an explosion heard all the way from Central Park. Teddy didn’t turn back to look. He wasn’t a hero. He was just some stupid kid.

He stepped off the ledge.

Someone screamed as he plummeted to the street below, and Teddy thought, dizzily, I probably should have climbed higher. But then his wings snapped open, catching the updraft; he angled away from the street and toward the sun, leaving the frenzy and confusion far behind.

Seven powerful strokes and he was rising above the crest of buildings and into the open air. The spring wind blew cool against his cheeks, peeling away the cloying scent of trauma. He shook hair out of his eyes as the longer strands whipped across his brow. His T-shirt snapped and furled around him, lifting away from his body with each gust. Finally, gradually, his erratic heartbeat began to even out.

Flying was like breathing—all instinct—and it felt so f*cking good not to think right now. Teddy turned midair and moved east, following the currents he could feel playing across his skin. When he passed a skyscraper, his reflection was cast back at him, glistening and strange from a million tiny windows. This high up, the mass of traffic became threads of color and light.

The world below was surprisingly beautiful in its complexity.

He spread his wings, stroking the air, allowing himself to hover and just…take it all in for a moment. The Hudson wound slow and serene below him. Central Park was a green gash on a gray flank. Skyscrapers glistened like jeweled swords, and he was alone up here, a single speck on the horizon, looking down at the city with a baffled kind of wonder.

Goodbye, Teddy.

Teddy flattened his wings against his spine and dove toward the river. He sailed over the Brooklyn Bridge and past the rooftop gardens of DUMBO. The streets of Brooklyn were quieter than Manhattan, the panic a low hum rather than a roar. As he flew, the tenor of the neighborhoods changed below him, with dwindling numbers of pricey courtyard cafés and growing numbers of tacorias and boarded-up service centers. He counted the blocks as one bled into the other. Having something to focus on kept him steady—if he let himself think too much about Billy, then that dull roar of panic would overwhelm him again; if he thought too much about flying, then he’d lose the effortless rhythm and—

And—

“Crap. Crap!” Teddy dropped ten feet, the steady rhythm of his wings going ragged. He tried to clear his mind, but it was hard to be zen when he was tumbling awkwardly out of the sky like some kind of drunken seagull. “Crap, sh*t, sh*t!”

He reared back, wings snapping wide, and just barely managed to zig left then zag right to avoid knocking into a huge, peeling sign. Teddy angled toward the sidewalk, misjudged, and went tumbling down onto his hands and knees, skidding and rolling and hitting the street with a muffled grunt.

A car horn blared and someone screamed, “GO BACK TO M-TOWN!” Teddy folded his wings behind him as he scrambled to his feet. “Sorry,” he said, stumbling onto the curb. His forearms were bleeding, skin peeled from wrist to elbow with bits of grit and filth glistening in the bloody gouges. “Sorry,” he mumbled again, listing into a glowering older woman. He ducked his head, fiercely hoping no one recognized him, and staggered into a piss-stained alleyway.

Teddy closed his eyes as he waded through drifts of trash, wishing the wings away, picturing them disappearing in a blur of color. The sudden shift in weight nearly sent him toppling to the ground again. Teddy found his balance just in time, catching himself with his hands on his knees and leaving smears of blood along worn blue jeans. He stayed like that for several long minutes: hands on his knees, head down, back bowed.

Then, slowly, he straightened and forced himself to keep moving. The far end of the alley spilled out into the next street over. Teddy shoved his (slowly healing) hands into his pockets and wished he had a coat to cover up his blood-spattered shirt. He had no idea how bad he looked, but people were quietly stepping aside as he moved down the sidewalk, giving him a wide berth.

It’s not what you think, he wanted to say. I’m not what you think.

He hunched his shoulders and hurried his pace, fingers curling gratefully around his keys. He’d left his bookbag behind before heading out to meet Billy—

(Was it going to sting like that every time he thought Billy’s name, or would that eventually fade like a well-guarded bruise?)

—which was one small favor. He guessed he’d take what he could get.

Teddy hooked a left at the cross street, hurrying his pace. He felt all of nine again, rushing back to the quiet haven of his apartment, dirty-faced and scraped-kneed and nearly bursting with the need to be comforted. He murmured a quiet apology as he broke into a light jog, clipping the shoulder of a man backing out of another apartment complex. “Watch it,” the guy muttered, then, “Whoa, hey, Teddy—what the hell happened?”

“Sorry, nothing, just,” Teddy called back weakly, barely lifting his head. He wove through a small crowd of kids playing football on the cramped sidewalk, ducking under their lazy passes. If he glanced up, he’d just be able to see ugly salmon-colored brick in the distance.

He broke into a run.

“Dios mio,” a familiar voice exclaimed, but Teddy didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. He was trembling again, shoulders hunched in tight misery, and he had to— He had to— He just—

“I’m sorry,” he said, “excuse me.” His voice cracked and he bit his mouth, running at full speed now. The neighborhood passed in a blur of color and half-familiar faces. He yanked out his keys when he was still over a block away, but he dropped them twice as he tried to shove them into the lock. It was all rushing back now that he no longer had the distraction of flight, hot and terrible: the impact sending them sprawling into the grass. His hands on Billy’s blood-smeared face. The roar of a Hulk. Muffled cries for help. Billy’s eyes as Teddy broke this delicate thing between them once and for all.

He didn’t take the elevator; he didn’t want to wait. Teddy skidded down the hall and unlocked his front door, stumbling inside. He slammed it behind him, sagging against the frame with a low noise that he fought to muffle, one blood-smeared hand clamping over his mouth as his head fell back.

God. Just. God.

Teddy stood there, breathing in unsteady breaths, holding tight to the pieces of himself so he couldn’t crack open and go flying away. He squeezed his eyes shut, fearing the hot, warning prick of tears, and waited for the emotion to crest and pass.

He was home. He was safe.

After several long, long minutes, when the worst of it had passed, Teddy slowly straightened. The apartment was suspiciously quiet. “Mom?” he called. He pushed away from the door, kicking off his shoes out of habit. “Mom?”

The cheerful blue living room was empty. So was the kitchen. The bathroom door was open, lights off. “Mom?” Teddy said, passing by his closed door. He hesitated by his mother’s, then lightly rapped his knuckles against the frame. He knew her schedule better than she did; she was supposed to be home. “Hello?”

He tried the doorknob, pushing open the door.

Two years ago, on a whim, they’d painted the entire room—walls, trim, ceiling, all of it—a deep Moroccan blue. Vines trailed up the corners and onto the ceiling in snaking golden-yellow, bursts of colorful geometrics echoed in the sari bedspread. There was a rainbow cascade of plastic beads hanging in the open closet doorway and an ancient thrift store rattan rug on the floor. An old, well-worn purple velvet chair took up one corner. He could remember sitting on the arm of that chair when he was little, leaning against his mother’s shoulder and playing with her bangles as she read Lamb’s Shakespeare to him.

The memory was so strong, he almost swore he saw her there, blonde hair falling about her shoulders, silver hoop earrings catching the light. But no, no the room was empty.

Teddy slowly withdrew, shutting his mother’s door behind him.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t really hurt. He wasn’t a scared kid. It was probably better this way. Teddy pulled off the blood-soaked T-shirt as he padded quietly toward the kitchen. He hated it when she worried over him, and seeing him like this—

Well.

Teddy paused to press the flashing red button on the answering machine, listening with half a mind as he dug a hole into the trash and shoved his shirt deep inside. He slipped out of his ripped and bloody jeans, inspecting them with a strange hollowness as his mother’s recorded voice talked about a sewage break and emergency meetings in Jersey—could Teddy take care of his own dinner tonight?

“Toss them,” he said, emptying the pockets before balling up his jeans. He pushed them deep into the trash, then moved the empty ketchup bottles and bags of organic sweet potato chips to hide the evidence. Teddy left the lights off as he moved back through the living room, already shivering despite the warmth of the day. He stripped out of his boxers and toed off his socks, leaving them in a messy pile on the bathroom floor.

Like a snakeskin, Teddy thought, then, f*ck, stop. Stop it.

He blindly twisted knobs and stepped into the hard spray, turning his face toward it with a choked noise. His eyes stung. The water pooling around his toes was red-black with soot and blood, and he had to fight the visceral urge to shift, to be someone else—anyone else.

My dad was right. Being friends with you, having…having some kind of crush on you…it’s me saying I’m okay with who you are, what you do. And I’m not. It’s not okay.

“f*ck,” Teddy breathed. He was shaking again, all over, swaying beneath the steady beat of water. “f*ck, f*ck.” He reached out to brace his hands against slick white tile, head dropping forward as his eyes burned and his chest ached and he couldn’t get Billy’s words out of his head.

“I f*cked up,” he said. He needed to speak; he needed to break the silence. It was all around him, closing in hard and fast and terrifying. “I f*cked up, and I didn’t mean it, and I’m so, so sorry.”

**

Then:

**

3:59

They were facing each other in one of The Blue Ruin’s old booths, legs sprawled so their calves touched whenever they moved. Teddy fought to keep his eyes from drifting toward the clock, knowing it would just piss Greg off…but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Every few minutes, as he absently laughed at one of Greg’s jokes, his eyes subtly ticked to the left, marking time as it crawled by.

4:02

4:06

4:08

Greg tipped his head back, swallowing the last of his beer. His leg brushed Teddy’s in a way that would have sent a thrill up his spine just a few short months ago. “Hey,” he said. “Where are you going?”

Teddy straightened, gaze snapping back to Greg. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re a million miles away and getting farther every second. Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Teddy lied. “I’m not,” he added at Greg’s expression. “I swear, I’m not. I’m right here; my attention’s all yours.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

Teddy curled his fingers around his forgotten beer, absently sliding it over the scarred wooden table. It left a silver smear of condensation in its wake, beads of sweat rolling down the glass and over his fingers. “What do you want?” he mused, pushing the glass from hand to hand. “A blood oath? Three boons? My beer? Here, have it.” He shoved the nearly full glass over. “I swear it’s been microbrewed within an inch of its life. It’s so hip and local I keep expecting it to grow muttonchops and lecture me about the freegan lifestyle.”

Greg snorted, catching Teddy’s beer and belting it back in that way he had—that co*cksure I’ll see your quip and raise you twenty way that never failed to make Teddy feel a little flatfooted. Greg’s adam’s apple bobbed and the colored light from the stained glass windows hit his face, highlighting his high cheekbones and perfectly squared jaw in subtle blues.

Teddy’s eyes ticked to the left. 4:10

He startled when Greg slammed the (empty) glass down, trying not to look guilty. Greg wiped his bottom lip with the backs of his fingers as he studied Teddy’s face. “No,” he said after a long, thoughtful silence. “That’s not going to cut it.”

“It’s a criminally overpriced beer.”

“You’ve been far away all day. I think you owe me…” He trailed off, leaning back as if he didn’t know exactly what he wanted. Teddy forced himself not to look away, shoulders slowly beginning to tense at his friend’s steady appraisal. Greg’s moods were as unpredictable as wildfire, but they’d been friends long enough—five years, almost—that Teddy could read the signs.

He knew what was coming.

“Thor,” Greg finally said. “I think you owe me Thor.”

Yeah. Yeah, he’d figured it would be something like that. “I don’t know,” Teddy hedged.

Greg cut him off smoothly, reaching across the table to grab one of Teddy’s hands, squeezing hard. His eyes were fever-bright. “Are you going to show me you want to be here or not?” Greg asked. “Or are you halfway out the door already?”

4:13

“Okay,” Teddy reluctantly capitulated. One hour; how much trouble could they get into in one hour? “If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.” Greg slung an arm across the back of the booth and twisted to look over his shoulder. The bar was dim. This early in the day, there were just a small handful of patrons, none of them interested in a couple of stupid maybe-legals. The bartender wearily stacked glasses as she prepared for the evening rush, humming snatches of some pop tune under her breath. “You’re clear,” he murmured, turning back. “Do it now.”

Teddy glanced around helplessly, feeling exposed and— And wrong. He always felt so wrong doing this. But there was that low buzz of excitement, too, building deep in his belly as he closed his eyes and bowed his head to inevitability.

This won’t be like before, Teddy reassured himself. It’s not going to get out of hand this time.

“Come on,” Greg murmured. “Do it.”

Teddy balled up his napkin and threw it at Greg’s head. “I’m concentrating, okay?”

“Concentrate faster!”

Their shared laughter broke his better nature, and this time he didn’t need to close his eyes as he shifted. He could see Thor in his mind’s eye. He was big. Impossibly big. Teddy’s T-shirt stretched over his growing bulk and his jeans tightened around his thighs. He drew in a steadying breath, feeling the air fill his lungs as he imagined his features blurring like a ripple across still water.

The bar seemed to shrink around him. Even Greg looked small and harmless sitting there, watching him with an excited gleam in his eyes.

And just like that, Teddy thought, spreading broad hands across the old wooden tabletop, I get to be a god.

“f*ck, man.” Greg’s smile was slow and electrifying. The way he looked at Teddy (at Thor) made his stomach lurch in guilty pleasure. It didn’t matter that he didn’t think about Greg that way anymore—it was a Pavlovian reaction. It was a moment of belonging. It was Sally Field at the Oscars, practically basking in that first taste of acceptance.

You’re so pathetic, Teddy thought, even as he slowly began to grin back. He could feel the unfamiliar muscles in his unfamiliar face stretching in a way that made him something new and interesting and amazing.

“Look at you,” Greg said. “Every time I think it can’t get better, you go and prove me wrong.” He leaned in, smile going wicked, dark brows arched toward his spiky hair. “We’re going to drive everyone nuts with you like this.”

Teddy mimicked Greg’s posture, his own brows arching. “Tell me, human friend,” he said. His voice was a low rumble, like distant thunder. “Hast thou heard the one about mine brother’s fine filly?”

Greg pointed at him. “That,” he said. “That sounds just about right. Christ. Okay, come on.” He slid out of the booth, still grinning hugely as he surveyed the bar.

Teddy squirmed out of the too-small booth and straightened. He took a step, then paused to pull on his coat, tugging the ends closed to try to mask the un-Thor-like T-shirt (Teddy was pretty sure that he would have noticed if Thor was a big prog rock fan). Greg watched him fighting the buttons with a lopsided smirk and Teddy flipped him off, ducking away when the other boy grabbed for his finger. His heart felt light in his chest; it had been an age since they’d been like this, relaxed and joking around and friends again.

I’ve been so sh*tty to him lately, Teddy told himself, following Greg toward the bar. Surely this isn’t too much to ask of me.

He snagged a barstool with the toe of his boot and dragged it back. The bartender glanced over with bored disinterest, then nearly dropped a sloshing pint in her visible jolt of surprise.

“Oh f*ck. Holy f*ck.” Stools creaked and Teddy could practically feel eyes falling on him as, one by one, everyone craned their necks to see what was happening.

The air was very still. Then, “Thor,” one of the patrons hissed, and the name spread from person to person in a haze of shocked whispers, building power with each repetition. Thor, Thor, Thor. For a moment, sinking onto the barstool and offering his best lopsided grin, Teddy felt like the center of the universe.

The center of the f*cking multiverse.

“Good eve, fair maid,” he said, leaning one elbow against the bar and flirting for all he was worth. If he was going to be Thor, he might as well be Thor. “Might my companion and I gaze upon this fine establishment’s bill of fare? Or dost thou have a ‘daily special’ to recommend thee?”

“I. I. Oh my f*ck. Are you—?”

“Aye. And thou, fair maid, art Mecca. Thou art well met, indeed.”

Her eyes went wide behind dark-rimmed glasses. “You know my name?” she gasped. Teddy was only just aware of someone hunching over an iPhone, whispering, “Hey, hey! Thor’s in The Blue Ruin! Honest-to-God Thor, I sh*t you not!”

“It’s hard to miss someone as pretty as you,” Greg teased, leaning close with a wolfish grin.

“Aye,” Teddy said again. This routine was so practiced it was nearly second nature. If Greg played his cards right—and Teddy was only too aware that he was Greg’s trump card—then he’d go home with a new number scrawled across the meat of his palm. Teddy was too accustomed to the act to be jealous anymore. “Thy badge has proven most felicitous.” He gestured to the small white rectangle on her left breast. “Unless it is meant to bespeak the location and not the bearer’s name?”

Greg laughed, co*cking his head so he was looking up through a fan of long, thick lashes. “My friend basically just said people should bow and pray to your rack,” he said, earning a breathless laugh from the girl. “How many times do you hear that from a god? I think that deserves free drinks on the house—don’t you?”

Set up. Punchline. Greg the Hero.

Of course, things couldn’t remain uncomplicated. It unraveled so fast: Greg leaning against the bar next to him, laughing, their faces catching the light of a dozen cameraphone flashes, then two dozen. The once-empty room growing packed as people flooded inside. The owner calling his bouncers in to work early and someone outside yelling, “Hey, dude, get in here—it’s Thor!” until suddenly, almost inevitably, they were trapped. The two of them were forced up onto the stage to avoid the crowd, retreating behind the velvet curtain as the situation grew quickly out of hand.

Teddy stood, still wearing his borrowed skin, and watched another catastrophe unfold through a part in the heavy fabric. The bar was completely packed, now, crowd pressed shoulder-to-shoulder and jostling for room. They pushed and pulled and swayed against one another, moving like a living ocean, a sea of expectant faces. Shouts rose and fell. Now and then, a knot broke free, moving toward the small stage only to be shoved back by the harried-looking bouncers. Teddy watched helplessly, a sick feeling spinning in his gut.

He startled when Greg clapped him on the shoulder. “I told you Thor would be a big hit,” Greg said, peering through the fold of curtain. “Jesus, look at them. They’re losing their minds out there.”

Teddy made a low, noncommittal noise. The bartender, Mecca, was in the front row, where the mosh pit would be on Metal Mondays. Her reddish-brown hair was in disarray, and her palms pressed flat against the scuffed wooden stage as she was driven hard against its jutting lip. Teddy watched the way her head snapped to the side, flush seeping across her skin as she yelled back at the mindless crowd.

“We should—” Teddy began, but Greg caught his arm before he could do more than turn in her direction.

“Are you insane?” Greg hissed. He grabbed Teddy’s other arm, pulling him further upstage. Amps and loaner instruments made strange, squat shapes in the dim. “We can’t go out there now—we’d get torn apart.”

“We should…” Teddy tried again, but really, what could he say? Greg was right; if he went out there now, like this, he could very well incite a riot. It was Times Square all over again. It was Lotus. It was a half-dozen other shameful memories.

Why did he keep doing this?

Standing in the shadows of The Blue Ruin’s shrouded stage, wearing Thor’s skin and listening to the maddened crowd shout and stamp their feet and call for his return, Teddy could only wonder why he continued to be so stupid.

“We’ll slip out the back,” Greg said, already striding away. He looked so much smaller when Teddy was in this form; it was almost impossible to imagine that the strength of his personality could be so shattering. “Try to blend in with the tourists and make our way to the subway. I don’t think—”

Greg half turned as if just realizing Teddy wasn’t beside him.

Teddy closed his eyes, feeling the roar of the crowd more than hearing it, letting it wash over him, through him. He breathed it in and imagined the liquid glide of watercolor on paper, forming indistinct shapes, color—reforming him. When he opened his eyes, he was Teddy again, feeling a hundred times smaller and weaker and less…everything.

“You go on,” Teddy said quietly. “I’ve got to… Well.”

Greg’s brows drew together. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he said.

“It’s not that bad. Besides, I started it. I should at least try to fix it.”

“No,” Greg said, “you didn’t do a goddamned thing. Thor started it. You think they’re really going to listen to some kid from Brooklyn?”

He wanted… He didn’t know what he wanted. “Fine,” Greg added after a long silence, turning away again. “Do whatever you want, man; I’m out of here.”

Teddy watched him go, knowing he’d have to make up for this later. Greg kept a careful tally of slights, and it was no good to assume time would even the score. He’d have to prove himself all over again and—f*ck—wasn’t that what had gotten him into this mess in the first place? He sighed, feeling stupidly small and incapable in this body, wishing he could be Thor again. Iron Man. Captain America. Anyone.

“Damn it,” Teddy murmured. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

All he had to do was— If he could just— He only had to—

What? He only had to what?

Teddy stood frozen, surrounded by the barely muffled shouts, feeling powerless and small and very alone. He had to fix this somehow; he had no idea how he could.

He looked up at the sound of the curtain parting, a vertical stab of light falling across him before the heavy cloth fell together again. It was one of the bouncers, hair mussed, blunt features drawn into a scowl. “Hey, you, kid,” he said, stopping at the edge of the stage. Teddy subtly shifted, darkening his hair, making his eyes go nearly black. It wasn’t much, but the bouncer didn’t need more than that to see Greg. “Where’s the god?”

Teddy wet his lips. “He had to go,” he said. “There was— A call came. From the Mansion.”

“Well, sh*t. That just figures he’d prance in and poof off and not give two flying f*cks about the mess he left behind. f*cking Avengers.” He gestured roughly toward the back door. “You go on and get out of here. I’m going to open up the stage so they can see he’s really gone. Maybe then they’ll clear out.”

“Can I help?”

The older man gave him a once-over and snorted. “Doing what? No, go on, get out of here. You’ll just make it worse.”

Teddy didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing. “Sure,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He began to tug out his scarf as he turned away, moving dully toward the back exit. Teddy shifted again, blue eyes squinting up at the slowly darkening sky as he pushed out into the alleyway. He wound the houndstooth scarf around his neck, drawing in an unsteady breath scented with garbage and urine and the threat of snow.

He let it out slowly; the door clanged shut behind him.

There was no sign of Greg; but, of course, he hadn’t expected there to be. He didn’t want there to be. Teddy scuffed a boot against the filthy alley floor then sighed and headed toward the street, away from the main entrance where the spillover from the bar was straining to push their way inside. The streets were full of people and color despite the dreary day. Mounds of brownish-gray snow were piled in mountain ranges along the edges of the sidewalk, dotted with cigarette butts and wrappers. Teddy moved instinctively into the flow of traffic, carefully stepping over a puddle of slush as he veered into the crosswalk.

Times Square, no matter the time of day or night, always felt a bit like a carnival. There were hawkers on the corners, stopping random tourists (“Comedy! Excuse me, ma’am, do you like comedy?”) and passing out flyers. Horns blared. Lights flashed. The smell of burned peanuts and stale pretzels filled the air, superseding the taint of exhaust and trash and tightly packed bodies.

It was… Okay, yeah, it was thrilling. It was always, always thrilling.

Teddy squinted up at the huge jumbotrons, watching the flashing pops of color as he allowed himself to get swept up by the crowd. He felt like a bit of driftwood, or maybe a minnow joining its school. Each surge of the tide sent the lot of them pivoting and swerving and moving as one mass—a collective, a unit. A girl with bright pink hair leaned over the rusted metal scaffolding and took a picture. Lights flashed like a score of dying stars.

He allowed himself to be swept across 42nd, pulling back from the crowd as they crossed into a pedestrian walkway. Costumed figures strolled through the cone of foot traffic—Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob and even a Captain America. Teddy stopped to watch as kids threw themselves toward the costumed Cap, a weird, tight fist closing in his chest at the sight of their eager faces.

God. God he sucked.

Teddy shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, wanting to turn away but not letting himself. Not yet. A cold wind blew down Broadway, catching the ends of his scarf and trailing them behind him. He leaned against the wind, rocking up onto the balls of his feet as Cap crouched and slung an arm around skinny shoulders. The kid was grinning, huge and snaggle-toothed and…so f*cking young.

Teddy let out a slow, unsteady breath, shoulders rounding forward. One corner of his mouth ticked up into a smile. Donald Duck co*cked his head, huge costume eyes meeting Teddy’s across the walkway. He lifted a hand to wave and Teddy waved back, deliberately letting the tension seep from his body. He’d think about all of it later, he decided. Back when he was home, after he met up with—

After—

Oh, crap, what time was it? It couldn’t be that much past 5:00, could it?

Teddy spun on his heel, diving back into the swarm of tourists even as he dug for his phone. “Sorry,” he murmured, jostled and jostling; he flipped open the faceplate and cursed under his breath. It was dead. Of course, of course it was dead.

He snapped his phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket, all thoughts of Greg and Thor pushed from his mind. It was impossible to run in Times Square—there were too many people milling about, too much traffic blaring—but he did his best to squeeze between groups of tourists and annoyed-looking natives. “Sorry, excuse me,” Teddy said, sidestepping a cop. He made a beeline for the subway entrance, fumbling with his Metro card even as he skidded through the glass doorway.

The station was predictably congested. Teddy skirted the escalator and bolted down the steps, taking them two at a time. The red line would get him to the Upper West Side, though the blue would be better. Teddy hesitated, torn between taking the easily accessible red or transferring from the purple to the blue before deciding f*ck it and running for the red. He could hear the screech of a train entering or leaving the station as he crested the top of the steps and he practically threw himself headfirst onto the platform, stumbling a few paces before righting himself. The doors were closing; he didn’t even have time to double-check that it was the right train. Teddy responded on instinct, darting forward and slamming a shoulder between the closing doors, taking the brunt of the impact with a low grunt.

They opened again, just enough for him to squeeze in, before closing…around his scarf. Teddy grabbed the end of it, his other hand curling around a metal pole as the doors opened again—just a few inches—and closed.

His scarf fluttered free. The train began to move.

He remained standing from 42nd to 79th, fingers curled around his phone where it had been shoved into his pocket, thumb tapping anxiously against the plastic faceplate. He could see numbers flashing accusingly across the train’s LED display every time he turned his head.

5:26

5:28

5:33

He was the first off the train when it reached 79th, pushing against the crowd of passengers waiting to embark. “sh*t, sh*t, sorry,” Teddy called, racing past a harried-looking woman pushing a double stroller. He practically flew up the stairs and out of the station, cold wind whipping through his hair and making his scarf twist in inelegant shapes. The sky was the color of an old bruise, purple-blue as the sun sank toward the trees.

He was so late.

Teddy stumbled to a stop just outside the subway entrance and took a moment to orient himself, breath fogging in white clouds. He turned, momentarily lost, watching the stream of people converge and part around him. He should have taken the purple to the blue. At least then he’d be right there.

“Excuse me,” Teddy murmured reflexively, stepping out of an elderly gentleman’s way. He bumped up against a tree, snowflakes drifting around him. He shook them out of his eyes as he turned his head to catch the cross streets.

This wasn’t one of his usual haunts, but the streets around here were uniform—nothing like the tangled Village or Brooklyn around Atlantic/Pacific. It didn’t take more than another minute to orient himself in the neat grid of the Upper West Side, and then he was off again, racing toward the park.

He wove through a steady stream of au pairs with their young charges, kids his age walking dogs, well-dressed men on their cell phones. There was a construction crew setting up hazards. A taxi had stalled just past a light, blocking the intersection. The chorus of horns nearly drowned out the sound of his boots hitting the sidewalk, his gasping breaths.

Teddy ran past a family of four, the youngest chatting eagerly as she dragged a brightly colored balloon in her wake. The Museum of Natural History was emblazoned across its front, a T-Rex roaring on a field of white.

He took a hard left. He was almost there.

Teddy spotted Billy when he was still half a block away. The other boy was sitting on the stone steps, face against his knees, arms wrapped protectively around his head. Teddy’s heart gave a weird hiccupping lurch at the sight of him, guilt and excitement churning in his gut. He raced down the sidewalk and up the steps, throwing himself down next to Billy with a strangled, breathless gasp.

Finally.

“I’m…so…sorry.” It was almost impossible to speak. His heart was hammering in his chest and he was pretty sure he was going to fall over and die any second now. Billy looked up, cheeks and nose bright red with cold, a slow smile already spreading over his face. “I ran…all the way…from… Gah, sorry.”

Teddy collapsed against the steps, hands pressed to his stomach as if he could forcibly still the anxious roiling inside. He leaned his head back, letting his eyes unfocus while he tried to steady his scrambled thoughts. You would not believe what I did today, he wanted to say. Or, I can’t believe you waited; I am so f*cking glad.

“It’s okay,” Billy said, shifting next to him. “I wasn’t waiting too long.”

Teddy turned his head, brows arching. Billy flushed. “Okay,” Billy admitted, “I’ve been waiting a while. But in the grand scheme of things, not too bad. I mean, not Godot-level.”

Was there anyone like this boy, Teddy wondered dizzily. He nudged Billy’s knee and rolled his eyes, trying to telegraph amusem*nt and disbelief as he caught his breath. The tension slowly seeped from his frame. Billy had a strange way of doing that to him. It was as if he’d scrubbed the day clean and Teddy was starting over again without the mistakes and self-recriminations of the last few hours.

He watched as Billy reached for him, leaning instinctively into the touch. Billy brushed the snow from Teddy’s shoulders and hair, not meeting his eyes. He never did when they were this close.

Billy dropped his hand, fingers curling and uncurling in his lap.

“Am I presentable enough to be seen with?” Teddy teased. He watched with open interest as color crept up Billy’s cheeks.

“Oh,” Billy said, picking at his gloves, “you know, I guess I’ll condescend. Um, so…”

Teddy stood, shaking away the last of the snow, and offered a hand to Billy. “Right, museum,” he said. He closed his fingers around Billy’s and tugged him up, close. Too close, maybe, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue with his id tonight. “Can I get the tickets?”

He’d been saving for today for the last week and a half. It was stupid—he was more than ready to admit that it was stupid—but he’d wanted to make a point of buying for them.

Billy squinted up at the museum, absently rubbing his palms against his thighs. “Beat you to it,” he said. “You can grab the next set in our daring tour.”

“Sure.” Teddy dragged his fingers through his hair, doing his best to hide his disappointment. “Two tickets to the Museum of Sex coming right—” what the f*ck, brain? “Uh, unfortunate word choice, abort, abort.”

Billy ducked his head and Teddy fought back a wild impulse to turn on his heel and make a break for it. Jesus, could he be any lamer? They fell into step in awkward silence and headed into the museum. Teddy took the ticket Billy offered as he unwound his scarf, shucking out of the heavy wool coat, grasping desperately for something to say.

“Should I grab a map?” he finally settled on, turning toward Billy. His fingers twitched reflexively when Billy reached out to snag the cuff of his sweater, steering him away from the information desk and toward the big marble doorway.

“No way,” Billy said, glancing over at him with a disarming grin. “My school is practically right on the other side of the park. You would not believe how many times I’ve been here as a field trip.” He tugged again before letting go. “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Teddy slid his hands into his pockets to hide their faint tremble, eyes on Billy’s face. “Hey, VIP treatment,” he said. “I can get behind that.”

“Kaplan Tours at your service. So.” Billy swung around so that he was walking backwards, completely ignoring the milling crowd of museum-goers behind him. “What’s your pleasure?”

“My pleasure is you not taking a nosedive into a Stegosaurus,” Teddy said. He reached out to grab Billy’s thin shoulders and guided him around an exhibit.

“Right! The Hall of Dinosaurs it is.”

**

Now:

**

It was a long time before the water finally ran clear. Teddy hunched forward, head bowed as the warm spray beat at his shoulders and upper back. He felt weirdly old and young at the same time. Delicate, like new skin stretched over a worn frame.

He had no idea how long he’d been in here, remembering; an age could have come and gone. He just knew he had to leave and find…something, anything, to hold on to before his control finally snapped and the dam broke.

Someone. He needed someone.

“What the hell, Teddy?” he said. He curled his hand into a fist and lightly drummed his forehead two times, three, eyes squeezed shut before he reached for the faucet and turned off the shower. His muscles ached as he straightened and there was a fierce pounding pain at his temples, but he brushed all that aside as he fumbled for a towel and stumbled out of the bathroom.

He didn’t give himself room to think as he snagged his cell phone, toweling himself dry. Greg’s was the first number on his speed dial. Billy’s was the second. He’d have to— He should take care of that.

Later, Teddy told himself. Think about that later.

He pressed 1 as he pulled on boxers and a clean pair of jeans, towel discarded on his bedroom floor. Greg picked up on the sixth ring.

“Hey,” Teddy said.

“Hey yourself. Did you hear about all that at the Avengers’ Mansion?” Teddy could hear the unholy chaos of Greg’s apartment through the line. One of his sisters was screaming. A baby’s wail could be heard over the familiar drone of an argument. “Apparently there were f*cking Ultron robots—can you believe it?”

“Yeah.”

Greg was quiet for a minute, then said, “Hold up, I can barely hear you.” The sound was abruptly muffled as if he had pressed the receiver to his chest, and Teddy closed his eyes as he pictured Greg picking his way across the filthy toy-strewn floor, passing the room he shared with his two brothers, passing the overstuffed closet with its cheap maroon-colored curtain in place of a door. When Greg came back on the line, his voice echoed oddly as if off tile. Teddy could hear the hiss of a radiator and the gurgle of the toilet. “You sound like hell,” Greg said frankly. “What’s up?”

Teddy let out a breath. “Greg,” he tried, “I’m just—I just—”

“Yeah?”

Teddy moved to sit on his bed and picked at a loose string unraveling from his coverlet. “Something happened, and I can’t…talk about it, but I need—Hell. I.”

Greg stopped him. “Use your words, Teddy,” he said, not unkindly.

Teddy took the plunge. “Can you come over? I need to not be alone right now.”

“To your place?” The sharpness in his voice was unmistakable. “You’re actually going to let me inside?”

And what could he say in the face of that? “Please, Greg,” Teddy murmured, closing his eyes and dropping his forehead against his drawn-up knees.

There was a long silence. And then, to his credit, Greg relented. “Yeah, man,” he said. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be right there. Address? Seeing as, you know, you’ve never f*cking told me before.”

“I’ll text you,” he said numbly.

Teddy couldn’t figure out what to do with himself as he waited. He felt pulled in a hundred different directions all at once, yet he couldn’t seem to make himself move. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, hands dangling between his thighs. His phone was silent and accusatory next to him.

Hey, he would have said, if he only had the nerve, I know you hate me now, but I just need to know that you’re all right. This won’t stop until I know.

The sharp buzz of the door was a relief, jolting him out of his thoughts and forcing him up onto his feet. He went to let Greg in.

“You know,” Greg said as he moved past Teddy and shrugged out of his light jacket, “this is the first time you’ve let me come over here. I’m going to be on the lookout for murdered hookers in the closets.”

Teddy quietly shut the door. “No hookers, murdered or otherwise. Just some old Frank Miller.”

Greg glanced over his shoulder. “Translate.”

“It’s…not actually that funny of a joke.” Billy would have gotten it.

No. No, f*ck, no. He needed to stop thinking like that. Billy wasn’t here; Billy didn’t want to be here. Billy didn’t want anything to do with him.

Greg. Greg was the one who’d come. He just…had to remember that.

It had been a while now since he’d turned to Greg for anything, Teddy realized, trailing a few steps behind as Greg made his way through the apartment. He’d begun to think maybe he wouldn’t anymore—that he didn’t need that kind of outside affirmation. That he was (nice, okay, be a drama queen, Altman) almost free from all that, from all the baggage that came with it.

He wasn’t free now. He was practically belly-crawling back. He’d beg, if Greg made him. Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time Teddy had bent over backwards to be liked.

“It’s pretty nice. Is your mom an artist?” Greg jerked his chin at Teddy’s watercolors and it felt…wrong somehow, like he wasn’t supposed to be here, like Teddy had made some kind of terrible mistake. This wasn’t a part of himself he wanted to share with Greg.

Teddy pushed his fingers through his hair, letting out an unsteady breath. “Yeah,” he lied. “My mom’s an artist. Greg, I’m sorry I called you over here like I did.”

“You mean after being my friend for years and never letting me step foot in your place?”

Teddy flinched, tried to hide it. Failed. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I should have… I don’t know why I never asked you over.”

Greg crossed his arms. “I bet you had that Kaplan kid over here, huh?”

“Yeah. He came over a few times.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

Teddy looked up, surprised to see a flash of hurt beneath the belligerence. Greg was standing there with his feet a shoulders-width apart, arms still crossed. Scowling. But Teddy had known him for so long—so many years of wanting—that somewhere along the way he’d picked up the ability to see past the bullsh*t. Or was he just seeing what he wanted?

He wasn’t stupid. Teddy knew Greg wasn’t someone he shouldlike. He could be a jackass sometimes, a bully. But there was something there, too. Something deeper. Something that looked like hurt and jealousy and… Want.

It tugged Teddy closer, pulling at him like an undertow. God how he needed to be wanted right now.

“Well?” Greg demanded when Teddy didn’t say anything. “Is he your little fa*ggy boyfriend?”

“I don’t like it when you say that,” Teddy said. He could feel the shifts taking place inside him, feel himself responding to Greg’s presence. This was the right decision, he told himself. He never could stand to be alone. “You know that.”

Greg made a low, disgusted noise. “So you keep saying.”

“It sounds like something your dad would say.” His bare feet were silent against the hardwood floor. Teddy reached out, hesitant—careful—and rested a hand on Greg’s tense bicep. “It’s always your dad talking when you get like that.”

Greg turned his face away, flushing darkly. “I don’t want to talk about my father.”

Teddy touched the collar of Greg’s shirt with his other hand, drifting close. He felt like broken bits of flotsam in a current; Greg was an inescapable force of nature. “I don’t want to talk at all,” Teddy said.

He bridged the last bit of distance between them, one arm sliding carefully around Greg’s neck, pulling him in. Teddy ducked his head to rest his forehead against Greg’s powerful shoulder, eyes sliding shut at the relief of contact. Months ago, a year ago, he would have felt heat coiling low in his gut at the physical proximity. All that was gone, now, but it still—

It felt good. He needed good.

He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of Greg’s cologne, fingers curling in his shirt. Teddy couldn’t think—but that was the whole point, now, right? Not to think? He focused instead on the rise and fall of Greg’s chest. The heat of his body through layers of clothing. The steady, soothing beat of his heart.

The way his hands hung steady at his sides, unresponsive.

Teddy lifted his head and met dark eyes. He made a questioning noise in the back of his throat.

Greg’s cheeks were flushed, and he looked angry, even though he wasn’t. Teddy could tell he wasn’t. “What are you doing?” he said. His voice was low and surprisingly cold.

Teddy began to pull back, startled, but Greg grabbed his elbows in a hard grip, keeping him close. “That’s not what I meant,” he snapped. “I meant…what are you doing?”

Teddy looked away, then back again, confused, mind tripping helplessly over the last few minutes to try to figure out what he had done wrong. “I’m not,” he said, voice stupidly weak, “I thought—” He glanced down, uncertain. And then it hit him.

“Oh,” Teddy said on a low breath. “Oh, I’m really sorry.”

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sheen of color, the swirl, the change. Blond hair curled over his ears and then down his back in loose waves. He could feel his features softening, was acutely aware of the way his center of balance changed as his hips flared, his waist thinned. Newly formed breasts were pressed against Greg’s chest now, intimate and always, always shockingly sensitive in those first few moments. When he cleared his throat, his voice was a husky alto, close to his own and yet…not. “Is this okay?”

Greg was silent for so long that Teddy had to open his eyes again, blinking up at him silently. The tight line of Greg’s body was gentling, tension draining out of him. His face had lost any traces of anger, and his eyes were…soft. Soft as he looked down at Teddy.

He reached out and very gently brushed back a long strand of hair, tucking it behind Teddy’s ear. “Something really f*cked you up today, didn’t it?” Greg murmured. He wrapped an arm around Teddy’s waist, big fingers sliding to cup his skull. When he pulled Teddy against him, it was as if he were shutting a door between Teddy and the rest of the world. The explosion, the fear, Billy—don’t think his name—all of it was blessedly muffled.

But then Greg was tipping up Teddy’s face and brushing their mouths together.

Teddy considered allowing it. It felt…nice. At least, he thought it might eventually feel nice, if he let himself play along. He could remember times when he’d wanted this too, when he’d enjoyed this, more than anything, but all that seemed hazy with time and distance now.

Greg’s tongue brushed the bottom curve of Teddy’s lip. His hands tightened on him.

Teddy gently turned his face away. “No,” he murmured. “Greg…no. That’s not what I—Could you just—I just need something to hold onto for a little while, okay?”

Greg was silent for a long minute before muttering, “You don’t mean no. You mean not now.”

“Not now,” Teddy agreed. It was an easy enough concession—a way to kick the can down the road a few days, a week, especially now that Billy—

Don’t.

Teddy sucked in an uneven breath. His entire frame had gone tight as a coiled wire again. He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. Just don’t think about him, Teddy admonished himself. Just don’t think at all. He forced himself to sink against Greg’s broad, strong frame. He willed himself to relax. This, Teddy thought, was going to be enough. It had to be.

**

Then:

**

“So cool,” Billy said. He was gripping the railing, face pressed so close to the glass that his reflection nearly obscured the bobbing creatures in the dark tank. Teddy let himself focus on that. It wasn’t that the tiny school of jellyfish made him nervous—

No, scratch that. The tiny school of jellyfish definitely made him nervous.

“If you say so,” he mumbled, turning away. The whole exhibit made his skin crawl. The center of the long hall was taken up by a dark, humid tangle of rain forest trees and flowers. They burst lushly through the undergrowth, vivid greens and deep blues blending with the deepest blacks. Here and there a flower bloomed with unlikely light, delicate petals glowing in shades of yellow-white and violet. On its own, it would have been beautiful—but the curator had added small shapes in the tangle of vegetation. Glass eyes stared at him from the shadows, unblinking, unmoving.

All that, mixed with tanks of glowing shapes and the unsettling liquid chug of an aquarium, had his teeth on edge. He glanced over again. Tiny, graceful figures twisted in the aquarium like wisps of smoke. Their long tentacles lifted about their bodies as… Teddy carefully turned his face away.

He startled when Billy lightly brushed their elbows together before swallowing and looking down into a pair of thoroughly bemused brown eyes.

“You really don’t like fish, do you?”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell Namor,” Teddy said, craning to spot one of the museum’s discreet clocks. “I’m pretty sure he’d eat my face. Oh, hey, ten minutes until the show. Want to head in?”

Billy blinked. “Already? Okay, wow, yeah. You know,” he added, very obviously putting himself between Teddy and the tanks of jellyfish as they hurried out of the Hall of Bioluminescence, “I’m going to start dragging you along on every museum trip from now on. Time is just swimming by.”

Teddy backhanded his shoulder and Billy grinned. “What?” he said, laughing at the face Teddy made. “Too soon?”

“Someday, I’m going to find your weakness,” Teddy warned. “And you’re going to look back on this day and think, wow, I should have been way more sensitive to Teddy’s perfectly understandable phobia.”

Billy shoved his hands into his pockets and co*cked his head toward Teddy. “I have a horrible fear of chocolate,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Especially the good stuff. You should definitely get your revenge by sending me just gobs of it.”

“There’s a chocolate café on Lexington. We should go when I’ve decided you don’t suck anymore.” Teddy reached over to snag Billy’s ticket as they headed into the planetarium’s main entrance. It was housed in a giant, round theater balanced on three slim pylons beneath a pitched glass ceiling. Huge ramps extended from its exits, spiraling down to a special exhibit on the ground level. Directly beneath them, visible through the glass floor, a pendulum swung through the void like the arm of a giant clock. “Have you seen this show before?” Teddy asked as he handed over their tickets. There wasn’t much of a line. A family of three sat together near the door, and one or two other small groups were scattered throughout the room.

Teddy reached out and lightly nudged Billy, guiding him toward an empty row. Billy glanced over his shoulder at him, ears going pink at the contact. The warmth of his skin, even through layers of cloth, was incredible.

“Huh? Oh. Oh, uh, no, not this one. I think they just switched over.” Billy nearly stumbled, catching himself with a muffled curse and a quick, “Sorry! Sorry.” When he sank into his seat, Teddy could see that faint blush seeping down his neck.

It was…endearing how easy it was to read Billy’s face. He wore his feelings on his quirky, angular features like a silent film star, emoting every flinch of embarrassment, every hope, every mental tic. Teddy was so used to trying to sort through his own messy tangle of emotions that Billy’s hapless honesty was a welcome respite.

It must be so freeing to be like that, Teddy thought, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the domed ceiling. The lights were dimming, stars just visible along the outer rim of the planetarium. To just…be.

The room fell into full darkness and the quiet shifting and creaking of seats was replaced by the voice of the narrator. A distant flash of color spun closer, growing bigger and brighter until it consumed the giant screen, throwing blue and green light over them. The Earth hung there, massive in scope. It seemed to hover directly over their heads, filling his vision until it was all Teddy could see.

Billy leaned in and whispered, “I think I can see my house from here,” and Teddy elbowed him in the ribs.

And then the Earth began to rotate, dipping low as it spun toward the left of the screen with a too-loud whoosh, shrinking back as the perspective shifted and the camera pulled out to view the entire solar system.

“Still pretty sure I can see the Avengers’ house,” Billy whispered.

Teddy snorted, quickly turning his face to hide his grin against his fist. He glanced at Billy out of the corner of his eyes, heart giving a queer little lurch at the goofy, lopsided smile. God, Billy was just so…

“That’s not even funny,” Teddy said, voice pitched low. He was laughing, though, shoulders shaking as he fought to keep it in. Billy’s grin simply widened. He opened his mouth—likely to add something about, oh, the Justice League’s Watchtower or whatever—but Teddy leaned over and clapped a palm over his mouth, hushing him. He pressed in close. He could just make out the subtle tang of Billy’s shampoo. “You know what they say about special hells and people who talk in theaters?” he murmured. His breath rustled the hair at Billy’s temples.

Billy blinked at him. His eyes were wide over Teddy’s hand. His breath was warm against his skin, coming just a little too fast.

He nodded.

Teddy dropped his hand and settled back into his seat, shifting to hide the blush that wanted to creep across his cheeks. “Good, okay,” he said. He could see Billy moving out of the corner of his eye, straightening until they were both staring up at the planetarium dome with a singular focus. Teddy let out an uneven breath, fingers curling and uncurling slowly. He could still feel the press of Billy’s mouth at the center of his palm. He could still feel the hot gust of his breath.

He closed his eyes, briefly overwhelmed. Lights blurred in a dizzying spiral beneath his lids as the universe expanded around him.

When he opened his eyes again, they’d moved out of the solar system and into the Shi’ar empire. Teddy watched the huge screen in silence, trying to focus on the narrator’s droning voice, but his skin felt too tight. His heart was still pounding just a little too hard.

He was intimately aware of Billy sitting so close to him. Knees almost brushing, elbows just a hair’s breadth away. He was always aware of Billy. He had been from the start, from that first moment he’d glanced over and seen him scowling down at used CDs, a bundle of frenetic energy. There’d been something there, then, something about him from the very beginning.

It was just getting worse, over time—this awareness. This strange tug deep in his gut. He let himself glance over as the system spun out to focus on the Skrull homeworld. Billy was leaning back in his chair, hands gripping the armrests tight.

What is it about you? Teddy thought. He looked away, then quickly back again. Billy wasn’t like anything or anyone he’d ever known. He wasn’t like anything or anyone he’d ever thought he wanted. He was…wholly new, unexpected. Baffling and oddly frightening. Teddy wet his lips, studying Billy’s sharp features. It wasn’t often he had the chance to do this—to just observe Billy without drawing the full weight of his attention.

His nose was a little too long. His ears were too big. He was the kind of skinny that other kids made fun of, all gangly limbs and extended trunk. His brown hair stuck up in untamed spikes, too chaotic to be deliberate. He was so pale his angular face almost glowed in the darkness.

His skin was a living canvas beneath undulating waves of light.

Teddy watched, breath catching painfully in his chest. Billy’s cheeks were cast in shades of molten red as some alien planet moved over them. His skin was painted in insubstantial watercolors, orange and yellow fading into blue and deep violet. Bursts of brighter light caught on the pale arch of his neck and the high curve of his cheekbone. They mapped Billy’s body in a chaotic swirl of shaded pigments, color and light and energy ever-changing as the universe spun above them.

And then, as the Kree homeworld filled the screen, Billy’s face tipped up and he was aglow with alien light—mottled shades of green and gold and violet making him something different. Something indescribably beautiful.

Teddy made a low noise, quickly turning his face away before Billy could catch him staring. It was difficult to breathe. It felt like the whole weight of the universe had settled onto his chest. He could hear his heart pounding—too loud, too fast—and he wanted… He wanted…

Jesus, when did he ever know what he wanted?

There was a soft rustle of cloth as Billy leaned closer. Teddy gripped his hands into fists, nails digging sharp furrows into his palms. What was wrong with him? He felt light-headed and achy. He thought, if he allowed his muscles to unlock, he might be trembling.

“Hey,” Billy murmured, voice very close. “You okay?”

No, he wanted to say. I don’t know how to be.

“Yeah,” Teddy said, staring blankly up at the ceiling as the Kree homeworld fell away into darkness. “Yeah, sure.”

**

Now:

**

Teddy lay curled in his bed, watching shafts of sunlight stretch across the hardwood floor. The afternoon was passing into early evening, marked only by lengthening shadows and the faint tick of the hallway clock.

He felt…weightless. Gratefully numb. He could have been outside of his body; he could have been walking in space, spinning through the black while the rest of him remained anchored by the heavy weight of Greg’s arm locked around his middle. One hand pressed under his cheek. Knees curled up. Breathing, because that’s what bodies did when their owners didn’t want them anymore.

He closed his eyes. He opened them again. He breathed slowly in and out.

Teddy didn’t tense up when Greg shifted behind him. Greg was a steady warmth that was supposed to be comforting. It had been comforting for a little while. But it seemed so hollow right now. He felt hollow. He felt—

Billy’s face tilted up, lips parted, the universe painted in broad strokes across his pale cheeks.

—dangerously close to the edge despite everything. There were fracture patterns outlined across his lids; if he let himself go even a little, it would all unravel. Memories of the attack. Billy’s face, spattered with blood. A door shutting, leaving him alone.

Alone.

Greg was here, hands on him, and Teddy had never felt more alone. Not since he was that little boy moving through each day from sunup to sundown silent as a ghost.

He squeezed his eyes shut and fought to ignore the rising tide of panic building in his chest with steady, insistent pressure. He swallowed, eyes burning; he struggled to push it back down again, to—

Greg pressed his lips to the back of Teddy’s neck.

Teddy went very still. Greg’s mouth was hot and damp against his skin. His breath stirred strands of Teddy’s hair, gusting against the curve of his shoulder as Greg kissed a little lower, then again, lower, following the stretched-out neck of Teddy’s T-shirt.

I told him no, Teddy thought, but it was all he could do to hold on now. His hands were trembling again. Hot tears gathered at his lashes and his stomach twisted in knots. A heavy beat throbbed in his temples and each breath was a struggle to swallow back a rising sob as Greg mouthed across Teddy’s borrowed skin.

Greg slid a hand up, caressing a curvy hip (not mine) before gently pushing beneath the hem of Teddy’s thin cotton T-shirt. His nails raked soft skin (not mine). His fingers cupped the swell of a breast (not mine).

Teddy drew in a shuddery breath, tensing as he was tugged against Greg’s body. The hazy, numb pain was rapidly burning away as Teddy subtly tried to slide free—and was pulled firmly back into the too-warm cradle of Greg’s thighs.

When had he let this become his life?

They’d been so young the first time he’d spotted Greg across the crowded schoolyard, but Greg had seemed years older, eons more experienced. He’d been surrounded by friends, laughing and joking and confident in his own skin. It had been like a scene out of a movie. Teddy had taken one look at that and wanted it with everything he had. He’d changed everything he had just to get it, to keep it.

Greg had been his first everything. He’d wanted him so much. And now? Now he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt anything for him. It was such a long time ago. Before Billy. Or had it been after?

Don’t think his name. Teddy closed his eyes again and fought the hot tremor of emotion threatening to well up and up and out of him in endless messy waves. It wouldn’t go away. The memories wouldn’t go away.

“Hey,” Greg murmured. The heat of his breath against Teddy’s ear made him tense up. “What are you thinking about?”

Teddy twitched his shoulders uncomfortably. “It’s nothing,” he said. He turned in the circle of Greg’s arms, fighting the urge to shove him away. He’d asked for this. He’d thought he needed this. “I was just thinking about the planetarium.”

Greg arched a dark brow, expression dubious. “The planetarium, huh? f*ck, you’re such a nerd sometimes.” He jerked his chin toward Teddy’s ceiling, where glow-in-the-dark stars were just visible. He began to unbutton Teddy’s jeans with one practiced hand. “You’ve got a major hard-on for space, huh?”

Teddy looked up. The solar system was spread above them, a pale imitation of the bold colors splashed across an uplifted face. He laughed, the sound raw and cracked open and not at all what he’d intended. His skin crawled as calloused fingertips pushed into his boxers. “‘The thing's hollow,’” he quoted, trying to make it a joke. “‘It goes on forever, and— My God, it's full of stars!’”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Greg said.

Billy would have gotten that.

Billy.

And just like that, hours after the first explosion had thrown him to the ground, Teddy’s desperate control finally snapped.

It happened in staccato bursts, like a strobe. Teddy struggled away from Greg, shifting to male with a harsh, unchecked sob. He’d lain under the stars with Billy, wanting him, loving him—he couldn’t do the same with Greg. He couldn’t. He just, no, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.

“No. No,” he snapped when Greg reached for him. Teddy shoved him away, struggling up to his feet. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, unsteady—he was unsteady, legs shaking so hard they almost gave out beneath him. He looked up, seeing the innocuous white stars scattered across the ceiling and recognized the stark reality of countless nights to come lying beneath them, remembering that planetarium. Remembering what he had lost.

Teddy scrubbed at his face, hot tears dripping unchecked from his chin, messy. So f*cking messy—he’d made a mess of everything, and Greg was staring up at him with a baffled expression, reaching up to touch Teddy’s thigh.

“No, let go of me. No; I have to get them down.” He reached up with shaking hands and peeled away a star; it felt like picking at a scab. It felt painful and good, his breath hitching on a sob. It was all he could focus on now. “I don’t want to look at them anymore.”

“What the f*ck is the matter with you?” Greg rolled away to stand by the bed, but Teddy ignored him. His fingernails scraped across the plaster ceiling as he tore away the stars with barely controlled mania. “Have you lost your f*cking mind?”

“Yes,” Teddy said, voice cracking over the word. “It doesn’t matter; I have to get them down. I have to get them, I have to, it isn’t, I have to stop remembering.” It was all tangled up inside and spilling out of him. He felt like he was drowning in tears and snot and the remembered tang of blood and he had to get them down.

There was a sharp pain as one of the points dug beneath his nail. He ignored it. He ignored Greg trying to pull him away, struggling out of his grip, snarling, “Go the f*ck away; don’t touch me.” Greg stared at him, stunned, then turned on his heel and slammed out of the room. The echoing slam of the main apartment door was like an aftershock, hard enough to send Teddy crumpling to his knees as if the whole world truly were shaking to pieces around him.

There were stars scattered across his bed, in his hair. There were tears running down his face. He ducked down, curling around himself to press his face to his knees, pants still open, arms over his head. Sobbing.

Shadows inched across the floor as twilight passed into evening and he finally let himself lose control.

He felt sore, after, even as his body automatically mended itself. It was as if an ice cream scoop had been taken to his chest, gouging out his soft insides and leaving a cracked shell of ribs and spine and raw, shredded skin. But at least…at least he was in control again.

Teddy was dressed in his pajamas and sitting on the couch when his mother finally came home. He looked up when he heard a key turn in the lock, half-turning to watch as she pushed her way into the little vestibule with a tired sigh.

“Hello?” she called, nudging the door shut with her hip. Her arms were full of binders and stray papers. She had her sari-fabric purse nestled in the crook of her elbow and her spring jacket trailing from her fingers. One of its arms brushed the floor as she awkwardly tossed her keys into a colorful blown glass dish. They landed with a clink amongst spare change and popped buttons. “Teddy?”

He rose and silently padded over, taking the binders from her arms. Her shoulders relaxed immediately.

“Oh thank God,” his mother said, moving to hang her jacket on its hook. “I left I don’t know how many messages when I heard about the Avengers. I tried to come home, but the bridges were closed and…”

She trailed off.

Teddy carefully slid her binders into their slots on the bookshelf, not letting himself look at his mother. He’d cried himself out sometime a few hours ago. At least, he was pretty sure it had been a few hours ago. It all felt like some unmoored dream sequence from an Italian expressionist film. I’m going to owe Greg one hell of an apology later, he thought numbly, slipping the loose papers on their side between two binders. His mother’s looping, elegant script was mixed with strings of numbers, names, and bored doodles.

Her soft hand clasped his shoulder, gently tugging him around.

“Baby,” she said, ducking her head to get a good look at his face. The bone-deep comfort of her perfume washed over him; her bright bangles clacked together. “Oh, baby, what’s wrong?”

Teddy shook his head and bit the inside of his lip. He glanced up through his lashes, but his eyes were beginning to burn again, so he dropped his gaze. This was supposed to be over with; he’d had his catharsis. He was supposed to…

f*ck. He hated putting that worried line between his mother’s brows.

He didn’t resist when she pulled him into her arms, however, his own arms going around her waist. His mother gave the best hugs—fierce and tight, like she knew she couldn’t hurt him. Teddy felt held together in one of her hugs, as if all his disparate pieces had been bound up with a bit of twine. That, more than anything, kept him from flying apart again.

She pressed her lips to his hair. “What happened?” she murmured, fiercely rubbing her hands up and down his back. “Was it the Avengers? You know they’ll be okay; they face this all the time.” She shifted back just enough to look at his face. He couldn’t be sure what she read there, but her eyes narrowed at whatever she saw, expression going fierce. “No, not the Avengers. Was it Greg? Is he harassing you again? Do I have to kick his behind? Because I will go change into my yoga pants right now if you just say the word.”

“What, Mom, no,” Teddy said with a surprised—shaky—laugh. Her expression smoothed a little, lips curving at the edges, because that had been her goal all along, of course. “No, God. Why are you so weird?”

His mother cupped his face. “Because I have a very weird son.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” The weight that had been pressing down on his chest ever since the explosion (ever since the rooftop) seemed to lift slightly. The knot in his gut began to release. He should have known it wouldn’t be Greg that would make it all go away. “Maybe I’m so weird because of you. It’s like the chicken and the egg.”

She grinned sunnily. “I call dibs on being the chick.” Then she leaned in to press a kiss between his brows, deliberately—he was absolutely certain—hitting his Ajna chakra. He would never admit how comforting he found that. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Teddy immediately shook his head. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to think if he could help it.

“All right,” she said, because she was the best mother in the world. “Then how about this—I’ll go change out of my very serious real estate lady clothes while you pick out something for us to watch. Anything you want. Star Trek? Batman? Game of Thrones? Doctor Who? Anything. Hit me with it.”

“Buffy?”

She brushed back his hair. “Only a monster would say no to Buffy. Did you eat?” He shook his head again. “Okay. Then I’ll fix us irresponsibly huge bowls of cereal and ice cream. Maybe some chocolate milk to top it all off, because hey, why not be a little wild? You only live once. I’ll even break out the crazy straws so we know we’re having a good time.”

Teddy laughed quietly, pushing back the heavy fall of his bangs. “And this is your idea of going wild?”

“If you find a better way,” she said with mock gravity, “you let me know.”

Teddy drew in a slow breath, smiling as she pulled away. She gave him a long, searching look, hands lightly gripping his shoulders. He couldn’t help but wonder what she saw there—whatever it was, it made that line between her brow darken. She leaned in to kiss his Ajna chakra again, murmuring something he couldn’t quite catch. Then she squeezed his shoulders and swatted gently at him before heading toward her room. When she reached the living room door, Teddy called, “Hey, Mom?”

His mother turned, brows arched, eyes worried. “Yeah, baby?”

“Thanks.”

Her expression changed, warm smile spreading across her face, tired eyes crinkling at the corners. She must have had a pretty sh*tty day, too, Teddy realized. And yet here she was, being…just the perfect mother. “Park your butt,” she said, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “Tonight it’s eat-ice-cream-until-you-puke night at the Altmans’.”

“Not to be confused with scarfing-ramen-over-the-sink night.”

She laughed. “Save some of your sass for Buffy.” And then she was gone, heading down the hall to change out of her serious adult clothes, leaving Teddy standing in the living room feeling like maybe he could make it through the night after all.

**

Then:

**

It was snowing again. Teddy tipped his face toward the sky, feeling the cold flakes brush against his overheated cheeks. The last exhibit on Earth’s earliest heroes had been the hardest for him—made harder still by the fact that there was nothing he could say to Billy to explain why it touched him the way it did. How would he even begin to explain the hopeless tangle he’d made of his life?

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to betray your heroes?

Or maybe,

Sometimes I pretend to be them because the only way I know how to be worth anything is to become someone else.

Pathetic. Standing there, staring up at that old picture of the Avengers, Teddy had felt so pathetic. He remembered the chanting of the crowd and the frenetic press of bodies surging toward the stage. He could feel the weight of Greg’s hand on his shoulder and hear his own heart beating too loud in his borrowed chest.

I don’t want it to be this way, Teddy thought, gravely staring at the wide open face of the moon. I don’t want to keep doing this.

There was a soft whisper of cloth as Billy moved to stand next to him, arm brushing lightly against his. Teddy could feel dark eyes on him; he fought against the pleasant curl of heat unfurling low in his belly. He tilted his chin to meet Billy’s gaze, locking his knees against the rush of warmth he felt when Billy slowly began to smile.

“Can I walk you home?” Teddy murmured. If this were really a date, that’s what he would do. He’d walk Billy home—maybe take his hand as they crossed the park together, lacing their fingers tight—all the way up to his stoop. He’d tug him around to look at him. He’d brush the snow from Billy’s dark hair.

He’d press their lips together and taste Billy’s sharply indrawn breath. He’d cup his hands along the delicate curve of Billy’s jaw and let himself sink into something altogether new and uncomplicated and wonderful.

If this were really a date. If he had that kind of courage.

“It’s okay,” Billy said. “I don’t live very far from here.”

Please. “Can I do it anyway?”

Billy ducked his head a little, spots of color brightening his pale cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he said. Teddy had to fight the urge to reach out and take his hand then and there. He shoved his hands into his pockets instead and they fell into step together, moving toward the park.

It was dark and surprisingly hushed, despite the occasional jogger winding her way through the familiar paths. Their breaths rose before them in white clouds and snow was falling steadily now. It muffled the tread of their footsteps and hung heavy over the world, making the city seem very far away. Teddy found himself sinking deeper and deeper into their silence. Billy was normally a jumble of energy and sarcasm and movement—it was nice to strip some of that away and just be here, in the moment, letting it pass without comment.

Unless…

Teddy glanced at Billy with a sudden flare of anxiety. Maybe Billy didn’t feel the same way. Maybe he was bored and wishing he were somewhere, anywhere else—but no, Billy’s eyes were closed as they walked, expression beatific. There were flakes on his dark lashes. His lips were parted on a breath.

Teddy wet his lips, breath catching as he watched Billy’s face. There were days when he felt like there was nothing to him but layers of artifice. That his whole world was a construct he had to carefully maintain to keep it all from collapsing on itself. Billy wasn’t like that. Billy was the most genuine person Teddy had ever met.

Do you even understand how rare you are? Teddy thought. It felt like a hand was squeezing his heart, making it constrict with each shallow breath. If I could be you— If I could have you—

He reached out to catch Billy’s arm when he would have walked straight into a garbage can, gently maneuvering him around the obstacle. Billy’s eyes popped open and he grinned out of one corner of his mouth, unabashed and open and more real than anything Teddy had ever seen.

Charmed down to his core, Teddy smiled back.

**

Now:

**

“I’m such a responsible mother.”

There were boxes of cereal piled up on the coffee table. Empty ice cream bowls had been stacked like Russian nesting dolls. On the television, the credits rolled to the DVD selection screen, and outside, the world seemed very dark and still. Teddy curled his fingers around the wide ceramic face of his mug and took a sip of cocoa, lashes flickering as he watched his mother over the brim.

She sighed and slouched back into her corner of the couch with a wry smile. She was wearing pajama capris and a T-shirt with dancing daleks printed across the chest. With her hair pulled up in a high ponytail and her face scrubbed clean of makeup, she looked…

Young, Teddy thought, grip tightening around the mug. Young and tired and trying her best.

He swallowed a mouthful of tepid chocolate and set the mug aside. “There were chunks of fruit in the strawberry ice cream,” he said. “And, you know, dairy. Dairy’s good.”

She rolled her head to look at him, dimples flashing at the corners of her mouth. “I’m pretty sure I unearthed some kind of nut in the chocolate. Or was it in the coffee ice cream?”

“Coffee comes from a bean, so that has to count as a vegetable.”

“The Cocoa Puffs take care of the bottom of the pyramid all on their own.”

Teddy nodded sagely. “Very true. No one has ever questioned the nutritional merits of Cocoa Puffs.”

She waved a hand at him, ever-present bangles clacking merrily. “Hush, I’m rationalizing. We’ve got the grains, vegetables…sort of, fruits, dairy, and sugars pretty well covered. Find me a meat somewhere in there and I’ll be able to go to bed feeling like a shining example of motherhood.”

“I’m pretty sure the nut covers it.”

His mother squinted at him. “Really?” She closed her eyes as if trying to picture the food pyramid. Teddy watched her with a grateful sort of warmth. He turned to rest his elbow against the back of the couch, knees tucking up beneath him. He was full—if buzzing with too much sugar—and warm and tired and…and if not okay, at least a small step closer. Almost close enough to be convincing.

“I think,” his mother said, brows knitting. Then she began to smile out of the corner of her mouth. “You know, I think you’re right.” Her eyes popped open and she grinned at him, ponytail swinging. “No, you’re definitely right. All hail and huzzah, I do not fail at basic mothering.”

He snagged one of the colorful, spangled pillows and lobbed it gently at her head. “You’re a shining example and a credit to your kind.”

She caught the pillow and tucked it primly beneath her. “Such sass. Did you want another episode?”

Teddy glanced over. Giles watched them gravely from the selection screen. “Nah,” he said. “I think maybe I’ll get ready for bed. I have a busy day of getting underfoot tomorrow. You have the day off, remember?” he added at his mother’s questioning noise.

“Oh. Well, actually,” she began. Teddy straightened, muscles immediately beginning to tighten. “I had been thinking of going in.”

“Oh.” He remembered talking to…talking to Billy about this, once upon a time. About how his mother worked so hard, too hard, to keep their little family afloat. About how he could never shake the feeling that it was all his fault. That she was killing herself at work for him. The memory was all too powerful now. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the salt wind off the Coney Island boardwalk against his face, smell the rusted metal and trash, hear the ever-changing lull of the sea.

He could feel Billy’s mouth against his and remember the dizzy thought that came like a flash-bang grenade moments before he reluctantly pulled away: I’m going to ruin this. God, please, don’t let me ruin this.

“You worked hard today,” Teddy said, feeling the caul of misery slip over his face again. He had to keep his eyes ticked subtly to the left so his mother wouldn’t meet his gaze and read everything there. “This whole week has been…crazy. You deserve a day off.”

She reached out to push back his hair, thumb brushing lightly between his brows. “True,” his mother said slowly. He could feel the warm concern radiating off her. “And it’d be hard for you to get underfoot if I’m all the way over in the Heights. All right, you’ve twisted my arm. I’m devoting tomorrow to sloth. Maybe we could go down to Coney Island and—”

“No.”

Too hard, too sharp. Teddy rolled his shoulders as he moved to his feet, trying to shake the sudden surge of panic. “Sorry,” he added before his mother could say anything. “It’s just, I’d like to stay in tomorrow. If we can. Or maybe go see the cherry blossoms or something. I’m just…not feeling the shore.”

