SPINNER
Fandom: Young Avengers
Pairing: Billy/Teddy, Tommy/Noh-Varr
Genre: angst, future!fic, AU
Rating: R
Disclaimer: They belong to Marvel, not me, because if they were mine we'd see more boy kissing on panel.
Warning: vague allusions to suicide, psychic and physical imprisonment, mentions of character death, mind rape
Summary: Billy is the Sorcerer Supreme. Teddy is Captain Marvel. They have a good life, for superheroes. But the foundations are shaky, at best.
A/n: This was just supposed to be slice-of-life future!fic, I swear to God. I DON'T EVEN KNOW, GUYS.
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The phone rings, breaking through the silence like a sledgehammer to the side of the head. Billy jerks awake with the horrible plummeting feeling sudden noises wake with, and he wants to fry his phone. But that's Teddy's emergency ringtone, which means he and the Avengers need help. They need the Sorcerer Supreme. He hopes they're not trapped in some netherworld they can't get out of, but Billy figures that Teddy's communicator wouldn't get signal even with Tony and Victor's superior technological combinations. He flails for his phone, presses the touchscreen with a little more force than necessary and the holoscreen flares into glorious Technicolor that burns through his retinas. That hurt.
There are no roaring flames or demonic swirls of dark matter behind Teddy's masked head, which is a good thing. No screaming either, which is also good. "Whassamergency?" he slurs, rubbing his face.
"Good morning, beautiful," Teddy says cheerfully. Billy tries to pretend he doesn't still get a thrill and a blush whenever Teddy says that, but it's kind of stupid to deny it, because he does. Sometimes it's like they're still sixteen. He hears Kate's voice, doesn't get the words, but Teddy rolls his eyes. "Right. We need your help, babe. Get your cape on."
"That much I'd figured," Billy mutters, levitating the phone as he stumbles out of bed and drags his costume out of the closet. He hasn't worn it for about a week, not having any need to. He's careful not to disturb the incubator and the eggs, which is the entire reason he's not been wearing the cape-and-tights. "But seriously, what's the emergency?"
"Dimensional rift thingy," Teddy says. They've been married seven years and he still adds 'thingy' at the end. It's sweet.
"On it, just let me wake Cat."
"See you." Teddy winks.
Billy grins, closes the call, pockets the phone and adjusts his cape. He knocks on Cat's door, which earns him an irritated thud on the other side.
"Come on, Cat, rise and shine! I have business, you have to watch the eggs."
The door opens, a mostly frizzy strawberry blond head pokes out, and Billy can see a downturned mouth, but not much else beneath the frizz. "Whu'?" She scratches her head and yawns widely.
"Magical emergency, it won't take long. I hope," he adds gloomily. "You know the drill."
"Regular intervals, got it. Caffeine time." Cat heads to the kitchen with a backwards wave, still in the Hawkeye t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. Billy shakes his head and sets to finding them. He could uses the communicator signal, but there's no fun in that. His eyes glow, he pinpoints them in a warehouse, and he teleports to them, leaving behind the scent of electricity.
.
They stumble back in six hours later, battered, bruised, singed around the edges, but none the worse for wear. Cat, now decidedly more groomed and Tommy are at the breakfast table with bowls of cereal. Tommy raises an eyebrow at Noh-Varr, but says nothing.
"So, how did it go?" Cat asks, through a mouthful of Lucky Charms. Billy rolls his eyes.
"Horny amazons from another dimension," he says long-sufferingly. "It's so cliché I might complain to the universe on its lack of originality."
Tommy bursts out laughing. "Oh my God, seriously?"
Noh-Varr, now seated beside him, looks thoroughly putout. "It's not funny," he says. "I nearly had to marry one of them. Apparently, Kree are prized husbands in their world."
"So you mean Ted, too…?" Tommy looks like Christmas has come early. Teddy groans.
"Can we just forget about this and never speak of it again?" he asks, his expression one of great pain. Billy pats his arm consolingly.