“We’ll think of something,” she murmured. He could feel her eyes on him, studying the subtle hunch of his shoulders, the slow fisting of his hands. Teddy tried to force his body to relax, knowing his mother could read him in a way no one else could, but he felt coiled up tight and miserable inside all over again.

“I’m going to,” Teddy began, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “You know. Ablute.”

“Baby—”

Teddy cut his mother off. “It’s okay,” he promised. “Really. I’m okay. Everything’s okay.” He retreated slowly toward the hallway, pulling away from the anxious spotlight of her worry. “I’m just going to get ready for bed.”

She’d twisted around on the couch to watch him go. “All right,” she said. Teddy turned and hurried through the doorway, not relaxing until he was out of sight. In the hallway, a multitude of pictures looked down at him from the sunny yellow walls—photos of him and his mother over the years, mixed with art from all the places they dreamed of going together, someday, when money wasn’t so tight. He focused on the tin sacred hearts. Colorful Peruvian arpilleras. Teak lotus blossoms.

Teddy trailed his fingers across the small strip of an old handira his mother had found who knew where, watching out of the corner of his eye as the round silver sequins caught his reflection in hazy miniature. He drew in a slow breath as he moved down the hall, letting the familiar texture ground him. The knowing eyes of Frida looked down at him from her place of honor to the right of the hall closet.

He could hear his mother moving about in the living room, collecting dishes. As he closed the bathroom door behind him, the soft click of the latch was lost under the sound of the television switching over to live news coverage.

Teddy turned and leaned against the door, letting his head fall back. He reached blindly for the lightswitch, fumbling…then dropped his hand weakly to his side. Just enough moonlight pushed through the frosted window to turn the tiny bathroom into a ghostly shell of grays and blues and white. Water dripped from the faucet in a steady metronome. He could hear footsteps from the tenants on the floor above them. Outside, a car alarm wailed.

And muffled through the heavy door, Anderson Cooper was reporting live at the scene of New York’s latest crisis.

He closed his eyes and slowly let himself sink to the cold tile floor. Teddy drew up his knees, hands dangling between his legs as he rested his forehead against his thighs. The rush of panic and fear seemed so distant now. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t touch him here.

He drew in an unsteady breath. Had he really witnessed the Avengers’ mansion exploding into shards of brick and licking flames? Had he watched, horrified, as the Avengers’
jet came barreling out of the sky toward him? Had he heard the mad bellow of a Hulk and thought, heart leaping high in his throat, We’re going to die. Oh God, oh f*ck, we’re going to die?

Teddy shivered and hunched his shoulders. He could remember blood streaking his forehead and running unchecked from his broken nose. His palms had ripped open when he’d been thrown to the ground. He remembered the sick slide of them against the grass as he fought to push himself up. He remembered thinking…Billy. Billy, f*ck, is Billy okay?

He lifted his hands and turned them over to study the palms. There was no sign of trauma now. The skin was smooth, unblemished, as whole and unbroken as ever. He stared at the lines mapping his skin—was it his mother who’d told him the arc from little finger to pointer was his heart line?—and tried to remember that they had been torn and bloody just a few short hours before.

Just a few short hours.

His hands began to tremble.

Teddy expelled an unsteady breath and curled his fingers tight, pressing his fist between his knees. “Stop,” he murmured. The steady drip drip of the faucet underscored the distant memory of fire in the sky, of Billy’s face gone pale with terror and shock. “Stop, stop it. Just. Stop it.”

Billy was somewhere—safe, please be safe—hating him. Greg was somewhere else, hating him too. The three of them formed a perfect trifecta, a triad, like points in a constellation.

And suddenly from the living came the sound of shattering glass.

Teddy jerked, startled, instinctively turning toward the muffled noise. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled himself up, briefly unsteady. He could still hear the news, words muffled by the heavy door, and…running?

“Mom?” He yanked open the door and stumbled down the hall in alarm. A strange, high-pitched keening was coming from the television, like the drone of a generator. A second reporter was shouting to be heard over the shrill keen.

“I repeat, we are live at the Avengers’ Mansion where a Kree armada has opened fire above—”

He turned the corner and froze in the doorway, shocked into immobility. There were shards of glass scattered across the hardwood floor. One of the boxes of cereal had been knocked over in his mother’s haste, tiny grains of puffed rice pouring in an avalanche over the lip of the coffee table. The linen closet was open, towels and sheets crumpled where they’d been tossed, an empty plastic container on the floor. It was neatly labeled in his mother’s careful script: Important Documents.

“What the hell?” Teddy wondered, baffled.

His mother hurried out of the kitchen. She had her keys clasped in one hand and a canvas bag looped in the crook of her arm. Her eyes were very wide, almost wild, and she looked like she was going to be sick—she was practically green around the edges.

“Mom,” Teddy began, but she cut him off.

“We have to go.”

“We ha— What?”

“Just,” she said, pushing past him. “We don’t have time, Teddy. Put on your shoes and grab your jacket—we’re leaving in five minutes. No later.”

He turned to stare after her, baffled. “Wait,” Teddy protested, but his mother was already hurrying out of the room. He could hear her throwing open the closet door, then moving quickly into her bedroom.

What the f*ck? He glanced toward the window, but there was no answer on the Brooklyn skyline. Bewildered, he turned his attention back to the TV.

The television showed the Avengers in pitched battle. Live from Central Park was emblazoned along the bottom of the screen. It was difficult to make out what was happening from the reporter’s shaky camera, but he thought he spotted Hawkeye lifting a strung bow toward the sky, where Kree ships were bearing down on the husked-out mansion. There were so many of them. Too many.

“f*ck,” Teddy breathed. A laser shot from the closest ship, green-blue flare of it as bright as the sun. Stone exploded. He could feel the remembered impact down to his bones.

“Teddy? Teddy!”

He didn’t turn away, frozen by the shaky footage. The park was swarming with superheroes. It was a chaotic mass of color and flashing lights. Kree ships darted through the purple-black sky and bolts of power flew and a bleeding Cap leapt onto the back of a hulking soldier and— It was nothing like one of his comic books. It was beautiful, in a way. It was horrible. It was all too real to him now.

His mother stepped behind him and grabbed his arm. “Teddy,” she said, but he pulled away, shaken. Horrified. “We have to go.”

“Why are they still filming this?”

“Teddy.”

He didn’t look back at her. “They shouldn’t just be filming this. Someone should be doing something.”

She caught his hand and squeezed his fingers, standing close enough that he could smell her soft perfume. “Teddy,” his mother said again. Fear still made her voice tight, but the charge of panic seemed to have been consumed by worry over him. “Baby, I’m so sorry, but we have to go. It’s… It’s not going to be safe in the city.”

He squeezed her fingers back numbly. She’d never been comfortable with the idea of alien life. He supposed, as irrational fears went, hers made a great deal of sense. The threat of alien invasion was no longer a B-grade Science Fiction matinee. It was real, it was near-constant, and it was happening right now.

“It’s okay,” he said automatically, because what else was there to say?

“The Kree,” she began, but she cut herself off with a frustrated noise, pulling at his arm. “We should—”

Suddenly, Hawkeye raced past the eye of the camera and it swerved to follow him. His costume was torn and one of his mask’s lenses was broken. Flames rose behind him in a brilliant corona; it was impossible to hear what he shouted as he grabbed for a Kree soldier, but his arms were going around the alien and he was gripping something in his right hand.

Cap staggered past, blocking the precise moment Hawkeye and the unknown soldier blasted into the air, but the cameraman dutifully adjusted, lifting his lens as the two flew up in a mad billow of smoke.

“HAWKEYE!” Cap bellowed. Beside him, Teddy’s mother gasped and covered her mouth with one hand.

Teddy stood, transfixed, as the tiny figures—no more than a mote on the screen, highlighted against the huge belly of the Kree ship—barreled toward the massive engines. For the third time that day, an explosion rocked the city’s core.

He felt the remembered heat against his skin, heard the steady rain of rocks and shards of metal. He tasted blood in his mouth and smelled the acrid stench of burning fuel.

Burning flesh.

Hawkeye.

“Oh,” his mother breathed. “Oh, that poor man.” On the screen, Kree fighters were burning. “That poor, poor man.”

“I was there,” Teddy murmured, staring. He felt too wrung out to feel. He was frozen in shock, his mind uselessly tripping over random thoughts, images, impressions as it tried to piece together what he was seeing. Smoke and fire. Blood in his mouth. The rain of shrapnel. A Kree soldier disappearing. Cap in his tattered uniform staring up at the empty sky. Billy’s eyes dropping from his. A door sliding shut. Greg’s scowl. An endless shower of stars.

“I was there,” he said again. He let his mother wrap her arms around him, feeling her tremble with empathy and relief as the Kree were defeated, the alien threat subsided, the need to flee faded away…into smoke. And ash. And memory.

He had been there.

And Hawkeye was dead.

**

Then:

**

So it turned out Billy wasn’t just well-off, he was perfect brownstone on the Upper East Side sort of well-off. He’d had a pretty good idea Billy’s home would be somewhere like this, but there was a league of difference between imagination and reality. Teddy cast quick, wry glances around him as they moved shoulder-to-shoulder down the tree-lined street. The snow was a heavy, muffling blanket spread across the street with its fancy cars parked along the left curb. Wrought iron gates marked off the postage stamp yards and Christmas trees stood in bay windows, twinkling lights casting shadows through drawn curtains.

He and his mother had made a Christmas tree out of a coat rack and tissue paper and ridiculous armfuls of tinsel. There wasn’t room for anything else.

“This is me,” Billy said. Teddy turned automatically to face him, glancing once at his home out of the corner of his eye. He spotted a stately-looking stoop. A red bow had been hung from the brass knocker. Steps led up to the main door, another set of stairs curving about the flagstone-lined patio down toward the basem*nt entrance. If the Kaplans ever rented out their basem*nt as a studio apartment, it would be easily double or more what he and his mother paid for their cramped two-bedroom in an unpopular neighborhood in Brooklyn.

There was such a wide gulf between them. He was a long way from the kids Billy would have grown up with. There were, what, eight million people living in the city? What were the chances they’d each detach from their comfortable circles at the same time at just the right moment to fall into each other’s sphere?

It was almost a miracle, he thought with a slow unspooling of warmth, that they had come to this point at all.

Billy tipped up his face, expression earnest. “I had fun.”

“Yeah,” Teddy agreed, grateful to whatever trick of fate or chance that had brought him here, “me too. MoMA next?”
“Only if you promise to narrate in your Elmer Fudd voice again.”
“That was once, Billy, Jeez.”
Billy laughed and reached out to tug the ends of Teddy’s scarf. “I’ll call you,” he promised. He hesitated a moment before stepping away, moving up two of the steps. Teddy caught movement at the wide bay windows out of the corner of his eye. He swore he spotted two gleeful young faces pop out of view. “IM me when you get home, okay?”

Warn Billy about his brothers lying in wait or no? Teddy grinned crookedly as he began to walk backwards toward the avenue. New snow crunched beneath the heavy tread of his boots. “Fine, sure,” he said. “You know, you’re going to be a great mother someday.”

“Jackass!”

Teddy laughed and spun around with a little wave, heart beating a happy, uneven staccato in his chest. He dug into his coat pocket and fished out his iPod, slipping in the earbuds. His entire body was throwing sparks, and maybe…maybe he hadn’t kissed Billy on that stoop the way he’d wanted, but.

But.

There’s always MoMA, Teddy thought, ducking his head against the silly, happy grin spreading across his face. He hopped over a puddle of slush and crossed the street at a diagonal. When he turned the corner at the main avenue, he dared a quick glance over his shoulder.

Billy was still standing there where he’d left him, a small, dark figure in the distance. His arms were around his middle and his face was ducked down into the collar of his coat.

A shiver of awareness licked through Teddy’s frame; his toes curled in response.

“Goodnight, Billy,” Teddy murmured to that distant figure. He felt like a wineskin overflowing—his seams were straining to hold on to the happiness he felt. The hope he couldn’t seem to suppress.

He turned the corner. Smiling quietly to himself, Teddy tilted his face up toward the starry sky, snowflakes catching in his lashes and whispering to the street below.

**

Now:

**

They sat watching the news late into the evening. In the end, no one seemed to understand what had happened. The list of the wounded and dead crawled across the bottom of the screen in an ever-lengthening loop, beginning and ending with the Avenger who’d died to save the city. It wasn’t until well past midnight that Teddy realized he was fixating on each name that inched past, looking for Kaplan.

Jesus, he thought, more exhausted than anything. It was like he’d cycled through an entire PTS event in a single day, letting it burn through and out again. He felt like new skin after a bad burn—tight and painful but whole. If he just knew for certain that Billy was okay, he could—

Teddy stood, weaving a little on his feet. His mother looked up automatically. There were shadows under her eyes. Her skin was pale and her lips were set in a broken, anxious line.

“Hey,” he murmured. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”

He held still when she reached out to take his hand, letting her pull him close so she could kiss the top of his head. “Everything okay?” she asked, and he could read endless depths into her question. She didn’t just mean Hawkeye (how many could say they’d witnessed the death of one of their heroes? Hundreds of thousands, now, he supposed. Millions by the time the clip made it on YouTube) but the nebulous other that he hadn’t yet told her about. That he had no plans of telling her about.

The attack. Billy. Greg. Everything falling apart in slow motion.

Teddy’s lips curved into a tired smile. “Everything’s okay,” he promised. “It’s all over.”

“Okay.”

Still, she watched him go as he padded out of the living room toward his bedroom. Teddy pushed the door shut behind him and sighed, rubbing at his face. The room was dark, save for fitful moonlight slanting through the curtains and the glowing stars half lost amongst rumpled bedclothes. He stared down at them dully, then reached out and yanked his covers off the bed. He let them drop in a crumpled heap and crawled across the mattress. God, he felt ancient.

Teddy snagged his phone off the bedside table and flipped open the faceplate. He didn’t let himself think as he opened up his Contacts list and auto-dialed. The plastic was cool against his ear, the steady drone of each ring echoing through him. He counted the rings, closing his eyes.

Jamie picked up on the twelfth ring. “Hello?” His voice was a groggy whisper.

“Hey,” Teddy said, staring up at his ceiling. “I wasn’t sure you’d answer. I’m sorry it’s so late.”

There was a rustle of bedclothes and, small through the earpiece, a chorus of snores. Right—Jamie’s boarding school roommates. “Sorry,” Teddy said again, wincing. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think many of us are really thinking so hot today.”

He swallowed. “Yeah. Look. I don’t know what Billy’s told you…” Teddy trailed of and closed his eyes. This was…unexpectedly hard. Not painful—he was too tired, too numb for that. But it was hard all the same.

“…Billy hasn’t been telling me much lately,” Jamie said. There was a growing note of worry in his voice. “I mean, I talked to him a few hours ago, but he basically just said they were all okay.”

And with that, the last knot of worry began to unravel in his chest. Billy was okay. Billy and his family were okay. They were okay. He was okay.

He was okay.

Jamie was still talking. “…going on?”

Teddy swallowed and tipped his head back, letting his eyes slide shut. He was okay; surely he’d feel okay before long. “I’ll let Billy explain, if he wants,” he said. “But, ah. We’re not—There was a fight, and we’re not…friends. Anymore.”

“Oh.”

There was a long silence. It stretched between them, growing increasingly awkward as Teddy fought for something, anything to say. His mouth didn’t seem to want to move.

“Well,” Jamie finally said. “sh*t. I’m really sorry, Teddy, but if you guys aren’t… I mean. You know how it is. Billy gets me in the divorce.” Jamie paused as if waiting for a reply. There was another long, awkward silence. “It’s not that I don’t want— You’re a really cool guy and all, but— I mean, it’s not like you suck. Um.” Silence. “…crap. I should probably go before I swallow my whole leg. Um. Goodbye, Teddy.”

He was hearing that a lot tonight.

“Goodbye,” Teddy finally managed, but the dial tone was already humming in his ear; Jamie had hung up.

Teddy quietly snapped the phone closed and let it drop off the side of the bed. Outside, the car alarm was still going. He could hear his mother moving through the apartment as she checked the locks and turned off the lights. The muffled drone of the television clicked into silence.

“One,” Teddy murmured, staring up at the blank ceiling. “Two. Three. Four. Five.” He counted each breath, eventually falling silent and continuing the count in his mind as his eyes flickered shut. He tried to trick his heart into following the same slow, even cadence, shoulders shifting as he worked out the tension.

Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven.

Somewhere along the way, between breath three-hundred-and-seventy-seven and three-hundred-and-seventy-eight, he finally drifted into fitful sleep. He dreamed of snow in the park and a dark-eyed boy. He dreamed of sliding his fingers into messy hair and lifting Billy’s face for a slow, meltingly sweet kiss.

Snow fell around them; the world was new and hushed and good.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

“Did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze,
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk-on part in The Wall for a lead role in a cage?”
—Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd

**

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Teddy glanced up. His mother was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, watching him with a faint frown puckering her brow. She had a paintbrush in her right hand, dry bristles fanning across the sleeve of her old T-shirt. She looked like she’d rather be doing anything else.

“Yeah,” he said, looking away. He carefully lifted the lid off the can, setting it on the blue plastic dropcloth. The paint didn’t need much mixing—there wasn’t exactly a lot of color to mix—but he gave it a few stirs anyway.

Plastic crinkled as his mother stepped into the room. Teddy could still feel her eyes on him, the weight of her concern. He hated it, but he tried to shrug it off. It wasn’t like he didn’t get it—he knew this wasn’t like him—but it was something he had to do.

He just. He had to.

“Can you get the music?” he said, scraping the paddle clean and setting it kitty-corner on the metal tray. Teddy lifted the can and poured about a quarter into the gutter. Sweat was already beading down his spine and dripping from the long ends of his bangs, but there wasn’t going to be a better time to do this—by the time he came home from his long weekend up the Metro North, the room would be dry and the unpleasant scent of new paint dissipated—so he grit his teeth and pushed through the late spring swelter.

Bob Dylan drifting from his beat-up old throwback of a stereo helped. It was funny how music could carry the mind over the body’s protests. Teddy grabbed his roller and stood, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. “You get the corners and edges and I’ll take the middle?” he offered.

“Sure,” she said, then, hesitating, “but honey… I mean. It took you so long to do this. Are you sure you want to paint over all your hard work?”

“I’m sure.” He wet his lips, then offered what he hoped was a comforting smile. “I’m sure, Mom. It’s been this way a long time. I’m just ready for a change, you know?”

She didn’t look convinced. If anything, Teddy figured, she looked even more concerned than before, but she tried to smile for him anyway. “Yeah,” she said, tucking back a blonde curl. “Yeah, okay—fresh start, here we come.”

Teddy shot her a grateful look and bent to drag the roller through the gutter. He checked for drips, thinning out the paint before turning to the colorful splash of his bedroom wall.

It had taken an entire summer to paint the Aurora.

He’d started it the June before ninth grade. Teddy had spent weeks pouring over photographs, studying the subtle interplay of color and light and movement. He’d made copies of his favorite examples and pinned them in three rows just above his bed, where he could stare at them as he drifted off to sleep. They’d filled his dreams. He’d agonized over finding the right mix of blue and green and violet, hoarding paint chips from the corner hardware store like a peculiar breed of dragon. When he was finally ready to paint, it had been after ages of sketching the whole thing in his mind’s eye; he already knew the shape it had to take because he’d seen nothing else for nearly a month.

It had been that important, he remembered. To get it right.

It almost seemed anticlimactic how easy it was to strip it all away.

“Well Abe says, ‘Where do you want this killin’ done?’
God says, ‘Out on Highway 61.’”

Teddy shifted his grip on the roller and dragged it across the wall in a broad W, then back again, humming along with Dylan’s creaking voice. It was easy to fall into the rhythm of painting, like he had some sort of ingrained muscle-memory. He supposed they’d done this often enough—the living room alone had been eight different shades over the years—that he sort of did.

“So,” his mother said, as if reading his mind, “white, huh?”

“For now,” Teddy said. “Just until I can think of what I want to do next.”

“You couldn’t think with the Aurora staring you in the face?”

No. “It’s like having a blank canvas,” Teddy lied smoothly, turning to run the roller through the gutter again. “A fresh start.” She made a noncommittal noise in reply. “You know,” Teddy said, “you’re absolutely right; white was a bad idea.”

His mother glanced over her shoulder, brows arched. There was sweat already beading on her brow, a drop winding its way toward her eye.

“What do you think of…beige?”

She pointed her paintbrush at him. “You watch your mouth in this apartment, sir. We’ll have none of your lip here.”

“No, hey, I’m serious,” he said, laughing and ducking when she flicked damp bristles at him. Drops of paint scattered across his cheek and work clothes in a fine mist. “I really have seen the dull brownish-tan light. We should re-do the whole apartment. We can do your bedroom in Eggshell and Sand and—”

“And it’s not too late to trade you in to Mrs. Gonzalez for a lifetime supply of coffee.” She dipped her brush into the can and scraped the sides; Teddy dragged the roller over the wall, covering an elaborate swirl of turquoise and teal. “The good stuff, too.”

Teddy sniffed. “If by good stuff you mean kopi luwak.”

“Mmm, kopi luwak.”

He paused, glancing over his shoulder again. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me you’d willingly trade your only son for cat poop coffee?”

“Mmm, cat poop coffee.”

Teddy snorted. “I’m taking back that World’s #1 Mom mug. Maybe I should hock it—I’m sure I’ll get a fortune for it on eBay.” His mother just tsked and went back to painting. On the ancient thrift store stereo, Dylan melted seamlessly into CCR.

Their work had a kind of rhythm to it after that, comforting in its predictability. Teddy focused on covering dark swirls of paint in a bland sheet of white. It was oddly painful, if he let himself think about it; he was glad to have his mother falling into step with him, humming snatches of familiar melodies as time was marked by the effortless bleeding of one song into the next.

By the time they’d spanned the entire room and met in the middle on the opposite side, shadows were growing long across his floor, and Janice was wailing mournfully through the tinny speakers. Teddy stepped back, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. The room was…

Well. It was white. Utterly soulless.

Blank page, he told himself, setting his jaw. A fresh start. A new beginning. Remember all the clichés? It was weird seeing his space so colorless, though. It made him feel, strangely, like he didn’t belong here anymore. “Well,” Teddy said.

“Well,” his mother echoed. “It sure is…white.”

He glanced over, forcing a wry grin. “This again?” he teased, but she was looking at the wide, blank wall with a troubled expression, as if she could feel—understand—the way he was shifting restlessly beneath his own skin. As if she knew.

“Here,” she said, stepping forward. She dipped her brush into the nearly-empty bucket, carefully scraping the bristles before approaching his plastic-covered bed. It crinkled in protest as she climbed on, mattress dipping under her weight.

“Um, what are you doing?”

She glanced back at him and idly blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I’m giving you something happy to look at,” she said. His mother turned back to the wall, dragging the brush over the drying paint. It was white on white, so only the direction of the bristles gave the image shape: a colon turned on its side, over a half-circle.

“You drew me a smiley face.”

“I drew you a smiley face,” she said firmly. “And you’re going to look at it every night and think, gosh, do I have the best mother or what?”

He wasn’t going to get choked up; God, how lame would that be? “Deal,” Teddy said, voice a little gruff, but if the look his mother shot him as she climbed down from the bed was anything to go by…she understood everything.

“I’ll,” he began, jerking his chin toward the bucket and pan, but his mother caught him and tugged the roller out of his hands before he could get more than a step. “Nope,” she interrupted, nudging him toward the door. “I’ve got this. You need a shower before you go meet the guys. I’m pretty sure they’ll toss you off the train after one whiff if you go on smelling like that.”

Teddy cracked a crooked grin. “I’m pretty sure you’re underestimating just how gross teenage boys can be. All right, all right,” he added when she nudged him again. “I mean, far be it for me to protest you doing all the hard work.”

She snorted, crouching to pull together the supplies. Janice bled into Bowie, the high notes carrying him to the bathroom and through a quick shower. He shifted a few times as he toweled himself off, drying out his hair and letting it fall into its usual style without bothering with blow dryers or gel or even a comb.

Out in the living room, his phone began to ring.

“Crap, crap, ow, crap,” Teddy chanted as he yanked on his boxers and jeans. He quickly buttoned the fly, grabbing his shirt and pulling it over his head as he skidded out into the hall. His phone was lit up, buzzing across the glass-top coffee table, a familiar number flashing in green. “Hey, man,” Teddy said. “What’s up?”

Through the line, Teddy could hear the blare of traffic. “I’m already in the city,” Greg said. “You still home?”

Teddy pulled the phone away to check the time, then tucked it between ear and shoulder as he headed to his overnight bag to grab socks and a belt. “Yeah; we’re not meeting until 5:00, right?”

“Come a little earlier, if you can. I need to talk to you about something.”

He slowly straightened. That was rarely a good thing. “Oh?” Teddy said, as lightly as he could. He and Greg had made up after the whole…incident a few weeks back, but they hadn’t really dealt with the fallout. Or, more precisely, Greg hadn’t let Teddy know what the fallout would be. He was still waiting for it, on high alert. Greg did things in his own time, and it was better for everyone if he just played along.

There wasn’t any real point in resisting anymore, anyway.

And he needed to stop thinking like that.

“Yeah. I’ll be at the Pershing Square café. Get your ass on the train and get here as soon as you can.” Greg didn’t wait for Teddy’s assent—he hung up, the line going dead as Teddy stood there, flat-footed, anxiously trying to game out what Greg could want now.

He slowly dropped the phone, staring at its blank face as if it could answer his questions. Then, with a heavy sigh, Teddy tucked it into his pocket and went to grab his packed overnight bag. He paused by the door to toe on his shoes, glancing toward the kitchen where his mother was just finishing up cleaning out the brushes. “I’m gone!” he called.

There was a soft shuffle, then his mom poked her head just past the doorway, ponytail swinging. “Do you have mad money?”

It was a struggle not to roll his eyes. “Mom, I don’t need mad money.”

“Okay.” She popped the rest of the way into view. “Do you need glad money? Vaguely pleased money? Emotionally ambivalent money?”

“I have plenty of determinedly non-personified cash to get me through the weekend,” he said dryly, “but thanks for the offer.”

She grinned. "Just doing my motherly duty. Is Billy going to be there?"

Teddy froze.

"I haven't seen much of him for a while," she continued. "Tell him he needs to get off his ashram and come to yoga with us again."

This, Teddy thought, heart giving a wild, painful flutter, would be a pretty good moment to tell her the truth. Or, if not the truth, at least a reasonable approximation of it. Sorry, Mom, he could have said. I don’t think Billy’s going to be coming over any time soon. Or, if it seemed like she needed to hear more than that, We had a fight and it was my fault and we can’t be friends. Or maybe, simply: That’s all over now.

Instead, Teddy smiled weakly and adjusted the strap of his overnight bag, shifting it from one shoulder to the other. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure, I’ll tell him. Uh. Don’t have any wild parties while I’m gone.”

She grinned. “Are you kidding? The minute you step out that door, I’m calling all my friends over and hosting the biggest, craziest wine and cheese tasting this neighborhood has ever seen. There may even be charades.”

She wasn’t going to push it. “Have fun,” he said, blindly reaching for the doorknob. “Um. Have some good Brie for me.”

He didn’t begin to relax until the apartment door clicked shut behind him. Then he took several deep, even breaths, willing his heart to start beating again, willing his muscles to unclench and everything to just— To just stop aching.

“Clean slate,” he murmured, hands fisting at his sides. “Fresh start. Come on.”

Teddy pushed himself away from the door, deliberately rolling his shoulders as if he could just shrug away the lingering heartbreak, like water off a duck’s back. This was going to be a good day. He was getting out of the city; he had a whole long weekend with friends to look forward to.

Pete’s mother owned a summer house near Sawkill, on the Poughkeepsie line. Up there, the air smelled fresher. There were trees, forests, streams breaking off from the placid thread of the Hudson. Rich old houses stood along the bank in grand disinterest. There was even the old Vanderbilt place with its sprawling gardens.

More importantly, there would be swimming in the lake and drinking beer on the docks and relaxing back in the sun surrounded by people who knew him (a part of him), who liked him (the bit he let them see), who thought he belonged.

And that…was exactly what he needed to feel okay in his skin again.

There was an N train just coming into view as he jumped down the last few steps into the station. A handful of people were waiting, shuffling about looking hot and bored.

Teddy kept himself distracted through the Brooklyn stops, fiddling with his iPod and subtly people-watching. Styx began to play as the train broke out of the tunnel at the bridge, sunlight flooding the car. Teddy curled his fingers around the metal pole and leaned toward the far window to watch as the buildings of DUMBO spread out beneath him, giving way to the shore with its glass-encased carousel, spinning behind refracted light like a life-sized music box. Sunlight spread across the wide swath of water, broken here and there in the shadows cast by the Brooklyn bridge. Through gaps in the bridge, he could see the open mouth of the harbor. The Statue was just visible, small but unmistakable in the distance. It framed itself perfectly for a moment between the arches of the bridge; for a brief flash, he wished he’d brought a sketchbook.

His phone buzzed and Teddy glanced down as he fished it out of his pocket. When he looked up again, another train had trundled by to block the view. They were reaching the end of the bridge, where piers gave way to Chinatown right before the wide mouth of the second tunnel. He unlocked his phone with his thumb, revealing Greg’s text.

212-555-0113: hurry your ass

Teddy huffed a quiet laugh, quickly typing on bridge be there soon and pressing send before darkness swallowed him again. He glanced once at the time flashing in red LED numbers on the announcer, swaying with the movement of the train as it pulled into 23rd. 28th. 34th. 42nd. The shuttle.

He was off and running the moment the shuttle doors opened, zigging and zagging expertly through a sea of passengers to reach the nearest exit. His phone buzzed again as he broke the surface, but he didn’t bother texting Greg back; he was there in under a minute, skirting around a redheaded woman and slipping inside the warm diner.

The Pershing Square café was directly across from Grand Central’s main entrance, tucked beneath the Park Avenue viaduct. It was moderately upscale—nicer, at least, than many of the more typical diners in Midtown—prices and décor reflecting its steady influx of tourists. Red tiles and exposed metal beams were mixed with high-gloss tables and leather benches. Orange-yellow chandeliers hung at even intervals and a bar took up the far wall. It wasn’t the usual sort of place Greg was drawn to, but Teddy supposed it was hard to argue with convenience.

He scanned the main floor, shooting a quick smile at the hostess. “My friend’s already got a table,” he said, nodding toward the familiar dark figure seated midway into the café, sprawled casually in the leather-and-wood chair as his thumbs flew over the keys of his phone. Teddy felt his own phone buzz against his thigh.

“Yeah,” the girl said, “but does he have my number? You can, if you want it.”

Teddy startled, briefly caught off-balance, then reflexively called up one of his friendly but guarded smiles. “Oh, hey, wow, thanks.” He tried putting real warmth behind the words—but not encouragement. It was a fine line he’d learned to walk years ago. “I’m pretty sure my girlfriend would kick my ass if I took you up on that, though.”

She made a wry face. “Damn. Well, can’t blame me for trying, I guess. Go on back; I’ll bring you some menus in a tick.”

“Thanks,” Teddy said again. He moved past her, carefully maneuvering through the tables on his way to Greg. He dropped his bag and slid into the chair across from his friend, absently noting the bags (plural) stacked in the little booth. “I like your backpack,” he said, leaning in on his forearms and offering Greg a wide, sunny grin. “The Lisa Frank keychains really add a certain je ne sais quoi.”

Greg kicked his shin under the table. “Oh look, ten seconds in and he’s already being a f*cktard,” he said. “You took your time getting here.”

“Yeah, well, the N train just wouldn’t listen to reason. We’re still early to meet everyone. Have you heard from Pete? Claire? Also, really, seriously: why do you have your little sister’s bookbag?”

“It’s not my sister’s bookbag this weekend,” Greg said as he snagged the (bright purple) strap with his index finger. He tugged it from where it had been nestling half inside his own overnight bag, tossing it casually to Teddy.

Teddy caught it easily. “Because that’s not cryptic or anything,” he said. At Greg’s arched brow, he pulled open the zip, various colorful keychains jangling. It was a small bag for a very small girl; inside there was a pair of jeans, some kind of dark purple shirt, shoes…

He unearthed a lacy pair of underwear and quickly shoved them back beneath the jeans, flushing and looking around. “Okay,” Teddy said, feeling the heat crawl up his neck, all the way up to his ears. He was sure he must be bright red. “I’ll admit, this is a little weird.”

“It’s not as weird as all that,” Greg said. “I got a call from Pete on my way out the door. He invited Kari.”

Teddy slowly zipped the bookbag. “And?” he said, stomach already beginning to bottom out. It always felt like this—seeing the inevitable coming, knowing exactly what Greg was going to ask even before he said the words. Jesus, was there any worse feeling in the world? “He invites Kari every time. She never—”

“She’s coming,” Greg interrupted. “He invited my goddamned ex, and she’s coming.”

Kari was the closest Greg had ever had to a serious relationship. They’d dated for a while, several weeks off and on, like they were in the middle a vicious game of emotional table tennis. In the end, it had been Greg who’d called it quits for good. That had been months ago. “Okay,” Teddy said, when it became clear Greg was waiting for a response. He’d have said more—Greg expected more—but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

All at once, he was exhausted, as if he’d been trapped in mud and spinning his wheels for hours. The excitement, the appreciation, the whole fresh start was bleeding out around him, colors of the day running together as he sat and waited for what he knew was coming next.

“Well, I can’t face her without a date,” Greg said, “and it’s too late to call anyone in. So you’re going to have to do.”

There we are.

Teddy scrubbed his hands over his face. “Greg,” he began, trying to think of a way to put his protests into words that wouldn’t just make things worse. “I can’t— It’s. They’re expecting me. I told Pete I’d be there.”

Greg waved a hand in dismissal. “Yeah, I already told him you couldn’t make it,” he said. “We’re good.”

“Greg!”

He almost shouted it; it took an astonishing amount of self-control to bite back his flash of betrayed fury, to control his tone. Greg’s gaze sharpened on him, dark brows lowering, but… But f*ck it, Teddy was angry too. He was trembling with it, hands fisting on the table. He was angry and hurt and fighting against the tired acceptance that kept threatening to swamp him, swallow him whole. No. No, it’s not fair.

“Greg,” he said again, leaning closer. “This isn’t… I can’t just do things like this. It isn’t,” fair, “right. I’ll be lying to all of my friends. I’ll be pretending to be someone else, and they’ll have no idea they’re actually talking to me, and— No, come on. Let’s call Pete back. Let’s tell him… I don’t know, it turns out I’m free after all, I can be there. I need this weekend, Greg,” he added, a little surprised himself just how true it was. “I need to get away from here and just, just let it all go for a few days.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

He probably should have been expecting that.

“After the sh*t you pulled—after the way you’ve been acting for months—you’d think you’d want to be a good f*cking friend, huh?”

The way he’d been acting for months. The way he’d been acting because of Billy.

Back then, for that brief window of time, he’d had the strength to stand his ground and tell Greg no. Now, he could already feel himself giving in. It was an impossible choice. He could either accept Greg’s terms and spend the weekend lying—or he could go home and sit in silence in the gathering darkness of his plain white room, knowing this one minor victory was going to bring him hell somewhere down the line.

Greg had all the power here. There had never been a time when that wasn’t the case.

And Teddy couldn’t bear the thought of that long silence.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

Greg arched a brow, expression completely unsurprised. Like he hadn’t expected anything else. “Yeah? So you’re finally going to remember you’re my friend and f*cking act like it for once? You’ve been acting like you don’t give a sh*t, like you’re on your way out the door since New Year’s, and, f*cking jackass that I am, I just sit there and I let you. I figure no, no way, no way is Teddy tossing over years of friendship for no good reason. No way is he leaving all his friends behind—not after everything I’ve done for him.”

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said again. “I didn’t mean to—”

But Greg wasn’t done. “And then that crap you pulled a few weeks ago, calling me over to your place then losing your mind and tossing me out on my ass. Using me. It sure felt like you were using me, like you’ve been using me all this time. Maybe I’m the one who should be heading out the door.”

“I’m sorry. God, Greg, just—Stop, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I don’t—” He stood, legs shaking so hard he thought for a moment that he was going to fall. He had to get out of here before he lost it. “I’ll go—I’ll go change. I’m. I’ll just go change and this weekend will be…”

What? Different? No. No, not even close.

“It’ll be fine,” Teddy said, gripping the little purple backpack so tight he thought his fingers might dig through the cheap vinyl. “You’re right and I’ll just…”

Greg sat back. “Blonde,” he said, as if listing items off a menu. “Tall. Like some kind of model. Stacked. You know what I like.”

And he did. God help him, he did.

Teddy tried to reply, but he didn’t have the words. So he just nodded jerky as a marionette and turned, wading through the crowded tables toward the bathroom. He could see the pretty hostess heading toward their table with menus, a slip of white paper sticking out of one. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

“Excuse me,” Teddy murmured, stepping around a man on his way out of the—thank God, unisex; he didn’t need to deal with that today—bathroom. Teddy stepped inside and flipped the switch. The fluorescents buzzed, light flickering fitfully for a few beats before coming on with a steady drone. He turned the lock behind him, then leaned back against the door.

This was the part of every teen drama, Teddy thought dully, when the kid looked in the mirror and was shocked by the pallor of his own face. This was the part where he leaned in close, meeting his own eyes in the reflection and promised himself: Not today. Not anymore. He’d storm out of the bathroom and fling the backpack in Greg’s face and tell him he didn’t need him, that he didn’t need friends, that Greg could take his conditions and debts and manipulations and shove them up his ass. And the first few weeks after that would suck, but then dorky hero number one would reunite with dorky hero number two and find a way to convince him of how he felt—find words that had never come easy to him before—and everything would be okay in the end. Lesson learned, happiness gained, credits rolling.

That wasn’t what was going to happen here.

“My movie sucks,” Teddy said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. Blonde hair began to spill long and curling over his shoulders as his features blurred, reformed. He knew what Greg was attracted to, and he fell into those ruts as easy as breathing. It was the path of least resistance—there wasn’t any point in fighting it anymore.

He slid his thumbs into the waist of his jeans and peeled them off his increasingly curvy thighs. The movement and shift of his unbound breasts felt strange for the first few minutes—the weight of them pulled at his shoulders as he leaned over and kicked off his shoes. The tile was cold against bare feet, black and white checks framing high arches, delicate toes. Blood-red polish, because the lie was in the detail, wasn’t it?

When he straightened and pulled his shirt over his head, blonde hair swung about his shoulders in a way that made him shiver. Gooseflesh broke across his skin and raced down his arms. He dropped his shirt onto his pile of discarded clothing and wrapped his arms around his waist, naked, stripped bare, feeling unmoored and unmoving in this echoing box with its accusing mirror.

Teddy lifted his chin to meet his eyes again. They were a deeper blue, edged with black and rimmed with dark lashes. His cheekbones were high and his brows perfectly arched, just a shade or two darker than the loose waves that tumbled down to brush the tight peaks of his breasts. He was unquestionably beautiful; he was flawless. Every head would turn for him.

“I hate you,” Teddy murmured, and he couldn’t at that moment say which you he meant.

He startled at a sharp rap on the door, turning guiltily. “Sorry!” he called; his voice was a low, throaty alto. “I’ll just be a moment.”

There was a short pause, then an unfamiliar male voice: “No problem, sweetheart. Take your time.”

Teddy dragged his fingers through his hair, pushing it back; it wrapped itself into a coil even as he bent to grab the purple backpack. Ends tucked themselves up into a loose chignon he’d seen his mother favor, a few tendrils left free about his face the way they always seemed to sweep free to brush hers. And because it hurt to think of his mother here, now, Teddy grit his teeth and forced his mind to go blank as he pulled on fresh undergarments and began to squirm into a pair of low-rise jeans.

Too tight? No, he thought, they were probably supposed to fit like that. He snagged the silky camisole, ripping off the tag Greg had forgotten to cut, and slipped it on, followed by the filmy shirt. Teddy began shoving his own clothes back into the bag even as he slid into a pair of (thank Christ) ballet flats. The zip sounded loud in the small bathroom; final. When he straightened and met his eyes again, he was fully dressed in thin layers of unfamiliar armor. His eyes looked sad.

But then, Greg wasn’t going to be looking at his eyes, so what did it matter?

“Okay,” Teddy murmured, slinging the backpack over his shoulder. “Okay.” He wet his lips, then turned and twisted open the lock. The man waiting patiently for the bathroom straightened at the first sight of him, then began to smile. Teddy dropped his gaze and moved quickly past, feeling the too-familiar twisting in his stomach as he wound his way back to Greg, relearning the sway of this form with every step.

The hostess was still at the table. She was laughing at something Greg said, one hand pressed to the back of the booth, color bright on her cheeks. Greg tilted his head to look up at her, so darkly handsome that Teddy almost expected to feel that old gut-clench burn of desire, of jealousy. He hesitated, waiting for it, then mentally shrugged when it didn’t come and skirted around the last table, sliding into place across from Greg. “Sorry it took so long,” he said, dropping the backpack on top of their pile of bags.

Greg arched a brow; his gaze flicked up and down Teddy as if looking for flaws he wasn’t going to find. The hostess, for her part, straightened with a flush. “I was just dropping off menus,” she said, sliding Teddy’s over. He couldn’t miss the way she subtly tugged the slip of paper out of the laminated folds and tucked it into her skirt pocket. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“We’re not staying long,” Greg said. “We’ll both just have coffee.” He leaned in before the girl was even two steps away. “I prefer your hair down. You look like such a nerd with it up like that.”

Teddy reached up and flicked at the elastic with one perfectly manicured nail. It shifted away, golden curls tumbling around his shoulders. “God forbid,” he said.

Greg frowned. “Don’t be a bitch.”

Teddy’s gaze dropped to the shiny tabletop. His reflection was hazy and distorted. He could have been anyone sitting there, still as the statue of Mercury just visible through the old-timey glass windows, letting words break over him in a meaningless drone. The drinks came, were refilled, were swept away; Greg paid the check and tucked away his wallet.

“Come on,” he said, gathering his bags and heading toward the door. “We need to grab our tickets and meet up with the rest.” Greg offered the hostess a wide, wicked grin that she pretended to ignore, then held the door for Teddy as if this were something they did every day. His hand, when it dropped to Teddy’s waist, was possessive.

Teddy shot Greg a quick glance but didn’t bother to protest. They crossed the street as the light changed, weaving through a press of foot traffic toward Grand Central. Greg held open the next set of doors, too, and Teddy slipped through; his eyes remained locked on the tiles beneath his feet and his stomach roiled in protest.

“Shouldn’t have had that second coffee,” he said, mostly to himself, letting Greg snag his elbow and lead him through a twisting maze of people.

“You’ll be okay.” He squeezed Teddy’s elbow before letting go to check his phone. “We’re leaving out of track 25; let’s go see who’s here.”

Everyone, it turned out. Everyone was there, waiting.

The main terminal was huge and grand and old. Ticket booths took up one long wall. An old-fashioned sign listed the lines, gates, and departure times in bold white block letters. The floor was crossed by hundreds of natives and tourists, of businessmen and gawkers, like comets barely missing each other under a massive night sky.

Teddy ticked his gaze up as they crossed the main floor, eyes tracing the familiar stars carved into Grand Central’s high arched ceiling. The sky was backwards, inverted—constellations flipped as if he were looking down at them reflected in smooth water rather than up at the nighttime sky. He remembered one teacher at his old Episcopal school claiming it was intended to show the sky the way God saw it. A bored tour guide once admitted that it was probably just a mistake. Teddy liked to imagine it was something else—a reinvention of the heavens, a deliberate deviation threaded through with defiance. These are the heavens as I see them, the artists could have said. Try to tell me otherwise.

“Hey, man,” Pete said, pushing forward with a wide grin when they finally reached their friends. “We thought you were going to miss the train.”

“I’d have expected you to hold it up until I got there, gunslinger style.” Greg grinned back, punching the other boy on the shoulder. A few of the others were breaking away from their conversations, turning to face Greg—to naturally orbit around him without question. “This is Dana. Dana, this is Pete, Mark, Denzel, Rory, Elizabeth, Sam, Claire—” His eyes ghosted coolly over Kari, standing in the back. “Ah, f*ck it, you’ll meet them all this weekend. We ready to get this party started?”

“f*cking right!” Sam called.

Claire rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the side. “Grranimal. Hi,” she added, heading to Teddy’s side as the group began to move in a disjointed herd toward the track. The guys were surging ahead, practically swarming around Greg; a few of them cast lingering looks over their shoulders, eyes tracking to Teddy over and over. He heard Sam murmur, “Man, when you score, you score. Did you rip her right off the pages of Maxim, you lucky motherf*cker?”

“Hi,” Teddy said, adjusting the strap of his bag. He fought the flush that threatened to rise across his cheeks, unease prickling over his skin. Eyes on him were heavy as a touch; he found himself awkwardly tugging his filmy shirt closed, all at once aware of bare skin.

Claire rolled her eyes again. “Ugh. Don’t listen to them. They’re pretty good guys, but once you get them in a herd they turn into filthy lechers.”

“It doesn’t help that you’re totally foxy,” Elizabeth added, falling in on his left. “Hi, I’m Elizabeth and that’s Claire. Kari’s the redhead. You don’t get to meet Teddy this time around, but if you hang out with us more, you’ll probably get to meet him.”

“Probably,” Claire added. “Unless he’s busy with his new friends, in which case, Teddy who?”

He tried to hide the flinch, playing it off as a weak smile. He supposed that was fair enough.

“I love your top. Where’d you get it?”

“I don’t remember. Sorry.” It was difficult to focus; he could hear the guys talking about him, ribbing Greg over the usual sorts of details: how far they’d gotten, whether she was any good, that sort of thing. It was the kind of locker room talk Teddy usually tuned out, and it made him feel weirdly out of focus to have it directed at him. “Sorry,” he said again, trying to shake off the twin experience of guilt and embarrassment. “You were saying?”

“Nice backpack,” Claire repeated. There was a hint of a question there.

“What?”

She flicked a keychain with an arched brow.

“Oh,” he said. “Well. What can I say? Who doesn’t love unicorns?”

Behind them, Kari snorted.

“Dana!” Greg called from the head of the gang. Teddy murmured his excuses and slipped away from the trio of girls; the guys parted naturally as he passed. “Come on, let’s grab some seats away from these dicks.”

“I’ll show you dick!” Mark snickered.

“I’ll show you a whole bag of them.”

“Dude, did you double-bag that sh*t, because—”

Greg’s hand closed over his, fingers twining together as he pulled Teddy onto the train. He leaned in close, other hand falling to Teddy’s hip as they staggered a few steps away from the crowd. “You’re doing great,” he murmured. Teddy could feel each hot gust of air against his cheek, ruffling the loose tendrils of his hair. “Kari’s practically having a fit, and the guys— Well, you know how the guys are.”

He had, hadn’t he? They were his friends. Meeting them as a stranger, as a girl, shouldn’t change how he saw them. This was going to be fine.

“My stomach doesn’t feel great,” Teddy said, gaze dropping to the side. “Can I—?”

“Oh? Yeah, sure. You can sit a bit apart; I’ll tell the others you’re— Wait!” he hissed, grip on Teddy’s waist tightening. The train doors were still open, but the knot of their friends waited with varying degrees of patience outside, milling together restlessly. “Kari’s watching.” He dropped Teddy’s hand and slid the other high on his ribcage, up under the camisole. Greg’s thumbnail raked over the line of his ribs as he pressed closer.

One of the guys gave a low wolf whistle. Those damn keychains clacked as Teddy let himself be pulled against the plane of Greg’s body, unresisting. His stomach lurched and heaved, pulse throbbing unevenly.

It’s just pretend, Teddy told himself, reluctantly drawing his hands to Greg’s shoulders as he was tugged in for a kiss. He tried to make his locked muscles go loose, tried to make it look like he wanted to be here, wanted to be nowhere else, as Greg’s mouth moved over his and his hands slid possessively across Teddy’s borrowed skin. It’s no different than being the Human Torch or Spider-Man or—

And a voice, a memory, cutting through his weak excuses: You could have killed people, Teddy, all because, because you want to be liked? Because some asshole will like you better?

Teddy wrenched back suddenly, hand to his mouth. His eyes felt hot. He barely managed to swallow the protest that was clawing up from his gut, dying to get out. Instead, Teddy shook his head.

Greg stared at him, then reached up to touch his cheek. “You really don’t feel so hot, do you?” he murmured, and how sick was it that Teddy could no longer tell the difference between true concern and playacting? “Go on, sit down. I’ll keep the dogs off your back. You hear that, guys?” he said, louder, leaning out the open door. “Hands off my girl and eyes to yourselves.”

Teddy drew in a ragged breath and pushed his way farther into the train. He slid into an open seat, dropping his bags next to him to discourage company and turned toward the window, legs tucked against his chest. He closed his eyes as the raucous mass of his friends came tumbling into the otherwise empty car.

You don’t understand, he could have told Billy. If they don’t like me, and you hate me, then what is there? What’s the point?

He stayed curled up on himself as the warning was called, the doors closed, and the train began to move through dark tunnels. He stayed like that as they finally broke out of the darkness and into Harlem; sunlight warmed his face and made the backs of his lids go rose-tinted in a tracery of veins.

Time passed with a wash of light. It warmed his skin, and he instinctively tipped his face up towards the sun, as if he could leech some measure of comfort from it. As if he were an alien from a distance planet and his new world’s yellow star gave him immeasurable strength.

Breathing in. Breathing out. Soaking in light.

Finally, slowly, by careful degrees, Teddy felt his muscles begin to relax.

He kept his eyes closed for awhile, forehead pressed against warming glass, body swaying with the train. The others were chatting and laughing around him, but the sound no longer felt like a division bell ringing in his ears. When he finally blinked open his eyes, they were passing out of the last weak grip of the city. Skyscrapers had fallen far behind, cast off like an exoskeleton as they burrowed through the widening countryside. Tenements and grey apartment blocks grew scarce; broken-down fences melted away into wide open fields.

Teddy watched as they moved beneath an underpass—more an impression of colorful graffiti on stone—and broke out onto the other side. Green. The world was so green, spilling away from the gray-and-black tangle of the city, spreading out into rolling hills and the first glassy-dark glimpse of the Hudson.

He drew in a stuttering breath, watching the sky crack open above him; leaving the city was weirdly painful, but liberating. God, his fingers itched for his pencils—there was just so much color.

“Feeling better?”

Teddy twisted around, looking up to meet Pete’s eyes. He was leaning over the back of Teddy’s chair, brown skin catching the golden hue of the sinking sun, expression full of friendly concern. He’d been Teddy’s first friend, after Greg; they’d played basketball together for years. It was so strange, seeing him with a fresh pair of eyes, but not bad-strange. At least, he was beginning to think it didn’t have to be that way.

“Hey,” Teddy said, tucking back a strand of hair. “Yeah, I’m feeling a little better.”

“Cool. Cool beans. Denzel has some Pepto tabs if you need them, and we sent Rory on a mission to the dining car. He’s under orders to bring back some water for you. It’d suck if you missed the first night of drinking and poor decision-making because of a sour stomach.”

The weak smile grew, and Teddy turned more fully to face Pete and the rest of his friends. A few seats over, Greg lifted his chin, watching him. This didn’t have to be hell. The countryside was beautiful and the city was far away and if he could just convince himself that it was all some elaborate game of let’s pretend, maybe he could get Billy’s words out of his head.

“Well, screw that. I’ve been looking forward to making poor life choices all week.”

Mark crowed, “Hear hear!” and Claire rolled her eyes toward Teddy. From all the way at the back of the group, Kari was watching him with silent, studied interest.

The rest of the ride to Sawkill passed in a blur. Teddy shifted his bags to the luggage rack and Elizabeth came to sit by him, eventually crowded in by Claire. Pete stayed hanging over the back of the chair, chatting with the three of them, and Greg moved to stand at the end of their row. Slowly, the others slotted into place around his orbit again—the only difference was this time Teddy felt more like one of those planets revolving around the sun. Playing roles had always come easy to him, and in the end being Dana was no more difficult than being anyone else: it was just a matter of perspective.

And if he faltered now and again, realizing he wasn’t supposed to get that inside joke or know that bit of clannish gossip? Well, that was easy enough to write off as Greg’s hot new girlfriend trying too hard to be liked by all his friends.

The sun set as the train chugged through gorgeous Hudson hills and valley. They passed picturesque towns dotted along the water, boats moving like low-flying birds across the still surface. When their stop came a couple of hours later, it was full twilight, sky fading into the color of a bruise. Greg caught Teddy’s elbow as they gathered their things and moved to wait by the doors. When Teddy glanced over his shoulder, they even shared a smile.

“Here we go!” Rory called as the doors opened. He tumbled off the train and onto the platform in a “ninja” roll; Denzel whooped and jumped onto his back, nearly sending both of them tumbling to the asphalt. “Come on, assface, ride, ride!”

“I’m pretty sure they share three brain cells between them,” Elizabeth said with a laugh, hopping over the small gap. Greg still had Teddy by the elbow; Teddy glanced over his shoulder again and caught Kari watching them.

That…wasn’t going to get any more comfortable as the weekend passed.

“My parents left the van in the lot before heading into the city,” Pete explained, hoisting his overnight bag. He moved to lean against the flaking green railing, scanning the parking lot as strangers hurried on and off the train. The warning bell sounded and the doors slid shut. “There! Everyone, this way.”

“Avengers Assemble,” Teddy murmured with a quick grin, but none of his friends so much as cracked a smile.

The van was large (Pete came from a huge clan), but even so, it was a struggle to fit all ten of them plus their overnight bags inside. Teddy and Elizabeth ended up having to perch on laps, swaying dangerously at every bend in the country road. Even Greg’s hands at Teddy’s waist couldn’t quite keep him steady.

“Hands check!” Denzel called for the third time, and Teddy gamely rolled his eyes and pressed his hands against the ceiling. Elizabeth glanced over at him with a wicked grin, her fingers tucked under her thighs, trapped against Sam’s legs. She wriggled once, biting back a laugh at Sam’s fake-org*smic moan.

“Oops.”

“Hussy,” Greg laughed, his own hands tightening on Teddy’s waist with a friendly squeeze. Teddy grinned and leaned back against his chest, letting himself melt naturally into the broad expanse of him. Greg’s scent—intimately familiar, after so many years—was all around him. The cradle of his thighs and the strength of his arms bracketed him. Months ago, a year ago, Teddy’s skin would have been thrumming at the contact. Now, it just felt familiar, stable. Warm.

Pete’s summer house was at the end of a winding lane, in a constantly-growing suburb. There was a swath of trees cutting between them and the nearest neighbors and deer tracks in the soft dirt. The house itself was big and a little ostentatious, the inside model-home-boring with a distinct air of disuse. Even Pete had to fumble around before he found the lights.

“Okay, kids,” he called once they had all piled inside. “The Grillmaster is going to get set up so we can get some food in us before the serious drinking begins. Bedrooms are up on the second and third floors—I’ll let you sort out who is sleeping with whom, but if I find anyone in my bed tonight, I reserve the right to kick your sorry ass to the floor. We should have enough for everyone if you’re willing to share.”

“Dibs,” Claire called, snagging Elizabeth’s arm.

“Damn it,” Rory sighed, then turned big, fluttery eyes on Denzel. “What do you say, baby?”

Denzel shot him the middle finger. “I will bite your dick if you try it. No hom*o.”

“Baby, I’ll hom*o you so hard…”

Greg snorted and crossed away, toward the kitchen, as the two boys began to tussle. Teddy slowly moved deeper into the house. His pulse began to kick up in an unexpected surge of fight or flight, though he couldn’t say why he suddenly felt so jittery.

Come on, he told himself, stop it. Everything was fine just a few minutes ago. What is wrong with you?

And it was, it was all fine, everything was okay. Except Rory was on Denzel’s back, making exaggerated kissing noises, and Denzel was grumbling, “Ugh, no, cut it out, don’t be such a fa*ggot,” and that word was a blow he hadn’t known he’d been expecting.

Teddy shot a glance toward Elizabeth, but she was chatting easily with Claire, barely paying attention. Kari and Mark were whispering together. Sam was watching the two guys with a broad grin. None of them were going to say anything, do anything.

And neither was he. That was the worst of it.

Teddy pulled away with a feeling of sinking deep into himself, heading blindly toward the stairs. They creaked under his feet as he deliberately put distance between him and his friends’ casual hom*ophobia, stomach twisting into Gordian knots. Stop it, stop it, Teddy told himself, gripping the handrail until his knuckles bled white. They don’t mean anything by it. They don’t, I know they don’t.

Still, he couldn’t help wondering whether they’d make the same jokes if they knew he was here—him, not Dana. Teddy Altman, the best forward on the PS-K575 basketball team, still in the closet only because he hadn’t quite worked out a way to confess the obvious.

Maybe they would have. Maybe not. And maybe it didn’t actually matter; maybe he should have said something anyway. Isn’t that what Billy—stop it, stop it, stop it—would have done?

Teddy pushed blindly into a room and threw his bag onto the double bed, not bothering to turn on the lights. He kicked off his shoes and collapsed back against the coverlet. His heart felt too big in his chest and he could almost swear he felt it filling, expanding, pressing out and out and out until his lungs shrunk back against the shell of his ribcage and he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t think and he couldn’t do anything but feel. Billy’s name was ringing through him, his face, his eyes, the way he’d looked at him on that Manhattan rooftop as the world rocked with explosions and a Hulk raged in the near distance.

No. My dad was right. Being friends with you, having…having some kind of crush on you…it’s me saying I’m okay with who you are, what you do. And I’m not.

“It isn’t that simple,” he murmured; it hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. He turned his face against the coverlet, cheeks flaming. He could still hear raised voices drifting from below. Someone was laughing. He should have said something.

If he was worth anything at all, he would have said something.

He drew up his legs, curling up against the returning ache in his gut and lay there in the dark for what could have been hours. He wished (God, he wished) he was home right now. He wished he’d told Greg to go f*ck himself. He wished he had that core of strength that he’d seen in Billy from the first minute they’d met. He’d never known anyone as strong as Billy—even if Billy himself hadn’t quite figured it out yet, it was so clear—painted on his gawky (beautiful) features, in his skinny (beautiful) frame, in the way he tipped his chin up and set his jaw and waited for the world to knock him back a step.

If they had gone to the same school, if they had met before all this…God, what would his life look like now? What would he be? Skinny and gawky and maybe-defiant too, laughing over episodes of the original BSG instead of curled up in a borrowed skin, listening to his supposed-friends start up the grill and break out the first of many beers and laugh and move on without him.

He wished.

There was a light rap of knuckles on the doorframe and Teddy stiffened instinctively, hating whoever was standing over him and hating himself for the reflexive response. He bit the inside of his mouth and forced himself up on an elbow, smiling a welcome he didn’t feel. Long, loose curls tumbled across his shoulder to tickle the inside of his wrist. “Hey,” he said.

Rory smiled back. “Hey. Dinner will be ready soon.”

“Oh, okay,” Teddy said, pushing up. Rory moved away from the door, one hand lifting to offer— Oh. “Thanks?” He reached out to take the beer; beads of moisture rolled down their fingers when they brushed.

“It’s no big. Just looking out for the latest addition to our little menagerie.” Rory smiled, wide and disarming, but there was something about it that made the fine hairs on Teddy’s arms stand up. That unsettling sense of something being off only increased when Rory sank down onto the bed next to him. The mattress dipped under their combined weight, making their hips brush together; Teddy subtly tried shifting away, both hands curling around the unopened beer.

“Thanks,” he said again, for lack of anything better to say.

Rory twisted to face Teddy, one hand pressed on the mattress behind them. Close. Too close, but that was crazy. Stop trying to make everything worse than it has to be, Teddy told himself firmly. This weekend didn’t have to be miserable. If he just focused on each moment, if he didn’t let himself think of Billy, if he refused to let himself pine like some gothic heroine, he’d be just fine. He knew these people; they were his friends.

But they’re not Dana’s friends, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, and Rory really was sitting too close for comfort, unexpectedly intimate in the darkness.

“…how you met Greg,” he was saying, eyes slowly drifting over Teddy’s face, then once, subtly, lower. His voice was pitched in a register Teddy didn’t recognize, and that newness had to be what was making his skin crawl. Rory was a bit of an immature asshole, but he was funny and irreverent and always willing to take a dare. He was the perfect group clown, and if his jokes sometimes went too far, he usually made up for it by being all too willing to turn the joke on himself. The way he sounded now, the way he was looking at Teddy, was completely new. He didn’t know what to do with it. “Did he chisel you from marble or something, because f*ck you are gorgeous.”

Wait. Was Rory flirting with him?

“Um!” Teddy shot a panicked glance toward the door; his grip tightened around the can of beer. What the hell? “No, actually, he stumbled across me selling flowers in the square; we should go see if they need help with dinner.”

“What’s the rush?” Rory reached out and slid the beer from Teddy’s hands, setting it on the bedside table.

He’s going to try something, Teddy thought with a moment of shocked clarity that managed to dovetail annoyance and hilarity in equal measures. Greg was downstairs; as far as Rory knew, Dana was Greg’s girlfriend. And yet…

Crap. What was he supposed to do?

“Um,” Teddy said again when Rory reached up to tuck a golden curl behind Teddy’s ear. Part of him wanted to laugh. Another part wanted to make a beeline for the door. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Rory’s gaze flickered up to his eyes, then back down again. “Nothing. We’re just talking, right, Dana? Tell me about yourself. Tell me everything. Who is Dana?”

“There is no Dana,” Teddy said automatically. “There is only Zuul.”

“You’re funny; I like that.”

“I’m funnier in a crowd. Let’s go downstairs.” He stood and moved toward the door, startling when a firm grip closed around his wrist and tugged him back a step. Teddy swung back to stare at Rory—because what the hell?—and his annoyed incredulity was enough to make Rory let go and lift his hands with another smile that was beginning to look less and less ingenuous by the moment.

“Sorry,” Rory said. “No big, right?”

No big? “Yes, big. I didn’t give you permission to—” Teddy began hotly before cutting himself off. It was difficult right now to remember that he was supposed to be a stranger, that he didn’t know Rory. “Look,” he tried again. “I’m flattered, but you can’t just—”

They both looked up at the pointed clearing of a throat just behind them.

Greg.

This was going to get out of hand fast.

“Hey, man,” Rory said, practically jumping to his feet. He was so pale his freckles stood out like flecks of paint across his skin, and he was grinning hard enough to make Teddy’s cheeks hurt. “I was just checking to see if Dana was okay. Because she wasn’t feeling so hot earlier?”

“Greg, I’ve got this under control,” Teddy added.

Greg looked between them, brows drawn together, gaze meeting and holding Teddy’s for what felt like forever. He jerked his chin toward the door in clear dismissal and turned his attention to Rory. “Rory,” Greg said; his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Motherf*cker. You and I need to talk about boundaries.”

He was in an episode of the Twilight Zone—there was no other explanation. Teddy looked between the two boys, feeling the tension ratchet up with each breath. This was stupid, this was so stupid; he fought the urge to tell Greg that he didn’t own him and to tell Rory to keep his hands to himself. He wanted to track down Claire and demand to know, Is this the real face of my friend? Are we all constantly shifting into someone we’re not?

“Greg,” Teddy began, reaching for Greg’s shoulder. “I’ve got this. Why don’t you go downstairs and—”

Greg casually knocked Teddy’s hand aside; he didn’t even look at him. Teddy pulled back sharply, fighting the color spreading across his cheeks. He shifted subtly to keep the flash of anger off his face, but it didn’t matter—neither of them was looking at him. He may as well have been a piece of boring model-home furniture, empty space, a blank slate.

A toy that Greg had molded and dressed and used and didn’t want to share.

He had to get out of here. Now.

Teddy turned sharply on his heel and stalked from the room, hands fisting at his sides. The bland hallway was a blur; he hurried down the steps without looking up, fighting not to hear the raised voices drifting down behind him. Teddy slipped through the kitchen where Sam and Elizabeth were busy chopping vegetables, and out through the sliding glass door to the wide patio, where Denzel and Pete were grilling burgers and brats.

“Ten minutes to grub!” Denzel called out helpfully, and Teddy lifted his hand in acknowledgement but didn’t look back. He hurried away from the house, aware of its light chasing him across the sloping lawn toward the old pier. He didn’t feel right until he was out of its grasp, lost from sight behind a sparse wall of trees. The shadows of the growing night were heavy and the air smelled of pine. He pressed back against a trunk and dragged in a shaky breath, feeling the impotent fury and self-disgust bubbling up inside of him. He wanted— He wanted—

f*ck.

“f*ck,” Teddy breathed, slamming one fist back. His eyes were stinging and he wanted to storm back in there and yell; he wanted to keep walking until the dark forest swallowed him completely. He wanted them both and he wanted neither, and that was the core of his problem, wasn’t it? That was what made him so weak.

He never, never, knew what he wanted. Not really. And every time he thought he might be on the cusp of figuring it out (Billy, on the rooftop, blood on his face, hating him) it broke apart beneath his fingers and drifted away like smoke.

Teddy let his head fall back hard against the tree and dragged in a shaking breath as he stared up at the wide open sky. The stars were bright and cold, a million eyes watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way his fingers trembled against rough bark. Somewhere, light years away, alien worlds were spinning in the dark in a dazzling swirl of color: reds and blues and greens and purple. Alien suns were casting heat and light.

He turned his face away.

“Hey.”

Teddy startled, straightening and half-turning with a soft noise. A few feet away, Kari stopped and lifted both hands palms-forward; her face was cast in shadow. “Sorry,” she said, slowly moving closer. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He quickly brushed his sleeve across his eyes, but they were dry, thank God. “No, you didn’t—I mean. It’s okay.”

She stopped about a foot away, face turned toward the nearby lake—giving him some semblance of privacy while he pulled himself together. That was so like her. Elizabeth was a genius and Claire was warm and welcoming, but Kari got people. She understood them down to the bone.

Teddy smoothed his shirt and pushed back his hair, moving to stand by her shoulder. Kari glanced over at him, expression open and serious. It was the same measured look she’d been giving him all day, except now there wasn’t a question in her eyes—she had her answer, whatever it was, and had drawn her conclusions.

“Let’s head down to the pier,” she said. “I think we should talk.”

The lake was just far enough away from the house that the voices of their friends were muffled and indistinct; a bend of trees gave the illusion of privacy, though Teddy could still see lights through branches every time he turned his head.

The pier creaked in protest beneath their feet. Water lapped lazily against the pylons, shining up through the cracks of wood as if the lake held its own light. Teddy dug his bare toes against cool planks, focus narrowing recursively between the absent brush of Kari’s arm against his and those small flashes of brilliance far below.

They stopped at the edge of the pier. The whole lake was spread open before them, placid water still beneath the late spring night. Later, it would be filled with drunken, laughing teenagers—playfighting and making out in the shallows and dragging one another toward the deep center with heady assurance of immortality. Now, though, everything was calm on the surface; smooth, reflective, hiding that deep inner world below.

Teddy stooped and dragged his fingers through the water, watching the ripples cascade toward the horizon.

“I don’t want you to think I’m saying this to be a bitch,” Kari said.

He went still.