.
Billy's on the couch when Teddy returns from his patrol with Kate, half-watching a movie he's seen a dozen times before. Teddy sits down beside him, heavy and warm, and Billy snuggles into his side like they're sixteen again. Sometimes it doesn't feel like a single day has passed since they were fumbling, insecure young things, the whole world brave and new. And there's other days, the heavy days when everything goes wrong and people die, that Billy feels old. He feels old and frail like his bones should be creaking and he might turn to dust under the burden of everything.
Teddy draws him back with a kiss to the temple. Billy hums.
"Patrol go ok?" he asks. Teddy chuckles.
"Stopped a few muggers and carjackers. I think one actually wet his pants when he saw me and Kate."
Billy snorts. "That's unfortunate."
Sometimes Billy can't believe he's the Sorcerer Supreme and married to the leader of the Avengers, Captain Marvel himself. Sometimes he can't believe they're here, still together, on their way to having a family of their own, surrounding by friends (and whatever Laura is). He can't believe he can curl up on the couch and watch a shitty movie with the man he loves. Even on the days when it feels like his limbs are dragging through water, almost like everything isn't real, it's good.
It's nothing short of amazing, Billy thinks, as his eyes drift shut and he falls asleep on Teddy's shoulder.
.
Billy's head lolls forward. It aches so, so badly, a hideous, wrenching, inescapable pain like it's about to explode, splatter the world with the thoughts and dreams inside.
Emma sighs, reels him back in, and he lets out a sob.
Let me go, he begs, even his mental voice cracked and frail. Let me die.
Her heart twinges, but she can't allow it.
I'm sorry, Billy, she murmurs, dragging up memories and fantasies and stitching them into a mental patchwork quilt. Tears roll down Billy's cheeks, following the same tracks they always do when Emma drives him into another false moment of false life. A life which never had the chance to exist, because Teddy was taken too soon by the same thing that took his father.
It hurts so much, to see what they never had the chance to have. It hurts to wake up in something that feels so real, that's so vibrant and full and perfect. It hurts to have Teddy there, thick arms around his waist, chest warm and broad against his back. It hurts to open the closet and see the incubator containing the two glorious things they could have made (Sarah and Anne, those were the names they'd decided). It hurts to see Laura drinking from the milk carton and Tommy pecking Noh-Varr on the cheek before heading to the courthouse and Kate teaching Cat to fight and it hurts to have them all there, with him, as it should have been.
But Billy slips out of consciousness and into the dream of another day with the Avengers, and Emma wipes her bloody nose. Finally, she can rest for a moment.
.
"He's fighting it more and more," she says, rubbing her face wearily. There are heavy bags under her eyes, her hair is a lanky mess, and she looks basically nothing like Emma Frost should look. Her whole body screams exhaustion.
Across from her, Kate is tight-lipped. She says nothing. She tried to argue once she'd realised how she'd fucked up, tried to allow Billy the chance to decide what to do with his own life, but when they realised what Billy meant to the world they lived in, how he was the only thread tying the whole thing together, they never let him.
He'd slit his wrists in the bathroom once Teddy had gone, and as his life faded, everything had started breaking into white. They'd brought him back, Strange and Richards, rushing madly to sew reality back together. With Stark's help they'd built a room he couldn't get out of , and Emma had lulled his pain with her telepathy, weaving intricate dreams so real perhaps they were. Silly things, a seamless blend of fantasy and memory, all there to keep Billy, and reality, alive.
That had been three years ago.
And now Kate is here, she lets them torture her best friend, and every night she barely sleeps with the burden of guilt. She'd allowed it to happen, she'd let them lock him up and steal the life he didn't want. It's been three years, Billy knows what's going on, he's fighting it just like he would medication, and this can't last forever. Sooner or later, Billy will break out of Emma's mind prison, he will die, and every single thing tied to this plane of existence will die too.
The more she dwells on it, the less it seems like such a bad thing.
.