“I’m not trying to be. I get that you don’t know me, so you have no reason to believe— Well. Anyway. I’m not trying to ruin anything for you. It’s just that I’ve known Greg a long time, and I saw that look in your eyes when he touched you—every time he touched you—and I guess I’m willing to risk sounding like the crazy ex-girlfriend if it means I can help.”

He should say something; he knew he should say something, but the words kept catching against his throat. Teddy dragged his fingers through the water again, mussing the perfect glassy stillness, and fought to find some kind of response. “I. Oh?”

Kari sighed and moved to sit next to him, legs crossing. Her red hair fell in sheets around her face, shielding her expression. “Yeah, this already isn’t going so hot. Okay, look, I’m just going to be blunt, okay? Greg’s not a nice guy. But he’s…an almost. You know? He’s almost good, and that’s the worst part, because it makes you—made me, at least—think there was something I could do to help him.” She looked down, toying with the ragged cuff of her jeans. Teddy slowly sank into a seat next to her. “With Rory and Sam, it’s easy. They’re just assholes. Greg’s different. You know about his family, right?”

She looked up, and their eyes met. Locked.

Kari made an unhappy face. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, you know. And that’s part of what gets to you. He’s so…hurt. Maybe if he’d been born anyone else, anywhere else, he’d be different. Or maybe he would still be the same, luring in people with more empathy than sense and watching them beat themselves to death against him.” She laughed—a sharp, almost hollow sound—and looked away. “Okay, wow, I sound like I’ve been reading too many self-help books. It’s just, God. I kept walking away and coming back again, and that look in your eyes… Tell me to shut up and I will.”

“It’s okay,” Teddy said.

“He can make you feel so good sometimes. He can make you feel like you’re…like, the center of his universe, like you’re the only good thing in his life. And that makes you so guilty for wanting to be out of it. You feel like, hell, if I walk away, what am I leaving him to? And you don’t even realize for the longest time that he’s made it so he’s your center. All your friends are his friends, all your interests are his interests, everything you think or do is run through him. I mean, look at me. I didn’t even have the guts to break it off—he broke up with me. That’s the only reason I’m still allowed to be here, to be anyone at school. If I had walked away from him, he would have taken away all of my friends. I’d be alone and he wouldn’t rest until I was as hurt as he felt I deserved to be, for hurting him. What a f*cking petty dictator, like a damaged toddler throwing a tantrum. And we all just put up with it and play along because somewhere along the way, we let him have all the power.”

She expelled a harsh breath. “sh*t. This was supposed to be me giving you some advice, not me venting my own damage; I’m sorry.”

“It’s not— I. I mean. I know. It’s just. I’m afraid of being alone,” Teddy murmured.

Kari looked at him, eyes bright with empathy. “I know. I am too.”

He tried to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. Teddy looked down into the water, watching the blurry reflections ripple with each drag of his toes across the surface. What she had said was everything he’d ever needed to tell Billy. It was the key to the puzzle box locked up tight in his chest. He’d once loved a boy who seemed so hurt, so in need, and by the time he’d realized he was in quicksand, it was already too late to save himself. He didn’t have the guts to do it.

“Asshole.” Kari dragged her fingers through her hair, then gave a bitter laugh. “Jesus, look at us. We’re a sorry bunch of idiots, aren’t we? Letting some jerk play God with our lives.”

You have no idea, Teddy thought, sitting in his borrowed skin; everything, from tip to toes, was a reflection to please Greg. There had only ever been one person who knew him and liked what he saw with no reservation. And he’d lost him. He’d been an idiot and he’d lost him.

“I,” Kari began, but Teddy climbed to his feet, the motion cutting her off. She tipped her head to look up at him, expression settling into unhappy but resigned lines. “Yeah,” she agreed, rising. “Yeah, I guess there’s no point in going on. f*ck. Well.” She spread her hands. “If I ever figure out an honest-to-God way to break free, I’ll let you know.”

“Yeah,” he said. Then, “Hey, um. I don’t really feel like going back in right now. Can you tell the others…something? Anything. I think I just want to stay out here for a bit longer.”

“Of course,” she said at once. “I’m sorry I dragged all this on you. I really wasn’t trying to be— Anyway.” Kari pulled back a step. It hurt to look at her, but Teddy wouldn’t let himself look away. Everything she had said was still ringing in his skull, along with one clear, echoing thought:

She never would have told me this if I had been in my own skin.

They’d known each other for years, now. They were friends. And he’d had no idea she felt just as trapped as he did. He hadn’t even thought to wonder.

What, Teddy thought desperately, did that say about him?

He turned back to the lake as she quietly walked away, arms wrapping around his middle. A faint spring breeze pushed lazily through the trees, rustling leaves and lifting strands of curling blond hair about his face. A chorus of frogs sang in the high grasses, and a bird warbled throatily overhead. The hush of the world was unfamiliar and a little offputting—he kept expecting the familiar blare of traffic, or yelling in the streets, or the wail of a car alarm. Music twisting through the old stone walls of his apartment, or the creak of his neighbors walking overhead. But this—

This was something different. He was someone different. The ups and downs of the evening thrummed beneath his skin, caught in endless loops in his mind until the anger and hope and sadness and disgust wove together, warp and weft, to form a cloak over the night sky. There was no escape. Wasn’t that the lesson learned from Kari? That even if Greg cut him free, he’d always live with this fear in his gut keeping him from truly moving on?

And yet.

And yet, somehow, right now, every time he closed his eyes, the soft lap of the lake against the pier became the rhythmic whoosh whoosh whoosh of water against tiles, and Billy was standing a pace behind him, watching him, wanting him.

Skin prickling with gooseflesh, Teddy gripped the hem of his shirt and tugged it over his head. It drifted to pool loose on the uneven planks of the pier.

Didn’t you want to swim? Wasn’t that what he’d said? It had been in the aftermath of one of his worst fights with Greg—one of the few times he’d managed to stiffen his spine and tell him to f*ck off. “Stop calling me,” he’d finally hissed after nearly thirty minutes of guilt and refusing to be guilted. “I don’t care what your plans are. I’m not ditching my friends just because you need Johnny Storm to get laid.”

He popped open his jeans and hooked his thumbs into the waistband, tugging them down his thighs. The aftermath of that had been terrible, but it had been worth it. It had. He’d felt—

Good.

He’d felt so good.

And Billy had been watching him with hope burning in his dark eyes, and it had been so easy to shed his skin like a snake and dive into the cold, clear water and let doubt and trepidation and the hopeless tangle of his own insecurities float away. He wanted to feel that way again.

Teddy kicked aside his jeans and shucked his camisole and underclothes; the old wood creaked as he took a step toward the end of the pier. The water here wasn’t as clear and his heart wasn’t anywhere near as light, but if he closed his eyes, he could almost sense Billy just a few steps away, watching him the way he used to before Teddy ruined everything.

“Didn’t you want to swim?” Teddy murmured, and dove in.

The water, closing over his head, felt like its own sort of answer.

**

THEN:

**

His heart was pounding loud in his chest as he swam along the bottom of the pool. The tiles ghosted beneath him, shimmering white and blue and beautiful. Teddy could feel the bright flush of alcohol tingling through his veins, but he wasn’t drunk; he wasn’t even tipsy. He was clear-headed and moving through cool water and painfully, breathlessly aware of Billy just a pool-length away.

His body was light and electric.

Teddy reached out as he neared the far wall, fingertips skimming tile, turning. Chlorine stung his eyes as he blinked up toward the moonlit surface. It undulated over him, hazy as a mirage, and it was all he could do to keep from reaching out like some lost dreamer to see if he could catch that fickle light in his fist. He had an inane image of capturing strings of moonlight between his fingers and offering them to Billy, like Galadriel’s golden hair.

So. Maybe he was a little drunk after all.

Teddy let out a breath, a swarm of bubbles rising around him, and braced his heels against the smooth tiles. He pushed up, launching himself toward the surface. The wavering light grew and grew as he neared, spinning out above him seconds before he broke; Teddy dragged in a breath, head tipping back, hands spread palms-up. Water trailed through his fingertips and he shook the hair out of his eyes, hyperaware of his own panting breaths, the way his thin boxers moved against his thigh…and the sound of Billy struggling out of his clothes just a pool-length away.

He bit his lip, fighting the flush that coiled up his necks, his cheeks. There was a soft curse and the unmistakable sound of a sneaker skidding across wet tile; Teddy dipped his chin to hide the embarrassed, eager grin.

He watched as Billy clambered to his feet. Those dark eyes found him, locking onto his face with a dazed sort of wonder that made Teddy’s stomach twist with pleasure. Impulsively, he reached out, hand skimming over the water’s surface.

God how I want to touch you, he thought, and it was as if Billy could read his mind in the way he sometimes did. He shivered—they shivered, together—and took a step forward, then launched into the pool feet-first. A spray of water rose above him, droplets catching the fickle light and gleaming like cut glass.

Teddy dove and pushed off from the far wall; he could see the dark shape of Billy touching down against the floor, knees bending before pushing up to launch himself toward the surface. The long lines of his body gleamed—skinny, awkward, beautiful—and his plaid boxers fluttered elegantly around his hips like a flag.

Teddy wanted to slide a hand past the tight ring of elastic and push them off Billy’s hips.

He wanted to press Billy up against the cold tiles and take his mouth in a bruisingly eager kiss.

He wanted to lift him out of the water and follow him up to the lip of the pool, wanted to crawl over him and cover his body and rock into the spread V of his thighs and—

Teddy broke the surface next to Billy, flushed and alive with all the things he felt safe in wanting.

“This is crazy,” Billy said as he grabbed for the ledge. He laughed and scrubbed at his eyes, sounding as breathless as Teddy felt. Teddy grinned back and let himself drift just over an arms-length away. God, Billy was gorgeous. It wasn’t the beauty of magazines or movies or even Greg; it wasn’t perfect symmetry and muscles. But it was there, it was there so clearly, writ large on the thick black lashes around intelligent dark eyes, the crooked way he grinned, the obstinate lift of his chin. It was there in the arc of bone beneath pale skin and the line of ribs running down to slim hips.

Moonlight caught in dark hair and highlighted a dusting of freckles across his nose, faded through the long grasp of winter. A drop of water wound its way down Billy’s cheek to the sharp angle of his jaw, and it was all Teddy could do not to press close and trace its path with his lips.

Billy reached out, once again reading his thoughts, and pressed a hand against Teddy’s shoulder. They shivered together as his fingers slid down, down, down, and between one breath and the next, Billy was floating forward and moving into his arms. Teddy instinctively wrapped his arms around Billy’s waist even as Billy wound his arms around his neck; they took the next breath together unsteadily sharing air. The flush of awareness pulsed through him, coiling low in his stomach, and he had to fight to keep his hips still. He was hard—God, he was so embarrassingly hard—and it took all his concentration to keep his eyes from dilating and giving him away.

Teddy swallowed back a low noise, eyes dropping instinctively to Billy’s mouth.

“Thank you,” Billy murmured.

Teddy opened his mouth to reply, but words, breath, everything, everything was a struggle. Billy’s legs brushed against his as they tread water; his body was so close he could feel its heat sinking into him. The spike of want was so sharp he was caught off-balance, and it was all he could do not to surge in and claim Billy’s mouth. His hand was actually trembling with the impulse as he reached past Billy’s shoulder to grab the ledge.

He’d just meant to find some kind of purchase. He hadn’t intended anything despite, God, needing it so badly. But the press of his body sent Billy bobbing back against the cool wall, Teddy’s arms penning him in, and Billy—

Billy gasped and squeezed his eyes shut and arched toward him before slamming back, as if he were hard and fighting it too, and it was just—

God.

Teddy impulsively pressed closer, breath coming in quick little pants. He felt lightheaded and flushed with heat. His co*ck ached, pleasure crashing through him at each brush of Billy’s thigh. Billy felt so good against him. Billy felt so right. “Billy,” he murmured.

Billy’s arms tightened around his neck, face tucked against his own bicep. He shuddered lightly, thin frame shaking against Teddy’s, and Teddy had to touch him. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself, hand moving to press against Billy’s side before sliding down the corrugated planes of his ribs, to the curve of his waist, to the sharp jut of his hipbones. Billy made a strangled cry, barely swallowed, and Teddy drew in a sharp breath as he slid a thumb along the tight band of elastic.

He wondered if Billy was hard.

“Billy,” Teddy murmured, impulsively slipping a thumb beneath the elastic, rubbing his knuckle against the trembling muscles of Billy’s stomach. He could feel the fine dark hairs that trailed just below Billy’s belly button rasping against his skin. It was all he could do not to sink beneath the surface of the water, grasp slim hips between his palms, and trace its progress with his tongue. “Look at me, Billy, please.”

It seemed like forever, waiting, as Billy swallowed back a low sound, then slowly lifted his head. He blinked open his eyes, drops of water clinging to the long lashes, and— And God, yes, he could see it in Billy’s eyes. He could see everything he was feeling, everything he wanted, reflected back at him, and it took everything he had not to crush Billy back against the cold tiles and kiss him.

He shouldn’t; he knew he shouldn’t. He knew there was some reason he hadn’t already, but his body was flooding with heat and Billy was so close, wanting him, and maybe it would all turn out all right. Maybe he could have this, and Billy could help him be strong, and, I want you, I want you, I want you.

Billy gasped, lips parting; Teddy could feel the heat of his breath against his mouth, and in that moment, there were no more thoughts, no doubts. Teddy surged forward, mouth covering Billy’s, needing more than anything to swallow his next breath and chase that low moan deep into his body. He brushed their lips together, entire body lighting up at, oh God, the softness, the slick, chlorine-tinted taste of him. Teddy moaned deep in his chest as he licked deep into Billy’s mouth, tongue brushing against his in silent question.

Billy surged forward with a strangled noise, legs thrashing, hands scrabbling across his shoulders as he shuddered hard. The awkward, frenetic caress was so Billy that Teddy couldn’t swallow a laughing groan. He pressed in, grabbing the lip of the pool and arching up to push a thigh between Billy’s thrashing legs.

f*ck. Teddy jerked his hips, rocking up against the scalding heat of Billy’s co*ck, trapped against Teddy’s thigh. He hadn’t been thinking, had only meant to give Billy something to rest against so he wouldn’t sink into the water, but oh God, he could feel his erection, could feel the tremors wracking through Billy’s body as he fought not to grind helplessly against him—he was so hard it hurt. Teddy pushed Billy back against the tiles, using his body to keep him afloat as he claimed his mouth. He was moaning—or was it Billy? The desperate, heaving noises they made were lost somewhere between the tangle of their tongues and the irregular splash of water as they surged rhythmically against the cold pool wall.

And then Billy wrapped his lips around Teddy’s tongue and sucked, pulling hard at the root. His co*ck jerked in response, tight and hard and, oh God, already so ready to come. He could, he could come like this, arching helplessly against Billy’s smaller body, tongue thrusting into his mouth as he slid his hands down to grasp slim hips and encourage him to rut against the tight muscles of his thigh.

He could make Billy come like this.

He would give anything to see Billy come.

Teddy tore his mouth away to drag in an unsteady breath, but God, Billy’s mouth—he was surging in to kiss him again before he could think, biting at his lower lip and sucking away the sting, licking deep into his mouth and riding out the frantic rut of Billy’s hips so close, so close to his own. “f*ck,” he said, grip going tight on Billy’s waist, dragging him closer. The need was coursing through him in aching, rhythmic waves, dictating the urgent arch of his hips, the driving rhythm as Billy sucked hot, frantic kisses along his wet shoulders and Teddy fought not to shove him brutally hard against the lip of the pool and take what he wanted. He had to fight to keep his strength in check; it had been years since he’d been so aware of it, power burning through him, body on fire.

He dug his nails into Billy’s hips, lifting him off the steady press of his thigh and urging his legs around his waist. Billy went willingly enough, thighs parting, long legs winding around him to lock at the small of his back. Teddy grabbed the edge of the pool again to keep them from sinking as he instinctively shifted position, lips parting on a breath, and drove forward in a deep, grinding thrust.

The first brush of Billy’s co*ck against his was enough to white out his vision; he choked back a cry, hips stuttering helplessly as Billy thrashed and shouted, “GOD, Teddy,” and—

**

NOW:

**

“Jesus, are you deaf or something?”

Teddy startled, dragged unceremoniously from the memory of Billy’s mouth against his skin by Greg’s voice in his ear. He’d been floating on his back, lost in thought and letting himself drift; the sudden sharp movement sent him under, the shock of water cold as it closed over his head. A strong hand caught him around the bicep, yanking him up, and he fought against the vise-like grip instinctively. Teddy kicked out, surfacing. Sputtering.

Greg smirked. “Nice,” he said, and reached out to push wet strands of hair from Teddy’s face. “You wear drowned rat well.”

His touch—unwanted, unwelcome—so soon on the heels of the memory of Billy shot through him like an electric jolt. Teddy jerked back, droplets of water cascading around them; his heart was jackhammering in his chest. “Don’t,” he managed to gasp. It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. Jesus, it had felt so real. The smell of chlorine still filled his senses, the filtered blue moonlight and Billy’s breath on his face, clumsy-eager hands sliding over his skin…

“f*ck,” Teddy said.

“Did you fall asleep out here or something?” Greg tread water just a few feet away, his own dark hair plastered to his skull. The reflection of moonlight on water highlighted the black shadow of stubble along his square jaw and caught in the droplets of water winding lazily down his bare, broad shoulders. One corner of his mouth was kicked up into a grin and his eyes were knowing. Possessive. They swept over Teddy with a self-assurance he could never feel, the weight of his gaze as intrusive as a caress. “We’ve been waiting for you, you know.”

Teddy turned his face away, flushed and struggling to catch his breath. He wrapped his arms around himself, shocked again by the alien feel of his own skin. A curving waist, heavy breasts, long golden curls floating like seaweed around his bobbing shoulders—this wasn’t him. This wasn’t him, and it wasn’t right, and what the hell was he doing here?

“Dana, seriously,” Greg began.

And that wasn’t his name. “Stop.”

The word scraped raw in his throat, harsh enough to make Greg suck in his next breath. They bobbed there, just a few feet away from each other, within easy reach: it may as well have been a mile. Teddy lifted his chin, watching Greg from beneath his lashes. The handsome smile was beginning to collapse into a scowl. Dark brows drew together into a V and there was a warning in his eyes. “What the hell, Teddy? What are you thinking?”

Teddy drew in an unsteady breath. He remembered the way it had felt that night, when he’d told Greg off and gone to find Billy. He’d been afraid but defiant, happy. He’d been so happy, as if the weight of the world had been dragged from his shoulders. And then there’d been Billy’s skin against his own, Billy’s breath in his face, Billy’s mouth over his, and he would never have stopped. If Jamie hadn’t interrupted them, they would have just kept kissing helplessly, desperately, until Teddy lifted Billy out of the water and followed him onto the tile, laid his body over endless yards of pale, wet skin and—

And—

And this would be over. This thing, this poisonous, inescapable thing with Greg would be over. He wouldn’t need to be Tony Stark or Spider-Man or Thor or Johnny Storm or Dana because (God, he believed it; he believed it with everything he was) Billy would never ask him to be anyone or anything he wasn’t, Billy didn’t want him to be anyone or anything he wasn’t. If he’d ever thought he loved Greg in the past, he’d been so blind because he’d been in love once in his life and it was nothing like what he was feeling now.

“Christ,” Teddy breathed, closing his eyes. He’d f*cked up so badly.

“Teddy. What are you thinking?”

That rooftop. That final, terrible fight. He could still see Billy’s expression when he closed his eyes. He could still hear his voice, filled with fury and betrayal and hurt so deep that it made Teddy’s chest ache in return. But he’d ruined things even before that, hadn’t he? Billy had been so angry with him even before the world had exploded around them. Why, though? He still didn’t understand why, and it killed him that he didn’t know. He’d challenged Teddy over cancelling plans, wanted to know what he’d been doing (who he’d been with?), but that wasn’t enough to explain it, and he would probably never know.

“Teddy,” Greg interrupted, impatience threading through his voice. “I still can’t read your mind, you know. Use your words. What. Is. Wrong?”

As if it were that simple. Words came easy to people like Billy and Greg. They used them like panaceas, like weapons, deft and comfortable with themselves the way Teddy could never be. Greg’s words were a sword, and he knew exactly where to cut. Like that day he’d beaten Teddy down, made him call to cancel plans with Billy. He’d wielded his words especially well then, carving away at Teddy’s defenses as if—

As if jealous, and—

And Billy, at school the next Tuesday, unusually waspish, words buzzing with hurt, and—

And—

Oh.

Oh, he was such an idiot.

Teddy relaxed into the shift, feeling his features change, rearrange. His shoulders broadened, his hips narrowed; he was himself again—as close as he could ever be to himself. He dragged in an unsteady breath and let his eyes open. “We need to talk,” he said.

“f*ck that. What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?” Greg looked over his shoulder, toward the pier. The shoreline was dark, but they could see light breaking through the trees. Music drifted from the open patio doors. “Someone could come out here and see you. Change back.”

Teddy wet his lips. “No,” he said. Then, again, “We need to talk.”

“Teddy, what the f*ck?” Greg grabbed for his shoulder, pushing him so Greg was between Teddy and the shore. They were almost of a size (which made sense, a quiet part of Teddy murmured, since Greg had been his template to begin with) but if someone came out to the pier, it wouldn’t matter.

He didn’t care.

“Change back now or I swear to God—”

“What did you do to Billy?”

That brought Greg up short, silencing his furious blustering. He pulled back, staring at Teddy as if Teddy had struck him—by the look of incredulity on his face, he may as well have. “What are you— I didn’t—What the f*ck are you talking about? Have you lost your—”

Teddy interrupted again, voice calm—far calmer than he felt. “On the day of the Kree attack, I was in Manhattan, with Billy. He was angry with me. It was just after…after that bullsh*t you pulled when I was supposed to meet him, and the connection seems so obvious now, but I thought…” He reached up to shove his fingers through his hair, shaken. “I don’t know what I thought. I tried not to think, I guess. But I haven’t been able to help it, and I can’t— Did you say something to him? Did you threaten him?” At Greg’s tight expression, Teddy drew in another ragged breath. “Did you hurt him? Greg, f*ck you, did you—”

Greg knocked his hand away, scowling darkly. “No. Jesus. No, I didn’t hurt anyone.” And, just as Teddy’s shoulders were beginning to relax, he added, “I didn’t have to.”

Everything went cold. “What?”

“I said I didn’t have to; you were doing a pretty knock-up job all by yourself. Pulling him in, pushing him away.” He moved closer again, voice dropping low, threatening, eyes blazing. “Just like you’re doing to me right now. Is that going to be your pattern, Teddy? Build up friendships just so you can f*ck them all over whenever you feel like it? You drove him away, didn’t you? You’re never one thing, never consistent. And what about me? I’ve had your back for years. You were nobody when I met you.”

He could feel himself rapidly losing ground. “I know that,” Teddy began, but Greg barreled on, unstoppable.

“The only reason anyone changed their minds about you was because I changed them. Because I became your friend. Because I was willing to put up with your bullsh*t. And now, what, you want to just throw that aside like it was nothing? Like I’m nothing?”

This was getting all tangled up. It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that.

Was he?

How was he supposed to know what he was like? How could he even tell? He had hurt Billy, he hadn’t meant to but he had. Was he doing the same thing now? He couldn’t tell anymore. He could feel his shoulders beginning to stoop, could feel his body beginning to curl up around itself protectively. His eyes burned and his heart ached and he fought the urge to just dive under the water and never surface again, to hug the loamy bottom of the lake and never think again, never breathe again, never look in Greg’s face again.

He was in quicksand. He was so lost in himself.

“Greg,” Teddy said; the steel was gone from his voice. He sank further, cool water lapping across his shoulders and neck.

“No. No, don’t you say anything unless you’re about to apologize,” Greg warned. “Don’t you f*cking dare. After everything I’ve put up with from you, after everything I’ve done for you, don’t you f*cking dare just walk away and leave me.” Greg’s eyes were bright with…with tears? Maybe. It was so hard to tell, and he was tired—all at once, he was so tired he could barely keep afloat. Teddy squeezed his eyes shut and dragged in a serrated breath; his lungs felt shredded and his body sore and his mind was a ragged banner. So much for his shining moment of strength.

“Greg,” Teddy said again hoarsely. “I’m—” Sorry? He wasn’t sure whether it was true anymore, but the words were reflexive, were easier than the guilt. Who had he been kidding? He may have loved Billy, but Billy was out of his reach: he’d made sure of that. Both Teddy and Greg had. All he had left was Greg.

Is it worth it? Is having friends worth this?

He didn’t know the answer to that anymore.

Teddy let himself sink even deeper into the water, limbs leaden. “I’m tired,” he said. “And we just— We just keep coming back to this point over and over, and I don’t know what to do anymore. Greg. I don’t want this.”

He could hear wind rustling faintly through the trees and distant frogs singing a throaty lullaby. Water lapped against the far shore. And the sound Greg made when he dragged in a breath was like a gunshot, reverberating through his body.

“Fine,” Greg said; his voice was cold. “If that’s the way you want to do this, fine. How about this? You have until the end of the weekend to figure out what a big f*cking mistake you’re making. After that? It’s over. No takebacks.”

His breath caught in his chest, as if dragging along the jagged ends of his ribs. He couldn’t look at Greg. If he did… Christ, if he did, he’d start tripping over himself to apologize now. “Yeah. Okay.”

“You were my friend.”

“Greg.” He started to look up, then jerked his head away, staring out at middle distance. His eyes burned hotly. He couldn’t tell whether his cheeks were wet from tears or lakewater, but it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t let it matter. Don’t look at him.

It’d be so easy to capitulate.

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut, then suddenly twisted and dove into the water; he could hear Greg’s voice somewhere high above, muffled and blessedly indistinct. He kicked his legs, swimming down down down toward the lakebed, escaping, letting the dark water pull him away and safe from temptation. From weakness.

He reached out blindly and dragged his fingers through the soil, sending up puffs of murky silt. They surrounded him in a dark cloud, obscuring his view of the surface—hiding him in a last-ditch desperate camouflage. It almost didn’t matter that Greg wasn’t going to dive after him; Greg wasn’t the only impossible hurt he was running from.

Teddy slipped through the coldest, darkest depths of the lake. The moon made a shifting, feeble interplay of light and shadows above him, and he twisted around to stare up at its distant light—distorted. Cold.

His lungs burned.

And yet.

If he could stay under here forever, he’d never have to make a decision. He’d never have to risk facing off against Greg for good, to face losing the fragile support network he’d built up over years, to lose himself piece by piece. God, Greg had been right; how much of Teddy Altman was a façade? Maybe even Billy…maybe even that hadn’t been real.

He wasn’t sure what would be left of him if that proved to be a false face too.

He lifted his face toward the light, fingers twisting in the silt and soil, and thought maybe he could grow gils the same way he sprouted wings and never have to face himself again. Coward. Coward, Teddy thought, entire body a bruise. He held on tight as the seconds ticked by into minutes.

Finally he was forced to loosen his grip and slowly let himself rise. Bubbles floated around his face and the green-blue light grew, expanded, filling his vision and swallowing him whole as he broke the surface with a heaving gasp, head thrown back, water streaming down his cheeks, moon bright and cold so far above.

Teddy fell backwards, chest heaving, and let himself be buoyed up by the water. He was far away from shore, lights as small as fireflies in the distance, and stretching over him was the wide night sky.

Stars.

Teddy drew in another shaky breath, floating on the perfectly still surface of the lake, and stared up for an unmoored stretch of time at the familiar constellations. There was Orion, trio of bright lights making the belt. Ursa Major. Ursa Minor. There was Perseus, giver of fire, and Pegasus. He’d memorized them all as a little boy, gawky and small, quiet, wrapped in an old blanket as he leaned out the tenement window to watch the night through a haze of light pollution.

Here, the stars were so bright they made his heart ache. He felt weightless as he floated across the dark water, vision filled with points of light until it was almost as if he were out there, drifting through the starfield.

Teddy turned his head, water lapping against his cheek, and all around him the placid lake reflected back the light of the stars in a wordless echo. Familiar constellations inverted as they brushed against his skin, and he was, he was walking in space, soaring high above the shell of his body. Only this time—

This time, it didn’t have to hurt when he came crashing back down to Earth.

A low wind blew. He breathed in and out, steadily, counting seconds against his heartbeat. Time passed in an endless blur of light. Finally, Teddy closed his eyes and drew in a breath. He turned and dove back into the water, sending ripples across the millions of mirrored stars as he swam back to the pier and the house and the unanswered question.

Whether he liked it or not, he had to face Greg tonight, even if only for the few minutes it took to gather his things and call a cab.

Teddy shifted as he swam, slipping back into Dana’s form just in case one of the others had come out looking for him, but there was no one on the pier when he surfaced, long curls floating like a cape behind him. He drew in a steadying breath and pulled himself up onto the creaking wooden structure, getting his feet beneath him. His knees trembled, knocking together, but by the third step he was steady again; he snagged his clothes and began to dress, shifting dry as he shimmied into his jeans. The night air had grown unexpectedly cool, and the lights spilling through the open sliding door were almost welcoming, even though he had a feeling what might be waiting for him inside would be anything but.

He made himself take the steps up to the patio two at a time and pushed inside the living room to rejoin his friends.

The party was in full swing. Music blared out of the speakers and his friends were divided naturally into three knots of activity. Sam, Rory, and Denzel were grouped around the dining room table playing a drinking game. Discarded cans and red plastic cups littered the table and floor, and Rory was frowning in intense concentration as he flipped a quarter toward an empty mason jar.

Claire, Elizabeth, Kari and Pete were sprawled on the couch in a tangle of limbs. One of them had dragged the fuzzy throw over their legs, making them look like a furry blue hydra. Claire had her head resting against Pete’s shoulder, eyes half-closed. Kari moodily sipped her drink.

And Greg— Greg had taken up court at the bar, with Mark. Their heads were bent together as they talked, light and fair.

He wet his lips and slid the door closed behind him; no one looked up. “Hey,” he said, tucking back his hair. “Sorry I was out so long. Um. I don’t feel so great, so I think I’m just going to…” He trailed off when no one twisted around to look at him. It was as if they hadn’t even heard him speak.

Teddy took a hesitant step into the room and paused, sensing…he wasn’t sure what. Everything felt off. He looked around again, gaze dragging over the three distinct groups: Sam, Rory and Denzel; Claire, Elizabeth, Kari and Pete; Greg and Mark. Nothing struck him as particularly out of the ordinary, but all of his instincts were beginning to blare, hairs standing up as he took another cautious step toward the center of the room.

Try again, he thought, though his stupid heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst through his chest. Just try again. “Pete,” Teddy began; his voice actually cracked on the word. “Um, thanks for inviting me. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay.”

Pete grinned too hard at something Claire murmured and took a long sip of his beer. His gaze didn’t even flicker toward Teddy. Teddy may as well have been talking to the wall.

“Pete,” he tried again, “I…” Nothing. No change. He could have been a ghost.

And that’s when it hit him. That’s when he realized why no one had looked up at his entrance; why no one had flicked a gaze his way.

It was as if he didn’t exist. They’d been told to act as if he didn’t.

Teddy’s head jerked up and he whirled to stare at Greg, stricken. He’d told exactly two people about the time he’d switched schools and had gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle. His teachers were too busy to notice him, and the kids at school already had their friendships locked in tight. They didn’t talk to him; they barely looked at him. Teddy had awkwardly tried day after day to charm his way into social groups that didn’t have room for him, time for him, attention for him, until gradually the words had begun to dry up, and his tongue had become heavy, and his throat had become parched, and he’d just…drifted. Day after day, barely speaking from sunup to sundown.

He wasn’t being picked on—that would have been something. This was nothing. He was nothing; he was just a ghost, wandering the halls, getting more and more lost inside his skull until even his own thoughts echoed bone-dry and lifeless.

That had been just before he’d changed himself and found his way to Greg. That had been years before, trying yet again to build a bridge of trust, he’d finally admitted what it had felt like to be that little boy: unseen, unheard, moving like a shadow amongst his peers. He’d finally admitted to the deep groove of scars that experience had left on him, to the childish fear he could never seem to swallow that it would all happen again someday.

No one knew what hell that been for him, except for Billy and Greg. And now?

Now it wasn’t a secret anymore. Now it was a weapon.

“Pete,” Teddy said; he could hear the edge of desperation in his voice. He turned to look at his second-oldest friend, hoping that he was wrong, praying he’d gotten Greg wrong. Greg could be an asshole, but this was cruelty. He had to know that. “I have to go. Can I have a ride back to the station?”

Pete didn’t flicker a lash. He laughed at something Claire said, fingers curled around his Dixie cup. No haven there.

“Elizabeth,” Teddy tried, gaze ticking to the left, “what—” but she was leaning against Kari and starting in about some show on the CW, her nails nervously tapping against the blanket but otherwise appearing perfectly serene.

Kari was flushed and miserable, but she was fighting to smile, and she kept her face deliberately turned away—as if she were struggling with a temptation to look at Teddy, to acknowledge him at all. He moved toward the couch with a creeping sense of desperation, but she just laughed and turned her head toward Claire, effortlessly cutting him off again. Denying his presence.

Teddy froze, staring at her, watching the color rise up her neck. He turned to look at the trio at the table as Rory hooted, “SCORED!” and fist-punched the air. Denzel and Sam groaned and each took a drink.

He was standing in the perfect center of the party, and it was as if he had never existed.

Teddy drew in a shaking breath, feeling—God, he didn’t even know what, feeling broken, feeling shattered. He took a step forward and his shaking knees almost gave out, sending him pitching to the side. He caught himself against the couch console, hands scraping across the glass-and-metal edge; the brief spark of pain was unexpectedly centering, and Teddy stared at the smear of blood his palm left across the gleaming surface. The edge of the console reflected his face back in a strange, distorted wave.

He dragged in another breath, another. When he tried to straighten, he overbalanced, elbow knocking against one of the elaborate glass sculptures littering the console. It teetered a breathless moment before tumbling to the stone floor and exploded in a kaleidoscope of color and light, refracted rainbows catching his eye as shards scattered to the floor in a soft patter, like rain. Teddy twisted around with an apology on his lips.

Not a single person looked over at him. He was well and truly gone.

And this… This would be high school. This would be every day until he graduated. Greg didn’t have to say the words—his message was clear. He was the class president and the star of the basketball team and the homecoming king. He was everything, and Teddy was only a somebody because Greg allowed it.

“f*ck you,” Teddy whispered; his voice shook. He was crying, and he hated that, hated the vulnerable feeling, hated it almost as much as he hated their forced laughter, their bland expressions. If he thought it would do any good, he’d break something else on purpose—he’d scream.

It wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

He looked up and saw the curve of Greg’s smile and felt all the fight leave him at once.

Teddy pushed his fingers through his hair and moved toward the steps, mindless of broken glass cutting into his bare feet. He left bloody footprints as he vaulted up the steps, grateful that Greg hadn’t gotten around to tossing away his things. He shucked out of Dana’s clothes, shifting back into himself as he yanked on his own with fingers that didn’t seem to want to work. He had to pause, clenching and unclenching his fists, making them obey before he could finish.

Even still, he fumbled his cell phone as he shoved it into his pocket, then grabbed his overnight bag.

He didn’t have to pass through the living room on his way out the front door, so there was no one to see Teddy Altman slink away. It didn’t surprise him at all that Greg was waiting for him just outside, though. He glanced over, one dark brow arched, finally looking at him. In that moment, Teddy hated him so much, and yet it felt good to be seen. It felt necessary. He would have done anything for it.

“I’ll call you when I get back in the city,” Greg said, shoving his hands into his pockets. His lips curved into a faint smile, as if everything was normal between them. “We can head out. There’s a red carpet at Zigfeld’s; I think Tony Stark should make an appearance, don’t you?”

Teddy stared at him for a long, hurt minute, feeling the protest rise like bile in his throat. Feeling, too, the clammy fear of years of passing like a forgotten memory through the halls of his high school. It wasn’t just about losing his friends now—it was about losing everything. Himself.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Sure.”

Greg stepped close and slung an arm around his shoulders. His small smirk broke into an honest smile. “I’m really glad to hear that,” he said. Then, squeezing Teddy’s shoulders in a friendly side-hug, he turned and headed back into the house.

The door closed with a soft click behind him, and Teddy was alone.

The ride back to Manhattan was quiet, and dark; above him, the stars grayed until they were lost in a glare of city light.

**

THEN:

**

The days were beginning to heat up. It wasn’t quite warm yet, but winter coats and scarves had been packed away for the year. An unexpected (but brief) heat wave had hit about a week back, breaking the last cold snap and tricking windowbox flowers into budding early.

Spring was sinking into the city, breathing life back into the cracked gray concrete. It was nice. Even if everything was still weird now and again between them after the whole thing at Coney Island, it was nice.

“I can’t believe you’ve never been to the garden,” Teddy said. He glanced at Billy wryly, smiling out of the corner of his mouth. Billy had left his spring jacket at home and was already shivering, arms tucked around his waist. “Though if you’re going to turn into an ice sculpture, maybe we should save it for another day.”

“No, hey, no, I’m okay.” His cheeks and nose were bright pink, but he was grinning back and practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as they waited in line. “It’s just the shade that’s killing me. Once we’re in the sunshine, I’ll defrost.”

Teddy squinted at him. “I think I can see icicles forming on your nose. Here,” he added, shrugging out of his jacket. “Take this.”

“Wh— But, no, you’ll be—”

Teddy pressed forward, draping the coat around Billy’s shoulders like a cape when Billy refused to take it. Billy tried to struggle free, claiming he was fine now! toasty warm! but Teddy just laughed and grabbed the trailing sleeves, not letting Billy escape. They moved in an awkward circle, Billy squirming and trying to duck free, Teddy determinedly keeping the jacket slung about his shoulders, until Billy suddenly stopped and let out a huffing breath.

“Finished?”

“You’re so obnoxious,” Billy pointed out; Teddy just grinned and settled the jacket more firmly on his shoulders, tugging up the lambswool collar so it blocked the worst of the wind. His knuckles brushed Billy’s cheeks as he worked, and they both blushed hard and turned away from each other. “Ah. Um. So. Cherry blossoms.”

Teddy dropped his hands, fingers curling into loose fists. The line inched forward. “Um. Cherry blossoms. They’re really early this year, which is lucky for us—fewer people will be out and about today.”

“Mm.” Seemingly having resigned himself to the coat, Billy slipped his arms into its sleeves and curled up into its deep folds. It was old and ragged at the cuffs. There were small splotches of paint and a few protest buttons in rainbow shades running down the back. It was big on Teddy, which meant it was huge on Billy; seeing him in it did funny things to Teddy’s chest, and he had to look away and clear his throat, grateful when it was his turn to step up and buy tickets.

It’s just a coat, he told himself. Stop being weird.

“Here,” Teddy added, handing Billy his ticket. They headed through the main gates and into the gardens together. The Brooklyn Botanical Garden was a pain to get to from his neighborhood, requiring a good deal of doubling back and train transfers, but it was worth it. Huge and sprawling, it mixed traditional gardens with art instillations; there always seemed to be something new to look at. Before he’d met Billy, this had been his favorite place to go on Tuesdays and Thursdays to sketch.

Now he had something else to take up his time and attention. Still, it felt good to be back. Teddy nudged Billy’s shoulder and they fell into step, heading toward the Japanese gardens.

“So how come you haven’t been here before?” Teddy asked to break the silence.

Billy co*cked his head; wild, unruly dark hair blew into his eyes on the next gust of wind. “I don’t know. The Park’s right there. If I want to visit with nature, I can just take a ten-minute walk and voila, trees.”

He snorted. “Visit with nature. Do you make formal house calls? Or is this more of a conjugal sort of thing?”

“Okay, Grizzly Adams, how would you describe taking a trip to a man-made, carefully manicured and upkept plot of land to spend a few minutes staring at green things?”

“Well first,” Teddy said, “I probably wouldn’t just be spending a few minutes staring at green things; and here I thought you had a real way with words.”

“Hey…”

“And second.” Teddy abruptly stopped, letting Billy get a full step ahead of him. Before Billy could swing around, he grabbed skinny shoulders—fingers digging into the folds of his jacket, feeling his heat through layers of cloth—and turned him.

Around the next corner, a torii gate guarded the entrance to the Japanese garden. A russet-colored bridge crossed a stream to a small island, then a second, wider stream to a pagoda. Bamboo blocked off the far edges, separating out the space, making it intimate. But what made it beautiful were the rows and rows of cherry blossom trees, already in full bloom.

Long, trailing branches blew in the wind, undulating gently; with each gust, pink and white petals drifted through the air in a colorful snowshower.

“Oh,” Billy said, going utterly still beneath his grip. Teddy’s fingers tightened almost against his will, and he had to force himself to let go, to take a step away and put respectful distance between them again. He couldn’t help but watch Billy’s face, though—the way his eyes moved from tree to tree, down the long avenue. His mobile features shifted and changed with awe, delight, and then, as he shot Teddy a sidelong glance, shy pleasure. “Okay, wow, I guess I’m going to have to give it to you on this one.”

“Teddy Altman Explains It All. Come on,” he added, leading Billy toward his favorite corner. “I know a place.”

“You know a place.” He went, trusting as ever. They passed through the torii gate and over the creaking bridge.

“Yeah. I know a place.”

“Why am I not surprised you know a place?”

Teddy laughed and bumped his shoulder, fighting to keep it casual, like it used to be. “You can’t make fun of my rambles when you benefit so shamelessly from them. Now, sit! Sunlight, a view, and…” He snagged the edge of the jacket before Billy could pull away, tugging a wrapped bundle from the left pocket. “…cookies! Our afternoon is set.”

“You brought cookies. Of course. You’re perfect, of course you brought cookies.” Billy sprawled on the grass, in the bright shaft of sunlight; he didn’t notice the flush that crept up Teddy’s cheeks, thank God, too busy brushing pink petals from his skin. “Maybe you should have stowed away a canopy, too.”

Teddy settled into an easy crouch next to Billy’s head, leaning back against the bark of the tree. He unwrapped the cookies and handed one over, and his lips curved at the edges when Billy batted away another errant petal. “Nah, that’s part of the charm. Just relax and go with it.”

Billy huffed a breath, but eventually, he did relax. He relaxed so completely that half an hour later, he’d fallen asleep, hands folded over his chest, full lips parted. The sun was slanting through the shivering branches at the perfect angle to catch his upturned face. Pink and white petals drifted down around them—catching in Teddy’s hair, on Billy’s cheek, against his closed eyelids—and somewhere nearby, the hollow toll of a windchime sounded. The hush of the world was underscored by the sound of water trickling down the sloping waterfall into the koi pond.

And Teddy watched the subtle shift of Billy’s eyes beneath his lids and ached to kiss him so much it was its own kind of pain.

**

NOW:

**

The flash of light was dazzling, each burst of the photographers’ cameras creating brilliant afterimages that left his vision blurred, indistinct. Teddy—Tony—turned away, fighting to keep the smile from slipping off his face.

It was a struggle.

“Tony!”

“Mr. Stark!”

“Come on, boys,” Greg said as he dropped a hand to Teddy’s shoulder. His grin was wide and crooked; he loved the attention. He always had. “There’s no need to jostle. He’s only too happy to pose for a picture or two—aren’t you, Uncle Tony?”

Teddy wet his lips and flicked his gaze up to meet Greg’s. Those dark eyes were flat and cold as they stared him down: it wasn’t a request. “Sure,” he said.

They turned to face the photographers, pops of light exploding around them. It was all he could do not to shrug off Greg’s hand; his muscles tensed in response to the friendly weight, attention narrowing down down down to the press of fingers, the pressure of his thumb. Greg had touched him a thousand times in a thousand different ways over the years—friendly, sexual, commanding, furious. Teddy couldn’t remember hating the…the imposition quite so much before.

He glanced at Greg out of the corner of his eyes, watching the way flickering light caught in his dark hair, highlighted his gorgeous face. I hate you, Teddy thought. The realization was a hollow victory at best.

“Come on,” Greg finally said, grip tightening. He canted his chin toward Teddy and arched his brows at whatever he saw on his face. It had been a long couple of days after their fight by the lake. Teddy had spent hours laying on his bed staring up at his blank ceiling and thinking of all the things he should have said. It was so easy to be defiant within the safety of his own room. “All right, boys, I think you got enough.”

The paparazzi didn’t agree. “Mr. Stark!” a photographer called. “Can you tell us about your nephew?” The flashes were beginning to give him a headache.

“He’s no one,” Teddy said, reaching up to shield his eyes. Then, before Greg could protest, “But I’m sure Cap would be happy to introduce you to his date; he should be coming out of the theater any minute.”

It was like magic. The photographers scattered, abandoning them and swooping in toward the Ziegfeld’s exits with hungry expressions. Teddy pulled away from Greg’s grip harder than necessary and turned on his heel. “Come on,” he said, yanking at his cuffs. “It’s not going to take them long to figure out Cap’s not around.”

“Nice.” Greg fell into step beside him; Teddy could feel narrowed eyes studying his face. “Good thinking.”

“Sure,” Teddy said, and the rest of the words died on his lips.

They walked in silence for several blocks, neither talking. A few heads snapped around as they passed and Teddy fought not to hunch his shoulders against the whispers he could hear drifting in their wake.

Is that…

Oh my God, was that Iron Man?

Holy sh*t! It’s Mr. Stark!

He shoved his hands into his pockets, then yanked them out again (because he was Tony Stark, not some idiot kid from Brooklyn), then shoved them back in again almost defiantly. Greg tugged out his phone, checking messages as they walked. Passing headlights painted stripes of light on his handsome face, like they’d wandered into a film noir somewhere between 8th and 7th avenues. Teddy let out a breath and turned his face, idly watching their reflections in glass as they passed emptying storefronts.

When he saw Tony Stark on the wide screen TV display, he thought for a moment it was just another reflection. But then Teddy spotted the podium, the grave faces, Captain America, and he stumbled to a stop. “Greg, wait,” he said, pressing his fingertips to the glass. The closed captioning scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

Stark Foundation is working with the city to declare Avengers Mansion a public landmark and memorial because the Avengers have officially disbanded.

He sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God.”

It shouldn’t have been such a shock. Things hadn’t been going well for the Avengers for the last few years, off and on, and they had been hit brutally hard that terrible day. The media was still confused about what exactly had happened with the disappearing Kree armada, the explosions, She-Hulk on a rampage…and the Avengers had remained silent throughout the storm. That, he supposed, should have been a clear enough sign.

Still. The Avengers had been around for so long, defending the world through so many threats—it was impossible to think of a New York without them.

“f*ck,” Greg said, echoing his thoughts.

“Yeah.” Teddy pressed his fingers against the glass, watching the words scroll, sick inside. The Tony Stark on the screen looked pale and weary, bone-tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. There was new grey at his temples, and Teddy had never noticed how tight the skin about his eyes was. Old. Tony Stark was beginning to get old. How had he never noticed that before?

Greg lightly elbowed him. “Come on,” he said. “I think it’s time we paid a visit to Avengers Mansion, don’t you, Mr. Stark?”

He jerked up his chin at that, surprised. “What do you mean?” Teddy asked. There was a queer look on Greg’s face, utterly unreadable. He couldn’t have been thinking anything.

“Don’t you want to see? They’re your heroes.”

Teddy glanced again at the television, stomach twisting. They were his heroes, and God, there was Cap, looking stooped and just as old as Tony. They were eternal—they weren’t supposed to be frail. And yet, the Scarlet Witch was gone, Ant-Man was dead, Vision was dead, God only knew what was happening with She-Hulk.

And he had been there. He had been at the center of it all at the beginning of the end. He, and Billy, and the frightened children trapped inside the school. It didn’t feel real. Maybe, if he went back there now…maybe it’d be like closing a door. Maybe he could move on.

Maybe. He doubted it, but maybe.

“Yeah,” Teddy murmured, watching the way Tony Stark gripped the edge of the podium, watching the pops of light on Cap’s pale face as the press shouted questions. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

It wasn’t far to the Avenger’s Mansion, even in this skin. People turned to stare as they moved out onto the crossstreet, whispering (Waitaminute, is that…? Oh my God, it’s Tony Stark!) and pointing, but it took less than a minute to flag a cab, and soon they were sailing up the avenue toward Central Park. The cabbie barely even looked at them.

A guard was stationed at the entrance to the mansion, still, but he was older and genial and quick to move when he spotted Teddy-as-Tony climbing out of the cab. He had the gate open before they’d even finished paying the fare.

“Thanks,” Teddy said awkwardly, wondering whether Tony Stark was the kind of man who smiled at his employees.

“Would you like me to wait for you, Mr. Stark?”

Greg answered for him. “No, we’ll lock up. Won’t we, Uncle Tony?”

“Yes, we’re fine,” Teddy said, palming the key. “Thank you.”

He only got a few steps across the mansion grounds before the guard called back at him. “It’s a right shame about the Avengers,” the man said. He stuck his thumbs in his belt, watching them from between the iron bars. “Forgive me for overstepping, it’s just… I never thought I’d live to see the day Earth’s mightiest heroes left their post.”

Teddy took an impulsive step back toward the gate, but Greg caught his elbow, pulling him up short. He glanced over, meeting Greg’s dark eyes, then looked back at the elderly guard. “I know,” he said quietly. “I…never thought I would either.” Then, because it seemed like the man was waiting for something, he added, “I’m so sorry.”

The worn lines of his face settled into something close to a smile. “Ain’t we all, sir,” the guard said before nodding approvingly and turning on his heel to shamble away.

Greg gave Teddy’s arm a sharp tug. “What is it with you and chatting up every rando on the street? Come on.”

The stone walkway was broken, irregular slabs of rock stabbing up toward the sky. Debris choked the long grass; within another few weeks, the weeds would have swallowed up the chunks of rock and scraps of metal. There was a flowerbed off to the left of the path, a wide swath torn through its center as if someone had been thrown with incredible force. He could still see the furrow of heels in the churned earth.

And there, when they turned the bend, was the ruin of the mansion looming over them.

Teddy pulled to a stop, staring up at the familiar façade. Its columns were broken, caved in against the golden brick. Some sort of aircraft was crushed against the entranceway, huge and blackened where fire had licked across metal. Staring at it, Teddy once again heard the whine of engines, felt Billy’s panicked grip against his arm as the world exploded around them. He drew in a hitching breath, eyes scanning the shattered glass windows, the piles of rubble, the crater where Ant-Man had died. “I can’t believe it…” he whispered. It felt like he’d entered a cemetery; he was surrounded by the memory of death.

“I know,” Greg bitched. “How the hell are we supposed to get in?”

“What?” He had to shake himself clear of the heavy pall. Right, no. Of course they should go inside. The front of the mansion was a ruin, but maybe inside things would be different. There had to be hope buried here somewhere. “Oh. Let me,” he said, moving to the huge metal flank of the jet. Teddy ran his hand along its side, fingers coming away grimy with soot and dust and filaments of pollen. He pressed a palm against its curve as if he could still feel the hum of its engines, then ducked to get his back under its heavy weight. He braced his legs and pushed, easily lifting the heavy metal.

Greg cursed and took a stumbling step back as broken brick and shrapnel scattered away; the high metallic whine of metal scraping against metal was briefly deafening. “You’ve got super-strength?” he demanded, actually pointing at Teddy in bald accusation. “What the f*ck, Altman?”

Teddy looked up, startled. His muscles shivered beneath his skin as he shifted back to his default form instinctively; the impossible weight of the jet pressed against his spine, and sweat broke across his brow. He didn’t use his strength often. He’d worked ever since he was a child to keep it tightly in check no matter what. “I told you that,” he said, though…had he? He couldn’t remember. There were so many parts of himself he kept tightly under wraps that now, suddenly, he couldn’t remember what Greg knew. What Billy knew.

Had he told Billy? He must have. He’d shared so much of himself with him.

Greg’s eyes narrowed as if he could hear Billy’s name in Teddy’s thoughts. “No,” he said, voice pitched low and deceptively soft. “You didn’t. What else haven’t you told me?”

Everything. “What are you talking about?”

“Forget it. Let’s do this before your rent-a-cop buddy gets suspicious.”

Teddy knew he shouldn’t just let it go. When Greg said forget it, what he usually meant was I’m going to bring this up later after I’ve had time to pick it over and get super pissed. If he pushed now, maybe they’d be able to work it out before it became a huge problem between them…but he found he couldn’t bring himself to care. It paled spectacularly in the face of everything else.

It was like a brick slotting into its place atop a towering wall. He’d spent years trying to tear pieces of that wall down. Now? He was too tired to care.

Teddy slid around the belly of the jet, letting it fall gently into place as he reached the now-accessible doors. The inside of the mansion wasn’t quite as bad as the exterior, once they got past the rubble of the front entrance. There were scorch marks along the floor and walls, and parts of the ceiling were caving in, but the structure was mostly sound. Bits of flotsam and jetsam were strewn around them amongst the shattered glass and broken stone: a picture frame, a broken chair, a shredded leather gauntlet.

Teddy looked around, feeling the tight ache in his chest expand. It really was like standing in the middle of a graveyard. There was an arrowhead by his foot, and if he closed his eyes, he could see the sweat and determination on Hawkeye’s face as he looked up toward the lights of the Kree armada moments before he died. If he closed he eyes, he could smell the lingering scent of smoke and ashes where Ant-Man was blown apart. He could almost hear the clicking whirrs of Vision being shredded and scattered across the floor.

People had died here. People had lived here. His heroes had lived here.

He turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. When his eyes caught on the gilded frame, his breath stuttered in his chest. “Look at that…” he breathed, moving a step closer. Hanging crooked on the wall was a painting of a familiar duo. “Captain Marvel and Rick Jones.”

Greg stepped behind him. “Who?”

He didn’t look back; he couldn’t take his eyes off the painting. Despite the destruction everywhere, it was completely intact. A fine layer of dust covered the oil, but when he blew against the canvas, it lifted away. Motes caught the light of streetlamps pouring through the shattered windows—they lifted in the still air, glittering, beautiful. “Rick Jones,” Teddy said, reaching up to touch the canvas. He paused, fingers an inch away, then dropped his hand. He had no right. “The kid who got the Avengers together in the first place. When he was our age.”

What must that have been like? What must Rick Jones have been like? Brave and smart and strong and good. Better than Teddy, at least. A true hero.

Like Billy, he thought wistfully. Rick Jones must have been a lot like Billy. Teddy could imagine someone like Billy Kaplan having the strength of character to face down all self-doubt and reach out to men like Captain America and Thor and the Hulk. He could imagine it so clearly that he could practically feel Billy’s presence by his side—bristling with energy, sharp edges softened by a quirking smile, dark hair falling into his eyes.

Eyes scanning Rick Jones’ face, it was all Teddy could do not to shift. He felt so dirty in his own skin. He was an intruder; he didn’t belong in a place like this. “We shouldn’t be here,” he murmured. It was a burial ground, and they had no right. He should have found a way to tell Greg no. “Come on,” Teddy added, turning to look at Greg. He was several paces away, rifling through a busted-open sideboard. “We should go.”

“No way,” Greg said, not listening. He lifted a plate, the Avenger’s A gleaming in the dim light. “Do you have any idea how much money we can get for these?”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious.” Greg rested the plates in the curve of his arm, moving toward Teddy. He lightly knocked him aside with his shoulder, reaching up with a careless, bare hand to grip the base of the oil painting. The frame scraped against the wall, metal hanger twanging as Greg tried to twist the painting free.

“Hey, what, no!” Teddy protested, grabbing for his arm. “Greg, what are you doing?”

Greg shrugged him off. “Chill out,” he said, shooting Teddy a dirty look.

“You can’t mean to… Greg. We can’t take anything.”

“Why?” He pulled again, the painting listing as it was finally lifted free of its hook. “You already steal people’s faces—their identities. What’s the f*cking difference?”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Maybe not to you.” He grunted as he hoisted the painting down, letting it drop almost to the ground before catching its frame again. His fingers dug into the canvas, warping the faces of Captain Marvel and Rick Jones—the boy who at Teddy’s age was already a thousand times braver and stronger and better than he could ever be.

“Greg,” Teddy said, watching, feeling the helpless exhaustion begin to burn away at the edges. “Stop. Put that stuff down, Greg.”

Greg just snorted. “Or what? You’ll call the cops?” He arched a brow, and Teddy watched as Greg performed his own sort of shift. His usual expression twisted, went cold, mocking. Assured, because he knew—he knew down to his bones—that Teddy wasn’t going to push him. Teddy was going to fall in line, like he always did. “You’re not going to call anyone.”

“And if I did?” he murmured, watching Greg’s face. He could feel himself begin to straighten, heat flooding his cheeks. They were facing off like they were back at that lake—only this time, Teddy could see the flash of color on canvas, could see the faces of his heroes, could feel them all around him. He wasn’t alone.

No matter what Greg said, he wasn’t alone.

And that…that was its own sort of revelation.

Greg must have read the strengthening resolve on his face. His own expression shuttered, eyes narrowing. His voice was vicious as he spat, “Who do you think they’ll believe? The class president? Or the mutant skrull?”

Teddy stood taller. “I’m not a skrull,” he murmured, feeling the shiver of his powers uncoiling, letting his shoulders shift and broaden. He wasn’t Billy, and he wasn’t Rick Jones, and he sure as hell wasn’t Captain Marvel, but even he could be strong in a place like this. “You know that.”

“Don’t tell me,” Greg spat. “Tell the cops.”

The seams of his suit jacket ripped, threads unraveling as his biceps grew. His fingers lengtehend into claws, nails curving long and wickedly sharp from the gnarled skin. Teddy flashed his teeth, feeling the surge of power and certainty fill him up and up and up until he thought he might burst with it.

He was tired of being on the wrong side; he was tired of being the bad guy. No matter what the price, he wasn’t going to do it anymore. “Put the stuff down,” Teddy growled, meaning it, “and I’ll let you leave.”

“If you do this,” Greg threatened, slowly edging away; his eyes were locked on Teddy’s gleaming claws, “then we’re done. You’re done. Your life will be a f*cking hell. I swear to Christ it will.”

Teddy bared his teeth again. “Put the stuff down, and I’ll let you leave.”

Greg swallowed. “Have it your way. Freak.” He spread his arms wide, letting the painting and plates clatter to the floor. The frame hit with a loud bang, followed by a shower of glass. Shards scattered around Teddy’s feet, but he kept his eyes locked with Greg’s until the other boy turned and walked away. Teddy watched him go; with each step Greg took, his heart felt a little lighter.

And then, finally, he was alone.

“Not alone,” Teddy reminded himself, voice quiet. He shifted back as he crouched, reaching for the painting. The frame had become warped, but the canvas was undamaged. He carefully flicked away bits of glass and dust. Captain Marvel watched him, arm around the young blond’s shoulders, corners of his mouth lifted into a faint smile.

Teddy let his fingers brush across the familiar face and felt his own lips begin to curve. It was worth it. Whatever kind of hell tomorrow brought, it was all worth it.

The sound of glass crunching under a metal boot brought his head up sharply. Just down the corridor, lost in shadow, a man in an iron suit was watching him with grave interest. “Iron Man?” Teddy said, caught somewhere between surprise and hope.

The figure—a boy, not a man—took a step forward. His metal lips curved into a faint smile. “Actually…it’s Iron Lad. I’ve been looking for you.”

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

“'Cause, with all the changes you've been through,
It seems the stranger's always you,
Alone again in some new wicked little town.
And when you've got no other choice,
You know you can follow my voice
Through the dark turns and noise of this wicked little town.”
—Wicked Little Town (Tommy Gnosis), Hedwig and the Angry Inch

**

DAY ONE, TUESDAY:

**

212-555-6701: Don’t come to school today.

Teddy passed his thumb over the screen. Pete’s text had been waiting for him when he’d finally pulled himself from a fitful sleep, stark against the ghostly blue glow.

Don’t come to school today.

That was it. That was his only warning. He supposed, if he was feeling charitable (and Teddy was trying; he was really trying to be fair in the face of what he knew was waiting for him) he should be relieved even one of his former friends liked him enough to dare. He wasn’t in some kind of uplifting teen movie—they weren’t all going to rally behind him just because he’d finally found it in himself to walk away. Greg was still the center of the universe; what was Teddy in the face of that?

He sighed and dropped his head. He’d found an empty stoop two blocks away from his school. If he craned his neck, he could just make out a swarm of kids pushing through wide double doors, talking and laughing, play-fighting, spinning elaborate lies about the alcohol they’d binged and the people they’d f*cked over the long weekend. The locker room would be full of their BS—today might be the first time in years he wouldn’t have to pretend he believed a word. That was something, right? That had to be something.

Don’t come to school today.

He wondered what Greg had planned. He hadn’t been able to stop wondering all night. When the strange kid from the future (Iron Lad. In a world full of Mister Sinisters and Silver Surfers, Teddy supposed nothing should have the power to surprise him—but really, seriously, Iron Lad) had gone and Teddy had sat through the long train ride home, the whole thing had begun to feel like a dream. A hallucination, maybe. Wishful thinking.

“I still have to locate the others,” Iron Lad had said. “I’ll find you again when it’s time to assemble.”

Right. A superhero from the future intent on building the next generation of Avengers, and he came to Teddy Altman first? What were the odds?

It was something to hold onto, at least. But he didn’t have the Avengers right now. All he had was this. All he had was that building with its swarm of kids, looming up in the distance like Mt. Doom.

And what kind of superhero was afraid of high school anyway?

“Come on,” he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. He could hear the echo of the warning bell even at this distance. “Come on, come on.” The sun was hot on his shoulders and his shirt was sticking to the curve of his spine. Every time a car raced down the avenue, trash and dust lifted around his feet. He could spend hours here, Teddy knew, sinking into himself—going deeper and deeper until the world faded into a pinprick of light and he was back in that broken shell of the Avengers’ mansion, hearing a metallic voice swear to him that he was something special.

He couldn’t prove Iron Lad wrong on the very first day.

Teddy sighed and pushed to his feet. There were only a handful of loiterers left outside the school, small clumps of kids hanging out under nearby awnings as they tried to get away with a last-minute smoke. The halls were emptying rapidly as he passed through the metal detectors. Teddy was swallowed by the steady stream of kids, carried down the long halls before breaking away by his locker. The final bell rang, and students darted like minnows; up and down the hall, doors began to close. He didn’t have time to sort his books, so Teddy just grabbed what he needed for History and shoved his bookbag inside his locker before slamming the door shut and spinning the dial. He took a single bracing breath (How bad can it be? It’s just high school) then sprinted to his first class.

The door was closing as he skidded down the hall, a rapidly narrowing monolith. He pushed through before it could fully close, slipping into the classroom with a murmured apology. Mrs. White offered a faint frown, but she just shook her head and let the door click shut behind him. Teddy ducked his head, flushing, and hurried to his seat.

Only…his desk wasn’t there.

He always sat three rows back, in the center of the classroom. Nalini Gupta sat directly in front, Karen Silver directly behind; his basketball friends took up either side of him. It’s how they’d oriented themselves on the first day of school and it’s how they’d remained all year. But today, the four of them were positioned together as if his desk had never been at their center. The aisles bulging and narrowing around them was the only sign there’d ever been a place for Teddy at all.

He froze, surprised into utter stillness. It was at once a subtle dig and a clear warning. It was a shot over the bough, at any rate. Greg wasn’t even in this class, and yet all at once Teddy was drowning in his presence. He could hear his words all over again, colored by the slap of water against the pier and the melancholy of a night full of distant stars: You were nobody when I met you.

Well, what was he now? He had a feeling Greg was only too happy to show him.

“Are you planning on staring dramatically into middle distance all day, or do I have permission to begin my class?”

“What?” Teddy turned, startled. Mrs. White was watching him with a wry half-smile, her over-plucked brows lifted in question. “Oh. Sorry. I—yeah.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, eyes darting around the class. No one was looking at him. It was so casual it became conspicuous; his skin crawled at their focused, familiar disregard.

“Teddy,” again, impatience beginning to color her voice.

He started down an aisle without a clear destination, desperate to just start moving. Teddy tried to scan for an empty desk as he walked, but it was hard to look at his friends when they were so obviously avoiding his gaze, and he found himself dropping his eyes over and over again. His lungs felt two sizes too small and his palms were suddenly sweating and he couldn’t quite swallow the bizarre desire to shout, kick something—anything—just to see if they’d break ranks and turn toward him in surprise. It was the same clammy, crawling anxiety he’d felt at the lake house, and damn Greg for doing this to him all over again.

His breath was starting to come far too fast, and he couldn’t see his desk anywhere.

Just calm down, Teddy tried to tell himself, digging his nails into his palms and casting around the classroom anxiously. All he could see was an endless sea of faces turned away from him. All he could see was the misery of sixth grade playing in constant loop behind his lids. His pulse was racing, and it was only the first hour of the first day. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, buckle so soon. This is nothing—this is fine. You’re going to be an Avenger. This is—

A foot shot out suddenly, clipping his ankle as he took a step, and Teddy went sprawling before he could catch himself. His book, notebook, pencil clattered across the floor and his temple smacked the edge of a desk; the whole world flared a brilliant white.

And yet the class was utterly silent. Not a single person turned to look.

Mrs. White began to move forward. “Teddy, are you all right? Do you—”

Teddy was on his feet in seconds, reeling unsteadily. He grabbed the edge of the desk and could feel eyes touching his skin, but the moment he looked up, faces were averted. His fingers left a rippling dent in corrugated metal, and he jerked his hand back quickly, swallowing the reflexive impulse to apologize.

“I’m okay,” he said. “I just—tripped.” He grabbed his fallen books and tucked them against his chest, fighting not to curl his shoulders in on himself as he hurried to the back of the class. Thank God there was a desk there, nudged forgotten into a corner; it was covered in lazily looping graffiti and wobbled as he slid into the seat, but he couldn’t have asked for a better haven.

Come on, Teddy thought, fighting to keep his expression unreadable as he looked up. Mrs. White was still watching him, a worried frown between her brows. Keep it together. This is nothing. This is fine. You’re going to be fine.

“Right,” she finally said, gaze dragging away. “Very well. So. Who can tell me about the New Deal?”

**

The hallway was raucous, kids spilling out of classrooms and calling to each other as they passed on their way to the next period. Teddy slipped silently amongst them, keeping close to the wall…just in case. It was strange, but he hadn’t felt so small inside his own skin for years. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was shifting unconsciously—growing shorter, thinner, easier to overlook. He’d made himself over in Greg’s image so many years ago because he’d desperately wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. Now that everything had gone so wrong, was he unconsciously reverting into that little shadow he’d once been?

Teddy murmured an apology as he wove through his classmates; he could feel their eyes on him, crawling across his skin like fruit flies only to flit away when he lifted his gaze. It was all he could do not to break into a run.

Get to your locker, grab your books, go to class, Teddy told himself. He played the words like a mantra as he ducked through knots of old friends, skirted around groups of teammates. Get to your locker, grab your books, go to class. Get to your locker, grab your books, go to class. He could survive the day just fine. This was nothing. It was all in his head.

It was—

It—

His locker was hanging open.

Teddy skidded to a stop, flinching reflexively when a kid walking too close behind clipped his shoulder. He half-turned, apology on his lips, but the boy didn’t even look at him—of course he didn’t—as he hurried away. Teddy watched him go before ticking his gaze back to the bank of lockers. His was the second row up and the eighth one over; he recognized the pictures he’d pinned to the inner door, blue plastic tray affixed with magnets still holding a bristling forest of pens and colored pencils.