She finds Tommy and Noh-Varr through Loki – she'd hate to be in debt to him, but she figures there won't be time for him to exact payment. They're in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with a barn for Noh's ship, and Tommy looks rough. He's thin, unshaven, his eyes are empty, dead things. Noh looks much the same, though his hair is shaved closer than she remembered.
"Come here to try to convince me?" Tommy spits at her, and he looks like he might punch her. He never did forgive her, and she's sure he'd kill America on sight because she convinced Kate this was the right thing to do. There's a reason she and America don't talk anymore. Noh-Varr's eyes are narrowed and hard.
"No," she murmurs. "I'm here because I was wrong, and we need to do something."
Tommy's look is nothing but deep suspicion. Noh cocks his head.
"What did you have in mind?" he asks, placing a hand on Tommy's shoulder. Kate sits, fidgets, her hands jerky.
"We're going to save Billy."
Tommy jumps to his feet, the weight of Noh's hand doing nothing to keep him down. "How dare you come here and say that now! After what you fucking did!" Noh catches his hand before he can slam it into the table.
"We're listening," he says. Tommy's vibrating madly, his eyes wild, his breathing deep and quick through his nose. Kate takes a deep breath, raises her head.
"We need to get in there, and let Billy out," she says. Tommy throws himself back down in his seat, folding his arms, expression petulant.
"It's a bit late for that, don't you think?" he sneers. Kate kneads at her eyes, pressing them until she smears light across her vision.
"I hope to God it's not," she says, her voice cracking. She can feels her eyes filling up, and she'd promised herself she wouldn't cry.
"You do realise that will kill all of us?" Noh says matter-of-factly. He seems resigned to it. Tommy even looks hopeful. Kate nods.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. She knows perfectly well that Tommy wants to throw it back in her face with interest, but Noh sighs.
"We'll need a plan," he muses.
"I have clearance," Kate replies.
.
Her key card works. They slip in, dodging alarms and guards – because the place has guards on Stark's payroll, and SHIELD agents too, every precaution possible to defend the only thing keeping everything together – and they take the stairs down to the inner sanctum, the white, antiseptic room where they keep Billy sealed in perpetual dreams, blending in with the pallor of the room, his midnight hair the only colour.
Tommy presses himself to the glass, lets out a tiny sob which stabs Kate in the chest. Noh slips a hand round his shoulders, squeezes. Tommy doesn't move.
"We'll have to hack this," Kate informs them, pointing at the lock. There's every kind of security known to man on that door, and the only people allowed in are Richards, Strange and Emma. Noh snorts, derisive, as if hacking is for losers.
"Stand back," he orders, and she obeys. Tommy doesn't move, now whispering against the glass, fogging it with his breath, repeating the same thing over and over like one of Billy's own mantras.
Noh's gauntlets morph into guns, he takes aim, there's a blast, and he keels over, the back of his head smoking. Kate brings her energy bow up, but it's shot out of her hand by a repulsor blast.
"We figured you'd pull this stunt eventually," Stark says. He has the gall to sound disappointed, and that makes Kate want to be sick.
"Let it go, Katherine," Strange advises, and the pity in his face enrages her. Faster than she thought she could move, she grabs the folding crossbow in her hip holster, fires straight into one of the eye slits of Stark's helmet.
He screams, falls to the ground with a deafening clang, and it takes Kate a moment to realise she's just shot Tony Stark. By the door Jessica Drew presses the alarm button, which will bring every superhero and agent running to them. The room flashes red, the siren deafening, but it doesn't last long.
Tommy's back in the game, the explosion causing Jessica to be thrown across the room with its force into the wall, out cold. Strange is knocked forward, into Kate, they sprawl on the metal floor. She catches a look at Tommy's face, and she's never seen such pure hatred.
She kicks Strange off, he groans, but doesn't get up. Tommy blows the door off its hinges.