This…was not good.

He made himself take a step, then another, pushing forward even as he braced himself for what he’d find inside. His brain kept flashing through everything he’d learned about schoolyard bullies from Nickelodeon and reruns of old John Hughes movies. There’d be some kind of message scrawled at the back of the locker, he figured, or a sick organic mass pooled and dribbling along its bottom. That’s how this sort of thing went, right? Pigs blood and used sanitary napkins. Mutie or Queer in jagged letters.

Something terrible. Something he didn’t want to see. Something he couldn’t avoid. His heartbeat was a hollow drum of wings.

Teddy braced himself for the worst, stomach clenched so tight as he pushed the swinging door the rest of the way open that it was almost a let-down to find that the locker was empty. There were no cruel words scrawled in permanent marker, no dribbles of blood or slop, no threats. Just empty space where his backpack used to be.

He let out a breath, shoulders slumping. He briefly considered going to the vice principal, but… Jesus, Greg was the student body president. He was the golden boy of the school. Teddy was well-liked, sure, but stacked against each other, Greg would turn up the charm and win hands down. There was no fighting him. There was no point.

Then the warning bell rang, and all up and down the halls, lockers slammed shut as kids veered toward their next class. It could have been worse, Teddy told himself, numbly pushing the door shut. He reached up to twist the lock, before giving a strangled laugh and dropping his hand. What was the point? Obviously Greg knew his combination.

Whatever. There were only a few more weeks of school left anyway. Once he tracked down his backpack, he could just carry his stuff from class to class. It could have been so much worse.

And yet, if that was true, why were his hands shaking?

**

He got to his next class just in time to see Claire slide into his usual seat. She flushed when he stopped in front of the black-top lab table, but her eyes stayed fixed on her folded hands. The pretty aquamarine nail polish she’d worn at the lake party had been mostly chipped away. As Teddy watched, Claire lifted a hand and gnawed at her thumbnail, lashes flickering up, then back down as she fought the urge meet his eyes.

He glanced toward her usual seat, where Rory now sat alone, his bookbag perched on the extra stool. All up and down the row, kids shifted anxiously and did their best not to stare.

Fine. Whatever. He could handle this.

Teddy skirted around the table and moved down the right-hand row, past the wall of huge, grimy windows. He’d never felt so aware of the squeak of his sneakers and the serrated hiss of his breath as he made his way to the only empty table. The classroom felt hushed and tense, stuffy, as if they were trapped together in a slowly closing fist. It was getting harder and harder to keep the color from his cheeks; Teddy slid into the stool and set aside his History text (because God knew where his other books were now, and sh*t, if he didn’t find his backpack, what would he do for finals?) before folding his hands with a serenity he was pretty sure everyone knew was a sham.

The air pulsed around him. The anxiety was a living thing; a heartbeat.

Just above him, high on the pitted concrete wall, the classroom clock ticked its slow revolutions around the wide white face, and time dragged to a crawl.

**

It was pure happenstance that Teddy glanced out just the right window to spot the familiar ink-swirled shoulder of his backpack. One arm was hanging out of the huge green dumpster, and every time a breeze whipped through the courtyard, its trailing nylon strap lifted and twisted into fluid shapes.

It was still there, thank God, when he pushed out the heavy side door after class and hurried down the steps. The dumpster was almost completely full, but someone had taken the time to wedge his backpack as far as it could go. Teddy pushed open the lid and fought not to gag at the smell; weeks’ worth of spoiled milk and half-eaten lunches rose around him in a noxious cloud. The smell lifted and carried with him even as he tugged his backpack free and let the lid slam shut. Teddy retreated to crouch against the protection of the building, settling his backpack between his knees as he tried to assess the damage.

The front had been ripped open, zippered mouth hanging in a gap-toothed grin, and there was a dark stain across the main pocket. His Biology book was there, and his texts for English, and Calculus. Two notebooks had fallen loose, he saw, but his sketchbook was still wedged in place. The side pocket had been ripped open, however, and a few of his good colored pencils were missing. Worse than that:

“f*ck,” he sighed unhappily, fingers digging into the empty pocket—his keys had fallen loose. He pulled the zipper the rest of the way back, checking to make sure they weren’t lodged somewhere along the bottom, but no, no, the pocket was empty. “f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.”

Teddy glanced up at the dumpster with a miserable twist deep in his gut. He hadn’t spotted anything but sticky black Hefty bags when he’d pulled his backpack free. The missing stuff must have spilled out and fallen through the cracks. Which meant he could either take a loss or push his way through mounds of trash bags—like slimy alien eggsacs—looking for needles in a haystack. Just waiting for someone to come by and slam the lid shut.

He closed his eyes. The next bell rang, shrilly echoing through the courtyard, and from the nearby street came the answering blare of a horn.

The day was only halfway over; all he wanted to do was cry.

**

Teddy hesitated on the threshold, gripping the strap of his filthy bookbag in a spasmodically clenching hand. The cafeteria was chaotic, students laughing and calling out to each other, voices overlapping until they became little more than a wall of sound. Kari sat two tables away, twisting a strand of hair around her finger, brows puckered. He could see Pete taking his familiar seat at the table they’d shared for the last few years, and Greg

(f*ck, f*ck, f*ck)

was beside him, laughing at something he said. Sunlight poured queasily through the high barred windows, catching dust motes as they drifted through the air. When Greg tipped his face, it caught his dark hair in a halo.

Teddy swallowed and forced himself to take that first step. He picked his way through the clusters of tables, heading toward the opposite end of the cafeteria, wanting—

Well. He just wanted to keep his distance, that was all. It was bad enough without going near him.

Here, there were no windows—just painted concrete littered with taped-up notices and old sign-up sheets. A few spare chairs intended for assemblies were stacked in the corner, and one of the overhead lights was flickering. A kid he didn’t recognize looked up as Teddy passed, then quickly away. The excited buzz of conversation began to quiet like generators dying out one by one.

Teddy slid into a spare seat at the end of a table and shrugged off his backpack. He leaned down to pull the zip, and thank God, thank God for that, because it was the only thing that hid his expression when, almost as one, every kid at his table pushed back their seats and rose.

He went still, gooseflesh shivering down his arms, as they grabbed their trays and brown paper bags and nervously filed away. Almost like an echo, the table immediately to his right emptied, followed by the one at his back.

He looked up in time to see the fourth table clear, Freshmen hurrying away with their heads together. Their whispers sounded like a chorus of insects. Teddy turned in his seat to watch them go, but of course none of them so much as glanced his way. It was like he wasn’t even there.

Teddy swallowed and closed his bookbag, fighting the flush that kept wanting to seep over his cheeks. He crossed his arms on the Formica table and leaned in, staring silently at his own reflection as lunch hour crawled by.

Surrounded by a sea of students, Teddy was an oasis of silence, a no man’s land in an invisible war. He was a shadow.

**

Greg was in his next class.

At the start of the day, that may not have been enough to see him hiding in a bathroom stall like a coward, but the long, slow drag of time had ripped strips of skin from his back and left him feeling…raw.

It would have been one thing if Greg had tried to confront him on the school steps. It would have been one thing if he’d pushed a physical altercation, or called him names, or shoulder-checked him in the hallway. Teddy could have handled that the way he handled bullies like John Kessler.

But this? This slow, careful peeling back of Teddy’s defenses was leaving him frustrated and shaken and vulnerable in ways he didn’t know how to counteract. How could he protect himself if Greg was playing tricks with his own mind?

It was the way no one looked at him. It was the way he knew everyone was looking when his back was turned. It was the slow, sibilant whispers that rose and fell as he moved down the halls, skittering in his wake in a way that made him feel like a stranger in his own body. It was seeing people he’d thought were his friends laughing a little too loudly over their lunch trays, leaning toward Greg as he held court and knowing every one of them would do whatever they were told just because it was Greg doing the telling. Knowing they would hurt him if asked.

It was the worst kind of betrayal.

Taken one by one, each minute of the day was bearable. Taken together and knowing—knowing—the worst was just around the bend was enough to have Teddy fighting to keep the bile from rising in his throat.

He closed his eyes and dug the heels of his palms against the sockets. The worst was to come because Greg was in his next class.

Greg was in his next class.

They sat four chairs away from each other, but it wouldn’t be enough of a buffer. He’d be able to feel Greg’s eyes on him as he stared blankly forward, sour milk-sodden books open, words bleeding together as he lost focus. He’d be able to hear the creak of his chair and see movement out of the corner of his eyes. He’d have to pass him and fight to remember what it had felt like to stand strong at the Avengers’ Mansion, gripping tight to the edges of those memories to keep from caving like he always, always did.

He’d have to find that strength inside of himself again…and after a day of slowly being ground to dust by silence, he wasn’t sure he could.

“Stop, stop, stop it,” Teddy murmured. He drew in a stuttery breath, then another, feeling so stupid he could hardly stand it. He was such a f*cking cliché—a poor little shapeshifter who couldn’t be anything but a mirror. Take away the faces peering back at him, and what was he?

“Stop it.” He jerked to his feet, grabbing the strap of his bag and yanking it over his shoulder. There weren’t many kids left in the halls when he pushed out of the bathroom, the last bell echoing shrilly; Teddy bit the inside of his mouth and refused to let himself run. He’d just…deal with it. He’d get to class, sit at his desk, and dig furrows into his palms to ignore Greg if he had to. He’d suffer through one class, and then it’d be Tuesday Art and he could go home. He could go to his white box of a room and curl up in his bed and pull the blankets over his head and just let the day wash over him like a rising tide. He could do this.

He opened the door and slipped inside. He took a single step. He froze.

No one looked up (of course, what was he expecting?) as he stood in the doorway…except for Greg. His gaze lifted to meet Teddy’s, one dark brow arched, lips curved into a smirk.

And the only empty seat in the classroom was at his side.

Teddy stared at Greg, unable to wrest his gaze away. There was history in the heavy weight of his eyes, years of friendship and frustrated love and power plays, and Teddy could practically feel Greg’s hands ghost unwanted across his skin. He could taste his breath and hear his low murmur and sense the vibration of longing and hurt stretch tight inside himself, ready to snap.

Greg lifted his chin. His tongue darted out to touch his bottom lip.

“—Teddy?” Mr. Holt was saying, but the words were all tangling up; it was a blare of noise, an incomprehensible jumble. He couldn’t stand it.

He didn’t have a choice.

“Teddy, is everything—”

“Yes, fine,” he snapped. Teddy moved to take his new seat, feeling Greg’s eyes on him in an unwanted caress. The sick awareness of that touch made his stomach twist, bile churning as he let his bookbag fall at his feet and gripped his hands into fists in his lap. This close, he could smell Greg’s familiar cologne. It coiled all around him.

The door closed as the final bell rang; the metallic clang was the reverberation of a cell door swinging shut. Don’t think like that.

Teddy drew in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, all too aware of Greg’s eyes moving over him. He dug his nails into the meat of his palms and tried to keep his expression serene, but he could feel the tremors rising from deep inside—his muscles were trembling like kernels set to pop, and his heart was racing so fast it was tripping over itself, aching in his chest. With every blink, Teddy saw another sordid memory flickering by almost too fast, like a zoetrope. Standing by helpless as Greg shoved Billy aside. Dana sitting in Greg’s lap, unwelcome hands on her skin. Spider-Man outside of Lotus. A sea of falling stars.

He squeezed his eyes shut, dizzy against the barrage of memories, Mr. Holt’s words an incessant buzzing in his ears.

And then a familiar hand touched his elbow and Greg was sliding something onto his desk.

Teddy startled, straightening to meet Greg’s eyes. His head was tilted, dark hair falling over his brow in an achingly familiar way. His brows were faintly drawn together as if in question (what’s wrong, Teddy?) and his lips were parted. Teddy had kissed those lips a hundred times. He’d watched them shape words, and had let those words dictate the direction of his life. He’d been molded by this boy in a thousand and one ways.

Greg dropped his gaze to the folded paper now by Teddy’s arm, then up to meet his eyes again. He quirked a brow.

Well?

Swallowing, half afraid and half relieved—because at least this was acknowledgement of his existence, and maybe…maybe it was a white flag, a truce—Teddy took the slip of paper and unfolded it. It was blank except for a single line, penmanship shaky as Greg tried and failed to copy Teddy’s own looping scrawl, but the words were clear enough:

Maybe I should just kill myself, it said.

Teddy looked up, frozen from the inside, and Greg just smiled. So much for a truce. So much for making it to the summer without unraveling. Don’t come to school today, the message had said—the last warning echoing from his old life, where he had people who cared about him.

Yeah. No sh*t.

Teddy crumpled the paper and shoved it into his pocket, eyes never leaving Greg’s. The sly delight in them reminded him a thousand and one jokes they’d shared; it reminded him of the years he’d wasted. Of everything he’d given.

Teddy leaned in, across the scant aisle. “f*ck you,” he said simply, then turned back to be absorbed in the lesson as if nothing had happened. Fresh start. Clean slate. Water off a duck’s back.

But inside, it felt like something was dying.

Teddy was the first out of the door when the bell rang, slamming it open and bolting down the hall. His sneakers squeaked against the ugly rust-colored linoleum as he skidded around the corner. The halls were beginning to fill, a swarm of faces all turned away from him, and Jesus Christ coming to school had been a bad idea; what had ever made him think he could do this? He flew past his locker and out the main doors. They clattered behind him, banging against their ancient frames. On the stoop, a startled knot of pigeons took wing.

He doubled over, hands on his knees, and squeezed his eyes tight against the waves of impotent fury and embarrassment crashing over him. But then he straightened abruptly, all too aware of the rows of windows looking out onto the street like sleepy eyes, students passing behind their lids on their way to the next class—Greg could be at any one of them. Watching. Laughing. Knowing he was winning.

Teddy took a shuddery breath and hurried down the steps. Traffic was already backed up with the afternoon rush; it was easy to get lost in the stop-and-go, weaving amongst cars to the cross-street and around the corner. Running away had never felt so right.

And there was only one place he wanted to go.

His school was a thirty-minute subway ride from the apartment, but when he caught the next train, Teddy went northbound instead of south. He switched to the 4, which took him straight up the east side of Central Park, where Billy’s school had nearly been crushed by the Avengers’ last battle. His feet wanted to take him that way, so used to swinging by on Art Tuesdays and Thursdays; he forced himself to keep his head down and cross to the mansion instead.

Today, Teddy figured as he found his way past the gate and into the crumbling front hall, was still salvageable. All he had to do was speak with Iron Lad again—maybe ask all the questions he’d been too shocked to articulate the first time around. He didn’t even know the kid’s real name. He didn’t know what he looked like out of his suit. He didn’t know who had sent him or why—beyond the fact that the world needed Avengers in it—and he had no real clue why he’d been approached beyond a vague assurance that Iron Lad was certain it had to be Teddy.

He’d been so shocked and vulnerable that he’d accepted it all on face value. Hell, if Lex Luthor had invited him into the Doom Patrol, he might have said yes before his brain caught up with his pathetic desire to be a part of something, anything, bigger than himself.

…Teddy really hoped “Next Generation of Avengers” didn’t turn out to be code for “Doom Patrol”. Or whatever the real world equivalent of that would be. Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?

Obvious villains are obvious, he thought, lifting the wreckage and slipping inside the mansion. It was as dim and crumbling and as empty as he remembered. This time, however, he could get a better sense of just how wrecked the mansion was. Beautiful marble floors were jagged and jutting, broken pieces scattered amongst the blackened bricks and miscellaneous debris. Sheered metal speared the wall from the jet’s impact, and Teddy could actually see dark shadows where the fire had burned dancing impressing along the peeling wallpaper. An ornate mirror was hanging further past the rubble, glass face shattered into thousands of branching veins. His face as he passed split into a nightmare visage; the sight of it made his stomach turn.

“Hello?” Teddy called. No answer.

He moved toward where he’d reverently propped the painting of Captain Marvel and Rick Jones. It was worse off than he remembered, too. The gilt leaf frame had cracked, probably from when Greg had let it fall, and a long splinter was missing from the ornate wood. The painting itself was cloudy with smoke damage; when Teddy brushed his fingers over Captain Marvel’s smiling face, they came away dark with soot.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said earnestly, looking into those blue eyes. There was glass scattered all around him from where Greg had let the plates drop. He could just make out the spike of an A on a jagged piece near his knee. It seemed a sad sort of memorial for his heroes. He was a sad sort of acolyte to carry on that great legacy. “I’ll try my best. I’ll try so hard not to let you down.”

Captain Marvels’ eyes watched him, blank and blind. Teddy sighed and rose to his feet.

“Hello?” he called again, heading deeper into the mansion. “Iron Lad?” He felt like an idiot calling out that name—seriously, Iron Lad, like they’d teleported back to the 70s or something—but he had nothing else to go on. Iron Lad had been short on the details and Teddy hadn’t pressed for more, and—

And the mansion felt empty, as if these deep inner halls hadn’t been disturbed in some time. Iron Lad had been real, hadn’t he? Teddy hadn’t dreamed him up in his desperation, right?

He paused by the wide stairway, clenching his fists against the queasy waves of uncertainty. No. Just— No. He wasn’t going to do this; he wasn’t going to shrink back and doubt himself again. It had happened and Iron Lad was here somewhere, and Teddy would find him and they would talk and he’d think to ask questions this time and the whole horrible day would slip away. It wouldn’t matter that the whole school had turned against him because he would have this, he’d belong to this, and—

And—

Iron Lad wasn’t in any of the upstairs rooms.

He wasn’t in the training rooms. He wasn’t back in the kitchen or the big dining hall or the solar. He wasn’t by the pool with its film of dark bracken or enjoying the garden or…anywhere.

Iron Lad wasn’t anywhere, and as the mansion echoed around Teddy, hollow and dark, it was like walking into that classroom all over again—like Pete’s house by the lake—standing still and feeling so very lost.

It was so easy to doubt the truth of your memory when you didn’t trust yourself. It was so easy to be left wondering. He wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole—not again, not when it had cost so much the last time—but he could feel its pull. Greg already had him curling inwards to protect himself. If Iron Lad didn’t come back, how many days of silence would it take before he quietly gave up and drifted away?

“No,” Teddy murmured, sinking down onto the bottom step. “Not going to happen.”

He wasn’t a kid anymore. He wasn’t some lonely ghost scrambling for something—anything—to hold on to, to make him feel normal. He was older than that, he was stronger than that, and he wasn’t going to break.

Greg could play all the mind games he wanted at school, Teddy told himself fiercely, but he wasn’t going to give in and he wasn’t going to start doubting himself again. He wasn’t going to let Greg win.

He’d just…wait here for Iron Lad. He’d just wait, and it would all be okay.

The minutes ticked by in silence. The hours stretched long and empty. Shadows expanded across the floor. Teddy waited.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY TWO, WEDNESDAY:

**

“I don’t feel great,” Teddy said. He didn’t even have to lie—he’d woken up with his stomach twisted into so many knots he’d spent the last half-hour kneeling on the tiles, palms braces against the toilet bowl as he breathed unsteadily through clenched teeth and fought the cold anxiety weighing his limbs down.

It would have been different if Iron Lad been there waiting for him. Everything would have been different. He could be strong.

His mother made a low noise and moved close, leaning one hip against the couch as she pressed the backs of her fingers against his forehead; they felt blessedly cool.

“You don’t feel feverish,” she said.

Teddy closed his eyes and tipped his head back. He couldn’t quite still the shiver that worked its way through him. “I never do,” he said. “But I still don’t feel great.”

Just one day, he could have begged. Just give me one day to be a coward. She studied him for a long, silent minute, eyes scanning his face as if she could read the thoughts scattering behind his lids. Teddy had to lower his eyes, certain she could see the hurt echoed there, and prayed she wouldn’t ask. Just one day. Please.

“All right,” his mother said. She cupped his face again, thumbs brushing over his cheeks as she leaned in to press a soft kiss between his brows—the Ajna chakra, as always. “I’ll call the school so they know you won’t be coming in. I’d take the day off, but…” She trailed off, unable to say what they both knew.

They couldn’t afford that.

“It’s okay,” Teddy said, forcing himself to smile up at her. He knew that if he told her what was waiting for him at school, she would go swooping in like an avenging angel to protect him. She would do whatever she could. And in the end, nothing she did would do any good, and it would only hurt her to see him hurting. He had to keep it all bundled up inside and hope that Iron Lad finally came through. It was a shaky prospect, pinning everything on the shoulders of some strange boy from the future, some promise of a team, acceptance, something, but right now, it was all he had. Greg had touched everything else in his life so thoroughly he wasn’t sure he could trust it anymore. “I’ll be here.”

But he wasn’t. The moment his mother left for work, Teddy got dressed and headed into the city to wander the empty mansion, waiting for the other boy to show himself and give him something new to hang on to.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY THREE, THURSDAY:

**

Teddy froze in the doorway—again, like he was living some kind of time loop, some f*cked up Groundhog Day—and watched Greg warily. The seat next to him was waiting. On it, Teddy’s name printed clear and clean across the front in bold block letters, was another folded note.

You can do this, he told himself, grip tightening around the strap of his bookbag. Come on, you can do this.

Greg looked up, as if sensing Teddy’s eyes on him. Slowly, slyly, his lips pulled into a welcoming smile. Teddy swallowed down bile and forced himself to step into the room. He kept his expression blank as he slid into his seat, picked up the note, and crumpled it into a ball without even opening it. Beside him, Greg chuffed a laugh.

He was once again the first one out the door when the bell rang. He ran to the mansion as if hellhounds were snarling at his heels, and waited out the afternoon in the growing shadows of night.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY FOUR, FRIDAY:

**

“Come on, Altman, get in there!” Coach yelled. “What are you waiting for?”

The sound of the basketball hitting the court was like the drumming of a heartbeat. Teddy swore he could feel it rushing beneath his skin; his breath was coming in short bursts.

“Pass, Walton! Pass! He’s wide open. Get in there, Altman!”

Coach’s bellow echoed off the gymnasium walls. It reverberated around him, stretching long and hollow, as if he were hearing it from the bottom of a deep well. The clock on the giant scorekeeper ticked down the seconds.

Teddy watched as Dave pivoted and tried to break away. Greg was halfway down the court, guarded by two of the opposing team. Pete was pinned at midcourt. Jones, Rory, all of them were fighting to break free.

He was the only one open.

“Pass! Pass! What the flipping hell is wrong with you, pass!”

Boom. Boom. Boom. The ball hit the floor in a desperate rhythm. He could swear he felt it echoing across the floorboards, through the worn rubber of his shoes, along his skin. Boom. Boom. Boom.

“He’s open! What are you doing, Walton, he’s open! Altman, get in there!”

Boom.

Chris Walton looked up, sweat streaming down his face; for a moment, his eyes almost met Teddy’s before they quickly skated away and he broke toward the left. Teddy remained where he was, hands clenching loosely, the tick of the clock like a distant drum.

That night, he fell asleep at the bottom of the ruined steps, under the watchful eye of Captain Marvel. The moon cast across his huddled form and a soft wind blew through the busted window.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY FIVE, SATURDAY:

**

He woke before dawn and slipped out when the world was still hazy with sleep. A mist had settled over the city, rolling across the mouth of the river as his train trundled toward the tunnel. Teddy watched with unfocused eyes as the worn bricks of the Brooklyn Bridge slipped past, becoming little more than a blur of muted colors.

He tried to read as he waited, curled up at the foot of the Avengers’ grand stairway, but the words ran together and he eventually set the book aside, too exhausted to care.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY SIX, SUNDAY:

**

He could see the moon through the broken spine of the mansion. Hours slipped through his fingers like water as it tumbled across the sky and sank from view.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY SEVEN, MONDAY:

**

“If you’re sure you want to quit, kid,” Coach said, leaning back in his rolling chair, “there’s nothing I can do to stop you. Maybe if you get your crap together, you can rejoin the team next year.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said. He laid the folded uniform on the edge of the desk, hearing the ticking down of that clock, the steady Boom. Boom. Boom. of the ball drumming the court. “Sure.”

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY EIGHT, TUESDAY:

**

“Baby, you look terrible.”

Teddy looked up from his Frosted Flakes, spoon halfway to his mouth. His mother was already dressed in her “serious business lady” clothes, blond hair pulled back in a loose chignon. There were fake pearls at her neck and bright pink tennis shoes on her feet.

He took a bite of cereal. “Thanks,” Teddy said around the mouthful. “Build that fragile teenage ego one brick at a time, Mom.”

She snorted and skirted around him to check the coffee pot. The warm, homey scent drifted through the kitchen. He thought, maybe if he just curled up under the table and didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t think, the day wouldn’t be so bad.

Teddy didn’t like to think he was a coward, but he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.

And his mother was talking. God, he needed to stop fading in and out of his surroundings like tuning a radio dial; it wasn’t what normal people did. “…getting enough sleep? What time did you come in last night?”

He took another bite of cereal. He’d stayed at the mansion until nearly 3 in the morning, hoping that Iron Lad would finally show. It had been a week since that night. No, longer. God, yeah, it’d definitely been longer. It was funny how the time took on a strange sort of sameness, as if his life had become little more than a hall of mirrors. The days echoed as far as Teddy could see, endlessly recursive—flaying skin from bone.

But it’s better than it was, he told himself. It’s more honest, at least.

Teddy swallowed a mouthful of OJ. “I dunno. What time did you go to bed?”

His mother frowned at him, turning to lean against the counter. Her hands curled around the brightly painted coffee mug; wreaths of smoke rose in curly-cues before her face. “Ten, I think.”

“Sometime after ten, then.”

The frown deepened. “Teddy—”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted. He pushed back from the table, gathering his half-eaten bowl of cereal. “I’m fine. I’ll make sure I pay better attention, okay?” She caught his arm when he leaned past her to set the bowl in the sink. “Mom. I need to get dressed.”

But she just set her mug aside and brushed her hand over his brow, pushing back the long fall of his bangs. Her eyes sought his, and Teddy had to look away. There was no point in making her worry; he couldn’t let her see the endless well of ache inside, the way he was tripping over his own memories as if sifting for the truth of things within the wreck of his own faulty perceptions.

He couldn’t let her know how much hope he had pinned on a boy he was starting to doubt ever existed. He’d been shaken after his fight with Greg. He’d still been reeling from the incident at the lake. Maybe Iron Lad hadn’t been there at all. Maybe he was just…remembering it wrong. Maybe he’d dreamed it all up.

Smile, he told himself, and he did, shifting to add color to his cheeks, a healthy brightness to his eyes. The last time he’d chased down this rabbit hole, his mother had practically beggared them trying to pay his therapy bills; that wasn’t going to happen again. He could handle this. Greg couldn’t f*ck with his mind like this. “Everything’s cool,” he promised.

“Oh, it’s cool is it?” Her voice didn’t carry the right amount of levity; she was worried. But she was trying.

He widened his smile. “Cool as Ice.”

His mother snorted and reached for her coffee again. The tension broke, and he was able to pull away. “You sing Vanilla Ice in the shower one time and no one ever lets you live it down.”

“Nope,” he agreed. Then, as casually as he could, “I’ll probably be a little late again tonight; is that okay?”

“Sure,” she said, turning back to the dishes. “Though goodness knows I never hear you slipping in anyway. You could be out all night and I’d never catch on. Tell me truthfully, Teddy—are you a vampire?”

Teddy did his best to grin. “Stop reading Twilight,” he said, backing out of the kitchen. There was too much truth to what she was saying for it to sit comfortably beneath his skin. Any longer in her presence, and he feared all the things left unsaid would come spilling out of him in messy tangles. “That stuff rots your brain.”

He made it to school in an anxious haze. The day dawned. The day passed. The moon rose.

Iron Lad never came.

**

DAY NINE, WEDNESDAY:

**

Teddy was exhausted. The day had been… Well. There was no point dwelling on how bad the day had been, was there? Every second that dragged by, every minute, every hour pulled together into another day closer to summer. With summer break, there would be some relief. There would be—

f*ck.

—some time to curl in on himself and let fresh wounds scab over.

He scrubbed his palms over his face as he pushed through the halls, ignored by everyone, ignoring everyone. Teddy no longer bothered trying to meet anyone’s’ eyes. He didn’t talk unless directly addressed by a teacher, he didn’t lift his head, and he didn’t let anything show. If he didn’t react, maybe Greg would let him be.

Yeah. Sure.

The sun was warm against his shoulders as he moved out the main doors and headed dully down the steps. All around him, kids he’d known for years were shouting happily to each other, burning with life and energy. They were so colorful, it almost hurt his eyes; they were so loud he hunched in on himself. He thought maybe, if one of them brushed against him by accident, he would lose his mind.

Stop being so dramatic, Teddy told himself, absently jerking on the straps of his bookbag. He turned instinctively toward the subway that would take him into the city, carried amongst the wave of students like a leaf on a stream. He was no more a part of them than he was of, God, anything. He was drifting.

The slap of his heels against concrete made a hollow drum, and metal whirred as kids pushed through the turnstile. A wind whipped from below as a train arrived or departed—who cared?—and Teddy moved down onto the platform just in time to see the doors to the Manhattan-bound train sliding open. Waiting. Expectant.

The mansion was that way. Iron Lad was that way. The next generation of Avengers. All of it.

He sighed and slumped against a pylon, rubbing at his face again. The doors chimed, then slid shut. The train lurched forward. It left him behind.

He’d given up waiting for Iron Lad.

**

DAY TEN, THURSDAY:

**

Teddy folded his arms on his desk and rested his flushed cheek against the cool metal. He squeezed his eyes shut and counted every breath. By the end of the day, he was too tired to lift his head.

The sun rose, the sun set, and he never said a word.

**

DAY ELEVEN, FRIDAY:

**

Teddy was halfway to the subway before he realized his phone was buzzing against his hip.

He startled, pulled out of his thoughts by the erratic tempo, and dug into his jeans to tug it out. He kept it muted throughout the school day, but really, he was so wary of his own phone now that there was almost no point in keeping it around. He’d blocked Greg’s number—self-preservation was different from cowardice—but he couldn’t help but be suspicious of any calls that might come through. Could he trust Pete, Kari, Claire? Sam? Could he possibly assume that anything that came from them wasn’t funneled through Greg?

It was pretty sad, Teddy figured, that he’d reached a point where he was paralyzed by all the terrible things that might be said to him.

He sighed and swiped his thumb across the faceplate, then frowned at the text. It was an unfamiliar number, which had him immediately on guard (if he couldn’t trust his former friends, he certainly couldn’t trust anyone else), and the message was…odd. Really odd.

212-555-0101: He said it was like Pokémon. 5:00.

What?

Teddy straightened, looking up and down the busy street. If this was a jab, he didn’t get it, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a cluster of kids somewhere nearby laughing at his confusion. There’d be another message, surely, teasing out the hoax until the cruelty became clear—that’s how this sort of thing went. It was all a joke, and he was the butt of it.

He was too tired to play along.

Teddy shoved his phone into his pocket and turned grimly back toward the subway entrance. His cell buzzed against his hip again as he started to take the steps two by two down to the station, but he ignored it. It had been a long, hard, sh*tty day, and all he wanted was the relative safety of his apartment. He’d put on music, maybe, and make himself dig out the sketchbook he hadn’t bothered taking out of his bookbag for the last few weeks. Or maybe he’d put something mindless and fun on the TV and just relax into the simple pleasure of not being himself for a few hours.

That, he decided as he moved onto the waiting train, sounded like some kind of Heaven. That, he vowed as he hurried down his street, was exactly what he needed. He’d just unwind and not think. Not think about Greg, about school, about the empty summer cracked wide and spilling messily before his feet. How had he survived the silence before he’d changed himself for Greg? He’d have to remember soon, or risk diving so far into his own thoughts there wasn’t any point in coming out again.

And that—that stupid fear he’d had ever since he was a kid curled on the edge of Dr. Singh’s couch and fighting to find the words he’d lost—was enough to have him fishing out his phone to check the follow-up messages. Because being the butt of a joke was better than not being acknowledged at all, wasn’t it?

God, he was so stupid.

212-555-0101: Okay, Eli said that didn’t make sense.

212-555-0101: I’m sorry, this is very new to me.

212-555-0101: I’ve found you all. We’re ready. 5:00.

212-555-0101: So. Assemble.

Teddy blinked, suddenly torn and drifting somewhere between shock and disbelief. That was… That… He squeezed his eyes shut, bearing down viciously hard against the surge of hope. No, no, f*ck no, he wasn’t going to fall for this trap again. Not once he’d finally given up on Iron Lad being real. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t—

I can’t believe he made a Pokémon joke.

And the sheer absurdity of that was enough to startle a laugh out of him.

Almost reluctantly, Teddy checked the time, then cleared the screen with a swipe of his thumb. He was still standing in the colorful little hallway between his room and the living room, backpack slung over his shoulder, head bowed, heart racing. Outside, a horn blared. He could hear his upstairs neighbors moving across the hardwood floor, and unfamiliar music drifted from somewhere nearby. The world was still spinning by as if nothing had changed.

But that wasn’t true, was it? Iron Lad was real, had come back, wanted him after all. And there were others—Eli, he’d said, as if that name should mean anything to him—who were at least willing to accept one Teddy Altman, battered around the edges but still somehow holding it together, on their team. The next generation of Avengers. Holy crap, it was actually happening.

And, all at once, he couldn’t wait for 5:00.

Teddy slung off his backpack, tossing it blindly toward his closed bedroom door. It hit with a thunk, tumbling into a graceless sprawl as he shoved his keys back into his pocket. He checked for his Metro card, and Teddy bit back a sudden grin, turning on his heel and bolting out the door.

The slap of his tennis shoes against the sidewalk was a counterbeat to the wild racing of his pulse; Teddy practically flew down the steps and onto the next Manhattan-bound train. He hadn’t felt this light inside in weeks—ever since he’d faced off against Billy on that rooftop bar and shattered the fragile thing between them once and for all. The days after that had been a steady progression of lows, but this? This was a chance to set things right.

He wasn’t going to have to mimic his heroes, Teddy thought, swaying with the steady drone of the car. He was going to be given the chance to become one.

He was the first out of the train when they hit 59th, weaving through throngs of tourists and bored Upper East Siders with their Bloomingdales and Bergdorf shopping bags. Teddy vaulted up the steps, practically flying through the turnstile and up to the street. This was Billy’s stop, but he didn’t even look around guiltily this time; instead, he ran, blowing past kids loitering in small gangs and harried-looking men glancing at their watches as the lights changed. He nearly flew straight into the path of a horse and carriage as he crossed into the Park, spooking the animal and earning a flurry of curses from its handler.

“Sorry!” Teddy called over his shoulder. Sunlight pushed through gently shifting leaves, painting his skin in mottled shadows as he tore across the grounds toward the massive gate surrounding the mansion. He knew the trick of it by now—could probably break into the mansion in his sleep—and Teddy was up and over the wall with no effort, dropping to the ruined yard with a soft thud. He moved around the mansion toward the more accessible back entrance, clenching and unclenching his hands in anticipation. The door, he saw with a painful lurch in his chest, was open a few inches. Welcoming.

He took a step forward…then hesitated. All the fears and doubts were swirling around him again, breaking about his battered frame like the shifting of the tide. What if they didn’t want him after all? What if he wasn’t good enough? What if he’d made too many mistakes to be a part of something new and good and just?

What if what if what if.

Teddy wet his lips, suddenly caught in the intense desire to turn on his heel and run, and forced himself to take a step. Another. There were low voices drifting through the open doorway, and the familiar metal inflection made everything inside him clench painfully tight. It was real. It was real.

And then he was at the top of the steps without really realizing how he’d gotten there—time was flowing together in messy watercolor swirls—one hand reaching out to push the door open. The hinges squealed in protest and the voices went silent. You can do this, he told himself, stepping inside and nudging the door shut behind him. He blinked against the sudden dim after the dazzling summer sky, shifting his eyes to make them adjust faster. You have to.

Iron Lad was there in his red-and-silver metal suit, expression somehow very clear despite the mask. Next to him was an unfamiliar kid with a shaved head, wary dark eyes, and ripped jeans. There was blood clinging to the unravelling threads; he jerked his chin in welcome.

“Hey,” Teddy said.

“Hey,” the kid—Eli?—returned. His accent was pure New York.

“You’re early as well,” Iron Lad said, sinking back onto the step he’d been perched on. His shoulders hunched forward a little, elbows resting on his knees, and Teddy’s memories of that night may have been hazy at best, but he certainly didn’t remember the other boy looking so young. It was probably just a trick of the suit, but something about the uncomfortable way he held himself made him seem…fourteen? Fifteen? Definitely not the wise older figure Teddy had built him up to be in his head. “Maybe I should have just told everyone to come right away.”

The other boy snorted, eyes never leaving Teddy. “Maybe you shouldn’t have sent a text,” he grumbled.

“The Pokémon crack was good, at least. I’m Teddy,” he added. Then, because it seemed more information might set them at ease, he added, “Teddy Altman, from Brooklyn. You can Facebook me if you want, but brace yourself for more general nerdery than you’re probably prepared to handle.”

“Eli,” the kid said, slowly leaning back against the wall, arms crossing over his chest. Teddy couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t trying to set anyone at ease. “And the Pokémon joke was stupid. If you’re serious about this, you have to actually be serious.”

Iron Lad looked up, making a face. It was extraordinary the way the mask molded to his features, showing even the most subtle nuances of his expression—why couldn’t Iron Man’s do that? “Again, I’m sorry you didn’t appreciate the joke. I don’t even know what it means; you can blame B— The fourth Avenger when he arrives.”

Teddy looked around and snagged a dusty and battered chair, dragging it over. “So, you two know each other?” he asked, checking to make sure it’d take his weight before settling in. When he looked up, both Eli and Iron Lad were frowning at him. “…what?”

“No,” they said as one, not in any way belying his first impression.

Awwwwkwaarrrd. “Oh, okay, my bad. Um, so how many of us are there? Are we waiting on anyone besides…B?”

“There’s just one more. Vision indicated that— Well, I can tell the whole story when he gets here, but you three were the ones I had access to, and it was hard enough tracking you down. I’m sorry it took me so long,” he added, looking at Teddy. “I tried.”

The earnestness of that I tried was enough to bring a very real smile to his face. Teddy felt himself relaxing back into the chair, tension bleeding away by careful degrees. “Hey, no, it’s fine. I just, you know, hung out for a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?” Eli demanded. “Couldn’t Vision give you more accurate information than that?”

Iron Lad’s earnestness burned away as he bristled in response. “He was in pieces,” he protested. “It’s a wonder he could communicate anything at all.”

“I thought you were some kind of tech expert.”

“I’m not some kind of anything; I am a tech expert, and I’m telling you, it was nearly impossible to get the information I needed from his remains.”

Eli scowled. “Where is he? I want to see him.”

“So you can, what, punch the information out of him?” At Eli’s awkward silence, Iron Lad jumped to his feet. “No!”

Eli immediately straightened. He was tall and broad, muscles straining against his simple black t-shirt. Super-strength? Teddy wondered. It seemed likely. “Look, I’m just saying it’s worth trying to get more.”

“By punching the Vision. I can’t believe you.”

“Has anyone tried turning him off and on first?” Teddy asked, and he immediately lifted his hands in a warding gesture when the two boys turned their glowers on him. “Whoa, sorry—no more inappropriate jokes, I promise.”

But inappropriate or not, the crack seemed to have broken the tension, at least. Eli huffed a breath that was almost a laugh and dragged his palm over his skull. His single gold hoop caught the dim light when he moved. “Where can you find Control Alt Delete on an android?” he mused, going to grab another chair. He dragged it across the floorboard to Teddy’s, then flopped into it gracefully; clouds of dust rose around them, like the inside of a snowglobe. “So, Brooklyn Teddy, let me guess: you’re the white Captain America’s grandson.”

“Um, only in my wildest dreams,” he said with a crooked grin, then paused. “Wait, holy sh*t, are you saying you’re Isaiah Bradley’s grandson?”

Eli leaned forward, intent. “Are you saying you’ve heard of Isaiah Bradley?”

“…holy sh*t.” He was sitting next to Isaiah Bradley’s grandson. Isaiah Bradley’s grandson was talking to him. “Okay, so you probably hear this all the time, but your grandfather is one of my freaking heroes.”

Eli snorted and leaned back again. “Yeah, I don’t actually hear that so much. So what’s your power, then? If Iron Lad’s the tech guy, and I’m the, uh, muscle I guess, what are you?”

I don’t know, Teddy couldn’t admit. I don’t know why you would want me at all. “Well, I’m pretty strong too,” he said slowly. “And I can—”

But he was cut off by the door pushing open.

A wind blew from the garden, carrying with it the scents of flowers and pines growing along the high fence. The mansion was close enough to the street that he could hear the banshee wail of sirens and voices raised in an argument; horse hooves clopped as a buggy drove down one of the Park’s winding roads. The newcomer was silhouetted in a dazzling burst of shadows and light.

For no reason at all, Teddy’s heart lurched in his chest, then began to pick up speed. He slowly rose to his feet as the kid stepped inside and nudged the door shut. “Hey, sorry,” the boy said, and it was a sudden, fierce blow; all at once, there wasn’t enough air—he was gasping in a breath that wouldn’t come, body frozen, muscles screaming tight because, because, sh*t because he knew that voice. “I came as fast as I could. Am I late? I—”

And then Billy—Billy—looked up and met Teddy’s eyes and the words fell away as if snatched from his throat. He stumbled to a stop, brown eyes going wider and wider; Teddy could see the way he trembled where he stood.

He’d heard every cliché about how the world could go still, but this was the first time he really understood it. The muffled sounds of traffic died. The light seemed to freeze where it was, catching each individual mote of dust and making it gleam gold around them. The air vibrated with tension, and he couldn’t stop staring at Billy’s face, Billy’s eyes, the familiar dark tangle of Billy’s hair. Billy’s lips parted in surprise and his hands lifted as if torn between conflicting desires to reach for Teddy, to push him away.

Billy, Teddy thought, world spinning dizzily around him; Iron Lad and Eli might as well never have existed. Oh my God, of course, of course it would be you.

“Hey,” Teddy murmured; his voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t used it in years. It was fitting—he could track the amount of time since he’d last seen this boy he loved in the strips of flesh flayed from bone. Being near him again was…f*ck, he was so dizzy with it, he wasn’t sure what it was yet. “So. You’re B.”

Billy took a full step back, his hands lifting the rest of the way in clear warning. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, but his voice was more hurt than angry. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Um,” Iron Lad said; Eli hushed him with a low hiss.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said automatically. It didn’t matter that he’d had no way of knowing Billy would be here—he was sorry to see him hurt again, would do anything to make it better. He took a step closer. “Billy, I didn’t—”

Billy’s shoulders hunched forward protectively in that way he had—as if Teddy were about to take a swing at him. That, more than anything, flayed him to the core. “No, f*ck,” Billy said; his voice was shaken and, strangely, powerful. “No. Teddy. I don’t want you here.”

I’m sorry, he almost said again, but he didn’t get the chance. There was a sudden flare of blue light so brilliant he had to lift his arm to shield his eyes, protecting his face as it broke like a wave over his head. It crashed over him, through him, cold as a winter’s night. The whole world seemed to tip sideways with him rattling about helplessly inside it, and Teddy almost swore he heard Billy shout his name before the words were snatched away into silence.

Silence, stillness, blue light all around—and then the world rushed back in a jarring whoosh, leaving him staggering to his knees and retching.

What the hell; what the f*ck.

Teddy shuddered and pressed his palms against the prickle of asphalt. The whole world had changed in a moment, and he could only sway dizzily as he fought to right himself. He dragged in a breath and tasted ozone. He felt the salt air against his cheeks. He smelled the tang of asphalt beneath him. He lifted his head, squinting up at the unexpected seagulls circling dark against the sinking sun.

…and heard the blare of a horn as, impossibly, an eighteen-wheeler came barreling down the unknown highway and straight toward him.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

“‘If I told you things I did before, told you how I used to be,
Would you go along with someone like me?
If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history,
Would you go along with someone like me?’

‘I did before and had my share, it didn't lead nowhere.
I would go along with someone like you.
It doesn't matter what you did, who you were hanging with—
We could stick around and see this night through.’”
—Young Folks, Peter Bjorn and John

**

“Jesus!” Teddy gasped. He jerked back, staggering blindly out of the path of the eighteen-wheeler bearing down on him like a swinging fist. He nearly tripped over his own trailing laces, one hand scraped raw as he lurched against hot asphalt, then shoved himself back up, panicked, scrambling instinctively toward safety. The blare of the horn echoed through his body. The whoosh of displaced air made his shirt snap and furl around him seconds before impact.

And then (thank God, oh my God) his sneakers crunched in loose gravel littering the side of the road. The eighteen-wheeler’s horn blared in another blatant curse as it passed a quarter-inch from his shocked-still frame. Sand and bits of trash swirled about his knees. Teddy sucked in a terrified breath.

…and then it was gone, moving fast into middle distance, and Teddy was left standing by the side of the road, breathing hard, trembling.

What the hell. What the f*ck?

What the actual f*cking hell?

It took everything he had not to collapse where he stood. Teddy pressed a hand to his forehead, swaying; he had to close his eyes against the shock, too disoriented for everything to click into place just yet. It…it didn’t make any sense. Even if he walked through each step of his day, it didn’t make sense. He’d answered Iron Lad’s call. He’d gone to the Avenger’s mansion. He’d seen Billy. Billy had—somehow; how long had he been a mutant, too, and not told Teddy?—sent him away. Sent him here.

And that truck, Jesus. Had Billy sent that, too? Did he really hate him that much?

That was the worst of it. That, after everything else, after this whole f*cking miserable month, was almost too much to bear. His knees knocked together, and Teddy thought for a bright, helpless minute that he might just collapse on the edge of some unknown highway. He thought he might cry.

“Dude!” someone called, and Teddy whipped around; he was so keyed up, so raw, he almost shifted, fingers lengthening into claws before he could get a hold of himself. The boy didn’t seem to notice, shading his eyes against the setting sun as he jogged over the trash-strewn dunes toward the highway. “Dude! You almost got pancaked. Are you all right?”

No, Teddy wanted to say. No, I am somewhere very far from all right. “Yeah, sure,” he said instead, dragging his fingers through his hair and falling back on familiar tricks to keep the truth off his face, out of his voice. His racing heartbeat was only now beginning to slow, fight or flight gradually seeping from his panic-clenched muscles. Jesus. Billy could have easily gotten him killed. “It probably looked like a closer call than it was. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine, man,” the guy said. Over his beefy shoulders, Teddy spotted a couple of other teenagers—his friends?—moving over the crest of the dunes. “D’you want to come chill? I can get you a beer. You look like you could really use one right about now.”

“No, thanks,” he said, even as one of the girls skidded down the embankment to join them.

She had long dark hair streaked with blonde highlights. A lime green bikini hugged generous curves. The look she shot Teddy, dark eyes scanning him from head to toe in a long, slow slide, was warmer than he’d like. And yet…how f*cked up was it that her open, unwelcome interest was relaxing in its own way? Familiar. He could use a shot of familiar right about now.

“Hey,” the girl said, hooking one arm into the boy’s. Standing together, they were an obvious matched pair despite her wandering eye. “You joining the party?”

“This is Angela,” the kid said, jerking his chin toward her. “Back there’s Chad, Trevor, and Bea. I’m Angelo. Yeah, I’ve heard every crack about the two of us already,” Angelo added with a crooked grin. His dark hair was spiked up and frosted at the tips. His baggy trunks were nearly the same green as the girl’s. “But if you’ve gotta get it out of your system, you may as well go ahead.”

“No,” Teddy said, looking between them, then up at the gathering crowd of kids—drifting over from the party at the sound of their voices, he guessed. The heavy beat of their music vibrated the salt-tinged air. The steady crash of waves played counterpoint. “I don’t see any need to take a swing. I’m Teddy. And—” He took a step forward and his legs practically jellied, threatening to give out before he locked his knees. He could still feel the strange chill of Billy’s…whatever the hell that had been…swirling around him, making him shiver despite the early summer heat.

Billy.

Christ.

He rubbed his face with the heels of his hands. He was still having a difficult time grappling with what exactly had happened. One minute he was with Eli and Iron Lad, relaxing into the hope that things were finally changing for him, and then the door was opening. Billy was standing there, Billy was meeting his eyes for the first time in weeks, Billy was throwing up his hands and using some kind of teleportation spell to send him here—wherever here was.

Billy had taken one look at him and sent him away. If he let himself think about that too hard right now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep standing.

“Actually,” Teddy said, dropping his hands. Angelo and Angela were looking at him with open curiosity. He could only imagine how he must look to them. “I think I could use a beer after all.”

Her tanned face cracked open into a wide grin, teeth an unnatural dazzling white. Angela reached out to snag his sleeve as he carefully (legs still wobbly as a foal’s) moved to join them. Her manicured nails were long as talons and painted in green zebra stripes, but her grip was warm and blessedly grounding. “sh*t, you’re cold,” she said, pressing up against his side. “C’mon. Bea and I will get you nice and warm in no time.”

“That’s what she said,” Angelo muttered under his breath. He shot Teddy a playful smirk as the three of them headed up the dune to join the others. “This here’s Teddy,” he said. “He’s going to chill with us for a while.”

There were about a dozen more kids down on the beach below the ridge of dunes. Blankets had been spread out, and a few old lawn chairs dotted the sand. A ring of coolers was parked at the center of the party, like an old-fashioned bonfire; silver cans bobbed in a sea of melting ice, catching the last light of the sun. A few kids looked up as they rejoined the party, but no one broke away from what they were doing, eyes skating over Teddy and then away as they unquestioningly accepted his presence.

It was so unbelievably normal. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like.

“Come on, Teds,” Angela said, tugging him toward a free beach chair. “You seriously look like you could use a minute off your feet. Bea, can you grab some beers?”

“I’ve got it, ladies,” Chad-or-Trever said. “Hey man, Bud or Miller?”

He sank into the chair, grateful. “Miller’s fine,” Teddy said. “Hey,” he added, “this is going to sound pretty crazy but: where am I?”

Bea—her blonde hair swept up into a messy bun, dark as her lifted brows at the roots—laughed. “Okay, whatever you took, I hope you brought enough for the class. You’re in Seaside Heights.”

Seaside—

What the hell? Billy had exiled him to the Jersey Shore. It was almost ridiculous enough to surprise a laugh out of him. It was that or be hurt, or be angry, and Teddy was still too shaken by the unexpected turns this day had taken to give in to either emotion.

Later. He’d be hurt and angry later.

“Thanks,” he added when Chad-or-Trevor passed him a beer. It felt cool against his fingertips, beads of sweat dripping to the sand. Someone cranked up the music as some song he didn’t recognize began to play.

“You from farther in?” Bea asked. She pushed back a dangling string from her bikini top and reached for a pair of shades.

“Brooklyn,” he said immediately. Then, when they co*cked their heads, he added, “I, uh, got a ride with friends.”

Angela snorted. “Not the same friends who tried to run you over, I hope.”

No, just…teleported. Or something. “Not this time. Do you all live around here?”

“We’re all shore brats, yeah. Well, Chad’s from farther in, but we don’t hold that against him. Do we Chad?”

Chad looked up with a wide, crooked grin, and offered Angela a two-fingered salute. She just snorted and flipped him the bird. “Assmuncher. Ignore him—he has the manners of a goat.”

Bea curled her fingers around her own beer, nails tapping random tunes into the aluminum. “What part of Brooklyn are you from, Brooklyn Teddy? I know a couple of kids from there. Most of my crew up thataway are Islanders, though. You ever go onto the island?”

“Not that often, no. Staten Island’s kind of a…whole other world.” Much like Jersey. He felt like a stranger in a strange land sitting here with these friendly, brightly-dressed kids. He felt like an alien—out of place, out of touch, struggling to catch the rhythms of the party and adapt the way he always did.

Teddy made himself smile and take a shallow sip of beer, letting his silence speak for him. Angela and Bea seemed to catch on, at least. They started chatting mostly to each other, occasionally looping him in as they talked about the latest gossip. School was already out for the Jersey kids, though Teddy still had a handful of weeks left to go. They’d buried their textbooks under piles of clothes and had given themselves to the sea—days of laying out on the sand or sitting with friends on the pier, evenings riding about the twisting Jersey roads and belting along with the radio. Binge drinking and making out beneath the stars.

It sounded achingly familiar; it sounded like any number of summers he’d wasted away. It sounded all at once hollow compared to the memory of Iron Lad in the shadow of the ruined Avengers’ mansion, telling him Teddy Altman was needed to save the world.

As if Teddy Altman had ever used his powers for anything other than finding the easy way out. As if he could ever be some kind of hero.

God, this had to be some kind of cosmic joke.

Bea leaned back on a hand and laughed over her shoulder at her friends. The party was spinning on around them, as if he had stumbled into the center of a multi-colored pinwheel—a kaleidoscope, where each revolution brought people together and apart by turns. He was safe here. He was okay here.

…and yet he couldn’t get Billy’s shocked face out of his head.

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the weeping can to his forehead. He had to stop thinking like that. He had to stop thinking, period—but he couldn’t seem to shut off his brain. I don’t want you here, Billy had said, and somehow sent him away as easily as taking out the trash.

He lurched to his feet just as Angela turned to him with a volleyball clasped between her sand-flecked hands. She arched her brows, startled, and Teddy quickly shifted to control his expression. He made himself smile, wryly handing down the mostly-full beer.

“Here,” he said. “Actually, I probably should be heading back. I’ve got a long trek out to the city.”

“Oh sh*t, man, you have to go all the way back to Manhattan?” Angelo flopped down on the towel next to Angela, bumping her shoulder lightly. “There isn’t a station for miles. If you stick around, I’m sure someone’ll be able to get you a ride to the train.”

“Nah,” Teddy said, taking a casual step back. Then another. “I’ve got it. Seriously, though, thanks. I really appreciate you letting me sit with you while I caught my breath. Sorry I wasn’t a better guest.”

“Any time, man,” Angelo promised; his smile was crooked but genuine. Next to him, Angela shaded her eyes and smiled her own goodbye. He couldn’t help but wonder: if he’d found his way into a group like this years ago, instead of ending up more than half in love with a boy who only knew how to take and take until there was nothing left to give, where would he be now?

Laying out by the surf, drinking a beer, getting lost in the heavy beat of some song he didn’t know. Content.

Stop simplifying things, he told himself as he turned and trudged back up the dunes. The way was easier now that his legs didn’t feel like giving out. You always had a habit of doing that.

The highway was still waiting for him, the occasional car blaring snatches of music as it passed. Teddy stopped on the broken shoulder, bits of asphalt crumbled around his feet, and stared at the place he’d first appeared. The place Billy (stop it, stop it, not now, not yet) had sent him.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see. Some kind of blast radius? A circular shadow where he’d been dropped? Something. Instead, there was a whole lot of nothing. That patch of asphalt was no different than any other—Jesus, he wasn’t even completely sure he was looking at the right place. He’d been pretty distracted by not getting run over when he’d first touched down.

“It doesn’t matter,” Teddy finally told himself. “Whatever. f*ck it. f*ck all of it.”

The words rang hollow in his ears.

Teddy sighed and moved into an easy crouch, tugging off his shirt. He concentrated on the watercolor blur of skin stretching, of bones hollowing out, of muscles lengthening. A growing shadow was cast over the roadside debris as his wings unfurled, spreading wide; he pressed his fist to the hot road and felt bits of glass and gravel dig between his knuckles as he hunkered down.

And then, with a great push, he was launching into the air, loosened shoelaces a comet’s tail behind him.

Teddy concentrated hard as his wings stroked the air, taking him higher and higher toward the late afternoon sky. The sun was hanging heavy to the west, casting lengthening shadows as it moved slowly toward the horizon. He had a long way to go before he was home. And miles to go before I sleep.

Teddy circled once above the Jersey Shore party—already looking Barbie-small as he flew higher and higher—and turned his way instinctively toward home. He may as well get started.

The flight from Seaside Heights to the city was long and difficult. It took all of Teddy’s concentration to fight the steady summer breeze—he couldn’t see the air currents, but he could feel them knocking against his decidedly not aerodynamic body, trying to drag him back with each unsteady beat. By the time he reached sight of Manhattan’s skyline, the sun was a sliver on the horizon and his entire body ached with the strain. He’d made it. And yet…he was oddly reluctant to keep going. Teddy flared his wings and righted himself, taking a moment to catch his breath and still his sudden nerves. The setting sun cast the city in a bands of shadows. Lights were already burning atop the Empire State Building, a green and red and white glow ghosting over the high spire. The last rays of the sun refracted off the narrow mouth of the Hudson, caught in the winking eyes of the many-paned Chrysler building. The whole city was a living creature, humming with anticipation, watching as he hesitated on the brink of return.

He was like a fly, Teddy thought, studying the spider’s web.

And, I wonder what would happen if I just never went back?

The thought was there and gone again in an instant. Of course he had to go back. Of course he couldn’t just turn tail and run away, become someone else, start a new lie and a new life in some new place where no one knew any better.

He couldn’t be that kind of coward.

But for a moment, hovering mid-air over the gleaming sprawl of the city, he could dream of a life far away from the twin heartbreak of Greg Norris and Billy Kaplan. For a moment, he could imagine a world where he didn’t have to be himself.

Coward. Coward.

Teddy sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face, the meat of his palms digging into his eyes. No, this was his bed—it was time to lie in it. Whatever Billy had done, it was well-deserved. He had it coming. And after years of playing toady to Greg Norris? Well. He supposed he had the fallout from that coming too. There was no use fighting it, or trying to hide, or hunching up like a turtle in its shell. This was his city, this was his life, and he was going try to live it with something like honesty. The whole clean slate thing may have gotten off to a rocky start, but come hell or high water, he was going to stick the landing. The alternative…didn’t bear thinking of.

So Teddy forced himself to relax the anxious clench of his muscles. He fought the current. He flew toward home.

He only made it as far as the Brooklyn Bridge before he realized there was something in the sky with him. Its shadow streaked across the Hudson in his wake, rapidly gaining speed—too small to be the reflection of a plane and bigger than any bird Teddy had seen outside of bad Sci-Fi. He twisted to look over his shoulder, startled to see gleaming red-and-silver metal burnished in the last rays of the setting sun. Iron Lad—it had to be—was coming in fast, body canted in a straight line, like a bullet.

Teddy pulled back, spreading his wings again to hover midair as he waited for whatever was coming next. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Where were you?” Iron Land demanded as he came level with Teddy. He straightened out, hovering just a few feet away. The strange, malleable shape of his mask easily showed the flurry of emotions crossing his face—relief, anger, confusion, concern. The last made something ridiculous and warm spark in Teddy’s chest. “When you disappeared, I thought Billy was going to have a heart attack. Eli had to hold him back—though I still don’t know what he thought he was going to do. We had no clue where you were. We didn’t even know where to start.”

“Jersey,” Teddy said, and somehow hearing the way Billy had reacted (not relief, then, or smug amusem*nt, but real concern) just made the whole thing settle like a stone in his belly. “I guess you could say he sent me to party with Snookie and Jwoww.”

“…Pardon?”

“Not into crappy reality tv, I take it?”

“Um.” Iron Lad’s face went blank. “I’m a little behind on the pop culture references the two of you keep tossing into every conversation. What is a— Wait. No. Why are we talking about that right now—we shouldn’t be talking about that right now. Off-topic.”

Teddy tilted his head. “What do you want me to say? One minute I was standing with you guys and the next I was on a beach in Jersey. I don’t know how I got there; why don’t you ask Billy?”

“I tried,” Iron Lad said with a disgruntled, mechanical huff. “He was too emotional to be anything but a liability, so I sent him home.”

The way he said that—baffled and annoyed, as if he’d put Billy in time out—nearly surprised a laugh out of Teddy. God, who was this kid anyway? “Okay,” Teddy said instead. “Well, anyway, I can’t tell you much more. I showed up in Jersey, caught my breath for a minute, then made my way back. And here I am: back, and unharmed.”

“It took you this long?” Iron Lad squinted at that. It was so weird how the eyes of that suit watched you, as if it were a face on top of another face—layers of humanity and organic mech. It was almost possible to forget there was someone in there, speaking out of that cleverly shaped metal mouth, blinking those dark eyes. Teddy couldn’t ever remember feeling that way about Iron Man’s simple-by-comparison suit. “Is Jersey really far away, then? I didn’t think it was all that far. My calculations indicate it is not. You should have made it in half the time, Teddy.”

“What are you… I’m not exactly a pro at this flying thing, you know.”

“You’re going to have to be, though—and soon. Really, really impossibly soon.”

“Yeah, so,” Teddy interrupted, “why exactly is that?”

Iron Lad paused for a long minute, then pulled a face. “I choose not to reveal more at this time. But I will,” he added quickly. “When the time is right. Until then, the three of you are just going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”

Teddy scratched the back of his head. “The mysterious guy said mysteriously. Look,” he added when Iron Lad just started at him, baffled, “can we take this somewhere else? I’ve been flying a long time, and hovering isn’t so easy when you don’t have rocket blasters.”

“What? Oh. Sure.” Iron Lad twisted to look around, as if searching for just the right ledge for them to perch on…like a duo of strangely colored pigeons.

“How about not on the spire of the Brooklyn Bridge?” Teddy said wryly. What was it with this kid? “Come on—there’s a place nearby that sells ridiculously good shakes. We can take some up to a rooftop garden and watch Brooklyn shake itself awake for the night.”

“Why would we want shakes?” he said, but Iron Lad followed when Teddy flattened his wings to bring himself out of the stable hover, then began to pick up speed and altitude again.

“Why wouldn’t we want shakes?” Teddy countered. “Besides, you strike me as a kid who hasn’t had the minimum required dosage of shakes and tots in his life.”

“…Tots?”

“Oh my God, Iron Lad, the things I’m going to show you. Veer left,” he added, flying toward the gorgeous DUMBO rooftops with something like a smile touching his lips.

They found a likely rooftop garden some distance from the bridge. The co-op had painted the exposed brick in beautiful graffiti swirls of color, shapes twisting and forming sinuous lines of visual noise, images pushing through the chaos here and there: a half-open eye, a pair of cupped hands, a crumbling mountainside. A lotus blossom. If he looked close enough, he could see words scratched into the whorls of vibrant paint—poetry and snatches of song and non-sequitors that read like dirty fortune cookies.

A lyric caught his eye as he dropped down onto the weather-worn deck that covered the original concrete. Teddy leaned in, one hand braced against an electric blue deck chair, and traced the words with his gaze.

I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together.

“Will the owners be angry that we’re here?”

Teddy turned at the question. Iron Lad was standing awkwardly by a low-slung planter, metal suit bright against the potted greenery. Teddy was 99% sure he recognized marijuana cheek-and-jowl with a tomato vine. There was a wind chime just past Iron Lad’s shoulder made up of shards of many-hued recycled glass. “Only if they catch us,” he said. “Why don’t you wait up here? I’ll go get us the shakes, then fly back up.”

He seemed to hesitate a moment, then nodded stiffly. “All right. I’ll just—” Iron Lad gestured, encompassing the low, colorful metal bench lining the far brick wall. He took a seat, elbows resting on his knees before he straightened again—as if he weren’t used to wearing the suit yet. As if, from time to time, he forgot he wasn’t just a normal boy in its metal shell.

Teddy shook his head, more charmed than he’d expected, and flew off to get them shakes.

Iron Lad was still sitting there awkwardly when he returned a few minutes later, a cup in each hand and his shirt tugged back into place. “Here you go,” Teddy said, handing one over as he slid onto the bench next to the other boy. The sun had completely set and over their heads the sky was a bruised violet. Even with the light pollution, a few stars managed to wink through. “Take a sip, and if you hate it, we can trade. I wasn’t sure whether you were a strawberry or chocolate kind of guy.”

“I like chocolate just fine. I’m not— It’s not like I don’t know these sorts of things, you realize. I’m not completely out of touch.”

Teddy quirked a brow and took a deep swallow of his own shake, sucking in his cheeks when real bits of strawberry got stuck in the straw. “You mean you’re not some android from an alternate dimension? Drats. I was looking forward to teaching you a weekly Very Special Lesson. It’s okay to take off your mask, you know,” he added. Iron Lad had paused and was staring thoughtfully at the shake, as if he couldn't figure out how to make it work with all that metal. “If we’re going to be working together, I assume I’ll see your face at some point.”

Iron Lad looked up at him. “I don’t want you to draw conclusions about me,” he said. “Based on how I look.”

“I’m afraid that’s unavoidable. But they don’t have to be bad conclusions. Come on,” Teddy urged, quieter now. “It’s just us here.”

There was a long, fraught pause when Teddy was sure Iron Lad was going to refuse. Then, sighing, he reached up to grip the edges of the helmet. The seamless curve of the suit almost seemed to shift, like Teddy did when using his powers, rippling beneath his fingers to form a previously invisible line of demarcation. Teddy watched, fascinated, as latches he hadn’t even realized were there appeared to unlock themselves and Iron Lad was tugging the helmet free, was shaking out his sweaty dark hair, was—

“Holy crap,” Teddy said, blinking. “You really are young.”

The boy flushed darkly. “I said I didn’t want you to draw conclusions.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t capable—I said you were young. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” He took another long drag of his shake, trying to reorient himself in the face of this new information. “What’s your name?”

“Iron Lad.”

“I am not looking you in the eye and calling you Iron Lad.”

“Why not?”

Teddy gave him a flat stare. Iron Lad held it for a defiant moment before suddenly dropping his eyes, coloring. The blush made his cheeks go splotchy and his ears turn an endearing shade of pink. “Oh, very well,” Iron Lad muttered. “It’s— Nate.”

He heard the way the other boy stumbled over the name—a lie? Maybe.—but Teddy didn’t call him on it. Instead, he leaned in and bumped their shoulders together, lips curving up at the corners. “Hey, Nate,” he said. “It’s good to meet you.”

Dark brows knit under a messy tangle of curls. “I met you weeks ago,” Nate pointed out.

“…oh, you’re just going to be a barrel of fun, aren’t you?” Teddy gently knocked their shoulders together again to take away the sting. “Never mind—drink your shake. Breathe some fresh air. It’s a beautiful night.”

“It’s a beautiful night,” Nate echoed, a little slower. He lifted the shake and took a cautious sip as if, despite his protests, he really wasn’t used to this sort of thing. His shoulders relaxed by careful degrees and the corners of his mouth actually turned up into a faint smile. “This is pretty good. Um. Thanks.”

Teddy grinned back, lifting his own cup in a jaunty salute. “That’s what I’m good for—finding random holes in the wall that secretly house the best whatevers in the boros. Just ask—”

Billy, he’d almost said, relaxed and happy enough for the first time in weeks that the word had nearly tripped off his tongue. Teddy frowned down at his shake at that.

“Just ask?” Nate echoed lightly. His voice, stripped of the mechanical hum of the suit, was strangely accented but gentle.

“Did you let Eli and Billy know I was okay? I mean,” he added at Nate’s questioning noise, “you said they were worried. So.”

Nate blinked. “Should I do that? I should do that. No, you’re right, I should have thought of that.” He set aside his cup, frowning, and held out his right palm. The center started to glow, pulsing energy making the air crackle and hum as a flickering holo-interface appeared, numbers and graphs and strange readings Teddy couldn’t make out painted across the night sky.

He whistled. “Where did you get your suit?” he said, then grinned to try to lighten the mood when Nate stiffened. “Iron Man would tackle you to the ground to get his hands on that tech. It looks light years beyond anything he can do. You know, not that I’m intimately familiar with what Iron Man’s suit can do. Or anything else super dorky like that.”

“I’m familiar enough for the both of us. There,” Nate added, closing his fingers into a fist; the light show faded, hologram disappearing. “I’ve let them know you’ve been found. I’ve also rescheduled our first meeting for tomorrow, at noon. You’ll be there?”

It was a question, though it should have been an order. Teddy hadn’t been an Avenger for more than a handful of hours, but he was pretty sure their leader shouldn’t look so uncertain when telling his team what to do. “If you tell me to be there, I’ll be there,” he promised, biting back the smile that wanted to blossom at the stark look of relief that crossed Nate’s young face. Whatever the kid had gathered them to fight, it frightened him—badly. And, because Teddy could never leave well enough alone: “Whatever it is, it’s going to work out.”

Nate looked up through his lashes, hands curling around his shake, lips twisted into something so very far from a smile that it made Teddy’s heart ache in empathy. “I hope so,” he said quietly. Then, shoulders squaring, “It has to. It will.”

“It will,” Teddy agreed, reaching out to lightly tap their cups together. “And we’ll get started on making sure of that tomorrow—you’ll see.”

Far overhead, a plane was crossing the night sky. Below, cars wove through traffic-riddled streets. Someone was listening to Europop in a nearby apartment, complicated synthesizer beats drifting from an open window. Nate’s smile stretched, warmed, became something closer to real. “You’re a pretty nice guy, aren’t you?” he said. “I can see why the others already like you so much.”

“No,” Teddy said, heart constricting pitifully at those words. “But I do my best.”

After that, they sat together in the growing dark, shoulder-to-shoulder and silent, for what felt like a very long time. Teddy was hyperaware of the tension slowly bleeding from the other boy—the way his shoulders gradually rounded forward, his hands dangling between his armored knees. The fine edge of fear and anxiety hovering just below the skin was still there, but for now at least it had faded to make way for the soft summer breeze and the sound of Brooklyn sliding gracefully into evening.

Europop had transmutated into classic rock at some point—or maybe a new neighbor had seized control of the noise pollution—and Nate’s lips lifted into a Mona Lisa smile as they both began to swing their legs to the rhythm.

“The words don’t make any sense,” Nate said, finally breaking their companionable silence.

“Sure they do. This song is clearly about—” Teddy co*cked his head, straining to hear snatches of lyrics, then laughed. “Okay, no, you’re right—it doesn’t make any sense. It feels good though, doesn’t it?”

Nate frowned. “I guess, sure. Though I really shouldn’t be wasting…”

And with that, with that shouldn’t, the simple spell of the evening was broken. “I should go,” Nate said as he moved to his feet. No—Iron Lad said, armor literally and metaphorically pulling around him. The mask moved into a seamless glide as he pulled on his helmet, covering the planes and angles of the young boy’s face. It looked, Teddy realized, chillingly like a pharaoh’s death mask. “I’ll be at the mansion if anything comes up. Um. You will be there tomorrow for our meeting.”

He struggled to make it a command, but Teddy could hear the desperation there.

“Yeah,” he promised again, rising to his feet. He smiled, snagging their empty cups and tossing them into a brilliantly multi-colored recycling bin, next to the compost. “I’ll be there. See you tomorrow, Nate.”

Iron Lad hesitated, looking at him for a long minute. Then, slowly, a smile stretched across the face of that deaths’ mask, sweet and a little dorky and heartbreakingly earnest. “Okay. Goodnight, Teddy.” He lifted his hands palms-down and the hum of his suit briefly drowned out the driving bass line, the sound of distant voices and cars moving sluggishly toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Then he was lifting smoothly off the roof and, with an acrobatic loop, disappeared in a flare of red-and-gold light stretching toward the city.

Teddy watched him long after the light disappeared into the visual noise of Manhattan’s skyline. Then he sighed and dragged his fingers through his hair, skin prickling with that quiet awareness that came before the change. He grabbed the hem of his tee and tugged it over his head even as he imagined the watercolor swirl of wings. They swept the air once as he tested their strength, long pinions dragging against the artful swirl of graffiti covering the hipster rooftop garden. Then, with a tensing of his thighs, Teddy lifted into the air. He caught a current he couldn’t see, letting it guide him in a graceful glide before he started stroking his wings with slow, steady pulls.

He wondered, as he passed the rich brownstones of Park Slope, Cobble Hill, if anyone saw him as more than a darker smudge against the sky. He wondered what they were thinking if they did.

The expensive coffee shops and cupcake trucks gradually gave way to familiar apartment blocks and tacorias. Teddy spotted his own building a few streets away, bespecktacled eyes watching him from amongst the snaggle-toothed jut of window AC units and rusty fire escapes. He flattened his wings and swooped only a little awkwardly into a nearby alleyway, wings shifting away even before his sneakers hit the broken asphalt.

Teddy straightened and tugged on his shirt, adjusting its hem as he—as nonchalantly as possible—he hooked a right and merged with foot traffic. He thought an elderly man sitting on a stoop at the other side of the street gave him a strange look, but he didn’t say anything, so… So Teddy figured everything was okay.

Still, he thought with a private smile, eyes on the sidewalk, what I wouldn’t give for a convenient phone booth. He was still smiling as he turned down the street toward his apartment building, hands shoved into his pockets, mind on red capes and glasses. And then he flicked his gaze up and spotted Billy.

Teddy stumbled to a stop, the easy happiness of the last hour or two turning to stone in his belly.

Billy was sitting on his stoop, knees drawn up, head down. He was gnawing on a thumbnail, hair a messy dark sweep against pale cheeks, and he was so unexpectedly beautiful that Teddy…Teddy couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All he could do was stand there and watch the subtle shift of Billy’s shoulders beneath the baggy blue t-shirt, as if he were fighting against himself to stay still, stay put. As if he, too, wanted to bolt from this inevitable confrontation.

Not now, Teddy thought desperately, hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. Oh f*ck, not tonight. I can’t do this tonight.

Billy shifted on the stoop, visibly uncomfortable, and lifted his head to glance down the street. He startled when he saw Teddy, color immediately sweeping up his cheeks in a delicate pink stain. Billy jerked to his feet, eyes locked with Teddy’s before sweeping down to take him all in.

As if to check if he was okay. As if, like Nate claimed, Billy had been worried about him.

Don’t, Teddy warned himself, reluctantly moving forward. He wet his lips, skin prickling at Billy’s anxious study. Don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t mean anything. Billy had somehow sent him away in a flare of blue light (I don’t want you here!). There was nothing to get his hopes up about. But…but he was here. He cared at least that much. He—

Teddy stopped a few paces away, hands still in his pockets, shoulders tight as their eyes met again. It shouldn’t be possible for one boy to make him feel so much.

“Hey,” Billy said, voice low.

“Hey,” Teddy said. Then, taking the offensive because it was either that or stand waiting for the first blow, “So, you here to finish the job?”

Billy’s head jerked up, eyes going wide. “What—no! No, oh my God, I’m not— I wouldn’t—”

But you did, a quiet, hurt part of Teddy whispered. You say you wouldn’t, but you did. He tightened his fists, digging his nails into the meat of his palms. He had to or they’d be trembling uncontrollably. “Okay,” he said. “Then why are you here?”

He couldn’t—just couldn’t—let himself assume it was worry over him. Billy had been very clear with what he thought about Teddy back on that rooftop. If Teddy were honest with himself, Billy had been pretty damn clear about his justified contempt from the very beginning. He’d never forget the look on Billy’s face back when they’d first met, as Greg led him up the stairs at that sh*tty second-hand bookstore. And then, God, the way he’d dodged Teddy’s calls for weeks after New Years’. That had hurt in ways he’d always figured only Greg had the power to hurt him. It had been all too easy for Billy to walk away from their friendship again and again.

But then—could Teddy blame him?

f*ck. He couldn’t do this. He had to get out of here.

“Teddy,” Billy began, voice low, but Teddy just pushed past him, heading toward the door. “Hey, wait!”

“Why?” Teddy demanded, unlocking the outer door and shoving into the vestibule. Billy slapped his palm against the door to keep it from swinging shut in his face, following close on Teddy’s heels. “What’s the point? I’m pretty sure you said everything you need to already—I get it. You don’t have to spell it out for me.”

Teddy jabbed the elevator call button; the ancient machine creaked and groaned several floors above and, f*ck, no, it was taking too long. He spun on his heel instead and hurried to the stairs.

“Teddy,” Billy said, reaching out to snag his arm—and pulling away as if Teddy had burned him even before contact. He couldn’t even bear to touch him, f*ck. “Wait. I need to talk to you.”

Teddy sprinted up the steps two at a time, heart pounding in his ears. His skin prickled where Billy had almost-but-not-quite touched.

He could have faced Billy tomorrow at the next meeting. He could have tried, at least, with a whole night to get used to the idea of…of what? Knowing Billy had been hiding powers too? Knowing he used them just as selfishly, just as recklessly, as Teddy did? Or, even worse, knowing Billy was careful not to abuse his powers…except for the one time he came face-to-face with Teddy.

Which was worse, Teddy wondered as he reached his landing and hurried down the hall: Billy being a hypocrite or Billy hating him so much that he was willing to go against his principles just to see Teddy gone?

“Teddy,” Billy snapped, practically sprinting to keep up. He was flushed and breathing hard, but his jaw was set in a determined line. “Stop being such a jackass—we need to talk.”

“Why? You didn’t need to talk to me for the last few weeks.”

He reached his door and yanked out his keys. They shook in his fingers, jangling merrily as he fought to regain control of the fine tremors working their way through him. His legs wobbled and his stomach was twisted into so many knots he thought for sure he would be sick and why the f*ck couldn’t he get his stupid hands to work?

“Damn it,” Teddy murmured, hyperaware of Billy standing by his shoulder, close. So close he could feel his heat.

And then, shocking him into utter stillness, Billy’s hand closed over his wrist.

“Teddy,” he said, voice very quiet. That was it—just his name—but it felt so stupidly good after all this time that it was all Teddy could do not to cry.

His shoulders rounded forward and he dropped his head. He drew in a stuttery breath. “Okay,” Teddy said, pushing the key in the lock and twisting. The tumblers falling into place sounded very loud. “Let’s go inside and— And talk.”

Billy dropped his hand with a nervous bob of his head, following Teddy into his apartment. He immediately stooped down to take off his shoes, the way he had so many times before. Watching him, Teddy felt a strange, lonely sense of déjà vu—as if he were experiencing all the times they’d been together in this place all at once. It was unsettling enough that he had to look away as he toed off his own sneakers.

“We should—” he began, only to be interrupted by his mother’s voice drifting from the kitchen.

“So what are we thinking for dinner? We’ve got that leftover quinoa and pita, but I’ve been craving something spicy all day. What do you say we walk on the wild side and—” She stopped at the kitchen doorway, surprise—and then mounting pleasure—clear on her face. Crap. “Billy!” she said with a pleased grin. “It’s about time you came over. I was beginning to think I may have dreamed you up.”

Billy shifted awkwardly. Teddy could only watch in silent horror as his mother tossed aside a brightly colored hand towel and moved across the living room to pull Billy into one of her exuberant hugs. “The ladies at the yoga studio have been asking after the two of you,” she said with a laugh as she pulled back again. “Please say I can tell them you’ll be joining us soon. If I hear another but when will we be seeing those adooorable young men again, it’s very likely a relaxing evening of yoga will devolve into a deeply regrettable kickboxing massacre.”

“Mom,” Teddy protested.

She ticked her gaze over to him. “Oh, don’t worry—Billy understands my cause is righteous.”

“Mom.”

Billy was roughly the color of a sunset and getting pinker by the minute. “I, um, I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” he stammered.

“Well, you’re here now and that’s all that matters. So!” She clasped her hands, bangles jangling merrily. “I think this definitely calls for Thai, don’t you?”

“Billy isn’t—” Teddy began, at the same moment Billy said, “I shouldn’t—” They hesitated and glanced at each other.

His mother, thank God, seemed to pick up on the awkwardness straightaway. “Well, I am starving and now I’ve got Thai on the brain. How about this: I’ll walk down to that place on 43rd and pick up enough for three. Billy, if it turns out you can stay, you’re welcome to join us. If you have to run, it’s no problem—that’ll just be more for me to pack off for an exciting day of Saturday office time. Does that sound good to the two of you?”

She was offering to clear out of the apartment to give them time to talk—Teddy could read her intentions so clearly in her green eyes.

I love you, he thought, corners of his mouth pulling into a sad smile. “Yeah, that sounds good,” he said instead. “Thanks. We’ll just be in my room, um, if you need us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Altman,” Billy added, awkwardly following Teddy toward his room.

“Sarah,” she shot back. “No need to be formal—we’re not at Almacks.”

Teddy pushed open the door and held it wide, letting Billy go first. “So. Um. She’s been on a Regency kick ever since you let her borrow Northanger Abbey that one time,” he explained, very aware that his mother could still hear them as she gathered up her purse and keys. It felt like performance art—like he and Billy were faking their old friendship for her sake. It felt immeasurably sad. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to drown in Georgette Heyer and Julia Quinn.”

“Hey,” Billy said, playing along, “it’s the least I could do after you got that Rocky song stuck in my head for three days straight.”

“Eye of the Tiger is a classic!” and for a moment, if he just let himself believe it was genuine, it all felt so normal between them—so good—that Teddy could almost forget there had been any tension at all. He almost forgot they weren’t friends, that Billy hated him, that he’d ruined everything.

Until Billy stopped in the middle of his room and went very, very still.

“Oh, Teddy,” he murmured, voice breaking. “What did you do?”

“What,” Teddy began, not getting it at first. But then he saw the way Billy’s eyes were sweeping over those bare white walls where the aurora had been—expression torn, like the fanciful swirls of color had meant something to him, too—and it was all Teddy could do not to turn on his heel and flee.

Oh f*ck. f*ck, he thought, heart jackhammering bright and painful in his chest.

And: You were never supposed to see how much you hurt me.

He wet his lips. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Billy’s eyes and it took all his concentration to keep his hands from trembling as he shut the door, to keep his voice steady as he pulled together all of his defenses—the inscrutability that had saved him time and time again in his long service to Greg—and forced a tiny smile. “Oh, do you mean the walls? It’s nothing. Just time for a change.”

He had a stranglehold on his powers, keeping his expression polite but closed off, unreadable by sheer force of will.

Billy narrowed his eyes at him. “Bullsh*t,” he spat.

Teddy stiffened. “I don’t know what you—” he began.

“Bullsh*t!” Billy dragged his fingers through his hair, snarling the dark ends into wild shapes as he gestured jerkily to the bare ceiling, bare walls. “Look at this place, Teddy! Look at how— At how—” Sad. Empty. f*cked in the head. “—you know, it all is. What’s going on? Why did you do it?”

“That’s none of your business, is it?” Teddy tried going on the offensive again, willing his voice sharp and angry when all he wanted to do was pull the covers over his head and shield himself from that look in Billy’s eyes. He couldn’t bear having him standing there, looking at him like that. It would be so much easier to face Billy’s anger again. “We’re not friends, remember? You said you were out, you were done with me. Well, you know what? Fine. But that means you don’t have the right to dissect me. You want to know what’s going on in my head? Well too damn bad—I don’t owe you that.”

God, it felt good to finally (finally!) explode. It didn’t even matter if he meant it or not. Just saying the words was like lancing a wound that had been festering for years. Billy wasn’t Greg—could never come close—but for a moment, it was almost as if he wore his face.

Looks like you’re a shapeshifter now too, Teddy thought, and the laugh that wanted to come spilling out of him tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Teddy,” Billy began, expression caught somewhere between surprise and anger.

Teddy flung up his hands. “No,” he said. “God, why are we even pretending? For Iron Lad? For this team he wants? You said it yourself—you don’t want me there. Right before you sent me away to the f*cking Jersey Shore!”

Billy’s chin jerked up. “I sent you to hang out with Snookie and Jwoww?” he said, and the fact that he hit on the exact same lame comeback as Teddy was infuriatingly endearing.

“Not the point!” Teddy exclaimed—for both of them. But anger was a slippery thing, and it was already stealing away again, like a school of minnows between his fingers. Billy’s expression just made it all the easier to let it go, emotions flickering across those pale features like a projection screen.

Confusion. Worry. Indignation.

And, maybe worst of all: shame.

“I didn’t mean to,” Billy said quietly. He wrapped his arms around his skinny middle in that way he had, shoulders hunching forward as if he could lose himself in the voluminous folds of his baggy t-shirt. “I swear I didn’t. I didn’t even know I could do that. The powers thing—it’s new. Brand new. Like. A week. And it scares the hell out of me that I could just say a few words and do that to someone I— Someone who—” He stuttered to a stop. It took everything Teddy had not to reach out for him then, to comfort.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

“Anyway,” Billy finished. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know, back— Um. Back then. And. Look, Teddy.” He let out a breath, shoulders jerking spasmodically. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I said, back on that roof. I guess…” His eyes cut around the bare room, very obviously. “Um. I guess you have too?”

“Billy,” Teddy cut in, quiet this time. “Just let it go, okay? It’s not important.”

“But it is,” Billy murmured, then, louder, “It is. I can tell it is. You’re trying to hide it—you’re doing your best to pretend it doesn’t matter, but, but… I can tell now. I know you, and I—” He stumbled to a stop.

And there were so many ways to finish that, weren’t there? I know you, and I preferred the boy I used to pretend you were. I know you, and I hate the way you never stand up for what you believe. I know you, and I’d rather you were somewhere, anywhere else—the Jersey Shore, Atlantic City, the f*cking moon. So long as it isn’t here—but if Iron Lad needs you to save the world against all odds, then maybe, just maybe I can pretend someone like you is worth another shot.

He could hear it all echoing in his head; he didn’t need to hear it out loud, too.

“But maybe I’m wrong about that after all,” Billy murmured, voice deceptively quiet as he studied Teddy’s face. Teddy wondered what he saw there to make his skinny frame so tense. “Maybe I still can’t read you at all. What are you thinking, Teddy?”

“Nothing,” he said, pushing away from the door and pacing to the window. He pressed his palms to the frame and leaned in, staring down with a false show of absorption. There was, he noticed numbly, a single glow-in-the-dark star sticking to the cracking paint of the windowsill. It’d probably fallen there that first night he’d torn them down. “Whatever. Billy—it’s nothing. Seriously. Can’t we just—”

“No,” Billy said. “We can’t just, not until we work this out. Not until you— Teddy.” Teddy could see Billy’s reflection staring back at him in the glass; the frustration was painted clear between his drawn brows, his mobile mouth. “Teddy, please, I want you to tell me what you’re thinking.”

The words came out in a rush, heavy somehow, as if the weight of the universe had fallen in behind them. Teddy made a low, choked noise, resisting the sudden fierce impulse to tell Billy everything. He squeezed his eyes shut, biting at his mouth until he tasted blood, and pressed his forehead against cool glass. He trembled against the urge deep in his blood to comply.

To submit. To confess.

The words, when they came, were so gravel-rough they sounded as if they’d been ripped from his throat. “Billy. I. f*ck. I’m not worth your forgiveness.” God, why couldn’t he stop? “I always knew I didn’t deserve you.”

And the room…went very quiet.

Space was silent. That’s what he’d read, anyway, curled for hours around his books about The Fantastic Four and Captain Marvel, mapping out their epic battles in his mind’s eye. The movies had been getting it wrong for years—the Death Star didn’t explode with an impossible boom. It didn’t even flicker out in a breathy sigh. There was nothing, nothing, he could hear nothing.

Just the rushing of blood in his ears. Just the frantic lunge of his heart. Just the way his breath caught again and again in his chest as he fought against the twin gutpunch of,

Oh God, why did I say that, and,

Please, just go away—haven’t I repented enough?

But that was stupid of him. He already knew the answer to that. Greg had made it clear he’d pay and pay and pay—and Billy, God, wasn’t he due his own pound of flesh? Teddy deserved whatever he had coming because he’d let himself want what he knew deep down could never be his.

And, Jesus, why was it so quiet?

Teddy slowly lifted his head, opening his eyes to meet Billy’s in the windowpane. Billy was shocked-still and very pale—he must have wrung his fingers through his hair again because, in that moment, he looked alarmingly like Edward Scissorhands.

“Billy,” Teddy murmured, turning. He didn’t know what he could say to save this—he didn’t know if there was anything to save—but he couldn’t stand to see that expression on Billy’s face. Stunned, as if Teddy had shoved him back against the wall and hit him with everything he had. He hadn’t even looked like that on the roof; God, Teddy really was a piece of work, wasn’t he? “I don’t know why I said that.” He took a tentative step forward. There was tears burning in his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them come. Even if he couldn’t control what he said to this boy (and why, why had he said that? What the f*ck was wrong with him?), he could keep the rest of himself together. He could at least try. “I promise you, I didn’t mean to say it.”

Billy dropped his chin, breaking the tenuous eye contact. That one move was powerful enough to stop Teddy in his tracks.

And now he’s going to leave, he thought, stomach twisting in painful, unhappy shapes. Now he’s going to walk away again. Ultimately, that was worse than Billy sending Teddy away, because at least that happened in a flash and was done. The rooftop, this—it felt like an eternity was passing between each heartbeat.

They were at another crossroads. And maybe what had been between them was too f*cked up and broken to salvage, but there was still something that had to be said whether he wanted to spit out the words or not. There was still something important they had to get out of the way before they made another not-so clean break.

“Look,” Teddy said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone. I knew I was doing the wrong thing, and I knew I wasn’t okay, and I did it anyway for, for the reasons you said, before. I did it anyway and you were right about me. But. Just. I’m just a stupid kid, and I know I f*cked up, and I know it’s not okay, but I’m not…not brave like you, I’ve never been— But I want to be. I want to at least try. And what Iron Lad is offering, it’s, it’s a chance to start over and do it right, to not be so stupid and f*cked up, and I know, all right? I know you’re not okay with who I am, with me, and I get that, I do, but— But I’m not okay with me either and this is my chance to try to change that, Billy. It could be the only one I ever get.”

Teddy wet his lips; his breath was coming too fast, heart pounding as if he were chasing the wind. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought Billy’s face had been easy to read—it was a mask, now. It gave away nothing. “Billy,” Teddy said quietly. “If you really don’t want me on the team, I, I won’t be. But. I. Please.” It was much harder to fight the tears now; he had to continuously shift to keep them at bay, fighting against his own body as Billy stared at him with indecipherable dark eyes. “Please let me have this. You can’t understand how much I need to start over.”

Silence again, stretching, endless, weightless. It felt—

It felt like being trapped in amber. It felt like walking in space, spinning out into the black. It felt like nothing Teddy had ever experienced, terror and hope poised on the edge of heartbreak.

And then Billy shifted, blinking away the something in his eyes, and abruptly thrust out a hand. “Hi,” he said, turning Teddy’s world on its head in that quicksilver way he had. “I’m Billy Kaplan.”

Wait. What?

Teddy was frozen, not sure he understood. Billy just watched him. Whatever this was, Billy meant it. Teddy reached out slowly to clasp Billy’s hand, trembling at the feel of warm skin against his; his own hand engulfed Billy’s, grip tightening as he struggled against a wild surge of hope. “Um, hey,” Teddy said in a husky voice.

“I’m a superhero geek, and my action figure collection will totally blow your mind. I’m glad we’re going to be Avengers together.” His grip tightened, eyes seeking and meeting Teddy’s, intent. “I think we’re going to become good friends, don’t you?”

Teddy’s legs nearly gave out. He locked them at the last second, letting out a breath and gripping back just as tight—as if Billy had become a lifeline.

Well. Who was to say he hadn’t?

Fresh start, Teddy thought, meeting those eyes, reading the bashful-yet-fierce hope brimming there. Blank slate. It seemed sometimes it really was possible to start all over again. “I’m Teddy Altman,” he said, too shaken, too grateful, to say more. His voice broke on his name, eyes stinging with unshed tears. He instinctively began to shift to hide the evidence, then…didn’t. If this really was his second chance, he wanted to do it right, and that meant he had to stop pretending.

Billy’s expression wavered, almost cracking too, but then he swallowed and offered a tremulous smile. When he let go of his hand, Teddy could still feel his touch like a brand. “Teddy, huh?” he said a little too lightly—trying too hard, but Teddy was so grateful he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Maybe we should avoid any excellent adventure jokes, just in case.”

The laugh that was startled out of him almost hurt, but it was the good kind of hurt—the healing kind. “Yeah, probably,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “We should probably just avoid time travel, too, altogether.”

“Deal! So. Um.” Billy shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, looking around. There was a delicate flush creeping up his neck, swirling like watercolor across his skin. It was beautiful. “Your room is seriously the most boring thing I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure there are prison cells with more personality.”

Teddy laughed again, and this time, it hurt a little less. Would it keep hurting less and less, the more he did it? He hoped he had a chance to find out. “Well, there are colored pencils right there,” he said, jerking his chin to his desk. “Why don’t you help me take care of that?”

“Seriously?” Billy turned, looking at the scattered pencils and prismacolor markers, then back at Teddy. His dark brows climbed. “Because I will take you up on that. I tried coloring on the living room wall once when I was five, and I still have nightmares about the wrath of my mother. This could almost be cathartic.”

“Well, then,” Teddy said, brushing past Billy to grab a handful of pencils and markers. He divvied them up and passed half of them over, daring a slowly growing smile. “Who am I to stand in the way of catharsis?”

Billy curled his fingers around the pencils, blinking rapidly, then suddenly grinned—huge and dizzying and wonderful. “Okay, Teddy, you are on. Brace yourself,” he added, going to crouch before the window. He tugged out a red pencil and swirled it thoughtfully through the air before dragging its end over the bald white paint. “You’re about to be wowed by my mad stick figure skills.”

“Let me guess,” Teddy said, taking a seat next to him and beginning to sketch out a figure in green. The banter came back so easily if he let it. “You got gold stars in 1st grade art and never looked back?”

“Oh nooo, I slipped and drew a picture of you with a curly mustache in retaliation!” Billy sing-songed, doing just that. (Well. If a circle with a pink slash for a mouth, two smaller blue circles and a lopsided, looping black flourish could be called a picture.) Billy switched over to yellow and gave it a crazy mane of blond hair. “Such a beautiful mullet you have, Teddy. Such Michael Bolton. Such wow.”

Daring much (and yet, somehow, it didn’t feel like a gamble at all, suddenly—it felt only too natural, right), Teddy knocked their shoulders together. “Okay, wise guy, be prepared to be wowed by your portrait.” The red pencil flew over the wall, a chibi Billy taking shape.

Billy leaned in, his own drawing forgotten, and watched as Teddy drew. As the figure formed, a laugh was startled out of him. “Is that me in full Michael Jackson regalia?”

“Yup.” He added a little glove and slouched hat.

“…Billy Jean.”

“Yup.” Teddy added the lit tiles under the little figure’s feet with a flourish.

“Dork,” Billy said, voice full of so much fondness that Teddy’s fingers paused at their work…then slowly continued when Billy knocked their shoulders together again. “If I had known what a nerd you were, I’d never have decided to be friends with you. Well, too late now—we already said no time travel.”

Teddy hid a smile. “So sad for you; much lamentation.”

“I guess I’ll survive.” Their shoulders stayed pressed together, warm and steady and grounding in a way that sent shockwaves of gratitude through him. And then Billy picked up his pencils again and continued to draw.

They stayed that way for a long, long time.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

“Time is never time at all;
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth.
And our lives are forever changed,
We will never be the same:
The more you change the less you feel.
Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain.
We're not the same, we're different tonight.
Tonight, so bright,
Tonight.”
—Smashing Pumpkins, Tonight Tonight

**

Teddy woke to the blare of a car alarm. It had wormed its way into his dreams, somehow, chasing him out of confused visions of a moonlit pool, stillness on the air, the taste of chlorine catching on each staccato breath. There was a warm hand on his hip, sliding through the water and leaving his body trembling. A hot breath against his lips. God yes, he’d thought, letting the water carry him. Please.

And then? The shriek of the alarm, as if the whole world were wailing in protest.

Teddy huffed a breath and squeezed his eyes shut, listening to the steady screech as the fragments of his dream drifted away. It was probably one of the sedans always parked on the street just below his window. Mrs. Garcia’s? No, he decided, hands lacing over his stomach as he stared blearily up at the ceiling, that had a more distinct pattern of crescendo and diminuendo. This was higher-pitched, more consistent—and there was no way he’d be able to struggle back to sleep now.

He turned his head against the pillow to peer out the window. The sky was a weighty indigo along the apartment rooftops, but in the snatches of horizon between their gaps, he could just make out rosy hues of lavender, pink, red, orange beginning to push their way through. It’d be sunrise within the quarter-hour, he figured, if not less. 5:33 wasn’t such a ridiculous time to start the day.

The weekend.

A Saturday.

He collapsed back against his pillows with a breathless laugh. Okay, fine, 5:33 was a perfectly abominable time to start a Saturday, but he couldn’t help himself—he’d barely been able to sleep all night, rousing every couple of hours with restless anticipation.

Today the Young Avengers were meeting again, for real this time. Today he was going to see Billy.

Billy.

Teddy closed his eyes, toes curling against his sheets. He couldn’t fight the smile that kept wanting to break free, spilling up and up and out of him in messy waves. God, Billy. Today they were going to talk again, joke around, maybe even—

Maybe even touch, like they had in his dreams. A breath warm against his mouth. Fingertips ghosting over his skin. A skinny thigh pressing between his legs as Billy bobbed forward in the water and… “Ugh, come on, brain,” Teddy growled, grabbing his pillow and pulling it over his face. He thrashed helplessly on the bed, too full of hope and shame to do anything more; his stomach was a useless series of knots and he’d have to shift if he wanted to control the flush that kept threatening to steal up his cheeks.

And all from just the thought of Billy Kaplan. God, what would sitting right next to him again do?

He huffed and tossed aside his pillow, kicking away his sheets and staggering up. From this angle, he could see the sun just beginning to peek through the nearest apartment blocks. Down on the street below, someone had started screaming obscenities at the still-bleating alarm.

“Good morning, Brooklyn,” Teddy said wryly. He grabbed a t-shirt and tugged it on, pausing briefly to brush his fingers over the ridiculous stream of sketches crawling up one wall, framing his window—like touching a talisman for good luck. He smirked, thumb tracing the comically bad picture of a stick figure in red white and blue. Billy had drawn a speech bubble coming out of his mouth, the words Captain America? I think you mean CAPTAIN AWESOME filling it in his careful, looping script.

Against all the odds, yesterday had given him that. He couldn’t wait to see what today would bring.

The alarm was still wailing, but he kept the kitchen radio on low as he dug through the fridge for the egg whites and veggies. Teddy hummed along, tapping his fingers against the magnetic poetry that covered its peeling face as he leaned in on the search for peppers.

“Well someone’s chipper this morning.”

Teddy straightened, biting back a laugh. His mother was slouched in the doorway in her Vulcans Do It Logically t-shirt, messy braid slung over one shoulder. Her expression was twisted somewhere between a smile and a snarl.

Mornings? Early mornings? Weren’t a thing his mother had ever particularly enjoyed.

“And what a fine morning it is,” he said, tossing the yellow pepper on the chopping board with the red. “Can I make you an omelet?”

“You can give me back my real son,” she said, pushing away from the doorway and shuffling in closer. She made a big production out of ducking to peer into his eyes, one hand covering his brow, then tugging at his hair. “This is a wig, right? You’re just impersonating him, you happy-early-morning-person.”

Teddy tried to bat her away with a snorting laugh. “Hey, cut it out. You’re stunting my very delicate teenage self-worth.”

“No, but really,” his mother said, rapping her knuckles against his brow. “Weren’t you going through your emo phase just yesterday? Who is this smiling boy and how can I get my listless teenager back?”

“I started your coffee brewing.”

She straightened. “Never mind,” his mother said, “I take it back. Teddy who?”

Teddy nudged the fridge door closed with his hip. “I’m telling you: fragile teenage ego, completely cracked. Speaking of cracked, what are you doing up so early? You don’t have to go to the office until ten today.”

She blew her bangs out of her face. “Mrs. Garcia’s car is trumpeting its lonely mating song again.”

“Evocative,” Teddy admired. “But it’s not Mrs. Garcia’s. You’d think you’d know that one by heart.”

His mother laughed and moved to grab plates for the two of them. “Hey, it’s early. I’m not contractually obligated to form complete sentences until at least my second cup of coffee.”

“Addict.” He finished rinsing the veggies and began slicing them carefully, pushing the hulls into a cleaned-out margarine bin for the compost. “I should cut you off, you know. I hear that stuff stunts your growth.”

“Remember I can still barter you away for cat poop coffee and see if you’re still feeling sassy,” she shot back, closing the utensil drawer with her hip. Teddy just snorted and reached over to turn the music up, letting Joan Jett carry them through the rest of breakfast.

By the time they’d finished, lingering over the breakfast table, his mother was on her third cup of coffee and the sun was high and cheerful over the neighboring rooftops. Even if he strained, Teddy couldn’t hear the bleat of the alarm—finally. Maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about his neighbors starting a riot.

“So what’s your plan for today?” she asked. “Other than lurking around the city and being very mysterious.”

Teddy looked up with a crooked smile. “Oh, you know me: ever the international man of mystery.”

“Are you going to go hang out with Billy?”

It was funny, Teddy thought, how a question that would have made his heart sink like a lead balloon two days ago now filled him with such giddy excitement. “Um. Maybe,” he said, and pushed his bangs back with his wrist. “…yeah, probably. Definitely. Sure. Why not?”

Stop babbling. Jeez. Can you sound any more suspicious?

But his mother didn’t look suspicious. If anything, she seemed pleased. “Good,” she said, nudging his knee with her bare toes. “I’m glad to see the two of you made up from whatever fight you were having. You don’t have to give me any details,” she added, raising a hand with a wry curl of her mouth when he opened his mouth to protest. “God knows I’d never think to violate the sanctity of a good teenaged brood. But still. I’m happy to see him around the apartment again. I like him. And he seems to like you a great deal.” She took a too-casual sip of her coffee, very obviously ignoring the flush that spread across his cheeks. “You certainly like him.”

“Mom.”

“I’m just making a casual observation. Very casually.” She leaned in on her elbows. Her green-blue eyes never left his (increasingly red) face. “And, very casually, I can’t help but notice the way you perk up when he’s around.”

“Mom.”

“And just as casually—no hidden agenda, nothing but a cool kid and his mother chatting like they always do—I wanted to say that if you two ever decided you liked each other that way, too, I’d be very supportive and—”

Teddy jerked to his feet and practically sprinted from the kitchen.

“—happy to talk about safety any time!” she called after him. Laughing, because she was the worst mother ever. Teddy fled to his room; his cheeks were so hot he could have sworn he was being immolated from the inside out. He pushed the door shut and locked it for good measure before diving under his covers and burying his face deep into his pillow.

Oh. Holy. Jeez.

So. That had happened.

…God, he couldn’t believe that had just happened. Teddy squeezed his eyes shut, muffling a mortified laugh against his pillow. It wasn’t like he’d ever really hidden the…uh…queer thing from his mom. They didn’t talk about it because he was still trying to figure out where he fit along the various spectrums—where his attraction to Billy factored in—where his attraction to Greg and all the stuff they’d done when he was a girl fit—but that didn’t mean he was hiding anything.

(Was it possible to hide what you didn’t know yourself?)

But. Just. He wasn’t ready to talk about it, and she’d always played along with that. Until today. Until the day he was going to go see Billy again. It was as if she knew, as if she could read it on his face. As if there was anything to read on his face.

He slowly curled around his pillow, fighting against the butterflies that seemed determined to wing through his stomach at just the thought of Billy Kaplan. His lips curved into an involuntary smile, anxiety fighting against joy, worry against hope. Last night had been the best and worst of his life. Today had the chance of being even better.

Hi, he could have said if he had the nerve to call Billy up right now. My mother picked up on the ridiculous crush I’ve been nursing over you for the last few months. I’m pretty sure she thinks we’re secret boyfriends or something. Crazy, huh?

Teddy let out a long, slow, uneven breath. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “Yeah,” he murmured, tipping his face up toward his window to feel the gold wash of sunlight against his lids. “Totally crazy.”

He stayed like that for a while, dozing a little off and on, but mostly just curled around his thoughts. His mother called her goodbye as she left for work and life picked up below his window—people laughing, horns blaring, a few sirens racing by. The day was in full swing, and soon enough, he’d be part of it.

“Soon enough” turned out to mean a few hours later, when Teddy swam blearily from his unexpected nap. He squinted at the sunlight streaming through his window and groaned, twisting away to cover his face with one outflung arm. The heat felt good against his skin, though, and the sleep— He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d needed a few more hours to relax into his own skin without the breathless anxiety of whatever it was that had Nate so up in arms, of Billy, of their meeting in…

He twisted to glance at his alarm clock, then yelped and leapt to his feet, nearly face-planting when he tripped over an abandoned pair of jeans. The red numbers flashed a placid 10:58, and oh God, oh f*ck, that wouldn’t be enough time to make it all the way to the mansion; he’d need a subway miracle to make it work.

“sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t,” Teddy chanted, snagging the jeans and sniffing the worn denim before deciding to hell with it and slinging them on. He hopped from foot to foot as he tugged on colorful socks, then dove through his bureau for his favorite Captain America t-shirt.

…then he paused, remembering Eli, and grabbed a Captain Marvel instead.

The apartment was echoingly empty, his mother long gone, and even as Teddy grabbed blindly for his keys, wallet, and metro card, he scanned to make sure the windows were closed and everything was in its place. Then, satisfied, he stumbled into the hall and locked the door behind him; his plaid overshirt flapped like wings as he raced to catch the train.

Twenty-three stops and close to an hour later, Teddy went tearing out the Lexington Avenue station. He spared a quick glance at his phone as he sprinted for all he was worth toward the ruined husk of the Avengers’ mansion. 11:58 and barely a second to lose.

The subway gods had been with him today.

“Sorry, excuse me,” he called, weaving through bored tourists and pedicabs. A horse snorted at him as he ducked past a waiting carriage. The day was gorgeous, sunlight streaming through quietly gossiping trees; the occasional breeze seemed strong enough to carry him over the crumbling walls with their crowns of barbed wire. The summer day chased him all the way inside, blowing across cracked tiles as Teddy skidded to a breathless stop in front of Nate, Eli and Billy—ringed like judges facing him as they sat awkward and formal in what had to be the Avengers’ old dining room chairs.

Nate frowned.

“I’m not late,” Teddy gasped before doubling over, panting. Holy sh*t, the sprint to the mansion was no joke. “I’m not. Seriously. Five seconds on the clock. I was counting.”

“He’s not late,” Billy quickly confirmed. He pulled out his phone and helpfully flashed it around—literally pointing as the minute flipped from 11:59 to 12:00. “See? Totally on time.”

“Totally on time,” Teddy agreed, straightening. He shot Billy a shy smile, and something inside of him burned fierce and hot when Billy grinned back. “Verifiably not late at all. Because that’s me: Mr. Punctual.”

Billy nudged the fourth chair with a red hightop and Teddy sank into it gratefully, very aware of the way their knees jostled when he sat. “Looks like someone already found his codename,” Billy marveled, faux admiring. “Stand back supervillains of New York, here comes Mr. Punctual.”

Teddy knocked their knees together again. “Mr. Punctual is going to beat Super-Sass down if he doesn’t zip it.”

“Aw, come on—everyone knows Super-Sass bounces back ten times stronger than before!”

Eli looked between them, brows knit in visible, baffled annoyance. “Is this a thing that’s going to be happening?” he demanded. “Am I going to have to sit here and listen to this more than once, or is it out of your systems now?”

“Sorry,” Teddy said immediately, fighting a flush. He cleared his throat and glanced guiltily toward Nate…then back at Billy out of the corners of his eyes.

Billy leaned close and murmured, sotto, “Looks like Killjoy the Devourer is in a mood.”

He snorted—then tried to hide the snort with a cough, kicking at Billy’s chair when the other boy only grinned at him devil-wide. Eli’s frown was morphing slowly into a scowl, and the metal mask of Nate’s suit twisted up into a confused frown.

“Sorry,” he said again. Teddy leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed with appropriately contrite gravity on their leader. “We’re done.”

“All done,” Billy agreed, leaning back in his own chair.

Eli glanced between them, then snorted and crossed his arms, tipping his head toward Nate. “Now that Laverne and Shirley have it under their hats…it’s your show.”

“Laverne and,” Nate began before cutting himself off. “Never mind. Well. All right. I suppose I should start at the very beginning.”

A very good place to start, Teddy thought at the exact same moment Billy hummed the tune under his breath. Teddy choked on his startled laugh, coughing delicately into his fist when all three pairs of eyes swung around to him.

Right, no. Focusing.

He was so focusing.

“My name is Nate and I’m from the future. I,” he hesitated half a beat, “obtained this armor and traveled back in time to enlist the aid of the Avengers in defeating an enemy I am certain is already well on his way and intent on destroying everything we know. Unfortunately, when I arrived, the Avengers had disbanded and no one would listen to me.”

“Figures,” Eli muttered. “They never do.”

“Cap would,” Billy countered loyally.

Nate tipped his head. “I couldn’t get near enough Captain America to be sure, but none of the others were willing to so much as entertain the idea that I could be telling the truth. Because I was young, I suppose. Inexperienced. They had better things to do than stop for five minutes and listen. And they have to listen. They have to.”

Nate took a shallow breath and let it out harshly. His shoulders were rounded forward, and he tapped his fingers against his thighs, the metal clank clank clank a discordant beat. Teddy felt himself tensing up as the seconds ticked by, responding to Nate’s visible anxiety.

No. Not anxiety.

Fear.

Teddy shot Billy a quick look, meeting his gaze. Billy sensed it too. Whatever this was, whatever was going on, it was more serious than four teenagers playing at being superheroes.

“Nate,” Teddy began.

Nate clenched his hands into fists. “We have to get the attention of the Avengers, no matter what it takes,” he said. “And if they refuse to listen, then we have to be prepared to fight in their stead. Vision has a backup program. A failsafe. It led me to you. The next generation of Avengers. We’re going to use that to make them pay attention, to make them take us and this threat seriously.” He sucked in a serrated breath, the metallic drone of his voice box making it go hissing and static—the sound crept down Teddy’s spine. “Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” Teddy said, fighting the urge to reach out and grip the other boy’s shoulder.

Eli shot him a disgusted look. “You’re just going to agree without any more details?” he demanded. “I’m not going to just sign on with no information. I want to know who you are, who is after you, and what exactly you suggest we do to fight this threat. I want a plan.”

“It’s better if I don’t give you all the details,” Nate began, and that was all it took for Eli to be on his feet, hands clenched into fists. “You have to take some of this on faith!”

“Oh, f*ck that,” Eli snarled…though Teddy couldn’t help but think there was an almost calculating weight to his fury. “What kind of game do you think you’re playing?”

Nate surged up, his own fists clenched. “This isn’t a game!” he snarled right back, stepping closer. Eli more than met him halfway, and within moments they were in each others’ faces, tension crackling sharp and electric between them. Teddy met Billy’s eyes, and both of them moved as one, Teddy catching Eli’s elbow, Billy snagging Nate’s wrist.

“Hey, hey,” Billy said.

“Let’s just sit down and hear him out, okay?” Teddy tried.

Nate ignored them, shaking off Billy with a jerk of his arm. “This is my life. This is everyone’s lives on the line. If we don’t stop him, then everyone suffers.”

“Empty words!” Eli snapped, shooting Teddy a quick, dirty look before returning the full force of his glare to Nate. “Oh, it sounds really impressive: the fate of the world, lives hang in the balance, the wisdom of the future and an android you won’t even let us see. No wonder the Avengers won’t take you seriously—all you’re doing is shouting empty words. They won’t mean anything unless you tell us something.”

“I’m telling you! Someone is after me—”

“Someone! Very informative.”

“—and he’s going to try to use me—”

“Use you, the mysterious future boy who goes by Iron Lad. I can feel the call to action now.”

“—and if he does, everyone is in danger—”

“Because that’s an effective rallying cry: help me or some vague person will do vague things at a vaguely defined time.”

“—and I need to Avengers to stop him, before he can ruin everything—”

“Yes, I can see why Iron Man would want to take you seriously.”

Suddenly, Nate snarled and planted both hands on Eli’s chest, shoving him back six staggering paces. Eli flung out an arm, gracefully catching himself before Teddy could even take a step toward him. His eyes were narrowed, though there was a calculating light there beneath the anger, his lips thinning as Nate’s mask folded back, revealing his impossibly young, impossibly vulnerable face.

“This,” he said, pointing to himself. “This is why they won’t take me seriously. This is why they’re not going to take any of us seriously unless we make them. And if we don’t, if we can’t, Kang the Conqueror is going to track me through the timestream. He’s going to make me hurt people. He’s going to turn me into a villain.”

“Nate,” Teddy said, but Eli grabbed his arm, silencing him. His chin was lifted, eyes scanning Nate’s face. His powerful body was very still.

“You’re Nathaniel Richards,” Eli said.

“…oh holy crap,” Billy murmured, standing there at the future Kang’s elbow. He was staring at the other boy, eyes dark in a pale face, and Teddy had to strangle back an instinctive desire to charge in and put himself between Billy and the infamous mass murderer.

Nathaniel Richards. Kang the Conqueror.

f*ck.

“I am,” Nate agreed quietly. “And I need your help to kill my future self.”

**

They were sitting in a circle again what had to be hours and hours later, silently trying to digest everything Nate had told them. It all seemed so impossible to Teddy—like something that happened to one of the actual Avengers, or maybe those guys at Xavier’s School.

Still, he could see the through-line in the story Nate had told. He’d been at school, facing down bullies of his own. Suddenly, time stopped. A man—Kang—approached him and explained how the next few years of his life were about to be ruined by the kids bearing down on him like a pack of wild dogs. Kang showed him the fight to come. The life-threatening injury. The years spent in recovery, left to silence and growing bitterness. The freak event that sent him to the past. The growth of his power. Facing off against the Avengers. Becoming Kang the Conqueror step by step by step, the whole twisting path laid out at the feet of a scared fifteen-year-old boy.

Teddy couldn’t fault Nate for running.

f*ck, no, it was more than that. He was so proud of him for using the suit Kang had given him to escape back into the past, to try to fight his future.

To fight himself.

“Well,” Teddy said as the silence continued to stretch and stretch. Nate’s shoulders were rounded forward and his elbows were on his knees. He was staring at his hands—bowed low, as if he expected them to begin yelling again. “That…sucks.”

Billy made a low noise, almost a strangled laugh, and Nate looked up. His eyes were far too bright, striations of sunlight catching on the tears he was fighting not to shed.

Eli let out a long breath, leaning back in his chair. He’d folded his hands over his stomach, but Teddy got the sense he was ready to launch into action at any moment, if needed. His eyes had never once left Nathaniel Richards, aka Kang the Conqueror.

No, Teddy reminded himself, Nate Richards, aka Iron Lad. The future didn’t have to rule them.

“So, Vision led you to the three of us,” Billy recapped slowly. “Because we’re part of some Avengers 2.0 failsafe. And you want us to pretend to be them…sort of…as we train, in order to attract their attention.”

“Yes,” Nate said. “They’re too focused on other things to pay attention unless we make them. They might not notice four boys taking up arms in general—we could be explained away as anything. But they’ll notice four original Avengers making news. And maybe seeing their team linked with the press, with actual heroism, again, they’ll remember who they are and what they swore to protect.”

“In other words,” Eli said, “their heads are so far up their asses, they can only hear the echo of themselves.”

Teddy gave a shaky laugh. “We’re just mirrors, then,” he said. And didn’t it just figure that the moment he finally found a way to break free of all the bad decisions that littered his past, he’d be pulled back into the exact same web?

Did it really matter if he was pretending to be Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America for a good cause now? He was still the same stupid kid who would never be anything more than a reflection of the people around him.

He dug his nails into his palms and fought not to let the crucible of emotion show. God, what had been the whole point of the last few weeks? What did it matter if he was just going to keep cycling back to the coward he always had been?

Teddy startled when Billy leaned in and lightly bumped their shoulders together. He looked down, blue eyes catching on brown.

“Nah,” Billy said, refusing to look away. “We’re not mirrors; we’re young Avengers.”

Eli pointed at him. “Please don’t call us that. That sounds stupid.”

“We’re the Junior League Avengers?”

“This hole you’re digging,” Eli said. “You should stop.”

Teddy’s lips curved a little despite himself. “Junior Varsity Avengers.”

“Little Avengers?”

“Avengers Prep.”

Nate half-raised his hand. “Wait, I’m confused. Are we voting on names here? Does that mean you’re all in?”

“For the love of— Yes, we’re all in,” Eli said, “and no, we’re not voting on names. Even if we were, Iron Lad, you wouldn’t get a say.”

Nate visibly bristled. “Because you think I’m like Kang?” he demanded.

“No,” Eli said. “Because you thought Iron Lad was a good call.”

“Oooh, burn,” Billy whispered.

“I’m starting to sense a pattern in the group dynamic,” Teddy whispered back. “Are you sensing a pattern?”

“I’m sensing a pattern of burns.”

Eli rubbed his brow. “So this is going to be a thing with the two of you. That’s just…great. Just great.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Nate admitted, looking between the three of them. “But…can we focus on what’s important? We don’t have to give the team a name. We’re the Avengers, and we’ll stay the Avengers—at least until the others start paying attention. But if we’re going to get their attention, we do need to be mindful as we select our personal code names. I am Iron Lad, patterned after Iron Man. I don’t have any extra-human abilities, but I’m good with tech, and my neuro-kinetic suit gives me superhuman strength, the ability to fly, and projectiles. I’ll lead the team.”

“Fat chance of that,” Eli said, crossing his arms.

Nate cast him a quick look before barreling on. “Vision wasn’t specific about what the rest of you could do. Eli?”

“I’m Isaiah Bradley’s grandson,” Eli said. “The first Captain America. Supersoldier runs in the blood.”

“So cool,” Billy whispered.

Nate just nodded. “You’re a natural Captain America analog. We can call you American Boy.”

“You’re crap at this, did you know that?” Eli said with a startled laugh. “How about I think about my codename and get back to you?”

“But—”

“Yeah, I’m not going by American Boy. Drop it; I’ll come up with something for the next meeting.”

Nate made a face, but then he shrugged. “All right. So long as it’s a direct analog to Captain America, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Teddy? What can you do?”

Three pairs of eyes turned on him. Teddy tensed, especially aware of Billy—the weight of his regard, the low simmer of history between them. “Um. I’m a shapeshifter.”

“No kidding?” Eli leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbows. His brows were arched in open curiosity; Teddy fought not to squirm. “That’s cool. So, really, you could be any of them. You could make yourself look just like Thor if you wanted to.”

He dropped his gaze to his hands, fighting the instinct to turtle up. What was Billy thinking? God, please, don’t let this ruin everything. “I’d…rather not,” he said slowly. “Maybe an approximation of Thor, or— Just. Not an exact replica. I…” f*ck, what kind of argument could he give without peeling back the scab to show the still-healing wound beneath?

“No,” Nate interrupted, unknowingly coming to Teddy’s rescue. “It wouldn’t be ethical to be an exact copy. We want their attention; we don’t want to make them think there’s a Skrull in our midst. An approximation would be fine. Is there anything else?”

“Super-strength,” Teddy said, refusing to let himself look at Billy; refusing to let himself show his relief. “And I’m fast. I can control my mass and size. I can fly, if I grow wings? Or have claws. Or—”

“But no lightning, so Thor’s out.”

“Um,” Billy said, giving an awkward wave. All three looked toward him, and Teddy watched as a sworl of pink spread across his high cheekbones, up toward his ears. Billy had the most beautiful blushes. “Actually, I can do the lightning thing. I’m not very good at it yet, so you may want to stand behind me until I learn how to direct it, but… Yeah, I guess I can do Thor or whatever.”

Nate gave a sharp, pleased nod. “Good. Is there anything else you can do?”

Billy hesitated for what felt like a very long, awkwardly strained minute—then shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I mean, kind of flying with the lightning, and that, um, teleporting thing I did earlier but haven’t been able to replicate, but that’s— Yeah, that’s it.”

“Then you will be Thor, and Teddy can be Ant-Man.”

“Can I be Wasp instead?” Teddy asked. “Wasp is cool.”

“Wasp is awesome,” Eli cut in, “but if we’re going to make a statement, we should go big, not small, so we can be sure everyone sees.” His lips twitched into a smirk. “How’s your temper, Altman?”

Teddy blinked. “Uh, pretty stable.”

“You can fake it. No denying that Hulk’s big as they come, and when people see him, they talk. That’s what we want, isn’t it?” Eli added. “To make people talk? To make them notice? If you can do big and strong and green, then they’re not going to be able to help but notice.”

He’d done big and strong and green before. Greg had thought it’d be funny to head to Times Square and shift into the Hulk—see what kind of a reaction they’d get. That had been the lowest point for him—Teddy had known just how badly things would go, and yet he’d played along, telling himself that there would be no reason for people to be afraid…and maybe he could even rehabilitate the Hulk’s reputation by being nice. As if helping a few old ladies cross the street could pave over all the bloody rampages of the past.

So he’d followed Greg to Times Square. He’d shifted. He’d stepped out onto the street.

He’d nearly caused a riot.

“Yeah,” Teddy said quietly. “I can do green. Um,” he added, noticing the way they were all watching him. “Teddy smash?”

Nate winced. “You can practice that. We all will practice. Every day, from six in the morning until midnight, until we can move together as a team.”

Teddy shot up a hand even as Eli scoffed, “Yeah, sorry, but I’m in high school and classes don’t get out for two more weeks.”

“My classes are out,” Billy said when Nate sent him a confused look. “The day we met was my last day. I go to a private school, so we’re on a slightly different schedule. But um—I probably can’t do midnight every night, even without school. I’m a teenager. I’ve got, you know, parents.”

“We’re talking about Kang the Conqueror,” Nate protested.

“And I’m talking about Rebecca Kaplan. We have lives, families. We’re going to have to work around them.”

“We can make it work,” Teddy was quick to reassure Nate. “We’re going to make it work. We just need some flexibility.”

Nate looked between them, then toward Eli. He looked so anxious—so frightened—that Teddy almost took it all back. God, what must it be like to wake up one day and discover you were going to become an infamous supervillain? It took a lot of guts for Nate to fight his own future, and Teddy was determined to do whatever he could to help.

But Billy was right, too. They had their lives, and they couldn’t just put everything on hold. Not even for something like this.

“All right,” Nate said slowly, still looking between the three of them as if he were desperately trying and failing to read between the silences. “I suppose a little flexibility won’t hurt. For the next two weeks, we’ll meet every weekday at four and practice until eight.”

“Four-thirty would be better,” Teddy cut in. “Brooklyn,” he added by way of explanation.

“Bronx,” Eli added. “Four-thirty would be better.”

Nate made a low, annoyed noise. “Fine, four-thirty. Any other objections?” None of them said anything. “All right. Weekends will be eight to eight, so we can make up time. Once school is out for all of you, we’ll renegotiate the schedule. We’ll meet here at first, but eventually we’ll need to find an open field for more maneuverability. The training rooms here were damaged. I’ve been working to clear them out, but we won’t be able to get the height we need with them in their current state.”

He looked between them as if he expected more protests. None of them said a word. “Okay,” Nate said. “Okay. Then it’s settled. We’re settled. We’re really going to do this.”

There was a long beat of silence. Another. Then,

“Holy crap,” Billy murmured, laughing a little, breathless. “We’re Avengers.” He said the words as if he couldn’t quite believe them to be true.

Teddy knew exactly how he felt.

**

212-555-8743: Hey.
212-555-8743: So interesting first meeting today. Did you feel like it was the first day of school? Because I totally felt like we were going over the syllabus and talking out class rules.
212-555-8743: Is it okay for me to text you?
212-555-8743: Crap, I shouldn’t have just assumed it would be okay to text you.
212-555-8743: I know we’re kind of deliberately ignoring huge pink elephants and all, so I thought
212-555-8743: Okay, delete these and ignore me.
212-555-8743: Sorry.

**

Teddy’s phone started buzzing with missed messages the moment he headed up the grimy subway steps and back into cellular range. He dug into his pocket, lighting up the screen with a flick of his thumb—and nearly stumbled face-first onto the curb.

He’d deleted Billy’s number ages ago, back during the first days after their fight when it hurt to even think his name. It had been part of trying to start over—a clean slate—and seeing those very familiar digits now sent a confusing whirlwind of emotion swirling through him. Joy and pain and hope and a lingering anger. He was all at once glad and reflexively defensive, as if…

Jesus, as if part of him expected to see that Billy had once again decided to walk away.

He grabbed for the railing, leaning heavily against it as he pulled up the string of messages. His heart was pounding, and it didn’t seem willing to slow even has he read and re-read the texts, assuring himself that there was nothing so broken he couldn’t fix it.

It was fine. It was all fine. He was overreacting.

Teddy glanced up toward the darkening sky—Nate had been as good as his word, keeping them until late—and let out an uneven breath. Text back, or call?

Text, he decided, thumbs hesitating over the screen before he began slowly keying in a message. He wasn’t sure he trusted his voice to be completely steady, and besides…he’d rather leave all the first steps to Billy. If Billy wanted to talk to him, he’d call. If he wanted to IM him, he’d IM.

Things were too new, too uncertain, for Teddy to risk it all by making any overtures.

212-555-3129: If I had known it was the first day of school, I would have brought my Miss Marvel lunchbox.
212-555-3129: You can text me whenever tho. I was just trapped in subway limbo.

There. That was neutral enough. A small (weak) joke and a reassurance that he hadn’t been ignoring any of Billy’s texts. Teddy hesitated before sliding his phone back into his pocket, tucking away the temptation to just keep going. He was starved for the attention, the connection, and the idea of finding a way to bridge that tentative friendship from the meeting all the way back to his empty white box of a room was—

He nearly stumbled again when his phone began to ring.

Teddy cast a quick look of apology at the elderly woman he’d nearly pitched straight into, fishing out his phone and reflexively checking the faceplate. 212-555-8743. It looked like Billy wasn’t afraid to initiate contact.

But then, Billy had always been so very brave.

“Hey,” Teddy said, swerving around a kid on a skateboard as he headed down his block.

“So, we’re going to ignore the part where I forgot all about subways, right?” Billy’s voice was wry, a little embarrassed, but Teddy could hear the smile in it. He found himself starting to grin back. “It’s been a long, weird day on the heels of a long, weird week, and I wasn’t even thinking that you had to do more than walk a few blocks before you were home. Um. We could pretend I was drunk?”

He laughed. “Too much sparkling grape juice.”

“Too much sparkling grape juice, right! That stuff kicks my butt.” And it was like finding an old, familiar groove all over again, tension bleeding out of his shoulders because— Because it seemed like even if Billy had walked away twice, he still remembered old conversations, old jokes. Old moments between them, each strand of memory building a web. It really hadn’t all burned down. “Are you going to do codename brainstorming tonight? I’m pretty sure that if you don’t come prepared with one tomorrow, you’re going to get stuck with Nate’s idea.”

Teddy paused at the corner, waiting for the light to change. Traffic blared by, kicking up swirls of dust and trash. The girl waiting beside him was listening to rap, volume kicked up so high he could feel the beat vibrating between them. Across the street and halfway down the block, moving in his direction, a group of teenaged boys playfully jostled each other and laughed. They were too far way to make out specifics, but a few looked vaguely familiar.

“Earth to Hulkling.”

“What? Oh,” Teddy said, shaking himself out with a laugh. The light changed and he started to cross. “I dunno. I may just keep it.”

“…you’re joking.”

“Well!” The group of boys had stopped halfway down the block, milling about the wide stoop of an apartment complex. “Nate seemed pretty bummed that neither of you liked his suggestions, so I just figured…why not? Hulkling isn’t so bad.”

There was a rustle and a thud over the line, as if Billy had flopped back onto his bed. Teddy could picture it perfectly, even though he’d never actually been inside Billy’s room: posters of heroes tacked to the walls, red sheets, a bust of Thor watching placidly from a shelf that would never hold any sports trophies.

Billy, gangly-limbed and beautiful, spread across the mattress.

“You are literally too nice for your own good,” Billy said. Teddy wondered dizzily what it would be like to sprawl out across the bed with him. “It’s a good thing you’ve got me and Eli there to keep things in check.”

“Oh, is that what’re you’re there for—Asgardian?”

“Hey!” Billy protested, laughing. “Asgardian is cool. Much better than Tiny Thor or whatever.”

“Or whatever, sure.” Teddy began to slow, eyes on the crowd of boys. There were five of them, all wearing the red-and-white varsity letterman jackets of PS-K575. One was craning his neck, checking up and down the street as another—dark hair and natural, perfect grace familiar even at this distance—stepped toward the doors, one arm lifted. It was too far to hear the aerosol hiss or see the fine mist of color, but Teddy couldn’t miss the way Greg traced the word in big, jagged letters, spreading across the double doors of Teddy’s apartment complex.

F-A-G-G-O-

“Teddy?”

He startled, realizing Billy had been talking—that he’d frozen mid-step, watching with sick, creeping dread as Greg and his friends (God, f*ck, Teddy’s once-friends) tagged his apartment doors. Any of them could turn a head and spot him. Greg could spot him, could bring his campaign of terror straight to Teddy’s home and— He sucked in a breath, pulling back, quickly stumbling into the safety of an alley. His heart was racing a frantic staccato and he felt weirdly dizzy, as if all the oxygen had been sucked from his brain, from the world.

He could hear the pounding of his blood, and he squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to let himself give in to the prick of heat beneath his lids.

“Yeah,” he managed, breathless, and it was all he could do to fall back against the filthy wall, legs quavering beneath him. He kept his eyes closed; maybe if he never opened them again, he wouldn’t have to see the message Greg and his friend had left for him. “Sorry, I’m here.”

Billy was silent for what felt like forever. Then, tentatively, “Everything okay?”

He covered his mouth, choking back a shaky laugh. God, what on earth could he say to that? “Sure,” Teddy said. “Just… Overcome with horror realizing I’m actually stuck with Hulkling.”

“See? Too nice for your own good. It’s really lucky for you that I’m here to watch your back.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said, turning his head to rest his cheek against the cool bricks. If he pretended hard enough, it was almost as if he was laying there next to Billy, sprawled across his bed, miles away from the crater he’d made of his life. “Lucky me.”

**

212-555-0031: So I take it you blocked my number.
212-555-0031: But can you block everyone at school?
212-555-0031: All I have to do is ask and they rush to hand over their phones.
212-555-0031: I’ll always know how to reach you, Teddy, no matter what you do.
212-555-0031: The faster you learn that, the better it’ll go for you.

**

It was a bad night, full of fitful dreams: Greg’s fingers in long blonde curls, a hot mouth roving unwanted over his skin. Billy’s face, streaked with blood and disgust. The soft thwap thwap of lakewater against a pier. The rise and fall of whispers as he moved unseen through familiar halls. Teddy swam in and out of unhappy sleep, body curled in on itself, small in a way he hadn’t been for years now.

The last time he woke, staring blankly at the glowing red numbers placidly flipping from 4:21 to 4:22, Teddy gave up even pretending he’d be able to get a good night’s sleep. He kicked aside his sheets and padded into the living room. The room was dark and still, comfortable furniture rising into unfamiliar shapes in the dim. He fumbled for the light switch…then sighed and just let it be, going to curl up at one end of the sagging couch. He snagged the silver-spangled afghan and pulled it around his shoulders—over his head, as if he was a child again and that would be enough to block out the world—before taking a deep, careful breath.

Another.

Another.

Slowly, bit by bit, Teddy’s muscles began to unknot. His breath came in even pulls. And, as the sun began its inevitable creep across the floorboards until its rays were kissing his toes, the world began to reorient itself away from memories he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to leave behind.

The day was going to unfold whether he was ready for it or not. “Come on,” Teddy mumbled against his drawn-up knees. “Get your ass in gear, Altman.” If he was lucky, the super had already painted over the evidence. He wouldn’t even have to see it.

He wouldn’t have to wonder what was next.

“Come on.”

He pushed the afghan away, disgusted with himself even as his insides twisted and rearranged themselves at the thought. It wouldn’t be so bad if Greg had just left it at school. Classes would be over before long, and Teddy would have found a way to survive each day with the promise of the Avengers and Billy waiting after the last bell. This? This changed things.

He dragged himself through his morning shower, pulling on clothes without really paying attention. His mother was still asleep—it was her one day off this week, and it’d take a miracle to get her up before noon—so he fixed himself a quick bowl of cereal, then scrawled a note and left it folded on top the coffeemaker.

Gone out to be very mysterious. Be back tonight.
Your angsty teenage son,
Teddy

Teddy kept his hands shoved into his pockets as he moved slowly—almost timidly—down his hall, taking the steps. The apartment lobby was old and flooded with light, half of the pre-war parquet cracking, the other half hanging doggedly on. He realized he was clenching up as he made his way out of the shadow of the stairwell, eyes darting up and then quickly away before he could see if the glass still bore the bright orange loop of a G, another G, slur framed almost artistically around the panes.

If he wasn’t a f*cking coward, he would look to see if Greg’s message was still there. He didn’t, though, eyes trained on the ground, hands fumbling blindly at the lock as he pushed his way outside—and practically slammed through the doors. Teddy started to run the minute his sneakers hit sidewalk, and he didn’t look back, he didn’t, he couldn’t. He could feel those words chasing him down to the subway platform and he didn’t. look. back.

Coward coward coward.

The dark mood chased him all the way into the city, and as Teddy climbed the Avengers’ fence, he was beginning to wonder whether coming here had been a mistake. Maybe calling in for the day wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

But then he heard Nate’s voice drifting through the cracked-open door. Billy’s laugh made him pause as he reached for the doorknob; his heart actually spasmed at the sound, near-painful. When is this going to stop being so much, Teddy thought, even as he shook his head at himself and pushed his way inside.

Never. It was never going to stop. And he—

He—

He had no words for what he saw. “What in the world are you two doing?” Teddy asked.

Nate was standing at one end of the room they’d unofficially claimed as their main HQ; Billy was standing at the other. Between them was a messy soup of spandex and metallic polyesters and lurex trim and zippers and something Teddy was pretty sure was supposed to be faux crocodile. Billy had a bolt of stretchy-looking red fabric in his hands. A large swath of it was draped over his head and shoulders in a dramatic cowl, kept in place by silver-flecked upholstery trim.

“We will need costumes,” Nate explained. He had a glue gun in one hand and a frown between his brows. “…somehow. This all seemed more manageable in theory.”

“I’m thinking I want a cape,” Billy added. His mobile mouth was twisted into a wry grin, and Teddy could actually feel the weight of the morning slipping away as he returned the smile. It was a little frightening how easily this boy could shove away the lingering darkness and make him feel…

Happy. Bright and light inside, body straining against sudden breathlessness like a soda shaken and left to fizz. God, was there anyone like Billy?

Teddy cleared his throat and stepped inside, hoping none of that showed on his face. “Well, of course,” he said, nudging a bolt of silky teal fabric with his toe. “Because how can you be Thor Jr. without a cape?”

Nate blinked. “I thought you settled on Asgardian,” he began, tone almost betrayed, but Billy cut him off with a wave of his hand (and a flourish of his cape).