Inside, there's Emma. She gets to her feet, whirling around in shock. Kate's bolt shatters against her diamond body, and she sends a mind blast at the both of them in the time it takes Kate to reload. They both slide down the wall, Tommy groans. Emma sneers at them, her haughtiness shining through her fatigue like light through a lowered blind.
"That was stupid," she says, turning back to the bed to make sure Billy is still asleep. It's all the time Noh needs to raise a trembling hand and fire at her back. Emma slumps forward on the bed, and Noh lets his head fall back down. The entire back of his skill is a broken, pulpy mess, blood pooling around him like a sickening red halo. Tommy makes a horrified noise, but there's no time for him to worry. Strange is getting up, Kate can hear the sound of running, the sharp, multi-faceted sound of soldiers, and she struggles to her feet. Her back aches like she's been slammed onto something hard, which, she muses wryly, she has.
She staggers to the bed, shoves Emma off of it to the floor, she's not worthy to lie there even in death. Her body hits with an unpleasant sound halfway between a thump and a crunch, limp.
"Come on, Tommy!" she grunts. He's there, limping to her side. He shakes Billy awake, a little too rough, and Billy's eyes fly open with a burning gasp.
"C'mon, little bro," Tommy murmurs. "Come on."
Billy stares at him, tears pooling in his eyes.
"They won't let me end it," he rasps, his voice so thin with disuse it's barely there. Tommy presses their foreheads together. Kate, at the door, holding the fort with nothing but a small folding crossbow and half a dozen bolts, can barely hear them.
"Your choice, bro," Tommy says softly, stroking Billy's hair. "Make it better, or don't."
Billy lets out a sob that would have broken anyone's heart. "I just… just want him back…" he whimpers, his hollowed cheeks streaked salty.
"Join him or bring him back," Tommy says. "But you gotta think fast, Billy."
Kate falls to the floor, cracks her head on the tiles. Tommy turns, there's an agent stepping through the door, over Kate's body, as if she's worthless. Billy squeezes his hand.
"I'll make everything right," he says.
Everything spiderwebs from the bed, breaks up into particles. Tommy has merely the barest moment of horror at the feeling of being unmade from his very atoms before nothing. Kate's body crumbles, the bed the walls, the door. The agents scramble away, rushing over themselves to get out. The whiteness spreads, cracks out into broken china, taking everything in existence with it, every thread and stitch of the fabric of reality. Billy closes his eyes, smiles, and falls asleep.
.
Billy's eyes fly open and see only dark ceiling, the darker shadow of the square light fixture. His chest heaves as he tries to figure out whatwhyhow, but his head hurts so badly all he can do is roll over and throw up, heave everything out over the side of the bed, fine carpet be damned.
"Whoa, babe, you ok?"
That warm, strong hand on his back, rubbing in soothing circles turns the world back the right way up. Billy coughs, gasps, wheezes, reaches back to hold on as hard as he can to warm flesh, compact muscles, Teddy. There, alive, breathing, with him and…
"Just a dream," he pants, steadied by Teddy's presence enough to raises his head. "Just… just a nightmare."
It can't be real. It's not real. He needs to forget about it. With a wave of his hand he cleans the rug, even though it makes him queasy again. There's a click and Teddy's turned on the light, frowning in worry.
"Yeah?"
Billy nods, taking deep breaths through his nose. This is real. This is reality. Reality is where Teddy is alive and with him, where they have eggs in an incubator and a team around them, a family they've cobbled together out of friends and allies. Reality is where Teddy's running his fingers through his hair, his presence so strong and warm beside him it almost burns with its intensity.
This is real.
He burrows into Teddy's embrace, and the dream, so vivid when he was inside it, is already fading away, forced out by Teddy, by the Mansion, by the barest glow the incubator shines under the closet door.
"Yeah, just a dream," Billy murmurs, inhaling deep, there's the scent of Teddy's warm skin, the feel of it under cheek and fingers. Teddy kisses his hair, hums, a deep rumble from the chest that Billy can feel all the way through him, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. Billy closes his eyes, smiles, and falls asleep.