“No, I’m Asgardian,” Billy said. “Hulkling’s just jealous that I get the cool cape when he has to settle for ripped purple tights.”

“I have a great comeback to that,” Teddy noted. “And I’ll tab it for later, so you can admire my incredible wit, but Nate, first I have to start with—why?” Nate opened his mouth to protest. “Wait, no, let’s go with how? Did you stage a heist of Mood?”

Nate closed his mouth…and remained suspiciously silent.

“Okay, please don’t tell me you staged a heist of Mood.”

“No,” Nate said. He set aside the glue gun with a disgusted noise, crouching down to begin sorting various fabrics. Several of them, Teddy noted with a quickly muffled laugh, looked as if they had already been cut into vaguely human shapes and glued together. “I just thought maybe I should make sure we had everything we needed for our meeting today. Only I didn’t know what we’d need because I’ve never done this before. Vision wasn’t exactly all that helpful, you know,” he added, shooting Teddy a look. “I’m doing the best I can. I just— I just didn’t know what we’d need.”

It’s okay, Teddy wanted to say, teasing smile transmutating into something warmer, almost fond. He’d only known this kid for a couple of days and already he felt so incredibly protective of him. None of us ever know what we’re doing.

He almost did say it—but then the door was pushed open and Eli’s choked, “Oh, you are for serious sh*tting me here,” was so incredibly aggravated and bewildered that Teddy had to turn his face away to hide a snorting laugh.

Across the room, swaddled in yards and yards of dangerously flammable fabric, Billy tucked his face against his shoulder and shook with his own silent laughter.

In that moment, blue eyes catching brown, Teddy could almost have said: Greg who?

Eli stormed in, wading through the pile of fabric with an already-familiar set to his jaw. Teddy didn’t have to be a genius to know what was coming. A good two hours had been wasted yesterday listening to Nate and Eli fight over how closely code names had to mirror the Avengers that inspired them. The last thing he wanted to do was sit through another round of increasingly reductive debates. Over lycra.

“Can you sew?” Teddy demanded.

“I can sew on a button.” Eli’s voice was filled with baffled disgust.

Teddy looked at Nate; Nate gestured helplessly to the glue gun. “If you wanted an army of miniature robots, sure, I could do that,” he said. “This is…harder than it looks.”

“I saw a season of Project Runway,” Billy said before Teddy had even turned to look at him. “And I tie-dyed one of Dad’s old undershirts for Earth Day in fifth grade. That about covers my ability here.”

“So basically,” Teddy said, “there are four of us and not a single one knows the first thing about turning all this,” he gestured, “into something usable.”

Nate’s frown deepened as he looked around, frustration obvious in the set of his shoulders. He’d left off the iron suit today, looking even younger (and Teddy knew he needed to stop thinking of Nate that way; he knew he’d hate it, and yet he couldn’t seem to help it, even though they weren’t that far apart in actual years) in a t-shirt and jeans. He wondered, briefly, where Nate had gotten them from. Another of his trips out? Or had Billy noticed his lack and lent him something to wear?

(Billy who was now tangled in the trailing red fabric, trying to bat it and the sparkling silver yarn away with an annoyed grunt.)

“We have to do something,” Nate said. “You can’t just wear your street clothes. No one will take us seriously unless we look the part.”

“No one’s going to take us seriously in stapled tights that split down the seam to show our asses in the middle of our first fight either,” Eli pointed out.

Teddy hesitated. He’d had an idea of how to solve this problem already, but he was…reluctant…to suggest it. He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, willing himself to just say something. Come on, he thought. What’s the worst that can happen? “Maybe there’s another option,” he said slowly. “I, uh, heard of this place before…” He trailed off, skin strangely tight over his bones, very aware of Billy finally pushing free of the tangled red cape.

But if Teddy closed his eyes, he’d so easily be able to recall the flicker of the black-and-white screen, would be able to see the way Billy’s body tensed, leaned forward at the sight of the silent video, emotions flickering across his face like a zoetrope.

Curiosity. Interest. Surprise. Desire.

If he let himself think of that, of the soft noise Billy made when those long-ago actors kissed, of the way he licked his lips unconsciously as if preparing for a kiss of his own… God, he’d never be able to keep that off his face, no matter how desperately he shifted. “It’s this, um, this place where you can order replica superhero costumes and, uh, design your own, and.”

Billy suddenly jerked his head up, eyes going wide as he caught on. “What? Wait. No. We can’t—” he began, color flooding his cheeks. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s not that bad,” Teddy hissed back, acutely aware of Eli and Nate’s matching frowns. “It’s just a store, whatever.”

“Um, it’s just a sex store,” Billy pointed out. “Eli can’t get his Kid America tights at a sex store.”

“Patriot, actually,” Eli cut in. “But first: what?”

Teddy covered his face with his hands, fighting his own blush. He could remember the acute embarrassment of that exhibit from beginning to end in skin-crawling detail. The life-sized statues, the explicit paintings, the demonstrations. Row after row of p*rn through the ages, playing in a dim room with official-looking plaques next to the screen, as if that somehow made the writhing bodies a little less…less. “It’s a really long story,” he said, voice muffled. “But it’s—” He couldn’t do this. “Billy, explain?”

“Oh no, you’re the one who thinks it’s a good idea; you explain the kinky sex store to Eli and Nate.”

“But,” Teddy protested, finally daring to drop his hands—which, bad idea. Both Eli and Nate were staring between the two of them as if they’d somehow stumbled onto a very baffling game of emotional table tennis. “Billy.”

“Um, no. No way. No way.”

Finally, Eli snapped, “Will someone explain what is going on here? How the hell do the two of you know each other, anyway?” and, God, how could he possibly begin to answer that?

Teddy looked at Billy; Billy looked at Teddy. They shrugged, together, awkwardly. “It’s complicated,” Billy said, unconsciously adopting the excuse Teddy had once used to explain Greg, and he wasn’t going to let himself be hurt by that—not when Nate was shaking his head and saying, utterly baffled,

“But, wait. How did we get from costumes to kinky sex?”

“It’s not—” He struggled to find the words, squirming inside in embarrassment. He should have just kept his mouth closed and settled for stapled-on tights. “It’s. Okay, so, a while back I,” we, “went to this museum. And it had an exhibit on…all sorts of things. But one of the exhibits highlighted a company that provided high-quality reproductions of superhero costumes. For…cosplaying.”

“Cosplaying,” Eli said, utterly deadpan.

Teddy shot him a look. “Yes.” He refused to look at Nate or Billy. “You put in an order, with your measurements, and they make you a costume for…cosplaying…that uses some of the more readily available technology the Fantastic Four developed. You know, stretch, fire resistance, that sort of thing.” He shifted from foot to foot, fighting the urge to squirm. Eli’s incredulousness had morphed into growing amusem*nt. He was enjoying this, the bastard. “You can design your own, in their shop in the Village, and it’s all very nice and clean and not at all skeezy, and—”

“Wait,” Billy interrupted. “You actually went?”

He was continuously shifting to control the blush that wanted to heat his cheeks; even still, he couldn’t quite meet Billy’s eyes. “Well,” Teddy said. “You know. Curiosity. It was actually a pretty cool place.”

“Oh my God.”

“So if we tell them we are interested in cosplaying, they’ll make our uniforms for us?” Nate demanded, cutting through the awkward silence. Teddy nodded. “We’ll go now,” Nate said, shoving aside the swath of fabric and straightening. “The sooner we have them, the sooner we can adjust to how they impact our fighting style.”

Teddy glanced at Eli; Eli shrugged.

Billy looked between the three of them, startled. “Wait, wait, wait. Wait. I want to make sure we’re all on the same page here. We’re going to the Village to visit a sex shop so we can order our superhero uniforms. And we’re all…okay with that?”

“Cosplay shop,” Eli said, arms crossed, smirking.

“Do you have a better idea?” Teddy tried. Hoped, really. He’d gone several weeks back, too curious not to take a closer look. He hadn’t been sure what to expect—a dark, seedy hole-in-the-wall, maybe, with men and women furtively lurking in corners fondling lycra or whatever—but Command Central had been a perfectly normal-looking, well-lit boutique. The antique superhero posters lining the walls had been a nice touch, actually. But well-lit or not, it was still a sex shop, and the nice woman behind the counter had still probably…assumed something about him, and he was pretty sure he might die if he went in there and she assumed something about him and Billy and—

Billy rubbed at his face, palms scrubbing across his eyes, then through his wild hair. “Yeah, no,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t have any better ideas. Okay, then. Um. I guess if we’re going to do this, we should just do this.”

**

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Billy added thirty minutes later, as they stood huddled together across the street from the sex shop. It was just like Teddy remembered: a clean, brightly-lit, modern-looking storefront standing cheek-and-jowl with the ultra-hip boutiques that lined the Village. The display had been changed out, he noticed. The familiar purple of Hawkeye’s costume had been retired, no doubt thanks to his very public death, and replaced by the yellow-and-black of Wolverine’s. There were even six long, thin steel blades attached to the gloves, Teddy noticed.

He was not noticing how suspiciously close Wolverine’s mannequin was standing to Cable’s. He really, really was not.

“It’s just cosplay,” Nate said, though his voice wobbled a bit on that. His cheeks were bright red. “Right? Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Right,” Eli said. “Nothing at all weird about four guys going to buy cosplay tights together. For all that cosplaying we’re going to do.”

Teddy winced. “Can we stop saying cosplay?” he asked. “It’s starting to sound uncomfortably suggestive.”

“Agreed.” Billy glanced nervously up and down the street, then back toward the wide open storefront. “So how are we going to do this? Aren’t there…um. Age laws?”

Nate gave a helpless gesture; Eli cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. Teddy was starting to realize he tended to do that when he was fighting to seem authoritative. “Possibly, though it’s likely they’ll only care about whichever one of us actually puts in the order. Teddy, since you’ve been here before, you can take point.”

“Awesome,” Teddy said, meaning anything but.

Eli ignored him. “Nate, you stay here. You already have your uniform, and you’re younger-looking than me and Billy; we don’t want to send up any red flags.”

Nate didn’t protest. If anything, he looked relieved, handing Teddy a thick black wallet with a murmured, “I’ll just be over here if you need me.” Teddy made a low, surprised noise at the weight of the wallet, but he didn’t comment, instead sliding it into his pocket with a quick nod. He could ask about how Nate got his hands on so much cash later.

“Okay, good. We already have our measurements,” thanks to some awkward dicking around with measuring tape earlier, “and a pretty good idea of what we want. Let’s just keep it simple and get in and out as quickly as we can. Teddy?”

“Right,” he said. Teddy stepped back toward the far building, deliberately moving into the shadow cast by its wide stoop. His skin prickled, and he was excruciatingly aware of the bustle of activity moving up and down the street—shoppers, college kids heading to the nearby NYU building, tourists strolling down the twisting Village roads as if they had all the time in the world. Billy half-turned to look at him, but Teddy didn’t let himself focus on the question on his face; instead, he focused inward, imagining the watercolor swirl of the shift, letting himself unfold into his new shape.

The changes were subtle. A few inches of height, added width of his shoulders, breadth of his chest. A sharper line of his jaw and cheekbones without the lingering softness of youth to blur his features. A thousand tiny details that took him from sixteen to twenty-two without changing the core of who he was. He added a hipster beard at the last moment, figuring it couldn’t hurt the illusion. The colorful swirl of a tattoo blooming down his left arm like a multi-jeweled sleeve was the final finishing touch.

“Oh,” Billy breathed, and Teddy looked up to meet his eyes, startled by the strain in his voice. Billy’s eyes were wide, color rising high and sweeping in delicate whorls across his high cheekbones, up to stain his ears cherry red. His lips parted, and Teddy swore he could almost feel the indrawn breath—sharp, staccato, catching in Billy’s chest as his eyes swept over Teddy in a confusing mix of shock and realization and dismay and heat. “This is how you’ve been doing it all this time,” Billy said, mostly to himself.

I have an old soul, Teddy used to say, whenever he’d secretly used his ability to get past the barriers placed on youth. He supposed it was easier than the truth: I am a liar and a cheat.

“Billy,” Teddy said, and even his voice was different, deeper. Billy shivered, biting his bottom lip, and it was so hard to tell whether he was attracted to how Teddy looked or repulsed by what he could do. The uncertainty rattled around in his chest, made it hard to breathe. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

Billy nodded, eyes sweeping over him, and let out an unsteady breath. “Yeah,” he said, his voice as shaky as Teddy felt. Then, “Um, wow.”

Is this okay, he almost asked, but Nate and Eli were watching them again, brows knit in near-identical expressions of confusion, and Teddy bit the inside of his mouth and stayed quiet. As silly and easy as it seemed, he had a mission to focus on—he couldn’t let himself get distracted trying to puzzle out what that wow could have meant. “All right,” Teddy said, moving toward the crosswalk. He pulled self-confidence around him like armor, forcing his muscles to relax and his stride to go easy and even. If he went in there looking twisted up and nervous, the shopkeepers would wonder what was wrong. But if he pretended he felt completely comfortable in his own skin, they wouldn’t question him. It was a trick he’d learned a long time ago, back when he’d first changed his shape for good.

It didn’t matter whether he felt at ease, so long as he could fake it.

The bell jangled as he pushed the door open, holding it for Eli and Billy as they trailed behind him. Eli, Teddy noted, was matching his swagger easily. He glanced up and around, the light catching on the gold hoops in his ears, but he refused to look impressed. Like he found himself in these kinds of situations all the time. Teddy figured no one would think to question him.

Billy, on the other hand, looked sixteen. He was fine-boned enough that Teddy wasn’t sure there was anything he could have done about it, even if he hadn’t been blushing and unable to keep his eyes fixed on any one spot for more than a few seconds at a time. The shopkeep was moving forward, gaze moving between the three of them; her welcoming smile was slipping away as she spotted Billy.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she shooed Billy out, but it would be awkward. They’d had more than their fair share of that already. “Hey,” Teddy said, adopting an easy smile. The best defense was a good offense, right? “I was hoping you could help me…” he let his eyes dip to her nametag, then back up slowly, through his lashes, “…Kim.”

All three pairs of eyes were on him as he brushed back his bangs and leaned against the counter—leaned toward Kim—keeping his gaze locked with hers. He’d watched Greg play this game often enough that it was an easy thing to mimic the slow, warm smile, the casual interest. He willed Kim to keep her focus on him, and sure enough, she seemed to have forgotten the maybe-underaged Billy, smiling back brightly.

“All right,” Kim said, folding her arms on her side of the counter and leaning, too. She had pretty hazel eyes and dark brown skin, the gold of her labret catching the light when she tipped her face toward his. “What can I do for you?”

**

“Comic-con,” Eli was still repeating, half marveling and half disgusted, as they heading back into the Avengers’ mansion. Teddy had kept Kim busy at the counter, flirting shamelessly as she walked him through designing his costume. Eli and Billy had huddled around a second computer station, voices kept low as they pulled together their own uniforms.

When Teddy had asked for Kim to ring up all three together, (“My kid brother dragged me into this whole cosplay thing he and his friends are so into. I don’t know, what the f*ck, but Mom can’t sew for sh*t, and she’ll never find out where we bought the costumes, so why not?”) she’d seemed a bit taken aback, but she’d accepted Teddy’s explanation without comment. If anything, she’d seemed amused and charmed that he was going through such an effort for his dorky little brother and his friends.

He hadn’t been able to look at Billy as he’d said that. He hadn’t been able to look at him through the whole ordeal, actually—not even when they left the shop and headed back to the subway, Teddy subtly shifting into his usual form…painfully aware of the girl’s number written across his palm.

“Comic-con,” Teddy murmured, following in his wake. He kept both hands clenched to hide the whorls of ink. God, he felt like such an asshole. “It worked, didn’t it? The order’s in and uniforms will be delivered in two weeks.”

Eli shook his head, throwing himself into one of the stiff-backed chairs. The floor was still covered in a tangle of fabric, a few pieces stapled or glued together, looking even sadder in the full light of the afternoon. “I guess I’m glad you speak fluent nerd.”

Teddy shot him a look, crouching as he began gathering up the miscellaneous materials—tidying nervously, he supposed, since he couldn’t seem to keep still. “Yeah, well, glass houses.”

“It worked,” Billy cut in, moving to crouch next to him. He reached out to snag a length of spangled material, letting their shoulders brush oh-so briefly. Teddy glanced over; Billy met his eyes. He smiled, small but definite.

That smile made something unfold inside of him, piece by piece by piece. He found himself, slowly, smiling back.

“Yes,” Nate agreed. “Good job, Teddy. Now, let’s finish cleaning up this mess and get back to more important things. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Neither Billy nor Teddy looked away. Neither moved. Teddy couldn’t be sure what was passing between them, but there was something there, something that felt breathless and full of hope. Maybe, he thought, he didn’t have to be so tense and careful all the time. Maybe Billy had already forgiven everything—every trespass, every minor and major crime—and he didn’t have to worry about losing this friendship again.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

**

9:46 pm: Altmanticure has signed on.
Avngerfan2119: Are you just now getting home?
Altmanticore: Sunset Park, remember?
Altmanticore: Not all of us live five minutes away from HQ.
Avngerfan2119: Yeah, well, Nate’s got me beat. I’m pretty sure he sleeps in She-Hulk’s old bed.
Altmanticore: …I don’t know whether to be horrified or jealous.
Avngerfan2119: Right???
Altmanticore: Hey, so, about today
Altmanticore: This is awkward, but I thought—should we be talking? About everything?
Avngerfan2119: I guess? I mean, yes. I mean.
Avngerfan2119: Argh, words.
Avngerfan2119: We should. We will? Later. Things are still
Avngerfan2119: You know.
Avngerfan2119: But fine! I mean. It’s all
Avngerfan2119: Look, don’t ask, don’t tell. I was serious about the whole clean slate, and I just
Avngerfan2119: Vague hand gestures. You know?
Avngerfan2119: Teddy? Are you still there?
Altmanticore: Yeah. Yeah, I know.
Altmanticore: We’ll talk later.
Avngerfan2119: Okay, cool.
Altmanticore: Cool.
Avngerfan2119: Cool as Ice.
Altmanticore: Oh my God, I saw that on a dare. I am not a superfan—you asshole.
Avngerfan2119: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the dulcet rap of your idol Mr. Rob Van Winkle.

**

Teddy was halfway into his chair before he noticed something strange about his desk. He froze, muscles tightening, a frown tugging his brows together as he studied the bland beige face of the desktop even as he slowly finished sliding in.

Years of dirt and graffiti had left their mark, fake wood grains looped with gouges from countless pens. He’d added his own mark at the beginning of the school year, lost somewhere in the confusion but still indelible. A feeble attempt to anchor himself when, even then, he’d felt so terribly adrift: I am here; I cannot be forgotten.

Someone, it seemed, had managed to erase some of that visual noise. There were a handful of tiny clean spaces dotted across the desktop, scattered at seeming random—no bigger than a fingernail. He co*cked his head and reached out to touch one, surprised to feel the raised edges, the sharp points. Not circles, then, but something with jagged thrusts, a three-dimensional heft.

A sticker?

He slid his nail under one edge and peeled it away, revealing the unbroken lines of graffiti as it came free. Teddy turned his hand over, letting the sticker tumble into his palm; his heart slowly began to pick up speed as he studied it, and he wet his lips, throat suddenly dry.

It was a star.

Greg had covered his desk with glow-in-the-dark stars.

He looked over, meeting his once-friend’s eager smirk. Greg didn’t—couldn’t—understand why Teddy had snapped that night and tore down his stars (skin shuddering, sobbing, jeans unbuttoned and hands clawing desperately at the ceiling at the height of his loss), but a lack of understanding had never stopped him before. He knew that those stars had hurt Teddy then; he wanted to hurt Teddy now.

Teddy slowly closed his fist, not letting himself look away. The five sharp edges dug into his skin.

Not today, he thought, forcing himself to turn back to face the front of the classroom as if nothing had happened. You’re not going to break me today.

**

212-555-8743: Is your mom getting suspicious?
212-555-8743: Because my mom is totally getting suspicious.
212-555-8743: I think she’s worried I’ve joined a gang.
212-555-8743: Or a really violent cult.
212-555-3129: That sucks. Maybe you could tell her you’ve joined an intramural sports team?
212-555-8743: Yeah, she’d believe cult first.

**

“Next time,” Nate said in a deceptively even tone, “maybe you can do that without the structural damage.”

“Not dying in a cave-in would be nice,” Billy added. He brushed plaster off his baggy t-shirt; his hair was nearly white with it, a fine dust rising around him as he shook himself out like a dog.

Several paces away, at the foot of what once was the dining room wall, Eli fought not to make a sheepish face. “Sure,” he said, pulling his balled fist back. He’d been showing off his strength in ever-escalating feats, moving seamlessly from one to the other as if he were following the steps of an elaborate dance. It had been beautiful, Teddy mused…right until he slammed his fist through a load-bearing wall and half the plaster ceiling had crumbled down around them.

“Still!” Nate added. “That was an impressive show of strength. So. Good job.”

Billy turned his head to meet Teddy’s eyes. He quirked a (white) brow and mouthed gold star; it took everything Teddy had not to snort.

Billy, he was fast learning, was a troublemaker.

“All right,” Nate continued, clapping his metal hands together. They made a dull clanging noise and, above them, the ceiling gave a warning groan. Four pairs of eyes jerked up. “…let’s go into the morning room and give Teddy his turn.”

Teddy’s stomach tightened at that. He turned to follow the others, trailing behind because… Well, God, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to do this. It wasn’t so much that shapeshifting was personal for him (though it was; he’d been hiding it for so long that it couldn’t be anything else), but more that it never led to anything good before.

Wasn’t that supposed to be a sign of madness, Teddy wondered—taking the same action over and over again and expecting a new outcome? Well, he knew what came from changing his shape. He knew what kind of trouble it brought him. He knew the false friends it could buy him, and the true ones it could lose, and the way it winnowed down his sense of self until he wasn’t quite sure who or what he was anymore.

He’d changed his shape years ago to look more like the boys in his gym class—to look like Greg. And now he was supposed to just add a new default form as if moving between the two was as easy as changing shirts?

He thought he might be sick.

“Hey.”

Teddy’s head jerked up, heart given an uneven lurch when he met Billy’s gaze. He’d managed to shake free most of the plaster dust, though a few streaks of it trailed his cheek, the front of his shirt. He had an open, worried look on his face, as if he’d somehow found a way to crack open Teddy’s skull and read the swirling storm of doubt there.

…except no, sh*t, Teddy had just lagged behind the others, dragging his heels as he spiraled deeper and deeper into his own head.

“Sorry,” Teddy said, forcing himself into motion. He made as if to pass Billy in the doorway, but Billy caught his arm—fingers warm and grip firm, touch so incredibly welcome that Teddy almost shuddered in response—and frowned up at him. Fierce and searching. “What?”

“Why do you always apologize for things that aren’t your fault?” Billy asked, eyes never leaving his.

f*ck. “Sorry,” Teddy said again, reflexively.

“There. There, you just did it again. You don’t have to be sorry, Teddy. There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. Okay?”

“I’m…” …sorry. Christ. “Not at all sorry. Suck on it, Kaplan?”

Billy laughed and gave his arm a hard shake. “Better. Muuuuch better. So,” Billy added, letting go and leading the way toward the morning room. “Are you ready to show us all what Hulkling can do?”

“Not…exactly.” At Billy’s arched brow, Teddy gave a helpless shrug. “It’s just weird, mostly-strangers knowing what I can, ah, do. Watching me.”

“Judging you?” Teddy gave a faint nod, and Billy ducked his head. The longer ends of his messy hair fell into his eyes. “Yeah, I understand what you mean. But at least you and Eli have had your abilities for a long time. You know how to use them, control them…collapsing ceilings aside. Me? I’m still not clear on everything I can do. And even the stuff I know I can do is so uncontrollable at times that I’m 99% sure I’m going to have to burn the mansion down to hide all your bodies.”

That earned a snorting laugh from Teddy. “Make it look like an accident?”

“I’ve watched a lot of CSI,” Billy said. “I’ll leave the scene of the crime spotless. No one’ll connect the freak electricity storm to me…except for all the kids who saw me accidentally fry Kessler on the last day of school.”

“Wait.” Teddy stopped. “What?”

Billy winced. “Oh, yeah. Um. That’s how my ability manifested, actually. See, funny story: I deliberately put myself between my school’s biggest bully—”

“Billy.”

“—and let him swing at me—”

“Oh my God.”

“—and then lit up like a Roman candle when his fist was like this far away.” He balled up a fist and brought it close to his face. “I didn’t mean to do it, and I was so scared that I’d killed him…after I was glad I’d made him hurt, for all the times he hurt me and kids like me. I’m…not the nicest guy, I guess.”

Teddy impulsively reached down to take Billy’s hand, squeezing his fingers. “That isn’t true,” he said. Their hands folded so naturally together, so perfectly—it felt right to have their palms pressed tight, to feel the thrum of Billy’s pulse beneath his oh-so-warm skin. “Billy. That isn’t true. You’re amazing. You’re the best person I’ve ever met.”

Billy flushed and looked away, one foot scuffing at the broken tile hallway—but he didn’t pull away from Teddy’s grip. “Aw, well. I guess you have to say that about an Avenger.”

He squeezed tighter. “Iron Man is a dick,” Teddy said. “You are wonderful.”

“…thanks.” He glanced up through his lashes, then quickly away again. Shy, the way he hadn’t been since they first started hanging out. Teddy wondered whether that was a good sign.

He tried to tell himself not to read too much into it.

…God, he couldn’t help but read too much into it.

“Anyway,” Teddy said, awkwardly letting go at the exact moment Billy murmured, “So, um…” They both glanced at each other, flushing—and then laughed. All at once, the weird tension hanging between them dissipated, breaking up like dandelion seeds on the breeze.

“Anyway,” Teddy said again, grinning and jostling Billy’s shoulder lightly, “I’m sorry you had such a sh*tty manifestation or whatever, but I’m a little glad to hear you gave that jerk what he deserved. And if that makes me a bad person, then I don’t care—assholes like that need to learn they can’t use their size to intimidate people.” He paused. “I mean, I’m glad he’s okay and all.”

Billy made a wry face. “Oh God, Teddy, yeah, listen to you being such a bad person.”

Teddy opened his mouth to defend himself when Eli stuck his head through the door. “Hey,” he said, “can you guys continue your weird mating dance on your own time? We’ve got sh*t to do and all of humanity to save here.”

Billy jerked away at the same moment Teddy flung up his hands in a warding gesture. It was as if one of Billy’s electric currents had shot through them; they were all at once alert and on the defensive. “What, no, I’m not—” Billy began.

“We’re not, it’s—” Teddy tried.

Eli just looked between them with a flat, oh really, kind of stare, then shrugged and left them to shift awkwardly, determinedly not looking at each other.

sh*t, Teddy thought, suddenly excruciatingly aware how close they had been standing, the warmth of Billy’s hand still lingering against his palm. His fingers twitched in response. sh*t sh*t sh*t. “Sorry,” he murmured, not sure what else he could say.

This time, Billy didn’t scold him for apologizing. Instead, he just gave a sharp nod, turned toward the door, and silently fled the room. Teddy watched him go with a sinking heart, hating that he was letting himself get so upset about something he knew—he knew—would never happen.

“Idiot,” he whispered to himself, hands fisting at his sides. “Idiot, idiot.”

He stayed where he was for another minute or two, struggling to control the sharp, bright pain in his chest. Then he sighed and forced himself to relax his tensed body, pasting on a smile that only went skin-deep. The others were already gathered together in a small group when he made it to the morning room, arguing about whether it would be safer to go outside for Billy’s power display or whether going outside just meant more innocents in the line of fire. Nate stopped mid-sentence when he spotted Teddy and gestured sharply to him. “We’ll worry about that next,” Nate said. “Right now: Teddy, go green.”

Teddy froze halfway across the room as three pairs of eyes swung to him.

“Uh,” he said. He’d been practicing at home, stripped down to his boxers and studying himself in his mirror as he adjusted height, the width of his shoulders, the shade of his skin. He’d figured this was coming and had wanted to be ready for it.

…now, with Billy watching him from beneath his lashes, almost as if he were reluctant to look right at him, Teddy felt anything but ready.

“Nothing’s happening,” Nate pointed out helpfully.

Teddy fought a flush. He could feel their eyes on him—Billy’s eyes—like a physical touch. “Sorry,” he mumbled; he grabbed for the hem of his shirt, tugging it over his head and tossing it blindly toward a high-backed chair. Billy made a soft noise, half-turning away, but he was bracketed by Nate and Eli. There was nowhere for him to go.

Billy turned back, a flush rapidly blooming across his cheeks as Teddy toed off his shoes; he coughed into his fist when Teddy reluctantly reached for the waist of his pants.

“Wait,” Eli protested, stopping him before Teddy could push down the zip. “Uh, I didn’t realize this was going to be a show. No offense, Altman, but that’s a bridge too far for me.”

“Oh get over yourself,” Teddy snapped, all at once too self-conscious and, and, and over it all to care about being polite. He knew they were all taking turns with this, but even so, he felt like a zoo animal, and Billy’s obvious discomfort was making him feel flustered and anxious. “If it helps, you can think no hom*o.”

That wasn’t fair. He could see it by the way Eli flinched that it wasn’t. But he needed to be angry to work up the courage to shove down his jeans, to kick them aside, to stand there in only his boxers, completely exposed before his teammates.

He couldn’t look at them. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being that animal in its cage, rattling the bars as spectators looked on. It felt like a thousand and one nights with Greg.

And then he took an uneven breath, reminding himself that these were his friends—and relaxed into the shift.

Big. Broad. Muscles upon muscles, his body flowing out in all directions, his skin beginning to darken. Billy made a strangled noise, and even Eli whistled in surprise as Teddy shaded himself into ever-deepening hues, as he grew and grew and grew—huge and strong and frightening.

Until he was something new. Until he was a hulk.

“Oh my God,” Billy said, and Teddy shivered in response, relaxing into the shift, into his new skin. When he opened his eyes, all three of them were staring at him with frank, open expressions of awe. It took everything he had not to shift back immediately.

Teddy cleared his throat. “Uh. Hulkling smash?” He was so incredibly aware he was standing there in boxers that had gone paper-thin as they stretched over the bulging muscles of his thighs. He was afraid to so much as breathe lest the seams begin to rip.

“…oh my God,” Billy said again, expression utterly stunned.

Even Nate looked impressed. “This may actually work,” he said in a hushed tone. His gaze swept down Teddy’s body, then back up. A slow, relieved smile began to break over his face. “I can’t believe it.”

“Are you still just as strong like this?” Eli asked. “Without punching out a wall to prove you are. Since that doesn’t seem to go over well.”

He wasn’t going to cross his arms to cover his chest. He wasn’t, he wasn’t. “Yeah, I’m still— Nothing really changes except for how I look.” He darted a quick look toward Billy, but Billy was looking away: flushed an alarming shade of red, eyes closed, shoulders hunched forward as if he could turtle up into himself. Teddy wished he could tell whether the reaction was good or…not so good.

“Is it okay if I change back now?”

Nate frowned. “We really should be adjusting to our powers, and to each other,” he said. “That involves getting used to your change in size and mass. You should probably stay like that the whole time.”

Was it just his imagination, or did Billy make a small, choked-off noise at that?

“How about I change back now and bring some stretchy pants next time?” Teddy offered.

“I suppose that will work.”

Thank God, he didn’t say, quickly shifting back to his normal frame—and grabbing at the waist of his boxers when the stretched out elastic nearly slipped down his hips. Teddy turned and began yanking back on his clothes, grateful for each layer, for each barrier he could put between him and the others. Billy still wasn’t looking at him, even fully dressed, and that… That couldn’t be a good thing, could it? It had to mean Billy was disgusted, or just weirded out, or something.

This wasn’t my choice, part of Teddy wanted to shout. Another part was whispering, But this is who I am now; take it or leave it. He wished that second voice was stronger. The fact that it was there at all felt a little like a triumph.

Still, the room was silent for a long minute as Nate studied him thoughtfully, Eli made increasingly awkward faces (probably, Teddy figured, sensing the very real tension sparking through the air) and Billy made a big show of looking everywhere but at Teddy. It couldn’t have been more obvious if he had started jumping up and down yelling I am wildly uncomfortable about this!

“All right,” Nate finally said, as tone deaf as ever. “Billy, it’s your turn.”

**

212-555-6673: Can’t wait to see you tomorrow, Teddy.
212-555-6673: I’ve got something especially good planned for you.
212-555-6673: Or you could just give up; I had coach save your jersey. It can be like it used to be.
212-555-6673: Your call.

**

The next few days took on a surreal quality that Teddy—privately—started to think of as their early training montage. He even started bringing his ipod and speakers and casually suggesting they put on music.

You know. As inspiration.

Nate, surprisingly, had been open to the idea, possibly because he was so desperate to see them make any sort of progress that he was willing to try anything. Billy just shrugged and said he guessed it couldn’t make them any worse.

Eli, however, had balked.

“This isn’t a joke, Altman,” he’d snapped, arms crossed over his broad chest. It was preliminary flying day, which mostly consisted of Nate holding Eli by the armpits and trying not to drop him while Billy sent intermittent electric jolts through Teddy as they awkwardly floated—small enough not to be dangerous, but sharp enough to feel like a peculiar kind of aversion therapy.

Flying days, he’d already decided, were going to suck. Which was part of why You’re the Best wasn’t just funny, it was necessary.

“It’s positive conditioning, Bradley,” Teddy countered, crossing his own arms. “It’ll help focus our energy if we introduce a little levity.” The music was rising around them, between them, cheerful and incongruously bright:

“You’re the best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down.
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down.
You’re the Best!
Around!
Nothing’s gonna ever keep you dow-ow-ow-ow-own.”

And so on.

“Really. Really now. This is going to help us beat Kang.”

“Oh, come on,” Billy protested. He was managing to hover about a foot off the ground, electricity licking over his skin; Teddy subtly edged away, familiar enough with how those sparks felt to be wary. “It’s just a little music. What harm can it do?”

“This is not a joke,” Eli repeated, scowl deepening.

Billy made a face. “Really? Because I was getting confused by the zany laugh track that always follows you around. How about we take a vote? Anyone who objects to Teddy playing his music in the background while we practice?”

Eli’s hand jerked up.

“Anyone who thinks Eli is being a hardass over nothing?”

Billy and Nate raised their hands. Teddy hesitated, and Billy cast him a curious glance, one brow arching. “Well,” Teddy explained, moving awkwardly from foot to foot. “I probably would have preferred a nicer way to phrase it.”

Billy groaned and dropped—hard—to his feet. “You are too nice to exist. Why are you the Hulk again? Whatever! Music wins. Let’s move on.”

“Fine,” Eli said. His moods, Teddy had begun to notice, were mercurial at best. On the days when he needed to use his superstrength to full effect, he seemed at once more pumped and far more aggressive than usual. He almost seemed physically larger on those days, too, as if the use of his powers directly fed into his muscle mass.

Well. Who was Teddy to say it didn’t?

“Let’s try laps flying low around the room,” Nate said. Teddy fought a groan, hiding his dismay by shifting into his Hulkling form—shoulders widening, muscles building, frame lengthening. He heard the tell-tale riiiiip of his t-shirt and yelped, dragging it off mid-shift, before the seams could give way. His muscles bulged, huge and green, x-x-x-large track pants straining to hold him in. He couldn’t wait for their uniforms to show up; he was getting tired of grabbing desperately for the stretched-out waist of his pants when he changed back.

He glanced over at Billy; Billy quickly looked away. “So,” Teddy said. “Flying.”

“Yay,” Billy said, his voice oddly strained.

“Maybe we can go easy on electrocuting me this time?” He said it with a smile, though, tossing his shirt into the pile and stretching to limber himself up—less because he needed the warmup and more to give him something to focus on besides Billy. Standing around in this form, half-naked, ready for Billy to grab hold of him…it was awkward. That had to be what was making Billy so squirrely.

Billy’s flush deepened. “Sorry.”

Teddy (gently) bumped their shoulders together; he kept the flinch off his face when a stray spark flickered across his bicep. “Nah, it’s okay. Seriously, I barely feel it. Besides, if all the Rocky movies hold true, we just need to muddle through for one song, two tops, and we’ll be ready to face anything.”

That caught Billy’s attention. He looked up, startled, then burst into laughter when he realized: “Oh my God, training montage.”

“Training montage,” Teddy agreed with a grin.

“You are such a dork.”

Nate was lifting Eli awkwardly by the pits. Billy hurriedly lifted a few feet into the air, lightning dancing over his skin. He visibly hesitated before reaching out to grasp Teddy’s bulging biceps, dragging him up with him.

This close, Teddy could smell ozone and bare skin. The clean cotton of Billy’s t-shirt. He felt the hot puff of breath as Billy tilted his head forward and concentrated. That sent a shiver down his spine, and it was all he could do to keep his sudden, excruciating awareness of Billy off his face as they slowly began to fly after Nate and Eli, moving in awkward circles as, aptly, the music changed over to Chariots of Fire.

Training montage. Teddy supposed there were worse ways to become a superhero.

**

212-555-8531: Watching you drag yourself through the school day is getting sadder and sadder.
212-555-8531: When are you going to figure out you can’t win?

**

Eventually, as the days passed in rapid succession (long hours keeping his head down at school, followed by grueling practice into the evening) he began thinking of each stage of their training as its own inspirational song.

Eli and Teddy grappling across the main entranceway, sweaty and cursing as each tried to best the other in a show of strength…and managing to break the war room table into kindling: Eye of the Tiger

Billy floating midair, lit like a northern star, electricity flickering from his splayed fingertips…and causing a blackout that crisscrossed half the Upper East Side: The Final Countdown

Nate showing off what his suit could do, accidentally blasting a hole in the ceiling…and then fighting with an incredulous Eli over whether or not the damage was worse than the crumbled dining room wall: Burning Heart

The four of them finally managing to make it through one of Nate’s elaborate obstacle courses without a single catastrophic accident: We are the Champions

And Nate immediately souring their moment of triumph by telling them that this was just phase one of a six-phase training regimen: Nothing. Not even Teddy could come up with a song to encapsulate just how disheartening that was to hear. Teddy went home that night sore and exhausted and struggling not to feel defeated by just how much work they had to accomplish before they were ready to face Kang…and checked his phone, thinking he’d received a text from Billy, only to realize it was a message from Greg.

There was no music for that kind of pain either.

**

212-555-9006: Last day of school tomorrow.
212-555-9006: It’s going to be a good one.
212-555-9006: Well. Maybe not for you.
212-555-9006: See you tomorrow, freak.

**

Teddy was folded up into himself, endlessly redactive, like origami that ultimately took no real shape. It was a defensive posture he’d learned to adopt at school in the past few weeks—shoulders hunched, head down, eyes locked on his lunch tray. There was a closed paperback by his elbow that he no longer pretended to read. Why bother? He could barely go a sentence without feeling the spidercrawl brush of eyes on him.

He stomach twisted into another unhappy knot.

Just a couple more hours, he tried to tell himself, reflexively eating even though he felt like he might be sick. He’d need the calories later, at practice. They were trying flight again, Nate had said. That was something to look forward to. Just a few more hours and then school is out for the entire summer. Months. You won’t have to do this again for months.

And maybe, a darker part of him whispered—a part that sounded suspiciously like Billy’s particular brand of irony—the world will end over the summer and you’ll never have to see Greg Norris again.

There were times when that thought was uncomfortably soothing.

Teddy sighed, pushing the remains of his salad around the oily well of his tray—and then realized, all at once:

When did the cafeteria get so quiet?

Gooseflesh rippled down his arms and he began to look up in alarm before jerking his eyes back to his tray. No, no, whatever it was, he didn’t want to know. This was his last day—Teddy was determined to do everything in his power to end it peacefully.

He was just starting to tell himself that he’d imagined the eerie silence anyway…when someone slid into the empty chair across from him. Gracefully. Easily. So f*cking perfect in everything he did.

Damn it, Teddy thought, fighting the urge to bolt from the room. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Greg reached across the table and snagged a fry off Teddy’s tray. “Last day of school,” he said, casually leaning back. “Finally, right? I thought Trig was going to kill me this year.”

Teddy didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. He barely dared to breathe.

“I’m thinking of taking AP next year, though,” Greg continued, as if Teddy weren’t silently waiting for the ax to fall. “English, definitely. Probably History and Bio, too. Never too early to start thinking about those college applications, is it? Especially for guys like us.” He stole another fry, wagging it once at Teddy as if making his case. Teddy could just see the movement out of the corners of his eyes.

Just get on with it already, he thought, muscles going tighter and tighter and tighter. His jaw ached he was clenching it so hard.

“Of course,” Greg was saying, “that’s not for a couple of months yet, right? First there’s the summer to think about. Have you been thinking about summer, Teddy?”

Suddenly, before he even had a chance to process the question, Greg’s palms slammed down onto the table, loud enough to make Teddy jump. For a moment—just the tiniest flicker of time—Teddy thought he might shift into the big-and-green form he’d been working on with the others. It had gotten so drilled into his head that it seemed that the instinct to be Hulkling was his first response to any threat.

But he couldn’t do that now. Not here, in front of everyone. Not with Greg, who despite everything, despite what he was sure was coming, was still someone Teddy could never imagine hurting. He looked up, meeting those beautiful dark eyes, fighting for a sense of quiet inside. A peace.

He could find that. Greg never could. Greg had maybe never even had the chance. Teddy remembered a time he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Greg on the stoop of his tenement apartment, watching the night unfold. There’d been screaming coming from inside—furious, violent shouts underscored by the sound of shattering glass, a fist hitting a wall.

“Is that—” Teddy had begun to ask, turning, alarmed, but he’d stilled when Greg grabbed his hand and, in a rare show of affection, squeezed his fingers tighttighttight.

“I don’t know,” Greg had said, eyes locked forward, holding on to Teddy for all he was worth. “Maybe, yeah. f*ck. Whatever.”

Helpless, Teddy had just squeezed back, wanting nothing more than to find a way to fix things for the boy who always seemed so perfect—honor guard, student council, captain of the varsity team, debate captain—but whose edges were filed so sharp it was a wonder he didn’t shear himself in two. “Whatever,” he said instead, and held on for as long as Greg let himself need him.

Now, here, he looked square into eyes that had probably seen a hell of a lot more than anyone deserved and tried to remember that Greg was making him hurt because Teddy had hurt him.

It didn’t make it okay, and it didn’t make it easier to bear, but at least it lent some structure to this ongoing torment. “What do you want, Greg?” Teddy asked, tired of it all.

Greg’s jaw tightened. Angry, perhaps, that in this last moment, Teddy refused to cower.

“I just wanted to let you know I had some f*cking awesome plans for the summer,” Greg said, each word bitten out. “Plans I think you’re going to like. Did you think you were home free just because school is getting out? I know you, Teddy. I know you better than anyone. I know all your haunts, all your favorite places to be. I’m not done with you, and wherever you go this summer, I’m going to be there.”

He meant it, too. Of that, Teddy had no doubts. “Why are you doing this?” Teddy asked. With everything that had been happening—Greg, Billy, the Avengers, Kang—he was too overwhelmed to keep dicking around, wondering.

The question seemed to take Greg aback. He straightened, startled, and said before he could master himself, “Because you left me.”

Teddy closed his eyes and sucked in a shuddery breath. God, what could he say to that? But Greg was already course-correcting, pulling the co*cky, cruel armor over the flash of vulnerable underbelly he’d shown. “Why?” he demanded. “You ready to come crawling back yet?”

It was said with a sneer, as if Greg didn’t actually care—when Teddy was pretty sure, now, that he did. He did care. Maybe a great deal. Maybe Teddy walking away had been as earth-shattering for Greg as Billy leaving had been for Teddy.

f*ck. He couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t take the risk. Greg had tricked him before.

“We’re never going to be friends again, Greg,” Teddy said, as gently as he could. For old time’s sake. “You’re a bigot and bully and I’m done being used by you.” Then, because he had loved him once upon a time, “You’re better than this, you know; if you’d just—”

Greg casually swiped a hand across the table, sending Teddy’s tray with its half-eaten lunch scattering across the floor with a deafening clatter. Scores of heads snapped their way, then quickly away again, as if afraid of being caught acknowledging Teddy’s presence. That would have stung a lot more before he had the Avengers.

“Oops,” Greg said, smirking. “Clumsy me.”

There were wilted bits of lettuce cradled along the folds of his backpack. Small stains from the oil in the dressing spread as Teddy watched, blossoming like dark flowers. He looked up to meet Greg’s eyes, too numb to even be upset. “Goodbye, Greg,” Teddy said, snagging the black strap and letting his bookbag knock against his thigh. Lettuce fluttered to the linoleum in a strange snowfall.

“All summer, Altman,” Greg warned, eyes narrowing. How he hated being dismissed, overlooked. “You’re going to regret every minute you thought you were better than me.”

“Sure,” he said, then just…left, stepping over the fallen tray and heading out of the cafeteria. He still had a half day left, including the classes he shared with Greg, but as Teddy headed out into the hall, he just. Kept. Walking. Past his empty locker, past his classes, through the heavy main doors.

The stoop was empty, though he could smell the suspicious lingering stink of cigarettes. The street was alive just a few steps below, the whole summer stretching out long and golden before him—marred only by the knowledge that it wasn’t really over. That it would only get worse.

Whatever. f*ck it. Today, he wasn’t going to let that bother him.

He took the steps two at a time and headed toward the subway, the mansion, leaving the heavy pall of high school behind him.

Teddy was the first to arrive at the mansion. It was Eli’s last day of school, too, so he and Billy wouldn’t be showing up until 4:30. Nate, he discovered after a casual canvassing of the mansion, was nowhere to be found.

Probably scouting out old fields for us to practice in, Teddy mused, hunkering down in his usual spot. Just one more day for four teenagers to desperately try to save the whole world.

Jesus. Teddy scrubbed at his face, forcibly setting dark worries aside, and instead reached into his backpack. He’d been carrying the full contents of his locker around with him everywhere ever since Greg had stolen his bag and tossed it into the school dumpster. It had aired out since, and he’d turned back in his textbooks yesterday, but it was still stuffed with notebooks, stray papers, pens.

His sketchbook.

Teddy hesitated before pulling it out. It was battered around the edges, a few corners stained by only God knew what. Spoiled cafeteria food and rancid milk, probably. He hadn’t bothered opening it since things had gone bad—he hadn’t exactly been in an inspired mood—but maybe that was exactly what he needed to take his mind off everything while he waited.

He already knew what he wanted to draw.

Who. Who he wanted to draw.

Teddy snagged a pencil from the front-most pocket and settled in more comfortably. He spun the pencil in his hand, picturing the way Billy’s hair ruffled around the weight of the Asgardian coronet, the heavy fold of the cape around skinny shoulders, the surprisingly long, leanly muscular line of his thighs…

…not that he was, you know, perving over the memory or anything…

…and opened his sketchbook, flipping quickly past familiar drawings of half-seen faces, interesting architecture, superheroes in flight and his mother in repose. The last sketch he’d done had been weeks ago, before the fight. It was of Billy, too, Teddy realized—pausing briefly over the image to study the delicate line of Billy’s jaw, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he’d laughed. He’d drawn it Mucha-style, golden sunburst around Billy’s head shaded in with prismacolors.

He remembered that day; he remembered that laugh. They’d been people-watching down in the Village, shoulder-to-shoulder and sharing a bubble tea. Every time they passed it back and forth, their fingers brushed, and it had taken everything Teddy had to remind himself why he couldn’t just breach that small distance and brush his mouth over Billy’s. Why he couldn’t cup the line of his jaw between his hands and swallow Billy’s next breath.

He’d managed to keep his hands to himself, but he’d captured the memory like a polaroid and drew it out again later that night, reverently outlining the sharp angles of that quirky, beautiful face, remembering the way the sun made a halo as he threw his head back and laughed.

Teddys lips twisted into a small, fond smile and brushed his fingertips across the picturing, reading Billy’s…Billyness in the grooves of the paper, like braille. Then, shaking his head at himself, he turned the page to imprint a new memory of Billy on the next blank page.

Only…it wasn’t blank.

Teddy stared in confusion at the words sprawling across the page. The writing, he realized, going very still, wasn’t his.

The message sure as f*ck wasn’t.

**

Today’s the day I finally kill myself.

It’s all been too much. Living like this, being who I am—I can’t do it anymore. I tried, I tried so hard, but I’m never going to be like all the other kids. I’m never going to be able to fit in. I’m a freak, and a fa*g, and no matter how hard I pretend like I’m normal, I know—

**

It went on, but Teddy didn’t have to read any more. He didn’t have the stomach. A suicide note. Greg (because, God, who else—who else would be so determined to reach into his head and scramble what he found there?) had found a way to win the way he always, always did. It didn’t matter that he’d written the note a few weeks back, when he’d stolen Teddy’s bookbag on that first day. It didn’t matter that he’d had no way of knowing when Teddy would find it. He still won because just an hour earlier, Teddy was feeling tired but okay—a little defiant, even—and now…

f*ck. Now.

Maybe I should just kill myself, Greg had written in that first, terrible note, full mouth pulled into a chameleon smile, eyes alive with his triumph. Even then, he knew what was waiting for Teddy the next time he felt good enough about himself to crack open his sketchbook. Even then, he’d planned for the moment Teddy would be trying to move on—and he’d crushed it under his boot.

All summer, Teddy thought, hands gone clammy, stomach twisted into sick knots. He felt lightheaded, dizzy as if he’d taken a very real blow. His heart was fluttering uselessly in his chest. This is what I have to look forward to all summer.

And, Christ, I don’t think I can do this.

He threw the sketchbook aside, furious and hurt deep to his core—glad when it skidded and tumbled, pages going akimbo. Ripping. Good. He’d tear them himself if he had the energy to do more than draw up his knees and wrap around himself. He’d rip page after page in half, splitting the careful sketches in half, in quarters, ripping and tearing and destroying everything.

How the f*ck did Greg still have the power to destroy everything?

Teddy balled his fists and slammed them against the tile floor; the ceramic crack just made the mass of rage and fear and pain churn harder inside him, like an oncoming storm. He wanted to cry, but he was so done with crying. He felt too small and helpless and angry to cry.

“I hate you,” he murmured, tucking his head against his drawn-up knees and wrapping his arms around himself. He’d been feeling so certain today, so strong—and suddenly he was right back where he’d started, tension coiling in his gut as he trembled on the edge of losing control, blaming Greg, blaming himself, wishing he had the strength to say no and make it stick. He wasn’t sure he could bear a full summer of this. Even with the Avengers, he wasn’t sure he had the strength.

f*ck, he was so pathetic.

“I hate you, I hate you.”

Teddy stayed like that for what felt like hours—days—unmoored stretches of time, drifting around him unmarked and unknown. He kept his arms wrapped around his head and his eyes squeezed shut, willing away the rest of the world. All that mattered was his riot of thoughts. All he saw was the memories painted on the backs of his lids. All he heard was the serrated edge of his breath.

Which was why he didn’t hear Billy until the other boy paused by his discarded sketchbook and said, “Oh, hey, I think you dropped this.”

Teddy looked up slowly, shaken and shaking; he felt a hundred years old. He wet his lips to say…something. He wasn’t quite sure yet. Thanks, maybe, as if he could shift to hide himself again. Or, Never mind. I was going to toss it anyway. Or maybe just Billy, because even now, even feeling like this, just the sight of Billy in his oversized t-shirt and jeans was enough to make his heart give a painful lurch.

He didn’t get a chance to say any of that. Billy’s eyes dropped to the page as he held Teddy’s sketchbook in his hands…and Teddy didn’t have to hear his sharply indrawn breath to know what he saw there.

Time stilled.

Stopped.

Froze around the two of them.

Outside, Teddy knew, the world was still moving in a blare of noise and light and color, but here, now, in this room, the silence was so deafening he almost clapped his hands over his ears. It was terrible; all he could hear was the desperate lurch of his heart and the oh God oh God oh God; you weren’t supposed to ever, ever see that.

Billy took another breath—wet and shocky, like the first gasp of a drowning man.

He had to fix this. He had to make himself speak.

“Billy,” he started, breaking the bell jar of silence, but Billy was suddenly tumbling to speak over him—eyes going from shocked to bright, livid and afraid and far too dark in his blanched-white face as he waved the sketchbook in visibly trembling hands.

Time seemed to trip over itself at the snap of those pages, barreling from its paralyzed drag to a full-pitched sprint.

“What the f*ck? What the, what the actual f*ck?” Billy demanded, voice breaking on the last word. It hurt to hear, the way hearing his mother cry through the paper-thin walls of their apartment used to hurt, back in the lean days—deep and visceral and deafening. Teddy struggled to find words of protest, but his own throat had closed in response. He never could trust himself in a crisis, never was any good at all, and oh God, Billy’s face was crumpling before him, folding in on itself like a crushed soda can. “What the— You, I. God, Teddy, what are you— What can I—”

Billy actually had to drop his head, pressing the sketchbook to his forehead as if physically gathering his scattered, frightened thoughts. He was shaking so hard now, Teddy could see the pages trembling between his fingers. The breath he dragged in broke again, again, and Teddy realized with rapidly mounting horror that Billy was crying.

Oh God, no, no, please, f*ck no. And,

Not for me.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to spit out, scrambling to his knees as if he could launch himself into action somehow and fix this—but no, f*ck, those weren’t the words he wanted; that wasn’t right at all. It made it sound as if he was apologizing for having those thoughts, when he never, he’d never…

Teddy watched in helpless frustration as Billy just…crumpled, suddenly dropping into an unsteady crouch as if his legs refused to hold him any longer. His head was still down, face hidden by the smooth lines of the sketchbook, and Teddy would have given anything for the strength of will to reach out and rest a soothing hand on his shoulder. To pull him close against his body. He almost did, fingers twitching in an aborted gesture—but the low noise Billy made, choked and painful as it caught in his throat, stilled him.

There was too much history silent and ignored between them to bridge that gulf. There was too much weight of meaning in a single touch.

But he had to do something. The sound of Billy’s tears, the knowledge that he was responsible—it was worse than anything Greg could ever think to do to him. It was maddening.

“Billy,” he tried again, his own voice rasping paper-thin and quivering. Nothing like his own. “God, it’s not what you think. Okay? I promise, I promise it’s not.”

Those didn’t seem to be the right words either. Billy’s head jerked up, and there were tears on his lashes, running down his cheeks—and a fury in his eyes that nearly had Teddy scuttling back across the broken tiles. Jesus, he’d never seen Billy look so fierce. “God. It had better not be. What the f*ck, Teddy, what the—”

He cut off again, as if the words were getting strangled in his throat, then gave an annoyed hiss and gestured to the page with Greg’s unsteady sprawl. “Explain.”

“I didn’t write it,” Teddy said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Keep explaining.”

Teddy dragged in a serrated breath, scrubbing at his eyes with the meat of his palms. He refused to let himself cry, even as Billy sat unashamed of his furiously worried tears. Greg would be only too pleased to know he’d hurt him in that way, and Teddy was tired of giving ground. “I told Greg I didn’t want anything to do with him,” he said, because it seemed best to start at the beginning. “He…hasn’t been taking it well.”

Billy stilled. The tears continued unchecked down his face (was it stupid to think someone was beautiful when they cried?) but he was watching Teddy with a strange intensity that made his stomach lurch and twist into not-unpleasant shapes. “When?” Billy murmured.

“A few weeks ago.” Teddy shrugged a shoulder, fighting not to squirm in place. It was hard to watch Billy, but it was even harder to look away. “The first time didn’t stick. I was too weak to make it stick. It’s…hard.”

“It’s this?” Billy twisted the sketch pad in his hands, showing it to Teddy.

He had to dip his eyes toward it, then away, unable to look at those hateful words for more than a few seconds at a time. “Yeah.”

“What a dick.”

That surprised a choked laugh out of him. Teddy looked up at Billy through his lashes, relieved to see that the tears seemed to be drying, the angry panic abating. His cheeks were still pink, eyes red-rimmed, but his wide, mobile mouth was twisted into something very close to a snarl. He looked ready to leap to his feet at any moment, legs crossed under him, hands balled into fists on his knees, skinny body tight as a bowstring.

He was ready to fight. For Teddy.

That shouldn’t have made him feel as good as it did.

“I just, I just hate that it’s come to this. I. Teddy.” He sank back on his heels with a hissing breath. “I hate that it was probably always like this, all this time, and I didn’t know. And that’s just… I know you don’t like to talk about…about anything,” Billy said, wiping furiously at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “I know you don’t, but. Teddy. At some point you have to tell someone, and I want… I’m.” He let out a breath, dragging his fingers through his hair. “I care, okay, and I want to help.”

I care.

I. Care.

Teddy closed his eyes. Drew in a quaking breath. Let it out.

He tried. “I used to be…different. Like I told you before. But I wanted to be like the other boys—like Greg. I used my powers to make it happen.” He glanced up through his lashes, then away, afraid of what he’d read on Billy’s face. “It probably would have been okay if I’d just left it there.”

“Teddy.” Nothing more—just that. Just his name. Teddy, as if Billy were picking through those old, painful memories with him.

“I was in love with him, back then, and I wanted to… To make him happy, I guess? So I told him what I could do. And he wanted me to—” Teddy paused, then shook his head. “No, I can’t put it all on him. He may have asked me to be Thor, Spider-Man, Cap, but I did it. I went along with it. I liked it, sometimes. The attention. The—affection. I felt like I was someone who…well. Anyway.”

Billy crept closer, sketchbook still in his hands. He reached out and laid a warm hand on Teddy’s forearm, eyes locked on his face—and it would be so easy to leave it there. It would be so easy to sink back into familiar banter or teasing deflection, shifting, lies. Much, much easier than forcing himself to open his mouth and talk about things that stung in the retelling. That stripped away all his defenses and let Billy see him for who, what, he really was.

“Even when I knew it was wrong, I did it. And by the time I knew I wanted out…I didn’t know how. He’s got so much— He’s just. He had power over me. I gave it to him. We all did. People like Greg…we’re only too happy to give them all the power, aren’t we?”

“Teddy,” Billy said again, and Teddy looked up to meet his eyes. He had to finish, had to say all the rest in one breathless, headlong rush or he wouldn’t be able to make himself say the words at all.

“I finally had the guts to stand up to him, but not because of me—because of you. I wanted to be the person you thought I was. And it was, it just, it was… He knew what to do to make it hurt. He turned the school against me. No one looks at me, no one talks to me. It’s been like living underwater, only my body refuses to drown. It’s been bad. And he’s started coming to my apartment and— And it’s not going to stop. But I’m not going to give in, and I would never write anything like that.” He cast the sketchbook one final look, shoulders hunching instinctively—but it didn’t hurt to see that note, now. Something about Billy’s anger on his behalf was sapping away the hurt and leaving behind blazing fury of his own. “Greg Norris can go f*ck himself.”

“So hard,” Billy swore. He gripped Teddy’s arm tight, expression a strange blend of fierce protection and pain. Teddy opened his mouth to say…he had no idea what; something to take that pain away…but Billy just shook his head and pulled back. He tore the page free, balling it up and handing it over. “Tear it up. It’ll make you feel better. We’re going to scatter the pieces in an environmentally friendly way because ducks don’t deserve to choke on Greg the Asshole’s stupid words any more than people do. And then we’re going to go to Shake Shack and I am buying you food and he can go rot in every hell of every religion for all time.”

Teddy blinked. Blinked again. “Greg the Asshole?” he asked, slowly beginning to smile despite himself, even as he started to rip the paper into strips, then tiny confetti pieces. Billy was right; it was already making him feel better.

“From day one,” Billy said. He dug into his pocket for a pen, ripping out another page to write a message in bold, scrawling print. Teddy watched as he secured it partly under a cracked flagstone, visible enough that Eli and Nate couldn’t help but see it.

The line of his shoulders was still tight, and there was a frenetic energy to Billy’s movements—but there was a gentleness there, too, when he lifted his chin to meet Teddy’s eyes. A protectiveness.

And despite all his promises to himself, it was all Teddy could do not to cry. He smiled instead, feeling both emotions at once, jostling together in a messy, tangled, wonderful confusion of hope and worry and love.

Above all, love.

**

Dear Eli and Nate. Stop. Have kidnapped Teddy. Stop. Will return him tomorrow with grand tales of french fries and comic book stores and strawberry shakes. Stop. Suggest you take the night off and try that whole relaxing thing I keep hearing tales of. Stop.

Billy

PS: Stop scowling. A day off is good for everyone.

PPS: Even you, Iron Lad.

**

“Do you figure he’s moved away?” Billy asked wistfully.

Teddy looked up, startled. “What,” he began, before realizing. “Oh, wait, He-Man?” They were cresting the entrance at 23rd, Flat Iron a wedge-shaped monolith behind them, Madison Square Park spread placid and green before. Just a few short blocks away was the Museum of Sex…but he wasn’t going to let himself think about that now. Not with Billy grinning at his side and lightly knocking their shoulders together.

Later, Teddy told himself, impossible warmth unspooling in his stomach. Later, later, later.

“I keep my eyes peeled every time I swing by here, but so far, nada. I think he may have been swallowed back into the primordial stew that is New York.”

Teddy nodded gravely. “Manhattan giveth, Manhattan taketh away.”

Billy just rolled his eyes happily. “Dork,” he said. Teddy couldn’t swallow his answering grin if he wanted to. “So, hey, speaking of Manhattan marvels, have you—”

The Ghostbusters theme song suddenly drifted between them, cutting him off.

Teddy gave a lopsided grin, but Billy just shrugged, unperturbed, and fished out his phone. He checked the number, and Teddy watched as his endlessly mobile face shifted through a rapid series of contortions—surprise, chagrin, guilt, regret, resolve. He thumbed the phone to mute and shoved it back into his pocket…but not before Teddy caught the familiar string of numbers.

Why was Billy avoiding Jamie’s calls?

“You can get that if you need to,” Teddy offered.

“What? Oh. Nah.” Billy shrugged, affecting nonchalance, but there was no missing the uneasy set of his shoulders. “It’s nothing. Hey, so, no need for both of us to wait forever in line,” he added. They’d rounded the corner to reach the tail of Shake Shack’s infamous line, twisting serpentine through the brush. Scores of people stood ahead of them, restlessly shifting or playing games on their phones as they shuffled toward the promise of burgers and fries. “Why don’t you grab us a table and I’ll put in our order?”

That wasn’t what he wanted. Teddy didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts; he wanted to be with Billy. He wanted to crack jokes about Aquaman vs. Namor and debate Spider-Man villains. He wanted that shivery awareness that at each shift, each turn, their shoulders might brush…their hands might accidentally knock together like the breathless prelude to holding hands.

To a kiss.

God, he needed to stop thinking like that.

“It’s not a big deal,” Teddy said, hands shoving into his pockets to hide the nervous way they curled and uncurled. “I’ll keep you company.”

“No, it’s okay,” Billy countered quickly, and that eagerness to be rid of him made something twist unhappily in Teddy’s stomach. “I’ve got this. Claim some seats before we’re forced to park our butts in the grass. You want a Shackburger and a strawberry shake, yeah?”

Teddy took a hesitant step back. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’ll just…” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, but Billy was already turning away. He had to tell himself he’d imagined the relief that flashed across Billy’s face.

He asked you to come with him, Teddy reminded himself fiercely even as he turned and headed toward the sea of metal chairs and tables littering the wide lawn. All of them were full, tabletops scattered with a snow of trash and stray globs of ketchup. He didn’t have to do that.

Logically, he knew Billy wanted him here. Even this early in the reconstruction of their friendship, he knew that. And yet he couldn’t quiet the unhappy voice that whispered from deep inside him:

If he really wanted you around, then why’s it always so easy for him to send you away?

Teddy pulled back, retreating toward the far end of the lawn, sitting on a bench near a swath of greenery. He told himself it was so he could keep an eye out for an open table, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of looking—how could he when he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from Billy standing in line, talking into his phone?

Jamie? Probably.

They hadn’t talked about Jamie and when he’d be arriving for the summer. Was he already in the city, Teddy wondered dismally. Had he been here for a week, more? Did he even know Billy and Teddy were talking again? Were friends?

But…were they friends? Despite seeing each other every day, stray texts and IM conversations, they hadn’t really talked about everything that had happened. They hadn’t talked about anything serious at all, not until today. And. And as much as he wanted to ignore the facts, today was the first time they had gone anywhere, done anything, outside of the Avengers.

Was Billy telling Jamie he was held up somewhere, unable to meet him? Was Teddy just someone’s dirty little secret all over again?

Christ. He needed to stop thinking like that. He dropped his head, digging the meat of his palms against his eyes and dragging in slow, serrated breaths. “Stop it,” he murmured, trying to chase away the creeping pain and doubt cloaked like a swath of kudzu over the face of his new beginning. So what if Billy didn’t want Jamie to know they were together? That didn’t have to mean anything. He didn’t have to let it sting.

He was better than this. He was stronger than this. He was. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

“Talking to yourself, Altman?” Greg said, sliding onto the bench next to Teddy. Their sides jostled together, his skin crawling where their bare arms brushed. Instantly, his stomach tightened like a fist and it hurt—it hurt—to breathe. “That’s not a good sign.”

f*ck.

f*ck.

Teddy slowly lifted his head, hoping…what? That he had hallucinated the words? That he had mistaken someone else for Greg?

No. He knew that voice. It had wormed its way into his head years and years and hopeless years ago.

Greg was smirking at him, watching his face from beneath the ridiculously long sweep of his lashes. His bookbag was slung over one shoulder. He had to have caught the train straight after the final bell, Teddy realized with a sinking heart. How had he known exactly where to come?

As if reading his mind—because Greg had always been able to read him, manipulate him, control him—Greg’s lopsided smirk began to grow into a full, chilling smile. “You’re wondering how I found you so easily,” Greg said. “You know, for a shapeshifter, you can be pathetically easy to read. Don’t you get it?”

Greg leaned in, eyes locked with Teddy’s, and he kept leaning even as Teddy tried to pull away. The metal armrest bit into Teddy’s spine and he twisted, rising to his feet—but Greg grabbed his arm before he could get away and yanked him back. Teddy stumbled, fell back onto the bench; Greg was so near, he was all Teddy could see, hear, smell.

He was quaking, and Greg was everywhere, everything.

“I. Know. You. I know your secrets. I know your habits. I know how your mind works.” Greg’s fingers were digging hard into his arm, nails four half-moons of pain, and Teddy couldn’t break his grip without using enough strength to hurt him. And even now, even after all this, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt Greg.

Funny. It was funny how much he cared, even now.

Greg must have read some of that in his eyes and mistaken it for surrender; his grip tightened and the look that passed over his face was one part triumph and one part relief.

“You’re coming back,” Greg said.

“No.”

The flinch hurt to see, but Greg recovered fast, gorgeous face transmutating into a snarl. “You will,” he spat. “By the end of this summer, you will. I know you.”

“You knew me,” Teddy said.

And Greg…didn’t seem to know what to say to that. He pulled back, grip loosening enough that Teddy could pull free, expression an ever-shifting quicksand of emotion. Teddy sucked in a breath and forced himself to look away, hating that he’d let it come to this. He’d loved Greg, loved him with everything he’d had, and he thought that the small, unbroken part of Greg had loved him too.

But it had all gone wrong and he’d never been himself—he’d been Greg’s Teddy—and it didn’t matter if he had to beat himself bloody on the way out of the cage. They couldn’t keep doing this. There had to be an end to this, somewhere.

“Greg,” Teddy began, desperate, only to be interrupted by a shockingly loud, furious:

“You. You get the f*ck away from him!”

Teddy jerked around with a startled noise, staring as Billy—messy-haired, baggy-jeaned, lanky Billy—came swooping in to his rescue. His eyes were dark and furious, color high as he grabbed for the hand that had been reaching once again for Teddy, literally flinging it aside.

Greg stiffened, jerking to his feet, and Teddy stumbled up after him, both hands lifting in a placating gesture. “Wait,” Teddy began. “Please, we don’t have to fight.”

Billy’s eyes cut toward him—then zeroed in on his forearm. Four deep red gashes stood out against his golden skin from where Greg had gripped him; blood welled in the shallow cuts. “He did that to you?” Billy breathed. Then he rounded on Greg, shaking with fury. “How dare you?”

“Back the f*ck off, Kaplan,” Greg snarled, getting in Billy’s face. Big and strong and threatening. “This isn’t any of your—”

Crack!

His head actually jerked back at the impact, and Teddy grabbed for Billy to keep him from following Greg down; his lithe form was wound Jack-in-the-box tight and he was practically vibrating as Teddy pulled him against his body.

“Hey, hey,” Teddy murmured, head down so their cheeks brushed, feeling strands of wild hair against his lips. “It’s okay. Billy, it’s okay.”

Greg straightened, blood pouring from a busted lip. His expression was murderous. “The f*ck it is,” he snarled, grabbing for Billy—but Teddy planted a hand on Greg’s chest and shoved, sending him staggering back. People were jerking to their feet, their shocked murmur like a hundred crow’s wings, but Teddy’s eyes never left Greg—down on one knee where he’d caught himself against the grass, dark eyes narrowed on them both. Fury and disgust and understanding and pain flickered across those features Teddy knew so well.

And then Greg’s expression closed down, went cold, as he slowly rose to his feet.

“Stay back,” Billy warned, but Greg’s eyes were locked on Teddy’s now.

“Is this really the decision you’re making, Teddy?” he demanded. “After all these years, is this what you really want?”

This. Billy Kaplan, in his too-big Iron Man t-shirt, bristling with protective fury within the cage of his arms.

“Yes,” Teddy said, without hesitation. Then: “I think you should go, Greg.”

“And don’t come back,” Billy added, still practically hissing his fury. He sucked in a breath, and Teddy could feel the sudden crackle of power—like a lightning storm sweeping across his skin, haloed blue and hanging off each word as he spat: “I want you to get out of here and never bother Teddy again.”

The world seemed to go very still in the aftermath of those words, as if all of eternity were holding its breath, and then—

Impossibly

—Greg Norris turned on his heel and walked away.

Teddy watched him go, gobsmacked. Greg never, never backed down from a fight. Not without making it clear what future humiliation was lying in wait. But when Billy spoke, it was as if…something had changed on his face. In his eyes. The fury had snapped off like a power breaker had been thrown and he’d obeyed without comment.

As if the strange weight of Billy’s words had fallen over him. As if he were being compelled.

Teddy stared down at Billy, mind racing, tripping helplessly over possibilities, each more unlikely than the last—trying to make sense of the mess of emotions. His heart was racing so fast he feared it might explode, and he was frightened at this strange show of power and what it might mean, and he was grateful, and he was happier than he’d ever been in his life.

“Billy,” Teddy said.

Billy turned and flung his arms around his neck—fierce and tight and, above all, protective—and Teddy forced away the anxious puzzle of Billy’s powers. He’d worry about that later, Teddy decided. He’d figure out what had happened and how he felt about it later. Now, right now, he wound his arms around Billy’s waist and lifted him into a sweeping hug that carried every bit of joy and relief and shock bursting in firework sparks beneath his skin.

“It’s over,” Teddy breathed, laughing halfway through with something that felt like hysterical relief. “Oh my God, it’s over.”

“It’s over,” Billy vowed, low and fierce, face pressed against Teddy’s shoulder. His fingers dug in tight and he practically cleaved them together, as if with enough force, their two bodies could be merged into one. Then he lifted his face toward Teddy’s, dark eyes sparking bright. “And if he ever bothers you again—”

“He won’t. He won’t, I know he won’t.”

Billy set his jaw and nodded once. “Good,” he said, then pulled Teddy back into a hug so warm and so right it almost brought tears to his eyes. He almost laughed again, almost cried. Emotion was filling him to the brim, so big and messy that it was sloshing over the fragile shell of his body, was—

Billy pulled back suddenly. “Aw, hell,” he said.

“What?” Teddy asked, immediately on high alert.

But Billy just sighed. “I was so focused on Greg the Asshole that I forgot to ask someone to hold my place in line.” He slanted Teddy a playful look. “Think we’ll be able to bully our way back in?”

That startled a laugh out of him, and it was all he could do not to lean in and press their mouths together. This boy, dear God, this boy. “Let’s save the fisticuffs for a special occasion,” he said, one hand dropping naturally to the small of Billy’s back as they turned as one and moved slowly toward the end of the line. The crowd seemed to be willing to forget the almost-fight, settling back as if nothing had happened.

Billy grinned up at him; Teddy grinned back, heart too full. I love you, he thought. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Nothing in his life had ever been more true. Maybe someday, he’d find the courage to say it.

**

212-555-3129: So Billy’s got a new codename.
212-555-3129: Please pause what you’re doing and meet…MR. ASSKICKER.
212-555-0101: Wait. I thought he’d settled on Asgardian?
212-555-0101: I’m not sure Mr. Asskicker makes sense.
212-555-0101: Though I guess if he wanted to be a Wolverine analog instead, it could work.
212-555-3129: Joke, Nate. It was a joke.
212-555-0101: Oh.
212-555-0101: Haha.
212-555-0101: ?
212-555-3129: Sigh.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

“The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by.
I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘How do you do?’
They're really saying
‘I love you.’”
—What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong

**

The sun was relentless, beating down on Teddy’s shoulders as he picked his way across the trash-and-rubble-strewn field. His t-shirt stuck to his body, hugging the line of his spine and going dark at the neck and pits. He imagined he looked like one of the Cylons—the new ones, made of flesh, vertebra a string of Christmas lights at the first sign of pleasure.

A little farther down the field, Billy twisted and shielded his eyes; he gave a little wave and Teddy did some lighting up of his own.

Stop grinning, you idiot.

Teddy ducked his head to hide a flush and jogged the last few yards; gravel and glass and faded candy bar wrappers crinkled under his tread. “Sorry that took so long,” he said, handing over one of the cans. He was painfully aware of how their fingers almost-but-not-quite brushed when Billy took it. “There were shenanigans with an elderly Afghani woman and a kitten stuck in a tree, and I am not even kidding you.”

Billy snorted and pressed the weeping can of Dr. Pepper against his brow. His cheeks were red from the sun, and there was the beginning of a burn creeping along the delicate shells of his ears. “I swear to God, your life is a walking sitcom. Or a Disney movie, maybe.” He squinted up at Teddy. “Do bluebirds comb your hair every morning? Do little cartoon mice pick out your clothes?”

“Yup,” Teddy said. “Wanna borrow them? I always did believe in helping the needy.”

“Someone woke up snarky this morning.” Billy cracked open his can of pop and took a measured sip as he carelessly sprawled in the high grass. Some distance away, Eli and Nate were yelling at each other. Still. Some more. “I approve.”

Teddy sat next to him, trying to ignore the way their knees knocked together. “Life goal: achieved,” he said. “How long have they been going at it?”

“How long since you went to fetch drinks? Twenty, twenty-five minutes?”

He whistled, jimmying the tab of his Sprite before cracking it open. “Without stopping? Man. Does that make a new record?”

“Alllllmost. Give them ten more minutes and we’ll have one for the books.” Something about the days they trained out-of-doors always brought out the worst in Eli and Nate. They usually managed to be civil—friendly!—even when they were having one of their epic power struggles, but once they were out under the burning eye of the sun, all hell broke loose.

Maybe it was the heat, summer sinking in its teeth and refusing to let go. Maybe it was the constant fear of getting caught even this far away from civilization. Maybe it was just Queens.

“Feh,” Billy said, reading Teddy’s mind in that way he had. “Queens.” He flicked away a bit of trash blown toward him by the all-too-brief breeze.

Teddy offered a crooked grin. “You’re such a snob,” he said. “Hey, not speaking of Queens—”

“Wise.”

“—I was wondering, um. What are you doing after practice?” It was stupid the way his heart actually kicked up its pace at the question, as if there was anything to be nervous about. They were friends; friends hung out. There wasn’t anything else Billy could read into it.

(There used to be, an insidious part of him whispered. Before you ruined everything.)

Teddy took a swig of his Sprite and refused to listen to those dark tangles of self-doubt. No, he was making a fresh start for real this time. His life was actually looking up—he had the Avengers, he had his best friend back, and for some reason he still couldn’t quite fathom, Billy’s threat had been enough to make Greg stop his campaign of terror, at least for the time being.

Things were good. There was no point in worrying around the edges of crap he couldn’t change when everything was good.

Billy shifted to his other elbow, craning his neck to look up at him. He was squinting against the sun, and Teddy subtly shifted position to block it for him, his long shadow falling across Billy’s supine body. The squint morphed into a crooked smile. “What did you have in mind?”

There were fireworks going off inside him. Funny how it took so little to make him fizz up with joy. “I dunno. There’s always some mean Scrabble action going down at W4…”

Billy flopped back against the grass, groaning. “You are such an old man!”

“…or we could swing around to see what’s playing in Bryant Park.” The small park erected a screen every summer and played classic movies. Sometimes it was too crowded to be much fun, but if all the stars aligned, it was perfect. The park would be dotted with colorful picnic blankets as the sun sank toward the horizon, and that ineffable warmth of a shared experience, communal enjoyment, would sweep across the rolling grass.

People went on dates there all the time. Not that he was letting himself think like that.

“Sure,” Billy was saying. “If it looks like a good movie, that sounds like fun.”

“And if it sucks,” Teddy said, “Skee ball.”

Billy pointed at him. “I like the way you think, sir.”

“Unacceptable!” Nate suddenly shouted, drawing their attention. He was standing toe-to-toe with Eli, crackling with visible fury. He wasn’t in his suit, but for the first time, he didn’t seem small or young compared to the other boy. Something about his trembling rage added inches and years the way even a mask could not. “Back down, Eli.”

“Oh, f*ck that.”

Teddy frowned; Billy sat up, bits of grass clinging to his dark hair. “Uh-oh,” he muttered.

“Should we intervene?” They usually tried to stay out of it, preferring to wait out the inevitable fights, but there were times… Well. There were times when Teddy wondered how thin the line between heated debate and flying fists really was. Eli didn’t take orders easily, and Nate doggedly refused to give up control. “It looks like it’s getting tense.”

But Billy was already shaking his head. “No. We’ll just get dragged into it if we butt in now.”

“Maybe we should get dragged into it?”

Billy shot him an incredulous look.

“Well!” Teddy protested. “Maybe it would help this time. Maybe we could distract them. Maybe having other voices would help them calm down. Maybe…maybe you’re right and I should shut up,” he ended on a mumble.

Billy casually pushed at his shoulder, as if the flare of contact was no big deal. “You are both an optimist and too nice to be real,” he said. “Which is a seriously dangerous combination.”

He ducked his head. Blushing again, dang it. “Well, you know, like you said—I’m a total prince or something.”

“Uh-huh.” Billy took a sip of his drink, then absently offered it to Teddy; their fingers brushed as he passed over the can, and Teddy passed over his Sprite in return. “Good thing you have your very own wicked something-or-another around to keep you from charging in and being noble all over everyone.”

Teddy fluttered his lashes. “My heerrrroo.”

Billy quickly looked away. “No. Wicked something-or-another. God, get it straight, Teddy.”

He laughed and pressed their knees together. They were sitting side-by-side now, legs folded under them, a united front staring across the field toward where Eli was shouting back into Nate’s belligerently stubborn face. Teddy watched as Nate crossed his arms, dark brows narrowing; he took a sip of Dr. Pepper and absently passed it back to Billy. “Watch as the mighty hunter defends its territory.”

Billy glanced at him. “Huh?”

Teddy tilted his head toward Billy’s, dropping his voice lower, falling into a hushed whisper. “There’s power in the lines of his body,” he said, affecting his best Australian accent. “Muscles bunching as he rears back, ready to strike.”

“Wait, are you doing the crocodile guy accent? Are you perving on Nate and Eli with the crocodile guy accent? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”

“But the interloper won’t be denied—he pushes his advantage, advancing with teeth and claw bared. It’s a rumble on the plains, a pitched battle for who gets to be…king of the pride.”

Suddenly, Billy lit up. “Oh my God, you’re doing National Geographic voiceover guy! Oh my God, oh my—” He flapped a hand at Teddy excitedly. “Sorry, sorry, go on. Listening, listening, I am so listening.”

Teddy rolled his eyes playfully. It had all begun months ago, when he’d impulsively pulled out his best Elmer Fudd impression at MoMA. Something about the soft whisper in Billy’s ear as they stared up at priceless art, (“Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet”) had set off a chain reaction of stifled laughter, and Teddy had been forced to spend the entire visit narrating the exhibits as the cartoon hunter. (“And on the wight you will see Stawwy Night by that wascally Wincent Wan…”)

It felt good, to see proof of how easy it was (it still was) to make Billy laugh. It made a laugh bubble up inside his own chest, light as a helium balloon, as he placed a serious finger to his lips. “Voices down,” he continued in his best over-the-top Aussie. “We have to be quiet or we’ll risk startling the herd.”

“Can’t have that,” Billy agreed in a playful hush. “With the stampeding and everything. What’s going on now?”

He studied the argument. It seemed to be winding down, actually. Ten minutes had to have passed; they were definitely reaching a new record. “The fight’s been long and vicious. The two cats warily circle each other, bloodied but unwilling to give ground. They know, deep in their…liony…souls that if they do, one will emerge victorious and one will be little more than a furball spat out onto the unforgiving plains.”

“You’re scarily good at this,” Billy mused. “If the world doesn’t end and this whole being a superhero thing doesn’t work out, you should really consider a full-time-job as wacky voiceover guy. Oh hey, you can do the movie trailers, too! You know…” He lowered his voice. “In a world ravaged by an evil time traveler…”

“…with questionable taste in hats,” Teddy added, dropping his voice several registers.

Billy actually shivered at that. “Oh wow, um, yeah. That. Go with that.”

“Four young but totally mature for their age Avengers must band together to,” he fumbled for the right words, then suddenly grinned, “cancel the Apocalypse—for good.”

“But not the mutant Apocalypse,” Billy added.

“Right. But not the mutant Apocalypse, because that would be really hard.”

“And kind of the X-Men’s thing.”

“And totally the X-Men’s thing.”

“Which,” Billy continued, circling a finger, “is kind of crazy when you think about it. I mean, why is it kind of the X-Men’s thing to fight people like, oh, Apocalypse and that guy with the weird vampire face? Do Cap and Iron Man just take one look and go, ‘um, actually, you know, we’re kind of full up on the crazy right now. Why don’t you guys handle this one?’ Or maybe there are just really strict superhero zoning laws or something.”

Teddy shook his head sadly. “Red tape,” he said. “It’ll get you every time.”

“Right? The secret bureaucracy of superheroes! Oh hey,” Billy said, straightening when he noticed Eli and Nate walking toward them. “It looks like things have cleared up. Hey guys,” he called, scrambling to his feet.

Teddy followed, slower. He hated to admit it—he hated that he was even thinking it—but part of him wished they’d kept yelling at each other just a little longer. He wanted more time alone with Billy. Selfish. So selfish, but no less true. “Everything good?” he asked, doing his best to hide that tiny thread of regret.

“It’s cool,” Eli said, because Eli actually was cool some of the time. Or at least he was pretty good at faking it. “We’re done for the day, though.”

Billy and Teddy shared a quick look. “What, seriously? So soon? Not that I’m complaining,” Teddy added quickly when all three of them turned to stare. “It’s just. A surprise, that’s all.”

Nate irritably swiped back his dark hair. It was slick with sweat, beads of it dripping from the spiky ends. “We’re not going to get any real work accomplished today,” he said in a completely flat—and slightly accusatory—voice.

Eli shot him a sour look. “What, and that’s supposed to be my fault or something? If you had actually thought through what you wanted to get done today and, oh, ran it by someone who actually knows the area, we could have told you—”

Billy nudged Teddy’s side. When Teddy looked down, Billy jerked his chin toward the far end of the field, then arched his brows. The question was clear: flee before things take a turn for the worse?

Teddy made a face, torn. On the one hand, he really wanted to get out of there. They had hours yet before Billy would have to be home; they could go wandering about the city, or claim an early spot at Bryant Park for the movie, or just find a comic book store and hang out the way they rarely got a chance to do anymore. Maybe Billy would turn to look at him at some point and casually—like it wasn’t a big deal at all—ask if he wanted to go to Billy’s house to get out of the heat. Maybe Teddy would finally get to see the inside of where Billy lived, see the bedroom he could only try to piece together out of vague descriptions and a bone-deep knowledge of the other boy. Maybe he could meet his parents. There was a part of him that wouldn’t feel that their friendship was real, lasting, until he’d been invited into that private space like he was just another inevitable part of Billy’s life.

On the other hand, as selfish as he had been earlier, he really did hate the idea of leaving Eli and Nate out here, set to spiral into yet another epic argument.

He looked at Billy, brows scrunched together, and Billy huffed a breath. Seriously? the arch of his eyebrows seemed to say.

Teddy gave a helpless shrug and Billy shook his head, ducking to hide a grin. Teddy waited until Billy flapped a hand at him—fine, fine, we’ll be nice, ugh—before relaxing into his own wry smile.

Okay, yeah, Teddy had to admit as the two of them moved to flank Nate and Eli, probably not my smartest idea. They’d been given a sterling opportunity to get out of there, to enjoy their summer like normal kids instead of…whatever they were. But he wouldn’t have been able to really enjoy himself thinking of Eli and Nate still planted stubbornly in some miserable field in the armpit of Queens, sweating out their aggression instead of, you know, bonding.

Was a little bonding too much to ask?

“Hey, so,” Teddy said, lightly jostling Eli’s elbow. Billy popped up next to Nate, hands shoved hyper-casually in his pockets. “Since we’re done for the day, why don’t we go do something?”

Eli paused mid-word and tilted his head to look at Teddy. A single brow arched, and Teddy had the distinct impression that Eli was on to them. “Go do something?” he echoed.

Nate frowned. “But we already said we’re not practicing today,” he pointed out.

“I like how you translated go do something into go work some more,” Billy said. “A+ on missing the point.”

His frown deepened. “What?”

“I thought maybe we should all hang out,” Teddy said. “You know, go get some late lunch, maybe try something fun for a change. Not that training to save the world isn’t fun,” he added quickly at Nate’s expression.

“But it’s not chill fun,” Billy pointed out, slinging a casual arm around Nate’s shoulders. That was enough to distract Nate from whatever protest he’d been about to make—Billy was kind of wonderful that way. “We never get to just be chill. I want to be chill. Let’s go be chill.”

“Please stop saying chill.” Eli crossed his arms, but he was smirking. That? Was a good sign.

Billy shot him a crooked grin. “I’ll consider it if you agree to come hang out tonight.”

“There’s this place I know—”

“And Teddy knows all the places.”

“—where the waiters dress up as ninjas and try to surprise you with your food. It’s cooler than it sounds,” he added quickly.

“Are you kidding?” Billy said. “Forget Career Day—I think I found my new calling. Come on,” he added. “We can all catch the train together and head to Awesome Ninja Café for a few hours.”

Teddy offered his best, brightest smile. “It’ll be fun,” he promised.

“It’ll be team-building,” Billy countered, emphasis clear.

“Oh, yeah,” Teddy said, catching Billy’s drift and running with it. “You know, bonding over fries and shakes is a time-honored teen dramedy tradition. Add in a spontaneous food fight, and we’ll practically be reading each others’ minds in no time.”

Eli snorted. “No more montages,” he said, but Teddy could already tell he was in. The tension had bled away from his frame, and he was standing relaxed, arms more loosely crossed. “Come on, Nate; it’s obvious they’re not going to let up until we agree.”

“Wise man,” Billy said.

“It’ll be good,” Teddy added in a lower tone, catching Nate’s eyes. The other boy looked not so much baffled, perhaps, as if feeling like he didn’t belong. The way he was watching the three of them reminded Teddy of how he used to feel sometimes, pasting on a smile he didn’t feel while Greg joked around with guys on the team.

I hear what you’re saying, I know I should be a part of this, and yet nothing is translating into words I understand.

Something’s broken inside of me.

“Good,” Nate agreed, a little frown between his brows.

Teddy shot Billy a quick look and Billy nodded, subtly stepping away. They shifted places as if they’d practiced it, moving with that mutual understanding Nate was still struggling to grasp. “Maybe there won’t be any hipster rooftop gardens this time,” Teddy said, letting his voice drop lower. More intimate. “But it’ll be like that. Just the four of us hanging out, talking, getting to know each other. It’d be pretty cool to get to know you better.”

“I already told you everything about where I come from. What else could you want to know?”

Spoken like a boy who’d never really had any friends. Teddy smiled and tipped his head toward Nate’s, wishing he could go flying into his stark future and— And what? Fix that for him? Make people appreciate Nate? Maybe make some friends for him?

Was he really any better off? Of all the people who’d ever call him friend, only one actually knew a thing about him.

He glanced over at Billy even as he pressed a warm hand to Nate’s shoulder. Their eyes met. Held. The hot, trash-strewn field and frustration and hopeless sense of time steadily running out was suddenly miles away. “Everything,” he said quietly. “Everything you’ll allow.”

Billy turned away with a flush. Nate looked down at his shoes, blushing as well, then nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. Then, with a sudden laugh, “Okay, sure. Team bonding with ninjas. Why not? I’m sure Captain America and Iron Man do it all the time.”

“Or they did before they f*cked off and stopped caring about the people they were supposed to protect.”

Everyone turned to stare at Eli. He gave an awkward shrug. “What? They’re your stupid heroes, not mine.”

“Team bonding!” Teddy said before an argument could break out again. Eli was in one of his more aggressive moods today. It was strange how they seemed to come and go based on…well. It was hard to get a read on Eli sometimes, so Teddy wasn’t sure what his moods were based on. Usually Teddy was good at reading people. He liked trying to understand them, trying to find the shape they took. Billy…he got Billy. Nate was trickier because his points of reference were so different from Teddy’s, but at core he was still just a scared kid with a hell of a lot to prove, and Teddy could grok that pretty well.

Eli was tough. There were some days when Eli was joking around and relaxed and pretty cool in a completely closet nerd kind of way. But there were also some days when Eli almost seemed like a stranger.

Maybe it’s part of the super strength, Teddy mused as they moved across the field toward the nearest fence and the highway beyond. The ground was cracked in places, soggy in others from the recent summer rain; steam rose around them in the beginnings of a mirage. Like a Hulk and Bruce Banner thing.

Except that didn’t make any sense, did it? Teddy was the Hulk; Eli was Captain America.

It was troubling, whatever was going on.

“…oh come on,” Eli was saying, disgust dripping from his voice, “you can’t tell me none of you have been watching this season of The Walking Dead. Teddy, you’ve at least been keeping up, right? I thought comics were your thing.”

Teddy ducked his head to hide a laugh. Or maaaaaaybe he’s just a moody teenager, like the rest of us. “Sorry, man,” he said. “Mom’s got a moratorium against the undead.” He jogged ahead a few paces to grab the ends of the chain link fence, pulling an unattached corner back so the others could slip through. “Vampires are the closest she’ll let in the apartment. I’ve never even seen Romero.”

“Wait, you never told me that,” Billy protested. Nate and Eli shared a look, and Billy huffed out a breath. “Stop it with the eyes, okay? We already told you we knew each other.”

The highlights. Billy had given them the bare highlights, boiling the complicated puzzle box of their friendship…their something else…down into a succinct, Oh yeah, we used to hang out sometimes. Small world, huh?

He wasn’t going to let that sting.

“So what’s with your mom and zombies?”

Billy twisted to hold up the edge of the fence for Teddy in turn, careful to keep it from crashing down on him despite the awkward angle. He practically had to stand on his toes, and Teddy was hunched to his knees, but this too was part of their now-established routine. He wondered if Eli and Nate—now several paces ahead—secretly shook their heads and thought of this strange dance as just another one of those Teddy-and-Billy things.

He hoped so. He hoped.

“Teddy?”

“Um? Oh. Well, when I was really little, I watched…I dunno, some cartoon or something that had a zombie in it. It probably wasn’t all that bad, but I became convinced that they were real and lived under my bed.”

“Because where else would the zombie hordes live?” Billy said, falling in step with a crooked grin.

Teddy pointed at him. “Right? Totally logical. Scary things live under your bed when you’re a kid.”

“Jamie’s father convinced us that man-eating dust bunnies lived under our beds.”

Teddy snorted and their arms brushed together, light enough to send a charge through him. He bit the inside of his mouth. “I hate to break it to you, Billy, but there probably were dust bunnies under your bed.”

“Are you kidding?” Billy’s grin was huge, his dark eyes dancing. He pushed back a sweat-damp strand of hair. The syncopated drum of their heels against the cracked sidewalk was like the bridge of a song about summer. “After the gory play-by-play about how they swarmed up onto the bed at night and devoured little boys whole, there wasn’t a dust bunny to be found. Our rooms were spotless.” He squinted. “For, like, a month. But man, it was one scary month.”

“I was scared of the zombies for a little more than a month,” Teddy admitted. They paused at a traffic light as it flashed red in steady pulses. Nate and Eli were just jogging up onto the opposite curb, casting curious looked behind them; Billy waved them on. “And by scared, I should probably say mind-bendingly terrified. I had night terrors until I was almost eleven and would. Um. Shift. When I dreamed.”

It was weird—but nice-weird—being able to say stuff like that out loud. It was even weirder—nicer—to have someone besides his mother who instinctively got just how sh*tty it was.

“Oh man,” Billy murmured, looking up at him with knit brows. “That…must have sucked.”

Teddy shrugged an awkward shoulder. “Um. Well. I mean, yeah. There’s something really unsettling about going to sleep one way and waking up…something else.” Green. Funny that now he was thinking about it, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he’d always been green. “Anyway, the zombie thing got pretty mixed up in my head with the whole night shifting thing; I’d wake Mom up screaming my throat raw because I was still half in the dream and saw my hands, arms, and didn’t recognize myself. I thought I’d gotten bitten or something, was turning. She’d have to crawl into the bed with me and like…make a Mom-cocoon around me, talking nonsense until I was fully awake and calm again.”

God, why was he telling Billy this stupid, sadsack story? He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, unable to meet the other boy’s eyes. “I was a pretty high-strung little kid, I guess.”

Billy’s arm bumped up against Teddy’s again, again. Their knuckles brushed, and it was almost as if Billy were psyching himself up to take hold of his hand…though of course that was just wishful thinking. “I’m sorry.”

Teddy glanced over quickly, then away. He shoved both hands into his pockets to avoid the temptation of that hand softly brushing against his. His pulse was racing stupidly fast. “Well, it’s no killer dust bunnies,” he joked; they headed across the street when the light turned, veering toward the subway station rising high above Flushing in the distance. “But I guess it went on long enough to carve a groove in my mom, who never knew when she was going to be jolted out of sleep by piercing horror movie screams. She’s put her foot down about zombie flicks ever since.”

“Wise woman, your mother,” Billy mused. Then he shot Teddy a sly look. “Want to come over some time and watch Romero with me?”

He felt a sudden thrill of perfect happiness, hope, lighting him up, all system go, yes yes yes.

“Um, hell yes,” he said; he would have agreed to anything. “I’ll bring the gummy brains.”

They were laughing, bright, warm; things were good. When Billy’s phone began to ring, he fished it out without breaking stride, glancing at the faceplate—and nearly stumbled.

“Whoa!” Teddy said, catching Billy’s elbow before he took a spill. He caught sight of Billy’s phone purely by accident, and he would have known that number anywhere. Back when Jamie had been his only line of communication with a grounded Billy, his digits had practically been seared into Teddy’s brain. “Oh hey,” he began, about to suggest they include Jamie on their zombie plans—now that his friendship with Billy was mended, maybe that meant he could start hanging out with Jamie again too.

But Billy cut him off before he could suggest anything of the kind. “Wrong number,” he said, quickly pressing a button and shoving the phone back into his pocket.

And… And that wasn’t right. It had been Jamie. He hadn’t meant to look, but he’d seen the numbers clear as day, and he knew he wasn’t misremembering. “Sure,” he said, feeling the sudden awkward pall settle over the day. He glanced at Billy, but Billy was staring straight ahead, the tips of his ears red. His jaw was set.

Were he and Jamie having a fight? Or…

Stop it, a part of him whispered, struggling against the steady drop of his stomach. Stop it, stop it, things are good. Don’t go looking for reasons to be unhappy when things are finally good.

…maybe Billy just didn’t want Jamie to know he was hanging out with Teddy again. Maybe Teddy really was a dirty little secret.

No. No, that wasn’t fair, and he wasn’t going to let himself think like that. But he also couldn’t bring himself to ask…not upfront. Not right away.

“Anyway, um,” Teddy said, fumbling for something to say to fill the silence—but he felt off for the rest of the evening. Even as ninjas tried to scare them with their food. Even as they sprawled together on the warm grass and watched A Streetcar Named Desire. Even as they parted ways at the subway and Teddy rode the R alone back into Brooklyn and let himself alone back into his apartment and crawled alone back into bed and stared blankly up alone at where the stars used to be.

He was being stupid. He was being irrational.

He wondered, despite himself, whether when Billy talked to Jamie, he pretended like he still hated him…or whether he just never mentioned Teddy at all.

**

Voicemail: Hey baby, I hate to do this to you three nights in a row, but I need to stay at the office until pretty late tonight. Can you take care of dinner? I promise I’ll suitably grovel—with happy face pancakes, because I’m intent on not being the worst mother ever—tomorrow. Love you.

**

Teddy lay staring up at his ceiling for what felt like a long time. He was restless beneath his skin—unhappy, but not crushingly so. Not something he couldn’t handle.

It was weird, he thought, watching as shadows stretched across his walls—dusk fading into twilight fading into evening—but after everything that had happened with Greg, it was going to take a hell of a lot more than Billy lying about a phone call to get him truly upset.

He supposed, in a way, that he almost owed Greg a thank you for that.

“Yeah,” Teddy muttered, flinging one arm over his eyes. “Thank you for being so sad*stic that literally anything else is better than dealing with you.”

He immediately cringed against his own words, feeling…guilty. Or maybe not anything so simple as guilt—his emotions surrounding Greg (Greg the Asshole) had always been so very complex. Adding Billy into the mix only made them that much stronger.

Billy.

God. The way Billy had hurtled between the two of them, bristling with protective rage… He’d never considered himself someone in need of rescue—someone who wanted to be rescued—but in that moment, he’d felt suddenly so very, very…

“Ugh,” Teddy said, turning on his side and coiling up, then starfishing out again, long limbs spread across his mattress. His heart had begun to pound at the mere thought of Billy, and his gut was clenched tight in a queer blend of worry and hope and fear and love and confusion. What was Billy hiding, what was Billy planning, how had Billy gotten through to Greg with just a few angry words when it had taken so very much for Teddy to finally slip free?

That, he figured, was the question he couldn’t seem to chase from his mind no matter what he did—it always came back to nip at his heels in the gathering dark. He had to know. But had no idea how to go about getting the answer.

Unless.

Well.

Unless he went to find out for himself.

But that would be stupid. And reckless. And just asking for trouble.

“I don’t need to know that much,” Teddy decided, burrowing his head beneath his pillow to block out the blare of evening traffic, the heavy bass pounding through the ceiling from the apartment above…and the swirling dark thoughts threatening to drag him under again—sirens in the deep. “It’s not worth it.”

He twisted. He turned. He tried to put it out of his mind.

But in the end, he had to know. Now. Tonight.

No matter the cost.

**

Mom-
Gone out to buy milk. Be back soon.
-T

**

It was surreal, being back in Greg’s neighborhood. He hadn’t swung by in weeks—since just before their falling out. Teddy kept a watchful eye out as he trudged up the subway steps, hands shoved into his pockets. He’d grabbed an oversized black hoodie despite the balmy summer night, and his laces trailed behind him as he crossed the pothole-strewn road. The traffic light was out again, but there wasn’t a cop in sight.

And he couldn’t help but shiver against the feeling that he was walking into a trap.

“God, this is so stupid,” Teddy muttered to himself as he jogged up onto the sidewalk. Most of the families had gone in for the night, locking their doors against the city. Teenagers still loitered, though, cluttering up bodega doorways and crumbling stoops. Teddy saw a flare of light and smelled the thick, loamy scent of weed. A girl around his age met his eyes as she brought it to her lips, one brow arching as she drew in a breath.

Let it out slow.

When she tipped her head in question, he gave a little smile and shook his own; she just shrugged and leaned back against a boy’s shins, handing up the joint. Teddy walked by without looking back.

He heard the sound of a basketball hitting concrete not far ahead, and he instinctively tensed, but as he passed the jagged façade of the old apartment building and drew even with the old lot-turned-court, Teddy realized that the boys here were much older than Greg—more adult than not, especially in the dark. They passed the ball back and forth as they talked in low voices about who-knew-what. Somewhere a few streets away, a siren suddenly blared to life. Halfway down the block, a dog started barking in response.

And just ahead of him, coming up faster and faster with each step he took, was Greg’s run-down old building. Sitting on the stoop as if he’d sensed Teddy coming, as if he somehow knew him that well…was Greg.

Teddy instinctively dropped his eyes, as if Greg were a Gorgon and not just some high-school punk. He felt the prickle of fight-or-flight race down his spine and his heart tripped over itself as he fought to keep his breathing slow. Even. God, this was a really, really bad idea; what had he been thinking? So what if he couldn’t understand why Billy, with a few words, had managed to make Greg back off? So what if part of him was still waiting for the other shoe to drop? So what if he hated going about his life not knowing if things were ready to change on a dime again?

It was better not knowing. If the alternative meant baiting Greg into hurting him, it was better.

And yet he kept putting one foot in front of the other, kept moving inexorably closer and closer to Greg’s still form, kept tempting fate as he drew near the other boy—his first love, his first heartbreak—and, slowly, stopped in front of him.

Teddy kept his eyes trained down, locked on a deep fissure working its way up the old brick stoop. There were cigarette butts and broken glass scattered around, a few empty beer cans crinkled up in accordions. One of Greg’s legs was stretched out, ratty ends of his jeans trailing against the concrete. He had a paperback novel perched face-down on his thigh.

Teddy couldn’t read the title upside down in the queasy light cast from the streetlights, and he didn’t recognize the cover. He wondered why he even cared.

“Um,” Teddy said, finally lifting his eyes when Greg just sat there, not saying a word. He felt it deep in his core the moment their gazes locked—shivering, panic driving his heart rate faster, faster—but Greg just gave an infinitesimal flinch and bit his lower lip. Silent.

That…was really unlike Greg; Greg could always be trusted to have an arsenal ready at any given moment. It was one of the best and worst things about him.

And yet, nothing. Greg just sat there, paperback open on his thigh, staring at Teddy with an increasingly frustrated expression. His eyes were wide and dark—beautiful, like buffed black glass. A mirror. Teddy couldn’t help but see himself reflected back in them.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Teddy admitted.

Greg said nothing.

“I guess I just needed to know.”

Greg said nothing.

Teddy frowned and dropped his gaze again, confused. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He didn’t know what to make of it. It was almost as if Greg had been cursed silent, but that was stupid—like something out of a fairy tale. Even with all Billy’s talk of heroes and villains, princes and wicked somethings, real life wasn’t like that. It was infinitely messier and infinitely crueler in countless boring, hopeless ways. It didn’t end with a scrappy young nerd standing up to the handsome bully and winning. It didn’t dole out happily ever afters.

That’s not how life worked.

And yet Greg was staring up at him in increasingly obvious dismay, his lips parted, visibly dying to say something—and nothing, not a word, not a sound, barely a breath, came out.

It made Teddy’s skin crawl. He couldn’t tell whether this was just some new, weird form of mindf*ckery or whether something was actually wrong with Greg. Worse of all, he couldn’t tell how he should feel about either option. It was so unexpected…and yet so weirdly expected at the same time. A part of him that was steadily piecing together the evidence of Billy’s true power had almost known this would happen.

Did we do something to you, he wondered, even as he still fumbled for what that could possibly be. Are you okay? Impulsively, wanting to needle the other boy into breaking his surreal silence (Oh God, oh f*ck.) he reached for the one thing he knew would force Greg to break even the most insidious gaslighting.

The unspoken truth that would dig to the care of them both.

“I used to be in love with you,” Teddy said with deliberate cruelty. “But I’m not anymore. You lost.” He drew a breath and waited.

Greg closed his eyes and dropped his head, then slowly stood. The book tumbled from his lap, sprawling dog-eared and bent at Teddy’s feet. Teddy braced himself, waiting for Greg to finally reveal himself…but Greg just shook, jaw working against words that wouldn’t come. His hands were trembling and he looked small in this moment—stoop-shouldered, afraid, nothing like the bully that used to rule Teddy’s life.

He wet his lips, and they both took a breath together, sharp as glass. Then, letting it out in a long gust, Greg gave a single, helpless gesture—and turned to trudge up the steps. Teddy watched him go, shocked. He almost couldn’t believe that this was it, that Greg was retreating, even as Greg was pushing open the door. Greg was going inside.

Greg was gone, and he was left staring, stunned, mind filled with a thousand and one questions…and the slow, reluctant beginning of a theory about Billy’s powers that left him just as cold and shaken inside.

It didn’t seem possible.

Maybe it wasn’t possible.

And maybe…maybe it was, but he wasn’t going to piece the puzzle together by standing here staring up at Greg’s apartment building. Teddy shook his head and began to crouch to grab Greg’s book, but he stopped at the last minute, frowning.

Before, he would have been curious to know what Greg had been reading; he would have wanted this unprecedented glimpse into his secret internal life. He would have stolen the book and curled around it all night, trying to train his mind to think the way Greg thought, see the way he saw, be the way he was. He would have exulted over a discovery like this.

Now, here, Teddy found he didn’t care. And that was both a relief and a little sad.

He straightened, leaving the book where it was—dog-eared and forgotten. Then, without a backward glance, he turned and headed back toward the subway, heart feeling lighter and lighter with each step.

**

212-555-3129: Steeellllaaaaaaaaaaaa.
212-555-3129: STEEELLLLAAAAA
212-555-3129: STELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAA
212-555-8743: OK Stanley, I am hurrying.
212-555-8743: I just need to find my shoe
212-555-3129: Steellllaaa
212-555-8743: I AM COMING
212-555-8743: And ugh why is it so early? Practice is way too early. Nate needs to be stopped.
212-555-3129: “And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!”
212-555-8743: No more Tennessee Williams for you, sir.
212-555-8743: Also, ps, you are never allowed to meet my father.

**

At their next practice—indoors this time, because Nate seemed to have learned his lesson (for now)—Teddy deliberately jostled his shoulder with Billy’s. “Hey,” he said.

Billy grinned up at him. “Hey yourself, Stanley Kowalski.”

“Remember that time you teleported me to New Jersey?”

“Um,” Billy said. “Yeah, I’m not going to forget that, and thank you for reminding me of the heart attack I almost had. Fun times.”

Teddy shrugged, even as he ducked his head sheepishly. “Anyway. I’ve been meaning to ask: have you ever managed to do anything more with that? Or…do you have any kind of other powers that could be related to it?”

“Why?” Billy turned fully to face him, fingers playing with the edge of the t-shirt he practiced in (their uniforms taking longer than expected to arrive). Nate was some distance off, setting up some kind of wacky-looking obstacle course; Eli, as usual, was making increasingly obvious are you sh*tting me faces as he watched. “I mean, no, though I haven’t actually tried to teleport anyone since then.”

Teddy shrugged again. His stomach just tightened. “Eh, never mind,” he said when Nate gestured them over with a proud, almost smug set to his shoulders. “Just curious.”

**

Altmanticore: Hey, so, on a scale of 1 to 10, how alarmed would you be if you looked out your window and saw someone waving at you from the fire escape?
7:41 pm: Avngerfan2119 is away.
Altmanticore: Naked.
Altmanticore: This theoretical person, not me.
Altmanticore: brb
7:52 pm: Avngerfan2119 is back.
Avngerfan2119: OMG WHAT, WHAT IS YOUR LIFE??
7:52 pm: Altmanticore is away.
Avngerfan2119: Please tell me you did not go talk to the weird naked man on your fire escape.
Avngerfan2119: Teddy.
Avngerfan2119: Teddy, please, I need to know you did not talk to the weird naked man on your fire escape.
Avngerfan2119: YOU NEED TO GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW
Avngerfan2119: OMG YOU TOTALLY WENT TO TALK TO
Avngerfan2119: WHAT IS
Avngerfan2119: YOU ARE
Avngerfan2119: I AM PRETTY SURE THIS IS HOW EPISODES OF LAW AND ORDER START; PLEASE DO NOT BE ON AN EPISODE OF LAW AND ORDER, AND ALSO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
Avngerfan2119: ARGH
8:12 pm: Altmanticore is back.
Altmanticore: Whoa, hey, it’s okay!
Altmanticore: Seriously.
Avngerfan2119: If you let him into your apartment, I’m disowning you.
Altmanticore: Well.
Avngerfan2119: WHAT
Altmanticore: He’s gone now! I gave him clothes and some Fruit Roll-Ups, so, karmic win.
Avngerfan2119: You are
Avngerfan2119: I just
Avngerfan2119: No
Avngerfan2119: You are a unicorn
Avngerfan2119: If I don’t believe, you will cease to exist

**

“What do you think?”

Teddy glanced up, irritably blowing his bangs out of his face. He and his mother were sitting cross-legged on a drifting snowfall of old newspapers, white ceramic dishware piled high between them. They each had a palette and paintbrushes, though Teddy’s were neatly laid out before him. Organized.

As usual, his mother was a haphazard bundle of color and energy, perfectly reflected in the bowl held in the curve of her palm.

Yellow sunburst and green rays. Orange striations bled into red, into violet, the curving ends twisting blue at their tips. There was something beautiful about the chaos—something weirdly familiar too, though he couldn’t place the memory. But there was certainly nothing restrained about it.

Her lips twitched at the corners.

“It’s…colorful,” Teddy teased. “Lemme guess: you’re donating this set to PFLAG?”

“Well, I am terribly proud of my queer son.”

He flushed. “Mom,” Teddy protested, quickly looking away. They’d gone pretty much his entire life barely talking about, well, that. He’d known she was supportive—she was the picture perfect postcard of supportive mother in all things—but beyond the first fumbling admission and its immediate let’s celebrate coming out ice creams, she’d been content to live and let live and just…let Teddy make the first move in any of those kinds of conversations.

And Teddy? Had been pretty content not to make any moves at all, thanks. But lately, she’d gotten more and more vocal about…stuff. And it always seemed to circle back to Billy.

Teddy was so very not okay with that.

“Can we just,” he began, pretending to focus on his own mug. “I dunno, not?”

“Not what?” There was a palpable thread of amusem*nt in her voice, but she reached for her paintbrush again. They’d picked up the dishware at a local second-hand store on a whim ages ago, but this evening had been the first time either of them had been free to break out the paints. It was an old tradition stretching back to his childhood. They usually ended up keeping one or two of their favorite pieces, but the rest would be given to a neighbor, or a shelter, or a family friend. It always seemed like there was someone who could use more color in their lives. “Oh, by the way…”

Teddy drew up his knees and ducked his head, going fetal. “Oh my God,” he muttered.

“How is Billy doing?”

“Oh my God.”

His mother cheerfully ignored the hot blush sweeping across his cheeks. “The two of you can come over here anytime, you know. I know how you love to wander the city as if you were the hero of a French noir…”

“Mom,” Teddy protested.

“…but the apartment could be a nice place to hang too. I promise I won’t get in the way. Well,” she added, looking at him over the rim of her colorful bowl. “Unless I think it’s my maternal duty to get in the way.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, grinding his teeth. There was literally nothing he could say to convince her his friendship with Billy wasn’t just a smokescreen for something…more. She knew him too well. Even if he could hide his wistful interest from everyone else, he could never hide it from her. “Mom,” Teddy said again, trying to power through what was promising to be a horribly awkward conversation, “it’s not…whatever you’re thinking. Okay? Billy’s just… He’s a friend. That’s it.”

She hummed and flicked her paintbrush in a little bowl of water. Clouds of green paint lifted from the bristles, swirling across the surface in a colorful comet’s tail. “I had a friend like that once,” she said. “Back when you were very young.”

“It’s not like that,” he said again. “It’s—” He felt flustered, stomach twisting unhappily. His hands shook as he set the little teacup aside before he could smudge the careful blue filigree. “It’s complicated.”

“Baby,” his mother said, reaching out to rest one paint-spattered hand over his. When he flicked his gaze up to meet hers, there was a wealth of warmth and empathy and love in those bright blue-green eyes. She squeezed his fingers. “It always is.”

“Maybe,” he said, and looked away. But the problem was? Considering the way he felt every time Billy so much as smiled at him?

Complicated didn’t even begin to cover it.

**

Celeb candids
SPIDER-MAN IS A HUGE FAN…OF HIMSELF?
Spotted foiling a robbery in Brooklyn wearing red jammies covered in spiderwebs. Superfans speculate the famous webslinger must have been asleep in one of the nearby apartments only to be jolted out of bed by a crime in progress. Neighborhood residents can expect throngs of mouth-breathing fanboys in a door-to-door campaign to find the likely Spidey-Den. Target can expect a spike in branded pajama sales. Brooklyn’s self-respect can expect a sharp and sudden decline. Thanks, Spider-Man.
SEE MORE PICTURES

**

“I’m not late, I’m not late,” Teddy chanted as he came sprinting into the locker room. Nate had insisted they start using it once they got some of the old practice rooms up and running. It just seemed right, he said.

Teddy was pretty sure the other boy was just tired of tripping over discarded jeans and backpacks during timed sprints, but hey, even Eli had to admit that keeping their sh*t tucked out of sight made things neater.

Eli glanced up from the bench, lips quirking as he finished tying off his laces. “You’ve got three minutes to muster, Altman,” he said; he climbed to his feet and rolled his muscular shoulders. “Think you can manage that?”

“Basketball sorta-star for years, Bradley,” Teddy sassed back. He kicked off his sneakers, letting them sail blindly toward the far wall. “Do you know how many times I had to dive into gear just before warmups? I got this in the bag.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.” Eli punted one of Teddy’s shoes back at him even as Teddy let his jeans puddle around his ankles. Standing at the locker next to his, Billy—dressed in his sweats and a Le Petit Hobbit t-shirt—raised his brows.

Teddy grinned back. “He’s just pissy because I chainsawed his face last night,” he said when Eli went to join Nate in the main practice room. He kicked out of his jeans and slung open his own locker, catching the pile of semi-clean (but mostly not) xxxl shorts that came spilling out in a sweaty tangle.

Oof. Okay, some of those were ripe; laundry time.

“I’m going to pretend I understood that,” Billy decided, reaching into his locker.

Teddy shrugged and whipped off his t-shirt, balling it up and tossing it on top of the pile of shorts. The day was miserably hot, but the Avengers’ practice rooms managed to remain cool. Here, in the tile-walled quiet where heroes like Cap, Falcon, and Quicksilver shucked down to their uniforms, it was almost cold. Gooseflesh shivered across his arms and his nipples tightened.

Next to him, Billy made a soft noise.

Teddy glanced over just in time to catch Billy looking away; a hot flush had crept up the other boy’s cheeks, down his neck to the delicate line of his collar. He wet his lips, tongue snaking out—and Christ, Teddy’s eyes zeroed in on the slick glide of it. It was almost enough to get him hard.

He looked down immediately, heat building slow and insidious in his belly.

All at once, he felt…so incredibly naked. Exposed. Standing there in his boxers and socks, skin prickling with awareness, desire beginning to build bit by bit by bit until he had to bite the inside of his mouth to swallow a noise of his own. His breath hitched as his heart began to pound, and Teddy reached blindly into his locker for a pair of too-big shorts, suddenly desperate to cover up.

He could feel Billy’s eyes on him again.

It was like the Museum of SEX all over again. Like the pool. He swore he could hear the soft hitching of Billy’s breath, the erratic pounding of his heart. Teddy looked over, through his lashes, meeting the other boy’s eyes. They were huge and dark, lips parted and bitten-red.

He wanted to slide his fingers into snarled brown hair and tip his face up for a kiss. He wanted to lick into his mouth slow and sweet and hot, wanted to reclaim what they’d lost all those weeks ago.

It’s complicated, he thought, staring into Billy’s eyes. But maybe it doesn’t have to be.

Billy suddenly slammed his locker shut and turned away, flushed cherry red. “I’m um—practice!” he choked out. He tripped over one of Teddy’s sneakers as he backpedaled, lockers clanging at the hard smack of his hand. Teddy started instinctively toward him—shorts clutched like a flag in his fist, heart lurching stupidly hard—but Billy just muttered something that sounded like, I’m fine, okay, um!, and retreated fast.

The door swung shut behind him; the locker room fell silent.

Teddy let out a slow, uneven breath, standing in socked feet and tented boxers, practice shorts gripped in spasmodically clenching fists. That had been… That was…

That? Was going to be a problem.

“Okay,” Teddy whispered to himself; he raked his fingers through his hair, skin shocked-hot. He could hear Nate calling the others to attention. “This isn’t going to be awkward or anything.”

He was officially late for practice that day.

**

They avoided each other in the locker room after that. It just seemed…easier that way.

But there was no avoiding everything.

Like Billy, laughing at one of his stupid jokes hard enough to snort up his Pepsi, doubled over and grabbing blindly for napkins while Eli and Nate watched them over the diner table, twin expressions of bemused detachment on their faces.

As if this was a joke they weren’t meant to understand. As if it was just one of those Billy-and-Teddy things.

Or:

Billy, tumbling awkwardly from the air at a too-great height—arms pinwheeling near as frantic as Teddy’s heart. He gave a loud oof when Teddy dove to catch him, one gangly knee driving against Teddy’s chest, the other knocking his head back.

They staggered and sprawled gracelessly to the ground, Teddy’s big green hand smacking against the floor next to Billy’s head, the weight of his hips driving Billy’s against the concrete in a way that sent unexpected sparks licking through his heavy limbs. He looked down to meet Billy’s startled gaze, so near his own; his other hand had instinctively moved to cradle the back of Billy’s skull during the fall, and they were so close he could feel the creeping heat of each too-rapid breath.

Hot against his cheeks. His mouth.

“Crap, are you guys okay?” Eli said before Teddy could give into the clamor of madness and bridge that careful distance between them. He jerked his head up…then levered himself off Billy with a shaky laugh.

“Sure,” Teddy said, letting Eli be the one to offer Billy a hand up—his own were shaking too hard. “No problem.”

Or:

Billy, floating slowly off the ground, a brilliant blue corona surrounding the gangly lines of his body. Lightning flickered across his skin, kissing the twitching fingertips, the delicate bend of his elbow, the curve of his jaw. He looked otherworldly in that moment—beautiful and elemental and heartbreakingly untouchable in ways that made Teddy ache.

“Wow,” Nate said in a hush. “He’s…incredible.”

Yeah, Teddy didn’t say—because there weren’t words for what Billy Kaplan was. Even now, even after all they’d been through. Maybe especially after all they’d been through. He was just too… Too…

Too…

**

Avngerfan2119: Do you think Eli practices?
Altmanticore: Huh?
Avngerfan2119: The hard-assed thing. Do you think he sits around all evening staring into mirrors and trying to get that muscle in his jaw to jump?
Altmanticore: Hmmm. Good question.
Altmanticore: But I’m going to have to go with no. Pretty sure that’s pure inborn talent.
Avngerfan2119: Patriot: Master Hardass.
Avngerfan2119: Heh. Sounds like the first in a new p*rn series.
Altmanticore: Okay, Asgardian, I’d be careful about flinging that kind of shade around.
Avngerfan2119: Hey! What happened to you being on my side???
Altmanticore: Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of sweet, sweet irony.

**

It was early on a Sunday morning—early enough that traffic was only now beginning to pick up, joggers returning to their nice brownstones from daily runs—and Billy was waiting for him at the corner. He straightened when Teddy drew near, giving an awkward little wave as if Teddy couldn’t spot him anywhere.

As if Teddy’s eyes didn’t automatically go to him, finding his true North, and wow, okay, it was way too early to go that far down the rabbit hole.

He grinned back and shifted the bag and little cardboard tray of drinks in his hands, lifting it in greeting. Billy’s wave turned into an exaggerated thumbs up and he moved to meet Teddy halfway down the block…eyebrows slowly climbing.

“What?” Teddy said, stopping.

Billy jogged the rest of the way, reaching to take the paper bag and tray of bodega coffee from Teddy’s hands. “Looks like you have an admirer,” he pointed out. He nodded down toward Teddy’s feet where—oh, hey—a notch-eared tabby was pawing at Teddy’s trailing laces. “Unless you’ve decided to switch from Hulk to DC’s Cat-Man.”

“Why not? Cat-Man is really hot,” Teddy said as he crouched. He looked up at Billy’s choked noise, refusing to let himself blush. “What?” he demanded. He stroked a thumb between the cat’s eyes and down to rub at its soft ruff. “We’re both…you know. We’re not allowed to, uh, comment on those kinds of things?”

“Um!” Billy shuffled from foot to foot. He wasn’t able to shift to cover a blush—it swept across his cheeks in slowly, unspooling whorls. “I, um, well. Okay? If you want to? I mean, I’m not going to stop you if you— But I, uh, guess I never really— I feel kind of weird about— Well, it’s just that you—”

Teddy scooped the cat in his arms, its metal tag jingling, and kept his expression absolutely blank. “I’m going to go return this little guy to the bodega,” he said, tilting his head back toward the store a few doors down.

“Teddy,” Billy began, helpless, but Teddy just shook his head, trying to signal as hard as he could that it was no big deal, and carried the tabby back to its home.

He used returning the cat as an excuse to give him a couple of minutes away to collect himself again, leaning against the counter and chatting with the owner—an elderly German man with a gap-toothed smile and kind eyes—as Samson settled against the register and purred almost loud enough to drown out the Fifth Avenue traffic. By the time he pushed out of the jangling old door again (careful to make sure Samson stayed inside this time where he belonged), Billy was leaning against the brick and sipping his coffee.

He wordlessly handed Teddy his cup and Teddy made sure their fingers didn’t touch.

“I got bagels for everyone,” Teddy said. They fell into step, heading down the Avenue toward nearby Central Park. It was surreal, still—this was the exact same route they’d take when Teddy used to walk Billy home from school. Maybe that was what was making him think…well. He tried not to let those memories surface like bruises; he tried even harder not to let there be lulls that could stretch into awkward silences. He really wasn’t up to handling that today. “Except Nate, who got a doughnut. I’m pretty sure Nate would eat a whole cake for breakfast if he could get away with it. Do you figure I should have texted ahead to see if they wanted coffee? I mean, they’ve always said no, but you know, things change, and maybe today they’d…”

His pathetic monologue trailed off when Billy grabbed his arm and tugged him to a stop. Teddy let himself be turned, eyes dropping between their feet—and then up to meet Billy’s eyes, because he was not letting things get awkward. Not if he had to do backflips to keep them on an even keel. “What’s up?” he said, as casually as possible.

“You know, there was a time when I found you pretty impossible to read,” he said.

Teddy dropped his gaze again, unable to hold steady. “Yeah. I…I get that a lot.”

“I know. You do it on purpose. You deflect and…and I’m not going to start talking in my Mom’s voice, I swear to God, but I just…” Billy sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

Billy made a conflicted face, then shifted his coffee into his other hand. He hesitated only a fraction of a second before he reached out and lightly—deliberately—placed his hand on Teddy’s bicep. Teddy could feel the warmth of his palm through the thin sleeve of his t-shirt. He could feel the way Billy’s fingers trembled.

When Teddy looked up, Billy’s eyes were searching his face, so welcoming, so understanding, so close. So incredibly, impossibly close.

I could kiss him, Teddy thought. I think maybe he wants me to. And God, the mere idea was enough to immolate him from the inside out.

He felt dizzy with awareness, and he wanted to lean in and brush their lips together so bad it was an ache. His heart was pounding, and he wanted, he wanted, he wanted. Teddy wet his lips and released the iron control over his shift, allowing the blush to unfurl slow and sweet across his cheeks. Letting Billy see.

Billy’s eyes followed the gradual unspooling of color, and his expression was so f*cking delighted that Teddy actually started to lean in to chase that mad impulse. Billy’s face tilted upwards, his lips parted, and it would be so easy to bridge that last bit of distance between them and…and see if he was right—that there was more than the slowly mending shreds of friendship left between them. See if perhaps he could salvage everything he’d so carelessly destroyed.

The taste of chlorine and Billy’s tongue stroking his own, arms twined about his neck as he arched with the subtle shift of water.

God, he wanted that again. He needed it.

But before intent could blossom into action, before he could do more than start to lean toward Billy’s upturned face, an all-too-familiar voice shouted—

“Hey, Billy! Heads up!”

—startling them apart with a pair of guilty expressions.

Teddy dragged a hand over his face and up into his hair, fiercely wresting back control of himself as Jamie came barreling down the sidewalk toward them. The other boy was dressed in too-big cargo shorts and an Iron-ic Man t-shirt, curly brown hair wild with the early summer wind. But his wide, crooked smile began to break up piece by piece by piece as his eyes ticked over from Billy to Teddy.

Jamie began to slow as he registered Teddy’s presence; Billy’s back was already turned on Teddy, and it took everything he had not to read something into that.

“Um, hey,” Billy said. “Wow, you’re up early.”

Jamie crossed his arms—defensively, Teddy thought, not aggressively—and looked between them with knit brows. Like he’d been presented with a riddle he wasn’t sure he wanted to find the answer to. “Yeah, well, Mom decided she needed to vacuum the house right now, and I decided I needed to escape before I got tapped as Manual Labor Guy, soooo. Here I am. Um. Speaking of being here unexpectedly: hi, Teddy.”

“Hey, Jamie.”

There was a long, awkward silence. Teddy began to tense up, instinctively preparing for the blow he knew was coming even as he hoped—prayed—it wasn’t.

“We were just,” Billy began. Then, like a swinging fist: “I mean, we just ran into each other by chance. Just now.”

f*ck.

Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “Riiiight,” he said. “Small world, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Billy answered. “Small world.”

So. He really was Billy’s dirty little secret. God, that hurt more than it had any right to. He looked away, fighting the anxious churning in his stomach. He tried to tell himself that Billy had all kinds of reasons why he might not tell his best friend that he and Teddy were on good terms again. He was hiding his involvement with the Avengers. He didn’t want Jamie to be jealous. He wanted it to be a personal, private thing.

Yeah, he could think of all kinds of excuses, some of which actually made sense. But he also couldn’t help but think that he used to make all kinds of excuses for Greg, too, and…f*ck, f*ck, he needed to get out of here.

“I’ll just—I have to go,” Teddy began, ignoring the desperate look Billy flung his way; Jamie set his jaw, looking between them.

“Oh my God, Billy,” Jamie said, shoulders hunching forward. His face was twisted up in a thundercloud, hurt and fury flashing in his eyes. “You’re such an asshole.”

Billy sighed. “Look,” he began, “I was going to tell you…”

“The hell you were! I’ve been home for weeks now, and you’ve been dodging my calls and putting me off, saying you were too busy to do anything—and you didn’t even have the guts to what, tell me you were ditching me for Teddy?”

Teddy took an involuntary step back, even as Billy jerked to look at him, then back at Jamie.

“It’s not like that!” Billy protested.

Jamie glowered, face going splotchy. His whip-thin body coiled tight as a fist, eyes bright with furious tears. It was all Teddy could do not to try to reach out and, and fix this somehow—find a way to defuse the brewing fight.

I’m sorry, he wanted to shout, even as a quieter part of him whispered, You aren’t the one who has been lying.

Billy shook his head. “Look, it’s not— Okay, yeah, I’ve been putting you off, I guess. And I should have told you I was hanging out with, um, Teddy again. But it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah, and what am I thinking, Billy?” Jamie demanded. “Am I thinking that you’ve been ditching me ever since you met Teddy? Am I thinking that you used me to get to him for weeks—never mind actually being my f*cking best friend—like I’m just some kind of ticket to your stupid crush?”

Billy shot Teddy a mortified look, face flaming.

“Am I thinking you’ve barely spent five minutes with me since the summer started, lying about where you’re going and what you’re doing every. f*cking. Day. For weeks. Telling me all kinds of bull about how busy you were, and calling me paranoid when I point-blank asked if something was up. And now that I’ve actually literally stumbled across you and your, what—new best friend? Secret boyfriend?—you still want to lie about it and pretend I’m too stupid to figure it out?”

“It’s not like that,” Billy tried to protest, but Jamie snapped his hands up between them, shaking with his fury.

“Liar. That’s all you’ve been for weeks, for months now. You liar. I’ve been trying to cut you some slack because Teddy hurt you so badly; I’ve been trying to be a good friend, and all this time, all this time… And you didn’t even have the balls to tell me? I would have been happy for you. I would have—” Jamie dashed away angry tears, looking away as if suddenly realizing they were making a scene—the three of them ringed in an unhappy circle, tension thick on the hot summer breeze.

“Jamie,” Billy said, desperation coiled around each word. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. We’re best friends.”

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “When you wanted something from me, we were real close—and then you dropped me the second something better came along. Some best friend you turned out to be.”

God, it hurt to hear the pain in Jamie’s voice; it ached to see the gutted look on Billy’s. He wished there was something he could do to mend the obvious rift between them. He wished he’d never come between them in the first place. He wished he had some kind of magic words that could make it all better.

Billy took a deep breath, as if sensing Teddy’s thoughts in that way he had, and said with a strange, shivery weight, “I don’t want you to feel that way, Jamie.”

The words hung there, heavy and significant in the air. Jamie gave a little jolt, entire skinny body shuddering violently. His arms dropped with the motion and the tense set of his shoulders was shaken loose. When he straightened, however, his expression was clear.

Friendly.

He slowly began to grin. “You didn’t think to buy me coffee, Teddy?” Jamie teased, as if he hadn’t been in furious tears just moments before. “Gosh, I feel the love.”

Teddy’s blood went cold. Bit by bit, in the space of a sucked-in breath, all the pieces finally clicked fully into place. Coney Island. The Shore. Greg. And now…Jamie. “Oh my God,” he said, turning stricken eyes on Billy.

For his part, Billy just looked confused, brows drawn together. And thank God, thank God for that—thank God he was still the person Teddy thought he knew; he’d lived for so long dealing with the manipulative bullsh*t Greg liked to pull. He wasn’t sure he could handle realizing the only other boy he’d ever loved may be just as willing to f*ck with his head.

But still, this? This was bad. This was next level bad.

“Um, what?” Billy said, but Teddy just muscled in, snagging Billy’s elbow. “Next time, Jamie,” he promised. “Or, hey, here.” He pressed his own coffee into Jamie’s hands; his stomach was too twisted up for him to be able to drink it anyway. “Have mine. We actually have to go. We have to be…somewhere.” He fumbled with the lie, still too shocked-scared to be able to think.

But Jamie just shrugged. “Okay, cool,” he said as he curled his hands happily around the coffee and took a sip. “I’ll see you guys around.” He shot Billy a sunny smile, actually whistling to himself as he headed off. It was such an abrupt turn from his anger, his (justified) recriminations that it sent another chill up Teddy’s spine. He watched Jamie go, wondering if the change was permanent. Wondering what it meant if it was.

How powerful was Billy, anyway?

“I’m so confused,” Billy admitted in a low voice, and Teddy looked down to meet his gaze. His face was crumpled up, caught somewhere between bewilderment and panic. He looked, all at once, so very young. “Why did he just… He just flipped moods. Like a breaker getting tripped. Is he… Did. Did I…?”

Teddy snagged the cup and bag from Billy’s trembling fingers and tossed them into the nearby trash, then slid an arm around his shoulders. He pulled him close, tucking him into the warm hollow of his side. “Come on,” Teddy murmured. “We need to get off the street.”

“Did I just… Oh my God, was that me?” Billy twisted to stare up at him, eyes gone wide—he was alarmingly pale. “That couldn’t have been me. I’m, I do lightning, I’m not; I just do lightning!”

“It’s okay,” he soothed—meaningless words, really, because if Billy could do this, then what else was he capable of? There was a very real part of him that was frightened of Billy. There was another, bigger part that was frightened for him. “Just hold it together for a few minutes, okay? We’re almost there.”

Billy was shaking so hard he stumbled. Traffic blared, and a kid passing by on a bike had to veer to avoid them. Teddy just dragged Billy closer and made a beeline for a bench just visible past the first flush of foliage. The tall trees of Central Park cast a welcome shade, a sense of privacy as Teddy led Billy to the bench and gently tugged him down. Here, there was still the whole city orbiting around them, but at least they could pretend they were alone.

“Hey,” Teddy said, immediately turning and cupping the back of Billy’s neck. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Are you kidding me?” Billy demanded, voice going high and loud—but then he dropped into a whisper, leaning against Teddy as if he needed his strength to keep upright. With the way he was shuddering, maybe he did. “I just did…something…to my best friend’s head. Oh my God, I just mind-whammied Jamie.” He pulled back, scrubbing at his face; he was almost grey now, ashen. “I did, right? That was… Was that me?”

What was he supposed to say to that? Billy was looking at him with huge, hopeful eyes, waiting for Teddy to reassure him that of course it wasn’t him. Of course he hadn’t done anything wrong. Teddy made a torn face and Billy cursed, dropping his head between his knees.

“Oh my God,” Billy said, breaths coming fast. Way too fast. “Oh my God, I just mind-whammied my best friend. I just—”

He hesitated, then reached out to lay a hand between Billy’s shoulder blades. They were sharp and delicate, arching like a bird’s wings. He could feel the knobs of Billy’s spine as he stroked down his back. “Hey,” Teddy said in a low, comforting tone. He let his other hand fall to Billy’s thigh, holding on tight—grounding him. “Hey, come on, breathe. Just breathe. It’s okay.”

Billy curled up tighter and let out a harsh, uneven breath. Teddy dragged his hand up to cup the back of his neck and wondered…was this what it was like for every kid who discovered powers? A violent eruption, a violation. Billy Kaplan had been living and breathing in this world for years before suddenly, wham—lightning powers nearly strong enough to kill Kessler. And then, the moment he thought he’d found his footing again, wham—a new surprise, a new hurdle, tripping him up and reorienting his fractured world.

Teddy had known what he was for as long as he was aware of his own body; what must it have been like to wake up one day in the middle of your teens and realize you had these genetic time bombs inside you just waiting to go off?

“Hey,” he said, soothing, as he wrapped Billy in a fierce hug. Billy was pressed tighttighttight against his side, fingers curled in Teddy’s t-shirt, shoulders shaking with a mix of fear and adrenaline. “Hey, it’ll be okay. I promise, it’ll be okay.”

“But—” Billy’s voice caught in his throat, going jagged and muffled against Teddy’s shoulder. Teddy soothed a hand up into his hair, fingers carding through dark snarls the way his mother used to do for him when he was a kid. Whether it was that or Teddy’s meaningless reassurances or simply time, Billy seemed to be slowly calming—the frightened tremors had quieted to a shiver, and he could start to feel Billy begin to uncoil against him. “But what if whatever I, I maybe did,” maybe, as if he wasn’t quite ready to admit culpability, “caused some kind of permanent… What if I hurt him?”

He looked up, beautiful eyes bright with tears and terror, lashes wet. Teddy’s heart twisted hard in response. “I wasn’t trying to do anything,” Billy said. “I didn’t even know—I just panicked, and I wanted things to be okay, and I felt this weird…force inside, and oh my God, oh my God, it really was me; I hurt Jamie, oh f*ck.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Teddy grabbed at Billy’s hands as the other boy flailed away in another surge of panic; he caught his wrists and gently but firmly tugged them down between their bodies. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not the first time this has happened, right? And there hasn’t been any lasting damage from the other times, so Jamie’s probably…Jamie’s definitely going to be just fine.”

Soothing. Helpful. Reassuring. Right?

Wrong.

Billy reared back, staring at Teddy as if he’d just started speaking in tongues. “What, wait, wait, what? What do you mean it’s not the first time?!”

A young woman was jogging by the nearby path, sneakers hitting the ground in a steady thwap thwap, earbuds in. Even so, Billy’s shout was enough to drag her attention; she slowed, eyes on Teddy’s hands gripping a panicked Billy’s wrists.

He let go with a guilty start, and she reluctantly passed.

“Probably,” Teddy said. Then, with an attack of honesty, “Definitely. But it turned out okay then, and it’ll be okay now.”

“What.” Billy dropped down to the grass, jeans dragging across gravel and springy weeds; he grabbed onto Teddy’s t-shirt again, fingers twisting tight. Like he needed to hold on. Like he was afraid to let go. “What do you mean? I’ve never— The Jersey Shore?” Teddy could actually see the pieces clicking together for Billy. “I thought it was some kind of weird teleportation thing, but you think it’s…part of whatever I just did to— To Jamie?”

God, why wasn’t Captain America here? Or Professor Xavier, or Dr. Strange, or his mother, or a hundred other people a thousand times more qualified than him to guide Billy through this? “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I think, I mean… You didn’t want me to be there, and so I, um, wasn’t. And you wanted Jamie to be cool with this, so he was.”

“Oh my God,” Billy breathed.

In for penny. “And at Coney Island, you wanted me to talk, so I—”

Billy actually jolted back at that, literal sparks dancing from his fingertips and skittering across the grass as he fell back on his ass, catching himself against his palms. “What, no!” he cried. “No, no way, that was before I— I wouldn’t, Teddy, I…”

“You didn’t mean to,” Teddy said again, heartfelt. “And you didn’t know. But I think…I mean, I’m pretty sure you did, accidentally, um, make me.”

The noise Billy made was enough to break his heart.

“And I’m okay,” Teddy protested, following Billy down onto the grass. He only hesitated a moment, hyper-aware of the sparks trailing in pinwheels across Billy’s skin—but then he bit the inside of his mouth and grasped the other boy’s shoulders, riding out the gut-deep jolt of power. It licked through him with the lash of a whip, then immediately quieted as Billy sucked in a breath.

That was a good sign, right? That Billy could control himself when push came to shove?

Teddy leaned in to meet Billy’s gaze, tearing down all his mental walls, letting everything show on his face, in his eyes, in the line of his body. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but he knew he needed Billy to be okay. Whatever it took. “It was an accident, and I’m okay—and that’s why I think Jamie’s going to be okay too.”

“You’re okay,” Billy echoed, like he was clinging to that simple point. But then, “Oh my God, I am so sorry.”

“Water under the bridge,” Teddy promised, taking his hands and squeezing them. Billy’s fingers were freezing. Shock? Probably. At least he was breathing normally now. “Seriously. We’ll figure out what triggers it and we’ll teach you how to control it. It’s all right, Billy; I promise you it’s all right.”

Billy closed his eyes and dropped his head—but he nodded once.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Billy said. And then, looking up again, “Yeah. Yeah, okay. God. Thank you.”

Teddy tried to smile. It was a little wan, a little crooked, but it was enough for now. “What are friends for?”

That earned a pained, breathless laugh. “Apparently mind-whammying. f*ck.” Billy sighed, rubbing at his eyes with the meat of his palms. “We should tell Nate about…about all this. And I should try to figure out if there is anyone else I, um, did something to.”

Teddy hesitated, weighing the pros and cons of saying more. Billy narrowed his eyes at Teddy’s silence. “Teddy,” he began.

“Well,” he said, hedging. It didn’t seem quite the right time—Billy was already processing so much—but there was at least one more very obvious example Teddy could think of.

“Teddy,” Billy began again, the panic starting to kindle in his eyes again. “Oh my God, spit it out; what else did I do to y—” Then he went still, lips parted in an O. “Greg,” Billy said after a stunned moment. “Greg didn’t just have some kind of change of evil heart, did he?”

Teddy gave a slight shake of his head.

Billy deflated. “Oh man. Oh man. I can’t believe I… I don’t know what to think about that. It seems so impossible.” He shifted, knees drawing up, and dropped his head into the cradle of his arms. “This all just seems so crazy.”

He shifted around so they were sitting side by side, shoulder-to-shoulder, like they were at a normal day of practice—like Billy’s world wasn’t coming undone brick by brick. Teddy jostled them together lightly, only just controlling the instinct to wrap a protective arm around Billy’s waist. “Powers,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Powers are just…weird.”

“There’s weird and then there’s hi you have lightning powers, and oh and you can sort of fly, and plus you can teleport people and mind-whammy them without even meaning to. That’s next level stuff, Teddy.”

Teddy cracked a crooked grin. “Yeah, I don’t know, Billy.”

Billy’s brows climbed, an obvious: You’re sh*tting me, right? The fact that he’d calmed enough to play along was a good, good sign. The sight of it was enough to make something in Teddy relax, his heartbeat beginning to slow from its frantic, anxious pulse.

“Kang the Conqueror is our teenaged best friend,” Teddy pointed out, and that startled a laughing snort out of Billy, awkward and dorky and beautiful to hear. He impulsively slid an arm around Billy’s skinny shoulders after all.

And his heart damn near melted when Billy immediately leaned into his warmth. “Okay,” Billy had to admit. “Okay, you’re right—Nate as Kang is next level stuff. I guess compared to that, this is…do-able.”

“Totally do-able. In fact…” Teddy gave him a little squeeze, then pulled away to climb to his feet. “I’ll text Nate and Eli and let them know we can’t make practice today. I’m kidnapping you to Brooklyn.”

“Um. Okay.” Billy slowly stood, swaying just a little. The color had come back to his face, and even though tear tracks stood out against his splotchy skin, he looked a thousand times more in control of himself. More himself in general. “Sure.”

Teddy was already punching in the message, giving only enough details to keep the two boys from tracking them down and dragging them back to practice. Trust me, he typed. “There’s something in Brooklyn I really think you need to see with your own eyes.”

“…okay,” Billy said again, brows puckering. He waited as Teddy pressed send. “But, um, what?”

Teddy slipped his phone into his pocket and brushed off his jeans. The day was bright and warm, sunlight streaming through the canopy of leaves to cast mottled shadows across their faces. Even so close to the edge of the park, it felt like they were worlds away from the rest of the city. He stepped closer, reaching out to brush a stray leaf out of Billy’s hair; the gesture felt bizarrely intimate, even after what had just happened.

Billy swallowed hard, clearly feeling it too, and that was what gave Teddy the strength he needed to answer.

“We’re going to go see Greg.”

**

212-555-0101: Are the two of you ok?
212-555-0101: Do you need backup?
212-555-0101: What is going on?
212-555-0101: Where are you?
212-555-0101: Teddy?
212-555-0101: Are you ignoring me?
212-555-0101: You are ignoring me.
212-555-0101: Fine then. Call me if you need me.
212-555-0101: Or Eli.
212-555-0101: We’ll just be here until you—
212-555-0101: Hey, T, it’s Eli. I’ve taken Nate’s phone. See you tomorrow, man.

**

Billy was surprisingly willing to follow along…at least for the first hour. But by the time they’d made it out of Manhattan, across the bridge, and changed trains to venture deeper into Brooklyn, he was beginning to dig in his heels.

Shock, Teddy decided. The initial acquiescence had been shock.

“This is a bad idea,” Billy said. They were packed tight in a nearly full subway car, swaying with the steady shift of the train. One of the lights was threatening to go out, winking ominously over their heads; it made the world feel as if it were a bizarre mirror version of itself. Wonka-esque, flashes of graffiti, ads, work-crew messages visible in strange strobe flashes. “Seriously, seriously bad.”

“It’s not a bad idea.” It was a bad idea the first time he’d gone to see Greg. “Come on, we’re the next stop.”

Billy glanced up at the digital map and made a face, shifting gears. “Okay, but that is a bad idea; you’ll give me that, right?” The train was slowing with an ear-splitting screech. The sheer wall of humanity shifted with them, around them, beginning the awkward shuffle toward and away from the doors as the station finally came into view. “I mean, I’m not a snob or anything…”

Teddy tipped his chin up to hide a smile; Billy was totally a snob.

“…but isn’t this not the safest place in the world? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard songs about this neighborhood, and I’ve got to tell you, those songs? Didn’t exactly make me want to visit.”

“It’s ten in the morning,” Teddy said. He dropped a hand to Billy’s shoulder, just to keep them close as the doors opened and people went spilling out onto the station. They stuck together up the dirty station steps all the way to the busy street. Teddy paused to glance around, alert—Billy may have been a bit sheltered, a bit of a snob, but he hadn’t been wrong. This wasn’t the nicest neighborhood, even at ten in the morning.

Billy shuffled close, but not too close. Now that they were out of the harsh station lights, he looked markedly pale…but Teddy supposed he should have expected that. Shock, he reminded himself. This has all been a huge shock for him.

“Come on,” he said, giving his shoulder a nudge and guiding him down the avenue in a bizarre flashback to his earlier trek. There were gang tags on the pitted brick and filthy bus shelters. Big, slashing letters had been sprayed against corrugated metal gates covering the empty shops like rotted teeth. And yet there were people hanging out on the stoops and smoking in the doorways of bodegas; a little girl was having her hair braided by her grandmother. She offered them a sunny look and Teddy smiled back, shooting both of them a wave across the busy street.

Billy snorted. “You know, literally, everyone in New York, don’t you?” he said. “Literally everyone in New York is your friend. That’s your secret secondary power, right? I’ve got, what, evil mind-wipey personality-erasing abilities and you’ve got super-niceness. That’s really unfair.”

“Being friendly isn’t a superpower,” Teddy rebutted wryly, but Billy just held up a hand.

“Nope, super-niceness. Or…what’s it called? Animal magnetism?” He frowned. “That doesn’t sound right. Though again with the Disney prince thing, I’m pretty sure all of Brooklyn’s wildlife does come to brush your hair and dress you every morning, so never mind, why not, let’s go with animal magnetism. You are animal-y magnetic.”

A car sped by with a blare of its horn. “You know, I’m not sure I like this imaginary version of me you’ve got going,” he mused. “I sound kind of insufferable.”

“You are,” Billy said, hands shoved into his pockets. “You’re big and built and friendly and everyone likes you and you’re gorgeous and I’m pretty sure Captain America would embrace you as his long-lost son if Eli would let him get within fifty yards of us.”

You’re gorgeous. “Which he won’t,” Teddy said, hiding an inexplicably shy smile. “Let Cap anywhere near, that is.”

“Which is a pity, since I’m pretty sure the two of you would be the next dynamic duo. Oh well, I guess you’re stuck with us.”

“Guess so.” He came to a stop in front of Greg’s building. “This is it.”

Billy stumbled next to him before craning his neck to look up at the old apartment complex. It wasn’t much. Teddy didn’t even have to try to look at it with fresh eyes (with Billy’s eyes) to know it wasn’t much. The building was big and squat and unfriendly, with heavy bars on the windows and the sense of a boxer that had been beaten down into a corner—refusing to give up, but barely able to stand. Sometime in the last twenty years, the super had tried painting the exterior, but the elements had muddied the original color until it was a sickly-looking gray, huge sheets of it peeling away in strips of dead skin. Cigarette butts littered the wide, cracking stoop, and there was no mistaking the sound of yelling drifting from somewhere inside.

“Teddy,” Billy murmured, edging closer.

“Come on,” Teddy said as he moved up the steps. The buzzer was long since broken, but he knew the trick to jimmying open the door anyway. Teddy led the way into the dirty little foyer with its cracking tiles and blinking overhead lights. The walls had been papered with advertisem*nts for cheap furniture, missing pets and part-time manual labor, new notices layered over the old. Peeling those away one by one would be like going back in time, Teddy always thought—one part archeological dig and one part H.G. Wells. Walking down this hall certainly felt as if he was moving backwards. How many times had he come here with Greg by his side?

A door slammed somewhere down the hall, echoing, and Teddy shivered.

He didn’t say anything as he turned left to take the stairs; their sneakers squeaked against linoleum. The stairwell light was out—he couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been—and there were more tags on the walls. Billy followed at his heels, and Teddy swore his increasingly rapid breaths had nothing to do with the climb and everything to do with…

With this.

With Greg, somewhere nearby, changed by whatever Billy had done. With what this moment would mean. “Wait,” Billy said, grabbing abruptly for Teddy’s sleeve. His eyes, when Teddy turned to meet them, were bright with fear. “Okay? Wait. I don’t— I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You need to know,” Teddy said gently. He reached up to take Billy’s hand by impulse, squeezing cold fingers. “You’ll drive yourself crazy wondering if you don’t see for yourself.” I know, he could have said. I’ve felt it too.

Billy let out a harsh breath, squeezing Teddy’s hand back. He looked queasy beneath the cheap lights—almost green, sharp features throwing heavy shadows. “Crap. Yeah. I guess. Yeah. I’d drive myself crazy.”

“It’s going to be okay.” He reluctantly pulled away, fingers curling reflexively once Billy’s hand was no longer in his. He tipped his head toward Greg’s door and offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Just stand here and watch, okay?”

Teddy didn’t wait for Billy to agree. His own heart was beginning to pick up speed, pounding too-loud in his ears as he wiped his hands on his jeans and reached out to knock.

Inside the apartment, through paper-thin walls, he heard a thump, followed by a quick, light tread. When Amanda opened the door as wide as the security chain would allow, Teddy found it in himself to smile.

“Hey, Manda,” he said.

Her little, round-cheeked face lit up. “Teddy!” she squealed, pulling at the door knob. The chain rattled loudly, but she didn’t seem to care—she had one arm pressed through the crack, grabbing happily for him. “Teddy, Teddy, hi hi hi!”

“Hey, hey,” he laughed, crouching to snag little, sticky fingers. He brought Amanda’s flailing fist to his mouth and left a smacking kiss on her knuckles before gently trying to urge her back through the door. “I don’t think you’re going to fit through that crack, Manda. Why don’t you grab someone to open the door for you? Is Greg, uh, home?”

He needn’t have asked; a shadow fell over him where he crouched and his heart was already kicking up speed even before he flicked up his gaze. He met Greg’s eyes through the crack, and for a flash, there was something so unspeakably hurt in the other boy’s expression—and then Greg was scooping his little sister up into his arms and releasing the security chain. The door swung open and that same weirdly blank mask settled over his features.

“Teddy,” Greg said.

“Greg.”

Teddy was hyper-aware of Billy some paces back, watching them from down the hall. Greg didn’t seem to notice him, however—his eyes were locked on Teddy’s face, and there was a terrible disconnect between what he read in those familiar dark depths and the absolute nothing he saw on his face. Manda squirmed around to reach for Teddy, but Greg was holding her in a deathgrip. Shaking. He was shaking, as if just standing here a few feet from Teddy was enough to rock him to his core.

Teddy shot Billy a quick glance, little more than a flicker of eyelashes, and took a deep breath. “Do you have something you want to say to me, Greg?”

Greg nodded tightly, but he didn’t say anything.

“Is there anything you’re going to say to me, Greg?”

He shook his head.

“Manda,” Teddy said gently, “plug your ears, sweetheart.” She did as asked immediately, closing her eyes for good measure. It hurt to think about why she’d gotten so good at following that particular order. Greg used to tell stories—his eyes fixed to the ground, his shoulders rounded forward, anger and hatred and frustrated protective instincts jangling in his young voice as he told Teddy just enough about his life to paint a grisly picture. Teddy hated to think he’d never be around to help distract Greg and Manda from the darkness that swirled around them, even as he felt so very grateful to be out of Greg’s shadow.

It was a complicated Gordian knot of emotion. He wasn’t sure he’d ever fully be able to unravel all the conflicting layers of love and hate and fear and pity he felt for this terrible boy.

And yet here was his last chance to finish what he’d started. The say everything he had to say, once and for all.

“You’re a bully,” he said when he was certain Manda couldn’t hear. “You internalize everything your father says to you, everything your brothers do to you, and you spew it back at people who are weaker because that makes you feel strong.”

Greg said nothing.

“You used me. You gave me just enough of yourself to make me have hope, and you insinuated yourself so deeply into my life that I was afraid to pull away even when I knew I should. You hurt me, and you hurt people I cared about. You told yourself you had no other choice, but I think some part of you enjoyed it.”

Greg said nothing.

Teddy took a deep breath. “You’re just as bad as your father. And the worst part of it is that you don’t see it. You think you’re the victim. You want to be the victim, because you don’t like the image of yourself as, as him, when you know, you know, Greg. You know. And it’s such a f*cking waste because if you ever let all that bullsh*t go, you could be extraordinary.”

Greg said nothing.

“Manda,” Teddy said, fighting back the tears that wanted to come. He offered her a tremulous smile, reaching out to tug her hands free. She blinked open her eyes and grinned back, missing the tension zinging between them with all the willful blindness of youth. “I’ve got to go.”

“Aw,” Manda protested. “I wanted us to play pretty ponies again.”

“Greg will play pretty ponies with you,” Teddy said, reaching up to brush back her wild dark curls. He didn’t let his eyes tick right, no matter how much a part of him still wanted to. “Won’t you, Greg?”

Greg swallowed. “Yes,” he said, voice a husk of itself. He was holding onto his little sister as if she were the only thing keeping him standing. Maybe she was. “Yeah, I’ll play with you, sweetheart.”

“Have fun,” Teddy said as he took a step away. Another. His knees kept wanting to lock up. “I’ll see you around, Manda.”

“Bye, Teddy!” she called, already happily threading her little fingers through the neck of Greg’s t-shirt. “Giddyup!”

Greg cast Teddy one last, desperately conflicted look…then shut the door quietly between them. The metal clack of the security chain being drawn seemed impossibly loud in the suddenly airless hall, followed by the sound of footsteps as Greg simply walked away.

Teddy drew in a deep breath. Another. Then he turned and moved back to rejoin Billy. “Did you hear all of it?” he asked in a low voice.

Billy just nodded, visibly shaken. There were tears on his lashes, Teddy realized, and his lips were pale with shock. He swayed a little where he stood. Impulsively, Teddy stepped in and dragged Billy into a fierce hug; he tucked Billy’s head against his shoulder, arms going around Billy’s skinny frame. It was incredible how well they fit together.

“Hey,” Teddy said quietly, soothing. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

Billy dug his fingers into Teddy’s t-shirt, holding on, afraid to let go. He drew in a breath that went ragged, serrated, and let it out on a hitching sigh. Teddy could only imagine what he was feeling now, seeing incontrovertible proof of the lasting effects of whatever it was he had done to Greg. To Jamie. To Teddy.

“Hey,” he sighed, giving in to impulse and kissing the crown of his skull. Billy, thank God, seemed too shaken to notice his lapse. “It’s okay. I didn’t show you this to upset you. I just wanted you to know—”

To know. Full stop.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?” Billy finally whispered. His voice was thick with emotion, muffled against Teddy’s chest. “I’m scared of me. I’m—I did that to them.” Billy lifted his head, staring up at Teddy with dark, stricken eyes. “I did that, and Greg still hasn’t gotten over it, and… And what if it never wears off? What if I, I broke my best friend in some way?”

“Then you’ll learn how to fix him,” he said.

“But…how?” Billy pulled back, shaking his head. “No, don’t answer that. I know you don’t know, and I—I think I just need to pretend like you might, so… f*ck. f*ck.”

It was terrible, seeing Billy so hurt. He wanted to shower him with every meaningless reassurance, as if they were still children—as if, with everything they were facing, they would ever have the simple luxury of blind comfort again. “Come on,” he said instead, resting a palm along the curve of Billy’s back. It fit there so well, fingers brushing down the delicate knobs of his spine, and he almost could imagine he felt Billy relaxing back into the touch. “Let’s go to my place. We’ll work out a plan. Things’ll…it’ll all feel better, once we have a plan.”

“Will it?” he asked quietly, but he followed when Teddy started to lead them out of Greg’s building. He winced against the sunlight, dropping his eyes to the cracked sidewalk, and didn’t say a word as they traced their steps back to the station and down to the busy platform. Teddy was aware of people watching—a few not-so-friendly—but he didn’t pull away from Billy. If anything, he edged closer, pressing in as if he could absorb Billy into himself. The urge to shield, to protect, was thrumming deep inside him. Each heartbeat was an imperative, a declaration.

I love you, I love you, I love you; it’s all going to be okay.

But of course, he didn’t have the right to say any of that, so instead he murmured, “C’mon,” and guided Billy onto the next train, then all the way back to his own welcoming apartment.

Billy finally pulled away once the door closed behind them, numbly toeing off his shoes and stumbling toward Teddy’s bedroom on autopilot. Teddy followed just a few beats behind, stomach twisted up into unhappy, worried knots. Billy was so quiet. He was never this quiet. Even when he was still, he vibrated with energy, life. Seeing him pale and withdrawn like this was…

Jesus.

He had no words for what it was. He just knew there was just a desperate clawing inside his chest to make it stop.

Teddy slipped inside his room and quietly shut the door behind him, reaching over to flick on the lights. Billy was standing in the center of the room, back to him. His shoulders were tight, drawn up high around his ears, and Teddy could actually see his long limbs trembling as he stood in place—Billy struggling back tears.

“Billy,” Teddy said helplessly, all at once hating himself for letting it get to this point. What had he been thinking, taking Billy to see Greg? As if more proof of what he could do would help rather than hurt. He scrubbed at his face and moved toward Billy with a steadily sinking heart. He looked so small, so hurt. God, what kind of a dick was he not to have realized this would be the result?

“Hey,” he said, reaching out to brush his knuckles along Billy’s spine, trying to keep his voice light. “We’re going to figure this out, okay? We’re—”

He cut off when Billy turned and suddenly grabbed at his hand. Those beautiful, expressive eyes flared with brilliant blue light, spilling past his lashes. Teddy sucked a breath, but Billy just gripped his fingers tighter. “Billy,” Teddy began.

“I need these powers to do something good too,” Billy said. His voice was cracked. Brittle, yet full of strange power that had the hairs along Teddy’s arms standing up. “I need to put things right.”

“You will,” Teddy promised. He could feel electricity arcing between them; he could taste ozone in the air. His heart kicked up its rhythm, beginning to pound, but he wasn’t afraid. Even though he knew he probably should have been, he couldn’t seem to make himself fear Billy. “I know you will. We’ll figure it out.”

Billy gave a brief, hard shake of his head. “No. I mean. Yes. But. I make things happen by wanting them, right? Well, I want something right now.”

Oh sh*t. “You’re upset,” he said. “Today sucked, okay? Let’s just…shake it off and start over fresh tomorrow. We will figure it out.”

His grip tightened, and Billy reached out to grasp his other hand. They were standing there in the center of Teddy’s white box of a room, holding hands, eyes locked. Sparks danced between them, flickering blue-white over their skin, but Teddy didn’t feel any pain. So strange, he thought breathlessly, that he could be in the eye of the storm and not feel its rage.

Billy watched him with those glowing blue eyes, trembling with power and emotion—messily spilling over with it, as if his skinny body weren’t big enough to hold it all. He drew in a stuttery breath, and Teddy braced himself against whatever was to come.

“I hurt you,” Billy said, voice quiet.

Teddy let out a short puff of breath, a low noise that seemed so paradoxically loud between them. He started to pull away, but Billy just tightened his grip and barreled on.

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I was just…angry, and betrayed, and hurt too, and I didn’t want to stop long enough to let you try to explain. I didn’t want to try to…to listen between your words and hear what you were saying when you weren’t talking. You’re so f*cking bad at talking; did you know that? You say so much, but so little of what you actually mean.”

“Billy,” he said, trying to pull away again. But Billy wouldn’t let him. Billy was through with letting him.

“I’m listening now,” Billy barreled on. “I’m paying attention. And this f*cking room, it’s like…like all of you stripped away, and I helped do that to you, and I’m so sorry I can’t even…”

Teddy squeezed his eyes shut and pulled back hard, finally breaking Billy’s grip. His heart was beating like a mad thing, racing within the constrictive cage of his chest, and he had to… He… He just…

He stumbled back and dropped onto his bed. Even wrapping his fingers around the sheets as if they could somehow magically tether him didn’t stop the quaking of his limbs. He was shaken, shaking, hating the way all of him ached at Billy’s words. “Don’t,” he managed. His lips felt numb, and it was so stupid—he was so stupid to get worked up by this, but he wasn’t ready to deal with everything between them. He just…just wanted to move on. “Okay? It’s not— You didn’t do anything, and. And I’m sorry. I’m the one who f*cked things up. It’s not your fault if you can’t hear what I’m too chicken-sh*t to say.”

That cut a little too close to the truth for his comfort, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Billy was right; Teddy never said what he was really thinking, feeling, wanting. He was too used to skating around those truths. He was afraid of so many things other kids took for granted, always looking in the mirror and seeing himself through the wrong pair of eyes.

“Billy,” Teddy began, balling his hands into useless fists. “We don’t have to— It’s okay now. It’s better.”

Billy gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, strange blue light spreading from his eyes across his skin in a shimmering wave, beautiful and bright and terrifying all at once. “No,” he said, curling his own hands into fists in an unconscious mimicry of Teddy, “but it’s going to be.”

He took a deep breath and lifted his chin, practically swaying against the currents of his unfathomable power: “I want things to go back to the way they’re supposed to be.”

Don’t, Teddy almost shouted, reaching out, frightened—because God only knew what those words meant, what Billy was doing. He didn’t want his mind wiped, his will gone; he didn’t even want to lose the pain of these last few weeks. It hurt, and it had been hell, and it still wasn’t all right inside his head, but he felt like he was wholly himself for the first time in years and he was terrified of losing that, even if it meant fully mending this last tentative bridge with Billy. Even if it meant tumbling all the way back to their shared past and having what they’d almost had before.

He wanted that so much, but he wanted this feeling of hard-won understanding even more.

But Billy’s words carried the weight of pure power, and that shimmering blue light exploded from his tense body in wild undulations. It was like being at the crest of a wave, watching it come crashing down and knowing there was nothing he could do but give himself over to the tide. It washed over him, through him, and all of Teddy tensed…

...and then relaxed with a cry as all around him, white paint began peeling away in heavy sheets, revealing the achingly familiar purple-blue swirls of the aurora hidden beneath.

Teddy scrambled to his feet, staring as swirls and dips of pure color returned—reclaimed the blank space that had boxed him in. Blue and violet and green undulations spreading from floor to ceiling, surrounding him, encasing him. Echoing from his inside out. Bright specks of light burst into dazzling pinpoints all around him, slowly rising up in a shimmering reverse rainfall to the ceiling where they caught, affixed—stars, shining down on them both.

He swallowed, staring up at those stars. Dimly, he was aware of the blue light fading as Billy’s powers went quiescent, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. He was lost in memory: the planetarium, the universe expanding over them as he quaked in the face of new love. Greg’s hands on his borrowed skin. The prick of pain as he was lost in a shower of false starlight, hating himself, hating what he had done, hating the crater he had made of his life, hating hating hating.

And now.

Now.

Billy had given the stars back to him.

There was a soft footfall as Billy stood next to him. Their knuckles brushed in a shy caress. “So?” Billy said quietly. “Um. What do you think?”

What did he think? He was surrounded again by his beloved aurora, laid bare, cracked open, free and trembling beneath the stars…with Billy. Billy.

I want things to go back to the way they’re supposed to be, Billy said—and he’d given him this. There were no words for what Teddy was feeling.

“Teddy?” Billy said, reaching up to touch his arm. The familiar warmth of his fingers crashed through Teddy in messy waves; he felt everything he was responding. “Are you okay?”

Teddy opened his mouth to reply, to say something, anything—but something vital broke along the way, voice catching in his throat.

With a hard jerk of his shoulders, Teddy’s perfect façade crumbled into dust…and he began to cry.

**

212-555-8743: “Hey, um, Mom. I was wondering if it’d be okay if I stayed out late tonight. …no, I’m not at Jamie’s. It’s another friend of mine. Teddy? Oh. Well. I mean, sure, I can give you his mother’s phone number. Mom. That doesn’t mean— Ugh, fine. Yes, okay, I promise I’ll call right before I head to the subway. Fine, I’ll wake you up when I get in. Yes, I’ll be safe. Yes. Yes. Okay, yes, oh my God, stop it. You’re the worst. I know. Yeah, love you too. Night, Mom.”

**

“Soooo,” Billy said, standing awkwardly in the doorway. He had his phone clutched in one spasmodically gripping hand, its screen just beginning to go dark. “If you’re sure your mom will be okay with it, I can stay over awhile.”

Teddy had to drop his gaze back to the steadily unraveling knee of his jeans. His face felt hot and his eyes stung, but he didn’t feel like crying anymore. If anything, he felt a wild, irrepressible urge to jump up and down on his bed and…and shout, or burst into hysterical laughter, or something.

His life was falling back into place a piece at a time, and the bright, giddy happiness winging up from deep within his chest was almost more than he knew how to handle.

“She’ll be okay,” Teddy promised, sneaking a quick glance. Billy’s cheeks were flushed and he was staring down at his feet, awkwardly shifting his weight back and forth, back and forth. Teddy gave a breathless laugh. “Are you kidding? She’ll be thrilled. She missed you.”

I missed you.

Billy glanced up through his lashes, whorls of pink spreading across his high cheekbones, down his neck. He was so beautiful something deep inside Teddy tightened in response. “Yeah, well,” Billy said, his voice a shadow of its usual self, “I missed her too.”

I missed you too, Teddy heard beneath those words. He began to smile.

“So, today was weird,” Billy added after an awkward pause, stepping fully into Teddy’s room. He padded over, tossing his cell phone onto the bedside table before crawling onto the bed next to Teddy. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, making their legs jostle together. “What with the whole…powers and Jamie and Greg and, uh, random redecorating.”

“Lots of crying for both of us,” Teddy said, swinging around on the bed to face him. He folded his legs up under him, resting his elbows on his knees. “Good crying?”

Billy waved his hand back and forth, but his lips had quirked into a tired-looking smile.

Teddy snorted. “Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed. “Well, it was pretty good for me. Feels as if it’s been coming for a long time, anyway. Um. So.”

“Don’t,” Billy said quickly, before Teddy could say more. “I know what you’re going to say, and seriously, please don’t. I really, really don’t want your thanks.”

“Yeah, well.” This all would be so much easier if he had something to keep his hands occupied. He was so bad at these kinds of conversations, just like Billy said—except he was going to get better at them. He was going to try, at least. For Billy, for Eli, for Nate, for all the friends he hadn’t met yet, all the people destined to drift in and out of his life. He was tired of all the lies. “I kind of feel like I have to say it anyway. I mean, I want to. I’m…grateful.”

Not just for the aurora, but that Billy was here, sitting across from him. Trusting him. God, that made his whole stomach twist up with mingled pleasure and panic that he’d somehow still find a way to ruin everything.

Billy was the first. No matter what else happened, Billy would always have that place in his heart.

“You don’t, um, know what all this means to me.”

Billy ducked his head and drew up his knees; his heels rasped against the bed, toes curling around the edge as he buried his face against worn denim. “Yeah, well.” His voice came out muffled and heartfelt. “I, uh, guess I do? Kind of?”

Yes. It felt like his heart was going to come pounding out of his chest. I guess maybe you do. That way that Billy always seemed to get him, cell and bone, down to the very core. Even when Billy claimed he was impossible to read, he’d always been able to cut Teddy down to the quick. “Yeah,” Teddy said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“…yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Um, okay, Buffybot, you can cut the programming loop now.”

Billy snorted and grabbed one of Teddy’s pillows, flinging it at his head. “Hey,” he protested when Teddy simply (easily) caught it and flung it back. It hit him full in the face with a muffled whump; Billy scrabbled to catch it, mock-glaring over the bright blue corner. The tension that had been humming between them all morning had finally dissipated for good. “I hate you,” Billy muttered, hiding a smile. His voice was thick with affection.

Teddy just laughed and pushed back his hair. “No you don’t,” he said with utter confidence.

“No,” Billy agreed immediately, voice going infinitely softer. He lowered the pillow, arms around it, face tipping up to stare at the stars affixed to Teddy’s ceiling. Teddy followed his gaze, swallowing hard past the sudden lump in his throat. “No, I guess I don’t.”

**

CaptnAmazing: Heeeey, so now that you and Billy are friends again
CaptnAmazing: (which, by the way: huzzah!)
CaptnAmazing: you know what that means???
Altmanticore: …dodging your phone calls?
CaptnAmazing: Ahahahaha, you can try
CaptnAmazing: No, it means…
CaptnAmazing: THE THREE AMIGOS TAKE MANHATTAN.
CaptnAmazing: Come on, you know you want to
Altmanticore: Yeah, actually, I really, really do.

**

“Hey, Teddy!” Jamie called. “Check this out.”

He hoisted the (bright blue, plastic) rocket launcher onto his shoulder and swung toward the screen. A dark cityscape flickered and jostled along to the rhythm of his tank’s engine. The sky was a bruised violet and smoke coiled from the crumbling rooftops. In the near distance, a score of desiccated figures shuffled into view.

“G.I. Zombie?” Billy said, leaning back from his Skeeball lane. “Seriously?”

Jamie pulled the trigger and a distant building exploded into pixelated flames. He hooted and quickly reloaded.

“Sure,” Teddy said with a laugh. “Why not?” He turned away from Jamie and moved to slouch against a (broken) pinball machine instead, close enough that he could watch as Billy rolled balls up the lane. The Good Times arcade was several streets off the main Coney Island drag, which meant everything was covered in a layer of grime and desperation, but it also meant they weren’t tripping over tourists. Even so, the air smelled like popcorn and the sea, and he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face if he tried.

Billy swiped his tongue along his upper lip, frowning in fierce concentration, and let the ball fly. It bounced once before zipping straight up the center of the lane before hitting the hump, circling a cup…and falling into the gutter.

“Aw, hell. You know,” Billy said as he jammed a hand into his pocket, fishing for another token, “I bet if I were a supervillain, I’d have no compunctions against using my,” he glanced quickly over his shoulder to make sure Jamie wasn’t near enough to hear, “powers to win some stupid tickets.”

“Sure,” Teddy said. “Because God knows Galactus takes breaks between snacking on planets to score some sweet knockoff arcade merch. What do you have your eye on?” he added when Billy just rolled his eyes.

Billy slipped the token into the slot and snagged the first ball as they came rolling down. “A terrifying Scarlet Witch plushie. Or, well, ‘Red Sorcerer’. Same diff. She’s even got little glow-in-the-dark chaos disks sewn into her hands and I can feel you judging me, you know.”

“No judgement!” Teddy watched with a crooked grin as Billy lost another ball into the gutter. Another. “I’m just marveling at your dedication.”

“While judging. We’ll see who is laughing when I take home ‘Red Sorcerer’ to add to my ever-growing collection of weird Avengers crap.” He sighed as the next ball settled into twenty. “Except it’d probably be faster and cheaper to buy it. My Skeeball skills are weak, Obi-Wan.”

“I can see that. Want some help collecting tickets?”

Billy shot him a look. “Think you can do better?” he teased.

“Watch and learn, Padawan. I am wise in the ways of arcades.” Teddy straightened, digging out a token as he passed Billy and headed straight for the hoops. There was a little net caging in the game so the mini basketballs couldn’t go flying, and scoreboard was as old and filthy as the rest of the arcade—but despite its odd size, the ball felt good in his hands. Right.

Billy trailed after him to watch. “Are you about to have a Teen Wolf moment?”

“Yup.” He glanced over. “Wait: movie or tv show?”

“Uh, movie. The tv show doesn’t have basketball. Get your nerd culture right, Teddy.”

He just snorted and refocused on the hoop. “Sorry, I don’t exactly watch that show for the plot. Too much werewolf shirtlessness.” He braced his feet and centered his core, arms lifting. Basketball flying. It sunk the basket with a soft whoosh of net, and a handful of tickets slowly chugged out of the machine. “Annnnnd victory.” Teddy glanced over at Billy with a crooked grin.

But Billy wasn’t grinning back. Instead, he was watching Teddy with a sort of warm, fixed interest—color high, dark eyes wandering over his shoulders and down his chest, lower lip caught between his teeth. Teddy could practically feel the sweep of his gaze like a caress, and all at once the last time they’d come to Coney Island flashed through him in a jumbled mix of sense-memory.

Not the painful confessions or the conflicted emotions or the sight of Billy sprinting away from him, rejected and embarrassed…but rather, the scent of the ocean. The feel of the cool sea breeze in his hair. The taste of fries and the warmth of Billy’s eyes seconds before he leaned in to brush their lips together. The crackling energy that surrounded them, the want, need, growing desperation as lips met, tongues tangled, hands wandered in that first shocked-alive burst of yes yes yes.

Teddy cleared his throat, heated awareness beginning to unspool low in his belly. Billy’s gaze jerked up at the noise, and the sweep of color rising along his cheeks, his neck, his ears was shockingly beautiful. Promising.

God, he was so full of hope he could barely stand it.

“Um,” Billy said, practically squirming in place. He wet his lips.

Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him. All of him was chanting, coiling up like a spring, wanting more than he’d ever wanted anything else. All he had to do was bridge that tiny bit of distance between them and he’d know once and for all whether he could have this, too. All he had to do was cup the sharp line of Billy’s jaw in his hand and lift his face toward his and the last few weeks would fade away and lose their power. It would be so easy.

And yet, so impossible at the same time.

Halfway across the old arcade, Jamie blew up another building and hooted with laughter.

Not here. Not now. Not yet.

“Your, uh, Skeeball game is still going,” Teddy said, voice tellingly husky. Billy ducked his head with a mumbled…something…and quickly turned away. Teddy couldn’t help but watch him go, gaze sweeping down the skinny, frenetic lines of his body. Then he turned away and forced himself to refocus on the basket.

They were reaching a pressure point, Teddy knew. Eventually, they’d have to get over this last hurdle—this awareness—or one of them would snap.

He just wished he knew what was supposed to come next.

**

212-555-3129: See you tomorrow at practice. I’ll bring the coffee.
212-555-8743: OMG Teddy I love you.
212-555-8743: I mean
212-555-8743: I love your coffee
212-555-8743: I wasn’t trying to say
212-555-8743: I mean
212-555-8743: yay coffee
212-555-8743: I love coffee
212-555-8743: coffee is great
212-555-8743: it’s all
212-555-8743: um
212-555-3129: Coffee-like?
212-555-8743: Yes!
212-555-8743: Coffee-like.
212-555-8743: mmmm coffee
212-555-3129: Yeah, well, I’m really glad you like my coffee.
212-555-8743: Yeah?
212-555-3129: Yeah.
212-555-8743: Yeah.
212-555-3129: Billy.
212-555-8743: Sorry! Buffybot powering down. See you tomorrow, Mr. Coffee.
212-555-3129: Night B.

**

“Annnnd failure,” Billy huffed from his boneless sprawl on the cracked tile. “Go Young Avengers.”

Eli landed lightly next to his head, hands already on his hips. “I thought I told you we are not going by that name?” He sounded more wry than pissed, though—today had been one of his good days. It was, Teddy mused as he climbed gingerly to his feet, getting easier and easier to see those coming.

“Yeah, Billy,” Teddy said. He rubbed his ass; they had come down hard. “Don’t you remember anything?”

Eli swung on him, pointing. “Don’t,” he began.

Teddy just grinned, wide and sunny as the sky. “We’re the Junior League Avengers,” he and Billy said in near-concert, almost as if they’d planned it. (Which they totally had.)

Eli stared Teddy down for a long, long minute…then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes sliding shut. “You know what?” he said, a laugh reverberating beneath his words. “I give up. Older you can just kill us all and get it over with.”

Nate—who’d been hovering up high in the point of a cheerleader’s pyramid even after the rest of them had gone tumbling down—swooped in to join them. His facemask folded back as he landed just a few feet away from where Billy was still sprawled, revealing shocked-pale features. “But,” he began.

Teddy lightly jostled their shoulders together. “Sarcasm, Nate,” he said.

Nate glanced at him, brows knit, then back at Eli.

Eli, for his part, had the grace to flush—though in pure Eli fashion, he refused to back down. “Stop it with the Bambi eyes, Iron Lad. I didn’t shoot your mother. It was a joke.”

“This isn’t a joke to me,” Nate said. “And it won’t be a joke to the millions of people who are going to die when Kang the Conqueror finally finds me. Maybe you can take that kind of mass genocide lightly, but I can’t seem to find anything to laugh about!”

Eli’s hands balled into fists; Nate edged closer, eyes narrowed.

“And that’s my cue,” Billy mused, mostly to himself, as he scrambled up onto his hands and knees. He snagged the crook of Eli’s elbow to help haul himself up, earning a startled-annoyed look and handily breaking the stare-off. “Man, I think my bruises are going to have bruises. If we don’t get a handle on that last move soon, I may form callouses on my butt.” He co*cked his head, pretending to consider. “Unless I start padding. What do you think, Eli—does Captain America pad his ass?”

Teddy bit the inside of his mouth to stifle a laugh as Eli’s expression morphed from anger, to mild annoyance, to surprise, to smirking delight within the span of a few seconds. He knew he should feel bad about how deftly he and Billy had been handling these near-constant dust-ups lately—it felt uncomfortably like manipulation sometimes—but it helped keep the peace the way no earnest pep talks or disastrous sharing circles ever had.

Sharing circles, Teddy decided as he caught Nate’s elbow and tugged him away even as Billy led an animatedly chatting Eli toward the locker room, are the actual-facts worst.

There were just some things he never needed to know about his teammates-turned-friends.

“You know,” Nate pointed out even as he let himself be led, “if you and Billy put as much energy into practicing flying as you do keeping the peace, there might not be so many crash landings.”

Busted. Teddy shot the other boy a wry half-smile. “Well,” he said, keeping his tone light, “if you and Eli put as much energy into leading as you do fighting for leadership, we might not have to.” Then, because he felt like such an asshole for that (even if it was undeniably true), he added, “C’mon, I want to show you something.”

But Nate resisted, tugging himself free. There was the soft whirr of electronics and Teddy turned to watch as the red iron suit peeled back to reveal the boy inside. He was in shorts and a white wife beater, the neck stretched and wet with sweat. Nate’s feet were bare, his legs skinny and pale and—

And he was trying not to think of him in this reductive way—was trying not to think of him as a kid. Teddy knew just how offended Nate would be by that, but it was so hard when he was standing there without the suit, dark brows together, face cracked open, worry trembling in eyes fixed desperately on Teddy’s face as if Teddy somehow had all the answers.

“Am I failing at this, Teddy?” Nate asked, voice…Jesus, so small. “Because if I fail…”

It hurt to hear, that fear. It lanced through him, jolting his muscles like popping kernels beneath his skin, and there was nothing—nothing—he wouldn’t do to chase that sick terror away. “f*ck, Nate, no.”

“…if I fail, if I can’t do this, then he’s going to find me and he’s going to… I’m going to…”

“No.” Teddy reached up, gripping the other boy roughly by the back of the neck, and pulled him close, even as he shifted back to himself. The hot, surprised whuff of Nate’s breath hit his clavicle. Nate briefly resisted, leaning back…then sighed and drooped forward.

His forehead hit Teddy’s shoulder; his hands curled weakly around his biceps. His breath, when it came, was stuttery and sharp.

“That’s not going to happen,” Teddy murmured, pulling Nate into a hug. His heart was winging, pulse too fast, and in that moment, he had zero doubts—if Kang the f*cking Conqueror came for Nate now, Teddy would rip him limb from bloody limb. “We’re not going to let it. None of us are.”

“But,” Nate began, voice muffled, and Teddy tightened his grip. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Nate squeezed back with the awkwardness of someone who had never had much chance to grow used to hugs. “Okay,” he finally said. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

Nate nodded against his shoulder, sweat-damp hair dragging against his bare skin. “Okay,” he said—then gave a soft laugh and pulled back, breaking Teddy’s protective grip. “You know, when you say stuff like that…it is really hard not to believe you.”

Teddy quirked a brow, trying to lighten the mood. Making the effort, anyway. “Well, that sounds like a thoroughly qualified success,” he teased.

The other boy just flapped a hand at him. “No, I mean— What I meant was…thank you. You’re a good, um, teammate.”

And what could he do in the face of that but duck down to meet Nate’s eyes again and say, smiling slow and sweet, “You’re a good friend, Nate.” He didn’t stress the word; he didn’t need to.

Nate blushed and looked down at his bare feet. “Oh Jeez. Please stop trying to be so nice.” His cheeks were rosy pink, but the smile was real now. “Thank you. I mean it. You are a good friend. And I think I’m starting to get why Billy feels the way he does about you.”

Teddy froze.

“Not that it took a lot of piecing things together once Eli pointed it out. And I’m glad. I just wanted to make sure you two knew that. I am really glad for you, even if it does cut into practice nearly as often as Eli’s bad attitude, and…”

He…

“…and I’m starting to wonder if I wasn’t supposed to let you know I knew,” Nate continued slowly, studying him. “Was I not supposed to— Aren’t you both— Oh my God, was Eli wrong? Did you not know? How did you not know?”

…what?

“Did I misread everything? Are you not, um, together? I am so, so sorry. I thought… Eli and I always just assumed—I am so sorry.”

Teddy covered his face with his hands, muffling a mortified, shaken laugh. Oh God, Nate was practically twisting on the rack, hands fluttering uselessly between them as if he were fighting to find a way to fix this. But what, really, was there for him to fix? So he (and Eli, oh God, f*ck, don’t think about that) had caught on to Teddy’s bordering-on-pathetic crush. So they’d assumed there was something going on between him and Billy because of it. So they’d read all his silent wishes and taken them for fact.

So they knew. Okay. What exactly did that change?

Nothing. If Teddy meant to live his life honestly now, it changed nothing. And it saved him one more awkward, fumbling coming out, so...yeah, okay. Not a big deal. Not a big deal at all.

…oh man, it felt like such a big deal, though.

Teddy scrubbed roughly at his face before raking his fingers through his hair. The look on Nate’s face was somewhere between mortification and horror, as if he’d accidentally peeled back the fragile shell of skin and bone to reveal something secret, something safe. But that wasn’t true, was it? Everyone, apparently, knew how Teddy felt—from Greg, to Jamie, to his mother, to Eli and Nate and…and Billy.

There was no need to try to guard this “secret”. There was no reason to maintain those walls he’d gotten so damn good at erecting sky-high.

It was out and he was exposed and there was no shifting out of this one, and that…that felt…

Weirdly good.

Teddy blushed and laughed—breathless and uneven, but no less real for all that. “No, hey,” he said, dragging his fingers through his hair again just to excise the nervous energy. “It’s okay. You didn’t… No harm done, yeah?”

“I am so sorry.”

“Hey, no.” Teddy tipped his head toward the far side of the room—his initial objective—and Nate awkwardly, almost reluctantly, fell into step with him. “It’s okay. It’s nothing that… Look. All cards on the table? Yeah, you two were picking up on something,” so good, so good, so amazingly good to be honest for once, “but it’s been over for a long time now. We’re just friends now, and whatever you were sensing is…you know, all over.”

Nate shot him a look out of the corner of his eyes. “Uh-huh,” he said, dubious enough to make Teddy shiver.

He doesn’t know the whole story, Teddy told himself, viciously stamping down on the creeping tendrils of hope. He’s reading it all wrong.

But, God, what if…

“Yeah,” Teddy said firmly, forcing those thoughts aside. Thoughts of Billy, listing against his side, grinning. Laughing up at him. Reaching for him, trusting, needing him; eyes dark with emotion as those long-lost stars swirled pin-point bright and beautiful around them. “But anyway. Here.” He stopped by the small portable speakers tucked into the far corner, out of harm’s way. He attached his iPod to them every morning, though Eli had forbidden any more training montages.

Nate looked between him and the speakers, visibly confused. “Are we going to have another Eye of the Tiger moment?” he asked slowly.

Teddy laughed, forcibly setting aside all thoughts of Billy (Billy, Billy, always Billy) as he leaned over to spin the dial and call up his albums. “Close. I was just thinking…you need to relax. Have fun.”

“And this is going to be fun?” Nate’s voice was dripping with so much earnest doubt that Teddy snorted even as he pressed play. The first strains of the song began, slow and chock-full of synthesizers. “I don’t know, Teddy.”

He straightened and turned, grin spreading wide. Wider. “Come on, Nate,” he said. “Seriously—you need to just let it go sometimes. Just…” He shook himself out, beginning to sway with the beat. “Don’t worry about the future, don’t worry about the world settling on your shoulders, don’t worry about looking stupid and just let go.”

The beat began to pick up; Teddy followed it, knowing he looked ridiculous, knowing his one-time “friends” would have mocked him mercilessly for being such a dork and. Not. Caring.

Whatever. So he was a dork. There were worse things to be.

It seemed to be working, too. Nate had begun to awkwardly sway, though he still looked highly dubious. His thin shoulders moved somewhere close to the beat and he shuffled his feet as Teddy moved around him. The thwap of his sneakers underscored the driving synths, the beat, the feeling coursing through him, effervescent and bright and free and glorious.

What a feeling—being's believing. I can have it all, now I'm dancing for my life.

Yeah. Total dork.

“Are we montaging?” Nate called over the music. He laughed when Teddy grabbed his hands and spun him out, catching himself on the upbeat—and finally sinking into it as natural as breathing. Letting go.

Nate laughed again, flushed and bright-eyed, and Teddy grinned back as he bopped around. “Sure!” Teddy said. “Why not? Awesome 80’s dance montage activate!”

“What. The. Hell.”

Teddy twisted around at Eli’s flat, frankly disbelieving voice, catching sight of him and Billy—dressed down in jeans and t-shirts again instead of practice sweats—standing in the doorway. He braced instinctively for shame, embarrassment, but neither came. Instead, there was only that bright, bubbling joy.

A month before, a week, he may have hidden behind a joke. He was through with hiding now. “Come on!” he said, clapping his hands to the driving beat, getting into it. Nate hopped awkward and wild behind him, flailing, grinning—a real kid again. “Join us!”

“Junior League Avengers assemble!” Nate called, words breaking on a laugh.

Eli snorted, but Billy just jogged to join them. Teddy instinctively reached out, thrilled when Billy took his hand and allowed himself to be spun into the wail of the synths. He looked up as Teddy looked down, matching grins stretched huge across their faces. His fingers curled within Teddy’s light grip.

Their eyes caught; he could feel Billy’s breath gust across his cheek as they danced. The drum of their heels echoed the wild pounding of his heart, and he thought, dazedly, that he’d never wanted to kiss Billy more in his life. He thought, maybe, he was almost brave enough to do it.

I think I’m starting to get why Billy feels the way he does about you, Nate had said.

Fireworks exploded beneath his skin and lit up his entire world.

“Eli!” Nate snickered, and Teddy glanced over. Even Eli had joined them, moving with none of the cool above-it-all-ness that he sometimes exuded. He was just a kid, too, in this moment: spastic, arms flailing as he trampled all over the beat, no more responsible for the fate of the world than the rest of them.

I love them, Teddy thought as the song began to wind down. Billy moving like a possessed sock monkey at his side, eyes squeezed shut as he power-sang the words; Nate tomato-red and giggling behind a hand as he hopped back and forth, back and forth, back and forth; Eli absolutely without rhythm, shaking his ass as he danced without a moment’s self-consciousness.

The three of them, his friends, his family.

“Oh my God,” Billy gasped when the music died, laughing. He stumbled and bumped against Teddy, one arm flinging easily around Teddy’s waist. Teddy wrapped his own arm around Billy and held him up, heart thudding.

Several paces away, Eli was straightening with a little grin. “Now that we’re done completely dorking out,” he began.

“Oh, are we finished?” Nate widened his eyes at Eli. “I was hoping you’d show me some of those moves. I may come from the future, but I’ve never seen anyone dance like that…unless they were being electrocuted.”

“Buuuurn,” Billy whispered, tipping his head toward Teddy’s.

“Total burn,” Teddy whispered back.

Eli just rolled his eyes and flapped one hand at Nate. “You’ve been hanging around Asgardian too long,” he said. “Come on, metal-head. There’s something I wanted to go over with you before practice tomorrow. See you guys,” he added as he and Nate wandered off.

“See you,” Billy called back…but he didn’t pull away.

In fact, Teddy realized, heart picking up tempo for a whole new reason now, Billy was standing very close, caught in Teddy’s gravitational pull. His hand was at Teddy’s waist, fingers accidentally brushing the bare skin above his practice sweats (undershirt big and loose to avoid tearing as he shifted) with every other breath. Heat prickled at that touch, thrumming beneath his skin. He could feel the awareness of Billy unspooling low and sweet in his belly, and he wanted… He wanted…

He wanted Billy.

And looking down and meeting bright, dark eyes, he was pretty sure Billy wanted him too.

“So,” Billy said with an uneven smirk. “Flashdance, huh?”

Teddy shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Sure. I mean, I’ll never be able to look at Eli the same way again, but hey. Everyone’s smiling. That was the point, right?” Billy said. “Getting Nate—all of us—to shrug off some tension and act crazy for a bit?”

Teddy shrugged again; it was getting hard to talk, his heart swelling bigger and bigger inside his chest. His fingertips actually itched with the desire to frame sharp features. He wondered once again, forever, always, what Billy’s mouth would taste like without the tang of chlorine or the sea.

“That was cool of you, Teddy. I mean it,” Billy added at Teddy’s low noise. He turned fully to face him. It was only natural to face Billy in return, to yearn toward him with everything he had, everything he was.

The blood was racing in his ears. Billy’s face was tipped up to his and he was so close, so warm, so welcoming that it was madness not to be kissing him. They were hurtling toward that pressure point he’d been sensing with every breath.

I think I’m starting to get why Billy feels the way he does about you.

Please please please.

“Okay, this is going to sound uber-dorky, but I’m buzzing with all kinds of endorphins right now, so I’m just going to embrace the dweebiness,” Billy said. He looked so beautiful—hair standing wild, sweat trickling down his brow, lips quirked and eyes serious. He was everything Teddy had ever wanted. He was kind and smart and funny and good. “Look at me, embracing the dweebery. Ugh, I made it weird by talking too much. Weirder? Whatever!” His eyes were on Teddy’s, though his lashes kept dipping as if he were feeling shy. He was so close, so close, perfect mouth shaping words Teddy barely heard. “All right, soldiering through the weirdness time. The thing is, I don’t think we say it often enough, but, um, you’re a really good guy, Teddy, and I—”

Teddy made a broken noise and stopped Billy’s words with a kiss.

It was an impulse, an inevitability. Hadn’t they been tumbling toward this moment for weeks now? God, it felt like he’d wanted it forever. Billy’s lips and Billy’s soft noise of surprise and the light gust of Billy’s indrawn breath and Billy, Billy, Billy. How strange, how impossible, that he’d spent so long trying to deny himself the simple rightness of lips brushing together. He reached up to cup Billy’s jaw, tracing the curve of his cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. Shivering.

Pleasure distilled down into a single moment, and Teddy knew there weren’t fireworks, knew that was all some collective Hollywood fantasy, but…

Well.

It was bizarre how real that cliché could feel with sparks from Billy’s lightning sizzling across his skin.

Teddy made a low noise and began to pull back just to make sure that the light scattering in sparklers around their feet was a good thing—he should have asked for permission before he stole that kiss; he knew, he knew he should have—but Billy gasped and rocked up onto the balls of his feet before he could completely detach, arms wrapping tight around Teddy’s neck. He surged close, lips finding Teddy’s again, and that was all it took to steal the breath from his lungs. He felt dizzy and lightheaded and drowning in Billy—fingers tangling in his hair, lips moving against his own, wiry body practically vibrating as one kiss melted into the next, into the next, and this, this…

God, after everything, he still got to have this.

Grateful enough that his eyes burned with unshed tears, Teddy wrapped his arms around Billy’s waist, dragged the other boy as close as he dared, and kissed back with everything he had. Warmth. Pressure. Heat. Uncoiling low in his stomach as he tipped his head for a better angle and let his lips part in welcome.

The first shy brush of Billy’s tongue was a revelation. It was all he could do not to bear him back across the lawn to press him hard against the nearest ruined wall. Pin him with the breadth of his body and… And… Jesus.

Teddy made a low noise and slicked their tongues together instead. Deliberately slow and sweet, letting it build on its own. Billy jolted against him at the touch, then moaned and pressed closer, licking deep into Teddy’s mouth. His fingers clung to the front of Teddy’s shirt as if he needed to hold on to remain standing, and his tongue stroked against his. Scalding hot, overwhelming, so f*cking good his knees nearly buckled. Teddy took a stumbling step forward, hands sweeping down Billy’s chest, his sides, along the curve of his back as he responded hungrily to that maddening stroke of flesh on flesh.

He wanted… f*ck, he was hard, and he wanted everything.

Teddy moaned low in his chest and gripped Billy tighter, nearly lifting him off his feet. They were so tangled together he almost didn’t know which was which—didn’t care—and Billy was moving against him, Billy was arching and twisting, Billy was…

Was trying to get away, f*ck.

f*ck.

Teddy allowed Billy to break the kiss, horrified to see the embarrassed flush rise high on the other boy’s cheeks. He set him to his feet again even as he quickly tried to steel himself against whatever was coming next, frantically building his armor back piece by piece as Billy took a stumbling step back—as if he needed to get away from him. He was flushed bright pink, and he couldn’t meet Teddy’s eyes.

That? That was the worst part of it. After everything, that was what almost brought him to his knees.

“Teddy,” Billy began, voice hoarse.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said quickly, averting his own gaze. It was easier if he didn’t have to watch the emotions flickering over Billy’s sharp features. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Billy shifted. “Well. Um. No,” he said, and any hope that he may have been reading this rejection wrong died in Teddy’s chest. “I mean… That wasn’t quite what I meant. Damn it.”

His heart was still racing, though this time it didn’t feel exhilarating. It hurt. Jesus, it hurt to even breathe. “I’m sorry,” he said again, almost a whisper.

“Teddy, no. I meant… I just need to… Damn it. I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want… I wasn’t trying to…” Billy gestured sharply, as if the words could magically form from midair (and Christ, maybe they could; maybe all he had to do was want it badly enough and they would). “It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s just… So much has happened, and, and I’m just, I don’t know if I can… I’m so… It’s not you—”

Teddy winced away from whatever might come after that. He knew the clichés well enough. “No,” he said quickly, “I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

Billy was looking at him with clear mounting frustration, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t—meet Billy’s eyes. He was a hell of a lot tougher than he used to be, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever be strong enough to read whatever he’d see in there. Time for a strategic retreat. He could make it home, curl up around his bitter disappointment, and figure out what to do from here.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve this rejection. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have it coming.

It’s not you, it’s me. Bullsh*t. After everything he’d done? After all the wrong choices he’d made? This was Billy on the rooftop again, only this time he was kind enough to leave Teddy with something to hold on to.

“Teddy,” Billy began again, a little desperately.

“No, seriously. It’s okay. I get it. We’re friends, yeah?” He made himself smile, and only the thought that they really were friends let him be able to do it without shifting. “But I’d better get home. I’ll, um, see you tomorrow at practice.” Teddy jerked his thumb over his shoulder and awkwardly moved away, leaving his iPod plugged into the portable speakers. Whatever. He could get them tomorrow. He could face the subway wearing his practice sweats. He could run away and no one would blame him for it, because he’d poured too much of all his pathetic longing into Billy and had read everything so very, very wrong.

Billy didn’t want him. Not like that. Not like he wanted Billy. Not anymore. And when it came down to it, that truly was all Teddy’s fault. He had wanted him once, and Teddy had ruined everything. He’d thought that…

It didn’t matter what he’d thought.

“Home,” he said as he pushed through the creaking doors out into summer sunlight. The air was hot and muggy and perfect against his skin. Teddy paused at the crest of the steps and drew in a calming breath. Another. Another. He could hear laughter somewhere over the high mansion walls as kids ran through Central Park. The blare of horns and hum of traffic formed a track upon which all the sounds of summer played: a birdcall, the whisper of the wind through leaves, voices lifted in friendly debate, the hawking of a merchant. Familiar sounds, good sounds, the sounds of his city.

His heart may have been broken, but the city? The city didn’t care. The city spun on. There was something endlessly hopeful in that.

“You’re going to be okay,” Teddy told himself. And even though his chest ached with tears he would shed later, beneath the comforting gaze of his aurora, he thought, maybe, he believed it. He’d survived so much already; he could survive this too. Small and wistful, Teddy began to smile even as he stepped out into the late afternoon sun and started across the lawn, back toward the world again.

He was going to be okay. That was its own sort of silver lining.

And then suddenly the door slammed open behind him and Billy came tearing out of the mansion, shouting, “Wait!”

Teddy turned, startled, as Billy flew down the steps and across the lawn. His eyes were wide and wild, hair standing up at crazy angles, limbs going akimbo as he stumbled toward Teddy, babbling, “Wait! Wait! I was wrong, oh my God, this is stupid, wait, wait!”

He came crashing against Teddy seconds later, hard enough to send them both a surprised step back. Billy’s hands flailed, caught at the front of his shirt as if afraid to let go, and it was pure instinct to catch him, to wrap his own arms around Billy’s waist, to—

Kiss him back.

Billy’s kiss had none of that first, sweet shyness now. It was all passion, all desperation, a laugh bubbling up between them as he licked deep into Teddy’s mouth, hands moving up to his shoulders, then into his hair. Vibrant and frenetic and murmuring between gasping, desperate kisses,

“Yes, argh, sorry, so stupid, I want, Teddy, if you want, do you still want…”

Teddy gave a gasping, grateful laugh against Billy’s mouth. The sun was shining overhead and summer spun out in a hot daze around them. Arms full of Billy Kaplan, mouths melting together, literal sparks falling in a dazzling cascade, all Teddy could do was hold on for all he was worth, heart filling up and up and up, trembling in the grip of impossible relief and joy and love as he said, “Yes.”

Yes. Yes yes yes.

Billy broke the kiss to suck in a breath. “Oh thank God,” he said, fingers coiled tight in blond hair, face so close Teddy could feel the heat against his cheeks. His lips were wet, kiss-red; his eyes had blown black. He’d never looked so beautiful. “I thought…argh. I thought I’d stuck my foot in it and that you wouldn’t, um, want me.”

“I’ll always want you,” Teddy said with perfect honesty, and Billy stared at him in a dazed, dazzled way that made him flush and duck his head. “Well!”

“Oh my God, literally perfect, cannot cope.”

“Oh shut up, you,” he laughed, and kissed Billy again because…well, because, at long last, he could. Billy hummed in a happy breath, sinking into the kiss as if he never meant to let it end. Which of course was Teddy’s cue to pull back. “Wait,” he said. “So then what was with the whole… All that?”

Billy’s gaze flicked up from Teddy’s mouth and he flushed. “Um. Can’t we just pretend that didn’t happen?”

“Billy…”

“Well! I’ve only been obsessing over you for months, and we had all that…you know…in the past, and I’ve got these crazy powers that I don’t know how to control and I’ve already used them on you by accident and I was just, um, afraid I guess, and— Look, it’s been a lot.”

Teddy reached up to brush his knuckles along Billy’s cheek, heart winging in his chest when Billy closed his eyes and leaned into the caress. “Yeah,” he murmured huskily. “We’ve been through a lot.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Billy said, voice very quiet.

“I know.” He slid his fingers up into Billy’s tangled hair, tugging just sharp enough to make Billy open his eyes again. Their faces were a breath away and his heart hurt he was so happy. He wanted to be kissing him again; he wanted to never stop. “We’ll figure it all out. We always do, right?”

Billy huffed a breathless laugh. “My boyfriend, the eternal optimist,” he said.

And that… That… “Boyfriend?” Teddy asked as casually as he could. (Which was nowhere near casual.)

Billy’s eyes flared wide before he closed them and thunked his forehead against Teddy’s shoulder. “Um! Crap.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, hand sliding up to cup the back of Billy’s head. God, he loved this boy. “Don’t worry—my boyfriend has this way of letting his mouth run away from him.” The words fit strangely in his mouth; he was going to drive Eli and Nate crazy testing them out every chance he got. My boyfriend. My boyfriend. My freaking boyfriend.

“Oh. Oh wow. Um. Okay,” Billy was saying very, very seriously. “I really need to, like, kiss you stupid right now, but I’m pretty sure once I get started, I’m not letting you up for air.”

“No complaints here,” Teddy said happily. Then: “Boyfriend.”

Billy ducked his head, flush painting his cheeks like the swirl of watercolor. “Stop, I’m serious. I will, like, shock you with how stupid I’m going to kiss you. Um.” He looked up again, joy and hope chasing away the last of the shadows like a summer rain. “Hey, do you want to come home with me?”

He said the words so easily, as if somehow he had no way of knowing how completely Teddy’s world revolved around that one desire, that one desperate need—the last piece that would finally make him feel as if their friendship was real. As if he were a part of Billy’s life for good.

Walking up the avenue to Billy’s house. Following him up the steps. Going inside. Welcome at last. “Yeah,” he breathed, reaching out blindly. Billy finished the motion, as if he really could read Teddy—as if, finally, all the lingering barriers between them had been leveled. Billy tangled their fingers together and squeezed, and nothing—not Kang the Conqueror, not the Avengers, not the end of the whole wide world—could keep the blinding smile off Teddy’s face. “Okay. Lead the way.”

Billy tipped his head, studying him curiously. “Sure,” he said. “But I don’t actually have to lead you anywhere; you already know the way.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Teddy countered as they fell into step together—hands linked, Teddy’s thumb brushing softly along the base of Billy’s thumb. Above them, the sky was wide and bright and cracked wide open, full of the steady song of summer. “You already know I’ll follow you anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Billy breathed, squeezing his fingers. In that single, simple gesture, Teddy read a wealth of words—feelings. Wishes and frustrations and hopes and, now, tentative certainties. Billy was his boyfriend; what could the world hope to throw at him that could be more powerful than that?

I love you, Teddy thought. He could feel it shining in his eyes as he looked at Billy, but he didn’t, wouldn’t, hide it. He was done with hiding. He was through being something he wasn’t. This was his blank slate. This was his new beginning. This was him and Billy holding hands; going home. I love you I love you I love you.

“Yeah,” Billy said again, voice choked with emotion, as if he could read Teddy’s mind in that way he had. “Yeah…me too.”

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

The sequel to Space Oddity can be found here:

Across the Universe